44408	----	Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/narrativeofopera00johnrich Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). NARRATIVE OF THE OPERATIONS OF A DETACHMENT IN AN EXPEDITION TO CANDY, IN THE ISLAND OF CEYLON, IN THE YEAR 1804. With Some Observations on the Previous Campaign, and on the Nature of Candian Warfare, etc., etc., etc. by MAJOR JOHNSTON. Of the Third Ceylon Regiment, then Captain Commandant of the Detachment. A New Edition. Dublin James McGlashan, 50 Upper Sackville-Street. Wm. S. Orr and Co., Paternoster-Row, London. MDCCCLIV. Dublin: Printed by George Drought, 6, Bachelor's-walk. TO HIS EXCELLENCY SIR DAVID DUNDAS, K.B., General and Commander-in-Chief, &c. SIR, The operations of any part of the British troops, and the means by which they may be rendered more effectual, cannot be a matter of indifference to the Commander-in-Chief. Whatever contributes to the improvement of military knowledge will, I am persuaded, be favourably received by your Excellency, to whom the service is already so much indebted for its present proficiency in military tactics. It is the object of this narrative to relate and explain a species of warfare in which the British troops have been little engaged, and are, consequently, less experienced than in European tactics. If I succeed in benefiting the public service, by showing in what manner the difficulties which pressed so severely on the detachment I had the honour to command may, in any future operations, be either removed or lessened, I shall feel myself amply repaid for the trouble I have taken; and shall, I trust, stand exculpated from the apparent presumption of having obtruded myself on your Excellency's attention. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, A. JOHNSTON, _Major, Third Ceylon Regiment_. PREFACE. As it appears generally incumbent on those who offer information to the public, to explain the sources from whence they have derived their knowledge, it may not be improper to state the circumstances under which my experience on Ceylon was acquired. In 1800 I commanded a corps of pioneers, which opened a road for General Macdowal's embassy to Candy. After that period, till the commencement of the Candian war, I was chiefly entrusted with the command of remote districts, uniting in my own person the civil and military authorities. On the breaking out of that war, in 1803, I was appointed to command a _free corps_, composed principally of Malays, and was generally employed in escorting supplies to and from the different depôts; a service which led to frequent skirmishes with the enemy. When the army returned to Columbo and Trincomalé, after having seated Boodoo Sawmy (the prince whose cause the English espoused) on the throne of Candy, I was appointed first commissioner for regulating the affairs of the provinces ceded by that prince to the British Government. Illness, however, obliging me to repair to the sea-coast for the benefit of a change of air, I thus fortunately escaped the massacre which shortly after took place in the capital. On the re-establishment of my health, I was appointed to command the district of Batticolo, which, in common with most of our other provinces, was invaded by the enemy, who was not driven out till after repeated skirmishes. I continued at Batticolo till September 1804, when I received the instructions, in my conception of which originated the expedition to Candy, and which General Wemyss has obligingly permitted me to publish. On my return to Columbo, I was nominated to the command of Hambingtotte, into which the enemy had penetrated, under the Desave[1] of Ouva, and from whence I was so fortunate as to expel them, with little loss on our side. [1] Chief. Thus, during a residence of nearly twelve years in Ceylon, the greater part of that time employed either in active military scenes, or in the discharge of civil duties, I had frequent opportunities of observing the nature of the country, and making myself acquainted with the character and customs of its inhabitants, and their mode of warfare. Having been led, since my return to Europe, to consider the importance of the Island of Ceylon as a colony, which, I trust, will never again revert to the enemies of Britain, I have been induced to commit to the press what occurred to my observation during my continuance there, in the hope of promoting the benefit of His Majesty's service; by giving to officers, who may hereafter be employed in the interior of the island, that information which they may not have had the means of obtaining, in regard to a species of warfare peculiar to it, and which has not, to my knowledge, been noticed in any former work. In publishing this Narrative I aspire to no literary fame, having joined the army at the age of fifteen--too young to have made any considerable proficiency in letters--and at an age when men are even apt to lose what they may have already acquired. I trust these circumstances will bespeak the indulgence of the candid reader, for occasional inaccuracies of style and manner, from which I cannot presume to suppose this little work exempt. MEMOIR. Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Johnston was the eldest son of the late John Johnston, of Clare, in the County of Tyrone, Esq., whose ancestor (of the ancient house of Loverpay, a branch of the Annandale family) left Dumfriesshire in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and purchased considerable estates in the Counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh. Colonel Johnston, the subject of this Narrative, was born in 1778, and when very young received his Ensign's and Lieutenant's commissions in the 19th Regiment, and accompanied that corps to Ceylon, where he early attracted the attention of the Governor of the Island, and was placed on his Staff. His command of a detachment of his regiment to Kandy in 1804 is still spoken of in Ceylon with admiration. Major Forbes, in his work on Ceylon, recently published, makes frequent mention of it, and says--"That the gallantry of Captain Johnston and his party taught the Kandians a respect for British troops which they had not felt before, and afterwards reluctantly admitted; and that one of the chiefs, who harassed Captain Johnston's retreat, assured _him_ that the commander of that party must have been in alliance with supernatural powers. His personal escape while passing through such a continual ambush, and his superior judgment and energy, were unaccountable, unless this explanation were admitted." His naturally fine constitution, however, never recovered the effects of that severe and trying expedition, and he was shortly obliged to return to Europe; soon after which, he joined the senior department of the Royal Military College at Wickham as student, and was selected by the Commandant to act for him during his absence in Spain. On the return of Sir Howard Douglass, he was made Assistant-Commandant--a situation which he held till the conclusion of the war; and when inquiries were started as to what retrenchment could be made in that department, he suggested that his appointment could better be dispensed with than many others. He married Martha, eldest daughter of Thomas Smith, of Shalden, in Hampshire, Esq. He died and was buried at Shalden, in June, 1824. NARRATIVE OF AN Expedition to Candy. Before I enter on the detail of the operations of the detachment, which I had the honour to command on the expedition of 1804 against Candy, it may be proper to explain the peculiar nature of Candian warfare, and to describe the country and the character of the inhabitants, considered with relation to military affairs; since to these circumstances may be attributed, in a great measure, the want of success which in the interior of Ceylon has too frequently attended the operations of the regular troops of Europe against the undisciplined rabble by whom they have been opposed. Ceylon, situated at the entrance of the Bay of Bengal, is reckoned about the size of Ireland. It consists of two great divisions; the one possessed by Europeans, the other exclusively occupied by the natives, and governed by the King of Candy. The part actually in possession of the English encircles, like a belt, the territories subject to the King of Candy, comprehending the whole coast of the island, in a circumference which varies from ten to twenty and thirty miles in breadth, its extent inland being regulated by the terms of various treaties concluded between the King of Candy and the successive European invaders of his territory, at the termination of their different wars. The residence of the English is confined to the principal settlements on the coast; the rest of their territory is inhabited and cultivated partly by Cingalese, and partly by Malabars; the former occupying the southern parts, and the latter the northern coast, adjacent to the continent of India, from whence they gradually migrated. Our knowledge of the interior of Ceylon is still extremely imperfect. The ruggedness of the country, and the insalubrity of the climate at any distance from the coast, have hitherto prevented our obtaining an accurate survey even of those parts in the interior under our own immediate control. Of those in possession of the Candians, consisting principally of steep and lofty mountains, in many places covered with impenetrable forests, still less is known. Well aware that our ignorance of their passes and defiles forms one of the best safeguards of their independence, the rulers of the Candian nation take all possible care to prevent our acquiring information on this subject. They watch the ingress and egress of their territory with unremitting vigilance. This is the less difficult, as the access is by paths along which two men can seldom go abreast. In these paths gates are fixed, and guards stationed, to prevent the entrance of strangers, and to examine all passengers. Few Europeans, even in time of peace, venture to approach these barriers; and the continued detention of Major Davie, since the unfortunate fate of his detachment, notwithstanding the unwearied exertions of Governor North and General Maitland to effect his liberation, is an example of the extreme difficulty of escape. It does not appear that the Portuguese and Dutch armies, which at different times penetrated the interior, were accompanied by men of science capable of taking topographical surveys of the country. Indeed, the officers who commanded those armies do not seem to have attached so much importance to this species of military knowledge as we now find it to deserve. They have not left us any general description of the country, nor even of those parts which were the scenes of their own operations. The accounts which remain of their campaigns abound, indeed, in details of battles and marches, describing the sufferings and privations of their troops, but convey no topographical information. The government of Candy, like most Eastern governments, is purely despotic. The standing army consists of a few hundred men, chiefly mercenaries, who are generally stationed about the king's person. They are armed with muskets, taken at different times, or purchased from their European invaders. Although they possess little, if any, of what is considered discipline in Europe, yet the Candians have acquired, in their frequent conflicts with the Portuguese and Dutch, a considerable knowledge and dexterity in that species of warfare which is best suited to the nature of the country and the disposition of the inhabitants. Conscious of their inability to resist the regular attack of European troops, and aware of the advantages they possess in being familiar with the country and inured to the climate, they avoid close combat, preferring an irregular and desultory warfare. They harass the enemy in his march, hanging on his flanks, cutting off his supplies, interrupting the communication between his divisions, and occupying the heights which command the passes, from whence they fire in perfect security from behind rocks or trees. They aim principally at the Coolies, who carry the ammunition and provisions, well knowing that, without these, a regular force can make but little progress. To dislodge them from these heights is a task of extreme difficulty, as the paths leading to them are mostly on the opposite sides of the mountains, and only known to the inhabitants. They are accustomed to impede the march of hostile troops by felling, and placing as abattis, large trees across the defiles. In narrow passes, where they cannot be avoided, this contrivance presents a most serious obstacle to the march of troops; for cutting up and removing a large tree is not the business of a moment. One of their maxims is, seldom to press closely an enemy marching into their country; being certain that the diseases incident to Europeans in that climate, and the want of provisions, will soon oblige him to fall back; the farther he advances, the better he promotes their scheme of defence, as they can thus throw more numerous impediments in the way of his return. In the meantime, they are busily employed in blocking up the roads through which they think it most probable that he will attempt to retreat; when encumbered by a long train of sick and wounded, exhausted by fatigue and want of provisions, and probably destitute of ammunition (which frequently happens from desertion of the Coolies), then it is, and then only, that they attack him, exerting all their energies and skill to harass and cut off his retreat. What makes the situation of the troops, under those circumstances, still more distressing is, that every man who falls into the hands of the enemy is certain of immediate death. Nor does this inhuman practice arise from thirst of blood, or the gratification of revenge; it is a consequence of the reward offered by the King of Candy for the heads of his enemies, and of the desire of affording proofs of personal courage. The Candians will even decapitate their own countrymen when killed in action, and carry the heads to their chiefs, as belonging to the enemy, in order to obtain this reward and distinction. I had frequent opportunities of ascertaining this fact. On surprising their posts at night, which we often effected without the loss of a man, and afterwards passing over the ground, we invariably found their slain without heads. The nobles hold their lands by tenure of service, and are obliged, when called upon, to join the king at the head of a third of their vassals, should that number be required. This enables the king to dispense with a large regular force, which would be burthensome to his finances, and to bring into the field, on any emergency, a considerable portion of the male population of his kingdom. Each village has its chief, with several inferior officers, in proportion to its size. The chief, on receiving an order from his dessa, or lord, summons every third, fourth, or fifth man, according to the nature of his instructions, and proceeds with his feudatory levies to the place of rendez-vous. Each soldier is provided with a musket, and carries with him fifteen days' provisions, and a small cooking vessel. A few are armed with bows and arrows. A leaf of the talipot tree, an extensive umbrella, serves to protect him from the heat of the sun during the day, and two men, by placing the broad end of their leaves together, may form a tent that will completely defend them against the rains or dews, by night. The provisions of the Candian are equally portable with his tent. Although, in most parts of the continent of India, rice forms the principal article of food amongst all ranks of natives, in Ceylon, and particularly in the interior of the island, it is reserved for the higher classes, and is a luxury of which the lowest order of the people seldom partake. The chief food of the poorer sort is a grain that grows on the hills, with little cultivation, and without watering. This, together with a root dug from the bottom of the tanks, and a decoction of the bark of a tree found in abundance in the forests, constitute their principal means of support. Men accustomed to such diet cannot be supposed to require many luxuries in the field. Two or three cocoa nuts, a few cakes made of the grain I have just described, and a small quantity of rice, compose the whole of the soldier's stock for the campaign. His other wants he is certain of being always able to supply. Thus equipped, the Candian soldier follows his chief, to whom he is accustomed to pay the most implicit obedience. He crawls through the paths in the woods, for the purpose of commanding the roads through which the hostile troops must pass, or climbs the mountains, and places himself behind a rock, or a tree, patiently to await the enemy's approach. At the end of fifteen days he is relieved by a fresh requisition from the village; and thus the army is constantly supplied with fresh troops, totally unencumbered, the party relieved always carrying home their sick and wounded companions. Another great advantage attending this system of warfare is, that the soldier will more cheerfully encounter fatigues and privations, which he knows are to be of short continuance, and must terminate at a certain fixed period. He is also supported by the hope of shortly returning to his village, and recounting his exploits. Such a system could only answer in a country like that which I have been describing, where the theatre of war is almost always within certain limits, so that whatever be the fortune of the contest, the soldier is seldom removed above two, and never more than four days' march from his own abode. Nor is it necessary to furnish those returning home with escorts, as they have little to fear from the slow and unwieldy movements of their European enemies, whom they can at all times avoid by taking a circuitous route. A Candian army, thus unencumbered by sick and baggage, and being perfect masters of their intricate paths and passes, is enabled to move with much more rapidity than regular troops, strangers to the country, and encumbered, as they usually are, with artillery, ammunition, baggage, provisions, and frequently a long train of sick and wounded, can possibly do. The climate also, which, as in every uncultivated country, is unfavourable to the constitutions of its invaders, has been a powerful auxiliary of the Candians, in all their wars with the European powers, who have successively had possession of the maritime parts of the island. The Portuguese were the first Europeans who obtained a footing in Ceylon. They occupied a considerable portion of the island from 1517 to 1658, a period of 141 years. They at first came as merchants, and obtained permission from the king to erect a small factory at Colombo, which, however, they soon converted into a fort. The spirit of conquest which then animated the Portuguese nation would not allow them to remain long contented with what they had thus peaceably obtained. They made gradual encroachments on the adjacent territories; and being strengthened by reinforcements from their other settlements in India, they not only threw off all appearance of restraint and allegiance to the prince, but even carried the war into the heart of his country. The situation of the island, divided into several governments, each jealous of the other, was particularly favourable to their views. By the superiority of their arms they soon extended their conquests over some of the most valuable provinces, and by their address and insinuating manners obtained a degree of influence at the court of Candy, which none of their successors have ever been able to acquire. They even persuaded one of the Emperors of Ceylon, at his death, in 1597, to bequeath his kingdom to the King of Portugal: a bequest which was attended with no permanent advantage, and only involved them in fresh wars. The Portuguese government in Ceylon appears to have committed a great error in policy, in raising the Cingalese to the rank of generals, and entrusting them with the command of armies. At one time, four of these persons, under the title of _Modiliars_, went over to the enemy, by a preconcerted arrangement, which occasioned the destruction of the Portuguese general, Constantin de Sâa, and of his whole army. Ribeiro, a Portuguese captain, in his History of Ceylon, a work of authenticity, but now very scarce, gives an account of the whole affair; which he thus prefaces:--"We had four Modiliars in our armies, viz., Don Alexis, Don Balthasar, Don Casmus, and Don Theodosius. As they were all four born at Colombo, of the Christian faith, very rich, and allied to the first families of the island, they were made commanders of armies. The General had much consideration for them, had them always with him, admitted them frequently to his councils, and very often followed their advice. Notwithstanding, although they had considerable establishments amongst us, and were under great obligations to the General, they did not scruple to enter into a secret treaty with the King of Candy, which, as shall be seen, was the cause of our total ruin."--(Ribeiro Hist. of Ceylon, lib. ii. cap. 1.) This treaty had been carrying on for three years, at the end of which time, things appearing now to be ripe for their purposes, the Modiliars persuaded the General, that the honour of Portugal required that the King of Candy should be chastised for conduct which they represented as insulting to the Portuguese crown. These Modiliars commanded the advanced guard of the Portuguese army, composed of 20,000 native soldiers. As the hostile armies approached each other, Casmus, one of the principal traitors, by way of signal, struck off the head of a Portuguese, and displayed it on the point of his lance; on which the three others declared themselves, and their example was followed by all the native troops of the army. The General, and the European soldiers, consisting of only 1500 men, after an obstinate defence, were at length overpowered, and annihilated. This event contributed principally to effect the ruin, and ultimately the expulsion of the Portuguese nation from Ceylon. I have introduced this circumstance, in order to guard my countrymen from ever reposing an unlimited confidence in the natives of Ceylon. The Cingalese, however heartily they may appear to enter into our views, are, notwithstanding, a very venal and treacherous people. That four men, enjoying a rank and emoluments next to the Governor, and superior to any which they could possess in the Candian country, should have thus gone over to the enemy, is a proof how little able they are to resist the temptation of a bribe; and it does not appear that their character has since that period undergone, in this respect, any material change. Although it is not likely that the Modiliars should ever be entrusted with any high military command under the British Government, yet they may have opportunities, in other situations, if admitted into our confidence, of betraying our plans to the enemy. As from their knowledge of the country, and their influence with the natives, whom we employ as Coolies, they must necessarily be much about the persons of the officers commanding detachments of our armies in the interior; it is necessary that while we make use of them in their various situations, we should, as much as possible, prevent their penetrating into our designs. In 1658, the Portuguese were finally expelled from Ceylon by the Dutch, in alliance with the Cingalese. The Dutch, when they found themselves in possession of those ports along the coast, which had formerly been occupied by the Portuguese, soon threw off the mask of moderation, which they had till then worn; and war, as might be expected, ensued between them and the King of Candy. Although the Dutch at the time possessed great resources in India, and their troops were not inferior to any in Europe, they could effect but little against the natives, defended by the climate and the nature of the country. The flower of their armies either fell victims to disease, or were cut off in skirmishes with the enemy, whilst the loss of the Candians was comparatively trifling. The constitutions of the Portuguese, from the nature of their own climate, and the simplicity of their diet, were better suited to the country than those of the Dutch, and rendered them more fit to undergo the fatigues and privations of Candian warfare. They also assimilated their manners more to those of the native Indians, which, above every thing, contributed to their successes. On the other hand, the haughty republican manners of the Dutch were not so well adapted to the Indian character. Inflated by national pride, they despised customs and prejudices, which appeared to them absurd, only perhaps because they differed from their own. To disgust their friends, and increase the number and resources of their enemies, was the natural result of such impolitic conduct. Soldiers, and particularly officers, ought to recollect, that advantages gained in the field by the blood and valour of their countrymen may frequently be rendered useless by a foolish display of national pride, by a cold and repulsive behaviour towards the natives, or an ill-timed manifestation of contempt for their customs and prejudices. The Dutch, however, were enabled, after successive conflicts during a series of years, in which thousands of their countrymen perished, to complete the belt that now encircles the King of Candy's territories, and wholly to exclude him from the sea-coast. Their last war of any importance was in 1763, when they attacked Candy with an army of upwards of 8,000 men, composed of Europeans, Sepoys from their possessions on the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar, and Malays from Batavia. The latter are more dreaded by the natives even than European troops. The Dutch, with little opposition, got possession of the enemy's capital, in which they maintained themselves for upwards of nine months, with the loss of nearly half their force. After having suffered almost every privation, their provisions being nearly exhausted, and all communication with their settlements on the coast cut off for three months, the officer on whom the command had devolved (Major Frankana), who appears to have done everything that could be expected from a brave and experienced officer, called a council of war, in which it was determined, after much debating, as the only means of preserving the wreck of the army from utter destruction, immediately to abandon the place, and to force their way to Columbo. The army was pursued by the Candians, who, fortunately not being aware of the intended retreat, had not time to block up the roads. They, however, harassed them by every means in their power, and instantly put to death those who had the misfortune to drop in the rear. The invalids, who were unable to keep up with the line, were collected in churches by the commanding officer of the retreating army, and labels imploring for mercy were in vain placed round their necks. The moment the Candians came up with them, they were cruelly butchered. The survivors at length reached Columbo, exhausted with hunger and fatigue. In 1796 the Dutch, after having been in possession of the country 143 years, were in their turn expelled by the English, aided by the Candians, whose policy it is invariably to join the invading army. That the dangers and difficulties of war in Candy have by no means diminished since Ceylon fell into our hands, will hereafter fully appear from the mode of conducting our expeditions, and their unfavourable results. The want of supplies in the interior renders it indispensable for an invading army to carry provisions, as well as stores, along with it. The carriage of doolies, or litters for the sick and wounded, and camp equipage, also requires the addition of an almost incredible number of followers. It has been found that, at the lowest computation, a detachment properly equipped requires, even for the short period of fifteen days, at the rate of four Coolies for each soldier; so that, for a detachment of 600 men, the followers alone will amount to 2,400, requiring daily provision for 3,000 mouths. The Coolies have the utmost aversion to a Candian campaign; to collect any number of them is consequently attended with difficulties and delay, and it can only be done by pressing. The instant it is known in any of the districts that the native chief has received orders to seize, as they not improperly term it, a certain number of Coolies, the villages are deserted by the lower class of the inhabitants, who, to avoid the police-officers, either conceal themselves in the forests, or take refuge in the Candian territories. After considerable delays, the chief seldom succeeds in procuring above half the number required; and thus the advantages which we seem at first sight to enjoy over the enemy, of having always a considerable disciplined force, ready to march at a moment's notice, are completely lost, from the impossibility of any prompt movement. By the flight of the Coolies, intimation of our design is soon conveyed to the Candian government, and the necessary orders immediately issued for calling out the inhabitants, which orders are punctually complied with, as well from the dread of the punishment of disobedience, as from the people being interested in the defence of their country. Long before our detachments can be equipped, the enemy is arrayed in force ready to receive them. The aversion of the natives to serve as Coolies in our armies is founded on very obvious reasons. The burdens which they are obliged to carry are heavy, and their progress consequently slow. They are frequently exposed to a galling fire, doubtful of being taken care of, if wounded, and certain of being put to death if made prisoners; their post is more dangerous than that of the fighting part of the army; while they are not, like the soldiers, buoyed up by the prospect of any military advantage or preferment, or excited by the stimulus of fame. It cannot, therefore, be surprising that the Cingalese, naturally timid, and rendered indolent by their climate and mode of living, should use every effort in their power to avoid being impressed on such a service, or that they should, when forced into it, afterwards desert. This is a frequent occurrence, and is often attended with serious consequences. They are also apt, without any intention of escaping from the army, when unexpectedly attacked, from the mere impulse of fear, to throw down their loads, and rush into the woods to conceal themselves. This is a practice which neither threats nor entreaties can check; but their design being simply to elude the danger of the moment, their head man generally succeeds in rallying them as soon as the firing ceases. This dispersion of the Coolies for a time entirely stops the line of march, as it would be impossible to move forward without them, but by abandoning the sick, the wounded, and the stores to the enemy. These disasters happen mostly in defiles; and the enemy, well knowing the disposition of our Coolies, generally selects such places for attacking them. All these difficulties were unhappily exemplified in the marches of our troops during the Candian war. In the year 1802, a wanton act of violence on the part of the Candians, for which reparation was in vain demanded, terminated in open hostility between the two governments. Without any pretence of aggression, our merchants, in carrying on their trade in the Candian territory, had been attacked, and plundered of considerable property. After repeated remonstrances on the part of the British Government against this outrage, and evasive delays and violated promises on the part of the Candians, Mr. North felt himself under the painful necessity of proceeding to hostile measures. On the 31st of January, 1803, a division of our forces, under the command of General Macdowal, composed of the flower of the Ceylon army, began their march from Columbo, and after suffering much delay from want of Coolies, entered the enemy's territory on the 6th of February. On the 20th, in the neighbourhood of Candy, they formed a junction with the division of Colonel Barbut, which had marched about the same time from Trincomalé. Their united force amounted to 3,000 soldiers; and, as usual, they met with little opposition from the Candians in their advance. On the following morning the troops crossed the great Candian river, Mahavilla Gonga, and took possession of the capital of Candy, which was totally deserted by its inhabitants on their approach. Not an individual was found in the place; and almost every article of value had been removed to the mountains. The possession of the capital, which, in most countries, would be considered as an object of great importance, if not decisive of the conquest, here afforded no advantages whatever to the captors. Temporary works were thrown up, under the direction of our engineers, to defend it from any attack of the natives during the approaching monsoon; and some attempts were made to collect provisions for the garrison from the surrounding country. And, owing to the exertions of Captain Madge, of the 19th regiment (whom Colonel Barbut had appointed to the command of Fort Macdowal, a post situated about sixteen miles from Candy, on the Trincomalé road), considerable quantities of grain were from time to time collected, and forwarded to Candy for the use of the garrison. These, however, were measures attended with extreme difficulty; our foraging parties being constantly harassed by the enemy: insomuch that it had at length become necessary to procure all our supplies from Columbo. But sickness and desertion among the Coolies, and the difficulty of escorting them through an enemy's country, where they were continually harassed, rendered this mode of supply extremely precarious and insufficient. About the middle of March, the rains set in, which rendered the conveyance of farther supplies from the coast nearly impracticable. It was, therefore, judged advisable to withdraw all the troops from the interior that could prudently be spared. Accordingly, in the beginning of April the main body of the forces marched from the Candian territory towards Columbo and Trincomalé, leaving 1,000 soldiers, consisting of Europeans and natives, under the command of Colonel Barbut, for the defence of Candy. A truce having been concluded between General Macdowal and the Adigar (prime minister of the Candians), and the fortifications being finished, this force was deemed sufficient for any probable contingency. Before the departure of the General, Mooto Sawmy, whom the English Government supported in his claims on the throne of Candy, was crowned in the palace with all the forms of Eastern ceremonial. But not one of the Candians appeared to support his pretensions. This prince entered into a treaty with the English to whom, amongst other valuable concessions, he ceded the province of the seven Corles. As soon as the enemy found that a considerable part of the forces had been withdrawn, and that those left behind began to suffer from the effects of climate, they made preparation for a general attack on Candy, which, notwithstanding the truce, they invested on the 23rd of June, and the state of the garrison was such as to induce Major Davie, who had succeeded to the command on the death of Colonel Barbut, to surrender the town the next day, on condition of being allowed to march with his garrison to Trincomalé, and that the sick and wounded should be taken care of by the Candian Government. On their arrival on the banks of the river, about three miles from the town, they found it not fordable, and applied to the Candians to assist them with rafts to convey the troops across. This request was apparently assented to; but for two days, under various pretences, compliance with it was continually evaded. In the mean time the Candians, in violation of the articles of capitulation, in which Mooto Sawmy had been included, demanded the person of that unfortunate prince, as the only condition on which the detachment would be permitted to cross the river. To this Major Davie, having assurances from the king that Mooto Sawmy should be kindly treated, after much hesitation, agreed. This unhappy prince was led back to the capital, where, with two of his relatives, he was immediately put to death, and all his followers shockingly mutilated. No sooner was this concession made, than the Candians demanded that the troops should deliver up their arms. This also was agreed to. The native troops were then immediately separated from the Europeans; and the latter were led out, officers and soldiers, in pairs, and with a few exceptions perfidiously massacred. Whilst these horrid acts were perpetrating on the banks of the river, a scene no less revolting to humanity was passing in the capital. All the sick in Candy, to the amount of 120 men, were murdered in cold blood, as they lay, incapable of resistance, in the hospital. Of all this ill-fated detachment, Major Davie, Captains Rumley and Humphreys, and Corporal Barnsley, of the 19th, alone survived the dreadful catastrophe. The three former were detained in the hands of the Candians; and the latter, after having been severely wounded, and considered by the enemy as dead, contrived to escape to Fort Macdowal during the night. This post, as has been before-mentioned, was commanded by Captain Madge, of the 19th regiment, who had for three days been closely besieged, and completely surrounded. Repeated offers had been made to him of a passport to Trincomalé with the whole of his sick and baggage, on condition of surrendering the place, which, of course, had been indignantly rejected; and on Barnsley's approach to the post, the enemy, with their characteristic cunning, sent him forward with a flag of truce, in the hope that his communication of the capture of Candy would show the uselessness of any further resistance, and produce the surrender of the fort.[2] [2] Barnsley's Deposition.--See Appendix. Captain Madge, however, finding himself in the midst of the enemy's country, unsupported and without provisions, immediately determined to force a retreat to Trincomalé, a distance of 126 miles, before the Candians, who were celebrating their recent successes in the capital, could bring the whole of their troops against him, or indeed could be aware of his intentions. His party consisted of 14 Europeans and about 70 Malays, of whom the whole of the former were sick, and a considerable number of the latter incapable of much exertion; with this handful of men, under circumstances so discouraging, he commenced his arduous march on the 27th of June, at night; and though surrounded by large bodies of the enemy, who were continually harassing and keeping up a severe fire on his flanks and rear, he nevertheless succeeded in reaching Trincomalé on the 3rd of July, after suffering many privations and distresses. Indeed the promptitude with which this retreat was attempted, and the skill and courage with which it was effected, and a part of our brave troops rescued from the sad fate of their devoted associates, reflects the highest credit on the military talents of Captain Madge, and was distinguished by the most marked approbation of Government, and also the Commander of the Forces. The other posts which had been established in the interior fell successively into the hands of the enemy. The fate of the troops that occupied the two small posts of Ghirriagamme and Gallighederah, in the neighbourhood of Candy, was never ascertained. The post of Dambadinia, situated about 60 miles from Candy, on the Columbo road, was garrisoned only by a few invalids, under the command of Ensign Grant, who had often distinguished himself by his gallantry and activity during the war. On the 26th of June he was joined by Lieutenant Nixon, of the 19th, with a few invalids, who had left Candy during the truce, when the command devolved upon this latter officer. On the 29th they were attacked by the Candians in great force, many of whom were dressed in the uniform of the soldiers killed in Candy. Although sheltered only by temporary breastworks, in some places composed merely of rice-bags, Lieutenant Nixon and his little party stoutly defended themselves, repulsing the enemy in repeated assaults. The Candians several times offered the most flattering terms of capitulation, which were no less gallantly than judiciously rejected; and on the 2nd of July the garrison was brought off by a body of troops from Columbo, under the command of Capt. Blackall, of the 51st regiment. Thus fell the last of our posts in the Candian country, and in the course of ten days from the retaking of the capital not an inch of ground remained to us beyond our original frontier. Thus defended by their climate, their mountains, and their forests, the Candians, by adhering steadily to the same mode of warfare, have been enabled to resist the incursions of their several European invaders for three centuries. Although successively attacked by the Portuguese, Dutch, and English, when in the zenith of their eastern conquests, and repeatedly driven from their capital, they are now in as complete possession of the interior of their country, and govern it as independently of any European influence, as at any period of their history since the first invasion of their coast. The Candians, flushed with their successes, and knowing that our forts on the coast were now weakly garrisoned, poured down from their mountains in the months of August and September, in the hope of utterly expelling us from the island. And in this attempt they were joined by the native inhabitants of our own settlements, who rose, as of one accord, to accelerate our expulsion. This fact affords a strong and convincing proof that, when we lose the power of the sword, to entertain any hope of preserving India through the affection of the natives, would be building on the most unstable foundation. So strong is their attachment to their ancient governments, laws, language, manners, and religious opinions, that three centuries of European domination have not diminished its force. But in leaving their fastnesses, the Candians relinquished those advantages which alone made them formidable; and reinforcements arriving most seasonably to our army from the Cape of Good Hope and Bengal, their efforts were completely defeated. The Government, thus strengthened, considered itself in a situation to retaliate on the enemy; and detachments entered the country from various points, laying it waste wherever they penetrated. This mode of warfare, however repugnant to the feelings of Government, appeared the only one now left us to pursue; and while it contributed to the security of our own districts from invasion, it held out a hope that, by convincing the King of Candy of his inability to protect his people, he might ultimately be led to a negotiation for peace. However, in August, 1804, being still further strengthened by the arrival of the 65th regiment from Europe, and considerable reinforcements from Madras and Bengal, it was resolved once more to penetrate into the interior, and to take possession of the enemy's capital. Great difficulties having been experienced in procuring a sufficient number of Coolies to accompany the forces from Columbo and Trincomalé, under the command of General Macdowal and Lieut.-Colonel Barbut, in 1803, it was now thought advisable, from the magnitude of the army about to be employed, to divide it into six columns, which should march separately from different stations, so as to meet at a given time at one central point, in the vicinity of the capital. The following settlements, viz.:--Columbo, Negumbo,[3] Chilou, Poutelam, Hambingtotte, Batticolo, and Trincomalé, were the points from whence the detachments were to proceed. It was hoped that, by this means, each division would be enabled to procure a sufficient number of Coolies for its own immediate wants in the district from which it was to march; whereas it would have been almost impossible to collect, in any reasonable time, from different parts of the island, a sufficient number for two very large detachments. This mode of attack, it was expected, would disconcert the enemy, and lead to information relative to the interior of the island, hitherto so little explored by Europeans. [3] The troops from Negumbo and Chilou were to have been united: consequently would have formed but one detachment. General Wemyss, who had succeeded General Macdowal in the command of the forces, desirous of ascertaining, by personal inspection, the state of the detachments at the different stations, and of inquiring into the practicability and eligibility of the different routes, determined, in the month of August, 1804, to make a tour of the island. On visiting Batticolo, where I then commanded, he explained to me (as one of those selected to conduct a detachment) the meditated expedition, and his views respecting the combined attack on Candy. From Batticolo the General proceeded to Trincomalé, from whence I shortly afterwards received the following letter, dated Sept. 3, 1804:-- [MOST SECRET.] _Trincomalé, Sept. 3, 1804._ SIR, In the event of your not having marched towards Arriagam, you are directed to have a strong detachment in perfect readiness, as soon as possible, to march to Candy, by the route of Ouva. To enable you to equip a strong force, a detachment of Europeans and natives will march from this as soon as the weather clears; and, when joined by it, you will proceed towards the enemy's country, arranging so as to be within eight days' march of the town of Candy on the 20th instant, which is the day fixed for the commencement of general co-operations. You will then proceed direct upon Candy, not doing any injury to the country or people, unless opposed; and as different detachments are ordered to march precisely on the 20th for general co-operation for the destruction of the enemy's capital, the various columns will be put in motion from Columbo, Hambingtotte, Trincomalé, Negumbo, Chilou, and Pouttalim, the whole to be within eight days' march of Candy on the 20th instant; and, on the 28th or 29th, the Commander of the forces fully expects a general junction on the heights of Candy. The General fully relies on the execution of these instructions; and, from your well-known zeal and activity, he has no doubt of a perfect completion of his wishes. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, R. MOWBRAY, Act. D. Adj.-Gen. Immediately on the receipt of this letter I made the necessary preparations for our march. Previous to entering on a detail of the operations of the detachment which I had the honour to command, it may be proper to offer a few remarks relative to the district of Batticolo. This district is situated on the south-east side of the island, and is the most remote from the seat of government of all our possessions in Ceylon. The fort is built on a broad river of the same name, navigable for small vessels, and about four miles from the coast. Our territory here extends from fifteen to twenty miles up the country, and continues low and flat, as far as the Candian frontier, which is formed by a chain of steep and lofty mountains. Speaking of this part of the country, I shall avail myself of the beautifully descriptive language of the Rev. Mr. Cordiner, in his History of Ceylon:--"The south-east coast, viewed from the sea, is particularly picturesque and romantic. The country, in the highest degree mountainous, presents hills beyond hills, many beautiful and verdant, others huge and rocky, of extraordinary shapes, resembling ruined battlements, ancient castles, and lofty pyramids." Of these mountains we have little knowledge. The natives represent them as covered with immense forests, the northern parts of which are inhabited by the Vedas, or Bedas, a singular and savage tribe, nearly in a state of nature, and who hold no intercourse with the other inhabitants of the country. They are by many considered as the aborigines of the island. Beyond this chain, and to the southward, are the still more rugged mountains of Ouva, celebrated for the secure asylum they afford to the kings of Candy, when driven from their capital. It was here that, in 1631, the whole Portuguese army, with their general, Constantin de Sáa, in attempting to pursue the King in his retreat, were, in consequence of the defection of the Modiliars, overpowered, and perished to a man. The small-pox had of late depopulated a great part of the district of Batticolo; those who were not themselves affected with the malady (from the dread entertained by the natives of India of this dangerous disease), deserted those who were, flying, to avoid contagion, to the woods. This, together with the general disaffection of the natives to our cause, rendered it impossible to procure above half the number of Coolies required for the use of the detachment. I was therefore obliged to supply the deficiency by carriage bullocks, a circumstance which afterwards occasioned considerable embarrassment and delay. On the 14th of September I received a letter from the acting Adjutant-General, dated at Jaffnapatam, the 8th of the same month, of which the following is a copy:-- _To Capt. Johnson_, Commanding Batticolo. SIR, The Commander of the Forces directs you will, on the receipt of this, reduce your division to 300 men, as you will then be enabled to have a sufficiency of Coolies for the purpose of entering the enemy's dominions. As some unforeseen obstacles have prevented the various columns forming the intended junction, about the 28th or 29th instant, on the heights of Candy, agreeably to the instructions transmitted to you on the 3rd instant, you are directed to march on the 20th of this month, bending your course towards the province of Ouva, and form junction at the entrance of that part with the detachment ordered from Hambingtotte, which will march the same day, the 20th instant, by the route of Catragame, on the great road leading to Candy, which is frequented by the King, for visiting that temple. You will, in junction with the other detachments, concert such measures as will best tend to effect the greatest devastation and injury to the enemy's country. All persons found in arms to be immediately made examples of, and the peaceful and defenceless peasant to be spared. You will note in writing all observations relative to the country, as our future operations will be guided by them in that part, and transmit your journal to me, for the General's information. I have the honour to be, &c. (Signed) R. MOWBRAY, Act. D. Adj.-Gen. _Jaffnapatam_, 8th Sept. 1804. Considering this letter as merely a modification of the original plan of operations, as far as related to _change of route and day of march_, I immediately sent off an express to Colonel Maddison, commandant of the Hambingtotte detachment, naming a place for the junction of our columns. The distance from Batticolo to Hambingtotte being nearly 200 miles, and our orders being to commence our march on the 20th, it would have been impossible to receive Colonel Maddison's answer to my dispatch before that period. Of course there could be no room for mutual consultation, in regard to the place of junction; it was indispensable, therefore, that I should specify it at once, and I accordingly named Kiratavillé, a large village situated on the frontiers of Ouva, the residence of a Candian chief, and likely in consequence to be well-known to the guides. The remainder of the narrative will be most properly continued, and best understood, in the form of a journal. Sept. 20.--In the evening embarked with the British troops and stores, on the Batticolo river, and proceeded, during the night, to Surcamony, a village on its banks, distant 27 miles. 21.--This day principally occupied in landing the stores. Joined by the native troops, who had proceeded by land from Batticolo. Our detachment now consisted of the following numbers:-- +----------------+-----------------------+-------------------------+------+ | | Europeans. | Natives. | | | +-----------------------+-------------------------+------+ | |Captains. | | | | |Lieutenants. | | | | | |Ensigns. | | | | | | |Serjeants. | | | | | | | |Drummers. | | | | | | | | |Privates. | | | | | | | | | |Subidar, or Capt. | | | | | | | | | | |Jemidar, or Lieut. | | | | | | | | | | | |Hav. or Serjeant.| | | | | | | | | | | | |Drummers. | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Privates.| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Grand | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Total.| +----------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---------+------+ |Royal Artillery | | | | 1| | 6| | | | | | 7 | |His Majesty's | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 19th Regiment | | 2 | | 3| 1| 64| | | | | | 70 | |--Malay ditto | | 1 | | | | | 1| 1| 4| | 46 | 53 | |1st Batt. Bengal| | | | | | | | | | | | | | Volunteers | | 1 | | | | | | 1| 9| 2| 75 | 88 | |2nd Batt. ditto | | 2 | | | | | 1| 1| 5| 2| 76 | 87 | +----------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---------+------+ |(Pioneers and | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Coolies 550). | | 6 | | 4| 1| 70| 2| 3| 18| 4| 197 | 305 | +----------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---------+------+ N.B. One one-pounder, and one 4-2/3 coehorn. Sept. 22.--Marched at day-light to the westward, keeping in a southerly direction as much as the nature of the country would admit, in order to approximate the route of Colonel Maddison's detachment. 23, 24, 25, 26.--Followed the same course, expecting, as we drew nearer to the place of rendevouz, to hear of the Hambingtotte division. 27.--Reached Sambapelly after a very fatiguing march of above seventy miles (from Surcamony), over a country wild and mountainous in the highest degree. During the last sixty miles we had not seen a house or a human being, nor was there anything except the paths through the forests and round the bases of the mountains, to induce a belief that this quarter had ever been peopled. We crossed one broad river, and several smaller streams, none of which fortunately impeded our march. The weather during the day was close and sultry, the circulation of the air being impeded by the forests; the nights, on the contrary, were foggy and cold. These changes of climate began to take effect on the troops, and I found it necessary to send back from hence two Malays and twenty-two Bengal Sepoys, who were indisposed. Sambapelly is a small village, near which stands the residence of a Candian chief. The country in the vicinity assumes a more favourable appearance. Some villages are discernible, and the valleys are in many parts cultivated. 28.--Marched at daylight, the country continuing mountainous, but the slopes of the hills in many places cleared, and the valleys in general cultivated. Passed through some villages, which were entirely deserted. Numerous parties of the enemy were seen at a distance, along the sides of the mountains, watching our movements, by which they seemed to be directed. About three o'clock, as the advanced guard was descending into a deep valley, close to the village of Kieratavally, they were fired upon by a party of the enemy, posted on the opposite hills, who fled as soon as they had discharged their pieces. Luckily one man, who was wounded, fell into our hands. Although we had now marched 124 miles from Batticolo, this was the first native to whom we had been enabled to speak. It was here that I expected to meet the Hambingtotte division, but our prisoner had heard nothing of it, nor of any detachment than that under my command; a circumstance which, cut off as I was from communication by the surrounding enemy, created considerable anxiety. As it was impossible to remain stationary with a corps in a country where there was no possibility of procuring provisions of any kind, every article of that description having been removed to the mountains, and as I conceived there could be no doubt of the Hambingtotte division bringing up the rear, I lost no time in advancing, and the more so as I expected I must soon meet some of the other columns, which I imagined must shortly be concentrating themselves towards the capital. During the night we heard the shouts of the enemy, and saw their numerous fires in various directions along the sides of the mountains. Kieratavally is a neat Candian village, situated in a well-cultivated part of the country. Before leaving it I set fire to a large house belonging to the Dessauve, that the Hambingtotte division on arriving there might see that we had already passed. 29.--Continued our route at daylight in the direction of Candy, anxiously looking out for other detachments of our troops. After marching sixteen miles over a country similar to what we had lately traversed, reached Pangaram, a large village, inhabited chiefly by Lubbies (a trading caste), and situated on the banks of the great river which passes Candy, and which is here about 150 yards broad. The village was, as usual, entirely deserted. The river being much swollen, we immediately began to prepare rafts. During the day the enemy hung on our flanks in considerable numbers, but did not oppose our progress otherwise than by exchanging a few shots with our advanced and rear guards. Towards night, however, they lined the opposite bank of the river, and seemed resolved to dispute the passage. 30.--The river having fallen considerably during the night, the enemy fled from the opposite bank, after a few discharges of round shot. A few volunteers made good their passage, and the river continuing to fall, the rest of our men were enabled to ford it. The stores were carried over on rafts. While this was going on, I detached Lieutenant Virgo, with a party of about sixty men, to destroy a palace of the King of Candy, situated seven miles down the river, in which I understood was a depôt of arms and military stores. They completely effected their object. Oct. 1.--Continued our march towards Candy, and encamped in the evening in a small plain called Catavilly, distant fifteen miles from Pangaram. The country showed less appearance of cultivation. The enemy continued to hang on our flanks, firing now and then a few shots, but making no serious resistance. 2.--After marching eight miles, reached the ford of Padrapelly, where we crossed for the second time the Candian river, the course of which is very circuitous. Our passage was attended with great difficulty, owing to the rapidity of the stream, and the rockiness of the bottom. During the last two days, our path was extremely rugged, lying along the banks of the river, where the hills ended in high and shelving rocks, the soil being washed away by torrents. Encamped on the opposite bank, in a small opening, where we could procure no forage for our bullocks. 3.--Marched at daylight. During this morning the enemy seemed disposed to close with us; they killed a soldier of the 19th, and wounded some followers. After marching about eight miles, we began ascending the pass of Ourané, which we found steep, rocky, and intersected by deep ravines. About half way up we halted in the plain of Ourané, where we found plenty of excellent water, a most welcome refreshment to our men, who were exhausted by climbing up the mountains under the rays of a vertical sun, reflected from rocks, which, as the day advanced, became more and more heated. Meantime the enemy assembled in considerable numbers higher up the mountain, but were dislodged by Lieutenant Virgo, whom I had sent forward to secure the pass. Late in the evening we reached the summit, after a painful march of fourteen miles, and halted in a small village called Comanatavillé. 4.--The road on this day's march was worse than any we had yet passed; it lay along the brow of a mountain, in several places nearly perpendicular, where a false step would have caused a fall of several hundred feet. Being very narrow, many of the bullocks tumbled headlong down, and the path would have been altogether impracticable for these animals, had they not been habituated to carry merchandize along the hills. Here and there, where the earth had been washed away, or a rock fallen down, the natives had driven stakes horizontally into the sides of the mountain, forming a kind of bridge, over which travellers could pass. Had these given way under any of the men, they must have been dashed to pieces; or had they been previously removed, the hill would have been rendered impassable. This is one of the paths through which the King of Candy retreats to Ouva, when he is obliged to fly from his capital. That the enemy should have forborne to check our advance by destroying the paths, can be accounted for only by supposing, that they thought it unlikely so small a force could push forward to the capital, and were in hourly expectation of our retreat by the same road, which I afterwards understood they had rendered impassable; or, unless, as is more likely, they wished, in compliance with their favourite system, to draw us into the heart of the country, and attack us when enfeebled by sickness and skirmishes. We encamped, late in the evening, in a paddy (rice) field on the bank of the river, under a steep hill, which was occupied by the 3rd company of Bengal Sepoys, under Lieutenant Povelary. 5.--At daylight the enemy covered the opposite bank, and opened a fire of musketry and gengals (Candian field-pieces) on our camp; but as it was situated in a hollow, most of the shot passed over our heads; two Sepoys, however, were killed, and several Sepoys and Coolies wounded, and the tents much injured. The enemy attacked the hill above the camp, but were repulsed by Lieutenant Povelary with considerable loss. Our position was, notwithstanding, much exposed, both when in camp, and when prosecuting our march. On the right ran the river, nowhere fordable, and lined on its opposite bank by the enemy; on the left was a steep mountain, confining our march to the vicinity of the river. Our flankers on the left, it is true, occupied the summit of the mountain, and could, by a lateral movement, prevent our being galled from that side. We began our march at nine A.M., our flankers on the right firing across the river on the enemy; but, as they were chiefly concealed behind rocks and trees, with little effect. The most distressing circumstance however was, that many of the bullocks, unaccustomed to the appearance of Europeans and to heavy firing, became wild and unmanageable, broke from their drivers, cast off their loads, and, rushing among the Coolies, created much confusion and delay. Having advanced about three miles in this state, we approached a large house standing nearly across the road, and about a hundred yards distant from the river. This house was filled with the enemy, who fired on the head of our column from holes pierced in the walls. Exactly opposite, on the other side of the river, I perceived a battery with one heavy gun (which I afterwards found to be a Dutch iron eight-pounder), and several gengals ready to open on us whenever we came within range. This made it necessary for me to pause: our loss had already been considerable; our troops, as well as Coolies, were falling fast. To attempt to pass the battery with so lengthened a column as ours, disordered as it was by the confusion that had been occasioned by the bullocks, would have been highly imprudent, especially as our only field-piece upset at this time, by which the axletree of the carriage was broken; I therefore determined to storm the house, and, when in possession of it, to construct rafts for the purpose of passing the river and carrying the battery. Our vanguard accordingly drove the enemy from the house, which we entered, and finding plenty of room for our whole corps, were enabled to dress the wounded and replace the axletree of our gun-carriage. We passed the remainder of the day in constructing a large raft of such materials as could be procured. Before Lieutenant Povelary, who flanked our left, could get possession of a high hill immediately above the house, the enemy were enabled to fire a volley through the roof, by which a bombardier of the Royal Artillery (Malcolm Campbell) was unfortunately killed. Though only a non-commissioned officer, his loss was severely felt by our small party, having rendered himself particularly useful by his exertions in getting the stores up the mountains during the march. The enemy's fire was now wholly directed against the house. They had luckily but little round shot for the large gun, and the grape and fire of the gengals did no material injury. The night presented a scene different from what we had yet witnessed. On the opposite bank and the adjoining hills were thousands of the enemy, every fourth or fifth man carrying a choulou or torch. At intervals, a shout of exultation was set up from the battery in our front, which was repeated by those around, and re-echoed by others on the neighbouring hills. The object of this was to terrify our native troops, and induce them to desert. During the night, the enemy contrived to turn aside a stream, which passed close to the house, and had supplied us with water the day before; after which we could not procure any, even for the sick and wounded. I here endeavoured, but with little effect, to use the coehorn. Owing to the wretched state of the fuzees nineteen shells out of twenty-three thrown into the enemy's work fell dead, although these shells had been sent us for service from Trincomalé a few days only before we set out. 6.--Our spirits were greatly raised this morning by a report from that active and zealous officer, Lieutenant Povelary, who occupied the hill above the house, stating that he heard distinctly a heavy firing in the neighbourhood of Candy. This I concluded must be some of our detachments crossing the river at Wattapalogo or Kattagastoly. About seven A.M., after much labour and loss, we carried our raft to the river, which sunk as soon as a couple of soldiers got upon it, being composed of iron wood, the only material within our reach. We were thus under great embarrassment, when a sentry, on the top of the hill, called out that he saw a boat crossing the river about three quarters of a mile above the house. I instantly directed Lieutenant Vincent with the soldiers of the 19th to seize it at all risks. On reaching the spot where the boat had been seen, he found it had been conveyed to the opposite side. This obstacle was no sooner known than two gallant fellows, whose names it would be unfair to omit (Simon Gleason and Daniel Quin) volunteered to swim over and bring it back; which they boldly accomplished under protection of the fire of the party. Lieutenant Vincent instantly leaped into the boat with as many men as it would carry (between fifteen and twenty), and having crossed the river, marched quickly down its bank to take the enemy in flank. Panic-struck, the Candians deserted the battery, and fled in confusion at his approach. Such was the promptitude and decision with which this service was executed, that the whole was accomplished with only the loss of two men wounded. The Candians, formidable in their fastnesses, are so feeble in close combat, that in a quarter of an hour nearly the whole of that mass which had a short time before covered the opposite banks, and threatened our annihilation, had disappeared in the woods. I lost no time in prosecuting our march; about two hundred yards in rear of the battery stands the palace of Condasaly, the King's favourite residence, a beautiful building, richly ornamented with the presents received by the kings of Candy from the Portuguese, Dutch, and English. This palace had been carefully preserved by General Macdowal in 1803. And the King had availed himself of this respect shown to it at that time to make it a principal depôt of arms and ammunition; which, as I was unable to remove, and it being my object to destroy, wherever found, I was under the necessity of setting the building on fire. We afterwards continued our march to the capital, expecting, from the firing heard in the morning, a speedy meeting with our countrymen forming the co-operating columns. Indeed, so confident was I of joining some of them, that I had the reports of my detachment made out ready to present to the officer commanding in the town. Candasaly is only five miles from Candy, and the road good. When half way from hence to this capital, we passed a heavy Dutch gun which the enemy were bringing up to the battery on the river. Our advanced guard had scarcely got within range of a temple which is situated on a hill above the town of Candy, when they sustained a volley of musketry; a few minutes afterwards I could plainly perceive the enemy flying through the streets in great confusion. It was now evident that none of the other divisions had arrived. After detaching Lieutenant Rogers with a party of Sepoys to occupy the heights commanding the town, our troops once more took possession of the capital, which they found, as usual, entirely deserted by its inhabitants. The palace being in the most favourable situation for resisting any immediate attack, I took possession of it, and looked with great anxiety for the arrival of the other detachments. 7.--This day passed without any intelligence of our friends. Towards evening, a Malay officer and some soldiers formerly in our service, but forced into that of the Candians after Major Davie's surrender, arrived amongst us, and informed me, that a fortnight before a rumour had prevailed of six English divisions having entered the Candian territory; that many of his countrymen had accompanied the Candians to oppose these divisions, but had returned without having seen an enemy. It was generally believed that these divisions had been driven back. He added that the Candians were in great force in the neighbourhood, and delayed their attack only until the climate should begin to take effect upon us; and that the firing which Lieutenant Povelary had taken for that of our columns on the morning of the 6th was a rejoicing at our embarrassed situation, which seemed to them to admit neither of advance nor retreat, but to lead inevitably to surrender, and consequent massacre. I was greatly at a loss what to make of this statement. The officer's character I knew to be respectable; and their report of the number of divisions corresponded exactly with the fact. 8.--Early this morning detached Lieutenant Povelary with a party to the top of the hills, to ascertain whether a camp, or any part of our troops, could be discerned. He brought no tidings of them. In the forenoon, some gun Lascars, who had been taken prisoners with Major Davie, effected their escape to us, and related that they had just returned from the frontiers, whither they had marched with a body of Candians for the purpose of opposing the English troops that were advancing into the country; that they had actually seen one detachment with whom their party had exchanged a few shots, by which a Candian chief was wounded; that soon after, this detachment marched back to the English territory, whereupon the whole corps in which they served was recalled to the capital; that a rumour prevailed amongst the Candians that all the English troops except my detachment were repulsed; that the King had proclaimed to his people that he had driven five English armies back to the sea, and that it only remained for them to chastise a few banditti who had stolen up from Batticolo. My anxiety for the safety of my detachment had been hourly increasing since my arrival in Candy, and was now wrought up to the highest pitch. I considered its situation as eminently perilous. The army under General Macdowal had been only twenty days getting to Candy in 1803, though encumbered by six-pounders, and obliged to halt several days for want of Coolies. The detachment that I conceived to be coming up were lighter, and consequently would have been enabled to march much quicker. The distance from Columbo to Candy is only 103 miles, and that from Trincomalé, 142, and the roads from both places perfectly known whereas my route lay partly through the province of Ouva, the most mountainous and least known of the whole island; and, in consequence of my being obliged to make a circuit for the purpose of forming a junction with Colonel Maddison, amounted to 194 miles. The time elapsed even since one of the detachments had been seen on the frontiers was enough, and more than enough, for its arrival; that they were driven back by the Candians, could not for a moment be believed. I considered the King's proclamation merely as an artifice to encourage his troops, yet the non-arrival of our divisions still continued to increase my surprise and uneasiness. Our provisions were now considerably reduced, and much of our ammunition expended. Our situation began also to make a powerful impression on the Europeans, as well as on the native troops. The former, with the exception of a few artillery-men, consisted of the 19th regiment, a great part of which corps had been sacrificed the year before, under Major Davie. Many of these men had been in Candy with General Macdowal; the massacre was still fresh in their recollection. They saw displayed in savage triumph in several of the apartments of the palace, the hats, shoes, canteens, and accoutrements of their murdered comrades, most of them still marked with the names of their ill-fated owners. I could easily collect, from the conversation of the officers, that few of them agreed with regard to what ought to be done. I therefore avoided calling a council of war, persuaded that it would only give rise to unpleasant differences. Added to this, the rains had already set in with considerable violence, and I was perfectly aware of the difficulty of passing the Candian river during the monsoon. Under these circumstances, to have remained longer in the capital would, in the event of the other divisions not arriving (of whose appearance there was now scarcely any hope), have occasioned the certain destruction of my detachment. On the other hand, should they come up (and I had no reason to doubt that one of them had been seen on the frontiers), what must the General think on finding that my detachment had thus returned without co-operation? Added to this, I had to dread the censure and disgrace that might result from a step thus precipitately taken. Balancing between these opposite motives, the state of my mind, on this distressing occasion, it is impossible to describe; it can only be conceived by those who have had the misfortune to be placed in circumstances of similar anxiety. Obliged to assume an air of gaiety amongst the troops, whilst my mind was agitated by the most melancholy reflections; feeling that not only the honour, but the life, of every man in the detachment depended on my conduct, I may truly say that even those individuals who were suffering around me from sickness and from wounds had no reason to envy the situation of their commander. Though strongly prompted by my own feelings to continue following up what I deemed to be the object of my orders, I at this period regarded the safety of the detachment entrusted to my command as paramount to every other consideration. I therefore determined, in the first instance to cross the Candian river, so as, at all events, to ensure my retreat, and take post on the left bank, where I might wait a day or two longer for the tidings of the other detachments. I clearly foresaw that this movement would draw the whole of the enemy upon me, and consequently lead to a considerable expenditure of ammunition. They were in great force in the neighbourhood, and had for the last two days abstained from molesting us, waiting to see what steps I should pursue: yet of the two evils this appeared the least. By encamping on the left bank of the river, we should be in readiness to co-operate with any of the other detachments that might arrive. We should also be enabled to retreat either on Columbo or Trincomalé, whereas returning by the Batticolo road was completely out of the question. In addition to its length, and the difficulties which the country presented, I knew that the Candians had been employed in blocking up the passes to prevent our return. Besides, I must have crossed the Mahavilla Gonga twice, at the fords of Padrepelly and Pangaram. Having weighed these circumstances, I came to the resolution of marching out of Candy the next morning. 9.--At six A.M. commenced my march, abstaining from destroying or even injuring the town of Candy, that in the event of our troops still coming up, the followers might not be deprived of shelter. On the outside of the town, we passed a number of skeletons hanging on the trees, the remains of our massacred officers. We next reached the banks of the river, the scene of the cruel catastrophe which closed the career of Major Davie's detachment, and found the ground still covered with the bones of the victims. The river not being fordable, we were under the necessity of encamping on this ominous spot, while a party returned to Candy for materials to make rafts. Meanwhile the enemy were seen assembling in vast numbers on the opposite bank. They took care to remind us of the danger of our situation, calling to us to observe the bones of our countrymen, and assuring us that ere long we should experience a similar fate. They repeatedly urged the natives to desert, as the only means of preserving their lives. It is but justice here to remark, that of the native troops, whether Sepoys or Malays, not a man proved unfaithful to his colours. Even from the followers, I had hitherto experienced a degree of fidelity scarcely to be expected from their general character, not a man having yet deserted me. But our situation was now about to become too trying for their resolution. At three P.M. two rafts were completed; but the current was so rapid that our tow-ropes immediately gave way. Punting was therefore the only expedient, and this was attended with much delay. Late in the evening Lieutenant Rogers having crossed with a few Europeans, attacked and drove from the hill above the ferry a strong party of the enemy, with the loss of one of their chiefs who was bayoneted. This considerably checked their ardour. The greater part of the night was taken up in getting over our invalids. 10.--In the course of the morning, the river having fallen, some of the troops and followers forded it. We were also enabled to get over part of the stores. But towards noon the rain set in, and, as is usual in mountainous countries, the river became almost immediately too deep to be passed in that manner. By the rapidity of the current, one of our two small rafts was completely carried away, and the other became nearly unmanageable. Our tents, the 3rd company of Sepoys, and our rear guard were still on the right bank of the river. Apprehending that if these men were not quickly brought over, they would be lost to us for ever, I ordered them to cross without delay, which was effected with great difficulty by four o'clock, leaving the tents behind. The constant skirmishing of the last two days had reduced our stock of ammunition to two small barrels of 800 rounds each, and several of the troops were without cartridges. Nearly two days had now elapsed since my departure from Candy; and no intelligence had reached me of the other detachments. I felt, therefore, the necessity of coming to an immediate decision relative to my future proceedings; and the troops and followers having now all passed, I determined without loss of time to commence my retreat. The Trincomalé road, though longer, appeared upon the whole to present fewer obstacles than that leading to Columbo. In following the latter, we should have been under the necessity of taking by storm the two posts of Geeriagamme and Garlgaddray, situated at the top of the Columbo passes, through both of which the road runs. I therefore gave the preference to the former route. We were 142 miles from Trincomalé, with a road before us less rugged indeed in its nature than that which we had traversed, but in which we were likely to be equally exposed to annoyance from the enemy. As the bullocks would only impede our progress, I determined to leave them behind, and directing each soldier to take six days' rice on his back, abandoned the rest of the stores. Whilst destroying the other stores, a parcel of loose powder, which had unfortunately been left near one of the boxes containing shells, took fire, which was immediately communicated to the fuses, and the shells continued to burst amongst us for some time, killing and wounding several of the Coolies who were to have carried them, and desperately wounding a serjeant of artillery. This accident occasioned some confusion, of which the enemy took advantage, and commenced a general attack, with a trifling loss on our side; in which, however, they were repulsed. About five o'clock in the afternoon, we were enabled to commence our march, our Coolies carrying a long train of sick and wounded. It was late before we reached the top of the Trincomalé pass, and the rain, the darkness, and the ruggedness of the mountains put it quite out of our power to descend. We here passed a distressing night, exposed to incessant rain, without the means of preparing victuals, and hearing the fall of the trees which the Candians were felling lower down on the mountain to obstruct our next day's march. 11.--Found the Candians posted on the different hills that command the pass, while the road was blocked up in many places with large trees, and in some with breastworks. After several hours' labour and exposure to the enemy's fire, we gained the bottom of the pass with the loss of five Europeans, eight Sepoys, and thirty followers, killed and wounded; a loss considerable in itself, but smaller than I had expected from the opposition that awaited us. Here I was deprived of the services of Lieutenant Vincent, who received a wound in the thigh; a deprivation which I felt severely, from the very able assistance he had hitherto afforded me. We now continued our route, proceeding very slowly on account of the great increase of our wounded. Towards evening we passed the ruins of Fort Macdowal, which the Candians had entirely destroyed, and halted only when the darkness and rain prevented us from finding our way further. 12.--Continued our march without stopping, harassed as usual by the enemy, who were indefatigable in blocking up the roads before us. During this morning, Lieutenant Smith, of the 19th, a most promising young officer, received a severe wound in the breast, which completely deprived me of his services. At five P.M. perceiving that the enemy had strongly fortified a hill over which we had to pass, I attacked and carried it by the bayonet, with the loss of two Europeans and five Sepoys killed. On reaching the summit, we found the road so completely closed up, that we could not attempt to pursue it that night; and to aggravate our misfortune, we had lost the guides acquainted with this part of the country, two of them having deserted and one having been shot this day. 13.--As soon as it was daylight, I perceived a path lying in a northerly direction, which I followed as our only guide; concluding that if it did not conduct us to Trincomalé, it would lead to some of our other settlements. The enemy this morning appeared more resolute than they had hitherto showed themselves. Led on by our own Malays and gun Lascars who had formerly deserted to them, they attacked our line both in front and rear, and actually cut in amongst the Coolies, who became perfectly panic-struck, threw down the sick and wounded, and either ran into the forests to conceal themselves, or rushed in among the troops, whom they threw into confusion. Unfortunately, two wounded Europeans, a serjeant of the Royal Artillery and a private of the 19th, who were in charge of the rear-guard, on this occasion fell into the hands of the enemy. The Bengal Lascars and Malays in the Candian service repeatedly addressed their country-men in our ranks, informing them that the King of Candy did not consider them as his enemies, and promising that such of them as would come over to join him should be appointed Captains in his army; but that, if they persisted in continuing with the Europeans, whom they represented as an impure beef-eating race, they would be massacred along with them, the moment they should fall into their hands. All these endeavours to shake the fidelity of the native troops, however, still continued unavailing. As the day advanced, the path became so narrow and intricate that I foresaw it would be impossible to make much farther progress after dark, without entangling the detachment in the woods. I therefore halted, and directed Lieutenant Virgo to go forward and order back the advanced guard with the sick and wounded. This officer not returning, I sent on a corporal to know the cause of the delay, and to bring back a part of the 19th for the purpose of assisting to charge the enemy, who had by this time collected a considerable force in a village in our rear. The corporal returned, unable to find our advanced guard. I sent him forward again in quest of them with an escort, and after a considerable time had elapsed, he returned a second time, reporting that he had been three miles in front, without being able to gain the least intelligence of them, or even to trace what path they had followed. The enemy were now assembled in considerable force in our rear, with the apparent intention of closing with us. I determined immediately to charge them with the few Europeans belonging to the rear-guard and the native troops; leaving a strong party on the spot where we had been stationed, for the purpose of directing our vanguard (if they should return) to a village at some distance, where I intended to pass the night. Our brave fellows advanced to the charge, gallantly led on by Lieutenants Povelary and Smith of the Bengal Sepoys; they soon routed the Candians, and the few who still had strength to pursue, occasioned a considerable loss to the enemy. Among their slain, I was happy to find two of our Malay deserters, who had made themselves particularly conspicuous for the last three days, not only in animating the enemy, but in encouraging our men to desert. On this occasion, we took four large gengals and a quantity of muskets. The village afforded us shelter from the inclemency of the weather, and, what was still more welcome, a quantity of boiled rice. Since our departure from Candy on the 9th, our only food had consisted of raw rice, which latterly had become musty and mildewed. We had been engaged in one continued skirmish, exposed without intermission alternately to a scorching sun and a violent rain; and glad at night, when we could get a stone or log of wood, to raise our heads from the wet ground. From seven o'clock till two, it generally continued fair, and the effects of the sun were powerfully felt. After two, the rain set in, and continued incessantly during the whole of the night. 14.--I was much concerned at the advanced guard not returning, and on resuming my march, followed the road which I thought it most likely they had taken. We had now the satisfaction to find that the enemy's pursuit had considerably slackened, owing chiefly to the spirited attack of the preceding evening, which showed them that, although weakened, we were far from being conquered; and owing in some measure also to the inconvenience they too suffered from the incessant rains. Passed this night in the woods without shelter. 15.--The enemy's fire continued to decrease; a few shots only were fired at us in the course of the day, and those without effect. Halted at night in a small village, where we were enabled to procure shelter, and some refreshment. 16.--Saw a few of the enemy at a distance; they did not attempt to molest us. We here found ourselves in the Trincomalé road. Halted at night in a small village a few miles from Minery Lake, where I was surprised to find the advanced guard with Lieutenant Virgo, but (painful to add) without Lieutenants Vincent and Smith, and two wounded soldiers of the 19th. I was informed that Lieutenant Smith had died of his wounds; and there was every reason to suppose that Lieutenant Vincent had met a similar fate, or perhaps the more distressing one of falling into the merciless hands of the Candians. Thus were lost to the service two excellent officers, in the prime of life, who had conducted themselves throughout this arduous expedition with a degree of zeal, intrepidity, and perseverance, highly creditable to themselves, and consolatory to their friends. I shall ever regret the loss of these meritorious young men, from whose conduct I had on so many occasions derived considerable aid. The guard alleged that they had lost their way in the woods, and were nearly starved; that the Coolies had completely deserted them; that they were themselves so exhausted as to be scarcely able to walk, and had no means of carrying the sick, whom they were under the necessity of abandoning; that they were without guides, and found their way to the village where we then were by mere chance. Considering Lieutenant Virgo as the cause, in the first instance, of this disaster, by not bringing back the guard, I ordered him into arrest. This officer pleaded, in vindication of his conduct, that the soldiers had refused to obey his orders. On further inquiry, I found that the situation in which the soldiers were placed had in some degree shaken their discipline, and that they were even encouraged in insubordination by one of the non-commissioned officers, over whom Lieutenant Virgo, from belonging to another corps, had not sufficient control. Under these circumstances, I thought it best to release this officer from arrest, and to submit the whole affair to the Commanding Officer of Trincomalé. 17.--Continued our march unmolested by the enemy, and passed the night in the woods. 18.--Reached the lake of Candelly, where we were again exposed to the inclemencies of the monsoon without the least shelter. In proportion as the annoyance of the enemy slackened, and the necessity of personal exertion diminished, I had more time for reflection; and I may truly say, that the last few days of our march were not to me those in which I least suffered either in body or mind. In common with the rest of the detachment, I had performed the greater part of the retreat barefooted. Had I possessed, indeed, changes of boots and shoes, I could not have used them, my feet having swelled, and become so tender from constant wet, that I could not without considerable pain put them to the ground. In this condition, emaciated by fatigue, and labouring besides under a severe dysentery, arising, I presume, from the nature of the water, cold, and want of proper food, I was for the two last days obliged to be carried in my cloak, fastened to a stick. These bodily sufferings, however, severe as they were, were only shared in common with many of those around me, and fell far short of the anguish of my mind. Whilst I witnessed the melancholy state of my brave companions, I could not help reflecting, that, perhaps, my precipitate retreat from Candy had brought all this distress and misery upon them; that the other divisions were possibly now in Candy, carrying into execution the General's plans; and that, in such case, I must, by my premature retreat, incur the censure of the General, and perhaps of the whole army. On the other hand, in the event of our troops not coming up, I was satisfied that, had I remained a single day longer in Candy, the river, from the constant rains which we had experienced, would have become completely impassable; that our provisions would have been expended, without the possibility of procuring any fresh supply; and that, though determined not to capitulate under any extremity, we must, in the end, have been over-powered, owing to the want of ammunition, as well as from the pressure of sickness and famine. While my mind was agitated by these conflicting reflections, we arrived at Tamblegamme on the 19th, where we were met by some officers from Trincomalé, who had heard that morning of our approach. No words can express my surprise on now learning, for the first time, that it was not intended that I should proceed to Candy; that the General, on arriving at Jaffnapatam, had found obstacles to the combined attack, which he considered to be insurmountable--(the principal of these I have since understood to be the want of Coolies; but of this, or of any other impediment to the success of the expedition, I was at the time totally unapprized)--that the orders of the 8th were intended as a countermand of the former plan; and that my having gone to Candy was deemed a disobedience of orders; that it was merely meant that the divisions should enter those parts of the enemy's territory adjacent to their respective districts, and return after laying waste the country; that the other five divisions had accordingly made these incursions, and had long since returned; and that the Government, having learnt from the Cingalese on the borders of my detachment having been in Candy, had despaired of our ever returning. It does not become me to decide on the origin of this unfortunate mistake, or to pronounce whether the fault lay in the orders, or in my interpretation of them. The General, on making the tour of our stations, had taken great pains to explain to me the nature of his plans, the ultimate object of which was the possession of Candy; nor did he, in the various conversations I had the honour to hold with him on that subject, seem to entertain any doubt of the practicability of the proposed plan of operations. These conversations were followed by an order to march, transmitted from Trincomalé; and so fully convinced was I that everything was in a complete state of preparation, that I considered the orders of the 8th in no other light than as a modification of the preceding instructions, as a change of the day of march and of the route; I never entertained the most distant idea that _the plan_ was relinquished; as, after the devastation of that part of the country pointed out in the instructions, no ulterior object being presented, the original purport of the occupation of the enemy's capital remained unrevoked, and consequently to be followed up. Cut off as I was by the remoteness of Batticolo from any intercourse with the other stations, I had no intimation of the changes that had taken place with respect to the destination of the other columns, to the commanders of which the orders had, it seems, been more explicit. I hope that it may be allowed me to remark, that the General had seen some of them more recently than he had communicated with me; that the territory adjoining their districts was in general better known, and of course susceptible of clearer description than the province of Ouva. It appeared, however, necessary that an affair attended with such serious consequences should undergo investigation, and I was ordered round to Columbo, where a Court of Inquiry was held upon my conduct. The decision of the Court was, that I had not disobeyed my orders in going to Candy. The success of so small a force in penetrating unsupported to the Candian capital, and afterwards effecting its retreat, created considerable surprise throughout the island. The capital had never before been attempted with so inconsiderable a force. The troops under General Macdowal, in 1803, exceeded 3,000 men, and those the flower of the Ceylon army. I have before remarked, that 1,000 men were even considered necessary to defend the town during the monsoon, though protected by works; and intervening events had rendered the Candians more formidable. They had gained to their service 500 well-disciplined Malays and Sepoys, with a number of gun Lascars, and 1,000 stand of serviceable English muskets, with a supply of ammunition. The continued skirmishes in which they had been engaged with us since that period, together with their occasional successes, had made them more expert, and given them a greater degree of confidence than they had at the commencement of the war. A larger force than had been employed under General Macdowal and Lieutenant-Colonel Barbut was, therefore, prepared for the combined attack. Of the six divisions, mine was not only the smallest in point of numbers, but certainly the worst equipped. Colonel Maddison, who commanded the Hambingtotte detachment, with which I was to have formed a junction at the entrance of the province of Ouva, I now learnt did not receive my letter till after his return, and his guides led him into a part of the country where there was no water to be procured; consequently he was under the necessity of changing his route; and instead of advancing to the northward and westward and entering Ouva, where his presence, though we might not have met, would have embarrassed the enemy, he was forced to keep entirely to the southward, so that I derived no assistance from the co-operation of that officer. The other four divisions which entered the enemy's country, had they remained long enough, would have caused a powerful diversion in my favour; but, after having carried into execution their instructions, the completion of which required but a few days, they returned to their respective districts, where the whole of them had arrived some days before I reached the capital. It was on the return of these detachments that the King issued the proclamation, stating that he had driven five English armies back to the sea. Thus the Candians were enabled to bring their whole force, which had been completely put in motion for the purpose of opposing all our divisions, against my detachment alone; with which, too, the King had every cause to be exasperated, in consequence of our having burnt his favourite palace of Condasaly, as well as that near Pangaram. Harassed continually by the enemy, with, latterly, not a round of ammunition to return his fire (the few cartridges which were preserved by some of the Europeans as their last hope, being rendered useless by the rain, and their muskets entirely unserviceable), it cannot be surprising that our loss should have been great. In these respects the enemy had the advantage of us, their powder being preserved from damp in cocoa-nut shells, and their arms provided with guards made of skin or waxed cloth, which completely secured the locks from wet. But the Candians were not our only enemies, we had to contend with hunger, fatigue, extremes of heat and cold, besides all the diseases incidental to so unhealthy a climate.[4] [4] The following instances are convincing proofs of the insalubrity of the interior of Ceylon. On the 13th of March, 1803, the grenadier company of the 65th, under Captain Bullock, consisting of 3 officers and 75 men, marched from Columbo for Cattadinia, a small post in the interior. At the end of the month, without any loss by the enemy, the whole fell victims to the climate, excepting Lieutenant Hutchins and two privates. They were all robust young men, from 18 to 23 years of age, and had only landed from the Cape of Good Hope early in November. On the 11th of April, 400 men of the 51st regiment appeared under arms at Columbo, on their arrival from Candy. In little more than two months 300 of them were buried, having laid the foundation of disease in the interior. At an early stage of the retreat, I had been obliged to leave behind me the doolies, from the impossibility of getting them on, in consequence of abattis and other obstacles being placed in the line of our march. Many of the Coolies had been either killed or wounded, several had deserted, and of those that remained few were in a situation to carry a burthen. I was, therefore, obliged to have the men whose cases were the most desperate, carried along on cloths fastened to poles, whilst the others got on by leaning on their less exhausted comrades. Our progress was consequently very slow; nor was it, for the first three days, permitted us to halt, during the day, even for a single moment, to dress our wounded men, the least delay enabling the enemy to oppose fresh obstacles to our retreat. Latterly, when less pressed by the enemy, it was out of the surgeon's power to be of much assistance to the wounded, the Coolie who carried the medicines and instruments having deserted; consequently the wounds in general became ill-conditioned, and at length so offensive to the patients themselves as scarcely to be borne. Those of the detachment who had hitherto escaped sickness and wounds, were emaciated, sallow, and debilitated to an extreme degree. They were almost all barefooted; and many of those who had escaped the fire of the enemy, fell victims, after our arrival at Trincomalé, to the effects of their previous sufferings. Amongst those, I am sorry to mention Lieutenant Rogers, of the Bengal Sepoys, who died of a fever a few days after his return. This officer, by his exertions during the retreat, and especially after I had lost the services of Lieutenants Vincent and Smith, had, by his activity and zeal, rendered most essential services to the detachment. He was ever foremost in danger. To the exertions, indeed, and animating example of the officers in general, and the persevering courage of the soldiers, particularly those of the Royal Artillery and 19th, may be principally attributed the safety of the detachment. _Return of killed, wounded, and missing of the detachment under the command of Captain Johnston._ +---------+---------------------------+ | Detail. | Royal Artill. | +---------+------------+--------------+ | | Sergeants. | Bombardiers. | +---------+------------+--------------+ | Killed | | 1 | | Wounded | 1 | | | Missing | | | +---------+------------+--------------+ | Total | 1 | 1 | +---------+------------+--------------+ +----------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Detail. | 19th Regiment. | +----------+-----------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+ | | Subidars. | Sergeants. | Corporals. | Drummers. | Privates. | +----------+-----------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+ | Killed | | | 1 | | 4 | | Wounded | | 1 | 2 | | 2 | | Missing | 2 | | | | 2 | +----------+-----------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+ | Total | 2 | 1 | 3 | | 8 | +----------+-----------+------------+------------+-----------+-----------+ +-------+----------------------------------------------------------------+ |Detail.| Malay Regiment. | +-------+-----------+--------+-----------+----------+----------+---------+ | | European | Malay | Malay | | | | |Lieutenant.|Captain.|Lieutenant.|Serjeants.|Corporals.|Privates.| +-------+-----------+--------+-----------+----------+----------+---------+ |Killed | | | | | | 3 | |Wounded| | | | | | 4 | |Missing| | | | | | | +-------+-----------+--------+-----------+----------+----------+---------+ | Total | | | | | | 7 | +-------+-----------+--------+-----------+----------+----------+---------+ +---------+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Detail. | Bengal Sepoys. | +---------+------------+---------+----------+--------+---------+---------+ | |Lieutenants.|Jemedars.|Haveldars.|Naigues.|Drummers.|Privates.| +---------+------------+---------+----------+--------+---------+---------+ |Killed | | | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 | |Wounded | | | 1 | 1 | | 27 | |Missing | | | 1 | | | 12 | +---------+------------+---------+----------+--------+---------+---------+ | Total | | | 3 | 2 | 1 | 48 | +---------+------------+---------+----------+--------+---------+---------+ N.B.--Owing to the great desertion (during the latter part of the march) amongst the Coolies and Pioneers, the amount of their killed and wounded could never be ascertained; but there is every reason to believe it was very considerable. Having now related the whole of the circumstances which attended the detachment I had the honour to command during its march to Candy and in its retreat, I must still trespass on the attention of my readers to make a few observations connected with the subject. With respect to the policy or expediency of invading the Candian territory, occupying the capital, cutting roads through the country, or dividing it into several governments, these are considerations, which, however important in their nature, do not come within the scope of my design. The propriety of such measures must greatly depend upon existing circumstances, of which the Government for the time being must be supposed to be the best qualified to judge. This much, however, I think I may venture to suggest, from some experience of the Candian character; that, considering that each European soldier, at his arrival in India, costs the nation at least £100, these objects, even in a financial view of the subject, might be much better attained by the application of a smaller sum to secure, if necessary, an influence at the Court of Candy. But should it be deemed more expedient to have recourse to arms as the best mode of maintaining and extending our ascendancy in Ceylon, I am not without hope that my remarks will be of service to those who may in future be appointed to conduct our military expeditions into the interior of that country. They are perhaps the more necessary, as of the few survivors of the last war, whose experience might be useful, scarcely any are now remaining in the island. What I shall first advert to, as being of most essential importance to our military operations, not only in Ceylon, but in every part of India, is the expediency of European officers learning the native languages. The disadvantages arising from an ignorance of the language of a people whom we command, or with whom we have to negotiate, have been so frequently exemplified in Ceylon, without an adequate remedy having been applied to the evil, that I think it necessary here to offer my sentiments on the subject. The circumstance of being obliged to carry on a conversation by means of an interpreter, forms an almost insuperable bar to confidential intercourse, or acquiring secret information. Many of the Candians are well disposed to communicate the information they possess, in the expectation of reward; but in common with the natives of every part of India, are unwilling to commit themselves in the presence of an interpreter, in whose secrecy they cannot confide, knowing that if betrayed, not only their own lives, but the lives of their families will be forfeited, and their property confiscated. The troops are also in a great measure placed in the power of the interpreter. Through the medium of the questions which he is instructed to put to the guides and spies, he is enabled to penetrate into the views of the commanding officer, and to betray them to the enemy; or, in stating their answers, he may deceive him, by altering, or entirely withholding, information of the greatest importance. The interpreter is ready enough to perceive, and to avail himself of the advantages of his situation. He takes care to place his own particular friends about the commanding officer's person. He holds a sort of court at the place of private residence, to which the guides and spies, or others who have business with the commanding officer, resort, in order to prepare their statements. Thus the spies, who ought never to know each other, get acquainted; and the advantages which might be derived from comparing their different accounts, are, from their opportunities of communication with each other, totally lost. The interpreter, being the immediate executive agent, at once gains an ascendancy over all the natives in the camp, which he not unfrequently abuses; and however ill he may treat them, they never presume to complain, it being a maxim with the natives of India never to complain of a man in power. In this case, also, they are deterred by the consideration, that the person complained against forms their only channel of communication with the commanding officer. When the natives know that the commanding officer understands their language, and that he does not make a confidant of the interpreter, who is generally the Modiliar,[5] they are ever ready to come forward with their information. [5] In Ceylon the native chiefs of districts, and many subordinate officers, have been designated Modiliars; which title, at an early period of the Portuguese government of the island, seems to have been peculiar to the chiefs of the _military_ class; although now held by those who exercise not only the command of _Lascoryns_ (the ancient soldiers of the country), but various civil functions in the districts of Ceylon. Of the great caution observed by the natives of India in respect to what they declare in public, or before interpreters, I have known some striking instances, wherein men have given testimonies, even upon oath, directly opposite to what they had previously stated to me in private and confidential communication; and upon being afterwards reproached for the contradiction, they have persisted in asserting that their _private statement_ was the _true_ one, the declarations which they had made on oath being prompted by fear of giving evidence in a public court, which would tend to injure the cause of one of the chiefs who had great power and influence in the country; that as it was uncertain how long I might remain in command of the district, the offended chief would, sooner or later, find the means of ruining the party; and that the consequences would not even stop here, but the children of the chief would continue to his children the hereditary vengeance of their father. A knowledge of the language also enables us to converse with the men of education among the natives, who are generally communicative and well informed, particularly with what relates to their own country--a species of knowledge of which we stand the most in need. It farther enables us to peruse the writings, and, by instructing us in their origin, teaches us to respect prejudices of which the Indians are extremely tenacious, and which we are too apt at first landing to despise. What great political advantages might be derived from a proper management of these prejudices, experience has amply shown. In a contempt of them, and in an ignorance of the country languages, have originated many of the greatest misfortunes which have befallen us in India. All officers who have served long in that country, whether in the King's or Company's service, must have had personal experience of the great advantages that are to be derived, both in respect to politics and military operations, from a knowledge of the languages: even the reputation of this knowledge will attract to an officer unreserved confidence in communication, and secure him from being deceived by false reports. In the management of the native corps, ignorance of the language is attended with many and great disadvantages. The officer is in that case obliged to employ some native soldier as an interpreter; and those of this class who have, in menial situations, learned to speak a little English, are generally the most unworthy of confidence. Men of this description, for the most part educated in the kitchens of Europeans, or servants in barracks or hospitals, acquire a degree of quickness and intelligence that renders them useful as orderlies, or in other capacities about the persons of European officers, who do not understand the country languages. On Courts-Martial, or in matters of grievance or disputes which the soldiers may wish to submit to their officers, their statements come through these men: but as a trifling bribe will incline them to either side, the disadvantage of being obliged to have recourse to their assistance is obvious. The species of influence which they acquire among the soldiers, from their situation, is almost always abused by them. They even assume more authority than the oldest native commissioned or non-commissioned officers, who may be men of caste and education, whose orders they not only frequently presume to dispute, but encourage others to do the same. This assumption of authority is for the most part acquiesced in, from the danger of complaining against a man who so frequently has it in his power to injure by misrepresenting the complainant to his officers, whose ignorance of the language leaves him at the mercy of his interpreter. Having pointed out the evil, I shall now endeavour to suggest the remedy. The officers belonging to the regular regiments of the line stationed in Ceylon, who are not permanently attached to the island, have no motive to exert themselves in applying to the languages of the country. In the native corps, however, we might expect to find this species of local knowledge. But the Ceylon regiments have been hitherto officered from the line, and many of the captains and field-officers nominated in England. They consequently, on their arrival, find themselves in the command of men whose language they do not understand, and who do not understand theirs. All communications between them are, of course, carried on by means of interpreters. There being no inducements to a permanent residence in Ceylon, either in respect to society, allowances, or scope for military enterprise, it is the wish of every officer to leave it as soon as possible. Under the present state of the establishment, all the exertions of the officers of the native corps (who can never otherwise expect to be removed), are directed to procure an exchange into the line; and hence frequent changes take place in those regiments--a circumstance which totally prevents their applying to the native languages, a knowledge of which can be useful there only. Whilst the service continues to labour under these disadvantages, the evil must remain in full force. It would, therefore, appear necessary that it should in some measure become local, like that of the East India Company's establishments; and that military promotion should be made in some measure dependent on a knowledge of the native languages. They would in that case consider themselves as permanently settled on the island, and look upon their regiments as their homes. Under such a plan, no officer could arrive at any important command without being thoroughly acquainted with the language and customs of the country. And the general would then find amongst his officers, in whose honour he could confide, every species of local knowledge of which he would stand in need; instead of being obliged to seek for it amongst Modiliars, interpreters, and native orderlies. _On the Dress of the Ceylon Troops._ I will now beg leave to submit a few observations on the dress of our troops in Ceylon, which, experience has shown, is ill adapted to the country and species of warfare in which they are likely to be employed. In making these observation, the result of local experience, I trust I shall not be considered as interfering unbecomingly with the existing regulations of the army, the efficiency of which, so far as they relate to the dress and equipment of the troops acting in our distant colonies, may be best ascertained by those officers who have served with them; as one of whom (but with the utmost deference to the authority of men more competent to discuss and decide on the subject) I merely submit my opinion. Situated as England now is with her colonies, so extensive in themselves, so widely dispersed, and consequently embracing a variety of climates, it seems obvious that we must be guided in a great degree in the formation and dress of our troops (particularly those raised in the colonies), by the climate and nature of the country in which they are to serve, and by the description of enemy against whom they are most likely to contend; as well as by the character, habits, and prejudices of the people who compose these corps. Surely the same dress which is adapted to the snows of Canada would not answer in the burning plains of Hindostan; nor ought the same tactics that are practised in Europe, where armies are formed with numerous and well-appointed bodies of cavalry, and immense trains of artillery, be resorted to in the mountains of Ceylon, where a horse is scarcely known, and where the smallest piece of ordnance cannot be transported without the greatest difficulty. The great objects to which we should direct our attention (next to the health of the soldier), are a celerity of movement, and a facility of approaching the enemy unperceived, so as to take him by surprise. Throughout the late war the Candians always showed a disposition to avoid our troops in the open field, by immediately betaking themselves to the woods or mountains the instant they had notice of our approach, from whence they could keep up a galling fire on our line, or whatever division of our troops became, from their situation, most favourable for this mode of attack; and unless an opportunity presented itself of stealing on them unawares, we scarcely ever could boast of doing much execution. In a country so mountainous and woody as the interior of Ceylon, where the route must frequently wind through narrow and rugged defiles, or over heights ascended with vast labour and fatigue, it is of great consequence that the soldier should be freed as much as possible from every unnecessary incumbrance, in order to lessen the comparative disadvantages under which he is to act against an enemy whose only covering is a cloth wrapped round his loins, in the fold of which is deposited a cocoa-nut shell containing his gunpowder, with a few dozen balls, and who is, moreover, familiar with every little path by which he may advance or retreat. It is easy to conceive how difficult it must be for our troops, toiling as they are accustomed to do under heavy burdens, ever to come up with such an enemy but by surprise. The rays of the sun, however, reflected from the bright arms and large brass plates in front of the soldier's cap, together with his red jacket, white pantaloons, and white belts, discover him to the enemy from a considerable distance, and not only render any surprise by day impossible, but point him out as a fair object for the enemy's marksmen. Of the comparative disadvantages arising from our dress I had frequently the most striking proofs, in being able to discover any movement of our troops at the distance of several miles, merely by the glittering of their arms and appointments; whereas, though at the same time surrounded by thousands of the enemy, I could scarcely distinguish a man. In order, therefore, to remedy these disadvantages, I would in the first instance suggest, that, for the common musket, be substituted one of a lighter kind (for instance, a carabine), and that the barrel be stained like that of our light regiments. I would also provide every lock with a guard composed of skin or oilcloth, which would always preserve it dry and efficient. The heavy dews, which constantly fall during the nights, have the same effect on the foliage of the woods as that produced by violent rain; thus it frequently happened, that, from the soldier's being incapable of securing his arms or the lock from the wet, when marching through a close country, his musket became utterly unserviceable; while the enemy, who invariably adopted the above plan, were generally enabled (even during a heavy rain) to keep up a constant fire from the midst of their woods, where it was impossible for us to penetrate, in order to dislodge them with the bayonet. With respect to the colour of the uniform, it ought to assimilate as much as possible to that of the surrounding objects. I would, therefore, recommend a green or grey jacket and trowsers, black belts, with a hat free from all those ornaments now in use, which serve to draw on the soldier the fire of the enemy. The present cap appears, indeed, but ill calculated for the Ceylon troops; as, in addition to the warmth that a large heated brass plate must naturally communicate to the head, all the lower part of the soldier's head and neck is entirely exposed to the sun and rain; and there being nothing to convey the water that falls on the cap over the cape of his jacket, it consequently runs down his back, and he finds himself wet to the skin long before it has penetrated his great coat. Thus circumstanced, he becomes cold and chilly, if not in continual motion; and when on duty at night, or without the means of procuring dry clothes, it must lay the foundation of many diseases, but particularly that known by the name of the jungle fever, which generally proved so fatal to our troops when serving in the interior. The glazed peak in front of the cap reflects the glare from the hot sand on the eyes, which for the time is unpleasant, and must in the end injure the sight. Some regiments adopted an entire glazed leather cap, which is assuredly much worse than the beaver, as it becomes in a short time infinitely more heated, and as soon as the soldier begins to perspire, the leather becomes moist, and attaches itself so closely to the head as to prevent all circulation of fresh air within; the confined air then, from the heat occasioned by the warm leather as well as that of the man's head, soon becomes many degrees warmer than the atmosphere. These caps were introduced in Ceylon a short time before I left it; and I always found that the sentries and soldiers, who were for any time exposed to the sun, complained of headaches, which they attributed to the cap. I can speak from my own experience, that even at a common field-day, though in the morning, before the sun became very powerful, I was regularly attacked by a violent headache, which generally continued during the remainder of the day; though, after a much longer exposure to the sun, even during the heat of the day (when in a round hat), I felt little inconvenience. Another disadvantage attending these caps is, that from the great trouble of cleaning them, the soldiers were in the habit, when out of sight of the officers, to take them from their heads, and carry them in a cloth, to prevent the varnish from being melted by the sun or injured by the rain; thus rather choosing to expose their bare heads to the weather than undergo the labour of repolishing them. White, from its being the greatest non-conductor of heat, is therefore best calculated for warm climates. The following extract from Dr. Franklin, on the subject of heat, may not perhaps prove uninteresting or useless:-- "As to the different degrees of heat imbibed from the sun's rays by cloths of different colours, since I cannot find the notes of my experiment to send you, I must give it as well as I can from memory. "But first let me mention an experiment you may easily make yourself. Walk but a quarter of an hour in your garden when the sun shines, with a part of your dress white, and a part black; then apply your hand to them alternately, and you will find a very great difference in their warmth. The black will be quite hot to the touch, the white still cool. "Another. Try to fire the paper with a burning glass. If it is white, you will not easily burn it, but if you bring the focus to a black spot, or upon letters, written or printed, the paper will immediately be on fire under the letters. "Thus fullers and dyers find black cloths, of equal thickness with white ones, and hung out equally wet, dry in the sun much sooner than the white, being more readily heated by the sun's rays. It is the same before a fire; the heat of which sooner penetrates black stockings than white ones, and so is apt sooner to burn a man's shins. Also beer much sooner warms in a black mug set before the fire, than in a white one, or in a bright silver tankard. "My experiment was this. I took a number of little square pieces of broadcloth from a tailor's pattern-card, of various colours. There were black, deep blue, lighter blue, green, purple, red, yellow, white, and other colours, or shades of colours. I laid them all out upon the snow in a bright sunshiny morning. In a few hours (I cannot now be exact as to the time) the black, being warmed most by the sun, was sunk so low as to be below the stroke of the sun's rays; the dark blue almost as low, the lighter blue not quite so much as the dark, the other colours less as they were lighter; and the quite white remained on the surface of the snow, not having entered it at all. "What signifies philosophy that does not apply to some use? May we not learn from hence, that black clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot sunny climate or season as white ones; because in such clothes the body is more heated by the sun when we walk abroad, and are at the same time heated by the exercise, which double heat is apt to bring on putrid dangerous fevers? That soldiers and seamen, who must march and labour in the sun, should in the East or West Indies have an uniform of white? That summer hats, for men or women, should be white, as repelling that heat which gives headaches to many, and to some the fatal stroke that the French call the _coup de soleil_? That the ladies' summer hats, however, should be lined with black, as not reverberating on their faces those rays which are reflected upwards from the earth or water? That the putting a white cap of paper or linen _within_ the crown of a black hat, as some do, will not keep out the heat, though it would if placed _without_? That fruit-walls being blacked, may receive so much heat from the sun in the day-time, as to continue warm in some degree through the night, and thereby preserve the fruit from frosts, or forward its growth?--with sundry other particulars of less or greater importance, that will occur from time to time to attentive minds?" But it might be objected to in Ceylon, as producing the very evils I would endeavour to correct, that of rendering the soldier too conspicuous. I would recommend, then, a light brown hat, with a brim sufficiently broad to protect the lower part of the head and neck against the sun or rain, and also to conduct the water over the cape of the jacket, without being too large to interfere with the perfect use of the musket; the under part of the brim to be green, as a relief to the eyes. It might also be advisable to have the hat a slight degree larger than the head, to allow of a pad between it and the forehead, for the purpose of leaving an open space round the temples to admit of a free circulation of air. This kind of hat might appear to some unbecoming; but we must recollect, that the health and comfort of the soldier should be our first consideration. _Of the Carriage of Baggage and Stores._ There is nothing that embarrasses more the operations of our Ceylon forces than the carriage of baggage and stores. The general mode of conveyance is either by bullocks or Coolies. Elephants have been also used; but I do not think them well calculated for such a service on this island. Their movements are slow; they are soon fatigued; and, unless long accustomed to the sound, easily alarmed at the firing. They are a good mark for the enemy, and when wounded apt to become unmanageable; in which case the march may even be wholly stopped, as one of these animals, with his load, will completely fill up a narrow pass. When exasperated, the Coolies are afraid to approach him. If his wounds are such as to prevent his proceeding, his load is generally obliged to be left behind; a loss that is much more felt than that of the loads of a few Coolies. In the choice between bullocks and Coolies, when either can be had, we must be guided by the nature of the expedition upon which the troops are to be employed. If the detachment be large, and likely to remain long in the interior, bullocks are preferable, because their keep will not diminish the stores, whilst the Coolies would soon eat up their own loads. The bullocks are of two sorts. They are either the immediate property of Government, or belonging to the inhabitants, and are furnished by the different villages upon requisition. In the latter case, it is always desirable that the proprietors should have charge of them, and be obliged to carry their bags and saddles along with them. The cattle will thus be taken care of, the loads properly balanced, and their backs preserved sound. The bullocks which are the property of Government are usually given in charge to Lascars, or common Coolies, who, having no particular interest in their preservation, are careless in putting on their loads, and neglect to put cloths under them. Thus in a few days the poor animals' backs are dreadfully galled; and, if the greatest care be not taken, their sores fester, and are filled with maggots: notwithstanding which, the drivers will continue to load them, with the greatest indifference. They will also, in order to save themselves the trouble of looking after their cattle, frequently fasten seven or eight of them to a log of wood, by way of security, which, by preventing them from grazing in a manner sufficient for their support, soon reduces them to a state wholly unfit for any kind of service. In order to prevent these inconveniences, it would be advisable to put the bullocks in several small divisions, each under the care of a Congany or Tindal, who should be answerable for the treatment of the bullocks of his divisions; and experienced drivers, accustomed to the care of cattle and to load them properly, should be employed. It would be also desirable that some trustworthy non-commissioned officer should be directed to examine the backs of the cattle daily, and to see that their loads are properly adjusted. If, on the other hand, the detachment be small, and only intended for an incursion for a few days into the enemy's country, when everything will depend upon rapidity of movement, bullocks will not be found to answer; their pace is much too slow for such operations, and it is almost impossible to get them on by night. Coolies alone will here answer the purpose; and with them a great deal of management is necessary. The common mode of making up their loads in gunny bags, used for holding rice on shipboard and in stores, is liable to two objections. 1st.--They afford no defence against the weather, the rain penetrating the bags, and mildewing the rice. 2ndly.--The cloth of which the bags are made is very coarse, and badly sewed; and the rice consequently makes its way through the interstices. The Coolies, also, nothing reluctant to diminish their burdens, will often widen the seams. Thus the route of a detachment may frequently be traced for several miles by the grain strewed on the road. This waste may in some measure be prevented by doubling the bags. But there is nothing equal to the common bags made of mats, which the natives use for their _pingoes_, or loads; they not only prevent waste, but keep the rice long dry. The Coolies frequently plunder their loads; an evil which it is not easy to remedy, as by slipping into the woods unperceived, the Coolie can take out of his gunny bag as much rice as he chooses, and, having concealed it in his cloth, returns to his comrades without having been missed. The best method of preventing this waste appears to be this. Let the quantity of rice sufficient to load all his people be served out to each Congany, for which he is to be held responsible; and let him be punished in case of any remarkable defalcation, making a proper allowance for inevitable wastage. He is the only man capable of checking their thefts. But it is necessary to keep a good look-out on the Congany himself, as it is a common practice among the Conganies to sell the rice entrusted to their care. The same precautions are necessary with regard to the bullock drivers. Here, too, the bags used by the natives should be employed. To persons not accustomed to the species of service which I have been describing, these observations may appear trivial. But they will think otherwise, when they consider that we are speaking of a country in which, if the stock of provisions with which a detachment or an army sets out is either wasted or expended prematurely, it is for the most part impossible to procure a fresh supply. A Commanding Officer, who should unwisely contemn these precautions, might find himself in the disgraceful and dangerous predicament of discovering, when he expected to have provisions enough left for twenty days, that his stock, having been reduced by plunder or neglect, could not last beyond half the period. By these circumstances alone, after having incurred considerable expense towards an expedition, the whole enterprise might be frustrated, and the lives of many valuable soldiers sacrificed. _Guides._ The necessity of experienced guides, so great in all military operations, is more particularly urgent in a country like the interior of Ceylon, intricate in its own nature, and to the knowledge of which we have no access by the usual means of maps. The difficulty of procuring good guides is very great. There are, it is true, always men ready to undertake for hire the task of conducting our troops through the Candian country; but these are either Candian emigrants, who have settled in our possessions, or Lubbies.[6] These persons are in general perfectly well acquainted with the common paths that lead from one village to another, and, in consequence, imagine themselves qualified to fulfil the office of guides. This might, no doubt, be the case, were our troops always to march in daylight, and by these paths only. But as circumstances often require that parties should be sent in various directions about the country, and particularly at night, the most favourable time for attacking the enemy, in such cases, the Lubbies, as they only know the high-roads, can give little or no assistance; and it is seldom that natives, even of the spot on which the operations are to be conducted, are sufficiently acquainted with all the paths and turnings in the forests, to enable them to conduct troops through them at night. In these thick forests it is so dark that, even in the brightest moonlight, it is extremely difficult, and often impossible, for one not perfectly acquainted with the track to discern the footpath. [6] A sect of Mohammedans, supposed to be the descendants of Arab traders, who, at a remote period, mixed with the natives of India, and settled chiefly on the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel. They conduct the chief interior trade of Ceylon, and much of that with the neighbouring coasts. They are considered by the other Mohammedans as a degenerate race, and their character in India bears a near resemblance to that of the _Jews_ in Europe. The indolence of the Cingalese seldom allowing of their clearing away any extent of ground, and the rapidity of vegetation, are other circumstances which increase the difficulty. It is the practice of the inhabitants of each village to join once a-year, for the purpose of cutting away the trees for a considerable extent. After they have remained for some time on the ground till they are dry, they set them on fire, and burn all the branches and light wood, leaving the stumps, which they never root up, as well as the trunks, untouched. This process in some measure clears the ground, which is then hoed, and sown with what is called dry grain. This ground is called by the natives _Chanass_. It is found that soil which has been manured by the leaves rotting upon it for thirty or forty, or, perhaps, a hundred years, and by the ashes of the burnt wood, yields an excellent crop. It is seldom sown above one season, being allowed the year following to run to wood, and fresh spots successively cleared away. Thus, in the course of two or three years, the face of the country is much changed; and a guide, who expects to traverse miles of forest, finds himself all at once in a large chanass. Here the ground is interspersed with stumps, and strewed with trunks of trees, through which it is extremely difficult to march by night. The guide may generally discern the borders of the forest on the opposite side; but, the paths having been effaced by cultivation, he can seldom know at what part to enter. Afraid to confess his ignorance, he goes on entangling the party more and more in the forest, where they wander about all night, finding themselves in the morning, perhaps, many miles distant from the post which was to have been surprised. Neither can any advantage be derived in such situations from a compass. It being impossible to march in a direct line through a thick forest, intersected in many places by rivers and swamps, it is by the paths alone that we must be directed. On such occasions, an officer sent to surprise a post cannot be supposed to find his way to it by working a traverse course. It may also often happen that the guide is in the pay of the enemy, and may first entangle the troops in the forest, and then leave them. It is, therefore, always proper to have him fastened to one of the soldiers. But admitting that the man has no evil intention, it must be extremely difficult for him, from the circumstances stated, to conduct troops properly to the place of their destination. Seeing, then, how much depends, particularly in night enterprises, on the experience and fidelity of the guides, it behoves us to spare neither pains in procuring proper persons, nor expense in rewarding those who faithfully discharge their duty. _Modiliars._ Having, in the former part of this work, given some striking instances of treachery on the part of the Modiliars, it is but justice to declare that it was not meant to convey a general censure on that body. On the contrary, I know there are now in Ceylon some men in that capacity who have served the Dutch and English Governments with fidelity, and enjoy the reputation of high honour; and I have myself derived the greatest assistance from the zeal and exertions of the Modiliar of Batticolo, not only whilst in command of that district, but during the whole of my march to and from Candy. I would take the liberty to recommend as the best line of policy, that our officers, whilst, having the fate of Constantine De Sáa and his army in their recollection, they guard against reposing too blind a confidence in the Modiliars, should carefully conceal from them the doubts which may be entertained of their fidelity, and treat them on all occasions with respect; these people being extremely sensible to slights, and particularly in the presence of their countrymen. _Coolies._ I think it right here to call the attention of the officer to the situation of a class of men, essential to all our military operations in India, without whose aid, indeed, we cannot make the smallest movement. I mean the Coolies. Besides the humanity due to them as fellow-creatures, policy requires that this class of men should be treated with attention and kindness. Hitherto I am sorry to say that they have met with too little consideration in all our military operations. It will be proper, on the line of march, to allow time to the Coolies, who are not provided with Talipot leaves, and even to encourage them to construct huts or wigwams with branches and leaves. By this means their healths might be in a great measure preserved, and, what is of no less importance, they would be more reconciled to the service. It is also essential that the commander of the troops should superintend the payment of the Coolies in person, or by an European officer; as, when the payment is left to their native chiefs, they are frequently defrauded, even to half the amount of their pay, and the odium thrown on the commanding officer. In issuing or explaining orders either to the common Coolies, or their Chiefs, we cannot be too explicit. Many of the interpreters understand English but imperfectly; and when they do not comprehend the order, rather than confess their ignorance by asking for an explanation, they will interpret it according to their own notions of what is meant. Instances of blunders daily occur from this source. Similar mistakes may also arise from Europeans overrating their own knowledge of the native languages. Attention and kindness to the natives, and the exercise of justice towards them, will secure their confidence and affection, which must prove of great advantage to the officers acting with them individually, and to the country at large. Whilst we are lords of the coast, and every person bows to our will, these considerations are of the less importance. But if it should be our fate to contend for our Eastern possessions, against a powerful, active, and intriguing European enemy, it is then we shall derive advantages from the confidence and attachment of the natives. APPENDIX. Corporal Barnsley's Deposition, AS REFERRED TO, PAGE 31; _Made June 27, 1803, before Captain Madge and Captain Pierce, of the 19th Regiment, and Assistant-Surgeon Gillespie, of the Malay Regiment._ "That on the 23rd June, a little before daylight, the Candians commenced an attack on the hill guard, in rear of the palace, on which was a 3-pounder, and took it. That soon after a strong body of the enemy, headed by a Malay chief, made a charge on the eastern barrier, to endeavour to take a gun which was there; they were opposed by Lieutenant Blakeney, at the head of a few men of the 19th, who himself fell in the conflict. That an incessant fire was kept up until two o'clock in the day, when, as the enemy was endeavouring to break in at the rear of the palace, Major Davie hung out a flag of truce, offering to surrender the town, on being permitted to march out with his arms. This they consented to; and Major Davie, after spiking the guns, marched out about five o'clock, and proceeded to Wattapologo, where he was obliged to halt all night, being unable to pass the river. Next morning the Candians sent out four Modiliars to propose, that if Major Davie would give up Boodoo Sawmy (the King whom Governor North placed on the throne of Candy, and who retreated with our troops), they would assist him with boats and rafts to cross the river; on which Major Davie gave him up by his own consent. After which another message was sent, that there were plenty of bamboos and other materials at hand, and they might make rafts for themselves. All that day was employed in endeavouring to make rafts, but they could not succeed in getting a rope across the river, owing to the depth and rapidity of the current; but next day, about ten o'clock, Captain Humphreys, of the Bengal artillery, came and reported that he had succeeded in getting a rope across. About this time some of the Malays and gun Lascars began to desert in small parties; upon which Major Davie ordered the remainder to ground their arms and follow him, with all the officers, back to the garrison. As soon as they had proceeded two hundred yards on their way thither, the Candians stopped them, took the officers on one side, and kept them prisoners for half-an-hour; when this declarent says, he heard shot in the direction of the place where the officers were prisoners, and which was followed by their massacre. That immediately after, they took the European soldiers two by two, and leading them a few yards along the road, knocked them down with the butt end of their pieces, and beat out their brains. That this declarent was also led out with his comrade, and received a blow under the right ear, and a wound on the back of his neck, which the enemy conceiving to be sufficient, then proceeded to the murder of the remainder. That he lay as dead for some time, and in that situation distinctly heard the firing, which he supposes to be the putting them all to death. That he took the opportunity, while this was doing, of crawling into the jungle,[7] where he lay till night, and then proceeded to Fort Macdowal to give the information to Captain Madge. (Signed) "GEORGE X BARNSLEY, "Corporal, 19th Regiment." [7] Forest. * * * * * * Transcriber's note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. 
51621	----	SINHALESE FOLKLORE NOTES CEYLON BY ARTHUR A. PERERA, Advocate, Ceylon. Bombay: PRINTED AT THE BRITISH INDIA PRESS, MAZGAON 1917 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The Sinhalese beliefs, customs and stories in the present collection were contributed by the writer to the Indian Antiquary fourteen years ago in a series of articles under the title of "Glimpses of Sinhalese Social Life"; they are now offered, amplified and rearranged, to the student of folklore in Ceylon, as a basis for further research. The writer has adopted the scheme of classification in the Folklore Society's Hand Book of Folklore. ARTHUR A. PERERA. Westwood, Kandy, 10th February, 1917. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Belief and Practice. Chapter. PAGES 1. The Earth and the Sky 1 2. The Vegetable World 4 3. The Animal World 6 4. Human Beings 11 5. Things made by man 13 6. The Soul and another Life 14 7. Superhuman Beings 15 8. Omens and Divination 21 9. The Magic Art 23 10. Disease and Leech-craft 25 Customs. 11. Social and Political Institutions 26 12. Rites of Individual Life 32 13. Occupations and Industries 36 14. Festivals 40 15. Games, Sports and Pastimes 43 Stories, Songs and Sayings. 16. Stories 47 17. Songs and Ballads 51 18. Proverbs, Riddles and Local Sayings 54 Appendix. Glossary of Sinhalese Folk terms from the Service Tenure Register (1872). SINHALESE FOLKLORE NOTES. CHAPTER I. THE EARTH AND THE SKY. Various beliefs are held by the peasantry about the hills, rocks, boulders and crags scattered about the island. Samanala Kanda (Adam's Peak) which contains the sacred foot print of the Buddha was in prehistoric times sacred to the god Saman who still presides over the mountain. Pilgrims to the Peak invoke his aid in song for a safe journey; and when they reach the top, cover the foot print with four yards of white cloth, pay obeisance to it, recite the articles of the Buddhist Faith, and make a silver offering at the shrine of the Saman Deviyo, which is close by. When worship is over the pilgrims greet each other and sound a bell ringing as many peals as they have visited the Peak. No lizard is heard chirping within the shadow of Hunasgiriya Peak in Pata Dumbara for when the Buddha, on his aerial visit to Ceylon, wished to alight on this mountain a lizard chirped and he passed on to Adam's Peak. Ritigal Kanda (Sanskrit Arishta) in the Nuvara Kalâviya district, S.E. of Anuradhapura and Rummas Kanda (modern Buona Vista) in the Galle district are associated with the Hanuman tradition. It was from Ritigal Kanda that Hanuman jumped across to India to carry the joyful message that he had discovered Sita in Ceylon, and when Lakshman was wounded and a medicinal herb was required for his cure, Hanuman was sent to the Himalayas to fetch it; on the way the name and nature of the plant dropped from his memory; whereupon he snapped a portion of the Himalayas and brought it twisted in his tail and asked Rama to seek for the herb himself. Buona Vista is that portion of the mountain and valuable medicinal herbs are still to be found there. Râvanâ Kotte,--the stronghold of Râvanâ (king of the Rakshas)--was off Kirinda in the Hambantota District and is now submerged. The Great Basses are what is left of this city; the golden twilight seen there of an evening is the reflection of the brazen roofs of the submerged city. Dehi Kanda opposite the Dambulla rock caves in the Matale district is the petrified husk of the rice eaten by the giants who made the caves. Near Sinigama in Wellaboda pattu of the Galle district is shewn a crag as the petrified craft in which Wêragoda Deviyo came to Ceylon from South India. When a severe drought visited the island, an elephant, a tortoise, a beetle, an eel, a goat and a she elephant went in search of water to the tank Wenêru Veva near Kurunegala. A woman who saw this kept a lump of salt before the foremost of them, the elephant; while he was licking it she raised a screen of leaves to conceal the tank from the intruders' view and began to pray; and the gods answered by petrifying the animals, the screen and the lump of salt, all of which are still visible round Kurunegala. "Panduvasa, the seventh king of Ceylon, was visited by the tiger disease, a complicated malady of cough, asthma, fever and diabetes in consequence of Wijeya, the first king, having killed his old benefactor and discarded mistress, Kuvêni, when, in the shape of a tiger, she endeavoured to revenge her slighted charms. The gods taking pity on Panduvasa, consulted by what means he might be restored to health, and found that it could not be effected without the aid of one not born of a woman. The difficulty was to find such a person. Rahu being sent on the service, discovered Malaya Rajâ, king of Malva Dêsa, the son of Vishnu, sprung from a flower. Rahu changing himself into an immense boar, laid waste the royal gardens to the great consternation of the gardeners, who fled to the palace and told what was passing. The king, who was a keen sportsman, hastened to the spot with his huntsmen, whom he ordered to drive the boar towards him. The boar, when pressed, at one bound flew over the head of the king, who shot an arrow through him in passing, but without effect, the animal continuing his flight. The king, irritated, instantly gave pursuit with his attendants in the direction the beast had taken, and landed in Ceylon at Urâtota (Hog ferry) near Jaffna; the boar alighted near Attapitiya. A piece of sweet potato that he brought from the garden in his mouth and which he here dropt was immediately changed, it is said into a rock, that still preserves its original form, and is still called Batalagala or sweet potato rock. The king came up with the beast on the hill Hantana near Kandy, instantly attacked him sword in hand, and with the first blow inflicted a deep gash. On receiving this wound, the boar became transformed into a rock which is now called Uragala, is very like a hog, and is said to retain the mark of the wound. The king, whilst surprised and unable to comprehend the meaning of the marvels he had just witnessed, received a visit from Sakra, Vishnu and other gods who explained the mystery that perplexed him, and the object in view in drawing him to Ceylon--he alone, not being born of woman, having it in his power to break the charm under which Panduvasa laboured. Malaya Rajâ complying with the wishes of the gods, ordered the Kohomba Yakku dance to be performed which, it is said, drove the sickness out of the king into a rock to the northward of Kandy, which is still called the rock of the Tiger sickness." [1] "The spirit of Kuvêni is still supposed to haunt the country and inflict misfortune on the race of the conqueror by whom she was betrayed. Kuvenigala is a bare mountain of rock on which are two stones, one slightly resembling a human figure in a standing attitude, the other looking like a seat. It is on this that traditions assert, the Yakinni sometimes appears and casts the withering glance of malignant power over the fair fields and fertile Valley of Asgiriya--a sequestered and most romantic spot in the Matale District." [2] Rocks with mystic marks indicate the spot where treasures are concealed and lights are seen at night in such places. When the owner of a treasure wanted to keep it safe, it is said that he dug two holes in some lonely jungle and at night proceeded to the spot with a servant carrying the treasure; after the treasure was deposited in one hole, the master cut his servant's throat and buried him in the other to make him a guardian of his treasure in the form of a snake or demon. The earth goddess (Mihi Ket) supports the world on one of her thumbs and when weary shifts it on to the other causing an earthquake. The four cardinal points are presided over by four guardian deities (Hataravaran Deviyô). Sea waves are three in number which follow each other in regular succession. The first and the largest is the brother who fell in love with his sister and who, to conquer his unholy passion, committed suicide by jumping into the sea. The next is his mother who jumped after her son, and the last and the smallest is the daughter herself. The sky in the olden times was very close to the earth, and the stars served as lamps to the people; a woman who was sweeping her compound was so much troubled by the clouds touching her back when she stooped to sweep that she gave the sky a blow with her ikle broom saying 'get away' (pala). The sky in shame immediately flew out of the reach of man. The rainbow is the god Sakra's bow (Devidunne) and portends fair weather; when any calamity is approaching Budures (Buddha's rays) appear in the sky--"a luminous phenomenon consisting of horizontal bands of light which cross the sky while the sun is in the ascendant." The twilight seen on hill tops is the sunshine in which the female Rakshis dry their paddy. Lightning strikes the graves of cruel men; thunder induces conception in female crocodiles and bursts open the peahen's eggs. Children sing out to the moon "Handahamy apatat bat kande ran tetiyak diyo."--(Mr. Moon do give us a golden plate in which to eat our rice). When the new moon is first observed it is lucky to immediately after look on rice, milk or kiss a kind and well to do relative. The spots in the moon represent a hare to signify to the world the self-sacrifice of Buddha in a previous existence. In each year the twelve days (Sankranti) on which the sun moves from one sign of the zodiac to another, are considered unlucky. There are twenty seven constellations (neket) which reach the zenith at midnight on particular days in particular months; and their position is ascertained from an astrologer before any work of importance is begun. The sun, moon, and Rahu were three sons of a widowed mother whom they left at home one day to attend a wedding. When they returned she inquired what they had brought with them; the eldest angrily replied that he had brought nothing, the second threw at her the torch which had lighted them on the way, but the third asked for his mother's rice pot and put into it a few grains of rice, which he had brought concealed under his nails and which miraculously filled the vessel. The mother's blessing made the youngest son the pleasant and cool moon, while her curses made the second the burning sun and the eldest the demon Rahu who tries to destroy his brothers by swallowing them and causing an Eclipse. CHAPTER II. THE VEGETABLE WORLD. Trees which grow to a large size like the Nuga (ficus altissima), Bo (ficus religiosa), Erabadu (erythrina indica), Divul (feroma elephantum) are the abodes of spirits and villagers erect leafy altars under them where they light lamps, offer flowers and burn incense. Before a wood-cutter fells a large tree he visits to it three or four days previously and asks the spirit residing there to take its abode elsewhere; otherwise evil will befall him. On the way to Adam's Peak there are to be found sacred orchards where a person may enter and eat any quantity of fruit but will not be able to find his way out if he tries to bring any with him. The Bo tree is sacred to Buddha and is never cut down; its leaves shiver in remembrance of the great enlightenment which took place under it. His three predecessors in the Buddha hood--Kassapa, Konâgama, Kakusanda--attained enlightenment under the nuga, dimbul and the sirisa. The margosa tree is sacred to Pattini and the telambu tree to Navaratna Wâlli. Each lunar asterism is associated with a particular tree. Homage is paid to an overlord by presenting him with a roll of 40 betel leaves with the stalk ends towards the receiver. Before the betel is chewed, its apex and a piece of the petiole of the base are broken off as a cobra brought the leaf from the lower world holding both ends in its mouth. It is also considered beneath one's dignity to eat the base of the petiole. The flowering of a tala tree (corypha umbraculifera) is inauspicious to the village. A cocoanut only falls on a person who has incurred divine displeasure; it is lucky to own a cocoanut tree with a double stem. A king cocoanut tree near the house brings bad luck to the owner's sons. When a person dies or a child is born a cocoanut blossom is hung over him. The person who plants an arekanut tree becomes subject to nervousness. The woman who chews the scarred slice of an arekanut becomes a widow. If a married woman eats a plantain which is attached to another, she gets twins. An astrologer once told a king that a particular day and hour were so auspicious that anything planted then would become a useful tree. The king directed the astrologer's head to be severed and planted and this grew into the crooked cocoanut tree. Pleased with the result he got his own head severed and planted and it grew into the straight areka tree. Red flowers (rat mal) are sacred to malignant spirits and white flowers (sudu mal) to beneficient spirits. Turmeric water is used for charming and sticks from bitter plants are used as magic wands. The Nâga darana root (martynia diandra) protects a man from snake bite. It is auspicious to have growing near houses the following:--nâ (ironwood), palu (mimusops hexandra), mûnamal (mimusops elengi), sapu (champak), delum (pomegranate), kohomba (margosa), areka, cocoanut, palmyra, jak, shoeflower, idda (wrightia zeylanica), sadikka (nutmeg) and midi (vitis vinifera) while the following are inauspicious:--imbul (cotton), ruk (myristica tursfieldia), mango, beli (aegle marmelos), ehela (cassia fistula), tamarind, satinwood, ratkihiri (accacia catechu), etteriya (murraya exotica) and penala (soap berry plant). Persons taken for execution were formerly made to wear wadamal (hibiscus). The dumella (Trichosanthes cucumerina) and the kekiri (zhenaria umbellata) are rendered bitter, if named before eating. Alocasia yams (habarale) cause a rasping sensation in the throat when they are named within the eater's hearing. When a person is hurt by a nettle, cassia leaves are rubbed on the injured place with the words "tôra kola visa netâ kahambaliyâ visa eta." (Cassia leaves are stingless but prickly is the nettle). Cassia indicates the fertility of the soil; where diyataliya (mexitixia tetrandra) and kumbuk (terminalia tomentosa) flourish a copious supply of water can be obtained. The bark of the bo tree and of the Bômbu (symplocos spicata) prevent the contagion of sore eyes when tied on the arms. In the beginning the only food used by man was an edible fungus like boiled milk which grew spontaneously upon the earth. As man fell from his primitive simplicity this substance disappeared and rice without the husk took its place. But when man became depraved the rice developed a covering and ceased to grow spontaneously forcing men to work. A poor widow had a daughter who married a rich man. One day she went to her daughter's and asked for a little rice to eat. Though the pot of rice was on the fire, the daughter said she had none to give and the mother went away. The daughter found the rice in the pot had turned into blood and she threw it away. The god Sakraya in revenge reduced the daughter to beggary and the mother and daughter on the god's advice dug where the pot of rice had been emptied and found the batala yam (bata rice and lê-blood). Thereafter the batala (Edulis batatas) became the food of the poor. That the jak fruit may be eaten by the people, the god Sakrayâ came to earth as a Brahmin, plucked a fruit and asked a woman to cook it without tasting. The smell was so tempting that she stealthily ate a little of it and was called a thievish woman (hera, thief; and liya woman.) The fruit is consequently called heraliya. A king once directed a jeweller to work in gold a design similar to the club moss; the goldsmith found this so hard that he went mad and the moss is called the jeweller's curse (badal vanassa). The butterfly orchid inflames one's passion and is called the "yam that killed the younger sister" (nagâ meru ale) as a sister once accidentally tasted it and made amorous gestures to her brother who killed her. If a person approaches the mythical Damba tree without a charm he will be killed. The celestial Kapruka gives everything one wishes for. The unknown Visakumbha is an antidote for poison and is eaten by the mungoose after its fight with the cobra. Kusa grass (sevendrâ) exists both on earth and in heaven. The imaginary Kalu nika twig floats against the current, cuts in two the strongest metal; when eaten rejuvenates the old; and to obtain it the young of the etikukulâ (jungle fowl) should be tied by a metal chain when the parents will fetch the twig to release their young. CHAPTER III. THE ANIMAL WORLD. The presence of bats in a house indicates that it will be soon deserted. Medicinal virtues are ascribed to the flesh of monkeys. To look at a slender loris (una hapuluva) brings ill luck and its eyes are used for a love potion. The lion's fat corrodes any vessel except one of gold; its roar which makes one deaf is raised three times--first when it starts from its den, next when it is well on its way, and last when it springs on its victim. It kills elephants but eats only their brain. The unicorn (kangavêna) has a horn on its forehead with which it pierces the rocks that impede its progress. If a dog howls or scratches away the earth before a house it presages illness or death; if it walks on the roof, the house will be deserted, if it sleeps under a bed it is a sign of the occupant's speedy death. A bear throws sand on the eyes of its victim before pouncing on him, and it does not attack persons carrying rockbine (Galpahura). When a person is bitten by a mouse, the wound is burnt with a heated piece of gold. A mouse after drinking toddy boasts that it can break up the cat into seven pieces. A kick from a wild rat (valmiyâ) produces paralysis. The porcupine (ittêvâ) shoots its quills to keep off its antagonists and hunts the pengolin (kebellevâ) out of its home and occupies it himself. A cheetah likes the warmth of a blaze and comes near the cultivator's watch fire in the field, calls him by name and devours him; it frequents where peacocks abound; it does not eat the victim that falls with the right side uppermost. Small pox patients are carried away by this animal which is attracted by the offensive smell they emanate; when the cheetah gets a sore mouth by eating the wild herb mîmanadandu, it swallows lumps of clay to allay its hunger; its skin and claws are used as amulets; the female cheetah gives birth only once and has no subsequent intercourse with her mate owing to the severe travail; the cheetah was taught by the cat to climb up a tree but not to climb down; in revenge it always kills its tutor but is reverent enough not to make a meal of the body which it places on an elevated spot and worships. One in a thousand cheetahs has the jaya-revula (lucky side whiskers) which never fails to bring good fortune if worn as an amulet. The cheetah, the lizard and the crocodile were three brothers, herdsmen, skilled in necromancy; as the animals they were looking after refused to yield milk, the eldest transformed himself into a cheetah, and the evil nature of the beast asserting itself he began to destroy the flock and attack the brothers; the youngest took refuge on a tree transforming himself into a lizard and the other who had the magical books turned himself into a crocodile and jumped into a river; these three have ever since lived in friendship and a person who escapes the crocodile is killed if a lizard urinates on him when sleeping; a crocodile's victim can free himself by tickling its stomach and trying to take away the books concealed there. A cat becomes excited by eating the root of the acolypha indica (kuppamêniya) and its bite makes one lean; its caterwauling is unlucky. The grey mungoose bites as an antidote a plant not identified called visakumbha before and after its fight with the cobra; when it finds difficulty in fighting the cobra, it retires to the jungle and brings on its back the king of the tribe, a white animal, by whom or in whose presence the cobra is easily killed. The hare gives birth to its young on full moon days, one of them has a crescent on its forehead and dies the first day it sees the moon or invariably becomes a prey to the rat snake. When a tooth drops, its owner throws it on to the roof saying squirrel, dear squirrel, take this tooth and give me a dainty one in return (lenô lenô me data aran venin datak diyô). Goblins are afraid of cattle with crumpled horns; a stick of the leea sambucina (burulla) is not used to drive cattle as it makes them lean; the saliva from the mouth of a tired bull is rubbed on its body to relieve its fatigue, and bezoar stones (gôrôchana) found in cattle are prescribed for small pox. In the olden time the ox had no horns but had teeth in both its jaws, while the horse had horns but had no teeth in its upper jaw; each coveted the other's possessions and effected an exchange; the ox taking the horns and giving the horse its upper row of teeth; cart bulls are driven with the words 'jah,' 'pita,' 'mak,' 'hov'.--move, to the right, to the left, halt. Wild buffaloes are susceptible to charms. Deer's musk prolongs a dying man's life. An elephant shakes a palm leaf before eating it as bloodsuckers may be lurking there to creep inside its trunk. A dead elephant is never found for when death approaches the elephant goes to a secluded spot and lays itself down to die. Children who are made to pass under an elephant's body become strong and are free from illness. When the keeper says 'hari hari,' the elephant moves; 'ho ho' it stops, 'dhana' it kneels; 'hinda', it lies down; 'daha', it gets up; 'bila' it lifts the fore foot; 'hayi,' it lifts its trunk and trumpets. A shower during sunshine denotes the jackal's wedding day; a jackal always joins the cry of its friends, otherwise its hair will drop off one by one; a jackal's horn (narianga) is very rare and it gives the possessor everything he wishes for and when buried in a threshing floor increases the crop, a hundred fold. The jackals assisted by the denizens of the woods once waged war against the wild fowls (welikukulô) who called to their aid a party of men one of whom seized the king of the jackals and dashed him on a rock and broke his jaw; as the king received the blow he raised the cry, apoi mage hakka (Oh my jaw), which could still be heard in the jackal's howl. The wild fowls are still the enemies of the jackals. The jackals and the crabs have also a feud between them; a jackal once deceived a crocodile on the promise of getting the latter a wife and got himself ferried across the river for several days till he had consumed the carcase of the elephant on the other bank. A crab undertook to assist the crocodile to take revenge, invited the jackal to a feast and suggested to him to go to the riverside for a drink of water. The jackal consented but on seeing his enemy lying in wait killed the crab for his treachery. Dark plumaged birds like the owl, the magpie robin and the black bird bring ill luck and are chased away from the vicinity of houses. The cry of the night heron (kana-koka) as it flies over a house presages illness and that of the devil bird (ulamâ) death. The devil bird was in a previous birth a wife whose fidelity her husband suspected and in revenge killed their child, made a curry of its flesh and gave it to the mother; as she was eating she found the finger of the infant and in grief she fled into the forest, killed herself, and was born the devil bird. Crows are divided into two castes which do not mate, the hooded crows and the jungle crows; they faint three times at night through hunger and their insatiate appetite can only be temporarily appeased by making them swallow rags dipped in ghee; they hatch their eggs in time to take their young to the Ehela festival held in honour of the godlings during July and August. A crow seldom dies a natural death, and once in a hundred years a feather drops. As no one eats its flesh it sorrowfully cries kâtka (I eat every body). The king crow was once a barber and it now pecks its dishonest debtor, the crow. The presence of sparrows in a house indicates that a male child will be born and when they play in the sand that there will be rain. Once upon a time a house, where a pair of sparrows had built their nest caught fire; the hen sparrow flew away but the male bird tried to save their young and scorched his throat; this scar can still be seen on the cock sparrow. A house will be temporarily abandoned if a spotted dove (alukobeyiyâ) flies through it; this bird was once a woman who put out to dry some mî flowers (bassia longifolia) and asked her little son to watch them; when they were parched they got stuck to the ground and could not be seen; the mother thought the child had been negligent and killed him in anger; a shower of rain which fell just then showed to her the lost herbs and in remorse she killed herself and was born the spotted dove, who still laments. "I got back my mî flowers but not my son, Oh my child, my child" (mimal latin daru no latin pubbaru putê pû pû). Parrots are proverbially ungrateful; sunbirds boast after a copious draught of toddy that they can overthrow Maha Meru with their tiny beaks. The great difficulty of the horn-bill (kendetta) to drink water is due to its refusal to give water to a thirsty person in a previous existence. The common babbler hops as he was once a fettered prisoner. The red tailed fly catcher was a fire thief, and the white tailed one a cloth thief. A white cock brings luck and prevents a garden from being destroyed by black beetles. When a hen has hatched the shells are not thrown away but threaded together and kept in a loft over the fireplace till the chickens can look after of themselves. Ceylon jungle fowls become blind by eating strobilanthes seed when they may be knocked down with a stick. The cuckoo searches for its young, ejected from the crow's nest, crying koho (where) and its cry at night portends dry weather. The plover (kiralâ) sleeps with her legs in the air to prevent the sky falling down and crushing her young; her eggs, when eaten, induce watchfulness. Peacocks dance in the morning to pay obeisance to the Sun God, and they are not kept as pets in houses as the girls will not find suitors. Peahens conceive at the noise of thunder and hence their love for rain. Some say that the peacock once fell in love with the swan king's daughter and when going to solicit her hand borrowed the pitta's beautiful tail which he refused to return after winning his bride; the peahen pecks at the male bird's train during the mating season, angry at the deception practised on her while the pittâ goes about crying "avichchi" (I shall complain when the Maitri Buddun comes.) Others say that the peacock stole the garments while pittâ was bathing. The cry of the pittâ (avichchya) presages rain; and it is thought to be a sorrow stricken prince mourning for his beautiful bride Ayittâ and hence his cry. Leeches are engaged in measuring the ground. Snails were persons who in a previous birth used to spit at others; their slime when rubbed on one's body makes one strong. Worms attack flowers in November and are influenced by charms. Retribution visits one who ruthlessly destroys the clay nest of the mason wasp (kumbalâ); a ran kumbalâ builds a nest with lime when a boy is to be born in the house and a metikumbalâ with clay when a girl. Winged termites issue in swarms in the rainy season and prognosticate a large catch of fish. Spiders were fishermen in a previous existence and the mantis religiosa (dara kettiyâ) a fire-wood thief. Bugs infest a house when misfortune is impending and crickets (reheyyô) stridulate till they burst. It is lucky to have ants carrying their eggs about a house, but it is unlucky for the head of the house when large black ants enter it. When a person is in a bad temper it is sarcastically said that a large sized red ant has broken wind on him. The small red myriapod (kanvêyâ) causes death by entering the ear. Every new born child has a louse on its head which is not killed but thrown away or put on another's head. As the finger is taken round the bimûrâ (a burrowing insect,) it dances to the couplet "bim ûrâ bim ûrâ tôt natâpiya, mât nattanan." (Bimûrâ bimûrâ, you better dance and I too shall dance.) Butterflies go on a pilgrimage from November to February to Adam's Peak against which they dash themselves and die in sacrifice. Centipedes run away when their name is mentioned; they are as much affected as the man they bite. The black beetle is the messenger of death to find out how many persons there are in a house; if it comes down on three taps from an ikle broom its intentions are evil; it is seldom killed, but wrapt in a piece of white cloth and thrown away or kept in a corner. The presence of fire flies in a house indicate that it will be broken into or deserted; if one alights on a person, some loss will ensue; if it is picked up, anything then wished for will be fulfilled; the fireflies had refused to give light to one in need of it in a previous existence; their bite requires "the mud of the deep sea and the stars of the sky for a cure"--a cryptic way of saying "salt from the sea and gum from the eye." A crocodile makes lumps of clay to while away the time; it throws up its prey as it carries it away and catches it with its mouth; its female becomes pregnant at the sound of thunder without any cohabitation; at certain times of the year the crocodile's mouth is shut fast; whenever its mouth opens, its eyes close. The flesh of the iguana is nutritious and never disagrees. The kabaragoya is requisitioned to make a deadly and leprosy-begetting poison which is injected into the veins of a betel leaf and given to an enemy to chew; three of these reptiles are tied to the three stones in a fireplace facing each other with a fourth suspended over them; a pot is placed in the centre into which they pour out their venom as they get heated. The blood-sucker indicates by the upward motion of its head that girls should be unearthed, and by the downward motion that its inveterate tormentors the boys should be buried. Chameleons embody the spirits of women who have died in parturition. The cry of frogs is a sign that rain is impending and the fluid they eject is poisonous; if frogs that infest a house be removed to any distance, they always come back; a person becomes lean if a tree-frog jumps on him. A python swallows a deer whole and then goes between the trunks of two trees growing near each other to crush the bones of its prey; its oil cures any bad cut or wound. Venomous reptiles are hung up after they are killed or are burnt. The cobra is held sacred and rarely killed; when caught it is enclosed in a mat bag with some boiled rice and floated on a river or stream; a person killing a cobra dies or suffers some misfortune within seven days. Some cobras have a gem in their throats which they keep out to entice insects; they kill themselves if this be taken from them which can be done by getting on to a tree and throwing cowdung over the gem. Cobras are fond of sandal wood and the sweet smelling flowers of the screw pine, and are attracted by music. Their bite is fatal on Sundays. Martynia diandra (nâgadarana) protects a man from the bite of the cobra. There are seven varieties of vipers; of these the bite of the nidi polangâ causes a deep sleep, and of the le polangâ a discharge of blood. When her skin is distended with offspring, the female viper expires and the young make their escape out of the decomposing body. Cobras and vipers keep up an ancient feud; during a certain hot season a child was playing inside a vessel full of water and a thirsty cobra drank of it without hurting the child; a thirsty viper met the cobra and was told where water was to be found on the viper's promise that it will not injure the child; as the viper was drinking the water, the child playfully struck it and the viper bit him to death; the cobra who had followed the viper killed it for breaking its promise. The green whip snake (ehetullâ) attacks the eyes of those who approach it and the shadow of the brown whip snake (hena kandaya) makes one lame or paralytic. A rat snake seldom bites, but if it does, the wound ends fatally only if cowdung is trampled on. The aharakukkâ (tropidonoms stolichus) lives in groups of seven and when one is killed the others come in search of it. A mapila (dipsas forstenii) reaches its victim on the floor by several of them linking together and hanging from the roof. The legendary kobô snake loses a joint of its tail every time it expends its poison, till one joint is left, when it assumes wings and the head of a toad; with the last bite both the victim and the snake die. CHAPTER IV. HUMAN BEINGS. It is considered unlucky to lie down when the sun is setting; to sleep with the head towards the west or with the hands between the thighs; to clasp one's hands across the head or to eat with the head resting on a hand; to strike the plate with the fingers after taking a meal; to give to another's hand worthless things like chunam or charcoal without keeping them on something, and for a female to have a hairy person. It is thought auspicious to eat facing eastwards, to gaze at the full moon and then at the face of a kind relative or a wealthy friend; to have a girl as the eldest in the family; to have a cavity between the upper front teeth: and if a male to have a hairy body. If a person yawns loud the crop of seven of his fields will be destroyed; a child's yawn indicates that it is becoming capable of taking a larger quantity of food. If a person bathes on a Friday it is bad for his sons, if on a Tuesday for himself; if he laughs immoderately he will soon have an occasion to cry; if he allows another's leg to be taken over him he will be stunted in his growth; if he passes under another's arm he will cause the latter to get a boil under the armpit, which can be averted by his returning the same way. If a person eats standing, or tramples a jak fruit with one foot only he will get elephantiasis; if he eats walking about he will have to beg his bread; if he gazes at the moon and finds its reflection round his own shadow his end is near. If the second toe of a female be longer than the big toe she will master her husband; if the left eye of a male throbs, it portends grief, the right pleasure--of a female it is the reverse. If the eyebrows of a woman meet she will outlive her husband; if of a man he will be a widower; if a male eats burnt rice his beard will grow on one side only; if the tongue frequently touches where a tooth has fallen the new tooth will come out projecting; if an eye tooth be extracted it will cause blindness. A sneeze from the right nostril signifies that good is being spoken of the person, from the left ill; when an infant sneezes a stander by says "ayi-bôvan" (long life to you). If a child cuts its upper front teeth first, it portends evil to its parents; a child sucks its toe when it has drunk seven pots of milk. An infant whimpers in its sleep when spirits say that its father is dead as it had never seen him, but smiles when they say its mother is dead as it knows she has nursed it only a little while before. Mothers hush crying children by calling on the kidnapping goblin Billâ or Gurubâliyâ. A person who dangles his legs when seated digs his mother's grave. As one with a hairy whorl on his back will meet with a watery death, he avoids seas and rivers. Everyone's future is stamped on his head; flowers on the nails signify illness and the itching sensation in one's palm that he will get money. It is bad to raise one's forefinger as he takes his handful of rice to his mouth as he thereby chides the rice. No one takes his meal in the presence of a stranger without giving him a share as it will disagree with him. If any envious person speaks of the number of children in another's family or praises them the party affected spits out loud to counteract the evil. Two people who are the first born of parents are never allowed to marry as their children rarely live. The dead body of a first male child of parents who are themselves the first born of their parents is regarded as having magical powers and sorcerers try to obtain it; if this be done the mother will not bear any more children; to prevent this it is buried near the house. When a mother's pregnancy desires are not satisfied the child's ears fester. Pollution caused by a death lasts three months, by child birth one month, by a maid attaining puberty fourteen days, and by the monthly turn of a woman till she bathes. Every person has in a more or less degree on certain days an evil eye and a malevolent mouth; to avoid the evil eye black pots with chunam marks and hideous figures are placed before houses; children are marked between the eyes with a black streak, chanks are tied round the forehead of cattle, branches of fruit are concealed with a covering made of palm leaves and festive processions are preceded by mummeries. Serious consequences befall a person who recites ironically laudatory verses written by a person with a malevolent mouth. Assumption of high office and marriage ceremonies are fraught with ill to the persons concerned owing to the evil eye and malevolent mouth. The kalawa (principle of life,) in man rises with the new moon from the left toe and travels during the lunar month up to the head and down again to the right foot. Any injury however slight to the spot where it resides causes death. Its movements are reversed in a woman, in whom it travels up from the right toe and comes down on the left side. The course it takes is (1) big toe of foot; (2) sole of foot; (3) calf; (4) knee cap; (5) lingam; (6) side of stomach; (7) pap; (8) armpit; (9) side of neck; (10) side of throat; (11) side of lip; (12) side of cheek; (13) eye; (14) side of head; (15) other side of head; (16) eye; (17) side of cheek; and so on till the big toe of the other foot is reached. CHAPTER V. THINGS MADE BY MAN. Houses are not built with a frontage towards the South-East for fear of destruction by fire as it is known as the fire quarter (ginikona). A lucky position of the constellations (neket) is ascertained before the first pillar of a house is erected, before a door frame of a new house is set or a new house is tiled, before a new house is entered or a fire kindled or furniture taken in or before a tree is planted or a well dug. When several deaths take place in a dwelling house, it is deserted. Whole villages are sometimes deserted in case of an epidemic. The fire that is first kindled in a new house is arranged in the main room and over it is placed a new pot full of milk resting on three stones or three green sticks placed like a tripod. As the milk begins to boil, pounded rice is put into it. The goddess of fortune is said to leave a dwelling house which is not swept and kept clean. As a newly married couple crosses the threshold a husked cocoanut is cut in two. To avoid the evil eye black pots with white chunam marks and hideous figures are placed before houses and in orchards. When a child is born, if it be a boy a pestle is thrown from one side of the hut to the other, if a girl an ikle broom. All the personal belongings of a dead man are given away in charity. Paddy is not pounded in a house where a person has died as the spirit will be attracted by the noise. When the daily supply of rice is being given out, if the winnowing fan or the measure drops, it denotes that extra mouths will have to be fed. If a person talks while the grain is being put into the pot, it will not be well boiled. In the field things are not called by their proper names, no sad news is broken and a shade over the head is not permitted. In drawing toddy from the kitul tree, (caryota urens) a knife which has already been used is preferred to another. If a grave be dug and then closed up to dig a second, or if a coffin be too large for the corpse, or if the burial be on a Friday there will soon be another death in the family. CHAPTER VI. THE SOUL AND ANOTHER LIFE. When a person dies everything is done to prevent the disembodied spirit being attracted to its old home or disturbed. Even paddy is not pounded in the house as the sound may attract it. The day after burial the dead man's belongings are given away in charity and an almsgiving of kenda (rice gruel) to priests or beggars takes place. A little of the kenda in a gotuwa (leaf cup) is kept on a tree or at a meeting of roads and if a crow or any other bird eats it, it is a sign that the deceased is happy; otherwise it indicates that it has become a perturbed spirit. Seven days after, there is an almsgiving of rice when a gotuwa of rice is similarly made use of for a further sign. Three months after is the last almsgiving which is done on a large scale; relatives are invited for a feast and all signs of sorrow are banished from that day. The object of this last almsgiving is to make the disembodied spirit cease to long for the things he has left behind and if this be not done the spirit of the dead person approaches the boundary fence of the garden; if the omission be not made good after six months it takes its stand near the well; when nine months have elapsed it comes near the doorway, and after twelve months it enters the house and makes its presence felt by emitting offensive smells and contaminating food as a Peretayâ or by destroying the pots and plates of the house and pelting stones as a gevalayâ or by apparitions as an avatâré or by creating strange sounds as a holmana; it is afraid of iron and lime and when over boisterous a kattadiya rids it from the house by nailing it to a tree, or enclosing it in a small receptacle and throwing it into the sea where it is so confined till some one unwittingly sets it free when it recommences its tricks with double force. A woman who dies in parturition and is buried with the child becomes a bodirima; she is short and fat, rolls like a cask, kills men whenever she can; if a lamp and some betel leaves be kept where she haunts she will be seen heating a leaf and warming her side; the women chase her away with threats of beating her with an ikle broom; if shot at she turns into a chameleon (yak katussâ). If a person dreams of a dead relative he gives food to a beggar the next morning. CHAPTER VII. SUPERHUMAN BEINGS. The three sources of superhuman influence from which the Singhalese peasantry expect good or ill are (1) the spirits of disease and poverty; (2) tutelary spirits of various grades and (3) the planetary spirits. There are several important spirits of disease such as Maha Sohona, Riri Yakâ, Kalu Kumâra Yakâ, Sanni Yakâ. Maha Sohona is 122 feet high, has the head of a bear with a pike in his left hand and in his right an elephant, whose blood he squeezes out to drink; he inflicts cholera and dysentery and presides over graveyards and where three roads meet and rides on a pig. In ancient times two giants Jayasena and Gotimbara met in single combat; the latter knocked off the head of Jayasena when the god Senasurâ tore off the head of a bear and placed it on Jayasena's body who rose up alive as the demon Maha Sohona. Riri Yakâ has a monkey face, carries in one hand a cock and a club in the other with a corpse in his mouth, is present at every death bed, haunts fields and causes fever flux of blood and loss of appetite, and has a crown of fire on his head. He came into the world from the womb of his mother by tearing himself through her heart. Kalu Kumâra Yakâ is a young devil of a dark complexion who is seen embracing a woman; he prevents conception, delays childbirth and causes puerperal madness. He was a Buddhist arhat with the supernatural power of going through the air. In one of his aerial travels, he saw a beautiful princess and falling in love with her lost at once his superhuman powers and dropped down dead and became the demon Kalu Kumâra Yakâ. Sanni Yakâ has cobras twisting round his body with a pot of fire near him, holds a rosary in his hand, causes different forms of coma, rides on a horse or lion, has 18 incarnations and forms a trinity with Oddi Yakâ and Huniam Yakâ. He was the son of a queen put to death by her husband who suspected she was unfaithful to his bed. As the queen who was pregnant was being executed, she said that if the charge was false the child in her womb will become a demon and destroy the King and his city. Her corpse gave birth to the Sanni Yakâ who inflicted a mortal disease on his father and depopulated the country. When any of these demons has afflicted a person the prescribed form of exorcism is a devil dance. In the patient's garden, a space of about 30 square feet is marked out (atamagala) and bounded with lemon sticks. Within the enclosure, raised about 3 feet from the ground, is erected an altar (samema) for the offerings (pidenitatu). The shape of the altar depends on the afflicting demon--triangular for Riri Yakâ, rectangular for Sanni Yakâ, semicircular for Kalu Kumâra Yakâ and square for Maha Sohona. The offerings consist of boiled rice, a roasted egg, seven kinds of curries, five kinds of roasted seed, nine kinds of flowers, betel leaves, fried grain, powdered resin and a thread spun by a virgin. There are the usual tom tom beaters; and the exorcist and his assistants are dressed in white and red jackets, with crown shaped head ornaments, and bell attached leglets and armlets, and carrying torches and incense pans. The ceremony consists of a series of brisk dances by the exorcist, and his men, at times masked, in the presence of the patient to the accompaniment of a chant (kavi) giving the life history of the devil, with a whirling of the blazing torches. This lasts from evening till dawn when the exorcist lies on his back and calls on the devil to cure the patient (yâdinna); incantations follow (mantra), and the sacrifices are offered. For the Riri Yakâ a cock which had been placed under the altar or tied to the foot of the patient is killed and thrown into the jungle; for the Kalu Yakâ an earthen pot which had been placed on the altar is broken; for the Sanni Yakâ the offerings are conveyed in a large bag to a stream or river and thrown into the water; for the Maha Sohona the exorcist feigns himself dead to deceive the devil and is carried with mock lamentations to a burial ground. The spirits of poverty--Garâ Yakku--are twelve in number viz., (1) Molan Garavva; (2) Dala Râkshayâ, (3) Yama Râkshayâ; (4) Pûranikâ; (5) Ratnakûtayâ; (6) Nîla Giri; (7) Nanda Giri; (8) Chandra Kâvâ; (9) Mârakâ; (10) Asuraya; (11) Nâtagiri; (12) Pelmadullâ. They haunt every nook and corner of a house, destroy crops, make trees barren, new houses inauspicious, send pests of flies and insects, reduce families to abject poverty, and are propitiated by a dance called Garâ Yakuma. A shed (maduva) is put up for it and round it is a narrow altar, with a platform in front (wesatte). On the altar are placed four kinds of flowers, betel leaves, some cotton, a spindle, a cotton cleaner, a shuttle, a comb, a little hair, a looking glass, a bundle of gurulla leaves, two burning torches and a few cents. Men of the Oli caste dressed in white and red and at times masked dance from evening till morning within the shed and on the platform. Late at night an oblation is made in leaf-cups of seven different vegetables cooked in one utensil, boiled rice, cakes and plantains. At day break the dancers stretch themselves on the ground and receive nine pecuniary offerings; they then rise up and conclude the ceremony by striking the roof of the shed with a rice pounder. The tutelary deities are of three grades viz., (1) Gods; (2) Godlings and (3) Divine Mothers. The Gods are Maha Deviyô; Natha Deviyô; Saman Deviyô; Kateragama Deviyô; and the Goddess Pattini. Maha Deviyô is identified with Vishnu, and is the guardian deity of the island, and is a candidate for the Buddhahood; a miniature weapon in gold or silver is placed at his shrine as a votive offering. Natha Deviyô is the future Maitri Buddha and is now biding his time in the Tusita heaven; Kandyan sovereigns at their coronation girt their swords and adopted their kingly title before his shrine. Saman Deviyô is the deified half brother of Rama, who conquered Ceylon in prehistoric times, and is the guardian spirit of Adam's Peak; pilgrims while climbing the sacred hill to worship Buddha's foot-print, call on him to aid their ascent. A miniature elephant in gold or silver is the usual votive offering to him. Kateragama Deviyô is the most popular of the gods; a prehistoric deity, to whom a miniature peacock in gold or silver is the customary, votive offering. He is said to be the six faced and twelve handed god Kandaswamy who on his homeward return to Kailâsa after defeating the Asuras halted at Kataragama in South Ceylon; here he met his consort Valli Ammâ whom he wooed in the guise of a mendicant; when his advances were scornfully rejected, his brother assuming the head of a man and the body of an elephant appeared on the scene and the terrified maiden rushed into her suitor's arms for safety; the god then revealed himself and she became his bride. The god Ayiyanâr invoked in the forests of Ceylon is said to be his half brother. Pattini is the goddess of chastity. The three eyed Pândi Raja of Madura had subjugated the gods and was getting them to dig a pond near his royal city when, at Sakraya's request, Pattini who resided in Avaragiri Parvata became conceived in a mango fruit. After it was severed from the tree by an arrow of Sakraya, it remain suspended in the air and on Pândi Râja looking up to observe the wonder, a drop of juice fell on the third eye in the middle of his forehead by which he lost his power and the gods were liberated. Pattini was found inside the mango as an infant of exquisite beauty sucking her thumb. When she grew up she performed wonders and ultimately disappeared within a Kohomba tree (margosa). An armlet or a miniature mango fruit in gold or silver is placed at her devala as a votive offering. These deities are worshipped in separate devâla which are in charge of Kapurâlas who have to bathe daily and anoint themselves with lime juice, avoid drinking spirits and eating flesh, eggs, turtle or eel and keep away from houses where a birth or death has taken place. A dewala consists of two rooms, one being the sanctum for the insignia of the god--a spear, bill hook or arrow--and the other being the ante room for the musicians; attached to the devala is the multengê (kitchen). On Wednesdays and Saturdays the doors of the dewala are opened; the Multengê Kapurâla cooks the food for the deity; the Tevâva Kapuralâ offers it at the shrine on a plantain leaf enclosed with areka-flower-strips, and purified with saffron water, sandal paste and incense. Before and after the meal is offered, drums are beaten in the ante room. In return for offerings made by votaries the Anumetirâla invokes the god to give relief from any ailment, a plentiful harvest, thriving cattle, success in litigation, and children to sterile mothers. Punishment to a faithless wife, curses on a forsworn enemy and vengeance on a thief are invoked by getting the Kapurâla to break a pûnâ kale--a pot with mystic designs,--or to throw into the sea or a river a charmed mixture of powdered condiments. Once a year, when the agricultural season begins, between July and August, the in-signia of the gods are carried on elephants in procession through the streets accompanied by musicians, dancers, temple tenants and custodians of the shrine. The festival begins on a new moon day and lasts till the full moon when the procession proceeds to a neighbouring river or stream where the Kapurâla cuts the water with a sword and removes a potful of it and keeps it in the dewala till it is emptied into the same stream the following year and another potful taken. The well-known godlings are (1) Wahala Bandâra Deviyô alias Dêvatâ Bandâra; (2) Wirâmunda Deviyô; (3) Wanniya Bandâra; (4) Kirti Bandâra; (5) Menik Bandâra; (6) Mangala Deviyô; (7) Kumâra Deviyô; (8) Irugal Bandâra; (9) Kalu Veddâ alias Kalu Bandâra; (10) Gangê Bandâra; (11) Devol Deviyô; (12) Ilandâri Deviyô; (13) Sundara Bandâra; (14) Monarâvila Alut Deviyô; (15) Galê Deviyô; (16) Ayiyanar Deviyô. The godlings are local; those which are worshipped in one country district are not sometimes known in another. Their insignia together with a few peacock feathers are sometimes kept in small detached buildings called kovil with representations of the godlings rudely drawn on the walls. A priest called a Yakdessa is in charge of a kovil and when people fall ill "they send for the Yakdessa to their house, and give him a red cock chicken, which he takes up in his hand, and holds an arrow with it, and dedicates it to the god, by telling him, that if he restore the party to his health, that cock is given to him, and shall be dressed and sacrificed to him in his kovil. They then let the cock go among the rest of the poultry, and keep it afterwards, it may be, a year or two; and then they carry it to the temple, or the priest comes for it: for sometimes he will go round about, and fetch a great many cocks together that have been dedicated, telling the owners that he must make a sacrifice to the god; though, it may be, when he hath them, he will go to some other place and convert them into money for his own use, as I myself can witness; we could buy three of them for four-pence half penny. When the people are minded to inquire any thing of their gods, the priests take up some of the arms and instruments of the gods, that are in the temples upon his shoulder; and then he either feigns himself to be mad, or really is so, which the people call pissuvetichchi; and then the spirit of the gods is in him, and whatsoever he pronounceth is looked upon as spoken by God himself, and the people will speak to him as if it were the very person of God." [3] Galê Deviyô or Galê Bandâra, also called Malala Bandâra is the god of the rock and is propitiated in parts of the Eastern Province, Uva and the Kurunegalle district, to avert sickness, bad luck and drought. "In these districts, in all cases, the dance, which is a very important part of the proceedings, and indispensable in the complete ceremony, takes place on a high projecting crag near the top of a prominent hill or on the summit of the hill, if it is a single bare rock. On this wild and often extremely dangerous platform, on some hills a mere pinnacle usually hundreds of feet above the plain below, the Anumetirâla performs his strange dance, like that of all so called devil dancers. He chants no song in honour of the ancient deity but postures in silence with bent knees and waving arms, holding up the bill hooks--the god himself for the time being. When he begins to feel exhausted the performer brings the dance to an end, but sometimes his excitement makes it necessary for his assistant to seize him and forcibly compel him to stop. He then descends from his dizzy post, assisted by his henchmen, and returns to the devâla with the tom toms and the crowd." [4] The spirits of the forest, invoked by pilgrims and hunters are Wanniyâ Bandâra, Mangala Deviyô, Ilandâri Deviyô and Kalu Bandâra alias Kalu Veddâ. Kaluwedda is a demon supposed to possess power over the animal race. "When a person, more commonly a public hunter, shoots an animal, whether small or large, he, without uttering a single word, takes on the spot three drops of blood from the wound, and smearing them on three leaves makes them into the shape of a cup, and offers them on the branches of a tree, clapping his hands, and expressing words to this effect, "Friend Kaluwedda, give ear to my words: come upon the branches, and receive the offering I give to thee!" The effect of this superstition is supposed to be, that the hunter will seldom or never miss his game. [5]" Manik Bandâra is the spirit of gem pits and Gange Bandâra is the spirit of streams and rivers. "The malignant spirit called Gange Bandâra, Oya Bandâra, Oya Yakka, etc. is properly an object of terror, not of worship; and under very many different appellations the identity is easily perceived: he is the representative or personification of those severe fevers, to which, from some occult causes, the banks of all Ceylon rivers are peculiarly liable. The manner of making offerings to the Gange Bandâra is by forming a miniature double canoe, ornamented with cocoanut leaves so as to form a canopy: under this are placed betel, rice, flowers, and such like articles of small value to the donor, as he flatters himself may be acceptable to the fiend, and induce him to spare those who acknowledge his power. After performing certain ceremonies, this propitiatory float is launched upon the nearest river, in a sickly season. I have seen many of these delicate arks whirling down the streams, or aground on the sand banks and fords of the Ambanganga (Matale East)." [6] Ayiyannar Deviyô is the god of tanks and he is propitiated under a tree by the bund of a tank, by throwing up in the air boiled milk in a hot state. Sundara Bandâra extends his protection to those who invoke him before sleeping. Wîramunda Deviyô is a spirit of agriculture and rice cakes made of the new paddy is offered to the godling on a platform on which are placed husked cocoanuts, flowers, plantains, a lighted lamp, a pestle and a mortar. Gopalla is a pastoral godling who torments cattle at night and afflicts them with murrain. Devol Deviyô is a South Indian deity who came to Ceylon in spite of the attempts to stop him by Pattini who placed blazing fires in his way. Masked dances of a special kind involving walking over fire take place in his honour. Kirti Bandara, and Monaravila Alut Deviyô are two lately deified chieftains, the former lived in the reign of king Kirti Siri (1747-1780), the latter is Keppitipola who was beheaded by the British in 1818. Wahala Bandara Deviyô alias Devatâ Bandara is a minister of Vishnu and is invoked when demon-possessed patients cannot be cured by the ordinary devil dance. At his devâla in Alut Nuwera, 11 miles from Kandy, the Kapurâla beats the patient with canes till the devil is exorcised. With him is associated Malwatte Bandâra, another minister of Vishnu. The peace of the home is impersonated in seven divine mothers who are said to be manifestations of the goddess Pattini. Their names vary according to the different localities. They are known in some places as:--(1) Miriyabedde Kiri Amma or Beddê Mehelli; (2) Pudmarâga Kiri Amma (3) Unâpâna Kiri Amma; (4) Kosgama Kiri Amma; (5) Bâla Kiri Amma; (6) Bôvalagedere Kiri Amma; (7) Indigolleve Kiri Amma. Navaratna Valli is the patroness of the Rodiyas and is said to have been born from the Telambu tree. Henakanda Bisô Bandâra was born of a wood apple and is invoked as the wife of Devatâ Bandâra. A thank offering is made to the divine mothers when children are fretful, when a family recovers from chicken pox or some kindred disease, when a mother has had an easy confinement. Seven married women are invited to represent them and are offered a meal of rice, rice cakes, milk, fruits and vegetables; before eating they purify themselves with turmeric water and margosa leaves; a lamp with seven wicks in honour of the seven divine mothers are kept where they are served; after the repast they severally blow out a wick by clapping their hands and take away what is left of the repast. Before a house is newly occupied the seven divine mothers are invoked by ceremoniously boiling rice in milk; a fire is made in the main room and over it is kept a new pot full of milk resting on three green sticks placed like a tripod. As the milk begins to boil pounded rice is put into it. The person superintending the cooking wears a white cloth over his mouth. Seven married women are first served with the cooked milk-rice on plantain leaves, and afterwards the others present. The mystery of the jungle is impersonated in the Beddê Mehelli. After a successful harvest or to avert an epidemic from the village a ceremonial dance (gammadu) for which the peasantry subscribe takes place for seven days in honour of the gods, godlings and divine mothers. A temporary building, open on all sides, and decorated with flowers and fruits is erected on the village green, and a branch of the Jak tree is cut ceremonially by the celebrant and carried into the building and placed on the east side as a dedicatory post with a little boiled rice, a cocoanut flower, two cocoanuts and a lamp. Altars are erected for the various deities and on these the celebrant places with music, chant and dance their respective insignia, all present making obeisance. Water mixed with saffron is sprinkled on the floor, resin is burnt and a series of dances and mimetic representations of the life history of the deities take place every night. On the last day there is a ceremonial boiling of rice in milk and a general feast. Planetary spirits influence the life of a person according to their position in the heavens at the time of his birth, and an astrologer for a handful of betel and a small fee will draw a diagram of 12 squares, indicating the twelve signs of the Zodiac and from the position of the 9 planets in the different squares will recommend the afflicted person a planetary ceremony of a particular form to counteract the malignant influence. Representations (bali) of the nine planetary spirits, of the 12 signs of the Zodiac, the 27 lunar asterisms, the 8 cardinal points, the 7 intervals of time, and the 14 age periods are made of clay and are placed erect on a large platform of split bamboo measuring about 12 square feet--the arrangement varying according to the advice of the astrologer;--and on the floor is drawn an eight-sided or twelve-sided figure where the celebrant dances and chants propitiatory verses in honour of the planets. The afflicted person sits the whole time during the music, dance and chanting before the images holding in his right hand a lime connected by a thread with the chief idol, and near him are 2 cocoanut flowers, boiled rice, a hopper, 7 vegetable curries, limes, cajunuts, betel, raw rice, white sandalwood and hiressa leaves. At intervals a stander-by throws portions of an areka flower into a koraha of water with cries of 'ayibôvan' (long life). The Sun (Iru) rides on a horse entwined with cotton leaves (imbul) with an emblem of good luck (Sirivasa) in hand and propitiated by the Sânti Mangala Baliya; sacred to him is the ruby (manikya). Mercury (Budahu) rides on an ox with a chank in hand, entwined with margosa leaves (Kohomba) and propitiated by the Sarva Rupa Baliya; the emerald (nîla) is sacred to this planet. Mars (Angaharuva) rides on a peacock with an elephant goad (unkusa) in hand, entwined with gamboge leaves (kolon) and propitiated by the Kali Murta Baliya; the coral (pravala) is sacred to this planet. Rahu rides on an ass with a fish in hand entwined with screw pine leaves (vetakeyiyâ) and is propitiated by the Asura Giri Baliya; the zircon (gomada) is sacred to Rahu. Kehetu rides on a swan with a rosary in hand, entwined with plantain leaves (kehel) and is propitiated by the Krishna Râksha Baliya; the chrysoberyl (vaidurya) is sacred to Kehetu. Saturn (Senasurâ) rides on a crow; with a fan in hand entwined with banyan leaves (nuga) and is propitiated by the Dasa Krôdha Baliya; the sapphire (indranîla) is sacred to this planet. Venus (Sikurâ) rides on a buffalo with a whisk (châmara) in hand, entwined with karanda leaves (galidupa arborea) and is propitiated by the Giri Mangala Baliya; the diamond (vajra) is sacred to this planet. Jupiter (Brahaspati) rides on a lion with a pot of flowers in hand, entwined with bo leaves and is propitiated by the Abhaya Kalyâna Baliya; the topaz (pusparâga) is sacred to Jupiter. The moon rides on an elephant with a ribbon in hand entwined with wood apple leaves (diwul) and propitiated by the Sôma Mangala Baliya; pearls (mutu) are sacred to the moon. CHAPTER VIII. OMENS AND DIVINATION. One will not start on a journey, if he meets as he gets out a beggar, a Buddhist priest, a person carrying firewood or his implements of labour, if a lizard chirps, a dog sneezes or flaps his ears. Nor will he turn back after once setting out; if he has forgotten anything it is sent after him, he never returns for it. That the object of his journey may be prosperous he starts with the right foot foremost at an auspicious moment, generally at dawn, when the cock crows; his hopes are at their highest if he sees on the way a milch cow, cattle, a pregnant woman or a person carrying a pitcher full of water, flowers or fruits. Thieves will not get out when there is the handa madala (ring round the moon) as they will be arrested. The day's luck or ill-luck depends on what one sees the first thing in the morning; if anything unlucky be done on a Monday, it will continue the whole week. If a crow caws near one's house in the morning, it forebodes sickness or death, at noon pleasure or the arrival of a friend, and in the evening profit; if it drops its excrement on the head, shoulders or on the back of a person it signifies happiness but on the knee or in step a speedy death. A lizard warns by its chirp; if it chirps from the East pleasant news can be expected, from the South news of sickness or death, from the North profit and from the West the arrival of a friend. If a lizard or a skink (hikenellâ) falls on the right side of a person, he will gain riches, if on the left he will meet with ill luck. A snake doctor finds out what kind of reptile had bitten a person by a queer method; if the person who comes to fetch him touches his breast with the right hand it is a viper; if the head it is a mapila; if the stomach a frog; if the right shoulder with the left hand a karavalâ, (bungarus coerulus); if he be excited a skink; and if the messenger be a weeping female carrying a child it is a cobra. Something similar to crystal gazing is attempted by means of a betel leaf smeared with a magical oil; a female deity (Anjanan Devi) appears on the leaf and reveals what the gazer seeks. A professional fortune teller (guru) when a client comes to consult him, measures the client's shadow, divides it into three equal parts and after some calculations informs him whether a lost article will be found, a sick person will recover or any enterprise will fail or succeed. Dreams that prognosticate a good future are kept secret, but bad ones are published. When a bad dream is dreamt it is advisable to go to a lime tree early in the morning, mention the dream and ask the tree to take to itself all the bad effects. Dreams at the first watch of the night will be accomplished in a year, at the second watch in eight months, at the third watch in five months, and at the dawn of day in ten days. If a person dreams of riding on a bull or an elephant, ascending the summit of a mountain, entering a palace, or smearing himself with excrement he will obtain an increase of wealth. If a person dreams that his right hand was bitten by a white serpent he will obtain riches at the end of ten days. If a person dreams of a crane, a domestic fowl, an eagle or crows, he will get an indulgent wife. If a person dreams of the sun or moon, he will be restored from sickness. If the teeth of an individual in his dream fall out or shake his wealth will be ruined or he will lose a child or parent but if his hands be chained or bound together he will have a son or obtain a favour. If a female clothed in black embraces a man in his dream it foretells death. If a person dreams of an extensive field ripe for the sickle, he will obtain rice paddy within ten days. If a person dreams of an owl, a beast in rut or being burnt he will lose his habitation. If a person dreams of nymphs dancing, laughing, running or clapping their hands, he will have to leave his native land. CHAPTER IX. THE MAGIC ART. Words of Power called Mantra are committed to memory and used for various purposes. Jugglers utter them to raise a magic veil over the eyes of the spectators, and sorcerers to detect thefts, to induce love, to remove spells to cure possession and to inflict disease or death. Mantra are uttered to keep away animals. Elephants are frightened by "Om sri jâtâ hârê bhâvatu arahan situ." A dog takes to its heels when the following is muttered thrice over the hand and stretched towards it "Om namô budungê pâvâdê bat kâpu ballâ kikki kukkâ nam tô situ. Om buddha namas saka situ." As a preventive against harmful influences, a thread spun by a virgin, and rubbed with turmeric is charmed over charcoal and resin-smoke and tied round one's arm, waist or neck, having as many knots as the number of the times the charm has been repeated. Amulets (yantra) made of five kinds of metal (gold, silver, copper, brass, iron) are similarly worn for avoiding evil and these are either pentacle shaped, crescent shaped or cylindrical enclosing a charmed ola leaf, charmed oil or charmed pills. To win a girl's affections the lover has only to rub a charmed vegetable paste over his face and show himself to the girl, or give her to eat a charmed preparation of peacock's liver, honey and herbs or make her chew a charmed betel leaf, or sprinkle on her some charmed oil, or wear a charmed thread taken from her dress. To detect a theft, a cocoanut is charmed, attached to a stick and placed where a thief has made his escape, and while the operator holds it he is led along to the thief's house. Persons suspected of theft are made to stand with bared backs round an ash plantain tree and as it is struck with a charmed creeper, the culprit gets an ashy streak on his back. They are also asked to touch a charmed fowl in turn and the fowl begins to crow as soon as the thief touches its body. The names of the suspected persons are sometimes written on slips of paper and placed on the ground with a cowrie shell opposite each slip, and as soon as the mantra is uttered the shell opposite the thief's name begins to move. Charmed branches are hung up by hunters and wayfarers near dangerous spots. If charmed slaked lime be secretly rubbed on the lintel of a man's house before he starts out shooting, he will not kill any bird, and if rubbed on the threshold he will not kill any fourfooted animal. A person under the influence of a charm is taken to a banyan tree with his hair wrapped round the head of a cock; the hair is cut off with a mantra, the bird nailed to the tree and the patient cured. The charm known as Pilli is used to inflict immediate death; the sorcerer procures a dead body of a child, animal, bird, reptile or insect and goes at dawn, noon or midnight to a lonely spot where three roads meet or to a grave yard and lying on his back utters a mantra; the dead body becomes animated and it is given the name of the intended victim with directions to inflict on him a fatal wound: to stab, strangle, bite or sting him. The charm called Angama causes the victim to throw up blood and it affects within seven hours; the sorcerer takes some article that the intended victim had worn or touched, goes to a lonely spot, charms it and touches the victim, or fans him with it or stretches it towards him, or keeps it in the hand and looks at his face or blows so that the breath may light on him or leaves it in some accessible place that it may be picked up by him. The charm known as the Huniama is frequently practised and it takes effect within intervals varying from a day to several years; the sorcerer makes an image to represent the intended victim; nails made of five kinds of metal are fixed at each joint, and the victim's name written on a leaf, or a lock of his hair, or a nail paring, or a thread from his dress inserted in its body; the image is charmed and buried where the victim has to pass and if he does so, he falls ill with swelling, with stiffness of joints, with a burning sensation in his body or with paralysis. A Pilli or Angama charm can be warded off if the victim himself be a sorcerer when by a counter charm he can direct the operator himself to be killed or injured. A Huniama charm can be nullified by getting a sorcerer either to cut some charmed lime fruits which have come in contact with the patient or to slit with an arekanut cutter a charmed coil of creepers placed round the patient's neck, shoulders and anklets or to keep a charmed pumpkin gourd on the sorcerer's chest while lying on his back and making the patient cut it in two with a bill hook, the parts being thrown into the sea or a stream; or to break up a charmed waxen figure and throw the pieces into boiling oil. CHAPTER X. DISEASE AND LEECHCRAFT. Serious maladies are inflicted by spirits or induced by the vitiation of the triple force (vâta, pita, sema) which pervades the human body. In the former case they are cured by devil dances and in the latter by drugs. There are, however, numerous minor complaints where folk-remedies are employed. A cure for boils is to procure without speaking from a smithy water in which the red hot iron has been cooled and apply it to the affected parts. For whooping cough is given gruel made of seven grains of rice collected in a chunam receptacle (killôtê) without uttering a word from seven houses on a Sunday morning. To cure a sprain a mother who has had twins is asked to trample the injured place, without informing any one else, every evening for a couple of days. A touch with a cat's tail removes a sty, and a toothache is cured by biting a balsam plant (kûdalu) uprooted with the right hand, the face averted. When one is hurt by a nettle, cassia leaves (tôra) are rubbed on the injured place with the words "tôra kola visa neta kahambiliyâva visa, etc." (Cassia leaves are stingless but prickly is the nettle). A firefly's bite requires "the mud of the sea and the stars of the sky" to effect a cure--a cryptic way of saying salt and the gum of the eye. Ill effects of the evil mouth and evil eye are dispelled by various means:--either a packet made of some sand trodden by the offender is taken three times round the head and thrown into a pot of live coals; or a receptacle containing cocoanut shell ashes, burnt incense, and a few clods of earth from a neighbouring garden is buried in the compound. Patients suffering with small pox or a kindred disease are kept in a separate hut, cloth dyed in turmeric and margosa leaves are used in the room; and after recovery an infusion of margosa leaves is rubbed on their heads before they are bathed. A string of coral shows by the fading of its colour that the wearer is ill; to prevent pimples and eruptions a chank is rubbed on the face, when washing it. When there is a difficult child-birth the cupboards and the doors in the house are unlocked. For infantile convulsions, a piece of the navel cord is tied round the child's body. If one has warts on his body, stones equal in number to them are tied to a piece of rag and thrown where three roads meet; the person who picks up the packet and unties it gets the warts and the other becomes free of them. When a person gets a hiccough, he gets rid of it by holding up his breath and repeating seven times "ikkayi mâyi Gâlugiya, ikka, hitalâ man âvâ" (Hiccough and I went to Galle; he stayed back and I returned). Extreme exhaustion will ensue if the perspiration from one's body is scraped off; the cure is to swallow the collected sweat. CHAPTER XI. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. A village community occupy a well defined settlement (wasama) within which are the hamlets (gan), and in each hamlet live a few families who have their separate homesteads (mulgedera) with proprietary interests in the arable land and communal rights in the forest, waste and pasture land. A group of such settlements comprise a country district (rata, kôrale, pattu). There are two types of village settlements, in one there are the free peasant proprietors cultivating their private holdings without any interference, and in the other the people occupy the lands subject to an overlord, and paying him rent in service, food or money or in all three. All communities whether free or servile had, in ancient times to perform râjakariya for 15 to 30 days a year; in time of war to guard the passes and serve as soldiers, and ordinarily to construct or repair canals, tanks, bridges and roads. These public duties were exacted from all males who could throw a stone over their huts; the military services were, in later times, claimed only from a special class of the king's tenants. The people had also to contribute to the Revenue three times a year, at the New Year festival, (April) at the alutsâl festival (January) and the maha or kâtti festival (November) in arrack, oil, paddy, honey, wax, cloth, iron, elephant's tusks, tobacco, and money collected by the headmen from the various country districts. The quantity of paddy (kathhâl) supplied by each family depended on the size of the private holding; but no contribution was levied on the lands of persons slain in war or on lands dedicated to priests. When a man of property died, 5 measures of paddy, a bull, a cow with calf, and a male and female buffalo were collected as death dues (marral.) The people are divided into various castes and there is reason to believe that these had a tribal basis. The lower castes formed tribes of a prehistoric Dravidian race (the Rakshas of tradition) who drove into the interior the still earlier Australoid Veddahs (the Yakkhas of tradition). The higher castes of North Indian origin followed, and frequent intercourse with the Dekkan in later historical times led to the introduction of new colonists who now form the artisan castes. A caste consists of a group of clans, and each clan claims descent from a common ancestor and calls itself either after his name, or the office he held, or if a settler, the village from which he came. The clan name was dropped when a person became a chief and a surname which became hereditary assumed. The clan name was however, not forgotten as the ancestral status of the family was ascertained from it. The early converts to Christianity during the Portuguese ascendancy in Ceylon adopted European surnames which their descendants still use. The various castes can be divided socially into five groups. The first comprising the numerically predominating Ratêettô who cultivate fields, herd cattle and serve as headmen. The second group consists of the Naides who work as smiths, carpenters, toddy drawers, elephant keepers, potters, pack bullock drivers, tailors, cinnamon peelers, fish curers and the like. The Ratêetto and the Naide groups wear alike, and the second group are given to eat by the first group on a rice table of metal or plaited palm leaf about a foot high, water to drink in a pot and a block of wood as a seat; they have the right to leave behind the remains of their meals. The third group are the Dureyâs who work as labourers besides attending to their special caste duties--a kandê dureyâ makes molasses, a batgam dureyâ carries palanquins, a hunu dureyâ burns coral rock in circular pits to make lime for building; a valli dureyâ weaves cloth and a panna dureyâ brings fodder for elephants and cattle. The fourth group consists of professional dancers, barbers and washers. Of the professional dancers, the Neketto dance and beat drums at all public functions and at devil and planetary ceremonies, while the inferior Oli do so only at the Gara Yakum dance. The washers are of different grades; Radav wash for the Rate Ettô, Hinnevo for the Naides, Paliyo for the Dureyâs, barbers and Nekettô, and Gangâvo for the Oli. The Dureyâs and the group below them were not allowed to wear a cloth that reached below their knees and their women except the Radav females were not entitled to throw a cloth over their shoulders. The Dureyâs were given to eat on the ground on a plaited palm leaf; water to drink was poured onto their hands and they had to take away the remains of their meal. The fourth group had to take away with them the food offered. The fifth group consists of the outcastes; the Kinnaru and the Rodi who contest between themselves the pride of place. The Kinnaru are fibre mat weavers who were forbidden to grow their hair beyond their necks, and their females from wearing above their waist anything more than a narrow strip of cloth to cover their breasts. The Rodi are hideworkers and professional beggars; the females were prohibited from using any covering above their waists. A guest of equal social status is received at the entrance by the host and is led inside by the hand; on a wedding day the bridegroom's feet are washed by the bride's younger brother before he enters the house. Kissing is the usual form of salutation among females and near relatives and among friends the salutation is by bringing the palms together. When inferiors meet a superior they bend very low with the palms joined in front of the face or prostrate themselves on the ground; when they offer a present it is placed on a bundle of 40 betel leaves and handed with the stalks towards the receiver. A guest always sends in advance a box of eatables as a present; when the repast is ready for him he is supplied with water to wash his face, feet and mouth; and the host serves him with rice and curry, skins the plantains for him, and makes his chew of betel. The males always eat first and the females afterwards; and they drink water by pouring it into their mouths from a spouted vessel (kotale). At the guest's departure, the host accompanies him some distance--at least as far as the end of the garden. When a person of distinction, a Buddhist priest or a chief visits a house, the rooms are limed and the seats are spread with white cloth. An inferior never sits in the presence of a superior, and whenever they meet, the former removes the shade over his head, gets out of the way and makes a very low obeisance. Seven generations of recognised family descent is the test of respectability, and each ancestor has a name of his own: appa, âtâ, muttâ, nattâ, panattâ, kittâ, kirikittâ (father, grand father, great grand father, etc.) The system of kinship amongst the Sinhalese is of the classificatory kind where the kin of the same generation are grouped under one general term. The next of kin to a father or mother and brother or sister are the fathers' brothers and the mothers' sisters, and the mothers' brothers and the fathers' sisters; of these the first pair has a parental rank and is called father (appa) or mother (amma) qualified by the words big, intermediate or little, according as he or she is older or younger than the speaker's parents; their children are brothers (sahodarya) and sisters (sahodari) to the speaker and fathers and mothers to the speaker's children. The second pair becomes uncle (mamâ) and aunt (nenda) to the speaker qualified as before; their children are male cousins (massina) and female cousins (nêna) to the speaker, and uncles and aunts to the speaker's children. Those who are related as brothers and sisters rarely marry, and a husband's relations of the parental class are to his wife, uncles, aunts and cousins of the other class and vice versâ. These terms are also used as expressions of friendship or endowment and also to denote other forms of kinship. The term 'father' is applied to a mother's sister's husband, or a step father; 'mother' to a father's brother's wife or a step mother; 'uncle' to a father's sister's husband or a father-in-law. 'Aunt' to a mother's brother's wife or mother-in-law. 'Brother' to a wife's or husband's brother-in-law or a maternal cousin's husband; 'Sister' to a wife's or husband's sister-in-law or a maternal cousin's wife, "male cousin" to a brother-in-law or a paternal cousin's husband; "female cousin" to a sister-in-law or a paternal cousin's wife. The terms son, daughter, nephew, niece, grandson, grand daughter, great grandson and great grand daughter include many kinsfolk of the same generation. A son is one's own son, or the son of a brother (male speaking), or the son of a sister (female speaking); a daughter is one's own daughter, the daughter of a brother (M. S.) or the daughter of a sister (F. S.); a nephew is a son-in-law, the son of a sister (M. S.) or the son of a brother (F. S.); a niece is a daughter-in-law, the daughter of a sister (M. S.) or the daughter of a brother (F. S.); a grandson and grand daughter are a 'son's' or 'daughter's' or a 'nephew's' or 'niece's' children, and their sons and daughters are great grand sons and great grand daughters. Land disputes and the petty offences of a village were settled by the elders in an assembly held at the ambalama or under a tree. The serious difficulties were referred by them in case of a freehold community to the district chief, and in the case of a subject community to the overlord. A manorial overlord was invariably the chief of the district as well. The paternal ancestral holding of a field, garden and chena devolves on all the sons, but not on sons who were ordained as Buddhist Priests before the father's demise, nor on daughters who have married and left for their husbands' homes. A daughter, however, who lived with her husband at her father's house has all the rights and privileges of a son, but the husband has no claim whatsoever to his wife's property, and such a husband is advised to have constantly with him a walking stick, a talipot shade and a torch, as he may be ordered by his wife to quit her house at any time and in any state of the weather. A daughter who lives in her husband's home can claim a share in the mother's property only if the father has left an estate for the sons to inherit; she has, however, a full right with her brothers to any inheritance collaterally derived. She will not forfeit her share in her father's inheritance if she returns to her father's house, or if she leaves a child in her father's house to be brought up or if she keeps up a close connection with her father's house. After her husband's death she has a life interest on his acquired property, and a right to maintenance from his inherited property. Failing issue, she is the heir to a husband's acquired property, but the husband's inherited property goes to the source from whence it came. A child who has been ungrateful to his parents or has brought disgrace on the family is disinherited; in olden times the father in the presence of witnesses declared his child disinherited, struck a hatchet against a tree or rock and gave his next heir an ola mentioning the fact of disherision. There is no prescribed form for the adoption of a child who gets all the rights of a natural child, but it is necessary that he is of the same caste as the adopted father, and that he is publicly acknowledged as son and heir. Illegitimate children share equally with the legitimate their fathers' acquired property, but not his inherited property which goes exclusively to the legitimate children. Polyandry was a well established institution in Ceylon; the associated husbands are invariably brothers or cousins. Polyandry was practised to prevent a sub-division of the ancestral property and also owing to the exigencies of the râjakâriya (feudal service); when the brothers on a farm were called out for their fifteen days' labour, custom allowed one of them to be left behind as a companion to the female at home. Divorces are obtained by mutual consent; a husband forcibly removing the switch of hair off his wife's head was considered a sufficient reason for a separation. If a woman left her husband without his consent it was thought illegal for her to marry till the husband married again. Contracts were made orally or in writing in the presence of witnesses, sanctioned by the imprecation that the one who broke faith will be born a dog, a crow or in one of the hells, and the contract was expected to last till the sun and moon endure. Representations of a dog, a crow, sun and moon are to be found on stones commemorating a royal gift. If a man contracts by giving a stone in the king's name it is binding and actionable. A creditor forced the payment of his debt by going to the debtor's house and threatening to poison himself with the leaves of the niyangalâ (gloriosa superba) or by threatening to jump down a steep place or to hang himself; on which event the debtor would be forced to pay to the authorities a ransom for the loss of the creditor's life. The creditor at times sent a servant to the debtor's house to live there and make constant demands till payment was made; and at times tethered an unserviceable bull, cow or buffalo in the debtor's garden, who was obliged to maintain it, be responsible for its trespass on other gardens, and to give another head of cattle, if it died or was lost in his keeping. When a man died indebted, it was customary for a relative to tie round his neck a piece of rag with a coin attached and beg about the country till the requisite sum was collected. When a debt remained in the debtor's hands for two years it doubled itself and no further interest could be charged. A creditor had the right to seize, on a permit from a chief, the debtor's chattels and cattle or make the debtor and his children slaves. A wife, however, could only be seized if she was a creditor and came with her husband to borrow the money, and the creditor could sell the debtor's children only after the debtor's death. A man could pawn or sell himself or his children. Children born to a bond woman by a free man were slaves, while children born to a free woman by a bond man were free. If seed paddy is borrowed, it is repaid with 50 percent. interest at the harvest; if the harvest fails, it is repaid at the next successful harvest, but no further interest is charged. If cattle be borrowed for ploughing, the owner of the cattle is given at the harvest paddy equal to the amount sown on the field ploughed. The King alone inquired into murder, treason, sacrilege, conspiracy and rebellion; he alone had the right to order capital punishment or the dismemberment of limbs; his attention was drawn to a miscarriage of justice by the representation of a courtier, by the aggrieved persons taking refuge in a sanctuary like the Daladâ Mâligâva, by prostrating in front of the King's palace and attracting his attention by making their children cry, or by ascending a tree near the palace and proclaiming their grievances. The petitioners were sometimes beaten and put in chains for troubling the King. For capital offences, as murder and treason, the nobility was decapitated with the sword; the lower classes were paraded through the streets with a chaplet of shoe flowers on their heads, bones of oxen round their necks, and their bodies whitened with lime, and then impaled, quartered and hanged on trees, or pierced with spear while prostrate on the ground, or trampled on by elephants and torn with their tusks. Whole families sometimes suffered for the offences of individuals. Outcaste criminals like the Rodiyas were shot from a distance as it was pollution to touch them. Female offenders were made to pound their children and then drowned. The punishments for robbing the treasury, for killing cattle, for removing a sequestration, and for striking a priest or chief consisted of cutting off the offender's hair, pulling off his flesh with iron pincers dismembering his limbs and parading him through the streets with the hands about the neck. Corporal punishment was summarily inflicted with whips or rods while the offender was bound to a tree or was held down with his face to the ground; he was then paraded through the streets with his hands tied behind him, preceded by a tom tom beater and made to declare his offence. Prisoners were sent away to malarial districts or kept in chains or stocks in the common jail or in the custody of a chief, or quartered in villages. The inhabitants had to supply the prisoners with victuals, the families doing so by turns, or the prisoners went about with a keeper begging or they procured the expenses by selling their handiwork in way-side shops built near the prison. The prisoners had to sweep the streets and were deprived of their headdress which they could resume only when they were discharged. Thieves had to restore the stolen property or pay a sevenfold fine (wandia); till the fine was paid, the culprit was placed under restraint (velekma): a circle was drawn round him on the ground, and he was not allowed to step beyond it, and had to stay there deprived of his head covering exposed to the sun, sometimes holding a heavy stone on his shoulder, sometimes having a sprig of thorns drawn between his naked legs. A whole village was fined if there was a suicide of a sound person, if a corpse was found unburied or unburnt, or if there was an undetected murder. In case of the breach of any sumptuary law, the inhabitants of the offender's village were tabooed and their neighbours prohibited from dealing or eating with them. Oaths were either mere asseverations on one's eyes or on one's mother or imprecations by touching the ground or by throwing up handful of sand or by raising the hand towards the sun, or by touching a pebble, or appeals to the insignia of some deity, or to the Buddhist scriptures or to Buddha's mandorla. The forsworn person was punished in this world itself except in the last mentioned two instances when the perjurer would suffer in his next birth. There were five forms of ordeal, resorted to in land disputes and the villagers were summoned to the place of trial by messengers showing them a cloth tied with 3 knots. The ordeal of hot oil required the adversaries to put their middle fingers in boiling oil and water mixed with cow dung; if both parties got burnt the land in dispute was equally divided; otherwise the uninjured party got the whole land. The other four modes consisted of the disputants partaking of some rice boiled from the paddy of the field in dispute, breaking an earthen vessel and eating of a cocoanut that was placed on the portion of the land in question, removing rushes laid along the boundary line in dispute, or striking each other with the mud of the disputed field; and the claim was decided against the person to whom some misfortune fell within 7 to 14 days. There were two other forms which had fallen into disuse even in ancient times owing to the severity of the tests viz. carrying a red hot iron in hand seven paces without being burnt, and picking some coins out of a vessel containing a cobra without being bitten. CHAPTER XII. RITES OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. When a mother is pregnant she avoids looking at deformed persons, or ugly images and pictures, fearing the impression she gets from them may influence the appearance of her offspring; during this delicate period she generally pounds rice with a pestle, as the exertion is supposed to assist delivery, and for the same purpose a few hours before the birth of the child all the cupboards in the house are unlocked. For her to cling to, when the pains of child-birth are unbearable, a rope tied to the roof hangs by the mat or bedside. The water that the child is washed in after birth is poured on to the foot of a young tree, and the latter is remembered and pointed out to commemorate the event; a little while after the infant is ushered into the world a rite takes place, when a drop of human milk obtained from some one other than the mother mixed with a little gold is given to the babe (rankiri kata gânavâ), and the little child's ability to learn and pronounce well is assured. When the sex of the child is known, if it be a boy a pestle is thrown from one side of the house to the other; if a girl, an ikle broom; those who are not in the room pretend to find out whether it is a she or a he by its first cry, believing it is louder in the case of the former than of the latter. The cries of the babe are drowned by those of the nurse, lest the spirits of the forest become aware of its presence and inflict injury on it. At the birth of the first born cocoanut shells are pounded in a mortar. The mother is never kept alone in the room, a light is kept burning in it night and day, and the oil of the margosa is much used in the room for protection; care is taken that the navel cord is not buried and a little of it is given to the mother with betel if she fall severely ill. Visitors to the lying-in-room give presents to the midwife when the child is handed to them, especially if it is the first-born one. A month after birth, the babe, nicely dressed and with tiny garlands of acorus calamus (wadakaha) and allium sativum (sudu lûnu) tied round its wrists and lamp-black applied under the eye-brows, is for the first time brought out to see the light of day (dottavadanavâ); and it is made to look at a lamp placed in the centre of a mat or table, with cakes (kevum) made of rice-flour, jaggery, and cocoanut oil, plantains, rice boiled with cocoanut milk (kiribat), and other eatables placed around it. The midwife then hands round the little child to the relatives and gets some presents for herself. The rite of eating rice (indul katagânavâ or bat kavanavâ) is gone through when the child is seven months old; the same eatables are spread on a plantain-leaf with different kinds of coins, and the child placed among them; what it first touches is carefully observed, and if it be kiribat it is considered very auspicious. The father or grandfather places a few grains of rice in the child's mouth, and the name that is used at home (bat nama) is given on that day. The astrologer, who has already cast the infant's horoscope and has informed the parents of its future, is consulted for a lucky day and hour for the performance of the above observances. The children are allowed to run in complete nudity till about five years and their heads are fully shaved when young; a little of the hair first cut is carefully preserved. From an early age a boy is sent every morning to the pansala, where the village priest keeps his little school, till a certain course of reading is completed and he is old enough to assist the father in the fields. The first day he is taught the alphabet a rite is celebrated (at pot tiyanava), when a platform is erected, and on it are placed sandal-wood, a light, resin, kiribat, kevum, and other forms of rice cakes as an offering to Ganêsâ, the god of wisdom, and the remover of all obstacles and difficulties. At a lucky hour the pupil washes the feet of his future guru, offers him betel, worships him, and receives the book, which he has to learn, at his hands, and, as the first letters of the alphabet are repeated by him after his master, a husked cocoanut is cut in two as an invocation to Ganêsâ. A girl is less favoured and has to depend for her literary education on her mother or an elder sister; more attention, however, is paid to teach her the domestic requirements of cooking, weaving and knitting, which will make her a good wife. On the attainment of the years of puberty by a girl she is confined to a room, no male being allowed to see her or be seen by her. After two weeks she is taken out with her face covered and bathed at the back of the house by the female inmates, except little girls and widows, with the assistance of the family laundress, who takes all the jewellry on the maiden's person. Near the bathing-place are kept branches of any milk-bearing tree, usually of the jak tree. On her return from her purification, her head and face, still covered, she goes three times round a mat having on it kiribat, plantains, seven kinds of curries, rice, cocoanuts, and, in the centre, a lamp With seven lighted wicks; and as she does she pounds with a pestle some paddy scattered round the provisions. Next, she removes the covering, throws it on to the dhôbî (washerwoman) and, after making obeisance to the lamp and, putting out its wicks by clapping her hands, presents the laundress with money placed on a betel leaf. She is then greeted by her relatives, who are usually invited to a feast, and is presented by them with valuable trinkets. Everything that was made use of for the ceremony is given to the washerwoman. In some cases, till the period of purification is over, the maiden is kept in a separate hut which is afterwards burnt down. Girls who have arrived at the age of puberty are not allowed to remain alone, as devils may possess them and drive them mad; and till three months have elapsed no fried food of any sort is given to them. The 'shaving of the beard' is the rite the young man has to go through, it is performed at a lucky hour and usually takes place a few days before marriage; the barber here plays the important part the laundress did in the other. The shavings are put into a cup, and the person operated on, as well as his relatives who have been invited, put money into it; this is taken by the barber; and the former are thrown on to a roof that they may not be trampled upon. Marriages are arranged between two families by a relative or a trusted servant of one of them, who, if successful, is handsomely rewarded by both parties. The chances of success depend on the state of the horoscopes of the two intended partners, their respectability which forms a very important factor in the match, the dowry which used to consist of agricultural implements, a few head of cattle, and domestic requisites, together with a small sum of money to set the couple going, and, if connected, the distance of relationship. Two sisters' or brothers' children are rarely allowed to marry, but the solicitation of a mother's brother's or father's sister's son is always preferred to that of any other. A few days before the marriage, the two families, in their respective hamlets, send a messenger from house to house to ask, by presenting betel, the fellow-villagers of their own caste for a breakfast; and the guests bring with them presents in money. Only few, however, are invited to the wedding; and the party of the bridegroom, consisting of two groomsmen, an attendant carrying a talipot shade over him, musicians, pingo-bearers, relatives and friends, arrives in the evening at the bride's village and halts at a distance from her house. A messenger is then sent in advance with a few pingo-loads of plantains, and with betel-leaves equal in number to the guests, to inform of their arrival; and when permission is received to proceed, generally by the firing of a jingal, they advance, and are received with all marks of honour; white cloth is spread all the way by the washerwoman, and at the entrance a younger brother of the bride washes the bridegroom's feet and receives a ring as a present. A sum of money is paid to the dhôbi (washerwoman) as a recompense for her services. They are then entertained with music, food and betel till the small hours of the morning, when the marriage ceremony commences. The bride and bridegroom are raised by two of their maternal uncles on to a dais covered with white cloth, and having on it a heap of raw rice, cocoanuts, betel leaves and coins. A white jacket and a cloth to wear are presented by the bridegroom to the bride; betel and balls of boiled rice are exchanged; their thumbs are tied together by a thread, and, while water is poured on their hands from a spouted vessel by the bride's father, certain benedictory verses are recited. Last of all, a web of white cloth is presented by the bridegroom to the bride's mother; and it is divided among her relatives. In connection with this presentation it is said that if the mother-in-law be dead, the web should be left in a thicket hard by to appease her spirit. On the day after the wedding the married couple return to their future home with great rejoicing, and on their entering the house a husked cocoanut is cut in two on the threshold. The tokens of virginity are observed by the bridegroom's mother, and the visit of the parents and relatives of the bride a few days after completes the round of ceremonies. There is a peculiar custom fast disappearing, and almost totally extinct, called Kula Kanavâ, that is, making one respectable by eating with him. If a member of a family makes a mésalliance he is cast out of his clan, and should he want his children and himself to be recognized and taken back by the relatives, the latter are induced to attend and partake of a feast given by him at his house. The 'making up' takes place when very many years have elapsed, and only if the wife who was the cause of the breach is dead. The difference due to marriage with another caste or nationality is never healed up. Even in the presence of death, ceremonies are not wanting; if the dying patient is known to have been fond of his earthly belongings, and seems to delay in quitting this life, a few pieces of his furniture are washed and a little drop of the water given to him. A lamp is kept burning near the corpse, the body is washed before burial and a piece of cotton or a betel-leaf is put into its mouth. All the time the body is in the house nothing is cooked, and the inmates eat the food supplied by their neighbours (adukku). No one of the same village is told of the death, but all are expected to attend the funeral; the outlying villages, however, are informed by a relative who goes from house to house conveying the sad news. The visitors are given seats covered with white cloth; and the betel for them to chew are offered with the backs of the leaves upwards as an indication of sorrow. Some times only the relatives come, while friends leave betel at a distance from the house and go away fearing pollution. It may be observed that, according to the Sinhalese belief, pollution is caused by the attaining of puberty by a maiden which lasts fourteen days; by the monthly flow of a woman which lasts till she bathes; by child-birth which lasts one month; and by death which lasts three months. Friends and relatives salute the body with their hands clasped in the attitude of prayer, and only the members of the family kiss it. The route along which the funeral proceeds is previously strewn with white sand, and the coffin is carried by the closest relatives, with the cloth to be given to the priests for celebrating the service thrown on it, over white foot-cloth spread by the dhôbi, and preceded by the tom-tom beaters with muffled drums. Lights are carried by the coffin and a shade is held over the head of it. The service commences with the intoning of the three Refugees of Buddhism and the Five Vows of abstinence by one of the priests, and they are repeated after by those present, all squatting on the ground. The cloth, referred to, is then given to be touched by the bystanders in order to partake of the merits of the almsgiving; one end of it is placed on the coffin, and the other is held by the priests. They recite three times the Pali verse that all organic and inorganic matter are impermanent, that their nature is to be born and die, and that cessation of existence is happiness; and while water is poured from a spouted vessel into a cup or basin, they chant the lines that the fruits of charity reach the departed even as swollen rivers fill the ocean and the rain-water that falls on hill-tops descends to the plain. A short ex tempore speech by a priest on the virtues of the deceased completes the service. If it be a burial, the grave is by the roadside of the garden with a thatched covering over it. Two lights are lit at the head and the foot of the mound, the bier in which the coffin was carried is placed over it, and a young tree planted to mark its site. In a cremation, the coffin is first carried with music three times round the pyre, and the latter is set fire to by the sons or nephews with their faces turned away from it. Those assembled leave when the pyre is half burnt; and, on the following day, or a few days after, the ashes are collected and buried in the garden of the deceased, over which a column is erected, or they are thrown into the nearest stream. The party bathe before returning to the house, and are supplied by the dhôbi with newly-washed clothes; during their absence the house is well cleansed and purified by the sprinkling of water mixed with cow-dung; and the visitors before leaving partake of a meal either brought from some neighbour's or cooked after the body had been removed. CHAPTER XIII. OCCUPATIONS AND INDUSTRIES. In the olden time, people were occupied according to their caste, but now they pursue any vocation they choose, carefully avoiding the inauspicious hours. One man works at his field or goes hunting and honey gathering; a second fishes at the village stream with a rod made of the midrib of the kitul leaf; a third slings his basket of garden produce at the ends of a kitul shaft and carries them on his shoulders to towns or village fairs; a fourth climbs the palm trees with his ankles encircled by a ring of cocoanut leaf and picks the fruit with his hand; a fifth taps for toddy the blossoms of several cocoanut trees by coupling their crowns with stout ropes to walk upon and the straight boughs with smaller ropes to support himself; a sixth brings for sale from the county straw and firewood in single or double bullock carts and a seventh transports cocoanuts, salt, and dried fish to centres of trade by pack bullocks or in flat bottomed boats. The women either make molasses from the unfermented toddy; or plait mats of dyed rushes in mazy patterns; or earn a pittance by selling on a small stand by the roadside the requisites for a chew of betel; or hawk about fruits and vegetables in baskets carried on their heads; or keep for sale, on a platform in the verandah, sweetmeats and other eatables protected from the crows which infest the place by a net; or make coir by beating out the fibre from soaked cocoanut husks; or attend to their domestic duties with a child astride their hips; or seated lull their infant child to sleep on their outstretched legs. Various ceremonies are performed in the sylvan occupations of hunting and honey gathering. "Hunting parties of the Kandian Sinhalese of the North Central Province perform a ceremony which is very similar to that of the Wanniyas [7] and Veddahs [8] when about to leave their village on one of their expeditions in the forest. Under a large shady tree they prepare a maessa, or small covered shrine, which is raised about three feet off the ground, and is open only in front; it is supported on four sticks set in the ground. In this they offer the following articles if available, or as many as possible of them:--one hundred betel leaves, one hundred arekanuts, limes, oranges, pine apples, sugar cane, a head of plantains, a cocoanut, two quarts of rice boiled specially at the site of the offering, and silver and gold. Also the flowers of the arekanut tree, the cocoanut, and ratmal tree. All are purified by lustration and incense, as usual, and dedicated. They then light a small lamp at the front of the offering, and remain there watching it until it expires, differing in this respect from the practice of the Wanniyas, who must never see the light go out. Before the light expires they perform obeisance towards the offering, and utter aloud the following prayer for the favour and protection of the forest deities, which must also be repeated every morning during the expedition, after their millet cake, gini-pûva, has been eaten, before starting for the day's hunting:-- This is for the favour of the God Ayiyanâr; for the favour of the Kiri Amma, for the favour of the Kataragama God (Skanda) for the favour of Kalu Dêvatâ; for the favour of Kambili Unnæhæ; for the favour of Ilandâri Dêvatâ Unnæhæ; for the favour of Kadavara Dêvatâ Unnæhæ; for the favour of Galê Bandâra; for the favour of the Hat Rajjuruvô. We are going to your jungle (uyana); we do not want to meet with even a single kind of [dangerous] wild animals. We do not want to meet with the tall one (elephant), the jungle watcher (bear), the animal with the head causing fear (snake), the leopard. You must blunt the thorns. We must meet with the horn bearer (sambar deer), the deer (axis), the ore full of oil (pig), the noosed one (iguâna), the storehouse (beehive). We must meet about three pingo (carrying-stick) loads of honey. By the favour of the Gods. We ask only for the sake of our bodily livelihood [9]". The jungle attached to a village was the game preserve of its inhabitants; game laws were concerned with the boundaries of the village jungle, and with rights of ownership of the game itself. One half of the game killed by a stranger belonged to the village, and the headman of the village was entitled to a leg and four or five pounds of flesh of every wild animal killed by the villagers. For regulating the time and manner of fishing in sea, old communal rules have been legalised and are now in force. Fishing with large nets (mâdel) begins about 1st October and ends by May 31st in each year; the number of boats and nets to be used in each inlet is limited; the boats and nets are registered and every registered boat and net is used in the warâya (inlets) by rotation in order of register; the turn of each net and boat begins at sunrise and ends at sunrise of the next day; the headman who supervises these is called the mannandirâle. Whenever koralebabbu, bôllo, ehelamuruvo and such other fish come into the warâya, so long as these swarm in the inlet they should be caught by rod and line and nothing else; when they are leaving the inlet, the headman in consultation with at least six fishermen appoint a date from which boru del or visi del may be used; on no account are mahadel allowed to be used [10]. Each of the boats with its nets belongs to several co-owners and "on a day's fishing the produce is drawn ashore, is divided in a sufficient number of lots, each estimated to be worth the same assigned value, and these lots are so distributed that 1-50 goes to the owner of the land on which the fish are brought to shore, 1\4 to those engaged in the labour, 1-5 for the assistance of extra nets etc., rendered by third parties in the process of landing and securing the fish, which together equal 47-100 and the remaining 53-100 go to the owners of the boat and net according to their shares therein" [11]. Owners of cattle have brand marks to distinguish the cattle of their caste and class from those of others; individual ownership is indicated by branding in addition the initial letters of the owner's name. Herdsmen who tend cattle for others are entitled in the case of the bulls and the he buffaloes they tend to their labour, in the case of cows and she buffaloes to every second third and fifth calf born, and in the case of calves to a half share interest in the young animals themselves. "At the first milking of a cow there is a ceremony called kiri ettirima. The cow is milked 3 different mornings successively, when the milk is boiled, and poured into three different vessels, till the whole is coagulated. On the fourth day, butter from each vessel is preserved in a clean basin, to form the principal part of the ceremony at a convenient time. From that day the milk may be used, but with particular care never to throw the least milk, or any water that might have washed the milk basons, out of doors. When the convenient time has arrived a bunch of plantains is prepared, cakes are baked, three pots of rice are boiled, a vegetable curry, and a condiment are prepared by an individual who must manifest all cleanness on the occasion, even to the putting a handkerchief before his mouth to present the saliva from falling into the ingredients. All these preparations are brought to an apartment swept and garnished for the purpose where the kapuva cleanly clothed enters and burns sandarac powder, muttering incantations with the intent of removing all evil supposed to rest upon the family, and of bringing down a blessing upon them and their cattle. Next the kapuva takes 7 leaves of the plantain tree and lays 5 of them in order on the table, canopied, and spread with white cloth, in honour of the gods Wiramunda deviyo, Kosgama deviyo, Pasgama deviyo, Combihamy, and Weddihamy; and the other 2 are put on piece of mat on the ground in honour of the washer and the tom tom beater supposed to have attended these supernatural beings. Over all these leaves the boiled rice from one of the pots is divided, then from the second and third. He afterwards does the same with the curry, and the condiment, cakes, plantains etc., prepared for the performance. He then pretends to repeat the same process by way of deception making a motion, and sounding the ladle on the brim of the pots, as if rice and other ingredients were apportioned the second time etc., to satisfy the gods and the two attendants. The kapuva next takes a little of every ingredient from all the leaves, both on the table and on the ground, into a cup (made of leaves), and supporting it over his head marches out from the apartment, closing its door; and he conveys it either to the fold of the cattle, or to some elevated place where he dedicates and offers it to the many thousands of the demons and their attendants who are supposed to have accompanied the above particular gods, praying them, by means of incantations, to accept the offering he has brought before them. From hence he returns to the door of the apartment he had closed, and knocking at it, as if to announce his entrance, he opens it and mutters a few more incantations, praying the gods to allow them, (including himself and the members of the family) to partake of the remnants that have been offered in their honour. After these ceremonies are performed, the kapuva, with all the rest, partakes of everything that was prepared, and the owner of the cow may from this day dispose of the milk according to his own pleasure." [12]. Rural rites differing in details in different localities are observed by the Singhalese peasantry in their agricultural pursuits. [13] In all places a lucky day for ploughing is fixed in consultation with an astrologer. It is considered unfortunate to begin work on the 1st or 2nd day of the month, and after the work is begun it must be desisted from on unlucky days such as the 7th, 8th, 9th, 13th, 14th and 21st. Sowing is also commenced at a lucky day and hour pronounced by the astrologer to be the most favourable. In a corner of the field, on a mound of mud where are placed a ginger or a habarala plant (arum maculatum), a cocoanut or an areka flower and some saffron, is sown a handful of the first seed and dedicated to the gods; and after that the entire field is sown. To drive away insects from the growing rice, charm-lamps are lighted at the four corners of the field or a worm is enclosed in a charmed orange and buried there or a fly or grub is fumigated with charmed resin smoke and bidden to depart or a cultivator sounds a charmed bell metal plate with a kaduru stick crying to the flies "yan yanta" (please go). When the reaping time comes the portion of rice dedicated to the gods is first reaped by some person who is not a member of the proprietor's family. It is kept apart on an elevated place till the reaping of the rest of the field is done when it is cooked and ceremonially offered to the kapurâla. The threshing is done on a floor specially prepared; when the crop is ripe a small pit is made in the centre of the threshing floor in which are placed a margosa plant, and a conch shell containing a piece of the tolabu plant (crinum asiaticum) and of the hiressa (vitis cissus quadrangularis), a piece of metal, charcoal and a small grain sheaf. Besting on these is an ellipsoidal luck stone (arakgala), round which are traced with ashes three concentric circles bisected by lines and in the segments are drawn representations of a broom, a scraper, a flail, a measure, agricultural implements and Buddha's foot print. At the lucky hour the cultivator walks three times round the inner circles of the threshing floor with a sheaf on his head, bowing to the centre stone at east, north, west and south and casts down the sheaf on the centre stone prostrating himself. The rest of the sheaves are then brought in and the threshing begins. The harvest is brought down on a full moon day and some of the new paddy is husked, pounded, boiled with milk and offered to the gods in a dêvala or on a temporary altar under a tree by the field, and followed by a general feasting. Persons cultivating their fields with their own cattle, implements, seed paddy and the like receive the whole produce less the payments of the watchers (waravêri) and the perquisites of the headman. When the fields are given out to be cultivated for a share of the produce, if the field owner supplies the cultivator with the cattle, implements of labour, and seed paddy the produce is divided equally by the owner and the cultivator; if the field owner supplies nothing he only gets 1\4 of the produce. When an allotment of field is owned by several co-owners, it is cultivated alternately on a complicated system called tattumâru [14]. There is a jargon used in Ceylon by hunters and pilgrims travelling in forests [15], by the outcaste rodiyas who go about begging and thieving [16]; and by cultivators while working in their fields [17]. This jargon has many words used by the Veddahs [18]. CHAPTER XIV. FESTIVALS. The entering of the sun into Aries is celebrated as the new year's day; the ephemeris of the year is drawn up by the village astrologer and the necessary information for the observance of the festive rites is obtained by presenting him with sweetmeats and a bundle of forty betel leaves. As the sun is moving into the sign Aries all cease from work and either visit temples or indulge in games till a lucky moment arrives when every family welcomes the new year with the strains of the rabâna. Special kinds of sweetmeats and curries are cooked and eaten, cloth of the colour recommended by the astrologer are worn, calls exchanged, the headman visited with pingo-loads of presents, and a commencement made of the usual daily work. At an appointed hour, the people anoint themselves with an infusion of oil, kokun leaves (swietenia febrifugia), kalânduru yams (Cyprus rotundus) and nelli fruits (Phylanthus emblica) and an elder of the family rubs a little of it on the two temples, on the crown of the head, and on the nape of the neck of each member, saying:-- Kalu kaputan sudu venaturu Ehela kanu liyalana turu Gerandianta an enaturu Ekasiya vissata desiya vissak Maha Brahma Râjayâ atinya Âyibôvan âyibôvan âyibôvan. "This (anointing) is done by the hand of Maha Brâhma; long life to you, long life to you, long life to you! may you, instead of the ordinary period of life, viz., 120 years, live for 220 years; till rat-snakes obtain horns, till posts of the Ehela tree (Cassia fistula) put on young shoots, and till black crows put on a plumage white." While being annointed the person faces a particular direction, having over his head leaves sacred to the ruling planet of the day, and at his feet those sacred to the regent of the previous day. For each of the days of the week, beginning with Sunday, belong respectively the cotton tree (imbul), the wood-apple (diwul), the Cochin gamboge (kollan), the margosa (kohomba), the holy fig-tree (bo) Galidupa arborea (karanda) and the banyan (nuga). This rite is followed by the wearing of new clothes, after a bath in an infusion of screw-pine (wetake), Suffa acutangula (wetakolu), Evolvulus alsinoides (Vishnu-krânti), Aristolochia indica (sapsanda), Crinum zeylanicum (godamânel), roots of citron (nasnâranmul), root of Aegle marmelos (belimul), stalk of lotus, (nelum dandu), Plectranthus zeylanicus (irivériya), Cissompelos convolvulus (getaveni-vel) Heterepogon hirtus (îtana) and bezoar stone (gorôchana). This festival is also observed at the Buddhist temples when milk is boiled at their entrances and sprinkled on the floor. The birthday of the Founder of Buddhism is celebrated on the full-moon day of May (wesak). Streets are lined with bamboo arches, which are decorated with the young leaves of the cocoanut-palm; tall superstructures (toran) gaily adorned with ferns and young king cocoanuts bridge highways at intervals; lines of flags of various devices and shapes are drawn from tree to tree; booths are erected at every crossing where hospitality is freely dispensed to passers-by; and at every rich house the poor are fed and alms given to Buddhist priests. Processions wend their way from one temple to another with quaintly-shaped pennons and banners, and in the intervals of music cries of sâdhu, sâdhu, are raised by the pilgrims. The Kandy Perahera Mangalaya, begins at a lucky hour on the first day after the new moon. "A jack-tree, the stem of which is three spans in circumference, is selected beforehand for each of the four déwâla--the Kataragama, Nâtha, Saman, and Pattini; and the spot where it stands is decorated and perfumed with sandalwood, frankincense, and burnt resin, and a lighted lamp with nine wicks is placed at the foot of the tree. At the lucky hour a procession of elephants, tom-tom beaters and dancers proceed to the spot, the tree is cut down by one of the tenants (the wattôrurâla) with an axe, and it is trimmed, and its end is pointed by another with an adze. It is then carried away in procession and placed in a small hole in a square of slab rock, buried in the ground or raised platform in the small room at the back of the déwâla. It is then covered with a white cloth. During the five following days the procession is augmented by as many elephants, attendants, dancers, tom-tom beaters and flags as possible; and it makes the circuit of the temples at stated periods. The processions of the several temples are then joined by one from the Daladâ, Mâligâva (the temple of the Sacred Tooth of Buddha), and together they march round the main streets of Kandy at fixed hours during the five days next ensuing. On the sixth day, and for five days more, four palanquins--one for each déwâla are added to the procession, containing the arms and dresses of the gods; and on the last day the bowl of water (presently to be explained) of the previous year, and the poles cut down on the first day of the ceremony. On the night of the fifteenth and last day, the Perahera is enlarged to the fullest limits which the means of the several temples will permit, and at a fixed hour, after its usual round, it starts for a ford in the river near Kandy, about three miles distant from the temple of the Sacred Tooth. The procession from the Mâligâva, however, stops at a place called the Adâhana Maluwa, and there awaits the return of the others. The ford is reached towards dawn, and here the procession waits until the lucky hour (generally about 5 A. M.) approaches. A few minutes before its arrival the chiefs of the four temples, accompanied by a band of attendants, walk down in Indian file under a canopy of linen and over cloth spread on the ground to the waterside. They enter a boat and are punted up the river close to the bank for some thirty yards. Then at a given signal (i. e., at the advent of the lucky hour) the four jack poles are thrown into the river by the men on shore, while each of the four chiefs, with an ornamental silver sword, cuts a circle in the water; at the same time one attendant takes up a bowl of water from the circle, and another throws away last year's supply. The boat then returns to the shore, the procession goes back to Kandy, the bowls of water are placed reverently in the several déwâla, to remain there until the following year; and the Perahera is at an end." [19] During the time of the kings, it was on this occasion that the provincial governors gave an account of their stewardship to their over-lord and had their appointments renewed by him. When the rainy months of August, September and October are over and the Buddhist monks return to their monasteries from their vas retreats, is held the Festival of Lights (Kârtika Mangalya). The Buddhist temples are illuminated on the full moon day of November by small oil-lamps placed in niches of the walls specially made for them; in the olden times all the buildings were bathed in a blaze of light, the Royal Palace the best of all, with the oil presented to the king by his subjects. This festival is now confined to Kandy. The Alut Sâl Mangalya, the festival of New Rice, is now celebrated to any appreciable extent only in the Kandian Provinces, the last subdued districts of the island. In the villages the harvest is brought home by pingo-bearers on the full-moon day of January with rural jest and laughter, and portions of it are given to the Buddhist priest, the barber and the dhobi of the village; next the new paddy is husked, and kiribat dressed out of it. In the capital, in the time of the kingdom, this festival lasted for four days; "on the first evening the officers of the royal stores and of the temples proceeded in state from the square before the palace to the crown villages from which the first paddy was to be brought. Here the ears of paddy and the new rice were packed up for the temples the palace and the royal stores by the Gabadânilamés and their officers. The ears of paddy carefully put into new earthenware pots and the grain into clean bags, were attached to pingos. Those for the Mâligâva (where the Sacred Tooth was kept) were conveyed on an elephant for the temples by men marching under canopies of white cloth; and those for the palace and royal stores by the people of the royal villages of respectable caste, well dressed; and with apiece of white muslin over their mouths to guard against impurity. This procession, starting on the evening of the next day (full-moon day) from the different farms under a salute of jingals and attended by flags, tom-tom beaters, etc., was met on the way by the 2nd Adigar and a large number of chiefs at some distance from the city. From thence all went to the great square to wait for the propitious hour, at the arrival of which, announced by a discharge of jingals, the procession entered the Mâligâva where the distribution for the different temples was made. At the same fortunate hour the chiefs and the people brought home their new rice. On the next morning the king or governor received his portion consisting of the new rice and a selection of all the various vegetable productions of the country, which were tasted at a lucky hour." [20] CHAPTER XV. GAMES, SPORTS AND PASTIMES. On festive days itinerant songmen amuse the village folk at open places and greens; they keep time to a dance by skilfully whirling metal-plates or small tambourines on their fingers or pointed stakes, by striking together sticks, by tossing earthen pots up in the air and catching them and they eulogize the hamlet and its people in extempore couplets with the refrain, "tana tanamda tânênâ, tanâ, tamda, tânênâ, tana tanamda, tana tanamda, tana tanamda, tânênâ." The people also enjoy themselves on the merry-go-round (katuru onchillâva)--a large revolving wheel on a tall wooden superstructure with seats attached; at theatrical representations called kôlan netum, rûkada netum, and nâdagam; at games of skill and at divers forms of outdoor games. Kôlan netuma is a series of mimetic dances of a ludicrous character by actors dressed like animals and demons, wearing masks and sometimes perched on high stilts. The rûkada netuma is a marionette show of the ordinary incidents of village life--usually of the adventures of a married couple, a hevârala (a militia guard) and his wife Kadiragoda lamayâ; the former goes to the wars and returns with his eyes and ears off only to be beaten by his wife who soon after falls ill with labour pains, and devil dancers are requisitioned to relieve her; Pinnagoda râla is the clown of the show. The nâdagama is a dramatic play and for its performance a circular stage is erected with an umbrella-shaped tent over it; round it sits the audience, who, though admitted free, willingly contribute something into the collection-box brought by the clown (kônangiya) at the end of the play. Before the drama begins, each of the actors, in tinselled costume, walks round the stage singing a song appropriate to his character. The piece represented is based on a popular tale or an historical event. Games of skill and chance are played on boards made for that purpose. [21] In Olinda Keliya a board having seven holes a side is used; only two can take part in the game, and each in turn places olinda seeds (abrus precatorius) in the holes and the object of the opponent is to capture the other's seeds according to certain rules. [22] In Pancha Keliya dice and six cowries are used; the latter are taken into the player's hand and dropped, and the shells which fall on the reverse side are counted and the dice moved an equal number of places on the board and the game continues till all the dice reach the other end of the board. In Deeyan Keliya sixteen dice representing cows and four dice representing tigers are placed on a board and the cows have to get from one side to the other without being intercepted and captured by the tigers. Some of the outdoor games played by adults are of the ordinary kind, and others of a semi-religious significance. The ordinary outdoor games are Buhu Keliya, Pandu Keliya, Lunu Keliya, Muttê, Hâlmelê and Tattu penille. In Buhu Keliya there are several players who place their balls, (made of any bulbous root hardened and boiled till it becomes like rubber), round a pole firmly fixed to the ground; to this pole is attached a string about 5 feet long held by a player whose endeavour is to prevent the others getting possession of the balls without being touched. The person touched takes the place of the guarding player and when all the balls are taken away the last guard is pelted with them till he finds safety in a spot previously agreed upon. In Pandu Keliya the players form into two sides, taking their stand 100 yards apart with a dividing line between; the leader of one party throws a ball up and as it comes down beats it with his open palm and sends the ball over the line to the opposing side. If the other party fails to beat or kick it back, they must take their stand where the ball fell and the leader of their party throws the ball to the other side in the same way. This goes on till one party crosses the boundary line and drives the other party back. In Lunu Keliya there are two sets of players occupying the two sides of a central goal (lunu) about 30 or 40 yards from it; a player from one side has to start from the goal, touch a player of the other side and regain the goal holding up his breath; if he fails he goes out and this goes on till the side which has the greatest number of successful runners at the end is declared the winner. In Mutté (rounders) a post is erected as a goal, and one of the players stands by it and has a preliminary conversation with the others:-- Q.--Kîkkiyô. A.--Muddarê. Q.--Dehikatuvada batukatuvada--Is it a lime-thorn or a brinjal-thorn? A.--Batukatuva--Brinjal-thorn. Q.--Man endada umba enavada--should I come or would you come? A.--Umbamavaren--you had better come. As soon as the last word is uttered, the questioner gives chase, and the others dodge him and try to reach the post without being touched; the one who is first touched becomes the pursuer. In Halmele there is no saving post, but the area that the players have to run about is circumscribed; the pursuer hops on one leg and is relieved by the person who first leaves the circle or is first touched. Before starting he cries out--Hâlmelé A.--Kanakabaré. Q.--Enda hondê? (May I come?). A.--Bohama hondayi (All right). In Tattu penilla also called Mahason's leap, a figure in the shape of H is drawn; a player guards each line and the others have to jump across them and return without being touched; it is optional to leap over the middle line and is only attempted by the best players, as the demon Mahason himself is supposed to guard it. The outdoor games with a semi-religious significance are Polkeliya, Dodankeliya and ankeliya. In Pol Keliya the villagers divide themselves into two factions called yatipila and udupila and the leaders of the two parties take a fixed number of husked cocoanuts and place themselves at a distance of 30 feet and one bowls a nut at his adversary who meets it with another in his hand. This goes on till the receiver's nut is broken when he begins to bowl. The side which exhausts the nuts of the other party is declared the winner. Dodan Keliya is a game similar to the Pol Keliya the oranges taking the place of the cocoanuts. In An Keliya a trunk of a tree is buried at the centre of an open space of ground; a few yards off is placed the log of a cocoanut tree about 20 feet high in a deep hole large enough for it to move backwards and forwards and to the top of it thick ropes are fastened. The villagers divide themselves into two parties as in Pol Keliya, and bring two forked antlers which they hook together and tying one to the foot of the trunk and the other to that of the log pull away with all their might till one of them breaks. In all these semi-religious games the winning party goes in procession round the village and the defeated side has to undergo a lot of abuse and insult intended to remove the bad effects of the defeat. Children in addition to their swings, tops, bamboo pop-guns, cut water, bows and arrows, water squirts, cat's cradles and bull roarers have their own special games. They play at hide and seek, the person hiding giving a loud 'hoo' call that the others may start the search; or one of them gets to an elevated place and tauntingly cries out "the king is above and the scavenger below" and the others try to drag him down. Several children hold their hands together forming a line and one of them representing a hare comes running from a distance and tries to break through without being caught; or one of them becomes a cheetah and the rest form a line of goats holding on to each other's back. The cheetah addresses the foremost goat saying "eluvan kannayi man âvê." (I have come to eat the goats) and tries to snatch away one of the players at the back; who avoids his clutches singing "elubeti kapiya sundire" (go and eat the tasty goat dung); if one is caught he has to hold on to the back of the cheetah and the game continues till all are snatched away. When the children are indoors they amuse themselves in various ways. They hold the backs of each other's hands with their thumb and fore-finger, move them up and down singing "kaputu kâk kâk kâk, goraka dên dên dên, amutu vâv vâv vâv, dorakada gahê puvak puvak, batapandurê bulat bulat, usi kaputâ, usî," and let go each other's hold at the end of the jingle, which means that "crows swinging on a gamboge-tree (goraka) take to their wings when chased away (usi, usi), and there are nuts in the areca-tree by the house and betel-creepers in the bamboo-grove." They also close their fists and keep them one over the other, pretending to form a cocoanut-tree; the eldest takes hold of each hand in turn, asks its owner, "achchiyé achchiyé honda pol gediyak tiyanavâ kadannada?" (grandmother, grandmother, there is a good cocoanut, shall I pluck it); and, when answered, "Oh, certainly" (bohoma hondayi), brings it down. A mimetic performance of husking the nuts, breaking them, throwing out the water, scraping the pulp and cooking some eatable follows this. They twist the fingers of the left hand, clasp them with the right, leaving only the finger-tips visible and get each other to pick out the middle finger. They take stones or seeds into their hands and try to guess the number, or they take them in one hand, throw them up, catch them on the back of the hand, and try to take them back to the palm. They keep several seeds or stones in front of them, throw one up and try to catch it after picking up as many seeds or stones as possible from the ground. They hold the fingers of their baby brothers saying "this says he is hungry, this says what is to be done, this says let us eat, this says who will pay, this says though I am the smallest I will pay" and then tickle them saying "han kutu." They keep their hands one over the other, the palm downwards, and the leader strokes each hand saying, "Aturu muturu, demita muturu Râjakapuru hetiyâ aluta genâ manamâli hâl atak geralâ, hiyala getat bedâla pahala getat bedâlâ, us us daramiti péliyayi, miti miti daramiti péliyayi, kukalâ kapalâ dara pillê, kikili kapalâ veta mullê, sangan pallâ," (Aturu muturu demita muturu; the new bride that the merchant, Râjakapuru, brought, having taken a handful of rice, cleansed it and divided it to the upper and lower house; a row of tall faggots; a row of short faggots; the cock that is killed is on the threshold; the hen that is killed is near the fence; sangan pallâ); one hand is next kept on the owner's forehead and the other at the stomach and the following dialogue ensues:-- Q.--Nalalé monavâda--What is on the forehead? A.--Le--Blood. Q.--Elwaturen hêduvâda--Did you wash it in cold water? A.--Ov--Yes. Q.--Giyâda--Did it come off? A.--Nê--No. Q.--Kiren hêduvâda--Did you wash it in milk? A.--Ov--Yes. Q.--Giyâda--Did it come off? A.-Ov--Yes. (The hand on the forehead is now taken down). Q.--Badêinne mokada--What is at your stomach? A.--Lamayâ--A child. Q.--Eyi andannê--why is it crying? A.--Kiri batuyi netuva--For want of milk and rice. Q.--Kô man dunna kiri batuyi--Where is the milk and rice I gave? A.--Ballayi belalî kêvâ--The dog and the cat ate it. Q.--Kô ballayi belali--Where is the dog and the cat? A.--Lindê vetuna--They fell into the well. Q.--Kô linda--Where is the well? A.--Goda keruvâ--It was filled up. Q.--Kô goda--Where is the spot? A.--Ândiyâ pela hittevvâ,--There ândiyâ plants were planted. Q.--Kô ândiyâ pela--Where are the ândiyâ plants? A.--Dêvâ--They were burnt. Q.--Kô alu--Where are the ashes? A.--Tampalâ vattata issâ--They were thrown into the tampalâ (Nothosocruva brachiata) garden. Then the leader pinches the other's cheek and jerks his head backward and forward singing "Tampalâ kâpu hossa genen (give me the jaw that ate the tampalâ). CHAPTER XVI. STORIES. Story telling is the intellectual effort of people who have little used or have not acquired the art of writing. A story is told for amusement by mothers to their children, or by one adult to another, while guarding their fields at night in their watch hut or before lying down to sleep after their night meal. At each pause during the narration, the listener has to say "hum" as an encouragement to the narrator that he is listening; and every tale begins with the phrase "eka mathaka rata" (in a country that one recalls to mind) and ends with the statement that the heroes of the Story settled down in their country and the narrator returned home. Stories are roughly classified as (1) myths, (2) legends and (3) folk tales. (1) "The myth," says Gomme, "is the recognisable explanation of some natural phenomenon, some forgotten or unknown object of human origin, or some event of lasting influence." The crow and the king crow were uncle and nephew in the olden time; they once laid a wager as to who could fly the highest, each carrying a weight with him, and the winner was to have the privilege of knocking the loser on the head; the crow selected some cotton as the lightest material, while his nephew carried a bag of salt as the clouds looked rainy. On their way up, rain fell and made the crow's weight heavier and impeded his flight while it diminished the king crow's burden who won the victory and still knocks the crow on his head. The water fowl once went to his uncle's and got a load of arekanuts to sell; he engaged some geese to carry them to the waterside and hired a wood pecker's boat to ferry them over; the boat capsized and sank and the cargo was lost, the geese deformed their necks by carrying the heavy bags, the wood pecker is in search of wood to make another boat and the waterfowl still complains of the arekanuts he had lost. (2) A legend is a narrative of things which are believed to have happened about a historical personage, locality or event. A cycle of legend has clustered round king Dutugemunu who rolled back the Tamil invasion of Ceylon in the 4th Century B. C., and he is to the Singhalese peasantry what king Arthur has been to the Celts. The old chronicles, based on the folklore of an earlier period, place his traditional exploits in Magam Pattu, Uva and Kotmale. His mother was Vihâre Devi; she was set afloat in a golden casket by her father Kelani Tissa to appease the gods of the sea, who, incensed by a sacrilege act of his, were submerging his principality of Kelaniya; the princess drifted to the country of Hambantota and its ruler Kavantissa rescued her and made her his queen. The coast on which she landed is still remembered as Durâva and has the ruins of a vihare built to commemorate her miraculous escape. Dutugemunu was her eldest son and when she was pregnant she longed to give as alms to the Buddhist priesthood a honey comb as large as an ox, to bathe in the water which had washed the sword with which a Tamil warrior had been killed, and to wear unfaded waterlilies brought from the marshes of Anuradapura. The town of Negombo supplied the first and the warrior Velusumana procured the other two. Astrologers were consulted as to the meaning of these longings and they predicted, to quote the words of the old chronicler "the queen's son destroying the Damilas, and reducing the country under one sovereignty, will make the religion of the land shine forth again." When Dutugemunu was a lad, he was banished from his father's court for disobedience and he passed his youth among the peasantry of Kotmale till his father's death made him the ruler of Ruhuna. Dutugemunu had a band of ten favourite warriors, all of whom have independent legends attached to their names; along with them, riding on his favourite elephant Sedol, he performed wonders in 28 pitched battles. He died at an advanced age, disappointed in his only son Sali, who gave up the throne for a low caste beauty. The peasantry still awaits the re-birth of Dutugemunu as the chief disciple of the future Maitri Buddha. (3) A folk tale is a story told mainly for amusement, deals with ideas and episodes of primitive life and includes elfin tales, beast tales, noodle tales, cumulative tales and apologues. Elfin tales deal with the magical powers and the cannibalistic nature of the Râkshas. A Gamarala's wife, while expecting a baby, weaves a mat bag to collect the kekira melons when the season is on. The Gamarâla goes out every day, enjoys the kekira himself without informing his wife that the melons are ripe. The wife discovers that the kekira is ripe from a seed on the Gamarala's beard. Both go out to collect the kekira melons and fill the mat bag, when the wife gives birth to a girl. They decide to carry the bag of kekira home and throw the child into the woods as it is a girl. A male and female crane see this and carry the child to a cave. The cranes get a parrot, a dog and a cat to be companions of the girl who all grow up together and the girl is called 'sister' by the pets. The cranes leave the girl to dive for some pearls to adorn her and before departing advise her not to leave the cave as there is a cannibalistic Rakshi in the woods; they also ask her to manure the plantain tree with ash, to water the murunga tree and to feed her pets especially the cat. The cat gets a less allowance of food than usual and in anger puts out the fire by urinating on it. The girl goes out to fetch fire and comes to the Rakshi's cave and meets her daughter, who tries to keep the girl till her mother comes by promising to give her fire, if she would bring water from the well, break firewood and pound two pots of amu seed. The girl does all this work before the Rakshi arrives and the daughter gives her live coals in a cocoanut shell with a hole in it, so that the ashes dropped all along her way. On the Rakshi's return she is told of the girls' departure and she follows up the ash track and reaches the cave. The Rakshi sings out to the girl that the crane father and crane mother have come with the pearls and to open the door. The dog and the cat warn her from the outside and the Rakshi kills them and goes away leaving her thumb nails fixed to the lintel and her toe nails to the threshold. The cranes return and on the parrot's advice the girl opens the door and comes out but gets fixed by the nails and swoons away. The cranes think she is dead, but on removal of the nails the girl recovers. They dress up the girl beautifully, cover her with a scab covered cloth, tell her that she is too grown up to live with them and bid her farewell. The girl travels through the woods, becomes tired and meets the Rakshi; she asks the Rakshi to eat her up but the Rakshi contemptuously passes her by saying "I do not want to eat a scab covered girl; I am going to eat a beautiful princess." The girl arrives at a king's palace and is employed as a help mate to the cook. She used to remove her scab covered cloth only when she went out to bathe, and a man on a kitul tree tapping for toddy saw her beauty and informed the king who forced her with threats to remove her scab covering and married her. In beast tales the actors are animals who speak and act like human beings. A hare and a jackal sweep a house-compound; they find two pumpkin seeds and plant them; the jackal waters his creeper with urine and the hare waters his from the well; the jackal's creeper dies; the hare generously agrees to share the pumpkin with his friend; the jackal proposes a ruse to obtain the other requisites for their meal; the hare lays himself on the road as if dead; pingo bearers pass carrying firewood, cocoanuts, rice, pots; as each pingo carrier passes, the jackal cries out "keep that pingo down and take away the dead hare; as they do so the hare scampers away and the jackal runs away with the pingos; the jackal places the food on the fire and asks the hare to fetch stalkless kenda leaves, the hare goes in search and the jackal cooks and eats the whole meal leaving a few grains of rice for the hare; the jackal places a cocoanut husk under his tail to act as a stopper for his over-filled stomach; the hare returns without the leaves and shares the remnants of the meal with the jackal; at the jackal's request the hare strokes the jackal's back and removes the cocoanut husk and is besmeared with excretion; the hare runs to a meadow, rolls on the grass and returns quite clean; the jackal asks him how he became so and the hare replies that the dhoby has washed him; the jackal runs to the riverside and asks the dhoby to make him also clean; the dhoby takes him by his hind legs and thwacks him on the washing stone till he dies, saying "this is the jackal who ate my fowls." The noodle tales describe the blunders of fools and foolish husbands. Twelve men went one day to cut fence sticks and they made twelve bundles. One of them inquired whether there were twelve men to carry the bundles. They agreed to count and only found eleven men. As they thought that one man was short, they went in search of him to the jungle. They met a fellow villager to whom they mentioned their loss. He arranged the bundles in one line, and the men in another and said "now you are alright; let each one take a bundle of sticks and go home" which they did as no one was missing. The people of Rayigam Korale threw stones at the moon one moonlight night to frighten it off as they thought it was coming too near and there was a danger of its burning their crops; they also cut down a kitul tree to get its pith and to prevent its falling down, one of them supported it on his shoulder and got killed. The country folks of Tumpane tried to carry off a well because they saw a bee's nest reflected in the water; the men of Maggona did the same but ran away on seeing their shadows in the well. The Moravak Korale boatmen mistook a bend in the river for the sea, left their cargo there and returned home; and the Pasdum Korale folk spread mats for elephants to walk upon. In cumulative tales there is a repetition of the incidents till the end when the whole story is recapitulated. A bird laid two eggs which got enclosed between two large stones. The bird asked a mason to split open the stones; the mason refused and the bird, asked a wild boar to destroy the mason's paddy crop. The wild boar refused and the bird asked a hunter to shoot the wild boar. The hunter refused and the bird asked the elephant to kill the hunter as the hunter will not shoot the wild boar and the wild boar will not destroy the mason's paddy, and the mason will not split open the stones. The bird asked a bloodsucker to creep into the elephant's trunk, but the bloodsucker declined. The bird then asked a wild-fowl to peck at the bloodsucker as the bloodsucker would not creep up the elephant's trunk, as the elephant would not kill the hunter; as the hunter would not shoot the wild boar, as the wild boar would not destroy the paddy crop of the mason who would not split the stones which enclosed the birds' eggs. The wild-fowl refused and the bird asked a jackal to eat the wild-fowl. The jackal began to eat the fowl, the fowl began to peck at the bloodsucker, the bloodsucker began to creep up the elephants' trunk; the elephant began to attack the hunter; the hunter began to shoot at the wild boar; the boar began to eat the mason's paddy; the mason began to split the stones, and the bird gained access to her two eggs. Apologues are narratives with a purpose, they point a moral and are serious in tone. The moral "be upright to the upright; be kind to the kind, and dishonest to the deceitful" is illustrated by the following tale. A certain man having accidentally found a golden pumpkin gave it to a friend for safe keeping. When the owner asked for it back his friend gave him a brass one; and he went away apparently satisfied. Sometime after the friend entrusted the owner of the pumpkin with one of his sons, but when the father demanded the son back, he produced a large ape. Complaint was made to the king who ordered each men to restore what each had received from the other. CHAPTER XVII. SONGS AND BALLADS. The ordinary folk songs of the country are called sivupada and can be heard sung in a drawn out melody by the peasants labouring on their fields or watching their crops at night, by the bullock drivers as they go with their heavy laden carts; by the elephant keepers engaged in seeking fodder, by the boat men busy at their oars, by the women nursing their infants, by the children as they swing under the shady trees, and by the pilgrims on their way to some distant shrine. For rhythmic noise women and girls sit round a large tambourine placed on the ground and play on it notes representing jingle sounds like the following:-- Vatta katat katat tâ Kumbura katat katat tâ Vatta katat kumbura katat katat katat katat tâ. Attaka ratumal, attaka sudumal Elimal dolimal, rênkitul mal Rajjen tarikita rajjen tâ. Oxen are encouraged to labour in the threshing floor by songs [23] On, leader-ox, O ox-king, on, In strength the grain tread out. On, great one, yoked behind the king, In strength the grain tread out. This is not our threshing floor, The Moon-god's floor it is. This is not our threshing floor The Sun-god's floor it is. This is not our threshing floor, God Ganesha's floor it is. "On, leader ox, etc." As high as Adam's Sacred Peak, Heap the grain, O heap it up; As high as Mecca's holy shrine, Heap the grain, O heap it up; From highest and from lowest fields, Bring the grain and heap it up; High as our greatest relic shrine, O heap it up, heap it up. "On, leader ox, etc." The cart drivers still sing of a brave Singhalese chieftain who fell on the battle field:-- Pun sanda sêma pâyâlâ rata meddê Ran kendi sêma pîrâlâ pita meddê Mâra senaga vatakaragana Yama yudde Levke metindu ada taniyama velc medde (Like full orb'd moon his glory shone, his radiance filled the world His loosen'd hair knot falling free in smoothest threads of gold. Mâra's host beset him--no thought was there to yield; To-day Lord Levke's body still holds the lonely field. [24]) The elephant keepers strike up a rustic song to the accompaniment of a bamboo whistle. Etun tamayi api balamuva bolannê Kitul tamayi api kotaninda dennê Ratê gamêvat kitulak nedennê Etun nisâmayi api divi nassinê. (It is elephants that we must look after, O fellows. From where can we get kitul for them. No village or district supplies us with kitul. It is owing to elephants that we lose our lives.) The following are specimens of a river song, a sea song and a tank song. Malê malê oya nâmala nelâ varen Attâ bindeyi paya burulen tiyâ varen Mahavili ganga diyayanavâ balâ varen Sâdukêredî oruva pedana varen. (Brother, brother pluck that nâ flower and come. The branch will break, step on it lightly and come. See how Mahavili ganga's waters flow and come. Raising shouts of thanks row your boat and come). Tan tan tan talâ mediriyâ Tin tin tin ti lâ mediriyâ Ape delê mâlu Goda edapan Yâlu Vellê purâ mâlu. (Tan tan tan talâ mediriyâ Tin tin tin ti lâ mediriyâ There is fish in our nets Pull it to the shore, friends The shore is full of fish.) "Sora bora vevê sonda sonda olu nelum eti. Êvâ nelannata sonda sonda liyô eti Kalu karalâ sudu karalâ uyâ deti Olu sâlê bat kannata mâlu neti. (The Sora bora tank has fine white lotus flowers To pluck them there are very handsome women After cleaning and preparing, the blossoms will be cooked But alas there are no meat curries to eat with the lotus rice). Pilgrims on their way to Adam's Peak sing the following first verse and as they return the second. 1. Devindu balen api vandinda Saman devindu vandavanda Muni siripâ api vandinda Apê Budun api vandinda. (To worship our Buddha, to worship His footprint, may god Saman help us, may his might support us). 2. Devindu balen api vendô Saman devindu vendevô Munisiripâ api vendô Apê budun api vendô. (We have worshipped our Buddha; We have worshipped his foot print; The god Samen helped us; His might supported us). A mother amuses her children by pointing out the moon and asking them to sing out Handa hamy apatat bat kanda rantetiyak diyô diyo (Mr. Moon, do give us a golden dish to eat our rice in); or she makes them clap their hands singing appuddi pudi puvaththâ kevum dekak devaththâ (clap, clap, clap away with two rice cakes in your hands); or she tickles them with the finger rhyme kandê duvayi, hakuru geneyi, tôt kâyi, matat deyi, hankutu kutu. (Run to the hills, bring molasses, You will eat, you will give me, hankutu kutu); or she swings them to the jingle "Onchilli chilli chille malê, Vella digata nelli kelê;" or she rocks them to sleep with the following lullabies:-- Umbê ammâ kirata giyâ Kiri muttiya gangé giyâ Ganga vatakara kokku giyâ, Kokku evith kiri bivvâ, Umba nâdan babô (Your mother went to fetch milk The milk pot went down the river The cranes surrounded the river The cranes came and drank the milk You better not cry, my baby.) Baloli loli bâloliyê Bâla bilindu bâloliyê Kiyamin gi neleviliyê Sethapemi magê suratheliyê (Darling darling little one Darling little tender one Sleeping songs do I sing Sleep away my fond little one.) Radâgedere kosattê Eka gediyayi palagattê Êka kanta lunu nettê Numba nâdan doyi doyiyê. (The jak tree at the washer's house Bore only one fruit There is no salt to eat with it You better not cry, but sleep, sleep) Vandurô indagana ambê liyannan Vendiri indagana hâl garannan Petiyô indagana sindu kiyannan Tala kola pettiya, gangê duvannan. (The monkeys are engaged in cutting up a mango Their mates are engaged in washing the rice Their young ones are engaged in singing songs. The palm leaf box is drifting in the river.) The following is a specimen of a love song. "Galaknan peleyi mata vedunu gindarê Vilaknan pireyi net kandulu enaserê Malak vat pudami numba namata rubarê Tikakkat nedda matatibunu âdarê. (If I were a stone my passion's heat would have split me. If I were a pond my weeping tears would have filled me. O my darling, I shall offer a flower to your memory. Is there nothing left of your old love for me). CHAPTER XVIII. PROVERBS, RIDDLES AND LOCAL SAYINGS. A proverbial saying is said to state a fact or express a thought in vivid metaphor while a riddle to describe a person or thing in obscure metaphor calculated as a test of intellectual ability in the person attempting to solve it. Proverbial sayings are divided, according to their form into direct statements and metaphorical statements. The following are examples of direct statements:-- The quarrel between the husband and the wife lasts only till the pot of rice is cooked. A lie is short lived. One individual can ruin a whole community. What is the use of relations who do not help you when your door is broken. Poverty is lighter than cotton. Metaphorical statements are more numerous and are best considered according to the matter involved such as honesty, thrift, folly, knavery, natural disposition, ingratitude, luck, hypocrisy; and the following are some typical examples:-- When the king takes the wife to whom is the poor man to complain. You may escape from the god Saman Deviyo but you cannot escape his servant Amangallâ. There is certain to be a hailstorm when the unlucky man gets his head shaved. The teeth of the dog that barks at the lucky man will fall out. On a lucky day you can catch fish with twine; but on an unlucky day the fish will break even chains of iron. The water in an unfilled pot makes a noise. You call a kabaragoyâ a talagoya when you want to eat it. It is like wearing a crupper to cure dysentery. Like the man who got the roasted jak seeds out of the fire by the help of a cat. Like the man who would not wash his body to spite the river. Like the man who flogged the elk skin at home to avenge himself on the deer that trespassed in his field. Like the villagers who tied up the mortars in the village in the belief that the elephant tracks in the fields were caused by the mortars wandering about at night. Though a dog barks at a hill will it grow less. It is like licking your finger on seeing a beehive on a tree. It is not possible to make a charcoal white by washing it in milk. The cobra will bite you whether you call it cobra or Mr. Cobra. Riddles are either in prose or verse. As examples of prose riddles the following may be mentioned:-- What is it that cries on this bank, but drops its dung on the other (megoda andalayi egoda betilayi)--A gun. What is the tree by the door that has 20 branches and 20 bark strips; twenty knocks on the head of the person who fails to solve it. (dorakadagahe atuvissayi potu vissayi netêruvot toku vissayi)--10 fingers and 10 toes. What is it that is done without intermission (nohita karana vedê)--the twinkling of the eye. The following are examples of verse riddles. The Eye-- "Ihala gobê pansiyayak pancha nâda karanâ Pahala gobê pansiyayak pancha nâda karanâ Emeda devi ruva eti lamayek inda kelinâ Metûn padê têruvot Buduvenavâ." (On the upper shoot there are 500 songsters On the lower shoot there are 500 songsters Between them is an infant of divine beauty. If one can solve this he will become a Buddha). The Cobra. Vel vel diga eti Mal mal ruva eti Râja vansa eti Kêvot pana neti. (Long like a creeper Beautiful like a flower Of royal caste With a deadly bite). The Pine Apple. Katuvânen ketuvânen kolê seti Ratu nûlen getuvâveni malê seti Tun masa giya kalata kukulek seti Metun padê têru aya ratak vatî (The leaf is beautifully encased The flower is worked with red thread And this becomes like a chicken in three months The one who can solve this deserves a country. APPENDIX. GLOSSARY OF SINHALESE FOLK TERMS APPEARING IN THE SERVICE TENURE REGISTER (1872.) A ABARANA: Insignia of a Deviyo; vessels of gold and silver, etc., in a Dewala. ADAPPAYA: Headman amongst the Moors; a term of respect used in addressing an elder. ADHAHANA-MALUWA: A place of cremation; especially the place where the bodies of the kings of Kandy were burnt and where their ashes were buried. ADIKARAMA: An officer of the Kataragama Dewala next in rank to the Basnayake Nilame. ADIPALLA OR WARUPALLA: The lower layers of the stacked paddy on the threshing floor allowed to the watcher as a perquisite. ADUKKU: Cooked provisions given to headmen or persons of rank. ADUKKU-WALANKADA: A pingo of earthenware vessels for cooking or carrying food for headmen, etc. AGAS: First-fruits; ears of paddy cut as alut-sal, i.e., for the thanksgiving at the harvest home. AHARA-PUJAWA: The daily offering of food in a Vihare; before noon the mid-day meal is carried to the Vihare, and placed in front of the image of Buddha; it is then removed to the refectory or pansala, where it is consumed by the priests or by the servitors. AHAS-KAMBE: The tight-rope (literally air-rope) used for rope-dancing which is a service of certain tenants of the Badulla Dewale. AKYALA: Contribution of rice or paddy on the occasion of a procession at a Dewala; first fruits offered for protection of the crop by the Deviyo. ALATTIBEMA: A ceremony performed at the door of the sanctuary in a Dewale; the waving to and fro of an oil lamp by females, who repeat the while in an undertone the word ayu-bowa, long life (lit. may your years increase). ALGA-RAJAKARIYA: Service at the loom. ALAGU: A mark to assist the memory in calculation (Clough); a tally, e. g. in counting cocoanuts one is generally put aside out of each 100; those thus put aside are called alagu. ALIANDURA: The morning music at a temple. ALLASA: A present, a bribe, a fee paid on obtaining a maruwena-panguwa. ALUT-AWRUDU-MANGALYAYA: Festival of the Sinhalese new year; it falls in the early part of April. ALUT-SAL-MANGALYAYA: The festival of the first fruits; the harvest home. ALWALA-REDDA: A cloth fresh from the loom. AMARAGE OR AMBARAGE: Covered walk or passage between a Dewala and the Wahalkada or porch. AMUNA: A dam or anicut across a stream; a measure of dry grain equal to about 4-1/2 bushels, sometimes 5 bushels. ANAMESTRAYA: A shed in which to keep lights during festivals. In some temples these sheds are built permanently all round the widiya or outer court; in others they were mere temporary structures to protect the lights from wind and rain. ANDE: Ground share given to a proprietor. ANDU-GIRAKETTA: An arecanut-cutter of the shape of a pair of pincers; it forms the penuma or annual offering of the blacksmiths to their lord. ANKELIYA: The ceremony of pulling horns or forked sticks to propitiate Pattini-deviyo in times of epidemics; according to ancient legends, it was a pastime at which the Deviyo and her husband Palanga took sides. They are said to have emulated each other in picking flowers with the forked sticks the husband standing at the top and the wife at the foot of a tree. The ankeliya as its name imports partakes more of the nature of a village sport than of a religious ceremony. There are two sides engaged, called the uda and yati-pil. It is conducted in a central spot in the midst of a group of villages set apart for the particular purpose, called anpitiya, and commenced on a lucky day after the usual invocation by the Kapurala, who brings with him to the spot the Halan a kind of bracelet the insignia of the Deviyo. The two Pil select each its own horn or forked stick; the horns or sticks are then entwined--one is tied to a stake or tree, and the other is tied to a rope, which is pulled by the two parties till one or other of the horns or sticks breaks. The Pila which owns the broken horn is considered to have lost, and has to undergo the jeers and derision of the winning party. If the Yatipila which is patronized by the Deviyo (Pattini) wins, it is regarded as a good omen for the removal or subsidence of the epidemic. The ceremony closes with a triumphal procession to the nearest Dewale. A family belongs hereditarily to one or the other of the two Pil. ANPITIYA: The spot or place where the above ceremony is performed. ANUMETIRALA: A respectful term for a Kapurala, one through whom the pleasure of the Deviyo is known. ANUNAYAKA UNNANSE: A priest next in rank to a Maha-Nayaka or chief priest, the sub-prior of a monastery. APPALLAYA: The earthen ware vessel flatter than an atale, q. v. ARALU: Gall-nuts. ARAMUDALA: Treasury, or the contents of a treasury; the reserve fund. ARANGUWA: An ornamental arch decorated with flowers or tender leaves of the cocoanut tree. ARA-SALAWA OR BOJANASALAWA: Refectory. ARRIKALA: One-eighth portion. ASANA-REDI: Coverings of an asanaya; altar cloth. ASANAYA: Throne, altar, seat of honor. ATALE: A small earthenware-pot usually used in bathing. ATPANDAMA: A light carried in the hand, formed generally of a brass cup at the end of a stick about two feet long. The cup is filled with tow and oil. ATAPATTU-WASAMA: The messenger class. A holding held by the atapattu people. The service due from this class is the carrying of messages, keeping guard over treasure or a temple or chief's house, and carrying in procession state umbrellas, swords of office etc., watching threshing floors and accompanying the proprietor on journeys. ATAPATTU MOHOTTALA: Writer over the messenger class. ATAWAKA: The eighth day before and after the full moon. The first is called Pura-atavaka and the second Ava-atavaka. ATTANAYAKARALA: Custodian; storekeeper; overseer corresponding in rank to Wannakurala, q.v. ATUGE: A temporary shed or outhouse for a privy. ATUPANDALAYA: A temporary shed or booth made of leaves and branches. ATUWA: Granary. AWALIYA: The same as Hunduwa or Perawa, which is one-fourth of a seer. AWATEWAKIRIMA: Ministration; Daily service at a Dewala. AWATTA: An ornamental talipot used as an umbrella. AWULPAT: Sweetmeats taken at the end of a meal. AWRUDU-PANTIYA: New year festival, a term in use in the Kurunegala District. AWRUDU-WATTORUWA: A chit given by the astrologer shewing the hour when the new year commences, and its prognostics. AYUBOWA: "Live for years", a word used by way of chorus to recitals at Bali ceremonies. B BADAHELA-PANGUWA: The tenement of land held by a potter. His service consists of supplying a proprietor with all the requisite earthenware for his house and bath, and his lodgings on journeys, for his muttettuwa, for cooking, and for soaking seed paddy, for festivals, Yak and Bali ceremonies, weddings, etc. The supplying of tiles and bricks and keeping the roof of tiled houses waterproof, giving penum walan to tenants for the penumkat, and making clay lamps, and kalas for temples. The potter also makes a present of chatties as his penum to proprietor and petty officers. When the quantity of bricks and tiles to be supplied is large, the proprietor finds the kiln, shed, clay and firewood. Kumbala is another name by which a potter is known. BADAL-PANGUWA: The holding held by smiths, called likewise Nawan-panguwa. Under the general term are included: Achari (blacksmiths), Lokuruwo (braziers) and Badallu (silver or gold smiths). The blacksmith supplies nails for roofing houses, hinges, locks, and keys for doors, all kitchen utensils, agricultural implements, and tools for felling and converting timber. His penuma consists of arecanut cutters, chunam boxes, ear and tooth picks, at the forge he is given the services of a tenant to blow the bellows, and when employed out of his house he is given his food. The Lokuruwa mends all brass and copper-vessels of a temple, and generally takes part in the service of the other smiths. The silver and goldsmiths work for the proprietor in their special craft when wanted, and in temples mend and polish all the sacred vessels, do engraving and carving work, decorate the Rate (car of the deviyo) and remain on guard there during the Perahera, attend at the Kaphitawima, and supply the silver rim for the Ehala-gaha. The goldsmiths present penum of silver rings, carved betel boxes, ornamental arrow-heads, etc. The smith tenant also attends and assists at the smelting of iron. In consideration of the value of the service of a smith, he generally holds a large extent of fertile land. BAGE: A division; a term used in Sabaragamuwa for a number of villages of a Dewala in charge of a Vidane. BAKMASA: The first month of the Sinhalese year (April-May). BALIBAT NETIMA: A devil-dance performed for five days after the close of the Perahera by a class of persons superior to the ordinary yakdesso (devil dancers) and called Balibat Gammehela, supposed to be descendants of emigrants from the Coast. BALI-EDURO: The persons who make the clay images for, and dance at, a Bali-maduwa which is a ceremony performed to propitiate the planets. The performance of Bali ceremonies is one of the principal services of tenants of the tom-tom beater caste. BALI-EMBIMA: The making of images for a Bali ceremony. BALI-ERIMA: The performance of the above ceremony. Note the peculiar expression Bali arinawa not Karanawa. BALI-KATIRA: Sticks or supports against which the images at a Bali ceremony are placed. BALI-TIYANNO: Same as Bali-eduro. BAMBA-NETIMA: In the processions at a Diya-kepima there is carried a wickerwork frame made to represent a giant (some say Brahma); a man walks inside this frame and carries it along exactly in the same way as "Jack-in-the green." The service of carrying it in procession is called Bambanetima. BAMBARA-PENI: Honey of one of the large bees. A pingo of this honey is given to the proprietor of the lands in which it is collected. BANA-MADUWA: A large temporary shed put up for reading Bana during Waskalaya, q. v. BANA-SALAWA: A permanent edifice attached to a wihare for reading Bana. BANDARA: Belonging to the palace. It is now used of any proprietor, whether lay or clerical, e. g., Bandara-atuwa means the proprietor's granary. BANKALA WIYANA: A decorated cloth or curtain, so called, it is supposed, from being imported from Bengal. BARAKOLAN: Large masks representing Kataragama Deviyo, used in dancing at the Dewala Perehara. BARAPEN: Remuneration given to copyists. Hire given for important services, as the building of wihares, making of images, etc. BASNAYAKE NILAME: The lay chief or principal officer of a Dewale. BATAKOLA: The leaves of a small species of bamboo used for thatching buildings. BATGOTUWA: Boiled rice served out or wrapped up in a leaf. Boiled rice offered up at a Yak or Bali ceremony. BATTANARALA: The Kapurala who offers the multen (food offering). BATWADANARALA: The same as Battanarala. BATWALANDA: Earthenware vessel for boiling rice in. It is as large as a common pot but with a wider mouth. BATWALAN-HAKURU: Large cakes of jaggery of the shape of a "Batwalanda" generally made in Sabaragamuwa. BATWEDA: Work not done for hire, but for which the workmen receive food. BATWI: Paddy given by the proprietor as sustenance to a cultivator in lieu of food given during work. BEMMA: A Wall, a bank, a bund. BEHET-DIYA: A lotion made of lime juice and other acids mixed with perfumes for use at the Nanumura mangalyaya, when the priest washes the sacred reflection of the head of Buddha in a mirror held in front of the image for the purpose. BETMERALA: The officer in charge of a number of villages belonging to a temple, corresponding to a Vidane, q.v. BIN-ANDE: Ground share; Ground rent. BINARAMASA: The sixth month of the Sinhalese year (September-October). BINNEGUNWI: Paddy given as sustenance during ploughing time. BISOKAPA: See Ehelagaha. It is a term in use in the Kabulumulle Pattini Dewale in Hatara Korale. BISSA: A term in use in the Kegalle District for a granary round in shape, and of wickerwork daubed with mud. BINTARAM-OTU: Tax or payment in kind, being a quantity of paddy, equal to the full extent sown, as distinguished from half and other proportionate parts of the sowing extent levied from unfertile fields. Thus in an amuna of land the bintaram-otu is one amuna paddy. BODHIMALUWA: The Court round a bo-tree, called also Bomeda. BOJANA-SALAWA: The same as arasalava. BOLPEN: Water used at a temple for purposes of purification. BULAT-ATA: A roll of betel consisting of 40 leaves forming the common penuma to a proprietor at the annual festival corresponding to the old English rent day. It is a mark of submission and respect, and is therefore greatly valued. BULAT-HURULLA: A fee given to a chief or proprietor placed on a roll of betel. The fee given annually for a Maruvena panguwa. BULU: One of the three myrobalans (Clough). C CHAMARAYA: A fly-flapper, a yak's tail fixed to a silver or other handle, used to keep flies off the insignia of a deviyo or persons of distinction. D DADAKUDAMAS: A compound word for meat and fish. DAGOBE OR DAGEBA: Lit. Relic chamber. A Buddhist mound or stupa of earth or brick sometimes faced with stone, containing generally a chamber in which is preserved a casket of relics. DALUMURE: A turn to supply betel for a temple or proprietor. DALUMURA-PANGUWA: The holding of tenants, whose special service is that of supplying weekly or fortnightly, and at the festivals, a certain quantity of betel leaves for the "dalumura-tewawa" immediately after the multen or "ahara-pujawa" and for the consumption by the officers or priests on duty. This service was one of great importance at the Court of the King, who had plantations of betel in different parts of the country, with a staff of officers, gardeners, and carriers. At present the tenants of this class in Ninda villages supply betel to the proprietor for consumption at his house and on journeys. In some service villages the betel is to be accompanied with a quantity of arecanuts. DALUPATHKARAYA: A sub-tenant; a garden tenant; one who has asweddumised land belonging to a mulpangukaraya. In some Districts the dalupathkaraya is called pelkaraya. DAMBU: Tow; rags for lights. The supplying of dambu at festivals in a temple or for a Bali ceremony at a chief's house forms one of the principal services of a dhobi. DAN-ADUKKUWA: Food given by a tenant of a vihare land to the incumbent as distinguished from "dane" given to any priest for the sake of merit. DANDUMADUWA: A timber-shed; a timber room. Every temple establishment has an open long shed for timber and building materials etc., and its upkeep forms one of the duties of the tenants. DANE: Food given to priests for merit; alms: charity. DANGE: Kitchen of a Pansale. DANKADA: Pingo of food given to a priest. DARADIYARA: Fuel and water the supplying of which forms the service of the Uliyakkarawasam tenants. DASILIKAMA: An assistant to a Lekama or writer. The term is peculiar to Sabaragamuwa. DAWULA: The common drum. DAWULKARAYA: A tenant of the tom-tom beater caste, playing on a dawula at the daily service of a Vihare or a Dewale, and at the festivals. DAWUL-PANGUWA: The tenement held by tenants of the tom-tom beater caste. In temples their service comes under the kind called the Pita-kattale (out-door-service). At the daily tewawa, at festivals, at pinkam, and on journeys of the incumbent, they beat the hewisi (tom-toms). On their turn of duty in a temple, they have to watch the temple and its property, to sweep and clean the premises, to gather flowers for offerings, and to fetch bolpen (water for temple use). The services of a Hewisikaraya are required by a lay proprietor only occasionally for weddings, funerals, yak and bali ceremonies, and on state occasions. This class of persons is employed in weaving cloth, and their penuma consists of a taduppu cloth or lensuwa. In all respects the services of the Dawulkarayo resemble those of the Tammattankarayo, a portion of the same caste, but who beat the Tammattama instead of the Dawula. DEHAT-ATA: A roll of betel leaves given to a priest. A respectful term for a quid of betel. DEHET-GOTUWA: Betel wrapped up in the leaf of some tree. DEKUMA: A present given to a chief or incumbent of a temple by a tenant when he makes his appearance annually or oftener, and consists of either money, or sweetmeats, or cloth, or arecanut-cutters, etc., according to the tenants trade or profession or according to his caste. DELIPIHIYA: A razor. One of the "atapirikara" or eight priestly requisites viz., three robes an almsbowl, a needle case, a razor, a, girdle, and a filter. DEPOYA: The poya at full moon. DEWALAYA: A temple dedicated to some Hindu Deviyo or local divinity. The four principal dewala are those dedicated to Vishnu, Kataragama, Nata and Pattini Daviyo. There are others belonging to tutelary deities, such as the Maha Saman Dewalaya in Sabaragamuwa belonging to Saman Dewiyo the tutelary deviyo of Siripade, Alutunwara Dewale in the Kegalle District to Dedimundi-dewata-ban-dara, prime minister of Vishnu etc. DEWA-MANDIRAYA: Term in Sabaragamuwa for the "Maligawa" or sanctuary of a Dewale. DEWA-RUPAYA: The image of a Deviyo. DEWOL OR DEWOL-YAKUN: Foreign devils said to have come from beyond the seas and who according to tradition landed at the seaside village called Dewundare near Matara and proceeded thence to Sinigama near Hikkaduwa. Pilgrims resort to either place and perform there the vows made by them in times of sickness and distress. DIGGE: The porch of a Dewalaya. It is a building forming the ante-chamber to the Maligawa or sanctuary where the daily hewisi is performed and to which alone worshippers have access. It is a long hall, as its name signifies, and it is there that the dance of the women at festivals, called Digge-netima, takes place. DISSAWA: The ruler of a Province. DIWA-NILAME: Principal lay officer of the Dalada-maligawa. The term is supposed to have had its origin from the highest dignitary in the kingdom holding amongst other functions the office of watering the Srimahabodinvahanse or sacred Bo-tree in Anuradhapura, DIWEL: Hire or remuneration for service. DIYAGE: A bath room. The putting up of temporary sheds, or the upkeep of permanent structures as well as supplying water, forms part of the menial services of the Uliamwasam tenants. DIYA-KACHCHIYA: Coarse cloth bathing dress which it is the duty of the dhobi to supply at the bath. It is also called Diyaredi or Diyapiruwata. DIYAKEPUMA: The ceremony of cutting water with golden swords by the Kapurala of the Dewale at the customary ford or pond at the close of the Perehera in July or August. DIYATOTA: The ford or ferry where the above ceremony is performed. DOLAWA: A palanquin. DOTALU-MAL: The flowers of the dotalu-tree, a small species of the arecanut-tree used in decorations. DUMMALA: Powdered resin used at a yak or bali ceremony to give brilliancy to the light. DUNUKARAWASAMA: The military class. Literally, archers. The lands forming the holding of the Dunukarawasam tenants. Their chief services at present are the carrying of letters and messages, keeping guard at the Walauwe (house) of the proprietor, watching the threshing floor, fetching buffaloes for work and accompanying the proprietor on journeys of state bearing the mura awudaya (lance). DUNUMALE-PENUMA: The penuma (present) given in the mouth of Nawan (February) by tenants to the high priest of the Sripadastane (Adam's Peak) so called after an incumbent of that name. DURUTUMASE: The tenth month of the Sinhalese year (January-February). DUREYA: A headman of the Wahumpura Badde or Paduwa caste. Also a general name for a palanquin bearer. DURAWASAMA: The office of Dureya or headman of the Durayi. The tenement of land held by their class. Their services resemble those of the Ganwasama the difference being that instead of cooked they give uncooked provisions, and vegetables or raw provisions instead of sweet-meats for the penuma to the landlord. E EBITTAYA: A Boy. A priest's servant. EDANDA: A plank or trunk thrown across a stream. A log bridge. EHELA-GAHA: A post or tree set up at a Dawale at a lucky hour in the month of Ehela as a preliminary to the Perahera. Compare the English May-pole. EHELA-PEREHARA: Vide Perahera. ELAWALUKADA: A pingo of vegetables, which is the penuma given to proprietors by the tenants of the lower castes. ELWI: A kind of paddy grown on all hill sides under dry cultivation. EMBETTAYA: A barber. EMBULKETTA: A kitchen knife. It is the penuma given by blacksmith tenants. ETIRILLA: Cloth spread on chairs or other seats out of respect to a guest or headman. (Clough) It is the service of a dhobi tenant. ETULKATTALAYA: The inner room or sanctuary of a Dewale, called also the Maligawa and Dewamandiraya. The term is also applied to all the officers having duties in the sanctuary, such as Kapurala, Batwadanarala, Wattorurala, etc. G GAHONI: Ornamental covers made of cloth to throw over penuma. GALBEMMA: Stone-wall. Rampart. GAL-LADDA: A smith. A stonemason. GAL-ORUWA: A stone trough for water, called also Katharama. GAMANMURE: A turn of attendance at festivals, which in the of case tenants living in remote villages is frequently commuted for a fee. Hence the term. GAMARALA: The headman of a village, generally an hereditary office in the family of the principal tenant. GAMMADUWA-DA: The day of an almsgiving at a Dewale to conciliate the Deviyo in times of sickness. GAMMIRIS: Pepper corn. GANWASAMA: Sometimes written Gammasama. The tenement held by a Ganwasama, the superior class of tenants in a village. Their panguwa supplies the proprietor with persons eligible for appointment to the subordinate offices in a village such as Vidane, Lekama, and Kankanama. The Ganwasama people are often of the same social standing as the proprietor and sometimes are related to him. They are generally the wealthiest people in the village and hold the most fertile lands. Consequently they have to make heavy contributions in the shape of adukku and pehidum to the proprietor and his retinue on his periodical visits, to his officers coming on duty and to his messengers dispatched with orders to tenants. They also have to give the Mahakat monthly, the Penumkat at festivals, and Dankat during Was, and to feed the workmen in the Muttettuwa and officers superintending the work. In the same manner as the Uliyam-wasama has to provide all the ordinary labour in a village so the Ganwasama has to provide all that is required for strangers visiting the village and generally to discharge the duties of hospitality for which the Kandyan villages are celebrated. This entails upon the Ganwasama the necessity of setting apart a place called the Idange for lodging strangers. The whole charge of the Muttettu work devolves on the Ganwasama which also has to superintend and assist in building work at the proprietor's house attend, at his house on festive and other occasions in times of sickness and at funerals bringing penumkat and provisions. A Ganwasama tenant has to accompany the proprietor on his journeys on public occasions, and to guard his house in his absence. A woman of the panguwa has likewise to wait on the lady of the house and to accompany her on journeys. The Ganwasama takes the lead in the annual presentation of the tenants before the proprietor. In temple villages, in addition to the above services performed to the lay chief, the Ganwasama has to superintend and take part in the preparations for, and celebration of, the festivals. GANGATAYA: The leg of an animal killed in the chase given to the proprietor of the land. Sometimes more than one leg is given. GANLADDA: An owner of land. Sometimes applied to small proprietors, and sometimes to proprietors of inferior castes, e. g., the proprietors of the village Kotaketana (smiths and wood-carvers) are always so styled. GANMURE: Watching at a temple, or the period of service there taken in turns by villages. GANNILE: The service field in a village held by the Gammahe or the village headman for the time being. Field held by a small proprietor and cultivated for him by his tenants. GANPANDURA: Tribute for land. Ground rent. GAN-PAYINDAKARAYA: A messenger under an inferior headman. GARA-YAKUMA: A devil dance performed in some districts at the close of important undertakings such as construction of buildings at the close of the Perehera for the elephants, etc. GEBARALA: A storekeeper whose duty it is to measure the paddy, rice, oil etc., received into and issued out of a temple gabadawa (store). GEWATU-PANAMA: Payment for gardens. Garden rent, as the name implies, originally a fanam. GIKIYANA-PANGUWA: Tenement held by tenants whose service consists in singing at Dewale on "Kenmura" days and on festivals, and in the performance of the Digge-netima, which latter is a service performed by women. The songs generally relate to the exploits of the Dewiyo. The men sing and play on cymbals, drums, etc., and the women dance. The ordinary tom-tom-beater is not allowed to play for dancers of this class, which is supposed to be of Tamil origin. GILANPASA: The evening meal of Buddhists priests restricted to drinkables, as tea, coffee, etc. solid food is prohibited after noon-day. GODA-OTU: Literally, tax on high lands. Tax on chenas. GODAPADDA: A messenger under a headman of the low-castes. The term is in use in the Matale Districts. GORAKA: The fruit of the gamboge tree dried. It imparts to food a delicate acid, and is chiefly used in seasoning fish. GOYIGANAWA: Smoothing the bed of a field, being the last process preparatory to sowing. GURULETTUWA: A goglet. H HAKDURE: A service of blowing the conch-shell or horn in the daily service of a Dewalaya. HAKGEDIYA: A chank. A conch-shell. HAKPALIHA: The carrying of the conch-shell and shield in procession which forms one of the services of the tenants of temple villages. HAKURU-ESSA: A cake of jaggery. Half a "mula" (packet). HAKURUKETAYA: A ball of jaggery. It is of no definite size. HAKURUMULA: A packet of two cakes of jaggery. HAKURUPATTAYA: Balls of jaggery wrapped up in the sheath of the branch of an arecanut tree. HALUPAINDAYA: Officer in charge of the sacred vestments of a Dewale. HAMBA: Paddy belonging to a temple of the king. HAMBA-ATUWA: The granary belonging to a temple or the king. HAMUDA-WALE-MURAYA: The mura by tenants of Pidawiligam under the Dalada Maligawa. HANGIDIYA: A head-smith. HANGALA: The piru-wataya (lent-cloth) given by dhobies to Kapuwo and Yakdesso. HANNALIYA: A tailor; large Dewala and Wihara establishments have tenants to sew and stitch the sacred vestments, curtains, flags, etc., and to assist in decorating the car. HARASKADAYA: A cross stick in an arch, supplied by tenants for decorations at festivals. HATMALUWA: A curry made of seven kinds of vegetables and offered with rice at a Bali ceremony. HATTIYA: A hat shaped talipot carried on journeys by female attendants of ladies, answering the double purpose of a hat and an umbrella. HAYA-PEHINDUMA: Provisions given to a temple or person of rank, consisting of six neli (seru) of rice and condiments in proportion. HELAYA: A piece of cloth of twelve cubits. HELIYA: A large round vessel with a wide mouth for boiling rice, paddy, etc. HEMA-KADA: Food offering in a Dewala similar to the Ahara-pujawa at a Vihare. It is carried by the proper Kapurala, called Kattiyana-rala, pingo-fashion, and delivered at the door of the sanctuary to the officiating Kapurala. HENDA-DURE: The evening hewisi (music) at a Dewale. HENDUWA: Elephant-goad. HEPPUWA: A box, a basket. The term is in use in the Kegalle District in connection with a penuma of sweetmeats called Kevili-heppuwa just as in other Districts it is called Kevili-pettiya. HEWAMUDALA: Payment in lieu of the services of a tenant of the Hewasam or military class. HEWAWASAMA: The tenement held by the Hewawasama. The military class. Their services at present are those of the Atapattuwasama and consist in carrying messages and letters etc., accompanying the proprietor on journeys, carrying his umbrella or talipot and keeping guard at halting places attending to the service of betel, guarding the proprietor's house, watching threshing floors, attending at funerals and setting fire to the pyre. They present a penuma of sweetmeats and receive as funeral prerequisites a suit of clothes. Persons of their wasama, as those of the Ganwasama, are chosen for subordinate offices. HEVENPEDURA: A mat made of a kind of rush. HEWISI-MANDAPPAYA: The court where the Hewisi (music) is performed in a Vihare corresponding to the Digge in a Dewale. HILDANE: The early morning meal of Buddhist priests, generally of rice-gruel. HILEKAN: Registers of fields. HIMILA: Money given by a proprietor as hire for buffaloes employed in ploughing and threshing crops. HIRAMANAYA: A cocoanut scraper. It is an article of penuma with blacksmith tenants. HIROHI-NETIMA: Called also Niroginetima. It is a dance at the procession returning from the Diyakepima of the Saragune Dewale in the Badulla District. HITIMURAYA: The turn for being on guard at a temple or a chief's house. It consists generally of fifteen days at a time, nights included. The tenant both on entering upon and on leaving his muraya, appears before the incumbent or chief with the penuma of a roll of betel, and when on mure has the charge of the place and its property, clears and sweeps the premises, attends to ordinary repairs, fetches flowers in temples and goes on messages. He receives food from the temple. HIWEL: Coulters, the providing of which forms one of the services of a blacksmith tenant. HIWEL-ANDE: Cultivators' share of the produce of a field being half of the crop after deducting the various payments called "Waraweri" which are (1) Bittara-wi (seed-padi), as much as had been sown and half as much as interest; (2) Deyyanne-wi, 4 or 5 laha of paddy set apart for the Dewiyo, or boiled into rice and distributed in alms to the poor; (3) Adipalla, the lower layers of the stacked paddy; (4) Peldora, the ears of com round the watchhut which together with Adipalla are the watcher's prerequisites (5) Yakunewi, paddy set apart for a devil ceremony. Besides the above, "Akyala" (first-fruits) is offered to the Deviyo for special protection to the crop from vermin, flies, etc. HULAWALIYA: The headman of the Rodi. The Rodi tenants are very few in number and are found in but very few villages. They supply prepared leather for drums and ropes of hide halters, thongs and cords for cattle and bury carcases of dead animals found on the estate to which they belong. I IDANGE OR IDAMA: The principal building where visitors of rank are lodged in a village. IDINNA: Called also Usna. A smith's forge. ILLATTATTUWA: A betel-tray. The penuma given by a tenant engaged in carpentry or by a carver in wood. ILMASA: The eighth month of the Sinhalese year (Nov. Dec.) IRATTUWA: A word of Tamil extraction and applied to a kind of native cloth originally made by the Mahabadde people and at present by the tom-tom beater caste. IRILENSUWA: A striped handkerchief given as a penuma by tenants of the tom-tom beater caste. ISSARA: The individual share or strip of land in a range of fields cultivated by the shareholders in common. ITIPANDAMA: A wax candle. ITIWADALA: A lump of wax. In the honey-producing jungle districts as Nuwarakalawiya, Matale North etc., honey and itiwadal are dues to which a proprietor is entitled. J JAMMAKKARAYA: A low-caste man. This is the sense in which the word is at present used in the Kandyan country but is proper meaning is a man of caste--of good birth. K KADA: A load divided into two portions of equal weight and tied to the two ends of a pole, which is balanced on the shoulder, called in Ceylon a "pingo" and in India a "bhangy." KADAKETTA: a razor. KADAPAIYA: A long bag or purse called also Olonguwa. KADA-RAJAKARIYA: A pingo-load of village supplies given to the king by the Ganwasam. The Gamarala had to deliver it in person in Kandy. The chiefs, lands exempted from tax for loyalty to the British Government were not relieved of the pingo duty. (See proclamation of 21st November 1818, Clause 22). KAHADIYARA: Sprinkling water used by a Kapurala in ceremonies. KAHAMIRIS: Saffron and chillies. KAHATAPOTU: Bark of the saffron tree used in dyeing priests' robes. KALAGEDIYA OR KALAYA: A pot, the ordinary vessel used by water-carriers. KALALA: Carpets, or mats made of a kind of fibre (Sanseviera Zeylanica.) KALANCHIYA: A Tamil word for an earthenware spitting pot. KALA-PANDAMA OR KILA-PANDAMA: A branched torch with generally three lights sometimes, six see ATPANDAMA. KALAS: Earthenware lamps with stands for decorations. KAMMALA: A forge. A smithy. KAMMALKASI: Payment in lieu of service at the smithy. KAMATA: A threshing-floor. KANGAN: Black cloth given to attendants at funerals. KANHENDA: An ear-pick. KANKANAMA: An overseer. KANKARIYA: A devil ceremony. KANUWA: A post. KAPHITUNDAWASA: The day on which a pole is set up in a Dewale for the Perehera, see Ehelagaha. KAPURALA: A dewala-priest. The Office is hereditary. KARANDA: A tree, the twigs of which are in general use amongst Buddhist priests by way of tooth brushes. The village of Tittawelgoda has to supply annually 2000 of these tooth-brushes to the Dambulla monastery. KARANDU-HUNU: Chunam to offer with betel at the sanctuary. KARAKGEDIYA: A portable wicker basket for catching fish open at both ends and conical in shape used in shallow streams. KARAWALA: Dried fish, the usual penuma of Moor tenants. KARIYA KARANARALA: Officer second in rank to the Diwa Nilame in the Dalada Maligawa. The office is restricted to a few families and the appointment is in the hands of the Diwa Nilame, who receives a large fee for it at the yearly nomination. As the Diwa Nilame's deputy, the Kariyakaranarala attends to all the business matters of the Maligawa and is entitled to valuable dues from subordinate headmen on appointment. KASAPEN: Young cocoanuts generally given as penuma. KATARAMA: Same as Galoruwa. KATBULATHURULU: Penuma consisting of pingoes and money with betel. KATGAHA: Sometimes called Kajjagaha. The same as Ehelagaha q.v. KATHAL: The pingo-loads of rice due to the king by way of the Crown dues on all lands cultivated with paddy, except those belonging to the Duggenewili people or class from which the King's domestic servants were taken. KATMUDALA: Money payment in lieu of the above. KATTIYANAMURAYA: The turn for the tenant of a kapu family to perform the service of carrying from the multenge (Dewale kitchen) to the Maligawa (the sanctuary) the multen-kada or daily food offering. KATUKITUL: Wild prickly kitul the flowers of which are used in decorations. KATUPELALI: Rough screens made of branches as substitutes for walls in temporary buildings. KATU-PIHIYA: A small knife of the size of a penknife with a stylus to it. KAWANI: A kind of cloth. KATTIYA: A general term for a festival, but in particular applied to the festival of lights in Nov.-Dec. called Kattimangalaya. KEDAGAN: A palanquin fitted up (with sticks) for the occasion to take the insignia of a Deviyo in procession. KEHELMUWA: Flower of the plantain. KEKULHAL: Rice pounded from native paddy. KEKUNA-TEL: Common lamp oil extracted from the nuts of the Kekuna tree; the oil is largely used in illuminations at festivals and given as garden dues by tenants. KEMBERA: The beating of tom-toms on Kenmura days. KENDIYA-WEDAMAWIMA: The carrying in procession of the Rankendiya or sacred-vessel containing water after the Diyakepima. KENMURA: Wednesdays and Saturdays on which are held the regular services of a Dewale. KERAWALA: Half of a pingo. Half of a panguwa. KETIUDALU: Bill-hooks and hoes. Agricultural implements supplied by the proprietor for work in the Muttettu fields. He supplies the iron and the smith tenant makes the necessary implements, assisted by the nilawasam tenants who contribute the charcoal. KEVILI-HELIYA: A chatty of sweetmeats given as penuma. KEVILI-KADA: A pingo of sweetmeats given as penuma by high caste tenants. KEVILI-KIRIBAT: Sweetmeats and rice boiled in milk. KEVILI-HEPPUWA: See heppuwa. KEVILI-TATTUWA: See heppuwa. KEWUN: Cakes, sweetmeats. KEWUN-KESELKAN: Sweetmeats and ripe plantains. KILLOTAYA: A chunam-box given as a penuma by smith tenants. KINISSA: A ladle, a common cocoanut spoon. KIRI-AHARA OR KIRIBAT: Rice boiled in milk and served on festive occasions. KIRIMETI: Pipe-clay. The supplying and preparation of clay for the Badaheleya (potter) when making bricks and tiles for a proprietor forms one of the duties of every tenant of a temple village, and of the tenants of the Nila or Uliyam pangu in a chief's village. KIRIUTURANA-MANGALYAYA: The ceremony of boiling milk at a Dewale generally at the Sinhalese new year and after a Diyakepima. KITUL-ANDA-MURE: The half share of the toddy of all kitul trees tapped, which is the due of the proprietor. The trees are tapped by Wahumpura tenants by who are also called Hakuro, and the toddy is converted into the syrup from which hakuru (jaggery) is made. KITUL-PENI-MUDIYA: A small quantity of kitul syrup carried in a leaf and served out to tenants in mura. KODI: Flags. KOLALANU: Cords for tying sheaves. KÔLAN: Masks worn in dancing in Dewala festivals. KOLMURA: A rehearsal at the Nata Dewala by the Uliyakkarayo before the Perehera starts. KOMBUWA: A bugle, a horn. It is blown at the Tewawa or service at a Dewale. There are special tenants for this service. KORAHA: A large wide-mouthed chatty used as a basin. KONA: The year's end. The Sinhalese new year (April). KOTAHALU: The cloth worn by a young female arriving at puberty, which is the perquisite of the family dhobi, with other presents given at the festivities held on the occasion. KOTALE: An earthenware vessel with a spout given as a penuma by the potter to petty officers. KOTTALBADDE VIDANE: The headman of smith villages. KOVAYA: An earthenware crucible. A socket for candles. KOVILA: A small temple. A minor Dewale. KÛDE: A basket to remove earth, sand, etc. KUDAYA: An umbrella. KUDAMASSAN: Small fishes cured for curry. KULU: Winnowing fans made of bamboo. KUMBAL-PEREHERA: Preliminary Perehera at a Dewale when the insignia are carried in procession round the inner Court for five days, followed by the Dewale Perehera for five days twice a day round the Widiya, and the Randoli or Maha Perehera for five days. KUMBAYA: A post, a pole for arches in decorations. KUMARIHAMILLA: Ladies of rank. KUMARA-TALA-ATTA: A talipot of state. An ornamental talipot carried in processions by tenants of superior grade. KUNAMA: The palanquin carried in procession at the Perehera containing inside the insignia of a Deviyo. It is also called Randoliya. KURUMBA: The same as Kasapen. KURU: Hair-pins. KURU-KANDA: A candle stick made of clay, called also Kotvilakkuwa. KURAPAYIYA: The same as Kadapayiya. KURUNIYA: One eighth of a bushel or four seer. KURUWITALE: Spear used at elephant kraals. KUSALANA: A cup. L LAHA: The same as Kuruniya. LANSA-MURE: The turn of service of the Hewawasam tenants; it is now taken also by the Atapattu class. LATDEKUMA OR LEBICHCHAPENUMA: Present of money or provisions given to the proprietor by his nominee on appointment to an office. LEGUNGE: The dormitory. A priest's cell. LENSUWA: A handkerchief. LEKAMA: A writer. A clerk, out of courtesy styled Mohottala. LEKAM PANGUWA: The tenement held by the Lekam pangu tenants. The panguwa was originally Maruwena, but in course of time, in most instances, it has become Paraveni. The Lekam tenant besides doing duty as writer to the proprietor of Ninda villages superintends his working parties and harvesting operations and appears before him at the annual presentations of the tenants, accompanies him on important journeys, attends on him and supplies him with medicines when sick, and occasionally guards the house in his absence. In temple villages where there is no resident Vidane, the Lekama does all the duties of that officer, besides keeping an account of the things received into and issued out of the Gabadawa, arranges and superintends all the services of the tenants, in which capacity it is that he is styled Mohottala. LIYADDA: The bed of a field. A terrace. LIYANABATA: Food given by a cultivator to tho Lekam on duty at a threshing floor. LIYANARALA: A Writer. LIYAWEL: Ornamental flower work in carvings or paintings generally found in Wihare and which it is the duty of the Sittaru (painters) to keep in order. The service is valuable and large and valuable pangu have consequently been allotted to this class. The cost of the pigments is borne by the temples. LUNUKAHAMIRIS: Salt, saffron, and chillies. The three principal ingredients which give flavour to a curry. Hence in enumerating the articles which make up a pehinduma or dankada, mention is always made of Lunukahamiris or Sarakku or Tunapahe, general terms for "curry-stuff". M MADAPPULURALA: Title of an officer in the Nata Dewale who performs duties analogous to those of a Wattoru-rala such as sweeping out the Maligawa cleaning and tending its lamps, etc. MADDILIYA: A Tamil drum used in the Kataragama Dewale in the Badulla District. MADOL-TEL: Lamp-oil extracted from the nuts of the Madol. MADU-PIYALI: The nuts of the Madugaha, broken into pieces dried and converted into flour for food. MAGUL-BERE: The opening tune beaten on tom-toms at the regular hewisi (musical service) at the daily service and at festivals. MAHADANE: The midday meal of the priests before the sun passes the meridian. MAHA-NAYAKA-UNNANSE: The highest in order amongst the Buddhist priesthood. The Malwatte and Asgiriya establishments in Kandy have each a Mahanayake before whom the incumbents of the subordinate Wihara belonging to the respective padawiya (see or head monastery) have to appear annually with penumkat and ganpanduru consisting chiefly of rice. MAHA-PEREHERA OR RANDOLI-PEREHERA: The last five days of the Perehera (in July) when the insignia are taken in procession out of the precincts of a Dewalaya along the principal streets of the town. MAHA-SALAWA: The chief or great hall. MAHEKADA: The pingo of raw provisions, chiefly vegetables and lamp oil, given regularly once a month to a temple or chief by the tenants of the mul-pangu in a village, namely the Ganwasama, Durawasanaa, etc. MALIGAWA: Palace. The sanctuary of a Dewale where the insignia are kept. In Dewala only the officiating Kapurala can enter it. Even its repairs such as white washing, etc. are done by the Kapurala. MALU-DENA-PANGUWA: Lands held by the tenants generally of the Nilawasam class, whose duty it is to supply a temple with vegetables for curry for the multen service. A quantity sufficient to last a week or two is provided at one time, and this is continued all the year through. The vegetables supplied are of different sorts, consisting of garden and henaproduce and greens and herbs gathered from the jungle. MALU-KESELKEN: Green plantains for curries, as distinguished from ripe plantains. MALUPETMAN: The courtyard of a temple with its approaches. MALWATTIYA: A basket or tray of flowers. One of the duties of a tenant in mura at a temple is to supply a basket of flowers morning and evening for offering in front of the image of Buddha or in front of the shrine. MAKARA-TORANA: An ornamental arch over the portal of a Vihare formed of two fabulous monsters facing each other. These monsters are said to be emblems of the God of Love (Kama). They are a modern introduction borrowed from modern Hinduism. MAKUL: Clay used in whitewashing. MALABANDINA-RAJAKARIYA: The term in use in the Matale District for the services of putting up the pole for the Perehera, so called from flowers being tied to the pole when it is set up. MALASUNGE: A small detached building at a Vihare to offer flowers in. These buildings are also found attached to private houses, where they serve the purpose of a private chapel. MANDAPPAYA: Covered court or verandah. MANGALA-ASTAKAYA OR MAGUL-KAVI: Invocation in eight stanzas recited at Dewale as a thanks giving song. MANGALYAYA: A festival, a wedding. The four principal festivals are the Awurudu (old year) the Nanumura (new year), the Katti (feast of lights) in Il (November) and the Alutsal (harvest home) in Duruta (January). Some reckon the old and new year festivals as one, and number the Perehera in Ehala (July) amongst the festivals. In Ninda villages it is at one of the festivals, generally the old or new year, that the tenants appear with presents before the proprietor and attend to the ordinary repairs of his Wala, awwa. In temple villages they likewise present their penuma, repair and clean the buildings, courts-compounds and paths, put up decorations, join in the processions, and build temporary sheds for lights and for giving accommodation to worshippers on these occasions. They pay their Ganpandura, have land disputes etc. settled and the annual officers appointed. Tenants unable to attend by reason of distance or other causes make a payment in lieu called Gamanmurakasi. MANNAYA: Kitchen knife. Knife commonly used in tapping Kitul. MASSA: An ancient Kandyan coin equal to two groats or eight pence. Massa is used in singular only; when more than one is spoken of "Ridi" is used. MEDERI OR MENERI: A small species of paddy grown on hen. Panic grass (Clough). MEDINDINA MASE: The twelfth month of the Sinhalese year (March-April.) MEKARAL: A long kind of bean. METIPAN: Clay lamps supplied by the potter for the Katti-Mangalyaya. METIPANDAMA: A bowl, made of clay to hold rags and oil, used as a torch. MINUMWI: Remuneration given to the Mananawasam tenants for measuring paddy. The rate is fixed by custom in each village but varies considerably throughout the country. MINUMWASAMA OR PANGUWA: The office of a Mananna or the holding held by the Manana people; their primary service as their name denotes is measuring out paddy given to be pounded as well as the paddy brought in from the fields and rice brought in after being pounded, but as the office has come to be held by low caste people and by Vellala of low degree the service has become analogous to those of the Uliyakkara-Wasam class such as putting up privies, mudding walls, carrying palanquins, baggage Penumkat and Adukkukat and serving as torch bearers at festivals. The Mananna is as much the Vidane's messenger as the Attapattu Appu is the messenger of the proprietor. He together with the Lekama keeps watch at the threshing floor, takes care of the buffaloes brought for ploughing and threshing and assists the Vidane, Lekama, and Kankanama in the collection of the dues such as, Ganpandura etc. MIPENI: Honey. It is given as a sort of forest dues by tenants of villages in the wild districts. MIRIS: Chillies given as a rent or proprietor's ground share of hena land cultivated with it. MOHOTTALA: The same as Lekama q. v. MOLPILLA: The iron rim of a pestle or paddy pounder. MUDUHIRUWA OR MUDUWA: A ring. It is the penuma given by silver-smiths and gold-smiths. MUKKALA: Three-fourths. A Tamil word used by certain tenants in the Seven Korala for three-fourths of the service of a full Panguwa. MULTEN OR MURUTEN: Food offered to a Deviyo in a Dewale by a Kapurala daily, or on Kenmura days. The Muttettu fields of the Dewalaya supply the rice for it, and the tenants of the Malumura-panguwa the vegetables. It is cooked in the temple, mulutenge or kitchen, sometimes as often as three times a day. It is carried from the kitchen with great ceremony on a Kada by the proper Kattiyanaralas. All thus engaged in cooking, carrying and offering it should be of the Kapu family, by whom it is afterwards eaten. MULTEN-MEWEDAMAWIMA: The carrying of the Multen Kada from the Multenge (kitchen) to the sanctuary. The term is in use in the Badulla District. MUN: A sort of pea forming one of the chief products of a hena, and largely used as a curry. MURA-AMURE: An ordinary turn and an extraordinary turn of service. A term applied to a holding which, in addition to its proper or ordinary turn of service, has to perform some extra service on account of additional land attached to the mulpanguwa. The term is used in Kurunegala District. MURA-AWUDAYA: A lance. The weapon in the hands of the Hewawasam or Dunukara tenant on guard. MURA-AWUDA-RAJAKARIYA: The service of a guard holding a lance. MURAGEYA: Guard-room. MURAYA: A general term for the turn of any service. The Muraya is of different lengths, 7, 10, or 15 days being the common periods of each mura. In some mura the tenant receives food, in the others not. MUSNA: Broom; brush. MUTTEHE-PENUMA: presents of sweetmeats or raw provisions given by tenants of some villages in the Sabaragamuwa District after the harvesting of a middle crop between the ordinary Yala and Maha crops, known as the Muttes harvest. MUTTETTUWA: A field belonging to the proprietor, whether a chief or temple, and cultivated on his account jointly by tenants of every description. The proprietor usually finds the seed-paddy, and bears all costs of agricultural implements, and sometimes gives the buffaloes; the service of the tenants is reckoned not by days, but by the number of the different agricultural operations to which they have to contribute labour, and they are accordingly spoken of as "Wedapaha" and "Weda-hata," which are--1, puran ketuma or puran-hiya (first digging or first ploughing); 2, dekutuma or binnegunhiya (the second digging or ploughing); 3, wepuruma (sowing including the smoothing of the beds); 4, goyan-kepuma (reaping including stacking); and 5, goyan-medima (threshing including storing). These admit of sub-divisions. Hence the number of agricultural operations differ in different districts. All the tenants take a part in the cultivation, and are generally fed by the proprietor or by the Ganwasam tenants on his behalf. The sowing of the seed-paddy is the work of the Gammahe as requiring greater care, and irrigation that of the Mananna, unless special arrangements are made for it with a Diyagoyya who is allowed in payment, a portion of the field to cultivate free of ground-rent, or the crop of a cultivated portion. The Muttettu straw furnishes thatch for buildings, the tying and removing of which is also a service rendered by the tenants. The services of the different classes of the tenantry on an estate are centred in its Muttettu field. Hence the passing of the Muttettuwa from the family of the landlord into the hands of strangers is invariably followed by the tenants resisting their customary services in respect of the Muttettu. They have generally succeeded in such resistance. See first Report of the Service Tenure Commission P. 9. "In only a few cases have estates been sold away from the families of the local chiefs, and in these cases with the almost invariable result of the loss of all claim to service by disuse, the Kandyan tenant being peculiarly sensitive as to the social status of his Lord. A few years ago one of the leading Advocates in Kandy acquired three estates, and after several years' litigation, he was compelled to get the original proprietor to take back the largest of the three, and the claim to services from the other two had to be abandoned. On the original proprietor resuming procession, the tenants returned to their allegiance." MUTTIYA: The same as heliya (q.v.) MUTU-KUDE: Umbrella of State, made of rich cloth, and carried in procession by one of the higher tenants over the insignia of the Deviyo, or over the Karanduwa of the Maligawa which is borne on an elephant. N NAMBIRALA OR NAMBURALA: A headman corresponding to an overseer. It is a term in use in Moorish villages in the Kurunegala District. NANAGEYA: A bath-house. On the visit of the proprietor or some other person of rank, the nanage and atuge (privy) are put up at the lodging prepared for him by a tenant of the Uliyam or Nila panguwa, or by the mananna of the village. NANU: Composition generally made of lime juice, and other acids for cleansing the hair. In temples it is made of different fragrant ingredients the chief of which is powdered sandal-wood. NANUMURA-MANGALYAYA: The festival immediately following the Sinhalese new year on which purification with nanu is performed (see above). NATA-DEWALE: The temple of Nata Daviyo, who is said to be now in the Divyalokaya, but is destined when born on earth to be the Buddha of the next kalpa under the name Mayitri Buddha. NATANA-PANGUWA: It is one and the same with the Geekiyana-panguwa q. v. The service of this section of the Geekiyana-panguwa is the Digge-netima by females on the nights of the Kenmura days and of festivals. They likewise perform the Alattibema and dance during the whole night of the last day of the Perehera and one of their number accompanies the Randoli procession. Dancing taught by the matron of the class, called Alatti-amma or Manikkamahage. This panguwa is also called the Malwara-panguwa. One of favourite dances of the Alatti women is "Kalagedinetima" (dancing with new pots) the pot used at which becomes the dancer's perquisite. NAVAN-MASE: The eleventh month of the Sinhalese year (February-March.) NAYYANDI-NETIMA: The dance of the Yakdesso (devil-dancers) during Perehera in Dewale. NAYAKE-UNNANSE: Chief priest. NELIYA: A seer measure. NELLI: One of the three noted myrobalans (Clough). NELUNWI: Paddy given as hire for weeding and transplanting in a field. NEMBILIYA: A vessel used in cleansing rice in water previous to being boiled. It is of the size and shape of a large "appallaya" but the inside instead of being smooth is grooved, or has a dented surface to detain sand and dirt. NETTARA-PINKAMA: The festival on the occasion of painting-in the eyes of a figure of Buddha in a Vihare. The offerings received daring the ceremony are given to the artificers or painters as their hire (see Barapen.) NETTIPALE: A penthouse, or slanting roof from a wall or rock. NETTIMALE: The ornamental head dress of an elephant in processions. NIKINIMASE: The fifth month of the Sinhalese year (August-September). NILAKARAYA: A tenant liable to service, more particularly the term is applied to tenants doing menial service. NILAWASAMA: The tenement held by the Nilawasam tenants. The services, as those of the Uliyakwasam embrace all domestic and outdoor work of various and arduous kinds some of which, as those already enumerated under the Minumwasama, are the supplying of fuel and water to the kitchen and bath, the pounding of paddy, the extracting of oil, the mudding of walls and floors, the dragging of timber and other building materials, the preparation of clay and the supplying of firewood for the brick and tile kiln, blowing the bellows for the smith and supplying him with charcoal for the forge, the breaking of lime stones, the cutting of banks and ditches, putting up fences, clearing gardens, sweeping out courtyards and compounds, joining in all agricultural operations on gardens, fields, and hen, removing the crops, tying straw and assisting in thatching, the carrying of palanquins and baggage on journeys, conveying to the proprietor the penumkat, adukkukat, pehindumkat, mahekat, wasdankat, etc., supplied by the other tenants, joining in the preparations for festivals, carrying pandam in processions, and serving at the proprietor's on occasions, of importance such as weddings, funerals, arrival of distinguished visitors, and at Yak and Bali ceremonies. Nilawasam tenants for the most part, are of a low caste or belong to the lower classes of the Vellala caste. Hence their yearly penuma to the proprietor, instead of being a kada of sweetmeats consists of vegetables and a contribution of raw or uncooked articles of food. Besides services as above, rendered to the proprietor, the Nilawasam tenants work for the proprietor's Vidane, and for the Ganwasama, a few days in fields and hen and carry their baggage on journeys. NILA-PANDAMA OR KILA-PANDAMA: The same as Kalapandama. q. v. NINDAGAMA: A village or lands in a village in exclusive possession of the proprietor. Special grants from kings are under sannas. NIYANDA: A plant, the fibres of which are used in making cords, strings for curtains and hangings and carpets or mats. NIYAKOLA: The leaves of a shrub used for chewing with betel. NULMALKETE: A ball or skein of thread. O OTU: Tax, tythe. OLONGUWA: A long bag or sack having the contents divided into two equal portions so as to fall one before and one behind when the bag is slung over the shoulder. ORAK-KODIA OR OSAKKODIYA: Small flags on arches or on sticks placed at intervals. P PADALAMA: A floor, foundation. PADIYA: Water to wash the feet on entering the sanctuary of a Dewale. PADUWA: A palanquin bearer. This class carries the palanquins of males, those of females being carried by Wahunpura tenants. PAHALOSWAKADA: Full-moon day. PALLEMALERALA: The chief officer of the Pallemale (lower temple in the Dalada Maligawa.) PANAMA: A fanam, equal to one-sixteenth part of a rupee. PANALELI: Horns cut into shape for combs, and given as penum. PANDAMA: A torch, candle, see atpandama. PANDAM-DAMBU: It is sometimes written Dâmbu. The same as Dambu q. v. PANGUWA: A holding, a portion, a farm. PANGUKARAYA: The holder of a panguwa, a tenant, a shareholder. PANHARANGUWA: An ornamented arch or support for lights at festivals in temples. PANIKKILA OR PANIKKALA: Elephant keeper. He has the charge of temple elephants used in processions, in which service he is assisted by a grass-cutter allowed by the temple, and is besides fed when on duty at a temple. PANIKKIYA: The headman of the tom-tom beater caste. A barber. PANMADUWA: The festival of lights occasionally held at a Dewale in honour of Pattini Deviyo, in which all the tenants of a village join and contribute to the expenses. PANPILI: Rags for lights or lamps. The same as Dambu. PANSALA: The residence of a priest. Lit. hut of leaves. PANTIYA: An elephant stall. A row of buildings. A festival. PAN-WETIYA: A wick. PATA: A measure corresponding to a hunduwa. One-fourth of a seer. The same as Awaliya. PATABENDI: Titled. There are in some villages a superior class of tenants called Patabendo, doing nominal service, such as occasionally guarding the proprietor's house. In temple villages, however, they perform services similar to those of the Ganwasama. PATHISTHANAYA: A lance with an ornamented handle, carried in processions or on journeys of state by the Hewawasam or Atapattu tenants. PATHKADAYA: A priest's kneeling cloth or leathern rug. PATHKOLAYA: A piece of a plantain leaf used instead of a plate. It is called Pachchala in Sabaragamwua. In temples there is a special tenant to supply it for the daily service. PATHTHARAYA: The alms bowl of a priest, sometimes of clay but generally of iron or brass, or, rarely of silver. PATTAYA: The sheath of an arecanut branch. It is very commonly used by way of a bottle for keeping jaggery or honey in. PATTINIAMMA: The female attendant in the Pattini Dewale. PATTINI-NETUMA: Dance held by Nilawasam tenants in charge of temple cattle, who serves at the giving of fresh milk called "Hunkiri-payinda-kirima" and at the "Kiri-itirima" ceremony of boiling milk in Dewale at the new year, and sprinkling it about the precincts, in expression of a wish that the year may be a prosperous one. PATTIRIPPUWA: An elevated place, or raised platform in the Widiya of Dewale, as a resting place for the insignia during procession. PAWADAYA OR PIYAWILLA: A carpet or cloth spread on the ground by the dhobi on duty for the Kapurala to walk upon during the Tewawa, or at the entry of a distinguished visitor into the house of the proprietor. PEDIYA: A dhobi. A washerman. PEDURA: A mat. It is given for use at a threshing floor or for a festival or public occasion by tenants as one of their dues. PEHINDUM: Uncooked provisions given to headmen, generally by low class tenants. PELA: A shed, a watch-hut. PELDORA: Perquisite to the watcher of a field, being the crop of the paddy around the watch-hut. See Hiwelande. PELELLA: A screen made of leaves and branches to answer the purpose of a wall in temporary buildings. PELKARAYA: A sub-tenant. See Dalu pathkaraya. The Mulpakaraya (original or chief tenant) frequently gets a person to settle on the lands of his panguwa, in order to have a portion of the services due by him performed by the person so brought in, who is called the pelkaraya; lit. cotter. PELLAWEDAGAMAN: The service turns of tenants. A term in use in the Kegalle District. PENPOLA: A priest's bath. PENUMA: The same as dekuma. q. v. PENUM-KADA: A pingo of presents, provisions, vegetables, dried fish or flesh, chatties, etc., given annually or at festivals by tenants to their landlords. PENUMWATTIYA: Presents carried in baskets. PERAWA: A measure equal to one-fourth of a seer, in use in the Kurunegala District, corresponding to a Hunduwa. PERAHANKADA: A piece of cloth to strain water through, used by priests, being one of their eight requisites. A filter; vide "delipihiya" supra. PEREHERA: A procession; the festival observed in the month of Ehela (July), in Dewale, the chief ceremony in which is the taking in procession, the insignia of the divinities Vishnu, Kataragama, Nata and Pattini for fifteen days. All the Dewala tenants and officers attend it; buildings and premises are cleansed, whitewashed, decorated, and put into proper order. The festival is commenced by bringing in procession a pole and setting it up at the Temple in a lucky hour. This is done by the Kapurala; during the first five days the insignia are taken in procession round the inner court of the Dewale; the five days so observed are called the Kumbal-Perehera, from Kumbala, a potter, who provided the lamps with stands called Kalas generally used in some Dewala at the festival. During the next five days, called the Dewala Perehera the procession goes twice daily round the Widiya or outer court of a Dewale. During the third or last five days, called the Maha or Randoli-perehera the procession issues out of the temple precincts, and taking a wider circuit passes round the main thoroughfare of a town. The festival concludes with one of its chief ceremonies, the Diyakepima, when the insignia are taken in procession on elephants to the customary ferry which is prepared and decorated for the occasion; and the Kapurala, proceeding in a boat to the middle of the stream, cuts with the Rankaduwa (golden sword) the water at the lucky hour. At that very instant the "Rankendiya" (the gold goblet) which is first emptied of the water preserved in it from the Diyakepima of the previous year, is re-filled and taken back in procession to the Dewala. It is customary in some temples for the tenants to wash themselves in the pond or stream immediately after the Diyake-pima. This is a service obligatory on the tenants. After the conclusion of the Perehera, the officers and tenants engaged in it, including the elephants, have ceremonies, for the conciliation of lesser divinities and evil spirits, performed called Balibat-netima, Garayakunnetima and Waliyakun-netima. The Perehera is observed in all the principal Dewala such as Kataragama, the four Dewala in Kandy, Alutnuwara Dewale and Saman Dewale in Sabaragamuwa etc. The following notice of the Kandy Perehera is taken from a note to the first report of the Service Tenures Commission:--"The most celebrated of these processions is the Perehera, which takes place at Kandy in Esala (July-Aug.) commencing with the new moon in that month and continuing till the full moon. It is a Hindu festival in honor of the four deities Natha, Vishnu, Kataragama (Kandaswami) and Pattini, who are held in reverence by the Buddhists of Ceylon as Deviyo who worshipped Goutama and are seeking to attain Nirwana. In the reign of King Kirtissiri (A. D. 1747-1780) a body of priests who came from Siam for the purpose of restoring the Upasampada ordination objected to the observance of this Hindu ceremony in a Buddhist country. To remove their scruples, the king ordered the Dalada relic of Buddha to be carried thenceforth in procession with the insignia of the four deities. Nevertheless, the Perehera is not regarded as a Buddhist ceremony." PERUDAN: Food given to priests according to turns arranged amongst tenants. PETAWILIKARAYA: A tavalan driver. It is the Moor tenants who perform this service. PETHETIYA: A vessel for measuring an hour. A small cup of brass or silver, or sometimes a cocoanut shell, having a small hole in the bottom, is put to float in a basin of water, the hole is made of such a size that the water which comes through it will be exactly sufficient to make the cup sink in the space of a Sinhalese hour or peya, equal to twenty-five minutes or one-sixtieth part of a day. PETMAN: Foot-paths. They are to be kept free of jungle by the tenants, with whom it is a principal duty. PILIMAGEYA: Image-repository, the chamber in Wihare for images. PILLEWA: A bit of high land adjoining a field, called also "Wanata". PINBERA: The beating of tom-tom, not on service but for merit at pinkam at the poya days, or after an almsgiving. PINKAMA: In a general sense, any deed of merit, but more particularly used for the installing of priests in "Was" in the four months of the rainy season (July to November) for the public reading of Bana. PIRIWEHIKADA: A pingo made up of "piriwehi" wicker baskets filled with provisions or other articles. PIRUWATAYA: A cloth, towel, sheet etc., supplied by the dhobi and returned after use. PITAKATTALAYA: The exterior of a Dewale or the portion outside the sanctuary. It is also a term applied to all the classes of tenants whose services are connected with the exterior of a Dewale, as distinguished from the Etul-kattale, tenants or servants of the sanctuary. PIYAWILLA: The same as Pawadaya. q. v. POKUNA: A pond, or well, or reservoir of water, resorted to at a Perehera for the Diyakepuma. POLÉ: The present given to the Vidane of a village by a sportsman on killing game within the village limits. It is about four or five pounds of flesh. In some districts the custom of giving the pole, apart from the Gangate, has ceased to exist, but it is kept up in Sabaragamuwa. POLGEDIYA: The fruit of the cocoanut tree. POLWALLA: A bunch of cocoanuts used in decorations, and the supplying of which forms a service. PORODDA: The collar of an elephant. POSONMASA: The third month of the Sinhalese year (June-July). POTSAKIYA: The button fastened to the end of a string used in tying up and keeping together the ola leaves and wooden covers of native manuscripts. POTTANIYA: A bundle larger than a "mitiya." POYAGEYA: A detached building at a Wihare establishment within proper "sima" (military posts). It is used as a confessional for priests on poya days, as a vestry for convocations and meetings on matters ecclesiastical, and for holding ordination and for worship. PUJAWA: An offering of any kind--e. g. food, cloth, flowers, incense, etc. PULLIMAL: Ear-rings. PURAGEYA: The scaffolding of a building or the temporary shed put up to give shelter to the workmen and protection to the permanent structure in course of erection. PURANA: A field lying fallow, or the time during which a field lies uncultivated. PURAWEDIKODIYA: A flag. A term used in the Four Korale. PURAWASAMA: See Ganpandura. A term in use in the Kurunegala District for ground rent. PURUKGOBA: Tender cocoanut branch for decorations. It is called Pulakgoba in Sabaragamuwa and Pulakatta in Matale. PRAKARAYA: A rampart, a strong wall. R RADA-BADDARA-RAJAKARIYA: Dhoby service. It consists of washing weekly or monthly the soiled clothes of a family, the robes, curtains, flags, and vestments of a Temple; decorating temples with viyan (ceilings) for festivals and pinkam, and private houses on occasions of weddings, Yak or Bali ceremonies, and arrival of distinguished visitors; the supplying on such occasions of "Piruwata" for wearing, "etirili" or covers for seats, tables etc., "piyawili" or carpets, and "diyaredi" or bathing dresses; the making of "pandam" torches and "panweti" wicks and the supplying of "dambu" tow. The "Heneya" (dhobi) has also to attend his master on journeys carrying his bundle of clothes and bathing requisites. He supplies the Kapurala and Yakdessa with piruwata, the former weekly when on duty at a Dewale and the latter for dancing at festivals. He gives piruwata for the Muttettu, for serving out the food, for penum-kat and tel-kat as covers, and for the state elephant during festivals. The penuma he presents consists generally of a piece of wearing apparel or of a "sudu-toppiya" (Kandyan hat) or in some cases of Panaleli (horns for combs.) His prerequisites vary according to the occasion calling forth his services. Thus at the Sinhalese new year besides the quota of sweetmeats and rice given on such an occasion every member of the family ties up a coin in the cloth he delivers to him for washing. At "kotahalu" (occasion) of a female attaining puberty, festivities the dhoby is entitled to the cloth worn by the young woman and to her head ornaments, and at a funeral to all the clothes not allowed to be burnt on the pyre. RADAYA: A washerman of an inferior grade. RADALA: A chief, an officer of rank. RAHUBADDA: A general term for small temples or dependencies of the Kandy Pattini Dewale. It is sometimes used of a kind of dancers. It is also sometimes taken as one of the nine "Nawabadda" the nine trades, which are, possibly, the following, but it is difficult to find any two Kandyans who give precisely the same list: 1, Kottal, smiths; 2, Badahela, potters; 3, Hakuru, jaggery makers; 4, Hunu, lime burners; 5, Hulanbadde, or Madige, tavalam-drivers, who are always Moors; 6, Rada, dhobies; 7, Berawa tom-tom-beaters; 8, Kinnaru, weavers; 9, Henda or Rodi, Rodiyas. RAJAHELIYABEMA: The distribution of rice boiled at a Dewale at the close of the Perehera, among the servitors who took part in the ceremonies. RAJAKARIYA: Service to the king. The word is now used indiscriminately for services done to a temple or Nindagam proprietors, or for the duties of an office. RAMBATORANA: An arch in which plantain trees form the chief decoration. RAN-AWUDA: The golden sword, bow, and arrows etc., belonging to a Dewale. The insignia of a Deviyo. RANDOLIYA: A royal palanquin, the palanquin in which the insignia are taken in procession during the Maha Perehera. RANHILIGE: The royal howdah in which the insignia are taken in processions on the back of an elephant. RANKAPPAYA: A plate made of gold. See ranmandaya. RANMANDAYA: A circular plate or tray for offerings in the sanctuary of a Dewale. RATHAGEYA: The building for the car used in processions. REDIPILI: Curtains, coverings, etc. of a temple; clothes. RELIPALAM: Decorations of an arch made of cloth, tied up so as to form a kind of frill. RIDISURAYA: Rim of silver by a smith tenant for the Ehela tree. RIDIYA: An ancient coin equal to eight-pence, or one-third of a rupee. RIPPA: Called also Pattikkaleli are laths forming building material annually supplied by tenants. RITTAGE: Resting place for the insignia during the procession round the courts of a Dewalaya. See Pattirippuwa. S SADANGUWE-PEHINDUMA: A pehinduma given by a village in common, not by the tenants in turns. The term is in use in Sabaragamuwa. SAMAN DEWALE: Temple of Sumana or Saman deviyo, the tutelary god of Sripadastane. The one in Sabaragamuwa is the richest and largest of the Dewale dedicated to this Deviyo. SAMUKKALAYA: A cover for a bed or couch forming a travelling requisite carried by a tenant for the use of his superior. SANDUN-KIRIPENI-IHIMA: A sprinkling of perfumes at festivals to denote purification, tranquility. SANNI-YAKUMA: A species of devil-dance to propitiate demons afflicting a patient. SARAKKU: Curry-stuff. Drugs. SARAMARU-MOHOTTALA: A mohottala over service villages, holding his office during the pleasure of the head of the Dewale. SATARA-MANGALYAYA: The four principal festivals in the year. See mangalyaya. SATTALIYA: An ancient coin equal to about one and-a-half fanam, or two-pence and a farthing. SEMBUWA: A small brazen pot generally used on journeys for carrying water or for bathing. The service of carrying it on journeys devolves on the dhoby. SEMENNUMA: Remuneration given originally to an irrigation headman, which in lapse of time began to be given to the proprietor, and called "Huwandiram" or "Suwandirama". When given to a Dewale, it is sometimes called Semennuma. SESATA: A large fan made of talipot or cloth and richly ornamented, with a long handle to carry it in processions. It was once an emblem of royalty. SIHILDAN: Priest's early meal at daybreak. The same as Hildana q. v. SINHARAKKARA-MUHANDIRAMA: A rank conferred on the headman over the musicians of a temple. SINHASANAYA: A throne. An altar, A seat of honor. It is also a name given to the "Pattirippuwa." SITTARA: A painter. He is a tenant generally of the smith caste, and mends and keeps in repair the image and paintings of temples. The temple supplies the requisite pigments and food during work. The completion of an image or a restoration or construction of a Vihare is observed with a pinkama; and the offerings of moneys, etc., for a certain number of days are allowed as perquisites to the painters and smiths in addition to the hire agreed upon called "Barapen" (q. v.) The painter, likewise, supplies ornamented sticks as handles for lances, flags, etc., and presents to the head of the temple a penuma of an ornamented walking-stick or betel tray. SIWURUKASI OR SIWURUMILA: Contribution for priests' robes, being a very trifling but a regular annual payment during the Was Season, and given with the usual dankada. SRIPADASTANE: The place of the sacred foot-step-Adam's peak. It is yearly frequented by crowds of pilgrims, has a separate temple establishment of its own, presided over by a Nayaka Unnanse, and held in great veneration second only to the Dalada Maligawa or shrine of the eye-tooth of Buddha. SUDUREDI-TOPPIYA: The white hat commonly worn by Kandyan headmen forming the annual penuma of a dhoby tenant. SUWANDIRAMA: See Semennuma. T TADUPPUREDDA: Country-made cloth of coarse texture, which forms with the tenants of the tom-tom beater caste their annual penuma to the proprietor. TAHANCHIKADA OR TAHANDIKADA: A ponumkada given to a Dissawa. A term in use in the Kegalle District. TALA: Sesamum. TALA-ATU-MUTTUWA: Two talipots sown together and ornamented. It is used as an umbrella, and on journeys of the proprietor it is carried by the proper tenant, generally of the Atapattu class. TALAM-GEHIMA: To play with the "Taliya" cymbals as an accompaniment to the tom-tom. TALATTANIYA: An elder in a village. TALIGEDIYA: A large earthen-ware pot. TALIMANA: Blacksmith's apparatus for a pair of bellows generally made of wood, sunk in the ground and covered with elk-hide. TALIYA OR TALAMA: A kind of cymbal. TALKOLA-PIHIYE: A small knife with a stylus to write with. TAMBALA: A creeper, the leaves of which are used with betel. TAMBORUWA: A tambourine. TANAYAMA: A rest-house. A lodging put up on the occasion of the visit of a proprietor or person of rank to a village. TANGAMA: Half a ridi, equal to one groat or four-pence. TANTUWAWA: Any ceremony such as a wedding, a devil-dance, a funeral, etc. TATUKOLA: Pieces of plantain leaves used as plates. The same as Patkola q. v. TATTUMARUWA: The possession of a field in turns of years; a system leading often to great complications e. g., a field belongs to A and B in equal shares, and they possess it in alternate years. They die and leave it to two sons of A, and three sons of B. These again hold in Tattumaru (A1, A2) (B1, B2, B3,). In fourteen years the possession is A1, B1, A2, B2, A1, B3, A2, B1, A1, B2, A2, B3, A1, B1, and so on. A1 leaves two sons, A2 lives, B1 has three sons, B2 has four sons and B3 has five. A2 gets his turn after intervals of four years, but A1a and B1b have to divide A1's turn. Each therefore gets his turn after intervals of eight years, but each of the B shareholders gets his turn at intervals of six years and B1a, B1b, B1c now have a turn each at intervals of eighteen years, B2a, B2b, B2c, B2d, at intervals of twenty-four years, B3e at intervals of thirty years, as in the following table:-- 1 A1a 11 A2 21 A1b 2 B1a 12 B3b 22 B2d 3 A2 13 A1b 23 A2 4 B2a 14 B1c 24 B3d 5 A1b 15 A2 25 A1a 6 B3a 16 B2c 26 B1b 7 A2 17 A1a 27 A2 8 B1b 18 B3c 28 B2a 9 A1a 19 A2 29 A1b 10 B2b 20 B1a 30 B3e TAWALAMA: Pack-bullock. TELGEDI: Ripe or dry cocoanuts to express oil from. TEMMETTAMA: A kettle-drum. One of the five musical instruments of a temple. TEMMETTANKARAYA: A tenant playing on the Temmettama and belonging to the tom-tom beater caste. His service is in requisition for the daily services of a temple at its festivals, perehera, and pinkama and when the incumbent proceeds on journeys of importance such as ordinations, visits to the prior, and pinkam duties. Under a lay proprietor, the Temmettankaraya attends at weddings, Yak and Bali ceremonies, funerals, and on journeys on state occasions. He occasionally assists in agricultural and building works, and presents a penuma of a towel or piece of cloth with betel. At the four festivals in temples he takes a part in all the preparations and decorations. TETAMATTUWA: A towel or piece of cloth to rub the body dry after a bath, which it is the service of the dhoby to supply. TETIYA: A metal dish used for the purposes of a plate. TEWAWA: The daily service of a Dewale, morning, noon, and evening, when muruten is offered. TIRALANU: Cords for curtains. TIRAPILI: Curtains. TITTAYAN: A kind of small fresh-water fish having bitter taste. It is dried and given with other articles as penum. TORANA: An ornamental arch put up on public and festive occasions. TUPPOTTIYA: A cloth of ten yards worn round the waist. The ordinary wearing cloth of a Kandyan. TUTTUWA: A pice, equal sometimes to 3/8d. sometimes one half-penny; when it contains four challies it is called the "Mahatuttuwa." TUWAYA-TUNDAMA: A towel given by the tom-tom beater tenants as a penuma. U UDAHALLA: A hanging basket of wicker-work. UDAKKIYA: A small kind of drum carried in the hand and used to play for dance music. Its use is not restricted to any caste. UDUWIYANA: A canopy held over the muruten in the daily service of a Dewale, or over the insignia at processions, or over any sacred thing taken in procession, such as Alutsal, Nanu, Bana books, Relics, etc. The word also means ceilings put up by the dhoby. UGAPATA: Vegetables, jaggery, or kitul-peni etc., wrapped up in leaves, generally in the sheath of the arecanut branch. Six ugapat make a kada, or pingo-load. ULIYAMWASAMA: The holding of land by the Uliyamwasam tenants who perform all kinds of menial service. The same as Nilawasam q. v. UL-UDE: Trousers worn by dancers. UNDIYARALA: A Dewala messenger. UNDUWAPMASA: The ninth month of the Sinhalese year (December-January). UPASAKARALA: Persons devoted to religious exercises. UPASAMPADAWA: The highest order of Buddhist priests. The ceremony of admission into the order. USNAYA: A smith's forge. The same as idinna. q.v. UYANWATTA: A park, a garden. The principal garden attached to a temple or to the estate of a proprietor, the planting, watching, gathering and removing the produce of which forms one of the principal services of tenants. W WADANATALAATTA: A richly ornamented talipot. In ancient times its use was restricted to the court of the king and to temples; but now it is used by the upper classes on public occasions, being carried by the Atapattu tenants. The same as Kumaratalatta. q.v. WAHALBERE: The same as Magulbere. q.v. WAHALKADA: The porch before a temple or court. WAHUNPURAYA: A tenant of the jaggery caste, which supplies the upper classes with domestic servants, chiefly cooks. This class has to accompany the proprietor on journeys and carry the palanquin of female members of the proprietor's family. When not engaged as domestics the Wahumpurapangu tenants supply jaggery and kitul-peni. They likewise supply vegetables, attend agricultural work and carry baggage. WAJJANKARAYA: A tom-tom-beater. A general term for a temple musician. The five wajjan of which a regular Hewisia is made up are: 1, the Dawula (the common drum); 2, the Temettama (kettle-drum) 3, the Boraya (drum longer than a Dawula) 4, the Taliya (cymbals) and 5, the Horanewa (the trumpet.) WADUPASRIYANGE: The same as "Anamestraya." WAKMASE OR WAPMASE: The seventh month of the Sinhalese year (Oct. Nov.) WALANKADA: A pingo of pottery, usually ten or twelve in number, supplied by the potter as a part of his service, either as a penumkada or as the complement of chatties he has to give at festivals, etc. WALAN-KERAWALA: Half a pingo of pottery. WALAWWA: A respectful term for the residence of a person of rank. The manor-house. WALIYAKUMA: Called also "Wediyakuma." The devil-dance after a Diyakepuma. See "Hiro hinetima." WALLAKOTU: Sticks, the bark or twigs of which are used in place of string. It is supplied by tenants for Yak or Bali ceremonies. WALLIMALE: A poem containing the legends of Valliamma, the wife of Kataragama. WALUMALGOBA: The cluster of young fruit the flower and the sprout (tender branch) of the cocoanut tree used in decorations, and supplied by tenants. WANATA: A clearing between a cultivated land and the adjacent jungle. The same as "Pillowa". WANNAKURALA: An accountant. Tho officer of a temple whose duties correspond to those of a Dewala Mohattala or Attanayakarala. WAPPIHIYA: A knife little larger than a Wahunketta (kitchen knife) with the blade somewhat curved. WARAGAMA: A gold coin varying in value from six shillings to seven shillings and sixpence. WASAMA: An office. A service holding. WASKALAYA: The season in which priests take up a fixed residence, devoting their time to the public reading and expounding of Bana. It falls between the months of July and October. Sometimes a resident priest is placed in Was in his own Pansala, which means that he is to be fed with dan provided by the tenantry during the season of Was. The practice originated in the command of Buddha that his disciples should travel about during the dry season as mendicant monks, but that in the rainy season they should take shelter in leaf huts. The modern priests now desert their substantially built monasteries to take up their residence for the Was-lit: rainy season--in temporary buildings. The object of the original institution was to secure attention during part of the year to the persons living near the monastery--in fact that for this period the monks should serve as parish priests. WAS-ANTAYA: The close of the Was-season. WATADAGE: Temporary sheds for lights, sometimes called "Pasriyangewal" or "Wadupasriyangewal." WATAPETTIYA: A circular flat basket to carry adukku and penum in. WATATAPPE: Circular wall round a temple. WATTAKKA: The common gourd generally grown on hen. WATTAMA: A round or turn. In Nuwarakalawiya it is applied to the turn in a Hewisimura service. WATTIYA: A flat basket for carrying penum, flowers etc. WATTORURALA: The tenant whose duty it is to open and close the doors of the sanctuary in a Dewale, to sweep it out, to clean and trim the lamps, to light and tend them, and to take charge of the sacred vessels used in the daily service. WENIWEL: A creeper used as strings for tying. WESAK: The second month of the Sinhalese year (May-June). WESIGILIYA OR WESIKILIYA: A privy for priests. WESMUNA: A mask worn at a Devil or other dance. WIBADDE-MOHOTTALA: The writer who keeps the account of the paddy revenue of a temple. WIDANE: The superintendent of a village or a number of villages. The agent of a proprietor. WIHARAYA: A Buddhist temple (from the Sanskrit vi-hri to walk about), originally the hall where the Buddhist priests took their morning walk; afterwards these halls were used as temples and sometimes became the centre of a whole monastic establishment. The word Wihara or Vihara is now used only to designate a building dedicated to the memory of Gautama Buddha, and set apart for the daily offering of flowers, and of food given in charity. To the Wihara proper there has been added in modern times an image-house for figures of Buddha in the three attitudes standing as the law-giver, sitting in meditation, reclining in the eternal repose of unbroken peace and happiness; and these figures now form prominent objects in every Wihara, and it is before these figures that pious Buddhists make their offerings of rice, flowers, money, etc. It should not be confounded with the "Pansala" which signifies the monastic buildings as distinguished from the temple or place of worship around which they are clustered. WILKORAHA: A large chatty used in soaking seed paddy. WITARUMA: An inferior Vidane, but the office has lost its original dignity. The duties formerly consisted of mere general superintendence of Muttettu-work and carrying of messages to Hewawasam tenants. The Vitaranna now is only a common messenger doing ordinary service as a petty overseer. WIYADAMA: Anything expended or issued for use, whether money or stores. It is generally used for provisions given to a headman or person of rank. WIYAKOLAMILA: Hire of buffaloes employed in threshing paddy. WIYANBENDIMA: The hanging up by the dhoby of clean cloths in temples for festivals or in private houses on festive and other occasions. WIYAN-TATTUWA: A canopy; a coiling. Y YAKDESSA: A tenant of the tom-tom beater caste who performs Devil ceremonies. YAKGE OR YAKMADUWA: The shed in which is performed a devil ceremony. YAKADAMILA: Hire or cost of agricultural implements for Muttettu cultivation, given by a proprietor. YAKADAWEDA: Hard-ware. Blacksmith's work. YALA: The second or the smaller of the two yearly harvests. The season for it varies according to the facilities which each part of the country has in respect of irrigation. Sometimes the word is used in a general sense to mean a crop. YAMANNA OR YAPAMMU: Smelters of iron. Their service consists of giving a certain number of lumps of iron yearly, the burning of charcoal for the forge, carrying baggage, assisting in field work, and at Yak or Bali ceremonies. They put up the Talimana (pair of bellows) for the smith, and smelt iron. YATIKAWA: A Kapurala's incantation or a pray uttered on behalf of a sick person. YATU: Half lumps of iron given as a penum by the Yamana tenants. YOTA: A strong cord or rope. NOTES [1] An account of the Interior of Ceylon (1821) Page 119 Davy. [2] Eleven Years in Ceylon (1841), Vol. II, p. 81 Forbes. [3] An Historical Relation of Ceylon 1681 Page 75 (Knox) [4] Ancient Ceylon (1909) pp. 191, 196 (Parker) [5] The Friend (Old Series) Vol. IV. (1840-1841) p. 189. (David de Silva.) [6] Eleven years in Ceylon (1841) Vol. II, page 104 (Major Forbes.) [7] Taprobanian (1887) vol. 2 p. 17 (Neville). [8] The Veddas (1911) p. 252 (Seligmann). [9] Ancient Ceylon (1909) p. 169. (Parker). [10] Govt. Gazette No. 6442 of 19th May 1911. [11] The Aryan village in India and Ceylon (1882) p. 205 (Phear). [12] The Friend (old series) Vol. IV (1840-1841) p. 211. David de Silva (Ambalangeda). [13] Vide:-- The friend (old series) (1840-1841) Vol. IV p. 189 (David de Silva). J.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1848-1849) Vol. II No. 4 p. 31 (R. E. Lewis). J.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1880) Vol. VI No. 21 p. 46 (Ievers). J.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1883) Vol. VIII No. 26 p. 44 (Bell). J.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1884) Vol. VIII No. 29 p. 331 (J. P. Lewis). J.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1889) Vol. XI No. 39 p. 17 (Bell). J.R.A.S. (Ceylon) (1905) Vol. XVIII No. 56 p. 413 (Comaraswamy). J.R.A.S. (Great Britain) (1885) Vol. XVII p. 366 (Lemesurier). Taprobanian (1885) Vol. I p. 94 (Neville). Orientalist (1887) Vol. III p. 99 (Bell). Spolia Zeylanica (1908) (Parson). North Central Province Manual (1899) p. 181 (Ievers). The Book of Ceylon (1908) p. 382 (Cave). [14] Vide glossary in the appendix. [15] For hunter's jargon vide Taprobanian Vol. 2 p. 19. [16] For Rodi jargon vide Taprobanian Vol. 2 p. 90. [17] For cultivator's jargon vide Taprobanian Vol. 1 p. 167. [18] For Veddi dialect vide Taprobanian Vol. 1 p. 29. [19] J.R.A.S.(C. B.) 1881 Vol. VII p. 33. [20] Illustrated Supplement to the Examiner (1875) Vol. I p. 8. [21] J. R. A. S. (C. B.) vol. V. No. 18 p. 17 (Ludovici.) [22] Ancient Ceylon (1909) p. 587 (Parker.) [23] From Revd. Moscrop's translation of the song of the Thresher in the "Children of Ceylon", p. 53. [24] From Mr. Bell's translation in the Archæological Survey of Kegalle, p. 44. 
36504	----	from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 36504-h.htm or 36504-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36504/36504-h/36504-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36504/36504-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://www.archive.org/details/freshwatersponge00anna The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Published Under the Authority of the Secretary of State for India in Council. Edited by A. E. Shipley, M.A., Sc.D., HON. D.Sc., F.R.S. FRESHWATER SPONGES, HYDROIDS & POLYZOA. by N. ANNANDALE, D.SC., Superintendent and Trustee (_Ex Officio_) of the Indian Museum, Fellow of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and of the Calcutta University. London: Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, & Co. Bombay: Thacker & Co., Limited. Berlin: R. Friedländer & Sohn, 11 Carlstrasse. August, 1911. Printed at Today & Tomorrow's Printers & Publishers, Faridabad CONTENTS. Page EDITOR'S PREFACE v SYSTEMATIC INDEX vii GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1 Biological Peculiarities 2 Geographical Distribution 5 Geographical List 7 Special Localities 13 Nomenclature and Terminology 17 Material 20 INTRODUCTION TO PART I. (_Spongillidæ_) 27 The Phylum Porifera 27 General Structure 29 Skeleton and Spicules 33 Colour and Odour 35 External Form and Consistency 37 Variation 39 Nutrition 41 Reproduction 41 Development 45 Habitat 47 Animals and Plants commonly associated with Freshwater Sponges 49 Freshwater Sponges in relation to Man 50 Indian Spongillidæ compared with those of other Countries 51 Fossil Spongillidæ 52 Oriental Spongillidæ not yet found in India 52 History of the Study of Freshwater Sponges 54 Literature 55 GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS USED IN PART I. 61 SYSTEMATIC LIST OF THE INDIAN SPONGILLIDÆ 63 INTRODUCTION TO PART II. (_Hydrida_) 129 The Phylum Coelenterata and the Class Hydrozoa 129 Structure of Hydra 130 Capture and Ingestion of Prey: Digestion 133 Colour 134 Behaviour 135 Reproduction 136 Development of the Egg 139 Enemies 139 Coelenterates of Brackish Water 139 Freshwater Coelenterates other than Hydra 141 History of the Study of Hydra 142 Bibliography of Hydra 143 GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS USED IN PART II. 145 LIST OF THE INDIAN HYDRIDA 146 INTRODUCTION TO PART III. (_Ctenostomata_ and _Phylactolæmata_) 163 Status and Structure of the Polyzoa 163 Capture and Digestion of Food: Elimination of Waste Products 166 Reproduction: Budding 168 Development 170 Movements 172 Distribution of the Freshwater Polyzoa 173 Polyzoa of Brackish Water 174 History of the Study of Freshwater Polyzoa 177 Bibliography of the Freshwater Polyzoa 178 GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS USED IN PART III. 181 SYNOPSIS OF THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE POLYZOA 183 SYNOPSIS OF THE SUBCLASSES, ORDERS, AND SUBORDERS 183 SYNOPSIS OF THE LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE DIVISIONS OF THE SUBORDER CTENOSTOMATA 185 SYSTEMATIC LIST OF THE INDIAN FRESHWATER POLYZOA 187 APPENDIX TO THE VOLUME 239 Hints on the Preparation of Specimens 239 ADDENDA 242 Part I. 242 Part II. 245 Part III. 245 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 249 EXPLANATION OF PLATES. EDITOR'S PREFACE. Dr. N. Annandale's volume on the Freshwater SPONGES, POLYZOA, and HYDRIDA contains an account of three of the chief groups of freshwater organisms. Although he deals mainly with Indian forms the book contains an unusually full account of the life-history and bionomics of freshwater Sponges, Polyzoa, and Hydrozoa. I have to thank Dr. Annandale for the great care he has taken in the preparation of his manuscript for the press, and also the Trustees of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, for their kindness in placing material at the disposal of the Author. A. E. SHIPLEY. Christ's College, Cambridge, March 1911. SYSTEMATIC INDEX. Page PORIFERA. Order HALICHONDRINA 65 Fam. 1. SPONGILLIDÆ 65 1. Spongilla, _Lamarck_ 67 1A. Euspongilla, _Vejdovsky_ 69 1. lacustris, _auct._ 69 1_a_. reticulata, _Annandale_ 71, 241 2. proliferens, _Annandale_ 72 3. alba, _Carter_ 76 3_a_. cerebellata, _Bowerbank_ 76 3_b_. bengalensis, _Annandale_ 77 4. cinerea, _Carter_ 79, 241 5. travancorica, _Annandale_ 81 6. hemephydatia, _Annandale_ 82 7. crateriformis (_Potts_) 83 1B. Eunapius, _J. E. Gray_ 86 8. carteri, _Carter_ 87, 241 8_a_. mollis, _Annandale_ 88 8_b_. cava, _Annandale_ 88 9. fragilis, _Leidy_ 95 9_a_. calcuttana, _Annandale_ 96 9_b_. decipiens, _Weber_ 97 10. gemina, _Annandale _ 97 11. crassissima, _Annandale_ 98 11_a_. crassior, _Annandale_ 98 1C. Stratospongilla, _Annandale_ 100 12. indica, _Annandale_ 100 13. bombayensis, _Carter_ 102, 241 13_a_. pneumatica, _Annandale_ 241 14. ultima, _Annandale_ 104 2. Pectispongilla, _Annandale_ 106 15. aurea, _Annandale_ 106 15 _a_. subspinosa, _Annandale_ 107 3. Ephydatia, _Lamouroux_ 108 16. meyeni (_Carter_) 108 fluviatilis, _auct._ 242 4. Dosilia, _Gray_ 110 17. plumosa (_Carter_) 111 5. Trochospongilla, _Vejdovsky_ 113 18. latouchiana, _Annandale_ 115 19. phillottiana, _Annandale_ 117 20. pennsylvanica (_Potts_) 118 6. Tubella, _Carter_ 120 21. vesparioides, _Annandale_ 120 7. Corvospongilla, _Annandale_ 122 22. burmanica (_Kirkpatrick_) 123 caunteri, _Annandale_ 243 23. lapidosa (_Annandale_) 124 HYDROZOA. Order ELEUTHEROBLASTEA 147 Fam. 1. HYDRIDÆ 147 1. Hydra, _Linné_ 147 24. vulgaris, _Pallas_ 148 25. oligactis, _Pallas_ 158, 245 POLYZOA. Order CTENOSTOMATA 189 Div. 1. Vesicularina 189 Fam. 1. VESICULARIDÆ 189 1. Bowerbankia, _Farre_ 189 caudata, _Hincks_ 189 bengalensis, _Annandale_ 189 Div. 2. Paludicellina 190 Fam. 1. PALUDICELLIDÆ 191 1. Paludicella, _Gervais_ 192 2. Victorella, _Kent_ 194 26. bengalensis, _Annandale_ 195 Fam. 2. HISLOPIIDÆ 199 1. Hislopia, _Carter_ 199 27. lacustris, _Carter_ 202 27 _a_. moniliformis, _Annandale_ 204 Order PHYLACTOLÆMATA 206 Div. 1. Plumatellina 206 Fam. 1. FREDERICELLIDÆ 208 1. Fredericella, _Gervais_ 208 28. indica, _Annandale_ 210, 245 Fam. 2. PLUMATELLIDÆ 211 Subfam. A. _Plumatellinæ_ 212 1. Plumatella, _Lamarck_ 212 29. fruticosa, _Allman_ 217 30. emarginata, _Allman_ 220, 245 31. javanica, _Kraepelin_ 221 32. diffusa, _Leidy_ 223, 245 33. allmani, _Hancock_ 224, 246 34. tanganyikæ, _Rousselet_ 225, 246 35. punctata, _Hancock_ 227 2. Stolella, _Annandale_ 229 36. indica, _Annandale_ 229 himalayana, _Annandale_ 246 Subfam. B. _Lophopinæ_ 231 1. Lophopodella, _Rousselet_ 231 37. carteri (_Hyatt_) 232 37 _a_. himalayana (_Annandale_) 233 2. Pectinatella, _Leidy_ 235 38. burmanica, _Annandale_ 235 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME. Although some zoologists have recently revived the old belief that the sponges and the coelenterates are closely allied, no one in recent times has suggested that there is any morphological relationship between either of these groups and the polyzoa. Personally I do not think that any one of the three groups is allied to any other so far as anatomy is concerned; but for biological reasons it is convenient to describe the freshwater representatives of the three groups in one volume of the "Fauna." Indeed, I originally proposed to the Editor that this volume should include an account not only of the freshwater species, but of all those that have been found in stagnant water of any kind. It is often difficult to draw a line between the fauna of brackish ponds and marshes and that of pure fresh water or that of the sea, and this is particularly the case as regards the estuarine tracts of India and Burma. Pelseneer[A] has expressed the opinion that the Black Sea and the South-east of Asia are the two districts in the world most favourable for the study of the origin of a freshwater fauna from a marine one. The transition in particular from the Bay of Bengal, which is much less salt than most seas, to the lower reaches of the Ganges or the Brahmaputra is peculiarly easy, and we find many molluscs and other animals of marine origin in the waters of these rivers far above tidal influence. Conditions are unfavourable in the rivers themselves for the development and multiplication of organisms of many groups, chiefly because of the enormous amount of silt held in suspension in the water and constantly being deposited on the bottom, and a much richer fauna exists in ponds and lakes in the neighbourhood of the rivers and estuaries than in running water. I have only found three species of polyzoa and three of sponges in running water in India, and of these six species, five have also been found in ponds or lakes. I have, on the other hand, found three coelenterates in an estuary, and all three species are essentially marine forms, but two have established themselves in ponds of brackish water, one (the sea-anemone _Sagartia schilleriana_) undergoing in so doing modifications of a very peculiar and interesting nature. It is not uncommon for animals that have established themselves in pools of brackish water to be found occasionally in ponds of fresh water; but I have not been able to discover a single instance of an estuarine species that is found in the latter and not in the former. [Footnote A: "L'origine des animaux d'eau douce," Bull. de l'Acad. roy. de Belgique (Classe des Sciences), No. 12, 1905, p. 724.] For these reasons I intended, as I have said, to include in this volume descriptions of all the coelenterates and polyzoa known to occur in pools of brackish water in the estuary of the Ganges and elsewhere in India, but as my manuscript grew I began to realize that this would be impossible without including also an amount of general introductory matter not justified either by the scope of the volume or by special knowledge on the part of its author. I have, however, given in the introduction to each part a list of the species found in stagnant brackish water with a few notes and references to descriptions. BIOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES OF THE SPONGES, COELENTERATES, AND POLYZOA OF FRESH WATER. There is often an external resemblance between the representatives of the sponges, coelenterates, and polyzoa that causes them to be classed together in popular phraseology as "zoophytes"; and this resemblance is not merely a superficial one, for it is based on a similarity in habits as well as of habitat, and is correlated with biological phenomena that lie deeper than what are ordinarily called habits. These phenomena are of peculiar interest with regard to difficult questions of nutrition and reproduction that perhaps can only be solved by a close study of animals living together in identical conditions and exhibiting, apparently in consequence of so living, similar but by no means identical tendencies, either anatomical or physiological, in certain directions. One of the most important problems on which the study of the sponges, coelenterates, and polyzoa of stagnant water throws light is that of the production of resting buds and similar reproductive bodies adapted to withstand unfavourable conditions in a quiescent state and to respond to the renewal of favourable conditions by a renewed growth and activity. Every autumn, in an English pond or lake, a crisis takes place in the affairs of the less highly organized inhabitants, and preparations are made to withstand the unfavourable conditions due directly or indirectly to the low winter temperature of the water: the individual must perish but the race may be preserved. At this season _Hydra_, which has been reproducing its kind by means of buds throughout the summer, develops eggs with a hard shell that will lie dormant in the mud until next spring; the phylactolæmatous polyzoa produce statoblasts, the ctenostomatous polyzoa resting-buds ("hibernacula"), and the sponges gemmules. Statoblasts, hibernacula, and gemmules are alike produced asexually, but they resemble the eggs of _Hydra_ in being provided with a hard, resistant shell, and in having the capacity to lie dormant until favourable conditions return. In an Indian pond or lake a similar crisis takes place in the case of most species, but it does not take place at the same time of year in the case of all species. Unfortunately the phenomena of periodic physiological change have been little studied in the freshwater fauna of most parts of the country, and as yet we know very little indeed of the biology of the Himalayan lakes and tarns, the conditions in which resemble those to be found in similar masses of water in Europe much more closely than they do those that occur in ponds and lakes in a tropical plain. In Bengal, however, I have been able to devote considerable attention to the subject, and can state definitely that some species flourish chiefly in winter and enter the quiescent stage at the beginning of the hot weather (that is to say about March), while others reach their maximum development during the "rains" (July to September) and as a rule die down during winter, which is the driest as well as the coolest time of year. The following is a list of the forms that in Bengal are definitely known to produce hard-shelled eggs, gemmules, resting-buds, or statoblasts only or most profusely at the approach of the hot weather and to flourish during winter:-- _Spongilla carteri._ _Sponging alba._ _Spongilla alba_ var. _bengalensis_. _Spongilla crassissima._ _Hydra vulgaris._ _Victorella bengalensis._ _Plumatella fruticosa._ _Plumatella emarginata._ _Plumatella javanica._ The following forms flourish mainly during the "rains":-- _Spongilla lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_. _Trochospongilla latouchiana._ _Trochospongilla phillottiana._ _Stolella indica._ The following flourish throughout the year:-- _Spongilla proliferens._ _Hislopia lacustris._ It is particularly interesting to note that three of the species that flourish in the mild winter of Bengal, namely _Hydra vulgaris_, _Plumatella emarginata_, and _P. fruticosa_, are identical with species that in Europe perish in winter. There is evidence, moreover, that the statoblasts of the genus to which two of them belong burst more readily, and thus give rise to new colonies, after being subjected to a considerable amount of cold. In Bengal they only burst after being subjected to the heat of the hot weather. Does extreme heat have a similar effect on aquatic organisms as extreme cold? There is some evidence that it has. The species that flourish in India during the rains are all forms which habitually live near the surface or the edge of ponds or puddles, and are therefore liable to undergo desiccation as soon as the rains cease and the cold weather supervenes. The two species that flourish all the year round do not, properly speaking, belong to one category, for whereas _Hislopia lacustris_ produces no form of resting reproductive body but bears eggs and spermatozoa at all seasons, _Spongilla proliferens_ is a short-lived organism that undergoes a biological crisis every few weeks; that is to say, it begins to develop gemmules as soon as it is fully formed, and apparently dies down as soon as the gemmules have attained maturity. The gemmules apparently lie dormant for some little time, but incessant reproduction is carried on by means of external buds, a very rare method of reproduction among the freshwater sponges. The facts just stated prove that considerable specific idiosyncrasy exists as regards the biology of the sponges, hydroids, and polyzoa of stagnant water in Bengal; but an even more striking instance of this phenomenon is afforded by the sponges _Spongilla bombayensis_ and _Corvospongilla lapidosa_ in Bombay. These two sponges resemble one another considerably as regards their mode of growth, and are found together on the lower surface of stones. In the month of November, however, _C. lapidosa_ is in full vegetative vigour, while _C. bombayensis_, in absolutely identical conditions, is already reduced to a mass of gemmules, having flourished during the "rains." It is thus clear that the effect of environment is not identical in different species. This is more evident as regards the groups of animals under consideration in India (and therefore probably in other tropical countries) than it is in Europe. The subject is one well worthy of study elsewhere than in India, for it is significant that specimens of _S. bombayensis_ taken in November in S. Africa were in a state of activity, thus contrasting strongly with specimens taken at the same time of year (though not at the same season from a climatic point of view) in the Bombay Presidency. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE INDIAN SPECIES. The geographical distribution of the lower invertebrates of fresh and of stagnant water is often an extremely wide one, probably because the individual of many species exists at certain seasons or in certain circumstances in a form that is not only resistant to unfavourable environment, but also eminently capable of being transported by wind or currents. We therefore find that some genera and even species are practically cosmopolitan in their range, while others, so far as our knowledge goes, appear to have an extraordinarily discontinuous distribution. The latter phenomenon may be due solely to our ignorance of the occurrence of obscure genera or species in localities in which they have not been properly sought for, or it may have some real significance as indicating that certain forms cannot always increase and multiply even in those localities that appear most suitable for them. As an example of universally distributed species we may take the European polyzoa of the genus _Plumatella_ that occur in India, while of species whose range is apparently discontinuous better examples could not be found than the sponges _Trochospongilla pennsylvanica_ and _Spongilla crateriformis_, both of which are only known from N. America, the British Isles, and India. My geographical list of the species of sponges, coelenterates, and polyzoa as yet found in fresh water in India is modelled on Col. Alcock's recently published list of the freshwater crabs (Potamonidæ) of the Indian Empire[B]. I follow him in accepting, with slight modifications of my own, Blanford's physiographical rather than his zoogeographical regions, not because I think that the latter have been or ought to be superseded so far as the vertebrates are concerned, but rather because the limits of the geographical distribution of aquatic invertebrates appear to depend on different factors from those that affect terrestrial animals or even aquatic vertebrates. [Footnote B: Cat. Ind. Dec. Crust. Coll. Ind. Mus., part i, fasc. ii (Potamonidæ), 1910.] "Varieties" are ignored in this list, because they are not considered to have a geographical significance. The parts of India that are least known as regards the freshwater representatives of the groups under consideration are the valley of the Indus, the lakes of Kashmir and other parts of the Himalayas, the centre of the Peninsula, and the basin of the Brahmaputra. Those that are best known are the districts round Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Bangalore, Travancore and Northern Tenasserim. Little is known as regards Ceylon, and almost nothing as regards the countries that surround the Indian Empire, a few species only having been recorded from Yunnan and the Malay Peninsula, none from Persia, Afghanistan, or Eastern Turkestan, and only one from Tibet. Professor Max Weber's researches have, however, taught us something as regards Sumatra and Java, while the results of various expeditions to Tropical Africa are beginning to cast light on the lower invertebrates of the great lakes in the centre of that continent and of the basin of the Nile. It is not known to what altitude the three groups range in the Himalayas and the hills of Southern India. No sponge has been found in Indian territory at an altitude higher than that of Bhim Tal in Kumaon (4,500 feet), and _Hydra_ is only known from the plains; but a variety of _H. oligactis_ was taken by Capt. F. H. Stewart in Tibet at an altitude of about 15,000 feet. _Plumatella diffusa_ flourishes at Gangtok in Sikhim (6,100 feet), and I have found statoblasts of _P. fruticosa_ in the neighbourhood of Simla on the surface of a pond situated at an altitude of about 8,000 feet; Mr. R. Kirkpatrick obtained specimens of the genus in the Botanical Gardens at Darjiling (6,900 feet), and two species have been found at Kurseong (4,500-5,000 feet) in the same district. GEOGRAPHICAL LIST OF THE FRESHWATER SPONGES, HYDROIDS, AND POLYZOA OF INDIA, BURMA, AND CEYLON. [A * indicates that a species or subspecies has only been found in one physiographical region or subregion so far as the Indian Empire is concerned; a ! that the species has also been found in Europe, a $ in North America, a + in Africa, and a @ in the Malay Archipelago.] 1. Western Frontier Territory[C]. (Baluchistan, the Punjab, and the N.W. Frontier Province.) [Footnote C: I include Baluchistan in this territory largely for climatic reasons.] SPONGES:-- 1. _Spongilla_ (_Eunapius_) _carteri_!@ (Lahore). HYDROIDS:-- 1. _Hydra oligactis_!$ (Lahore). POLYZOA:-- 1. _Plumatella fruticosa_!$ (Lahore). 2. _Plumatella diffusa_!$ (Lahore). 2. Western Himalayan Territory. (Himalayas from Hazara eastwards as far as Nepal.) SPONGES:-- 1. _Spongilla_ (_Eunapius_) _carteri_!@ (Bhim Tal). 2. _Ephydatia meyeni_@ (Bhim Tal). HYDROIDS:--None known (_Hydra oligactis_ recorded from Tibet). POLYZOA:-- 1. _Plumatella allmani_! (Bhim Tal). 2. _Plumatella fruticosa_!$ (Simla). 3. _Lophopodella carteri_+ (Bhim Tal). 3. North-Eastern Frontier Territory. (Sikhim, Darjiling and Bhutan, and the Lower Brahmaputra Drainage-System.) SPONGES:-- _Spongilla proliferens_@ (Assam). HYDROIDS:--None known. POLYZOA:-- 1. _Plumatella fruticosa_! (Kurseong and Assam). 2. _Plumatella diffusa_!$ (Sikhim). 3. _Plumatella javanica_@ (Kurseong). 4. Burma Territory. (Upper Burma, Arrakan, Pegu, Tenasserim.) SPONGES:-- 1. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _proliferens_@ (Upper Burma, Pegu). 2. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _crateriformis_!$ (Tenasserim). 3. _Spongilla_ (_Eunapius_) _carteri_!@ (Upper Burma, Pegu, Tenasserim). 4. _Trochospongilla latouchiana_ (Tenasserim). 5. _Trochospongilla phillottiana_ (Tenasserim). 6. _Tubella vesparioides_* (Tenasserim). 7. _Corvospongilla burmanica_* (Pegu). HYDROIDS:-- 1. _Hydra vulgaris_!$ (Upper Burma and Tenasserim). POLYZOA:-- 1. _Plumatella emarginata_!$ (Pegu, Upper Burma). 2. _Plumatella allmani_! (Tenasserim). 3. _Pectinatella burmanica_ (Tenasserim). 4. _Hislopia lacustris_ (Pegu). 5 _a._ Peninsular Province--Main Area. (The Peninsula east of the Western Ghats.) SPONGES:-- 1. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_ (Orissa, Madras). 2. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _proliferens_@ (Madras). 3. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _alba_+ (N. Madras, Orissa, Hyderabad). 4. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _hemephydatia_* (Orissa). 5. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _crateriformis_!$. 6. _Spongilla_ (_Eunapius_) _carteri_!@. 7. _Spongilla_ (_Eunapius_) _gemina_* (Bangalore). 8. _Spongilla_ (_Stratospongilla_) _bombayensis_+ (Mysore). 9. _Dosilia plumosa_ (N. Madras). HYDROIDS:-- 1. _Hydra vulgaris_!$. POLYZOA:-- 1. _Plumatella fruticosa_! (Madras, Bangalore). 2. _Lophopus_ (?_Lophopodella_), sp. (Madras). 3. _Pectinatella burmanica_ (Orissa). 4. _Victorella bengalensis_ (Madras). 5. _Hislopia lacustris_ (Nagpur). 5b. Peninsular Province--Malabar Zone. (Western Ghats from Tapti R. to Cape Comorin and eastwards to the sea.) SPONGES:-- 1. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_ (W. Ghats). 2. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _proliferens_@ (Cochin). 3. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _alba_+. 4. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _cinerea_*. 5. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _travancorica_* (Travancore). 6. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _crateriformis_!$ (Cochin). 7. _Spongilla_ (_Eunapius_) _carteri_!@. 8. _Spongilla_ (_Stratospongilla_) _indica_* (W. Ghats). 9. _Spongilla _ (_Stratospongilla_) _bombayensis_+ (Bombay, W. Ghats). 10. _Spongilla_ (_Stratospongilla_) _ultima_* (Travancore). 11. _Pectispongilla aurea_* (Travancore, Cochin). 12. _Ephydatia meyeni_@ (Bombay, Travancore). 13. _Dosilia plumosa_ (Bombay). 14. _Trochospongilla pennsylvanica_*!$ (Travancore). 15. _Corvospongilla lapidosa_* (W. Ghats). HYDROIDS:--None recorded. POLYZOA:-- 1. _Fredericella indica_* (W. Ghats and Travancore). 2. _Plumatella fruticosa_! (Bombay). 3. _Plumatella javanica_@ (Travancore). 4. _Plumatella tanganyikæ_*+ (W. Ghats). 5. _Lophopodella carteri_+ (Bombay, W. Ghats). 6. Indo-Gangetic Plain. (From Sind to the Brahmaputra.) SPONGES:-- 1. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_ (Gangetic delta). 2. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _proliferens_@ (Lower Bengal, etc.). 3. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _alba_+ (Lower Bengal). 4. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _crateriformis_!$. 5. _Spongilla_ (_Eunapius_) _carteri_!@ (Lower Bengal, etc.). 6. _Spongilla_ (_Eunapius_) _fragilis_ subsp. _calcuttana_* (Lower Bengal). 7. _Spongilla_ (_Eunapius_) _crassissima_ (Bengal). 8. _Ephydatia meyeni_@ (Lower Bengal). 9. _Trochospongilla latouchiana_ (Lower Bengal). 10. _Trochospongilla phillottiana_ (Lower Bengal). HYDROIDS:-- 1. _Hydra vulgaris_!$. POLYZOA:-- 1. _Plumatella fruticosa_!. 2. _Plumatella emarginata_!$. 3. _Plumatella javanica_@ (Lower Bengal). 4. _Plumatella diffusa_!$. 5. _Plumatella allmani_!. 6. _Plumatella punctata_!$ (Lower Bengal). 7. _Stolella indica_* (Lower Bengal, United Provinces). 8. _Victorella bengalensis_ (Lower Bengal). 9. _Hislopia lacustris_ (United Provinces, N. Bengal). 9a. _Hislopia lacustris_ subsp. _moniliformis_* (Lower Bengal). 7. Ceylon. SPONGES:-- 1. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _proliferens_@. 2. _Spongilla_ (_Eunapius_) _carteri_!@. HYDROIDS:-- 1. _Hydra vulgaris_!$. POLYZOA:-- 1. ? _Plumatella emarginata_!$. 2. _Pectinatella burmanica._ The most striking feature of this list is the evidence it affords as to the distinct character of the fauna of the Malabar Zone, a feature that is also remarkably clear as regards the Potamonidæ, one genus of which (_Gecarcinucus_) is peculiar, so far as India is concerned, to that zone. As regards the sponges we may note the occurrence of no less than three species of the subgenus _Stratospongilla_, which has not been found elsewhere in India except on one occasion in Mysore, and of a species of the genus _Corvospongilla_, which is unknown from the rest of Peninsular India and from the Himalayas. The genus _Pectispongilla_ is only known from the Malabar Zone. Among the polyzoa the genus _Fredericella_[D] appears to be confined, so far as the Indian and Burmese fauna is concerned, to the Malabar Zone, and the same is true as regards the group of species to which _Plumatella tanganyikæ_, an African form, belongs. [Footnote D: Mr. S. W. Kemp recently obtained at Mangaldai, near the Bhutan frontier of Assam, a single specimen of what may be a species of _Fredericella_.] A further examination of the list of Malabar species and a consideration of allied forms shows that the majority of the forms restricted to the Malabar Zone are either African or else closely allied to African forms. The genus _Corvospongilla_, except for one Burmese species, is otherwise peculiar to Tropical Africa; while _Stratospongilla_, although not confined to Africa, is more prolific in species in that continent than in any other. _Spongilla (Stratospongilla) bombayensis_ has only been found in Bombay, the Western Ghats, Mysore, and Natal, and _Plumatella tanganyikæ_ only in the Western Ghats and Central Africa. The genus _Fredericella_ (which also occurs in Europe, N. America, and Australia) is apparently of wide distribution in Africa, while _Lophopodella_ (which in India is not confined to the Malabar Zone) is, except for a Japanese race of the Indian species, restricted outside India, so far as we know, to East Africa. A less definite relationship between the sponges and polyzoa of the Malabar Zone and those of countries to the east of India is suggested by the following facts:-- (1) The occurrence of the genus _Corvospongilla_ in Burma; (2) the occurrence of the subgenus _Stratospongilla_ in Sumatra, China, and the Philippines; (3) the occurrence of a race of _Lophopodella carteri_ in Japan; (4) the occurrence of a species allied to _Plumatella tanganyikæ_ in the Philippines. It will be noted that in each of these instances the relationship extends to Africa as well as to the Eastern countries, and is more marked in the former direction. The species of _Stratospongilla_, moreover, that occurs in Sumatra (_S. sumatrensis_) also occurs in Africa, while those that have been found in China and the Philippines are aberrant forms. At first sight it might appear that these extra-Indian relationships might be explained by supposing that gemmules and statoblasts were brought to the Malabar Coast from Africa by the aërial currents of the monsoon or by marine currents and carried from India eastwards by the same agency, this agency being insufficient to transport them to the interior and the eastern parts of the Peninsula. The work of La Touche[E] on wind-borne foraminifera in Rajputana is very suggestive in this direction; but that the peculiar sponge and polyzoon fauna of Malabar is due to the agency either of wind or of marine currents may be denied with confidence, for it is a striking fact that most of the characteristic genera and subgenera of the Zone have resting reproductive bodies that are either fixed to solid objects or else are devoid of special apparatus to render them light. The former is the case as regards all species of _Corvospongilla_ and all Indian and most other species of _Stratospongilla_, the gemmules of which not only are unusually heavy but also adhere firmly; while the statoblasts of _Fredericella_ have no trace of the air-cells that render the free statoblasts of all other genera of phylactolæmatous polyzoa peculiarly light and therefore peculiarly liable to be transported by wind. [Footnote E: See Mem. Geol. Surv. Ind. XXXV (1), p. 39 (1902).] A true geographical or geological explanation must therefore be sought for the relationship between the sponges and polyzoa of Malabar, of Africa, and of the Eastern countries--a relationship that is well known to exist as regards other groups of animals. No more satisfactory explanation has as yet been put forward than that of a former land connection between Africa and the Malaysia through Malabar at a period (probably late Cretaceous) when the Western Ghats were much higher than they now are[F]. [Footnote F: See Ortmann, "The Geographical Distribution of Freshwater Decapods and its bearing upon Ancient Geography," Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc. xli, p. 380, fig. 6 (1902); also Suess, "The Face of the Earth" (English ed.) i, p. 416 (1904).] There is little to be said as regards the distribution of the sponges, hydroids, and polyzoa of fresh water in other parts of India. It may be noted, however, that the species known from the Punjab are all widely distributed Palæarctic forms, and that the genus _Stolella_ is apparently confined to the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Two species of sponge are peculiar to Lower Burma, one of them (_Corvospongilla burmanica_) representing the geographical alliance already discussed as regards the Malabar Zone, the other (_Tubella vesparioides_) closely related to a Malaysian species (_T. vesparium_ from Borneo) and perhaps representing the northern limit of the Malaysian element well known in the fauna of Lower Burma. Of the sponges and polyzoa of Ceylon we know as yet too little to make it profitable to discuss their affinities. All that have as yet been discovered occur also in Peninsular India; nor do they afford any evidence of a connection with the Malabar Zone. The question of the geographical range of the sponges, hydroids, and polyzoa of brackish water may be considered briefly, for it is of importance in considering that of those which are confined to fresh water. Some of these species from brackish water (e. g., _Membranipora lacroixii_) are identical with others (e. g., _Victorella bengalensis_ and _Bowerbankia caudata_ subsp. _bengalensis_) closely related to European forms. Others again (e. g., _Loxosomatoides colonialis_ and _Sagartia schilleriana_) are known as yet from the Ganges delta only. In our ignorance of the Indian representatives of the groups to which they belong, it is impossible to assert that their distribution is actually so restricted as it seems. SOME SPECIAL LOCALITIES. In order to avoid constant repetition as regards the conditions that prevail at the places most frequently mentioned in this volume, a few details as regards them may be conveniently stated here. _Lower Bengal._ CALCUTTA is situated on the River Hughli at a point about 90 miles from the open sea. The water of the river is practically fresh, but is strongly affected by the tides; it is always turbid and of a brownish colour. The river, however, is not a good collecting ground for sponges, coelenterates, and polyzoa, and none of the species described in this volume have been obtained from it. It is in the Calcutta "tanks" that most of my investigations have been made. These tanks are ponds, mostly of artificial origin, very numerous, of varying size but never very large or deep. Most of them contain few solid objects to which sedentary organisms can fix themselves, and such ponds are of course poor in sponges and polyzoa. Others, however, support a prolific growth of weeds such as _Pistia stratiotes_, _Lemna_, and _Limnanthemum_, and a few have brickwork or artificial stonework at their sides. In those parts of the town that approach the Salt Lakes (large lagoons and swamps of brackish water connected with the sea by the Mutlah River) the water of the ponds is slightly brackish and permits few plants except algæ to flourish. Few of the bigger tanks ever dry up. The best of the tanks from the sponge-collector's point of view, so far as I have been able to discover, is the one in the compound of the Indian Museum. It enjoys all the advantages of light and shade, solid supports, prolific aquatic vegetation, considerable depth, and the vicinity of human dwellings that seem to be favourable to the growth of sponges, no less than nine species of which, representing three genera and two subgenera, grow abundantly in it. _Hydra_ also flourishes in this pond, but for some reasons there are few polyzoa. The phylactolæmatous species of the latter group, however, are extraordinarily abundant in one of the tanks in the Zoological Gardens at Alipore. In this tank, which unlike the Museum tank is directly connected with the river, no less than six species and varieties of the genus _Plumatella_ have been found growing together on sticks, floating seeds, and water-plants. Except _Hislopia_, which is common on _Vallisneria_ in one tank on the Maidan (opposite the Bengal Club), the ctenostomes of stagnant water are only found in the tanks near the Salt Lakes. PORT CANNING is situated on the Mutlah River about 30 miles from Calcutta and about 60 from the open sea. The Mutlah is really a tidal creek rather than a river, in spite of the fact that it runs for a considerable number of miles, and its waters are distinctly brackish. Water taken from the edge at Port Canning in March was found to contain 25.46 per thousand of saline residue. The interesting feature of Port Canning, however, is from a zoological point of view not the Mutlah but certain ponds of brackish water now completely separated from it, except occasionally when the river is in flood, but communicating regularly with it in the memory of living persons. These ponds, which were apparently not in existence in 1855, have on an average an area of about half an acre each, and were evidently formed by the excavation of earth for the construction of an embankment along the Mutlah. They are very shallow and lie exposed to the sun. The salinity differs considerably in different ponds, although the fauna seems to be identical; the water of one pond was found to contain 22.88 per thousand of saline residue in May, 20.22 per thousand in March, and 12.13 in December. A second pond in the neighbourhood of the first and apparently similar to it in every way contained only 9.82 per thousand in July, after the rains had broken. The fauna of these ponds includes not only a freshwater sponge (_Spongilla alba_ var. _bengalensis_) but also many aquatic insects (_e. g._, larvæ of mosquitos and of _Chironomus_ and several species of beetles and Rhynchota); while on the other hand essentially marine coelenterates (_Irene ceylonensis_, etc.) and worms (_e. g._, the gephyrean _Physcosoma lurco_[G]) form a part of it, together with forms of intermediate habitat such as _Bowerbankia caudata_ subsp. _bengalensis_, _Victorella bengalensis_, and several fish and crustacea common in brackish water. [Footnote G: I am indebted to Mr. W. F. Lanchester for the identification of this species.] _Orissa._ Orissa may be described in general terms as consisting of the coastal area of Bengal south of the Gangetic delta. It extends in inland, however, for a considerable distance and includes hilly tracts. There is no geographical boundary between it and the north-eastern part of the Madras Presidency or the eastern part of the Central Provinces. CHILKA LAKE.--This marine lake is a shallow lagoon measuring about 40 miles in length and 10 miles in breadth, and formed in geologically recent times by the growth of a narrow sand-bank across the mouth of a wide bay. At its northern end it communicates with the sea by a narrow channel, and throughout its length it is strongly affected by the tides. At its south end, which is actually situated in the Ganjam district of Madras, the water is distinctly brackish and is said to be nearly fresh at certain times of year. At this end there are numerous small artificial pools of brackish water somewhat resembling those of Port Canning as regards their fauna. SUR (or SAR) LAKE.--A shallow, freshwater lake of very variable size situated a few miles north of Puri on the Orissa coast. In origin it probably resembled the Chilka Lake, but it is now separated from the sea by about 3 miles of barren sand dunes, among which numerous little pools of rain-water are formed during the rains. These dry up completely in winter, and even the lake itself is said sometimes almost to disappear, although when it is full it is several miles in length. The fauna is essentially a freshwater one, but includes certain Mysidæ and other crustacea usually found in brackish water. _Bombay Presidency._ BOMBAY.--The town of Bombay, built on an island near the mainland, is situated close to swamps and creeks of brackish water not unlike those that surround Calcutta. Its "tanks," however, differ from those of Calcutta in having rocky bottoms and, in many cases, in drying up completely in the hot weather. Of the fauna of the swamps extremely little is known, but so far as the sponges and polyzoa of the tanks are concerned the work undertaken by Carter was probably exhaustive. IGATPURI.--Igatpuri is situated at an altitude of about 2000 feet, 60 miles north-east of Bombay. Above the town there is a lake of several square miles in area whence the water-supply of several stations in the neighbourhood is obtained. The water is therefore kept free from contamination. The bottom is composed of small stones and slopes gradually up at the edges. During the dry weather its level sinks considerably. Several interesting sponges and polyzoa have been found in this lake, most of them also occurring in a small pond in the neighbourhood in which clothes are washed and the water is often full of soap-suds. _Southern India._ MADRAS.--The city of Madras is built by the sea, straggling over a large area of the sandy soil characteristic of the greater part of the east coast of India. In wet weather this soil retains many temporary pools of rain-water, and there are numerous permanent tanks of no great size in the neighbourhood of the town. The so-called Cooum River, which flows through the town, is little more than a tidal creek, resembling the Mutlah River of Lower Bengal on a much smaller scale. The sponges and polyzoa as yet found in the environs of Madras are identical with those found in the environs of Calcutta. BANGALORE.--Bangalore (Mysore State) is situated near the centre of the Madras Presidency on a plateau about 3000 feet above sea-level. The surrounding country is formed of laterite rock which decomposes readily and forms a fine reddish silt in the tanks. These tanks are numerous, often of large size, and as a rule at least partly of artificial origin. Their water supports few phanerogamic plants and is, as my friend Dr. Morris Travers informs me, remarkably free from salts in solution. The sponge fauna of the neighbourhood of Bangalore appears to be intermediate between that of Madras and that of Travancore. THE BACKWATERS OF COCHIN AND TRAVANCORE.--The "backwaters" of Cochin and Travancore were originally a series of shallow lagoons stretching along the coast of the southern part of the west coast of India for a distance of considerably over a hundred miles. They have now been joined together by means of canals and tunnels to form a tidal waterway, which communicates at many points directly with the sea. The salinity of the water differs greatly at different places and in different seasons, and at some places there is an arrangement to keep out sea-water while the rice-fields are being irrigated. The fauna is mainly marine, but in the less saline parts of the canals and lakes many freshwater species are found. _Shasthancottah._--There are two villages of this name, one situated on the backwater near Quilon (coast of Travancore), the other about three miles inland on a large freshwater lake. This lake, which does not communicate with the backwater, occupies a narrow winding rift several miles in length at a considerable depth below the surrounding country. Its bottom is muddy and it contains few water-plants, although in some places the water-plants that do exist are matted together to form floating islands on which trees and bushes grow. The fauna, at any rate as regards mollusca and microscopic organisms, is remarkably poor, but two species of polyzoa (_Fredericella indica_ and _Plumatella fruticosa_) and one of sponge (_Trochospongilla pennsylvanica_) grow in considerable abundance although not in great luxuriance. _The Himalayas._ BHIM TAL[H] is a lake situated at an altitude of 4500 feet in that part of the Western Himalayas known as Kumaon, near the plains. It has a superficial area of several square miles, and is deep in the middle. Its bottom and banks are for the most part muddy. Little is known of its fauna, but two polyzoa (_Plumatella allmani_ and _Lophopodella carteri_) and the gemmules of two sponges (_Spongilla carteri_ and _Ephydatia meyeni_) have been found in it. [Footnote H: The fauna of this lake and of others in the neighbourhood has recently been investigated by Mr. S. W. Kemp. See the addenda at the end of this volume.--_June 1911._] * * * * * NOMENCLATURE AND TERMINOLOGY. The subject of nomenclature may be considered under four heads:--(I.) the general terminology of the various kinds of groups of individuals into which organisms must be divided; (II.) the general nomenclature of specimens belonging to particular categories, such as types, co-types, etc.; (III.) the nomenclature that depends on such questions as that of "priority"; and (IV.) the special terminology peculiar to the different groups. The special terminology peculiar to the different groups is dealt with in the separate introductions to each of the three parts of this volume. (I.) No group of animals offers greater difficulty than the sponges, hydroids, and polyzoa (and especially the freshwater representatives of these three groups) as regards the question "What is a species?" and the kindred questions, "What is a subspecies?" "What is a variety?" and "What is a phase?" Genera can often be left to look after themselves, but the specific and kindred questions are answered in so many different ways, if they are even considered, by different systematists, especially as regards the groups described in this volume, that I feel it necessary to state concisely my own answers to these questions, not for the guidance of other zoologists but merely to render intelligible the system of classification here adopted. The following definitions should therefore be considered in estimating the value of "species," etc., referred to in the following pages. _Species._--A group of individuals differing in constant characters of a definite nature and of systematic[I] importance from all others in the same genus. [Footnote I: "What characters are of systematic importance?" is a question to which different answers must be given in the case of different groups.] _Subspecies._--An isolated or local race, the individuals of which differ from others included in the same species in characters that are constant but either somewhat indefinite or else of little systematic importance. _Variety._--A group of individuals not isolated geographically from others of the same species but nevertheless exhibiting slight, not altogether constant, or indefinite differences from the typical form of the species (_i. e._, the form first described). _Phase._--A peculiar form assumed by the individuals of a species which are exposed to peculiarities in environment and differ from normal individuals as a direct result. There are cases in which imperfection of information renders it difficult or impossible to distinguish between a variety and a subspecies. In such cases it is best to call the form a variety, for this term does not imply any special knowledge as regards its distribution or the conditions in which it is found. I use the term "form" in a general sense of which the meaning or meanings are clear without explanation. (II.) The question of type specimens must be considered briefly. There are two schools of systematists, those who assert that one specimen and one only must be the type of a species, and those who are willing to accept several specimens as types. From the theoretical point of view it seems impossible to set up any one individual as the ideal type of a species, but those who possess collections or are in charge of museums prefer, with the natural instinct of the collector, to have a definite single type (of which no one else can possibly possess a duplicate) in their possession or care, and there is always the difficulty that a zoologist in describing a species, if he recognizes more than one type, may include as types specimens that really belong to more than one species. These difficulties are met by some zoologists by the recognition of several specimens as paratypes, all of equal value; but this, after all, is merely a terminological means of escaping from the difficulty, calculated to salve the conscience of a collector who feels unwilling to give up the unique type of a species represented by other specimens in his collection. The difficulty as regards the confounding of specimens of two or more species as the types of one can always be adjusted if the author who discovers the mistake redescribes one of the species under the original name and regards the specimen that agrees with his description as the type, at the same time describing a new species with another of the specimens as its type. Personally I always desire to regard the whole material that forms the basis of an original description of a species as the type, but museum rules often render this impossible, and the best that can be done is to pick out one specimen that seems particularly characteristic and to call it the type, the rest of the material being termed co-types. A peculiar difficulty arises, however, as regards many of the sponges, coelenterates, and polyzoa, owing to the fact that they are often either compound animals, each specimen consisting of more than one individual, or are easily divisible into equivalent fragments. If the single type theory were driven to its logical conclusion, it would be necessary to select one particular polyp in a hydroid colony, or even the part of a sponge that surrounded a particular osculum as the type of the species to which the hydroid or the sponge belonged. Either by accident or by design specimens of Spongillidæ, especially if kept dry, are usually broken into several pieces. There is, as a matter of fact, no reason to attribute the peculiarly sacrosanct nature of a type to one piece more than another. In such cases the biggest piece may be called the type, while the smaller pieces may be designated by the term "schizotype." The more precise definition of such terms as topotype, genotype, _et hujus generis omnis_ is nowadays a science (or at any rate a form of technical industry) by itself and need not be discussed here. (III.) In 1908 an influential committee of British zoologists drew up a strenuous protest against the unearthing of obsolete zoological names (see 'Nature,' Aug. 1908, p. 395). To no group does this protest apply with greater force than to the three discussed in this volume. It is difficult, however, to adopt any one work as a standard of nomenclature for the whole of any one of them. As regards the Spongillidæ it is impossible to accept any monograph earlier than Potts's "Fresh-Water Sponges" (P. Ac. Philad., 1887), for Bowerbank's and Carter's earlier monographs contained descriptions of comparatively few species. Even Potts's monograph I have been unable to follow without divergence, for it seems to me necessary to recognize several genera and subgenera that he ignored. The freshwater polyzoa, however, were dealt with in so comprehensive a manner by Allman in his "Fresh-Water Polyzoa" (London, 1856) that no difficulty is experienced in ignoring, so far as nomenclature is concerned, any earlier work on the group; while as regards other divisions of the polyzoa I have followed Hincks's "British Marine Polyzoa" (1880), so far as recent researches permit. In most cases I have not attempted to work out an elaborate synonymy of species described earlier than the publication of the works just cited, for to do so is a mere waste of time in the case of animals that call for a most precise definition of species and genera and yet were often described, so far as they were known earlier than the dates in question, in quite general terms. I have been confirmed in adopting this course by the fact that few of the types of the earlier species are now in existence, and that a large proportion of the Indian forms have only been described within the last few years. MATERIAL. The descriptions in this volume are based on specimens in the collection of the Indian Museum, the Trustees of which, by the liberal manner in which they have permitted me to travel in India and Burma on behalf of the Museum, have made it possible not only to obtain material for study and exchange but also to observe the different species in their natural environment. This does not mean to say that specimens from other collections have been ignored, for many institutions and individuals have met us generously in the matter of gifts and exchanges, and our collection now includes specimens of all the Indian forms, named in nearly all cases by the author of the species, except in those of species described long ago of which no authentic original specimens can now be traced. Pieces of the types of all of the Indian Spongillidæ described by Carter have been obtained from the British Museum through the kind offices of Mr. R. Kirkpatrick. The Smithsonian Institution has sent us from the collection of the United States National Museum specimens named by Potts, and the Berlin Museum specimens named by Weltner, while to the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg we owe many unnamed but interesting sponges. Dr. K. Kraepelin and Dr. W. Michaelsen have presented us with specimens of most of the species and varieties of freshwater polyzoa described by the former in his great monograph and elsewhere. We owe to Dr. S. F. Harmer, formerly of the Cambridge University Museum and now Keeper in Zoology at the British Museum, to Professor Max Weber of Amsterdam, Professor Oka of Tokyo, and several other zoologists much valuable material. I would specially mention the exquisite preparations presented by Mr. C. Rousselet. Several naturalists in India have also done good service to the Museum by presenting specimens of the three groups described in this volume, especially Major H. J. Walton, I.M.S., Major J. Stephenson, I.M.S., Dr. J. R. Henderson and Mr. G. Matthai of Madras, and Mr. R. Shunkara Narayana Pillay of Trivandrum. The following list shows where the types of the various species, subspecies, and varieties are preserved, so far as it has been possible to trace them. I have included in this list the names of all species that have been found in stagnant water, whether fresh or brackish, but those of species not yet found in fresh water are enclosed in square brackets. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | INDIAN SPONGILLIDÆ. | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | NAME. | TYPE IN COLL. | MATERIAL | | | | EXAMINED. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla lacustris_ subsp. | Ind. Mus. | Type. | | _reticulata_ | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla proliferens_ | " " | " | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla alba_ | Brit. and Ind. Mus. | Schizotype. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | [_Spongilla alba_ var. | Ind. Mus. | Type | | _bengalensis_] | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla alba_ var. | Brit. Mus. | {Specimens | | _cerebellata_ | | {compared | | | | {with type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla cinerea_ | Brit. and Ind. Mus. | Schizotype. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | [_Spongilla travancorica_] | Ind. Mus. | Type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla hemephydatia_ | " " | " | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla crateriformis_ | U.S. Nat. Mus. | Co-type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla carteri_ | Brit. and Ind. Mus. | Schizotype. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla carteri_ var. | Ind. Mus. | Type. | | _mollis_ | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla carteri_ var. | " " | " | | _cava_ | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla carteri_ var. | " " | " | | _lobosa_ | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla fragilis_ subsp. | " " | " | | _calcuttana_ | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla fragilis_ subsp. | Amsterdam Mus. | Co-type. | | _decipiens_ | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla gemina_ | Ind. Mus. | Type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla crassissima_ | " " | " | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla crassissima_ var. | " " | " | | _crassior_ | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla bombayensis_ | Brit. and Ind. Mus. | Schizotype. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla indica_ | Ind. Mus. | Type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Spongilla ultima_ | " " | " | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Pectispongilla aurea_ | " " | " | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Ephydatia meyeni_ | Brit. and Ind. Mus. | Schizotype. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Dosilia plumosa_ | " " " " | " | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Trochospongilla latouchiana_ | Ind. Mus. | Type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Trochospongilla phillottiana_ | " " | " | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Trochospongilla pennsylvanica_ | U.S. Nat. Mus. | Co-type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Tubella vesparioides_ | Ind. Mus. | Type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Corvospongilla burmanica_ | Brit. and Ind. Mus. | Schizotype. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Corvospongilla lapidosa_ | Ind. Mus. | Type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | INDIAN COELENTERATES OF STAGNANT WATER. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | HYDROZOA. | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Hydra oligactis_ | Not in existence. | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Hydra vulgaris_ | " " | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | [_Syncoryne filamentata_] | Ind. Mus. | Type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | [_Bimeria vestita_] | ? Not in existence. | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | [_Irene ceylonensis_] | {Hydroid in Ind.} | Hydroid type | | | {Mus., Medusa} | | | | {in Brit. Mus.} | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | ACTINIARIA. | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | [_Sagartia schilleriana_] | Ind. Mus. | Types. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | [_Sagartia schilleriana_ | " " | " | | subsp. _exul_] | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | INDIAN POLYZOA OF STAGNANT WATER. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | ENTOPROCTA. | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | [_Loxosomatoides colonialis_] | Ind. Mus. | Types. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | ECTOPROCTA CHEILOSTOMATA. | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | [_Membranipora lacroixii_] | ? Paris Mus. | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | [_Membranipora bengalensis_] | Ind. Mus. | Types. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | ECTOPROCTA STENOSTOMATA. | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | [_Bowerbankia caudata_ subsp. | Ind. Mus. | Types. | | _bengalensis_] | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Victorella bengalensis_ | " " | " | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Hislopia lacustris_ | ? Not in existence. | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Hislopia lacustris_ subsp. | Ind. Mus. | " | | _moniliformis_ | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | ECTOPROCTA PHYLACTOLÆMATA. | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Fredericella indica_ | Ind. Mus. | Type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Plumatella fruticosa_ | Not in existence. | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Plumatella diffusa_ |?Philadelphia Acad.[J]| | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Plumatella allmani_ | Not in existence. | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Plumatella emarginata_ | " " | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | | {Hamburg and} | One of the | | _Plumatella javanica_ | {Ind. Mus. } | types. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | | {Brit. and Ind.} | One of the | | _Plumatella tanganyikæ_ | {Mus. } | types. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Stolella indica_ | Ind. Mus. | Type. | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Lophopodella carteri_ | Brit. Mus. | " | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Lophopodella carteri_ var. | Ind. Mus. | " | | _himalayana_ | | | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ | _Pectinatella burmanica_ | Ind. Mus. | " | +---------------------------------+----------------------+--------------+ [Footnote J: I have failed to obtain from the Philadelphia Academy of Science a statement that the type of this species is still in existence.] The literature dealing with the various groups described in the volume is discussed in the introductions to the three parts. Throughout the volume I have, so far as possible, referred to works that can be consulted in Calcutta in the libraries of the Indian Museum, the Geological Survey of India, or the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The names of works that are not to be found in India are marked with a *. The rarity with which this mark occurs says much for the fortunate position in which zoologists stationed in Calcutta find themselves as regards zoological literature, for I do not think that anything essential has been omitted. It remains for me to express my gratitude to those who have assisted me in the preparation of this volume. The names of those who have contributed specimens for examination have already been mentioned. I have to thank the Trustees of the Indian Museum not only for their liberal interpretation of my duties as an officer of the Museum but also for the use of all the drawings and photographs and some of the blocks from which this volume is illustrated. Several of the latter have already been used in the "Records of the Indian Museum." From the Editor of the "Fauna" I have received valuable suggestions, and I am indebted to Dr. Weltner of the Berlin Museum for no less valuable references to literature. Mr. F. H. Gravely, Assistant Superintendent in the Indian Museum, has saved me from several errors by his criticism. The majority of the figures have been drawn by the draftsmen of the Indian Museum, Babu Abhoya Charan Chowdhary, and of the Marine Survey of India, Babu Shib Chandra Mondul, to both of whom I am much indebted for their accuracy of delineation. No work dealing with the sponges of India would be complete without a tribute to the memory of H. J. Carter, pioneer in the East of the study of lower invertebrates, whose work persists as a guide and an encouragement to all of us who are of the opinion that biological research on Indian animals can only be undertaken in India, and that even systematic zoological work can be carried out in that country with success. I can only hope that this, the first volume in the official Fauna of the Indian Empire to be written entirely in India, may prove not unworthy of his example. Indian Museum, Calcutta Oct. 23rd, 1910. PART I. FRESHWATER SPONGES (SPONGILLIDÆ). INTRODUCTION TO PART I. I. THE PHYLUM PORIFERA. The phylum Porifera or Spongiæ includes the simplest of the Metazoa or multicellular animals. From the compound Protozoa its members are distinguished by the fact that the cells of which they are composed exhibit considerable differentiation both in structure and in function, and are associated together in a definite manner, although they are not combined to form organs and systems of organs as in the higher Metazoa. Digestion, for instance, is performed in the sponges entirely by individual cells, into the substance of which the food is taken, and the products of digestion are handed on to other cells without the intervention of an alimentary canal or a vascular system, while there is no structure in any way comparable to the nervous system of more highly organized animals. The simplest form of sponge, which is known as an olynthus, is a hollow vase-like body fixed at one end to some solid object, and with an opening called the osculum at the other. The walls are perforated by small holes, the pores, from which the name Porifera is derived. Externally the surface is protected by a delicate membrane formed of flattened cells and pierced by the pores, while the interior of the vase is covered with curious cells characteristic of the sponges, and known as choanocytes or collar-cells. They consist of minute oval or pear-shaped bodies, one end of which is provided with a rim or collar of apparently structureless membrane, while a flagellum or whip-like lash projects from the centre of the surface surrounded by the collar. These collar-cells are practically identical with those of which the Protozoa known as Choanoflagellata consist; but it is only in the sponges[K] that they are found constantly associated with other cells unlike themselves. [Footnote K: Except in "_Proterospongia_," an organism of doubtful affinities but not a sponge. It consists of a mass of jelly containing ordinary cells, with collar-cells _outside_.] In addition to the collar-cells, which form what is called the gastral layer, and the external membrane (the derma or dermal membrane), the sponge contains cells of various kinds embedded in a structureless gelatinous substance, through which they have the power of free movement. Most of these cells have also the power of changing their form in an "amoeboid" manner; that is to say, by projecting and withdrawing from their margin mobile processes of a more or less finger-like form, but unstable in shape or direction. The protoplasm of which some of the cells are formed is granular, while that of others is clear and translucent. Some cells, which (for the time being at any rate) do not exhibit amoeboid movements, are glandular in function, while others again give rise in various ways to the bodies by means of which the sponge reproduces its kind. There is evidence, however, that any one kind of cell, even those of the membrane and the gastral layer, can change its function and its form in case of necessity. Most sponges possess a supporting framework or skeleton. In some it is formed entirely of a horny substance called spongin (as in the bath-sponge), in others it consists of spicules of inorganic matter (either calcareous or siliceous) secreted by special cells, or of such spicules bound together by spongin. Extraneous objects, such as sand-grains, are frequently included in the skeleton. The spongin is secreted like the spicules by special cells, but its chemical structure is much more complicated than that of the spicules, and it is not secreted (at any rate in most cases) in such a way as to form bodies of a definite shape. In the so-called horny sponges it resembles the chitin in which insects and other arthropods are clothed. * * * * * In no adult sponge do the collar-cells completely cover the whole of the internal surface, the olynthus being a larval form, and by no means a common larval form. It is only found in certain sponges with calcareous spicules. As the structure of the sponge becomes more complicated the collar-cells are tucked away into special pockets or chambers known as ciliated chambers, and finally the approach to these chambers, both from the external surface and from the inner or gastral cavity, takes the form of narrow tubes or canals instead of mere pores. With further complexity the simple internal cavity tends to disappear, and the sponge proliferates in such a way that more than one osculum is formed. In the class Demospongiæ, to which the sponges described in this volume belong, the whole system is extremely complicated. The skeleton of sponges, when it is not composed wholly of spongin, consists of, or at any rate contains, spicules that have a definite chemical composition and definite shapes in accordance with the class, order, family, genus, and species of the sponge. Formerly sponges were separated into calcareous, siliceous, and horny sponges by the nature of their skeleton; and although the system of classification now adopted has developed into a much more complex one and a few sponges are known that have both calcareous and siliceous spicules, the question whether the spicules are formed of salts of lime or of silica (strictly speaking of opal) is very important. All Demospongiæ that have spicules at all have them of the latter substance, and the grade Monaxonida, in which the freshwater sponges constitute the family Spongillidæ, is characterized by the possession of spicules that have typically the form of a needle pointed at both ends. Although spicules of this simple form may be absent in species that belong to the grade, the larger spicules, which are called megascleres, have not normally more than one main axis and are always more or less rod-like in outline. They are usually arranged so as to form a reticulate skeleton. Frequently, however, the megascleres or skeleton-spicules are not the only spicules present, for we find smaller spicules (microscleres) of one or more kinds lying loose in the substance of the sponge and in the external membrane, or, in the Spongillidæ only, forming a special armature for the reproductive bodies known as gemmules. All sponges obtain their food in the same way, namely by means of the currents of water set up by the flagella of the collar-cells. These flagella, although apparently there is little concerted action among them, cause by their rapid movements changes of pressure in the water contained in the cavities of the sponge. The water from outside therefore flows in at the pores and finally makes its way out of the oscula. With the water minute particles of organic matter are brought into the sponge, the collar-cells of which, and probably other cells, have the power of selecting and engulfing suitable particles. Inside the cells these particles undergo certain chemical changes, and are at least partially digested. The resulting substances are then handed on directly to other cells, or, as some assert, are discharged into the common jelly, whence they are taken up by other cells. Sponges reproduce their kind in more ways than one, _viz._, by means of eggs (which are fertilized as in other animals by spermatozoa), by means of buds, and by means of the peculiar bodies called gemmules the structure and origin of which is discussed below (p. 42). They are of great importance in the classification of the Spongillidæ. Sponges can also be propagated artificially by means of fission, and it is probable that this method of reproduction occurs accidentally, if not normally, in natural circumstances. GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE SPONGILLIDÆ. It would be impracticable in this introduction to give a full account of the structure of the Spongillidæ, which in some respects is still imperfectly known. Students who desire further information should consult Professor Minchin's account of the sponges in Lankester's 'Treatise on Zoology,' part ii, or, if a less technical description is desired, Miss Sollas's contribution to the 'Cambridge Natural History,' vol. i, in which special attention is paid to _Spongilla_. The diagram reproduced in fig. 1 gives a schematic view of a vertical section through a living freshwater sponge. Although it represents the structure of the organism as being very much simpler than is actually the case, and entirely omits the skeleton, it will be found useful as indicating the main features of the anatomy. [Illustration: Fig. 1.--Diagram of a vertical section through a freshwater sponge (_modified from Kükenthal_). A=pores; B=subdermal cavity; C=inhalent canal; D=ciliated chamber; E=exhalent canal; F=osculum; G=dermal membrane; H=eggs; J=gemmule.] It will be noted that the diagram represents an individual with a single osculum or exhalent aperture. As a rule adult Demospongiæ have several or many oscula, but even in the Spongillidæ sponges occur in which there is only one. New oscula are formed by a kind of proliferation that renders the structure still more complex than it is when only one exhalent aperture is present. The little arrows in the figure indicate the direction of the currents of water that pass through the sponge. It enters through small holes in the derma into a subdermal cavity, which separates the membrane from the bulk of the sponge. This space differs greatly in extent in different species. From the subdermal space the water is forced by the action of the flagella into narrow tubular canals that carry it into the ciliated chambers. Thence it passes into other canals, which communicate with what remains of the central cavity, and so out of the oscula. The ciliated chambers are very minute, and the collar-cells excessively so. It is very difficult to examine them owing to their small size and delicate structure. Fig. 2 D represents a collar-cell of a sponge seen under a very high power of the microscope in ideal conditions. [Illustration: Fig. 2.--Sponge cells. A=bubble-cells of _Ephydatia mülleri_, × 350 (_after Weltner_). B=gemmule-cell of _Spongilla lacustris_ containing green corpuscles (shaded dark), × 800 (_after Weltner_). C=gemmule-cell of _Ephydatia blembingia_ showing "tabloids" of food-material, × 1150 (_after Evans_). D=collar-cell of _Esperella ægagrophila_, × 1600 (_after Vosmaer and Pekelharing_). E=three stages in the development of a gemmule-spicule of _E. blembingia_ (_after Evans_), × 665. F=outline of porocytes of _S. proliferens_, × ca. 1290: _e_=dermal cell; _n_=nucleus; _p_=pore; _p.c._=pore-cell.] The nature of the inhalent apertures in the external membrane has been much discussed as regards the Demospongiæ, but the truth seems to be that their structure differs considerably even in closely allied species. At any rate this is the case as regards the Indian _Spongillæ_. In all species the membrane is composed of flattened cells of irregular shape fitted together like the pieces of a puzzle-picture. In some species (e. g., _Spongilla carteri_) the apertures in the membrane consist merely of spaces between adjacent cells, which may be a little more crowded together than is usual. But in others (e. g., _Spongilla proliferens_ and _Spongilla crassissima_) in which the pores are extremely small, each pore normally pierces the middle of a flat, ring-shaped cell or porocyte. Occasionally, however, a pore may be found that is enclosed by two narrow, crescent-shaped cells joined together at their tips to form a ring. The porocytes of sponges like _Spongilla carteri_ are probably not actually missing, but instead of being in the external membrane are situated below the derma at the external entrance to the canals that carry water to the flagellated chambers or even at the entrance to the chambers themselves[L]. Some authors object on theoretical grounds to the statement that porocytes exist in the Demospongia, and it is possible that these cells have in this grade neither the same origin as, nor a precisely similar function to, the porocytes of other sponges. When they occur in the dermal membrane no great difficulty is experienced in seeing them under a sufficiently high power of the microscope, if the material is well preserved and mounted and stained in a suitable manner[M]. In most sponges the porocytes can contract in such a way that the aperture in their centre is practically closed, but this power appears to be possessed by the porocytes of _Spongilla_ only to a very limited extent, although they closely resemble the porocytes of other sponges in appearance. [Footnote L: _Cf._ Weltner, "Spongillidenstudien, V," Arch. Naturg. Berlin, lxxiii (i), p. 273 (1907).] [Footnote M: It is difficult to see any trace of them in thin microtome sections. A fragment of the membrane must be mounted whole.] The external membrane in many Spongillidæ is prolonged round and above the oscula so as to form an oscular collar. This structure is highly contractile, but cannot close together. As a rule it is much more conspicuous in living sponges than in preserved specimens. It is not necessary to deal here with most of the cells that occur in the parenchyma or gelatinous part of the sponge. A full list of the kinds that are found is given by Dr. Weltner in his "Spongillidenstudien, V," p. 276 (Arch. Naturg. Berlin, lxxiii (i), 1907). One kind must, however, be briefly noticed as being of some systematic importance, namely the "bubble-cells" (fig. 2 A) that are characteristic of some species of _Ephydatia_ and other genera. These cells are comparatively large, spherical in form; each of them contains a globule of liquid which not only occupies the greater part of the cell, but forces the protoplasm to assume the form of a delicate film lining the cell-wall and covering the globule. In optical section "bubble-cells" have a certain resemblance to porocytes, but the cell is of course imperforate and not flattened. SKELETON AND SPICULES. [Illustration: Fig. 3.--Radial sections of fragments of the skeletons of _Spongillæ_. A, _S. crassissima_ var. _crassior_ (from Rajshahi); B, _S. carteri_ (from Calcutta); _a_=transverse, _b_=radiating fibres; _e_=external surface of the sponge.] In the Spongillidæ the spicules and the skeleton are more important as regards the recognition of genera and species than the soft parts. The skeleton is usually reticulate, but sometimes consists of a mass of spicules almost without arrangement. The amount of spongin present is also different in different species. The spicules in a reticulate skeleton are arranged so as to form fibres of two kinds--radiating fibres, which radiate outwards from the centre of the sponge and frequently penetrate the external membrane, and transverse fibres, which run across from one radiating fibre to another. The fibres are composed of relatively large spicules (megascleres) arranged parallel to one another, overlapping at the ends, and bound together by means of a more or less profuse secretion of spongin. In some species they are actually enclosed in a sheath of this substance. The radiating fibres are usually more distinct and stouter than the transverse ones, which are often represented by single spicules but are sometimes splayed out at the ends so as to assume in outline the form of an hour-glass (fig. 3 B). The radiating fibres frequently raise up the membrane at their free extremities just as a tent-pole does a tent. Normal spicules of the skeleton are always rod-like or needle-like, and either blunt or pointed at both ends; they are either smooth, granular, or covered with small spines. Sometimes spicules of the same type form a more or less irregular transverse network at the base or on the surface of the sponge. [Illustration: Fig. 4.--Part of an oscular collar of _Spongilla lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_, showing arrangement of microscleres in the derma (magnified).] From the systematist's point of view, the structure of the free spicules found scattered in the substance and membrane of the sponge, and especially of those that form the armature of the gemmules, is of more importance than that of the skeleton-spicules. Free spicules are absent in many species; when present they are usually needle-like and pointed at the tips. In a few species, however, they are of variable or irregular form, or consist of several or many shafts meeting in a common central nodule. In one genus (_Corvospongilla_) they resemble a double grappling-iron in form, having a circle of strongly recurved hooks at both ends. The free microscleres, or flesh-spicules as they are often called, are either smooth, granular, or spiny. Gemmule-spicules, which form a characteristic feature of the Spongillidæ, are very seldom absent when the gemmules are mature. They are of the greatest importance in distinguishing the genera. In their simplest form they closely resemble the free microscleres, but in several genera they bear, either at or near one end or at or near both ends, transverse disks which are either smooth or indented round the edge. In one genus (_Pectispongilla_) they are provided at both ends not with disks but with vertically parallel rows of spines resembling combs in appearance. The simpler spicules of the Spongillidæ are formed in single cells (see fig. 2 E), but those of more complicated shape are produced by several cells acting in concert. Each spicule, although it is formed mainly of hydrated silica (opal), contains a slender organic filament running along its main axis inside the silica. This filament, or rather the tube in which it is contained, is often quite conspicuous, and in some species (e. g., _Spongilla crassissima_) its termination is marked at both ends of the megasclere by a minute conical protuberance in the silica. Unless sponges are alchemists and can transmute one element into another, the material of which the spicules are made must ultimately come from the water in which the sponges live, or the rocks or other bodies to or near which they are attached. The amount of water that must pass through a large specimen of such a sponge as _Spongilla carteri_ in order that it may obtain materials for its skeleton must be enormous, for silica is an insoluble substance. I have noticed, however, that this sponge is particularly abundant and grows with special luxuriance in ponds in which clothes are washed with soap, and my friend Mr. G. H. Tipper has suggested to me that possibly the alkali contained in the soap-suds may assist the sponge in dissolving out the silica contained in the mud at the bottom of the ponds. The question of how the mineral matter of the skeleton is obtained is, however, one about which we know nothing definite. The spongin that binds the skeleton-spicules together takes the form of a colourless or yellowish transparent membrane, which is often practically invisible. When very abundant it sometimes extends across the nodes of the skeleton as a delicate veil. In some sponges it also forms a basal membrane in contact with the object to which the sponge is attached, and in some such cases the spongin of the radiating fibres is in direct continuity with that of the basal membrane. COLOUR AND ODOUR. Most freshwater sponges have a bad odour, which is more marked in some species than in others. This odour is not peculiar to the Spongillidæ, for it is practically identical with that given out by the common marine sponge _Halichondria panicea_. Its function is probably protective, but how it is produced we do not know. The coloration of freshwater sponges is usually dull and uniform, but _Pectispongilla aurea_ is of the brilliant yellow indicated by its name, while many species are of the bright green shade characteristic of chlorophyll, the colouring matter of the leaves of plants. Many species are brown or grey, and some are almost white. These colours are due to one of three causes, or to a combination of more than one of them, viz.:--(1) the inhalation of solid inorganic particles, which are engulfed by the cells; (2) the presence in the cells of coloured substances, solid or liquid, produced by the vital activities of the sponge; and (3) the presence in the cells of peculiar organized living bodies known as "green corpuscles." Sponges living in muddy water are often nearly black. This is because the cells of their parenchyma are gorged with very minute solid particles of silt. If a sponge of the kind is kept in clean water for a few days, it often becomes almost white. An interesting experiment is easily performed to illustrate the absorption and final elimination of solid colouring matter by placing a living sponge (small specimens of _Spongilla carteri_ are suitable) in a glass of clean water, and sprinkling finely powdered carmine in the water. In a few hours the sponge will be of a bright pink colour, but if only a little carmine is used at first and no more added, it will regain its normal greyish hue in a few days. The colouring matter produced by the sponge itself is of two kinds--pigment, which is probably a waste product, and the substances produced directly by the ingestion of food or in the process of its digestion. When pigment is produced it takes the form of minute granules lying in the cells of the parenchyma, the dermal membrane being as a rule colourless. Very little is known about the pigments of freshwater sponges, and even less about the direct products of metabolism. It is apparently the latter, however, that give many otherwise colourless sponges a slight pinkish or yellowish tinge directly due to the presence in cells of the parenchyma of minute liquid globules. In one form of _Spongilla carteri_ these globules turn of a dark brown colour if treated with alcohol. The brilliant colour of _Pectispongilla aurea_ is due not to solid granules but to a liquid or semi-liquid substance contained in the cells. The green corpuscles of the Spongillidæ are not present in all species. There is every reason to think that they represent a stage in the life-history of an alga, and that they enter the sponge in an active condition (see p. 49). A fourth cause for the coloration of freshwater sponges may be noted briefly. It is not a normal one, but occurs commonly in certain forms (e. g., _Spongilla alba_ var. _bengalensis_). This cause is the growth in the canals and substance of the sponge of parasitic algaæ, which turn the whole organism of a dull green colour. They do not do so, however, until they have reduced it to a dying state. The commonest parasite of the kind is a filamentous species particularly common in brackish water in the Ganges delta. EXTERNAL FORM AND CONSISTENCY. [Illustration: Fig. 5.--Part of a type-specimen of _Spongilla lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_ (nat. size).] The external form of sponges is very variable, but each species, subspecies, or variety of the Spongillidæ has normally a characteristic appearance. The European race of _Spongilla lacustris_, for example, consists in favourable circumstances of a flattened basal part from which long cylindrical branches grow out; while in the Indian race of the species these branches are flattened instead of being cylindrical, and anastomose freely. The structure of the branches is identical with that of the basal part. Many other species (for instance, _Spongilla bombayensis_ and _S. ultima_) never produce branches but always consist of lichenoid or cushion-shaped masses. The appearance of _Spongilla crateriformis_, when it is growing on a flattened surface which allows it to develop its natural form, is very characteristic, for it consists of little flattened masses that seem to be running out towards one another, just as though the sponge had been dropped, spoonful by spoonful, in a viscous condition from a teaspoon. Some species, such as _Trochospongilla phillottiana_, cover large areas with a thin film of uniform thickness, while others (e. g., _Spongilla alba_ and _Ephydatia meyeni_) consist of irregular masses, the surface of which bears numerous irregular ridges or conical, subquadrate, or digitate processes. In a few forms (e. g., _Corvospongilla burmanica_) the surface is covered with small turret-like projections of considerable regularity, and some (e. g., _Spongilla crassissima_) naturally assume a spherical or oval shape with an absolutely smooth surface. The production of long branches is apparently rare in tropical freshwater sponges. The form of the oscula is characteristic in many cases. No other Indian species has them so large, or with such well-defined margins as _Spongilla carteri_ (Pl. II, fig. 1). In many species (Pl. II, fig. 3) they have a stellate appearance owing to the fact that grooves in the substance of the sponge radiate round them beneath the external membrane. In other species they are quite inconspicuous and very small. [Illustration: Fig. 6.--Radial section through part of a dried sponge of _Spongilla crassissima_ (from Calcutta), × 5.] Spongillidæ differ greatly in consistency. _Spongilla crassissima_ and _Corvospongilla lapidosa_ are almost stony, although the former is extremely light, more like pumice than true stone. Other species (e. g., _Trochospongilla latouchiana_) are hard but brittle, while others again are soft and easily compressed, as _Spongilla lacustris_, the variety _mollis_ of _S. carteri_, and _S. crateriformis_. The consistency of a sponge depends on two factors--the number of spicules present, and the amount of spongin. In _Corvospongilla lapidosa_ the number of spicules is very large indeed. They are not arranged so as to form a reticulate skeleton but interlock in all directions, and there is hardly any spongin associated with them. In _Spongilla crassissima_, on the other hand, the number of spicules although large is not unusually so; but they form a very definitely reticulate skeleton, and are bound together by an unusually profuse secretion of spongin. In _S. carteri_ var. _mollis_ both spicules and spongin are reduced to a minimum, and the parenchyma is relatively more bulky than usual. VARIATION. Sponges are very variable organisms, and even a slight change in the environment of the freshwater species often produces a considerable change in form and structure. Some species vary in accordance with the season, and others without apparent cause. Not only have many given rise to subspecies and "varieties" that possess a certain stability, but most if not all are liable to smaller changes that apparently affect both the individual and the breed, at any rate for a period. (a) _Seasonal Variation._ Weltner has shown in a recent paper (Arch. Natg. Berlin, lxxiii (i), p. 276, 1907) that in Europe those individuals of _Ephydatia_ which are found (exceptionally) in an active condition in winter differ considerably both as regards the number of their cells and their anatomy from those found in summer. In Calcutta the majority of the individuals of _Spongilla carteri_ that are found in summer have their external surface unusually smooth and rounded, and contain in their parenchyma numerous cells the protoplasm of which is gorged with liquid. These cells give the whole sponge a faint pinkish tinge during life; but if it is plunged in spirit, both the liquid in the cells and the spirit turn rapidly of a dark brown colour. Specimens of _Spongilla crateriformis_ taken in a certain tank in Calcutta during the cold weather had the majority of the skeleton-spicules blunt, while the extremities of the gemmule-spicules were distinctly differentiated. Specimens of the same species taken from the same tank in July had the skeleton-spicules pointed, while the extremities of the gemmule-spicules were much less clearly differentiated. I have been unable to confirm this by observations made on sponges from other tanks, but it would certainly suggest that at any rate the breed of sponges in the tank first investigated was liable to seasonal variation. (b) _Variation due directly to Environment._ The characteristic external form of freshwater sponges is liable in most cases to be altered as a direct result of changes in the environment. The following are two characteristic instances of this phenomenon. Certain shrubs with slender stems grow in the water at the edge of Igatpuri Lake. The stems of these shrubs support many large examples of _Spongilla carteri_, which are kept in almost constant motion owing to the action of the wind on those parts of the shrubs that are not under water. The surface of the sponges is so affected by the currents of water thus set up against it that it is covered with deep grooves and high irregular ridges like cockscombs. Less than a hundred yards from the lake there is a small pond in which _Spongilla carteri_ is also abundant. Here it grows on stones at the bottom and has the characteristic and almost smooth form of the species. My second instance also refers in part to Igatpuri Lake. _Corvospongilla lapidosa_ is common in the lake on the lower surface of stones, and also occurs at Nasik, about thirty miles away, on the walls of a conduit of dirty water. In the latter situation it has the form of large sheets of a blackish colour, with the surface corrugated and the oscula inconspicuous, while in the clear waters of the lake it is of a pale yellowish colour, occurs in small lichenoid patches, and has its oscula rendered conspicuous, in spite of their minute size, by being raised on little conical eminences in such a way that they resemble the craters of volcanoes in miniature. Both the European and the Indian races of _Spongilla lacustris_ fail to develop branches if growing in unfavourable conditions. In specimens obtained from the River Spree near Berlin these structures are sometimes many inches in length; while in mature specimens taken under stones in Loch Baa in the Island of Mull the whole organism consisted of a minute cushion-shaped mass less than an inch in diameter, and was also deficient in spicules. Both these breeds belong to the same species, and probably differ as a direct result of differences in environment. (c) _Variation without apparent cause._ Plate I in this volume illustrates an excellent example of variation in external form to which it is impossible to assign a cause with any degree of confidence. The three specimens figured were all taken in the same pond, and at the same season, but in different years. It is possible that the change in form, which was not peculiar to a few individuals but to all those in several adjacent ponds, was due to a difference in the salinity of the water brought about by a more or less abundant rainfall; but of this I have been able to obtain no evidence in succeeding years. Many Spongillidæ vary without apparent cause as regards the shape, size, and proportions of their spicules. This is the case as regards most species of _Euspongilla_ and _Ephydatia_, and is a fact to which careful consideration has to be given in separating the species. NUTRITION. Very little is known about the natural food of freshwater sponges, except that it must be of an organic nature and must be either in a very finely divided or in a liquid condition. The cells of the sponge seem to have the power of selecting suitable food from the water that flows past them, and it is known that they will absorb milk. The fact that they engulf minute particles of silt does not prove that they lack the power of selection, for extraneous matter is taken up by them not only as food but in order that it may be eliminated. Silt would soon block up the canals and so put a stop to the vital activity of the sponge, if it were not got rid of, and presumably it is only taken into the cells in order that they may pass it on and finally disgorge it in such a way or in such a position that it may be carried out of the oscula. The siliceous part of it may be used in forming spicules. It is generally believed that the green corpuscles play an important part in the nutrition of those sponges in which they occur, and there can be no doubt that these bodies have the power peculiar to all organisms that produce chlorophyll of obtaining nutritive substances direct from water and carbonic oxide through the action of sunlight. Possibly they hand on some of the nourishment thus obtained to the sponges in which they live, or benefit them by the free oxygen given out in the process, but many Spongillidæ do well without them, even when living in identical conditions with species in which they abound. REPRODUCTION. Both eggs and buds are produced by freshwater sponges (the latter rarely except by one species), while their gemmules attain an elaboration of structure not observed in any other family of sponges. Probably all Spongillidæ are potentially monoecious, that is to say, able to produce both eggs and spermatozoa. In one Indian species, however, in which budding is unusually common (viz. _Spongilla proliferens_), sexual reproduction takes place very seldom, if ever. It is not known whether the eggs of sponges are fertilized by spermatozoa from the individual that produces the egg or by those of other individuals, but not improbably both methods of fertilization occur. The egg of a freshwater sponge does not differ materially from that of other animals. When mature it is a relatively large spherical cell containing abundant food-material and situated in some natural cavity of the sponge. In the earlier stages of its growth, however, it exhibits amoeboid movements, and makes its way through the common jelly. As it approaches maturity it is surrounded by other cells which contain granules of food-material. The food-material is apparently transferred by them in a slightly altered form to the egg. The egg has no shell, but in some species (e. g. _Ephydatia blembingia_[N]) it is surrounded, after fertilization, by gland-cells belonging to the parent sponge, which secrete round it a membrane of spongin. Development goes on within the chamber thus formed until the larva is ready to assume a free life. [Footnote N: Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 269 (1907).] The spermatozoon is also like that of other animals, consisting of a rounded head and a lash-like tail, the movements of which enable it to move rapidly through the water. Spermatozoa are produced in _Spongilla_ from spherical cells not unlike the eggs in general appearance. The contents of these cells divide and subdivide in such a way that they finally consist of a mass of spermatozoa surrounded by a single covering cell, which they finally rupture, and so escape. [Illustration: Fig. 7.--Diagram of a vertical section through the gemmule of _Spongilla proliferens_. A=cellular contents; B=internal chitinous layer; C=external chitinous layer; D=pneumatic coat; E=gemmule-spicule; F=external membrane; G=foraminal tubule.] Gemmules are asexual reproductive bodies peculiar to the sponges, but not to the Spongillidæ. They resemble the statoblasts of the phylactolæmatous polyzoa in general structure as well as in function, which is mainly that of preserving the race from destruction by such agencies as drought, starvation, and temperatures that are either too high or too low for its activities. This function they are enabled to perform by the facts that they are provided with coverings not only very hard but also fitted to resist the unfavourable agencies to which the gemmules are likely to be exposed, and that they contain abundant food-material of which use can be made as soon as favourable conditions occur again. Internally the gemmule consists of a mass of cells containing food-material in what may be called a tabloid form, for it consists of minutely granular plate-like bodies. These cells are enclosed in a flask-like receptacle, the walls of which consist of two chitinous layers, a delicate inner membrane and an outer one of considerable stoutness. The mouth of the flask is closed by an extension of the inner membrane, and in some species is surrounded by a tubular extension of the external membrane known as the foraminal tubule. Externally the gemmule is usually covered by what is called a "pneumatic coat," also of "chitin" (spongin), but usually of great relative thickness and honeycombed by spaces which contain air, rendering the structure buoyant. The pneumatic coat also contains the microscleres characteristic of the species; it is often limited externally by a third chitinous membrane, on which more gemmule-spicules sometimes lie parallel to the surface. The cells from which those of the gemmules are derived are akin in origin to those that give rise to eggs and spermatozoa. Some zoologists are therefore of the opinion that the development of the gemmule is an instance of parthenogenesis--that is to say of an organism arising from an egg that has not been fertilized. But some of the collar-cells, although most of them originate from the external ciliated cells of the larva, have a similar origin. The building-up of the gemmule affords an excellent instance of the active co-operation that exists between the cells of sponges, and of their mobility, for the food-material that has to be stored up is brought by cells from all parts of the sponge, and these cells retire after discharging their load into those of the young gemmule. The formation of the gemmule of _Ephydatia blembingia_, a Malayan species not yet found in India, is described in detail by Dr. R. Evans (Q. J. Microsc. Sci. London, xliv, p. 81, 1901). Gemmules are produced by the freshwater sponges of Europe, N. America and Japan at the approach of winter, but in the tropical parts of India they are formed more frequently at the approach of the hot weather (p. 4). After they are fully formed the sponge that has produced them dies, and as a rule disintegrates more or less completely. In some species, however, the greater part of the skeleton remains intact, if it is not disturbed, and retains some of the gemmules in its meshwork, where they finally germinate. Other gemmules are set free. Some of them float on the surface of the water; others sink to the bottom. In any case all of them undergo a period of quiescence before germinating. It has been found that they can be kept dry for two years without dying. The function of the special spicules with which the gemmules of the Spongillidæ are provided appears to be not only to protect them but more especially to weight them to the extent suitable to the habits of each species. Species that inhabit running water, for example, in some cases have heavier gemmule-spicules than those that live in stagnant water, and their gemmules are the less easily carried away by the currents of the river. The gemmules of sponges growing in lakes are sometimes deficient in spicules. This is the case as regards the form of _Spongilla lacustris_ found in Lake Baa, Isle of Mull, as regards _S. helvetica_ from the Lake of Geneva, _S. moorei_ from Lake Tanganyika, and _S. coggini_ from Tali-Fu in Yunnan; also as regards the species of _Spongilla_ and _Ephydatia_ found in Lake Baikal, many of the sponges of which are said never to produce gemmules. Except in the genus _Corvospongilla_ and the subgenus _Stratospongilla_, in both of which the air-spaces of the gemmules are usually no more than cavities between different chitinous membranes, the pneumatic coat is either "granular" or "cellular." Neither of these terms, however, must be understood in a physiological sense, for what appear to be granules in a granular coat are actually minute bubbles of air contained in little cavities in a foam-like mass of chitin (or rather spongin), while the cells in a cellular one are only larger and more regular air-spaces with thin polygonal walls and flat horizontal partitions. The walls of these spaces are said in some cases to contain a considerable amount of silica. The gemmules with their various coverings are usually spherical in shape, but in some species they are oval or depressed in outline. They lie as a rule free in the substance of the sponge, but in some species adhere at its base to the object to which it is attached. In some species they are joined together in groups, but in most they are quite free one from another. Reproductive buds[O] are produced, so far as is known, by very few Spongillidæ, although they are common enough in some other groups of sponges. In the only freshwater species in which they have been found to form a habitual means of reproduction, namely in _Spongilla proliferens_, they have much the appearance of abortive branches, and it is possible that they have been overlooked for this reason in other species, for they were noticed by Laurent in _Spongilla lacustris_ as long ago as 1840 (CR. Sé. Acad. Sci. Paris, xi, p. 478). The buds noticed by Laurent, however, were only produced by very young sponges, and were of a different nature from those of _S. proliferens_, perhaps representing a form of fission rather than true budding (see 'Voyage de la Bonite: Zoophytologie,' Spongiaires, pl. i (Paris, 1844)). [Footnote O: Proliferation whereby more than one osculum is produced is really a form of budding, but in most sponges this has become no longer a mode of reproduction but the normal method by which size is increased, and must therefore be considered merely as a vegetative process.] In _Spongilla proliferens_, a common Indian species, the buds arise as thickenings of the strands of cells accompanying the radiating spicule-fibres of the skeleton, which project outwards from the surface of the sponge. The thickenings originate beneath the surface and contain, at the earliest stage at which I have as yet examined them, all the elements of the adult organism (_i. e._ flesh-spicules, ciliated chambers, efferent and afferent canals, parenchyma-cells of various sorts) except skeleton fibres, gemmules, and a dermal membrane. A section at this period closely resembles one of an adult sponge, except that the structure is more compact, the parenchyma being relatively bulky and the canals of small diameter. Laurent observed reproduction by splitting in young individuals of _Spongilla_, but I have not been able to obtain evidence myself that this method of reproduction occurs normally in Indian species. In injured specimens of _Spongilla carteri_, however, I have observed a phenomenon that seems to be rather an abnormal form of budding, little rounded masses of cells making their way to the ends of the radiating skeleton fibres and becoming transformed into young sponges, which break loose and so start an independent existence. Possibly the buds observed by Laurent in _S. lacustris_ were of a similar nature. DEVELOPMENT. (a) _From the Egg._ After fertilization, the egg, lying in its cavity in the sponge, undergoes a complete segmentation; that is to say, becomes divided into a number of cells without any residuum remaining. The segmentation, however, is not equal, for it results in the formation of cells of two distinct types, one larger and less numerous than the other. As the process continues a pear-shaped body is produced, solid at the broader end, which consists of the larger cells, but hollow at the other. Further changes result in the whole of the external surface becoming ciliated or covered with fine protoplasmic lashes, each of which arises from a single small cell; considerable differentiation now takes place among the cells, and spicules begin to appear. At this stage or earlier (for there seem to be differences in different species and individuals as to the stage at which the young sponge escapes) the larva makes its way out of the parent sponge. After a brief period of free life, in which it swims rapidly through the water by means of its cilia, it fixes itself by the broad end to some solid object (from which it can never move again) and undergoes a final metamorphosis. During this process the ciliated cells of the external layer make their way, either by a folding-in of the whole layer or in groups of cells, into the interior, there change into collar-cells and arrange themselves in special cavities--the ciliated chambers of the adult. Finally an osculum, pores, &c., are formed, and the sponge is complete. This, of course, is the merest outline of what occurs; other changes that take place during the metamorphosis are of great theoretical interest, but cannot be discussed here. The student may refer to Dr. R. Evans's account of the larval development of _Spongilla lacustris_ in the Q. J. Microsc. Sci. London, xlii, p. 363 (1899). (b) _From the Gemmule._ The period for which the gemmule lies dormant probably depends to some extent upon environment and to some extent on the species to which it belongs. Carter found that if he cleaned gemmules with a handkerchief and placed them in water exposed to sunlight, they germinated in a few days; but in Calcutta gemmules of _Spongilla alba_ var. _bengalensis_ treated in this way and placed in my aquarium at the beginning of the hot weather, did not germinate until well on in the "rains." Even then, after about five months, only a few of them did so. Zykoff found that in Europe gemmules kept for two years were still alive and able to germinate. Germination consists in the cellular contents of the gemmule bursting the membrane or membranes in which they are enclosed, and making their way out of the gemmule in the form of a delicate whitish mass, which sometimes issues through the natural aperture in the outer chitinous coat and sometimes through an actual rent in this coat. In the latter case the development of the young sponge is more advanced than in the former. The fullest account of development from the gemmule as yet published is by Zykoff, and refers to _Ephydatia_ in Europe (Biol. Centralbl. Berlin, xii, p. 713, 1892). His investigations show that the bursting of the gemmule is not merely a mechanical effect of moisture or any such agency but is due to development of the cellular contents, which at the time they escape have at least undergone differentiation into two layers. Of the more important soft structures in the sponge the osculum is the first to appear, the ciliated chambers being formed later. This is the opposite of what occurs in the case of the bud, but in both cases the aperture appears to be produced by the pressure of water in the organism. The manner and order in which the different kinds of cells originate in the sponge derived from a gemmule give support to the view that the primitive cell-layers on which morphologists lay great stress are not of any great importance so far as sponges are concerned. (c) _Development of the Bud._ As the bud of _Spongilla proliferens_ grows it makes its way up the skeleton-fibre to which it was originally attached, pushing the dermal membrane, which expands with its growth, before it. The skeleton-fibre does not, however, continue to grow in the bud, in which a number of finer fibres make their appearance, radiating from a point approximately at the centre of the mass. As the bud projects more and more from the surface of the sponge the dermal membrane contracts at its base, so as finally to separate it from its parent. Further details are given on p. 74. HABITAT. Mr. Edward Potts[P], writing on the freshwater sponges of North America, says:--"These organisms have occasionally been discovered growing in water unfit for domestic uses; but as a rule they prefer pure water, and in my experience the finest specimens have always been found where they are subjected to the most rapid currents." True as this is of the Spongillidæ of temperate climates, it is hardly applicable to those of tropical India, for in this country we find many species growing most luxuriantly and commonly in water that would certainly be considered unfit for domestic purposes in a country in which sanitation was treated as a science. Some species, indeed, are only found in ponds of water polluted by human agency, and such ponds, provided that other conditions are favourable, are perhaps the best collecting grounds. Other favourable conditions consist in a due mixture of light and shade, a lack of disturbance such as that caused by cleaning out the pond, and above all in the presence of objects suitable for the support of sponges. [Footnote P: P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 162.] I do not know exactly why light and shade must be mixed in a habitat favourable for the growth of sponges, for most species prefer shade, if it be not too dense; but it is certainly the case that, with a few exceptions, Indian Spongillidæ flourish best in water shaded at the edges by trees and exposed to sunlight elsewhere. One of the exceptions to this rule is the Indian race of _Spongilla lucustris_, which is found in small pools of water in sand-dunes without a particle of shade. Several species are only found on the lower surface of stones and roots in circumstances which do not suggest that their position merely protects them from mud, which, as Mr. Potts points out, is their "great enemy." A notable instance is _Trochospongilla pennsylvanica_, which is found hiding away from light in America and Europe as well as in India. It is curious that it should be easy to exterminate the sponges in a pond by cleaning it out, for one would have thought that sufficient gemmules would have remained at the edge, or would have been brought rapidly from elsewhere, to restock the water. Mr. Green has, however, noted that _Spongilla carteri_ has disappeared for some years from a small lake at Peradeniya in which it was formerly abundant, owing to the lake having been cleaned out, and I have made similar observations on several occasions in Calcutta. The question of the objects to which sponges attach themselves is one intimately connected with that of the injury done them by mud. The delta of the Ganges is one of the muddiest districts on earth. There are no stones or rocks in the rivers and ponds, but mud everywhere. If a sponge settles in the mud its canals are rapidly choked, its vital processes cease, and it dies. In this part of India, therefore, most sponges are found fixed either to floating objects such as logs of wood, to vertical objects such as the stems of bulrushes and other aquatic plants, or to the tips of branches that overhang the water and become submerged during the "rains." In Calcutta man has unwittingly come to the assistance of the sponges, not only by digging tanks but also by building "bathing-ghats" of brick at the edge, and constructing, with æsthetic intentions if not results, masses of artificial concrete rocks in or surrounding the water. There are at least two sponges (the typical form of _Spongilla alba_ and _Ephydatia meyeni_) which in Calcutta are only found attached to such objects. The form of _S. alba_, however, that is found in ponds of brackish water in the Gangetic delta has not derived this artificial assistance from man, except in the few places where brick bridges have been built, and attaches itself to the stem and roots of a kind of grass that grows at the edge of brackish water. This sponge seems to have become immune even to mud, the particles of which are swallowed by its cells and finally got rid of without blocking up the canals. Several Indian sponges are only found adhering to stones and rocks. Among these species _Corvospongilla lapidosa_ and our representatives of the subgenus _Stratospongilla_ are noteworthy. Some forms (e. g. _Spongilla carteri_ and _S. crateriformis_) seem, however, to be just as much at home in muddy as in rocky localities, although they avoid the mud itself. There is much indirect evidence that the larvæ of freshwater sponges exercise a power of selection as regards the objects to which they affix themselves on settling down for life. Few Spongillidæ are found in salt or brackish water, but _Spongilla alba_ var. _bengalensis_ has been found in both, and is abundant in the latter; indeed, it has not been found in pure fresh water. _Spongilla travancorica_ has only been found in slightly brackish water, while _S. lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_ and _Dosilia plumosa_ occur in both fresh and brackish water, although rarely in the latter. The Spongillidæ are essentially a freshwater family, and those forms that are found in any but pure fresh water must be regarded as aberrant or unusually tolerant in their habits, not as primitive marine forms that still linger halfway to the sea. ANIMALS AND PLANTS COMMONLY ASSOCIATED WITH FRESHWATER SPONGES. (a) _Enemies._ Freshwater sponges have few living enemies. Indeed, it is difficult to say exactly what is an enemy of a creature so loosely organized as a sponge. There can be little doubt, in any case, that the neuropteroid larva (_Sisyra indica_) which sucks the cells of several species should be classed in this category, and it is noteworthy that several species of the same genus also occur in Europe and N. America which also attack sponges. Other animals that may be enemies are a midge larva (_Tanypus_ sp.) and certain worms that bore through the parenchyma (p. 93), but I know of no animal that devours sponges bodily, so long as they are uninjured. If their external membrane is destroyed, they are immediately attacked by various little fish and also by snails of the genera _Limnæa_ and _Planorbis_, and prawns of the genus _Palæmon_. Their most active and obvious enemy is a plant, not an animal,--to wit, a filamentous alga that blocks up their canals by its rapid growth (p. 79). (b) _Beneficial Organisms._ The most abundant and possibly the most important organisms that may be considered as benefactors to the Spongillidæ are the green corpuscles that live in the cells of certain species (fig. 2, p. 31), notably _Spongilla lacustris_, _S. proliferens_, and _Dosilia plumosa_. I have already said that these bodies are in all probability algæ which live free in the water and move actively at one stage of their existence, but some of them are handed on directly from a sponge to its descendants in the cells of the gemmule. In their quiescent stage they have been studied by several zoologists, notably by Sir Ray Lankester[Q] and Dr. W. Weltner[R], but the strongest light that has been cast on their origin is given by the researches of Dr. F. W. Gamble and Mr. F. Keeble (Q. J. Microsc. Sci. London, xlvii, p. 363, 1904, and li, p. 167, 1907). These researches do not refer directly to the Spongillidæ but to a little flat-worm that lives in the sea, _Convoluta roscoffiensis_. The green corpuscles of this worm so closely resemble those of _Spongilla_ that we are justified in supposing a similarity of origin. It has been shown by the authors cited that the green corpuscles of the worm are at one stage minute free-living organisms provided at one end with four flagella and at the other with a red pigment spot. The investigators are of the opinion that these organisms exhibit the essential characters of the algæ known as Chlamydomonadæ, and that after they have entered the worm they play for it the part of an excretory system. [Footnote Q: Q. J. Microsc. Sci. London, xxii. p. 229 (1882).] [Footnote R: Arch. Naturg. Berlin, lix (i), p. 260 (1893).] As they exist in the cells of _Spongilla_ the corpuscles are minute oval bodies of a bright green colour and each containing a highly refractile colourless granule. A considerable number may be present in a single cell. It is found in European sponges that they lose their green colour if the sponge is not exposed to bright sunlight. In India, however, where the light is stronger, this is not always the case. Even when the colour goes, the corpuscles can still be distinguished as pale images of their green embodiment. They are called _Chlorella_ by botanists, who have studied their life-history but have not yet discovered the full cycle. See Beyerinck in the Botan. Zeitung for 1890 (vol. xlviii, p. 730, pl. vii; Leipzig), and for further references West's 'British Freshwater Algæ,' p. 230 (1904). The list of beneficent organisms less commonly present than the green corpuscles includes a _Chironomus_ larva that builds parchment-like tubes in the substance of _Spongilla carteri_ and so assists in supporting the sponge, and of a peculiar little worm (_Chætogaster spongillæ_[S]) that appears to assist in cleaning up the skeleton of the same sponge at the approach of the hot weather and in setting free the gemmules (p. 93). [Footnote S: Journ. As. Soc. Beng. n. s. ii, 1906, p. 189.] (c) _Organisms that take shelter in the Sponge or adhere to it externally._ There are many animals which take shelter in the cavities of the sponge without apparently assisting it in any way. Among these are the little fish _Gobius alcockii_, which lays its eggs inside the oscula of _S. carteri_, thus ensuring not only protection but also a proper supply of oxygen for them (p. 94); the molluscs (_Corbula_, spp.) found inside _S. alba_ var. _bengalensis_ (p. 78); and the Isopod (_Tachæa spongillicola_) that makes its way into the oscula of _Spongilla carteri_ and _S. crateriformis_ (pp. 86, 94). In Europe a peculiar ciliated Protozoon (_Trichodina spongillæ_) is found attached to the external surface of freshwater sponges. I have noticed a similar species at Igatpuri on _Spongilla crateriformis_, but it has not yet been identified. It probably has no effect, good or bad, on the sponge. FRESHWATER SPONGES IN RELATION TO MAN. In dealing with _Spongilla carteri_ I have suggested that sponges may be of some hygienic importance in absorbing putrid organic matter from water used both for ablutionary and for drinking purposes, as is so commonly the case with regard to ponds in India. Their bad odour has caused some species of Spongillidæ to be regarded as capable of polluting water, but a mere bad odour does not necessarily imply that they are insanitary. Unless my suggestion that sponges purify water used for drinking purposes by absorbing putrid matter should prove to be supported by fact, the Spongillidæ cannot be said to be of any practical benefit to man. The only harm that has been imputed to them is that of polluting water[T], of blocking up water-pipes by their growth--a very rare occurrence,--and of causing irritation to the human skin by means of their spicules--a still rarer one. At least one instance is, however, reported in which men digging in a place where a pond had once been were attacked by a troublesome rash probably due to the presence of sponge-spicules in the earth, and students of the freshwater sponges should be careful not to rub their eyes after handling dried specimens. [Footnote T: See Potts, Proc. Ac. Philad. 1884, p. 28.] INDIAN SPONGILLIDÆ COMPARED WITH THOSE OF OTHER COUNTRIES. In Weltner's catalogue of the freshwater sponges (1895) seventy-six recent species of Spongillidæ (excluding _Lubosmirskia_) are enumerated, and the number now known is well over a hundred. In India we have twenty-nine species, subspecies, and varieties, while from the whole of Europe only about a dozen are known. In the neighbourhood of Calcutta nine species, representing three genera and a subgenus, have been found; all of them occur in the Museum tank. The only other region of similar extent that can compare with India as regards the richness of its freshwater sponge fauna is that of the Amazon, from which about twenty species are known. From the whole of North America, which has probably been better explored than any other continent so far as Spongillidæ are concerned, only twenty-seven or twenty-eight species have been recorded. The Indian species fall into seven genera, one of which (_Spongilla_) consists of three subgenera. With one exception (that of _Pectispongilla_, which has only been found in Southern India) these genera have a wide distribution over the earth's surface, and this is also the case as regards the subgenera of Spongilla. Four genera (_Heteromeyenia_, _Acalle_, _Parmula_, and _Uruguaya_) that have not yet been found in India are known to exist elsewhere. Five of the Indian species are known to occur in Europe, viz., _Spongilla lacustris_, _S. crateriformis_, _S. carteri_, _S. fragilis_, _Trochospongilla pennsylvanica_; while _Ephydatia meyeni_ is intermediate between the two commonest representatives of its genus in the Holarctic Zone, _Ephydatia fluviatilis_ and _E. mülleri_. Of the species that occur both in India and in Europe, two (_Spongilla lacustris_ and _S. fragilis_) are found in this country in forms sufficiently distinct to be regarded as subspecies or local races. Perhaps this course should also be taken as regards the Indian forms of _S. carteri_, of which, however, the commonest of the Indian races would be the typical one; but _S. crateriformis_ and _T. pennsylvanica_ seem to preserve their specific characters free from modification, whether they are found in Europe, Asia, or America. The freshwater sponges of Africa have been comparatively little studied, but two Indian species have been discovered, _S. bombayensis_ in Natal and _S. alba_ var. _cerebellata_ in Egypt. Several of the species from the Malabar Zone are, moreover, closely allied to African forms (p. 11). FOSSIL SPONGILLIDÆ. The Spongillidæ are an ancient family. Young described a species (_Spongilla purbeckensis_) from the Upper Jurassic of Dorset (Geol. Mag. London (new series) v, p. 220 (1878)), while spicules, assigned by Ehrenberg to various genera but actually those of _Spongilla lacustris_ or allied forms, have been found in the Miocene of Bohemia (see Ehrenberg's 'Atlas für Micro-Geologie,' pl. xi (Leipzig, 1854), and Traxler in Földt. Közl., Budapest, 1895, p. 211). _Ephydatia_ is also known in a fossil condition, but is probably less ancient than _Spongilla_. Ehrenberg found many sponge spicules in earth from various parts of the Indian Empire (including Baluchistan, Mangalore, Calcutta, the Nicobars and Nepal) and elsewhere, and it might be possible to guess at the identity of some of the more conspicuous species figured in his 'Atlas.' The identification of sponges from isolated spicules is, however, always a matter of doubt, and in some cases Ehrenberg probably assigned spicules belonging to entirely different families or even orders to the same genus, while he frequently attributed the different spicules of the same species to different genera. Among his fossil (or supposed fossil) genera that may be assigned to the Spongillidæ wholly or in part are _Aphidiscus_, _Spongolithis_, _Lithastericus_ and _Lithosphæridium_, many of the species of these "genera" certainly belonging to _Spongilla_ and _Ephydatia_. ORIENTAL SPONGILLIDÆ NOT YET FOUND IN INDIA. Few freshwater sponges that have not been found in India are as yet known from the Oriental Region, and there is positive as well as negative evidence that Spongillidæ are less abundant in Malaysia than in this country. The following list includes the names of those that have been found, with notes regarding each species. It is quite possible that any one of them may be found at any time within the geographical boundaries laid down for this 'Fauna.' I have examined types or co-types in all cases except that of _Ephydatia fortis_, Weltner. I. _Spongilla_ (_Euspongilla_) _microsclerifera_*, Annandale (Philippines). P. U.S. Mus. xxxvii, p. 131 (1909). This sponge is closely related to _S. lacustris_, but apparently does not produce branches. It is remarkable for the enormous number of microscleres in its parenchyma. II. _S._ (_Euspongilla_) _philippinensis_*, Annandale (Philippines). P. U.S. Mus. xxxvi, p. 629 (1909). Related to _S. alba_ and still more closely to _S. sceptrioides_ of Australia. From the former it is readily distinguished by having minutely spined megascleres, green corpuscles, slender gemmule-spicules with short spines and no free microscleres. III. _S._ (? _Euspongilla_) _yunnanensis_*, Annandale (W. China). Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 197 (1910). Apparently allied to _S. philippinensis_ but with smooth skeleton-spicules and a more delicate skeleton. IV. _S._ (_Stratospongilla_) _sinensis_*, Annandale (Foochow, China). P. U.S. Mus. xxxviii, p. 183 (1910). This species and _S. clementis_ are referred to _Stratospongilla_ with some doubt. Their gemmules are intermediate in structure between those of that subgenus and those of _Euspongilla_. In _S. sinensis_ the gemmules are packed together in groups at the base of the sponge, and their spicules are smooth, stout, and gradually pointed. V. _S._ (_Stratospongilla_) _clementis_*, Annandale (Philippines). P. U.S. Mus. xxxvi, p. 631 (1909). The gemmules are single and closely adherent at the base of the sponge. Their spicules are very slender and minutely spined. VI. _S._ (? _Stratospongilla_) _coggini_*, Annandale (W. China). Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 198 (1910). The gemmules apparently lack microscleres. They resemble those of _S. clementis_, to which the species is probably related, in other respects. The skeleton-spicules are spiny and rather stout, the species being strongly developed at the two ends. VII. _S._ (_Stratospongilla_) _sumatrana_*, Weber (Malay Archipelago). Zool. Ergebnisse einer Reise in Niederländisch Ost-Indien, i. p. 38 (1890). Closely allied to _S. indica_ (p. 100) but with pointed skeleton-spicules. VIII. _Ephydatia fortis_, Weltner (Philippines). Arch. Naturgesch. lxi(i), p. 141 (1895). This species is remarkable for the great development of the spines on the shaft of the gemmule-spicules. IX. _Ephydatia bogorensis_*, Weber (Malay Archipelago). Zool. Ergebnisse einer Reise in Niederländisch Ost-Indien, i, p. 33 (1890). The gemmule-spicules have rather narrow flattish disks, the edge of which is feebly but closely serrated. X. _E. blembingia_*, Evans (Malay Peninsula). Q. J. Microsc. Sci. London, xliv, p. 81 (1901). The gemmules resemble those of _Dosilia plumosa_ but are spherical. There are no free microscleres. XI. _Tubella vesparium_*, v. Martens (Borneo). Arch. Naturg. Berlin, xxxiv, p. 62 (1868). Closely related to _T. vesparioides_ (p. 189), but with spiny megascleres. As regards _Spongilla decipiens_*, Weber, from the Malay Archipelago, see p. 97. II. HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF FRESHWATER SPONGES. The bath-sponge was known to the Greeks at an early date, and Homer refers to it as being used for cleansing furniture, for expunging writing, and for ablutionary purposes. He also mentions its peculiar structure, "with many holes." "Many things besides," wrote the English naturalist Ray in his 'Historia Plantarum' (1686), "regarding the powers and uses of sponges have the Ancients: to them refer." Ray himself describes at least one freshwater species, which had been found in an English river, and refers to what may be another as having been brought from America. In the eighteenth century Linné, Pallas and other authors described the commoner European Spongillidæ in general terms, sometimes as plants and sometimes as animals, more usually as zoophytes or "plant-animals" partaking of the nature of both kingdoms. The gemmules were noted and referred to as seeds. The early naturalists of the Linnæan Epoch, however, added little to the general knowledge of the Spongillidæ, being occupied with theory in which theological disputes were involved rather than actual observation, and, notwithstanding the fact that the animal nature of sponges was clearly demonstrated by Ellis[U] in 1765, it was not until the nineteenth century was well advanced that zoologists could regard sponges in anything like an impartial manner. [Footnote U: Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. lv, p. 280.] One of the pioneers in the scientific study of the freshwater forms was the late Dr. H. J. Carter, who commenced his investigations, and carried out a great part of them, in Bombay with little of the apparatus now considered necessary, and with a microscope that must have been grossly defective according to modern ideas. His long series of papers (1848-1887) published in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History' is an enduring monument to Indian zoology, and forms the best possible introduction to the study of the Spongillidæ. Even his earlier mistakes are instructive, for they are due not so much to actual errors in observation as to a faithful transcription of what was observed with faulty apparatus. Contemporary with Carter were two authors whose monographs on the freshwater sponges did much to advance the study of the group, namely, J. S. Bowerbank, whose account of the species known at the time was published in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London' in 1882, and the veteran American naturalist Mr. Edward Potts, whose study of the freshwater sponges culminated in his monograph published in the 'Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia' in 1887. Carter's own revision of the group was published in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History' in 1881. The names of Vejdovsky, who prefaced Potts's monograph with an account of the European species, and of Dybowsky, who published several important papers on classification, should also be mentioned, while Weltner's catalogue of the known species (1895) is of the greatest possible value to students of the group. Many authors have dealt with the physiology, reproduction and development of the Spongillidæ, especially in recent years; Dr. R. Evans's description of the larva of _Spongilla lacustris_ (1899), and his account of the development of the gemmule in _Ephydatia blembingia_ (1901), Zykoff's account of the development of the gemmule and of the sponge from the gemmule (1892), and Weltner's observations on colour and other points (1893, 1907), may be mentioned in particular. Laurent's observations on development (1844), which were published in the 'Voyage de la Bonite,' and especially the exquisite plates which accompany them, have not received the notice they deserve, probably on account of their method of publication. LITERATURE. The fullest account of the literature on the Spongillidæ as yet published will be found in the first of Weltner's 'Spongillidenstudien' (Archiv für Naturgeschichte, lix (i), p. 209, 1893). Unfortunately it contains no references of later date than 1892. The following list is not a complete bibliography, but merely a list of books and papers that should prove of use to students of the Oriental Spongillidæ. (a) _Works of Reference._ 1863. BOWERBANK, "A Monograph of the Spongillidæ," P. Zool. Soc. London, 1863, pp. 440-472, pl. xxxviii. 1867. GRAY, J. E., "Notes on the arrangement of Sponges, with the description of some new genera." _ibid._ 1867, pp. 492-558. 1881. CARTER, "History and classification of the known species of _Spongilla_," Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, pp. 77-107, pls. v, vi. 1883. VEJDOVSKY, "Die Süsswasserschwämme Böhmens," Abh. Kön. Böhm. Ges. Wiss. (math.-natur. Classe), xii, pp. 1-43, pls. i-iii. 1887. VOSMAER, "Spongien (Porifera)," in Bronn's Thier-Reichs. 1887. POTTS, "Contributions towards a synopsis of the American forms of Fresh-Water Sponges, with descriptions of those named by other authors and from all parts of the world," P. Ac. Philad. pp. 158-279, pls. v-xii. 1887. VEJDOVSKY, "Diagnosis of the European Spongillidæ," _ibid._ pp. 172-180. 1888. WIERZEJSKI, "Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Süsswasserschwämme," Verh. k.-k. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien, xxxviii, pp. 529-536, pl. xii. 1891. WELTNER, in Zacharias's Die Tier- und Pflanzenwelt des Süsswassers: I, Die Süsswasserschwämme. 1895. WELTNER, "Spongillidenstudien, III," Arch. Naturg. Berlin, lxi (i), pp. 114-144. 1895. KORSCHELT and HEIDER, Text-book of the Embryology of Invertebrates: English edition, prepared by E. L. Mark and W. McM. Woodworth, Vol. I, chap. i. 1900. MINCHIN, Sponges--Phylum Porifera in Lankester's "Treatise on Zoology," ii. 1905. KÜKENTHAL, W., Leitfaden für das Zoologische Praktikum (3rd Ed., Jena), 2. Kursus: Porifera, Schwämme, p. 31. 1906. SOLLAS, I. B. J., Cambridge Natural History--I. Porifera (Sponges). 1909. WELTNER, "Spongillidæ, Süsswasserschwämme," in Brauer's "Die Süsswasserfauna Deutschlands," Heft xix, pp. 177-190. 1910. LLOYD, An Introduction to Biology for Students in India. (b) _Special Memoirs on Anatomy, Physiology, and Development._ 1844. LAURENT, "Recherches sur l'Hydre et l'Eponge d'eau douce," Voyage de la Bonite, ii, pp. 113-276. 1854. CARTER, "Zoosperms in _Spongilla_," Ann. Nat. Hist. (2) xiv, pp. 334-336, pl. xi, figs. 1-6. 1857. CARTER, "On the ultimate structure of _Spongilla_, and additional notes on Freshwater Infusoria," Ann. Nat. Hist. (2) xx, pp. 21-41, pl. i, figs. 1-11. 1859. CARTER, "On the identity in structure and composition of the so-called 'seed-like body' of _Spongilla_ with the winter-egg of the Bryozoa, and the presence of starch-granules in each," Ann. Nat. Hist. (3) iii, pp. 331-343, pl. viii. 1859. LIEBERKÜHN, "Neue Beiträge zur Anatomie der Spongien," Arch. Anat. Phys. J. Müller, pp. 374-375, 526-528. 1871. CARTER, "Discovery of the animal of the Spongiadæ confirmed," Ann. Nat. Hist. (4) vii, p. 445. 1871. HAECKEL, "Ueber die sexuelle Fortpflanzung und das natürliche System der Schwämme," Jenaische Zeitschr. f. Naturw. vi, pp. 643, 645. 1874. CARTER, "On the nature of the seed-like body of _Spongilla_; on the origin of the mother-cell of the spicule; and on the presence of spermatozoa in the _Spongida_," Ann. Nat. Hist. (4) xiv, pp. 97-111. 1874. LANKESTER, E. RAY, "The mode of occurrence of chlorophyll in _Spongilla_," Q. J. Micr. Sci. xiv, pp. 400-401. 1875. SORBY, H., "On the Chromatological relations of _Spongilla fluviatilis_," Q. J. Micr. Sci. xv, pp. 47-52. 1878. GANIN, "Zur Entwickelung der _Spongilla fluviatilis_," Zool. Anz. I, pp. 195-199. 1882. CARTER, "Spermatozoa, polygonal cell-structure, and the green colour in _Spongilla_, together with a new species," Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) x, pp. 362-372, pl. 16. 1882. GEDDES, "Further researches on animals containing chlorophyll," Nature, xxv, pp. 303-305, 361-362. 1882. LANKESTER, E. RAY, "On the chlorophyll-corpuscles and amyloid deposits of _Spongilla_ and _Hydra_," Q. J. Micr. Sci. xxii (n. s.), pp. 229-254, pl. xx. 1883. MARSHALL, W., "Einige vorläutige Bemerkungen über die Gemmulä der Süsswasserschwämme," Zool. Anz. vi, pp. 630-634, 648-652. 1884. CARTER, "The branched and unbranched forms of the Freshwater Sponges considered generally," Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) xiii, pp. 269-273. 1884. MARSHALL, W., "Vorläutige Bemerkungen über die Fortpflanzungsverhältnisse von _Spongilla lacustris_," Ber. Naturf. Ges. Leipzig,* pp. 22-29. 1884. POTTS, "Freshwater Sponges as improbable causes of the pollution of river-water," P. Ac. Philad. pp. 28-30. 1885. SCHULZE, F. E., "Über das Verhältniss der Spongien zu den Choanoflagellaten," SB. preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, pp. 179-191. 1886. GOETTE, Untersuchungen zur Entwickelungsgeschichte von _Spongilla fluviatilis_*, Hamburg und Leipzig (5 plates). 1886. WIERZEJSKI, "Le développement des Gemmules des Eponges d'eau douce d'Europe," Arch. Slaves Biologie, i, pp. 26-47 (1 plate). 1887. CARTER, "On the reproductive elements of the _Spongida_," Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) xix, pp. 350-360. 1889. MAAS, "Zur Metamorphose der Spongillalarve," Zool. Anz. xii, pp. 483-487. 1890. MAAS, "Ueber die Entwickelung des Süsswasserschwämmes," Zeitschr. Wiss. Zool. 1, pp. 527-554, pls. xxii, xxiii. 1890. WEBER, M. et Mme. A., "Quelques nouveau cas de Symbiose," Zool. Ergebn. einer Reise Niederländ. Ost-Indien, i, pp. 48-72, pl. v. 1892. ZYKOFF, "Die Entwicklung der Gemmulä der _Ephydatia fluviatilis_ auct.," Zool. Anz. xv, pp. 95-96. 1892. ZYKOFF, "Die Bildung der Gemmulä bei _Ephydatia Fluviatilis_," Revue Sc. Nat. Soc. St. Pétersbourg,* pp. 342-344. 1892. ZYKOFF, "Die Entwicklung der Gemmulä bei _Ephydatia fluviatilis_ auct.," Bull. Soc. Imp. Natur. Moscou, n. s. vi, pp. 1-16, pl. i, ii. 1892. ZYKOFF, "Entwickelungsgeschichte von _Ephydatia mülleri_, Liebk. aus den Gemmulæ," Biol. Centralbl. xii, pp. 713-716. 1893. WELTNER, "Spongillidenstudien, II," Arch. Naturg. Berlin, lix (1), pp. 245-282, pls. viii, ix. 1899. EVANS, R., "The structure and metamorphosis of the larva of _Spongilla lacustris_," Q. J. Micr. Sci. xlii, pp. 363-476, pls. xxxv-xli. 1901. EVANS, R., "A description of _Ephydatia blembingia_, with an account of the formation and structure of the gemmule," Q. J. Micr. Sci. xliv, pp. 71-109, pls. i-iv. 1907. WELTNER, "Spongillideustudien, V.: Zur Biologie von _Ephydatia fluviatilis_ and die Bedeutung der Amöbocyten für die Spongilliden," Arch. Naturg. Berlin, lxxiii (i), pp. 273-286. 1907. ANNANDALE, "The buds of _Spongilla proliferens_, Annand.," Rec. Ind. Mus. i, pp. 267, 268. 1907. ANNANDALE, "Embryos of _Ephydatia blembingia_, Evans," _ibid._ p. 269. 1907. ANNANDALE, "The nature of the pores in _Spongilla_," _ibid._ pp. 270-271. (c) _Descriptions of Asiatic Species[V] and of Animals associated with them._ [Footnote V: Descriptions of Siberian sponges are not included in these references.] 1847-1848. CARTER, "Notes on the species, structure, and animality of the Freshwater Sponges in the tanks of Bombay (Genus _Spongilla_)," Trans. Bombay Med. & Phys. Soc., 1847, and Ann. Nat. Hist. (2) i, pp. 303-311, 1848. 1849. CARTER, "A descriptive account of the Freshwater Sponges (Genus _Spongilla_) in the Island of Bombay, with observations on their structure and development," Ann. Nat. Hist. (2) iv, pp. 81-100, pls. iii-v. 1868. MARTENS, E. VON, "Ueber einige östasiatische Süsswasserthiere," Arch. Naturg. Berlin, xxxiv, pp. 1-67: IV., Ein Süsswasserschwamm aus Borneo, pp. 61-64, pl. i, fig. 1. 1881. CARTER, "On _Spongilla cinerea_," Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 263. 1890. WEBER, M., "Zoologische Ergebnisse einer Reise in Niederländisch Ost-Indien," i, pp. 30-47, pl. iv. 1901. EVANS, R., "A description of _Ephydatia blembingia_, with an account of the formation and structure of the gemmule," Q. J. Micr. Sci. xliv, pp. 71-109, pls. i-iv. 1901. WELTNER, "Süsswasserspongien von Celebes (Spongillidenstudien, IV.)," Arch. Naturg. Berlin, lxvii (1) (Special Number), pp. 187-204, pls. vi, vii. 1906. ANNANDALE, "A variety of _Spongilla lacustris_ from brackish water in Bengal," J. As. Soc. Bengal, (n. s.) ii, pp. 55-58. 1906. ANNANDALE, "Some animals found associated with _Spongilla carteri_ in Calcutta," _ibid._ pp. 187-196. 1907. WILLEY, "Freshwater Sponge and Hydra in Ceylon," Spolia Zeylanica, iv, pp. 184-185. 1907. ANNANDALE, "On Freshwater Sponges from Calcutta and the Himalayas," J. As. Soc. Bengal, (n. s.) iii, pp. 15-26. 1907. ANNANDALE, "Gemmules of _Trochospongilla phillottiana_, Annand.," Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 269. 1907. ANNANDALE, "Description of two new Freshwater Sponges from Eastern Bengal, with remarks on allied forms," _ibid._ pp. 387-392. 1908. ANNANDALE, "Preliminary notice of a collection of Sponges from W. India, with descriptions of two new species," Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, pp. 25-28. 1908. KIRKPATRICK, "Description of a new variety of _Spongilla loricata_, Weltner," _ibid._ pp. 97-99. 1908. ANNANDALE, "Preliminary notice of a collection of Sponges from Burma, with the description of a new species of _Tubella_," _ibid._ pp. 157-158. 1909. ANNANDALE, "Report on a small collection of Sponges from Travancore," Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, pp. 101-104, pl. xii. 1909. NEEDHAM, "Notes on the Neuroptera in the collection of the Indian Museum," _ibid._ pp. 206-207. 1909. ANNANDALE, "Description of a new species of _Spongilla_ from Orissa," _ibid._ p. 275. 1909. ANNANDALE, "Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Fauna von Süd-Afrika: IX. Freshwater Sponges," Zool. Jahrb. (Syst.) xxvii, pp. 559-568. 1909. ANNANDALE, "Report on a collection of Freshwater Sponges from Japan," Annot. Zool. Japon, vii, pp. 105-112, pl. ii. 1909. ANNANDALE, "Freshwater Sponges in the collection of the United States National Museum: Part I. Specimens from the Philippines and Australia," P. U.S. Mus. xxxvi, pp. 627-632. 1909. ANNANDALE, "Freshwater Sponges collected in the Philippines by the 'Albatross' Expedition," _ibid._ xxxvii, pp. 131-132. 1909. ANNANDALE, "Freshwater Sponges in the collection of the United States National Museum: Part II. Specimens from North and South America," _ibid._ pp. 401-406. 1910. ANNANDALE, "Freshwater Sponges in the collection of the United States National Museum: Part III. Description of a new species of _Spongilla_ from China," _ibid._ xxxviii, p. 183. 1910. ANNANDALE, "Description of a new species of Sponge from Cape Comorin," Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 31. 1910. STEPHENSON, "On some aquatic Oligochæte worms commensal in _Spongilla carteri_," _ibid._ pp. 233-240. 1910. ANNANDALE, "Note on a Freshwater Sponge and Polyzoon from Ceylon," Spolia Zeylanica, vii. p. 63, pl. i. GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS USED IN PART I. _Amphioxi_ (adj. Rod-like spicules sharp at both ends. _amphioxous_) _Amphistrongyli_ (adj. Rod-like spicules blunt at both ends. _amphistrongylous_) _Basal membrane_ A horny, structureless membrane found at the base of some sponges. _Birotulate_ (subst. or adj.) Spicule with a transverse disk at both ends. _Bubble-cells_ Spherical cells of the parenchyma the contents of which consist of a drop of liquid covered by a thin film of protoplasm. _Ciliated_ (or _flagellated_) A cavity lined with collar-cells. _chamber_ _Collar-cell_ (_choanocyte_) Cell provided at one end with a membranous collar and a vibratile lash or flagellum that springs from within the collar. _Derma_ or _ectodermal layer_ A layer of flat cells arranged like a pavement on the surface of the sponge. _Exhalent_ (or _efferent_) A tubular canal through which water _canal_ passes from a ciliated chamber towards the osculum. _Fibres_ (skeleton) Thread-like structures that compose the skeleton of the sponge and are formed (in the Spongillidæ) mainly of overlapping spicules. _Flesh-spicules_ Microscleres (_q. v._) that lie free in the parenchyma and the derma. _Foramen_ An orifice of the gemmule. _Foraminal tubule_ A horny tube that surrounds the foramina of some gemmules. _Gemmule_ A mass of cells packed with food-material, surrounded by at least one horny coat, capable of retaining vitality in unfavourable conditions and finally of giving origin to a new sponge. _Green corpuscles_ Minute green bodies found inside cells of sponges and other animals and representing a stage in the life-history of an alga (_Chlorella_). _Inhalent_ (or _afferent_) A tubular canal through which water canal passes from the exterior towards a ciliated chamber. _Megascleres_ The larger spicules that (in the Spongillidæ) form the basis of the skeleton of the sponge. _Microscleres_ Smaller spicules that lie free in the substance or the derma of the sponge, or are associated with the gemmule. _Monaxon_ (Of spicules) having a single main axis; (of sponges) possessing skeleton spicules of this type. _Osculum_ An aperture through which water is ejected from the sponge. _Oscular collar_ A ring-shaped membrane formed by an extension of the derma round an osculum. _Parenchyma_ The gelatinous part of the sponge. _Pavement layer_ Adherent gemmules arranged close together in a single layer at the base of a sponge. _Pneumatic coat_ A horny or chitinous layer on the surface of the gemmule containing air-spaces. If these spaces are of regular form and arrangement it is said to be _cellular_; if they are minute and irregular it is called _granular_. _Pore_ A minute hole through which water is taken into the sponge. _Pore-cell_ (_porocyte_) A cell pierced by a pore. _Radiating fibres_ Fibres in the skeleton of a sponge that are vertical or radiate from its centre. _Rotula_ A transverse disk borne by a microsclere. _Rotulate_ (subst. or adj.) Spicule bearing one or two transverse disks. _Spicule_ A minute mineral body of regular and definite shape due not to the forces of crystallization but to the activity of the living cell or cells in which it is formed. _Spongin_ The horny substance found in the skeletal framework and the coverings of gemmules of sponges. Structures formed of this substance are often referred to as _chitinous_. _Subdermal cavity_ A cavity immediately below the derma (_q. v._). _Transverse fibres_ Fibres in the skeleton of a sponge that run across between the radiating fibres. _Tubelliform_ (of spicule) Having a straight shaft with a transverse disk at one end and a comparatively small knob-like projection at the other. SYSTEMATIC LIST OF THE INDIAN SPONGILLIDÆ. [Types, schizotypes, or cotypes have been examined in the case of all species, &c., whose names are marked thus, *.] Genus 1. SPONGILLA, Lamarck (1816). Subgenus A. EUSPONGILLA, Vejdovsky (1883). 1. ? _S. lacustris_, auct. (perhaps in N.W. India). 1_a_. _S. lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_*, Annandale (1907). 2. _S. proliferens_*, Annandale (1907). 3. _S. alba_*, Carter (1849). 3_a_. _S. alba_ var. _cerebellata_, Bowerbank (1863). 3_b_. _S. alba_ var. _bengalensis_*, Annandale (1906). 4. _S. cinerea_*, Carter (1849). 5. _S. travancorica_*, Annandale (1909). 6. _S. hemephydatia_*, Annandale (1909). 7. _S. crateriformis_* (Potts) (1882). Subgenus B. EUNAPIUS, J. E. Gray (1867). 8_a_. _S. carteri_ var. _mollis_*, nov. 8_b_. _S. carteri_ var. _cava_*, nov. 8_c_. _S. carteri_ var. _lobosa_*, nov. 9_a_. _S. fragilis_ subsp. _calcuttana_*, nov. 9_b_. _S. fragilis_ var. _decipiens_, Weber (probably Malaysian, not Indian). 10. _S. gemina_*, sp. nov. 11. _S. crassissima_*, Annandale (1907). 11_a_. _S. crassissima_ var. _crassior_*, Annandale (1907). Subgenus C. STRATOSPONGILLA, Annandale (1909). 12. _S. indica_*, Annandale (1908). 13. _S. bombayensis_*, Carter (1882). 14. _S. ultima_*, Annandale (1910). Genus 2. PECTISPONGILLA, Annandale (1909). 15. _P. aurea_*, Annandale (1909). 15_a_. _P. aurea_ var. _subspinosa_*, nov. Genus 3. EPHYDATIA, Lamouroux (1816). 16. _E. meyeni_* (Carter) (1849). Genus 4. DOSILIA, J. E. Gray (1867). 17. _D. plumosa_* (Carter) (1849). Genus 5. TROCHOSPONGILLA, Vejdovsky (1883). 18. _T. latouchiana_*, Annandale (1907). 19. _T. phillottiana_*, Annandale (1907). 20. _T. pennsylvanica_* (Potts) (1882). Genus 6. TUBELLA, Carter (1881). 21. _T. vesparioides_*, Annandale (1908). Genus 7. CORVOSPONGILLA, nov. 22. _C. burmanica_* (Kirkpatrick) (1908). 23. _C. lapidosa_* (Annandale) (1908). Order HALICHONDRINA. Siliceous monaxon sponges in which the horny skeleton is much reduced or absent and the spicular skeleton is more or less definitely reticulate. The microscleres are usually rod-like and rarely have more than one main axis. Family SPONGILLIDÆ. SPONGILLADÆ, J. E. Gray, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1867, p. 550. Freshwater Halichondrina which at certain seasons produce gemmules armed with peculiar microscleres. Two distinct kinds of microsclere are often present, that associated with the gemmule sometimes consisting of a vertical shaft at the ends of which transverse disks or rotulæ are borne. There is always at least a trace of a subdermal cavity. Many authors divide the Spongillidæ into two subfamilies:--Spongillinæ (or Euspongillinæ), in which the gemmule-spicules have no transverse rotulæ, and Meyeninæ (or Ephydatiinæ), in which they have rotules at one or both ends. So gradual, however, is the transition that I find it difficult to decide in one instance to which of two genera, typical respectively of the two "subfamilies," a species should be assigned. Minchin in his account of the Porifera in Lankester's "Treatise on Zoology" (1900) regards the Spongillidæ merely as a subfamily of the Heterorrhaphidæ, and there certainly are few differences of a definite nature between them and the marine family (or subfamily) Remeridæ. _Key to the Indian Genera of_ Spongillidæ. I. Microscleres without transverse disks. A. Microscleres of the parenchyma similar in general structure to those or the gemmule; the latter without comb-like vertical rows of spines at the ends SPONGILLA, p. 67. B. Microscleres of the gemmule with comb-like vertical rows of spines at both ends PECTISPONGILLA, p. 106. II. Some or all of the microscleres birotulate. (Birotulate microscleres of one kind only.) A. Microscleres of the gemmule birotulate, the rotules with serrated or strongly sinuous edges; parenchyma spicules usually absent, never of complicated structure EPHYDATIA, p. 108. B. Microscleres of the gemmule as in _Ephydatia_; microscleres of the parenchyma consisting of numerous shafts meeting in different planes in a central nodule DOSILIA, p. 110. C. Microscleres as in _Ephydatia_ except that the rotulæ of the gemmule-spicules have smooth edges TROCHOSPONGILLA, p. 113. D. Microscleres of the gemmule without a trace of rotules, those of the parenchyma birotulate CORVOSPONGILLA, nov., p. 122. III. Microscleres of the gemmule with a well-developed basal rotule and a vertical shaft ending above in a mere knob. TUBELLA, p. 120. The most distinct genus of Spongillidæ not yet found in India is _Heteromeyenia_, Potts. It is easily distinguished from all others by the fact that the birotulate spicules of the gemmule are of two quite distinct kinds, which occur together on every mature gemmule. _Heteromeyenia_ is represented by several American species, one of which has been found in Europe. _Acalle_, J. E. Gray, which is represented by a single South American species (_Spongilla recurvata_, Bowerbank), is related to _Heteromeyenia_ but has one kind of gemmule-spicule tubelliform, the other birotulate. Probably _Uraguaya_, Carter, should be regarded as a subgenus of _Trochospongilla_ with an unusually solid skeleton; it is peculiar to S. America. _Parmula_, Carter (=_Drulia_, Gray) includes South American forms allied to _Tubella_, but with the shaft of the gemmule-spicule degenerate and consisting of a mere projection in the centre of a shield-like body, which represents the lower rotule. The status of _Potamolepis_, Marshall, originally described from the Lake of Galilee, is very doubtful; possibly some or all of its species belong to the subgenus of _Spongilla_ here called _Stratospongilla_ (p. 100); but they are stated never to produce gemmules. The same is the case as regards _Pachydictyum_, Weltner, which consists of a single species from Celebes. The sponges from Lake Baikal assigned by Weltner (Arch. Naturg. lxi (i) p. 131) to the subfamily Lubomirskinæ are of doubtful position and need not be considered here; while _Lessepsia_, Keller, from one of the salt lakes on the Suez Canal, certainly does not belong to the family, although it is assigned to it by von Lendenfeld (Mon. Horny Sponges, p. 904 (1889)) and subsequently by Minchin (Porifera, p. 152, in Lankester's Treatise on Zoology, part ii (1900)). Genus 1. SPONGILLA, _Lamarck_ (Carter _emend._). _Spongilla_, Lamarck, Histoire des Animaux sans Vertèbres, ii, p. 111 (1836). _Spongilla_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 86 (1881). _Euspongilla_, Vejdovsky, Abh. Böhm. Ges. xii, p. 15 (1883). _Spongilla_, Potts, P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 182. TYPE, _Spongilla lacustris_, auctorum. Spongillidæ in which the gemmules have (normally) cylindrical or subcylindrical spicules that are sharp or blunt at the ends, without a distinct transverse disk or disks and without comb-like vertical rows of spines. The skeleton is variable in structure, sometimes being almost amorphous, sometimes having well-defined radiating and transverse fibres firmly compacted with spongin. The skeleton-spicules are either sharp or blunt at the ends. Flesh-spicules are often absent; when present they are needle-like and resemble the gemmule-spicules in general structure; they have not even rudimentary rotules at their ends. The gemmules either lie free in the substance of the sponge or are attached to its support; sometimes they adhere together in free or attached groups. _Spongilla_ is undoubtedly the most primitive genus of the Spongillidæ, its spicules showing less sign of specialization than those of any other genus included in the family. As a fossil it goes back at any rate to the Upper Jurassic (p. 52). GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--Cosmopolitan. In most countries the majority of the freshwater sponges belong to this genus, but in Japan _Ephydatia_ seems to predominate. _Key to the Indian Species of_ Spongilla. I. Gemmule provided with a thick, apparently granular pneumatic coat in which the gemmule-spicules are arranged tangentially or vertically. (Subgenus _Euspongilla_, p. 69.) A. No foraminal tubule. _a._ Sponge bright green, soft and compressiblewhen fresh, very fragile dry _lacustris_, p. 69. _a'._ Sponge white or grey, hard both fresh and dry _alba_, p. 76. B. A foraminal tubule present. _b._ Skeleton-spicules smooth. beta. Gemmules free; gemmule-spicules arranged tangentially and horizontally _proliferens_, p. 72. beta'. Gemmules free; gemmule-spicules arranged vertically or nearly so in a single series _hemephydatia_, p. 82. beta''. Gemmules firmly fixed to the support of the sponge; gemmule-spicules almost vertical, irregularly arranged, as a rule in more than one series _travancorica_, p. 81. _b'._ Skeleton-spicules spiny or irregular in outline. beta'''. Gemmule-spicules tangential and horizontal, without rudimentary rotules _cinerea_, p. 79. beta''''. Gemmule-spicules vertical or nearly so, often with rudimentary rotules at the tips _crateriformis_, p. 83. II. Gemmules surrounded in several layers by distinct polygonal air-spaces with chitinous walls. (Subgenus _Eunapius_, p. 86.) A. Gemmules single. Skeleton- and gemmule-spicules smooth, pointed, not very stout _carteri_, p. 87. B. Gemmules bound together in pairs. Skeleton friable; skeleton-spicules slender _gemina_, nov., p. 97. C. Gemmules bound together in free groups of more than two or forming a "pavement-layer" at the base of the sponge. _c._ Skeleton friable; skeleton-spicules slender _fragilis_, p. 95. _c'._ Skeleton very hard and resistant; skeleton-spicules stout _crassissima_, p. 98. III. Gemmules without or with irregular pneumatic coat, covered by a chitinous membrane or membranes in which the gemmule-spicules lie parallel to the surface. (Subgenus _Stratospongilla_, p. 100.) A. Skeleton spicules spiny or irregular in outline. _a._ Skeleton-spicules blunt; gemmules covered by a single chitinous membrane _indica_, p. 100. _a'._ Skeleton-spicules sharp; gemmules covered by two chitinous membranes _bombayensis_, p. 102. B. Skeleton-spicules smooth. Skeleton-spicules sharp; gemmule spicules very irregular in form _ultima_, p. 104. Subgenus A. EUSPONGILLA, _Vejdovsky_. _Euspongilla_, Vejdovsky, Abh. Böhm. Ges. xii, p. 15 (1883). _Euspongilla_, _id._, in Potts's "Fresh-Water Sponges," P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 172. _Euspongilla_, Weltner, in Zacharias's Tier- und Pflanzenwelt des Süsswassers, i, p. 210 (1891). TYPE, _Spongilla lacustris_, auctorum. Spongillæ in which the gemmules are covered with a thick, apparently granular pneumatic coat. A delicate membrane often occurs outside this coat, but it is never thick or horny. The gemmules usually lie free in the sponge but sometimes adhere to its support; rarely they are fastened together in groups (_e. g._ in _S. aspinosa_, Potts). The skeleton-spicules are never very stout and the skeleton is always delicate. The species in this subgenus are closely allied and must be distinguished rather by the sum of their peculiarities than by any one character. They occur in all countries in which Spongillidæ are found. Seven Indian species may be recognized. 1. Spongilla lacustris, _auctorum_. _Spongilla lacustris_, Bowerbank, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1863, p. 441, pl. xxxviii, fig. 14. _Spongilla lacustris_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 87 (1881). _Euspongilla lacustris_, Vejdovsky, in Potts's "Fresh-Water Sponges," P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 172. _Spongilla lacustris_, Potts, _ibid._, p. 186, pl. v, fig. 1, pl. vii, figs. 1-6. _Euspongilla lacustris_, Weltner, in Zacharias's Tier- und Pflanzenwelt des Süsswassers, i, p. 211, figs. 36-38 (1891). _Spongilla lacustris_, _id._, Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), pp. 118, 133-135 (1895). _Spongilla lacustris_, Annandale, J. Linn. Soc., Zool., xxx, p. 245 (1908). [I have not attempted to give a detailed synonymy of this common species. There is no means of telling whether many of the earlier names given to forms or allies of _S. lacustris_ are actual synonyms, and it would serve no useful purpose, so far as the fauna of India is concerned, to complicate matters by referring to obscure descriptions or possible descriptions of a species only represented in India, so far as we know, by a specialized local race, to which separate references are given.] _Sponge_ soft and easily compressed, very brittle when dry, usually consisting of a flat or rounded basal portion of no great depth and of long free cylindrical branches, which droop when removed from the water; branches occasionally absent. Colour bright green when the sponge is growing in a strong light, dirty flesh-colour when it is growing in the shade. (Even in the latter case traces of the "green corpuscles" can be detected in the cells of the parenchyma.) Oscula star-shaped, of moderate size, as a rule rendered conspicuous by the furrows that radiate from them over the outer surface of the parenchyma below the external membrane; oscular collars well developed. _Skeleton_ reticulate, loose, with definite radiating and transverse fibres held together by a small quantity of spongin; the fibres slender but not extremely so. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, sharply pointed, long, slender. Flesh-spicules slender, covered with small spines, sharply pointed, nearly straight. Gemmule-spicules resembling the flesh-spicules but shorter and as a rule more strongly curved, sometimes bent so as to form semicircular figures, usually pointed somewhat abruptly; their spines relatively longer than those of the flesh-spicules, often curved backwards, especially near the ends of the spicules, at which points they are often longer than elsewhere. _Gemmules_ usually numerous in autumn, lying free in the sponge, spherical, variable in size but usually rather large, as a rule covered with a thick granular coat in which the spicules are arranged tangentially; a horizontal layer of spicules often present in the external membrane; the granular coat and its spicules occasionally deficient. No foraminal tubule; its place sometimes taken by an open, bowl-shaped chitinous structure the base of which is in continuity with the inner chitinous coat of the gemmule. _S. lacustris_ is an extremely variable species, varying in the size, proportions and shape of its spicules, in its external form and in the size and structure of the gemmule. A considerable number of varieties have been described from different parts of Europe and N. America, but some of these may represent distinct but closely-allied species; descriptions of most of them will be found in Potts's "Fresh-Water Sponges." The embryology and the earlier stages of the development from the egg have been described in great detail by Evans (Quart. J. Micr. Sci. (n. s.) xlii, p. 363 (1899)), while the anatomy and physiology are discussed by most authors who have written on these features in the Spongillidæ. TYPE.--It is impossible to say who was the first authority to use the name _Spongilla lacustris_ in the sense in which it is used by recent authors. No type can therefore be recognized. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_S. lacustris_ occurs all over Europe and N. America and is probably the commonest species in most parts of both continents. It has also been found in Northern Asia and may occur in the Himalayan lakes and in the north-west of India. 1 _a._ Subspecies reticulata*, _Annandale_. _Spongilla reticulata_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 387, pl. xiv, fig. 1 (1907). _Spongilla lacustris_ subspecies _reticulata_, _id._, P. U.S. Mus. xxxvii, p. 401 (1909). This race differs from the typical _S. lacustris_ in the following particulars:-- (1) The branches are always compressed and anastomose freely when well developed (fig. 5, p. 37); (2) the skeleton-fibres are finer; (3) the skeleton-spicules are longer; (4) the gemmule-spicules are longer and more slender and are never strongly bent. [Illustration: Fig. 8. A=gemmule-spicules of _Spongilla lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_ (from type); B=gemmule-spicules of _S. alba_ from Calcutta: both highly magnified.] As regards the form of the skeleton- and gemmule-spicules and also that of the branches the subspecies _reticulata_ resembles _S. alba_ rather than _S. lacustris_, but owing to the fact that it agrees with _S. lacustris_ in its profuse production of branches, in possessing green corpuscles and in its fragility, I think it should be associated with that species. The branches are sometimes broad (fig. 5, p. 37), sometimes very slender. In the latter condition they resemble blades of grass growing in the water. TYPE in the Indian Museum; a co-type in the British Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--All over Eastern India and Burma; also in the Bombay Presidency. _Localities:_--BENGAL, Port Canning, Ganges delta; Rajshahi (Rampur Bhulia) on the Ganges, 150 miles N. of Calcutta (_Annandale_); Puri district, Orissa (_Annandale_); R. Jharai, Siripur, Saran district, Tirhut (_M. Mackenzie_): MADRAS PRESIDENCY, Madras (town) (_J. R. Henderson_): BOMBAY PRESIDENCY, Igatpuri, W. Ghats (_Annandale_). BIOLOGY.--This subspecies is usually found in small masses of water, especially in pools of rain-water, but Mr. Mackenzie found it growing luxuriantly in the Jharai at a time of flood in September. It is very abundant in small pools among the sand-dunes that skirt the greater part of the east coast of India. Here it grows with great rapidity during the "rains," and often becomes desiccated even more rapidly as soon as the rain ceases. As early in the autumn as October I have seen masses of the sponge attached, perfectly dry, to grass growing in the sand near the Sur Lake in Orissa. They were, of course, dead but preserved a life-like appearance. Some of them measured about six inches in diameter. At Port Canning the sponge grows during the rains on the brickwork of bridges over ditches of brackish water that dry up at the beginning of winter, while at Rajshahi and at Igatpuri I found it at the edges of small ponds, at the latter place in November, at the former in February. Specimens taken at Madras by Dr. Henderson during the rains in small ponds in the sand contained no gemmules, but these structures are very numerous in sponges examined in autumn or winter. Numerous larvæ of _Sisyra indica_ (p. 92) were found in this sponge at Rajshahi. Unlike those obtained from _S. alba_, they had a green colour owing to the green matter sucked from the sponge in their stomachs. The _coralloides_ phase of _Plumatella fruticosa_ (p. 219) was also found in _S. lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_ at Rajshahi. So far as my experience goes, this subspecies has always a bright green colour due to the presence of "green corpuscles," even when it is growing in a pond heavily shaded by trees or under the arch of a small bridge. Probably the more intense light of India enables the corpuscles to flourish in situations in which in Europe they would lose their chlorophyll. 2. Spongilla proliferens*, _Annandale_. _Spongilla cinerea_, Weber (_nec_ Carter), Zool. Ergeb. Niederl. Ost-Ind. vol. i, pp. 35, 46 (1890). _Spongilla proliferens_, Annandale, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1907, p. 15, fig. 1. _Spongilla proliferens_, _id._, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, pp. 267, 271 (1907). _Sponge_ forming soft, shallow cushions rarely more than 10 cm. in diameter on the leaves of water-plants, or small irregular masses on their roots and stems. Colour bright green. Oscula moderate, flat, surrounded by deep, cone-shaped collars; radiating furrows and canals in the parenchyma surrounding them often deep. External pores contained normally in single cells. The surface frequently covered by small rounded buds; true branches if present more or less flattened or conical, always short, as a rule absent. _Skeleton_ loose, feebly reticulate at the base of the sponge; transverse fibres slender in the upper part of the sponge, often scarcely recognizable at its base. Very little spongin present. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules long, smooth, sharply pointed; the length on an average at least 20 times the greatest breadth, often more. Flesh-spicules slender, gradually pointed, nearly straight, covered with minute straight or nearly straight spines. Gemmule-spicules very similar, but usually a little stouter and often blunt at the ends; their spines rather longer than those on the flesh-spicules, usually more numerous near the ends than in the middle of the spicule, slightly retroverted, those at the extreme tips often so arranged as to suggest a rudimentary rotule. [Illustration: Fig. 9.--Gemmule of _Spongilla proliferens_ as seen in optical section (from Calcutta), × 140.] _Gemmules_ usually numerous, lying free near the base of the sponge, very variable in size, spherical, surrounded by a thick granular layer in which the spicules, which are always very numerous, are arranged tangentially, their position being more near the vertical than the horizontal; a few horizontal spicules usually present on the external surface of the gemmule, which frequently has a ragged appearance owing to some of the tangential spicules protruding further than others. Foraminal tubule stout, cylindrical, usually somewhat contorted; its orifice irregular in outline. Sometimes more than one foramen present. _S. proliferens_ can be distinguished from all forms of _S. lacustris_ and _S. alba_ by the fact that its gemmules possess a foraminal tubule; from _S. cinerea_ it can be distinguished by its colour and its smooth skeleton-spicules, and from _S. travancorica_ by its free gemmules. I have been enabled by the kindness of Prof. Max Weber to examine specimens from Celebes and Java identified by him as _S. cinerea_, Carter, and have no doubt that they belong to my species. TYPE in the Indian Museum; a co-type in the British Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--All over Eastern India and Burma; also in Cochin on the west coast; Ceylon; W. China; Java, Flores and Celebes. _Localities_:--BENGAL, Calcutta and neighbourhood (_Annandale_); Berhampore, Murshidabad district (_R. E. Lloyd_): ASSAM, Mangal-dai near the Bhutan frontier (_S. W. Kemp_): MADRAS PRESIDENCY, Madras (town) and neighbourhood (_J. R. Henderson_); Rambha, Ganjam district (_Annandale_); Bangalore, Mysore (alt. _ca._ 3000 ft.) (_Annandale_); Ernakulam and Trichur, Cochin (_G. Mathai_): BURMA, Rangoon (_Annandale_, _J. Coggin Brown_); Prome, Upper Burma (_J. Coggin Brown_); Kawkareik, Amherst district, Tenasserim (_Annandale_): CEYLON, between Maradankawela and Galapita-Gala, North Central Province (_Willey_). Mr. J. Coggin Brown has recently brought back specimens from Yunnan. BIOLOGY.--_S. proliferens_ is usually found in ponds which never dry up; Prof. Max Weber found it in small streams in Malaysia. It is common in India on the leaves of _Vallisneria_ and _Limnanthemum_, on the roots of _Pistia stratiotes_ and on the stems of rushes and grass. So far as I have been able to discover, the life of the individual sponge is short, only lasting a few weeks. Sexual reproduction occurs seldom or never, but reproduction by means of buds and gemmules continues throughout the year. The former is a rare method of reproduction in most Spongillidæ but in this species occurs normally and constantly, the buds being often very numerous on the external surface. They arise a short distance below the surface as thickenings in the strands of cells that accompany the radiating fibres of the skeleton. As they grow they push their way up the fibres, forcing the external membrane outwards. The membrane contracts gradually round their bases, cuts off communication between them and the parent sponge and finally sets them adrift. No hole remains when this takes place, for the membrane closes up both round the base of the bud and over the aperture whence it has emerged. The newly liberated bud already possesses numerous minute pores, but as yet no osculum; its shape exhibits considerable variation, but the end that was farthest from the parent-sponge before liberation is always more or less rounded, while the other end is flat. The size also varies considerably. Some of the buds float, others sink. Those that float do so either owing to their shape, which depends on the degree of development they have reached before liberation, or to the fact that a bubble of gas is produced in their interior. The latter phenomenon only occurs when the sun is shining on the sponge at the moment they are set free, and is due to the action of the chlorophyll of the green bodies so abundant in certain of the parenchyma cells of this species. If the liberation of the bud is delayed rather longer than usual, numbers of flesh-spicules are produced towards the ends of the primary skeleton-fibres and spread out in one plane so as to have a fan-like outline; in such buds the form is more flattened and the distal end less rounded than in others, and the superficial area is relatively great, so that they float more readily. Those buds that sink usually fall in such a way that their proximal, flattened end comes in contact with the bottom or some suspended object, to which it adheres. Sometimes, however, owing to irregularity of outline in the distal end, the proximal end is uppermost. In this case it is the distal end that adheres. Whichever end is uppermost, it is in the uppermost end, or as it may now be called, the upper surface, that the osculum is formed. Water is drawn into the young sponge through the pores and, finding no outlet, accumulates under the external membrane, the subdermal cavity being at this stage even larger than it is in the adult sponge. Immediately after adhesion the young sponge flattens itself out. This process apparently presses together the water in the subdermal cavity and causes a large part of it to accumulate at one point, which is usually situated near the centre of the upper surface. A transparent conical projection formed of the external membrane arises at this point, and at the tip of the cone a white spot appears. What is the exact cause of this spot I have not yet been able to ascertain, but it marks the point at which the imprisoned water breaks through the expanded membrane, thus forming the first osculum. Before the aperture is formed, it is already possible to distinguish on the surface of the parenchyma numerous channels radiating from the point at which the osculum will be formed to the periphery of the young sponge. These channels as a rule persist in the adult organism and result from the fact that the inhalent apertures are situated at the periphery, being absent from both the proximal and the distal ends of the bud. In the case of floating buds the course of development is the same, except that the osculum, as in the case of development from the gemmule in other species (see Zykoff, Biol. Centrbl. xii, p. 713, 1892), is usually formed before adhesion takes place. The sponge of _S. proliferens_ is usually too small to afford shelter to other animals, and I have not found in it any of those commonly associated with _S. carteri_ and _S. alba_. Owing to its small size _S. proliferens_ is more easily kept alive in an aquarium than most species, and its production of buds can be studied in captivity. In captivity a curious phenomenon is manifested, viz. the production of extra oscula, often in large numbers. This is due either to a feebleness in the currents of the sponge which makes it difficult to get rid of waste substances or to the fact that the canals get blocked. The effluent water collects in patches under the external membrane instead of making its way out of the existing oscula, and new oscula are formed over these patches in much the same way as the first osculum is formed in the bud. 3. Spongilla alba*, _Carter_. _Spongilla alba_, Carter, J. Bombay Asiat. Soc. iii, p. 32, pl. i, fig. 4 & Ann. Nat. Hist. (2) iv, p. 83, pl. iii, fig. 4 (1849) _Spongilla alba_, Bowerbank, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1863, p. 463 pl. xxxviii, fig. 15. _Spongilla alba_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 88 (1881). _Spongilla alba_, Petr, Rozp. Ceske Ak. Praze, Trída, ii, pl. i, figs. 3-6 (1899) (text in Czech). _Spongilla alba_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 388, pl. xiv, fig. 2 (1907). _Sponge_ forming masses of considerable area, but never of more than moderate depth or thickness. Surface smooth and undulating or with irregular or conical projections; sponge hard but brittle; colour white or whitish; oscula of moderate or large size, never very conspicuous; radiating furrows absent or very short; external membrane adhering to the substance of the sponge. _Skeleton_ forming a moderately dense network of slender radiating and transverse fibres feebly held together; little spongin present; the meshes much smaller than in _S. lacustris_ or _S. proliferens_. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, sharply pointed, slender, feebly curved. Gemmule-spicules (fig. 8, p. 71) slender, cylindrical, blunt or abruptly pointed at the ends, feebly curved, bearing relatively long backwardly directed spines, which are usually more numerous at the ends than near the middle of the shaft. Flesh-spicules very numerous in the parenchyma and especially the external membrane, as a rule considerably more slender and more sharply pointed than the gemmule-spicules, covered with straight spines which are often longer at the middle of the shaft than at the ends. _Gemmules_ usually of large size, with a moderately thick granular layer; spicules never very numerous, often lying horizontally on the external surface of the gemmule as well as tangentially in the granular layer; no foraminal tubule; a foraminal cup sometimes present. 3_a_. Var. cerebellata, _Bowerbank_. _Spongilla cerebellata_, Bowerbank, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1863, p. 465, pl. xxxviii, fig. 16. _Spongilla alba_ var. _cerebellata_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 88 (1881). _Spongilla cerebellata_, Weltner, Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), p. 117 (1895). _Spongilla cerebellata_, Kirkpatrick, Ann. Nat. Hist. (7) xx, p. 523 (1907). This variety is distinguished from the typical form by the total absence of flesh-spicules. The gemmule-spicules are also more numerous and cross one another more regularly. 3_b_. Var. bengalensis*, _Annandale_. (Plate I, figs. 1-3.) _Spongilla lacustris_ var. _bengalensis_, Annandale, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1906, p. 56. _Spongilla alba_ var. _marina_, _id._, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 389 (1907). The sponge is either devoid of branches or produces irregular, compressed, and often digitate processes, sometimes of considerable length and delicacy. Flesh-spicules are usually present throughout the sponge, but are sometimes absent from one part of a specimen and present in others. Some of the gemmules are often much smaller than the others. Perhaps this form should be regarded as a phase rather than a true variety (see p. 18). All forms of _S. alba_ can be distinguished from all forms of _S. lacustris_ by the much closer network of the skeleton and by the consequent hardness of the sponge; also by the complete absence of green corpuscles. TYPES. The types of the species and of the var. _cerebellata_ are in the British Museum, with fragments of the former in the Indian Museum; that of var. _bengalensis_ is in the Indian Museum, with a co-type in London. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--India And Egypt. _Localities_:--BOMBAY PRESIDENCY, island of Bombay (_Carter_); Igatpuri, W. Ghats (_Annandale_): BENGAL, Calcutta; Port Canning, Ganges delta (var. _bengalensis_) (_Annandale_); Garia, Salt Lakes, nr. Calcutta (var. _bengalensis_) (_B. L. Chaudhuri_); Chilka Lake, Orissa (var. _bengalensis_) (_Gopal Chunder Chatterjee_): MADRAS PRESIDENCY, Rambha, Ganjam district (_Annandale_): NIZAM'S TERRITORY, Aurangabad (_Bowerbank_, var. _cerebellata_). The var. _cerebellata_ has also been taken near Cairo. BIOLOGY.--The typical form of the species is usually found growing on rocks or bricks at the edges of ponds, while the variety _bengalensis_ abounds on grass-roots in pools and swamps of brackish water in the Ganges delta and has been found on mussel-shells (_Modiola jenkinsi_, Preston) in practically salt water in the Chilka Lake. Carter procured the typical form at Bombay on stones which were only covered for six months in the year, and "temporarily on floating objects." In Calcutta this form flourishes in the cold weather on artificial stonework in the "tanks" together with _S. carteri_, _S. fragilis_, _Ephydatia meyeni_, and _Trochospongilla latouchiana_. The variety _bengalensis_ is best known to me as it occurs in certain ponds of brackish water at Port Canning on the Mutlah River, which connects the Salt Lakes near Calcutta with the sea. It appears in these ponds in great luxuriance every year at the beginning of the cold weather and often coats the whole edge for a space of several hundred feet, growing in irregular masses which are more or less fused together on the roots and stems of a species of grass that flourishes in such situations. Apparently the tendency for the sponges to form branches is much more marked in some years than in others (see Pl. I, figs. 1-3). The gemmules germinate towards the end of the "rains," and large masses of sponge are not formed much before December. At this season, however, the level of the water in the ponds sinks considerably and many of the sponges become dry. If high winds occur, the dry sponges are broken up and often carried for considerable distances over the flat surrounding country. In January the gemmules floating on the surface of the ponds form a regular scum. _S. alba_ var. _bengalensis_ is the only sponge that occurs in these ponds at Port Canning, but _S. lacustris_, subsp. _reticulata_, is occasionally found with it on brickwork in the ditches that drain off the water from the neighbouring fields into the Mutlah estuary. The latter sponge, however, perishes as these ditches dry up, at an earlier period than that at which _S. alba_ reaches its maximum development. The larvæ of _Sisyra indica_ are commonly found in the oscula of the typical form of _S. alba_ as well as in those of _S. lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_, and _S. carteri_; but the compact structure of the sponge renders it a less suitable residence for other _incolæ_ than _S. carteri_. In the variety _bengalensis_, as it grows in the ponds at Port Canning, a large number of arthropods, molluscs and other small animals take shelter. Apart from protozoa and rotifers, which have as yet been little studied, the following are some of the more abundant inhabitants of the sponge:--The sea-anemone, _Sagartia schilleriana_ subsp. _exul_ (see p. 140), which frequently occurs in very large numbers in the broader canals; the free-living nematode, _Oncholaimus indicus_[W], which makes its way in and out of the oscula; molluscs belonging to several species of the genus _Corbula_, which conceal themselves in the canals but are sometimes engulfed in the growing sponge and so perish; young individuals of the crab _Varuna litterata_, which hide among the branches and ramifications of the larger sponges together with several small species of prawns and the schizopod _Macropsis orientalis_[X]; the peculiar amphipod _Quadrivisio bengalensis_[Y], only known from the ponds at Port Canning, which breeds in little communities inside the sponge; a small isopod[Z], allied to _Sphæroma walkeri_, Stebbing; the larva of a may-fly, and those of at least two midges (Chironomidæ). [Footnote W: O. von Linstow, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 45 (1907).] [Footnote X: W. M. Tattersall, _ibid._, ii, p. 236 (1908).] [Footnote Y: T. R. R. Stebbing, _ibid._, i, p. 160 (1907); and N. Annandale, _ibid._, ii, p. 107 (1908).] [Footnote Z: Mr. Stebbing has been kind enough to examine specimens of this isopod, which he will shortly describe in the Records of the Indian Museum. _S. walkeri_, its nearest ally, was originally described from the Gulf of Manaar, where it was taken in a tow-net gathering (see Stebbing in Herdman's Report on the Ceylon Pearl Fisheries, pt. iv, p. 31 (1905)).] The peculiarly mixed nature (marine and lacustrine) of the fauna associated with _S. alba_ in the ponds at Port Canning is well illustrated by this list, and it only remains to be stated that little fish (_Gobius alcockii_, _Barbus stigma_, _Haplochilus melanostigma_, _H. panchax_, etc.) are very common and feed readily on injured sponges. They are apparently unable to attack a sponge so long as its external membrane is intact, but if this membrane is broken, they swarm round the sponge and devour the parenchyma greedily. In fresh water one of these fishes (_Gobius alcockii_, see p. 94) lays its eggs in sponges. The chief enemy of the sponges at Port Canning is, however, not an animal but a plant, viz., a green filamentous alga which grows inside the sponge, penetrating its substance, blocking up its canals and so causing it to die. Similar algæ have been described as being beneficial to the sponges in which they grow[AA], but my experience is that they are deadly enemies, for the growth of such algæ is one of the difficulties which must be fought in keeping sponges alive in an aquarium. The alga that grows in _S. alba_ often gives it a dark green colour, which is, however, quite different from the bright green caused by the presence of green corpuscles. The colour of healthy specimens of the variety _bengalensis_ is a rather dark grey, which appears to be due to minute inorganic particles taken into the cells of the parenchyma from the exceedingly muddy water in which this sponge usually grows. If the sponge is found in clean water, to whichever variety of the species it belongs, it is nearly white with a slight yellowish tinge. Even when the typical form is growing in close proximity to _S. proliferens_, as is often the case, no trace of green corpuscles is found in its cells. [Footnote AA: See M. and A. Weber in M. Weber's Zool. Ergeb. Niederl. Ost-Ind. vol. i, p. 48, pl. v (1890).] 4. Spongilla cinerea*, _Carter_. _Spongilla cinerea_, Carter, J. Bombay Soc. iii, p. 30, pl. i, fig. 5, & Ann. Nat. Hist. (2) iv, p. 82, pl. iii, fig. 5 (1849). _Spongilla cinerea_, Bowerbank, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1863, p. 468, pl. xxxviii, fig. 19. _Spongilla cinerea_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 263 (1881). _Sponge_ forming large, flat sheets, never more than a few millimetres in thickness, without a trace of branches, compact but very friable, of a dark greyish colour; oscula small and inconspicuous or moderately large, never prominent; membrane adhering closely to the sponge. _Skeleton_ with well-defined but slender radiating fibres, which contain very little spongin; transverse fibres close together but consisting for the most part of one or two spicules only. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules short, slender, sharply pointed, minutely serrated or irregular in outline, almost straight. Gemmule-spicules very small, rather stout, cylindrical, pointed, covered with relatively long and stout spines which are either straight or directed towards the ends of the spicule. Flesh-spicules fairly numerous in the external membrane but by no means abundant in the parenchyma, very slender, gradually pointed, covered uniformly with minute but distinct spines. _Gemmules_ very small, only visible to the naked eye as minute specks, as a rule numerous, free in the substance of the sponge, each provided with a slender foraminal tubule and covered with a thick granular coat in which the gemmule-spicules are arranged almost horizontally; a horizontal layer of spicules also present on the external surface of the gemmule; gemmule-spicules very numerous. [Illustration: Fig. 10.--Gemmules and fragment of the skeleton of _Spongilla cinerea_ (from type specimen), × 35.] This sponge is easily distinguished from its Indian allies by the form of its skeleton-spicules, which are, as Bowerbank expresses it, "subspined"; that it to say, under a high power of the microscope their outline appears to be very minutely serrated, although under a low power they seem to be quite smooth. The spicules also are smaller than those of _S. alba_, the only species with which _S. cinerea_ is likely to be confused, and the gemmule has a well-developed foraminal tubule; the skeleton is much closer than in _S. proliferens_. TYPE in the British Museum; a piece in the Indian Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_S. cinerea_ is only known from the Bombay Presidency. Carter obtained the original specimens at Bombay and the only ones I have found were collected at Nasik, which is situated on the eastern slopes of the Western Ghats, about 90 miles to the north-east. BIOLOGY.--Carter's specimens were growing on gravel, rocks and stones at the edge of "tanks," and were seldom covered for more than six months in the year. Mine were on the sides of a stone conduit built to facilitate bathing by conveying a part of the water of the Godaveri River under a bridge. They were accompanied by _Spongilla indica_ and _Corvospongilla lapidosa_ (the only other sponges I have found in running water in India) and in the month of November appeared to be in active growth. 5. Spongilla travancorica*, _Annandale_. _Spongilla travancorica_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, p. 101, pl. xii, fig. 1 (1909). _Sponge_ small, encrusting, without branches, hard but brittle; its structure somewhat loose; colour dirty white. Dermal membrane in close contact with the skeleton; pores and oscula inconspicuous. Surface minutely hispid, smooth and rounded as a whole. _Skeleton_ consisting of moderately stout and coherent radiating fibres and well-defined transverse ones; a number of horizontal megascleres present at the base and surface, but not arranged in any definite order. No basal membrane. [Illustration: Fig. 11.--Microscleres of _Spongilla travancorica_. A=Gemmule-spicules; B=flesh-spicules (from type specimen), × 240.] _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, pointed at either end, moderately stout, straight or curved, sometimes angularly bent; curvature usually slight. Free microscleres abundant in the dermal membrane, slender, nearly straight, gradually and sharply pointed, profusely ornamented with short straight spines, which are much more numerous and longer at the middle than near the ends. Gemmule-spicules stouter and rather longer, cylindrical, terminating at each end in a sharp spine, ornamented with shorter spines, which are more numerous and longer at the ends than at the middle; at the ends they are sometimes directed backwards, without, however, being curved. _Gemmules_ firmly adherent to the support of the sponge, at the base of which they form a layer one gemmule thick; each provided with at least one foraminal tubule, which is straight and conical: two tubules, one at the top and one at one side, usually present. Granular layer well developed. Spicules arranged irregularly in this layer, as a rule being more nearly vertical than horizontal but pointing in all directions, not confined externally by a membrane; no external layer of horizontal spicules. _Measurements of Spicules and Gemmules._ Length of skeleton-spicules 0.289-0.374 mm. Greatest diameter of skeleton-spicules 0.012-0.016 " Length of free microscleres 0.08-0.096 " Greatest diameter of free microscleres 0.002 mm. Length of gemmule-spicules 0.1-0.116 " Diameter of gemmule-spicule 0.008 mm. " " gemmule 0.272-0.374 " This species is easily distinguished from its allies of the subgenus _Euspongilla_ by its adherent gemmules with their (usually) multiple apertures and rough external surface. TYPE in the collection of the Indian Museum. HABITAT. Backwater near Shasthancottah, Travancore, in slightly brackish water; on the roots of shrubs growing at the edge; November, 1908 (_Annandale_). The specimens were dead when found. 6. Spongilla hemephydatia*, _Annandale_. _Spongilla hemephydatia_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, p. 275 (1909). [Illustration: Fig. 12.--Gemmule and spicules of _Spongilla hemephydatia_ (from type specimen).] _Sponge_ soft, fragile, amorphous, of a dirty yellow colour, with large oscula, which are not conspicuously raised above the surface but open into very wide horizontal channels in the substance of the sponge. The oscular collars are fairly well developed, but the subepidermal space is not extensive. _Skeleton_ diffuse, consisting of very fine radiating fibres, which are crossed at wide and irregular intervals by still finer transverse ones; very little chitinoid substance present. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, slender, sharply pointed at both ends, nearly straight. No true flesh-spicules. Gemmule-spicules straight or nearly so, cylindrical, or constricted in the middle, obscurely pointed or blunt, clothed with short, sharp, straight spines, which are very numerous but not markedly longer at the two ends; these spicules frequently found free in the parenchyma. _Gemmules_ numerous, small, free, spherical, yellow, with a well-developed granular coat (in which the spicules are arranged almost horizontally) and external to it a fine membrane which in preserved specimens becomes puckered owing to unequal contraction; each gemmule with a single aperture provided with a straight, rather wide, but very delicate foraminal tubule. _Measurements of Spicules and Gemmules._ Length of skeleton-spicule 0.313 mm. Breadth of skeleton-spicule 0.012 " Length of gemmule-spicule 0.062 " Breadth of gemmule-spicule 0.004 " Diameter of gemmule 0.313-0.365 mm. This sponge in its general structure bears a very close resemblance to _Spongilla crateriformis_. TYPE in the collection of the Indian Museum. HABITAT. Growing on weeds at the edge of the Sur Lake, Orissa, October 1908. Only one specimen was taken, together with many examples of _S. lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_, _S. carteri_ and _S. crassissima_. 7. Spongilla crateriformis* (_Potts_). _Meyenia crateriforma_, Potts, P. Ac. Philad. 1882, p. 12. _Meyenia crateriformis, id., ibid._ 1887, p. 228, pl. v, fig. 6, pl. x, fig. 5. ? _Ephydatia crateriformis_, Hanitsch, Nature, ii, p. 511 (1895). _Ephydatia crateriformis_, Weltner, Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), pp. 122, 134 (1895). ? _Ephydatia crateriformis_, Hanitsch, Irish Natural. iv, p. 125, pl. iv, fig. 5 (1895). _Ephydatia indica_, Annandale, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1907, p. 20 (figures poor). _Ephydatia indica, id._, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, pp. 272, 279, 388, 391 (1907). _Ephydatia crateriformis_, Scharff, European Animals, p. 34 (1907). _Ephydatia crateriformis_, Annandale, P. U.S. Mus. xxxvii, p. 402, fig. 1 (1909). _Sponge_ very fragile, forming soft irregular masses on the roots and stems of water-plants, between which it is sometimes stretched as a delicate film, or thin layers or cushions on flat surfaces. Oscula large, flat, circular, or of irregular shape, opening into broad horizontal canals, which at their distal end are superficial and often covered by the external membrane only. Colour white, yellowish, greyish, or blackish. _Skeleton_ very delicate; radiating fibres rarely consisting of more than two parallel spicules; transverse fibres far apart, frequently consisting of single spicules; very little spongin present. [Illustration: Fig 13.--Spicules of _Spongilla crateriformis_. A. From specimen taken in July in a tank on the Calcutta maidan. B. From type specimen of _Ephydatia indica_ taken in the Indian Museum tank in winter. Both figures × 240.] _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules feebly curved, slender, as a rule irregular in outline, sometimes almost smooth; the ends as a rule sharply pointed, often constricted off and expanded so as to resemble spear-heads, occasionally blunt. No true flesh-spicules. Gemmule-spicules often free in the parenchyma, cylindrical, slender, very variable in length in different sponges, straight or nearly so, as a rule with an irregular circle of strong straight or recurved spines at either end resembling a rudimentary rotule, and with shorter straight spines scattered on the shaft, sometimes without the rudimentary rotule, either truncate at the ends or terminating in a sharp spine. _Gemmules_ small, free, each surrounded by a thick granular layer in which the spicules stand upright or nearly so, and covered externally by a delicate but very distinct chitinous membrane; no horizontal spicules; foramen situated at the base of a crater-like depression in the granular coat, which is sometimes raised round it so as to form a conspicuous rampart; a short, straight foraminal tubule. The shape of the spicules is extremely variable, and sponges in which they are very different occur in the same localities and even in the same ponds. It is possible that the differences are directly due to slight changes in the environment, for in one pond in Calcutta a form with _Spongilla_-like gemmule-spicules appears to replace the typical form, which is common in winter, during the hot weather and "rains." I have not, however, found this to be the case in other ponds. Perhaps _S. hemephydatia_ will ultimately prove to be a variety of this very variable species, but its smooth and regular skeleton-spicules and short-spined gemmule-spicules afford a ready method of distinguishing it from _S. crateriformis_. The two sponges are easily distinguished from all others in the subgenus _Euspongilla_ by the upright and regular arrangement of their gemmule-spicules, for although in _S. proliferens_ and _S. travancorica_ some of the gemmule-spicules are nearly vertical, their arrangement is always irregular, a large proportion of the spicules make an acute angle with the inner coat of the gemmule and a few as a rule lie parallel to it. The systematic position of _S. crateriformis_ is almost exactly intermediate between _Euspongilla_ and _Ephydatia_, to which genus it has hitherto been assigned. I think, however, that taking into consideration its close relationship to _S. hemephydatia_, it is best to assign it to _Spongilla_, as its rudimentary rotules never form distinct disks. I have examined some of Potts's original specimens from different American localities and can detect no constant difference between them and Indian specimens. TYPES in the United States National Museum; co-types in Calcutta. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--This sponge was originally described from North America (in which continent it is widely distributed) and has been recorded from the west of Ireland with some doubt. In India and Burma it is widely distributed. BENGAL, Calcutta and neighbourhood (_Annandale_); Sonarpur, Gangetic delta (_Annandale_); BOMBAY PRESIDENCY, Igatpuri Lake, W. Ghats (altitude _ca._ 2,000 feet) (_Annandale_); MADRAS PRESIDENCY, neighbourhood of Madras town (_J. R. Henderson_); Museum compound, Egmore (Madras town) (_Annandale_); near Bangalore (alt. _ca._ 3,000 ft.), Mysore State (Annandale); Ernakulam, Cochin (_G. Mathai_): BURMA, Kawkareik, interior of Amherst district, Tenasserim, and the Moulmein waterworks in the same district (_Annandale_).[AB] [Footnote AB: Mr. C. A. Paiva, Assistant in the Indian Museum, has lately (March 31st, 1911) obtained specimens of _S. crateriformis_ in a small pond of fresh water on Ross Island in the Andaman group. The existence of this widely distributed species on an oceanic island is noteworthy.] BIOLOGY.--_S. crateriformis_ flourishes in Calcutta throughout the year. Here it is usually found adhering to the roots of water-plants, especially _Pistia_ and _Limnanthemum_. In the case of the former it occurs at the surface, in that of the latter at the bottom. When growing near the surface or even if attached to a stone at the bottom in clear water, it is invariably of a pale yellowish or greyish colour. When growing on the roots of _Limnanthemum_ in the mud of the Gangetic alluvium, however, it is almost black, and when growing in the reddish muddy waters of the tanks round Bangalore of a reddish-brown colour. This appears to be due entirely to the absorption of minute particles of inorganic matter by the cells of the parenchyma. If black sponges of the species are kept alive in clean water, they turn pure white in less than a week, apparently because these particles are eliminated. When growing on stones the sponge, as found in India, often conforms exactly with Potts's description: "a filmy grey sponge, branching off here and there ... yet with a curious lack of continuity...." The wide efferent canals of this sponge afford a convenient shelter to small crustacea, and the isopod _Tachæa spongillicola_, Stebbing (see p. 94), is found in them more abundantly than in those of any other sponge. This is especially the case when the sponge is growing at the bottom. On the surface of the sponge I have found a peculiar protozoon which resembles the European _Trichodina spongillæ_ in general structure but belongs, I think, to a distinct species, if not to a distinct genus. Subgenus B. EUNAPIUS, _J. E. Gray_. _Eunapius_, J. E. Gray (_partim_), P. Zool. Soc. London, 1867, p. 552. _Spongilla_ (_s. str._), Vejdovsky, in Potts's "Fresh-Water Sponges," P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 172. _Spongilla_ (_s. str._), Weltner, in Zacharias's Tier- und Pflanzenwelt des Süsswassers, i, p. 214 (1891). _Spongilla_ (_s. str._), Annandale, Zool. Jahrb., Syst. xxvii, p. 559 (1909). TYPE, _Spongilla carteri_, Carter. Spongillæ in which the gemmules are covered with layers of distinct polygonal air-spaces with chitinous walls. The gemmules are usually fastened together in groups, which may either be free in the sponge or adhere to its support as a "pavement layer"; sometimes, however, they are not arranged in this manner, but are quite independent of one another. The skeleton is usually delicate, sometimes very stout (_e. g._, in _S. nitens_, Carter). The term _Eunapius_ here used is not quite in the original sense, for Gray included under it Bowerbank's _Spongilla paupercula_ which is now regarded as a form of _S. lacustris_. His description, nevertheless, fits the group of species here associated except in one particular, viz., the smoothness of the gemmule-spicules to which he refers, for this character, though a feature of _S. carteri_, is not found in certain closely allied forms. The use of "_Spongilla_" in a double sense may be avoided by the adoption of Gray's name. The subgenus _Eunapius_ is, like _Euspongilla_, cosmopolitan. It is not, however, nearly so prolific in species. Four can be recognized in India, two of which range, in slightly different forms, as far north as Europe, one of them also being found in North America, Northern Asia, and Australia. 8. Spongilla carteri* _Carter_ (_Bowerbank_, in litt.). (Plate II. fig. 1.) _Spongilla friabilis_?, Carter (_nec_ Lamarck), J. Bombay Asiat. Soc. iii, p. 31, pl. i, fig. 3 (1849), & Ann. Nat. Hist. (2) iv, p. 83, pl. ii. fig. 3 (1849). _Spongilla carteri_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (3) iii, p. 334, pl. viii, figs. 1-7 (1859). _Spongilla carteri_, Bowerbank, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1863, p. 469, pl. xxxviii, fig. 20. _Eunapius carteri_, J. E. Gray, _ibid._ 1867, p. 552. _Spongilla carteri_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 86 (1881). _Spongilla carteri_, _id._, _ibid._ x, p. 369 (1882). _Spongilla carteri_, Potts, P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 194. _Spongilla carteri_, Weltner, Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), pp. 117, 134 (1895). _Spongilla carteri_, Kirkpatrick, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1906 (i), p. 219, pl. xv, figs. 3, 4 (? figs. 1, 2). _Spongilla carteri_, Annandale, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1906, p. 188, pl. i, fig. 1. _Spongilla carteri_, Willey, Spolia Zeyl. iv, p. 184 (1907). _Spongilla carteri_, Annandale, _ibid._ vii, p. 63, pl. 1, fig. 1 (1910). [Illustration: Fig. 14.--Gemmule of _Spongilla carteri_ (from Calcutta), as seen in optical section, × 140.] _Sponge_ massive, as a rule with the surface smooth and rounded, occasionally bearing irregular ridges, which may even take the form of cockscombs; the oscula large, rounded, conspicuous but not raised above the surface of the sponge, leading into broad vertical canals; the lateral canals, except in the immediate vicinity of the central vertical ones, not very broad; the oscular collars extending for a considerable distance over the oscula in living or well-preserved specimens, never standing out from the surface; the oscula never surrounded by radiating furrows. The inhalent pores surrounded externally by unmodified cells of the external membrane. Colour greyish, sometimes with a flush of green on the external surface. The sponge has a peculiarly strong and offensive smell. _Skeleton_ fairly compact, with well-developed radiating fibres; the transverse fibres splayed out at either end so that they sometimes resemble a pair of fans joined together by the handles (fig. 3, p. 33). A moderate amount of spongin present. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, pointed, nearly straight, never very stout but somewhat variable in exact proportions. Gemmule-spicules similar but much smaller. (There are no true flesh-spicules, but immature skeleton-spicules may easily be mistaken for them.) _Gemmules_ as a rule numerous, spherical or flattened at the base, variable in size, each covered by a thick coat consisting of several layers of relatively large polygonal air-spaces. A single aperture surrounded by a crater-like depression in the cellular coat and provided with a foraminal tubule resembling an inverted bottle in shape. (This tubule, which does not extend beyond the surface of the cellular coat, is liable to be broken off in dried specimens.) The spicules variable in quantity, arranged irregularly among the spaces of the cellular coat and usually forming a sparse horizontal layer on its external surface. Each gemmule contained in a cage of skeleton-spicules, by the pressure of which it is frequently distorted. 8_a._ Var. mollis*, nov. This variety is characterized by a paucity of skeleton-spicules. The sponge is therefore soft and so fragile that it usually breaks in pieces if lifted from the water by means of its support. Owing to the paucity of skeleton-spicules, which resemble those of the typical form individually, the radiating and transverse fibres are extremely delicate. Common in Calcutta. 8_b._ Var. cava*, nov. This variety is characterized by the fact that the oscula open into broad horizontal canals, the roof of which is formed by a thin layer of parenchyma and skeleton or, in places, of the external membrane only. The skeleton is loose and fragile, and the living sponge has a peculiar glassy appearance. In spirit the colour is yellowish, during life it is greenish or white. Taken at Bombay; November, 1907. 8_c._ Var. lobosa*, nov. The greater part of the sponge in this variety consists of a number of compressed but pointed vertical lobes, which arise from a relatively shallow, rounded base, in which the oscula occur. The dried sponge has a yellowish colour. Apparently common in Travancore. * * * * * I cannot distinguish these three "varieties"[AC] from the typical form as distinct species; indeed, their status as varieties is a little doubtful in two cases out of the three. Var. _cava_ appears to be a variety in the strict sense of the word (see p. 18), for it was found on the island of Bombay, the original locality of the species, growing side by side with the typical form. Var. _lobosa_, however, should perhaps be regarded as a subspecies rather than a variety, for I have received specimens from two localities in the extreme south-west of India and have no evidence that the typical form occurs in that part of the country. Evidence, however, is rather scanty as regards the occurrence of freshwater sponges in S. India. Var. _mollis_, again, may be a phase directly due to environment. It is the common form in the ponds of certain parts (_e. g._ in the neighbourhood of the Maidan and at Alipore) of the Calcutta municipal area, but in ponds in other parts (_e. g._ about Belgatchia) of the same area, only the typical form is found. It is possible that the water in the former ponds may be deficient in silica or may possess some other peculiarity that renders the production of spicules difficult for _S. carteri_; but this seems hardly probable, for _S. crassissima_, a species with a rather dense siliceous skeleton, flourishes in the same ponds. I have noticed that in ponds in which the aquatic vegetation is luxuriant and such genera of plants as _Pistia_ and _Limnanthemum_ flourish, there is always a tendency for _S. carteri_ to be softer than in ponds in which the vegetation is mostly cryptogamic, and in Calcutta those parts of the town in which sponges of this species produce most spicules are those in which a slight infiltration of brackish water into the ponds may be suspected; but in the interior of India, in places where the water is absolutely fresh, hard specimens seem to be the rule rather than the exception. [Footnote AC: The only complete European specimen of the species I have seen differs considerably in outward form from any Indian variety, consisting of a flat basal area from which short, cylindrical turret-like branches arise. This specimen is from Lake Balaton in Hungary and was sent me by Prof. von Daday de Dees of Buda-Pesth.] _S. carteri_ is closely related to _S. nitens_, Carter (Africa, and possibly S. America), but differs from that species in its comparatively slender, sharp skeleton-spicules and smooth gemmule-spicules. It may readily be distinguished from all other Indian freshwater sponges by its large, deep, round oscula, but this feature is not so marked in var. _lobosa_ as in the other forms. The typical form and var. _mollis_ grow to a larger size than is recorded for any other species of the family. I possess a specimen of the typical form from the neighbourhood of Calcutta which measures 30 × 27 cm. in diameter and 19.5 cm. in depth, and weighs (dry) 24-3/4 oz. The base of this specimen, which is solid throughout, is nearly circular, and the general form is mound-shaped. Another large specimen from Calcutta is in the form of an irregular wreath, the greatest diameter of which is 34 cm. This specimen weighs (dry) 16-1/4 oz. Both these specimens probably represent the growth of several years. TYPES.--The types of the varieties _mollis_, _cava_ and _lobosa_ are in the collection of the Indian Museum. I regard as the type of the species the specimen sent by Carter to Bowerbank and by him named _S. carteri_, although, owing to some confusion, Carter's description under this name appeared some years before Bowerbank's. This specimen is in the British Museum, with a fragment in the Indian Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--The range of the species extends westwards to Hungary, southwards to Mauritius and eastwards to the island of Madura in the Malay Archipelago; a specimen from Lake Victoria Nyanza in Central Africa has been referred to it by Kirkpatrick (P. Zool. Soc. London, 1906 (i), p. 219), but I doubt whether the identification is correct. In India _S. carteri_ is by far the most universally distributed and usually much the commonest freshwater sponge; it is one of the only two species as yet found in Ceylon. Specimens are known from the following localities:--PUNJAB, Lahore (_J. Stephenson_): BOMBAY PRESIDENCY, island of Bombay (_Carter_, _Kirkpatrick_, _Annandale_); Igatpuri, W. Ghats (alt. _ca._ 2,000 ft.) (_Annandale_): UNITED PROVINCES (plains), Agra (_Kirkpatrick_); Lucknow: HIMALAYAS, Bhim Tal, Kumaon (alt. 4,500 ft.) (_Annandale_); Tribeni, Nepal (_Hodgart_): BENGAL, Calcutta and neighbourhood; Rajshahi (Rampur Bhulia) on the R. Ganges about 150 miles N. of Calcutta (_Annandale_); Berhampur, Murshidabad district (_R. E. Lloyd_); Pusa, Darbbhanga district (_Bainbrigge Fletcher_); Siripur, Saran district, Tirhut (_M. Mackenzie_); Puri and the Sur Lake, Orissa (_Annandale_): MADRAS PRESIDENCY, near Madras town (_J. R. Henderson_); Madura district (_R. Bruce Foote_); Bangalore (_Annandale_) and Worgaum, Mysore State (2,500-3,000 ft.); Ernakulam and Trichur, Cochin (_G. Mathai_); Trivandrum and the neighbourhood of C. Comorin, Travancore (var. _lobosa_) (_R. S. N. Pillay_): BURMA, Kawkareik, interior of Amherst district, Tenasserim (_Annandale_); Rangoon (_Annandale_); Bhamo, Upper Burma (_J. Coggin Brown_): CEYLON, Peradeniya (_E. E. Green_); outlet of the Maha Rambaikulam between Vavuniya and Mamadu, Northern Province (_Willey_); Horowapotanana, between Trincomalee and Anuradihapura, North-Central Province (_Willey_). BIOLOGY.--_S. carteri_ usually grows in ponds and lakes; I have never seen it in running water. Mr. Mackenzie found it on the walls of old indigo wells in Tirhut. The exact form of the sponge depends to some extent on the forces acting on it during life. At Igatpuri, for instance, I found that specimens attached to the stems of shrubs growing in the lake and constantly swayed by the wind had their surface irregularly reticulated with high undulating ridges, while those growing on stones at the bottom of a neighbouring pond were smooth and rounded. Sponges of this species do not shun the light. In Calcutta _S. carteri_ flourishes during the cold weather (November to March). By the end of March many specimens that have attached themselves to delicate stems such as those of the leaves of _Limnanthemum_, or to the roots of _Pistia stratiotes_, have grown too heavy for their support and have sunk down into the mud at the bottom of the ponds, in which they are quickly smothered. Others fixed to the end of branches overhanging the water or to bricks at the edge have completely dried up. A large proportion, however, still remain under water; but even these begin to show signs of decay at this period. Their cells migrate to the extremities of the sponge, leaving a mass of gemmules in the centre, and finally perish. Few sponges exist in an active condition throughout the hot weather. The majority of those that do so exhibit a curious phenomenon. Their surface becomes smoothly rounded and they have a slightly pinkish colour; the majority of the cells of their parenchyma, if viewed under a high power of the microscope, can be seen to be gorged with very minute drops of liquid. This liquid is colourless in its natural condition, but if the sponge is plunged into alcohol the liquid turns of a dark brown colour which stains both the alcohol and the sponge almost instantaneously. Probably the liquid represents some kind of reserve food-material. Even in the hot weather a few living sponges of the species may be found that have not this peculiarity, but, in some ponds at any rate, the majority that survive assume the peculiar summer form, which I have also found at Lucknow. Reproduction takes place in _S. carteri_ in three distinct ways, two of which may be regarded as normal, while the third is apparently the result of accident. If a healthy sponge is torn into small pieces and these pieces are kept in a bowl of water, little masses of cells congregate at the tips of the radiating fibres of the skeleton and assume a globular form. At first these cells are homogeneous, having clear protoplasm full of minute globules of liquid. The masses differ considerably in size but never exceed a few millimetres in diameter. In about two days differentiation commences among the cells; then spicules are secreted, a central cavity and an external membrane formed, and an aperture, the first osculum, appears in the membrane. In about ten days a complete young sponge is produced, but the details of development have not been worked out. The most common normal form of reproduction is by means of gemmules, which are produced in great numbers towards the end of the cold weather. If small sponges are kept alive in an aquarium even at the beginning of the cold weather, they begin to produce gemmules almost immediately, but these gemmules although otherwise perfect, possess few or no gemmule-spicules. If the sponge becomes desiccated at the end of the cold weather and is protected in a sheltered place, some or all of the gemmules contained in the meshes of its skeleton germinate _in situ_ as soon as the water reaches it again during the "rains." It is by a continuous or rather periodical growth of this kind, reassumed season after season, that large masses of sponge are formed. In such masses it is often possible to distinguish the growth of the several years, but as a rule the layers become more or less intimately fused together, for no limiting membrane separates them. A large proportion of the gemmules are, however, set free and either float on the surface of the water that remains in the ponds or are dried up and carried about by the wind. In these circumstances they do not germinate until the succeeding cold weather, even if circumstances other than temperature are favourable; but as soon as the cold weather commences they begin to produce new sponges with great energy. Sexual reproduction, the second normal form, takes place in _S. carteri_ mainly if not only at the approach of a change of season, that is to say about March, just before the hot weather commences, and about November, just as the average temperature begins to sink to a temperate level. At these seasons healthy sponges may often be found full of eggs and embryos, which lie in the natural cavities of the sponge without protecting membrane. In the ponds of Calcutta a large number of animals are found associated in a more or less definite manner with _Spongilla carteri_. Only one, however, can be described with any degree of certainty as being in normal circumstances an enemy, namely the larva of _Sisyra indica_,[AD] and even in the case of this little insect it is doubtful how far its attacks are actually injurious to the sponge. The larva is often found in considerable numbers clinging to the oscula and wide efferent canals of _S. carteri_, its proboscis inserted into the substance of the sponge. If the sponge dies and the water becomes foul the larvæ swim or crawl away. If the sponge dries up, they leave its interior (in which, however, they sometimes remain for some days after it has become dry) and pupate in a silken cocoon on its surface. Hence they emerge as perfect insects after about a week. [Footnote AD: Needham. Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, p. 206 (1909).] An animal that may be an enemy of _S. carteri_ is a flat-worm (an undescribed species of _Planaria_) common in its larger canals and remarkable for the small size of its pharynx. The same worm, however, is also found at the base of the leaves of bulrushes and in other like situations, and there is no evidence that it actually feeds on the sponge. Injured sponges are eaten by the prawn _Palæmon lamarrei_, which, however, only attacks them when the dermal membrane is broken. A _Tanypus_ larva (Chironomid Diptera) that makes its way though the substance of the sponge may also be an enemy; it is commoner in decaying than in vigorous sponges. The presence of another Chironomid larva (_Chironomus_, sp.) appears to be actually beneficial. In many cases it is clear that this larva and the sponge grow up together, and the larva is commoner in vigorous than in decayed sponges. Unlike the _Tanypus_ larva, it builds parchment-like tubes, in which it lives, on the surface of the sponge. The sponge, however, often grows very rapidly and the larva is soon in danger of being engulfed in its substance. The tube is therefore lengthened in a vertical direction to prevent this catastrophe and to maintain communication with the exterior. The process may continue until it is over an inch in length, the older part becoming closed up owing to the pressure of the growing sponge that surrounds it. Should the sponge die, the larva lives on in its tubes without suffering, and the ends of tubes containing larvæ may sometimes be found projecting from the worn surface of dead sponges. The larva does not eat the sponge but captures small insects by means of a pair of legs on the first segment of its thorax. In so doing it thrusts the anterior part of its body out of the tube, to the inner surface of which it adheres by means of the pair of false legs at the tip of the abdomen. This insect, which is usually found in the variety _mollis_, appears to do good to the sponge in two ways--by capturing other insects that might injure it and by giving support to its very feeble skeleton. A precisely similar function, so far as the support of the sponge is concerned, is fulfilled by the tubular zooecia of a phase of the polyzoon _Plumatella fruticosa_ (see p. 218) which in India is more commonly found embedded in the substance of _S. carteri_ than in that of any other species, although in Great Britain it is generally found in that of _S. lacustris_, which is there the commonest species of freshwater sponge. Another animal that appears to play an active part in the oeconomy of the sponge is a peculiar little worm (_Chætogaster spongillæ_) also found among the zooecia of _Plumatella_ and belonging to a widely distributed genus of which several species are found in association with pond-snails. _Chætogaster spongillæ_ often occurs in enormous numbers in dead or dying sponges of _S. carteri_, apparently feeding on the decaying organic matter of the sponge and assisting by its movements in releasing numerous gemmules. In so doing it undoubtedly assists in the dissemination of the species. Major J. Stephenson (Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 233) has recently found two other species of oligochætes inhabiting _S. carteri_ var. _lobosa_ from Travancore. Both these species, unlike _Chætogaster spongillæ_, belong to a genus that is vegetarian in habits. One of them, _Nais pectinata_, has not yet been found elsewhere, while the other, _Nais communis_, has a very wide distribution. The latter, however, occurs in the sponge in two forms--one with eyes, the other totally blind. The blind form (_N. communis_ var. _cæca_) has only been found in this situation, but the other (var. _punjabensis_) lives free as well as in association with the sponge, in which the blind form was the commoner of the two. The majority of the animals found in association with _S. carteri_ gain shelter without evident assistance to the sponge. This is the case as regards the little fish (_Gobius alcockii_), one of the smallest of the vertebrates (length about 1/2 inch), which lays its eggs in the patent oscula, thus securing for them a situation peculiarly favourable to their development owing to the constant current of water that passes over them. In the absence of sponges, however, this fish attaches its eggs to the floating roots of the water-plant _Pistia stratiotes_. Numerous small crustacea[AE] also take temporary or permanent refuge in the cavities of _S. carteri_, the most noteworthy among them being the Isopod _Tachæa spongillicola_[AF], the adults of which are found in the canal of this and other sponges, while the young cling to the external surface of the carapace of _Palæmon lamarrei_ and other small prawns. Many worms and insects of different kinds also enter the canals of _S. carteri_, especially when the sponge is becoming desiccated; from half-dry sponges numerous beetles and flies may be bred, notably the moth-fly _Psychoda nigripennis_[AG] of which enormous numbers sometimes hatch out from such sponges. [Footnote AE: According to the late Rai Bahadur R. B. Sanyal, freshwater sponges are called in Bengali "shrimps' nests." From his description it is evident that he refers mainly to _S. carteri_ (see Hours with Nature, p. 46; Calcutta 1896).] [Footnote AF: Stebbing, J. Linn. Soc. xxx, p. 40; Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 279.] [Footnote AG: Brunetti, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 376 (1908).] As the sponge grows it frequently attaches itself to small molluscs such as the young of _Vivipara bengalensis_, which finally become buried in its substance and thus perish. Possibly their decaying bodies may afford it nourishment, but of the natural food of sponges we know little. _S. carteri_ flourishes best and reaches its largest size in ponds used for domestic purposes by natives of India, and thrives in water thick with soap-suds. It is possible, though direct proof is lacking, that the sponge does good in purifying water used for washing the clothes, utensils, and persons of those who drink the same water, by absorbing decaying animal and vegetable matter from it. Various minute algæ are found associated with _S. carteri_, but of these little is yet known. The green flush sometimes seen on the surface of the typical form is due to the fact that the superficial cells of the parenchyma contain green corpuscles. These, however, are never very numerous and are not found in the inner parts of the sponge, perhaps owing to its massive form. It is noteworthy that these green bodies flourish in large numbers throughout the substance of sponges of _S. proliferens_, a species always far from massive, growing in the same ponds as _S. carteri_. 9. Spongilla fragilis, _Leidy_. _Spongilla fragilis_, Leidy, P. Ac. Philad. 1851, p. 278. _Spongilla lordii_, Bowerbank, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1863, p. 466, pl. xxxviii, fig. 17. _Spongilla contecta_, Noll, Zool. Garten*, 1870, p. 173. _Spongilla ottavænsis_, Dawson, Canad. Nat.* (new series) viii, p. 5 (1878). _Spongilla sibirica_, Dybowski, Zool. Anz., Jahr. i, p. 53 (1878). _Spongilla morgiana_, Potts, P. Ac. Philad. 1880, p. 330. _Spongilla lordii_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 89, pl. vi, fig. 13 (1881). _Spongilla sibirica_, Dybowski, Mém. Ac. St. Pétersb. (7) xxx, no. x, p. 10, fig. 12. _Spongilla glomerata_, Noll, Zool. Anz., Jahr. ix, p. 682 (1886). _Spongilla fragilis_, Vejdovsky, P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 176. _Spongilla fragilis_, Potts, _ibid._ p. 197, pl. v, fig. 2; pl. viii, figs. 1-4. _Spongilla fragilis_, Weltner, Arch. Naturg. lix (1), p. 266, pl. ix, figs. 18-20 (1893). _Spongilla fragilis_, _id._, Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), p. 117 (1895). _Spongilla fragilis_, _id._, in Semon's Zool. Forsch. in Austral. u. d. Malay. Arch. v, part v, p. 523. _Spongilla fragilis_, Annandale, P. U.S. Mus. xxxvii, p. 402 (1909). _Spongilla fragilis_, _id._, Annot. Zool. Japon. vii, part ii, p. 106, pl. ii, fig. 1 (1909). _Sponge_ flat, lichenoid, never of great thickness, devoid of branches, dense in texture but very friable; colour brown, green, or whitish; oscula numerous, small, flat, distinctly star-shaped. _Skeleton_ with well defined radiating and transverse fibres, which are never strong but form a fairly dense network with a small amount of spongin. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, sharply pointed, moderately stout, as a rule nearly straight. No flesh-spicules. Gemmule-spicules cylindrical, blunt or abruptly pointed, nearly straight, covered with relatively stout, straight, irregular spines, which are equally distributed all over the spicule. _Gemmules_ bound together in free groups of varying numbers and forming a flat layer at the base of the sponge; each gemmule small in size, surrounded by a thick cellular coat of several layers; with a relatively long and stout foraminal tubule, which projects outwards through the cellular coat at the sides of the group or at the top of the basal layer of gemmules, is usually curved, and is not thickened at the tip; more than one foraminal tubule sometimes present on a single gemmule; gemmule-spicules arranged horizontally or at the base of the cellular coat. The species as a species is easily distinguished from all others, its nearest ally being the N. American _S. ingloriformis_ with sparsely spined skeleton-spicules which are very few in number, and gemmule groups in which the foraminal tubules all open downwards. Several varieties of _S. fragilis_ have been described in Europe and America. TYPE.--Potts refers to the type as being in the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--All over Europe and N. America; also in Siberia, Australia, and S. America. The species is included in this work in order that its Asiatic local races may be fitly described. 9 _a._ Subsp. calcuttana*, nov. ? _Spongilla decipiens_, Weltner (_partim_), Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), pp. 117, 134 (1895). _Spongilla decipiens_, Annandale, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. 1906, p. 57. _Spongilla fragilis_, _id._, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 390 (1907). [Illustration: Fig. 15.--_Spongilla fragilis_ subsp. _calcuttana_. A=group of gemmules, × 70; B=spicules, × 240. From type specimen.] This local race, which is common in Calcutta, is distinguished from the typical form mainly by the shape of its skeleton-spicules, most of which are abruptly pointed or almost rounded at the tips, sometimes bearing a minute conical projection at each end. The gemmule-spicules, which are usually numerous, are slender. The foraminal tubules are usually long and bent, but are sometimes very short and quite straight. The colour is usually greyish, occasionally brown. I have not found this race except in Calcutta, in the ponds of which it grows on bricks or, very commonly, on the stems of bulrushes, often covering a considerable area. TYPE in the Indian Museum. 9 _b._ Subsp. decipiens*, _Weber_. _Spongilla decipiens_, Weber, Zool. Ergeb. Niederländ. Ost-Ind. i, p. 40, pl. iv, figs. 1-5 (1890). This (?) local race is distinguished by the fact that the foraminal tubules are invariably short and straight and thickened at the tips, and that gemmule-spicules do not occur on the external surface of the cellular coat of the gemmules. I include Weber's _Spongilla decipiens_ in the Indian fauna on the authority of Weltner, who identified specimens from the Museum "tank," Calcutta, as belonging to this form. All, however, that I have examined from our "tank" belong to the subspecies _calcuttana_, most of the skeleton-spicules of which are much less sharp than those of _decipiens_. By the kindness of Prof. Max Weber I have been able to examine a co-type of his species, which is probably a local race peculiar to the Malay Archipelago. TYPE in the Amsterdam Museum; a co-type in Calcutta. Perhaps the Japanese form, which has spindle-shaped gemmule-spicules with comparatively short and regular spines, should be regarded as a third subspecies, and the Siberian form as a fourth. 10. Spongilla gemina*, sp. nov. _Sponge_ forming small, shallow, slightly dome-shaped patches of a more or less circular or oval outline, minutely hispid on the surface, friable but moderately hard. Oscula numerous but minute and inconspicuous, never star-shaped. Dermal membrane adhering closely to the sponge. Colour grey or brown. _Skeleton_ forming a close and regular network at the base of the sponge, becoming rather more diffuse towards the external surface; the radiating and the transverse fibres both well developed, of almost equal diameter. Little spongin present. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules slender, smooth, sharply pointed. No flesh-spicules. Gemmule-spicules long, slender, cylindrical, blunt or bluntly pointed, somewhat irregularly covered with minute straight spines. _Gemmules_ small, bound together in pairs, as a rule free in the parenchyma but sometimes lightly attached at the base of the sponge. Each gemmule flattened on the surface by which it is attached to its twin, covered with a thin coat of polygonal air-spaces which contains two layers of gemmule-spicules crossing one another irregularly in a horizontal plane. One or two foraminal tubules present on the surface opposite the flat one, bending towards the latter, often of considerable length, cylindrical and moderately stout. TYPE in the Indian Museum. This species is closely allied to _S. fragilis_, from which it may be distinguished by the curious twinned arrangement of its gemmules. It also differs from _S. fragilis_ in having extremely small and inconspicuous oscula. _Locality._ I only know this sponge from the neighbourhood of Bangalore, where Dr. Morris Travers and I found it in October, 1910 growing on stones and on the leaves of branches that dipped into the water at the edge of a large tank. 11. Spongilla crassissima*, _Annandale_. _Spongilla crassissima_, Annandale, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1907, p. 17, figs. 2, 3. _Spongilla crassissima_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 88. _Spongilla crassissima_, _id._, Rec. Ind. Mus. i. p. 390, pl. xiv, fig. 4 (1907). _Sponge_ very hard and strong, nearly black in colour, sometimes with a greenish tinge, forming spherical, spindle-shaped or irregular masses without branches but often several inches in diameter. Oscula circular or star-shaped, usually surrounded by radiating furrows; pores normally contained in single cells. External membrane closely adherent to the sponge except immediately round the oscula. _Skeleton_ dense, compact and only to be broken by the exercise of considerable force; radiating and transverse fibres not very stout but firmly bound together by spongin (fig. 6, p. 38), which occasionally extends between them as a delicate film; their network close and almost regular. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, feebly curved, sausage-shaped but by no means short, as a rule bearing at each end a minute conical projection which contains the extremity of the axial filament. No flesh-spicules. Gemmule-spicules closely resembling those of _S. fragilis_ subsp. _calcuttana_, but as a rule even more obtuse at the ends. _Gemmules_ as in _S. fragilis_ subsp. _calcuttana_; a basal layer of gemmules rarely formed. 11 _a._ Var. crassior*, _Annandale_. _Spongilla crassior_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 389, pl. xiv, fig. 3 (1907). This variety differs from the typical form chiefly in its even stronger skeleton (fig. 3, p. 33) and its stouter skeleton-spicules, which do not so often possess a terminal projection. The sponge is of a brownish colour and forms flat masses of little thickness but of considerable area on sticks and on the stems of water-plants. TYPES.--The types of both forms are in the Indian Museum. Co-types have been sent to London. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--This sponge is only known from Bengal. The variety _crassior_ was found at Rajshahi (Rampur Bhulia) on the Ganges, about 150 miles N. of Calcutta, while the typical form is fairly common in the "tanks" of Calcutta and very abundant in the Sur Lake near Puri in Orissa. [Illustration: Fig. 16.--Spicules of _Spongilla crassissima_ var. _crassior_ (from type specimen), × 240.] BIOLOGY.--_S. crassissima_ is usually found near the surface in shallow water. Attached to the roots of the floating water-plant _Pistia stratiotes_ it assumes a spherical form, while on sticks or like objects it is spindle-shaped. Sometimes it is found growing on the same stick or reed-stem as _S. carteri_, the two species being in close contact and _S. carteri_ always overlapping _S. crassissima_. The dark colour is due to minute masses of blackish pigment in the cells of the parenchyma. The dense structure of the sponge is not favourable to the presence of _incolæ_, but young colonies of the polyzoon _Plumatella fruticosa_ are sometimes overgrown by it. Although they may persist for a time by elongating their tubular zooecia through the substance of the sponge, they do not in these circumstances reach the same development as when they are overgrown by the much softer _S. carteri_. _S. crassissima_ is found during the "rains" and the cold weather. In Calcutta it attains its maximum size towards the end of the latter season. In spite of its hard and compact skeleton, the sponge does not persist from one cold weather to another. A curious phenomenon has been noticed in this species, but only in the case of sponges living in an aquarium, viz. the cessation during the heat of the day of the currents produced by its flagella. Subgenus C. STRATOSPONGILLA, _Annandale_. _Stratospongilla_, Annandale, Zool. Jahrb., Syst. xxvii, p. 561 (1909). TYPE, _Spongilla bombayensis_, Carter. Spongillæ in the gemmules of which the pneumatic layer is absent or irregularly developed, its place being sometimes taken by air-spaces between the stout chitinous membranes that cover the gemmule. At least one of these membranes is always present. The gemmule-spicules lie in the membrane or membranes parallel to the surface of the gemmule, and are often so arranged as to resemble a mosaic. The gemmules themselves are usually adherent to the support of the sponge. The chitinous membrane or membranes are often in continuity with a membrane that underlies the base of the sponge. The skeleton is usually stout, though often almost amorphous, and the skeleton-spicules are sometimes sausage-shaped. Sponges of this subgenus form crusts or sheets on solid submerged objects. _Stratospongilla_ is essentially a tropical subgenus, having its head-quarters in Central Africa and Western India. One of its species, however, (_S. sumatrana_*, Weber) occurs both in Africa and the Malay Archipelago, while another has only been found in S. America (_S. navicella_, Carter). Aberrant species occur in China (_S. sinensis_*, _S. coggini_*) and the Philippines (_S. clementis_*). Three species have been found in the Bombay Presidency and Travancore, one of which (_S. bombayensis_*) extends its range eastwards to Mysore and westwards across the Indian Ocean to Natal. 12. Spongilla indica*, _Annandale_. _Spongilla indica_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 25, figs. 1, 2 (1908). _Sponge_ forming a very thin layer, of a bright green or pale grey colour; surface smooth, minutely hispid; pores and oscula inconspicuous, the latter approached in some instances by radiating furrows; subdermal cavity small; texture compact, rather hard. _Skeleton_ incoherent, somewhat massive owing to the large number of spicules present. Spicules forming triangular meshes and occasionally arranged in vertical lines several spicules broad but without spongin. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules straight or nearly straight, slender, cylindrical, amphistrongylous, uniformly covered with minute, sharp spines; flesh-spicules slender, sharply pointed, straight or curved, irregularly covered with relatively long, straight sharp spines, abundant in the dermal membrane, scarce in the substance of the sponge. Gemmule-spicules short, stout, sausage-shaped, covered with minute spines, which are sometimes absent from the extremities. _Gemmules_ spherical, somewhat variable in size, with a single aperture, which is provided with a trumpet-shaped foraminal tubule and is situated at one side of the gemmule in its natural position; the inner chitinous coat devoid of spicules, closely covered by an outer coat composed of a darkly coloured chitinoid substance in which the gemmule-spicules are embedded, lying parallel or almost parallel to the inner coat. The outer coat forms a kind of mantle by means of the skirts of which the gemmule is fastened to the support of the sponge. This coat is pierced by the foraminal tubule. The gemmules are distinct from one another. [Illustration: Fig. 17.--Gemmule of _Spongilla indica_ seen from the side (from type specimen), magnified.] Average length of skeleton-spicules 0.2046 mm. " breadth of skeleton-spicules 0.0172 " " length of flesh-spicules 0.053 " " breadth of flesh-spicules 0.0053 " " length of gemmule-spicules 0.044 " " breadth of gemmule-spicules 0.0079 " _S. indica_ is closely allied to _S. sumatrana_*, Weber, which has been found both in the Malay Archipelago and in East Africa. It may be distinguished by its blunt, almost truncated megascleres and comparatively slender gemmule-spicules. TYPE in the Indian Museum. HABITAT, etc.--Growing, together with _S. cinerea_ and _Corvospongilla lapidosa_, on the stone sides of an artificial conduit in the R. Godaveri at Nasik on the eastern side of the Western Ghats in the Bombay Presidency. The water was extremely dirty and was used for bathing purposes. The sponge was green where the light fell upon it, grey where it was in the shadow of the bridge under which the conduit ran. The only specimens I have seen were taken in November, 1907. 13. Spongilla bombayensis*, _Carter_. (Plate II, fig. 2.) _Spongilla bombayensis_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) x, p. 369, pl. xvi, figs. 1-6 (1882). _Spongilla bombayensis_, Annandale, Zool. Jahrb., Syst. xxvii, p. 562, figs. B, C (1909). _Sponge_ hard but friable, forming thin layers or cushions; its surface often irregular but without a trace of branches; its area never very great; oscula inconspicuous; external membrane adhering closely to the sponge; colour brownish or greyish. [Illustration: Fig. 18.--Gemmule of _Spongilla bombayensis_ as seen from above (from type specimen), magnified.] _Skeleton_ almost amorphous, very dense, consisting of large numbers of spicules arranged irregularly; radiating fibres occasionally visible in sections, but almost devoid of spongin; a more or less definite reticulation of horizontal spicules lying immediately under the external membrane. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules slender, pointed, feebly curved, irregularly roughened or minutely spined all over the surface. Flesh-spicules straight, narrowly rhomboidal in outline, sharply pointed, slender, covered with minute, irregular, straight spines, scanty in the parenchyma, abundant in the external membrane. Gemmule-spicules sausage-shaped or bluntly pointed, variable in length but usually rather stout, covered with minute spines, as a rule distinctly curved. _Gemmules_ round or oval, firmly adherent[AH] to the base of the sponge, as a rule rather shallowly dome-shaped, covered by two thick chitinous membranes, in each of which there is a dense horizontal layer of spicules; no granular or cellular covering; the two chitinous coats separated by an empty space; the aperture or apertures on the side of the gemmule in its natural position, provided with foraminal tubules, which may be either straight or curved, project through the outer chitinous membrane and often bend down towards the base of the gemmule. The spicules of the outer layer often more irregular in outline and less blunt than those of the inner layer. [Footnote AH: The outer covering by means of which the gemmule is fixed is not formed until the other structures are complete. In young sponges, therefore, free gemmules may often be found.] This sponge is allied to _S. indica_, but is distinguished among other characters by its sharp skeleton-spicules and by the fact that the gemmule is covered by two chitinous membranes instead of one. TYPE in the British Museum; a fragment in the Indian Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--S. and W. India and S. Africa. Carter's type was found in the island of Bombay, my own specimens in Igatpuri Lake in the Western Ghats. I have recently (October 1910) found sponges and bare gemmules attached to stones at the end of a tank about 10 miles from Bangalore (Mysore State) in the centre of the Madras Presidency. Prof. Max Weber obtained specimens in Natal. BIOLOGY.--The specimens collected by Prof. Weber in Natal and those collected by myself in the Bombay Presidency were both obtained in the month of November. It is therefore very interesting to compare them from a biological point of view. In so doing, it must be remembered that while in S. Africa November is near the beginning of summer, in India it is at the beginning of the "cold weather," that is to say, both the coolest and the driest season of the year. The lake in which my specimens were obtained had, at the time when they were collected, already sunk some inches below its highest level, leaving bare a gently sloping bank of small stones. Adhering to the lower surface of these stones I found many small patches of _Spongilla bombayensis_, quite dry but complete so far as their harder parts were concerned and with the gemmules fully formed at their base. From the shallow water at the edge of the lake I took many similar stones which still remained submerged. It was evident that the sponge had been just as abundant on their lower surface as on that of the stones which were now dry; but only the gemmules remained, sometimes with a few skeleton-spicules adhering to them (Pl. II, fig. 2). The bulk of the skeleton had fallen away and the parenchyma had wholly perished. In a few instances a small sponge, one or two millimetres in diameter, had already been formed among the gemmules; but these young sponges appeared to belong to some other species, possibly _Spongilla indica_, which was also common in the lake. Carter's specimen of _S. bombayensis_, which was evidently in much the same condition as those I found still submerged a month later, was taken in October in a disused quarry. It was surrounded by a mass of _S. carteri_ three inches in diameter, and was attached to a herbaceous annual. The point on the edge of the quarry at which this plant grew was not reached by the water until July. It is therefore necessary to assume that the gemmules of _S. bombayensis_ had been formed between July and October. Probably the larva of the sponge had settled down on the plant during the "rains"--which commence in Bombay about the beginning of June--and had grown rapidly. The production of gemmules may have been brought about owing to the sponge being choked by the more vigorous growth of _S. carteri_, a species which grows to a considerable size in a comparatively short time, while _S. bombayensis_ apparently never reaches a thickness of more than a few millimetres. The manner in which the gemmules of _S. bombayensis_ are fastened to the solid support of the sponge must be particularly useful in enabling them to sprout in a convenient environment as soon as the water reaches them. The fact that the gemmules remained fixed without support renders it unnecessary for the skeleton to persist as a cage containing them (or at any rate a proportion of them) during the period of rest. Prof. Weber's specimens of _S. bombayensis_ were collected in a river, apparently on stones or rocks, towards the beginning of the S. African summer. They contain comparatively few gemmules and were evidently in a vigorous condition as regards vegetative growth. Unfortunately we know nothing of the seasonal changes which take place in freshwater sponges in S. Africa, but the difference between these changes in Europe and in India shows that they are dependent on environment as well as the idiosyncrasy of the species. It is very interesting, therefore, to see that the condition of sponges taken in S. Africa differs so widely from that of other individuals of the same species taken in India at the same season. In Prof. Weber's specimens I have found numerous small tubules of inorganic débris. These appear to be the work of Chironomid larvæ, of which there are several specimens loose in the bottle containing the sponges. Other tubules of a very similar appearance but with a delicate chitinoid foundation appear to be the remains of a species of _Plumatella_ of which they occasionally contain a statoblast. 14. Spongilla ultima*, _Annandale_. (Plate II, fig. 3.) _Spongilla ultima_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 31 (1910). _Sponge_ hard and strong, forming a thin layer on solid objects, of a pale green colour (dry); the oscula small but rendered conspicuous by the deep radiating furrows that surround them; external surface of the sponge rough but not spiny. _Skeleton_ forming a compact but somewhat irregular reticulation in which the radiating fibres are not very much more distinct than the transverse ones; a considerable amount of almost colourless spongin present. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, stout, amphioxous, as a rule straight or nearly straight, not infrequently inflated in the middle or otherwise irregular. No flesh-spicules. Gemmule-spicules variable in size, belonging to practically every type and exhibiting practically every abnormality possible in the genus, the majority being more or less sausage-shaped and having a roughened surface, but others being cruciform, spherical, subspherical, rosette-like, needle-like, bifid or even trifid at one extremity. [Illustration: Fig. 19.--Spicules of _Spongilla ultima_ (from type specimen), × 120.] _Gemmules_ adherent, spherical, large, each covered by two distinct layers of horizontal spicules; the outer layer intermixed with skeleton-spicules and often containing relatively large siliceous spheres, a large proportion of the spicules being irregular in shape; the spicules of the inner layer much more regular and as a rule sausage-shaped. The outer layer is contained in a chitinous membrane which spreads out over the base of the sponge. The foraminal tubules are short and straight. This sponge is allied to _S. bombayensis_, from which it is distinguished not only by the abnormal characters of its gemmule-spicules and the absence of flesh-spicules, but also by the form of its skeleton-spicules and the structure of its skeleton. I have examined several specimens dry and in spirit; but _S. ultima_ is the only Indian freshwater sponge, except _Corvospongilla burmanica_, I have not seen in a fresh condition. TYPES in the Indian Museum; co-types at Trivandrum. HABITAT. Discovered by Mr. R. Shunkara Narayana Pillay, of the Trivandrum Museum, in a tank near Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of the Indian Peninsula. Genus 2. PECTISPONGILLA, _Annandale_. _Pectispongilla_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, p. 103 (1909). TYPE, _Pectispongilla aurea_, Annandale. The structure of the sponge resembling that of _Euspongilla_ or _Ephydatia_; but the gemmule-spicules bear at either end, at one side only, a double vertical row of spines, so that they appear when viewed in profile like a couple of combs joined together by a smooth bar. [Illustration: Fig. 20.--Gemmule and spicules of _Pectispongilla aurea_ (type specimen). _a_, Skeleton-spicules; _b_, gemmule-spicules; _b'_, a single gemmule-spicule more highly magnified.] GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--The genus is monotypic and is only known from Travancore and Cochin in the south-west of the Indian Peninsula. 15. Pectispongilla aurea*, _Annandale_. _Pectispongilla aurea_, Annandale, _op. cit._, p. 103, pl. xii, fig. 2. _Sponge_ forming minute, soft, cushion-like masses of a deep golden colour (dull yellow in spirit); the surface smooth, minutely hispid. One relatively large depressed osculum usually present in each sponge; pores inconspicuous; dermal membrane in close contact with the parenchyma. _Skeleton_ consisting of slender and feebly coherent radiating fibres as a rule two or three spicules thick, with single spicules or ill-defined transverse fibres running horizontally. Towards the external surface transverse spicules are numerous, but they do not form any very regular structure. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, sharply pointed, straight or nearly so. Gemmule-spicules minute, with the stem smooth and cylindrical, relatively stout and much longer than the comb at either end; the two combs equal, with a number of minute, irregularly scattered spines between the two outer rows of stouter ones. No free microscleres. _Gemmules_ minute, spherical, with a single aperture, which is provided with a very short foraminal tubule; the granular coat well developed; the spicules arranged in a slanting position, but more nearly vertically than horizontally, with the combs pointing in all directions; no external chitinous membrane. Length of skeleton-spicule 0.2859 mm. Greatest diameter of skeleton-spicule 0.014 " Length of gemmule-spicule 0.032-0.036 mm. Length of comb of gemmule-spicule 0.008 mm. Greatest diameter of shaft of gemmule-spicule 0.004 " Diameter of gemmule 0.204-0.221 mm. The gemmule-spicules first appear as minute, smooth, needle-like bodies, which later become roughened on one side at either end and so finally assume the mature form. There are no bubble-cells in the parenchyma. 15_a._ Var. subspinosa*, nov. This variety differs from the typical form in having its skeleton spicules covered with minute irregular spines or conical projections. TYPES of both the typical form and the variety in the Indian Museum; co-types of the typical form in the Trivandrum Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--The same as that of the genus. _Localities_:--Tenmalai, at the base of the western slopes of the W. Ghats in Travancore (typical form) (_Annandale_); Ernakulam and Trichur in Cochin (var. _subspinosa_) (_G. Mathai_). BIOLOGY.--My specimens, which were taken in November, were growing on the roots of trees at the edge of an artificial pool by the roadside. They were in rather dense shade, but their brilliant golden colour made them conspicuous objects in spite of their small size. Mr. Mathai's specimens from Cochin were attached to water-weeds and to the husk of a cocoanut that had fallen or been thrown into the water. Genus 3. EPHYDATIA, _Lamouroux_. _Ephydatia_, Lamouroux, Hist. des Polyp. corall. flex.* p. 6 (_fide_ Weltner) (1816). _Ephydatia_, J. E. Gray, P. Zool. Soc. London. 1867, p. 550. _Trachyspongilla_, Dybowsky (_partim_), Zool. Anz. i, p. 53 (1874). _Meyenia_, Carter (_partim_), Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 90 (1881). _Carterella_, Potts & Mills (_partim_), P. Ac. Philad. 1881, p. 150. _Ephydatia_, Vejdovsky, Abh. Böhm. Ges. xii, p. 23 (1883). _Meyenia_, Potts (_partim_), _ibid._ 1887, p. 210. _Carterella_, _id._ (_partim_), _ibid._ 1887, p. 260. _Ephydatia_, Weltner (_partim_), Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), p. 121 (1895). _Ephydatia_, Annandale, P. U.S. Mus. xxxvii, p. 404 (1909). TYPE, (?) _Spongilla fluviatilis_, auctorum. This genus is separated from _Spongilla_ by the structure of the gemmule-spicules, which bear at either end a transverse disk with serrated or deeply notched edges, or at any rate with edges that are distinctly undulated. The disks are equal and similar. True flesh-spicules are usually absent, but more or less perfect birotulates exactly similar to those associated with the gemmules are often found free in the parenchyma. The skeleton is never very stout and the skeleton-spicules are usually slender. As has been already stated, some authors consider _Ephydatia_ as the type-genus of a subfamily distinguished from the subfamily of which _Spongilla_ is the type-genus by having rotulate gemmule-spicules. The transition between the two genera, however, is a very easy one. Many species of the subgenus _Euspongilla_, the typical subgenus of _Spongilla_ (including _S. lacustris_, the type-species of the genus), have the spines at the ends of the gemmule-spicules arranged in such a way as to suggest rudimentary rotules, while in the typical form of _S. crateriformis_ this formation is so distinct that the species has hitherto been placed in the genus _Ephydatia_ (_Meyenia_), although in some sponges that agree otherwise with the typical form of the species the gemmule-spicules are certainly not rotulate and in none do these spicules bear definite disks. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_Ephydatia_, except _Spongilla_, is the most generally distributed genus of the Spongillidæ, but in most countries it is not prolific in species. In Japan, however, it appears to predominate over _Spongilla_. Only one species is known from India, but another (_E. blembingia_*, Evans) has been described from the Malay Peninsula, while Weber found both the Indian species and a third (_E. bogorensis_*) in the Malay Archipelago. 16. Ephydatia meyeni* (_Carter_). _Spongilla meyeni_, Carter, J. Bomb. Asiat. Soc. iii, p. 33, pl. i, fig. 1, & Ann. Nat. Hist. (2) iv, p. 84, pl. iii, fig. 1 (1849). _Spongilla meyeni_, Bowerbank, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1863, p. 448, pl. xxxviii, fig. 4. _Spongilla meyeni_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 93 (1881). _Ephydatia fluviatilis_, Weber, Zool. Ergeb. Niederländ. Ost-Ind. i. pp. 32, 46 (1890). _Ephydatia mülleri_, Weltner (_partim_), Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), p. 125 (1895). _Ephydatia robusta_, Annandale, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1907, p. 24, fig. 7. _Ephydatia mülleri_ subsp. _meyeni_, _id._, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 306 (1908). _Sponge_ hard and firm but easily torn, usually of a clear white, sometimes tinged with green, forming irregular sheets or masses never of great thickness, without branches but often with stout subquadrate projections, the summits of which are marked with radiating grooves; the whole surface often irregularly nodulose and deeply pitted; the oscula inconspicuous; the membrane adhering closely to the parenchyma. _The parenchyma contains numerous bubble-cells_ (see p. 31, fig. 2). _Skeleton_ dense but by no means regular; the radiating fibres distinct and containing a considerable amount of spongin, at any rate in the outer part of the sponge; transverse fibres hardly distinguishable, single spicules and irregular bundles of spicules taking their place. [Illustration: Fig. 21.--Gemmule and spicules of _Ephydatia meyeni_ (from Calcutta). _a_, Skeleton-spicules; _b_, gemmule-spicules.] _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules entirely smooth, moderately stout, feebly curved, sharply pointed. No flesh-spicules. Gemmule-spicules with the shaft as a rule moderately stout, much longer than the diameter of one disk, smooth or with a few stout, straight horizontal spines, which are frequently bifid or trifid; the disks flat, of considerable size, with their margins cleanly and deeply divided into a comparatively small number of deep, slender, triangular processes of different sizes; the shaft extending not at all or very little beyond the disks. _Gemmules_ spherical, usually numerous and of rather large size; each covered by a thick layer of minute air-spaces, among which the gemmule-spicules are arranged vertically, often in two or even three concentric series; a single short foraminal tubule; the pneumatic coat confined externally by a delicate membrane, with small funnel-shaped pits over the spicules of the outer series. I think that the gemmules found by me in Bhim Tal and assigned to Potts's _Meyenia robusta_ belong to this species, but some of the spicules are barely as long as the diameter of the disks. In any case Potts's description is so short that the status of his species is doubtful. His specimens were from N. America. _E. meyeni_ is closely related to the two commonest Holarctic species of the genus, _E. fluviatilis_ and _E. mülleri_, which have been confused by several authors including Potts. From _E. fluviatilis_ it is distinguished by the possession of bubble-cells in the parenchyma, and from _E. mülleri_ by its invariably smooth skeleton-spicules and the relatively long shafts of its gemmule-spicules. The latter character is a marked feature of the specimens from the Malay Archipelago assigned by Prof. Max Weber to _E. fluviatilis_; I am indebted to his kindness for an opportunity of examining some of them. TYPE in the British Museum; a fragment in the Indian Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--India and Sumatra. _Localities_:--BENGAL, Calcutta and neighbourhood (_Annandale_); MADRAS PRESIDENCY, Cape Comorin, Travancore (_Trivandrum Mus._): BOMBAY PRESIDENCY, Island of Bombay (_Carter_): HIMALAYAS, Bhim Tal, Kumaon (alt. 4,500 feet) (_Annandale_). BIOLOGY.--My experience agrees with Carter's, that this species is never found on floating objects but always on stones or brickwork. It grows in the Calcutta "tanks" on artificial stonework at the edge of the water, together with _Spongilla carteri_, _S. alba_, _S. fragilis_ subsp. _calcuttana_, and _Trochospongilla latouchiana_. It flourishes during the cold weather and often occupies the same position in succeeding years. In this event the sponge usually consists of a dead base, which is of a dark brownish colour and contains no cells, and a living upper layer of a whitish colour. The larva of _Sisyra indica_ is sometimes found in the canals, but the close texture of the sponge does not encourage the visits of other _incolæ_. Genus 4. DOSILIA, _Gray_. _Dosilia_, J. E. Gray, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1867, p. 550. TYPE, _Spongilla plumosa_, Carter. This genus is distinguished from _Ephydatia_ by the nature of the free microscleres, the microscleres of the gemmule being similar in the two genera. The free microscleres consist as a rule of several or many shafts meeting together in several or many planes at a common centre, which is usually nodular. The free ends of these shafts often possess rudimentary rotulæ. Occasionally a free microsclere may be found that is a true monaxon and sometimes such spicules are more or less distinctly birotulate. The skeleton is also characteristic. It consists mainly of radiating fibres which bifurcate frequently in such a way that a bush-like structure is produced. Transverse fibres are very feebly developed and are invisible to the naked eye. Owing to the structure of the skeleton the sponge has a feathery appearance. Gray originally applied the name _Dosilia_ to this species and to _"Spongilla" baileyi_, Bowerbank. It is doubtful how far his generic description applies to the latter, which I have not seen; but although the position of _"Spongilla" baileyi_ need not be discussed here, I may say that I do not regard it as a congener of _Dosilia plumosa_, the free microscleres of which are of a nature rare but not unique in the family. With _Dosilia plumosa_ we must, in any case, associate in one genus the two forms that have been described as varieties, viz., _palmeri_*, Potts from Texas and Mexico, and _brouini_*, Kirkpatrick from the White Nile. By the kindness of the authorities of the Smithsonian Institution and the British Museum I have been able to examine specimens of all three forms, in each case identified by the author of the name, and I am inclined to regard them as three very closely allied but distinct species. Species with free microscleres similar to those of these three forms but with heterogeneous or tubelliform gemmule-spicules will probably need the creation of a new genus or new genera for their reception. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--The typical species occurs in Bombay and Madras; _D. palmeri_ has probably an extensive range in the drier parts of Mexico and the neighbouring States, while _D. brouini_ has only been found on the banks of the White Nile above Khartoum, in Tropical Africa. 17. Dosilia plumosa* (_Carter_). _Spongilla plumosa_, Carter, J. Bomb. Asiat. Soc. iii, p. 34, pl. i, fig. 2, & Ann. Nat. Hist. (2) iv, p. 85, pl. iii, fig. 2 (1849). _Spongilla plumosa_, Bowerbank, P. Zool. Soc. London, 1863, p. 449, pl. xxxviii, fig. 5. _Dosilia plumosa_, J. E. Gray, _ibid._ 1867, p. 551. _Meyenia plumosa_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 94, pl. v, fig. 6 (1881). _Meyenia plumosa_, Potts, P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 233. _Ephydatia plumosa_, Weltner, Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), p. 126 (1895). _Ephydatia plumosa_, Petr, Rozp. Ceske Ak. Praze, Trída ii, pl. ii, figs. 29, 30 (text in Czech) (1899). _Sponge_ forming soft irregular masses which are sometimes as much as 14 cm. in diameter, of a pale brown or brilliant green colour; no branches developed but the surface covered with irregular projections usually of a lobe-like nature. _Skeleton_ delicate, with the branches diverging widely, exhibiting the characteristic structure of the genus in a marked degree, containing a considerable amount of chitin, which renders it resistant in spite of its delicacy. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, sharply pointed, nearly straight, moderately slender, about twenty times as long as their greatest transverse diameter. Flesh-spicules occasionally amphioxous or birotulate and with a single shaft, more frequently consisting of many shafts meeting in a distinct central nodule, which is itself smooth; the shafts irregularly spiny, usually more or less nodular at the tip, which often bears a distinct circle of recurved spines that give it a rotulate appearance. Gemmule-spicules with long, slender, straight shafts, which bear short, slender, straight, horizontal spines sparsely and irregularly scattered over their surface; the rotulæ distinctly convex when seen in profile; their edge irregularly and by no means deeply notched; the shafts not extending beyond their surface but clearly seen from above as circular umbones. [Illustration: Fig. 22.--_Dosilia plumosa._ A=microscleres, × 240; B=gemmule as seen in optical section from below, × 75. (From Rambha.)] _Gemmules._ Somewhat depressed, covered with a thick granular pneumatic coat, in which the spicules stand erect; the single aperture depressed. Each gemmule surrounded more or less distinctly by a circle or several circles of flesh-spicules. TYPE in the British Museum; some fragments in the Indian Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--Bombay and Madras. Carter's specimens were taken in the island of Bombay, mine at Rambha in the north-east of the Madras Presidency. I have been unable to discover this species in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, but it is apparently rare wherever it occurs. BIOLOGY.--Carter writes as regards this species:--"This is the coarsest and most resistant of all the species. As yet I have only found three or four specimens of it, and these only in two tanks. I have never seen it fixed on any solid body, but always floating on the surface of the water, about a month after the first heavy rains of the S.W. monsoon have fallen. Having made its appearance in that position, and having remained there for upwards of a month, it then sinks to the bottom. That it grows like the rest, adherent to the sides of the tank, must be inferred from the first specimen which I found (which exceeds two feet in circumference) having had a free and a fixed surface, the latter coloured by the red gravel on which it had grown. I have noticed it growing, for two successive years in the month of July, on the surface of the water of one of the two tanks in which I have found it, and would account for its temporary appearance in that position, in the following way, viz., that soon after the first rains have fallen, and the tanks have become filled, all the sponges in them appear to undergo a partial state of putrescency, during which gas is generated in them, and accumulates in globules in their structure, through which it must burst, or tear them from their attachments and force them to the surface of the water. Since then the coarse structure of _plumosa_ would appear to offer greater resistance to the escape of this air, than that of any of the other species, it is probable that this is the reason of my having hitherto only found it in the position mentioned." It seems to me more probable that the sponges are actually broken away from their supports by the violence of the rain and retain air mechanically in their cavities. The only specimens of _D. plumosa_ that I have seen alive were attached very loosely to their support. In writing of the "coarse structure" of this species, Carter evidently alludes to the wide interspaces between the component branches of the skeleton. My specimens were attached to the stem of a water-lily growing in a pool of slightly brackish water and were of a brilliant green colour. I mistook them at first for specimens of _S. lacustris_ subsp. _reticulata_ in which the branches had not developed normally. They were taken in March and were full of gemmules. The pool in which they were growing had already begun to dry up. Genus 5. TROCHOSPONGILLA, _Vejdovsky_. _Trochospongilla_, Vejdovsky, Abh. K. Böhm. Ges. Wiss. xii, p. 31 (1883). _Trochospongilla_, Wierzejski, Arch. Slaves de Biologie, i, p. 44 (1886). _Trochospongilla_, Vejdovsky, P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 176. _Meyenia_, Potts (_partim_), _ibid._ p. 210. _Tubella_, _id._ (_partim_), _ibid._, p. 248. _Meyenia_, Carter (_partim_), Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 90 (1881). _Trochospongilla_, Weltner, in Zacharias's Tier- und Pflanzenwelt, i, p. 215 (1891). _Trochospongilla_, _id._, Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), p. 120 (1895). _Tubella_, _id._ (_partim_), _ibid._ p. 128. TYPE, _Spongilla erinaceus_, Ehrenberg. The characteristic feature of this genus is that the rotulæ of the gemmule-spicules, which are homogeneous, have smooth instead of serrated edges. Their stem is always short and they are usually embedded in a granular pneumatic coat. The sponge is small in most of the species as yet known; in some species microscleres without rotulæ are associated with the gemmules. [Illustration: Fig. 23.--A=skeleton-spicule of _Trochospongilla latouchiana_; A'=gemmule-spicule of the same species; B=gemmule of _T. phillottiana_ as seen in optical section from above; B'=skeleton-spicule of same species: A, A', B' × 240; B × 75. All specimens from Calcutta.] I think it best to include in this genus, as the original diagnosis would suggest, all those species in which all the gemmule-spicules are definitely birotulate and have smooth edges to their disks, confining the name _Tubella_ to those in which the upper rotula is reduced to a mere knob. Even in those species in which the two disks are normally equal, individual spicules may be found in which the equality is only approximate, while, on the other hand, it is by no means uncommon for individual spicules in such species as _"Tubella" pennsylvanica_, which is here included in _Trochospongilla_, to have the two disks nearly equal, although normally the upper one is much smaller than the lower. There is very rarely any difficulty, however, in seeing at a glance whether the edge of the disk is smooth or serrated, the only species in which this difficulty would arise being, so far as I am aware, the Australian _Ephydatia capewelli_* (Haswell), the disks of which are undulated and nodulose rather than serrated. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--The genus includes so large a proportion of small, inconspicuous species that its distribution is probably known but imperfectly. It would seem to have its headquarters in N. America but also occurs in Europe and Asia. In India three species have been found, one of which (_T. pennsylvanica_) has an extraordinarily wide and apparently discontinuous range, being common in N. America, and having been found in the west of Ireland, the Inner Hebrides, and near the west coast of S. India. The other two Indian species are apparently of not uncommon occurrence in eastern India and Burma. _Key to the Indian Species of_ Trochospongilla. I. Rotules of the gemmule-spicules equal or nearly so. A. Skeleton-spicules smooth, usually pointed _latouchiana_, p. 115. B. Skeleton-spicules spiny, blunt _phillottiana_, p. 117. II. Upper rotule of the gemmule-spicules distinctly smaller than the lower. Skeleton-spicules spiny, pointed _pennsylvanica_, p. 118. 18. Trochospongilla latouchiana*, _Annandale_. _Trochospongilla latouchiana_, Annandale, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1907, p. 21, fig. 5. _Trochospongilla latouchiana_, _id._, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 157 (1908). _Trochospongilla leidyi_, _id._ (_nec_ Bowerbank), _ibid._ iii, p. 103 (1909). [Illustration: Fig. 24.--_Trochospongilla latouchiana._ Vertical section of part of skeleton with gemmules _in situ_, × 30; also a single gemmule, × 70. (From Calcutta).] _Sponge_ forming cushion-shaped masses rarely more than a few centimetres in diameter or thickness and of a brown or yellow colour, hard but rather brittle; surface evenly rounded, minutely hispid; oscula inconspicuous, small, circular, depressed, very few in number; external membrane adhering closely to the parenchyma; a chitinous membrane at the base of the sponge. Larger sponges divided into several layers by similar membranes. _Skeleton_ dense, forming a close reticulation; radiating fibres slender but quite distinct, running up right through the sponge, crossed at frequent intervals by single spicules or groups of spicules. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, about twenty times as long as the greatest transverse diameter, as a rule sharply pointed; smooth amphistrongyli, which are often inflated in the middle, sometimes mixed with them but never in large numbers. No flesh-spicules. Gemmule-spicules with the rotulæ circular or slightly asymmetrical, flat or nearly flat, marked with a distinct double circle as seen from above, sometimes not quite equal; the shaft not projecting beyond them; the diameter of the rotule 4-1/2 to 5 times that of the shaft, which is about 2-2/3 times as long as broad. _Gemmules_ small (0.2 × 0.18 mm.), as a rule very numerous and scattered throughout the sponge, flask-shaped, clothed when mature with a thin microcell coat in which the birotulates are arranged with overlapping rotulæ, their outer rotulæ level with the surface; foraminal aperture circular, situated on an eminence. _Average Measurements._ Diameter of gemmule 0.2 × 0.18 mm. Length of skeleton-spicule 0.28 " Length of birotulate-spicule 0.175 " Diameter of rotula 0.02 " _T. latouchiana_ is closely related to _T. leidyi_ (Bowerbank) from N. America, but is distinguished by its much more slender skeleton-spicules, by the fact that the gemmules are not enclosed in cages of megascleres or confined to the base of the sponge, and by differences in the structure of the skeleton. TYPE in the Indian Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--Lower Bengal and Lower Burma. _Localities_:--BENGAL, Calcutta and neighbourhood (_Annandale_): BURMA, Kawkareik, Amherst district, Tenasserim (_Annandale_). BIOLOGY.--This species, which is common in the Museum tank, Calcutta, is apparently one of those that can grow at any time of year, provided that it is well covered with water. Like _T. leidyi_ it is capable of producing fresh layers of living sponge on the top of old ones, from which they are separated by a chitinous membrane. These layers are not, however, necessarily produced in different seasons, for it is often clear from the nature of the object to which the sponge is attached that they must all have been produced in a short space of time. What appears to happen in most cases is this:--A young sponge grows on a brick, the stem of a reed or some other object at or near the edge of a pond, the water in which commences to dry up. As the sponge becomes desiccated its cells perish. Its gemmules are, however, retained in the close-meshed skeleton, which persists without change of form. A heavy shower of rain then falls, and the water rises again over the dried sponge. The gemmules germinate immediately and their contents spread out over the old skeleton, secrete a chitinous membrane and begin to build up a new sponge. The process may be repeated several times at the change of the seasons or even during the hot weather, or after a "break in the rains." If, however, the dried sponge remains exposed to wind and rain for more than a few months, it begins to disintegrate and its gemmules are carried away to other places. Owing to their thin pneumatic coat and relatively heavy spicules they are not very buoyant. Even in the most favourable circumstances the sponge of _T. latouchiana_ never forms sheets of great area. In spite of its rapid growth it is frequently overgrown by _Spongilla carteri_. 19. Trochospongilla phillottiana*, _Annandale_. _Trochospongilla phillottiana_, Annandale, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1907, p. 22, fig. 6. _Trochospongilla phillottiana_, _id._, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 269 (1907). _Trochospongilla phillottiana_, _id._, _ibid._ ii, p. 157 (1908). _Sponge_ hard but friable, forming sheets or patches often of great extent but never more than about 5 mm. thick; the surface minutely hispid, flat; colour pale yellow, the golden-yellow gemmules shining through the sponge in a very conspicuous manner; oscula inconspicuous; external membrane adherent; no basal chitinous membrane. _Skeleton_ dense but by no means strong; the reticulation close but produced mainly by single spicules, which form triangular meshes; radiating fibres never very distinct, only persisting for a short distance in a vertical direction; each gemmule enclosed in an open, irregular cage of skeleton-spicules. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules short, slender, blunt, more or less regularly and strongly spiny, straight or feebly curved. No flesh-spicules. Gemmule-spicules with the rotulæ circular, very wide as compared with the shaft, concave on the surface, with the shaft projecting as an umbo on the surface; the lower rotula often a little larger than the upper. _Gemmules_ numerous, situated at the base of the sponge in irregular, one-layered patches, small (0.32 × 0.264 mm.), of a brilliant golden colour, distinctly wider than high, with a single aperture situated on an eminence on the apex, each clothed (when mature) with a pneumatic coat that contains relatively large but irregular air-spaces among which the spicules stand with the rotulæ overlapping alternately, a funnel-shaped pit in the coat descending from the surface to the upper rotula of each of them; the surface of the gemmule covered with irregular projections. Diameter of gemmule 0.32 × 0.264 mm. Length of skeleton-spicule 0.177 " Length of gemmule-spicule 0.015 " Diameter of rotule 0.022 " This species appears to be related to _T. pennsylvanica_, from which it differs mainly in the form of its gemmule-spicules and the structure of its gemmule. My original description was based on specimens in which the gemmule-spicules were not quite mature. TYPE in the Indian Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--Lower Bengal and Lower Burma. _Localities_:--BENGAL, Calcutta (_Annandale_): BURMA, jungle pool near Kawkareik, Amherst district, Tenasserim (_Annandale_). BIOLOGY.--This species covers a brick wall at the edge of the Museum tank in Calcutta every year during the "rains." In the cold weather the wall is left dry, but it is usually submerged to a depth of several feet before the middle of July. It is then rapidly covered by a thin layer of the sponge, which dies down as soon as the water begins to sink when the "rains" are over. For some months the gemmules adhere to the wall on account of the cage of spicules in which each of them is enclosed, but long before the water rises again the cages disintegrate and the gemmules are set free. Many of them fall or are carried by the wind into the water, on the surface of which, owing to their thick pneumatic coat, they float buoyantly. Others are lodged in cavities in the wall. On the water the force of gravity attracts them to one another and to the edge of the pond, and as the water rises they are carried against the wall and germinate. In thick jungle at the base of the Dawna Hills near Kawkareik[AI] in the interior of Tenasserim, I found the leaves of shrubs which grew round a small pool, covered with little dry patches of the sponge, which had evidently grown upon them when the bushes were submerged. This was in March, during an unusually severe drought. [Footnote AI: This locality is often referred to in zoological literature as Kawkare_et_ or Kawkari_t_, or even K_o_kari_t_.] 20. Trochospongilla pennsylvanica* (_Potts_). _Tubella pennsylvanica_, Potts, P. Ac. Philad. 1882, p. 14. _Tubella pennsylvanica_, _id._, _ibid._ 1887, p. 251, pl. vi, fig. 2, pl. xii, figs. 1-3. _Tubella pennsylvanica_, Mackay, Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, 1889, Sec. iv, p. 95. _Tubella pennsylvanica_, Hanitsch, Nature, li, p. 511 (1895). _Tubella pennsylvanica_, Weltner, Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), p. 128 (1895). _Tubella pennsylvanica_, Hanitsch, Irish Natural. iv, p. 129 (1895). _Tubella pennsylvanica_, Annandale, J. Linn. Soc., Zool., xxx, p. 248 (1908). _Tubella pennsylvanica_, _id._, Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, p. 102 (1909). _Tubella_ _pennsylvanica_, _id._, P. U.S. Mus. xxxvii, p. 403, fig. 2 (1909). _Sponge_ soft, fragile, forming small cushion-shaped masses, grey or green; oscula few in number, often raised on sloping eminences surrounded by radiating furrows below the external membrane; external membrane adhering to the parenchyma. _Skeleton_ close, almost structureless. "Surface of mature specimens often found covered with parallel skeleton spicules, not yet arranged to form cell-like interspaces" (_Potts_). _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules slender, cylindrical, almost straight, sharp or blunt, minutely, uniformly or almost uniformly spined; spines sometimes absent at the tips. No flesh-spicules. Gemmule-spicules with the lower rotula invariably larger than the upper; both rotulæ flat or somewhat sinuous in profile, usually circular but sometimes asymmetrical or subquadrate in outline, varying considerably in size. _Gemmules_ small, numerous or altogether absent, covered with a granular pneumatic coat of variable thickness; the rotulæ of the gemmule-spicules overlapping and sometimes projecting out of the granular coat. The measurements of the spicules and gemmules of an Indian specimen and of one from Lehigh Gap, Pennsylvania, are given for comparison:-- Travancore. Pennsylvania. Length of skeleton-spicules 0.189-0.242 mm. 0.16-0.21 mm. (average 0.205 mm.) (average 0.195 mm.) Breadth " " 0.0084-0.0155 mm. 0.0084 mm. Length of birotulate 0.0126 " 0.0099 " Diameter of upper rotula 0.0084 " 0.0084 " " lower " 0.0169 " 0.0168 " " gemmule 0.243-0.348 mm. 0.174-0.435 mm. The spicules of the Travancore specimen are, therefore, a trifle larger than those of the American one, but the proportions are closely similar. The difference between the gemmule-spicules of this species and those of such a form as _T. phillottiana_ is merely one of degree and can hardly be regarded as a sufficient justification for placing the two species in different genera. If, as I have proposed, we confine the generic name _Tubella_ to those species in which the gemmule-spicules are really like "little trumpets," the arrangement is a much more natural one, for these species have much in common apart from the gemmule-spicules. _T. pennsylvanica_ does not appear to be very closely related to any other known species except _T. phillottiana_. TYPE in the U.S. National Museum, from which specimens that appear to be co-types have been sent to the Indian Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--Very wide and apparently discontinuous:--N. America (widely distributed), Ireland (_Hanitsch_), Hebrides of Scotland (_Annandale_), Travancore, S. India (_Annandale_). The only Indian locality whence I have obtained specimens is Shasthancottah Lake near Quilon in Travancore. BIOLOGY.--In Shasthancottah Lake _T. pennsylvanica_ is found on the roots of water-plants that are matted together to form floating islands. It appears to avoid light and can only be obtained from roots that have been pulled out from under the islands. In Scotland I found it on the lower surface of stones near the edge of Loch Baa, Isle of Mull. In such circumstances the sponge is of a greyish colour, but specimens of the variety _minima_ taken by Potts on rocks and boulders in Bear Lake, Pennsylvania, were of a bright green. Sponges taken in Travancore in November were full of gemmules; in my Scottish specimens (taken in October) I can find no traces of these bodies, but embryos are numerous. Genus 6. TUBELLA, _Carter_. _Tubella_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 96 (1881). _Tubella_, Potts (_partim_), P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 248. _Tubella_, Weltner (_partim_), Arch. Naturg. lxi (i), p. 128 (1895). TYPE, _Spongilla paulula_, Bowerbank. This genus is distinguished from _Ephydatia_ and _Trochospongilla_ by the fact that the two ends of the gemmule-spicules are unlike not only in size but also in form. It sometimes happens that this unlikeness is not so marked in some spicules as in others, but in some if not in all the upper end of the shaft (that is to say the end furthest removed from the inner coat of the gemmule in the natural position) is reduced to a rounded knob, while the lower end expands into a flat transverse disk with a smooth or denticulated edge. The spicule thus resembles a little trumpet resting on its mouth. The shaft of the spicule is generally slender and of considerable length. The skeleton of the sponge is as a rule distinctly reticulate and often hard; the skeleton-spicules are either slender or stout and sometimes change considerably in proportions and outline as they approach the gemmules. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--The genus is widely distributed in the tropics of both Hemispheres, its headquarters apparently being in S. America; but it is nowhere rich in species. Only two are known from the Oriental Region, namely _T. vesparium_* from Borneo, and _T. vesparioides_* from Burma. 21. Tubella vesparioides*, _Annandale_. (Plate II, fig. 4.) _Tubella vesparioides_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 157 (1908). _Sponge_ forming rather thick sheets of considerable size, hard but brittle, almost black in colour; oscula inconspicuous; external membrane supported on a reticulate horizontal skeleton. _Skeleton._ The surface covered with a network of stout spicule-fibres, the interstices of which are more or less deeply sunk, with sharp fibres projecting vertically upwards at the nodes; the whole mass pervaded by a similar network, which is composed of a considerable number of spicules lying parallel to one another, overlapping at the ends and bound together by a profuse secretion of spongin. [Illustration: Fig. 25.--Spicules of _Tubella vesparioides_ (from type specimen). × 240.] _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules slender, smooth, amphioxous, bent in a wide arc or, not infrequently, at an angle. No true flesh-spicules. Gemmule-spicules terminating above in a rounded, knob-like structure and below in a relatively broad, flat rotula, which is very deeply and irregularly indented round the edge when mature, the spicules at an earlier stage of development having the form of a sharp pin with a round head; shaft of adult spicules projecting slightly below the rotula, long, slender, generally armed with a few stout conical spines, which stand out at right angles to it. _Gemmules_ numerous throughout the sponge, spherical, provided with a short, straight foraminal tubule, surrounded by one row of spicules, which are embedded in a rather thin granular coat. Average length of skeleton-spicule 0.316 mm. " breadth of skeleton-spicule 0.0135 " " length of gemmule-spicule 0.046 " " diameter of rotula 0.0162 " " " gemmule 0.446 " This sponge is closely related to _Tubella vesparium_ (v. Martens) from Borneo, from which it may be distinguished by its smooth skeleton-spicules and the deeply indented disk of its gemmule-spicules. The skeleton-fibres are also rather less stout. By the kindness of Dr. Weltner, I have been able to compare types of the two species. TYPE in the Indian Museum. HABITAT.--Taken at the edge of the Kanghyi ("great pond") at Mudon near Moulmein in the Amherst district of Tenasserim. The specimens were obtained in March in a dry state and had grown on logs and branches which had evidently been submerged earlier in the year. The name _vesparium_ given to the allied species on account of its resemblance to a wasps' nest applies with almost equal force to this Burmese form. Genus 7. CORVOSPONGILLA, nov. TYPE[AJ], _Spongilla loricata_, Weltner. [Footnote AJ: Potts's _Spongilla novæ-terræ_ from Newfoundland and N. America cannot belong to this genus although it has similar flesh-spicules, for, as Weltner has pointed out (_op. cit. supra_ p. 126), the gemmule-spicules are abortive rotulæ. This is shown very clearly in the figure published by Petr (Rozp. Ceske Ak. Praze, Trída, ii, pl. ii, figs. 27, 28, 1899), who assigns the species to _Heteromeyenia_. Weltner places it in _Ephydatia_, and it seems to be a connecting link between the two genera. It has been suggested that it is a hybrid (Traxler, Termes. Fuzetek, xxi, p. 314, 1898).] Spongillidæ in which the gemmule-spicules are without a trace of rotulæ and the flesh-spicules have slender cylindrical shafts that bear at or near either end a circle of strong recurved spines. The gemmule-spicules are usually stout and sausage-shaped, and the gemmules resemble those of _Stratospongilla_ in structure. The skeleton is strong and the skeleton-spicules stout, both resembling those of the "genus" _Potamolepis_, Marshall. As in all other genera of Spongillidæ the structure of the skeleton is somewhat variable, the spicule-fibres of which it is composed being much more distinct in some species than in others. The skeleton-spicules are often very numerous and in some cases the skeleton is so compact and rigid that the sponge may be described as stony. The flesh-spicules closely resemble the gemmule-spicules of some species of _Ephydatia_ and _Heteromeyenia_. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--The species of this genus are probably confined to Africa (whence at least four are known) and the Oriental Region. One has been recorded from Burma and another from the Bombay Presidency. _Key to the Indian Species of_ Corvospongilla. I. Gemmule with two layers of gemmule-spicules; those of the inner layer not markedly smaller than those of the outer. _burmanica_, p. 123. II. Gemmule with two layers of gemmule-spicules, the outer of which contains spicules of much greater size than the inner. _lapidosa_, p. 124. 22. Corvospongilla burmanica* (_Kirkpatrick_). (Plate II, fig. 5.) _Spongilla loricata_ var. _burmanica_, Kirkpatrick, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 97, pl. ix (1908). _Sponge_ forming a shallow sheet, hard, not very strong, of a pale brownish colour; the surface irregularly spiny; the oscula small but conspicuous, circular, raised on little turret-like eminences; the external membrane adhering closely to the sponge. _Skeleton_ dense but by no means regular; the network composed largely of single spines; thick radiating fibres distinguishable in the upper part of the sponge. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules smooth, not very stout, amphistrongylous, occasionally a little swollen at the ends, often with one or more fusiform swellings, measuring on an average about 0.27 × 0.0195 mm. Flesh-spicules with distinct rotules, the recurved spines numbering 4 to 6, measuring about 1/7 the length of the spicules; the shaft by no means strongly curved; their length from 0.03-0.045 mm. Gemmule-spicules amphioxous, as a rule distinctly curved, sometimes swollen at the ends, covered regularly but somewhat sparsely with fine spines, not measuring more than 0.49 × 0.078 mm. _Gemmules_ strongly adherent, arranged in small groups, either single or double; when single spherical, when double oval; each gemmule or pair of gemmules covered by two layers of gemmule-spicules bound together in chitinous substance; the inner layer on the inner coat of the gemmule, the outer one separated from it by a space and in contact with the outer cage of skeleton-spicules; the size of the gemmule-spicules variable in both layers; external to the outer layer a dense cage of skeleton-spicules; foraminal tubule short, cylindrical. This sponge is closely related to _S. loricata_, Weltner, of which Kirkpatrick regards it as a variety. "The main difference," he writes, "between the typical African form and the Burmese variety consists in the former having much larger microstrongyles (83 × 15.7 µ [0.83 × 0.157 mm.]) with larger and coarser spines;... Judging from Prof. Weltner's sections of gemmules, these bodies lack the definite outer shell of smooth macrostrongyles [blunt skeleton-spicules], though this may not improbably be due to the breaking down and removal of this layer. A further difference consists in the presence, in the African specimen, of slender, finely spined strongyles [amphistrongyli], these being absent in the Burmese form, though perhaps this fact is not of much importance." TYPE in the British Museum; a piece in the Indian Museum. HABITAT.--Myitkyo, head of the Pegu-Sittang canal, Lower Burma (_E. W. Oates_). BIOLOGY.--The sponge had grown over a sheet of the polyzoon _Hislopia lacustris_, Carter (see p. 204), remains of which can be detected on its lower surface. "Mr. E. W. Oates, who collected and presented the sponge, writes that the specimen was found encrusting the vertical and horizontal surfaces of the bottom beam of a lock gate, where it covered an area of six square feet. The beam had been tarred several times before the sponge was discovered. The portion of the gate on which the sponge was growing was submerged from November to May for eight hours a day at spring tides, but was entirely dry during the six days of neap tides. From May to October it was constantly submerged. The sponge was found in April. Although the canal is subject to the tides, the water at the lock is always fresh. The colour of the sponge during life was the same as in its present condition." 23. Corvospongilla lapidosa* (_Annandale_). _Spongilla lapidosa_ Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, pp. 25, 26, figs. 3, 4, 5 (1908). The _sponge_ forms a thin but extremely hard and resistant crust the surface of which is either level, slightly concave, or distinctly corrugated; occasional groups of spicules project from it, but their arrangement is neither so regular nor so close as is the case in _C. burmanica_. The dermal membrane adheres closely to the sponge. The oscula are small; some of them are raised above the general surface but not on regular turret-shaped eminences. The colour is grey or black. There is a thick chitinous membrane at the base of the sponge. [Illustration: Fig. 26.--Spicules of _Corvospongilla lapidosa_ (from type specimen), × 240.] The _skeleton_ is extremely dense owing to the large number of spicules it contains, but almost structureless; broad vertical groups of spicules occur but lack spongin and only traverse a small part of the thickness of the sponge; their position is irregular. The firmness of the skeleton is due almost entirely to the interlocking of individual spicules. At the base of the sponge the direction of a large proportion of the spicules is horizontal or nearly horizontal, the number arranged vertically being much greater in the upper part. _Spicules._ The skeleton-spicules are sausage-shaped and often a little swollen at the ends or constricted in the middle. A large proportion are twisted or bent in various ways, and a few bear irregular projections or swellings. The majority, however, are quite smooth. Among them a few more or less slender, smooth amphioxi occur, but these are probably immature spicules. The length and curvature of the amphistrongyli varies considerably, but the average measurements are about 0.28 × 0.024 mm. The flesh-spicules also vary greatly in length and in the degree to which their shafts are curved. At first sight it seems to be possible to separate them into two categories, one in which the shaft is about 0.159 mm. long, and another in which it is only 0.05 mm. or even less; and groups of birotulates of approximately the same length often occur in the interstices of the skeleton. Spicules of all intermediate lengths can, however, be found. The average diameter of the shaft is 0.0026 mm. and of the rotula 0.0106 mm., and the rotula consists of from 6 to 8 spines. The gemmule-spicules vary greatly in size, the longest measuring about 0.08 × 0.014 and the smallest about 0.034 × 0.007 or even less. There appears to be in their case an even more distinct separation as regards size than there is in that of the flesh-spicules; but here again intermediate forms occur. They are all stout, more or less blunt, and more or less regularly covered with very short spines; most of them are distinctly curved, but some are quite straight. _Gemmules._ The gemmules are firmly adherent to the support of the sponge, at the base of which they are congregated in groups of four or more. They vary considerably in size and shape, many of them being asymmetrical and some elongate and sausage-shaped. The latter consist of single gemmules and not of a pair in one case. Extreme forms measure 0.38 × 0.29 and 0.55 × 0.25. Each gemmule is covered with a thick chitinous membrane in close contact with its wall and surrounding it completely. This membrane is full of spicules arranged as in a mosaic; most or all of them belong to the smaller type, and as a rule they are fairly uniform in size. Separated from this layer by a considerable interval is another layer of spicules embedded in a chitinous membrane which is in continuity with the basal membrane of the sponge. The spicules in this membrane mostly belong to the larger type and are very variable in size; mingled with them are often a certain number of birotulate flesh-spicules. The membrane is in close contact with a dense cage of skeleton-spicules arranged parallel to it and bound together by chitinous substance. The walls of this cage, when they are in contact with those of the cages of other gemmules, are coterminous with them. There is a single depressed aperture in the gemmules, as a rule situated on one of the longer sides. This sponge is distinguished from _C. burmanica_ not only by differences in external form, in the proportions of the spicules and the structure of the skeleton, but also by the peculiar nature of the armature of the gemmule. The fact that birotulate spicules are often found in close association with them, is particularly noteworthy. TYPE in the Indian Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--This sponge has only been found in the Western Ghats of the Bombay Presidency. _Localities_:--Igatpuri Lake and the R. Godaveri at Nasik. BIOLOGY.--There is a remarkable difference in external form between the specimens taken in Igatpuri and those from Nasik, and this difference is apparently due directly to environment. In the lake, the waters of which are free from mud, the sponges were growing on the lower surface of stones near the edge. They formed small crusts not more than about 5 cm. (2 inches) in diameter and of a pale greyish colour. Their surface was flat or undulated gently, except round the oscula where it was raised into sharply conical eminences with furrowed sides. The specimens from Nasik, which is about 30 miles from Igatpuri, were attached, together with specimens of _Spongilla cinerea_ and _S. indica_, to the sides of a stone conduit full of very muddy running water. They were black in colour, formed broad sheets and were markedly corrugated on the surface. Their oscula were not raised on conical eminences and were altogether most inconspicuous. The skeleton was also harder than that of sponges from the lake. In the lake _C. lapidosa_ was accompanied by the gemmules of _Spongilla bombayensis_, but it is interesting that whereas the latter sponge was entirely in a resting condition, the former was in full vegetative vigour, a fact which proves, if proof were necessary, that the similar conditions of environment do not invariably have the same effect on different species of Spongillidæ. APPENDIX TO PART I. FORM OF UNCERTAIN POSITION. (Plate I, fig. 4.) On more than one occasion I have found in my aquarium in Calcutta small sponges of a peculiar type which I am unable to refer with certainty to any of the species described above. Fig. 4, pl. I, represents one of these sponges. They are never more than about a quarter of an inch in diameter and never possess more than one osculum. They are cushion-shaped, colourless and soft. The skeleton-spicules are smooth, sharply pointed, moderately slender and relatively large. They are arranged in definite vertical groups, which project through the dermal membrane, and in irregular transverse formation. Small spherical gemmules are present but have only a thin chitinous covering without spicules or foramen. These sponges probably represent an abnormal form of some well-known species, possibly of _Spongilla carteri_. I have seen nothing like them in natural conditions. PART II. FRESHWATER POLYPS (HYDRIDA). INTRODUCTION TO PART II. I. THE PHYLUM COELENTERATA AND THE CLASS HYDROZOA. The second of the great groups or phyla into which the metazoa are divided is the Coelenterata, in which are included most of the animals commonly known as zoophytes, and also the corals, sea-anemones and jelly-fish. These animals are distinguished from the sponges on the one hand and from the worms, molluscs, arthropods, vertebrates, etc., on the other by possessing a central cavity (the coelenteron or "hollow inside") the walls of which are the walls of the body and consist of _two_ layers of cells separated by a structureless, or apparently structureless, jelly. This cavity has as a main function that of a digestive cavity. An ideally simple coelenterate would not differ much in general appearance from an olynthus (p. 27), but it would have no pores in the body-wall and its upper orifice would probably be surrounded by prolongations of the body-wall in the form of tentacles. There would be no collar-cells, and the cells of the body generally would have a much more fixed and definite position and more regular functions than those of any sponge. The most characteristic of them would be the so-called cnidoblasts. Each of these cells contains a capsule[AK] from which a long thread-like body can be suddenly uncoiled and shot out. [Footnote AK: Similar capsules are found in the tissues of certain worms and molluscs, but there is the strongest evidence that these animals, which habitually devour coelenterates, are able to swallow the capsules uninjured and to use them as weapons of defence (see Martin, Q. J. Micro. Sci. London, lii, p. 261, 1908, and Grosvenor, Proc. Roy. Soc. London, lxxii, p. 462, 1903). The "trichocysts" of certain protozoa bear a certain resemblance to the nettle-cells of coelenterates and probably have similar functions.] The simplest in structure of the coelenterates are those that constitute the class Hydrozoa. In this class the primitive central cavity is not divided up by muscular partitions and there is no folding in of the anterior part of the body to form an oesophagus or stomatodæum such as is found in the sea-anemones and coral polyps. In many species and genera the life-history is complex, illustrating what is called the alternation of generations. That is to say, only alternate generations attain sexual maturity, those that do so being produced as buds from a sexless generation, which itself arises from the fertilized eggs of a previous sexual generation. The sexual forms as a rule differ considerably in structure from the sexless ones; many medusæ are the sexual individuals in a life-cycle in which those of the sexless generation are sedentary. An excellent general account of the coelenterates will be found in the Cambridge Natural History, vol. i (by Prof. Hickson). STRUCTURE OF HYDRA. _Hydra_, the freshwater polyp, is one of the simplest of the Hydrozoa both as regards structure and as regards life-history. Indeed, it differs little as regards structure from the ideally simple coelenterate sketched in a former paragraph, while its descent is direct from one polyp to another, every generation laying its own eggs[AL]. The animal may be described as consisting of the following parts:--(1) an upright (or potentially upright) column or body, (2) a circle of contractile tentacles at the upper extremity of the column, (3) an oral disk or peristome surrounding the mouth and surrounded by the tentacles, and (4) a basal or aboral disk at the opposite extremity. The whole animal is soft and naked. The column, when the animal is at rest, is almost cylindrical in some forms but in others has the basal part distinctly narrower than the upper part. It is highly contractile and when contracted sometimes assumes an annulate appearance; but as a rule the external surface is smooth. [Footnote AL: The statement is not strictly accurate as regards the Calcutta phase of _H. vulgaris_, for the summer brood apparently does not lay eggs but reproduces its species by means of buds only. This state of affairs, however, is probably an abnormality directly due to environment.] The tentacles vary in number, but are never very numerous. They are disposed in a single circle round the oral disk and are hollow, each containing a prolongation of the central cavity of the column. Like the column but to an even greater degree they are contractile, and in some forms they are capable of great elongation. They cannot seize any object between them, but are able to move in all directions. The disk that surrounds the mouth, which is a circular aperture, is narrow and can to some extent assume the form of a conical proboscis, although this feature is never so marked as it is in some hydroids. The basal disk is even narrower and is not splayed out round the edges. [Illustration: Fig. 27.--Nettle-cells of _Hydra_. A=capsules from nettle-cells of a single specimen of the summer phase of _H. vulgaris_ from Calcutta, × 480: figures marked with a dash represent capsules with barbed threads. B=a capsule with the thread discharged, from the same specimen, × 480. C=capsule with barbed thread, from a specimen of _H. oligactis_ from Lahore. D=undischarged nettle-cell of _H. vulgaris_ from Europe (after Nussbaum, highly magnified). E=discharged capsule of the same (after the same author). _a_=cnidoblast; _b_=capsule; _c_=thread; _d_=cnidocil. Only the base of the thread is shown in E.] A section through the body-wall shows it to consist of the three typical layers of the coelenterates, viz., (i) an outer cellular layer of comparatively small cells, the ectoderm; (ii) an intermediate, structureless or apparently structureless layer, the mesogloea or "central jelly"; and (iii) an internal layer or endoderm consisting of relatively large cells. The cells of the ectoderm are not homogeneous. Some of them possess at their base narrow and highly contractile prolongations that exercise the functions of muscles. Others are gland-cells and secrete mucus; others have round their margins delicate ramifying prolongations and act as nerve-cells. Sense-cells, each of which bears on its external surface a minute projecting bristle, are found in connection with the nerve-cells, and also nettle-cells of more than one type. The mesogloea is very thin. The endoderm consists mainly of comparatively large cells with polygonal bases which can be seen from the external surface of the column in colourless individuals. Their inner surface is amoeboid and in certain conditions bears one or more vibratile cilia or protoplasmic lashes. Nettle-cells are occasionally found in the endoderm, but apparently do not originate in this layer. The walls of the tentacles do not differ in general structure from those of the column, but the cells of the endoderm are smaller and the nematocysts of the ectoderm more numerous, and there are other minor differences. A more detailed account of the anatomy of _Hydra_ will be found in any biological text-book, for instance in Parker's Elementary Biology; but it is necessary here to say something more as regards the nettle-cells, which are of great biological and systematic importance. A nettle-cell of the most perfect type and the structures necessary to it consist of the following parts:-- (1) A true cell (the cnidoblast), which contains-- (2) a delicate capsule full of liquid; (3) a long thread coiled up in the capsule; and (4) a cnidocil or sensory bristle, which projects from the external surface of the cnidoblast. A nerve-cell is associated with each cnidoblast. In _Hydra_ the nettle-cells are of two distinct types, in one of which the thread is barbed at the base, whereas in the other it is simple. Both types have often two or more varieties and intermediate forms occur, but generally speaking the capsules with simple threads are much smaller than those with barbed ones. The arrangement of the nettle-cells is not the same in all species of _Hydra_, but as a rule they are much more numerous in the tentacles than elsewhere on the body, each large cell being surrounded by several small ones. The latter are always much more numerous than the former. CAPTURE AND INGESTION OF PREY: DIGESTION. The usual food of _Hydra_ consists of small insect larvæ, worms, and crustacea, but the eggs of fish are also devoured. The method in which prey is captured and ingested has been much disputed, but the following facts appear to be well established. If a small animal comes in contact with the tentacles of the polyp, it instantly becomes paralysed. If it adheres to the tentacle, it perishes; but if, as is often the case, it does not do so, it soon recovers the power of movement. Animals which do not adhere are generally those (such as ostracod crustacea) which have a hard integument without weak spots. Nematocysts of both kinds shoot out their threads against prey with considerable violence, the discharge being effected, apparently in response to a chemical stimulus, by the sudden uncoiling of the thread and its eversion from the capsule. Apparently the two kinds of threads have different functions to perform, for whereas there is no doubt that the barbed threads penetrate the more tender parts of the body against which they are hurled, there is evidence that the simple threads do not do so but wrap themselves round the more slender parts. Nussbaum (Arch. mikr. Anat. xxix, pl. xx, fig. 108) figures the tail of a _Cyclops_ attacked by _Hydra vulgaris_ and shows several simple threads wrapped round the hairs and a single barbed thread that has penetrated the integument. Sometimes the cyst adheres to the thread and remains attached to its cnidoblast and to the polyp, but sometimes the thread breaks loose. Owing to the large mass of threads that sometimes congregate at the weaker spots in the external covering of an animal attacked (_e. g._, at the little sensory pits in the integument of the dorsal surface of certain water-mites) it is often difficult to trace out the whole length of any one thread, and as a thread still attached to its capsule is frequently buried in the body of the prey, right up to the barbs, while another thread that has broken loose from its capsule appears immediately behind the fixed one, it seems as though the barbs, which naturally point towards the capsule, had become reversed. This appearance, however, is deceptive. The barbs are probably connected with the discharge of the thread and do not function at all in the same way as those on a spear- or arrow-head, never penetrating the object against which the projectile is hurled. Indeed, their position as regards the thread resembles that of the feathers on the shaft of an arrow rather than that of the barb of the head. Adhesion between the tentacles and the prey is effected partly by the gummy secretion of the glands of the ectoderm, which is perhaps poisonous as well as adhesive, and partly by the threads. Once the prey is fast and has ceased to struggle, it is brought to the mouth, which opens wide to receive it, by the contraction and the contortions of the tentacles, the column, and the peristome. At the same time a mass of transparent mucus from the gastral cavity envelops it and assists in dragging it in. There is some dispute as to the part played by the tentacles in conveying food into the mouth. My own observations lead me to think that, at any rate so far as _H. vulgaris_ is concerned, they do not push it in, but sometimes in their contortions they even enter the cavity accidentally. When the food has once been engulfed some digestive fluid is apparently poured out upon it. In _H. vulgaris_ it is retained in the upper part of the cavity and the soluble parts are here dissolved out, the insoluble parts such as the chitin of insect larvæ or crustacea being ejected from the mouth. Digestion is, however, to a considerable extent intracellular, for the cells of the endoderm have the power of thrusting out from their surface lobular masses of their cell-substance in which minute nutritive particles are enveloped and dissolved. The movements of the cilia which can also be thrust out from and retracted into these cells, keep the food in the gastral cavity in motion and probably turn it round so as to expose all parts in turn to digestive action. Complete digestion, at any rate in the Calcutta form, takes several days to accomplish, and after the process is finished a flocculent mass of colourless excreta is emitted from the mouth. COLOUR. In _Hydra viridis_, a species that has not yet been found in India, the green colour is due to the presence in the cells of green corpuscles which closely resemble those of the cells of certain freshwater sponges. They represent a stage in the life-cycle of _Chlorella vulgaris_, Beyerinck[AM], an alga which has been cultivated independently. [Footnote AM: Bot. Zeitung, xlviii (1890): see p. 49, _antea_.] In other species of the genus colour is largely dependent on food, although minute corpuscles of a _dark_ green shade are sometimes found in the cells of _H. oligactis_. In the Calcutta phase of _H. vulgaris_ colour is due entirely to amorphous particles situated mainly in the cells of the endoderm. If the polyp is starved or exposed to a high temperature, these particles disappear and it becomes practically colourless. They probably form, therefore, some kind of food-reserve, and it is noteworthy that a polyp kept in the unnatural conditions that prevail in a small aquarium invariably becomes pale, and that its excreta are not white and flocculent but contain dark granules apparently identical with those found in the cells of coloured individuals (p. 154). Berninger[AN] has just published observations on the effect of long-continued starvation on _Hydra_ carried out in Germany. He finds that the tentacles, mouth, and central jelly disappear, and that a closed "bladder" consisting of two cellular layers remains; but, to judge from his figures, the colour does not disappear in these circumstances. [Footnote AN: Zool. Anz. xxxvi, pp. 271-279, figs., Oct. 1910.] BEHAVIOUR. _Hydra viridis_ is a more sluggish animal than the other species of its genus and does not possess the same power of elongating its column and tentacles. It is, nevertheless, obliged to feed more frequently. Wagner (Quart. J. Micr. Sci. xlviii, p. 586, 1905) found it impossible to use this species in his physiological experiments because it died of starvation more rapidly than other forms. This fact is interesting in view of the theory that the green corpuscles in the cells of _H. viridis_ elaborate nutritive substances for its benefit. _H. vulgaris_, at any rate in Calcutta, does not ordinarily capture prey more often than about once in three days. All _Hydræ_ (except possibly the problematical _H. rubra_ of Roux, p. 160) spend the greater part of their time attached by the basal disk to some solid object, but, especially in early life, _H. vulgaris_ is often found floating free in the water, and all the species possess powers of progression. They do not, however, all move in the same way. _H. viridis_ progresses by "looping" like a geometrid caterpillar. During each forward movement the column is arched downwards so that the peristome is in contact with the surface along which the animal is moving. The basal disk is then detached and the column is twisted round until the basal disk again comes in contact with the surface at a point some distance in advance of its previous point of attachment. The manoeuvre is then repeated. _H. vulgaris_, when about to move, bends down its column so that it lies almost prone, stretches out its tentacles, which adhere near the tips to the surface (p. 153), detaches its basal disk, and then contracts the tentacles. The column is dragged forward, still lying almost prone, the basal disk is bent downwards and again attached, and the whole movement is repeated. Probably _H. oligactis_ moves in the same way. When _H. viridis_ is at rest the tentacles and column, according to Wagner, exhibit rhythmical contractions in which those of the buds act in sympathy with those of the parent. In _H. vulgaris_ no such movements have been observed. This species, however, when it is waiting for prey (p. 154) changes the direction of its tentacles about once in half an hour. All species of _Hydra_ react to chemical and physical stimuli by contraction and by movements of the column and tentacles, but if the stimuli are constantly repeated, they lose the power to some extent. All species are attracted by light and move towards the point whence it reaches them. _H. vulgaris_, however, at any rate in India, is more strongly repelled by heat. Consequently, if it is placed in a glass vessel of water, on one side of which the sun is shining directly, it moves away from the source of the light[AO]. But if the vessel be protected from the direct rays of the sun and only a subdued light falls on one side of it, the polyp moves towards that side. No species of the genus is able to move in a straight line. Wilson (Amer. Natural. xxv, p. 426, 1891) and Wagner (_op. cit. supra_) have published charts showing the elaborately erratic course pursued by a polyp in moving from one point to another and the effect of light as regards its movements. [Footnote AO: Mr. F. H. Gravely tells me that this is also the case as regards _H. viridis_ in England, at any rate if freshly captured specimens are placed overnight in a bottle in a window in such a position that the early morning sunlight falls upon one side of the bottle.] If an individual of _H. vulgaris_ that contains half digested food in its gastral cavity is violently removed from its natural surroundings and placed in a glass of water, the column and tentacles contract strongly for a few minutes. The body then becomes greatly elongated and the tentacles moderately so; the tentacles writhe in all directions (their tips being sometimes thrust into the mouth), and the food is ejected. REPRODUCTION. Reproduction takes place in _Hydra_ (i) by means of buds, (ii) by means of eggs, and (iii) occasionally by fission. (a) _Sexual Reproduction._ The sexual organs consist of ovaries (female) and spermaries (male). Sometimes the two kinds of organs are borne by the same individual either simultaneously or in succession, but some individuals or races appear to be exclusively of one sex. There is much evidence that in unfavourable conditions the larger proportion of individuals develop only male organs. In temperate climates most forms of _Hydra_ breed at the approach of winter, but starvation undoubtedly induces a precocious sexual activity, and the same is probably the case as regards other unfavourable conditions such as lack of oxygen in the water and either too high or too low a temperature. Downing states that in N. America (Chicago) _H. vulgaris_ breeds in spring and sometimes as late as December; in Calcutta it has only been found breeding in February and March. Except during the breeding-season sexual organs are absent; they do not appear in the same position on the column in all species. The spermaries take the form of small mound-shaped projections on the surface of the column. Each consists of a mass of sperm-mother cells, in which the spermatozoa originate in large numbers. The spermatozoa resemble those of other animals, each possessing a head, which is shaped like an acorn, and a long vibratile tail by means of which it moves through the water. In the cells of the spermary the spermatozoa are closely packed together, with their heads pointing outwards towards the summit of the mound through which they finally make their way into the water. The aperture is formed by their own movements. Downing (Zool. Jahrb. (Anat.) xxi, p. 379, 1905) and other authors have studied the origin of the spermatozoa in great detail. [Illustration: Fig. 28.--Eggs of _Hydra_ (magnified). A=egg of _H. vulgaris_ (after Chun). B=vertical section through egg of _H. oligactis_, form A (after Brauer). C=vertical section through egg of _H. oligactis_, form B (after Brauer).] The ovaries consist of rounded masses of cells lying at the base of the ectoderm. One of these cells, the future egg, grows more rapidly than the others, some or all of which it finally absorbs by means of lobose pseudopodia extruded from its margin. It then makes its way by amoeboid movements between the cells of the ectoderm until it reaches the surface. In _H. vulgaris_ (Mem. Asiat. Soc. Beng. i, p. 350, 1906) the egg is first visible with the aid of a lens as a minute star-shaped body of an intense white colour lying at the base of the ectoderm cells. It increases in size rapidly, gradually draws in its pseudopodia (the rays of the star) and makes its way through the ectoderm to the exterior. The process occupies not more than two hours. The issuing ovum does not destroy the ectoderm cells as it passes out, but squeezes them together round the aperture it makes. Owing to the pressure it exerts upon them, they become much elongated and form a cup, in which the embryo rests on the surface of the parent. By the time that the egg has become globular, organic connection has ceased to exist. The embryo is held in position partly by means of the cup of elongated ectoderm cells and partly by a delicate film of mucus secreted by the parent. The most recent account of the oogenesis ("ovogenesis") is by Downing (Zool. Jahrb. (Anat.) xxvii, p. 295, 1909). (b) _Budding._ The buds of _Hydra_ arise as hollow outgrowths from the wall of the column, probably in a definite order and position in each species. The tentacles are formed on the buds much as the buds themselves arise on the column. There is much dispute as to the order in which these structures appear on the bud, and Haacke (Jenaische Zeitschr. Naturwiss. xiv, p. 133, 1880) has proposed to distinguish two species, _H. trembleyi_ and _H. roeselii_, in accordance with the manner in which the phenomenon is manifested. It seems probable, however, that the number of tentacles that are developed in the first instance is due, at any rate to some extent, to circumstances, for in the summer brood of _H. vulgaris_ in Calcutta five usually appear simultaneously, while in the winter brood of the same form four as a rule do so. Sometimes buds remain attached to their parents sufficiently long to develop buds themselves, so that temporary colonies of some complexity arise, but I have not known this to occur in the case of Indian individuals. (c) _Fission._ Reproduction by fission occurs naturally but not habitually in all species of _Hydra_. It may take place either by a horizontal or by a vertical division of the column. In the latter case it may be either equal or unequal. If equal, it usually commences by an elongation in one direction of the circumoral disk, which assumes a narrowly oval form; the tentacles increase in number, and a notch appears at either side of the disk and finally separates the column into two equal halves, each of which is a complete polyp. The division sometimes commences at the base of the column, but this is very rare. Transverse fission can be induced artificially and is said to occur sometimes in natural conditions. It commences by a constriction of the column which finally separates the animal into two parts, the lower of which develops tentacles and a mouth, while the upper part develops a basal disk. Unequal vertical division occurs when the column is divided vertically in such a way that the two resulting polyps are unequal in size. It is apparently not accompanied by any great increase in the number of the tentacles, but probably starts by one of the tentacles becoming forked and finally splitting down the middle. The question of the regeneration of lost parts in _Hydra_ cannot well be separated from that of reproduction by fission. Over a hundred and fifty years ago Trembley found that if a polyp were cut into several pieces, each piece produced those structures necessary to render it a perfect polyp. He also believed that he had induced a polyp that had been turned inside out to adapt itself to circumstances and to reverse the functions and structure of the two cellular layers of its body. In this, however, he was probably mistaken, for there can be little doubt that his polyp turned right side out while not under his immediate observation. Many investigators have repeated some of his other experiments with success in Europe, but the Calcutta _Hydra_ is too delicate an animal to survive vivisection and invariably dies if lacerated. It appears that, even in favourable circumstances, for a fresh polyp to be formed by artificial fission it is necessary for the piece to contain cells of both cell-layers. DEVELOPMENT OF THE EGG. The egg of _Hydra_ is said to be fertilized as it lies at the base of the ectoderm, through which the fertilizing spermatozoon bores its way. As soon as the egg has emerged from the cells of its parent it begins to split up in such a manner as to form a hollow mass of comparatively large equal cells. Smaller cells are separated off from these and soon fill the central cavity. Before segmentation begins a delicate film of mucus is secreted over the egg, and within this film the larger cells secrete first a thick chitinous or horny egg-shell and within it a delicate membrane. Development in some cases is delayed for a considerable period, but sooner or later, by repeated division of the cells, an oval hollow embryo is formed and escapes into the water by the disintegration of the egg-shell and the subsequent rupture of the inner membrane. Tentacles soon sprout out from one end of the embryo's body and a mouth is formed; the column becomes more slender and attaches itself by the aboral pole to some solid object. ENEMIES. _Hydra_ seems to have few natural enemies. Martin (Q. J. Micr. Sci. London, lii, p. 261, 1908) has, however, described how the minute worm _Microstoma lineare_ attacks _Hydra "rubra"_ in Scottish lochs, while the larva of a midge devours _H. vulgaris_ in considerable numbers in Calcutta tanks (p. 156). COELENTERATES OF BRACKISH WATER. Marine coelenterates of different orders not infrequently make their way or are carried by the tide up the estuaries of rivers into brackish water, and several species have been found living in isolated lagoons and pools of which the water was distinctly salt or brackish. Among the most remarkable instances of such isolation is the occurrence in Lake Qurun in the Fayûm of Egypt of _Cordylophora lacustris_ and of the peculiar little hydroid recently described by Mr. C. L. Boulenger as _Moerisia lyonsi_ (Q. J. Micr. Sci. London, lii, p. 357, pls. xxii, xxiii, 1908). In the delta of the Ganges there are numerous ponds which have at one time been connected with estuaries or creeks of brackish water and have become isolated either naturally or by the hand of man without the marine element in their fauna by any means disappearing (p. 14). The following species have been found in such ponds:-- (_a_) _Hydrozoa._ (1) _Bimeria vestita_, Wright (1859). Hincks, Hist. Brit. Hydr. Zooph. p. 103, pl. xv, fig. 2 (1868); Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 141, fig. 3 (1907). This is a European species which has also been found off S. America. It occurs not uncommonly in the creeks that penetrate into the Ganges delta and has been found in pools of brackish water at Port Canning. The Indian form is perhaps sufficiently distinct to be regarded as a subspecies. The medusoid generation is suppressed in this genus. (2) _Syncoryne filamentata_, Annandale (1907). Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 139, figs. 1, 2 (1907). Both hydroid and medusæ were found in a small pool of brackish water at Port Canning. The specific name refers to the fact that the ends of the rhizomes from which the polyps arise are frequently free and elongate, for the young polyp at the tip apparently takes some time to assume its adult form. (3) _Irene ceylonensis_, Browne (1905). Browne, in Herdman's Report on the Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon, iv, p. 140, pl. iii, figs. 9-11 (1905); Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 142, fig. 4 (1907). The medusa was originally taken off the coast of Ceylon, while the hydroid was discovered in ponds of brackish water at Port Canning. It is almost microscopic in size. The first two of these species belong to the order Gymnoblastea (Anthomedusæ) and the third to the Calyptoblastea (Leptomedusæ). (b) _Actinozoa._ (4) _Sagartia schilleriana_, Stoliczka (1869). _S. schilleriana_, Stoliczka, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. (2) xxxviii, p. 28, pls. x, xi (1869); _Metridium schillerianum_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 47, pl. iii (1907). This sea-anemone, which has only been found in the delta of the Ganges, offers a most remarkable instance of what appears to be rapid adaptation of a species to its environment. The typical form, which was described in 1869 by Stoliczka from specimens taken in tidal creeks and estuaries in the Gangetic area and in the ponds at Port Canning, is found attached to solid objects by its basal disk. The race (subsp. _exul_), however, that is now found in the same ponds has become elongate in form and has adopted a burrowing habit, apparently owing to the fact that the bottom of the ponds in which it lives is soft and muddy. In addition to these four species a minute hydroid belonging to the order Gymnoblastea and now being described by Mr. J. Ritchie has been taken in the ponds at Port Canning. It is a very aberrant form. FRESHWATER COELENTERATES OTHER THAN HYDRA. _Hydra_ is the only genus of coelenterates as yet found in fresh water in India, but several others have been discovered in other countries. They are:-- (1) _Cordylophora lacustris_, Allman (1843). Hincks, Hist. Brit. Hydr. Zooph. p. 16, pl. iii, fig. 2 (1868). This is a branching hydroid that does not produce free medusæ. It forms bushy masses somewhat resembling those formed by a luxuriant growth of _Plumatella fruticosa_ (pl. iii, fig. 1) in general appearance. _C. lacustris_ is abundant in canals, rivers, and estuaries in many parts of Europe and has recently been found in the isolated salt lake Birket-el-Qurun in the Fayûm of Egypt. (2) _Cordylophora whiteleggei_, v. Lendenfeld (1887). Zool. Jahrb. ii, p. 97 (1887). A species or race of much feebler growth; as yet imperfectly known and only recorded from fresh water in Australia. _Cordylophora_ is a normal genus of the class Hydrozoa and the order Gymnoblastea; the next four genera are certainly Hydrozoa, but their affinities are very doubtful. (3) _Microhydra ryderi_, Potts (1885). Potts, Q. J. Micr. Sci. London, l, p. 623, pls. xxxv, xxxvi; Browne, _ibid._ p. 635, pl. xxxvii (1906). This animal, which has been found in N. America and in Germany, possesses both an asexual hydroid and a sexual medusoid generation. The former reproduces its species by direct budding as well as by giving rise, also by a form of budding, to medusæ that become sexually mature. The hydroid has no tentacles. (4) _Limnocodium sowerbii_, Lankester (1880). Lankester, Q. J. Micr. Sci. London, xx, p. 351, pls. xxx, xxxi (1880); Fowler, _ibid._ xxx, p. 507, pl. xxxii (1890). There is some doubt as to the different stages in the life-cycle of this species. The medusa has been found in tanks in hot-houses in England, France and Germany, and a minute hydroid closely resembling that of _Microhydra ryderi_ has been associated with it provisionally. (5) _Limnocodium kawaii_, Oka (1907). Oka, Annot. Zool. Japon. vi, p. 219, pl. viii (1907). Only the medusa, which was taken in the R. Yang-tze-kiang, is as yet known. (6) _Limnocnida tanganyikæ_, Bohm (1889). R. T. Günther, Ann. Nat. Hist. (6) xi, p. 269, pls. xiii, xiv (1893). Only the medusa, which is found in Lake Tanganyika, Lake Victoria Nyanza and the R. Niger, has been found and it is doubtful whether a hydroid generation exists. (7) _Polypodium hydriforme_, Ussow (1885). Morph. Jahrb. xii, p. 137 (1887). Two stages in this peculiar hydroid, which is found in the R. Volga, are known, (_a_) a spiral ribbon-like form parasitic on the eggs of the sterlet (_Acipenser ruthenus_), and (_b_) a small _Hydra_-like form with both filamentous and club-shaped tentacles. The life-history has not yet been worked out[AP]. [Footnote AP: Since this was written, Lippen has described a third stage in the life-history of _Polypodium_ (Zool. Anz. Leipzig, xxxvii, Nr. 5, p. 97 (1911)).] II. HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF HYDRA. Hydra was discovered by Leeuwenhoek at the beginning of the eighteenth century and had attracted the attention of several skilful and accurate observers before that century was half accomplished. Among them the chief was Trembley, whose "Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire d'un genre de Polype d'eau douce"* was published at Paris 1744, and is remarkable not only for the extent and accuracy of the observations it enshrines but also for the beauty of its plates. Baker in his work entitled "An attempt towards a natural history of the Polyp"* (London, 1743) and Rösel von Rosenhof in the third part of his "Insecten-Belustigung" (Nurenberg, 1755) also made important contributions to the study of the physiology and structure of _Hydra_ about the same period. Linné invented the name _Hydra_, and in his "Fauna Sueica" and in the various editions of his "Systema Naturæ" described several forms in a manner that permits some of them to be recognized; but Linné did not distinguish between the true _Hydra_ and other soft sessile Coelenterates, and it is to Pallas ("Elenchus Zoophytorum," 1766) that the credit properly belongs of reducing the genus to order. It is a tribute to his insight that three of the four species he described are still accepted as "good" by practically all students of the Coelenterates, while the fourth was a form that he had not himself seen. In the nineteenth century the freshwater polyp became a favourite object of biological observation and was watched and examined by a host of observers, among the more noteworthy of whom were Kleinenberg, Nussbaum, and Brauer, who has since the beginning of the present century made an important contribution to the taxonomy of the genus. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HYDRA. _Hydra_ has been examined by thousands of students in biological laboratories all over the civilized world, and the literature upon it is hardly surpassed in magnitude by that on any other genus but _Homo_. The following is a list of a few of the more important general memoirs and of the papers that refer directly to Asiatic material. A systematic bibliography is given by Bedot in his "Matériaux pour servir a l'Histoire des Hydroïdes," Rev. Suisse Zool. xviii, fasc. 2 (1910). (a) _General._ 1743. BAKER, "An attempt towards a natural history of the Polyp"* (London). 1744. TREMBLEY, "Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire d'un genre de polypes d'eau douce"* (Paris). 1755. RÖSEL VON ROSENHOF, "Insecten-Belustigung: iii, Hist. Polyporum." 1766. PALLAS, "Elenchus Zoophytorum." 1844. LAURENT, "Rech. sur l'Hydre et l'Eponge d'eau douce" ("Voy. de la Bonite, Zoophytologie"). 1847. JOHNSTON, "A History of the British Zoophytes" (2nd edition). 1868. HINCKS, "History of British Hydroid Zoophytes." 1872. KLEINENBERG, "Hydra. Eine Anatomisch Entwicklungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung." 1882. JICKELI, "Der Bau der Hydroidpolypen," Morph. Jahrb. viii, p. 373. 1887. NUSSBAUM, "Ueber die Theilbarkeit der lebendigen Materie. II. Mittheilung. Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte des Genus Hydra," Arch. mikr. Anat. Bonn, xxix, p. 265. 1891. BRAUER, "Über die Entwicklung von Hydra," Zeitschr. wiss. Zool. Leipzig, lii, p. 169. 1892. CHUN, "Coelenterata (Hohlthiere)," in Bronn's Thier-Reichs II (2). 1905. DOWNING, "The spermatogenesis of Hydra," Zool. Jahrb. (Anat.) xxi, p. 379. 1908. BRAUER, "Die Benennung und Unterscheidung der Hydra-Arten," Zool. Ann. xxxiii, p. 790. 1909. FRISCHHOLZ, "Biologie und Systematik im Genus Hydra," Braun's Annal. Zool. (Würzburg) iii, p. 105. 1910. BERNINGER, "Über Einwirkung des Hungers auf Hydra," Zool. Anz. xxxvi, p. 271. (b) _Asiatic References._ 1894. RICHARD, "Sur quelques Animaux inférieurs des eaux douces du Tonkin (Protozoaires, Rotifères, Entomostracés)," Mém. Soc. zool. France, vii, p. 237. 1904. VON DADAY, "Mikroskopische Süsswasserthiere aus Turkestan," Zool. Jahrb. (Syst.) xix, p. 469. 1906. ANNANDALE, "Notes on the Freshwater Fauna of India. No. IV. _Hydra orientalis_ and its bionomical relations with other Invertebrates," J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal (new series), ii, p. 109. 1906. ANNANDALE, "The Common _Hydra_ of Bengal: its Systematic Position and Life History," Mem. As. Soc. Bengal, i, p. 339. 1907. ANNANDALE, "Notes on the Freshwater Fauna of India. No. X. _Hydra orientalis_ during the Rains," J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal (new series), iii, p. 27. 1907. ANNANDALE, "Notes on the Freshwater Fauna of India. No. XI. Preliminary Note on the occurrence of a Medusa (_Irene ceylonensis_, Browne) in a brackish pool in the Ganges Delta and on the Hydroid Stage of the species," J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal (new series), iii, p. 79. 1907. WILLEY, "Freshwater Sponge and Hydra in Ceylon," Spolia Zeylan. Colombo, iv, p. 184. 1908. ANNANDALE, "Observations on specimens of _Hydra_ from Tibet, with notes on the distribution of the genus in Asia," Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 311. 1910. POWELL, "Lessons in Practical Biology for Indian Students" (Bombay). 1910. LLOYD, "An Introduction to Biology for Students in India" (London). GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS USED IN PART II. _Aboral_ (or _basal_) The disk by means of which a free polyp _disk_ attaches itself to external objects. _Cnidoblast_ The living cell of the nematocyst or nettle-cell (_q. v._). _Cnidocil_ A minute bristle that projects on the surface in connection with a nettle-cell (_q. v._). _Column_ The upright or potentially upright part of a polyp (_q. v._). _Ectoderm_ The external cell-layer of the body-wall. _Endoderm_ The internal cell-layer of the body-wall. _Green (chlorophyll) Minute green bodies contained in cells corpuscles_ of polyps or other animals and representing a stage in the life-history of an alga (_Chlorella_). _Mesogloea_ The intermediate, gelatinous layer of the body-wall. _Nettle-cell (nematocyst)_ A cell capsule full of liquid in which an eversible thread is coiled up. _Oral disk_ The eminence that surrounds the mouth and is surrounded by tentacles. _Peristome_ See "oral disk." _Polyp_ An individual coelenterate of simple structure that is fixed temporarily or permanently by one end of a more or less cylindrical body and possesses a mouth at the other end. _Tentacles_ Filamentous outgrowths (in _Hydra_ hollow) of the body-wall round the mouth. LIST OF THE INDIAN HYDRIDA. Class HYDROZOA. Order ELEUTHEROBLASTEA. Family HYDRIDÆ. Genus HYDRA, _Linné_ (1746). 24. _H. vulgaris_, Pallas (1766). 25. _H. oligactis_, Pallas (1766). Order ELEUTHEROBLASTEA. Naked hydrozoa which reproduce their kind by means of buds or eggs, or by fission, without exhibiting the phenomena of alternation of generations. Family HYDRIDÆ. HYDRAIDÆ, Johnston, Hist. Brit. Zooph. (ed. 2) i, p. 120 (1847). HYDRIDÆ, Hincks, Hist. Brit. Hydroid. Zooph. p. 309 (1868). Small Eleutheroblastea in which the mouth is surrounded by hollow tentacles. Permanent colonies are not formed, but reproduction by budding commonly takes place. Genus HYDRA, _Linné_. TYPE, _Hydra viridis_, Linné. Freshwater polyps which produce eggs with hard chitinous shells. Although habitually anchored by the end of the body furthest from the mouth to extraneous objects, they possess considerable powers of locomotion. They are extremely contractile and change greatly from time to time in both form and size. Only three well-established species of the genus, which is universally distributed and occurs only in fresh or brackish[AQ] water, can be recognized, namely, _H. viridis_, Linné (=_H. viridissima_, Pallas), _H. vulgaris_, Pallas (=_H. grisea_, Linné), and _H. oligactis_, Pallas (=_H. fusca_, Linné). The two latter occur in India, but _H. viridis_ does not appear to have been found as yet anywhere in the Oriental Region, although it is common all over Europe and N. America and also in Japan. The distribution of _H. vulgaris_ is probably cosmopolitan, but there is some evidence that _H. oligactis_ avoids tropical districts, although, under the name _Hydra fusca_, it has been doubtfully recorded as occurring in Tonquin[AR]. [Footnote AQ: A small form of _H. viridis_ (var. _bakeri_, Marshall) is found in brackish water in England.] [Footnote AR: Richard, Mém. Soc. zool. France, vii, p. 237 (1894).] The three species may be distinguished from one another by the following key:-- [I. Colour leaf-green; the cells contain green (chlorophyll) corpuscles of definite form. A. Tentacles comparatively stout, habitually shorter than the column, which is cylindrical. Egg-shell without spines, ornamented with a reticulate pattern _viridis_.] II. Colour never leaf-green; no chlorophyll corpuscles present in the cells. A. Tentacles capable of great elongation but when the animal is at rest never very much longer than the column, which is cylindrical when the gastral cavity is empty. Largest nettle-cells almost as broad as long. Egg-shell bearing long spines most of which are divided at the tips _vulgaris_, p. 148. B. Tentacles, even when the animal is at rest, much longer than the column, the basal part of which, even when the gastral cavity is empty, is constricted. Largest nettle-cells considerably longer than broad. Egg-shell smooth or bearing short, simple spines _oligactis_, p. 158. 24. Hydra vulgaris, _Pallas_. Polypes de la seconde espèce, Trembley, Mém. pour servir à l'histoire d'un genre de polypes d'eau douce*, pl. i, figs. 2, 5; pl. vi, figs. 2, 8; pl. viii, figs. 1-7; pl. xi, figs. 11-13 (1744). Rösel von Rosenhof, Insecten-Belustigung, iii, Hist. Polyporum, pls. lxxvi, lxxvii, lxxix-lxxxiii (1755). ? _Hydra polypus_, Linné, Fauna Suecica, p. 542 (1761). _Hydra vulgaris_, Pallas, Elenchus Zoophytorum, p. 30 (1766). ? _Hydra attenuata_, _id_., _ibid_. p. 32. _Hydra grisea_, Linné (Gmelin), Systema Naturæ (ed. 13), p. 3870 (1782). _Hydra pallens_, _id_., _ibid_. p. 3871. _Hydra vulgaris_, Ehrenberg, Abhandl. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1836, p. 134, taf. ii. _Hydra brunnea_, Templeton, London's Mag. Nat. Hist. ix, p. 417 (1836). _Hydra vulgaris_, Laurent, Rech. sur l'Hydre at l'Éponge d'eau douce (Voy. de la Bonite, Zoophytologie), p. 11, pl. i, pl. ii, figs. 2, 2'' (1844). _Hydra vulgaris_, Johnston, Hist. British Zoophytes (ed. 2), i, p. 122, pl. xxix, fig. 2 (1847). _Hydra vulgaris_, Hincks, Hist. British Hydroid Zoophytes, i, p. 314, fig. 41 (1868). _Hydra aurantiaca_, Kleinenberg, Hydra, p. 70, pl. i, fig. 1, pl. iii, fig. 10 (1872). _Hydra trembleyi_, Haacke, Zool. Anz. Leipzig, ii, p. 622 (1879). _Hydra grisea_, Jickeli, Morph. Jahrb. viii, p. 391, pl. xviii, fig. 2 (1883). _Hydra grisea_, Nussbaum, Arch. mikr. Anat. Bonn, xxix, p. 272, pl. xiii, pl. xiv, figs. 33, 37, 47 (1887). ? _Hydra hexactinella_, v. Lendenfeld, Zool. Jahrb. Jena, ii, p. 96, pl. vi, figs. 13, 14 (1887). ? _Hydra hexactinella_, _id_., Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, x, p. 678, p. xlviii, figs. 1-4 (1887). _Hydra grisea_, Brauer, Zeit. wiss. Zool. Leipzig, lii, p. 169 (1891). _Hydra grisea_, Chun, in Brönn's Thier-Reichs, ii (2), pl. ii, figs. 2_b_, 2_c_, 5 (1892). _Hydra grisea_, Downing, Zool. Jahrb. (Anat.) Jena, xxi, p. 381 (1905). _Hydra orientalis_, Annandale, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, (new series) i, 1905, p. 72. _Hydra orientalis_, _id._, _ibid._ (new series) ii, 1906, p. 109. _Hydra orientalis_, _id._, Mem. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, i, p. 340 (1906). ? _Hydra orientalis_, Willey, Spol. Zeylan. Colombo, iv, p. 185 (1907). _Hydra grisea_, Weltner, Arch. Naturg. Berlin, lxxiii, i, p. 475 (1907). _Hydra vulgaris_, Brauer, Zool. Anz. xxxiii, p. 792, fig. 1 (1908). _Hydra orientalis_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 312 (1908). _Hydra grisea_, Frischholz, Braun's Zool. Annal. (Würzburg), iii, pp. 107, 134, &c., figs. 1 and 10-17 (1909). _Hydra grisea_, _id._, Biol. Centralbl. Berlin, xxix, p. 184 (1909). _Hydra vulgaris_, Brauer, Die Süsswasserfauna Deutschlands, xix, p. 192, figs. 336-338 (1909). _Hydra pentactinella_, Powell, Lessons in Practical Biology for Indian Students, p. 24 (Bombay, 1910). Phase _orientalis*_, Annandale. _Colour_ variable; in summer usually pale, in winter either deep orange, dull brown, or dark green. The cells do not contain spherical or oval coloured bodies. [Illustration: Fig. 29.--_Hydra vulgaris_, from Calcutta (phase _orientalis_). A=winter brood; B=summer brood, the same individual in an expanded and a contracted condition. B is more highly magnified than A.] _Column_ slender and capable of great elongation, normally almost cylindrical, but when containing food often shaped like a wine-glass. The surface is thickly set with nettle-cells the cnidocils of which give it an almost hirsute appearance under the microscope. When extended to the utmost the column is sometimes nearly 30 mm. (1-1/5 inches) long, but more commonly it is about half that length or even shorter. _Tentacles_ usually 4-6, occasionally 8. They are always slender except when they are contracted, then becoming swollen at the base and slightly globular at the tip. If the animal is at rest they are not very much longer than the body, but if it is hungry or about to move from one place to another they are capable of very great extension, often becoming like a string of minute beads (the groups of nettle-cells) strung on an invisible wire. _Nettle-cells._ The capsules with barbed threads (fig. 27, p. 131) are very variable in size, but they are invariably broad in proportion to their length and as a rule nearly spherical. In a _Hydra_ taken in Calcutta during the winter the largest capsules measured (unexploded) 0.0189 mm. in breadth and 0.019 in length, but in summer they are smaller (about 0.012 mm. in breadth). Smaller capsules with barbed threads always occur. The barbed threads are very long and slender. At their base they bear a circle of stout and prominent spines, usually 4 in number; above these there are a number of very small spines, but the small spines are usually obscure. Malformed corpuscles are common. The capsules with unbarbed threads are very nearly as broad at the distal as at the proximal end; they are broadly oval with rounded ends. _Reproductive organs._ The reproductive organs are confined to the upper part of the body. In India eggs (fig. 28, p. 137) are seldom produced. They sometimes appear, however, at the beginning of the hot weather. In form they are spherical, and their shell bears relatively long spines, which are expanded, flattened and more or less divided at the tip. The part of the egg that is in contact with the parent-polyp is bare. Spermaries are produced more readily than ovaries; they are mammillate in form and number from 4 to 24. Ovaries and spermaries have not been found on the same individual. _Buds_ are confined to a narrow zone nearer the base than the apex of the column. Rarely more than 2 are produced at a time, and I have never seen an attached bud budding. In winter 5 tentacles are as a rule produced simultaneously, and in summer 4. In the former case a fifth often makes its appearance before the bud is liberated. In Calcutta two broods can be distinguished, a cold-weather brood, which is larger, stouter, and more deeply coloured, produces buds more freely, has larger nematocysts, and as a rule possesses 6 tentacles; and a hot-weather brood, which is smaller, more slender and paler, produces buds very sparingly, has smaller nematocysts, and as a rule possesses only 4 or 5 tentacles. Only the cold-weather form is known to become sexually mature. There is evidence, however, that in those parts of India which enjoy a more uniform tropical climate than Lower Bengal, polyps found at all times of year resemble those found in the hot weather in Calcutta, and sometimes produce spermatozoa or eggs. I have recently had an opportunity of comparing specimens of the Calcutta hot-weather form with well-preserved examples of _H. vulgaris_, Pallas (=_H. grisea_, Linn.), from England. They differ from these polyps in very much the same way as, but to a greater degree than they do from the winter phase of their own race, and I have therefore no doubt that _H. orientalis_ is merely a tropical phase of Pallas's species. My description is based on Indian specimens, which seem to differ, so far as anatomy is concerned, from European ones in the following points:-- (1) The sexes are invariably distinct; (2) the nematocysts are invariably smaller. I have seen in Burma an abnormal individual with no tentacles. Its buds, however, possessed these organs. TYPE. None of the older types of _Hydra_ are now in existence. That of _H. orientalis_ is, however, in the collection of the Indian Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_H. vulgaris_ is common in Europe and N. America and is probably found all over tropical Asia. The following are Indian and Ceylon localities:--BENGAL, Calcutta and neighbourhood (_Annandale_, _Lloyd_); Adra, Manbhum district (_Paiva_), Rampur Bhulia on the R. Ganges (_Annandale_); Chakradharpur, Chota Nagpur (_Annandale_); Pusa, Bihar (_Annandale_); Puri, Orissa (_Annandale_): MADRAS, sea-beach near Madras town (_Henderson_): BOMBAY, island of Bombay (_Powell_): BURMA, Mandalay, Upper Burma, and Moulmein, N. Tenasserim (_Annandale_): CEYLON, Colombo and Peradeniya (_Willey_, _Green_). Dr. A. D. Imms tells me that he has obtained specimens that probably belong to this species in the Jumna at Allahabad. BIOLOGY.--In India _H. vulgaris_ is usually found, so far as my experience goes, in stagnant water. In Calcutta it is most abundant in ponds containing plenty of aquatic vegetation, and seems to be especially partial to the plant _Limnanthemum_, which has floating leaves attached to thin stalks that spring up from the bottom, and to _Lemna_ (duckweed). Dr. Henderson, however, found specimens in a pool of rain-water on the sea-shore near Madras. There is evidence that each of the two broods which occur in Lower Bengal represents at least one generation; probably it represents more than one, for tentacles are rarely if ever produced after the animal has obtained its full size, and never (or only owing to accident) decrease in number after they have once appeared. The winter form is found chiefly near the surface of the water, especially on the roots of duckweed and on the lower surface of the leaves of _Limnanthemum_; but the summer form affects deeper water in shady places, and as a rule attaches itself to wholly submerged plants. The latter form is to be met with between March and October, the cold-weather form between October and March, both being sometimes found together at the periods of transition. In the unnatural environment of an aquarium, however, individuals of the winter form lose their colour and become attenuated, in these features resembling the summer form, even in the cooler months. Buds produced in these conditions rarely have more than five tentacles or themselves produce buds freely after liberation. The buds appear in a fixed order and position, at any rate on individuals examined in winter; in specimens of the summer form the position is fixed, but the order is irregular. Each quadrant of the column has apparently the power of producing, in a definite zone nearer the aboral pole than the mouth, a single bud; but the buds of the different quadrants are not produced simultaneously. If we imagine that the quadrants face north, south, east, and west, and that the first bud is produced in the north quadrant, the second will be produced in the east quadrant, the third in the south, and the fourth in the west. It is doubtful whether more than four buds are produced in the lifetime of an individual, and apparently attached buds never bud in this race. The second bud usually appears before the first is liberated, and this is also the case occasionally as regards the third, but it is exceptional for four buds to be present at one time. About three weeks usually elapse between the date at which the bud first appears as a minute conical projection on the surface of the parent and that at which it liberates itself. This it does by bending down, fixing itself to some solid object by means of the tips of its tentacles, the gland-cells of which secrete a gummy fluid, and then tearing itself free. Although it is rare for more than two buds to be produced simultaneously, budding is apparently a more usual form of reproduction than sexual reproduction. Individuals that bear eggs have not yet been found in India in natural conditions, although males with functional spermaries are not uncommon at the approach of the hot weather. The few eggs that I have seen were produced in my aquarium towards the end of the cold weather. Starvation, lack of oxygen, and too high a temperature (perhaps also lack of light) appear to stimulate the growth of the male organs in ordinary cases, but perhaps they induce the development of ovaries in the case of individuals that are unusually well nourished. The spines that cover the egg retain débris of various kinds upon its surface, so that it becomes more or less completely concealed by a covering of fragments of dead leaves and the like even before it is separated from the polyp. Its separation is brought about by its falling off the column of the parent. Nothing is known of its subsequent fate, but probably it lies dormant in the mud through the hot weather. Eggs are sometimes produced that have no shells. This is probably due to the fact that they have not been fertilized. Reproduction by fission occurs rarely in the Indian _Hydra_, but both equal and unequal vertical fission have been observed. In the case of equal fission the circumoral area lengthens in a horizontal direction, and as many extra tentacles as those the polyp already possesses make their appearance. The mouth then becomes constricted in the middle and notches corresponding to its constriction appear at either side of the upper part of the column. Finally the whole animal divides into two equal halves in a vertical direction. I have only seen one instance of what appeared to be unequal vertical fission--that of a polyp consisting of two individuals still joined together by the basal disk, but one about half the size of the other. Each had three well-developed tentacles, and in addition a minute fourth tentacle. This was situated on the side opposed to that of the other individual which bore a similar tentacle. Transverse fission has not been observed. The Indian _Hydra_ is a very delicate animal as compared with such a form as _H. viridis_, and all attempts to produce artificial fission without killing the polyp have as yet failed. Young individuals are often, and adults occasionally, found floating free in the water, either with the mouth uppermost and the tentacles extended so as to cover as large an area as possible or with the aboral pole at the surface. In the former case they float in mid-water, being of nearly the same specific gravity as the water, and are carried about by any movement set up in it. In the latter case, however, the base of the column is actually attached to some small object such as the cast skin of a water-flea or to a minute drop of mucus originally given out by the polyp's own mouth; the tentacles either hang downwards or are spread out round the mouth, and the animal is carried about by wind or other agencies acting on the surface. In addition to this passive method of progression the polyp can crawl with considerable rapidity. In doing so it bends its column down to the object along which it is about to move in such a way that it lies almost parallel to the surface, the basal disk, however, being still attached. The tentacles are then extended and attach themselves near the tips to the surface a considerable distance away. Attachment is effected by the secretion of minute drops of adhesive substance from gland-cells. The basal disk is liberated and the tentacles contract, dragging the column, which still lies prone, along as they do so. The basal disk again affixes itself, the tentacles wrench themselves free, the surface of their cells being often drawn out in the process into pseudopodia-like projections, which of course are not true pseudopodia[AS] but merely projections produced by the mechanical strain. The whole action is then repeated. The polyp can also pull itself across a space such as that between two stems or leaves by stretching out one of its tentacles, fixing the tip to the object it desires to reach, pulling itself free from its former point of attachment, and dragging itself across by contracting the fixed tentacle. The basal disk is then turned round and fixed to the new support. [Footnote AS: See Zykoff, Biol. Centralbl. xviii, p. 272 (1898), and Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 67 (1907).] The Indian polyp, like all its congeners, is attracted by light, but it is more strongly repelled by heat. Probably it never moves in a straight line, but if direct sunlight falls on one side of a glass aquarium, the polyps move away from that side in a much less erratic course than is usually the case. If conditions are favourable, they often remain in one spot for weeks at a time, their buds congregating round them as they are set free. In a natural environment it seems that regular migrations take place in accordance with changes in temperature, for whereas in cool weather many individuals are found adhering to the lower surface of the floating leaves of _Limnanthemum_, few are found in this position immediately after a rise in the thermometer. If the rise is only a small one, they merely crawl down the stems to the end of which the leaves are attached, but as soon as the hot weather begins in earnest, the few that survive make their way to the deepest and most shady part of the pond. In captivity the polyps seek the bottom of any vessel in which they are contained, if sunlight falls on the surface of the water. The chief function of the tentacles is that of capturing prey. The Indian polyp feeds as a rule in the early morning, before the day has become hot. In an aquarium at any rate, the tentacles are never more than moderately extended during the night. If the polyp is hungry, they are extended to their greatest length in the early morning, and if prey is not captured, they sometimes remain in this condition throughout the day. In these circumstances they hang down or stand up in the water closely parallel to one another, and often curved in the middle as if a current were directed against them. Prey that comes in contact with one of them has little chance of escape, for nematocysts from all the tentacles can be readily discharged against it. Approximately once in half an hour the direction of the tentacles is changed, but I have been unable to observe any regular rhythmical movements of the tentacles or any correlation between those of a parent polyp and the buds still attached to it. The prey consists chiefly of the young larvæ of midges (Chironomidæ) and may-flies, but small copepod and phyllopod crustacea are also captured. As soon as the prey adheres firmly to the tentacles and has become paralysed it is brought to the mouth by their contracting strongly and is involved in a mass of colourless mucus extruded from the digestive cavity. Partly by the contraction of muscle-fibres in the body-wall and partly by movements of the mouth itself assisted by the mucus, which apparently remains attached to the walls of the cavity, the food is brought into the mouth. If it is at all bulky, it remains in the upper part of the cavity, the gland-cells pouring out a digestive fluid upon it and so dissolving out soluble substances. A large share of the substances thus prepared falls down to the bottom of the cavity and are there digested by the endoderm cells. The insoluble parts of the food are, however, ejected from the mouth without ever reaching the base of the cavity. The colour of the polyp appears to be due mainly to the results of digestion. Brown or orange individuals recently captured in a pond and kept in favourable conditions take three or four days to digest their food, and the excreta ejected from the mouth then take the form of a white flocculent mass. If, however, the same individuals are kept for long in a glass aquarium, they lose their colour, even though they feed readily. Digestion is then a much more rapid process, and the excreta contain minute, irregular, coloured granules, which appear to be identical with those contained in the endoderm cells of individuals that have recently digested a meal fully. Starved individuals are always nearly colourless. It seems, therefore, that in this species colour is due directly to the products of digestion, and that digestion does not take place so fully in unfavourable conditions or at a high temperature as it does in more healthy circumstances. The dark green colour of some polyps is, however, less easily explained. I have noticed that all the individuals which have produced eggs in my aquarium have been of this colour, which they have retained in spite of captivity; whereas individuals that produced spermatozoa often lost their colour completely before doing so, sometimes becoming of a milky white owing to the accumulation of minute drops of liquid in their endoderm cells. Even in green individuals there is never any trace in the cells of coloured bodies of a definite form. The Indian polyp, unlike European representatives of its species, is a very delicate little animal. In captivity at any rate, three circumstances are most inimical to its life: firstly, a sudden rise in the temperature, which may either kill the polyp directly or cause it to hasten its decease by becoming sexually mature; secondly, the lack of a free current of air on the surface of the aquarium; and thirdly, the growth of a bacterium, which forms a scum on the top of the water and clogs up the interstices between the leaves and stems of the water-plants, soon killing them. If adult polyps are kept even in a shallow opaque vessel which is shut up in a room with closed shutters they generally die in a single night; indeed, they rarely survive for more than a few days unless the vessel is placed in such a position that air is moving almost continuously over its surface. The bacterium to which I allude often almost seals up the aquarium, especially in March and April, in which months its growth is very rapid. Strands of slime produced by it surround the polyp and even enter its mouth. In this event the polyp retracts its tentacles until they become mere prominences on its disk, and shrinks greatly in size. The colouring matter in its body becomes broken up into irregular patches owing to degeneracy of the endoderm cells, and it dies within a few hours. _Hydra_ in Calcutta is often devoured by the larva of a small midge (_Chironomus fasciatipennis_, Kieffer) common in the tanks from November to February. In the early stages of its larval life this insect wanders free among communities of protozoa (_Vorticella_, _Epistylis_, &c.) and rotifers on which it feeds, but as maturity approaches begins to build for itself a temporary shelter of one of two kinds, either a delicate silken tunnel the base of which is formed by some smooth natural surface, or a regular tube the base of which is fixed by a stalk situated near the middle of its length to some solid object, while the whole surface is covered with little projections. The nature of the covering appears to depend partly on that of the food-supply and partly on whether the larva is about to change its skin. I had frequently noticed that tunnels brought from the tank on the under surface of _Limnanthemum_ leaves had a _Hydra_ fixed to them. This occurred in about a third of the occupied shelters examined. The _Hydra_ was always in a contracted condition and often more or less mutilated. By keeping a larva together with a free polyp in a glass of clean water, I have been able to observe the manner in which the polyp is captured and entangled. The larva settles down near the base of its column and commences to spin a tunnel. When this is partially completed, it passes a thread round the polyp's body to which it gives a sharp bite. This causes the polyp to bend down its tentacles, which the larva entangles with threads of silk, doing so by means of rapid, darting movements; for the nettle-cells would prove fatal should they be shot out against its body, which is soft. Its head is probably too thickly coated with chitin to excite their discharge. Indeed, small larvæ of this very species form no inconsiderable part of the food of the polyp, and, so far as my observations go, a larva is always attacked in the body and swallowed in a doubled-up position. When the _Hydra_ has been firmly built into the wall of the shelters and its tentacles fastened down by their bases on the roof, the larva proceeds, sometimes after an interval of some hours, to eat the body, which it does very rapidly, leaving the tentacles attached to its shelter. The meal only lasts for a few minutes; after it the larva enjoys several hours' repose, protected by remains of its victim, which retain a kind of vitality for some time. During this period it remains still, except for certain undulatory movements of the posterior part of the body which probably aid in respiration. Then it leaves the shelter and goes in search of further prey. Its food, even when living in a tunnel, does not consist entirely of _Hydra_. I have watched a larva building its shelter near a number of rotifers, some of which it devoured and some of which it plastered on to its tunnel. The tubular shelters occasionally found are very much stouter structures than the tunnels, but are apparently made fundamentally of the same materials; and structures intermediate between them and the tunnels are sometimes produced. The larva as a rule fastens to them branches detached from living colonies of Vorticellid protozoa such as _Epistylis_[AT]. [Footnote AT: Further particulars regarding the life-history of this larva will be found on pp. 114 and 115, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, ii (n. s.) 1906.] Of animals living in more or less intimate relations with the polyp, I have found two very distinct species of protozoa, neither of which is identical with either of the two commonly found in association with _Hydra_ in Europe, _Trichodina pediculus_ and _Kerona polyporum_. On two occasions, one in January and the other at the beginning of February, I have seen a minute colourless flagellate on the tentacles of the Calcutta polyp. On the first occasion the tentacles were completely covered with this protozoon, so that they appeared at first sight as though encased in flagellated epithelium. The minute organism was colourless, transparent, considerably larger than the spermatozoa of _Hydra_, slightly constricted in the middle and rounded at each end. It bore a long flagellum at the end furthest from its point of attachment, the method of which I could not ascertain. When separated from the polyp little groups clung together in rosettes and gyrated in the water. On the other occasion only a few individuals were observed. Possibly this flagellate was a parasite rather than a commensal, as the individual on which it swarmed was unusually emaciated and colourless, and bore neither gonads nor buds. The larger stinging cells were completely covered by groups of the organism, and possibly this may have interfered with the discharge of stinging threads. The other protozoon was _Vorticella monilata_, Tatem, which has been found, not in association with _Hydra_, in Europe and S. America. In Calcutta I have only seen it attached to the column of the polyp, but probably it would also be found, if carefully looked for, attached to water-weeds. Especially in the four-rayed stage, the polyp not infrequently attaches itself to shells of _Vivipara_, and, more rarely, to those of other molluscs. It is doubtful whether this temporary association between _Hydra_ and the mollusc is of any importance to the latter. Even when the polyp settles on its body and not on its shell (as is sometimes the case) the _Vivipara_ appears to suffer no inconvenience, and makes no attempt to get rid of its burden. It is possible, on the other hand, that the _Hydra_ may protect it by devouring would-be parasites; but of this there is no evidence[AU]. [Footnote AU: In the Calcutta tanks operculate molluscs such as _Vivipara_ are certainly more free from visible attack than non-operculate species. This is the case for instance, as regards the common aquatic glowworm (_Luciola_ sp.), which destroys large numbers of individuals of _Limnophysa_, _Limnæus_, &c. If it has been starved for several days in an aquarium it will attack an operculate form, but rarely with success. Similarly _Chætogaster bengalensis_ attaches itself exclusively to non-operculate forms. In the one case the polyp could do very little against an adversary with so stout an integument as the insect, while, in the other, it is doubtful whether the worm does any harm to its host. The polyp would afford very little protection against the snail's vertebrate enemies or against what appears to be its chief foe, namely, drought. As the water sinks in the tank non-operculate species migrate to the deeper parts, but _Vivipara_ and _Ampullaria_ close their shells, remain where they are, and so often perish, being left high and dry, exposed to the heat of the sun.] The association, however, is undoubtedly useful to _Hydra_. The mud on the shells of _Vivipara_ taken on floating objects shows that in cool weather the snail comes up from the bottom to the surface, and it probably goes in the opposite direction in hot weather. Moreover, the common Calcutta species (_V. bengalensis_) feeds very largely, if not exclusively, on minute green algæ. It therefore naturally moves towards spots where smaller forms of animal and vegetable life abound and conditions are favourable for the polyp. The polyp's means of progression are limited, and the use of a beast of burden is most advantageous to it, for it can detach itself when it arrives at a favourable habitat. If specimens are kept in water which is allowed to become foul, a very large proportion of them will attach themselves to any snails confined with them. Under natural conditions they would thus in all probability be rapidly conveyed to a more suitable environment. In the tanks it is far commoner to find young four-rayed polyps on _Vivipara_ than individuals with five or six rays; but the adults of the species are far less prone to change their position than are the young. The Calcutta _Hydra_, especially in spring, exhibits a distinct tendency to frequent the neighbourhood of sponges and polyzoa, such as _Spongilla carteri_ and the denser forms of _Plumatella_. Possibly this is owing to the shade these organisms provide. 25. Hydra oligactis, _Pallas_. Polypes de la troisième espèce, Trembley, Mém. hist. Polypes,* pl. i, figs. 3, 4, 6; pl. ii, figs. 1-4; pl. iii, fig. 11; pl. v, figs. 1-4; pl. vi, figs. 3-7, 9, 10; pl. viii, figs. 8, 11; pl. ix (1744). Rösel von Rosenhof, Insekt.-Belustigung, iii, Hist. Polyp., pls. lxxxiv-lxxxvi (1755). _Hydra socialis_, Linné, Fauna Sueica, p. 542 (1761). _Hydra oligactis_, Pallas, Elench. Zooph. p. 29 (1766). ? _Hydra attenuata_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 32. _Hydra fusca_, Linné, Syst. Nat. (ed. 13), p. 3870 (1782). _Hydra oligactis_, Johnston, Brit. Zooph. i, p. 124, fig. 27 (p. 120) (1847). _Hydra oligactis_, Hincks, Hist. Brit. Hydr. Zooph. i, p. 315, fig. 42 (1868). _Hydra roeselii_, Haacke, Jena Zeitschr. Naturwiss. xiv, p. 135 (1880). ? _Hydra rhætica_, Asper, Zool. Anz. 1880, p. 204, figs. 1-3. _Hydra vulgaris_, Jickeli (_nec_ Pallas), Morph. Jahrb. viii, p. 391, pl. xviii, fig. 3 (1882). _Hydra fusca_, Nussbaum, Arch. mikr. Anat. Bonn, xxix, p. 273, pl. xiv, figs. 34-36, pl. xv, figs. 48-51, &c. (1887). _Hydra fusca_, Brauer, Zeit. wiss. Zool. Leipzig, lii, p. 177, pl. xi, figs. 2, 5, 6; pl. xii, fig. 6 (1891). _Hydra_ sp. ? _id._, _ibid._ pl. xi, figs. 3, 3a, 4, 7, 8; pl. xii, figs. 1, 2, 5-13. _Hydra fusca_, Chun in Brönn's Thier-Reichs, ii (2), pl. ii, figs. 2(_a_), 4, 6 (1892). _Hydra monoecia_, Downing, Science* (5) xii, p. 228. _Hydra fusca_, _id._, Zool. Jahrb. (Anat.) xxi, p. 382 (1905). _Hydra dioecia_, _id._, _ibid._ pl. xxiii, figs. 6, 7, &c. _Hydra fusca_, Hertwig, Biol. Centralbl. xxvi, p. 489 (1906). _Hydra oligactis_, Brauer, Zool. Anz. xxxiii, p. 792, fig. 2 (1908). _Hydra polypus_, _id._, _ibid._ _Hydra fusca_, Frischholz, Ann. Zool. (Würzburg), iii, p. 114, figs. 2-9 (1909). _Hydra oligactis_, Brauer, Süsswasserfauna Deutschl. xix, p. 193, figs. 339-341 (1909). _Hydra polypus_, _id._, _ibid._ figs. 342-344. This species differs from _H. vulgaris_ in the following characters:-- (1) Even when the gastral cavity is empty, the basal part of the column is distinctly more slender than the upper part; (2) even when the animal is at rest, the tentacles are much longer than the column; (3) the nettle-cells of both types are usually smaller and more uniform in size than in the other species; those with barbed threads (fig. 27, p. 131) are always flask-shaped and somewhat narrower in proportion to their length, while those with simple threads are pointed or almost pointed at their distal end; (4) the stinging threads of the more complex form are comparatively stout and short; (5) there are comparatively few nettle-cells in the column; (6) the egg-shell is nearly smooth or covered more or less completely with short, simple spines (fig. 28, p. 137). _H. oligactis_ is usually a more vigorous form than _H. vulgaris_ and, in spite of its name, has often a considerable number of tentacles. The few Indian specimens examined have, however, been small and have not had more than six tentacles. I have not seen an Indian specimen with more than two buds, but European specimens sometimes produce a great many, and as the daughter buds do not always separate from the parent until they have themselves produced buds, temporary colonies of some complexity arise; Chun figures a specimen with nineteen daughter and granddaughter buds[AV]. [Footnote AV: Pallas writes as regards this "pulcherrime vegetantem varietatem" with his usual critical insight, "Vix tamen peculiaris speciei nomine salutanda videtur." It is probably the _Hydra socialis_ of Linné.] In Europe and N. America there appear to be two races or phases of the species. To avoid ambiguity they may be called form A and form B and described as follows:-- Form A is of vigorous growth. It is as a rule dioecious, and its reproductive organs may be borne practically at any level on the surface of the column. Its eggs are spherical and as a rule covered almost uniformly with spines. Form B is smaller and has smaller and more variable nettle-cells. Its reproductive organs are borne only on the distal third or at the base of its column and it is often monoecious. The lower surface of its egg is flattened, adherent, and devoid of spines. The larger form (A) was originally named _Hydra monoecia_ by Downing, who in 1904 expressed a wish to substitute for the specific name, which had been given through inadvertence, the more appropriate one _dioecia_. As, however, it appears to be the commoner of the two in northern Europe, we may regard it as probably being the one named _Hydra oligactis_ by Pallas and therefore may accept it as the _forma typica_ of that species. According to Brauer (1908) the smaller form is Linné's _Hydra polypus_; but the original description of the "species" hardly bears out this view. As reproductive organs have not yet been found in Indian specimens, it is impossible to say to which of the two forms they belong. A red form of _H. oligactis_ occurs in Tibet in the lake Rham-tso, at an altitude of about 15,000 feet and has been reported from various small lakes in mountainous parts of Europe. It is probably the form called _Hydra rhætica_ by Asper, but his figures are lacking in detail and appear to have been drawn from specimens in a state of partial contraction. _H. rubra_, Lewes (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (3) v, p. 71, 1860), may also be identical with this form. Roux, indeed, states that _H. rubra_ is only found living unattached at considerable depths (Ann. Biol. lacustre ii, p. 266, 1907); but this statement does not accord with the fact that Lewes's specimens were found in ponds on Wimbledon Common. TYPE not in existence. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_H. oligactis_ is widely distributed in Europe and N. America, but in India has only been found in and near the city of Lahore in the Punjab. BIOLOGY.--This species was found by Major J. Stephenson, I.M.S., in the basin of a fountain at Lahore and in an ornamental canal in the Shalimar Gardens on the outskirts of the same city. Nothing is known as regards its habits in this country. In N. America, according to Downing, form B breeds in September and October and form A from October to December. The eggs of form B remain attached to the parent until the two cellular layers are formed and then drop off, whereas those of form A are fixed by the parent to some extraneous object, its column contracting until they are in a favourable position for attachment. The colour of Indian examples of _H. oligactis_ apparently resembles that of the Calcutta winter brood of _H. vulgaris_ so far as visual effect is concerned, but I have noticed in specimens from Lahore and the neighbourhood that very minute spherical bodies of a dark green colour are present in the endoderm cells. PART III. FRESHWATER POLYZOA (CTENOSTOMATA & PHYLACTOLÆMATA). INTRODUCTION TO PART III. I. STATUS AND STRUCTURE OF THE POLYZOA. The Polyzoa constitute a class in the third great division of the animal kingdom, the so-called Triploblastea. In this division are included also the worms, molluscs, insects, crustacea, spiders, vertebrates, etc.; for heterogeneous as its elements appear, all these animals may be considered to have essential features in common, in particular a body consisting primarily of three cellular layers. Most of them also possess a body cavity distinct from the alimentary canal. Some authors regard the position of the polyzoa as near that of the higher worms, but the group is an isolated one. In considering the anatomy of simple forms of animal life such as the sponges it is necessary to pay attention mainly to individual cells, but in discussing more complicated forms our notice is first attracted to tissues and organs, for the cells of which these tissues and organs are composed have each a definite position, a definite structure, and a definite function. The most characteristic feature of the polyzoa, considered from this point of view, is the fact that most of their organs fall into one of two categories and are connected either with what is called the "zooecium" or with what is known as the "polypide." The zooecium is a cage in which the polypide is enclosed, but it is a living cage, differing from the shell of a snail or the tubes in which many worms encase themselves in being part of the animal itself. The polypide consists mainly of the organs connected directly and indirectly with nutrition and of part of the muscular system; its name is derived from the fact that it bears a superficial resemblance to a polyp such as _Hydra_. The shape and structure of the zooecium differs greatly in different groups of polyzoa. In its simplest form it is merely a cylindrical tube of living matter which secretes an outer horny or gelatinous covering. It is open at the end furthest from its base, at which it is attached either to another zooecium or to some kind of supporting structure. Certain parts of the polypide can always be extruded from the aperture, which is known technically as the "orifice," or withdrawn through it into the zooecium. When the polypide is retracted it draws in with it a portion of the zooecium. The dead outer layer or ectocyst lines part of the portion thus invaginated and forms the walls of a cavity within the orifice. The base of this cavity consists in many forms of a transverse partition pierced in the middle by a circular hole and known as the "diaphragm." The diaphragm, however, does not constitute the limit of the invaginated portion of the zooecium, for the living inner wall or endocyst is dragged in still further and forms a sheath round the retracted tentacles. When the tentacles are protruded they emerge through the hole in the diaphragm, carrying with them their sheath of endocyst. The invagination above the diaphragm, consisting of both endocyst and ectocyst, is then everted. The tentacles are a characteristic feature of the polypide. Together with the base to which they are attached they are known as the "lophophore"; they surround the mouth, usually in a circle. They differ widely from the tentacles of _Hydra_ in both structure and function, although they too serve as organs for the capture of prey; they are not highly contractile and are not provided with nettle-cells but are covered with cilia, which are in constant motion. When extruded they form a conspicuous calix-like crown to the zooecium, but in the retracted condition they are closely pressed together and lie parallel to one another. They are capable individually of motion in all directions but, although they usually move in concert, they cannot as a rule seize objects between them. The mouth is a hole situated in the midst of the tentacles. It leads directly into a funnel-shaped oesophagus, the upper part of which is lined with cilia and is sometimes distinguished as the "pharynx," while the lower part, the oesophagus proper, is a thin-walled tube that connects the pharynx with the stomach, which it enters on the dorsal side. The stomach is a bulky organ that differs markedly in form and structure in different groups of polyzoa. It is lined internally with glandular cells and the inner wall is sometimes thrown into folds or "rugæ." The part with which the oesophagus communicates is known as the "cardiac" portion, while the part whence the intestine originates is called the "pylorus" or "pyloric" portion. The intestine commences on the ventral side opposite the entrance of the oesophagus and nearly on a level with it, the bulk of the stomach depending between the two tubes. This part of the stomach is often produced into a blind tube, the fundus or cæcum. The alimentary canal may therefore be described as distinctly Y-shaped. The proximal part of the intestine is in some forms lined with cilia, and the tube as a whole is usually divided into two parts--the intestine proper, which is nearest the stomach, and the rectum, which opens by the anus not far from the mouth. The nervous system consists of a central ganglion or brain, which is situated at the base of the tentacles on the side nearest the anus and gives out radiating nerves in all directions. Close to the brain and providing a communication between the cavity of the zooecium and the cavity in which the tentacles are contained (or, in the case of an expanded polyp, the external world) is a ciliated tube known as the "intertentacular organ." Apparently it acts as a passage through which the genital products are expelled; but contradictory statements have been made regarding it, and perhaps it is present only at certain seasons or in certain conditions of the polypide. [Illustration: Fig. 30.--Vertical section through a polypide of _Alcyonidium_ with the polypide retracted (after Prouho). A=orifice; B=contracted collar; C=diaphragm; D=parieto-vaginal muscles; E=tentacles; F=pharynx; G=oesophagus; H=stomach; J=intestine; K=rectum; L=intertentacular organ; M=retractor muscle; N=testes; O=ovary; P=funiculus; Q=parietal muscles; R=ectocyst; S=endocyst.] The muscular system is often of a complicated nature, but three sets of muscles may be distinguished as being of peculiar importance, viz., (i) the retractor muscles, which are fixed to the base of the lophophore at one end and to the base of the zooecium at the other, and by contracting pull the former back into the zooecium; (ii) the parieto-vaginal muscles, which connect the upper part of the invaginated portion of the zooecium with the main wall thereof; and (iii) the parietal muscles, which run round the inner wall of the zooecium and compress the zooecium as a whole. The parietal muscles are not developed in the Phylactolæmata, the most highly specialized group of freshwater polyzoa. The cavity between the polypide and the zooecium contains a reticulate tissue of cells known as the "funicular" tissue, and this tissue is usually concentrated to form a hollow strand or strands ("funiculi") that connect the outer wall of the alimentary canal with the endocyst. This rapid sketch of the general anatomy of a simple polyzoon will be the best understood by comparing it with fig. 30, which represents, in a somewhat diagrammatic fashion, a vertical section through a single zooecium and polypide of the order Ctenostomata, to which some of the freshwater species belong. The polypide is represented in a retracted condition in which the Y-shaped disposition of the alimentary canal is somewhat obscured. In the great majority of cases the polyzoa form permanent colonies or polyparia, each of which consists of a number of individual zooecia and polypides connected together by threads of living tissue. These colonies are formed by budding, not by independent individuals becoming associated together. In a few cases compound colonies are formed owing to the fact that separate simple colonies congregate and secrete a common investment; but in these cases there is no organic connection between the constituent colonies. It is only in the small subclass Entoprocta, the polypides and zooecia of which are not nearly so distinct from one another as they are in other polyzoa (the Ectoprocta), that mature solitary individuals occur. As representatives of both subclasses of polyzoa and of more than one order of Ectoprocta occur in fresh water, I have prefaced my description of the Indian species with a synopsis of the more conspicuous characters of the different groups (pp. 183-186). CAPTURE AND DIGESTION OF FOOD: ELIMINATION OF WASTE PRODUCTS. The food of all polyzoa consists of minute living organisms, but its exact nature has been little studied as regards individual species and genera. In _Victorella bengalensis_ it consists largely of diatoms, while the species of _Hislopia_ and _Arachnoidea_ possess an alimentary canal modified for the purpose of retaining flagellate organisms until they become encysted. Similar organisms form a large part of the food of the phylactolæmata. Although the tentacles may be correctly described as organs used in capturing prey, they do not themselves seize it but waft it by means of the currents set up by their cilia to the mouth, into which it is swept by the currents produced by the cilia lining the pharynx. The tentacles are also able in some species to interlace themselves in order to prevent the escape of prey. Apparently they have the power of rejecting unsuitable food, for they may often be observed to bend backwards and forwards and thrust particles that have approached them away, and if the water contains anything of a noxious nature in solution the lophophore is immediately retracted, unless it has been completely paralysed. In the phylactolæmata the peculiar organ known as the epistome is capable of closing the mouth completely, and probably acts as an additional safeguard in preventing the ingestion of anything of an injurious nature. In many genera and larger groups the food commonly passes down the pharynx into the stomach without interruption, although it is probable that in all species the oesophagus can be closed off from the stomach by a valve at its base. In some forms, however, a "gizzard" is interposed between the oesophagus and the stomach. This gizzard has not the same function in all cases, for whereas in some forms (_e. g._, in _Bowerbankia_) it is lined with horny projections and is a powerful crushing organ, in others (_e. g._, in _Hislopia_ or _Victorella_) it acts as an antechamber in which food can be preserved without being crushed until it is required for digestion, or rough indigestible particles can be retained which would injure the delicate walls of the stomach. Digestion takes place mainly in the stomach, the walls of which are of a glandular nature. The excreta are formed into oval masses in the rectum and are extruded from the anus in this condition. Although the gross non-nutritious parts of the food are passed _per anum_, the waste products of the vital processes are not eliminated so easily, and a remarkable process known as the formation of brown bodies frequently takes place. This process cannot be described more clearly and succinctly than by quoting Dr. Harmer's description of it from pp. 471 and 472 of vol. ii. of the Cambridge Natural History, a volume to which I have been much indebted in the preparation of this introduction. The description is based very largely on Dr. Harmer's own observations[AW]. [Footnote AW: Q. J. Micr. Sci. xxxiii, p. 123 (1892).] "The tentacles, alimentary canal, and nervous system break down, and the tentacles cease to be capable of being protruded. The degenerating organs become compacted into a rounded mass, known from its colour as the 'brown body.' This structure may readily be seen in a large proportion of the zooecia of transparent species. In active parts of the colony of the body-wall next develops an internal bud-like structure, which rapidly acquires the form of a new polypide. This takes the place originally occupied by the old polypide, while the latter may either remain in the zooecium in the permanent form of a 'brown body,' or pass to the exterior. In _Flustra_ the young polypide-bud becomes connected with the 'brown body' by a funiculus. The apex of the blind pouch or 'cæcum' of the young stomach is guided by this strand to the 'brown body,' which it partially surrounds. The 'brown body' then breaks up, and its fragments pass into the cavity of the stomach, from which they reach the exterior by means of the anus." Brown bodies are rarely if ever found in the phylactolæmata, in which the life of the colony is always short; but they are not uncommon in _Hislopia_ and _Victorella_, although in the case of the former they may easily escape notice on account of the fact that they are much paler in colour than is usually the case. When they are found in a ctenostome the collar-like membrane characteristic of the suborder is extruded from the orifice (which then disappears) and remains as a conspicuous external addition to the zooecium, the ectocyst of which, at any rate in _Bowerbankia_ and _Victorella_, sometimes becomes thickened and dark in colour. It is noteworthy that the colouring matter of the brown bodies is practically the only colouring matter found in the polypides of most polyzoa. Young polypides are practically colourless in almost all cases. REPRODUCTION: BUDDING. Polyzoa reproduce their species in three ways--(i) by means of eggs, (ii) by budding, and (iii) by means of bodies developed asexually and capable of lying dormant in unfavourable conditions without losing their vitality. Most, if not all species are hermaphrodite, eggs and spermatozoa being produced either simultaneously or in succession by each individual, or by certain individuals in each zoarium. The reproductive organs are borne on the inner surface of the endocyst, as a rule in a definite position, and often in connection with the funiculus or funiculi. It is doubtful to what extent eggs are habitually fertilized by spermatozoa of the individual that has borne them, but in some cases this is practically impossible and spermatozoa from other individuals must be introduced into the zooecium. Budding as a rule does not result in the formation of independent organisms, but is rather comparable to the proliferation that has become the normal method of growth in sponges, except of course that individuality is much more marked in the component parts of a polyzoon colony than it is in a sponge. In the genera described in this volume budding takes place by the outgrowth of a part of the body-wall and the formation therein of a new polypide, but the order in which the buds appear and their arrangement in reference to the parent zooecium is different in the different groups. In the freshwater ctenostomes three buds are typically produced from each zooecium, one at the anterior end and one at either side, the two latter being exactly opposite one another. The parent zooecium in this formation arises from another zooecium situated immediately behind it, so that each zooecium, except at the extremities of the zoarium, is connected with four other zooecia, the five together forming a cross. The two lateral buds are, however, frequently suppressed, or only one of them is developed, and a linear series of zooecia with occasional lateral branches is formed instead of a series of crosses. In the phylactolæmata, on the other hand, the linear method of budding is the typical one, but granddaughter-buds are produced long before the daughter-buds are mature, so that the zooecia are frequently pressed together, and lateral buds are produced irregularly. In _Victorella_ additional adventitious buds are produced freely near the tip of the zooecium. Reproduction by spontaneous fission sometimes occurs, especially in the Lophopinæ, but the process differs from that which takes place when a _Hydra_ divides into two, for there is no division of individual zooecia or polypides but merely one of the whole zoarium. The production of reproductive bodies analogous to the gemmules of sponges appears to be confined in the polyzoa to the species that inhabit fresh or brackish water, nor does it occur in all of these. All the phylactolæmata produce, within their zooecia, the bodies known as statoblasts. These bodies consist essentially of masses of cells containing abundant food-material and enclosed in a capsule with thick horny walls. In many cases the capsule is surrounded by a "swim-ring" composed of a mass of horny-walled chambers filled with air, which renders the statoblast extremely light and enables it to float on the surface of the water; while in some genera the margin of the swim-ring bears peculiar hooked processes, the function of which is obscure. The whole structure first becomes visible as a mass of cells (the origin of all of which is not the same) formed in connection with the funiculus, and the statoblast may be regarded as an internal bud. Its origin and development in different genera has been studied by several authors, notably by Oka[AX] in _Pectinatella_, and by Braem[AY] in _Cristatella_. [Footnote AX: Journ. Coll. Sci. Tokyo, iv, p. 124 (1891).] [Footnote AY: Bibliotheca Zoologica, ii, pt. 6, p. 17 (1890).] The external form of the statoblasts is very important in the classification of the phylactolæmata, to which these structures are confined. In all the genera that occur in India they are flattened and have an oval, circular, or approximately oval outline. In temperate climates statoblasts are produced in great profusion at the approach of winter, but in India they occur, in most species, in greatest numbers at the approach of the hot weather. [Illustration: Fig. 31.--Part of the zoarium of _Victorella bengalensis_ entirely transformed into resting buds, × 25. (From an aquarium in Calcutta.)] In the family Paludicellidæ (ctenostomata) external buds which resemble the statoblasts in many respects are produced at the approach of unfavourable climatic conditions, but no such buds are known in the family Hislopiidæ, the zoaria of which appear to be practically perennial. The buds consist of masses of cells formed at the points at which ordinary buds would naturally be produced, but packed with food-material and protected like statoblasts by a thick horny coat. It seems also that old zooecia and polypides are sometimes transformed into buds of the kind (fig. 31), and it is possible that there is some connection between the formation of brown bodies and their production. Like the statoblasts of the phylactolæmata the resting buds of the Paludicellidæ are produced in Europe at the approach of winter, and in India at that of the hot weather. DEVELOPMENT. (a) _From the Egg._ Some polyzoa are oviparous, while in others a larva is formed within the zooecium and does not escape until it has attained some complexity of structure. Both the ctenostomatous genera that are found in fresh water in India are oviparous, but whereas in _Victorella_ the egg is small and appears to be extruded soon after its fertilization, in _Hislopia_ it remains in the zooecium for a considerable time, increases to a relatively large size, and in some unknown manner accumulates a considerable amount of food-material before escaping. Unfortunately the development is unknown in both genera. In the phylactolæmata the life-history is much better known, having been studied by several authors, notably by Allman, by Kraepelin, and by Braem (1908). The egg is contained in a thin membrane, and while still enclosed in the zooecium, forms by regular division a hollow sphere composed of similar cells. This sphere then assumes an ovoid form, becomes covered with cilia externally, and breaks its way through the egg-membrane into the cavity of the zooecium. Inside the embryo, by a process analogous to budding, a polypide or a pair of polypides is formed. Meanwhile the embryo has become distinctly pear-shaped, the polypide or polypides being situated at its narrow end, in which a pore makes its appearance. The walls are hollow in the region occupied by the polypide, the cavity contained in them being bridged by slender threads of tissue. The larva thus composed makes its way out of the zooecium, according to Kraepelin through the orifice of a degenerate bud formed for its reception, and swims about for a short time by means of the cilia with which it is covered. Its broad end then affixes itself to some solid object, the polypide is everted through the pore at the narrow end and the whole of that part of the larva which formerly enclosed it is turned completely inside out. A zoarium with its included polypides is finally produced from the young polypide by the rapid development of buds. (b) _From the Statoblast and Resting Buds._ There is little information available as regards the development of the young polyzoon in the resting buds of the freshwater ctenostomes. In _Paludicella_ and _Pottsiella_ the capsule of the bud splits longitudinally into two valves and the polypide emerges between them; but in _Victorella bengalensis_ one of the projections on the margin of the bud appears to be transformed directly into the tip of a new zooecium and the capsule is gradually absorbed. Contradictory statements have been made as regards several important points in the development of the statoblast and it is probable that considerable differences exist in different species. The following facts appear to be of general application. The cellular contents of the capsule consist mainly of a mass of cells packed with food-material in a granular form, the whole enclosed in a delicate membrane formed of flat cells. When conditions become favourable for development a cavity appears near one end of the mass and the cells that form its walls assume a columnar form in vertical section. The cavity increases rapidly in size, and, as it does so, a young polypide is budded off from its walls. Another bud may then appear in a similar fashion, and the zooecium of the first bud assumes its characteristic features. The capsule then splits longitudinally into two disk-like valves and the young polypide, in some cases already possessing a daughter bud, emerges in its zooecium, adheres by its base to some external object and produces a new polyparium by budding. The two valves of the statoblast often remain attached to the zoarium that has emerged from between them until it attains considerable dimensions (see Plate IV, fig. 3 _a_). What conditions favour development is a question that cannot yet be answered in a satisfactory manner. Statoblasts can lie dormant for months and even for years without losing their power of germinating, and it is known that in Europe they germinate more readily after being subjected to a low temperature. In tropical India this is, of course, an impossible condition, but perhaps an abnormally high temperature has the same effect. At any rate it is an established fact that whereas the gemmules of most species germinate in Europe in spring, in Bengal they germinate either at the beginning of the "rains" or at that of our mild Indian winter. MOVEMENTS. [Illustration: Fig. 32.--Zoarium of _Lophopodella carteri_ moving along the stem of a water plant, × 4. (From Igatpuri Lake.)] In the vast majority of the polyzoa, marine as well as freshwater, movement is practically confined to the polypide, the external walls of the zooecium being rigid, the zooecia being closely linked together and the whole zoarium permanently fixed to some extraneous object. In a few freshwater species belonging to the genera _Cristatella_, _Lophopus_, _Lophopodella_ and _Pectinatella_, the whole zoarium has the power of progression. This power is best developed in _Cristatella_, which glides along with considerable rapidity on a highly specialized "sole" provided with abundant mucus and representing all that remains of the ectocyst. It is by no means clear how the zoaria of the other genera move from one place to another, for the base is not modified, so far as can be seen, for the purpose, and the motion is extremely slow. It is probable, however, that progression is effected by alternate expansions and contractions of the base, and in _Lophopodella_ (fig. 32), which moves rather less slowly than its allies, the anterior part of the base is raised at times from the surface along which it is moving. The whole zoarium can be released in this way and occasionally drops through the water, and is perhaps carried by currents from one place to another in so doing. So far as the polypides are concerned, the most important movements are those which enable the lophophore and the adjacent parts to be extruded from and withdrawn into the zooecium. The latter movement is executed by means of the retractor muscles, which by contracting drag the extruded parts back towards the posterior end of the endocyst, but it is not by any means certain how the extrusion of the lophophore is brought about. In most ctenostomes the action of the parietal muscles doubtless assists in squeezing it out when the retractor and parieto-vaginal muscles relax, but Oka states that protrusion can be effected in the phylactolæmata even after the zooecium has been cut open. Possibly some hydrostatic action takes place, however, and allowance must always be made for the natural resilience of the inverted portion of the ectocyst. Even when the polypide is retracted, muscular action does not cease, for frequent movements, in some cases apparently rhythmical, of the alimentary canal may be observed, and in _Hislopia_ contraction of the gizzard takes place at irregular intervals. When the lophophore is expanded, the tentacles in favourable circumstances remain almost still, except for the movements of their cilia; but if a particle of matter too large for the mouth to swallow or otherwise unsuitable is brought by the currents of the cilia towards it, individual tentacles can be bent down to wave it away and similar movements are often observed without apparent cause. In the cheilostomes certain individuals of each zoarium are often profoundly modified in shape and function and exhibit almost constant rhythmical or convulsive movements, some ("avicularia") being shaped like a bird's beak and snapping together, others ("vibracula") being more or less thread-like and having a waving motion. DISTRIBUTION OF THE FRESHWATER POLYZOA. Fifteen genera of freshwater Polyzoa are now recognized, one entoproctous and fourteen ectoproctous; five of the latter are ctenostomatous and nine phylactolæmatous. Of the fourteen ectoproctous genera seven are known to occur in India, viz., _Victorella_, _Hislopia_, _Fredericella_, _Plumatella_, _Stolella_, _Lophopodella_, and _Pectinatella_. Except _Stolella_, which is only known from northern India, these genera have an extremely wide geographical range; _Victorella_ occurs in Europe, India, Africa, and Australia; _Hislopia_ in India, Indo-China, China, and Siberia; _Fredericella_ in Europe, N. America, Africa, India, and Australia; _Plumatella_ in all geographical regions; _Lophopodella_ in E. and S. Africa, India, and Japan; _Pectinatella_ in Europe, N. America, Japan, and India. Two genera, _Paludicella_ and _Lophopus_, have been stated on insufficient grounds to occur in India. The former is known from Europe and N. America, and is said to have been found in Australia, while the latter is common in Europe and N. America and also occurs in Brazil. Of the genera that have not been found in this country the most remarkable are _Urnatella_ and _Cristatella_. The former is the only representative in fresh water of the Entoprocta and has only been found in N. America. Each individual is borne upon a segmented stalk the segments of which are enclosed in strong horny coverings and are believed to act as resting buds. _Cristatella_, which is common in Europe and N. America, is a phylactolæmatous genus of highly specialized structure. It possesses a creeping "sole" or organ of progression at the base of the zoarium. The other phylactolæmatous genera that do not occur in India appear to be of limited distribution, for _Australella_ is only known from N. S. Wales, and _Stephanella_ from Japan. The ctenostomatous _Arachnoidea_ has only been reported from Lake Tanganyika, and _Pottsiella_ only from a single locality in N. America. As regards the exotic distribution of the Indian species little need be said. The majority of the _Plumatellæ_ are identical with European species, while the only species of _Fredericella_ that has been discovered is closely allied to the European one. The Indian species of _Lophopodella_ occurs also in E. Africa and Japan, while that of _Pectinatella_ is apparently confined to India, Burma and Ceylon, but is closely allied to a Japanese form. POLYZOA OF BRACKISH WATER. With the exception of _Victorella_, which occurs more commonly in brackish than in fresh water and has been found in the sea, the genera that occur in fresh water are confined or practically confined to that medium; but certain marine ctenostomes and cheilostomes not uncommonly make their way, both in Europe and in India, into brackish water, and in the delta of the Ganges an entoproctous genus also does so. The ctenostomatous genera that are found occasionally in brackish water belong to two divisions of the suborder, the Vesicularina and the Alcyonellea. To the former division belongs _Bowerbankia_, a form of which (_B. caudata_ subsp. _bengalensis_, p. 187) is often found in the Ganges delta with _Victorella bengalensis_. No species of Alcyonellea has, however, as yet been found in Indian brackish waters. The two Indian cheilostomes of brackish water belong to a genus (_Membranipora_) also found in similar situations in Europe. One of them (_M. lacroixii_[AZ]) is, indeed, identical with a European form that occurs in England both in the sea and in ditches of brackish water. I have found it in the Cochin backwaters, in ponds of brackish water at the south end of the Chilka Lake (Ganjam, Madras), on the shore at Puri in Orissa, and in the Mutlah River at Port Canning. The second species (_M. bengalensis_, Stoliczka) is peculiar to the delta of the Ganges[BA] and has not as yet been found in the open sea. The two species are easily recognized from one another, for whereas the lip of _M. bengalensis_ (fig. 33) bears a pair of long forked spines, there are no such structures on that of _M. lacroixii_, the dorsal surface of which is remarkably transparent. _M. lacroixii_ forms a flat zoarium, the only part visible to the naked eye being often the beaded margin of the zooecia, which appears as a delicate reticulation on bricks, logs of wood, the stems of rushes and of hydroids, etc.; but the zoarium of _M. bengalensis_ is as a rule distinctly foliaceous and has a peculiar silvery lustre. [Footnote AZ: There is some doubt as to the proper name of this species, which may not be the one originally described as _Membranipora lacroixii_ by Andouin. I follow Busk and Hincks in my identification (see Cat. Polyzoa Brit. Mus. ii, p. 60, and Hist. Brit. Polyzoa, p. 129). Levinsen calls it _M. hippopus_, sp. nov. (see Morphological and Systematic Studies on the Cheilostomatous Bryozoa, p. 144; Copenhagen, 1909).] [Footnote BA: Miss Thornely (Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 186, 1907) records it from Mergui, but this is an error due to an almost illegible label. The specimens she examined were the types of the species from Port Canning. Since this was written I have obtained specimens from Bombay--_April_, 1911.] [Illustration: Fig. 33.--Outline of four zooecia of _Membranipora bengalensis_, Stoliczka (from type specimen, after Thornely). In the left upper zooecium the lip is shown open.] _Loxosomatoides_[BB] (fig. 34), the Indian entoproctous genus found in brackish water, has not as yet been obtained from the open sea, but has recently been introduced, apparently from a tidal creek, into isolated ponds of brackish water at Port Canning. It is easily recognized by the chitinous shield attached to the ventral (posterior) surface. [Footnote BB: Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 14 (1908).] [Illustration: Fig. 34.--_Loxosomatoides colonialis_, Annandale. A and B, a single individual of form A, as seen (A) in lateral, and (B) in ventral view; C, outline of a similar individual with the tentacles retracted, as seen from in front (dorsal view); D, ventral view of an individual and bud of form B. All the figures are from the type specimens and are multiplied by about 70.] II. HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF THE FRESHWATER POLYZOA. The naturalists of the eighteenth century were acquainted with more than one species of freshwater polyzoon, but they did not distinguish these species from the hydroids. Trembley discovered _Cristatella_, which he called "Polype à Panache," in 1741, and Linné described a species of _Plumatella_ under the name _Tubipora repens_ in 1758, while ten years later Pallas gave a much fuller description (under the name _Tubularia fungosa_) of the form now known as _Plumatella fungosa_ or _P. repens_ var. _fungosa_. Although Trembley, Baker, and other early writers on the fauna of fresh water published valuable biological notes, the first really important work of a comprehensive nature was that of Dumortier and van Beneden, published in 1848. All previous memoirs were, however, superseded by Allman's Monograph of the Fresh-Water Polyzoa, which was issued in 1857, and this memoir remains in certain respects the most satisfactory that has yet been produced. In 1885 Jullien published a revision of the phylactolæmata and freshwater ctenostomes which is unfortunately vitiated by some curious lapses in observation, but it is to Jullien that the recognition of the proper position of _Hislopia_ is due. The next comprehensive monograph was that of Kraepelin, which appeared in two parts (1887 and 1892) in the Abhandlungen des Naturwiss. Vereins of Hamburg. In its detailed information and carefully executed histological plates this work is superior to any that preceded it or has since appeared, but the system of classification adopted is perhaps less liable to criticism than that followed by Braem in his "Untersuchungen," published in the Bibliotheca Zoologica in 1888. During the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth several authors wrote important works on the embryology and anatomy of the phylactolæmata, notably Kraepelin, Braem, and Oka; but as yet the ctenostomes of fresh water have received comparatively little attention from anything but a systematic point of view. From all points of view both the phylactolæmata and the ctenostomes of Asia have been generally neglected, except in the case of the Japanese phylactolæmata, which have been studied by Oka. Although Carter made some important discoveries as regards the Indian forms, he did not devote to them the same attention as he did to the sponges. In the case of the only new genus he described he introduced a serious error into the study of the two groups by placing _Hislopia_ among the cheilostomes, instead of in its true position as the type genus of a highly specialized family of ctenostomes. For fuller details as to the history of the study of the freshwater Polyzoa the student may refer to Allman's and to Kraepelin's monographs. An excellent summary is given by Harmer in his chapter on the freshwater Polyzoa in vol. ii. of the Cambridge Natural History; and Loppens has recently (1908) published in the Annales de Biologie lacustre a concise survey of the systematic work that has recently been undertaken. Unfortunately he perpetuates Carter's error as regards the position of _Hislopia_. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE FRESHWATER POLYZOA. A very full bibliography of the freshwater Polyzoa will be found in pt. i. of Kraepelin's "Die Deutschen Süsswasserbryozoen" (1887), while Loppens, in his survey of the known species (Ann. Biol. lacustre, ii, 1908), gives some recent references. The following list contains the titles of some of the more important works of reference, of memoirs on special points such as reproduction and of papers that have a special reference to Asiatic species. Only the last section is in any way complete. (a) _Works of Reference._ 1847. VAN BENEDEN, "Recherches sur les Bryozoaires fluviatiles de Belgique," Mém. Ac. Roy. Belgique, xxi. 1850. DUMORTIER and VAN BENEDEN, "Histoire Naturelle des Polypes composés d'eau douce," 2^e partie, Mém. Ac. Roy. Bruxelles, xvi (complément). 1856. ALLMAN, "A Monograph of the Fresh-Water Polyzoa" (London). 1866-1868. HYATT, "Observations on Polyzoa, suborder Phylactolæmata," Comm. Essex Inst. iv, p. 197, v, p. 97. 1880. HINCKS, "A History of the British Marine Polyzoa." 1885. JULLIEN, "Monographie des Bryozoaires d'eau douce," Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, p. 91. 1887 & 1892. KRAEPELIN, "Die deutschen Süsswasserbryozoen," Abhandl. Nat. Vereins Hamburg, x & xii. 1890. BRAEM, "Untersuchungen des Bryozoen des süssen Wassers," Bibl. Zool. ii, Heft 6 (Cassel). 1896. HARMER, Cambridge Natural History, ii, Polyzoa, chap. xviii. 1899. KORSCHELT and HEIDER, "Embryology of Invertebrates," vol. ii, chap. xvi. (English edition by Bernard and Woodward, 1899.) 1908. LOPPENS, "Les Bryozoaires d'eau douce," Ann. Biol. lacustre, iii. p. 141. (b) _Special Works on Embryology, etc._ 1875. NITSCHE, "Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Bryozoen," Zeitschr. f. wiss. Zool. xxv (supplement), p. 343. 1880. REINHARD, "Zur Kenntniss der Süsswasser-Bryozoen," Zool. Anz. iii, p. 208. 1888. BRAEM, "Untersuchungen über die Bryozoen des süssen Wassers," Zool. Anz. xi, pp. 503, 533. 1891. OKA, "Observations on Freshwater Polyzoa," J. Coll. Sci. Tokyo, iv, p. 89. 1906. WILCOX, "Locomotion in young colonies of _Pectinatella magnifica_," Biol. Bull. Wood's Hole, ii. 1908. BRAEM, "Die geschlechtliche Entwickelung von Fredericella sultana nebst Beobachtungen über die weitere Lebensgeschichte der Kolonien," Bibl. Zool. xx, Heft 52. (c) _Papers that refer specifically to Asiatic species._ 1851. LEIDY described _Plumatella diffusa_ in Proc. Ac. Philad. v, p. 261 (1851). 1858. CARTER, "Description of a Lacustrine Bryozoon allied to _Flustra_," Ann. Nat. Hist. (3) i, p. 169. 1859. CARTER, "On the Identify in Structure and Composition of the so-called Seed-like Body of _Spongilla_ with the Winter-egg of the Bryozoa: and the presence of Starch-granules in each," Ann. Nat. Hist. (3) iii, p. 331. (Statoblast of _Lophopodella_ described and figured.) 1862. MITCHELL, "Freshwater Polyzoa," Q. J. Micr. Sci. (new series) ii, p. 61. ("_Lophopus_" recorded from Madras.) 1866. HYATT, "Observations on Polyzoa, suborder Phylactolæmata," Comm. Essex Inst. iv, p. 197. ("_Pectinatella carteri_" named.) 1869. STOLICZKA, "On the Anatomy of _Sagartia schilleriana_ and _Membranipora bengalensis_, a new coral and a bryozoon living in brackish water at Port Canning," J. As. Soc. Bengal, xxxviii, ii, p. 28. 1880. JULLIEN, "Description d'un nouveau genre de Bryozoaire Cheilostomien des eaux douces de la Chine et du Cambodge et de deux espèces nouvelles," Bull. Soc. zool. France, v, p. 77. ("_Norodonia_" described.) 1885. JULLIEN, "Monographie des Bryozoaires d'eau douce," Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, p. 91. (_Hislopia_ assigned to the ctenostomes.) 1887. KRAEPELIN, "Die deutschen Süsswasserbryozoen," Abh. Ver. Hamburg, x. (_Plumatella philippinensis._) 1891. OKA, "Observations on Freshwater Polyzoa," J. Coll. Sci. Tokyo, iv, p. 89. 1898. MEISSNER, "Die Moosthiere Ost-Afrikas," in Mobius's Deutsch-Ost-Afrika, iv. (_Lophopodella carteri_ recorded from E. Africa.) 1901. KOROTNEFF, "Faunistische Studien am Baikalsee," Biol. Centrbl. xxi, p. 305. ("_Echinella_" described.) 1904-1906. ROUSSELET, "On a new Freshwater Polyzoon from Rhodesia, _Lophopodella thomasi_, gen. et sp. nov.", J. Quekett Club (2) ix, p. 45. (Genus _Lophopodella_ described.) 1906. ANNANDALE, "Notes on the Freshwater Fauna of India. No. II. The Affinities of _Hislopia_," J. As. Soc. Bengal (new series) ii, p. 59. 1906. KRAEPELIN, "Eine Süsswasser-bryozoë (_Plumatella_) aus Java," Mitth. Mus. Hamburg, xxiii, p. 143. 1907. ANNANDALE, "Notes on the Freshwater Fauna of India. No. XII. The Polyzoa occurring in Indian Fresh and Brackish Pools," J. As. Soc. Bengal (new series) iii, p. 83. 1907. ANNANDALE, "Statoblasts from the surface of a Himalayan Pond," Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 177. 1907. ANNANDALE, "The Fauna of Brackish Ponds at Port Canning, Lower Bengal: I.--Introduction and Preliminary Account of the Fauna," Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 35. 1907. ANNANDALE, "The Fauna of Brackish Ponds at Port Canning, Lower Bengal: VI.--Observations on the Polyzoa, with further notes on the Ponds," Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 197. 1907. ANNANDALE, "Further Note on a Polyzoon from the Himalayas," Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 145. 1907. ROUSSELET, "Zoological Results of the Third Tanganyika Expedition, conducted by Dr. W. A. Cunnington, 1904-1905.--Report on the Polyzoa," P. Z. Soc. London, i, p. 250. (_Plumatella tanganyikæ._) 1907. OKA, "Eine dritte Art von _Pectinatella_ (_P. davenporti_, n. sp.)," Zool. Anz. xxxi, p. 716. 1907. APSTEIN, "Das Plancton im Colombo-See auf Ceylon," Zool. Jahrb. (Syst.) xxv, p. 201. (_Plumatella_ recorded.) 1907. WALTON, "Notes on _Hislopia lacustris_, Carter," Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 177. 1907-1908. OKA, "Zur Kenntnis der Süsswasser-Bryozoenfauna von Japan," Annot. Zool. Japon, vi, p. 117. 1907-1908. OKA, "Ueber eine neue Gattung von Süsserwasserbryozoen," Annot. Zool. Japon, vi, p. 277. 1908. ANNANDALE, "The Fauna of Brackish Ponds at Port Canning, Lower Bengal: VII.--Further Observations on the Polyzoa with the description of a new genus of Entoprocta," Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 11. 1908. ANNANDALE, "Corrections as to the Identity of Indian Phylactolæmata," Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 110. 1908. ANNANDALE, "Three Indian Phylactolæmata," Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 169. 1908. KIRKPATRICK, "Description of a new variety of _Spongilla loricata_, Weltner," Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 97. (_Hislopia_ recorded from Burma.) 1909. ANNANDALE, "Preliminary Note on a new genus of Phylactolæmatous Polyzoa," Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, p. 279. 1909. ANNANDALE, "A new species of _Fredericella_ from Indian Lakes," Rec. Ind. Mus. iii. p. 373. 1909. WALTON, "Large Colonies of _Hislopia lacustris_," Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, p. 295. 1910. ANNANDALE, "Materials for a Revision of the Phylactolæmatous Polyzoa of India," Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 37. 1911. WEST and ANNANDALE, "Descriptions of Three Species of Algæ associated with Indian Freshwater Polyzoa," J. As. Soc. Bengal (_ined._). GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS USED IN PART III. _Brown body_ A body formed in a zooecium by the degeneration of a polypide as a preparation for its regeneration. _Cardiac portion_ (of That part which communicates with the the stomach). oesophagus. _Collar_ A longitudinally pleated circular membrane capable of being thrust out of the orifice in advance of the lophophore and of closing together inside the zooecium above the tentacles when they are retracted. _Dorsal surface_ (_Of zooecium_ or _polypide_) the surface nearest the mouth; (_of statoblast_) the surface furthest from that by which the statoblast is attached to the funiculus during development. _Ectocyst_ The outer, structureless layer of the zooecium. _Emarginate_ Having a thin or defective triangular area (of a zooecium) in the ectocyst at the tip. _Endocyst_ The inner, living (cellular) layer of the zooecium. _Epistome_ A leaf-like ciliated organ that projects upwards and forwards over the mouth between it and the anus. _Funiculus_ A strand of tissue joining the alimentary canal to the endocyst. _Furrowed_ Having a thin or defective longitudinal (of a zooecium) linear streak in the ectocyst on the dorsal surface. _Gizzard_ A chamber of the alimentary canal situated at the cardiac end of the stomach and provided internally with a structureless lining. _Intertentacular organ_ A ciliated tube running between the cavity of the zooecium and the external base of the lophophore. _Keeled_ Having a longitudinal ridge on the dorsal (of a zooecium) surface. _Lophophore_ The tentacles with the base to which they are attached. _Marginal processes_ Chitinous hooked processes on the margin (of statoblast). of the swim-ring (_q. v._). _OEsophagus_ That part of the alimentary canal which joins the mouth to the stomach. _Orifice_ The aperture through which the lophophore can be protruded from or retracted into the zooecium. _Parietal muscles_ Transverse muscles running round the inner wall of the zooecium. _Parieto-vaginal_ Muscles that surround the orifice, running _muscles_ between the folds of the zooecium in an oblique direction. _Polyparium_ The whole body of zooecia and polypides which are in organic connection. _Polypide_ The tentacular crown, alimentary canal, and retractor muscles of a polyzoon-individual. _Pyloric portion_ That part which communicates with the (of the stomach). intestine. _Resting bud_ An external bud provided with food-material in its cells, with a horny external coat and capable of lying dormant in unfavourable conditions. _Retractor muscles_ The muscles by the action of which the lophophore can be pulled back into the zooecium. _Statoblast_ An internal bud arising from the funiculus, containing food-material in its cells, covered with a horny coat and capable of lying dormant in unfavourable conditions. _Swim-ring_ A ring of polygonal air-spaces surrounding the statoblast. _Ventral surface_ (_Of zooecium_ or _polypide_) the surface nearest the anus; (_of statoblast_) the surface by which the statoblast is attached to the funiculus during development. _Zoarium_ The whole body of zooecia which are in organic connection. _Zooecium_ Those parts of the polyzoon-individual which constitute a case or "house" for the polypide. SYNOPSIS OF THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE POLYZOA. I. SYNOPSIS OF THE SUBCLASSES, ORDERS, AND SUBORDERS. Class POLYZOA. Small coelomate animals, each individual of which consists of a polyp-like organism or polypide enclosed in a "house" or zooecium composed partly of living tissues. The mouth is surrounded by a circle of ciliated tentacles that can be retracted within the zooecium; the alimentary canal, which is suspended in the zooecium, is Y-shaped and consists of three parts, the oesophagus, the stomach, and the intestine. Subclass ENTOPROCTA. The anus as well as the mouth is enclosed in the circle of tentacles and the zooecium is not very distinctly separated from the polypide. Some forms are solitary or form temporary colonies by budding. Most Entoprocta are marine, but a freshwater genus (_Urnatella_) occurs in N. America, while the Indian genus _Loxosomatoides_ (fig. 34, p. 176) is only known from brackish water. Subclass ECTOPROCTA. The anus is outside the circle of tentacles and the zooecium can always be distinguished from the polypide. All species form by budding permanent communities the individuals in which remain connected together by living tissue. Order I. GYMNOLÆMATA. Ectoproctous polyzoa the polypides of which have no epistome; the zooecia are in nearly all cases distinctly separated from one another by transverse perforated plates. Most of the Gymnolæmata are marine, but species belonging to two of the three suborders into which they are divided often stray into brackish water, while a few genera that belong to one of these two suborders are practically confined to fresh water. The three suborders are distinguished as follows:-- Suborder A. _CHEILOSTOMATA._ The zooecia are provided with a "lip" or lid hinged to the posterior margin of the orifice (see fig. 33, p. 175). This lid closes automatically outside the zooecium or in a special chamber on the external surface (the "peristome") when the polypide retracts and is pushed open by the tentacles as they expand. The majority of the zooecia in each zoarium are more or less distinctly flattened, but some of them are often modified to form "vibracula" and "avicularia." The Cheilostomata are essentially a marine group, but some species are found in estuaries and even in pools and ditches of brackish water (fig. 33). Suborder B. _CTENOSTOMATA._ The zooecia are provided with a collar-like membrane which is pleated vertically and closes together above the polypide inside the zooecium when the former is retracted; it is thrust out of the zooecium and expands into a ring-shaped form just before the tentacles are extruded. The zooecia are usually more or less tubular, but in some genera and species are flattened. The majority of the Ctenostomata are marine, but some genera are found in estuaries, while those of one section of the suborder live almost exclusively in fresh water. Suborder C. _CYCLOSTOMATA._ The zooecia are provided neither with a lip nor with a collar-like membrane. They are tubular and usually have circular orifices. The Cyclostomata are exclusively marine. Order II. PHYLACTOLÆMATA. Ectoproctous polyzoa the polypides of which have a leaf-shaped organ called an epistome projecting upwards and forwards within the circle of tentacles and between the mouth and the anus. The zooecia are not distinct from one another, but in dendritic forms the zoarium is divided irregularly by chitinous partitions. The Phylactolæmata are, without exception, freshwater species. II. SYNOPSIS OF THE LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE DIVISIONS OF THE SUBORDER CTENOSTOMATA. Suborder B. _CTENOSTOMATA._ The suborder has been subdivided in various ways by different authors. The system here adopted is essentially the same as that proposed in a recent paper by Waters (Journ. Linn. Soc. London, Zool. xxi, p. 231, 1910), but I have thought it necessary to add a fourth division to the three adopted by that author, namely, the Alcyonellea, Stolonifera, and Vesicularina. This new division includes all the freshwater genera and may be known as the Paludicellina. In none of these divisions are the tentacles webbed at the base. The four divisions may be recognized from the following synopsis of their characteristic features:-- Division I. ALCYONELLEA. The zooecia arise directly from one another in a fleshy or gelatinous mass. The polypide has no gizzard. The species are essentially marine, but a few are found in brackish water in estuaries. Division II. STOLONIFERA. The zooecia arise from expansions in a delicate creeping rhizome or root-like structure, the order in which they are connected together being more or less irregular. As a rule (perhaps always) there is no gizzard. The species are marine. Division III. VESICULARINA. The zooecia grow directly from a tubular stem which is usually free and vertical, their arrangement being alternate, spiral or irregular. There is a stout gizzard which bears internal chitinous projections and is tightly compressed when the polypide is retracted. The species are essentially marine, but a few are found in brackish water. Division IV. PALUDICELLINA, nov. The zooecia are arranged in a regular cruciform manner and arise either directly one from another or with the intervention of tubular processes. If the polypide has a gizzard it does not bear internal chitinous projections. Most of the species are confined to fresh water, but a few are found in brackish water or even in the sea. Although all true freshwater Ctenostomes belong to the fourth of these divisions, species of a genus (_Bowerbankia_) included in the third are so frequently found in brackish water and in association with one belonging to the fourth, and are so easily confounded with the latter, that I think it necessary to include a brief description of the said genus and of the form that represents it in ponds of brackish water in India. SYSTEMATIC LIST OF THE INDIAN FRESHWATER POLYZOA. [The types have been examined in the case of all species, etc., whose names are marked thus, *.] Order I. GYMNOLÆMATA. Suborder I. _CTENOSTOMATA._ [Division III. Vesicularina.] [Genus BOWERBANKIA, Farre (1837).] [_B. caudata_ subsp. _bengalensis_*, Annandale (1907). (Brackish water).] Division IV. Paludicellina, nov. Family I. PALUDICELLIDÆ. Genus 1. PALUDICELLA, Gervais (1836). ? _Paludicella_ sp. (_fide_ Carter). Genus 2. VICTORELLA, Kent (1870). 26._V. bengalensis_*, Annandale (1907). Family II. HISLOPIIDÆ. Genus HISLOPIA, Carter (1858). 27. _H. lacustris_, Carter (1858). 27 _a._ _H. lacustris_ subsp. _moniliformis_*, nov. Order II. PHYLACTOLÆMATA. Division I. Plumatellina. Family 1. FREDERICELLIDÆ. Genus FREDERICELLA, Gervais (1836). 28. _F. indica_*, Annandale (1909). Family 2. PLUMATELLIDÆ. Subfamily A. PLUMATELLINÆ. Genus 1. PLUMATELLA, Lamarck (1816). 29. _P. fruticosa_, Allman (1844). 30. _P. emarginata_, Allman (1844). 31. _P. javanica_*, Kraepelin (1905). 32. _P. diffusa_, Leidy (1851). 33. _P. allmani_, Hancock (1850). 34. _P. tanganyikæ_*, Rousselet (1907). 35. _P. punctata_, Hancock (1850). Genus 2. STOLELLA, Annandale (1909). 36. _S. indica_*, Annandale (1909). Subfamily B. LOPHOPINÆ. Genus 1. LOPHOPODELLA, Rousselet (1904). 37. _L. carteri_* (Hyatt) (1865). 37 _a._ _L. carteri_ var. _himalayana_* (Annandale) (1907). Genus 2. PECTINATELLA, Leidy (1851). 38. _P. burmanica_*, Annandale (1908). Order CTENOSTOMATA. [Division VESICULARINA. Family VESICULARIDÆ. VESICULARIDÆ, Hincks, Brit. Marine Polyzoa, p. 512 (1880). Zooecia constricted at the base, deciduous, attached to a stem that is either recumbent or vertical. Genus BOWERBANKIA, _Farre_. _Bowerbankia_, Farre, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. cxxvii, p. 391 (1837). _Bowerbankia_, Hincks, _op. cit._ p. 518. _Zoarium_ vertical or recumbent. _Zooecia_ ovate or almost cylindrical, arranged on the stem singly, in clusters or in a subspiral line. _Polypide_ with 8 or 10 tentacles. Bowerbankia caudata, _Hincks_. _Bowerbankia caudata_, Hincks, _op. cit._ p. 521, pl. lxxv, figs. 7, 8. This species is easily distinguished from all others by the fact that mature zooecia have always the appearance of being fixed to the sides of a creeping, adherent stem and are produced, below the point at which they are thus fixed, into a pointed "tail." Subsp. bengalensis, _Annandale_. _Bowerbankia caudata_, Thornely, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 196 (1907). _Bowerbankia caudata_, Annandale, _ibid._ p. 203. _Bowerbankia caudata_ race _bengalensis_, _id._, _ibid._ ii. p. 13 (1908). The Indian race is only distinguished from the typical form by its greater luxuriance of growth and by the fact that the "tail" of the zooecia is often of relatively great length, sometimes equaling or exceeding the rest of the zooecium. The stem, which is divided at irregular intervals by partitions, often crosses and recrosses its own course and even anastomoses, and a fur-like structure is formed in which the zooecia representing the hairs become much elongated; but upright branches are never formed. The zoarium has a greenish or greyish tinge. TYPE in the Indian Museum. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_B. caudata_ subsp. _bengalensis_ is common in brackish water in the Ganges delta, where it often occurs in close association with _Victorella bengalensis_, and also at the south end of the Chilka Lake in the north-east of the Madras Presidency. Although it has not yet been found elsewhere, it probably occurs all round the Indian coasts.] Division PALUDICELLINA, nov. This division consists of two very distinct families, the species of which are easily distinguished at a glance by the fact that in one (the Paludicellidæ) the zooecia are tubular, while in the other (the Hislopiidæ) they are broad and flattened. The anatomical and physiological differences between the two families are important, and they are associated together mainly on account of the method of budding by means of which their zoaria are produced. [Illustration: Fig. 35.--Single zooecia of _Victorella_ and _Hislopia_ (magnified). A, zooecium of _Victorella pavida_, Kent, with the polypide retracted (after Kraepelin). B, zooecium of _Hislopia lacustris_, Carter (typical form from the United Provinces), with the collar completely and the tentacles partly protruded. A=collar; B=orifice; C=tentacles; D=pharynx; E=oesophagus proper; F=gizzard; G=stomach; G'=cardiac portion of stomach; H=intestine; J=rectum; K=anus; L=young egg; M=green cysts in gizzard; N=testes; O=ovary; O'=funiculus. The muscles are omitted except in fig. B.] Family PALUDICELLIDÆ. PALUDICELLIDÆ, Allman, Mon. Fresh-Water Polyzoa, p. 113 (1857). HOMODIÆTIDÆ, Kent, Q. J. Micr. Sci. x, p. 35 (1870). VICTORELLIDÆ, Hincks, Brit. Marine Polyzoa, p. 558 (1880). PALUDICELLIDÉES, Jullien, Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, p. 174 (1885). PALUDICELLIDES, Loppens, Ann. Biol. lacustre, iii, p. 170 (1908). VICTORELLIDES, _id._, _ibid._ p. 171. _Zoarium._ The zoarium is recumbent or erect, and is formed typically either of zooecia arising directly in cruciform formation from one another, or of zooecia joined together in similar formation with the intervention of tubules arising from their own bases. Complications often arise, however, either on account of the suppression of the lateral buds of a zooecium, so that the formation becomes linear instead of cruciform, or by the production in an irregular manner of additional tubules and buds from the upper part of the zooecia. A confused and tangled zoarium may thus be formed, the true nature of which can only be recognized by the examination of its terminal parts. _Zooecia._ The zooecia are tubular and have a terminal or subterminal orifice, which is angulate or subangulate as seen from above. Owing to this fact, to the stiff nature of the external ectocyst, to the action of circular muscles that surround the tentacular sheath, and to the cylindrical form of the soft inverted part, the orifice, as seen from above, appears to form four flaps or valves, thus [illustration: sketch, similar to a cloverleaf inside a square with rounded corners]. _Polypide._ The alimentary canal is elongate and slender as a whole, the oesophagus (including the pharynx) being of considerable length. In _Paludicella_ and _Pottsiella_ the oesophagus opens directly into the cardiac limb of the stomach, which is distinctly constricted at its base; but in _Victorella_ the base of the oesophagus is constricted off from the remainder to form an elongate oval sac the walls of which are lined with a delicate structureless membrane. _Victorella_ may therefore be said to possess a gizzard, but the structure that must be so designated has not the function (that of crushing food) commonly associated with the name, acting merely as a chamber for the retention of solid particles. In this genus the cardiac limb of the stomach is produced and vertical but not constricted at the base. The tentacles in most species number 8, but in _Paludicella_ there are 16. _Resting buds._ The peculiar structures known in Europe as "hibernacula" are only found in this family. The name hibernacula, however, is inappropriate to the only known Indian species as they are formed in this country at the approach of summer instead of, as in Europe and N. America, at that of winter. It is best, therefore, to call them "resting buds." They consist of masses of cells congregated at the base of the zooecia, gorged with food material and covered with a resistant horny covering. The family Paludicellidæ consists of three genera which may be distinguished as follows:-- I. Orifice terminal; main axis of the zooecium vertical; zooecia separated from one another by tubules. [A. Base of the zooecia not swollen; no adventitious buds POTTSIELLA.] B. Base of the zooecium swollen; adventitious buds produced near the tip VICTORELLA, p. 194. II. Orifice subterminal, distinctly on the dorsal surface; main axis of the zooecium horizontal (the zoarium being viewed from the dorsal surface); buds not produced at the tip of the zooecia PALUDICELLA, p. 192. Of these three genera, _Pottsiella_ has not yet been found in India and is only known to occur in N. America. It consists of one species, _P. erecta_ (Potts) from the neighbourhood of Philadelphia in the United States. _Victorella_ includes four species, _V. pavida_ known from England and Germany and said to occur in Australia, _V. mülleri_ from Germany (distinguished by possessing parietal muscles at the tip of the zooecia), _V. symbiotica_ from African lakes and _V. bengalensis_ from India. These species are closely related. _Paludicella_ is stated by Carter to have been found in Bombay, but probably what he really found was the young stage of _V. bengalensis_. A single species is known in Europe and N. America, namely _P. ehrenbergi_, van Beneden (=_Alcyonella articulata_, Ehrenberg). I have examined specimens of all the species of this family as yet known. Genus 1. PALUDICELLA, _Gervais_. _Paludicella_, Gervais, Compt. Rend. iii, p. 797 (1836). _Paludicella_, Allman, Mon. Fresh-Water Polyzoa, p. 113 (1857). ? _Paludicella_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (3) iii, p. 333 (1859). _Paludicella_, Jullien, Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, p. 174 (1885). _Paludicella_, Kraepelin, Deutsch. Süsswasserbryozoen, i, p. 96 (1887). _Paludicella_, Loppens, Ann. Biol. lacustre, iv, p. 14 (1910). _Zoarium._ The nature of the zoarium in this genus is well expressed by Ehrenberg's specific name "_articulata_," although the name was given under a false impression. The zooecia arise directly from one another in linear series with occasional side-branches. The side-branches are, however, often suppressed. The zoarium as a whole is either recumbent and adherent or at least partly vertical. _Zooecia._ Although the zooecia are distinctly tubular as a whole, two longitudinal axes may be distinguished in each, for the tip is bent upwards in a slanting direction, bearing the orifice at its extremity. The main axis is, however, at right angles to the dorso-ventral axis, and the dorsal surface, owing to the position of the aperture, can always be readily distinguished from the ventral, even when the position of the zooecium is vertical. Each zooecium tapers towards the posterior extremity. Parietal muscles are always present. [Illustration: Fig. 36.--Structure of _Paludicella ehrenbergi_ (A and B after Allman). A=a single zooecium with the polypide retracted. B=the base of the lophophore as seen from above with the tentacles removed. C=the orifice of a polypide with the collar expanded and the tentacles partly retracted. _a_=tentacles; _c_=collar; _d_=mouth; _e_=oesophagus; _f_=stomach; _g_=intestine; _k_=parieto-vaginal muscles; _p_=parietal muscles; _o_=cardiac part of the stomach; _r_=retractor muscle; _s_=funiculus.] _Polypide._ The most striking features of the polypide are the absence of any trace of a gizzard and the highly specialized form assumed by the cardiac part of the stomach. There are two funiculi, both connecting the pyloric part of the stomach with the endocyst. The ovary develops at the end of the upper, the testis at that of the lower funiculus. _Resting buds._ The resting buds are spindle-shaped. Kraepelin recognized two species in the genus mainly by their method of growth and the number of tentacles. In his _P. mülleri_ the zoarium is always recumbent and the polypide has 8 tentacles, whereas in _P. articulata_ or _ehrenbergi_ the tentacles number 16 and upright branches are usually developed. It is probable, however, that the former species should be assigned to _Victorella_, for it is often difficult to distinguish _Paludicella_ from young specimens of _Victorella_ unless the latter bear adventitious terminal buds. The gizzard of _Victorella_ can be detected in well-preserved material even under a fairly low power of the microscope, and I have examined specimens of what I believe to be the adult of _mülleri_ which certainly belong to that genus. It is always difficult to see the collar of _Paludicella_, because of its transparency and because of the fact that its pleats are apparently not strengthened by chitinous rods as is usually the case. Allman neither mentions it in his description of the genus nor shows it in his figures, and Loppens denies its existence, but it is figured by Kraepelin and can always be detected in well-preserved specimens, if they are examined carefully. If the collar were actually absent, its absence would separate _Paludicella_ not only from _Victorella_ and _Pottsiella_, but also from all other ctenostomes. In any case, _Victorella_ is distinguished from _Paludicella_ and _Pottsiella_ by anatomical peculiarities (_e. g._, the possession of a gizzard and the absence of a second funiculus) that may ultimately be considered sufficiently great to justify its recognition as the type and only genus of a separate family or subfamily. The description of _Paludicella_ is included here on account of Carter's identification of the specimens he found at Bombay; but its occurrence in India is very doubtful. Genus 2. _VICTORELLA_, _Kent_. _Victorella_, Kent, Q. J. Micr. Sci. x, p. 34 (1870). _Victorella_, Hincks, Brit. Marine Polyzoa, p. 559 (1880). _Victorella_, Kraepelin, Deutsch. Süsswasserbryozoen, i, p. 93 (1887). TYPE, _Victorella pavida_, Kent. _Zoarium._ The zoarium consists primarily of a number of erect or semi-erect tubular zooecia joined together at the base in a cruciform manner by slender tubules, but complications are introduced by the fact that adventitious buds and tubules are produced, often in large numbers, round the terminal region of the zooecia, and that these buds are often separated from their parent zooecium by a tubule of considerable length, and take root among other zooecia at a distance from their point of origin. A tangled mass may thus be formed in which it is difficult to recognize the regular arrangement of the zooecia that can be readily detached at the growing points of the zoarium. _Zooecia._ The zooecia when young closely resemble those of _Paludicella_, but as they grow the terminal upturned part increases rapidly, while the horizontal basal part remains almost stationary and finally appears as a mere swelling at the base of an almost vertical tube, in which by far the greater part, if not the whole, of the polypide is contained. Round the terminal part of this tube adventitious buds and tubules are arranged more or less regularly. There are no parietal muscles. _Polypide._ The polypide has 8 slender tentacles, which are thickly covered with short hairs. The basal part of the oesophagus forms a thin-walled sac (the "gizzard") constricted off from the upper portion and bearing internally a thin structureless membrane. Circular muscles exist in its wall but are not strongly developed on its upper part. There is a single funiculus, which connects the posterior end of the stomach with the base of the zooecium. The ovaries and testes are borne on the endocyst, not in connection with the funiculus. _Resting buds._ The resting buds are flattened or resemble young zooecia in external form. _Victorella_, although found in fresh water, occurs more commonly in brackish water and is known to exist in the littoral zone of the sea. 26. Victorella bengalensis, _Annandale_. _Victorella pavida_, Annandale (_nec_ Kent), Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 200, figs. 1-4 (1907). _Victorella bengalensis_, _id._, _ibid._ ii, p. 12, fig. 1 (1908). _Zoarium._ _The mature zoarium resembles a thick fur_, the hairs of which are represented by elongate, erect, slender tubules (the zooecia), the arrangement of the whole being very complicated and irregular. The base of the zoarium often consists of an irregular membrane formed of matted tubules, which are sometimes agglutinated together by a gummy secretion. The zoarium as a whole has a faint yellowish tinge. _Zooecia._ The zooecia when young are practically recumbent, each being of an ovoid form and having a stout, distinctly quadrate orificial tubule projecting upwards and slightly forwards near the anterior margin of the dorsal surface. At this stage a single tubule, often of great relative length, is often given off near the orifice, bearing a bud at its free extremity. As the zooecium grows the tubular part becomes much elongated as compared with the basal part and assumes a vertical position. Its quadrate form sometimes persists but more often disappears, so that it becomes almost circular in cross-section throughout its length. Buds are produced near the tip in considerable profusion. As a rule, if they appear at this stage, the tubule connecting them with the parent zooecium is short or obsolete; sometimes they are produced only on one side of the zooecium, sometimes on two. The buds themselves produce granddaughter and great-granddaughter buds, often connected together by short tubules, while still small and imperfectly developed. The swelling at the base of the zooecium, when the latter is fully formed, is small. _Polypide._ The polypide has the features characteristic of the genus. The base of the gizzard is surrounded by a strong circular muscle. [Illustration: Fig. 37.--_Victorella bengalensis_ (type specimens). A=single zooecium without adventitious buds but with a young resting bud (_b_), × 70 (dorsal view); B=lateral view of a smaller zooecium without buds, × 70; C=upper part of a zooecium with a single adventitious bud, × 70; D=outline of the upper part of a zooecium with adventitious buds of several generations, × 35; E=remains of a zooecium with two resting buds (_b_) attached. All the specimens figured are from Port Canning and, except D, are represented as they appear when stained with borax carmine and mounted in canada balsam.] _Resting buds._ The resting buds (fig. 31, p. 170) are somewhat variable in shape but are always flat with irregular cylindrical or subcylindrical projections round the margin, on which the horny coat is thinner than it is on the upper surface. This surface is either smooth or longitudinally ridged. TYPE in the Indian Museum. This species differs from the European _V. pavida_ in very much the same way as, but to a greater extent than, the Indian race of _Bowerbankia caudata_ does from the typical English one (see p. 189). The growth of the zoarium is much more luxuriant, and the form of the resting buds is different. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_V. bengalensis_ is abundant in pools of brackish water in the Ganges delta and in the Salt Lakes near Calcutta; it also occurs in ponds of fresh water near the latter. I have received specimens from Madras from Dr. J. R. Henderson, and it is probable that the form from Bombay referred by Carter to _Paludicella_ belonged to this species. BIOLOGY.--In the Ganges delta _V. bengalensis_ is usually found coating the roots and stems of a species of grass that grows in and near brackish water, and on sticks that have fallen into the water. It also spreads over the surface of bricks, and I have found a specimen on a living shell of the common mollusc _Melania tuberculata_. Dr. Henderson obtained specimens at Madras from the surface of a freshwater shrimp, _Palæmon malcolmsonii_. In the ponds at Port Canning the zoaria grow side by side with, and even entangled with those of _Bowerbankia caudata_ subsp. _bengalensis_, to the zooecia of which their zooecia bear a very strong external resemblance so far as their distal extremity is concerned. This resemblance, however, disappears in the case of zooecia that bear terminal buds, for no such buds are borne by _B. caudata_; and the yellowish tint of the zoaria of _V. bengalensis_ is characteristic. Zoaria of the entoproct _Loxosomatoides colonialis_ and colonies of the hydroid _Irene ceylonensis_ are also found entangled with the zoaria of _V. bengalensis_, the zooecia of which are often covered with various species of Vorticellid protozoa and small rotifers. The growth of _V. bengalensis_ is more vigorous than that of the other polyzoa found with it, and patches of _B. caudata_ are frequently surrounded by large areas of _V. bengalensis_. The food of _V. bengalensis_ consists largely of diatoms, the siliceous shells of which often form the greater part of its excreta. Minute particles of silt are sometimes retained in the gizzard, being apparently swallowed by accident. There are still many points to be elucidated as regards the production and development of the resting buds in _V. bengalensis_, but two facts are now quite clear as regards them: firstly, that these buds are produced at the approach of the hot weather and germinate in November or December; and secondly, that the whole zoarium may be transformed at the former season into a layer of resting buds closely pressed together but sometimes exhibiting in their arrangement the typical cruciform formation. Resting buds may often be found in vigorous colonies as late as the beginning of December; these buds have not been recently formed but have persisted since the previous spring and have not yet germinated. Sometimes only one or two buds are formed at the base of an existing zooecium (fig. 37 _a_), but apparently it is possible not only for a zooecium to be transformed into a resting bud but for it to produce four other buds round its base before undergoing the change. Young polypides are formed inside the buds and a single zooecium sprouts out of each, as a rule by the growth of one of the basal projections, when conditions are favourable. Polypides of _V. bengalensis_ are often transformed into brown bodies. When this occurs the orifice closes together, with the collar expanded outside the zooecium. I have occasionally noticed that the ectocyst of such zooecia was distinctly thicker and darker in colour than that of normal zooecia. Eggs and spermatozoa are produced in great numbers, as a rule simultaneously in the same zooecia, but individuals kept in captivity often produce spermatozoa only. The eggs are small and are set free as eggs. Nothing is known as regards their development. Polypides are as a rule found in an active condition only in the cold weather, but I have on one occasion seen them in this condition in August, in a small zoarium attached to a shell of _Melania tuberculata_ taken in a canal of brackish water near Calcutta. Family HISLOPIIDÆ. HISLOPIDÉES, Jullien, Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, p. 180 (1885). HISLOPIIDÆ, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 200 (1907). _Zoarium_ recumbent, often forming an almost uniform layer on solid subjects. _Zooecia_ flattened, adherent; the orifice dorsal, either surrounded by a chitinous rim or situated at the tip of an erect chitinous tubule; no parietal muscles. _Polypide_ with an ample gizzard which possesses a uniform chitinous lining and does not close together when the polypide is retracted. _Resting bud_, not produced. Only two genera can be recognized in this family, _Arachnoidea_, Moore, from Central Africa, and _Hislopia_, Carter, which is widely distributed in Eastern Asia. The former genus possesses an upright orificial tubule and has zooecia separated by basal tubules. Its anatomy is imperfectly known, but it certainly possesses a gizzard of similar structure to that of _Hislopia_, between which and _Victorella_ its zooecium is intermediate in form. Genus HISLOPIA, _Carter_. _Hislopia_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (3) i, p. 169 (1858). _Hislopia_, Stolickza, J. As. Soc. Bengal, xxxviii (2), p. 61 (1869). _Norodonia_, Jullien, Bull. Soc. zool. France, v, p. 77 (1880). _Hislopia_, _id._, _ibid._ x, p. 183 (1885). _Norodonia_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 180. _Echinella_, Korotneff, Biol. Centrbl. xxi, p. 311 (1901). _Hislopia_, Annandale, J. As. Soc. Bengal (new series) ii, p. 59 (1906). _Hislopia_, Loppens, Ann. Biol. lacustre, iii, p. 175 (1908). TYPE, _Hislopia lacustris_, Carter. _Zoarium._ The zoarium consists primarily of a main axis running in a straight line, with lateral branches that point forwards and outwards. Further proliferation, however, often compacts the structure into an almost uniform flat area. _Zooecia._ The zooecia (fig. 35 B, p. 190) are flat and have the orifice surrounded by a chitinous rim but not much raised above the dorsal surface. They arise directly one from another. _Polypide._ The polypide possesses from 12 to 20 tentacles. Its funiculus is rudimentary or absent. Neither the ovaries nor the testes have any fixed position on the lateral walls of the zooecium to which they are confined. The position of this genus has been misunderstood by several zoologists. Carter originally described _Hislopia_ as a cheilostome allied to _Flustra_; in 1880 Jullien perpetuated the error in describing his _Norodonia_, which was founded on dried specimens of Carter's genus; while Loppens in 1908 still regarded the two "genera" as distinct and placed them both among the cheilostomes. In 1885, however, Jullien retracted his statement that _Norodonia_ was a cheilostome and placed it, together with _Hislopia_, in a family of which he recognized the latter as the eponymic genus. Carter's mistake arose from the fact that he had only examined preserved specimens, in which the thickened rim of the orifice is strongly reminiscent of the "peristome" of certain cheilostomes, while the posterior of the four folds into which the tentacle sheath naturally falls (as in all ctenostomes, _cf._ the diagram on p. 191) is in certain conditions rather larger than the other three and suggests the "lip" characteristic of the cheilostomes. If living specimens are examined, however, it is seen at once that the posterior fold, like the two lateral folds and the anterior one, changes its form and size from time to time and has no real resemblance to a "lip." That there is a remarkable, if superficial, resemblance both as regards the form of the zooecium and as regards the method of growth between _Hislopia_ and certain cheilostomes cannot be denied, but the structure of the orifice and indeed of the whole organism is that of a ctenostome and the resemblance must be regarded as an instance of convergence rather than of genetic relationship. The most striking feature of the polypide of _Hislopia_ is its gizzard (fig. 38, p. 201) which is perhaps unique (except for that of _Arachnoidea_) both in structure and function. In structure its peculiarities reside mainly in three particulars: (i), it is not constricted off directly from the thin-walled oesophageal tube, but possesses at its upper extremity a thick-walled tubular portion which can be entirely closed from the oesophagus at its upper end but always remains in communication with the spherical part of the gizzard; (ii), this spherical part of the gizzard is uniformly lined with a thick chitinous or horny layer which in optical section has the appearance of a pair of ridges; and (iii), there is a ring of long and very powerful cilia round the passage from the gizzard to the stomach. The cardiac limb of the stomach, which is large and heart-shaped, is obsolete. The wall of the spherical part of the gizzard consists of two layers of cells, an outer muscular layer consisting of powerful circular muscles and an inner glandular layer, which secretes the chitinous lining. The inner walls of the tubular part consist of non-ciliated columnar cells, and when the polypide is retracted it lies almost at right angles to the main axis of the zooecium. The spherical part of the gizzard invariably contains a number of green cells, which lie free in the liquid it holds and are kept in motion by the cilia at its lower aperture. The majority of these cells can be seen with the aid of a high power of the microscope to consist of a hard spherical coat or cyst containing green protoplasm in which a spherical mass of denser substance (the nucleus) and a number of minute transparent granules can sometimes be detected. The external surface of many of the cysts is covered with similar granules, but some are quite clean. There can be no doubt that these cysts represent a stage in the life-history of some minute unicellular plant or animal. Indeed, although it has not yet been found possible to work out this life-history in detail, I have been able to obtain much evidence that they are the resting stage of a flagellate organism allied to _Euglena_ which is swallowed by the polyzoon and becomes encysted in its gizzard, extruding in so doing from its external surface a large proportion of the food-material that it has stored up within itself in the form of transparent granules. It may also be stated that some of the organisms die and disintegrate on being received into the gizzard, instead of encysting themselves. So long as the gizzard retains its spherical form the green cells and its other contents are prevented from entering the stomach by the movements of the cilia that surround its lower aperture, but every now and then, at irregular intervals, the muscles that form its outer wall contract. The chitinous lining although resilient and not inflexible is too stiff to prevent the lumen of the gizzard being obliterated, but the action of the muscles changes its contents from a spherical to an ovoid form and in so doing presses a considerable part of them down into the stomach, through the ring of the cilia. [Illustration: Fig. 38.--Optical section of gizzard of _Hislopia lacustris_, with contained green cysts, × 240.] The contraction of the gizzard is momentary, and on its re-expansion some of the green cysts that have entered the stomach are often regurgitated into it. Some, however, remain in the stomach, in which they are turned round and round by the action of the cilia at both apertures. They are apparently able to retain their form for some hours in these circumstances but finally disintegrate and disappear, being doubtless digested by the juices poured out upon them by the glandular lining of the stomach. In polypides kept under observation in clean tap-water all the cysts finally disappear, and the fæces assume a green colour. In preserved specimens apparently unaltered cysts are sometimes found in the rectum, but this is exceptional: I have observed nothing of the kind in living polypides. Cysts often remain for several days unaltered in the gizzard. Imperfect as these observations are, they throw considerable light on the functions of the gizzard in _Hislopia_. Primarily it appears to act as a food-reservoir in which the green cysts and other minute organisms can be kept until they are required for digestion. When in the gizzard certain organisms surrender a large proportion of the food-material stored up for their own uses, and this food-material doubtless aids in nourishing the polyzoon. Although the cysts in the gizzard are frequently accompanied by diatoms, the latter are not invariably present. The cysts, moreover, are to be found in the zooecia of polypides that have formed brown bodies, often being actually enclosed in the substance of the brown body. The gizzards of the specimens of _Arachnoidea_ I have examined contain cysts that resemble those found in the same position in _Hislopia_. _Hislopia_ is widely distributed in the southern part of the Oriental Region, and, if I am right in regarding _Echinella_, Korotneff as a synonym, extends its range northwards to Lake Baikal. It appears to be a highly specialized form but is perhaps related, through _Arachnoidea_, to _Victorella_. 27. Hislopia lacustris, _Carter_. _Hislopia lacustris_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (3) i, p. 170, pl. vii, figs. 1-3 (1858). _Norodonia cambodgiensis_, Jullien, Bull. Soc. zool. France, v, p. 77, figs. 1-3 (1880). _Norodonia sinensis_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 78, figs. 1-3. _Norodonia cambodgiensis_, _id._, _ibid._ x, p. 181, figs. 244, 245 (1885). _Norodonia sinensis_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 182, figs. 246, 247. _Hislopia lacustris_, Annandale, J. As. Soc. Bengal (new series) iii, p. 85 (1907). _Hislopia lacustris_, Walton, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 177 (1907). _Hislopia lacustris_, Kirkpatrick, _ibid._ ii, p. 98 (1908). _Hislopia lacustris_, Walton, _ibid._ iii, p. 295 (1909). _Zoarium._ The zoarium forms a flat, more or less solid layer and is closely adherent to foreign objects. As a rule it covers a considerable area, with radiating branches at the edges; but when growing on slender twigs or the stems of water-plants it forms narrow, closely compressed masses. One zooecium, however, never grows over another. _Zooecia._ The zooecia are variable in shape. In zoaria which have space for free expansion they are as a rule irregularly oval, the posterior extremity being often narrower than the anterior; but small triangular zooecia and others that are almost square may often be found. When growing on a support of limited area the zooecia are smaller and as a rule more elongate. The orifice is situated on a slight eminence nearer the anterior than the posterior margin of the dorsal surface. It is surrounded by a strong chitinous rim, which is usually square or subquadrate but not infrequently circular or subcircular. Sometimes a prominent spine is borne at each corner of the rim, but these spines are often vestigial or absent; they are rarely as long as the transverse diameter of the orifice. The zooecium is usually surrounded by a chitinous margin, and outside this margin there is often a greater or less extent of adherent membrane. In some zooecia the margin is obsolete or obsolescent. The dorsal surface is of a glassy transparency but by no means soft. [Illustration: Fig. 39.--_Hislopia lacustris._ A=part of a zoarium of the subspecies _moniliformis_ (type specimen, from Calcutta), × 15; A=green cysts in gizzard; E=eggs. B=outline of part of a zoarium of the typical form of the species from the United Provinces, showing variation in the form of the zooecia and of the orifice, × 15.] _Polypide._ The polypide has from 12 to 20 tentacles, 16 being a common number. TYPE probably not in existence. It is not in the British Museum and Prof. Dendy, who has been kind enough to examine the specimens from Carter's collection now in his possession, tells me that there are none of _Hislopia_ among them. 27 _a._ Subsp. moniliformis, nov. _Hislopia lacustris_, Annandale, J. As. Soc. Bengal (new series) ii, p. 59, fig. 1 (1906). In this race, which is common in Calcutta, the zooecia are almost circular but truncate or concave anteriorly and posteriorly. They form linear series with few lateral branches. I have found specimens occasionally on the shell of _Vivipara bengalensis_, but they are much more common on the leaves of _Vallisneria spiralis_. TYPE in the Indian Museum. The exact status of the forms described by Jullien as _Norodonia cambodgiensis_ and _N. sinensis_ is doubtful, but I see no reason to regard them as specifically distinct from _H. lacustris_, Carter, of which they may be provisionally regarded as varieties. The variety _cambodgiensis_ is very like my subspecies _moniliformis_ but has the zooecia constricted posteriorly, while var. _sinensis_, although the types were found on _Anodonta_ shells on which there was plenty of room for growth, resemble the confined phase of _H. lacustris_ so far as the form of their zooecia and of the orifice is concerned. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--The typical form is common in northern India and occurs also in Lower Burma; the subspecies _moniliformis_ appears to be confined to Lower Bengal, while the varieties _cambodgiensis_ and _sinensis_ both occur in China, the former having been found also in Cambodia and Siam. Indian and Burmese localities are:--BENGAL, Calcutta (subsp. _moniliformis_); Berhampur, Murshidabad district (_J. Robertson Milne_): CENTRAL PROVINCES, Nagpur (_Carter_): UNITED PROVINCES, Bulandshahr (_H. J. Walton_): BURMA, Pegu-Sittang Canal (_Kirkpatrick_). BIOLOGY.--Regarding the typical form of the species Major Walton writes (Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, p. 296):--"In volume i (page 177) of the Records of the Indian Museum, I described the two forms of colonies of _Hislopia_ that I had found in the United Provinces (Bulandshahr). Of these, one was a more or less linear arrangement of the zooecia on leaves and twigs, and the other, and more common, form was an encrusting sheath on the outer surface of the shells of _Paludina_. During the present 'rains' (July 1908) I have found many examples of what may be considered a much exaggerated extension of the latter form. These colonies have been on bricks, tiles, and other submerged objects. The largest colony that I have seen so far was on a tile; one side of the tile was exposed above the mud of the bottom of the tank, and its area measured about 120 square inches; the entire surface was almost completely covered by a continuous growth of _Hislopia_. Another large colony was on a piece of bark which measured 7 inches by 3 inches; both sides were practically everywhere covered by _Hislopia_." Major Walton also notes that in the United Provinces the growth of _Hislopia_ is at its maximum during "rains," and that at that time of year almost every adult _Paludina_ in a certain tank at Bulandshahr had its shell covered with the zooecia. The Calcutta race flourishes all the year round but never forms large or closely compacted zoaria, those on shells of _Vivipara_ exactly resembling those on leaves of _Vallisneria_. In Calcutta both eggs and spermatozoa are produced at all times of the year simultaneously in the same zooecia, but the eggs in one zooecium often vary greatly in size. When mature they reach relatively considerable dimensions and contain a large amount of food material; but they are set free from the zooecium as eggs. They lie loose in the zooecium at a comparatively small size and grow in this position. Nothing is known as regards the development of _Hislopia_. Both forms of the species appear to be confined to water that is free from all traces of contamination with brine. Order PHYLACTOLÆMATA. The polypide in this order possesses a leaf-like ciliated organ (the epistome) which arises within the lophophore between the mouth and the anus and projects upwards and forwards over the mouth, which it can be used to close. The zooecia are never distinct from one another, but in dendritic forms such as _Plumatella_ the zoarium is divided at irregular intervals by chitinous partitions. The lophophore in most genera is horseshoe-shaped instead of circular, the part opposite the anus being deeply indented. There are no parietal muscles. The orifice of the zooecium is always circular, and there is no trace of any structure corresponding to the collar of the ctenostomes. The tentacles are always webbed at the base. All the phylactolæmata produce the peculiar reproductive bodies known as statoblasts. The phylactolæmata, which are probably descended from ctenostomatous ancestors, are confined to fresh or slightly brackish water. Most of the genera have a wide geographical distribution, but (with the exception of a few statoblasts of almost recent date) only one fossil form (_Plumatellites_, Fric. from the chalk of Bohemia) has been referred to the order, and that with some doubt. It is convenient to recognize two main divisions of the phylactolæmata, but these divisions hardly merit the distinction of being regarded as suborders. They may be called Cristatellina and Plumatellina and distinguished as follows:-- Division I, PLUMATELLINA, nov.--Ectocyst well developed; zoaria without a special organ of progression; polypides contained in tubes. Division II, CRISTATELLINA, nov.--Ectocyst absent except at the base of the zoarium which is modified to form a creeping "sole"; polypides embedded in a common synoecium of reticulate structure. The Cristatellina consist of a single genus and probably of a single species (_Cristatella mucedo_, Cuvier), which is widely distributed in Europe and N. America, but has not been found in the Oriental Region. Eight genera of Plumatellina are known, and five (possibly six) of these genera occur in India. Division PLUMATELLINA, nov. The structure of the species included in this division is very uniform as regards the internal organs (see fig. 40 opposite and fig. 47 _a_, p. 236). The alimentary canal is simpler than that of the Paludicellidæ. A short oesophagus leads directly into the stomach, the cardiac portion of which is produced as a vertical limb almost cylindrical in form and not constricted at the base. This limb is as a rule of greater length than the oesophagus. The pyloric part of the stomach is elongated and narrow, and the intestine short, straight, and of ovoid form. There are no cilia at the pyloric opening. A single funiculus joins the posterior end of the stomach to the wall of the zooecium, bearing the statoblasts. Sexual organs are often absent. [Illustration: Fig. 40.--Structure of the Plumatellina (after Allman). A=a zooecium of _Fredericella_ with the polypide extruded. B=the lophophore of _Lophopus_ (tentacles removed) as seen obliquely from the right side. C=larva of _Plumatella_ as seen in optical section. _a_=tentacles; _b_=velum; _c_=epistome; _d_=mouth; _e_=oesophagus; _f_=stomach; _g_=intestine; _h_=anus; _j_=retractor muscle; _k_=parieto-vaginal muscles; _l_=funiculus.] Two families may be recognized as constituting the division, _viz._, (_a_) the Fredericellidæ, which have a circular or oval lophophore and simple statoblast without a swim-ring, and (_b_) the Plumatellidæ, in which the lophophore is shaped like a horseshoe and some or all of the statoblasts are provided with a ring of air-spaces. Family 1. FREDERICELLIDÆ. FREDERICELLIDÆ, Kraepelin, Deutsch. Süsswasserbryozoen, i, p. 168 (1887). _Zoaria_ dendritic; _zooecia_ distinctly tubular, with the ectocyst well developed; _statoblasts_ of one kind only, each surrounded by a chitinous ring devoid of air-spaces; _polypides_ with the lophophore circular or oval when expanded. The Fredericellidæ consist of a single genus (_Fredericella_) which includes several closely-allied forms and has a wide geographical distribution. Genus FREDERICELLA, _Gervais_ (1838). _Fredericella_, Allman, Mon. Fresh-Water Polyzoa, p. 11 (1857). _Plumatella_, ("arrêt de développement") Jullien, Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, p. 121 (1885). _Fredericella_, Kraepelin, Deutsch. Süsswasserbryozoen, i, p. 99 (1887). _Fredericella_, Goddard, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, xxxiv, p. 489 (1909). This genus has the characters of the family. Its status has been much disputed, some authors regarding the shape of the lophophore as of great morphological importance, while Jullien believed that _Fredericella_ was merely an abnormal or monstrous form of _Plumatella_. The latter belief was doubtless due to the fact that the zoaria of the two genera bear a very close external resemblance to one another and are sometimes found entangled together. The importance of the shape of the lophophore may, however, easily be exaggerated, for, as both Jullien and Goddard have pointed out, it assumes an emarginate form when retracted. The best known species is the European and N. American _F. sultana_ (Blumenbach), of which several varieties or phases have been described as distinct. This form is stated to occur also in S. Africa. _F. australiensis_, Goddard[BC] from N. S. Wales is said to differ from this species in having an oval instead of a circular lophophore and in other small anatomical characters; but it is doubtful how far these characters are valid, for the lophophore appears to be capable of changing its shape to some slight extent and has been stated by Jullien to be habitually oval in specimens from France. _F. cunningtoni_, Rousselet[BD] from Lake Tanganyika has stout zooecia encrusted with relatively large sand-grains. [Footnote BC: Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, xxxiv, p. 489 (1909).] [Footnote BD: Rousselet, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1907 (1), p. 254.] The zoaria of _Fredericella_ are usually found attached to solid objects in shallow water, but a form described as _F. duplessisi_, Ford has been found at a depth of 40 fathoms embedded in mud at the bottom of the Lake of Geneva. _F. cunningtoni_ was dredged from depths of about 10 and about 25 fathoms. The statoblasts of this genus do not float and often germinate in the parent zooecium after its polypides have died. They are produced in smaller numbers than is usually the case in other genera of the order. The polypides sometimes undergo a process of regeneration, but without the formation of brown bodies. [Illustration: Fig. 41.--_Fredericella indica._ A=statoblast, × 120. B=outline of expanded lophophore and adjacent parts, × 75; a=anus, r=rectum. C=outline of zoarium on leaf of water-plant, × 3. (A and B are from specimens from Igatpuri, C from specimen from Shasthancottah).] 28. Fredericella indica, _Annandale_. _Fredericella indica_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, p. 373, fig. (1909). _Fredericella indica_, _id._, _ibid._ v, p. 39 (1910). _Zoarium._ The zoarium is of delicate appearance and branches sparingly. It is often entirely recumbent but sometimes produces short, lax branches that consist of two or three zooecia only. _Zooecia._ The zooecia are very slender and almost cylindrical; they are slightly emarginate and furrowed, the keel in which the furrow runs being sometimes prominent. The external surface is minutely roughened and apparently soft, for small grains of sand and other débris cling to it, but never thickly. The ectocyst is practically colourless but not transparent. _Statoblasts._ The statoblasts are variable in size and form but most commonly have a regular broad oval outline; sometimes they are kidney-shaped. The dorsal surface is covered with minute star-shaped prominences, which sometimes cover it almost uniformly and are sometimes more numerous in the centre than towards the periphery. The ventral surface is smooth. _Polypide._ The lophophore bears about 20-25 tentacles, which are very slender and of moderate length; the velum at their base is narrow; as a rule the lophophore is accurately circular. TYPE in the Indian Museum. The most definite character in which this species differs from _F. sultana_ and _F. australiensis_ is the ornamentation of one surface of the statoblast, both surfaces of which are smooth in the two latter species. From _F. cunningtoni_, the statoblasts of which are unknown, it differs in having almost cylindrical instead of depressed zooecia and in not having the zooecia densely covered with sand-grains. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--Western India (the Malabar Zone): Igatpuri Lake, W. Ghats (alt. ca. 2,000 feet), Bombay Presidency, and Shasthancottah Lake near Quilon, Travancore. BIOLOGY.--In both the lakes in which the species has yet been found it was collected in November. The specimens obtained in Travancore were found to be undergoing a process of regeneration due at least partly to the fact that most of the polypides had perished and that statoblasts were germinating in the old zooecia. Specimens from the Bombay Presidency, which were obtained a little later in the month, were in a more vigorous condition, although even they contained many young polypides that were not yet fully formed. It seems, therefore, not improbable that _F. indica_ dies down at the beginning of the hot weather and is regenerated by the germination of its statoblasts at the beginning of the cold weather. At Shasthancottah zoaria were found entangled with zoaria of a delicate form of _Plumatella fruticosa_ to which they bore a very close external resemblance. Family 2. PLUMATELLIDÆ. PLUMATELLIDÆ, Allman (_partim_), Mon. Fresh-Water Polyzoa, pp. 76, 81 (1857). Phylactolæmata which have horseshoe-shaped lophophores and a well-developed ectocyst not specialized to form an organ of progression. Some or all of the statoblasts are provided with a "swim-ring" consisting of symmetrically disposed, polygonal chitinous chambers containing air. It is convenient to divide the Plumatellidæ as thus defined into subfamilies (the Plumatellinæ and the Lophopinæ), which may be defined as follows:-- Subfamily A. PLUMATELLINÆ. Zoarium dendritic or linear, firmly fixed to extraneous objects; zooecia tubular, not fused together to form a gelatinous mass. Subfamily B. LOPHOPINÆ. Zoarium forming a gelatinous mass in which the tubular nature of the zooecia almost disappears, capable to a limited extent of progression along a smooth surface. Both these subfamilies are represented in the Indian fauna, the Plumatellinæ by two of the three genera known to exist, and the Lophopinæ by two (or possibly three) of the four that have been described. The following key includes all the known genera, but the names of those that have not been recorded from India are enclosed in square brackets. _Key to the Genera of_ Plumatellidæ. I. Statoblasts without marginal processes. A. Zooecia cylindrical, not embedded in a gelatinous investment (Plumatellinæ). _a_. Zooecia arising directly from one another; no stolon; free statoblast oval PLUMATELLA, p. 212. _a'_. Zooecia arising singly or in groups from an adherent stolon; free statoblasts oval. STOLELLA, p. 229. B. Zooecia cylindrical, embedded in a structureless gelatinous investment. Zooecia arising from a ramifying stolon; statoblasts circular [STEPHANELLA.] C. Polypides embedded in a hyaline synoecium that conceals the cylindrical form of the zooecia (Lophopinæ). _c_. Polypides upright, their base far removed from that of the zoarium when they are expanded LOPHOPUS, p. 231. _c'_. Polypides recumbent for the greater part of their length at the base of the zoarium [AUSTRALELLA[BE].] II. Statoblasts armed (normally) with hooked processes (Lophopinæ). A. Processes confined to the extremities of the statoblast; zoaria remaining separate throughout life LOPHOPODELLA, p. 231. B. Processes entirely surrounding the statoblast; many zoaria embedded in a common gelatinous investment so as to form large compound colonies PECTINATELLA, p. 235. [Footnote BE: See Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 40, footnote (1910).] Subfamily A. PLUMATELLINÆ. Of the two Indian genera of this subfamily, one (_Plumatella_) is almost universally distributed, while the other (_Stolella_) has only been found in the valley of the Ganges. The third genus of the subfamily (_Stephanella_) is only known from Japan. It should be noted that zoaria of different species and genera of this subfamily are often found in close proximity to one another and to zoaria of _Fredericella_, and that the branches of the different species are sometimes entangled together in such a way that they appear, unless carefully separated, to belong to the same zoarium. Genus 1. PLUMATELLA, _Lamarck_. _Plumatella_, Lamarck, Animaux sans Vert. (ed. 1re) ii, p. 106 (1816). _Alcyonella_, _id_., _ibid_. p. 100. _Plumatella_, Allman, Mon. Fresh-Water Polyzoa, p. 92 (1857). _Alcyonella_, _id_., _ibid_. p. 86. _Plumatella_, Hyatt, Comm. Essex Inst. iv, p. 207, pl. viii (1866). _Plumatella_, Jullien (_partim_), Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, p. 100 (1885). _Hyalinella_, _id_., _ibid_. p. 133. _Plumatella_, Kraepelin, Deutsch. Süsswass. Bryozoen, i, p. 104 (1887). _Plumatella_, Braem, Unter. ü. Bryozoen des süssen Wassers, p. 2 (Bibliotheca Zoologica, ii, 1890). _Zoarium_ dendritic, recumbent, erect, or partly recumbent and partly erect. _Zooecia_ tubular, not confined in a gelatinous synoecium; the ectocyst usually horny. _Statoblasts_ often of two kinds, free and stationary, the latter without air-cells and as a rule adherent by one surface, the former provided with a well-developed ring of air-cells but without marginal processes, oval in form, never more than about 0.6 mm. in length. _Polypide_ with less than 65 tentacles. [Illustration: Fig. 42.--Outlines of free statoblasts of _Plumatella_ (enlarged). A, of _P. fruticosa_ (Calcutta); B, of _P. emarginata_ (Calcutta); C, of _P. javanica_ (Travancore); D, of _P. diffusa_ (Sikhim); E, of _P. allmani_ (Bhim Tal); F, of _P. diffusa_ (Rajshahi, Bengal); G, G', of _P. punctata_ (Calcutta); H, of _P. diffusa_ (Sikhim), statoblast further enlarged: A=outline of capsule; B=limit of swim-ring on ventral surface; C=limit of swim-ring on dorsal surface. [The dark area represents the capsule of the statoblast.]] Certain forms of this genus are liable to become compacted together in such a way as to constitute solid masses consisting of elongate vertical zooecia closely parallel to one another and sometimes agglutinated by means of a gummy substance. These forms were given by Lamarck in 1816 the name _Alcyonella_, and there has been much dispute as to whether they represent a distinct genus, distinct species, or merely varieties or phases of more typical forms. It appears to be the case that all species which produce vertical branches are liable to have these branches closely packed together and the individual zooecia of which they are composed more or less greatly elongated. It is in this way that the form known to Allman as _Alcyonella benedeni_ is produced from the typical _Plumatella emarginata_. Other forms go further and secrete a gummy substance that glues the upright zooecia together and forces them to elongate themselves without branching. In these conditions the zooecia become polygonal in cross-section. It is probable that such forms (_e. g._, _Plumatella fungosa_ (Pallas)) should rank as distinct species, for the gummy secretion is present in great profusion even in young zoaria in which the zooecia have not yet assumed a vertical position. No such form, however, has as yet been found in India, and in any case it is impossible to regard _Alcyonella_ as a distinct genus. _Key to the Indian Species of_ Plumatella. I. Ectocyst more or less stiff, capable of transverse wrinkling only near the tips of the zooecia, never contractile or greatly swollen; zooecia rounded[BF] at the tip when the polypide is retracted. Free statoblasts elongate; the free portion of their swim-ring distinctly narrower at the sides than at the ends. A. Ectocyst by no means rigid, of a uniform pale colour; zooecia never emarginate or furrowed, straight, curved or sinuous, elongate, cylindrical _fruticosa_, p. 217. B. Ectocyst rigid; zooecia (or at any rate some of the zooecia) emarginate and furrowed. _b_. Ectocyst darkly pigmented over the greater part of each zooecium, white at the tip; branching of the zoarium practically dichotomous, profuse, as a rule both horizontal and vertical; zooecia straight or slightly curved or sinuous _emarginata_, p. 220. _b'_. Ectocyst colourless and hyaline; branching of the zoarium sparse, lateral, irregular, horizontal; zooecia nearly straight, strongly emarginate and furrowed _javanica_, p. 221. _b''_. The majority of the zooecia distinctly L-shaped, one limb being as a rule adherent; ectocyst never densely pigmented. beta. Zooecia cylindrical, their furrowed keel never prominent _diffusa_, p. 223. beta'. Zooecia (or at any rate some of the zooecia) constricted or tapering at the base, their emargination and furrow conspicuous _allmani_, p. 224. II. Ectocyst stiff; zooecia truncated when the polypide is retracted. Surface of zooecia minutely roughened, distinctly annulate on the distal part _tanganyikæ_, p. 225. III. Ectocyst swollen and contractile, capable of transverse wrinkling all over the zooecium; zooecia never emarginate _punctata_, p. 227. [Footnote BF: In specimens preserved in spirit they are apt to collapse and therefore to become somewhat concave.] There has always been much difficulty in separating the species of _Plumatella_, and even now there is no general consensus of opinion as to the number that should be recognized. The difficulty, however, is much reduced if the following precautions are observed:-- (1) If the zoarium appears to be tangled, if the branches intertwine or overlap, or if the zooecia are closely pressed together, the whole mass should be carefully dissected out. This is necessary not only because zoaria belonging to different species are sometimes found entangled together but also because it is often difficult to recognize the characteristic method of branching and shape of the zooecia unless it is done. (2) As large a part as possible of each zoarium should be examined, preferably with a binocular microscope, and allowance should be made for irregularities and abnormalities of all kinds. What must be observed is the rule rather than the exceptions. (3) When the statoblasts are being examined, care must be taken that they lie flat and that their surface is parallel to that of the nose-piece of the microscope. If they are viewed obliquely it is impossible to see their true outlines and proportions. (4) In order to see the relative proportions of the capsule and the swim-ring it is necessary that the statoblast should be rendered transparent. This is often difficult owing to the presence of air in the air-cells, but strong nitric acid applied judiciously will render it possible (p. 240). In supervising the preparation of the plates that illustrate this genus I have impressed upon the artist the importance of representing what he saw rather than what he thought he ought to see, and the figures are very close copies of actual specimens. I have deliberately chosen for representation specimens of _Plumatella_ preserved by the simple methods which are often the only ones that it is possible for a traveller to adopt, for the great majority of naturalists will probably have no opportunity of examining living specimens or specimens preserved by special methods, and the main object, I take it, of this series is to enable naturalists first to distinguish the species described and then to learn something of their habitat and habits. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--Of the seven species included in this key five have been found in Europe (namely _P. fruticosa_, _P. emarginata_, _P. diffusa_, _P. allmani_, and _P. punctata_), while of these five all but _P. allmani_ are known to occur in N. America also. _P. javanica_ is apparently peculiar to the Oriental Region, while _P. tanganyikæ_ has only been taken in Central Africa and in the Bombay Presidency. TYPES.--Very few of the type-specimens of the older species of _Plumatella_ are in existence. Allman's are neither in Edinburgh nor in London, and Mr. E. Leonard Gill, who has been kind enough to go through the Hancock Collection at Newcastle-on-Tyne, tells me that he cannot trace Hancock's. Those of the forms described by Kraepelin are in Hamburg and that of _P. tanganyikæ_ in the British Museum, and there are schizotypes or paratypes of this species and of _P. javanica_ in Calcutta. The types of Leidy's species were at one time in the collection of the Philadelphia Academy of Science. BIOLOGY.--The zoaria of the species of _Plumatella_ are found firmly attached to stones, bricks, logs of wood, sticks, floating seeds, the stems and roots of water-plants, and occasionally to the shells of molluscs such as _Vivipara_ and _Unio_. Some species shun the light, but all are apparently confined to shallow water. Various small oligochæte worms (e. g., _Chætogaster spongillæ_,[BG] _Nais obtusa_, _Nais elinguis_, _Slavina appendiculata_ and _Pristina longiseta_[BH]), take shelter amongst them; dipterous larvæ of the genus _Chironomus_ often build their protective tubes at the base of the zoaria, and the surface of the zooecia commonly bears a more or less profuse growth of such protozoa as _Vorticella_ and _Epistylis_. I have seen a worm of the genus _Chætogaster_ devouring the tentacles of a polypide that had been accidentally injured, but as a rule the movements of the lophophore are too quick to permit attacks of the kind, and I know of no active enemy of the genus. The growth of sponges at the base of the zoaria probably chokes some species, but one form (_F. fruticosa_) is able to surmount this difficulty by elongating its zooecia (p. 219). A small worm (_Aulophorus tonkinensis_) which is common in ponds in Burma and the east of India as far west as Lucknow, often builds the tube in which it lives mainly of the free statoblasts of this genus. It apparently makes no selection in so doing but merely gathers the commonest and lightest objects it can find, for small seeds and minute fragments of wood as well as sponge gemmules and statoblasts of other genera are also collected by it. I know of no better way of obtaining a general idea as to what sponges and phylactolæmata are present in a pond than to examine the tubes of _Aulophorus tonkinensis_. [Footnote BG: Annandale, J. As. Soc. Bengal (n. s.) ii, p. 188, pl. i (1906).] [Footnote BH: See Michaelsen, Mem. Ind. Mus. i, pp. 131-135 (1908).] I am indebted to Mr. F. H. Gravely, Assistant Superintendent in the Indian Museum, for an interesting note regarding the food of _Plumatella_. His observations, which were made in Northamptonshire, were unfortunately interrupted at a critical moment, but I have reproduced them with his consent in order that other observers may investigate the phenomena he saw. Mr. Gravely noted that a small green flagellate which was abundant in water in which _Plumatella repens_ was growing luxuriantly, was swallowed by the polypides, and that if the polyparium was kept in a shallow dish of water, living flagellata of the same species congregated in a little pile under the anus of each polypide. His preparations show very clearly that the flagellates were passing through the alimentary canal without apparent change, but the method of preservation does not permit the retractile granules, which were present in large numbers in the cell-substance of the flagellates, to be displayed and it is possible that these granules had disappeared from those flagellates which are present in the recta of his specimens. It is clear, therefore, either that certain flagellates must pass through the alimentary canal of _Plumatella_ unchanged, or that the polyzoon must have the power of absorbing the stored food material the flagellates contain without doing them any other injury. The free statoblasts of _Plumatella_ are as a rule set free before the cells they contain become differentiated, and float on the surface of the water for some time before they germinate; but occasionally a small polypide is formed inside the capsule while it is still in its parent zooecium. I have, however, seen only one instance of this premature development, in a single statoblast contained in a small zoarium of _P. fruticosa_ found in Lower Burma in March. The fixed statoblasts usually remain fixed to the support of the zoarium, even when their parent-zooecium decays, and germinate _in situ_. The larva (fig. 40 C, p. 207) that originates from the egg of _Plumatella_ is a minute pear-shaped, bladder-like body covered externally with fine vibratile threads (cilia) and having a pore at the narrow end. At the period at which it is set free from the parent zooecium it already contains a fully formed polypide or pair of polypides with the tentacles directed towards the narrow end. After a brief period of active life, during which it moves through the water by means of its cilia, it settles down on its broad end, which becomes adhesive; the polypide or pair of polypides is everted through the pore at the narrow end, the whole of this end is turned inside out, and a fresh polyparium is rapidly formed by budding. 29. Plumatella fruticosa, _Allman_. (Plate III, fig. 1; plate IV, fig. 4; plate V, fig. 1.) _Plumatella fruticosa_, Allman, Ann. Nat. Hist. xiii, p. 331 (1844). _Plumatella repens_, van Beneden (? _nec_ Linné), Mém. Acad. Roy. Belg. 1847, p. 21, pl. i, figs. 1-4. _Plumatella fruticosa_, Johnston, Brit. Zooph. (ed. 2), p. 404 (1847). _Plumatella coralloides_, Allman, Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1850, p. 335. _Plumatella stricta_, _id._, Mon. Fresh-Water Polyzoa, p. 99, fig. 14 (1857). _Plumatella fruticosa_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 102, pl. vi, figs. 3-5. _Plumatella coralloides_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 103, pl. vii, figs. 1-4. _Plumatella repens_ and _P. stricta_, Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (3) iii, p. 341 (1859). _Plumatella lucifuga_, Jullien (_partim_), Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, p. 114 (1885). _Plumatella princeps_ var. _fruticosa_, Kraepelin, Deutsch. Süsswasserbryozoen, i, p. 120, pl. vii, fig. 148 (1887). _Plumatella fruticosa_, Braem, Unter. ii. Bryozoen des süssen Wassers, p. 9, pl. i, fig. 15 (Bibl. Zool. ii) (1890). _Plumatella repens_, Annandale, J. As. Soc. Bengal (new series) iii, 1907, p. 88. _Plumatella emarginata_, Loppens (_partim_), Ann. Biol. lacustre, iii, p. 161 (1908). _Plumatella fruticosa_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 45 (1910). _Zoarium._ The zoarium in the typical form has a loose appearance due to the fact that the branches are far apart and the ectocyst by no means rigid. When young the zoarium is adherent, but in well-grown polyparia vertical branches, often an inch or more in length, are freely produced. As a rule they have not the strength to stand upright if removed from the water. Branching is ordinarily lateral and as a rule occurs chiefly on one side of a main branch or trunk. In certain circumstances upright zooecia are pressed together and reach a great length without branching, and in this form (_P. coralloides_, Allman) daughter-zooecia are often produced at the tip of an elongated mother-zooecium in fan-like formation. A depauperated form (_P. stricta_, Allman), occurs in which the vertical branches are absent or very short. In all forms internal partitions are numerous and stout. _Zooecia._ The zooecia are cylindrical and bear a simple keel on their dorsal surface. They are never emarginate or furrowed. In the typical form their diameter is more than half a millimetre, and they are always of considerable length. The ectocyst is thin and never very rigid or deeply pigmented, the colour usually being an almost uniform pale pinkish brown and fading little towards the tip of the zooecium. _Statoblasts._ Both free and stationary statoblasts are formed, but the latter are rare and do not always adhere. They resemble the free statoblasts in general form but have a solid margin instead of a swim-ring and are often minutely serrated round the edge. The free statoblasts are at least considerably, sometimes very elongate; in all zoaria it is possible to find specimens that are more than twice as long as broad. The capsule is relatively large and resembles the swim-ring in outline, so that the free portion of the latter is not much narrower at the sides than at the ends. The sides are distinctly convex and the ends rounded; the swim-ring encroaches little on the surface of the capsule. _Polypide._ The tentacles number between 40 and 50 and are not festooned at the base. The stomach is slender and elongate. TYPE not in existence. SYSTEMATIC REMARKS.--_P. fruticosa_ is closely allied to _P. repens_ (European and N. American) but always has much longer statoblasts. Three phases of the species may be distinguished as follows:-- A. (_Forma typica_). Zooecia stout in form, not greatly elongate; free branches produced in profusion. B. (_P. stricta_, Allman, _P. repens_, van Beneden). Zooecia slender; free branches absent or consisting of two or three zooecia only. C. (_P. coralloides_, Allman). Vertical zooecia pressed together and greatly elongated. Indian specimens of the typical form agree well with German specimens labelled by Prof. Kraepelin _P. princeps_ var. _fruticosa_, and specimens of the _coralloides_ phase could hardly be distinguished from similar specimens from Scotland. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_P. fruticosa_ is widely distributed in Europe and probably in N. America. I have seen Indian specimens from the Punjab (Lahore, _Stephenson_), from Bombay, from Travancore, from Calcutta and other places in the Ganges delta, from Rajshahi (Rampur Bhoolia) on the R. Ganges, from Kurseong in the E. Himalayas (alt. 4,500 feet), and from Kawkareik in Tenasserim. Statoblasts found on the surface of a pond near Simla in the W. Himalayas (alt. _ca._ 8,000 feet), probably belong to this species. BIOLOGY.--Allman states that in England _P. fruticosa_ is fond of still and slowly-running water. The typical form and the _coralloides_ phase grow abundantly in the Calcutta tanks, the former often attaining an extraordinary luxuriance. I have found the var. _stricta_ only in water in which there was reason to suspect a lack of minute life (and therefore of food), viz. in Shasthancottah Lake in Travancore, in a swamp in Lower Burma, and in a small jungle stream near the base of the Western Ghats in Travancore. The species is the only one that I have seen in running water in India, and the specimens obtained in the jungle stream in Travancore are the only specimens I have taken in these circumstances. _P. fruticosa_ always grows near the surface or near the edge of water; it is found attached to the stems of bulrushes and other aquatic plants, to floating seeds and logs and (rarely) to stones and bricks. So far as my experience goes it is only found, at any rate in Calcutta, in the cold weather and does not make its appearance earlier than October. The form Allman called _P. coralloides_ was found by him, "attached to floating logs of wood, together with _P. repens_ and _Cordylophora lacustris_, and generally immersed in masses of _Spongilla fluviatilis_." I have always found it immersed in sponges (_S. lacustris_, _S. alba_, _S. carteri_, and _S. crassissima_), except when the sponge in which it had been immersed had decayed. Indeed, the peculiar form it has assumed appears to be directly due to the pressure of the growing sponge exerted on the zooecia, for it is often possible to find a zoarium that has been partially overgrown by a sponge and has retained its typical form so long as it was free but has assumed the _coralloides_ form where immersed.[BI] In Shasthancottah Lake, Travancore, I found specimens of the _stricta_ phase embedded in the gelatinous mass formed by a social rotifer and to some extent assimilated to the _coralloides_ form. [Footnote BI: Braem (_op. cit._, p. 3, pl. i, fig. 1), has described and figured under the name _P. fungosa_ var. _coralloides_, Allman, a dense form that somewhat resembles this phase of _P. fruticosa_ but has become compacted without external pressure. It is, however, probably a form of _P. repens_ rather than _P. fungosa_ and differs in its broad statoblasts from any form of _P. fruticosa_. I have examined specimens of the same form from England.] 30. Plumatella emarginata, _Allman_. (Plate III, fig. 2; plate IV, figs. 1, 1 _a._) _Plumatella emarginata_, Allman, Ann. Nat. Hist. xiii, p. 330 (1844). _Plumatella emarginata_, Johnston, Brit. Zooph. (ed. 2), p. 404 (1847). _Alcyonella benedeni_, Allman, Mon. Fresh-Water Polyzoa, p. 89, pl. iv, figs. 5-11 (1857). _Plumatella emarginata_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 104, pl. vii, figs. 5-10. _Plumatella lucifuga_, Jullien, Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, figs. 89, 90, p. 114 (1885). _Plumatella princeps_ var. _emarginata_, Kraepelin (_partim_), Deutsch. Süsswasserbryoz. p. 120, pl. iv, fig. 108, pl. v, fig. 123 (1887). _Plumatella emarginata_, Braem, Unter. ii. Bryoz. süssen Wassers, p. 9, pl. i, figs. 12, 14 (Bibl. Zool. ii) (1890). _Plumatella emarginata_, Annandale (_partim_), J. As. Soc. Bengal, (new series) iii, 1907, p. 89. _Plumatella princeps_, Loppens (_partim_), Ann. Biol. lacustre, iii, p. 162, fig. 7 (1908). _Plumatella emarginata_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 47 (1910). _Zoarium._ The zoarium often covers a considerable area on flat surfaces and is sometimes entirely recumbent. More usually, however, the younger part is vertical. In either case the branching is practically dichotomous, two young zooecia arising almost simultaneously at the tip of a mother-zooecium and diverging from one another at a small angle. When the zoarium becomes vertical, rigid branches of as much as an inch in length are sometimes produced in this way and, arising parallel to one another, are pressed together to form an almost solid mass (=_Alcyonella benedeni_, Allman). In such cases the basal zooecium or at any rate the basal part of each upright branch is considerably elongated. In recumbent zooecia the main branches often radiate outwards from a common centre. _Zooecia._ The zooecia are of almost equal width throughout, slender, and moderately elongate when recumbent. Their ectocyst is stiff; they are emarginate at the tip and more or less distinctly furrowed on the dorsal surface, the keel in which the furrow runs not being prominent. The orifice is often on the dorsal surface even in upright branches. Each zooecium is of a dark brown or almost black colour for the greater part of its length but has a conspicuous white tip which is extended down the dorsal surface in the form of a triangle, its limits being rather more extensive than and parallel to those of the emargination. _Statoblast._ The majority of the free statoblasts are elongate and truncate or subtruncate at the extremities, the sides being as a rule straight and parallel. In every polyparium specimens will be found that are between twice and thrice as long as broad. The capsule is, however, relatively much broader than the swim-ring, often being nearly circular, and there is therefore at either end a considerable extent of free air-cells, while the extent of these cells at the sides of the capsule is small. The air-cells cover a considerable part of the dorsal surface of the capsule. Fixed statoblasts are usually found in old colonies, especially at the approach of the hot weather. They have an oval form and are surrounded by a membranous margin on which traces of reticulation can often be detected. As a rule statoblasts of both types are produced in considerable but not in excessive numbers. _Polypide._ There are about 40 tentacles, the velum at the base of which extends upwards for a considerable distance without being festooned. The stomach is elongate and slender and narrowly rounded at the base. The method of branching, the coloration of the zooecia and the form of the free statoblast are all characteristic. Luxuriant or closely compressed zoaria of _P. diffusa_ often bear a superficial resemblance to those of _P. emarginata_, but the resemblance disappears if they are carefully dissected out. Indian specimens of _P. emarginata_ agree closely with European ones. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_P. emarginata_ is a common species in Europe, N. America, and southern Asia and probably also occurs in Africa and Australia. I have examined specimens from Calcutta, Rangoon, and Mandalay in Indian territory, and also from Jalor in the Patani States (Malay Peninsula) and the Talé Noi, Lakon Sitamarat, Lower Siam. Gemmules found by Apstein (Zool. Jahrb. (Syst.) xxv, 1907, p. 201) in plankton from the Colombo lake may belong to this species or to any of the others included by Kraepelin in his _P. princeps_. BIOLOGY.--In Ireland Allan found _P. emarginata_ in streams and rivulets, but it also occurs in European lakes. In India I have only found it in ponds. It prefers to adhere to the surface of stones or bricks, but when these are not available is found on the stems of water-plants. In the latter position the form called _Alcyonella benedeni_ by Allman is usually produced, owing to the fact that the upright branches are crowded together through lack of space, very much in the same way (although owing to a different cause) as those of _P. fruticosa_ are crowded together in the _coralloides_ phase, to which the _benedeni_ phase of _P. emarginata_ is in many respects analogous. Although it is essentially a cold-weather species in Calcutta, _P. emarginata_ is sometimes found in a living condition during the "rains." Zoaria examined at this season, however, contains few living polypides, the majority of the zooecia having rotted away and left fixed statoblasts only to mark their former position. 31. Plumatella javanica, _Kraepelin_. _Plumatella javanica_, Kraepelin, Mitt. Nat. Mus. Hamb. xxiii, p. 143, figs. 1-3 (1903). _Plumatella emarginata_ var. _javanica_, Loppens, Ann. Biol. lacustre, iii, p. 162 (1908). _Plumatella javanica_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 50 (1910). _Plumatella allmani_ var. _dumortieri_, _id._ (_partim_) (_nec_ Allman), _ibid._ p. 49. This species is related to _P. emarginata_, from which it may be distinguished by the following characters:-- _Zoarium._ The zoarium is always entirely recumbent and branches sparingly; its method of branching does not approach the dichotomous type but is lateral and irregular. Linear series of zooecia without lateral branches are often formed. _Zooecia._ The zooecia are slender and often very long; they are strongly emarginate and furrowed, and the keel that contains the furrow is conspicuous. The ectocyst is hyaline and as a rule absolutely colourless. _Statoblasts._ The free statoblasts are variable in length, sometimes distinctly elongate, sometimes elongate only to a moderate degree; they are rounded at the extremities and have the sides slightly or distinctly convex outwards. The capsule is relatively large, and the free portion of the swim-ring is not much broader at the ends than at the sides. The fixed statoblasts are elongate and surrounded by an irregularly shaped chitinous membrane, which is often of considerable extent. The whole of the dorsal surface is covered with what appear to be rudimentary air-spaces some of which even contain air. The transparent glassy ectocyst and strong furrowed keel of this species are very characteristic, but the former character is apt to be obscured by staining due to external causes, especially when the zoarium is attached to dead wood. The shape of the free statoblasts is too variable to be regarded as a good diagnostic character, but the fixed statoblasts, when they are to be found, are very characteristic in appearance. _P. javanica_ appears to be closely related to Allman's _P. dumortieri_, with which stained zoaria are apt to be confused. The character of the ectocyst is, however, different, and the free part of the swim-ring is distinctly narrower at the sides of the free statoblasts. Dr. Kraepelin has been kind enough to send me one of the types. TYPES in the Hamburg and Indian Museums. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--Java, Penang, India. Indian localities are:--BENGAL, Calcutta; Berhampore, Murshidabad; R. Jharai, Siripur, Saran district, Tirhut: E. HIMALAYAS, Kurseong, Darjiling district (alt. 4,500 feet): MADRAS PRESIDENCY, canal near Srayikaad, Travancore. Mr. C. W. Beebe has recently sent me a specimen taken by him in the Botanical Gardens at Penang. BIOLOGY.--Very little is known about the biology of this species. Kraepelin took it in Java on the leaves of water-lilies. It is not uncommon during the cold weather in the Calcutta Zoological Gardens on floating seeds and sticks and on the stems of bulrushes; in Travancore I took it in November on the submerged leaves of _Pandani_ growing at the edge of a canal of slightly brackish water. Mr. Hodgart, the collector of the Indian Museum, found it in the R. Jharai on the stems of water-plants at a time of flood in the "rains." In Calcutta it is often found entangled with _P. fruticosa_ and _P. emarginata_. 32. Plumatella diffusa, _Leidy_. (Plate IV, fig. 2.) _Plumatella diffusa_, Leidy, P. Ac. Philad. v, p. 261 (1852). _Plumatella diffusa_, Allman, Mon. Fresh-Water Polyzoa, p. 105 (1857). _Plumatella diffusa_, Hyatt, Comm. Essex Inst. iv, pl. viii, figs. 11, 12 (1866). _Plumatella diffusa_, _id._, _ibid._ v, p. 107, fig. 12 (1868). _Plumatella repens_, Jullien, Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, fig. 37 (_lapsus_ for 73), p. 110 (1885). _Plumatella diffusa_, _id._, _ibid._ figs. 155, 157, pp. 130, 131. _Plumatella allmani_ var. _diffusa_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 49 (1910). _Zoarium._ The zoarium often covers a considerable area on flat surfaces and is sometimes found crowded together on the stems of plants. In the latter case the arrangement of the main branches is distinctly radiate. Upright branches occur rarely and never consist of more than three zooecia. The characteristic method of branching is best represented by the following diagram:-- [Illustration: Fig. 43.] The partitions are stout and numerous. _Zooecia._ The great majority of the zooecia in each zoarium are distinctly L-shaped, the long limb being usually adherent. The vital organs of the polypide are contained in the vertical limb, while the horizontal one, in mature polyparia, is packed full of free statoblasts. The zooecia are cylindrical and as a rule obscurely emarginate and furrowed. The ectocyst is stiff; it is never deeply pigmented but is usually of a transparent horn-colour at the base of each zooecium and colourless at the tip, the contrast between the two portions never being very strong. The basal portion is rough on the surface, the distal portion smooth. _Statoblasts._ Free statoblasts are produced in very great profusion and fixed statoblasts are also to be found as a rule. The latter resemble those of _P. emarginata_. The free statoblasts are never very large or relatively broad, but they vary considerably as regards size and outline. The capsule is large, the sides convex outwards and the extremity more or less broadly rounded. The air-cells are unusually large and extend over a great part of the dorsal surface of the statoblast. _Polypide._ The polypide is shorter and stouter than that of _P. emarginata_ and as a rule has fewer tentacles. The most characteristic feature of this species is the form of the zooecia, which differ greatly from those of any other Indian species but _P. allmani_. In the latter they are distinctly "keg-shaped" (_i. e._, constricted at the base and swollen in the middle), and the zoarium never spreads out over large surfaces in the way in which that of _P. diffusa_ does. TYPE--? in the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--This species was originally described from North America (in which it is apparently common) and occurs also in Europe. I have seen Indian specimens from the following localities:--BENGAL, Calcutta and neighbourhood; Rajshahi (Rampur Bhulia): E. HIMALAYAS, Gangtok, Native Sikhim (alt. 6,150 feet) (_Kirkpatrick_, _Stewart_): PUNJAB, Lahore (_Stephenson_). BIOLOGY.--_P. diffusa_ in Lower Bengal is a cold-weather species. It is remarkable for the enormous number of gemmules it produces and is usually found either on floating objects such as the stems of certain water-plants, or on stones or bricks at the edge of ponds. 33. Plumatella allmani, _Hancock_. (Plate IV, figs. 3, 3 _a_.) _Plumatella allmani_, Hancock, Ann. Nat. Hist. (2) v, p. 200, pl. v, fig. 3-4, pl. iii, fig. 2-3 (1850). _Plumatella allmani_, Allman, Mon. Fresh-Water Polyzoa, p. 106, fig. 16 (1857). _Plumatella elegans_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 107, pl. viii, figs. 6-10. _Plumatella lucifuga_ ("forme rampante") Jullien, Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, p. 114 (1885). This species is closely allied to _P. diffusa_, from which it differs in the following characters:-- (1) The zoarium never covers a large area and as a rule grows sparingly and mainly in two directions. (2) The zooecia are more irregular in shape, not so distinctly elbowed, smaller; they have a much more prominently keeled ridge. The great majority of them are constricted at the base and taper towards the orifice. In young zoaria they are almost colourless but in older ones there is a band of not very dense pigment round the base of the vertical limb. (3) The free statoblasts are comparatively large and usually show a tendency to taper at the extremities, often being almost rhomboidal in form. The swim-ring does not extend so far over the dorsal surface as it does in those of _P. diffusa_; the "cells" of which it is composed are small. TYPE not in existence. I have seen every gradation between this form and Allman's _P. elegans_. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_P. allmani_ is apparently a rare species to which there are few references in literature. It was originally described from England and is stated by Jullien to occur in France. I have found specimens only in the lake Bhim Tal (alt. 4,500 feet) in the W. Himalayas. BIOLOGY.--The original specimens were found by Hancock on stones. My own were growing on the leaves of water-plants, usually on the under side. When the zooecia were forced to stretch across from one leaflet to another they assumed the sinuous form characteristic of Allman's _P. elegans_. 34. Plumatella tanganyikæ, _Rousselet_. _Plumatella tanganyikæ_, Rousselet, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1907 (i), p. 252, pl. xiv, figs. 1-4. _Plumatella bombayensis_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 169, figs. 1, 2 (1908). _Plumatella bombayensis_, _id._, _ibid._ v, p. 51 (1910). _Zoarium._ The whole colony is recumbent but branches freely and at short intervals in a horizontal plane, so that the zooecia become crowded together and the branches sometimes overlap one another. The zoarium often covers a considerable area, but growth seems to be mainly in two directions. When growing on the stems of water-plants the branches are often parallel and closely pressed together but remain recumbent in this position. A stout membrane sometimes extends between branches and individual zooecia. _Zooecia._ The walls of the zooecia are thick, stiff, and more or less darkly but not opaquely pigmented; the external surface, although not very smooth, is always clean. The two most noteworthy characters of the zooecia are (i) their truncated appearance when the polypide is retracted, and (ii) the conspicuous, although often irregular external annulation of their walls. The tip of each zooecium, owing to the fact that the invaginated part of the ectocyst is soft and sharply separated from the stiffened wall of the tube, terminates abruptly and is not rounded off gradually as is the case in most species of the genus; sometimes it expands into a trumpet-like mouth. The annulation of the external surface is due to numerous thickened areas of the ectocyst which take the form of slender rings surrounding the zooecium; they are most conspicuous on its distal half. On the dorsal surface of the base of each zooecium there is a conspicuous furrowed keel, which, however, does not usually extend to the distal end; the latter is oval in cross-section. The zooecia are short and broad; their base is always recumbent, and, when the zoarium is attached to a stone or shell, often seems to be actually embedded in the support; the distal part turns upwards and is free, so that the aperture is terminal; the zooecia of the older parts of the zoarium exhibit the specific characters much more clearly than those at the growing points. _Polypide._ The lophophore bears 20 to 30 tentacles, which are long and slender; the velum at their base extends up each tentacle in the form of a sharply pointed projection, but these projections do not extend for more than one-fifth of the length of the tentacles. Both the velum and the tentacular sheath bear numerous minute tubercles on the external surface. The base of the stomach is rounded, and the whole of the alimentary canal has a stout appearance. [Illustration: Fig. 44.--_Plumatella tanganyikæ_ from Igatpuri Lake. A=outline of part of zoarium from a stone, × 16; B=outline of the tip of a single zooecium, × 70; C=free statoblast, × 70.] _Statoblasts._ Both fixed and free statoblasts are produced, but not in very large numbers. The latter are broadly oval and are surrounded by a stout chitinous ring, which often possesses irregular membranous projections; the surface is smooth. The free statoblasts are small and moderately elongate, the maximum breadth as a rule measuring about 2/3 of the length; the capsule is relatively large and the ring of air-cells is not very much broader at the ends than at the sides; the dorsal surface of the central capsule is profusely tuberculate. The outline of the whole structure is often somewhat irregular. In deference to Mr. Rousselet's opinion expressed in a letter I have hitherto regarded the Bombay form of this species as distinct from the African one, and there certainly is a great difference in the appearance of specimens taken on the lower surface of stones in Igatpuri Lake and of the types of _P. tanganyikæ_, one of which is now in the collection of the Indian Museum. The dark colour of the former, however, and their vigorous growth appear to be directly due to environment, for these characters disappear to a large extent in specimens growing on the stems of water-plants in the same lake. Indeed, such specimens are exactly intermediate between the form "_bombayensis_" and the typical form of the species. _P. tanganyikæ_ is closely allied to _P. philippinensis_, Kraepelin, from the island of Luzon, but the latter has a smooth and polished ectocyst devoid of annulations, and zooecia of a more elongate and regular form. TYPES of the species in the British and Indian Museums, those of _P. bombayensis_ in the latter collection. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_P. tanganyikæ_ is only known as yet from L. Tanganyika in Central Africa and from Igatpuri in the Bombay Presidency. BIOLOGY.--In both localities the zoaria were found in shallow water. In L. Tanganyika they were encrusting stones and shells, while at Igatpuri they were fixed for the most part to the lower surface of stones but were also found on the stems of water-plants. My specimens from the Bombay Presidency were taken, on two separate occasions, at the end of November. At that date the zoaria were already decaying and large blanks, marked out by fixed statoblasts, were often observed on the stones. Probably, therefore, the species flourishes during the "rains." 35. Plumatella punctata, _Hancock_. (Plate IV, fig. 5.) _Plumatella punctata_, Hancock, Ann. Nat. Hist. (2) v, p. 200, pl. iii, fig. 1, and pl. v, figs. 6, 7 (1850). _Plumatella vesicularis_, Leidy, P. Ac. Philad. vii, p. 192 (1854). _Plumatella vitrea_, Hyatt, Comm. Essex Inst. iv, pl. ix, figs. 1, 2 (1866). _Plumatella punctata_, Allman, Mon. Fresh-Water Polyzoa, p. 100, fig. 15 (1857). _Plumatella vesicularis_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 101. _Plumatella vitrea_, Hyatt, Proc. Essex Inst. v, p. 225, figs. 18, 19 (1868). _Plumatella vesicularis_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 225. _Hyalinella vesicularis_, Jullien, Bull. Soc. zool. France, x, p. 133, figs. 165-172 (1885). _Hyalinella vitrea_, _id._, _ibid._ p. 134, figs. 173-179. _Plumatella punctata_, Kraepelin, Deutsch. Süsswasserbryozoen, i, p. 126, pl. iv, figs. 115, 116; pl. v, figs. 124, 125; pl. vii, figs. 153, 154 (1887). _Plumatella vesicularis_, Braem, Unters. ü. Bryozoen süssen Wassers, p. 8, pl. i, fig. 8 (Bibl. Zool. ii) (1890). _Hyalinella punctata_, Loppens, Ann. Biol. lacustre, iii, p. 163 (1908). _Plumatella punctata_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 52 (1910). _Zoarium._ The zoarium is entirely recumbent and often appears to form an almost uniform flat layer instead of a dendritic body. Sometimes, however, it is distinctly linear, with lateral branches produced irregularly at considerable distances apart. _Zooecia._ The zooecia differ from those of all other species in having a greatly swollen, soft ectocyst which can be transversely wrinkled all over the zooecium by the action of the muscles of the polypide and is distinctly contractile. It is mainly owing to the swollen and almost gelatinous nature of the ectocyst that the dendritic character of the zoarium is frequently concealed, for the method of branching is essentially the same as that of _P. diffusa_, although the zooecia are not so distinctly elbowed. The ectocyst is colourless or faintly tinted with brown; as a rule it is not quite hyaline and the external surface is minutely roughened or tuberculate. The zooecia are not emarginate or furrowed. _Statoblasts._ Stationary statoblasts are not found. The free statoblasts are variable and often asymmetrical in outline, but the free portion of the swim-ring is always of nearly equal diameter all round the periphery and the capsule relatively large. Some of the statoblasts are always broad in comparison with their length. _Polypide._ The polypide is comparatively short and stout. European specimens are said to have from 30 to 40 tentacles, but Indian specimens have only from 20 to 30. Shrunken specimens of the less congested forms of this species closely resemble specimens of _P. repens_, but the statoblasts are more variable in shape and the ectocyst, even in such specimens, is thicker. Living or well-preserved specimens cannot be mistaken for those of any other species. Jullien regarded _P. punctata_ as the type of a distinct genus (_Hyalinella_) but included in _Plumatella_ at least one form (P. "_arethusa_") which probably belongs to this species. Kraepelin distinguishes as "varieties" two phases, a summer phase ("var. _prostrata_") and an autumn phase ("var. _densa_"). The former often forms linear series of considerable length with only an occasional side-branch, while in the autumn phase branching is so profuse and the branches are so closely pressed together that the zoarium comes to resemble a uniform gelatinous patch rather than a dendritic growth. A phase resembling the European autumn form is the commonest in Calcutta and I have also found one intermediate between this and Kraepelin's "var. _prostrata_," neither having any seasonal significance in India. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_P. punctata_ is widely distributed in Europe and N. America, but in the Oriental Region it has only been found in Calcutta and the neighbourhood. BIOLOGY.--In this part of India _P. punctata_ flourishes both during the "rains" and in winter. I have found specimens in June and July and also in December and January. The majority of them were attached to bricks, but some were on the roots of duckweed, the stems of water-plants, and the tips of creepers falling into water. The species is often found together with _Stolella indica_ and also with other species of its own genus. It is most common, in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, in that part of the town which is near the Salt Lakes, and occurs in ponds the water of which is slightly brackish. Genus 2. STOLELLA, _Annandale_. _Stolella_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, p. 279 (1909). _Stolella_, _id._, _ibid._ v, p. 53 (1910). TYPE, _Stolella indica_, Annandale. _Zoarium_. The zoarium consists of groups of zooecia (or occasionally of single zooecia) joined together by an adherent rhizome. There is no gelatinous investment. _Zooecia._ The adult zooecia resemble those of _Plumatella_ except in being sometimes more or less upright. _Polypide_ and _Statoblasts._ The polypide and statoblasts resemble those of _Plumatella_. Fixed as well as free statoblasts occur. This genus is closely allied to _Plumatella_, from which it is probably derived. The root-like tube from which the zooecia arise is formed by the great elongation of the basal part of a zooecium, and the zoaria closely resemble those of _P. punctata_, for it is not until several zooecia have been produced that the characteristic mode of growth becomes apparent. _Stolella_ has only been found in India and is monotypic[BJ]. [Footnote BJ: But see p. 246 (addenda).] 36. Stolella indica, _Annandale_. (Plate V, figs. 3, 4.) _Stolella indica_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. iii, p. 279, fig. (1909). _Stolella indica_, _id._, _ibid._ v, p. 53 (1910). _Zoarium._ The zoarium is adherent and linear, having neither lateral nor vertical branches. _Zooecia._ The zooecia are short and slender, erect or nearly so, distinctly emarginate and furrowed. Their ectocyst is soft, colourless and transparent but minutely roughened on the surface. _Polypide._ The tentacles number from 30 to 35 and are rather short and stout, sometimes being slightly expanded at the tips. The stomach is comparatively short and abruptly truncated posteriorly. _Statoblasts._ Both free and fixed statoblasts are found, and both are variable in form, the latter varying in outline from the circular to the broadly oval. The free statoblasts resemble those of _Plumatella punctata_, but are sometimes rather more elongate. TYPE in the Indian Museum. [Illustration: Fig. 45.--Zoarium of _Stolella indica_ on stem of water-plant (from Calcutta), × 6.] GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--So far as we know, this species is confined to the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Major Walton found it at Bulandshahr in the United Provinces, and it is not uncommon in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. BIOLOGY.--The zoaria of _S. indica_ are usually fixed to the roots of duckweed or to the stems of other plants. They are often found together with those of _P. punctata_. A slight infusion of brackish water into the ponds in which it lives does not seem to be inimical to this species, but I have found it in ponds in which nothing of the kind was possible. It flourishes during the "rains" and, to judge from specimens kept in an aquarium, is very short-lived. Major Walton found it growing over a zoarium of _Hislopia lacustris_. Subfamily B. LOPHOPINÆ. The zoaria of this subfamily are never dendritic but form gelatinous masses which, except in _Australella_, are cushion-shaped or sack-like. With the possible exception of _Australella_, they possess to a limited extent the power of moving along vertical or horizontal surfaces, but it is by no means clear how they do so (see p. 172). The statoblasts are remarkable for their large size, and it is noteworthy that _Australella_, which is intermediate in structure between the Plumatellinæ and the Lophopinæ, possesses statoblasts of intermediate size. The swim-ring is always well developed, and fixed statoblasts are unknown. Only two genera (_Lophopodella_ and _Pectinatella_) have been definitely proved to occur in India, but a third (_Lophopus_[BK]) is stated to have been found in Madras. Should it be met with it will easily be recognized by the upright position of its polypides when their tentacles are expanded and by the fact that the statoblasts never bear marginal processes. [Footnote BK: Only two species are known, _L. crystallinus_ (Pallas) from Europe and N. America, with oval statoblasts that are produced and pointed at the two ends, and _L. jheringi_, Meissner from Brazil, with irregularly polygonal or nearly circular statoblasts.] Genus 3. LOPHOPODELLA, _Rousselet_. _Lophopodella_, Rousselet, Journ. Quek. Micr. Club (2) ix, p. 45 (1904). _Lophopodella_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. v, p. 54 (1910). TYPE, _Pectinatella carteri_, Hyatt. _Zoarium._ The zoarium consists of a circular or oval mass of no great size. Polyparia do not form compound colonies. _Polypides._ The polypides lie semi-recumbent in the mass and never stand upright in a vertical position. _Statoblasts._ The statoblasts are of considerable size and normally bear at both ends a series of chitinous processes armed with double rows of small curved spinules. As a rule the genus is easily recognized by means of the statoblasts, but sometimes the processes at the ends of these structures are absent or abortive and it is then difficult to distinguish them from those of _Lophopus_. There is, however, no species of that genus known that has statoblasts shaped like those of the Indian species of _Lophopodella_. Three species of _Lophopodella_, all of which occur in Africa, have been described; _L. capensis_ from S. Africa, which has the ends of the statoblast greatly produced, _L. thomasi_ from Rhodesia, in which they are distinctly concave, and _L. carteri_ from E. Africa, India and Japan, in which they are convex or truncate. The germination of the gemmule and the early stages in the development of the polyparium of _L. capensis_ have been described by Miss Sollas (Ann. Nat. Hist. (8) ii, p. 264, 1908). 37. Lophopodella carteri (_Hyatt_). (Plate III, figs. 4, 4_a_.) _Lophopus_ sp., Carter, Ann. Nat. Hist. (3) iii, p. 335, pl. viii, figs. 8-15 (1859). ? _Lophopus_ sp., Mitchell, Q. J. Micr. Sci. London (3) ii, p. 61 (1862). _Pectinatella carteri_, Hyatt, Comm. Essex Inst. iv, p. 203 (footnote) (1866). _Pectinatella carteri_, Meissner, Die Moosthiere Ost-Afrikas, p. 4 (in Mobius's Deutsch-Ost-Afrika, iv, 1898). _Lophopodella carteri_, Rousselet, Journ. Quek. Micr. Club, (2) ix, p. 47, pl. iii, figs. 6, 7 (1904). _Lophopus carteri_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 171, fig. 3 (1908). _Lophopodella carteri_, _id._, _ibid._ v, p. 55 (1910). _Zoarium._ The zoarium as a rule has one horizontal axis longer than the other so that it assumes an oval form when the polypides are expanded; when they are retracted its outline is distinctly lobular. Viewed from the side it is mound-shaped. The polypides radiate, as a rule in several circles, from a common centre. The ectocyst is much swollen, hyaline and colourless. _Polypide._ The polypide has normally about 60 tentacles, the velum at the base of which is narrow and by no means strongly festooned. The stomach is yellow or greenish in colour. The extended part of the polypide measures when fully expanded rather less than 3 mm., and each limb of the lophophore about the same. _Statoblast._ The statoblast is variable in shape and size but measures on an average about 0.85 × 0.56 mm. The ends are truncate or subtruncate; the capsule is small as compared with the swim-ring and as a rule circular or nearly so. The processes at the two ends are variable in number; so also are their spinules, which are arranged in two parallel rows, one row on each side of the process, and are neither very numerous nor set close together; as a rule they curve round through the greater part of a circle and are absent from the basal part of the process. [Illustration: Fig. 46.--Lophopodella carteri (from Igatpuri Lake). A=outline of a zoarium with the polypides expanded, as seen from below through glass to which it was attached, × 4; B=outline of a zoarium with the polypides highly contracted, as seen from above, × 4; C=statoblast, × 75.] 37 _a._ Var. himalayana. _Lophopus lendenfeldi_, Annandale (_nec_ Ridley), J. As. Soc. Bengal, (n. s.) iii, 1907, p. 92, pl. ii, figs. 1-4 (1907). _Lophopus lendenfeldi_ var. _himalayanus_, _id._, Rec. Ind. Mus. i, p. 147, figs. 1, 2 (1907). _Lophopus himalayanus_, _id._, _ibid._ ii, p. 172, fig. 4 (1908). This variety differs from the typical form in having fewer tentacles and in the fact that the marginal processes of the statoblast are abortive or absent. _Pectinatella davenporti_, Oka[BL] from Japan is evidently a local race of _L. carteri_, from the typical form of which it differs in having the marginal processes of the statoblast more numerous and better developed. The abortive structure of these processes in var. _himalayana_ points to an arrest of development, for they are the last part of the statoblast to be formed. [Footnote BL: Zool. Anz. xxxi, p. 716 (1907), and Annot. Zool. Japon. vi, p. 117 (1907).] TYPES. The statoblasts mounted in Canada balsam by Carter and now in the British Museum must be regarded as the types of the species named but not seen by Hyatt. The types of the var. _himalayana_ are in the Indian Museum and those of the subspecies _davenporti_ presumably in the possession of Dr. Oka in Tokyo. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--The typical form occurs in Bombay, the W. Himalayas and possibly Madras, and its statoblasts have been found in E. Africa; the var. _himalayana_ has only been taken in the W. Himalayas and the subspecies _davenporti_ in Japan. Indian localities are:--BOMBAY PRESIDENCY, Igatpuri Lake, W. Ghats (alt. _ca._ 2,000 feet); the Island of Bombay (_Carter_): W. HIMALAYAS, Bhim Tal, Kumaon (alt. 4,500 feet). BIOLOGY.--_L. carteri_ is found on the lower surface of stones and on the stems and leaves of water-plants, usually in lakes or large ponds. Although the zoaria do not form compound colonies by secreting a common membrane or investment, they are markedly gregarious. The most closely congregated and the largest zoaria I have seen were assembled amongst a gelatinous green alga of the genus _Tolypothrix_[BM] (Myxophyceæ) that grows on the vertical stems of a plant at the edge of Igatpuri Lake; it is noteworthy that in this case the alga seemed to take the place of the common investment of _Pectinatella burmanica_, in which green cells are present in large numbers (p. 237). The zoaria of _L. carteri_ are able to change their position, and I found that if a number of them were placed in a bottle of water they slowly came together at one spot, thus apparently forming temporary compound colonies. Before a movement of the whole zoarium commences its base becomes detached from its support at the anterior end (fig. 32, p. 172), but the whole action is extremely slow and I have not been able to discover any facts that cast light on its exact method of production. At Igatpuri statoblasts are being produced in considerable numbers at the end of November, but many young zoaria can be found in which none have as yet been formed. [Footnote BM: Prof. W. West will shortly describe this alga, which represents a new species, in the Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, under the name _Tolypothrix lophopodellophila_.--_April 1911_.] The larva of a fly of the genus _Chironomus_ is often found inhabiting a tube below zoaria of _L. carteri_. It is thus protected from its enemies but can protrude its head from beneath the zoarium and seize the small animals on which it preys. Genus 4. PECTINATELLA, _Leidy_. _Cristatella_, Leidy, P. Ac. Philad. v, p. 265 (1852). _Pectinatella_, _id._, _ibid._, p. 320. _Pectinatella_, Allman, Mon. Fresh-Water Polyzoa, p. 81 (1857). _Pectinatella_, Hyatt, Proc. Essex Inst. v, p. 227, fig. 20 (1867). _Pectinatella_, Kraepelin, Deutsch. Süsswasserbryozoen, i, p. 133 (1887). _Pectinatella_, Oka, Journ. Coll. Sci. Tokyo, iv, p. 89 (1891). TYPE, _Pectinatella magnifica_, Leidy. This genus is closely allied to _Lophopodella_, from which it is often difficult to distinguish young specimens. Adult zoaria are, however, always embedded together in groups in a gelatinous investment which they are thought to secrete in common[BN], and the statoblasts are entirely surrounded by processes that bear curved spinules at their tips only. The polypides have the same semi-recumbent position as those of _Lophopodella_ but are larger than those of any species of _Lophopodella_ or _Lophopus_ yet known. The statoblasts are larger than those of any other Plumatellidæ. [Footnote BN: It is now perhaps open to doubt whether the investment is actually secreted by the polyzoon, for Prof. W. West has discovered in it the cells of an alga belonging to a genus which habitually secretes a gelatinous investment of its own (see p. 238, _post._).--_April 1911._] The type-species was originally found in N. America but has since been taken in several localities in continental Europe. Except this and the Indian form only one species is known, namely _P. gelatinosa_ from Japan. _P. magnifica_ has circular statoblasts with long marginal processes, while in _P. gelatinosa_ the statoblasts are subquadrate and in _P. burmanica_ almost circular, both Asiatic forms having very short marginal processes. The compound colonies formed by _Pectinatella_ are often of great size. Those of _P. gelatinosa_ are sometimes over 2 metres in length, while those of _P. burmanica_ in the Sur Lake appeared to be only limited as regards their growth by the shallowness of the water in which the reeds to which they were attached were growing. Some were observed that were over 2 feet long. 38. Pectinatella burmanica, _Annandale_. (Plate III, fig. 5.) _Pectinatella burmanica_, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus. ii, p. 174, fig. 5 (1908). _Pectinatella burmanica_, _id._, _ibid._ v, p. 56 (1910). _Pectinatella burmanica_, _id._, Spol. Zeyl. vii, p. 63, pl. i, fig. 3 (1910). _Zoarium._ The zoaria are circular or nearly so except when about to undergo division, in which case they are constricted in the middle. As a rule they measure nearly an inch (2 cm.) in diameter. The polypides have a definite arrangement in each zoarium, being divided into four groups, each of which has a fan-like form. In the first place they are separated into two main divisions in a line running through the centre of the zoarium, and secondly each main division is separated into two subordinate ones in a line running across the other at right angles. The number of zoaria joined together in a single compound colony is very variable; sometimes there are only about half a dozen and sometimes several hundreds. The common investment in living colonies is often as much as two inches thick and has a translucent dark greenish colour due to the presence in it of green cells. [Illustration: Fig. 47.--_Pectinatella burmanica._ A=polypide with the lophophore expanded, × 15; _a_=oesophagus; _b_=cardiac limb of stomach; _c_=stomach; _d_=rectum; _e_=anus; _f_=funiculus. [The muscles are omitted and the external tubercles are only shown on part of the polypide. The specimen is from the Sur Lake, Orissa.] B=statoblast from Ceylon, × 35.] _Polypide._ The polypide can be extruded for a distance of at least 5 mm. Its whole external surface is covered with minute tubercles. There are about 90 tentacles, which are long and slender, the velum at their base being narrow and almost straight. The stomach is of considerable stoutness. _Statoblast._ The statoblasts are of large size, measuring from 1 to 1.75 mm. in diameter. In form they are almost circular, but one side is always slightly flattened. The marginal processes are very short and bear a single pair of hooks at the tip. The capsule is circular and small as compared with the free part of the swim-ring. TYPE in the Indian Museum. _P. burmanica_ is evidently a near relation of _P. gelatinosa_, Oka, from Japan, differing from that species in the shape of the statoblasts and in having much longer tentacles. The arrangement of the polypides in the zoarium and the general structure of the statoblasts are very similar in the two species. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_P. burmanica_ was originally described from a swamp at Kawkareik in the Amherst district of Tenasserim but has also been found in the Sur Lake near Puri in Orissa. Dr. A. Willey obtained specimens from a pool by the roadside between Maradankadewela and Galapitagala, at the foot of Ritigala, N. Central Province, Ceylon. BIOLOGY.--The first specimen obtained was a statoblast fixed to a tube of the oligochæte worm _Aulophorus tonkinensis_ taken at Kawkareik in March. At the same time young zoaria, which did not yet possess a common investment, were found on a leaf growing on a twig which drooped into the water. Large compound colonies were taken in Orissa in October. They completely encased the stems of reeds, thus forming hollow cylinders, but slipped from their supports when the reeds were pulled out of the water. In life they resembled gelatinous algæ rather than animals and exhibited a striking similarity to masses of zoaria of _Lophopodella carteri_ surrounded by such algæ. Some of the colonies were evidently dying and contained few polypides in a living condition, but many statoblasts; others were in a flourishing condition and were producing larvæ and statoblasts simultaneously. A piece of a colony full of larvæ was placed before midday in an aquarium, which was kept in a shady verandah. Large numbers of larvæ were set free almost immediately. They measured about 2 mm. in length and were distinctly pear-shaped; each contained a pair of polypides, which occupied a comparatively small part of the interior, the whole of the broader half being hollow. The larvæ swam slowly, broad-end-first, by means of the cilia with which their surface was covered, occasionally gyrating on their long axis and always adopting an erratic course. Towards evening they showed signs of settling down, frequently touching the glass of the aquarium with their broad ends and sometimes remaining still in this position for some minutes. Many attempts were, however, made before fixation was completed, and this did not occur until after nightfall. By next morning every larva was fixed to the glass and had everted its two polypides. Unfortunately I was not able to trace the development further, but young compound colonies were found in which the secretion of the common investment had just commenced. The zoaria in these colonies measured about 1 cm. in diameter and already contained many polypides each. Oka has described the development from the statoblast of the allied Japanese species. He found that each statoblast produced in the first instance a single polypide, and that the statoblasts, which were produced in autumn, lay dormant through the winter and germinated in spring. As the Sur Lake begins to undergo desiccation as soon as the "rains" cease, the statoblasts in it probably do not germinate until the break of the next "rains" about the middle of June. I have had dried statoblasts in my possession for over two years. Their cellular contents appear to be in good condition, although the cells show no signs of development; but they have not germinated in my aquarium, in which some of them have now been kept for more than six months. The green cells of the common investment are peculiar bodies that deserve further study than it has yet been possible to devote to them. Each cell is of ovoid form, varying somewhat in size but as a rule measuring about 0.03 × 0.008 mm. There can be no doubt that these bodies represent a stage in the life-history of an alga[BO]. Diatoms, bacilli and other minute plants are often present in the membrane as well as the characteristic green cells, but do not form a constant feature of it. [Footnote BO: Professor W. West identifies this algæ as _Dactylococcopsis pectinatellophila_, new species. It will be described, before the publication of this book, in the Journ. As. Soc. Bengal (1911). Prof. West has found, associated more or less fortuitously with _P. burmanica_, another alga, namely _Microcystis orissica_, also a new species.--_April 1911._] APPENDIX TO THE VOLUME. HINTS ON THE PREPARATION OF SPECIMENS. _To preserve Spongillidæ._--Spongillidæ must be preserved dry or in very strong alcohol. Formalin should not be used. _To clean siliceous sponge spicules._--Place small fragments of the dried sponge (if alcohol is present, the reaction is apt to be violent) in a test tube, cover them with strong nitric acid and boil over the flame of a Bunsen burner or small spirit lamp until the solid particles disappear. Add a large quantity of water to the acid and filter through pure cellulose filter-paper, agitating the liquid repeatedly. Pass clean water in considerable quantities through the filter-paper and dry the latter carefully; place it in a spirally coiled wire and ignite with a match, holding the wire in such a way that the spicules released by the burning of the paper fall into a suitable receptacle. They may then be picked up with a camel's-hair brush and mounted in Canada balsam. _To examine the skeleton of a Spongillid._--Cut thin hand-sections with a sharp scalpel, dehydrate if necessary, and mount in Canada balsam. _To prepare gemmules for examination._--Place the gemmules dry in a watch-glass with a few drops of strong nitric acid. When gas is given off freely add water in considerable quantities. Remove the gemmules with a camel's-hair brush to clean water, then to 50%, 70%, 90% and absolute alcohol in succession, leaving them for an hour in each strength of spirit. Clear with oil of cloves and mount in Canada balsam. _To ascertain the presence of bubble-cells in the parenchyma of a Spongillid._--Tease up a small piece of the sponge with a pair of needles, mount under a thin cover-slip in strong spirit, and examine under a high power of the microscope. _To preserve Hydra in an expanded condition._--Place the polyp in a watch-glass of clean water and wait until its tentacles are expanded. Heat a few drops of commercial formaldehyde and squirt the liquid while still hot at the _Hydra_, which will be killed instantaneously. Remove it to a solution of formaldehyde and spirit of the following formula:-- Commercial formaldehyde 1 part. Absolute alcohol 3 parts. Distilled water 7 parts. Then pass the _Hydra_ through 50% and 70% alcohol and keep in 90%. _To examine the capsules of the nettle-cells._--Place a living _Hydra_ in a small drop of water on a slide and press a thin cover-slip down upon it. _To preserve freshwater polyzoa in an expanded condition._--Place the polyzoa in a glass tube full of clean water and allow them to expand their tentacles. Drop on them gradually when they are fully expanded a 2% aqueous solution of cocaine, two or three drops at a time, until movement ceases in the tentacles. Then pour commercial formaldehyde into the tube in considerable quantities. Allow the whole to stand for half an hour. If it is proposed to stain the specimens for anatomical investigation, they should then be removed through 50% and 70% to 90% alcohol. If, on the other hand, it is desired to keep them in a life-like condition they may be kept permanently in a solution of one part of commercial formaldehyde in four parts of water. Care must be taken that the process of paralyzing the polypides is not unduly prolonged, and it is always as well to preserve duplicate specimens in spirit or formalin with the lophophore retracted. _To prepare statoblasts for examination._--Place the statoblasts for a few minutes in strong nitric acid. Then remove the acid with water, pass through alcohol, clear with oil of cloves, and mount in a small quantity of Canada balsam under a cover-slip, taking care that the statoblasts lie parallel to the latter. ADDENDA. The following addenda are due mainly to an expedition to the lakes of Kumaon in the W. Himalayas undertaken by Mr. S. W. Kemp in May, 1911. PART I. Genus SPONGILLA. Subgenus EUSPONGILLA (p. 69). 1 a. Spongilla lacustris, subsp. reticulata (p. 71). Specimens were taken in the lake Malwa Tal (alt. 3600 feet) in Kumaon, while others have recently been obtained from the Kalichedu irrigation-tank in the Pagnor _talug_ of the Nellore district, Madras (_G. H. Tipper_). 4. Spongilla cinerea (p. 79). Specimens were taken in Naukuchia Tal (alt. 4200 feet) in Kumaon. They have a pale yellow colour when dry. This sponge has not hitherto been found outside the Bombay Presidency. Subgenus EUNAPIUS (p. 86). 8. Spongilla carteri (p. 87). Specimens were taken in Bhim Tal (alt. 4450 feet) and Sat Tal (alt. 4500 feet). Some of them approach the variety _cava_ in structure. Subgenus STRATOSPONGILLA (p. 100). 12. Spongilla bombayensis (p. 102). Add a new variety:-- 13 a. Var. pneumatica, nov. (i.) The sponge forms a flat layer of a pale brownish colour as a rule with short and very delicate vertical branches. In one specimen it takes the form of an elegant cup attached, only at the base, to a slender twig. (ii.) The gemmules are covered, outside the spicules, by a thick pneumatic coat of irregular formation and with comparatively large air-spaces. (iii.) The gemmule-spicules are regularly sausage-shaped. TYPES in the Indian Museum. HABITAT. Naukuchia Tal (alt. 4200 feet), Kumaon, W. Himalayas (_S. W. Kemp_). Genus EPHYDATIA (p. 108). After _Ephydatia meyeni_, p. 108, add:-- Ephydatia fluviatilis, _auct._ ? _Ephydatia fluviatilis_, Lamouroux, Encyclop. Méthod. ii, p. 327 (1824). _Spongilla fluviatilis_, Bowerbank (_partim_), Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1863, p. 445, pl. xxxviii, fig. 1. _Ephydatia fluviatilis_, J. E. Gray (_partim_), Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1867, p. 550. _Meyenia fluviatilis_, Carter (_partim_), Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) vii, p. 92, pl. vi, fig. 11 _a_, _b_ (1881). _Ephydatia fluviatilis_, Vejdovsky, Abh. k. Böhm. Gesellschaft Wiss. xii, p. 24, pl. i, figs. 1, 2, 7, 10, 14, 19 (1883). _Ephydatia fluviatilis_, _id._, P. Ac. Philad. 1887, p. 178. _Meyenia fluviatilis_ var. _gracilis_, Potts, _ibid._, p. 224. _Meyenia robusta_, _id._, _ibid._, p. 225, pl. ix, fig. 5. _Ephydatia fluviatilis_, Weltner, Arch. Naturg. Berlin, 1895 (i) p. 122. _Ephydatia robusta_, Annandale, Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 1907, p. 24, fig. 7. _Ephydatia fluviatilis_, Weltner, in Brauer's Süsswasserfauna Deutschlands xix, Süsswasserschwämme, p. 185, figs. 316, 317 (1909). _Ephydatia fluviatilis_, Annandale, P. U. S. Mus. xxxviii, p. 649 (1910). [Many more references to this common species might be cited, but those given above will be sufficient.] This species only differs from _E. meyeni_ in the following characters:-- (i.) there are no bubble-cells in the parenchyma; (ii.) there is less spongin in the skeleton, which is less compact; (iii.) the gemmule-spicules are longer, the shafts being as a rule longer than the diameter of the rotulæ; (iv.) the gemmules are armed with a single row of regularly arranged spicules embedded in pneumatic tissue with minute air-spaces. The sponge is a variable one and several "varieties" have been described from different parts of the world. My Indian specimens come nearest to the form described by Potts as _Meyenia robusta_, but have rather more slender skeleton-spicules and more elongate gemmule-spicules. The latter also appear to be less frequently "monstrous." TYPE ? GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION.--_E. fluviatilis_ is widely distributed in Europe and occurs in N. America,[BP] S. Africa (var. _capensis_, Kirkpatrick), Australia, and Japan. Specimens were obtained by Mr. Kemp from several lakes in Kumaon, namely Naukuchia Tal (alt. 4200 feet), Bhim Tal (4450 feet), Sat Tal (4500 feet), and Naini Tal (6300 feet). The gemmules from Bhim Tal referred by me to _E. robusta_ (Potts) also belong to this species. [Footnote BP: Most of the forms assigned by Potts to this species belong to the closely allied _E. mülleri_ (Lieberkühn).] _Biology._ The external form of the sponge is due in great part to its environment. Specimens on small stones from the bottom of the Kumaon Lakes consist of thin disk-like films, often not more than a few centimetres in diameter and a few millimetres thick: others, growing on thin twigs, are elevated and compressed, resembling a cockscomb in appearance, while others again form nodules and masses of irregular form among the branches of delicate water-weeds. Some of these last are penetrated by zoaria of _Fredericella indica_. Weltner has published some very interesting observations on the seasonal variation of minute structure in European representatives of the species (Arch. Naturg. Berlin, lxxiii (i), p. 273 1907) and has discussed the formation of the abnormal spicules that sometimes occur (_ibid._ lxvii (Special Number), p. 191, pls. vi, vii, figs. 27-59, 1901). Genus CORVOSPONGILLA (p. 122). After _Corvospongilla burmanica_, p. 123, add a new species:-- Corvospongilla caunteri, nov. _Sponge_ forming thin films of considerable area not more than 3 or 4 mm. thick, of a bright green colour, moderately hard but friable. The surface smooth; oscula inconspicuous, surrounded by shallow and ill-defined radiating furrows; a very stout basal membrane present. [Illustration: Fig. 48.--_Corvospongilla caunteri_ (type, from Lucknow). A=Gemmule; B=gemmule-spicules; C=flesh-spicules; D=Skeleton-spicules.] _Skeleton_ reticulate but almost devoid of spongin, the reticulations close but formed mainly by single spicules; skeleton-fibres barely distinguishable. A close layer of spicules lying parallel to the basal membrane. _Spicules._ Skeleton-spicules variable in size and shape, almost straight, as a rule smooth, moderately stout, blunt or abruptly pointed; sometimes roughened or spiny at the tips, often sharply pointed. Flesh-spicules minute, few in number, with smooth, slender shafts which are variable in length, never very strongly curved; the terminal spines relatively short, not strongly recurved. Gemmule-spicules amphistrongylous or amphioxous, irregularly spiny, slender, of variable length. _Gemmules_ free in the substance of the sponge, spherical or somewhat depressed, very variable in size but never large, having a thick external pneumatic coat in which the air-spaces are extremely small and, inside this coat, a single rather sparse layer of spicules lying parallel to the gemmule. A single depressed aperture present. TYPE in the Indian Museum. HABITAT. Hazratganj, Lucknow; on piers of bridge in running water (_J. Caunter_, 29-30. iv. 11). The structure of the gemmules of this species differs considerably from that in any other known species of the genus, in which these structures are usually adherent and devoid of a true pneumatic coat. In some of the gemmules before me this coat measures in thickness about 1/9 of the total diameter of the gemmule. _C. caunteri_ is the first species of _Corvospongilla_ to be found in the Indo-Gangetic plain. PART II. Genus HYDRA (p. 147). 25. Hydra oligactis (p. 158). Mr. Kemp found this species common in Bhim Tal in May. His specimens, which were of a reddish-brown colour in life, appear to have been of more vigorous constitution than those taken by Major Stephenson in Lahore. Some of them had four buds but none were sexually mature. PART III. Genus FREDERICELLA (p. 208). 28. Fredericella indica (p. 210). This species is common in some of the Kumaon lakes, in which it grows, at any rate at the beginning of summer, much more luxuriantly than it does in the lakes of the Malabar Zone in autumn, forming dense bushy masses on the under surface of stones, on sticks, &c. The vertical branches often consist of many zooecia. Mr. Kemp took specimens in Malwa Tal, Sath Tal, and Naini Tal (alt. 3600-6300 feet). Genus PLUMATELLA (p. 212). 30. Plumatella emarginata (p. 220). Mr. Kemp took bushy masses of this species in Malwa Tal and Bhim Tal. 32. Plumatella diffusa (p. 223). This species is common in Malwa Tal and Bhim Tal in May. 33. Plumatella allmani (p. 224). Mr. Kemp only found this species in Malwa Tal, in which (at any rate in May) it appears to be less abundant than it is in Bhim Tal in autumn. Mr. Kemp's specimens belong to the form called _P. elegans_ by Allman. 34. Plumatella tanganyikæ (p. 225). Specimens taken by Mr. Kemp, somewhat sparingly, in Bhim Tal and Sath Tal in May exhibit a somewhat greater tendency towards uprightness of the zooecia than those I found in autumn in Igatpuri lake. The ectocyst is, in the former specimens, of a deep but bright reddish-brown. The zoaria are attached to twigs and small stones. Genus STOLELLA (p. 229). After Stolella indica, p. 229, add a new species:-- Stolella himalayana, nov. This species may be distinguished from _S. indica_ by (i) its entirely recumbent zooecia, and (ii) the lateral branches of its zoarium. [Illustration: Fig. 49.--_Stolella himalayana_ (types, from the Kumaon lakes). A. The greater part of a young zoarium. B. Part of a much older zoarium.] _Zoarium_ entirely recumbent, consisting of zooecia joined together, often in groups of three, by slender, transparent, tubular processes. These processes are often of great relative length; they are formed by a modification of the posterior or proximal part of the zooecia, from which they are not separated by a partition, and they increase in length up to a certain point more rapidly than the zooecia proper. A zooecium often gives rise first to an anterior daughter-zooecium, the proximal part of which becomes elongate and attenuated in due course, and then to a pair of lateral daughter-zooecia situated one on either side. As a result of this method of budding a zoarium with a close superficial resemblance to that of _Paludicella_ is at first produced, but as the colony increases in age and complexity this resemblance largely disappears, for the zooecia and their basal tubules grow over one another and often become strangely contorted (fig. 49). _Zooecia_ elongate and slender, flattened on the ventral, strongly convex on the dorsal surface; rather deep in proportion to their breadth; the ectocyst colourless, not very transparent except on the stolon-like tubular part; dorsal keel and furrow as a rule absent; orifice unusually inconspicuous, situated on a tubercle on the dorsal surface. _Polypide_ stout and short; the tip of the fundus of the stomach capable of very complete constriction; the retractor muscles unusually short and stout. _Statoblasts._ Only free statoblasts have been observed. They resemble those of _S. indica_, but are perhaps a little longer and more elongate. TYPES in the Indian Museum. The discovery of this species makes it necessary to modify the diagnosis of the genus, the essential character of which, as distinguishing it from _Plumatella_, is the differentiation of the proximal part of some or all of the zooecia to form stolon-like tubules. From _Stephanella_, Oka, it is distinguished by the absence of a gelatinous covering, and by the fact that all the zooecia are attached, at least at the base, to some extraneous object. HABITAT. Malwa Tal, Kumaon (alt. 3600 feet), W. Himalayas (_Kemp_, May 1911). BIOLOGY. Mr. Kemp took three specimens, all attached to the lower surface of stones. They contained few statoblasts and were evidently in a condition of vigorous growth. Between the lateral branches new polyparia were developing in several instances from free statoblasts, each of which appeared to contain two polypides. ALPHABETICAL INDEX. All names printed in italics are synonyms. When more than one reference is given, the page on which the description occurs is indicated by thickened numerals. alba (Euspongilla) (Spongilla), 8, 9. alba (Spongilla), 4, 22, 63, ~76~. alba _var._ bengalensis (Spongilla), 4, 22, 63, ~77~. alba _var_. cerebellata (Spongilla), 22, 63, ~76~. _alba_ var. _marina_ (_Spongilla_), ~77~. _Alcyonella_, 212. Alcyonellea, 185. allmani (Plumatella), 7, 8, 9, 23, 188, ~224~, 246. _allmani_ var. _diffusa_ (_Plumatella_), 223. _allmani_ var. _dumortieri_ (_Plumatella_), 222. _attenuata_ (_Hydra_), 148, 158. _aurantiaca_ (_Hydra_), 148. aurea (Pectispongilla), 9, 22, 63, ~106~. aurea _var._ subspinosa (Pectispongilla), 63, ~107~. _benedeni_ (_Alcyonella_), 220. bengalensis (Bowerbankia), 189. bengalensis (Membranipora), 23. bengalensis (Spongilla), 77. bengalensis (Victorella), 4, 8, 9, 23, 187, ~195~. blembingia (Ephydatia), 54. bogorensis (Ephydatia), 54. _bombayensis_ (_Plumatella_), 225. bombayensis (Spongilla), 22, 63, 100, ~102~, 241. bombayensis (Stratospongilla) (Spongilla), 8, 9. Bowerbankia, 187, ~189~. _brunnea_ (_Hydra_), 148. burmanica (Corvospongilla), 8, 22, 64, ~122~. burmanica (Pectinatella), 8, 10, 23, 188, ~235~. calcuttana (Spongilla), 96. _cambodgiensis_ (_Norodonia_), 202. _Carterella_, 108. carteri (Eunapius) (Spongilla), 7, 8, 9, 10. _carteri_ (_Eunapius_), 87. carteri (Lophopodella), 7, 8, 23, 188, ~232~, 233. _carteri_ (_Lophopus_), 232. _carteri_ (_Pectinatella_), 231, carteri (Spongilla), 4, 22, 63, 86, ~87~, 241. carteri _var._ cava (Spongilla), 22, 63. carteri _var._ himalayana (Lophopodella), 23, 188. carteri _var._ lobosa (Spongilla), 22, 63. carteri _var._ mollis (Spongilla), 22, 63. caudata (Bowerbankia), 189. caudata _subsp._ bengalensis (Bowerbankia), 23, 189. caunteri (Corvospongilla), 243. cava (Spongilla), 88. cerebellata (Spongilla), 76. ceylonensis (Irene), 22, 140. Cheilostomata, 184. Chlorella, 50. cinerea (Euspongilla) (Spongilla), 9. cinerea (Spongilla), 22, 63, 72, 79, 241. clementis (Stratospongilla) (Spongilla), 53. coggini (Stratospongilla) (Spongilla), 53. colonialis (Loxosomatoides), 23. _contecta_ (_Spongilla_), 95. _coralloides_ (_Plumatella_), 217. Corvospongilla, 64, ~122~, 243. crassior (Spongilla), 98. crassissima (Eunapius) (Spongilla), 9. crassissima (Spongilla), 4, 22, 63, ~98~. crassissima _var._ crassior (Spongilla), 23, 63. _crateriformis_ (_Meyenia_), 83. _crateriformis_ (_Ephydatia_), 83, 84. crateriformis (Euspongilla) (Spongilla), 8, 9. _crateriformis_ (_Meyenia_), 83. crateriformis (Spongilla), 22, 63, ~83~. _Cristatella_, 235. Cristatellina, 206. Ctenostomata, 184, 185, 187, ~189~. Cyclostomata, 184. decipiens (Spongilla), 54, 96, ~97~. diffusa (Plumatella), 7, 8, 9, 23, 188, ~223~, 245. _di[oe]cia_ (_Hydra_), 158. Dosilia, 64, ~110~. _Echinella_, 199. _elegans_ (_Plumatella_), 224. Eleutheroblastea, 146, 147. emarginata (Plumatella), 4, 8, 9, 10, 23, 188, 218, ~220~, 245. _emarginata_ var. _javanica_ (_Plumatella_), 221. Entoprocta, 183. Ephydatia, 64, ~108~, 242. _erinaceus_ (_Spongilla_), 114. Eunapius, 63, ~86~, 241. Euspongilla, 63, 67, ~69~, 241. filamentata (Syncoryne), 22, 140. fluviatilis (Ephydatia), 109, ~242~. _fluviatilis_ (_Meyenia_), 242. fluviatilis (Spongilla), 108, 242. _fluviatilis_ var. _gracilis_ (_Meyenia_), 242. fortis (Ephydatia), 52, 53. fragilis (Spongilla), ~95~, 96. fragilis _subsp._ calcuttana (Eunapius) (Spongilla), 9. fragilis _subsp._ calcuttana (Spongilla), 22, 63. fragilis _subsp._ decipiens (Spongilla), 22, 63. Fredericella, 188, ~208~, 245. FREDERICELLIDÆ, 188, ~208~. _friabilis_ (_Spongilla_), 87. fruticosa (Plumatella), 4, 7, 8, 9, 23, 188, ~217~, 218. _fusca_ (_Hydra_), 158, 159. Gecarcinucus, 10. gemina (Eunapius) (Spongilla), ~8~. gemina (Spongilla), 22, 63, ~97~. _glomerata_ (_Spongilla_), 95. _grisea_ (_Hydra_), 148, 149. Gymnolæmata, 184, 187. Halichondrina, 65. hemephydatia (Euspongilla) (Spongilla), 8. hemephydatia (Spongilla), 22, 63, ~82~. _hexactinella_ (_Hydra_), 148. himalayana (Lophopodella), 233. himalayana (Stolella), 246. _himalayanus_ (_Lophopus_), 233. Hislopia, 187, ~199~. Hislopidées, 199. HISLOPIIDÆ, 187, ~199~. Homodiætidæ, 191. _Hyalinella_, 212. Hydra, 146, ~147~, 245. Hydraidæ, 147. HYDRIDÆ, 146, 147. hydriforme (Polypodium), 142. Hydrozoa, 146. _indica_ (_Ephydatia_), 83. indica (Fredericella), 9, 23, 188, ~209~, 245. indica (Spongilla), 22, 63, ~100~. indica (Stolella), 4, 9, 23, 188, ~229~. indica (Stratospongilla), (Spongilla), 9. javanica (Plumatella), 4, 8, 9, 23, 188, ~221~, 222. kawaii (Limnocodium), 141. lacroixii (Membranipora), 23. lacustris (Cordylophora), 141. _lacustris_ (_Euspongilla_), 69. lacustris (Hislopia), 4, 8, 9, 23, 187, 199, ~202~, 204. lacustris (Spongilla), 63, 67, ~69~. lacustris _subsp._ moniliformis (Hislopia), 9, 23, 187. lacustris _subsp._ reticulata (Spongilla), 4, 8, 9, 22, 63, ~71~, 241. _lacustris_ var. _bengalensis_ (_Spongilla_), 77. lapidosa (Corvospongilla), 9, 22, 64, ~124~. _lapidosa_ (_Spongilla_), 124. latouchiana (Trochospongilla), 4, 8, 9, 22, 64, ~115~. _leidyi_ (_Trochospongilla_), 115. _lendenfeldi_ (_Lophopus_), 233. _lendenfeldi_ var. _himalayanus_ (_Lophopus_), 233. lobosa (Spongilla), 89. LOPHOPINÆ, 188, 211, ~231~. Lophopodella, 8, 188, ~231~. _Lophopus_, 8, 232. _lordii_ (_Spongilla_), 95. loricata (Spongilla), ~122~. _loricata_ var. _burmanica_, (_Spongilla_), 122. _lucifuga_ (_Plumatella_), 217, 220, 224. magnifica (Pectinatella), 235. meyeni (Ephydatia), 7, 9, 17, 22, 64, ~108~. _meyeni_ (_Spongilla_), 108. _Meyenia_, 108, 113. microsclerifera (Euspongilla) (Spongilla), 53. mollis (Spongilla), 88. moniliformis (Hislopia), 204. _mon[oe]cia_ (_Hydra_), 158. _morgiana_ (_Spongilla_), 95. _mülleri_ (_Ephydatia_), 109, 243. _mülleri_ subsp. _meyeni_ (_Ephydatia_), 109. _Norodonia_, 199. oligactis (Hydra), 7, 22, 146, ~158~, 159, 245. _orientalis_ (_Hydra_), 148, 149. _ottavænsis_ (_Spongilla_), 95. _pallens_ (_Hydra_), 148. Paludicella, 187, ~192~. PALUDICELLIDÆ, 187, ~191~. Paludicellidées, 191. Paludicellides, 191. Paludicellina, 186, 187, ~190~. paulula (Spongilla), 120. _pavida_ (_Victorella_), 194, 195. Pectinatella, 188, ~235~. pectinatellophila (Dactyloccopsis), 238. Pectispongilla, 63, ~106~. pennsylvanica (Trochospongilla), 9, 22, 64, ~118~. _pennsylvanica_ (_Tubella_), 118. _pentactinella_ (_Hydra_), 149. philippinensis (Euspongilla) (Spongilla), 53. phillottiana (Trochospongilla), 4, 8, 9, 22, 64, ~117~. Phylactolæmata, 185, 188, ~206~. Plumatella, 188, 208, ~212~, 245. PLUMATELLIDÆ, 188, ~211~. Plumatellina, 188, ~206~. PLUMATELLINÆ, 188, 211, ~212~. plumosa (Dosilia), 8, 9, 22, 64, ~111~. _plumosa_ (_Ephydatia_), 111. _plumosa_ (_Meyenia_), 111. _plumosa_ (_Spongilla_), 111. pneumatica (Stratospongilla) (Spongilla), 241. _polypus_ (_Hydra_), 148, 159. Polyzoa, 183. _princeps_ (_Plumatella_), 220. _princeps_ var. _emarginata_ (_Plumatella_), 220. _princeps_ var. _fruticosa_ (_Plumatella_), 217. proliferens (Euspongilla) (Spongilla), 8, 9, 10. proliferens (Spongilla), 4, 8, 22, 63, ~72~. Proterospongia, 27. _punctata_ (_Hyalinella_), 228. punctata (Plumatella), 9, 188, ~227~. _repens_ (_Plumatella_), 217, 223. reticulata (Spongilla), 71. _rhætica_ (_Hydra_), 158. _robusta_ (_Ephydatia_), 109, 242. _robusta_ (_Meyenia_), 242. _roeselii_ (_Hydra_), 158. ryderi (Microhydra), 141. schilleriana (Sagartia), 2, 22, 140. schilleriana _subsp_. exul (Sagartia), 22. _sibirica_ (_Spongilla_), 95. _sinensis_ (_Norodonia_), 202. sinensis (Stratospongilla) (Spongilla), 53. _socialis_ (_Hydra_), 158. sowerbii (Limnocodium), 141. Spongilla, 63, ~67~, 86, 241. Spongilladæ, 65. SPONGILLIDÆ, 65. Stolella, 188, ~229~, 246. Stolonifera, 185. Stratospongilla, 63, ~100~, 241. _stricta_ (_Plumatella_), 217. subspinosa (Pectispongilla), 107. sumatrana (Stratospongilla) (Spongilla), 53. tanganyikæ (Limnocnida), 142. tanganyikæ (Plumatella), 9, 23, 188, ~225~, 246. Trachospongilla, 64, ~113~. _Trachyspongilla_, 108. travancorica (Euspongilla) (Spongilla), 9. travancorica (Spongilla), 22, 63, ~81~. _trembleyi_ (_Hydra_), 148. Tubella, 64, 113, ~120~. ultima (Spongilla), 22, 63, ~105~. ultima (Stratospongilla) (Spongilla), 9. VESICULARIDÆ, 189. Vesicularina, 186, 187, ~189~. _vesicularis_ (_Hyalinella_), 228. _vesicularis_ (_Plumatella_), 227, 228. vesparioides (Tubella), 8, 22, 64, ~120~. vesparium (Tubella), 54. vestita (Bimeria), 22, 139. Victorella, 189, ~194~. Victorellidæ, 191. Victorellides, 191. viridis (Hydra), 147. _vitrea_ (_Hyalinella_), 228. _vitrea_ (_Plumatella_), 227, 228. vulgaris (Hydra), 4, 8, 9, 10, 22, 130, 146, ~148~, 149, 158. whiteleggei (Cordylophora), 141. yunnanensis (Euspongilla) (Spongilla), 53. PLATE I. SPECIMENS OF _Spongilla_ PRESERVED IN SPIRIT. Figs. 1-3. _S. (Euspongilla) alba_ var. _bengalensis_ (nat. size) from ponds of brackish water at Port Canning in the delta of the Ganges. Fig. 1 represents the type-specimen of the variety, and was taken in the winter of 1905-6. Figs. 2 and 3 represent specimens taken in the same ponds in the winters of 1907 and 1908 respectively. Fig. 4. _Spongilla_ sp. (? abnormal form of _S. (Eunapius carteri_)) from an aquarium in Calcutta (× 10). [Illustration: Freshwater Sponges. Plate I. A. C. Chowdhary, del. SPONGILLA.] PLATE II. PHOTOGRAPHS OF DRIED SPECIMENS OF _Spongilla_, _Tubella_, AND _Corvospongilla_. Fig. 1. Part of a large specimen of _S. (Eunapius) carteri_ from Calcutta, to show the conspicuous rounded oscula (reduced). Fig. 2. Gemmules of _S. (Stratospongilla) bombayensis_ on a stone from the edge of Igatpuri Lake, Bombay Presidency (nat. size). Fig. 3. Part of one of the type-specimens of _S. (Stratospongilla) ultima_ from Cape Comorin, Travancore, to show the star-shaped oscula (slightly enlarged). Fig. 4. Part of the type specimen of _T. vesparioides_ (external membrane destroyed), to show the reticulate skeleton and the numerous gemmules (nat. size). Fig. 5. Part of a schizotype of _C. burmanica_ to show the elevated oscula (nat. size). [Illustration: Freshwater Sponges. Plate II. Photo by A. Chowdhary. Spongilla, Tubella, Corvospongilla.] PLATE III. PHOTOGRAPHS OF SPECIMENS OF _Plumatella_, _Lophopodella_, AND _Pectinatella_. Fig. 1. Specimen in spirit of _P. fruticosa_ (typical form) on the leaf of a bulrush from a pond in the Calcutta Zoological Gardens (nat. size). Fig. 2. A small zoarium of the _benedeni_ phase of _P. emarginata_ from Rangoon (nat. size). Part of the mass has been removed at one end to show the structure. The specimen was preserved in spirit. Fig. 3. Part of a large zoarium of _P. diffusa_ on a log of wood from Gangtok, Sikhim (nat. size). An enlarged figure of another part of the same specimen is given in fig. 2, Pl. IV. The specimen was preserved in spirit. Figs. 4, 4 _a_. Specimens of _L. carteri_ from Igatpuri Lake, Bombay, preserved in formalin. Fig. 4 represents a mass of polyparia surrounded by a green gelatinous alga on the stem of a water-plant; fig. 4_a_ an isolated polyparium with the polypides fully expanded from the under surface of a stone in the same lake. Both figures are of natural size. Fig. 5. Part of a compound colony of _P. burmanica_ on the stem of a reed from the Sur Lake, Orissa (nat. size, preserved in formalin). [Illustration: Phylactolaematous Polyzoa. Plate III. Photo by A. Chowdhary. Plumatella, Lophopodella, Pectinatella.] PLATE IV. SPECIMENS OF _Plumatella_. Fig. 1. Vertical branch of a polyparium of _P. emarginata_ from Calcutta, to show method of branching (× 8). The specimen was preserved in formalin, stained with hæmalum, and after dehydration and clearing, mounted in canada balsam. Fig. 1 _a._ Part of a young, horizontal zoarium of _P. emarginata_ from Rangoon (× 4, preserved in spirit). Fig. 2. Part of a zoarium of _P. diffusa_ from Gangtok, Sikhim (× 4). See Pl. III, fig. 3. Figs. 3, 3 _a._ Specimens in spirit of _P. allmani_ from Bhim Tal (lake), W. Himalayas. Fig. 3 represents a mature polyparium; fig. 3 _a_ a young polyparium to which the valves of the statoblast (×) whence it had arisen are still attached. Fig. 4. Part of a zoarium of the _coralloides_ phase of _P. fruticosa_ (from Calcutta) preserved in spirit, as seen on the surface of the sponge in which it is embedded (× 3). Fig. 5. Part of the margin of a living polyparium of _P. punctata_ from Calcutta (× 8) with the polypides fully expanded. [Illustration: Phylactolaematous Polyzoa. Plate IV. A. C. Chowdhary, del. PLUMATELLA.] PLATE V. SPECIMENS OF _Plumatella_, _Stolella_, AND _Pectinatella_. Fig. 1. Part of a zoarium of the _coralloides_ phase of _P. fruticosa_ (× 10) from Calcutta. The specimen, which was preserved in spirit, had been removed from a sponge of _Spongilla carteri_. Fig. 2. Terminal branch of a polyparium of _P. punctata_ from Calcutta (× 30). The specimen was preserved in formalin, stained with hæmatoxylin, and finally mounted in canada balsam. Fig. 3. Part of an adult polyparium of _S. indica_ from the United Provinces (× 30). The specimen was preserved in formalin, stained with hæmalum, and finally mounted in canada balsam. The lower zooecium contains a mature free statoblast, the upper one a fixed one. Fig. 4. The growing point of a young polyparium of the same species from Calcutta (× 30), to show the method of formation of the stolon that connects the different groups of zooecia. The specimen had been treated in the same way as that represented in fig. 3. Figs. 5, 5 _a_. Zoaria from a compound colony of _P. burmanica_ from the Sur Lake, Orissa (× 2). The specimens, which were preserved in formalin, are represented as seen from the adherent surface of the colony. [Illustration: Phylactolaematous Polyzoa. Plate V. A. C. Chowdhary, del. Plumatella, Stolella, Pectinatella.] * * * * * Transcriber's note: In the Systematic Index, sub-family items were renumbered from 15. through 38., to correspond to the numbers used in the text of the book. Greek letters used as symbols are spelled out, e.g. alpha, beta, etc. Letters missing or mis-typeset were inserted, e.g. 'practica ly' to 'practically' Footnotes were moved after the paragraph to which they pertain. Raised dots were replaced with decimal points in numeric notations. Bold page numbers in the index are surrounded by tildes, e.g. ~76~. Punctuation was standardized. Added a description of a sketch contained within one line of text. Other changes: 'recognzied' to 'recognized' ... be recognized.... 'benegalensis' to 'bengalensis' ... lacustris var. bengalensis,... 'pecular' to 'peculiar' ... the peculiar amphipod ... 'milar' to 'similar' ... similar in the two ... 'large' to 'larger' ... a little larger than the upper ... 'pennsylvania' to 'pennsylvanica' ...Tubella pennsylvanica... 'variely' to 'variety' ... specimens of the variety ... 'measurments' to 'measurements' ... the average measurements ... 'It' to 'Its' ... Its buds, however, possessed ... 'dispsition' to 'disposition' ... 'Y-shaped disposition of ... 'Wood's Holl' to 'Wood's Hole' ... Biol. Bull. Wood's Hole,... '1852' to '1851' at the end of the citation of Leidy's paper, to match date at the beginning of the citation paragraph. 'syoecium' to 'synoecium' ...in a gelatinous synoecium... 'Lacustre' to lower case ...Ann. Biol. lacustre,... 'Dactyloccopsis' to 'Dactylococcopsis' ... Dactylococcopsis pectinatellophila ... 'amphioxus' to 'amphioxous' ... amphistrongylous or amphioxous ... 'Trìda' and 'Trida' to 'Trída' for consistency ... Praze, Trída ... 
3231	----	Proofreading Team THE RIFLE AND HOUND IN CEYLON By Sir Samuel White Baker PREFACE. Upwards of twenty years have passed since the 'Rifle and Hound in Ceylon' was published, and I have been requested to write a preface for a new edition. Although this long interval of time has been spent in a more profitable manner than simple sport, nevertheless I have added considerably to my former experience of wild animals by nine years passed in African explorations. The great improvements that have been made in rifles have, to a certain extent, modified the opinions that I expressed in the 'Rifle and Hound in Ceylon.' Breech-loaders have so entirely superseded the antiquated muzzle-loader, that the hunter of dangerous animals is possessed of an additional safeguard. At the same time I look back with satisfaction to the heavy charges of powder that were used by me thirty years ago and were then regarded as absurd, but which are now generally acknowledged by scientific gunners as the only means of insuring the desiderata of the rifle, i.e., high velocity, low trajectory, long range, penetration, and precision. When I first began rifle-shooting thirty-seven years ago, not one man in a thousand had ever handled such a weapon. Our soldiers were then armed*(*With the exception of the Rifle Brigade) with the common old musket, and I distinctly remember a snubbing that I received as a youngster for suggesting, in the presence of military men, 'that the army should throughout be supplied with rifles.' This absurd idea proposed by a boy of seventeen who was a good shot with a weapon that was not in general use, produced such a smile of contempt upon my hearers, that the rebuke left a deep impression, and was never forgotten. A life's experience in the pursuit of heavy game has confirmed my opinion expressed in the 'Rifle and Hound' in 1854--that the best weapon for a hunter of average strength is a double rifle weighing fifteen pounds, of No. 10 calibre. This should carry a charge of ten drachms of No. 6 powder (coarse grain). In former days I used six or seven drachms of the finest grained powder with the old muzzle-loader, but it is well known that the rim of the breech-loading cartridge is liable to burst with a heavy charge of the fine grain, therefore No. 6 is best adapted for the rifle. Although a diversity of calibres is a serious drawback to the comfort of a hunter in wild countries, it is quite impossible to avoid the difficulty, as there is no rifle that will combine the requirements for a great variety of game. As the wild goose demands B B shot and the snipe No. 8, in like manner the elephant requires the heavy bullet, and the deer is contented with the small-bore. I have found great convenience in the following equipment for hunting every species of game in wild tropical countries. One single-barrel rifle to carry a half-pound projectile, or a four ounce, according to strength of hunter. Three double-barrelled No. 10 rifles, to carry ten drachms No. 6 powder. One double-barrelled small-bore rifle, sighted most accurately for deer-shooting. Express to carry five or six drachms, but with hardened solid bullet. Two double-barrelled No. 10 smooth-bores to carry shot or ball; the latter to be the exact size for the No. 10 rifles. According to my experience, such a battery is irresistible. The breech-loader has manifold advantages over the muzzle-loader in a wild country. Cartridges should always be loaded in England, and they should be packed in hermetically sealed tin cases within wooden boxes, to contain each fifty, if large bores, or one hundred of the smaller calibre. These will be quite impervious to damp, or to the attacks of insects. The economy of ammunition will be great, as the cartridge can be drawn every evening after the day's work, instead of being fired off as with the muzzle-loader, in order that the rifle may be cleaned. The best cartridges will never miss fire. This is an invaluable quality in the pursuit of dangerous game. Although I advocate the express small-bore with the immense advantage of low trajectory, I am decidedly opposed to the hollow expanding bullet for heavy, thick-skinned game. I have so frequently experienced disappointment by the use of the hollow bullet that I should always adhere to the slightly hardened and solid projectile that will preserve its original shape after striking the thick hide of a large animal. A hollow bullet fired from an express rifle will double up a deer, but it will be certain to expand upon the hard skin of elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotami, buffaloes, &c.; in which case it will lose all power of penetration. When a hollow bullet strikes a large bone, it absolutely disappears into minute particles of lead,--and of course it becomes worthless. For many years I have been supplied with firstrate No. 10 rifles by Messrs. Reilly & Co. of Oxford Street, London, which have never become in the slightest degree deranged during the rough work of wild hunting. Mr. Reilly was most successful in the manufacture of explosive shells from my design; these were cast-iron coated with lead, and their effect was terrific. Mr. Holland of Bond Street produced a double-barrelled rifle that carried the Snider Boxer cartridge. This was the most accurate weapon up to 300 yards, and was altogether the best rifle that I ever used; but although it possessed extraordinary precision, the hollow bullet caused the frequent loss of a wounded animal. Mr. Holland is now experimenting in the conversion of a Whitworth-barrel to a breech-loader. If this should prove successful, I should prefer the Whitworth projectile to any other for a sporting rifle in wild countries, as it would combine accuracy at both long and short ranges with extreme penetration. The long interval that has elapsed since I was in Ceylon, has caused a great diminution in the wild animals. The elephants are now protected by game laws, although twenty years ago a reward was offered by the Government for their destruction. The 'Rifle and Hound' can no longer be accepted as a guidebook to the sports in Ceylon; the country is changed, and in many districts the forests have been cleared, and civilization has advanced into the domains of wild beasts. The colony has been blessed with prosperity, and the gradual decrease of game is a natural consequence of extended cultivation and increased population. In the pages of this book it will be seen that I foretold the destruction of the wild deer and other animals twenty years ago. At that time the energetic Tamby's or Moormen were possessed of guns, and had commenced a deadly warfare in the jungles, killing the wild animals as a matter of business, and making a livelihood by the sale of dried flesh, hides, and buffalo-horns. This unremitting slaughter of the game during all seasons has been most disastrous, and at length necessitated the establishment of laws for its protection. As the elephants have decreased in Ceylon, so in like manner their number must be reduced in Africa by the continual demand for ivory. Since the 'Rifle and Hound' was written, I have had considerable experience with the African elephant. This is a distinct species, as may be seen by a comparison with the Indian elephant in the Zoological Gardens of the Regent's Park. In Africa, all elephants are provided with tusks; those of the females are small, averaging about twenty pounds the pair. The bull's are sometimes enormous. I have seen a pair of tusks that weighed 300 lbs., and I have met with single tusks of 160 lbs. During this year (1874) a tusk was sold in London that weighed 188 lbs. As the horns of deer vary in different localities, so the ivory is also larger and of superior quality in certain districts. This is the result of food and climate. The average of bull elephant's tusks in equatorial Africa is about 90 lbs. or 100 lbs. the pair. It is not my intention to write a treatise upon the African elephant; this has been already described in the 'Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,'*(* Published by Messrs. Macmillan and Co.) but it will be sufficient to explain that it is by no means an easy beast to kill when in the act of charging. From the peculiar formation of the head, it is almost impossible to kill a bull elephant by the forehead shot; thus the danger of hunting the African variety is enhanced tenfold. The habits of the African elephant are very different from those of his Indian cousins. Instead of retiring to dense jungles at sunrise, the African will be met with in the mid-day glare far away from forests, basking in the hot prairie grass of ten feet high, which scarcely reaches to his withers. Success in elephant shooting depends materially upon the character of the ground. In good forests, where a close approach is easy, the African species can be killed like the Indian, by one shot either behind the ear or in the temple; but in open ground, or in high grass, it is both uncertain and extremely dangerous to attempt a close approach on foot. Should the animal turn upon the hunter, it is next to impossible to take the forehead-shot with effect. It is therefore customary in Africa, to fire at the shoulder with a very heavy rifle at a distance of fifty or sixty yards. In Ceylon it was generally believed that the shoulder-shot was useless; thus we have distinct methods of shooting the two species of elephants: this is caused, not only by the difference between the animals, but chiefly by the contrast in the countries they inhabit. Ceylon is a jungle; thus an elephant can be approached within a few paces, which admit of accurate aim at the brain. In Africa the elephant is frequently upon open ground; therefore he is shot in the larger mark (the shoulder) at a greater distance. I have shot them successfully both in the brain and in the shoulder, and where the character of the country admits an approach to within ten paces, I prefer the Ceylon method of aiming either at the temple or behind the ear. Although the African elephant with his magnificent tusks is a higher type than that of Ceylon, I look back to the hunting of my younger days with unmixed pleasure. Friends with whom I enjoyed those sports are still alive, and are true friends always, thus exemplifying that peculiar freemasonry which unites the hearts of sportsmen. After a life of rough experience in wild countries, I have found some pleasure in referring to the events of my early years, and recalling the recollection of many scenes that would have passed away had they not been chronicled. I therefore trust that although the brightest days of Ceylon sports may have somewhat faded by the diminution of the game, there may be Nimrods (be they young or old) who will still discover some interest in the 'Rifle and Hound in Ceylon.' S. W. BAKER. INTRODUCTION. THE LOVE OF SPORT is a feeling inherent in most Englishmen, and whether in the chase, or with the rod or gun, they far excel all other nations. In fact, the definition of this feeling cannot be understood by many foreigners. We are frequently ridiculed for fox-hunting: 'What for all dis people, dis horses, dis many dog? dis leetle (how you call him?) dis "fox" for to catch? ha! you eat dis creature; he vary fat and fine?' This is a foreigner's notion of the chase; he hunts for the pot; and by Englishmen alone is the glorious feeling shared of true, fair, and manly sport. The character of the nation is beautifully displayed in all our rules for hunting, shooting, fishing, fighting, etc.; a feeling of fair play pervades every amusement. Who would shoot a hare in form? who would net a trout stream? who would hit a man when down? A Frenchman would do all these things, and might be no bad fellow after all. It would be HIS way of doing it. His notion would be to make use of an advantage when an opportunity offered. He would think it folly to give the hare a chance of running when he could shoot her sitting; he would make an excellent dish of all the trout he could snare; and as to hitting his man when down, he would think it madness to allow him to get up again until he had put him hors de combat by jumping on him. Their notions of sporting and ours, then, widely differ; they take every advantage, while we give every advantage; they delight in the certainty of killing, while our pleasure consists in the chance of the animal escaping. I would always encourage the love of sport in a lad; guided by its true spirit of fair play, it is a feeling that will make him above doing a mean thing in every station of life, and will give him real feelings of humanity. I have had great experience in the characters of thorough sportsmen, who are generally straightforward, honourable men, who would scorn to take a dirty advantage of man or animal. In fact, all real sportsmen that I have met have been tender-hearted men--who shun cruelty to an animal, and are easily moved by a tale of distress. With these feelings, sport is an amusement worthy of a man, and this noble taste has been extensively developed since the opportunities of travelling have of late years been so wonderfully improved. The facility with which the most remote regions are now reached, renders a tour over some portion of the globe a necessary adjunct to a man's education; a sportsman naturally directs his path to some land where civilisation has not yet banished the wild beast from the soil. Ceylon is a delightful country for the sporting tourist. In the high road to India and China, any length of time may be spent en passant, and the voyage by the Overland route is nothing but a trip of a few weeks of pleasure. This island has been always celebrated for its elephants, but the other branches of sport are comparatively unknown to strangers. No account has ever been written which embraces all Ceylon sports: anecdotes of elephant-shooting fill the pages of nearly every work on Ceylon; but the real character of the wild sports of this island has never been described, because the writers have never been acquainted with each separate branch of the Ceylon chase. A residence of many years in this lovely country, where the wild sports of the island have formed a never-failing and constant amusement, alone confers sufficient experience to enable a person to give a faithful picture of both shooting and hunting in Ceylon jungles. In describing these sports I shall give no anecdotes of others, but I shall simply recall scenes in which I myself have shared, preferring even a character for egotism rather than relate the statements of hearsay, for the truth of which I could not vouch. This must be accepted as an excuse for the unpleasant use of the first person. There are many first-rate sportsmen in Ceylon who could furnish anecdotes of individual risks and hairbreadth escapes (the certain accompaniments to elephant-shooting) that would fill volumes; but enough will be found, in the few scenes which I have selected from whole hecatombs of slaughter, to satisfy and perhaps fatigue the most patient reader. One fact I wish to impress upon all--that the colouring of every description is diminished and not exaggerated, the real scene being in all cases a picture, of which the narration is but a feeble copy. CONTENTS. CHAPTER 1. Wild Country--Dealings in the Marvellous--Enchanting Moments--The Wild Elephant of Ceylon--'Rogues'--Elephant Slaughter--Thick Jungles--Character of the Country--Varieties of Game in Ceylon--'Battery for Ceylon Sport'--The Elk or 'Samber Deer'--Deer-coursing CHAPTER II. Newera Ellia--The Turn-out for Elk-hunting--Elk-hunting--Elk turned to Bay--The Boar CHAPTER III. Minneria Lake--Brush with a Bull--An Awkward Vis-a-vis--A Bright Thought--Bull Buffalo Receives his Small Change--What is Man?--Long Shot with the Four-ounce--Charged by a Herd of Buffaloes--The Four-ounce does Service--The 'Lola'--A Woman killed by a Crocodile--Crocodile at Bolgodde Lake--A Monster Crocodile--Death of a Crocodile CHAPTER IV. Equipment for a Hunting Trip--In Chase of a Herd of Elephants--Hard Work--Close Quarters--Six Feet from the Muzzle--A Black with a Devil CHAPTER V. The Four-ounce again--Tidings of a Rogue--Approaching a Tank Rogue--An Exciting Moment--Ruins of Pollanarua--Ancient Ruins--Rogues at Doolana--B. Charged by a Rogue--Planning an Attack--A Check--Narrow Escape--Rogue-stalking--A Bad Rogue--Dangers of Elephant-shooting--The Phatamahatmeya's Tale CHAPTER VI. Character of the Veddahs--Description of the Veddahs--A Monampitya Rogue--Attacking the Rogue--Breathless Excitement--Death of a Large Rogue--Utility of the Four-ounce--A Curious Shot--Fury of a Bull Buffalo--Character of the Wild Buffalo--Buffalo-shooting at Minneria Lake--Charge in High Reeds--Close of a Good Day's Sport--Last Day at Minneria--A Large Snake--An Unpleasant Bedfellow CHAPTER VII. Capabilities of Ceylon--Deer at Illepecadewe--Sagacity of a Pariah Dog--Two Deer at One Shot--Deer-stalking--Hambantotte Country--Kattregam Festival--Sitrawelle--Ruins of Ancient Mahagam--Wiharewelle--A Night Attack upon Elephants--Shooting by Moonlight--Yalle River--Another Rogue--A Stroll before Breakfast--A Curious Shot--A Good Day's Sport CHAPTER VIII. Best Hounds for Elk-hunting--Smut--Killbuck--The Horton Plains--A Second Soyer--The Find--The Buck at Bay--The Bay--The Death--Return of Lost Dogs--Comparative Speed of Deer--Veddah Ripped by a Boar--A Melee--Buck at Black Pool--Old Smut's Ruse--Margosse Oil CHAPTER IX. A Morning's Deer-coursing--Kondawataweny--Rogue at Kondawataweny--A Close Shave--Preparations for Catching an Elephant--Catching an Elephant--Taming Him--Flying Shot at a Buck--Cave at Dimbooldene--Awkward Ground--A Charmed Life CHAPTER X. Another Trip to the Park--A Hard Day's Work--Discover a Herd--Death of the Herd--A Furious Charge--Caught at Last--The Consequences--A Thorough Rogue--Another Herd in High Lemon Grass--Bears--A Fight between a Moorman and a Bear--A Musical Herd--Herd Escape--A Plucky Buck--Death of 'Killbuck'--Good Sport with a Herd--End of the Trip CHAPTER XI. Excitement of Elephant-shooting--An Unexpected Visitor--A Long Run with a Buck--Hard Work Rewarded--A Glorious Bay--End of a Hard Day's Work--Bee-hunters--Disasters of Elk-hunting--Bran Wounded--'Old Smut's' Buck--Boar at Hackgalla--Death of 'Old Smut'--Scenery from the Perewelle Mountains--Diabolical Death of 'Merriman'--Scene of the Murder CHAPTER XII. A Jungle Trip CHAPTER XIII. Conclusion THE RIFLE AND HOUND. CHAPTER I. Wild Country-Dealings in the Marvellous-Enchanting Moments The Wild Elephant of Ceylon--'Rogues'-Elephant Slaughter-Thick Jungles-Character of the Country-Varieties of Game in Ceylon--'Battery for Ceylon Sport'-The Elk or 'Samber Deer'-Deer-coursing. It is a difficult task to describe a wild country so exactly, that a stranger's eye shall at once be made acquainted with its scenery and character by the description. And yet this is absolutely necessary, if the narration of sports in foreign countries is supposed to interest those who have never had the opportunity of enjoying them. The want of graphic description of localities in which the events have occurred, is the principal cause of that tediousness which generally accompanies the steady perusal of a sporting work. You can read twenty pages with interest, but a monotony soon pervades it, and sport then assumes an appearance of mere slaughter. Now, the actual killing of an animal, the death itself, is not sport, unless the circumstances connected with it are such as to create that peculiar feeling which can only be expressed by the word 'sport.' This feeling cannot exist in the heart of a butcher; he would as soon slaughter a fine buck by tying him to a post and knocking him down, as he would shoot him in his wild native haunts--the actual moment of death, the fact of killing, is his enjoyment. To a true sportsman the enjoyment of a sport increases in proportion to the wildness of the country. Catch a six-pound trout in a quiet mill-pond in a populous manufacturing neighbourhood, with well-cultivated meadows on either side of the stream, fat cattle grazing on the rich pasturage, and, perhaps, actually watching you as you land your fish: it may be sport. But catch a similar fish far from the haunts of men, in a boiling rocky torrent surrounded by heathery mountains, where the shadow of a rod has seldom been reflected in the stream, and you cease to think the former fish worth catching; still he is the same size, showed the same courage, had the same perfection of condition, and yet you cannot allow that it was sport compared with this wild stream. If you see no difference in the excitement, you are not a sportsman; you would as soon catch him in a washing tub, and you should buy your fish when you require him; but never use a rod, or you would disgrace the hickory. This feeling of a combination of wild country with the presence of the game itself, to form a real sport, is most keenly manifested when we turn our attention to the rifle. This noble weapon is thrown away in an enclosed country. The smooth-bore may and does afford delightful sport upon our cultivated fields; but even that pleasure is doubled when those enclosures no longer intervene, and the wide-spreading moors and morasses of Scotland give an idea of freedom and undisturbed nature. Who can compare grouse with partridge shooting? Still the difference exists, not so much in the character of the bird as in the features of the country. It is the wild aspect of the heathery moor without a bound, except the rugged outline of the mountains upon the sky, that gives such a charm to the grouse-shooting in Scotland, and renders the deer-stalking such a favourite sport among the happy few who can enjoy it. All this proves that the simple act of killing is not sport; if it were, the Zoological Gardens would form as fine a field to an elephant shot as the wildest Indian jungle. Man is a bloodthirsty animal, a beast of prey, instinctively; but let us hope that a true sportsman is not savage, delighting in nothing but death, but that his pursuits are qualified by a love of nature, of noble scenery, of all the wonderful productions which the earth gives forth in different latitudes. He should thoroughly understand the nature and habits of every beast or bird that he looks upon as game. This last attribute is indispensable; without it he may kill, but he is not a sportsman. We have, therefore, come to the conclusion that the character of a country influences the character of the sport. The first question, therefore, that an experienced man would ask at the recital of a sporting anecdote would be, 'What kind of country is it?' That being clearly described to him, he follows you through every word of your tale with a true interest, and in fact joins in imagination in the chase. There is one great drawback to the publication of sporting adventures--they always appear to deal not a little in the marvellous; and this effect is generally heightened by the use of the first person in writing, which at all events may give an egotistical character to a work. This, however, cannot easily be avoided, if a person is describing his own adventures, and he labours under the disadvantage of being criticised by readers who do not know him personally, and may, therefore, give him credit for gross exaggeration. It is this feeling that deters many men who have passed through years of wild sports from publishing an account of them. The fact of being able to laugh in your sleeve at the ignorance of a reader who does not credit you, is but a poor compensation for being considered a better shot with a long bow than with a rifle. Often have I pitied Gordon Cumming when I have heard him talked of as a palpable Munchausen, by men who never fired a rifle, or saw a wild beast, except in a cage; and still these men form the greater proportion of the 'readers' of these works. Men who have not seen, cannot understand the grandeur of wild sports in a wild country. There is an indescribable feeling of supremacy in a man who understands his game thoroughly, when he stands upon some elevated point and gazes over the wild territory of savage beasts. He feels himself an invader upon the solitudes of nature. The very stillness of the scene is his delight. There is a mournful silence in the calmness of the evening, when the tropical sun sinks upon the horizon--a conviction that man has left this region undisturbed to its wild tenants. No hum of distant voices, no rumbling of busy wheels, no cries of domestic animals meet the ear. He stands upon a wilderness, pathless and untrodden by the foot of civilisation, where no sound is ever heard but that of the elements, when the thunder rolls among the towering forests or the wind howls along the plains. He gazes far, far into the distance, where the blue mountains melt into an indefinite haze; he looks above him to the rocky pinnacles which spring from the level plain, their swarthy cliffs glistening from the recent shower, and patches of rich verdure clinging to precipices a thousand feet above him. His eye stretches along the grassy plains, taking at one full glance a survey of woods, and rocks, and streams; and imperceptibly his mind wanders to thoughts of home, and in one moment scenes long left behind are conjured up by memory, and incidents are recalled which banish for a time the scene before him. Lost for a moment in the enchanting power of solitude, where fancy and reality combine in their most bewitching forms, he is suddenly roused by a distant sound made doubly loud by the surrounding silence--the shrill trumpet of an elephant. He wakes from his reverie; the reality of the present scene is at once manifested. He stands within a wilderness where the monster of the forest holds dominion; he knows not what a day, not even what a moment, may bring forth; he trusts in a protecting Power, and in the heavy rifle, and he is shortly upon the track of the king of beasts. The king of beasts is generally acknowledged to be the 'lion'; but no one who has seen a wild elephant can doubt for a moment that the title belongs to him in his own right. Lord of all created animals in might and sagacity, the elephant roams through his native forests. He browses upon the lofty branches, upturns young trees from sheer malice, and from plain to forest he stalks majestically at break of day 'monarch of all he surveys.' A person who has never seen a wild elephant can form no idea of his real character, either mentally or physically. The unwieldy and sleepy-looking beast, who, penned up in his cage at a menagerie, receives a sixpence in his trunk, and turns round with difficulty to deposit it in a box; whose mental powers seem to be concentrated in the idea of receiving buns tossed into a gaping mouth by children's hands,--this very beast may have come from a warlike stock. His sire may have been the terror of a district, a pitiless highwayman, whose soul thirsted for blood; who, lying in wait in some thick bush, would rush upon the unwary passer-by, and know no pleasure greater than the act of crushing his victim to a shapeless mass beneath his feet. How little does his tame sleepy son resemble him! Instead of browsing on the rank vegetation of wild pasturage, he devours plum-buns; instead of bathing his giant form in the deep rivers and lakes of his native land, he steps into a stone-lined basin to bathe before the eyes of a pleased multitude, the whole of whom form their opinion of elephants in general from the broken-spirited monster which they see before them. I have even heard people exclaim, upon hearing anecdotes of elephant-hunting, 'Poor things!' Poor things, indeed! I should like to see the very person who thus expresses his pity, going at his best pace, with a savage elephant after him: give him a lawn to run upon if he likes, and see the elephant gaining a foot in every yard of the chase, fire in his eye, fury in his headlong charge; and would not the flying gentleman who lately exclaimed 'Poor thing!' be thankful to the lucky bullet that would save him from destruction? There are no animals more misunderstood than elephants; they are naturally savage, wary, and revengeful; displaying as great courage when in their wild state as any animal known. The fact of their great natural sagacity renders them the more dangerous as foes. Even when tamed, there are many that are not safe for a stranger to approach, and they are then only kept in awe by the sharp driving hook of the mohout. In their domesticated state I have seen them perform wonders of sagacity and strength; but I have nothing to do with tame elephants; there are whole books written upon the subject, although the habits of an elephant can be described in a few words. All wild animals in a tropical country avoid the sun. They wander forth to feed upon the plains in the evening and during the night, and they return to the jungle shortly after sunrise. Elephants have the same habits. In those parts of the country where such pasturage abounds as bamboo, lemon grass, sedges on the banks of rivers, lakes, and swamps, elephants are sure to be found at such seasons as are most propitious for the growth of these plants. When the dry weather destroys this supply of food in one district, they migrate to another part of the country. They come forth to feed about 4 P.M., and they invariably, retire to the thickest and most thorny jungle in the neighbourhood of their feeding-place by 7 A.M. In these impenetrable haunts they consider themselves secure from aggression. The period of gestation with an elephant is supposed to be two years, and the time occupied in attaining full growth is about sixteen years. The whole period of life is supposed to be a hundred years, but my own opinion would increase that period by fifty. The height of elephants varies to a great degree, and in all cases is very deceiving. In Ceylon, an elephant is measured at the shoulder, and nine feet at this point is a very large animal. There is no doubt that many elephants far exceed this, as I have shot them so large that two tall men could lie at full length from the point of the forefoot to the shoulder; but this is not a common size: the average height at the shoulder would be about seven feet.*(*The males 7 ft.6 in., the females 7 ft., at the shoulder.) Not more than one in three hundred has tusks; they are merely provided with short grubbers, projecting generally about three inches from the upper jaw, and about two inches in diameter; these are called 'tushes' in Ceylon, and are of so little value that they are not worth extracting from the head. They are useful to the elephants in hooking on to a branch and tearing it down. Elephants are gregarious, and the average number in a herd is about eight, although they frequently form bodies of fifty and even eighty in one troop. Each herd consists of a very large proportion of females, and they are constantly met without a single bull in their number. I have seen some small herds formed exclusively of bulls, but this is very rare. The bull is much larger than the female, and is generally more savage. His habits frequently induce him to prefer solitude to a gregarious life. He then becomes doubly vicious. He seldom strays many miles from one locality, which he haunts for many years. He becomes what is termed a 'rogue.' He then waylays the natives, and in fact becomes a scourge to the neighbourhood, attacking the inoffensive without the slightest provocation, carrying destruction into the natives' paddy-fields, and perfectly regardless of night fires or the usual precautions for scaring wild beasts. The daring pluck of these 'rogues' is only equalled by their extreme cunning. Endowed with that wonderful power of scent peculiar to elephants, he travels in the day-time DOWN the wind; thus nothing can follow upon his track without his knowledge. He winds his enemy as the cautious hunter advances noiselessly upon his track, and he stands with ears thrown forward, tail erect, trunk thrown high in the air, with its distended tip pointed to the spot from which he winds the silent but approaching danger. Perfectly motionless does he stand, like a statue in ebony, the very essence of attention, every nerve of scent and hearing stretched to its cracking point; not a muscle moves, not a sound of a rustling branch against his rough sides; he is a mute figure of wild and fierce eagerness. Meanwhile, the wary tracker stoops to the ground, and with a practised eye pierces the tangled brushwood in search of his colossal feet. Still farther and farther he silently creeps forward, when suddenly a crash bursts through the jungle; the moment has arrived for the ambushed charge, and the elephant is upon him. What increases the danger is the uncertainty prevailing in all the movements of a 'rogue'. You may perhaps see him upon a plain or in a forest. As you advance, he retreats, or he may at once charge. Should he retreat, you follow him; but you may shortly discover that he is leading you to some favourite haunt of thick jungle or high grass, from which, when you least expect it, he will suddenly burst out in full charge upon you. Next to a 'rogue' in ferocity, and even more persevering in the pursuit of her victim, is a female elephant when her young one has been killed. In such a case she will generally follow up her man until either he or she is killed. If any young elephants are in the herd, the mothers frequently prove awkward customers. Elephant-shooting is doubtless the most dangerous of all sports if the game is invariably followed up; but there is a great difference between elephant-killing and elephant-hunting; the latter is sport, the former is slaughter. Many persons who have killed elephants know literally nothing about the sport, and they may ever leave Ceylon with the idea that an elephant is not a dangerous animal. Their elephants are killed in this way, viz.: The party of sportsmen, say two or three, arrive at a certain district. The headman is sent for from the village; he arrives. The enquiry respecting the vicinity of elephants is made; a herd is reported to be in the neighbourhood, and trackers and watchers are sent out to find them. In the meantime the tent is pitched, our friends are employed in unpacking the guns, and, after some hours have elapsed, the trackers return: they have found the herd, and the watchers are left to observe them. The guns are loaded and the party starts. The trackers run quickly on the track until they meet one of the watchers who has been sent back upon the track by the other watchers to give the requisite information of the movements of the herd since the trackers left. One tracker now leads the way, and they cautiously proceed. The boughs are heard slightly rustling as the unconscious elephants are fanning the flies from their bodies within a hundred yards of the guns. The jungle is open and good, interspersed with plots of rank grass; and quietly following the head tracker, into whose hands our friends have committed themselves, they follow like hounds under the control of a huntsman. The tracker is a famous fellow, and he brings up his employers in a masterly manner within ten paces of the still unconscious elephants. He now retreats quietly behind the guns, and the sport begins. A cloud of smoke from a regular volley, a crash through the splintering branches as the panic-stricken herd rush from the scene of conflict, and it is all over. X. has killed two, Y. has killed one, and Z. knocked down one, but he got up again and got away; total, three bagged. Our friends now return to the tent, and, after perhaps a month of this kind of shooting, they arrive at their original headquarters, having bagged perhaps twenty elephants. They give their opinion upon elephant-shooting, and declare it to be capital sport, but there is no danger in it, as the elephants INVARIABLY RUN AWAY. Let us imagine ourselves in the position of the half-asleep and unsuspecting herd. We are lying down in a doze during the heat of the day, and our senses are half benumbed by a sense of sleep. We are beneath the shade of a large tree, and we do not dream that danger is near us. A frightful scream suddenly scatters our wandering senses. It is a rogue elephant upon us! It was the scream of his trumpet that we heard! and he is right among us. How we should bolt! How we should run at the first start until we could get a gun! But let him continue this pursuit, and how long would he be without a ball in his head? It is precisely the same in attacking a herd of elephants or any other animals unawares; they are taken by surprise, and are for the moment panic-stricken. But let our friends X., Y., Z., who have just bagged three elephants so easily, continue the pursuit, hunt the remaining portion of the herd down till one by one they have nearly all fallen to the bullet--X., Y., Z. will have had enough of it; they will be blinded by perspiration, torn by countless thorns, as they have rushed through the jungles determined not to lose sight of their game, soaked to the skin as they have waded through intervening streams, and will entirely have altered their opinion as to elephants invariably running away, as they will very probably have seen one turn sharp round from the retreating herd, and charge straight into them when they least expected it. At any rate, after a hunt of this kind they can form some opinion of the excitement of the true sport. The first attack upon a herd by a couple of first-rate elephant-shots frequently ends the contest in a few seconds by the death of every elephant. I have frequently seen a small herd of five or six elephants annihilated almost in as many seconds after a well-planned approach in thick jungle, when they have been discovered standing in a crowd and presenting favourable shots. In such an instance the sport is so soon concluded that the only excitement consists in the cautious advance to the attack through bad jungle. As a rule, the pursuit of elephants through bad, thorny jungles should if possible be avoided: the danger is in many cases extreme, although the greater portion of the herd may at other times be perhaps easily killed. There is no certainty in a shot. An elephant may be discerned by the eye looming in an apparent mist formed by the countless intervening twigs and branches which veil him like a screen of network. To reach the fatal spot the ball must pass through perhaps fifty little twigs, one of which, if struck obliquely, turns the bullet, and there is no answering for the consequence. There are no rules, however, without exceptions, and in some instances the following of the game through the thickest jungle can hardly be avoided. The character of the country in Ceylon is generally very unfavourable to sport of all kinds. The length of the island is about two hundred and eighty miles, by one hundred and fifty in width; the greater portion of this surface is covered with impenetrable jungles, which form secure coverts for countless animals. The centre of the island is mountainous, torrents from which, form the sources of the numerous rivers by which Ceylon is so well watered. The low country is flat. The soil throughout the island is generally poor and sandy. This being the character of the country, and vast forests rendered impenetrable by tangled underwood forming the principal features of the landscape, a person arriving at Ceylon for the purpose of enjoying its wild sports would feel an inexpressible disappointment. Instead of mounting a good horse, as he might have fondly anticipated, and at once speeding over trackless plains till so far from human habitations that the territories of beasts commence, he finds himself walled in by jungle on either side of the highway. In vain he asks for information. He finds the neighbourhood of Galle, his first landing place, densely populated; he gets into the coach for Colombo. Seventy miles of close population and groves of cocoa-nut trees are passed, and he reaches the capital. This is worse and worse--he has seen no signs of wild country during his long journey, and Colombo appears to be the height of civilisation. He books his place for Kandy; he knows that is in the very centre of Ceylon--there surely must be sport there, he thinks. The morning gun fires from the Colombo fort at 5 A.M. and the coach starts. Miles are passed, and still the country is thickly populated--paddy cultivation in all the flats and hollows, and even the sides of the hills are carefully terraced out in a laborious system of agriculture. There can be no shooting here! Sixty miles are passed; the top of the Kaduganava Pass is reached, eighteen hundred feet above the sea level, the road walled with jungle on either side. From the summit of this pass our newly arrived sportsman gazes with despair. Far as the eye can reach over a vast extent of country, mountain and valley, hill and dale, without one open spot, are clothed alike in one dark screen of impervious forest. He reaches Kandy, a civilised town surrounded by hills of jungle--that interminable jungle!--and at Kandy he may remain, or, better still, return again to England, unless he can get some well-known Ceylon sportsman to pilot him through the apparently pathless forests, and in fact to 'show him sport.' This is not easily effected. Men who understand the sport are not over fond of acting 'chaperon' to a young hand, as a novice must always detract from the sport in some degree. In addition to this, many persons do not exactly know themselves; and, although the idea of shooting elephants appears very attractive at a distance, the pleasure somewhat abates when the sportsman is forced to seek for safety in a swift pair of heels. I shall now proceed to give a description of the various sports in Ceylon--a task for which the constant practice of many years has afforded ample incident. The game of Ceylon consists of elephants, buffaloes, elk, spotted deer, red or the paddy-field deer*(*A small species of deer found in the island), mouse deer, hogs, bears, leopards, hares, black partridge, red-legged partridge, pea-fowl, jungle-fowl, quail, snipe, ducks, widgeon, teal, golden and several kinds of plover, a great variety of pigeons, and among the class of reptiles are innumerable snakes, etc., and the crocodile. The acknowledged sports of Ceylon are elephant-shooting, buffalo-shooting, deer-shooting, elk-hunting, and deer-coursing: the two latter can only be enjoyed by a resident in the island, as of course the sport is dependent upon a pack of fine hounds. Although the wild boar is constantly killed, I do not reckon him among the sports of the country, as he is never sought for; death and destruction to the hounds generally being attendant upon his capture. The bear and leopard also do not form separate sports; they are merely killed when met with. In giving an account of each kind of sport I shall explain the habits of the animal and the features of the country wherein every incident occurs, Ceylon scenery being so diversified that no general description could give a correct idea of Ceylon sports. The guns are the first consideration. After the first year of my experience I had four rifles made to order, which have proved themselves perfect weapons in all respects, and exactly adapted for heavy game. They are double-barrelled, No. 10 bores, and of such power in metal that they weigh fifteen pounds each. I consider them perfection; but should others consider them too heavy, a pound taken from the weight of the barrels would make a perceptible difference. I would in all cases strongly deprecate the two grooved rifle for wild sports, on account of the difficulty in loading quickly. A No. 10 twelve-grooved rifle will carry a conical ball of two ounces and a half, and can be loaded as quickly as a smooth-bore. Some persons prefer the latter to rifles for elephant-shooting, but I cannot myself understand why a decidedly imperfect weapon should be used when the rifle offers such superior advantages. At twenty and even thirty paces a good smooth-bore will carry a ball with nearly the same precision as a rifle; but in a country full of various large game there is no certainty, when the ball is rammed down, at what object it is to be aimed. A buffalo or deer may cross the path at a hundred yards, and the smooth-bore is useless; on the other hand, the rifle is always ready for whatever may appear. My battery consists of one four-ounce rifle (a single barrel) weighing twenty-one pounds, one long two-ounce rifle (single barrel) weighing sixteen pounds, and four double-barrelled rifles, No. 10 weighing each fifteen pounds. Smooth-bores I count for nothing, although I have frequently used them. So much for guns. It may therefore be summed up that the proper battery for Ceylon shooting would be four large-bored double-barrelled rifles, say from No. 10 to No. 12 in size, but all to be the same bore, so as to prevent confusion in loading. Persons may suit their own fancy as to the weight of their guns, bearing in mind that single barrels are very useless things. Next to the 'Rifle' in the order of description comes the 'Hound.' The 'elk' is his acknowledged game, and an account of this animal's size and strength will prove the necessity of a superior breed of hound. The 'elk' is a Ceylon blunder and a misnomer. The animal thus called is a 'samber deer,' well known in India as the largest of all Asiatic deer. A buck in his prime will stand fourteen hands high at the shoulder, and will weigh 600 pounds, live weight. He is in colour dark brown, with a fine mane of coarse bristly hair of six inches in length; the rest of his body is covered with the same coarse hair of about two inches in length. I have a pair of antlers in my possession that are thirteen inches round the burr, and the same size beneath the first branch, and three feet four inches in length; this, however, is a very unusual size. The elk has seldom more than six points to his antlers. The low-country elk are much larger than those on the highlands; the latter are seldom more than from twelve to thirteen hands high; and of course their weight is proportionate, that of a buck in condition being about 400 pounds when gralloched. I have killed them much heavier than this on the mountains, but I have given about the average weight. The habits of this animal are purely nocturnal. He commences his wanderings at sunset, and retires to the forest at break of day. He is seldom found in greater numbers than two or three together, and is generally alone. When brought to bay he fights to the last, and charges man and hound indiscriminately, a choice hound killed being often the price of victory. The country in which he is hunted is in the mountainous districts of Ceylon. Situated at an elevation of 6,200 feet above the sea is Newera Ellia, the sanatorium of the island. Here I have kept a pack and hunted elk for some years, the delightful coolness of the temperature (seldom above 66 degrees Fahr.) rendering the sport doubly enjoyable. The principal features of this country being a series of wild marsh, plains, forests, torrents, mountains and precipices, a peculiar hound is required for the sport. A pack of thoroughbred fox-hounds would never answer. They would pick up a cold scent and open upon it before they were within a mile of their game. Roused from his morning nap, the buck would snuff the breeze, and to the distant music give an attentive ear, then shake the dew from his rough hide, and away over rocks and torrents, down the steep mountain sides, through pathless forests; and woe then to the pack of thoroughbreds, whose persevering notes would soon be echoed by the rocky steeps, far, far away from any chance of return, lost in the trackless jungles and ravines many miles from kennel, a prey to leopards and starvation! I have proved this by experience, having brought a pack of splendid hounds from England, only one of which survived a few months' hunting. The hound required for elk-hunting is a cross between the fox-hound and blood-hound, of great size and courage, with as powerful a voice as possible. He should be trained to this sport from a puppy, and his natural sagacity soon teaches him not to open unless upon a hot scent, or about two hundred yards from his game; thus the elk is not disturbed until the hound is at full speed upon his scent, and he seldom gets a long start. Fifteen couple of such hounds in full cry put him at his best pace, which is always tried to the uttermost by a couple or two of fast and pitiless lurchers who run ahead of the pack, the object being to press him at first starting, so as to blow him at the very commencement: this is easily effected, as he is full of food, and it is his nature always to take off straight UP the hill when first disturbed. When blown he strikes down hill, and makes at great speed for the largest and deepest stream; in this he turns to bay, and tries the mettle of the finest hounds. The great enemy to a pack is the leopard. He pounces from the branch of a tree upon a stray hound, and soon finishes him, unless of great size and courage, in which case the cowardly brute is soon beaten off. This forms another reason for the choice of large hounds. The next sport is 'deer-coursing.' This is one of the most delightful kinds of sport in Ceylon. The game is the axis or spotted deer, and the open plains in many parts of the low country afford splendid ground for both greyhound and horse. The buck is about 250 pounds live weight, of wonderful speed and great courage, armed with long and graceful antlers as sharp as needles. He will suddenly turn to bay upon the hard ground, and charge his pursuers, and is more dangerous to the greyhounds than the elk, from his wonderful activity, and from the fact that he is coursed by only a pair of greyhounds, instead of being hunted by a pack. Pure greyhounds of great size and courage are best adapted for this sport. They cannot afford to lose speed by a cross with slower hounds. CHAPTER II. Newera Ellia--The Turn-out for Elk-Hunting--Elk-Hunting--Elk turned to Bay--The Boar. Where shall I begin? This is a momentous question, when, upon glancing back upon past years, a thousand incidents jostle each other for precedence. How shall I describe them? This, again, is easier asked than answered. A journal is a dry description, mingling the uninteresting with the brightest moments of sport. No, I will not write a journal; it would be endless and boring. I shall begin with the present as it is, and call up the past as I think proper. Here, then, I am in my private sanctum, my rifles all arranged in their respective stands above the chimney-piece, the stags' horns round walls hung with horn-cases, powder-flasks and the various weapons of the chase. Even as I write the hounds are yelling in the kennel. The thermometer is at 62 degrees Fahr., and it is mid-day. It never exceeds 72 degrees in the hottest weather, and sometimes falls below freezing point at night. The sky is spotless and the air calm. The fragrance of mignonettes, and a hundred flowers that recall England, fills the air. Green fields of grass and clover, neatly fenced, surround a comfortable house and grounds. Well-fed cattle of the choicest breeds, and English sheep, are grazing in the paddocks. Well-made roads and gravel walks run through the estate. But a few years past, and this was all wilderness. Dense forest reigned where now not even the stump of a tree is standing; the wind howled over hill and valley, the dank moss hung from the scathed branches, the deep morass filled the hollows; but all is changed by the hand of civilisation and industry. The dense forests and rough plains, which still form the boundaries of the cultivated land, only add to the beauty. The monkeys and parrots are even now chattering among the branches, and occasionally the elephant in his nightly wanderings trespasses upon the fields, unconscious of the oasis within his territory of savage nature. The still, starlight night is awakened by the harsh bark of the elk; the lofty mountains, grey with the silvery moonlight, echo back the sound; and the wakeful hounds answer the well-known cry by a prolonged and savage yell. This is 'Newera Ellia,' the sanatorium of Ceylon, the most perfect climate of the world. It now boasts of a handsome church, a public reading-room, a large hotel, the barracks, and about twenty private residences. The adjacent country, of comparatively table land, occupies an extent of some thirty miles in length, varying in altitude from 6,200 to 7,000 feet, forming a base for the highest peaks in Ceylon, which rise to nearly 9,000 feet. Alternate large plains, separated by belts of forest, rapid rivers, waterfalls, precipices, and panoramic views of boundless extent, form the features of this country, which, combined with the sports of the place, render a residence at Newera Ellia a life of health, luxury, and independence. The high road from Colombo passes over the mountains through Newera Ellia to Badulla, from which latter place there is a bridle road, through the best shooting districts in Ceylon, to the seaport town of Batticaloa, and from thence to Trincomalee. The relative distances of Newera Ellia are, from Galle, 185 miles; from Colombo, 115 miles; from Kandy, 47 miles; from Badulla, 36 miles; from Batticaloa, 148 miles. Were it not for the poverty of the soil, Newera Ellia would long ago have become a place of great importance, as the climate is favourable to the cultivation of all English produce; but an absence of lime in the soil, and the cost of applying it artificially, prohibit the cultivation of all grain, and restrict the produce of the land to potatoes and other vegetables. Nevertheless, many small settlers earn a good subsistence, although this has latterly been rendered precarious by the appearance of the well-known potato disease. Newera Ellia has always been a favourite place of resort during the fashionable months, from the commencement of January to the middle of May. At that time the rainy season commences, and visitors rapidly disappear. All strangers remark the scanty accommodation afforded to the numerous visitors. To see the number of people riding and walking round the Newera Ellia plain, it appears a marvel how they can be housed in the few dwellings that exist. There is an endless supply of fine timber in the forests, and powerful sawmills are already erected; but the island is, like its soil, 'poor.' Its main staple, 'coffee,' does not pay sufficiently to enable the proprietors of estates to indulge in the luxury of a house at Newera Ellia. Like many watering-places in England, it is overcrowded at one season and deserted at another, the only permanent residents being comprised in the commandant, the officer in command of the detachment of troops, the government agent, the doctor, the clergyman, and our own family. Dull enough! some persons may exclaim; and so it would be to any but a sportsman; but the jungles teem with large game, and Newera Ellia is in a central position, as the best sporting country is only three days' journey, or one hundred miles, distant. Thus, at any time, the guns may be packed up, and, with tents and baggage sent on some days in advance, a fortnight's or a month's war may be carried on against the elephants without much trouble. The turn-out for elk-hunting during the fashionable season at Newera Ellia is sometimes peculiarly exciting. The air is keen and frosty, the plains snow-white with the crisp hoar frost, and even at the early hour of 6 A.M. parties of ladies may be seen urging their horses round the plain on their way to the appointed meet. Here we are waiting with the anxious pack, perhaps blessing some of our more sleepy friends for not turning out a little earlier. Party after party arrives, including many of the fair sex, and the rosy tips to all countenances attest the quality of the cold even in Ceylon. There is something peculiarly inspiriting in the early hour of sunrise upon these mountains--an indescribable lightness in the atmosphere, owing to the great elevation, which takes a wonderful effect upon the spirits. The horses and the hounds feel its influence in an equal degree; the former, who are perhaps of sober character in the hot climate, now champ the bit and paw the ground: their owners hardly know them by the change. We have frequently mustered as many as thirty horses at a meet; but on these occasions a picked spot is chosen where the sport may be easily witnessed by those who are unaccustomed to it. The horses may, in these instances, be available, but as a rule they are perfectly useless in elk-hunting, as the plains are so boggy that they would be hock-deep every quarter of a mile. Thus no person can thoroughly enjoy elk-hunting who is not well accustomed to it, as it is a sport conducted entirely on foot, and the thinness of the air in this elevated region is very trying to the lungs in hard exercise. Thoroughly sound in wind and limb, with no superfluous flesh, must be the man who would follow the hounds in this wild country--through jungles, rivers, plains and deep ravines, sometimes from sunrise to sunset without tasting food since the previous evening, with the exception of a cup of coffee and a piece of toast before starting. It is trying work, but it is a noble sport: no weapon but the hunting-knife; no certainty as to the character of the game that may be found; it may be either an elk, or a boar, or a leopard, and yet the knife and the good hounds are all that can be trusted in. It is a glorious sport certainly to a man who thoroughly understands it; the voice of every hound familiar to his ear; the particular kind of game that is found is at once known to him, long before he is in view, by the style of the hunting. If an elk is found, the hounds follow with a burst straight as a line, and at a killing pace, directly up the hill, till he at length turns and bends his headlong course for some stronghold in a deep river to bay. Listening to the hounds till certain of their course, a thorough knowledge of the country at once tells the huntsman of their destination, and away he goes. He tightens his belt by a hole, and steadily he starts at a long, swinging trot, having made up his mind for a day of it. Over hills and valleys, through tangled and pathless forests, but all well known to him, steady he goes at the same pace on the level, easy through the bogs and up the hills, extra steam down hill, and stopping for a moment to listen for the hounds on every elevated spot. At length he hears them! No, it was a bird. Again he fancies that he hears a distant sound--was it the wind? No; there it is--it is old Smut's voice--he is at bay! Yoick to him! he shouts till his lungs are well-nigh cracked, and through thorns and jungles, bogs and ravines, he rushes towards the welcome sound. Thick-tangled bushes armed with a thousand hooked thorns suddenly arrest his course; it is the dense fringe of underwood that borders every forest; the open plain is within a few yards of him. The hounds in a mad chorus are at bay, and the woods ring again with the cheering sound. Nothing can stop him now--thorns, or clothes, or flesh must go--something must give way as he bursts through them and stands upon the plain. There they are in that deep pool formed by the river as it sweeps round the rock. A buck! a noble fellow! Now he charges at the hounds, and strikes the foremost beneath the water with his fore-feet; up they come again to the surface--they hear their master's well-known shout--they look round and see his welcome figure on the steep bank. Another moment, a tremendous splash, and he is among his hounds, and all are swimming towards their noble game. At them he comes with a fierce rush. Avoid him as you best can, ye hunters, man and hounds! Down the river the buck now swims, sometimes galloping over the shallows, sometimes wading shoulder-deep, sometimes swimming through the deep pools. Now he dashes down the fierce rapids and leaps the opposing rocks, between which, the torrent rushes at a frightful pace. The hounds are after him; the roaring of the water joins in their wild chorus; the loud holloa of the huntsman is heard above every sound as he cheers the pack on. He runs along the bank of the river, and again the enraged buck turns to bay. He has this time taken a strong position: he stands in a swift rapid about two feet deep; his thin legs cleave the stream as it rushes past, and every hound is swept away as he attempts to stem the current. He is a perfect picture: his nostrils are distended, his mane is bristled up, his eyes flash, and he adds his loud bark of defiance to the din around him. The hounds cannot touch him. Now for the huntsman's part; he calls the stanchest seizers to his side, gives them a cheer on, and steps into the torrent, knife in hand. Quick as lightning the buck springs to the attack; but he has exposed himself, and at that moment the tall lurchers are upon his ears; the huntsman leaps upon one side and plunges the knife behind his shoulder. A tremendous struggle takes place--the whole pack is upon him; still his dying efforts almost free him from their hold: a mass of spray envelopes the whole scene. Suddenly he falls--he dies--it is all over. The hounds are called off, and are carefully examined for wounds. The huntsman is now perhaps some miles from home, he, therefore, cuts a long pole, and tying a large bunch of grass to one end, he sticks the other end into the ground close to the river's edge where the elk is lying. This marks the spot. He calls his hounds together and returns homeward, and afterwards sends men to cut the buck up and bring the flesh. Elk venison is very good, but is at all times more like beef than English venison. The foregoing may be considered a general description of elk-hunting, although the incidents of the sport necessarily vary considerably. The boar is our dangerous adversary, and he is easily known by the character of the run. The hounds seldom open with such a burst upon the scent as they do with an elk. The run is much slower; he runs down this ravine and up that, never going straight away, and he generally comes to bay after a run of ten minutes' duration. A boar always chooses the very thickest part of the jungle as his position for a bay, and from this he makes continual rushes at the hounds. The huntsman approaches the scene of the combat, breaking his way with difficulty through the tangled jungle, until within about twenty yards of the bay. He now cheers the hounds on to the attack, and if they are worthy of their name, they instantly rush in to the boar regardless of wounds. The huntsman is aware of the seizure by the grunting of the boar and the tremendous confusion in the thick jungle; he immediately rushes to the assistance of the pack, knife in hand. A scene of real warfare meets his view--gaping wounds upon his best hounds, the boar rushing through the jungle covered with dogs, and he himself becomes the immediate object of his fury when observed. No time is to be lost. Keeping behind the boar if possible, he rushes to the bloody conflict, and drives the hunting-knife between the shoulders in the endeavour to divide the spine. Should he happily effect this, the boar falls stone dead; but if not, he repeats the thrust, keeping a good look-out for the animal's tusks. If the dogs were of not sufficient courage to rush in and seize the boar when halloaed on, no man could approach him in a thick jungle with only a hunting-knife, as he would in all probability have his inside ripped out at the first charge. The animal is wonderfully active and ferocious, and of immense power, constantly weighing 4 cwt. The end of nearly every good seizer is being killed by a boar. The better the dog the more likely he is to be killed, as he will be the first to lead the attack, and in thick jungle he has no chance of escaping from a wound. CHAPTER III. Minneria Lake--Brush with a Bull--An Awkward Vis-a-vis--A Bright Thought--Bull Buffalo Receives his Small Change--What is Man?--Long Shot with the Four-ounce--Charged by a Herd of Buffaloes--the Four-ounce does Service--The 'Lola'--A Woman Killed by a Crocodile--Crocodile at Bolgodde Lake--A Monster Crocodile--Death of a Crocodile. THE foregoing description may serve as an introduction to the hill sports of Ceylon. One animal, however, yet remains to be described, who surpasses all others in dogged ferocity when once aroused. This is the 'buffalo.' The haunts of this animal are in the hottest parts of Ceylon. In the neighbourhood of lakes, swamps, and extensive plains, the buffalo exists in large herds; wallowing in the soft mire, and passing two-thirds of his time in the water itself, he may be almost termed amphibious. He is about the size of a large ox, of immense bone and strength, very active, and his hide is almost free from hair, giving a disgusting appearance to his India-rubber-like skin. He carries his head in a peculiar manner, the horns thrown back, and his nose projecting on a level with his forehead, thus securing himself from a front shot in a fatal part. This renders him a dangerous enemy, as he will receive any number of balls from a small gun in the throat and chest without evincing the least symptom of distress. The shoulder is the acknowledged point to aim at, but from his disposition to face the guns this is a difficult shot to obtain. Should he succeed in catching his antagonist, his fury knows no bounds, and he gores his victim to death, trampling and kneeling upon him till he is satisfied that life is extinct. This sport would not be very dangerous in the forests, where the buffalo could be easily stalked, and where escape would also be rendered less difficult in case of accident; but as he is generally met with upon the open plains, free from a single tree, he must be killed when once brought to bay, or he will soon exhibit his qualifications for mischief. There is a degree of uncertainty in their character which much increases the danger of the pursuit. A buffalo may retreat at first sight with every symptom of cowardice, and thus induce a too eager pursuit, when he will suddenly become the assailant. I cannot explain their character better than by describing the first wild buffaloes that I ever saw. I had not been long in Ceylon, but having arrived in the island for the sake of its wild sports, I had not been idle, and I had already made a considerable bag of large game. Like most novices, however, I was guilty of one great fault. I despised the game, and gave no heed to the many tales of danger and hair-breadth escapes which attended the pursuit of wild animals. This carelessness on my part arose from my first debut having been extremely lucky; most shots had told well, and the animal had been killed with such apparent ease that I had learnt to place an implicit reliance in the rifle. The real fact was that I was like many others; I had slaughtered a number of animals without understanding their habits, and I was perfectly ignorant of the sport. This is now many years ago, and it was then my first visit to the island. Some places that were good spots for shooting in those days have since that time been much disturbed, and are now no longer attractive to my eyes. One of these places is Minneria Lake. I was on a shooting trip accompanied by my brother, whom I will designate as B. We had passed a toilsome day in pushing and dragging our ponies for twenty miles along a narrow path through thick jungle, which half-a-dozen natives in advance were opening before us with bill-hooks. This had at one time been a good path, but was then overgrown. It is now an acknowledged bridle road. At 4 P.M., and eighty miles from Kandy, we emerged from the jungle, and the view of Minneria Lake burst upon us, fully repaying us for our day's march. It was a lovely afternoon. The waters of the lake; which is twenty miles in circumference, were burnished by the setting sun. The surrounding plains were as green as an English meadow, and beautiful forest trees bordered the extreme boundaries of the plains like giant warders of the adjoining jungle. Long promontories densely wooded stretched far into the waters of the lake, forming sheltered nooks and bays teeming with wild fowl. The deer browsed in herds on the wide extent of plain, or lay beneath the shade of the spreading branches. Every feature of lovely scenery was here presented. In some spots groves of trees grew to the very water's edge; in others the wide plains, free from a single stem or bush, stretched for miles along the edge of the lake; thickly wooded hills bordered the extreme end of its waters, and distant blue mountains mingled their dim summits with the clouds. It was a lovely scene which we enjoyed in silence, while our ponies feasted upon the rich grass. The village of Minneria was three miles farther on, and our coolies, servants, and baggage were all far behind us. We had, therefore, no rifles or guns at hand, except a couple of shot-guns, which were carried by our horsekeepers: for these we had a few balls. For about half an hour we waited in the impatient expectation of the arrival of our servants with the rifles. The afternoon was wearing away, and they did not appear. We could wait no longer, but determined to take a stroll and examine the country. We therefore left our horses and proceeded. The grass was most verdant, about the height of a field fit for the scythe in England, but not so thick. From this the snipe arose at every twenty or thirty paces, although, the ground was perfectly dry. Crossing a large meadow, and skirting the banks of the lake, from which the ducks and teal rose in large flocks, we entered a long neck of jungle which stretched far into the lake. This was not above two hundred paces in width, and we soon emerged upon an extensive plain bordered by fine forest, the waters of the lake stretching far away upon our left, like a sheet of gold. A few large rocks rose above the surface near the shore; these were covered with various kinds of wild fowl. The principal tenants of the plain were wild buffaloes. A herd of about a hundred were lying in a swampy hollow about a quarter of a mile from us: Several single bulls were dotted about the green surface of the level plain, and on the opposite shores of the lake were many dark patches undistinguishable in the distance; these were in reality herds of buffaloes. There was not a sound in the wide expanse before us, except the harsh cry of the water-fowl that our presence had already disturbed--not a breath of air moved the leaves of the trees which shaded us--and the whole scene was that of undisturbed nature. The sun had now sunk low upon the horizon, and the air was comparatively cool. The multitude of buffaloes enchanted us, and with our two light double-barrels, we advanced to the attack of the herd before us. We had not left the obscurity of the forest many seconds before we were observed. The herd started up from their muddy bed and gazed at us with astonishment. It was a fair open plain of some thousand acres, bounded by the forest which we had just quitted on the one side, and by the lake on the other; thus there was no cover for our advance, and all we could do was to push on. As we approached the herd they ranged up in a compact body, presenting a very regular line in front. From this line seven large bulls stepped forth, and from their vicious appearance seemed disposed to show fight. In the meantime we were running up, and were soon within thirty paces of them. At this distance the main body of the herd suddenly wheeled round and thundered across the plain in full retreat. One of the bulls at the same moment charged straight at us, but when within twenty paces of the guns he turned to one side, and instantly received two balls in the shoulder, B. and I having fired at the same moment. As luck would have it, his blade-bone was thus broken, and he fell upon his knees, but recovering himself in an instant, he retreated on three legs to the water. We now received assistance from an unexpected quarter. One of the large bulls, his companions, charged after him with great fury, and soon overtaking the wounded beast, he struck him full in the side, throwing him over with a great shock on the muddy border of the lake. Here the wounded animal lay unable to rise, and his conqueror commenced a slow retreat across the plain. Leaving B. to extinguish the wounded buffalo, I gave chase to the retreating bull. At an easy canter he would gain a hundred paces and then, turning, he would face me; throwing his nose up, and turning his head to one side with a short grunt, he would advance quickly for a few paces, and then again retreat as I continued to approach. In this manner he led me a chase of about a mile along the banks of the lake, but he appeared determined not to bring the fight to an issue at close quarters. Cursing his cowardice, I fired a long shot at him, and reloading my last spare ball I continued the chase, led on by ignorance and excitement. The lake in one part stretched in a narrow creek into the plain, and the bull now directed his course into the angle formed by this turn. I thought that I lead him in a corner, and, redoubling my exertions, I gained upon him considerably. He retreated slowly to the very edge of the creek, and I had gained so fast upon him that I was not thirty paces distant, when he plunged into the water and commenced swimming across the creek. This was not more than sixty yards in breadth, and I knew that I could now bring him to action. Running round the borders of the creek as fast as I could, I arrived at the opposite side on his intended landing-place just as his black form reared from the deep water and gained the shallows, into which I had waded knee-deep to meet him. I now experienced that pleasure as he stood sullenly eyeing me within fifteen paces. Poor stupid fellow! I would willingly, in my ignorance, have betted ten to one upon the shot, so certain was I of his death in another instant. I took a quick but steady aim at his chest, at the point of connection with the throat. The smoke of the barrel passed to one side;--there he stood--he had not flinched; he literally had not moved a muscle. The only change that had taken place was in his eye; this, which had hitherto been merely sullen, was now beaming with fury; but his form was as motionless as a statue. A stream of blood poured from a wound within an inch of the spot at which I had aimed; had it not been for this fact, I should not have believed him struck. Annoyed at the failure of the shot, I tried him with the left-hand barrel at the same hole. The report of the gun echoed over the lake, but there he stood as though he bore a charmed life;--an increased flow of blood from the wound and additional lustre in his eye were the only signs of his being struck. I was unloaded, and had not a single ball remaining. It was now his turn. I dared not turn to retreat, as I knew he would immediately charge, and we stared each other out of countenance. With a short grunt he suddenly sprang forward, but fortunately, as I did not move, he halted; he had, however, decreased his distance, and we now gazed at each other within ten paces. I began to think buffalo-shooting somewhat dangerous, and I would have given something to have been a mile away, but ten times as much to have had my four-ounce rifle in my hand. Oh, how I longed for that rifle in this moment of suspense! Unloaded, without the power of defence, with the absolute certainty of a charge from an overpowering brute, my hand instinctively found the handle of my hunting-knife, a useless weapon against such a foe. Knowing that B. was not aware of my situation at the distance which separated us (about a mile), without taking my eyes from the figure before me, I raised my hand to my mouth and gave a long and loud whistle; this was a signal that I knew would be soon answered if heard. With a stealthy step and another short grunt, the bull again advanced a couple of paces towards me. He seemed aware of my helplessness, and he was the picture of rage and fury, pawing the water and stamping violently with his forefeet. This was very pleasant! I gave myself up for lost, but putting as fierce an expression into my features as I could possibly assume, I stared hopelessly at my maddened antagonist. Suddenly a bright thought flashed through my mind. Without taking my eyes off the animal before me, I put a double charge of powder down the right-hand barrel, and tearing off a piece of my shirt, I took all the money from my pouch, three shillings in sixpenny pieces, and two anna pieces, which I luckily had with me in this small coin for paying coolies. Quickly making them into a rouleau with the piece of rag, I rammed them down the barrel, and they were hardly well home before the bull again sprang forward. So quick was it that I had no time to replace the ramrod, and I threw it in the water, bringing my gun on full cock in the same instant. However, he again halted, being now within about seven paces from me, and we again gazed fixedly at each other, but with altered feelings on my part. I had faced him hopelessly with an empty gun for more than a quarter of an hour, which seemed a century. I now had a charge in my gun, which I knew if reserved till he was within a foot of the muzzle would certainly floor him, and I awaited his onset with comparative carelessness, still keeping my eyes opposed to his gaze. At this time I heard a splashing in the water behind me, accompanied by the hard breathing of something evidently distressed. The next moment I heard B.'s voice. He could hardly speak for want of breath, having run the whole way to my rescue, but I could understand that he had only one barrel loaded, and no bullets left. I dared not turn my face from the buffalo, but I cautioned B. to reserve his fire till the bull should be close into me, and then to aim at the head. The words were hardly uttered, when, with the concentrated rage of the last twenty minutes, he rushed straight at me! It was the work of an instant. B. fired without effect. The horns were lowered, their points were on either side of me, and the muzzle of the gun barely touched his forehead when I pulled the trigger, and three shillings' worth of small change rattled into his hard head. Down he went, and rolled over with the suddenly checked momentum of his charge. Away went B. and I as fast as our heels would carry us, through the water and over the plain, knowing that he was not dead but only stunned. There was a large fallen tree about half a mile from us, whose whitened branches, rising high above the ground, offered a tempting asylum. To this we directed our flying steps, and, after a run of a hundred yards, we turned and looked behind us. He had regained his feet and was following us slowly. We now experienced the difference of feeling between hunting and being hunted, and fine sport we must have afforded him. On he came, but fortunately so stunned by the collision with her Majesty's features upon the coin which he had dared to oppose that he could only reel forward at a slow canter. By degrees even this pace slackened, and he fell. We were only too glad to be able to reduce our speed likewise, but we had no sooner stopped to breathe, than he was again up and after us. At length, however, we gained the tree, and we beheld him with satisfaction stretched powerless upon the ground, but not dead, within two hundred yards of us. We retreated under cover of the forest to the spot at which we had left the horses, fortunately meeting no opposition from wild animals, and we shortly arrived at the village at which we took up our quarters, vowing vengeance on the following morning for the defeat that we had sustained. A man is a poor defenceless wretch if left to defend himself against wild animals with the simple natural weapons of arms, legs, and teeth. A tom-cat would almost be a match for him. He has legs which will neither serve him for pursuit or escape if he is forced to trust only in his speed. He has strength of limb which is useless without some artificial weapon. He is an animal who, without the power of reason, could not even exist in a wild state; his brain alone gives him the strength to support his title of lord of the creation. Nevertheless, a lord of the creation does not appear in much majesty when running for his life from an infuriated buffalo;--the assumed title sits uneasily upon him when, with scarcely a breath left in his body, he struggles along till he is ready to drop with fatigue, expecting to be overtaken at every step. We must certainly have exhibited poor specimens of the boasted sway of man over the brute creation could a stranger have witnessed our flight on this occasion. The next morning we were up at daybreak, and we returned to the battlefield of the previous evening in the full expectation of seeing our wounded antagonist lying dead where we had left him. In this we were disappointed--he was gone, and we never saw him again. I now had my long two-ounce and my four-ounce rifles with me, and I was fully prepared for a deep revenge for the disgrace of yesterday. The morning was clear but cloudy; a heavy thunderstorm during the night had cooled the air, and the whole plain was glistening with bright drops; the peacocks were shrieking from the tree-tops and spreading their gaudy plumage to the cool breeze; and the whole face of nature seemed refreshed. We felt the same invigorating spirit, and we took a long survey of the many herds of buffaloes upon the plain before we could determine which we should first attack. A large single bull, who had been lying in a swampy hollow unobserved by us, suddenly sprang up at about three hundred yards' distance, and slowly cantered off. I tried the long two-ounce rifle at him, but, taking too great an elevation, I fired over him. The report, however, had the effect of turning him, and, instead of retreating, he wheeled round and attempted to pass between the guns and the banks of the lake. We were about three hundred yards from the water's edge, and he was soon passing us at full gallop at right angles, about midway or a hundred and fifty yards distant. I had twelve drachms of powder in the four-ounce rifle, and I took a flying shot at his shoulder. No visible effect was produced, and the ball ricochetted completely across the broad surface of the lake (which was no more than a mile wide at this part) in continuous splashes. The gun-bearers said I had fired behind him, but I had distinctly heard the peculiar 'fut' which a ball makes upon striking an animal, and although the passage of the ball across the lake appeared remarkable, nevertheless I felt positive that it had first passed through some portion of the animal. Away the bull sped over the plain at unabated speed for about two hundred paces, when he suddenly turned and charged toward the guns. On he came for about a hundred yards, but evidently slackening his speed at every stride. At length he stopped altogether. His mouth was wide open, and I could now distinguish a mass of bloody foam upon his lips and nostrils--the ball had in reality passed through his lungs, and, making its exit from the opposite shoulder, it had even then flown across the lake. This was the proof of the effect of the twelve drachms of powder. Having reloaded, I now advanced towards him, and soon arrived within fifty paces. He was the facsimile of the bull that had chased us on the previous day--the same picture of fury and determination; and, crouching low, he advanced a few paces, keeping his eyes fixed upon us as though we were already his own. A short cough, accompanied by a rush of blood from his mouth, seemed to cause him great uneasiness, and he halted. Again we advanced till within twenty paces of him. I would not fire, as I saw that he already had enough, and I wished to see how long he could support a wound through the lungs, as my safety in buffalo-shooting might in future depend upon this knowledge. The fury of his spirit seemed to war with death, and, although reeling with weakness and suffocation, he again attempted to come on. It was his last effort; his eyes rolled convulsively, he gave a short grunt of impotent rage, and the next moment he fell upon his back with his heels in the air; he was stone dead, and game to the last moment. I had thus commenced a revenge for the insult of yesterday; I had proved the wonderful power of the four-ounce rifle--a weapon destined to make great havoc amongst the heavy game of Ceylon. Upon turning from the carcass before us, we observed to our surprise that a large herd of buffaloes, that were at a great distance when we had commenced the attack upon the bull, had now approached to within a few hundred yards, and were standing in a dense mass, attentively watching us. Without any delay we advanced towards them, and, upon arriving within about a hundred paces, we observed that the herd was headed by two large bulls, one of which was the largest that I had ever seen. The whole herd was bellowing and pawing the ground. They had winded the blood of the dead bull and appeared perfectly maddened. We continued to advance, and we were within about ninety paces of them when suddenly the whole herd of about two hundred buffaloes, headed by the two bulls before noticed, dashed straight towards us at full gallop. So simultaneous was the onset that it resembled a sudden charge of cavalry, and the ground vibrated beneath their heavy hoofs. Their tails were thrown high above their backs, and the mad and overpowering phalanx of heads and horns came rushing forward as though to sweep us at once from the face of the earth. There was not an instant to be lost; already but a short space intervened between us and apparently certain destruction. Our gun-bearers were almost in the act of flight; but catching hold of the man who carried the long two-ounce rifle, and keeping him by my side, I awaited the irresistible onset with the four-ounce. The largest of the bulls was some yards in advance, closely followed by his companion, and the herd in a compact mass came thundering down at their heels. Only fifty yards separated us; we literally felt among them, and already experienced a sense of being over-run. I did not look at the herd, but I kept my eye upon the big bull leader. On they flew, and were within thirty paces of us, when I took a steady shot with the four-ounce, and the leading bull plunged head-foremost in the turf, turning a complete summersault. Snatching the two-ounce from the petrified gun-bearer, I had just time for a shot as the second bull was within fifteen paces, and at the flash of the rifle his horns ploughed up the turf, and he lay almost at our feet. That lucky shot turned the whole herd. When certain destruction threatened us, they suddenly wheeled to their left when within twenty paces of the guns, and left us astonished victors of the field. We poured an ineffectual volley into the retreating herd from the light guns as they galloped off in full retreat, and reloaded as quickly as possible, as the two bulls, although floored, were still alive. They were, however, completely powerless, and a double-barrelled gun gave each the "coup-de-grace" by a ball in the forehead. Both rifle shots had struck at the point of junction of the throat and chest, and the four-ounce ball had passed out of the hind-quarter. Our friend of yesterday, although hit in precisely the same spot, had laughed at the light guns. Although I have since killed about two hundred wild buffaloes I have never witnessed another charge by a herd. This was an extraordinary occurrence, and fortunately stands alone in buffalo-shooting. Were it not for the two heavy rifles our career might have terminated in an unpleasant manner. As I before mentioned, this part of the country was seldom or never disturbed at the time of which I write, and the buffaloes were immensely numerous and particularly savage, nearly always turning to bay and showing good sport when attacked. Having cut out the tongues from the two bulls, we turned homeward to breakfast. Skirting along the edge of the lake, which abounded with small creeks, occasioning us many circuits, we came suddenly upon a single bull, who, springing from his lair of mud and high grass, plunged into a creek, and, swimming across, exposed himself to a dead shot as he landed on the opposite bank about a hundred paces from us. The four-ounce struck him in the hind-quarters and broke the hip joint, and, continuing its course along his body, it pierced his lungs and lodged in the skin of the throat. The bull immediately fell, but regaining his feet he took to the water, and swam to a small island of high grass about thirty yards from the shore. Upon gaining this he turned and faced us, but in a few seconds he fell unable to rise, and received a merciful shot in the head, which despatched him. We were just leaving the border of the lake on our way to the village, when two cow buffaloes sprang up from one of the numerous inlets and retreated at full gallop towards the jungle, offering a splendid side shot at about a hundred paces. The leading cow plunged head-foremost into the grass as the four-ounce struck her through both shoulders. She was a fine young cow, and we cut some steaks from her in case we should find a scarcity of provisions at Minneria and, quitting the shores of the lake, we started for breakfast. It was only 8 A.M. when we arrived. I had bagged five buffaloes, four of which were fine bulls. Our revenge was complete, and I had proved that the four-ounce was perfectly irresistible if held straight with the heavy charge of twelve drachms of powder. Since that time I have frequently used sixteen drachms (one ounce) of powder to the charge, but the recoil is then very severe, although the effect upon an animal with a four-ounce steel-tipped conical ball is tremendous. On our return to the village of Minneria we found a famous breakfast, for which a bath in the neighbouring brook increased an appetite already sharpened by the morning exercise. The buffalo steaks were coarse and bad, as tough as leather, and certainly should never be eaten if better food can be obtained. The tongues are very rich, but require salting. In those days Minneria was not spoiled by visitors, and supplies were accordingly at a cheap rate--large fowls at one penny each, milk at any price that you chose to give for it. This is now much changed, and the only thing that is still ridiculously cheap is fish. Give a man sixpence to catch you as many as he can in the morning, and he forthwith starts on his piscatorial errand with a large basket, cone shaped, of two feet diameter at the bottom and about eight inches at the top. This basket is open at both ends, and is about two feet in length. The fish that is most sought after is the 'lola.' He is a ravenous fellow, in appearance between a trout and a carp, having the habits of the former, but the clumsy shoulders of the latter. He averages about three pounds, although he is often caught of nine or ten pounds weight. Delighting in the shallows, he lies among the weeds at the bottom, to which he always retreats when disturbed. Aware of his habits, the fisherman walks knee-deep in the water, and at every step he plunges the broad end of the basket quickly to the bottom. He immediately feels the fish strike against the sides, and putting his hand down through the aperture in the top of the basket he captures him, and deposits him in a basket slung on his back. These 'lola' are delicious eating, being very like an eel in flavour, and I have known one man catch forty in a morning with no other apparatus than this basket. Minneria Lake, like all others in Ceylon, swarms with crocodiles of a very large size. Early in the morning and late in the evening they may be seen lying upon the banks like logs of trees. I have frequently remarked that a buffalo, shot within a few yards of the lake, has invariably disappeared during the night, leaving an undoubted track where he has been dragged to the water by the crocodiles. These brutes frequently attack the natives when fishing or bathing, but I have never heard of their pursuing any person upon dry land. I remember an accident having occurred at Madampi, on the west coast of Ceylon, about seven years ago, the day before I passed through the village. A number of women were employed in cutting rushes for mat-making, and were about mid-deep in the water. The horny tail of a large crocodile was suddenly seen above the water among the group of women, and in another instant one of them was seized by the thigh and dragged towards the deeper part of the stream. In vain the terrified creature shrieked for assistance; the horror-stricken group had rushed to the shore, and a crowd of spectators on the bank offered no aid beyond their cries. It was some distance before the water deepened, and the unfortunate woman was dragged for many yards, sometimes beneath the water, sometimes above the surface, rending the air with her screams, until at length the deep water hid her from their view. She was never again seen. Some of these reptiles grow to a very large size, attaining the length of twenty feet, and eight feet in girth, but the common size is fourteen feet. They move slowly upon land, but are wonderfully fast and active in the water. They usually lie in wait for their prey under some hollow bank in a deep pool, and when the unsuspecting deer or even buffalo stoops his head to drink, he is suddenly seized by the nose and dragged beneath the water. Here he is speedily drowned and consumed at leisure. The two lower and front teeth of a crocodile project through the upper jaw, and their white points attract immediate notice as they protrude through the brown scales on the upper lip. When the mouth is closed, the jaws are thus absolutely locked together. It is a common opinion that the scales on the back of a crocodile will turn a ball; this is a vulgar error. The scales are very tough and hard, but a ball from a common fowling-piece will pass right through the body. I have even seen a hunting-knife driven at one blow deep into the hardest part of the back; and this was a crocodile of a large size, about fourteen feet long, that I shot at a place called Bolgodde, twenty-two miles from Colombo. A man had been setting nets for fish, and was in the act of swimming to the shore, when he was seized and drowned by a crocodile. The next morning two buffaloes were dragged into the water close to the spot, and it was supposed that these murders were committed by the same crocodile. I was at Colombo at the time, and, hearing of the accident, I rode off to Bolgodde to try my hand at catching him. Bolgodde is a very large lake of many miles in circumference, abounding with crocodiles, widgeon, teal, and ducks. On arrival that evening, the moodeliar (headman) pointed out the spot where the man had been destroyed, and where the buffaloes had been dragged in by the crocodile. One buffalo had been entirely devoured, but the other had merely lost his head, and his carcass was floating in a horrible state of decomposition near the bank. It was nearly dark, so I engaged a small canoe to be in readiness by break of day. Just as the light streaked the horizon I stepped into the canoe. This required some caution, as it was the smallest thing that can be conceived to support two persons. It consisted of the hollow trunk of a tree, six feet in length and about one foot in diameter. A small outrigger prevented it from upsetting, but it was not an inch from the surface of the water when I took my narrow seat, and the native in the stern paddled carefully towards the carcass of the buffalo. Upon approaching within a hundred yards of the floating carcass, I counted five forms within a few yards of the flesh. These objects were not above nine inches square, and appeared like detached pieces of rough bark. I knew them to be the foreheads of different crocodiles, and presently one moved towards the half-consumed buffalo. His long head and shoulders projected from the water as he attempted to fix his fore-claws into the putrid flesh; this, however, rolled over towards him, and prevented him from getting a hold; but the gaping jaws nevertheless made a wide breach in the buffalo's flank. I was now within thirty yards of them, and, being observed, they all dived immediately to the bottom. The carcass was lying within a few yards of the bank, where the water was extremely deep and clear. Several large trees grew close to the edge and formed a good hiding-place; I therefore landed, and, sending the canoe to a distance, I watched the water. I had not been five minutes in this position before I saw in the water at my feet, in a deep hole close to the bank, the immense form of a crocodile as he was slowly rising from his hiding-place to the surface. He appeared to be about eighteen feet long, and he projected his horny head from the surface, bubbled, and then floated with only his forehead and large eyes above the water. He was a horrible-looking monster, and from his size I hoped he was the villain that had committed the late depredations. He was within three yards of me; and, although I stood upon the bank, his great round eyes gazed at me without a symptom of fear. The next moment I put a two-ounce ball exactly between them, and killed him stone dead. He gave a convulsive slap with his tail, which made the water foam, and, turning upon his back, he gradually sank, till at length I could only distinguish the long line of his white belly twenty feet below me. Not having any apparatus for bringing him to the surface, I again took to the canoe, as a light breeze that had sprung up was gradually moving the carcass of the buffalo away. This I slowly followed, until it at length rested in a wide belt of rushes which grew upon the shallows near the shore. I pushed the canoe into the rushes within four yards of the carcass, keeping to windward to avoid the sickening smell. I had not been long in this position before the body suddenly rolled over as though attacked by something underneath the water, and the next moment the tall reeds brushed against the sides of the canoe, being violently agitated in a long line, evidently by a crocodile at the bottom. The native in the stern grew as pale as a black can turn with fright, and instantly began to paddle the canoe away. This, however, I soon replaced in its former position, and then took his paddle away to prevent further accidents. There sat the captain of the fragile vessel in the most abject state of terror. We were close to the shore, and the water was not more than three feet deep, and yet he dared not jump out of the canoe, as the rushes were again brushing against its sides, being moved by the hidden beast at the bottom. There was no help for him, so, after vainly imploring me to shove the canoe into deep water, he at length sat still. In a few minutes the body of the buffalo again moved, and the head and shoulders of a crocodile appeared above water and took a bite of some pounds of flesh. I could not get a shot at the head from his peculiar position, but I put a ball through his shoulders, and immediately shoved the canoe astern. Had I not done this, we should most likely have been upset, as the wounded brute began to lash out with his tail in all directions, till he at length retired to the bottom among the rushes. Here I could easily track him, as he slowly moved along, by the movement of the reeds. Giving the native the paddle, I now by threats induced him to keep the canoe over the very spot where the rushes were moving, and we slowly followed on the track, while I kept watch in the bow of the canoe with a rifle. Suddenly the movement in the rushes ceased, and the canoe stopped accordingly. I leaned slightly over the side to look into the water, when up came a large air-bubble, and directly afterwards an apparition in the shape of some fifteen pounds of putrid flesh. The stench was frightful, but I knew my friend must be very bad down below to disgorge so sweet a morsel. I therefore took the paddle and poked for him; the water being shallow, I felt him immediately. Again the rushes moved; I felt the paddle twist as his scaly back glided under it, and a pair of gaping jaws appeared above the water, wide open and within two feet of the canoe. The next moment his head appeared, and the two-ounce ball shattered his brain. He sank to the bottom, the rushes moved slightly and were then still. I now put the canoe ashore, and cutting a strong stick, with a crook at one end, I again put out to the spot and dragged for him. He was quite dead; and catching him under the fore-leg, I soon brought him gently to the surface of the water. I now made fast a line to his fore-leg, and we towed him slowly to the village, the canoe being level with the water's edge. His weight in the water was a mere trifle, but on arrival at the village on the banks of the lake, the villagers turned out with great glee, and fastened ropes to different parts of his body to drag him out. This operation employed about twenty men. The beast was about fourteen feet long; and he was no sooner on shore than the natives cut him to pieces with axes, and threw the sections into the lake to be devoured by his own species. This was a savage kind of revenge, which appeared to afford them great satisfaction. Taking a large canoe, I paddled along the shores of the lake with a shot-gun, and made a good bag of ducks and teal, and returned to breakfast. The fatness and flavour of the wild ducks in Ceylon are quite equal to the best in England. CHAPTER IV. Equipment for a Hunting Trip--In Chase of a Herd of Buffaloes--Hard Work--Close Quarters--Six Feet from the Muzzle--A Black with a Devil. There is one thing necessary to the enjoyment of sport in Ceylon, and without which no amount of game can afford thorough pleasure; this is personal comfort. Unlike a temperate climate, where mere attendance becomes a luxury, the pursuit of game in a tropical country is attended with immense fatigue and exhaustion. The intense heat of the sun, the dense and suffocating exhalations from swampy districts, the constant and irritating attacks from insects, all form drawbacks to sport that can only be lessened by excellent servants and by the most perfect arrangements for shelter and supplies. I have tried all methods of travelling, and I generally manage to combine good sport with every comfort and convenience. A good tent, perfectly waterproof, and of so light a construction as to travel with only two bearers, is absolutely indispensable. My tent is on the principle of an umbrella, fifteen feet in diameter, and will house three persons comfortably. A circular table fits in two halves round the tent-pole; three folding chairs have ample space; three beds can be arranged round the tent walls; the boxes of clothes, etc., stow under the beds; and a dressing-table and gun-rack complete the furniture. Next in importance to the tent is a good canteen. Mine is made of japanned block tin, and contains in close-fitting compartments an entire dinner and breakfast service for three persons, including everything that can be required in an ordinary establishment. This is slung upon a bamboo, carried by two coolies. Clothes must always be packed in tin boxes, or the whole case will most likely be devoured by white ants. Cooking utensils must be carried in abundance, together with a lantern, axe, bill-hook, tinder-box, matches, candles, oil, tea, coffee, sugar, biscuits, wine, brandy, sauces, etc., a few hams, some tins of preserved meats and soups, and a few bottles of curacea, a glass of which, in the early dawn, after a cup of hot coffee and a biscuit, is a fine preparation for a day's work. I once tried the rough system of travelling, and started off with nothing but my guns, clothes, a box of biscuits, and a few bottles of brandy--no bed, no pillow, no tent nor chairs or table, but, as my distressed servant said, 'no nothing.' This was many years ago, when the excitement of wild sports was sufficient to laugh at discomfort. I literally depended upon my gun for food, and my cooking utensils consisted of one saucepan and a gridiron, a 'stew' and a 'fry' being all that I looked forward to in the way of gourmandism. Sleeping on the bare ground in native huts, dining cross-legged upon mother earth, with a large leaf as a substitute for a plate, a cocoa-nut shell for a glass, my hunting-knife comprising all my cutlery, I thus passed through a large district of wild country, accompanied by B., and I never had more exciting sport. It was on this occasion that I had a memorable hunt in the neighbourhood of Narlande, within thirty miles of Kandy. It was our first day's stage, and, upon our arrival, at about 2 P.M., we left our guns at the post-holder's hut, while we proceeded to the river to bathe. We were hardly dressed before a native came running to tell us that several elephants were devouring his crop of korrakan--a grain something like clover-seed, upon which the people in this part almost entirely subsist. Without a moment's delay we sent for the guns. The post-holder was a good tracker, and a few minutes of sharp walking through a path bordered on either side by dense thorny bush brought us to a chena jungle ground, or cultivated field. The different watch-houses erected in the large trees were full of people, who were shrieking and yelling at the top of their voices, having just succeeded in scaring the elephants into the jungle. The whole of the country in this neighbourhood has, in successive ages, been cleared and cultivated: the forest has been felled. The poverty of the soil yields only one crop, and the lately cleared field is again restored to nature. Dense thorny jungle immediately springs up, which a man cannot penetrate without being torn to pieces by the briars. This is called chena jungle, and is always the favourite resort of elephants and all wild animals, the impervious character of the bush forming a secure retreat. From these haunts the elephants commit nocturnal descents upon the crops of the natives. The korrakan is a sweet grass, growing about two feet high, and so partial are the elephants to this food that they will invade the isolated field even during the daytime. Driven out by shouts and by shots fired by the natives from their secure watch-houses, they will retreat to their cover, but in a few minutes they reappear from another part of the jungle and again commence their depredations. The havoc committed by a large herd of elephants can well be imagined. In this instance there were only three elephants--a large bull, with a mother and her young one, or what we call a 'poonchy.' On entering the korrakan field we distinctly heard them breaking the boughs at no great distance. We waited for some time to see if they would return to the field; but they apparently were aware of some impending danger, as they did not move from their strong position. This was a cunning family of elephants, as they had retreated 'down wind,' and the jungle being so thick that we could with difficulty follow even upon their track, made it very doubtful whether we should kill them. We cautiously entered. It was one mass of thorns, and we were shortly compelled to crawl upon our hands and knees. This was arduous work, as we had great difficulty in carrying the guns so as to avoid the slightest noise. I was leading the way, and could distinctly hear the rustling of the leaves as the elephants moved their ears. We were now within a few feet of them, but not an inch of their bodies could be seen, so effectually were they hidden by the thick jungle. Suddenly we heard the prolonged wh-r-r, wh-r-r-r-r-r, as one of the elephants winded us: the shrill trumpet sounded in another direction, and the crash through the jungle took place which nothing but an elephant can produce. In such dense jungle, where the elephants are invisible, this crash is most exciting if close at hand, as in the present instance. It is at the first burst impossible to tell whether the elephant is coming at you or rushing away. In either case it is extremely dangerous, as these chena jungles are almost devoid of trees; thus there is no cover of sufficient strength to protect a man should he attempt to jump on one side, and he may even be run over by accident. A few moments assured us of their retreat, and we instantly followed upon their track, running at full speed along the lane which they had crushed in their headlong flight. This was no easy matter; the jungle itself was certainly broken down, but innumerable hooked thorns, hanging from rope-like creepers, which had been torn down by the rush of the elephants, caught us upon every side. In a few minutes our clothes were in rags, and we were bleeding from countless scratches, but we continued the chase as fast as we could run upon the track. The prickly cactus which abounds in these jungles, and grows to the height of twenty feet, in some places checked us for a few moments, being crushed into a heap by the horny-footed beasts before us. These obstacles overcome, we again pushed on at a rapid pace, occasionally listening for a sound of the retreating game. We now observed that the herd had separated; the bull had gone off in one direction, and the female with her half-grown poonchy in another. Following the latter, we again pushed on at a quick run, as the elephants had evidently gone off at a great pace and were far in advance. For about half an hour we had continued the pursuit at the same speed, when we suddenly heard the warning wh-r-r-r-r as the elephants winded us at a distance of 200 yards, and the crash instantly following this sound told us too plainly that the game was fearfully on the alert, and gave us little hopes of overtaking them, as they were travelling directly down wind. Speed was our only chance, and again we rushed forward in hot pursuit through the tangled briars, which yielded to our weight, although we were almost stripped of clothes. Another half hour passed, and we had heard no further signs of the game. We stopped to breathe, and we listened attentively for the slightest sound. A sudden crash in the jungle at a great distance assured us that we were once more discovered. The chase seemed hopeless; the heat was most oppressive; and we had been running for the last hour at a killing pace through a most distressing country. Once more, however, we started off, determined to keep up the pursuit as long as daylight would permit. It was now 5 P.M., and we had one hour left before darkness would set in. The wind had entirely ceased, leaving a perfect calm; the air was thick and heavy, and the heat was thus rendered doubly fatiguing. We noticed, however, that the track of the elephants had doubled back instead of continuing in the direct line that we had followed so long. This gave us hope, as the elephants no longer had the advantage of the wind, and we pushed on as fast as we could go. It was about half an hour before dusk, and our patience and hopes were alike exhausted, when we suddenly once more heard the wh-r-r-r of the elephants winding us within a hundred yards. It was our last chance, and with redoubled speed we rushed after them. Suddenly we broke from the high jungle in which we had been for the last two hours, and found ourselves in a chena jungle of two years' growth, about five feet high, but so thick and thorny that it resembled one vast blackthorn hedge, through which no man could move except in the track of the retreating elephants. To my delight, on entering this low jungle, I saw the female at about forty yards' distance, making off at a great pace. I had a light double-barrelled gun in my hand, and, in the hopes of checking her pace, I fired a flying shot at her ear. She had been hunted so long that she was well inclined to fight, and she immediately slackened her speed so much that in a few instants I was at her tail, so close that I could have slapped her. Still she ploughed her way through the thick thorns, and not being able to pass her owing to the barrier of jungle, I could only follow close at her heels and take my chance of a shot. At length, losing all patience, I fired my remaining barrel under her tail, giving it an upward direction in the hope of disabling her spine. A cloud of smoke hung over me for a second, and, throwing my empty gun on one side, I put my hand behind me for a spare rifle. I felt the welcome barrel pushed into my hand at the same moment that I saw the infuriated head of the elephant with ears cocked charging through the smoke! It was the work of an instant. I had just time to cock the two-ounce rifle and take a steady aim. The next moment we were in a cloud of smoke, but as I fired, I felt certain of her. The smoke cleared from the thick bushes, and she lay dead at SIX FEET from the spot where I stood. The ball was in the centre of her forehead, and B., who had fired over my shoulder so instantaneously with me that I was not aware of it, had placed his ball within three inches of mine. Had she been missed, I should have fired my last shot. This had been a glorious hunt; many miles had been gone over, but by great luck, when the wind dropped and the elephant altered her course, she had been making a circuit for the very field of korrakan at which we had first found her. We were thus not more than three miles from our resting-place, and the trackers who know every inch of the country, soon brought us to the main road. The poonchy and the bull elephant, having both separated from the female, escaped. One great cause of danger in shooting in thick jungles is the obscurity occasioned by the smoke of the first barrel; this cannot escape from the surrounding bushes for some time, and effectually prevents a certain aim with the remaining barrel. In wet weather this is much increased. For my own part I dislike shooting in thick jungles, and I very seldom do so. It is extremely dangerous, and is like shooting in the dark; you never see the game until you can almost touch it, and the labour and pain of following up elephants through thorny jungle is beyond description. On our return to the post-holder's hut we dined and prepared for sleep. It was a calm night, and not a sound disturbed the stillness of the air. The tired coolies and servants were fast asleep, the lamp burnt dimly, being scantily fed with oil, and we were in the act of lying down to rest when a frightful scream made us spring to our feet. There was something so unearthly in the yell that we could hardly believe it human. The next moment a figure bounded into the little room that we occupied. It was a black, stark naked. His tongue, half bitten through, protruded from his mouth; his bloodshot eyes, with a ghastly stare, were straining from their sockets, and he stood gazing at us with his arms extended wide apart. Another horrible scream burst from him, and he fell flat upon his back. The post-holder and a whole crowd of awakened coolies now assembled, and they all at once declared that the man had a devil. The fact is, he had a fit of epilepsy, and his convulsions were terrible. Without moving a limb he flapped here and there like a salmon when just landed. I had nothing with me that would relieve him, and I therefore left him to the hands of the post-holder, who prided himself upon his skill in exorcising devils. All his incantations produced no effect, and the unfortunate patient suddenly sprang to his feet and rushed madly into the thorny jungle. In this we heard him crashing through like a wild beast, and I do not know to this day whether he was ever heard of afterwards. The Cingalese have a thorough belief in the presence of devils; one sect are actually 'devil-WORSHIPPERS,' but the greater portion of the natives are Bhuddists. Among this nation the missionaries make very slow progress. There is no character to work upon in the Cingalese: they are faithless, cunning, treacherous, and abject cowards; superstitious in the extreme, and yet unbelieving in any one God. A converted Bhuddist will address his prayers to our God if he thinks he can obtain any temporal benefit by so doing, but, if not, he would be just as likely to pray to Bhudda or to the devil. I once saw a sample of heathen conversion in Ceylon that was enough to dishearten a missionary. A Roman Catholic chapel had been erected in a wild part of the country by some zealous missionary, who prided himself upon the number of his converts. He left his chapel during a few weeks' absence in some other district, during which time his converts paid their devotion to the Christian altar. They had made a few little additions to the ornaments of the altar, which must have astonished the priest on his return. There was an image of our Saviour and the **Virgin:** that was all according to custom. But there were also 'three images of Bhudda,' a coloured plaster-of-Paris image of the Queen and Prince Albert upon the altar, and a very questionable penny print in vivid colours hanging over the altar, entitled the 'Stolen Kiss.' So much for the conversion of the heathen in Ceylon. The attempt should only be made in the schools, where the children may be brought up as Christians, but the idea of converting the grown-up heathen is a fallacy. CHAPTER V. The Four-ounce again--Tidings of a Rogue--Approaching a Tank Rogue--An Exciting Moment--Ruins of Pollanarua--Ancient Ruins--Rogues at Doolana--B. Charged by a Rogue--Planning an Attack--A Check--Narrow Escape--Rogue-stalking--A Bad Rogue--Dangers of Elephant-shooting--The Rhatamahatmeya's Tale. A broken nipple in my long two-ounce rifle took me to Trincomalee, about seventy miles out of my proposed route. Here I had it punched out and replaced with a new one, which I fortunately had with me. No one who has not experienced the loss can imagine the disgust occasioned by an accident to a favourite rifle in a wild country. A spare nipple and mainspring for each barrel and lock should always be taken on a shooting trip. In passing by Kandelly, on my return from Trincomalee, I paid a second visit to the lake. This is very similar to that of Minneria; but the shooting at that time was destroyed from the same cause which has since ruined Minneria--'too many guns.' The buffaloes were not worthy of the name; I could not make one show fight, nor could I even get within three hundred yards of them. I returned from the plain with disgust; but just as I was quitting the shores of the lake I noticed three buffaloes in the shallows about knee-deep in the water, nearly half a mile from me. They did not look bigger than dogs, the distance was so great. There is nothing like a sheet of water for trying a rifle; the splash of the ball shows with such distinctness the accuracy or the defect in the shooting. It was necessary that I should fire my guns off in order to clean them that evening: I therefore tried their power at this immense distance. The long two-ounce fell short, but in a good line. I took a rest upon a man's shoulder with the four-ounce rifle, and, putting up the last sight, I aimed at the leading buffalo, who was walking through the water parallel with us. I aimed at the outline of the throat, to allow for his pace at this great distance. The recoil of the rifle cut the man's ear open, as there were sixteen drachms of powder in this charge. We watched the smooth surface of the water as the invisible messenger whistled over the lake. Certainly three seconds elapsed before we saw the slightest effect. At the expiration of that time the buffalo fell suddenly in a sitting position, and there he remained fixed, many seconds after, a dull sound returned to our ears; it was the 'fut' of the ball, which had positively struck him at this immense range. What the distance was I cannot say; it may have been 600 yards, or 800, or more. It was shallow water the whole way: we therefore mounted our horses and rode up to him. Upon reaching him, I gave him a settling ball in the head, and we examined him. The heavy ball had passed completely through his hips, crushing both joints, and, of course, rendering him powerless at once. The shore appeared full half a mile from us on our return, and I could hardly credit my own eyes, the distance was so immense, and yet the ball had passed clean through the animal's body. It was of course a chance shot, and, even with this acknowledgment, it must appear rather like the 'marvellous' to a stranger;--this is my misfortune, not my fault. I certainly never made such a shot before or since; it was a sheer lucky hit, say at 600 yards; and the wonderful power of the rifle was thus displayed in the ball perforating the large body of the buffalo at this range. This shot was made with a round ball, not a cone. The round belted ball for this heavy two-grooved rifle weighs three ounces. The conical ball weighs a little more than four ounces. While describing the long shots performed by this particular rifle, I cannot help recounting a curious chance with a large rogue elephant in Topari tank. This tank or lake is, like most others in Ceylon, the result of vast labour in past ages. Valleys were closed in by immense dams of solid masonry, which, checking the course of the rivers, formed lakes of many miles in extent. These were used as reservoirs for the water required for the irrigation of rice lands. The population who effected these extensive works have long since passed away; their fate is involved in mystery. The records of their ancient cities still exist, but we have no account of their destruction. The ruins of one of these cities, Pollanarua, are within half a mile of the village of Topari, and the waters of the adjacent lake are still confined by a dam of two miles in length, composed of solid masonry. When the lake is full, it is about eight miles in circumference. I had only just arrived at the village, and my horse-keeper had taken the horse to drink at the lake, when he suddenly came running back to say that a rogue elephant was bathing himself on the opposite shore, at about two miles' distance. I immediately took my guns and went after him. My path lay along the top of the great dam, which formed a causeway covered with jungle. This causeway was about sixty feet in breadth and two miles in length; the lake washed its base about twenty feet below the summit. The opposite shore was a fine plain, bordered by open forest, and the lake spread into the grassy surface in wide and irregular bays. I continued my course along the causeway at a fast walk, and on arriving at the extremity of the lake, I noticed that the ancient dam continued for a much greater distance. This, together with the great height of the masonry from the level of the water, proved that the dimensions of the tank had formerly been of much greater extent. Descending by the rugged stones which formed the dam wall I reached the plain, and, keeping close to the water's edge, I rounded a large neck of land covered with trees, which projected for some distance into the lake. I knew, by the position of the elephant, when I first saw him, that he was not far beyond this promontory, and I carefully advanced through the open forest, hoping that I might meet him there on his exit from his bath. In this I was mistaken, for on passing through this little belt of trees I saw the elephant still in the lake, belly-deep, about 300 paces from me. He was full 120 yards from the shore, and I was puzzled how to act. He was an immense brute, being a fine specimen of a tank 'rogue.' This class are generally the worst description of rogue elephants, who seldom move far from the lakes, but infest the shores for many years. Being quite alone, with the exception of two worthless gun-bearers, the plan of attack required some consideration. The belt of trees in which I stood was the nearest piece of cover to the elephant, the main jungle being about a quarter of a mile from the shore of the lake. In the event of a retreat being necessary, this cover would therefore be my point. There was a large tamarind-tree growing alone upon the plain about a hundred and fifty paces from the water's edge, exactly in a line with the position of the elephant. The mud plastered to a great height upon the stem showed this to be his favourite rubbing-post after bathing. Having determined upon my plan of attack, I took the guns from the gun-bearers and sent the men up the tree, as I knew they would run away in the event of danger, and would most probably take the guns with them in their flight. Having thus secured the arms, I placed the long two-ounce against a large and conspicuous tree that grew upon the extreme edge of the forest, and I cautiously advanced over the open plain with my two remaining guns, one of which I deposited against the stem of the single tamarind-tree. I had thus two points for a defensive retreat, should it be necessary. I had experienced considerable difficulty in attaining my position at the tamarind-tree without being observed by the elephant; fortunately, I had both the wind and the sun favourable, the latter shining from my back full into the lake. The elephant was standing with his back to the shore exactly in a line with me, and he was swinging his great head from side to side, and flapping his ears in the enjoyment of his bath. I left the tree with my four-ounce rile, and, keeping in a direct line for his hind-quarters, I walked towards him. The grass was soft and short; I could therefore approach without the slightest noise: the only danger of being discovered was in the chance that I might be seen as he swung his head continually on either side. This I avoided by altering my course as I saw his head in the act of coming round, and I soon stood on the edge of the lake exactly behind him, at about 120 yards. He was a noble-looking fellow, every inch a rogue, his head almost white with numerous flesh-coloured spots. These give a savage and disgusting appearance to an elephant, and altogether he looked a formidable opponent. I had intended to shout on arriving at my present position, and then to wait for the front shot as he charged; but on looking back to the tamarind-tree and my proposed course for retreat, the distance appeared so great, rendered still more difficult by a gradual ascent, that I felt it would be impossible to escape if my chance lay in running. I hardly knew what to do; I had evidently caught a 'Tartar.' His head was perpetually swinging to and fro, and I was of course accordingly altering my position to avoid his eye. At one of these half turns he flapped his right ear just as his head came round, and I observed a perfectly white mark, the size of a saucer, behind the ear, in the exact spot for a fatal shot. I at once determined to try it, even at this distance; at all events, if it failed, and he should charge, I had a fair start, and by getting the spare gun from the tamarind-tree I could make a defence at the cover. His attention was completely absorbed in a luxurious repast upon a bed of the succulent lotus. He tore up bunches of the broad leaves and snaky stalks, and, washing them carefully with his trunk, he crushed the juicy stems, stuffing the tangled mass into his mouth as a savage would eat maccaroni. Round swung his head once more, the ear flapped, the mark was exposed, but the ear again concealed it just as I had raised the rifle. This happened several times, but I waited patiently for a good chance, being prepared for a run the moment after firing. Once more his head swung towards me: the sun shone full upon him, and I raised the rifle to be ready for him if he gave me the chance. His ear flapped forward just as his head was at a proper angle for a shot. The mark shone brightly along the sights of the rifle as I took a steady aim; the answer to the report of the gun was--a dull splash! He had sunk upon his knees stone dead. I could hardly believe my eyes. The sight of so large an animal being killed at such a distance by one shot had an extraordinary effect. I heard a heathenish scream of joy behind me, and upon turning round I perceived the now courageous gun-bearers running towards me at their best pace. They were two of the Topari villagers, and had been perfectly aghast at the idea of one person, with only a single-barrelled rifle, attacking a tank rogue in the open plain. The sequel had turned their fear into astonishment. They now had the laugh at me, however, as they swam fearlessly up to the dead elephant to cut off his tail, which I would not have done for any reward, for fear of crocodiles, which abound in the tank. The ball had struck the white mark exactly in the centre, which pleased these natives exceedingly, and they returned in safety with the tail. I have frequently tried these long shots since, but I never succeeded again except once, and that was not satisfactory, as the elephant did not die upon the spot, but was found by the natives on the following day. On my return to the village I took a shot-gun and strolled along the banks of the lake. The snipe were innumerable, and I killed them till my head ached with the constant recoil of the gun in addition to the heat. I also killed several couple of ducks and teal in addition to twenty-eight couple of snipe. This was the Paradise for sport at the time of which I write. It had never been disturbed: but it has since shared the fate of many other places. The open forest in the vicinity of the lake abounded with deer. Grassy glades beneath the shady trees give a park-like appearance to the scene, and afford a delightful resort for the deer. In strolling through these shady glades you suddenly arrive among the ruins of ancient Pollanarua. The palaces are crumbled into shapeless mounds of bricks. Massive pillars, formed of a single stone, twelve feet high, stand in upright rows throughout the jungle here and there over an extent of some miles. The buildings which they once supported have long since fallen, and the pillars now stand like tombstones over vanished magnificence. Some buildings are still standing; among these are two dagobas, huge monuments of bricks, formerly covered with white cement, and elaborately decorated with different devices. These are shaped like an egg that has been cut nearly in half, and then placed upon its base; but the cement has perished, and they are mounds of jungle and rank grass which has overgrown them, although the large dagoba is upwards of a hundred feet high. A curious temple, formed on the imperishable principle of excavating in the solid rock, is in perfect preservation, and is still used by the natives as a place of worship: this is presided over by a priest. Three large images of Bhudda, carved out of solid rock, occupy the positions in which he is always represented; that in the recumbent posture is fifty-six feet long, cut from one stone. I was strolling through these ruins when I suddenly saw a spotted doe feeding among the upright pillars before mentioned. I was within twenty yards of her before she was aware of my vicinity, and I bagged her by a shot with a double-barrelled gun. At the report of the gun a herd of about thirty deer, which were concealed amongst the ruins, rushed close by me, and I bagged another doe with the remaining barrel. The whole of this country must at one time have been densely populated; perhaps this very density may have produced pestilence, which swept away the inhabitants. The city has been in ruins for about 600 years, and was founded about 300 years B.C. Some idea of the former extent of the Ceylon antiquities may be formed from the present size of the ruins. Those of Anarajapoora are sixteen miles square, comprising a surface of 256 square miles. Those of Pollanarua are much smaller, but they are nevertheless of great extent. The inhabitants of the present village of Topari are a poor squalid race; and if they are descended in a direct line from the ancient occupants of the city, they are as much degenerated in character and habits as the city itself is ruined in architecture. Few countries can be more thinly populated than Ceylon, and yet we have these numerous proofs of a powerful nation having once existed. Wherever these lakes or tanks exist in the present day, a populous country once flourished. In all countries which are subject to months of drought, a supply of water is the first consideration, or cultivation must cease. This was the object in forming the tanks, which are especially numerous throughout the Tambancadua district. These tank countries afford a great diversity of sport, as they all abound with wild fowl, and snipe in their season (from November to May). During the time of drought they are always the resort of every kind of wild animal, which are forced to the neighbourhood for a supply of water. The next tank to Topari is that of Doolana; this is eight miles from the former, and is about the same extent. In this district there are no less than eight of these large lakes. Their attractions to rogue elephants having been explained, it may be readily understood that these gentry abound throughout the district. I shall, therefore, select a few incidents that have happened to me in these localities, which will afford excellent illustrations of the habits of 'rogues.' Having arrived at Doolana, on the 5th April, 1847, with good Moormen trackers, who were elephant-catchers by profession, I started for a day's sport, in company with my brother B. This particular portion of the district is inhabited entirely by Moormen. They are a fine race of people, far superior to the Cingalese. They are supposed to be descended from Arabian origin, and they hold the Mohammedan religion. The Rhatamahatmeya, or head man of the district, resides at Doolana, and he had received us in a most hospitable manner. We therefore started direct from his house. Passing through a belt of low thick jungle, exactly in front of the village, we entered upon the plain which formed the border of the tank. This lake is about three miles in length, but is not more than a mile in width in its widest part, and in some places is very much less. The opposite side of the tank is fine open forest, which grows to the water's edge, and is in some parts flooded during the wet season. At this time the soil was deep and muddy. This was not a place visited by sportsmen at that period; and upon arriving at the margin of the lake, an exciting view presented itself. Scattered over the extent of the lake were 'thirteen rogue elephants;' one was not a quarter of a mile from us; another was so far off he could hardly be distinguished; another was close to the opposite jungle; and they were, in fact, all single elephants. There was an exception to this, however, in one pair, who stood in the very centre of the tank, side by side; they were as black as ebony, and although in view with many brother rogues, they appeared giants even among giants. The Moormen immediately informed us that they were a notorious pair, who always associated together, and were the dread of the neighbourhood. There were many tales of their ferocity and daring, which at the time we gave little heed to. Crossing the tank in a large canoe, we arrived in the open forest upon the opposite shore. It was a mass of elephant tracks; which sank deep in the soft earth. They were all so fresh and confused that tracking was very difficult. However, we at length fixed upon the tracks of a pair of elephants, and followed them up. This was a work of considerable time, but the distant cracking of a bough at length attracted us to their position, and we shortly came up with them, just as they had winded us and were moving off. I fired an ineffectual shot at the temple of one, which separated him from the other, after whom we started in chase at full speed. Full speed soon ended in a stand-still in such ground; it was deep, stiff clay, in which we sank over our ankles at every step, and varied our struggles by occasionally flying sprawling over the slippery roots of the trees. The elephants ran clean away from us, and the elephant-catchers, who knew nothing of the rules for carrying spare guns, entering into the excitement of the chase, and free from the impediments of shoes, ran lightly along the muddy ground, and were soon out of sight as well as the elephants. Still we struggled on, when, presently we heard a shout and then a shot; then another shout; then the trumpet of an elephant. Shot after shot then followed with a chorus of shouts; they were actually firing all our spare guns! In a few moments we were up with them. In a beautifully open piece of forest, upon good hard ground, these fellows were having a regular battle with the rogue. He was charging them with the greatest fury, but he no sooner selected one man for his object than these active fellows diverted his rage by firing into his hind-quarters and yelling at him. At this he would immediately turn and charge another man, when he would again be assailed as before. When we arrived he immediately selected B., and came straight at him, but offered a beautiful shot in doing so, and B. dropped him dead. The firing had disturbed a herd of elephants from the forest, and they had swum the large river in the neighbourhood, which was at that time so swollen that we could not cross it. We, therefore, struck off to the edge of the forest, where the waters of the lake washed the roots of the trees, and from this point we had a fine view of the greater portion. All the rogues that we had at first counted had retired to their several entrances in the forest, except the pair of desperadoes already mentioned--they knew no fear, and had not heeded the shots fired. They were tempting baits, and we determined to get them if possible. These two elephants were standing belly-deep in the water, about a quarter of a mile from the shore; and the question was, 'How were we to get near them?' Having observed that the other rogues had retreated to the forest at the noise of the firing, it struck me that we might by some ruse induce these two champions to follow their example, and, by meeting them on their entrance, we might bring them to action. Not far upon our left, a long shallow bank, covered with reeds, stretched into the tank. By wading knee-deep along this shoal, a man might approach to within 200 paces of the elephants and would be nearly abreast of them. I, therefore, gave a man a gun, and instructed him to advance to the extreme end of the shallows, taking care to conceal himself in the rushes, and when at the nearest point he was to fire at the elephants. This, I hoped, would drive them to the jungle, where we should endeavour to meet them. The Moorman entrusted upon this mission was a plucky fellow, and he started off, taking a double gun and a few charges of powder and ball. The elephant-catchers were delighted with the idea, and we patiently awaited the result. About a quarter of an hour passed away, when we suddenly saw a puff of white smoke spring from the green rushes at the point of the sandbank. A few moments after, we heard the report of the gun, and we saw the ball splash in the water close to the elephants. They immediately cocked their ears, and, throwing their trunks high in the air, they endeavoured to wind the enemy; but they did not move, and they shortly again commenced feeding upon the water-lilies. Another shot from the same place once more disturbed them, and, while they winded the unseen enemy, two more shots in quick succession from the old quarter decided their opinion, and they stalked proudly through the water towards the shore. Our satisfaction was great, but the delight of the elephant-catchers knew no bounds. Away they, started along the shores of the lake, hopping from root to root, skipping through the mud, which was more than a foot deep, their light forms hardly sinking in the tough surface. A nine-stone man certainly has an advantage over one of twelve in this ground; added to this, I was carrying the long two-ounce rifle of sixteen pounds, which, with ammunition, &c., made up about thirteen and a half stone, in deep stiff clay. I was literally half-way up the calf of my leg in mud at every step, while these light, naked fellows tripped like snipe over the sodden ground. Vainly I called upon them to go easily; their moment of excitement was at its full pitch, and they were soon out of sight among the trees and underwood, taking all the spare guns, except the four-ounce rifle, which, weighing twenty-one pounds, effectually prevented the bearer from leaving us behind. What added materially to the annoyance of losing the spare guns was the thoughtless character of the advance. I felt sure that these fellows would outrun the position of the elephants, which, if they had continued in a direct route, should have entered the jungle within 300 yards of our first station. We had slipped, and plunged, and struggled over this distance, when we suddenly were checked in our advance. We had entered a small plot of deep mud and rank grass, surrounded upon all sides by dense rattan jungle. This stuff is one woven mass of hooked thorns: long tendrils, armed in the same manner, although not thicker than a whip-cord, wind themselves round the parent canes and form a jungle which even elephants dislike to enter. To man, these jungles are perfectly impervious. Half-way to our knees in mud, we stood in this small open space of about thirty feet by twenty. Around us was an opaque screen of impenetrable jungle; the lake lay about fifty yards upon our left, behind the thick rattan. The gun-bearers were gone ahead somewhere, and were far in advance. We were at a stand-still. Leaning upon my long rifle, I stood within four feet of the wall of jungle which divided us from the lake. I said to B., 'The trackers are all wrong, and have gone too far. I am convinced that the elephants must have entered somewhere near this place.' Little did I think that at that very moment they were within a few feet of us. B. was standing behind me on the opposite side of the small open, or about seven yards from the jungle. I suddenly heard a deep guttural sound in the thick rattan within four feet of me; in the same instant the whole tangled fabric bent forward, and bursting asunder, showed the furious head of an elephant with uplifted trunk in full charge upon me! I had barely time to cock my rifle, and the barrel almost touched him as I fired. I knew it was in vain, as his trunk was raised. B. fired his right-hand barrel at the same moment without effect from the same cause. I jumped on one side and attempted to spring through the deep mud: it was of no use, the long grass entangled my feet, and in another instant I lay sprawling in the enraged elephant's path within a foot of him. In that moment of suspense I expected to hear the crack of my own bones as his massive foot would be upon me. It was an atom of time. I heard the crack of a gun; it was B.'s last barrel. I felt a spongy weight strike my heel, and, turning quickly heels over head, I rolled a few paces and regained my feet. That last shot had floored him just as he was upon me; the end of his trunk had fallen upon my heel. Still he was not dead, but he struck at me with his trunk as I passed round his head to give him a finisher with the four-ounce rifle, which I had snatched from our solitary gun-bearer. My back was touching the jungle from which the rogue had just charged, and I was almost in the act of firing through the temple of the still struggling elephant, when I heard a tremendous crash in the jungle behind me similar to the first, and the savage scream of an elephant. I saw the ponderous foreleg cleave its way through the jungle directly upon me. I threw my whole weight back against the thick rattans to avoid him, and the next moment his foot was planted within an inch of mine. His lofty head was passing over me in full charge at B., who was unloaded, when, holding the four-ounce rifle perpendicularly, I fired exactly under his throat. I thought he would fall and crush me, but this shot was the only chance, as B. was perfectly helpless. A dense cloud of smoke from the heavy charge of powder for the moment obscured everything. I had jumped out of the way the instant after firing. The elephant did not fall, but he had his death blow the ball had severed his jugular, and the blood poured from the wound. He stopped, but collecting his stunned energies he still blundered forward towards B. He, however, avoided him by running to one side, and the wounded brute staggered on through the jungle. We now loaded the guns; the first rogue was quite dead, and we followed in pursuit of rogue number two. We heard distant shots, and upon arriving at the spot we found the gun-bearers. They had heard the wounded elephant crushing through the jungle, and they had given him a volley just as he was crossing the river over which the herd had escaped in the morning. They described the elephant as perfectly helpless from his wound, and they imagined that he had fallen in the thick bushes on the opposite bank of the river. As I before mentioned, we could not cross the river on account of the torrent, but in a few days it subsided, and the elephant was found lying dead in the spot where they supposed he had fallen. Thus happily ended the destruction of this notable pair; they had proved themselves all that we had heard of them, and by their cunning dodge of hiding in the thick jungle they had nearly made sure of us. We had killed three rogues that morning, and we returned to our quarters well satisfied. Since that period I have somewhat thinned the number of rogues in this neighbourhood. I had a careful and almost certain plan of shooting them. Quite alone, with the exception of two faithful gun-bearers, I used to wait at the edge of the jungle at their feeding time, and watch their exit from the forest. The most cautious stalking then generally enabled me to get a fatal shot before my presence was discovered. This is the proper way to succeed with rogue elephants, although of course it is attended with considerable danger. I was once very nearly caught near this spot, where the elephants are always particularly savage. The lake was then much diminished in size by dry weather, and the water had retired for about a hundred yards from the edge of the forest, leaving a deep bed of mud covered with slime and decayed vegetable matter. This slime had hardened in the sun and formed a cake over the soft mud beneath. Upon this treacherous surface a man could walk with great care. Should the thin covering break through, he would be immediately waist-deep in the soft mud. To plod through this was the elephant's delight. Smearing a thick coat of the black mud over their whole bodies, they formed a defensive armour against the attacks of mosquitoes, which are the greatest torments that an elephant has to contend with. I was watching the edge of the forest one afternoon at about four o'clock, when I noticed the massive form of one of these tank rogues stalk majestically from the jungle and proceed through the deep mud towards the lake. I had the wind, and I commenced stalking him. Advancing with my two gun-bearers in single file, I crept carefully from tree to tree along the edge of the forest for about a quarter of a mile, until I arrived at the very spot at which he had made his exit from the jungle. I was now within eighty yards of him as he stood with his head towards the lake and his hind-quarters exactly facing me. His deep tracks in the mud were about five feet apart, so great was his stride and length of limb, and, although the soft bog was at least three and a half feet deep, his belly was full two feet above the surface. He was a fine fellow, and, with intense caution, I advanced towards him over the trembling surface of baked slime. His tracks had nearly filled with water, and looked like little wells. The bog waved as I walked carefully over it, and I stopped once or twice, hesitating whether I should continue; I feared the crusty surface would not support me, as the nearer I approached the water's edge the weaker the coating of slime became, not having been exposed for so long a time to the sun as that at a greater distance. He was making so much noise in splashing the mud over his body that I had a fine chance for getting up to him. I could not withstand the temptation, and I crept up as fast as I could. I got within eight paces of him unperceived; the mud that he threw over his back spattered round me as it fell. I was carrying a light double-barrelled gun, but I now reached back my hand to exchange it for my four-ounce rifle. Little did I expect the sudden effect produced by the additional weight of the heavy weapon. The treacherous surface suddenly gave way, and in an instant I was waist deep in mud. The noise that I had made in falling had at once aroused the elephant, and, true to his character of a rogue, he immediately advanced with a shrill trumpet towards me. His ears were cocked, and his tail was well up; but instead of charging, as rogues generally do, with his head thrown rather back and held high, which renders a front shot very uncertain, he rather lowered his head, and splashed towards me through the mud, apparently despising my diminutive appearance. I thought it was all up with me this time; I was immovable in my bed of mud, and, instead of the clean brown barrel that I could usually trust to in an extremity, I raised a mass of mud to my shoulder, which encased my rifle like a flannel bag. I fully expected it to miss fire; no sights were visible, and I had to guess the aim with the advancing elephant within five yards of me. Hopelessly I pulled the slippery trigger. The rifle did not even hang fire, and the rogue fell into the deep bed of mud stone dead. If the rifle had missed fire I must have been killed, as escape would have been impossible. It was with great difficulty that I was extricated from my muddy position by the joint exertions of myself and gun-bearers. Elephants, buffaloes, and hogs are equally fond of wallowing in the mud. A buffalo will gallop through a swamp, hock deep, in which a horse would be utterly powerless, even without a rider. Elephants can also make wonderful progress through deep mud, the formation of the hind legs with knees instead of hocks giving them an increased facility for moving through heavy ground. The great risk in attacking rogue elephants consists in the impracticability of quick movements upon such ground as they generally frequent. The speed and activity of a man, although considerable upon a smooth surface, is as nothing upon rough, stumpy grass wilds, where even walking is laborious. What is comparatively level to an elephant's foot is as a ploughed field to that of a man. This renders escape from pursuit next to impossible, unless some welcome tree should be near, round which the hunter could dodge, and even then he stands but a poor chance, unless assistance is at hand. I have never seen anyone who could run at full speed in rough ground without falling, if pursued. Large stones, tufts of rank grass, holes, fallen boughs, gullies, are all impediments to rapid locomotion when the pursued is forced to be constantly looking back to watch the progress of his foe, and to be the judge of his own race. There is a great art in running away. It requires the perfection of coolness and presence of mind, without which a man is most likely to run into the very danger that he is trying to avoid. This was the cause of Major Haddock's death in Ceylon some years ago. He had attacked a 'rogue,' and, being immediately charged, he failed to stop him, although he gave him both barrels. Being forced to run, he went off at full speed, and turning quickly round a tree, he hoped the elephant would pass him. Unfortunately, he did not look behind him before he turned, and the elephant passed round the opposite side of the tree, and, of course, met him face to face. He was instantly trampled to death. Mr. Wallet was also killed by a rogue elephant; this animal was shot a few days afterwards, in a spirited contest, by Captain Galway and Ensign Scroggs, both of whom were very nearly caught in the encounter. A gentleman of the name of Keane was added to the list of victims a few years ago. He had fired without effect, and was almost immediately over-taken by the elephant and crushed to death. The most extraordinary tale that I have ever heard of rogue elephants in Ceylon was told me by the Rhatamahatmeya of Doolana, who was present at the scene when a lad. I do not profess to credit it entirely; but I will give it in his own words, and, to avoid the onus of an improbable story, I will entitle it the 'Rhatamahatmeya's Tale.' In justice to him, I must acknowledge that his account was corroborated by all the old men of the village. THE RHATAMAHATMEYA'S TALE. 'There was a notorious rogue elephant at Doolana about thirty years ago, whose ferocity was so extreme that he took complete possession of a certain part of the country adjoining the lake. He had killed eight or nine persons, and his whole object in existence appeared to be the waylaying and destruction of the natives. He was of enormous size, and was well known by a peculiar flesh-coloured forehead. 'In those days there were no fire-arms in this part of the country; therefore there was no protection for either life or property from this monster, who would invade the paddy-fields at night, and actually pull down the watch-houses, regardless of the blazing fires which are lighted on the hearth of sand on the summit; these he used to scatter about and extinguish. He had killed several natives in this manner, involving them in the common ruin with their watch-houses. The terror created by this elephant was so extreme that the natives deserted the neighbourhood that he infested. 'At length many months passed away without his being either seen or heard of; the people began to hope that he had died from the effect of poisoned arrows, which had frequently been shot at him from the watch-houses in high trees; and, by degrees, the terror of his name had lost its power, and he ceased to be thought of. 'It was in the cool of the evening, about an hour before sunset, that about twenty of the women from the village were upon the grassy borders of the lake, engaged in sorting and tying into bundles the rushes which they had been gathering during the day for making mats. They were on the point of starting homeward with their loads, when the sudden trumpet of an elephant was heard, and to their horror they saw the well-known rogue, with the unmistakable mark upon his forehead, coming down in full charge upon them. The ground was perfectly open; there were no trees for some hundred yards, except the jungle from which he was advancing at a frightful speed. An indiscriminate flight of course took place, and a race of terror commenced. In a few seconds the monster was among them, and, seizing a young girl in his trunk, he held her high in the air, and halted, as though uncertain how to dispose of his helpless victim. The girl, meanwhile, was vainly shrieking for assistance, and the petrified troop of women, having gained the shelter of some jungle, gazed panic-stricken upon the impending fate of their companion. 'To their horror the elephant slowly lowered her in his trunk till near the ground, when he gradually again raised her, and, bringing her head into his mouth, a report was heard like the crack of a whip--it was the sudden crushing of her skull. Tearing the head off by the neck, he devoured it; and, placing his forefoot upon the body, he tore the arms and legs from their sockets with his trunk, and devoured every portion of her. 'The women rushed to the village with the news of this unnatural carnage. 'Doolana and the neighbourhood has always been famous for its elephant-hunters, and the husband of this unfortunate girl was one of the most active in their pursuit. The animals are caught in this country and sold to the Arabs, for the use of the Indian Government. 'The news of this bloody deed flew from village to village; war to the knife was declared against the perpetrator, and preparations were accordingly made. 'Since the murder of this girl he had taken up his abode in a small isolated jungle adjoining, surrounded by a small open plain of fine soft grass, upon a level sandy soil. 'A few days after this act, a hundred men assembled at Doolana, determined upon his destruction. They were all picked elephant-hunters--Moormen; active and sinewy fellows, accustomed to danger from their childhood. Some were armed with axes, sharpened to the keenest edge, some with long spears, and others with regular elephant ropes, formed of the thongs of raw deer's hide, beautifully twisted. Each division of men had a separate duty allotted. 'They marched towards the small jungle in which the rogue was known to be; but he anticipated their wishes, and before they were within a hundred paces of his lair, he charged furiously out. The conflict began in good earnest. The spearmen were in advance, and the axemen were divided into two parties, one on either flank, with an equal number of ropemen. The instant that he charged the whole body of men ran forward at full speed to meet him; still he continued his furious onset, undismayed by the yells of a hundred men. The spearmen halted when within twenty yards, then turned and fled; this had been agreed upon beforehand. The elephant passed the two flanks of axemen in pursuit of the flying enemy; the axemen immediately closed in behind him, led by the husband of the murdered girl. By a well-directed blow upon the hind leg, full of revenge, this active fellow divided the sinew in the first joint above the foot.* (*Since this was written I have seen the African elephant disabled by one blow of a sharp sword as described in the "Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia.") That instant the elephant fell upon his knees, but recovered himself directly, and endeavoured to turn upon his pursuers; a dozen axes flashed in the sunbeams, as the strokes were aimed at the other hind leg. It was the work of an instant: the massive limb bent powerless under him, and he fell in a sitting posture, utterly helpless, but roaring with mad and impotent fury. The ropemen now threw nooses over his trunk and head; his struggles, although tremendous, were in vain; fifty men, hanging their weight upon several ropes attached to his trunk, rendered that dreaded weapon powerless. The sharp lances were repeatedly driven into his side, and several of the boldest hunters climbing up the steep ascent of his back, an axe was seen to fall swiftly and repeatedly upon his spine, on the nape of his tough neck. The giant form suddenly sank; the spine was divided, and the avenging blow was dealt by the husband of his late victim. The destroyer was no more. The victory was gained without the loss of a man.' The natives said that this elephant was mad; if so it may account in some measure for the unheard-of occurrence of an elephant devouring flesh. Both elephants and buffaloes attack man from malice alone, without the slightest idea of making a meal of him. This portion of the headman's story I cannot possibly believe, although he swears to it. The elephant may, perhaps, have cracked her head and torn his victim to pieces in the manner described, but the actual 'eating' is incredible. CHAPTER VI. Character of the Veddahs--Description of the Veddahs--A Monampitya Rogue--Attacking the Rogue--Breathless Excitement--Death of a Large Rogue--Utility of the Four-ounce--A Curious Shot--Fury of a Bull Buffalo--Character of the Wild Buffalo--Buffalo-shooting at Minneria Lake--Charge in High Reeds--Close of a Good Day's Sport--Last Day at Minneria--A Large Snake--An Unpleasant Bedfellow. Doolana is upon the very verge of the most northern point of the Veddah country, the whole of which wild district is the finest part of Ceylon for sport. Even to this day few Europeans have hunted these secluded wilds. The wandering Veddah, with his bow and arrows, is occasionally seen roaming through his wilderness in search of deer, but the report of a native's gun is never heard; the game is therefore comparatively undisturbed. I have visited every portion of this fine sporting country, and since I have acquired the thorough knowledge of its attractions, I have made up my mind never to shoot anywhere but there. The country is more open than in most parts of Ceylon, and the perfect wildness of the whole district is an additional charm. The dimensions of the Veddah country are about eighty miles from north to south, by forty in width. A fine mountain, known as the 'Gunner's Coin,' is an unmistakable landmark upon the northern boundary. From this point a person may ride for forty miles without seeing a sign of a habitation; the whole country is perfectly uncivilised, and its scanty occupants, the 'Veddahs,' wander about like animals, without either home, laws, or religion. I have frequently read absurd descriptions of their manners and customs, which must evidently have been gathered from hearsay, and not from a knowledge of the people. It is a commonly believed report that the Veddahs 'live in the trees,' and a stranger immediately confuses them with rooks and monkeys. Whoever first saw Veddah huts in the trees would have discovered, upon enquiry, that they were temporary watch-houses, from which they guard a little plot of korrakan from the attacks of elephants and other wild beasts. Far from LIVING in the trees, they live nowhere; they wander over the face of their beautiful country, and migrate to different parts at different seasons, with the game which they are always pursuing. The seasons in Ceylon vary in an extraordinary manner, considering the small size of the island. The wet season in one district is the dry season in another, and vice versa. Wherever the dry weather prevails, the pasturage is dried up; the brooks and pools are mere sandy gullies and pits. The Veddah watches at some solitary hole which still contains a little water, and to this the deer and every species of Ceylon game resort. Here his broad-headed arrow finds a supply. He dries the meat in long strips in the sun, and cleaning out some hollow tree, he packs away his savoury mass of sun-cooked flesh, and fills up the reservoir with wild honey; he then stops up the aperture with clay. The last drop of water evaporates, the deer leave the country and migrate into other parts where mountains attract the rain and the pasturage is abundant. The Veddah burns the parched grass wherever he passes, and the country is soon a blackened surface--not a blade of pasture remains; but the act of burning ensures a sweet supply shortly after the rains commence, to which the game and the Veddahs will then return. In the meantime he follows the game to other districts, living in caves where they happen to abound, or making a temporary but with grass and sticks. Every deer-path, every rock, every peculiar feature in the country, every pool of water, is known to these hunting Veddahs; they are consequently the best assistants in the world in elephant-hunting. They will run at top speed over hard ground upon an elephant's track which is barely discernible even to the practised eye of a white man. Fortunately, the number of these people is very trifling or the game would be scarce. They hunt like the leopard; noiselessly stalking till within ten paces of their game, they let the broad arrow fly. At this distance who could miss? Should the game be simply wounded, it is quite enough; they never lose him, but hunt him up, like hounds upon a blood track. Nevertheless, they are very bad shots with the bow and arrow, and they never can improve while they restrict their practice to such short ranges. I have often tried them at a mark at sixty yards, and, although a very bad hand with a bow myself, I have invariably beaten them with their own weapons. These bows are six feet long, made of a light supple wood, and the strings are made of the fibrous bark of a tree greased and twisted. The arrows are three feet long, formed of the same wood as the bows. The blades are themselves seven inches of this length, and are flat, like the blade of a dinner-knife brought to a point. Three short feathers from the peacock's wing are roughly lashed to the other end of the arrow. The Veddah in person is extremely ugly; short, but sinewy, his long uncombed locks fall to his waist, looking more like a horse's tail than human hair. He despises money, but is thankful for a knife, a hatchet, or a gaudy-coloured cloth, or brass pot for cooking. The women are horribly ugly and are almost entirely naked. They have no matrimonial regulations, and the children are squalid and miserable. Still these people are perfectly happy, and would prefer their present wandering life to the most luxurious restraint. Speaking a language of their own, with habits akin to those of wild animals, they keep entirely apart from the Cingalese. They barter deer-horns and bees'-wax with the travelling Moormen pedlers in exchange for their trifling requirements. If they have food, they eat it; if they have none, they go without until by some chance they procure it. In the meantime they chew the bark of various trees, and search for berries, while they wend their way for many miles to some remembered store of deer's flesh and honey, laid by in a hollow tree. The first time that I ever saw a Veddah was in the north of the country. A rogue elephant was bathing in a little pool of deep mud and water near the tank of Monampitya, about six miles from the 'Gunner's Coin.' This Veddah had killed a wild pig, and was smoking the flesh within a few yards of the spot, when he suddenly heard the elephant splashing in the water. My tent was pitched within a mile of the place, and he accordingly brought me the intelligence. Upon arrival at the pool I found the elephant so deep in the mud that he could barely move. His hind-quarters were towards me; and the pool not being more than thirty yards in diameter, and surrounded by impenetrable rattan jungle on all sides but one small opening, in which I stood, I was obliged to clap my hands to attract his attention. This had the desired effect; he turned slowly round, and I shot him immediately. This was one of the Monampitya tank rogues, but in his muddy position he had no chance. The largest elephant that I have ever seen was in this neighbourhood. I had arrived one afternoon at about five o'clock in a fine plain, about twelve miles from Monampitya, where the presence of a beautiful lake and high grass promised an abundance of game. It was a most secluded spot, and my tent and coolies being well up with my horse, I fixed upon a shady nook for the tent, and I strolled out to look for the tracks while it was being pitched. A long promontory stretched some hundred yards into the lake, exactly opposite the spot I had fixed upon for the encampment, and, knowing that elephants when bathing generally land upon the nearest shore, I walked out towards the point of this projecting neck of land. The weather was very dry, and the ground was a mass of little pitfalls, about two feet deep, which had been made by the feet of the elephants in the wet weather, when this spot was soft mud and evidently the favourite resort of the heavy game. The ground was now baked by the sun as hard as though it were frozen, and the numerous deep ruts made walking very difficult. Several large trees and a few bushes grew upon the surface, but for the most part it was covered by a short though luxuriant grass. One large tree grew within fifty yards of the extreme point of the promontory, and another of the same kind grew at an equal distance from it, but nearer to the main land. Upon both these trees was a coat of thick mud not many hours old. The bark was rubbed completely away, and this appeared to have been used for years as a favourite rubbing-post by some immense elephant. The mud reached full twelve feet up the trunk of the tree, and there were old marks far above this which had been scored by his tusks. There was no doubt that one of these tank rogues of extraordinary size had frequented this spot for years, and still continued to do so, the mud upon the tree being still soft, as though it had been left there that morning. I already coveted him, and having my telescope with me, I took a minute survey of the opposite shore, which was about half a mile distant and was lined with fine open forest to the water's edge. Nothing was visible. I examined the other side of the lake with the same want of success. Although it was such a quiet spot, with beautiful grass and water, there was not a single head of game to be seen. Again I scrutinised the opposite shore. The glass was no sooner raised to my eye than I started at the unexpected apparition. There was no mistaking him; he had appeared as though by magic--an elephant of the most extraordinary size that I have ever seen. He was not still for an instant, but was stalking quickly up and down the edge of the lake as though in great agitation. This restlessness is one of the chief characteristics of a bad rogue. I watched him for a few minutes, until he at length took to the water, and after blowing several streams over his shoulders, he advanced to the middle of the tank, where he commenced feeding upon the lotus leaves and sedges. It was a calm afternoon, and not a breath of air was stirring; and fearing lest the noise of the coolies, who were arranging the encampment, should disturb him, I hastened back. I soon restored quiet, and ordering the horses to be led into the jungle lest he should discover them, I made the people conceal themselves; and taking my two Moormen gun-bearers, who were trusty fellows that I had frequently shot with, I crept cautiously back to my former position, and took my station behind the large tree farthest from the point which commanded the favourite rubbing-post and within fifty yards of it. From this place I attentively watched his movements. He was wandering about in the water, alternately feeding and bathing, and there was a peculiar devilry in his movements that marked him as a rogue of the first class. He at length made up his mind to cross the tank, and he advanced at quick strides through the water straight for the point upon which I hoped to meet him. This was an exciting moment. I had no companion, but depended upon my own gun, and the rutty nature of the ground precluded any quick movements. The watching of the game is the intense excitement of elephant-shooting--a feeling which only lasts until the animal is within shot, when it suddenly vanishes and gives place to perfect calmness. At this time I could distinctly hear the beating of my own heart, and my two gun-bearers, who did not know what fear was, were literally trembling with excitement. He was certainly a king of beasts, and proudly he advanced towards the point. Suddenly he disappeared; nothing could be seen but his trunk above the water as he waded through the deep channel for a few yards, and then reared his majestic form dripping from the lake. He stood upon the 'point.' I never saw so grand an animal; it seemed as though no single ball could kill him, and although his head and carcass were enormous, still his length of leg appeared disproportionately great. With quick, springy paces he advanced directly for his favourite tree and began his process of rubbing, perfectly unaware of the hidden foes so near him. Having finished his rubbing, he tore up several bunches of grass, but without eating them he threw them pettishly over his back, and tossed some from side to side. I was in momentary dread lest a horse should neigh and disturb him, as they were within 200 paces of where he stood. Everything was, however, quiet in that direction, where the hiding coolies were watching the impending event with breathless interest. Having amused himself for some moments by kicking up the turf and dirt and throwing the sand over his back, he took it into his head to visit the main shore, and for this purpose he strode quickly in the direction of the encampment. I moved round the tree to secrete myself as he advanced. He was soon exactly at right angles with me as he was passing the tree, when he suddenly stopped: his whole demeanour changed in an instant; his ears cocked, his eyes gleamed, his tail on end and his trunk raised high in the air, he turned the distended tip towards the tree from behind which I was watching him. He was perfectly motionless and silent in this attitude for some moments. He was thirty yards from me, as I supposed at the time, and I reserved my fire, having the four-ounce rifle ready. Suddenly, with his trunk still raised, his long legs swung forward towards me. There was no time to lose; I was discovered, and a front shot would be useless with his trunk in that position. Just as his head was in the act of turning towards me I took a steady shot at his temple. He sank gently upon his knees, and never afterwards moved a muscle! His eyes were open, and so bright that I pushed my finger in them to assure myself that life was perfectly extinct. He was exactly thirty-two paces from the rifle, and the ball had passed in at one temple and out at the other. His height may be imagined from this rough method of measuring. A gun-bearer climbed upon his back as the elephant lay upon all-fours, and holding a long stick across his spine at right angles, I could just touch it with the points of my fingers by reaching to my utmost height. Thus, as he lay, his back was seven feet two inches, perpendicular height, from the ground. This would make his height when erect about twelve feet on the spine-an enormous height for an elephant, as twelve feet on the top of the back is about equal to eleven feet six inches at the shoulder. If I had not fortunately killed this elephant at the first shot, I should have had enough to do to take care of myself, as he was one of the most vicious-looking brutes that I ever saw, and he was in the very act of charging when I shot him. With these elephants the four-ounce rifle is an invaluable weapon; even if the animal is not struck in the mortal spot, the force of the blow upon the head is so great that it will generally bring him upon his knees, or at least stop him. It has failed once or twice in this, but not often; and upon those occasions I had loaded with the conical ball. This, although it will penetrate much farther through a thick substance than a round ball, is not so effective in elephant-shooting as the latter. The reason is plain enough. No shot in the head will kill an elephant dead unless it passes through the brain; an ounce ball will effect this as well as a six-pound shot; but there are many cases where the brain cannot be touched, by a peculiar method of carrying the head and trunk in charging, etc.; a power is then required that by the concussion will knock him down, or turn him; this power is greater in the round ball than in the conical, as a larger surface is suddenly struck. The effect is similar to a man being run through the arm with a rapier or thrust at with a poker--the rapier will pass through him almost without his knowledge, but the poker will knock him down. Thus the pointed conical ball will, perhaps, pass through an elephant's forehead and penetrate as far as his shoulders, but it will produce no immediate effect. For buffalo-shooting the conical ball is preferable, as with the heavy charge of powder that I use it will pass completely through him from end to end. A four-ounce ball, raking an animal from stem to stern, must settle him at once. This is a desirable thing to accomplish with wild buffaloes, as they may, frequently prove awkward customers, even after receiving several mortal wounds from light guns. The four-ounce conical ball should be an excellent weapon for African shooting, where the usual shot at an elephant is at the shoulder. This shot would never answer in Ceylon; the country is not sufficiently open to watch the effects produced upon the animal, and although he may have a mortal wound, he carries it away with him and is not bagged. I have frequently tried this shot; and, although I have seen the elephants go away with ears and trunk drooping, still I have never bagged more than one by any but the head shot. This fellow was a small 'tusker,' who formed one of a herd in thick thorny jungle. There were several rocks in this low jungle which overtopped the highest bushes; and having taken my station upon one of these, I got a downward shot between the shoulders at the tusker, and dropped him immediately as the herd passed beneath. The jungle was so thick that I could not see his head, or, of course, I should have chosen the usual shot. This shot was not a fair criterion for the shoulder, as I happened to be in a position that enabled me to fire down upon him, and the ball most likely passed completely through him. I remember a curious and unexpected shot that I once made with the four-ounce rifle, which illustrates its immense power. I was shooting at Minneria, and was returning to the tent in the afternoon, having had a great day's sport with buffaloes, when I saw a large herd in the distance, ranged up together, and gazing intently at some object near them. Being on horseback I rode up to them, carrying my heavy rifle; and, upon a near approach I discovered two large bulls fighting furiously. This combat was exciting the attention of the herd, who retreated upon my approach. The two bulls were so engaged in their duel that they did not notice me until I was within fifty yards of them. First one, then the other, was borne to the ground, when presently their horns became locked together, as though arm in arm. The more they tugged to separate themselves, the tighter they held together, and at length they ranged side by side, Taking a shot at the shoulder of the nearest bull, they both fell suddenly to the ground. The fall unlocked their horns, and one bull recovering his legs, retreated at a slow pace and dead lame. The nearest bull was killed, and mounting my horse I galloped after the wounded buffalo. The chase did not last long. Upon arriving within fifty yards of his flank, I noticed the blood streaming from his mouth, and he presently rolled over and died. The ball, having passed through his antagonist, had entered his shoulder, and, smashing the shoulder-blade, had passed through the body, lodging in the tough hide upon his opposite side, from which I extracted it by simply cutting the skin which covered it. I have frequently seen the bull buffaloes fight each other with great fury. Upon these occasions they are generally the most dangerous, all their natural ferocity being increased by the heat of the combat. I was once in pursuit of an elephant which led me across the plain at Minneria, when I suddenly observed a large bull buffalo making towards me, as though to cut me off in the very direction in which I was advancing. Upon his near approach I noticed numerous bloody cuts and scratches upon his neck and shoulders, which were evidently only just made by the horns of some bull with whom he had been fighting. Not wishing to fire, lest I should alarm the elephant, I endeavoured to avoid him, but this was no easy task. He advanced to within fifty paces of me, and, ploughing up the ground with his horns, and roaring, he seemed determined to make an attack. However, I managed to pass him at length, being determined to pay him off on my return, if he were still in the same spot. On arriving near the position of the elephant, I saw at once that it was impossible to get him: he was standing in a deep morass of great extent, backed by thick jungles, and I could not approach nearer than 150 paces. After trying several ruses to induce him to quit his mud-bath and come on, I found it was of no use; he was not disposed to be a fighter, as he saw my strong position upon some open rising ground among some large trees. I therefore took a rest upon the branch of a tree, and gave him a shot from the four-ounce rifle through the shoulder. This sent him to the thick jungle with ears and trunk drooping, but produced no other effect. I therefore returned towards the tent, fully expecting to meet my old enemy, the bull, whom I had left master of the field. In this I was not disappointed; he was standing within a few yards of the same spot, and, upon seeing me, he immediately advanced, having a very poor opinion of an enemy who had retreated from him an hour previous. Instead of charging at a rapid pace he trotted slowly up, and I gave him the four-ounce when within fifty yards. This knocked him over; but, to my astonishment, he recovered himself instantly and galloped towards me. Again he stopped within twenty yards of me, and it was fortunate for me that he did; for a servant who was carrying my long two-ounce rifle had, in his excitement, cocked it and actually set the hair-trigger. This he managed to touch as he handed it to me, and it exploded close to my head. I had only a light double-gun loaded, and the buffalo was evidently prepared to charge in a few seconds. To my great satisfaction I saw the bloody foam gathering upon his lips, and I knew that he was struck through the lungs; but, nevertheless, the distance was so short between us that he could reach me in two or three bounds. Keeping my Moorman with the light gun close to me in readiness, I began to load my two big rifles. In the mean time the bull was advancing step by step with an expression of determined malice, and my Cingalese servant, in an abject state of fright, was imploring me to run--simply as an excuse for his own flight. 'Buffalo's coming, sar! Master, run plenty, quick! Buffalo's coming, sar! Master, get big tree!' I could not turn to silence the fellow, but I caught him a fine backward kick upon the shins with my heel, which stopped him, and in a few seconds I was loaded and the four-ounce was in my hand. The bull, at this time, was not fifteen yards from me; but, just as I was going to fire, I saw him reel to one side; and in another moment he rolled upon his back, a dead buffalo, although I had not fired after my first shot. The ball, having entered his chest, was sticking in the skin of his haunch, having passed through his lungs. His wonderful pluck had kept him upon his legs until life was extinct. I am almost tired of recounting so many instances of the courage of these beasts. When I look back to those scenes, so many ghosts of victims rise up before me that, were I to relate one-half their histories, it would fill a volume. The object in describing these encounters is to show the style of animal that the buffalo is in his natural state. I could relate a hundred instances where they have died like curs, and have afforded no more sport than tame cows; but I merely enumerate those scenes worth relating that I have witnessed. This will show that the character of a wild buffalo can never be depended upon; and if the pursuit is followed up as a sport by itself, the nature of the animal cannot be judged by the individual behaviour of any particular beast. Some will fight and some will fly, and no one can tell which will take place; it is at the option of the beast. Caution and good shooting, combined with heavy rifles, are necessary. Without heavy metal the sport would be superlatively dangerous if regularly followed up. Many persons kill a wild buffalo every now and then; but I have never met with a single sportsman in Ceylon who has devoted himself to the pursuit as a separate sport. Unless this is done the real character of buffaloes in general must remain unknown. It may, however, be considered as a rule with few exceptions that the buffaloes seldom commence the attack unless pursued. Their instinct at once tells them whether the man advancing towards them over the plain comes as an enemy. They may then attack; but if unmolested they will generally retreat, and, like all men of true courage, they will never seek a quarrel, and never give in when it is forced upon them. Many descriptions of my encounters with these animals may appear to militate against this theory, but they are the exceptions that I have met with; the fierce look of defiance and the quick tossing of the head may appear to portend a charge, but the animals are generally satisfied with this demonstration, and retreat. Attack the single bulls and follow them up, and they will soon show their real character. Heavy rifles then make a good sport of what would otherwise be a chance of ten to one against the man. It must be remembered that the attack is generally upon an extensive plain, without a single sheltering tree; escape by speed is therefore impossible, and even a horse must be a good one or a buffalo will catch him. Without wading through the many scenes of carnage that I have witnessed in this branch of sport, I will sum up the account of buffalo-shooting by a description of one day's work at Minneria. The tent was pitched in a secluded spot beneath some shady trees, through which no ray of sun could penetrate; the open forest surrounded it on all sides, but through the vistas of dark stems the beautiful green plain and glassy lake could be seen stretching into an undefined distance. The blue hills, apparently springing from the bosom of the lake, lined the horizon, and the shadowy forms of the Kandian mountains mingled indistinctly with the distant clouds. From this spot, with a good telescope, I could watch the greater part of the plain, which was at this time enlivened by the numerous herds of wild buffaloes scattered over the surface. A large bull was standing alone about half a mile from the tent, and I thought him a fine beast to begin with. I started with two well-known and trusty gun-bearers. This bull apparently did not wish to fight, and when at nearly 400 yards' distance he turned and galloped off. I put up all the sights of the long two-ounce rifle, and for an instant he dropped to the shot at this distance, but recovering immediately he turned round, and, although upon only three legs, he charged towards me. At this distance I should have had ample time to reload before he could have come near me, so I took a quiet shot at him with my four-ounce rifle. A second passed, and he pitched upon his head and lay upon the ground, struggling in vain to rise. This was an immensely long shot to produce so immediate an effect so reloading quickly I stepped the distance. I measured 352 paces, and I then stood within ten yards of him, as he still lay upon the ground, endeavouring vainly to rush at me. A ball in his head settled him. The first shot had broken his hind leg--and the shot with the big rifle had hit him on the nose, and, tearing away the upper jaw, it had passed along his neck and escaped from behind his shoulder. This was a great chance to hit him so exactly at such a range. His skull is now in England, exhibiting the terrific effect of the heavy ball. I had made up my mind for a long day's work, and I therefore mounted my horse and rode over the plain. The buffaloes were very wild, as I had been shooting here for some days, and there were no less than forty-two carcasses scattered about the plain in different directions. I fired several ineffectual shots at immense ranges; at length I even fired at random into a large herd, which seemed determined to take to the jungle. After they had galloped for a quarter of a mile, a cow dropped to the rear and presently fell. Upon riding up to her I found her in the last gasp; the random shot had struck her behind the shoulder, and I finished her by a ball in the head. One of the bulls from this herd had separated from the troop, and had taken to the lake; he had waded out for about 400 yards, and was standing shoulder-deep. This was a fine target; a black spot upon the bright surface of the lake, although there was not more than eighteen inches of his body above the water. I rode to the very edge of the lake, and then dismounting I took a rest upon my saddle. My horse, being well accustomed to this work, stood like a statue, but the ball dapped in the water just beyond the mark. The buffalo did not move an inch until the third shot. This hit him, and he swam still farther off; but he soon got his footing, and again gave a fair mark as before. I missed him again, having fired a little over him. The fifth shot brought luck and sank him. I do not know where he was hit, as of course I could not get to him; but most likely it was in the spine, as so small a portion of his body was above water. I passed nearly the whole day in practising at long ranges; but with no very satisfactory effect; several buffaloes badly wounded had reached the jungle, and my shoulder was so sore from the recoil of the heavy rifle during several days' shooting with the large charge of powder, that I was obliged to reduce the charge to six drachms and give up the long shots. It was late in the afternoon, and the heat of the day had been intense. I was very hungry, not having breakfasted, and I made up my mind to return to the tent, which was now some eight miles distant. I was riding over the plain on my way home, when I saw a fine bull spring from a swampy hollow and gallop off. Putting spurs to my horse, I was soon after him, carrying the four-ounce rifle; and, upon seeing himself pursued, he took shelter in a low but dry hollow, which was a mass of lofty bulrush and coarse tangled grass, rising about ten feet high in an impervious mass. This had been a pool in the wet weather, but was now dried up, and was nothing but a bed of sedges and high rushes. I could see nothing of the bull, although I knew he was in it. The hollow was in the centre of a wide plain, so I knew that the buffalo could not have passed out without my seeing him, and my gun-bearers having come up, I made them pelt the rushes with dried clods of earth. It was of no use: he would not break cover; so I determined to ride in and hunt him up. The grass was so thick and entangled with the rushes that my horse could with difficulty force his way through it; and when within the dense mass of vegetation it towered high above my head, and was so thick that I could not see a yard to my right or left. I beat about to no purpose for about twenty minutes, and I was on the point of giving it up, when I suddenly saw the tall reeds bow down just before me. I heard the rush of an animal as he burst through, and I just saw the broad black nose, quickly followed by the head and horns, as the buffalo charged into me. The horse reared to his full height as the horns almost touched his chest, and I fired as well as I was able. In another instant I was rolling on the ground, with my horse upon me, in a cloud of smoke and confusion. In a most unsportsmanlike manner (as persons may exclaim who were not there) I hid behind my horse, as he regained his legs. All was still--the snorting of the frightened horse was all that I could hear. I expected to have seen the infuriated buffalo among us. I peeped over the horse's back, and, to my delight and surprise, I saw the carcass of the bull lying within three feet of him. His head was pierced by the ball exactly between the horns, and death had been instantaneous. The horse, having reared to his full height, had entangled his hind legs in the grass, and he had fallen backwards without being touched by the buffalo, although the horns were close into him. I was rather pleased at being so well out of this scrape, and I made up my mind never again to follow buffaloes into high grass. Turning towards the position of the tent, I rode homewards. The plain appeared deserted, and I rode for three or four miles along the shores of the lake without seeing a head of game. At length, when within about three miles of the encampment, I saw a small herd of five buffaloes and three half-grown calves standing upon a narrow point of muddy ground which projected for some distance into the lake. I immediately rode towards them, and upon approaching to within sixty yards, I found they consisted of three cows, two bulls, and three calves. I had advanced towards them upon the neck of land upon which they stood; there was, therefore, no retreat for them unless they took to the water. They perceived this themselves, but they preferred the bolder plan of charging through all opposition and then reaching the main land. After a few preliminary grunts and tosses of the head, one of the bulls charged straight at me at full gallop; he was not followed by his companions, who were still irresolute; and, when within forty yards, he sprang high in the air, and pitching upon his horns, he floundered upon his back as the rifle-ball passed through his neck and broke his spine. I immediately commenced reloading, but the ball was only half-way down the barrel when the remaining bull, undismayed by the fate of his companion, rushed on at full speed. Snatching the long two-ounce rifle from a gun-bearer, I made a lucky shot. The ball must have passed through his heart, as he fell stone dead. The three cows remained passive spectators of the death of their mates, although I was convinced by their expression that they would eventually show fight. I was soon reloaded, and not wishing to act simply on the defensive, and thus run the risk of a simultaneous onset, I fired at the throat of the most vicious of the party. The two-ounce ball produced no other effect than an immediate charge. She bounded towards me, and, although bleeding at the mouth, the distance was so short that she would have been into me had I not stopped her with the four-ounce rifle, which brought her to the ground when within fifteen paces; here she lay disabled, but not dead, and again I reloaded as fast as possible. The two remaining cows appeared to have taken a lesson from the fate of their comrades; and showing no disposition to charge, I advanced towards them to within twenty yards. One of the cows now commended tearing the muddy ground with her horns, and thus offered a certain shot, which I accordingly took, and dropped her dead with a ball in the nape of the neck. This was too much for the remaining buffalo; she turned to plunge into the lake, but the four-ounce through her shoulder brought her down before she could reach the water, into which the three calves had sprung, and were swimming for the main shore. I hit the last calf in the head with a double-barrelled gun, and he immediately sank; and I missed another calf with the left-hand barrel; therefore two escaped. I sent a man into the water to find the dead calf, which he soon did, and hauled it to the shore; and having reloaded, I proceeded to examine the hits on the dead buffaloes. It was fortunate that I had reloaded; for I had no sooner approached to within three or four yards of the cow that I had left dying, when she suddenly sprang to her feet, and would have charged, had I not killed her by a ball in the head from a light double-barrel that I was then carrying. These animals had shown as good sport as I had ever witnessed in buffalo-shooting, but the two heavy rifles were fearful odds against them, and they were added to the list of the slain. It was now late in the evening, and I had had a long day's work in the broiling sun. I had bagged ten buffaloes, including the calf, and having cut a fillet from the latter, I took a gun, loaded with shot, from my horse-keeper, and gave up ball-shooting, having turned my attention to a large flock of teal, which I had disturbed in attacking the buffaloes. This flock I had marked down in a small stream which flowed into the lake. A cautious approach upon my hands and knees, through the grass, brought me undiscovered to the bank of the stream, where, in a small bay, it emptied itself into the lake, and a flock of about eighty teal were swimming among the water-lilies within twenty yards of me. I fired one barrel on the water, and the other in the air as they rose, killing five and wounding a sixth, which escaped by continual diving. On my way home I killed a few snipe, till at length the cessation of daylight put an end to all shooting. The moon was full and shone over the lake with great brilliancy; the air was cool and refreshing after the great heat of the day; and the chirp of the snipe and whistling sound of the wild fowl on the lake were the only noises that disturbed the wild scene around. The tent fires were blazing brightly in the forest at about a mile distant; and giving my gun to the horse-keeper, I mounted and rode towards the spot. I was within half a mile of the tent, and had just turned round an angle made by the forest, when I suddenly saw the grey forms of several elephants, who had just emerged from the forest, and were feeding in the high grass within a hundred yards of me. I counted seven, six of which were close to the edge of the jungle, but the seventh was a large bull elephant, who had advanced by himself about sixty yards into the plain. I thought I could cut this fellow off, and, taking my big rifle, I dismounted and crept cautiously towards him. He winded me before I had gone many paces, gave a shrill trumpet of alarm, and started off for the jungle; the rest of the herd vanished like magic, while I ran after the bull elephant at my best speed. He was too quick for me, and I could not gain upon him, so, halting suddenly, I took a steady shot at his ear with the four-ounce at about seventy yards. Down he went to the shot, but I heard him roar as he lay upon the ground, and I knew he would be up again in a moment. In the same instant, as I dropped my empty rifle, a double-barrelled gun was pushed into my hand, and I ran up to him, just in time to catch him as he was half risen. Feeling sure of him, I ran up within two yards of his head and fired into his forehead. To my amazement he jumped quickly up, and with a loud trumpet he rushed towards the jungle. I could just keep close alongside him, as the grass was short and the ground level, and being determined to get him, I ran close to his shoulder, and, taking a steady shot behind the ear, I fired my remaining barrel. Judge of my surprise!--it only increased his speed, and in another moment he reached the jungle: he was gone. He seemed to bear a charmed life. I had taken two shots within a few feet of him that I would have staked my life upon. I looked at my gun. Ye gods! I had been firing SNIPE SHOT at him. It was my rascally horse-keeper, who had actually handed me the shot-gun, which I had received as the double-barrelled ball-gun that I knew was carried by a gun-bearer. How I did thrash him! If the elephant had charged instead of making off I should have been caught to a certainty. This day's shooting was the last day of good sport that I ever had at Minneria. It was in June, 1847. The next morning I moved my encampment and started homewards. To my surprise I saw a rogue elephant drinking in the lake, within a quarter of a mile of me; but the Fates were against his capture. I stalked him as well as I could, but he winded me, and came on in full charge with his trunk up. The heavy rifle fortunately turned but did not kill him, and he escaped in thorny jungle, through which I did not choose to follow. On my way to the main road from Trincomalee to Kandy I walked on through the jungle path, about a mile ahead of my followers, to look out for game. Upon arriving at the open country in the neighbourhood of Cowdellai, I got a shot at a deer at a killing distance. She was not twenty yards off, and was looking at me as if spellbound. This provided me with venison for a couple of days. The rapid decomposition of all things in a tropical climate renders a continued supply of animal food very precarious, if the produce of the rifle is alone to be depended upon. Venison killed on one day would be uneatable on the day following, unless it were half-dressed shortly after it was killed; thus the size of the animal in no way contributes to the continuation of the supply of food, as the meat will not keep. Even snipe killed on one morning are putrid the next evening; the quantity of game required for the subsistence of one person is consequently very large. After killing the deer I stalked a fine peacock, who gave me an hour's work before I could get near him. These birds are very wary and difficult to approach; but I at length got him into a large bush, surrounded by open ground. A stone thrown into this dislodged him, and he gave me a splendid flying shot at about thirty yards. I bagged him with the two-ounce rifle, but the large ball damaged him terribly. There are few better birds than a Ceylon peafowl, if kept for two days and then washed in vinegar: they combine the flavour of the turkey and the pheasant. I was obliged to carry the bird myself, as my two gun-bearers were staggering under the weight of the deer, and the spare guns were carried by my tracker. We were proceeding slowly along, when the tracker, who was in advance, suddenly sprang back and pointed to some object in the path. It was certainly enough to startle any man. An enormous serpent lay coiled in the path. His head was about the size of a very small cocoa-nut, divided lengthways, and this was raised about eighteen inches above the coil. His eyes were fixed upon us, and his forked tongue played in and out of his mouth with a continued hiss. Aiming at his head, I fired at him with a double-barrelled gun, within four paces, and blew his head to pieces. He appeared stone dead; but upon pulling him by the tail, to stretch him out at full length, he wreathed himself in convulsive coils, and lashing himself out in full length, he mowed down the high grass in all directions. This obliged me to stand clear, as his blows were terrific, and the thickest part of his body was as large as a man's thigh. I at length thought of an expedient for securing him. Cutting some sharp-pointed stakes, I waited till he was again quiet, when I suddenly pinned his tail to the ground with my hunting-knife, and thrusting the pointed stake into the hole, I drove it deeply into the ground with the butt end of my rifle. The boa made some objection to this, and again he commenced his former muscular contortions. I waited till they were over, and having provided myself with some tough jungle rope (a species of creeper), I once more approached him, and pinning his throat to the ground with a stake, I tied the rope through the incision, and the united exertions of myself and three men hauled him out perfectly straight. I then drove a stake firmly through his throat and pinned him out. He was fifteen feet in length, and it required our united strength to tear off his skin, which shone with a variety of passing colours. On losing his hide he tore away from the stakes; and although his head was shivered to atoms, and he had lost three feet of his length of neck by the ball having cut through this part, which separated in tearing off the skin, still he lashed out and writhed in frightful convulsions, which continued until I left him, bearing as my trophy his scaly hide. These boas will kill deer, and by crushing them into a sort of sausage they are enabled by degrees to swallow them. There are many of these reptiles in Ceylon; but they are seldom seen, as they generally wander forth at night. There are marvellous stories of their size, and my men assured me that they had seen much larger than the snake now mentioned; to me he appeared a horrible monster. I do not know anything so disgusting as a snake. There is an instinctive feeling that the arch enemy is personified when these wretches glide by you, and the blood chills with horror. I took the dried skin of this fellow to England; it measures twelve feet in its dry state, minus the piece that was broken from his neck, making him the length before mentioned of fifteen feet. I have often been astonished that comparatively so few accidents happen in Ceylon from snake-bites; their immense number and the close nature of the country making it a dangerous risk to the naked feet of the natives. I was once lying upon a sofa in a rest-house at Kandellai, when I saw a snake about four feet long glide in at the open door, and, as though accustomed to a particular spot for his lodging, he at once climbed upon another sofa and coiled himself under the pillow. My brother had only just risen from this sofa, and was sitting at the table watching the movements of his uninvited bedfellow. I soon poked him out with a stick, and cut off his head with a hunting-knife. This snake was of a very poisonous description, and was evidently accustomed to lodge behind the pillow, upon which the unwary sleeper might have received a fatal bite. Upon taking possession of an unfrequented rest-house, the cushions of the sofas and bedsteads should always be examined, as they are great attractions to snakes, scorpions, centipedes, and all manner of reptiles. CHAPTER VII Capabilities of Ceylon--Deer at Illepecadewe--Sagacity of a Pariah Dog--Two Deer at One Shot--Deer-stalking--Hambantotte Country--Kattregam Festival--Sitrawelle--Ruins of Ancient Mahagam--Wiharewelle--A Night Attack upon Elephants--Shooting by Moonlight--Yalle River--Another Rogue--A Stroll before Breakfast--A Curious Shot--A Good Day's Sport. There are few countries which present a more lovely appearance than Ceylon. There is a diversity in the scenery which refreshes the eye; and although the evergreen appearance might appear monotonous to some persons, still, were they residents, they would observe that the colour of the foliage is undergoing a constant change by the varying tints of the leaves in the different stages of their growth. These tints are far more lovely than the autumnal shades of England, and their brilliancy is enhanced by the idea that it is the bursting of the young leaf into life, the freshness of youth instead of the sere leaf of a past summer, which, after gilding for a few days the beauty of the woods, drops from frozen branches and deserts them. Every shade of colour is seen in the Ceylon forests, as the young leaves are constantly replacing those which have fallen without being missed. The deepest crimson, the brightest yellow and green of every shade, combine to form a beautiful crest to the forest-covered surface of the island. There is no doubt, however, that there is too much wood in Ceylon; it prevents the free circulation of air, and promotes dampness, malaria, and consequently fevers and dysentery, the latter disease being the scourge of the colony. The low country is accordingly decidedly unhealthy. This vast amount of forest and jungle is a great impediment to the enjoyment of travelling. The heat in the narrow paths cut through dense jungles is extreme; and after a journey of seventy or eighty miles through this style of country the eye scans the wild plains and mountains with delight. Some districts, however, are perfectly devoid of trees, and form a succession of undulating downs of short grass. Other parts, again, although devoid of heavy timber, are covered with dense thorny jungles, especially the country adjoining the sea-coast, which is generally of a uniform character round the whole island, being interspersed with sand plains producing a short grass. Much has been said by some authors of the "capabilities" of Ceylon; but however enticing the description of these capabilities may have been, the proof has been decidedly in opposition to the theory. Few countries exist with such an immense proportion of bad soil. There are no minerals except iron, no limestone except dolomite, no other rocks than quartz and gneiss. The natural pastures are poor; the timber of the forests is the only natural production of any value, with the exception of cinnamon. Sugar estates do not answer, and coffee requires an expensive system of cultivation by frequent manuring. In fact, the soil is wretched; so bad that the natives, by felling the forest and burning the timber upon the ground, can only produce one crop of some poor grain; the land is then exhausted, and upon its consequent desertion it gives birth to an impenetrable mass of low jungle, comprising every thorn that can be conceived. This deserted land, fallen again into the hand of Nature, forms the jungle of Ceylon; and as native cultivation has thus continued for some thousand years, the immense tract of country now in this impenetrable state is easily accounted for. The forests vary in appearance; some are perfectly free from underwood, being composed of enormous trees, whose branches effectually exclude the rays of the sun; but they generally consist of large trees, which tower above a thick, and for the most part thorny, underwood, difficult to penetrate. The features of Ceylon scenery may, therefore, be divided as follows:-- Natural forest, extending over the greater portion. Thorny jungle, extending over a large portion. Flat plains and thorny jungles, in the vicinity of the coast. Open down country, extending over a small portion of the interior. Open park country, extending over the greater portion of the Veddah district. The mountains, forming the centre of the island. The latter are mostly covered with forest, but they are beautifully varied by numberless open plains and hills of grass land at an altitude of from three to nearly nine thousand feet. If Ceylon were an open country, there would be no large game, as there would be no shelter from the sun. In the beautiful open down country throughout the Ouva district there is no game larger than wild hogs, red-deer, mouse-deer, hares, and partridges. These animals shelter themselves in the low bushes, which generally consist of the wild guavas, and occupy the hollows between the undulations of the hills. The thorny jungles conceal a mass of game of all kinds, but in this retreat the animals are secure from attack. In the vicinity of the coast, among the 'flat plains and thorny jungles,' there is always excellent shooting at particular seasons. The spotted deer abound throughout Ceylon, especially in these parts, where they are often seen in herds of a hundred together. In many places they are far too numerous, as, from the want of inhabitants in these parts, there are no consumers, and these beautiful beasts would be shot to waste. In the neighbourhood of Paliar and Illepecadewe, on the north-west coast, I have shot them till I was satiated and it ceased to be sport. We had nine fine deer hanging up in one day, and they were putrefying faster than the few inhabitants could preserve them by smoking and drying them in steaks. I could have shot them in any number, had I chosen to kill simply for the sake of murder; but I cannot conceive any person finding an enjoyment in slaying these splendid deer to rot upon the ground. I was once shooting at Illepecadewe, which is a lonely, miserable spot, when I met with a very sagacious and original sportsman in a most unexpected manner. I was shooting with a friend, and we had separated for a few hundred paces. I presently got a shot at a peafowl, and killed her with my rifle. The shot was no sooner fired than I heard another shot in the jungle, in the direction taken by my friend. My rifle was still unloaded when a spotted doe bounded out of the jungle, followed by a white pariah dog in full chase. Who would have dreamt of meeting with a dog at this distance from a village (about four miles)? I whistled to the dog, and to my surprise he came to me, the deer having left him out of sight in a few seconds. He was a knowing-looking brute, and was evidently out hunting on his own account. Just at this moment my friend called to me that he had wounded a buck, and that he had found the blood-track. I picked a blade of grass from the spot which was tinged with blood; and holding it to the dog's nose, he eagerly followed me to the track; upon which I dropped it. He went off in a moment; but, running mute, I was obliged to follow; and after a chase of a quarter of a mile I lost sight of him. In following up the foot-track of the wounded deer I heard the distant barking of the dog, by which I knew that he had brought the buck to bay, and I was soon at the spot. The buck had taken up a position in a small glade, and was charging the dog furiously; but the pariah was too knowing to court the danger, and kept well out of the way. I shot the buck, and, tying a piece of jungle-rope to the dog's neck, gave him to a gun-bearer to lead, as I hoped he might be again useful in hunting up a wounded deer. I had not proceeded more than half a mile, when we arrived at the edge of a small sluggish stream, covered in most places with rushes and water-lilies. We forded this about hip-deep, but the gun-bearer who had the dog could not prevail upon our mute companion to follow; he pulled violently back and shrinked, and evinced every symptom of terror at the approach of water. I was now at the opposite bank, and nothing would induce him to come near the river, so I told the gun-bearer to drag him across by force. This he accordingly did, and the dog swam with frantic exertions across the river, and managed to disengage his head from the rope. The moment that he arrived on terra firma he rushed up a steep bank and looked attentively down into the water beneath. We now gave him credit for his sagacity in refusing to cross the dangerous passage. The reeds bowed down to the right and left as a huge crocodile of about eighteen feet in length moved slowly from his shallow bed into a deep hole. The dog turned to the right-about, and went off as fast as his legs would carry him. No calling or whistling would induce him to return, and I never saw him again. How he knew that a crocodile was in the stream I cannot imagine. He must have had a narrow escape at some former time, which was a lesson that he seemed determined to profit by. Shortly after the disappearance of the dog, I separated from my companion and took a different line of country. Large plains, with thorny jungles and bushes of the long cockspur thorn interspersed, formed the character of the ground. This place literally swarmed with peafowl, partridges, and deer. I killed another peacock, and the shot disturbed a herd of about sixty deer, who bounded over the plain till out of sight. I tracked up this herd for nearly a mile, when I observed them behind a large bush; some were lying down and others were standing. A buck and doe presently quitted the herd, and advancing a few paces from the bush they halted, and evidently winded me. I was screening myself behind a small tree, and the open ground between me and the game precluded the possibility of a nearer approach. It was a random distance for a deer, but I took a rest against the stem of the tree and fired at the buck as he stood with his broadside exposed, being shoulder to shoulder with the doe. Away went the herd, flying over the plain; but, to my delight, there were two white bellies struggling upon the ground. I ran up to cut their throats; (*1 This is necessary to allow the blood to escape, otherwise they would be unfit for food) the two-ounce ball had passed through the shoulders of both; and I stepped the distance to the tree from which I had fired, 'two hundred and thirteen paces.' Shortly after this 1 got another shot which, by a chance, killed two deer. I was strolling through a narrow glade with open jungles upon either side, when I suddenly heard a quick double shot, followed by the rush of a large herd of deer coming through the jungle. I immediately lay flat upon the ground, and presently an immense herd of full a hundred deer passed across the glade at full gallop, within seventy yards of me. Jumping up, I fired at a doe, and, to my surprise, two deer fell to the shot, one of which was a fawn; the ball had passed through the shoulder of the mother, and had broken the fawn's neck upon the opposite side. I am astonished that this chance of killing two at one shot does not more often happen when the dense body of a herd of deer is exposed to a rifle-ball. Deer-stalking is one of the most exciting sports in the world. I have often crept upon hands and knees for upwards of a quarter of a mile through mud and grass to get a shot at a fine antlered buck. It frequently happens that after a long stalk in this manner, when some sheltering object is reached which you have determined upon for the shot, just as you raise your head above the grass in expectation of seeing the game, you find a blank. He has watched your progress by the nose, although the danger was hidden from his view, and your trouble is unrewarded. In all wild shooting, in every country and climate, the 'wind' is the first consideration. If you hunt down wind you will never get a deer. You will have occasional glimpses of your game, who will be gazing intently at you at great distances long before you can see them, but you will never get a decent shot. The great excitement and pleasure of all sport consists in a thorough knowledge of the pursuit. When the dew is heavy upon the ground at break of day, you are strolling noiselessly along with the rifle, scanning the wide plains and searching the banks of the pools and streams for foot-marks of the spotted deer. Upon discovering the tracks their date is immediately known, the vicinity of the game is surmised, the tracks are followed up, and the herd is at length discovered. The wind is observed; dry leaves crumbled into powder and let fall from the hand detect the direction if the slightest air is stirring, and the approach is made accordingly. Every stone, every bush or tree or tuft of grass, is noted as a cover for an advance, and the body being kept in a direct line with each of these objects, you approach upon hands and knees from each successive place of shelter till a proper distance is gained. The stalking is the most exciting sport in the world. I have frequently heard my own heart beat while creeping up to a deer. He is an animal of wonderful acuteness, and possessing the keenest scent; he is always on the alert, watching for danger from his stealthy foe the leopard, who is a perfect deer-stalker. To kill spotted deer well, if they are tolerably wild, a person must be a really good rifle shot, otherwise wise he will wound many, but seldom bag one. They are wonderfully fast, and their bounding pace makes them extremely difficult to hit while running. Even when standing they must be struck either through the head, neck, or shoulder, or they will rarely be killed on the spot; in any other part, if wounded, they will escape as though untouched, and die a miserable death in solitude. In narrating long shots that I have made, I recount them as bright moments in the hours of sport; they are the exceptions and not the rule. I consider a man a first-rate shot who can ALWAYS bag his deer standing at eighty yards, or running at fifty. HITTING and BAGGING are widely different. If a man can always bag at the distance that I have named he will constantly hit, and frequently bag, at extraordinary ranges, as there is no doubt of his shooting, and, when he misses, the ball has whizzed somewhere very close to the object; the chances are, therefore, in favour of the rifle. The deer differ in character in various parts of Ceylon. In some places where they are rarely disturbed they can be approached to within thirty or forty paces, in which case a very moderate shot can easily kill them; but it is better sport when they are moderately wild. The greatest number of deer that I ever saw was in the south-eastern part of Ceylon, in the neighbourhood of Pontane and Yalle. The whole of this country is almost uninhabited, and accordingly undisturbed. Yalle is the nearest town of importance, from which a good road, lined on either side with cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees, extends as far as Tangalle, fifty miles. A few miles beyond this village the wild country begins, and Hambantotte is the next station, nearly ninety miles from Yalle. The country around Hambantotte is absolutely frightful-wide extending plains of white sand and low scrubby bushes scattered here and there; salt lakes of great extent, and miserable plains of scanty herbage, surrounded by dense thorny jungles. Notwithstanding this, at some seasons the whole district is alive with game. January and February are the best months for elephants and buffaloes, and August and September are the best seasons for deer, at which time the whole country is burnt up with drought, and the game is forced to the vicinity of Yalle river and the neighbouring pools. In the wet season this district is nearly flooded, and forms a succession of deep marshes, the malaria from which is extremely unhealthy. At this time the grass is high, and the elephants are very numerous. When I was in this part of the country the drought was excessive; the jungle was parched, and the leaves dropped from the bushes under the influence of a burning sun. Not a cloud ever appeared upon the sky, but a dazzling haze of intense heat spread over the scorched plains. The smaller streams were completely dried up, and the large rivers were reduced to rivulets in the midst of a bed of sand. The whole of this country is a succession of flat sandy plains and low jungles contiguous to the sea-coast. The intense heat and the glare of the sun rendered the journey most fatiguing. I at length descried a long line of noble forest in the distance, and this I conjectured to be near the river, which turned out to be the case; we were soon relieved from the burning sun by the shade of as splendid a forest as I have ever seen. A few hundred yards from the spot at which we had entered, Yalle river rolled along in a clear stream. In the wet season this is a rapid torrent of about 150 yards in width, but at this time the bed of the river was dry, with the exception of a stream of about thirty paces broad, which ran directly beneath the bank we were descending. An unexpected scene now presented itself. The wide bed of the river was shaded on either side by groves of immense trees, whose branches stretched far over the channel; and not only beneath their shade, but in every direction, tents formed of talipot leaves were pitched, and a thousand men, women, and children lay grouped together; some were bathing in the river, some were sitting round their fires cooking a scanty meal, others lay asleep upon the sand, but all appeared to be congregated together for one purpose; and so various were the castes and costumes that every nation of the East seemed to have sent a representative. This was the season for the annual offerings to the Kattregam god, to whose temple these pilgrims were flocking, and they had made the dry bed of Valle river their temporary halting-place. A few days after, no less than 18,000 pilgrims congregated at Kattregam. I was at this time shooting with my friend, Mr. H. Walters, then of the 15th Regiment. We waded up the bed of the river for about a mile, and then pitched the tent under some fine trees in the open forest. Several wild buffaloes were drinking in the river within a short distance of us; but thinking this a likely spot for elephants, we determined not to disturb the neighbourhood by firing a shot until we had first explored the country. After a walk of a couple of hours through fine open forest and small bushy plains, we came to the conclusion that there were very few elephants in the country, and we devoted ourselves to other game. After a day or two spent in killing deer, a few wild buffaloes, and only one elephant, I felt convinced that we should never find the latter, in the dry state of the country, unless by watching at some tank at night. We therefore moved our encampment inland about twenty-five miles from Yalle. Here there is a large tank, which I concluded would be the resort of elephants. A long day's journey through a burning sun brought us to Sitrawelle. This is a small village, about six miles inward from the sea-coast village of Kesinde. Here the natives brought us plantains and buffalo milk, while we took shelter from the sun under a splendid tamarind tree. Opposite to this was a 'bo'-tree; *(very similar to the banian-tree) this grew to an extraordinary size; the wide spreading branches covered about half an acre of ground, and the trunk measured upwards of forty feet in circumference. The tamarind-tree was nearly the same size; and I never saw together two such magnificent specimens of vegetation. A few paces from this spot, a lake of about four miles' circuit lay in the centre of a plain; this was surrounded by open forests and jungles, all of which looked like good covers for game. Skirting the opposite banks of the lake, we pitched the tent under some shady trees upon a fine level sward. By this time it was nearly dusk, and I had barely time to stroll out and kill a peacock for dinner before night set in. The next morning, having been joined by my friend, Mr. P. Braybrook, then government agent of this district, our party was increased to three, and seeing no traces of elephants in this neighbourhood, we determined to proceed to a place called Wihare-welle, about six miles farther inland. Our route now lay along a broad causeway of solid masonry. On either side of this road, stone pillars of about twelve feet in height stood in broken, rows, and lay scattered in every direction through the jungle. Ruined dagobas and temples jutted their rugged summits above the tree-tops, and many lines of stone columns stood in parallel rows, the ancient supports of buildings of a similar character to those of Pollanarua and Anarajahpoora. We were among the ruins of ancient Mahagam. One of the ruined buildings had apparently rested upon seventy-two pillars. These were still erect, standing in six lines of twelve columns; every stone appeared to be about fourteen feet high by two feet square and twenty-five feet apart. This building must therefore have formed an oblong of 300 feet by 150. Many of the granite blocks were covered with rough carving; large flights of steps, now irregular from the inequality of the ground, were scattered here and there; and the general appearance of the ruins was similar to that of Pollanarua, but of smaller extent. The stone causeway which passed through the ruins was about two miles in length, being for the most part overgrown with low jungle and prickly cactus. I traversed the jungle for some distance until arrested by the impervious nature of the bushes; but wherever I went, the ground was stewed with squared stones and fallen brickwork overgrown with rank vegetation. The records of Ceylon do not afford any satisfactory information concerning the original foundation of this city. The first time that we hear of it is in the year 286 B.C.; but we have no account of the era or cause of its desertion. Although Mahagam is the only vestige of an ancient city in this district, there are many ruined buildings and isolated dagobas of great antiquity scattered throughout the country. I observed on a peak of one of the Kattregam hills large masses of fallen brickwork, the ruins of some former buildings, probably coeval with Mahagam. The whole of this district, now so wild and desolate, must in those days have been thickly populated and highly cultivated, although, from the present appearance of the country, it does not seem possible that it has ever altered its aspect since the Creation. Descending a steep bank shaded by large trees, we crossed the bed of the Manick Ganga ('Jewel River'). The sand was composed of a mixture of mica, quartz, sapphire, ruby, and jacinth, but the large proportion of ruby sand was so extraordinary that it seemed to rival Sindbad the Sailor's vale of gems. The whole of this was valueless, but the appearance of the sand was very inviting, as the shallow stream in rippling over it magnified the tiny gems into stones of some magnitude. I passed an hour in vainly searching for a ruby worth collecting, but the largest did not exceed the size of mustard seed. The natives use this sand for cutting elephants' teeth, in the same manner that a stonemason uses sand to assist him in sawing through a stone. Elephants' teeth or grinders are so hard that they will produce sparks upon being struck with a hatchet. About two miles from the opposite bank of the river, having journeyed through a narrow path bordered upon either side by thick jungle, we opened upon an extensive plain close to the village of Wihare-welle. This plain was covered with wild indigo, and abounded with peafowl. Passing through the small village at the extremity of the plain, we pitched the tent upon the borders of the lake, about a quarter of a mile beyond it. This tank was about three miles in circumference, and, like that of Sitrawelle, was one of the ancient works of the Mahagam princes. The village was almost deserted; none but the old men and women and children remained, as the able-bodied men had gone to the Kattregam festival. We could, therefore, obtain no satisfactory information regarding elephants; but I was convinced, from the high grass around the lake, that if any elephants were in the district some would be here. It was late in the evening, the coolies were heaping up the night-fires, and as darkness closed upon us, the savoury steam of a peacock that was roasting on a stick betokened the welcome approach of dinner. We had already commenced, when the roaring of elephants within a short distance of the tent gave us hope of sport on the following day. At daybreak the next morning I strolled round the lake to look for tracks. A herd of about seven had been feeding during the night within half a mile of the tent. During my walk I saw innumerable pea-fowl, jungle-fowl, hares and ducks, in addition to several herds of deer; but not wishing to disturb the country, I did not fire, but returned to the tent and sent out trackers. In the afternoon the natives returned with intelligence of a small pool two miles from the opposite shore of the lake, situated in dense jungle; here they had seen fresh elephant tracks, and they proposed that we should watch the pool that evening at the usual drinking hour of the game. As this was the only pool of water for miles round with the exception of the lake, I thought the plan likely to succeed, and we therefore started without loss of time. On arrival at the pool we took a short survey of our quarters. A small round sheet of water of perhaps eighty yards in diameter lay in the midst of a dense jungle. Several large trees were growing close to the edge, and around these lay numerous rocks of about four feet high, forming a capital place for concealment. Covering the tops of the rocks with boughs to conceal our heads, we lay quietly behind them in expectation of the approaching game. The sun sank, and the moon rose in great beauty, throwing a silvery light upon the surface of the water chequered by the dark shadows of the surrounding trees. Suddenly the hoarse bark of an elk sounded within a short distance, and I could distinguish two or three dark forms on the opposite bank. The shrill and continual barking of spotted deer now approaching nearer and nearer, the rustling in the jungle, and the splashing in the water announced continual arrivals of game to the lonely drinking-place. Notwithstanding the immense quantity of animals that were congregated together, we could not distinguish them plainly on account of the dark background of jungle. Elk, deer, buffaloes, and hogs were all bathing and drinking in immense numbers, but there were no elephants. For some hours we watched the accumulation of game; there was not a breath of air, although the scud was flying fast above us, occasionally throwing a veil over the moon and casting a sudden obscurity on the dim scene before us. Our gun-bearers were crouched around us; their dark skins matching with the ground on which they squatted, they looked like so many stumps of trees. It was nearly ten o'clock, and my eyes ached with watching; several times I found myself nodding as sleep took me by surprise; so, leaving a man to look out, we sat quietly down and discussed a cold fowl that we had brought with us. We had just finished a pint bottle of cherry brandy when I felt a gentle touch upon my shoulder, and our look-out man whispered in my ear the magic word 'alia' (elephant), at the same time pointing in the direction of the tank. The guns were all wrapped up in a blanket to keep them from the dew, so telling W. to uncover them and to distribute them to the respective gun-bearers without noise, I crept out and stole unperceived along the margin of the tank to discover the number and position of the elephants. So deceitful was the moonlight, being interrupted by the dark shadows of the jungle, that I was within ten paces of the nearest elephant before I distinguished her. I counted three--one large and two others about six feet high. Being satisfied with my information, and having ascertained that no others were in the jungle, I returned to my companions; they were all ready, and we crept forward. We were within ten paces of the large elephant, when a branch of hooked thorn caught W. by the clothes; the noise that he made in extricating himself immediately attracted the attention of the elephant, and she turned quickly round, receiving at the same moment an ineffectual shot from W.; B. at the same time fired without effect at one of the small elephants. The mother, hearing a roar from the small elephant that B. had wounded, immediately rushed up to it, and they stood side by side in the water about fifteen yards from the bank. The large elephant now cocked her ears and turned her head from side to side with great quickness to discover an enemy. I ran close to the water's edge, and the mother perceiving me immediately came forward. I could hardly distinguish the sights of my rifle, and I was, therefore, obliged to wait till she was within four or five paces before I fired. She gave me a good shot, and dropped dead. The young one was rushing about and roaring in a tremendous manner, having again been fired at and wounded by B. and W. By this time I had got a spare gun, and, wading into the tank, I soon came to such close quarters that I could not miss, and one shot killed him. The other small elephant escaped unseen in the confusion caused by the firing. The following evening we again watched the pool, and once more a mother and her young one came to drink. W. and B. extinguished the young one while I killed the mother. This watching by moonlight is a kind of sport that I do not admire; it is a sort of midnight murder, and many a poor brute who comes to the silent pool to cool his parched tongue, finds only a cup of bitterness, and retires again to his jungle haunts to die a lingering death from some unskilful wound. The best shot must frequently miss by moonlight; there is a silvery glare which renders all objects indistinct, and the shot very doubtful; thus two animals out of three fired at will generally escape wounded. I was tired of watching by night, and I again returned to the neighbourhood of Yalle. After a long ride through a burning sun, I went down to the river to bathe. The water was not more than three feet deep, and was so clear that every pebble was plainly distinguishable at the bottom. I had waded hip-deep into the river when my servant, who was on the bank, suddenly cried out, 'Sar! sar! come back, sar! Mora! mora!' and he pointed to some object a little higher up the stream. It was now within ten or twelve yards of me, and I fancied that it was a piece of drift timber, but I lost no time in reaching the shore. Slowly the object sailed along with the stream, but as it neared me, to my astonishment, a large black fin protruded from the water, and the mystery was at once cleared up. It was a large SHARK about nine feet long. In some places the water was so shallow that his tail and a portion of his back were now and then above the surface. He was in search of grey mullet, with which fish the river abounded; and at this season sharks were very numerous, as they followed the shoals for some distance up the river. My servant had been in a great state of alarm, as he thought his master would have been devoured in a few seconds; but the natives of the village quietly told me not to be afraid, but to bathe in peace, 'as sharks would not eat men at this season.' I was not disposed to put his epicurean scruples to the test; as some persons may kill a pheasant before the first of October, so he might have made a grab at me a little before the season, which would have been equally disagreeable to my feelings. The novelty of a white skin in that clear river might have proved too strong a temptation for a shark to withstand. I never saw game in such masses as had now collected in this neighbourhood. The heat was intense, and the noble forest in the vicinity of Yalle river offered an asylum to all animals beneath its shade, where good water and fine grass upon the river's bank supplied their wants. In this forest there was little or no underwood; the trees grew to an immense size and stood far apart, so that a clear range might be obtained for a hundred yards. It was, therefore, a perfect spot for deer-stalking; the tops of trees formed an impervious screen to the sun's rays; and I passed several days in wandering with my rifle through these shady solitudes, killing an immense quantity of game. The deer were in such masses that I restricted myself to bucks, and I at length became completely satiated. There was too much game; during the whole day's walk I was certainly not FIVE MINUTES without seeing either deer, elk, buffaloes, or hogs. The noise of the rifle did not appear to scare them from the forest; they would simply retreat for a time to some other portion of it, and fresh herds were met with in following up one which had been disturbed. Still, there were no elephants. Although I had upwards of fifty coolies and servants, they could not dry the venison sufficiently fast to prevent the deer from stinking as they were killed, and I resolved to leave the country. I gave orders for everything to be packed up in readiness for a start, after an early breakfast, on the following morning. The servants were engaged in arranging for the departure, when a native brought intelligence of a rogue elephant within four miles of the tent. It was late in the afternoon, but I had not seen an elephant for so long that I was determined to make his acquaintance. My friend B. accompanied me, and we immediately started on horseback. Our route lay across very extensive plains, interspersed with low thorny bushes and wide salt lakes. Innumerable wild hogs invited us to a chase. There could not be a better spot for boar-spearing, as the ground is level and clear for riding. There were numerous herds of deer and buffaloes, but we did not fire a shot, as we had determined upon an interview with the rogue. We traversed about four miles of this style of country, and were crossing a small plain, when our guide suddenly stopped and pointed to the elephant, who was about a quarter of a mile distant. He was standing on a little glade of about fifty yards across; this was surrounded upon all sides but one with dense thorny jungle, and he therefore stood in a small bay of open ground. It was a difficult position for an attack. The wind blew directly from us to him, therefore an advance in that direction was out of the question; on the other hand, if we made a circuit so as to get the wind, we should have to penetrate through the thorny jungle to arrive at him, and we should then have the five o'clock sun directly in our eyes. However, there was no alternative, and, after a little consultation, the latter plan was resolved upon. Dismounting, we ordered the horse-keepers to conceal the horses and themselves behind a thick bush, lest the elephant should observe them, and with this precaution we advanced, making a circuit of nearly a mile to obtain the wind. On arrival at the belt of thick jungle which divided us from the small glade upon which he stood, I perceived, as I had expected, that the sun was full in our eyes. This was a disadvantage which I felt convinced would lose us the elephant, unless some extraordinary chance intervened; however, we entered the thick jungle before us, and cautiously pushed our way through it. This belt was not more than fifty yards in width, and we soon broke upon the small glade. The elephant was standing with his back towards us, at about forty paces distant, close to the thick jungle by his side; and, taking my four-ounce rifle, I walked quietly but quickly towards him. Without a moment's warning he flung his trunk straight up, and, turning sharp round, he at once charged into us. The sun shone full in my eyes, so that I could do nothing but fire somewhere at his head. He fell, but immediately recovered himself, and before the smoke had cleared away he was in full retreat through the thorny jungle, the heavy ball having taken all the pluck out of him. This was just as I had expected; pursuit in such a jungle was impossible, and I was perfectly contented with having turned him. The next morning, having made all arrangements for starting homewards, after breakfast I took my rifle and one gun-bearer with a double-barrelled gun to enjoy one last stroll in the forest. It was just break of day. My first course was towards the river which flowed through it, as I expected to find the game near the water, an hour before sunrise being their time for drinking. I had not proceeded far before immense herds of deer offered tempting shots; but I was out simply in search of large antlers, and none appearing of sufficient size, I would not fire. Buffaloes continually presented themselves: I was tired of shooting these brutes, but I killed two who looked rather vicious; and I amused myself with remarking the immense quantity of game, and imagining the number of heads that I could bag had I chosen to indulge in indiscriminate slaughter. At length I noticed a splendid buck lying on the sandy bed of the river, beneath a large tree; his antlers were beautiful, and I stalked him to within sixty yards and shot him. I had not been reloaded ten minutes, and was walking quietly through the forest, when I saw a fine antlered buck standing within thirty yards of me in a small patch of underwood. His head was turned towards me, and his nostrils were distended in alarm as he prepared to bound off. I had just time to cock my rifle as he dashed off at full speed; but it was a murderous distance, and he fell dead. His antlers matched exactly with those I had last shot. I turned towards the direction of the tent, and, descending to the bed of the river, I followed the course of the stream upon the margin of dry sand. I had proceeded about half a mile, when I noticed at about 150 paces some object moving about the trunk of a large fallen tree which lay across the bed of the river. This stem was about five feet in diameter, and I presently distinguished the antlers and then the head of a large buck, as they appeared above it; he had been drinking in the stream on the opposite side, and he now raised his head, sniffing the fresh breeze. It was a tempting shot, and taking a very steady aim I fired. For a moment he was down, but recovering himself he bounded up the bank, and was soon in full speed through the forest with only one antler upon his head. I picked up the fellow-antler, which the rifle-ball had cut off within an inch of his skull. This was a narrow escape. I did not reload my rifle, as I was not far from the tent, and I was tired of shooting. Giving my rifle to the gun-bearer, I took the double-barrelled gun which he carried, and walked quickly towards breakfast. Suddenly I heard a crash in a small nook of thick bushes, like the rush of an elephant, and the next instant a buck came rushing by in full speed; his long antlers lay upon his back as he flew through the tangled saplings with a force that seemed to defy resistance. He was the largest spotted buck that I ever saw, and, being within thirty paces, I took a flying shot with the right-hand barrel. He faltered for a moment, and I immediately fired the remaining barrel. Still he continued his course, but at a reduced speed and dead lame. Loading the rifle, I soon got upon the blood-track, and I determined to hunt him down. There were many saplings in this part of the forest, and I noticed that many of them in the deer's track were besmeared with blood about two feet and a half from the ground. The tracks in the sandy soil were uneven--one of the fore-feet showed a deep impression, while the other was very faint, showing that he was wounded in the leg, as his whole weight was thrown upon one foot. Slowly and cautiously I stalked along the track, occasionally lying down to look under the bushes. For about an hour I continued this slow and silent chase; the tracks became fainter, and the bleeding appeared to have almost ceased; so few and far between were the red drops upon the ground, that I was constantly obliged to leave the gun-bearer upon the last trace, while I made a cast to discover the next track. I was at length in despair of finding him, and I was attentively scrutinising the ground for a trace of blood, which would distinguish his track from those of other deer with which the ground was covered, when I suddenly heard a rush in the underwood, and away bounded the buck at about fifty yards' distance, apparently as fresh as ever. The next instant he was gasping on the ground, the rifle-ball having passed exactly through his heart. I never could have believed that a spotted buck would have attained so large a size; he was as large as a doe elk, and his antlers were the finest I have ever seen of that species. It required eight men with two cross poles to bring him home. I reached the tent to breakfast at eight o'clock, having bagged three fine bucks and two buffaloes that morning; and being, for the time, satiated with sport, I quitted Ceylon. CHAPTER VIII. Beat-hounds for Elk-hunting--Smut--Killbuck--The Horton Plains--A Second Soyer--The Find--The Buck at Bay--The Bay--The Death--Return of Lost Dogs--Comparative Speed of Deer--Veddah Ripped by a Boar--A Melee--Buck at Black Pool--Old Smut's Ruse--Margosse Oil. The foregoing description of sporting incidents closed my first visit to Ceylon. I had arrived in the island to make a tour of the country and to enjoy its sports; this I had accomplished by a residence of twelve months, the whole of which had been occupied in wandering from place to place. I now returned to England; but the Fates had traced ANOTHER road for me, and after a short stay in the old country I again started for Ceylon, and became a resident at Newera Ellia. Making use of the experience that I had gained in wild sports, I came out well armed, according to my own ideas of weapons for the chase. I had ordered four double-barrelled rifles of No. 10 bore to be made to my own pattern; my hunting-knives and boarspear heads I had made to my own design by Paget of Piccadilly, who turned out the perfection of steel; and I arrived in Ceylon with a pack of fine foxhounds and a favourite greyhound of wonderful speed and strength, 'Bran,' who, though full of years, is still alive. The usual drawbacks and discomforts attendant upon a new settlement having been overcome, Newera Ellia forms a delightful place of residence. I soon discovered that a pack of thoroughbred foxhounds were not adapted to a country so enclosed by forest; some of the hounds were lost, others I parted with, but they are all long since dead, and their progeny, the offspring of crosses with pointers, bloodhounds and half-bred foxhounds, have turned out the right stamp for elk-hunting. It is a difficult thing to form a pack for this sport which shall be perfect in all respects. Sometimes a splendid hound in character may be more like a butcher's dog than a hound in appearance, but the pack cannot afford to part with him if he is really good. The casualties from leopards, boars, elk and lost dogs are so great that the pack is with difficulty kept up by breeding. It must be remembered that the place of a lost dog cannot be easily supplied in Ceylon. Newera Ellia is one of the rare climates in Ceylon which is suited to the constitution of a dog. In the low and hot climates they lead a short and miserable life, which is soon ended by a liver complaint; thus if a supply for the pack cannot be kept up by breeding, hounds must be procured from England at a great expense and risk. The pack now in the kennel is as near perfection as can be attained for elk-hunting, comprising ten couple, most of whom are nearly thoroughbred fox-hounds, with a few couple of immense seizers, a cross between bloodhound and greyhound, and a couple of large wire-haired lurchers, like the Scotch deer-hound. In describing the sport, I must be permitted to call up the spirits of a few heroes, who are now dead, and place them in the vacant places which they formerly occupied in the pack. The first who answers to the magic call is 'Smut,' hero of at least 400 deaths of elk and boar. He appears the same well-remembered form of strength, the sullen growl which greeted even his master, the numerous scars and seams upon his body; behold old Smut! His sire was a Manilla blood-hound, which accounted for the extreme ferocity of the son. His courage was indomitable. He was a large dog, but not high, considering his great length, but his limbs were immense in proportion. His height at the shoulder was 26 1/2 inches; his girth of brisket 34 inches. In his younger days he always opened upon a scent, and the rocky mountains and deep valleys have often echoed back his deep notes which have now, like himself, passed away. As he grew older he became cunning, and he ran entirely mute, knowing well that the more noise the elk heard behind him the faster he would run. I have frequently known him to be out by himself all night, and return the next morning blown out with food which he had procured for himself by pulling down a doe single-handed. When he was a young dog, and gave tongue upon a scent, a challenge was offered, but never accepted, that the dog should find, hunt, and pull down two buck elk, single-handed, within a fortnight, assisted only by his master, with no other weapon than a hunting-knife; there is no doubt whatever that he would have performed it easily. He then belonged to Lieutenant Pardoe, of the 15th Regiment. He had several pitched battles with leopards, from which he has returned frightfully torn, but with his yellow hair bristled up, his head and stern erect; and his deep growl, with which he gave a dubious reception to both man and beast, was on these occasions doubly threatening. I never knew a dog that combined superlative valour with discretion in the degree exhibited by Smut. I have seen many dogs who would rush heedlessly upon a boar's tusks to certain destruction; but Smut would never seize until the proper time arrived, and when the opportunity offered he never lost it. This rendered him of great value in these wild sports, where the dog and his master are mutually dependent upon each other. There was nothing to fear if Smut was there; whether boar or buck you might advance fearlessly to him with the knife, with the confidence that the dog would pin the animal the instant that it turned to attack you; and when he once obtained his hold he was seldom shaken off until in his old age, when he lost his teeth. Even then he was always one of the first to seize. Although comparatively useless, the spirit was ever willing; and this courage, poor fellow, at length caused his death. The next dog who claims a tribute to his memory is 'Killbuck.' He was an Australian greyhound of the most extraordinary courage. He stood at the shoulder 28 inches high; girth of brisket, 31 inches. Instead of the surly and ferocious disposition of Smut, he was the most gentle and affectionate creature. It was a splendid sight to witness the bounding spring of Killbuck as he pinned an elk at bay that no other dog could touch. He had a peculiar knack of seizing that I never saw equalled; no matter where or in what position an elk might be, he was sure to have him. When once started from the slips it was certain death to the animal he coursed, and even when out of view, and the elk had taken to the jungle, I have seen the dog, with his nose to the ground, following upon the scent at full speed like a foxhound. I never heard him bark at game when at bay. With a bulldog courage he would recklessly fly straight at the animal's head, unheeding the wounds received in the struggle. This unguided courage at length caused his death when in the very prime of his life. Poor Killbuck! His was a short but glorious career, and his name will never be forgotten. Next in rotation in the chronicles of seizers appears 'Lena,' who is still alive, an Australian bitch of great size, courage, and beauty, wire-haired, like a Scotch deerhound. 'Bran,' a perfect model of a greyhound. 'Lucifer,' combining the beauty, speed, and courage of his parents, 'Bran' and ' Lena,' in a superlative degree. There are many others that I could call from the pack and introduce as first-rate hounds, but as no jealousy will be occasioned by their omission, I shall be contented with those already named. Were I to recount the twentieth part of the scenes that I have witnessed in this sport, it would fill a volume, and become very tedious. A few instances related will at once explain the whole character of the sport, and introduce a stranger to the wild hunts of the Ceylon mountains. I have already described Newera Ellia, with its alternate plains and forests, its rapid streams and cataracts, its mountains, valleys, and precipices; but a portion of this country, called the Horton Plains, will need a further description. Some years ago I hunted with a brother Nimrod, Lieutenant de Montenach, of the 15th Regiment, in this country; and in two months we killed forty-three elk. The Horton Plains are about twenty miles from Newera Ellia. After a walk of sixteen miles through alternate plains and forests, the steep ascent of Totapella mountain is commenced by a rugged path through jungle the whole way. So steep is the track that a horse ascends with difficulty, and riding is of course impossible. After a mile and a quarter of almost perpendicular scrambling, the summit of the pass is reached, commanding a splendid view of the surrounding country, and Newera Ellia can be seen far beneath in the distance. Two miles farther on, after a walk through undulating forest, the Horton Plains burst suddenly upon the view as you emerge from the jungle path. These plains are nearly 800 feet higher than Newera Ellia, or 7,000 feet above the sea. The whole aspect of the country appears at once to have assumed a new character; there is a feeling of being on the top of everything, and instead of a valley among surrounding hills, which is the feature of Newera Ellia and the adjacent plains, a beautiful expanse of flat table-land stretches before the eye, bounded by a few insignificant hill-tops. There is a peculiar freedom in the Horton Plains, an absence from everywhere, a wildness in the thought that there is no tame animal within many miles, not a village, nor hut, nor human being. It makes a man feel in reality one of the 'lords of the creation' when he first stands upon this elevated plain, and, breathing the pure thin air, he takes a survey of his hunting-ground: no boundaries but mountain tops and the horizon; no fences but the trunks of decayed trees fallen from old age; no game laws but strong legs, good wind, and the hunting-knife; no paths but those trodden by the elk and elephant. Every nook and corner of this wild country is as familiar to me as my own garden. There is not a valley that has not seen a burst in full cry; not a plain that has not seen the greyhounds in full speed after an elk; and not a deep pool in the river that has not echoed with a bay that has made the rocks ring again. To give a person an interest in the sport, the country must be described minutely. The plain already mentioned as the flat table-land first seen on arrival, is about five miles in length, and two in breadth in the widest part. This is tolerably level, with a few gentle undulations, and is surrounded, on all sides but one, with low, forest-covered slopes. The low portions of the plains are swamps, from which springs a large river, the source of the Mahawelli Ganga. From the plain now described about fifteen others diverge, each springing from the parent plain, and increasing in extent as they proceed; these are connected more or less by narrow valleys, and deep ravines. Through the greater portion of these plains, the river winds its wild course. In the first a mere brook, it rapidly increases as it traverses the lower portions of every valley, until it attains a width of twenty or thirty yards, within a mile of the spot where it is first discernible as a stream. Every plain in succession being lower than the first, the course of the river is extremely irregular; now a maze of tortuous winding, then a broad, still stream, bounded by grassy undulations; now rushing wildly through a hundred channels formed by obtruding rocks, then in a still, deep pool, gathering itself together for a mad leap over a yawning precipice, and roaring at a hundred feet beneath, it settles in the lower plain in a pool of unknown depth; and once more it murmurs through another valley. In the large pools formed by the sudden turns in the river, the elk generally takes his last determined stand, and he sometimes keeps dogs and men at bay for a couple of hours. These pools are generally about sixty yards across, very deep in some parts, with a large shallow sandbank in the centre, formed by the eddy of the river. We built a hunting bivouac in a snug corner of the plains, which gloried in the name of 'Elk Lodge.' This famous hermitage was a substantial building, and afforded excellent accommodation: a verandah in the front, twenty-eight feet by eight; a dining-room twenty feet by twelve, with a fireplace eight feet wide; and two bed-rooms of twenty feet by eight. Deer-hides were pegged down to form a carpet upon the floors, and the walls were neatly covered with talipot leaves. The outhouses consisted of the kennel, stables for three horses, kitchen, and sheds for twenty coolies and servants. The fireplace was a rough piece of art, upon which we prided ourselves extremely. A party of eight persons could have sat before it with comfort. Many a roaring fire has blazed up that rude chimney; and dinner being over, the little round table before the hearth has steamed forth a fragrant attraction, when the nightly bowl of mulled port has taken its accustomed stand. I have spent many happy hours in this said spot; the evenings were of a decidedly social character. The day's hunting over, it was a delightful hour at about seven P.M.--dinner just concluded, the chairs brought before the fire, cigars and the said mulled port. Eight o'clock was the hour for bed, and five in the morning to rise, at which time a cup of hot tea, and a slice of toast and anchovy paste were always ready before the start. The great man of our establishment was the cook. This knight of the gridiron was a famous fellow, and could perform wonders; of stoical countenance, he was never seen to smile. His whole thoughts were concentrated in the mysteries of gravies, and the magic transformation of one animal into another by the art of cookery; in this he excelled to a marvellous degree. The farce of ordering dinner was always absurd. It was something in this style: 'Cook!' (Cook answers) 'Coming, sar!' (enter cook): 'Now, cook, you make a good dinner; do you hear?' Cook: 'Yes, sar; master tell, I make.'--'Well, mulligatawny soup.' 'Yes, sar.'--'Calves' head with tongue and brain sauce.' 'Yes, sar.'--' Gravy omelette.' 'Yes, sar.'--'Mutton chops.' 'Yes, sar.'--'Fowl cotelets.' 'Yes, sar.'--'Beefsteaks.' 'Yes, sar.'--'Marrow-bones.' 'Yes, sar.'--'Rissoles.' 'Yes, sar.' All these various dishes he literally imitated uncommonly well, the different portions of an elk being their only foundation. The kennel bench was comfortably littered, and the pack took possession of their new abode with the usual amount of growling and quarrelling for places; the angry grumbling continuing throughout the night between the three champions of the kennel--Smut, Bran, and Killbuck. After a night much disturbed by this constant quarrelling, we unkennelled the hounds just as the first grey streak of dawn spread above Totapella Peak. The mist was hanging heavily on the lower parts of the plain like a thick snowbank, although the sky was beautifully clear above, in which a few pale stars still glimmered. Long lines of fog were slowly drifting along the bottoms of the valleys, dispelled by a light breeze, and day fast advancing bid fair for sport; a heavy dew lay upon the grass, and we stood for some moments in uncertainty as to the first point of our extensive hunting-grounds that we should beat. There were fresh tracks of elk close to our 'lodge,' who had been surveying our new settlement during the night. Crossing the river by wading waist-deep, we skirted along the banks, winding through a narrow valley with grassy hills capped with forest upon either side. Our object in doing this was to seek for marks where the elk had come down to drink during the night, as we knew that the tracks would then lead to the jungle upon either side the river. We had strolled quietly along for about half a mile, when the loud bark of an elk was suddenly heard in the jungle upon the opposite hills. In a moment the hounds dashed across the river towards the well-known sound, and entered the jungle at full speed. Judging the direction which the elk would most probably take when found, I ran along the bank of the river, down stream, for a quarter of a mile, towards a jungle through which the river flowed previous to its descent into the lower plains, and I waited, upon a steep grassy hill, about a hundred feet above the river's bed. From this spot I had a fine view of the ground. Immediately before me, rose the hill from which the elk had barked; beneath my feet, the river stretched into a wide pool on its entrance to the jungle. This jungle clothed the precipitous cliffs of a deep ravine, down which the river fell in two cataracts; these were concealed from view by the forest. I waited in breathless expectation of 'the find.' A few minutes passed, when the sudden burst of the pack in full cry came sweeping down upon the light breeze; loudly the cheering sound swelled as they topped the hill, and again it died away as they crossed some deep ravine. In a few minutes the cry became very distant; as the elk was evidently making straight up the hills; once or twice I feared he would cross them, and make away for a different part of the country. The cry of the pack was so indistinct that my ear could barely catch it, when suddenly a gust of wind from that direction brought down a chorus of voices that there was no mistaking: louder and louder the music became; the elk had turned, and was coming down the hill-side at a slapping pace. The jungle crashed as he came rushing through the yielding branches. Out he came, breaking cover in fine style, and away he dashed over the open country. He was a noble buck, and had got a long start; not a single hound had yet appeared, but I heard them coming through the jungle in full cry. Down the side of the hill he came straight to the pool beneath my feet. Yoick to him! Hark forward to him! and I gave a view halloa till my lungs had well-nigh cracked. I had lost sight of him, as he had taken to water in the pool within the jungle. One more halloa! and out came the gallant old fellow Smut from the jungle, on the exact line that the elk had taken. On he came, bounding along the rough side of the hill like a lion, followed by only two dogs--Dan, a pointer (since killed by a leopard), and Cato, a young dog who had never yet seen an elk. The remainder of the pack had taken after a doe that had crossed the scent, and they were now running in a different direction. I now imagined that the elk had gone down the ravine to the lower plains by some run that might exist along the edge of the cliff, and accordingly I started off along a deer-path through the jungle, to arrive at the lower plains by the shortest road that I could make. Hardly had I run a hundred yards, when I heard the ringing of the bay and the deep voice of Smut, mingled with the roar of the waterfall, to which I had been running parallel. Instantly changing my course, I was in a few moments on the bank of the river just above the fall. There stood the buck at bay in a large pool about three feet deep, where the dogs could only advance by swimming. Upon my jumping into the pool, he broke his bay, and, dashing through the dogs, he appeared to leap over the verge of the cataract, but in reality he took to a deer-path which skirted the steep side of the wooded precipice. So steep was the inclination that I could only follow on his track by clinging to the stems of the trees. The roar of the waterfall, now only a few feet on my right hand, completely overpowered the voices of the dogs wherever they might be, and I carefully commenced a perilous descent by the side of the fall, knowing that both dogs and elk must be somewhere before me. So stunning was the roar of the water, that a cannon might have been fired without my hearing it. I was now one-third of the way down the fall, which was about fifty feet deep. A large flat rock projected from the side of the cliff, forming a platform of about six feet square, over one corner of which, the water struck, and again bounded downwards. This platform could only be reached by a narrow ledge of rock, beneath which, at a depth of thirty feet, the water boiled at the foot of the fall. Upon this platform stood the buck, having gained his secure but frightful position by passing along the narrow ledge of rock. Should either dog or man attempt to advance, one charge from the buck would send them to perdition, as they would fall into the abyss below. This the dogs were fully aware of, and they accordingly kept up a continual bay from the edge of the cliff, while I attempted to dislodge him by throwing stones and sticks upon him from above. Finding this uncomfortable, he made a sudden dash forward, and, striking the dogs over, away he went down the steep sides of the ravine, followed once more by the dogs and myself. By clinging from tree to tree, and lowering myself by the tangled creepers, I was soon at the foot of the first fall, which plunged into a deep pool on a flat plateau of rock, bounded on either side by a wall-like precipice. This plateau was about eighty feet in length, through which, the water flowed in two rapid but narrow streams from the foot of the first fall towards a second cataract at the extreme end. This second fall leaped from the centre of the ravine into the lower plain. When I arrived on this fine level surface of rock, a splendid sight presented itself. In the centre of one of the rapid streams, the buck stood at bay, belly-deep, with the torrent rushing in foam between his legs. His mane was bristled up, his nostrils were distended, and his antlers were lowered to receive the dog who should first attack him. I happened to have a spear on that occasion, so that I felt he could not escape, and I gave the baying dogs a loud cheer on. Poor Cato! it was his first elk, and he little knew the danger of a buck at bay in such a strong position. Answering with youthful ardour to my halloa, the young dog sprang boldly at the elk's face, but, caught upon the ready antlers, he was instantly dashed senseless upon the rocks. Now for old Smut, the hero of countless battles, who, though pluck to the back-bone, always tempers his valour with discretion. Yoick to him, Smut! and I jumped into the water. The buck made a rush forward, but at that moment a mass of yellow hair dangled before his eyes as the true old dog hung upon his cheek. Now came the tug of war--only one seizer! The spring had been so great, and the position of the buck was so secure, that the dog had missed the ear, and only held by the cheek. The elk, in an instant, saw his advantage, and quickly thrusting his sharp brown antlers into the dog's chest, he reared to his full height and attempted to pin the apparently fated Smut against a rock. That had been the last of Smut's days of prowess had I not fortunately had a spear. I could just reach the elk's shoulder in time to save the dog. After a short but violent struggle, the buck yielded up his spirit. He was a noble fellow, and pluck to the last. Having secured his horns to a bush, lest he should be washed away by the torrent, I examined the dogs. Smut was wounded in two places, but not severely, and Cato had just recovered his senses, but was so bruised as to move with great difficulty. In addition to this, he had a deep wound from the buck's horn under the shoulder. The great number of elk at the Horton plains and the open character of the country, make the hunting a far more enjoyable sport than it is in Newera Ellia, where the plains are of much smaller extent, and the jungles are frightfully thick. During a trip of two months at the Horton Plains, we killed forty-three elk, exclusive of about ten which the pack ran into and killed by themselves, bringing home the account of their performances in distended stomachs. These occurrences frequently happen when the elk takes away through an impervious country, where a man cannot possibly follow. In such cases the pack is either beaten off, or they pull the elk down and devour it. This was exemplified some time ago, when the three best dogs were nearly lost. A doe elk broke cover from a small jungle at the Horton Plains, and, instead of taking across the patinas (plains), she doubled back to an immense pathless jungle, closely followed by three greyhounds--Killbuck, Bran, and Lena. The first dog, who ran beautifully by nose, led the way, and their direction was of course unknown, as the dogs were all mute. Night came, and they had not returned. The next day passed away, but without a sign of the missing dogs. I sent natives to search the distant jungles and ravines in all directions. Three days passed away, and I gave up all hope of them. We were sitting at dinner one night, the fire was blazing cheerfully within, but the rain was pouring without, the wind was howling in fitful gusts, and neither moon nor stars relieved the pitchy darkness of the night, when the conversation naturally turned to the lost dogs. What a night for the poor brutes to be exposed to, roaming about the wet jungles without a chance of return! A sudden knock at the door arrested our attention; it opened. Two natives stood there, dripping with wet and shivering with cold. One had in his hand an elk's head, much gnawed; the other man, to my delight, led the three lost dogs. They had run their elk down, and were found by the side of a rocky river several miles distant--the two dogs asleep in a cave, and the bitch was gnawing the remains of the half-consumed animal. The two men who had found them were soon squatted before a comfortable fire, with a good feed of curry and rice, and their skins full of brandy. Although the elk are so numerous at the Horton Plains, the sport at length becomes monotonous from the very large proportion of the does. The usual ratio in which they were killed was one buck to eight does. I cannot at all account for this small proportion of bucks in this particular spot. At Newera Ellia they are as two or three compared with the does. The following extract of deaths, taken from my game-book during three months of the year, will give a tolerably accurate idea of the number killed: 1852. March 24. Doe. . Killed in the Elk Plains. 30. Two Does. Killed in Newera Ellia Plain. April 3. Doe. . Killed at the foot of Hack Galla. 5. Buck. . Killed at the foot of Pedro. 8. Doe. . Killed at the top of the Pass. 13. Buck. . Killed at the foot of the Pass. 16. Buck. . Killed in the river at the Pass. 19. Doe. . Killed on the patinas on Badulla road. 21. Buck. . Killed in the river at the base of Pedro. 23. Buck. . Killed in Matturatta Plain. 25. Doe. . Killed in the Elk Plains. 25. Sow. . Killed in the Elk Plains. 27. Boar. . Killed at the Limestone Quarry. May 3. Sow. . Killed in the Elk Plains. 6. Two Does. Killed in the Barrack Plain. 10. Two Does. One killed in the Barrack Plain, and the other at the bottom of the Pass. 12. Buck. . Killed in Newera Ellia Plain. 19. Buck. . Killed in the Newera Ellia River. 22. Doe. . Killed at the Pioneer Lines-Laboukelle. 31. Two does. Killed in the Barrack Plain. June 5. Buck. . Killed at the foot of Pedro. 8. Buck. . Killed in the Barrack Plain. 11. Two Bucks. Killed on Kicklamane Patina. 24. Two Does. Killed on Newera Ellia Plain. 28. Boar. . Killed on Elk Plains. 29. Doe. . Killed at the ' Rest and be Thankful bottom Total--28 Elk (11 Bucks, 17 Does), and 4 Hogs. This is a tolerable show of game when it is considered that the sport continues from year to year; there are no seasons at which time the game is spared, but the hunting depends simply on the weather. Three times a week the pack turns out in the dry season, and upon every fine day during the wet months. It must appear a frightful extravagance to English ideas to feed the hounds upon venison, but as it costs nothing, it is a cheaper food than beef, and no other flesh is procurable in sufficient quantity. Venison is in its prime when the elk's horns are in velvet. At this season, when the new antlers have almost attained their full growth, they are particularly tender, and the buck moves slowly and cautiously through the jungle, lest he should injure them against the branches, taking no further exercise than is necessary in the search of food. He therefore grows very fat, and is then in fine condition. The speed of an elk, although great, cannot be compared to that of the spotted deer. I have seen the latter almost distance the best greyhounds for the first 200 yards, but with this class of dogs the elk has no chance upon fair open ground. Coursing the elk, therefore, is a short-lived sport, as the greyhounds run into him immediately, and a tremendous struggle then ensues, which must be terminated as soon as possible by the knife, otherwise the dogs would most probably be wounded. I once saw Killbuck perform a wonderful feat in seizing. A buck elk broke cover in the Elk Plains, and I slipped a brace of greyhounds after him, Killbuck and Bran. The buck had a start of about 200 yards, but the speed of the greyhounds told rapidly upon him, and after a course of a quarter of a mile, they were at his haunches, Killbuck leading. The next instant he sprang in full fly, and got his hold by the ear. So sudden was the shock, that the buck turned a complete somersault, but, recovering himself immediately, he regained his feet, and started off at a gallop down hill towards a stream, the dog still hanging on. In turning over in his fall, the ear had twisted round, and Killbuck, never having left his hold, was therefore on his back, in which position he was dragged at great speed over the rugged ground. Notwithstanding the difficulty of his position, he would not give up his hold. In the meantime, Bran kept seizing the other ear, but continually lost his hold as the ear gave way. Killbuck's weight kept the buck's head on a level with his knees; and after a run of some hundred yards, during the whole of which, the dog had been dragged upon his back without once losing his hold, the elk's pace was reduced to a walk. With both greyhounds now hanging on his ears, the buck reached the river, and he and the dogs rolled down the steep bank into the deep water. I came up just at this moment and killed the elk, but both dogs were frightfully wounded, and for some time I despaired of their recovery. This was an extraordinary feat in seizing; but Killbuck was matchless in this respect, and accordingly of great value, as he was sure to retain his hold when he once got it. This is an invaluable qualification in a dog, especially with boars, as any uncertainty in the dog's hold, renders the advance of the man doubly dangerous. I have frequently seen hogs free themselves from a dog's hold at the very moment that I have put the knife into them; this with a large boar is likely to cause an accident. I once saw a Veddah who nearly lost his life by one of these animals. He was hunting 'guanas' (a species of large lizard which is eaten by all the natives) with several small dogs, and they suddenly found a large boar, who immediately stood to bay. The Veddah advanced to the attack with his bow and arrows; but he had no sooner wounded the beast than he was suddenly charged with great fury. In an instant the boar was into him, and the next moment the Veddah was lying on the ground with his bowels out. Fortunately a companion was with him, who replaced his entrails and bandaged him up. I saw the man some years after; he was perfectly well, but he had a frightful swelling in the front of the belly, traversed by a wide blue scar of about eight inches in length. A boar is at all times a desperate antagonist, where the hunting-knife and dogs are the only available weapons. The largest that I ever killed, weighed four hundredweight. I was out hunting, accompanied by my youngest brother. We had walked through several jungles without success, but on entering a thick jungle in the Elk Plains we immediately noticed the fresh ploughings of an immense boar. In a few minutes we heard the pack at bay without a run, and shortly after a slow running bay-there was no mistake as to our game. He disdained to run, and, after walking before the pack for about three minutes, he stood to a determined bay. The jungle was frightfully thick, and we hastily tore our way through the tangled underwood towards the spot. We had two staunch dogs by our side, Lucifer and Lena, and when within twenty paces of the bay, we gave them a halloa on. Away they dashed to the invisible place of conflict, and we almost immediately heard the fierce grunting and roaring of the boar. We knew that they had him, and scrambled through the jungle as fast as we could towards the field of battle. There was a fight! the underwood was levelled, and the boar rushed to and fro with Smut, Bran, Lena, and Lucifer all upon him. Yoick to him! and some of the most daring of the maddened pack went in. The next instant we were upon him, mingled with a confused mass of hounds, and throwing our whole weight upon the boar, we gave him repeated thrusts, apparently to little purpose. Round came his head and gleaming tusks to the attack of his fresh enemies, but old Smut held him by the nose, and, although the bright tusks were immediately buried in his throat, the staunch old dog kept his hold. Away went the boar covered by a mass of dogs, and bearing the greater part of our weight in addition, as we hung on to the hunting-knives buried in his shoulders. For about fifty paces he tore through the thick jungle, crashing it like a cobweb. At length he again halted; the dogs, the boar, and ourselves were mingled in a heap of confusion. All covered with blood and dirt; our own cheers added to the wild bay of the infuriated hounds and the savage roaring of the boar. Still he fought and gashed the dogs right and left. He stood about thirty-eight inches high, and the largest dogs seemed like puppies beside him; still not a dog relaxed his hold, and he was covered with wounds. I made a lucky thrust for the nape of his neck. I felt the point of the knife touch the bone; the spine was divided, and he fell dead. Smut had two severe gashes in the throat, Lena was cut under the ear, and Bran's mouth was opened completely up to his ear in a horrible wound. The dogs were completely exhausted, and lay panting around their victim. We cut off the boar's head, and, slinging it upon a pole, we each shouldered an end and carried it to the kennel. The power of this animal must have been immense. My brother's weight and mine, together being upward of twenty-four stone, in addition to that of half-a-dozen heavy dogs, did not appear to trouble him, and had we not been close to the spot when he came to bay, so that the knives came to the instant succour of the dogs, he would have most probably killed or wounded half the pack. In this wild and rough kind of sport, the best dogs are constantly most seriously wounded, and after a fight of this kind, needles and thread and bandages are in frequent requisition. It is wonderful to see the rapid recovery of dogs from wounds which at first sight appear incurable. An instance occurred a short time ago, when I certainly gave up one of the best dogs for lost. We had found a buck, who after a sharp run, came to bay in a deep part of the river known by the name of Black Pool. My youngest brother* {* James Baker, late Lieut.-Colonel of Cambridge University Volunteers.} (who is always my companion in hunting) and I were at some distance, but feeling certain of the locality of the bay, we started off at full speed towards the supposed spot. A run of a mile, partly through jungle leading into a deep wooded ravine, brought us to the river, which flowed through the hollow, and upon approaching the water, we distinctly heard the pack at bay at some distance down the stream. Before we could get up, the buck dashed down the river, and turning sharp up the bank, he took up the hill through a dense jungle. Every hound was at fault, except two, who were close at his heels, and being very fast they never lost sight of him. These two dogs were Merriman and Tiptoe; and having followed the whole pack to their track, we soon heard them in full cry on the top of the high hills which overlook the river; they were coming down the hill-side at full speed towards the Black Pool. Hiding behind the trees lest we should head the buck, who we now heard crashing towards us through the jungle, we suddenly caught a glimpse of his dun hide as he bounded past us, and splashed into the river. A few seconds after, and Tiptoe, the leading hound, came rushing on his track, but to our horror HE WAS DRAGGING HIS ENTRAILS AFTER HIM. The excitement of the chase recognised no pain, and the plucky animal actually plunged into the river, and in spite of his mangled state, he swam across, and disappeared in the jungle on the opposite side, upon the track which the elk had taken. The pack now closed up; swimming the river, they opened upon a hot scent on the opposite bank, and running parallel to the stream, they drove the buck out of the jungle, and he came to bay on a rocky part of the river, where the velocity of the torrent swept every dog past him and rendered his position secure. The whole pack was there with the exception of Tiptoe; we looked for him among the baying hounds in vain. For about twenty minutes the buck kept his impregnable position, when in a foolish moment he forsook it, and dashing along the torrent, he took to deep water. The whole pack was after him; once Merriman got a hold, but was immediately beaten off. Valiant, who was behaving nobly, and made repeated attempts to seize, was struck beneath the water as often as he advanced. The old veteran Smut was well to the point, and his deep voice was heard loud above the din of the bay; but he could do nothing. The buck had a firm footing, and was standing shoulder-deep; rearing to his full height, and springing at the dogs as they swam towards him, he struck them beneath the water with his fore feet. The bay lasted for half an hour; at the expiration of this time, a sudden thought appeared to strike old Smut; instead of continuing the attack, he swam direct for the shore, leaving the buck still occupied with the baying pack. The elk was standing about fourteen feet from the bank, which was covered with jungle. Presently we saw the cunning old hero Smut creeping like a leopard along the edge of the bank till opposite the elk; he slowly retreated for a few paces, and the next moment he was seen flying through the air, having made a tremendous spring at the elk's ear. A cloud of spray for an instant concealed the effect. Both dog and buck were for a few moments beneath the water; when they reappeared, the old dog was hanging on his ear! Merriman at once had him by the other ear; and one after another the seizers held him. In vain he tried to drown them off by diving; as his head again rose above the surface, the dogs were at their places: his struggles were useless, and the knife finished him. We now searched the jungle for Tiptoe's body, expecting to find him dead where we had last seen him enter the jungle. Upon searching the spot, we found him lying down, with his bowels in a heap by his side; the quantity would have filled a cap. The hole in his side was made-by a blow from the buck's hoof, and not being more than two inches in length, strangulation had taken place, and I could not return the bowels. The dog was still alive, though very faint. Fortunately we had a small-bladed knife, with which I carefully enlarged the aperture, and, having cleaned the bowels from the dirt and dead leaves which had adhered to them, I succeeded in returning them; although I expected the dog's death every instant. Taking off my neck tie, I made a pad, with which I secured the aperture, and bound him tightly round with a handkerchief. Making a sling with a couple of jackets upon a pole, we placed the dog carefully, within it, and carried him home. By dressing the wound every day with margosse oil, and keeping the pad and bandage in the place, to my astonishment the dog recovered, and he is now as well as ever he was, with the exception of the loss of one eye, which was knocked out by the horn of an elk on another occasion. The margosse oil that I have mentioned is a most valuable balsam for wounds, having a peculiar smell, which prevents the attacks of flies, who would otherwise blow the sore and occasion a nest of maggots in a few hours. This oil is very healing, and soon creates a healthy appearance in a bad cut. It is manufactured from the fruit of a plant in Ceylon, but I have never met with it in the possession of an English medical man. The smell of this oil is very offensive, even worse than assafoetida, which it in some degree resembles. There are many medicinal plants in Ceylon of great value, which, although made use of by the natives, are either neglected or unknown to the profession in our own country. One of the wild fruits of the jungle, the wood-apple or wild quince, is very generally used by the natives in attacks of diarrhoea and dysentery in the early stages of the disease; this has been used for some years by English medical men in this island, but with no very satisfactory effect. CHAPTER IX. A Morning's Deer-coursing--Kondawataweny--Rogue at Kondawa taweny--A Close Shave--Preparations for Catching an Elephant--Catching an Elephant--Taming Him--Flying Shot at a Buck--Cave at Dimbooldene--Awkward Ground--A Charmed Life. IT was in July, 1848, that I pitched my tent in the portion of Ceylon known as the 'Park,' for the purpose of deer-coursing. I had only three greyhounds, Killbuck, Bran and Lena, and these had been carried in a palanquin from Newera Ellia, a distance of one hundred miles. The grass had all been burnt about two months previously, and the whole country was perfectly fresh and green, the young shoots not being more than half a foot high. The deer were numerous but wild, which made the sport the more enjoyable. I cannot describe the country better than by comparing it to a rich English park, well watered by numerous streams and large rivers, but ornamented by many beautiful rocky mountains, which are seldom to be met with in England. If this part of the country had the advantage of the Newera Ellia climate, it would be a Paradise, but the intense heat destroys much of the pleasure in both shooting and coursing, especially in the latter sport, as the greyhounds must be home by 8 A. M., or they would soon die from the effects of the sun. It was in the cool hour of sunrise, when the dew lay thickly upon the grass, and the foliage glistened with the first beams of morning, that we stalked over the extensive plains with Killbuck and Lena in the slips, in search of deer. Several herds winded us at a distance of half a mile, and immediately bounded away, rendering pursuit impossible; and we determined not to slip the dogs unless they had a fair start, as one run in this climate was quite work enough for a morning. After several disappointments in stalking, we at length discovered a noble buck standing alone by the edge of a narrow belt of jungle; the instant that he observed us, he stepped proudly into the cover. This being open forest, my brother took the greyhounds in at the spot where the deer had entered, while I ran round to the opposite side of the cover, and took my position upon an extensive lawn of fine grass about half a mile in width. I had not remained a minute at my post before I heard a crash in the jungle, as though an elephant were charging through, and in another instant, a splendid buck burst upon the plain at full speed, and away he flew over the level lawn, with the brace of greyhounds laying out about fifty paces behind him. Here was a fair trial of speed over a perfect bowling-green, and away they flew, the buck exerting his utmost stride, and the greyhounds stretching out till their briskets nearly touched the ground; Killbuck leading with tremendous bounds, and Lena about a length behind him. By degrees the beautiful spring of the greyhounds appeared to tell, and the distance between them and the buck gradually decreased, although both deer and dogs flew along with undiminished speed. The plain was nearly crossed, and the opposite jungle lay within 200 yards of them. To gain this, the buck redoubled his exertions; the greyhounds knew as well as he did, that it was his chance of escape, and with equal efforts they pressed upon him. Not fifty paces now separated the buck from the jungle, and with prodigious bounds he sped along; he neared it; he won it! the yielding branches crashed before him, but the dogs were at his haunches as the jungle closed over them and concealed the chase. I was soon up; and upon entering the jungle, I could neither hear nor see anything of them, but, by following up the track, I found them about fifty yards from the entrance of the bush. The buck was standing on the sandy bed of a dry stream, endeavouring in vain to free himself, while the greyhounds pinned his nose to the ground, each hanging upon his ears. The knife finished him immediately. There never was a more exciting course; it had been nobly run by both the dogs, and well contested by the buck, who was a splendid fellow and in fine condition. On my way to the tent I wounded a doe at full speed, which Lena followed singly and pulled down, thus securing our coolies a good supply of venison. The flesh of the spotted deer is more like mutton than English venison, and is excellent eating; it would be still better if the climate would allow of its being kept for a few days. There is no sport in Ceylon, in my opinion, that is equal to deer-coursing, but the great difficulty attending it, is the lack of good greyhounds. The spotted buck (or axis) is an animal of immense power and courage; and although most greyhounds would course him, very few would have sufficient courage and strength to hold him, unless slipped two brace at a time, which would immediately spoil the sport. A brace of greyhounds to one buck is fair play, and a good strong horse will generally keep them in view. In two weeks' coursing in the Park, we killed seventeen deer with three greyhounds; at the expiration of which time, the dogs were so footsore and wounded by the hard burnt stubble of the old grass that they were obliged to be sent home. When the greyhounds had left, I turned my attention to elephants. There were very few at this season in the Park, and I therefore left this part of the country, which was dried up, and proceeded to Kondawataweny, in the direction of Batticaloa.*(*The jungles have now been cleared away, and a plain of 25,000 acres of rice cultivation has usurped the old resort of elephants.) Kondawataweny is a small village, inhabited by Moormen, situated on the edge of a large lake or tank. Upon arrival, I found that the neighbourhood was alive with game of all kinds, and the Moormen were excellent hands at elephants. There was accordingly no difficulty in procuring good gun-bearers and trackers, and at 4 P.M. of the day of our arrival, we started to make a circuit of the tank in quest of the big game. At about 5 P.M. we observed several rogues scattered in various directions around the lake; one of these fellows, whose close acquaintance I made with the telescope, I prophesied would show some fight before we owned his tail. This elephant was standing some distance in the water, feeding and bathing. There were two elephants close to the water's edge between him and us, and we determined to have a shot at them en passant, and then try to bag the big fellow. Although we stalked very cautiously along the edge of the jungle which surrounded the lake, divided from it by a strip of plain of about 200 yards in width, the elephants winded us, and retreated over the patina* (*Grassy plains) at full speed towards the jungle. Endeavouring to cut them off before they could reach the thick cover, we ran at our best pace along the edge of the jungle, so as to meet them at right angles. One reached the jungle before us, but a lucky shot at a distance of sixty paces floored the other, who lay struggling on the ground, and was soon extinguished. Having reloaded, we went in quest of the large rogue, who was bathing in the tank. This gentleman had decamped, having taken offence at the firing. Close to the edge of the lake grew a patch of thick thorny jungle of about two acres, completely isolated, and separated from the main jungle by about eighty paces' length of fine turf. The Moormen knew the habits of this rogue, who was well known in the neighbourhood, and they at once said, "that he had concealed himself in the small patch of jungle." Upon examining the tracks from the tank, we found they were correct. The question was, how to dislodge him; the jungle was so dense that it was impossible to enter, and driving was the only chance. There was a small bush within a few paces of the main jungle, exactly opposite that in which the elephant was concealed, and we determined to hide behind this, while a few Moormen should endeavour to drive him from his retreat, in which case, he would be certain to make for the main forest, and would most probably pass near the bush, behind which we lay in wait for him. Giving the Moormen a gun, we took to our hiding-place. The men went round to the tank side of the patch of jungle, and immediately commenced shouting and firing; securing themselves from an attack by climbing into the highest trees. A short interval elapsed, and not a sound of the elephant could be heard. The firing and shouting ceased, and all was as still as death. Some of the Moormen returned from the jungle, and declared that the elephant was not there; but this was all nonsense; the fact was, they did not like the idea of driving him out. Knowing the character of these 'rogues', I felt convinced that he was one of the worst description, and that he was quietly waiting his time, until some one should advance within his reach. Having given the Moormen a supply of powder, I again despatched them to drive the jungle. Once more the firing and shouting commenced, and continued until their supply of powder was exhausted: no effects had been produced; it was getting late, and the rogue appeared determined not to move. A dead silence ensued, which was presently disturbed by the snapping of a bough; in another moment the jungle crashed, and forth stepped the object of our pursuit! He was a magnificent elephant, one of the most vicious in appearance that I have ever seen; he understood the whole affair as well as we did; and flourishing his trunk, he paced quickly backwards and forwards for a few turns before the jungle he had just quitted; suddenly making his resolution, he charged straight at the bush behind which we had imagined ourselves concealed. He was about eighty yards off when he commenced his onset; and seeing that we were discovered, I left the hiding-place, and stepped to the front of the bush to meet him with the four-ounce rifle. On he came at a great pace, carrying his head very high, and making me the sole object of his attack. I made certain of the shot, although his head was in a difficult position, and I accordingly waited for him till he was within fifteen paces. At this distance I took a steady shot and fired. A cloud of smoke, from the heavy charge of powder, obscured everything, but I felt so certain that he was down, that I looked under the smoke to see where he lay. Ye gods! He was just over me in full charge! I had not even checked him by the shot, and he was within three feet of me, going at a tremendous pace. Throwing my heavy rifle into the bush, I doubled quickly to one side, hoping that he would pass me and take to the main jungle, to which I ran parallel as fast as my legs could carry me. Instead of taking to the jungle, he turned short and quickly after me, and a fair race commenced. I had about three feet start of him, and I saw with delight that the ground was as level and smooth as a lawn; there was no fear of tripping up, and away I went at the fastest pace that I ever ran either before or since, taking a look behind me to see how the chase went on. I saw the bullet-mark in his forehead, which was covered with blood; his trunk was stretched to its full length to catch me, and was now within two feet of my back; he was gaining on me, although I was running at a tremendous pace. I could not screw an inch more speed out of my legs, and I kept on, with the brute gaining on me at every stride. He was within a foot of me, and I had not heard a shot fired, and not a soul had come to the rescue. The sudden thought struck me that my brother could not possibly overtake the elephant at the pace at which we were going, and I immediately doubled short to my left into the open plain, and back towards the guns. The rogue overshot me. I met my brother close to his tail, which position he had with difficulty maintained; but he could not get a shot, and the elephant turned into the jungle, and disappeared just as I escaped him by a sharp turn. This was a close shave; had not the ground been perfectly level I must have been caught to a certainty, and even as it was, he would have had me in another stride had I not turned from my straight course. It was nearly dark, and we returned to the tent, killing several peacocks and ducks on our way, with which the country swarmed. We passed a miserable night, not being able to sleep on account of the mosquitoes, which were in swarms. I was delighted to see the first beam of morning, when our little winged enemies left us, and a 'chatty' bath was most enjoyable after the restless tossings of a sleepless night. The Moormen were out at dawn to look for elephants, the guns were cleaned, and I looked forward to the return of the trackers with peculiar interest, as we had determined to 'catch an elephant.' The Moormen were all full of excitement and preparation. These men were well practised in this sport, and they were soon busied in examining and coiling their hide ropes for the purpose. At about mid-day the trackers returned, having found a herd about five miles from the village. We were all ready, and we set off without a moment's delay, our party consisting of my brother, myself, four gun-bearers, and about thirty Moormen, each of whom carried a coil of finely-twisted rope made of thongs of raw deer's hide; these ropes were each twenty yards in length, and about an inch in diameter. Having skirted the borders of the tank for about three miles, we turned into the forest, and continued our route through alternate open and thick forest, until we at length reached a rough, open country, interspersed with low jungles. Here we met the watchers, who reported the herd to be a few hundred paces from us in some patches of thick jungle. Taking the wind, we carefully approached their position. The ground was very rough, being a complete city of anthills about two feet high; these were overgrown with grass, giving the open country an appearance of a vast churchyard of turf graves. Among these tumps grew numerous small clusters of bushes, above which, we shortly discovered the flapping ears of the elephants, they were slowly feeding towards the more open ground. It was a lovely afternoon, the sky was covered with a thin grey cloud, and the sun had little or no power. Hiding behind a bush, we watched the herd for some time, until they had all quitted the bushes and were well out in the open. There were two elephants facing us, and the herd, which consisted of seven, were tolerably close together, with the exception of one, who was about thirty yards apart from the main body; this fellow we determined to catch. We therefore arranged that our gun-bearers and four rope-carriers should accompany us, while the remaining portion of our party should lie in reserve to come to our assistance when required, as so large a body of men could not possibly stalk the herd without being discovered. Falling upon our hands and knees, we crept between the grassy ant-hills towards the two leading elephants, who were facing us. The wind was pretty brisk, and the ant-hills effectually concealed us till we were within seven paces of our game. The two leaders then both dropped dead to the front shot, and the fun began. The guns were so well handed up, that we knocked over the six elephants before they had given us a run of twenty yards, and we all closed up and ran under the tail of the retreating elephant that we had devoted to the ropes. He was going at about seven miles an hour; we therefore had no difficulty in keeping up with him, as we could run between the ant-hills much faster than he could. The ropes were in readiness, and with great dexterity, one of the Moormen slipped a noose over one of his hind feet, as he raised it from the ground; and drawing it tight, he dropped his coil. We all halted, and allowed the unconscious elephant to run out his length of line; this he soon did, and the rope trailed after him like a long snake, we all following at about the centre of the length of rope, or twenty paces behind him. He was making for the jungle, which was not far distant, and we were running him like a pack of hounds, but keeping a gun in readiness, lest he should turn and charge. He at length reached the wooded bank of a dry river, and thick rattan jungle bordered the opposite side; he thought he was safe, and he plunged down the crumbling bank. We were a little too quick for him, by taking a double turn round a tree with the slack end of the rope just as he descended the bank; the effect of this was to bring him to a sudden standstill, and the stretching of the hide rope threw him upon his knees. He recovered himself immediately, and used extraordinary efforts to break away; tightening the rope to its utmost length, he suddenly lifted up his tied leg and threw his whole weight forward. Any but a hide rope of that diameter must have given way, but this stretched like a harp-string, and at every effort to break it, the yielding elasticity of the hide threw him upon his head, and the sudden contraction after the fall, jerked his leg back to its full length. After many vain, but tremendous efforts to free himself, he turned his rage upon his pursuers, and charged everyone right and left; but he was safely tied, and we took some little pleasure in teasing him. He had no more chance than a fly in a spider's web. As he charged in one direction, several nooses were thrown round his hind legs; then his trunk was caught in a slip-knot, then his fore legs, then his neck, and the ends of all these ropes being brought together and hauled tight, he was effectually hobbled. This had taken some time to effect (about half an hour), and we now commenced a species of harness to enable us to drive him to the village. The first thing was to secure his trunk by tying it to one of his fore legs; this leg was then fastened with a slack rope to one of his hind legs, which prevented him from taking a longer stride than about two feet; his neck was then tied to his other fore leg, and two ropes were made fast to both his fore and hind legs; the ends of these ropes being manned by thirty men. Having completed these arrangements, he was released from the ties which hobbled him, and we commenced the arduous task of driving him towards the village, a distance of five miles. The only method of getting him along, was to keep two men to tease him in front, by shouting and waving cloths before his face; he immediately charged these fellows, who, of course, ran in the right direction for the village, and by this repeated manoeuvre we reached the borders of the tank by nightfall. We were still at least two miles from the village, and we were therefore obliged to tie him to a tree for the night. The next morning we succeeded in driving him to the village. He was a fine elephant, but not full grown, and for this reason he had been selected from the herd for capture, as they are more valuable at this particular period of their growth, being easily rendered docile. He was about sixteen years of age; and by starving for two days, and subsequent gentle treatment, the natives mounted and rode him on the third day of his capture, taking the precaution, however, of first securing his trunk. This elephant was then worth fifteen pounds to be sold to the Arabs for the Indian market. After a stay of a few days in this neighbourhood, during which we had good sport in elephant-shooting, we returned to the Park country. The first evening of our return, we heard elephants roaring in the jungle within a short distance of the tent. At daybreak the next morning we were on their tracks, and after a walk of five miles we found them in thick thorny jungle, and only killed three. We had a long day's work, and we were returning home in the afternoon when we suddenly observed a herd of deer grazing in the beautiful park. The headman of this part of the country is a first-rate sportsman, and has always accompanied me in shooting through this district. This man, whose name is Banda, is the only Cingalese that I have ever seen who looks like a man of good birth in his nation. Strikingly handsome and beautifully proportioned, with the agility of a deer, he is in all respects the beau ideal of a native hunter. His skill in tracking is superb, and his thorough knowledge of the habits of all Ceylon animals, especially of elephants, renders him a valuable ally to a sportsman. He and I commenced a careful stalk, and after a long circuit I succeeded in getting within seventy paces of the herd of deer. The ground was undulating, and they were standing on the top of a low ridge of hills. I dropped a buck with my two-ounce rifle, and the herd immediately disappeared behind the top of the hill. Taking one of my double-barrelled rifles, which Banda gave me, I ran to the top of the hill as fast as I could, just in time to see the herd going at a flying speed along a small valley at a long distance. Another buck was separated from the herd by about forty paces, and putting up the second sight of my rifle, I took a shot at him; to my delight he plunged heavily upon the turf. I fired my remaining barrel at the herd, but I must have missed, as none fell. I immediately stepped the distance to the dead buck, 187 paces. I had fired a little too high, and missed his body, but the ball struck him in the neck and had broken his spine. A successful flying shot at this distance has a very pretty effect, and Banda was delighted. There were very few elephants at this season at the Park, and the numberless 'ticks' which swarmed in the grass, spoilt all the pleasure of shooting. These little wretches, which are not larger than a small grain of gunpowder, find their way to every part of the body, and the irritation of their bites is indescribable. Scratching, is only adding fuel to fire; there is no certain prevention or relief from their attacks; the best thing that I know is cocoa-nut oil rubbed daily over the whole body, but the remedy is almost as unpleasant as the bite. Ceylon is, at all times, a frightful place for vermin: in the dry weather we have ticks; it the wet weather mosquitoes, and, what are still more disgusting, 'leeches,' which swarm in the grass, and upon the leaves of the jungle. These creatures insinuate themselves through all the openings in a person's dress--up the trousers, under the waistcoat, down the neck, up the wrists, and in fact everywhere, drawing blood with insatiable voracity, and leaving an unpleasant irritation for some days after. All these annoyances form great drawbacks to the enjoyment of the low-country sports; although they are afterwards forgotten, and the bright moments of the sport are all that are looked back to, they are great discomforts at the time. When the day is over, and the man, fatigued by intense heat and a hard day's work, feels himself refreshed by a bath and a change of clothes, the incurable itching of a thousand tick-bites destroys all his pleasure; he finds himself streaming with blood from leech-bites, and for the time he feels disgusted with the country. First-rate sport can alone compensate for all these annoyances. There is a portion of the Park country known as Dimbooldene. In this part there is a cave formed by a large overhanging rock, which is a much cooler residence than the tent. Here we accordingly bivouacked, the cave being sufficiently large to contain the horses in addition to ourselves and servants. After a delightfully cool night, free from mosquitoes, we made a day of it, but we walked from sunrise till 5 P.M. without seeing a sign of an elephant. At length, from the top of a high hill on the very confines of the Park country, we looked across a deep valley, and with the assistance of the telescope we plainly distinguished a large single elephant feeding on the grassy side of an opposite mountain. To cross the deep valley that separated us, and to ascend the mountain, would have taken several hours, and at this time of the day it was impracticable; we were thus compelled to turn our backs upon the game, and return towards our rocky home. Tired, more from our want of success than from the day's work, we strolled leisurely along, and we were talking of the best plan to be adopted for the next day's work, when I suddenly observed a herd of eight elephants going up the side of a small hill at their best pace within 200 yards of us. They had just quitted a small jungle at the bottom of a ravine, and they had been alarmed by our approach. Off we started in pursuit, down the rugged side of the hill we were descending, and up the opposite hill, upon the elephants' tracks, as hard as we could run. Just as we reached the top of the hill, the elephants were entering a small jungle on the other side. My brother got a shot, and killed the last of the herd; in another moment they had disappeared. It had been a sharp burst up the steep hill, and we stopped to breathe, but we were almost immediately in pursuit again, as we saw the herd emerge from the jungle at the base of the hill, and plough their way through a vast field of high lemon grass. Upon arriving on their tracks, they had fairly distanced us. The grass, which was as thick as a hedge, was trodden into lanes by the elephants, and upon either side it stood like a wall ten or twelve feet high. Upon these tracks we ran along for some time, until it became dusk. We halted, and were consulting as to the prudence of continuing the chase at this late hour, when we suddenly heard the cracking of the branches in a small jungle in a hollow close to our left, and upon taking a position upon some rising ground, we distinctly saw several elephants standing in the high grass about a hundred paces before us, close to the edge of the jungle in which the remaining portion of the herd was concealed. Two of the elephants were looking at us, and as there was no time to lose, we walked straight up to them. They stood quietly watching us till we were within twenty yards, when they came a few paces forward, one immediately fall ing dead to my shot, while the other was turned by a shot from my brother; the rest retreated to the jungle over the most difficult ground for both man and beast. Immense rocks lay scattered in heaps over the surface, forming chasms by the intervening crevices of five and six feet in depth; from these crevices the long lemon grass grew in dense tufts, completely hiding the numerous pitfalls, and making the retreat of the elephants and our pursuit equally difficult. I was close to the tail of a large elephant, who was picking his way carefully over the treacherous surface, and I was waiting for an opportunity for a shot should he turn his head, when I suddenly pitched head first into one of these rocky holes. Here I scrambled for some seconds before I could extricate myself, as I was carrying my heavy four-ounce rifle; and at length, upon recovering my footing, I found that all the elephants had gained the jungle, except the one that I had been following. He was about twenty yards from me, and was just entering the jungle, but I got a splendid shot at him behind the ear and rolled him over. It was very nearly dark, and we could not of course follow the herd any farther; we therefore reloaded, and turned towards the direction of the cave; this was plainly shown by a distant blaze of light from the night-fires, which were already lit. We were walking slowly along parallel to the jungle, into which the elephants had retreated, when my man Wallace, who is a capital gun-bearer, halloed out, 'Here comes an elephant!' and in the dim twilight I could see an elephant bowling at a great pace towards us, but close to the jungle. He was forty yards from me, but my brother fired at him and without effect. I took a quick shot with a double-barrelled rifle, and he dropped immediately. Hearing him roar as he lay in the high lemon grass by the edge of the jungle, I ran down the gentle slope to the spot, followed by my trusty gun-bearer Wallace, as I knew the elephant was only stunned and would soon recover. Upon arriving within a few feet of the spot, pushing my way with difficulty through the tangled lemon grass, I could not see where he lay, as daylight had now vanished. I was vainly looking about, when I suddenly heard a rush in the grass close to me, and I saw the head and cocked ears of the elephant within six feet, as he came at me. I had just time to fire my remaining barrel, and down he dropped to the shot! I jumped back a few paces to assure myself of the result, as the smoke hanging in the high grass, added to the darkness, completely blinded me. Wallace pushed the spare rifle into my hand, and to my astonishment I saw the head and cocked ears again coming at me! It was so dark that I could not take an aim, but I floored him once more by a front shot, and again I jumped back through the tangled grass, just in time to avoid him, as he, for the third time, recovered himself and charged. He was not five paces from me; I took a steady shot at him with my last barrel, and I immediately bolted as hard as I could run. This shot once more floored him, but he must have borne a charmed life, as he again recovered his legs, and to my great satisfaction he turned into the jungle and retreated. This all happened in a few seconds; had it been daylight I could of course have killed him, but as it happened I could not even distinguish the sights at the end of my rifle. In a few minutes afterwards, it became pitch dark, and we could only steer for the cave by the light of the fire, which was nearly two miles distant. The next day, we found a herd of eight elephants in very favourable ground, and succeeded in killing seven; but this was the last herd in the Park, and after a few days spent in beating up the country without success, I returned to Newera Ellia, the bag being twenty-two elephants during a trip of three weeks, in addition to deer, hogs, buffalo, and small game, which had afforded excellent sport. CHAPTER X. Another Trip to the Park-A Hard Day's Work-Discover a Herd-Death of the Herd-A Furious Charge-Caught at Last-The Consequences-A Thorough Rogue-Another Herd in High Lemon Grass-Bears-A Fight between a Moorman and a Bear-A Musical Herd-Herd Escape-A Plucky Buck-Death of 'Killbuck'-Good Sport with a Herd-End of the Trip. ABOUT twelve months elapsed without my pulling a trigger. I had contented myself with elk-hunting in Newera Ellia and the vicinity, but in November, 1850, the greyhounds were again in their palanquin, and, ac companied by my brother V., I was once more in the saddle on my steady-going old horse Jack, en route for the Park. It was 5 P.M. on a cool and lovely evening that we halted, and unsaddled in this beautiful country. Our tents and coolies were far behind, our horse-keepers were our only attendants, and we fixed upon a spot as the most eligible site for the tents. A large open park lay before us, interspersed with trees, and clumps of forest. A clear stream flowed from some low rocky hills upon our right, and several detached masses of rock lay scattered irregularly here and there, like the ruins of an old castle. Large trees grew from the crevices of these rocks, and beneath their shade we turned our horses loose to graze upon a soft sweet grass, with which this part of the Park is covered. We had the greyhounds with us, and a single rifle, but no other guns, as the servants were far behind. Having given directions to the horse-keepers to point out the spot for the tents on the arrival of the people, we took a stroll with the greyhounds to get a deer, as we depended upon this chance for our dinner. Just as we were starting, we noticed two large elephants feeding on the rocky hills within a quarter of a mile of us; but having no guns up, with the exception of one rifle, we were obliged to postpone the attack, and, cautioning the horse-keepers to observe silence lest the game should be alarmed, we left the elephants to their meal, while we struck off in another direction with the greyhounds. We found a herd of deer within half a mile of our starting-place; they had just come out from the forest for the night's feeding; and when I first saw them, they were barking to each other in a small glade within sixty paces of the jungle. Dinner depending upon success, I stalked them with the greatest caution. Taking Killbuck and Lena in the slips I crept from tree to tree without the slightest noise; I had the wind, and if any dogs could kill a deer in the difficult position in which the herd stood, these two would do it. I got within sixty yards of the herd before they observed me, and as they dashed off towards the jungle, I slipped the straining greyhounds. A loud cheer to the dogs confused the herd, and they scattered to the right and left as they gained the forest, the dogs being close up with them, and Killbuck almost at a buck's throat as he reached the jungle. Following as well as I could through the dusky jungle, I shortly heard the cry of a deer, and on arriving at the spot I found Killbuck and Lena with a buck on the ground. No deer had a chance with this wonderful dog Killbuck. When he was once slipped, there was no hope for the game pursued; no matter what the character of the country might be, it was certain death to the deer. We gralloched the buck, and having fed the dogs with the offal, we carried him on a pole to the place where we had left the horses. On arrival, we deposited our heavy burden; and to our satisfaction, we found all our people had arrived. The tents were pitched, and the night-fires were already blazing, as daylight had nearly ceased. In the course of an hour, we were comfortably seated at our table, with venison steaks, and chops smoking before us--thanks to the dogs, who were now soundly sleeping at our feet. During the progress of dinner I planned the work for the day following. We were now eight miles from Nielgalla (Blue Rock), the village at which Banda resided, and I ordered a man to start off at daybreak to tell him that I was in his country, and to bring old Medima and several other good men (that I knew) to the tent without delay. I proposed that we should, in the meantime, start at daylight on the tracks of the two elephants that we had seen upon the hills, taking Wallace and a few of the best coolies as gun-bearers. Wallace is a Cochin man, who prides himself upon a mixture of Portuguese blood. He speaks six different languages fluently, and is without exception the best interpreter and the most plucky gun-bearer that I have ever seen. He has accompanied me through so many scenes with unvarying firmness that I never have the slightest anxiety about my spare guns if he is there, as he keeps the little troop of gun-bearers in their places in a most methodical manner. At break of day on the following morning we were upon the tracks of the two elephants, but a slight shower during the night had so destroyed them that we found it was impossible to follow them up. We therefore determined to examine the country thoroughly for fresh tracks, and we accordingly passed over many miles of ground, but to little purpose, as none were to be seen. We at length discovered fresh traces of a herd in thick thorny jungle, which was too dense to enter, but marking their position, we determined to send out watchers on the following day to track them into better country. Having killed a deer, we started him off with some coolies that we had taken with us on this chance, and we continued our route till 3 P.M. We had lost our way, and, not having any guide, we had no notion of the position of the tents; the heat of the day had been intense, and, not having breakfasted, we were rather anxious about the direction. Strolling through this beautiful expanse of Park country, we directed our course for a large rocky mountain, at a few miles' distance, at the base of which I knew lay the route from the tent to Nielgalla. To our great satisfaction we found the path at about 4 P.M., and we walked briskly along at the foot of the mountain in the direction of our encampment, which was about four miles distant. We had just arrived at an angle of the mountain, which, in passing, we were now leaving to our left, when we suddenly halted, our attention having been arrested by the loud roaring of elephants in a jungle at the foot of the hills, within a quarter of a mile of us. The roaring continued at intervals, reverberating among the rocks like distant thunder, till it at length died away to stillness. We soon arrived in the vicinity of the sound, and shortly discovered tracks upon a hard sandy soil, covered with rocks and overgrown with a low, but tolerably open jungle at the base of the mountain. Following the tracks, we began to ascend steep flights of natural steps formed by the successive layers of rock, which girded the foot of the mountain; these were covered with jungle, interspersed with large detached masses of granite, which in some places formed alleys through which the herd had passed. The surface of the ground being nothing but hard rock, tracking was very difficult, and it took me a considerable time to follow them up by the pieces of twigs and crunched leaves, which the elephants had dropped while feeding. I at length tracked them to a small pool formed by the rain-water in the hollow of the rock; here they had evidently been drinking only a few minutes previous, as the tracks of their feet upon the margin of the pool were still wet. I now went on in advance of the party with great caution, as I knew that we were not many paces from the herd. Passing through several passages among the rocks, I came suddenly upon a level plateau of ground covered with dense lemon grass about twelve feet high, which was so thick and tangled, that a man could with difficulty force his way through it. This level space was about two acres in extent, and was surrounded by jungle upon all sides but one; on this side, to our right as we entered, the mountain rose in rocky steps, from the crevices of which, the lemon grass grew in tall tufts. The instant that I arrived in this spot, I perceived the nap of an elephant's ear in the high grass, about thirty paces from me, and upon careful inspection I distinguished two elephants standing close together. By the rustling of the grass in different places I could see that the herd was scattered, but I could not make out the elephants individually, as the grass was above their heads. I paused for some minutes to consider the best plan of attack; but the gun-bearers, who were behind me, being in a great state of excitement, began to whisper to each other, and in arranging their positions behind their respective masters, they knocked several of the guns together. In the same moment, the two leading elephants discovered us, and, throwing their trunks up perpendicularly, they blew the shrill trumpet of alarm without attempting to retreat. Several trumpets answered the call immediately from different positions in the high grass, from which, trunks were thrown up, and huge heads just appeared in many places, as they endeavoured to discover the danger which the leaders had announced. The growl of an elephant is exactly like the rumbling of thunder, and from their deep lungs the two leader, who had discovered us, kept up an uninterrupted peal, thus calling the herd together. Nevertheless, they did not attempt to retreat, but stood gazing attentively at us with their ears cocked, looking extremely vicious. In the meantime, we stood perfectly motionless, lest we should scare them before the whole herd had closed up. In about a minute, a dense mass of elephants had collected round the two leaders, who were all gazing at us; and thinking this a favourable moment, I gave the word, and we pushed towards them through the high grass. A portion of the herd immediately wheeled round and retreated as we advanced, but five elephants, including the two who had first discovered us, formed in a compact line abreast, and thrashing the long grass to the right and left with their trunks, with ears cocked and tails up, they came straight at us. We pushed forward to meet them, but they still came on in a perfect line, till within ten paces of us. A cloud of smoke hung over the high grass as the rifles cracked in rapid succession, and the FIVE ELEPHANTS LAY DEAD in the same order as they had advanced. The spare guns had been beautifully handed; and running between the carcasses, we got into the lane that the remaining portion of the herd had made by crushing the high grass in their retreat. We were up with them in a few moments; down went one! then another! up he got again, almost immediately recovering from V.'s shot; down he went again! as I floored him with my last barrel. I was now unloaded, as I had only two of my double-barrelled No. 10 rifles out that day, but the chase was so exciting that I could not help following empty-handed, in the hope that some gun-bearer might put one of V.'s spare guns in my hand. A large elephant and her young one, who was about three feet and a half high, were retreating up the rugged side of the mountain, and the mother, instead of protecting the little one, was soon a hundred paces ahead of him, and safely located in a thick jungle which covered that portion of the mountain. Being empty-handed, I soon scrambled up and caught the little fellow by the tail; but he was so strong that I could not hold him, although I exerted all my strength, and he dragged me slowly towards the jungle to which his mother had retreated. V. now came up, and he being loaded, I told him to keep a look-out for the mother's return, while I secured my captive, by seizing him by the trunk with one hand and by the tail with the other; in this manner I could just master him by throwing my whole weight down the hill, and he began to roar like a full-grown elephant. The mother was for a wonder faithless to her charge, and did not return to the little one's assistance. While I was engaged in securing him, the gun-bearers came up, and at this moment I observed, at the foot of the hill, another elephant, not quite full grown, who was retreating through the high grass towards the jungle. There were no guns charged except one of my No. 10 rifles, which some one had reloaded; taking this, I left the little 'Ponchy' with V. and the gun-bearers, and running down the side of the hill, I came up with the elephant just as he was entering the jungle, and getting the earshot, I killed him. We had bagged nine elephants, and only one had escaped from the herd; this was the female who had forsaken her young one. Wallace now came up and cut off the tails of those that I had killed. I had one barrel still loaded, and I was pushing my way through the tangled grass towards the spot where the five elephants lay together, when I suddenly heard Wallace shriek out, 'Look out, sir! Look out!--an elephant's coming!' I turned round in a moment; and close past Wallace, from the very spot where the last dead elephant lay, came the very essence and incarnation of a 'rogue' elephant in full charge. His trunk was thrown high in the air, his ears were cocked, his tail stood erect above his back as stiff as a poker, and screaming exactly like the whistle of a railway engine, he rushed upon me through the high grass with a velocity that was perfectly wonderful. His eyes flashed as he came on, and he had singled me out as his victim. I have often been in dangerous positions, but I never felt so totally devoid of hope as I did in this instance. The tangled grass rendered retreat impossible. I had only one barrel loaded, and that was useless, as the upraised trunk protected his forehead. I felt myself doomed; the few thoughts that rush through men's minds in such hopeless positions, flew through mine, and I resolved to wait for him till he was close upon me, before I fired, hoping that he might lower his trunk and expose his forehead. He rushed along at the pace of a horse in full speed; in a few moments, as the grass flew to the right and left before him, he was close upon me, but still his trunk was raised and I would not fire. One second more, and at this headlong pace he was within three feet of me; down slashed his trunk with the rapidity of a whip-thong! and with a shrill scream of fury he was upon me! I fired at that instant; but in a twinkling of an eye I was flying through the air like a ball from a bat. At the moment of firing. I had jumped to the left, but he struck me with his tusk in full charge upon my right thigh, and hurled me eight or ten paces from him. That very moment he stopped, and, turning round, he beat the grass about with his trunk, and commenced a strict search for me. I heard him advancing close to the spot where I lay as still as death, knowing that my last chance lay in concealment. I heard the grass rustling close to me; closer and closer he approached, and he at length beat the grass with his trunk several times exactly above me. I held my breath, momentarily expecting to feel his ponderous foot upon me. Although I had not felt the sensation of fear while I had stood opposed to him, I felt like what I never wish to feel again while he was deliberately hunting me up. Fortunately I had reserved my fire until the rifle had almost touched him, for the powder and smoke had nearly blinded him, and had spoiled his acute power of scent. To my joy I heard the rustling of the grass grow fainter; again I heard it at a still greater distance; at length it was gone! At that time I thought that half my bones were broken, as I was numbed from head to foot by the force of the blow. His charge can only be compared to a blow from a railway engine going at twenty miles an hour. Not expecting to be able to move, I crept to my hands and knees. To my delight there were no bones broken, and with a feeling of thankfulness I stood erect. I with difficulty reached a stream of water near the spot, in which I bathed my leg, but in a few minutes it swelled to the size of a man's waist. In this spot everyone had congregated, and were loading their guns, but the rogue had escaped. My cap and rifle were now hunted for, and they were at length found near the spot where I had been caught. The elephant had trodden on the stock of the rifle, and it bears the marks of his foot to this day. In a few minutes I was unable to move. We therefore sent to the tent for the horses, and arrived at 6 P.M., having had a hard day's work from 5 A.M. without food. On arrival at the tent we found Banda and the trackers. There could not be a better exemplification of a rogue than in this case. A short distance apart from the herd, he had concealed himself in the jungle, from which position he had witnessed the destruction of his mates. He had not stirred a foot until he saw us totally unprepared, when he instantly seized the opportunity and dashed out upon me. If I had attempted to run from him, I should have been killed, as he would have struck me in the back; my only chance was in the course which I pursued--to wait quietly until he was just over me, and then to jump on one side; he thus struck me on the thickest part of the thigh instead of striking me in the stomach, which he must have done had I remained in my first position; this would have killed me on the spot. I passed an uncomfortable night, my leg being very painful and covered with wet bandages of vinegar and water. The bruise came out from my ankle to my hip; the skin was broken where the tush had struck me, and the blood had started under the skin over a surface of nearly a foot, making the bruise a bright purple, and giving the whole affair a most unpleasant appearance. The next morning I could not move my leg, which felt like a sack of sand, and was perfectly numbed; however, I kept on a succession of cold lotions, and after breakfast I was assisted upon my horse, and we moved the encampment to Nielgalla. On the following day I could just manage to hobble along, my leg being at least double its usual size, and threatening to spoil my sport for the whole trip. We were seated at breakfast when a native came in, bringing intelligence of a herd of elephants about four miles distant. I was not in a state for shooting, but I resolved to mount my steady old horse Jack, and take my chance of revenge for my mishap. The guns were accordingly loaded, and we started. We had ridden through the Park for about three miles, and had just turned round the corner of a patch of jungle, when we came suddenly upon a large rogue elephant, who was standing in the open, facing us at about seventy yards. The moment that he saw the horses he turned sharp round, and retreated to a long belt of fine open forest which was close behind him. There was no resisting the invitation upon such favourable ground, and immediately dismounting, we followed him. I now found that my leg was nearly useless, and I could only move at a snail's pace, and even then with great pain. Upon reaching the forest, we found that the rogue had decamped, not wishing to meet us in such advantageous ground. We followed his tracks for a few hundred yards through the wood, till we suddenly emerged upon a large tract of high lemon grass. Into this, our cunning foe had retreated, and with my decreased powers of locomotion, I did not wish to pursue him farther. I was at length persuaded by Banda to make a trial, and we accordingly left the track, and pushed our way through the high grass to some rising ground, from which we could look over the surface of waving vegetation, and find out the exact position of the elephant. While forcing our way through the dense mass, I momentarily expected to hear the rush of the rogue charging down upon us, and I was glad to find myself at length safe in the position we had steered for. Upon scanning the surface of the grass, I distinguished the elephant immediately; he was standing close to the edge of the jungle in the high grass facing us, at about 150 yards distant. He was a picture of intense excitement and attention, and was evidently waiting for us. In the position that we now occupied, we unavoidably gave him the wind, and he of course almost immediately discovered us. Giving two or three shrill trumpets, he paced quickly to and fro before the jungle, as though he were guarding the entrance. To enter the high grass to attack him, would have been folly, as he was fully prepared, and when once in the tangled mass we could not have seen him until he was upon us; we therefore amused ourselves for about ten minutes by shouting at him. During this time he continued pacing backwards and forwards, screaming almost without intermission; and having suddenly made up his mind to stand this bullying no longer, he threw his trunk up in the air and charged straight at us. The dust flew like smoke from the dry grass as he rushed through it; but we were well prepared to receive him. Not wishing him to come to close quarters with my useless leg, I gave him a shot with my two-ounce rifle, at about 120 paces. It did not even check him, but it had the effect of making him lower his trunk, and he came on at undiminished speed. Taking the four-ounce rifle from Wallace, I heard the crack of the ball as it entered his head at about 100 yards. He was down! A general shout of exclamation rose from Banda and all the gun-bearers. I reloaded the four-ounce immediately, and the ball was just rammed home when we heard the supposed dead elephant roaring on the ground. In another moment he regained his legs and stood with his broadside exposed to us, stunned with the heavy ball in his head. Taking a steady shot at his shoulder, I gave him a second dose of the four-ounce; he reeled to and fro and staggered into the jungle. I dared not follow him in my crippled state, and we returned to the horses; but the next day he was found dead by the natives. I much feared that the shot fired might have disturbed the herd of elephants, as they were reported to be not far distant; this, however, proved not to be the case, as we met the watchers about a mile farther on, who reported the herd to be perfectly undisturbed, but located in the everlasting lemon grass. At this time the greater portion of the Park was a mass of this abominable grass, and there was no chance of getting the elephants in any other position, this serving them at the same time for both food and shelter. How they can eat it is a puzzle; it is as sharp as a knife, and as coarse as a file, with a flavour of the most pungent lemon peel. We shortly arrived at the spot in which the herd was concealed; it was a gentle slope covered with dense lemon grass, terminated by a jungle. We could just distinguish the tops of the elephants' heads in several places, and, having dismounted, we carefully entered the grass, and crept towards the nearest elephants. The herd was much scattered, but there were five elephants close to each other, and we made towards these, Banda leading the way. My only chance of making a bag lay in the first onset; I therefore cautioned Wallace to have the spare guns handed with extra diligence, and we crept up to our game. There were two elephants facing us, but we stalked them so carefully through the high grass that we got within four paces of them before they discovered us; they cocked their ears for an instant, and both rolled over at the same moment to the front shot. Away dashed the herd, trumpeting and screaming as they rushed through the high grass. For a few moments my game leg grew quite lively, as it was all downhill work, and I caught up an elephant and killed him with the left-hand barrel. Getting a spare gun, I was lucky enough to get between two elephants who were running abreast towards the jungle, and I bagged them by a right and left shot. Off went the herd at a slapping pace through the jungle, V. pitching it into them, but unfortunately to very little purpose, as they had closed up and formed a barrier of sterns; thus we could not get a good shot. For about a quarter of a mile I managed to hobble along, carried away by the excitement of the chase, through jungles, hollows, and small glades, till my leg, which had lost all feeling, suddenly gave way, and I lay sprawling on my face, incapable of going a step farther. I had killed four elephants; six had been killed altogether. It was very bad luck, as the herd consisted of eleven; but the ground was very unfavourable, and my leg gave way when it was most required. A few days after this, the tents were pitched on the banks of the broad river of Pattapalaar, about eight miles beyond Nielgalla. Elephants were very scarce, and the only chance of getting them, was to work hard. We were on horseback at break of day, and having forded the river, we rode silently through plain and forest in search of tracks. We refused every shot at deer, lest we should disturb the country, and scare away the elephants. We had ridden for some distance upon an elephant path, through a tolerably open forest at the foot of a range of rocky mountains, when Banda, who was some paces in advance, suddenly sprang back again, crying, 'Wallaha! wallaha!' (Bears! bears!) We were off our horses in a moment, but I fell sprawling upon my back, my leg being so powerless and numbed that I could not feel when I touched the ground. I recovered myself just in time to see a bear waddling along through the jungle, and I pushed after him in pursuit at my best pace. V. had disappeared in the jungle in pursuit of another bear, and I presently heard two or three shots. In the meantime my game had slackened speed to a careless kind of swaggering walk; and the underwood being rather thick, I was determined to get close to him before I fired, as I knew that I could not follow him far, and my success would therefore depend upon the first shot. I overtook him in a few moments, and I was following within a foot of his tail, waiting for a chance for a clear shot between his shoulders, as the thick underwood parted above his back, when he suddenly sprang round, and with a fierce roar, he leaped upon the muzzle of the gun. I fired both barrels into him as he threw his whole weight against it, and I rolled him over in a confused cloud of smoke and crackling bushes. In a moment he was on his legs again, but going off through the thick underwood at a pace that in my helpless state soon left me far behind. His state must have been far from enviable, as he left portions of his entrails all along his track. V. had killed his bear; he weighed about two hundred pounds, and measured fourteen inches round the arm, without his hide. The Ceylon bear is a most savage animal, constantly attacking men without the slightest provocation. I have seen many natives frightfully disfigured by the attacks of bears, which they dread more than any other animal. Nothing would induce my trackers to follow up the wounded beast. I followed him as far as I could, but my useless limb soon gave way, and I was obliged to give him up. I once saw a Moorman, who was a fine powerful fellow and an excellent elephant-tracker, who had a narrow escape from a bear. He was cutting bamboos with a catty or kind of bill-hook, when one of these animals descended from a tree just above him and immediately attacked him. The man instinctively threw his left arm forward to receive the bear, who seized it in his mouth and bit the thumb completely off, lacerating the arm and wrist at the same time in a frightful manner. With one blow of the bill-hook the Moorman cleft the bear's skull to the teeth, at the same time gashing his own arm to the bone by the force of the blow; and he never afterwards recovered the proper use of the limb. The Ceylon bear feeds upon almost anything that offers; he eats honey, ants, fruit, roots, and flesh whenever he can procure it: his muscular power is enormous, and he exerts both teeth and claws in his attack. They are very numerous in Ceylon, although they are seldom met with in any number, owing to their nocturnal habits, which attract them to their caves at break of day. After strolling over the country for some miles, we came upon fresh elephant-tracks in high grass, which we immediately followed up. In the course of half an hour, after tracking them for about two miles through open country, we entered a fine forest, in which the herd had retired; but our hopes of meeting them in this favourable ground were suddenly damped by arriving at a dense chenar jungle in the very heart of the forest. This chenar extended for some acres, and rose like a hedge, forming a sudden wall of thorns, which effectually checked our advance. The elephants had retired to this secure retreat, and having winded us they kept up an uninterrupted roaring. I never heard such a musical herd: the deep and thunder-like growls, combined with the shrill trumpet and loud roars, as they all joined in concert, had a particularly grand effect, and a novice in elephant-shooting would have felt his heart beat in double time. There was a rogue consorting with this herd, and it was necessary to be particularly cautious in the attack. It was impossible to enter such thick jungle, and I've waited for some hours in the forest, close to the edge of the chenar, trying every dodge in vain to induce the herd to quit their stronghold. They were continually on the QUI VIVE. Sometimes a tremendous rush would be heard in the thick jungle as the herd would charge towards us; but they invariably stopped just upon the borders, and would not venture into the open forest. On one occasion I thought we had them: they rushed to the edge of the thick jungle, and suddenly filed off to the left and halted in a line within a few feet of the forest. We were within six paces of them, concealed behind the trunks of several large trees, from which we could discover the dim forms of six elephants through the screen of thorns, which had a similar effect to that produced by looking through a gauze veil. For some moments they stood in an attitude of intense attention, and I momentarily expected them to break cover, as we were perfectly still and motionless in our concealed position. Suddenly they winded us, and whisked round to the thick jungle, disappearing like magic. We now tried the effect of bullying, and we sent men to different parts of the jungle to shout and fire guns; this stirred up the wrath of the rogue, and he suddenly burst from the thick jungle and rushed into the open forest right among us. We were both standing behind the trees; and the gun-bearers, with the exception of Wallace, had thrown the guns down and had bolted up the trees when they heard the rush of the elephant through the jungle; thus, upon his arrival in the open forest, he could see no one, and he stood gazing about him with his ears cocked and tail on end, not knowing exactly what to do, but ready to charge the first person that showed himself. He was an immense elephant, being one of the largest that I have ever seen, and he had as fine an expression of vice in his appearance as any rogue could wish for. Suddenly he turned his trunk towards us, but he was puzzled as to the exact position of any one, as so many men were scattered among the trees. I was within twenty yards of him, and he turned his head towards the spot, and was just on the move forward, when I anticipated his intentions by running up to him and knocking him over by a shot in the forehead, which killed him. Unfortunately the herd at the same moment broke cover on the opposite side of the jungle, and escaped without a shot being fired at them. It was nearly dusk, and we were five miles from the tent; we were therefore obliged to give them up. The next morning, at daybreak, I rode out with the greyhounds, Killbuck, Bran and Lena, to kill a deer. The lemon grass was so high at this season that the dogs had no chance, and I was therefore compelled to pick out some spot which was free from this grass, and employ beaters to drive the jungles, instead of stalking the deer in the usual manner. I tracked a herd of deer into a large detached piece of cover, and, sending the beaters round to the opposite side, I posted myself with the greyhounds in the slips behind a clump of trees, upon a small plain of low, soft grass. The noise of the beaters approached nearer and nearer, and presently two splendid bucks with beautiful antlers rushed from the jungle about two hundred yards from me, and scudded over the plain. I slipped the greyhounds, and away they went in full fly, bounding over the soft turf in grand style. Mounting old Jack, who was standing at my elbow, and giving him the spur, I rode after them. It was a splendid course; the two bucks separated, Bran and Lena taking after one, and Killbuck following the other in his usual dashing manner. Away they went with wonderful speed, the bucks constantly doubling to throw the dogs out; but Killbuck never overshot his game, and as the buck doubled, he was round after him in fine style. I now followed him, leaving Bran and Lena to do their best, and at a killing pace we crossed the plain--through a narrow belt of trees, down a stony hollow, over another plain, through a small jungle, on entering which Killbuck was within a few yards of the buck's haunches. Now, old Jack is as fond of the sport as I am, and he kept up the chase in good style; but just as we were flying through some high lemon grass, a fallen tree, which was concealed beneath, tripped up the horse's fore legs, and in an instant he was on his nose, turning a complete somersault. I was pitched some yards, and upon instinctively mounting again, the sparks were dancing in my eyes for some seconds before I recovered myself, as we continued the chase with unabated speed. We pressed along up some rising ground, having lost sight of the game; and as we reached the top of the hill I looked around and saw the buck at bay about a hundred paces from me, upon fine level ground, fighting face to face with the dog, who sprang boldly at his head. That buck was a noble fellow; he rushed at the dog, and they met like knights in a tournament; but it was murderous work; he received the reckless hound upon his sharp antlers and bored him to the ground. In another instant Killbuck had recovered himself, and he again came in full fly at the buck's face with wonderful courage; again the buck rushed forward to meet him, and once more the pointed antlers pinned the dog, and the buck, following up his charge, rolled him over and over for some yards. By this time I had galloped up, and I was within a few feet of the buck, when he suddenly sprang round with the evident intention of charging the horse. In the same moment Killbuck seized the opportunity, and the buck plunged violently upon the ground, with the staunch dog hanging upon his throat. I, jumped off my horse, and the buck fell dead by a thrust with the knife behind the shoulder. I now examined the dog; he was wounded in several places, but as he bled but little, I hoped that his apparent exhaustion arose more from the fatigue of the fight than from any severe injury. At this time Bran and Lena came up; they had lost their deer in some high lemon grass, but they also were both wounded by the buck's horns. I now put Killbuck and Lena together in the slips, and with the buck, carried upon cross-poles by six men, I rode towards the tent. I had not proceeded far when the man who was leading the greyhounds behind my horse suddenly cried out, and on turning round I saw Killbuck lying on the ground. I was at his side in a moment, and I released his neck from the slips. It was too late; his languid head fell heavily upon the earth; he gave me one parting look, and after a few faint gasps he was gone. I could hardly believe he was dead. Taking off my cap, I ran to a little stream and brought some water, which I threw in his face; but his teeth were set, his eyes were glazed, and the best and truest dog that was ever born was dead. Poor Killbuck! he had died like a hero, and though I grieved over him, I could not have wished him a more glorious death. I was obliged to open him to discover the real injury. I had little thought that the knife which had so often come to his assistance was destined to so sad a task. His lungs were pierced through by the deer's horns in two places, and he had died of sudden suffocation by internal haemorrhage. A large hollow tree grew close to the spot; in this I buried him. The stag's antlers now hang in the hall, a melancholy but glorious memento of poor Killbuck. In a few days my leg had so much improved that I could again use it without much inconvenience; I therefore determined to pay the cave a visit, as I felt convinced that elephants would be more numerous in that neighbourhood. We started in the cool of the afternoon, as the distance was not more than eight miles from our encampment. We had proceeded about half-way, and our horses were picking their way with difficulty over some rocky hills, when we came upon fresh tracks of a herd of elephants. It was too late to go after them that evening; we therefore pitched the tent upon the spot, resolving to track them up at daybreak on the following morning. We were accordingly out before sunrise, and came upon the tracks within a mile of the tent. We at length discovered the herd upon the summit of a steep rocky hill. There were no trees in this part, and we carefully ascended the hill, stepping from rock to rock and occasionally concealing ourselves in the high grass, till we at length stood at the very feet of the elephants, two of whom were standing upon a large platform of rock, about seven feet above us. They were so high above us that I was obliged to aim about four inches down the trunk, so that the ball should reach the brain in an upward direction; this shot proved successful, and killed him. V., who had not taken this precaution, missed; and the whole herd of eight elephants started off in full retreat. The rocks were so steep that it occupied some time in climbing over the top of the hill; upon reaching which, we saw the elephants going off at great speed, with a start of about two hundred paces. The ground was perfectly open, covered by small loose rocks free from grass, and the chase commenced in good earnest. With the elephants in view the whole time, and going at a great pace, a mile was run without the possibility of firing a shot. By this time we had arrived at an undulating country covered with small rocks, and grass about four feet high, which made the pace dreadfully fatiguing; still we dared not slacken the speed for an instant lest the elephants should distance us. This was the time for rifles to tell, although their weight (15 lbs.) was rather trying in so long and fast a run. I was within eighty paces of the herd, and I could not decrease the distance by a single yard. I halted and took a shot at the ear of a large elephant in the middle of the herd. The shot so stunned him that, instead of going on straight, he kept turning round and round as though running after his tail; this threw the herd into confusion, and some ran to the right and others to the left, across some steep hollows. Running up to my wounded elephant, I extinguished him with my remaining barrel; and getting a spare rifle from Wallace, who was the only gun-bearer who had kept up, I floored another elephant, who was ascending the opposite side of a hollow about forty yards off: this fellow took two shots, and accordingly I was left unloaded. V. had made good play with the rifles as the herd was crossing the hollow, and he had killed three, making six bagged in all. The remaining two elephants reached a thick jungle and escaped. We returned to the tent, and after a bath we sat down with a glorious appetite to breakfast, having bagged six elephants before seven o'clock A.M. In the afternoon we went to the cave and sent out trackers. We were very hard up for provisions in this place: there were no deer in the neighbourhood, and we lived upon squirrels and parrots, both of which are excellent eating, but not very substantial fare. The whole of this part of the country was one dark mass of high lemon grass, which, not having been burnt, was a tangled mixture of yellow stalks and sharp blades, that completely destroyed the pleasure of shooting. In this unfavourable ground we found a herd of ten elephants, and after waiting for some time in the hope of their feeding into a better country, we lost all patience and resolved to go in at them and do the best we could. It was late in the afternoon, and the herd, who were well aware of our position, had all closed up in a dense body, and with their trunks thrown up they were trumpeting and screaming as though to challenge us to the attack. Pushing our way through the high grass, we got within six paces of the elephants before they attempted to turn, and the heavy battery opened upon them in fine style. Levelling the grass in their path, they rushed through it in a headlong retreat, V. keeping on one flank, while I took the other; and a race commenced, which continued for about half a mile at full speed, the greater part of this distance being up hill. None of these elephants proved restive; and on arriving at thick jungle two only entered out of the ten that had composed the herd; the remaining eight lay here and there along the line of the hunt. Out of four herds and three rogues fired at we had bagged thirty-one elephants in a few days' shooting. My mishap on the first day had much destroyed the pleasure of the sport, as the exercise was too much for my wounded leg, which did not recover from the feeling of numbness for some months. CHAPTER XI. Excitement of Elephant-shooting--An Unexpected Visitor--A Long Run with a Buck--Hard Work Rewarded--A Glorious Bay--End of a Hard Day's Work--Bee-hunters--Disasters of Elk-hunting--Bran Wounded--'Old Smut's' Buck--Boar at Hackgalla--Death of 'Old Smut'--Scenery from the Perewelle Mountains--Diabolical Death of 'Merriman'--Scene of the Murder. In describing so many incidents in elephant-shooting it is difficult to convey a just idea of the true grandeur of the sport: it reads too easy. A certain number are killed out of a herd after an animated chase, and the description of the hunt details the amount of slaughter, but cannot possibly explain the peculiar excitement which attends elephant-shooting beyond all other sports. The size of the animal is so disproportionate to that of the hunter that the effect of a large herd of these monsters flying before a single man would be almost ridiculous could the chase be witnessed by some casual observer who was proof against the excitement of the sport. The effect of a really good elephant shot in the pursuit of a herd over open country is very fine. With such weapons as the double-barrelled No. 10 rifles a shot is seldom wasted; and during the chase, an elephant drops from the herd at every puff of smoke. It is a curious sight, and one of the grandest in the world, to see a fine rogue elephant knocked over in full charge. His onset appears so irresistible, and the majesty of his form so overwhelming, that I have frequently almost mistrusted the power of man over such a beast; but one shot well placed, with a heavy charge of powder behind the ball, reduces him in an instant to a mere heap of flesh. One of the most disgusting sights is a dead elephant four or five days after the fatal shot. In a tropical climate, where decomposition proceeds with such wonderful rapidity, the effect of the sun upon such a mass can be readily understood. The gas generated in the inside distends the carcass to an enormous size, until it at length bursts and becomes in a few hours afterwards one living heap of maggots. Three weeks after an elephant is killed, nothing remains but his bones and a small heap of dried cases, from which the flies have emerged when the time arrived for them to change from the form of maggots. The sight of the largest of the animal creation being thus reduced from life to nothingness within so short a space of time is an instance of the perishable tenure of mortality which cannot fail to strike the most unthinking. The majesty, the power, and the sagacity of the enormous beast are scattered in the myriads of flies which have fed upon him. It is a delightful change after a sporting trip of a few weeks in the hot climates to return again to the cool and even temperature of Newera Ellia. The tent is a pleasant dwelling when no other can be obtained, but the comfort of a good house is never so much appreciated as on the return from the jungle. One great pleasure in the hunting at Newera Ellia is the ease with which it is obtained. In fact, the sport lies at the very door. This may be said to be literally true and not a facon de parler, as I once killed an elk that jumped through a window. It was a singular incident. The hounds found three elk at the same time on the mountain at the back of the hotel at Newera Ellia. The pack divided: several hounds were lost for two days, having taken their elk to an impossible country, and the rest of the pack concentrated upon a doe, with the exception of old Smut, who had another elk all to himself. This elk, which was a large doe, he brought down from the top of the mountain to the back of the hotel, just as we had killed the other, which the pack had brought to the same place. A great number of persons were standing in the hotel yard to view the sport, when old Smut and his game appeared, rushing in full fly through the crowd. The elk was so bothered and headed that she went through the back door of the hotel at full gallop, and Smut, with his characteristic sagacity, immediately bolted round to the front of the house, naturally concluding that if she went in at the back door she must come out at the front. He was perfectly right; the old dog stood on the lawn before the hotel, watching the house with great eagerness. In the meantime the elk was galloping from room to room in the hotel, chased by a crowd of people, until she at length took refuge in a lady's bedroom, from which there was no exit, as the window was closed. The crash of glass may be imagined as an animal as large as a pony leaped through it; but old Smut was ready for her, and after a chase of a few yards he pulled her down. This is the only instance that I have ever known of an elk entering a building, although it is a common occurrence with hunted deer in England. An elk found on the top of Pedro talla Galla, which rises from the plain of Newera Ellia, will generally run straight down the mountain, and, unless headed, he will frequently come to bay in the river close to the hotel, which is situated at the foot of the mountain. This, however, is not a rule without an exception, as the elk on some occasions takes a totally different direction, and gives a hard day's work. It was on July 27, 1852, that I had a run of this kind. It was six A.M. when my youngest brother and I started from the foot of Pedro to ascend the mountain. The path is three miles long, through jungle the whole way to the summit. There were fresh tracks of elk near the top of the mountain; the dew lay heavily upon the leaves, and the scent was evidently strong, as Merriman and Ploughboy, the two leading hounds, dashed off upon it, followed by the whole pack. In a few minutes we heard them in full cry about a quarter of a mile from us, going straight down the hill. Giving them a good holloa, we started off down the path at a round pace, and in less than a quarter of an hour we were at the foot of the mountain on the plain. Here we found a number of people who had headed the elk (a fine buck) just as he was breaking cover, and he had turned back, taking off to some other line of country at a great pace, as we could not hear even a whimper. This was enough to make a saint swear, and, blessing heartily the fellows who had headed him, we turned back and retraced our steps up the mountain to listen for the cry of the pack among the numerous ravines which furrow the sides. It was of no use; we could hear nothing but the mocking chirp of birds and the roaring of the mountain torrents. Not a sign of elk or dogs. The greyhounds were away with the pack, and knowing that the dogs would never leave him till dark, we determined not to give them up. No less than three times in the course of the day did we reascend the mountain to listen for them in vain. We went up to the top of the Newera Ellia Pass, in the hope of hearing them in that direction, but with the same want of success. Miles of ground were gone over to no purpose. Scaling the steep sides of the mountains at the back of the barracks, we listened among the deep hollows on the other side, but again we were disappointed; the sound of the torrents was all that we could hear. Descending again to the plain, we procured some breakfast at a friend's house, and we started for the Matturatta Plains. These plains are about three or four miles from the barracks; and I had a faint hope that the buck might have crossed over the mountain, and descended into this part of the country to a river which flows through the patinas. We now mounted our horses, having been on foot all the morning. It was three o'clock P.M., and, with little hope of finding the dogs, we rode along the path towards the Matturatta Plains. We had just entered the forest, when we met a young hound returning along the path with a wound from a buck's horn in the shoulder. There was now no doubt of the direction, and we galloped along the path towards the plains as hard as we could go. About half way to the plains, to my joy I saw an immense buck's track in the path going in the same direction; the toes were spread wide apart, showing the pace at which he had been going; and there were dogs' tracks following him, all as fresh as could be. This was a gladdening sight after a hard day's work, and we gave a random cheer to encourage any dogs that might be within hearing, rattling our horses over the ground at their best speed. At last the plains were reached. We pulled up our panting steeds, and strained every nerve to hear the cry of the hounds. The snorting of the horses prevented our hearing any distant sound, and I gave a holloa and listened for some answering voice from a dog. Instead of a sound, Bran and Lucifer suddenly appeared. This was conclusive evidence that the pack was somewhere in this direction, and we rode out into the plain and again listened. Hark to old Smut! there was his deep voice echoing from the opposite hills. Yoick to him, Bran! forward to him, Lucifer! and away the greyhounds dashed towards the spot from which the sound proceeded. The plain forms a wide valley, with a river winding through the centre, and we galloped over the patinas after the greyhounds in full speed. There was no mistaking the bay. I could now distinguish Merriman's fine voice in addition to that of old Smut, and a general chorus of other tongues joined in, till the woods rang again. The horses knew the sport, and away they went, but suddenly over went old Jack, belly-deep in a bog, and sent me flying over his head. There is nothing like companionship in an accident, and Momus accordingly pitched upon his nose in the same bog, my brother describing a fine spread-eagle as he sprawled in the soft ground, We were close to the bay; the horses extricated themselves directly, and again mounting we rode hard to the spot The buck was at bay in the river, and the exhausted dogs were yelling at him from the bank. The instant that we arrived and cheered them on, old Smut came from the pack towards us with an expression of perfect delight; he gave himself two or three rolls on the grass, and then went to the fight like a lion. The buck, however, suddenly astonished the whole pack by jumping out of the river, and, charging right through them, he started over the plain towards the jungle, with the hounds after him. He had refreshed himself by standing for so long in the cold stream, while the dogs, on the contrary, were nearly worn out. He reached the jungle with the whole pack at his heels; but after doubling backward and forward in the forest for about five minutes, we heard the crash in the bushes as he once more rushed towards the plain, and he broke cover in fine style, with the three greyhounds, Bran, Lucifer and Lena, at his haunches. In another instant he was seized, but he fell with such a shock that it threw the greyhounds from their hold, and recovering himself with wonderful quickness, he went down the slope towards the river at a tremendous pace. The greyhounds overtook him just as he gained the steep bank of the river, and they all rolled over in a confused crowd into the deep water. The next moment the buck was seen swimming proudly down the river, with the pack following him down the stream in full cry. Presently he gained his footing, and, disdaining farther flight, he turned bravely upon the hounds. He was a splendid fellow; his nostrils were distended, his mane was bristled up, and his eyes flashed, as, rearing to his full height, he plunged forward and struck the leading dogs under the water. Not a dog could touch him; one by one they were beaten down and half-drowned beneath the water. Old Smut was to the front as usual: down the old dog was beaten, but he reappeared behind the elk's shoulder, and the next moment he was hanging on his ear. The poor old dog had lost so many of his teeth in these encounters that he could not keep his hold, and the buck gave a tremendous spring forward, shaking off the old dog and charging through the pack, sinking nearly half of them for a few moments beneath the water. He had too much pluck to fly farther, and, after wading shoulder-deep against the stream for a few yards, he turned majestically round, and, facing the baying pack, he seemed determined to do or die. I never saw a finer animal; there was a proud look of defiance in his aspect that gave him a most noble appearance; but at that time he had little pity bestowed upon him. There he stood ready to meet the first dog. Old Smut had been thrown to the rear as the buck turned, and Lena came beautifully to the front, leading the whole pack. There was a shallow sandbank in the river where the bitch could get a footing, and she dashed across it to the attack. The buck met her in her-advance by a sudden charge, which knocked her over and over, but at the same instant Valiant, who is a fine, powerful dog, made a clever spring forward and pinned the buck by the ear. There was no shaking him off, and he was immediately backed up by Ploughboy, who caught the other ear most cleverly. There the two dogs hung like ear-rings as the buck, rearing up, swung them to and fro, but could not break their hold. In another moment the greyhounds were upon him-the whole pack covered him; his beautiful form was seen alternately rearing from the water with the dogs hanging upon him in all directions, then struggling in a confused mass nearly beneath the surface of the stream. He was a brave fellow, and had fought nobly, but there was no hope for him, and we put an end to the fight with the hunting-knife. It was past four o'clock P.M., and he had been found at seven A.M., but the conclusion fully repaid us for the day's work. The actual distance run by the buck was not above eight miles, but we had gone about twenty during the day, the greater portion of which was over most fatiguing ground. On an open country an elk would never be caught without greyhounds until he had run fifteen or twenty miles. The dense jungles fatigue him as he ploughs his way through them, and thus forms a path for the dogs behind him. How he can move in some of these jungles is an enigma; a horse would break his legs, and, in fact, could not stir in places through which an elk passes in full gallop. The principal underwood in the mountain districts of Ceylon is the 'nillho.' This is a perfectly straight stem, from twelve to twenty feet in length, and about an inch and a half in diameter, having no branches except a few small arms at the top, which are covered with large leaves. This plant, in proportion to its size, grows as close as corn in a field, and forms a dense jungle most difficult to penetrate. When the jungles are in this state, the elk is at a disadvantage, as the immense exertion required to break his way through this mass soon fatigues him, and forces him to come to bay. Every seven years this 'nillho' blossoms. The jungles are then neither more nor less than vast bouquets of bright purple and white flowers; the perfume is delicious, and swarms of bees migrate from other countries to make their harvest of honey. The quantity collected is extraordinary. The bee-hunters start from the low country, and spend weeks in the jungle in collecting the honey and wax. When looking over an immense tract of forest from some elevated point, the thin blue lines of smoke may be seen rising in many directions, marking the sites of the bee-hunters fires. Their method of taking the honey is simple enough. The bees' nests hang from the boughs of the trees, and a man ascends with a torch of green leaves, which creates a dense smoke. He approaches the nest and smokes off the swarm, which, on quitting the exterior of the comb, exposes a beautiful circular mass of honey and wax, generally about eighteen inches in diameter and six inches thick. The bee-hunter being provided with vessels formed from the rind of the gourd attached to ropes, now cuts up the comb and fills his chatties, lowering them down to his companions below. When the blossom of the nillho fades, the seed forms; this is a sweet little kernel, with the flavour of a nut. The bees now leave the country, and the jungles suddenly swarm, as though by magic, with pigeons, jungle-fowl, and rats. At length the seed is shed and the nillho dies. The jungles then have a curious appearance. The underwood being dead, the forest-trees rise from a mass of dry sticks like thin hop-poles. The roots of these plants very soon decay, and a few weeks of high wind, howling through the forest, levels the whole mass, leaving the trees standing free from underwood. The appearance of the ground can now be imagined-a perfect chaos of dead sticks and poles, piled one on the other, in every direction, to a depth of between two and three feet. It can only be compared to a mass of hurdles being laid in a heap. The young nillho grows rapidly through this, concealing the mass of dead sticks beneath, and forms a tangled barrier which checks both dogs and man. With tough gaiters to guard the shins, we break through by main force and weight, and the dogs scramble sometimes over, sometimes under the surface. At this period the elk are in great numbers, as they feed with great avidity upon the succulent young nillho. The dogs are now at a disadvantage. While they are scrambling with difficulty through this mass of half-rotten sticks, the elk bounds over it with ease, leaving no path behind him, as he clears it by leaps, and does not exhaust himself by bursting through it. He now constantly escapes, and leaves the pack miles behind; the best hounds follow him, but with such a start he leads them into the unknown depths of the jungles, over high mountains and across deep ravines, from which the lost dogs frequently never return. There can be no question that it is a bad country for hunting at all times, as the mass of forest is so disproportionate to the patinas; but, on the other hand, were the forests of smaller size there would be less game. Elk-hunting is, on the whole, fine sport. There are many disappointments constantly occurring, but these must happen in all sports. The only important drawback to the pleasure of elk-hunting is the constant loss of the dogs. The best are always sure to go. What with deaths by boars, leopards, elk, and stray hounds, the pack is with difficulty maintained. Puppies are constantly lost in the commencement of their training by straying too far into the jungle, and sometimes by reckless valour. I lost a fine young greyhound, Lancer, own brother to Lucifer, in this way. It was his first day with the pack. We found a buck who came to bay in a deep rocky torrent, where the dogs had no chance with him, and he amused himself by striking them under water at his pleasure. He at length took his stand among some large rocks, between which the torrent rushed with great rapidity previous to its descent over a fall of sixty feet. In this impregnable position young Lancer chose to distinguish himself, and with a beautiful spring he flew straight at the buck's head; but the elk met him with a tremendous blow with the fore feet, which broke his back, and the unfortunate Lancer was killed in his first essay and swept over the waterfall. This buck was at bay for two hours before he was killed. A veteran seizer is generally seamed with innumerable scars. Poor old Bran, who, being a thoroughbred greyhound, is too fine in the skin for such rough hunting, has been sewn up in so many places that he is a complete specimen of needlework. If any dog is hurt in a fight with elk or boar, it is sure to be old Bran. He has now a scar from a wound that was seven inches in length, which he received from a buck whose horns are hanging over my door. I had started with the pack at daybreak, and I was riding down the Badulla road, about a mile from the kennel, when the whole pack suddenly took up a scent off the road, and dashed into the jungle in full cry. The road was enclosed by forest on either side. The pack had evidently divided upon two elk, as they were running in different directions. Starting off down the pass, I soon reached the steep patinas, and I heard the pack coming down through the jungle which crowns the hills on the left of the road. There was a crush in the underwood, and the next moment a fine buck broke cover and went away along the hillside. Merriman and Tiptoe were the two leading dogs, and they were not fifty yards behind him. Old smut came tearing along after them, and I gave Bran a holloa and slipped him immediately. It was a beautiful sight to see Bran fly along the patina: across the swampy bottom, taking the broad stream in one bound, and skimming up the hill, he was on the buck's path in a few minutes, pulling up to him at every stride. He passed the few dogs that were in chase like lightning, and in a few more bounds he was at the buck's side. With a dexterous blow, however, the buck struck him with his fore foot, and sent him rolling down the hill with a frightful gash in his side. The buck immediately descended the hillside, and came to bay in a deep pool in the river. Regardless of his wound, old Bran followed him; Smut and the other dogs joined, and there was a fine bay, the buck fighting like a hero. The dogs could not touch him, as he was particularly active with his antlers. I jumped into the water and gave them a cheer, on which the buck answered immediately by charging at me. I met him with the point of my hunting-knife in the nose, which stopped him, and in the same moment old Smut was hanging on his ear, having pinned him the instant that I had occupied his attention. Bran had the other ear just as I had given him the fatal thrust. In a few seconds the struggle was over. Bran's wound was four inches wide and seven inches long. My brother had a pretty run with the doe with the other half of the pack, and we returned home by eight A.M., having killed two elk. Daybreak is the proper time to be upon the ground for elk-hunting. At this hour they have only just retired to the jungle after their night's wandering on the patinas, and the hounds take up a fresh scent, and save the huntsman the trouble of entering the jungle. At a later hour the elk have retired so far into the jungle that much time is lost in finding them, and they are not so likely to break cover as when they are just on the edge of the forest. I had overslept myself one morning when I ought to have been particularly early, as we intended to hunt at the Matturatta Plains, a distance of six miles. The scent was bad, and the sun was excessively hot; the dogs were tired and languid. It was two o'clock P.M., and we had not found, and we were returning through the forest homewards, having made up our minds for a blank day. Suddenly I thought I heard a deep voice at a great distance; it might have been fancy, but I listened again. I counted the dogs, and old Smut was missing. There was no mistaking his voice when at bay, and I now heard him distinctly in the distance. Running towards the sound through fine open forests, we soon arrived on the Matturatta Plains. The whole pack now heard the old dog distinctly, and they rushed to the sound across the patinas. There was Smut, sure enough, with a fine buck at bay in the river, which he had found and brought to bay single-handed. The instant that the pack joined him, the buck broke his bay, and, leaping up the bank, he gave a beautiful run over the patinas, with the whole pack after him, and Bran a hundred paces in advance of the other dogs, pulling up to him with murderous intent. Just as I thought that Bran would have him, a sudden kick threw the dog over, but he quickly recovered himself, and again came to the front, and this time he seized the buck by the ear, but, this giving way, he lost his hold and again was kicked over. This had checked the elk's speed for some seconds, and the other dogs were fast closing up, seeing which, the buck immediately altered his course for the river, and took to water in a deep pool. Down came old Smut after him, and in a few moments there was a beautiful chorus, as the whole pack had him at bay. The river went through a deep gorge, and I was obliged to sit down and slide for about thirty yards, checking a too rapid descent by holding on to the rank grass. On arriving at the river, I could at first see nothing for the high grass and bushes which grew upon the bank, but the din of the bay was just below me. Sliding through the tangled underwood, I dropped into deep water, and found myself swimming about with the buck and dogs around me. Smut and Bran had him by the ears, and a thrust with the knife finished him. However great the excitement may be during the actual hunting, there is a degree of monotony in the recital of so many scenes of the same character that may be fatiguing: I shall therefore close the description of these mountain sports with the death of the old hero Smut, and the loss of the best hound, Merriman, both of whom have left a blank in the pack not easily filled. On October 16, 1852, I started with a very short pack. Lucifer was left in the kennel lame; Lena was at home with her pups; and several other dogs were sick. Smut and Bran were the only two seizers out that day, and, being short-handed, I determined to hunt in the more green country at the foot of Hackgalla mountain. My brother and I entered the jungle with the dogs, and before we had proceeded a hundred yards we heard a fierce bay, every dog having joined. The bay was not a quarter of a mile distant, and we were puzzled as to the character of the game: whatever it was, it had stood to bay without a run. Returning to the patina, in which position we could distinctly assure ourselves of the direction, we heard the bay broken, and a slow run commenced. The next instant Bran came hobbling out of the jungle covered with blood, which streamed from a frightful gash in his hind-quarters. There was no more doubt remaining as to the game at bay; I it was an enormous boar. Bran was completely HORS DE COMBAT; and Smut, having lost nearly all his teeth, was of no use singlehanded with such an enemy. We had no seizers to depend upon, and the boar again stood to bay in a thick jungle. I happened to have a rifle with me that morning, as I had noticed fresh elephant-tracks in the neighbourhood a few days previous, and hoping to be able to shoot the boar, we entered the jungle and approached the scene of the bay. When within twenty paces of the spot I heard his fierce grunting as he charged right and left into the baying pack.* (*It was impossible to call the hounds off their game; therefore the only chance lay in the boar being seized, when I could have immediately rushed in with the knife. It was thus necessary to cheer the pack to the attack, although a cruel alternative.) In vain I cheered them on. I heard no signs of his being seized, but the fierce barking of old Smut, mingled with the savage grunts of the boar, and the occasional cry of a wounded dog, explained the hopeless nature of the contest. Again I cheered them on, and suddenly Smut came up to me from the fight, which was now not ten paces distant, but perfectly concealed in thick bamboo underwood. The old dog was covered with blood, his back was bristled up, and his deep growl betokened his hopeless rage. Poor old dog! he had his death-wound. He seemed cut nearly in half; a wound fourteen inches in length from the lower part of the belly passed up his flank, completely severing the muscle of the hind leg, and extending up to the spine. His hind leg had the appearance of being nearly off, and he dragged it after him in its powerless state, and, with a fierce bark, he rushed upon three legs once more to the fight. Advancing to within six feet of the boar, I could not even see him, both he and the dogs were so perfectly concealed by the thick underwood. Suddenly the boar charged. I jumped upon a small rock and hoped for a shot, but although he came within three feet of the rifle, I could neither see him nor could he see me. Had it not been for the fear of killing the dogs, I would have fired where the bushes were moving, but as it was I could do nothing. A rifle was useless in such jungle. At length the boar broke his bay, but again resumed it in a similar secure position. There was no possibility of assisting the dogs, and he was cutting up the pack in detail. If Lucifer and Lena had been there we could have killed him, but without seizers we were helpless in such jungle. This lasted for an hour, at the expiration of which we managed to call the dogs off. Old Smut had stuck to him to the last, in spite of his disabled state. The old dog, perfectly exhausted, crawled out of the jungle: he had received several additional wounds, including a severe gash in his throat. He fell from exhaustion, and we made a litter with two poles and a horsecloth to carry him home. Bran, Merriman, and Ploughboy were all severely wounded. We were thoroughly beaten. It was the first time that we had ever been beaten off, and I trust it may be the last. We returned home with our vanquished and bleeding pack--Smut borne in his litter by four men--and we arrived at the kennel a melancholy procession. The pack was disabled for weeks, as the two leading hounds, Merriman and Ploughboy, were severely injured. Poor old Smut lingered for a few days and died. Thus closed his glorious career of sport, and he left a fame behind him which will never be forgotten. His son, who is now twelve months old, is the facsimile of his sire, and often recalls the recollection of the old dog. I hope he may turn out as good.* (*Killed four months afterwards by a buck elk.) Misfortunes never come alone. A few weeks after Smut's death, Lizzie, an excellent bitch, was killed by a leopard, who wounded Merriman in the throat, but he being a powerful dog, beat him off and escaped. Merriman had not long recovered from his wound, when he came to a lamentable and diabolical end. On December 24, 1852, we found a buck in the jungles by the Badulla road. The dead nillho so retarded the pack that the elk got a long start of the dogs; and stealing down a stream he broke cover, crossed the Badulla road, ascended the opposite hills, and took to the jungle before a single hound appeared upon the patina. At length Merriman came bounding along upon his track, full a hundred yards in advance of the pack. In a few minutes every dog had disappeared in the opposite jungle on the elk's path. This was a part of the country where we invariably lost the dogs, as they took away across a vast jungle country towards a large and rapid river situated among stupendous precipices. I had often endeavoured to find the dogs in this part, but to no purpose; this day, however, I was determined to follow them if possible. I made a circuit of about twenty miles down into the low countries, and again ascending through precipitous jungles, I returned home in the evening, having only recovered two dogs, which I found on the other side of the range of mountains, over which the buck had passed. No pen can describe the beauty of the scenery in this part of the country, but it is the most frightful locality for hunting that can be imagined. The high lands suddenly cease; a splendid panoramic view of the low country extends for thirty miles before the eye; but to descend to this, precipices of immense depth must be passed; and from a deep gorge in the mountain, the large river, after a succession of falls, leaps in one vast plunge of three hundred feet into the abyss below. This is a stupendous cataract, about a mile below the foot of which is the village of Perewelle. I passed close to the village, and, having ascended the steep sides of the mountain, I spent hours in searching for the pack, but the roaring of the river and the din of the waterfalls would have drowned the cry of a hundred hounds. Once, and only once, when halfway up the side of the mountain, I thought I heard the deep bay of a hound in the river below; then I heard the shout of a native; but the sound was not repeated, and I thought it might proceed from the villagers driving their buffaloes. I passed on my arduous path, little thinking of the tragic fate which at that moment attended poor Merriman. The next day all the dogs found their way home to the kennel, with the exception of Merriman. I was rather anxious at his absence, as he knew the whole country so thoroughly that he should have been one of the first dogs to return. I was convinced that the buck had been at bay in the large river, as I had seen his tracks in several places on the banks, with dog tracks in company; this, added to the fact of the two stray dogs being found in the vicinity, convinced me that they had brought the elk to bay in the river, in which I imagined he had beaten the dogs off. Two or three days passed away without Merriman's return; and, knowing him to be the leading hound of the pack, I made up my mind that he had been washed down a waterfall and killed. About a week after this had happened, a native came up from the low country with the intelligence that the dogs had brought the buck to bay in the river close to the village of Perewelle, and that the inhabitants had killed the elk and driven the dogs away. The remaining portion of this man's story filled me with rage and horror. Merriman would not leave the body of the elk: the natives thought that the dog might be discovered in their village, which would lead to the detection of the theft of the elk; they, therefore, tied this beautiful hound to a tree, knocked his brains out with a hatchet, and threw his body into the river. This dog was a favourite with everyone who knew the pack. The very instant that I heard the intelligence, I took a good stick, and, in company with my brother, three friends, and my informant, we started to revenge Merriman. Perewelle is twelve miles from my house across country: it was six P.M. when we started, and we arrived at a village within two miles of this nest of villains at half-past eight. Here we got further information, and a man who volunteered to point out three men who were the principal actors in murdering the dog. We slept at this village, and, rising at four o'clock on the following morning, we marched towards Perewelle to surprise the village and capture the offenders. It was bright moonlight, and we arrived at the village just at break of day. The house was pointed out in which the fellows lived; we immediately surrounded it, and upon entering we seized the offenders. Upon searching the house we found a quantity of dried venison, a spear and an axe, covered with blood, with which they had destroyed the unfortunate dog. Taking a fine gutta-percha whip, I flogged the culprits soundly; and we forced them to lead the way and point out the very spot of the elk's death. They would not confess the dog's murder, although it was proved against them. It was a frightful spot, about two hundred paces below the foot of the great fall. The river, swollen by the late rain, boiled, and strove with the opposite rocks, lashing itself into foam, and roaring down countless cataracts, which, though well worthy of the name, sank into insignificance before the mighty fall which fed them. High above our heads reared the rocky precipice of a thousand feet in height, the grassy mountains capped with forest, and I could distinguish the very spot from which I had heard the shouts of men on the day of Merriman's death. Had I only known what was taking place below, I might perhaps have been in time to save the dog. We found the blood and remains of the offal of the buck, but we, of course, saw no remains of the dog, as the power of the torrent must soon have dashed him to atoms against the rocks. Thus ended poor Merriman: a better hound never lived. Unfortunately, Ceylon laws are often administered by persons who have never received a legal education, and the natives escaped without further punishment than the thrashing they had received. Of this, however, they had a full dose, which was a sweet sauce to their venison which they little anticipated. The few descriptions that I have given of elk-hunting should introduce a stranger thoroughly to the sport. No one, however, can enjoy it with as much interest as the owner of the hounds; he knows the character of every dog in the pack--every voice is familiar to his ear; he cheers them to the attack; he caresses them for their courage; they depend upon him for assistance in the struggle, and they mutually succour each other. This renders the dog a more cherished companion than he is considered in England, where his qualities are not of so important a nature; and it makes the loss of a good hound more deeply felt by his master. Having thus described the general character of Ceylon sports in all branches, I shall conclude by a detailed journal of one trip of a few weeks in the low country, which will at once explain the whole minutiae of the shooting in the island. This journal is taken from a small diary which has frequently accompanied me on these excursions, containing little memoranda which, by many, might be considered tedious. The daily account of the various incidents of a trip will, at all events, give a faithful picture of the jungle sports. CHAPTER XII. A JUNGLE TRIP. ON November 16, 1851 I started from Kandy, accompanied by my brother, Lieutenant V. Baker,* (*Now Colonel Valentine Baler, late 10th Hussars.) then of the Ceylon Rifle Regiment. Having sent on our horses from Newera Ellia some days previous, as far as Matille, sixteen miles from Kandy, we drove there early in the morning, and breakfasted with F. Layard, Esq., who was then assistant government agent. It had rained without ceasing during twenty-four hours, and hoping that the weather might change, we waited at Matille till two o'clock P.M. The rain still poured in torrents, and giving up all ideas of fine weather, we started. The horses were brought round, and old Jack knew as well as I did that he was starting for a trip, as the tether rope was wound round his neck, and the horse-cloth was under his saddle. The old horse was sleek and in fine condition for a journey, and, without further loss of time, we started for Dambool, a distance of thirty-one miles. Not wishing to be benighted, we cantered the whole way, and completed the distance in three hours and a half, as we arrived at Dambool at half-past five P.M. I had started off Wallace and all the coolies from Newera Ellia about a week beforehand; and, having instructed him to leave a small box with a change of clothes at the Dambool rest-house, I now felt the benefit of the arrangement. The horsekeepers could not possibly arrive that night. We therefore cleaned and fed our own horses, and littered them down with a good bed of paddy straw; and, that being completed, we turned our attention to curry and rice. The next morning at break of day we fed the horses. Old Jack was as fresh as a daisy. The morning was delightfully cloudy, but free from rain; and we cantered on to Innamalow, five miles from Dambool. Here we procured a guide to Minneria; and turning off from the main road into a narrow jungle path, we rode for twenty miles through dense jungle. Passing the rock of Sigiri, which was formerly used as a fort by the ancient inhabitants of the country, we gradually entered better jungle, and at length we emerged upon the beautiful plains of Minneria. I had ordered Wallace to pitch the encampment in the exact spot which I had frequently occupied some years ago. I therefore knew the rendezvous, and directed my course accordingly. What a change had taken place! A continuous drought had reduced the lake from its original size of twenty-two miles in circumference to a mere pool of about four miles in circuit; this was all that remained of the noble sheet of water around which I had formerly enjoyed so much sport. From the rich bed of the dry lake sprang a fine silky grass of about two feet in height, forming a level plain of velvet green far as the eye could reach. The turf was firm and elastic; the four o'clock sun had laid aside the fiercest of his rays, and threw a gentle glow over the scene, which reminded me of an English midsummer evening. There is so little ground in Ceylon upon which a horse can gallop without the risks of holes, bogs, and rocks that we could not resist a canter upon such fine turf; and although the horses had made a long journey already, they seemed to enjoy a more rapid pace when they felt the inviting sward beneath their feet. Although every inch of this country had been familiar to me, I felt some difficulty in finding the way to the appointed spot, the scene was so changed by the disappearance of the water. There were fresh elephants' tracks in many parts of the plain, and I was just anticipating good sport for the next day, when we suddenly heard an elephant trumpet in the open forest, which we were skirting. The next instant I saw eight elephants among the large trees which bordered the forest. For the moment I thought it was a herd, but I almost immediately noticed the constrained and unnatural positions in which they were standing. They were all tied to different trees by the legs, and upon approaching the spot, we found an encampment of Arabs and Moormen who had been noosing elephants for sale. We at once saw that the country was disturbed, as these people had been employed in catching elephants for some weeks. After a ride of seven or eight miles along the plain, I discovered a thin blue line of smoke rising from the edge of a distant forest, and shortly after, I could distinguish forms moving on the plain in the same direction. Cantering towards the spot, we found our coolies and encampment. The tents were pitched under some noble trees, which effectually excluded every ray of sun. It was the exact spot upon which I had been accustomed to encamp some years ago. The servants had received orders when they started from Kandy, to have dinner prepared at five o'clock on the 17th of November; it was accordingly ready on our arrival. Minneria was the appointed rendezvous from which this trip was to commence. Our party was to consist of the Honourable E. Stuart Wortley,* (* The present Lord Wharncliffe.)E. Palliser, Esq., Lieutenant V. Baker, S.W. Baker. My brother had unfortunately only fourteen days' leave from his regiment, and he and I had accordingly hurried on a day in advance of our party, they having still some preparations to complete in Kandy, and not being quite so well horsed for a quick journey. Nothing could be more comfortable than our arrangements. Our followers and establishment consisted of four personal servants, an excellent cook, four horse-keepers, fifty coolies, and Wallace; in all, sixty people. The coolies were all picked men, who gave not the slightest trouble during the whole trip. We had two tents, one of which contained four beds and a general dressing-table; the other, which was my umbrella-shaped tent, was arranged as the diningroom, with table and chairs. With complete dinner and breakfast services for four persons, and abundance of table linen, we had everything that could be wished for. Although I can rough it if necessary, I do not pretend to prefer discomfort from choice. A little method and a trifling extra cost will make the jungle trip anything but uncomfortable. There was nothing wanting in our supplies. We had sherry, madeira, brandy and curacoa, biscuits, tea, sugar, coffee, hams, tongues, sauces, pickles, mustard, sardines en huile, tins of soups and preserved meats and vegetables, currant jelly for venison, maccaroni, vermicelli, flour, and a variety of other things that add to the comfort of the jungle, including last, but not least, a double supply of soap and candles. No one knows the misery should either of these fail--dirt and darkness is the necessary consequence. There was a large stock of talipots* (*Large leaves from the talipot tree.) to form tents for the people and coverings for the horses in case of rain; in fact, there never was a trip more happily planned or more comfortably arranged, and there was certainly never such a battery assembled in Ceylon as we now mustered. Such guns deserve to be chronicled:-- Wortley. . 1 single barrel rifle. 3-ounce " . . 1 double " rifle . No. 12. " . . 2 double " guns . No. 12. Palliser.. 1 single " rifle . No. 8 (my old 2-ounce) " .. 1 double " rifle . No. 12. " .. 2 double " guns . No. 12. V. Baker 3 double " " . No. 14. " . . 1 double " " . No. 12. " . . 1 single " rifle . No. 14. S. W. Baker. 1 single " rifle . 4-ounce. " . . 3 double " rifles No. 10. " . . 1 double " gun. No. 16. 18 guns. These guns were all by the first makers, and we took possession of our hunting country with the confidence of a good bag, provided that game was abundant. But how changed was this country since I had visited it in former years, not only in appearance but in the quantity of game! On these plains, where in times past I had so often counted immense herds of wild buffaloes, not one was now to be seen. The deer were scared and in small herds, not exceeding seven or ten, proving how they had been thinned out by shooting. In fact, Minneria had become within the last four years a focus for most sportsmen, and the consequence was, that the country was spoiled; not by the individual shooting of visitors, but by the stupid practice of giving the natives large quantities of powder and ball as a present at the conclusion of a trip. They, of course, being thus supplied with ammunition, shot the deer and buffaloes without intermission, and drove them from the country by incessant harassing. I saw immediately that we could not expect much sport in this disturbed part of the country, and we determined to waste no more time in this spot than would be necessary in procuring the elephant trackers from Doolana. We planned our campaign that evening at dinner. Nov. 18.--At daybreak I started Wallace off to Doolana to bring my old acquaintance the Rhatamahatmeya and the Moormen trackers. I felt confident that I could prevail upon him to accompany us to the limits of his district; this was all-important to our chance of sport, as without him we could procure no assistance from the natives. After breakfast we mounted our horses and rode to Cowdelle, eight miles, as I expected to find elephants in this open but secluded part of the country. There were very fresh tracks of a herd; and as we expected Wortley and Palliser on the following day, we would not disturb the country, but returned to Minneria and passed the afternoon in shooting snipe and crocodiles. The latter were in incredible numbers, as the whole population of this usually extensive lake was now condensed in the comparatively small extent of water before us. The fish of course were equally numerous, and we had an unlimited supply of 'lola' of three to four pounds weight at a penny each. Our gang of coolies feasted upon them in immense quantities, and kept a native fully employed in catching them. Our cook exerted his powers in producing some piquante dishes with these fish. Stewed with melted butter (ghee), with anchovy sauce, madeira, sliced onion and green chillies, this was a dish worthy of 'Soyer,' but they were excellent in all shapes, even if plain boiled or fried. Nov. 19.--At about four P.M. I scanned the plain with my telescope, in expectation of the arrival of our companions, whom I discovered in the distance, and as they approached within hearing, we greeted them with a shout of welcome to show the direction of our encampment. We were a merry party that evening at dinner, and we determined to visit Cowdelle, and track up the herd that we had discovered, directly that the Moormen trackers should arrive from Doolana. The worst of this country was the swarm of mosquitoes which fed upon us at night; it was impossible to sleep with the least degree of comfort, and we always hailed the arrival of morning with delight. Nov. 20.-At dawn this morning, before daylight could be called complete, Palliser had happened to look out from the tent, and to his surprise he saw a rogue elephant just retreating to the jungle, at about two hundred yards distance. We loaded the guns and went after him in as short a time as possible, but he was too quick for us, and he had retreated to thick jungle before we were out. Wortley and I then strolled along the edge of the jungle, hoping to find him again in some of the numerous nooks which the plain formed by running up the forest. We had walked quietly along for about half a mile, when we crossed an abrupt rocky promontory, which stretched from the jungle into the lake like a ruined pier. On the other side, the lake formed a small bay, shaded by the forest, which was separated from the water's edge by a gentle slope of turf about fifty yards in width. This bay was a sheltered spot, and as we crossed the rocky promontory, the noise that we made over the loose stones in turning the corner, disturbed a herd of six deer, five of whom dashed into the jungle; the sixth stopped for a moment at the edge of the forest to take a parting look at us. He was the buck of the herd, and carried a noble pair of antlers; he was about a hundred and twenty yards from us, and I took a quick shot at him with one of the No. 10 rifles. The brushwood closed over him as he bounded into the jungle, but an ominous crack sounded back from the ball, which made me think he was hit. At this moment Palliser and V. Baker came running up, thinking that we had found the elephant. The buck was standing upon some snow-white quartz rocks when I fired, and upon an examination of the spot frothy patches of blood showed that he was struck through the lungs. Men are bloodthirsty animals, for nothing can exceed the pleasure, after making a long shot, of finding the blood-track on the spot when the animal is gone. We soon tracked him up, and found him lying dead in the jungle within twenty yards of the spot. This buck was the first head of game we had bagged, with the exception of a young elk that I had shot on horseback during the ride from Dambool. We had plenty of snipe, and, what with fish, wildfowl, and venison, our breakfast began to assume an inviting character. After breakfast we shot a few couple of snipe upon the plain, and in the evening we formed two parties--Palliser and V. Baker, and Wortley and myself--and taking different directions, we scoured the country, agreeing to meet at the tent at dusk. W. and I saw nothing beyond the fresh tracks of game which evidently came out only at night. We wandered about till evening, and then returned towards the tent. On the way I tried a long shot at a heron with a rifle; he was standing at about a hundred and fifty yards from us, and by great good luck I killed him. On arrival at the tent we found P. and V. B., who had returned. They had been more fortunate in their line of country, having found two rogue elephants--one in thick jungle, which V. B. fired at and missed; and shortly after this shot they found another rogue on the plain not far from the tent. The sun was nearly setting, and shone well in the elephant's eyes; thus they were able to creep pretty close to him without being observed, and P. killed him by a good shot with a rifle, at about twenty-five yards. In my opinion this was the same elephant that had been seen near the tent early in the morning. Wallace, with the Rhatamahatmeya and the trackers, had arrived, and we resolved to start for Cowdelle at daybreak on the following morning. Nov. 21.--Having made our preparations over night for an early start, we were off at daybreak, carrying with us the cook with his utensils, and the canteen containing everything that could be required for breakfast. We were thus prepared for a long day's work, should it be necessary. After a ride of about eight miles along a sandy path, bordered by dense jungle, we arrived at the open but marshy ground upon which we had seen the tracks of the herd a few days previous. Fresh elephant tracks had accompanied us the whole way along our path, and a herd was evidently somewhere in the vicinity, as the path was obstructed in many places by the branches of trees upon which they had been feeding during the night. The sandy ground was likewise printed with innumerable tracks of elk, deer, hogs and leopards. We halted under some wide-spreading trees, beneath which, a clear stream of water rippled over a bed of white pebbles, with banks of fine green sward. In this spot were unmistakable tracks of elephants, where they had been recently drinking. The country was park-like, but surrounded upon its borders with thick jungles; clumps of thorny bushes were scattered here and there, and an abundance of good grass land water ensured a large quantity of game. The elephants were evidently not far off, and of course were well secured in the thorny jungles. Wortley had never yet seen a wild elephant, and a dense jungle is by no means a desirable place for an introduction to this kind of game. It is a rule of mine never to follow elephants in such ground, where they generally have it all their own way; but, as there are exceptions to all rules, we determined to find them, after having taken so much trouble in making our arrangements. We unsaddled, and ordered breakfast to be ready for our return beneath one of the most shady trees; having loaded, we started off upon the tracks. As I had expected, they led to a thick thorny jungle, and slowly and cautiously we followed the leading tracker. The jungle became worse and worse as we advanced, and had it not been for the path which the elephants had formed, we could not have moved an inch. The leaves of the bushes were wet with dew, and we were obliged to cover up all the gun-locks to prevent any of them missing fire. We crept for about a quarter of a mile upon this track, when the sudden snapping of a branch a hundred paces in advance plainly showed that we were up with the game. This is the exciting moment in elephant-shooting, and every breath is held for a second intimation of the exact position of the herd. A deep, guttural sound, like the rolling of very distant thunder, is heard, accompanied by the rustling and cracking of the branches as they rub their tough sides against the trees. Our advance had been so stealthy that they were perfectly undisturbed. Silently and carefully we crept up, and in a few minutes I distinguished two immense heads exactly facing us at about ten paces distant. Three more indistinct forms loomed in the thick bushes just behind the leaders. A quiet whisper to Wortley to take a cool shot at the left-hand elephant, in the exact centre of the forehead, and down went the two leaders! Wortley's and mine; quickly we ran into the herd, before they knew what had happened, and down went another to V Baker's shot. The smoke hung in such thick volumes that we could hardly see two yards before us, when straight into the cloud of smoke an elephant rushed towards us. V. Baker fired, but missed; and my left-hand barrel extinguished him. Running through the smoke with a spare rifle I killed the last elephant. They were all bagged--five elephants within thirty seconds from the first shot fired. Wortley had commenced well, having killed his first elephant with one shot. We found breakfast ready on our return to the horses, and having disturbed this part of the country by the heavy volley at the herd, we returned to Minneria. I was convinced that we could expect no sport in this neighbourhood; we therefore held a consultation as to our line of country. Some years ago I had entered the north of the Veddah country from this point, and I now proposed that we should start upon a trip of discovery, and endeavour to penetrate from the north to the south of the Veddah country into the 'Park.' No person had ever shot over this route, and the wildness of the idea only increased the pleasure of the trip. We had not the least idea of the distance, but we knew the direction by a pocket compass. There was but one objection to the plan, and this hinged upon the shortness of V. Baker's leave. He had only ten days unexpired, and it seemed rash, with so short a term, to plunge into an unknown country; however, he was determined to push on, as he trusted in the powers of an extraordinary pony that would do any distance on a push. This determination, however destroyed a portion of the trip, as we were obliged to pass quickly through a lovely sporting country, to arrive at a civilised, or rather an acknowledged, line of road by which he could return to Kandy. Had we, on the contrary, travelled easily through this country, we should have killed an extraordinary amount of game. We agreed that our route should be this. We were to enter the Veddah country at the north and strike down to the south. I knew a bridle-path from Badulla to Batticaloa, which cut through the Veddah country from west to east; therefore we should meet it at right angles. From this point V. Baker was to bid adieu, and turn to the west and reach Badulla; from thence to Newera Ellia and to his regiment in Kandy. We were to continue our direction southward, which I knew would eventually bring us to the 'Park.' Nov. 22.--We moved our encampment, accompanied by the headman and his followers; and after a ride of fourteen miles we arrived at the country of Hengiriwatdowane, a park-like spot of about twelve square miles, at which place we were led to expect great sport. The appearance of the ground was all that we could wish; numerous patches of jungle and single trees were dotted upon the surface of fine turf. In the afternoon, after a cooling shower, we all separated, and started with our respective gun-bearers in different directions, with the understanding that no one was to fire a shot at any game but elephants. We were to meet in the evening and describe the different parts of the country, so that we should know how to proceed on the following day. I came upon herds of deer in several places, but I of course did not fire, although they were within a certain shot. I saw no elephants. Everyone saw plenty of deer, but V. Baker was the one lucky individual in meeting with elephants. He came upon a fine herd, but they winded him and escaped. There was evidently plenty of game, but V. B. having fired at the elephants, we knew that this part of the country was disturbed; we therefore had no hesitation in discharging all the guns and having them well cleaned for the next morning, when we proposed to move the tent a couple of miles farther off. NOV. 23.--A most unfortunate day, proving the disadvantage of being ignorant of the ground. Although I knew the whole country by one route, from Minneria to the north of the Veddah country, we had now diverged from that route to visit this particular spot, which I had never before shot over. We passed on through beautiful open country interspersed with clumps of jungle, but without one large tree that would shade the tent. A single-roofed tent exposed to the sun is perfectly unbearable, and we continued to push on in the hope of finding a tree of sufficient size to afford shelter. Some miles were passed; fresh tracks of elephants and all kinds of game were very numerous, and the country was perfection for shooting. At length the open plains became more contracted, and the patches of jungle larger and more frequent. By degrees the open ground ceased altogether, and we found ourselves in a narrow path of deep mud passing through impenetrable thorny jungle. Nevertheless our guide insisted upon pushing on to a place which he compared to that which we had unfortunately left behind us. Instead of going two miles, as we had originally intended, we had already ridden sixteen at the least, and still the headman persisted in pushing on. No coolies were up; the tents and baggage were far behind; we had nothing to eat; we had left the fine open country, which was full of game, miles behind us, and we were in a close jungle country, where a rifle was not worth a bodkin. It was too annoying. I voted for turning back to the lovely hunting-ground that we had deserted; but after a long consultation, we came to the conclusion that every day was of such importance to V. Baker that we could not afford to retrace a single step. Thus all this beautiful country, abounding with every kind of game, was actually passed over without firing a single shot. I killed a few couple of snipe in a neighbouring swamp to pass the time until the coolies arrived with the baggage; they were not up until four o'clock P.M., therefore the whole day was wasted, and we were obliged to sleep here. Nov. 24--This being Sunday, the guns were at rest. The whole of this country was dense chenar jungle; we therefore pushed on, and, after a ride of fourteen miles, we arrived at the Rhatamahatmeya's residence at Doolana. He insisted upon our taking breakfast with him, and he accordingly commenced his preparations. Borrowing one of our hunting-knives, two of his men gave chase to a kid and cut its head off. Half an hour afterwards we were eating it in various forms, all of which were excellent. We had thus travelled over forty-four miles of country from Minneria without killing a single head of game. Had we remained a week in the district through which we had passed so rapidly, we must have had most excellent sport. All this was the effect of being hurried for time. In the neighbourhood of Doolana I had killed many elephants some years ago, and I have no doubt we could have had good sport at this time; but V. Baker's leave was so fast expiring, and the natives' accounts of the distance through the Veddah country were so vague, that we had no choice except to push straight through as fast as we could travel, until we should arrive on the Batticaloa path. We took leave of our friend the Rhatamahatmeya; he had provided us with good trackers, who were to accompany us through the Veddah country to the 'Park'; but I now began to have my doubts as to their knowledge of the ground. However, we started, and after skirting the Doolana tank for some distance, we rode five miles through fine forest, and then arrived on the banks of the Mahawelle river. The stream teas at this time very rapid, and was a quarter of a mile in width, rolling along between its steep banks through a forest of magnificent trees. Some hours were consumed in transporting the coolies and baggage across the river, as the canoe belonging to the village of Monampitya, on the opposite bank, would only hold four coolies and their loads at one voyage. We swam the horses across, and attending carefully to the safety of the cook before any other individual, we breakfasted on the opposite bank, while the coolies were crossing the river. After breakfast, a grave question arose, viz., which way were we to go? The trackers that the headman had given us, now confessed that they did not know an inch of the Veddah country, into which we had arrived by crossing the river, and they refused to go a step farther. Here, was a 'regular fix!' as the Americans would express it. The village of Monampitya consists of about six small huts; and we now found that there was no other village within forty miles in the direction that we wished to steer. Not a soul could we obtain as a guide--no offer of reward would induce a man to start, as they declared that no one knew the country, and that the distance was so great that the people would be starved, as they could get nothing to eat. We looked hopelessly at the country before us. We had a compass, certainly, which might be useful enough on a desert or a prairie, but in a jungle country it was of little value. Just as we were in the greatest despair, and we were gazing wistfully in the direction which the needle pointed out as the position of the 'Park,' now separated from us by an untravelled district of an unknown distance, we saw two figures with bows and arrows coming from the jungle. One of these creatures bolted back again into the bushes the moment he perceived us; the other one had a fish in his hand, of about four pounds weight, which he had shot with his bow and arrow; while he was hesitating whether he should run or stand still, we caught him. Of all the ugly little devils I ever saw, he was superlative. He squinted terribly; his hair was greyish and matted with filth; he was certainly not more than four feet and a half high, and he carried a bow two feet longer than himself. He could speak no language but his own, which throughout the Veddah country is much the same, intermixed with so many words resembling Cingalese that a native can generally understand their meaning. By proper management, and some little presents of rice and tobacco, we got the animal into a good humour, and we gathered the following in formation. He knew nothing of any place except the northern portion of the Veddah country. This was his world; but his knowledge of it was extremely limited, as he could not undertake to guide us farther than Oomanoo, a Veddah village, which he described as three days' journey from where we then stood. We made him point out the direction in which it lay. This he did, after looking for some moments at the sun; and, upon comparing the position with the compass, we were glad to see it at south-south-east, being pretty close to the course that we wished to steer. From Oomanoo, he said, we could procure another Veddah to guide us still farther; but he himself knew nothing more. Now this was all satisfactory enough so far, but I had been completely wrong in my idea of the distance from Doolana to the 'Park.' We now heard of three days' journey to Oomanoo, which was certainly some where in the very centre of the Veddah country; and our quaint little guide had never even heard of the Batticaloa road. There was no doubt, therefore, that it was a long way from Oomanoo, which village might be any distance from us, as a Veddah's description of a day's journey might vary from ten to thirty miles. I certainly looked forward to a short allowance of food both for ourselves and coolies. We had been hurrying through the country at such a rate that we had killed no deer; we had, therefore, been living upon our tins of preserved provisions, of which we had now only four remaining. At the village of Monampitya there was no rice procurable, as the natives lived entirely upon korrakan* (*A small seed, which they make into hard, uneatable cakes.), at which our coolies turned up their noses when I advised them to lay in a stock before starting. There was no time to be lost, and we determined to push on as fast as the coolies could follow, as they had only two days' provisions; we had precisely the same, and those could not be days of feasting. We were, in fact, like sailors going to sea with a ship only half-victualled; and, as we followed our little guide, and lost sight of the village behind us, I foresaw that our stomachs would suffer unless game was plentiful on the path. We passed through beautiful open country for about eight miles, during which we saw several herds of deer; but we could not get a shot. At length we pitched the tent, at four o'clock P.M., at the foot of 'Gunner's Coin,' a solitary rocky mountain of about two thousand feet in height, which rises precipitously from the level country. We then divided into two parties--W. and P., and V. B. and I. We strolled off with our guns in different directions. The country was perfectly level, being a succession of glades of fine low grass divided into a thousand natural paddocks by belts of jungle. We were afraid to stroll more than a mile from the tent, lest we should lose our way; and we took a good survey of the most prominent points of the mountain, that we might know our direction by their position. After an hour's walk, and just as the sun was setting, a sudden crash in a jungle a few yards from us brought the rifles upon full cock. The next moment out came an elephant's head, and I knocked him over by a front shot. He had held his head in such a peculiar position that a ball could not reach the brain, and he immediately re covered himself, and, wheeling suddenly round, he retreated into the jungle, through which we could not follow. We continued to stroll on from glade to glade, expecting to find him; and, in about a quarter of an hour, we heard the trumpet of an elephant. Fully convinced that this was the wounded animal, we pushed on towards the spot; but, on turning a corner of the jungle, we came suddenly upon a herd of seven of the largest elephants that I ever saw together; they must have been all bulls. Unfortunately, they had our wind, and, being close to the edge of a thick thorny jungle, they disappeared like magic. We gave chase for a short distance, but were soon stopped by the thorns. We had no chance with them. It was now dusk, and we therefore hastened towards the tent, seeing three herds of deer and one of hogs on our way; but it was too dark to get a shot. The deer were barking in every direction, and the country was evidently alive with game. On arrival at the tent, we found that W. and P. had met with no better luck than ourselves. Two of our tins of provisions were consumed at dinner, leaving us only two remaining. Not a moment was to be lost in pushing forward; and we determined upon a long march on the following day. Nov. 25.--Sunrise saw us in the saddles. The coolies, with the tents and baggage, kept close up with the horses, being afraid to lag behind, as there was not a semblance of a path, and we depended entirely upon our small guide, who appeared to have an intimate knowledge of the whole country. The little Veddah trotted along through the winding glades; and we travelled for about five miles without a word being spoken by one of the party, as we were in hopes of coming upon deer. Unfortunately, we were travelling down wind; we accordingly did not see a single head of game, as they of course winded us long before we came in view. We had ridden about eight miles, when we suddenly came upon the fresh tracks of elephants, and, immediately dismounting, we began to track up. The ground being very dry, and the grass short and parched, the tracks were very indistinct, and it was tedious work. We had followed for about half a mile through alternate glades and belts of jungle, when we suddenly spied a Veddah hiding behind a tree about sixty yards from us. The moment that he saw he was discovered, he set off at full speed, but two of our coolies, who acted as gunbearers, started after him. These fellows were splendid runners, and, after a fine course, they ran him down; but when caught, instead of expressing any fear, he seemed to think it a good joke. He was a rather short but stout-built fellow, and he was immediately recognised by our little guide, as one of the best hunters among the Northern Veddahs. He soon understood our object; and, putting down his bow and arrows and a little pipkin of sour curd (his sole provision on his hunting trip), he started at once upon the track. Without any exception he was the best tracker I have ever seen: although the ground was as hard as a stone, and the footprints constantly invisible, he went like a hound upon a scent, at a pace that kept us in an occasional jog-trot. After half an hour's tracking, and doubling backward and forward in thick jungle, we came up with three elephants. V. B. killed one, and I killed another at the same moment. V. B. also fired at the third; but, instead of falling, he rushed towards us, and I killed him with my remaining barrel, Palliser joining in the shot. They were all killed in about three seconds. The remaining portion of the herd were at a distance, and we heard them crashing through the thick jungle. We followed them for about a mile, but they had evidently gone off to some other country. The jungle was very thick, and we had a long journey to accomplish; we therefore returned to the horses and rode on, our party being now increased by the Veddah tracker. After having ridden about twenty miles, the last tight of which had been through alternate forest and jungle, we arrived at a small plain of rich grass of about a hundred acres: this was surrounded by forest. Unfortunately, the nights were not moonlight, or we could have killed a deer, as they came out in immense herds just at dusk. We luckily bagged a good supply of snipe, upon which we dined, and we reserved our tins. of meat for some more urgent occasion. Nov. 26.--All vestiges of open country had long ceased. We now rode for seventeen miles through magnificent forest, containing the most stupendous banian trees that I have ever beheld. The ebony trees were also very numerous, and grew to an immense size. This forest was perfectly open. There was not a sign of either underwood or grass beneath the trees, and no track was discernible beyond the notches in the trees made at some former time by the Veddah's axe. In one part of this forest a rocky mountain appeared at some period to have burst into fragments; and for the distance of about a mile it formed the apparent ruins of a city of giants. Rocks as large as churches lay piled one upon the other forming long dark alleys and caves that would have housed some hundreds of men. The effect was perfectly fairylike, as the faint silver light of the sun, mellowed by the screen of tree tops, half-lighted up, these silent caves. The giant stems of the trees sprang like tall columns from the foundations of the rocks that shadowed them with their dense foliage. Two or three families of 'Cyclops' would not have been out of place in this spot; they were just the class of people that one would expect to meet. Late in the afternoon we arrived at the long-talked-of village of Oomanoo, about eighteen miles from our last encampment. It was a squalid, miserable place, of course, and nothing was obtainable. Our coolies had not tasted food since the preceding evening; but, by good luck, we met a travelling Moorman, who had just arrived at the village with a little rice to exchange with the Veddahs for dried venison. As the villagers did not happen to have any meat to barter, we purchased all the rice at an exorbitant price; but it was only sufficient for half a meal for each servant and coolie, when equally divided. Fortunately, we killed four snipe and two doves these were added to our last two tins of provisions, which were 'hotch potch,' and stewed altogether. This made a good dinner. We had now nothing left but our biscuits and groceries. All our hams and preserved meats were gone, and we only had one meal on that day. Nov. 27.--Our horses had eaten nothing but grass for many days; this, however, was excellent, and old Jack looked fat, and was as hardy as ever. We now discharged our Veddah guides, and took on others from Oomanoo. These men told us that we were only four miles from the Batticaloa road, and with great glee we started at break of day, determined to breakfast on arrival at the road. The old adage of 'Many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip' was here fully exemplified. Four miles! We rode twenty-five miles without drawing the rein once! and at length we then did reach the road; that is to say, a narrow track of grass, which is the track to Batticaloa for which we had been steering during our journey. A native but in this wilderness rendered the place worthy of a name; it is therefore known upon the Government maps as 'Pyeley.' From this place we were directed on to 'Curhellulai,' a village represented to us as a small London, abounding with every luxury. We obtained a guide and started, as they assured us it was only two miles distant. After riding three miles through a country of open glades and thick jungle, the same guide who had at first told us it was two miles from 'Pyeley,' now said it was only 'three miles farther on.' We knew these fellows' ideas of distance too well to proceed any farther. We had quitted the Batticaloa track, and we immediately dismounted, unsaddled, and turned the horses loose upon the grass. Having had only one meal the day before, and no breakfast this morning, we looked forward with impatience to the arrival of the coolies, although I confess I did not expect them, as they were too weak from want of food to travel far. They had only half a meal the day before, and nothing at all the day before that. We had halted in a grassy glade surrounded by thick jungle. There were numerous fresh tracks of deer and elk, but the animals themselves would not show. As evening approached, we collected a quantity of dead timber and lighted a good fire, before which we piled the rifles, three and three, about ten feet apart. Across these we laid a pole, and then piled branches from the ground to the pole in a horizontal position. This made a shed to protect us from the dew, and, with our saddles for pillows, we all lay down together and slept soundly till morning. Nov. 28.--We woke hungry, and accordingly tightened our belts by two or three holes. V. Baker had to be in Kandy by the evening of the 30th, and he was now determined to push on. His pony had thrown all his shoes, and had eaten nothing but grass for many days. I knew our position well, as I had been lost near this spot about two years ago. We were fifty-three miles from Badulla. Nevertheless, V. B. started off, and arrived in Badulla that evening. On the same pony he pushed on to Newera Ellia, thirty-six miles, the next day; and then taking a fresh horse, he rode into Kandy, forty-seven miles, arriving in good time on the evening of the 30th November. Having parted with V. B., we saddled and mounted, and, following our guide through a forest-path, we arrived at Curhellulai after a ride of four miles. Nothing could exceed the wretchedness of this place, from which we had been led to expect so much. We could not even procure a grain of rice from the few small huts which composed the village. The headman, who himself looked half-starved, made some cakes of korrakan; but as they appeared to be composed of two parts of sand, one of dirt and one of grain, I preferred a prolonged abstinence to such filth. The abject poverty of the whole of this country is beyond description. Our coolies arrived at eight A.M., faint and tired; they no longer turned up their noses at korrakan, as they did at Monampitya, but they filled themselves almost to bursting. I started off V. B.'s coolies after him, also eight men whose loads had been consumed, and, with a diminished party, we started for Bibille, which the natives assured us was only nineteen miles from this spot. For once they were about correct in their ideas of distance. The beautiful 'Park' country commenced about four miles from Curhellulai, and, after a lovely ride through this scenery for sixteen miles, we arrived at the luxurious and pretty village of Bibille, which had so often been my quarters. We had ridden a hundred and forty miles from Minneria, through a country abounding with game of all kinds, sixty miles of which had never been shot over, and yet the whole bag in this lovely country consisted of only three elephants. So much for hurrying through our ground. If we had remained for a week at the foot of the Gunner's Coin we could have obtained supplies of all kinds from Doolana, and we should have enjoyed excellent sport through the whole country. Our total bag was now wretchedly small, considering the quantity of ground that we had passed over. We had killed nine elephants and two deer. V. Baker had a miserable time of it, having only killed two elephants when he was obliged to return. The trip might, in fact, be said to commence from Bibille. This is a very pretty, civilized village, in the midst of a wild country. It is the residence of a Rhatamahatmeya, and he and his family were well known to me. They were perfectly astonished when they heard by which route we had arrived, and upon hearing of our forty-eight hours of fasting, they lost no time in preparing dinner. We were now in a land of plenty, and we shortly fell to at a glorious dinner of fowls in various shapes, curries, good coffee, rice cakes, plantains, and sweet potatoes. After our recent abstinence and poor fare, it seemed a perfect banquet. Nov. 29.--The coolies did not arrive till early this morning; they were soon hard at work at curry and rice, and, after a few hours of rest, we packed up and started for a spot in the 'Park' (upon which I had often encamped) about ten miles from Bibille. The horses had enjoyed their paddy as much as we had relished our change of diet, and the coolies were perfectly refreshed. I sent orders to Kotoboya (about twenty miles from Bibille) for several bullock-loads of paddy and rice to meet us at an appointed spot, and with a good supply of fowls and rice, &c., for the present, we arrived at our place of encampment at three P.M., after a delightful ride. The grass was beautifully green; a few large trees shaded the tents, which were pitched near a stream, and the undulations of the ground, interspersed with clumps of trees and ornamented by rocky mountains, formed a most lovely scene. We sent a messenger to Nielgalla for Banda, and another to Dimbooldene for old Medima and the trackers, with orders to meet us at our present encampment. We then took our rifles and strolled out to get a deer. We shortly found a herd, and Wortley got a shot at about sixty yards, and killed a doe. We could have killed other deer shortly afterwards, but we did not wish to disturb the country by firing unnecessary shots, as we had observed fresh tracks of elephants. We carried the deer to the tent, and rejoiced our coolies with the sight of venison; the doe was soon divided among them, one haunch only being reserved for our own use. Nov. 30.--This, being Sunday, was a day of rest for man and beast after our recent wanderings, and we patiently awaited the arrival of Banda and the trackers. The guns were all in beautiful order, and stood arranged against a temporary rack, in readiness for the anticipated sport on the following day. Banda and the trackers arrived in the afternoon. His accounts were very favourable as to the number of elephants, and we soon laid down a plan for beating the 'Park' in a systematic manner. Upon this arrangement the duration of sport in this country materially depends. If the shooting is conducted thoughtlessly here and there, without reference to the localities, the whole 'Park' becomes alarmed at once, and the elephants quit the open country and retire to the dense chenar jungles. I proposed that we should commence shooting at our present encampment, then beat towards the Cave, shoot over that country towards Pattapalaar, from thence to cross the river and make a circuit of the whole of that portion of the 'Park,' and finish off in the environs of Nielgalla. Banda approved of this plan, as we should then be driving the borders of the 'Park,' instead of commencing in the centre. Dec. 1.--The scouts were sent out at daybreak. At two o'clock P.M. they returned: they had found elephants, but they were four miles from the tent, and two men had been left to watch them. Upon questioning them as to their position, we discovered that they were in total ignorance of the number in the herd, as they had merely heard them roaring in the distance. They could not approach nearer, as a notoriously vicious rogue elephant was consorting with the herd. This elephant was well known to the natives from a peculiarity in having only one tusk, which was about eighteen inches long. In November and December elephant-shooting requires more than ordinary caution at the 'Park,' as the rogue elephants, who are always bulls, are in the habit of attending upon the herds. The danger lies in their cunning. They are seldom seen in the herd itself, but they are generally within a few hundred paces; and just as the guns may have been discharged at the herd, the rogue will, perhaps, appear in full charge from his ambush. This is exquisitely dangerous, and is the manner in which I was caught near this spot in 1850. Banda was very anxious that this rogue should be killed before we attacked the herd, and he begged me to give him a shoulder-shot with the four-ounce rifle, while Wortley and Palliser were to fire at his head! A shot through the shoulder with the heavy rifle would be certain death, although he might not drop immediately; but the object of the natives was simply to get him killed, on account of his mischievous habits. We therefore agreed to make our first attack upon the rogue: if we should kill him on the spot, so much the better; if not, we knew that a four-ounce ball through his lungs would kill him eventually, and, at all events, he would not be in a humour to interrupt our pursuit of the herd, which we were to push for the moment we had put the rogue out of the way. These arrangements being made, we started. After a ride of about four miles through beautiful country, we saw a man in the distance, who was beckoning to us. This was one of the watchers, who pointed to a jungle into which the elephant had that moment entered. From the extreme caution of the trackers, I could see that this rogue was worthy of his name. The jungle into which he had entered was a long but narrow belt, about a hundred yards in width; it was tolerably good, but still it was so close that we could not see more than six paces in advance. I fully expected that he was lying in wait for us, and would charge when least expected. We therefore cautiously entered the jungle, and, sending Banda on in advance, with instructions to retreat upon the guns if charged, we followed him at about twenty paces distance. Banda immediately untied his long hair, which fell to his hips, and divesting himself of all clothing except a cloth round his loins, he crept on in advance as stealthily as a cat. So noiselessly did he move that we presently saw him gliding back to us without a sound. He whispered that he had found the elephant, who was standing on the patina, a few yards beyond the jungle. We immediately advanced, and upon emerging from the jungle we saw him within thirty paces on our right, standing with his broadside exposed. Crack went the four-ounce through his shoulder, and the three-ounce and No. 8, with a similar good intention, into his head. Nevertheless he did not fall, but started off at a great pace, though stumbling nearly on his knees, his head and tail both hanging down, his trunk hanging listlessly upon the ground; and his ears, instead of being cocked, were pressed tightly back against his neck. He did not look much like a rogue at that moment, with upwards of half a pound of lead in his carcass. Still we could not get another shot at him before he reached a jungle about seventy paces distant; and here we stopped to load before we followed him, thinking that he was in dense chenar. This was a great mistake, for, on following him a minute later, we found the jungle was perfectly open, being merely a fringe of forest on the banks of a broad river; in crossing this we must have killed him had we not stopped to load. On the sandy bed of this river we found the fresh tracks of several elephants, who had evidently, only just retreated, being disturbed by the shots fired; these were a portion of the herd; and the old rogue having got his quietus, we pushed on as fast as we could upon the tracks through fine open forest. For about an hour we pressed on through forests, plains, rivers, and thick jungles alternately, till at length upon arriving on some rising ground, we heard the trumpet of an elephant. It was fine country, but overgrown with lemon grass ten feet high. Clumps of trees were scattered here and there among numerous small dells. Exactly opposite lay several large masses of rock, shaded by a few trees, and on our left lay a small hollow of high lemon grass, bordered by jungle. In this hollow we counted seven elephants: their heads and backs were just discernible above the grass, as we looked over them from some rising ground at about seventy yards distance. Three more elephants were among the rocks, browsing upon the long grass. We now heard unmistakable sounds of a large number of elephants in the jungle below us, from which the seven elephants in the hollow had only just emerged, and we quietly waited for the appearance of the whole herd, this being their usual feeding-time. One by one they majestically stalked from the jungle. We were speculating on the probable number of this large herd, when one of them suddenly winded us, and, with magical quickness, they all wheeled round and rushed back into the jungle. Calling upon my little troop of gun-bearers to keep close up, away we dashed after them at full speed; down the steep hollow and through the high lemon grass, now trampled into lanes by the retreating elephants. In one instant the jungle seemed alive; there were upwards of fifty elephants in the herd. The trumpets rang through the forest, the young trees and underwood crashed in all directions with an overpowering noise, as this mighty herd, bearing everything before it, crashed in one united troop through the jungle. At the extreme end of the grassy hollow there was a snug corner formed by an angle in the jungle. A glade of fine short turf stretched for a small distance into the forest, and, as the herd seemed to be bearing down in this direction, Wortley and I posted off as hard as we could go, hoping to intercept them if they crossed the glade. We arrived there in a few moments, and taking our position on this fine level sward, about ten paces from the forest, we awaited the apparently irresistible storm that was bursting exactly upon us. No pen, nor tongue can describe the magnificence of the scene; the tremendous roaring of the herd, mingled with the shrill screams of other elephants; the bursting stems of the broken trees; the rushing sound of the leafy branches as though a tempest were howling through them--all this concentrating with great rapidity upon the very spot upon which we were standing. This was an exciting moment, especially to nerves unaccustomed to the sport. The whole edge of the forest was faced with a dense network of creepers; from the highest tree-tops to the ground they formed a leafy screen like a green curtain, which clothed the forest as ivy covers the walls of a house. Behind this opaque mass the great actors in the scene were at work, and the whole body would evidently in a few seconds burst through this leafy veil and be right upon us. On they came, the forest trembling with the onset. The leafy curtain burst into tatters; the jungle ropes and snaky stems, tearing the branches from the treetops, were in a few moments heaped in a tangled and confused ruin. One dense mass of elephants' heads, in full career, presented themselves through the shattered barrier of creepers. Running towards them with a loud holloa, they were suddenly checked by our unexpected apparition, but the confused mass of elephants made the shooting very difficult. Two elephants rushed out to cross the little nook within four yards of me, and I killed both by a right and left shot. Wallace immediately pushed a spare rifle into my hand, just as a large elephant, meaning mischief, came straight towards me, with ears cocked, from the now staggered body of the herd. I killed her with the front shot, both barrels having gone off at once, the heavy charge of powder in the right-hand barrel having started the trigger of the left barrel by the concussion. Round wheeled the herd, leaving their three leaders dead; and now the race began. It was a splendid forest, and the elephants rushed off at about ten miles an hour, in such a compact troop that their sterns formed a living barrier, and not a head could be seen. At length, after a burst of about two hundred yards, the deep and dry bed of a torrent formed a trench about ten feet in width. Not hesitating at this obstacle, down went the herd without missing a step; the banks crumbled and half-filled the trench as the leaders scrambled across, and the main body rushed after them at an extraordinary pace. I killed a large elephant in the act of crossing; he rolled into the trench, but struggling to rise, I gave him the other barrel in the nape of the neck, which, breaking his spine, extinguished him. He made a noble bridge, and, jumping upon his carcass, we cleared the ravine, and again the chase continued, although the herd had now gained about thirty paces. Upon a fine meadow of grass, about four feet high, the herd now rushed along in a compact mass extending in a broad line of massive hind-quarters over a surface of half an acre. This space formed a complete street in their wake, as they levelled everything before them; and the high grass stood up on either side like a wail. Along this level road we ran at full speed, and by great exertions managed to keep within twenty yards of the game. Full a quarter of a mile was passed at this pace without a shot being fired. At length one elephant turned and faced about exactly in front of me. My three double-barrelled rifles were now all empty, and I was carrying the little No. 16 gun. I killed him with the right-hand barrel, but I lost ground by stopping to fire. A jungle lay about two hundred yards in front of the herd, and they increased their speed to arrive at this place of refuge. Giving the little gun, with one barrel still loaded, to Wallace, I took the four-ounce rifle in exchange, as I knew I could not close up with the herd before they reached the jungle, and a long shot would be my last chance. With this heavy gun (21 lbs.) I had hard work to keep my distance, which was about forty yards from the herd. Palliser and Wortley were before me, and within twenty yards of the elephants. They neared the jungle; I therefore ran off to my left as fast as I could go, so as to ensure a side-shot. I was just in time to command their flank as the herd reached the jungle. A narrow river, with steep banks of twenty feet in height, bordered the edge, and I got a shot at a large elephant just as he arrived upon the brink of the chasm. He was fifty paces off, but I hit him in the temple with the four-ounce, and rolled him down the precipitous bank into the river. Here he lay groaning; so, taking the little gun, with one barrel still loaded, I extinguished him from the top of the bank. Oh, for half-a-dozen loaded guns! I was now unloaded, and the fun began in real earnest. The herd pushed for a particular passage down the steep bank. It was like a rush at the door of the Opera; they jostled each other in a confused melee, and crossed the river with the greatest difficulty. By some bad luck Palliser and Wortley only killed one as the herd was crossing the river, but they immediately disappeared in pursuit, as the elephants, having effected their passage, retreated in thick jungle on the other side. I was obliged to halt to load, which I did as quickly as possible. While I was ramming the balls down, I heard several shots fired in quick succession, and when loaded, I ran on with my gun-bearers towards the spot. It was bad, thorny jungle, interspersed with numerous small glades of fine turf. Upon arriving in one of these glades, about a quarter of a mile beyond the river, I saw a crowd of gun-bearers standing around some person lying upon the ground. Neither Palliser nor Wortley were to be seen, and for an instant a chill ran through me, as I felt convinced that some accident had happened. 'Where are masters?' I shouted to the crowd of men, and the next moment I was quite relieved by seeing only a coolie lying on the ground. On examining the man I found he was more frightened than hurt, although he was cut in several places and much bruised. Upon giving a shout, Palliser and Wortley returned to the spot. They now explained the mystery. They were running on the fresh tracks in this glade, no elephants being then in sight, when they suddenly heard a rush in the jungle, and in another instant two elephants charged out upon them. Wortley and Palliser both fired, but without effect--the gun-bearers bolted,--an elephant knocked one man over, and tried to butt him against the ground; but two more shots from both Palliser and Wortley turned him; they were immediately obliged to run in their turn, as the other elephant charged, and just grazed Palliser with his trunk behind. Fortunately, they doubled short round, instead of continuing a straight course, and the elephants turned into the jungle. They followed them for some little distance, but the jungles were so bad that there was no chance, and they had returned when I had shouted. The man who was hurt was obliged to be supported home. Two of the guns were lost, which the gun-bearers in their fright had thrown away. After a long search we found them lying in the high bushes. We now returned along the line of hunt to cut off the elephants' tails. I had fired at six, all of which were bagged; these we accordingly found in their various positions. One of them was a very large female, with her udder full of milk. Being very thirsty, both Wortley and I took a long pull at this, to the evident disgust of the natives. It was very good, being exactly like cow's milk. This was the elephant that I had killed doubly by the left-hand barrel exploding by accident, and the two balls were only a few inches apart in the forehead. There had been very bad luck with this herd; the only dead elephant, in addition to these six, was that which Wortley and Palliser had both fired at in the river, and another which Palliser had knocked down in the high grass when we had just commenced the attack--at which time he had separated from us to cut off the three elephants that we had just seen among the rocks. On arrival at the spot where the elephants had first burst from the jungle, a heavy shower came down, and the locks of the guns were immediately covered each with a large leaf, and then tied up securely with a handkerchief. A large banian tree afforded us an imaginary shelter, but we were drenched to the skin in a few seconds. In the meantime, Palliser walked through the high lemon grass to look for his dead elephant. On arriving at the spot, instead of finding a dead elephant, he found him standing up, and only just recovered from the stunning effect of his wound. The elephant charged him immediately; and Palliser, having the lock of his gun tied up, was perfectly defenceless, and he was obliged to run as hard as his long legs would carry him. 'Look out! look out! an elephant's coming! Look out!' This we heard shouted as we were standing beneath the tree, and the next moment we saw Palliser's tall form of six feet four come flying through the high grass. Luckily the elephant lost him, and turned off in some other direction. If he had continued the chase, he would have made a fine diversion, as the locks were so tightly tied up that we could not have got a gun ready for some time. In a few minutes the shower cleared off, and on examining the place where the elephant had fallen, we found a large pool of clotted blood. We now rode homeward, but we had not gone a quarter of a mile before we heard an elephant roaring loudly in a jungle close to us. Thinking that it was the wounded brute who had just hunted Palliser, we immediately dismounted and approached the spot. The roaring continued until we were close to it, and we then saw a young elephant standing in the bed of a river, and he it was who was making all the noise, having been separated from the herd in the late melee. Wortley shot him, this making eight killed. When within a mile of the tent, as we were riding along a path through a thick thorny jungle, an immense rogue elephant stalked across our road. I fired the four-ounce through his shoulder, to the great satisfaction of Banda and the natives, although we never had a chance of proving what the effect had been, as he was soon lost in the thick jungle. A short time after this we reached the tent, having had the perfection of sport in elephant-shooting, although luck had been against us in making a large bag. Dec. 2.--The scouts having been sent out at daybreak, returned early, having found another herd of elephants. On our way to the spot, Palliser fired at a rogue, but without effect. On arrival at the jungle in which the elephants were reported to be, we heard from the watchers that a rogue was located in the same jungle, in attendance upon the herd. This was now a regular thing to expect, and compelled us to be exceedingly cautious. Just as we were stalking through the jungle on the track of the herd, we came upon the rogue himself. Wortley fired at him, but without effect, and unfortunately the shot frightened the herd, which was not a quarter of a mile distant, and the elephants retreated to a large tract of thick jungle country, where pursuit was impracticable. Our party was too large for shooting 'rogues' with any degree of success. These brutes, being always on the alert, require the most careful stalking. There is only one way to kill them with any certainty. Two persons, at most, to attack; each person to be accompanied by only one gunbearer, who should carry two spare guns. One good tracker should lead this party of five people in single file. With great caution and silence, being well to leeward of the elephants, he can thus generally be approached till within twelve paces, and he is then killed by one shot before he knows that danger is near. What with our gun-bearers, trackers, watchers and ourselves, we were a party of sixteen persons; it was therefore impossible to get near a rogue unperceived. On the way to the tent I got a shot at a deer at full gallop on 'old Jack.' It was a doe, who bounded over the plain at a speed that soon out-distanced my horse, and I took a flying shot from the saddle with one of my No. 10 rifles. I did not get the deer, although she was badly wounded, as we followed the blood-tracks for some distance through thick jungle without success. This was altogether a blank day; and having thoroughly disturbed this part of the 'Park,' we determined to up stick and move our quarters on the following day towards the 'Cave,' according to the plan that we had agreed upon for beating the country. Dec. 3.--With the cook and the canteen in company we started at break of day, leaving the servants to pack up and bring the coolies and tents after us. By this arrangement we were sure of our breakfast wherever we went, and we were free from the noise of our followers, whose scent alone was enough to alarm miles of country down wind. We had our guns all loaded, and carried by our respective gun-bearers close to the horses, and, with Banda, old Medima, and a couple of trackers, we were ready for anything. We had ridden about six miles when we suddenly came upon fresh elephant-tracks in a grassy hollow, surrounded by low rocky hills. We immediately sent the men off upon the tracks, while we waited upon a high plateau of rock for their return. They came back in about a quarter of an hour, having found the elephants within half a mile. They were in high lemon grass, and upon arrival at the spot we could distinguish nothing, as the grass rose some feet above our heads. It was like shooting in the dark, and we ascended some rising ground to improve our position. Upon arrival on this spot we looked over an undulating sea of this grass, interspersed with rocky hills and small patches of forest. Across a valley we now distinguished the herd, much scattered, going off in all directions. They had winded us, and left us but a poor chance of catching them in such ground. Of course we lost no time in giving chase. The sun was intensely hot--not a breath of air was stirring, and the heat in the close, parched grass was overpowering. With the length of start that the elephants had got, we were obliged to follow at our best pace, which, over such tangled ground, was very fatiguing; fortunately, however, the elephants had not yet seen us, and they had accordingly halted now and then, instead of going straight off. There were only four elephants together, and, by a great chance we came up with them just as they were entering a jungle. I got a shot at the last elephant and killed him, but the others put on more steam, and all separated, fairly beating us, as we were almost used up by the heat. This was very bad luck, and we returned in despair of finding the scattered herd. We had proceeded some distance through the high grass, having just descended a steep, rocky hill, when we suddenly observed two elephants approaching along the side of the very hill that we had just left. Had we remained in the centre of the hill, we should have met them as they advanced. One was a large female, and the other was most probably her calf, being little more than half-grown. It was a beautiful sight to see the caution with which they advanced, and we lay down to watch them without being seen. They were about 200 yards from us, and, as they slowly advanced along the steep hillside, they occasionally halted, and, with their trunks thrown up in the air, they endeavoured, but in vain, to discover the enemy that had so recently disturbed them. We had the wind all right, and we now crept softly up the hill, so as to meet them at right angles. The hillside was a mass of large rocks overgrown and concealed by the high lemon grass, and it was difficult to move without making a noise, or falling into the cavities between the rocks. I happened to be at the head of our line, and, long before I expected the arrival of the elephants, I heard a rustling in the grass, and the next moment I saw the large female passing exactly opposite me, within five or six paces. I was on half-cock at the time, as the ground was dangerous to pass over with a gun on full cock, but I was just quick enough to knock her over before the high grass should conceal her at another step. She fell in a small chasm, nearly upsetting the young elephant, who was close behind her. Wortley killed him, while I took the last kick out of the old one by another shot, as she was still moving. We had thus only killed three elephants out of the herd, and, without seeing more, we returned to the horses. On finding them, we proceeded on our road towards the 'Cave,' but had not ridden above two miles farther when we again came upon fresh tracks of elephants. Sending on our trackers like hounds upon their path, we sat down and breakfasted under a tree. We had hardly finished the last cup of coffee when the trackers returned, having found another herd. They were not more than half a mile distant, and they were reported to be in open forest, on the banks of a deep and broad river. Our party was altogether too large for elephant shooting, as we never could get close up to them without being discovered... As usual, they winded us before we got near them, but by quick running we overtook them just as they arrived on the banks of the river and took to water. Wortley knocked over one fellow just as he thought he was safe in running along the bottom of a deep gully; I floored his companion at the same moment, thus choking up the gully, and six elephants closely packed together forded the deep stream. The tops of their backs and heads were alone above water. I fired the four-ounce into the nape of one elephant's neck as the herd crossed, and he immediately turned over and lay foundered in the middle of the river, which was sixty or seventy yards across. In the mean time Palliser and Wortley kept up a regular volley, but no effects could be observed until the herd reached and began to ascend the steep bank on the opposite side. I had reloaded the four-ounce, and the heavy battery now began to open a concert with the general volley, as the herd scrambled up the precipitous bank. Several elephants fell, but recovered themselves and disappeared. At length the volley ceased, and two were seen, one dead on the top of the bank, and the other still struggling in the shallow water at the foot. Once more a general battery opened; and he was extinguished. Five were killed; and if noise and smoke add to the fun, there was certainly plenty of it. Wortley and my man Wallace now swam across the river and cut off the elephants' tails. We returned to the horses, and moved to the 'Cave,' meeting with no farther incidents that day. Dec. 4--We saw nothing but deer the whole of the day, and they were so wild that we could not get a shot. It was therefore a blank. Dec. 5--We started early, and for five miles we tracked a large herd of elephants through fine open country, until we were at length stopped by impenetrable jungle of immense extent, forming the confines of the 'Park' on this side. We therefore reluctantly left the tracks, and directed our course towards Pattapalaar, about twelve miles distant. We had passed over a lovely country, and were within a mile of our proposed resting-place, when Banda, who happened to be a hundred yards in advance, came quickly back, saying that he saw a rogue elephant feeding on the patina not far from us. Wortley had gone in another direction with old Medima a few minutes previous to look for a deer; and Palliser and I resolved to stalk him carefully. We therefore left all the people behind, except two gun-bearers, each of whom carried one of my double-barrelled rifles. I carried my four-ounce, and Palliser took the two-ounce. It was most difficult ground for stalking, being entirely open, on a spot which had been high lemon grass but recently burnt, the long reeds in many places still remaining. We could not get nearer than fifty yards in such ground, and I accordingly tried a shot at his temple with the four-ounce. The long unburnt stalks of the lemon grass waving to and fro before the sights of my rifle so bothered me that I missed the fatal spot, and fired about two inches too high. Stumbling only for a moment from the blow, he rushed down hill towards a jungle, but at the same instant Palliser made a capital shot with the long two-ounce and knocked him over. I never saw an elephant fall with such a crash: they generally sink gently down; but this fellow was going at such speed down hill that he fairly pitched upon his head. We arrived at our resting-place, and having erected the tents, we gave them up to Banda and the servants, while we took possession of a large 'amblam', or open building, massively built by the late Major Rodgers, which is about twenty-five feet square. This we arranged in a most comfortable manner, and here we determined to remain for some days, while we beat the whole country thoroughly. Dec. 6.-We started at our usual early hour with Banda and the trackers, and after a walk of about a mile, we found fresh tracks and followed up. Crossing a small river upon the track, we entered a fine open forest, through which the herd had only just passed, and upon following them for about a quarter of a mile, we came to a barrier of dense chenar jungle, into which the elephants had retreated. There was a rogue with this herd, and we were rather doubtful of his position. We stood in the open forest, within a few feet of the thick jungle, to the edge of which the elephants were so close that we could hear their deep breathing; and by stooping down we could distinguish the tips of their trunks and feet, although the animals themselves were invisible. We waited about half an hour in the hope that some of the elephants might again enter the open forest; at length two, neither of whom were above five feet high, came out and faced us. My dress of elastic green tights had become so browned by constant washing and exposure, that I matched exactly with the stem of a tree against which I was leaning, and one of the elephants kept advancing towards me until I could nearly touch him with my rifle; still he did not see me, and I did not wish to fire, as I should alarm the herd, which would then be lost for ever. Unfortunately, just at this moment, the other elephant saw Palliser, and the alarm was given. There was no help for it, and we were obliged to fire. Mine fell dead, but the other fell, and, recovering himself immediately, he escaped in the thick jungle. This was bad luck, and we returned towards the 'amblam' to breakfast. On our way there we found that the 'rogue' had concealed himself in a piece of thick jungle, backed by hills of very high lemon grass. From this stronghold we tried to drive him, and posted ourselves in a fine position to receive him should he break cover; but he was too cunning to come out, and the beaters were too knowing to go in to drive such bad jungle; it was, therefore, a drawn game, and we were obliged to leave him. When within a short distance of the 'amblam', a fine black partridge got up at about sixty yards. I was lucky enough to knock him over with a rifle, and still more fortunate in not injuring him much with the ball, which took his wing off close to his body. Half an hour afterwards he formed part of our breakfast. During our meal a heavy shower of rain came down, and continued for about two hours. In the afternoon we sallied out, determined to shoot at any large game that we might meet. We had lately confined our sport to elephants, as we did not wish to disturb the country by shooting at other game; but having fired in this neighbourhood during the morning, we were not very particular. We walked through a lovely country for about five miles, seeing nothing whatever in the shape of game, not even a track, as all the old marks were washed out by the recent shower. At length we heard the barking of deer in the distance, and, upon going in that direction, we saw a fine herd of about thirty. They were standing in a beautiful meadow of about a hundred acres in extent, perfectly level, and interspersed with trees, giving it the appearance of an immense orchard rather thinly planted. One side of this plain was bounded by a rocky mountain, which rose precipitously from its base, the whole of which was covered with fine open forest. We were just stalking towards the deer when we came upon a herd of wild buffaloes in a small hollow, within a close shot. Palliser wanted a pair of horns, and he was just preparing for a shot, when we suddenly heard the trumpet of an elephant in the forest at the foot of the rocky mountains close to us. Elephants, buffaloes, and deer were all within a hundred yards of each other: we almost expected to see Noah's ark on the top of the hill. Of course the elephants claimed our immediate attention. It was Palliser's turn to lead the way; and upon entering the forest at the foot of the mountain, we found that the elephants were close to us. The forest was a perfect place for elephant-shooting. Large rocks were scattered here and there among the fine trees, free from underwood; these rocks formed alleys of various widths, and upon such ground an elephant had no chance. There was a large rock the size of a small house lying within a few yards from the entrance of the forest. This rock was split in two pieces, forming a passage of two feet wide, but of several yards in length. As good luck would have it, an elephant stood exactly on the other side, and, Palliser leading the way, we advanced through this secure fort to the attack. On arrival at the extreme end, Palliser fired two quick shots, and, taking a spare gun, he fired a third, before we could see what was going on, we being behind him in this narrow passage. Upon passing through we thought the fun was over. He had killed three elephants, and no more were to be seen anywhere. Hardly had he reloaded, however, when we heard a tremendous rushing through the forest in the distance; and, upon quickly running to the spot, we came upon a whole herd of elephants, who were coming to meet us in full speed. Upon seeing us, however, they checked their speed for a moment, and Palliser and Wortley both fired, which immediately turned them. This was at rather too long a distance, and no elephants were killed. A fine chase now commenced through the open forest, the herd rushing off pele mele. This pace soon took us out of it, and we burst upon an open plain of high lemon grass. Here I got a shot at an elephant, who separated from the main body, and I killed him. The pace was now so great that the herd fairly distanced us in the tangled lemon grass, which, though play to them, was very fatiguing to us. Upon reaching the top of some rising ground I noticed several elephants, at about a quarter of a mile distant upon my left in high grass, while the remaining portion of the herd (three elephants) were about two hundred yards ahead, and were stepping out at full speed straight before us. Wortley had now had plenty of practice, and shot his elephants well. He and Palliser followed the three elephants, while I parted company and ran towards the other section of the herd, who were standing on some rising ground, and were making a great roaring. On arriving within a hundred yards of them, I found I had caught a 'Tartar'. It is a very different thing creeping up to an unsuspecting herd and attacking them by surprise, to marching up upon sheer open ground to a hunted one with wounded elephants among them, who have regularly stood at bay. This was now the case. The ground was perfectly open, and the lemon grass was above my head: thus I could only see the exact position of the elephants every now and then, by standing upon the numerous little rocks that were scattered here and there. The elephants were standing upon some rising ground, from which they watched every movement as I approached. They continued to growl without a moment's intermission, being enraged not only from the noise of the firing, but on account of two calves which they had with them, and which I could not see in the high grass. There was a gentle rise in the ground within thirty paces of the spot upon which they stood; and to this place I directed my steps with great care, hiding in the high grass as I crept towards them. During the whole of this time, guns were firing without intermission in the direction taken by Palliser and Wortley, thus keeping my game terribly on the qui vive. What they were firing so many shots at, I could not conceive. At length I reached the rising ground. The moment that I was discovered by them, the two largest elephants came towards me, with their ears cocked and their trunks raised. I waited for a second or two till they lowered their trunks, which they presently did; and taking a steady shot with one of my doubled-barrelled No. 10 rifles, I floored them both by a right and left. One, however, immediately recovered, and, with the blood streaming from his forehead, he turned and retreated with the remainder of the herd at great speed through the high grass. The chase required great caution. However, they fortunately took to a part of the country where the grass was not higher than my shoulders, and I could thus see well over it. Through this, I managed to keep within fifty yards of the herd, and I carried the heavy four-ounce rifle, which I knew would give one of them a benefit if he turned to charge. I was following the herd at this distance when they suddenly halted, and the wounded elephant turned quickly round, and charged with a right good intention. He carried his head thrown back in such a position that I could not get a fair shot, but, nevertheless, the four-ounce ball stopped him, and away he went again with the herd at full speed, the blood gushing in streams from the wound in his head. My four-ounce is a splendid rifle for loading quickly, it being so thick in the metal that the deep groove catches the belt of the ball immediately. I was loaded in a few seconds, and again set off in pursuit; I saw the herd at about 200 yards distant; they had halted, and they had again faced about. I had no sooner approached within sixty paces of them, than the wounded elephant gave a trumpet, and again rushed forward out of the herd. His head was so covered with blood, and was still thrown back in such a peculiar position, that I could not get a shot at the exact mark. Again the four-ounce crashed through his skull, and, staggered with the blow, he once more turned and retreated with the herd. Loading quickly, I poured the powder down AD LIBITUN, and ran after the herd, who had made a circuit to arrive in the same forest in which we had first found them. A sharp run brought me up to them; but upon seeing me they immediately stopped, and, without a moment's pause, round came my old antagonist again, straight at me, with his head still raised in the same knowing position. The charge of powder was so great that it went off like a young fieldpiece, and the elephant fell upon his knees; but, again recovering himself, he turned and went off at such a pace that he left the herd behind, and in a few minutes I was within twenty yards of them; I would not fire, as I was determined to bag my wounded bird before I fired a single shot at another. They now reached the forest, but, instead of retreating, the wounded elephant turned short round upon the very edge of the jungle and faced me; the remaining portion of the herd (consisting of two large elephants and two calves) had passed on into the cover. This was certainly a plucky elephant; his whole face was a mass of blood, and he stood at the very spot where the herd had passed into the forest, as though he was determined to guard the entrance. I was now about twenty-five yards from him, when, gathering himself together for a decisive charge, he once more came on. I was on the point of pulling the trigger, when he reeled, and fell without a shot, from sheer exhaustion; but recovering himself immediately, he again faced me, but did not move. This was a fatal pause. He forgot the secret of throwing his head back, and he now held it in the natural position, offering a splendid shot at about twenty yards. Once more the four-ounce buried itself in his skull, and he fell dead. Palliser and Wortley came up just as I was endeavouring to track up the herd, which I had now lost sight of in the forest. Following upon their tracks, we soon came in view of them. Away we went as fast as we could run towards them, but I struck my shin against a fallen tree, which cut me to the bone, and pitched me upon my head. The next moment, however, we were up with the elephants: they were standing upon a slope of rock facing us, but regularly dumbfounded at their unremitting pursuit; they all rolled over to a volley as we came up, two of them being calves. Palliser killed the two biggest right and left, he being some paces in advance. This was one of the best hunts that I have ever shared in. The chase had lasted for nearly an hour. There had been thirteen elephants originally in the herd, every one of which had been bagged by fair running. Wortley had fired uncommonly well, as he had killed the three elephants which he and Palliser had chased, one of which had given them a splendid run and had proved restive. The elephant took fifteen shots before she fell, and this accounted for the continual firing which I had heard during my chase of the other section. We had killed fourteen elephants during the day, and we returned to the 'amblam', having had as fine sport as Ceylon can afford. December 7.--This, being Sunday, was passed in quiet; but a general cleaning of guns took place, to be ready for the morrow. Dec. 8.--We went over many miles of ground without seeing a fresh track. We had evidently disturbed the country on this side of the river, and we returned towards the 'amblam', determined to cross the river after breakfast and try the opposite side. When within a mile of the 'amblam' we heard deer barking, and, leaving all our gun-bearers and people behind, we carefully stalked to the spot. The ground was very favourable, and, having the wind, we reached an excellent position among some trees within sixty yards of the herd of deer, who were standing in a little glade. Wortley and I each killed a buck; Palliser wounded a doe, which we tracked for a great distance by the blood, but at length lost altogether. After breakfast we crossed the large river which flows near the 'amblam', and then entered a part of the 'Park' that we had not yet beaten. Keeping to our left, we entered a fine forest, and skirted the base of a range of rocky mountains. In this forest we saw deer and wild buffalo, but we would not fire a shot, as we had just discovered the fresh track of a rogue elephant. We were following upon this, when we heard a bear in some thick jungle. We tried to circumvent him, but in vain; Bruin was too quick for us, and we did not get a sight of him. We were walking quietly along the dry bed of a little brook bordered by thick jungle upon either side, when we were suddenly roused by a tremendous crash through the jungle, which was evidently coming straight upon us. We were in a most unfavourable position, but there was no time for any farther arrangement than bringing the rifle on full cock, before six elephants, including the 'rogue' whose tracks we were following, burst through the jungle straight at us. Banda was nearly run over, but with wonderful agility he ran up some tangled creepers hanging from the trees, just as a spider would climb his web. He was just in time, as the back of one of the elephants grazed his feet as it passed below him. In the meantime the guns were not idle. Wortley fired at the leading elephant, which had passed under Banda's feet, just as he was crossing the brook on our left. His shot did not produce any effect, but I killed him by a temple-shot as he was passing on. Palliser, who was on our right, killed two, and knocked down a third, who was about half-grown. This fellow got up again, and Wortley and Palliser, both firing at the same moment, extinguished him. The herd had got themselves into a mess by rushing down upon our scent in this heedless manner, as four of them lay dead within a few paces of each other. The 'rogue', who knew how to take care of himself, escaped with only one companion. Upon these tracks we now followed without loss of time. An hour was thus occupied. We tracked them through many glades and jungles, till we at length discovered in a thick chenar the fresh tracks of another herd, which the 'rogue' and his companion had evidently joined, as his immense footprint was very conspicuous among the numerous marks of the troop. Passing cautiously through a thick jungle, we at length emerged upon an extensive tract of high lemon grass. There was a small pool of water close to the edge of the jungle, which was surrounded with the fresh dung of elephants, and the muddy surface was still agitated by the recent visit of some of these thirsty giants. Carefully ascending some slightly rising ground, and keeping close to the edge of the jungle, we peered over the high grass. We were in the centre of the herd, who were much scattered. It was very late, being nearly dusk, but we counted six elephants here and there in the high grass within sixty paces of us, while the rustling in the jungle to our left, warned us, that a portion of the herd had not yet quitted this cover. We knew that the 'rogue' was somewhere close at hand, and after his recent defeat he would be doubly on the alert. Our plans therefore required the greatest vigilance. There was no doubt as to the proper course to pursue, which was to wait patiently until the whole herd should have left the jungle and concentrated in the high grass; but the waning daylight did not permit of such a steady method of proceeding. I then proposed that we should choose our elephants, which were scattered in the high grass, and advance separately to the attack. Palliser voted that we should creep up to the elephants that were in the jungle close to us, instead of going into the high grass. I did not much like this plan, as I knew that it would be much darker in the jungle than in the patina, and there was no light to spare. However, Palliser crept into the jungle, towards the spot where we heard the elephants crashing the bushes. Instead of following behind him, I kept almost in a line, but a few feet on one side, otherwise I knew that should he fire, I should see nothing for the smoke of his shot. This precaution was not thrown away. The elephants were about fifty yards from the entrance to the jungle, and we were of course up to them in a few minutes. Palliser took a steady shot at a fine elephant about eight yards from him, and fired. The only effect produced was a furious charge right into us! Away went all the gun-bearers except Wallace as hard as they could run, completely panic-stricken. Palliser and Wortley jumped to one side to get clear of the smoke, which hung like a cloud before them; and having taken my position with the expectation of something of this kind, I had a fine clear forehead shot as the elephant came rushing on; and I dropped him dead. The gun-bearers were in such a fright that they never stopped till they got out on the patina. The herd had of course gone off at the alarm of the firing, and we got a glimpse of the old 'rogue' as he was taking to the jungle. Palliser fired an ineffectual shot at him at a long range, and the day closed. It was moonlight when we reached the 'amblam': the bag for that day being five elephants, and two bucks. Dec. 9.--We had alarmed this part of the country; and after spending a whole morning in wandering over a large extent of ground without seeing a fresh track of an elephant, we determined to move on to Nielgalla, eight miles from the 'amblam.' We accordingly packed up, and started off our coolies by the direct path, while we made a long circuit by another route, in the hope of meeting with heavy game. After riding about four miles, our path lay through a dense forest up the steep side of a hill. Over this was a narrow road, most difficult for a horse to ascend, on account of the large masses of rocks, which choked the path from the base to the summit. Leaving the horse-keepers with the horses to scramble up as they best could, we took our guns and went on in advance. We had nearly reached the summit of this pass, when we came suddenly upon some fragments of chewed leaves and branches, lying in the middle of the path. The saliva was still warm upon them, and the dung of an elephant lay in the road in a state which proved his close vicinity. There were no tracks, of course, as the path was nothing but a line of piled rocks, from which the forest had been lately cleared, and the elephants had just been disturbed by the clattering of the horses' hoofs in ascending the rugged pass. Banda had run on in front about fifty yards before us, but we had no sooner arrived on the summit of the hill, than we saw him returning at a flying pace towards us, with an elephant chasing him in full speed. It was an exciting scene while it lasted: with the activity of a deer, he sprang from rock to rock, while we of course ran to his assistance, and arrived close to the elephant just as Banda had reached a high block of stone, which furnished him an asylum. A shot from Palliser brought the elephant upon his knees, but, immediately recovering himself, he ran round a large rock. I ran round the other side, and killed him dead within four paces. Upon descending the opposite side of the pass, we arrived in flat country, and on the left of the road we saw another elephant, a 'rogue', in high lemon grass. We tried to get a shot at him, but it was of no use; the grass was so high and thick, that after trying several experiments, we declined following him in such ground. We arrived at Nielgalla in the evening without farther sport: here we killed a few couple of snipe in the paddy-fields, which added to our dinner. Dec. 10.--Having beaten several miles of country without seeing any signs of elephants, we came unexpectedly upon a herd of wild buffaloes; they were standing in beautiful open ground, interspersed with trees, about a hundred and ten paces from us. I gave Palliser my heavy rifle, as he was very anxious to get a pair of good horns, and with the pleasure of a spectator I watched the sport. He made a good shot with the four-ounce, and dropped the foremost buffalo; the herd galloped off but he broke the hind leg of another buffalo with one of the No. 10 rifles, and, after a chase of a couple of hundred yards, he came up with the wounded beast, who could not extricate himself from a deep gully of water, as he could not ascend the steep bank on three legs. A few more shots settled him. We gave up all ideas of elephants for this day after so much firing; but, curious enough, just as we were mounting our horses, we heard the roar of an elephant in a jungle on the hillside about half a mile distant. There was no mistaking the sound, and we were soon at the spot. This jungle was very extensive, and the rocky bed of a mountain-torrent divided it into two portions; on the right hand was fine open forest, and on the left thorny chenar. The elephants were in the open forest, close to the edge of the torrent. The herd winded us just as we were approaching up the steep ascent of the rocky stream, and they made a rush across the bed of the torrent to gain the thick jungle on the opposite bank. Banda immediately beckoned to me to come into the jungle with the intention of meeting the elephants as they entered, while Palliser was to command the narrow passage, in which there was only space for one person to shoot, without confusion. In the mean time, Palliser knocked over three elephants as they crossed the stream, while we, on reaching the thick jungle, found it so dense that we could see nothing. Just as we were thinking of returning again to the spot that we had left, we heard a tremendous rush in the bush, coming straight towards us. In another instant I saw a mass of twisted and matted thorns crashing in a heap upon me. I had barely time to jump on one side, as the elephant nearly grazed me, and I fired both barrels into the tangled mass that he bore upon his head. I then bolted, and took up a good position at a few yards' distance. The shots in the head had so completely stunned the elephant that she could not move. She now stood in a piece of jungle so dense that we could not see her, and Palliser creeping up to her, while we stood ready to back him, fired three shots without the least effect. She did not even move, being senseless with the wound. One of my men then gave him my four-ounce rifle. A loud report from the old gun sounded the elephant's knell, and closed the sport for that trip. We returned to Nielgalla, the whole of that day's bag belonging to Palliser--four elephants and two buffaloes. We packed up our traps, and early the next morning we started direct for Newera Ellia, having in three weeks from the day of our departure from Kandy bagged fifty elephants, five deer, and two buffaloes; of which, Wortley had killed to his bag, ten elephants and two deer; Palliser sixteen elephants and two buffaloes; V. Baker, up to the time of his leaving us, two elephants. CHAPTER XII. CONCLUSION. Thus ended a trip, which exhibited the habits and character of elephants in a most perfect manner. From the simple experience of these three weeks' shooting a novice might claim some knowledge of the elephant; and the journal of this tour must at once explain, even to the most uninitiated, the exact proportion of risk with which this sport is attended, when followed up in a sportsmanlike manner. These days will always be looked back to by me with the greatest pleasure. The moments of sport lose none of their brightness by age, and when the limbs become enfeebled by time, the mind can still cling to scenes long past, with the pleasure of youth. One great addition to the enjoyment of wild sport is the companionship of thorough sportsmen. A confidence in each other is absolutely necessary; without this, I would not remain a day in the jungle. An even temper, not easily disturbed by the little annoyances inseparable from a trip in a wild country, is also indispensable; without this, a man would be insufferable. Our party was an emblem of contentment. The day's sport concluded, the evenings were most enjoyable, and will never be forgotten. The well arranged tent, the neatly-spread table, the beds forming a triangle around the walls, and the clean guns piled in a long row against the gun-rack, will often recall a tableau in after years, in countries far from this land of independence. The acknowledged sports of England will appear child's play; the exciting thrill will be wanting, when a sudden rush in the jungle brings the rifle on full cock; and the heavy guns will become useless mementoes of past days, like the dusty helmets of yore, hanging up in an old hall. The belt and the hunting-knife will alike share the fate of the good rifle, and the blade, now so keen, will blunt from sheer neglect. The slips, which have held the necks of dogs of such staunch natures, will hang neglected from the wall; and all these souvenirs of wild sports, contrasted with the puny implements of the English chase, will awaken once more the longing desire, for the 'Rifle and Hound in Ceylon'. 
31923	----	THE PEARL OF INDIA BY MATURIN M. BALLOU From India and the Golden Chersonese, And utmost Indian Isle Taprobanes. MILTON SECOND EDITION BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1895 Copyright, 1894, BY MATURIN M. BALLOU. * * * * * PREFACE. That many readers evince a growing satisfaction in contemplating foreign lands through the eyes of experienced travelers, the favor shown to previous books by the author of these pages abundantly testifies. Mutual profit is therefore the outcome of such a work; both the author and reader are gratified. It is a pleasure to depict scenes which have afforded so much gratification to the writer, for enjoyment is redoubled by being shared,--"joy was born a twin." The undersigned has often been asked both personally and by letter, "Of all the places you have seen and written about, which do you consider of the most interest, and which do you recommend me to visit?" This is a very difficult question to answer, because individual tastes differ so widely. It is safe to say no point presents more varied attractions to the observant traveler, more thoroughly and picturesquely exhibits equatorial life, or addresses itself more directly to the delicate appreciation of the artist, botanist, antiquarian, general scientist, and sportsman, than does Ceylon, gem of the Orient. There are few attractive places in the East which are so accessible, or which may be said to offer more reasonable assurance of safety and good health to the stranger, than this fabled isle of Arabian story. The climate is equable and most delightful; though the temperature is exceptionally high, it is, in fact, perpetual summer, varied only by the rains of the monsoon months of May and June, October and November. The tropical heat near the coast is trying to northern visitors, but one can always find a refuge, within a day's journey, up in the hills of the central province, where it is so cool at most seasons of the year as to render a fire necessary after sunset. In the matter of expense, this route is as economical as the average of land and sea travel in any direction. The cost of living in Ceylon is quite as moderate as in Southern Europe, and now that the island is so generally traversed by railways and excellent government roads, there is very little hardship to be encountered in visiting its remotest districts. M. M. B. * * * * * CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Introductory.--Coming from the Eastward.--Interesting Ocean Phenomena.--Denizens of the Sea.--Bird Travelers.--Delusive Mirage.--A Thrilling Adventure.--Prompt Seamanship.--A Struggle for Life.--Dust of the Sea.--A Dangerous Wreck.--Night Watches.--Sighting the Island of Ceylon.--Adam's Peak, among the Clouds.--A Beautiful Shore.--Steamers and Sailing Ships.--Curious Native Boats.--Singhalese Pedlers.--A Catamaran.--Tempting of Providence.--An Author's Position 1 CHAPTER II. A Classic Island.--Topographical Position.--Maldive Islands.--Lands rising out of the Sea.--Size of Ceylon.--Latitude and Longitude.--A Link of a Powerful Chain.--Important British Station.--"Mountain of the Holy Foot."--Remarkable Mountain View.--Queer Speculations.--Insect Life in the Island.--Acknowledged Gem of the Orient.--Wild Elephants.--In Olden Times.--Far-Reaching Historic Connections.--Arboreal and Floral Beauties.--Perennial Vegetation.--The Feathered Tribe 19 CHAPTER III. The Wearisome Tropics.--Waterspouts.--Climatic Conditions.--Length of Days.--A Land Rich in Prehistoric Monuments.--History and Fable.--Last King of Ceylon.--Ancient Ruins.--Aged Cave-Temples.--Gigantic Stone Statue of Buddha.--French Vandals--A Native Chronicle.--Once the Seat of a Great Empire.--System of Irrigation.--Mysterious Disappearance of a Nation.--Ruins of a Vast City.--Departed Glory.--The Brazen Palace.--Asiatic Extravagance.--Ruined Monument 44 CHAPTER IV. Oriental Dagobas.--Ancient City of Pollonarua.--Laid out like our Modern Capitals.--Unexplored Ruins.--Elaborate Stone Carvings.--Colossal Stone Figure.--The "Buried Cities."--The Singhalese not a Progressive People.--Modern History of Ceylon.--Captured by the English.--The "Resplendent Island."--Commercial Prosperity.--Increasing Foreign Population.--Under English Rule.--Native Soldiers.--Christian Sects and Churches.--Roman Catholic Church.--Expulsion of the Jesuits 71 CHAPTER V. Food of the People.--Rice Cultivation.--Vast Artificial Lakes.--The Stone Tanks of Aden.--Parched Australia.--Coffee Culture.--Severe Reverses among Planters.--Tea Culture.--Cinchona Plantations.--Heavy Exportation of Tea.--Cacao Culture.--A Coffee Plantation described.--Domesticated Snakes.--The Cinnamon-Tree.--Cinnamon Gardens a Disappointment.--Picturesque Dwellings.--Forest Lands.--The Ceylon Jungle.--Native Cabinet Woods.--Night in a Tropical Forest.--Rhododendrons 89 CHAPTER VI. Arboreal King of the Forest.--The Palm Family.--Over-Generous Nature and her Liberal Provisions.--Product of the Cocoanut-Tree.--The Wide-Spreading Banian.--Excellent Public Roads.--Aquatic Birds and Plants.--Native Fruit Trees.--The Mangosteen.--Spice-Bearing Trees.--Treatment of Women.--Singhalese Rural Life.--Physical Character of Tamil Men.--Tree Climbing.--Native Children.--Numerical Relation of the Sexes.--Caste as respected in Ceylon.--Tattooing the Human Body 112 CHAPTER VII. Experiences between Colombo and Point de Galle.--Dangers of Encountering Reptiles.--Marvelous Ant Houses.--Insect Architects.--Curious Bird's Nests.--Flamingoes at Rest.--Variety of the Crane Family.--Wild Pea-Fowls.--Buddha's Prohibition.--Peculiar Wood-Notes.--Mingling of Fruit and Timber Trees.--Fatal Parasitic Vines.--Stillness of the Forest.--Superstitions of the Natives.--Snake Bites.--Railway Facilities 131 CHAPTER VIII. Colombo, Capital of Ceylon.--Harbor Facilities.--The Breakwater.--Exposed to Epidemics.--Experiences on Landing.--Hump-Backed Cattle.--Grand Oriental Hotel.--Singhalese Waiters.--Galle Face Hotel.--An Unusual Scene.--Number of Inhabitants.--Black Town the Native Quarters.--Domestic Scenes.--Monkeys.--Evil Odors.--Humble Homes.--The Banana-Tree.--Native Temples and Priestly Customs.--Vegetables and Fruits.--Woman's Instinct.--Street Scenes in the Pettah.--Fish Market 144 CHAPTER IX. The English Part of Colombo.--Army Reserves.--Ceylon an Independent Colony.--"A Paternal Despotism."--Educational Facilities.--Buddhism versus Christianity.--Public Buildings.--The Museum.--Domestic Dwellings.--Suburb of Colpetty.--The Lake of Colombo.--A Popular Driveway.--A Sunset Scene.--Excursion to the Kalani Temple.--The Jinrikisha.--Current Diseases.--Native Jugglers.--Hypnotism.--Houdin, the French Magician, astonishes the Natives.--The Thieving Crows 166 CHAPTER X. Birds on the Rampage.--Familiar Nuisances.--Silver-Spoon Thieves.--Doctrine of Metempsychosis.--Various Nationalities forming the Population.--Common Languages.--Tamils are the Wage-Earners.--The Singhalese Proper are Agriculturists.--Queer Belief in Demons.--Propitiation!--The Veddahs.--Attacking Wild Elephants.--Serpent Worship.--Polyandry.--Native Singhalese Women.--Dress of Both Sexes.--Streets of Colombo on a Gala Day.--An English Four-in-Hand.--Mount Lavonia 186 CHAPTER XI. The Ancient Capital of Kandy.--An Artificial Lake.--The Great River of Ceylon.--Site of the Capital of the Central Province.--On the Way from Colombo to Kandy.--The Tiny Musk-Deer.--The Wild Boar.--Native Cabins.--From the Railway Car Windows.--The Lotus.--Destructive White Ants and their Enemies.--Wild Animals.--The Mother of Twins.--A Little Waif.--A Zigzag Railway.--An Expensive Road to build.--"Sensation Rock" with an Evil History.--Grand Alpine Scenery 206 CHAPTER XII. Historical Kandy.--Importance of Good Roads.--Native Population.--Temple of Buddha's Tooth.--The Old Palace.--Governor's House.--Great Resort of Pilgrims.--Interior of the Temple.--The Humbug of Relics.--Priests of the Yellow Robe.--A Sacred Bo-Tree.--Diabolical Services in the Ancient Temple.--Regular Heathen Powwow.--Singhalese Music.--Emulating Midnight Tomcats.--Chronic Beggary.--The Old Parisian Woman with Wooden Legs.--A Buddhist Rock-Temple 225 CHAPTER XIII. Ceylon the Mecca of Buddhism.--The Drives about Kandy.--Fruit of the Cashew.--Domestic Prison of Arabi Pasha.--"Egypt for the Egyptians."--Hillside Bungalows.--Kandy Hotels at a Discount.--The Famous Botanical Garden of Ceylon.--India-Rubber-Trees, Bamboos, and Flying Foxes.--Dangerous Reptiles in the Garden.--The Boa Constrictor.--Success of Peruvian-Bark Raising.--Vicious Land Leeches.--The Burrowing and Tormenting Tick.--Where Sugar comes from in Ceylon 241 CHAPTER XIV. Fifty Miles into Central Ceylon.--Gorgeous Scenic Effects.--Gampola.--The Singhalese Saratoga.--A Grand Waterfall.--Haunts of the Wild Elephants.--Something about these Huge Beasts.--European Hunters restricted.--An Indian Experience.--Elephants as Farm Laborers in Place of Oxen.--Tame Elephants as Decoys.--Elephant Taming.--Highest Mountain on the Island.--Pilgrims who ascend Adam's Peak.--Nuera-Ellia as a Sanitarium.--A Hill Garden 258 CHAPTER XV. Port of Trincomalee.--A Remarkable Harbor.--How to get there.--Nelson's Eulogium.--Curious and Beautiful Shells.--Pearl Oysters.--Process of Pearl Fishing.--What are Pearls and which are most valued?--Profit to Government.--A Remarkable Pearl.--Tippo Sahib and Cleopatra.--The Singhalese not Sailors.--Ancient Ruins,--Hot Springs near Trincomalee.--"Temple of a Thousand Columns."--Valuable Supply of Ship Timber.--Salt Manufactures.--Tenacity of Life in the Shark 272 CHAPTER XVI. Point de Galle.--An Ancient Port, now mostly deserted.--Dangerous Harbor.--Environs of the City a Tropical Garden.--Paradise of Ferns and Orchids.--Neptune's Gardens.--Tides of the Ocean.--Severe Penalties.--Floating Islands of Seaweed.--Fable, like History, repeats itself.--Chewing the Betelnut.--An Asiatic Habit.--All Nations seek Some Stimulant.--Soil near Galle.--Cinnamon Stones.--Diamonds.--Workers in Tortoise-Shell.--Millions of Fruitful Palms.--Sanitary Conditions of Galle 292 CHAPTER XVII. Dondra Head.--"The City of the Gods."--A Vast Temple.--A Statue of Solid Gold.--A Famous Rock-Temple.--Buddhist Monastery.--Caltura and its Distilleries.--Edible Bird's Nests.--Basket-Making.--The Kaluganga.--Cinnamon Gardens.--"The City of Gems."--A Magnificent Ruby.--The True Cat's-Eye.--Vast Riches hidden in the Mountains.--Plumbago Mining.--Iron Ore.--Kaolin.--Gem Cutting.--Native Swindlers.--Demoralizing Effect of Gem Digging 307 CHAPTER XVIII. Circumnavigating the Island.--Batticaloa, Capital of the Eastern Province.--Rice Culture.--Fish Shooting.--Point Pedro.--Jaffna.--Northern Province.--Oriental Bazaars.--Milk ignored.--The Clear Sea and White, Sandy Bottom.--American Missionaries.--A Medical Bureau.--Self-Respect a Lost Virtue.--Snake-Temples.--Ramisseram.--Adam's Bridge.--A Huge Hindu Temple.--Island of Manaar.--Aripo.--The Port of Negombo.--Tamil Coolies.--Homeward Bound.--A Farewell View 323 * * * * * THE PEARL OF INDIA. CHAPTER I. Introductory.--Coming from the Eastward.--Interesting Ocean Phenomena.--Denizens of the Sea.--Bird Travelers.--Delusive Mirage.--A Thrilling Adventure.--Prompt Seamanship.--A Struggle for Life.--Dust of the Sea.--A Dangerous Wreck.--Night Watches.--Sighting the Island of Ceylon.--Adam's Peak, among the Clouds.--A Beautiful Shore.--Steamers and Sailing Ships.--Curious Native Boats.--Singhalese Pedlers.--A Catamaran.--Tempting of Providence.--An Author's Position. After a pleasant sojourn in China and Japan, with Ceylon as his objective point, the author came westward by way of the Malacca Straits, crossing the Indian Ocean on a line of about the eighth degree of north latitude. It is a lonely expanse of water, in traversing which plenty of time was found for meditation. The equatorial rains, though brief, were at times so profuse during the voyage as to suggest the possibility of a second universal flood, and also the advantage which might accrue from being web-footed; but the air was mostly soft and balmy, the nights were gloriously serene and bright. The transparency of the atmosphere magnified to dazzling proportions the constellations which looked down so serenely upon us, while the moon seemed to have taken a position vastly nearer to the earth than is its wont at the north. The phosphorescent waves tossed glowing gems, like fire-opals, about the ship's hull, while setting our long wake ablaze with flashing light, and producing a Milky Way as luminous as that above in the blue ether. All phosphorescent matter requires friction to infuse it with light, and so the thoroughly impregnated waters were churned into liquid fire by our vigorous and swift-revolving propeller. What millions upon millions of animalcules, and these again multiplied, must contribute to produce this aquatic illumination. During the day, large turtles, schools of dolphins, flying-fish, occasional water snakes, together with whole shoals of jelly-fish, were encountered on the widespread tropical sea. At times, myriads of the fairy-like nautilus floated past in gossamer frames, while in savage contrast, voracious man-eating sharks followed the ship close upon either quarter, in eager watchfulness for human prey. How terribly significant is the upright dorsal fin of this creature, seen just above the surface of the water, indicating the hideous, slate-colored body which glides swiftly and stealthily below! Hovering over and about the tall masts upon untiring pinions, a score of white-winged, graceful marine birds persistently kept us company day after day. They joined the ship off the coast of Sumatra, as we left the entrance to the Malacca Straits, introducing themselves at first with noisy vehemence and piercing cries, as if to assert their presence and purpose, a proceeding which was not again repeated. What became of these handsome feathered creatures at night we never knew, and it was found that the oldest seaman was equally ignorant. If they slept upon the waves, they must have overtaken us with arrowy swiftness at the break of day. They were undoubtedly able to do this, as they outstripped us in speed at any moment when they chose to do so, sailing through the air far ahead and all around the rapid, steady-going ship. However early one came on deck, they were sure to be in sight, glancing hither and thither upon the invisible air currents without any apparent exertion. It was the very poetry of motion. We came finally to look upon these tireless fellow travelers with no small degree of interest, and should really have regretted their absence. It is always a pleasing diversion to watch them, to count and see that their full number is still present, and to delight in their free and graceful movements. During the period of their presumed nightly rest upon the heaving bosom of the sea, our vessel must necessarily pass over a distance of many leagues, far, far beyond the power of human sight. How marvelous, therefore, must be the instinct which guides them unerringly to resume our company with the earliest rays of the morning light. When, in the arid desert, the exhausted camel sinks at last in its tracks to die, and is finally left by the rest of the caravan, no other object is visible in the widespread expanse, even down to the very verge of the horizon. Scarcely is the poor creature unloaded, however, and left to perish upon the sand, before there will appear in the far-away sky a cloud of vultures, at first mere specks in the blue atmosphere, swooping with lightning speed towards the dying animal, whose bones they immediately strip with terrific voraciousness. One who has witnessed this scene can never forget it. The vultures strain and tear at the carcass, swallowing great pieces of hide and flesh, until at last, when they are completely gorged, they can only rise a few feet from the earth, to sink again exhausted upon their feet. Hours must transpire before they can again soar any distance upon the wing, after their gluttonous repast. The sea in this region of the Indian Ocean teems with animal life, the curiously shaped finny tribe often exhibiting colors as gay and vivid as those of the birds and flowers in the low latitudes. Some strange and puzzling phenomena of nature were occasionally witnessed. Now and again the whole ship's company were deluded by a mirage; we seemed to be approaching land, though it was never reached, and at the moment when we should fairly make out its bearings, it faded slowly into thin air. So realistic were these appearances, often repeated, that some passengers were curious enough to consult the captain's sailing-charts to see if certain islands or shoals were not laid down in or near the course we were steering. The nights were the most enjoyable, so full of a delicious sense of repose, the stillness broken only by the great heart-beats of the huge engine which formed our motive power. The soft and refulgent atmosphere invited one to linger on deck rather than to seek the close confinement of a stateroom below, and thus many hours were passed in a half-dreaming, half-conscious condition, while reviewing the varied experiences of the past few months of travel. Tableaux of Japanese life and scenery, bewitchingly attractive and enjoyable adventures in tea-houses, gay excursions in jinrikishas, together with unique temples and huge statues of Shinto deities, passed in endless procession before the mind's eye. The oddities and the local color in Shanghai, Hongkong, and Canton; the soothing motion of palanquins; the sloping-eyed, yellow complexioned and pig-tailed people of China; a devastating cyclone encountered in the Yellow Sea, and the wondrous sunset which followed it; the gyrating waterspout which was seen off the Gulf of Siam, a not infrequent experience where so many active currents of wind and water meet; the many living pictures well-remembered of the islands of the Malay Archipelago engraven upon the brain at Singapore, Borneo, Sumatra, Penang, and Java, the latter containing more active and extinct volcanoes than any other known region,--all these seemed very real, though only silently rehearsed in dreamland. Soon after leaving the straits and gaining the broad ocean, a brief but heavy gale of wind was encountered, which created for some hours a most boisterous sea. On the morning after the storm, a foremast hand was sent over the starboard bow to make fast some gearing which had become loosened by the gale. Almost immediately afterward, the cry of "Man overboard!" rang fore and aft the ship. A wide-awake passenger who happened to be standing near the taffrail instantly took a knife from his pocket, and cutting loose a life-buoy which was fastened to the starboard quarter ratline, promptly threw it towards the man in the water as he floated away from the ship. The sailor saw it, and being a good swimmer struck out for and reached it. A moment later, it was seen that he had succeeded in thrusting his head and arms through the opening of the sustaining buoy. In the mean time, the captain at the sound of the ominous cry sprang up the ladder leading to the bridge, and took personal charge of the ship, sending the first officer, whose watch it happened to be, to superintend the lowering of a quarter-boat to rescue the unfortunate seaman if possible. There was no flurry, no confusion among the crew. Not a word was spoken except by the officers. The silence of discipline was supreme. A sailor was promptly ordered into the shrouds to keep run of the man, who was soon out of sight from the deck, so rough was the intervening water. The quarter-boat was lowered from the davits, and was afloat in less than three minutes after the order was issued, with six stout seamen at the oars and the first officer in the stern. What a mere cockle-shell it appeared in that angry sea, one moment low down in the trough, and the next upon the summit of the waves towering above the deck of the ship. Nothing of less importance than the saving of a human life would have warranted the launching of a boat in such a wild condition of the waves. The sailor who had been sent into the shrouds was ordered to point constantly toward the man in the water, so that those in the boat might know in what direction to steer. "Give way, men, give way with a will!" said the officer, and the oars bent to the muscular power of the crew. The ship had been under a twelve-knot headway when the accident happened, and the man, supported by the buoy, was already a mile or more to leeward. Then occurred a singular and inopportune circumstance, which was for a moment the cause of dangerous delay. The sturdy seaman who pulled the stroke oar of the boat just launched was seen to falter, cease rowing, and suddenly to bend forward, as though he were paralyzed. The excitement of the moment completely unmanned him. His heart for an instant ceased to beat. The first officer comprehended the situation instantly. Seamen are trained to promptness; so off came his coat, the tiller was thrust into the half-fainting sailor's hand, accompanied by a brief command,--he could steer if he could not pull,--and the officer bent his own stout arms and body to the stroke oar. There was no time for words,--the stake was a human life. One or two of the anxious passengers whispered the word "Shark!" Where were those tiger-fish at this critical moment? The boat made slow but steady headway towards the distant seaman, while he at the tiller steered as was indicated by the man stationed high up in the ship's shrouds. Upon reaching the bridge and relieving the officer on duty, the captain, while issuing his other orders, had coolly rung down to the engine-room,--"Stand by! Slow down! Stop her! Back her!" with a brief interval between each signal. Then, stepping to the starboard end of the bridge, he waved his handkerchief to the fast disappearing seaman to let him know that his commander was at his post and would do his best to save him. The big hull, in response to her reversed propeller, after a few moments of tremulous indecision, began to move stern foremost. Several passengers ascended the rigging to keep the boat in view, for it too was lost to sight from the deck. It struggled stoutly with the angry sea, which seemed loath to give up its victim. Those in the shrouds gazed eagerly, and almost held their breath. The steamer drew very slowly nearer to the man in the water, as well as to the boat. By and by, after a period of terrible suspense, the man in the water was seen to be seized by his messmates and drawn into the boat, which was then turned toward the ship. It was a long and severe struggle still, to contend successfully with the high sea which was running, but the boat was finally brought on the lee side of the vessel, the stout ropes were made fast to the ring-bolts in its stem and stern, and with all on board it was quickly run up to the davits. The rescued man and his brave deliverers were received on board with three hearty cheers, and the big ship, once more under a full head of steam, took her course westward. Prompt action, cool courage, and good seamanship saved the life of the imperiled sailor. There was more than one grateful heart on board which was relieved by a silent prayer of thanksgiving. Some of our lady passengers complained of being seriously annoyed by sea-dust, which at first thought seems ridiculous. Dust at sea! But there is nevertheless an impalpable collection of salt matter or dry spray, so to speak, which rises at times from the ocean, especially in these latitudes, causing the eyes to smart, and giving a distinct saline flavor to the lips, while it is so penetrating as to thoroughly impregnate one's clothing. When the sun shines, this deposit seems to be less abundant, but like the dew, it affects those most who are exposed to the night air. The "dust" of the sea is very real, as any experienced sailor will testify. Our voyage was not without several eventful occurrences. On the second day after the storm, the lookout reported some object ahead lying almost directly in our course. At first it looked like a huge whale, the dark body well out of water, or like the top of a sunken rock; but as we rapidly approached, it was made out to be the hull of a large ship, keel uppermost. It might have proved to be a fatal encounter, had we run upon it in the night. A sharp lookout, together with the sun shining upon the object, revealed it, but being so near the color of the sea and having no top-hamper in sight, it could not have been discovered at any considerable distance at night. Probably half-sunken vessels have been ere this the cause of other and equally fatal wrecks. The size and character of the one we had encountered could only be surmised. The name, even, could not be made out. It appeared to be a sailing craft of eighteen hundred or two thousand tons, which had "turned turtle," as sailors term it, perhaps in the storm which we had so lately encountered. The air retained in the hull when it capsized evidently served to keep it afloat. Our steamer was stopped within a safe distance, and a boat was lowered and sent in charge of an officer to examine the hull, with orders to cut a hole in the bottom. This would naturally cause the very dangerous obstruction to sink. It was slow work to cut an opening in the stout bottom with an axe, but when it was finally accomplished and an aperture two feet square was made, the downward pressure of the huge structure forced out the air and water with tremendous power, like a monster whale spouting. It was now plain enough what had kept the hull afloat, for as this confined air rushed out, producing a noise like escaping steam, the dark mass began slowly to settle, so that before our boat had returned and was fairly secured at the davits, it had sunk below the surface of the waves, which washed over it for a few moments, as though it were a coral reef. Then it suddenly disappeared altogether. These treacherous seas have been well named the graveyard of commerce. The mystery of the wreck, so far as we know, was never solved. Doubtless all hands perished together when the vessel capsized. Of course, such an experience sets one to speculating upon the possibilities which it involves. Sometimes a terrible sense of loneliness comes over the voyager upon the ocean, notwithstanding the ship and its immediate surroundings, when he realizes the immense space covered by the wilderness of the sea. It is not so much fear as it is awe inspiring. The passengers watched the captain with great interest daily, as he went through the formula of recording the ship's course. Any incident at sea is eagerly seized upon to vary the monotony. As is well known, the commander of a ship corrects his time by the observation of the sun at meridian, thus specifying his position upon the waste of waters, and enabling him to mark upon the chart his exact latitude and longitude. The process is a mystery to the average traveler, but its simplicity will delight him, if he once takes the trouble to understand it. It was a bright December morning when we made the island of Ceylon. Not a cloud was seen breaking the intense atmospheric blue that overhung the vast expanse. Many of the passengers, on retiring the night previous, left word with the steward to be called at an early hour in anticipation of our sighting the land. The sea had been quite calm for the last two days, and the nights sublime. A few of us found it sufficiently restful to remain on deck amid such surroundings, gazing idly among the clustering stars, so far away, and watching for the first view of the shore. Thus the night passed, and the big red globe of the sun came up out of the sea to the eastward, as though it had been sleeping submerged there since it bade us good-night in the west at twilight. Adam's Peak, in the shape of a perfect cone, had been in view from the deck since the break of day, half lost in the far-away sky. In clear weather, this famous elevation can be seen sixty miles off the shore of the island. The height of the mountain, and its looming form, at first produces the effect of a mountain rising abruptly from out of the perfect level of the waves, but we were now rapidly approaching the land, and just as the steward's bell summoned us to breakfast, the lighthouse on the end of the breakwater of Colombo came dimly into view. The first meal of the day, usually partaken of at sea with such hearty zest, was neglected by most of the passengers that morning. A welcome and absorbing sight was before us. We had last been on land at Penang, which was now left thirteen hundred miles astern. All were weary of the sea, and in a favorable mood to fully enjoy the gentle land breeze which came to us laden with the fragrance of flowers distilled from a wilderness of bloom. Tropical luxuriance and languor reigned supreme. What a summer world it was, beautiful beyond expression! The sunshine had not yet asserted its oppressive power, and the island was seen at its best. An artistic eye could not but delight in the lavish display of well-defined color which was presented in the azure sky, the deep green of the vegetation, the pale blue of the shoal water, and the snow-white feathery spray combing over the stout granite coping of the breakwater. As we came nearer to the influence of the shore, the air was tinctured with rank odors, and the water was heavy with yellow seaweed, while the hoarse murmurs of the contentious waves sounded their mournful anthem. No matter how calm the outer sea may be, the large green rollers of the ocean break with great force when they meet with any abrupt impediment on the shore. One does not readily forget such an impressive moment. It remains a joy forever. It is curious how sensitive the judgment is to external influences. Nothing is more likely to produce a fixed and unfavorable impression of a new place than to approach it beneath a cheerless, cloud-darkened sky, while bored by some personal annoyance. On the contrary, if one is introduced to a fresh locality under cheerful auspices, while Nature herself is in a happy mood, he unconsciously reflects a similar spirit, and is heartily prepossessed in its favor. It was only necessary to observe one's companions to see this fully illustrated. There were a few disaffected ones to whom the world seemed all awry, but the majority felt the inspiration and joyousness of the scene. It was now clear enough that Adam's Peak ("Mount of the Holy Foot"), which had seemed a short time since to rise abruptly from the very bottom of the sea, was really situated far inland, dominating a whole family of lesser elevations, and having many miles of low, thick-wooded country lying between it and the ocean. As we rounded the lighthouse, half a dozen European steamships came into view, riding at their moorings, making a brief call here on their way east or west, together with a considerable fleet of small coasting crafts, and a long line of idle catamarans, drawn up upon the shelving beach. Besides these, there were a couple of full-rigged European sailing ships, presenting a strong contrast to the mammoth steamers with their invisible motive power. One of the ships was getting under weigh, bound for Australia. A number of her busy crew were aloft, engaged in setting sail after sail, and covering the ample yards with canvas wings, while the capstan bars were manned by others getting up the anchor, their hearty and melodious nautical refrain coming clearly to our ears across the intervening waters. No sooner had our ship come to anchor than it was surrounded by a score and more of curious native boats, which are called on this coast catamarans (_katter maran_, "tied tree"). The true catamaran is to be seen all along the east coast of India, consisting of three or four trunks of trees bound together with thongs. These contrivances form the rude floats which are used by the Coromandel fishermen, and hence the name. A few of the boatmen who were permitted to come on board vociferously importuned the new-comers for a job, or pressed great bargains upon us in the shape of fresh fruit, Brummagem stones, curiously ornamented boxes of shells, and toy carvings in ivory and ebony, the latter mostly representing elephants and Chinese idols. Altogether there was a perfect babel of tongues adding to the confusion incident upon the landing of passengers and baggage. There was much handshaking, while many hasty but hearty farewells were spoken, for it must be remembered that the good ship, after leaving a few of the cabin passengers safely on shore and taking on board a supply of coals, would continue her voyage toward far-away England. The queerly constructed boats to which we have referred consist of a rudely dug-out tree trunk, fifteen or twenty feet long, having planks of wood fastened to the sides lengthwise, to form gunwales and afford some protection from the water. No nails are used in their construction, the woodwork being securely lashed--we might say sewed--together with Ceylon cordage, made from the fibrous bark of the palm. An outrigger, consisting of a solid log of wood, is fastened alongside six or eight feet away, by means of two arched poles of stout, well-seasoned bamboo. The outrigger, which is about half the length of the boat, prevents the possibility of overturning it, but without this attachment so narrow a craft--less than twenty-four inches in width--would not remain in an upright position, if occupied, even in a perfectly calm sea. The outrigger is always kept to windward, and as these canoes have both ends constructed alike, they sail equally well either way. The mast and single sail, being portable, are easily shifted from one end to the other, or adjusted to suit. The similarity of these rude boats to those one sees throughout the Eastern Archipelago shows us whence the idea was probably borrowed. Some of the larger canoes are over forty feet in length, but none are wide enough for two persons to sit abreast in them. In these apparently frail floats the natives go fearlessly twenty miles to sea in almost any weather short of a gale, to catch deep-water fish, and it is a very rare occurrence to hear of any serious mishap befalling a catamaran, or its hardy navigators. A European, upon finding himself in one of these "floating scarecrows," according to the remark of a fellow passenger after reaching the shore, "feels as if he were recklessly tempting Providence; and though he may not be drowned, still he deserves to be." They are wretchedly uncomfortable, these awkward boats, for one not accustomed to them, but experience demonstrates that they are quite safe. As to the natives, they tumble recklessly about in a catamaran, holding on like monkeys, both with hands and feet. Some of the passengers were observant enough to watch the handsome birds which followed us a thousand miles and more across the sea, even into the harbor of Colombo. There were others of the same species flying about near the shore, but we fancied it possible to select our special fellow travelers, as they still kept near to the ship's masts, though she was now at anchor. Food was thrown to them from the cook's galley, and that important functionary declared that when the ship resumed her voyage, on the following day, the flock of gulls would follow it as closely as heretofore, even through the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea, until the far-away English coast was reached. Thus much we have said by way of introduction, and having now landed on this "utmost Indian isle," let us endeavor to intelligently depict its unique characteristics, together with its past and present story, for the entertainment and information of the patient reader. The author who sits down to write upon a given subject is generally so full of his theme that he must constantly put on the brakes, as it were, to curb his fancy. He is never thanked for what he omits from his pages, though there is so much which he might but does not express, lest his readers should feel bored by a detailed account of that which, with the added charm of time and place, may have had unwonted interest for himself. It is to be feared that words rarely convey the real spirit of what most fascinates the eye, and whatever they do not help the reader to see, like glass, they darken. CHAPTER II. A Classic Island.--Topographical Position.--Maldive Islands.--Lands rising out of the Sea.--Size of Ceylon.--Latitude and Longitude.--A Link of a Powerful Chain.--Important British Station.--"Mountain of the Holy Foot."--Remarkable Mountain View.--Queer Speculations.--Insect Life in the Island.--Acknowledged Gem of the Orient.--Wild Elephants.--In Olden Times.--Far-Reaching Historic Connections.--Arboreal and Floral Beauties.--Perennial Vegetation.--The Feathered Tribe. Ceylon, the Lanka Dwipe, "resplendent island," of the Hindus, the fabled isle of the Arabian Nights, and appropriately called the "Pearl of India" by the English, who are its present masters, is separated from the southern extremity of the continent by the Gulf of Manaar. Were it not that a shallow watercourse of about fifty miles in width intervenes, the island would be a peninsula. As it is, a barrier to navigation known as Adam's Bridge, consisting of several ledges of parallel rocks, nearly forms a connection with the mainland. Aided by coral growth and the sand deposit of the ceaseless current setting into the Strait of Manaar from the long reach of the Coromandel coast, this may in the course of time be consummated. The tendency is certainly in that direction, notwithstanding a system of dredging which has been adopted by the English government, enabling vessels which do not draw over ten feet of water to pass through the strait, and thus avoid the necessity of doubling the island at its southern extremity. Ceylon,--the Serendib of the Arabs,--is the gem of the Indian Ocean, an intimate acquaintance with which fully sustains the delightful promise it suggests to the stranger who beholds it for the first time as he approaches the low-lying, palm-lined shore. Indeed, it might appropriately be called the Isle of Palms, so interminable is the array of cocoanut-trees which fringe the beach. Judging solely from its present appearance and its geographical position, it would seem to have been a portion of the mainland at some former period, though there are many able writers who do not accept this idea, reminding us that animals, birds, insects, and reptiles which are quite unknown on the continent of India exist in this island. There are no hyenas, tigers, wolves, or foxes here, though there are plenty of these creatures just across the Strait of Manaar. As an argument this is not of so much importance, however, as might at first appear, since there are so many well-known instances of a like character. The dissimilitude of Sumatra and Java, separated by only a narrow channel, occurs to us, as well as that of Madagascar, but narrowly divided from the neighboring continent. So able a writer on physical geography as Sir J. E. Tennent believes that Ceylon is not a dismembered portion of India, but a distinct formation, perhaps part of a continent which has long since disappeared. In this suggestive opinion Professor Owen also agrees with him. The Maldive Islands, situated five hundred miles west of Ceylon, are a group of seventeen coral islets containing a vast number of cocoanut palms, and are rich in varied tropical vegetation. They have a population of thirty thousand Mohammedans, ruled by an hereditary sultan, who pays yearly tribute to the present government of Ceylon in recognition of his dependency. Legend informs us that two thousand years and more before Christ, multitudes of isles were attached to the kingdom of Lanka (Ceylon), which were suddenly overwhelmed by the sea. At the time of the great catastrophe, it is represented that the splendid capital city of Sri-Lanka-Pura, which stood to the westward of any part of the present island, was engulfed, and disappeared forever. The Portuguese, on their arrival in Ceylon in the sixteenth century, found the natives fully believing in the traditions of its former extent, and its partial submersion. This is duly recorded by the Portuguese writers of that period. The substance of this legend is also to be found in the Mahawanso, or native chronicles of the island. So far as the flora and fauna of Ceylon are concerned, it resembles the islands of the Malay group lying far to the eastward, much more than it does the land which is situated so near to it at the north. Geologists tell us that the island has for ages past been slowly rising from the ocean level, and we know that well-preserved marine shells are found in masses at a considerable elevation, ten miles inland, both in the north and the south of Ceylon, and especially in the foot-hills of the central mountain, or Kandian range, as it is called, near Ratnapura. When we pause to consider for a moment the possible age of these marine deposits, preconceived and popular ideas of the time which has passed since the creation of the world are utterly nullified. That the process of rising above sea level has been progressing for ages is undoubtedly true, as in the instance of Norway and Sweden, where careful measurements have been recorded, from time to time, during a period of three hundred years, clearly demonstrating that the land of those countries is steadily rising, while the adjacent sea subsides. In some other instances the process is directly reversed, the land obviously, though slowly, sinking, and the ocean rising. This is a well-known operation, not confined to any one portion of the globe. At the ancient town of Pozzuoli, on the shore of the Bay of Naples, there is a solid marble pavement once belonging to a pagan temple, built between two and three thousand years ago. The temple was doubtless originally founded on the dry land, but this indestructible floor is between nine and ten feet below the level of the sea at this writing. Ceylon is peculiar in its shape, resembling a cone, the smaller end nearest to the continent which lies so close to it. This northern portion of the island is a flat, narrow peninsula with a sandy soil, but which by proper management is made to yield certain crops fairly well. The western and southern coasts are low and densely wooded, having many small bays and picturesque indentations, while the eastern side is characterized by a bold and precipitous shore, quite inaccessible from the sea, yet affording one or two excellent harbors and several indifferent ones. The important and much-praised port of Trincomalee is on this side of the island, where several open roadsteads are commercially available for coasting vessels, so built, like most oriental water-craft, that they can be drawn up on the beach in rough weather. The coast is blockaded on the northwest by numberless rocks, shoals, and sandbanks, impeding navigation, though the island can be circumnavigated, as already indicated, by means of the Paumben Pass, between Ramisseram and the continent. The north and northwest coasts are especially low and flat, undoubtedly formed by ages of sand deposits brought down from the north by the ceaseless currents and lodged upon coral formations as a foundation. In area, Ceylon is more than three times the size of Massachusetts, containing twenty-five thousand square miles. The circuit of the island by water is calculated to be about seven hundred miles. In Pliny's time he made the circumference four times that distance. The latest statistics give it a population of three millions, which is a sparse occupancy for so extensive a territory, and one whose natural resources are sufficient for the support of that number of people many times multiplied. Taken as a whole, the island is perhaps the most thinly inhabited spot in the Orient, though it is the largest and most important of what are known as the crown colonies of the British Empire. Its number of people is annually on the increase, as shown by the English Colonial Blue Book,--an indisputable evidence of material prosperity. The extensive ruins of ancient cities existing in the interior show that there must have been in the past at least thrice the present number of people upon the island, while some authorities place the possible aggregate much higher than we have named, basing their calculation upon the extraordinary size and number of the "buried cities," one of which is reputed to have contained three million inhabitants, and over four hundred thousand organized fighting men, whose weapons were bows, arrows, and spears. For the sake of completeness, it may be mentioned that the geographical situation of Ceylon is between the sixth and tenth degrees of north latitude, Point de Galle, in the extreme south, being six degrees from the equator, and Point Pedro, in the farthest north, a trifle less than ten. Dondra Head is a few miles farther southward, and actually forms the extreme point of the island in that direction, but Point de Galle, so much better known, is generally named to represent the position. In the olden time, the former was a more popular resort than the latter, a fact which some grand ruins clearly establish; indeed, Dondra was the site of the Singhalese capital during a part of the seventh century. A substantial and costly lighthouse has lately been erected here by the English government. By turning for a moment to any good modern map, the reader will greatly facilitate the ready understanding of these pages. Lying thus just off the southern point of India, at the entrance of the Bay of Bengal, Ceylon stands, as we have intimated, in the same relation to it that Madagascar does to Africa, forming a link of the powerful chain of fortified outposts which England has shrewdly established to maintain an open route to her Indian possessions. This cordon, beginning at Gibraltar, extends to Malta, Aden, Ceylon, Penang, Singapore, and Hongkong, thus dominating the southern coast of Asia, and insuring the maintenance of British power in the East. Of those named, Ceylon is the most central British military garrison. Colombo, the capital, is situated nine hundred miles from Bombay, six hundred from Madras, fourteen hundred from Calcutta, and sixteen hundred from Singapore. With all these places it has constant steam communication. Sir Henry Ward, then governor of Ceylon, sent an entire infantry regiment to Calcutta at one day's notice, when the outbreak known as the Indian mutiny occurred in 1857. These troops were the first reinforcement to arrive on the scene at that critical period. Touching the matter of home connection, Colombo is nearly seven thousand miles from England by way of the Suez Canal, which is the most direct route. As we proceed with our story of Ceylon, the relevance of these statistics will become more apparent. The surface of the island is picturesquely diversified by hills, valleys, and plains. Its highest mountain, Pidarutalagalla, exceeds eight thousand feet, while its most famous one, Adam's Peak, rises a little over seven thousand feet above sea level. This is a lonely elevation, springing abruptly into a sharp cone from the bosom of the low hills which surround it, and from out of a wilderness of tropical jungle. Few mountains of its height require more persistent effort to reach the apex. Serious and even fatal accidents have many times occurred among the pilgrim hosts, who have been drawn hither from great distances for the purpose of prostrating themselves before the alleged footprint. The ascent from the Maskeliya side is much easier than that known as the "Pilgrim's Path" from Ratnapura, but the latter is considered to be the proper one by which the truly devout should seek the holy spot. Upon its summit ceaseless prayers and praises have ascended for thousands of years. Is it an instinct of man, one pauses to ask, which leads him to ascend such a height that he may seem to be a little nearer to the God he worships? Besides the daily visitors in the month of April, crowds of pilgrims from thousands of miles away in northern India, Persia, and Arabia come hither annually to bow down before a crude indentation of the rocky summit. The natives have a legend that Buddha ascended to Heaven from this mountain, but other religionists substitute the name of Adam; hence the designation which it bears. There is an irregular cavity in the rock supposed to have been made by Buddha's or Adam's foot, whichever may best accord with the pilgrim's faith. But surely the foot of nothing less than a human giant or an elephant would be nearly so large as this misshapen, so-called footprint. It is curious how far zealous fanatics will go in the line of self-deception, and out of what flimsy material fictitious legends can be constructed. Dreamy orientals ascend this mountain solely for devotional purposes, but the western traveler comes up hither with infinite labor to enjoy the grand view from such an elevation, and to see the sun rise in all its glory. He comes also to witness a remarkable natural phenomenon, which once seen is never forgotten. As the sun rises in the east, there suddenly appears upon the western sky the vast reflex of the peak, as clearly defined as though a second and precisely similar mountain were actually there. Through the shadow, which seems to have some peculiar telescopic effect upon the atmosphere, one sees Colombo distinctly, though it is nearly fifty miles away. As the sun rises higher, the great mysterious shadow fades slowly away like a ghostly phantom, growing less and less distinct, until presently the west is also suffused with the waking and regal glow of the morning. Then is spread out before the view a scene of inspiration, rich in contrasting effects and remarkable for its variety of lovely tints. One may search half a lifetime without discovering anything to equal its combined charms. The mountain stretching east and west, the verdant plains, the picturesque tea and coffee plantations, the groves of oranges, palms, bananas, and other tropical fruits, are as distinct to the view as though within an arrow's shot. What a charming picture to frame and hang within one's memory. According to the priests, four Buddhas have visited the peak. The first was there B. C. 3001, the second B. C. 2099, the third B. C. 1014, and the fourth, Gautama, B. C. 577. Adam's Peak is by actual measurement the fifth elevation in point of altitude among a list of one hundred and fifty mountains varying from three thousand to seven thousand feet in height. It is doubtful if the existence of so well-defined and extensive a mountain range in this equatorial island is generally realized. One would like to know what could have been the primary and real inducement for selecting this spot as a sanctuary. The Buddhists think that the miraculous impression of Buddha's foot has made the place sacred; the Hindus revere it as being marked by the foot of Siva; the Mohammedan considers it holy as bearing the footprint of Adam; and so on. How came Hindus, Buddhists, and Mohammedans alike to attribute special sanctity to this particular mountain? Such unanimity of sentiment among widely differing sects must have had its rise, it would seem, in some legitimate cause, and not in the mere chance selection of a shrine. A late writer upon the subject of Adam's Peak refers to the fact that in the Septuagint, the word "Serendib" is found in Genesis viii. 4, instead of Ararat, as being the place where Noah's ark rested after the deluge! Serendib, it should be remembered, is the Arabian name of Ceylon. One thing is quite certain, Asiatics of all creeds join each other in a profound veneration for this bold and striking mountain. Marco Polo, the famous Venetian traveler who wrote seven centuries ago, spoke of the peak as containing the tomb, not the footmark, of Adam. The Mohammedans, ever ready with a poetical legend, still declare that when Adam and Eve were driven out of Paradise, they were sent to Ceylon to console them for their banishment. In order that a story or legend should touch the credulity of, and become current among, oriental people, there are two grand essentials: it must be sufficiently marvelous and ridiculously extravagant. The author recommends the ascent of Adam's Peak to any member of the Alpine Club who is ambitious to achieve a laborious climb heavenward. There are few mountains only seven thousand four hundred feet in height which present such difficulties as this, when approached from Ratnapura. The huge iron chains which aid the pilgrims to ascend the almost vertical path are relics of so great antiquity that in the legends of Mohammedans they are associated with the name of Alexander the Great. The marvel is, how even iron could so have withstood the wear of ages, thus exposed to atmospheric influences. The mountains of Ceylon cover about one sixth of its area, rising in the centre of the middle province, and extending nearly across the island from coast to coast. The southern portion is in all respects the most attractive, though a thousand years ago the northern part of the island was the most populous and the most highly civilized. At the north, there are still to be seen the ruins of cities whose size and riches were once marvelous. Unknown agencies, together with civil wars and foreign invasions, have destroyed these ancient capitals and turned the neighboring highly cultivated lands into a wilderness. To-day it is the region south of the ancient Kingdom of Kandy--a kingdom no more--which most invites the stranger, rendered beautiful by an endless succession of musical streams, waterfalls, mirror-like lakes, palm groves, and flowery labyrinths,--the very realization of a tropical dream. This region, dense with forests of palms, rich in fruit trees, gorgeous in flowers, is the paradise of fireflies; phosphorescent clouds of these little fairy-like torch-bearers illumine the night at all seasons, reveling beneath the shadow of feathery bamboos and broad-leaved bread-fruit trees. Here they sport, contrasting their pyrotechnic display with the emerald lamps of the glow-worms. In the daytime, radiant, sun-loving butterflies on gossamer wings fill the atmosphere with flashing prismatic hues, the harlequin-like parrot and the royal-plumed peacock completing the outdoor carnival of colors. The great green-winged ornithoptera, prince of the butterfly tribe, rivaling the humming-bird in size, is nearly as abundant as at Singapore, a living gem, measuring six niches across the extended wings,--the giant of its species. Enthusiastic naturalists give fabulous sums for specimens of this beautiful creature, much to the amazement of the simple natives, who have been familiar with it all their lives. The appearance of this lovely insect tribe in Ceylon is gorgeous, in their yellow satin, black velvet, and steel-blue costumes of gossamer texture, daintily spotted with white, green, crimson, and ruby red. These frail beauties are as various in form as in hues, still a perfect harmony of order is always observed. At certain seasons of the year and at uniform intervals, migration of myriads of butterflies takes place in Ceylon, but whence they come in such countless numbers, or whither they go, no one seems to know. When on the wing, these delicate creatures make marvelous progress against the northeast monsoon, though they are of such frail construction that one would think the slightest puff of wind must dismember their bodies. Where there are so many blossoms and odorous flowers, Nature did not forget also to supply myriads of the delightful little humming-birds, which are seen, with breasts and throats of gold and purple, stealing their sweets all day long, yet leaving enough for the innumerable wild honey bees, and to flavor the air with exquisite odors. Ceylon has been called the happy hunting-ground of naturalists, for collectors are overwhelmed by the number, beauty, and variety of specimens which present themselves, and which are easily secured. A resident told the author of a lady friend who was an enthusiastic naturalist and skillful preserver of specimens, and who visited the island solely to gather examples of this fairy-like creature. She was absent from England five months, three of which were passed in the neighborhood of and at Colombo, Point de Galle, and Kandy. Our informant said that the lady not only added vastly to her own priceless collection, but she realized from those she sold to others a sufficient sum to pay the expense of her visit to Ceylon. Every one might not expect to do this, but the person referred to was a professional in her line of occupation, and produced finished, artistic results. It has been the author's privilege to visit nearly all parts of the world, not omitting the principal islands in both hemispheres, north and south of the equator. With this experience, he does not hesitate to place Ceylon in the first rank for natural riches and attractiveness, and, next to Malta, in the same relative position as regards its far-reaching and interesting historical associations. In the exuberance of its vegetation, the productiveness of its glorious palms, the abundance of its luscious fruits,--including that seductive apple of the East, the mangosteen,--and the fascinating beauty of its variegated flora, it is not surpassed by any island or continent on the globe. A spirit of romance is engendered by the very name of Ceylon, the chosen field of oriental fable, recalling its mighty ruins, its unique native gems, its tribes of peculiar people, its mysterious jungles, its array of brilliantly colored birds, and its huge wild animals inviting the spirited hunter to deeds of daring and adventure. A simple statement of statistical facts will emphasize this last reference. The printed records show that, during the five years ending in 1862, sixteen hundred wild elephants were ensnared, and sufficiently tamed to be exported to India. In accomplishing the capture of these, about two hundred are believed to have been killed by the bullets of the hunters, besides others which escaped while so seriously wounded that they must have died in their nearly inaccessible haunts. Since the date named, such wholesale slaughter has been prohibited by government. Comparatively few are now exported yearly, and the only market for them is India, if we except a limited demand from European zoölogical gardens, and American circuses and traveling menageries. At one time, not many years ago, the English authorities paid a reward for the killing of elephants. The fact is, they had become so numerous and destructive, especially in the rice-fields at harvest time, that it was absolutely necessary to reduce the number of the wild ones. A reward of ten shillings was therefore offered and paid for each tail brought to the official headquarters. These animals, at that time, had long been undisturbed, and were consequently less shy; while now, on the report of a gun, all the wild elephants within hearing, impelled by an intelligence bought by experience, rush for the depths of the jungle, which is quite inaccessible to human beings. They are mostly magnificent and wary creatures. No white ones are ever seen here, though they are so abundant in Siam. The elephants are measured, in Ceylon, at the shoulders, and a full-grown male stands usually about nine feet in height at this point, rather under than over. The largest elephants on the island are said to haunt the country about the ancient ruins of Pollanarua, where there are some almost impassable forests. The fever-haunted jungles have no terrors for these huge creatures, which seemingly enjoy entire immunity from all the ills attendant upon such surroundings. In its native wilds, no one ever saw an elephant ill from natural causes. When death threatens them from old age or the wounds of the huntsmen, they retire and hide themselves, to die. The charms of this island were well known in past ages. It is no new discovery of our day, as the earliest writers celebrated the pearls and gems of "Taprobane," and ornaments composed of its precious stones decked Asiatic queens of beauty twice ten hundred years ago. Ancient thrones were beautified by its sparkling sapphires, and the products of its spice-fields rendered fragrant the fires which burned upon the altars of pagan gods. The Greeks called it the "land of the hyacinth and the ruby." Primitive nomenclature is not only poetically descriptive, but is nearly always appropriate. The island is very ancient in its historical relations. Its most famous capital is supposed to have been in its prime five or six hundred years before the Christian era, while some of its crumbling monuments belong to a much earlier age. It is confidently believed by many students of history to be the Ophir of the Hebrews; and the fact that it still abounds in rubies, sapphires, amethysts, garnets, and other precious stones, seems, in a degree, to corroborate this supposition. An intelligent estimate as to the aggregate value of the gems exported from Ceylon during the long past places it at so enormous a figure that we decline to give it in this connection, though fully realizing that the yield has been going on uninterruptedly for a period of two or three thousand years. But aside from this very attractive feature, it is, as a whole, the most beautiful island of the East, producing many other gems besides those of a mineral nature. "It is truly impossible to exaggerate the natural beauty of Ceylon," says the author of "The Light of Asia," and adds: "The island is, in fact, one prodigious garden, where the forces of nature almost oppress and tyrannize the mind, so strong and lavish is the vegetation." Marco Polo, who visited it in the thirteenth century, said that it was the choicest island of its size on the earth; and though, in the dim light of such information as was obtainable in his day, he made some grotesquely incorrect statements relating to the country, he was most certainly right in this superlative praise. He adds that the territory of Ceylon was much larger in former times than in his day, a great part of it having crumbled away and sunk into the sea. This is an important conclusion, with which our modern geographers are very ready to agree, though conjecture only can say to what extent it may have occurred. As already mentioned, the arboreal and floral display is glorious beyond expression, forming a very paradise for botanists. Nature seems in this latitude to revel in blossoms of novel and fascinating species. Moisture and heat seek here an outlet to expand their fructifying powers. Situated in the path of the two monsoons, the southwest from the Indian Ocean, and the northeast from the Bay of Bengal, there is hardly a month of the year without more or less rain in Ceylon; vegetation is therefore always green and leafage luxuriant. In the jungle, large and brilliant flowers are seen blooming upon tall trees, while the eye is attracted by others very sweet and tiny in the prolific undergrowth, nestling among creepers and climbing ferns. In fact, the flora is endless in variety and intoxicating in fragrance. Perfume and bloom run riot everywhere. It would be vain to attempt an enumeration of the myriad examples, but memory is quick to recall the charming pitcher plant, the lotus,--its flower eight inches in diameter,--the yellow jessamine, the gorgeous magnolia, with innumerable orchids in their perfection of form and color, not forgetting the orange-hued gloriosa, and the beautiful vine bearing the wild passion-flower. There is also the large pearl-hued convolvulus which blossoms only at night, known in Ceylon as "the moon flower," and conspicuous through the dimness by its radiant whiteness. Many of the orchids exhibit a most singular similitude to animals and beautiful birds in their unspeakable and sweet variety. At first sight, a collection of them strikes one like a bevy of gorgeous butterflies and humming-birds, flitting among the green leaves. It seems as if Nature had created them in one of her happiest and most frolicsome moods,--"so true it is," says Macaulay, "that Nature has caprices which Art cannot imitate." Occasionally the senses are charmed by the fragrant, yellow-flowered champac, held sacred by the Hindus, from the wood of which the small images of Buddha are carved for the temples. Here, too, we have the odorous frangipane, the flower which Columbus found in such abundance on first landing in Cuba. Was it indigenous, one would like to know, in both of these tropical islands so very far apart? It is a tall plant, with few branches except at the top, but having fleshy shoots with a broad-spread, single leaf. The sensitive plant, which is such a delicate house ornament with us, fairly enamels the earth in this island, growing wild from Adam's Peak to Point de Galle, multiplying its dainty, bell-like pink blossoms, mingled with the delicate feathery acacia. Growing so exposed, and in weed-like abundance, it is natural to suppose that it would become hardened, as it were, to rough usage; but it is not so, as it retains all its native properties, in exaggerated form, if possible. Our puny little hothouse specimens are not more delicate or sensitive to the human touch than is this Ceylon mimosa. It is the most impressible of all known plants, and is appropriately named. Curious experiments prove this. If a person will fix his eyes upon a special branch and slowly approach it, the plant is seen gradually to wilt and shrink within itself, as it were, before it is touched by the observer's hand. It is endowed with an inexplicable intelligence or instinct, and what appears to be a dread as regards rude contact with human beings. A few years since, the author was at Cereto, in the island of Cuba, where he was the guest of an English physician who was also a coffee planter. While sitting with the family on the broad piazza which formed the front of the bungalow, a thrifty sensitive plant was recognized and made the subject of remark. The doctor called his young daughter of eleven years from the house. "Lena," said he, "go and kiss the mimosa." The child did so, laughing gleefully, and came away. The plant gave no token of shrinking from contact with the pretty child! "Now," said our host, "will you touch the plant?" Rising to do so, we approached it with one hand extended, and before it had come fairly in contact, the nearest spray and leaves wilted visibly. "The plant knows the child," said the doctor, "but you are a stranger." It was a puzzling experience, which seemed to endow the mimosa with human intelligence. One brings away especially a vivid memory of the brilliant scarlet and golden bloom which covers the flamboyer so densely as almost to hide from view its foliage of velvet green. Only in far-away, mid-ocean Hawaii does the traveler see this gorgeous tree so perfectly developed. The former superintendent of the Royal Botanical Gardens near Kandy, whither we shall take the reader in due time, is a scientific botanist, and an enthusiast in his profession. He tells us that he classified nearly three thousand indigenous plants, which is double the flora of Great Britain, and about one tenth of all the species in the world yet described. Thirty of these are declared to be found only upon this island. If correct, this is certainly a very remarkable fact, and forms an additional incentive for exploration on the part of naturalists. Any reader of these pages who can conveniently visit Cambridge, Mass., should not fail to enjoy the unique and comprehensive collection of specimens representing the flora of Ceylon, now in the Agassiz Museum. The material is glass, although it seems to be wax, but so perfectly has the work been done, under direction of Professor George L. Goodale, of Harvard College, as to be indeed realistic. We have called this collection unique, and it is absolutely so. Bostonians can find no more charming local attraction with which to entertain appreciative visitors from abroad than this in the department of botany at the institution named. There is a constant unvarying aspect of green pervading the scenery of Ceylon, owing to the perennial nature of the vegetation. The trees do not shed their leaves at any fixed period of the year. The ripe and withered foliage drops off, but it is promptly replaced by new and delicate leaves, whose exquisite hues when first expanding rival the blossoms themselves in beauty of color. If fruit is plucked, a flower quickly follows and another cluster ripens,--Nature is inexhaustible. There is no winter interval or sleep for the vegetation, no period of the sere and yellow leaf, as with us in the colder north. The fruits and flowers are ever present, yet there is a certain resemblance to spring and autumn, as we are accustomed to see them. The shrubs and trees are decked more or less with young fresh leaves at all times, while the ground is strewn with those in a state of decay which have ripened and faded out of life. The latter with us are the harbingers of winter, the former coming only with the opening spring. Thus it is that we call it the reign of eternal summer, for all out-of-doors seems like a conservatory of choice flowers and birds of dazzling hues. Although these highly colored creatures of the feathered tribe, like the butterflies, are almost innumerable, one is forced to admit that there are few sweet songsters among them. Paroquets in mottled green, practicing their dainty ways, present themselves in flocks, lighting upon the nearest bushes and branches with a winning fearlessness and confidence. They will slip quietly away if one attempts to catch them, but when taken young they are easily domesticated, accommodating themselves to human associations with the utmost facility, and though they are left free to seek the woods and jungle when they choose, they are sure to return voluntarily to the cabins of the natives, to be fed and petted by human hands. One variety of the green paroquet has a curious rose-colored ring about its neck, like the turtle-dove, so delicate and uniform as to seem almost artificial. The natives call it the love-bird. The youthful Singhalese women, like those of Japan, take great pains in the arrangement of their ebon-black hair. It was a unique and very pretty sight observed one day in the native district of Colombo, when a pair of live paroquets' heads, forming the apex to a native woman's abundant coil, were seen coquettishly twisting and turning hither and thither. The little beauties were quite content, perched up there amid their mistress' wealth of tresses. They were hardly confined, though their bodies were laid cosily beneath the braids as though resting in their native nest. What a field this tropical isle would have been for Audubon! One often sees hovering about the gardens and bungalows a little bird as large as an English sparrow, called the Ceylon bird of paradise, but which does not deserve that name. It has a black head, a neutral-tinted body, and a long tail, five times the length of its body, consisting of pure white feathers. Its only marked peculiarity, so far as is apparent, consists in its singular and disproportionate tail. It has a little fretful, discordant twitter, but no connected notes. The Singhalese name for the bird escapes us at this writing. Ornithologists make out a list of over three hundred distinct species of birds in Ceylon, among which the largest variety is found in the parrot family, very nearly equaled by the wading and aquatic tribes. CHAPTER III. The Wearisome Tropics.--Waterspouts.--Climatic Conditions.--Length of Days.--A Land Rich in Prehistoric Monuments.--History and Fable.--Last King of Ceylon.--Ancient Ruins.--Aged Cave Temples.--Gigantic Stone Statue of Buddha.--French Vandals.--A Native Chronicle.--Once the Seat of a Great Empire.--System of Irrigation.--Mysterious Disappearance of a Nation.--Ruins of a Vast City.--Departed Glory.--The Brazen Palace.--Asiatic Extravagance.--Ruined Monument. The author had been expressing a sense of hearty appreciation, on a certain occasion, in a domestic circle at Colombo, as to the perennial character of the vegetation, together with the endless variety of fruits and flowers in this favored land, but it appeared that those who had adopted it as their home did not find it to be absolute perfection. There is no terrestrial paradise; there was never a golden age; both of these figures of speech are born of poetical license: but to the traveler who recalled for a moment the ice-bound aspect and chilling snow of his New England home which must have prevailed at that moment, the contrast which surrounded him here had a magic charm. "It seems almost like heresy to say so," remarked the cultured and amiable wife of our host, an English official, "but one does sometimes weary of the sameness in the verdure of the tropics, lovely as it is, while remembering with a sigh the beautiful, varying autumn and the joyous springtime of more northern regions. Here we are always upon a dead level, so to speak; no contrasts present themselves. Eternal summer palls upon one. Perpetual youth in the vegetable kingdom," she added, "seems as unnatural and undesirable as it would be in human life. We have no winter, spring, or autumn in our Ceylon calendar." The equable and fruitful climate of the island is not produced, as is the case upon the west coast of California, by the influence of the ocean. There the Kurosiwo or Japanese current, which closely follows the trend of the land like a mighty river, with a constant temperature resembling the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic, and a width of five hundred miles, makes a semi-tropical climate of a latitude which is often Arctic farther inland. Its equatorial situation alone endows Ceylon with endless summer. It is curious to observe how the nature of some plants and trees is changed by transplanting them hither, and the same is also remarked of the average individual who has come from other less genial lands to settle in an equatorial climate. If it proves to be a healthy one, he takes very kindly to the delightful do-nothing of such a region, together with its lazy, sensuous enjoyments, losing in a large degree the energy and ambition naturally developed among the people of the north. The moral is obvious. He who runs may read. It requires a colder clime, with a soil not too willing, to awaken human energy, and to place man at his best. Luxury enervates; necessitous labor strengthens. Fruit-bearing trees transplanted from the United States, such as peach, cherry, and pear trees, have in many instances ceased to produce fruit, and have become partial evergreens. Experiments with grapevines from northern climates have met with similar results. In nearly the same latitude, however, though in opposite hemispheres, the transplanting of some fruit trees, and especially of the vine, seems to impart fresh life and fruitfulness. Those brought from France and Italy put on new vigor when they are domesticated on the Pacific coast of this continent; while the mission grapevine and others native in California, exported thence to the countries named, flourish marvelously and produce abundantly. At this writing, news comes to us of the partial failure of the grape crop in some of the vineyards of southern France, and also that, following out the results of late experiences, the old vines are to be replaced by the introduction of California varieties. The grapevine does not seem adapted to tropical climes. It is not a perennial growth, but must enjoy its long winter rest in order to thrive. Even in mild, equable southern California, its fruit-bearing branches are cut back annually to the main stalk, where the principal life is stored. The new branches of the mission grape, as it is called in this region, produce bunches of the luscious fruit yearly, which often weigh four and five pounds each; but as we have said, the new growth is cut away every year after fruiting. Checking the vagrant inclination of pen and brain to travel afield, let us turn to matters more relative to the expressed purpose of these pages. The island of Ceylon is favorably situated outside the region of the cyclones which so frequently prevail in the Bay of Bengal and the neighboring ocean, while it is also free from the hurricanes of the Mauritius Sea and the volcanic outbursts of the Eastern Archipelago. There is no evidence of seismic disturbance in this region, either past or present. One does not leave waterspouts entirely behind in the Gulf of Siam, on reaching the shore of this island. Just before the season of the monsoons, they appear sometimes off this coast. They are never, however, of a fierce, whirlwind character, so as to cause any serious harm. As regards climatic conditions, the coolest season of the year is during the prevalence of the southwest monsoons, or from the end of April to the end of October. The northeast monsoon is of shorter duration, prevailing during November, December, January, and February. Both these periods are ushered in by heavy thunder-storms and a liberal downpour of rain. The reader who has never experienced an equatorial land-storm has no conception of the fury of the elements under such circumstances. The continued blaze of the fiery lightning and the deafening crash which echoes through the skies are beyond description. Timid people try to hide themselves in the dark corners of the bungalows, while even the natives and animals often become tremulous with fear. It must be admitted that fatal accidents are frequent enough during these thunder-storms to keep an apprehension of danger constantly alive. In the mountain regions about Kandy and Ratnapura, where the echoes supplement the grand electric discharges, the deafening noise and reverberation can only be compared to the quick, sharp, detonating reports of heavy artillery. The monsoons occur with the utmost regularity, both here and over a large portion of the neighboring continent, and they are so regular that their arrival can be calculated upon nearly to a day. Electrical phenomena, thunder and lightning, are, as just intimated, often very grand. So, also, is the prevalence of optical displays, such as rainbows and mirage. As to moonlight nights and their dazzling exhibitions, like those of the tropical regions generally, words are inadequate to express their splendor, at once so brilliant and so calm. The climate is very much like that of Java, humid and hot, especially in the southern portion nearest to the coast; it is, however, considerably more moderate than that of the mainland of India. Although so very warm, it is equable; one is aware of what to expect and can prepare for it. Occasional frosts occur in the highlands, but snow is unknown even on the mountain tops. The length of days, owing to the proximity to the equator, does not vary more than one hour, the sun setting at Colombo at about six o'clock all the year round. At Dondra Head, the extreme southern point of Ceylon, the difference between the longest and shortest day of the year is only forty minutes. This interesting island is rich in prehistoric monuments, Buddhist temples, and lofty dagobas, some of which were originally over three hundred feet in height, exceeding that of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris, by sixty feet. This, be it remembered, was representative of a civilization which existed upon an island of the Indian Ocean between two and three thousand years ago. The lofty, gorgeous colored, and eccentric temples which the traveler regards with such curious interest in India belong to a much more modern period. They are structures which have been raised oftentimes upon the site of former heathen shrines. So in Rome, many of the churches which we visit to-day and accredit with great antiquity are rebuilt upon edifices formerly dedicated to strange gods. Some remain intact, like the Temple of Hercules and the Pantheon. These Ceylon dagobas are only one class of monuments, and are to be considered in connection with other vestiges of vast public structures, the origin and purpose of which have been lost sight of in the lapse of ages. Slabs of granite engraven with half-effaced inscriptions in Pali, and in unknown characters, are still found, mystifying the most learned antiquarians, while the significance of others has been made plain by means of commendable patience and scholarly acquirements. What an object lesson is here presented, attesting the evanescence of all mundane power and glory. Here are evidences of vast and costly enterprises, such as the rearing of grand monuments whose legitimate object can only be conjectured, and the names of whose builders are forgotten. The annals of the Singhalese, to whom we are not accustomed to give much credit as a literary people, yet afford consecutive historical data for twenty-four centuries back, though, as in most oriental countries, the records of their past combine truth and fable almost indiscriminately, so that it is often difficult to distinguish one from the other. These Eastern writers had a royal mode of assertion, much more impressive than convincing; as regards the general fidelity of these annals, however, there is no reasonable doubt, after allowing for what may be termed poetical license of expression. We may well ask ourselves how many lands can, like Ceylon, tell so much of their past history in authentic records verified by enduring monuments. As is well known, we in America go back only about four centuries before the trail of history is lost. To be sure, conjecture is abundant enough, but conjecture is not history. Compared with the probable age of the globe, how quickly history fades into fable! Agassiz thought this to be the oldest country of which we have any reliable knowledge. The Western mound builders were undoubtedly a distinctive race, yet who can tell their story? The mysteries of Yucatan are unsolved. There was a civilization once existing in Peru whose history is to us a blank. Of the origin of the Sphinx, older than the Pyramids, what do we really know? On Easter Island, in the South Pacific, are indestructible evidences of an ancient people, who possessed a written language so old that no one can decipher its admirably graven characters. Where did that island come from, and what became of its people? Were they and their country submerged, like another Atlantis, and is this island the apex of a mountain range left above the devouring ocean to tell the tale? This is not a wild supposition. It has been suggested and declared possible by more than one astute and scholarly writer upon physical geography. As to antiquity, the monuments of Egypt enable us to trace back the history of civilized man only six thousand years, though all intelligent archæologists know that the earth must have been inhabited by human beings an infinite number of years prior to that period. Philology and geology are sufficient to prove this. Singhalese annals record in detail the reign of one hundred and sixty sovereigns during a period extending from the conquest of the island, B. C. 543, by Wijaya, a prince from northern India, to the deposition of Wikram Raja Sinka by the English in 1815. This was the last king of Kandy, the then native capital of Ceylon. Sufficient is recorded of the personal character of Wijaya, the early conqueror of the island, to prove his utter barbarity, so that we are naturally led still more to wonder whence came the artists--for artists they were--who designed and built such cities as Anuradhapura and Pollonarua, the first of which was probably founded during his reign. Either the Singhalese as a race must have retrograded in a most marvelous manner, while other nationalities were in the line of progress, or foreign artists and builders must have been imported to rear such grand and beautiful capitals in this Indian isle. Does the reader realize that our best architects to-day go back for suggestions to the elaborate and elegant ornamentations which prevailed at this period in stone columns and lofty façades? Though scarred by warfare with the ages, these still form rare and choice object lessons to the appreciative artist. Among the remarkable evidences of great antiquity in Ceylon, we recall the elaborate cave-temples of Dambula, hewn out of the primitive rock, and which have existed at least two thousand years, representing an infinite amount of patient labor, which must have been executed with tools admirably adapted to the purpose assigned. The principal temple--there are four of them--was dedicated to Buddha, whose creed is still the prevailing faith of Asia,--a doctrine ages older than our so-called Christian religion. The entrance to the principal cave-temple is elaborately carved in the solid stone, and is wonderfully well-preserved. The design is harmonious with the purpose, presenting a score or more of figures in bas-relief, with embellishments appropriate to the Buddhist faith. Two mammoth figures, one on either side, represent, probably, guardian spirits or gods. Just within, there is an altar with a sitting figure of Buddha, opposite the entrance. It is interesting to note the ornamental entrance to the temple, as exhibiting the degree of artistic appreciation which existed here in Ceylon between two and three thousand years ago. This largest temple is one hundred and eighty feet long, eighty wide, and twenty-five high, a gloomy vault at best, containing a gigantic recumbent stone statue of Buddha, forty-seven feet in length, the head resting on the right hand, indicating repose, one of the favorite positions in which the prophet is usually represented in the temples of Ceylon. The chambers or halls, which are hollowed out of the rock, are reached by long flights of stone steps. Each temple is most grotesquely painted with scenes supposed to represent the past history of the island. In the first of the caves is the immense statue already spoken of. In the others are those of ancient kings in heroic size, but not nearly so large as that of Buddha. On the several walls are rudely-painted tournament scenes, elephant hunts, and half-effaced battle pictures. Some of the apartments have iron-grated windows, and were evidently places of confinement for political prisoners, some time in the far past. An old Buddhist priest is in charge, grumpy, reticent, and apparently dissatisfied with himself and the world generally. In the first and largest of the stone chambers of this huge rock at Dambula, besides the large recumbent figure of Buddha, there is a statue of Vishnu, held especially sacred, and before which solemn oaths in litigated cases were administered, without any other recourse for settlement. This was when one of the parties agreed to abide by the solemn oath of the other, to be given in specified form before this statue of Vishnu. It is a rudely executed figure in granite, as indeed are all the statues of the period. In the second chamber or temple there are half a hundred statues of Buddha, besides representatives in stone of various heathen gods, painted in yellow, blue, and white robes, but why the multiplicity of Buddhas it would be difficult to divine. In front of the cave-temples is a flourishing boo-tree, and a small grove of cocoanut palms which have grown to a great size. As usual, centuries of age are claimed for the first-named tree. Round about the plain, among the rude, wild vegetable growth, a peculiar cactus is seen, a familiar acquaintance, first met with on the plains of Mexico. Its thick leaves form also its branches, each leaf being attached to its neighbor endwise, like links of a chain, and being bordered by a bright yellow ruffle of profuse blossoms. These cave-temples of Dambula are cut in a solitary mass of rock, rising from the otherwise level plain to about five hundred feet in height and four times that in length. This is undoubtedly the most remarkable group of cave-temples upon the island. One is vividly reminded by these peculiar and enduring structures of a similar famous place of Hindu worship cut out of the solid rock on the island of Elephanta in the outer harbor of Bombay, and also of those found at Ellora and Carlee, in India proper. These three Buddhist temples are known to have been in existence for about twenty centuries, and are very similar in design. The elaborate sculptures in bas-relief which decorate them are almost identical in character, but they have little or no artistic merit, being in fact as crude as Chinese or Japanese idols, mere caricatures as seen from a modern point of view, and yet they are clearly the result of a distinctive purpose. As to depicting the human figure with any regard to its anatomy, that was not understood by these artists, any more than are the laws of perspective by the Chinese or Japanese of to-day. So in ancient Egyptian sculpture, an approximation to the true outline of the human figure is all that is attempted. The stone pillars and figures at Elephanta, so venerable from age and association, were nearly destroyed by French cannon-balls, the guns being brought on shore at considerable trouble, and maliciously directed, for this purpose. It seemed to be a fixed principle with the soldiers of the first Napoleon to purloin everything of value which was portable in the countries they invaded, and what they could not steal and carry away, with true barbaric instinct they destroyed. Churches, charitable institutions, hospitals, were all alike looted by these French vandals. Even tombs were invaded by them in their rapacity, as at Granada, where the leaden coffins in the royal vaults were pried open with bayonets in search of treasures supposed to have been buried with the bodies. At Seville, they broke open the coffin of Murillo, wherein finding nothing of commercial value, they scattered the ashes of the great master in art to the wind. It will also be remembered that Marshal Soult--to his lasting disgrace be it recorded--treated the ashes of Cervantes in a similar manner; a most petty and disgraceful meanness for a marshal of France to be guilty of. The Mahawanso, "Genealogy of the Great," a native chronicle, contains a history of the several dynasties which have controlled the island from B. C. 543 down to A. D. 1758. This unique and remarkable Singhalese book is a metrical chronicle written in Pali verse, and forms what is universally received as an authentic and most invaluable record of the national history of Ceylon. A scholarly translation of the same is now extant in English. Pali, as the reader doubtless knows, is a dead language founded upon the Sanscrit, though Buddhists claim that it is the original of all tongues. This is an assumption easily disproved by Egyptian inscriptions dating back over six thousand years. The island, under its Sanskrit name of Lanka, is also the subject of a mythical poem of the Hindus, and its conquest by Rama is the theme of the Ramayana, doubtless one of the most ancient epics in existence. The Mahawanso, though the oldest, is by no means the only Singhalese chronicle of a historic character. It was designed by a priest named Mahanamo, who compiled the early portion, commencing five centuries and more before Christ, and bringing it down to the year 301 of our era. After this it was continued by able successors, who carried on the original plan of the beginner to the period when the English took forcible possession of Ceylon. There are several comprehensive manuscripts devoted to native history, written upon talipot palm-leaf, carefully preserved in the museum at Colombo. Besides these important records there is abundant evidence of a tangible character to show that there once existed upon this island a great and powerful empire in a condition of advanced civilization. The gigantic remains of palaces and temples tell us this. There are also evidences of a system of irrigation which was remarkably perfect in conception and consummation, though it must have been achieved by the simplest means, that is, by the aid of no mechanical facilities such as we possess. This system covered the face of the country, north and south, like a network. Immense lakes were formed by damming the natural outlets of the mountain streams at the mouth of extensive valleys, and that was all that was artificial about them. Nature had prepared the way; still, the amount of labor involved in the practical application of the principle was enormous. The remains of these great reservoirs thus created are objects of admiration to our modern engineers, not only for the boldness and magnificence of their construction, but also for the beneficence of their purpose. The marvelous ruins of these reservoirs are the proudest and most significant monuments which remain of the former greatness of this country. No constructions for a similar purpose found in any part of the world have ever surpassed them. So long as they were in repair and fully operative, the people of Ceylon had no occasion to go abroad for rice upon which to subsist. The grand supply of water for the distributing tanks was conducted from the distant mountains, through dense forests, across broad ravines, and around the sides of intervening hills, by stout channel-ways miles and miles in length. No considerable population could have been supported in a country subject to prolonged droughts without the aid of some such fertilizing agency, and no other system would have been so well adapted to the raising of the staple grain of the island. Most of these artificial lakes are now in ruins, overgrown with jungle grass, and in some instances by heavy forests. No one can truly say what caused the decadence of the several ancient capitals now lying in the dust, leaving only a blank memorial of their former existence. It is a puzzling question as to what could have swept a population of millions from the face of the globe and left no clearer record of their occupancy and departure. When there is pointed out to the traveler in Japan a location where a big and populous city once stood, but which is now only a series of thrifty grain-fields, no great surprise is felt. Japanese houses are only constructed, as a rule, of bamboo frames with tissue coverings, but the ruined cities of Ceylon were built of stone and brick, presumedly indestructible except by some great and general catastrophe. The ruins of Anuradhapura show that in mediæval times it must have been a city containing a vast concourse of people. We know that it was recognized as the capital of Ceylon from three to four hundred years prior to the birth of Christ down to the year 770 of the present era. It has been justly called the Palmyra of Ceylon, and was contemporary with Babylon and Nineveh. It was a royal city, wherein ninety kings reigned in succession, and its dimensions exceeded the present area of London. What a grand and imperial metropolis it must have been in its pristine glory! At a time when England was still in a condition of barbarism, this capital of an island in the Indian Ocean was at the zenith of its prosperity, enjoying luxuries which argued a high condition of civilization. The reason for selecting this plain in the heart of the country as a suitable location for its capital is not obvious, except that from the earliest ages the spot has been sacred to the votaries of Buddha. Its site is near the centre of the great plain which occupies the northern portion of the island, about one hundred miles from Kandy, and three hundred feet above the level of the sea. Here, amid tall trees and thick undergrowth, are scattered hundreds, nay, thousands of stone columns, huge monoliths, granite statues, fragments of grand palaces, and elaborate public buildings, which once adorned broad and level thoroughfares, while the surrounding country exhibited a wide expanse of rice-fields irrigated by numberless canals, together with all the beauty of cultivated tropical vegetation. The early chronicles tell us of the surprising loveliness of this region round about the ancient metropolis, the brilliancy of its native jewels, the fertility of its carefully nurtured soil, its magnificent palms, the abundance of its fruits, the sagacity of its elephants, and the constant fragrance of its spice-laden atmosphere. Anuradhapura! how little we of the nineteenth century have even heard of its people, who built temples of stone and palaces of marble,--a nation which lived for twenty centuries in oriental splendor; a city which was rich, populous, and famous, long before Rome had risen to power; a capital which achieved such ambitious architectural results only to sink at last suddenly and mysteriously into oblivion. What the possible purpose could have been in creating such a singular page in the annals of history as the building and peopling of a giant metropolis on this Indian island, whose accomplished mission illustrates only the mutability of all terrestrial things, only that inscrutable Wisdom which rules the universe can answer. Except the mountain range which so nearly divides the island at its centre, and the spurs which it throws out at intervals, there are few elevations worthy of notice in Ceylon. One, known as Mihintale, about a thousand feet in height, dominates the ruins of the ancient city just described, and is so perpendicular that to reach its summit one must avail himself of the artificial steps cut in the solid rock. These stones, smoothed and indented by centuries of use, are said to have been thus worn by thousands and thousands of pilgrims, who ascended to the shrine above upon their knees. This notable hill, which almost deserves the name of mountain, was fortified by the aborigines in the olden time, as shown by irregular lines of defensive works in stone, whose dismantled and disintegrated condition testifies to their antiquity. On the summit stands a shrine, showing that it was held to be a sacred spot from the earliest ages, probably long before the date when the now mouldering capital was founded. The view afforded on either hand from the apex of the mount embraces the far-away ocean, and the nearer sea of undulating forests and groves of palms, clad in the exquisite verdure of the tropics. Anuradhapura was the largest city in the island, and is confidently asserted to have contained, in its prime, three million people, over four hundred thousand of whom were fighting-men. But there were others, considerable in size and importance, which existed during the period of its prosperity. The records show that this ancient metropolis was fifty-two miles in circumference, or sixteen miles across in a straight line from the north to the south gate, covering two hundred and fifty-six square miles! What have we in modern times to equal these ruins in spaciousness? Perhaps some deduction should be made from such remarkable figures. Of course, the reader will understand that the area here given was not actually covered by solid blocks of dwellings. Private residences were generally surrounded by small but elaborate gardens. There was ample air space about the temples, palaces, and public buildings, together with large open commons for military parades, for public baths, for elephant fights, for political forums, and market-places. Spaciousness and elegance were the characteristics of this ancient Singhalese metropolis, this grand city of the plains, where one stands to-day surrounded by centuries of tangible history. The eye rests upon miles and miles of broken stone statues of bulls, elephants, sarcophagi, and heavy capitals of granite columns, many of whose delicate, artistic capitals and designs are still intact. All oriental narrative is tinctured with exaggeration, but Sir James Emerson Tennent, so long officially connected with the island, and personally familiar with the ruins of Anuradhapura, says no one who visits the place to-day can doubt that Ceylon, in the zenith of its prosperity, contained ten times its present population; and as he wrote this in 1859, when the aggregate was about one million, he wished to signify that the number of inhabitants, at the period to which he referred, was probably ten millions. The same writer tells us that this density of population must have been preserved through many centuries, in spite of revolutions and invasions, in order to produce the results, the ruins of which are still visible to all observers. That the people of Anuradhapura were early and skillful workers in brass, iron, and glass, articles unearthed among these ruins abundantly testify. Further explorations and excavations will doubtless result in valuable information. Five or six feet of earth, upon an average, must be removed before the process of uncovering can be said to have fairly commenced, so that the prospective labor of exhumation is simply immense. Still, almost every year brings some new enthusiast to the front, whose time and money are freely devoted to this object until his ardor is appeased, and he leaves the field to some one else. A steadily sustained effort, aided and directed by the government, might accomplish something worth recording, but such desultory and spasmodic attempts are of very little account. At Pompeii, where, by persistent effort, a whole city has been unearthed, we see what such exhumation signifies, though the circumstances are not precisely similar, the one having been suddenly covered by an eruption of the neighboring volcano, while the other yielded to the wear of time and the effect of foreign invasions. A score of cities, however, like Pompeii would not cover the area once occupied by this vanished metropolis. The ancient capital was named in honor of a certain prince, Anuradha, by whom it was founded twenty-five centuries ago. A thousand years since, this city was still populous, gay, and beautiful, with fragrant gardens, thriving shops, proud dwellings, gilded palaces, lofty temples, religious processions, and frequent displays of royal pageants. The Singhalese chronicles are full of references to agricultural prosperity, to ample herds, the breeding of cattle, and the extensive culture of grain. They speak of women who were treated with great deference, and of priestesses and queens who held high places with honor. Rich furniture was used in the dwellings, and costly textures for dress, these of course imported from other countries. Though the inhabitants of Anuradhapura were not themselves a maritime people, they were constantly visited by others from afar, who brought with them rich goods to exchange for pearls and precious stones. We know that Ceylon was rich in these at that period, even as she is at the present time, and exported peacocks, apes, and ivory. In the ancient Hebrew records, the names of these were the same as those known at present to the natives in this island. To-day, mutability is written upon its scattered and neglected ruins in a language all can understand. Who can wonder that individuals perish and are forgotten, when the entire population of a great, imperial metropolis thus vanish, while their noblest and most enduring works crumble into dust? The significance of such instances should humble the proudest mortal who walks the earth. The spot where the Brazen Palace, so-called, once stood in the ancient capital still shows scores of granite columns in the shape of undressed monoliths, projecting about twelve feet above the level of the ground, upon some of which there exist the remains of elaborate capitals, closely resembling the Grecian Corinthian order. This edifice, dating about two hundred years before Christ, was not the royal residence, but a palace devoted to accommodation of the priesthood, and was originally nine stories in height, covering a square of ground measuring two hundred and thirty feet each way. "The roof," according to native chronicles, "was of brass, and its great hall, which was supported by golden pillars, also contained a throne of solid ivory," though what the Buddhist priesthood required of a "throne" we are not informed. This description of the great hall with its golden pillars sounds perhaps like an oriental exaggeration, but the people of those days came originally from India, where such examples of extravagance were by no means unknown during the Mogul dynasty. The probability is that the Brazen Palace was in reality the royal residence. Speaking of Indian extravagance, we all remember the peacock throne of the king of Delhi,--a throne of solid gold, six feet long and four feet broad, surmounted by a canopy of gold, and supported by twelve pillars composed of the same precious material. The back of this costly structure was made to represent a peacock with its tail-feathers expanded, hence the name. The natural colors of the feathers were closely imitated with rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and other precious stones. The total value of the whole exceeded thirty million dollars. The author has stood within this royal chamber at Delhi, but the gorgeous throne has long since disappeared. Enough, however, still remains to show what regal splendor must have existed in this marvelous palace. These Mogul rulers used costly gems, gold and silver, together with precious marbles and rarest stones, as freely as modern potentates employ granite, combined with bricks and mortar. The wealth of the then known world was in the possession of a very few individuals, and the poor were all the poorer in comparison; despotism was rampant, and royalty commanded at will the unpaid services of the million. Near the site of the Brazen Palace of Anuradhapura are several dagobas, partially hidden by rank tropical verdure. One of these peculiar structures was originally over four hundred feet in height, antedating the Christian era by many years. Does the reader realize what an amount of solid masonry such a structure represents? When we say that this dagoba was nearly twice the height of Bunker Hill Monument, and that it was three hundred and sixty feet in diameter at the base, the comparison may aid the imagination. Verily, nothing but the Egyptian pyramids compare in magnitude with these shrines of Ceylon, while no modern engineering enterprise excels in immensity the artificial lakes which were created upon her surface. One writer has gone into a careful calculation regarding the structure, and says that it contained material enough originally to build a wall ten feet high from London to Edinburgh. These peculiarly shaped dagobas are scattered all over the island, each being the receptacle of some saintly relic. Tradition says they are thus formed to resemble a bubble floating upon the water, but they are really bell-shaped, and most of them have a low, ornamental spire. Near the summit is the secret chamber wherein is deposited the sacred treasure. Time effaces all mundane things. With the exception of the Temple of the Tooth, at Kandy, no one can say what special relic any one of these remarkable structures was originally designed to shelter. Let us quote for the reader's edification an ancient native description of this famous city of the plain when it was in its glory. It is a literal translation from the original:-- "The magnificent city of Anuradhapura is refulgent from the numerous temples and palaces whose golden pinnacles glitter in the sky. The sides of its streets are strewed with black sand; they are spanned with arches bearing flags of gold and silver; on either side are vessels of the same precious metals, containing flowers; and in niches are statues holding lamps of great value. In the streets are multitudes of people, armed with bows and arrows; also men powerful as gods, who with their huge swords could cut asunder a tusk elephant at one blow. Elephants, horses, carts, and myriads of people are constantly passing and repassing. There are jugglers, dancers, and musicians of various nations, whose chank shells and other musical instruments are ornamented with gold. The distance from the principal gate to the opposite gate is four gaws (sixteen miles); and from the north gate to the south gate four gaws. The principal streets are Moon Street, Great King Street, and Great Sandy Street. In Chandrawakkawidiya are eleven thousand houses, many of them being two stories in height; the smaller streets are innumerable. The palace has immense ranges of buildings, some of two, others of three stories in height; and its subterranean apartments are of great extent." Sir J. E. Tennent gathers from various ancient sources, including the veritable Mahawanso, that Anuradhapura, between four and five centuries before Christ, contained the temples of various religions,--"temples and palaces whose golden pinnacles glittered in the sky,"--besides spacious public gardens and free baths, together with almshouses and hospitals, in which animals as well as human beings were tenderly cared for. One king gave the "corn of a thousand fields" for the support of the hospitals, another set aside a certain quantity of rice to feed the squirrels which frequented the city gardens, while a third monarch displayed his skill in treating the diseases of elephants, horses, and domestic cattle. The streets were lined with grand shops and bazaars. On festive occasions, barbers and dressers were stationed at each entrance to the capital for the convenience of strangers who visited the city. Public officials vied with each other in their patriotic deeds designed for the public good. In one corner of the widespread ruins of Anuradhapura there is now a small village, with a Christian mission and school for the native children. There are also a few bazaars, a post-office, telegraph station, and a court house, which serve, by affording a strong contrast to the former splendor which reigned here, to emphasize the historic grandeur of the defunct capital. CHAPTER IV. Oriental Dagobas.--Ancient City of Pollonarua.--Laid out like our Modern Capitals.--Unexplored Ruins.--Elaborate Stone Carvings.--Colossal Stone Figure.--The "Buried Cities."--The Singhalese not a Progressive People.--Modern History of Ceylon.--Captured by the English.--The "Resplendent Island."--Commercial Prosperity.--Increasing Foreign Population.--Under English Rule.--Native Soldiers.--Christian Sects and Churches.--Roman Catholic Church.--Expulsion of the Jesuits. The very interesting and in many respects unique ruins of Anuradhapura, like those pertaining to the city of Pollonarua, with its curious and enormous mass of crumbling brick-work in the shape of a dagoba surmounted by a temple, are supposed to have been thus mouldering in the dust for more than six centuries. These dagobas, doting with age, as we have shown, are relic shrines, like in purpose to the pagodas of Burmah, which they somewhat resemble. Their substantial outside finish must have given them very much the appearance of being built of pure white marble. In dimensions they are exceeded only by the pyramids of Ghizeh, but there is no genius or architectural excellence evinced in the construction of either. Judged by the light of our day, there is no legitimate reason for their existence. Religious fanaticism gave birth to one, and personal pride to the other. They neither subserve the purpose of utility nor of beauty. As monuments of personal aggrandizement, or as individual memorials, what total failures they have proved! Think for a single moment of the vast contrast between either of the Egyptian pyramids, or these bell-shaped dagobas, with their plain stuccoed coverings, and that modern shrine and tomb combined,--the Taj Mahal of Agra. The pyramids and dagobas are crude, barbaric embodiments of bulk and imposing loftiness; the other is a realization in marble of a poetic dream. The former are remarkable only for magnitude; the latter, for its exquisite grace. There is sufficient evidence still left us to show that the olden city of Pollonarua was laid out in a perfectly systematic way, and built up in the most regular manner. Its founders evidently started with a well-perfected purpose. It was not a chance settlement of a few cabins, which gradually increased hither and thither in various directions until it assumed the proportions of a metropolis. Notwithstanding the present confusion, the general features of its topography are clearly discernible amid the mounds of mouldering material. The main street from the principal entrance-gate continued perfectly straight for four miles between royal palms to the opposite extreme of the city, crossed at right angles in the centre by a similar thoroughfare, thus forming two main streets, which terminated at four great gates of entrance and exit to and from the town,--north, east, south, and west. From these main streets radiated lateral and smaller roadways, evidently occupied by humbler dwellings, together with an occasional temple or other public building. The ruins of what is known as the Treasure House of Pollonarua are unusually interesting, as exhibiting some of the finest and best preserved bas-reliefs to be found in Ceylon, and as showing also certain marked peculiarities of skill in architecture which prevailed in pre-Christian times. On either side of the principal thoroughfares of the city were handsome and substantial dwellings, palaces, and sacred temples. The latter, with their gorgeous gilded domes, were dedicated to various pagan gods. Other spacious buildings and open areas were devoted to pleasure entertainments for the masses of the people, not unlike the modern idea of public gardens and outdoor theatres. Here and there labyrinths of unexplored ruins are entirely hidden by lofty, broad-limbed trees and a tangle of low, dense shrub, as though the big city had been originally built in a forest. We pause, and gaze thoughtfully at the desolation which speaks so emphatically in its dumb way. It is the language in which the decline and fall of great empires is written,--monuments of mutability. "Tully was not so eloquent as thee, Thou nameless column with the buried base." It is not to be wondered at that learned European antiquarians make pilgrimages hither to see with their own eyes what others have graphically described, and to translate for themselves these black-letter records of by-gone ages. We met at Pollonarua one enthusiastic traveler who had neither eyes nor ears for anything else but that which related to the almost forgotten past. The mouldering ruins of Ceylon were food and drink to him, with which he gorged himself to repletion. Each new student of antiquity who comes hither, being informed of the progress of those who preceded him, takes up the thread of discovery where they left it, and adds something to illumine the darkness which enshrouds these sombre ruins. It could not always have been peaceful in these populous cities of the past, where strange gods and strange customs prevailed. The imagination easily depicts dire tragedies and bloody conflicts which must have drenched their broad avenues with blood. Such has been the history of the world since the beginning of time. The best-preserved construction amid all the ruins is a Buddhist rock-temple, which, having been hewn out of the native stone, is still intact, though supposed to date back three hundred years before our era. It is only a small chamber about twenty feet square, containing an altar and three stone figures of Buddha in different positions, sitting, reclining, and standing. The entrance to the chamber is an archway; on either side, inscriptions are engraven in the Pali language, but these, we were informed, had never been translated. The native rock, from which the small temple is cut, rises abruptly from the level plain. Anuradhapura, as wonderful in its way as Pompeii or Herculaneum, is known as the ancient capital of Ceylon, and Pollonarua as the mediæval, but even the former is antedated by other half-buried cities in the island, that of Bintenne, for instance, which exhibits ruins of great interest and of admitted antiquity. There is a dagoba here which is spoken of by the former Dutch occupants of the island, in A. D. 1602, as being still in good preservation, surmounted by a gilded dome, while its smooth, white exterior was quite unblemished. The wear and tear of the centuries has not yet obliterated this monument. These dagobas, shaped like half an eggshell, are very similar to the topes of India proper. The interior consists of earth and sun-dried clay, built about and rendered substantial with burned bricks and tiles, the whole being coated on the exterior with a stone-like mortar or chunam. The burned bricks which are found in the débris of the "buried cities" have their form quite perfect, and were so well fired when made that they still retain their sharpness and consistency. The best examples of brick-work are to be found among the ruins of Pollonarua, where the mortar that was originally used shows the remains of the burned pearl-oyster shells from which it was made. The principle of the true arch secured by its keystone does not seem to have been understood by the people of that period in this island, though what is called the false arch, produced by projecting one layer of bricks beyond another, is clearly shown. The carving in stone was carried to a high degree of excellence, and is still in good preservation, as shown upon slabs, risers to steps, and on octangular columns of graceful proportions. The entrance to some of the cave-temples also exhibits ability in the carving of stone which is of no mean quality, depicting innumerable single figures and many groups. None of the Indian topes are more than half as large as these Ceylon dagobas. The latter were solid, hemispherical masses, standing upon a raised square platform of granite six or eight feet high, and approached by broad stone steps. The incrustation of the dome-like edifice was after the fashion of our modern stucco process, except that it was very much more thickly laid on. The preparation consisted of lime, cocoanut water, and the glutinous juice of a fruit which grows upon the paragaha-tree. This compound was pure white when dried and hardened, receiving a polish like glass, and was remarkable for durability. We were told of, but did not see, carved stone capitals and elaborately draped monoliths, found among the ruins of Bintenne, which represented early perfection in architecture as displayed in a region now indeed barbaric, but where a civilization flourished in the far past in all the pride and pomp of oriental grandeur. To-day, the jackal and the panther, unmolested by man, prowl about the spot in search of prey. When the hosts who formed the population of these long-buried cities disappeared we may not know, nor what fate befell them. There are many intelligent theories about the matter, but very little positive evidence. The most plausible supposition would seem to be that a devastating famine must have been the fatal agent. Most of the works which these people left behind them, except the bell-shaped and nearly indestructible dagobas, are now covered with rank vegetation. The first structure of this character erected at Anuradhapura is still extant, and is believed by some writers to be one of the oldest architectural monuments in India. With this conclusion we certainly cannot agree, as the chronicles tell us it was raised by King Tissa, at the close of the third century before Christ, over the collar-bone of Buddha. The author has seen at Benares many sacred structures, some in ruins, which are much more ancient. After all, these milestones of the centuries afford us little data by which to unravel the mysteries of the past in Ceylon. They are only isolated mementos, forming disjointed links in the chain connecting us with by-gone ages, mute but eloquent witnesses of a former and high degree of civilization. The most erudite antiquarian finds no coherent or reliable history in such crumbling monuments; generalities only can be deduced from them, however suggestive and interesting they may prove. Neither the ancient nor the modern Singhalese seem to have had any distinctive order of architecture, though the variety which they adopted was infinite. Here, among these half-defaced ruins, one detects Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Moorish inspirations, calculated to puzzle the scientist as to their probable origin. The singular conglomerates of our own day are not more confusing than some of the best-preserved specimens to be found in these ruined cities of ancient Ceylon. Another notable object of antiquarian interest in the island is recalled in this connection. It is that of a colossal, upright figure of Buddha, a figure hewn out of the solid rock, to which it is still attached, though it is statuesque and not in bas-relief, the original material only furnishing its support at the back. This rude piece of sculpture is fifty feet in height and otherwise duly proportioned, vividly recalling the mammoth bronze statue of Dai-Butsu at Kamakura, in Japan, which is nearly sixty feet in height, though it is represented in a sitting position. Within this statue fifty people can stand together, the interior being fitted like a chapel. As regards antiquity, the Japanese figure is supposed to be but six centuries in age, while that of Ceylon is surely three times as old, and probably four. The great Singhalese statue is now in the jungle, which has grown up about it during centuries of neglect, near to the great Tank of Kalawera. The surrounding rocks were in ancient days turned into a cave-temple with infinite labor, by hewing and excavating them into chambers of suitable dimensions. Without excellent tools of steel and iron, very nearly approaching in efficiency those of our own time, this could not possibly have been accomplished. The carved pillars, fluted, beveled, and spiral columns, mounds of ruined masonry, crumbling flights of stone steps, ornamental fragments of temples, and granite statues skillfully wrought which are scattered in all directions throughout the jungle, in some instances overgrown by tall trees, attest both departed greatness and far-reaching antiquity. Broken bricks, tiles, and sculpture are so knit together by snakelike tree-roots, while shaded by their lofty branches, as to form one solid mass for hundreds of rods together, dotted here and there by simple wild flowers which modestly rear their delicate petals and perfume the air. One represents the tomb of decayed magnificence and oriental luxury, the other is the sweet and simple emblem of Nature undefiled. Thus she covers up the wrinkles of age with blooming vegetation, screening the mouldering architecture of a forgotten race beneath fresh arboreal and floral beauties. There still remain, though partially buried beneath the earth, the suggestive memorials of a prosperous and energetic people, who were once the possessors of this beautiful Indian isle. These decaying monuments are at the same time indisputable evidence of the high civilization which once existed here, and also, sad to realize, of the deterioration of the Singhalese as a people. However gradual may have been the decadence of the race from the proud condition of their ancestors who built the "buried cities," the contrast is so strong to-day as to seem singularly abrupt, notwithstanding the intervening centuries. Fifty years ago, it was only at the risk of one's life that these famous ruins of Ceylon could be reached. Such expeditions were not even attempted without a strong escort and governmental aid. Hostile native tribes and equally fatal malarial influences, together with almost impassable forests and unbridged rivers, were all arrayed against the curious visitor. This is now changed so that enterprising travelers can with but little trouble enjoy a view of some of the most extraordinary monuments to be found in the East, and which are of much more than ordinary archæologic and artistic interest. In this neighborhood, at Vigitapora, are the ruins of a city, once a royal residence, which is more ancient than Anuradhapura. This place was a populous centre five hundred years before the Christian era, of which there seems to be little if any record preserved, even in the comprehensive pages of that national text-book, the Mahawanso. The native tribes of Ceylon cannot be said to form a progressive race, even under the advantages which modern civilization affords them. Their present condition is one of dormancy. Those who form the rising generation, after enjoying school advantages to a certain degree, on arriving at the age of responsibility lapse, with some exceptions, into the condition of their parents. Thus many of our Western Indians, who in youth have been educated in schools presided over by the whites, return finally to their native surroundings, promptly adopting from choice the barbaric methods and rude life of their roaming tribes. There is a certain wild instinct which it seems almost impossible to eradicate. A few native Singhalese have availed themselves of the opportunities freely extended to them, and have risen to position and influence both with their own race and the European population. There are also descendants of English fathers and native mothers, who, after enjoying special advantages, have developed into intelligent manhood, and who form a recognized element of the community. A native Singhalese is, or was very lately, judge of the supreme court of Ceylon, while the offices of attorney-general and government solicitor were, and we believe still are, filled by natives. Others of the same race are respected as county judges, magistrates, and leading barristers. So far as current history can be relied upon, we find that Ceylon was, from five hundred years and more before the Christian era up to the time of its annexation to Great Britain, the almost constant victim of foreign and civil wars. Indeed, this seems to have been the chronic condition of the world at that period. The Portuguese first and the Dutch afterward took possession of the island, the latter being finally expelled by the English, who promptly fortified and have held it ever since. The rapacity, bigotry, and cruelty which characterized the rule of the Portuguese in Ceylon forms one of the darkest pages in the history of European colonization. An eminent writer upon the period says very tersely and truly that these people first appeared in the Indian Ocean in the threefold character of merchants, missionaries, and pirates, more fully illustrating the last named than the other two occupations. No other nation save Spain has written its autobiography in such glaring letters of blood. When Ceylon was first acquired by the English, it was placed in the hands of the East India Company, being so intimately connected with India proper, of which that organization held control. In 1798, however, it became a possession of the English crown, and was confirmed to Great Britain by the Treaty of Amiens. The dominion of the Portuguese and the Dutch lasted for nearly the same length of time, each holding the island for about one hundred and forty years, both periods being characterized by innumerable conflicts with the natives and with foreign invaders. The Portuguese, and especially the Dutch, left lasting memorials of their occupancy in the form of fortifications, churches, stone dwellings, and the like, which were so well built as to be still serviceable. The rich pearl fisheries, and the native product of choice, much coveted gems, were constant allurements for the possession of the "resplendent island," causing the surrounding powers to regard it as a vast treasure house, upon whose possessors they cast envious eyes. On taking the island, as already intimated, England adopted prompt and efficient measures to fortify her possession in such a manner that no one has since cared to dispute her claim. In such matters the English have always pursued an omnivorous policy. No spot of land seems too small or too insignificant to tempt their cupidity, and none too large for their capacious maw,--India, for example. As in the instance of Malta, also under British rule for so many years, Ceylon has thriven and prospered wonderfully, that is to say in a commercial point of view, which after all is the conventional test. Would that the same commendation might apply to the moral and educational condition of the Singhalese! However, where peace and plenty, together with seeming content, prevail, let us not seek for hidden troubles. The island is to-day indisputably a most flourishing agricultural colony, self-supporting, except as regards the military establishment maintained by the home government, which expense is not justly chargeable to Ceylon, whose peaceable inhabitants require no military force to keep them in subjection. The simplest police organization accomplishes this, though in former times, under insufferable tyranny of petty princes and foreign invaders, the Singhalese proved that they could fight for, and hold their own against considerable odds. Unless outrageously oppressed, they are of too peaceable a nature to arouse themselves to open rebellion. A simple glance at the situation shows great progress throughout the island since it came into the possession of Great Britain. Barbarous habits and institutions have been gradually reformed; taxes which were formerly exhaustive have been greatly modified, and in many instances entirely removed; from a condition of slavery, the masses have been made free, now enjoying entire personal liberty; the districts of the interior, heretofore inaccessible, have been open to easy and safe travel; compulsory labor has been abolished; education has been brought within the reach of all; large sections of territory have been drained, and brought from an unhealthy condition to one of comparative salubrity; mild and just laws are in operation; civil wars and foreign invasions have ceased, and a peaceful condition of every-day life is established. Such are some of the great improvements which have accrued under English rule. This statement is made as a simple matter of fact, not as an argument that England has a legitimate right on the island, any more than she has in India. But the prosperity of the Singhalese is no less a fact, and very pleasant to record. The population of the island has more than doubled under the present dynasty, while its marketable products have quadrupled. A few pertinent facts occur to us in this connection which must surely interest the general reader. There are now about three hundred miles of railway in operation on the island, and nearly as many more projected. To supplement this means of transportation there are a hundred and seventy-five miles of organized canal service, a legacy inherited from the Dutch. There are two hundred and fifty post-offices, besides forty telegraphic stations, in connection with which are sixteen hundred miles of telegraphic wire in position. In this march of progress the interests of education have not been entirely forgotten, and upon the whole, the Singhalese have very little to complain of as regards the government under which they live. Fate, however, has decreed that this people, as a nationality, shall gradually pass away and be forgotten, like other aboriginal races. The Alaska Indians are not more surely dying out than are these Singhalese. The most sensitive matter with them and with nearly all orientals is touching the sacredness of their religious rites. With these the English government never interferes, neither here nor in India proper. As we have shown, the orientals are a peaceable race, and will submit to a considerable degree of arbitrary rule touching their political relations, but the moment their religious convictions and ceremonies are interfered with, they become frenzied. It will be remembered that the great Indian mutiny, which occurred in 1857, was at first incited in the ranks of the natives at Cawnpore and elsewhere by what was thought to be an intentional insult to their religious convictions. The English, soon after establishing themselves in Ceylon, tried the experiment of forming a battalion of infantry, composed of the natives. When being trained to service, it was nearly impossible, we are told, to teach them not to fire away their ramrods as the real missiles of destruction. There is a certain effeminacy inherent in all rice-eating nations, and yet what did not the former people of this island achieve in the building of great cities, grand palaces, and temples of stone? It would almost seem as though the Singhalese of the present day could not belong to the same race as the people who built Anuradhapura before Christ was born. Many of the prominent Christian sects have churches and missionary establishments in the island. It has long been a popular missionary field with several denominations, more particularly in the northern part. The most numerous is that of the Roman Catholic Church, whose leaders began their system of proselyting the natives as far back as the first establishment of the Portuguese in Ceylon. The faith which they presented addressed itself with all its theatrical effect to the fancy of the ignorant Singhalese, especially as the cunning priests took good care to mingle certain local Buddhistical ceremonies with those which they introduced. There are shrines and temples in Ceylon, in what are called Roman Catholic districts, where the images of Buddha and the Virgin Mary both hold honored places. Is the worship of one any more idolatrous than of the other? It has been well said that the idol is the measure of the worshiper. People who never thought for themselves were thus attracted. They formed a class whose very ignorance made them easy converts. Had they been able or inclined to reason upon the subject, it would not have been permitted. They had to swallow the creed as a whole, at a single gulp, being approached with the sword in one hand and the cross in the other. Absolutism in faith is synonymous with ignorance. The right of inquiry is the privilege of every human being, though it is denounced as heretical by the Romish Church. Only falsehood fears investigation; only chicanery dreads the light. The hateful Inquisition tried to carry on its bloodthirsty practices here under Portuguese rule, but was summarily driven out of Ceylon by the Dutch, with its vile nunneries and its instruments of torture. So the French, during their brief possession of the island of Malta, expelled a similar Jesuitical crew from Valetta, not, however, before they had recorded their diabolical deeds in letters of blood, now burning a "heretic," and now mangling an intractable convert. CHAPTER V. Food of the People.--Rice Cultivation.--Vast Artificial Lakes.--The Stone Tanks of Aden.--Parched Australia.--Coffee Culture.--Severe Reverses among Planters.--Tea Culture.--Cinchona Plantations.--Heavy Exportation of Tea.--Cacao Culture.--A Coffee Plantation described.--Domesticated Snakes.--The Cinnamon-Tree.--Cinnamon Gardens a Disappointment.--Picturesque Dwelling's.--Forest Lands.--The Ceylon Jungle.--Native Cabinet Woods.--Night in a Tropical Forest.--Rhododendrons. The principal food of a nation is a most important factor, not only in judging of its means of support, but also as regards the mental and physical character of the people themselves. Rice has been the staple product and support of Ceylon, as it has been of the population of India and China, from time immemorial. There are to-day some eight hundred thousand acres of land devoted to the raising of this cereal upon the island; there should be twice that area devoted to the purpose, to meet the imperative wants of the present population. The unsuitability of the climate for ripening wheat is more than compensated for by its prodigal yield of rice, producing two crops annually, where water can be freely obtained. This grain is proven by scientific experiment to contain more of the several essential elements for support of the human body than any other which is grown. As is well known, in cultivating rice, it requires to be flooded, started in fact under water, after being first planted, and also to be more than once submerged during its growth and ripening. To facilitate the production of this nutritious grain, the great tanks already referred to were originally built, in which to preserve, for periodical use, the water which flows freely enough from the mountain region during the rainy season, but when the dry period sets in, the rivers become thread-like streams, fed only by a few inconsiderable springs which exist in the hills. The oldest of these immense reservoirs is believed to date back some centuries before Christ's appearance upon earth, evincing by their construction a degree of organized thrift and effective energy hardly equaled in our time. The tanks not only saved the precious water from running to waste, but, being tapped at suitable intervals, conducted it by sluiceways and canals, distributing it to those localities where it was needed, and at the exact time when it was wanted. The chief article of native consumption should also be one of export from a country so admirably adapted to its production. This is not now the case; indeed, it is and has long been one of the principal imports from India and elsewhere. It is estimated that every native adult who can get it consumes a bushel of rice each month in the year. To the Singhalese rice is what wheat is to the average American, namely, the staff of life. To promote its cultivation, the English government should repair the neglected tanks, great and small. There is evidence sufficient to prove that Ceylon raised all she required of this staple for home consumption when her agricultural masses could get the necessary water. In some localities where the rain is plentiful, the rice planter is dependent upon the natural supply; but in most parts of the island its cultivation is not even attempted unless a certain artificial supply of water is first secured by means of canals and reservoirs, it being quite as necessary as the very seed itself. There is one great advantage which the planters enjoy in Ceylon over most other regions; that is, the abundance and cheapness of free labor obtainable at any season of the year. Coolies by the thousand are always ready to come hither from southern India at the harvest time. As many come regularly as can get employment. When the island was at the height of its prosperity, there were in its various parts at least thirty tanks of enormous proportions, and about seven hundred of all sizes. In the nineteenth century, we attain the object of water preserves by building structures of granite, like the Croton and Cochituate reservoirs of New York and Boston, not nearly so large nor any more efficient than these of the time referred to. But to do this we have all the appliances of powerful machinery and labor-saving methods, while these Herculean results in Ceylon were achieved by human hands alone. One system is the consummation of a high state of civilization, and of well-paid skillful industry; the other, like the enduring pyramids, was the outcome of a barbaric period, and of forced manual labor. While examining one of the vast embankments, built, like all others, partly of stone but mainly of earth, to securely hold the artificial lake, the author was accompanied by an intelligent native, who was a local official of the government. It was natural to remark upon the achievement of so great a work by primitive means. "Yes," said he, "every bushel of earth which forms this broad embankment, extending for miles, was brought by the single basketful from yonder mountain upon the heads of men and women." The remains of one of these capacious tanks which stimulated industry and insured abundant crops in Ceylon so long ago is to be seen at Kalawewa, near Dambula, already spoken of, and is known to have been built fourteen centuries since. It was originally some forty miles in circumference, covering seven square miles, with a depth of twenty feet of water, and having an embankment of stone twelve miles long laid in solid tiers, with the large blocks ingeniously secured together. These tanks are found in a more or less ruinous condition all over the island, but especially at the north, where they were more required than in the southern portion. The conserving of water in large quantities for agricultural and other necessary purposes was naturally one of the earliest developed ideas of civilized people. Aden, the important peninsula commanding the entrance of the Red Sea, now held and fortified by England, is situated in a rainless zone, so that the inhabitants see no fall of that invaluable element sometimes for two years together, though when it does visit them it comes in floods. The dependence here for the needed supply in the dry season is upon enormous tanks hewn out of the solid rocks with infinite labor, and connected with each other by a well-devised system. These tanks, being cut in the solid rock, as we have said, are virtually indestructible, and form the means of supply for the inhabitants to-day, as they did thousands of years ago. The great antiquity of the Aden water reservoirs renders them intensely interesting, since they are believed to be as old as the most ancient monuments in existence raised by the hand of man,--not excepting those of Egypt. In entering the harbor of Aden, one passes through the dangerous Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, so called by the Arabs, and signifying the "Gate of Tears," because it has proved so fatal to human life and to commerce. The author well remembers, when passing this famous point, seeing the tall masts of a big European steamship still standing above the water of the strait. A few days previously, the vessel had been swept by the treacherous currents upon some of the many sunken rocks, and had instantly gone to the bottom with all her crew on board. The water preserves of Ceylon are of all sizes, from widespread lakes to mere ponds, designed to irrigate circumscribed districts. There was a time when each town and village, at least all that lay to the north of the mountain range which divides the island, had its reservoir. The first one spoken of in this chapter was built by King Penduwasa, and was restored by the English so late as 1867. It covers an area of over three thousand acres, and is of inestimable value to the agricultural interests of the district. It seems that as Egyptian monarchs were wont to build pyramids to mark the glory of their several dynasties, so the Kandian kings and earlier rulers of Ceylon each sought to excel his predecessor by constructing larger tanks, thus elaborating the means of irrigation and increasing the productiveness of the island. Sixteen of these useful reservoirs are credited to one of the latest kings of Kandy. Could this grand and effective principle of irrigation be applied to the plains of Australia, what a blessing it might prove. The oft-recurring periods of drought, extending from Brisbane in the north to Adelaide in the south, are now a fatal blight to agricultural enterprise. The Murray River, which at certain seasons of the year is navigable for nearly or quite one thousand miles, now runs to waste, becoming a mere brook half the year; and sheep and cattle sometimes die of thirst by thousands, so that many wealthy Englishmen engaged in sheep-raising have been made paupers in a single season. It only needs the construction of a series of water-saving tanks upon the course of the Murray to successfully water millions of acres of naturally fertile soil, and to insure the country against anything like a water famine when the dry season sets in. Why the people who are in authority ignore such simple facts is a standing marvel. We have said that rice was the staple product of the island, and it is still so; but it was not long ago that Ceylon was also famous for the amount of excellent coffee which it produced and exported. For a while, it seemed destined to rival all the rest of the world in this important article. Its cultivation was begun here upon a large scale in 1825, in the vicinity of Peradenia, where the soil and climate proved to be so favorable that speculators came hither in large numbers from great distances, but especially from England, to establish plantations, though the coffee-tree is not indigenous to Ceylon. Thousands of acres of forest and dense jungle were cleared and burned over in the neighborhood of Kandy alone, at great expense and labor, to prepare the ground for coffee planting. There was at one time so much speculative energy evinced in this direction that nearly every local government official was more or less engaged in it, embarking therein all the money which he possessed or which he could borrow. Well-engineered roads were opened into new and available districts, while numerous substantial bridges were erected over previously impassable streams, and thriving villages sprang up as if by magic amid what was formerly wild and inaccessible jungle. In the course of twenty years, the product had risen to so large an aggregate figure as to astonish the commercial world, and the price of the berry was consequently reduced in all the markets of Europe. Such good fortune, it was finally discovered, was not destined to fall unalloyed to the share of the Ceylon planters. Some sacrifice must attend upon all such enterprises. In clearing the forest lands for coffee planting, a most reckless waste was practiced in Ceylon. Magnificent groves of valuable wood were cut down and ruthlessly burned to ashes, among which were many of the precious cabinet woods so highly prized all over the world. Among others were some grand banian-trees, as we were told, which had a hundred great stems and a thousand lesser ones. There are not many such trees as these to be found in the known world. It is but a few years since that a nearly simultaneous blight attacked most of the coffee plantations on the island, coming in the form of a strange fungus, which choked the breathing pores of the leaves, and thus rapidly exhausted the trees. The Ceylon planters were struck with consternation for a period; years of uninterrupted good crops had filled them with confidence, so they had annually, by liberal expenditure, cleared more ground, spreading out their plantations in all directions. Large sums of money were sent out from England by individuals desirous to enter into so promising a speculation, and the aggregate sum said to have been expended in this purpose is almost incredible. But the blight proved to be of the most serious character, and was so wholesale as to literally impoverish many previously rich agriculturists who had embarked their all in the business. The island is very rich in fungi, and this one which had so effectually blighted the coffee plants was quite new to science. That which was for a time so serious a pecuniary loss to this island proved to be of great commercial advantage to Java and Brazil, whose production in the same line was vastly stimulated thereby, while the coffee which they sent to market realized more remunerative prices than when brought in competition with that of Ceylon. Since this experience, a large number of the planters have gradually turned their attention to raising tea, together with the production of quinine from the cinchona-tree, and so far as could be learned, they have met with good pecuniary success. An intelligent resident of Colombo estimates that there are fifty thousand acres of the last-named tree under profitable cultivation at the present time. It is found that cinchona will thrive in the mountain districts, considerably above the height at which coffee ceases to be advantageously cultivated, while, unlike tea or coffee, it requires no special care after it has been once fairly started. The production of quinine, which has now reached mammoth proportions, hardly keeps pace with the growing consumption of the drug by the world at large. There was over one million dollars' worth of cinchona bark exported in 1892 from Colombo. The export of tea in 1890 rose to the considerable amount of forty-seven million pounds, which aggregate we have evidence to show has been since increased annually. The commercial importance of Ceylon may be said to rest at the present time mainly upon the raising of tea. The yield per acre is considerably larger than it is in India, while the access to market is much better than it is at Assam or Cachar. The Ceylon product is shipped in its natural condition, that is to say, it is pure, while that of China and Japan is systematically adulterated and artificially colored. There are about two thousand plantations upon the island occupied for tea raising, averaging two hundred acres each of rolling upland, and it is confidently believed here that China and India will eventually be distanced by Ceylon in the matter of supplying the markets of the world with tea. While coffee cannot be cultivated successfully much higher than four thousand feet above sea level in this island, tea thrives at almost any height in this latitude, as it does in northern India, round about Darjeeling. The only fear seems now to be that of over-production. The last year's crop was estimated to slightly exceed eighty million pounds, and its quality was so satisfactory as to command good prices and a quick market. There are several special advantages which tea culture possesses over that of coffee; one is the ease with which the tea planter can get rid of any pest which attacks his trees. The coffee plant gives, as a rule, but one crop annually, the blossom season being narrowed to four or five weeks, and if that fails because of bugs or disease of any sort, the year's labor is in vain. In the cultivation of tea, there is the chance of plucking leaves nearly every month of the year. If an emergency arises, the planter has only to clear his bushes of every leaf and, gathering the same, burn them. The insects are thus totally destroyed, while the bushes are sure to produce a new covering of verdure in a few weeks. There are to-day nearly three hundred thousand acres devoted to tea culture in Ceylon. The planters have been giving attention of late years to the raising of cacao, the chocolate plant, and some large plantations have proved to be very profitable, the demand being considerably beyond the present supply. The article produced here stands as the best in the London market, and commands the highest price. Over twenty thousand hundredweight were exported from Colombo in 1892. That of the year just past, we were assured, would show a considerable increase over this amount. Let it not be understood that coffee is no longer raised on the island. The fact is that the blight spoken of seems to have in a considerable degree exhausted itself, and many coffee planters are again rejoicing over paying crops, as abundantly proven by the amount of the berry which is still exported. It may be almost doubted if there is any such thing as unmitigated evil; the brief though serious blight of the coffee plant in Ceylon has proved to be a blessing in disguise. Finite judgment is often delusive. Joseph's brethren, who sold him into slavery, meant it unto evil, but God meant it unto good. The equity of Providence has framed a never-failing law of compensation, though we may not always possess sufficient intelligence to see its application. A coffee plantation is a charming sight at each stage of the ripening process. Its dark green polished leaves are beautiful examples of tropical foliage, and the white blossoms look like snowflakes gathered in clusters about the tips of the branches, emitting a perfume not so pronounced as, and yet not unlike, that of the tuberose. These odorous flowers are short-lived and drop to the ground almost as quickly as they come, being followed in due course by large crimson berries, quite as ornamental as the flowers and nearly as large as the common New England cherry. Within the pulp the double seeds are ripened which form the coffee berry of commerce. The view of a thrifty plantation at sunrise, when each spray is dripping with refreshing dew and every little branch is diamond-capped, is lovely beyond expression. A surprise awaited us on one occasion while visiting a coffee plantation near Kandy. Seeing a snake over four feet in length moving along unmolested on the path in front of the bungalow which was occupied by the planter's family, it was quite impossible to suppress an exclamation. Our host smiled pleasantly as he explained that the creature was not only tolerated about the house, but that it was a pet! It seems that these reptiles are often kept to kill and drive away the coffee-rats, as they are called, a certain species of rodents which are often alarmingly abundant on these estates, and terribly destructive to the growing crops. They are twice the size of an ordinary rat, such as is common with us. They feed upon birds, blossoms, and ripe berries of the coffee to an unlimited extent, if not interfered with. The snake is their natural enemy, and is more destructive among them than a well-trained domestic cat would be. In fact, these rats would be more than a match for an ordinary cat. So the fer-de-lance is a great rat destroyer among the sugar plantations of Martinique, a snake which is as poisonous as the cobra of Ceylon. Does the reader remember that it was one of this species of West Indian serpents which bit Josephine, the future empress of France, when she was a mere child in her island home, and that her faithful negro nurse saved the child's life by instantly drawing the poison from the wound with her own lips? At Pará, in Brazil, the author has seen young anacondas six and eight feet long also kept upon the plantations as rat catchers. Any of these serpents make very little of swallowing a rat which they have themselves caught, but they promptly refuse such as have been killed by a trap or other means. The Ceylon cobra cannot cope with the mongoose, whose safety in a conflict with this reptile lies in its extraordinary activity. The mongoose avoids the dash of the cobra and pins it by the back of the neck, persistently maintaining its hold there, in spite of the creature's contortions, until it succeeds in gnawing through and severing the spine. In Ceylon, ladies sometimes make a pet of the mongoose, and when taken young and reared for this purpose, the soft little hairy creature becomes as affectionate and lap-loving as the most tiny dog, recognizing its mistress above all other persons, and following close upon her footsteps. It looks innocent enough, but the cobra instinctively dreads its presence, and with good reason, for the encounter nine times in ten costs the reptile its life. The natives say that when a continuous fight occurs between these creatures, if the snake succeeds in fixing its fangs in the body of the mongoose, the latter instantly retires and eats of some plant as a preventive to the operation of the poison, and presently returns to renew the conflict until it finally conquers. Though this is a universally believed statement among the common people, we do not give it the least credit. One other important and staple product of the island should not be forgotten. The cinnamon-tree is indigenous, and is largely cultivated for the valuable bark which it yields. It is estimated that over twenty thousand acres are systematically improved in the raising of cinnamon-trees, a very ancient as well as profitable industry in Ceylon, and one which was held as a monopoly by the Dutch government for a century and more. The monopoly was also maintained by the English, after they assumed control here, but this most unwarrantable embargo has long since been abolished, and it is no longer a restricted article. The tree is grown from the seed, begins to yield at about its eighth year, and continues to do so for a century or more. It does not require a rich soil, but thrives best in a low, sandy plain. A soil in which scarcely anything else will grow except chance weeds seems quite the thing for cinnamon, which, like the cocoanut palm, thrives best near the salt water. In its natural state, it grows to a height of thirty feet; under cultivation, it is pruned down so as to remain at about ten feet or less. It is of the laurel family, but is as hardy as the long-lived olive-tree. The author has seen in southern Spain, near Malaga, orchards of the latter in which were many trees which it was declared were several centuries old, their gnarled and scraggy appearance certainly favoring the statement. The cinnamon gardens, as they are called, are generally musical with the cooing of turtle-doves, whose plump condition is owing to free living upon the nutritious purple berries of the spice-producing tree. The birds are not interfered with, as the berries have no commercial value, and it should be remembered that the natives do not kill birds or animals for food. Sometimes English sportsmen go into the plantations and get a bag of this palatable game, though it seems cruel to shoot such, delicate and pretty creatures. Dove-pie, however,--this between ourselves,--is by no means to be despised, especially where, as in Ceylon, beef and mutton of a good quality are so rare. On the occasion of the author's first visit to Colombo, the Cinnamon Gardens in the immediate suburbs were much lauded, and they were in fact one of the first attractions to which strangers were introduced. There was a pleasant promise in the very name, and we had anticipated something not only beautiful to behold, but which would prove grateful to all the senses. Disappointment was inevitable. Finally, when we reached the grounds, it seemed hardly possible that the broad area of low, scrubby jungle and thick undergrowth which bore this attractive name could really be the Cinnamon Gardens of which so much poetical fiction has been written. It seems rather an anomaly, but the fact is, clove oil is not produced by the pungent spice whose name it bears, but is extracted from the refuse of the cinnamon bark. The "gardens" referred to were misnamed. There was no garden about them. It was simply a plantation of thick-growing shrubbery, apparently much neglected. The spacious area is now improved by picturesque European residences, spacious domestic flower plants, and croquet grounds, carpeted with velvety grass. Flourishing fruit trees and nodding palms render the place attractive at this writing. While strolling or driving through a cinnamon plantation,--and there are plenty of them all over the island, especially in the south,--one seeks in vain to detect the perfume derived from the spice so well known. It is not the bloom nor the berry which creates this scent, but when the bark is being gathered at the semi-annual harvest, the aroma is distinct enough. The spice of commerce is the ground inner bark of the tree, the branches of which are cut, peeled, and dried in the sun. The harvests occur about Christmas and again in midsummer. By trimming the smaller branches the productiveness of the main portion is improved, and the pungency of the bark is increased. Cinnamon was the cassia of the Jews and ancients. Probably Solomon's ships brought the much-prized spice from this island. The consumers generally did not know from whence it came, that was a royal secret, and much mystery hung about the matter, while the cost was at that period so high as to make it an exclusive article,--that is to say, it was only to be afforded by the rich. The uncleared woodland of the island is very extensive. The forests must have been of much smaller area when the population was quadruple its present aggregate, particularly in the north, where the extensive ruins show how vast in numbers the population must have been. It is estimated by good authority that there are two and a half million acres of wild, thickly wooded country, which contain all the varieties of trees peculiar to the equatorial regions. It is difficult to overestimate the grandeur of the primeval forest of Ceylon, with its solemn arches and avenues of evergreen, its majestic palms, and tall tree-ferns shading silver lakelets. Every pond, large or small, is sure to be the resort of tall wading-birds and waterfowls. Presently we come upon a spot where the earth is flecked with golden sunlight, shifting and evanescent, sifted, as it were, through the gently vibrating leaves, softly gilding the sombre drapery of the forest. There is nothing monotonous in a tropical wood; individual outlines and coloring are in endless variety. The contrasts presented in a circumscribed space are infinite, while a never-fading bloom overspreads the whole. Now and again the eye takes in a ravishingly beautiful effect through the deep-blue vistas stretching away into mysterious depths. Pressing forward, we come upon a wilderness of splendid trees, running up seventy or eighty feet towards the sky without a branch, then spreading out into a glorious canopy of green. Would that we could fully impress the reader with the unflagging charm of an equatorial forest. "You will find something far greater in the woods than you will find in books," said St. Bernard. Professor Agassiz recorded the names of three hundred varieties of trees growing in the area of one square mile in a Brazilian forest. The same abundance and variety exist in Ceylon. The beauty and value of the native woods of this island cannot fail promptly to attract the notice and admiration of the stranger. The calamander, ebony, and satinwood trees, familiar to us as choice cabinet woods, are conspicuous and ornamental, besides which there are in these forests many other valuable species. Externally, the ebony-tree appears as though its trunk had been charred. Beneath the bark, the wood is white as far as the heart, which is so black as to have passed into a synonym. It is this inner portion which forms the wood of commerce. The sura or tulip-tree produces a material of extraordinary firmness of texture, reddish-brown in color. It bears a yellow blossom similar in form to the tulip; hence its name. It is known in botany as _Hibiscus populneus_, so called because it has the leaf of the poplar and the flower of the hibiscus. The tamarind, most majestic and beautiful, yields a red wood curiously mottled with black spots, and when polished gives a glass-like surface, but it is too valuable as a fruit-bearer to be freely used for manufacturing purposes or for timber in building. The halmalille-tree gives the most durable and useful substance next to the palm, and is specially adapted to the manufacture of staves for casks; indeed, it is the only wood known on the island which is considered suitable for this purpose. Cooperage is an important industry and a growing one here, as many thousands of casks are required annually in which to export cocoanut oil, not to reckon those employed for storing and transporting that most fiery liquor, Ceylon arrack. Considerable quantities of this intoxicant find their way northward to the continent of India. The famous buoyant Madras surf-boats are built of this halmalille wood, in the construction of which no nails are used. The several parts are secured by stout leather thongs, the wood being literally sewed together with that article and with cocoanut fibre, wrought into stout, durable cordage. So great and peculiar is the incessant strain upon these small craft employed in an open roadstead that nails will not hold in such light constructions. A certain flexibility is required, which is best obtained in the manner described. One tree is particularly remembered as we write these lines, a cotton-bearer, though the article it produces is only floss-like, and too short in texture for spinning purposes. It is, however, very generally used for stuffing sofas and chair cushions. This tree is deciduous; the leaves do not appear until after the crimson blossoms have quite covered the branches, producing a very peculiar and pretty effect. When the blossoms fall, the neighboring grounds are carpeted in varied scarlet figures, giving a novel and lovely covering, surpassing the finest product of the looms. After the blossoms are gone, the bright green leaves burst quickly forth in prodigal abundance. If one chances to be amid these shadows of the forest after nightfall, the scene is totally changed as well as the prevailing sounds that greet the ear. It is then that one hears the short, sharp bark of the jackals, the weird howl of migrating families of flying-foxes, the ceaseless hooting of several species of owls,--one of which is known as the devil-bird because of its uncanny scream,--the croaking of tree-toads and mammoth crickets, mingled with the frequent, distressful cry of some other night bird whose name is unknown,--it is heard but not seen. Through the vistas of the trees flashes of soft light as if from a small torch catch the eye; if it is low and marshy these are like moving balls of fire, doubtless caused by some electric combinations. The dance of the fireflies amid the thick undergrowth is confusing as well as fascinating. One seems to be in fairyland, and looks about for the figure of a sylphid floating upon a gossamer cloud, or a group of fairy revelers tripping upon the blossom-covered ground. Is it all reality, we ask ourselves, or a dream from which we shall presently awake? The large, brilliant flower of the rhododendron is familiar to New Englanders as growing upon a bush eight or ten feet high. It is annually made quite a feature when in bloom in the Boston Public Garden, but in Ceylon it is much more ambitious, forming forests by itself, and growing to the proportions of a large tree, averaging from forty to fifty feet in height. In the vicinity of Adam's Peak this tree abounds, covering the abrupt sides of that famous elevation almost to its rocky summit, where it is crowned by the small, iron-chained Buddhist temple, thus fastened to secure it against the fierce winds that sometimes sweep these heights. The prevailing color of the flowers is scarlet, but there are variations showing lovely shades of pink and cream colors. Those which grow at the greatest altitude seem to differ somewhat from the others, and are said to be peculiar to Ceylon, being sixty feet in height, with trunks nearly two feet in diameter. This is but one among many of the tall flowering trees upon the island. The reader can easily imagine the beautiful effect of a broad mountain side covered with gorgeous rhododendron-trees in full bloom, so abundant that the very atmosphere seems to be scarlet with the strong reflection of the flowers. Like the superb sunset of the north, accompanied by the orange, scarlet, and fiery red of the twilight glow, were this mountain of rhododendrons to be literally reproduced by the painter's art, we should think it an exaggeration. In the opening month of the year, this regal flower is in full bloom on Adam's Peak, and so continues until July, when it takes its winter's sleep. The green leaves of the species growing high up the mountain are silver-lined, while those lower down are brown on the under side. The former have also stouter stems, and are more stocky in all respects. The latter, to a casual observer, are more delicate in form and more beautiful in color. CHAPTER VI. Arboreal King of the Forest.--The Palm Family.--Over-Generous Nature and her Liberal Provisions.--Product of the Cocoanut-Tree.--The Wide-Spreading Banian.--Excellent Public Roads.--Aquatic Birds and Plants.--Native Fruit Trees.--The Mangosteen.--Spice-Bearing Trees.--Treatment of Women.--Singhalese Rural Life.--Physical Character of Tamil Men.--Tree Climbing.--Native Children.--Numerical Relation of the Sexes.--Caste as respected in Ceylon.--Tattooing the Human Body. Of all vegetable nature, so abundant, prolific, and beautiful in this equatorial region, one most delights in the characteristic and ever-present palm,--arboreal king of the forest. Ceylon has seven very important varieties native to its soil, which are found in great abundance especially upon the southern coast of the island. These are the cocoanut, the palmyra, the kittool, the areca, the date, the talipot, and the fan palm. The latter member of this family, seen in greatest perfection at Singapore, is a conspicuous ornament which greets the stranger immediately upon landing, and its peculiar shape is almost constantly to be met with, go where one may upon that interesting island. It springs up from the earth with a comparatively short stem before the branches begin, unlike most other palms, presenting an appearance of an expanded fan, as though it were artificially trained to grow in this particular shape. It reaches a height of forty feet or more, and forms a distinctive feature of the scenery. Its roots, like those of the asparagus plant, are small and innumerable, seeking sustenance by means of these tentacles which expand irregularly in all directions. The fan palm is to be seen in California, but it is of inferior growth, and is not indigenous there. At the north of Ceylon, the palmyra palm prevails, while the south and southwest coast are literally lined with large and thrifty groves of cocoanut palms, the value of whose products is immense. The care and rendering of these gives employment and support to whole villages of natives. Unlike the date, the cocoanut palm bears male and female buds on the same branches. The last-named tree thrives best, and bears most fruit, when growing near the salt water, a peculiarity which does not apply specially to other members of this family. It is a fact worthy of mention that the cocoanut palm, like the camel, is always found associated with man. There are no wild camels, and the cocoanut-tree does not flourish in the wilderness. It is most at home when its tall, smooth gray stem inclines gracefully, heavy with fruit, over some native, rudely thatched cabin, a picture which is constantly repeating itself in the southern part of Ceylon. On first approaching the island, it is seen that the shore is palm-fringed from Dondra Head to Colombo, and even far north of the latter place. The picturesque cocoanut groves come down close to the sea, from which they are separated only by a golden belt of yellow sand, over which the trees incline gracefully, with their broad, plume-like foliage half hiding the ripening clusters of russet-clad fruit hanging fifty or sixty feet skyward. The salt spray of the Indian Ocean impregnates the atmosphere when the monsoons blow, stimulating the palms to unwonted vigor and fruitfulness. So uniform is their growth along the level shore that the tall white trunks with their feathery crowns seem to stand in closed ranks like a line of soldiers at "parade rest." The reason of the extensive geographical distribution of the cocoanut palm is doubtless from its growing in such close proximity to the sea. The ripe nut falls upon the shore and is floated by tide and wind to other islands and coral reefs, where in due course it propagates itself and in turn begets other seeds which seek new lands in a similar manner and there plant themselves. The small islets of the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific have thus become heavily wooded from chance beginnings, though it has required many ages to bring about the present conditions. The cocoanut palm is to the natives of Ceylon what the date palm is to the Arabs of the desert. Its regular cultivation is one of the recognized industries. The nuts designed for planting are selected from the best which are produced, and are kept upon the tree until they are thoroughly ripe, when they are placed in a nursery, partially covered with earth, and exposed to the sun. There they remain until a sprout shoots up from the eye of the nut, and when this reaches the height of nearly three feet, it also shows long, irregular roots hanging from the base. It is then planted in the ground at a depth of about two feet. The young tree grows very slowly for six or seven years, increasing more in stoutness than in height. Presently it starts afresh to grow tall quite rapidly, and by the eighth or ninth year it begins to bear fruit. Though the cultivation of this tree is so important, and ultimately so profitable, in equatorial regions that one would not think of its being neglected, still, owing to the length of time required to bring it to the fruit-bearing condition, the ever lazy natives do not expend much effort in the business. The long period between the seed and the product discourages them. Nature, however, steps in and fills the gap by the chance planting of many trees annually, and when these reach a certain growth suitable for removal, they are transplanted into advantageous situations. The new palms which are thus added yearly much more than keep good their numbers, as they are hardy and long-lived trees. Thus it is that Nature is over-generous, and makes liberal provisions for her children in all instances. The camel has a foot especially designed for traveling upon the desert sands. Birds of prey possess talons suitable for seizing, and powerful beaks formed for severing their natural food. The tiniest plant shows exquisite adaptation to the climate where it is placed. Animals of the Arctic regions are covered with fur adequate to protect them from the freezing temperature in which they live. The most barbarous tribes are not forgotten. Wherever we find them, their food and necessities are sure to be discovered close at hand. Examples might be multiplied by the hundred. Ceylon alone offers us confirmation which is irrefutable, few spots on earth being better adapted to supply the natural wants of primitive man. A thoughtful person cannot fail to be impressed with the remarkable adaptation of the palm family to the requirements of the natives of this region. Take, for instance, the cocoanut-tree, and realize for a moment its bountiful, beneficent products. It affords never-failing water in an always thirsty clime. Nutritious and palatable cream is obtained from its luscious nut; toddy to refresh the weary traveler, or arrack when fermented, comes from the same source, besides a rich oil for various domestic uses. Thus we have five distinct products from the cocoanut-tree, while the wood of the trunk itself affords material for many uses. The oriental poet designates three hundred different purposes to which the palm and its fruit can be profitably applied. The green nut contains nearly a pint of cool, sweet water; cool in the hottest weather, if partaken of when it is first gathered from the tree. The inner rind of the ripe nut, when reduced to a pulp, yields under pressure a cup of delicious cream. The toddy is sap produced from the buds thus divested, instead of permitting them to ripen and form the final nut. When it is first drawn, this liquid is pleasant and refreshing, like the newly expressed juice of the grape, or still more like Mexican pulque, produced by the American aloe, which is the universal tipple of the people south of the Rio Grande. By fermentation of the liquids obtained from the buds of the palm and from the stout stalk of the aloe, it becomes like alcohol, and is decidedly intoxicating. Cocoanut oil, produced from the fully ripe and dried meat of the nut, is a great staple of export from Colombo and Point de Galle. Each cocoanut-tree produces on an average from fifty to a hundred full and perfect nuts, yielding about a score the first year of its coming into bearing. The cocoanut palm is the most common and most valuable of this family of trees, and next to it is the areca. The top of the former always bends gracefully towards the earth, affording the Eastern poets a synonym for humility, while the stem of the latter is quite remarkable for its perfectly upright form. Undoubtedly the cocoa palm does thrive best where it gets the influence of the sea breezes tinctured with the salt of the ocean, but it is a mistake to suppose that this tree does not thrive inland in Ceylon. Some of the finest specimens to be met with are in the central province of the island, between Kandy and Trincomalee. The talipot palm is very marked in its nature, and is specially interesting to naturalists; fine specimens are to be seen all over the island. Its most remarkable peculiarity is that it flourishes about forty or fifty years without flowering; then it seems to arrive at maturity, blooms in regal style, yields its abundant seed, and dies,--the only vegetable growth known which passes through such a uniformly prolonged process of ripening and decay, not forgetting the misnamed century plant. The flower of the talipot is a tall, pyramidal spike of pale yellow blossoms, standing twenty feet above its heavy dark-green foliage like a huge military pompon. It is pronounced by botanists to be the noblest and largest flower in the world, and this is certainly so if we consider the whole clustering bloom as being one flower. The leaves of the tree when full-grown are large and of a deep green, but when young they are a pale yellow, and are then dried and used for writing upon. Leaves of the talipot have been measured in Ceylon which have attained the length of twenty feet, and they are used by the natives for the erection of tents. The author has seen in Brazil leaves of what is known as the inaja palm fifty feet long and ten or twelve wide. The young leaves of the palmyra palm are also employed for manuscripts, or rather were until lately. They are prepared by steeping them in hot water or milk, after which they are dried and pressed between pieces of smooth wood. The ancient Mexicans before Pizarro's time used the leaves of the aloe for a similar purpose. The talipot palm is the queen of its tribe. The betelnut is the product of the areca palm, and resembles a nutmeg in shape and size. A couple of hundred generally form the annual yield of a single tree. Like the cocoanut or our American chestnut, the fruit grows inside of a husk, russet colored, and fibrous in its nature. Farther to the eastward, among the Straits Settlements, the areca palm is known as the Penang-tree because of its predominance in that well-wooded island, where human life exhibits only its most sensuous and lowest form, and where vegetation, fruits, and flowers revel in exuberance. The banian-tree with its aerial roots is indigenous to Ceylon, flourishing after its peculiar fashion in all parts of the island. At a point on the coast about half-way between Colombo and Galle, there is a grand specimen of this self-producing arboreal giant. The road passes directly through its extensive grove, beneath its dense and welcome shade, which here forms a sort of triumphal arch. The author has seen but one other example of the banian-tree so large and fine in effect; namely, that of world-wide fame in the Botanical Garden just outside of Calcutta, under the thick foliage and branches of which a whole regiment of infantry might comfortably encamp. The age of the banian is incalculable. It multiplies itself so that it may be said in one sense to live forever. Many centuries of age are claimed for this tree in the south of Ceylon. Speaking of the road between Colombo and Galle, too much praise cannot be bestowed upon these government thoroughfares. Whether on long or short routes, they are admirably and substantially constructed, consequently they are easy to keep in good order. The island has over three thousand miles of made roadways in an area of twenty-five thousand square miles. "The first and most potent means of extending civilization," says a modern pioneer, "is found in roads, the second in roads, the third again in roads." The best thoroughfares in the neighborhood of our New England cities are hardly equal to these. The Ceylon public roads would delight Colonel Pope, of bicycle fame; he who so eloquently and none too earnestly advocates the great importance of good common roads, especially in New England, where we are, when the truth is fairly spoken, sadly deficient in them. The new States of the West and Southwest far excel us in this respect. The road on which we have just embarked, aside from its excellence in point of usefulness (the railway from Colombo to Galle was not completed when the author traveled over the route), is one of ideal beauty, passing through a forest and shore region combined. This turnpike abounds in unique effects and a succession of charming surprises. One is never quite prepared for the natural tableaux which constantly present themselves. An experienced traveler in the low latitudes is apt to anticipate the probabilities when starting forth on a new tropical route, but one must behold in order to properly understand the nature of Ceylon forest scenery. The Colombo and Galle road forms an almost continuous avenue through overarching cocoanut palms, with frequent glimpses of the Indian Ocean on one side and of fresh-water ponds and small lakes on the other, the latter all alive with aquatic birds, such as water-pheasants, plovers, teal, sandlarks, and the like. The "painted snipe," as it is called, is very common, having a chocolate-colored head and a white collar, with back and wings of green, the tail feathers being spotted with yellow like a butterfly's wings. It is a very active bird and is never quiet for a single moment, constantly teetering when upon its feet while seeking for red worms in the sand. A very similar bird is often seen on the salt-water beaches of New England, which resembles this Ceylon example in shape, size, and habits, but not in the texture of its feathers. The American bird also called snipe is of a uniform pale lavender color. It is shy enough on our coast, but its tropical brother is as tame as a pigeon. These places are teeming with blossoms,--pink lilies, bearing broad, floating, heart-shaped leaves whose roots are securely anchored to the bottom. Some of the plants resting so serenely on the glass-like surface have short, delicate white roots, and receive their nutriment only from the air and water, not coming in contact with the earth at all. Others, with insect-inviting petals, close promptly upon the victims allured to their embrace and digest them at leisure, thriving marvelously upon this animal nourishment. Any agency which tends to diminish the myriads of flies and mosquitoes is an assured blessing. When a native hut is seen, it is found scarcely to equal the ant-hills in neatness and solidity of construction. Close by the cabin the always interesting bread-fruit-tree rears its tall head, abounding in its large pale green product, which forms a never-failing natural food supply. It is a notable member of the fruit-bearing trees of these latitudes, and is next in importance to the cocoa palm, with its serrated, feathery leaves, and its melon-shaped product. The bread-fruit weighs on an average ten pounds each, and often attains double that weight. It is as fattening to cattle as the best Indian meal, and the natives relish it, but to a European the bread-fruit is not palatable. The tree grows about fifty feet in height, and requires but very little attention to insure its welfare. Plenty of bananas, the big jack fruit, mangoes, and plantains give altogether the appearance of an abundance for the support of life. As regards the valuable and, to the native, indispensable jack-tree, it is strongly individualized, not only because it yields the largest of all edible fruit, but also in the fact that the massive product grows out of the body of the tree, and not, after the fashion of other fruits, upon the small limbs and branches. Nature has made a special provision in behalf of this tree. As it grows older and the fruit increases in size, it is produced lower and lower on the trunk each year, until from being grown near the top, it springs out close to the ground. Though the short, rope-like stalk which holds the rough, green-coated fruit is of strong fiber, still, when in ripe condition, it is apt to fall to the earth. As the product increases in size, it would be broken to pieces if it fell from any considerable height. The natives apply themselves to its consumption with unlimited capacities. The wood of the jack is much used for lumber, being easily worked, and presenting a good surface even for common house furniture as well as for lighter bungalow framework. Supporting timbers, however, must be made from harder wood, so as to resist the inroads of the vicious ants. The humble native tenement has a frame made from the tough, golden-stemmed bamboo, which is to a casual observer apparently very frail, but is nevertheless found to be extremely flexible, tenacious, and lasting. Where the bamboo branches intersect each other, they are securely bound together with thongs made from palm-tree fibre; this is to secure them in position. For a long time the luscious mangosteen was thought to be peculiar to the islands of the Malacca Straits, but it is now found thriving in this garden-land of Ceylon, having been long since introduced from Penang. Attempts to domesticate it in southern India have proved unsuccessful. The same may be said of the fragrant nutmeg, which has become an article of profitable export from the island, though it is not indigenous here. Along this turnpike road we occasionally pass small cinnamon plantations, where the process of cutting and peeling the bark is going on, considerable quantities being exposed and spread out in the sun, whose intense heat dries it most rapidly. When labor of any sort is in progress, even in the wet rice-fields, it will be seen that the women perform the hardest tasks. In fact, this is to be observed in town and country, both in domestic affairs and in the open field, especially in the transportation of heavy burdens, which they carry on their heads. Making beasts of burden of women is not alone practiced in Ceylon. It is also shamefully obvious in many European centres, where civilization is supposed to have reached its acme. Americans who have traveled in Germany, for instance, have often experienced disgust at the debasing services required of the sex in that country. The author has seen women, in Munich, carrying hods of bricks and mortar up long ladders, where new buildings were being constructed, while hard by their lords and masters were drinking huge "schooners" of lager beer in taprooms, and lazily smoking foul tobacco. Loitering beneath the shade of the trees contiguous to their cabins, queer family groups of Singhalese natives watch the passing stranger with curious, questioning eyes. Clothes are of little consideration in a climate like this, and consequently nudity is the rule. The preparation of food is intrusted mainly to Nature, whose bountiful hand hangs ripe and tempting nourishment ever ready upon the trees, where all are free to pluck and to eat. It is curious to see how easily a native man or boy, with a rope of vegetable fibre passed round his thighs and thence about the trunk of a palm, will, with feet and hands thus supplemented, ascend a cocoanut-tree eighty feet or more, to reach the ripe fruit. He moves upwards as rapidly as one might go up a tall ladder. It is true, the rope sometimes fails, a broken neck follows, and a fresh grave is required to decently inter the remains. This is said to be one of the most "fruitful" causes of fatal accidents in Ceylon. This sort of catastrophe, and poisonous cobra bites, are almost as frequent and deadly in the island as electric car accidents are in Boston or New York. As one regards these lazy, betel-chewing, irresponsible children of the tropics, idling in the shade of the palms, it does not seem strange that they should lead a sensuous life, the chief occupations of which are eating and sleeping. All humanity here appears to be more or less torpid. There is no necessity to arouse man to action,--effort is superfluous. The very bounty of Nature makes the recipients lazy, dirty, and heedless. They live from hand to mouth, exercising no forecast, making no provision for the morrow. It is the paradise of birds, butterflies, and flowers, but man seems to be out of place; he adds nothing to the beauty of the surroundings; he does nothing to improve such wealth of possibilities as Providence spreads broadcast only in equatorial regions. Bishop Heber's lines alluding to Ceylon were certainly both pertinent and true: "Where only man is vile." We were just now speaking of native family groups observed on the route between Galle and Colombo, which is a thoroughly typical region, and may well serve as a truthful picture of such scenes all over the southern district of Ceylon. They would form admirable subjects for photographic delineation,--a gratuitous suggestion for the modern Kodak enthusiast. The children of eight or nine years, who form a portion of these groups, are as naked as when they were born, while their parents are as scantily clad as decency will permit. The boys and girls have large, brilliant, and intensely black eyes, with a strong promise of a good degree of intelligence, but their possibilities are doomed to remain unfulfilled amid such associations as they are born to. A few more years and they will subside into languid, sensuous beings, like their progenitors. They do but obey their polarity,--the "cherubim" of destiny ought to be designated by a harsher name. The men wear a white cotton cloth wound about their loins. The women have a similar covering, sometimes adding a short, cotton, jacket-like waist. The children have monstrously protruding stomachs, like the little darkies of our Southern States, but yet as a rule they seem to be well and hearty. The women of the Tamil race, especially, are of good form and features, much handsomer than the Singhalese of the same sex. It is a notable fact in this connection that there are fewer women in Ceylon than men, a circumstance which has furnished a weak argument for some native writers in favor of polyandry, which is still sanctioned in the central districts. In the island of Malta, this relative position of the sexes is entirely reversed. The Tamil men are of good height, slim, with small limbs yet well formed, and have pleasing features and bronzed skins, very similar in hue to our North American Indians. The Singhalese are of a darker complexion, not so light in figure; they affect European dress, adding much ornamentation. They hold themselves of a superior class to the Tamils, engaging only in what they consider a higher line of occupation. The Tamils form the humbler and laboring population of the country. They fully recognize the distinction between themselves and the Singhalese proper, and they are universally called coolies. Caste is never disregarded among them, its infinite ramifications extending through all degrees and classes of the people, regulated by universally accepted ideas. This peculiar system was early introduced into the country from India, but was previously unknown here. It is difficult for the uninitiated to understand its real import. There are twenty or more castes rigidly adhered to, which may be rendered in numerical order of importance as follows: The husbandman's occupation comes first in dignity, followed by that of the fisherman; goldsmiths rank as third, blacksmiths as fourth caste, and so on in the following order: braziers, cinnamon peelers, washermen, barbers, potters, tom-tom-beaters in the temples, etc. Domestic intercourse between persons of different castes is inadmissible, and to marry below one's caste is considered to be disgraceful. Feelings of intolerable pride on the one hand and of abject humiliation on the other are thus created and perpetuated. In each caste the children must follow the occupation of the father; a carpenter's boys must be carpenters, and his daughters must marry carpenters. Caste is therefore absolute death to all promptings of ambition, according to native ideas. No one can hope to rise above the grade in which he is born, and no one makes the attempt. Nearly a century of English control has only served to confirm these Asiatics in the thralldom of caste. How could it be otherwise when the ruling power is itself a slave to the same idea? Sir Matthew Arnold says: "Aristocracy now sets up in our country a false ideal, which materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, and brutalizes our lower class." Both men and women among the natives in town and country are often tattooed on their arms, legs, and bodies, while a few, but this is rare, are decorated on their faces. A child less than ten years of age was seen in the Pettah at Colombo, whose body was absolutely covered with crude designs fixed indelibly by this process. One could not but imagine how the little fellow must have been made to suffer during the worse than useless operation, which is, even to a hardened adult, little short of slow agony. This instance struck the author as being the more remarkable because the Singhalese and almost all savage or semi-civilized races are found to be remarkably kind to their offspring, even as wild animals are. We are compelled in some degree to qualify this assertion, since the missionaries tell us that in certain parts of the island female infants are often destroyed at the time of birth. If this is the case to any considerable extent, it would account for the statistical fact that the men largely outnumber the women in Ceylon. It is difficult to believe, however, that this practice prevails in our day. With some barbaric tribes, religious significance is attached to the habit of tattooing the human body. This is the case in New Zealand, and in the islands generally of the South Pacific. Among the former, professional tattooers go about from tribe to tribe with rude but effective instruments, and operate upon the Maoris, male and female, with great adroitness and considerable artistic skill. There is perhaps no other such universal practice as that of tattooing which prevails among semi-savage races in various parts of the globe, but especially among the South Sea Islanders. Many tribes, never brought in contact with each other, seem to have originated the idea among themselves. CHAPTER VII. Experiences between Colombo and Point de Galle.--Dangers of Encountering Reptiles.--Marvelous Ant Houses.--Insect Architects.--Curious Bird's Nests.--Flamingoes at Rest.--Variety of the Crane Family.--Wild Pea-Fowls.--Buddha's Prohibition.--Peculiar Wood-Notes.--Mingling of Fruit and Timber Trees.--Fatal Parasitic Vines.--Stillness of the Forest.--Superstitions of the Natives.--Snake Bites.--Railway Facilities. Amid all the charms of this interesting, palm-embowered route between Colombo and Galle, there are some serious drawbacks to be encountered, which as a faithful chronicler the author must not forget to mention. All mundane enjoyments are qualified. One meets inevitably with an aggressive army of beetles, ants, land leeches, dragon-flies, cock-chafers, locusts, wasps, ticks, and vicious spiders, these last endowed with an immense superfluity of hairy legs, while the omnipresent and persistent mosquito exhibits unwonted activity. Indeed, ants, mosquitoes, and sand-flies literally feast upon the wayfarer, until the entire surface of his face and limbs becomes excoriated. How the natives with their exposed bodies exist under such circumstances is a mystery. The redundancy of insect and reptile life is wonderful in equatorial regions, but as regards the mosquito, where is this pest not encountered? The author has met and suffered from them at the far north on the very glaciers of Alaska during the short summer months, and in the extreme south near the Antarctic Circle, in the East and in the West, on sea and on land. Of course they are perennial here like the foliage, and viciously tormenting. We often heard stories of fatal bites from scorpions, centipedes, cobras, and other reptiles, but our own experience goes to show that they are naturally inclined to avoid human beings. It is true that repulsive insects and reptiles are to be looked out for. One is careful to examine his shoes before putting them on in the morning, and to take a few precautions of that sort. Cleanly houses do not harbor them, though they do sometimes annoy the traveler in the public rest-houses where he is often compelled to pass the night. In the thickly wooded districts, the ants' nests are pyramidal in form, and five feet high, being constructed with even more uniformity than human hands could produce. Inside, they are divided into broad passageways, square halls, and store-rooms, to produce which divisions, so as to make them both accessible and convenient for the purpose designed, requires mental calculation, the possession of which we hardly accord to insects. Mere instinct could not insure such results as are here exhibited. Ants, like bees, live in thoroughly organized communities, and are found by naturalists to be divided into laborers, soldiers, and food providers, all presided over by a recognized chief in authority. On a warm, dry morning, any attentive observer may see the white ants in the neighborhood of their hills bringing out their eggs to warm them in the direct rays of the sun. In proper time, before the dew falls, they are carefully returned to their original place of deposit. The natives understand that there will be no rain when the instinct--or reason if you will--of these minute creatures leads them to expose their eggs to the influence of the sun's rays. As barometers, these little insects surpass the most accurate instrument which human intelligence can construct. The interminable feuds and furious wars of the ant tribe are a curious study in the tropics, where they would be an intolerable pest were their numbers not daily reduced by various destructive agencies. It is a provision of nature among animals and insects that a war of extermination is constantly in progress among them. The stouter animal preys upon the weaker. Birds, beasts, insects, and fishes, all are cannibals in one sense. Just so among the barbaric tribes of Africa, New Zealand, the Fiji Islands, Australia, etc.: the natives, since time was young until very lately, have made war upon each other when their food supply ran low, in order to secure prisoners, whom they roasted and ate. In these thick woods along the coast, curious nests of unfamiliar birds also catch the eye, securely fixed among the pendulous orchids and creeping ferns. All is so new to a northerner that he is on the watch for every typical object which may present itself. He does not fail to mark the nest of the tailor-bird, the little creature which ingeniously sews leaves together to suit its purpose, and that of the weaver-bird with its tunnel-like entrance; both are common in the district which we are describing. The nest of the grosbeak is remarkable, being two feet long, and composed of finely woven grass as strong as the texture of common straw hats. It is shaped like an elongated pear, and suspended at the extreme end of a branch, swinging back and forth in the wind. The entrance is at the bottom, so as to render the nest secure against the attacks of snakes, monkeys, and other enemies. Sometimes a score of these nests are seen in the same tree. There is also a species of wasp whose architectural proclivities are displayed in the building of stout, pendant nests five feet in length. Low down among the undergrowth, say five feet from the earth, there are colonies of spiders, whose webs are nearly as strong as pack-thread, absolutely barring the way in some places among the dense wood. Coming upon an open glade, a wild peacock is seen. He exhibits no fear of our presence, but flaunts his feathery splendors with all the self-sufficiency of conscious beauty. Farther on, we see pretty specimens of the bird of paradise. Now the land becomes low and marshy, and a broad lake glistens in the sun. Here are plenty of water-rail, blue kingfishes, and metallic dragon-flies, the latter skimming over the still water, daintily touching the surface now and again. Hereabouts the woods and open glades are crowded with bird life. Storks, cranes, ibises, herons, pelicans, and flamingoes abound in the low, wet grounds, marshaling themselves in long files, like trained bodies of men, along the shore of the fresh-water ponds. The flamingo is called the English soldier-bird by the natives because of its habits, and its pink epaulets, which tip the body joints of its otherwise snow-white wings. The effect is indeed ludicrous when a dozen or more flamingoes, each standing quietly upon one leg, with its head folded beneath its wing, seem to be sleeping in that manner. A wide-awake sentinel is always posted in a commanding position to give warning should an enemy approach. If the cautionary signal is given, all rise in the air together, and flying low, trail their long, stilt-like legs stretched far behind them. The legs of the wading species of birds are not graceful appendages. Most of the feathered tribe have a decorous way of gathering their limbs up close to their bodies when they launch upon the wing. This would, however, be obviously impossible in the long-legged tribe to which we have referred. The varieties of the crane family are almost numberless, from the largest, which stands five feet in height, down to others not taller than a duck. The water-pheasant, white as the paper upon which we are writing, is a little beauty about the size of a dove, and may often be seen standing upon the broad lotus leaves pecking at the seeds. Do they, too, like human lotus-eaters, seek oblivion and exaltation through the subtle narcotic thus imbibed? Now and again we come upon a bevy of pea-fowls quietly feeding among the ferns, plump and beautiful creatures, mottled with white spots upon a glossy, slate-colored ground, and nearly as large as our average domestic fowls. In some parts of Ceylon, they are found in very large numbers, and as the natives do not disturb them, they are comparatively tame. We had our suspicions that an occasional Singhalese stretched his conscience sufficiently to kill and devour a pea-hen. Though according to his religious faith the Buddhist may not himself sacrifice life, he may eat what has been killed by one of another creed. "From the meanest insect up to man, thou shalt not kill," says the first commandment of Buddha. It must be admitted that the injunction is very closely heeded. The fact is, the natives do not crave meat in this hot climate, and it is easy to see that with an abundance of excellent fruit and vegetables, supplemented by an occasional meal of fresh or salted fish, the diet of the common people is wholesome and sufficient. As repeatedly shown, religious instinct protects animal life among the Buddhists, but why an exception is made in regard to fish, it is impossible to explain. We have met rigid Buddhists, however, who would not eat fish,--conscientious men, to whom the life in the sea was equally sacred with that found upon the land. As regards the meat brought from the forest and jungle by European hunters, the average native has no compunction in eating of it, and is the grateful recipient of boar or bear carcass for food purposes, as he has not himself infringed upon the sacred injunction not to take the life of any creature. As we wend our way among the thick vegetation and shadowy trees, the wood-pigeon's soothing, droning notes fall upon the ear like the melody of a human mother lulling her infant babe to sleep. Now and again the jungle-cock shouts his defiant reveille in a startling fashion, breaking the almost solemn silence. The unpleasant squeak of the flying-frog occasionally grates upon the senses, a creature so called on account of its remarkable ability of springing from one tree to another. It is of a rich, light green color, and very poisonous. The author had never heard of this creature until it introduced itself by means of the unpleasant croaking sound which it sends forth, very similar to that produced by the action of a rusty door-hinge. While noting these things, it was for the first time learned that the peacock is a most destructive enemy of the snake tribe, to which reptiles he has an inveterate antipathy,--why or wherefore, no one knows. He pecks out the snake's eyes, in spite of his fangs. The favorite food of this gorgeous bird is said to be the white ant, which so abounds here; a happy provision, whereby the multiplying of this insect pest is in a measure checked. One is prone to query what the white ant was created for. Perhaps it was to eradicate some mightier and unknown curse. _Quien sabe?_ The white ants are the most extraordinary creatures of the formican tribe. Their dwellings are more than a thousand times higher than themselves; were human beings to construct their edifices upon the same relative scale, we should live in houses six thousand feet in height. These ants are like small white slugs in appearance, and are said to be delicious eating. Certain low castes in Ceylon use them as articles of food. A veracious modern writer describes them as tasting like sugared cream and white almonds. One could get accustomed to these things, no doubt, but gnawing hunger would have to be the accompanying sauce to tempt most Europeans to even taste this peculiar dish of the tropics. Are not snails sold in Paris and London as a table luxury? Much travel has cured the author of fastidiousness in regard to food, but he draws the line at snails, ants, and caterpillars. There are many peculiarities which strike one in a tropical forest, affording strong contrasts to ours of the north, not only in the nature of the products, but also in the seemingly incongruous mingling of various species of trees. We have pine forests, oak forests, cedar, birch, and maple woods; but in the low latitudes, fruit and timber trees abide together in utmost harmony. It would be a singular sight in New England if we were to find peach or apple trees bearing after their kind among a forest of oaks, or cherry and plum trees producing their fruit in a pine grove. In a Ceylon jungle, the banian and the palm, the bread-fruit, banana, satinwood, calamander, mango, and bamboo, tamarind, and ebony, mingle familiarly together. This is a peculiarity born of the wonderful vegetable productiveness of the equatorial regions, which seem to give indiscriminative birth to fruits and flowers, wherever there is sufficient space to nourish their roots and to expand the branches. Each one of these tall forest trees, so various in species and so thrifty in growth, serves to sustain some other vegetable life, mostly in the form of creeping, clinging plants. Scarcely one is seen in the jungle without its dependent of this nature, and many of them are rendered extremely lovely by rich festoons of blossoms, which they bear in profusion, reminding one of the clusters of blue and purple wistarias so common in our country. A forest tree wreathed with golden allamandas, when seen for the first time, is a new and never-to-be-forgotten revelation of beauty, forming a towering mass of bloom. Nature is a charming decorator. Her sweet combinations never outrage the most delicate, æsthetic taste; art may imitate, but it cannot rival her. Orchids, ferns, and the most exquisite mosses in myriads of shades abound, all struggling for space to expand their gorgeous beauty, while blossoms of scarlet, lilac, and purest white festoon the tallest stems. The loftiest forest trees are rarely without examples of these often lovely parasites, adhering to and drawing life from their abundant vitality. About some of the largest trees, plain, stout vines, with rich leaves but bearing no flowers, are also seen entwined from base to top, binding the trunk upon which they cling like a huge piece of cordage or a ship's hawser. These vines, as they grow from year to year, tighten their clasp upon the trunk of the tree, slowly but surely choking it, until the circulation is stopped, so that it finally gives up the struggle for existence, withers, and dies. In the mean time, the fatal vine gradually takes the place of the original tree, fattening upon its decay, itself, after the lapse of years, to be displaced in a similar manner. It is an inevitable rule that the parasite shall finally end by throttling its adversary, or rather we should say its victim, like the Indian Thug, who embraces only to kill. Thus the process of death and renewal in the vegetable kingdom goes on through the centuries in these lonely, undisturbed wilds. The wonderful stillness which reigns in some portions of the dense forests of Ceylon is such that one can hear the tick of the watch which he carries,--a silence which presently becomes almost oppressive, putting one on the very tiptoe of expectation as to what startling outbreak may possibly happen. When a gentle breeze sweeps past, the agitated leaves whisper to each other, while one strives to understand what they say in their arboreal tongue. If, by chance, the uncanny screech of the devil-bird is heard under such circumstances, your native guides will quickly hide their eyes in their hands, for, according to their credulous theories and superstitions, they believe if they see a devil-bird it is the forerunner of all manner of misfortunes, among other catastrophes signifying sure death to themselves within a twelve-month. This feathered pariah is an owl-like creature, and seldom puts in an appearance in the daytime. The natives have a proverb expressing the idea that to meet with a white crow or a straight cocoanut palm is equally unfortunate, but the fact is, neither is ever seen. Many of the local axioms, and there are myriads of them, are of a similar character, pronouncing a penalty as sure to follow upon a supposed, but really impossible, occurrence. The growth of parasitic vines, to which we have referred, is not by any means confined to Ceylon. It is observable to a certain extent on the St. John's River, in Florida, and the neighboring wooded districts. The author has seen similar instances in the forests of the King's Country, as it is called, in New Zealand, where the native tribes maintain a quasi independence, though they are really subject to England. Here the development of the destructive vines is very pronounced and curious. After ascending a tree by means of an anaconda-like embrace, the vine continues to stretch out its length so as to clasp the branches of the next nearest tree, descending its trunk by the entwining process to the base. Thence it proceeds to climb the next nearest stem, and so on, until the woods are rendered impassable by this insidious, swift-growing vegetable cordage, forming, with the undergrowth, a jungle only penetrable by wild animals. It is in such jungles in Ceylon that poisonous reptiles do much abound, especially where the land is of a marshy nature, and these places are always avoided, even by the Singhalese themselves. Local statistics show that a hundred and fifty natives, on an average, lose their lives annually by snake-bites. Few white people are thus sacrificed, they being naturally less exposed. The native, inland, has no covering for his feet and legs, while the Europeans are always protected in these parts of the body, so that if attacked, the poisonous fangs of the serpent rarely penetrate the skin. The bite of a cobra is said to be harmless if given through woolen clothing, as the texture absorbs the virus, besides which the fangs of the reptile under such circumstances are not liable to penetrate the skin of a white person. In connection with this typical route between Colombo and Galle, we have spoken of the railway, which has for some time been gradually stretching from the capital southward. Probably before these pages reach the public eye, this long-needed road will be in running order between the two cities, passing through Mount Lavonia,--the comparatively cool and pleasant summer resort,--Morotto, Panadura, Kalatura, Bentola,--famous for its oysters and as being the half-way station,--and so on, through the several shore settlements to Galle. This will doubtless prove as profitable a road as that between Colombo and Kandy, which paid its entire first cost out of the profits in a few years after its completion, besides making good its full interest account. It should be added that there was no "watering" of the stock after our American style, a shamefully deceptive and dishonest system, which has made so many millionaires richer, and the average citizen poorer, in our own country. The study of tropical flora and fauna is intensely interesting to a lover of nature. Let us not, however, presume too far upon the reader's patience, but hasten to tell him of Colombo, the capital of this Indian isle, together with its people and its attractive surroundings. CHAPTER VIII. Colombo, Capital of Ceylon.--Harbor Facilities.--The Breakwater.--Exposed to Epidemics.--Experiences on Landing.--Hump-Backed Cattle.--Grand Oriental Hotel.--Singhalese Waiters.--Galle Face Hotel.--An Unusual Scene.--Number of Inhabitants.--Black Town the Native Quarters.--Domestic Scenes.--Monkeys.-Evil Odors.--Humble Homes.--The Banana-Tree.--Native Temples and Priestly Customs.--Vegetables and Fruits.--Woman's Instinct.--Street Scenes in the Pettah.--Fish Market. Point de Galle, situated seventy miles nearer to its southern extremity, was the principal port of Ceylon from time immemorial, until the English government turned the open roadstead of Colombo into an excellent and safe artificial harbor, by erecting an extensive breakwater. It is one of the most successful conceptions of the sort ever consummated in the East, and was begun in 1875,--the Prince of Wales laying the corner-stone,--and completed in 1884. This was an improvement which had long been imperatively demanded, but which had been deferred for years on account of the serious impediments which presented themselves and the heavy expenditure which it involved. Previous to the construction of the breakwater, at certain seasons of the year it was nearly impossible to effect a landing at Colombo, owing to the boisterousness of the sea on this part of the coast during the prevalence of the southwest monsoons. The surf-beaten shore of the Coromandel coast at the north is scarcely more exposed than was the open roadstead of this port. In the shipment or discharge of freight, it constantly ran the risk of being ruined by salt water, the service being necessarily performed by means of scows or lighters. The well-built breakwater has nearly remedied this trouble. It is about a mile in length, constructed of solid blocks of concrete, averaging twenty-five tons each, and rises upon a firm foundation to a uniform height of fifteen feet above low-water mark. The outermost end is capped by a lighthouse, and is curved inward almost at right angles with the main line of the work, thus forming a shelter for the anchorage of shipping. It is now proposed to place a similar structure on the opposite or north side of the bay, leaving a suitable entrance to the harbor. This would render the anchorage quite smooth in all weather, and as safe for shipping as the Liverpool docks. When the southwest monsoon is in full force, the water breaks over the present line to a height of forty feet, falling in harmless spray on the inner side. The thorough and substantial character of the construction may be judged of by its actual cost, which was between three and four million dollars. The entire work was performed by convict labor. The area sheltered from the southwest monsoons is over five hundred acres, half of which has depths varying from twenty-six to forty feet at low tide. The breakwater forms an excellent promenade except in rough weather, and is much improved for that purpose by the people who reside in the neighborhood. Having good anchorage space, sufficient depth of water, and a sheltered harbor, Colombo is now the regular port of call for the great steamship lines sailing to and from China, Japan, the Straits Settlements, Australia, and Calcutta, and is justly entitled to the name of the commercial as well as the political capital of Ceylon. In the long past, it has shared the former honor with Point de Galle. There is no tropical island, or indeed any part of the Orient, which has a more prompt and frequent mail service than has Colombo, a highly important consideration with people who, aside from business connections, desire to keep in touch with the world and the times. Like Malta, the island is so situated between the East and the West as to be exposed to any epidemic which may prevail in either quarter, and which is easily brought by vessels touching here for coal or freight. The author heard nothing of quarantine provisions or regulations enforced at Colombo, but there is doubtless some official supervision of this character. All persons who have traveled extensively have encountered more or less annoyance from quarantine regulations, especially as enforced throughout the East, but all experience shows their necessity. We landed at Colombo on Christmas day, our baggage--after a mere pretense of examination on the part of the custom-house officers--being promptly put into a two-wheeled, canvas-covered bullock cart, beside which we walked with open umbrella, for the direct rays of the equatorial sun were almost unbearable even at this season of the year. It was observed that the driver of the small, dun-colored yoke of cattle attached to the cart used no whip, and he was mentally commended for his humanity. This, however, was premature, for it soon appeared that he had an ingenious and cruel device whereby to urge his oxen forward. The fellow twisted their tails vigorously, which must have been intensely painful to them, as they showed by their actions. Not being able to speak Singhalese, the author promptly applied the same treatment to the driver's ears, an argument which required no interpreter, and which proved to be both convincing and effectual. It was afterward discovered that the tails of many of the oxen here were absolutely dislocated from this brutal process, used by the drivers to urge them forward. Though a Singhalese's religion forbids his taking the life of the meanest insect, it does not seem to prevent his torturing these really handsome and useful animals. There is one way in which these mild-eyed, hump-backed creatures occasionally assert themselves which is somewhat original, and commands our hearty approval. When they are overtasked and abused beyond endurance, they are liable to lie down in the middle of the roadway, and nothing will start them until they choose to get up and proceed of their own will. So the overladen camel lies down upon the desert sand, and will not rise until his burden is properly adjusted. While wilting in the enervating atmosphere, as we pursued our way from the shore, the thought naturally suggested itself that just then, on the other side of the globe, our friends at home were probably sitting before cheerful soft-coal fires and quietly enjoying the genial heat and the enlivening blaze. It was also remembered that Colombo is acknowledged to be the hottest city in the Queen of England's dominions. The sun was far too bright and intense for unaccustomed northern eyes, and it was a great relief to reach the shelter beneath the broad piazza of the hotel, though it is but a short distance from the landing. We were waited upon at the Grand Oriental with an intelligent and discerning regard for a traveler's comfort, and assigned to large, cleanly apartments. The rooms were divided from each other only by partial partitions, which did not reach the ceilings, the upper portion being left open for the purpose of promoting ventilation. So intense is the heat in Colombo at times that this is quite necessary, though such an arrangement does not permit of the degree of privacy requisite for a sleeping apartment. The hottest months at this point are February, March, and April, when all who can do so escape to the hill district. The Oriental is an excellent and spacious hotel, containing over one hundred sleeping-rooms, with ample retiring apartments on the first floor and a dining-room which will seat three hundred guests at a time. A line of arcades is connected with the house, beneath the shade of which one can go shopping at the little gem and curio stores. The hotel is built about a large central court or area, which is well filled with thrifty tropical vegetation. The whole is admirably arranged, and is well kept after American and European ideas. While the guests sit at meals in the large dining-hall, long lines of punkas or fans, suspended over the tables, are operated by servants placed outside of the room, thus rendering the atmosphere quite endurable, notwithstanding the intense heat which generally prevails. The waiters were found to be natives, but all spoke English, and were well trained in the performance of their duties. Each one of them wore a white turban, and a single white cotton garment cut like a gentleman's dressing-gown, and confined at the waist by a crimson sash. The legs and feet of these copper-colored servants were bare, after the conventional style of such persons throughout this island, as well as in India proper. One other large house of public entertainment has a good reputation, and is certainly most favorably situated. It is known as the Galle Face Hotel, adjoining the popular esplanade of the same name. This house is well patronized, especially by officers of the army and navy. For a permanent residence it is perhaps preferable to the Oriental, on account of its charming maritime outlook. There are several other public houses, but of these two the author can speak approvingly from personal experience. An unusual scene, which transpired on the esplanade near the Galle Face Hotel, occurs to us at this writing:-- One of the bullock gigs, so common in Colombo, stopped suddenly before that hostelry. The driver, who had jumped to the ground, was examining the animal with much surprise. In the mean time, the bullock was staggering like a drunken man, reeling hither and thither while striving to keep upon its feet, shaking its head strangely in a wild sort of way, and trembling all over. The thermometer was somewhere between 95° and 100° Fahr. A score of idle and curious natives thronged about the spot, entirely shutting out the circulation of what little fresh air there was stirring. At this moment a cavalryman from the barracks hard by made his way into the crowd, and seizing the bullock's nose he bade the driver hold him steadily by the horns. Taking a knife from his pocket, the new-comer forced the animal's mouth open and adroitly made a deep incision in one of the bars which form the roof, instantly causing the blood to flow freely therefrom. After the lapse of a very few minutes, the bullock recovered, standing once more quite firmly upon its feet, as soon as the pressure upon its brain was relieved by the flow of blood. The creature had experienced an attack of what in horses is called blind-staggers, produced by a rush of blood to the brain, undoubtedly occasioned in this instance by the great heat and by over-exertion. The cavalryman's readiness with his knife produced just the sort of relief which was required in such an exigency. "The bullock could not have been driven very fast," said an English lady, who had regarded the scene intently from the piazza of the hotel, "because it does not perspire at all; see, its hide is perfectly dry." "That sort of hanimal doesn't sweat only on the nose," said the cavalryman, as he coolly wiped his knife and returned it to his pocket, adding, "'Orses does, but hoxen doesn't." It is a noticeable fact that European horses cannot endure the climate of Ceylon; some which are imported from Australia manage to give satisfaction for a limited period. The breeding of these animals is not a success in the island, and the natives do not use them at all. Colombo has a hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants, and is divided into what is known as The Fort and Black Town, the former being the portion devoted to the official quarters and the residences of the English, the latter mostly to the very humble homes of the natives. Black Town is quite oriental and very dirty, dispensing a most unmistakable odor like a faint tincture of musk. It stretches along the harbor front for more than a mile, until it ends at the Kalani River, and contains a most heterogeneous mingling of races, each individual decked in some distinctive garb of his original nationality, the majority, however, exhibiting only the bronzed skin covering to their bones which nature provides. Even these nude figures form an anomalous sight, often having their heads covered with monstrous, elaborate white turbans, and only a thin piece of cotton about their loins. The houses, or cabins as they would more properly be called, are of one story, dingy and poor, generally constructed of mud upon bamboo frames, with a thatched roof of dried palm leaves so braided together as to make a stout and secure protection from the rain. The fronts of these simple houses are quite open, revealing all sorts of domestic habits incident to native life, and very often outraging one's sense of propriety. Men or women care nothing for publicity, and do not hesitate in the conduct of affairs which are strictly of a personal nature. If one desires a remedy for over-fastidiousness, let him stroll for a while about this native portion of Colombo. He will open his eyes in surprise now and then, but it is astonishing how soon one becomes indifferent to the most peculiar local customs, whether in Samoa, Japan, or among the Alaska Indians. The lazy Singhalese or Tamil men lying half asleep upon the ground, the women, semi-nude, cooking fish over a brazier in the open air, and a group of naked children playing in the roadway, form a common tableau in this quarter of the town. Every necessity seems to be provided for by the salubrity of the climate and the spontaneity of the soil. Enterprise, emulation, ambition, are to these people unknown incentives to action. The height of their desire is plenty of sleep and plenty to eat. The scene is occasionally varied by a group of men sitting upon their heels and absorbed in gambling for small sums of money. It should be stated here that the natives, Singhalese, Tamils, Moormen, or of whatever tribe, are all inveterate gamblers; only the Chinese can equal them in this propensity to risk all they possess upon the cast of the dice, or in betting upon some other trivial game. We were told of instances where the gambler, having lost everything else, staked the possession of his wife against his opponent's money, and, losing, the woman quietly acquiesced in consummating the arrangement. Women of the humbler castes are looked upon more as slaves than as filling any other relation to those whom they call their husbands. As a rule, they would not think of asserting any will of their own. As their husbands are abject slaves to the idea of caste, so they are slaves to their husbands, and however roughly they are treated by them, they take it quite as a matter of course. In the southern part of the island especially, each village has its cock-pit and its gambling-den; while hard by is the drinking-cabin, where for a few pennies a native can get very drunk on arrack. At some of the low-thatched cabins in the Pettah, or Black Town, we see a tame parrot or a pet monkey confined within certain bounds by a small chain. If the former, he is likely to be imitating the boisterous exclamations of the children; if the latter, finding no mischief possible, he sits chin in hand, with a ludicrously grave expression on his too human features. The ever-present crows take good care to keep out of the monkey's reach, but perch familiarly and fearlessly anywhere else about the cabins. There are several varieties of monkeys in the island. The black wanderoo of Ceylon with white whiskers comes nearest in its resemblance to the human face. He stands three feet high, and weighs between seventy and eighty pounds, being remarkable for muscular strength. The lower and the upper jaw are in a direct line with the forehead, while most of the race have projecting jaws. The streets and environs of Constantinople are rendered hardly more disagreeable by the presence of mongrel curs than is Black Town, Colombo. Dogs abound, thoroughly useless creatures, which should have been born jackals, and which are perhaps partly breeds from that source. They are melancholy, half-starved, wretched, and mangy creatures, sleeping all day, and prowling about at night in search of some stray bit of carrion which has escaped the vigilance of the crows. Why they are tolerated no one can say, neither does any one acknowledge their ownership. Occasionally one runs mad, causing by his bite a half-dozen natives to do likewise, when death is certain. Hydrophobia is never cured, not even by the devil-dancers of Ceylon. The normal appearance of these dogs is that of abject fear, as they move about with heads drooping and their tails pressed close between their hind legs. A harsh word sends them off at top speed, while a kind one brings out their instinctive fondness for the human race. Still, they are nuisances in Ceylon, and of no earthly good to any mortal. Evil odors are inseparable from the native quarters. That goes without saying, and it is surprising that pestilence does not run riot here. Dirt and contagious diseases certainly thrive in the same atmosphere, and yet one often sees sanitary laws, as we construe them, deliberately outraged without any such results as our best reason would lead us to expect. The author was in Rio Janeiro not long since, at a time when the yellow fever was proving fatal to fifty or sixty persons daily. In the Plaza Don Pedro Second, numbers of idle, lazy fellows lay half drunk, or wholly so, sleeping on the benches under a vertical sun. Some were quite unconscious, even lying upon the damp ground. Apropos of our remark that these people were inviting the fever, an intelligent resident, who was our companion, calmly answered: "Yellow Jack does not choose that class for its victims. They seem to enjoy complete immunity from the pestilence." Seeing was believing, but it was also confounding to one's sense of the eternal fitness of things. Generally, the scenes and experiences are not quite pleasant as presented to the stranger who visits Black Town, Colombo, for the first time. As he becomes more familiar with the surroundings, however, a picturesque aspect, a depth of rich brown shadows and bits of vivid color, unite to form a pleasing and attractive whole. Adjoining each of these humble homes which line the thoroughfares, or perhaps just in the rear of them, one is sure to find clusters of bread-fruit, banana, and mango trees, often dominated by a tall, gracefully bending cocoanut palm of columnar proportions. The product of these several fruit-bearers goes far towards feeding the inmates of the cabin, about which they also cast delightful and much-needed shade. Nothing is more ornamental under such circumstances than the large, drooping, pale green leaves of the generously yielding banana, contrasting with the golden yellow bunches of the ripe fruit. The nutritious properties of the banana are far in excess of any other known vegetable food. African explorers have told the author that in an emergency, when threatened with famine, they have sustained life and strength for themselves and their followers upon two bananas a day for six consecutive days, all the time engaged in the hardest sort of foot-travel through the pathless forest. The banana-tree renews itself annually, growing to a height of ten or twelve feet, and bearing heavy clusters of from sixty to a hundred individual fruits, green at first, but golden in hue when ripe. After bearing its fruit, the tree wilts and decays like a cornstalk, but in due time again springs up from the roots to bear another annual luxuriant crop. One clever writer tells us that the banana is "the devil's agent," because the abundant food supply which it affords, demanding so little of man in return, is a promoter of idleness. It is asserted that one acre of these trees will yield as much nutritious matter as sixty acres of wheat, which seems almost incredible. In many countries this fruit is the staff of life, flourishing as far as thirty-five degrees south and thirty-eight north of the equator. There may be poverty here,--it is to be found nearly everywhere if sought for,--but there is no abject want visible, for these Singhalese homes are all surrounded by plenty. The mere physical support of life seems abundantly provided for, however the moral conditions may strike the careful observer. Is it not a singular provision of nature that where vegetation is most thrifty, where fruits and flowers grow in wildest exuberance, elevated humanity thrives the least? A very humble class of Moormen, Malays, Singhalese, and Tamils, together with Syrian Jews and the like, a mixed and motley population, constitute the larger portion of the community in the Pettah, but there are some buildings, shops, bazaars, and residences of a better class than those we have described. Such are mostly occupied by Parsees and Moormen, so that Black Town is not quite so "black" as might seem to the casual reader. The Moormen wear an impossible sort of hat, tall and brimless; others have sensible, broad-brimmed panamas, and some don the picturesque fez so universal in the East. The sienna-colored Singhalese proper are descended from the early conquerors of the island, the dark-brown Tamils from later invaders who came from southern India, and the copper-colored Moormen from the Arab merchants who came hither to trade for spices many centuries ago. The Singhalese have long, straight, black and silky hair, and are nearly always bareheaded. The Tamils as invariably wear turbans. According to the rules of caste, the Singhalese, being superior, has a right to go bareheaded, a privilege which is not allowed to the Tamils. This absurdity is on a par with the average rules relating to caste as enforced in India and Ceylon. Of the rights recognized under the system, none is more jealously guarded than that of carrying an umbrella to shield the bearer from the fiery heat of the sun, or the pitiless downpour of equatorial rains. In the olden times, in Kandy, only royalty and the priesthood were allowed the privilege. To the average foreigner in continental India and Ceylon, the arbitrary rule of caste seems to be the merest nonsense possible to conceive of, but to the natives it is a matter of most serious consideration, and is rigidly adhered to in all their daily relations with each other. Here and there one comes upon a Buddhist or Hindu temple, and now we pause before a Mohammedan mosque. Each sect is eminently devout after its own fashion, and all are at liberty to follow the dictates of their own consciences. Two of our party having thoughtlessly entered one of the Hindu sanctuaries without removing their shoes, great indignation was expressed by some natives near at hand, and for a few moments it really appeared as though a downright fight would ensue. However, peace was restored at last by complying with the custom of the place, and promenading daintily through the temple in our stockings. Additional backsheesh was also awarded to the custodian of the shrine to pacify his wounded sensibilities. Before we left the spot, everybody was quite serene. To the author, the most curious part of this experience was that our little party wore their hats through it all, no objection being made. European etiquette demands of one to uncover the head as a mark of respect on special occasions, but the barbaric, or rather the oriental fashion, is to uncover the feet. There are many curious points of difference in symbols of respect. The Tamil covers his head with an ample turban out of deference to those of a higher caste, while the Singhalese proper would not think it respectful to wear anything upon his head in the presence of a superior. A Chinaman lets down his braided pigtail as a mark of respect to those above him in rank, or as a token of reverence in the temple, while a Singhalese twists his braid into a snood at the back of his head, and secures it by a shell comb, for the same purpose. The display of vegetables and fruit offered for sale on improvised benches or tables outside of the cabins, forming groups vivid in color and novel in shape, is interesting to a stranger. The collection includes pumpkins, sweet potatoes, oranges, pineapples, mangoes, guavas, and bananas, together with zapotas, rose-apples, limes, yams, and many other varieties. They are often arranged upon broad leaves, fresh and green, which impart to them a refreshing air of coolness. Some large, handsome bunches of grapes were observed, for which a high price was asked (thirty cents per pound). These came from the northern part of the island, on the peninsula of Jaffna, where they are raised in small quantities. Ripe oranges in Ceylon have a queer habit of reaching that palatable condition while quite green externally. They are very sweet, having a thin skin and plenty of juice, together with a flavor equal to those of the Indian River district in Florida, and superior to those of California. Prices are very moderate; a large ripe pineapple costs twopence, and half a dozen oranges are sold for the same sum. Statistics show that between nine and ten thousand acres are devoted to the raising of pineapples in Ceylon, where they ripen to great perfection. The little open-air shops are called "caddies," and are always presided over by native women, who, under an air of oriental indifference as to whether you purchase their wares or not, are yet exercised by suppressed eagerness to have you do so. A few of these simple caddies were observed to be prettily decorated with wreaths of myrtle, yellow flowers, and wisps of sweet lemon grass, hung on either side of the fruit, dispensing an exquisite fragrance which dominated all the offensive odors of the locality. This arrangement betrayed a woman's hand, prompted by a certain delicacy of fancy and an eye for natural beauty. There always exists this half-effaced charm within the bosom of the humblest of the sex, whether in Crim Tartary, the Sandwich Islands, or the Parisian boulevards. The surroundings are kaleidoscopic in effect, composed of contrasting races, bronzed men in white turbans, native women very nearly nude, queer physiognomies, busy itinerant salesmen, boisterous children covered only by their copper-colored skins, mingling with native domestic servants in fancy dresses of red and yellow, and bejeweled nurses, sent by their European mistresses to purchase some favorite fruit. The scene is constantly shifting, and the combinations rapidly changing. Every fresh visit to this portion of Colombo reveals some new phases of oriental life, which are often recalled to the mind's eye when one is far away and compassed by very different surroundings. Native women pass and repass, bearing upon their heads broad, shallow baskets full of ripe fruit or vegetables, on their way to the English portion of the town, while other itinerants offer dark brown edible cakes made from mysterious sources. The great weight which a Singhalese or Tamil woman can carry on her head is something marvelous, far exceeding that of an Irish laborer's hod of bricks or mortar borne upon the shoulder. The humbler class of Eastern women all practice this mode of transporting merchandise from the period of their early childhood, hence their steady upright pose when walking, whether bearing any burden or not. An Egyptian, Indian, or Singhalese woman who had a quart pitcher of liquid to convey any distance would not carry it in her hands, but would place it on the top of her head for safety and convenience. As a rule, the men do not carry burdens upon their heads, but when transporting merchandise, they wear upon their necks and shoulders a sort of yoke with protruding arms, upon which a couple of stout baskets hang, balancing each other, and containing the goods. One Tamil woman was noticed with a bevy of paroquets for sale, so tame that they crept about her head, arms, and shoulders, being occasionally treated to some favorite tidbit from her lips. She formed a pretty picture with her mottled green pets, an evidence also of what kindness and gentleness will accomplish. The admirable display of fresh fish in the market is of great variety in shape and color, testifying to an abundant food supply afforded by the neighboring waters. Six hundred kinds of fish have been catalogued by scientists as being found on this coast. The river fish are of poor quality. Doubtless the reader has heard of the "climbing perch," a tropical fish which is partially amphibious, and which abounds in Ceylon. It can make its way over the land for considerable distances in search of the nearest watercourse, when its native pond becomes dry. There is also another eccentric piscatory creature here known as the "burying fish," which, when the water subsides, makes its way down into the muddy bottom of the lake or pond, where it hibernates until the rain again furnishes it with its natural element,--a veritable "fish story," but we were assured of its truth. At Batticaloa, the capital of the eastern province, there is a lake in which "singing fish" are found. Over these aquatic curiosities scientists have held many interesting sessions. What with burying fish, climbing perch, and singing fish, Ceylon would seem to have rather more than her just share of piscatory curiosities. When the dry season sets in and the watercourses cease to flow, the Ceylon elephant deliberately digs himself a well in the sandy bed of the rivers, using for the purpose both his ivory grubbers and the horny toes of his forefeet. Digging a few feet downwards generally brings water for the quenching of the huge animal's thirst. Unerring instinct (superior to human reason) guides him in selecting the proper spot in which to dig his well, to which he returns daily, and when the season of drought is prolonged, he sometimes deepens it. When the severity of a Norwegian winter exhausts all other sources of food supply for the herds, the deer dig with their forefeet deep through the snow to reach the reindeer moss upon which to browse. They make no mistake in selecting the right spot, but always find the moss where they dig. The most experienced owners of the herds would be puzzled to indicate the proper places to seek the moss beneath the deep snow. In contradistinction to all oriental ideas and the eternal fitness of things, while we watch the passing show of native life, our ears are saluted by the discordant notes of a bass drum, a bugle, and a fife. Presently there comes into view a score or less of Europeans of both sexes, the men wearing a sort of uniform cloth cap, and the half-dozen women, poke bonnets. Of course they represent the Salvation Army. How sadly out of place they seem to be here! These "missionaries," as they call themselves, have never been known to make a proselyte from this brown-skinned people, so far as we could learn, while they are generally regarded by the Europeans as a class who have taken up with this craze as a last resort after having exhausted all other means in their endeavors to obtain a living without working for it. Still it must be admitted that there never was a fad or folly, however absurd, without some honest disciples,--weak, but conscientious advocates. CHAPTER IX. The English Part of Colombo.--Army Reserves.--Ceylon an Independent Colony.--"A Paternal Despotism."--Educational Facilities.--Buddhism versus Christianity.--Public Buildings.--The Museum.--Domestic Dwellings.--Suburb of Colpetty.--The Lake of Colombo.--A Popular Driveway.--A Sunset Scene.--Excursion to the Kelani Temple.--The Jinrikisha.--Current Diseases.--Native Jugglers.--Hypnotism.--Houdon, the French Magician, astonishes the Natives.--The Thieving Crows. In that part of Colombo known as the Fort, and situated south of the Pettah, the English have spacious and well-arranged barracks, of sufficient size to accommodate five thousand men of all arms. Of course, no such force is required in Ceylon, and there are not such a number of troops here at the present writing. The island is peaceful enough, but the object of the British government is to maintain here, as well as at Malta, a body of disciplined men ready for immediate service, and especially prepared to reinforce the army of India in case of an emergency. The judiciousness of this precaution was well illustrated in 1857, when this station, from its small military force, afforded such material aid at the outbreak of what the English call the Indian mutiny, before alluded to. This island, though it is a British colony like India, so near at hand, is quite separate from it in governmental organization. Ceylon is presided over by a governor appointed by the Queen of England, who is aided in his official position by an executive council and a small legislative body of fifteen or twenty individuals. Some one has called the government of Ceylon "a paternal despotism." All ordinances are submitted to the approval of Her Majesty before they become registered law. The island is divided into provinces, each governed by a civil servant, having under him a staff of European and native assistants. The Roman-Dutch law, so termed, is the law of the island in all cases not otherwise provided for. The government furnishes means for the education of the rising generation, in the form of free schools, which advantage, though not universally improved, is yet reasonably successful. This is particularly commendable when it is remembered that the government of England has remained far behind other civilized countries in cultivating the intelligence of her people at home. It was not until so late as 1870 that she entered upon a system of free schools for the masses. The natives of Colombo are shrewd enough, in many cases, to see material good in giving their children regular school instruction, though they have not themselves enjoyed such a privilege. In this connection it is well to speak of St. Thomas' College, which is situated in the northeast suburb of the capital, about a couple of miles from the Grand Oriental Hotel, close by Christ Church Cathedral. This college is near the shore, in a most healthful and airy location, the suburb being known as Mutwal, where the Kelani River enters the sea. Here, between two and three hundred young men, composed of Singhalese, Tamils, and the descendants of Portuguese and Dutch colonists, are in constant attendance. Close at hand there is also a high school for girls, admirably conducted, whose educational advantages are availed of by a goodly number of natives. Here let us diverge for a single moment. Secular education is the true and only available missionary among Asiatic tribes. Honest and experienced religionists are beginning to see and admit the correctness of this conclusion. The preaching to them by various Christian sects of very contradictory tenets of faith confuses these simple people, who are still often shrewd enough to detect broad inconsistencies, as well as to analyze and reason concerning missionary efforts among them. They say very logically to those representatives who are sent from America or Europe: "We are agreed here upon Buddhism. When you Christians can agree among yourselves as to which of your many doctrines is the right one, it will be time enough for you to try to teach us to discard a faith which our fathers have believed for thousands of years." More than one intelligent Singhalese has expressed himself to this effect in our presence. We leave it to the reader if these people are not perfectly logical in their position. Who can wonder that confusion inevitably arises in the simple mind of a native of this Indian isle, who attempts to reconcile our multitudinous sects and schisms? We were speaking of the English portion of Colombo, which consists of a few broad streets shaded by thrifty tulip-trees, an official residence known as Government House, the long line of barracks already referred to, a cathedral, a clock-tower (serving also as a lighthouse), a club-house, hospital, some indifferent shops, two or three banking establishments, a public library, and three or four large hotels. The Colombo Library is situated on the corner of Queen Street, and contains some twenty-five thousand volumes. Its facilities are freely shared by strangers as well as by the citizens. The lighthouse referred to is a hundred and thirty-two feet above sea level; that on the end of the breakwater is a trifle less than forty feet. The former shows a triple flash at brief intervals, visible at night some twenty miles at sea. Among its ancient buildings, much interest centres upon the Dutch church, and its curious old graveyard. There are no less than six newspapers published in this circumscribed community; two are in Singhalese, one in Tamil, and three in English. We do not imagine that they have much of a circulation, and yet unless they were self-supporting they would not probably be issued. Type-setting is cheap in Colombo, and the quality of the paper used is inexpensive. The Museum of Colombo is a rather handsome and quite substantial two-story building, situated near Victoria Park, which was formerly a part of the famous Cinnamon Gardens, originally planted by the Dutch. The collection of curiosities in the museum embraces a large number, which have been found mostly upon the island, and includes many interesting specimens of preserved birds, together with large and small native animals and beautiful shells. There are also some literary and historical treasures relating to Ceylon preserved here, among which is a rare collection of palm-leaf manuscripts, both in Pali and Singhalese, bound after an original fashion. The edifice, which was built in 1877, is pleasantly situated, and surrounded by well-arranged, cultivated grounds. The entrance is free to all. Near the Colombo terminus of the Kandy road is the pleasant public resort known as the Gordon Gardens, named in honor of Sir Arthur Gordon, a former governor of Ceylon. This area was his personal gift to the capital in memory of the jubilee of Her Majesty's reign. The gardens are rendered very attractive on each Friday afternoon by the performance of a military band; free outdoor instrumental concerts are also given every week on the Galle Face. A few of the better class of dwelling-houses in Colombo are finished externally in stucco, all having the inevitable and indispensable broad veranda. Surrounding these homes honeysuckles, crimson hibiscus, azaleas, cape jessamines, oleanders, and other flowering plants abound, with here and there little rocky mounds of lilies, cacti, and low ferns; while the familiar palms, mangoes, and bananas always make their appearance somewhere on the premises. Tennis courts give an English look to the surroundings of the bungalows. The unfortunate prevalence of dampness often proves very destructive inside these picturesque residences. There are seasons when books and papers, if exposed, are so seriously injured that they decay like ripe fruit. Boots and shoes become mouldy in a single night, and other articles are similarly affected. Colpetty is the name of a very attractive suburb of the capital, intersected by finely macadamized, level roads, which are kept in admirable condition, running beneath shady bamboos and bending palms, where the delightful fragrance of flowers is always present. Here a small colony of Europeans have made for themselves delightful tropical homes, half hidden by the abundant vegetation behind beautiful shade trees where swinging hammocks and low music tell of delicious idleness and restful ease. If you pass through the embowered ways of this district after nightfall, your path will be lighted by glow-worms and fireflies, just as phosphorescence illumines the darkness upon the waters traversed by a ship's hull. It is the bedtime of the flowers, but their fragrance lingers in the atmosphere and affords the most careless participant sensuous delight. Here, as in many tropical regions, the bungalows bear curious individual names, such as: Whist Bungalow, The Rotunda, The Snuggery, Monsoon Villa, The Rainbow, Storm Lodge, Palmyra Cottage, and so on. A similar custom prevails in the West Indies. In a small front yard of a bungalow at Colpetty, a few climbing vines of the old-fashioned pink, purple, and white morning-glory greeted the eye like the smile of a half-forgotten friend. How familiar and suggestive they were in their sweet simplicity. One thrifty vine had found lodgment upon a tall Norfolk Island pine, clinging upon its singularly uniform branches, and making altogether a most delightful combination of color. In the same inclosure were several tall trees of the bell-shaped, white datura, the large flowers depending in great profusion, as beautiful to the eye as they are poisonous to the palate. The unending night concerts of the ground and tree frogs in this vicinity are marvelous for the aggregated noise they produce. At the expense of calling down anathemas from the good friends whose hospitality we enjoyed there, it must be added that this croaking was almost unbearable; worse, if possible, than the symphony and variations of the tuneful mosquitoes. The large, fresh-water lake formed by the Kalani-Gunga, which, on its course from the hills to the sea, covers nearly a hundred miles, straggles about the town in irregular lines, so that at one point it very nearly joins the sea. This river has been crossed at Colombo for many years by a bridge of boats, which has several times been carried away by the turbulent stream during the season of floods. A substantial iron girder roadway has lately been added to facilitate travel. The old bridge is formed by a score of boats firmly anchored, stem and stern, in a straight line, and supporting a platform laid upon crossbeams, which is fastened to the boats. The roadway is about five hundred feet long, the river being nearly that width at the point where the boats are placed. In olden times, there was a regularly established ferry here, but the bridge of boats has served transportation to better purpose for many years. There are now few rivers of any importance upon frequented routes in Ceylon which are left unbridged, most of the structures being of stone and iron, and built after the best modern system. The lake, with its surroundings, forms one of the great beauties of Colombo, covering a broad expanse dotted with islands fringed by tropical verdure, and embellished with many fragrant gardens. The view across the still water, with its grand mountain background in the blue distance, is exquisite, particularly at the close of day, when the sunset leaves upon its surface a broad crimson gleam like a roseate blush suffusing a beautiful face. Upon its glassy surface a few pleasure boats add variety to the aquatic picture. There is a charming driveway or promenade extending quite round the lake, and following all its sinuosities amid low, broad-spread bungalows, cocoanut palms, plantains, and bread-fruit-trees. Occasional waterfowls float among the cosy bays, or swim out upon the lake, engaged in voyages of discovery. The last time we chanced to observe this interesting expanse of water, a bevy of muscovy ducks--the original stock having been imported by some local official--put off from the shore like a fleet of Spanish galleons of old, bent upon a marine foray. They were proudly led by a drake, whose restless neck, with its brilliant prismatic hues, shone like a cluster of oriental gems in the glow of the morning sun. The popular driveway within the town is called the Galle Face, having the open sea on one side and the lake on the other. Here, after four o'clock in the afternoon, all the beauty and fashion of the place come in many a gay turnout, and some on horseback, to enjoy the fresh air, the ocean view, and to meet each other socially. Why this esplanade bears the singular name of Galle Face, no one can explain. It is said that it was so called because the roadway faced Galle, but it does no such thing. It faces Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea. However, the name is of little importance. It is a beautiful driveway, recalling the Maidan of Calcutta, improved for a similar purpose. There is one especially impressive scene to be enjoyed from this point,--the daily sunset as viewed from the esplanade, when that luminary sinks slowly beneath the surface of the long level reach of the Indian Ocean, which, as we look westward, expands into infinite space. During the brief interval between day and star light, it appears to the watchful observer as though he were looking through a veil, the fabric of which consisted of golden meshes. The air seems full of infinitesimal amber particles, and all things are wrapped in an oriental warmth of color. Where sky and ocean meet, a line of ruby glow burns like lava, slowly changing to the hue of rich red wine. What exquisite harmonies Nature utters to the willing ear, and what inexpressible charms she reveals to appreciative eyes. Twilight is brief in this latitude, Night, clad in her sombre garb, following close upon the footsteps of the Day, while a soft roseate light ushers in the myriads of heavenly lamps, tremulous and luminous in their varying colors. "A fiery sunset burns itself out quickly," says the Italian proverb. Though the twilight is brief, the afterglow is often very beautiful, almost rivaling the sunset itself. Turning the eyes for a moment towards the opposite or eastern sky, the dainty cloudlets, floating serenely in the blue ether, are tinged with a glow of delicate and beautiful hues. From their lofty position the sinking sun is still visible, causing them to blush at the ardor of his parting glance. Perhaps it is because of the novel surroundings that sunset often strikes one as being so remarkable in these foreign lands. When we pause to analyze the matter, surely we have seen equally fine effects in this daily occurrence at home in Massachusetts, or at Bar Harbor on the coast of Maine. As we enjoy this scene from the esplanade, a large P. and O. steamship crosses the line of sight just off the shore, bound for Calcutta. She will double Dondra Head and steer northward, touching at Madras; thence, hugging the Coromandel coast, she will make the mouth of the Hooghly River, upon whose treacherous tide she will seek to reach the City of Palaces. We know the route and its stormy character only too well. There is a pleasant drive over the best and smoothest of roads to the north of Colombo, affording a glimpse of characteristic scenery, and which takes one out to the Kalani temple, where a fine library containing many rare oriental books may be seen. This is believed to be one of the oldest shrines on the island. The present edifice is probably built upon the site of the original one. The temple of Kalani contains a sitting statue of Buddha, with one each of Ganesa, Vishnu, and Siva. The walls of the interior are covered with curious paintings representing various legends, so that altogether it forms one of the local objects of interest which the stranger should not fail to visit. While upon this subject of places worthy of note in the neighborhood of the capital, let us mention Avisawella, whither one goes by an admirable and pleasant road into the Kalani tea district, fifteen or twenty miles northeast of Colombo. Such excursions afford delightful glimpses of rural island scenery, of birds, trees, flowers, and native life, showing the humble class of country people at home, engaged in their legitimate domestic occupations. A fifteen or twenty mile trip and back is not too far to accomplish in a jinrikisha, and it is also an extremely comfortable mode of traveling. It is just ten years, at this writing, since this comfortable little vehicle was first introduced into Ceylon, during which time it has become a great favorite as a cheap and rapid means of transportation. The author has made a similar jaunt inland from Yokohama, in a single day, the cooly who drew the jinrikisha coming in at last in as fresh a condition as a well-driven horse would do. It must be remembered that roads in Japan and Ceylon are as perfectly smooth and hard as our best macadamized ones in this country. The average of our Massachusetts inland roadways will by no means compare favorably with the three thousand miles and more of those which traverse this island in the Indian Ocean. The choicest portion of Colombo as a place of residence is the suburb nearest to Victoria Park, which is but little removed from the business and bustle of the town. We say "bustle" of the town, but it is a misleading word when it is applied to tropical life. The people of equatorial regions think that haste makes waste, and so everything is done quietly, and not without due consideration. This is a temperament induced by the climate,--one into which even Europeans lapse, after dwelling here for a considerable length of time. It is stated that there are not more than six thousand Europeans upon the entire island, but we are inclined to consider this an underestimate. Statistics show that the rate of mortality as compared with the number of the entire population is such as to prove the climate to be an unusually healthy one for the tropics. There are certain portions of Ceylon, however, to which this conclusion will not apply, where it is so malarial and productive of fever that even the natives cannot live in them. The most formidable diseases which prevail here are of a malarial nature, but they do not always make their appearance in the form of fever. Dysentery is apt to attack strangers, and elephantiasis is of frequent occurrence among the natives, but it almost never appears among white people. Diseases of the liver are also common. Notwithstanding the prevailing heat in the southern portions of the island, sunstroke is very rare. Persons of good habits, and who do not unreasonably expose themselves, seem generally to enjoy good health. Cholera and smallpox occasionally become epidemic, but rarely among the Europeans. There is the usual prejudice shown by the common people against vaccination, and consequently large numbers are sometimes swept away by smallpox. The slightest physical injury, such as a cut or bruise which breaks the skin, requires prompt attention here, otherwise tetanus may follow. It is the same in equatorial America, where a neglected wound is very liable to terminate in lockjaw. An antiseptic bandage should always be at hand for immediate use in case of accident in these low latitudes, where the atmosphere is charged with poisonous microbes watching a chance to do mischief; an open wound is just what they seek, and they rush in myriads to infect any such spot. One instinctively seeks the shade of the broad piazza which surrounds the hotel, as the sun approaches the zenith. Only the early part of the day and the late afternoon will admit of the traveler's appearing abroad with any degree of comfort. A local tableau is pretty sure to present itself, as it is the favorite time for the native jugglers and snake charmers to appear upon the scene, squatting upon their hands after the true Asiatic fashion, and quite oblivious of the fervor of the broiling sun, while they solicit your attention to their entertaining tricks. There are generally three performers on these occasions, one of whom is the active member of the party, assisted by a lad of twelve or fifteen years, while the third elicits peculiar notes in a minor key from a reed instrument not unlike a flageolet, but utterly devoid of harmony. One is forced to admit that they are very clever, these Indian prestidigitators, excelling in all forms of sleight-of-hand. Their facility in causing articles to disappear suddenly and then to exhibit themselves in out-of-the-way places is curious as well as unaccountable to an outsider. A common trick with these performers is to throw a ball very high into the air, which seems to fade away as the eye follows it, and does not apparently return to the ground. It literally vanishes from sight. The keenest watchfulness of the observer does not solve the manner of accomplishing this trick. "We are all hypnotized," said one of the spectators on the piazza, "else how could that ball come down to the earth and not be seen to do so? It _must_ descend, having once ascended," he added; "that is a law of nature." "It may possibly be something of that sort," responded another equally dazed spectator. "The Hindus know all about hypnotism, and have practiced it more or less for many centuries, though we are but just beginning to investigate it." "How these marvelous things are performed, no foreigner ever knows," added a third. "The power is handed down from father to son, but is never revealed to the multitude." The only way we can explain some of the tricks and apparent miracles which these performers exhibit is by supposing that for the time being we are quite under the hypnotic influence of the magician. The author has seen in India proper a performer in this line extend a glass bowl full of water in his hand at arm's length, and cause it to gradually grow less and less in size until it disappeared altogether. After a moment it appeared again in the hand and at the same place, beginning at first about the size of an English walnut, and growing before the spectator's eyes to its normal condition. Another common trick is to plant a mango seed in an earthen pot before the spectator's eyes and cause the same to spring up and grow into a small bush, then blossom and bear a green fruit, which finally ripens until it is in a condition to be plucked from the stem. This entire process is accomplished in half an hour, while some side tricks are going on. The swallowing of a sword, or rather passing its blade down the throat into the stomach, is very common with these Singhalese itinerant exhibitors, a facility which is acquired after much patient practice, and which is not necessarily injurious to the performer. The snakes which these "charmers," as they call themselves, handle with such apparent recklessness and freedom are of the deadly cobra family, fatally poisonous when their fangs penetrate the flesh of other animals or of human beings; but as is well known, the repulsive and seemingly dangerous creatures which are publicly exhibited in this manner have had their natural means of defense carefully removed. Yet, true to their instincts, they may be seen now and again to strike viciously at the bare arms and legs of the natives who handle them, while the performance is going on. It is not a very pleasing, though a curious exhibition, and as a rule is avoided by ladies. The author has seen a sensitive person of the gentler sex so wrought upon by this performance as to cause her to faint. Sometimes the cobras do seem to pay attention to the low, droning notes of the pipe, which is often accompanied by a rude tom-tom. The creatures raise themselves up on their tails, swaying slowly hither and thither with a uniform motion, as though realizing that they are on exhibition. That they know their owners is evident, since upon the approach of a stranger they immediately show great irritation and a desire to strike with their fangs. One never witnesses these scenes without a sense of surprise that the cobras do not promptly endeavor to escape upon being taken out of the box in which they are transported. They do not show any such desire, but hasten back to their place of confinement, which is doubtless made comfortable for them, and where some bit of favorite food is always given to them after each exhibition. Thus they soon learn to associate the idea of feeding time with their public performance, which doubtless adds to their docility on the occasion. These repulsive-looking creatures are hooded and spectacled, vary in length from three to six feet, and are covered with dark spots upon a slate-colored skin. Back of the head and along the neck is a membrane which they have the power of expanding when under excitement, and around the eyes are circles giving the effect of spectacles, which the snakes seem to need, for though their hearing is acute enough they have a very dull capacity as to sight. The cobra has received much attention from naturalists in consequence of certain singular habits which are attributed to the creature. The natives do not trouble themselves much about it, except to give it a wide berth when it is encountered, knowing only too well the fatal nature of its bite. Professor Houdin, a famous Parisian magician, when on a visit to this island, after watching the Indian jugglers for a week, invited as many of them as chose to come to a public exhibition given by himself. The natives came by scores, and the reader may be sure that Houdin did his best. The Singhalese "sleight-o'-hand men," when they saw him perform many of their own tricks with far greater expertness than they could do, were surprised beyond measure. He then exhibited others so strange and so inexplicable to them that the Singhalese declared he must be in league with evil spirits. In their performances they were openly assisted by one or two associates, a prime necessity to enable them to deceive the lookers-on. But here was an unpretentious, simply dressed European, who stood before them alone, with only a small, common table upon which to place necessary articles, plainly shown before all eyes, who yet puzzled them completely. His tricks were mostly new to them, and they gazed with open mouths at the white necromancer, then into each others' faces, as much as to say: "What does this mean? whence does this man obtain power to perform miracles?" All this was intensely amusing to the English residents of Colombo, who also formed a large portion of the audience. But the climax was yet to come. When Houdin finally blew a fiery flame and smoke from his mouth,--a well-known act among European performers,--these superstitious islanders absolutely fled from his presence in undisguised consternation, unanimously and vehemently declaring that he must be the king devil himself come to bewitch them. This was the more surprising as these Indian experts must have realized the true source of their own deceptive powers. The hoarse, monotonous croaking of the crows at all hours of the day is one of the ceaseless annoyances and accompaniments of life in Colombo. Early risers see whole colonies of these obtrusive and omnipresent birds coming in from their roosting-places in the neighboring groves, seeking whom they may devour. They advance in irresistible numbers, like an army with banners loudly announcing their approach, like a marching regiment preceded by noisy fifes and drums, now wheeling as one huge body, and now breaking into sections and platoons. One might successfully resist a score of them, but when they come by the thousand, it is like a plague of locusts. Crows enjoy nearly the same immunity throughout the populous districts of India proper, and are to be found nearly as much in possession at Benares, Delhi, or Cawnpore as they are here in the capital of Ceylon. About twelve miles south of Colombo, just off the shore at Belligam, lies what is known as Crow Island, whither thousands of these birds resort every night to roost. They do not fail, however, to return to the capital bright and early in the morning. Probably a flight of twelve or fifteen miles from their regular night quarters before breakfast is of no account to these active, swift-winged creatures. There is still another crow-roost nearer to Colombo, at Mount Lavonia, in the thick palm groves which skirt the shore, within rifle-shot of that pleasant summer resort. When they awake in the early morning and prepare for their flight cityward, the combined noise which they make is something like the roar of artillery. CHAPTER X. Birds on the Rampage.--Familiar Nuisances.--Silver-Spoon Thieves.--Doctrine of Metempsychosis.--Various Nationalities forming the Population.--Common Languages.--Tamils are the Wage-Earners.--The Singhalese Proper are Agriculturists.--Queer Belief in Demons.--Propitiation!--The Veddahs.--Attacking Wild Elephants.--Serpent Worship.--Polyandry.--Native Singhalese Women.--Dress of Both Sexes.--Streets of Colombo on a Gala Day.--An English Four-in-Hand.--Mount Lavonia. After becoming weary of the snake exhibition, it was suddenly remembered that we had been cautioned to close the windows upon leaving the sleeping apartment, so we hastened thither to see if all was as it should be. Upon entering the room, we were greeted by the presence of a score of dark-feathered creatures,--crows or rooks, whichever you please to call them,--handsome, familiar, notorious birds, whose black, shining plumage was daintily shot with blue, disposed here and there in cool, unblushing possession of the premises. Each exposed article of dress had been duly overhauled and pecked at, then dropped in utter confusion upon the bed or floor. A few soft biscuit, which had been left in a plate upon a table, had utterly disappeared, while a sugar bowl which had accompanied the morning cup of coffee was overturned and the contents devoured. One pillow-case had been relieved by some means of its contents, and hung from the top of the bedpost like a flag of truce, as though the enemy wished to stay all hostile proceedings. In short, the room had been raided by the rooks. They understood the first movement made to drive them away, and sailed gracefully from the room through the window, quite calm and unruffled. There is any number of these dark-plumed free-booters all about the streets and dwellings, eagerly on the lookout for just such a chance to impose upon thoughtless strangers. They fly in and out of open doors, lighting confidently upon the back of one's chair at mealtime, trying curiously the texture of his coat with their sharp bills. No one molests them or makes them afraid. They are far tamer than our domestic fowls, as they are never killed and eaten like hens and chickens. A Singhalese's religion, as has been said, will not permit him to take animal life. All animals are sacred to a Buddhist; even snakes and vermin have nothing to fear from him. As to these Ceylon crows, one regards them with a full sense of their audacity, but the birds themselves do not seem to be at all annoyed by such scrutiny. Cocking their heads on one side, parrot-like, they coolly proceed to look you out of countenance. Their mischievous and vicious activity is temporarily suspended during your presence, but no sooner is one's back turned upon them than their reckless antics and thieving propensities are resumed with increased vigor. One of their favorite tricks is to purloin silver spoons, being attracted perhaps by their brightness, and as they are not able to consume them, though like the ostrich they can eat almost anything, they seek some unfrequented piece of ground and dig a hole with their sharp claws, wherein they bury the stolen property from sight. The employees of the Grand Oriental Hotel are obliged to keep a sharp lookout for their table-ware, as anything small and bright at once challenges the curiosity of the crows, and is liable to be stolen by them. They are most adroit thieves, and watch with cunning precaution for a chance to perpetrate any sort of mischief. There is another reason besides that of a religious prompting which leads to the protection and toleration of the crows in this island. They are the recognized scavengers of the city of Colombo, just as vultures are permitted in Vera Cruz, where they are protected by law, for a similar purpose. Not a scrap of carrion escapes the voracious appetites of either species of these birds. All such matter cast into the street instantly disappears, while, if left exposed to decay in the hot sun, it might prove pestilential. It is remembered that the question seriously suggested itself at Vera Cruz, which was most to be deplored, the presence of the uncleanly, disgusting vultures, or that of Yellow Jack, as the prevailing epidemic is called in southern Mexico. "Why don't they kill these nuisances?" asked one of our fellow travelers of another, while he impatiently drove away a crow from the back of his chair in the hotel at Colombo. "They have too much respect for their dead relatives," was the reply of a companion. "Dead relatives?" queried the first speaker. "What has that to do with it?" "Very much. These Singhalese are believers in the doctrine of metempsychosis." "Who?" "Metempsychosis; that is, in the transmigration of the soul from human bodies into animals." "Don't see where that idea comes in," said the obtuse querist. "Why, if a fellow killed one of these impertinent rooks, don't you know, he might be murdering his dead grandmother!" These Buddhists of Ceylon believe that departed spirits who have behaved badly in human shape reappear in the form of domestic animals or birds, and those who have done well are turned into wild animals. The most dreadful fate is held to be the reappearance in life in the body of a woman, a sad and significant reflection upon the treatment to which they are universally subjected. The Singhalese and Tamils are the most numerous among the population of Colombo. Mohammedans, Malays, and Parsees, as intimated, are also here in considerable numbers, mingled with representatives of other nationalities. The Mohammedans are best known as Moormen. Though in the far past of the island's history Ceylon was so long and so intimately connected with the Celestial Empire, the author did not even chance to see a Chinaman on the island, though at the north and elsewhere in the several provinces these Mongolians are to be found. In their migrating westward, the race cease to establish a foothold in numbers beyond Penang. This latter island, as well as that of Singapore, is dominated by them, the small trade of both places being wholly in their hands. But beyond the Malacca Straits, they have not made their way westward to any considerable extent. The Singhalese language, which is soft and flowing, is founded on the Sanskrit, an evidence in itself of the antiquity of the people. Tamil is the language of southern India, and is used here by the Moormen as well as by the Tamils proper. There is a Portuguese patois still spoken by European descendants and half-breeds, while the Dutch language is quite unknown, though that people remained here nearly a century and a half after the Portuguese were driven out of the island. The English tongue is becoming more and more common in all populous centres like Colombo, Trincomalee, Kandy, and Point de Galle. The Singhalese are nearly always Buddhists, while the Tamils, as a people, are Hindus. The latter, as we have said, are the wage-earners of the country, working alongshore at the wharves, loading and unloading ships, belonging to the coal barges, and the like. The Singhalese proper take higher rank; the sort of occupation accepted by the Tamils would not on any account be adopted by a Singhalese. Caste is imperious and imperative, though it is strictly discountenanced by the religion of the people, and especially so by the English government, which does not fail to exercise its influence against it. The Tamils, being light of body and used to laborious occupations, make the best jinrikisha men,--the small, man-propelled chaise,--trotting off in their almost naked condition with the speed of a horse, while drawing the vehicle and its occupants behind them. They rival in fleetness the little gigs or hackeries, as they are called, propelled by small and active brahmin bulls, gayly decked with tinkling bells. Some of the zebus, with their humped necks, deep dewlaps, silky hides, and deer-like limbs, are really handsome creatures. These gigs with their peculiar animals, and the jinrikishas drawn by Tamils, are striking and novel features to a stranger when he first lands at Colombo, unless he comes from the East. The idea of the jinrikisha is borrowed from Japan, but that of the small bullock cart comes from India, where they are common all over the country. It is surprising to see with what ease and speed these little creatures will trot along the smooth roads, guided by reins attached to a ring which passes through a hole in the cartilage of their nostrils. There is a larger breed of cattle which are imported from India for farming purposes, but most of those in common use are the small ones we have described. Both are of the zebu breed. A certain number of the larger ones, like elephants, are kept in the temples of India and worshiped as sacred animals. It will doubtless strike the reader that there is a certain degree of inconsistency in using these cattle as beasts of burden, twisting their tails to elicit a high degree of speed, and in kneeling solemnly before the same creatures as sacred when they are kept within the walls of the temples. The Singhalese proper make very good mechanics, and can imitate a delicate model when submitted to them, equaling the Chinese, whose fidelity in this respect has passed into a proverb. They are specially expert in the manufacture of wooden boxes from choice material, inlaid with ivory, tortoise shell, mother of pearl, and the like; but above all else they pride themselves as a people upon being agriculturists, a planter's occupation being considered as fitting for the highest caste to engage in. It is in the cultivation of broad rice-fields that the Singhalese is seen at his best. This occupation he fully understands. A predilection for it seems to have been born in him; his forefathers have followed the business for centuries, and success in this line of occupation means to him independence and plenty. All classes of the natives of Ceylon are full of superstitions, and support hundreds of demon-priests, who thrive upon the foolishness and fears of the masses. Incantations of the most extravagant character are the principal means used by the priests, who are also called doctors, and who pretend to relieve sickness and pain by barbarous means, such as hideous dances, beating of tom-toms, blowing of horns, wearing hideous masks, and other devices. All this nonsense is popularly supposed to drive away the evil spirits who cause the sickness. The Singhalese believe that all ills in life are inflicted as punishment, and that evil spirits are the agents of Providence to apply the same. They think that they are under penalty not alone for sins committed during their present lives, but also for their wrongdoing in some previous state of existence. They may have been "rogue" elephants, thieving crows, vicious buffaloes, or vile cobras, all of which is quite in accordance with their creed as promulgated by the Buddhist priests. They seem to have no skill whatever in the treatment of the most simple illness. The author has never, even among the most barbaric tribes, quite isolated from contact with white men, known a people so deficient in this respect. Some few of the Singhalese planters regularly set aside a small portion of their rice-fields, and leave them unharvested, for the use of the demons! It is intimated that the priests manage to secretly reap these portions for their own benefit, representing it to have been done by the evil spirits, whose good-will has thus been secured in behalf of the credulous planter. The base and groveling superstitions and credulity of the natives of Ceylon are simply disgusting. There are said to be three thousand devil-priests supported in the island, living with unblushing assurance upon the ignorance of the masses. How closely akin is all this to the Roman Catholic priests, who pretend "on liberal terms" to pray departed souls out of purgatory. Does it not seem extraordinary that the idea of worshiping or propitiating some powerful evil spirit should prevail almost universally among barbarous and half-civilized races? It is not the force of example which inculcates such an idea, since the author has met with it as a native custom among various tribes situated as far apart as the poles. The Alaska Indians, the denizens of "Darkest Africa," the Maoris of New Zealand, and the cannibal tribes of the Fiji Islands, all yield more or less to this instinct. Nor were the Indians of North America devoid of an equivalent custom when the European settlers first came among them. It is only natural that all people, civilized or otherwise, should be exercised by an instinct leading up to the worship of a great Heavenly Father of mankind, but the belief in the existence of an opposing and more important power, which must first be propitiated, is certainly as singular as it is universal among the barbarous races of both hemispheres. When visiting the famous temples of Nikko, in Japan, the author saw a priest sitting before a temple in the open air, beside a collection of prepared pine chips with which he was feeding a small fire upon an open stone slab, and accompanying the burning process by beating at intervals upon a tom-tom. On inquiring as to the significance of this singular ceremony, we were sagely told by the native guide that the priest thus solicited the good-will of the god of fire, who was very powerful and inimical to man, unless his favor was frequently sought by such means. "How terrible it would be," added the devout Japanese, "if he (the god of fire) were to consume these sacred temples," pointing as he spoke to the unique group of buildings so elaborately ornamented, which contain such priceless hoards of rich bronzes, carved images, and delicate lacquered ware. The sacred temples of Nikko are in their way quite unequaled in the world, having, with other remarkable attractions, the consecrating influence of great antiquity. The oldest Japanese bronzes are valued at their weight in gold; indeed, that precious metal forms a large percentage of the material of which they are composed. Modern bronze, as compared with that of ten centuries ago, in Japan, is a very different and inexpensive compound. Any person who has been at sea in a severe storm when there were Chinamen on board the ship has seen the superstitious Mongolians throw bits of "joss-paper" overboard, bearing certain inscriptions and mysterious characters, intended to pacify the water-devil, as they call the spirit of the storm. A peculiar race of wild people, called Veddahs, inhabit the forest fastness of Bintenne, a district situated southeast from Kandy forty or fifty miles, and a hundred and twenty or thereabouts from Colombo, in a northeast direction. The territory to which these people confine themselves is known as Vedda-ratta, or country of the Veddahs, whither their ancestors retired more than two thousand years ago, when their Singhalese conquerors came to Ceylon from the north. Bintenne, which gives its name to the district, transcends Anuradhapura in antiquity. Long before the Wijayan invasion, it was one of the chief aboriginal cities, and for centuries was the most important place in Ceylon. During the Dutch dominion Bintenne was made a place of note, and is spoken of by them as "the finest city in the island." It is now remote, a circumscribed and secluded district; very few Europeans have ever penetrated any great distance within its borders. Indeed, the density of its jungles forbids access to those who know not its solitary footpaths. The singular people of whom we write are now inconsiderable in number, speaking a language understood only by themselves, and are doubtless descendants of the aborigines of the island, a race who lived here previous to any dates of which we have record. The country which they inhabit is about ninety miles long by half that distance in width, in the southeastern part of the island, and extends towards the sea from the base of the mountain region of the central province, commencing near the base of the Badulla hills. There is abundant evidence connecting these barbarians with the Yakkos, who were the oldest known race in Ceylon. They live mostly upon the game which they kill with bows and arrows. They build no regular habitations, live in caves, grass huts, and the open air, and avoid intercourse with all other tribes, especially the English. They are an undersized people, the men being only five feet in height on an average, and the women still less. Their neglect of any sort of ablution is a marked feature of their habits, while their intellectual capacity is placed, by people who have taken considerable trouble to inform themselves upon the subject, at as low a gauge as possible in human beings. In the matter of cleanliness, the wild animals about them are more civilized than they, their long, tangled, unkempt hair adding to their weird, uncanny appearance. What little intercourse they have with other people is almost entirely by signs, and they seem to be either disinclined or unable to talk intelligently. They are said to be wonderful marksmen with bow and arrow. As they practice constantly from boyhood, this is but natural. With the exception of the knife, the bow and arrow is their only weapon of offense or defense. It is thought that there are not over a couple of thousand Veddahs now in existence, an aggregate which is annually diminished. They are still accustomed to the most primitive ways, producing fire, when it is needed, by rapidly turning a pointed stick in a hole made in perfectly dry wood, their bowstrings acting as a propeller in twirling the stick. This is a sure but laborious way to obtain fire. It is a fact which has been commented upon considerably, and which is perhaps worthy of mention in this connection, that, in many important particulars, these Veddahs are very like the wild native tribes of Australia. This is not only evinced in certain physical resemblances, but also in their hereditary habits, their unwritten tongue, and some other particulars. Much is made of these facts by certain writers on physical geography, who have a theory that in the far past Australia was joined or was adjacent to Ceylon, notwithstanding the wide reach of ocean which now intervenes. These wild people of the district of Bintenne are divided into two communities,--the Rock or Jungle Veddahs, and the Village Veddahs, the latter living nearest to the settlements on the east coast, dwelling in cabins built in the rudest manner, and cultivating some simple grains and vegetables, while the former remain in the depth of the forest, roaming hither and thither, and avoiding all contact with civilization. They are said to have preserved this isolation and manner of living from the earliest period of the island's history. They supplement their other food with various edible roots, wild fruits, and honey, adding lizards, roasted monkeys, and venison. They are not Buddhists, and have no hesitation as to the taking of animal life, or in eating the meat of bird or beast. It is said that they eat freely of carrion, or decayed animal substances, with perfect impunity,--like the Arctic races, who live largely upon putrid whale blubber in the summer season; in winter, it freezes so solid as to keep it from putrefaction. The wild elephant would seem to be too powerful an animal for these poorly armed savages to attack, but it is not so,--they do hunt him, and successfully. Their mode is to lie in hiding near what is known as an elephant path until one makes his appearance, and as he passes, at a favorable moment, when he lifts his foot nearest to the hunter, a short steel-headed arrow is shot into the soft sole. When the animal stamps his foot with pain, he only drives the shaft still deeper into his limb. The poor beast soon lies down, in his agony, and in this climate a wound festers with great rapidity. The huge creature cannot bear his wounded foot to the ground, and sinks upon the earth, after great suffering, in a helpless condition. The Veddah huntsman then approaches, and with a well-aimed spear, thrust where the spinal marrow and the brain unite, the creature's misery is ended, and he quickly breathes his last. It is said by those who are well informed about these wild people, that their best huntsmen are less cruel and equally successful. The plan they adopt is to lie in wait near a spot frequented by the elephants, probably some watercourse where they come to drink. At a favorable moment, the huntsman, being only a few yards off, sends a steel-headed shaft into the brain of the huge beast by aiming just upward behind the ear, whereupon the elephant falls lifeless upon the ground. At certain seasons, these people bring honey and dried venison to the frontier, with an occasional elephant's tusk, and exchange them for cloth, hatchets, arrowheads, and a few simple articles which they have learned to use. They have no circulating medium like money; they could make no use of such. They seem to have no idea of God or Heaven, and erect neither temples nor idols, though a sort of propitiatory devil worship is said to prevail among them, the real purport of which is quite inexplicable. Like other tribes of whom we have spoken, they appear to have an idea that some invisible evil power is antagonistic to them and their well-being, and that their safety lies in offering homage in some form to that power. Of any supreme influence for good, they have no conception. They have heard of the white man's God, but believe their Devil is far more powerful. Like the humbler class of Italians, they have a mortal dread of something equivalent to the "evil eye." Such was an explanation given to us by an intelligent Buddhist at Kandy, who had once been a priest. The worship of the serpent as an emblem of divinity has been attributed to the earliest inhabitants of this island, but the Veddahs have no such faith. One of the most ancient among the multiplicity of names which Ceylon has borne is Nágadipa, or "snake island," in reference, it is thought by some, to this special worship of the aborigines. To the author, however, it seems much more reasonable that the name may have arisen from the great number of these reptiles which were, and which still are, found upon its soil. There are still some tribes in Ceylon who reverence the serpent as an emblem, and who actually devote temples to them, as the Hindus have done to bulls and monkeys for ages. The Veddahs are considered to be utter barbarians, but we very much doubt if many of their customs are any more barbaric than some which prevail among the Singhalese. Take, for instance, the revolting practice of polyandry, which is still countenanced in Ceylon. This custom, so strange and unnatural, has existed here for thousands of years, and longer still in India proper, as well as in Thibet and Cashmere. History tells us that this odious custom was common in Britain at the period of Cæsar's invasion. It is said to be dying out in this island since the advent of the English. Let us at least hope so, though the author was informed upon the spot that it was not unknown among the natives of the Kandian district at the present time. Conventionality has all the force of enacted law. Vice and virtue, it would seem, are relative terms, both being amenable to latitude and longitude. There is a custom among the Alaska Indians, deemed by them to be simply a rite of hospitality, which would consign a person to state prison if perpetrated in New England. Is there not also a legalized system of social debasement in Japan, so utterly vile in our estimation as to be absolutely unmentionable in detail? We have not yet in reality departed from Colombo, concerning which a few more words should be added before taking the reader inland to "imperial" Kandy in the central province among the hills. Colombo is an especially well-regulated and well-governed town. No reasonable fault can be found with its police arrangements, for notwithstanding the singular variety of nationalities gathered together within its limits, one witnesses no lawlessness; there are no visible improprieties of conduct, but quiet reigns supreme, both in the Singhalese and in the English quarter of the capital. The most lawless element here is the crows, and one must admit that these audacious creatures are irrepressible. The native women of the middle class whom one sees in the city are singular objects as regards costume, and appear as if engaged in a constant masquerade, being decorated in the most striking manner. They wear silver and brass rings thrust through the tops and bottoms of their ears, through their nostrils and lips, their toes sometimes being also covered with small gold coins attached to rings. Their ankles, fingers, and wrists are decked with bangles and rings, while their diaphanous dress is of rainbow colors. The author saw women, who were acting as nurses to the children of European residents, wearing all these gewgaws as described, the gross weight of which must have been considerable. Some of these women would be good-looking, not to say handsome, were they less disfigured by the cheap jewelry which they pile upon themselves, without regard to good taste or reason. It is an ingrained barbaric fondness for trinkets, which it would seem that they never quite outgrow, as women old and decrepit indulge it to the utmost limit of their means, thus thoughtlessly adding by contrast to their worn and wasted appearance. As to their being employed as nurses in the English officers' families, there is a certain degree of fitness in that, for they are very faithful in this relation; they are naturally loyal to their trust, and as a rule have excellent dispositions, so that the children become very fond of them. The men wear their jet-black hair long, done up with a circular shell comb in front, which keeps at back from the forehead and temples, and often have a high shell comb at the back of the head to keep the coil together, all of which gives them a most feminine appearance. The women do not wear combs at all, but braid their profuse ink-black locks, and twist them into a snood behind the head, a certain quantity being formed into puffs like bow-knots, and the whole kept together with long metallic pins, having ornamental heads of brass or silver. Like the Japanese women, their hair is so arranged as to be very showy, and they take great pride in its appearance. This passion for covering their persons with gewgaws is as old with these people as the ancient city of Anuradhapura, where the same custom prevailed among the Singhalese two thousand years ago. The abundance and beauty of the precious stones found in the soil of the island naturally led to their being mounted and worn by the wealthiest people. This fashion was imitated, as usual, by the humbler classes to the very limit of their means. If the latter could not afford the genuine article, they were obliged, as they are to-day, to be satisfied with cheap imitations. The rank and file of the common people, clad in various colors, form a brilliant panorama in the streets of Colombo on a gala day, mingled with whom are itinerant exhibitors of legerdemain, snake charmers, hustling dealers in gewgaws, peddlers of bonbons, native women bearing baskets of fruit on their heads, and naked Tamil laborers,--living bronzes,--on their way to the wharves. All phases of life are represented. An occasional blind and decrepit native is seen, guided by a small lad, who solicits pennies with which to purchase a little rice and curry, as the boy says in broken English. The most persistent beggars of all whom one meets in the thoroughfares are the Buddhist priests, who extend a dirty brass dish for alms, while mumbling some unintelligible gibberish. An occasional stranger and some humble natives respond to his appeals by contributing a few pennies, but the aggregate of his collection must be very small. There dashes by us, while we watch the scene, a gay party of English residents in a four-horse drag, bound to Mount Lavonia. This is a pleasant resort five or six miles from Colombo, on the coast line, where there is a very good public house, built originally for a private residence by a former governor of the island. It stands upon a promontory some fifty feet in height, which juts out into the sea, washed on either side by the waves of the Indian Ocean. This hotel is a conspicuous white building, and forms a familiar landmark for inward-bound vessels. It is much cooler at Lavonia than at Colombo, as the location is more open to the sea breezes, besides being upon an elevation. Let us also invite the reader to embark upon an excursion; but in place of hugging the sea coast by means of a coach and four, we will turn our faces inland by railway toward the olden capital of Kandy, in the heart of the island. CHAPTER XI. The Ancient Capital of Kandy.--An Artificial Lake.--The Great River of Ceylon.--Site of the Capital of the Central Province.--On the Way from Colombo to Kandy.--The Tiny Musk-Deer.--The Wild Boar.--Native Cabins.--From the Railway Car Windows.--The Lotus.--Destructive White Ants and their Enemies.--Wild Animals.--The Mother of Twins.--A Little Waif.--A Zigzag Railway.--An Expensive Road to build.--"Sensation Rock" with an Evil History.--Grand Alpine Scenery. Kandy, the Maha-neura, or "great city," of the Singhalese, one of the ancient capitals of Ceylon, is beautifully situated in the bosom of the verdant hills in the central province of the island, just about half way between the east and west coasts, a little more than seventy miles north of Colombo. Here the town nestles on a bend of the Maha-velle-Ganga ("great sandy river"), which nearly surrounds the old city at a distance of three miles from its centre. It became the capital of the island in 1592. As it was repeatedly captured and burned by the Portuguese, Dutch, and English, it presents no architectural monuments with any pretension to antiquity. Here we are about seventeen hundred feet above sea level, beside a spacious, though artificial lake, which represents a small portion of the grand system of irrigation for which Ceylon was so famous through a score of centuries. There is no natural lake worthy of the name in the country, though there are numerous ponds, large and small, here and there, especially in the southern part of the island. In the centre of this large sheet of water, with its charming aspect of repose and freshness, is a tiny island, where the last king of Kandy, who was a notorious tyrant, established his harem with true oriental lavishness. It is now improved as a safe place for the storage of gunpowder and other explosive war materials. At least, it was formerly thus appropriated, though perhaps it is not so now. The infamous sovereign referred to, Sri Wikrema Raja Singha, at whose death ended a long and famous line of kings, was outrageous beyond all precedent. He was accustomed to behead any one of his counselors who dared to disagree with him, also wreaking his vengeance upon the individual's innocent family, males and females, by treating them in a similar manner. The immense tank at Kandy is of modern construction, having been finished early in the present century by the king whose name we have just given. The heavy embankment which holds the lake in its bed has been made into a broad and most charming esplanade, decked with handsome shade trees, thus surrounding the basin with an inviting driveway and promenade, enlivened by choice flowering shrubs, whose names only an accomplished botanist could remember. Among them the ever-fragrant cape jessamine is conspicuous, together with beds of violets and mignonette. Palms prevail everywhere on the island, with their bare trunks reaching sixty or seventy feet upward, at which point they throw out their deep green, gracefully drooping foliage in thick clusters. The lake is about three miles in circumference, encircled by a low stone wall, and is, judged even by modern rules, a remarkably skillful piece of engineering. The Maha-velle-Ganga rises in the base of the neighboring mountains, and, flowing past Kandy, turns to the north, finally discharging itself by several mouths into the ocean far away on the east coast, near the port of Trincomalee. It drains in its course upwards of four thousand square miles of territory, being a hundred and thirty miles long, and is navigable by small boats nearly to Kandy. The hills which encompass the town make of it a verdant amphitheatre, and are themselves dotted with flourishing tea-plantations, mostly owned by English agriculturists, the growing of tea, as already explained, having largely superseded, or perhaps we should say supplemented, that of coffee throughout the island. In the higher regions, near the foot-hills, where the big river rises, there used to be a great coffee district, healthy and populous; but alas! malaria and jungle fever lie crouching upon its lower banks like a beast of prey, ready to pounce upon the passing and incautious traveler, while hungry, wide-jawed crocodiles lie half-concealed in the low mangroves, ready to snap up any dog or young native child which thoughtlessly approaches their domain. The Ceylon crocodile is a large animal, quite common on the inland rivers and deserted, half ruined tanks, and frequently measures over twenty feet from the snout to the tip of the tail. In the malarial districts, all sorts of insects, reptiles, and wild animals thrive and multiply abundantly, but to man, and even to most domestic animals, such regions are poisonous. The reason why the river-courses in Ceylon are so unsalubrious, so fever-inducing, is easily explained. These waterways overflow their banks in the rainy season, depositing an accumulation of vegetable matter which remains to decompose when the river subsides, thus infecting the surrounding country. The banks of swiftly flowing streams are considered to be healthful localities, but they do not prove so in this tropical island. The Maha-velle-Ganga, which is the Mississippi of Ceylon, is no exception to this rule. In coming to Kandy from Colombo, the railway for the first forty miles threads its way through a thinly populated region, over a level country which is often so low as to be of a marshy nature, though the soil is marked by overwhelming fertility. About fifteen miles from the capital is Henaratgoda, where the government Tropical Gardens are situated. Here the process of acclimatization for exotics is tried with plants which might not thrive at the altitude of the Botanical Gardens of Peradenia, near Kandy. The railway stations, it will be observed, are all beautifully ornamented with tropical flowers adapted to the situation. This is getting to be a universal custom all over the world. Even in Russia, on the line between St. Petersburg and Moscow, every depot is thus beautified. The railways are a government monopoly in this island, furnishing a handsome revenue. There are no presidents to swallow up salaries of fifty thousand dollars each, nor other ornamental officials receiving enormous sums of money for imaginary services. At each station in Ceylon, pretty children of both sexes offer the traveler tempting native fruits. They are very interesting, these children, in spite of their unkempt hair and entire nudity. Their big black eyes are full of pleading earnestness and bright expression, while their dark brown skin shines like polished mahogany under the hot rays of an equatorial sun. The land seen on the route is interspersed by rice plantations, groves of palms, bananas, and plantains, while the jungle at intervals is seen to be impassable, the trees are so bound together with stout, creeping vines and close undergrowth. Hump-backed cows and black swine, with an occasional domesticated buffalo, are all the animals one sees, though there are a plenty of wild ones not far away in less populous districts, including bears, deer, leopards, and elephants. The buffalo is almost an amphibious animal, and may be seen for many hours daily nearly immersed in the ponds, lakes, or rivers, only its head, horns, and nose visible above the water. Thus he will lie or stand for any length of time, chewing the cud like other creatures of his kind, until hunger compels him to seek food on the dry land. Happy for him if he be not attacked, while thus exposed, by the voracious pond leeches, more fatal than the flies which he strives to avoid by thus immersing his body. The elephants are still numerous, notwithstanding so many have been exported to the continent hard by. A carefully prepared estimate published at Colombo last year (close of 1893) places the probable number of wild elephants in Ceylon at five thousand. It is also believed that the small numbers of these animals which are now shot by Europeans annually will not decrease this aggregate, because of the natural breeding which is all the time going on. There are also found here in abundance the wild boar, jackal, ant-eater, and a great variety of monkeys (the latter afraid only of Europeans), and the cheetah. This last named is an animal of the leopard family, nearly three feet in height, and six feet long from nose to tail-tip, but exceedingly active and over-fond of monkey-flesh. It is of a dun color, with round black spots distributed uniformly over the body. The tiny musk-deer, so called, though it has no musk-bag or scent about it of that pungent nature, is indigenous to Ceylon. There is a stuffed specimen in the Colombo museum, but the author did not happen to see one alive. It is only about twelve or fourteen inches long and ten high when at maturity, but it is formed exactly like a full-grown North American deer or antelope, having a gray hide dappled with white spots, like a young fawn. Its exquisite delicacy of limbs is very beautiful. Several attempts have been made to transport a pair from this island to the Zoölogical Gardens of London, but the little creatures have never survived the voyage. They prove to be as delicate in constitution as in physical formation. We have incidentally mentioned the wild boar, to hunt which is a sport that has brought nearly as many Englishmen to Ceylon as has that generally more attractive and much larger game, the wild elephant. Strange to say, the boar, weighing on an average not much over two hundred pounds, has proved quite as dangerous and even more formidable in conflict than the huge monarch of these forests. The quick-witted, cool, and experienced huntsman can avoid the giant elephant when he charges,--he is necessarily sluggish on account of his size; but the wild boar is swift, fierce, and armed with tusks sharp as a dagger's point, which he uses with the adroitness and rapidity of a skilled swordsman. Sir Samuel Baker says that he has killed these animals in Ceylon weighing over four hundred pounds each, and has seen them here even much larger. The boar is hunted with trained dogs, and is scarcely ever driven to bay without seriously wounding and often killing one or more of the pack. The hunter does not shoot at the boar when at close quarters, lest he should kill the dogs hanging to the animal; but the true form is for him to close in upon the fight and bury his long knife in the creature's vital parts. Practiced sportsmen aim to bury their weapon just back of the ears, at the junction of the brain and spinal marrow; death to the boar is then instantaneous. Sir Samuel Baker, who was an inveterate sportsman, had many narrow escapes in wild-boar hunting in Ceylon, and was more than once seriously wounded. The natives inland, as observed on the line of the railway, live in the simplest and rudest of huts, mostly formed of bamboo frames filled in with clay baked in the sun. The thatched roofs consist, as usual in this country, of large palm leaves braided together, one layer lapping over another, thus effectually excluding even equatorial rains. The eaves come within three or four feet of the ground. There are no chimneys nor windows in these primitive abodes, but the doors, which are always open, admit light and air. The natives only sleep in them; during their waking hours, they are always under the blue sky. Each native builds his own cabin, which rarely consists of more than one apartment. In its erection no nails are used; the several parts are tied together with rattans and stout vines, which become like rope when they are once dry. The climate is so uniformly warm that many do not even plaster their walls with clay, using palm leaves and boughs of trees to form a sufficient covering. A sheltered situation is chosen, so as to be protected from the weather when the monsoons blow, for these natives have a fixed aversion to the wind and rain. There is a certain harmony between the primitive simplicity of these people and that of surrounding nature. To the casual observer, as he passes over this route between Colombo and Kandy, there is an unpleasant suggestion in the surroundings of possible jungle fever. The thick, low-lying, tangled woods and stagnant pools one would think must be the very home of chills and fever. They would be so considered in continental India, or in the south and west of our own country; yet the people hereabouts do not seem at present to suffer from any special form of ill health. The men are thin in flesh, but muscular and cheerful in aspect. They really seem to enjoy life after their dull, animal-like fashion, though their principal occupation is that of working in the wet rice-fields, an employment which no European can safely pursue. The latter, in fact, never become sufficiently acclimated to be able to live in low and swampy districts in Ceylon without contracting malaria, the effects of which last through a lifetime. When this railway was being built, the coolies employed in the work died by hundreds from the unwholesome character of the neighborhood, until the rule was adopted of returning the laborers after the day's work to Colombo to sleep, bringing them back again after sunrise. It is the damp night air which prevails in the lowlands, and its attendant miasma, which proves so fatal. One after another of the European overseers and engineers sickened, and were compelled to return home to England before a restoration to health was effected; while some, apparently the most hardy, and who took the best of care of themselves, succumbed altogether, and were buried in the island far from their native land. Better drainage and cleared jungles have greatly improved the sanitary conditions. The dense forest has been opened to the influence of purifying breezes and the effect of the genial sunshine, so that there is much less chance for the pestilence to find a breeding-place. Banana groves, with the trees bending under the weight of the rich, finger-shaped fruit; tall cocoanut-trees, the tops heavy with the nutritious food they bear; stout tamarinds and juicy mangoes; ant-hills, looking like young volcanoes, half as high as native huts; rippling cascades; sharp declivities; glistening pools; white cranes; tall pink flamingoes, standing like sentinels on the muddy banks; an occasional monkey leaping among the trees; golden orioles, gaudy-feathered parrots, and other birds of dazzling hues, are observed with never-flagging interest from the windows of the slowly moving cars, while on this inland route to Kandy. The marabou, which is so much prized for its delicate feathers, is occasionally seen stalking watchfully by the shaded pools, seizing now and then upon small reptiles with its formidable bill and devouring them at a single gulp. It seems strange that these birds can swallow with impunity snakes and other vicious reptiles while they are yet alive. One would think that creatures whose bite is often fatal to human beings would under such circumstances cause a fearful state of commotion in a bird's crop. If ostriches, however, can swallow and digest large nails, jackknives, and corkscrews, perhaps the gastric juices of these smaller birds may have special properties to aid them in effectually disposing of poisonous reptiles. How well our first trip inland in Ceylon is remembered. While watching the novel and intensely interesting sights, the air was heavy with aromatic fragrance, and sweet with the odor of lilies, while a feeling of quiet content stole over the senses, as in a half-waking dream from which one does not desire to be aroused. Was the brain yielding to the subtle breath of those gorgeous lotus flowers, which opened wide their delicate pink petals to the sunshine? This queen of the lily tribe, the lotus, is here seen in two varieties, the pink and the white. They resemble very closely the common pond-lily of our own climate, but are thrice their size. The seeds are a mild narcotic, and are sometimes eaten by the natives to produce that effect. It is said that birds of the wading family sometimes partake of them until they become stupefied. The seed is about the size of a hazel-nut, and leaves a bitter, puckering taste in the mouth. The white-ant hills which rise to such proportions here and there in the wooded districts remind us that these minute but marvelously industrious creatures are one of the great pests of equatorial regions, and that they are especially destructive in this island. Attracted by the very dry condition of the wood, they bore holes in the timbers which form the frames of the better class of dwellings, and therein lay their eggs. As soon as the young ants are hatched, they begin to devour the wood, and continue to do so until it falls to pieces. They operate on the inside, avoiding the outer part, proving to be the most stealthy of all aggressive invaders, and their presence is often unsuspected until the mischief is done. The palmyra palm and the ebony-tree furnish the only timber which resists the serious ravages of these white ants. The author was shown a bungalow near Kandy, which was in ruins, where the occupants not long before were one day surprised by the roof tumbling in upon them while they were seated at the dinner-table. The supporting timbers were no longer able to bear their own weight, much less to hold the heavy thatched roof in place, after having been reduced by the ants to a mere shell. One would think that where an abundance of fresh, green vegetation and ripe fruit are to be had, dry timber could have few attractions as insect food. One of the species of ants common in Ceylon has been made the subject of careful investigation by competent naturalists, and with extremely interesting results. The conclusions arrived at serve to corroborate previously formed ideas, that of all small creatures the ant is endowed with the most intelligence. Among other singular facts which have been discovered, it is now known that when a conflict occurs between rival tribes of ants, something like a regular military system is observed by them. They march to the conflict in strict order, divided into separate columns, which are evidently under command of different leaders, while the advance is so correctly timed that the attack upon the enemy is simultaneous. This requires mental calculation; instinct does not suffice to fix such matters. During the fight, the ants carry off their dead and wounded to a place of safety in the rear. A large detail, whose members take no part in the actual conflict, work like an ambulance corps attached to a well-organized army. If we were treating the subject in detail, many other interesting facts might be given, showing the remarkable organization which exists among them, and the sagacity of these intelligent insects. On the island of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, the inhabitants protect themselves against the ravages of the white ants, which if permitted would commit similar depredations upon their dwellings to that already spoken of, by pitting a destructive enemy against them. When it is found that a colony of these termites have invaded a dwelling, the inhabitant knows that he must act promptly, as these creatures have big heads and strong jaws, and they destroy rapidly. He pours some molasses on the ground near by the path by which the white ants move to and fro between their home and the house. The smell of the treacle is sure to attract a bevy of black ants, which species is very fond of sweets. These are the natural enemies of the white ants. They notice the latter passing regularly back and forth, and govern themselves accordingly. In a few hours, a whole army of black ants approaches, marching in a column two yards long. They enter the infected house in large numbers, leaving a reserve force behind, and promptly destroy every white ant in the place. Finally the army marches out, each of the black ants carrying away a dead white one, which, cannibal-like, they devour! But we are still on the way by rail to Kandy, and not writing a volume on natural history, though in making these notes and with the objects absolutely before one's eyes, the mind--and the pen as well--is apt to follow the natural suggestions of the subject, even at the risk of seeming to diverge from the purpose in hand. The patient reader thus often becomes possessed of facts, the communication of which was quite unpremeditated by the author. Let us take heed, however, not to make such detail wearisome. On remarking to an intelligent resident of the island, who was a fellow passenger, that no wild animals were to be seen upon the route, he replied that if we were to leave the more thickly settled district and strike into the forest, abundant tracks would be met with of bears, leopards, and elephants. The latter, especially, make broad paths through the jungle by their heavy tread and shambling gait, leveling the undergrowth right and left as effectually as could be done by an army of bushwhacking road-makers. If a small tree impedes an elephant's progress, he puts his broad forehead against the stem, bends it so as to place his foot upon the horizontal trunk, and thus snaps it short off. If it does not yield readily, he winds his trunk firmly about it and pulls it up by the roots, as a dentist extracts a rebellious tooth. As a rule, small trees go down before a fleeing elephant like grass. Buffaloes are found in both the wild and domesticated condition all over the island, but they abound only in their wild state in the northern sections. The untamed buffalo is a dangerous antagonist when assaulted and fairly driven to bay, and many an English sportsman has been killed by them in Ceylon. The bulls are particularly savage and pugnacious, giving battle upon the slightest provocation. At a point where the cars were stopped for a few moments to obtain a supply of water for the engine, a female monkey was seen among the trees, the mother of twins, holding the little things in her arms and nursing them in a manner so human as to form a most ludicrous picture. Presently, leaving her little ones in a safe place, she came down to the cars, and was regaled from our lunch basket with what to her must have been rare tidbits, supplied from the cuisine of the Grand Hotel at Colombo. As a rule, the monkey tribe avoid Europeans or white men, suspecting treachery, while they care very little for the native people, who rarely interfere with them. The affection of the mother monkey for its young is something very touching. If one of its little progeny dies, the mother still clings to it, sometimes for several days, carrying it about in her arms, until finally some instinct causes her to lay it away, covered with leaves and the tender young branches of the bamboo. Europeans have a cruel way of obtaining young monkeys to take away from the island. It is accomplished by shooting the mother, after which the bewildered little one is easily secured. One of these small monkey orphans was brought on board the steamship in which we left Ceylon, by its cruel captor. It was touching to see how the diminutive creature had transferred its trust and affection from its natural guardian to its present owner, to whom it clung incessantly. Poor little fellow! it was well that it did not know its new protector to be the sole cause of all its troubles. It proved to be a bad sailor, and was so seasick that it soon died, but it clung to its adopted friend to the last moment, who was, we are glad to say, exceedingly kind to the little waif. After passing through the low country on the way to Kandy, we began gradually to climb an up-grade. This was at Rambukana, about fifty miles from Colombo, two powerful engines being now required to move even our short train, made up of four cars. The road winds zigzag fashion about the hills, in startling proximity to the deep, threatening abyss, while the ever-changing scenery of the Kaduganawa Pass becomes far-reaching and grand, varied by precipitous declivities, deep green gulches, and falling waters. The shelving rocks are here festooned with climbing plants, daintily enriched by blossoms of vivid hues, and flowering creepers. As one can easily believe, this was an expensive road to build, costing in many parts over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars per mile, but it is most thoroughly constructed on a gauge of five feet and six inches. The gradant in some places is one foot in forty-five. Near the highest part of the line stands "Sensation Rock," from which a grand and startling view is enjoyed, recalling a similar experience on the author's part at "Inspiration Point," overlooking the never-to-be-forgotten Yosemite Valley in California. This Ceylon rock has an evil history, it being, according to tradition, the spot from which the ancient kings of Kandy ruthlessly hurled their prisoners of war to destruction. This railway is a great success pecuniarily and otherwise. So well has it been managed that in the twenty-two years which have transpired since its completion, but one accident has occurred of any special moment, and no European or American has ever lost life or limb by mishap while traveling upon the road. It is to be feared that we cannot cite a similar instance of any railway in this country. At last, after a hearty enjoyment of the bold and beautiful scenery for two hours and more, winding snakelike about the steep acclivities, and diving into and out of dark, gloomy tunnels, we landed in the old and picturesque capital of the central province. It is not exactly a city built upon a hill, but it is a city built among the hills. The region in this line of latitude between the eastern and western coast of the island, particularly in the central province, is one of much grandeur, a country of Alpine heights and deep green valleys. Here dark ravines and plunging waterfalls multiply themselves. Not small, spraylike bodies of water, like many in Switzerland, but fierce, restless bodies of foaming torrents, sweeping headlong over abrupt declivities three hundred feet in height. The system of mountains does not form a continuous range, but consists of a succession of plateaus and of detached mountains rising from elevated bases. Thus, Adam's Peak, were it to rise to its present height from a plain at about the level of the ocean, would be far more grand and impressive than it now is, with its direct upheaval beginning from so elevated a base. So in the instance of the two famous mountains which rise from the great Mexican plateau,--Mount Popocatepetl, and Mount Ixtaccihuatl, which lose seven thousand feet of the effect of their real height, because their base starts from a plain situated at that elevation above the sea. CHAPTER XII. Historical Kandy.--Importance of Good Roads.--Native Population.--Temple of Buddha's Tooth.--The Old Palace.--Governor's House.--Great Resort of Pilgrims.--Interior of the Temple.--The Humbug of Relics.--Priests of the Yellow Robe.--A Sacred Bo-Tree.--Diabolical Services in the Ancient Temple.--Regular Heathen Powwow.--Singhalese Music.--Emulating Midnight Tomcats.--Chronic Beggary.--The Old Parisian Woman with Wooden Legs.--A Buddhist Rock-Temple. Kandy is a place of more than ordinary interest in Ceylon, on account of its historical relations. It will be remembered that a native king reigned here as recently as 1814. The recklessness, cruelty, and grievous tyranny of this potentate hastened his downfall, causing his native subjects to join the English in effecting his overthrow. The government took forcible possession of the place in 1815, capturing the king and sending him to Bengal as a political prisoner, where he died seventeen years later. The systematic brutality of this ruler was exercised so lately that its detail is preserved, forming a horrible story of barbarous cruelty. One elephant was trained as an executioner, whose duty it was to tread to death any condemned political or other prisoner. Rich and poor, priest and soldier, are said to have rejoiced at the banishment of this tyrant. When the Kandian kings died, their bodies were cremated with great ceremony. It was not the same here as it is and was in India proper, where all classes are cremated; only kings, nobles, and priests enjoyed the privilege in the island of Ceylon. Kandy is still the capital of the central province. All the efforts of the Portuguese and afterward of the Dutch to conquer this mountain region were unavailing, owing to its isolation and its inaccessibility. The town was situated in a valley, guarded by narrow mountain passes which a few determined men could effectually defend. The district was also girt about by tangled forests almost impassable except by birds, wild beasts, and reptiles, the latter being the chronic dread of the European invaders. Only foot or bridle paths existed between populous points along the coast in those days. There were no roads in any direction passable for wheeled vehicles during the possession of the island by the two nationalities spoken of. The English, after conquering and fortifying the coast, promptly applied themselves to the opening of broad, well-engineered roads in all directions, and especially between Colombo and Kandy, so that bodies of infantry and artillery could quickly reach any desired point in efficient numbers. This changed the condition of affairs most essentially, enabling the new invaders to conquer and bring all parts of the island under military subjection. Since the capture of Kandy in 1815 there have been three rebellious uprisings of the natives, the last of which occurred in 1847, which the English officials stamped out with such rigor, not to say cruelty, that it has so far proved the last attempt of the sort. Lord Torrington, who was then governor of Ceylon, incurred the censure of the home government for the needless severity of the punishment inflicted upon the natives. The business of road-making between important points has been continued ever since, supplemented by many miles of railway, which has proved to be the most potent agent of progress which could be devised. Thus have been opened to free access rich agricultural and mineral districts, besides promoting intercourse between the natives of the island and the Europeans on the coast. Railways and good inland roads for wheeled vehicles are great promoters of true civilization and progress. Polygamy, which had so long defied the laws of these United States, was a doomed institution when the first iron rail reached the borders of Utah Territory. The people of this ancient capital are no longer isolated; four hours' ride upon the rail takes them to Colombo. The same class of natives are met with at Kandy as are seen on the coast, except that there are more shaven-headed priests in yellow robes, one end of which is thrown over the left shoulder, leaving the right arm and shoulder bare. The wearers are marked by a moody, unsatisfied expression. Aside from their office and connection with the temples, these men command no respect from the people, being generally illiterate and in no wise superior to the masses. They assume the appearance of mendicants in accordance with their religious profession, and are inveterate beggars, but are in fact, we were credibly informed, among the richest natives in Ceylon. They are supposed to live solely on charity, and receive no ostensible remuneration for their priestly services, but they are shrewdly hoarding money all the while like the veriest miser, while their social relations, like their Roman Catholic brethren, outrage unblushingly all priestly rules. There are fewer Parsees and Moormen in proportion to the number of inhabitants. These, being of the trading class, generally seek Colombo or Point de Galle, where they find congenial occupation in supplying strangers with sapphires, topazes, rubies, and precious stones, or oftener with imitations of these, in disposing of which they are notable experts. There is but one piece of advice to be given regarding these harpies,--avoid them altogether. The principal object of interest in Kandy is the old palace and the far-famed ancient temple of Malagawa, where the precious tooth of Buddha is preserved, and yet it is not very ancient, as the word applies to temples and ruins generally in Ceylon. It was built in the fourteenth century, especially to form a shrine for this tooth, and it is held, mainly on this account, to be the most sacred Buddhist temple in existence. The palace, now partially improved for government purposes, was built just about three hundred years ago by the Portuguese prisoners captured by the Kandians, which accounts for certain European characteristics about the edifice. It was doubtless once an imposing structure, but of no architectural interest. It faces a broad, level area, where in olden times elephant fights used to take place for the entertainment of the king and his court,--a cruel sport, in which one of the combatants was sure to lose his life, and not infrequently both were fatally injured. The modern Spanish bull-fight is only a degree more cruel, and both exhibitions are equally indicative of the national character of the promoters. The one residence worthy of mention in Kandy proper is the Pavilion or Governor's House, built by Sir E. Barnes. This is a very elegant modern structure, combining European architecture with tropical adaptations, and is surrounded by a broad colonnade. The house is finished externally in stucco, with a hard polish like white marble, which it much resembles. The neighboring grounds are very beautifully laid out, and are kept like an English park, the view from which is beyond description for its variety and beauty. The Temple of the Tooth has no claim to architectural beauty. It belongs to no recognized order, and is an indescribable old shrine, low, black, and grimy, surmounted at its eastern extremity by a tower manifestly of European design, which is, doubtless, a comparatively modern addition. The whole looks more like a spacious stable than an oriental shrine. This temple has made Kandy the Mecca of both India and Ceylon, attracting great numbers of pilgrims annually. It is regarded with such universal reverence that the priests of Burmah and Siam send a personal envoy bearing gifts to it every year, besides furnishing a large sum annually as tribute money. A few years since, an earnest effort was made to gain possession of the alleged tooth, a special mission having been dispatched from Siam for the purpose. These agents came prepared to pay a quarter of a million dollars for the coveted prize; but the Kandian priests would not part with it at any price that could be named. The temple of Malagawa is a curious establishment, with its gardens, shrines, and fish ponds, the latter well-filled with plethoric turtles and fish of a "sacred" kind, which come eagerly to certain points at the call of the priests, to be fed by pious pilgrims. The inner walls of the temple are decorated with designs that are anything but cheerful, consisting of paintings intended to depict the various sorts of hells which will be awarded to erring mortals for their special earthly sins. The place absolutely smells of brimstone. The interest of our little party centred most upon some old manuscript books written upon talipot palm leaves in the Pali, Sanskrit, and Singhalese languages. The pages were here and there illustrated with what appeared to be appropriate designs, very odd to be sure, but yet not without a certain crude artistic taste. The books were bound in silver open-work covers or frames. The famous tooth which is made so much of in this mouldy old temple is far too large to have ever come from the mouth of a human being, and is probably that of some defunct elephant or crocodile. Indeed, the original article which it is supposed to represent is proved to have been destroyed centuries since, when by the fortune of war it fell into the hands of the unbelievers. The author did not see the tooth. It was described to him as being deposited in a small apartment upon a silver table beneath a bell-shaped cover, the latter heavy with precious gems. Here, lying within the leaves of a large golden lotus, is the resting-place of the much-venerated piece of ivory. The tooth, duly guarded and with great pomp, is carried about the town once a year, just as the Indian idol, Juggernaut, takes its annual airing from the lofty temple at Tanjore, drawn by hundreds of worshipers. It is exhibited by the official priests, and only on special occasions, with tokens of profound reverence. It was shown to the Prince of Wales in 1875, and to his two sons in 1882. The author well remembers a personal experience in the crypt of a certain Roman Catholic Church in Italy, where he was being shown a collection of "sacred" relics, pieces of the "true cross," etc., together with a lot of "holy" vestments rendered heavy by pretended gems of great value wrought into the texture of the clothing. "Do you," was asked of the attendant priest at the time, "who are so intelligent, believe in the genuineness of these pretended stones?" "They have their use," was his evasive reply. "You certainly know that these so-called emeralds, rubies, and sapphires, are of glass and worthless?" we continued. The answer was a cool shrug of the shoulders and a hasty covering up of the garments. The author knew too much about gems to be easily deceived, and the priest had permitted him to scrutinize them more closely than was usual. The original gems, if real ones had ever been used, had been purloined by priestly connivance, and false stones supplied to fill their place. A far more interesting and probably much more genuine relic than the tooth which is so reverently preserved in the Kandy temple is a rudely engraved metallic dish or "alms pot," which is said to have been the personal property of Buddha,--the receptacle for the coins contributed by the mass of the people in charity. The Singhalese priests of to-day carry a similar brass bowl for a like purpose, and are not at all backward in making their demands for contributions from strangers. These Kandian priests of the yellow robe are low-bred and ignorant. We speak of them as a body. There are some brilliant exceptions, but as a rule they have few qualities calculated to command respect. Cleanliness with them is also one of the lost arts, notwithstanding the pretended multiplicity of their baths, while their ceaseless habit of chewing the repulsive betelnut and expectorating the red saliva in all directions is extremely disgusting, equaled only by the filthy habits of tobacco-chewers. We have said that the mouldy old Buddhist Temple of the Tooth at Kandy was the most interesting and attractive object to all strangers, but there is also here a tree, if tradition is correct, so aged and sacred in the eyes of the people as to almost rival the temple in attractiveness. It is an ancient bo-tree,--the sacred Indian fig,--situated in the spacious grounds attached to the temple. It has widely extended, scraggy limbs, is high, irregular in form, and undoubtedly very old. It is as sincerely bowed down to by pilgrims from afar as is the altar in the temple. Its very leaves are treasured with devout care, and the pilgrim counts himself specially blessed who is able to bear one away to his distant home, as a charm against all earthly ills. No one will presume to pluck a leaf of this tree, much as they may crave its possession. The leaf must fall from the branches in its maturity, and of its own volition, in order to yield its maximum of blessings to the holder. Local authority declares the Kandy bo-tree to be the oldest one living. Its record, they say, has been kept since three hundred years before Christ, or say for two thousand two hundred years. As there is at least one other similar tree in Ceylon for which about the same degree of antiquity is claimed, it may reasonably be doubted if both stories are correct. The other tree is situated among the ruins of Anuradhapura, planted, as its record declares, two hundred and forty years before the Christian era. It is somewhat surprising how universally the extreme age which is claimed for this tree is credited even by the English residents of the island who are familiar with Buddhist chronicles. That both these trees are very old is plain enough, but when we designate time past by the thousands of years, one must be somewhat over-credulous to accord such great antiquity to either of them, or indeed to any object of a perishable nature. And yet there are trees belonging to the locust family, as the author can bear testimony, growing among the West India Islands, declared to be over three thousand years old. This is in part corroborated by well-known visible characteristics of the locust which are clearly defined, and many intelligent arborists credit their longevity. There are thousands of bo-trees planted all over India proper and Ceylon, in memory of Buddha, which are held of a sacred character, and no good Buddhist will cut one down. It will be remembered that Humboldt saw a cypress in Mexico, a league from the capital, in the Chapultepec grove, which he estimated to be six thousand years old. It does seem as though scientists were a somewhat credulous class. Services and ceremonies of an appropriate character--that is, in accordance with the faith of this people--are constantly going on in and about the Temple of the Tooth, night and day, all the year round. Our hotel at Kandy was opposite and very near to the old shrine, and night was made hideous for us by the senseless howling of the priests and the notes of the drum, cymbals, and fife, supplemented now and again by the blowing of blasts upon a conch-shell, more shrill and piercing than a fishhorn signaling in a fog. The unearthly noises which issued from the open doors of the temple of Malagawa was something dreadful at midnight, and utterly inexcusable upon any pretense whatever. "How can these priests and their assistants maintain sufficient interest to keep up this terrible din so ceaselessly?" was asked of a local planter. "The funds of the temple are ample," was the reply. "There is a constant flow of rupees into the treasury, and these people are well paid for their services in keeping up the sham." "Whence comes the money?" was asked. "Large sums come from India and from visiting pilgrims, besides which the faithful native Singhalese contribute in the aggregate no inconsiderable amount." "Credulous orientals," was our response. "You must remember," was our companion's reply, "that this edifice and the surroundings, including the bo-tree, is considered the holiest spot in all the Buddhistic world." The ceremonies which took place within the temple during a brief visit by the author consisted of grotesque dances and the beating of drums and blowing of horns, all without any apparent rhyme or reason. A procession of dirty priests, preceded by a drum and fife, passed hither and thither before an altar upon which incense was burning. No coherence of purpose, however, was exhibited by any one, but each person seemed to be trying to make all the noise and grotesque gesticulations possible. A North American Indian powwow would be a fair comparison to the performance which was witnessed on this occasion. A few pilgrims, after first pouring water upon their hands and feet, purchased flowers from venders who frequent the doors of the temple, and placed them on and about the altar. This was the most sensible and consistent procedure which was adopted by priest or layman inside the temple walls. The flowers were the white blossoms of the frangipani, whose fragrance was oppressively strong. It was a great relief to get outside of the moss-grown edifice, far away from the horrible din and the terribly offensive smell, which permeated not only the place, but one's clothing for hours afterwards. There are seven other temples and chapels at Kandy, belonging to different denominations, besides two Buddhist ecclesiastical colleges. The Malwatta temple is worth a visit, it being the most important Buddhist monastery, where all the priests of the order in Ceylon, upon assuming the yellow robe which is their badge of office, come to formally utter their solemn vows. These bronzed priests, in saffron-colored, toga-like robes, followed by an attendant carrying a yellow silk umbrella, are rather striking figures in the thoroughfares of this inland town. In the time of the late king, no one but his imperial majesty and the priesthood were permitted to carry an umbrella, but men with no other covering from the sun but a cloth wound about the hips carry this article in our day, and derive much comfort from the shade it affords. The less said about what these natives call music the better. Indeed, it would seem as though oriental music was invented only to torment European ears. Ivory horns, tom-toms, fifes, and the rudest sort of bass drums are the instruments most in use with the Singhalese, a few Chinese stringed contrivances being occasionally added, simply increasing the horror. The sounds of the latter instruments resemble most the cries of a pugnacious conclave of tomcats on the rampage at midnight. The query forcibly suggests itself in this connection, as to whether the instrumental music of western civilized people can possibly sound to these orientals so uncouth and so hideous as do their own performances to us. In the porch of the Kandy temple and its immediate vicinity, just as one sees in and about the Roman Catholic churches of Europe, are groups of wretched-looking beggars, at all hours, most of whom, after the conventional style prevailing elsewhere, exhibit some physical deformity which is their stock in trade. Some of these endeavor to excite sympathy by thrusting self-inflicted wounds before the stranger's eyes,--wounds which are kept in a chronic condition of soreness by various irritating processes adopted for this purpose. One cannot but be impressed as much through the picturesqueness of the scene presented by the half-naked, ragged, cadaverous throng as by the sad moral which these poor creatures suggest. There are adroit and ingenious beggars all over the globe, and nowhere do they more abound than in the East; individuals amply able to care for themselves, but who prefer to exercise persistent industry and cannibalism, so to speak, in living upon their fellow-men. The same degree of assiduity practiced in legitimate business or useful occupation of almost any sort would insure ample and respectable support. Begging and painted distress are indigenous to all climes. Who that has ever been in Paris does not remember an old woman, neatly but plainly dressed, who sits daily, rain or shine, at the corner of the Boulevard Capucine and the Place de l'Opéra. She has sat there for years, and sits there still, with two wooden stumps in place of legs very conspicuously displayed. She does not speak to passers-by, nor does she ever solicit charity, but she accepts with grateful significance the silver and copper coins which are constantly dropped into her lap by a sympathetic public. The average man or woman who is able to be charitable is more or less practically so, and it is gratifying to indulge the creditable instinct. This woman of whom we have spoken had a daughter married not long since, on which occasion she received a dowry from her wooden-legged mamma of fifty thousand francs! Let us not always be critical; if the object of our charity is really unworthy, then we have given our mite to humanity. There is a very pleasant drive which the visitor to Kandy must not forget to enjoy. We refer to Hindo Galla, where a unique Buddhist rock-temple may be visited among a wilderness of boulders. There are a score of priests in charge, quite ready to act as cicerones to visitors. The available grounds about the temple are crowded with palms, tree-ferns, and flowers. There is also a fine old bo-tree dominating the place, which attracts the usual devotional attention of all true believers, and concerning the antiquity of which there is the usual amount of credulity. About eight or nine miles from Kandy on the road towards Colombo, at the village of Angunawela, is an old Buddhist temple, which stands on the summit of an almost perpendicular rock. This edifice is in excellent preservation, and is a fine specimen of Kandian temple architecture. One is well paid for a visit to Angunawela and its local attractions. CHAPTER XIII. Ceylon the Mecca of Buddhism.--The Drives about Kandy.--Fruit of the Cashew.--Domestic Prison of Arabi Pasha.--"Egypt for the Egyptians."--Hillside Bungalows.--Kandy Hotels at a Discount.--The Famous Botanical Garden of Ceylon.--India-Rubber-Trees, Bamboos, and Flying Foxes.--Dangerous Reptiles in the Garden.--The Boa Constrictor.--Success of Peruvian-Bark Raising.--Vicious Land Leeches.--The Burrowing and Tormenting Tick.--Where Sugar comes from in Ceylon. Ceylon is the classic ground of Buddhism and Kandy is its Mecca, whither trend the devout followers of the prophet in myriads yearly. Rock-cut temples and other shrines are scattered over the hilly portions of the island, some of which are large, some small, but each one having a stone image of Buddha wrought after the conventional pattern. Most of these cave-temples are over a thousand years old, and some are twice that age, overgrown by jungle vines and tall palms. Next to Christianity, Buddhism is the most widely diffused religious institution in existence. Its code of morals, taken as a whole, is as perfect as the world has ever seen formulated. Does the reader understand that most of the great truths and wise axioms designed as rules of life which are prescribed in our Bible are found in the Buddhist scriptures? Above all, let us remember that the followers of this ancient oriental creed, professed at this writing by one third of the human family, have never shed a drop of blood to make a proselyte. The drives about Kandy are over the most excellent roads, to follow which is like threading the paths of a continuous garden, while the air is laden with the fragrance of sweet-smelling lemon grass. Home-like, picturesque bungalows dot the hillsides as well as the shores of the lake already described. The roads which lead around the hills afford beautiful views; both far and near, turn where we may, the locality is full of pictures, enduring, and lovely to recall. This especially applies to a perfectly constructed road, known as Lady Horton's Walk, the views from which are indescribably beautiful. It is a broad, winding way around one of the most prominent hills, designed and constructed by the wife of Sir Wilmot Horton. As to the fragrant lemon grass, it covers most of the hillsides in the more open mountain districts of Ceylon, and is particularly abundant in the central province. There is an essential oil produced from this pungent grass which is known in commerce as citronella, a delightful and universally favorite extract. Wild blackberries and raspberries abound in this district. There is a peculiar fruit found here as well as elsewhere in the island, called the cashew, which persists in outraging all our ideas of consistency by producing its nut outside of the skin. This recalls a somewhat similar eccentricity exhibited by cherries in Australia, which have the stone which forms their seed on the exterior instead of the inside centre, like good, wholesome, well-behaved cherries in our own country. The fruit of the cashew is not palatable, but its juice, when distilled, produces a strong intoxicating spirit. The nuts are edible when roasted like chestnuts. In one of the large villa-bungalows nestling on the hillside overlooking the verdant amphitheatre of Kandy lived that notable political prisoner, Arabi Pasha, with his ample harem and a host of body servants, forming a bit of Egyptian domestic life transported bodily to this Indian isle. It will be remembered that he was exiled from Cairo by the English about twelve years since, because he was a famous and successful fighting general among his people, his special battle-cry being "Egypt for the Egyptians." One feels a lingering sympathy for a man who fought bravely for the liberty of his country, very nearly conquering the British troops on the sanguinary field of Tel-el-Keber; yet this man deserves more blame than praise, for it was he who recklessly burned Alexandria, and caused a reign of assassination in that devoted city for many terrible days. Though a prisoner like the first Napoleon when held at St. Helena, Arabi has never hesitated to freely express his political opinions, bitterly condemning his conquerors. He is still--and very properly we think--the ardent advocate of "Egypt for the Egyptians," and even in his advanced years would promptly head a rebellion against English rule in his native land, were he at liberty to do so. A report has lately been circulated that Arabi Pasha has been permitted to return to Egypt, but as to its truth the author cannot answer. Each of these hillside dwellings, like that occupied by Arabi Pasha's, covers a large space of ground. They are seldom over one story in height, and have a tall, steep-pitched roof of red tiles or thatch, and wide verandas running entirely round the whole structure, half covered by thrifty creepers and flowering vines. The roof generally reaches beyond the veranda until it ends six or eight feet from the ground. The interior of the dwelling is dark and cool, as the doors and windows all open beneath the shade of the roof. No sunshine can penetrate these dwellings, and consequently there is an inevitable unwholesome dampness ever present inside them. The population of Kandy amounts to some twenty-two or three thousand, embracing but a few Europeans,--that is, comparatively speaking. Those of the latter class not included in the government departments are mostly interested in tea, coffee, or cinchona raising, in the immediate neighborhood. The Europeans have established two small hotels, or at least they are called hotels; but any one obliged to tax their hospitality for a considerable length of time has our sincere commiseration. The author's experience on the occasion of his first visit to Kandy in the matter of hotel accommodation was not especially agreeable. Passing over the abundance of insectivorous annoyances,--centipedes upon the walls, gigantic cockroaches on the floor, and ants upon everything,--it was rather severe to be obliged to remove one's bed from beneath a leaking roof, which admitted a steady stream of water. When it rains in these latitudes, it does so by wholesale; not in little pattering drops, but in avalanches and miniature Niagaras. However, a large tub being produced, we were lulled to sleep by the dull sound of dripping water, to awake next morning and find the receptacle overflowing. The novelty of the situation often smooths over the keen edge of discomfort. The fireflies that night floated about the chamber in such numbers as to dispute the illuminating power with the primitive light supplied to guests, which consisted of a small button of cork, with a bit of cotton wicking, floating upon a shallow dish of cocoanut oil. There are several missionary chapels in Kandy, besides an Episcopal church, a library, and a reading-room for public use. Very little visible business seems to be transacted here, but as to the natural surroundings of this inland capital, the scenery, the arboreal beauties, and the floral charms, too much cannot be said in commendation. It seems to a casual visitor to be the most attractive district in the island, forgetting, as every reasonable traveler learns to do, the few local annoyances. The justly famous Botanical Gardens of Ceylon form a marvel of plant life, and are situated about three miles from Kandy proper. The grounds are entered through a grand avenue of india-rubber-trees, whose tall, widespread branches are heavy with polished dark green, leather-like leaves, vividly recalling the splendid avenue of palms in the public garden of Rio Janeiro, situated behind the tall peak of the Corcovado,--"the Hunchback." This garden of Ceylon occupies about a hundred and fifty acres, and is surrounded on three sides by the Maha-velle-Ganga. The india-rubber-trees are buttressed by large, exposed white roots, very anaconda-like at first view, showing that this tree draws its subsistence largely from atmospheric air. The roots often spread a hundred and fifty feet in diameter, so twisted and peculiar in shape that the natives call it the snake-tree. The removal of the milk-white secretion by tapping does it no apparent injury, it being a distinct product, flowing in a different channel, it would seem, from the sustaining sap. We were informed that a healthy, full-grown tree might be drawn upon daily for two thirds of the year with good results. The Ceylon species of the india-rubber-tree is not nearly so productive of the peculiar secretion which makes its value as those which are indigenous to South America. Indeed, it is not a native of this Indian island, but was introduced by the Portuguese while they held sway. No attempt is made here to produce the article known as gutta-percha in commercial quantities, and, indeed, the tree is not sufficiently abundant in Ceylon. The headquarters of this industry are at Pará, on the coast of Brazil, where the product of the india-rubber-tree forms the great staple of the exports, and its collection in the neighboring forests gives employment to a large share of the native population. This elaborate garden, one league south of Kandy, probably forms the choicest and most extensive collection of plant life in the world. It is, except for the nature of its tropical vegetation, like a well-kept European conservatory or park, ornamented by choice lawns and magnificent groups of trees, special families being arranged together. The average temperature here is recorded at 77° Fahr. This, together with the natural and abundant moisture, insures the very best results. A small stream runs through the middle of the grounds, widening here and there into a tiny lake, where a great variety of aquatic plants thrive luxuriantly, including the gorgeous and ever attractive lotus, together with many other examples of the lily family. This garden has been organized for about seventy-five years,--to be exact, it was opened in 1819,--during which period the original idea has been well adhered to, of introducing by its means such plants as are not indigenous, but which might, if cultivated here, be of real benefit to the inhabitants. Fortunately, it has always been presided over by an enthusiastic and scientific horticulturist. All kinds of useful vegetation of tropical regions are represented, their nature studied, and a record kept of the same, while seeds, cuttings, fruits, and the like are freely distributed to farmers and planters, European and native. The variety of palms in these grounds is a revelation to the average visitor, as few persons know how many distinctive examples there are of this invaluable member of the arboreal family of the East, some of which are stupendous in size. We have been told that the garden contained two hundred and fifty distinct varieties of the palm, but one may reasonably have doubts as to so large an aggregate. Among them are talipots, palmyras, cocoanuts, the slender areca, the date palm, and the fan palm, already described, spreading out its broad leaves like a peacock's tail. This is often called the traveler's tree, because the trunk is never without a supply of pure water with which to quench his thirst. When pierced with a knife at the juncture of the stems, it yields copious draughts of water. Here one sees palms from Cuba, Guinea, China, Africa, and Brazil, each exhibiting some special characteristics of importance, and all thriving, together with clumps of climbing rattans. These latter, not thicker than one's finger, yet wind about the trees from two to three hundred feet in height, having the longest stem of any known plant. Small groves of nutmegs, cloves, mangoes, citrons, and pepper-trees attract the visitor's attention, together with budding cinnamon and cardamom bushes; nor must we forget to mention the fragrant vanilla-tree, which to the author recalled a delightful experience in far-away southern Mexico, where a mountain side near Oxala was rendered lovely and delicious by the profuse growth of this flavoring product of the tropics. Here and there a tall, thrifty acacia is seen, suffused with golden-yellow bloom in rich profusion. Excepting the California pepper-tree, with its drooping clusters of useless but lovely scarlet berries, the varieties of the acacia are unrivaled as beautiful shade trees. When in full bloom, under the dazzling rays of an equatorial sun, they seem to be all on fire, forming a strong contrast to the prevailing dark green of the tropics. The flower of the cinnamon-tree is white, and when a range of country containing many acres in bloom comes into view, the effect is very beautiful. The best cinnamon gardens are nearest to the sea coast, and those so situated produce the most pungent bark. On the occasion of our visit, special notice was taken of a group of bamboos in the Kandy garden, the bright yellow stems being over a hundred feet in height, and each stem at the base measuring from eight to ten inches in diameter. It was a native of the spot, and, as we were assured, was a chance development. The rapidity of its growth, which is a remarkable characteristic of this tropical grass,--for that is its family,--is almost incredible. The cluster here spoken of was a little more than ninety days old, and, as the superintendent informed us, it increased in height twelve inches and more each twenty-four hours. This group of bamboos formed a grove by itself, two hundred feet in circumference, its feathery, misty foliage yielding gracefully to every pressure of the breeze, softly fanning the surface of the still water on whose brink it flourished. The bamboo, like the palm, is one of the most valuable and universal products of the tropics. It would require an entire volume to enumerate the various uses to which these two are applied by native skill. The division of the garden called the fernery is a delightful resort, presenting a collection ranging from the low-growing maiden-hair to the tall tree-fern with broad-leaved, tufted top and declining branches. One can well understand how easily a botanist may become absorbed in the study of this interesting family of plants. The variety and delicacy of form which they exhibit is infinite, ranging from the minutest specimens, almost like moss, to trees of thirty feet in height, with palm-like plumes. In the famous gardens just outside of Calcutta, the author visited a large conservatory occupied solely as a fernery, in which over thirty thousand specimens were classified. Mischievous flying foxes abound in the neighborhood of Kandy, proving a serious annoyance to the planters, often taking the lion's share when the fruit is ripe, always selecting with greedy intelligence the most desirable product of the trees. They move in flocks, a hundred or more together, stopping where-ever the food is most inviting. The natives seem to have a mysterious dread of and never touch them, but European hunters sometimes kill and eat them, declaring the flesh to be much like that of the hare. The creature measures nearly three feet between the tips of its extended wings. The flying fox is unable to take flight from the earth, and if found there can easily be caught, nor can they run under such circumstances, but, waddling along, seek the nearest tree-trunk, which they ascend with great ease by means of their long, sharp claws. From the branches they throw themselves with a strong impetus, skimming for considerable distances through the air, like the flying squirrel of the low latitudes, and the flying possum of Australia. This last animal, like the kangaroo, is found only in the country just named, where the natives, having no religious compunctions as to the sacredness of animal life, kill the possum and feast heartily upon its body roasted in hunter's style. It is not quite safe to walk in the moist and thickly overgrown parts of this garden of Peradenia,--the local name,--as there are dangerous snakes which one is liable to encounter, besides other reptiles of low latitudes, not always poisonous, but best avoided. Professor Haeckel tells us how terrible he found the nuisance of mosquitoes and stinging flies in this tropical garden. "There are of course mosquitoes certain in all such places," he says, "but far more dangerous than these annoying insects are the poisonous scorpions and millepeds, of which I have collected some splendid specimens,--scorpions six inches and millepeds a foot long." The chameleon is not so common as the last-named creatures to which the professor refers, and is not so noticeable, since its nature is to closely reflect the color of the tree or stone on which it may chance to rest for the time being. They are not liable to be detected unless in motion. The ticpolonga, a deadly snake, the terror of the natives, is often found in this garden. The largest snake in Ceylon is the boa or anaconda, which is often seen here measuring over twenty feet in length. It feeds mostly on small animals, and is very little feared either by the natives or Europeans. It is not an agreeable sight, nevertheless, as the reader may suppose, to see a large boa moving along the ground near one's person, and free to act its own pleasure. Their deadly coil about any animal is almost sure death. The many vivid stories which have been published about the aggressive nature of this creature are, we believe, mostly exaggerations. The poisonous cobra, whose bite is as fatal as that of our dreaded rattlesnake, is much more to be feared under ordinary circumstances. The larger snake must be very hungry and greatly annoyed to induce it to attack any other than small animals like a rabbit or a rat, and as a rule they avoid the presence of human beings. Nevertheless, a boa will sometimes be seized with an aggressive purpose without any apparent cause. This has been proved in several instances where, after having been freely handled in a museum for months without harm, the creature has suddenly applied its great muscular strength to the purpose of strangling the exhibitor, winding its body with lightning-like rapidity about his throat and body. Under such circumstances, the life of the man has been saved by the instant action of associates, who severed the snake's body in several places with sharp knives. Any other attempted relief would have led to an increase of the strangling process. In one instance, at an exhibition in this country, it was necessary to cut the snake away piecemeal with a butcher's knife before the terrible muscular contraction of its body was relaxed. It was accomplished none too soon, as the insensible victim was already nearly dead, and was only resuscitated after prolonged and skillful effort. When the coffee planters of this central district were almost in despair at the failure of their coffee crops, owing to the blight already described, the director of the Botanical Garden called their attention to the importance of devoting their lands to other purposes. The possibility of cultivating the cinchona-tree to advantage was suggested, as well as the raising of tea. Both these plans were given a trial, and were gradually adopted. Now, both industries flourish vastly in Ceylon, to the mutual advantage of the planters and the world at large. The seed of the cinchona-tree is first planted in nurseries, and when a year old the plant is removed to prepared grounds, where it makes rapid progress. The tree does not begin to yield the bark which constitutes its peculiar value until it is seven or eight years old, when a ready market is found for all that can be produced, and at fairly remunerative prices. The latest statistics to which the author could gain access showed that five years since, Ceylon was exporting sixteen million pounds of the medicinal bark annually, an aggregate which would rival nearly any South American port, Peruvian or otherwise. While in this vicinity, one of our party was bitten in several places on the lower limbs by what proved to be land leeches, a species of this small creature which lives in dry grounds and also upon trees, burrowing in the bark. From the proportions of a darning-needle, this active and somewhat venomous little pest swells to the size of a pipe-stem, when it becomes filled with blood. Their bite often creates a painful sore, especially if one's circulation happens to be in an unhealthy condition. To protect themselves against this abomination, Europeans wear what are called leech-gaiters, reaching up to the knees, made from stout, close-knit canvas, or russet leather. The true water leech also abounds in the marshes and ponds of the island, and is quite destructive to animals which frequent these places. Domestic buffaloes seek the ponds in which to submerge their bodies to get rid of stinging flies and voracious mosquitoes, but they sometimes lose their lives by the combined attack of these more formidable enemies, the water leeches. After one of these bloodsuckers is fairly fixed upon the body of man or beast, it will not give up its hold until it has drawn its fill of blood. When this condition is reached, the leech drops off, and, like a snake after a hearty meal, it becomes dormant for a long time. There are plenty of reptiles in all parts of Ceylon, but, as we have said, they keep mostly hidden from human beings. The gardens and woods are infested with ticks, so called, resembling small crabs, and armed with similar forceps with which to torment their victims. One almost requires a microscope to see these little black atoms, though they possess gigantic ability to inflict painful and highly irritating bites. This insect quickly buries itself under the skin, where it creates a lasting sore unless it is thoroughly eradicated, together with the poison that surrounds it. The natives use cocoanut oil as a preventive to the attack of the ticks, and it is true that they will drop from any spot where they encounter this pungent lubricator. In some parts of Ceylon, the leech pest is so prevalent as to render whole districts quite uninhabitable by human beings. At Kandy as well as in the vicinity of Point de Galle, frequent attempts have been made to establish sugar plantations, but the soil or the climate, or both, proved to be unfavorable to the growth of the cane. Natives, here and elsewhere, raise a few hills of it about their cabins, which they chew for its sweetness, when the stalk becomes sufficiently ripe; it is especially the delight of children, under this condition. With the aid of proper fertilizers there would seem to be no good reason why sugar-cane could not be profitably grown in Ceylon. The species of palm familiarly known as the jaggery palm is largely cultivated in the central province of the island. Its sap is boiled down so as to produce a coarse brown sugar, which is much used by all classes in its crude state. Why it is not refined for more delicate purposes, since the sugar-cane is not available, it is impossible to say. Farina is also extracted from the pith of this palm, forming, as is well known, a very palatable and nutritious food. The indolent natives must be spurred by foreign enterprise into obtaining this valuable article of export, before they will labor to procure it. Open-handed Nature, in her bounteous liberality, spoils these heedless children of the tropics. Near Kurunaigalla, one of the ancient capitals of the island, situated about sixty miles northeast of Colombo and ten or twelve miles north of Kandy, there are some very interesting ruins, together with several enormous boulders of red rock, which somehow strike one as being very much out of place. They are too enormous to have been transported by glacial action, by which method we account for the position of so many big boulders in the northern portions of our own continent. One of these in the neighborhood we are speaking of is called "The Elephant's Tusk," towering six hundred feet into the air; but why it is thus named is not obvious. There are very old plumbago mines hereabouts, and a group of mouldering stone lions, elephants, and a figure designed to represent that fabulous creature, the unicorn. These recall somewhat similar groups one sees in the wilds of continental India, mementos which are believed to antedate by ten or fifteen centuries the origin of the famous "buried cities" of Ceylon. CHAPTER XIV. Fifty Miles into Central Ceylon.--Gorgeous Scenic Effects.--Gampola.--The Singhalese Saratoga.--A Grand Waterfall.--Haunts of the Wild Elephants.--Something about these Huge Beasts.--European Hunters restricted.--An Indian Experience.--Elephants as Farm Laborers in Place of Oxen.--Tame Elephants as Decoys.--Elephant Taming.--Highest Mountain on the Island.--Pilgrims who ascend Adam's Peak.--Nuera-Ellia as a Sanitarium.--A Hill Garden. From Kandy to Neura-Ellia--"Royal Plains"--(pronounced Nuralia) is a pleasant drive of fifty miles through the Ramboda Pass, which is justly celebrated for its series of beautiful waterfalls and boisterous rapids, affording frequent views of great magnificence. It is safe to say that in this respect it is the most remarkable part of the island. The entire route is about six thousand feet above sea level. At first the course of the Maha-velle-Ganga is closely followed, the river being crossed at Peradenia by a somewhat remarkable bridge, consisting of a single arch or span of a little over two hundred feet, built of satinwood, with stout brick and stone abutments. The bridge was erected in 1832, without the aid of a single nail or bolt, and is apparently in perfect condition to-day. The railway bridge crosses the stream below this point not far away, resting upon three substantial stone piers. The centre of the first-named structure is raised between sixty and seventy feet above the ordinary flow of the water, which is generally of quite a placid character, but at certain seasons of the year its volume and force are such as to form a sweeping and dangerous torrent. When this is the case, there are often borne upon the flood large cocoanut and other trees, which have stood for many years upon the river's banks, until thus undermined by the swift-flowing waters. The effect is then very singular. The trees, which have thus been suddenly transported from their birthplaces in a growing and often fruit-bearing condition, pile themselves up after a most extraordinary fashion, forming what is technically called a "jam." The hillsides, as seen from the satinwood bridge, are terraced with rice-fields, while in the distance stands the Allegalla Peak, an isolated mountain thirty-four hundred feet in height, in connection with which there are several Singhalese legends, each one more or less impossible. This element, however, only makes the stories all the more palatable to the native appetite. This route takes one through Gampola, which, though it is insignificant enough at the present time, was the native capital of Ceylon nearly five hundred years ago. The place is situated amid a grand panorama of magnificent hills on the banks of the river already named, which is here crossed by a suspension bridge. The road from this point to Neura-Ellia begins to ascend the hilly region along the face of steep acclivities and precipitous banks. One can nearly reach Neura-Ellia by rail, but the route we have described is by far the most interesting in point of scenic effects. This is a Singhalese watering-place, the Saratoga of the island, the one popular health resort of the wealthy natives, as well as of strangers and English officials whose headquarters are on the sea coast. It is situated a little over one hundred miles eastward from Colombo, at an elevation of nearly seven thousand feet, while the surrounding mountains are between one and two thousand feet higher. The English government has established a sanitarium here for invalid soldiers, and a small detachment of infantry is always stationed on the spot, more for form than because of any real necessity. It is a region where cool, gray skies and frequent rains prevail, and where a fire is needed most of the year, and indeed it is almost a necessity after sunset at all seasons. The thermometer never rises above 70° Fahr., and the average temperature is 60°. The change from oven-like Colombo in midsummer to the air of this invigorating region is truly delightful. When the author was at Neura-Ellia, early in January (being at our antipodes, it was then summer in Ceylon), the weather was lovely, his companions were cultured, appreciative, and sympathizing, and everything joined in producing a store of delicious and lasting memories. The strong, invigorating mountain breezes were most enjoyable after a period of oppressive heat endured on the coast. The locality recalled a somewhat similar experience in passing from Calcutta to Darjeeling, an English sanitarium near the foot of the Himalayan range of mountains, overlooking the plains of Hindustan on the one hand, while on the other affording a view of that series of mountains whose loftiest point, Mount Everest, forms the apex of our globe, its cloud-capped, sky-reaching summit being nearly thirty thousand feet above the level of the sea. There are several fairly good hotels at Neura-Ellia, two banking-houses, a church, a club-house, and a large number of private cottages scattered about the hills and valley, overlooking a lake of some two miles in length and a mile in width. This has been stocked with trout, and now affords a liberal supply of that palatable fish to the residents. Not far away, on the Fort McDonald River, there is a grand waterfall, with a plunge of three hundred perpendicular feet into a dark and narrow chasm. The river approaches this point over a long succession of wild, swirling, and foaming cataracts, reminding one of the rapids above Niagara Falls, though far inferior in breadth and the body of water which they convey. The hoarse anthem and echo accompaniment of the McDonald Falls, when heard for the first time, are truly awe-inspiring. One has not far to go in the surrounding mountain region to find the haunts of the wild elephants. They are still to be met with in considerable numbers, their capture being considered the great achievement of the chase among hunters of large game. From here Hindustan has drawn its supply of these animals for many centuries. The elephant rarely breeds in servitude while domesticated for the use of man, but in its wild state is a prolific animal, otherwise Ceylon would long since have been cleared of them. The mother elephant carries her infant twenty-two months, and after birth suckles it for two years. The female does not attain her maturity until she is fifteen years old; the male in his twentieth year. The mother elephant gives birth to but one calf at a time; twins have never been known. Small herds range these hills to a height of six thousand feet, where the nights are often frosty and the cold quite severe. Though they are natives of tropical regions, this animal seems to be but little affected by the cold, always avoiding, when it is possible, the direct rays of the sun. This peculiarity is noticeable in them even when they are exhibited in our cold northern climate. Unless aroused by the hunters and driven from deep, cool coverts in the dense forests, the elephant remains hidden during the daytime. Their roaming for forage and water, like that of most wild animals, is altogether nocturnal. Their sustenance is principally the leafage of young shoots of trees, the wild fig being their favorite. The tender roots of the bamboo also form a large source of food supply. Rice, however, is the elephant's choice above all other esculents, and sometimes a small herd will devastate a whole plantation in a single night. The planters generally build a bamboo fence about their rice-fields in the districts liable to be visited by these animals. This would at first thought seem to be entirely insufficient to keep off so powerful a creature, but the fact is that a wild elephant in Ceylon is so wary that he will not trespass upon land thus guarded. Some instinct teaches him to avoid the place and to seek for food elsewhere. A simple rope drawn about a field, it is said, will keep him at a distance. He shrewdly suspects a trap, and has seen so many of his comrades seized upon and carried away into captivity by means of corrals, traps, and ropes, that he has learned to associate the idea of capture with such things, and is constantly on the lookout lest he also fall a victim to the stratagems of the huntsmen. It is common to consider one hundred years as the average period of an elephant's life, but the author has seen an animal doing service in India which was known to exceed this limit by a score of years. European sportsmen, attracted to Ceylon in search of this big game, sacrificed the elephants in mere wantonness until government interfered, and a heavy fine is now imposed upon any one who kills an animal of this species. There is no danger of the natives doing anything of the kind. In the first place they have not the inclination, and in the next they are not permitted to own firearms of any sort. Some rich and reckless Englishmen, nevertheless, kill an occasional elephant simply for the sake of boasting of their prowess, and pay the government fine accordingly. We say the natives have no inclination to hunt the elephant, but the wild Veddahs do sometimes kill them. The animals of this species found in Ceylon are of a distinctive breed, with some marked differences from those native to Africa, and are noted for their high degree of intelligence. They are most prized in India, where they are used by those who can afford to keep them. The intelligence of this monarch of the forest is shown in his selection of the most available paths for passing from one part of the country to another. Major Skinner, the famous road-builder of Ceylon, tells us how invaluable he found the tracks of the elephants as a guide in laying out his government routes through the island. He says the most available crossings of hills, valleys, and rivers were already distinctly marked by elephant paths, and he followed them with entire confidence that his engineers could do no better for him, with all their experience, aided by the most accurate instruments. The Maharajah of Jeypoor, India, whose generous and regal hospitality the author has enjoyed, sends elephants to bring his invited guests to visit him, and also returns them to their residences in the same manner. The animals which were employed on the occasion referred to came originally from the Kandy hills in Ceylon. They were docile creatures, which knelt at the word of command for us to mount to the frame seats on their backs. Each carried six persons besides the driver. We were told that it costs as much to feed one elephant as to keep eight horses. This independent prince has a territory about the size of Massachusetts, with a million and a half of contented subjects. His capital--Jeypoor--is the finest and most thrifty native city in all India, where, wonderful to say, there are no beggars, nor, so far as a transient visitor could discover, nuisances of any sort to complain of. It was a dusty season, as is well remembered, but the streets and squares of the capital were being carefully sprinkled by native water-carriers,--in a very primitive manner, to be sure, but showing a due consideration for the comfort of the public. There is a vast difference between a tame and a wild elephant; the latter, when entirely subdued and domesticated, is of comparatively little consequence. His main occupation in our country is that of eating peanuts, candies, and fruit doled out to him by visitors to the menageries, and the performance of a few highly sagacious tricks. In their wild state they are the wariest and most cunning of all the denizens of the forest. Nor are they devoid of courage and ferocity when brought to bay, and many experienced hunters have lost their lives in Ceylon while pursuing them. When domesticated in this island they are of great service to the farmers, especially in plowing, harrowing, and rolling the newly broken land. A cultivator which would anchor half a dozen yokes of native bullocks is walked away with in the easiest manner imaginable by a single elephant. They are particularly sagacious in dam-building across streams, and in the construction of bridges, placing the heavy materials just where they are required, and even fitting large logs and stones in their proper places. The amount of food which so large an animal requires is, however, a serious drawback to their employment. Besides five or six hundred pounds of green fodder, an elephant must eat at least twenty pounds of some kind of grain daily, rice preferred, to keep him in working condition. They are usually seen, in their wild state, in small herds of ten or twelve, the majority being females, and generally each one has a calf or baby elephant by her side. There are also certain males, known as "rogues," that roam the forests singly, generally vicious old creatures, discarded by their companions, and always bent upon mischief. These are desperate in the extreme, often courting a conflict with the hunters, fiercely charging them right and left. Why they have been excommunicated from the ranks of their former companions cannot be known, but they are always avoided, both by the natives and by hunters. No attempt is ever made to domesticate a "rogue" elephant. They recognize that they are forever ostracized from the fellowship of their kind, and make no attempt to join other elephants. The theory is that they have become permanently crazed. It is well-known that all elephants are liable to brief periods of delirium, during which they are very dangerous. When the symptoms of such an occurrence begin to evince themselves, their keeper, always prepared for such an event, doubles their chains and otherwise securely confines them until the paroxysm is over. The recovery is hastened by a brief period of starvation, neither food nor drink being given the animal until he becomes entirely docile. For a considerable time, there was an understanding that the rogue elephant might be hunted and killed, when such an one made his appearance, but this liberty was taken advantage of by sportsmen, and when they killed an animal he was represented to have been a rogue whether he was really so or not, and the authorities were therefore obliged to enforce the law as regarded all these animals. The Ceylon elephant is not of the ivory-producing species, though some of the males do develop good-sized tusks like those of Africa. The animals of this island have short "grubbers," as they are called, protruding from their mouths eight or ten inches, with which they uproot certain species of their favorite food, such as the tender undergrowth of the juicy bamboo. Had the Ceylon elephant been an ivory-bearing animal, he would probably have been more closely pursued by the hunters, and have long since disappeared from the island, which is so much more accessible than the wilds of Africa, whence the world's supply is now almost wholly derived. Strange to say, the elephant in his domesticated or tame state takes absolute pleasure in acting as a decoy to enable the hunters to capture wild ones. After the pursuers have, with the tame elephant's help, driven the wild animal into a corral or stout inclosure in the forest, and have also, still aided by the tame elephant, secured the wild one by tying his two hind feet securely to some stout tree, he is left for a day or two to strain and fret himself until he has fairly worn out his strength, before he is again approached. Almost the entire process of breaking in or training a wild elephant is that of starvation. When at last his spirit is completely broken and his strength gone for the time being, he becomes amenable to discipline, almost as much so as one which has been in captivity for years. He then partakes with eagerness of the food and water which is brought to him, accepting the same as a sort of peace offering, and gradually becomes attached to the keeper who has charge of him, and with whose presence the creature associates the idea of relief and comfort. From this time forward, firmness and kindness complete the taming process. It is a mystery how and where they die in their wild state. No corpses are ever found, except of those which have come to a violent death by the bullets of the hunters. It is seldom that the animal is now shot. This is only done in extreme cases, as a live elephant is so much more valuable than a dead one that the object is now to corral them, tie them up, and tame them. The mountains encircling Piduru Talagalla are covered with trees to their very summits, from a distance seeming to be wrapped in a rich mantle of deepest green. This elevation is the loftiest on the island, considerably exceeding Adam's Peak, the legendary apex of Ceylon, a conclusion arising from the fact that the latter is to be seen from the ocean before any other portion of the island, and long before the lighthouse of Colombo is made out from on ship-board. The dense forest in this region contains many wild animals besides elephants. A high degree of religious importance attaches to the act of ascending Adam's Peak, which is situated fifteen miles south of Neura-Ellia. Consequently, at certain seasons of the year, the mountain side is covered with pilgrims, who camp there during the night, and perform their religious devotions on the summit during the day. A special effort is made by the pilgrims to reach the top so as to see the sun rise, and to meet its first rays upon bended knees in devout prayer, like the ancient fire-worshipers. Steps are cut in the steep, rocky sides of the precipitous ascent, to overcome the abruptness of which, here and there, requires the aid of chains, which are fastened securely in the solid rock for this purpose. Judging from the style and condition of these, they have probably been in use for centuries. Religious faith must be all-absorbing with a people, to bring them such distances from northern India to bow down to a supposititious footprint in Ceylon. All Eastern people are famous for making distant pilgrimages to what are considered sacred places, and especially Buddhists, who attach immense importance to such performances. Before leaving Neura-Ellia, let us say a word as to its fitness for invalids, since Ceylon is becoming more and more of a resort for such persons, especially those afflicted with weakness of the lungs. It may be fairly questioned if this locality be not too damp for pulmonary invalids. It is very often wrapped in cold, dense clouds for many hours together, so that the air is heavy with a sort of Scotch mist. Still, the place is growing, and many persons have great faith in its sanitary importance. The number of English cottages is increasing, and the hotels are well filled in the summer season. The cost of living at this resort in the hills is so great that only those who have long purses can afford it. Rents are high, and domestic articles of consumption cost about double what is usually charged at Colombo, whence nearly all table provisions are brought. Six miles from here is an interesting hill garden, designed to supplement that already described near Kandy, and which is under the same able management. Flowers do not receive much attention in either of these conservatories, useful and remarkable trees taking precedence of all other forms of vegetation. Here one sees some examples of the goraka, with its stem and branches quite yellow from the gamboge which they exude; tall ferns like baby palms, fifteen feet in height; and other peculiar trees clad in crimson bloom or blossoms of snowy whiteness, together with some hardy fruits. On approaching the coast, one often meets with what is called the screw pine, but which, it would seem, should be called the screw palm. It bears sword-like leaves, similar to the South American yucca, and is decked with blossoms of wonderful fragrance. The most peculiar characteristic of the tree, however, is its aerial roots, which are thrown from the trunk above ground, but when they reach the soil they take root in it and serve as props to the delicate stem. The effect is grotesque and artificial. CHAPTER XV. Port of Trincomalee.--A Remarkable Harbor.--How to get there.--Nelson's Eulogium.--Curious and Beautiful Shells.--Pearl Oysters.--Process of Pearl Fishing.--What are Pearls and which are most valued?--Profit to Government.--A Remarkable Pearl.--Tippo Sahib and Cleopatra.--The Singhalese not Sailors.--Ancient Ruins.--Hot Springs near Trincomalee.--"Temple of a Thousand Columns."--Valuable Supply of Ship Timber.--Salt Manufactures.--Tenacity of Life in the Shark. It was long thought that Trincomalee, situated on the northeast coast of the island, should be the commercial capital of Ceylon, because of the excellent harbor facilities which it possesses, but various circumstances turned the tide in favor of Colombo. Tradition tells us that Trincomalee was founded by a colony of Malabars, many centuries before Christ, antedating all authentic records relating to the island. The earliest historic mention of the place refers to the existence here of an ancient and very sacred Sivaite temple. Other traditions touching the same period refer to a Tamil kingdom on the opposite side of the island, ruled over by an Amazon princess, whose capital was at Kudremale, where granite ruins, still plainly discernible, give some authenticity to the story. Where Fort Frederick now stands, at Trincomalee, was formerly the site of one of India's most sacred shrines, whither pilgrims flocked annually from afar. The harbor is remarkable for its depth of water, together with its ample size and security against all sorts of weather which may be raging outside of its limits. The entrance is between Fort Frederick on the northwest and Foul Point on the southeast, and is over five miles in width. As a strong current along the coast sets constantly to the southward, there is always some trouble in making the port. Trincomalee is situated about one hundred and eighty miles by land from Colombo. The best way to reach it from the capital is by embarking in a coasting steamer, which occupies ten days in making the complete circuit of the island. Inland travel for long distances is not enjoyable, and unless one has special purposes to subserve, it is best avoided. The short and principal routes are, however, comparatively good. There are a few rest-houses, as they are called, owned and kept up by the government, where the traveler can find a shelter beneath which to sleep, but that is about all; bed and bedding he is supposed to carry with him. It is the same in India proper. Hotels are to be found, as a rule, only in the large cities. One must depend upon his own resources in traveling over this island, when off the beaten tracks, and must carry along his domestic necessities. Nelson, without due consideration we think, declared the harbor of Trincomalee to be "the finest in the world." The place has a population of about fifteen thousand, and is the most important English naval station in the East, with an extensive dock-yard and marine workshops for the refitting of large war-ships. But as to the harbor being the finest in the world, that is an extraordinary and an unwarranted expression. One is inclined to doubt if Nelson had visited Sidney, Australia, Rio Janeiro, Brazil, or Nagasaki in Japan, when he pronounced that eulogium upon Trincomalee. Hongkong, China, which name signifies "good harbor," is infinitely superior to this vaunted port of Trincomalee. In the year 1672, during the possession of the island by the Dutch, a French squadron surprised and took possession of the place, but the Dutch immediately retook it. The beauty, scenery, and general excellence of this harbor are undoubtedly worthy of special mention. It is dotted with verdant isles, and is securely land-locked, so that when the heavy monsoons may be sweeping furiously along the coast, all is as calm inside of Fort Frederick as an inland lake. Like the harbor of Sidney, the entrance is dominated by two rocky headlands, but they are much farther apart. The harbor has such depth of water as to enable vessels of heavy draught to lie close to the shore and discharge or take in cargo without the aid of lighters. This is a very unusual advantage in Eastern waters. When the English took the place from the Dutch, they added to the fortifications, intending that it should be the naval port of the island for all time. It is the best harbor of refuge in all India at this writing. One cannot but anticipate that England, in the near future, must enter upon a great struggle to maintain her hold of India. It may be from a well-organized uprising of the native tribes, or it may originate from some outside nationality, seconded by the natives themselves, but come it will, sooner or later. Then the importance of Trincomalee as a naval station will be realized, while Colombo, as a fortified depot, will be shown as second only to Malta and Gibraltar. Trincomalee, it should be remembered, is four hundred miles nearer to Calcutta than Colombo. Scientists have found the harbor and immediate neighborhood of Trincomalee remarkable not only for the reasons already named, but more especially for its unique shells and interesting forms of marine life. There are several groups of animals found here which creep upon the bottom of the sea, and which are elsewhere unknown. All alongshore one sees a queer little fish, three or four inches in length and of a dark brown color, which has the capacity of darting along the surface of the water, and of running up the wet stones with the utmost ease and rapidity, as well as of creeping across the damp sand. It climbs the smooth face of the rocks in search of flies and other insects, adhering to the surface so firmly as to resist the assault of the on-coming and receding waves. These little amphibious creatures are so nimble that it is almost impossible to catch them with the hands. The coast on this side of Ceylon has long been celebrated for the beauty and variety of the shells which it produces, of which immense quantities have been sent to various parts of the world. Pearl oysters are found here in large beds, though they are obtained in greater abundance farther north of Trincomalee, at a point ten or twelve miles off the coast. Here, at a certain spot, beds have existed for thousands of years, and are annually dredged for, or we should rather say, dived for, by organized companies. Pearl oysters are also found in large numbers in the Gulf of Manaar, between this island and the continent of India. The season chosen for the pearl fishery, which gives employment to large numbers of the natives, is naturally when the sea is most calm, that is, between the termination of the northeast and the commencement of the southwest monsoons. This period occurs in March and the early part of April, when a fleet of pearl fishermen may be seen anchored at the pearl banks, as they are called, all under the supervision of a government officer, who controls the operations. The reader hardly requires to be told that these pearls for which Ceylon is celebrated are found secreted within certain non-edible oysters. The interior of this species of mussel is lined with a beautiful transparent material called mother-of-pearl, which is gathered and sent by the ton to Europe for delicate ornamental purposes, especially for inlaid work. Sometimes one of these pearl oysters will contain two or three valuable pearls, then a score or more may be opened containing none. The divers work rapidly when engaged in this peculiar business, fifty seconds being the average time during which one can remain under water without coming to the surface for breath. They descend by attaching a heavy stone to their feet, the weight of which causes them to reach the bottom quickly, where they rapidly gather all that can be got of the pearl oysters, in so brief a period, into a wide-mouthed net, which is taken down with them. At the proper signal, those who remain in the boat draw up the net, while the diver, kicking off the stone from his feet, comes to the surface with the speed of an arrow. In addition to the pearl oysters, all sorts of curious marine animals, sea-slugs, black, greasy, and hideous polypi, together with beautiful variegated shells, come up in the diver's net. He works too rapidly while at the bottom of the sea to discriminate as to the substances which he gathers. After a few brief moments of quiet rest, inflating his lungs to the full capacity, the diver descends, to again repeat his efforts "fathoms deep." Extravagant stories are told of these experienced pearl divers, representing them as able to remain below the surface of the water for four or five minutes. This is simply impossible. We were assured by intelligent local authority that a minute and a quarter, that is, eighty-five seconds, is as long as the best divers can remain below, the average being considerably less. If the reader will try the experiment of holding his breath under the most favorable conditions and while not otherwise exerting himself, he will realize how very brief is the time in which he can refrain from using his lungs. The greatest depth at which the pearl oyster can be secured by the divers is thirteen fathoms. This is nearly eighty feet, at which point the pressure of the water is so great that the divers not infrequently bleed at the ears on coming to the surface. It is curious to realize that these gems which are so highly prized are composed of ninety per cent. of the carbonate of lime. Pearls found in the Gulf of Persia have the highest reputation, but it must be a shrewd expert who can see any decided difference between those which come from that region and these of Ceylon. Pearls are most valued throughout India which have a slight golden blush or faint rose tint, a prevailing characteristic of those found on this coast. Such are esteemed above the finest white specimens, while the pure white, if it has the proper lustre, is the European favorite. A true connoisseur in pearls in this country rejoices in the rose-tinted specimens of the gem. All colors are found on the coast of this island,--pink, brown, and jet black. The men employed on the coast of Ceylon are generally Tamils and Moormen, who are well paid for their somewhat arduous services, as wages are considered in this region, besides which, there is but a short period in the year during which they can work at this occupation. Sometimes they enter into a coöperative engagement, sharing, that is, in the possible profits of the season, but as a rule they prefer to receive prompt and sure wages, and to run no risk as regards emolument. At this writing, there is a scarcity of pearl oysters at the old beds, both in the Gulf of Manaar and off the northeast coast. The pursuit of them has been so eager and exhaustive that these bivalves have been nearly exterminated. With a wise purpose of restoring their former abundance, the English government, which always keeps a business eye upon the pearl fisheries, lately declared a "close season," and in the mean time the valued pearl-bearers can increase and multiply undisturbed. The pecuniary profit accruing to the government of Ceylon from the pearl fisheries amounted in 1891 to over a million rupees, while the result of some seasons' operations has far exceeded this sum. Not long since, a remarkable pearl was found on the northwest coast of Ceylon,--remarkable for size and perfection of color,--at a point where the pearl-fishing industry has been followed for thousands of years. It would be natural to suppose that a very choice and valuable gem of this sort would be sent to Paris, Vienna, or London, to find the readiest and best market for its disposal, but this was not the case. It was sent to Calcutta, where it realized to the owner a fabulous sum, promptly paid by a native Indian prince, who retains and would not part with it for any price. A valuable string of Ceylon pearls ornamented the neck of Tippo Sahib, when he fell at the storming of Seringapatam. We are also told that the pearl swallowed by Cleopatra so long ago, when she drank to the health of Mark Antony, came from this island. The space over which the oyster banks extend on the northwest coast of Ceylon is over twenty miles square in the lower part of the Gulf of Manaar. If the oysters are gathered when too young the pearls are small, almost valueless, and therefore a system of survey is carried on by the English government. Buoys are regularly placed, within which, and nowhere else on the banks, is fishing permitted during the regular season set apart for the purpose. Some of the poorest of the natives eat the pearl oyster, but it is neither palatable nor wholesome. Perhaps a thousand years hence, people will be expatiating upon the beauty of these most attractive gems of the Indian Ocean, and natives will be diving for them. It seems to be rather extraordinary that with so available a sea coast, the Singhalese proper are in no wise a maritime people. Beyond being good fishermen and good managers of boats of their own peculiar construction, they have little or nothing to do with the ocean. They scarcely ever embark as seamen for a long voyage, and have no ships of their own. According to the records of Ceylon, this has been the case from the earliest period. The Singhalese have ever been essentially an agricultural race, a small portion devoting themselves to such simple handicraft as life on the island demanded. They are not traders, even in our day. Moormen, Syrian Jews, and Parsees monopolize that occupation, and the few 'longshore sailors are all of the Tamil race. The immediate district of Trincomalee is not populous, though the soil is rich and the means of irrigation are abundant for a large number of rice plantations. It is dependent upon other places for its constant supplies of rice, fruits, and various necessaries, which are brought from along the coast both north and south. Were it not for the presence of the military and the occasional visit of English squadrons, it would be nearly deserted. Sir Emerson Tennent, thirty years ago, prognosticated great things for Trincomalee, but it will be very long before it can come into competition with Colombo. The breakwater was not in existence at the latter port when Sir Emerson wrote. That important structure, with other harbor improvements, has settled the question as to which shall be the permanent commercial centre of Ceylon. There are several hot springs, eight miles from the town, known as the Wells of Kannya. More than ordinary interest attaches to this supply of hot water because of the absence of all signs of volcanic action in the neighborhood. These hot springs, in addition to the hygienic properties claimed for them, are much resorted to by the devout, as they are dedicated to Kannya, the mother of Rawana. Those who have lost near and dear friends by death come to the wells to perform certain appropriate ceremonies. Hot springs equally remarkable are found at or near Bintenne, Batticaloa, and also at Badulla. The water of these flowing hot wells is said to be pure, and of such temperature as to be fit for cooking. The natives of Ohinemutu, New Zealand, boil their vegetables and meat in similar springs, as the author can testify from personal observation. The ruins of a temple dedicated to Ganesa show that this vicinity was once, ages ago, the resort of worshipers of that god of wisdom. This elephant-headed deity would seem to be an especially appropriate one for worship in Ceylon, if any dumb animal is to typify such an idea. In any instance, it does not seem so repulsive as the serpent worship still in existence near Jaffna. Special medical virtues are claimed for the waters to which we have referred,--the hot wells. It is stated that fishes actually live in them where the temperature is 115°. Ten miles north of the city are the largest salt works of the island, the product of which is nearly all exported to Calcutta. Fifty thousand bushels have been produced at Nillavelle alone in a single season, though the "pans" are simple clay embankments, the construction of which involves but little labor. The process of obtaining salt is to expose shallow quantities of sea water to the intense rays of the sun. Evaporation is rapid in these tropical regions. The saline crystals remain, and are gathered from the pans. It is recorded that an extensive range of temples dedicated to Siva once existed here, but were leveled to the ground by the Portuguese, who employed the stone material thus obtained for the building of the local fortifications, in which stones crop out here and there, bearing elaborate carvings and other evidences of having originally served some other special purpose. The few official buildings in Trincomalee are substantial and serviceable structures, but the town is poorly arranged, and not very interesting to a stranger. Even the bazaars are unattractive, though these places in the East are always a study of local life. A few Hindu temples give an oriental appearance, and, as we have shown, the place is of great antiquity. It was once the site of a famous shrine, visited by hordes of people from all parts of continental India, which is reverentially mentioned in early records of the island as the "Temple of a Thousand Columns." The author believes this to be the one destroyed by the Portuguese, the material of which served them for building purposes. Unfortunately, this is in the midst of a malarial district, and is consequently avoided by Europeans, except those whose official connections compel them to live here. Trincomalee, however, has some great advantages as a commercial port which cannot be ignored. The proper clearing of the surrounding jungles in the near future, and the introduction of a system of modern drainage, will eventually remedy this evil, at least in a considerable degree. The neighboring district affords an unlimited supply of the valuable teak timber, suitable for shipbuilding, together with ebony, satinwood, ironwood, and other choice woods available for cabinet work, which are exported in certain quantities, though not to a large amount. The ironwood-tree is so named from its intense solidity and durability. It also forms a highly ornamental tree when growing, and is planted in large numbers near the temples. No one can fail to admire its broad white flowers, which are marvelously fragrant, and the rich, polished green of its foliage. It has another striking beauty common to several species of tropical trees, namely, the young leaves and shoots are so red as to clothe the tree at times with a rich mantle of crimson, almost rivaling in effect the magnolia-like blossoms. Hereabouts, but particularly to the northward on the Jaffna peninsula, the palmyra palm is found in profusion, with its black straight stem crowned by a thick sheaf of pinnate leaves. This tree is said to live three hundred years. Of all the varieties of the palm, the palmyra, with the exception of the date, has the widest geographical distribution. The Tamils have a proverb to the effect that "The palmyra lives for a lac of years after planting, and lasts for a lac of years when felled." An observant person occasionally notices a handsome, thrifty tree with dark and abundant foliage, which bears a fruit as large as a lemon and of the same color. Though this fruit resembles an orange and looks quite tempting to the uninitiated, it is dangerous and to be avoided, for within its pulp lies the seed which produces the deadly poison known as strychnine. The natives believe it to be an antidote to the poisonous bite of the cobra, but doubtless it would prove equally fatal. There is no deficiency of fruit trees in this north-western district. The jack especially abounds with its valuable product, each one of which weighs from ten to twenty pounds. The tamarind also thrives, and yields its fruit without care or thought on the part of man. Here and farther north the blue lotus with lilac petals is sprinkled over the ponds and lakes in vast quantities. There are some extremely interesting and mysterious ruins not far inland from Trincomalee, which show remains of handsomely carved stone work, such as the capitals of tall monoliths, but of whose real history nothing is known. Even legend fails us here, and groping conjecture is at fault. Two thousand years and more have passed away since these structures were reared. Not only have the temples, monuments, and palaces once existing here nearly crumbled into dust, but it is even forgotten who their builders were. What a comment upon the pride which gave them birth. What lessons history teaches us touching this folly. Egyptian kings, ages ago, built pyramids to contain their mummified bodies; in the nineteenth century of our period, these mummies are sold to European museums as curiosities. The salt marshes and lagoons in this vicinity are famous for the multitude of aquatic birds and waders which frequent them. Among these the prevailing species are egrets, herons, sandlarks, and plovers, while in the jungle great numbers of the pea-fowl are to be met with at all seasons of the year. The Ceylon pea-fowl, of which we have before spoken, is remarkable for its size and the beauty of its plumage. It is unmolested by the natives, but Europeans find the flesh palatable and nutritious. All this country is stocked with a great variety of small birds, such as finches, fly-catchers, thrushes, and the ubiquitous sparrow, as well as their natural enemies, eagles, hawks, and falcons,--birds of prey which exhibit most wonderful sagacity in seeking for victims with which to appease their appetites. They remain securely hidden until a small bird is seen upon the wing, when they dart towards it with a rapidity quite impossible for the human eye to follow. In a moment after the rapacious bird is first seen, it is again observed sailing leisurely away to make a meal upon the quarry clasped in its talons. Though sharks are known to be common all along the coast of the island, still in the harbor of Trincomalee they are particularly so, where the huge saw-fish also abounds, from ten to twelve feet in length, including the powerful weapon from which it derives it name. Many lives have been sacrificed, first and last, to the man-eating sharks in this beautiful harbor and along the neighboring coast, where Europeans have been tempted to bathe in the cool, refreshing waters of sheltered inlets. Some tragic stories are related to the stranger as to the murderous doings of these monsters of the deep. It is a singular fact that the dreaded sharks rarely if ever attack the natives, and so far as we could learn no lives are sacrificed to them by the pearl divers in the season of their operations. The author has observed the same discrimination exercised between the whites and the blacks by this destructive creature in the waters of the West Indies. Inhabitants of St. Thomas, for instance, dive for sixpences thrown into that land-locked harbor, with entire immunity from danger, but certainly no white man would dare to bathe in the same place. Knowing that sharks abound in the neighboring waters, one actually hesitates when tempting the negro lads to dive for coins, though assured that the sharks never molest them. So also at Aden, situated at the mouth of the Red Sea, the copper-colored natives of the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb dive with entire confidence in those waters, for silver coin thrown from the ship's deck; but were the body of a European sailor to strike the water, it would be devoured by the sharks in a moment; at least, so we were assured by our captain. Like the tiger and the crocodile, it is said that a shark which has once tasted human blood neglects henceforth all other sources of food supply in order to watch for the bodies of men, women, and children. A shark has been known to follow a ship closely five thousand miles across the ocean, from San Francisco to Yokohama. The identity of the creature was established by the fact that a part of a whale-lance protruded from its body, showing that it had been wounded in some former encounter with seamen, perhaps in their effort to rescue a comrade from its terrible jaws. It may be proper to mention in this connection that the shark referred to was finally captured before entering the harbor of Yokohama, by means of a stout line and shark-hook baited with a large piece of salt pork, and was promptly dispatched. A special industry among certain natives in the vicinity of Trincomalee is the collection and classification of marine shells, which they do with a certain degree of scientific knowledge. They are placed in neatly made satin wood boxes, and either sold to visiting strangers or shipped to European markets. Sometimes the covers of the boxes are beautifully inlaid with small shells. The profusion and variety of these mineral sea flowers of Ceylon have long been known. Conchologists visit the island solely to collect examples of their favorite study. An earnest and intelligent collector might add many treasures of species heretofore unknown, or rather undescribed, by employing a dredge from a common boat, just off the northeast shore of the island. The edible oysters obtained hereabouts are really enormous, measuring eight inches and more in length, and four or five in width. Such giant oysters are not so inviting to the palate as those found on our own shores, but they are cooked and eaten both by the natives and by European residents. The natives make great use of shrimps or prawns, which they mingle with other ingredients in forming their favorite dishes of rice and curry. The tortoises taken on this shore are thought to yield the best and finest shell for combs. It was necessary, in behalf of a spirit of humanity, to promulgate a law forbidding the roasting of tortoises alive, and taking off their shells during the process, which was done in order to obtain the shell of a finer lustre than is yielded after the animal's death. It seems that a people whose religion forbids the taking of life even in the case of the meanest insect can draw the line at fish, and, calling the tortoise a fish, can proceed to be thus outrageously cruel. Tortoise-shell forms one of the most universal and attractive items of native manufacture, and great skill is evinced by the natives in the production of combs of various shapes, together with bracelets and charms, the latter often mounted in silver. The workmen of Trincomalee and Point de Galle have made a specialty of tortoise-shell manufactures since the time of the Romans. Strabo, the Greek geographer and historian, speaks of this. The pale yellow shell is the rarest and most expensive. Like the choicest jewels, specimens of this sort find the best market in continental India, but the home consumption of shell combs is enormous; every male Singhalese of any pretension in the southern part of Ceylon wears one, and the majority wear two in their long, straight hair. The manner of dress among the Singhalese, the mode of wearing their hair, and the assumption of shell combs by the men afford singular evidence of the unchanging habits of an Eastern race. Seventeen hundred years ago, Ptolemy, speaking of these people, designates the same peculiarities which exist to-day. "The men," he says, "who inhabit Ceylon allow their hair an unlimited growth, and bind it on the crown of their heads, after the manner of women." It is also curious that this custom should be confined to the Singhalese of the southwest coast near Colombo. It is not a custom of the interior, or of the northern portion of the island. Almost every stranger, upon first landing at the capital, speaks of the effeminate appearance of the men. With their delicate features, their lack of beards, their use of hair-combs and earrings, together with the wearing of an article of dress almost precisely similar to a petticoat, it is often difficult at first to distinguish them from the other sex. CHAPTER XVI. Point de Galle.--An Ancient Port, now mostly deserted.--Dangerous Harbor.--Environs of the City a Tropical Garden.--Paradise of Ferns and Orchids.--Neptune's Gardens.--Tides of the Ocean.--Severe Penalties.--Floating Islands of Seaweed.--Fable, like History, repeats itself.--Chewing the Betelnut.--An Asiatic Habit.--All Nations seek Some Stimulant.--Soil near Galle.--Cinnamon Stones.--Diamonds.--Workers in Tortoise-Shell.--Millions of Fruitful Palms.--Sanitary Conditions of Galle. Next to Colombo, Point de Galle, with a population of about thirty-three thousand, is the most important town in the island. The port is somewhat difficult of access, and requires a local pilot to effect a safe entrance, owing to the fact that there are several sunken rocks very near the narrow channel. It is a treacherous harbor, as all seamen trading upon this coast are well aware, and has, first and last, swallowed up many a gallant vessel. Those early navigators, the Phoenicians, the first really commercial people of whom history informs us, made voyages to and from this port, and more than one authority identifies it with the Tarshish of the Scriptures. Ptolemy speaks of the Avium Promontorium,--"The Promontory of Birds,"--which marks the entrance to Galle, and here the Arabians, in the reign of Haroun al Raschid, came to meet the junks from China, and to interchange merchandise with them. Sir Emerson Tennent, after describing the charming first view of the place when he landed here, says: "Galle is by far the most venerable emporium of foreign trade now existing in the universe; it was the resort of merchant ships at the earliest dawn of commerce. In modern times it was the mart of Portugal and afterwards of Holland; and long before the flags of either nation had appeared in these waters, it was one of the entrepôts whence the Moorish traders of Malabar drew the productions of the remoter East with which they supplied the Genoese and Venetians, who distributed them over the countries of the West." It is quite different at Point de Galle to-day. A significant state of dullness reigns supreme in the ancient port, while the town seems to be in a Rip Van Winkle sleep. How the early navigators so successfully avoided the rocks and shoals of this coast, how they managed to weather the confusing tides, hurricanes, and monsoons, is a mystery, while so many of our stoutest ships, guided by experienced seamen, and protected by all modern appliances, have been lost in the same tracks. Is it possible that we of to-day are no better navigators than those who sailed the Indian Ocean three thousand years ago? Were the voyages of Columbus and his followers across the Atlantic in small, half-decked caravels, miracles, or was the waste of waters so much less tumultuous four centuries ago? A few steamships still make of this place a coaling station, but these grow less in number annually, though to maintain this small branch of business every facility is freely given by the local authorities. If it were not that the English officials devote all available pecuniary means and their tireless energy to the advancement of the business interests of Colombo, quite to the neglect of Point de Galle, the rocks which impede the entrance of the latter port would long since have been treated to a liberal dose of dynamite. Strangers express great surprise that these rocks, which could so easily be demolished by well-known and inexpensive means, should still be permitted to threaten navigation. We have seen a record of thirteen steamships, up to January, 1893, which were wrecked and entirely lost at various times, in attempting to enter the harbor of Point de Galle. This is the more surprising because of the general promptness of the English government in liberally furnishing all possible marine improvements to her distant colonies. The town is finely situated, crowning a steep, narrow, and rocky promontory, on a bay opening to the south. The name Galle means, in Singhalese, "a rock." The place is facetiously called, on the coast, the metropolis of false stones and real glass gems. The snug harbor is bordered by tropical vegetation to the very water's edge, including an endless number of palms. The town is divided, like Colombo, into European and native sections; the promontory, jutting southward, is entirely occupied by the former, and is called the Fort. The immediate environs of Galle form a natural tropical garden, over which botanists never fail to grow eloquent, both on account of its variety and its abundance of floral gems. One striking beauty in this connection is the marvelous development of the fern family, which is here seen as a low-growing creeper, and from that size to the proportions of considerable trees, the feathery fronds varying from lace-like consistency and size to that of broad and beautiful leaves of various shades of green. As to orchids, the hothouse climate of Ceylon develops them in marvelous beauty, both in the jungle and in the open fields. Nowhere else has the author seen the extensive and interesting family of ferns in such a state of thrift, except in New Zealand. The climate is equable, damp, and hot, thus forming a paradise for ferns and orchids, which revel in their very opposite styles of beauty. There are less than twenty degrees variation between the warmest day and the coldest night of the year at Galle. The rankness of the vegetation surrounding the town, and also its undrained, swampy character, render it in some degree objectionable in point of health to Americans and Europeans, though it is not nearly so much affected in this respect as Trincomalee, where chills and fever always prevail more or less among the foreign population. Extensive and many-colored coral reefs lie at the foot of the rocks which border the promontory in the harbor of Galle on the south and west. The natives put this beautiful marine product to a very unromantic use. Gathering it by the ton, they pile it up on the shore, mingled with wood and dried seaweed, and burn it to powder, thereby producing the lime with which the betelnut is mixed for chewing, as well as employing it in the mortar used for building purposes. Among these coral reefs one may see at any stage of the tide, when the sea is calm, a similar display to that which delights the visitor at Nassau, in the Bahamas,--submarine gardens, where various colored animate and inanimate objects (if we may thus signify the difference between animal and vegetable life), such as curiously shaped fish, shells, and rainbow-hued anemone, form beneath the sea kaleidoscopic pictures. Conspicuous among other varieties one sees the blue medusa, twelve inches and more in diameter. Here also is the curious globefish, with its balloon-like body and prickly hide. The clear waters of the Indian Ocean show the bottom, lying four or five fathoms below the surface, in charming colors and forms, like a well-arranged flower garden, hedged about by strange water plants. The floor of the sea, so to speak, is here studded with highly colored coralines and zoöphytes. The observer will see swimming near the surface the queer "flower parrot," so called, a fish having horizontal bands of silver, blue, carmine, and green, with patches here and there of vivid yellow. Verily, these Ceylon fishes display an oriental love of color. So strong was the light from above that the hull of our small rowboat cast its dark shadow fathoms deep upon the clear, white, sandy bottom. These attractive marine spots where orange-yellow and emerald-green mingle with ruby-red, and which are called coral gardens, we have never seen surpassed, and only equaled in beauty of effect at Nassau. The enchanting marine fauna and flora of the Indian Ocean are indeed marvelous to one accustomed only to the cold, sandy ocean-bed of northern latitudes. About three fourths of all kinds of seaweed are now classed as animal, like the sponge, the coral, and the sea-anemones; only one fourth are vegetable. Professor Rene Bache tells us that the most thickly populated tropical jungle does not compare in wealth of animal and vegetable life with a coral reef. On the continental slopes, long stretches of bottom are actually carpeted with brilliantly colored creatures closely packed together amid forests of seaweeds. There is so slight a rise and fall of the tide on the coast of Ceylon that it is scarcely perceptible, never exceeding four feet and rarely over three, but there are certain strong currents to be encountered on both the east and west coasts, whose velocity is augmented by the prevailing monsoon, and which cause some variations in the tide, besides materially interfering with shore navigation. No delights are wholly of a piece. All pleasures are qualified by some inevitable conditions; temperate indulgence, even, has its price. As he who enjoys with enthusiasm the delights of a tropical garden has also to encounter the attacks of vicious mosquitoes, wiry land leeches, stinging flies, biting scorpions, and poisonous cobras, so the naturalist who dives among these submarine coral groves to secure specimens, and to enjoy the marvelous sights below the surface of the sea, meets with inevitable drawbacks. The millepora which float there burn him like nettles; venomous fish sting his naked body, and sea-urchins penetrate his flesh with their lance-like spines; while the jagged points of the beautiful coral wound his hands like the aggravating thorns on roses. These wounds inflicted beneath the water sometimes entail serious consequences, creating painful sores which last for weeks. Off this southern coast of the island widespread moving fields of brilliantly colored seaweed are seen at times, dense enough to form quite an impediment to the progress of native boats which do not successfully avoid them. So compact are these collections of vegetable matter that they seem like a field of marshy land, rather than like a floating substance. This weed gives shelter to many species of mollusks and zoöphytes, quite similar to a collection of seaweed often encountered in the waters of the West Indies. Over this marine verdure hover great flocks of ocean birds. Now and then one alights to secure some tidbit of edible substance detected by its keen vision amid the thick branches and leaves. This mass of rockweed, so called, seems to come from the Indian continent at the north, but the natives have a theory that it is the cast-off growth of submerged islands, loosened from its native soil by the chafing of the restless sea after the raging of a severe storm. So the Singhalese have their "Atlantis;" fable, like history, repeats itself. Plato tells us of a vast island or continent, so named, which suddenly sank into the sea with a vast population, nine thousand years before his time. The natives here, and at Singapore, Penang, Colombo, and along the Asiatic coast generally, when not sleeping or eating, are incessantly chewing the betelnut, which, as before intimated, gives to their teeth and lips a disagreeably suggestive color, as if they were covered with blood. The men, and some of the women also, carry the means for this indulgence about them at all times, secured in the folds of their one garment wrapped about the loins. They inclose a piece of the nut in a bit of green leaf, after adding a portion of quicklime, and thus form a quid which they masticate with great earnestness, expectorating the while as a person does who chews tobacco, for which it is an Eastern substitute. Sometimes the mass is permitted to rest for a while between the gums and the cheek, and though it is known to occasionally produce cancer of the mouth, the natives give it not a second thought. The betelnut is a tonic, though very little if any of the nut is swallowed, nor is the saliva which it produces. In some cases cardamom and pepper seeds are added to the quid to give it pungency. It is claimed also that this combination counteracts malarial influences, forming a preventive against fever, which attacks natives as well as strangers in the lowlands. This habit becomes inveterate with the Singhalese, just as smoking or chewing tobacco does with those addicted to the weed. The men here would rather abstain from food than from chewing this stimulating compound. It is said that Europeans who have contracted the habit afterwards give it up with equal difficulty. It is not alone the lower classes who chew the betelnut. Persons of good social standing do it,--priests, native officials, ladies in their boudoirs, and so on, just as some American women are addicted to the secret use of cigarettes, wine, or liquor. The practice of chewing the betelnut is so ancient in Ceylon, and along the coast of India proper, that the Arabs and Persians who visited these countries in the eighth century, or say a thousand years ago, carried back the habit to their country, where it is still more or less prevalent in the sea-coast district. Thus mankind, civilized and barbarian, seek some stimulant other than natural food and drink. In Europe and America, where tobacco is easily obtained, it serves the purpose with the majority. In Peru, the Indians universally chew the leaves of the coca for the stimulating effect it produces. In China, opium takes the place of tobacco to a certain extent, while in the region of which we are writing, the betelnut yields a mild stimulant and sedative combined. The Ceylon and Malacca men eagerly substitute tobacco when it is to be had, and sometimes mix it with the betelnut. No gift to the savages of the Magellan Strait is so acceptable or so eagerly sought for as tobacco. The natives of Terra del Fuego, half-starved and almost wholly naked in a frigid clime, will exchange anything they have for a few dried plugs of this seductive weed. If you meet a North American Indian in the wilds of the far West, the first thing he asks of you, with extended hand, is "toback." The Japanese imbibes the subtle stimulus of tea in excessive quantities; the people of the equatorial regions get tipsy on palm toddy; the Chinese make a bedeviling liquor from distilled rice; the Mexican gets his intoxicating pulque from the agave plant; grapes yield the fiery brandy used by French and English people; hops and malt stupefy the Germans; while corn and rye whiskey turn men into brutes in this country. Immediately inland from Point de Galle, the surface of the ground rests upon a stratum of decomposed coral, and collections of sea-shells are found buried in agglutinated sand in situations raised far above the level of the sea, corroborating the supposition that Ceylon has been gradually rising above the ocean for many ages. The soil hereabouts is of a deep red hue, caused by the admixture of iron, and, being largely composed of lime from the comminuted coral, it is extremely fertile, producing certain crops of great luxuriance, yielding sometimes two and even three harvests annually. At Belligam, a short distance eastward from Galle, there is a large detached rock, two thirds of which is composed of the gem known as cinnamon stone. It is carried away in pieces of considerable size for the purpose of extracting and polishing it for ornamental uses. The author has seen, near Fort Wrangell, Alaska, a similar conglomerate of garnets, an interesting evidence of the erratic freaks of nature. The cinnamon stone is a crystal of a rich yellowish-brown tint, but little prized in Ceylon. As soon as such stones are found in large quantities they drop in market price; it is rarity which makes their value. When moonstones were first brought to the notice of Europeans, they were nearly as expensive as opals; now, they are sold by the pound or the hundred, for a few shillings the lot. Were all the diamonds to be put upon the market which are hoarded by certain large European dealers, those precious stones would diminish one half in value. Fashion and scarcity are the standards of value. When we hear the topaz mentioned, we recall a stone of a pale, golden hue, which is its most common aspect; but in Ceylon, where it is very abundant, it is found in every variety of color,--amber, brown, red, blue, and sometimes having yellow and blue mingled in the same stone, forming a harlequin gem. Galle has a large population of Moormen among its residents, who are generally dealers in gems, or engaged as manufacturing jewelers and practical lapidaries. As workers in tortoise-shell they have acquired great facility and exquisite skill. Calamander and sandal woods, ivory and ebony, are also wrought into delicate forms by these people, who are excellent cabinet-makers, and who with a few rude tools turn out very admirable work, imitating any desired model which is furnished for the purpose with admirable fidelity and beauty. One of the pleasant excursions from Galle is by a fine road leading southeast among the undulating hills near the coast. The spot is known as the Hill of Wackwelle, is surrounded by cocoanut groves, and is often the resort of picnic parties from the port. A very fair house of refreshment is kept here, and the view from the elevation is extremely fine, embracing the valley of the Gindura, which winds its devious course to the sea near to Galle, irrigating the low-lying rice-fields, by means of artificial canals, for many miles. The mountain range of the central district is in full view. South of Galle, along the shore to Dondra Head, the southern extreme of the island, the coast is lined with grand cocoanut palms, whose annual product is truly immense. Near to Belligam, situated on a bay of the same name, is a statue dedicated to an Indian prince, who is said to have taught the Singhalese the importance of cultivating this beautiful and profitable tree. Belligam is a large Singhalese village, inhabited mostly by fishermen and farmers, numbering perhaps four thousand souls, among whom are few if any Europeans. A beautiful feature of the shore in this neighborhood is the numerous river-mouths which empty into the sea from out the dense cocoanut woods. The bay is rich in corals and beautiful shells. Belligam was a famous resort of devout pilgrims in olden times, and there is still an ancient Buddhist temple here which is much visited by people from afar. In no other part of the world does the cocoanut palm flourish more luxuriantly than it does in this district. One intelligent writer estimates that the province lying between Dondra Head and Calpentyn contains between ten and twelve million fruitful palms. The productiveness of the cocoanut is most extraordinary. As long as the tree lives, it continues to bear; blossoms and ripe nuts are frequently seen on it at the same time. The natives have a saying here that it will not thrive beyond the sound of the human voice, and it is very certain that it is most fruitful and flourishing among the native cabins, where there is plenty of domestic refuse to enrich the ground about its roots. The fertilizing principle is not to be forgotten even in tropical regions. This recalls the astute saying of a profound philosopher, who declared that Providence always turned the course of large and navigable rivers to run by big towns. As regards healthfulness, the region round about Point de Galle can hardly be commended, and there are some local features not to be forgotten. Elephantiasis prevails among the natives, and leprosy is by no means unknown. Goitre is not uncommon among the native women, Europeans not being affected by it. In Switzerland, where the people so frequently suffer from goitre, it is attributed to drinking snow water; but some other cause must be found for its prevalence here. The most singular thing in connection with the strange guttural protuberance which this disease develops is that females only are liable to it; at least, this seems to be the case in this island. That leprosy is on the increase in Ceylon cannot be denied. There is a leper hospital four or five miles from Colombo, where between two and three hundred poor creatures afflicted with this disease are supported by the government. Besides this fact, it is well known that scores of lepers wander about the capital unrestrained. This is a serious reproach to the authorities. Published statistics show that there are nearly two thousand lepers living upon the island. One other matter, in this connection, requires prompt attention. Vaccination should be made compulsory. In common with ignorant people wherever found, the Singhalese and Tamils object to this process of protection from what sometimes proves to be in Ceylon a sweeping pestilence before it runs itself out. The records of the island show terrible fatality from the visits of smallpox in past years, which might easily have been prevented. CHAPTER XVII. Dondra Head.--"The City of the Gods."--A Vast Temple.--A Statue of Solid Gold.--A Famous Rock-Temple.--Buddhist Monastery.--Caltura and its Distilleries.--Edible Bird's Nests.--Basket-Making.--The Kaluganga.--Cinnamon Gardens.--"The City of Gems."--A Magnificent Ruby.--The True Cat's-Eye.--Vast Riches hidden in the Mountains.--Plumbago Mining.--Iron Ore.--Kaolin.--Gem-Cutting.--Native Swindlers.--Demoralizing Effect of Gem Digging. At Dondra Head, which is now only a small fishing village, the mouldering remains of a grand and ancient temple are seen, which are believed to antedate those of Anuradhapura, though probably built by the same race of people. It is well known that this locality was the annual resort of multitudes of devotees, from the remotest ages. Indeed, such was its sanctity that two thousand years ago it was called Devi-nuwara,--"The City of the Gods." Ptolemy describes the place as being the most renowned point of interest, for pilgrims, on the island. There was a temple here, built by the Hindus in honor of Vishnu, so gigantic that its dimensions sound to us almost fabulous. Some of the finely carved columns which were once part of the structure are still extant, though partially covered with jungle grass and tangled vines. "So vast was this temple," says an ancient historian, "that from the sea it had the appearance of a large city." Tradition says that this shrine contained a thousand idols of stone and bronze, and that there were a thousand Brahman priests attached to it besides five hundred dancing-girls. We need not be surprised at this, since these trained performers still form part of the equipment of all temples in southern India, doubtless constituting priestly harems. These items are recorded by a Moorish traveler, John Battuta, who visited the spot six hundred years ago. The same authority further tells us that one of the most sacred idols was life-size, that is, as large as an average man of his period, and was made of pure and solid gold. "The eyes consisted of two rubies, of such lustre that they shone like lanterns." The Portuguese first looted the temple, putting its devotees to the sword, and then entirely demolished the edifice, leaving it a shapeless mass of ruins. Over two hundred granite monoliths, with many finely sculptured stones, still remain to testify to the original character of this marvelous building. About fifteen or twenty miles from Dondra, there is an ancient and famous rock-temple after the style of that at Dambula, already described. It is called the temple of Mulgirigalla, the place being still a sacred shrine kept up for the benefit of the faithful. The rock of which it is a portion rises over three hundred feet above the level of the surrounding plain, the summit crowned by a large dagoba containing relics of some Buddhist saint. On the face of the crag below, there is a series of buildings still occupied by the priesthood. The temple consists of several chambers or artificial caves, decorated, after the usual manner of these shrines, with crude paintings and stone statues. After twenty centuries of consecutive occupancy, the place is still devoted to its original purpose. A Buddhist monastery exists upon the crag, conducted by white-haired priests like those of Kandy. Close at hand are the tombs containing the ashes of the cremated high priests who have lived and died upon the spot, during so many ages, in the service of the temple. Had the old crag a ready tongue, what curious stories it might reveal of its past history, depicting strange events which no pen has ever recorded. At Caltura, situated on the coast between Galle and Colombo, about thirty miles from the latter, in the midst of a district crowded with cocoanut-trees, the distillation of arrack is carried on quite extensively. Caltura is, and has long been considered as, a sanitarium in the south part of the island. It is swept at all times by sea breezes from the southwest, and is surrounded by delightful scenery. The temperature averages from ten to fifteen degrees cooler than Colombo. This point was considered of such special importance by the Dutch that they erected elaborate fortifications here, the ruins of which still form a prominent feature of the place. There are several caves hereabouts where a species of the swallow--known as the "swift"--constructs the edible nests so much valued as a table luxury in China. Neither the native Singhalese nor the other inhabitants of the island make use of these nests as food; in fact, they require to be manipulated by expert cooks, in order to bring out their peculiar properties. We are told that centuries ago the people of this nationality came to Caltura to obtain these nests, so much valued as a table luxury by the Mongolians, carefully transporting them to Pekin and Hongkong, where great prices were, and still are, realized for them. The edible nests are held to be the choicest dish to place before the emperor. The best and most glutinous product of this species of bird comes from Java, Borneo, and Sumatra, and the shores of Malacca Straits, generally. Caltura is also famous for the manufacture of fancy baskets of various shapes, made from palm leaf, rice straw, and lemon grass. They are put up in nests of a dozen in a package, one within another. These baskets find many purchasers among those who come to the island, who are glad to carry away a souvenir of their visit. Here the traveler will see that rare and favorite fruit, the mangosteen, flourishing, and, so far as we could learn, it is one of the few districts in Ceylon where it is to be found. On returning from Adam's Peak, visitors often descend the Kaluganga in boats to Caltura. The distance from the coast to the summit of the mountain is about sixty-five miles. The country through which the river passes is by no means thickly populated, but intersects some native villages and towns, such as Hanwella and Avissawella, together with numberless rice plantations and thrifty cocoanut groves. This river, like nearly all in Ceylon, is more or less infested by alligators. Like the tortoise and the turtle, they deposit eggs in the sandy banks of the stream, where they can mature by the heat of the sun. A certain species of the monkey tribe is very partial to new-laid alligator eggs, and is on the watch much of the time to discover the mother when she deposits them. After she has ingeniously covered them and returned to her native element, the monkey feasts royally upon the eggs, and he knows where to come again on the following day for a renewal of the feast. As the alligators are not often disturbed by man on this island, were Nature not to place some check upon their breeding habits, they would soon overrun it. The Ceylon leopard, as it is called, feeds upon the monkey, so that _his_ tribe may not become too numerous. The natives, who are believers in the doctrine of metempsychosis, often express the wish that their post-mortem fate may be to reappear in the shape of monkeys, because, in this land of perpetual summer, the wild, free wood-life of that creature seems to them so delightful. The tribe is a large one, and exhibits a great variety in Ceylon, from tiny objects like dolls to gigantic fellows which would give Du Chaillu's gorillas odds, and beat them out of sight. Bishop Heber speaks of a Ceylon monkey that attacked a huntsman friend of his, and broke his gun-barrel! One of the ridiculous fables connected with the island's history is to the effect that in ancient days, "when time was young," Ceylon was invaded and conquered by an army of monkeys. The mendacity of these old legend-makers is equaled only by their fertility of imagination. The more the credulity of the natives is taxed, the better they like the fabrication, and we have no doubt that there are many comparatively intelligent islanders who absolutely believe this story of a conquering army of chimpanzees. The Kaluganga is altogether a beautiful waterway, but little inferior to the Rhine in breadth and volume. It is improved for transporting rice, areca nuts, choice cabinet woods, and other inland products to the coast. Lake Bolgodde, near Caltura, is the resort of innumerable waterfowl, and, being so near the ocean, both salt and fresh water birds are represented. Hither come European sportsmen to obtain good shooting. There are some sugar plantations in the neighborhood, but, as we have remarked, the cane does not flourish in any part of the island. Continuing along the coast northward, we come to Morottu, about fifteen miles south of Colombo. There the Cinnamon Gardens commence, and extend nearly to the capital, forming a wilderness of green. The surrounding atmosphere is very sweet and fragrant with the soft breath of buds and flowers, not belonging, however, to the cinnamon-trees. This favorite spice was the great specialty of Ceylon's products in the days of the Portuguese and the Dutch, as well as before and since their occupancy. Ratnapura--the "City of Gems"--is situated about fifty miles southeast of Colombo and twelve or fifteen miles from Adam's Peak, on the banks of the Kaluganga, a hundred and fifty feet above sea level. There is an official residence here, a small Episcopal chapel, a Roman Catholic chapel, a jail, and a hospital. A rocky hillock is surmounted by a small fort, within whose walls is a meteorological observatory. An ancient mosque also testifies to the fact that Islamism is no new profession here. Lofty hills tower all about, radiating from Adam's Peak. A couple of miles west of Ratnapura is one of the richest Buddhist temples in Ceylon; by rich, we mean most liberally endowed. It has no architectural interest or beauty, but is quite like a score of others met elsewhere inland. About four or five years since, as the story is told, a ruby weighing twenty-six carats was found at Ratnapura, which was valued in its uncut condition, by the London jewelers to whom it was sent, at twenty-five thousand dollars, and it is said that after it was cut it lost but little of its weight, while it gained immensely in brilliancy. This gem was sold to a royal party for forty thousand dollars. Nearly all the high-cost jewels known to collectors of precious stones, save the diamond, emerald, and turquoise, come from the soil of this island. The true cat's-eye is a greenish, translucent quartz, which presents, when cut and polished, an internal reflection; hence the appropriate name which it bears. This gem is said to be found only in Ceylon, though of this we are not certain. One sees splendid native specimens here at Colombo, valued at three and four thousand dollars each. As we have intimated, the finest gems produced by Ceylon do not leave India. The Rajah of Jeypoor is said to have a cat's-eye of fabulous size and beauty, valued at a king's ransom, besides great wealth in other precious stones. Though this ruler is a cultured man, like most of his nationality he is inclined to be superstitious, and ascribes special protective virtues to his gems. It is somewhat remarkable that diamonds are not indigenous here, since the famous Golconda mines are so near at hand in southern India. Occasional alexandrites, so called in honor of the Russian Czar, are found in the island. Their color by daylight is a dark green, bronze-like hue, but by artificial light the stone is a deep crimson, and is highly prized for its distinctive properties. Nearly every year, some fresh locality on the plains or in the valleys is worked with profitable results by the gem seekers, but the rocky regions of the mountains, whence these precious stones have been washed in the process of disintegration which has been going on for ages, have never been prospected. The vast richness which is hidden in those primitive rocks will one day, perhaps, be brought to light, rivaling the dazzling stories of the Arabian Nights, or the fascinating extravagances of Jules Verne. The choicest uncut stones which are still to be seen in the walls of the Taj Mahal--that poem in marble at Agra, India, the tomb of the wife of Emperor Shah Jehan--are said to have come originally from Ratnapura. They were only crudely dressed by native skill for this purpose, but the intrinsic value is there all the same. Besides precious stones, Ceylon produces gold, quicksilver, plumbago of the finest quality, and magnetic iron ore. Plumbago has at various times formed quite an item in the exports of the island. The supply of this article in the neighborhood of Ratnapura is practically inexhaustible. It is found in large, detached masses of fine quality, five or six feet below the surface of the ground. There is always a sure market for plumbago, and it seems singular that a more organized effort is not made to obtain it for export. The Colonial Blue Book shows that in 1840 there were only about one thousand hundredweight packages of plumbago or graphite exported from Ceylon. Each year since has seen a large increase of these figures, until in 1891 there were over four hundred thousand hundredweight packages sent from the island, or say two hundred thousand tons. This aggregate, we are told, will soon be largely increased by adopting American and European machinery in mining the crude article. Some of these mines have reached a depth of six and seven hundred feet. Plumbago mining may not present the charm which attaches to the digging for rubies and sapphires, but in the long run the cash results are far more satisfactory. Even iron would pay better than gems, and it exists here in inexhaustible quantities, particularly in the western and central provinces, cropping out at the surface in great purity. The natives have for centuries been in the habit of smelting this ore, and of making it into such tools as they required. They are excellent imitators in metal as well as in wood. In the Colombo Museum there is a sample of the gun-barrels (really effective arms) which the natives were accustomed to make, with such primitive tools as they possessed, out of this home-smelted magnetic ore. The iron implements, which are successfully wrought into various forms by the rude process of the natives, are equal in temper to the very best Swedish work, showing that the raw metal must be of a superior sort. Long ago, the Chinese exported from this island large quantities of kaolin (terra alba), for the manufacture of fine pottery, and it is an article which is still abundant and easily procured here. A considerable number of Tamils and Moormen are employed by dealers in Colombo to examine the river-beds in mountain districts in search of precious stones, and there are also certain individuals ready to act as guides to those strangers disposed to try their luck in searching for sparkling stones. Many casual visitors to the island do this, and they are sometimes reasonably rewarded, but "big finds" do not often come to such parties. There is another famous place besides Ratnapura which produces gems. It is the flat country contiguous to Ballomgodde, fifteen miles southeast of the City of Gems. Nearly all the valleys of this, region have been receptacles at one time or another of the gem-impregnated soil of the mountains, washed down by flooding rains and former rivers, whose courses have since been diverted to further the extended system of irrigation. The valuable stones come into the dealers' hands in the rough state, and to an inexperienced eye appear to be of little value. They receive what may be called a preliminary cutting by natives who have acquired some degree of skill at this business, but they are not really marketable until they are recut by Europeans in London, Vienna, or Hamburg, in an artistic and scientific manner. Probably far the largest number of precious stones which are sold in Paris, or London, or in America, excepting those we have already named, come from this Indian island, but the reader may rely upon it that they can as a rule be much more advantageously purchased elsewhere than in Colombo. Let no person, unless he be an expert, trust to his own judgment in purchases on the spot. The Moormen, in whose hands the trade almost entirely rests, are a set of confirmed knaves and adroit swindlers, whose cunning and dishonesty have become proverbial. If they cannot cheat a purchaser in any other way, they will slyly substitute a piece of worthless glass for a true stone at the last moment, after the bargain has been made, and then disappear. We heard some exasperating stories of these transactions, which should put visitors on their guard. Almost every one who visits Ceylon, whether he lands in the north or the south, is a witness of, or a victim to, similar transactions. For instance, you have been shown a really fine sapphire by a Moorman, for which a sum is demanded which seems exorbitant. You would like to possess the stone, and, after careful examination, offer forty pounds for what was priced to you at sixty. It was a fair offer on your part, and probably was very near its intrinsic value in the market. The Moorman declares that he will not take one penny less than his original price, and begs you to show it to your friends, and not to lose a good bargain. He brings the beautiful gem to you several times for further examination, at the same time watching your movements carefully. Finally, the moment comes for you to embark on the outgoing steamer. He is watchful and intercepts you, once more offering the sapphire, while declaring that he is poor and cannot afford to keep it, but must let you have it for the forty pounds you offered; actual necessity compels him to sacrifice it at that price, etc., etc. You hastily pay over the money, and receive the gem, as you suppose, just as the boat pushes off from the shore, headed for the ship. The anchor is already being hoisted, and in a few moments you are under way. Curiosity causes you to take one more look at the coveted treasure before putting it safely away. You seek the cabin in order to get the effect of a strong artificial light upon the gem. Somehow it does not look quite so brilliant and rich in color as you expected. It must be the dampness of the ship which clouds the sapphire. You look more closely. Is it possible? Yes, you hold in your hand a piece of worthless glass, of the size and shape of the real gem which had won your admiration from the first. You do not know the name of the rascal who has so cunningly cheated you, and could prove nothing if it were possible to return to Colombo. It is of no use to sacrifice time and money in an attempt at recovery of your forty pounds. You have to swallow your indignation and pocket the loss. The author has thus given an extreme case, but it is a typical and a true one, the actual experience of a person who related the circumstances to him. "These villainous Moormen all look alike," said the victim, "and I very much doubt if I could identify the fellow if he were now standing before me." It is the same here in mining for precious stones as with gold-mining in Australia and other countries. The majority of persons who engage in the exciting occupation of gem hunting are irresponsible, and of ill-regulated habits. An intelligent resident of Ratnapura told the author that the presence of these gems in the earth of Ceylon, so far from being of any real advantage to the inhabitants or to the true prosperity of the island, is a source of a vast amount of evil. "After a Singhalese has once embarked in gem digging," he said, "he is good for nothing else; henceforth he becomes a genuine loafer, ignoring all legitimate occupation, while contracting most undesirable habits and associations. He is generally employed at miserable wages by the Moormen in Colombo, though he is paid a premium when he finds and turns over a really good stone. But the constant aim of these contracting parties is simply to defraud and cheat each other to the greatest possible extent." The native who is thus engaged steals more stones than he accounts for, and coolly pockets his wages. Diamond mining in Africa is not more demoralizing than gem digging in Ceylon. Men who have nothing to lose but everything to gain are the class engaged in such enterprises. Regular and legitimate occupations are neglected by those who become thus absorbed. It is a sort of gambling, only in another and perhaps more fascinating form. Doubtless all the precious stones secured in Ceylon annually would not exceed one hundred thousand dollars at their true market value. Were this sum to be equally divided among the thousands of natives who thus occupy their time, it will be seen that a less exacting and laborious occupation, industriously pursued, would give surer and more satisfactory returns. There is always the delusive charm of uncertainty--of possibility--in gem seeking, fascinating to the average mind. Emerson tells us that "no gold-mining country is traversed by good roads, nor are there good schools on the shore where pearls are found!" As if in verification of this assertion, nothing can exceed the desolation of the shore in the neighborhood of the pearl-fishing banks near Aripo, on the west coast of Ceylon. During the brief period devoted to the fishery, temporary huts and tents are occupied by people immediately interested; but, the short season over, the place relapses into a state of desolation. Like all lotteries, there are more blanks than prizes connected with the pearl fisheries, and for one person who is made joyful by the profits which are realized, one hundred and more go away in utter disappointment. A story is told of an occurrence at Aripo which happened not long since, and which had a fatal termination. A certain foreigner had come from a long distance, and at great cost, to venture his all in a season's effort to secure rich and rare pearls. His inexperience was great, and his misfortunes were in proportion. The season closed, leaving him impoverished. His disappointment was too great for endurance, and the poor fellow in his despair sought a suicide's grave in the depths of the sea. CHAPTER XVIII. Circumnavigating the Island.--Batticaloa, Capital of the Eastern Province.--Rice Culture.--Fish Shooting.--Point Pedro.--Jaffna.--Northern Province.--Oriental Bazaars.--Milk ignored.--The Clear Sea and White, Sandy Bottom.--American Missionaries.--A Medical Bureau.--Self-Respect a Lost Virtue.--Snake Temples.--Ramisseram.--Adam's Bridge.--A Huge Hindu Temple.--Island of Manaar.--Aripo.--The Port of Negombo.--Tamil Coolies.--Homeward Bound.--A Farewell View. No one on visiting Ceylon, who can possibly spare the necessary time, should fail to circumnavigate the island. Since 1889, a number of lighthouses have been erected from Colombo round the entire southern coast, adding a degree of security to navigation which was much needed. These beacon stars are so numerous as to be almost within sight of one another. That at Dondra Head stands one hundred and seventy feet above sea level. The vessels which make this circuit stop at each of the large ports to discharge and take on cargo, thus enabling the traveler to land and get a very good general idea of each place with its near surroundings. If the visitor desires to do so, he can remain at any of these places until the boat comes again in its regular course, when the journey may be resumed. It is well to stop at Point Pedro and at Jaffna in this way, as they are neighborhoods of more than ordinary interest, both present and historic. We should advise a few days' delay also at Ramisseram, a part of the time being divided between this place and the large island of Manaar, which is quite accessible. The pleasantest way to accomplish this circuit is to take the boat at Point de Galle, the first place at which it is desirable to land being Batticaloa, the capital of the eastern province. There is a bar at the mouth of this harbor which is a serious impediment to making an entrance into the little bay. When the sea breeze is strong, and during the southeast monsoon, a line of breakers is created upon the shoal, and no attempt is made to land. This is a great rice-raising region, which gets its artificial water supply from two extensive neighboring lakes or tanks. Twenty-five thousand acres of land may be seen hereabouts under rice cultivation, yielding two crops per annum. The Portuguese built a substantial stone fort at Batticaloa, which was afterwards added to and strengthened by the Dutch, and latterly still further improved by the English. There is plenty of wild game in this region, including the huge elephant, though this animal is more numerous in the central provinces and at the north. Here one has a chance, upon a still night, of hearing the vocal performance of the singing fishes, and also of witnessing the native sport of shooting fish. The Tamils go out in boats just offshore, carrying lighted torches, the fire of which attracts the curiosity of the fishes, bringing them to the surface, when the boatmen shoot them with bows and short arrows. To the latter a thin, light string is attached, by which the fishes are promptly secured. From here the packet boat goes north to Trincomalee, already described, thence to Point Pedro, the extreme northern part of Ceylon,--Punta das Pedras, the "rocky cape." We have said that this is the extreme northern point of Ceylon, but let us qualify the remark. Though it is generally so considered, Point Palmyra, a promontory situated a few miles to the westward, is really still farther north. The humble Tamil women of this district are fine upright figures in their simple costume, which consists of a long fold of cotton cloth enveloping the body below the waist and thrown carelessly over the left shoulder, leaving the right arm and bust free. Women who from girlhood always carry burdens upon their heads never fail to have an upright and stately carriage. As before intimated, the Tamil women are far handsomer in features than the Singhalese race. The Jaffna peninsula has been peopled by the Tamil race for two thousand years or more. Point Pedro is a small town, and the harbor does not deserve the name, being only an open roadstead sheltered by a coral reef, where a number of vessels of moderate size are nearly always to be seen. Its commerce is limited to the export of tobacco, cocoanut oil, and cabinet woods. The trade is almost entirely with continental India, from whence rice is largely imported. Some cattle, sheep, and elephants are also shipped from here to southern India, the government realizing a royalty upon each of the last-named animals exported. Jaffna is over two hundred miles from Colombo by land, and is peopled mostly by Tamils, who have a record connected with their settlement here reaching back for many centuries. The population of the entire peninsula is recorded as being about two hundred thousand, to meet whose spiritual wants there are said to be three hundred Hindu temples in this northern province. The peninsula presents one uniform level, and is unbroken by a single hill, scarcely varied, in fact, by an undulation of more than a very few feet. This dead level renders the country unfit for rice culture, as it prevents the advantageous flow of an artificial supply of water. By much labor this difficulty is partially overcome, and considerable rice is grown in various parts of the district, but much more is imported. The best sheep in Ceylon are raised in this part of the island; they have long hair in place of wool, and to the uninitiated seem more like goats than sheep. The Dutch left the impress of their residence here in the characteristic style of the architecture,--low, substantial, broad-spread stone buildings, which still remain. These homes are detached, and surrounded by garden plots containing thrifty fruit trees and charming flowers, supplemented by graceful creeping and flowering vines upon the dark gray old walls of the dwellings. The streets of the town are wide and regular, shaded by an abundance of handsome tulip-trees. There are at least forty thousand people living in and immediately around Jaffna. It has a certain oriental look, especially in the quarters where the native bazaars are situated, thronged by copper-colored men and women. This region is well wooded, the predominating tree being the palmyra palm. The dry grains, such as millet and the like, are much cultivated in the north, while at the south the entire farming population seem to devote their energy to the raising of rice. The soil throughout the Jaffna peninsula is very light, requiring much careful culture in order to produce satisfactory results. It was long before the necessity of using fertilizers upon the soil was realized in this region, but when the plan was once adopted and its importance thus demonstrated, it was henceforth employed systematically. In the neighborhood of populous centres in the island, north and south, the natives milk their cows to supply a certain demand confined to Europeans mostly, but do not themselves use milk to any great extent. The calves have the benefit of this abstinence on the part of the farmers. It is the same in China, where the people at large never use milk. In this Jaffna district, goats' milk is made into excellent cheese. All along the shore in this neighborhood the bottom of the sea is formed of pure white sand, and is as level as a parlor floor, while the water is so clear that any object is distinctly seen below its surface. One may behold a sort of Neptune's Garden at many points, similar to, but not quite equaling, that described at Point de Galle. The eye is delighted by bright-hued anemones, as large as a cauliflower, together with strange fishes in vivid colors, extensive coral, star-fish in blue and scarlet, and busy, smoky-groves of green crabs in search of their marine food. Such spots form a sort of museum, only Nature does these things with a royal hand, and not in a penny-wise, showman fashion. A repulsive-looking creature which is made a source of profit abounds on this shore,--a flat slug, five or six inches long. Next to the edible bird's nests, it is considered to be one of the greatest luxuries in their country. They are found below the surface of the water, at a depth varying from one to five fathoms, and the collection of them forms a considerable occupation on the northwest coast. The natives do not appreciate these slugs. They are cured and exported solely by a small colony of Chinese, who have settled in this neighborhood for the purpose, and who find ample support in the occupation. Jaffna is a great centre of American missionary work, and is also the see of a Roman Catholic bishop. The American mission was begun here as early as 1816, and has gone onward ever since, increasing in its schools, chapels, and the number of instructors. An excellent work consummated here, in connection with the American mission, is the establishment of a Medical Bureau. The mission has long needed such an aid in its own behalf, and its services are also freely extended to the native population. Such practical benefit as must accrue to the people at large will do more to abolish "devil-dancing" and other absurdities, intended to exorcise evil spirits from the bodies of invalids, than any amount of reasoning with the poor, ignorant creatures. Within the old fort is the ancient Dutch Presbyterian church, and facing the esplanade are the Anglican and Wesleyan churches. One sees comparatively few Singhalese proper in this region, or in fact anywhere north of the central province. The habits of the common people of the Jaffna peninsula are represented to be of a highly objectionable character, which does not argue well for the long-established missionaries who have such sway here. Self-respect is said to be a forgotten virtue with both sexes of the Tamil race, as well as with the other mixed nationalities. These people seem to be born with strange proclivities in their blood, and there is certainly very little improvement to be observed in their condition as regards the influence of Christianity upon their daily lives. In olden times, as already intimated, Ceylon was known in the East by the name of Naga-dwipa,--"Snake Isle,"--and it would seem not without good reason, for until quite lately there was a snake-temple on the island of Naiwativoe, which lies just off the shore, west of Jaffna, where many serpents were nourished and cared for, including a number of deadly cobras, by an organized corps of priests. There is, or was very lately, a cobra-temple upon what is known as the Twin Isle, twenty miles further south, and eastward of Ramisseram. It is therefore plain enough that there were once plenty of serpent-worshiping tribes in various parts of Ceylon. We know that the worship of the snake is a very ancient creed. Mexicans, Egyptians, Hindus, Babylonians, and Buddhists have been devotees to this idea. All stories or legends of the creation contain some reference to the serpent, which also, according to Biblical lore, played its part in the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. We have failed to mention heretofore that the remains of certain Druidical circles of stone are occasionally found in both the northern and southern portions of Ceylon, indicating that the Druidical form of worship, which is supposed to be that of the Phoenicians, must have once prevailed upon this island. These tokens belong to a period a thousand years prior to the founding of the "buried cities" which we have described. On leaving Jaffna, the coasting steamer steers southward through the Gulf of Manaar, following the Paumben Channel, past Adam's Bridge. A call is made at the "holy" island of Ramisseram, where a visit may be made to the great Hindu temple situated on the east end of the island. Ramisseram is fourteen miles long by about five in width. The dimensions of the temple upon the ground are eight hundred and sixty-eight feet by six hundred and seventy-two in width, far exceeding any other shrine or building in the island of Ceylon. Like the temples of Tanjore, Madura, and Trichinopoly in continental India, it is massive and tawdry, but still is the annual resort of hosts of devout pilgrims from vast distances, who have impoverished themselves, probably, to perform this pilgrimage. They expect by such an exhibition of reverence to be freed from all sin with the punishment it entails, and to fully merit Paradise. The ceiling of the great temple consists of vast masses of granite slabs supported by carved stone pillars twelve feet high, each of which is a monolith. This Hindu temple of Ramisseram is unique; as to its age, it is between four and five hundred years old. The fables one hears relating to this shrine are legion, all thoroughly tinctured with gross absurdities; still, the place is well worth a visit, and careful study. The island of Manaar, close at hand, off the west coast, and from which Adam's Bridge extends towards the continent of India, is eighteen miles long, and but three or four wide. There is nothing here to invite a visit from the casual traveler. The soil is sandy and poorly adapted to agriculture. It has, however, large groves of cocoanut and palmyra palms, with very good pasturage. Goats and cattle are bred here to a considerable extent, and a peculiar hard cheese is an article of export. The island is a hundred and forty miles by water from Colombo. There is a fort at the town of Manaar, situated on the southeastern extremity of the island. The harbor is too shallow to admit vessels drawing over eight or ten feet of water, but is completely sheltered. There are some twenty villages on this comparatively barren slip of land, but the people seem to be thrifty and healthy. There is no malaria here. It is a Roman Catholic centre, and most of the people are of that faith. Again taking the steam packet, we proceed southward by Aripo, the famous pearl-fishing grounds of the Gulf of Manaar, about one hundred and fifty miles from the capital. If we pass near enough to the west coast of the island to observe the shore in this vicinity, it will be found that nothing can exceed the desolation which it presents. It is barren, low, and sandy, with here and there a scrubby jungle and an occasional reach of stunted herbage. It is difficult to realize that such a locality can be the source of wealth of any sort, and particularly that it is the natal place of that loveliest and purest of gems, the oriental pearl. Still sailing southward, we find ourselves in due time opposite Negombo, seven or eight leagues north of Colombo. This little seaport is the outlet to a fine agricultural country, where cattle and garden products are raised for the support of the capital, with which it has an inland water connection. This place is famous for its fruit gardens,--exotic fruits, originally introduced from Java and the Malacca peninsula. It is one of the most rural spots in the island, famous for its cinnamon estates. The traveler's attention is sure to be called to a noble specimen of the banian-tree at this attractive seaside place, and also to an old and most curious, many-headed cocoanut-tree. The town has a fine esplanade bordering the sea, and a very comfortable rest-house for the stranger. After passing the Bight of Negombo, we soon enter the harbor of Colombo, and as we do so, an English mail steam packet is passed whose decks are crowded with coolies bound for Tuticorin, a port two hundred miles away, across the Gulf of Manaar. The planters of Ceylon import these dusky laborers from southern India at harvest time, when the tea and coffee fields yield their annual product. The poor creatures are very glad to earn a small sum of money in this service, wherewith to eke out their necessary home expenses. When the Ceylon harvest is over, they return to their humble homes in this manner, the planters paying for their transportation both ways. From our standpoint on the bridge of the coasting steamer, we overlook the forward deck of the mail packet, where the homeward bound coolies form strangely picturesque groups in their rags and nakedness, mingled with occasional bits of highly colored clothing. A white turban, a red fez, a bandana kerchief bound about a woman's head, whose infant is lashed to her back in sleepy unconsciousness, all combine to produce a striking kaleidoscopic effect. A southwest monsoon is coming on, and there will presently be a fierce downpour of rain. The coolies will have but one night to pass on the troubled sea, but it will be for them a wretched one,--seasick, ill-fed, and poorly sheltered creatures. Their small annual pittance is insignificant compensation for what they have to perform and what they endure. There are two or three hundred of them, herded like cattle; there is no cabin,--deck passage is all that is paid for; and such is considered quite good enough accommodations for these very humble Tamils. There is said to be compensation in the life of every living being, but it is difficult to point out wherein the principle applies to these low caste Indians. * * * * * Before leaving Colombo, an earnest desire possessed the author to see the town from the bay, under the charm imparted by an equatorial moon and starlight. A couple of native oarsmen and a comfortable boat afforded the means of gratifying this wish, all the stronger from the fresh memory of a like experience, not long ago, off the historic island of Malta. The view of Colombo, it must be acknowledged, was a disappointment. It is too thickly embowered with palms to form a pleasing picture of itself: but ah, the tropical night, luxurious and calm, with its wonderful brilliancy above, and its dark, mysterious shadows below! The molten silver on which we idly floated had just ripple sufficient to double its reflective power, lit by an occasional flash of phosphorescence when the oars were dipped. The hoarse murmur of the outside sea beating against the stout breakwater; the head and stern lights of the shipping at anchor, distributed here and there; the flashing eye of fire from the lighthouse, casting its long golden wake seaward; the dancing lamps on the low-lying shore of the Singhalese capital, with the soft strains of music from an English bungalow in the half-moon bend of the beach,--all together formed a delightful picture, leaving a typical scene deeply engraved on the memory. Land, sea, and star-illumined sky, everything charmingly bright with the tender kiss of moonlight, how absolutely perfect was our farewell vision of this "utmost" Indian isle. * * * * * By Maturin M. Ballou. THE PEARL OF INDIA. Crown 8vo, $1.50. THE STORY OF MALTA. Crown 8vo, $1.50. EQUATORIAL AMERICA. Descriptive of a Visit to St. Thomas, Martinique, Barbados, and the Principal Capitals of South America. Crown 8vo, $1.50. AZTEC LAND. Crown 8vo, $1.50. THE NEW ELDORADO. A Summer Journey to Alaska. Crown 8vo, $1.50. ALASKA. The New Eldorado. A Summer Journey to Alaska. _Tourist's Edition_, with 4 maps. 16mo, $1.00. DUE WEST; or, ROUND THE WORLD IN TEN MONTHS. Crown 8vo, $1.50. DUE SOUTH; or, CUBA PAST AND PRESENT. Crown 8vo, $1.50. UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS; or, TRAVELS IN AUSTRALASIA. Crown 8vo, $1.50. DUE NORTH; or, GLIMPSES OF SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA. Crown 8vo, $1.50. GENIUS IN SUNSHINE AND SHADOW. Crown 8vo, $1.50. EDGE-TOOLS OF SPEECH. Selected and edited by Mr. BALLOU. 8vo, $3.50. A TREASURY OF THOUGHT. An Encyclopædia of Quotations. 8vo, full gilt, $3.50. PEARLS OF THOUGHT. 16mo, full gilt, $1.25. NOTABLE THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN. Crown 8vo, $1.50. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, BOSTON AND NEW YORK. * * * * * 
13325	----	Proofreading Team from images generously made available by the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr SKETCHES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CEYLON WITH NARRATIVES AND ANECDOTES Illustrative of the Habits and Instincts of the MAMMALIA, BIRDS, REPTILES, FISHES, INSECTS, &c. INCLUDING A MONOGRAPH OF THE ELEPHANT AND A DESCRIPTION OF THE MODES OF CAPTURING AND TRAINING IT WITH ENGRAVINGS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT, K.C.S. LL.D. &c. 1861 [Illustration] INTRODUCTION. * * * * * A considerable portion of the contents of the present volume formed the zoological section of a much more comprehensive work recently published, on the history and present condition of Ceylon.[1] But its inclusion there was a matter of difficulty; for to have altogether omitted the chapters on Natural History would have impaired the completeness of the plan on which I had attempted to describe the island; whilst to insert them as they here appear, without curtailment, would have encroached unduly on the space required for other essential topics. In this dilemma, I was obliged to adopt the alternative of so condensing the matter as to bring the whole within the prescribed proportions. But this operation necessarily diminished the general interest of the subjects treated, as well by the omission of incidents which would otherwise have been retained, as by the exclusion of anecdotes calculated to illustrate the habits and instincts of the animals described. [Footnote 1: _Ceylon: An Account of the Island, Physical, Historical, and Typographical; with Notices of its Natural History, Antiquities, and Productions._ By Sir JAMES EMERSON TENNENT, K.C.S., LL.D., &c. Illustrated by Maps. Plans, and Drawings. 2 vols. 8vo. Longman and Co., 1859.] A suggestion to re-publish these sections in an independent form has afforded an opportunity for repairing some of these defects by revising the entire, restoring omitted passages, and introducing fresh materials collected in Ceylon; the additional matter occupying a very large portion of the present volume. I have been enabled, at the same time, to avail myself of the corrections and communications of scientific friends; and thus to compensate, in some degree for what is still incomplete, by increased accuracy in minute particulars. In the Introduction to the First Edition of the original work I alluded, in the following terms, to that portion of it which is now reproduced in an extended form:-- "Regarding the _fauna_ of Ceylon, little has been published in any collective form, with the exception of a volume by Dr. KELAART entitled _Prodromus Faunæ Zeilanicæ_; several valuable papers by Mr. EDGAR L. LAYARD in the _Annals and Magazine of Natural History_ for 1852 and 1853; and some very imperfect lists appended to PRIDHAM'S compiled account of the island.[1] KNOX, in the charming narrative of his captivity, published in the feign of Charles II., has devoted a chapter to the animals of Ceylon, and Dr. DAVY has described some of the reptiles: but with these exceptions the subject is almost untouched in works relating to the colony. Yet a more than ordinary interest attaches to the inquiry, since Ceylon, instead of presenting, as is generally assumed, an identity between its _fauna_ and that of Southern India, exhibits a remarkable diversity, taken in connection with the limited area over which the animals included in it are distributed. The island, in fact, may be regarded as the centre of a geographical circle, possessing within itself forms, whose allied species radiate far into the temperate regions of the north, as well as in to Africa, Australia, and the isles of the Eastern Archipelago. [Footnote 1: _An Historical, Political, and Statistical Account of Ceylon and its Dependencies_, by C. PRIDHAM, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo., London, 1849.] "In the chapters that I have devoted to its elucidation, I have endeavoured to interest others in the subject, by describing my own observations and impressions, with fidelity, and with as much accuracy as may be expected from a person possessing, as I do, no greater knowledge of zoology and the other physical sciences than is ordinarily possessed by any educated gentleman. It was my good fortune, however, in my journeys to have the companionship of friends familiar with many branches of natural science: the late Dr. GARDNER, Mr. EDGAR L. LAYARD, an accomplished zoologist, Dr. TEMPLETON, and others; and I was thus enabled to collect on the spot many interesting facts relative to the structure and habits of the numerous tribes. These, chastened by the corrections of my fellow-travellers, and established by the examination of collections made in the colony, and by subsequent comparison with specimens contained in museums at home, I have ventured to submit as faithful outlines of the _fauna_ of Ceylon. "The sections descriptive of the several classes are accompanied by lists, prepared with the assistance of scientific friends, showing the extent to which each particular branch had been investigated by naturalists, up to the period of my departure from Ceylon at the close of 1849. These, besides their inherent interest, will, I trust, stimulate others to engage in the same pursuit, by exhibiting chasms, which it remains for future industry and research to fill up;--and the study of the zoology of Ceylon may thus serve as a preparative for that of Continental India, embracing, as the former does, much that is common to both, as well as possessing a _fauna_ peculiar to the island, that in itself will amply repay more extended scrutiny. "From these lists have been excluded all species regarding the authenticity of which reasonable doubts could be entertained[1], and of some of them, a very few have been printed in _italics_, in order to denote the desirability of more minute comparison with well-determined specimens in the great national depositories before finally incorporating them with the Singhalese catalogues. [Footnote 1: An exception occurs in the list of shells, prepared by Mr. SYLVANUS HANLEY, in which some whose localities are doubtful have been admitted for reasons adduced. (See p. 387.)] "In the labour of collecting and verifying the facts embodied in these sections, I cannot too warmly express my thanks for the aid I have received from gentlemen interested in similar studies in Ceylon: from Dr. KELAART[1] and Mr. EDGAR L. LAYARD, as well as from officers of the Ceylon Civil Service; the Hon. GERALD C. TALBOT, Mr. C.R. BULLER, Mr. MERCER, Mr. MORRIS, Mr. WHITING, Major SKINNER, and Mr. MITFORD. [Footnote 1: It is with deep regret that I have to record the death of this accomplished gentleman, which occurred in 1860.] "Before venturing to commit these chapters of my work to the press, I have had the advantage of having portions of them read by Professor HUXLEY, Mr. MOORE, of the East India House Museum; Mr. R. PATTERSON, F.R.S., author of the _Introduction to Zoology_; and by Mr. ADAM WHITE, of the British Museum; to each of whom I am exceedingly indebted for the care they have bestowed. In an especial degree I have to acknowledge the kindness of Dr. J.E. GRAY, F.R.S., for valuable additions and corrections in the list of the Ceylon Reptilia; and to Professor FARADAY for some notes on the nature and qualities of the "Serpent Stone,"[2] submitted to him. [Footnote 2: See p. 312.] "The extent to which my observations on _the Elephant_ have been carried, requires some explanation. The existing notices of this noble creature are chiefly devoted to its habits and capabilities _in captivity_; and very few works, with which I am acquainted, contain illustrations of its instincts and functions when wild in its native woods. Opportunities for observing the latter, and for collecting facts in connection with them, are abundant in Ceylon; and from the moment of my arrival, I profited by every occasion afforded to me for observing the elephant in a state of nature, and obtaining from hunters and natives correct information as to its oeconomy and disposition. Anecdotes in connection with this subject, I received from some of the most experienced residents in the island; amongst others, from Major SKINNER, Captain PHILIP PAYNE GALLWEY, Mr. FAIRHOLME, Mr. CRIPPS, and Mr. MORRIS. Nor can I omit to express my acknowledgments to Professor OWEN, of the British Museum, to whom this portion of my manuscript was submitted previous to its committal to the press." To the foregoing observations I have little to add beyond my acknowledgment to Dr. ALBERT GÜNTHER, of the British Museum, for the communication of important facts in illustration of the ichthyology of Ceylon, as well as of the reptiles of the island. Mr. BLYTH, of the Calcutta Museum, has carefully revised the Catalogue of Birds, and supplied me with much useful information in regard to their geographical distribution. To his experienced scrutiny is due the perfected state in which the list is now presented. It will be seen, however, from the italicised names still retained, that inquiry is far from being exhausted. Mr. THWAITES, the able Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradenia, near Kandy, has forwarded to me many valuable observations, not only in connection with the botany, but the zoology of the mountain region. The latter I have here embodied in their appropriate places, and those relating to plants and vegetation will appear in a future edition of my large work. To M. NIETNER, of Colombo, I am likewise indebted for many particulars regarding Singhalese Entomology, a department to which his attention has been given, with equal earnestness and success. Through the Hon. RICHARD MORGAN, acting Senior Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court at Colombo, I have received from his Interpreter, M.D. DE SILVA GOONERATNE MODLIAR, a Singhalese gentleman of learning and observation, many important notes, of which I have largely availed myself, in relation to the wild animals, and the folk-lore and superstitions of the natives in connection with them. Of the latter I have inserted numerous examples; in the conviction that, notwithstanding their obvious errors in many instances, these popular legends and traditions occasionally embody traces of actual observation, and may contain hints and materials deserving of minuter inquiry. I wish distinctly to disclaim offering the present volume as a compendium of the Natural History of Ceylon. I present it merely as a "mémoire pour servir," materials to assist some future inquirer in the formation of a more detailed and systematic account of the _fauna_ of the island. My design has been to point out to others the extreme richness and variety of the field, the facility of exploring it, and the charms and attractions of the undertaking. I am eager to show how much remains to do by exhibiting the little that has as yet been done. The departments of _Mammalia_ and _Birds_ are the only two which can be said to have as yet undergone tolerably close investigation; although even in these it is probable that large additions still remain to be made to the ascertained species. But, independently of forms and specific characteristics, the more interesting inquiry into habits and instincts is still open for observation and remark; and for the investigation of these no country can possibly afford more inviting opportunities than Ceylon. Concerning the _Reptilia_ a considerable amount of information has been amassed. The Batrachians and smaller Lizards have, I apprehend, been imperfectly investigated; but the Tortoises are well known, and the Serpents, from the fearful interest attaching to the race, and stimulating their destruction, have been so vigilantly pursued, that there is reason to believe that few, if any, varieties exist which have not been carefully examined. In a very large collection, made by Mr. CHARLES REGINALD BULLER during many years' residence in Kandy, and recently submitted by him to Dr. Günther, only one single specimen proved to be new or previously unknown to belong to the island. Of the _Ichthyology_ of Ceylon I am obliged to speak ill very different terms; for although the materials are abundant almost to profusion, little has yet been done to bring them under thoroughly scientific scrutiny. In the following pages I have alluded to the large collection of examples of Fishes sent home by officers of the Medical Staff, and which still remain unopened, in the Fort Pitt Museum at Chatham; but I am not without hope that these may shortly undergo comparison with the drawings which exist of each, and that this branch of the island _fauna_ may at last attract the attention to which its richness so eminently entitles it. In the department of Entomology much has already been achieved; but an extended area still invites future explorers; and one which the Notes of Mr. Walker prefixed to the List of Insects in this volume, show to be of extraordinary interest, from the unexpected convergence in Ceylon of characteristics heretofore supposed to have been kept distinct by the broad lines of geographical distribution. Relative to the inferior classes of _Invertebrata_ very little has as yet been ascertained. The Mollusca, especially the lacustrine and fluviatile, have been most imperfectly investigated; and of the land-shells, a large proportion have yet to be submitted to scientific examination. The same may be said of the _Arachnida_ and _Crustacea_. The jungle is frequented by spiders, _phalangia_[1], and acarids, of which nothing is known with certainty; and the sea-shore and sands have been equally overlooked, so far as concerns the infinite variety of lobsters, crayfish, crabs, and all their minor congeners. The _polypi, echini, asterias_, and other _radiata_ of the coast, as well as the _acalephæ_ of the deeper waters, have shared the same neglect: and literally nothing has been done to collect and classify the infusoriæ and minuter zoophytes, the labours of Dr. Kelaart amongst the Diatomaceæ being the solitary exception. [Footnote 1: Commonly called "harvest-men."] Nothing is so likely to act as a stimulant to future research as an accurate conception of what has already been achieved. With equal terseness and truth Dr. Johnson has observed that the traveller who would bring back knowledge from any country must carry knowledge with him at setting out: and I am not without hope that the demonstration I now venture to offer, of the little that has already been done for zoology in Ceylon, may serve to inspire others with a desire to resume and complete the inquiry. J. EMERSON TENNENT London: November 1st, 1861. CONTENTS. * * * * * CHAPTER I. MAMMALIA. Neglect of zoology in Ceylon Labours of Dr. Davy Followed by Dr. Templeton and others Dr. Kelaart and Mr. E.L. Layard Monkeys The Rilawa, _Macacus pileatus_ Wanderoos Knox's account of them Error regarding the _Silenus Veter (note)_ Presbytes Cephalopterus Fond of eating flowers A white monkey Method of the flight of monkeys P. Ursinus in the Hills P. Thersites in the Wanny P. Priamus, Jaffna and Trincomalie No dead monkey ever found Loris Bats Flying Fox, _Pteropus Edwardsii_ Their numbers at Peradenia Singularity of their attitudes Food and mode of eating Horse-shoe bat, _Rhinolophus_ Faculty of smell in bat A tiny bat, _Scotophilus foromandelicus_ Extraordinary parasite of the bat, the _Nycteribia_ _Carnivora_.--Bears Their ferocity Singhalese belief in the efficacy of charms (_note_) Leopards Erroneously confounded with the Indian _cheetah_ Curious belief Anecdotes of leopards Their attraction by the smallpox Native superstition Encounter with a leopard Monkeys killed by leopards Alleged peculiarity of the claws Palm-cat Civet Dogs Cruel mode of destroying dogs Their republican instincts Jackal Cunning, anecdotes of The horn of the jackal Mungoos Its fights with serpents Theory of its antidote Squirrels Flying squirrel Tree-rat Story of a rat and a snake Coffee-rat Bandicoot Porcupine Pengolin Its habits and gentleness Its skeleton _Ruminantia_.--The Gaur Oxen Humped cattle Encounter of a cow and a leopard Draft oxen Their treatment A _Tavalam_ Attempt to introduce the camel (note) Buffaloes Sporting buffaloes Peculiar structure of the foot Deer Meminna Elk Wild-boar Elephants Recent discovery of a new species Geological speculations as to the island of Ceylon Ancient tradition Opinion of Professor Ansted Peculiarities in Ceylon mammalia The same in Ceylon birds and insects Temminck's discovery of a new species of elephant in Sumatra Points of distinction between it and the elephant of India Professor Schlegel's description _Cetacea_ Whales The Dugong Origin of the fable of the mermaid Credulity of the Portuguese Belief of the Dutch Testimony of Valentyn List of Ceylon mammalia CHAP. II THE ELEPHANT * * * * * _Its Structure_. Vast numbers in Ceylon Derivation of the word "elephant" (note) Antiquity of the trade in elephants Numbers now diminishing Mischief done by them to crops Ivory scarce in Ceylon Conjectures as to the absence of tusks Elephant a harmless animal Alleged antipathies to other animals Fights with each other The foot its chief weapon Use of the tusks in a wild state doubtful Anecdote of sagacity in an elephant at Kandy Difference between African and Indian species Native ideas of perfection in an elephant Blotches on the skin White elephants not unknown in Ceylon CHAP. III. THE ELEPHANT * * * * * _Its Habits_. Water, but not heat, essential to elephants Sight limited Smell acute Caution Hearing, good Cries of the elephant Trumpeting Booming noise Height, exaggerated Facility of stealthy motion Ancient delusion as to the joints of the leg Its exposure by Sir Thos. Browne Its perpetuation by poets and others Position of the elephant in sleep An elephant killed on its feet Mode of lying down Its gait a shuffle Power of climbing mountains Facilitated by the joint of the knee Mode of descending declivities A "herd" is a family Attachment to their young Suckled indifferently by the females A "rogue" elephant Their cunning and vice Injuries done by them The leader of a herd a tusker Bathing and nocturnal gambols, description of a scene by Major Skinner Method of swimming Internal anatomy imperfectly known Faculty of storing water Peculiarity of the stomach The food of the elephant Sagacity in search of it Unexplained dread of fences Its spirit of inquisitiveness Anecdotes illustrative of its curiosity Estimate of sagacity Singular conduct of a herd during thunder An elephant feigning death _Appendix_.--Narratives of natives, as to encounters with rogue elephants CHAP. IV. THE ELEPHANT * * * * * _Elephant Shooting_. Vast numbers shot in Ceylon Revolting details of elephant killing in Africa Fatal spots at which to aim Structure of the bones of the head Wounds which are certain to kill Attitudes when surprised Peculiar movements when reposing Habits when attacked Sagacity of native trackers Courage and agility of the elephants in escape Worthlessness of the carcass Singular recovery from a wound CHAP. V. THE ELEPHANT. * * * * * _An Elephant Corral_. Early method of catching elephants Capture in pit-falls By means of decoys Panickeas--their courage and address Their sagacity in following the elephant Mode of capture by the noose Mode of taming Method of leading the elephants to the coast Process of embarking them at Manaar Method of capturing a whole herd The "keddah" in Bengal described Process of enclosing a herd Process of capture in Ceylon An elephant corral and its construction An elephant hunt in Ceylon, 1847 The town and district of Kornegalle The rock of Ætagalla Forced labour of the corral in former times Now given voluntarily Form of the enclosure Method of securing a wild herd Scene when driving them into the corral A failure An elephant drove by night Singular scene in the corral Excitement of the tame elephants CHAP. VI. THE ELEPHANT. * * * * * _The Captives_. A night scene Morning in the corral Preparations for securing the captives The "cooroowe," or noosers The tame decoys First captive tied up Singular conduct of the wild elephants Furious attempts of the herd to escape Courageous conduct of the natives Variety of disposition exhibited by the herd Extraordinary contortions of the captives Water withdrawn from the stomach Instinct of the decoys Conduct of the noosers The young ones and their actions Noosing a "rogue." and his death Instinct of flies in search of carrion (_note_) Strange scene A second herd captured Their treatment of a solitary elephant A magnificent female elephant Her extraordinary attitudes Wonderful contortions Taking the captives out of the corral Their subsequent treatment and training Grandeur of the scene Story of young pet elephant CHAP. VII. THE ELEPHANT. * * * * * _Conduct in Captivity_. Alleged superiority of the Indian to the African elephant--not true Ditto of Ceylon elephant to Indian Process of training in Ceylon Allowed to bathe Difference of disposition Sudden death of "broken heart" First employment treading clay Drawing a waggon Dragging timber Sagacity in labour Mode of raising stones Strength in throwing down trees exaggerated Piling timber Not uniform in habits of work Lazy if not watched Obedience to keeper from affection, not fear Change of keeper--story of child Ear for sounds and music _Hurra! (note)_ Endurance of pain Docility Working elephants, delicate Deaths in government stud Diseases Subject to tooth-ache Question of the value of labour of an elephant Food in captivity, and cost Breed in captivity Age Theory of M. Fleurens No dead elephants found Sindbad's story Passage from Ælian CHAP. VIII. BIRDS. Their numbers Songsters Hornbills, the "bird with two heads" Pea fowl Sea birds, their number I. _Accipitres_.--Eagles Falcons and hawks Owls--the devil bird II. _Passeres_.--Swallows Kingfishers--sunbirds The cotton-thief Bul-bul--tailor bird--and weaver The mountain jay Crows, anecdotes of III. _Scansores_.--Parroquets IV. _Columbidæ_.--Pigeons V. _Gallinæ_.--Jungle-fowl VI. _Grallæ_.--Ibis, stork, &c. VII. _Anseres_.--Flamingoes Pelicans Strange scene Game--Partridges, &c. List of Ceylon birds List of birds peculiar to Ceylon CHAP. IX. REPTILES. _Lizards_.--Iguana Kabara-goya, barbarous custom in preparing the kabara-tel poison Blood-suckers The green calotes The lyre-headed lizard Chameleon Ceratophora Geckoes,--their power of reproducing limbs Crocodiles Their sensitiveness to tickling Anecdotes of crocodiles Their power of burying themselves in the mud _Tortoises_.--Curious parasite Terrapins Edible turtle Cruel mode of cutting it up alive Huge Indian tortoises (_note_) Hawk's-bill turtle, barbarous mode of stripping it of the tortoise-shell _Serpents_.--Venomous species rare Tic polonga and carawala Cobra de capello Tame snakes (_note_) Anecdotes of the cobra de capello Legends concerning it Instance of land snakes found at sea Singular tradition regarding the robra de capello Uropeltidæ.--New species discovered in Ceylon Buddhist veneration for the cobra de capello The Python Tree snakes Water snakes Sea snakes Snake stones Analysis of one Cæcilia Frogs Tree frogs List of Ceylon reptiles CHAP. X. FISHES. Ichthyology of Ceylon, little known Fish for table, seir fish Sardines, poisonous? Sharks Saw-fish Fish of brilliant colours The ray The sword-fish Curious fish described by Ælian _Salarias alticus_ Beautifully coloured fishes Fresh-water fish, little known,--not much eaten Fresh-water fish in Colombo Lake Perches Eels Immense profusion of fish in the rivers and lakes Their re-appearance after rain Mode of fishing in the ponds Showers of fish Conjecture that the ova are preserved, not tenable Fish moving on dry land Ancient authorities, Greek and Roman Aristotle and Theophrastus Athenæus and Polybius Livy, Pompomus, Mela, and Juvenal Seneca and Pliny Georgius Agricola, Gesner, &c. Instances in Guiana (_note_) _Perca Scandens_, ascends trees Doubts as to the story of Daldorf Fishes burying themselves daring the dry season The _protopterus_ of the Gambia Instances in the fish of the Nile Instances in the fish of South America Living fish dug out of the ground in the dry tanks in Ceylon Molluscs that bury themselves The animals that so bury themselves in India Analogous case of Theory of æstivation and hybernation Fish in hot water in Ceylon List of Ceylon fishes Instances of fishes falling from the clouds _Note_ on Ceylon fishes by Professor Huxley Comparative note by Dr. Gray, Brit. Mus. _Note_ on the Bora-chung CHAP. XI. MOLLUSCA, RADIATA, AND ACALEPHÆ. I. _Conchology_.--General character of Ceylon shells Confusion regarding them in scientific works and collections Ancient export of shells from Ceylon Special forms confined to particular localities The pearl fishery of Aripo Frequent suspensions of Experiment to create beds of the pearl oyster Process of diving for pearls Danger from sharks The transparent pearl oyster (_Placuna placenta_) The "musical fish" at Ballicaloa A similar phenomenon at other places Faculty of uttering sounds in fishes Instance in the _Tritonia arborescens_ Difficulty in forming a list of Ceylon shells List of Ceylon shells II. _Radiata_.--Star fish Sea slugs Parasitic worms Planaria III. _Acalephæ_, abundant The Portuguese man-of-war Red infusoria _Note_ on the _Tritonia arborescens_ CHAP. XII. INSECTS. Profusion of insects in Ceylon Imperfect knowledge of I. _Coleoptera_.--Beetles Scavenger beetles Coco-nut beetles Tortoise beetles II. _Orthoptera_.--Mantis and leaf-insects Stick-insects III. _Neuroptera_.--Dragon flies Ant-lion White ants Anecdotes of their instinct and ravages IV. _Hymenoptera_.--Mason wasps Wasps Bees Carpenter Bee Ants Burrowing ants V. _Lepidoptera_.--Butterflies The spectre Lycænidæ Moths Silk worms Stinging caterpillars Wood-carrying moths Pterophorus VI. _Homoptera_ Cicada VII. _Hemiptera_ Bugs VIII. _Aphaniptera_ IX. _Diptera_.--Mosquitoes Mosquitoes the "plague of flies" The coffee bug General character of Ceylon insects List of insects in Ceylon CHAP. XIII. ARACHNIDÆ, MYRIOPODA, CRUSTACÆ, ETC. Spiders Strange nets of the wood spiders The mygale Birds killed by it _Olios Taprobanius_ The galeodes Gregarious spiders Ticks Mites.--_Trombidium tinctorum_ _Myriapods_.--Centipedes Cermatia Scolopendra crassa S. pollippes The fish insect _Millipeds_.--Julus _Crustacæ_ Calling crabs Sand crabs Painted crabs Paddling crabs _Annelidæ_, Leeches.--The land leech Medicinal leech Cattle leech List of Articulata, &c. _Note_.--On the revivification of the Rotifera and Paste-eels LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Page View of an Elephant Corral Frontispiece Group of Ceylon Monkeys to face 5 The Loris (_Loris gracilis_) 12 Group of Flying Foxes (_Pteropus Edwardsii_) to face 14 Head of the Horse-shoe Bat (_Rhynulophus_) 19 Nycteribia 21 Indian Bear (_Prochylus labiatus_) 23 Ceylon Leopard and Indian Cheetah 26 Jackal's Skull and "Horn" 36 Mongoos of Neura-ellia (_Herpestes vitticollis_) 38 Flying Squirrel (_Pteromys oral_) 41 Coffee Rat (_Golunda Elliotti_) 44 Bandicoot Rat (_Mus bandicota_) 45 Pengolin (_Manis pentadactylus_) 47 Skeleton of the Pengolin 48 Moose-deer (_Moschus meminna_) 55 The Dugong (_Halicore dugung_) 69 The Mermaid, from Valentyn 72 Brain of the Elephant 95 Bones of the Fore-leg 108 Elephant descending a Hill 111 Elephant's Well 122 Elephant's Stomach, showing the Water-cells 125 Elephant's Trachea 126 Water-cells in the Stomach of the Camel 128 Section of the Elephant's Skull 145 Fence and Ground-plan of a Corral 172 Mode of tying an Elephant 184 His Struggles for Freedom 185 Impotent Fury 188 Obstinate Resistance 189 Attitude for Defence 203 Singular Contortions of an Elephant 204 Figures of the African and Indian Elephants on Greek and Roman Coins 208 Medal of Numidia 212 Modern "Hendoo" ib. The Horn-bill (_Buceros pica_) 243 The "Devil-bird" (_Syrnium Indranec_) 247 The "Cotton-thief" (_Tchitrea paradisi_) 250 Layard Mountain Jay (_Cissa puella_) 252 The "Double-spur" (_Gallo-perdix bicalcaratus_) 260 The Flamingo (_Phoenicopterus roseus_) 261 The Kabara-goya Lizard (_Hydrosaurus salvator_) 273 The Green Calotes (_Calotes ophiomachus_) 276 Tongue of the Chameleon 278 _Ceratophora_ _to face_ 280 Skulls of the Crocodile and Alligator 283 Terrapin (_Emys trijuga_) 290 Shield-tailed Serpent (_Uropeltis grandis_) 302 Tree Snake (_Passerita fusca_) _to face_ 307 Sea Snake (_Hydrophis subloevisis_) _to face_ 311 Saw of the Saw-fish (_Pristis antiquorum_) _to face_ 326 Ray (_Aëtobates narinari_) 327 Sword-fish (_Histiophorus immaculatus_) 330 Cheironectes 331 _Pterois volitans_ 334 _Scarus harid_ 335 Perch (_Therapon quadrilineatus_) 337 Eel (_Mastacembelus armatus_) 338 Mode of Fishing, after Rain 340 Plan of a Fish Decoy 342 The Anabas of the dry Tanks 354 The Violet Ianthina and its Shell 370 _Bullia vittata_ ib. Pearl Oysters, in various Stages of Growth _to face_ 380 Pearl Oyster, full grown _to face_ 381 _Cerithium palustre_ ib. The Portuguese Man-of-war (_Physalus urticulus_) 399 Longicorn Beetle (_Batocera rubus_) 406 Leaf Insects, &c 409 Eggs of the Leaf Insect (_Phyllium siccifolium_) 410 The Carpenter Bee (_Xylocapa tenniscapa_) 419 Wood-carrying Moths 431 The "Knife, grinder" (_Cicada_) 432 Flata (_Elidiptera Emersoniana and Poeciloptera Tennentii_) 433 The "Coffee-bug" (_Lecanium caffeæ_) _to face_ 436 Spider (_Mygate fasciata_) _to face_ 465 Cermatia 473 The Calling Crab (_Gelusimus_) 477 Eyes and Teeth of the Leech 480 Land Leeches preparing to attack 481 Medicinal Leech of Ceylon 483 CHAPTER I. MAMMALIA. With the exception of the Mammalia and Birds, the fauna of Ceylon has, up to the present, failed to receive that systematic attention to which its richness and variety most amply entitle it. The Singhalese themselves, habitually indolent, and singularly unobservant of nature and her operations, are at the same time restrained from the study of natural history by the tenet of their religion which forbids the taking of life under any circumstances. From the nature of their avocations, the majority of the European residents, engaged in planting and commerce, are discouraged by want of leisure from cultivating the taste; and it is to be regretted that, with few exceptions, the civil servants of the government, whose position and duties would have afforded them influence and extended opportunities for successful investigation, have never seen the importance of encouraging such studies. The first effective impulse to the cultivation of natural science in Ceylon, was communicated by Dr. Davy when connected with the medical staff[1] of the army from 1816 to 1820, and his example stimulated some of the assistant-surgeons of Her Majesty's forces to make collections in illustration of the productions of the colony. Of these the late Dr. Kinnis was one of the most energetic and successful. He was seconded by Dr. Templeton of the Royal Artillery, who engaged assiduously in the investigation of various orders, and commenced an interchange of specimens with Mr. Blyth[2], the distinguished naturalist and curator of the Calcutta Museum. The birds and rarer vertebrata of the island were thus compared with their peninsular congeners, and a tolerable knowledge of those belonging to the island, so far as regards the higher classes of animals, has been the result. The example so set was perseveringly followed by Mr. E.L. Layard and the late Dr. Kelaart, and infinite credit is due to Mr. Blyth for the zealous and untiring energy with which he has devoted his attention and leisure to the identification of the specimens forwarded from Ceylon, and to their description in the Calcutta Journal. To him, and to the gentlemen I have named, we are mainly indebted for whatever accurate knowledge we now possess of the zoology of the colony. [Footnote 1: Dr. DAVY, brother to the illustrious Sir Humphry Davy, published, in 1821, his _Account of the Interior of Ceylon and its Inhabitants_, which contains the earliest notice of the Natural History of the island, and especially of its ophidian reptiles.] [Footnote 2: _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal_, vol. xv. p. 280, 314.] The mammalia, birds, and reptiles received their first scientific description in an able work published in 1852 by Dr. Kelaart of the army medical staff[1], which is by far the most valuable that has yet appeared on the Singhalese fauna. Co-operating with him, Mr. Layard has supplied a fund of information especially in ornithology and conchology. The zoophytes and Crustacea have I believe been partially investigated by Professor Harvey, who visited Ceylon in 1852, and more recently by Professor Schmarda, of the University of Prague. From the united labours of these gentlemen and others interested in the same pursuits, we may hope at an early day to obtain such a knowledge of the zoology of Ceylon as will to some extent compensate for the long indifference of the government officers. [Footnote 1: _Prodromus Faunæ Zeylanicæ; being Contributions to the Zoology of Ceylon_, by F. KELAART, Esq., M.D., F.L.S., &c. &c. 2 vols. Colombo and London, 1852.] [Illustration: CEYLON MONKEYS. 1. _Presbytes cephalopterus._ 2. _P. thersites_ 3. _P. Priamus_ 4. _Macacus pileatus_] I. QUADRUMANA. 1. _Monkeys_.--To a stranger in the tropics, among the most attractive creatures in the forests are the troops of _monkeys_ that career in ceaseless chase among the loftiest trees. In Ceylon there are five species, four of which belong to one group, the Wanderoos, and the other is the little graceful grimacing _rilawa_[1], which is the universal pet and favourite of both natives and Europeans. The Tamil conjurors teach it to dance, and in their wanderings carry it from village to village, clad in a grotesque dress, to exhibit its lively performances. It does not object to smoke tobacco. The Wanderoo is too grave and melancholy to be trained to these drolleries. [Footnote 1: _Macacus pileatus_, Shaw and Desmarest. The "bonneted Macaque" is common in the south and west; it is replaced on the neighbouring coast of the Peninsula of India by the Toque, _M. radiatus_, which closely resembles it in size, habit, and form, and in the peculiar appearance occasioned by the hairs radiating from the crown of the head. A spectacled monkey is _said_ to inhabit the low country near to Bintenne; but I have never seen one brought thence. A paper by Dr. TEMPLETON, in the _Mag. Nat. Hist._ n. s. xiv. p. 361, contains some interesting facts relative to the Rilawa of Ceylon.] KNOX, in his captivating account of the island, gives an accurate description of both; the Rilawas, with "no beards, white faces, and long hair on the top of their heads, which parteth and hangeth down like a man's, and which do a deal of mischief to the corn, and are so impudent that they will come into their gardens and eat such fruit as grows there. And the Wanderoos, some as large as our English spaniel dogs, of a darkish grey colour, and black faces with great white beards round from ear to ear, which makes them show just like old men. This sort does but little mischief, keeping in the woods, eating only leaves and buds of trees, but when they are catched they will eat anything."[1] [Footnote 1: KNOX, _Historical Relation of Ceylon, an Island in the East Indies_.--P. i. ch. vi. p. 25. Fol. Lond. 1681. See an account of his captivity in SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT'S _Ceylon_, etc., Vol. II. p. 66 n.] KNOX, whose experience during his long captivity was confined almost exclusively to the hill country around Kandy, spoke in all probability of one large and comparatively powerful species, _Presbytes ursinus_, which inhabits the lofty forests, and which, as well as another of the same group, _P. Thersites_, was, till recently, unknown to European naturalists. The Singhalese word _Ouandura_ has a generic sense, and being in every respect the equivalent fur our own term of "monkey" it necessarily comprehends the low country species, as well as those which inhabit other parts of the island. In point of fact, there are no less than four animals in the island, each of which is entitled to the name of "wanderoo."[1] Each separate species has appropriated to itself a different district of the wooded country, and seldom encroaches on the domain of its neighbours. [Footnote 1: Down to a very late period, a large and somewhat repulsive-looking monkey, common to the Malabar coast, the Silenus veter, _Linn._, was, from the circumstance of his possessing a "great white beard," incorrectly assumed to be the "wanderoo" of Ceylon, described by KNOX; and under that usurped name it has figured in every author from Buffon to the present time. Specimens of the true Singhalese species were, however, received in Europe; but in the absence of information in this country as to their actual habitat, they were described, first by Zimmerman, on the continent, under the name of, _Leucoprymnus cephalopterus_, and subsequently by Mr. E. Bennett, under that of _Semnopithecus Nestor_ (_Proc. Zool. Soc._ pt. i. p. 67: 1833); the generic and specific characters being on this occasion most carefully pointed out by that eminent naturalist. Eleven years later Dr. Templeton forwarded to the Zoological Society a description, accompanied by drawings, of the wanderoo of the western maritime districts of Ceylon, and noticed the fact that the wanderoo of authors (_S. veter_) was not to be found in the island except as an introduced species in the custody of the Arab horse-dealers, who visit the port of Colombo at stated periods. Mr. Waterhouse, at the meeting (_Proc. Zool. Soc._ p. 1: 1844) at which this communication was read, recognised the identity of the subject of Dr. Templeton's description with that already laid before them by Mr. Bennett; and from this period the species in question was believed to truly represent the wanderoo of Knox. The later discovery, however, of the _P. ursinus_ by Dr. Kelaart, in the mountains amongst which we are assured that Knox spent so many years of captivity, reopens the question, but at the same time appears to me clearly to demonstrate that in this latter we have in reality the animal to which his narrative refers.] 1. Of the four species found in Ceylon, the most numerous in the island, and the one best known in Europe, is the Wanderoo of the low country, the _P. cephalopterus_ of Zimmerman.[1] Although common in the southern and western provinces, it is never found at a higher elevation than 1300 feet. It is an active and intelligent creature, little larger than the common bonneted Macaque, and far from being so mischievous as others of the monkeys in the island. In captivity it is remarkable for the gravity of its demeanour and for an air of melancholy in its expression and movements which are completely in character with its snowy beard and venerable aspect. In disposition it is gentle and confiding, sensible in the highest degree of kindness, and eager for endearing attention, uttering a low plaintive cry when its sympathies are excited. It is particularly cleanly in its habits when domesticated, and spends much of its time in trimming its fur, and carefully divesting its hair of particles of dust. [Footnote 1: Leucoprymnus Nestor, _Bennett_.] Those which I kept at my house near Colombo were chiefly fed upon plantains and bananas, but for nothing did they evince a greater partiality than the rose-coloured flowers of the red hibiscus (H. _rosa-sinensis_). These they devoured with unequivocal gusto; they likewise relished the leaves of many other trees, and even the bark of a few of the more succulent ones. A hint might possibly be taken from this circumstance for improving the regimen of monkeys in menageries, by the occasional admixture of a few fresh leaves and flowers with their solid and substantial dietary. A white monkey, taken between Ambepusse and Kornegalle, where they are said to be numerous, was brought to me to Colombo. Except in colour, it had all the characteristics of _Presbytes cephalopterus_. So striking was its whiteness that it might have been conjectured to be an albino, but for the circumstance that its eyes and face were black. I have heard that white monkeys have been seen near the Ridi-galle Wihara in Seven Korles and also at Tangalle; but I never saw another specimen. The natives say they are not uncommon, and KNOX that they are "milk-white both in body and face; but of this sort there is not such plenty."[1] The Rev. R. SPENCE HARDY mentions, in his learned work on _Eastern Monachism_, that on the occasion of his visit to the great temple of Dambool, he encountered a troop of white monkeys on the rock in which it is situated--which were, doubtless, a variety of the Wanderoo.[2] PLINY was aware of the fact that white monkeys are occasionally found in India.[3] [Footnote 1: KNOX, pt. i.e. vi. p. 25.] [Footnote 2: _Eastern Monachism_. c: xix; p. 204.] [Footnote 3: PLINY, Nat. Hist. I. viii. c. xxxii.] When observed in their native wilds, a party of twenty or thirty of these creatures is generally busily engaged in the search for berries and buds. They are seldom to be seen on the ground, except when they may have descended to recover seeds or fruit which have fallen at the foot of their favourite trees. When disturbed, their leaps are prodigious: but, generally speaking, their progress is made not so much by _leaping_ as by swinging from branch to branch, using their powerful arms alternately; and when baffled by distance, flinging themselves obliquely so as to catch the lower boughs of an opposite tree, the momentum acquired by their descent being sufficient to cause a rebound of the branch, that carries them upwards again, till they can grasp a higher and more distant one, and thus continue their headlong flight. In these perilous achievements, wonder is excited less by the surpassing agility of these little creatures, frequently encumbered as they are by their young, which cling to them in their career, than by the quickness of their eye and the unerring accuracy with which they seem almost to calculate the angle at which a descent will enable them to cover a given distance, and the recoil to attain a higher altitude. 2. The low country Wanderoo is replaced in the hills by the larger species, _P. ursinus_, which inhabits the mountain zone. The natives, who designate the latter the _Maha_ or Great Wanderoo, to distinguish it from the _Kaloo_, or black one, with which they are familiar, describe it as much wilder, and more powerful than its congener of the lowland forests. It is rarely seen by Europeans, this portion of the country having till very recently been but partially opened; and even now it is difficult to observe its habits, as it seldom approaches the few roads which wind through these deep solitudes. At early morning, ere the day begins to dawn, its loud and peculiar howl, which consists of a quick repetition of the sounds _how how!_ maybe frequently heard in the mountain jungles, and forms one of the characteristic noises of these lofty situations. It was first captured by Dr. Kelaart in the woods near Nuera-ellia, and from its peculiar appearance it has been named _P. ursinus_ by Mr. Blyth.[1] [Footnote 1: Mr. Blyth quotes as authority for this trivial name a passage from MAJOR FORBES' _Eleven Years in Ceylon;_ and I can vouch for the graphic accuracy of the remark.--"A species of very large monkey, that passed some distance before me, when resting on all fours, looked so like a Ceylon bear, that I nearly took him for one."] 3. The _P. Thersites_, which is chiefly distinguished from the others by wanting the head tuft, is so rare that it was for some time doubtful whether the single specimen procured by Dr. Templeton from the Nuera-kalawa, west of Trincomalie, and on which Mr. Blyth conferred this new name, was in reality native; but the occurrence of a second, since identified by Dr. Kelaart, has established its existence as a separate species. Like the common wanderoo, the one obtained by Dr. Templeton was partial to fresh vegetables, plantains, and fruit; but he ate freely boiled rice, beans, and gram. He was fond of being noticed and petted, stretching out his limbs in succession to be scratched, drawing himself up so that his ribs might be reached by the finger, closing his eyes during the operation, and evincing his satisfaction by grimaces irresistibly ludicrous. 4. The _P. Priamus_ inhabits the northern and eastern provinces, and the wooded hills which occur in these portions of the island. In appearance it differs both in size and in colour from the common wanderoo, being larger and more inclined to grey; and in habits it is much less reserved. At Jaffna, and in other parts of the island where the population is comparatively numerous, these monkeys become so familiarised with the presence of man as to exhibit the utmost daring and indifference. A flock of them will take possession of a Palmyra palm; and so effectually can they crouch and conceal themselves among the leaves that, on the slightest alarm, the whole party becomes invisible in an instant. The presence of a dog, however, excites such an irrepressible curiosity that, in order to watch his movements, they never fail to betray themselves. They may be frequently seen congregated on the roof of a native hut: and, some years ago, the child of a European clergyman stationed near Jaffna having been left on the ground by the nurse, was so teased and bitten by them as to cause its death. The Singhalese have the impression that the remains of a monkey are never to be found in the forest; a belief which they have embodied in the proverb that "he who has seen a white crow, the nest of a paddi bird, a straight coco-nut tree, or a dead monkey, is certain to live for ever." This piece of folk-lore has evidently reached Ceylon from India, where it is believed that persons dwelling on the spot where a hanumân monkey, _Semnopithecus entellus_, has been killed, will die, that even its bones are unlucky, and that no house erected where they are hid under ground can prosper. Hence when a dwelling is to be built, it is one of the employments of the Jyotish philosophers to ascertain by their science that none such are concealed; and Buchanan observes that "it is, perhaps, owing to this fear of ill-luck that no native will acknowledge his having seen a dead hanumân."[1] [Footnote 1: BUCHANAN'S _Survey of Bhagulpoor_, p. 142. At Gibraltar it is believed that the body of a _dead monkey_ has never been found on the rock.] The only other quadrumanous animal found in Ceylon is the little loris[1], which, from its sluggish movements, nocturnal habits, and consequent inaction during the day, has acquired the name of the "Ceylon Sloth." [Footnote 1: Loris græilis, _Geof_.] [Illustration: THE LORIS.] There are two varieties in the island; one of the ordinary fulvous brown, and another larger, whose fur is entirely black. A specimen of the former was sent to me from Chilaw, on the western coast, and lived for some time at Colombo, feeding on rice, fruit, and vegetables. It was partial to ants and, other insects, and was always eager for milk or the bone of a fowl. The naturally slow motion of its limbs enables the loris to approach its prey so stealthily that it seizes birds before they can be alarmed by its presence. The natives assert that it has been known to strangle the pea-fowl at night, to feast on the brain. During the day the one which I kept was usually asleep in the strange position represented on the last page; its perch firmly grasped with both hands, its back curved into a ball of soft fur, and its head hidden deep between its legs. The singularly-large and intense eyes of the loris have attracted the attention, of the Singhalese, who capture the creature for the purpose of extracting them as charms and love-potions, and this they are said to effect by holding the little animal to the fire till its eyeballs burst. Its Tamil name is _thaxangu_, or "thin-bodied;" and hence a deformed child or an emaciated person has acquired in the Tamil districts the same epithet. The light-coloured variety of the loris in Ceylon has a spot on its forehead, somewhat resembling the _namam_, or mark worn by the worshippers of Vishnu; and, from this peculiarity, it is distinguished as the _Nama-thavangu_.[1] [Footnote 1: There is an interesting notice of the Loris of Ceylon by Dr. TEMPLETON, in the _Mag. Nat. Hist._ 1844, ch. xiv. p. 362.] II. CHEIROPTERA. _Bats_.--The multitude of _bats_ is one of the features of the evening landscape; they abound in every cave and subterranean passage, in the tunnels on the highways, in the galleries of the fortifications, in the roofs of the bungalows, and the ruins of every temple and building. At sunset they are seen issuing from their diurnal retreats to roam through the twilight in search of crepuscular insects, and as night approaches and the lights in the rooms attract the night-flying lepidoptera, the bats sweep round the dinner-table and carry off their tiny prey within the glitter of the lamps. Including the frugivorous section about sixteen species have been identified in Ceylon; and remarkable varieties of two of these are peculiar to the island. The colours of some of them are as brilliant as the plumage of a bird, bright yellow, deep orange, and a rich ferruginous brown inclining to red.[1] [Footnote 1: Rhinolophus affinis? _var_. rubidus, _Kelaart_. Hipposideros murinus, _var_. fulvus, _Kelaart_. Hipposideros speoris, _var_. aureus, _Kelaart_. Kerivoula picta, _Pallas_. Scotophilus Heathii, _Horsf_.] But of all the bats, the most conspicuous from its size and numbers, and the most interesting from its habits, is the rousette of Ceylon[1];--the "flying fox," as it is called by Europeans, from the similarity to that animal in its head and ears, its bright eyes, and intelligent little face. In its aspect it has nothing of the disagreeable and repulsive look so common amongst the ordinary vespertilionidæ; it likewise differs from them in the want of the nose-leaf, as well as of the tail. In the absence of the latter, its flight is directed by means of a membrane attached to the inner side of each of the hind legs, and kept distended at the lower extremity by a projecting bone, just as a fore-and-aft sail is distended by a "gaff." [Footnote 1: Pteropus Edwardsii, _Geoff_.] [Illustration: FLYING FOXES.] In size the body measures from ten to twelve inches in length, but the arms are prolonged, and especially the metacarpal bones and phalanges of the four fingers over which the leathery wings are distended, till the alar expanse measures between four and five feet. Whilst the function of these metamorphosed limbs in sustaining flight entitles them to the designation of "wings," they are endowed with another faculty, the existence of which essentially distinguishes them from the feathery wings of a bird, and vindicates the appropriateness of the term _Cheiro-ptera_[1], or "winged hands," by which the bats are designated. Over the entire surface of the thin membrane of which they are formed, sentient nerves of the utmost delicacy are distributed, by means of which the animal is enabled during the darkness to direct its motions with security, avoiding objects against contact with which at such times its eyes and other senses would be insufficient to protect it.[2] Spallanzani ascertained the perfection of this faculty by a series of cruel experiments, by which he demonstrated that bats, even after their eyes had been destroyed, and their external organs, of smell and hearing obliterated, were still enabled to direct their flight with unhesitating confidence, avoiding even threads suspended to intercept them. But after ascertaining the fact, Spallanzani was slow to arrive at its origin; and ascribed the surprising power to the existence of some sixth supplementary sense, the enjoyment of which was withheld from other animals. Cuvier, however, dissipated the obscurity by showing the seat of this extraordinary endowment to be in the wings, the superficies of which retains the exquisite sensitiveness to touch that is inherent in the palms of the human hand and the extremities of the fingers, as well as in the feet of some of the mammalia.[3] The face and head of the _Pteropus_ are covered with brownish-grey hairs, the neck and chest are dark ferruginous grey, and the rest of the body brown, inclining to black. [Footnote 1: [Greek: cheir] the "hand," and [Greek: pteron] a "wing."] [Footnote 2: See BELL _On the Hand_, ch. iii. p. 70;] [Footnote 3: See article on _Cheiroptera_, in TODD'S _Cyclopiadia of Anatomy and Physiology_, vol. i. p. 599.] These active and energetic creatures, though chiefly frugivorous, are to some extent insectivorous also, as attested by their teeth[1], as well as by their habits. They feed, amongst other things, on the guava, the plantain, the rose-apple, and the fruit of the various fig-trees. Flying foxes are abundant in all the maritime districts, especially at the season when the _pulum-imbul_[2], one of the silk-cotton trees, is putting forth its flower-buds, of which they are singularly fond. By day they suspend themselves from the highest branches, hanging by the claws of the hind legs, with the head turned upwards, and pressing the chin against the breast. At sunset taking wing, they hover, with a murmuring sound occasioned by the beating of their broad membranous wings, around the fruit trees, on which they feed till morning, when they resume their pensile attitude as before. [Footnote 1: Those which I have examined have four minute incisors in each jaw, with two canines and a very minute pointed tooth behind each canine. They have six molars in the upper jaw and ten in the lower, longitudinally grooved, and with a cutting edge directed backwards.] [Footnote 2: Eriodendron Orientale, _Stead_.] A favourite resort of these bats is to the lofty india-rubber trees, which on one side overhang the Botanic Gardens of Paradenia in the vicinity of Kandy. Thither for some years past, they have congregated, chiefly in the autumn, taking their departure when the figs of the _ficus elastica_ are consumed. Here they hang in such prodigious numbers, that frequently, large branches give way beneath their accumulated weight. Every forenoon, generally between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M., they take to wing, apparently for exercise, and possibly to sun their wings and fur, and dry them after the dews of the early morning. On these occasions, their numbers are quite surprising, flying in clouds as thick as bees or midges. After these recreations, they hurry back to their favourite trees, chattering and screaming like monkeys, and always wrangling and contending angrily for the most shady and comfortable places in which to hang for the rest of the day protected from the sun. The branches they resort to soon become almost divested of leaves, these being stripped off by the action of the bats, attaching and detaching themselves by means of their hooked feet. At sunset, they fly off to their feeding-grounds, probably at a considerable distance, as it requires a large area to furnish sufficient food for such multitudes. In all its movements and attitudes, the action of the _Pteropus_ is highly interesting. If placed upon the ground, it is almost helpless, none of its limbs being calculated for progressive motion; it drags itself along by means of the hook attached to each of its extended thumbs, pushing at the same time with those of its hind feet. Its natural position is exclusively pensile; it moves laterally from branch to branch with great ease, by using each foot alternately, and climbs, when necessary, by means of its claws. When at rest, or asleep, the disposition of the limbs is most curious. At such times it suspends itself by one foot only, bringing the other close to its side, and thus it is enabled to wrap itself in the ample folds of its wings, which envelop it like a mantle, leaving only its upturned head uncovered. Its fur is thus protected from damp and rain, and to some extent its body is sheltered from the sun. As it collects its food by means of its mouth, either when on the wing, or when suspended within reach of it, the flying-fox is always more or less liable to have the spoil wrested from it by its intrusive companions, before it can make good its way to some secure retreat in which to devour it unmolested. In such conflicts they bite viciously, tear each other with their hooks, and scream incessantly, till, taking to flight, the persecuted one reaches some place of safety, where he hangs by one foot, and grasping the fruit he has secured in the claws and opposable thumb of the other, he hastily reduces it to lumps, with which he stuffs his cheek pouches till they become distended like those of a monkey; then suspended in safety, he commences to chew and suck the pieces, rejecting the refuse with his tongue. To drink, which it does by lapping, the _Pteropus_ suspends itself head downwards from a branch above the water. Insects, caterpillars, birds' eggs, and young birds are devoured by them; and the Singhalese say that the flying-fox will even attack a tree snake. It is killed by the natives for the sake of its flesh, which, I have been told by a gentleman who has eaten of it, resembles that of the hare.[1] It is strongly attracted to the coconut trees during the period when toddy is drawn for distillation, and exhibits, it is said, at such times, symptoms resembling intoxication. [Footnote 1: In Western India the native Portuguese eat the flying-fox, and pronounce it delicate, and far from disagreeable in flavour.] Neither the flying-fox, nor any other bat that I know of in Ceylon, ever hybernates. There are several varieties (one of them peculiar to the island) of the horse-shoe-headed _Rhinolophus_, with the strange leaf-like appendage erected on the extremity of the nose. It has been suggested that the insectivorous bats, though nocturnal, are deficient in that keen vision characteristic of animals which take their prey by night. [Illustration: RINOLOPHUS.] I doubt whether this conjecture be well founded; it certainly does not apply to the _Pteropus_ and the other frugivorous species, in which the faculty of sight is singularly clear. As regards the others, it is possible that in their peculiar oeconomy some additional power may be required to act in concert with that of vision, as in insects, touch is superadded, in its most sensitive development, to that of sight. It is probable that the noseleaf, which forms an extended screen stretched behind the nostrils in some of the bats, may be intended by nature to facilitate the collection and conduction of odours, just as the vast expansion of the shell of the ear in the same family is designed to assist in the collection of sounds--and thus to supplement their vision when in pursuit of prey in the dusk by the superior sensitiveness of the organs of hearing and smell. One tiny little bat, not much larger than the humble bee[1], and of a glossy black colour, is sometimes to be seen about Colombo. It is so familiar and gentle that it will alight on the cloth during dinner, and manifests so little alarm that it seldom makes any effort to escape before a wine glass can be inverted to secure it. [Footnote 1: It is a _very_ small Singhalese variety of Scotophilus Coromandelicus, _F. Cuv._] Although not strictly in order, this seems not an inappropriate place to notice one of the most curious peculiarities connected with the bats--their singular parasite, the Nycteribia.[1] On cursory observation this creature appears to have neither head, antennæ, eyes, nor mouth; and the earlier observers of its structure satisfied themselves that the place of the latter was supplied by a cylindrical sucker, which, being placed between the shoulders, the insect had no option but to turn on its back to feed. Another anomaly was thought to compensate for this apparent inconvenience;--its three pairs of legs, armed with claws, are so arranged that they seem to be equally distributed over its upper and under sides, the creature being thus enabled to use them like hands, and to grasp the strong hairs above it while extracting its nourishment. [Footnote 1: This extraordinary creature had formerly been discovered only on a few European bats. Joínville figured one which he found on the large roussette (the flying-fox), and says he had seen another on a bat of the same family. Dr. Templeton observed them in Ceylon in great abundance on the fur of the _Scotophilus Coromandelicus_, and they will, no doubt, be found on many others.] It moves, in fact, by rolling itself rapidly along, rotating like a wheel on the extremities of its spokes, or like the clown in a pantomime, hurling himself forward on hands and feet alternately. Its celerity is so great that Colonel Montague, who was one of the first to describe it minutely[1], says its speed exceeds that of any known insect, and as its joints are so flexible as to yield in every direction (like what mechanics call a "ball and socket"), its motions are exceedingly grotesque as it tumbles through the fur of the bat. [Footnote 1: Celeripes vespertilionis, _Mont. Lin. Trans._ xi. p.11.] [Illustration: NYCTERBIA.] To enable it to attain its marvellous velocity, each foot is armed with two sharp hooks, with elastic opposable pads, so that the hair can not only be rapidly seized and firmly held, but as quickly disengaged, as the creature whirls away in its headlong career. The insects to which it bears the nearest affinity, are the _Hippoboscidæ_, or "spider flies," that infest birds and horses; but, unlike them, the Nycteribia is unable to fly. Its strangest peculiarity, and that which gave rise to the belief that it was headless, is its faculty when at rest of throwing back its head and pressing it close between its shoulders till the under side becomes uppermost, not a vestige of head being discernible where we would naturally look for it, and the whole seeming but a casual inequality on its back. On closer examination this, apparent tubercle is found to have a leathery attachment like a flexible neck, and by a sudden jerk the little creature is enabled to project it forward into its normal position, when it is discovered to be furnished with a mouth, antennæ, and four eyes, two on each side. The organisation of such an insect is a marvellous adaptation of physical form to special circumstances. As the nycteribia has to make its way through fur and hairs, its feet are furnished with prehensile hooks that almost convert them into hands; and being obliged to conform to the sudden flights of its patron, and accommodate itself to inverted positions, all attitudes are rendered alike to it by the arrangement of its limbs, which enables it, after every possible gyration, to find itself always on its feet. III. CARNIVORA.--_Bears_.--Of the _carnivora_, the one most dreaded by the natives of Ceylon, and the only one of the larger animals that makes the depths of the forest its habitual retreat, is the bear[1], attracted chiefly by the honey which is found in the hollow trees and clefts of the rocks. Occasionally spots of fresh earth are observed which have been turned up by the bears in search of some favourite root. They feed also on the termites and ants. A friend of mine traversing the forest, near Jaffna, at early dawn, had his attention attracted by the growling of a bear, that was seated upon a lofty branch, thrusting portions of a red-ants' nest into his mouth with one paw, whilst with the other he endeavoured to clear his eyebrows and lips of the angry inmates, which bit and tortured him in their rage. The Ceylon bear is found in the low and dry districts of the northern and south-eastern coast, and is seldom met with on the mountains or the moist and damp plains of the west. It is furnished with a bushy tuft of hair on the back, between the shoulders, by which the young are accustomed to cling till sufficiently strong to provide for their own safety. During a severe drought that prevailed in the northern province in 1850, the district of Caretchy was so infested by bears that the Oriental custom of the women resorting to the wells was altogether suspended, as it was a common occurrence to find one of these animals in the water, unable to climb up the yielding and slippery soil, down which its thirst had impelled it to slide during the night. [Footnote 1: Prochilus labiatus, _Blainville_.] [Illustration: INDIAN BEAR.] Although the structure of the bear shows him to be naturally omnivorous, he rarely preys upon flesh in Ceylon, and his solitary habits whilst in search of honey and fruits render him timid and retiring. Hence he evinces alarm on the approach of man or other animals, and, unable to make a rapid retreat, his panic, rather than any vicious disposition, leads him to become an assailant in self-defence. But so furious are his assaults under such circumstances that the Singhalese have a terror of his attack greater than that created by any other beast of the forest. If not armed with a gun, a native, in the places where bears abound, usually carries a light axe, called "kodelly," with which to strike them on the head. The bear, on the other hand, always aims at the face, and, if successful in prostrating his victim, usually commences by assailing the eyes. I have met numerous individuals on our journeys who exhibited frightful scars from such encounters, the white seams of their wounds contrasting hideously with the dark colour of the rest of their bodies. The Veddahs in Bintenne, whose principal stores consist of honey, live in dread of the bears, because, attracted by the perfume, they will not hesitate to attack their rude dwellings, when allured by this irresistible temptation. The Post-office runners, who always travel by night, are frequently exposed to danger from these animals, especially along the coast from Putlam to Aripo, where they are found in considerable numbers; and, to guard against surprise, they are accustomed to carry flambeaux, to give warning to the bears, and enable them to shuffle out of the path.[1] [Footnote 1: Amongst the Singhalese there is a belief that certain charms are efficacious in protecting them from the violence of bears, and those whose avocations expose them to encounters of this kind are accustomed to carry a talisman either attached to their neck or enveloped in the folds of their luxuriant hair. A friend of mine, writing of an adventure which occurred at Anarajapoora, thus describes an occasion on which a Moor, who attended him, was somewhat, rudely disabused of his belief in the efficacy of charms upon bears:--"Desiring to change the position of a herd of deer, the Moorman (with his charm) was sent across some swampy land to disturb them. As he was proceeding, we saw him suddenly turn from an old tree and run back with all speed, his hair becoming unfastened and like his clothes streaming in the wind. It soon became evident that he was flying from some terrific object, for he had thrown down his gun, and, in his panic, he was taking the shortest line towards us, which lay across a swamp covered with sedge and rushes that greatly impeded his progress, and prevented us approaching him, or seeing what was the cause of his flight. Missing his steps from one hard spot to another he repeatedly fell into the water, but he rose and resumed his flight. I advanced as far as the sods would bear my weight, but to go further was impracticable. Just within ball-range there was an open space, and, as the man gained it. I saw that he was pursued by a bear and two cubs. As the person of the fugitive covered the bear, it was impossible to fire without risk. At last he fall exhausted, and the bear being close upon him, I discharged both barrels. The first broke the bear's shoulder, but this only made her more savage, and rising on her hind legs she advanced with ferocious prowls, when the second barrel, though I do not think it took effect, served to frighten her, for turning round she retreated, followed by the cubs. Some natives then waded through the mud to the Moorman, who was just exhausted, and would have been drowned but that he fell with his head upon a tuft of grass: the poor man was unable to speak, and for several weeks his intellect seemed confused. The adventure sufficed to satisfy him that he could not again depend upon a charm to protect him, from bears, though he always insisted that but for its having fallen from his hair where he had fastened it under his turban, the bear would not have ventured to attack him."] Leopards[1] are the only formidable members of the tiger race in Ceylon[2], and they are neither very numerous nor very dangerous, as they seldom attack man. By the Europeans, the Ceylon leopard is erroneously called a _cheetah_, but the true "cheetah" (_felis jubata_),' the hunting leopard of India, does not exist in the island.[3] [Footnote 1: Felis pardus, _Linn._ What is called a leopard, or a cheetah, in Ceylon, is in reality the true panther.] [Footnote 2: A belief is prevalent at Trincomalie that a Bengal tiger inhabits the jungle in its vicinity; and the story runs that it escaped from the wreck of a vessel on which it had been embarked for England. Officers of the Government state positively that they have more than once come on it whilst hunting; and one gentleman of the Royal Engineers, who had seen it, assured me that he could not be mistaken as to its being a tiger of India, and one of the largest description.] [Footnote 3: Mr. BAKER, in his _Eight Years in Ceylon_, has stated that there are two species of leopard in the island, one of which he implies is the Indian cheetah. But although he specifies discrepancies in size, weight, and marking between the varieties which he has examined, his data are not sufficient to identify any of them with the true _felis jubata_.] There is a rare variety of the leopard which has been found in various parts of the island, in which the skin, instead of being spotted, is of a uniform black.[1] Leopards frequent the vicinity of pasture hinds in quest of the deer and other peaceful animals which resort to them; and the villagers often complain of the destruction of their cattle by these formidable marauders. In relation to them, the natives have a curious but firm conviction that when a bullock is killed by a leopard, and, in expiring, falls so that _its right side is undermost_, the leopard will not return to devour it. I have been told by English sportsmen (some of whom share in the popular belief), that sometimes, when they have proposed to watch by the carcase of a bullock recently killed by a leopard, in the hope of shooting the spoiler on his return in search of his prey, the native owner of the slaughtered animal, though earnestly desiring to be avenged, has assured them that it would be in vain, as the beast having fallen on its right side, the leopard not return. [Footnote 1: F. melas, _Peron_ and _Leseur_.] [Illustration: LEOPARD AND CHEETAH.] The Singhalese hunt them for the sake of their extremely beautiful skins, but prefer taking them in traps and pitfalls, and occasionally in spring cages formed of poles driven firmly into the ground, within which a kid is generally fastened as a bait; the door being held open by a sapling bent down by the united force of several men, and so arranged as to act as a spring, to which a noose is ingeniously attached, formed of plaited deer's hide. The cries of the kid attract the leopard, which being tempted to enter, is enclosed by the liberation of the spring, and grasped firmly round the body by the noose. Like the other carnivora, leopards are timid and cowardly in the presence of man, never intruding on him voluntarily, and making a hasty retreat when approached. Instances have, however, occurred of individuals having been slain by them; and it is believed, that, having once tasted human blood, they, like the tiger, acquire an habitual relish for it. A peon, on duty by night at the court-house of Anarajapoora, was some years ago carried off by a leopard from a table in the verandah on which he had laid down his head to sleep. At Batticaloa a "cheetah" in two instances in succession was known to carry off men placed on a stage erected in a tree to drive away elephants from rice-land: but such cases are rare, and, as compared with their dread of the bear, the natives of Ceylon entertain but slight apprehensions of the "cheetah." It is, however, the dread of sportsmen, whose dogs when beating in the jungle are especially exposed to its attacks: and I am aware of an instance in which a party having tied their dogs to the tent-pole for security, and fallen asleep round them, a leopard sprang into the tent and carried off a dog from the midst of its slumbering masters. On one occasion being in the mountains near Kandy, a messenger despatched to me through the jungle excused his delay by stating that a "cheetah" had seated itself in the only practicable path, and remained quietly licking its fore paws and rubbing them over its face, till he was forced to drive it, with stones, into the forest. Leopards are strongly attracted by the peculiar odour which accompanies small-pox. The reluctance of the natives to submit themselves or their children to vaccination exposes the island to frightful visitations of this disease; and in the villages in the interior it is usual on such occasions to erect huts in the jungle to serve as temporary hospitals. Towards these the leopards are certain to be allured; and the medical officers are obliged to resort to increased precautions in consequence. This fact is connected with a curious native superstition. Amongst the avenging scourges sent direct from the gods, the Singhalese regard both the ravages of the leopard, and the visitation of the small-pox. The latter they call _par excellence "maha ledda_," the great "sickness;" they look upon it as a special manifestation of _devidosay_, "the displeasure of the gods;" and the attraction of the cheetahs to the bed of the sufferer they attribute to the same indignant agency. A few years ago, the capua, or demon-priest of a "dewale," at Oggalbodda, a village near Caltura, when suffering under small-pox, was devoured by a cheetah, and his fate was regarded by those of an opposite faith as a special judgment from heaven. Such is the awe inspired by this belief in connection with the small-pox, that a person afflicted with it is always approached as one in immediate communication with the deity; his attendants, address him as "my lord," and "your lordship," and exhaust on him the whole series of honorific epithets in which their language abounds for approaching personages of the most exalted rank. At evening and morning, a lamp is lighted before him, and invoked with prayers to protect his family from the dire calamity which has befallen himself. And after his recovery, his former associates refrain from communication with him until a ceremony shall have been performed by the capua, called _awasara-pandema_, or "the offering of lights for permission," the object of which is to entreat permission of the deity to regard him as freed from the divine displeasure, with liberty to his friends to renew their intercourse as before. Major SKINNER, who for upwards of forty years has had occasionally to live for long periods in the interior, occupied in the prosecution of surveys and the construction of roads, is strongly of opinion that the disposition of the leopard towards man is essentially pacific, and that, when discovered, its natural impulse is to effect its escape. In illustration of this I insert an extract from one of his letters, which describes an adventure highly characteristic of this instinctive timidity:-- "On the occasion of one of my visits to Adam's Peak, in the prosecution of my military reconnoissances of the mountain zone, I fixed on a pretty little patena (_i.e._, meadow) in the midst of an extensive and dense forest in the southern segment of the Peak Range, as a favourable spot for operations. It would have been difficult, after descending from the cone of the peak, to have found one's way to this point, in the midst of so vast a wilderness of trees, had not long experience assured me that good game tracks would be found leading to it, and by one of them I reached it. It was in the afternoon, just after one of those tropical sunshowers that decorate every branch and blade with pendant brilliants, and the little patena was covered with game, either driven to the open space by the drippings from the leaves or tempted by the freshness of the pasture: there were several pairs of elk, the bearded antlered male contrasting finely with his mate; and other varieties of game in a profusion not to be found in any place frequented by man. It was some time before I would allow them to be disturbed by the rude fall of the axe, in our necessity to establish our bivouac for the night, and they were so unaccustomed to danger that it was long before they took alarm at our noises. "The following morning, anxious to gain a height for my observations in time to avail myself of the clear atmosphere of sunrise, I started off by myself through the jungle, leaving orders for my men, with my surveying instruments, to follow my track by the notches which I cut in the bark of the trees. On leaving the plain, I availed myself of a fine wide game track which lay in my direction, and had gone, perhaps, half a mile from the camp, when I was startled by a slight rustling in the nilloo[1] to my right, and in another instant, by the spring of a magnificent leopard, which, in a bound of full eight feet in height over the lower brushwood, lighted at my feet within eighteen inches of the spot whereon I stood, and lay in a crouching position, his fiery gleaming eyes fixed on me. [Footnote 1: A species of one of the suffruticose _Acanthaccæ_ (Strobilanthes), which grows, abundantly in the mountain ranges of Ceylon.] "The predicament was not a pleasant one. I had no weapon of defence, and with one spring or blow of his paw the beast could have annihilated me. To move I knew would only encourage his attack. It occurred to me at the moment that I had heard of the power of man's eye over wild animals, and accordingly I fixed my gaze as intently as the agitation of such a moment enabled me on his eyes: we stared at each other for some seconds, when, to my inexpressible joy, the beast turned and bounded down the straight open path before me. This scene occurred just at that period of the morning when the grazing animals retired from the open patena to the cool shade of the forest: doubtless, the leopard had taken my approach for that of a deer, or some such animal. And if his spring had been at a quadruped instead of a biped, his distance was so well measured, that it must have landed him on the neck of a deer, an elk, or a buffalo; as it was, one pace more would have done for me. A bear would not have let his victim off so easily." Notwithstanding the unequalled agility of the monkey, it falls a prey, and not unfrequently, to the leopard. The latter, on approaching a tree on which a troop of monkeys have taken shelter, causes an instant and fearful excitement, which they manifest by loud and continued screams, and incessant restless leaps from branch to branch. The leopard meanwhile walks round and round the tree, with his eyes firmly fixed upon his victims, till at last exhausted by terror, and prostrated by vain exertions to escape, one or more falls a prey to his voracity. So rivetted is the attention of both during the struggle, that a sportsman, on one occasion, attracted by the noise, was enabled to approach within an uncomfortable distance of the leopard, before he discovered the cause of the unusual dismay amongst the monkeys overhead. It is said, but I have never been able personally to verify the fact, that the leopard of Ceylon exhibits a peculiarity in being unable entirely to retract its claws within their sheaths. There is another piece of curious folk lore, in connexion with the leopard. The natives assert that it devours the _kaolin_ clay called by them _kiri-mattie_[1] in a very peculiar way. They say that the cheetah places it in lumps beside him, and then gazes intently on the sun, till on turning his eyes on the clay, every piece appears of a red colour like flesh, when he instantly devours it. [Footnote 1: See Sir J.E. TENNENT'S _Ceylon_, vol. i. p. 31.] They likewise allege that the female cheetah never produces more than one litter of whelps. Of the _lesser feline species_, the number and variety in Ceylon is inferior to those of India. The Palm-cat[1] lurks by day among the fronds of the coco-nut palms, and by night makes destructive forays on the fowls of the villagers; and, in order to suck the blood of its victim, inflicts a wound so small as to be almost imperceptible. The glossy genette[2], the "_Civet_" of Europeans, is common in the northern province, where the Tamils confine it in cages for the sake of its musk, which they collect from the wooden bars on which it rubs itself. Edrisi, the Moorish geographer, writing in the twelfth century, enumerates musk as one of the productions then exported from Ceylon.[3] [Footnote 1: Paradoxurus typus, _F. Cuv._] [Footnote 2: Viverra Indica, _Geoffr., Hodgs._] [Footnote 3: EDRISI, _Géogr._ sec. vii. Jauberts's translation, t. ii. p. 72. In connexion with cats, a Singhalese gentleman has described to me a plant in Ceylon, called _Cuppa-mayniya_ by the natives; by which he says cats are so enchanted, that they play with it as they would with, a captured mouse; throwing if into the air, watching it till it falls, and crouching to see if it will move. It would be worth inquiring into the truth of this; and the explanation of the attraction.] _Dogs_.--There is no native wild dog in Ceylon, but every village and town is haunted by mongrels of European descent, that are known by the generic description of _Pariahs_. They are a miserable race, lean, wretched, and mangy, acknowledged by no owners, living on the garbage of the streets and sewers, and if spoken to unexpectedly they shrink with an almost involuntary cry. Yet in these persecuted outcasts there survives that germ of instinctive affection which binds the dog to the human race, and a gentle word, even a look of compassionate kindness, is sufficient foundation for a lasting attachment. The Singhalese, from their religious aversion to taking away life in any form, permit the increase of these desolate creatures till in the hot season they become so numerous as to be a nuisance; and the only expedient hitherto devised by the civil government to reduce their numbers, is once in each year to offer a reward for their destruction, when the Tamils and Malays pursue them in the streets with clubs (guns being forbidden by the police for fear of accidents), and the unresisting dogs are beaten to death on the side-paths and door-steps where they had been taught to resort for food. Lord Torrington, during his government of Ceylon, attempted the more civilised experiment of putting some check on their numbers, by imposing a dog-tax, the effect of which would have been to lead to the drowning of puppies; whereas there is reason to believe that dogs are at present _bred_ by the horse-keepers to be killed for sake of the reward. The Pariahs of Colombo exhibit something of the same instinct, by which the dogs in other eastern cities partition the towns into districts, each apportioned to a separate pack, by whom it is jealously guarded from the encroachments of all intruders. Travellers at Cairo and Constantinople are often startled at night by the racket occasioned by the demonstrations made by the rightful possessors of a locality in repelling its invasion by some straggling wanderer. At Alexandria, in 1844, the dogs had multiplied to such an inconvenient extent, that Mehemet Ali, to abate the nuisance, caused them to be shipped in boats and conveyed to one of the islands at the mouth of the Nile. But the streets, thus deprived of their habitual patroles, were speedily infested by dogs from the suburbs, in such numbers that the evil became greater than before, and in the following year, the legitimate denizens were recalled from their exile in the Delta, and speedily drove back the intruders within their original boundary. May not this disposition of the dog be referable to the impulse by which, in a state of nature, each pack appropriates its own hunting-fields within a particular area? and may not the impulse which, even in a state of domestication, they still manifest to attack a passing dog upon the road, be a remnant of this localised instinct, and a concomitant dislike of intrusion? _Jackal_.--The Jackal[1] in the low country of Ceylon hunts thus in packs, headed by a leader, and these audacious prowlers have been seen to assault and pull down a deer. The small number of hares in the districts they infest is ascribed to their depredations. In the legends of the natives, and in the literature of the Buddhists, the jackal in Ceylon is as essentially the type of cunning as the fox is the emblem of craft and adroitness in the traditions of Europe. In fact, it is more than doubtful whether the jackal of the East be not the creature alluded to, in the various passages of the Sacred Writings which make allusion to the artfulness and subtlety of the "fox." [Footnote 1: Canis Aureus, _Linn._] These faculties they display in a high degree in their hunting expeditions, especially in the northern portions of the island, where they are found in the greatest numbers. In these districts, where the wide sandy plains are thinly covered with brushwood, the face of the country is diversified by patches of thick jungle and detached groups of trees, that form insulated groves and topes. At dusk, or after nightfall, a pack of jackals, having watched a hare or a small deer take refuge in one of these retreats, immediately surround it on all sides; and having stationed a few to watch the path by which the game entered, the leader commences the attack by raising the unearthly cry peculiar to their race, and which resembles the sound _okkay!_ loudly and rapidly repeated. The whole party then rush into the jungle, and drive out the victim, which generally falls into the ambush previously laid to entrap it. A native gentleman[1], who had favourable opportunities of observing the movements of these animals, informed me, that when a jackal has brought down his game and killed it, his first impulse is to hide it in the nearest jungle, whence he issues with an air of easy indifference to observe whether anything more powerful than himself may be at hand, from which he might encounter the risk of being despoiled of his capture. If the coast be clear, he returns to the concealed carcase, and carries it away, followed by his companions. But if a man be in sight, or any other animal to be avoided, my informant has seen the jackal seize a coco-nut husk in his mouth, or any similar substance, and fly at full speed, as if eager to carry off his pretended prize, returning for the real booty at some more convenient season. [Footnote 1: Mr. D. de Silva Gooneratné.] They are subject to hydrophobia, and instances are frequent in Ceylon of cattle being bitten by them and dying in consequence. [Illustration: JACKAL'S SKULL AND HORN] An excrescence is sometimes found on the head of the jackal, consisting of a small horny cone about half an inch in length, and concealed by a tuft of hair. This the natives call _narrie-comboo_; and they aver that this "Jackal's Horn" only grows on the head of the leader of the pack.[1] Both the Singhalese and the Tamils regard it as a talisman, and believe that its fortunate possessor can command by its instrumentality the realisation of every wish, and that if stolen or lost by him, it will invariably return of its own accord. Those who have jewels to conceal rest in perfect security if along with them they can deposit a narri-comboo, fully convinced that its presence is an effectual safeguard against robbers. [Footnote 1: In the Museum of the College of Surgeons, London (No. 4362 A), there is a cranium of a jackal which exhibits this strange osseous process on the super-occipital; and I have placed along with it a specimen of the horny sheath, which was presented to me by Mr. Lavalliere, the late district judge of Kandy.] One fabulous virtue ascribed to the _narrie-comboo_ by the Singhalese is absurdly characteristic of their passion for litigation, as well as of their perceptions of the "glorious uncertainty of the law." It is the popular belief that the fortunate discoverer of a jackal's horn becomes thereby invincible in every lawsuit, and must irresistibly triumph over every opponent. A gentleman connected "with the Supreme Court of Colombo has repeated to me a circumstance, within his own knowledge, of a plaintiff who, after numerous defeats, eventually succeeded against his opponent by the timely acquisition of this invaluable charm. Before the final hearing of the cause, the mysterious horn was duly exhibited to his friends; and the consequence was, that the adverse witnesses, appalled by the belief that no one could possibly give judgment against a person so endowed, suddenly modified their previous evidence, and secured an unforeseen victory for the happy owner of the _narrie-comboo!_ _The Mongoos_.--Of the Mongoos or Ichneumon four species have been described; and one, that frequents the hills near Neuera-ellia[1], is so remarkable from its bushy fur, that the invalid soldiers in the sanatarium there, to whom it is familiar, have given it the name of the "Ceylon Badger." [Footnote 1: _Herpestes vitticollis_. Mr. W. ELLIOTT, in his _Catalogue of Mammalia found in the Southern Maharata Country_, Madras, 1840, says, that "One specimen of this Herpestes was procured by accident in the Ghât forests in 1829, and is now deposited in the British Museum; it is very rare, inhabiting only the thickest woods, and its habits are very little known," p. 9. In Ceylon it is comparatively common.] [Illustration: HERPESTES VITTICOLLIS.] I have found universally that the natives of Ceylon attach no credit to the European story of the Mongoos (_H. griseus_) resorting to some plant, which no one has yet succeeded in identifying, as an antidote against the bite of the venomous serpents on which it preys: There is no doubt that, in its conflicts with the cobra de capello and other poisonous snakes, which it attacks with as little hesitation as the harmless ones, it may be seen occasionally to retreat, and even to retire into the jungle, and, it is added, to eat some vegetable; but a gentleman, who has been a frequent observer of its exploits, assures me that most usually the herb it resorted to was grass; and if this were not at hand, almost any other plant that grew near seemed equally acceptable. Hence has probably arisen the long list of plants, such as the _Ophioxylon serpentinum_ and _Ophiorhiza mungos_, the _Aristolochia Indica_, the _Mimosa octandria_, and others, each of which has been asserted to be the ichneumon's specific; whilst their multiplicity is demonstrative of the non-existence of any one in particular on which the animal relies as an antidote. Were there any truth in the tale as regards the mongoos, it would be difficult to understand why creatures, such as the secretary bird and the falcon, and others, which equally destroy serpents, should be left defenceless, and the ichneumon alone provided with a prophylactic. Besides, were the ichneumon inspired by that courage which would result from the consciousness of security, it would be so indifferent to the bite of the serpent that we might conclude that, both in its approaches and its assault, it would be utterly careless as to the precise mode of its attack. Such, however, is far from being the case: and next to its audacity, nothing can be more surprising than the adroitness with which it escapes the spring of the snake under a due sense of danger, and the cunning with which it makes its arrangements to leap upon the back and fasten its teeth in the head of the cobra. It is this display of instinctive ingenuity that Lucan[1] celebrates where he paints the ichneumon diverting the attention of the asp, by the motion of his bushy tail, and then seizing it in the midst of its confusion:-- "Aspidas ut Pharias caudâ solertior hostis Ludit, et iratas incertâ provocat umbrâ: * * * * * [Footnote 1: The passage in Lucan is a versification of the same narrative related by Pliny, lib. viii. ch. 53; and Ælian, lib. iii. ch. 22.] Obliquusque caput vanas serpentis in auras Effuse toto comprendit guttura morsu Letiferam citra saniem; tunc irrita pestis Exprimitur, faucesque fluunt pereunte veneno." _Pharsalia_, lib. iv. v. 729. The mystery of the mongoos and its antidote has been referred to the supposition that there may be some peculiarity in its organisation which renders it _proof against_ the poison of the serpent. It remains for future investigation to determine how far this conjecture is founded in truth; and whether in the blood of the mongoos there exists any element or quality which acts as a prophylactic. Such exceptional provisions are not without precedent in the animal oeconomy: the hornbill feeds with impunity on the deadly fruit of the strychnos; the milky juice of some species of euphorbia, which is harmless to oxen, is invariably fatal to the zebra; and the tsetse fly, the pest of South Africa, whose bite is mortal to the ox, the dog, and the horse, is harmless to man and the untamed creatures of the forest.[1] [Footnote 1: Dr. LIVINGSTONE, _Tour in S. Africa_, p. 80. Is it a fact that, in America, pigs extirpate the rattlesnakes with impunity?] The Singhalese distinguish one species of mongoos, which they designate "_Hotambeya_" and which they assert never preys upon serpents. A writer in the _Ceylon Miscellany_ mentions, that they are often to be seen "crossing rivers and frequently mud-brooks near Chilaw; the adjacent thickets affording them shelter, and their food consisting of aquatic reptiles, crabs, and mollusca."[1] [Footnote 1: This is possibly the "musbilai" or mouse-cat of Behar, which preys upon birds and fish. Can it be the Urva of the Nepalese (_Urva cancrivora_, Hodgson), which Mr. Hodgson describes as dwelling in burrows, and being carnivorous and ranivorous?--Vide _Journ. As. Soc. Beng._ vol. vi. p. 56.] [Illustration: FLYING SQUIRREL.] IV. RODENTIA. _Squirrels_.--Smaller animals in great numbers enliven the forests and lowland plains with their graceful movements. Squirrels[1], of which there are a great variety, make their shrill metallic call heard at early morning in the woods; and when sounding their note of warning on the approach of a civet or a tree-snake, the ears tingle with the loud trill of defiance, which rings as clear and rapid as the running down of an alarum, and is instantly caught up and re-echoed from every side by their terrified playmates. [Footnote 1: Of two kinds which frequent the mountains, one which is peculiar to Ceylon was discovered by Mr. Edgar L. Layard, who has done me the honour to call it the _Sciurus Tennentii_. Its dimensions are large, measuring upwards of two feet from head to tail. It is distinguished from the _S. macrurus_ by the predominant black colour of the upper surface of the body, with the exception of a rusty spot at the base of the ears.] One of the largest, belonging to a closely allied subgenus, is known as the "Flying Squirrel,"[1] from its being assisted, in its prodigious leaps from tree to tree, by a parachute formed by the skin of the flanks, which, on the extension of the limbs front and rear, is laterally expanded from foot to foot. Thus buoyed up in its descent, the spring which it is enabled to make from one lofty tree to another resembles the flight of a bird rather than the bound of a quadruped. [Footnote 1: Pteromys oral., _Tickel_. P. petaurista, _Pallas_.] Of these pretty creatures there are two species, one common to Ceylon and India, the other (_Sciuropterus Layardii_, Kelaart) is peculiar to the island, and by far the most beautiful of the family. _Rats_.--Among the multifarious inhabitants to which the forest affords at once a home and provender is the tree rat[1], which forms its nest on the branches, and by turns makes its visits to the dwellings of the natives, frequenting the ceilings in preference to the lower parts of houses. Here it is incessantly followed by the rat-snake[2], whose domestication is encouraged by the servants, in consideration of its services in destroying vermin. I had one day an opportunity of surprising a snake that had just seized on a rat of this description, and of covering it suddenly with a glass shade, before it had time to swallow its prey. The serpent, appeared stunned by its own capture, and allowed the rat to escape from its jaws, which cowered at one side of the glass in the most pitiable state of trembling terror. The two were left alone for some moments, and on my return to them the snake was as before in the same attitude of sullen stupor. On setting them at liberty, the rat bounded towards the nearest fence; but quick as lightning it was followed by its pursuer, which seized it before it could gain the hedge, through which I saw the snake glide with its victim in its jaws. In parts of the central province, at Oovah and Bintenne, the house-rat is eaten as a common article of food. The Singhalese believe it and the mouse to be liable to hydrophobia. [Footnote 1: There are two species of the tree rat in Ceylon: M. rufescens, _Gray_; (M. flavescens, _Elliot_;) and Mus nemoralis, _Blyth_.] [Footnote 2: Coryphodon Blumenbachii, _Merr_.] Another indigenous variety of the rat is that which made its appearance for the first time in the coffee plantations on the Kandyan hills in the year 1847; and in such swarms does it continue to infest them, at intervals, that as many as a thousand have been killed in a single day on one estate. In order to reach the buds and blossoms of the coffee, it cuts such of the slender branches as would not sustain its weight, and feeds on them when fallen to the ground; and so delicate and sharp are its incisors, that the twigs thus destroyed are detached by as clean a cut as if severed with a knife. The coffee-rat[1] is an insular variety of the _Mus hirsutus_ of W. Elliot, found in Southern India. They inhabit the forests, making their nests among the roots of the trees, and feeding, in the season, on the ripe seeds of the nilloo. Like the lemmings of Norway and Lapland, they migrate in vast numbers on the occurrence of a scarcity of their ordinary food. The Malabar coolies are so fond of their flesh, that they evince a preference for those districts in which the coffee plantations are subject to their incursions, where they fry the rats in coco-nut oil, or convert them into curry. [Footnote 1: Golunda Ellioti, _Gray_.] [Illustration: COFFEE RAT.] _Bandicoot_.--Another favourite article of food with the coolies is the pig-rat or Bandicoot[1], which attains on those hills the weight of two or three pounds, and grows to nearly the length of two feet. As it feeds on grain and roots, its flesh is said to be delicate, and much resembling young pork. [Footnote 1: Mus bandicota, _Beckst._ The English term bandicoot is a corruption of the Telinga name _pandikoku_, literally _pig-rat_.] Its nests, when rifled, are frequently found to contain considerable quantities of rice, stored up against the dry season. [Illustration: BANDICOOT.] _Porcupine_.--The Porcupine[1] is another of the _rodentia_ which has drawn down upon itself the hostility of the planters, from its destruction of the young coconut palms, to which it is a pernicious and persevering, but withal so crafty, a visitor, that it is with difficulty any trap can be so disguised, or any bait made so alluring, as to lead to its capture. The usual expedient in Ceylon is to place some of its favourite food at the extremity of a trench, so narrow as to prevent the porcupine turning, whilst the direction of his quills effectually bars his retreat backwards. On a newly planted coconut tope, at Hang-welle, within a few miles of Colombo, I have heard of as many as twenty-seven being thus captured in a single night; but such success is rare. The more ordinary expedient is to smoke them out by burning straw at the apertures of their burrows. At Ootacamund, on the continent of the Dekkan, spring-guns have been used with great success by the Superintendent of the Horticultural Gardens; placing them so as to sweep the runs of the porcupines. The flesh is esteemed a delicacy in Ceylon, and in consistency, colour, and flavour it very much resembles young pork. [Footnote 1: Hystrix leucurus, _Sykes_.] V. EDENTATA. _Pengolin_.--Of the Edentata the only example in Ceylon is the scaly ant-eater, called by the Singhalese, Caballaya, but usually known by its Malay name of _Pengolin_[1], a word indicative of its faculty, when alarmed, of "rolling itself up" into a compact ball, by bending its head towards its stomach, arching its back into a circle, and securing all by a powerful fold of its mail-covered tail. The feet of the pengolin are armed with powerful claws, which in walking they double in, like the ant-eater of Brazil. These they use in extracting their favourite food from ant-hills and decaying wood. When at liberty, they burrow in the dry ground to a depth of seven or eight feet, where they reside in pairs, and produce annually one or two young.[2] [Footnote 1: Manis pentadactyla, _Linn._] [Footnote 2: I am assured that there is a hedge-hog in Ceylon; but as I have never seen it, I cannot tell whether it belongs to either of the two species known in India (_Erinaceus mentalis_ and _E. collaris_)--nor can I vouch for its existence there at all. But the fact was told to me, in connexion with the statement, that its favourite dwelling is in the same burrow with the pengolin. The popular belief in this is attested by a Singhalese proverb, in relation to an intrusive personage; the import of which is that he is like "_a hedge-hog in the den of a pengolin_."] Of two specimens which I kept alive at different times, one, about two feet in length, from the vicinity of Kandy, was a gentle and affectionate creature, which, after wandering over the house in search of ants, would attract attention to its wants by climbing up my knee, laying hold of my leg with its prehensile tail. The other, more than double that length, was caught in the jungle near Chilaw, and brought to me in Colombo. I had always understood that the pengolin was unable to climb trees; but the one last mentioned frequently ascended a tree in my garden, in search of ants; and this it effected by means of its hooked feet, aided by an oblique grasp of the tail. The ants it seized by extending its round and glutinous tongue along their tracks; and in the stomach of one which was opened after death, I found a quantity of small stones and gravel, which had been taken to facilitate digestion. In both specimens in my possession the scales of the back were a cream-coloured white, with a tinge of red in that which came from Chilaw, probably acquired by the insinuation of the Cabook dust which abounds along the western coast of the island. [Illustration: THE PENGOLIN.] [Illustration: SKELETON OF PENGOLIN.] Of the habits of the pengolin I found that very little was known by the natives, who regard it with aversion, one name given to it being the "Negombo Devil." Those kept by me were, generally speaking, quiet during the day, and grew restless and active as evening and night approached. Both had been taken near rocks, in the hollows of which they had their dwelling, but owing to their slow power of motion, they were unable to reach their hiding place when overtaken. When frightened, they rolled themselves instantly into a rounded ball; and such was the powerful force of muscle, that the strength of a man was insufficient to uncoil it. In reconnoitring they made important use of the tail, resting upon it and their hind legs, and holding themselves nearly erect, to command a view of their object. The strength of this powerful limb will be perceived from the accompanying drawing of the skeleton of the Manis; in which it will be seen that the tail is equal in length to all the rest of the body, whilst the vertebræ which compose it are stronger by far than those of the back. From the size and position of the bones of the leg, the pengolin is endued with prodigious power; and its faculty of exerting this vertically, was displayed in overturning heavy cases, by insinuating itself under them, between the supports, by which it is customary in Ceylon to raise trunks a few inches above the floor, in order to prevent the attacks of white ants. VI. RUMINANTIA. _The Gaur_.--Besides the deer, and some varieties of the humped ox, that have been introduced from the opposite continent of India, Ceylon has probably but one other indigenous bovine _ruminant_, the buffalo.[1] There is a tradition that the gaur, found in the extremity of the Indian peninsula, was at one period a native of the Kandyan Mountains; but as Knox speaks of one which in his time "was kept among the king's creatures" at Kandy[2], and his account of it tallies with that of the _Bos Gaurus_ of Hindustan, it would appear even then to have been a rarity. A place between Neuera-ellia and Adam's Peak bears the name of "Gowra-ellia," and it is not impossible that the animal may yet be discovered in some of the imperfectly explored regions of the island.[3] I have heard of an instance in which a very old Kandyan, residing in the mountains near the Horton Plains, asserted that when young he had seen what he believed to have been a gaur, and he described it as between an elk and a buffalo in size, dark brown in colour, and very scantily provided with hair. [Footnote 1: Bubalus buffelus, _Gray_.] [Footnote 2: KNOX, _Historical Relation of Ceylon, &c._, A.D. 1681. Book i. c. 6.] [Footnote 3: KELAART, _Fauna Zeylan_., p. 87.] _Oxen_.--Oxen are used by the peasantry both in ploughing and in tempering the mud in the wet paddi fields before sowing the rice; and when the harvest is reaped they "tread out the corn," after the immemorial custom of the East. The wealth of the native chiefs and landed proprietors frequently consists in their herds of bullocks, which they hire out to their dependents during the seasons for agricultural labour; and as they already supply them with land to be tilled, and lend the seed which is to crop it, the further contribution of this portion of the labour serves to render the dependence of the peasantry on the chiefs and headmen complete. The cows are often worked as well as the oxen; and as the calves are always permitted to suck them, milk is an article which the traveller can rarely hope to procure in a Kandyan village. From their constant exposure at all seasons, the cattle in Ceylon, both those employed in agriculture and those on the roads, are subject to devastating murrains, that sweep them away by thousands. So frequent is the recurrence of these calamities, and so extended their ravages, that they exercise a serious influence upon the commercial interests of the colony, by reducing the facilities of agriculture, and augmenting the cost of carriage during the most critical periods of the coffee harvest. A similar disorder, probably peripneumonia, frequently carries off the cattle in Assam and other hill countries on the continent of India; and there, as in Ceylon, the inflammatory symptoms in the lungs and throat, and the internal derangement and external eruptive appearances, seem to indicate that the disease is a feverish influenza, attributable to neglect and exposure in a moist and variable climate; and that its prevention might be hoped for, and the cattle preserved, by the simple expedient of more humane and considerate treatment, especially by affording them cover at night. During my residence in Ceylon an incident occurred at Neuera-ellia, which invested one of these pretty animals with an heroic interest. A little cow, belonging to an English gentleman, was housed, together with her calf, near the dwelling of her owner, and being aroused during the night by her furious bellowing, the servants, on hastening to the stall, found her goring a leopard, which had stolen in to attack the calf. She had got it into a corner, and whilst lowing incessantly to call for help, she continued to pound it with her horns. The wild animal, apparently stupified by her unexpected violence, was detained by her till despatched by a bullet. The number of bullock-carts encountered between Colombo and Kandy, laden with coffee from the interior, or carrying up rice and stores for the supply of the plantations in the hill-country, is quite surprising. The oxen thus employed on this single road, about seventy miles long, are estimated at upwards of twenty thousand. The bandy to which they are yoked is a barbarous two-wheeled waggon, with a covering of plaited coco-nut leaves, in which a pair of strong bullocks will draw from five to ten hundred weight, according to the nature of the country; and with this load on a level they will perform a journey of twenty miles a day. A few of the large humped cattle of India are annually imported for draught; but the vast majority of those in use are small and dark-coloured, with a graceful head and neck, and elevated hump, a deep silky dewlap, and limbs as slender as a deer. They appear to have neither the strength nor weight requisite for this service; and yet the entire coffee crop of Ceylon, amounting annually to upwards of half a million hundred weight, is year after year brought down from the mountains to the coast by these indefatigable little creatures, which, on returning, carry up proportionally heavy loads, of rice and implements for the estates.[1] There are two varieties of the native bullock; one a somewhat coarser animal, of a deep red colour; the other, the high-bred black one I have just described. So rare was a white one of this species, under the native kings, that the Kandyans were compelled to set them apart for the royal herd.[2] [Footnote 1: A pair of these little bullocks carry up about twenty bushels of rice to the hills, and bring down from fifty to sixty bushels of coffee to Colombo.] [Footnote 2: WOLF says that, in the year 1763, he saw in Ceylon two white oxen, each of which measured upwards of eight feet high. They were sent as a present from the King of Atchin.--_Life and Adventures_, p. 172.] Although bullocks may be said to be the only animals of draught and burden in Ceylon (horses being rarely used except in spring carriages), no attempt has been made to improve the breed, or even to better the condition and treatment of those in use. Their food is indifferent, pasture in all parts of the island being rare, and cattle are seldom housed under any vicissitudes of weather. The labour for which they are best adapted, and in which, before the opening of roads, these cattle were formerly employed, is in traversing the jungle paths of the interior, carrying light loads as pack-oxen in what is called a "_tavalam_"--a term which, substituting bullocks for camels, is equivalent to a "caravan."[1] The class of persons engaged in this traffic in Ceylon resemble in their occupations the "Banjarees" of Hindustan, who bring down to the coast corn, cotton, and oil, and take back to the interior cloths and iron and copper utensils. In the unopened parts of the island, and especially in the eastern provinces, this primitive practice still continues. When travelling in these districts I have often encountered long files of pack-bullocks toiling along the mountain paths, their bells tinkling musically as they moved; or halting during the noonday heat beside some stream in the forests, their burdens piled in heaps near the drivers, who had lighted their cooking fires, whilst the bullocks were permitted to bathe and browse. [Footnote 1: Attempts have been made to domesticate the camel in Ceylon; but, I am told, they died of ulcers in the feet, attributed to the too great moisture of the roads at certain seasons. This explanation seems insufficient if taken in connection with the fact of the camel living in perfect health in climates equally, if not more, exposed to rain. I apprehend that sufficient justice has not been done to the experiment.] The persons engaged in this wandering trade are chiefly Moors, and the business carried on by them consists in bringing up salt from the government depots on the coast to be bartered with the Kandyans in the hills for "native coffee," which is grown in small quantities round every house, but without systematic cultivation. This they carry down to the maritime towns, and the proceeds are invested in cotton cloths and brass utensils, dried fish, and other commodities, with which the _tavalams_ supply the secluded villages of the interior. _The Buffalo_.--Buffaloes abound in all parts of Ceylon, but they are only to be seen in their native wildness in the vast solitudes of the northern and eastern provinces, where rivers, lagoons, and dilapidated tanks abound. In these they delight to immerse themselves, till only their heads appear above the surface; or, enveloped in mud to protect themselves from the assaults of insects, they luxuriate in the long sedges by the water margins. When the buffalo is browsing, a crow will frequently be seen stationed on its back, engaged in freeing it from the ticks and other pests which attach themselves to its leathery hide, the smooth brown surface of which, unprotected by hair, shines with an unpleasant polish in the sunlight. When in motion a buffalo throws back its clumsy head till the huge horns rest on its shoulders, and the nose is presented in a line with the eyes. The temper of the wild buffalo is morose and uncertain, and such is its strength and courage that in the Hindu epic of the Ramayana its onslaught is compared to that of the tiger.[1] It is never quite safe to approach them, if disturbed in their pasture or alarmed from their repose in the shallow lakes. On such occasions they hurry into line, draw up in defensive array, with a few of the oldest bulls in advance; and, wheeling in circles, their horns clashing with a loud sound as they clank them together in their rapid evolutions, they prepare for attack; but generally, after a menacing display the herd betake themselves to flight; then forming again at a safer distance, they halt as before, elevating their nostrils, and throwing back their heads to take a defiant survey of the intruders. The true sportsman rarely molests them, so huge a creature affording no worthy mark for his skill, and their wanton slaughter adds nothing to the supply of food for their assailant. [Footnote 1: CAREY and MARSHMAN'S Transl. vol. i. p. 430, 447.] In the Hambangtotte country, where the Singhalese domesticate buffaloes, and use them to assist in the labour of the rice lands, the villagers are much annoyed by the wild ones, that mingle with the tame when sent out to the woods to pasture; and it constantly happens that a savage stranger, placing himself at the head of the tame herd, resists the attempts of the owners to drive them homewards at sunset. In the districts of Putlam and the Seven Corles, buffaloes are generally used for draught; and in carrying heavy loads of salt from the coast towards the interior, they drag a cart over roads which would defy the weaker strength of bullocks. In one place between Batticaloa and Trincomalie I found the natives making an ingenious use of them when engaged in shooting water-fowl in the vast salt marshes and muddy lakes. Being an object to which the birds are accustomed, the Singhalese train the buffalo to the sport, and, concealed behind, the animal browsing listlessly along, they guide it by ropes attached to its horns, and thus creep undiscovered within shot of the flock. The same practice prevails, I believe, in some of the northern parts of India, where they are similarly trained to assist the sportsman in approaching deer. One of these "sporting buffaloes" sells for a considerable sum. In the thick forests which cover the Passdun Corle, to the east, and south of Caltura, the natives use the sporting buffalo in another way, to assist in hunting deer and wild hogs. A bell is attached to its neck, and a box or basket with one side open is securely strapped on its back. This at nightfall is lighted by flambeaux of wax, and the buffalo bearing it, is driven slowly into the jungle. The huntsmen, with their fowling pieces, keep close under the darkened side, and as it moves slowly onwards, the wild animals, startled by the sound, and bewildered by the light, steal cautiously towards it in stupified fascination. Even the snakes, I am assured, will be attracted by this extraordinary object; and the leopard too falls a victim to curiosity. There is a peculiarity in the formation of the buffalo's foot, which, though it must have attracted attention, I have never seen mentioned by naturalists. It is equivalent to the arrangement which distinguishes the foot of the reindeer from that of the stag and the antelope. In the latter, the hoofs, being constructed for lightness and flight, are compact and vertical; but, in the reindeer, the joints of the tarsal bones admit of lateral expansion, and the front hoofs curve upwards, while the two secondary ones behind (which are but slightly developed in the fallow deer and others of the same family) are prolonged vertically till, in certain positions, they are capable of being applied to the ground, thus adding to the circumference and sustaining power of the foot. It has been usually suggested as the probable design of this structure, that it is to enable the reindeer to shovel away the snow in order to reach the lichens beneath it; but I apprehend that another use of it has been overlooked, that of facilitating its movements in search of food by increasing the difficulty of its sinking in the snow. A formation precisely analogous in the buffalo seems to point to a corresponding design. The ox, whose life is spent on firm ground, has the bones of the foot so constructed as to afford the most solid support to an animal of its great weight; but in the buffalo, which delights in the morasses on the margins of pools and rivers, the construction of the foot resembles that of the reindeer. The tarsi in front extend almost horizontally from the upright bones of the leg, and spread apart widely on touching the ground; the hoofs are flattened and broad, with the extremities turned upwards; and the false hoofs behind descend till they make a clattering sound as the animal walks. In traversing the marshes, this combination of abnormal incidents serves to give extraordinary breadth to the foot, and not only prevents the buffalo from sinking inconveniently in soft ground[1], but at the same time presents no obstacle to the withdrawal of its foot from the mud. [Footnote 1: PROFESSOR OWEN has noticed a similar fact regarding the rudiments of the second and fifth digits in the instance of the elk and bison, which have them largely expanded where they inhabit swampy ground; whilst they are nearly obliterated in the camel and dromedary, that traverse arid deserts.--OWEN _on Limbs_, p. 34; see also BELL _on the Hand_, ch. iii.] The buffalo, like the elk, is sometimes found in Ceylon as an albino, with purely white hair and a pink iris. _Deer_.--"Deer," says the truthful old chronicler, Robert Knox, "are in great abundance in the woods, from the largeness of a cow to the smallness of a hare, for here is a creature in this land no bigger than the latter, though every part rightly resembleth a deer: it is called _meminna_, of a grey colour, with white spots and good meat."[1] The little creature which thus dwelt in the recollection of the old man, as one of the memorials of his long captivity, is the small "musk deer"[2] so called in India, although neither sex is provided with a musk-bag. The Europeans in Ceylon know it by the name of the "moose deer;" and in all probability the terms _musk_ and _moose_ are both corruptions of the Dutch word "_muis_," or "mouse" deer, a name particularly applicable to the timid and crouching attitudes and aspect of this beautiful little creature. Its extreme length never reaches two feet; and of those which were domesticated about my house, few exceeded ten inches in height, their graceful limbs being of proportionate delicacy. It possesses long and extremely large tusks, with which it can inflict a severe bite. The interpreter moodliar of Negombo had a _milk white_ meminna in 1847, which he designed to send home as an acceptable present to Her Majesty, but it was unfortunately killed by an accident.[3] [Footnote 1: KNOX'S _Relation, &c._, book i. c. 6.] [Footnote 2: Moschus meminna.] [Footnote 3: When the English look possession of Kandy, in 1803, they found "five beautiful milk-white deer in the palace, which was noted as a very extraordinary thing."--_Letter_ in Appendix to PERCIVAL'S _Ceylon_, p. 428. The writer does not say of what species they were.] [Illustration: "MOOSE" DEER (MOSCHUS MEMINNA)] _Ceylon Elk_.--In the mountains, the Ceylon elk[1], which reminds one of the red deer of Scotland, attains the height of four or five feet; it abounds in all shady places that are intersected by rivers; where, though its chase affords an endless resource to the sportsman, its venison scarcely equals in quality the inferior beef of the lowland ox. In the glades and park-like openings that diversify the great forests of the interior, the spotted Axis troops in herds as numerous as the fallow deer in England: but, in journeys through the jungle, when often dependent on the guns of our party for the precarious supply of the table, we found the flesh of the Axis[2] and the Muntjac[3] a sorry substitute for that of the pea-fowl, the jungle-cock, and flamingo. The occurrence of albinos is very frequent in troops of the axis. Deer's horns are an article of export from Ceylon, and considerable quantities are annually sent to the United Kingdom. [Footnote 1: Rusa Aristotelis. Dr. GRAY has lately shown that this is the great _axis_ of Cuvier.--_Oss. Foss._ 502. t. 39; f. 10: The Singhalese, on following the elk, frequently effect their approaches by so imitating the call of the animal as to induce them to respond. An instance occurred during my residence in Ceylon, in which two natives, whose mimicry had mutually deceived them, crept so close together in the jungle that one shot the other, supposing the cry to proceed from the game.] [Footnote 2: Axis maculata, _H. Smith_.] [Footnote 3: Stylocerus muntjac, _Horss_.] VII. PACHYDERMATA.--_The Elephant_.--The elephant, and the wild boar, the Singhalese "waloora,"[1] are the only representatives of the _pachydermatous_ order. The latter, which differs somewhat from the wild boar of India, is found in droves in all parts of the island where vegetation and water are abundant. [Footnote 1: Mr. BLYTH of Calcutta has distinguished, from the hog, common in India, a specimen sent to him from Ceylon, the skull of which approaches in form, that of a species from Borneo, the _susbarbatus_ of S. Müller.] The elephant, the lord paramount of the Ceylon forests, is to be met with in every district, on the confines of the woods, in the depths of which he finds concealment and shade during the hours when the sun is high, and from which he emerges only at twilight to wend his way towards the rivers and tanks, where he luxuriates till dawn, when he again seeks the retirement of the deep forests. This noble animal fills so dignified a place both in the zoology and oeconomy of Ceylon, and his habits in a state of nature have been so much misunderstood, that I shall devote a separate section to his defence from misrepresentation, and to an exposition of what, from observation and experience, I believe to be his genuine character when free in his native domains. But this seems the proper place to allude to a recent discovery in connexion with the elephant, which strikingly confirms a conjecture which I ventured to make elsewhere[1], relative to the isolation of Ceylon and its distinctness, in many remarkable particulars, from the great continent of India. Every writer who previously treated of the island, including the accomplished Dr. Davy and the erudite Lassen, was contented, by a glance at its outline and a reference to its position on the map, to assume that Ceylon was a fragment, which in a very remote age had been torn from the adjacent mainland, by some convulsion of nature. Hence it was taken for granted that the vegetation which covers and the races of animals which inhabit it, must be identical with those of Hindustan; to which Ceylon was alleged to bear the same relation as Sicily presents to the peninsula of Italy. MALTE BRUN[2] and the geographers generally, declared the larger animals of either to be common to both. I was led to question the soundness of this dictum;--and from a closer examination of its geological conformation and of its botanical and zoological characteristics I came to the conclusion that not only is there an absence of sameness between the formations of the two localities; but that plants and animals, mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects exist in Ceylon, which are not to be found in the flora and fauna of the Dekkan; but which present a striking affinity, and occasionally an actual identity, with those of the Malayan countries and some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. Startling as this conclusion appeared to be, it was strangely in unison with the legends of the Singhalese themselves, that at an infinitely remote period Ceylon formed an integral portion of a vast continent, known in the mythical epics of the Brahmans by the designation of "_Lanka_;" so immense that its southern extremity fell below the equator, whilst in breadth it was prolonged till its western and eastern boundaries touch at once upon the shores of Africa and China. [Footnote 1: _Ceylon, &c._, by Sir J. EMERSON TENNENT, vol. i. pp. 7, 13, 85, 160, 183, n., 205, 270, &c.] [Footnote 2: MALTE BRUN, _Geogr. Univ._, l. xlix.] Dim as is this ancient tradition, it is in consistency with the conclusions of modern geology, that at the commencement of the tertiary period northern Asia and a considerable part of India were in all probability covered by the sea but that south of India land extended eastward and westward connecting Malacca with Arabia. PROFESSOR ANSTED has propounded this view. His opinion is, that the Himalayas then existed only as a chain of islands, and did not till a much later age become elevated into mountain ranges,--a change which took place during the same revolution that raised the great plains of Siberia and Tartary and many parts of north-western Europe. At the same time the great continent whose position between the tropics has been alluded to, and whose previous existence is still indicated by the Coral islands, the Laccadives, the Maldives, and the Chagos group, underwent simultaneous depression by a counteracting movement.[1] [Footnote 1: _The Ancient World_, by D.T. ANSTED, M.A., &c., pp. 322-324.] But divested of oriental mystery and geologic conjecture, and brought to the test of "geographical distribution," this once prodigious continent would appear to have connected the distant Islands of Ceylon and Sumatra and possibly to have united both to the Malay peninsula, from which the latter is now severed by the Straits of Malacca. The proofs of physical affinity between these scattered localities are exceedingly curious. A striking dissimilarity presents itself between some of the Mammalia of Ceylon and those of the continent of India. In its general outline and feature, this branch of the island fauna, no doubt, exhibits a general resemblance to that of the mainland, although many of the larger animals of the latter are unknown in Ceylon: but, on the other hand, some species discovered there are peculiar to the island. A deer[1] as large as the Axis, but differing from it in the number and arrangement of its spots, has been described by Dr. Kelaart, to whose vigilance the natural history of Ceylon is indebted, amongst others, for the identification of two new species of monkeys[2], a number of curious shrews[3], and an orange-coloured ichneumon[4], before unknown. There are also two squirrels[5] that have not as yet been discovered elsewhere, (one of them belonging to those equipped with a parachute[6],) as well as some local varieties of the palm squirrel (Sciurus penicillatus, _Leach_).[7] [Footnote 1: Cervus orizus, KELAART, _Prod. F. Zeyl.,_ p. 83.] [Footnote 2: Presbytes ursinus, _Blyth_, and P. Thersites, _Elliot_.] [Footnote 3: Sorex montanus, S. ferrugineus, and Feroculus macropus.] [Footnote 4: Herpestes fulvescens, KELAART, _Prod. Faun. Zeylan_.. App. p. 42.] [Footnote 5: Sciurus Tennentii, _Layard_.] [Footnote 6: Sciuropterus Layardi, _Kelaart_.] [Footnote 7: There is a rat found only in the Cinnamon Gardens at Colombo, Mus Ceylonus, _Kelaart_; and a mouse which Dr. Kelaart discovered at Trincomalie, M. fulvidiventris, _Blyth_, both peculiar to Ceylon. Dr. TEMPLETON has noticed a little shrew (Corsira purpurascens, _Mag. Nat. Hist_. 1855, p. 238) at Neuera-ellia, not as yet observed elsewhere.] But the Ceylon Mammalia, besides wanting a number of minor animals found in the Indian peninsula, cannot boast such a ruminant as the majestic Gaur[1], which inhabits the great forests from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya; and, providentially, the island is equally free of the formidable tiger and the ferocious wolf of Hindustan. The Hyena and Cheetah[2], common in Southern India, are unknown in Ceylon; and, though abundant in deer, the island possesses no example of the Antelope or the Gazelle. [Footnote 1: Bos cavifrons, _Hodgs_.; B. frontalis, _Lamb_.] [Footnote 2: Felis jubata, _Schreb_.] Amongst the Birds of Ceylon, the same abnormity is apparent. About thirty-eight species will be presently particularised[1], which, although some of them may hereafter be discovered to have a wider geographical range, are at present believed to be unknown in continental India. I might further extend this enumeration, by including the Cheela eagle of Ceylon, which, although I have placed it in my list as identical with the _Hematornis cheela_ of the Dekkan, is, I have since been assured, a different bird, and is most probably the _Falco bido_ of Horsfield, known to us by specimens obtained from Java and Sumatra. [Footnote 1: See Chapter on the Birds of Ceylon.] As to the Fishes of Ceylon, they are of course less distinct; and besides they have hitherto been very imperfectly compared. But the Insects afford a remarkable confirmation of the view I have ventured to propound; so much so that Mr. Walker, by whom the elaborate lists appended to this work have been prepared, asserts that some of the families have a less affinity to the entomology of India than to that of Australia.[1] [Footnote 1: See Chapter on the Insects of Ceylon.] But more conclusive than all, is the discovery to which I have alluded, in relation to the elephant of Ceylon. Down to a very recent period it was universally believed that only two species of the elephant are now in existence, the African and the Asiatic; distinguished by certain peculiarities in the shape of the cranium, the size of the ears, the ridges of the teeth, the number of vertebræ, and, according to Cuvier, in the number of nails on the hind feet. The elephant of Ceylon was believed to be identical with the elephant of India. But some few years back, TEMMINCK, in his survey of the Dutch possessions in the Indian Archipelago[1], announced the fact that the elephant which abounds in Sumatra (although unknown in the adjacent island of Java), and which had theretofore been regarded as the same species with the Indian one, has been recently found to possess peculiarities, in which it differs as much from the elephant of India, as the latter from its African congener. On this new species of elephant, to which the natives give the name of _gadjah_, TEMMINCK has conferred the scientific designation of the _Elephas Sumatranus_. [Footnote 1: _Coup d'Oeil Général sur les Possessions Néerlandaises dans l'Inde Archipélagique_.] The points which entitle it to this distinction he enumerated minutely in the work[1] before alluded to, but they have been summarized as follows by Prince Lucien Bonaparte. [Footnote 1: TEMMINCK, _Coup-d'oeil, &c_., t. i. c. iv. p. 328.; t. ii. c. iii. p. 91.] "This species is perfectly intermediate between the Indian and African, especially in the shape of the skull, and will certainly put an end to the distinction between _Elephas_ and _Loxodon_, with those who admit that anatomical genus; since although the crowns of the teeth of _E. Sumatranus_ are more like the Asiatic animal, still the less numerous undulated ribbons of enamel are nearly quite as wide as those forming the lozenges of the African. The number of pairs of false ribs (which alone vary, the true ones being always six) is fourteen, one less than in the _Africanus_, _one_ more than in the _Indicus_; and so it is with the dorsal vertebræ, which are twenty in the _Sumatranus_ (_twenty-one_ and _nineteen_, in the others), whilst the new species agrees with _Africanus_ in the number of sacral vertebræ (_four_), and with _Indicus_ in that of the caudal ones, which are _thirty-four_."[1] [Footnote 1: _Proceed. Zool. Soc. London_, 1849. p. 144, _note_. The original description of TEMMINCK is as follows: "Elephas Sumatranus, _Nob_. ressemble, par la forme générale du crâne à l'éléphant du continent de l'Asie; mais la partie libre des intermaxillaires est beaucoup plus courte et plus étroite; les cavités nasales sont beaucoup moins larges; l'espace entre les orbites des yeux est plus étroit; la partie postérieur du crâne au contraire est plus large que dans l'espèce du continent. "Les machelières se rapprochent, par la forme de leur couronne, plutòt de l'espèce Asíatique que do celle qui est propre à l'Afrique; c'est-à-dire que leur couronne offre la forme de rubans ondoyés et non pas en losange; mais ces rubans sont de la largeur de ceux qu'on voit à la couronne des dents de l'éléphant d'Afrique; ils sont conséquemment moins nombreux que dans celuí du continent de l'Asie. Les dimensions de ces rubans, dans la direction d'avant en arrière, comparées à celle prises dans la direction transversale et latérale, sont en raison de 3 ou 4 à 1; tandis que dans l'éléphant du continent elles sont comme 4 ou 6 à 1. La longueur totale de six de ces rubans, dans l'espèce nouvelle de Sumatra, ainsi que dans celle d'Afrique, est d'environ 12 centimètres, tandis que cette longueur n'est que de 8 à 10 centimètres dans l'espèce du continent de l'Asie. "Les autres formes ostéologiques sont à peu près les mêmes dans les trois espèces; mais il y a différence dans le nombre des os dont le squelette se compose, ainsi que le tableau comparatif ci-joint l'éprouve. "_L'elephas Africanus_ a 7 vertèbres du cou, 21 vert. dorsales, 3 lombaires, 4 sacrées, et 26 caudales; 21 paires de côtes, dont 6 vraies, et 15 fausses. _L'elephas Indicus_ a 7 vertèbres du cou, 19 dorsales, 3 lombaires, 5 sacrées, et 34 caudales, 19 paires de côtes, dont 6 vraies, et 3 fausses. _L'elephas Sumatranus_ a 7 vertèbres du cou, 20 dorsales, 3 lombaires, 4 sacrées, et 34 caudales; 20 paires du côtes, dont 6 vraies, et 14 fausses. "Ces caractères ont été constatés sur trois squelettes de l'espèce nouvelle, un mâle et une femelle adultes et un jeune mâle. Nous n'avons pas encore été à même de nous procurer la dépouille de cette espèce."] PROFESSOR SCHLEGEL of Leyden, in a paper lately submitted by him to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Holland, (the substance of which he has obligingly communicated to me, through Baron Bentinck the Netherlands Minister at this Court), has confirmed the identity of the Ceylon elephant with that found in the Lampongs of Sumatra. The osteological comparison of which TEMMINCK has given the results was, he says, conducted by himself with access to four skeletons of the latter. And the more recent opportunity of comparing a living Sumatran elephant with one from Bengal, has served to establish other though minor points of divergence. The Indian species is more robust and powerful: the proboscis longer and more slender; and the extremity, (a point, in which the elephant of Sumatra resembles that of Africa,) is more flattened and provided with coarser and longer hair than that of India. PROFESSOR SCHLEGEL, adverting to the large export of elephants from Ceylon to the Indian continent, which has been carried on from time immemorial, suggests the caution with which naturalists, in investigating this question, should first satisfy themselves whether the elephants they examine are really natives of the mainland, or whether they have been brought to it from the islands.[1] "The extraordinary fact," he observes in his letter to me, "of the identity thus established between the elephants of Ceylon and Sumatra; and the points in which they are found to differ from that of Bengal, leads to the question whether all the elephants of the Asiatic continent belong to one single species; or whether these vast regions may not produce in some quarter as yet unexplored the one hitherto found only in the two islands referred to? It is highly desirable that naturalists who have the means and opportunity, should exert themselves to discover, whether any traces are to be found of the Ceylon elephant in the Dekkan; or of that of Sumatra in Cochin China or Siam." [Footnote 1: A further inquiry suggests itself, how far the intermixture of the breed may have served to confound specific differences, in the case of elephants bred on the continent of India, from stock partially imported from Ceylon?] To me the establishment of a fact so conclusively confirmatory of the theory I had ventured to broach, is productive of great satisfaction. But it is not a little remarkable that the distinction should not long before have been discovered between the elephant of India and that of Ceylon. Nor can it be regarded otherwise than as a singular illustration of "geographical distribution" that two remote islands should be thus shown to possess in common a species unknown in any other quarter of the globe. As bearing on the ancient myth which represents both countries as forming parts of a submerged continent, the discovery is curious--and it is equally interesting in connection with the circumstance alluded to by Gibbon, that amongst the early geographers and even down to a comparatively modern date, Sumatra and Ceylon were confounded; and grave doubts were entertained as to which of the two was the "Taprobane" of antiquity. GEMMA FRISIUS, SEBASTIAN MUNSTER, JULIUS SCALIGER, ORTELIUS and MERCATOR contended for the former; SALMASIUS, BOCHART, CLUVERIUS, and VOSSIUS for Ceylon: and the controversy did not cease till it was terminated by DELISLE about the beginning of the last century. VIII. CETACEA.--Whales are so frequently seen that they have been captured within sight of Colombo, and more than once their carcases, after having been flinched by the whalers, have floated on shore near the lighthouse, tainting the atmosphere within the fort by their rapid decomposition. Of this family, one of the most remarkable animals on the coast is the dugong[1], a phytophagous cetacean, numbers of which are attracted to the inlets, from the bay of Calpentyn to Adam's Bridge, by the still water and the abundance of marine algæ in these parts of the gulf. One which was killed at Manaar and sent to me to Colombo[2] in 1847, measured upwards of seven feet in length; but specimens considerably larger have been taken at Calpentyn, and their flesh is represented as closely resembling veal. [Footnote 1: _Halicore dugung_, F. Cuv.] [Footnote 2: The skeleton is now in the Museum of the Natural History Society of Belfast.] [Illustration: THE DUGONG.] The rude approach to the human outline, observed in the shape of the head of this creature, and the attitude of the mother when suckling her young, clasping it to her breast with one flipper, while swimming with the other, holding the heads of both above water; and when disturbed, suddenly diving and displaying her fish-like tail,--these, together with her habitual demonstrations of strong maternal affection, probably gave rise to the fable of the "mermaid;" and thus that earliest invention of mythical physiology may be traced to the Arab seamen and the Greeks, who had watched the movements of the dugong in the waters of Manaar. Megasthenes records the existence of a creature in the ocean, near Taprobane, with the aspect of a woman[1]; and Ælian, adopting and enlarging on his information, peoples the seas of Ceylon with fishes having the heads of lions, panthers, and rams, and, stranger still, _cetaceans in the form of satyrs_. Statements such as these must have had their origin in the hairs, which are set round the mouth of the dugong, somewhat resembling a beard, which Ælian and Megasthenes both particularise, from their resemblance to the hair of a woman: "[Greek: kai gynaikôn opsin echousin aisper anti plokamôn akanthai prosêrtêntai"][2] [Footnote 1: MEGASTHENES, _Indica_, fragm. lix. 34,] [Footnote 2: ÆLIAN, _Nat. Hist._, lib. xvi. ch. xviii.] The Portuguese cherished the belief in the mermaid, and the annalist of the exploits of the Jesuits in India, gravely records that seven of these monsters, male and female, were captured at Manaar in 1560, and carried to Goa, where they were dissected by Demas Bosquez, physician to the Viceroy, and "their internal structure found to be in all respects conformable to the human."[1] [Footnote 1: _Hist, de la Compagnie de Jésus_, quoted in the _Asiat. Journ._ vol. xiv. p. 461; and in FORBES' _Orient. Memoirs_, vol. i. p. 421.] The Dutch were no less inclined to the marvellous, and they propagated the belief in the mermaid with earnestness and particularity. VALENTYN, one of their chaplains, in his account of the Natural History of Amboina, embodied in his great work on the Netherlands' Possessions in India, published so late as 1727[1], has devoted the first section of his chapter on the Fishes of that island to a minute description of the "Zee-Menschen, Zee-Wyven," and mermaids. As to the dugong he admits its resemblance to the mermaid, but repudiates the idea of its having given rise to the fable, by being mistaken for one. This error he imagines must have arisen at a time when observations on such matters were made with culpable laxity; but now more recent and minute attention has established the truth beyond cavil. [Footnote 1: FRAN. VALENTYN, _Beschryving van Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien_, &c. 5 vol. fol. Dordrecht and Amsterdam, MDCCXXVII. vol. iii. p. 330.] For instance, he states that in 1653, when a lieutenant in the Dutch service was leading a party of soldiers along the sea-shore in Amboina, he and all his company saw the mermen swimming at a short distance from the beach with long and flowing hair, of a colour between gray and green--and six weeks afterwards, the creatures were again seen by him and more than fifty witnesses, at the same place, by clear daylight.[1] [Footnote 1: VALENTYN, _Beschryving, &c._, vol. iii. p. 331.] "If any narrative in the world," adds VALENTYN, "deserves credit, it is this; since _not only one but two mermen_ together were seen by so many eye-witnesses. Should the stubborn world, however, hesitate to believe it, it matters nothing; as there are people who would even deny that such cities as Rome, Constantinople or Cairo, exist, merely because they themselves have not happened to see them." But what are such incredulous persons, he continues, to make of the circumstance recorded by Albert Herport in his account of India[1], that a sea-man was seen in the water near the Church of Taquan, on the morning of the 29th of April 1661, and a mermaid at the same spot the same afternoon?--or what do they say to the fact that in 1714, a mermaid was not only seen but captured near the island of Booro? "five feet Rhineland measure in height, which lived four days and seven hours, but refusing all food, died without leaving any intelligible account of herself." [Footnote 1: Probably the _Itinerarium Indicum_ of ALBRECHT HERPORT. Berne, 1669.] Valentyn, in support of his own faith in the mermaid, cites numerous other instances in which both "sea-men and women" were seen and taken at Amboina; especially one by an office-bearer in the Church of Holland[1], by whom it was surrendered to the Governor Vanderstel. [Footnote 1: A "krank-bezoeker" or visitant of the sick.] Of this well-authenticated specimen he gives an elaborate engraving amongst those of the authentic fishes of the island--together with a minute ichthyological description of each for the satisfaction of men of science. [Illustration: THE MERMAID (From VALENTYN)] The fame of this creature having reached Europe, the British Minister in Holland wrote to Valentyn on the 28th December 1716, whilst the Emperor, Peter the Great of Russia, was his guest at Amsterdam; to communicate the desire of the Czar, that the mermaid should be brought home from Amboina for his Imperial inspection. To complete his proofs of the existence of mermen and women, Valentyn points triumphantly to the historical fact, that in Holland in the year 1404, a mermaid was driven during a tempest, through a breach in the dyke of Edam, and was taken alive in the lake of Purmer. Thence she was carried to Harlem, where the Dutch women taught her to spin; and where, several years after, she died in the Roman Catholic faith;--"but this," says the pious Calvinistic chaplain, "in no way militates against the truth of her story."[1] [Footnote 1: VALENTYN, _Beschryving, &c_., p. 333.] Finally Valentyn winds up his proofs, by the accumulated testimony of Pliny [1], Theodore Gaza, George of Trebisond, and Alexander ab Alexandro, to show that mermaids had in all ages been known in Gaul, Naples, Epirus, and the Morea. From these and a multitude of more modern instances he comes to the conclusion, that as there are "sea-cows," "sea-horses," and "sea-dogs;" as well as "sea-trees" and "sea-flowers" which he himself had seen, what grounds in reason are there to doubt that there may also be "sea-maidens" and "sea-men!" [Footnote 1: _Nat. Hist_. l. ix. c. 5, where Pliny speaks of the Nereids.] _List of Ceylon Mammalia._ A list of the Mammalia of Ceylon is subjoined. In framing it, as well as the lists appended to the other chapters on the Fauna of the island, the principal object in view has been to exhibit the extent to which the Natural History of the island had been investigated, and collections made up to the period of my leaving the colony in 1850. It has been considered expedient to exclude a few individuals which have not had the advantage of a direct comparison with authentic specimens, either at Calcutta or in England. This will account for the omission of a number that have appeared in other catalogues, but of which many, though ascertained to exist, have not been submitted to this rigorous process of identification. The greater portion of the species of mammals and birds contained in these lists will be found, with suitable references to the most accurate descriptions, in the admirable catalogue of the collection at the India House, published under the care of the late Dr. Horsfield. This work cannot be too highly extolled, not alone for the scrupulous fidelity with which the description of each species is referred to its first discoverer, but also for the pains which have been taken to elaborate synonymes and to collate from local periodicals and other sources, (little accessible to ordinary inquirers,) such incidents and traits as are calculated to illustrate characteristics and habits. QUADRUMANA. Presbytes cephalopterus, _Zimm_. ursinus, _Blyth_. Priamus, _Elliot & Blyth_. Thersites, _Blyth_. Macacus pileatus, _Shaw & Desm_. Loris gracilis, _Geoff_. CHEIROPTERA. Pteropus Edwardsii, _Geoff_. Leschenaultii, _Dum_. Cynopterus marginatus, _Ham_. Megaderma spasma, _Linn._ lyra, _Geoff_. Rhinolophus _affinis_, _Horsf_. Hipposideros murinus, _Elliot_. speoris, _Elliot_. armiger, _Hodgs_. vulgaris, _Horsf_. Kerivoula picta, _Pall_. Taphozous longimanus, _Har_. Scotophilus Coromandelicus, _F. Cuv._ _adversus_, _Horsf_. Temminkii, _Horsf_. Tickelli, _Blyth_. Heathii. CARNIVORA. Sorex coerulescens, _Shaw_. ferrugineus, _Kelaart_. serpentarius, _Is. Geoff._ montanus, _Kelaart_. Feroculus macropus, _Kel_. Ursus labiatus, _Blainv_. Lutra nair, _F. Cuv_. Canis aureus. _Linn._ Viverra Indica, _Geoff_., _Hod_. Herpestes vitticollis, _Benn_. griseus, _Gm_. Smithii, _Gray_. fulvescens, _Kelaart_. Paradoxurus typus, _F. Cuv._ Ceylonicus, _Pall_. Felis pardus, _Linn._ chaus, _Guldens_. viverrinus, _Benn_. RODENTIA. Sciurus macrurus, _Forst_. Tennentii, _Layard_. penicillatus. _Leach_. trilineatus, _Waterh_. Sciuropterus Layardi, _Kel_. Pteromys petaurista, _Pall_. Mus bandicota, _Bechst_. Kok, _Gray_. Mus rufescens. _Gray_. nemoralis, _Blyth_. Indicus, _Geoff_. fulvidiventris, _Blyth_. Nesoki _Hardwickii_, _Gray_. Golunda Neuera, _Kelaart_. Ellioti, _Gray_. Gerbillus Indicus, _Hardw_. Lepus nigricollis, _F. Cuv._ Hystrix leucurus, _Sykes_. EDENTATA. Manis pentadactyla, _Linn._ PACHYDERMATA. Elephas Sumatranus, _Linn._ Sus Indicus, _Gray_. _Zeylonicus_, _Blyth_. RUMINANTIA. Moschus meminna, _Eral_. Stylocerus muntjac, _Horsf_. Axis maculata, _H. Smith_. Rusa Aristotelis, _Cuv_. CETACEA. Halicore dugung, _F. Cuv._ CHAP. II. THE ELEPHANT. * * * * * _Structure and Functions._ During my residence at Kandy, I had twice the opportunity of witnessing the operation on a grand scale, of capturing wild elephants, intended to be trained for the public service in the establishment of the Civil Engineer;--and in the course of my frequent journeys through the interior of the island, I succeeded in collecting so many facts relative to the habits of these interesting animals in a state of nature, as enable me not only to add to the information previously possessed, but to correct many fallacies popularly received regarding their instincts and disposition. These particulars I am anxious to place on record before proceeding to describe the scenes of which I was a spectator, during the progress of the elephant hunts in the district of the Seven Korles, at which I was present in 1846, and again in 1847. With the exception of the narrow but densely inhabited belt of cultivated land, that extends along the seaborde of the island from Chilaw on the western coast to Tangalle on the south-east, there is no part of Ceylon in which elephants may not be said to abound; even close to the environs of the most populous localities of the interior. They frequent both the open plains and the deep forests; and their footsteps are to be seen wherever food and shade, vegetation and water[1], allure them, alike on the summits of the loftiest mountains, and on the borders of the tanks and lowland streams. [Footnote 1: M. AD. PICTET has availed himself of the love of the elephant for water, to found on it a solution of the long-contested question as to the etymology of the word "elephant,"-a term which, whilst it has passed into almost every dialect of the West, is scarcely to be traced in any language of Asia. The Greek [Greek: elephas], to which we are immediately indebted for it, did not originally mean the animal, but, as early as the time of Homer, was applied only to its tusks, and signified _ivory_. BOCHART has sought for a Semitic origin, and seizing on the Arabic _fil_, and prefixing the article _al_, suggests _alfil_, akin to [Greek: eleph]; but rejecting this, BOCHART himself resorts to the Hebrew _eleph_, an "ox"--and this conjecture derives a certain degree of countenance from the fact that the Romans, when they obtained their first sight of the elephant in the army of Pyrrhus, in Lucania, called it the _Luca bos_. But the [Greek: antos] is still unaccounted for; and POTT has sought to remove the difficulty by introducing the Arabic _hindi_, Indian, s thus making _eleph-hindi_, "_bos Indicus_." The conversion of _hindi_ into [Greek: antos] is an obstacle, but here the example of "tamarind" comes to aid; _tamar hindi_, the "Indian date," which in mediæval Greek forms [Greek: tamarenti]. A theory of Benary, that helhephas might be compounded of the Arabic _al_, and _ibha_, a Sanskrit name for the elephant, is exposed to still greater etymological exception. PICTET'S solution is, that in the Sanskrit epics "the King of Elephants," who has the distinction of carrying the god Indra, is called _airarata_ or _airavana_, a modification of _airavanta_, "son of the ocean," which again comes from _iravat_, "abounding in water." "Nous aurions done ainsi, comme corrélatif du gree [Greek: elephanto], une ancienne forme, _âirâvanta_ ou _âilâvanta_, affaiblie plus tard en _âirâvata_ ou _âirâvana_.... On connaît la prédilection de l'éléphant pour le voisinage des fleuves, et son amour pour l'eau, dont l'abondance est nécessaire à son bien-être." This Sanskrit name, PICTET supposes, may have been carried to the West by the Phoenicians, who were the purveyors of ivory from India; and, from the Greek, the Latins derived _elephas_, which passed into the modern languages of Italy, Germany, and France. But it is curious that the Spaniards acquired from the Moors their Arabic term for ivory, _marfil_, and the Portuguese _marfim_; and that the Scandinavians, probably from their early expeditions to the Mediterranean, adopted _fill_ as their name for the elephant itself, and _fil-bein_ for ivory; in Danish, _fils-ben_. (See _Journ. Asiat._ 1843, t. xliii. p. 133.) The Spaniards of South America call the palm which produces the vegetable ivory (_Phytelephas macrocarpa_) _Palma de marfil_, and the nut itself, _marfil vegetal_. Since the above was written Gooneratné Modliar, the Singhalese Interpreter to the Supreme Court at Colombo, has supplied me with another conjecture, that the word elephant may possibly be traced to the Singhalese name of the animal, _alia_, which means literally, "the huge one." _Alia_, he adds, is not a derivation from Sanskrit or Pali, but belongs to a dialect more ancient than either.] From time immemorial the natives have been taught to capture and tame them and the export of elephants from Ceylon to India has been going on without interruption from the period of the first Punic War.[1] In later times all elephants were the property of the Kandyan crown; and their capture or slaughter without the royal permission was classed amongst the gravest offences in the criminal code. [Footnote 1: ÆLIAN, _de Nat. Anim._ lib. xvi. c. 18; COSMAS INDICOPL., p. 128.] In recent years there is reason to believe that their numbers have become considerably reduced. They have entirely disappeared from localities in which they were formerly numerous[1]; smaller herds have been taken in the periodical captures for the government service, and hunters returning from the chase report them to be growing scarce. In consequence of this diminution the peasantry in some parts of the island have even suspended the ancient practice of keeping watchers and fires by night to drive away the elephants from their growing crops.[2] The opening of roads and the clearing of the mountain forests of Kandy for the cultivation of coffee, have forced the animals to retire to the low country, where again they have been followed by large parties of European sportsmen; and the Singhalese themselves, being more freely provided with arms than in former times, have assisted in swelling the annual slaughter.[3] [Footnote 1: LE BRUN, who visited Ceylon A.D. 1705, says that in the district round Colombo, where elephants are now never seen, they were then so abundant, that 160 had been taken in a single corral. (_Voyage_, &c., tom. ii. ch. lxiii. p. 331.)] [Footnote 2: In some parts of Bengal, where elephants were formerly troublesome (especially near the wilds of Ramgur), the natives got rid of them by mixing a preparation of the poisonous Nepal root called _dakra_ in balls of grain, and other materials, of which the animal is fond. In Cuttack, above fifty years ago, mineral poison was laid for them in the same way, and the carcases of eighty were found which had been killed by it. (_Asiat. Res._, xv. 183.)] [Footnote 3: The number of elephants has been similarly reduced throughout the south of India.] Had the motive that incites to the destruction of the elephant in Africa and India prevailed in Ceylon, that is, had the elephants there been provided with tusks, they would long since have been annihilated for the sake of their ivory.[1] But it is a curious fact that, whilst in Africa and India both sexes have tusks[2], with some slight disproportion in the size of those of the females: not one elephant in a hundred is found with tusks in Ceylon, and the few that possess them are exclusively males. Nearly all, however, have those stunted processes called _tushes_, about ten or twelve inches in length and one or two in diameter. These I have observed them to use in loosening earth, stripping off bark, and snapping asunder small branches and climbing plants; and hence tushes are seldom seen without a groove worn into them near their extremities.[3] [Footnote 1: The annual importation of ivory into Great Britain alone, for the last few years, has been about _one million_ pounds; which, taking the average weight of a tusk at sixty pounds, would require the slaughter of 8,333 male elephants. But of this quantity the importation from Ceylon has generally averaged only five or six hundred weight; which, making allowance for the lightness of the tusks, would not involve the destruction of more than seven or eight in each year. At the same time, this does not fairly represent the annual number of tuskers shot in Ceylon, not only because a portion of the ivory finds its way to China and to other places, but because the chiefs and Buddhist priests have a passion for collecting tusks, and the finest and largest are to be found ornamenting their temples and private dwellings. The Chinese profess that for their exquisite carvings the ivory of Ceylon excels all other, both in density of texture and in delicacy of tint; but in the European market, the ivory of Africa, from its more distinct graining and other causes, obtains a higher price.] [Footnote 2: A writer in the _India Sporting Review_ for October 1857 says, "In Malabar a tuskless male elephant is rare; I have seen but two."--p. 157.] [Footnote 3: The old fallacy is still renewed, that the elephant sheds his tusks. ÆLIAN says he drops them once in ten years (lib. xiv. c. 5): and PLINY repeats the story, adding that, when dropped, the elephants hide them under ground (lib. viii.) whence SHAW says, in his _Zoology_, "they are frequently found in the woods," and exported from Africa (vol. i. p. 213): and Sir W. JARDINE in the _Naturalist's Library_ (vol. ix. p. 110), says, "the tusks are shed about the twelfth or thirteenth year." This is erroneous: after losing the first pair, or, as they are called, the "milk tusks," which drop in consequence of the absorption of their roots, when the animal is extremely young, the second pair acquire their full size, and become the "permanent tusks," which are never shed.] Amongst other surmises more ingenious than sound, the general absence of tusks in the elephant of Ceylon has been associated with the profusion of rivers and streams in the island; whilst it has been thrown out as a possibility that in Africa, where water is comparatively scarce, the animal is equipped with these implements in order to assist it in digging wells in the sand and in raising the juicy roots of the mimosas and succulent plants for the sake of their moisture. In support of this hypothesis, it has been observed, that whilst the tusks of the Ceylon species, which are never required for such uses, are slender, graceful and curved, seldom exceeding fifty or sixty pounds' weight, those of the African elephant are straight and thick, weighing occasionally one hundred and fifty, and even three hundred pounds.[1] [Footnote 1: Notwithstanding the inferiority in weight of the Ceylon tusks, as compared with those of the elephant of India, it would, I think, be precipitate to draw the inference that the size of the former was uniformly and naturally less than that of the latter. The truth, I believe to be, that if permitted to grow to maturity, the tusks of the one would, in all probability, equal those of the other; but, so eager is the search for ivory in Ceylon, that a tusker, when once observed in a herd, is followed up with such vigilant impatience, that he is almost invariably shot before attaining his full growth. General DE LIMA, when returning from the governorship of the Portuguese settlements at Mozambique, told me, in 1848, that he had been requested to procure two tusks of the largest size, and straightest possible shape, which were to be formed into a cross to surmount the high altar of the cathedral at Goa: he succeeded in his commission, and sent two, one of which was 180 pounds, and the other 170 pounds' weight, with the slightest possible curve. In a periodical, entitled _The Friend_, published in Ceylon, it is stated in the volume for 1837 that the officers belonging to the ships Quorrah and Alburhak, engaged in the Niger Expedition, were shown by a native king two tusks, each two feet and a half in circumference at the base, eight feet long, and weighing upwards of 200 pounds. (Vol. i. p. 225.) BRODERIP, in his _Zoological Recreations_, p. 255, says a tusk of 350 pounds' weight was sold at Amsterdam, but he does not quote his authority.] But it is manifestly inconsistent with the idea that tusks were given to the elephant to assist him in digging for his food, to find that the females are less bountifully supplied with them than the males, whilst the necessity for their use extends equally to both sexes. The same argument serves to demonstrate the fallacy of the conjecture, that the tusks of the elephant were given to him as weapons of offence, for if such were the case the vast majority in Ceylon, males as well as females, would be left helpless in presence of an assailant. But although in their conflicts with one another, those which are provided with tusks may occasionally push with them clumsily at their opponents; it is a misapprehension to imagine that tusks are designed specially to serve "in warding off the attacks of the wily tiger and the furious rhinoceros, often securing the victory by one blow which transfixes the assailant to the earth."[1] [Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c._, published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, vol. i. p. 68: "The Elephant," ch. iii. It will be seen that I have quoted repeatedly from this volume, because it is the most compendious and careful compilation with which I am acquainted of the information previously existing regarding the elephant. The author incorporates no speculations of his own, but has most diligently and agreeably arranged all the facts collected by his predecessors. The story of antipathy between the elephant and rhinoceros is probably borrowed from ÆLIAN _de Nat._, lib. xvii. c. 44.] So harmless and peaceful is the life of the elephant, that nature appears to have left it unprovided with any weapon of offence: its trunk is too delicate an organ to be rudely employed in a conflict with other animals, and although on an emergency it may push or gore with its tusks (to which the French have hastily given the term "_défenses_"), their almost vertical position, added to the difficulty of raising its head above the level of the shoulder, is inconsistent with the idea of their being designed for attack, since it is impossible for the elephant to strike an effectual blow, or to "wield" its tusks as the deer and the buffalo can direct their horns. Nor is it easy to conceive under what circumstances an elephant could have a hostile encounter with either a rhinoceros or a tiger, with whose pursuits in a state of nature its own can in no way conflict. Towards man elephants evince shyness, arising from their love of solitude and dislike of intrusion; any alarm they exhibit at his appearance may be reasonably traced to the slaughter which has reduced their numbers; and as some evidence of this, it has always been observed that an elephant exhibits greater impatience of the presence of a white man than of a native. Were its instincts to carry it further, or were it influenced by any feeling of animosity or cruelty, it must be apparent that, as against the prodigious numbers that inhabit the forests of Ceylon, man would wage an unequal contest, and that of the two one or other must long since have been reduced to a helpless minority. Official testimony is not wanting in confirmation of this view;--in the returns of 108 coroners' inquests in Ceylon, during five years, from 1849 to 1855 inclusive, held in cases of death occasioned by wild animals; 16 are recorded as having been caused by elephants, 15 by buffaloes, 6 by crocodiles, 2 by boars, 1 by a bear, and 68 by serpents (the great majority of the last class of sufferers being women and children, who had been bitten during the night). Little more than _three_ fatal accidents occurring annually on the average of five years, is certainly a very small proportion in a population estimated at a million and a half, in an island abounding with elephants, with which, independently of casual encounters, voluntary conflicts are daily stimulated by the love of sport or the hope of gain. Were the elephants instinctively vicious or even highly irritable in their temperament, the destruction of human life under the circumstances must have been infinitely greater. It must also be taken into account, that some of the accidents recorded may have occurred in the rutting season, when elephants are subject to fits of temporary fury, known in India by the term _must_, in Ceylon _mudda_,--a paroxysm which speedily passes away, but during the fury of which it is dangerous even for the mahout to approach those ordinarily the gentlest and most familiar. But, then, the elephant is said to "entertain an extraordinary dislike to all quadrupeds; that dogs running near him produce annoyance; that he is alarmed if a hare start from her form;" and from Pliny to Buffon every naturalist has recorded its supposed aversion to swine.[1] These alleged antipathies are in a great degree, if not entirely, imaginary. The habits of the elephant are essentially harmless, its wants lead to no rivalry with other animals, and the food to which it is most attached flourishes in such abundance that it is obtained without an effort. In the quiet solitudes of Ceylon, elephants may constantly be seen browsing peacefully in the immediate vicinity of other animals, and in close contact with them. I have seen groups of deer and wild buffaloes reclining in the sandy bed of a river in the dry season, and elephants plucking the branches close beside them. They show no impatience in the company of the elk, the bear, and the wild hog; and on the other hand, I have never discovered an instance in which these animals have evinced any apprehension of elephants. The elephant's natural timidity, however, is such that it becomes alarmed on the appearance in the jungle of any animal with which it is not familiar. It is said to be afraid of the horse; but from my own experience, I should say it is the horse that is alarmed at the aspect of the elephant. In the same way, from some unaccountable impulse, the horse has an antipathy to the camel, and evinces extreme impatience, both of the sight and the smell of that animal.[2] When enraged, an elephant will not hesitate to charge a rider on horseback; but it is against the man, not against the horse, that his fury is directed; and no instance has been ever known of his wantonly assailing a horse. A horse, belonging to the late Major Rogers[3], had run away from his groom, and was found some considerable time afterwards grazing quietly with a herd of elephants. In DE BRY'S splendid collection of travels, however, there is included "_The voyage of a Certain Englishman to Cambay_;" in which the author asserts that at Agra, in the year 1607, he was present at a spectacle given by the Viceregent of the great Mogul, in the course of which he saw an elephant destroy two horses, by seizing them in its trunk, and crushing them under foot.[4] But the display was avowedly an artificial one, and the creature must have been cruelly tutored for the occasion. [Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c._, "The Elephant," ch. iii.] [Footnote 2: This peculiarity was noticed by the ancients, and is recorded by Herodotus: [Greek: "kamêlon hippos phobeetai, kai ouk anechetai oute tên ideên autês oreôn oute tên odmên osphrainomenos"] (Herod. ch. 80). Camels have long been bred by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, at his establishment near Pisa, and even there the same instinctive dislike to them is manifested by the horse, which it is necessary to train and accustom to their presence in order to avoid accidents. Mr. BRODERIP mentions, that, "when the precaution of such training has not been adopted, the sudden and dangerous terror with which a horse is seized in coming unexpectedly upon one of them is excessive."--_Note-book of a Naturalist_, ch. iv. p. 113.] [Footnote 3: Major ROGERS was many years the chief civil officer of Government in the district of Oovah, where he was killed by lightning, 1845.] [Footnote 4: "Quidam etiam cum equis silvestribus pugnant. Sæpe unus elephas cum sex equis committitur; atque ipse adeo interfui cum unus elephas duos equos cum primo impetu protinus prosternerit;--injecta enim jugulis ipsorum longa proboscide, ad se protractos, dentibus porro comminuit ac protrivit." _Angli Cujusdam in Cambayam Navigatio_. DE BRY, _Coll., &c._, vol. iii. ch. xvi. p. 31.] Pigs are constantly to be seen feeding about the stables of the tame elephants, which manifest no repugnance to them. As to the smaller animals, the elephant undoubtedly evinces uneasiness at the presence of a dog, but this is referable to the same cause as its impatience of a horse, namely, that neither is habitually seen by it in the forest; but it would be idle to suppose that this feeling could amount to hostility against a creature incapable of inflicting on it the slightest injury.[1] The truth I apprehend to be that, when they meet, the impudence and impertinences of the dog are offensive to the gravity of the elephant, and incompatible with his love of solitude and ease. Or may it be assumed as an evidence of the sagacity of the elephant, that the only two animals to which it manifests an antipathy, are the two which it has seen only in the company of its enemy, man? One instance has certainly been attested to me by an eye-witness, in which the trunk of an elephant was seized in the teeth of a Scotch terrier, and such was the alarm of the huge creature that it came at once to its knees. The dog repeated the attack, and on every renewal of it the elephant retreated in terror, holding its trunk above its head, and kicking at the terrier with its fore feet. It would have turned to flight, but for the interference of its keeper. [Footnote 1: To account for the impatience manifested by the elephant at the presence of a dog, it has been suggested that he is alarmed lest the latter should attack _his feet_, a portion of his body of which the elephant is peculiarly careful. A tame elephant has been observed to regard with indifference a spear directed towards his head, but to shrink timidly from the same weapon when pointed at his foot.] Major Skinner, formerly commissioner of roads in Ceylon, whose official duties in constructing highways involved the necessity of his being in the jungle for months together, always found that, by night or by day, the barking of a dog which accompanied him, was sufficient to put a herd to flight. On the whole, therefore, I am of opinion that the elephant lives on terms of amity with every quadruped in the forest, that it neither regards them as its foes, nor provokes their hostility by its acts; and that, with the exception of man, _its greatest enemy is a fly_! The current statements as to the supposed animosity of the elephant to minor animals originated with Ælian and Pliny, who had probably an opportunity of seeing, what may at any time be observed, that when a captive elephant is picketed beside a post, the domestic animals, goats, sheep, and cattle, will annoy and irritate him by their audacity in making free with his provender; but this is an evidence in itself of the little instinctive dread which such comparatively puny creatures entertain of one so powerful and yet so gentle. Amongst elephants themselves, jealousy and other causes of irritation frequently occasion contentions between individuals of the same herd; but on such occasions it is their habit to strike with their trunks, and to bear down their opponents with their heads. It is doubtless correct that an elephant, when prostrated by the force and fury of an antagonist of its own species, is often wounded by the downward pressure of the tusks, which in any other position it would be almost impossible to use offensively.[1] [Footnote 1: A writer in the _India Sporting Review_ for October 1857 says a male elephant was killed by two others close to his camp: "the head was completely smashed in; there was a large hole in the side, and the abdomen was ripped open. The latter wound was given probably after it had fallen."--P. 175.] Mr. Mercer, who in 1846 was the principal civil officer of Government at Badulla, sent me a jagged fragment of an elephant's tusk, about five inches in diameter, and weighing between twenty and thirty pounds, which had been brought to him by some natives, who, being attracted by a noise in the jungle, witnessed a combat between a tusker and one without tusks, and saw the latter with his trunk seize one of the tusks of his antagonist and wrench from it the portion in question, which measured two feet in length. Here the trunk was shown to be the more powerful offensive weapon of the two; but I apprehend that the chief reliance of the elephant for defence is on its ponderous weight, the pressure of its foot being sufficient to crush any minor assailant after being prostrated by means of its trunk. Besides, in using its feet for this purpose, it derives a wonderful facility from the peculiar formation of the knee-joint in the hind leg, which, enabling it to swing the hind feet forward close to the ground, assists it to toss the body alternately from foot to foot, till deprived of life.[1] [Footnote 1: In the Third Book of Maccabees, which is not printed in our Apocrypha, but appears in the series in the Greek Septuagint, the author, in describing the persecution of the Jews by Ptolemy Philopater, B.C. 210, states that the king swore vehemently that he would send them into the other world, "foully trampled to death by the knees and feet of elephants" ([Greek: pempsein eis hadên en gonasi kai posi thêrion hêkismenous.] 3 Mac. v. 42). ÆLIAN makes the remark, that elephants on such occasions use their _knees_ as well as their feet to crush their victims.--_Hist Anim._ viii. 10.] A sportsman who had partially undergone this operation, having been seized by a wounded elephant but rescued from its fury, described to me his sufferings as he was thus flung back and forward between the hind and fore feet of the animal, which ineffectually attempted to trample him at each concussion, and abandoned him without inflicting serious injury. KNOX, in describing the execution of criminals by the state elephants of the former kings of Kandy, says, "they will run their teeth (_tusks_) through the body, and then tear it in pieces and throw it limb from limb;" but a Kandyan chief, who was witness to such scenes, has assured me that the elephant never once applied its tusks, but, placing its foot on the prostrate victim, plucked off his limbs in succession by a sudden movement of the trunk. If the tusks were designed to be employed offensively, some alertness would naturally be exhibited in using them; but in numerous instances where sportsmen have fallen into the power of a wounded elephant, they have escaped through the failure of the enraged animal to strike them with its tusks, even when stretched upon the ground.[1] [Footnote 1: The _Hastisilpe_, a Singhalese work which treats of the "Science of Elephants," enumerates amongst those which it is not desirable to possess, "the elephant which will fight with a stone or a stick in his trunk."] Placed as the elephant is in Ceylon, in the midst of the most luxuriant profusion of its favourite food, in close proximity at all times to abundant supplies of water, and with no enemies against whom to protect itself, it is difficult to conjecture any probable utility which it could derive from such appendages. Their absence is unaccompanied by any inconvenience to the individuals in whom they are wanting; and as regards the few who possess them, the only operations in which I am aware of their tusks being employed in relation to the oeconomy of the animal, is to assist in ripping open the stem of the jaggery palms and young palmyras to extract the farinaceous core; and in splitting the juicy shaft of the plantain. Whilst the tuskless elephant crushes the latter under foot, thereby soiling it and wasting its moisture; the other, by opening it with the point of his tusk, performs the operation with delicacy and apparent ease. These, however, are trivial and almost accidental advantages: on the other hand, owing to irregularities in their growth, the tusks are sometimes an impediment in feeding[1]; and in more than one instance in the Government studs, tusks which had so grown as to approach and cross one another at the extremities, have had to be removed by the saw; the contraction of space between them so impeding the free action of the trunk as to prevent the animal from conveying branches to its mouth.[2] [Footnote 1: Among other eccentric forms, an elephant was seen in 1844, in the district of Bintenne, near Friar's-Hood Mountain, one of whose tusks was so bent that it took what sailors term a "round turn," and resumed its curved direction as before. In the Museum of the College of Surgeons, London, there is a specimen, No. 2757, of a _spira_ tusk.] [Footnote 2: Since the foregoing remarks were written relative to the undefined use of tusks to the elephant, I have seen a speculation on the same subject in Dr. HOLLAND'S "_Constitution of the Animal Creation, as expressed in structural Appendages_;" but the conjecture of the author leaves the problem scarcely less obscure than before. Struck with the mere _supplemental_ presence of the tusks, the absence of all apparent use serving to distinguish them from the essential organs of the creature, Dr. HOLLAND concludes that their production is a process incident, but not ancillary, to other important ends, especially connected with the vital functions of the trunk and the marvellous motive powers inherent to it; his conjecture is, that they are "a species of safety valve of the animal oeconomy,"--and that "they owe their development to the predominance of the senses of touch and smell, conjointly with the muscular motions of which the exercise of these is accompanied." "Had there been no proboscis," he thinks, "there would have been no supplementary appendages,--the former creates the latter."--Pp. 246, 271.] It is true that in captivity, and after a due course of training, the elephant discovers a new use for its tusks when employed in moving stones and piling timber; so much so that a powerful one will raise and carry on them a log of half a ton weight or more. One evening, whilst riding in the vicinity of Kandy, towards the scene of the massacre of Major Davie's party in 1803, my horse evinced some excitement at a noise which approached us in the thick jungle, and which consisted of a repetition of the ejaculation _urmph! urmph!_ in a hoarse and dissatisfied tone. A turn in the forest explained the mystery, by bringing me face to face with a tame elephant, unaccompanied by any attendant. He was labouring painfully to carry a heavy beam of timber, which he balanced across his tusks, but the pathway being narrow, he was forced to bend his head to one side to permit it to pass endways; and the exertion and this inconvenience combined led him to utter the dissatisfied sounds which disturbed the composure of my horse. On seeing us halt, the elephant raised his head, reconnoitred us for a moment, then flung down the timber, and voluntarily forced himself backwards among the brushwood so as to leave a passage, of which he expected us to avail ourselves. My horse hesitated: the elephant observed it, and impatiently thrust himself deeper into the jungle, repeating his cry of _urmph!_ but in a voice evidently meant to encourage us to advance. Still the horse trembled; and anxious to observe the instinct of the two sagacious animals, I forbore any interference: again the elephant of his own accord wedged himself further in amongst the trees, and manifested some impatience that we did not pass him. At length the horse moved forward; and when we were fairly past, I saw the wise creature stoop and take up its heavy burthen, trim and balance it on its tusks, and resume its route as before, hoarsely snorting its discontented remonstrance. Between the African elephant and that of Ceylon, with the exception of the striking peculiarity of the infrequency of tusks in the latter, the distinctions are less apparent to a casual observer than to a scientific naturalist. In the Ceylon species the forehead is higher and more hollow, the ears are smaller, and, in a section of the teeth, the grinding ridges, instead of being lozenge-shaped, are transverse bars of uniform breadth. The Indian elephant is stated by Cuvier to have four nails on the hind foot, the African variety having only three: but amongst the perfections of a high-bred elephant of Ceylon, is always enumerated the possession of _twenty_ nails, whilst those of a secondary class have but eighteen in all.[1] [Footnote 1: See Chapter on Mammalia, p. 60.] So conversant are the natives with the structure and "points" of the elephant, that they divide them readily into castes, and describe with particularity their distinctive excellences and defects. In the _Hastisilpe_, a Singhalese work which treats of their management, the marks of inferior breeding are said to be "eyes restless like those of a crow, the hair of the head of mixed shades; the face wrinkled; the tongue curved and black; the nails short and green; the ears small; the neck thin, the skin freckled; the tail without a tuft, and the fore-quarter lean and low:" whilst the perfection of form and beauty is supposed to consist in the "softness of the skin, the red colour of the mouth and tongue, the forehead expanded and hollow, the ears broad and rectangular, the trunk broad at the root and blotched with pink in front; the eyes bright and kindly, the cheeks large, the neck full, the back level, the chest square, the fore legs short and convex in front, the hind quarter plump, and five nails on each foot, all smooth, polished, and round.[1] An elephant with these perfections," says the author of the _Hastisilpe_, "will impart glory and magnificence to the king; but he cannot be discovered amongst thousands, yea, there shall never be found an elephant clothed at once with _all_ the excellences herein described." The "points" of an elephant are to be studied with the greatest advantage in those attached to the temples, which are always of the highest caste, and exhibit the most perfect breeding. [Footnote 1: A native of rank informed me, that "the tail of a high-caste elephant will sometimes touch the ground, but such are very rare."] The colour of the animal's skin in a state of nature is generally of a lighter brown than that of those in captivity; a distinction which arises, in all probability, not so much from the wild animal's propensity to cover itself with mud and dust, as from the superior care which is taken in repeatedly bathing the tame ones, and in rubbing their skins with a soft stone, a lump of burnt clay, or the coarse husk of a coco-nut. This kind of attention, together with the occasional application of oil, gives rise to the deeper black which the hides of the latter present. Amongst the native Singhalese, however, a singular preference is evinced for elephants that exhibit those flesh-coloured blotches which occasionally mottle the skin of an elephant, chiefly about the head and extremities. The front of the trunk, the tips of the ears, the forehead, and occasionally the legs, are thus diversified with stains of a yellowish tint, inclining to pink. These are not natural; nor are they hereditary, for they are seldom exhibited by the younger individuals in a herd, but appear to be the result of some eruptive affection, the irritation of which has induced the animal in its uneasiness to rub itself against the rough bark of trees, and thus to destroy the outer cuticle.[1] [Footnote 1: This is confirmed by the fact that the scar of the ancle wound, occasioned by the rope on the legs of those which have been captured by noosing, presents precisely the same tint in the healed parts.] To a European these spots appear blemishes, and the taste that leads the natives to admire them is probably akin to the feeling that has at all times rendered a _white elephant_ an object of wonder to Asiatics. The rarity of the latter is accounted for by regarding this peculiar appearance as the result of albinism; and notwithstanding the exaggeration of Oriental historians, who compare the fairness of such creatures to the whiteness of snow, even in its utmost perfection, I apprehend that the tint of a white elephant is little else than a flesh-colour, rendered somewhat more conspicuous by the blanching of the skin, and the lightness of the colourless hairs by which it is sparsely covered. A white elephant is mentioned in the _Mahawanso_ as forming part of the retinue attached to the "Temple of the Tooth" at Anarajapoora, in the fifth century after Christ[1]; but it commanded no religious veneration, and like those in the stud of the kings of Siam, it was tended merely as an emblem of royalty[2]; the sovereign of Ceylon being addressed as the "Lord of Elephants."[3] In 1633 a white elephant was exhibited in Holland[4]; but as this was some years before the Dutch had established themselves firmly in Ceylon, it was probably brought from some other of their eastern possessions. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 254, A.D. 433.] [Footnote 2: PALLEGOIX, _Siam, &c._, vol. i. p. 152.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xviii. p. 111. The Hindu sovereigns of Orissa, in the middle ages, bore the style of _Gaja-pati_, "powerful in elephants."--_Asiat. Res_. xv. 253.] [Footnote 4: ARMANDI, _Hist. Milit. des Elephants_, lib. ii. c. x. p. 380. HORACE mentions a white elephant as having been exhibited at Rome: "Sive elephas albus vulgi converteret ora."--HOR. _Ep_. II. 196.] CHAP. III. THE ELEPHANT. * * * * * _Habits when Wild_. Although found generally in warm and sunny climates, it is a mistake to suppose that the elephant is partial either to heat or to light. In Ceylon, the mountain tops, and not the sultry valleys, are its favourite resort. In Oovah, where the elevated plains are often crisp with the morning frost, and on Pedura-talla-galla, at the height of upwards of eight thousand feet, they are found in herds, whilst the hunter may search for them without success in the hot jungles of the low country. No altitude, in fact, seems too lofty or too chill for the elephant, provided it affords the luxury of water in abundance; and, contrary to the general opinion that the elephant delights in sunshine, it seems at all times impatient of glare, and spends the day in the thickest depth of the forests, devoting the night to excursions, and to the luxury of the bath, in which it also indulges occasionally by day. This partiality for shade is doubtless ascribable to the animal's love of coolness and solitude; but it is not altogether unconnected with the position of the eye, and the circumscribed use which its peculiar mode of life permits it to make of the faculty of sight. All the elephant hunters and natives to whom I have spoken on the subject, concur in opinion that its range of vision is circumscribed, and that it relies more on its ear and sense of smell than on its sight, which is liable to be obstructed by dense foliage; besides which, from the formation of its short neck, the elephant is incapable of directing the range of the eye much above the level of the head.[1] [Footnote 1: After writing the above, I was permitted by the late Dr. HARRISON, of Dublin, to see some accurate drawings of the brain of an elephant, which he had the opportunity of dissecting in 1847; and on looking to that of the base, I have found a remarkable verification of the information which I collected in Ceylon. The small figure A is the ganglion of the fifth nerve, showing the small motor and large sensitive portion. [Illustration] The _olfactory lobes_, from which the olfactory nerves proceed, are large, whilst the _optic and muscular nerves of the orbit are singularly small_ for so vast an animal; and one is immediately struck by the prodigious size of the fifth nerve, which supplies the proboscis with its exquisite sensibility, as well as by the great size of the motor portion of the seventh, which supplies the same organ with its power of movement and action.] The elephant's small range of vision is sufficient to account for its excessive caution, its alarm at unusual noises, and the timidity and panic exhibited at trivial objects and incidents which, imperfectly discerned, excite suspicions for its safety.[1] In 1841 an officer[2] was chased by an elephant that he had slightly wounded. Seizing him near the dry bed of a river, the animal had its forefoot already raised to crush him; but its forehead being caught at the instant by the tendrils of a climbing plant which had suspended itself from the branches above, it suddenly turned and fled; leaving him badly hurt, but with no limb broken. I have heard similar instances, equally well attested, of this peculiarity in the elephant. [Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c._, "The Elephant," p. 27.] [Footnote 2: Major ROGERS. An account of this singular adventure will be found in the _Ceylon Miscellany_ for 1842, vol. i. p. 221.] On the other hand, the power of smell is so remarkable as almost to compensate for the deficiency of sight. A herd is not only apprised of the approach of danger by this means, but when scattered in the forest, and dispersed out of range of sight, they are enabled by it to reassemble with rapidity and adopt precautions for their common safety. The same necessity is met by a delicate sense of hearing, and the use of a variety of noises or calls, by means of which elephants succeed in communicating with each other upon all emergencies. "The sounds which they utter have been described by the African hunters as of three kinds: the first, which is very shrill, produced by blowing through the trunk, is indicative of pleasure; the second, produced by the mouth, is expressive of want; and the third, proceeding from the throat, is a terrific roar of anger or revenge."[1] These words convey but an imperfect idea of the variety of noises made by the elephant in Ceylon; and the shrill cry produced by blowing through his trunk, so far from being regarded as an indication of "pleasure," is the well-known cry of rage with which he rushes to encounter an assailant. ARISTOTLE describes it as resembling the hoarse sound of a "trumpet."[2] The French still designate the proboscis of an elephant by the same expression "trompe," (which we have unmeaningly corrupted into _trunk_,) and hence the scream of the elephant is known as "trumpeting" by the hunters in Ceylon. Their cry when in pain, or when subjected to compulsion, is a grunt or a deep groan from the throat, with the proboscis curled upwards and the lips wide apart. [Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c._, "The Elephant," ch. iii. p. 68.] [Footnote 2: ARISTOTLE, _De Anim_., lib. iv. c. 9. "[Greek: homoion salpingi]." See also PLINY, lib. x. ch. cxiii. A manuscript in the British Museum, containing the romance of "_Alexander_" which is probably of the fifteenth century, is interspersed with drawings illustrative of the strange animals of the East. Amongst them are two elephants, whose trunks are literally in form of _trumpets with expanded mouths_. See WRIGHT'S _Archæological Album_, p. 176.] Should the attention of an individual in the herd be attracted by any unusual appearance in the forest, the intelligence is rapidly communicated by a low suppressed sound made by the lips, somewhat resembling the twittering of a bird, and described by the hunters by the word "_prut_." A very remarkable noise has been described to me by more than one individual, who has come unexpectedly upon a herd during the night, when the alarm of the elephants was apparently too great to be satisfied with the stealthy note of warning just described. On these occasions the sound produced resembled the hollow booming of an empty tun when struck with a wooden mallet or a muffled sledge. Major MACREADY, Military Secretary in Ceylon in 1836, who heard it by night amongst the wild elephants in the great forest of Bintenne, describes it as "a sort of banging noise like a cooper hammering a cask;" and Major SKINNER is of opinion that it must be produced by the elephant striking his sides rapidly and forcibly with his trunk. Mr. CRIPPS informs me that he has more than once seen an elephant, when surprised or alarmed, produce this sound by striking the ground forcibly with the flat side of the trunk; and this movement was instantly succeeded by raising it again, and pointing it in the direction whence the alarm proceeded, as if to ascertain by the sense of smell the nature of the threatened danger. As this strange sound is generally mingled with the bellowing and ordinary trumpeting of the herd, it is in all probability a device resorted to, not alone for warning their companions of some approaching peril, but also for the additional purpose of terrifying unseen intruders.[1] [Footnote 1: PALLEGOIX, in his _Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam_, adverts to a sound produced by the elephant when weary: "quand il est fatigué, _il frappe la terre avec sa_ trompe, et en tire un son semblable à celui du cor."--Tom. i. p. 151.] Elephants are subject to deafness; and the Singhalese regard as the most formidable of all wild animals, a "rogue"[1] afflicted with this infirmity. [Footnote 1: For an explanation of the term "rogue" as applied to an elephant, see p. 115.] Extravagant estimates are recorded of the height of the elephant. In an age when popular fallacies in relation to him were as yet uncorrected in Europe by the actual inspection of the living animal, he was supposed to grow to the height of twelve or fifteen feet. Even within the last century in popular works on natural history, the elephant, when full grown, was said to measure from seventeen to twenty feet from the ground to the shoulder.[1] At a still later period, so imperfectly had the facts been collated, that the elephant of Ceylon was believed "to excel that of Africa in size and strength."[2] But so far from equalling the size of the African species, that of Ceylon seldom exceeds the height of nine feet; even in the Hambangtotte country, where the hunters agree that the largest specimens are to be found, the tallest of ordinary herds do not average more than eight feet. WOLF, in his account of the Ceylon elephant[3], says he saw one taken near Jaffna, which measured twelve feet and one inch high. But the truth is, that the general bulk of the elephant so far exceeds that of the animals which we are accustomed to see daily, that the imagination magnifies its unusual dimensions; and I have seldom or ever met with an inexperienced spectator who did not unconsciously over-estimate the size of an elephant shown to him, whether in captivity or in a state of nature. Major DENHAM would have guessed some which he saw in Africa to be sixteen feet in height, but the largest when killed was found to measure nine feet six, from the foot to the hip-bone.[4] [Footnote 1: _Natural History of Animals_. By Sir JOHN HILL, M.D. London, 1748-52, p. 565. A probable source of these false estimates is mentioned by a writer in the _Indian Sporting Review_ for Oct. 1857. "Elephants were measured formerly, and even now, by natives, as to their height, by throwing a rope over them, the ends brought to the ground on each side, and half the length taken as the true height. Hence the origin of elephants fifteen and sixteen feet high. A rod held at right angles to the measuring rod, and parallel to the ground, will rarely give more than ten feet, the majority being under nine."--P. 159.] [Footnote 2: SHAW'S _Zoology_. Lond. 1806. vol. i. p. 216; ARMANDI, _Hist. Milit. des Eléphans_, liv. i. ch. i. p. 2.] [Footnote 3: WOLF'S _Life and Adventures, &c_., p. 164. Wolf was a native of Mecklenburg, who arrived in Ceylon about 1750, as chaplain in one of the Dutch East Indiamen, and having been taken into the government employment, he served for twenty years at Jaffna, first as Secretary to the Governor, and afterwards in an office the duties of which he describes to be the examination and signature of the "writings which served to commence a suit in any of the Courts of justice." His book embodies a truthful and generally accurate account of the northern portion of the island, with which alone he was conversant, and his narrative gives a curious insight into the policy of the Dutch Government, and of the condition of the natives under their dominion.] [Footnote 4: DENHAM'S _Travels, &c_., 4to p. 220. The fossil remains of the Indian elephant have been discovered at Jabalpur, showing a height of fifteen feet.--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng_. vi. Professor ANSTED in his _Ancient World_, p. 197, says he was informed by Dr. Falconer "that out of eleven hundred elephants from which the tallest were selected and measured with care, on one occasion in India, there was not one whose height equalled eleven feet."] For a creature of such extraordinary weight it is astonishing how noiselessly and stealthily the elephant can escape from a pursuer. When suddenly disturbed in the jungle, it will burst away with a rush that seems to bear down all before it; but the noise sinks into absolute stillness so suddenly, that a novice might well be led to suppose that the fugitive had only halted within a few yards of him, when further search will disclose that it has stolen silently away, making scarcely a sound in its escape; and, stranger still, leaving the foliage almost undisturbed by its passage. The most venerable delusion respecting the elephant, and that which held its ground with unequalled tenacity, is the ancient fallacy which is explained by SIR THOMAS BROWNE in his _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, that "it hath no joynts; and this absurdity is seconded by another, that being unable to lye downe it sleepeth against a tree, which the hunters observing doe saw almost asunder, whereon the beast relying, by the fall of the tree falls also downe it-selfe and is able to rise no more."[1] Sir THOMAS is disposed to think that "the hint and ground of this opinion might be the grosse and somewhat cylindricall composure of the legs of the elephant, and the equality and lesse perceptible disposure of the joynts, especially in the forelegs of this animal, they appearing, when he standeth, like pillars of flesh;" but he overlooks the fact that PLINY has ascribed the same peculiarity to the Scandinavian beast somewhat resembling a horse, which he calls a "machlis,"[2] and that CÆSAR in describing the wild animals in the Hercynian forests, enumerates the _alce_, "in colour and configuration approaching the goat, but surpassing it in size, its head destitute of horns _and its limbs of joints_, whence it can neither lie down to rest, nor rise if by any accident it should fall, but using the trees for a resting-place, the hunters by loosening their roots bring the _alce_ to the ground, so soon as it is tempted to lean on them."[3] This fallacy, as Sir THOMAS BROWNE says, is "not the daughter of latter times, but an old and grey-headed errour, even in the days of ARISTOTLE," who deals with the story as he received it from CTESIAS, by whom it appears to have been embodied in his lost work on India. But although ARISTOTLE generally receives the credit of having exposed and demolished the fallacy of CTESIAS, it will be seen by a reference to his treatise _On the Progressive Motions of Animals_, that in reality he approached the question with some hesitation, and has not only left it doubtful in one passage whether the elephant has joints _in his knee_, although he demonstrates that it has joints in the shoulders[4]; but in another he distinctly affirms that on account of his weight the elephant cannot bend his forelegs together, but only one at a time, and reclines to sleep on that particular side.[5] [Footnote 1: _Vulgar Errors_, book iii. chap. 1.] [Footnote 2: Machlis (said to be derived from _a_, priv., and [Greek: klinô], _cubo_, quod non cubat). "Moreover in the island of Scandinavia there is a beast called _Machlis_, that hath neither ioynt in the hough, nor pasternes in his hind legs, and therefore he never lieth down, but sleepeth leaning to a tree, wherefore the hunters that lie in wait for these beasts cut downe the trees while they are asleepe, and so take them; otherwise they should never be taken, they are so swift of foot that it is wonderful."--PLINY, _Natur. Hist._ Transl. Philemon Holland, book viii. ch. xv. p. 200.] [Footnote 3: "Sunt item quæ appellantur _Alces_. Harum est consimilis capreis figura, et varietas pellium; sed magnitudine paulo antecedunt, mutilæque sunt cornibus, _et crura sine nodis articulisque habent_; neque quietis causa procumbunt; neque, si quo afflictæ casu considerunt, erigere sese aut sublevare possunt. His sunt arbores pro cubilibus; ad eas sese applicant, atque ita, paulum modo reclinatæ, quietem capiunt, quarum ex vestigiis cum est animadversum a venatoribus, quo se recipere consueverint, omnes eo loco, aut a radicibus subruunt aut accidunt arbores tantum, ut summa species earum stantium relinquatur. Huc cum se consuetudine reclinaverint, infirmas arbores pondere affligunt, atque una ipsæ concidunt."--CÆSAR, _De Bello Gall_. lib. vi. ch. xxvii. The same fiction was extended by the early Arabian travellers to the rhinoceros, and in the MS. of the voyages of the "_Two Mahometans_" it is stated that the rhinoceros of Sumatra "n'a point d'articulation au genou ni à la main."--_Relations des Voyages, &c._, Paris, 1845, vol. i. p. 29.] [Footnote 4: When an animal moves progressively an hypothenuse is produced, which is equal in power to the magnitude that is quiescent, and to that which is intermediate. But since the members are equal, it is necessary that the member which is quiescent should be inflected either in the knee or in the incurvation, _if the animal that walks is without knees_. It is possible, however, for the leg to be moved, when not inflected, in the same manner as infants creep; and there is an ancient report of this kind about elephants, which is not true, for such animals as these, _are moved in consequence of an inflection taking place either in their shoulders or hips_."--ARISTOTLE, _De Ingressu Anim._, ch. ix. Taylor's Transl.] [Footnote 5: ARISTOTLE, _De Animal_., lib. ii. ch. i. It is curious that Taylor, in his translation of this passage, was so strongly imbued with the "grey-headed errour," that in order to elucidate the somewhat obscure meaning of Aristotle, he has actually interpolated the text with the exploded fallacy of Ctesias, and after the word reclining to sleep, has inserted the words "_leaning against some wall or tree_," which are not to be found in the original.] So great was the authority of ARISTOTLE, that ÆLIAN, who wrote two centuries later and borrowed many of his statements from the works of his predecessor, perpetuates this error; and, after describing the exploits of the trained elephants exhibited at Rome, adds the expression of his surprise, that an animal without joints ([Greek: anarthron]) should yet be able to dance.[1] The fiction was too agreeable to be readily abandoned by the poets of the Lower Empire and the Romancers of the middle ages; and PHILE, a contemporary of PETRARCH and DANTE, who in the early part of the fourteenth century, addressed his didactic poem on the elephant to the Emperor Andronicus II., untaught by the exposition of ARISTOTLE, still clung to the old delusion, [Greek: "Podes de toutps thauma kai saphes teras, Ous, ou kathaper talla tôn zôôn genê, Eiôthe kinein ex anarthrôn klasmatôn, Kai gar stibarois syntethentes osteois, Kai tê pladara tôn sphyrôn katastasei, Kai tê pros arthra tôn skelôn hypokrisei, Nyn eis tonous agousi, nyn eis hypheseis, Tas pantodapas ekdromas tou thêriou. * * * * * Brachyterous ontas de ton opisthiôn 'Anamphilektôs oida tous emprosthious Toutois elephas entatheis osper stylois 'Orthostadên akamptos hypnôttôn menei."] v. 106, &c. [Footnote 1: [Greek: "Zpson de anarthron sunienai kai rhuthmou kai melous, kai phylattein schêma physeôs dôra tauta hama kai idiotês kath' ekaston ekplêktikê]."--ÆLIAN, _De Nat. Anim_., lib. ii. cap. xi.] SOLINUS introduced the same fable into his _Polyhistor_; and DICUIL, the Irish commentator of the ninth century, who had an opportunity of seeing the elephant sent by Haroun Alraschid as a present to Charlemagne[1] in the year 802, corrects the error, and attributes its perpetuation to the circumstance that the joints in the elephant's leg are not very apparent, except when he lies down.[2] [Footnote 1: Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, c. xvi. and _Annales Francorum_, A.D. 810.] [Footnote 2: "Sed idem Julius, unum de elephantibus mentions, falso loquitur; dicens elephantem nunquam jacere; dum ille sicut bos certissime jacet, ut populi communiter regni Francorum elephantem, in tempore Imperatoris Karoli viderunt. Sed, forsitan, ideo hoc de elephante ficte æstimando scriptum est, eo quod genua et suffragines sui nisi quando jacet, non palam apparent."--DICUILUS, _De Mensura Orbis Terræ_, c. vii.] It is a strong illustration of the vitality of error, that the delusion thus exposed by Dicuil in the ninth century, was revived by MATTHEW PARIS in the thirteenth; and stranger still, that Matthew not only saw but made a drawing of the elephant presented to King Henry III. by the King of France in 1255, in which he nevertheless represents the legs as without joints.[1] [Footnote 1: _Cotton MSS_. NERO. D. 1. fol. 168, b.] In the numerous mediæval treatises on natural history, known under the title of _Bestiaries_, this delusion regarding the elephant is often repeated; and it is given at length in a metrical version of the _Physiologus_ of THEOBALDUS, amongst the Arundel Manuscripts in the British Museum.[1] [Footnote 1: _Arundel MSS_. No. 292, fol. 4, &c. It has been printed in the _Reliquiæ Antiquæ_, vol. i. p. 208, by Mr. WRIGHT, to whom I am indebted for the following rendering of the passage referred to:-- in water ge sal stonden in water to mid side that wanne hire harde tide that ge ne falle nither nogt that it most in hire thogt for he ne haven no lith that he mugen risen with, etc. "They will stand in the water, in water up to the middle of the side, that when it comes to them hard, they may not fall down: that is most in their thought, for they have no joint to enable them to rise again. How he resteth him this animal, when he walketh abroad, hearken how it is here told. For he is all unwieldy, forsooth he seeks out a tree, that it strong and stedfast, and leans confidently against it, when he is weary of walking. The hunter has observed this, who seeks to ensnare him, where his usual dwelling is, to do his will; saws this tree and props it in the manner that he best may, covers it well that he (the elephant) may not be on his guard. Then he makes thereby a seat, himself sits alone and watches whether his trap takes effect. Then cometh this unwieldy elephant, and leans him on his side, rests against the tree in the shadow, and so both fall together. If nobody be by when he falls, he roars ruefully and calls for help, roars ruefully in his manner, hopes he shall through help rise. Then cometh there one (elephant) in haste, hopes he shall cause him to stand up; labours and tries all his might, but he cannot succeed a bit. He knows then no other remedy, but roars with his brother, many and large (elephants) come there in search, thinking to make him get up, but for the help of them all he may not get up. Then they all roar one roar, like the blast of a horn or the sound of bell, for their great roaring a young one cometh running, stoops immediately to him, puts his snout under him, and asks the help of them all; this elephant they raise on his legs: and thus fails this hunter's trick, in the manner that I have told you."] With the Provençal song writers, the helplessness of the fallen elephant was a favourite simile, and amongst others RICHARD DE BARBEZIEUX, in the latter half of the twelfth century, sung[1], "Atressi cum l'olifans Que quan chai no s'pot levar." [Footnote 1: One of the most venerable authorities by whom the fallacy was transmitted to modern times was PHILIP de THAUN, who wrote, about the year 1121, A.D., his _Livre des Créatures_, dedicated to Adelaide of Louvaine, Queen of Henry I. of England. In the copy of it printed by the Historical Society of Science in 1841, and edited by Mr. WRIGHT, the following passage occurs:-- "Et Ysidre nus dit ki le elefant descrit, * * * * * Es jambes par nature nen ad que une jointure, Il ne pot pas gesir quant il se volt dormir, Ke si cuchet estait par sei nen leveraît; Pur ceo li stot apuier, el lui del cucher, U à arbre u à mur, idunc dort aseur. E le gent de la terre, ki li volent conquere, Li mur enfunderunt, u le arbre encíserunt; Quant li elefant vendrat, ki s'i apuierat, La arbre u le mur carrat, e il tribucherat; Issi faiterement le parnent cele gent." P. 100.] As elephants were but rarely seen in Europe prior to the seventeenth century, there were but few opportunities of correcting the popular fallacy by ocular demonstration. Hence SHAKSPEARE still believed that, "The elephant hath joints; but none for courtesy: His legs are for necessity, not flexure:"[1] and DONNE sang of "Nature's great masterpiece, an Elephant; The only harmless great thing: Yet Nature hath given him no knee to bend: Himself he up-props, on himself relies; Still sleeping stands."[2] [Footnote 1: _Troilus and Cressida_, act ii. sc. 3. A.D. 1609.] [Footnote 2: _Progress of the Soul_, A.D. 1633.] Sir THOMAS BROWNE, while he argues against the delusion, does not fail to record his suspicion, that "although the opinion at present be reasonably well suppressed, yet from the strings of tradition and fruitful recurrence of errour, it was not improbable it might revive in the next generation;"[1]--an anticipation which has proved singularly correct; for the heralds still continued to explain that the elephant is the emblem of watchfulness, "_nec jacet in somno,"_[2] and poets almost of our own times paint the scene when "Peaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast Their ample shade on Niger's yellow stream, Or where the Ganges rolls his sacred waves, _Leans_ the huge Elephant."[3] [Footnote 1: Sir T. BROWNE, _Vulgar Errors_, A.D. 1646.] [Footnote 2: RANDAL HOME'S _Academy of Armory_, A.D. 1671. HOME only perpetuated the error of GUILLAM, who wrote his _Display of Heraldry_ in A.D. 1610; wherein he explains that the elephant is "so proud of his strength that he never bows himself to any (_neither indeed can he_), and when he is once down he cannot rise up again."--Sec. III. ch. xii. p. 147.] [Footnote 3: THOMSON'S _Seasons_, A.D. 1728.] It is not difficult to see whence this antiquated delusion took its origin; nor is it, as Sir THOMAS BROWNE imagined, to be traced exclusively "to the grosse and cylindricall structure" of the animal's legs. The fact is, that the elephant, returning in the early morning from his nocturnal revels in the reservoirs and water-courses, is accustomed to rub his muddy sides against a tree, and sometimes against a rock if more convenient. In my rides through the northern forests, the natives of Ceylon have often pointed out that the elephants which had preceded me must have been of considerable size, from the height at which their marks had been left on the trees against which they had been rubbing. Not unfrequently the animals themselves, overcome with drowsiness from the night's gambolling, are found dosing and resting against the trees they had so visited, and in the same manner they have been discovered by sportsmen asleep, and leaning against a rock. It is scarcely necessary to explain that the position is accidental, and that it is taken by the elephant not from any difficulty in lying at length on the ground, but rather from the coincidence that the structure of his legs affords such support in a standing position, that reclining scarcely adds to his enjoyment of repose; and elephants in a state of captivity have been known for months together to sleep without lying down.[1] So distinctive is this formation, and so self-sustaining the configuration of the limbs, that an elephant shot in the brain, by Major Rogers in 1836, was killed so instantaneously that it died literally _on its knees_, and remained resting on them. About the year 1826, Captain Dawson, the engineer of the great road to Kandy, over the Kaduganava pass, shot an elephant at Hangwelle on the banks of the Kalany Ganga; _it remained on its feet_, but so motionless, that after discharging a few more balls, he was induced to go close to it, and found it dead. [Footnote 1: So little is the elephant inclined to lie down in captivity, and even after hard labour, that the keepers are generally disposed to suspect illness when he betakes himself to this posture. PHILE, in his poem _De Animalium Proprietate_, attributes the propensity of the elephant to sleep on his legs, to the difficulty he experiences in rising to his feet: [Greek: 'Orthostadên de kai katheudei panychos 'HOt ouk anastêsai men eucherôs pelei.] But this is a misapprehension.] The real peculiarity in the elephant in lying down is, that he extends his hind legs backwards as a man does when he kneels, instead of bringing them under him like the horse or any other quadruped. The wise purpose of this arrangement must be obvious to any one who observes the struggle with which the horse _gets up_ from the ground, and the violent efforts which he makes to raise himself erect. Such an exertion in the case of the elephant, and the force requisite to apply a similar movement to raise his weight (equal to four or five tons) would be attended with a dangerous strain upon the muscles, and hence the simple arrangement, which by enabling him to draw the hind feet gradually under him, assists him to rise without a perceptible effort. The same construction renders his gait not a "gallop," as it has been somewhat loosely described[1], which would be too violent a motion for so vast a body; but a shuffle, that he can increase at pleasure to a pace as rapid as that of a man at full speed, but which he cannot maintain for any considerable distance. [Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c_. "The elephant," ch. i. Sir CHARLES BELL, in his essay on _The Hand and its Mechanism_, which forms one of the "Bridgewater Treatises," has exhibited the reasons deducible from organisation, which show the incapacity of the elephant to _spring_ or _leap_ like the horse and other animals whose structure is designed to facilitate agility and speed. In them the various bones of the shoulder and fore limbs, especially the clavicle and humerus, are set at such an angle, that the shock in descending is modified, and the joints and sockets protected from the injury occasioned by concussion. But in the elephant, where the weight of the body is immense, the bones of the leg, in order to present solidify and strength to sustain it, are built in one firm and perpendicular column; instead of being placed somewhat obliquely at their points of contact. Thus whilst the force of the weight in descending is broken and distributed by this arrangement in the case of the horse; it would be so concentrated in the elephant as to endanger every joint from the toe to the shoulder.] [Illustration] It is to the structure of the knee-joint that the elephant is indebted for his singular facility in ascending and descending steep activities, climbing rocks and traversing precipitous ledges, where even a mule dare not venture; and this again leads to the correction of another generally received error, that his legs are "formed more for strength than flexibility, and fitted to bear an enormous weight upon a level surface, without the necessity of ascending or descending great acclivities."[1] The same authority assumes that, although the elephant is found in the neighbourhood of mountainous ranges, and will even ascend rocky passes, such a service is a violation of its natural habits. [Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c_., "The Elephant," ch. ii.] Of the elephant of Africa I am not qualified to speak, nor of the nature of the ground which it most frequents; but certainly the facts in connection with the elephant of India are all irreconcilable with the theory mentioned above. In Bengal, in the Nilgherries, in Nepal, in Burmah, in Siam, Sumatra, and Ceylon, the districts in which the elephants most abound, are all hilly and mountainous. In the latter, especially, there is not a range so elevated as to be inaccessible to them. On the very summit of Adam's Peak, at an altitude of 7,420 feet, and on a pinnacle which the pilgrims climb with difficulty, by means of steps hewn in the rock, Major Skinner, in 1840, found the spoor of an elephant. Prior to 1840, and before coffee-plantations had been extensively opened in the Kandyan ranges, there was not a mountain or a lofty feature of land of Ceylon which they had not traversed, in their periodical migrations in search of water; and the sagacity which they display in "laying out roads" is almost incredible. They generally keep along the _backbone_ of a chain of hills, avoiding steep gradients: and one curious observation was not lost upon the government surveyors, that in crossing the valleys from ridge to ridge, through forests so dense as altogether to obstruct a distant view, the elephants invariably select the line of march which communicates most judiciously with the opposite point, by means of _the safest ford_.[1] So sure-footed are they, that there are few places where man can go that an elephant cannot follow, provided there be space to admit his bulk, and solidity to sustain his weight. [Footnote 1: Dr. HOOKER, in describing the ascent of the Himalayas, says, the natives in making their paths despise all zigzags, and run in straight lines up the steepest hill faces; whilst "the elephant's path is an excellent specimen of engineering--the opposite of the native track,--for it winds judiciously."--_Himalayan Journal_, vol. i. ch. iv.] This faculty is almost entirely derived from the unusual position, as compared with other quadrupeds, of the knee joint of the hind leg; arising from the superior length of the thigh-bone, and the shortness of the metatarsus: the heel being almost where it projects in man, instead of being lifted up as a "hock." It is this which enables him, in descending declivities, to depress and adjust the weight of his hinder portions, which would otherwise overbalance and force him headlong.[1] It is by the same arrangement that he is enabled, on uneven ground, to lift his feet, which are tender and sensitive, with delicacy, and plant them with such precision as to ensure his own safety as well as that of objects which it is expedient to avoid touching. [Footnote 1: Since the above passage was written, I have seen in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, vol. xiii, pt. ii. p. 916, a paper upon this subject, illustrated by the subjoined diagram. The writer says, "an elephant descending a bank of too acute an angle to admit of his walking down it direct, (which, were he to attempt, his huge tody, soon disarranging the centre of gravity, would certainly topple over,) proceeds thus. His first manoeuvre is to kneel down close to the edge of the declivity, placing his chest to the ground: one fore-leg is then cautiously passed a short way down the slope; and if there is no natural protection to afford a firm footing, he speedily forms one by stamping into the soil if moist, or kicking out a footing if dry. This point gained, the other fore-leg is brought down in the same way; and performs the same work, a little in advance of the first; which is thus at liberty to move lower still. Then, first one and then the second of the hind legs is carefully drawn over the side, and the hind-feet in turn occupy the resting-places previously used and left by the fore ones. The course, however, in such precipitous ground is not straight from top to bottom, but slopes along the face of the bank, descending till the animal gains the level below. This an elephant has done, at an angle of 45 degrees, carrying a _howdah_, its occupant, his attendant, and sporting apparatus; and in a much less time than it takes to describe the operation." I have observed that an elephant in descending a declivity uses his knees, on the side next the bank; and his feet on the lower side only. [Illustration]] A _herd_ of elephants is a family, not a group whom accident or attachment may have induced to associate together. Similarity of features and caste attest that, among the various individuals which compose it, there is a common lineage and relationship. In a herd of twenty-one elephants, captured in 1844, the trunks of each individual presented the same peculiar formation,--long, and almost of one uniform breadth throughout, instead of tapering gradually from the root to the nostril. In another instance, the eyes of thirty-five taken in one corral were of the same colour in each. The same slope of the back, the same form of the forehead, is to be detected in the majority of the same group. In the forest several herds will browse in close contiguity, and in their expeditions in search of water they may form a body of possibly one or two hundred; but on the slightest disturbance each distinct herd hastens to re-form within its own particular circle, and to take measures on its own behalf for retreat or defence. The natives of any place which may chance to be frequented by elephants, observe that the numbers of the same herd fluctuate very slightly; and hunters in pursuit of them, who may chance to have shot one or more, always reckon with certainty the precise number of those remaining, although a considerable interval may intervene before they again encounter them. The proportion of males is generally small, and some herds have been seen composed exclusively of females; possibly in consequence of the males having been shot. A herd usually consists of from ten to twenty individuals, though occasionally they exceed the latter number; and in their frequent migrations and nightly resort to tanks and water-courses, alliances are formed between members of associated herds, which serve to introduce new blood into the family. In illustration of the attachment of the elephant to its young, the authority of KNOX has been quoted, that "the shees are alike tender of any one's young ones as of their own."[1] Their affection in this particular is undoubted, but I question whether it exceeds that of other animals; and the trait thus adduced of their indiscriminate kindness to all the young of the herd,--of which I have myself been an eye-witness,--so far from being an evidence of the strength of parental attachment individually, is, perhaps, somewhat inconsistent with the existence of such a passion to any extraordinary degree.[2] In fact, some individuals, who have had extensive facilities for observation, doubt whether the fondness of the female elephants for their offspring is so great as that of many other animals; as instances are not wanting in Ceylon, in which, when pursued by the hunters, the herd has abandoned the young ones in their flight, notwithstanding the cries of the latter for help. [Footnote 1: A correspondent of Buffon, M. MARCELLUS BLES, Seigneur de Moergestal, who resided eleven years in Ceylon in the time of the Dutch, says in one of his communications, that in herds of forty or fifty, enclosed in a single corral, there were frequently very young calves; and that "on ne pouvoit pas reconnaître quelles étoient les mères de chacun de ces petits éléphans, car tous ces jeunes animaux paroissent faire manse commune; ils têtent indistinctement celles des femelles de toute la troupe qui ont du lait, soit qu'elles aient elles-mêmes un petit en propre, soit qu'elles n'en aient point."--BUFFON, _Suppl. à l'Hist. des Anim._, vol. vi. p. 25.] [Footnote 2: WHITE, in his _Natural History of Selborne_, philosophising on the fact which had fallen under his own notice of this indiscriminate suckling of the young of one animal by the parent of another, is disposed to ascribe it to a selfish feeling; the pleasure and relief of having its distended teats drawn by this intervention. He notices the circumstance of a leveret having been thus nursed by a cat, whose kittens had been recently drowned: and observes, that "this strange affection was probably occasioned by that desiderium, those tender maternal feelings, which the loss of her kittens had awakened in her breast; and by the complacency and ease she derived to herself from procuring her teats to be drawn, which were too much distended with milk; till from habit she became as much delighted with this foundling as if it had been her real offspring. This incident is no bad solution of that strange circumstance which grave historians, as well as the poets, assert of exposed children being sometimes nurtured by female wild beasts that probably had lost their young. For it is not one whit more marvellous that Romulus and Remus in their infant state should be nursed by a she wolf than that a poor little suckling leveret should be fostered and cherished by a bloody Grimalkin."--WHITE'S _Selborne_, lett. xx.] In an interesting paper on the habits of the Indian elephant, published in the _Philosophical Transactions for_ 1793, Mr. CORSE says: "If a wild elephant happens to be separated from its young for only two days, though giving suck, she never after recognises or acknowledges it," although the young one evidently knows its dam, and by its plaintive cries and submissive approaches solicits her assistance. If by any accident an elephant becomes hopelessly separated from his own herd, he is not permitted to attach himself to any other. He may browse in the vicinity, or frequent the same place to drink and to bathe; but the intercourse is only on a distant and conventional footing, and no familiarity or intimate association is under any circumstances permitted. To such a height is this exclusiveness carried, that even amidst the terror and stupefaction of an elephant corral, when an individual, detached from his own party in the _mêlée_ and confusion, has been driven into the enclosure with an unbroken herd, I have seen him repulsed in every attempt to take refuge among them, and driven off by heavy blows with their trunks as often as he attempted to insinuate himself within the circle which they had formed for common security. There can be no reasonable doubt that this jealous and exclusive policy not only contributes to produce, but mainly serves to perpetuate, the class of solitary elephants which are known by the term _goondahs_, in India, and which from their vicious propensities and predatory habits are called _Hora_, or _Rogues_, in Ceylon.[1] It is believed by the Singhalese that these are either individuals, who by accident have lost their former associates and become morose and savage from rage and solitude; or else that being naturally vicious they have become daring from the yielding habits of their milder companions, and eventually separated themselves from the rest of the herd which had refused to associate with them. Another conjecture is, that being almost universally males, the death or capture of particular females may have detached them from their former companions in search of fresh alliances.[2] It is also believed that a tame elephant escaping from captivity, unable to rejoin its former herd, and excluded from any other, becomes a "_rogue_" from necessity. In Ceylon it is generally believed that the _rogues_ are all males (but of this I am not certain), and so sullen is their disposition that although two may be in the same vicinity, there is no known instance of their associating, or of a _rogue_ being seen in company with another elephant. [Footnote 1: The term "rogue" is scarcely sufficiently accounted for by supposing it to be the English equivalent for the Singhalese word _Hora_. In that very curious book, the _Life and Adventures of_ JOHN CHRISTOPHER WOLF, _late principal Secretary at Jaffnapatam in Ceylon_, the author says, when a male elephant in a quarrel about the females "is beat out of the field and obliged to go without a consort, he becomes furious and mad, killing every living creature, be it man or beast: and in this state is called _ronkedor_, an object of greater terror to a traveller than a hundred wild ones."--P. 142. In another passage, p. 164, he is called _runkedor_, and I have seen it spelt elsewhere _ronquedue_, WOLF does not give "_ronkedor_" as a term peculiar to that section of the island; but both there and elsewhere, it is obsolete at the present day, unless it be open to conjecture that the modern term "rogue" is a modification of _ronquedue._] [Footnote 2: BUCHANAN, in his _Survey of Bhagulpore_, p. 503, says that solitary males of the wild buffalo, "when driven from the herd by stronger competitors for female society, are reckoned very dangerous to meet with; for they are apt to wreak their vengeance on whatever they meet, and are said to kill annually three or four people." LIVINGSTONE relates the same of the solitary hippopotamus which becomes soured in temper, and wantonly attacks the passing canoes.--_Travels in South Africa_, p. 231.] They spend their nights in marauding, often about the dwellings of men, destroying their plantations, trampling down their gardens, and committing serious ravages in rice grounds and young coco-nut plantations. Hence from their closer contact with man and his dwellings, these outcasts become disabused of many of the terrors which render the ordinary elephant timid and needlessly cautious; they break through fences without fear; and even in the daylight a _rogue_ has been known near Ambogammoa to watch a field of labourers at work in reaping rice, and boldly to walk in amongst them, seize a sheaf from the heap, and retire leisurely to the jungle. By day they generally seek concealment, but are frequently to be met with prowling about the by-roads and jungle paths, where travellers are exposed to the utmost risk from their savage assaults. It is probable that this hostility to man is the result of the enmity engendered by those measures which the natives, who have a constant dread of their visits, adopt for the protection of their growing crops. In some districts, especially in the low country of Badulla, the villagers occasionally enclose their cottages with rude walls of earth and branches to protect them from nightly assaults. In places infested by them, the visits of European sportsmen to the vicinity of their haunts are eagerly encouraged by the natives, who think themselves happy in lending their services to track the ordinary herds in consideration of the benefit conferred on the village communities by the destruction of a rogue. In 1847 one of these formidable creatures frequented for some months the Rangbodde Pass on the great mountain road leading to the sanatarium, at Neuera-ellia; and amongst other excesses, killed a Caffre belonging to the corps of Caffre pioneers, by seizing him with its trunk and beating him to death against the bank. To return to the herd: one member of it, usually the largest and most powerful, is by common consent implicitly followed as leader. A tusker, if there be one in the party, is generally observed to be the commander; but a female, if of superior energy, is as readily obeyed as a male. In fact, in this promotion there is no reason to doubt that supremacy is almost unconsciously assumed by those endowed with superior vigour and courage rather than from the accidental possession of greater bodily strength; and the devotion and loyalty which the herd evince to their leader are very remarkable. This is more readily seen in the case of a tusker than any other, because in a herd he is generally the object of the keenest pursuit by the hunters. On such occasions the others do their utmost to protect him from danger: when driven to extremity they place their leader in the centre and crowd so eagerly in front of him that the sportsmen have to shoot a number which they might otherwise have spared. In one instance a tusker, which was badly wounded by Major ROGERS, was promptly surrounded by his companions, who supported him between their shoulders, and actually succeeded in covering his retreat to the forest. Those who have lived much in the jungle in Ceylon, and who have had constant opportunities of watching the habits of wild elephants, have witnessed instances of the submission of herds to their leaders, that suggest an inquiry of singular interest as to the means adopted by the latter to communicate with distinctness, orders which are observed with the most implicit obedience by their followers. The following narrative of an adventure in the great central forest toward the north of the island, communicated to me by Major SKINNER, who was engaged for some time in surveying and opening roads through the thickly-wooded districts there, will serve better than any abstract description to convey an idea of the conduct of a herd on such occasions:-- "The case you refer to struck me as exhibiting something more than ordinary brute instinct, and approached nearer to reasoning powers than any other instance I can now remember. I cannot do justice to the scene, although it appeared to me at the time to be so remarkable that it left a deep impression in my mind. "In the height of the dry season in Neuera-Kalawa, you know the streams are all dried up, and the tanks nearly so. All animals are then sorely pressed for water, and they congregate in the vicinity of those tanks in which there may remain ever so little of the precious element. "During one of those seasons I was encamped on the bund or embankment of a very small tank, the water in which was so dried that its surface could not have exceeded an area of 500 square yards. It was the only pond within many miles, and I knew that of necessity a very large herd of elephants, which had been in the neighbourhood all day, must resort to it at night. "On the lower side of the tank, and in a line with the embankment, was a thick forest, in which the elephants sheltered themselves during the day. On the upper side and all around the tank there was a considerable margin of open ground. It was one of those beautiful bright, clear, moonlight nights, when objects could be seen almost as distinctly as by day, and I determined to avail myself of the opportunity to observe the movements of the herd, which had already manifested some uneasiness at our presence. The locality was very favourable for my purpose, and an enormous tree projecting over the tank afforded me a secure lodgement in its branches. Having ordered the fires of my camp to be extinguished at an early hour, and all my followers to retire to rest, I took up my post of observation on the overhanging bough; but I had to remain for upwards of two hours before anything was to be seen or heard of the elephants, although I knew they were within 500 yards of me. At length, about the distance of 300 yards from the water, an unusually large elephant issued from the dense cover, and advanced cautiously across the open ground to within 100 yards of the tank, where he stood perfectly motionless. So quiet had the elephants become (although they had been roaring and breaking the jungle throughout the day and evening), that not a movement was now to be heard. The huge vidette remained in his position, still as a rock, for a few minutes, and then made three successive stealthy advances of several yards (halting for some minutes between each, with ears bent forward to catch the slightest sound), and in this way he moved slowly up to the water's edge. Still he did not venture to quench his thirst, for though his fore-feet were partially in the tank and his vast body was reflected clear in the water, he remained for some minutes listening in perfect stillness. Not a motion could be perceived in himself or his shadow. He returned cautiously and slowly to the position he had at first taken up on emerging from the forest. Here in a little while he was joined by five others, with which he again proceeded as cautiously, but less slowly than before, to within a few yards of the tank, and then posted his patrols. He then re-entered the forest and collected around him the whole herd, which must have amounted to between 80 and 100 individuals,--led them across the open ground with the most extraordinary composure and quietness, till he joined the advanced guard, when he left them for a moment and repeated his former reconnoissance at the edge of the tank. After which, having apparently satisfied himself that all was safe, he returned and obviously gave the order to advance, for in a moment the whole herd rushed into the water with a degree of unreserved confidence, so opposite to the caution and timidity which had marked their previous movements, that nothing will ever persuade me that there was not rational and preconcerted co-operation throughout the whole party, and a degree of responsible authority exercised by the patriarch leader. "When the poor animals had gained possession of the tank (the leader being the last to enter), they seemed to abandon themselves to enjoyment without restraint or apprehension of danger. Such a mass of animal life I had never before seen huddled together in so narrow a space. It seemed to me as though they would have nearly drunk the tank dry. I watched them with great interest until they had satisfied themselves as well in bathing as in drinking, when I tried how small a noise would apprise them of the proximity of unwelcome neighbours. I had but to break a little twig, and the solid mass instantly took to flight like a herd of frightened deer, each of the smaller calves being apparently shouldered and carried along between two of the older ones."[1] [Footnote 1: Letter from Major SKINNER.] In drinking, the elephant, like the camel, although preferring water pure, shows no decided aversion to it when discoloured with mud[1]; and the eagerness with which he precipitates himself into the tanks and streams attests his exquisite enjoyment of the fresh coolness, which to him is the chief attraction. In crossing deep rivers, although his rotundity and buoyancy enable him to swim with a less immersion than other quadrupeds, he generally prefers to sink till no part of his huge body is visible except the tip of his trunk, through which he breathes, moving beneath the surface, and only now and then raising his head to look that he is keeping the proper direction.[2] In the dry season the scanty streams which, during the rains, are sufficient to convert the rivers of the low country into torrents, often entirely disappear, leaving only broad expanses of dry sand, which they have swept down with them from the hills. In this the elephants contrive to sink wells for their own use by scooping out the sand to the depth of four or five feet, and leaving a hollow for the percolation of the spring. But as the weight of the elephant would force in the side if left perpendicular, one approach is always formed with such a gradient that he can reach the water with his trunk without disturbing the surrounding sand. [Footnote 1: This peculiarity was known in the middle ages, and PHILE, writing in the fourteenth century, says, that such is his _preference_, for muddy water that the elephant _stirs it_ before he drinks. [Greek: "Ydor de pineisynchythen prin anpinoi To gar dieides akribos diaptuei."] --PHILE _de Eleph_., i. 144.] [Footnote 2: A tame elephant, when taken by his keepers to be bathed, and to have his skin washed and rubbed, lies down on his side, pressing his head to the bottom under water, with only the top of his trunk protruded, to breathe.] [Illustration] I have reason to believe, although the fact has not been authoritatively stated by naturalists, that the stomach of the elephant will be found to include a section analogous to that possessed by some of the ruminants, calculated to contain a supply of water as a provision against emergencies. The fact of his being enabled to retain a quantity of water and discharge it at pleasure has been long known to every observer of the habits of the animal; but the proboscis has always been supposed to be "his water-reservoir,"[1] and the theory of an internal receptacle has not been discussed. The truth is that the anatomy of the elephant is even yet but imperfectly understood[2], and, although some peculiarities of his stomach were observed at an early period, and even their configuration described, the function of the abnormal portion remained undetermined, and has been only recently conjectured. An elephant which belonged to Louis XIV. died at Versailles in 1681 at the age of seventeen, and an account of its dissection was published in the _Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire Naturelle_, under the authority of the Academy of Sciences, in which the unusual appendages of the stomach are pointed out with sufficient particularity, but no suggestion is made as to their probable uses."[3] [Footnote 1: BRODERIP'S _Zoological Recreations_, p. 259.] [Footnote 2: For observing the osteology of the elephant, materials are of course abundant in the indestructible remains of the animal: but the study of the intestines, and the dissection of the softer parts by comparative anatomists in Europe, have been up to the present time beset by difficulties. These arise not alone from the rarity of subjects, but even in cases where elephants have died in these countries, decomposition interposes, and before the thorough examination of so vast a body can be satisfactorily completed, the great mass falls into putrefaction. The principal English authorities are _An Anatomical Account of the Elephant accidentally burnt in Dublin_, by A. MOLYNEUX, A.D. 1696; which is probably a reprint of a letter on the same subject in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, addressed by A. Moulin, to Sir William Petty, Lond. 1682. There are also some papers communicated to Sir Hans Sloane, and afterwards published in the _Philosophical Transactions_ of the year 1710, by Dr. P. BLAIR, who had an opportunity of dissecting an elephant which died at Dundee in 1708. The latter writer observes that, "notwithstanding the vast interest attaching to the elephant in all ages, yet has its body been hitherto very little subjected to anatomical, inquiries;" and he laments that the rapid decomposition of the carcase, and other causes, had interposed obstacles to the scrutiny of the subject he was so fortunate as to find access to. In 1723 Dr. WM. STUCKLEY published _Some Anatomical Observations made upon the Dissection of an Elephant_; but each of the above essays is necessarily unsatisfactory, and little has since been done to supply their defects. One of the latest and most valuable contributions to the subjects, is a paper read before the Royal Irish Academy, on the 18th of Feb., 1847, by Professor HARRISON, who had the opportunity of dissecting an Indian elephant which died of acute fever; but the examination, so far as he has made it public, extends only to the cranium, the brain, and the proboscis, the larynx, trachea, and oesophagus. An essential service would be rendered to science if some sportsman in Ceylon, or some of the officers connected with the elephant establishment there, would take the trouble to forward the carcase of a young one to England in a state fit for dissection. _Postscriptum._--I am happy to say that a young elephant, carefully preserved in spirits, has recently been obtained in Ceylon, and forwarded to Prof. Owen, of the British Museum, by the joint exertions of M. DIARD and Major SKINNER. An opportunity has thus been afforded from which science will reap advantage, of devoting a patient attention to the internal structure of this interesting animal.] [Footnote 3: The passage as quoted by BUFFON from the _Mémoires_ is as follows: --"L'estomac avoit peu de diamètre; il en avoit moins que le colon, car son diamètre n'étoit que de quatorze pouces dans la partie la plus large; il avoit trois pieds et demi de longueur: l'orifice supérieur étoit à-peu-près aussi éloigné du pylore que du fond du grand cul-de-sac qui se terminoit en une pointe composée de tuniques beaucoup plus épaisses que celles du reste de l'estomac; il y avoit au fond du grand cul-de-sac plusieurs feuillets épais d'une ligne, larges d'un pouce et demi, et disposés irrégulierement; le reste de parois intérieures étoit percé de plusieurs petits trous et par de plus grands qui correspondoîent à des grains glanduleux."--BUFFON, _Hist. Nat_., vol. xi. p. 109.] A writer in the _Quarterly Review_ for December 1850, says that "CAMPER and other comparative anatomists have shown that the left, or cardiac end of the stomach in the elephant is adapted, by several wide folds of lining membrane, to serve as a receiver for water;" but this is scarcely correct, for although CAMPER has accurately figured the external form of the stomach, he disposes of the question of the interior functions with the simple remark that its folds "semblent en faire une espèce de division particulière."[1] In like manner SIR EVERARD HOME, in his _Lectures on Comparative Anatomy_, has not only carefully described the form of the elephant's stomach, and furnished a drawing of it even more accurate than CAMPER; but he has equally omitted to assign any purpose to so strange a formation, contenting himself with observing that the structure is a peculiarity, and that one of the remarkable folds nearest the orifice of the diaphragm appears to act as a valve, so that the portion beyond may be considered as an appendage similar to that of the hog and the _peccary_.[2] [Footnote 1: "L'extrémité voisine du cardia se termine par une poche très-considérable et doublée à l'intérieure du quatorze valvules orbiculaires que semblent en faire une espèce de division particulière."--CAMPER, _Description Anatomique d'un Eléphant Mâle_, p. 37, tabl. IX.] [Footnote 2: "The elephant has another peculiarity in the internal structure of the stomach. It is longer and narrower than that of most animals. The cuticular membrane of the oesophagus terminates at the orifice of the stomach. At the cardiac end, which is very narrow and pointed at the extremity, the lining is thick and glandular, and is thrown into transverse folds, of which five are broad and nine narrow. That nearest the orifice of the oesophagus is the broadest, and appears to act occasionally as a valve, so that the part beyond may be considered as an appendage similar to that of the peccary and the hog. The membrane of the cardiac portion is uniformly smooth; that of the pyloric is thicker and more vascular."--_Lectures on Comparative Anatomy_, by Sir EVERARD HOME, Bart. 4to. Lond. vol. i. p. 155. The figure of the elephant's stomach is given, in his _Lectures_, vol. ii. plate xviii.] [Illustration: ELEPANT'S STOMACH.] The appendage thus alluded to by Sir EVERARD HOME is the grand "cul-de-sac," noticed by the Académic des Sciences, and the "division particulière," figured by CAMPER. It is of sufficient dimensions to contain ten gallons of water, and by means of the valve above alluded to, it can be shut off from the chamber devoted to the process of digestion. Professor OWEN is probably the first who, not from an autopsy, but from the mere inspection of the drawings of CAMPER and HOME, ventured to assert (in lectures hitherto unpublished), that the uses of this section of the elephant's stomach may be analogous to those ascertained to belong to a somewhat similar arrangement in the stomach of the camel, one cavity of which is exclusively employed as a reservoir for water, and performs no function the preparation of food.[1] [Footnote 1: A similar arrangement, with some modifications, has more recently been found in the llama of the Andes, which, like the camel, is used as a beast of burden in the Cordilleras of Chili and Peru; but both these and the camel are _ruminants_, whilst the elephants belongs to the Pachydermata.] [Illustration] Whilst Professor OWEN was advancing this conjecture, another comparative anatomist, from the examination of another portion of the structure of the elephant, was led to a somewhat similar conclusion. Dr. HARRISON of Dublin had, in 1847, an opportunity of dissecting the body of an elephant which had suddenly died; and in the course of his examination of the thoracic viscera, he observed that an unusually close connection existed between the trachea and oesophagus, which he found to depend on a muscle unnoticed by any previous anatomist, connecting the back of the former with the forepart of the latter, along which the fibres descend and can be distinctly traced to the cardiac orifice of the stomach. Imperfectly acquainted with the habits and functions of the elephant in a state of nature, Dr. HARRISON found it difficult to pronounce as to the use of this very peculiar structure; but looking to the intimate connection between the mechanism concerned in the functions of respiration and deglutition, and seeing that the proboscis served in a double capacity as an instrument of voice and an organ for the prehension of food, he ventured (apparently without adverting to the abnormal form of the stomach) to express the opinion that this muscle, viewing its attachment to the trachea, might either have some influence in raising the diaphragm, and thereby assisting in expiration, "_or that it might raise the cardiac orifice of the stomach, and so aid this organ to regurgitate a portion of its contents into the oesophagus_."[1] [Footnote 1: _Proceed. Roy. Irish Acad_., vol. iv. p. 133.] Dr. HARRISON, on the reflection that "we have no satisfactory evidence that the animal ever ruminates," thought it useless to speculate on the latter supposition as to the action of the newly discovered muscle, and rather inclined to the surmise that it was designed to assist the elephant in producing the remarkable sound through his proboscis known as "trumpeting;" but there is little room to doubt that of the two the rejected hypothesis was the more correct one. I have elsewhere described the occurrence to which I was myself a witness[1], of elephants inserting their proboscis in their mouths, and withdrawing gallons of water, which could only have been contained in the receptacle figured by CAMPER and HOME, and of which the true uses were discerned by the clear intellect of Professor OWEN. I was not, till very recently, aware that a similar observation as to the remarkable habit of the elephant, had been made by the author of the _Ayeen Akbery_, in his account of the _Feel_ _Kaneh_, or elephant stables of the Emperor Akbar, in which he says, "an elephant frequently with his trunk takes water out of his stomach and sprinkles himself with it, and it is not in the least offensive."[2] FORBES, in his Oriental Memoirs, quotes this passage of the _Ayeen Akbery_, but without a remark; nor does any European writer with whose works I am acquainted appear to have been cognisant of the peculiarity in question. [Footnote 1: In the account of an elephant corral, chap. vi.] [Footnote 2: _Ayeen Akbery_, transl. by GLADWIN, vol i. pt. i, p. 147.] [Illustration: WATER-CELLS IN THE STOMACH OF THE CAMEL.] It is to be hoped that Professor OWEN'S dissection of the young elephant, recently arrived, may serve to decide this highly interesting point.[1] Should scientific investigation hereafter more clearly establish the fact that, in this particular, the structure of the elephant is assimilated to that of the llama and the camel, it will be regarded as more than a common coincidence, that an apparatus, so unique in its purpose and action, should thus have been conferred by the Creator on the three animals which in sultry climates are, by this arrangement, enabled to traverse arid regions in the service of man.[2] To show this peculiar organization where it attains its fullest development, I have given a sketch of the water-cells, in the stomach of the camel on the preceding page. [Footnote 1: One of the Indian names for the elephant is _duipa_, which signifies "to drink twice" (AMANDI, p. 513). Can this have reference to the peculiarity of the stomach for retaining a supply of water? Or has it merely reference to the habit of the animal to fill his trunk before transferring the water to his mouth.] [Footnote 2: The buffalo and the humped cattle of India, which are used for draught and burden, have, I believe, a development of the organisation of the reticulum which enables the ruminants generally, to endure thirst, and abstain from water, somewhat more conspicuous than in the rest of their congeners; but nothing that approaches in singularity of character to the distinct cavities in the stomach exhibited by the three animals above alluded to.] The _food_ of the elephant is so abundant, that in feeding he never appears to be impatient or voracious, but rather to play with the leaves and branches on which he leisurely feeds. In riding by places where a herd has recently halted, I have sometimes seen the bark peeled curiously off the twigs, as though it had been done in mere dalliance. In the same way in eating grass the elephant selects a tussac which he draws from the ground by a dexterous twist of his trunk, and nothing can be more graceful than the ease with which, before conveying it to his mouth, he beats the earth from its roots by striking it gently upon his fore-leg. A coco-nut he first rolls under foot, to detach the strong outer bark, then stripping off with his trunk the thick layer of fibre within, he places the shell in his mouth, and swallows with evident relish the fresh liquid which flows as he crushes it between his grinders. The natives of the peninsula of Jaffna always look for the periodical appearance of the elephants, at the precise time when the fruit of the palmyra palm begins to fall to the ground from ripeness. In like manner in the eastern provinces where the custom prevails of cultivating what is called _chena_ land (by clearing a patch of forest for the purpose of raising a single crop, after which the ground is abandoned, and reverts to jungle again), although a single elephant may not have been seen in the neighbourhood during the early stages of the process, the Moormen, who are the cultivators of this class, will predict their appearance with almost unerring confidence so soon as the grains shall have begun to ripen; and although the crop comes to maturity at different periods in different districts, herds are certain to be seen at each in succession, as soon as it is ready to be cut. In these well-timed excursions, they resemble the bison of North America, which, by a similarly mysterious instinct, finds its way to portions of the distant prairies, where accidental fires have been followed by a growth of tender grass. Although the fences around these _chenas_ are little more than lines of reeds loosely fastened together, they are sufficient, with the presence of a single watcher, to prevent the entrance of the elephants, who wait patiently till the rice and _coracan_ have been removed, and the watcher withdrawn; and, then finding gaps in the fence, they may be seen gleaning among the leavings and the stubble; and they take their departure when these are exhausted, apparently in the direction of some other _chena_, which they have ascertained to be about to be cut. There is something still unexplained in the dread which an elephant always exhibits on approaching a fence, and the reluctance which he displays to face the slightest artificial obstruction to his passage. In the fine old tank of Tissa-weva, close by Anarajapoora, the natives cultivate grain, during the dry season, around the margin where the ground has been left bare by the subsidence of the water. These little patches of rice they enclose with small sticks an inch in diameter and five or six feet in height, such as would scarcely serve to keep out a wild hog if he attempted to force his way through. Passages of from ten to twenty feet wide are left between each field, to permit the wild elephants, which abound in the vicinity to make their nocturnal visits to the water still remaining in the tank. Night after night these open pathways are frequented by immense herds, but the tempting corn is never touched, nor is a single fence disturbed, although the merest, movement of a trunk would be sufficient to demolish the fragile structure. Yet the same spots, the fences being left open as soon as the grain has been cut and carried home, are eagerly entered by the elephants to glean amongst the stubble. Sportsmen observe that an elephant, even when enraged by a wound, will hesitate to charge an assailant across an intervening hedge, but will hurry along it to seek for an opening. It is possible that, on the part of the elephant, there may be some instinctive consciousness, that owing to his superior bulk, he is exposed to danger from sources that might be perfectly harmless in the case of lighter animals, and hence his suspicion that every fence may conceal a snare or pitfall. Some similar apprehension is apparent in the deer, which shrinks from attempting a fence of wire, although it will clear without hesitation a solid wall of greater height. At the same time, the caution with which the elephant is supposed to approach insecure ground and places of doubtful[1] solidity, appears to me, so far as my own observation and experience extend, to be exaggerated, and the number of temporary bridges which are annually broken down by elephants in all parts of Ceylon, is sufficient to show that, although in captivity, and when familiar with such structures, the tame ones may, and doubtless do, exhibit all the wariness attributed to them; yet, in a state of liberty, and whilst unaccustomed to such artificial appliances, their instincts are not sufficient to ensure their safety. Besides, the fact is adverted to elsewhere[2], that the chiefs of the Wanny, during the sovereignty of the Dutch, were accustomed to take in pitfalls the elephants which they rendered as tribute to government. [Footnote 1: "One of the strongest instincts which the elephant possesses, is this which impels him to experiment upon the solidity of every surface which he is required to cross."--_Menageries, &c._ "The Elephant," vol. i. pp. 17, 19, 66.] [Footnote 2: WOLF'S _Life and Adventures_, p. 151. See p. 115, _note_.] A fact illustrative at once of the caution and the spirit of curiosity with which an elephant regards an unaccustomed object has been frequently mentioned to me by the officers engaged in opening roads through the forest. On such occasions the wooden "tracing pegs" which they are obliged to drive into the ground to mark the levels taken during the day, will often be withdrawn by the elephants during the night, to such an extent as frequently to render it necessary to go over the work a second time, in order to replace them.[1] [Footnote 1: _Private Letter_ from Dr. DAVY, author of _An Account of the Interior of Ceylon_.] Colonel HARDY, formerly Deputy Quarter-Master-General in Ceylon, when proceeding, about the year 1820, to a military out-post in the south-east of the island, imprudently landed in an uninhabited part of the coast, intending to take a short cut through the forest, to his destination. He not only miscalculated the distance, but, on the approach of nightfall, he was chased by a vicious rogue elephant. The pursuer was nearly upon him, when, to gain time, he flung down a small dressing-case, which he happened to be carrying. The device was successful; the elephant halted and minutely examined its contents, and thus gave the colonel time to effect his escape.[1] [Footnote 1: The _Colombo Observer_ for March 1858, contains an offer of a reward of twenty-five guineas for the destruction of an elephant which infested the Rajawallé coffee plantation, in the vicinity of Kandy. Its object seemed to be less the search for food, than the satisfying of its curiosity and the gratification of its passion for mischief. Mr. TYTLER, the proprietor, states that it frequented the jungle near the estate, whence it was its custom to sally forth at night for the pleasure of pulling down buildings and trees, "and it seemed to have taken a spite at the pipes of the water-works, the pillars of which it several times broke down--its latest fancy being to wrench off the taps." This elephant has since been shot.] As regards the general sagacity of the elephant, although it has not been over-rated in the instances of those whose powers have been largely developed in captivity, an undue estimate has been formed in relation to them whilst still untamed. The difference of instincts and habits renders it difficult to institute a just comparison between them and other animals. CUVIER[1] is disposed to ascribe the exalted idea that prevails of their intellect to the feats which an elephant performs with that unique instrument, its trunk, combined with an imposing expression of countenance: but he records his own conviction that in sagacity it in no way excels the dog, and some other species of Carnivora. If there be a superiority, I am disposed to award it to the dog, not from any excess of natural capacity, but from the higher degree of development consequent on his more intimate domestication and association with man. [Footnote 1: CUVIER, _Règne Animal_. "Les Mammiferes," p. 280.] One remarkable fact was called to my attention by a gentleman who resided on a coffee plantation at Rassawé, one of the loftiest mountains of the Ambogammoa range. More than once during the terrific thunder-bursts that precede the rains at the change of each monsoon, he observed that the elephants in the adjoining forest hastened from under cover of the trees and took up their station in the open ground, where I saw them on one of these occasions collected into a group; and here, he said, it was their custom to remain till the lightning had ceased, when they retired again into the jungle.[1] It must be observed, however, that showers, and especially light drizzling rain, are believed to bring the elephants from the jungle towards pathways or other openings in the forest;--and hence, in places infested by them, timid persons are afraid to travel in the afternoon during uncertain weather. [Footnote 1: The elephant is believed by the Singhalese to express his uneasiness by his voice, on the approach of _rain_; and the Tamils have a proverb.--"_Listen to the elephant, rain is coming._"] When free in its native woods the elephant evinces rather simplicity than sagacity, and its intelligence seldom exhibits itself in cunning. The rich profusion in which nature has supplied its food, and anticipated its every want, has made it independent of those devices by which carnivorous animals provide for their subsistence; and, from the absence of all rivalry between it and the other denizens of the plains, it is never required to resort to artifice for self-protection. For these reasons, in its tranquil and harmless life, it may appear to casual observers to exhibit even less than ordinary ability; but when danger and apprehension call for the exertion of its powers, those who have witnessed their display are seldom inclined to undervalue its sagacity. Mr. CRIPPS has related to me an instance in which a recently captured elephant was either rendered senseless from fear, or, as the native attendants asserted, _feigned death_ in order to regain its freedom. It was led from the corral as usual between two tame ones, and had already proceeded far towards its destination; when night closing in, and the torches being lighted, it refused to go on, and finally sank to the ground, apparently lifeless. Mr. CRIPPS ordered the fastenings to be removed from its legs, and when all attempts to raise it had failed, so convinced was he that it was dead, that he ordered the ropes to be taken off and the carcase abandoned. While this was being done he and a gentleman by whom he was accompanied leaned against the body to rest. They had scarcely taken their departure and proceeded a few yards, when, to their astonishment, the elephant rose with the utmost alacrity, and fled towards the jungle, screaming at the top of its voice, its cries being audible long after it had disappeared in the shades of the forest. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III. * * * * * NARRATIVES OF THE NATIVES OF CEYLON RELATIVE TO ENCOUNTERS WITH ROGUE ELEPHANTS. The following narratives have been taken down by a Singhalese gentleman, from the statements of the natives by whom they are recounted;--and they are here inserted, in order to show the opinion prevalent amongst the people of Ceylon as to the habits and propensities of the rogue elephant. The stories are given in words of my correspondent, who writes in English, as follows:-- 1. "We," said my informant, who was a native trader of Caltura, "were on our way to Badulla, by way of Ratnapoora and Balangodde, to barter our merchandize for coffee. There were six in our party, myself, my brother-in-law, and four coolies, who carried on pingoes[1] our merchandize, which consisted of cloth and brass articles. About 4 o'clock, P.M., we were close to Idalgasinna, and our coolies were rather unwilling to go further for fear of elephants, which they said were sure to be met with at that noted place, especially as there had been a slight drizzling of rain during the whole afternoon. I was as much afraid of elephants as the coolies themselves; but I was anxious to proceed, and so, after a few words of encouragement addressed to them, and a prayer or two offered up to _Saman dewiyo_[2], we resumed our journey. I also took the further precaution of hanging up a few leaves.[3] As the rain was coming down fast and thick, and I was anxious to get to our halting-place before night, we moved on at a rapid pace. My brother-in-law was in the van of the party, I myself was in the rear, and the four coolies between us, all moving along on a rugged, rocky, and difficult path; as the road to Badulla till lately was on the sloping side of a hill, covered with jungle, pieces of projecting rock, and brushwood. It was about five o'clock in the evening, or a little later, and we had hardly cleared the foot of the hill and got to the plain below, when a rustling of leaves and a crackling of dry brushwood were heard on our right, followed immediately by the trumpeting of a _hora allia_[4], which was making towards us. We all fled, followed by the elephant. I, who was in the rear of the party, was the first to take to flight; the coolies threw away their pingoes, and my brother-in-law his umbrella, and all ran in different directions. I hid myself behind a large boulder of granite nearly covered by jungle: but as my place of concealment was on high ground, I could see all that was going on below. The first thing I observed was the elephant returning to the place where one of the pingoes was lying: he was carrying one of the coolies in a coil of his trunk. The body of the man was dangling with the head downward. I cannot say whether he was then alive or not; I could not perceive any marks of blood or bruises on his person: but he appeared to be lifeless. The elephant placed him down on the ground, put the pingo on his (the man's) shoulder, steadying both the man and the pingo with his trunk and fore-legs. But the man of course did not move or stand up with his pingo. Seeing this, the elephant again raised the cooly and dashed him against the ground, and then trampled the body to a very jelly. This done, he took up the pingo and moved away from the spot; but at the distance of about a fathom or two, laid it down again, and ripping open one of the bundles, took out of it all the contents, _somans_[5], _camb[=a]yas_[6], handkerchiefs, and several pieces of white cambrick cloth, all which he tore to small pieces, and flung them wildly here and there. He did the same with all the other pingoes. When this was over the elephant quietly walked away into the jungle, trumpeting all the way as far as I could hear. When danger was past I came out of my concealment, and returned to the place where we had halted that morning. Here the rest of my companions joined me soon after. The next morning we set out again on our journey, our party being now increased by some seven or eight traders from Salpity Corle: but this time we did not meet with the elephant. We found the mangled corpse of our cooly on the same spot where I had seen it the day before, together with the torn pieces of my cloths, of which we collected as fast as we could the few which were serviceable, and all the brass utensils which were quite uninjured. That elephant was a noted rogue. He had before this killed many people on that road, especially those carrying pingoes of coco-nut oil and ghee. He was afterwards killed by an Englishman. The incidents I have mentioned above, took place about twenty years ago." [Footnote 1: Yokes borne on the shoulder, with a package at each end.] [Footnote 2: The tutelary spirit of the sacred mountain, Adam's Peak.] [Footnote 3: The Singhalese hold the belief, that twigs taken from one bush and placed on another growing close to a pathway, ensure protection to travellers from the attacks of wild animals, and especially of elephants. Can it be that the latter avoid the path, on discovering this evidence of the proximity of recent passengers?] [Footnote 4: A rogue elephant.] [Footnote 5: Woman's robe.] [Footnote 6: The figured cloth worn by men.] The following also relates to the same locality. It was narrated to me by an old Moorman of Barberyn, who, during his earlier years, led the life of a pedlar. 2. "I and another," said he, "were on our way to Badulla, one day some twenty-five or thirty years ago. We were quietly moving along a path which wound round a hill, when all of a sudden, and without the slightest previous intimation either by the rustling of leaves or by any other sign, a huge elephant with short tusks rushed to the path. Where he had been before I can't say; I believe he must have been lying in wait for travellers. In a moment he rushed forward to the road, trumpeting dreadfully, and seized my companion. I, who happened to be in the rear, took to flight, pursued by the elephant, which had already killed my companion by striking him against the ground. I had not moved more than seven or eight fathoms, when the elephant seized me, and threw me up with such force, that I was carried high into the air towards a _Cahata_ tree, whose branches caught me and prevented my falling to the ground. By this I received no other injury than the dislocation of one of my wrists. I do not know whether the elephant saw me after he had hurled me away through the air; but certainly he did not come to the tree to which I was then clinging: even if he had come, he couldn't have done me any more harm, as the branch on which I was far beyond the reach of his trunk, and the tree itself too large for him to pull down. The next thing I saw was the elephant returning to the corpse of my companion, which he again threw on the ground, and placing one of his fore feet on it, he tore it with his trunk limb after limb; and dabbled in the blood that flowed from the shapeless mass of flesh which he was still holding under his foot." 3. "In 1847 or '46," said another informant, "I was a superintendent of a coco-nut estate belonging to Mr. Armitage, situated about twelve miles from Negombo. A rogue elephant did considerable injury to the estate at that time; and one day, hearing that it was then on the plantation, a Mr. Lindsay, an Englishman, who was proprietor of the adjoining property, and myself, accompanied by some seven or eight people of the neighbouring village, went out, carrying with us six rifles loaded and primed. We continued to walk along a path which, near one of its turns, had some bushes on one side. We had calculated to come up with the brute where it had been seen half an hour before; but no sooner had one of our men, who was walking foremost, seen the animal at the distance of some fifteen or twenty fathoms, than he exclaimed, 'There! there!' and immediately took to his heels, and we all followed his example. The elephant did not see us until we had run some fifteen or twenty paces from the spot where we turned, when he gave us chase, screaming frightfully as he came on. The Englishman managed to climb a tree, and the rest of my companions did the same; as for myself I could not, although I made one or two superhuman efforts. But there was no time to be lost. The elephant was running at me with his trunk bent down in a curve towards the ground. At this critical moment Mr. Lindsay held out his foot to me, with the help of which and then of the branches of the tree, which were three or four feet above my head, I managed to scramble up to a branch. The elephant came directly to the tree and attempted to force it down, which he could not. He first coiled his trunk round the stem, and pulled it with all his might, but with no effect. He then applied his head to the tree, and pushed for several minutes, but with no better success. He then trampled with his feet all the projecting roots, moving, as he did so, several times round and round the tree. Lastly, failing in all this, and seeing a pile of timber, which I had lately cut, at a short distance from us, he removed it all (thirty-six pieces) one at a time to the root of the tree, and piled them up in a regular business-like manner; then placing his hind feet on this pile, he raised the fore part of his body, and reached out his trunk, but still he could not touch us, as we were too far above him. The Englishman then fired, and the ball took effect somewhere on the elephant's head, but did not kill him. It made him only the more furious. The next shot, however, levelled him to the ground. I afterwards brought the skull of the animal to Colombo, and it is still to be seen at the house of Mr. Armitage." 4. "One night a herd of elephants entered a village in the Four Corles. After doing considerable injury to plaintain bushes and young coco-nut trees, they retired, the villagers being unable to do anything to protect their fruit trees from destruction. But one elephant was left behind, who continued to scream the whole night through at the same spot. It was then discovered that the elephant, on seeing a jak fruit on a tree somewhat beyond the reach of his trunk, had raised himself on his hind legs, placing his fore feet against the stem, in order to lay hold of the fruit, but unluckily for him there happened to be another tree standing so close to it that the vacant space between the two stems was only a few inches. During his attempts to take hold of the fruit one of his legs happened to get in between the two trees, where, on account of his weight and his clumsy attempts to extricate himself, it got so firmly wedged that he could not remove it, and in this awkward position he remained for some days, till he died on the spot." CHAP. IV. THE ELEPHANT. * * * * * _Elephant Shooting._ As the shooting of an elephant, whatever endurance and adroitness the sport may display in other respects, requires the smallest possible skill as a marksman, the numbers which are annually slain in this way may be regarded as evidence of the multitudes abounding in those parts of Ceylon to which they resort. One officer, Major ROGERS, killed upwards of 1400; another, Captain GALLWEY, has the credit of slaying more than half that number; Major SKINNER, the Commissioner of Roads, almost as many; and less persevering aspirants follow at humbler distances.[1] [Footnote 1: To persons like myself, who are not addicted to what is called "sport," the statement of these wholesale slaughters is calculated to excite surprise and curiosity as to the nature of a passion that impels men to self-exposure and privation, in a pursuit which presents nothing but the monotonous recurrence of scenes of blood and suffering. Mr. BAKER, who has recently published, under the title of "_The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon_" an account of his exploits in the forest, gives us the assurance that "_all real sportsmen are tender-hearted men, who shun cruelty to an animal, and are easily moved by a tale of distress_;" and that although man is naturally bloodthirsty, and a beast of prey by instinct, yet that the true sportsman is distinguished from the rest of the human race by his "_love of nature, and of noble scenery_." In support of this pretension to a gentler nature than the rest of mankind, the author proceeds to attest his own abhorrence of cruelty by narrating the sufferings of an old hound, which, although "toothless," he cheered on to assail a boar at bay, but the poor dog recoiled "covered with blood, cut nearly in half, with a wound fourteen inches in length, from the lower part of the belly, passing up the flank, completely severing the muscles of the hind leg, and extending up the spine; his hind leg having the appearance of being nearly off." In this state, forgetful of the character he had so lately given of the true sportsman, as a lover of nature and a hater of cruelty, he encouraged "the poor old dog," as he calls him, to resume the fight with the boar, which lasted for an hour, when he managed to call the dogs off; and perfectly exhausted, the mangled hound crawled out of the jungle with several additional wounds, including a severe gash in his throat. "He fell from exhaustion, and we made a litter with two poles and a horsecloth to carry him home."--P. 314. If such were the habitual enjoyments of this class of sportsmen, their motiveless massacres would admit of no manly justification. In comparison with them one is disposed to regard almost with favour the exploits of a hunter like Major ROGERS, who is said to have applied the value of the ivory obtained from his encounters towards the purchase of his successive regimental commissions, and had, therefore, an object, however disproportionate, in his slaughter of 1400 elephants. One gentleman in Ceylon, not less distinguished for his genuine kindness of heart, than for his marvellous success in shooting elephants, avowed to me that the eagerness with which he found himself impelled to pursue them had often excited surprise in his own mind; and although he had never read the theory of Lord Kames, or the speculations of Vicesimus Knox, he had come to the conclusion that the passion thus excited within him was a remnant of the hunter's instinct, with which man was originally endowed, to enable him, by the chase, to support existence in a state of nature, and which, though rendered dormant by civilisation, had not been utterly eradicated. This theory is at least more consistent and intelligible than the "love of nature and scenery," sentimentally propounded by the author quoted above.] But notwithstanding this prodigious destruction, a reward of a few shillings per head offered by the Government for taking elephants was claimed for 3500 destroyed in part of the northern province alone, in less than three years prior to 1848: and between 1851 and 1856, a similar reward was paid for 2000 in the southern province, between Galle and Hambangtotte. Although there is little opportunity for the display of marksmanship in an elephant battue, there is one feature in the sport, as conducted in Ceylon, which contrasts favourably with the slaughterhouse details chronicled with revolting minuteness in some recent accounts of elephant shooting in South Africa. The practice in Ceylon is to aim invariably at the head, and the sportsman finds his safety to consist in boldly facing the animal, advancing to within fifteen paces, and lodging a bullet, either in the temple or in the hollow over the eye, or in a well-known spot immediately above the trunk, where the weaker structure of the skull affords an easy access to the brain.[1] The region of the ear is also a fatal spot, and often resorted to,--the places I have mentioned in the front of the head being only accessible when the animal is "charging." Professor HARRISON, in his communication to the Royal Irish Academy on the Anatomy of the Elephant, has rendered an intelligible explanation of this in the following passage descriptive of the cranium:--"it exhibits two remarkable facts: _first_, the small space occupied by the brain; and, _secondly_, the beautiful and curious structure of the bones of the head. The two tables of all these bones, except the occipital, are separated by rows of large cells, some from four to five inches in length, others only small, irregular, and honey-comb-like:--these all communicate with each other, and, through the frontal sinuses, with the cavity of the nose, and also with the tympanum or drum of each ear; consequently, as in some birds, these cells are filled with air, and thus while the skull attains a great size in order to afford an extensive surface for the attachment of muscles, and a mechanical support for the tusks, it is at the same time very light and buoyant in proportion to its bulk; a property the more valuable as the animal is fond of water and bathes in deep rivers." [Footnote 1: The vulnerability of the elephant in this region of the head was known to the ancients, and PLINY, describing a combat of elephants in the amphitheatre at Rome, says, that one was slain by a single blow, "pilum sub oculo adactum, in vitalia capitis venerat" (Lib. viii. c. 7.) Notwithstanding the comparative facility of access to the brain afforded at this spot, an ordinary leaden bullet is not certain to penetrate, and frequently becomes flattened. The hunters, to counteract this, are accustomed to harden the ball, by the introduction of a small portion of type-metal along with the lead.] [Illustration: SECTION OF ELEPHANT'S HEAD.] Generally speaking, a single ball, planted in the forehead, ends the existence of the noble creature instantaneously: and expert sportsmen have been known to kill right and left, one with each barrel; but occasionally an elephant will not fall before several shots have been lodged in his head.[1] [Footnote 1: "There is a wide difference of opinion as to the most deadly shot. I think the temple the most certain, but authority in Ceylon says the 'fronter,' that is, above the trunk. Behind the ear is said to be deadly, but that is a shot which I never fired or saw fired that I remember. If the ball go true to its mark, all shots (in the head) are certain; but the bones on either side of the honey-comb passage to the brain are so thick that there is in all a 'glorious uncertainty' which keeps a man on the _qui vive_ till he sees the elephant down."--From a paper on _Elephant Shooting in Ceylon_, by Major MACREADY, late Military Secretary at Colombo.] Contrasted with this, one reads with a shudder the sickening details of the African huntsman approaching _behind_ the retiring animal, and of the torture inflicted by the shower of bullets which tear up its flesh and lacerate its flank and shoulders.[1] [Footnote 1: In Mr. GORDON CUMMING'S account of a _Hunter's Life in South Africa_, there is a narrative of his pursuit of a wounded elephant which he had lamed by lodging a ball in its shoulder-blade. It limped slowly towards a tree, against which it leaned itself in helpless agony, whilst its pursuer seated himself in front of it, in safety, to _boil his coffee_, and observe its sufferings. The story is continued as follows:--"Having admired him for a considerable time, _I resolved to make experiments on vulnerable points_; and approaching very near I fired several bullets at different parts of his enormous skull. He only acknowledged the shots by a salaam-like movement of his trunk, with the point of which he gently touched the wounds with a striking and peculiar action. Surprised and shocked at finding that I was only prolonging the sufferings of the noble beast, which bore its trials with such dignified composure, I resolved to finish the proceeding with all possible despatch, and accordingly opened fire upon him from the left side, aiming at the shoulder. I first fired _six_ shots with the two-grooved rifle, which must have eventually proved mortal. After which I fired _six_ shots at the same part with the Dutch six-pounder. _Large tears now trickled from his eyes, which he slowly shut and opened, his colossal frame shivered convulsively, and falling on his side, he expired_." (Vol. ii. p. 10.) In another place, after detailing the manner in which he assailed a poor animal--he says, "I was loading and firing as fast as could be, sometimes at the head, sometimes behind the shoulder, until my elephant's fore-quarter was a mass of gore; notwithstanding which he continued to hold on, leaving the grass and branches of the forest scarlet in his wake. * * * Having fired _thirty-five rounds_ with my two-grooved rifle, I opened upon him with the Dutch six-pounder, and when forty bullets had perforated his hide, he began for the first time, to evince signs of a dilapidated constitution." The disgusting description is closed thus: "Throughout the charge he repeatedly cooled his person with large quantities of water, which he ejected from his trunk over his sides and back, and just as the pangs of death came over him, he stood trembling violently beside a thorn tree, and kept pouring water into his bloody mouth until he died, when he pitched heavily forward with the whole weight of his fore-quarters resting on the points of his tusks. The strain was fair, and the tusks did not yield; but the portion of his head in which the tusks were embedded, extending a long way above the eye, yielded and burst with a muffled crash."--(_Ib_., vol. ii. pp. 4, 5.)] The shooting of elephants in Ceylon has been described with tiresome iteration in the successive journals of sporting gentlemen, but one who turns to their pages for traits of the animal and his instincts is disappointed to find little beyond graphic sketches of the daring and exploits of his pursuers, most of whom, having had no further opportunity of observation than is derived from a casual encounter with the outraged animal, have apparently tried to exalt their own prowess, by misrepresenting the ordinary character of the elephant, describing him as "savage, wary, and revengeful."[1] These epithets may undoubtedly apply to the outcasts from the herd, the "Rogues" or _hora allia_, but so small is the proportion of these that there is not probably one _rogue_ to be found for every five hundred of those in herds; and it is a manifest error, arising from imperfect information, to extend this censure to them generally, or to suppose the elephant to be an animal "thirsting for blood, lying in wait in the jungle to rush on the unwary passer-by, and knowing no greater pleasure than the act of crushing his victim to a shapeless mass beneath his feet."[2] The cruelties practised by the hunters have no doubt taught these sagacious creatures to be cautious and alert, but their precautions are simply defensive; and beyond the alarm and apprehension which they evince on the approach of man, they exhibit no indication of hostility or thirst for blood. [Footnote 1: _The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon_; by S.W. BAKER, Esq., pp. 8, 9. "Next to a rogue," says Mr. BAKER, "in ferocity, and even more persevering in the pursuit of her victim, is a female elephant." But he appends the significant qualification, "_when her young one has been killed_."--_Ibid_., p. 13.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_.] An ordinary traveller seldom comes upon elephants unless after sunset or towards daybreak, as they go to or return from their nightly visits to the tanks: but when by accident a herd is disturbed by day, they evince, if unattacked, no disposition to become assailants; and if the attitude of defence which they instinctively assume prove sufficent to check the approach of the intruder, no further demonstration is to be apprehended. Even the hunters who go in search of them find them in positions and occupations altogether inconsistent with the idea of their being savage, wary, or revengeful. Their demeanour when undisturbed is indicative of gentleness and timidity, and their actions bespeak lassitude and indolence, induced not alone by heat, but probably ascribable in some degree to the fact that the night has been spent in watchfulness and amusement. A few are generally browsing listlessly on the trees and plants within reach, others fanning themselves with leafy branches, and a few are asleep; whilst the young run playfully among the herd, the emblems of innocence, as the older ones are of peacefulness and gravity. Almost every elephant may be observed to exhibit some peculiar action of the limbs when standing at rest; some move the head monotonously in a circle, or from right to left; some swing their feet back and forward; others flap their ears or sway themselves from side to side, or rise and sink by alternately bending and straightening the fore knees. As the opportunities of observing this custom have been almost confined to elephants in captivity, it has been conjectured to arise from some morbid habit contracted during the length of a voyage by sea[1], or from an instinctive impulse to substitute a motion of this kind in lieu of their wonted exercise; but this supposition is erroneous; the propensity being equally displayed by those at liberty and those in captivity. When surprised by sportsmen in the depths of the jungle, individuals of a herd are always occupied in swinging their limbs in this manner; and in the several corrals which I have seen, where whole herds have been captured, the elephants in the midst of the utmost excitement, and even after the most vigorous charges, if they halted for a moment in stupor and exhaustion, manifested their wonted habit, and swung their limbs or swayed their bodies to and fro incessantly. So far from its being a substitute for exercise, those in the government employment in Ceylon are observed to practise their acquired motion, whatever it may be, with increased vigour when thoroughly fatigued after excessive work. Even the favourite practice of fanning themselves with a leafy branch seems less an enjoyment in itself than a resource when listless and at rest. The term "fidgetty" seems to describe appropriately the temperament of the elephant. [Footnote 1: _Menageries_, &c., "The Elephant," ch. i. p. 21.] They evince the strongest love of retirement and a corresponding dislike to intrusion. The approach of a stranger is perceived less by the eye, the quickness of which is not remarkable (besides which its range is obscured by the foliage), than by sensitive smell and singular acuteness of hearing; and the whole herd is put in instant but noiseless motion towards some deeper and more secure retreat. The effectual manner in which an animal of the prodigious size of the elephant can conceal himself, and the motionless silence which he preserves, is quite surprising; whilst beaters pass and repass within a few yards of his hiding place, he will maintain his ground till the hunter, creeping almost close to his legs, sees his little eye peering out through the leaves, when, finding himself discovered, the elephant breaks away with a crash, levelling the brushwood in his headlong career. If surprised in open ground, where stealthy retreat is impracticable, a herd will hesitate in indecision, and, after a few meaningless movements, stand huddled together in a group, whilst one or two, more adventurous than the rest, advance a few steps to reconnoitre. Elephants are generally observed to be bolder in open ground than in cover, but, if bold at all, far more dangerous in cover than in open ground. In searching for them, sportsmen often avail themselves of the expertness of the native trackers; and notwithstanding the demonstration of Combe that the brain of the timid Singhalese is deficient in the organ of destructiveness[1], he shows an instinct for hunting, and exhibits in the pursuit of the elephant a courage and adroitness far surpassing in interest the mere handling of the rifle, which is the principal share of the proceeding that falls to his European companions. [Footnote 1: _System of Phrenology_, by GEO. COMBE, vol. i. p. 256.] The beater on these occasions has the double task of finding the game and carrying the guns; and, in an animated communication to me, an experienced sportsman describes "this light and active creature, with his long glossy hair hanging down his shoulders, every muscle quivering with excitement; and his countenance lighting up with intense animation, leaping from rock to rock, as nimble as a deer, tracking the gigantic game like a blood-hound, falling behind as he comes up with it, and as the elephants, baffled and irritated, make the first stand, passing one rifle into your eager hand and holding the other ready whilst right and left each barrel performs its mission, and if fortune does not flag, and the second gun is as successful as the first, three or four huge carcases are piled one on another within a space equal to the area of a dining room."[1] [Footnote 1: Private letter from Capt. PHILIP PAYNE GALLWEY.] It is curious that in these encounters the herd never rush forward in a body, as buffaloes or bisons do, but only one elephant at a time moves in advance of the rest to confront, or, as it is called, to "charge," the assailants. I have heard of but one instance in which _two_ so advanced as champions of their companions. Sometimes, indeed, the whole herd will follow a leader, and manoeuvre in his rear like a body of cavalry; but so large a party are necessarily liable to panic; and, one of them having turned in alarm, the entire body retreat with terrified precipitation. As regards boldness and courage, a strange variety of temperament is observable amongst elephants, but it may be affirmed that they are, much more generally timid than courageous. One herd may be as difficult to approach as deer, gliding away through the jungle so gently and quickly that scarcely a trace marks their passage; another, in apparent stupor, will huddle themselves together like swine, and allow their assailant to come within a few yards before they break away in terror; and a third will await his approach without motion, and then advance, with fury to the "charge." In individuals the same differences are discernible; one flies on the first appearance of danger, whilst another, alone and unsupported, will face a whole host of enemies. When wounded and infuriated with pain, many of them become literally savage[1]; but, so unaccustomed are they to act as assailants, and so awkward and inexpert in using their strength, that they rarely or ever exceed in killing a pursuer who falls into their power. Although the pressure of a foot, a blow with the trunk, or a thrust with the tusk, could scarcely fail to prove fatal, three-fourths of those who have fallen into their power have escaped without serious injury. So great is this chance of impunity, that the sportsman prefers to approach within about fifteen paces of the advancing elephant, a space which gives time for a second fire should the first shot prove ineffectual, and should both fail there is still opportunity for flight. [Footnote 1: Some years ago an elephant which had been wounded by a native, near Hambangtotte, pursued the man into the town, followed him along the street, trampled him to death in the bazaar before a crowd of spectators, and succeeded in making good its retreat to the jungle.] Amongst full-grown timber, a skilful runner can escape from an elephant by "dodging" round the trees, but in cleared land, and low brushwood, the difficulty is much increased, as the small growth of underwood which obstructs the movements of man presents no obstacle to those of an elephant. On the other hand, on level and open ground the chances are rather in favour of the elephant, as his pace in full flight exceeds that of man, although as a general rule, it is unequal to that of a horse, as has been sometimes asserted.[1] [Footnote 1: SHAW, in his _Zoology_, asserts that an elephant can run as swiftly as a horse can gallop. London, 1800-6, vol. i. p. 216.] The incessant slaughter of elephants by sportsmen in Ceylon, appears to be merely in subordination to the influence of the organ of destructiveness, since the carcase is never applied to any useful purpose, but left to decompose and to defile the air of the forest. The flesh is occasionally tasted as a matter of curiosity: as a steak it is coarse and tough; but the tongue is as delicate as that of an ox; and the foot is said to make palatable soup. The Caffres attached to the pioneer corps in the Kandyan province are in the habit of securing the heart of any elephant shot in their vicinity, and say it is their custom to eat it in Africa. The hide it has been found impracticable to tan in Ceylon, or to convert to any useful purpose, but the bones of those shot have of late years been collected and used for manuring coffee estates. The hair of the tail, which is extremely strong and horny, is mounted by the native goldsmith, and made into bracelets; and the teeth are sawn by the Moormen at Galle (as they used to be by the Romans during a scarcity of ivory) into plates, out of which they fashion numerous articles of ornament, knife-handles, card racks, and "presse-papiers." NOTE. Amongst extraordinary recoveries from desperate wounds, I venture to record here an instance which occurred in Ceylon to a gentleman while engaged in the chase of elephants, and which, I apprehend, has few parallels in pathological experience. Lieutenant GERARD FRETZ, of the Ceylon Rifle Regiment, whilst firing at an elephant in the vicinity of Fort MacDonald, in Oovah, was wounded in the face by the bursting of his fowling-piece, on the 22nd January, 1828. He was then about thirty-two years of age. On raising him, it was found that part of the breech of the gun and about two inches of the barrel had been driven through the frontal sinus, at the junction of the nose and forehead. It had sunk almost perpendicularly till the iron-plate called "the tail-pin," by which the barrel is made fast to the stock by a screw, had descended through the palate, carrying with it the screw, one extremity of which had forced itself into the right nostril, where it was discernible externally, whilst the headed end lay in contact with his tongue. To extract the jagged mass of iron thus sunk in the ethmoidal and sphenoidal cells was found hopelessly impracticable; but, strange to tell, after the inflammation subsided, Mr. FRETZ recovered rapidly; his general health was unimpaired, and he returned to his regiment with this, singular appendage firmly embedded behind the bones of his face. He took his turn of duty as usual, attained the command of his company, participated in all the enjoyments of the mess-room, and died _eight years afterwards_, on the 1st of April, 1836, not from any consequences of this fearful wound, but from fever and inflammation brought on by other causes. So little was he apparently inconvenienced by the presence of the strange body in his palate that he was accustomed with his finger partially to undo the screw, which but for its extreme length he might altogether have withdrawn. To enable this to be done, and possibly to assist by this means the extraction of the breech itself through the original orifice (which never entirely closed), an attempt was made in 1835 to take off a portion of the screw with a file; but, after having cut it three parts through the operation was interrupted, chiefly owing to the carelessness and indifference of Capt. FRETZ, whose death occurred before the attempt could be resumed. The piece of iron, on being removed after his decease, was found to measure 2-3/4 inches in length, and weighed two scruples more than two ounces and three quarters. A cast of the breech and screw now forms No. 2790 amongst the deposits in the Medical Museum of Chatham. CHAP. V. THE ELEPHANT. * * * * * _An Elephant Corral_. So long as the elephants of Ceylon were merely required in small numbers for the pageantry of the native princes, or the sacred processions of the Buddhist temples, their capture was effected either by the instrumentality of female decoys, or by the artifices and agility of the individuals and castes who devoted themselves to their pursuit and training. But after the arrival of the European conquerors of the island, and when it had become expedient to take advantage of the strength and intelligence of these creatures in clearing forests and making roads and other works, establishments were organised on a great scale by the Portuguese and Dutch, and the supply of elephants kept up by periodical battues conducted at the cost of the government, on a plan similar to that adopted on the continent of India, when herds varying in number from twenty to one hundred and upwards are driven into concealed enclosures and secured. In both these processes, success is entirely dependent on the skill with which the captors turn to advantage the terror and inexperience of the wild elephant, since all attempts would be futile to subdue or confine by ordinary force an animal of such strength and sagacity.[1] [Footnote 1: The device of taking them by means of pitfalls still prevails in India: but in addition to the difficulty of providing against that caution with which the elephant is supposed to reconnoitre suspicious ground, it has the further disadvantage of exposing him to injury from bruises and dislocations in his fall. Still it was the mode of capture employed by the Singhalese, and so late as 1750 WOLF relates that the native chiefs of the Wanny, when capturing elephants for the Dutch, made "pits some fathoms deep in those places whither the elephant is wont to go in search of food, across which were laid poles covered with branches and baited with the food of which he is fondest, making towards which he finds himself taken unawares. Thereafter being subdued by fright and exhaustion, he was assisted to raise himself to the surface by means of hurdles and earth, which he placed underfoot as they were thrown down to him, till he was enabled to step out on solid ground, when the noosers and decoys were in readiness to tie him up to the nearest tree."--See WOLF'S _Life and Adventures_, p. 152. Shakspeare appears to have been acquainted with the plan of taking elephants in pitfalls: Decius, encouraging the conspirators, reminds them of Cæsar's taste for anecdotes of animals, by which he would undertake to lure him to his fate: "For he loves to hear That unicorns may be betrayed with trees. And bears with glasses; _elephants with holes_." JULIUS CÆSAR, Act ii. Scene I.] Knox describes with circumstantiality the mode adopted, two centuries ago, by the servants of the King of Kandy to catch elephants for the royal stud. He says, "After discovering the retreat of such as have tusks, unto these they drive some _she elephants_, which they bring with them for the purpose, which, when once the males have got a sight of, they will never leave, but follow them wheresoever they go; and the females are so used to it that they will do whatsoever, either by word or a beck, their keepers bid them. And so they delude them along through towns and countries, and through the streets of the city, even to the very gates of the king's palace, where sometimes they seize upon them by snares, and sometimes by driving them into a kind of pound, they catch them."[1] [Footnote 1: KNOX'S _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, A.D. 1681, part i. ch. vi. p. 21.] In Nepaul and Burmah, and throughout the Chin-Indian Peninsula, when in pursuit of single elephants, either _rogues_ detached from the herd, or individuals who have been marked for the beauty of their ivory, the natives avail themselves of the aid of females in order to effect their approaches and secure an opportunity of casting a noose over the foot of the destined captive. All accounts concur in expressing high admiration of their courage and address; but from what has fallen under my own observation, added to the descriptions I have heard from other eye-witnesses, I am inclined to believe that in such exploits the Moormen of Ceylon evince a daring and adroitness, surpassing all others. These professional elephant catchers, or, as they are called, Panickeas, inhabit the Moorish villages in the north and north-east of the island, and from time immemorial have been engaged in taking elephants, which are afterwards trained by Arabs, chiefly for the use of the rajahs and native princes in the south of India, whose vakeels are periodically despatched to make purchases in Ceylon. The ability evinced by these men in tracing elephants through the woods has almost the certainty of instinct; and hence their services are eagerly sought by the European sportsmen who go down into their country in search of game. So keen is their glance, that like hounds running "breast high" they will follow the course of an elephant, almost at the top of their speed, over glades covered with stunted grass, where the eye of a stranger would fail to discover a trace of its passage, and on through forests strewn with dry leaves, where it seems impossible to perceive a footstep. Here they are guided by a bent or broken twig, or by a leaf dropped from the animal's mouth, on which the pressure of a tooth may be detected. If at fault, they fetch a circuit like a setter, till lighting on some fresh marks, they go a-head again with renewed vigour. So delicate is the sense of smell in the elephant, and so indispensable is it to go against the wind in approaching him, that on those occasions when the wind is so still that its direction cannot be otherwise discerned, the Panickeas will suspend the film of a gossamer to determine it and shape their course accordingly. They are enabled by the inspection of the footmarks, when impressed in soft clay, to describe the size as well as the number of a herd before it is seen; the height of an elephant at the shoulder being as nearly as possible twice the circumference of his fore foot.[1] On overtaking the game their courage is as conspicuous as their sagacity. If they have confidence in the sportsman for whom they are finding, they will advance to the very heel of the elephant, slap him on the quarter, and convert his timidity into anger, till he turns upon his tormentor and exposes his front to receive the bullet which is awaiting him.[2] [Footnote 1: Previous to the death of the female elephant in the Zoological Gardens, in the Regent's Park, in 1851, Mr. MITCHELL, the Secretary, caused measurements to be accurately made, and found the statement of the Singhalese hunters to be strictly correct, the height at the shoulders being precisely twice the circumference of the fore foot.] [Footnote 2: Major SKINNER, the Chief Officer at the head of the Commission of Roads, in Ceylon, in writing to me, mentions an anecdote illustrative of the daring of the Panickeas. "I once saw," he says, "a very beautiful example of the confidence with which these fellows, from their knowledge of the elephants, meet their worst defiance. It was in Neuera-Kalawa; I was bivouacking on the bank of a river, and had been kept out so late that I did not get to my tent until between 9 and 10 at night. On our return towards it we passed several single elephants making their way to the nearest water, but at length we came upon a large herd that had taken possession of the only road by which we could pass, and which no intimidation would induce to move off. I had some Panickeas with me; they knew the herd, and counselled extreme caution. After trying every device we could think of for a length of time, a little old Moorman of the party came to me and requested we should all retire to a distance. He then took a couple of chules (flambeaux of dried wood, or coco-nut leaves), one in each hand, and waving them above his head till they flamed out fiercely, he advanced at a deliberate pace to within a few yards of the elephant who was acting as leader of the party, and who was growling and trumpeting in his rage, and flourished the flaming torches in his face. The effect was instantaneous: the whole herd dashed away in a panic, bellowing, screaming, and crushing through the underwood, whilst we availed ourselves of the open path to make our way to our tents."] So fearless and confident are they that two men, without aid or attendants, will boldly attempt to capture the largest-sized elephant. Their only weapon is a flexible rope made of elk's or buffalo's hide, with which it is their object to secure one of the hind legs. This they effect either by following in its footsteps when in motion or by stealing close up to it when at rest, and availing themselves of its well-known propensity at such moments to swing the feet backwards and forwards, they contrive to slip a noose over the hind leg. At other times this is achieved by spreading the noose on the ground partially concealed by roots and leaves beneath a tree on which one of the party is stationed, whose business it is to lift it suddenly by means of a cord, raising it on the elephant's leg at the moment when his companion has succeeded in provoking him to place his foot within the circle, the other end having been previously made fast to the stem of the tree. Should the noosing be effected in open ground, and no tree of sufficient strength at hand round which to wind the rope, one of the Moors, allowing himself to be pursued by the enraged elephant, entices him towards the nearest grove; where his companion, dexterously laying hold of the rope as it trails along the ground, suddenly coils it round a suitable stem, and brings the fugitive to a stand still. On finding himself thus arrested, the natural impulse of the captive is to turn on the man who is engaged in making fast the rope, a movement which it is the duty of his colleague to present by running up close to the elephant's head and provoking the animal to confront him by irritating gesticulations and taunting shouts of _dah! dah!_ a monosyllable, the sound of which the elephant peculiarly dislikes. Meanwhile the first assailant, having secured one noose, comes up from behind with another, with which, amidst the vain rage and struggles of the victim, he entraps a fore leg, the rope being, as before, secured to another tree in front, and the whole four feet having been thus entangled, the capture is completed. A shelter is then run up with branches, to protect their prisoner from the sun, and the hunters proceed to build a wigwam for themselves in front of him, kindling their fires for cooking, and making all the necessary arrangements for remaining day and night on the spot to await the process of subduing and taming his rage. In my journeys through the forest I have come unexpectedly on the halting place of adventurous hunters when thus engaged; and on one occasion, about sunrise, in ascending the steep ridge from the bed of the Malwatte river, the foremost rider of our party was suddenly driven back by a furious elephant, which we found picketed by two Panickeas on the crest of the bank. In such a position, the elephant soon ceases to struggle; and what with the exhaustion of rage and resistance, the terror of fire which he dreads, and the constant annoyance of smoke which he detests, in a very short time, a few weeks at the most, his spirit becomes subdued; and being plentifully supplied with plantains and fresh food, and indulged with water, in which he luxuriates, he grows so far reconciled to his keepers that they at length venture to remove him to their own village, or to the sea-side for shipment to India. No part of the hunter's performances exhibits greater skill and audacity than this first forced march of the recently captured elephant from the great central forests to the sea-coast. As he is still too morose to submit to be ridden, and as it would be equally impossible to lead or to drive him by force, the ingenuity of the captors is displayed in alternately irritating and eluding him, but always so attracting his attention as to allure him along in the direction in which they want him to go. Some assistance is derived from the rope by which the original capture was effected, and which, as it serves to make him safe at night, is never removed from the leg till his taming is sufficiently advanced to permit of his being entrusted with partial liberty. In Ceylon the principal place for exporting these animals to India is Manaar, on the western coast, to which the Arabs from the continent resort, bringing with them horses to be bartered for elephants. In order to reach the sea, open plains must be traversed, across which it requires the utmost courage, agility, and patience of the Moors to coax their reluctant charge. At Manaar the elephants are usually detained till any wound on the leg caused by the rope has been healed, when the shipment is effected in the most primitive manner. It being next to impossible to induce the still untamed creature to walk on board, and no mechanical contrivances being provided to ship him; a dhoney, or native boat, of about forty tons' burthen, and about three parts filled with the strong ribbed leaves of the Palmyra palm, is brought alongside the quay in front of the Old Dutch Fort, and lashed so that the gunwale may be as nearly as possible on a line with the level of the wharf. The elephant being placed with his back to the water is forced by goads to retreat till his hind legs go over the side of the quay, but the main contest commences when it is attempted to disengage his fore feet from the shore, and force him to entrust himself on board. The scene becomes exciting from the screams and trumpeting of the elephants, the shouts of the Arabs, the calls of the Moors, and the rushing of the crowd. Meanwhile the huge creature strains every nerve to regain the land; and the day is often consumed before his efforts are overcome, and he finds himself fairly afloat. The same dhoney will take from four to five elephants, who place themselves athwart it, and exhibit amusing adroitness in accommodating their movements to the rolling of the little vessel; and in this way they are ferried across the narrow strait which separates the continent of India from Ceylon.[1] [Footnote 1: In the _Philosophical Transactions_ for 1701, there is "An Account of the taking of Elephants in Ceylon, by Mr. STRACHAN, a Physician who lived seventeen years there," in which the author describes the manner in which they were shipped by the Dutch, at Matura, Galle, and Negombo. A piece of strong sail-cloth having been wrapped round the elephant's chest and stomach, he was forced into the sea between two tame ones, and there made fast to a boat. The tame ones then returned to land, and he swam after the boat to the ship, where tackle was reeved to the sail-cloth, and he was hoisted on board. "But a better way has been invented lately," says Mr. Strachan; "a large flat-bottomed vessel is prepared, covered with planks like a floor; so that this floor is almost of a height with the key. Then the sides of the key and the vessel are adorned with green branches, so that the elephant sees no water till he is in the ship."--_Phil. Trans._, vol. xxiii. No. 227, p. 1051.] But the feat of ensnaring and subduing a single elephant, courageous as it is, and demonstrative of the supremacy with which man wields his "dominion over every beast of the earth," falls far short of the daring exploit of capturing a whole herd: when from thirty to one hundred wild elephants are entrapped in one vast decoy. The mode of effecting this, as it is practised in Ceylon, is no doubt imitated, but with considerable modifications, from the methods prevalent in various parts of India. It was introduced by the Portuguese, and continued by the Dutch, the latter of whom had two elephant hunts in each year, and conducted their operations on so large a scale, that the annual export after supplying the government establishments, was from one hundred to one hundred and fifty elephants, taken principally in the vicinity of Matura, in the southern province, and marched for shipment to Manaar.[1] [Footnote 1: VALENTYN. _Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien_, ch. xv. p. 272.] The custom in Bengal is to construct a strong enclosure (called a _keddah_), in the heart of the forest, formed of the trunks of trees firmly secured by transverse beams and buttresses, and leaving the gate for the entrance of the elephants. A second enclosure, opening from the first, contains water (if possible a rivulet): this, again, communicates with a third, which terminates in a funnel-shaped passage, too narrow to admit of an elephant turning, and within this the captives being driven in line, are secured with ropes introduced from the outside, and led away in custody of tame ones trained for the purpose. The _keddah_ being prepared, the first operation is to drive the elephants towards it, for which purpose vast bodies of men fetch a compass in the forest around the haunts of the herds, contracting it by degrees, till they complete the enclosure of a certain area, round which they kindle fires, and cut footpaths through the jungle, to enable the watchers to communicate and combine. All this is performed in cautious silence and by slow approaches, to avoid alarming the herd. A fresh circle nearer to the _keddah_ is then formed in the same way, and into this the elephants are admitted from the first one, the hunters following from behind, and lighting new fires around the newly inclosed space. Day after day the process is repeated; till the drove having been brought sufficiently close to make the final rush, the whole party close in from all sides, and with drums, guns, shouts, and flambeaux, force the terrified animals to enter the fatal enclosure, when the passage is barred behind them, and retreat rendered impossible. Their efforts to escape are repressed by the crowd, who drive them back from the stockade with spears and flaming torches; and at last compel them to pass on into the second enclosure. Here they are detained for a short time, and their feverish exhaustion relieved by free access to water;--until at last, being tempted by food, or otherwise induced to trust themselves in the narrow outlet, they are one after another made fast by ropes, passed in through the palisade; and picketed in the adjoining woods to enter on their course of systematic training. These arrangements vary in different districts of Bengal; and the method adopted in Ceylon differs in many essential particulars from them all; the Keddah, or, as it is here called, the corral or _korahl_[1] (from the Portuguese _curral_, a "cattle-pen"), consists of but one enclosure instead of three. A stream or watering-place is not uniformly enclosed within it, because, although water is indispensable after the long thirst and exhaustion of the captives, it has been found that a pond or rivulet within the corral itself adds to the difficulty of leading them out, and increases their reluctance to leave it; besides which, the smaller ones are often smothered by the others in their eagerness to crowd into the water. The funnel-shaped outlet is also dispensed with, as the animals are liable to bruise and injure themselves within the narrow stockade; and should one of them die in it, as is too often the case in the midst of the struggle, the difficulty of removing so great a carcase is extreme. The noosing and securing them, therefore, takes place in Ceylon within the area of the first enclosure into which they enter, and the dexterity and daring displayed in this portion of the work far surpasses that of merely attaching the rope through the openings of the paling, as in an Indian keddah. [Footnote 1: It is thus spelled by WOLF, in his _Life and Adventures_, p. 144. _Corral_ is at the present day a household word in South America, and especially in La Plata, to designate an _enclosure for cattle_.] One result of this change in the system is manifested in the increased proportion of healthy elephants which are eventually secured and trained out of the number originally enclosed. The reason of this is obvious: under the old arrangements, months were consumed in the preparatory steps of surrounding and driving in the herds, which at last arrived so wasted by excitement and exhausted by privation that numbers died within the corral itself, and still more died during the process of training. But in later years the labour of months is reduced to weeks, and the elephants are driven in fresh and full of vigour, so that comparatively few are lost either in the enclosure or the stables. A conception of the whole operation from commencement to end will be best conveyed by describing the progress of an elephant corral as I witnessed it in 1847 in the great forest on the banks of the Alligator River, the Kimbul-oya, in the district of Kornegalle, about thirty miles north-west of Kandy. Kornegalle, or Kurunai-galle, was one of the ancient capitals of the island, and the residence of its kings from A.D. 1319 to 1347.[1] The dwelling-house of the principal civil officer in charge of the district now occupies the site of the former palace, and the ground is strewn with fragments of columns and carved stones, the remnants of the royal buildings. The modern town consists of the bungalows of the European officials, each surrounded with its own garden; two or three streets inhabited by Dutch descendants and by Moors; and a native bazaar, with the ordinary array of rice and curry stuffs and cooking chattees of brass or burnt clay. [Footnote 1: See SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT'S _Ceylon_, Vol. I. Pt. III. ch. xii. p. 415.] The charm of the village is the unusual beauty of its position. It rests within the shade of an enormous rock of gneiss upwards of 600 feet in height, nearly denuded of verdure, and so rounded and worn by time that it has acquired the form of a couchant elephant, from which it derives its name of Ætagalla, the Rock of the Tusker.[1] But Ætagalla is only the last eminence in a range of similarly-formed rocky mountains, which here terminate abruptly; and, which from the fantastic shapes into which their gigantic outlines have been wrought by the action of the atmosphere, are called by the names of the Tortoise Rock, the Eel Rock, and the Rock of the Tusked Elephant. So impressed are the Singhalese by the aspect of these stupendous masses that in ancient grants lands are conveyed in perpetuity, or "so long as the sun and the moon, so long as Ætagalla and Andagalla shall endure."[2] [Footnote 1: Another enormous mass of gneiss is called the Kuruminiagalla, or the Beetle-rock, from its resemblance in shape to the back of that insect, and hence is said to have been derived the name of the town, _Kuruna-galle_ or Kornegalle.] [Footnote 2: FORBES quotes a Tamil conveyance of land, the purchaser of which is to "possess and enjoy it as long as the sun and the moon, the earth and its vegetables, the mountains and the River Cauvery exist."--_Oriental Memoirs_, vol. ii. chap. ii. It will not fail to be observed, that the same figure was employed in Hebrew literature as a type of duration--" They shall fear thee, _so long as the sun and moon endure_; throughout all generations."--Psalm lxxii. 5, 17.] Kornegalle is the resort of Buddhists from the remotest parts of the island, who come to visit an ancient temple on the summit of the great rock, to which access is had from the valley below by means of steep paths and steps hewn out of the solid stone. Here the chief object of veneration is a copy of the sacred footstep hollowed in the granite, similar to that which confers sanctity on Adam's Peak, the towering apex of which, about forty miles distant, the pilgrims can discern from Ætagalla. At times the heat at Kornegalle is intense, in consequence of the perpetual glow diffused from these granite cliffs. The warmth they acquire during the blaze of noon becomes almost intolerable towards evening, and the sultry night is too short to permit them to cool between the setting and the rising of the sun. The district is also liable to occasional droughts when the watercourses fail, and the tanks are dried up. One of these calamities occurred about the period of my visit, and such was the suffering of the wild animals that numbers of crocodiles and bears made their way into the town to drink at the wells. The soil is prolific in the extreme; rice, cotton, and dry grain are cultivated largely in the valley. Every cottage is surrounded by gardens of coco-nuts, arecas, jak-fruit and coffee; the slopes, under tillage, are covered with luxuriant vegetation, and, as far as the eye can reach on every side, there are dense forests intersected by streams, in the shade of which the deer and the elephant abound. In 1847 arrangements were made for one of the great elephant hunts for the supply of the Civil Engineer's Department, and the spot fixed on by Mr. Morris, the Government officer who conducted the corral, was on the banks of the Kimbul river, about fifteen miles from Kornegalle. The country over which we rode to the scene of the approaching capture showed traces of the recent drought, the fields lay to a great extent untilled, owing to the want of water, and the tanks, almost reduced to dryness, were covered with the leaves of the rose-coloured lotus. Our cavalcade was as oriental as the scenery through which it moved; the Governor and the officers of his staff and household formed a long cortege, escorted by the native attendants, horse-keepers, and foot-runners. The ladies were borne in palankins, and the younger individuals of the party carried in chairs raised on poles, and covered with cool green awnings made of the fresh leaves of the talipat palm. After traversing the cultivated lands, the path led across open glades of park-like verdure and beauty, and at last entered the great-forest under the shade of ancient trees wreathed to their crowns with climbing plants and festooned by natural garlands of convolvulus and orchids. Here silence reigned, disturbed only by the murmuring hum of glittering insects, or the shrill clamour of the plum-headed parroquet and the flute-like calls of the golden oriole. We crossed the broad sandy beds of two rivers over-arched by tall trees, the most conspicuous of which is the Kombook[1], from the calcined bark of which the natives extract a species of lime to be used with their betel. And from the branches hung suspended over the water the gigantic pods of the huge puswæl bean[2], the sheath of which measures six feet long by five or six inches broad. [Footnote 1: _Pentaptera paniculata_.] [Footnote 2: _Entada pursætha_.] On ascending the steep bank of the second stream, we found ourselves in front of the residences which had been extemporised for our party in the immediate vicinity of the corral. These cool and enjoyable structures were formed of branches and thatched with palm leaves and fragrant lemon grass; and in addition to a dining-room and suites of bedrooms fitted with tent furniture, they included kitchens, stables, and storerooms, all run up by the natives in the course of a few days. In former times, the work connected with these elephant hunts was performed by the "forced labour" of the natives, as part of that feudal service which under the name of Raja-kariya was extorted from the Singhalese during the rule of their native sovereigns. This system was continued by the Portuguese and Dutch, and prevailed under the British Government till its abolition by the Earl of Ripon in 1832. Under it from fifteen hundred to two thousand men superintended by their headmen, used to be occupied, in constructing the corral, collecting the elephants, maintaining the cordon of watch-fires and watchers, and conducting all the laborious operations of the capture. Since the abolition of Raja-kariya, however, no difficulty has been found in obtaining the voluntary co-operation of the natives on these exciting occasions. The government defrays the expense of that portion of the preparations which involves actual cost,--for the skilled labour expended in the erection of the corral and its appurtenances, and the providing of spears, ropes, arms, flutes, drums, gunpowder, and other necessaries for the occasion. The period of the year selected is that which least interferes with the cultivation of the rice-lands (in the interval between seed time and harvest), and the people themselves, in addition to the excitement and enjoyment of the sport, have a personal interest in reducing the number of elephants, which inflict serious injury on their gardens and growing crops. For a similar reason the priests encourage the practice, because the elephants destroy their sacred Bo-trees, of the leaves of which they are passionately fond; besides which it promotes the facility for obtaining elephants for the processions of the temples: and the Rata-mahat-mayas and headmen have a pride in exhibiting the number of retainers who follow them to the field, and the performances of the tame elephants which they lend for the business of the corral. Thus vast numbers of the peasantry are voluntarily occupied for many weeks in putting up the stockades, cutting paths through the jungle, and relieving the beaters who are engaged in surrounding and driving in the elephants. In selecting the scene for the hunt a position is chosen which lies on some old and frequented route of the animals, in their periodical migrations in search of forage and water; and the vicinity of a stream is indispensable, not only for the supply of the elephants during the time spent in inducing them to approach the enclosure, but to enable them to bathe and cool themselves throughout the process of training after capture. [Illustration: GROUND PLAN OF A CORRAL, AND METHOD OF FENCING IT.] In constructing the corral itself, care is taken to avoid disturbing the trees or the brushwood within the included space, and especially on the side by which the elephants are to approach, where it is essential to conceal the stockade as much as possible by the density of the foliage. The trees used in the structure are from ten to twelve inches in diameter; and are sunk about three feet in the earth, so as to leave a length of from twelve to fifteen feet above ground; with spaces between each stanchion sufficiently wide to permit a man to glide through. The uprights are made fast by transverse beams, to which they are lashed securely by ratans and flexible climbing plants, or as they are called "jungle ropes," and the whole is steadied by means of forked supports, which grasp the tie beams, and prevent the work from being driven outward by the rush of the wild elephants. On the occasion I am now attempting to describe, the space thus enclosed was about 500 feet in length by 250 wide. At one end an entrance was left open, fitted with sliding bars, so prepared as to be capable of being instantly shut;--and from each angle of the end by which the elephants were to approach, two lines of the same strong fencing were continued, and cautiously concealed by the trees; so that if, instead of entering by the open passage, the herd should swerve to right, or left, they would find themselves suddenly stopped and forced to retrace their course to the gate. The preparations were completed by placing a stage for the Governor's party on a group of the nearest trees looking down into the enclosure, so that a view could be had of the entire proceeding, from the entrance of the herd, to the leading out of the captive elephants. It is hardly necessary to observe that the structure here described, massive as it is, would be entirely ineffectual to resist the shock, if assaulted by the full force of an enraged elephant; and accidents have sometimes happened by the breaking through of the herd; but reliance is placed not so much on the resistance of the stockade as on the timidity of the captives and their unconsciousness of their own strength, coupled with the daring of their captors and their devices for ensuring submission. The corral being prepared, the beaters address themselves to drive in the elephants. For this purpose it is often necessary to fetch a circuit of many miles in order to surround a sufficient number, and the caution to be observed involves patience and delay; as it is essential to avoid alarming the elephants, which might otherwise escape. Their disposition being essentially peaceful, and their only impulse to browse in solitude and security, they withdraw instinctively before the slightest intrusion, and advantage is taken of this timidity and love of seclusion to cause only just such an amount of disturbance as will induce them to return slowly in the direction which it is desired they should take. Several herds are by this means concentrated within such an area as will admit of their being completely surrounded by the watchers; and day after day, by degrees, they are moved gradually onwards to the immediate confines of the corral. When their suspicions become awakened and they exhibit restlessness and alarm, bolder measures are adopted for preventing their escape. Fires are kept burning at ten paces apart, night and day, along the circumference of the area within which they are detained; a corps of from two to three thousand beaters is completed, and pathways are carefully cleared through the jungle so as to keep open a communication along the entire circuit. The headmen keep up a constant patrol, to see that their followers are alert at their posts, since neglect at any one spot might permit the escape of the herd, and undo in a moment the vigilance of weeks. By this means any attempt of the elephants to break away is generally checked, and on any point threatened a sufficient force can be promptly assembled to drive them back. At last the elephants are forced onwards so close to the enclosure, that the investing cordon is united at either end with the wings of the corral, the whole forming a circle of about two miles, within the area of which the herd is detained to await the signal for the final drive. Two months had been spent in these preliminaries, and the preparations had been thus far completed, on the day when we arrived and took our places on the stage erected for us, overlooking the entrance to the corral. Close beneath us a group of tame elephants sent by the temples and the chiefs to assist in securing the wild ones, were picketed in the shade, and lazily fanning themselves with leaves. Three distinct herds, whose united numbers were variously represented at from forty to fifty elephants, were enclosed, and were at that moment concealed in the jungle within a short distance of the stockade. Not a sound was permitted to be made, each person spoke to his neighbour in whispers, and such was the silence observed by the multitude of the watchers at their posts, that occasionally we could hear the rustling of the branches as some of the elephants stripped off a leaf. Suddenly the signal was made, and the stillness of the forest was broken by the shouts of the guard, the rolling of the drums and tom-toms, and the discharge of muskets; and beginning at the most distant side of the area, the elephants were urged forward at a rapid pace towards the entrance into the corral. The watchers along the line kept silence only till the herd had passed them, and then joining the cry in their rear they drove them onward with redoubled shouts and noises. The tumult increased as the terrified rout drew near, swelling now on one side now on the other, as the herd in their panic dashed from point to point in their endeavours to force the line, but they were instantly driven back by screams, muskets, and drums. At length the breaking of the branches and the crackling of the brushwood announced their close approach, and the leader bursting from the jungle rushed wildly forward to within twenty yards of the entrance followed by the rest of the herd. Another moment and they would have plunged into the open gate, when suddenly they wheeled round, re-entered the forest, and in spite of the hunters resumed their original position. The chief headman came forward and accounted for the freak by saying that a wild pig[1], an animal which the elephants are said to dislike, had started out of the cover and run across the leader, who would otherwise have held on direct for the corral; and intimated that as the herd was now in the highest pitch of excitement: and it was at all times much more difficult to effect a successful capture by daylight than by night when the fires and flambeaux act with double effect, it was the wish of the hunters to defer their final effort till the evening, when the darkness would greatly aid their exertions. [Footnote 1: Fire, the sound of a horn, and the grunting of a boar are the three things which the Greeks, in the middle ages, believed the elephant specially to dislike: [Greek: Pyr de ptoeitai kai krion kerasphoron, Kai tôn moniôn tên boên tên athroan.] --PHILE, _Expositio de Elephante_, 1. 177.] After sunset the scene exhibited was of extraordinary interest; the low fires, which had apparently only smouldered in the sunlight, assumed their ruddy glow amidst the darkness, and threw their tinge over the groups collected round them; while the smoke rose in eddies through the rich foliage of the trees. The crowds of spectators maintained a profound silence, and not a sound was perceptible beyond the hum of an insect. On a sudden the stillness was broken by the distant roll of a drum, followed by a discharge of musketry. This was the signal for the renewed assault, and the hunters entered the circle with shouts and clamour; dry leaves and sticks were flung upon the watch-fires till they blazed aloft, and formed a line of flame on every side, except in the direction of the corral, which was studiously kept dark; and thither the terrified elephants betook themselves, followed by the yells and racket of their pursuers. The elephants approached at a rapid pace, trampling down the brushwood and crushing the dry branches; the leader emerged in front of the corral, paused for an instant, stared wildly round, and then rushed headlong through the open gate, followed by the rest of the herd. Instantly, as if by magic, the entire circuit of the corral, which up to this moment had been kept in profound darkness, blazed with thousands of lights, every hunter on the instant that the elephants entered, rushing forward to the stockade with a torch kindled at the nearest watch-fire. The elephants first dashed to the very extremity of the enclosure, and being brought up by the fence, retreated to regain the gate, but found it closed. Their terror was sublime: they hurried round the corral at a rapid pace, but saw it now girt by fire on every side; they attempted to force the stockade, but were driven back by the guards with spears and flambeaux; and on whichever side they approached they were repulsed with shouts and volleys of musketry. Collecting into one group, they would pause for a moment in apparent bewilderment, then burst off in another direction, as if it had suddenly occurred to them to try some point which they had before overlooked; but again baffled, they slowly returned to their forlorn resting-place in the centre of the corral. The attraction of this strange scene was not confined to the spectators; it extended to the tame elephants which were stationed outside. At the first approach of the flying herd they evinced the utmost interest. Two in particular which were picketed near the front were intensely excited, and continued tossing their heads, pawing the ground, and starting as the noise drew near. At length, when the grand rush into the corral took place, one of them fairly burst from her fastenings and rushed towards the herd, levelling a tree of considerable size which obstructed her passage.[1] [Footnote 1: The other elephant, a fine tusker, which belonged to Dehigam Ratamahatmeya, continued in extreme excitement throughout all the subsequent operations of the capture, and at last, after attempting to break its way into the corral, shaking the bars with its forehead and tusks, it went off in a state of frenzy into the jungle. A few days after the Aratchy went in search of it with a female decoy, and watching its approach, sprang fairly on the infuriated beast, with a pair of sharp hooks in his hands, which he pressed into tender parts in front of the shoulder, and thus held the elephant firmly till chains were passed over its legs, and it permitted itself to be led quietly away.] For upwards of an hour the elephants continued to traverse the corral and assail the palisade with unabated energy, trumpeting and screaming with rage after each disappointment. Again and again they attempted to force the gate, as if aware, by experience, that it ought to afford an exit as it had already served as an entrance, but they shrank back stunned and bewildered. By degrees their efforts became less and less frequent. Single ones rushed excitedly here and there, returning sullenly to their companions after each effort; and at last the whole herd, stupified and exhausted, formed themselves into a single group, drawn up in a circle with the young in the centre, and stood motionless under the dark shade of the trees in the middle of the corral. Preparations were now made to keep watch during the night, the guard was reinforced around the enclosure, and wood heaped on the fires to keep up a high flame till sunrise. Three herds had been originally entrapped by the beaters outside; but with characteristic instinct they had each kept clear of the other, taking up different stations in the space invested by the watchers. When the final drive took place one herd only had entered the enclosure, the other two keeping behind; and as the gate had to be instantly shut on the first division, the last were unavoidably excluded and remained concealed in the jungle. To prevent their escape, the watchers were ordered to their former stations, the fires were replenished; and all precautions having been taken, we returned to pass the night in our bungalows by the river. CHAP. VI. THE ELEPHANT. * * * * * _The Captives._ As our sleeping-place was not above two hundred yards from the corral, we were frequently awakened by the din of the multitude who were bivouacking in the forest, by the merriment round the watch-fires, and now and then by the shouts with which the guards repulsed some sudden charge of the elephants in attempts to force the stockade. But at daybreak, on going down to the corral, we found all still and vigilant. The fires were allowed to die out as the sun rose, and the watchers who had been relieved were sleeping near the great fence, the enclosure on all sides being surrounded by crowds of men and boys with spears or white peeled wands about ten feet long, whilst the elephants within were huddled together in a compact group, no longer turbulent and restless, but exhausted and calm, and utterly subdued by apprehension and amazement at all that had been passing around them. Nine only had been as yet entrapped[1], of which three were very large, and two were little creatures but a few months old. One of the large ones was a "rogue" and being unassociated with the rest of the herd, he was not admitted to their circle, although permitted to stand near them. [Footnote 1: In some of the elephant hunts conducted in the southern provinces of Ceylon by the earlier British Governors, as many as 170 and 200 elephants were secured in a single corral, of which a portion only were taken out for the public service, and the rest shot, the motive being to rid the neighbourhood of them, and thus protect the crops from destruction. In the present instance, the object being to secure only as many as were required for the Government stud, it was not sought to entrap more than could conveniently be attended to and trained after capture.] Meanwhile, preparations were making outside to conduct the tame elephants into the corral, in order to secure the captives. Noosed ropes were in readiness; and far apart from all stood a party of the out-caste Rodiyas, the only tribe who will touch a dead carcase, to whom, therefore, the duty is assigned of preparing the fine flexible rope for noosing, which is made from the fresh hides of the deer and the buffalo. At length, the bars which secured the entrance to the corral were cautiously withdrawn, and two trained elephants passed stealthily in, each ridden by its mahout (or _ponnekella_, as the keeper is termed in Ceylon), and one attendant; and, carrying a strong collar, formed by coils of rope made from coco-nut fibre, from which hung on either side cords of elk's hide, prepared with a ready noose. Along with these, and concealed behind them, the headman of the "_cooroowe_," or noosers, crept in, eager to secure the honour of taking the first elephant, a distinction which this class jealously contests with the mahouts of the chiefs and temples. He was a wiry little man, nearly seventy years old, who had served in the same capacity under the Kandyan king, and wore two silver bangles, which had been conferred on him in testimony of his prowess. He was accompanied by his son, named Ranghanie, equally renowned for his courage and dexterity. On this occasion ten tame elephants were in attendance; two were the property of an adjoining temple (one of which had been caught but the year before, yet it was now ready to assist in capturing others), four belonged to the neighbouring chiefs, and the rest, including the two which first entered the corral, were part of the Government stud. Of the latter, one was of prodigious age, having been in the service of the Dutch and English Governments in succession for upwards of a century.[1] The other, called by her keeper "Siribeddi," was about fifty years old, and distinguished for gentleness and docility. She was a most accomplished decoy, and evinced the utmost relish for the sport. Having entered the corral noiselessly, carrying a mahout on her shoulders with the headman of the noosers seated behind him, she moved slowly along with a sly composure and an assumed air of easy indifference; sauntering leisurely in the direction of the captives, and halting now and then to pluck a bunch of grass or a few leaves as she passed. As she approached the herd, they put themselves in motion to meet her, and the leader, having advanced in front and passed his trunk gently over her head, turned and paced slowly back to his dejected companions. Siribeddi followed with the same listless step, and drew herself up close behind him, thus affording the nooser an opportunity to stoop under her and slip the noose over the hind foot of the wild one. The latter instantly perceived his danger, shook off the rope, and turned to attack the man. He would have suffered for his temerity had not Siribeddi protected him by raising her trunk and driving the assailant into the midst of the herd, when the old man, being slightly wounded, was helped out of the corral, and his son, Ranghanie, took his place. [Footnote 1: This elephant is since dead; she grew infirm and diseased, and died at Colombo in 1848. Her skeleton is now in the Museum of the Natural History Society at Belfast.] The herd again collected in a circle, with their heads towards the centre. The largest male was singled out, and two tame ones pushed boldly in, one on either side of him, till the three stood nearly abreast. He made no resistance, but betrayed his uneasiness by shifting restlessly from foot to foot. Ranghanie now crept up, and, holding the rope open with both hands (its other extremity being made fast to Siribeddi's collar), and watching the instant when the wild elephant lifted its hind-foot, succeeded in passing the noose over its leg, drew it close, and fled to the rear. The two tame elephants instantly fell back, Siribeddi stretched the rope to its full length, and, whilst she dragged out the captive, her companion placed himself between her and the herd to prevent any interference. In order to tie him to a tree he had to be drawn backwards some twenty or thirty yards, making furious resistance, bellowing in terror, plunging on all sides, and crushing the smaller timber, which bent like reeds beneath his clumsy struggles. Siribeddi drew him steadily after her, and wound the rope round the proper tree, holding it all the time at its full tension, and stepping cautiously across it when, in order to give it a second turn, it was necessary to pass between the tree and the elephant. With a coil round the stem, however, it was beyond her strength to haul the prisoner close up, which was, nevertheless, necessary in order to make him perfectly fast; but the second tame one, perceiving the difficulty, returned from the herd, confronted the struggling prisoner, pushed him shoulder to shoulder, and head to head, forcing him backwards, whilst at every step Siribeddi hauled in the slackened rope till she brought him fairly up to the foot of the tree, where he was made fast by the cooroowe people. A second noose was then passed over the other hind-leg, and secured like the first, both legs being afterwards hobbled together by ropes made from the fibre of the kitool or jaggery palm, which, being more flexible than that of the coco-nut, occasions less formidable ulcerations. The two decoys then ranged themselves, as before, abreast of the prisoner on either side, thus enabling Ranghanie to stoop under them and noose the two fore-feet as he had already done the hind; and these ropes being made fast to a tree in front, the capture was complete, and the tame elephants and keepers withdrew to repeat the operation on another of the herd. [Illustration] [Illustration] As long as the tame ones stood beside him the poor animal remained comparatively calm and almost passive under his distress, but the moment they moved off, and he was left utterly alone, he made the most surprising efforts to set himself free and rejoin his companions. He felt the ropes with his trunk and tried to untie the numerous knots; he drew backwards to liberate his fore-legs, then leaned forward to extricate the hind ones, till every branch of the tall tree vibrated with his struggles. He screamed in anguish, with his proboscis raised high in the air, then falling on his side he laid his head to the ground, first his cheek and then his brow, and pressed down his doubled-in trunk as though he would force it into the earth; then suddenly rising he balanced himself on his forehead and forelegs, holding his hind-feet fairly off the ground. This scene of distress continued some hours, with occasional pauses of apparent stupor, after which the struggle was from time to time renewed convulsively, and as if by some sudden impulse; but at last the vain strife subsided, and the poor animal remained perfectly motionless, the image of exhaustion and despair. Meanwhile Ranghanie presented himself in front of the governor's stage to claim the accustomed largesse for tying the first elephant. He was rewarded by a shower of rupees, and retired to resume his perilous duties in the corral. The rest of the herd were now in a state of pitiable dejection, and pressed closely together as if under a sense of common misfortune. For the most part they stood at rest in a compact body, fretful and uneasy. At intervals one more impatient than the rest would move out a few steps to reconnoitre; the others would follow at first slowly, then at a quicker pace, and at last the whole herd would rush off furiously to renew the often-baffled attempt to storm the stockade. There was a strange combination of the sublime and the ridiculous in these abortive onsets; the appearance of prodigious power in their ponderous limbs, coupled with the almost ludicrous shuffle of their clumsy gait, and the fury of their apparently resistless charge, converted in an instant into timid retreat. They rushed madly down the enclosure, their backs arched, their tails extended, their ears spread, and their trunks raised high above their heads, trumpeting and uttering shrill screams, yet when one step further would have dashed the opposing fence into fragments, they stopped short on a few white rods being pointed at them through the paling[1]; and, on catching the derisive shouts of the crowd, they turned in utter discomfiture, and after an objectless circle or two through the corral, they paced slowly back to their melancholy halting place in the shade. [Footnote 1: The fact of the elephant exhibiting timidity, on having a long rod pointed towards him, was known to the Romans; and PLINY, quoting from the annals of PISO, relates, that in order to inculcate contempt for want of courage in the elephant, they were introduced into the circus during the triumph of METELLUS, after the conquest of the Carthaginians in Sicily, and _driven round the area by workmen holding blunted spears_,--"Ab operariis hastas præpilatas habentibus, per circum totam actos."--Lib. viii. c. 6.] The crowd, chiefly comprised of young men and boys, exhibited astonishing nerve and composure at such moments, rushing up to the point towards which the elephants charged, pointing their wands at their trunks, and keeping up the continual cry of _whoop! whoop!_ which invariably turned them to flight. The second victim singled out from the herd was secured in the same manner as the first. It was a female. The tame ones forced themselves in on either side as before, cutting her off from her companions, whilst Ranghanie stooped under them and attached the fatal noose, and Siribeddi dragged her out amidst unavailing struggles, when she was made fast by each leg to the nearest group of strong trees. When the noose was placed upon her fore-foot, she seized it with her trunk, and succeeded in carrying it to her mouth, where she would speedily have severed it had not a tame elephant interfered, and placing his foot on the rope pressed it downwards out of her jaws. The individuals who acted as leaders in the successive charges on the palisades were always those selected by the noosers, and the operation of tying each, from the first approaches of the decoys, till the captive was left alone by the tree, occupied on an average somewhat less than three-quarters of an hour. It is strange that in these encounters the wild elephants made no attempt to attack or dislodge the mahouts or the cooroowes, who rode on the tame ones. They moved in the very midst of the herd, any individual in which could in a moment have pulled the riders from their seats; but no effort was made to molest them.[1] [Footnote 1: "In a corral, to be on a tame elephant, seems to insure perfect immunity from the attacks of the wild ones. I once saw the old chief Mollegodde ride in amongst a herd of wild elephants, on a small elephant; so small that the Adigar's head was on a level the back of the wild animals: I felt very nervous, but he rode right in among them, and received not the slightest molestation."--_Letter from_ MAJOR SKINNER.] [Illustration] As one after another their leaders wore entrapped and forced away from them, the remainder of the group evinced increased emotion and excitement; but whatever may have been their sympathy for their lost companions, their alarm seemed to prevent them at first from following them to the trees to which they had been tied. In passing them afterwards they sometimes stopped, mutually entwined their trunks, lapped them round each other's limbs and neck, and exhibited the most touching distress at their detention, but made no attempt to disturb the cords that bound them. [Illustration] The variety of disposition in the herd as evidenced by difference of demeanour was very remarkable: some submitted with comparatively little resistance; whilst others in their fury dashed themselves on the ground with a force sufficient to destroy any weaker animal. They vented their rage upon every tree and plant within reach; if small enough to be torn down, they levelled them with their trunks, and stripping them of their leaves and branches, they tossed them wildly over their heads on all sides. Some in their struggles made no sound, whilst others bellowed and trumpeted furiously, then uttered short convulsive screams, and at last, exhausted and hopeless, gave vent to their anguish in low and piteous moanings. Some, after a few violent efforts of this kind, lay motionless on the ground, with no other indication of suffering than the tears which suffused their eyes and flowed incessantly. Others in all the vigour of their rage exhibited the most surprising contortions; and to us who had been accustomed to associate with the unwieldy bulk of the elephant the idea that he must of necessity be stiff and inflexible, the attitudes into which they forced themselves were almost incredible. I saw one lie with the cheek pressed to the earth, and the fore-legs stretched in front, whilst the body was twisted round till the hind-legs extended in the opposite direction. It was astonishing that their trunks were not wounded by the violence with which they flung them on all sides. One twisted his proboscis into such fantastic shapes, that it resembled the writhings of a gigantic worm; he coiled it and uncoiled it with restless rapidity, curling it up like a watch-spring, and suddenly unfolding it again to its full length. Another, which lay otherwise motionless in all the stupor of hopeless anguish, slowly beat the ground with the extremity of his trunk, as a man in despair beats his knee with the palm of his hand. They displayed an amount of sensitiveness and delicacy of touch in the foot, which was very remarkable in a limb of such clumsy dimensions and protected by so thick a covering. The noosers could always force them to lift it from the ground by the gentlest touch of a leaf or twig, apparently applied so as to tickle; but the imposition of the rope was instantaneously perceived, and if it could not be reached by the trunk the other foot was applied to feel its position, and if possible remove it before the noose could be drawn tight. One practice was incessant with almost the entire herd: in the interval between their struggles they beat the ground with their fore feet, and taking up the dry earth in a coil of the trunk, they flung it dexterously over every part of their body. Even when lying down, the sand within reach was thus collected and scattered over their limbs: then inserting the extremity of the trunk in their mouths, they withdrew a quantity of water, which they discharged over their backs, repeating the operation again and again, till the dust was thoroughly saturated. I was astonished at the quantity of water thus applied, which was sufficient when the elephant, as was generally the case, had worked the spot where he lay into a hollow, to convert its surface into a coating of mud. Seeing that the herd had been now twenty-four hours without access to water of any kind, surrounded by watch-fires, and exhausted by struggling and terror, the supply of moisture an elephant is capable of containing in the receptacle attached to his stomach must be very considerable. The conduct of the tame ones during all these proceedings was truly wonderful. They displayed the most perfect conception of every movement, both of the object to be attained, and of the means to accomplish it. They manifested the utmost enjoyment in what was going on. There was no ill-humour, no malignity in the spirit displayed, in what was otherwise a heartless proceeding, but they set about it in a way that showed a thorough relish for it, as an agreeable pastime. Their caution was as remarkable as their sagacity; there was no hurrying, no contusion, they never ran foul of the ropes, were never in the way of the animals already noosed; and amidst the most violent struggles, when the tame ones had frequently to step across the captives, they in no instance trampled on them, or occasioned the slightest accident or annoyance. So far from this, they saw intuitively a difficulty or a danger, and addressed themselves unbidden to remove it. In tying up one of the larger elephants, he contrived before he could be hauled close up to the tree, to walk once or twice round it, carrying the rope with him; the decoy, perceiving the advantage he had thus gained over the nooser, walked up of her own accord, and pushed him backwards with her head, till she made him unwind himself again; upon which the rope was hauled tight and made fast. More than once, when a wild one was extending his trunk, and would have intercepted the rope about to be placed over his leg, Siribeddi, by a sudden motion of her own trunk, pushed his aside, and prevented him; and on one occasion, when successive efforts had failed to put the noose over the fore-leg of an elephant which was already secured by one foot, but which wisely put the other to the ground as often as it was attempted to pass the noose under it, I saw the decoy watch her opportunity, and when his foot was again raised, suddenly push in her own leg beneath it, and hold it up till the noose was attached and drawn tight. One could almost fancy there was a display of dry humour in the manner in which the decoys thus played with the fears of the wild herd, and made light of their efforts at resistance. When reluctant they shoved them forward, when violent they drove them back; when the wild ones threw themselves down, the tame ones butted them with head and shoulders, and forced them up again. And when it was necessary to keep them down, they knelt upon them, and prevented them from rising, till the ropes were secured. At every moment of leisure they fanned themselves with a bunch of leaves, and the graceful ease with which an elephant uses his trunk on such occasions is very striking. It is doubtless owing to the combination of a circular with a horizontal movement in that flexible limb; but it is impossible to see an elephant fanning himself without being struck by the singular elegance of motion which he displays. The tame ones, too, indulged in the luxury of dusting themselves with sand, by flinging it from their trunks; but it was a curious illustration of their delicate sagacity, that so long as the mahout was on their necks, they confined themselves to flinging the dust along their sides and stomach, as if aware, that to throw it over their heads and back would cause annoyance to their riders. One of the decoys which rendered good service, and was obviously held in special awe by the wild herd, was a tusker belonging to Dehigame Rata-mahatmeya. It was not that he used his tusks for purposes of offence, but he was enabled to insinuate himself between two elephants by wedging them in where he could not force his head; besides which they assisted him in raising up the fallen and refractory with greater ease. In some instances where the intervention of the other decoys failed to reduce a wild one to order, the mere presence and approach of the tusker seemed to inspire fear, and insure submission, without more active intervention. I do not know whether it was the surprising qualities exhibited by the tame elephants that cast the courage and dexterity of the men into the shade, but even when supported by the presence, the sagacity, and co-operation of these wonderful creatures, the part sustained by the noosers can bear no comparison with the address and daring displayed by the _pícador_ and _matador_ in a Spanish bull-fight. They certainly possessed great quickness of eye in watching the slightest movement of the elephant, and great expertness in flinging the noose over its foot and attaching it firmly before the animal could tear it off with its trunk; but in all this they had the cover of the decoys to conceal them; and their shelter behind which to retreat. Apart from the services which, from their prodigious strength, the tame elephants are alone capable of rendering, in dragging out and securing the captives, it is perfectly obvious that without their co-operation the utmost prowess and dexterity of the hunters would not avail them, unsupported, to enter the corral and ensnare and lead out a single captive. Of the two tiny elephants which were entrapped, one was about ten months old, the other somewhat more. The smaller one had a little bolt head covered with woolly brown hair, and was the most amusing and interesting miniature imaginable. Both kept constantly with the herd, trotting after them in every charge; when the others stood at rest they ran in and out between the legs of the older ones; and not their own mothers alone, but every female in the group caressed them in turn. The dam of the youngest was the second elephant singled out by the noosers, and as she was dragged along by the decoys, the little creature kept by her side till she was drawn close to the fatal tree. The men at first were rather amused than otherwise by its anger; but they found that it would not permit them to place the second noose upon its mother; it ran between her and them, it tried to seize the rope, it pushed them and struck them with its little trunk, till they were forced to drive it back to the herd. It retreated slowly, shouting all the way, and pausing at every step to look back. It then attached itself to the largest female remaining in the group, and placed itself across her forelegs, whilst she hung down her trunk over its side and soothed and caressed it. Here it continued moaning and lamenting; till the noosers had left off securing its mother, when it instantly returned to her side; but as it became troublesome again, attacking every one who passed, it was at last tied up by a rope to an adjoining tree, to which the other young one was also tied. The second little one, equally with its playmate, exhibited great affection for its dam; it went willingly with its captor as far as the tree to which she was fastened, and in passing her stretched out its trunk and tried to rejoin her; but finding itself forced along, it caught at every twig and branch within its reach, and screamed with grief and disappointment. These two little creatures were the most vociferous of the whole herd, their shouts were incessant, they struggled to attack every one within reach; and as their bodies were more lithe and pliant than those of greater growth, their contortions were quite wonderful. The most amusing thing was, that in the midst of all their agony and affliction, the little fellows seized on every article of food that was thrown to them, and ate and roared simultaneously. Amongst the last of the elephants noosed was the rogue. Though far more savage than the others, he joined in none of their charges and assaults on the fences, as they uniformly drove him off and would not permit him to enter their circle. When dragged past another of his companions in misfortune, who was lying exhausted on the ground, he flew upon him and attempted to fasten his teeth in his head; this was the only instance of viciousness which occurred during the progress of the corral. When tied up and overpowered, he was at first noisy and violent, but soon lay down peacefully, a sign, according to the hunters, that his death was at hand. Their prognostication was correct; he continued for about twelve hours to cover himself with dust like the others, and to moisten it with water from his trunk; but at length he lay exhausted, and died so calmly, that having been moving but a few moment before, his death was only perceived by the myriads of black flies by which his body was almost instantly covered, although not one was visible a moment before.[1] The Rodiyas were called in to loose the ropes that bound him, from the tree, and two tame elephants being harnessed to the dead body, it was dragged to a distance without the corral. [Footnote 1: The surprising faculty of vultures for discovering carrion, has been a subject of much speculation, as to whether it be dependent on their power of sight or of scent. It is not, however, more mysterious than the unerring certainty and rapidity with which some of the minor animals, and more especially insects, in warm climates congregate around the offal on which they feed. Circumstanced as they are, they must be guided towards their object mainly if not exclusively by the sense of smell; but that which excites astonishment is the small degree of odour which seems to suffice for the purpose; the subtlety and rapidity with which it traverses and impregnates the air; and the keen and quick perception with which it is taken up by the organs of those creatures. The instance of the scavenger beetles has been already alluded to; the promptitude with which they discern the existence of matter suited to their purposes, and the speed with which they hurry to it from all directions; often from distances as extraordinary, proportionably, as those traversed by the eye of the vulture. In the instance of the dying elephant referred to above, life was barely extinct when the flies, of which not one was visible but a moment before, arrived in clouds and blackened the body by their multitude; scarcely an instant was allowed to elapse for the commencement of decomposition; no odour of putrefaction could be discerned by us who stood close by; yet some peculiar smell of mortality, simultaneously with parting breath, must have summoned them to the feast. Ants exhibit an instinct equally surprising. I have sometimes covered up a particle of refined sugar with paper on the centre of a polished table; and counted the number of minutes which would elapse before it was fastened on by the small black ants of Ceylon, and a line formed to lower it safely to the floor. Here was a substance which, to our apprehension at least, is altogether inodorous, and yet the quick sense of smell must have been the only conductor of the ants. It has been observed of those fishes which travel overland on the evaporation of the ponds in which they live, that they invariably march in the direction of the nearest water, and even when captured, and placed on the floor of a room, their efforts to escape are always made towards the same point. Is the sense of smell sufficient to account for this display of instinct in them? or is it aided by special organs in the case of the others? Dr. MCGEE, formerly of the Royal Navy, writing to me on the subject of the instant appearance of flies in the vicinity of dead bodies, says: "In warm climates they do not wait for death to invite them to the banquet. In Jamaica I have again and again seen them settle on a patient, and hardly to be driven away by the nurse, the patient himself saying. 'Here are these flies coming to eat me ere I am dead.' At times they have enabled the doctor, when otherwise he would have been in doubt as to his prognosis, to determine whether the strange apyretic interval occasionally present in the last stage of yellow fever was the fatal lull or the lull of recovery; and 'What say the flies?' has been the settling question. Among many, many cases during a long period I have seen but one recovery after the assembling of the flies. I consider the foregoing as a confirmation of smell being the guide even to the attendants, a cadaverous smell has been perceived to arise from the body of a patient twenty-four hours before death."] When every wild elephant had been noosed and tied up, the scene presented was truly oriental. From one to two thousand natives, many of them in gaudy dresses and armed with spears, crowded about the enclosures. Their families had collected to see the spectacle; women, whose children clung like little bronzed Cupids by their sides; and girls, many of them in the graceful costume of that part of the country,--a scarf, which, after having been brought round the waist, is thrown over the left shoulder, leaving the right arm and side free and uncovered. At the foot of each tree was its captive elephant; some still struggling and writhing in feverish excitement, whilst others, in exhaustion and despair, lay motionless, except that, from time to time, they heaped fresh dust upon their heads. The mellow notes of a Kandyan flute, which was played at a distance, had a striking effect upon one or more of them; they turned their heads in the direction from which the music came, expanded their broad ears, and were evidently soothed with the plaintive sound. The two young ones alone still roared for freedom; they stamped their feet, and blew clouds of dust over their shoulders, brandishing their little trunks aloft, and attacking every one who came within their reach. At first the older ones, when secured, spurned every offer of food, trampled it under foot, and turned haughtily away. A few, however, as they became more composed, could not resist the temptation of the juicy stems of the plantain, but rolling them under foot, till they detached the layers, they raised them in their trunks, and commenced chewing listlessly. On the whole, whilst the sagacity, the composure, and docility of the decoys were such as to excite lively astonishment, it was not possible to withhold the highest admiration from the calm and dignified demeanour of the captives. Their entire bearing was at variance with the representation made by some of the "sportsmen" who harass them, that they are treacherous, savage, and revengeful; when tormented by the guns of their persecutors, they, no doubt, display their powers and sagacity in efforts to retaliate or escape; but here their every movement was indicative of innocence and timidity. After a struggle, in which they evinced no disposition to violence or revenge, they submitted with the calmness of despair. Their attitudes were pitiable, their grief was most touching, and their low moaning went to the heart. We could not have borne to witness their distress had their capture been effected by the needless infliction of pain, or had they been destined to ill-treatment afterwards. It was now about two hours after noon, and the first elephants that had entered the corral having been disposed of, preparations were made to reopen the gate, and drive in the other two herds, over which the watchers were still keeping guard. The area of the enclosure was cleared; and silence was again imposed on the crowds who surrounded the corral. The bars that secured the entrance were withdrawn and every precaution repeated as before; but as the space inside was now somewhat trodden down, especially near the entrance, by the frequent charges of the last herd, and as it was to be apprehended that the others might be earlier alarmed and retrace their steps, before the barricades could be replaced, two tame ones were stationed inside to protect the men to whom that duty was assigned. All preliminaries being at length completed, the signal was given; the beaters on the side most distant from the corral closed in with tom-toms and discordant noises; a hedge-fire of musketry was kept up in the rear of the terrified elephants; thousands of voices urged them forward; we heard the jungle crashing as they came on, and at last they advanced through an opening amongst the trees, bearing down all before them like a charge of locomotives. They were led by a huge female, nearly nine feet high, after whom one half of the herd dashed precipitately through the narrow entrance, but the rest turning suddenly towards the left, succeeded in forcing the cordon of guards and making good their escape to the forest. No sooner had the others passed the gate, than the two tame elephants stepped forward from either side, and before the herd could return from the further end of the enclosure, the bars were drawn, the entrance closed, and the men in charge glided outside the stockade. The elephants which had previously been made prisoners within exhibited intense excitement as the fresh din arose around them; they started to their feet, and stretched their trunks in the direction whence they winded the scent of the herd in its headlong flight; and as the latter rushed past, they renewed their struggles to get free and follow. It is not possible to imagine anything more exciting than the spectacle which the wild ones presented careering round the corral, uttering piercing screams, their heads erect and trunks aloft, the very emblems of rage and perplexity, of power and helplessness. Along with those which entered at the second drive was one that evidently belonged to another herd, and had been separated from them in the _mêlée_ when the latter effected their escape, and, as usual, his new companions in misfortune drove him off indignantly as often as he attempted to approach them. The demeanour of those taken in the second drive differed materially from that of the preceding captives, who, having entered the corral in darkness, to find themselves girt with fire and smoke, and beset by hideous sounds and sights on every side, were speedily reduced by fear to stupor and submission--whereas, the second herd having passed into the enclosure by daylight, and its area being trodden down in many places, could clearly discover the fences, and were consequently more alarmed and enraged at their confinement. They were thus as restless as the others had been calm, and so much more vigorous in their assaults that, on one occasion, their courageous leader, undaunted by the multitude of white wands thrust towards her, was only driven back from the stockade by a hunter hurling a blazing flambeau at her head. Her attitude as she stood repulsed, but still irresolute, was a study for a painter. Her eye dilated, her ears expanded, her back arched like a tiger, and her fore-foot in air, whilst she uttered those hideous screams that are imperfectly described by the term "_trumpeting_." Although repeatedly passing by the unfortunates from the former drove, the new herd seemed to take no friendly notice of them; they halted inquiringly for a minute, and then resumed their career round the corral, and once or twice in their headlong flight they rushed madly over the bodies of the prostrate captives as they lay in their misery on the ground. It was evening before the new captives had grown wearied with their furious and repeated charges, and stood still in the centre of the corral collected into a terrified and motionless group. The fires were then relighted, the guard redoubled by the addition of the watchers, who were now relieved from duty in the forest, and the spectators retired to their bungalows for the night. The business of the _third day_ began by noosing and tying up the new captives, and the first sought out was their magnificent leader. Siribeddi and the tame tusker having forced themselves on either side of her, a boy in the service of the Rata-Mahatmeya succeeded in attaching a rope to her hind-foot. Siribeddi moved off, but feeling her strength insufficient to drag the reluctant prize, she went down on her fore-knees, so as to add the full weight of her body to the pull. The tusker, seeing her difficulty, placed himself in front of the prisoner, and forced her backwards, step by step, till his companion, brought her fairly up to the tree, and wound the rope round the stem. Though overpowered by fear, she showed the fullest sense of the nature of the danger she had to apprehend. She kept her head turned towards the noosers, and tried to step in advance of the decoys; in spite of all their efforts, she tore off the first noose from her fore-leg, and placing it under her foot, snapped it into fathom lengths. When finally secured, her writhings were extraordinary. She doubled in her head under her chest, till she lay as round as a hedgehog, and rising again, stood on her fore-feet, and lifting her hind-feet off the ground, she wrung them from side to side, till the great tree above her quivered in every branch. Before proceeding to catch the others, we requested that the smaller trees and jungle, which partially obstructed our view, might be broken away, being no longer essential to screen the entrance to the corral; and five of the tame elephants were brought up for the purpose. They felt the strength of each tree with their trunks, then swaying it backwards and forwards, by pushing it with their foreheads, they watched the opportunity when it was in full swing to raise their fore-feet against the stem, and bear it down to the ground. Then tearing off the festoons of climbing plants, and trampling down the smaller branches and brushwood, they pitched them with their tusks, piling them into heaps along the side of the fence. [Illustration of elephant resisting capture.] Amongst the last that was secured was the solitary individual belonging to the fugitive herd. When they attempted to drag him backwards from the tree near which he was noosed, he laid hold of it with his trunk and lay down on his side immoveable. The temple tusker and another were ordered up to assist, and it required the combined efforts of the three elephants to force him along. When dragged to the place at which he was to be tied up, he continued the contest with desperation, and to prevent the second noose being placed on his foot, he sat down on his haunches, almost in the attitude of the "Florentine Boar," keeping his hind-feet beneath him, and defending his fore-feet with his trunk, with which he flung back the rope as often as it was attempted to attach it. [Illustration of elephant lying on ground after capture.] When overpowered and made fast, his grief was most affecting; his violence sunk to utter prostration, and he lay on the ground, uttering choking cries, with tears trickling down his cheeks. The final operation was that of slackening the ropes, and marching each captive down to the river between two tame ones. This was effected very simply. A decoy, with a strong collar round its neck, stood on either side of the wild one, on which a similar collar was formed, by successive coils of coco-nut rope; and then, connecting the three collars together, the prisoner was effectually made safe between his two guards. During this operation, it was curious to see how the tame elephant, from time to time, used its trunk to shield the arm of its rider, and ward off the trunk of the prisoner, who resisted the placing the rope round his neck. This done, the nooses were removed from his feet, and he was marched off to the river, in which he and his companions were allowed to bathe; a privilege of which all availed themselves eagerly. Each was then made fast to a tree in the forest, and keepers being assigned to him, with a retinue of leaf-cutters, he was plentifully supplied with his favourite food, and left to the care and tuition of his new masters. Returning from a spectacle such as I have attempted to describe, one cannot help feeling how immeasurably it exceeds in interest those royal battues where timid deer are driven in crowds to unresisting slaughter; or those vaunted "wild sports" the amusement of which appears to be in proportion to the effusion of blood. Here the only display of power was the imposition of restraint; and though considerable mortality often occurs amongst the animals caught, the infliction of pain, so far from being an incident of the operation, is most cautiously avoided from its tendency to enrage, the policy of the captor being to conciliate and soothe. The whole scene exhibits the most marvellous example of the voluntary alliance of animal sagacity and instinct in active co-operation with human intelligence and courage; and nothing else in nature, not even the chase of the whale, can afford so vivid an illustration of the sovereignty of man over brute creation even when confronted with force in its most stupendous embodiment. Of the two young elephants which were taken in the corral, the smallest was sent down to my house at Colombo, where he became a general favourite with the servants. He attached himself especially to the coachman, who had a little shed erected for him near his own quarters at the stables. But his favourite resort was the kitchen, where he received a daily allowance of milk and plantains, and picked up several other delicacies besides. He was innocent and playful in the extreme, and when walking in the grounds he would trot up to me, twine his little trunk round my arm, and coax me to take him to the fruit-trees. In the evening the grass-cutters now and then indulged him by permitting him to carry home a load of fodder for the horses, on which occasions he assumed an air of gravity that was highly amusing, showing that he was deeply impressed with the importance and responsibility of the service entrusted to him. Being sometimes permitted to enter the dining-room, and helped to fruit at desert, he at last learned his way to the side-board; and on more than one occasion having stolen in, during the absence of the servants, he made a clear sweep of the wine-glasses and china in his endeavours to reach a basket of oranges. For these and similar pranks we were at last forced to put him away. He was sent to the Government stud, where he was affectionately received and adopted by Siribeddi, and he now takes his turn of public duty in the department of the Commissioner of Roads. CHAP. VII. THE ELEPHANT. * * * * * _Conduct in Captivity._ The idea prevailed in ancient times, and obtains even at the present day, that the Indian elephant surpasses that of Africa in sagacity and tractability, and consequently in capacity for training, so as to render its services more available to man. There does not appear to me to be sufficient ground for this conclusion. It originated, in all probability, in the first impressions created by the accounts of the elephant brought back by the Greeks after the Indian expedition of Alexander, and above all by the descriptions of Aristotle, whose knowledge of the animal was derived exclusively from the East. A long interval elapsed before the elephant of Africa, and its capabilities, became known in Europe. The first elephants brought to Greece by Antipater, were from India, as were also those introduced by Pyrrhus into Italy. Taught by this example, the Carthaginians undertook to employ African elephants in war. Jugurtha led them against Metellus, and Juba against Cæsar; but from inexperienced and deficient training, they proved less effective than the elephants of India[1], and the historians of these times ascribed to inferiority of race, that which was but the result of insufficient education. [Footnote 1: ARMANDI, _Hist. Milit. des Eléphants_, liv. i. ch. i. p. 2. It is an interesting fact, noticed by ARMANDI, that the elephants figured on the coins of Alexander, and the Seleucidæ invariably exhibit the characteristics of the Indian type, whilst those on Roman medals can at once be pronounced African, from the peculiarities of the convex forehead and expansive ears.--_Ibid_. liv. i. cap. i. p. 3. [Illustration] ARMANDI has, with infinite industry, collected from original sources a mass of curious informations relative to the employment of elephants in ancient warfare, which he has published under the title of _Histoire Militaire des Eléphants depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu' à l'introduction des armes a feu_. Paris. 1843.] It must, however, be remembered that the elephants which, at a later period, astonished the Romans by their sagacity, and whose performances in the amphitheatre have been described by Ælian and Pliny, were brought from Africa, and acquired their accomplishments from European instructors[1]; a sufficient proof that under equally favourable auspices the African species are capable of developing similar docility and powers with those of India. It is one of the facts from which the inferiority of the Negro race has been inferred, that they alone, of all the nations amongst whom the elephant is found, have never manifested ability to domesticate it; and even as regards the more highly developed races who inhabited the valley of the Nile, it is observable that the elephant is nowhere to be found amongst the animals figured on the monuments of ancient Egypt, whilst the camelopard, the lion, and even the hippopotamus are represented. And although in later times the knowledge of the art of training appears to have existed under the Ptolemies, and on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, it admits of no doubt that it was communicated by the more accomplished natives of India who had settled there.[2] [Footnote 1: ÆLIAN, lib. ii. cap. ii.] [Footnote 2: See SCHLEGEL'S Essay on the Elephant and the Sphynx. _Classical Journal_, No. lx. Although the trained elephant nowhere appears upon the monuments of the Egyptians, the animal was not unknown to them, and ivory and elephants are figured on the walls of Thebes and Karnac amongst the spoils of Thothmes III., and the tribute paid to Rameses I. The Island of Elephantine, in the Nile, near Assouan (Syene) is styled in hieroglyphical writing "The Land of the Elephant;" but as it is a mere rock, it probably owes its designation to its form. See Sir GARDNER WILKINSON'S _Ancient Egyptians_, vol. i. pl. iv.; vol. v. p. 176. Above the first cataract of the Nile are two small islands, each bearing the name of Phylæ;--quære, is the derivation of this word at all connected with the Arabic term _fil_? See ante, p. 76, note. The elephant figured in the sculptures of Nineveh is universally as wild, not domesticated.] Another favourite doctrine of the earlier visitors to the East seems to me to be equally fallacious; PYRARD, BERNIER, PHILLIPE, THEVENOT, and other travellers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, proclaimed the superiority of the elephant of Ceylon, in size, strength, and sagacity, above those of all other parts of India[1]; and TAVERNIER in particular is supposed to have stated that if a Ceylon elephant be introduced amongst those bred in any other place, by an instinct of nature they do him homage by laying their trunks to the ground, and raising them reverentially. This passage has been so repeatedly quoted in works on Ceylon that it has passed into an aphorism, and is always adduced as a testimony to the surpassing intelligence of the elephants of that island; although a reference to the original shows that Tavernier's observations are not only fanciful in themselves, but are restricted to the supposed excellence of the Ceylon animal _in war_.[2] This estimate of the superiority of the elephant of Ceylon, if it ever prevailed in India, was not current there at a very early period; for in the _Ramayana_, which is probably the oldest epic in the world, the stud of Dasartha, the king of Ayodhya, was supplied with elephants from the Himalaya and the Vindhya Mountains.[3] I have had no opportunity of testing by personal observation the justice of the assumption; but from all that I have heard of the elephants of the continent, and seen of those of Ceylon, I have reason to conclude that the difference, if not imaginary, is exceptional, and must have arisen in particular and individual instances, from more judicious or elaborate instruction. [Footnote 1: This is merely a reiteration of the statement of ÆLIAN, who ascribes to the elephants of Taprobane a vast superiority in size, strength, and intelligence, above, those of continental India,--[Greek: "Kai oide ge næsiotai elephantes ton hæpiroton halkimoteroi te tæn rhomæn kai meixous idein eisi, kai thumosophoteroi de panta pantæ krinointo han."]--ÆLIAN, _De Nat. Anim_., lib. Xvi. Cap. xviii. ÆLIAN also, in the same chapter, states the fact of the shipment of elephants in large boats from Ceylon to the opposite continent of India, for sale to the king of Kalinga; so that the export from Manaar, described in a former passage, has been going on apparently without interruption since the time of the Romans.] [Footnote 2: The expression of TAVERNIER is to the effect that as compared with all others, the elephants of Ceylon are "plus courageux _à la guerre_." The rest of the passage is a curiosity:-- "Il faut remarquer ici une chose qu'on aura peut-être de la peine à croire main quit est toutefois très-véritable: c'est que lorsque quelque roi on quelque seigneur a quelqu'un de ces éléphants de Ceylan, et qu'on en amène quelqu'autre des lieux où les marchands vont les prendre, comme d'Achen, de Siam, d'Arakan, de Pegu, du royáume de Boutan, d'Assam, des terres de Cochin et de la coste du Mélinde, dés que les éléphants en voient un de Ceylan, par un instinct de nature, ils lui font la révérence, portant le bout de leur trompe à la terre et la relevant. Il est vrai que les éléphants que les grand seigneurs entretiennent, quand en les amine devant eux, pour voir s'ils sent en bon point, font troi fois une espére de révérence avec leur troupe, _a que j'ai en souvent_, mais ils sont stylés à cela, et leurs maitres le leur enseignent de bonne heure."--_Les Six Voyages de_ J.B. TAVERNIER, lib. iii. ch. 20.] [Footnote 3: _Ramayana_, sec. vi.: CAREY and MARSHMAN, i. 105: FAUCHE, t. i. p. 66.] The earliest knowledge of the elephant in Europe and the West, was derived from the conspicuous position assigned to it in the wars of the East: in India, from the remotest antiquity, it formed one of the most picturesque, if not the most effective, features in the armies of the native princes.[1] It is more than probable that the earliest attempts to take and train the elephant, were with a view to military uses, and that the art was perpetuated in later times to gratify the pride of the eastern kings, and sustain the pomp of their processions. [Footnote 1: The only mention of the elephant in Sacred History in the account given in _Maccabees_ of the invasion of Egypt by Antiochus, who entered it 170 B.C., "with chariots and elephants, and horsemen, and a great navy."--1 _Macc_. i. 17. Frequent allusions to the use of elephants in war occur in both books: and in chap. vi. 34, it is stated that "to provoke the elephants to fight they showed them the blood of grapes and of mulberries." The term showed, "[Greek: edeixan]," might be thought to imply that the animals were enraged by the sight of the wine and its colour, but in the Third Book of Maccabees, in the Greek Septuagint, various other passages show that wine, on such occasions, was administered to the elephants to render them furious.--Mace, v. 2. 10, 45. PHILE mentions the same fact, _De Elephante_, i. 145. There is a very curious account of the mode in which the Arab conquerors of Seinde, in the 9th and 10th centuries, equipped the elephant for war; which being written with all the particularity of an eye-witness, bears the impress of truth and accuracy. MASSOUDI, who was born in Bagdad at the close of the 9th century, travelled in India in the year A.D. 913, and visited the Gulf of Cambay, the coast of Malabar, and the Island of Ceylon:--from a larger account of his journeys he compiled a summary under the title of "_Moroudj al-dzeheb," or the "Golden Meadows_," the MS. of which is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. M. REINAUD, in describing this manuscript says on its authority, "The Prince of Mensura, whose dominions lay south of the Indus, maintained eighty elephants trained for war, each of which bore in his trunk a bent cymeter (carthel), with which he was taught to cut and thrust at all confronting him. The trunk itself was effectually protected by a coat of mail, and the rest of the body enveloped in a covering composed jointly of iron and horn. Other elephants were employed in drawing chariots, carrying baggage, and grinding forage, and the performance of all bespoke the utmost intelligence and docility."--REINAUD, _Mèmoires sur l'Inde, antérieurement au milieu du XIe siècle, d'après les écrivains arabes, persans et chinois_. Paris, M.D.CCC. XLIX. p. 215. See SPRENGER'S English Translation of Massoudi, vol. i. p. 383.] An impression prevails even to the present day, that the process of training is tedious and difficult, and the reduction of a full-grown elephant to obedience, slow and troublesome in the extreme.[1] In both particulars, however, the contrary is the truth. The training as it prevails in Ceylon is simple, and the conformity and obedience of the animal are developed with singular rapidity. For the first three days, or till they will eat freely, which they seldom do in a less time, the newly-captured elephants are allowed to stand quiet; and, if practicable, a tame elephant is tied near to give the wild ones confidence. Where many elephants are being trained at once, it is customary to put every new captive between the stalls of half-tamed ones, when it soon takes to its food. This stage being attained, training commences by placing tame elephants on either side. The "cooroowe vidahn," or the head of the stables, stands in front of the wild elephants holding a long stick with a sharp iron point. Two men are then stationed one on either side, assisted by the tame elephants, and each holding a _hendoo_ or crook[2] towards the wild one's trunk, whilst one or two others rub their hands over his back, keeping up all the while a soothing and plaintive chaunt, interlarded with endearing epithets, such as "ho! my son," or "ho! my father," or "my mother," as may be applicable to the age and sex of the captive. The elephant is at first furious, and strikes in all directions with his trunk; but the men in front receiving all these blows on the points of their weapons, the extremity of the trunk becomes so sore that the animal curls it up close, and seldom afterwards attempts to use it offensively. The first dread of man's power being thus established, the process of taking him to bathe between two tame elephants is greatly facilitated, and by lengthening the neck rope, and drawing the feet together as close as possible, the process of laying him down in the water is finally accomplished by the keepers pressing the sharp point of their hendoos over the backbone. [Footnote 1: BRODERIP, _Zoological Recreations_, p. 226.] [Footnote 2: The iron goad with which the keeper directs the movements of the elephants, called a _hendoo_ in Ceylon and _hawkus_ in Bengal, appears to have retained the present shape from the remotest antiquity. It is figured in the medals of Caracalla in the identical form in which it is in use at the present day in India. The Greeks called it [Greek: harpê], and the Romans _cuspis_. [Illustration: Medal of Numidia.] [Illustration: Modern Hendoo.]] For many days the roaring and resistance which attend the operation are considerable, and it often requires the sagacious interference of the tame elephants to control the refractory wild ones. It soon, however, becomes practicable to leave the latter alone, only taking them to and from the stall by the aid of a decoy. This step lasts, under ordinary treatment, for about three weeks, when an elephant may be taken alone with his legs hobbled, and a man walking backwards in front with the point of the hendoo always presented to the elephant's head, and a keeper with an iron crook at each ear. On getting into the water, the fear of being pricked on his tender back induces him to lie down directly on the crook being only held over him _in terrorem_. Once this point has been achieved, the further process of taming is dependent upon the disposition of the creature. The greatest care is requisite, and daily medicines are applied to heal the fearful wounds on the legs which even the softest ropes occasion. This is the great difficulty of training; for the wounds fester grievously, and months and sometimes years will elapse before an elephant will allow his feet to be touched without indications of alarm and anger. The observation has been frequently made that the elephants most vicious and troublesome to tame, and the most worthless when tamed, are those distinguished by a thin trunk and flabby pendulous ears. The period of tuition does not appear to be influenced by the size or strength of the animals: some of the smallest give the greatest amount of trouble; whereas, in the instance of the two largest that have been taken in Ceylon within the last thirty years, both were docile in a remarkable degree. One in particular, which was caught and trained by Mr. Cripps, when Government agent, in the Seven Korles, fed from the hand the first night it was secured, and in a very few days evinced pleasure on being patted on the head.[1] There is none so obstinate, not even a _rogue_, that may not, when kindly and patiently treated, be conciliated and reconciled. [Footnote 1: This was the largest elephant that had been tamed in Ceylon; he measured upwards of nine feet at the shoulders and belonged to the caste so highly prized for the temples. He was gentle after his first capture, but his removal from the corral to the stables, though only a distance of six miles, was a matter of the extremest difficulty; his extraordinary strength rendering him more than a match for the attendant decoys. He, on one occasion, escaped, but was recaptured in the forest; and he afterwards became so docile as to perform a variety of tricks. He was at length ordered to be removed to Colombo; but such was his terror on approaching the gate, that on coaxing him to enter the gate, he became paralysed in the extraordinary way elsewhere alluded to, and _died on the spot_.] The males are generally more unmaneagable than the females, and in both an inclination to lie down to rest is regarded as a favourable symptom of approaching tractability, some of the most resolute having been known to stand for months together, even during sleep. Those which are the most obstinate and violent at first are the soonest and most effectually subdued, and generally prove permanently docile and submissive. But those which are sullen or morose, although they may provoke no chastisement by their viciousness, are always slower in being taught, and are rarely to be trusted in after life.[1] [Footnote 1: The natives profess that the high caste elephants, such as are allotted to the temples, are of all others the most difficult to tame, and M. BLES, the Dutch correspondent of BUFFON, mentions a caste of elephants which he had heard of, as being peculiar to the Kandyan kingdom, that were not higher than a heifer (génisse), covered with hair, and insusceptible of being tamed. (BUFFON, _Supp._ vol. vi. p. 29.) Bishop HEBER, in the account of his journey from Bareilly towards the Himalayas, describes the Raja Gourman Sing, "mounted on a little female elephant, hardly bigger than a Durham ox, and almost as shaggy as a poodle."--_Journx._, ch. xvii. It will be remembered that the mammoth discovered in 1803 embedded in icy soil in Siberia, was covered with a coat of long hair, with a sort of wool at the roots. Hence there arose the question whether that northern region had been formerly inhabited by a race of elephants, so fortified by nature against cold; or whether the individual discovered had been borne thither by currents from some more temperate latitudes. To the latter theory the presence of hair seemed a fatal objection; but so far as my own observation goes, I believe the elephants are more or less provided with hair. In some it is more developed than in others, and it is particularly observable in the young, which when captured are frequently covered with a woolly fleece, especially about the head and shoulders. In the older individuals in Ceylon, this is less apparent: and in captivity the hair appears to be altogether removed by the custom of the mahouts to rub their skin daily with oil and a rough lump of burned clay. See a paper on the subject, _Asiat. Journ._ N.S. vol. xiv. p. 182, by Mr. G. FAIRHOLME.] But whatever may be its natural gentleness and docility, the temper of an elephant is seldom to be implicitly relied on in a state of captivity and coercion. The most amenable are subject to occasional fits of stubbornness; and even after years of submission, irritability and resentment will unaccountably manifest themselves. It may be that the restraints and severer discipline of training have not been entirely forgotten; or that incidents which in ordinary health would be productive of no demonstration whatever, may lead, in moments of temporary illness, to fretfulness and anger. The knowledge of this infirmity led to the popular belief recorded by PHILE, that the elephant had _two hearts_, under the respective influences of which it evinced ferocity of gentleness; subdued by the one to habitual tractability and obedience, but occasionally roused by the other to displays of rage and resistance.[1] [Footnote 1: [Greek: "Diplês de phasin euporêsai kardias Kai tê men einai thumikon to thêrion Eis akratê kinêsin êrethismenon, Tê de prosênes kai thrasytêtos xenon. Kai pê men autôn akroasthai ton logôn Ous an tis Indos eu tithaseuôn legoi, Pê de pros autous tous nomeis epitrechein Eis tas palaias ektrapen kakoupgias."] PHILE, _Expos. de Eleph._, l. 126, &c.] In the process of taming, the presence of the tame ones can generally be dispensed with after two months, and the captive may then be ridden by the driver alone; and after three or four months he may be entrusted with labour, so far as regards docility;--but it is undesirable, and even involves the risk of life, to work an elephant too soon; it has frequently happened that a valuable animal has lain down and died the first time it was tried in harness, from what the natives believe to be "broken heart,"--certainly without any cause inferable from injury or previous disease.[1] It is observable, that till a captured elephant begins to relish food, and grow fat upon it, he becomes so fretted by work, that it kills him in an incredibly short space of time. [Footnote 1: Captain YULE, in his _Narrative of an Embassy to Ava in_ 1855, records an illustration of this tendency of the elephant to sudden death; one newly captured, the process of taming which was exhibited to the British Envoy, "made vigorous resistance to the placing of a collar on its neck, and the people were proceeding to tighten it, when the elephant, which had lain down as if quite exhausted, reared suddenly on the hind quarters, and fell on its side--_dead_!"--P. 104. Mr. STRACHAN noticed the same liability of the elephants to sudden death from very slight causes; "of the fall." he says, "at any time, though on plain ground, they either die immediately, or languish till they die; their great weight occasioning them so much hurt by the fall."--_Phil. Trans._ A.D. 1701, vol. xxiii. p. 1052.] The first employment to which an elephant is put is to tread clay in a brick-field, or to draw a waggon in double harness with a tame companion. But the work in which the display of sagacity renders his labours of the highest value, is that which involves the use of heavy materials; and hence in dragging and piling timber, or moving stones[1] for the construction of retaining walls and the approaches to bridges, his services in an unopened country are of the utmost importance. When roads are to be constructed along the face of steep declivities, and the space is so contracted that risk is incurred either of the working elephant falling over the precipice or of rocks slipping down from above, not only are the measures to which he resorts the most judicious and reasonable that could be devised, but if urged by his keeper to adopt any other, he manifests a reluctance sufficient to show that he has balanced in his own mind the comparative advantages of each. An elephant appears on all occasions to comprehend the purpose and object that he is expected to promote, and hence he voluntarily executes a variety of details without any guidance whatever from his keeper. This is one characteristic in which this animal manifests a superiority over the horse; although his strength in proportion to his weight is not so great as that of the latter. [Footnote 1: A correspondent informs me that on the Malabar coast of India, the elephant, when employed in dragging stones, moves them by means of a rope, which he either draws with his forehead, or manages by seizing it in his teeth.] His minute motions when engrossed by such operations, the activity of his eye, and the earnestness of his attitudes, can only be comprehended by being seen. In moving timber and masses of rock his trunk is the instrument on which he mainly relies, but those which have tusks turn them to good account. To get a weighty stone out of a hollow an elephant will kneel down so as to apply the pressure of his head to move it upwards, then steadying it with one foot till he can raise himself, he will apply a fold of his trunk to shift it to its place, and fit it accurately in position: this done, he will step round to view it on either side, and adjust it with due precision. He appears to gauge his task by his eye, and to form a judgment whether the weight be proportionate to his strength. If doubtful of his own power, he hesitates and halts, and if urged against his will, he roars and shows temper. In clearing an opening through forest land, the power of the African elephant, and the strength ascribed to him by a recent traveller, as displayed in uprooting trees, have never been equalled or approached by anything I have seen of the elephant in Ceylon[1] or heard of them in India. [Footnote 1: "Here the trees were large and handsome, but not strong enough to resist the inconceivable strength of the mighty monarch of these forests; almost every tree had half its branches broken short by them and at every hundred yards I came upon entire trees, and these, _the largest in the forest_, uprooted clean out of the ground, and _broken short across their stems_."--_A Hunter's Life in South Africa_. By R. GORDON CUMMING, vol. ii. p. 305.-- "Spreading out from one another, they smash and destroy all the finest trees in the forest which happen to be in their course.... I have rode through forests where the trees thus broken lay so thick across one another, that it was almost impossible to ride through the district."--_Ibid_., p. 310. Mr. Gordon Cumming does not name the trees which he saw thus "uprooted" and "broken across," nor has he given any idea of their size and weight; but Major DENHAM, who observed like traces of the elephant in Africa, saw only small trees overthrown by them; and Mr. PRINGLE, who had an opportunity of observing similar practices of the animals in the neutral territory of the Eastern frontier of the Cape of Good Hope, describes their ravages as being confined to the mimosas, "immense numbers of which had been torn out of the ground, and placed in an inverted position, in order to enable the animals to browse at their ease on the soft and juicy roots, which form a favourite part of their food. Many of the _larger mimosas had resisted all their efforts; and indeed, it is only after heavy rain, when the soil is soft and loose, that they ever successfully attempt this operation._"--Pringle's _Sketches of South Africa._] Of course much must depend on the nature of the timber and the moisture of the soil; thus a strong tree on the verge of a swamp may be overthrown with greater ease than a small and low one in parched and solid ground. I have seen no "tree" deserving the name, nothing but jungle and brushwood, thrown down by the mere movement of an elephant without some special exertion of force. But he is by no means fond of gratuitously tasking his strength; and food being so abundant that he obtains it without an effort, it is not altogether apparent, even were he able to do so, why he should assail "the largest trees in the forest," and encumber his own haunts with their broken stems; especially as there is scarcely anything which an elephant dislikes more than venturing amongst fallen timber. A tree of twelve inches in diameter resisted successfully the most strenuous struggles of the largest elephant I ever saw led to it; and when directed by their keepers to clear away jungle, the removal of even a small tree, or a healthy young coco-nut palm, is a matter both of time and exertion. Hence the services of an elephant are of much less value in clearing a forest than in dragging and piling felled timber. But in the latter occupation he manifests an intelligence and dexterity which is surprising to a stranger, because the sameness of the operation enables the animal to go on for hours disposing of log after log, almost without a hint or direction from his attendant. For example, two elephants employed in piling ebony and satinwood in the yards attached to the commissariat stores at Colombo, were so accustomed to their work, that they were able to accomplish it with equal precision and with greater rapidity than if it had been done by dock-labourers. When the pile attained a certain height, and they were no longer able by their conjoint efforts to raise one of the heavy logs of ebony to the summit, they had been taught to lean two pieces against the heap, up the inclined plane of which they gently rolled the remaining logs, and placed them trimly on the top. It has been asserted that in their occupations "elephants are to a surprising extent the creatures of habit,"[1] that their movements are altogether mechanical, and that "they are annoyed by any deviation from their accustomed practice, and resent any constrained departure from the regularity of their course." So far as my own observation goes, this is incorrect; and I am assured by officers of experience, that in regard to changing his treatment, his hours, or his occupation, an elephant evinces no more consideration than a horse, but exhibits the same pliancy and facility. [Footnote 1: _Menageries_, &c., "The Elephant," vol. ii. p. 23.] At one point, however, the utility of the elephant stops short. Such is the intelligence and earnestness he displays in work, which he seems to conduct almost without supervision, that it has been assumed[1] that he would continue his labour, and accomplish his given task, as well in the absence of his keeper as during his presence. But here his innate love of ease displays itself, and if the eye of his attendant be withdrawn, the moment he has finished the thing immediately in hand, he will stroll away lazily, to browse or enjoy the luxury of fanning himself and blowing dust over his back. [Footnote 1: _Ibid._, ch. vi. p. 138.] The means of punishing so powerful an animal is a question of difficulty to his attendants. Force being almost inapplicable, they try to work on his passions and feelings, by such expedients as altering the nature of his food or withholding it altogether for a time. Ou such occasions the demeanour of the creature will sometimes evince a sense of humiliation as well as of discontent. In some parts of India it is customary, in dealing with offenders, to stop their allowance of sugar canes or of jaggery; or to restrain them from eating their own share of fodder and leaves till their companions shall have finished; and in such cases the consciousness of degradation betrayed by the looks and attitudes of the culprit is quite sufficient to identify him, and to excite a feeling of sympathy and pity. The elephant's obedience to his keeper is the result of affection, as well as of fear; and although his attachment becomes so strong that an elephant in Ceylon has been known to remain out all night, without food, rather than abandon his mahout, lying intoxicated in the jungle, yet he manifests little difficulty in yielding the same submission to a new driver in the event of a change of attendants. This is opposed to the popular belief that "the elephant cherishes such an enduring remembrance of his old mahout, that he cannot easily be brought to obey a stranger."[1] In the extensive establishments of the Ceylon Government, the keepers are changed without hesitation, and the animals, when equally kindly treated, are usually found to be as tractable and obedient to their new driver as to the old, in fact so soon as they have become familiarised with his voice. This is not, however, invariably the case; and Mr. CRIPPS, who had remarkable opportunities for observing the habits of the elephant in Ceylon, mentioned to me an instance in which one of a singularly stubborn disposition occasioned some inconvenience after the death of its keeper, by refusing to obey any other, till its attendants bethought them of a child about twelve years old, in a distant village, where the animal had been formerly picketed, and to whom it had displayed much attachment. The child was sent for: and on its arrival the elephant, as anticipated, manifested extreme satisfaction, and was managed with ease, till by degrees it became reconciled to the presence of a new superintendent. [Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c._, "The Elephant," vol. i. p. 19.] It has been said that the mahouts die young, owing to some supposed injury to the spinal column from the peculiar motion of the elephant; but this remark does not apply to those in Ceylon, who are healthy, and as long lived as other men. If the motion of the elephant be thus injurious, that of the camel must be still more so; yet we never hear of early death ascribed to this cause by the Arabs. The voice of the keeper, with a very limited vocabulary of articulate sounds, serves almost alone to guide the elephant in his domestic occupations.[1] Sir EVERARD HOME, from an examination of the muscular fibres in the drum of an elephant's ear, came to the conclusion, that notwithstanding the distinctness and power of his perception of sounds at a greater distance than other animals, he was insensible to their harmonious modulation and destitute of a musical ear.[2] But Professor HARRISON, in a paper read before the Royal Irish Academy in 1847, has stated that on a careful examination of the head of an elephant which he had dissected, he could "see no evidence of the muscular structure of the _membrana tympani_ so accurately described by Sir E. HOME." Sir EVERARD'S deduction, I may observe, is clearly inconsistent with the fact that the power of two elephants may be combined by singing to them a measured chant, somewhat resembling a sailor's capstan song; and in labour of a particular kind, such as hauling a stone with ropes, they will thus move conjointly a weight to which their divided strength would be unequal.[3] [Footnote 1: The principal sound by which the mahouts in Ceylon direct the motions of the elephants is a repetition, with various modulations, of the words _ur-re! ur-re!_ This is one of those interjections in which the sound is so expressive of the sense that persons in charge of animals of almost every description throughout the world appear to have adopted it with a concurrence that is very curious. The drivers of camels in Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt encourage them to speed by shouting _ar-ré! ar-ré!_ The Arabs in Algeria cry _eirich!_ to their mules. The Moors seem to have carried the custom with them into Spain, where mules are still driven with cries of _arré_ (whence the muleteers derive their Spanish appellation of "arrieros"). In France the Sportsman excites the hound by shouts of _hare! hare!_ and the waggoner there turns his horses by his voice, and the use of the word _hurhaut!_ In the North, "_Hurs_ was a word used by the old Germans in urging their horses to speed;" and to the present day, the herdsmen in Ireland, and parts of Scotland, drive their pigs with shouts of _hurrish!_ a sound closely resembling that used by the mahouts in Ceylon.] [Footnote 2: _On the Difference between the Human Membrana Tympani and that of the Elephant_. By Sir EVERARD HOME, Bart., Philos. Trans., 1823. Paper by Prof. HARRISON. Proc. Royal Irish Academy, vol. iii. p. 386.] [Footnote 3: I have already noticed the striking effect produced on the captive elephants in the corral, by the harmonious notes of an ivory flute; and on looking to the graphic description which is given by ÆLIAN of the exploits which he witnessed as performed by the elephants exhibited at Rome, it is remarkable how very large a share of their training appears to have been ascribed to the employment of music. PHILE, in the account which he has given of the elephant's fondness for music, would almost seem to have versified the prose narrative of ÆLIAN, as he describes its excitement at the more animated portions, its step being regulated to the time and movements of the harmony: the whole "_surprising in a creature whose limbs are without joints!_ [Greek: "Kainon ti poiôn ex anarthrôn organôn."] PHILE, _Expos. de Eleph_, 1. 216. For an account of the training and performances of the elephants at Rome, as narrated by ÆLIAN see the appendix to this chapter.] Nothing can more strongly exhibit the impulse to obedience in the elephant, than the patience with which, at the order of his keeper, he swallows the nauseous medicines of the native elephant-doctors; and it is impossible to witness the fortitude with which (without shrinking) he submits to excruciating surgical operations for the removal of tumours and ulcers to which he is subject, without conceiving a vivid impression of his gentleness and intelligence. Dr. DAVY when in Ceylon was consulted about an elephant in the government Stud, which was suffering from a deep, burrowing sore in the back, just over the back-bone, which had long resisted the treatment ordinarily employed. He recommended the use of the knife, that issue might be given to the accumulated matter, but no one of the attendants was competent to undertake the operation. "Being assured," he continues, "that the creature would behave well, I undertook it myself. The elephant was not bound, but was made to kneel down at his keeper's command--and with an amputating knife, using all my force, I made the incision required through the tough integuments. The elephant did not flinch, but rather inclined towards me when using the knife; and merely uttered a low, and as it were suppressed, groan. In short, he behaved as like a human being as possible, as if conscious (as I believe he was), that the operation was for his good, and the pain unavoidable."[1] [Footnote 1: The _Angler in the Lake District_, p. 23.] Obedience to the orders of his keepers is not, however, to be assumed as the result of a uniform perception of the object to be attained by compliance; and we cannot but remember the touching incident which took place during the slaughter of the elephant at Exeter Change in 1846, when, after receiving ineffectually upwards of 120 balls in various parts of his body, he turned his face to his assailants on hearing the voice of his keeper, and knelt down at the accustomed word of command, so as to bring his forehead within view of the rifles.[1] [Footnote 1: A shocking account of the death of this poor animal is given in HONE'S _Every-Day Book_, March, 1830, p. 337.] The working elephant is always a delicate animal, and requires watchfulness and care. As a beast of burden he is unsatisfactory; for although in point of mere strength there is scarcely any weight which could be conveniently placed on him that he could not carry, it is difficult to pack his load without causing abrasions that afterwards ulcerate. His skin is easily chafed by harness, especially in wet weather. During either long droughts or too much moisture, his feet become liable to sores, that render him non-effective for months. Many attempts have been made to provide him with some protection for the sole of the foot, but from his extreme weight and peculiar mode of planting the foot, they have all been unsuccessful. His eyes are also liable to frequent inflammations, and the skill of the native elephant-doctors, which has been renowned since the time of Ælian, is nowhere more strikingly displayed than in the successful treatment of such attacks.[1] In Ceylon, the murrain among cattle is of frequent occurrence, and carries off great numbers of animals, wild as well as tame. In such visitations the elephants suffer severely, not only those at liberty in the forest, but those carefully tended in the government stables. Out of a stud of about 40 attached to the department of the Commission of Roads, the deaths between 1841 and 1849 were on an average _four_ in each year, and this was nearly doubled in those years when murrain prevailed. [Footnote 1: ÆLIAN, lib. xiii. c. 7.] Of 240 elephants, employed in the public departments of the Ceylon Government, which died in twenty-five years, from 1831 to 1856, the length of time that each lived in captivity has only been recorded in the instances of 138. Of these there died:-- Duration of Captivity. No. Male. Female Under 1 year 72 29 43 From 1 to 2 years 14 5 9 " 2 " 3 " 8 5 3 " 3 " 4 " 8 3 5 " 4 " 5 " 3 2 1 " 5 " 6 " 2 2 . " 6 " 7 " 3 1 2 " 7 " 8 " 5 2 3 " 8 " 9 " 5 5 . " 9 " 10 " 2 2 . " 10 " 11 " 2 2 . " 11 " 12 " 3 1 2 " 12 " 13 " 3 . 3 " 13 " 14 " . . . " 14 " 15 " 3 1 2 " 15 " 16 " 1 1 . " 16 " 17 " 1 . 1 " 17 " 18 " . . . " 18 " 19 " 2 1 1 " 19 " 20 " 1 . 1 Total 138 62 76 Of the 72 who died in one year's servitude, 35 expired within the first six months of their captivity. During training, many elephants die in the unaccountable manner already referred to, of what the natives designate _a broken heart_. On being first subjected to work, the elephant is liable to severe and often fatal swellings of the jaws and abdomen.[1] [Footnote 1: The elephant which was dissected by DR. HARRISON of Dublin, in 1847, died of a febrile attack, after four or five days' illness, which, as Dr. H. tells me in a private letter, was "very like scarlatina, at that time a prevailing disease; its skin in some places became almost scarlet."] From these causes there died, between 1841 and 1849 9 Of cattle murrain 10 Sore feet 1 Colds and inflammation 6 Diarrhoea 1 Worms 1 Of diseased liver 1 Injuries from a fall 1 General debility 1 Unknown causes 3 Of the entire, twenty-three were females and eleven males. The ages of those that died could not be accurately stated, owing to the circumstance of their having been captured in corral. Two only were tuskers. Towards keeping the stud in health, nothing has been found so conducive as regularly bathing the elephants, and giving them the opportunity to stand with their feet in water, or in moistened earth. Elephants are said to be afflicted with tooth-ache; their tushes have likewise been found with symptoms of internal perforation by some parasite, and the natives assert that, in their agony, the animals have been known to break them off short.[1] I have never heard of the teeth themselves being so affected, and it is just possible that the operation of shedding the subsequent decay of the milk-tushes, may have in some instances been accompanied by incidents that gave rise to this story. [Footnote 1: See a paper entitled "_Recollections of Ceylon_," in _Fraser's Magazine_ for December, 1860.] At the same time the probabilities are in favour of its being true. CUVIER committed himself to the statement that the tusks of the elephant have no attachments to connect them with the pulp lodged in the cavity at their base, from which the peculiar modification of dentine, known as "ivory," is secreted[1]; and hence, by inference, that they would be devoid of sensation. [Footnote 1: _Annales du Muséum_ F. viii. 1805. p. 94, and _Ossemens Fossiles_, quoted by OWEN, in the article on "Teeth," in TODD'S _Cyclop. of Anatomy, &c_., vol. iv. p. 929.] But independently of the fact that ivory in permeated by tubes so fine that at their origin from the pulpy cavity they do not exceed 1/15000th part of an inch in diameter, OWEN had the tusk and pulp of the great elephant which died at the Zoological Gardens in London in 1847 longitudinally divided, and found that, "although the pulp could be easily detached from the inner surface of the cavity, it was not without a certain resistance; and when the edges of the co-adapted pulp and tusk were examined by a strong lens, the filamentary processes from the outer surface of the former could be seen stretching, as they were drawn from the dentinal tubes, before they broke. These filaments are so minute, he adds, that to the naked eye the detached surface of the pulp seems to be entire; and hence CUVIER was deceived into supposing that there was no organic connexion between the pulp and the ivory. But if, as there seems no reason to doubt, these delicate nervous processes traverse the tusk by means of the numerous tubes already described, if attacked by caries the pain occasioned to the elephant would be excruciating. As to maintaining a stud of elephants for the purposes to which they are now assigned in Ceylon, there may be a question on the score of prudence and economy. In the rude and unopened parts of the country, where rivers are to be forded, and forests are only traversed by jungle paths, their labour is of value, in certain contingencies, in the conveyance of stores, and in the earlier operations for the construction of fords and rough bridges of timber. But in more highly civilised districts, and wherever macadamised roads admit of the employment of horses and oxen for draught, I apprehend that the services of elephants might, with advantage, be gradually reduced, if not altogether dispensed with. The love of the elephant for coolness and shade renders him at all times more or less impatient of work in the sun, and every moment of leisure he can snatch is employed in covering his back with dust, or fanning himself to diminish the annoyance of the insects and heat. From the tenderness of his skin and its liability to sores, the labour in which he can most advantageously be employed is that of draught; but the reluctance of horses to meet or pass elephants renders it difficult to work the latter with safety on frequented roads. Besides, were the full load which an elephant is capable of drawing, in proportion to his muscular strength, to be placed upon waggons of corresponding dimension, the to the roads would be such that the wear and tear of the highways and bridges would prove too costly to be borne. On the other hand, by restricting it to a somewhat more manageable quantity, and by limiting the weight, as at present, to about _one ton and a half_, it is doubtful whether an elephant performs so much more work than could be done by a horse or by bullocks, as to compensate for the greater cost of his feeding and attendance. Add to this, that from accidents and other causes, from ulcerations of the skin, and illnesses of many kinds, the elephant is so often invalided, that the actual cost of his labour, when at work, is very considerably enhanced. Exclusive of the salaries of higher officers attached to the government establishments, and other permanent charges, the expenses of an elephant, looking only to the wages of his attendants and the cost of his food and medicines, varies from _three shillings to four shillings and sixpence_, per diem, according to his size and class.[1] Taking the average at three shillings and nine-pence, and calculating that hardly any individual works more than four days out of seven, the charge for each day so employed would amount to _six shillings and sixpence_. The keep per day of a powerful dray-horse, working five days in the week, would not exceed half-a-crown, and two such would unquestionably do more work than any elephant under the present system. I do not know whether it be from a comparative calculation of this kind that the strength of the elephant establishments in Ceylon has been gradually diminished of late years, but in the department of the Commissioner of Roads, the stud, which formerly numbered upwards of sixty elephants, was reduced, some years ago, to thirty-six, and is at present less than half that number. [Footnote 1: An ordinary-sized elephant engrosses the undivided attention of _three_ men. One, as his mahout or superintendent, and two as leaf-cutters, who bring him branches and grass for his daily supplies. An animal of larger growth would probably require a third leaf-cutter. The daily consumption is two cwt. of green food with about half a bushel of grain. When in the vicinity of towns and villages, the attendants have no difficulty in procuring an abundant supply of the branches of the trees to which elephants are partial; and in journeys through the forests and unopened country, the leaf-cutters are sufficiently expert in the knowledge of those particular plants with which the elephant is satisfied. Those that would be likely to disagree with him he unerringly rejects. His favourites are the palms, especially the cluster of rich, unopened leaves, known as the "cabbage," of the coco-nut, and areca; and he delights to tear open the young trunks of the palmyra and jaggery (_Caryota urens_) in search of the farinaceous matter contained in the spongy pith. Next to these come the varieties of fig-trees. particularly the sacred _Bo_ (_F. religiosa_) which is found near every temple, and the _na gaha_ (_Messua ferrea_), with thick dark leaves and a scarlet flower. The leaves of the Jak-tree and bread-fruit (_Artocarpus integrifolia_, and _A. incisa_), the Wood apple (_Ægle Marmelos_), Palu (_Mimusops Indica_), and a number of others well known to their attendants, are all consumed in turn. The stems of the plaintain, the stalks of the sugar-cane, and the feathery tops of the bamboos, are irresistible luxuries. Pine-apples, water-melons, and fruits of every description, are voraciously devoured, and a coco-nut when found is first rolled under foot to detach it from the husk and fibre, and then raised in his trunk and crushed, almost without an effort, by his ponderous jaws. The grasses are not found in sufficient quantity to be an item of daily fodder; the Mauritius or the Guinea grass is seized with avidity; lemon grass is rejected from its overpowering perfume, but rice in the straw, and every description of grain, whether growing or dry; gram (_Cicer arietinum_), Indian Corn, and millet are his natural food. Of such of these as can be found, it is the duty of the leaf-cutters, when in the jungle and on march, to provide a daily supply.] The fallacy of the supposed reluctance of the elephant to breed in captivity has been demonstrated by many recent authorities; but with the exception of the birth of young elephants at Rome, as mentioned by ÆLIAN, the only instances that I am aware of their actually producing young under such circumstances, took place in Ceylon. Both parents had been for several years attached to the stud of the Commissioner of Roads, and in 1844 the female, whilst engaged in dragging a waggon, gave birth to a still-born calf. Some years before, an elephant that had been captured by Mr. Cripps, dropped a female calf, which he succeeded in rearing. As usual, the little one became the pet of the keepers; but as it increased in growth, it exhibited the utmost violence when thwarted; striking out with its hind-feet, throwing itself headlong on the ground, and pressing its trunk against any opposing object. The duration of life in the elephant has been from the remotest times a matter of uncertainty and speculation. Aristotle says it was reputed to live from two to three hundred years[1], and modern zoologists have assigned to it an age very little less; CUVIER[2] allots two hundred and DE BLAINVILLE one hundred and twenty. The only attempt which I know of to establish a period historically or physiologically is that of FLEURENS, who has advanced an ingenious theory on the subject in his treatise "_De la Longévité Humaine_." He assumes the sum total of life in all animals to be equivalent to five times the number of years requisite to perfect their growth and development;--and he adopts as evidence of the period at which growth ceases, the final consolidation of the bones with their _epiphyses_; which in the young consist of cartilages; but in the adult become uniformly osseous and solid. So long as the epiphyses are distinct from the bones, the growth of the animal is proceeding, but it ceases so soon as the consolidation is complete. In man, according to FLEURENS, this consummation takes place at 20 years of age, in the horse at 5, in the dog at 2; so that conformably to this theory the respective normal age for each would be 100 years for man, 25 for the horse, and 10 for a dog. As a datum for his conclusion, FLEURENS cites the instance of one young elephant in which, at 26 years old, the epiphyses were still distinct, whereas in another, which died at 31, they were firm and adherent. Hence he draws the inference that the period of completed solidification is thirty years, and consequently that the normal age of the elephant is _one hundred and fifty_.[3] [Footnote 1: ARISTOTELES _de Anim. l. viii._ c. 9.] [Footnote 2: _Menag. de Mus. Nat._ p. 107.] [Footnote 3: FLEURENS, _De la Longévité Humaine_, pp. 82, 89.] Amongst the Singhalese the ancient fable of the elephant attaining to the age of two or three hundred years still prevails; but the Europeans, and those in immediate charge of tame ones, entertain the opinion that the duration of life for about _seventy_ years is common both to man and the elephant; and that before the arrival of the latter period, symptoms of debility and decay ordinarily begin to manifest themselves. Still instances are not wanting in Ceylon of trained decoys that have lived for more than double the reputed period in actual servitude. One employed by Mr. Cripps in the Seven Korles was represented by the Cooroowe people to have served the king of Kandy in the same capacity sixty years before; and amongst the papers left by Colonel Robertson (son to the historian of "Charles V."), who held a command in Ceylon in 1799, shortly after the capture of the island by the British, I have found a memorandum showing that a decoy was then attached to the elephant establishment at Matura, which the records proved to have served under the Dutch during the entire period of their occupation (extending to upwards of one hundred and forty years); and it was said to have been found in the stables by the Dutch on the expulsion of the Portugese in 1656. It is perhaps from this popular belief in their almost illimitable age, that the natives generally assert that the body of a dead elephant is seldom or never to be discovered in the woods. And certain it is that frequenters of the forest with whom I have conversed, whether European or Singhalese, are consistent in their assurances that they have never found the remains of an elephant that had died a natural death. One chief, the Wannyah of the Trincomalie district, told a friend of mine, that once after a severe murrain, which had swept the province, he found the carcases of elephants that had died of the disease. On the other hand, a European gentleman, who for thirty-six years without intermission has been living in the jungle, ascending to the summits of mountains in the prosecution of the trigonometrical survey, and penetrating valleys in tracing roads and opening means of communication,--one, too, who has made the habits of the wild elephant a subject of constant observation and study,--has often expressed to me his astonishment that after seeing many thousands of living elephants in all possible situations, he had never yet found a single skeleton of a dead one, except of those which had fallen by the rifle.[1] [Footnote 1: This remark regarding the elephant of Ceylon does not appear to extend to that of Africa, as I observe that BEAVER, in his _African Memoranda,_ says that "the skeletons of old ones that have died in the woods are frequently found."--_African Memoranda relative to an attempt to establish British Settlements at the Island of Bulama_. Lond. 1815, p. 353.] It has been suggested that the bones of the elephant, may be so porous and spongy as to disappear in consequence of an early decomposition; but this remark would not apply to the grinders or to the tusks; besides which, the inference is at variance with the fact, that not only the horns and teeth, but entire skeletons of deer, are frequently found in the districts inhabited by the elephant. The natives, to account for this popular belief, declare that the survivors of the herd bury such of their companions as die a natural death.[1] It is curious that this belief was current also amongst the Greeks of the Lower Empire; and PHILE, writing early in the fourteenth century, not only describes the younger elephants as tending the wounded, but as burying the dead: [Greek: "Otan d' epistê tês teleutês o chronos Koinou telous amunan o xenos pherei]."[2] [Footnote 1: A corral was organised near Putlam in 1846, by Mr. Morris, the chief officer of the district. It was constructed across one of the paths which the elephants frequent in their frequent marches, and during the course of the proceedings two of the captured elephants died. Their carcases were left of course within the enclosure, which was abandoned as soon as the capture was complete. The wild elephants resumed their path through it, and a few days afterwards the headman reported to Mr. Morris that the bodies had been removed and carried outside the corral to a spot to which nothing but the elephants could have borne them.] [Footnote 2: PHILE, _Expositio de Eleph._ l. 243.] The Singhalese have a further superstition in relation to the close of life in the elephant: they believe that, on feeling the approach of dissolution, he repairs to a solitary valley, and there resigns himself to death. A native who accompanied Mr. Cripps, when hunting, in the forests of Anarajapoora, intimated to him that he was then in the immediate vicinity of the spot "_to which the elephants come to die_," but that it was so mysteriously concealed, that although every one believed in its existence, no one had ever succeeded in penetrating to it. At the corral which I have described at Kornegalle, in 1847, Dehigame, one of the Kandyan chiefs, assured me it was the universal belief of his countrymen, that the elephants, when about to die, resorted to a valley in Saffragam, among the mountains to the east of Adam's Peak, which was reached by a narrow pass with walls of rock on either side, and that there, by the side of a lake of clear water, they took their last repose.[1] It was not without interest that I afterwards recognised this tradition in the story of _Sinbad of the Sea_, who in his Seventh Voyage, after conveying the presents of Haroun al Raschid to the king of Serendib, is wrecked on his return from Ceylon, and sold as a slave to a master who employs him in shooting elephants for the sake of their ivory; till one day the tree on which he was stationed having been uprooted by one of the herd, he fell senseless to the ground, and the great elephant approaching wound his trunk around him and carried him away, ceasing not to proceed, until he had taken him to a place where, his terror having subsided, _he found himself amongst the bones of elephants, and knew that this was their burial place_.[2] It is curious to find this legend of Ceylon in what has, not inaptly, been described as the "Arabian Odyssey" of Sinbad; the original of which evidently embodies the romantic recitals of the sailors returning from the navigation of the Indian Seas, in the middle ages[3], which were current amongst the Mussulmans, and are reproduced in various forms throughout the tales of the _Arabian Nights_. [Footnote 1: The selection by animals of a _place to die_, is not confined to the elephant, DARWIN says, that in South America "the guanacos (llamas) appear to have favourite spots for lying down to die; on the banks of the Santa Cruz river, in certain circumscribed spaces which were generally bushy and all near the water, the ground was actually white with their bones; on one such spot I counted between ten and twenty heads."--_Nat. Voy._ ch. viii. The same has been remarked in the Rio Gallegos; and at St. Jago in the Cape de Verde Islands, DARWIN saw a retired corner similarly covered with the bones of the goat, as if it were "the burial-ground of all the goats in the island."] [Footnote 2: _Arabian Nights' Entertainment_, LANE'S edition, vol. iii. p. 77.] [Footnote 3: See a disquisition on the origin of the story of Sinbad, by M. REINAUD, in the introduction prefixed to his translation of the _Arabian Geography of Aboulfeda_, vol. i. p. lxxvi.] * * * * * APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII. * * * * * As Ælian's work on the _Nature of Animals_ has never, I believe, been republished in any English version, and the passage in relation to the training and performance of elephants is so pertinent to the present inquiry, I venture to subjoin a translation of the 11th Chapter of his 2nd Book. "Of the cleverness of the elephant I have spoken elsewhere, and likewise of the manner of hunting. I have mentioned these things, a few out of the many which others have stated; but for the present I purpose to speak of their musical feeling, their tractability, and facility in learning what it is difficult for even a human being to acquire, much less a beast, hitherto so wild:--such as to dance, as is done on the stage; to walk with a measured gait; to listen to the melody of the flute and to perceive the difference of sounds, that, being pitched low lead to a slow movement, or high to a quick one: all this the elephant learns and understands, and is accurate withal, and makes no mistake. Thus has Nature formed him not only the greatest in size, but the most gentle and the most easily taught. Now if I were going to write about the tractability and aptitude to learn amongst those of India, Æthiopia, and Libya, I should probably appear to be concocting a tale and acting the braggart, or to be telling a falsehood respecting the nature of the animal founded on a mere report, all which it behoves a philosopher, and most of all one who is an ardent lover of truth, not to do. But what I have seen myself, and what others have described as having occurred at Rome, this I have chosen to relate, selecting a few facts out of many, to show the particular nature of those creatures. The elephant when tamed is an animal most gentle and most easily led to do whatever he is directed. And by way of showing honour to time, I will first narrate events of the oldest date. Cæsar Germanicus, the nephew of Tiberius, exhibited once a public show, wherein there were many full-grown elephants, male and female, and some of their breed born in this country. When their limbs were beginning to become firm, a person familiar with such animals instructed them by a strange and surpassing method of teaching; using only gentleness and kindness, and adding to his mild lessons the bait of pleasant and varied food. By this means he led them by degrees to throw off all wildness, and, as it were, to desert to a state of civilisation, conducting themselves in a manner almost human. He taught them neither to be excited on hearing the pipe, nor to be disturbed by the beat of drum, but to be soothed by the sounds of the reed, and to endure unmusical noises and the clatter of feet from persons while marching; and they were trained to feel no fear of a mass of men, nor to be enraged at the infliction of blows, not even when compelled to twist their limbs and to bend them like a stage-dancer, and this too although endowed with strength and might. And there is in this a very noble addition to nature, not to conduct themselves in a disorderly manner and disobediently towards the instructions of man; for after the dancing-master had made them expert, and they had learnt their lessons accurately, they did not belie the labour of his instruction whenever a necessity and opportunity called upon them to exhibit what they had been taught. For the whole troop came forward from this and that side of the theatre, and divided themselves into parties: they advanced walking with a mincing gait and exhibiting in their whole body and persons the manners of a beau, clothed in the flowery dresses of dancers; and on the ballet-master giving a signal with his voice, they fell into line and went round in a circle, and if it were requisite to deploy they did so. They ornamented the floor of the stage by throwing flowers upon it, and this they did in moderation and sparingly, and straightway they beat a measure with their feet and kept time together. "Now that Damon and Spintharus and Aristoxenus and Xenophilus and Philoxenus and others should know music excellently well, and for their cleverness be ranked amongst the few, is indeed a thing of wonder, but not incredible nor contrary at all to reason. For this reason that a man is a rational animal, and the recipient of mind and intelligence. But that a jointless animal ([Greek: anarthron]) should understand rhythm and melody, and preserve a gesture, and not deviate from a measured movement, and fulfil the requirements of those who laid down instructions, these are gifts of nature, I think, and a peculiarity in every way astounding. Added to these there were things enough to drive the spectator out of his senses; when the strewn rushes and other materials for beds on the ground were placed on the sand of the theatre, and they received stuffed mattrasses such as belonged to rich houses and variegated bed coverings, and goblets were placed there, very expensive, and bowls of gold and silver, and in them a great quantity of water; and tables were placed there of sweet-smelling wood and ivory very superb: and upon them flesh meats and loaves enough to fill the stomachs of animals the most voracious. When the preparations were completed and abundant, the banqueters came forward, six male and an equal number of female elephants; the former had on a male dress, and the latter a female; and on a signal being given they stretched forward their trunks in a subdued manner, and took their food in great moderation, and not one of them appeared to be gluttonous greedy, or to snatch at a greater portion, as did the Persian mentioned by Xenophon. And when it was requisite to drink, a bowl was placed by the side of each; and inhaling with their trunks they took a draught very orderly; and then they scattered the drink about in fun; but not as in insult. Many other acts of a similar kind, both clever and astonishing, have persons described, relating to the peculiarities of these animals, and I saw them writing letters on Roman tablets with their trunks, neither looking awry nor turning aside. The hand, however, of the teacher was placed so as to be a guide in the formation of the letters; and while it was writing the animal kept its eye fixed down in an accomplished and scholarlike manner." CHAP. VIII. BIRDS. Of the _Birds_ of the island, upwards of three hundred and twenty species have been indicated, for which we are indebted to the persevering labours of Dr. Templeton, Dr. Kelaart, and Mr. Layard; but many yet remain to be identified. In fact, to the eye of a stranger, their prodigious numbers, and especially the myriads of waterfowl which, notwithstanding the presence of the crocodiles, people the lakes and marshes in the eastern provinces, form one of the marvels of Ceylon. In the glory of their plumage, the birds of the interior are surpassed by those of South America and Northern India; and the melody of their song bears no comparison with that of the warblers of Europe, but the want of brilliancy is compensated by their singular grace of form, and the absence of prolonged and modulated harmony by the rich and melodious tones of their clear and musical calls. In the elevations of the Kandyan country there are a few, such as the robin of Neuera-ellia[1] and the long-tailed thrush[2], whose song rivals that of their European namesakes; but, far beyond the attraction of their notes, the traveller rejoices in the flute-like voices of the Oriole, the Dayal-bird[3], and some others equally charming; when at the first dawn of day, they wake the forest with their clear _réveil_. [Footnote 1: Pratincola atrata, _Kelaart_.] [Footnote 2: Kittacincla macrura, _Gm_.] [Footnote 3: Copsychussaularis, _Linn._. Called by the Europeans in Ceylon the "Magpie Robin." This is not to be confounded with the other popular favourite the "Indian Robin" (Thamnobia fulicata, _Linn._), which is "never seen in the unfrequented jungle, but, like the coco-nut palm, which the Singhalese assert will only flourish within the sound of the human voice, it is always found near the habitations of men."--E.L. LAYARD.] It is only on emerging from the dense woods and coming into the vicinity of the lakes and pasture of the low country, that birds become visible in great quantities. In the close jungle one occasionally hears the call of the copper-smith[1], or the strokes of the great orange-coloured woodpecker[2] as it beats the decaying trees in search of insects, whilst clinging to the bark with its finely-pointed claws, and leaning for support upon the short stiff feathers of its tail. And on the lofty branches of the higher trees, the hornbill[3] (the toucan of the East), with its enormous double casque, sits to watch the motions of the tiny reptiles and smaller birds on which it preys, tossing them into the air when seized, and catching them in its gigantic mandibles as they fall.[4] The remarkable excrescence on the beak of this extraordinary bird may serve to explain the statement of the Minorite friar Odoric, of Portenau in Friuli, who travelled in Ceylon in the fourteenth century, and brought suspicion on the veracity of his narrative by asserting that he had there seen "_birds with two heads_."[5] [Footnote 1: The greater red-headed Barbet (Megalaima indica, _Lath_.; M. Philippensis, _var. A. Lath_.), the incessant din of which resembles the blows of a smith hammering a cauldron.] [Footnote 2: Brachypternus aurantius, _Linn._] [Footnote 3: Buceros pica, _Scop_.; B. Malaharicus, _Jerd_. The natives assert that B. pica builds in holes in the trees, and that when incubation has fairly commenced, the female takes her seat on the eggs, and the male closes up the orifice by which she entered, leaving only a small aperture through which he feeds his partner, whilst she successfully guards their treasures from the monkey tribes; her formidable bill nearly filling the entire entrance. See a paper by Edgar L. Layard, Esq. _Mag. Nat. Hist._ March, 1853. Dr. Horsfield had previously observed the same habit in a species of Buceros in Java. (See HORSFIELD and MOORE'S _Catal. Birds_, E.I. Comp. Mus. vol. ii.) It is curious that a similar trait, though necessarily from very different instincts, is exhibited by the termites, who literally build a cell round the great progenitrix of the community, and feed her through apertures.] [Footnote 4: The hornbill is also frugivorous, and the natives assert that when endeavouring to detach a fruit, if the stem is too tough to be severed by his mandibles, he flings himself off the branch so as to add the weight of his body to the pressure of his beak. The hornbill abounds in Cuttack, and bears there the name of "Kuchila-Kai," or Kuchila-eater, from its partiality for the fruit of the Strychnus nuxvomica. The natives regard its flesh as a sovereign specific for rheumatic affections.--_Asiat. Res._ ch. xv. p. 184.] [Footnote 5: _Itinerarius_ FRATRIS ODORICI, de Foro Julii de Portu-vahonis, &c.--HAKLUYT, vol. ii. p. 39.] [Illustration: THE HORNBILL.] The Singhalese have a belief that the hornbill never resorts to the water to drink; but that it subsists exclusively by what it catches in its prodigious bill while rain is falling. This they allege is associated with the incessant screaming which it keeps up during showers. As we emerge from the dark shade, and approach park-like openings on the verge of the low country, quantities of pea-fowl are to be found either feeding on the seeds among the long grass or sunning themselves on the branches of the surrounding trees. Nothing to be met with in English demesnes can give an adequate idea of the size and magnificence of this matchless bird when seen in his native solitudes. Here he generally selects some projecting branch, from which his plumage may hang free of the foliage, and, if there be a dead and leafless bough, he is certain to choose it for his resting-place, whence he droops his wings and suspends his gorgeous train, or spreads it in the morning sun to drive off the damps and dews of the night. In some of the unfrequented portions of the eastern province, to which Europeans rarely resort, and where the pea-fowl are unmolested by the natives, their number is so extraordinary that, regarded as game, it ceases to be "sport" to destroy them; and their cries at early dawn are so tumultuous and incessant as to banish sleep, and amount to an actual inconvenience. Their flesh is excellent in flavour when served up hot, though it is said to be indigestible; but, when cold, it contracts a reddish and disagreeable tinge. The European fable of the jackdaw borrowing the plumage of the peacock, has its counterpart in Ceylon, where the popular legend runs that the pea-fowl stole the plumage of a bird called by the natives _avitchia_. I have not been able to identify the species which bears this name; but it utters a cry resembling the word _matkiang!_ which in Singhalese means, "I _will_ complain!" This they believe is addressed by the bird to the rising sun, imploring redress for its wrongs. The _avitchia_ is described as somewhat less than a crow, the colours of its plumage being green, mingled with red. But of all, the most astonishing in point of multitude, as well as the most interesting from their endless variety, are the myriads of aquatic birds and waders which frequent the lakes and watercourses; especially those along the coast near Batticaloa, between the mainland and the sand formations of the shore, and the innumerable salt marshes and lagoons to the south of Trincomalie. These, and the profusion of perching birds, fly-catchers, finches, and thrushes, that appear in the open country, afford sufficient quarry for the raptorial and predatory species--eagles, hawks, and falcons--whose daring sweeps and effortless undulations are striking objects in the cloudless sky. I. ACCIPITRES. _Eagles_.--The Eagles, however, are small, and as compared with other countries rare; except, perhaps, the crested eagle[1], which haunts the mountain provinces and the lower hills, disquieting the peasantry by its ravages amongst their poultry; and the gloomy serpent eagle[2], which, descending from its eyrie in the lofty jungle, and uttering a loud and plaintive cry, sweeps cautiously around the lonely tanks and marshes, to feed upon the reptiles on their margin. The largest eagle is the great sea Erne[3], seen on the northern coasts and the salt lakes of the eastern provinces, particularly when the receding tide leaves bare an expanse of beach, over which it hunts, in company with the fishing eagle[4], sacred to Siva. Unlike its companions, however, the sea eagle rejects garbage for living prey, and especially for the sea snakes which abound on the northern coasts. These it seizes by descending with its wings half closed, and, suddenly darting down its talons, it soars aloft again with its writhing victim.[5] [Footnote 1: Spizaëtuslimnaëtus, _Horsf_. The race of these birds in the Deccan and Ceylon are rather more crested, originating the Sp. Cristatellus, _Auct_.] [Footnote 2: Which Gould believes to be the _Hæmatornis Bacha_, Daud.] [Footnote 3: Pontoaëtus leucogaster, _Gmel_.] [Footnote 4: Haliastur Indus, _Bodd._] [Footnote 5: E.L. Layard. Europeans have given this bird the name of the "Brahminy Kite," probably from observing the superstitious feeling of the natives regarding it, who believe that when two armies are about to engage, its appearance prognosticates victory to the party over whom it hovers.] _Hawks_.--The beautiful Peregrine Falcon[1] is rare, but the Kestrel[2] is found almost universally; and the bold and daring Goshawk[3] wherever wild crags and precipices afford safe breeding places. In the district of Anarajapoora, where it is trained for hawking, it is usual, in lieu of a hood, to darken its eyes by means of a silken thread passed through holes in the eyelids. The ignoble birds of prey, the Kites[4], keep close by the shore, and hover round the returning boats of the fishermen to feast on the fry rejected from their nets. [Footnote 1: Falco peregrinus, _Linn._] [Footnote 2: Tinnunculus alaudarius, _Briss._] [Footnote 3: Astur trivirgatus, _Temm._] [Footnote 4: Milvus govinda, _Sykes._ Dr. Hamilton Buchanan remarks that when gorged this bird delights to sit on the entablature of buildings, exposing its back to the hottest rays of the sun, placing its breast against the wall, and stretching out its wings _exactly as the Egyptian Hawk is represented on the monuments_.] _Owls_.--Of the nocturnal accipitres the most remarkable is the brown owl, which, from its hideous yell, has acquired the name of the "Devil-Bird."[1] The Singhalese regard it literally with horror, and its scream by night in the vicinity of a village is bewailed as the harbinger of impending calamity.[2] There is a popular legend in connection with it, to the effect that a morose and savage husband, who suspected the fidelity of his wife, availed himself of her absence to kill her child, of whose paternity he was doubtful, and on her return placed before her a curry prepared from its flesh. Of this the unhappy woman partook, till discovering the crime by finding the finger of her infant, she fled in frenzy to the forest, and there destroyed herself. On her death she was metamorphosed, according to the Buddhist belief, into an _ulama_, or Devil-bird, which still at nightfall horrifies the villagers by repeating the frantic screams of the bereaved mother in her agony. [Footnote 1: Syrnium Indranee, _Sykes._ Mr. Blyth writes to me from Calcutta that there are some doubts about this bird. There would appear to be three or four distinguishable races, the Ceylon bird approximating most nearly to that of the Malayan Peninsula.] [Illustration: THE "DEVIL BIRD."] [Footnote 2: The horror of this nocturnal scream was equally prevalent in the West as in the East. Ovid introduces it in his _Fasti_, L. vi. l. 139; and Tibullus in his Elegies, L. i. El. 5. Statius says-- Nocturnæque gemunt striges, et feralla bubo _Damna canens_. Theb. iii. l. 511. But Pliny, l. xi. c. 93, doubts as to what bird produced the sound;--and the details of Ovid's description do not apply to an owl. Mr. Mitford, of the Ceylon Civil Service, to whom I am indebted for many valuable notes relative to the birds of the island, regards the identification of the Singhalese Devil-Bird as open to similar doubt: he says--"The Devil-Bird is not an owl. I never heard it until I came to Kornegalle, where it haunts the rocky hill at the back of Government-house. Its ordinary note is a magnificent clear shout like that of a human being, and which can be heard at a great distance, and has a fine effect in the silence of the closing night. It has another cry like that of a hen just caught, but the sounds which have earned for it its bad name, and which I have heard but once to perfection, are indescribable, the most appalling that can be imagined, and scarcely to be heard without shuddering; I can only compare it to a boy in torture, whose screams are being stopped by being strangled. I have offered rewards for a specimen, but without success. The only European who had seen and fired at one agreed with the natives that it is of the size of a pigeon, with a long tail. I believe it is a Podargus or Night Hawk." In a subsequent note he further says--"I have since seen two birds by moonlight, one of the size and shape of a cuckoo, the other a large black bird, which I imagine to be the one which gives these calls."] II. PASSERES. _Swallows_.--Within thirty-five miles of Caltura, on the western coast, are inland caves, to which the Esculent Swift[1] resorts, and there builds the "edible bird's nest," so highly prized in China. Near the spot a few Chinese immigrants have established themselves, who rent the nests as a royalty from the government, and make an annual export of the produce. But the Swifts are not confined to this district, and caves containing them have been found far in the interior, a fact which complicates the still unexplained mystery of the composition of their nest; and, notwithstanding the power of wing possessed by these birds, adds something to the difficulty of believing that it consists of glutinous material obtained from algæ.[2] In the nests brought to me there was no trace of organisation; and the original material, whatever it be, is so elaborated by the swallow as to present somewhat the appearance and consistency of strings of isinglass. The quantity of these nests exported from Ceylon is trifling. [Footnote 1: Collocalia brevirostris, _McClell_.; C. nidifica, _Gray_.] [Footnote 2: An epitome of what has been written on this subject will be found in _Dr. Horsfield's Catalogue_ of the Birds in the E.I. Comp. Museum, vol. i. p. 101, &c. Mr. Morris assures me, that he has found the nests of the Esculent Swallow eighty miles distant from the sea.] _Kingfishers_.--In solitary places, where no sound breaks the silence except the gurgle of the river as it sweeps round the rocks, the lonely Kingfisher, the emblem of vigilance and patience, sits upon an overhanging branch, his turquoise plumage hardly less intense in its lustre than the deep blue of the sky above him; and so intent is his watch upon the passing fish that intrusion fails to scare him from his post. _Sun Birds_.--In the gardens the tiny Sun Birds[1] (known as the Humming Birds of Ceylon) hover all day long, attracted to the plants, over which they hang poised on their glittering wings, and inserting their curved beaks to extract the insects that nestle in the flowers. [Footnote 1: Nectarina Zeylanica, _Linn._] Perhaps the most graceful of the birds of Ceylon in form and motions, and the most chaste in colouring, is the one which Europeans call "the Bird of Paradise,"[1] and natives "the Cotton Thief," from the circumstance that its tail consists of two long white feathers, which stream behind it as it flies. Mr. Layard says:--"I have often watched them, when seeking their insect prey, turn suddenly on their perch and _whisk their long tails with a jerk_ over the bough, as if to protect them from injury." [Footnote 1: Tchitrea paradisi, _Linn._] [Illustration: TCHITREA PARADISI.] The tail is sometimes brown, and the natives have the idea that the bird changes its plumage at stated periods, and that the tail-feathers become white and brown in alternate years. The fact of the variety of plumage is no doubt true, but this story as to the alternation of colours in the same individual requires confirmation.[1] [Footnote 1: The engraving of the Tchitrea given on page 244 is copied by permission from one of the splendid drawings in. MR. GOULD'S _Birds of India_.] _The Bulbul_.--The _Condatchee Bulbul_[1], which, from the crest on its head, is called by the Singhalese the "Konda Cooroola," or _Tuft bird_, is regarded by the natives as the most "_game_" of all birds; and training it to fight was one of the duties entrusted by the Kings of Kandy to the Cooroowa, or Head-man, who had charge of the King's animals and Birds. For this purpose the Bulbul is taken from the nest as soon as the sex is distinguishable by the tufted crown; and secured by a string, is taught to fly from hand to hand of its keeper. When pitted against an antagonist, such is the obstinate courage of this little creature that it will sink from exhaustion rather than release its hold. This propensity, and the ordinary character of its notes, render it impossible that the Bulbul of India could be identical with the Bulbul of Iran, the "Bird of a Thousand Songs,"[2] of which, poets say that its delicate passion for the rose gives a plaintive character to its note. [Footnote 1: Pycnonotus hæmorrhous, _Gmel_.] [Footnote 2: "Hazardasitaum" the Persian name for the bulbul. "The Persians," according to Zakary ben Mohamed al Caswini, "say the bulbul has a passion for the rose, and laments and cries when he sees it pulled."--OUSELEY'S _Oriental Collections_, vol. i. p. 16. According to Pallas it is the true nightingale of Europe, Sylvia luscinia, which the Armenians call _boulboul_, and the Crim-Tartars _byl-byl-i_.] _Tailor-Bird_.--_The Weaver-Bird_.--The tailor-bird[1] having completed her nest, sewing together leaves by passing through them a cotton thread twisted by herself, leaps from branch to branch to testify her happiness by a clear and merry note; and the Indian weaver[2], a still more ingenious artist, hangs its pendulous dwelling from a projecting bough; twisting it with grass into a form somewhat resembling a bottle with a prolonged neck, the entrance being inverted, so as to baffle the approaches of its enemies, the tree snakes and other reptiles. The natives assert that the male bird carries fire flies to the nest, and fastens them to its sides by a particle of soft mud;--Mr. Layard assures me that although he has never succeeded in finding the fire fly, the nest of the male bird (for the female occupies another during incubation) invariably contains a patch of mud on each side of the perch. Grass is apparently the most convenient material for the purposes of the Weaver-bird when constructing its nest, but other substances are often substituted, and some nests which I brought from Ceylon proved to be formed with delicate strips from the fronds of the dwarf date-palm, _Phoenix paludosa_, which happened to grow near the breeding place. [Footnote 1: Orthotomus longicauda, _Gmel_.] [Footnote 2: Ploceus baya, _Blyth_.; P. Philippinus, _Auct_.] [Illustration: "CISSA PUELLA."] Amongst the birds of this order, one which, as far as I know, is peculiar to the island is _Layard's Mountain-jay_ (_Cissa puella_, Blyth and Layard), is distinguished not less by the beautiful blue colour which enlivens its plumage, than by the elegance of its form and the grace of its attitudes. It frequents the hill country, and is found about the mountain streams at Neuera-ellia, and elsewhere.[1] [Footnote 1: The engraving above is taken by permission of Mr. Gould from one of his drawings for his _Birds of India_.] _Crows_.--Of all the Ceylon birds of this order the most familiar and notorious are the small glossy crows, whose shining black plumage shot with blue has suggested the title of _Corvus splendens_.[1] They frequent the towns in companies, and domesticate themselves in the close vicinity of every house; and it may possibly serve to account for the familiarity and audacity which they exhibit in their intercourse with men, that the Dutch during their sovereignty in Ceylon, enforced severe penalties against any one killing a crow, under the belief that they were instrumental in extending the growth of cinnamon by feeding on the fruit, and thus disseminating the undigested seed.[2] [Footnote 1: There is another species, the _C. culminatus_, so called from the convexity of its bill; but though seen in the towns, it lives chiefly in the open country, and may be constantly observed wherever there are buffaloes, perched on their backs and engaged, in company with the small Minah (_Acridotheres tristis_), in freeing them from ticks.] [Footnote 2: WOLF'S _Life and Adventures_, p. 117.] So accustomed are the natives to their presence and exploits, that, like the Greeks and Romans, they have made the movements of crows the basis of their auguries; and there is no end to the vicissitudes of good and evil fortune which may not be predicted from the direction of their flight, the hoarse or mellow notes of their croaking, the variety of trees on which they rest, and the numbers in which they are seen to assemble. All day long these birds are engaged in watching either the offal of the offices, or the preparation for meals in the dining-room: and as doors and windows are necessarily opened to relieve the heat, nothing is more common than the passage of a crow across the room, lifting on the wing some ill-guarded morsel from the dinner-table. No article, however unpromising its quality, provided only it be portable, can with safety be left unguarded in any apartment accessible to them. The contents of ladies' work-boxes, kid gloves, and pocket handkerchiefs vanish instantly if exposed near a window or open door. They open paper parcels to ascertain the contents; they will undo the knot on a napkin if it encloses anything eatable, and I have known a crow to extract the peg which fastened the lid of a basket in order to plunder the provender within. On one occasion a nurse seated in a garden adjoining a regimental mess-room, was terrified by seeing a bloody clasp-knife drop from the air at her feet; but the mystery was explained on learning that a crow, which had been watching the cook chopping mince-meat, had seized the moment when his head was turned to carry off the knife. One of these ingenious marauders, after vainly attitudinising in front of a chained watch-dog, that was lazily gnawing a bone, and after fruitlessly endeavouring to divert his attention by dancing before him, with head awry and eye askance, at length flew away for a moment, and returned bringing a companion which perched itself on a branch a few yards in the rear. The crow's grimaces were now actively renewed, but with no better success, till its confederate, poising itself on its wings, descended with the utmost velocity, striking the dog upon the spine with all the force of its strong beak. The _ruse_ was successful; the dog started with surprise and pain, but not quickly enough to seize his assailant, whilst the bone he had been gnawing was snatched away by the first crow the instant his head was turned. Two well-authenticated instances of the recurrence of this device came within my knowledge at Colombo, and attest the sagacity and powers of communication and combination possessed by these astute and courageous birds. On the approach of evening the crows near Colombo assemble in noisy groups along the margin of the freshwater lake which surrounds the fort on the eastern side; and here for an hour or two they enjoy the luxury of throwing the water over their shining backs, and arranging their plumage decorously, after which they disperse, each taking the direction of his accustomed quarters for the night.[1] [Footnote 1: A similar habit has been noticed in the damask Parrots of Africa (_Palæornis fuscus_) which daily resort at the same hour to their accustomed pools to bathe.] During the storms which usher in the monsoon, it has been observed, that when coco-nut palms are destroyed by lightning, the effect frequently extends beyond a single tree, and from the contiguity and conduction of the spreading leaves, or some other peculiar cause, large groups will be affected by a single flash, a few killed instantly, and the rest doomed to rapid decay. In Belligam Bay, a little to the east of Point-de-Galle, a small island, which is covered with coco-nuts, has acquired the name of "Crow Island," from being the resort of those birds, which are seen hastening towards it in thousands towards sunset. A few years ago, during a violent storm of thunder, such was the destruction of the crows that the beach for some distance was covered with a black line of their remains, and the grove on which they had been resting was to a great extent destroyed by the same flash.[1] [Footnote 1: Similar instances are recorded in other countries of sudden and prodigious mortality amongst crows; but whether occasioned by lightning seems uncertain. In 1839 thirty-three thousand dead crows were found on the shores of a lake in the county Westmeath in Ireland after a storm.--THOMPSON'S _Nat. Hist. Ireland_, vol. i. p. 319. PATTERSON in his _Zoology_, p. 356, mentions other cases.] III. SCANSORES. _Parroquets_.--Of the Psittacidæ the only examples are the parroquets, of which the most renowned is the _Palæornis Alexandri_, which has the historic distinction of bearing the name of the great conqueror of India, having been the first of its race introduced to the knowledge of Europe on the return of his expedition. An idea of their number may be formed from the following statement of Mr. Layard, as to the multitudes which are to be found on the western coast. "At Chilaw, I have seen such vast flights of parroquets hurrying towards the coco-nut trees which overhang the bazaar, that their noise drowned the Babel of tongues bargaining for the evening provisions. Hearing of the swarms that resorted to this spot, I posted myself on a bridge some half mile distant, and attempted to count the flocks which came from a single direction to the eastward. About four o'clock in the afternoon, straggling parties began to wend towards home, and in the course of half an hour the current fairly set in. But I soon found that I had no longer distinct flocks to count, it became one living screaming stream. Some flew high in the air till right above their homes, and dived abruptly downward with many evolutions till on a level with the trees; others kept along the ground and dashed close by my face with the rapidity of thought, their brilliant plumage shining with an exquisite lustre in the sun-light. I waited on the spot till the evening closed, when I could hear, though no longer distinguish, the birds fighting for their perches, and on firing a shot they rose with a noise like the 'rushing of a mighty wind,' but soon settled again, and such a din commenced as I shall never forget; the shrill screams of the birds, the fluttering of their innumerable wings, and the rustling of the leaves of the palm trees was almost deafening, and I was glad at last to escape to the Government Rest House."[1] [Footnote 1: _Annals of Nat. Hist._ vol. xiii. p. 263.] IV. COLUMBIDÆ. _Pigeons_.--Of pigeons and doves there are at least a dozen species. Some live entirely on trees[1], never alighting on the ground; others, notwithstanding the abundance of food and warmth, are migratory[2], allured, as the Singhalese allege, by the ripening of the cinnamon berries, and hence one species is known in the southern provinces as the "Cinnamon Dove." Others feed on the fruits of the banyan: and it is probably to their instrumentality that this marvellous tree chiefly owes its diffusion, its seeds being carried by them to remote localities. A very beautiful pigeon, peculiar to the mountain range, discovered in the lofty trees at Neuera-ellia, has, in compliment to the Viscountess Torrington, been named _Carpophaga Torringtoniæ_. [Footnote 1: Treron bicincta. _Jerd_.] [Footnote 2: _Alsocomus puniceus_, the "Season Pigeon" of Ceylon, so called from its periodical arrival and departure.] Another, called by the natives _neela-cobeya_[1], although strikingly elegant both in shape and colour, is still more remarkable for the singularly soothing effect of its low and harmonious voice. A gentleman who has spent many years in the jungle, in writing to me of this bird and of the effects of its melodious song, says, that "its soft and melancholy notes, as they came from some solitary place in the forest, were the most gentle sounds I ever listened to. Some sentimental smokers assert that the influence of the propensity is to make them feel _as if they could freely forgive all who had ever offended them_; and I can say with truth such has been the effect on my own nerves of the plaintive murmurs of the neela-cobeya, that sometimes, when irritated, and not without reason, by the perverseness of some of my native followers, the feeling has almost instantly subsided into placidity on suddenly hearing the loving tones of these beautiful birds." [Footnote 1: Chalcophaps Indicus, _Linn._] V. GALLINÆ. _The Ceylon Jungle-fowl_.--The jungle-fowl of Ceylon[1] is shown by the peculiarity of its plumage to be not only distinct from the Indian species, but peculiar to the island. It has never yet bred or survived long in captivity, and no living specimens have been successfully transmitted to Europe. It abounds in all parts of the island, but chiefly in the lower ranges of mountains; and one of the vivid memorials which are associated with our journeys through the hills, is its clear cry, which sounds like a person calling "George Joyce,"[2] and rises at early morning amidst mist and dew, giving life to the scenery, that has scarcely yet been touched by the sun-light. [Footnote 1: Gallus Lafayetti, _Lesson_.] [Footnote 2: I apprehend that in the particular of the peculiar cry the Ceylon jungle fowl differs from that of the Dekkan, where _I am told_ that it crows like a bantam cock.] The female of this handsome bird was figured many years ago by Dr. GRAY in his illustrations of "_Indian Zoology_," under the name of _G. Stanleyi_. The cock bird subsequently received from LESSON, the name by which the species is now known: but its habitat was not discovered, until a specimen having been forwarded from Ceylon to Calcutta, Dr. BLYTH recognised it as the long-sought-for male of Dr. Gray's specimen. Another of the Gallinæ of Ceylon, remarkable for the delicate pencillings of its plumage, as well as for the peculiarity of the double spur, from which it has acquired its trivial name, is the _Galloperdix bicalcaratus_, of which a figure is given from a drawing by Mr. Gould. [Illustration: GALLOPERDIX BICALCARATUS.] VI. GRALLÆ.--On reaching the marshy plains and shallow lagoons on either side of the island, the astonishment of the stranger is excited by the endless multitudes of stilt-birds and waders which stand in long array within the wash of the water, or sweep in vast clouds above it. Ibises[1], storks[2], egrets, spoonbills[3], herons[4], and the smaller races of sand larks and plovers, are seen busily traversing the wet sand, in search of the red worm which burrows there, or peering with steady eye to watch the motions of the small fry and aquatic insects in the ripple on the shore. [Footnote 1: Tantalus leucocephalus, and Ibis falcinellus.] [Footnote 2: The violet-headed Stork (Ciconia leticocephala).] [Footnote 3: Platalea leucorodia, _Linn._] [Footnote 4: Ardea cinerea. A. purpurea.] VII. ANSERES.--Preeminent in size and beauty, the tall _flamingoes_[1], with rose-coloured plumage, line the beach in long files. The Singhalese have been led, from their colour and their military order, to designate them the "_English Soldier birds_." Nothing can be more startling than the sudden flight of these splendid creatures when alarmed; their strong wings beating the air with a sound like distant thunder; and as they soar over head, the flock which appeared almost white but a moment before, is converted into crimson by the sudden display of the red lining of their wings. A peculiarity in the beak of this bird has scarcely attracted the attention it merits, as a striking illustration of creative wisdom in adapting the organs of animals to their local necessities. [Illustration: FLAMINGO.] [Footnote 1: Phoenicopterus roseus, _Pallas_.] The upper mandible, which is convex in other birds, is flattened in the flamingo, whilst the lower, instead of being flat, is convex. To those who have had an opportunity of witnessing the action of the bird in its native haunts, the expediency of this arrangement is at once apparent. To counteract the extraordinary length of its legs, it is provided with a proportionately long neck, so that in feeding in shallow water the crown of the head becomes inverted and the upper mandible brought into contact with the bottom; where its flattened surface qualifies it for performing the functions of the lower one in birds of the same class; and the edges of both being laminated, it is thus enabled, like the duck, by the aid of its fleshy tongue, to sift before swallowing its food. Floating on the surface of the deeper water, are fleets of the Anatidæ, the Coromandel teal[1], the Indian hooded gull[2], the Caspian tern, and a countless variety of ducks and smaller fowl--pintails[3], teal[4], red-crested pochards[5], shovellers[6], and terns.[7] Pelicans[8] in great numbers resort to the mouths of the rivers, taking up their position at sunrise on some projecting rock, from which to dart on the passing fish, and returning far inland at night to their retreats among the trees, which overshadow some solitary river or deserted tank. [Footnote 1: Nettapus coromandelianus, _Gm_.] [Footnote 2: Larus brunnicephalus, _Jerd_.] [Footnote 3: Dafila acuta, _Linn._] [Footnote 4: Querquedula creeca, _Linn._] [Footnote 5: Fuligula rufina, _Pallas_.] [Footnote 6: Spatula clypeata, _Linn._] [Footnote 7: Sterna minuta, _Linn._] [Footnote 8: Pelicanus Philippensis, _Gmel_.] I chanced upon one occasion to come unexpectedly upon one of these remarkable breeding places during a visit which I made to the great tank of Padivil, one of those gigantic constructions by which the early kings of Ceylon have left imperishable records of their reigns. It is situated in the depth of the forests to the north-west of Trincomalie; and the tank is itself the basin of a broad and shallow valley, enclosed between two lines of low hills, that gradually sink into the plain as they approach towards the sea. The extreme breadth of the included space may be twelve or fourteen miles, narrowing to eleven at the spot where the retaining bund has been constructed across the valley; and when this enormous embankment was in effectual repair, and the reservoir filled by the rains, the water must have been thrown back along the basin of the valley for at least fifteen miles. It is difficult now to determine the precise distances, as the overgrowth of wood and jungle has obliterated all lines left by the original level of the lake at its junction with the forest. Even when we rode along it, the centre of the tank was deeply submerged, so that notwithstanding the partial escape, the water still covered an area of ten miles in diameter. Even now its depth when full must be very considerable, for high on the branches of the trees that grow in the area, the last flood had left quantities of driftwood and withered grass; and the rocks and banks were coated with the yeasty foam, that remains after the subsidence of an agitated flood. The bed of the tank was difficult to ride over, being still soft and treacherous, although covered everywhere with tall and waving grass; and in every direction it was poched into deep holes by the innumerable elephants that had congregated to roll in the soft mud, to bathe in the collected water, or to luxuriate in the rich herbage, under the cool shade of the trees. The ground, too, was thrown up into hummocks like great molehills which, the natives told us, were formed by a huge earthworm, common in Ceylon, nearly two feet in length, and as thick as a small snake. Through these inequalities the water was still running off in natural drains towards the great channel in the centre, that conducts it to the broken sluice; and across these it was sometimes difficult to find a safe footing for our horses. In a lonely spot, towards the very centre of the tank, we came unexpectedly upon an extraordinary scene. A sheet of still water, two or three hundred yards broad, and about half a mile long, was surrounded by a line of tall forest-trees, whose branches stretched above its margin. The sun had not yet risen, when we perceived some white objects in large numbers on the tops of the trees; and as we came nearer, we discovered that a vast colony of pelicans had formed their settlement and breeding-place in this solitary retreat. They literally covered the trees in hundreds; and their heavy nests, like those of the swan, constructed of large sticks, forming great platforms, were sustained by the horizontal branches. Each nest contained three eggs, rather larger than those of a goose; and the male bird stood placidly beside the female as she sat upon them. Nor was this all; along with the pelicans prodigious numbers of other water-birds had selected this for their dwelling-place, and covered the trees in thousands, standing on the topmost branches; tall flamingoes, herons, egrets, storks, ibises, and other waders. We had disturbed them thus early, before their habitual hour for betaking themselves to their fishing-fields. By degrees, as the light increased, we saw them beginning to move upon the trees; they looked around them on every side, stretched their awkward legs behind them, extended their broad wings, gradually rose in groups, and slowly soared away in the direction of the seashore. The pelicans were apparently later in their movements; they allowed us to approach as near them as the swampy nature of the soil would permit; and even when a gun was discharged amongst them, only those moved off which the particles of shot disturbed. They were in such numbers at this favourite place; that the water over which they had taken up their residence was swarming with crocodiles, attracted by the frequent fall of the young birds; and the natives refused, from fear of them, to wade in for one of the larger pelicans which had fallen, struck by a rifle ball. It was altogether a very remarkable sight. Of the birds familiar to European sportsmen, partridges and quails are to be had at all times; the woodcock has occasionally been shot in the hills, and the ubiquitous snipe, which arrives in September from Southern India, is identified not alone by the eccentricity of its flight, but by retaining in high perfection the qualities which have endeared it to the gastronome at home. But the magnificent pheasants, which inhabit the Himalayan range and the woody hills of the Chin-Indian peninsula, have no representative amongst the tribes that people the woods of Ceylon; although a bird believed to be a pheasant has more than once been seen in the jungle, close to Rangbodde, on the road to Neuera-ellia. * * * * * _List of Ceylon Birds_. In submitting this Catalogue of the birds of Ceylon, I am anxious to state that the copious mass of its contents is mainly due to the untiring energy and exertions of my friend, Mr. E.L. Layard. Nearly every bird in the list has fallen by his gun; so that the most ample facilities have been thus provided, not only for extending the limited amount of knowledge which formerly existed on this branch of the zoology of the island; but for correcting, by actual comparison with recent specimens, the errors which had previously prevailed as to imperfectly described species. The whole of Mr. Layard's fine collection is at present in England. ACCIPITRES. Aquila Bonelli, _Temm_. pennata, _Gm_. Spizaëtus Nipalensis, _Hodgs_. limnæëtus, _Horsf_. Ictinaëtus Malayensis, _Reinw_. Hæmatornis Bacha, _Daud_. spilogaster, _Blyth_. Pontoaëtus leucogaster, _Gm_. ichthyaëtus, _Horsf_. Haliastur Indus, _Bodd_. Falco peregrinus, _Linn._ peregrinator, _Sund_. Tinnunculus alaudarius, _Briss_. Hypotriorchis chicquera, _Daud_. Baza lophotes, _Cuv_. Milvus govinda, _Sykes_. Elanus melanopterus, _Daud_. Astur trivirgatus, _Temm_. Accipiter badius, _Gm_. Circus Swainsonii, _A. Smith_. cinerascens, _Mont_. melanoleucos, _Gm_. _æruginosus, Linn_. Athene castonatus, _Blyth_. scutulata, _Raffles_. Ephialtes scops, _Linn._ lempijii, _Horsf_. sunia, _Hodgs_. Ketupa Ceylonensis, _Gm_. Syrnium Indranee, _Sykes_. Strix Javanica, _Gm_. PASSERES. Batrachostomus moniliger, _Layard_. Caprimulgus _Mahrattensis, Sykes_. Kelaarti, _Blyth_. Asiaticus, _Lath_. Cypselus batassiensis, _Gray_. melba, _Linn._ affinis, _Gray_. Macropteryx coronatus, _Tickell_. Collocalia brevirostris, _McClel_. Acanthylis caudacuta, _Lath_. Hirundo panayana, _Gm_. daurica, _Linn._ hyperythra, _Layard_. domicola, _Jerdon_. Coracias Indica, _Linn._ Harpactes fasciatus, _Gm_. Eurystomus orientalis, _Linn._ Halcyon Capensis, _Linn._ atricapillus, _Gm_. Smyrnensis, _Linn._ Ceyx tridactyla, _Linn._ Alcedo Bengalensis, _Gm_. Ceryle rudis, _Linn._ Merops Philippinus, _Linn._ viridis, _Linn._ quincticolor, _Vieill_. Upupa nigripennis, _Gould_. Nectarina Zeylanica, _Linn._ minima, _Sykes_. Asiatica, _Lath_. Lotenia, _Linn._ Dicæum minimum, _Tickell_. Phyllornis Malabarica, _Lath_. Jerdoni, _Blyth_. Dendrophila frontalis, _Horsf_. Piprisoma agile, _Blyth_. Orthotomus longicauda, _Gm_. Cisticola cursitans, _Frankl_. omalura, _Blyth_. Drymoica valida, _Blyth_. inornata, _Sykes_. Prinia socialis, _Sykes_. Acrocephalus dumetorum, _Blyth_. Phyllopneuste nitidus, _Blyth_. montanus, _Blyth_. viridanus, _Blyth_. Copsychus saularis, _Linn._ Kittacincla macrura, _Gm_. Pratincola caprata, _Linn._ atrata, _Kelaart_. Calliope cyanea, _Hodgs_. Thamnobia fulicata, _Linn._ Cyanecula Suecica, _Linn._ Sylvia affinis, _Blyth_. Parus cinereus, _Vieill_. Zosterops palpebrosus, _Temm_. Iöra Zeylanica, _Gm_. typhia, _Linn._ Motacilla sulphurea, _Becks_. Indica, _Gm_. Madraspatana, _Briss_. Budytes viridis, _Gm_. Anthus rutulus, _Vieill_. Richardii, _Vieill_. striolatus, _Blyth_. Brachypteryx Palliseri, _Kelaart_. Alcippe nigrifrons, _Blyth_. Pitta brachyura, _Jerd_. Oreocincla spiloptera, _Blyth_. Merula Wardii, _Jerd_. Kinnisii, _Kelaart_. Zoothera imbricata, _Layard_. Garrulax cinereifrons, _Blyth_. Pormatorhinus melanurus, _Blyth_. Malacocercus rufescens, _Blyth_. griseus, _Gm_. striatus, _Swains_. Pellorneum fuscocapillum, _Blyth_. Dumetia albogularis, _Blyth_. Chrysomma Sinense, _Gm_. Oriolus melanocephalus, _Linn._ _Indicus, Briss_. Criniger ictericus, _Stickl_. Pycnonotus pencillatus, _Kelaart_. flavirictus, _Strickl_. hæmorrhous, _Gm_. atricapillus, _Vieill_. Hemipus picatus, _Sykes_. Hypsipetes Nilgherriensis, _Jerd_. Cyornis rubeculoïdes, _Vig_. Myiagra azurea, _Bodd_. Cryptolopha cinereocapilla, _Vieill_. Leucocerca _compressirostris, Blyth_. Tchitrea paradisi, _Linn._ *Butalis latirostris, _Raffles_. Muttui, _Layard_. Stoparola melanops, _Vig_. Pericrocotus flammeus, _Forst_. peregrinus, _Linn._ Campephaga Macei, _Less_. Sykesii, _Strickl_. Artamus fuscus, _Vieill_. Edolius paradiseus, _Gm_. Dicrurus macrocereus, _Vieill_. edoliformis, _Blyth_. longicaudatus, _A. Hoy_. leucopygialis, _Blyth_. _cærulescens_, _Linn._ Irena puella, _Lath_. Lanius superciliosus, _Lath_. _erythronotus, Vig_. Tephrodornis affinis, _Blyth_. Cissa puella, _Blyth & Layard_. Corvus splendens, _Vieill_. culminatus, _Sykes_. Eulabes religiosa, _Linn._ ptilogenys, _Blyth_. Pastor roseus, _Linn._ Hetærornis pagodarum, _Gm_. _albifrontata, Layard_. Acridotheres tristis, _Linn._ Ploceus manyar, _Horsf_. baya, _Blyth_. Munia undulata, _Latr_. _Malabarica, Linn_. Malacca, _Linn._ rubronigra, _Hodgs_. striata, _Linn._ Kelaarti, _Blyth_. Passer Indicus, _Jard. & Selb._ Alauda gulgula, _Frank_. _Malabarica, Scop_. Pyrrhulauda grisea, _Scop_. Mirafra affinis, _Jerd_. Buceros gingalensis, _Shaw_. Malabaricus, _Jerd_. SCANSORES. Loriculus Asiaticus, _Lath_. Palæcornis Alexandri, _Linn._ torquatus, _Briss_. cyanocephalus, _Linn._ Calthropæ, _Layard_. Megalaima Indica, _Latr_. Zeylanica, _Gmel_. flavifrons, _Cuv_. rubicapilla, _Gm_. Picus gymnophthalmus, Blth. Mahrattensis, _Lath_. _Macei, Vieill_. Gecinus chlorophanes, _Vieill_. Brachypternus aurantius, _Linn._ Ceylonus, _Forst_. _rubescens, Vieill_. Stricklandi, _Layard_. Micropternus gularis, _Jerd_. Centropus rufipennis, _Illiger_. chlororhynchos, _Blyth_. Oxylophus melanoleucos, _Gm_. Coromandus, _Linn._ Endynamys orientalis, _Linn._ Cuculus Poliocephalus, _Lath_. striatus, _Drapiex_. canorus, _Linn._ Polyphasia tenuirostris, _Gray_. Sonneratii, _Lath_. Hierococcyx varius, _Vahl_. Surniculus dicruroïdes, _Hodgs_. Phoenicophaus pyrrhocephalus, _Forst_. Zanclostomus viridirostris, _Jerd_. COLUMBÆ. Treron bicincta, _Jerd_. flavogularis, _Blyth_. Pompadoura, _Gm_. chlorogaster, _Blyth_. Carpophaga pusilla, _Blyth_. Torringtoniæ, _Kelaart_. Alsocomus puniceus, _Tickel_. Columba intermedia, _Strickl_. Turtur risorius, _Linn._ Suratensis, _Lath_. humilis, _Temm_. orientalis, _Lath_. Chalcophaps Indicus, _Linn._ GALLINÆ. Pavo cristatus, _Linn._ Gallus Lafayetti, _Lesson_. Galloperdix bicalcaratus, _Linn._ Francolinus Ponticerianus, _Gm_. Perdicula agoondah, _Sykes_. Coturnix Chinensis, _Linn._ Turnix ocellatus _var._ Bengalensis, _Blyth_. _var._ taigoor, _Sykes_. GRALLÆ. Esacus recurvirostris, _Cuv_. Oedienemus crepitans, _Temm_. Cursorius Coromandelicus, _Gm_. Lobivanellus bilobus, _Gm_. Göensis, _Gm_. Charadrius virginicus, _Bechs_. Hiaticula Philippensis, _Scop_. Cantiana, _Lath_. Leschenaultii, _Less_. Strepsilas Interpres, _Linn._ Ardea purpurea, _Linn._ cinerea, _Linn._ asha, _Sykes_. intermedia, _Wagler_. garzetta, _Linn._ _alba, Linn_. bubulcus, _Savig_. Ardeola leucoptera, _Bodd_. Ardetta cinnamomea, _Gm_. flavicollis, _Lath_. Sinensis, _Gm_. Butoroides Javanica, _Horsf_. Platalea leucorodia, _Linn._ Nycticorax griseus, _Linn._ Tigrisoma melanolopha, _Raffl_. Mycteria australis, _Shaw_. Leptophilus Javanica, _Horsf_. Ciconia leucocephala, _Gm_. Anastomus oscitans, _Bodd_. Tantalus leucocephalus, _Gm_. Geronticus melanocephalus, _Lath_. Falcinellus igneus, _Gm_. Numenias arquatus, _Linn._ phæopus, _Linn._ Totanus fuscus, _Linn._ calidris, _Linn._ glottis, _Linn._ stagnalis, _Bechst_. Actitis glareola, _Gm_. ochropus, _Linn._ hypoleucos, _Linn._ Tringa minuta, _Leist_. subarquata, _Gm_. Limicola platyrhyncha, _Temm_. Limosa ægocephala, _Linn._ Himantopus candidus, _Bon_. Recurvirostra avocetta, _Linn._ Hæmatopus ostralegus, _Linn._ Rhynchoea Bengalensis, _Linn._ Scolopax rusticola, _Linn._ Gallinago stenura, _Temm_. _scolopacina, Bon_. _gallinula, Linn_. Hydrophasianus Sinensis, _Gm_. Ortygometra rubiginosa, _Temm_. Corethura Zeylanica, _Gm_. Rallus striatus, _Linn._ Indicus, _Blyth_. Porphyrio poliocephalus, _Lath_. Porzana pygmæa, _Nan_. Gallinula phoenicura, _Penn_. chloropus, _Linn._ cristata, _Lath_. ANSERES. Phoenicopterus ruber, _Linn._ Sarkidiornis melanonotos, _Penn_. Nettapus Coromandelianus, _Gm_. Anas poecilorhyncha, _Penn_. Dendrocygnus arcuatus, _Cuv_. Dafila acuta, _Linn._ Querquedula crecca, _Linn._ circia, _Linn._ _Fuligula rufina, Pall_. Spatula clypeata, _Linn._ Podiceps Philippensis, _Gm_. Larus brunnicephalus, _Jerd_. ichthyaëtus, _Pall_. Sylochelidon Caspius, _Lath_. Hydrochelidon Indicus, _Steph_. Gelochelidon Anglicus, _Mont_. Onychoprion anasthætus, _Scop_. Sterna Javanica, _Horsf_. melanogaster, _Temm_. minuta, _Linn._ Seena aurantia, _Gray_. Thalasseus Bengalensis, _Less_. cristata, _Stepth_. Dromas ardeola, _Payk_. Atagen ariel, _Gould_. Thalassidroma _melanogaster, Gould_. Plotus melanogaster, _Gm_. Pelicanus Philippensis, _Gm_. Graculus Sinensis, _Shaw_. pygmæus, _Pallas_. NOTE. The following is a list of the birds which are, as far as is at present known, peculiar to the island; it will probably be determined at some future day that some included in it have a wider geographical range. Hæmatornis spilogaster. The "Ceylon eagle;" was discovered by Mr. Layard in the Wanny, and by Dr. Kelaart at Trincomalie. Athene castonotus. The chestnut-winged hawk owl. This pretty little owl was added to the list of Ceylon birds by Dr. Templeton. Mr. Blyth is at present of opinion that this bird is identical with Ath. Castanopterus, _Horsf_. of Java as figured by Temminck: _P. Col._ Batrachostomus moniliger. The oil bird; was discovered amongst the precipitous rocks of the Adam's Peak range by Mr. Layard. Another specimen was sent about the same time to Sir James Emerson Tennent from Avisavelle. Mr. Mitford has met with it at Ratnapoora. Caprimulgus Kelaarti. Kelaart's nightjar; swarms on the marshy plains of Neuera-ellia at dusk. Hirundo hyperythra. The red-bellied swallow; was discovered in 1849, by Mr. Layard at Ambepusse. They build a globular nest, with a round hole at top. A pair built in the ring for a hanging lamp in Dr. Gardner's study at Peradenia, and hatched their young, undisturbed by the daily trimming and lighting of the lamp. Cisticola omalura. Layard's mountain grass warbler; is found in abundance on Horton Plain and Neuera-ellia, among the long Patena grass. Drymoica valida. Layard's wren-warbler; frequents tufts of grass and low bushes, feeding on insects. Pratincola atrata. The Neuera-ellia robin; a melodious songster; added to our catalogue by Dr. Kelaart. Brachypteryx Palliseri. Ant thrush. A rare bird, added by Dr. Kelaart from Dimboola and Neuera-ellia. Pellorneum fuscocapillum. Mr. Layard found two specimens of this rare thrush creeping about shrubs and bushes, feeding on insects. Alcippe nigrifrons. This thrush frequents low impenetrable thickets, and seems to be widely distributed. Oreocincla spiloptera. The spotted thrush is only found in the mountain zone about lofty trees. Merula Kinnisii. The Neuera-ellia blackbird; was added by Dr. Kelaart. Garrulax cinereifrons. The ashy-headed babbler; was found by Mr. Layard near Ratnapoora. Pomatorhinus melanurus. Mr. Layard states that the mountain babbler frequents low, scraggy, impenetrable brush, along the margins of deserted cheena land. This may turn out to be little more than a local yet striking variety of P. Horsfieldii of the Indian Peninsula. Malacocercus rufescens. The red dung thrush added by Dr. Templeton to the Singhalese Fauna, is found in thick jungle in the southern and midland districts. Pycnonotus penicillatus. The yellow-eared bulbul; was found by Dr. Kelaart at Neuera-ellia. Butalis Muttui. This very handsome flycatcher was procured at Point Pedro, by Mr. Layard. Dicrurus edoliformis. Dr. Templeton found this kingcrow at the Bibloo Oya. Mr. Layard has since got it at Ambogammoa. Dicrurus leucopygialis. The Ceylon kingcrow was sent to Mr. Blyth from the vicinity of Colombo, by Dr. Templeton. A species very closely allied to D. coerulescens of the Indian continent. Tephrodornis affinis. The Ceylon butcher-bird. A migatory species found in the wooded grass lands in October. Cissa puella. Layard's mountain jay. A most lovely bird, found along mountain streams at Neuera-ellia and elsewhere. Eulabes ptilogenys. Templeton's mynah. The largest and most beautiful of the species. It is found in flocks perching on the highest trees, feeding on berries. Munia Kelaarti. This Grosbeak previously assumed to be M. pectoralls of Jerdon; is most probably peculiar to Ceylon. Loriculus asiaticus. The small parroquet, abundant in various districts. Palæornis Calthropæ. Layard's purple-headed parroquet, found at Kandy, is a very handsome bird, flying in flocks, and resting on the summits of the very highest trees. Dr. Kelaart states that it is the only parroquet of the Neuera-ellia range. Megalaima flavifrons. The yellow-headed barbet, is not uncommon. Megalaima rubricapilla, is found in most parts of the island. Picus gymnophthalmus. Layard's woodpecker. The smallest of the species, was discovered near Colombo, amongst jak-trees. Brachypternus Ceylonus. The Ceylon woodpecker, is found in abundance near Neuera-ellia. Brachypternus rubescens. The red woodpecker. Centropus chlororhynchus. The yellow-billed cuckoo, was detected by Mr. Layard in dense jungle near Colombo and Avisavelle. Phoenicophaus pyrrhocephalus. The malkoha, is confined to the southern highlands. Treron Pompadoura. The Pompadour pigeon. "The Prince of Canino has shown that this is a totally distinct bird from Tr. flavogularis, with which it was confounded: it is much smaller, with the quantity of maroon colour on the mantle greatly reduced."--Paper by Mr. BLYTH, _Mag. Nat. Hist._ p. 514: 1857. Carpophaga Torringtoniæ. Lady Torrington's pigeon; a very handsome pigeon discovered in the highlands by Dr. Kelaart. It flies high in long sweeps, and makes its nest on the loftiest trees. Mr. Blyth is of opinion that it is no more than a local race, barely separable from C. Elphinstonii of the Nilgiris and Malabar coast. Carpophaga pusilla. The little-hill dove a migratory species found by Mr. Layard in the mountain zone, only appearing with the ripened fruit of the teak, banyan, &c., on which they feed. Gallus Lafayetti.--The Ceylon jungle fowl. The female of this handsome bird was figured by Mr. GRAY (_Ill. Ind. Zool._) under the name of G. Stanleyi. The cock bird had long been lost to naturalists, until a specimen was forwarded by Dr. Templeton to Mr. Blyth, who at once recognised it as the long-looked-for male of Mr. Gray's recently described female. It is abundant in all the uncultivated portions of Ceylon; coming out into the open spaces to feed in the mornings and evenings. Mr. Blyth states that there can be no doubt that Hardwicke's published figure refers to the hen of this species, long afterwards termed G. Lafayetti. Galloperdix bicalcaratus. Not uncommon in suitable situations. CHAP. IX. REPTILES. LIZARDS. _Iguana_.--One of the earliest, if not the first remarkable animal to startle a stranger on arriving in Ceylon, whilst wending his way from Point-de-Galle to Colombo, is a huge lizard of from four to five feet in length, the _Talla-goy[=a]_ of the Singhalese, and Iguana[1] of the Europeans. It may be seen at noonday searching for ants and insects in the middle of the highway and along the fences; when disturbed, but by no means alarmed, by the approach of man, it moves off to a safe distance; and, the intrusion being at an end, it returns again to the occupation in which it had been interrupted. Repulsive as it is in appearance, it is perfectly harmless, and is hunted down by dogs in the maritime provinces, and its delicate flesh, which is believed to be a specific in dysentery, is converted into curry, and its skin into shoes. When seized, it has the power of inflicting a smart blow with its tail. The Talla-goy[=a] lives in almost any convenient hollow, such as a hole in the ground, or a deserted nest of the termites; and some small ones, which frequented my garden at Colombo, made their retreat in the heart of a decayed tree. [Footnote 1: Monitor dracæna, _Linn._ Among the barbarous nostrums of the uneducated natives, both Singhalese and Tamil, is the tongue of the iguana, which they regard as a specific for consumption, if plucked from the living animal and swallowed whole.] A still larger species, the _Kabara-goy[=a]_[1], is partial to marshy ground, and when disturbed upon land, will take refuge in the nearest water. From the somewhat eruptive appearance of the yellow blotches on its scales, a closely allied species, similarly spotted, formerly obtained amongst naturalists the name of _Monitor exanthematicus_, and it is curious that the native appellation of this one, _kabara_[2], is suggestive of the same idea. The Singhalese, on a strictly homoeopathic principle, believe that its fat, externally applied, is a cure for cutaneous disorders, but that taken inwardly it is poisonous. The skilfulness of the Singhalese in their preparation of poisons, and their addiction to using them, are unfortunately notorious traits in the character of the rural population. Amongst these preparations, the one which above all others excites the utmost dread, from the number of murders attributed to its agency, is the potent kabara-tel--a term which Europeans sometimes corrupt into _cobra-tel_, implying that the venom is obtained from the hooded-snake; whereas it professes to be extracted from the "kabara-goy[=a]." Such is the bad renown of this formidable poison, that an individual suspected of having it in his possession, is cautiously shunned by his neighbours. Those especially who are on doubtful terms with him, suspect their servants lest they should be suborned to mix kabara-tel in the curry. So subtle is the virus supposed to be, that one method of administering it, is to introduce it within the midrib of a leaf of betel, and close the orifice with chunam; and, as it is an habitual act of courtesy for one Singhalese on meeting another to offer the compliment of a betel-leaf, which it would be rudeness to refuse, facilities are thus afforded for presenting the concealed drug. It is curious that to this latent suspicion has been traced the origin of a custom universal amongst the natives, of nipping off with the thumb nail the thick end of the stem before chewing the betel. [Footnote 1: Hydrosaurus salvator, _Laur_. Tail compressed; fingers long; nostrils near the extremity of the snout. A black band on each temple; round yellow spots disposed in transverse series on the back. Teeth with the crown compressed and notched.] [Footnote 2: In the _Mahawanso_ the hero Tissa, is said to have been "afflicted with a cutaneous complaint which made his skin scaly like that of the _godho_."--Ch. xxiv. p. 148. "Godho" is the Pali name for the Kabara-goy[=a].] [Illustration: THE KABARA-GOYA.] In the preparation of this mysterious compound, the unfortunate Kabara-goya is forced to take a painfully prominent part. The receipt, as written down by a Kandyan, was sent to me from Kornegalle, by Mr. Morris, the civil officer of that district; and in dramatic arrangement it far outdoes the cauldron of _Macbeth's_ witches. The ingredients are extracted from venomous snakes, the cobra de capello, the Carawilla, and the Tic-polonga, by making incisions in the head of these reptiles and suspending them over a chattie to collect the poison as it flows. To this, arsenic and other drugs are added, and the whole is "boiled in a human skull, with the aid of the three Kabara-goyas, which are tied on three sides of the fire, with their heads directed towards it, and tormented by whips to make them hiss, so that the fire may blaze. The froth from their lips is then added to the boiling mixture, and so soon as an oily scum rises to the surface, the _kabara-tel_ is complete." It is obvious that arsenic is the main ingredient in the poison, and Mr. Morris reported to me that the mode of preparing it, described above, was actually practised in his district. This account was transmitted by him apropos to the murder of a Mohatal[1] and his wife, which had been committed with the _kabara-tel_, and was then under investigation. Before commencing the operation of preparing the poison, a cock has to be sacrificed to the _yakhos_ or demons. [Footnote 1: A native head-man of low rank.] This ugly lizard is itself regarded with such aversion by the Singhalese, that if a _kabara_ enter a house or walk over the roof, it is regarded as an omen of ill fortune, sickness, or death; and in order to avert the evil, a priest is employed to go through a rhythmical incantation; one portion of which consists in the repetition of the words Kabara goyin wan d[=o]sey Ada palayan e d[=o]sey. "These are the inflictions caused by the Kabara-goya--let them now be averted!" It is one of the incidents that serve to indicate that Ceylon may belong to a separate circle of physical geography, that this lizard, though found to the eastward in Burmah[1], has not hitherto been discovered in the Dekkan or Hindustan. [Footnote 1: In corroboration of the view propounded elsewhere (see pp. 7, 84, &c), and opposed to the popular belief that Ceylon, at some remote period, was detached from the continent of India by the interposition of the sea, a list of reptiles will be found at p. 319, including not only individual species, but whole genera peculiar to the island, and not to be found on the mainland. See a paper by Dr. A. GÜNTHER on _The Geog. Distribution of Reptiles_. Magaz. Nat. Hist. for March, 1859, p. 230.] [Illustration: CALOTES OPHIOMACHUS] _Blood-suckers_.--The lizards already mentioned, however, are but the stranger's introduction to innumerable varieties of others, all most attractive in their sudden movements, and some unsurpassed in the brilliancy of their colouring, which bask on banks, dart over rocks, and peer curiously out of the chinks of every ruined wall. In all their motions there is that vivid and brief energy, the rapid but restrained action associated with their limited power of respiration, which justifies the accurate picture of-- "The green lizard, rustling thro' the grass, And up the fluted shaft, _with short, quick, spring_ To vanish in the chinks which time has made."[1] [Footnote 1: ROGERS' _Pæstum._] The most beautiful of the race is the _green calotes_[1], in length about twelve inches, which, with the exception of a few dark streaks about the head, is as brilliant as the purest emerald or malachite. Unlike its congeners of the same family, it never alters this dazzling hue; whilst many of them possess, but in a less degree, the power, like the chameleon, of exchanging their ordinary colours for others less conspicuous. One of the most remarkable features in the physiognomy of those lizards is the prominence of their cheeks. This results from the great development of the muscles of the jaws; the strength of which is such that they can crush the hardest integuments of the beetles on which they feed. The calotes will permit its teeth to be broken, rather than quit its hold of a stick into which it may have struck them. It is not provided, like so many other tropical lizards, with a gular sac or throat-pouch, capable of inflation when in a state of high excitement. The tail, too, is rounded, not compressed, thus clearly indicating that its habits are those of a land-animal. [Footnote 1: Calotes sp.] The _Calotes versicolor_; and another, the _Calotes ophioimachus_, of which a figure is attached, possess in a remarkable degree the faculty, above alluded to, of changing their hue. The head and neck, when the animal is irritated or hastily swallowing its food, become of a brilliant red (whence the latter species has acquired the name of the "blood-sucker"), whilst the usual tint of the rest of the body is converted into pale yellow.[1] The _sitana_[2], and a number of others, exhibit similar phenomena. [Footnote 1: The characteristics by which the _Calotes ophiomachus_ may be readily recognised, are a small crest formed by long spines running on each side of the neck to above the ear, coupled with a green ground-colour of the scales. Many specimens are uniform, others banded transversely with white, and others again have a black band on each side of the neck.] [Footnote 2: Sitana Ponticereana, _Cuv_.] The lyre-headed lizard[1], which is not uncommon in the woods about Kandy, is more bulky than any of the species of Calotes, and not nearly so active in its movements. [Footnote 1: Lyriocephalus scutatus, _Linn._] As usually observed it is of a dull greenish brown, but when excited its back becomes a rich olive green, leaving the head yellowish: the underside of the body is of a very pale blue, almost approaching white. The open mouth exhibits the fauces of an intense vermilion tint; so that, although extremely handsome, this lizard presents, from its extraordinarily shaped head and threatening gestures, a most malignant aspect. It is, however, perfectly harmless. _Chameleon_.--The true chameleon[1] is found, but not in great numbers, in the dry districts to the north of Ceylon, where it frequents the trees, in slow pursuit of its insect prey; but compensated for the sluggishness of its other movements, by the electric rapidity of its extensible tongue. Apparently sluggish in its general habits, the chameleon rests motionless on a branch, from which its varied hues render it scarcely distinguishable in colour; and there patiently awaits the approach of the insects on which it feeds. Instantly on their appearance its wonderful tongue comes into play. [Footnote 1: Chameleo vulgaris, _Daud_.] [Illustration: TONGUE OF CHAMELEON.] Though ordinarily concealed, it is capable of protrusion till it exceeds in length the whole body of the creature. No sooner does an incautious fly venture within reach than the extremity of this treacherous weapon is disclosed, broad and cuneiform, and covered with a viscid fluid; and this, extended to its full length, is darted at its prey with an unerring aim, and redrawn within the jaws with a rapidity that renders the act almost invisible.[1] [Footnote 1: Prof. RYMER JONES, art. _Reptilia_, in TODD'S _Cyclop. of Anat_. vol. iv. pt. i. p. 292.] Whilst the faculty of this creature to assume all the colours of the rainbow has attracted the wonder of all ages, sufficient attention has hardly been given to the imperfect sympathy which subsists between the two lobes of its brain, and the two sets of nerves that permeate the opposite sides of its frame. Hence, not only has each of the eyes an action quite independent of the other, but one side of its body appears to be sometimes asleep whilst the other is vigilant and active; one will assume a green tinge whilst the opposite one is red; and it is said that the chameleon is utterly unable to swim, from the incapacity of the muscles of the two sides to act in concert. _Ceratophora_.--This which till lately was an unique lizard, known by only two specimens, one in the British Museum, and another in that of Leyden, was ascertained by Dr. Kelaart, about five years ago, to be a native of the higher Kandyan hills, where it is sometimes seen in the older trees in pursuit of insect larvæ. The first specimen brought to Europe was called _Ceratophora Stoddartii_, after the name of its finder; and the recent discovery of several others in the National Collection has enabled me, by the aid of Dr. A. Günther, to add some important facts to their history. This lizard is remarkable for having no external ear; and it has acquired its generic name from the curious horn-like process on the extremity of the nose. This horn, as it is found in mature males of ten inches in length, is five lines long, conical, pointed, and slightly curved; a miniature form of the formidable weapon, from which the _Rhinoceros_ takes its name. But the comparison does not hold good either from an anatomical or a physiological point of view. For, whilst the horn of the rhinoceros is merely a dermal production, a conglomeration of hairs cemented into one dense mass as hard as bone, and answering the purpose of a defensive weapon, besides being used for digging up the roots on which the animal lives; the horn of the _ceratophora_ is formed of a soft, spongy substance, coated by the rostral shield, which is produced into a kind of sheath. Although flexible, it always remains erect, owing to the elasticity of its substance. Not having access to a living specimen, which would afford the opportunity of testing conjecture, we are left to infer from the internal structure of this horn, that it is an erectile organ which, in moments of irritation, will swell like the comb of a cock. This opinion as to its physiological nature is confirmed by the remarkable circumstance that, like the rudimentary comb of the hen and young cocks, the female and the immature males of the _ceratophora_ have the horn exceedingly small. In mature females of eight inches in length (and the females appear always to be smaller than the males), the horn is only one half or one line long; while in immature males five inches in length, it is one line and a half. [Illustration: CERATOPHORA TENNENTII and C. STODDARTII] Among the specimens sent from Ceylon by Dr. Kelaart, and now in the British Museum, there is one which so remarkably differs from _C. Stoddartii_, that it attracted my attention, by the peculiar form of this rostral appendage. Dr. Günther pronounced it to be a new species; and Dr. Gray concurring in this opinion, they have done me the honour to call it _Ceratophora Tennentii_. Its "horn" somewhat resembles the comb of a cock not only in its internal structure, but also in its external appearance; it is nearly six lines long by two broad, slightly compressed, soft, flexile, and extensible, and covered with a corrugated, granular skin. It bears no resemblance to the depressed rostral hump of _Lyriocephalus_, and the differences of the new species from the latter lizard may be easily seen from the annexed drawing and the notes given below.[1] [Footnote 1: The specimen in the British Museum is apparently an adult male, ten inches long, and is, with regard to the distribution of the scales and the form of the head very similar to _C. Stoddartii_. The posterior angles of the orbit are not projecting, but there is a small tubercle behind them; and a pair of somewhat larger tubercles on the neck. The gular sac is absent. There are five longitudinal quadrangular, imbricate scales on each side of the throat; and the sides of the body present a nearly horizontal series of similar scales. The scales on the median line of the back scarcely form a crest; it is, however distinct on the nape of the neck. The scales on the belly, on the extremities, and on the tail are slightly keeled. Tail nearly round. This species is more uniformly coloured than _C. Stoddartii_; it is greenish, darker on the sides.] _Geckoes_.--The most familiar and attractive of the lizard class are the _Geckoes_[1], that frequent the sitting-rooms, and being furnished with pads to each toe, they are enabled to ascend perpendicular walls and adhere to glass and ceilings. Being nocturnal in their habits, the pupil of the eye, instead of being circular as in the diurnal species, is linear and vertical like that of the cat. As soon as evening arrives, the geckoes are to be seen in every house in keen and crafty pursuit of their prey; emerging from the chinks and recesses where they conceal themselves during the day, to search for insects that then retire to settle for the night. In a boudoir where the ladies of my family spent their evenings, one of these familiar and amusing little creatures had its hiding-place behind a gilt picture frame. Punctually as the candles were lighted, it made its appearance on the wall to be fed with its accustomed crumbs; and if neglected, it reiterated it sharp, quick call of _chic, chic, chit,_ till attended to. It was of a delicate gray colour, tinged with pink; and having by accident fallen on a work-table, it fled, leaving part of its tail behind it, which, however, it reproduced within less than a month. This faculty of reproduction is doubtless designed to enable the creature to escape from its assailants: the detaching of the limb is evidently its own act; and it is observable, that when reproduced, the tail generally exhibits some variation from the previous form, the diverging spines being absent, the new portion covered with small square uniform scales placed in a cross series, and the scuta below being seldom so distinct as in the original member.[2] In an officer's quarters in the fort of Colombo, a geckoe had been taught to come daily to the dinner-table, and always made its appearance along with the dessert. The family were absent for some months, during which the house underwent extensive repairs, the roof having been raised, the walls stuccoed, and the ceilings whitened. It was naturally surmised that so long a suspension of its accustomed habits would have led to the disappearance of the little lizard; but on the return of its old friends, it made its entrance as usual at their first dinner the instant the cloth was removed. [Footnote 1: Hemidactylus maculatus, _Dum_. et _Bib_., H. Leschenaultii, _Dum_, et _Bib_; H. frenatus, _Schlegel_. Of these the last is very common in the houses of Colombo. Colour, grey; sides with small granules; thumb short; chin-shields four; tail rounded with transverse series of small spines; femoral and preanal pores in a continuous line. GRAY, _Lizard_, p. 155.] [Footnote 2: _Brit. Mus. Cat._ p. 143; KELAART's _Prod. Faun. Zeylan.,_ p. 183.] _Crocodile._--The Portuguese in India, like the Spaniards in South America, affixed the name of _lagarto_ to the huge reptiles that infested the rivers and estuaries of both continents; and to the present day the Europeans in Ceylon apply the term _alligator_ to what are in reality _crocodiles_, which literally swarm in the still waters and tanks in the low country, but rarely frequent rapid streams, and have never been found in the marshes among the hills. The differences, however, between the two, when once ascertained, are sufficiently marked, to prevent their being afterwards confounded. The head of the alligator is broader and the snout less prolonged, and the canine teeth of the under jaw, instead of being received into foramina in the upper, as in the crocodile, fit into furrows on each side of it. The legs of the alligator, too, are not denticulated, and the feet are only semi-palmate. The following drawing exhibits a cranium of each. [Illustration: SKULLS OF ALLIGATOR AND CROCODILE] The instincts of the crocodiles in Ceylon do not lead to any variation from the habits of those found in other countries. There would appear to be two well-distinguished species found in the island, the _Eli-kimboola_[1], the Indian crocodile, inhabiting the rivers and estuaries throughout the low countries of the coasts, attaining the length of sixteen or eighteen feet, and ready to assail man when pressed by hunger; and the marsh-crocodile[2], which lives exclusively in fresh water, frequenting the tanks in the northern and central provinces, and confining its attacks to the smaller animals: in length it seldom exceeds twelve or thirteen feet. Sportsmen complain that their dogs are constantly seized by both species; and water-fowl, when shot, frequently disappear before they can be secured by the fowler.[3] It is generally believed in Ceylon that, in the case of larger animals, the crocodile abstains from devouring them till the commencement of decomposition facilitates the operation of swallowing. To assist in this, the natives assure me that the reptile contrives to fasten the carcase behind the roots of a mangrove or some other convenient tree and tears off each piece by a backward spring. [Footnote 1: Crocodilus biporcatus. _Cuvier_.] [Footnote 2: Crododilus palustris, _Less_.] [Footnote 3: In Siam the flesh of the crocodile is sold for food in the markets and bazaars, "Un jour je vis plus de cinquante crocodiles, petits et grands, attachés aux colonnes de leurs maisons. Ils es vendent la chair comme on vendrait de la chair de porc, mais à bien meilleur marché."-PALLEGOIX, _Siam_, vol. i. p. 174.] There is another popular belief that the crocodile is exceedingly sensitive to tickling; and that it will relax its hold of a man, if he can only contrive to reach and rub with his hand the softer parts of its under side.[1] An incident indicative of some reality in this piece of folklore, once came under my own observation. One morning, about sunrise, when riding across the sandy plain near the old fort of Moeletivoe, we came suddenly upon a crocodile asleep under some bushes of the Buffalo-thorn, several hundred yards from the water. The terror of the poor wretch was extreme, when it awoke and found itself discovered and completely surrounded. It was a hideous creature, upwards of ten feet long, and evidently of prodigious strength, had it been in a condition to exert it, but consternation completely paralysed it. It started to its feet and turned round in a circle hissing and clanking its bony jaws, with its ugly green eye intently fixed upon us. On being struck with a stick, it lay perfectly quiet and apparently dead. Presently it looked cunningly round, and made a rush towards the water, but on a second blow it lay again motionless and feigning death. We tried to rouse it, but without effect, pulled its tail, slapped its back, struck its hard scales, and teased it in every way, but all in vain; nothing would induce it to move till accidentally my son, then a boy of twelve years old, tickled it gently under the arm, and in an instant it drew the limb close to its side and turned to avoid a repetition of the experiment. Again it was touched under the other arm, and the same emotion was exhibited, the great monster twisting about like an infant to avoid being tickled. The scene was highly amusing, but the sun was rising high, and we pursued our journey to Moeletivoe, leaving the crocodile to make its way to the adjoining lake. [Footnote 1: A native gentleman who resided for a long time at Caltura tells me that in the rivers which flow into the sea, both there and at Bentotte, crocodiles are frequently caught in corrals, formed of stakes driven into the ground in shallow water, and so constructed, that when the reptile enters to seize the bait placed within, the aperture closes behind and secures him. A professional "crocodile charmer" then enters muttering a spell, and with one end of a stick pats the creature gently on the head for a time. The operator then boldly mounts astride upon its shoulders, and continues to soothe it with his one hand, whilst with the other he contrives to pass a rope under its body, by which it is at last dragged on shore. This story serves to corroborate the narrative of Mr. Waterton and his alligator.] The Singhalese believe that the crocodile can only move swiftly on sand or smooth clay, its feet being too tender to tread firmly on hard or stony ground. In the dry season, when the watercourses begin to fail and the tanks become exhausted, the marsh-crocodiles have occasionally been encountered in the jungle, wandering in search of water. During a severe drought in 1844, they deserted a tank near Kornegalle and traversed the town during the night, on their way to another reservoir in the suburb; two or three fell into the wells; others in their trepidation, laid eggs in the street, and some were found entangled in garden fences and killed. Generally, however, during the extreme drought, when unable to procure their ordinary food from the drying up of the watercourses, they bury themselves in the mud, and remain in a state of torpor till released by the recurrence of rains.[1] At Arne-tivoe, in the eastern province, whilst riding across the parched bed of the tank, I was shown the recess, still bearing the form and impress of a crocodile, out of which the animal had been seen to emerge the day before. A story was also related to me of an officer attached to the department of the Surveyor-General, who, having pitched his tent in a similar position, was disturbed during the night by feeling a movement of the earth below his bed, from which on the following day a crocodile emerged, making its appearance from beneath the matting.[2] [Footnote 1: HERODOTUS records the observations of the Egyptians that the crocodile of the Nile abstains from food during the four winter months.--_Euterpe_, lviii.] [Footnote 2: HUMBOLDT relates a similar story as occurring at Calabazo, in Venezuela.--_Personal Narrative_, c, xvi.] The fresh water species that inhabits the tanks is essentially cowardly in it instincts, and hastens to conceal itself on the appearance of man. A gentleman (who told me the circumstance), when riding in the jungle, overtook a crocodile, evidently roaming in search of water. It fled to a shallow pool almost dried by the sun, and, thrusting its head into the mud till it covered up its eyes, remained unmoved in profound confidence of perfect concealment. In 1833, during the progress of the Pearl Fishery, Sir Robert Wilmot Horton employed men to drag for crocodiles in a pond which was infested by them in the immediate vicinity of Aripo. The pool was about fifty yards in length, by ten or twelve wide, shallowing gradually to the edge, and not exceeding four or five feet at the deepest part. As the party approached the bund, from twenty to thirty reptiles, which had been basking in the sun, rose and fled to the water. A net, specially weighted so as to sink its lower edge to the bottom, was then stretched from bank to bank and swept to the further end of the pond, followed by a line of men with poles to drive the crocodiles forward: so complete was the arrangement, that no individual could have evaded the net, yet, to the astonishment of the Governor's party, not one was to be found when it was drawn on shore, and no means of escape for them was apparent or possible except by their descending into the mud at the bottom of the pond. The lagoon of Batticaloa, and indeed all the still waters of this district, are remarkable for the numbers and prodigious size of the crocodiles which infest them. Their teeth are sometimes so large that the natives mount them with silver lids and use them for boxes to carry the powdered chunam, which they chew with the betel leaf. During one of my visits to the lake a crocodile was caught within a few yards of the government agent's residence, a hook having been laid the night before, baited with the entrails of a goat; and made fast, in the native fashion, by a bunch of fine cords, which the creature cannot gnaw asunder as it would a solid rope, since they sink into the spaces between its teeth. The one taken was small, being only about ten or eleven feet in length, whereas they are frequently killed from fifteen to nineteen feet long. As long as it was in the water, it made strong resistance to being hauled on shore, carrying the canoe out into the deep channel, and occasionally raising its head above the surface, and clashing its jaws together menacingly. This action has a horrid sound, as the crocodile has no fleshy lips; and it brings its teeth and the bones of the mouth together with a loud crash, like the clank of two pieces of hard wood. After playing it a little, the boatmen drew it to land, and when once fairly on the shore all courage and energy seemed utterly to desert it. It tried once or twice to regain the water, but at last lay motionless and perfectly helpless on the sand. It was no easy matter to kill it; a rifle ball sent diagonally through its breast had little or no effect, and even when the shot had been repeated more than once, it was as full of life as ever.[1] It feigned death and lay motionless, with its eye closed; but, on being pricked with a spear, it suddenly regained all its activity. It was at last finished by a harpoon, and then opened. Its maw contained several small tortoises, and a quantity of broken bricks and gravel, taken medicinally, to promote digestion. [Footnote 1: A remarkable instance of the vitality of the common crocodile, _C. biporcatus_, was related to me by a gentleman at Galle: he had caught on a baited hook an unusually large one, which his coolies disembowelled, the aperture in the stomach being left expanded by a stick placed across it. On returning in the afternoon with a view to secure the head, they found that the creature had crawled for some distance, and made its escape into the water. "A curious incident occurred some years ago on the Maguruganga, a stream which flows through the Pasdun Corle, to join the Bentolle river. A man was fishing seated on the branch of a tree that overhung the water; and to shelter himself from the drizzling rain, he covered his head and shoulder with a bag folded into a shape common with the natives. While in this attitude, a leopard sprang upon him from the jungle, but missing its aim, seized the bag and not the man, and fell with it into the river. Here a crocodile, which had been eyeing the angler is despair, seized the leopard as it fell, and sunk with it to the bottom."--_Letter_ from GOONE-RATNE Modliar, interpreter of the Supreme Court, 10th Jany., 1861.] During our journeys we had numerous opportunities of observing the habits of these hideous creatures, and I am far from considering them so formidable as they are usually supposed to be. They are evidently not wantonly destructive; they act only under the influence of hunger, and even then their motions on land are awkward and ungainly, their action timid, and their whole demeanour devoid of the sagacity and courage which characterise other animals of prey. TESTUDINATA. _Tortoise_.--Land tortoises are numerous, but present no remarkable features beyond the beautiful marking of the starred variety[1], which is common in the north-western province around Putlam and Chilaw, and is distinguished by the bright yellow rays which diversify the deep black of its dorsal shield. From one of these which was kept in my garden I took a number of flat ticks (_Ixodes_), which adhere to its fleshy neck in such a position as to baffle any attempt of the animal itself to remove them; but as they are exposed to constant danger of being crushed against the plastron during the protrusion and retraction of the head, each is covered with a horny case almost as resistant as the carapace of the tortoise itself. Such an adaptation of structure is scarcely less striking than that of the parasites found on the spotted lizard of Berar by Dr. Hooker, each of which presents the distinct colour of the scale to which it adheres.[2] [Footnote 1: Testudo stellata.] [Illustration: THE THREE-RIDGED TORTOISE (EMYS TRIJUGA)] [Footnote 2: HOOKER'S _Himalayan Journals_, vol. i. p. 37.] The marshes and pools of the interior are frequented by _terrapins_[1], which the natives are in the habit of keeping alive in wells under the conviction that they clear them of impurities. These fresh-water tortoises, the greater number of which are included in the genus _Emys_ of naturalists, are distinguished by having their toes webbed. Their shell is less convex than that of their congeners on land (but more elevated than that of the sea-turtle); and it has been observed that the more rounded the shell, the nearer does the terrapin approach to the land-tortoise both in its habits and in the choice of its food. Some of them live upon animal as well as vegetable food, and those which subsist exclusively on the former, are noted as having the flattest shells. [Footnote 1: _Cryptopus granum_, SCHÖPF; DR. KELAART, in his _Prodromus_ (p. 179), refers this to the common Indian species, _C. punctata_; but it is distinct. It is generally distributed in the lower parts of Ceylon, in lakes and tanks. It is the one usually put into wells to act the part of a scavenger. By the Singhalese it is named _Kiri-ibba_.] The terrapins lay about thirty eggs in the course of several weeks, and these are round, with a calcareous shell. They thrive in captivity, provided that they have a regular supply of water and of meat, cut into small pieces and thrown to them. The tropical species, if transferred to a colder climate, should have arrangements made for enabling them to hybernate during the winter: they will die in a very short time if exposed to a temperature below the freezing point.[1] [Footnote 1: Of the _Emys trijuga_, the fresh water tortoise figured on preceding page, the technical characteristics are;--vertical plates lozenge-shaped; shell convex and oval; with three more or less distinct longitudinal keels; shields corrugated; with areola situated in the upper posterior corner. Shell brown, with the areolæ and the keels yellowish; head brown, with a yellow streak over each eye.] The edible turtle[1] is found on all the coasts of the island, and sells for a few shillings or a few pence, according to its size and abundance at the moment. A very repulsive spectacle is exhibited in the markets of Jaffna by the mode in which the flesh of the turtle is sold piece-meal, whilst the animal is still alive, by the families of the Tamil fishermen. The creatures are to be seen in the market-place undergoing this frightful mutilation; the plastron and its integuments having been previously removed, and the animal thrown on its back, so as to display all the motions of the heart, viscera, and lungs. A broad knife, from twelve to eighteen inches in length, is first inserted at the left side, and the women, who are generally the operators, introduce one hand to scoop out the blood, which oozes slowly. The blade is next passed round, till the lower shell is detached and placed on one side, and the internal organs exposed in full action. A customer, as he applies, is served with any part selected, which is cut off as ordered, and sold by weight. Each of the fins is thus successively removed, with portions of the fat and flesh, the turtle showing, by its contortions, that each act of severance is productive of agony. In this state it lies for hours, writhing in the sun, the heart[2] and head being usually the last pieces selected, and till the latter is cut off the snapping of the mouth, and the opening and closing of the eyes, show that life is still inherent, even when the shell has been nearly divested of its contents. [Footnote 1: Chelonia virgata, _Schweig_.] [Footnote 2: ARISTOTLE was aware of the fact that the turtle will live after the removal of the heart.--_De Vita et Morte_, ch. ii.] At certain seasons the flesh of turtle on the south-western coast of Ceylon is avoided as poisonous, and some lamentable instances are recorded of deaths ascribed to its use. At Pantura, to the south of Colombo, twenty-eight persons who had partaken of turtle in October, 1840, were immediately seized with sickness, after which coma supervened, and eighteen died during the night. Those who survived said there was nothing unusual in the appearance of the flesh except that it was fatter than ordinary. Other similarly fatal occurrences have been attributed to turtle curry; but as they have never been proved to proceed exclusively from that source, there is room for believing that the poison may have been contained in some other ingredient. In the Gulf of Manaar turtle is frequently found of such a size as to measure between four and five feet in length; and on one occasion, in riding along the sea-shore north of Putlam, I saw a man in charge of some sheep, resting under the shade of a turtle shell, which he had erected on sticks to protect him from the sun--almost verifying the statement of Ælian, that in the seas off Ceylon there are tortoises so large that several persons may find ample shelter beneath a single shell.[1] [Footnote 1: [Greek: "Tiktontai de ara en tautê tê thalattê, kai chelônai megistai, ônper oun ta elytra orophoi ginontai kai gar esti kai pentekaideka pêchôn en chelôneion, ôs hypoikein ouk oligous, kai tous hêlious pyrodestatous apostegei, kai skian asmenois parechei."]--Lib. xvi. c. 17. Ælian copied this statement literatim from MEGASTHESES, _Indica Frag._ lix. 31. May not Megasthenes have referred to some tradition connected with the gigantic fossilised species discovered on the Sewalik Hills, the remains of which are now in the Museum at the East India House?] The hawksbill-turtle[1], which supplies the tortoise-shell of commerce, was at former times taken in great numbers in the vicinity of Hambangtotte during the season when they came to deposit their eggs. This gave rise to the trade in tortoise-shell at Point de Galle, where it is still manufactured into articles of ornament by the Moors; but the shell they employ is almost entirely imported from the Maldives. [Footnote 1: Caretta imbricata, _Linn._] If taken from the animal after death and decomposition, the colour of the shell becomes clouded and milky, and hence the cruel expedient is resorted to of seizing the turtles as they repair to the shore to deposit their eggs, and suspending them over fires till heat makes the plates on the dorsal shields start from the bone of the carapace, after which the creature is permitted to escape to the water.[1] In illustration of the resistless influence of instinct at the period of breeding, it may be mentioned that the identical tortoise is believed to return again and again to the same spot, notwithstanding that at each visit she may have to undergo a repetition of this torture. In the year 1826, a hawksbill turtle was taken near Hambangtotte, which bore a ring attached to one of its fins that had been placed there by a Dutch officer thirty years before, with a view to establish the fact of these recurring visits to the same beach.[2] [Footnote 1: At Celebes, whence the finest tortoise-shell is exported to China, the natives kill the turtle by blows on the head, and immerse the shell in boiling water to detach the plates. Dry heat is only resorted to by the unskilful, who frequently destroy the tortoise-shell in the operation--_Journal Indian Archipel_. vol. iii. p. 227, 1849.] [Footnote 2: BENNETT'S _Ceylon, &c._, c. xxxiv.] An opportunity is afforded on the sea-shore of Ceylon for observing a remarkable illustration of instinct in the turtle, when about to deposit its eggs. As if conscious that if she went and returned by one and the same line across the sandy beach, her hiding place would be discovered at its farthest extremity, she resorts to the expedient of curving her course, so as to regain the sea by a different track; and after depositing the eggs, burying them about eighteen inches deep, she carefully smoothes over the surface to render the precise spot indiscernible. The Singhalese, aware of this device, sound her line of, march with a rod till they come upon the concealed nest. _Snakes_.--It is perhaps owing to the aversion excited by the ferocious expression and unusual action of serpents, combined with an instinctive dread of attack[1], that exaggerated ideas prevail both as to their numbers in Ceylon, and the danger to be apprehended from encountering them. The Singhalese profess to distinguish a great many kinds, of which they say not more than one half have as yet been scientifically identified[2]; but so cautiously do serpents make their appearance, that the surprise of persons long resident is invariably expressed at the rarity with which they are to be seen; and from my own journeys through the jungle, often of from two to five hundred miles, I have frequently returned without observing a single snake. Mr. Bennett, who resided much in the south-east of the island, ascribes the rarity of serpents in the jungle to the abundance of the wild peafowl, whose partiality to young snakes renders them the chief destroyers of these reptiles. It is likely, too, that they are killed by the jungle-cocks; for they are frequently eaten by the common barn-door fowl in Ceylon. This is rendered the more probable by the fact, that in those districts where the extension of cultivation, and the visits of sportsmen, have reduced the numbers of the jungle-cocks and pea-fowl, snakes have perceptibly increased. The deer also are enemies of the snakes, and the natives who have had opportunities of watching their encounters assert that they have seen deer rush upon a serpent and crush it by leaping on it with all its four feet. As to the venomous powers of snakes, DR. DAVY, whose attention was carefully directed to the poisonous serpents of Ceylon[3], came to the conclusion that but _four_, out of twenty species examined by him, were venomous, and that of these only two (the _tic-polonga_[4] and _cobra de capello_[5]) were capable of inflicting a wound likely to be fatal to man. The third is the _carawala_[6], a brown snake of about two feet in length; and for the fourth, of which only a few specimens have been procured, the Singhalese have no name in their vernacular--a proof that it is neither deadly nor abundant. But Dr. Davy's estimate of the venom of the _carawala_ is below the truth, as cases have been authenticated to me, in which death from its bite ensued within a few days. The effect, however, is not uniformly fatal; a circumstance which the natives explain by asserting that there are three varieties of the carawala, named the _hil-la_, the _dunu_, and the _mal_-carawala; the second being the largest and the most dreaded. [Footnote 1: Genesis iii. 15.] [Footnote 2: This is not likely to be true: in a very large collection of snakes made in Ceylon by Mr. C.R. Butler, and recently examined by Dr. Günther, of the British Museum, only a single-specimen proved to be new. There is, however, one venomous snake, of the existence of which I am assured by a native correspondent in Ceylon, no mention has yet been made by European naturalists. It is called M[=a]pil[=a] by the Singhalese; it is described to me as being about four feet in length, of the diameter of the little finger, and of a uniform dark brown colour. It is said to be often seen in company with another snake called in Singhalese _Lay Medilla_, a name which implies its deep red hue. The latter is believed to be venomous. It would be well if some collector in Ceylon would send home for examination the species which respectively bear these names.] [Footnote 3: See DAVY'S _Ceylon_, ch. xiv.] [Footnote 4: Daboia elegans, _Daud._] [Footnote 5: Naja tripudians, _Merr._] [Footnote 6: Trigonocephalus hypnale, _Merr._] In like manner, the _tic-polonga_, particularised by Dr. Davy, is said to be but one out of seven varieties of that formidable reptile. The word "tic" means literally the "spotted" polonga, from the superior clearness of the markings on its scales. Another, the _nidi_, or "sleeping" polonga, is so called from the fact that a person bitten by it is soon prostrated by a lethargy from which he never awakes.[1] These formidable serpents so infested the official residence of the District Judge of Trincomalie in 1858, as to compel his family to abandon it. In another instance, a friend of mine, going hastily to take a supply of wafers from an open tin case which stood in his office, drew back his hand, on finding the box occupied by a tic-polonga coiled within it. During my residence in Ceylon, I never heard of the death of a European which was caused by the bite of a snake; and in the returns of coroners' inquests made officially to my department, such accidents to the natives appear chiefly to have happened at night, when the animal, having been surprised or trodden on, inflicted the wound in self-defence.[2] For these reasons the Singhalese, when obliged to leave their houses in the dark, carry a stick with a loose ring, the noise[3] of which as they strike it on the ground is sufficient to warn the snakes to leave their path. [Footnote 1: The other varieties are the _getta, lay, alu, kunu,_ and _nil-polongas._ I have heard of an eighth, the _palla-polonga_. Amongst the numerous pieces of folk-lore in Ceylon in connexion with snakes, is the belief that a deadly enmity subsists between the polonga and the cobra de capello, and that the latter, which is naturally shy and retiring, is provoked to conflicts by the audacity of its rival. Hence the proverb applied to persons at enmity, that "they hate like the polonga and cobra." The Singhalese believe the polonga to be by far the most savage and wanton of the two, and they illustrate this by a popular legend, that once upon a time a child, in the absence of its mother, was playing beside a tub of water, which a cobra, impelled by thirst during a long-continued drought, approached to drink, the unconscious child all the while striking it with its hands to prevent the intrusion. The cobra, on returning, was met by a tic-polonga, which seeing its scales dripping with delicious moisture, entreated to be told the way to the well. The cobra, knowing the vicious habits of the other snake, and anticipating that it would kill the innocent child which it had so recently spared, at first refused, and only yielded on condition that the infant was not to be molested. But the polonga, on reaching the tub, was no sooner obstructed by the little one, than it stung him to death.] [Footnote 2: In a return of 112 coroners' inquests, in cases of death from wild animals, held in Ceylon in five years, from 1851 to 1855 inclusive, 68 are ascribed to the bites of serpents; and in almost every instance the assault is set down as having taken place _at night_. The majority of the sufferers were children and women.] [Footnote 3: PLINY notices that the serpent has the sense of hearing more acute than that of sight; and that it is more frequently put in motion by the sound of footsteps than by the appearance of the intruder, "excitatur pede sæpius."--Lib, viii. c. 36.] _Cobra de Capello._--The cobra de capello is the only one exhibited by the itinerant snake-charmers: and the truth of Davy's conjecture, that they control it, not by extracting its fangs, but by courageously availing themselves of its well-known timidity and extreme reluctance to use its fatal weapons, received a painful confirmation during my residence in Ceylon, by the death of one of these performers, whom his audience had provoked to attempt some unaccustomed familiarity with the cobra; it bit him on the wrist, and he expired the same evening. The hill near Kandy, on which the official residences of the Governor and Colonial Secretary are built, is covered in many places with the deserted nests of the white ants (_termites_), and these are the favourite retreats of the sluggish and spiritless cobra, which watches from their apertures the toads and lizards on which it preys. Here, when I have repeatedly come upon them, their only impulse was concealment; and on one occasion, when a cobra of considerable length could not escape, owing to the bank being nearly precipitous on both sides of the road, a few blows from my whip were sufficient to deprive it of life.[1] [Footnote 1: A Singhalese work, the _Sarpados[=a]_, enumerates four castes of the cobra;--the _raja_, or king: the _bamunu_, or Brahman; the _velanda_, or trader; and the _gori_, or agriculturist. Of these the raja, or "king of the cobras," is said to have the head and the anterior half of the body of so light a colour, that at a distance it seems like a silvery white. The work is quoted, but not correctly, in the _Ceylon Times_ for January, 1857. It is more than probable, as the division represents the four castes of the Hindus, Chastriyas, Brahmans Vaisyas, and Sudras; that the insertion of the _gori_ instead of the latter was a pious fraud of some copyist to confer rank upon the Vellales, the agricultural caste of Ceylon.] A gentleman who held a civil appointment at Kornegalle, had a servant who was bitten by a snake and he informed me that on enlarging a hole near the foot of the tree under which the accident occurred, he unearthed a cobra of upwards of three feet long, and so purely white as to induce him to believe that it was an albino. With the exception of the _rat-snake_[1], the cobra de capello is the only serpent which seems from choice to frequent the vicinity of human dwellings, doubtless attracted by the young of the domestic fowl and by the moisture of the wells and drainage. [Footnote 1: _Coryphodon Blumenbachii._ There is a belief in Ceylon that the bite of the rat-snake, though harmless to man, is fatal to black cattle. The Singhalese add that it would be equally so to man were the wound to be touched by cow-dung. WOLF, in the interesting story of his _Life and Adventures in Ceylon_, mentions that rat-snakes were often so domesticated by the native as to feed at their table. He says: "I once saw an example of this in the house of a native. It being meal time, he called his snake, which immediately came forth from the roof under which he and I were sitting. He gave it victuals from his own dish, which the snake took of itself from off a fig-leaf that was laid for it, and ate along with its host. When it had eaten its fill, he gave it a kiss, and bade it go to its hole." Major SKINNER, writing to me 12th Dec., 1858, mentions the still more remarkable case of the domestication of the cobra de capello in Ceylon. "Did you ever hear," he says, "of tame cobras being kept and domesticated about a house, going in and out at pleasure, and in common with the rest of the inmates? In one family, near Negombo, cobras are kept as protectors, in the place of dogs, by a wealthy man who has always large sums of money in his house. But this is not a solitary case of the kind. I heard of it only the other day, but from undoubtedly good authority. The snakes glide about the house, a terror to thieves, but never attempting to harm the inmates."] The young cobras, it is said, in the _Sarpa-dosa_, are not venomous till after the thirteenth day, when they shed their coat for the first time. The Singhalese remark that if one cobra be destroyed near a house, its companion is almost certain to be discovered immediately after,--a popular belief which I had an opportunity of verifying on more than one occasion. Once, when a snake of this description was killed in a bath of the Government House at Colombo, its mate was found in the same spot the day after; and again, at my own stables, a cobra of five feet long, having fallen into the well, which was too deep to permit its escape, its companion of the same size was found the same morning in an adjoining drain.[1] On this occasion the snake, which had been several hours in the well, swam with ease, raising its head and hood above water; and instances have repeatedly occurred of the cobra de capello voluntarily taking considerable excursions by sea. When the "Wellington," a government vessel employed in the conservancy of the pearl banks, was anchored about a quarter of a mile from the land, in the bay of Koodremalé, a cobra was seen, about an hour before sunset, swimming vigorously towards the ship. It came within twelve yards, when the sailors assailed it with billets of wood and other missiles, and forced it to return to land. The following morning they discovered the track which it had left on the shore, and traced it along the sand till it was lost in the jungle. On a later occasion, in the vicinity of the same spot, when the "Wellington" was lying at some distance from the shore, a cobra was found and killed on board, where it could only have gained access by climbing up the cable. It was first discovered by a sailor, who felt the chill as it glided over his foot. [Footnote 1: PLINY notices the affection that subsists between the male and female asp; and that if one of them happens to be killed, the other seeks to avenge its death.--Lib. viii. c. 37.] One curious tradition in Ceylon embodies the popular legend, that the stomach of the cobra de capello occasionally contains a precious stone of such unapproachable brilliancy as to surpass all known jewels. This inestimable stone is called the _n[=a]ga-m[=a]nik-kya_; but not one snake in thousands is supposed to possess such a treasure. The cobra, before eating, is believed to cast it up and conceal it for the moment; else its splendour, like a flambeau, would attract all beholders. The tales of the peasantry, in relation to it, all turn upon the devices of those in search of the gem, and the vigilance and cunning of the cobra by which they are baffled; the reptile itself being more enamoured of the priceless jewel than even its most ardent pursuers. In BENNETT'S account of "_Ceylon and its Capabilities_," there is another curious piece of Singhalese folk-lore, to the effect, that the cobra de capello every time it expends its poison _loses a joint of its tail_, and eventually acquires a head resembling that of a toad. A recent addition to zoological knowledge has thrown light on the origin of this popular fallacy. The family of "false snakes" (_pseudo typhlops_, as Schlegel names the group) have till lately consisted of but three species, of which only one was known to inhabit Ceylon. They belong to a family intermediate between the serpents and that Saurian group-commonly called _Slow-worms_ or _Glass-snakes_; they in fact represent the slow-worms of the temperate regions in Ceylon. They have the body of a snake, but the cleft of their mouth is very narrow, and they are unable to detach the lateral parts of the lower jaw from each other, as the true snakes do when devouring a prey. The most striking character of the group, however, is the size and form of the tail; this is very short, and according to the observations of Professor Peters of Berlin[1], shorter in the female than in the male. It does not terminate in a point as in other snakes, but is truncated obliquely, the abrupt surface of its extremity being either entirely flat, or more or less convex, and always covered with rough keels. The reptile assists its own movements by pressing the rough end to the ground, and from this peculiar form of the tail, the family has received the name of _Uropeltidæ_, or "Shield-tails." Within a very recent period important additions have been made to this family. which now consists of four genera and eleven species. Those occurring in Ceylon are enumerated in the List appended to this chapter. One of these, the _Uropeltis grandis_ of Kelaart[2], is distinguished by its dark brown colour, shot with a bluish metallic lustre, closely approaching the ordinary shade of the cobra; and the tail is abruptly and flatly compressed as though it had been severed by a knife. The form of this singular reptile will be best understood by a reference to the accompanying figure; and there can, I think, be little doubt that to its strange and anomalous structure is to be traced the fable of the transformation of the cobra de capello. The colour alone would seem to identify the two reptiles, but the head and mouth are no longer those of a serpent, and the disappearance of the tail might readily suggest the mutilation which the tradition asserts. [Illustration: THE UROPELTIS PHILIPPINUS.] [Footnote 1: PETERS, _De Serpentum familia Uropeltaceorum_. Berol, 4. 1861.] [Footnote 2: The _Uropeltis grandis_ of Kelaart, which was at first supposed to be a new species, proves to be identical with _U. Phillippinus_ of Cuvier. It is doubtful, however, whether this species be found in the Phillippine Islands, as stated by Cuvier; and it is more than, probable that the typical specimen came from Ceylon--a further illustration of the affinity of the fauna of Ceylon to that of the Eastern Archipelago. The characteristics of this reptile, as given by Dr. GRAY, are as follows:--"Caudal disc subcircular, with large scattered tubercles; snout subacute, slightly produced. Dark brown, lighter below, with some of the scales dark brown in the centre near the posterior edge. GRAY, _Proceed. Zool. Soc._ 1858, p. 262.] The Singhalese Buddhists, in their religious abstinence from inflicting death on any creature, are accustomed, after securing a venomous snake, to enclose it in a basket woven of palm leaves, and to set it afloat on a river. _The Python._--The great python[1] (the "boa," as it is commonly designated by Europeans, the "anaconda" of Eastern story), which is supposed to crush the bones of an elephant, and to swallow the tiger, is found, though not of such portentous dimensions, in the cinnamon gardens within a mile of the fort of Colombo, where it feeds on hog-deer, and other smaller animals. [Footnote 1: Python reticulatus, _Gray_.] The natives occasionally take it alive, and securing it to a pole expose it for sale as a curiosity. One that was brought to me tied in this way measured seventeen feet with a proportionate thickness: but one more fully grown, which crossed my path on a coffee estate on the Peacock Mountain at Pusilawa, considerably exceeded these dimensions. Another which I watched in the garden at Elie House, near Colombo, surprised me by the ease with which it erected itself almost perpendicularly in order to scale a wall upwards of ten feet high. The Singhalese assert that when it has swallowed a deer, or any animal of similarly inconvenient bulk, the python draws itself through the narrow aperture between two trees, in order to crush the bones and assist in the process of deglutition. It is a singular fact that the small and innocuous ground-snakes called _Calamariæ_, which abound on the continent of India and in the islands are not to be found in Ceylon; where they would appear to be replaced by two singular genera, the _Aspidura_ and _Haplocercus_, These latter have only one series of shields below the tail, whilst most other harmless snakes (_Calamaria_ included) have a double series of sub-candals. The _Aspidura_ has been known to naturalists for many years[1]; the _Haplocercus_ of Ceylon has only recently been described by Dr. Günther, and of it not more than three existing specimens are known: hence its habits and the extent of its distribution over the island are still left in uncertainty.[2] [Footnote 1: Boie in Isis 1827 p. 517.] [Footnote 2: GÜNTH. _Col. Snakes_, p. 14. In the hope that some inquirer in Ceylon will be able to furnish such information as may fill up this blank in the history of the haplocercus, the following particulars are here appended. The largest of the specimens in the British Museum is about twenty-five inches in length; the body thin, and much elongated; the head narrow, and not distinct from the neck, the tail of moderate length. Forehead covered by three shields, one anterior and two posterior frontals; no loreal shield; one small shield before, two behind the eye; seven shields along the upper lip, the eye being above the fourth. The scales are disposed in seventeen longitudinal series; they are lanceolate and strongly keeled. The upper parts are uniform blackish or brown, with two dorsal rows of small indistinct black spots; occiput with a whitish collar, edged with darker. The lower parts uniform yellowish.] Of ten species of snakes that ascend trees in Ceylon to search for squirrels and lizards, and to rifle the nests of birds, one half, including the green _carawala_, and the deadly _tic polonga_, are believed by the natives to be venomous; but the truth of this is very dubious. I have heard of the cobra being found on the crown of a coco-nut palm, attracted, it was said, by the toddy which was flowing at the time, it being the season for drawing it. Surrounding Elie House, near Colombo, in which I resided, were a number of tall _casuarinas_ and India-rubber trees, whose branches almost touched the lattices of the window of the room in which I usually sat. These were a favourite resort of the tree-snakes, and in the early morning the numbers which clung to them were sometimes quite remarkable. I had thus an opportunity of observing the action of these creatures, which seems to me one of vigilance rather than of effort, the tongue being in perpetual activity, as if it were an organ of feeling; and in those in which the nose is elongated, a similar mobility and restlessness, especially when alarmed, affords evidence of the same faculty. The general characteristic of the Tree-snake is an exceedingly thin and delicate body, often adorned with colours exquisite as those of the foliage amongst which they live concealed. In some of the South American species the tints vie in brilliancy with those of the humming-birds; whilst their forms are so flexible and slender as to justify the name conferred on them of "_whip-snakes_." The Siamese, to denote these combinations of grace and splendour, call them "Sun-beams." A naturalist[1], describing a bright green species in Brazil (_Philodryas viridissimus_), writes: "I am always delighted when I find that another tree-snake has settled in my garden. You look for a bird's nest, the young ones have gone, but you find their bed occupied by one of these beautiful creatures, which will coil up its body of two feet in length within a space no larger than the hollow of your hand. They appear to be always watchful; for at the instant you discover one, the quick playing of the long, black, forked tongue will show you that you too are observed. On perceiving the slightest sign of your intention to disturb it, the snake will dart upwards through the branches and over the leaves which scarcely appear to bend beneath the weight. A moment more, and you have lost sight of it. Whenever I return to Europe, you may be sure that in my hot-house those harmless, lovely creatures shall not be missing." [Footnote 1: Dr. WUCHERER of Bahia.] [Illustration: TREE SNAKE. Passerita fusca.] Ceylon has several species of Tree-snakes, and one of the most common is the green _Passerita_, easily recognized from its bright colour and from the pointed moveable appendage, into which the snout is prolonged. The snakes of this genus being active chiefly during the night, the pupil of the eye is linear and horizontal. They never willingly descend from trees, but prey there upon nocturnal Saurians, geckoes, small birds and their young; and they are perfectly harmless, although they often try to bite. It is strange that none of the numerous specimens which it has been attempted to bring to Europe have ever fed in captivity; whilst in South America they take their food freely in confinement, provided that some green plants are placed in their cage. In Ceylon I have never seen any specimen of a larger size than three feet; whilst they are known to attain to more than five on the Indian Continent. The inference is obvious, that the green coloration of the majority of tree-snakes has more or less connection with their habits and mode of life. Indeed, whenever a green-coloured snake is observed, it may at once be pronounced, if slender or provided with a prehensile tail, to be of the kind which passes its life on trees; but if it be short-bodied then it lives on the prairies. There are nevertheless tree-snakes which have a very different coloration; and one of the most remarkable species is the _Passerita fusca_ or _Dryinus fuscus_, of which a figure is annexed. It closely resembles the green Passerita in form, so that naturalists have considered it to be a mere variety. It is entirely of a shining brown, shot with purple, and the yellow longitudinal stripe which runs along the side of the belly of the green species, is absent in this one. It is much more rare than the green one, and does not appear to be found in Hindostan: no intermediate forms have been observed in Ceylon. _Water-Snakes._--The fresh-water snakes, of which several species[1] inhabit the still waters and pools, are all harmless in Ceylon. A gentleman, who found near a river an agglutinated cluster of the eggs of one variety (_Tropidophis schistosus_), placed them under a glass shade on his drawing-room table, where one by one the young reptiles emerged from the shell to the number of twenty. [Footnote 1: Chersydrus granulatus, _Merr_.; Cerberus cinereus. _Daud._; Tropidophis schistosus, _Daud._] The _sea-snakes_ of the Indian tropics did not escape the notice of the early Greek mariners who navigated those seas; and amongst the facts collected by them, Ælian has briefly recorded that the Indian Ocean produces serpents _with flattened tails_[1], whose bite, he adds, is to be dreaded less for its venom than the laceration of its teeth. The first statement is accurate, but the latter is incorrect, as there is an all but unanimous concurrence of opinion that every species of this family of serpents is more or less poisonous. The compression of the tail noticed by Ælian is one of the principal characteristics of these reptiles, as their motion through the water is mainly effected by its aid, coupled with the undulating movement of the rest of the body. Their scales, instead of being imbricated like those of land-snakes, form hexagons; and those on the belly, instead of being scutate and enlarged, are nearly of the same size and form as on other parts of the body. [Footnote 1: "[Greek: Plateis tas ouras]." ÆLIAN, L. xvi. c. 8. Ælian speaks elsewhere of fresh-water snakes. His remark on the compression of the tail shows that his informants were aware of this speciality in those that inhabit the sea.] Sea-snakes (_Hydrophis_) are found on all the coasts of Ceylon. I have sailed through large shoals of them in the Gulf of Manaar, close to the pearl-banks of Aripo. The fishermen of Calpentyn on the west live in perpetual dread of them, and believe their bite to be fatal. In the course of an attempt which was recently made to place a lighthouse on the great rocks of the south-east coast, known by seamen as the Basses[1], or _Baxos_, the workmen who first landed found the portion of the surface liable to be covered by the tides, honeycombed, and hollowed into deep holes filled with water, in which were abundance of fishes and some molluscs. Some of these cavities also contained sea-snakes from four to five feet long, which were described as having the head "hooded like the cobra de capello, and of a light grey colour, slightly speckled. They coiled themselves like serpents on land, and darted at poles thrust in among them. The Singhalese who accompanied the party, said that they not only bit venomously, but crushed the limb of any intruder in their coils."[2] [Footnote 1: The Basses are believed to be the remnants of the great island of Giri, swallowed up by the sea.--_Mahawanso_, ch. i. p. 4. They may possibly be the _Bassæ_ of Ptolemy's map of _Taprobane_.] [Footnote 2: Official Report to the Governor of Ceylon.] Still, sea-snakes, though well-known to the natives, are not abundant round Ceylon, as compared with their numbers in other places. Their principal habitat is the ocean between the southern shores of China and the northern coast of New Holland; and their western limit appears to be about the longitude of Cape Comorin. It has long since been ascertained that they frequent the seas that separate the islands of the Pacific; but they have never yet been found in the Atlantic, nor even on the western shores of tropical America. And if, as has been stated[1], they have been seen on a late occasion in considerable numbers in the Bay of Panama, the fact can only be regarded as one of the rare instances, in which a change in the primary distribution of a race of animals has occurred, either by an active or a passive immigration. Being exclusively inhabitants of the sea, they are liable to be swept along by the influence of currents; but to compensate for this they have been endowed with a wonderful power of swimming. The individuals of all the groups of terrestrial serpents are observed to be possessed of this faculty to a greater or a less degree; and they can swim for a certain distance without having any organs specially modified for the purpose; except, perhaps, the lung, which is a long sac capable of taking in a sufficient quantity of air, to keep the body of the snake above water. Nor do we find any peculiar or specially adapted organs even in the freshwater-snakes, although they can catch frogs or fishes while swimming. But in the _hydrophids_, which are permanent inhabitants of the ocean, and which in an adult state, approach the beach only occasionally, and for very short times, the tail, which is rounded and tapering in the others, is compressed into a vertical rudder-like organ, similar to, and answering all the purposes of, the caudal fin in a fish. When these snakes are brought on shore or on the deck of a ship, they are helpless and struggle vainly in awkward attitudes. Their food consists exclusively of such fishes as are found near the surface; a fact which affords ample proof that they do not descend to great depths, although they can dive as well as swim. They are often found in groups during calm weather, sleeping on the sea; but owing to their extreme caution and shyness, attempts to catch them are rarely successful; on the least alarm, they suddenly expel the air from their lungs and descend below the surface; a long stream of rising air-bubbles marking the rapid course which they make below. Their poisonous nature has been questioned; but the presence of a strong perforated tooth and of a venomous gland sufficiently attest their dangerous powers, even if these had not been demonstrated by the effects of their bite. But fortunately for the fishermen, who sometimes find them unexpectedly among the contents of their nets, sea-snakes are unable, like other venomous serpents, to open the jaws widely, and in reality they rarely inflict a wound. Dr. Cantor believes, that, they are blinded by the light when removed from their own element; and he adds that they become sluggish and speedily die.[2] [Footnote 1: Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858.] [Footnote 2: _Catal. Mal. Rept_. p. 136.] [Illustration: SEA SNAKE Hydrophis subloevis] Those found near the coasts of Ceylon are generally small,--from one to three feet in length, and apparently immature; and it is certain that the largest specimens taken in the Pacific do not attain to greater length than eight feet. In colour they are generally of a greenish brown, in parts inclining to yellow, with occasionally cross bands of black. The species figured in the accompanying drawing is the _Hydrophis subloevis_ of Gray; or _Hydrus cyanocinctus_ of Boie.[1] The specimen from which the drawing is taken, was obtained by Dr. Templeton at Colombo. [Footnote 1: Its technical characteristics are as follows,--Body rather slender; ground colour yellowish with irregular black rings. Scales nearly smooth; ventral plates broad, six-sided, smooth, some divided into two, by a slight central groove. Occipital shields large, triangular, and produced, with a small central shield behind them; a series of four large temporal shields; chin shields in two pairs; eyes very small, over the fourth and fifth labials; one ante-and two post-oculars; the second upper labial shield elongated.] The use of the Pamboo-Kaloo, or snake-stone, as a remedy in cases of wounds by venomous serpents, has probably been communicated to the Singhalese by the itinerant snake-charmers who resort to the island from the coast of Coromandel; and more than one well-authenticated instance of its successful application has been told to me by persons who had been eye-witnesses to what they described. On one occasion, in March, 1854, a friend of mine was riding, with some other civil officers of the Government, along a jungle path in the vicinity of Bintenne, when he saw one of two Tamils, who were approaching the party, suddenly dart into the forest and return, holding in both hands a cobra de capello which he had seized by the head and tail. He called to his companion for assistance to place it in their covered basket, but, in doing this, he handled it so inexpertly that it seized him by the finger, and retained its hold for a few seconds, as if unable to retract its fangs. The blood flowed, and intense pain appeared to follow almost immediately; but, with all expedition, the friend of the sufferer undid his waistcloth, and took from it two snake-stones, each of the size of a small almond, intensely black and highly polished, though of an extremely light substance. These he applied, one to each wound inflicted by the teeth of the serpent, to which they attached themselves closely; the blood that oozed from the bites being rapidly imbibed by the porous texture of the article applied. The stones adhered tenaciously for three or four minutes, the wounded man's companion in the meanwhile rubbing his arm downwards from the shoulder towards the fingers. At length the snake-stones dropped off of their own accord; the suffering of the man appeared to subside; he twisted his fingers till the joints cracked, and went on his way without concern. Whilst this had been going on, another Indian of the party who had come up took from his bag a small piece of white wood, which resembled a root, and passed it gently near the head of the cobra, which the latter immediately inclined close to the ground; he then lifted the snake without hesitation, and coiled it into a circle at the bottom of his basket. The root by which he professed to be enabled to perform this operation with safety he called the _Naya-thalic Kalanga_ (the root of the snake-plant), protected by which he professed his ability to approach any reptile with impunity. In another instance, in 1853, Mr. Lavalliere, then District Judge of Kandy, informed me that he saw a snake-charmer in the jungle, close by the town, search for a cobra de capello, and, after disturbing one in its retreat, the man tried to secure it, but, in the attempt, he was bitten in the thigh till blood trickled from the wound. He instantly applied the _Pamboo-Kaloo_, which adhered closely for about ten minutes, during which time he passed the root which he held in his hand backwards and forwards above the stone, till the latter dropped to the ground. He assured Mr. Lavalliere that all danger was then past. That gentleman obtained from him the snake-stone he had relied on, and saw him repeatedly afterwards in perfect health. The substances used on both these occasions are now in my possession. The roots employed by the several parties are not identical. One appears to be a bit of the stem of an Aristolochia; the other is so dried as to render its identification difficult, but it resembles the quadrangular stem of a jungle vine. Some species of Aristolochia, such as the _A. serpentaria_ of North America, are supposed to act as specifics in the cure of snakebites; and the _A. indica_ is the plant to which the ichneumon is popularly believed to resort as an antidote when bitten[1]; but it is probable that the use of any particular plant by the snake-charmers is a pretence, or rather a delusion, the reptile being overpowered by the resolute action of the operator[2], and not by the influence of any secondary appliance. In other words, the confidence inspired by the supposed talisman enables its possessor to address himself fearlessly to his task, and thus to effect, by determination and will, what is popularly believed to be the result of charms and stupefaction. Still it is curious that, amongst the natives of Northern Africa, who lay hold of the _Cerastes_ without fear or hesitation, impunity is ascribed to the use of a plant with the juice of which they anoint themselves before touching the reptile[3]; and Bruce says of the people of Sennar, that they acquire exemption from the fatal consequences of the bite by chewing a particular root, and washing themselves with an infusion of certain plants. He adds that a portion of this root was given him, with a view to test its efficacy in his own person, but that he had not sufficient resolution to make the experiment. [Footnote 1: For an account of the encounter between the ichneumon and the venomous snakes of Ceylon, see Ch. I. p. 39.] [Footnote 2: The following narrative of the operations of a snake-charmer in Ceylon is contained in a note from Mr. Reyne, of the department of public works: "A snake-charmer came to my bungalow in 1851, requesting me to allow him to show me his snakes dancing. As I had frequently seen them, I told him I would give him a rupee if he would accompany me to the jungle, and catch a cobra, that I knew frequented the place. He was willing, and as I was anxious to test the truth of the charm, I counted his tame snakes, and put a watch over them until I returned with him. Before going I examined the man, and satisfied myself he had no snake about his person. When we arrived at the spot, he played on a small pipe, and after persevering for some time out came a large cobra from an ant hill, which I knew it occupied. On seeing the man it tried to escape, but he caught it by the tail and kept swinging it round until we reached the bungalow. He then made it dance, but before long it bit him above the knee. He immediately bandaged the leg above the bite, and applied a snake-stone to the wound to extract the poison. He was in great pain for a few minutes, but after that it gradually went away, the stone falling off just before he was relieved. When he recovered he held a cloth up which the snake flew at, and caught its fangs in it; while in that position, the man passed his hand up its back, and having seized it by the throat, he extracted the fangs in my presence and gave them to me. He then squeezed out the poison on to a leaf. It was a clear oily substance, and when rubbed on the hand produced a fine lather. I carefully watched the whole operation, which was also witnessed by my clerk and two or three other persons. _Colombo, 13th January_ 1860.--H.E. REYNE."] [Footnote 3: Hasselquist.] As to the snake-stone itself, I submitted one, the application of which I have been describing, to Mr. Faraday, who has communicated to me, as the result of his analysis, his belief that it is "a piece of charred bone which has been filled with blood perhaps several times, and then carefully charred again. Evidence of this is afforded, as well by the apertures of cells or tubes on its surface as by the fact that it yields and breaks, under pressure; and exhibits an organic structure within. When heated slightly, water rises from it, and also a little ammonia; and, if heated still more highly in the air, carbon burns away, and a bulky white ash is left, retaining the shape and size of the stone." This ash, as is evident from inspection, cannot have belonged toany vegetable substance, for it is almost entirely composed of phosphate of lime. Mr. Faraday adds that "if the piece of matter has ever been employed as a spongy absorbent, it seems hardly fit for that purpose in its present state: but who can say to what treatment it has been subjected since it was fit for use, or to what treatment the natives may submit it when expecting to have occasion to use it?" The probability is, that the animal charcoal, when instantaneously applied, may be sufficiently porous and absorbent to extract the venom from the recent wound, together with a portion of the blood, before it has had time to be carried into the system; and that the blood which Mr. Faraday detected in the specimen submitted to him was that of the Indian on whose person the effect was exhibited on the occasion to which my informant was an eye-witness. The snake-charmers from the coast who visit Ceylon profess to prepare the snake-stones for themselves, and to preserve the composition a secret. Dr. Davy[1], on the authority of Sir Alexander Johnston, says the manufacture of them is a lucrative trade, carried on by the monks of Manilla, who supply the merchants of India--and his analysis confirms that of Mr. Faraday. Of the three different kinds which he examined--one being of partially burnt bone, and another of chalk, the third, consisting chiefly of vegetable matter, resembled bezoar,--all of them (except the first, which possessed a slight absorbent power) were quite inert, and incapable of having any effect except on the imagination of the patient. Thunberg was shown the snake-stone used by the boers at the Cape in 1772, which was imported for them "from the Indies, especially from Malabar," at so high a price that few of the farmers could afford to possess themselves of it; he describes it as convex on one side, black and so porous that "when thrown into water, it caused bubbles to rise;" and hence, by its absorbent qualities, it served, if speedily applied, to extract the poison from the wound.[2] [Footnote 1: _Account of the Interior of Ceylon_, ch. iii. p. 101.] [Footnote 2: _Thunberg_, vol. i. p. 155. Since the foregoing account was published, I have received a note from Mr. HARDY, relative to the _piedra ponsona_, the snake-stone of Mexico, in which he gives the following account of the method of preparing and applying it: "Take a piece of hart's horn of any convenient size and shape; cover it well round with grass or hay, enclose both in a thin piece of sheet copper well wrapped round them, and place the parcel in a charcoal fire till the bone is sufficiently charred. "When cold, remove the calcined horn from its envelope, when it will be ready for immediate use. In this state it will resemble a solid black fibrous substance, of the same shape and size as before it was subjected to this treatment. "USE.--The wound being slightly punctured, apply the bone to the opening, to which it will adhere firmly for the space of two minutes; and when it falls, it should be received into a basin of water. It should then be dried in a cloth, and again applied to the wound. But it will not adhere longer than about one minute. In like manner it may be applied a third time; but now it will fall almost immediately, and nothing will cause it to adhere any more. "These effects I witnessed in the case of a bite of a rattle-snake at Oposura, a town in the province of Sonora, in Mexico, from whence I obtained my recipe; and I have given other particulars respecting it in my Travels in the Interior of Mexico, published in 1830. R.W.H. HARDY. _Bath_, 30_th January_, 1860."] _Coecilia_.--The rocky jungle, bordering the higher coffee estates, provides a safe retreat for a very singular animal, first introduced to the notice of European naturalists about a century ago by Linnæus, who gave it the name _Coecilia glutinosa_, to indicate two peculiarities manifest to the ordinary observer--an apparent defect of vision, from the eyes being so small and embedded as to be scarcely distinguishable; and a power of secreting from minute pores in the skin a viscous fluid, resembling that of snails, eels, and some salamanders. Specimens are rare in Europe owing to the readiness with which it decomposes, breaking down into a flaky mass in the spirits in which it is attempted to preserve it. The creature is about the length and thickness of an ordinary round desk ruler, a little flattened before and rounded behind. It is brownish, with a pale stripe along either side. The skin is furrowed into 350 circular folds, in which are imbedded minute scales. The head is tolerably distinct, with a double row of fine curved teeth for seizing the insects and worms on which it is supposed to live. Naturalists are most desirous that the habits and metamorphoses of this creature should be carefully ascertained, for great doubts have been entertained as to the position it is entitled to occupy in the chain of creation. _Batrachians._--In the numerous marshes formed by the overflowing of the rivers in the plains of the low country, there are many varieties of frogs, which, both by their colours and by their extraordinary size, are calculated to excite the surprise of a stranger. In the lakes around Colombo and the still water near Trincomalie, there are huge creatures of this family, from six to eight inches in length[1], of an olive hue, deepening into brown on the back and yellow on the under side. A Kandyan species, recently described, is of much smaller dimensions, but distinguished by its brilliant colouring, a beautiful grass green above and deep orange underneath[2]. [Footnote 1: A Singhalese variety of the _Rana cutipora?_ and the Malabar bull-frog, _Hylarana Malabarica_. A frog named by BLYTH _Rana robusta_ proves to be a Ceylon specimen of the _R. cutipora_.] [Footnote 2: _R. Kandiana_, Kelaart.] In the shrubberies around my house at Colombo the graceful little tree-frogs[1] were to be found in great numbers, sheltered under broad leaves to protect them from the scorching sun;--some of them utter a sharp metallic sound at night, similar to that produced by smacking the lips. [Footnote 1: _Polypedates maculatus,_ Gray.] In the gardens and grounds toads[1] crouch in the shade, and pursue the flies and minute coleoptera. In Ceylon, as in Europe, these creatures suffer from the bad renown of injecting a poison into the wound inflicted by their bite.[2] The main calumny is confuted by the fact that no toad has yet been discovered furnished with any teeth whatsoever; but the obnoxious repute still attaches to the milky exudation sometimes perceptible from glands situated on either side behind the head; nevertheless experiments have shown, that though acrid, the secretions of the toad are incapable of exciting more than a slight erythema on the most delicate skins. The smell is, however, fetid and offensive, and hence toads are less exposed to the attacks of carnivorous animals and of birds than frogs, in which such glands do not exist. [Footnote 1: _Bufo melanostictus_, Schneid.] [Footnote 2: In Ceylon this error is as old as the third century, B.C., when, as the _Mahawanso_ tells us, the wife of "King Asoka attempted to destroy the great bo-tree (at Magadha) _with, the poisoned fang of a toad._"--Ch. xx. p. 122.] In the class of Reptiles, those only are included in the order of Batrachians which undergo a metamorphosis before attaining maturity; and as they offer the only example amongst Vertebrate animals of this marvellous transformation, they are justly considered as the lowest in the scale, with the exception of fishes, which remain during life in that stage of development which is only the commencement of existence to a frog. In undergoing this change, it is chiefly the organs of respiration that manifest alteration. In its earliest form the young batrachian, living in the water, breathes as a fish does by _gills_, either free and projecting as in the water-newt, or partially covered by integument as in the tadpole. But the gills disappear as the lungs gradually become developed: the duration of the process being on an average one hundred days from the time the eggs were first deposited. After this important change, the true batrachian is incapable any longer of living continuously in water, and either betakes itself altogether to the land, or seeks the surface from time to time to replenish its exhausted lungs.[1] [Footnote 1: A few Batrachians, such as the _Siren_ of Carolina, the _Proteus_ of Illyria, the _Axolotl_ of Mexico, and the _Menobranchus_ of the North American Lakes, retain their gills during life; but although provided with lungs in mature age, they are not capable of living out of the water. Such batrachians form an intermediate link between reptiles and fishes.] The change in the digestive functions during metamorphosis is scarcely less extraordinary; frogs, for example, which feed on animal substances at maturity, subsist entirely upon vegetable when in the condition of larvæ, and the subsidiary organs undergo remarkable development, the intestinal canal in the earlier stage being five times its length in the later one. Of the family of tailed batrachians, Ceylon does not furnish a single example; but of those without this appendage, the island, as above remarked, affords many varieties; seven distinguishable species pertaining to the genus _rana_, or true frogs with webs to the hind feet; two to the genus _bufo_, or true toads, and five to the _Polypedates_, or East Indian "tree-frogs;" besides a few others in allied genera. The "tree-frog," whose toes are terminated by rounded discs which assist it in climbing, possesses, in a high degree, the faculty of changing its hues; and one as green as a leaf to-day, will be found grey and spotted like the bark to-morrow. One of these beautiful little creatures, which had seated itself on the gilt pillar of a lamp on my dinner-table, became in a few minutes scarcely distinguishable in colour from the or-molu ornament to which it clung. * * * * * _List of Ceylon Reptiles._ I am indebted to Dr. Gray and Dr. Günther, of the British Museum, for a list of the reptiles of Ceylon; but many of those new to Europeans have been carefully described by the late Dr. Kelaart in his _Prodromus Fauna Zeylanicæ_ and its appendices, as well as in the 13th vol. _Magaz. Nat. Hist._ (1854). SAURA. Hydrosaurus salvator, _Wagler._ Monitor dracæna, _Linn._ Riopa punctata, _Linn._ Hardwickii, _Gray._ Brachymeles Bonitæ, _Dum. & Bib._ Tiliqua rufescens, _Shaw._ Eumeces Taprobanius, _Kel._ Nessia Burtoni, _Gray._ Acontias Layardi, _Kelaart._ Argyrophis bramicus, _Daud._ Lygosoma fallax, _Peters._ Rhinophis oxyrhynchus, _Schn._ punctatus, _J. Müll_ philippinus, _J. Müll_ homolepis, _Hempr._ planiceps, _Peters._ Blythii, _Kelaart._ melanogaster, _Gray._ Uropeltis grandis, _Kelaart._ _saffragamus, Kelaart._ Silybura Ceylonica, _Cuv._ Hemidactylus frenatus, _Schleg._ Leschenaultii, _Dum. & Bib._ trihedrus, _Daud._ maculatus, _Dum. & Bib._ Piresii, _Kelaart._ Coctoei, _Dum. & Bib._ pustulatus, _Dum._ sublævis, _Cantor._ Peripia Peronii, _Dum. & Bib._ Gymnodactylus Kandianus, _Kelaart._ Sitana Ponticereana, _Cuv._ Lyriocephalus scutatus, _Linn._ Ceratophora Stoddartii, _Gray._ Tennentii, _Günther._ Otocryptis bivittata, _Wiegm._ _Salea Jerdoni, Gray._ Calotes ophiomachus, _Merr._ nigrilabris, _Peters._ versicolor, _Daud._ Rouxii, _Dum. & Bib._ mystaceus, _Dum._ Chameleo vulgaris, _Daud._ OPHIDIA. Megæra trigonocephala, _Latr._ Trigonocephalus hypnalis, _Merr._ Daboia elegans, _Daud._ _Pelamys_ _bicolor, Daud._ _Aturia_ _lapemoides, Gray._ Hydrophis sublævis, _Gray._ cyanocinctus, _Daud._ Chersydrus granulatus, _Schneid_. Cerberus cinereus, _Daud._ Tropidophis schistosus, _Daud._ Python reticulatus, _Gray._ Cylindrophis rufa, _Schneid._ maculata, _Linn._ Aspidura brachyorrhos, _Boie._ trachyprocta, _Cope._ Haplocercus Ceylonensis, _Günth._ Oligodon subquadratus, _Dum. & Bib._ subgriseus, _Dum. & Bib._ sublineatus, _Dum. & Bib._ Simotes Russellii, _Daud._ purpurascens, _Schleg._ Ablabes collaris, _Gray._ Tropidonotus quincunciatus, _Schleg._ var. funebris. var. carinatus. stolatus, _Linn._ chrysargus, _Boie._ Cynophis Helena, _Daud._ Coryphodon Blumenbachii, _Merr._ Cyclophis calamaria, _Günth._ Chrysopelea ornata, _Shaw._ Dendrophis picta, _Gm._ Passerita mycterizans, _Linn._ fusca. Dipsadomorphus Ceylonensis, _Günth._ Lycodon aulicus, _Linn._ Cercaspis carinata, _Kuhl._ Bungarus fasciatus, _Schneid._ var. Ceylonensis, _Gthr._ Naja tripudians, _Merr._ CHELONIA. Testudo stellata, _Schweig._ Emys Sebæ, _Gray._ trijuga, _Schweigg._ Caretta imbricata, _Linn._ Chelonia virgata, _Schweigg._ EMYDOSAURI. Crocodilus biporcatus. _Cuv._ palustris, _Less._ BATRACHIA. Rana hexadactyla, _Less._ Kuhlii, _Schleg._ cutipora, _Dum. & Bib._ tigrina, _Daud._ vittigera, _Wiegm._ Malabarica, _Dum. & Bib._ Kandiana, _Kelaart._ Neuera-elliana, _Kel._ Bufo melanostictus, _Schneid._ Kelaartii, _Günth._ Ixalus variabilis, _Günth._ leucorhinus, _Martens._ poecilopleurus, _Mart._ aurifasciatus, _Schleg._ schmardanus, _Kelaart._ Polypedates maculatus, _Gray._ microtympanum, _Gth._ eques, _Günth._ Limnodytes lividus, _Blyth._ macularis, _Blyth._ mutabilis, _Kelaart._ maculatus, _Kelaart._ Kaloula pulchra, _Gray._ balteata, var. _Günth._ stellata, _Kelaart._ Adenomus badioflavus, _Copr._ Pyxicephalus fodiens, _Jerd._ Engystoma rubrum, _Jerd._ PSEUDOPHIDIA. Cæcilia glutinosa, _Linn._ NOTE.--The following species are peculiar to Ceylon (and the genera Ceratophora, Otocryptis, Uropeltis, Aspidura. Cercaspis, and Haplocercus would appear to be similarly restricted);--Lygosoma fallax; Trimesurus Ceylonensis, T. nigromarginatus; Megæra Trigonocephala; Trigonocephalus hypnalis; Daboia elegans; Rhinophis punctatus, Rh. homolepis, Rh. planiceps, Rh. Blythii, Rh. melanogaster; Uropeltis grandis; Silybura Ceylonica; Cylindrophis maculata; Aspidura brachyorrhos; Haplocercus Ceylonensis; Oligodon sublineatus; Cynophis Helena; Cyclophis calamaria; Dipsadomorphus Ceylonensis; Cercaspis carinata; Ixalus variabilis, I. leucorhinus, I. poecilopleurus; Polypedates microtympanum. P. eques. CHAP. X. FISHES. Hitherto no branch of the zoology of Ceylon has been so imperfectly investigated as its Ichthyology. Little has been done in the examination and description of its fishes, especially those which frequent the rivers and inland waters. Mr. BENNETT, who was for some years employed in the Civil Service, directed his attention to the subject, and published in 1830 some portions of a projected work on the marine fishes of the island[1], but it never proceeded beyond the description of thirty individuals. The great work of Cuvier and Valenciennes[2] particularises about one hundred species, specimens of which were procured from Ceylon by Reynard, Leschenault and other correspondents; but of these not more than half a dozen belong to fresh water. [Footnote 1: _A Selection of the most Remarkable and Interesting Fishes found on the Coast of Ceylon._ By J.W. BENNETT, Esp. London, 1830.] [Footnote 2: _Histoire Naturelle des Poissons._] The fishes of the coast, as far as they have been examined, present few that are not in all probability common to the seas of Ceylon and India. A series of drawings, including upwards of six hundred species and varieties of Ceylon fish, all made from recently-captured specimens, have been submitted to Professor Huxley, and a notice of their general characteristics forms an interesting appendix to the present chapter.[1] [Footnote 1: See note B appended to this chapter.] Of those in ordinary use for the table the finest by far is the Seir-fish[1], a species of Scomberoids, which is called _Tora-malu_ by the natives. It is in size and form very similar to the salmon, to which the flesh of the female fish, notwithstanding its white colour, bears a very close resemblance both in firmness and flavour. [Footnote 1: _Cybium_ (_Scomber_, Linn.) _guttatum_.] Mackerel, carp, whitings, mullet both red and striped, perches and soles are abundant, and a sardine (_Sardinella Neohowii_, Val.) frequents the southern and eastern coast in such profusion that in one instance in 1839, a gentleman who was present saw upwards of four hundred thousand taken in a haul of the nets in the little bay of Goyapanna, east of Point-de-Galle. As this vast shoal approached the shore the broken water became as smooth as if a sheet of ice had been floating below the surface.[1] [Footnote 1: These facts serve to explain the story told by the friar ODORIC of Friuli, who visited Ceylon about the year 1320 A.D., and says there are "fishes in those seas that come swimming towards the said country in such abundance that for a great distance into the sea nothing can be seen but the backs of fishes, which casting themselves on the shore, do suffer men for the space of three daies to come and to take as many of them as they please, and then they return again into the sea."--_Hakluyt_, vol. ii. p. 57.] _Poisonous Fishes._--The sardine has the reputation of being poisonous at certain seasons, and accidents ascribed to eating it are recorded in all parts of the island. Whole families of fishermen who have partaken of it have died. Twelve persons in the jail of Chilaw were thus poisoned, about the year 1829; and the deaths of soldiers have repeatedly been ascribed to the same cause. It is difficult in such instances to say with certainty whether the fish were in fault; whether there was not a peculiar susceptibility in the condition of the recipients; or whether the mischief may not have been occasioned by the wilful administration of poison, or its accidental occurrence in the brass cooking vessels used by the natives. The popular belief was, however, deferred to by an order passed by the Governor in Council in February, 1824, which, after reciting that "Whereas it appears by information conveyed to the Government that at three several periods at Trincomalie, death has been the consequence to several persons from eating the fish called Sardinia during the months of January and December," enacts that it shall not be lawful in that district to catch sardines during these months, under pain of fine and imprisonment. This order is still in force, but the fishing continues notwithstanding.[1] [Footnote 1: There are other species of Sardine found at Ceylon besides the _S. Neohowii_; such as the _S. lineolata_, Cuv. and Val. and the _S. leiogaster_, Cuv. and Val. xx. 270, which was found by M. Reynaud at Trincomalie. It occurs also off the coast of Java. Another Ceylon fish of the same group, a Clupea, is known as the "poisonous sprat;" the bonito (_Thynnus affinis_, Cang.), the kangewena, or unicorn fish (_Balistes?_), and a number of others, are more or less in bad repute from the same imputation.] _Sharks._--Sharks appear on all parts of the coast, and instances continually occur of persons being seized by them whilst bathing even in the harbours of Trincomalie and Colombo. In the Gulf of Manaar they are taken for the sake of their oil, of which they yield such a quantity that "shark's oil" is a recognised export. A trade also exists in drying their fins, for which, owing to the gelatine contained in them, a ready market is found in China; whither the skin of the basking shark is also sent, to be converted, it is said, into shagreen. _Saw Fish._--The huge _Pristis antiquorum_[1] infests the eastern coast of the island, where it attains a length of from twelve to fifteen feet, including the serrated rostrum from which its name is derived. This powerful weapon seems designed to compensate for the inadequacy of the ordinary maxillary teeth which are unusually small, obtuse, and insufficient to capture and kill the animals which form the food of this predatory shark. To remedy this, the fore part of the head and its cartilages are prolonged into a flattened plate, the length of which is nearly equal to one third of the whole body, its edges being armed with formidable teeth, that are never shed or renewed, but increase in size with the growth of the creature. [Footnote 1: Two other species are found in the Ceylon waters, _P. cuspidatus_ and _P. pectinatus_.] [Illustration: HEAD OF THE SAWFISH (PRISTIS ANTIQUORUM)] The _Rays_ form a large tribe of cartilaginous fishes in which, although the skeleton is not osseous, the development of organs is so advanced that they would appear to be the highest of the class, approaching nearest to amphibians. They are easily distinguished from the sharks by their broad and flat body, the pectoral fins being expanded like wings on each side of the trunk. They are all inhabitants of the ocean, and some grow to a prodigious size. Specimens have been caught of twenty feet in breadth. These, however, are of rare occurrence, as such huge monsters usually retreat into the depths of the sea, where they are secure from the molestation of man. It is, generally speaking, only the young and the smaller species that approach the coasts, where they find a greater supply of those marine animals which form their food. The Rays have been divided into several generic groups, and the one of which a drawing (_Aëtobates narinari_[1]) is given, has very marked characteristics in its produced snout, pointed and winged-like pectoral fins, and exceedingly long, flagelliform tail. The latter is armed with a strong, serrated spine, which is always broken off by the fishermen immediately on capture, under the impression that wounds inflicted by it are poisonous. Their fears, however, are utterly groundless, as the ray has no gland for secreting any venomous fluid. The apprehension may, however, have originated in the fact that a lacerated wound such as would be produced by a serrated spine, is not unlikely to assume a serious character, under the influence of a tropical climate. The species figured on the last page is brownish-olive on the upper surface, with numerous greenish-white round spots, darkening towards the edges. The anterior annulations of the tail are black and white, the posterior entirely black. Its mouth is transverse and paved with a band of flattened teeth calculated to crush the hard shells of the animals on which it feeds. It moves slowly along the bottom in search of its food, which consists of crustacea and mollusca, and seems to be unable to catch fishes or other quickly moving animals. Specimens have been taken near Ceylon, of six feet in width. Like most deep-sea fishes, the ray has a wide geographical range, and occurs not only in all the Indian Ocean, but also in the tropical tracts of the Atlantic. [Illustration: THE RAY (AËTOBATES NARINARI).] [Footnote 1: _Raja narinari_, Bl. Schn. p. 361. _Aëtobates narinari_, Müll. und Henle., Plagiost. p. 179.] Another armed fish, renowned since the times of Ælian and Pliny for its courage in attacking the whale, and even a ship, is the sword-fish (_Xiphias gladius_).[1] Like the thunny and bonito, it is an inhabitant of the deeper seas, and, though known in the Mediterranean, is chiefly confined to the tropics. The dangerous weapon with which nature has equipped it is formed by the prolongation and intertexture of the bones of the upper jaw into an exceedingly compact cylindrical protuberance, somewhat flattened at the base, but tapering to a sharp point. In strange inconsistence with its possession of so formidable an armature, the general disposition of the sword-fish is represented to be gentle and inoffensive; and although the fact of its assaults upon the whale has been incontestably established, yet the motive for such conflicts, and the causes of its enmity, are beyond conjecture. Competition for food is out of the question, as the Xiphias can find its own supplies without rivalry on the part of its gigantic antagonist; and as to converting the whale itself into food, the sword-fish, from the construction of its mouth and the small size of its teeth, is quite incapable of feeding on animals of such dimensions. [Footnote 1: ÆLIAN tells a story of a ship in the Black Sea, the bottom of which was penetrated by the sword of a _Xiphias_ (L. xiv. c. 23); and PLINY (L. xxxii. c. 8) speaks of a similar accident on the coast of Mauritania. In the British Museum there is a specimen of a plank of oak, pierced by a sword-fish, and still retaining the broken weapon.] In the seas around Ceylon sword-fishes sometimes attain to the length of twenty feet, and are distinguished by the unusual height of the dorsal fin. Those both of the Atlantic and Mediterranean possess this fin in its full proportions, only during the earlier stages of their growth. Its dimensions even then are much smaller than in the Indian species; and it is a curious fact that it gradually decreases as the fish approaches to maturity; whereas in the seas around Ceylon, it retains its full size throughout the entire period of life. They raise it above the water, whilst dashing along the surface in their rapid course; and there is no reason to doubt that it occasionally acts as a sail. The Indian species (which are provided with two long and filamentous ventral fins) have been formed into the genus _Histiophorus_; to which belongs the individual figured on the next page. It is distinguished from others most closely allied to it, by having the immense dorsal fin of one uniform dark violet colour; whilst in its congeners, it is spotted with blue. The fish from which the engraving has been made, was procured by Dr. Templeton, near Colombo. The species was previously known only by a single specimen captured in the Red Sea, by Rüppell, who conferred upon it the specific designation of "_immaculatus_."[1] [Footnote 1: Trans. Zool. Soc. ii. p. 71. Pl. 15.] [Illustration: THE SWORD FISH (MISMOPHORUS IMMACULATUS).] Ælian, in his graphic account of the strange forms presented by the fishes inhabiting the seas around Ceylon, says that one in particular is so grotesque in its configuration, that no painter would venture to depict it; its main peculiarity being that it has feet or claws rather than fins.[1] The annexed drawing[2] may probably represent the creature to which the informants of Ælian referred. It is a cheironectes; one of a group in which the bones of the carpus form arms that support the pectoral fins, and enable these fishes to walk along the moist ground, almost like quadrupeds. [Footnote 1: [Greek: Podas ge mên chêlas ê pterygia.]--Lib. xvi. c. 18.] [Footnote 2: The fish from which this drawing of the _Cheironectes_ was made, was taken near Colombo, and from the peculiarities which it presents it is in all probability a new and undescribed species. Dr. GÜNTHER has remarked, that in it, whilst the first and second dorsal spines are situated as usual over the eye (and form, one the angling bait of the fish, the other the crest above the nose), the third is at an unusual distance from the second, and is not separated, as in the other species, from the soft fin by a notch.] They belong to the family of _Lophiads_ or "anglers," not unfrequent on the English coast; which conceal themselves in the mud, displaying only the erectile ray, situated on the head, which bears an excrescence on its extremity resembling a worm; by agitating which, they attract the smaller fishes, that thus become an easy prey. [Illustration: CHEIRONECTES] On the rocks in Ceylon which are washed by the surf there are quantities of the curious little fish, _Salarius alticus_[1], which possesses the faculty of darting along the surface of the water, and running up the wet stones, with the utmost ease and rapidity. By aid of the pectoral and ventral fins and gill-cases, they move across the damp sand, ascend the roots of the mangroves, and climb up the smooth face of the rocks in search of flies; adhering so securely as not to be detached by repeated assaults of the waves. These little creatures are so nimble, that it is almost impossible to lay hold of them, as they scramble to the edge, and plunge into the sea on the slightest attempt to molest them. They are from three to four inches in length, and of a dark brown colour, almost undistinguishable from the rocks they frequent. [Footnote 1: Cuv. and VALEN., _Hist. Nat. des Poissons_, tom. xi. p. 249. It is identical with _S. tridactylus,_ Schn.] But the most striking to the eye of a stranger are those fishes whose brilliancy of colouring has won for them the wonder even of the listless Singhalese. Some, like the Red Sea Perch (_Holocentrum rubrum_, Forsk) and the Great Fire Fish[1], are of the deepest scarlet and flame colour; in others purple predominates, as in the _Serranus flavo-cæruleus_; in others yellow, as in the _Choetodon Brownriggii_[2], and _Acanthurus vittatus_, of Bennett[3], and numbers, from the lustrous green of their scales, have obtained from the natives the appropriate name of _Giraway_, or _parrots_, of which one, the _Sparus Hardwickii_ of Bennett, is called the "Flower Parrot," from its exquisite colouring, being barred with irregular bands of blue, crimson, and purple, green, yellow, and grey, and crossed by perpendicular stripes of black. [Footnote 1: _Pterois muricata_, Cuv. and Val. iv. 363. _Scarpæna miles_, Bennett; named, by the Singhalese, "_Maharata-gini_," the Great Red Fire, a very brilliant red species spotted with black. It is very voracious, and is regarded on some parts of the coast as edible, while on others it is rejected.] [Footnote 2: _Glyphisodon Brownriggii_, Cuv. and Val. v. 484; _Choetodon Brownriggii_, Bennett. A very small fish about two inches long, called _Kaha hartikyha_ by the natives. It is distinct from Choetodon, in which BENNETT placed it. Numerous species of this genus are scattered throughout the Indian Ocean. It derives its name from the fine hair-like character of its teeth. They are found chiefly among coral reefs, and, though eaten, are not much esteemed. In the French colonies they are called "Chauffe-soleil." One species is found on the shores of the New World (_G. saxatalis_), and it is curious that Messrs. QUOY and GAIMARD found this fish at the Cape de Verde Islands in 1827.] [Footnote 3: This fish has a sharp round spine on the side of the body near the tail; a formidable weapon, which is generally partially concealed within a scabbard-like incision. It raises or depresses this spine at pleasure. The fish is yellow, with several nearly parallel blue stripes on the back and sides; the belly is white, the tail and fins brownish green, edged with blue. It is found in rocky places; and according to BENNETT, who has figured it in his second plate, it is named _Seweya_. It has been known, however, to all the old ichthyologists, Valentyn, Renard, Seba, Artedi, and has been named _Chætodon lineatus_, by Linné. It is scarce on the southern coast of Ceylon.] Of these richly coloured fishes the most familiar in the Indian seas are the _Pteroids_. They are well known on the coast of Africa, and thence eastward to Polynesia; but they do not extend to the west coast of America, and are utterly absent from the Atlantic. The rays of the dorsal and pectoral fins are so elongated, that when specimens were first brought to Europe it was conjectured that these fishes have the faculty of flight, and hence the specific name of "_volitans_" But this is an error, for, owing to the deep incisions between the pectoral rays, the pteroids are wholly unable to sustain themselves in the air. They are not even bold swimmers, living close to the shore and never venturing into the deep sea. Their head is ornamented with a number of filaments and cutaneous appendages, of which one over each eye and another at the angles of the mouth are the most conspicuous. Sharp spines project on the crown and on the side of the gill-apparatus, as in the other sea-perches, _Scorpæna, Serranus_, &c., of which these are only a modified and ornate form. The extraordinary expansion of their fins is not, however, accompanied by a similar development of the bones to which they are attached, simply because they appear to have no peculiar function, as in flying fishes, or in those where the spines of the fins are weapons of offence. They attain to the length of twelve inches, and to a weight of about two pounds; they live on small marine animals, and by the Singhalese the flesh (of some at least) is considered good for table. Nine or ten species are known to occur in the East Indian Seas, and of these the one figured above is, perhaps, the most common. [Illustration: PTEROIS VOLITANS.] Another species known to occur on the coasts of Ceylon is the _Scorpæna miles_, Bennett, or _Pterois miles_, Günther[1], of which Bennett has given a figure[2], but it is not altogether correct in some particulars. [Footnote 1: The fish from the Sea of Pinang, described by Dr. CANTOR with this name (Catal. Mal. Fish. p. 42), is again different, and belongs to a third species.] [Footnote 2: _Fishes of Ceylon_, Pl. ix.] In the fishes of Ceylon, however, beauty is not confined to the brilliancy of their tints. In some, as in the _/Scarus harid_, Forsk[1], the arrangement of the scales is so graceful, and the effect is so heightened by modifications of colour, as to present the appearance of tessellation, or mosaic work. [Footnote 1: This is the fish figured by BENNETT as _Sparus pepo_. _Fishes of Ceylon_, Plate xxviii.] [Illustration: SCARUS HARID. After Bennett.] _Fresh-water Fishes_.--Of the fresh-water fish, which inhabit the rivers and tanks, so very little has hitherto been known to naturalists[1], that of nineteen drawings sent home by Major Skinner in 1852, although specimens of well-known genera, Colonel Hamilton Smith pronounced nearly the whole to be new and undescribed species. [Footnote 1: In extenuation of the little that is known of the fresh-water fishes of Ceylon, it may be observed that very few of them are used at table by Europeans, and there is therefore no stimulus on the part of the natives to catch them. The burbot and grey mullet are occasionally eaten, but they taste of mud, and are not in request. Some years ago the experiment was made, with success, of introducing into Mauritius the _Osphromenus olfax_ of Java, which has also been taken to French Guiana. In both places it is now highly esteemed as a fish for table. As it belongs to a family which possesses the faculty, hereafter alluded to, of surviving in the damp soil after the subsidence of the water in the tanks and rivers, it might with equal advantage be acclimated in Ceylon. It grows to 20 lbs. weight and upwards.] Of eight of these, which were from the Mahawelliganga, and caught in the vicinity of Kandy, five were carps; two were _Leucisci_, and one a _Mastacembelus_ (_M. armatus_, Lacep); one was an _Ophiocephalus_, and one a _Polyacanthus_, with no serræ on the gills. Six were from the Kalanyganga, close to Colombo, of which two were _Helostoma_, in shape approaching the Chætodon; two _Ophiocephali_, one a _Silurus_, and one an _Anabas_, but the gills were without denticulation. From the still water of the lake, close to the walls of Colombo, there were two species of _Eleotris_, one _Silurus_ with barbels, and two _Malacopterygians_, which appear to be _Bagri_. The _fresh-water Perches_ of Europe and of the North of America are represented in Ceylon and India by several genera, which bear to them a great external similarity (_Lates, Therapon_). They have the same habits as their European allies, and their flesh is considered equally wholesome, but they appear to enter salt-water, or at least brackish water, more freely. It is, however, in their internal organisation that they differ most from the perches of Europe; their skeletons are composed of fewer vertebræ, and the air bladder of the _Therapon_ is divided into two portions, as in the carps. Four species at least of this genus inhabit the lakes and rivers of Ceylon, and one of them, of which a figure is given above, has been but imperfectly described in any ichthyological work[1]; it attains to the length of seven inches. [Footnote 1: Holocentrus quadrilineatus, _Bloch_. It is allied to _Helotes polytoenia_, Bleek., from Halmaheira which it can be readily distinguished by having only five or six blackish longitudinal bands, the black humeral spot being between the first and second; another blackish blotch is in the spinous dorsal fin. There are two specimens in the British Museum collection, one of which has recently arrived from Amoy; of the other the locality is unknown. See GÜNTHER, _Acanthopt. Fishes_, vol. i. p. 282, where mention of the black humeral spot has been omitted.] [Illustration: THERAPON QUADRILINEATUS.] In addition to marine eels, in which the Indian coasts abound, Ceylon has some true fresh-water eels, which never enter the sea. These are known to the natives under the name of _Theliya_, and to naturalists by that of _Mastacembelus_. They have sometimes in ichthyological systems been referred to the Scombridæ and other marine families, from the circumstance that the dorsal fin anteriorly is composed of spines. But, in addition to the general shape of the body, their affinity to the eel is attested, by their confluent fins, by the absence of ventral fins, by the structure of the mouth and its dentition, by the apparatus of the gills, which opens with an inferior slit, and above all by the formation of the skeleton itself.[1] [Footnote 1: See GÜNTHER'S _Acanthopt. Fishes_, vol. iii. (Family Mastacembelidæ).] Their skin is covered with minute scales, coated by a slimy exudation, and the upper jaw is produced into a soft tripartite tentacle, with which they are enabled to feel for their prey in the mud. They are very tenacious of life, and belong, without doubt, to those fishes which in Ceylon descend during the drought into the muddy soil.[1] Their flesh very much resembles that of the eel; and is highly esteemed.[2] They were first made known to European naturalists by Russell[3], who brought to Europe from the rivers round Aleppo specimens, some of which are still preserved in the collection of the British Museum. Aleppo is the most western point of their geographical range, the group being mainly confined to the East-Indian continent and its islands. In Ceylon only one species appears to occur, the [Footnote 1: See post, p. 351.] [Footnote 2: CUV. and VAL., _Hist. Poiss._ vol. iii. p. 459.] [Footnote 3: _Nat. Hist. Aleppo_, 2nd edit. Lond. 1794, vol. ii. p. 208, pl. vi.] [Illustration: MASTACEMBELUS ARMATUS] _Mastacembelus armatus_.[1] The back is armed with from thirty-five to thirty-nine short, stout spines; there being three others before the anal fin. The ground colour of the fish is brown, and the head has two rather irregular longitudinal black bands; deep-brown spots run along the back as well as along the dorsal and anal fins; and the sides are ornamented with irregular and reticulated brown lines. This eel attains to the length of two feet. The old females do not show any markings, being of a uniform brown colour. [Footnote 1: Macrognathus armatus, _Lacép._; Mastacembelus armatus, _Cuv., Val._] In the collection of Major Skinner, before alluded to, brought together without premeditation, the naturalist will be struck by the preponderance of those genera which are adapted by nature to endure, a temporary privation of moisture; and this, taken in connection with the vicissitudes affecting the waters they inhabit, exhibits a surprising illustration of the wisdom of the Creator in adapting the organisation of his creatures to the peculiar circumstances under which they are destined to exist. So abundant are fish in all parts of the island, that Knox says, not the running streams alone, but the reservoirs and ponds, "nay, every ditch and little plash of water but ankle deep hath fish in it."[1] But many of these reservoirs and tanks are, twice in each year, liable to be evaporated to dryness till the mud of the bottom is converted into dust, and the clay cleft by the heat into gaping apertures; yet within a very few days after the change of the monsoon, the natives are busily engaged in fishing in those very spots and in the hollows contiguous to them, although the latter are entirely unconnected with any pool or running streams. Here they fish in the same way which Knox described nearly 200 years ago, with a funnel-shaped basket, open at bottom and top, "which," as he says, "they jibb down, and the end sticks in the mud, which often happens upon a fish; which, when they feel beating itself against the sides, they put in their hands and take it out, and reive a ratan through their gills, and so let them drag after them."[2] [Footnote 1: Knox's _Historical Relation of Ceylon,_ Part i. ch. vii. The occurrence of fish in the most unlooked-for situations, is one of the mysteries of other eastern countries as well as Ceylon and India. In Persia irrigation is carried on to a great extent by means of wells sunk in line in the direction in which it is desired to lead a supply of water, and these are connected by channels, which are carefully arched over to protect them from evaporation. These _kanats,_ as they are called, are full of fish, although neither they nor the wells they unite have any connection with streams or lakes.] [Footnote 2: Knox, _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, Part i. ch vi.] [Illustration: FROM KNOX'S CEYLON, A.D. 1681] This operation may be seen in the lowlands, traversed by the high road leading from Colombo to Kandy. Before the change of the monsoon, the hollows on either side of the highway are covered with dust or stunted grass; but when flooded by the rains, they are immediately resorted to by the peasants with baskets, constructed precisely as Knox has stated, in which the fish are entrapped and taken out by the hand.[1] [Footnote 1: As anglers, the native Singhalese exhibit little expertness; but for fishing the rivers, they construct with singular ingenuity fences formed of strong stakes, protected by screens of ratan, that stretch diagonally across the current; and along these the fish are conducted into a series of enclosures from which retreat is impracticable. MR. LAYARD, in the _Magazine of Natural History_ for May, 1853, has given a diagram of one of these fish "corrals," as they are called, of which a copy is shown on the next page.] So singular a phenomenon as the sudden re-appearance of full-grown fishes in places that a few days before had been encrusted with hardened clay, has not failed to attract attention; but the European residents have been content to explain it by hazarding conjectures, either that the spawn must have lain imbedded in the dried earth till released by the rains, or that the fish, so unexpectedly discovered, fall from the clouds during the deluge of the monsoon. As to the latter conjecture; the fall of fish during showers, even were it not so problematical in theory, is too rare an event to account for the punctual appearance of those found in the rice-fields, at stated periods of the year. Both at Galle and Colombo in the south-west monsoon, fish are popularly believed to have fallen from the clouds during violent showers, but those found on the occasions that give rise to this belief, consist of the smallest fry, such as could be caught up by waterspouts, and vortices analogous to them, or otherwise blown on shore from the surf; whereas those which suddenly appear in the replenished tanks and in the hollows which they overflow, are mature and well-grown fish.[1] Besides, the latter are found, under the circumstances I have described, in all parts of the interior, whilst the prodigy of a supposed fall of fish from the sky has been noticed, I apprehend, only in the vicinity of the sea, or of some inland water. [Footnote 1: I had an opportunity, on one occasion only, of witnessing the phenomenon which gives rise to this popular belief. I was driving in the cinnamon gardens near the fort of Colombo, and saw a violent but partial shower descend at no great distance before me. On coming to the spot I found a multitude of small silvery fish from one and a half to two inches in length, leaping on the gravel of the high road, numbers of which I collected and brought away in my palankin. The spot was about half a mile from the sea, and entirely unconnected with any watercourse or pool. Mr. Whiting, who was many years resident in Trincomadie, writes me that he "had often been told by the natives on that side of the island that it sometimes rained fishes; and on one occasion" (he adds) "I was taken by them, in 1849, to a field at the village of Karrancotta-tivo, near Batticaloa, which was dry when I passed over it in the morning, but, had been covered in two hours by sudden rain to the depth of three inches, in which there was then a quantity of small fish. The water had no connection with any pond or stream whatsoever." Mr. Cripps, in like manner, in speaking of Galle, says: "I have seen in the vicinity of the fort, fish taken from rain-water that had accumulated in the hollow parts of land that in the hot season are perfectly dry and parched. The place is accessible to no running stream or tank; and either the fish or the spawn from which they were produced, must of necessity have fallen with the rain." Mr. J. PRINSEP, the eminent secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, found a fish in the pulviometer at Calcutta, in 1838.--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal_, vol. vi. p. 465. A series of instances in which fishes have been found on the continent of India under circumstances which lead to the conclusion that they must have fallen from the clouds, have been collected by the late Dr. BUIST of Bombay, and will be found in the appendix to this chapter.] [Illustration: FISH CORRAL] The surmise of the buried spawn is one sanctioned by the very highest authority. Mr. Yarrell in his "_History of British Fishes_," adverting to the fact that ponds (in India) which had been previously converted into hardened mud, are replenished with small fish in a very few days after the commencement of each rainy season, offers this solution of the problem as probably the true one: "The impregnated ova of the fish of one rainy season are left unhatched in the mud through the dry season, and from their low state of organisation as ova, the vitality is preserved till the recurrence, and contact of the rain and oxygen in the next wet season, when vivification takes place from their joint influence."[1] [Footnote 1: YARRELL, _History of British Fishes_, introd. vol. i. p. xxvi. This too was the opinion of Aristotle, _De Respiratione_, c. ix.] This hypothesis, however, appears to have been advanced upon imperfect data; for although some fish, like the salmon, scrape grooves in the sand and place their spawn in inequalities and fissures; yet as a general rule spawn is deposited not beneath but on the surface of the ground or sand over which the water flows, the adhesive nature of each egg supplying the means of attachment. But in the Ceylon tanks not only is the surface of the soil dried to dust after the evaporation of the water, but earth itself, twelve or eighteen inches deep, is converted into sun-burnt clay, in which, although the eggs of mollusca, in their calcareous covering, are in some instances preserved, it would appear to be as impossible for the ova of fish to be kept from decomposition as for the fish themselves to sustain life. Besides, moisture in such situations is only to be found at a depth to which spawn could not be conveyed by the parent fish, by any means with which we are yet acquainted. But supposing it possible to carry the spawn sufficiently deep, and to deposit it safely in the mud below, which is still damp, whence it could be liberated on the return of the rains, a considerable interval would still be necessary after the replenishing of the ponds with water to admit of vivification and growth. Yet so far from this interval being allowed to elapse, the rains have no sooner fallen than the taking of the fish commences, and those captured by the natives in wicker cages are mature and full grown instead of being "small fish" or fry, as supposed by Mr. Yarrell. Even admitting the soundness of his theory, and the probability that, under favourable circumstances, the spawn in the tanks might be preserved during the dry season so as to contribute to the perpetuation of their breed, the fact is no longer doubtful, that adult fish in Ceylon, like some of those that inhabit similar waters both in the New and Old World, have been endowed by the Creator with the singular faculty of providing against the periodical droughts either by journeying overland in search of still unexhausted water, or, on its utter disappearance, by burying themselves in the mud to await the return of the rains. It is an illustration of the eagerness with which, after the expedition of Alexander the Great, particulars connected with the natural history of India were sought for and arranged by the Greeks, that in the works both of ARISTOTLE and THEOPHRASTUS facts are recorded of the fishes in the Indian rivers migrating in search of water, of their burying themselves in the mud on its failure, of their being dug out thence alive during the dry season, and of their spontaneous reappearance on the return of the rains. The earliest notice is in ARISTOTLE'S treatise _De Respiratione_[1], where he mentions the strange discovery of living fish found beneath the surface of the soil, "[Greek: tôn ichthyôn oi polloi zôsin en tê gê, akinêtizontes mentoi, kai euriskontai oryttomenoi?]" and in his History of Animals he conjectures that in ponds periodically dried the ova of the fish so buried become vivified at the change of the season.[2] HERODOTUS had previously hazarded a similar theory to account for the sudden appearance of fry in the Egyptian marshes on the rising of the Nile; but the cases are not parallel. THEOPHRASTUS, the friend and pupil of Aristotle, gave importance to the subject by devoting to it his essay [Greek: Peri tês tôn ichthyôn en zêrô diamonês], _De Piscibus in sicco degentibus_. In this, after adverting to the fish called _exocoetus_, from its habit of going on shore to sleep, "[Greek: apo tês koitês,]" he instances the small fish ([Greek: ichthydia]), that leave the rivers of India to wander like frogs on the land; and likewise a species found near Babylon, which, when the Euphrates runs low, leave the dry channels in search of food, "moving themselves along by means of their fins and tail." He proceeds to state that at Heraclea Pontica there are places in which fish are dug out of the earth, "[Greek: oryktoi tôn ichthyôn]," and he accounts for their being found under such circumstances by the subsidence of the rivers, "when the water being evaporated the fish gradually descend beneath the soil in search of moisture; and the surface becoming hard they are preserved in the damp clay below it, in a state of torpor, but are capable of vigorous movements when disturbed." "In, this manner, too," adds Theophrastus, "the buried fish propagate, leaving behind them their spawn, which becomes vivified on the return of the waters to their accustomed bed." This work of Theophrastus became the great authority for all subsequent writers on this question. ATHENÆUS quotes it[3], and adds the further testimony of POLYBIUS, that in Gallia Narbonensis fish are similarly dug out of the ground.[4] STRABO repeats the story[5], and the Greek naturalists one and all received the statement as founded on reliable authority. [Footnote 1: Chap. ix.] [Footnote 2: Lib. vi. ch. 15, 16, 17.] [Footnote 3: Lib. viii. ch. 2.] [Footnote 4: _Ib._ ch. 4.] [Footnote 5: Lib. iv. and xii.] Not so the Romans. LIVY mentions it as one of the prodigies which were to be "expiated" on the approach of a rupture with Macedon, that "in Gallico agro qua induceretur aratrum sub glebis pisces emersisse,"[1] thus taking it out of the category of natural occurrences. POMPONIUS MELA, obliged to notice the matter in his account of Narbon Gaul, accompanies it with the intimation that although asserted by both Greek and Roman authorities, the story was either a delusion or a fraud, JUVENAL has a sneer for the rustic-- "miranti sub aratro Piscibus inventis."--_Sat_. xiii. 63. [Footnote 1: Lib. xlii. ch. 2.] And SENECA, whilst he quotes Theophrastus, adds ironically, that now we must go to fish with a _hatchet_ instead of a hook; "non cum hamis, sed cum dolabra ire piscatum." PLINY, who devotes the 35th chapter of his 9th book to this subject, uses the narrative of Theophrastus, but with obvious caution, and universally the Latin writers treated the story as a fable. In later times the subject received more enlightened attention, and Beekman, who in 1736 published his commentary on the collection [Greek: Peri Thaumasiôn akousmatôn], ascribed to Aristotle, has given a list of the authorities about his own times,--GEORGIUS AGRICOLA, GESNER, RONDELET, DALECHAMP, BOMARE, and GRONOVIUS, who not only gave credence to the assertions of Theophrastus, but adduced modern instances in corroboration of his Indian authorities. As regards the fresh-water fishes of India and Ceylon, the fact is now established that certain of them possess the power of leaving the rivers and returning to them again after long migrations on dry land, and modern observation has fully confirmed their statements. They leave the pools and nullahs in the dry season, and led by an instinct as yet unexplained, shape their course through the grass towards the nearest pool of water. A similar phenomenon is observable in countries similarly circumstanced. The Doras of Guiana[1] have been seen travelling over land during the dry season in search of their natural element[2], in such droves that the negroes fill baskets with them during these terrestrial excursions. PALLEGOIX in his account of Siam, enumerates three species of fishes which leave the tanks and channels and traverse the damp grass[3]; and SIR JOHN BOWRING, in his account of his embassy to the Siamese kings in 1855, states, that in ascending and descending the river Meinam to Bankok, he was amused with the novel sight of fish leaving the river, gliding over the wet banks, and losing themselves amongst the trees of the jungle.[4] [Footnote 1: _D. Hancockii_, CUV. et VAL.] [Footnote 2: Sir R. Schomburgk's _Fishes of Guiana_, vol. i. pp. 113, 151, 160. Another migratory fish was found by Bose very numerous in the fresh waters of Carolina and in ponds liable to become dry in summer. When captured and placed on the ground, "they _always, directed themselves towards the nearest water, which they could not possibly see_, and which they must have discovered by some internal index. They belong to the genus _Hydrargyra_ and are called Swampines.--KIRBY, _Bridgewater Treatise_, vol. i. p. 143. Eels kept in a garden, when August arrived (the period at which instinct impels them to go to the sea to spawn) were in the habit of leaving the pond, and were invariably found moving eastward _in the direction of the sea_.--YARRELL, vol. ii. p. 384. Anglers observe that fish newly caught, when placed out of sight of water, always struggle towards it to escape.] [Footnote 3: PALLEGOIX, vol. i. p. 144.] [Footnote 4: Sir J. BOWERING'S _Siam,_ &c., vol. i. p. 10.] The class of fishes endowed with this power are chiefly those with labyrinthiform pharyngeal bones, so disposed in plates and cells as to retain a supply of moisture, which, whilst they are crawling on land, gradually exudes so as to keep the gills damp.[1] [Footnote 1: CUVIER and VALENCIENNES, _Hist. Nat. des Poissons_, tom. vii. p. 246.] The individual most frequently seen in these excursions in Ceylon is a perch called by the Singhalese _Kavaya_ or _Kawhy-ya_, and by the Tamils _Pannei-eri_, or _Sennal_. It is closely allied to the _Anabas scandens_ of Cuvier, the _Perca scandens_ of Daldorf. It grows to about six inches in length, the head round and covered with scales, and the edges of the gill-covers strongly denticulated. Aided by the apparatus already adverted to in its head, this little creature issues boldly from its native pools and addresses itself to its toilsome march generally at night or in the early morning, whilst the grass is still damp with the dew; but in its distress it is sometimes compelled to move by day, and Mr. E.L. Layard on one occasion encountered a number of them travelling along a hot and dusty road under the midday sun.[1] [Footnote 1: _Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist_., May, 1853, p. 390. Mr. Morris, the government-agent of Trincomalie, writing to me on this subject in 1856, says--"I was lately on duty inspecting the kind of a large tank at Nade-cadua, which, being out of repair, the remaining water was confined in a small hollow in the otherwise dry bed. Whilst there heavy rain came on, and, as we stood on the high ground, we, observed a pelican on the margin of the shallow pool gorging himself; our people went towards him and raised a cry of fish! fish! We hurried down, and found numbers of fish struggling upwards through the grass in the rills formed by the trickling of the rain. There was scarcely water enough to cover them, but nevertheless they made rapid progress up the bank, on which our followers collected about two bushels of them at a distance of forty yards from the tank. They were forcing their way up the knoll, and, had they not been intercepted first by the pelican and afterwards by ourselves, they would in a few minutes have gained the highest point and descended on the other side into a pool which formed another portion of the tank. They were chub, the same as are found in the mud after the tanks dry up." In a subsequent communication in July, 1857, the same gentleman says--"As the tanks dry up the fish congregate in the little pools till at last you find them in thousands in the moistest parts of the beds, rolling in the blue mud which is at that time about the consistence of thick gruel." "As the moisture further evaporates the surface fish are left uncovered, and they crawl away in search of fresh pools. In one place I saw hundreds diverging in every direction, from the tank they had just abandoned to a distance of fifty or sixty yards, and still travelling onwards. In going this distance, however, they must have used muscular exertion sufficient to have taken them half a mile on level ground, for at these places all the cattle and wild animals of the neighbourhood had latterly come to drink; so that the surface was everywhere indented with footmarks in addition to the cracks in the surrounding baked mud, into which the fish tumbled in their progress. In those holes which were deep and the sides perpendicular they remained to die, and were carried off by kites and crows." "My impression is that this migration takes place at night or before sunrise, for it was only early in the morning that I have seen them progressing, and I found that those I brought away with me in chatties appeared quiet by day, but a large proportion managed to get out of the chatties at night--some escaped altogether, others were trodden on and killed." "One peculiarity is the large size of the vertebral column, quite disproportioned to the bulk of the fish. I particularly noticed that all in the act of migrating had their gills expanded."] Referring to the _Anabas scandens_, DR. HAMILTON BUCHANAN says, that of all the fish with which he was acquainted it is the most teliacious of life; and he has known boatmen on the Ganges to keep them for five or six days in an earthen pot without water, and daily to use what they wanted, finding them as lively and fresh as when caught.[1] Two Danish naturalists residing at Tranquebar, have contributed their authority to the fact of this fish ascending trees on the coast of Coromandel, an exploit from which it acquired its epithet of _Perca scandens_. DALDORF, who was a lieutenant in the Danish East India Company's service, communicated to Sir Joseph Banks, that in the year 1791 he had taken this fish from a moist cavity in the stem of a Palmyra palm, that grew near a lake. He saw it when already five feet above the ground struggling to ascend still higher;--"suspending itself by its gill-covers, and bending its tail to the left, it fixed its anal fin in the cavity of the bark, and sought by expanding its body to urge its way upwards, and its march was only arrested by the hand with which he seized it."[2] [Footnote 1: _Fishes of the Ganges_, 4to. 1822.] [Footnote 2: _Transactions Linn. Soc._ vol. iii. p. 63. It is remarkable, however, that this discovery of Daldorf, which excited so great an interest in 1791, had been anticipated by an Arabian voyager a thousand years before. Abou-zeyd, the compiler of the remarkable MS. known since Renaudot's translation by the title of the _Travels of the Two Mahometans_, states that Suleyman, one of his informants, who visited India at the close of the ninth century, was told there of a fish which, issuing from the waters, ascended the coco-nut palms to drink their sap, and returned to the sea. "On parle d'un poisson de mer qui, sortant de l'eau, monte sur la cocotier et boit le suc de la plante; ensuite il retourne á la mer." See REINAUD, _Rélations des Voyages faits par les Arabes et Persans dans le neuvième siècle_, tom. i. p, 21, tom. ii. p. 93.] There is considerable obscurity about the story of this ascent, although corroborated by M. JOHN. Its motive for climbing is not apparent, since water being close at hand it could not have gone for sake of the moisture contained in the fissures of the palm; nor could it be in search of food, as it lives not on fruit but on aquatic insects.[1] The descent, too, is a question of difficulty. [Footnote 1: Kirby says that it is "in pursuit of certain crustaceans that form its food" (_Bridgewater Treatise_, vol i. p. 144); but I am not aware of any crustaceans in the island which ascend the palmyra or feed upon its fruit. The _Birgus latro_, which inhabits Mauritius, and is said to climb the coco-nut for this purpose, has not been observed in Ceylon.] The position of its fins, and the spines on its gill-covers, might assist its journey upwards, but the same apparatus would prove anything but a facility in steadying its journey down. The probability is, as suggested by Buchanan, that the ascent which was witnessed by Daldorf was accidental, and ought not to be regarded as the habit of the animal. In Ceylon I heard of no instance of the perch ascending trees[1], but the fact is well established that both it, the _pullata_ (a species of _polyacanthus_), and others, are capable of long journeys on the level ground.[2] [Footnote 1: This assertion must be qualified by a fact stated by Mr. E.A. Layard, who mentions that on visiting one of the fishing stations on a Singhalese river, where the fish are caught in staked enclosures, as described at p. 342, and observing that the chambers were covered with netting, he asked the reason, and was told "_that some of the fish climbed up the sticks and got over._"--Mag. Nat. Hist, for May 1823, p. 390-1.] [Footnote 2: Strange accidents have more than once occurred at Ceylon arising from the habit of the native anglers; who, having neither baskets nor pockets in which to place what they catch, will seize a fish in their teeth whilst putting fresh bait on their hook. In August, 1853, a man was carried into the Pettah hospital at Colombo, having a climbing perch, which he thus attempted to hold, firmly imbedded in his throat. The spines of its dorsal fin prevented its descent, whilst those of the gill-covers equally forbade its return. It was eventually extracted by the forceps through an incision in the oesophagus, and the patient recovered. Other similar cases have proved fatal.] _Burying Fishes._--But a still more remarkable power possessed by some of the Ceylon fishes, is that already alluded to, of secreting themselves in the earth in the dry season, at the bottom of the exhausted ponds, and there awaiting the renewal of the water at the change of the monsoon. The instinct of the crocodile to resort to the same expedient has been already referred to[1], and in like manner the fish, when distressed by the evaporation of the tanks, seek relief by immersing first their heads, and by degrees their whole bodies, in the mud; sinking to a depth at which they find sufficient moisture to preserve life in a state of lethargy long after the bed of the tank has been consolidated by the intense heat of the sun. It is possible, too, that the cracks which reticulate the surface may admit air to some extent to sustain their faint respiration. [Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 285.] The same thing takes place in other tropical regions, subject to vicissitudes of drought and moisture. The Protopterus[1], which inhabits the Gambia (and which though demonstrated by Professor Owen to possess all the essential organisation of fishes, is nevertheless provided with true lungs), is accustomed in the dry season, when the river retires into its channel, to bury itself to the depth of twelve or sixteen inches in the indurated mud of the banks, and to remain in a state of torpor till the rising of the stream after the rains enables it to resume its active habits. At this period the natives of the Gambia, like those of Ceylon, resort to the river, and secure the fish in considerable numbers as they flounder in the still shallow water. A parallel instance occurs, in Abyssinia in relation to the fish of the Mareb, one of the sources of the Nile, the waters of which are partially absorbed in traversing the plains of Taka. During the summer its bed is dry, and in the slime at the depth of more than six feet is found a species of fish without scales, different from any known to inhabit the Nile.[2] [Footnote 1: _Lepidosiren annectans_, Owen. See _Linn. Trans._ 1839.] [Footnote 2: This statement will be found in QUATREMERE'S Mémoires sur l'Egypte, tom. i. p. 17, on the authority of Abdullah ben Ahmed ben Solaim Assouany, in his _History of Nubia_, "Simon, héritier présomptif du royanme d'Alouah, m'a assuré que l'on trouve, dans la vase qui couvre fond de cette rivière, un grand poisson sans écailles, qui ne ressemble en rien aux poissons du Nil, et que, pour l'avoir, il faut creuser à une toise et plus de profondeur." To this passage, there is appended this note:--"Le patriarche Mendes, cité par Legrand (_Relation Hist. d' Abyssinie_, du P. LOBO, p. 212-3) rapporte que le fleuve Mareb, après avoir arrosé une étendue de pays considérable, se perd sous terre; et que quand les Portugais faisaient la guerre dans ce pays, ils fouilloient dans le sable, et y trouvoient de la bonne eau et du ban poisson. An rapport de l'auteur de _l' Ayin Akbery_ (tom. ii, p. 146, ed. 1800), dans le Soubah do Caschmir, pres du lieu nommé Tilahmoulah, est une grande pièce de terre qui est inondée pendant la saison des pluies. Lorsque les eaux se sont évaporées, et que la vase est presque séche, les habitans prennant des bâtons d'environ une aune do long, qu'ils enfoncent dans la vase, et ils y trouvent quantité de grands et petits poissons." In the library of the British Museum there is an unique MS. of MANOEL DE ALMEIDA, written in the sixteenth century, from which Balthasar Tellec compiled his _Historia General de Ethiopia alta_, printed at Coimbra in 1660, and in it the above statement of Mendes is corroborated by Almeida, who says that he was told by João Gabriel, a Creole Portuguese, born in Abyssinia, who had visited the Mareb, and who said that the "fish were to be found everywhere eight or ten palms down, and that he had eaten of them."] In South America the "round-headed hassar" of Guiana, _Callicthys littoralis_, and the "yarrow," a species of the family Esocidæ, although they possess no specially modified respiratory organs, are accustomed to bury themselves in the mud on the subsidence of water in the pools during the dry season.[1] The _Loricaria_ of Surinam, another Siluridan, exhibits a similar instinct, and resorts to the same expedient. Sir R. Schomburgk, in his account of the fishes of Guiana, confirms this account of the Callicthys, and says "they can exist in muddy lakes without any water whatever, and great numbers of them are sometimes dug up from such situations."[2] [Footnote 1: See Paper "_on some Species of Fishes and Reptiles in Demerara_," by J. HANDCOCK, Esq., M.D., _Zoological Journal_, vol. iv. p. 243.] [Footnote 2: A curious account of the _borachung_ or "ground fish" of Bhootan, will be found in Note (C.) appended to this chapter.] In those portions of Ceylon where the country is flat, and small tanks are extremely numerous, the natives are accustomed in the hot season to dig in the mud for fish. Mr. Whiting, the chief civil officer of the eastern province, informs me that, on two occasions, he was present accidentally when the villagers were so engaged, once at the tank of Malliativoe, within a few miles of Kottiar, near the bay of Trincomalie, and again at a tank between Ellendetorre and Arnitivoe, on the bank of the Vergel river. The clay was firm, but moist, and as the men flung out lumps of it with a spade, it fell to pieces, disclosing fish from nine to twelve inches long, which were full grown and healthy, and jumped on the bank when exposed to the sun light. [Illustration: THE ANABAS OF THE DRY TANKS.] Being desirous of obtaining a specimen of fish so exhumed, I received from the Moodliar of Matura, A.B. Wickremeratne, a fish taken along with others of the same kind from a tank in which the water had dried up; it was found at a depth of a foot and a half where the mud was still moist, whilst the surface was dry and hard. The fish which the moodliar sent to me is an Anabas, closely resembling the _Perca scandens_ of Daldorf; but on minute examination it proves to be a species unknown in India, and hitherto found only in Boreno and China. It is the _A. oligolepis_ of Bleek. But the faculty of becoming torpid at such periods is not confined in Ceylon to the crocodile sand fishes;--it is also possessed by some of the fresh-water mollusca and aquatic coleoptera. One of the former, the _Ampullaria glauca_, is found in still water in all parts of the island, not alone in the tanks, but in rice-fields and the watercourses by which they are irrigated. When, during the dry season, the water is about to evaporate, it burrows and conceals itself[1] till the returning rains restore it to activity, and reproduce its accustomed food. There, at a considerable depth in the soft mud, it deposits a bundle of eggs with a white calcareous shell, to the number of one hundred or more in each group. The _Melania Paludina_ in the same way retires during the droughts into the muddy soil of the rice lands; and it can only be by such an instinct that this and other mollusca are preserved when the tanks evaporate, to re-appear in full growth and vigour immediately on the return of the rains.[2] [Footnote 1: A knowledge of this fact was turned to prompt account by Mr. Edgar S. Layard, when holding a judicial office at Point Pedro in 1849. A native who had been defrauded of his land complained before him of his neighbour, who, during his absence, had removed their common landmark, diverting the original watercourse and obliterating its traces by filling it up to a level with the rest of the field. Mr. Layard directed a trench to be sunk at the contested spot, and discovering numbers of the Ampullaria, the remains of the eggs, and the living animal which had been buried for months, the evidence was so resistless as to confound the wrong-doer, and terminate the suit.] [Footnote 2: For a similar fact relative to the shells and water beetles in the pools near Rio Janeiro, see DARWIN'S _Nat. Journal_, ch. v. p. 99. BENSON, in the first vol. of _Gleanings of Science_, published at Calcutta in 1829, describes a species of _Paludina_ found in pools, which are periodically dried up in the hot season but reappear with the rains, p. 363. And in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_ for Sept. 1832, Lieut. HUTTON, in a singularly interesting paper, has followed up the same subject by a narrative of his own observations at Mirzapore, wherein June, 1832, after a few heavy showers of rain, that formed pools on the surface of the ground near a mango grove, he saw the _Paludinæ_ issuing from the ground, "pushing aside the moistened earth and coming forth from their retreats; but on the disappearance of the water not one of them was to be seen above ground. Wishing to ascertain what had become of them he turned up the earth at the base of several trees, and invariably found the shells buried from an inch to two inches below the surface." Lieut. Hutton adds that the _Ampullariæ_ and _Planorbes_, as well as the _Paludinæ_ are found in similar situations during the heats of the dry season. The British _Pisidea_ exibit the same faculty (see a monograph in the _Camb. Phil. Trans._ vol. iv.). The fact is elsewhere alluded to in the present work of the power possessed by the land leech of Ceylon of retaining vitality even after being parched to hardness during the heat of the rainless season. LYELL mentions the instance of some snails in Italy which, when they hybernate, descend to the depth of five feet and more below the surface. _Princip. of Geology,_ &c, p. 373.] Dr. John Hunter[1] has advanced an opinion that hybernation, although a result of cold, is not its immediate consequence, but is attributable to that deprivation of food and other essentials which extreme cold occasions, and against the recurrence of which nature makes a timely provision by a suspension of her functions. Excessive heat in the tropics produces an effect upon animals and vegetables analogous to that of excessive cold in northern regions, and hence it is reasonable to suppose that the torpor induced by the one may be but the counterpart of the hybernation which results from the other. The frost that imprisons the alligator in the Mississippi as effectually cuts it off from food and action as the drought which incarcerates the crocodile in the sun-burnt clay of a Ceylon tank. The hedgehog of Europe enters on a period of absolute torpidity as soon as the inclemency of winter deprives it of its ordinary supply of slugs and insects; and the _tenrec_[2] of Madagascar, its tropical representative, exhibits the same tendency during the period when excessive heat produces in that climate a like result. [Footnote 1: HUNTER'S _Observations on parts of the Animal oeconomy_, p. 88.] [Footnote 2: _Centetes ecaudatus_, Illiger.] The descent of the _Ampullaria_, and other fresh-water molluscs, into the mud of the tanks, has its parallel in the conduct of the _Bulimi_ and _Helices_ on land. The European snail, in the beginning of winter, either buries itself in the earth or withdraws to some crevice or overarching stone to await the returning vegetation of spring. So, in the season of intense heat, the _Helix Waltoni_ of Ceylon, and others of the same family, before retiring under cover, close the aperture of their shells with an impervious epiphragm, which effectually protects their moisture and juices from evaporation during the period of their æstivation. The Bulimi of Chili have been found alive in England in a box packed in cotton after an interval of two years, and the animal inhabiting a land-shell from Suez, which was attached to a tablet and deposited in the British Museum in 1846, was found in 1850 to have formed a fresh epiphragm, and on being immersed in tepid water, it emerged from its shell. It became torpid again on the 15th November, 1851, and was found dead and dried up in March, 1852.[1] But exceptions serve to prove the accuracy of Hunter's opinion almost as strikingly as accordances, since the same genera of animals that hybernate in Europe, where extreme cold disarranges their oeconomy, evince no symptoms of lethargy in the tropics, provided their food be not diminished by the heat. Ants, which are torpid in Europe during winter, work all the year round in India, where sustenance is uniform.[2] The shrews of Ceylon (_Sorex montanus_ and _S. ferrugineus_ of Kelaart), like those at home, subsist upon insects, but as they inhabit a region where the equable temperature admits of the pursuit of their prey at all seasons of the year, unlike those of Europe, they never hybernate. A similar observation applies to bats, which are dormant during a northern winter when insects are rare, but never become torpid in any part of the tropics. The bear, in like manner, is nowhere deprived of its activity except when the rigour of severe frost cuts off its access to its accustomed food. On the other hand, the tortoise, which in Venezuela immerses itself in indurated mud during the hot months shows no tendency to torpor in Ceylon, where its food is permanent; and yet it is subject to hybernation when carried to the colder regions of Europe. [Footnote 1: _Annals of Natural History_, 1860. See Dr. BAIRD'S _Account of Helix desertorum; Excelsior,_ &c., ch. i. p. 345.] [Footnote 2: Colonel SKYES has described in the _Entomological Trans._ the operations of an ant in India which lays up a store of hay against the rainy season.] To the fish in the detached tanks and pools when the heat, by exhausting the water, deprives them at once of motion and sustenance, the practical effect must be the same as when the frost of a northern winter encases them in ice. Nor is it difficult to believe that they can successfully undergo the one crisis when we know beyond question that they may survive the other.[1] [Footnote 1: YARRELL, vol. i. p. 364, quotes the authority of Dr. J. Hunter in his _Animal oeconomy_, that fish, "after being frozen still retain so much of life as when thawed to resume their vital actions;" and in-the same volume (_Introd_. vol. i. p. xvii.) he relates from JESSE'S _Gleanings in Natural History_, the story of a gold fish (_Cyprinus auratus_), which, together with the a marble basin, was frozen into one solid lump of ice, yet, on the water being thawed, the fish became as lively as usual. Dr. RICHARDSON in the third vol of his _Fauna Borealis Americana_, says the grey sucking carp, found in the fur countries of North America, may be frozen and thawed again without being killed in the process.] _Hot-water Fishes_.--Another incident is striking in connection with the fresh-water fishes of Ceylon. I have described elsewhere the hot springs of Kannea[1], in the vicinity of Trincomalie, the water in which flows at a temperature varying at different seasons from 85° to 115°. In the stream formed by these wells M. Reynaud found and forwarded to Cuvier two fishes which he took from the water at a time when his thermometer indicated a temperature of 37° Reaumur, equal to 115° of Fahrenheit. The one was an Apogon, the other an Ambassis, and to each, from the heat of its habitat, he assigned the specific name of "thermalis."[2] [Footnote 1: See SIR J. EMERSON TENNET's _Ceylon_, &c., vol. ii. p. 496.] [Footnote 2: CUV. and VAL., vol. iii. p. 363. In addition to the two fishes above named, a loche _Cobitis thermalis_, and a carp, _Nuria thermoicos_, were found in the hot-springs of Kannea, at a heat 40° Cent., 114° Fahr., and a roach, _Leuciscus thermalis_, when the thermometer indicated 50° Cent, 122° Fahr.--_Ib_. xviii. p. 59, xvi. p. 182, xvii. p. 94. Fish have been taken from a hot spring at Pooree when the thermometer stood at 112° Fahr., and as they belonged to a carnivorous genus, they must have found prey living in the same high temperature.--_Journ. Asiatic Soc. of Beng._ vol. vi. p. 465. Fishes have been observed in a hot spring at Manila which raises the thermometer to 187°, and in another in Barbary, the usual temperature of which is 172°; and Humboldt and Bonpland, when travelling in South America, saw fishes thrown up alive from a volcano, in water that raised the temperature to 210°, being two degrees below the boiling point. PATTERSON'S _Zoology_, Pt. ii. p. 211; YARRELL'S _History of British Fishes_, vol. i. In. p. xvi.] * * * * * _List of Ceylon Fishes._ In the following list, the Acanthopterygian fishes of Ceylon has been prepared for me by Dr. GÜNTHER, and will be found the most complete which has appeared of this order. I am also indebted to him for the correction of the list of Malacopterygians, which I hope ere long to render still more extended, as well as that of the Cartilaginous fishes. I. OSSEOUS. ACANTHOPTERYGII BERYCIDÆ, _Lowe_. Myripristis murdjan, _Forsk_. Holocentrum rubrum, _Forsk_. spiniferum, _Forsk_. diadema, _Lacép_. PERCIDÆ, _Günther_. *Lates calcarifer, _Bl._ Serranus louti, _Forsk_. pachycentrum, _C. & V._ guttatus, _Bl._ Sonneratii, _C. & V._ angularis, _C.& V._ marginalis, _Bl._ hexagonatis, _Forsk_. flavocoeruleus, _Lacép_. biguttatus, _C. & V._ lemniscatus, _C. & V._ Amboinensis, _Bleek_. boenak, _C. & V._ Grammistes orientalis, _Bl._ Genyoroge Sebæ, _C. & V._ Bengalensis, _C. & V._ marginata, _C. & V._ rivulata, _C. & V._ gibba, _Forsk_. spilura, _Benn_. Mesoprion aurolineatus, _C. & V._ rangus, _C. & V._ quinquelineatus, _Rüpp_. Johnii, _Bl._ annularis, _C. & V._ ?Priacanthus Blochii, _Bleek_. Ambassis n. sp., _Günth_. Commersonii, _C. & V._ thermalis, _C. & V._ Apogon Ceylonicus, _C. & V._ thermalis, _C. & V._ annularis, _Rüpp_. Var. roseipinnis. Chilodipterus quinquelineatus, _C. & V._ PRISTIPOMATIDÆ, _Günther_. Dules Bennettii, _Bleek_. *Therapon servus, _Bloch_. *trivittatus, _Buch. Ham_. quadrilineatus, _Bl._ *Helotes polytænia, _Bleek_. Pristipoma hasta, _Bloch_. maculatum, _Bl._ Diagramma punctatum, _Ehrenb_. orientale, _Bl._ poecilopterum, _C. & V._ Blochii, _C. & V._ lineatum, _Gm_. Radja, _Bleek_. Lobotes auctorum, _Günth_. Gerres oblongus, _C & V._ Scolopsia Japonicus, _Bl._ bimaculatus, _Rüpp_. monogramma, _k. & v. H._ Synagris furcosus, _C. & V._ Pentapus aurolineatus, _Lacép_. Smaris balteatus, _C. & V._ Cæsio coerulaureus, _Lacép_. MULLIDÆ, _Gray_. Upeneus tæniopterus, _C. & V._ Indicus, _Shaw_. cyclostoma, _Lacép_. Upe. trifasciatus, _Lacép_. cinnabarinus, _C. & V._ Upeneoides vittatus, _Forsk._ tragula. sulphureus, _C. & V._ Mulloides flavolineatus, _Lacép_. Ceylonicus, _C. & V._ SPARIDÆ, _Günther_. Lethrinus frenatus, _C. & V._ cinereus, _C. & V._ fasciatus, _C. & V._ ?ramak, _Forsk._ opercularis, _C. & V._ erythrurus, _C. & V._ Pagrus spinifer, _Forsk_. Crysophrys hasta, _Bl._ ?Pimelepterus Ternatensis, _Bleek_. SQUAMIPINNES, _Günthier_. Chætodon Layardi, _Blyth_. oligacanthus, _Bleek_. setifer, _Bl._ vagabundus, _L._ guttatissimus, _Benn_. pictus, _Forsk_. xanthocephalus, _Benn_. Sebæ, _C. & V._ Heniochus macrolepidotus, _Artedi_. Holacanthus annularis, _Bl._ xanthurus, _Benn_. imperator, _B1_. Scatophagus argus, _Gm_. Ephippus orbis, _Bl._ Drepane punctata, _Gm_. CIRRHITIDÆ, _Gray_. Cirrhites Forsteri, _Schn_. CATAPHRACTI, _Cuv_. Scorpæna polyprion, _Bleek_. Pterois volitans, _L._ miles, _Benn_. Tetraroge longispinis, _C. & V._ Platycephalus insidiator, _Forsk_. punctatus, _C. & V._ serratus, _C. & V._ tuberculatus, _C. & V._ suppositus, _Trosch_. Dactylopterus orientalis, _C. & V._ TRACHINIDÆ, _Günther_. ?Uranoscopus guttatus, _C. & V._ Percis millepunctata, _Günth_. Sillago siliama, _Forsk_. SCIÆNIDÆ, _Günther_. Sciæna diacantha, _Lacép_. maculata, _Schn_. Dussumieri, _C & V._ Corvina miles, _C. & V._ Otolithus argenteus, _k. & v. H._ POLYNEMIDÆ, _Günther_. Polynemus heptadactylus, _C. & V._ hexanemus, _C. & V._ Indicus, _Shaw_. plebeius, _Gm._ tetradactylus, _Shaw_. SPHYRÆNIDÆ, _Agass_. Sphyræna jello, _C. & V._ obtusata, _C. & V._ TRICHIURIDÆ, _Günther_. Trichiurus savala, _Cuv._ SCOMBRIDÆ, _Günther_. ?Thynnus affinis, _Cant._ Cybium Commersonii, _Lacép._ guttatum, _Schn._ Naucrates ductor, _L._ Elacate nigra, _Bl._ ?n. sp. Echeneis remora, _L._ scutata, _Günth._ naucrates, _L._ Stromateus cinereus, _Bl._ niger, _Bl._ Coryphæna hippurus, _L._ Mene maculata, _Schn._ CARANGIDÆ, _Günther._ Caranx Heberi, _Benn._ Rottleri, _Bl._ calla, _C.&V._ xanthurus, _K.&v.H._ talamparoides, _Bleek._ Malabaricus, _Schn._ speciosus, _Forsk._ carangus, _Bl._ hippos, _L._ armatus, _Forsk._ ciliaris, _Bl._ gallus, _L._ Micropteryx chrysurus, _L._ Seriola nigro-fasciata, _Rüpp._ Chorinemus lysan, _Forsk._ Sancti Petri, _C. & V._ Trachynotus oblongus, _C. & V._ ovatus, _L._ Psettus argenteus, _L._ Platax vespertilio, _Bl._ Raynaldi, _C.&V._ Zanclus sp. n. Lactarius delicatulus, _C. & V._ Equula fasciata, _Lacép._ edentula, _Bl._ daura, _Cuv._ inlerrupta. Gazza minuta, _Bl._ equulæformis, _Rüpp._ Pempheris sp. XIPHIIDÆ, _Agass._ Histiophorus immaculatus, _Rüpp._ THEUTYIDÆ, _Günther._ Theutys Javus, _L._ stellata, _Forsk._ nebulosa, _A. & G._ ACRONURIDÆ, _Günther._ Acanthurus triostegus, _L._ nigrofuscus, _Forsk._ lineatus, _L._ Tennentii, _Gthr._ leucosternon, _Bennett._ ctenodon, _C.&V._ rhombeus, _Kittl._ xanthurus, _Blyth._ Acronurus melas, _C. & V._ melanurus, _C. & V._ Naseus unicornis, _Forsk,_ brevirostris, _C. & V._ tuberosus, _Lacép._ lituratus, _Forster._ AULOSTOMATA, _Cuvier._ Fistularia serrata, _Bl._ BLENNIIDÆ, _Müll._ Salarias fasclatus, _Bl._ Sal. marmoratus, _Benn._ tridactylus, _Schn._ quadricornis, _C.&V._ GOBIIDÆ, _Müll._ Gobius ornatus, _Rüpp._ giuris, _Buch. Ham._ albopunctatus, _C. & V._ grammepomus, _Bleek._ Apocryptes lanceolatus, _Bl._ Periophthalmus Koelreuteri, _Pall._ Eleotris ophiocephalus, _K. & v.H._ fusca, _Bl._ sexguttata, _C. & V._ muralis, _A. & G._ MASTACEMBELIDÆ. _Günther._ Mastacembelus armatus, _Lacép._ PEDICULATI, _Cuv._ Antennarius marmoratus, _Günth._ hispidus, _Schn._ pinniceps, _Commers._ Commersonii, _Lacép._ multiocellatus _Günth._ bigibbus, _Lacép._ ATHERINIDÆ, _Günther._ Atherina Forskalii, _Rüpp._ duodecimalis, _C. & V._ MUGILIDÆ, _Günther._ Mugil planiceps, _C. & V._ Waigiensis, _A.G._ Ceylonensis, _Günth._ OPHIOCEPHALIDÆ, _Günther._ Ophiocephalus punctatus, _Bl._ Kelaartii, _Günth._ striatus, _Bl._ marulius, _Ham. Buch._ Channa orientalis, _Schn._ LABYRINTHICI, _Cuv._ Anabas oligolepis, _Bleek._ Polyacanthus signatus, _Günth._ PHARYNGOGNATHI. Amphiprion Clarkii, _J. Benn._ Dascyllus aruanus, _C. & V._ trimaculatus, _Rüpp._ Glyphisodon septem-fasciatus, _C. & V._ Brownrigii, _Benn,_ coelestinus, _Sol._ Etroplus Suratensis, _Bl._ Julis lunaris _Linn._ decussatus, _W Benn._ formosus, _C.&V._ quadricolor. _Lesson._ dorsalis, _Quoy & Gaim._ aureomaculatus, _W. Benn._ Cellanicus, _E. Benn._ Finlaysoni, _C. & V._ purpureo-lineatus, _C. & V._ cingulum, _C. & V._ Gomphosus fuscus, _C. & V._ coeruleus, _Comm._ viridis, _W. Benn._ Scarus pepo, _W. Benn._ harid. _Forsk._ Tautoga fasciata, _Thunb._ Hemirhamphus Reynaldi, _C. & V._ Georgii _C.& V._ Exocoetus evolans. _Linn._ Belone annulata, _C. & V._ MALACOPTERYGII (ABDOMINALES). Bagrus gulio, _Buch_. albilabris, _C. & V._ Plotosus lineatus, _C. & V._ Barbus tor, _C. & V._ Nuria thermoicos, _C. & V._ Leuciscus dandia, _C. & V._ scalpellus, _C. & V._ Ceylonicus, _E. Benn_. thermalis, _C. & V._ Cobitis thermalis, _C. & V._ Chirocentrus dorab, _Forsk_. Elops saurus, _L._ Megalops cundinga, _Buch_. Engraulis Brownii, _Gm_. Sardinella leiogaster, _C. & V._ lineolata, _C. & V._ Neohowii. Saurus myops, _Val_. Saurida tombil, _Bl._ MALACOPTERYGII (SUB-BRANCHIATI). Pleuronectes, _L._ MALACOPTERYGII (APODA). Muræna. LOPHOBRANCHI. Syngnathus, _L._ PLECTOGNATHII. Tetraodon ocellatus, _W. Benn_. tepa, _Buch_. argyropleura, _E. Bennett_. argentatus, _Blyth_. Balistes biaculeatus, _W. Benn_. lineatus, _Bl._ Triacanthus biaculeatus, _W. Benn_. Alutarius lævis, _Bl._ II. CARTILAGINOUS. Pristis antiquorum, _Lath_. cuspidatus, _Lath_. pectinatus, _Lath_. Chiloscyllium plagiosum, _Benn_. Stegostoma fasciatum, _Bl._ Carcharias acutus, _Rüpp_. Sphyrna zygæna, _L._ Rhynchobatus lævis, _Bl._ Trygon uarnak, _Forsk_. Pteroplatea micrura, _Bl._ Tæniura lymna, _Forsk_. Myliobatis Nieuhofii, _Bl._ Aëtobates narinari, _Bl._ * * * * * NOTE (A.) INSTANCES OF FISHES FALLING FROM THE CLOUDS IN INDIA. (_From the Bombay Times,_ 1856.) See Page 343. The late Dr. Buist, after enumerating cases in which fishes were said to have been thrown out from volcanoes in South America and precipitated from clouds in various parts of the world, adduced the following instances of similar occurrences in India. "In 1824," he says, "fishes fell at Meerut, on the men of Her Majesty's 14th Regiment, then out at drill, and were caught in numbers. In July, 1826, live fish were seen to fall on the grass at Moradabad during a storm. They were the common cyprinus, so prevalent in our Indian waters. On the 19th of February, 1830, at noon, a heavy fall of fish occurred at the Nokulhatty factory, in the Daccah zillah; depositions on the subject were obtained from nine different parties. The fish were all dead; most of them were large; some were fresh, others were rotten and mutilated. They were seen at first in the sky, like a flock of birds, descending rapidly to the ground; there was rain drizzling, but no storm. On the 16th and 17th of May, 1833, a fall of fish occurred in the zillah of Futtehpoor, about three miles north of the Jumna, after a violent storm of wind and rain. The fish were from a pound and a half to three pounds in weight, and of the same species as those found in the tanks in the neighbourhood. They were all dead and dry. A fall of fish occurred at Allahabad, during a storm in May, 1835; they were of the chowla species, and were found dead and dry after the storm had passed over the district. On the 20th of September, 1839, after a smart shower of rain, a quantity of live fish, about three inches in length and all of the same kind, fell at the Sunderbunds, about twenty miles south of Calcutta. On this occasion it was remarked that the fish did not fall here and there irregularly over the ground, but in a continuous straight line, not more than a span in breadth. The vast multitudes of fish, with which the low grounds round Bombay are covered, about a week or ten days after the first burst of the monsoon, appear to be derived from the adjoining pools or rivulets, and not to descend from the sky. They are not, so far as I know, found in the higher parts of the island. I have never seen them, (though I have watched carefully,) in casks collecting water from the roofs of buildings, or heard of them on the decks or awnings of vessels in the harbour, where they must have appeared had they descended from the sky. One of the most remarkable phenomena of this kind occurred during a tremendous deluge of rain at Kattywar, on the 25th of July, 1850, when the ground around Rajkote was found literally covered with fish; some of them were found on the tops of haystacks, where probably they had been drifted by the storm. In the course of twenty-four successive hours twenty-seven inches of rain fell, thirty-five fell in twenty-six hours, seven inches within one hour and a half, being the heaviest fall on record. At Poonah, on the 3rd of August, 1852, after a very heavy fall of rain, multitudes of fish were caught on the ground in the cantonments, full half a mile from the nearest stream. If showers of fish are to be explained on the assumption that they are carried up by squalls or violent winds, from rivers or spaces of water not far away from where they fall, it would be nothing wonderful were they seen to descend from the air during the furious squalls which occasionally occur in June." * * * * * NOTE (B.) CEYLON FISHES. (_Memorandum by Professor Huxley._) See Page 324. The large series of beautifully coloured drawings of the fishes of Ceylon, which has been submitted to my inspection, possesses an unusual value for several reasons. The fishes, it appears, were all captured at Colombo, and even had those from other parts of Ceylon been added, the geographical area would not have been very extended. Nevertheless there are more than 600 drawings, and though it is possible that some of these represent varieties in different stages of growth of the same species, I have not been able to find definite evidence of the fact in any of those groups which I have particularly tested. If, however, these drawings represent _six hundred_ distinct species of fish, they constitute, so far as I know, the largest collection of fish from one locality in existence. The number of known British fishes may be safely assumed to be less than 250, and Mr. Yarrell enumerates only 226, Dr. Cantor's valuable work on Malayan fishes enumerates not more than 238, while Dr. Russell has figured only 200 from Coromandel. Even the enormous area of the Chinese and Japanese seas has as yet not yielded 800 species of fishes. The large extent of the collection alone, then, renders it of great importance: but its value is immeasurably enhanced by the two circumstances,--_first_, that every drawing was made while the fish retained all that vividness of colouring which becomes lost so soon after its removal from its native element; and _secondly_, that when the sketch was finished its subject was carefully labelled, preserved in spirits, and forwarded to England, so that at the present moment the original of every drawing can be subjected to anatomical examination, and compared with already named species. Under these circumstances, I do not hesitate to say that the collection is one of the most valuable in existence, and might, if properly worked out, become a large and secure foundation for all future investigation into the ichthyology of the Indian Ocean. It would be very hazardous to express an opinion as to the novelty or otherwise of the species and genera figured without the study of the specimens themselves, as the specific distinctions of fish are for the most part based upon character--the fin-rays, teeth, the operculum, &c., which can only be made out by close and careful examination of the object, and cannot be represented in ordinary drawings however accurate. There are certain groups of fish, however, whose family traits are so marked as to render it almost impossible to mistake even their portraits, and hence I may venture, without fear of being far wrong, upon a few remarks as to the general features of the ichthyological fauna of Ceylon. In our own seas rather less than a tenth of the species of fishes belong to the cod tribe. I have not found one represented in these drawings, nor do either Russell or Cantor mention any in the surrounding seas, and the result is in general harmony with the known laws of distribution of these most useful of fishes. On the other hand, the mackerel family, including the tunnies, the bonitas, the dories, the horse-mackerels, &c., which form not more than one sixteenth of our own fish fauna, but which are known to increase their proportion in hot climates, appear in wonderful variety of form and colour, and constitute not less than one fifth of the whole of the species of Ceylon fish. In Russell's catalogue they form less than one fifth, in Cantor's less than one sixth. Marine and other siluroid fishes, a group represented on the continent of Europe, but doubtfully, if at all, in this country, constitute one twentieth of the Ceylon fishes. In Russell's and Cantor's lists they form about one thirtieth of the whole. The sharks and rays form about one seventh of our own fish fauna. They constitute about one tenth or one eleventh of Russell's and Cantor's lists, while among these Ceylon drawings I find not more than twenty, or about one thirtieth of the whole, which can be referred to this group of fishes. It must be extremely interesting to know whether this circumstance is owing to accident, or to the local peculiarities of Colombo, or whether the fauna of Ceylon really is deficient in such fishes. The like exceptional character is to be noticed in the proportion of the tribe of flat fishes, or _Pleuronectidæ_. Soles, turbots, and the like, form nearly one twelfth of our own fishes. Both Cantor and Russell give the flat fishes as making one twenty-second part of their collection, while in the whole 600 Ceylon drawings I can find but five _Pleuronectidæ_. When this great collection has been carefully studied, I doubt not that many more interesting distributional facts will be evolved. * * * * * Since receiving this note from Professor Huxley, the drawings in question have been submitted to Dr. Gray, of the British Museum. That eminent naturalist, after a careful analysis, has favoured me with the following memorandum of the fishes they represent, numerically contrasting them with those of China and Japan, so far as we are acquainted with the ichthyology of those seas:-- CARTILAGINEA. Ceylon. China and Japan. Squali 12 15 Raiæ 19 20 Sturiones 0 1 OSTINOPTERYGII. Plectognathi. tetraodontidæ 10 21 balistidæ 9 19 Lophobranchii. syngnathidæ 2 2 pegasidæ 0 3 Ctenobranchii. lophidæ 1 3 Cyclopodi. echeneidæ 0 1 cyclopteridæ 0 1 gobidæ 7 35 Percini. callionymidæ 0 7 uranoscopidæ 0 7 cottidæ 0 13 triglidæ 11 37 polynemidæ 12 3 mullidæ 1 7 perecidæ 26 12 berycidæ 0 5 sillaginidæ 3 1 sciænidæ 19 13 hæmullinidæ 6 12 serranidæ 31 38 theraponidæ 8 20 cirrhitidæ 0 2 mænidiæ 37 25 sparidæ 16 17 acanthuridæ 14 6 chætodontidæ 25 21 fistularidæ 2 3 Periodopharyngi. mugilidæ 5 7 anabantidæ 6 15 pomacentridæ 10 11 Pharyngognathi. labridæ 16 35 scomberesocidæ 13 6 blenniidæ 3 8 Scomberina. zeidæ 0 2 sphyrænidæ 5 4 scomberidæ 118 62 xiphlidæ 0 1 cepolidæ 0 5 Heterosomata. platessoideæ 5 22 siluridæ 31 24 cyprinidæ 19 52 scopelinidæ 2 7 salmonidæ 0 1 clupeidæ 43 22 gadidæ 0 2 macruridæ 1 0 Apodes. anguillidæ 8 12 murænidæ 8 6 sphagebranchidæ 8 10 * * * * * NOTE (C). ON THE BORA-CHUNG, OR "GROUND-FISH" OF BHOOTAN. See P. 353. In Bhootan, at the south-eastern extremity of the Himalayas, a fish is found, the scientific name of which is unknown to me, but it is called by the natives the _Bora-chung_, and by European residents the "ground-fish of Bhootan." It is described in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for_ 1839, by a writer (who had seen it alive), as being about two feet in length, and cylindrical, with a thick body, somewhat shaped like a pike, but rounder, the nose curved upwards, the colour olive-green, with orange stripes, and the head speckled with crimson.[1] This fish, according to the native story, is caught not in the rivers in whose vicinity it is found, but "in perfectly dry places in the middle of grassy jungle, sometimes as far as two miles from the banks." Here, on finding a hole four or five inches in diameter, they commence to dig, and continue till they come to water; and presently the _bora-chung_ rises to the surface, sometimes from a depth of nineteen feet. In these extemporised wells these fishes are found always in pairs, and I when brought to the surface they glide rapidly over the ground with a serpentine motion. This account appeared in 1839; but some years later, Mr. Campbell, the Superintendent of Darjeeling, in a communication to the same journal[2], divested the story of much of its exaggeration, by stating, as the result of personal inquiry in Bhootan, that the _bora-chung_ inhabits the jheels and slow-running streams near the hills, but lives principally on the banks, into which it penetrates from one to five or six feet. The entrance to these retreats leading from the river into the bank is generally a few inches below the surface, so that the fish can return to the water at pleasure. The mode of catching them is by introducing the hand into these holes; and the _bora-chungs_ are found generally two in each chamber, coiled concentrically like snakes. It is not believed that they bore their own burrows, but that they take possession of those made by land-crabs. Mr. Campbell denies that they are more capable than other fish of moving on dry ground. From the particulars given, the _bora-chung_ would appear to be an _Ophiocephalus_, probably the _O. barka_ described by Buchanan, as inhabiting holes in the banks of rivers tributary to the Ganges. [Footnote 1: Paper by Mr. J.T. PEARSON, _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._, vol. viii p. 551.] [Footnote 2: _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._, vol. xi. p. 963.] CHAP. XI. SHELLS. * * * * * _Mollusca.--Radiata, &c._ Ceylon has long been renowned for the beauty and variety of the shells which abound in its seas and inland waters, and in which an active trade has been organised by the industrious Moors, who clean them with great expertness, arrange them in satin-wood boxes, and send them to Colombo and all parts of the island for sale. In general, however, these specimens are more prized for their beauty than valued for their rarity, though some of the "Argus" cowries[1] have been sold as high as _four guineas_ a pair. [Footnote 1: _Cypræa Argus_.] One of the principal sources whence their supplies are derived is the beautiful Bay of Venloos, to the north of Batticaloa, formed by the embouchure of the Natoor river. The scenery at this spot is enchanting. The sea is overhung by gentle acclivities wooded to the summit; and in an opening between two of these eminences the river flows through a cluster of little islands covered with mangroves and acacias. A bar of rocks projects across it, at a short distance from the shore; and these are frequented all day long by pelicans, that come at sunrise to fish, and at evening return to their solitary breeding-places remote from the beach. The strand is literally covered with beautiful shells in rich profusion, and the dealers from Trincomalie know the proper season to visit the bay for each particular description. The entire coast, however, as far north as the Elephant Pass, is indented by little rocky inlets, where shells of endless variety may be collected in great abundance.[1] During the north-east monsoon a formidable surf bursts upon the shore, which is here piled high with mounds of yellow sand; and the remains of shells upon the water mark show how rich the sea is in mollusca. Amongst them are prodigious numbers of the ubiquitous violet-coloured _Ianthina_[2], which rises when the ocean is calm, and by means of its inflated vesicles floats lightly on the surface. [Footnote 1: In one of these beautiful little bays near Catchavelly, between Trincomalie and Batticaloa, I found the sand within the wash of the sea literally covered with mollusca and shells, and amongst others a species of _Bullia_ (B. vittata, I think), the inhabitant of which, has the faculty of mooring itself firmly by sending down its membranous foot into the wet sand, where, imbibing the water, this organ expands horizontally into a broad, fleshy disc, by which the animal anchors itself, and thus secured, collects its food in the ripple of the waves. On the slightest alarm, the water is discharged, the disc collapses into its original dimensions, and the shell and its inhabitant disappear together beneath the sand.] [Illustration: BULLIA VITTATA] [Footnote 2: _Ianthina communis_, Krause and _I. prolongata_, Blainv.] [Illustration: IANTHINA.] The trade in shells is one of extreme antiquity in Ceylon. The Gulf of Manaar has been fished from the earliest times for the large chank shell, _Turbinella_ _rapa_, to be exported to India, where it is still sawn into rings and worn as anklets and bracelets by the women of Hindustan. Another use for these shells is their conversion into wind instruments, which are sounded in the temples on all occasions of ceremony. A chank, in which the whorls, instead of running from left to right, as in the ordinary shell, are reversed, and run from right to left, is regarded with such reverence that a specimen formerly sold for its weight in gold, but one may now be had for four or five pounds. COSMAS INDICO-PLEUSTES, writing in the fifth century, describes a place on the west coast of Ceylon, which he calls Marallo, and says it produced "[Greek: kochlious]," which THEVENOT translates "oysters;" in which case Marallo might be conjectured to be Bentotte, near Colombo, which yields the best edible "oysters" in Ceylon.[1] But the shell in question was most probably the chank, and Marallo was Mantotte, off which it is found in great numbers.[2] In fact, two centuries later Abouzeyd, an Arab, who wrote an account of the trade and productions of India, speaks of these shells by the name they still bear, which he states to be _schenek_[3]; but "schenek" is not an Arabic word, and is merely an attempt to spell the local term, _chank_, in Arabic characters. [Footnote 1: COSMAS INDICO-PLEUSTES, in Thevenot's ed. t i. p. 21.] [Footnote 2: At Kottiar, near Trincomalie, I was struck with the prodigious size of the edible oysters, which were brought to us at the rest-house. The shell of one of these measured a little more than eleven inches in length, by half as many broad: thus unexpectedly attesting the correctness of one of the stories related by the historians of Alexander's expedition, that in India they had found oysters a foot long. PLINY says: "In Indico mari Alexandri rerum auctores pedalia inveniri prodidere."--_Nat. Hist._ lib. xxxii. ch. 31. DARWIN says, that amongst the fossils of Patagonia, he found "a massive gigantic oyster, sometimes even a foot in diameter."--_Nat. Voy._, ch. viii.] [Footnote 3:--ABOUZEYD, _Voyages Arabes,_ &c., t. i. p. 6; REINAUD, _Mémoire sur l'Inde,_ &c p. 222.] BERTOLACCI mentions a curious local peculiarity[1] observed by the fishermen in the natural history of the chank. "All shells," he says, "found to the northward of a line drawn from a point about midway from Manaar to the opposite coast (of India) are of the kind called _patty_, and are distinguished by a short flat head; and all those found to the southward of that line are of the kind called _pajel_, and are known from having a longer and more pointed head than the former. Nor is there ever an instance of deviation from this singular law of nature. The _Wallampory_, or 'right-hand chanks,' are found of both kinds." [Footnote 1: See also the _Asiatic Journal for_ 1827, p. 469.] This tendency of particular localities to re-produce certain specialities of form and colour is not confined to the sea or to the instance of the chank shell. In the gardens which line the suburbs of Galle in the direction of Matura the stems of the coco-nut and jak trees are profusely covered with the shells of the beautiful striped _Helix hamastoma_. Stopping frequently to collect them, I was led to observe that each separate garden seemed to possess a variety almost peculiar to itself; in one the mouth of every individual shell was _red_; in another, separated from the first only by a wall, _black_; and in others (but less frequently) _pure white_; whilst the varieties of external colouring were equally local. In one enclosure they were nearly all red, and in an adjoining one brown.[1] [Footnote 1: DARWIN, in his _Naturalist's Voyage_, mentions a parallel instance of the localised propagation of colours amoungst the cattle which range the pasturage of East Falkland Island: "Round Mount Osborne about half of some of the herds were mouse-coloured, a tint no common anywhere else,--near Mount Pleasant dark-brown prevailed; whereas south of Choiseul Sound white beasts with black heads and feet were common."--Ch. ix. p. 192.] A trade more ancient by far than that carried on in chanks, and infinitely more renowned, is the fishery of pearls on the west coast of Ceylon, bordering the Gulf of Manaar. No scene in Ceylon presents so dreary an aspect as the long sweep of desolate shore to which, from time immemorial, adventurers have resorted from the uttermost ends of the earth in search of the precious pearls for which this gulf is renowned. On approaching it from sea the only perceptible landmark is a building erected by Lord Guildford, as a temporary residence for the Governor, and known by the name of the "Doric," from the style of its architecture. A few coco-nut palms appear next above the low sandy beach, and presently are discovered the scattered houses which form the villages of Aripo and Condatchy. Between these two places, or rather between the Kalaar and Arrive river, the shore is raised to a height of many feet, by enormous mounds of shells, the accumulations of ages, the millions of oysters[1], robbed of their pearls, having been year after year flung into heaps, that extend for a distance of many miles. [Footnote 1: It is almost unnecessary to say that the shell fish which produces the true Oriental pearls is not an oyster, but belongs to the genus Avicula, or more correctly, Meleagrina. It is the _Meleagrina Margaritifera_ of Lamarck.] During the progress of a pearl-fishery, this singular and dreary expanse becomes suddenly enlivened by the crowds who congregate from distant parts of India; a town is improvised by the construction of temporary dwellings, huts of timber and cajans[1], with tents of palm leaves or canvas; and bazaars spring up, to feed the multitude on land, as well as the seamen and divers in the fleets of boats that cover the bay. [Footnote 1: _Cajan_ is the local term for the plaited fronds of a coco-nut.] I visited the pearl banks officially in 1848 in company with Capt. Stenart, the official inspector. My immediate object was to inquire into the causes of the suspension of the fisheries, and to ascertain the probability of reviving a source of revenue, the gross receipts from which had failed for several years to defray the cost of conservancy. In fact, between 1837 and 1854, the pearl banks were an annual charge, instead of producing an annual income, to the colony. The conjecture, hastily adopted, to account for the disappearance of mature shells, had reference to mechanical causes; the received hypothesis being that the young broods had been swept off their accustomed feeding grounds, by the establishment of unusual currents, occasioned by deepening the narrow passage between Ceylon and India at Paumbam. It was also suggested, that a previous Governor, in his eagerness to replenish the colonial treasury, had so "scraped" and impoverished the beds as to exterminate the oysters. To me, neither of these suppositions appeared worthy of acceptance; for, in the frequent disruptions of Adam's Bridge, there was ample evidence that the currents in the Gulf of Manaar had been changed at former times without destroying the pearl beds: and moreover the oysters had disappeared on many former occasions, without any imputation of improper management on the part of the conservators; and returned after much longer intervals of absence than that which fell under my own notice, and which was then creating serious apprehension in the colony. A similar interruption had been experienced between 1820 and 1828: the Dutch had had no fishing for twenty-seven years, from 1768 till 1796[1]; and they had been equally unsuccessful from 1732 till 1746. The Arabs were well acquainted with similar vicissitudes, and Albyronni (a contemporary of Avicenna), who served under Mahmoud of Ghuznee, and wrote in the eleventh century, says that the pearl fishery, which formerly existed in the Gulf of Serendib, had become exhausted in his time, simultaneously with the appearance of a fishery at Sofala, in the country of the Zends, where pearls were unknown before; and hence, he says, arose the conjecture that the pearl oyster of Serendib had migrated to Sofala.[2] [Footnote 1: This suspension was in some degree attributable to disputes with the Nabob of Arcot and other chiefs, and the proprietors of temples on the opposite coast of India, who claimed, a right to participate in the fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar.] [Footnote 2: "Il y avait autrefois dans le Golfe de Serendyb, une pêcherie de perles qui s'est épuiseé de notre temps. D'un autre côté il s'est formé une pêcherie de Sofala dans le pays des Zends, là ou il n'en existait pas auparavant--on dit que c'est la pêcherie de Serendyb qui s'est transportée à Sofala."--ALBYROUNI, _in_ RENAUD'S _Fragmens Arabes, &c_, p. 125; see also REINAUD'S _Mémoire sur l'Inde_, p. 228.] It appeared to me that the explanation of the phenomenon was to be sought, not merely in external causes, but also in the instincts and faculties of the animals themselves, and, on my return to Colombo, I ventured to renew a recommendation, which had been made years before, that a scientific inspector should be appointed to study the habits and the natural history of the pearl-oyster, and that his investigations should be facilitated by the means at the disposal of the Government. Dr. Kelaart was appointed to this office, by Sir H.G. Ward, in 1857, and his researches speedily developed results of great interest. In opposition to the received opinion that the pearl-oyster is incapable of voluntary movement, and unable of itself to quit the place to which it is originally attached[1], he demonstrated, not only that it possesses locomotive powers, but also that their exercise is indispensable to its oeconomy when obliged to search for food, or compelled to escape from local impurities. He showed that, for this purpose, it can sever its byssus, and re-form it at pleasure, so as to migrate and moor itself in favourable situations.[2] The establishment of this important fact may tend to solve the mystery of the occasional disappearances of the oyster; and if coupled with the further discovery that it is susceptible of translation from place to place, and even from salt to brackish water, it seems reasonable to expect that beds may be formed with advantage in positions suitable for its growth and protection. Thus, like the edible oyster of our own shores, the pearl-oyster may be brought within the domain of pisciculture, and banks may be created in suitable places, just as the southern shores of France are now being colonised with oysters, under the direction of M. Coste.[3] The operation of sowing the sea with pearl, should the experiment succeed, would be as gorgeous in reality, as it is grand in conception: and the wealth of Ceylon, in her "treasures of the deep," might eclipse the renown of her gems when she merited the title of the "Island of Rubies." [Footnote 1: STEUART'S _Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon_, p. 27: CORDINER'S _Ceylon, &c_, vol. ii. p. 45.] [Footnote 2: See Dr. KELAART'S Report on the Pearl Oyster in the _Ceylon Calendar for 1858--Appendix_, p. 14.] [Footnote 3: _Rapport de_ M. COSTE, Professeur d'Embryogénie, &c., Paris, 1858.] On my arrival at Aripo, the pearl-divers, under the orders of their Adapanaar, put to sea, and commenced the examination of the banks.[1] The persons engaged in this calling are chiefly Tamils and Moors, who are trained for the service by diving for chanks. The pieces of apparatus employed to assist the diver in his operations are exceedingly simple in their character: they consist merely of a stone, about thirty pounds' weight, (to accelerate the rapidity of his descent,) which is suspended over the side of the boat, with a loop attached to it for receiving the foot; and of a net-work basket, which he takes down to the bottom and fills with the oysters as he collects them. MASSOUDI, one of the earliest Arabian geographers, describing, in the ninth century, the habits of the pearl-divers in the Persian Gulf, says that, before descending, each filled his ears with cotton steeped in oil, and compressed his nostrils by a piece of tortoise-shell.[2] This practice continues there to the present day[3]; but the diver of Ceylon rejects all such expedients; he inserts his foot in the "sinking stone" and inhales a full breath; presses his nostrils with his left hand; raises his body as high as possible above water, to give force to his descent: and, liberating the stone from its fastenings, he sinks rapidly below the surface. As soon as he has reached the bottom, the stone is drawn up, and the diver, throwing himself on his face, commences with alacrity to fill his basket with oysters. This, on a concerted signal, is hauled rapidly to the surface; the diver assisting his own ascent by springing on the rope as it rises. [Footnote 1: Detailed accounts of the pearl fishery of Ceylon and the conduct of the divers, will be found in PERCIVAL's _Ceylon_, ch. iii.: and in CORDINER'S _Ceylon_, vol. ii. ch. xvi. There is also a valuable paper on the same subject by Mr. LE BECK, in the _Asiatic Researches_, vol. v. p. 993; but by far the most able and intelligent description is contained in the _Account of the Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon_, by JAMES STEUART, Esq., Inspector of the Pearl Banks, 4to. Colombo, 1843.] [Footnote 2: MASSOUDI says that the Persian divers, as they could not breathe through their nostrils, _cleft the root of the ear_ for that purpose: "_Ils se fendaient la racine de l'oreille pour respirer_; en effet, ils ne peuvent se servir pour cet objet des narines, vu qu'ils se les bouchent avec des morceaux d'écailles de tortue marine on bien avec des morceaux de corne ayant la forme d'un fer de lance. En même temps ils se mettent dans l'oreille du coton trempé dans de l'huile."--_Moroudj-al-Dzeheb,_ &c., REINAUD, _Mémoire sur l'Inde,_ p. 228.] [Footnote 3: Colonel WILSON says they compress the nose with horn, and close the ears with beeswax. See _Memorandum on the Pearl Fisheries in Persian Gulf.--Journ. Geogr. Soc._ 1833, vol. iii. p. 283.] Improbable tales have been told of the capacity which these men acquire of remaining for prolonged periods under water. The divers who attended on this occasion were amongst the most expert on the coast, yet not one of them was able to complete a full minute below. Captain Steuart, who filled for many years the office of Inspector of the Pearl Banks, assured me that he had never known a diver to continue at the bottom longer than eighty-seven seconds, nor to attain a greater depth than thirteen fathoms; and on ordinary occasions they seldom exceeded fifty-five seconds in nine fathom water[1]. [Footnote 1: RIBEYRO says that a diver could remain below whilst two _credos_ were being repeated: "Il s'y tient l'espace de deux _credo_."--Lib. i. ch. xxii. p. 169. PERCIVAL says the usual time for them to be under water was two minutes, but that some divers stayed _four_ or _five_, and one _six_ minutes,--_Ceylon_ p. 91; LE BECK says that in 1797 he saw a Caffre boy from Karical remain down for the space of seven minutes.--_Asiat. Res_ vol. v. p. 402.] The only precaution to which the Ceylon diver devotedly resorts, is the mystic ceremony of the shark-charmer, whose exorcism is an indispensable preliminary to every fishery. His power is believed to be hereditary; nor is it supposed that the value of his incantations is at all dependent upon the religious faith professed by the operator, for the present head of the family happens to be a Roman Catholic. At the time of our visit this mysterious functionary was ill and unable to attend; but he sent an accredited substitute, who assured me that although he himself was ignorant of the grand and mystic secret, the mere fact of his presence, as a representative of the higher authority, would be recognised and respected by the sharks. Strange to say, though the Gulf of Manaar abounds with these hideous creatures, not more than one well authenticated accident[1] is known to have occurred from this source during any pearl fishery since the British have had possession of Ceylon. In all probability the reason is that the sharks are alarmed by the unusual number of boats, the multitude of divers, the noise of the crews, the incessant plunging of the sinking stones, and the descent and ascent of the baskets filled with shells. The dark colour of the divers themselves may also be a protection; whiter skins might not experience an equal impunity. Massoudi relates that the divers of the Persian Gulf were so conscious of this advantage of colour, that they were accustomed to blacken their limbs, in order to baffle the sea monsters.[2] [Footnote 1: CORDINER'S _Ceylon_, vol. ii p. 52.] [Footnote 2: "Ils s'enduisaient les pieds et les jambes d'une substance noirâtre, atin de faire peur aux monstres marins, que, sans cela, seraient tentés de les dévorer."--_Moroudj-al-Dzekeb,_ REINAUD, _Mém. sur l'Inde_, p. 228.] The result of our examination of the pearl banks, on this occasion, was such as to discourage the hope of an early fishery. The oysters in point of number were abundant, but in size they were little more than "spat," the largest being barely a fourth of an inch in diameter. As at least seven years are required to furnish the growth at which pearls may be sought with advantage[1], the inspection served only to suggest the prospect (which has since been realised) that in time the income from this source might be expected to revive;--and, forced to content ourselves with this anticipation, we weighed anchor from Condatchy, on the 30th March, and arrived on the following day at Colombo. [Footnote 1: Along with this two plates are given from drawings made for the Official Inspector, and exhibiting the ascertained size of the pearl oyster at every period of its growth, from the "spat" to the mature shell. The young "brood" are shown at Nos. 1 and 2. The shell at four months old, No. 3, No. 4. six months, No. 5. one year, No. 6, two years. The second plate exhibits the shell at its full growth.] The banks of Aripo are not the only localities, nor is the _acicula_ the only mollusc, by which pearls are furnished. The Bay of Tamblegam, connected with the magnificent harbour of Trincomalie, is the seat of another pearl fishery, and the shell which produces them is the thin transparent oyster (_Placuna placenta_). whose clear white shells are used, in China and elsewhere, as a substitute for window glass. They are also collected annually for the sake of the diminutive pearls contained in them. These are exported to the coast of India, to be calcined for lime, which the luxurious affect to chew with their betel. These pearls are also burned in the mouths of the dead. So prolific are the mollusca of the _Placuna_, that the quantity of shells taken by the licensed renter in the three years prior to 1858, could not have been less than eighteen millions.[1] They delight in brackish water, and on more than one recent occasion, an excess of either salt water or fresh has proved fatal to great numbers of them. [Footnote 1: _Report of_ Dr. KELAART, Oct. 1857.] [Illustration: PEARL OYSTER. 1, 2. The young brood or spat. 3. Four months old. 4. Six months old. 5. One year old. 6. Two years old.] [Illustration: THE PEARL OYSTER. Full Growth.] On the occasion of a visit which I made to Batticaloa. in September, 1848, I made some inquiries relative to a story which had reached me of musical sounds, said to be often heard issuing from the bottom of the lake, at several places, both above and below the ferry opposite the old Dutch Fort; and which the natives suppose to proceed from some fish peculiar to the locality. The report was confirmed in all its particulars, and one of the spots whence the sounds proceed was pointed out between the pier and a rock that intersects the channel, two or three hundred yards to the eastward. They were said to be heard at night, and most distinctly when the moon was nearest the full, and they were described as resembling the faint sweet notes of an Æolian harp. I sent for some of the fishermen, who said they were perfectly aware of the fact, and that their fathers had always known of the existence of the musical sounds, heard, they said, at the spot alluded to, but only during the dry season, as they cease when the lake is swollen by the freshes after the rain. They believed them to proceed not from a fish, but from a shell, which is known by the Tamil name of (_oorie cooleeroo cradoo_, or) the "crying shell," a name in which the sound seems to have been adopted as an echo to the sense. I sent them in search of the shell, and they returned bringing me some living specimens of different shells, chiefly _littorina_ and _cerithium._[1] [Illustration: CERITHIUM PALUSTRE.] [Footnote 1: _Littorina lævis. Cerithium palustre._ Of the latter the specimens brought to me were dwarfed and solid, exhibiting in this particular the usual peculiarities that distinguish (1) shells inhabiting a rocky locality from (2) their congeners in a sandy bottom. Their longitudinal development was less, with greater breadth, and increased strength and weight.] In the evening when the moon rose, I took a boat and accompanied the fishermen to the spot. We rowed about two hundred yards north-east of the jetty by the fort gate; there was not a breath of wind, nor a ripple except those caused by the dip of our oars. On coming to the point mentioned, I distinctly heard the sounds in question. They came up from the water like the gentle thrills of a musical chord, or the faint vibrations of a wine-glass when its rim is rubbed by a moistened finger. It was not one sustained note, but a multitude of tiny, sounds, each clear and distinct in itself; the sweetest treble mingling with the lowest bass. On applying the ear to the woodwork of the boat, the vibration was greatly increased in volume. The sounds varied considerably at different points, as we moved across the lake, as if the number of the animals from which they proceeded was greatest in particular spots; and occasionally we rowed out of hearing of them altogether, until on returning to the original locality the sounds were at once renewed. This fact seems to indicate that the causes of the sounds, whatever they may be, are stationary at several points; and this agrees with the statement of the natives, that they are produced by mollusca, and not by fish. They came evidently and sensibly from the depth of the lake, and there was nothing in the surrounding circumstances to support the conjecture that they could be the reverberation of noises made by insects on the shore conveyed along the surface of the water; for they were loudest and most distinct at points where the nature of the land, and the intervention of the fort and its buildings, forbade the possibility of this kind of conduction. Sounds somewhat similar are heard under water at some places on the western coast of India, especially in the harbour of Bombay.[1] At Caldera, in Chili, musical cadences are stated to issue from the sea near the landing-place; they are described as rising and falling fully four notes, resembling the tones of harp strings, and mingling like those at Batticaloa, till they produce a musical discord of great delicacy and sweetness. The same interesting phenomenon has been observed at the mouth of the Pascagoula, in the State of Mississippi, and of another river called the "Bayou coq del Inde," on the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico. The animals from which they proceed have not been identified at either of these places, and the mystery remains unsolved, whether the sounds at Batticaloa are given forth by fishes or by molluscs. [Footnote 1: These sounds are thus described by Dr. BUIST in the _Bombay Times_ of January 1847: "A party lately crossing from the promontory in Salsette called the 'Neat's Tongue,' to near Sewree, were, about sunset, struck by hearing long distinct sounds like the protracted booming of a distant bell, the dying cadence of an Æolian harp, the note of a pitchpipe or pitch-fork, or any other long-drawn-out musical note. It was, at first, supposed to be music from Parell floating at intervals on the breeze; then it was perceived to come from all directions, almost in equal strength, and to arise from the surface of the water all around the vessel. The boatmen at once intimated that the sounds were produced by fish, abounding in the muddy creeks and shoals around Bombay and Salsette; they were perfectly well known, and very often heard. Accordingly, on inclining the ear towards the surface of the water; or, better still, by placing it close to the planks of the vessel, the notes appeared loud and distinct, and followed each other in constant succession. The boatmen next day produced specimens of the fish--a creature closely resembling, in size and shape the fresh-water perch of the north of Europe--and spoke of them as plentiful and perfectly well known. It is hoped they may be procured alive, and the means afforded of determining how the musical sounds are produced and emitted, with other particulars of interest supposed new in Ichthyology. We shall be thankful to receive from our readers any information they can give us in regard to a phenomenon which does not appear to have been heretofore noticed, and which cannot fail to attract the attention of the naturalist. Of the perfect accuracy with which the singular facts above related have been given, no doubt will be entertained when it is mentioned that the writer was one of a party of five intelligent persons, by all of whom they were most carefully observed, and the impressions of all of whom in regard to them were uniform. It is supposed that the fish are confined to particular localities--shallows, estuaries, and muddy creeks, rarely visited by Europeans; and that this is the reason why hitherto no mention, so far as we know, has been made of the peculiarity in any work on Natural History." This communication elicited one from Vizagapatam, relative to "musical sounds like the prolonged notes on the harp" heard to proceed from under water at that station. It appeared in the _Bombay Times_ of Feb. 13, 1849.] Certain fishes are known to utter sounds when removed from the water[1], and some are capable of making noises when under it[2]; but all the circumstances connected with the sounds which I heard at Batticaloa are unfavourable to the conjecture that they were produced by either. [Footnote 1: The Cuckoo Gurnard (_Triglia cuculus_) and the maigre (_Sciæna aquila_) utter sounds when taken out of the water (YARRELL, vol. i. p. 44, 107); and herrings when the net has just been drawn have been observed to do the same. This effect has been attributed to the escape of air from the air bladder, but no air bladder has been found in the _Cottus_, which makes a similar noise.] [Footnote 2: The fishermen assert that a fish about five inches in length, found in the lake at Colombo, and called by them "_magoora_," makes a grunt when disturbed under water. PALLEGOIX, in his account of Siam, speaks of a fish resembling a sole, but of brilliant colouring with black spots, which the natives call the "dog's tongue," that attaches itself to the bottom of a boat, "et fait entendre un bruit très-sonore et même harmonieux."--Tom. i. p. 194. A _Silurus_, found in the Rio Parana, and called the "armado," is remarkable for making a harsh grating noise when caught by hook or line, which can be distinctly heard when the fish is beneath the water. DARWIN, _Nat. Journ._ ch. vii. Aristotle and Ælian were aware of the existence of this faculty in some of the fishes of the Mediterranean. ARISTOTLE, _De Anim_., lib. iv. ch. ix.; ÆLIAN, _De Nat. Anim._, lib. x. ch. xi.; see also PLINY, lib. ix. ch. vii.. lib. xi. ch. cxiii.; ATHENÆUS, lib. vii. ch. iii. vi. I have heard of sounds produced under water at Baltimore, and supposed to be produced by the "cat-fish;" and at Swan River in Australia, where they are ascribed to the "trumpeter." A similar noise heard in the Tagus is attributed by the Lisbon fishermen to the "_Corvina_"--but what fish is meant by that name, I am unable to tell.] Organs of hearing have been clearly ascertained to exist, mot only in fishes[1], but in mollusca. In the oyster the presence of an acoustic apparatus of the simplest possible construction has been established by the discoveries of Siebold[2], and from our knowledge of the reciprocal relations existing between the faculties of hearing and of producing sounds, the ascertained existence of the one affords legitimate grounds for inferring the coexistence of the other in animals of the same class.[3] [Footnote 1: AGASSIZ, _Comparative Physiology_, sec. ii. 158.] [Footnote 2: It consists of two round vesicles containing fluid, and crystalline or elliptical calcareous particles or otolites, remarkable for their oscillatory action in the living or recently killed animal. OWEN'S _Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals_, 1855, p. 511-552.] [Footnote 3: I am informed that Professor MÜLLER read a paper on "Musical fishes" before the Academy of Berlin, in 1856. It will probably be found in the volume of MÜLLER'S _Archiv. für Physiologie_ for that year; but I have not had an opportunity of reading it.] Besides, it has been clearly established, that one at least of the gasteropoda is furnished with the power of producing sounds. Dr. Grant, in 1826, communicated to the Edinburgh Philosophical Society the fact, that on placing some specimens of the _Tritonia arborescens_ in a glass vessel filled with sea water, his attention was attracted by a noise which he ascertained to proceed from these mollusca. It resembled the "clink" of a steel wire on the side of the jar, one stroke only being given at a time, and repeated at short intervals.[1] [Footnote 1: _Edinburgh Philosophical Journ_., vol. xiv. p. 188. See also the Appendix to this chapter.] The affinity of structure between the _Tritonia_ and the mollusca inhabiting the shells brought to me at Batticaloa, might justify the belief of the natives of Ceylon, that the latter are the authors of the sounds I heard; and the description of those emitted by the former as given by Dr. Grant, so nearly resemble them, that I have always regretted my inability, on the occasion of my visits to Batticaloa, to investigate the subject more narrowly. At subsequent periods I have since renewed my efforts, but without success, to obtain specimens or observations of the habits of the living mollusca. The only species afterwards sent to me were _Cerithia_; but no vigilance sufficed to catch the desired sounds, and I still hesitate to accept the dictum of the fishermen, as the same mollusc abounds in all the other brackish estuaries on the coast; and it would be singular, if true, that the phenomenon of its uttering a musical note should be confined to a single spot in the lagoon of Batticaloa.[1] [Footnote 1: The letter which I received from Dr. Grant on this subject, I have placed in a note to the present chapter, in the hope that it may stimulate some other inquirer in Ceylon to prosecute the investigation which I was unable to carry out successfully.] Although naturalists have long been familiar with the marine testacea of Ceylon, no successful attempt has yet been made to form a classified catalogue of the species; and I am indebted to the eminent conchologist, Mr. Sylvanus Hanley, for the list which accompanies this notice. In drawing it up, Mr. Hanley observes that he found it a task of more difficulty than would at first be surmised, owing to the almost total absence of reliable data from which to construct it. Three sources were available: collections formed by resident naturalists, the contents of the well-known satin-wood boxes prepared at Trincomalie, and the laborious elimination of locality from the habitats ascribed to all the known species in the multitude of works on conchology in general. But, unfortunately, the first resource proved fallacious. There is no large collection in this country composed exclusively of Ceylon shells;--and as the very few cabinets rich in the marine treasures of the island have been filled as much by purchase as by personal exertion, there is an absence of the requisite confidence that all professing to be Singhalese have been actually captured in the island and its waters. The cabinets arranged by the native dealers, though professing to contain the productions of Ceylon, include shells which have been obtained from other islands in the Indian seas; and the information contained in books, probably from these very circumstances, is either obscure or deceptive. The old writers content themselves with assigning to any particular shell the too-comprehensive habitat of "the Indian Ocean," and seldom discriminate between a specimen from Ceylon and one from the Eastern Archipelago or Hindustan. In a very few instances, Ceylon has been indicated with precision as the habitat of particular shells, but even here the views of specific essentials adopted by modern conchologists, and the subdivisions established in consequence, leave us in doubt for which of the described forms the collective locality should be retained. Valuable notices of Ceylon shells are to be found in detached papers, in periodicals, and in the scientific surveys of exploring voyages. The authentic facts embodied in the monographs of REEVE, KUSTER, SOWERBY, and KIENER, have greatly enlarged our knowledge of the marine testacea; and the land and fresh-water mollusca have been similarly illustrated by the contributions of BENSON and LAYARD to the _Annals of Natural History_. The dredge has been used, but only in a few insulated spots along the coasts of Ceylon; European explorers have been rare; and the natives, anxious only to secure the showy and saleable shells of the sea, have neglected the less attractive ones of the land and the lakes. Hence Mr. Hanley finds it necessary to premise that the list appended, although the result of infinite labour and research, is less satisfactory than could have been wished. "It is offered," he says, "with diffidence, not pretending to the merit of completeness as a shell-fauna of the island, but rather as a form, which the zeal of other collectors may hereafter elaborate and fill up." Looking at the little that has yet been done, compared with the vast and almost untried field which invites explorers, an assiduous collector may quadruple the species hitherto described. The minute shells especially may be said to be unknown; a vigilant examination of the corals and excrescences upon the spondyli and pearl-oysters would signally increase our knowledge of the Rissoæ, Chemnitziæ, and other perforating testacea, whilst the dredge from the deep water will astonish the amateur by the wholly new forms it can scarcely fail to display. * * * * * _List of Ceylon Shells._ The arrangement here adopted is a modified Lamarckian one, very similar to that used by Reeve and Sowerby, and by Mr. HANLEY, in his _Illustrated Catalogue of Recent Shells_.[1] [Footnote 1: Below will be found a general reference to the Works or Papers in which are given descriptive notices of the shells contained in the following list; the names of the authors (in full or abbreviated) being, as usual, annexed to each species. ADAMS, _Proceed. Zool. Soc._ 1853, 54, 56; _Thesaur. Conch._ ALBERS, _Zeitsch. Malakoz._ 1853. ANTON, _Wiegm. Arch. Nat._ 1837; _Verzeichn. Conch_. BECK in _Pfeiffer, Symbol. Helic._ BENSON, _Ann. Nat. Hist._ vii. 1851; xii. 1853, xviii, 1856. BLAINVILLE, _Dict. Sc. Nat.; Nouv. Ann. Mus. His. Nat._ i. BOLTEN, _Mus._ BORN, _Test. Mus. Cæcs. Vind._ BRODERIP, _Zool. Journ._ i. iii. BRUGUIERE, _Encyc. Méthod. Vers._ CARPENTER, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1856. CHEMNITZ, _Conch. Cab._ CHENU, _Illus. Conch._ DESHAYES. _Encyc. Méth. Vers.; Mag. Zool. 1831; Voy. Belanger; Edit. Lam. An. s. Vert.; Proceed. Zool. Soc._ 1853, 54, 55. DILLWYN. _Deser. Cat. Shells._ DOHRN, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1857, 58; _Malak. Blätter; Land and Fluviatile Shells of Ceylon._ DUCLOS, _Monog. of Oliva._ FABRICIUS, _in Pfeiffer Monog. Helic.; in Dohrn's MSS._ FÉRUSSAC, _Hist. Mollusques._ FORSKAL, _Anim. Orient._ GMELIN, _Syst. Nat._ GRAY, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1834, 52; _Index Testaceologicus Suppl.; Spicilegia Zool.; Zool. Journ._ i.; _Zool. Beechey Voy._ GRATELOUP, _Act. Linn. Bordeaux,_ xi. GUERIN, _Rev. Zool._ 1847. HANLEY, _Thesaur. Conch,_ i.; _Recent Bivalves; Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1858. HINDS, _Zool. Voy. Sulphur; Proc. Zool. Soc._ HUTTON, _Journ. As. Soc._ KARSTEN, _Mus. Lesk._ KIENER, _Coquilles Vivantes._ KRAUSS, _Sud-Afrik Mollusk._ LAMARCK, _An. sans Vertéb._ LAYARD, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1854. LEA, _Proceed. Zool. Soc._ 1850. LINNÆUS, _Syst. Nat._ MARTINI, _Conch. Cab._ MAWE. _Introd. Linn. Conch.; Index Test. Suppl._ MEUSCHEN, in _Gronor. Zoophylac._ MENKE, _Synop. Mollus._ MULLER, _Hist. Verm. Terrest._ PETIT, _Pro. Zool. Soc._ 1842. PFEIFFER, _Monog. Helic.: Monog. Pneumon.; Proceed. Zool. Soc._ 1852, 53, 54, 55. 56; _Zeitschr. Malacoz._ 1853. PHILIPPI, _Zeitsch. Mal._ 1846, 47: _Abbild. Neuer Conch._ POTIEZ et MICHAUD. _Galeric Douai._ RANG, _Mag. Zool._ ser. i. p. 100. RÉCLUZ, _Proceed. Zool. Soc._ 1845; _Revue Zool. Cur._ 1841: _Mag. Conch._ REEVE, _Conch. Icon.; Proc. Zool. Soc_: 1842, 52. SCHUMACHER. _Syst._ SHUTTLEWORTH. SOLANDER. in _Dillwyn's Desc. Cat. Shells;_ SOWERBY, _Genera Shells; Species Conch.; Conch. Misc.; Thesaur. Conch.; Conch. Illus.; Proc. Zool. Soc.; App. to Tankerrille Cat._ SPENGLER, _Skrivt. Nat. Selsk. Kiobenhav._ 1792. SWAINSON, _Zool. Illust._ ser. ii. TEMPLETON, _Ann. Nat. Hist._ 1858. TROSCHEL, in _Pfeiffer, Mon. Pneum; Zeitschr. Malak._ 1847; _Wiegm. Arch. Nat._ 1837. WOOD, _General Conch_.] Aspergillum Javanum. _Brug._ Enc. Mét. sparsum, _Sowerby_, Gen. Shells.[1] clavatum, _Chenu,_ lllust. Conch. Teredo nucivorus. _Sp_ Skr. Nat. Sels.[2] Solen truncatus. _Wood_, Gen. Couch. linearis, _Wood_, Gen. Conch. cultellus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. radiatus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Anatina subrostrata, _Lam._ Ani. s. Vert. Anatinella Nicobarica, _Gm._ Syst. Nat. Lutraria Egyptiaca, _Chemn._ Couch. Cab. Blainvillea vitrea, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab.[3] Scrobicularia angulata. _Chem._ Con. Cab.[4] Mactra complanata, _Desh._ Proc. Zl. Soc.[5] tumida, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. antiquata, _Reeve_ (as of _Spengl._), C. Icon. cygnea, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. Corbiculoides, _Deshayes_, Pr. Zl. S. 1854. Mesodesma Layardi, _Deshayes_, Pr. Zool. Soc. 1854. striata, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab.[6] Cras-atella rostrata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. sulcata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Amphidesma duplicatum, _Sowerby_. Species Conch. Pandora Ceylanica, _Sowerby_, Couch. Mis. Galeomma Layardi. _Desh._ Pr. Zl. S. 1856. Kellia peculiaris, _Adams_, Pr. Zl. S. 1856. Petricola cultellus, _Desh._ Pr. Zl. S. 1853. Sangumoiaria rosea, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Psammobia rostrata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. orcidens, _Gm._ Systems Naturæ. Skinneri, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon.[7] Layardi, _Desh_. P.Z. Soc. 1854. [Footnote 1: A. dichotomum, _Chenu._] [Footnote 2: Fistulana gregata, _Lam._] [Footnote 3: Blainvillea, _Hupé._] [Footnote 4: Latraria tellinoides, _Lam._] [Footnote 5: I have also seen M. hians of Philippi in a Ceylon collection.] [Footnote 6: M. Taprobanensis, _Index Test. Suppl._] [Footnote 7: Psammotella Skinneri, _Reeve._] lunulata, _Desh_. P.Z. Soc. 1854. amethystus, _Wood_, Gen. Conch.[1] rugosa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert.[2] Tellina virgata, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[3] rugosa, _Born_, Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. ostracea, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. ala, _Hanley_, Thesaur. Conch. i. inæqualis, _Hanley_, Thesaur. Conch. i. Layardi, _Deshayes_, P.Z. Soc. 1854. callosa, _Deshayes_, P.Z. Soc. 1854. rubra, _Deshayes_, P.Z. Soc. 1854. abbreviata, _Deshayes_, P.Z. Soc. 1854. foliacea, _Linn._ Systema Naturæ. lingua-felis, _Linn._ Systema Naturæ. vulsella, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab.[4] Lucina interrupta, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert.[5] Layardi, _Deshayes_, Pr. Zool. Soc. 1855. Donax scortum, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. cuneata, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. faba, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. spinosa, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. paxillus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Cyrena Ceylanica, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. Tennentii, _Hanley_, P.Z. Soc. 1858. Cytherea Erycina, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[6] meretrix, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[7] castanea, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. castrensis, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. casta, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. costata, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. læta, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. trimaculata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Hebræa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. rugifera, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. scripta, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. gibbia, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Meroe, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. testudinalis, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. seminuda, _Anton_. Wiegm. A. Nat. 1837.[8] Venus reticulata, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[9] pinguis, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. recens, _Philippi_, Abbild. Neuer Conch. thiara, _Dillw_. Descriptive Cat. Shells. Malabarica, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. Bruguieri, _Hanley_, Recent Bivalves. papilionacea, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Indica, _Sowerby_, Thesaur. Conch. ii. inflata, _Deshayes_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853.[10] Ceylonensis, _Sowerby_, Thes. Conch. ii. literata, _Linn._ Systema Naturæ. textrix, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab.[11] Cardium unedo, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. maculosum, _Wood_, Gen. Con. leucostomum, _Born_, Tt. M. Cæs. Vind. rugosum, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. biradiatum, _Bruguiere_, En. Méth. Vers. attenuatum, _Sowerby_, Conch. Illust. enode, _Sowerby_, Conch. Illust. papyraceum, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. ringiculum, _Sowerby_, Conch. Illust. subrugosum, _Sowerby_, Conch. Illust. latum, _Born_, Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. Asiaticum, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. Cardita variegata, _Brug_. Enc. Méth. Vers. bicolor, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Arca rhombea, _Born_, Test. Mus. vellicata, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. cruciata, _Philippi_, Ab. Neur Conch. decussata, _Reeve_ (as of Sowerby), C.I.[12] scapha, _Meuschen_, in Gronov. Zoo. Pectunculus nodosus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. pectiniformis, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Nucula mitralis, _Hinds_, Zool. voy. Sul. Layardi, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. Mauritii (_Hanley_ as of _Hinds_), Rec. Biv. Unio corrugatus, _Müller_, Hist. Verm. Ter.[13] marginalis, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Lithodomus cinnamoneus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Mytilus viridis, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[14] bilocularis, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Pinna inflata, _Chamn_. Conch. Cab. cancellata, _Mawe_, Intr. Lin. Conch. Malleus vulgaris, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. albus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Meleagrina margaritifera, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. vexillum, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon.[15] Avicula macroptera, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Lima squamosa, _Linn._ Anim. s. Vert. Pecten plica, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. radula, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. pleuronectes, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. pallium, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. senator, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. histrionicus, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. Indicus, _Deshayes_, Voyage Belanger. Layardi, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Spondylus Layardi, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. candidus, _Reeve_ (as of _Lam._) C. Icon. Ostrea hyotis, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. glaucina, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Mytiloides, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. cucullata? var., _Born_, Test. M. Vind.[16] Vulsella Pholadiformis, _Reeve_, C. Icn. (immat.) Placuna placenta, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Lingula anatina, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. [Footnote 1: P. cærulesens, _Lam._] [Footnote 2: Sanguinolaria rugosa, _Lam._] [Footnote 3: T. striatula of Lamarck is also supposed to be indigenous to Ceylon.] [Footnote 4: T. rostrata, _Lam._] [Footnote 5: L. divaricata is found, also, in mixed Ceylon collections.] [Footnote 6: C. dispar of Chemnitz is occasionally found in Ceylon collections.] [Footnote 7: C. impudica. _Lam._] [Footnote 8: As Donax.] [Footnote 9: V. corbis, _Lam._] [Footnote 10: As Tapes.] [Footnote 11: V. textile, _Lam._] [Footnote 12:?Arca Helblingii, _Chemn._] [Footnote 13: Mr. Cuming informs me that he has forwarded no less than six distinct _Uniones_ from Ceylon to Isaac Lea, of Philadelphia, for determination or description.] [Footnote 14: M. smaragdinus, _Chemn._] [Footnote 15: As Avicula.] [Footnote 16: The specimens are not in a fitting state for positive determination. They are strong, extremely narrow, with the beak of the lower valve much produced, and the inner edge of the upper valve denticulated throughout. The muscular impressions are dusky brown.] Hyalæa tridentata, _For_. Anim. Orient.[1] Chiton, 2 species (_Layard_). Patella Reynaudii, _Deshayes_, Voy. Be. testodinaria, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Emarginula fissurata, _Ch_. C. Cab.[2] _Lam._ Calyptræa (Crucibulum) violascens, _Carpenter_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. Dentalium octogonum, _Lam_ Anim. s. Vert. aprinum. _Linn_ Syst. Nat. Bulla soluta, _Chemn_ Conch. Cab.[3] vexillum, _Chemn_ Conch. Cab. Bruguieri, _Adams_, Thes. Conch. elongata, _Adams_, Thes. Conch. ampulla, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Lamellaria (as Marsenia Indica, _Leach_. in Brit. Mus.) allied to L. Mauritiana, if not it. Vaginula maculata, _Templ._ An. Nat. Lunax, 2 sp. Parmacella Tennentii, _Templ._[4] Vitrina irradians, _Pfeiffer_, Mon. Helic. Edgariana, _Ben._ Ann. N.H. 1853 (xii.) membranacea, _Ben._ A.N.H. 1853 (xii.) Helix hæmastoma, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. vittata, _Müller_, Vermium Terrestrium. bistrialis, _Beck_, in Pfeiff. Symb. Helic. Tranquebarica, _Fabricius_, in _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Juliana, _Gray_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1834. Waltoni, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1842. Skinneri. _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. vii. corylus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. vii. umbrina (_Reeve_, as of _Pfeiff._.), C. Ic. vii. fallaciosa. _Férussac_, Hist. Mollus. Rivolii, _Deshayes_. Enc. Méth. Vers. ii. Charpentieri, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. erronea, _Albers. Zeitschr_. Mal. 18S3. carneola, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. convexiuscula, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. gnoma, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Chenui, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. semidecussata, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. phoenix, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. superba, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Gardnerii, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. coriaria, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Layardi, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. concavospira, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. novella, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. verrucula, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. hyphasma, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Emiliana, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Woodiana, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. partita, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. biciliata, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Isabellina, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. trifilosa, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. politissima, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Sc. 1854. Thwaitesii, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. nepos, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1855. subopaca, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853. subconoidea, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. S. 18S4. ceraria, _Benson_, An. Nat. H. 1853 (xii.) vilipensa, _Benson_, An. N.H. 1853 (xii.) perfucata, _Benson_, A.N.H. 1853 (xii.) puteolus, _Benson_, An. N.H. 1853 (xii.) mononema, _Benson_, A.N.H. 1853 (xii.) marcida, _Benson_, An. N.H. 1853 (xii.) galerus, _Benson_, A.N.H. 1856 (xviii.) albizonata. _Dohrn_, Proc. Zoo. Soc. 1858. Nictneri, _Dohrn_, MS.[5] Grevillei, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. Streptaxis Layardi, _Pfeiff._ Mon. Helic. Cingalensis, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Helic. Pupa muscerda, _Benson_, A.N.H. 1853 (xii.) mimula, _Benson_, A.N.H. 1856 (xviii.) Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Bulimus trifasciatus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. pullus, _Gray._ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1834. gracilis, _Hutton_, Journ. Asiat. Soc. iii. punctatus, _Anton_, Verzeichn. Conch. Ceylanicus, _Pfeiff_. (?Blævis, _iGray_, in Index Testaceologicus.) adumbratus, _Pfieff_. Monog. Helic. intermedius, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. proletarius, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. albizonatus. _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Mavortius, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. luscoventris, _Ben_. A.N.H. 1856 (xviii.) rufopictus, _Ben_. A.N.H. 1856 (xviii.) panos, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. H. 1853 (xii.) Achatina nitens, _Gray_, Spicilegia Zool. inornata, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. capillacea, _Pfeiff_ Monog. Helic. Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_ Monog. Helic. Punctogaliana. _Pfeiff_ Monog. Helic. pachycheila, _Benson_ veruina, _Bens_, A. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) parabilis, _Bens_, A.N. Hist. 1856 (xviii.) Succinea Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_ Monog. Helic. Auricula Ceylanica, _Adams._ Pr. Zool. Soc. 1854.[6] Ceylanica, _Petit_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1842.[7] Layardi, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854.[8] pellucens, _Menke_, Synopsis Moll. Pythia Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_. Zeits. Malacoz. 1853. ovata, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. Truncatella Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. Cyclostoma (_Cyclophorus_) Ceylanicum, _Sowerby_, Thes. Conch. involvulum, _Müller_, Verm. Terrest. Menkeanum, _Philippi_, Zeit. Mal. 1847. punctatum, _Gratel_. A.L. Bordeaux (xi.) loxostoma, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneumon. [Footnote 1: As Anomia.] [Footnote 2: The fissurata of Humphreys and Dacosta, pl. 4.--E. rubra, _Lamarck_.] [Footnote 3: B. Ceylanica, _Brug_.] [Footnote 4: P. Tennentii. "Greyish brown, with longitudinal rows of rufous spots, forming interrupted bands along the sides. A singularly handsome species, having similar habits to _Limax_. Found in the valleys of the Kalany Ganga, near Ruanwellé."--_Templeton_ MSS.] [Footnote 5: Not far from bistrialis and Ceylanica. The manuscript species of Mr. Dohrn will shortly appear in his intended work upon the land and fluviatile shells of Ceylon.] [Footnote 6: As Ellobium.] [Footnote 7: As Melampus.] [Footnote 8: As Ophicardelis.] alabastrum, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Pneumon. Bairdii, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Pneumon. Thwaitesii, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Pneumon. annulatum, _Trosch._ in Pfeiff. M. Pneum. parapsis, _Bens._ An. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) parma, _Bens._ An. Nat. His. 1856 (xviii.) cratera, _Bens._ An. N. Hist. 1856 (xviii.) (_Leptopoma_) halophilum, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. (ser. 2 vii.) 1851. orophilum, _Bens._ A.N.H. (ser. 2. xi.) apicatum, _Bens._ A.N.H. 1856 (xviii.) conulus, _Pfeiff._ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. flammeum, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Pneumon. semiclausum, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Pneumon. poecilum, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Pneumon. elatum, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Pneumon. Cyclostoma (_Aulopoma_). Iteri, _Guérin_, Rev. Zool. 1847. helicinum, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. Hoffmeisteri, _Troschel_, Zeit. Mat. 1847. grande, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Pneumon. spheroideum, _Dohrn_, Malak. Blätter. (?) gradatum, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Pneumon. Cyclostoma (_Pterocyclos_). Cingalense, _Bens._ A.N.H. (ser. 2. xi.) Troscheli, _Bens._ Ann. Nat. Hist. 1851. Cumingii, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Pneumon. bifrons, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Pneumon. Cataulus Templemani, _Pfeiff._ Mon. Pneu. eurytrema, _Pfeiff._ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. marginatus, _Pfeiff._ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853. duplicatus, _Pfeiff._ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. aureus, _Pfeiff._ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1855. Layardi, _Gray_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. Austenianus _Bens._ A.N.H. 1853 (xii.) Thwaitesii, _Pfeiff._ Proc. Zo. Soc. 1852. Cumingii, _Pfeiff._ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. decorus, _Bens._ Ann. Nat. Hist. 1853. hæmastoma, _Pfeiff._ Proc. Zo. Soc. 1856. Planorbis Coromandelianus, _Fab._ in _Dorhn's_ MS. Stelzeneri, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. elegantulus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Z. Soc. 1858. Limnæa tigrina, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. pinguis, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. Melania tuberculata, _Müller_, Verm. Ter.[1] spinulosa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. corrugata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. rudis, _Lea_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1850. acanthica, _Lea_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1850. Zeylanica, _Lea_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1850. confusa, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. datura, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. Layardi, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. Paludomus abbreviatus, _Reeve_, Pr. Zool. Soc. 1852. clavatus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. dilatatus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. globulosus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. decussatus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. nigricans, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. constrictus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zo. Soc. 1852. bicinctus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. phaslaninus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zo. Soc. 1852. lævis, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. palustris, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. fulguratus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zo. Soc. 1857. nasutus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. sphæricus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zo. Soc. 1857. solidus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. distinguendus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Z.S. 1857. Cumingianus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Z.S. 1857. dromedarius, _Dohrn_, Proc. Z.S. 1857. Skinneri, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. Swainsoni, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zo. Soc. 1857. nodulosus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zo. Soc. 1857. Paludomus (_Tanalia_). loricatus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. erinaceus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. æreus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. Layardi, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. undatus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Gardneri, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Tennentii, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Reevei, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. violaceus, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. similis, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. funiculatus, _Layard_, Pr. Z. Soc. 1854. Paludomus (_Philopotamis_). sulcatus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. regalis, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. Thwaitesii, _Layard_, P. Zool. Soc. 1854. Pirena atra, _Linn._ Systema Naturæ. Paludina melanostoma, _Bens._ Ceylanica, _Dohrn_, Pr. Zool. Soc. 1857. Bythinia stenothyroides, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. modesta, _Dohrn_, MS. inconspicua, _Dohrn_, Pr. Zool. Soc. 1857. Ampullaria Layardi, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. moesta, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. cinerea, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Woodwardi, _Dohrn_, Pr. Zool. Soc. 1858. Tischbeini, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. carinata, _Swainson_, Zool. Illus. ser. 2. paludinoides, Cat. _Cristofori & Jan._[2] Malabarica, _Philippi_, monog. Ampul.[2] Luzonica, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon.[2] Sumatrensis, _Philippi_, monog. Ampul.[2] Navicella eximia, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. reticulata, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Livesayi, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. squamata, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. depressa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Neritina crepidularia, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. melanostoma, _Trosch._ W.A. Nat. 1837. triserialis, _Sowerby_, Conch. Illustr. Colombaria, _Recluz_, Pr. Zool. Soc. 1845. Perottetiana, _Recluz_, Rev. Z. Cuv. 1841. Ceylanensis, _Recluz_, Mag. Conch. 1851. Layardi, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. rostrata, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. reticulata, _Sowerby_, Conch. Illustr. Nerita plicata, _Linn._ Systema Naturæ. costata, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. plexa, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab.[3] Natica aurantia, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. mammilla, _Linn._ Systema Naturæ. picta, _Reeve_, (as of _Recluz_), C. Icon. arachnoidea, _Gm._ Systema Naturæ. lineata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. [Footnote 1: M. fasciolata, _Olivier_.] [Footnote 2: These four species are included on the authority of Mr. Dohrn.] [Footnote 3: N. exuvia, _Lam._ not _Linn._] adusta, _Ch_. C. C. f. 1926-7, & _Karsten_.[1] pellis-tigrina, _Karsten_, Mus. Lesk.[2] didyma, _Bolten_, Mus.[3] Ianthina prolongata, _Blainv_., D.S.N. xxiv. communis, _Kr_., (as of _L._ in part) S.A.M. Sigaretus, sp.[4] Stomatella calliostoma, _Adams_, Thesaur. Conch. Haliotis varia, _Linn._ Systema Naturæ. striata, _Martini_ (as of _Linn._), C. Cab. i. semistriata, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Tornatella solidula, _Linn._ Systema Nat. Pyramidella maculosa, _Lam._, Anim. s. Vert. Eulima Martini, _Adams_, Thes. Conch, ii. Siliquaria muricata, _Born_, Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. Scalaria raricostata, _Lam._, Anim. s. Vert. Delphinula laciniata, _Lam._, Anim. s. Vert. distorta, _Linn._, Syst. Nat.[5] Solarium perdix, _Hinds_., Proc. Zool. Soc. Layardi, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854.[6] Rotella vestiaria, _Linn._, Syst. Nat. Phorus pallidulus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. i. Trochus elegantulus, _Gray_, Index Tes. Suppl. Niloticus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Monodonta labio, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. canaliculata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Turbo versicolor, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. princeps, _Philippi_.[7] Planaxis undulatus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert.[8] Littorina angulifera, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. melanostoma, _Gray_, Zool., _Beech_. Voy.[9] Chemnitzia trilineata, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853. lirata, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853. Phasianella lineolata, _Gray_, Index Test. Suppl. Turritella bacillum, _Kiener_, Coquilles Vivantes. columnaris, _Kiener_, Coquilies Vivantes. duplicata, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. attenuata, _Reeve_, Syst. Nat. Cerithium fluviatile, _Potrez & Michaud_, Galerie Douai. Layardi (Cerithidea), _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. palustre, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. aluco, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. asperula, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. telescopium, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. palustre obeliscus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. fasciatum, _Brug_., Encycl. Méth. Vers. rubus, _Sower_. (as of _Mart_.), Thes. C. ii. Sowerbyi, _Kiener_, Coquilles Vivantes (teste Sir E. Tennent). Pleurotoma Indica, _Deshayes_, Voyage Belanger. virgo, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Turbinella pyrum, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. rapa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. (the Chank.) cornigera, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. spirillus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Cancellaria trigonostoma, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert.[10] scalata, _Sowerby_, Thesaur. Conch. articularis, _Sowerby_, Thesaur. Conch. Littoriniformis, _Sowerby_, Thes. Conch. contabulata, _Sowerby_, Thes. Conch. Fasciolaria filamentosa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. trapezium, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Fusus longissimus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. colus, _Linn._ Mus. Lud. Ulricæ. toreuma, _Deshayes_, (as Mur. t. _Martyn_).[11] laticostatus, _Deshayes_, Mag. Zool. 1831. Blosvillei, _Deshayes_, E. Méth. Vers., ii. Pyrula rapa, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[12] citrina, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. pugilina, _Born_, Test. Mus. Vind.[13] ficus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. ficoides, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Ranella crumena, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. spinosa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. rana, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[14] margaritula, _Deshayes_, Voy. Belanger. Murex baustellum, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. adustus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. microphyllus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. anguliferus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. palmarosæ, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. ternispina, _Kiener_, (as of _Lam._), Coquilles Vivantes. tenuispina, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. ferrugo, _Mawe_, Index. Test. Suppl.[15] Reeveanus, _Shuttleworth_, (teste _Cuming_) Triton anus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[16] mulus, _Dillwyn_, Descript. Cat. Shells. retusus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. pyrum, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. clavator, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. Ceylonensis, _Sowerby_, Proc. Zool. Soc. lotorium, _Lam._ (not _Linn_.), An. s. Vert. lampas, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Pterocera lambis, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. millepeda, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Strombus canarium, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[17] succinotus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. fasciatus, _Born_, Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. [Footnote 1: Conch. Cab. f. 1926-7, and N. melanostoma, _Lam._ in part.] [Footnote 2: Chemn. Conch. Cab. 1892-3.] [Footnote 3: N. glauciua, _Lam._ not _Linn._] [Footnote 4: A species (possibly Javanicus) is known to have been collected. I have not seen it.] [Footnote 5: Not of _Lamarck_. D. atrata. _Reeve_.] [Footnote 6: Philippia L.] [Footnote 7: Zeit. Mal. 1846 for T. argyrostoma, _Lam._ not _Linn._] [Footnote 8: Buccinum pyramidatum, _Gm_. in part: B. sulcatum, var. C. of _Brug_.] [Footnote 9: Teste Cuming.] [Footnote 10: As Delphinulat.] [Footnote 11: Ed. _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert.] [Footnote 12: P. papyracea, _Lam._ In mixed collections I have seen the Chinese P. bezoar of _Lamarck_ as from Ceylon.] [Footnote 13: P. vespertilio, _Gm_.] [Footnote 14: R. albivaricosa, _Reeve_.] [Footnote 15: M. anguliferus var. _Lam._] [Footnote 16: T. cynocephalus of _Lamarck_ is also met with in Ceylon collections.] [Footnote 17: S. incisus of the Index Testaceologicus (urceus, var. _Sow_. Thesaur.) is found in mixed Ceylon collections.] Sibbaldii, _Sowerby_, Thesaur. Conch. t. lentiginosus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. marginatus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Lamarckii, _Sowerby_, Thesaur. Conch. Cassis glauca, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[1] canaliculata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Zeylanica, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. areola, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Ricinula albolabris, _Blainv_. Nouv. Ann. Mus. H. N. i.[2] horrida, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. morus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Purpura tiscella, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. Persica, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. hystrix, _Lam._ (not _Linn._) An. s. Vert. granatina, _Deshayes_, Voy. Belanger. mancinella, _Lam._ (as of _Linn._) An. s.V. buto, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. carinitera, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Harpa conoldalis, _Lam._ Anim, s. Vert. minor, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Dolium pomum, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. olearium, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. perdix, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. maculatum, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Nassa ornata, _Kiener_, Coq. Vivantes. [3] verrucosa, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. crenulata, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. olivacea, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. glans, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. arcularia, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. papillosa, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Phos virgatus, _Hinds_. Zool. Sul. Moll. retecosus, _Hinds_, Zool. Sulphur, Moll. senticosus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Buccinum melanostoma, _Sowerby_, App. to Tankerv. Cat. erythrostoma, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Proteus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. rubiginosum, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Eburna spirata, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[4] canaliculata, _Schumacher_, S.A. s. V.[5] Ceylanica, _Bruguiere_, En. Méth. Vers. Bullia vittata, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. lineolata, _Sowerby_, Tankerv. Cat.[6] Melanoides, _Deshayes_, Voy. Belan. Terebra chlorata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. muscaria, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. lævigata, _Gray_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1834. maculata, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. subulata, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. concinna, _Deshayes_, ed. _Lam._ A. s. V. myurus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. tigrina, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. cerithina, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Columbella flavida, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. fulgurans, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. mendicaria, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. scripta, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. (Teste _Jay_). Mitra episcopalis, _Dillwyn_, Des. Cat. Shells. cardinalis, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. crebrilirata, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. punctostriata, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. So. 1854. insculpta, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. Layardi, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854.[7] Voluta vexillum, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. Lapponica, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Melo Indicus, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. Marginella Sarda, _Kiener_, Coq. Vivantes. Ovulum ovum, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. verrucosum, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. pudicum, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. Cypræa Argus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Arabica, _Linn._ Syst Nat. Mauritiana, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. hirundo, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Lynx, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. asellus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. erosa, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. vitellus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. stolida, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. mappa, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. helvola, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. errones, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. cribraria, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. globulus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. clandestina, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. ocellata, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. caurica, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. tabescens, _Soland_. in Dillwyn Des. C. Sh. gangrenosa, _Soland_. in Dillw. D.C. Sh. interrupta, _Gray_, Zool. Journ. i. lentiginosa, _Gray_, Zool. Journ. i. pyriformis, _Gray_, Zool. Journ. i. nivosa, _Broderip_, Zool. Journ. iii. poraria, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. testudinaria, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Terebellum subulatum, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Ancillaria glabrata, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. candida, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Oliva Maura, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert, erythrostoma, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. gibbesa, _Born_, Test. Mus. Cæs.[8] nebulosa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Macleayana, _Duclos_, Monogr. of Oliva. episcopalis, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. elegans, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. ispidula, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. (partly).[9] Zeilanica, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. undata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. irisans, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. (teste _Duclos_). Conus miles, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. generalis, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. betulinus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. stercus-muscarum, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Hebræus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. virgo, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. geographicus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. aulicus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. figutinus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. striatus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. senator, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[10] literatus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. [Footnote 1: C. plicaria of _Lamarck_, and C. coronulata of _Sowerby_, are also said to be found in Ceylon.] [Footnote 2: As Purpura.] [Footnote 3: N. suturalis, _Reeve_ (as of _Lam._), is met with in mixed Ceylon collections.] [Footnote 4: E. areolata, _Lam._] [Footnote 5: E. spirata, _Lam._ not _Linn._] [Footnote 6: B. Belangeri, _Kiener_.] [Footnote 7: As Turricula L.] [Footnote 8: O. utriculus, _Dillwyn_.] [Footnote 9: C. planorbis, _Born_; C. vulpinus, _Lam._] [Footnote 10: Conus ermineus, _Born_, in part.] imperialis, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. textile, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. terebra, _Born_, Test. Must. Cæs. Vind. tessellatus, _Born,_ Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. augur, _Bruguiere_, Encycl. Méth. Vers. obesus, _Bruguiere_, Encycl. Méth. Vers. araneosus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. gubernator, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. monite, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. nimbosus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. eburneus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. vitulinus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. quercinus _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. lividus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Omaria, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Maldivus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. nocturnus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Ceylonensis, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. arenatus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Nicobaricus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. glans, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Amadis, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. punctatus, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. minimus, _Reeve_. (as of _Linn_), C. Icon. terminus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. lineatus, _Chemn._ Conch. Cab. episcopus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. verriculum, _Reeve_. Conch. Cab. zonatus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. rattus. _Brug_. En. Mth. V. (teste _Chemn._) pertusus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Nussatella, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. lithoglyphus, _Brug_. En. Méth. Vers.[4] tulipa, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Ammiralis, var. _Linn._ teste _Brug_. Spirula Peronii, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Sepia Hieredda, _Rang_. M.Z., ser. i. p. 100. Sepioteuthis, _Sp_. Loligo, _Sp_. A conclusion not unworthy of observation may be deduced from this catalogue; namely, that Ceylon was the unknown, and hence unacknowledged, source of almost every extra-European shell which has been described by Linnæus without a recorded habitat. This fact gives to Ceylon specimens an importance which can only be appreciated by collectors and the students of Mollusca. 2. RADIATA. The eastern seas are profusely stocked with radiated animals, but it is to be regretted that they have as yet received but little attention from English naturalists. Recently, however, Dr. Kelaart has devoted himself to the investigation of some of the Singhalese species, and has published his discoveries in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Asiatic Society for 1856-8. Our information respecting the radiata on the confines of the island is, therefore, very scanty; with the exception of the genera[1] examined by him. Hence the notice of this extensive class of animals must be limited to indicating a few of those which exhibit striking peculiarities, or which admit of the most common observation. [Footnote 1: Actinia, 9 sp.; Anthea, 4 sp.; Actinodendron, 3 sp.; Dioscosoma, 1 sp.; Peechea, 1 sp.; Zoanthura, 1 sp.] _Star Fish_.--Very large species of _Ophiuridæ_ are to be met with at Trincomalie, crawling busily about, and insinuating their long serpentine arms into the irregularities and perforations in the rocks. To these they attach themselves with such a firm grasp, especially when they perceive that they have attracted attention, that it is almost impossible to procure unmutilated specimens without previously depriving them of life, or at least modifying their muscular tenacity. The upper surface is of a dark purple colour, and coarsely spined; the arms of the largest specimens are more than a foot in length, and very fragile. The star fishes, with immovable rays[1], are by no means rare; many kinds are brought up in the nets, or maybe extracted from the stomachs of the larger market fish. One very large species[2], figured by Joinville in the manuscript volume in the library at the India House, is not uncommon; it has thick arms, from which and the disc numerous large fleshy cirrhi of a bright crimson colour project downwards, giving the creature a remarkable aspect. No description of it, so far as I am aware, has appeared in any systematic work on zoology. [Footnote 1: _Asterias_, Linn.] [Footnote 2: _Pentaceros?_] _Sea Slugs_.--There are a few species of _Holothuria_, of which the trepang is the best known example. It is largely collected in the Gulf of Manaar, and dried in the sun to prepare it for export to China. A good description and figures of its varieties are still desiderata. _Parasitic Worms_.--Of these entozoa, the _Filaria medinensis_, or Guinea-worm, which burrows in the cellular tissue under the skin, is well known in the north of the island, but rarely found in the damper districts of the south and west. In Ceylon, as elsewhere, the natives attribute its occurrence to drinking the waters of particular wells; but this belief is inconsistent with the fact that its lodgment in the human body is almost always effected just above the ankle. This shows that the minute parasites are transferred to the skin of the leg from the moist vegetation bordering the footpaths leading to wells. At this period the creatures are very small, and the process of insinuation is painless and imperceptible. It is only when they attain to considerable size, a foot or more in length, that the operation of extracting them is resorted to, when exercise may have given rise to inconvenience and inflammation. These pests in all probability received their popular name of _Guinea-worms_, from the narrative of Bruno or Braun, a citizen and surgeon of Basle, who about the year 1611 made several voyages to that part of the African coast, and on his return published, amongst other things, an account of the local diseases.[1] But Linschoten, the Dutch navigator, had previously observed the same worms at Ormus in 1584, and they are thus described, together with the method of removing them, in the English version of his voyage. [Footnote 1: In DE BRY'S, _Collect_, vol. i. p. 49.] "There is in Ormus a sickenesse or common plague of wormes, which growe in their legges, it is thought that they proceede of the water that they drink. These wormes are like, unto lute strings, and about two or three fadomes longe, which they must plucke out and winde them aboute a straw or a feather, everie day some part thereof, so longe as they feele them creepe; and when they hold still, letting it rest in that sort till the next daye, they bind it fast and annoynt the hole, and the swelling from whence it commeth foorth, with fresh butter, and so in ten or twelve dayes, they winde them out without any let, in the meanetime they must sit still with their legges, for if it should breake, they should not, without great paine get it out of their legge, as I have seen some men doe." [1] [Footnote 1: JOHN HUIGHEN VAN LINSCHOTEN _his Discours of Voyages into the Easte and West Indies._ London, 1599, p, 16.] The worm is of a whitish colour, sometimes inclining to brown. Its thickness is from a half to two-thirds of a line, and its length has sometimes reached to ten or twelve feet. Small specimens have been found beneath the tunica conjunctiva of the eye; and one species of the same genus of _Nematoidea_ infests the cavity of the eye itself.[1] [Footnote 1: OWEN'S _Lectures on the Invertebrata_, p. 96.] _Planaria_.--In the journal already mentioned, Dr. Kelaart has given descriptions of fifteen species of planaria, and four of a new genus, instituted by him for the reception of those differing from the normal kinds by some peculiarities which they exhibit in common. At Point Pedro, Mr. Edgar Layard met with one on the bark of trees, after heavy rain, which would appear to belong to the subgenus _geoplana_.[1] [Footnote 1: "A curious species, which is of a light brown above, white underneath; very broad and thin, and has a peculiarly shaped tail, half-moon-shaped in fact, like a grocer's cheese knife."] _Acalephæ_.--Acalephæ[1] are plentiful, so much so, indeed, that they occasionally tempt the larger cetacea into the Gulf of Manaar. In the calmer months of the year, when the sea is glassy, and for hours together undisturbed by a ripple, the minute descriptions are rendered perceptible by their beautiful prismatic tinting. So great is their transparency that they are only to be distinguished from the water by the return to the eye of the reflected light that glances from their delicate and polished surfaces. Less frequently they are traced by the faint hues of their tiny peduncles, arms, or tentaculæ; and it has been well observed that they often give the seas in which they abound the appearance of being crowded with flakes of half-melted snow. The larger kinds, when undisturbed in their native haunts, attain to considerable size. A faintly blue medusa, nearly a foot across, may be seen in the Gulf of Manaar, where, no doubt, others of still larger growth are to be found. [Footnote 1: Jelly-fish.] [Illustration: PHYSALUS URTICULUS.] Occasionally after storms, the beach at Colombo is strewn with the thin transparent globes of the "Portuguese Man of War," _Physalus urticulus_, which are piled upon the lines left by the waves, like globules of glass delicately tinted with purple and blue. They sting, as their trivial name indicates, like a nettle when incautiously touched. _Red infusoria_.--On both sides of the island (but most frequently on the west), during the south-west monsoon, a broad expanse of the sea assumes a red tinge, considerably brighter than brick-dust; and this is confined to a space so distinct that a line seems to separate it from the green water which flows on either side. Observing at Colombo that the whole area so tinged changed its position without parting with any portion of its colouring, I had some of the water brought on shore, and, on examination with the microscope, found it to be filled with _infusoria_, probably similar to those which have been noticed near the shores of South America, and whose abundance has imparted a name to the "Vermilion Sea" off the coast of California.[1] [Footnote 1: The late Dr. BUIST, of Bombay, in commenting on this statement, writes to the _Athenæum_ that: "The red colour with which the sea is tinged, round the shores of Ceylon, during a part of the S.W. monsoon is due to the _Proto-coccus nivalis_, or the Himatta-coccus, which presents different colours at different periods of the year--giving us the seas of milk as well as those of blood. The coloured water at times is to be seen all along the coast north to Kurrachee, and far out, and of a much more intense tint in the Arabian Sea. The frequency of its appearance in the Red Sea has conferred on it its name."] The remaining orders, including the corals, madrepores, and other polypi, have yet to find a naturalist to undertake their investigation, but in all probability the new species are not very numerous. * * * * * NOTE. TRITONIA ARBORESCENS. The following is the letter of Dr. Grant, referred to at page 385:-- Sir,--I have perused, with much interest, your remarkable communication received yesterday, respecting the musical sounds which you heard proceeding from under water, on the east coast of Ceylon. I cannot parallel the phenomenon you witnessed at Batticaloa, as produced by marine animals, with anything with which my past experience has made me acquainted in marine zoology. Excepting the faint clink of the _Tritonia arborescens_, repeated only once every minute or two, and apparently produced by the mouth armed with two dense horny laminæ, I am not aware of any sounds produced in the sea by branchiated invertebrata. It is to be regretted that in the memorandum you have not mentioned your observations on the living specimens brought you by the sailors as the animals which produced the sounds. Your authentication of the hitherto unknown fact, would probably lead to the discovery of the same phenomenon in other common accessible paludinæ, and other allied branchiated animals, and to the solution of a problem, which is still to me a mystery, even regarding the _tritonia_. My two living _tritonia_, contained in a large clear colourless glass cylinder, filled with pure sea water, and placed on the central table of the Wernerian Natural History Society of Edinburgh, around which many members were sitting, continued to clink audibly within the distance of twelve feet during the whole meeting. These small animals were individually not half the size of the last joint of my little finger. What effect the mellow sounds of millions of these, covering the shallow bottom of a tranquil estuary, in the silence of night, might produce, I can scarcely conjecture. In the absence of your authentication, and of all geological explanation of the continuous sounds, and of all source of fallacy from the hum and buzz of living creatures in the air or on the land, or swimming on the waters, I must say that I should be inclined to seek for the source of sounds so audible as those you describe rather among the pulmonated vertebrata, which swarm in the depths of these seas--as fishes, serpents (of which my friend Dr. Cantor has described about twelve species he found in the Bay of Bengal), turtles, palmated birds, pinnipedous and cetaceous mammalia, &c. The publication of your memorandum in its present form, though not quite satisfactory, will, I think, be eminently calculated to excite useful inquiry into a neglected and curious part of the economy of nature. I remain, Sir, Yours most respectfully, ROBERT E. GRANT. _Sir J. Emerson Tennent, &c. &c._ CHAP. XII. INSECTS. Owing to the favourable combination of heat, moisture, and vegetation, the myriads of insects in Ceylon form one of the characteristic features of the island. In the solitude of the forests there is a perpetual music from their soothing and melodious hum, which frequently swells to a startling sound as the cicada trills his sonorous drum on the sunny bark of some tall tree. At morning the dew hangs in diamond drops on the threads and gossamer which the spiders suspend across every pathway; and above the pool dragon-flies, of more than metallic lustre, flash in the early sunbeams. The earth teems with countless ants, which emerge from beneath its surface, or make their devious highways to ascend to their nests in the trees. Lustrous beetles, with their golden elytra, bask on the leaves, whilst minuter species dash through the air in circles, which the ear can follow by the booming of their tiny wings. Butterflies of large size and gorgeous colouring, flutter over the endless expanse of flowers, and at times the extraordinary sight presents itself of flights of these delicate creatures, generally of a white or pale yellow hue, apparently miles in breadth, and of such prodigious extension as to occupy hours, and even days, uninterruptedly in their passage--whence coming no one knows; whither going no one can tell.[1] As day declines, the moths issue from their retreats, the crickets add their shrill voices to swell the din; and when darkness descends, the eye is charmed with the millions of emerald lamps lighted up by the fire-flies amidst the surrounding gloom. [Footnote 1: The butterflies I have seen in these wonderful migrations in Ceylon were mostly _Callidryas Hilariæ, C. Alcmeone_, and _C. Pyranthe_, with straggling individuals of the genus _Euplæa, E. Coras_, and _E. Prothoe_. Their passage took place in April and May, generally in a north-easterly direction. The natives have a superstitious belief that their flight is ultimately directed to Adam's Peak, and that their pilgrimage ends on reaching the sacred mountain. A friend of mine travelling from Kandy to Kornegalle, drove for nine miles through a cloud of white butterflies, which were passing across the road by which he went.] As yet no attempt has been made to describe the insects of Ceylon systematically, much less to enumerate the prodigous number of species that abound in every locality. Occasional observers have, from time to time, contributed notices of particular families to the Scientific Associations of Europe, but their papers remain undigested, and the time has not yet arrived for the preparation of an Entomology of the island. What DARWIN remarks of the Coleoptera of Brazil is nearly as applicable to the same order of insects in Ceylon: "The number of minute and obscurely coloured beetles is exceedingly great; the cabinets of Europe can as yet, with partial exceptions, boast only of the larger species from tropical climates, and it is sufficient to disturb the composure of an entomologist to look forward to the future dimensions of a catalogue with any pretensions to completeness."[1] M. Nietner, a German entomologist, who has spent some years in Ceylon, has recently published, in one of the local periodicals, a series of papers on the Coleoptera of the island, in which every species introduced is stated to be previously undescribed.[2] [Footnote 1: _Nat. Journal_, p. 39.] [Footnote 2: Republished in the _Ann. Nat. Hist._] COLEOPTERA.--_Buprestidæ; Golden Beetles_.--In the morning the herbaceous plants, especially on the eastern side of the island, are studded with these gorgeous beetles, whose golden wing-cases[1] are used to enrich the embroidery of the Indian zenana, whilst the lustrous joints of the legs are strung on silken threads, and form necklaces and bracelets of singular brilliancy. [Footnote 1: _Sternocera Chrysis; S. sternicornis_.] These exquisite colours are not confined to one order, and some of the Elateridæ[1] and Lamellicorns exhibit hues of green and blue, that rival the deepest tints of the emerald and sapphire. [Footnote 1: Of the family of _Elateridæ_, one of the finest is a Singhalese species, the _Campsosternus Templetonii_, of an exquisite golden green colour, with blue reflections (described and figured by Mr. WESTWOOD in his _Cabinet of Oriental Entomology_, pl. 35, f. 1). In the same work is figured another species of large size, also from Ceylon, this is the _Alaus sordidus_.--WESTWOOD, l. c. pl. 35, f. 9.] _Scavenger Beetles_.--Scavenger beetles[1] are to be seen wherever the presence of putrescent and offensive matter affords opportunity for the display of their repulsive but most curious instincts; fastening on it with eagerness, severing it into lumps proportionate to their strength, and rolling it along in search of some place sufficiently soft in which to bury it, after having deposited their eggs in the centre. I had frequent opportunities, especially in traversing the sandy jungles in the level plains to the north of the island, of observing the unfailing appearance of these creatures instantly on the dropping of horse dung, or any other substance suitable for their purpose; although not one was visible but a moment before. Their approach on the wing is announced by a loud and joyous booming sound, as they dash in rapid circles in search of the desired object, led by their sense of smell, and evidently little assisted by the eye in shaping their course towards it. In these excursions they exhibit a strength of wing and sustained power of flight, such as is possessed by no other class of beetles with which I am acquainted, but which is obviously indispensable for the due performance of the useful functions they discharge. [Footnote 1: _Ateuchus sacer; Copris sagax; C. capucinus_, &c. &c.] [Illustration: LONGHORN BEETLE (BATEROCERA RUBUS).] _The Coco-nut Beetle_.--In the luxuriant forests of Ceylon the extensive family of _Longicorns_[1] and _Passalidæ_ live in destructive abundance. To the coco-nut planters the ravages committed by beetles are painfully familiar.[2] The larva of one species of _Dynastida_, the _Oryctes rhinoceros_, called by the Singhalese "_Gascooroominiya_," makes its way into the younger trees, descending from the top, and after perforating them in all directions, forms a cocoon of the gnawed wood and sawdust, in which it reposes during its sleep as a pupa, till the arrival of the period when it emerges as a perfect beetle. Notwithstanding the repulsive aspect of the large pulpy larvæ of these beetles, they are esteemed a luxury by the Malabar coolies, who so far avail themselves of the privilege accorded by the Levitical law, which permitted the Hebrews to eat "the beetle after his kind."[3] [Footnote 1: The engraving on the preceding page represents in its various transformations one of the most familiar and graceful of the longicorn beetles of Ceylon, the _Batocera rubus_.] [Footnote 2: There is a paper in the _Journ. of the Asiat. Society of Ceylon_, May, 1845, by Mr. CAPPER, on the ravages perpetrated by these beetles. The writer had recently passed through several coco-nut plantations, "varying in extent from 20 to 150 acres, and about two to three years old: and in these he did not discover a single young tree untouched by the cooroominiya."--P. 49.] [Footnote 3: Leviticus, xi. 22.] Amongst the superstitions of the Singhalese arising out of their belief in demonology, one remarkable one is connected with the appearance of a beetle when observed on the floor of a dwelling-house after nightfall. The popular belief is that in obedience to a certain form of incantation (called _cooroominiya-pilli_) a demon in the shape of a beetle is sent to the house of some person or family whose destruction it is intended to compass, and who presently falls sick and dies. The only means of averting this catastrophe is, that some one, himself an adept in necromancy, should perform a counter-charm, the effect of which is to send back the disguised beetle to destroy his original employer; for in such a conjuncture the death of one or the other is essential to appease the demon whose intervention has been invoked. Hence the discomfort of a Singhalese on finding a beetle in his house after sunset, and his anxiety to expel but not to kill it. _Tortoise Beetles_.--There is one family of insects, the members of which cannot fail to strike the traveller by their singular beauty, the _Cassididæ_ or tortoise beetles, in which the outer shell overlaps the body, and the limbs are susceptible of being drawn entirely within it. The rim is frequently of a different tint from the centre, and one species which I have seen is quite startling from the brilliancy of its colouring, which gives it the appearance of a ruby enclosed in a frame of pearl; but this wonderful effect disappears immediately on the death of the insect. ORTHOPTERA. _Leaf-insects_.--But in relation to the insects of Ceylon the admiration of their colours is still less exciting than the astonishment created by the forms in which some of the families present themselves; especially the "soothsayers" (_Mantidæ_) and "walking leaves." The latter[1], exhibiting the most cunning of all nature's devices for the preservation of her creatures, are found in the jungle in all varieties of hues, from the pale yellow of an opening bud to the rich green of the full-blown leaf, and the withered tint of decay. So perfect is the imitation of a leaf in structure and articulation, that this amazing insect when at rest is almost undistinguishable from the foliage around: not only are the wings modelled to resemble ribbed and fibrous follicles, but every joint of the legs is expanded into a broad plait like a half-opened leaflet. [Footnote 1: Phyllium siccifolium.] [Illustration: STICK INSECT AND MANTIS] It rests on its abdomen, the legs serving to drag it slowly along, and thus the flatness of its attitude serves still further to add to the appearance of a leaf. One of the most marvellous incidents connected with its organisation was exhibited by one which I kept under a glass shade on my table, it laid a quantity of eggs, that, in colour and shape, were not to be distinguished from _seeds_. They were brown, and pentangular, with a short stem, and slightly punctured at the intersections. [Illustration] The "soothsayer," on the other hand (_Mantis superstitiosa._ Fab.[1]), little justifies by its propensities the appearance of gentleness, and the attitudes of sanctity, which have obtained for it the title of the "praying mantis." Its habits are carnivorous, and degenerate into cannibalism, as it preys on the weaker individuals of its own species. Two which I enclosed in a box were both found dead a few hours after, literally severed limb from limb in their encounter. The formation of the foreleg enables the tibia to be so closed on the sharp edge of the thigh as to amputate any slender substance grasped within it. [Footnote 1: _M. aridifolia_ and _M. extensicollis_, as well as _Empusa gongylodes_, remarkable for the long leaf-like head, and dilatations on the posterior thighs, are common in the island.] _The Stick-insect_.--The _Phasmidæ_ or spectres, another class of orthoptera, present as close a resemblance to small branches or leafless twigs as their congeners do to green leaves. The wing-covers, where they exist, instead of being expanded, are applied so closely to the body as to detract nothing from its rounded form, and hence the name which they have acquired of "_walking-sticks_." Like the _Phyllium_, the _Phasma_ lives exclusively on vegetables, and some attain the length of several inches. Of all the other tribes of the _Orthoptera_ Ceylon possesses many representatives; in swarms of cockroaches, grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets. NEUROPTERA. _Dragon-flies_.--Of the _Neuroptera_, some of the dragon-flies are pre-eminently beautiful; one species, with rich brown-coloured spots upon its gauzy wings, is to be seen near every pool.[1] Another[2], which dances above the mountain streams in Oovah, and amongst the hills descending towards Kandy, gleams in the sun as if each of its green enamelled wings had been sliced from an emerald. [Footnote 1: _Libellula pulchella_.] [Footnote 2: _Euphæa splendens_.] _The Ant-Lion._--Of the ant-lion, whose larvæ have earned a bad renown from their predaceous ingenuity, Ceylon has, at least, four species, which seem peculiar to the island.[1] This singular creature, preparatory to its pupal transformation, contrives to excavate a conical pitfall in the dust to the depth of about an inch, in the bottom of which it conceals itself, exposing only its open mandibles above the surface; and here every ant and soft-bodied insect which curiosity tempts to descend, or accident may precipitate into the trap, is ruthlessly seized and devoured by its ambushed inhabitant. [Footnote 1: _Palpares contrarius_, Walker; _Myrmeleon gravis_, Walker; _M. dirus_, Walker; _M. barbarus_, Walker.] _The White Ant_.--But of the insects of this order the most noted are the _white ants_ or termites (which are ants only by a misnomer). They are, unfortunately, at once ubiquitous and innumerable in every spot where the climate is not too chilly, or the soil too sandy, for them to construct their domed edifices. These they raise from a considerable depth under ground, excavating the clay with their mandibles, and moistening it with tenacious saliva[1] until it assume the appearance, and almost the consistency, of sandstone. So delicate is the trituration to which they subject this material, that the goldsmiths of Ceylon employ the powdered clay of the ant hills in preference to all other substances in the preparation of crucibles and moulds for their finer castings: and KNOX says, "the people use this finer clay to make their earthen gods of, it is so pure and fine."[2] These structures the termites erect with such perseverance and durability that they frequently rise to the height of ten or twelve feet from the ground, with a corresponding diameter. They are so firm in their texture that the weight of a horse makes no apparent indentation on their solidity; and even the intense rains of the monsoon, which no cement or mortar can long resist, fail to penetrate the surface or substance of an ant hill.[3] In their earlier stages the termites proceed with such energetic rapidity, that I have seen a pinnacle of moist clay, six inches in height and twice as large in diameter, constructed underneath a table between sitting down to dinner and the removal of the cloth. [Footnote 1: It becomes an interesting question whence the termites derive the large supplies of moisture with which they not only temper the clay for the construction of their long covered ways above ground, but for keeping their passages uniformly damp and cool below the surface. Yet their habits in this particular are unvarying, in the seasons of droughts as well as after rain; in the driest and least promising positions, in situations inaccessible to drainage from above, and cut off by rocks and impervious strata from springs from below. Dr. Livingstone, struck with this phenomenon in Southern Africa, asks: "Can the white ants possess the power of combining the oxygen and hydrogen of their vegetable food by vital force so as to form water?"--_Travels_, p. 22. And he describes at Angola, an insect[A] resembling the _Aphrophora spumaria_; seven or eight individuals of which distil several pints of water every night.--P. 414. It is highly probable that the termites are endowed with some such faculty: nor is it more remarkable that an insect should combine the gases of its food to produce water, than that a fish should decompose water in order to provide itself with gas. FOURCROIX found the contents of the air-bladder in a carp to be pure nitrogen.--_Yarrell_, vol. i. p. 42. And the aquatic larva of the dragon-fly extracts air for its respiration from the water in which it is submerged. A similar mystery pervades the inquiry whence plants under peculiar circumstances derive the water essential to vegetation.] [Footnote A: _A. goudotti?_ Bennett.] [Footnote 2: KNOX'S _Ceylon_, Part i, ch. vi, p.24.] [Footnote 3: Dr. HOOKER, in his _Himalayan Journal_ (vol. i. p. 20) is of opinion that the nests of the termites are not independent structures, but that their nucleus is "the debris of clumps of bamboos or the trunks of large trees which these insects have destroyed." He supposes that the dead tree falls leaving the stump coated with sand, _which the action of the weather soon fashions into a cone_. But independently of the fact that the "action of the weather" produces little or no effect on the closely cemented clay of the white ants' nest, they may be daily seen constructing their edifices in the very form of a cone, which they ever after retain. Besides which, they appear in the midst of terraces and fields where no trees are to be seen: and Dr. Hooker seems to overlook the fact that the termites rarely attack a living tree; and although their nests may be built against one, it continues to flourish not the less for their presence.] As these lofty mounds of earth have all been carried up from beneath the surface, a cave of corresponding dimensions is necessarily scooped out below, and here, under the multitude of miniature cupolas and pinnacles which canopy it above, the termites hollow out the royal chamber for their queen, with spacious nurseries surrounding it on all sides; and all are connected by arched galleries, long passages, and doorways of the most intricate and elaborate construction. In the centre and underneath the spacious dome is the recess for the queen--a hideous creature, with the head and thorax of an ordinary termite, but a body swollen to a hundred times its usual and proportionate bulk, and presenting the appearance of a mass of shapeless pulp. From this great progenitrix proceed the myriads that people the subterranean hive, consisting, like the communities of the genuine ants, of labourers and soldiers, which are destined never to acquire a fuller development than that of larvæ, and the perfect insects which in due time become invested with wings and take their departing flight from the cave. But their new equipment seems only destined to facilitate their dispersion from the parent nest, which takes place at dusk; and almost as quickly as they leave it they divest themselves of their ineffectual wings, waving them impatiently and twisting them in every direction till they become detached and drop off, and the swarm, within a few hours of their emancipation, become a prey to the night-jars and bats, which are instantly attracted to them as they issue in a cloud from the ground. I am not prepared to say that the other insectivorous birds would not gladly make a meal of the termites, but, seeing that in Ceylon their numbers are chiefly kept in check by the crepuscular birds, it is observable, at least as a coincidence, that the dispersion of the swarm generally takes place at _twilight_. Those that escape the _caprimulgi_ fall a prey to the crows, on the morning succeeding their flight. The strange peculiarity of the omnivorous ravages of the white ants is that they shrink from the light; in all their expeditions for providing food they construct a covered pathway of moistened clay, and their galleries above ground extend to an incredible distance from the central nest. No timber, except ebony and ironwood, which are too hard, and those which are strongly impregnated with camphor or aromatic oils, which they dislike, presents any obstacle to their ingress. I have had a case of wine filled, in the course of two days, with almost solid clay, and only discovered the presence of the white ants by the escape from the corks. I have had a portmanteau in my tent so peopled with them in the course of a single night that the contents were found worthless in the morning. In an incredibly short time a detachment of these pests will destroy a press full of records, reducing the paper to fragments; and a shelf of books will be tunnelled into a gallery if it happen to be in their line of march. The timbers of a house when fairly attacked are eaten from within till the beams are reduced to an absolute shell, so thin that it may be punched through with the point of the finger: and even kyanized wood, unless impregnated with an extra quantity of corrosive sublimate, appears to occasion them no inconvenience. The only effectual precaution for the protection of furniture is incessant vigilance--the constant watching of every article, and its daily removal from place to place, in order to baffle their assaults. They do not appear in the hills above the elevation of 4000 or 5000 feet. One species of white ant, the _Termes Taprobanes_, was at one time believed by Mr. Walker to be peculiar to the island, but it has recently been found in Sumatra and Borneo, and in some parts of Hindustan. There is a species of Termes in Ceylon (_T. monoceros_), which always builds its nest in the hollow of an old tree; and, unlike the others, carries on its labours without the secrecy and protection of a covered way. A marching column of these creatures may be observed at early morning in the vicinity of their nest, returning laden with the spoils collected during their foraging excursions. These consist of comminuted vegetable matter, derived, it may be, from a thatched roof, if one happens to be within reach, or from the decaying leaves of a coco-nut. Each little worker in the column carries its tiny load in its jaws; and the number of individuals in one of these lines of march must be immense, for the column is generally about two inches in width, and very densely crowded. One was measured which had most likely been in motion for hours, moving in the direction of the nest, and was found to be upwards of sixty paces in length. If attention be directed to the mass in motion, it will be observed that flanking it on each side throughout its whole length are stationed a number of horned soldier termites, whose duty it is to protect the labourers, and to give notice of any danger threatening them. This latter duty they perform by a peculiar quivering motion of the whole body, which is rapidly communicated from one to the other for a considerable distance: a portion of the column is then thrown into confusion for a short time, but confidence soon returns, and the progress of the little creatures goes on with steadiness and order as before. The nest is of a black colour, and resembles a mass of scoriæ; the insects themselves are of a pitchy brown.[1] [Footnote 1: For these particulars of the _termes monoceros_, I am indebted to Mr. Thwaites, of the Roy. Botanic Garden at Kandy.] HYMENOPTERA. _Mason Wasp_.--In Ceylon as in all other countries, the order of hymenopterous insects arrests us less by the beauty of their forms than the marvels of their sagacity and the achievements of their instinct. A fossorial wasp of the family of _Sphegidæ_,[1] which is distinguished by its metallic lustre, enters by the open windows, and converts irritation at its movements into admiration of the graceful industry with which it stops up the keyholes and similar apertures with clay in order to build in them a cell. Into this it thrusts the pupa of some other insect, within whose body it has previously introduced its own eggs. The whole is surrounded with moistened earth, through which the young parasite, after undergoing its transformations, gnaws its way into light, to emerge as a four-winged fly.[2] [Footnote 1: It belongs to the genus _Pelopæus, P. Spinolæ_, of St. Fargean. The _Ampulex compressa_, which drags about the larvæ of cockroaches into which it has implanted its eggs, belongs, to the same family.] [Footnote 2: Mr. E.L. Layard has given an interesting account of this Mason wasp in the _Annals and Magazine of Nat. History_ for May, 1853. "I have frequently," he says, "selected one of these flies for observation, and have seen their labours extend over a period of a fortnight or twenty days; sometimes only half a cell was completed in a day, at others as much as two. I never saw more than twenty cells in one nest, seldom indeed that number, and whence the caterpillars were procured was always to me a mystery. I have seen thirty or forty brought in of a species which I knew to be very rare in the perfect state, and which I had sought for in vain, although I knew on what plant they fed. "Then again how are they disabled by the wasp, and yet not injured so as to cause their immediate death? Die they all do, at least all that I have ever tried to rear, after taking them from the nest. "The perfected fly never effects its egress from the closed aperture, through which the caterpillars were inserted, and when cells are placed end to end, as they are in many instances, the outward end of each is always selected. I cannot detect any difference in the thickness in the crust of the cell to cause this uniformity of practice. It is often as much as half an inch through, of great hardness, and as far as I can see impervious to air and light. How then does the enclosed fly always select the right end, and with what secretion is it supplied to decompose this mortar?"] A formidable species (_Sphex ferruginea_ of St. Fargeau), which is common to India and most of the eastern islands, is regarded with the utmost dread by the unclad natives, who fly precipitately on finding themselves in the vicinity[1] of its nests. These are of such ample dimensions, that when suspended from a branch, they often measure upwards of six feet in length.[2] [Footnote 1: It ought to be remembered in travelling in the forests of Ceylon that sal volatile applied immediately is a specific for the sting of a wasp.] [Footnote 2: At the January (1839) meeting of the Entomological Society, Mr. Whitehouse exhibited portions of a wasps' nest from Ceylon, between seven and eight feet long and two feet in diameter, and showed that the construction of the cells was perfectly analogous to those of the hive bee, and that when connected each has a tendency to assume a circular outline. In one specimen where there were three cells united the outer part was circular, whilst the portions common to the three formed straight walls. From this Singhalese nest Mr. Whitehouse demonstrated that the wasps at the commencement of their comb proceed slowly, forming the bases of several together, whereby they assume the hexagonal shape, whereas, if constructed separately, he thought each single cell would be circular. See _Proc. Ent. Soc._, vol. iii. p. 16.] _Bees._--Bees of several species and genera, some unprovided with stings, and some in size scarcely exceeding a house-fly, deposit their honey in hollow trees, or suspend their combs from a branch. The spoils of their industry form one of the chief resources of the uncivilised Veddahs, who collect the wax in the upland forests, to be bartered for arrow points and clothes in the lowlands.[1] I have never heard of an instance of persons being attacked by the bees of Ceylon, and hence the natives assert, that those most productive of honey are destitute of stings. [Footnote 1: A gentleman connected with the department of the Surveyor-General writes to me that he measured a honey-comb which he found fastened to the overhanging branch of a small tree in the forest near Adam's Peak, and found it nine links of his chain or about six feet in length and a foot in breadth where it was attached to the branch, but tapering towards the other extremity. "It was a single comb with a layer of cells on either side, but so weighty that the branch broke by the strain."] _The Carpenter Bee._--The operations of one of the most interesting of the tribe, the Carpenter bee[1], I have watched with admiration from the window of the Colonial Secretary's official residence at Kandy. So soon as the day grew warm, these active creatures were at work perforating the wooden columns which supported the verandah. They poised themselves on their shining purple wings, as they made the first lodgment in the wood, enlivening the work with an uninterrupted hum of delight, which was audible to a considerable distance. When the excavation had proceeded so far that the insect could descend into it, the music was suspended, but renewed from time to time, as the little creature came to the orifice to throw out the chips, to rest, or to enjoy the fresh air. By degrees, a mound of saw-dust was formed at the base of the pillar, consisting of particles abraded by the mandibles of the bee. These, when the hollow was completed to the depth of several inches, were partially replaced in the excavation after being agglutinated to form partitions between the eggs, as they were deposited within. The mandibles[2] of these bees are admirably formed for the purpose of working out the tunnels required, being short, stout, and usually furnished at the tip with two teeth which are rounded somewhat into the form of cheese-cutters. [Footnote 1: _Xylocopa tenuiscapa_, Westw.; Another species found in Ceylon is the _X. latipes_, Drury.] [Footnote 2: See figure above.] [Illustration: THE CARPENTER BEE] These when brought into operation cut out the wood in the same way as a carpenter's double gouge, the teeth being more or less hollowed out within. The female alone is furnished with these powerful instruments. In the males the mandibles are slender as compared with those of the females. The bores of some of these bees are described as being from twelve to fourteen inches in length. _Ants_.--As to ants, I apprehend that, notwithstanding their numbers and familiarity, information is very imperfect relative to the varieties and habits of these marvellous insects in Ceylon.[1] In point of multitude it is scarcely an exaggeration to apply to them the figure of "the sands of the sea." They are everywhere; in the earth, in the houses, and on the trees; they are to be seen in every room and cupboard, and almost on every plant in the jungle. To some of the latter they are, perhaps, attracted by the sweet juices secreted by the aphides and coccidæ.[2] Such is the passion of the ants for sugar, and their wonderful faculty of discovering it, that the smallest particle of a substance containing it is quickly covered with them, though placed in the least conspicuous position, where not a single one may have been visible a moment before. But it is not sweet substances alone that they attack; no animal or vegetable matter comes amiss to them: no aperture appears too small to admit them; it is necessary to place everything which it may be desirable to keep free from their invasion, under the closest cover, or on tables with cups of water under every foot. As scavengers, they are invaluable; and as ants never sleep, but work without cessation during the night as well as by day, every particle of decaying vegetable or putrid animal matter is removed with inconceiveable speed and certainty. In collecting shells, I have been able to turn this propensity to good account; by placing them within their reach, the ants in a few days removed every vestige of the mollusc from the innermost and otherwise inaccessible whorls; thus avoiding all risk of injuring the enamel by any mechanical process. [Footnote 1: Mr. Jerdan, in a series of papers in the thirteenth volume of the _Annals of Natural History_, has described forty-seven species of ants in Southern India. But M. Nietner has recently forwarded to the Berlin Museum upwards of seventy species taken by him in Ceylon, chiefly in the western province and the vicinity of Colombo. Of these many are identical with those noted by Mr. Jerdan as belonging to the Indian continent. One (probably _Drepanognathus saltator_ of Jerdan) is described by M. Nietner as occasionally "moving by jumps of several inches at a spring."] [Footnote 2: Dr. DAVY, in a paper on Tropical Plants, has introduced the following passage relative to the purification of sugar by ants: "If the juice of the sugar-cane--the common syrup as expressed by the mill--be exposed to the air, it gradually evaporates, yielding a light-brown residue, like the ordinary muscovado sugar of the best quality. If not protected, it is presently attacked by ants, and in a short time is, as it were, converted into white crystalline sugar, the ants having refined it by removing the darker portion, probably preferring that part from it containing azotized matter. The negroes, I may remark, prefer brown sugar to white: they say its sweetening power is greater; no doubt its nourishing quality is greater, and therefore as an article of diet deserving of preference. In refining sugar as in refining salt (coarse bay salt containing a little iodine), an error may be committed in abstracting matter designed by nature for a useful purpose."] But the assaults of the ants are not confined to dead animals alone, they attack equally such small insects as they can overcome, or find disabled by accidents or wounds; and it is not unusual to see some hundreds of them surrounding a maimed beetle, or a bruised cockroach, and hurrying it along in spite of its struggles. I have, on more than one occasion, seen a contest between, them and one of the viscous ophidians, _Cæcilia, glutinosa_[1], a reptile resembling an enormous earthworm, common in the Kandyan hills, of an inch in diameter, and nearly two feet in length. On these occasions it would seem as if the whole community had been summoned and turned out for such a prodigious effort; they surround their victim literally in tens of thousands, inflicting wounds on all parts, and forcing it along towards their nest in spite of resistance. In one instance to which I was a witness, the conflict lasted for the latter part of a day, but towards evening the Coecilia was completely exhausted, and in the morning it had totally disappeared, having been carried away either whole or piecemeal by its assailants. [Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 317.] The species I here allude to is a very small ant, which the Singhalese call by the generic name of _Koombiya_. There is a species still more minute, and evidently distinct, which frequents the caraffes and toilet vessels. A third, probably the _Formica nidificans_ of Jerdan, is black, of the same size as that last mentioned, and, from its colour, called the _Kalu koombiga_ by the natives. In the houses its propensities and habits are the same as those of the others; but I have observed that it frequents the trees more profusely, forming small paper cells for its young, like miniature wasps' nests, in which it deposits its eggs, suspending them from a twig. The most formidable of all is the great red ant or Dimiya.[1] It is particularly abundant in gardens, and on fruit trees; it constructs its dwellings by glueing the leaves of such species as are suitable from their shape and pliancy into hollow balls, and these it lines with a kind of transparent paper, like that manufactured by the wasp. I have watched them at the interesting operation of forming these dwellings;--a line of ants standing on the edge of one leaf bring another into contact with it, and hold both together with their mandibles till their companions within attach them firmly by means of their adhesive paper, the assistants outside moving along as the work proceeds. If it be necessary to draw closer a leaf too distant to be laid hold of by the immediate workers, they form a chain by depending one from the other till the object is reached, when it is at length brought into contact, and made fast by cement. [Footnote 1: _Formica smaragdina,_ Fab.] Like all their race, these ants are in perpetual motion, forming lines on the ground along which they pass, in continual procession to and from the trees on which they reside. They are the most irritable of the whole order in Ceylon, biting with such intense ferocity as to render it difficult for the unclad natives to collect the fruit from the mango trees, which the red ants especially frequent. They drop from the branches upon travellers in the jungle, attacking them with venom and fury, and inflicting intolerable pain both upon animals and man. On examining the structure of the head through a microscope, I found that the mandibles, instead of merely meeting in contact, are so hooked as to cross each other at the points, whilst the inner line is sharply serrated throughout its entire length; thus occasioning the intense pain of their bite, as compared with that of the ordinary ant. To check the ravages of the coffee bug[1] (_Lecanium coffeæ_, Walker), which for some years past has devastated some of the plantations in Ceylon, the experiment was made of introducing the red ants, who feed greedily on the Coccus. But the remedy threatened to be attended with some inconvenience, for the Malabar Coolies, with bare and oiled skins, were so frequently and fiercely assaulted by the ants as to endanger their stay on the estates. [Footnote 1: For an account of this pest, see p. 437.] The ants which burrow in the ground in Ceylon are generally, but not invariably, black, and some of them are of considerable size. One species, about the third of an inch in length, is abundant in the hills, and especially about the roots of trees, where they pile up the earth in circular heaps round the entrance to their nests, and in doing this I have observed a singular illustration of their instinct. To carry up each particle of sand by itself would be an endless waste of labour, and to carry two or more loose ones securely would be to them embarrassing, if not impossible. To overcome the difficulty they glue together with their saliva so much earth or sand as is sufficient for a burden, and each ant may be seen hurrying up from below with his load, carrying it to the top of the circular heap outside, and throwing it over, the mass being so strongly attached as to roll to the bottom without breaking asunder. The ants I have been here describing are inoffensive, differing in this particular from the Dimiya and another of similar size and ferocity, which is called by the Singhalese _Kaddiya_. They have a legend illustrative of their alarm for the bites of the latter, to the effect that the cobra de capello invested the Kaddiya with her own venom in admiration of the singular courage displayed by these little creatures.[1] [Footnote 1: KNOX'S _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, pt. i. ch. vi. p. 23.] LEPIDOPTERA. _Butterflies_.--In the interior of the island butterflies are comparatively rare, and, contrary to the ordinary belief, they are seldom to be seen in the sunshine. They frequent the neighbourhood of the jungle, and especially the vicinity of the rivers and waterfalls, living mainly in the shade of the moist foliage, and returning to it in haste after the shortest flights, as if their slender bodies were speedily dried up and exhausted by exposure to the intense heat. Among the largest and most gaudy of the Ceylon Lepidoptera is the great black and yellow butterfly (_Ornithoptera darsius_, Gray); the upper wings of which measure six inches across, and are of deep velvet black, the lower ornamented by large particles of satiny yellow, through which the sunlight passes. Few insects can compare with it in beauty, as it hovers over the flowers of the heliotrope, which furnish the favourite food of the perfect fly, although the caterpillar feeds on the aristolochia and the _betel leaf_, and suspends its chrysalis from its drooping tendrils. Next in size as to expanse of wing, though often exceeding it in breadth, is the black and blue _Papilio Polymnestor_, which darts rapidly through the air, alighting on the ruddy flowers of the hibiscus, or the dark green foliage of the citrus, on which it deposits its eggs. The larvæ of this species are green with white bands, and have a hump on the fourth or fifth segment. From this hump the caterpillar, on being irritated, protrudes a singular horn of an orange colour, bifurcate at the extremity, and covered with a pungent mucilaginous secretion. This is evidently intended as a weapon of defence against the attack of the ichneumon flies, that deposit their eggs in its soft body, for when the grub is pricked, either by the ovipositor of the ichneumon, or by any other sharp instrument, the horn is at once protruded, and struck upon the offending object with unerring aim. Amongst the more common of the larger butterflies is the _P. Hector_, with gorgeous crimson spots set in the black velvet of the inferior wings; these, when fresh, are shot with a purple blush, equalling in splendour the azure of the European "_Emperor._" _The Spectre Butterfly._--Another butterfly, but belonging to a widely different group, is the "sylph" (_Hestia Jasonia_), called by the Europeans by the various names of _Floater, Spectre_, and _Silver-paper fly_, as indicative of its graceful flight. It is found only in the deep shade of the damp forest, usually frequenting the vicinity of pools of water and cascades, about which it sails heedless of the spray, the moisture of which may even be beneficial in preserving the elasticity of its thin and delicate wings, that bend and undulate in the act of flight. The _Lycanidæ_[1], a particularly attractive group, abound near the enclosures of cultivated grounds, and amongst the low shrubs edging the patenas, flitting from flower to flower, inspecting each in turn, as if attracted by their beauty, in the full blaze of sun-light; and shunning exposure less sedulously than the other diurnals. Some of the more robust kinds[2] are magnificent in the bright light, from the splendour of their metallic blues and glowing purples, but they yield in elegance of form and variety to their tinier and more delicately-coloured congeners. [Footnote 1: _Lycæna polyommatus, &c._] [Footnote 2: _Amblypodia pseudocentaurus, &c._] Short as is the eastern twilight, it has its own peculiar forms, and the naturalist marks with interest the small, but strong, _Hesperidæ_[1], hurrying, by abrupt and jerking flights, to the scented blossoms of the champac or the sweet night-blowing moon-flower; and, when darkness gathers around, we can hear, though hardly distinguish amid the gloom, the humming of the powerful wings of innumerable hawk moths, which hover with their long proboscides inserted into the starry petals of the periwinkle. [Footnote 1: _Pamphila hesperia, &c._] Conspicuous amidst these nocturnal moths is the richly-coloured _Acherontia Satanas_, one of the Singhalese representatives of our Death's-head moth, which utters a sharp and stridulous cry when seized. This sound has been conjectured to be produced by the friction of its thorax against the abdomen;--Reaumur believed it to be caused by the rubbing of the palpi against the tongue. I have never been able to observe either motion, and Mr. E.L. Layard is of opinion that the sound is emitted from two apertures concealed by tufts of wiry bristles thrown out from each side of the inferior portion of the thorax.[1] [Footnote 1: There is another variety of the same moth in Ceylon which closely resembles it in its markings, but in which I have never detected the uttering of this curious cry. It is smaller than the _A. Satanas_, and, like it, often enters dwellings at night, attracted by the lights; but I have not found its larvæ, although that of the other species is common on several widely different plants.] _Moths._--Among the strictly nocturnal _Lepidoptera_ are some gigantic species. Of these the cinnamon-eating _Atlas_, often attains the dimensions of nearly a foot in the stretch of its superior wings. It is very common in the gardens about Colombo, and its size, and the transparent talc-like spots in its wings, cannot fail to strike even the most careless saunterer. But little inferior to it in size is the famed Tusseh silk moth[1], which feeds on the country almond (_Terminalia catappa_) and the palma Christi or Castor-oil plant; it is easily distinguishable from the Atlas, which has a triangular wing, whilst its is falcated, and the transparent spots are covered with a curious thread-like division drawn across them. [Footnote 1: _Antheræa mylitta,_ Drury.] Towards the northern portions of the island this valuable species entirely displaces the other, owing to the fact that the almond and _palma Christi_ abound there. The latter plant springs up spontaneously on every manure-heap or neglected spot of ground; and might be cultivated, as in India, with great advantage, the leaf to be used as food for the caterpillar, the stalk as fodder for cattle, and the seed for the expression of castor-oil. The Dutch took advantage of this facility, and gave every encouragement to the cultivation of silk at Jaffna[1], but it never attained such a development as to become an article of commercial importance. Ceylon now cultivates no silkworms whatever, notwithstanding this abundance of the favourite food of one species; and the rich silken robes sometimes worn by the Buddhist priesthood are imported from China and the continent of India. [Footnote 1: The Portuguese had made the attempt previous to the arrival of the Dutch, and a strip of land on the banks of the Kalany river near Colombo, still bears the name of Orta Seda, the silk garden. The attempt of the Dutch to introduce the true silkworm, the _Bombyx mori_, took place under the governorship; of Ryklof Van Goens, who, on handing over the administration to his successor in A.D. 1663, thus apprises him of the initiation of the experiment:--"At Jaffna Palace a trial has been undertaken to feed silkworms, and to ascertain whether silk may be reared at that station. I have planted a quantity of mulberry trees, which grow well there, and they ought to be planted in other directions."--VALENTYN, chap. xiii. The growth of the mulberry trees is noticed the year after in a report to the governor-general of India, but the subject afterwards ceased to be attended to.] In addition to the Atlas moth and the Mylitta, there are many other _Bombycidæ_; in Ceylon; and, though the silk of some of them, were it susceptible of being unwound from the cocoon, would not bear a comparison with that of the _Bombyx mori_, or even of the Tusseh moth, it might still prove to be valuable when carded and spun. If the European residents in the colony would rear the larvæ of these Lepidoptera, and make drawings of their various changes, they would render a possible service to commerce, and a certain one to entomological knowledge. _Stinging Caterpillars_.--The Dutch carried to their Eastern settlements two of their home propensities, which distinguish and embellish the towns of the Low Countries; they indulged in the excavation of canals, and they planted long lines of trees to diffuse shade over the sultry passages in their Indian fortresses. For the latter purpose they employed the Suriya (_Hibiscus populneus_), whose broad umbrageous leaves and delicate yellow flowers impart a delicious coolness, and give to the streets of Galle and Colombo the fresh and enlivening aspect of walks in a garden. In the towns, however, the suriya trees are productive of one serious inconvenience. They are the resort of a hairy greenish caterpillar[1], longitudinally striped, great numbers of which frequent them, and at a certain stage of growth descend by a silken thread to the ground and hurry away, probably in search of a suitable spot in which to pass through their metamorphoses. Should they happen to alight, as they often do, upon some lounger below, and find their way to his unprotected skin, they inflict, if molested, a sting as pungent, but far more lasting, than that of a nettle or a star-fish. [Footnote 1: The species of moth with which it is identified has not yet been determined, but it most probably belongs to a section of Boisduval's genus _Bombyx_ allied to _Cnethocampa_, Stephens.] Attention being thus directed to the quarter whence an assailant has lowered himself down, the caterpillars above will be found in clusters, sometimes amounting to hundreds, clinging to the branches and the bark, with a few straggling over the leaves or suspended from them by lines. These pests are so annoying to children as well as destructive to the foliage, that it is often necessary to singe them off the trees by a flambeau fixed on the extremity of a pole; and as they fall to the ground they are eagerly devoured by the crows and domestic fowls.[1] [Footnote 1: Another caterpillar which feeds on the jasmine flowering Carissa, stings with such fury that I have known a gentleman to shed tears while the pain was at its height. It is short and broad, of a pale green, with fleshy spines on the upper surface, each of which seems to be charged with the venom that occasions this acute suffering. The moth which this caterpillar produces, _Neæra lepida_, Cramer; _Limacodes graciosa_, Westw., has dark brown wings, the primary traversed by a broad green band. It is common in the western side of Ceylon. The larvæ of the genus _Adolia_ are also hairy, and sting with virulence.] _The Wood-carrying Moth_.--There is another family of insects, the singular habits of which will not fail to attract the traveller in the cultivated tracts of Ceylon--these are moths of the genus _Oiketicus_[1], of which the females are devoid of wings, and some possess no articulated feet. Their larvæ construct for themselves cases, which they suspend to a branch frequently of the pomegranate[2], surrounding them with the stems of leaves, and thorns or pieces of twigs bound together by threads, till the whole presents the appearance of a bundle of rods about an inch and a half long; and, from the resemblance of this to a Roman fasces, one African species has obtained the name of "Lictor." The German entomologists denominated the group _Sackträger_, the Singhalese call them _Dara-kattea_ or "billets of firewood," and regard the inmates as human beings, who, as a punishment for stealing wood in some former state of existence, have been condemned to undergo a metempsychosis under the form of these insects. [Footnote 1: _Eumeta_, Wlk.] [Footnote 2: The singular instincts of a species of Thecla, _Dipsas Isocrates_, Fab., in connection with the fruit of the pomegranate, were fully described by Mr. Westwood, in a paper read before the Entomological Society of London in 1835.] [Illustration: THE WOOD-CARRYING MOTH.] The male, at the close of the pupal rest, escapes from one end of this singular covering, but the female makes it her dwelling for life; moving about with it at pleasure, and entrenching herself within it, when alarmed, by drawing together the purse-like aperture at the open end. Of these remarkable creatures there are five ascertained species in Ceylon: _Psyche Doubledaii_, Westw.; _Metisa plana_; Walker; _Eumeta Cramerii_, Westw.; _E. Templetonii_, Westw.; and _Cryptothelea consorta_, Temp. All the other tribes of minute _Lepitoptera_ have abundant representatives in Ceylon; some of them most attractive from the great beauty of their markings and colouring. The curious little split-winged moth (_Pterophorus_) is frequently seen in the cinnamon gardens and in the vicinity of the fort, hid from the noon-day heat among the cool grass shaded by the coco-nut topes. Three species have been captured, all characterised by the same singular feature of having the wings fan-like, separated nearly their entire length into detached sections, resembling feathers in the pinions of a bird expanded for flight. HOMOPTERA. _Cicada._--Of the _Homoptera_, the one which will most frequently arrest attention is the cicada, which, resting high up on the bark of a tree, makes the forest re-echo with a long-sustained noise so curiously resembling that of a cutler's wheel that the creature producing it has acquired the highly-appropriate name of the "knife-grinder." [Illustration: CICADA--"THE KNIFE GRINDER."] In the jungle which adjoined the grounds attached to my official residence at Kandy, the shrubs were frequented by an insect covered profusely with a snow-white powder, arranged in delicate filaments that curl like a head of dressed celery. These it moves without dispersing the powder: but when dead they fall rapidly to dust. I regret that I did not preserve specimens, but I have reason to think that they are the larvæ of the _Flata limbata_, or of some other closely allied species[1], though I have not seen in Ceylon any of the wax produced by the _flata_. [Footnote 1: Amongst the specimens of this order which I brought from Ceylon, two proved to be new and undescribed, and have been named by Mr. A. WHITE _Elidiptera Emersoniana_ and _Poeciloptera Tennentina_.] HEMIPTERA. _Bugs_.--On the shrubs in his compound the newly-arrived traveller will be attracted by an insect of a pale green hue and delicately-thin configuration, which, resting from its recent flight, composes its scanty wings, and moves languidly along the leaf. But experience will teach him to limit his examination to a respectful view of its attitudes; it is one of a numerous family of bugs, (some of them most attractive[1] in their colouring,) which are inoffensive if unmolested, but if touched or irritated, exhale an odour that, once endured, is never afterwards forgotten. [Footnote 1: Such as _Cantuo ocellatus, Leptoscelis Marginalis, Callidea Stockerius_, &c. &c. Of the aquatic species, the gigantic _Belostoma Indicum_ cannot escape notice, attaining a size of nearly three inches.] APHANIPTERA. _Fleas_.--Fleas are equally numerous, and may be seen in myriads in the dust of the streets or skipping in the sunbeams which fall on the clay floors of the cottages. The dogs, to escape them, select for their sleeping places spots where a wood fire has been previously kindled; and here prone on the white ashes, their stomachs close to the earth, and their hind legs extended behind, they repose in comparative coolness, and bid defiance to their persecutors. [Illustration: POECILOPTERA TENNENTINA.] [Illustration: ELIDIPTERA EMERSONIANA.] DIPTERA. _Mosquitoes_.--But of all the insect pests that beset an unseasoned European the most provoking by far is the truculent mosquito.[1] Next to the torture which it inflicts, its most annoying peculiarities are the booming hum of its approach, its cunning, its audacity, and the perseverance with which it renews its attacks however frequently repulsed. These characteristics are so remarkable as fully to justify the conjecture that the mosquito, and not the ordinary fly, constituted the plague inflicted upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians.[2] [Footnote 1: _Culex laniger?_ Wied. In Kandy Mr. Thwaites finds _C. fuscanns, C. circumcolans,_ &c., and one with a most formidable hooked proboscis, to which he has assigned the appropriate name _C. Regius_.] [Footnote 2: The precise species of insect by means of which the Almighty signalised the plague of flies, remains uncertain, as the Hebrew term _arob_ or _oror_ which has been rendered in one place. "Divers sorts of flies," Ps. cv. 31; and in another, "swarms of flies," Exod. viii. 21, &c., means merely "an assemblage." a "mixture" or a "swarm," and the expletive. "_of flies_" is an interpolation of the translators. This, however, serves to show that the fly implied was one easily recognisable by its habit of _swarming_; and the further fact that it _bites_, or rather stings, is elicited from the expression of the Psalmist, Ps. lxxviii. 45, that the insects by which the Egyptians were tormented "devoured them," so that here are two peculiarities inapplicable to the domestic fly, but strongly characteristic of gnats and mosquitoes. Bruce thought that the fly of the fourth plague was the "zimb" of Abyssinia which he so graphically describes: and WESTWOOD, in an ingenious passage in his _Entomologist's Text-book._ p. 17, combats the strange idea of one of the bishops, that it was a cockroach! and argues in favour of the mosquito. This view he sustains by a reference to the habits of the creature, the swarms in which it invades a locality, and the audacity with which it enters the houses; and he accounts for the exemption of "the land of Goshen in which the Isrælites dwelt," by the fact of its being sandy pasture above the level of the river; whilst the mosquitoes were produced freely in the rest of Egypt, the soil of which was submerged by the rising of the Nile. In all the passages in the Old Testament in which flies are alluded to, otherwise than in connection with the Egyptian infliction, the word used in the Hebrew is _zevor_, which the Septuagint renders by the ordinary generic term for flies in general, [Greek: muia], "_musca_" (Eccles. x. 1, Isaiah vii. 10); but in every instance in which mention is made of the miracle of Moses, the Septuagint says that the fly produced was the [Greek: kunomyia], the "dog-fly." What insect was meant by this name it is not now easy to determine, but ÆLIAN intimates that the dogfly both inflicts a wound and emits a booming sound, in both of which particulars it accords with the mosquito (lib. iv, 51); and PHILO-JUDÆUS, in his _Vita Mosis_, lib. i. ch. xxiii., descanting on the plague of flies, and using the term of the Septuagint, [Greek: kunomyia], describes it as combining the characteristic of "the most impudent of all animals, the fly and the dog, exhibiting the courage and the cunning of both, and fastening on its victim with the noise and rapidity of an arrow"--[Greek: meta roizou kathaper belos]. This seems to identify the dog-fly of the Septuagint with the description of the Psalmist, Ps. lxxviii. 45, and to vindicate the conjecture that the tormenting mosquito, and not the house-fly, was commissioned by the Lord to humble the obstinacy of the Egyptian tyrant.] Even in the midst of endurance from their onslaughts one cannot but be amused by the ingenuity of their movements; as if aware of the risk incident to an open assault, a favourite mode of attack is, when concealed by a table, to assail the ankles through the meshes of the stocking, or the knees which are ineffectually protected by a fold of Russian duck. When you are reading, a mosquito will rarely settle on that portion of your hand which is within range of your eyes, but cunningly stealing by the underside of the book fastens on the wrist or little finger, and noiselessly inserts his proboscis there. I have tested the classical expedient recorded by Herodotus, who states that the fishermen inhabiting the fens of Egypt, cover their beds with their nets, knowing that the mosquitoes, although they bite through linen robes, will not venture through a net.[1] But, notwithstanding the opinion of Spence[2], that nets with meshes an inch square will effectually exclude them, I have been satisfied by painful experience that (if the theory be not altogether fallacious) at least the modern mosquitoes of Ceylon are uninfluenced by the same considerations which restrained those of the Nile under the successors of Cambyses. [Footnote 1: HERODOTUS, _Euterpe._ xcv.] [Footnote 2: KIRBY and SPENCE'S _Entomology_, letter iv.] _The Coffee-Bug_.--Allusion has been made in a previous passage to the coccus known in Ceylon as the "Coffee-Bug" (_Lecanium Caffeæ_, Wlk.), which of late years has made such destructive ravages in the plantations in the Mountain Zone.[1] The first thing that attracts attention on looking at a coffee tree infested by it, is the number of brownish wart-like bodies that stud the young shoots and occasionally the margins on the underside of the leaves.[2] Each of these warts or scales is a transformed female, containing a large number of eggs which are hatched within it. [Footnote 1: The following notice of the "coffee-bug," and of the singularly destructive effects produced by it on the plants, has been prepared chiefly from a memoir presented to the Ceylon Government by the late Dr. Gardner, in which he traces the history of the insect from its first appearance in the coffee districts, until it had established itself more or less permanently in all the estates in full cultivation throughout the island.] [Footnote 2: See the annexed drawing, Fig. 1.] When the young ones come out from their nest, they run about over the plant like diminutive wood-lice, and at this period there is no apparent distinction between male and female. Shortly after being hatched the males seek the underside of the leaves, while the females prefer the young shoots as a place of abode. If the under surface of a leaf be examined, it will be found to be studded, particularly on its basil half, with minute yellowish-white specks of an oblong form.[1] These are the larvæ of the males undergoing transformation into pupæ, beneath their own skins; some of these specks are always in a more advanced state than the others, the full-grown ones being whitish and scarcely a line long. Some of this size are translucent, the insect having escaped; the darker ones still retain it within, of an oblong form, with the rudiment of a wing on each side attached to the lower part of the thorax and closely applied to the sides; the legs are six in number, the four hind ones being directed backwards, the anterior forwards (a peculiarity not common in other insects); the two antennæ are also inclined backwards, and from the tail protrude three short bristles, the middle one thinner and longer than the rest. [Footnote 1: Figs. 2, and 3 and 5 in the engraving, where these and all the other figures are considerably enlarged.] When the transformation is complete, the mature insect makes its way from beneath the pellucid case[1], all its organs having then attained their full size: the head is sub-globular, with two rather prominent black eyes, and two antennæ, each with eleven joints, hairy throughout, and a tuft of rather longer hairs at the apices; the legs are also covered with hairs, the wings are horizontal, of an obovate oblong shape, membranous, and extending a little farther than the bristles of the tail. They have only two nerves, neither of which reaches so far as the tips; one of them runs close to the costal margin, and is much thicker than the other, which branches off from its base and skirts along the inner margin; behind the wings is attached a pair of minute halteres of peculiar form. The possession of wings would appear to be the cause why the full-grown male is more rarely seen on the coffee bushes than the female. [Footnote 1: Fig. 4. Mr. WESTWOOD, who observed the operation in one species, states that they escape backwards, the wings being extended flatly over the head.] The female, like the male, attaches herself to the surface of the plant, the place selected being usually the young shoots; but she is also to be met with on the margins of the undersides of the leaves (on the upper surface neither the male nor female ever attach themselves); but, unlike the male, which derives no nourishment from the juices of the tree (the mouth being obsolete in the perfect state), she punctures the cuticle with a proboscis (a very short three-jointed _promuscis_), springing as it were from the breast, but capable of being greatly porrected, and inserted in the cuticle of the plant, and through this she abstracts her nutriment. In the early pupa state the female is easily distinguishable from the male, by being more elliptical and much more convex. As she increases in size her skin distends and she becomes smooth and dry; the rings of the body become effaced; and losing entirely the form of an insect, she presents, for some time, a yellowish pustular shape, but ultimately assumes a roundish conical form, of a dark brown colour.[1] [Footnote 1: Figs. 6 and 7. There are many other species of the Coccus tribe in Ceylon, some (Pseudococcus?) never appearing as a scale, the female wrapping herself up in a white cottony exudation; many species nearly allied to the true Coccus infest common plants about gardens, such as the Nerium Oleander, Plumeria Acuminata, and others with milky juices; another subgenus (Ceroplastes?), the female of which produces a protecting waxy material, infests the Gendurassa Vulgaris, the Furrcæa Gigantea, the Jak Tree, Mango, and other common trees.] Until she has nearly reached her full size, she still possesses the power of locomotion, and her six legs are easily distinguishable in the under surface of her corpulent body; but at no period of her existence has she wings. It is about the time of her obtaining full size that impregnation takes place[1]; after which the scale becomes somewhat more conical, assumes a darker colour, and at length is permanently fixed to the surface of the plant, by means of a cottony substance interposed between it and the vegetable cuticle to which it adheres. The scale, when full grown, exactly resembles in miniature the hat of a Cornish miner[2], there being a narrow rim at the base, which gives increased surface of attachment. It is about 1/8 inch in diameter, by about 1/12 deep, and it appears perfectly smooth to the naked eye; but it is in reality studded over with a multitude of very minute warts, giving it a dotted appearance. Except the margin, which is ciliated, it is entirely destitute of hairs. The number of eggs contained in one of the scales is enormous, amounting in a single one to 691. The eggs are of an oblong shape, of a pale flesh colour, and perfectly smooth.[3] In some of the scales, the eggs when laid on the field of the microscope resemble those masses of life sometimes seen in decayed cheese.[4] A few small yellowish maggots are sometimes found with them, and these are the larvæ[5] of insects, the eggs of which have been deposited in the female while the scale was soft. They escape when mature by cutting a small round hole in the dorsum of the scale. [Footnote 1: REAUMUR has described the singular manner in which this occurs. _Mem._ tom. iv.] [Footnote 2: Fig. 8.] [Footnote 3: Fig. 9.] [Footnote 4: Figs. 10, 11.] [Footnote 5: Of the parasitic Chalcididiæ, many genera of which are well known to deposit their eggs in the soft Coccus, viz.: Encystus, Coccophagus, Pteromalus, Mesosela, Agonioneurus; besides Aphidius, a minutely sized genus of Ichneumonidæ. Most, if not all, of these genera are Singhalese.] [Illustration: THE COFFEE BUG. Lecanium Coffeæ.] It is not till after this pest has been on an estate for two or three years that it shows itself to an alarming extent. During the first year a few only of the ripe scales are seen scattered over the bushes, generally on the younger shoots; but that year's crop does not suffer much, and the appearance of the tree is little altered. The second year, however, brings a change for the worse; if the young shoots and the underside of the leaves he now examined, the scales will be found to have become much more numerous, and with them appear a multitude of white specks, which are the young scales in a more or less forward state. The clusters of berries now assume a black sooty look, and a great number of them fall off before coming to maturity; the general health of the tree also begins to fail, and it acquires a blighted appearance. A loss of crop is this year sustained, but to no great extent. The third year brings about a more serious change, the whole plant acquires a black hue, appearing as if soot had been thrown over it in great quantities; this is caused by the growth of a parasitic fungus[1] over the shoots and the upper surface of the leaves, forming a fibrous coating, somewhat resembling velvet or felt. This never makes its appearance till the insect has been a considerable time on the bush, and probably owes its existence there to an unhealthy condition of the juices of the leaf, consequent on the irritation produced by the coccus, since it never visits the upper surface of the leaf until the latter has fully established itself on the lower. At this period the young shoots have an exceedingly disgusting look from the dense mass of yellow pustular bodies forming on them, the leaves get shrivelled, and the infected trees become conspicuous in the row. The black ants are assiduous in their visits to them. Two-thirds of the crop is lost, and on many trees not a single berry forms. [Footnote 1: _Racodium?_ Species of this genus are not confined to the coffee plant alone in Ceylon, but follow the "bugs" in their attacks on other bushes. It appears like a dense interlaced mesh of fibres, each made up of a single series of minute oblong vesicles applied end to end.] This _Lecanium_, or a very closely allied species, has been observed in the Botanic Garden at Peradenia, on the _Citrus acida, Psidium pomiferum, Myrtus Zeylanica, Rosa Indica, Careya arborea, Vitex Negundo_, and other plants. The coffee coccus has generally been first observed in moist, hollow places sheltered from the wind; and thence it has spread itself even over the driest and most exposed parts of the island. On some estates, after attaining a maximum, it has generally declined, but has shown a liability to reappear, especially in low sheltered situations, and it is believed to prevail most extensively in wet seasons. While in its earlier stages, it is easily transmitted from one estate to another, on the clothes of human beings, and in various other ways, which will readily suggest themselves. Dr. Gardner, after a careful consideration and minute examination of estates, arrived at the conclusion, that all remedies suggested up to that time had utterly failed, and that none at once cheap and effectual was likely to be discovered. He seems also to have been of opinion that the insect was not under human control; and that even if it should disappear, it would only be when it should have worn itself out as other blighte have been known to do in some mysterious way. Whether this may prove to be the case or not, is still very uncertain, but every thing observed by Dr. Gardner tends to indicate the permanency of the pest. * * * * * _List of Ceylon Insects._ For the following list of the insects of the island, and the remarks prefixed to it, I am indebted to Mr. F. Walker, by whom it has been prepared after a careful inspection of the collections made by Dr. Templeton, Mr. E.L. Layard, and others: as well as of those in the British Museum and in the Museum of the East India Company.[1] [Footnote 1: The entire of the new species contained in this list have been described in a series of papers by Mr. WALKER in successive numbers of the _Annals of Natural History_ (1858-61): those, from Dr. TEMPLETON'S collection of which descriptions have been taken, have been at his desire transferred to the British Museum for future reference and comparison.] "A short notice of the aspect of the island will afford the best means of accounting, in some degree, for its entomological Fauna: first, as it is an island, and has a mountainous central region, the tropical character of its productions, as in most other cases, rather diminishes, and somewhat approaches that of higher latitudes. "The coast-region of Ceylon, and fully one-third of its northern part, have a much drier atmosphere than that of the rest of its surface; and their climate and vegetation are nearly similar to those of the Carnatic, with which this island may have been connected at no very remote period.[1] But if, on the contrary, the land in Ceylon is gradually rising, the difference of its Fauna from that of Central Hindustan is less remarkable. The peninsula of the Dekkan might then be conjectured to have been nearly or wholly separated from the central part of Hindustan, and confined to the range of mountains along the eastern coast; the insect-fauna of which is as yet almost unknown, but will probably be found to have more resemblance to that of Ceylon than to the insects of northern and western India--just as the insect-fauna of Malaya appears more to resemble the similar productions of Australasia than those of the more northern continent. [Footnote 1: On the subject of this conjecture see _ante_, p. 60.] "Mr. Layard's collection was partly formed in the dry northern province of Ceylon; and among them more Hindustan insects are to be observed than among those collected by Dr. Templeton, and found wholly in the district between Colombo and Kandy. According to this view the faunas of the Nilgherry Mountains, of Central Ceylon, of the peninsula of Malacca, and of Australasia would be found to form one group;--while those of Northern Ceylon, of the western Dekkan, and of the level parts of Central Hindustan would form another of more recent origin. The insect-fauna of the Carnatic is also probably similar to that of the lowlands of Ceylon; but it is still unexplored. The regions of Hindustan in which species have been chiefly collected, such as Bengal, Silbet, and the Punjaub, are at the distance of from 1300 to 1600 miles from Ceylon, and therefore the insects of the latter are fully as different from those of the above regions as they are from those of Australasia, to which Ceylon is as near in point of distance, and agrees more with regard to latitude. "Dr. Hagen has remarked that he believes the fauna of the mountains of Ceylon to be quite different from that of the plains and of the shores. The south and west districts have a very moist climate, and as their vegetation is like that of Malabar, their insect-fauna will probably also resemble that of the latter region. "The insects mentioned in the following list are thus distributed:-- "Order COLEOPTERA. "The recorded species of _Cicindelidæ_ inhabit the plains or the coast country of Ceylon, and several of them are also found in Hindustan. "Many of the species of _Carabidæ_ and of _Staphylinidæ_, especially those collected by Mr. Thwaites, near Kandy, and by M. Nietner at Colombo, have much resemblance to the insects of these two families in North Europe; in the _Scydmænid, Ptiliadæ, Phalacridæ, Nitidulidæ, Colydiadæ_, and _Lathridiadæ_ the northern form is still more striking, and strongly contrasts with the tropical forms of the gigantic _Copridæ, Buprestidæ, and Cerambycidæ_, and with the _Elateridæ, Lampyridæ, Tenebrionidæ, Helopidæ, Meloidæ, Curculionidæ, Prionidæ, Cerambycidæ, Lamiidæ_, and _Endomychidæ_. "The _Copridæ, Dynastidæ, Melolonthidæ, Cetoniadæ_, and _Passalidæ_ are well represented on the plains and on the coast, and the species are mostly of a tropical character. "The _Hydrophilidæ_ have a more northern aspect, as is generally the case with aquatic species. "The order _Strepsiptera_ is here considered as belonging to the _Mordellidæ_, and is represented by the genus _Myrmecolax_, which is peculiar, as yet, to Ceylon. "In the _Curculionidæ_ the single species of _Apion_ will recall to mind the great abundance of that genus in North Europe. "The _Prionidæ_ and the two following families have been investigated by Mr. Pascoe, and the _Hispidæ_, with the five following families, by Mr. Baly; these two gentlemen are well acquainted with the above tribes of beetles, and kindly supplied me with the names of the Ceylon species. Order ORTHOPTERA. "These insects in Ceylon have mostly a tropical aspect. The _Physapoda_, which will probably be soon incorporated with them, are likely to be numerous, though only one species has as yet been noticed. Order NEUROPTERA. "The list here given is chiefly taken from the catalogue published by Dr. Hagen, and containing descriptions of the species named by him or by M. Nietner. They were found in the most elevated parts of the island, near Rangbodde, and Dr. Hagen informs me that not less than 500 species have been noticed in Ceylon, but that they are not yet recorded, with the exception of the species here enumerated. It has been remarked that the _Trichoptera_ and other aquatic _Neuroptera_ are less local than the land species, owing to the more equable temperature of the habitation of their larvæ, and on account of their being often conveyed along the whole length of rivers. The species of _Psocus_ in the list are far more numerous than those yet observed in any other country, with the exception of Europe. Order HYMENOPTERA. "In this order the _Formicidæ_ and the _Poneridæ_ are very numerous, as they are in other damp and woody tropical countries. Seventy species of ants have been observed, but as yet few of them have been named. The various other families of aculeate _Hymenoptera_ are doubtless more abundant than the species recorded indicate, and it may be safely reckoned that the parasitic _Hymenoptera_ in Ceylon far exceed one thousand species in number, though they are yet only known by means of about two dozen kinds collected at Kandy by Mr. Thwaites. Order LEPIDOPTERA. "The fauna of Ceylon is much better known in this order than in any other of the insect tribes, but as yet the _Lepidoptera_ alone in their class afford materials for a comparison of the productions of Ceylon with those of Hindustan and of Australasia; nine hundred and thirty-two species have been collected by Dr. Templeton and by Mr. Layard in the central, western, and northern parts of the island. All the families, from the _Papilionidæ_ to the _Tineidæ_, abound, and numerous species and several genera appear, as yet, to be peculiar to the island. As Ceylon is situate at the entrance to the eastern regions, the list in this volume will suitably precede the descriptive catalogues of the heterocerous _Lepidoptera_ of Hindustan, Java, Borneo, and of other parts of Australasia, which are being prepared for publication. In some of the heterocerous families several species are common to Ceylon and to Australasia, and in various cases the faunas of Ceylon and of Australasia seem to be more similar than those of Ceylon and of Hindustan. The long intercourse between those two regions may have been the means of conveying some species from one to the other. Among the _Pyralites, Hymenia recurvalis_ inhabits also the West Indies, South America, West Africa, Hindustan, China, Australasia, Australia, and New Zealand; and its food-plant is probably some vegetable which is cultivated in all those regions; so also _Desmia afflictalis_ is found in Sierra Leone, Abyssinia, Ceylon, and China. Order DIPTERA. "About fifty species were observed by Dr. Templeton, but most of those here recorded were collected by Mr. Thwaites at Kandy, and have a great likeness to North European species. The mosquitoes are very annoying on account of their numbers, as might be expected from the moisture and heat of the climate. _Culex laniger_ is the coast species, and the other kinds here mentioned are from Kandy. Humboldt observed that in some parts of South America each stream had its peculiar mosquitoes, and it yet remains to be seen whether the gnats in Ceylon are also thus restricted in their habitation. The genera _Sciara, Cecidomyia_, and _Simulium_, which abound so exceedingly in temperate countries, have each one representative species in the collection made by Mr. Thwaites. Thus an almost new field remains for the Entomologist in the study of the yet unknown Singhalese Diptera, which must be very numerous. Order HEMIPTERA. "The species of this order in the list are too few and too similar to those of Hindustan to need any particular mention. _Lecanium coffeæ_ may be noticed, on account of its infesting the coffee plant, as its name indicates, and the ravages of other species of the genus will be remembered, from the fact that one of them, in other regions, has put a stop to the cultivation of the orange as an article of commerce. "In conclusion, it may be observed that the species of insects in Ceylon may be estimated as exceeding 10,000 in number, of which about 2000 are enumerated in this volume. Class ARACHNIDA. "Four or five species of spiders, of which the specimens cannot be satisfactorily described; one _Ixodes_ and one _Chelifer_ have been forwarded to England from Ceylon by Mr. Thwaites." * * * * * NOTE.--The asterisk prefixed denotes the species discovered in Ceylon since Sir J.E. Tennent's departure from the Island in 1849. Order COLEOPTERA, _Linn._ Fam. CICINDELIDÆ, _Steph._ Cicindela, _Linn._ flavopunctata, _Aud._ discrepans, _Wlk._ aurofasciaca, _Guér._ quadrilineata, _Fabr._ biramosa, _Fabr._ catena, _Fabr._ *insignificans, _Dohrn._ Tricondyla, _Latr._ femorata, _Wlk._ *tumidula, _Wlk._ *scitiscabra, _Wlk._ *concinna, _Dohrn._ Fam. CARABIDÆ, _Leach._ Casnonia, _Latr._ *punctata, _Niet._ *pilifera, _Niet._ Ophionea, _Klug._ *cyanocephala, _Fabr._ Euplynes, _Niet._ Dohrni, _Niet._ Heteroglossa, _Niet._ *elegans, _Niet._ *ruficollis, _Niet._ *bimaculata, _Niet._ Zuphium, _Latr._ *pubescens, _Niet._ Pheropsophos, _Solier._ Cateisei, _Dej._ bimaculatus, _Fabr._ Cymindis, _Latr_ rufiventris, _Wlk._ Anchisia, _Niet._ *modesta, _Niet._ Dromius, _Bon._ marginiter, _Wlk._ repandens, _Wlk._ Lebia, _Latr._ *bipars, _Wlk,_ Creagris, _Niet._ labrosa, _Niet._ Elliotia, _Niet._ paltipes, _Niet._ Maraga, _Wlk._ planigera, _Wlk._ Catascopus, _Kirby._ facialis, _Wied._ reductus, _Wlk._ Scarites, _Fabr._ obliterans, _Wlk._ subsignans, _Wlk._ designans, _Wlk._ *minor, _Wlk._ Clivina, _Latr._ *rugosifrons, _Niet._ *elongatula, _Niet._ *maculata, _Niet._ recta, _Wlk._ Leistus, _Fræhl._ linearis, _Wlk._ Isotarsus, _Laferlé_ quadrimaculatus, _Oliv._ Panagæus, _Latr._ retractus, _Wlk._ Chlænius, _Bon._ bimaculatus, _Dej._ diffinis, _Reiche._ *Ceylanicus, _Niet._ *quinque-maculatus, _Niet._ pulcher, _Niet._ cupricollis, _Niet._ ruginosus, _Niet._ Anchomenus, _Bon._ illocatus, _Wlk._ Agonum, _Bon._ placidulum, _Wlk._ Corpodes?, _Macl._ marginicallis, _Wlk._ Argutor, _Meg._ degener, _Wlk._ relinquens, _Wlk._ Simphyus, _Niet._ *unicolor, _Niet._ Bradytus, _Steph._ stolidus, _Wlk._ Curtonotus, _Wlk._ Harpalus, _Latr._ *advolans, _Niet._ dispellens, _Wlk._ Calodromus, _Niet._ *exornatus, _Niet._ Megaristerus, _Niet._ *mandibularis, _Niet._ *stenolophoides, _Niet._ *Indicus, _Niet._ Platysma, _Bon._ retinens, _Wlk._ Morio, _Latr._ trogositoides, _Wlk._ cucujoides, _Wlk._ Barysomus, _Dej._ *Gyllenhalii, _Dej._ Oodes, _Bon._ *piceus, _Niet._ Selenophorus, _Dej._ inuxus, _Wlk._ Orthogonius, _Dej._ femoratus, _Dej._ Helluodes, _Westw._ Taprobanæ, _Westw._ Physocrotaphus, _Parry._ Ceylonicus, _Parry._ *minax, _West._ Physodera, _Esch._ Eschscholtzii, _Parry._ Omphra, _Latr._ *ovipennis, _Reiche._ Planetes, _Macl._ bimaculatus, _Macleay._ Cardiaderus, _Dej._ scitus, _Wlk._ Distrigus, _Dej._ *costatus, _Niet._ *submetallicus, _Niet._ rufopiceus, _Niet._ *æneus, _Niet._ *Dejeani, _Niet._ Drimostoma, _Dej._ *Ceylanicum, _Niet._ *marginale, _Wlk_. Cyclosomus, _Latr_. flexuosus, _Fabr_. Ochthephilus, _Niet_. *Ceylanicus, _Niet_. Spathinus, _Niet_. *nigriceps, _Niet_. Acuparpus, _Latr_. derogatus, _Wlk_. extremus, _Wlk_. Bembidium, _Latr_. finitimum, _Wlk_. *opulentum, _Niet_. *truncatum, _Niet_. *tropicum, _Niet_. *triangulare, _Niet_. *Ceylanicum, _Niet_. Klugii, _Niet_. *ebeninum, _Niet_. *orientale, _Niet_. *emarginatum, _Niet_. *ornatum, _Niet_. *scydmænoides, _Niet_. Fam. PAUSSIDÆ, _Westw_. Cerapterus, _Swed_. latipes, _Swed_. Pleuropterus, _West_. Westermanni, _West_. Paussus, _Linn._ pacificus, _West_. Fam. DYTISCIDÆ, _Macl_. Cybister, _Curt_. limbatus, _Fabr_. Dytiscus, _Linn._ extenuans, _Wlk_. Eunectes, _Erich_. griseus, _Fabr_. Hydaticus, _Leach_. festivus, _Ill_. vittatus, _Fabr_. dislocans, _Wlk_. fractifer, _Wlk_. Colymbetes, _Clairv_. interclusus, _Wlk_. Hydroporus, _Clairv_. interpulsus, _Wlk_. intermixtus, _Wlk_. lætabilis, _Wlk_. *inefficiens, _Wlk_. Fam. GYRINIDÆ, _Leach_. Dineutes, _Macl_. spinosus, _Fabr_. Porrorhynchus, _Lap_. indicans, _Wlk_. Gyretes, _Brullé_. discifer, _Wlk_. Gyrinus, _Linn._ nitidulus, _Fabr_. obliquus, _Wlk_. Orectochilus, _Esch_. *lenocinium, _Dohrn_. Fam. STAPHILINIDÆ, _Leach_. Ocypus, _Kirby_. longipennis, _Wlk_. congruus, _Wlk_. punctilinea, _Wlk_. *lineatus, _Wlk_. Philonthus, _Leach_. *pedestris, _Wlk_. Xantholinus, _Dahl_. cinctus, _Wlk_. *inclinans, _Wlk_. Sunius, _Leach_. *obliquus, _Wlk_. Oedichirus, _Erich_. *alatus, _Niet_. Poederus, _Fabr_. alternans, _Wlk_. Stenus, _Latr_. *barbatus, _Niet_. *lærtoides, _Niet_. Osorius? _Leach_. *compactus, _Wlk_. Prognatha, _Latr_. decisi, _Wlk_. *tenuis, _Wlk_. Leptochirus, _Perty_. *piscinus, _Erich_. Oxytelus, _Grav_. rudis, _Wlk_. productus, _Wlk_. *bicolor, _Wlk_. Trogophloeus, _Mann_. *Taprobanæ, _Wlk_. Omalium, _Grav_. filiforme, _Wlk_. Aleochara, _Grav_. postica, _Wlk_. *translata, _Wlk_. *subjecta, _Wlk_. Dinarda, _Leach_. serricornis, _Wlk_. Fam. PSELAPHIDÆ, _Leach_. Pselaphanax, _Wlk_. setosus, _Wlk_. Fam. SCYDMÆNIDÆ, _Leach_. Erineus, _Wlk_. monstrosus, _Wlk_. Scydmænus, _Latr_. *megamelas, _Wlk_. *alatus, _Niet_. *femoralis, _Niet_. *Ceylanicus, _Niet_. *intermedius, _Niet_. *pselaphoides, _Niet_. *advolans, _Niet_. *pubescens, _Niet_. *pygmæus, _Niet_. *glanduliferus, _Niet_. *graminicola, _Niet_. *pyriformis, _Niet_. *angusticeps, _Niet_. *ovatus, _Niet_. Fam. PTILIADÆ, _Wo_. Trichopteryx, _Kirby_. *cursitans, _Niet_. *immatura, _Niet_. *invisibilis, _Niet_. Ptilium, _Schüpp_. *subquadratum, _Niet_. Ptenidium, _Erich_. *macrocephalum, _Niet_. Fam. PHALACRIDÆ, _Leach_. Phalacrus, _Payk_. conjiciens, _Wlk_. confectus, _Wlk_. Fam. NITUDULIDÆ, _Leach_. Nitidula, _Fabr_. contigens, _Wlk_. intendens, _Wlk_. significans, _Wik_. tomentifera, _Wlk_. *submaculata, _Wlk_. *glabricula, _Dohrn_. Nitidulopsis, _Wlk_. æqualis, _Wlk_. Meligethes, _Kirby_. *orientalis, _Niet_. *respondens, _Wlk_. Rhizophagus, _Herbst_. parallelus, _Wlk_. Fam. COLYDIADÆ, _Woll_. Lyctus, _Fabr_. retractus, _Wlk_. disputans, _Wlk_. Ditoma, _Illig_. rugicollis, _Wlk_. Fam. TROGOSITIDÆ, _Kirby_. Trogosita, _Oliv_. insinuans, _Wlk_. *rhyzophagoides, _Wlk_. Fam. CUCUJIDÆ, _Steph_. Loemophloeus, _Dej_. ferrugineus, _Wlk_. Cucujus? _Fabr_. *incommodus, _Wlk_. Silvanus, _Latr_. retrahens, _Wlk_. *scuticollis, _Wlk_. *Porrectus, _Wlk_. Brontes, _Fabr_. *orientalis, _Dej_. Fam. LATHRIDIANÆ, _Wall_. Lathridius, _Herbst_. perpusillus, _Wlk_. Corticaria, _Marsh_. resecta, _Wlk_. Monotoma, _Herbst_. concinnula, _Wlk_. Fam. DERMESTIDÆ, _Leach_. Dermestes, _Linn._ vulpinus, _Fabr_. Attagenus, _Latr_. detectus, _Wlk_. rufipes, _Wlk_. Trinodes, _Meg_. hirtellus, _Wlk_. Fam. BYRRHIDÆ, _Leach_. Inclica, _Wlk_. solida, _Wlk_. Fam. HISTERIDÆ, _Leach_. Hister, _Linn._ Bengalensis, _Weid_. encaustus, _Mars._ orientalis, _Payk_. bipustulatus, _Fabr._ *mundissimus, _Wlk._ Saprinus, _Erich_. semipunctatus, _Fabr._ Platysoma, _Leach._ atratum? _Erichs._ desmens, _Wlk._ restoratum, _Wlk._ Dendrophilus, _Leach._ finitimus, _Wlk._ Fam. APHODIADÆ, _Macl._ Aphodius, _Illig._ robustus, _Wlk._ dynastoides, _Wlk._ pallidicornis, _Wlk._ mutans, _Wlk_. sequens, _Wlk._ Psammodius, _Gyll._ inscitus, _Wlk._ Fam. TROGIDÆ, _Macl._ Trox, _Fabr._ inclusus, _Wlk._ cornutus, _Fabr._ Fam. COPRIDÆ, _Leach._ Ateuchus, _Weber._ sacer, _Linn._ Gymnopleurus, _Illig_ smaragdifer, _Wlk._ Koenigii, _Fabr._ Sisyphus, _Latr._ setosulus _Wlk._ subsideus, _Wlk._ Orepanocerus, _Kirby._ Taprobanæ, _West._ Cobris, _Geoffr._ Pirmal, _Fabr._ sagax, _Quens._ capucinus, _Fabr._ cribricollis, _Wlk._ repertus, _Wlk._ sodalis, _Wlk._ signatus, _Wlk._ diminutivus, _Wlk._ Onthophagus, _Latr._ Bonassus, _Fabr._ cervicornis, _Fabr._ prolixus, _Wlk._ gravis, _Wlk._ difficilis, _Wlk._ lucens, _Wlk._ negligens, _Wlk._ moerens, _Wlk._ turbatus. _Wlk._ Onitis, _Fabr._ Philemon, _Fabr._ Fam. DYNASTIDÆ, _Macl._ Oryctes, _Illig._ rhinoceros, _Linn._ Xylotrupes, _Hope._ Gideon, _Linn._ reductus, _Wlk._ solidipes, _Wlk._ Phileurus, _Latr._ detractus, _Wlk._ Orphnus, _Macl._ detegens, _Wlk._ scitissimus, _Wlk._ Fam. GECTRUPIDÆ, _Leach_. Bolboceras, _Kirby_. lineatus, _Westw_. Fam. MELOLONTHIDÆ, _Macl_. Melolontha, _Fabr_. nummicudens, _Newm_. rubiginosa, _Wlk_. ferruginosa, _Wlk_. seriata, _Hope_. pinguis, _Wlk_. setosa, _Wlk_. Rhizotrogus, _Latr_. hirtipectus, _Wlk_. æqualis, _Wlk_. costatus, _Wlk_. inductus, _Wlk_. exactus, _Wlk_. sulcifer, _Wlk_. Phyllopertha, _Kirby_. transversa, _Burm_. Silphodes, _Westw_. Indica, _Westw_. Trigonostoma, _Dej_. assimile, _Hope_. compressum? _Weid_. nanum, _Wlk_. Serica, _Macl_. pruinosa, _Hope_. Popilia, _Leach_. marginicollis, _Newm_. cyanella, _Hope_. discalis, _Wlk_. Scricesthis, _Dej_. rotundata, _Wlk_. subsignata, _Wlk_. mollis, _Wlk_. confirmata, _Wlk_. Plectris, _Lep. & Serv_. solida, _Wlk_. punctigera, _Wlk_. glabsilinea, _Wlk_. Isonychus, _Mann_. ventralis, _Wlk_. pectoralis, _Wlk_. Omaloplia, _Meg_. fracta, _Wlk_. interrupta, _Wlk_. semicincta, _Wlk_. *hamifera, _Wlk_. *picta, _Dohrn_. *nana, _Dohrn_. Apogenia, _Kirby_. nigricans, _Hope_. Phytalos _Erich_. eurystomus, _Burm_. Ancylon cha. _Dej_. Reynaudii, _Blanch_. Leucopholis, _Dej_. Mellei, _Guer_. pinguis, _Burm_. Anomala, _Meg_. elata, _Fabr_. humeralis, _Wlk_. discalis, _Wlk_. varicolor, _Sch_. conformis, _Wlk_. similis, _Hope_. punctatissima, _Wlk_. infixa, _Wlk_. Mimela, _Kirby_. variegata, _Wlk_. mundissima, _Wlk_. Parastasia, _Westw_. rufopic a. _Westw_. Euchlora, _Macl_. viridis, _Fabr_. perplexa, _Hope_. Fam. CETONIADÆ, _Kirby_. Glycyphana, _Burm_. versicolor, _Fabr_. luctuosa, _Gory_. variegata, _Fabr_. marginicollis, _Gory_. Clinteria, _Burm_. imperalis, _Schaum_. incerta, _Parry_. chloronota, _Blanch_. Tæniodera, _Burm_. Malabariensis, _Gory_. quadrivittata, _White_. alboguttata, _Vigors_. Protætia, _Burm_. maculata, _Fabr_. Whitehousii, _Parry_. Agestrata, _Erich_. nigrita, _Fabr_. orichalcea, _Linn._ Coryphocera, _Burm_. elegans, _Fabr_. Nacronota, _Hoffm_. quadrivittata, _Sch_. Fam. TRICHIADÆ, _Leach_. Valgus, _Scriba_. addendus, _Wlk_. Fam. LUCANIDÆ, _Leach_. Odontolabis, _Burm_. Bengalensis, _Parry_. emarginatus, _Dej_. Ægus, _Macl_. acuminatus, _Fabr_. lunatus, _Fabr_. Singuala, _Blanch_. tenella, _Blanch_. Fam. PASSALIDÆ, _Macl_. Passalus, _Fabr_. transversus, _Dohrn_. interstitialis, _Perch_. punctiger? _Lefeb_. bicolor, _Fabr_. Fam. SPHÆRIDIADÆ, _Leach_. Sphæridium, _Fabr_. tricolor, _Wlk_. Cercyon, _Leach_. *vicinale, _Wlk._ Fam. HYDROPHILIDÆ, _Leach_. Hydrous, _Leach_. *rufiventris, _Niet_. *inconspicuus, _Niet._ Hydrobius, _Leach._ stultus, _Wlk._ Philydrus, _Solier._ esurieus, _Wlk._ Berosus, _Leach._ *decrescens, _Wlk._ Hydrochus, _Germ._ *lacustris, _Niet._ Georyssus, _Latr._ *gemma, _Niet._ *insularis, _Dohrn._ Dastareus, _Wlk._ porosus, _Wlk._ Fam. BUPRESTIDIE, _Steph._ Sternocera, _Esch._ chrysis, _Linn._ sternicornis, _Linn._ Chrysochroa, _Solier._ ignita, _Linn._ Chinensis, _Lap._ Rajah, _Lap._ *cyaneocephala, _Fabr._ Chyrsodema, _Lap_ sulcata, _Thunb._ Belionota, _Esch._ scutellaris, _Fabr._ *Petiri, _Gory._ Chrysobothris, _Esch._ suturalis, _Wlk._ Agrilus, _Meg._ sulcicollis, _Wlk._ *cupreiceps, _Wlk._ *cupreicollis, _Wlk._ *armatus, _Fabr._ Fam. ELATERIDÆ, _Leach._ Campsosternos, _Latr._ Templetonii, _Westw._ aureolus, _Hope._ Bohemannii, _Cand._ venustulus, _Cand._ pallidipes, _Cand._ Agrypnus, _Esch._ fuscipes, _Fabr._ Alaus, _Esch._ speciosus, _Linn._ sordidus, _Westw._ Cardiophorus, _Esch._ humerifer, _Wlk._ Corymbites, _Latr._ dividens, _Wlk._ divisa, _Wlk._ *bivittava, _Wlk._ Lacon, _Lap._ *obesus, _Cand._ Athous, _Esch._ punctosus, _Wlk._ inapertus, _Wlk._ decretus, _Wlk._ inefficiens, _Wlk._ Ampedus, _Meg._ *acutifer, _Wlk._ *discicollis, _Wlk._ Legna, _Wlk._ idonea, _Wlk._ Fam. LAMPYRIDÆ, _Leach._ Lycus, _Fabr_. triangularis, _Hope._ geminus, _Wlk._ astutus, _Wlk._ fallix, _Wlk._ planicornis, _Wlk._ melanopterus, _Wlk._ pubicornis, _Wlk._ duplex, _Wlk._ costifer, _Wlk._ revocans, _Wlk._ dispellens, _Wlk._ *pubipennis, _Wlk._ *humerifer, _Wlk._ expansicornis, _Wlk._ divisus, _Wlk._ Dictyopterus, _Latr._ internexus, _Wlk._ Lampyris, _Geoff._ tenebrosa, _Wlk._ diffinis, _Wlk._ lutescens, _Wlk._ *vitrifera, _Wlk._ Colophotia, _Dej._ humeralis, _Wlk._ [vespertina, _Febr._ perplexa, _Wlk._?] intricata, _Wlk._ extricans, _Wlk._ promelas, _Wlk._ Harmatelia, _Wlk._ discalis, _Wlk_ bilinea, _Wlk._ Fam. TELEPHORIDÆ, _Leach._ Telephorus, _Schäff._ dimidiatus, _Fabr._ malthinoides, _Wlk._ Eugeusis, _Westw._ palpator, _Westw._ gryphus, _Hope._ olivaceus, _Hope._ Fam. CEBRIONIDÆ, _Steph._ Callirhipis, _Latr._ Templetonii, _Westw._ Championii, _Westw._ Fam. MERLYRIDÆ, _Leach._ Malachius, _Fabr._ plagiatus, _Wlk._ Malthinus, _Latr._ *forticornis, _Wlk._ *retractus, _Wlk._ fragilis, _Dohrn._ Enciopus, _Steph._ proficiens, _Wlk._ Honosca, _Wlk._ necrobioides, _Wlk._ Fam. CLERIDÆ, _Kirby._ Cylidrus, _Lap._ sobrinus, _Dohrn._ Stigmatium, _Gray._ elaphroides, _Westw._ Necrobia, _Latr._ rufipes, _Fabr._ aspera, _Wlk._ Fam. PTINIDÆ, _Leach._ Ptinus, _Linn._ *nigerrimus, _Boield._ Fam. DIAPERIDÆ, _Leach._ Diaperis, _Geoff._ velutina, _Wlk._ fragilis, _Dohrn._ Fam. TENEBRIONIDÆ, _Leach._ Zophobas, _Dej._ errans? _Dej._ clavipes, _Wlk._ ?solidus, _Wlk._ Pseudoblaps, _Guer._ nigrita, _Fabr._ Tenebrio, _Linn._ rubripes, _Hope._ retenta, _Wlk._ Trachyscelis, _Latr._ brunnea, _Dohrn._ Fam. OPATRIDÆ, _Shuck._ Opatrum, _Fabr._ contrahens, _Wlk._ bilineatum, _Wlk._ planatum, _Wlk._ serricolle, _Wlk._ Asida, _Latr._ horrida, _Wlk._ Crypticus, _Latr._ detersus, _Wlk._ longipennis, _Wlk._ Phaleria, _Latr._ rutipes, _Wlk._ Toxicum, _Latr._ oppugnans, _Wlk._ biluna, _Wlk._ Boletophagus, _Ill._ *inorosus, _Dohrn._ *exasperatus, _Dohrn._ Uloma, _Meg._ scita, _Wlk._ Alphitophagus, _Steph._ subFascia, _Wlk._ Fam. HELOPIDÆ, _Steph._ Osdara, _Wlk._ picipes, _Wlk._ Cholipus, _Dej._ brevicornis, _Dej._ parabolicus, _Wlk._ læviusculus, _Wlk._ Helops, _Fabr._ ebeninus, _Wlk._ Camaria, _Lep. & Serv._ amethystina, _L.&S._ Amarygmus, _Dalm._ chrysomeloides, _Dej._ Fam. MELOIDÆ, _Woll._ Epicanta, _Dej._ nigrifinis, _Wlk._ Cissites, _Latr._ testaceus, _Febr._ Mylabris, _Fabr._ humeralis, _Wlk._ alterna, _Wlk._ *recognita, _Wlk._ Atratocerus, _Pal., Bv._ debilis, _Wlk._ reversus, _Wlk._ Fam. OEDEMERIDÆ, _Steph._ Cistela, _Fabr_. congrua, _Wlk_. *falsifica, _Wlk_. Allecula, _Fabr_. fusiformis, _Wlk_. elegans, _Wlk_. *flavifemur, _Wlk_. Sora, _Wlk_. *marginata, _Wlk_. Thaceona, _Wlk_. dimelas, _Wlk_. Fam. MORDELLIDÆ, _Steph_. Acosmas, _Dej_. languidus, _Wlk_. Rhipiphorus, _Fabr_. *tropicus, _Niet_. Mordella, _Linn._ composita, _Wlk_. *detectiva, _Wlk_. Myrmecolax, _Westir_. *Nietneri, _Westir_. Fam. ANTHICIDÆ, _Wlk_. Anthicus, _Payk_. *quisquilairius, _Niet_. *insularius, _Niet_. *sticticollis, _Wlk_. Fam. CISSIDÆ, _Leach_. Cis, _Latr_. contendens, _Wlk_. Fam. TOMICIDÆ, _Shuck_. Apate, _Fabr_. submedia, _Wlk_. Bostrichus, _Geoff_. mutuatus, _Wlk_. *vertens, _Wlk_. *moderatus, _Wlk_.. *testaceus, _Wlk_. *exiguns, _Wlk_. Platypus, _Herbst_. minex, _Wlk_. solidus, _Wlk_. *latifinis, _Wlk_. Hylurgus, _Latr_. determinans, _Wlk_. *concinnulus, _Wlk_. Hylesinus, _Fahr_. curvifer, _Wlk_. despectus, _Wlk_. irresolutus, _Wlk_. Fam. CURCULIONIDÆ, _Leach_. Bruchus, _Linn._ scutellaris, _Fabr_. Spermophagus, _Steven_. convolvuli, _Thunb_. figuratus, _Wlk_. Cisti, _Fabr_. incertus, _Wlk_. decretus, _Wlk_. Dendropemon, _Schön_. *melancholicus, _Dohrn_. Dendrotrogus, _Jek_. Dohrnii, _Jek_. discrepans, _Dohrn_. Eucorynus, _Schön_. colligendus, _Wlk_. colligens, _Wlk_. Basitropis, _Jek_. *disconotatus, _Jek_. Litocerus, _Schön_. punctulatus, _Dohrn_. Tropideres, _Sch_. punctulifer, _Dohrn_. tragilis, _Wlk_. Cedus, _Waterh_. *cancellatus, _Dohrn_. Xylinades, _Latr_. sobrinulus, _Dohrn_. indignus, _Wlk_. Xenocerus, _Germ_. anguliterus, _Wlk_. revocans, _Wlk_. *anchoralis, _Dohrn_. Callistocerus, _Dohrn_. *Nietneri, _Dohrn_. Anthribus, _Geoff_. longicornis, _Fabr_. apicalis, _Wlk_. facilis, _Wlk_. Aræcerus, _Schön_. coffeæ, _Fabr_. *insidiosus, _Fabr_. *musculus, _Dohrn_. *intangens, _Wlk_. *bifovea, _Wlk_. Dipieza, _Pasc_. *insignis, _Dohrn_. Apolecta, _Pasc_. *Nietneri, _Dohrn_. *musculus, _Dohrn_. Arrhenodes, _Steven_. miles, _Sch_. pilicornis, _Sch_. dentirosiris, _Jek_. approximans, _Wlk_. Veneris, _Dohrn_. Cerobates, _Schön_. thrasco, _Dohrn_. aciculatus, _Wlk_. Ceocephalus, _Schön_. cavus, _Wlk_. reticulatus, _Fabr_. Nemocephalus, _Latr_. sulcirostris, _De Haan_. planicollis, _Wlk_. spinirostris, _Wlk_. Apoderus, _Oliv_. longicollis? _Fabr_. Tranquebaricus, _Fabr_. cygneus, _Fabr_. scitulus, _Wlk_. *triangularis, _Fabr_. *echinatus, _Sch_. Rhynchites, _Herbst_. suffundens, _Wlk_. *restituens, _Wlk_. Apion, _Herbst_. *Cingalense, _Wlk_. Strophosomus, _Bilbug_. *suturalis, _Wlk_. Piazomias, _Schön_. æqualis, _Wlk_. Astycus, _Schön_. lateralis, _Fabr_.? ebeninus, _Wlk_. *immunis, _Wlk_. Cleonus, _Schön_. inducens, _Wlk_. Myllocerus, _Schön_. transmarinus, _Herbst_.? spurcatus, _Wlk_. *retrahens, _Wlk_. *posticus, _Wlk_. Phyllobius, _Schön_. *mimicus, _Wlk_. Episomus, _Schön_. pauperatus, _Fabr_. Lixus, _Fabr_. nebulitascia, _Wlk_. Aclees, _Schön_. cribratus, _Dej_. Alcides, _Dalm_. signatus, _Boh_. obliquus, _Wlk_. transversus, _Wlk_. *clausus, _Wlk_. Acienemis, _Fairm_. Ceylonicus, _Jek_. Apotomorhinus, _Schön_. signatus, _Wlk_. alboater, _Wlk_. Cryptorhynchus, _Illig_. ineffectus, _Wlk_. assimilans, _Wlk_. declaratus, _Wlk_. notabilis, _Wlk_. vexatus, _Wlk_. Camptorhinus, _Schön_.? reversus, _Wlk_. *indiscretus, _Wlk_. Desmidophorus, _Chevr_. hebes, _Fabr_. communicans, _Wlk_. strenuus, _Wlk_. *discriminans, _Wlk_. inexpertus, _Wlk_. fasciculicollis, _Wlk_. Sipaius, _Schön_. granulatus, _Fabr_. porosus, _Wlk_. tinctus, _Wlk_. Mecopus, _Dalm_. *Waterhousei, _Dohrn_. Rhynchophorus, _Herbst_. ferrugineus, _Fabr_. introducens, _Wlk_. Protocerus, _Schön_. molossus? _Oliv_. Sphænophorus, _Schön_. glabridiscus, _Wlk_. exquisitus, _Wlk_. Debaani?, _Jek_. cribricollis, _Wlk_. ?panops, _Wlk_. Cossonus, _Clairv_. *quadrimacula, _Wlk_. ?hebes, _Wlk_. ambiguus, _Sch_.? Scitophilus, _Schön_. orizæ, _Linn._ disciferus, _Wlk_. Mecinus, Germ. *?relictus, _Wlk_. Fam. PRIONIDÆ, _Leach_. Trictenotoma, _G.R. Gray_. Templetoni, _Westw_. Prionomina, _White_. orientalis, _Oliv_. Acanthophorus, _Serv_. serraticornis, _Oliv_. Cnemoplites, _Newm_. Rhesus, _Motch_. Ægosoma, _Serv_. Cingalense, _White_. Fam. CERAMBYCIDÆ, _Kirby_. Cerambyx, _Linn._ indutus, _Newm_. vernicosus, _Pasc_. consocius, _Pasc_. versutus, _Pasc_. nitidus, _Pasc_. macilentus, _Pasc_. venustus, _Pasc_. torticollis, _Dohrn_. Sebasmia, _Pasc_. Templetoni, _Pasc_. Callichroma, _Latr_. trogoninum, _Pasc_. telephoroides, _Westw_. Homalomelas, _White_. gracilipes, _Parry_. zonatus, _Pasc_. Colobus, _Serv_. Cingalensis, _White_. Thramus, _Pasc_. gibbosus, _Pasc_. Deuteromina, _Pasc_. mutica, _Pasc_. Obrium, _Meg_. laterale, _Pasc_. moestum, _Pasc_. Psilomerus, _Blanch_. macilentus, _Pasc_. Clytus, _Fabr_. vicinus, _Hope_. ascendens, _Pasc_. Walkeri, _Pasc_. annularis, _Fabr_. *aurilinea, _Dohrn_. Rhaphuma, _Pasc_. leucoscutellata, _Hope_. Ceresium, _Newm_. cretatum, _White_. Zeylanicum, _White_. Stromatium, _Serv_. barbatum, _Fabr_. maculatum, _White_. Hespherophanes, _Muls_. simplex, _Gyll_. Fam. LAMIDIÆ, _Kirby_. Nyphona, _Muls_. cylindracea, _White_. Mesosa, _Serv_. columba, _Pasc_. Coptops, _Serv_. bidens, _Fabr_. Xylorhiza, _Dej_. adusta, _Wied_. Cacia, _Newm_. triloba, _Pasc_. Batocera, _Blanch_. rubus, _Fabr_. ferruginea, _Blanch_. Monohammus, _Meg_. tistulator, _Germ_. crucifer, _Fabr_. nivosus, _White_. commixtus, _Pasc_. Cereposius, _Dup_. patronus, _Pasc_. Pelargoderus, _Serv_. tigrinus, _Chevr_. Olenocamptus, _Chevr_. bilobus, _Fabr_. Praonetha, _Dej_. annulata, _Chevr_. posticalis, _Pasc_. Apomecyna, _Serv_. histrio, _Fabr_., var.? Ropica, _Pasc_. præusta, _Pasc_. Hathlia, _Serv_. procera, _Pasc_. Iolea, _Pasc_. proxima, _Pasc_. histrio, _Pasc_. Glenea, _Newm_. sulphurella, _White_. commissa, _Pasc_. scapitera, _Pasc_. vexator, _Pasc_. Stibara, _Hope_. nigricornis, _Fabr_. Fam. HISPIDÆ, _Kirby_. Oncocephala, _Dohrn_. deltoides, _Dohrn_. Leptispa, _Baly_. pygmæa, _Baly_. Amplistea, _Baly_. Döhrnii, _Baly_. Estigmena, _Hope_. Chinensis, _Hope_. Hispa, _Linn._ hystrix, _Fabr_. erinacea, _Fabr_. nigrina, _Dohrn_. *Walkeri, _Baly_. Platypria, _Guér_. echidna, _Guér_. Fam. CASSIDIDÆ, _Westw_. Episticia, _Boh_. matronula, _Boh_. Hoplionota, _Hope_. tetraspilota, _Baly_. rubromarginata, _Boh_. horrifica, _Boh_. Aspidomorpha, _Hope_. St. crucis, _Fabr_. miliaris, _Fabr_. pallidimarginata, _Baly_. dorsata, _Fabr_. calligera, _Boh_. micans, _Fabr_. Cassida, _Linn._ clathrata, _Fabr_. timefacta, _Boh_. farinosa, _Boh_. Laccoptera, _Boh_. 14-notata, _Boh_. Coptcycla, _Chevr_. sex-notata, _Fabr_. 13-signata, _Boh_. 13-notata, _Boh_. ornata, _Fabr_. Ceylonica, _Boh_. Balyi, _Boh_. trivittata, _Fabr_. 15-punctuata, _Boh_. catenata, _Dej_. Fam. SAGRIDÆ, _Kirby_. Sagra, _Fabr_. nigrita, _Oliv_. Fam. DONACIDÆ, _Lacord_. Donacia, _Fabr_. Delesserti, _Guér_. Coptocephala, _Chev_. Templetoni, _Baly_. Fam. EUMOLFIDÆ, _Baly_. Corynodes, _Hope_. cyaneus, _Hope_. æneus, _Baly_. Glyptoscelis, _Chevr_. Templetoni, _Baly_. pyrospilotus, _Baly_. micans, _Baly_. cupreus, _Baly_. Eumolpus, _Fabr_. lemoides, _Wlk_. Fam. CRYPTOCEPHALIDÆ, _Kirby_. Cryptocephalus, _Geoff_. sex-punctatus, _Fabr_. Walkeri, _Baly_. Diapromorpha, _Lac_. Turcica, _Fabr_. Fam. CHRYSOMELIDÆ, _Leach_. Chalcolampa, _Baly_. Templetoni, _Baly_. Lina, _Meg_. convexa, _Baly_. Chrysomela, _Linn._ Templetoni, _Baly_. Fam. GALERUCIDÆ, _Steph_. Galeruca, _Geoff_. *pectinata, _Dohrn_. Graphodera, _Chevr_. cyanea, _Fabr_. Monolepta, _Chevr_. pulchella, _Baly_. Thyamis, _Steph_. Ceylonicus, _Baly_. Fam. COCCINELLIDÆ, _Latr_. Epilachna, _Chevr_. 28-punctata, _Fabr_. Delessortii, _Guér_. pubescens, _Hope_. innuba, _Oliv_. Coccinella, _Linn._ tricincta, _Fabr_. *repanda, _Muls_. tenuilinea, _Wlk_. rejiciens, _Wlk_. interrumpens, _Wlk_. quinqueplaga, _Wlk_. simplex, _Wlk_. antica, _Wlk_. flaviceps, _Wlk_. Neda, _Muls_. tricolor, _Fabr_. Coelophora, _Muls_. 9-maculata, _Fabr_.? Chilocorus, _Leach_. opponens, _Wlk_. Scymnus, _Kug_. varibilis, _Wlk_. Fam. EROTYLIDÆ, _Leach_. Fatua, _Dej_. Nepalensis, _Hope_. Triplax, _Payk_. decorus, _Wlk_. Tritoma, _Fabr_. *bilactes, _Wlk_. *preposita, _Wlk_. Ischyrus, _Cherz_. grandis, _Fabr_. Fam. ENDOMYCHIDÆ, _Leach_. Eugonius, _Gerst_. annularis, _Gerst_. lunulatus, _Gerst_. Eumorphus, _Weber_. pulcripes, _Gerst_. *tener, _Dohrn_. Stenotarsus, _Perty_. Nietneri, _Gerst_. *castaneus, _Gerst_. *tormentosus, _Gerst_. *vallatus, _Gerst_. Lycoperdina, _Latr_. glabrata, _Wlk_. Ancylopus, _Gerst_. melanocephalus, _Oliv_. Saula, _Gerst_. *nigripes, _Gerst_. *ferruginea, _Gerst_. Mycerina, _Gerst_. castanea, _Gerst_. Order ORTHOPTERA, _Linn._ Fam. FORFICULIDÆ, _Steph_. Forficula, _Linn._ ------? Fam. BLATTIDÆ, _Steph_. Panesthia, _Serv_. Javanica, _Serv_. plagiata, _Wlk_. Polyxosteria, _Burm_. larva. Corydia, _Serv_. Petiveriana, _Linn._ Fam. MANTIDÆ, _Leach_. Empusa, _Illig_. gongylodes, _Linn._ Harpax, _Serv_. signiter, _Wlk_. Schizocephala, _Serv_. bicornis, _Linn._ Mantis, _Linn._ superstitiosa, _Fabr_. aridifolia, _Stoll_. extensicollis, ? _Serv_. Fam. PHASMIDÆ, _Serv_. Acrophylla, _Gray_. systropedon, _Westw_. Phasma, _Licht_. sordidium, _DeHaan_. Phyllium, _Illig_. siccifolium, _Linn._ Fam. GRYLLIDÆ, _Steph_. Acheta, _Linn._ bimaculata, _Deg_. supplicans, _Wlk_. æqualis, _Wlk_. confirmata, _Wlk_. Platydactylus, _Brull_. crassipes, _Wlk_. Steirodon, _Serv_. lanceolatum, _Wlk_. Phyllophora, _Thunb_. falsifolia, _Wlk_. Acanthodis, _Serv_. rugosa, _Wlk_. Phaneroptera, _Serv_. attenuata, _Wlk_. Phymateus, _Thunb_. miliaris, _Linn._ Truxalis, _Linn._ exaltata, _Wlk_. porrecta, _Wlk_. Acridium, _Geoffr_. extensum, _Wlk_. deponens, _Wlk_. rutitibia, _Wlk_. cinctifemur, _Wlk_. respondens, _Wlk_. nigrifascia, _Wlk_. Order PHYSAPODA, _Dum_. Thrips, _Linn._ stenomeras, _Wlk_. Order NEUROPTERA, _Linn._ Fam. SERICOSTOMIDÆ, _Steph_. Mormonia, _Curt_. *ursina, _Hagen_. Fam. LEPTOCERIDÆ, _Leach_. Macronema, _Pict_. multifarium, _Wlk_. *splendidum, _Hagen_. *nebulosum, _Hagen_. *obliquum, _Hagen_. *Ceylanicum, _Niet_. *annulicorne, _Niet_. Molanna, _Curt_. mixta, _Hagen_. Setodes, _Ramb_. *Iris, _Hagen_. *Ino, _Hagen_. Fam. PSYCHOMIDÆ, _Curt_. Chimarra, _Leach_. *aurieps, _Hagen_. *tunesta, _Hagen_. *sepulcralis, _Hagen_. Fam. HYDROPSYCHIDÆ, _Curt_. Hydropsyche, _Pict_. *Taprobanes, _Hagen_. *mitis, _Hagen_. Fam. RHYACOPHILIDÆ, _Steph_. Rhyacophila, _Pict_. *castanea, _Hagen_. Fam. PERLIDÆ, _Leach_. Perla, _Geoffr_. angulata, _Wlk_. *testacea, _Hagen_. *limosa, _Hagen_. Fam. SILIDÆ, _Westw_. Dilar, _Ramb_. *Nietneri, _Hagen_. Fam. HEMEROBIDÆ, _Leach_. Mantispa, _Illig_. *Indica, _Westw_. mutata, _Wlk_. Chrysopa, _Leach_. invaria, _Wlk_. *tropica, _Hagen_. auritera, _Wlk_. *punctata, _Hagen_. Micromerus, _Ramb_. *linearis, _Hagen_. *australis, _Hagen_. Hemerobius, _Linn._ *frontalis, _Hagen_. Coniopteryx, _Hal_. *cerata, _Hagen_. Fam. MYRMELEONIDÆ, _Leach_. Palpares, _Ramb_. contrarius, _Wlk_. Acanthoclisis, _Ramb_. *--n. s. _Hagen_. *molestus, _Wlk_. Myrmeleon, _Linn._ gravis, _Wlk_. nirus, _Wlk_. barbarus, _Wlk_. Ascalaphus, _Fabr_. nugax, _Wlk_. incusans, _Wlk_. *cervinus, _Niet_. Fam. PSOCIDÆ, _Leach_. Psocus, _Latr_. *Taprobanes, _Hagen_. *oblitus, _Hagen_. *consitus, _Hagen_. *trimaculatus, _Hagen_. *obtusus, _Hagen_. *elongatus, _Hagen_. *chloroticus, _Hagen_. *aridus, _Hagen_. *coleoptratus, _Hagen_. *dolabratus, _Hagen_. *infelix, _Hagen_. Fam. TERMITIDÆ, _Leach_. Termes, _Linn._ Taprobanes, _Wlk_. fatalis, _Koen_. monocerous, _Koen_. *umbilicatus, _Hagen_. *n. s., _Jouv_. *n. s., _Jouv_. Fam. EMBIDÆ, _Hagen_. Oligotoma, _Westw_. *Saundersii, _Westw_. Fam. EPHEMERIDÆ, _Leach_. Bætis, _Leach_. Taprobanes, _Wlk_. Potamanthus, _Pict_. *fasciatus, _Hagen_. *annulatus, _Hagen_. *femoralis, _Hagen_. Cloe, _Burm_. *tristis, _Hagen_. *consueta, _Hagen_. *solida, _Hagen_. *sigmata, _Hagen_. *marginalis, _Hagen_. Cænis, _Steph_. perpusida, _Wlk_. Fam. LIBELLULIDÆ. Calopteryx, _Leach_. Chinensis, _Linn._ Euphoea, _Selys_. splendens, _Hagen_. Micromerus, _Ramb_. lineatus, _Burm_. Trichoenemys, _Selys_. *serapica, _Hagen_. Lestes, _Leach_. *elata, _Hagen_. *gracilis, _Hagen_. Agrion, _Fabr_. *Coromandelianum, _F._ *tenax, _Hagen_. *hilare, _Hagen_. *velare, _Hagen_. *delicatum, _Hagen_. Gynacantha, _Ramb_. subinterrupta, _Ramb_. Epophthalmia, _Burm_. vittata, _Burm_. Zyxomma, _Ramb_. petiolatum, _Ramb_. Acisoma, _Ramb_. panorpoides, _Ramb_. Libellula, _Linn._ Marcia, _Drury_. Tillarga, _Fabr_. variegata, _Linn._ flavescens, _Fabr_. Sabina, _Drury_. viridula, _Pal. Beauv_. congener, _Ramb_. soror, _Ramb_. Aurora, _Burm_. violacea, _Niet_. perla, _Hagen_. sanguinea, _Burm_. trivialis, _Ramb_. contaminata, _Fabr_. equestris, _Fabr_. nebulosa, _Fabr_. Order HYMENOPTERA, _Linn._ Fam. FORMICIDÆ, _Leach_. Formica, _Linn._ smaragdina, _Fabr_. mitis, _Smith_. *Taprobane, _Smith_. *variegata, _Smith_. *exercita, _Wlk_. *exundans, _Wlk_. *meritans, _Wlk_. *latebrosa, _Wlk_. *pangens, _Wlk_. *ingruens, _Wlk_. *detorquens, _Wlk_. *diffidens, _Wlk_. *obscurans, _Wlk_. *indeflexa, _Wlk_. consultans, _Wlk_. Polyrhachis, _Smith_. *illandatus, _Wlk_. Fam. PONERIDÆ, _Smith_. Odontomachus, _Latr_. simillimus, _Smith_. Typhlopone, _Westw_. Curtisii, _Shuck_. Myrmica, _Latr_. basalis, _Smith_. contigua, _Smith_. glyciphila, _Smith_. *consternens, _Wlk_. Crematogaster, _Lund_. *pellens, _Wlk_. *deponens, _Wlk_. *forticulus, _Wlk_. Pseudomyrma, _Guré_. *atrata, _Smith_. allaborans, _Wlk_. Atta, _St. Farg_. didita, _Wlk_. Pheidole, _Westw_. Janus, _Smith_. *Taprobanæ, _Smith_. *rugosa, _Smith_. Meranopius, _Smith_. *dimicans, _Wlk_. Cataulacus, _Smith_. Taprobanæ, _Smith_. Fam. MUTILLIDÆ, _Leach_. Mutilla, _Linn._ *Sibylla, _Smith_. Tiphia, _Fabr_. *decrescens, _Wlk_. Fam. EUMENIDÆ, _Westw_. Odynerus, _Latr_. *tinctipennis, _Wlk_. *intendens, _Wlk_. *intendens, _Wlk_. Scolia, _Fabr_. auricollis, _St. Farg_. Fam. CRABRONIDÆ, _Leach_. Philanthus, _Fabr_. basalis, _Smith_. Stigmus, _Jur_. *congruus, _Wilk_. Fam. SPHEGIDÆ, _Steph_. Ammophila, _Kirby_. atripes, _Smith_. Pelopæus, _Latr_. spinolæ, _St. Farg_. Sphex, _Fabr_. ferruginea, _St. Farg_. Ampulex, _Jur_. compressa, _Fabr_. Fam. LARRIDÆ, _Steph_. Larrada, _Smith_. *extensa, _Wlk_. Fam. POMPILIDÆ, _Leach_. Pompilus, _Fabr_. analis, _Fabr_. Fam. APIDÆ, _Leach_. Andrena, _Fabr_. *exagens, _Wlk_. Nomia, _Latr_. rustica, _Westw_. *vincta, _Wlk_. Allodaps, _Smith_. *marginata, _Smith_. Ceratina, _Latr_. viridis, _Guér_. picta, _Smith_. *similliana, _Smith_. Coelioxys, _Latr_. capitata, _Smith_. Croeisa, _Jur_. *ramosa, _St. Farg_. Stelis, _Panz_. carbonaria, _Smith_. Anthophora, _Latr_. zonarta, _Smith_. Xylocopa, _Latr_. tenuiscatia, _Westw_. latipes, _Drury_. Apis, _Linn._ Indica, _Smith_. Trigona, _Jur_. iridipennis, _Smith_. *præterita, _Wlk_. Fam. CHRYSIDÆ, _Wlk_. Stilbum, _Spin_. splendidum, _Dahl_. Fam. DORYLIDÆ, _Shuck_. Enictus, _Shuck_. porizonoides, _Wlk_. Fam. ICHNEUONIDÆ, _Leach_. Cryptus, _Fabr_. *onustus, _Wlk_. Hemiteles?, _Grav_. *varius, _Wlk_. Porizon, _Fabr_. *dominans, _Wlk_. Pimpla, _Fabr_. albopicta, _Wlk_. Fam. BRACONIDÆ, _Hal_. Microgaster, _Latr_. *recusans, _Wlk_. *significans, _Wlk_. *subducens, _Wlk_. *detracta, _Wlk_. Spathius, _Nees_. *bisignatus, _Wlk_. *signipennis, _Wlk_. Heratemis, _Wlk_. *tilosa, _Wlk_. Nebartha, _Wlk_. *macropoides, _Wlk_. Psyttalia, _Wlk_. *testacea, _Wlk_. Fam. CHALCIDIÆ, _Spin_. Chalcis, _Fabr_. *dividens, _Wlk_. *pandens, _Wlk_. Halticella, _Spin_. *rufimanus, _Wlk_. *inticiens, _Wlk_. Dirrhinus, _Dalm_. *anthracia, _Wlk_. Eurytoma, _Ill_. *contraria, _Wlk_. indefensa, _Wlk_. Eucharis, _Latr_. *convergens, _Wlk_. *deprivata, _Wlk_. Pteromalus, _Swed_. *magniceps, _Wlk_. Encyrtus, _Latr_. *obstructus, _Wlk_. Fam. DIAPRIDÆ, _Hal_. Diapria, _Latr_. apicalis, _Wlk_. Order LEPIDOPTERA, _Linn._ Fam. PAPILIONIDÆ, _Leach_. Ornithoptera, _Boisd_. Darsius, _G.R. Gray_. Papilio, _Linn._ Diphilus, _Esp_. Jophon, _G.R. Gray_. Hector, _Linn._ Romulus, _Cram_. Polymnestor, _Cram_. Crino, _Fabr_. Helenus, _Linn._ Pammon, _Linn._ Polytes, _Linn._ Erithonius, _Cram_. Antipathis, _Cram_. Agamemnon, _Linn._ Eurypilus, _Linn._ Bathycles, _Zinck-Som_. Sarpedon, _Linn._ dissimilis, _Linn._ Pontia, _Fabr_. Nina, _Fabr_. Pleris, _Schr_. Eucharis, _Drury_. Coronis, _Cram_. Epicharis, _Godt_. Nama, _Doubl_. Remba, _Moore_. Mesentina, _Godt_. Severina, _Cram_. Namouna, _Doubl_. Phryne, _Fabr_. Paulina, _Godt_. Thestylis, _Doubl_. Callosune, _Doubl_. Eucharis, _Fabr_. Danaë, _Fabr_. Etrida, _Boisd_. Idmais, _Boisd_. Calais, _Cram_. Thestias, _Boisd_. Marianne, _Cram_. Pirene, _Linn._ Hebomoia, _Hübn_. Glaucippe, _Linn._ Eronia, _Hübn_. Valeria, _Cram_. Callidryas, _Boisd_. Philippina, _Boisd_. Pyranthe, _Linn._ Hilaria, _Cram_. Alcmeone, _Cram_. Thisorella, _Boisd_. Terias, _Swain_. Drona, _Horsf_. Hecabe, _Linn._ Fam. NYMPHALIDÆ, _Swain_. Euploea, _Fabr_. Prothoe, _Godt_. Core, _Cram_. Alcathoë, _Godt_. Danais, _Latr_. Chrysippus, _Linn._ Plexippus, _Linn._ Aglæ, _Cram_. Melissa, _Cram_. Limniacæ, _Cram_. Juventa, _Cram_. Hestia, _Hübn_. Jasonia, _Westw_. Telchinia, _Hübn_. violæ, _Fabr_. Cethosia, _Fabr_. Cyane, _Fabr_. Messarus, _Doubl_. Erymanthis, _Drury_. Atella, _Doubl_. Phalanta, _Drury_. Argychis, _Fabr_. Niphe, _Linn._ Clagia, _Godt_. Ergolis, _Boisd_. Taprobana, _West_. Vanessa, _Fabr_. Charonia, _Drury_. Libythea, _Fabr_. Medhavina, _Wlk_. Pushcara, _Wlk_. Pyrameis, _Hübn_. Charonia, _Drury_. Cardui, _Linn._ Callirhoë, _Hübn_. Junonia, _Hübn_. Limomas, _Linn._ Oenone, _Linn._ Orithia, _Linn._ Laomedia, _Linn._ Asterie, _Linn._ Precis, _Hübn_. Iphita, _Cram_. Cynthia, _Fabr_. Arsinoe, _Cram_. Parthenos, _Hübn_. Gambrisius, _Fabr_. Limenitis, _Fabr_. Calidusa, _Moore_. Neptis, _Fabr_. Heliodore, _Fabr_. Columelia, _Cram_. aceris, _Fabr_. Jumbah, _Moore_. Hordonia, _Stoll_. Diadema, _Boisd_. Auge, _Cram_. Bolina, _Linn._ Symphædra, _Hubn_. Thyelia, _Fabr_. Adolias, _Boisd_. Evelina, _Stoll_. Lutentina, _Fabr_. Vasanta, _Moore_. Garuda, _Moore_. Nymphalis, _Latr_. Psaphon, _Westw_. Bernardus, _Fabr_. Athamas, _Cram_. Fabius, _Fabr_. Katlima, _Doubl_. Philarchus, _Westw_. Melanitis, _Fabr_. Banksia, _Fabr_. Leda, _Linn._ Casiphone, _G.R. Gray_. undularis, _Boisd_. Ypththima, _Hübn_. Lysandra, _Cram_. Parthalis, _Wlk_. Cyllo, _Boisd_. Gorya, _Wlk_. Cathæna, _Wlk_. Embolima, _Wlk_. Neilgherriensis, _Guér_. Purimata, _WLk_. Pushpamitra, _Wlk_. Mycalesis, _Hübn_. Patnia, _Moore_. *Gamaliba, _Wlk_. Dosaron, _Wlk_. Samba, _Moore_. Cænonympha, _Hübn_. Euaspla, _Wlk_. Emesis, _Fabr_. Echerius, _Stoll_. Fam. LYCÆNIDÆ, _Leach_. Anops, _Boisd_. Bulis, _Boisd_. Thetys, _Drury_. Loxura, _Horsf_. Atymnus, _Cram_. Myrina, _Godt_. Schumous, _Doubled_. Triopas, _Cram_. Amblypodia, _Horsf_. Longinus, _Fabr_. Narada, _Horsf_. pseudocentaurus, _Do_. quercetorum, _Boisd_. Aphnæus, _Hübn_. Pindarus, _Fabr_. Etolus, _Cram_. Hephæstos, _Doubled_. Crotus, _Doubled_. Dipsas, _Doubled_. chrysomallus, _Hübn_. Isocrates, _Fabr_. Lycæna, _Fabr_. Alexis, _Stoll_. Boetica, _Linn._ Chejus, _Horsf_. Rosimon, _Fabr_. Theophrasius, _Fabr_. Pluto, _Fabr_. Parana, _Horsf_. Nyseus, _Guér_. Ethion, _Basd_. Celeno, _Cram_. Kandarpa, _Horsf_. Elpis, _Godt_. Chimonas, _Wlk_. Gandara, _Wlk_. Chorienis, _Wlk_. Geria, _Wlk_. Doanas, _Wlk_. Sunya, _Wlk_. Audhra, _Wlk_. Polyommatus, _Latr_. Akasa, _Horsf_. Puspa, _Horsf_. Laius, _Cram_. Ethion, _Boisd_. Cataigara, _Wlk_. Gorgippia, _Wlk_. Lucia, _Westw_. Epius, _Westw_. Pithecops, _Horsf_. Hylax, _Fabr_. Fam. HESPERIDÆ, _Steph_. Goniloba, _Westw_. Iapetus, _Cram_. Pyrgus, _Hübn_. Superna, _Moore_. Danna, _Moore_. Genta, _Wlk_. Sydrus, _Wlk_. Nisoniades, _Hübn_. Diocles, _Boisd_. Salsala, _Moore_. Toides, _Wlk_. Pamphila, _Fabr_. Angias, _Linn._ Achylodes, _Hübn_. Temata, _Wlk_. Hesperia, _Fabr_. Indrani, _Moore_. Chaya, _Moore_. Cinnara, _Moore_. gremius, _Latr_. Ceodochates, _Wlk_. Tiagara, _Wlk_. Cetiaris, _Wlk_. Sigala, _Wlk_. Fam. SPHINGIDÆ, _Leach_. Sesia, _Fabr_. Hylas, _Linn._ Macroglossa, _Ochs_. Stenatarum, _Linn._ gyrans, _Borsd_. Corythus, _Borsd_. divergens, _Wlk_. Calymina, _Borsd_. Panopus, _Cram_. Choerocampa, _Dup_. Thyslia, _Linn._ Nyssus, _Drury_. Clotho, _Drury_. Oldenlandiæ, _Fabr_. Lycetus, _Cram_. Silhetensis, _Boisd_. Pergesa, _Wlk_. Acteus, _Cram_. Panacia, _Wlk_. vigil, _Guér_. Daphnis, _Hübn_. Nern, _Linn._ Zonitia, _Boisd_. Morpheus, _Cram_. Macrosila, _Boisd_. ordiqua, _Wlk_. discistriga, _Wlk_. Sphinx, _Linn._ convolvuli, _Linn._ Acherontia, _Ochs_. Satanas, _Boisd_. Smerintinis, _Latr_. Dryas, _Boisd_. Fam. CASTNIIDÆ, _Wlk_. Eusemia, _Dalm_. beliatrix, _Westw_. Ægocera, _Latr_. Venuia, _Cram_. bimacula, _Wlk_. Fam. ZYGÆNIDÆ, _Leach_. Syntomis, _Ochs_. Schoenherri, _Boisd_. Creusa, _Linn._ Imaoa, _Cram_. Glaucopis, _Fabr_. subaurata, _Wlk_. Enchiomia, _Hübn_. Polymena, _Cram_. diminuta, _Wlk_. Fam. LITHOSIIDÆ, _Steph_. Scaptesyle, _Wlk_. bicolor, _Wlk_. Nyctemera, _Hübn_. lacticima, _Cram_. latistriga, _Wlk_. Coleta, _Cram_. Euschema, _Hübn_. subrepleta, _Wlk_. transversa, _Wlk_. vilis, _Wlk_. Chalcosia, _Hübn_. Tiberina, _Cram_. venosa, _Anon_. Eterusia, _Hope_. Ædea, _Linn._ Trypanophora, _Koll_. Taprobanes, _Wlk_. Heteropan, _Wlk_. scintillans, _Wlk_. Hypsa, _Hübn_. plana, _Wlk_. caricæ, _Fabr_. ficus, _Fabr_. Vitessa, _Moor_. Zeinire, _Cram_. Lithosia, _Fabr_. autica, _Wlk_. brevipennis, _Wlk_. Setina, _Schr_. semitascia, _Wlk_. solita, _Wlk_. Doliche, _Wlk_. hilaris, _Wlk_. Pitane, _Wlk_. conserta, _Wlk_. Æmene, _Wlk_. Taprobanes, _Wlk_. Dirade, _Wlk_. attacoides, _Wlk_. Cyllene, _Wlk_. transversa, _Wlk_. *spoliata, _Wlk_. Bizone, _Wlk_. subornata, _Wlk_. peregrina, _Wlk_. Delopeia, _Steph_. pulcella, _Linn._ Astrea, _Drury_. Argus, _Kodar_. Fam. ARCHTIIDÆ, _Leach_. Alope, _Wlk_. ocellitera, _Wlk_. Sangalida, _Cram_. Tinolius, _Wlk_. eburneigutta, _Wlk_. Creatonotos, _Hübn_. interrupta, _Linn._ emitteus, _Wlk_. Acmonia, _Wlk_. Etnosioides, _Wlk_. Spilosoma, _Steph_. subtascia, _Wlk_. Cycnia, _Hübn_. rubida, _Wlk_. sparsigutta, _Wlk_. Antheua, _Wlk_. discalis, _Wlk_. Atoa, _Wlk_. lactmea, _Cram_. candidula, _Wlk_. erisa, _Wlk_. Amerila, _Wlk_. Melipithus, _Wlk_. Ammotho, _Wlk_. cunionotatus, _Wlk_. Fam. LIPARIDÆ, _Wlk_. Artaxa, _Wlk_. guttata, _Wlk_. *varians, _Wlk_. atomaria, _Wlk_. Acyphas, _Wlk_. viridescens, _Wlk_. Lacida, _Wlk_. rotundata, _Wlk_. antica, _Wlk_. subnotata, _Wlk_. complens, _Wlk_. promittens, _Wlk_. strigulitera, _Wlk_. Amsacta? _Wlk_. tenebrosa, _Wlk_. Antipha, _Wlk_. costalis, _Wlk_. Anaxila, _Wlk_. norata, _Wlk_. Procodeca, _Wlk_. angulifera, _Wlk_. Redoa, _Wlk_. submarginata, _Wlk_. Euproctis, _Hübn_. virguncula, _Wlk_. bimaculata, _Wlk_. lunata, _Wlk_. tinctifera, _Wlk_. Cispia, _Wlk_. plagiata, _Wlk_. Dasychira, _Hübn_. pudibunda, _Linn._ Lymantria, _Hühn_. grandis, _Wlk_. marginata, _Wlk_. Enome, _Wlk_. ampla, _Wlk_. Dreata, _Wlk_. plumipes, _Wlk_. geminata, _Wlk_. mutans, _Wlk_. mollifera, _Wlk_. Pandala, _Wlk_. dolosa, _Wlk_. Charnidas, _Wlk_. junctifera, _Wlk_. Fam. PSYCHIDÆ, _Bru_. Psyche, _Schr_. Doubledaii, _Westw_. Metisa, _Wlk_. plana, _Wlk_. Eumeta, _Wlk_. Cramerii, _Westw_. Templetonii, _Westw_. Cryptothelea, _Templ_. consorta, _Templ_. Fam. NOTODONTIDÆ, _St_. Cerura, _Schr_. liturata, _Wlk_. Stauropus, _Germ_. alternans, _Wlk_. Nioda, _Wlk_. fusiformis, _Wlk_. transversa, _Wlk_. Rilia, _Wlk_. lanceolata, _Wlk_. basivitta, _Wlk_. Ptilomacra, _Wlk_. juvenis, _Wlk_. Elavia, _Wlk_. metaphæa, _Wlk_. Notodonta, _Ochs_. ejecta, _Wlk_. Ichthyura, _Hübn_. restituens, _Wlk_. Fam. LIMACODIDÆ, _Dup_. Scopelodes, _Westw_. unicolor, _Westw_. Messata, _Wlk_. rubiginosa, _Wlk_. Miresa, _Wlk_. argeutifera, _Wlk_. aperiens, _Wlks_. Nyssia, _Herr Sch_. læta, _Westw_. Neæra, _Herr. Sch_. graciosa, _Westw_. Narosa, _Wlk_. conspersa, _Wlk_. Naprepa, _Wlk_. varians, _Wlk_. Fam. DREPANULIDÆ, _Wlk_. Oreta, _Wlk_. suffusa, _Wlk_. extensa, _Wlk_. Arna, _Wlk_. apicaus, _Wlk_. Ganisa, _Wlk_. postica, _Wlk_. Fam. SATURINIDÆ, _Wlk_. Attacus, _Linn._ Atlas, _Linn._ lunula, _Anon_. Antheræa, _Hübn_. Mylitta, _Drury_. Assama, _Westw_. Tropæa, _Hübn_. Selene, _Hübn_. Fam. BOMBYCIDÆ, _Steph_. Trabala, _Wlk_. basalis, _Wlk_. prasina, _Wlk_. Lasiocampa, _Schr_. trifascia, _Wlk_. Megasoma, _Boisd_. venustum, _Wlk_. Lebeda, _Wlk_. repanda, _Wlk_. plagiata, _Wlk_. bimaculata, _Wlk_. scriptiplaga, _Wlk_. Fam. COSSIDÆ, _Newm_. Cossus, _Fabr_. quadrinotatus, _Wlk_. Zeuzera, _Latr_. leuconota, _Steph_. pusilla, _Wlk_. Fam. HEPIALIDÆ, _Steph_. Phassus, _Steph_. signifer, _Wlk_. Fam. CYMATOPHORIDÆ, _Herr. Sch_. Thyatira, _Ochs_. repugnans, _Wlk_. Fam. BRYOPHILIDÆ, _Guén_. Bryophila, _Treit_. semipars, _Wlk_. Fam. BOMBYGOIDÆ, _Guén_. Diphtera, _Ochs_. deceptura, _Wlk_. Fam. LEUCANIDÆ, _Guén_. Leucania, _Ochs_. confusa, _Wlk_. exempta, _Wlk_. interens, _Wlk_. collecta, _Wlk_. Brada, _Wlk_. truncata, _Wlk_. Crambopsis, _Wlk_. excludens, _Wlk_. Fam. GLOTTULIDÆ, _Guén_. Polytela, _Guén_. gloriosa, _Fabr_. Glottula, _Guén_. Dominic, _Cram_. Chasmma, _Wlk_. pavo, _Wlk_. cygnus, _Wlk_. Fam. APAMIDÆ, _Guén_. Laphygma, _Guér_. obstans, _Wlk_. trajiciens, _Wlk_. Prodenia, _Guén_. retina, _Friv_. glaucistriga, _Wlk_. apertura, _Wlk_. Calogramma, _Wlk_. festiva, _Don_. Heliophobus, _Boisd_. discrepans, _Wlk_. Hydræcia, _Guér_. lampadifera, _Wlk_. Apamea, _Ochs_. undecilia, _Wlk_. Celæna, _Steph_. serva, _Wlk_. Fam. CARADRINIDÆ, _Guér_. Amyna, _Guér_. selenampha, _Guér_. Fam. NOCTUIDÆ, _Guér_. Agrotis, _Ochs_. aristifera, _Guér_. congrua, _Wlk_. punctipes, _Wlk_. mundata, _Wlk_. transducta, _Wlk_. plagiata, _Wlk_. plagifera, _Wlk_. Fam. HADENIDÆ, _Guén_. Eurois, _Hübn_. auriplena, _Wlk_. inclusa, _Wlk_. Epiceia, _Wlk_. subsignata, _Wlk_. Hadena, _Treit_. subcurva, _Wlk_. postica, _Wlk_. retrahens, _Wlk_. confundens, _Wlk_. congressa, _Wlk_. ruptistriga, _Wlk_. Ansa, _Wlk_. filipalpis, _Wlk_. Fam. XYLINIDÆ, _Guén._ Ragada, _Wlk_. pyrorchroma, _Wlk._ Cryassa, _Wlk_. bifacies, _Wlk_. Egelista, _Wlk_. rudivitta, _Wlk_. Xylina, _Ochs_. deflexa, _Wlk_. inchoans, _Wlk_. Fam. HELIOTHIDÆ, _Guén_. Heliothis, _Ochs_. armigera, _Hübn_. Fam. HEMEROSIDÆ, _Guén_. Ariola, _Wlk_. coelisigna, _Wlk_. dilectissima, _Wlk_. saturata, _Wlk_. Fam. ACONTIDÆ, _Guén_. Xanthodes, _Guén_. intersepta, _Guén_. Acontia, _Ochs_. tropica, _Guén_. olivacea, _Wlk_. fasciculosa, _Wlk_. signifera, _Wlk_. turpis, _Wlk_. mianöides, _Wlk_. approximans, _Wlk_. divulsa, _Wlk_. *egens, _Wlk_. plenicosta, _Wlk_. determinata, _Wlk_. hypætroides, _Wlk_. Chlumetia, _Wlk_. multilinea, _Wlk_. Fam. ANTHOPILIDÆ, _Guén_. Micra, _Guén_. destituta, _Wlk_. derogata, _Wlk_. simplex, _Wlk_. Fam. ERIOPIDÆ, _Guén_. Callopistria, _Hübn_. exotiac, _Guén_. rivularis, _Wlk_. duplicans, _Wlk_. Fam. EURHIPIDÆ, _Guén_. Penicillaria, _Guén_. nugatrix, _Guén_. resoluta, _Wlk_. solida, _Wlk_. lodatrix, _Wlk_. Rhesala, _Wlk_. imparata, _Wlk_. Eutelia, _Hübn_. favillatrix, _Wlk_. thermesiides, _Wlk_. Fam. PLUSIIDÆ, _Boisd_. Abrostola, _Ochs_. transfixa, _Wlk_. Plusia, _Ochs_. aurilera, _Hübn_. verticillata, _Guén_. agramma, _Guén_. obtusisigna, _Wlk_. nigriluna, _Wlk_. signata, _Wlk_. dispellens, _Wlk_. propulsa, _Wlk_. Fam. CALPIDÆ, _Guén_. Calpe, _Treit_. minuticornis, _Guén_. Oroesia, _Guén_. emarginata, _Fabr_. Deva, _Wlk_. conducens, _Wlk_. Fam. HEMICERIDÆ, _Guén_. Westermannia, _Hübn_. supberba, _Hübn_. Fam. HYBLÆIDÆ, _Guén_. Hyblæa, _Guén_. Puera, _Cram_. constellica, _Guén_. Nolasena, _Wlk_. ferrifervens, _Wlk_. Fam. GONOPTERIDÆ, _Guén_. Cosmophila, _Boisd_. Indica, _Guén_. xanthindvina, _Boisd_. Anomis, _Hübn_. fulvida, _Guén_. icomea, _Wlk_. Gonitis, _Guén_. combinans, _Wlk_. albitibia, _Wlk_. mesogona, _Wlk_. guttanivis, _Wlk_. involuta, _Wlk_. basalis, _Wlk_. Eporedia, _Wlk_. damnipennis, _Wlk_. Rusicada, _Wlk_. nigritarsis, _Wlk_. Pasipeda, _Wlk_. rutipalpis, _Wlk_. Fam. TOXOCAMPIDÆ, _Guén_. Toxocampa, _Guén_. metaspila, _Wlk_. sexlinea, _Wlk_. quinquelina, _Wlk_. Albonica, _Wlk_. reversa, _Wlk_. Fam. POLYDESMIDÆ, _Guén_. Polydesma, _Boisd_. boarmoides, _Wlk_. erubescens, _Wlk_. Fam. HOMOPTERIDÆ, _Bois_. Alamis, _Guén_. spoliata, _Wlk_. Homoptera, _Boisd_. basipallens, _Wlk_. retrahens, _Wlk_. costifera, _Wlk_. divisistriga, _Wlk_. procumbens, _Wlk_. Diacuista, _Wlk_. homopteroides, _Wlk_. Daxata, _Wlk_. bijungens, _Wlk_. Fam. HYPOGRAMMIDÆ, _Guén_. Briarda, _Wlk_. precedens, _Wlk_. Brana, _Wlk_. calopasa, _Wlk_. Corsa, _Wlk_. lignicolor, _Wlk_. Avatha, _Wlk_. includens, _Wlk_. Gadirtha, _Wlk_. decrescens, _Wlk_. impingens, _Wlk_. spurcata, _Wlk_. rectifera, _Wlk_. duplicans, _Wlk_. intrusa, _Wlk_. Ercheia, _Wlk_. diversipennis, _Wlk_. Plotheia, _Wlk_. frontalis, _Wlk_. Diomea, _Wlk_. rotundata, _Wlk_. chloromela, _Wlk_. orbicularis, _Wlk_. muscosa, _Wlk_. Dinumma, _Wlk_. placens, _Wlk_. Lusia, _Wlk_. geometroids, _Wlk_. perficita, _Wlk_. replusa, _Wlk_. Abunis, _Wlk_. trimesa, _Wlk_. Fam. CATEPHIDÆ, _Guén_. Cocytodes, _Guén_. coerula, _Guén_. modesta, _Wlk_. Catephia, _Ochs_. linteola, _Guén_. Anophia, _Guén_. acronyctoids, _Guén_. Steiria, _Wlk_. subobliqua, _Wlk_. trajiciens, _Wlk_. Aucha, _Wlk_. velans, _Wlk_. Ægilia, _Wlk_. describens, _Wlk_. Maceda, _Wlk_. mansueta, _Wlk_. Fam. HYPOCALIDÆ, _Guén_. Hypocala, _Guén_. efflorescens, _Guén_. subsatura, _Guén_. Fam. CATOCALIDÆ, _Boisd_. Blenina, _Wlk_. donans, _Wlk_. accipiens, _Wlk_. Fam. OPHIDERIDÆ, _Guén_. Ophideres, _Boisd_. Materna, _Linn._ fullonica, _Linn._ Cajeta, _Cram_. Ancilla, _Cram_. Salaminia, _Cram_. Hypermnestra, _Cram_. multiscripta, _Wlk_. bilineosa, _Wlk_. Potamophera, _Guén_. Maulia, _Cram_. Lygniodes, _Guén_. reducens, _Wlk_. disparans, _Wlk_. hypolenca, _Guén_. Fam. EREBIDÆ, _Guén_. Oxyodes, _Guén_. Clytia, _Cram_. Fam. OMMATOPHORIDÆ, _Guén_. Speiredonia, _Hübn_. retrahens, _Wlk_. Sericia, _Guén_. atrops, _Guén_. parvipennis, _Wlk_. Patula, _Guén_. macrops, _Linn._ Argiva, _Hübn_. hieroglyphica, _Drury_. Beregra, _Wlk_. replenens, _Wlk_. Fam. HYPOPYRIDÆ, _Guén_. Spiramia, _Guén_. Heliconia, _Hübn_. triloba, _Guén_. Hypopyra, _Guén_. vespertilio, _Fabr_. Ortospana, _Wlk_. connectens, _Wlk_. Entomogramma, _Guén_. fautrix, _Guén_. Fam. BENDIDÆ, _Guén_. Homæa, _Guén_. clathrum, _Guén_. Hulodes, _Guén_. caranea, _Cram_. palumba, _Guén_. Fam. OPHIUSIDÆ, _Guén_. Sphingomorpha, _Guén_. Chlorea, _Cram_. Lagoptera, _Guén_. honesta, _Hübn_. magica, _Hübn_. dotata, _Fabr_. Ophiodes, _Guén_. discriminans, _Wlk_. basistigma, _Wlk_. Cerbia, _Wlk_. fugitiva, _Wlk_. Ophisma, _Guén_. lætabilis, _Guén_. deficiens, _Wlk_. gravata, _Wlk_. circumferens, _Wlk_. terminans, _Wlk_. Achæa, _Hübn_. Melicerta, _Drury_. Mezentia, _Cram_. Cyllota, _Guén_. Cyllaria, _Cram_. fusifera, _Wlk_. signivitta, _Wlk_. reversa, _Wlk_. combinans, _Wlk_. expectans, _Wlk_. Serrodes, _Guén_. campana, _Guén_. Naxia, _Guén_. absentimacula, _Guén_. Onelia, _Guén_. calefaciens, _Wlk_. calorifica, _Wlk_. Catesia, _Guén_. hoemorrhoda, _Guén_. Hypætra, _Guén_. trigonifera, _Wlk_. curvifera, _Wlk_. condita, _Wlk_. complacens, _Wlk_. divisa, _Wlk_. Ophiusa, _Ochs_. myops, _Guén_. albivitta, _Guén_. Achatina, _Sulz_. fulvotænia, _Guén_. simillima, _Guén_. festinata, _Wlk_. pallidilinea, _Wlk_. luteipalpis, _Wlk_. Fodina, _Guén_. stola, _Guén_. Grammodes, _Guén_. Ammonia, _Cram_. Mygdon, _Cram_. stolida, _Fabr_. mundicolor, _Wlk_. Fam. EUCLIDIDÆ, _Guén_. Trigonodes, _Guén_. Hippasia, _Cram_. Fam. REMIGIDÆ, _Guén_. Remigia, _Guén_. Archesia, _Cram_. frugalis, _Fabr_. pertendens, _Wlk_. congregata, _Wlk_. opturata, _Wlk_. Fam. FOCILLIDÆ, _Guén_. Focilla, _Guén_. submemorans, _Wlk_. Fam. AMPHIGANIDÆ, _Guén_. Lacera, _Guén_. capella, _Guén_. Amphigonia, _Guén_. hepatizans, _Guén_. Fam. THERMISIDÆ, _Guén_. Sympis, _Guén_. rutibasis, _Guén_. Thermesia, _Hübn_. finipalpis, _Wlk_. soluta, _Wlk_. Azazia, _Wlk_. rubricans, _Boisd_. Selenis, _Guén_. nivisapex, _Wlk_. multiguttata, _Wlk_. semilux, _Wlk_. Ephyrodes, _Guén_. excipiens, _Wlk_. crististera, _Wlk_. lineitera, _Wlk_. Capnodes, _Guén_. *maculicosta, _Wlk_. Ballatha, _Wlk_. atrotumens, _Wlk_. Daranissa, _Wlk_. digramma, _Wlk_. Darsa, _Wlk_. detectissima, _Wlk_. Fam. URAPTERYDÆ, _Guén_. Lagyra, _Wlk_. Talaca, _Wlk_. Fam. ENNOMIDÆ, _Guén_. Hyperythra, _Guén_. limbolaria, _Guén_. Orsonoba, _Wlk_. Rajaca, _Wlk_. Fascelima, _Wlk_. chromataria, _Wlk_. Laginia, _Wlk_. bractiaria, _Wlk_. Fam. BOARMIDÆ, _Guén_. Amblychia, _Guén_. angeronia, _Guén_. poststrigaria, _Wlk_. Boarmia, _Treit_. sublavaria, _Guén_. admissaria, _Guén_. raptaria, _Wlk_. Medasina, _Wlk_. Bhurmitra, _Wlk_. Suiasasa, _Wlk_. diffluaria, _Wlk_. caritaria, _Wlk_. exclusaria, _Wlk_. Hypochroma, _Guén_. minimaria, _Guén_. Gnophos, _Treit_. Pulinda, _Wlk_. Culataria, _Wlk_. Hemerophila, _Steph_. vidhisara, _Wlk_. Agathia, _Guén_. blandiaria, _Wlk_. Bulonga, _Wlk_. Ajaia, _Wlk_. Chacoraca, _Wlk_. Chandubija, _Wlk_. Fam. GEOMETRIDÆ, _Guén_. Geometra, _Linn._ specularia, _Guén_. Nanda, _Wlk_. Nemoria, _Hubn_. caudularia, _Guên_. solidaria, _Guén_. Thalassodes, _Guén_. quadraria, _Guén_. catenaria, _Wlk_. immissaria, _Wlk_. Sisunaga, _Wlk_. adornataria, _Wlk_. meritaria, _Wlk_. coelataria, _WlK_. gratularia, _Wlk_. chlorozonaria, _Wlk_. læsaria, _Wlk_. simplicaria, _Wlk_. immissaria, _Wlk_. Comibæna, _Wlk_. Divapala, _Wlk_. impulsaria, _Wlk_. Celenna, _Wlk_. saturaturia, _Wlk_. Pseudoterpna, _Wlk_. Vivilaca, _Wlk_. Amaurima, _Guén_. rubrolimbaria, _Wlk_. Fam. PALYADÆ, _Guén_. Eumelea, _Dunc_. ludovicata, _Guén_. aureliata, _Guén_. *carnearia, _Wlk_. Fam. EPHYRIDÆ, _Guén_. Ephyra, _Dap_. obrinaria, _Wlk_. decursaria, _Wlk_. Cacavena, _Wlk_. abhadraca, _Wlk_. Vasudeva, _Wlk_. Susarmana, _Wlk_. Vutumana, _Wlk_. inæquata, _Wlk_. Fam. ACIDALIDÆ, _Guén_. Drapetodes, _Guén_. mitaria, _Guén_. Pomasia, _Guén_. Psylaria, _Guén_. Sunandaria, _Wlk_. Acidaria, _Treit_. obliviaria, _Wlk_. adeptaria, _Wlk_. nexiaria, _Wlk_. addictaria, _Wlk_. actiosaria, _Wlk_. defamataria, _Wlk_. negataria, _Wlk_. actuaria, _Wlk_. cæsaria, _Wlk_. Cabera, _Steph_. falsaria, _Wlk_. decussaria, _Wlk_. famularia, _Wlk_. nigrarenaria, _Wlk_. Hyria, _Steph_. elataria, _Wlk_. marcidaria, _Wlk_. oblataria, _Wlk_. grataria, _Wlk_. rhodinaria, _Wlk_. Timandra, _Dup_. Ajura, _Wlk_. Vijura, _Wlk_. Agyris, _Guén_. deharia, _Guén_. Zanclopteryx, _Herr. Sch_. saponaria, _Herr. Sch_. Fam. MICRONIDÆ, _Guén_. Micronia, _Guén_. caudata, _Fabr_. aculeata, _Guén_. Fam. MACARIDÆ, _Guén_. Macaria, _Curt_. Eleonora, _Cram_. Varisara, _Wlk_. Rhagivata, _Wlk_. Palaca, _Wlk_. honestaria, _Wlk_. Sangata, _Wlk_. honoraria, _Wlk_. cessaria, _Wlk_. subcandaria, _Wlk_. Doava, _Wlk_. adjutaria, _Wlk_. figuraria, _Wlk_. Fam. LARENTIDÆ, _Guén_. Sauris, _Guén_. hirudinata, _Guén_. Camptogramma, _Steph_. baceata, _Guén_. Blemyia, _Wlk_. Bataca, _Wlk_. blitiaria, _Wlk_. Corenna, _Guén_. Comatina, _Wlk_. Lobophora, _Curt_. Salisnea, _Wlk_. Ghosha, _Wlk_. contributaria, _Wlk_. Mesogramma, _Steph_. lactularia, _Wlk_. scitaria, _WLk_. Eupithecia, _Curt_. recensitaria, _Wlk_. admixtaria, _Wlk_. immixtaria, _Wlk_. Gathynia, _Wlk_. miraria, _Wlk_. Fam. PLATYDIDÆ, _Guén_. Trigonia, _Guén_. Cydoniatis, _Cram_. Fam. HYPENIDÆ, _Herr_. Dichromia, _Guén_. Orosialis, _Cram_. Hypena, _Schr_. rhombalis, _Guén_. jocosalis, _Wlk_. mandatalis, _Wlk_. quæsitalis, _Wlk_. laceratalis, _Wlk_. iconicalis, _Wlk_. labatalis, _Wlk_. obacerralis, _Wlk_. pactalis, _Wlk_. raralis, _Wlk_. paritalis, _Wlk_. surreptalis, _Wlk_. detersalis, _Wlk_. ineffectalis, _Wlk_. incongrualis, _Wlk_. rubripunctum, _Wlk_. Gesonia, _Wlk_. *obeditalis, _Wlk_. duplex, _Wlk_. Fam. HERMINIDÆ, _Dup_. Herminia, _Latr_. Timonaris, _Wlk_. diffusalis, _Wlk_. interstans, _Wlk_. Adrapsa, _Wlk_. ablualis, _Wlk_. Bertula, _Wlk_. abjudicalis, _Wlk_. raptatalis, _Wlk_. contigens, _Wlk_. Bocana, _Wlk_. jutalis, _Wlk_. manifestalis, _Wlk_. ophinsalis, _Wlk_. vagalis, _Wlk_. turpatalis, _Wlk_. hypernalis, _Wlk_. gravatalis, _Wlk_. tomodalis, _Wlk_. Orthaga, _Wlk_. Euadrusalis, _Wlk_. Hipoepa, _Wlk_. lapsalis, _Wlk_. Lamura, _Wlk_. oberratans, _Wlk_. Echana, _Wlk_. abavalis, _Wlk_. Dragana, _Wlk_. pansalis, _Wlk_. Pingrasa, _Wlk_. accuralis, _Wlk_. Egnasia, _Wlk_. ephiradalis, _Wlk_. accingalis, _Wlk_. participalis, _Wlk_. usurpatalis, _Wlk_. Berresa, _Wlk_. natalis, _Wlk_. Imma, _Wlk_. rugosalis, _Wlk_. Chusaris, _Wlk_. retatalis, _Wlk_. Corgatha, _Wlk_. zonalis, _Wlk_. Catada, _Wlk_. glomeralis, _Wlk_. captiosalis, _Wlk_. Fam. PYRALADÆ, _Guén_. Pyralis, _Linn._ igniflualis, _Wlk_. Palesalis, _Wlk_. reconditalis, _Wlk_. Idahalis, _Wlk_. Janassalis, _Wlk_. Aglossa, _Latr_. Guidusalis, _Wlk_. Labanda, _Wlk_. herbealis, _Wlk_. Fam. ENNYCHIDÆ, _Dup._ Pyrausta. _Schr._ *absistalis, _Wlk_. Fam. ASOPIDÆ, _Guén_ Desmia, _Westw_. afflictalis, _Guén_. concisalis, _Wlk_. Ædiodes, _Guén._. flavibasalis. _Guén_. effertalis, _Wlk_. Samea, _Guén_. gratiosalis, _Wlk_. Asopia. _Guén_. vulgalis, _Guén_. falsidicalis, _Wlk_. abruptalis, _Wlk_. latim orginalis, _Wlk_. præteritalis, _Wlk_. Eryxelis, _Wlk_. rofidalis, _Wlk_. Agathodes, _Guén_. ostentalis, _Geyer_. Leucinades, _Guén_. orbonalis, _Guén_. Hymenia, _Hübn_. recurvalis, _Fabr_. Agrotera, _Schr_. suffusalis, _Wlk_. decessalis, _Wlk_. Isopteryx, _Guén_. *melaleucalis, _Wlk_. *impulsalis, _Wlk_. *spromelalis, _Wlk_. acclaralis, _Wlk_. abnegatalis, _Wlk_. Fam. HYDROCAMPIDÆ, _Guén_. Oligostigma, _Guén_. obitalis, _Wlk_. votalis, _Wlk_. Cataclysia, _Herr Sch_. diaicidalis, _Guén_. bisectalis, _Wlk_. blaudialis, _Wlk_. elutalis, _Wlk_. Fam. SPILOMELIDÆ, _Guén_. Lepyrodes, _Guén_. geometralis, _Guén_. lepidalis, _Wlk_. peritalis, _Wlk_. Phalangiodes, _Guén_. Neptisalis, _Cram_. Spilomela, _Guén_. meritalis, _Wlk_. abdicatis, _Wlk_. decussalis, _Wlk_. Nistra, _Wlk_. coelatalis, _Wlk_. Pagyda. _Wlk_. salvalis, _Wlk_. Massepha, _Wlk_. absolutalis, _Wlk_. Fam. MARGORODIDÆ, _Guén_. Glyphodes, _Guén_. diurnalis, _Guén_. decretalis, _Guén_. coesalis, _Wlk_. univocalis, _Wlk_. Phakellura, _L. Guild_. gazorialis, _Guén_. Margarodes, _Guén_. psittæalis, _Hübn_. pomonalis, _Guén_. hilaralis, _Wlk_. Pygospila, _Guén_. Tyresalis, _Cram_. Neurina, _Guén_. Procopalis, _Cram_. ignibasalis, _Wlk_. Hurgia, _Wlk_. detamalis, _Wlk_. Maruca, _Wlk_. ruptalis, _Wlk_. caritalis, _Wlk_. Fam. BOTYDÆ, _Guén_. Botys, _Latr_. marginalis, _Cram_. sillalis, _Guén_. multilineatis, _Guén_. admensalis, _Wlk_. abjungalis, _Wlk_. rutilalis, _Wlk_. admixtalis, _Wlk_. celatalis, _Wlk_. deductalis, _Wlk_. celsalis, _Wlk_. vulsalis, _Wlk_. ultimalis, _Wlk_. tropicalis, _Wlk_. abstrusalis, _Wlk_. ruralis, _Wlk_. adhoesalis, _Wlk_. illisalis, _Wlk_. stultalis, _Wlk_. adductalis, _Wlk_. histricalis, _Wlk_. illectalis, _Wlk_. suspictalis, _Wlk_. Janassalis, _Wlk_. Cynaralis, _Wlk_. Dialis, _Wlk_. Thaisalis, _Wlk_. Dryopealis, _Wlk_. Myrinalis, _Wlk_. phycidalis, _Wlk_. annulalis, _Wlk_. brevilinealis, _Wlk_. plagiatalis, _Wlk_. Ebulea, _Guén_. aberratalis, _Wlk_. Camillalis, _Wlk_. Pionea, _Guén_. actualis, _Wlk_. Optiletalis, _Wlk_. Jubesalis, _Wlk_. brevialis, _Wlk_. suffusalis, _Wlk_. Scopula, _Schr_. revocatalis, _Wlk_. turgidalis, _Wlk_. volutatalis, _Wlk_. Godara, _Wlk_. pervasalis, _Wlk_. Herculia, _Wlk_. bractialis, _Wlk_. Mecyna. _Guén_. deprivalis, _Wlk_. Fam. SCOPARIDÆ, _Guén_. Scoparia. _Haw_. murificalis, _Wlk_. congestalis, _Wlk_. Alconalis, _Wlk_. Davana. _Wlk_. Phalantalis, _Wlk_. Darsania, _Wlk_. Niobesalis, _Wlk_. Dosara. _Wlk_. coelatella, _Wlk_. lapsalis, _Wlk_. immeritalis, _Wlk_. Fam. CHOREUTIDÆ, _Staint_. Niaccaba. _Wlk_. sumptialis, _Wlk_. Simæthis. _Leach_. Clatella, _Wlk_. Damonella, _Wlk_. Bathusella, _Wlk_. Fam. PHYCIDÆ, _Staint_. Myelois, _Hübn_. actiosella, _Wlk_. bractiatella, _Wlk_. cantella, _Wlk_. adaptella, _Wlk_. illusella, _Wlk_. basifuscella, _Wlk_. Ligeralis, _Wlk_. Marsyasalis, _Wlk_. Dascusa, _Wlk_. Valensalis, _Wlk_. Daroma, _Wlk_. Zeuxoalis, _Wlk_. Epulusalis, _Wlk_. Timeusalis, _Wlk_. Homoesoma, _Curt_. gratella, _Wlk_. Getusella, _Wlk_. Nephopteryx, _Hübn_. Etolusalis, _Wlk_. Cyllusalis, _Wlk_. Hylasalis, _Wlk_. Acisalis, _Wlk_. Harpaxalis, _Wlk_. Æolusalis, _Wlk_. Argiadesalis, _Wlk_. Philiasalis, _Wlk_. Pempelia, _Hübn_. laudatella, _Wlk_. Prionapteryx, _Steph_. Lincusalis, _Wlk_. Pindicitora, _Wlk_. Acreonalis, _Wlk_. Annusalis, _Wlk_. Thysbesalis, _Wlk_. Linceusalis, _Wlk_. Lacipea, _Wlk_. muscosella, _Wlk_. Araxes, _Steph_. admotella, _Wlk_. decusella, _Wlk_. celsella, _Wlk_. admigratella, _Wlk_. coesella, _Wlk_. candidatella, _Wlk_. Catagela, _Wlk_. adjurella, _Wlk_. acricuella, _Wlk_. lunulella, _Wlk_. Fam. CRAMBIDÆ, _Dup_. Crambus, _Fabr_. concinellus, _Wlk_. Darbhaca, _Wlk_. inceptella, _Wlk_. Jartheza, _Wlk_. honosella, _Wlk_. Bulina, _Wlk_. solitella, _Wlk_. Bembina, _Wlk_. Cyanusalis, _Wlk_. Chilo, _Zinck_. dodatella, _Wlk_. gratiosella, _Wlk_. aditella, _Wlk_. blitella, _Wlk_. Dariausa, _Wlk_. Eubusalis, _Wlk_. Arrhade, _Wlk_. Ematheonalis, _Wlk_. Darnensis, _Wlk_. Strephonella, _Wlk_. Fam. CHLOEPHORIDÆ. _Staint_. Thagora, _Wlk_. tigurans, _Wlk_. Earias, _Hübn_. chromatana, _Wlk_. Fam. TORTRICIDÆ, _Steph_. Lozotænia, _Steph_. retractana, _Wlk_. Peronea, _Curt_. divisana, _Wlk_. Lithogramma, _Steph_. flexilineana, _Wlk_. Dictyopteryx, _Steph_. punctana, _Wlk_. Homona, _Wlk_. fasciculana, _Wlk_. Hemonia, _Wlk_. obiterana, _Wlk_. Achroia, _Hübn_. tricingulana, _Wlk_. Fam. YPONOMEUTIDÆ, _Steph_. Atteva, _Wlk_. niveigutta, _Wlk_. Fam. GELICHIDÆ, _Staint_. Depressaria, _Haw_. obligatella, _Wlk_. fimbriella, _Wlk_. Decuaria, _Wlk_. mendicella, _Wlk_. Gelechia, _Hübn_. nugatella, _Wlk_. calatella, _Wlk_. deductella, _Wlk_. Perionella, _Wlk_. Gizama, _Wlk_. blandiella, _Wlk_. Enisima, _Wlk_. falsella, _Wlk_. Gapharia, _Wlk_. recitatella, _Wlk_. Goesa. _Wlk_. decusella, _Wlk_. Cimitra, _Wlk_. secinsella, _Wlk_. Ficulea, _Wlk_. blandinella, _Wlk_. Fresilia, _Wlk_. nesciatella, _Wlk_. Gesontha, _Wlk_. cantiosella, _Wlk_. Aginis, _Wlk_. hilariella, _Wlk_. Cadra, _Wlk_. delectella, _Wlk_. Fam. GLYPHYPTIDÆ, _Staint_. Glyphyteryx, _Hübn_. scitulella, _Wlk_. Hybele, _Wlk_. mansuetella, _Wlk_. Fam. TINEIDÆ, _Leach_. Tinea, _Linn._ tapetzella, _Linn._ receptella, _Wlk_. pelionella, _Linn._ plagiferella, _Wlk_. Fam. LYONETIDÆ, _Staint_. Cachura, _Wlk_. objectella, _Wlk_. Fam. PTEROPHORIDÆ, _Zell_. Pterophorus, _Geoffr_. leucadacivius, _Wlk_. oxydactylus, _Wlk_. anisodactylus, _Wlk_. Order DIPTERA, _Linn._ Fam. MYCETOPHILIDÆ, _Hal_. Sciara, _Meig_. *valida, _Wlk_. Fam. CECIDOMYZIDÆ, _Hal_. Cecidomyia, _Latr_. *primaria, _Wlk_. Fam. SIMULIDÆ, _Hal_. Simulium, _Latr_. *destinatum, _Wlk_. Fam. CHIRONOMIDÆ, _Hal_. Ceratopogon, _Meig_. *albocinctus, _Wlk_. Fam. CULICIDÆ, _Steph_. Culex, _Linn._ regius, _Thwaites_. fuscanns, _Wlk_. circumvolans, _Wlk_. contrahens, _Wlk_. Fam. TIPULIDÆ, _Hal_. Ctenophora, _Fabr_. Taprobanes, _Wlk_. Gymnoplistia? _Westw_. hebes, _Wlk_. Fam. STRATIOMIDÆ, _Latr_. Ptilocera, _Wied_. quadridentata, _Fabr_. tastuosa, _Geist_. Pachygaster, _Meig_. rutitarsis, _Macq_. Acanthina, _Wied_. azurea, _Geist_. Fam. TABANIDÆ, _Leach_. Pangonia, _Latr_. Taprobanes, _Wlk_. Fam. ASILIDÆ, _Leach_. Trupanea, _Macq_. Ceylanica _Macq_. Asilus, _Linn._ flavicornis, _Macq_. Barium, _Wlk_. Fam. DOLICHOPIDÆ, _Leach_. Psilopus, _Meig_. *procuratus, _Wlk_. Fam. MUSCIDÆ, _Latr_. Tachina? _Fabr_. *tenebrosa, _Wlk_. Musca. _Linn._ domestica, _Linn._ Dacus, _Fabr_. *interclusus, _Wlk_. *nigroæneus, _Wlk_. *detentus, _Wlk_. Ortalis, _*Fall_. *confundens, _Wlk_. Sciomyza, _Fall_. eucotelus, _Wlk_. Drosophila, _*Fall_. *restituens, _Wlk_. Fam. NYCTERIBIDÆ, _Leach_. Nycteribia, _Latr_. ----? a species parasitic on Scatophilus Coromandelicus, _Bligh_. Order HEMIPTERA, _Linn._ Fam. PACHYCORIDÆ, _Dall_. Cantuo, _Amyot & Serv_. ocellatus, _Thunb_. Callidea, _Lap_. superba, _Dall_. Stockerus, _Linn._ Fam. EURYGASTERIDÆ, _Dall_. Trigonosoma, _Lap_. Destontainii, _Fabr_. Fam. PLATASPIDÆ, _Dall_. Coptosoma, _Lap_. laticeps, _Dall_. Fam. HALYDIDÆ, _Dall_. Halys, _Fabr_. dentata, _Fabr_. Fam. PENTATOMIDÆ, _Steph_. Pentatoma, _Oliv_. Timorensis, _Hope_. Taprobanensis, _Dall_. Catacanthus, _Spin_. Incarnatus, _Drury_. Rhaphigaster, _Lap_. congrua, _Wlk_. Fam. EDESSIDÆ, _Dall_. Aspongopus, _Lap_. anus, _Fabr_. Tesseratoma, _Lep. & Serv_. papillosa, _Drury_. Cyclopelta, _Am. & Serv_. siccifolia, _Hope_. Fam. PHYLLOCEPHALIDÆ, _Dall_. Phyllocephala, _Lap_. Ægyptiaca, _Lefeb_. Fam. MICTIDÆ, _Dall_. Mictis, _Leach_. castanea, _Dall_. valida, _Dall_. punctum, _Hope_. Crinocerus, _Burm_. ponderosus, _Wlk_. Fam. ANISOSCELIDÆ, _Dall_. Leptoscelis, _Lap_. ventralis, _Dall_. turpis, _Wlk_. marginalis, _Wlk_. Serinetha, _Spin_. Taprobanensis, _Dall_. abdominalis, _Fabr_. Fam. ALYDIDÆ, _Dall_. Alydus, _Fabr_. linearis, _Fabr_. Fam. STENOCEPHALIDÆ, _Dall_. Leptocorisa, _Latr_. Chinensis, _Dall_. Fam. COREIDÆ, _Steph_. Rhopalus, _Schill_. interruptus, _Wlk_. Fam. LYGÆIDÆ, _Westw_. Lygæus, _Fabr_. lutescens, _Wlk_. figuratus, _Wlk_. discifer, _Wlk_. Rhyparochromus, _Curt_. testacelpes, _Wlk_. Fam. ARADIDÆ, _Wlk_. Piestosoma, _Lap_. pierpes, _Wlk_. Fam. TINGIDÆ, _Wlk_. Calloniana, _Wlk_. *elegans, _Wlk_. Fam. CIMICIDÆ, _Wlk_. Cimex, _Linn._ lectularius, _Linn._? Fam. REDUVIIDÆ, _Steph_. Pirates, _Burm_. marginatus, _Wlk_. Acanthaspis, _Am. & Serv_. sanguimpes, _Wlk_. fulvispina, _Wlk_. Fam. HYDROMETRIDÆ, _Leach_. Ptilomera, _Am. & Serv_. laticanda, _Hardw_. Fam. NEPIDÆ, _Leach_. Belostoma, _Latr_. Indicum, _St. Farg_. Nepa, _Linn._ minor, _Wlk_. Fam. NOTONECTIDÆ, _Steph_. Notonecta, _Linn._ abbreviata, _Wlk_. simplex, _Wlk_. Corixa, _Geoff._ *subjacens, _Wlk_. Order HOMOPTERA, _Latr_. Fam. CICADIDÆ, _Westw_. Dundubia, _Am. & Serv_. stipata, _Wlk_. Clonia, _Wlk_. Larus, _Wlk_. Cicada, _Linn._ limitaris, _Wlk_. nubifurca, _Wlk_. Fam. FULGORIDÆ, _Schaum_. Hotinus, _Am. & Serv_. maculatus, _Oliv_. fulvirostris, _Wlk_. coccineus, _Wlk_. Pyrops, _Spin_. punctata, _Oliv_. Aphæna, _Guér_. sanguinalis, _Westw_. Elidiptera, _Spin_. Emersoniana, _White_. Fam. CIXIIDÆ, _Wlk_. Eurybrachys, _Guér_. tomentosa, _Fabr_. dilatata, _Wlk_. crudelis, _Westw_. Cixius, _Latr_. *nubilus, _Wlk_. Fam. ISSIDÆ, _Wlk_. Hemisphærius, _Schaum_. *Schaumi, _Staf_. *bipustulatus, _Wlk_. Fam. DERBIDÆ, _Schaum_. Thracia, _Westw_. pterophorides, _Westw_. Derbe, _Fabr_. *furcato-vittata, _Stal_. Fam. FLATTIDÆ, _Schaum_. Flatoides, _Guér_. hyalinus, _Fabr_. tenebrosus, _Wlk_. Ricania, _Germ_. Hemerobii, _Wlk_. Poeciloptera, _Latr_. pulvernlenta, _Guér_. stellaris, _Wlk_. Tennentina, _White_. Fam. MEMBRACIDÆ, _Wlk_. Oxyrhachis, _Germ_. *indicans, _Wlk_. Centrotus, _Fabr_. *reponens, _Wlk_. *malleus, _Wlk_. substitutus, _Wlk_. *decipiens, _Wlk_. *relinquens, _Wlk_. *imitator, _Wlk_. *repressus, _Wlk_. *terminalis, _Wlk_. Fam. CERCOPIDÆ, _Leach_. Cercopis, _Fabr_. inclusa, _Wlk_. Ptyelus, _Lep. & Serv_. costalis, _Wlk_. Fam. TETTIGONIIDÆ, _Wlk_. Tettigonia, _Latr_. paulula, _Wlk_. Fam. SCARIDÆ, _Wlk_. Ledra, _Fabr_. rugosa, _Wlk_. conica, _Wlk_. Gypona, _Germ_. prasina, _Wlk_. Fam. IASSIDÆ, _Wlk_. Acocephalus, _Germ_. porrectus, _Wlk_. Fam. PSYLLIDÆ, _Latr_. Psylla, _Goff_. *marginalis, _Wlk_. Fam. COCCIDÆ, _Leach_. Lecanium, _Illig_. Coffeæ, _Wlk_. CHAP. XIII. ARTICULATA. * * * * * _Arachinida--Myriopoda--Crustacea, etc._ With a few striking exceptions, the true _spiders_ of Ceylon resemble in oeconomy and appearance those we are accustomed to see at home;--they frequent the houses, the gardens, the rocks and the stems of trees, and along the sunny paths, where the forest meets the open country, the _Epeira_ and her congeners, the true net-weaving spiders, extend their lacework, the grace of the designs being even less attractive than the beauty of the creatures that elaborate them. Such of them as live in the woods select with singular sagacity the bridle-paths and narrow passages for expanding their nets; perceiving no doubt that the larger insects frequent these openings for facility of movement through the jungle; and that the smaller ones are carried towards them by currents of air. Their nets are stretched across the path from four to eight feet above the ground, suspended from projecting shoots, and attached, if possible, to thorny shrubs; and they sometimes exhibit the most remarkable scenes of carnage and destruction. I have taken down a ball as large as a man's head consisting of successive layers rolled together, in the heart of which was the original den of the family, whilst the envelope was formed, sheet after sheet, by coils of the old web filled with the wings and limbs of insects of all descriptions, from large moths and butterflies to mosquitoes and minute coleoptera. Each layer appeared to have been originally hung across the passage to intercept the expected prey; and, when it had become surcharged with carcases, to have been loosened, tossed over by the wind or its own weight, and wrapped round the nucleus in the centre, the spider replacing it by a fresh sheet, to be in turn detached and added to the mass within. [Illustration: Spider] Separated by marked peculiarities both of structure and instinct, from the spiders which live in the open air, and busy themselves in providing food during the day, the _Mygale fasciata_ is not only sluggish in its habits, but disgusting in its form and dimensions. Its colour is a gloomy brown, interrupted by irregular blotches and faint bands (whence its trivial name); it is sparingly sprinkled with hairs, and its limbs, when expanded, stretch over an area of six to eight inches in diameter. It is familiar to Europeans in Ceylon, who have given it the name, and ascribed to it the fabulous propensities, of the Tarentula.[1] [Footnote 1: Species of the true _Tarentula_ are not uncommon in Ceylon; they are all of very small size, and perfectly harmless.] The Mygale is found abundantly in the northern and eastern parts of the island, and occasionally in dark unfrequented apartments in the western province; but its inclinations are solitary, and it shuns the busy traffic of towns. The largest specimens I have seen were at Gampola in the vicinity of Kandy, and one taken in the store-room of the rest-house there, nearly covered with its legs an ordinary-sized breakfast plate.[1] [Footnote 1: See Plate opposite.] This hideous creature does not weave a broad web or spin a net like other spiders, but nevertheless it forms a comfortable mansion in the wall of a neglected building, the hollow of a tree, or under the eave of an overhanging stone. This it lines throughout with a tapestry of silk of a tubular form; and of a texture so exquisitely fine and closely woven, that no moisture can penetrate it. The extremity of the tube is carried out to the entrance, where it expands into a little platform, stayed by braces to the nearest objects that afford a firm hold. In particular situations, where the entrance is exposed to the wind, the mygale, on the approach of the monsoon, extends the strong tissue above it so as to serve as an awning to prevent the access of rain. The construction of this silken dwelling is exclusively designed for the domestic luxury of the spider; it serves no purpose in trapping or securing prey, and no external disturbance of the web tempts the creature to sally out to surprise an intruder, as the epeira and its congeners would. By day it remains concealed in its den, whence it issues at night to feed on larvæ and worms, devouring cockroaches and their pupæ, and attacking the millepeds, gryllotalpæ, and other fleshy insects. Mr. EDGAR L. LAYARD has described[1] an encounter between a Mygale and a cockroach, which he witnessed in the madua of a temple at Alittane, between Anarajapoora and Dambool. When about a yard apart, each discerned the other and stood still, the spider with his legs slightly bent and his body raised, the cockroach confronting him and directing his antennæ with a restless undulation towards his enemy. The spider, by stealthy movements, approached to within a few inches and paused, both parties eyeing each other intently; then suddenly a rush, a scuffle, and both fell to the ground, when the blatta's wings closed, the spider seized it under the throat with his claws, and dragged it into a corner, when the action of his jaws was distinctly audible. Next morning Mr. Layard found that the soft parts of the body had been eaten, nothing but the head, thorax, and clytra remaining. [Footnote 1: _Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist._ May, 1853.] But, in addition to minor and ignoble prey, the Mygale rests under the imputation of seizing small birds and feasting on their blood. The author who first gave popular currency to this story was Madame MERIAN, a zoological artist of the last century, many of whose drawings are still preserved in the Museums of St. Petersburg, Holland, and England. In a work on the Insects of Surinam, published in 1705[1], she figured the _Mygale aricularia_, in the act of devouring a humming-bird. The accuracy of her statement has since been impugned[2] by a correspondent of the Zoological Society of London, on the ground that the mygale makes no net, but lives in recesses, to which no humming-bird would resort; and hence, the writer somewhat illogically declares, that he "disbelieves the existence of any bird-catching spider." [Footnote 1: _Dissertatio de Generatione et Metamorphosibus Insectorum Surinamensium_, Amst. 1701. Fol.] [Footnote 2: By Mr. MACLEAY in a paper communicated to the Zoological Society of London, _Proc._ 1834, p. 12.] Some years later, however, the same writer felt it incumbent on him to qualify this hasty conclusion[1], in consequence of having seen at Sydney an enormous spider, the _Epeira diadema_, in the act of sucking the juices of a bird (the _Zosterops dorsalis_ of Vigors and Horsfield), which, it had caught in the meshes of its geometrical net. This circumstance, however, did not in his opinion affect the case of the _Mygale_; and even as regards the _Epeira_, Mr. MacLeay, who witnessed the occurrence, was inclined to believe the instance to be accidental and exceptional; "an exception indeed so rare, that no other person had ever witnessed the fact." [Footnote 1: See _Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist._ for 1842, vol. viii. p. 324.] Subsequent observation has, however, served to sustain the story of Madame Merian.[1] Baron Walckenær and Latreille both corroborated it by other authorities; and M. Moreau da Jonnès, who studied the habits of the Mygale in Martinique, says it hunts far and wide in search of its prey, conceals itself beneath leaves for the purpose of surprising them, and climbs the branches of trees to devour the young of the humming-bird, and of the _Certhia flaveola_. As to its mode of attack, M. Jonnès says that when it throws itself on its victim it clings to it by the double hooks of its tarsi, and strives to reach the back of the head, to insert its jaws between the skull and the vertebræ.[2] [Footnote 1: See authorities quoted by Mr. SHUCKARD in the _Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist._ 1842, vol. viii. p. 436, &c.] [Footnote 2: At a meeting of the Entomological Society, July 20, 1855, a paper was read by Mr. H.W. BATES, who stated that in 1849 at Cameta in Brazil, he "was attracted by a curious movement of the large grayish brown Mygale on the trunk of a vast tree: it was close beneath a deep crevice or chink in the tree, across which this species weaves a dense web, at one end open for its exit and entrance. In the present instance the lower part of the web was broken, and two small finches were entangled in its folds. The finch was about the size of the common Siskin of Europe, and he judged the two to be male and female; one of them was quite dead, but secured in the broken web; the other was under the body of the spider, not quite dead, and was covered in parts with a filthy liquor or saliva exuded by the monster. "The species of spider," Mr. Bates says, "I cannot name; it is wholly of a gray brown colour, and clothed with coarse pile." "If the Mygales," he adds, "did not prey upon vertebrated animals, I do not see how they could find sufficient subsistence."--_The Zoologist_, vol. xiii. p. 480.] For my own part, no instance came to my knowledge in Ceylon of a mygale attacking a bird; but PERCIVAL, who wrote his account of the island in 1805, describes an enormous spider (possibly an Epeirid) thinly covered with hair which "makes webs strong enough to entangle and hold even small birds that form its usual food."[1] [Footnote 1: PERCIVAL'S _Ceylon_, p. 313.] The fact of its living on millepeds, blattæ, and crickets, is universally known; and a lady who lived at Marandahn, near Colombo, told me that she had, on one occasion, seen a little house-lizard (_gecko_) seized and devoured by one of these ugly spiders. Walckenær has described a spider of large size, under the name of _Olios Taprobanius_, which is very common in Ceylon, and conspicuous from the fiery hue of the under surface, the remainder being covered with gray hair so short and fine that the body seems almost denuded. It spins a moderate-sized web, hung vertically between two sets of strong lines, stretched one above the other athwart the pathways. Some of the threads thus carried horizontally from tree to tree at a considerable height from the ground are so strong as to cause a painful check across the face when moving quickly against them; and more than once in riding I have had my hat lifted off my head by one of these cords.[1] [Footnote 1: Over the country generally are scattered species of _Gasteracantha_, remarkable for their firm shell-covered bodies, with projecting knobs arranged in pairs. In habit these anomalous-looking _Epeirdæ_ appear to differ in no respect from the rest of the family, waylaying their prey in similar situations and in the same manner. Another very singular subgenus, met with in Ceylon, is distinguished by the abdomen being dilated behind, and armed with two long spines, arching obliquely backwards. These abnormal kinds are not so handsomely coloured as the smaller species of typical form.] An officer in the East India Company's Service[1], in a communication to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, describes the gigantic web of a black and red spider six inches in diameter, (his description of which, both in colour and size, seems to point to some species closely allied to the _Olios Taprobanius_,) which he saw near Monghyr on the Ganges; in this web "a bird was entangled, and the young spiders, eight in number, and entirely of a brick red colour, were feeding on the carcase."[2] [Footnote 1: Capt. Sherwill.] [Footnote 2: _Jour. Asiat. Soc. Bengal_, 1850, vol. xix. p. 475.] The voracious _Galeodes_ has not yet been noticed in Ceylon; but its carnivorous propensities are well known in those parts of Hindustan, where it is found, and where it lives upon crickets, coleoptera and other insects, as well as small lizards and birds. This "tiger of the insect world," as it has aptly been designated by a gentleman who was a witness to its ferocity[1], was seen to attack a young sparrow half grown, and seize it by the thigh, _which it sawed through_. The "savage then caught the bird by the throat, and put an end to its sufferings by cutting off its head." "On another occasion," says the same authority, "Dr. Baddeley confined one of these spiders under a glass wall-shade with two young musk-rats (_Sorex Indicus_), both of which it destroyed." It must be added, however, that neither in the instance of the bird, of the lizard, or the rats, did the galeodes devour its prey after killing it. [Footnote 1: Capt. Hutton. See a paper on the _Galeodes voræ_ in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, vol. xi. Part 11. p. 860.] In the hills around Pusilawa, I have seen the haunts of a curious species of long-legged spiders[1], popularly called "harvest-men," which congregate in hollow trees and in holes in the banks by the roadside, in groups of from fifty to a hundred, that to a casual observer look like bunches of horse-hair. This appearance is produced by the long and slender legs of these creatures, which are of a shining black, whilst their bodies, so small as to be mere specks, are concealed beneath them. The same spider is found in the low country near Galle, but there it shows no tendency to become gregarious. Can it be that they thus assemble in groups in the hills for the sake of accumulated warmth at the cool altitude of 4000 feet? [Footnote 1: _Phalangium bisignatum_.] _Ticks_.--Ticks are to be classed among the intolerable nuisances to the Ceylon traveller. They live in immense numbers in the jungle[1], and attaching themselves to the plants by the two forelegs, lie in wait to catch at unwary animals as they pass. A shower of these diminutive vermin will sometimes drop from a branch, if unluckily shaken, and disperse themselves over the body, each fastening on the neck, the ears, and eyelids, and inserting a barbed proboscis. They burrow, with their heads pressed as far as practicable under the skin, causing a sensation of smarting, as if particles of red hot sand had been scattered over the flesh. If torn from their hold, the suckers remain behind and form an ulcer. The only safe expedient is to tolerate the agony of their penetration till a drop of coco-nut oil or the juice of a lime can be applied, when these little furies drop off without further ill consequences. One very large species, dappled with grey, attaches itself to the buffaloes. [Footnote 1: Dr. HOOKER, in his _Himalayan Journal_, vol. i. p. 279, in speaking of the multitude of those creatures in the mountains of Nepal, wonders what they tend to feed on, as in these humid forests in which they literally swarmed, there was neither pathway nor animal life. In Ceylon they abound everywhere in the plains on the low brush-wood; and in the very driest seasons they are quite as numerous as at other times. In the mountain zone, which is more humid, they are less prevalent. Dogs are tormented by them: and they display something closely allied to cunning in always fastening on an animal in those parts where they cannot be torn off by his paws; on his eye-brows, the tips of his ears, and the back of his neck. With a corresponding instinct I have always observed in the gambols of the Pariah dogs, that they invariably commence their attentions by mutually gnawing each other's ears and necks, as if in pursuit of ticks from places from which each is unable to expel them for himself. Horses have a similar instinct; and when they meet, they apply their teeth to the roots of the ears of their companions, to the neck and the crown of the head. The buffaloes and oxen are relieved of ticks by the crows which rest on their backs as they browse, and free them from these pests. In the low country the same acceptable office is performed by the "cattle-keeper heron" (_Ardea bubulcus_), which is "sure to be found in attendance on them while grazing; and the animals seem to know their benefactors, and stand quietly, while the birds peck their tormentors from their flanks."--_Mag. Nat. Hist._ p. 111, 1844.] _Mites_.--The _Trombidium tinctorum_ of Hermann is found about Aripo, and generally over the northern provinces,--where after a shower of rain or heavy night's dew, they appear in countless myriads. It is about half an inch long, like a tuft of crimson velvet, and imparts its colouring matter readily to any fluid in which it may be immersed. It feeds on vegetable juices, and is perfectly innocuous. Its European representative, similarly tinted, and found in garden mould, is commonly called the "Little red pillion." MYRIAPODS.--The certainty with which an accidental pressure or unguarded touch is resented and retorted by a bite, makes the centipede, when it has taken up its temporary abode, within a sleeve or the fold of a dress, by far the most unwelcome of all the Singhalese assailants. The great size, too (little short of a foot in length), to which it sometimes attains, renders it formidable, and, apart from the apprehension of unpleasant consequences from a wound, one shudders at the bare idea of such a hideous creature crawling over the skin, beneath the innermost folds of one's garments. [Illustration: CERMATIA.] At the head of the _Myriapods_, and pre-eminent from a superiorly-developed organisation, stands the genus _Cermatia_: singular-looking objects; mounted upon slender legs, of gradually increasing length from front to rear, the hind ones in some species being amazingly prolonged, and all handsomely marked with brown annuli in concentric arches. These myriapods are harmless, excepting to woodlice, spiders, and young cockroaches, which form their ordinary prey. They are rarely to be seen; but occasionally at daybreak, after a more than usually abundant repast, they may be observed motionless, and resting with their regularly extended limbs nearly flat against the walls. On being disturbed they dart away with a surprising velocity, to conceal themselves in chinks until the return of night. But the species to be really dreaded are the true _Scolopendræ_, which are active and carnivorous, living in holes in old walls and other gloomy dens. One species[1] attains to nearly the length of a foot, with corresponding breadth; it is of a dark purple colour, approaching black, with yellowish legs and antennæ, and in its whole aspect repulsive and frightful. It is strong and active, and evinces an eager disposition to fight when molested. The _Scolopendræ_ are gifted by nature with a rigid coriaceous armour, which does not yield to common pressure, or even to a moderate blow; so that they often escape the most well-deserved and well-directed attempts to destroy them, seeking refuge in retreats which effectually conceal them from sight. [Footnote 1: _Scolopendra crassa_, Temp.] There is a smaller species[1], that frequents dwelling-houses; it is about one quarter the size of the preceding, and of a dirty olive colour, with pale ferruginous legs. It is this species that generally inflicts the wound, when persons complain of being bitten by a scorpion; and it has a mischievous propensity for insinuating itself into the folds of dress. The bite at first does not occasion more suffering than would arise from the penetration of two coarsely-pointed needles; but after a little time the wound swells, becomes acutely painful, and if it be over a bone or any other resisting part, the sensation is so intolerable as to produce fever. The agony subsides after a few hours' duration. In some cases the bite is unattended by any particular degree of annoyance, and in these instances it is to be supposed that the contents of the poison gland had become exhausted by previous efforts, since, if much tasked, the organ requires rest to enable it to resume its accustomed functions and to secrete a supply of venom. [Footnote 1: _Scolopendra pallipes_.] _The Fish-insect_.--The chief inconvenience of a residence in Ceylon, both on the coast and in the mountains, is the prevalence of damp, and the difficulty of protecting articles liable to injury from this cause. Books, papers, and manuscripts rapidly decay; especially during the south-west monsoon, when the atmosphere is saturated with moisture. Unless great precautions are taken, the binding fades and yields, the leaves grow mouldy and stained, and letter-paper, in an incredibly short time, becomes so spotted and spongy as to be unfit for use. After a very few seasons of neglect, a book falls to pieces, and its decomposition attracts hordes of minute insects, that swarm to assist in the work of destruction. The concealment of these tiny creatures during daylight renders it difficult to watch their proceedings, or to discriminate the precise species most actively engaged; but there is every reason to believe that the larvæ of the death-watch and numerous acari are amongst the most active. As nature seldom peoples a region supplied with abundance of suitable food, without, at the same time, taking measures of precaution against the disproportionate increase of individuals; so have these vegetable depredators been provided with foes who pursue and feed greedily upon them. These are of widely different genera; but instead of their services being gratefully recognised, they are popularly branded as accomplices in the work of destruction. One of these ill-used creatures is a tiny, tail-less scorpion (_Chelifer_[1]), and another is the pretty little silvery creature (_Lepisma_), called by Europeans the "fish-insect."[2] [Footnote 1: Of the first of these, three species have been noticed in Ceylon, all with the common characteristics of being nocturnal, very active, very minute, of a pale chesnut colour, and each armed with a crab-like claw. They are _Chelifer Librorum_, Temp. _Chelifer oblongus_, Temp. _Chelifer acaroides_, Hermann. Dr. Templeton appears to have been puzzled to account for the appearance of the latter species in Ceylon, so far from its native country, but it has most certainly been introduced from Europe, in Dutch or Portuguese books.] [Footnote 2: _Lepisma niveo-fasciata_, Templeton, and _L. niger_, Temp. It was called "Lepisma" by Fabricius, from its fish-like scales. It has six legs, filiform antenna, and the abdomen terminated by three elongated setæ, two of which are placed nearly at right angles to the central one. LINNÆUS states that the European species, with which book collectors are familiar, was first brought in sugar ships from America. Hence, possibly, these are more common in seaport towns in the South of England and elsewhere, and it is almost certain that, like the chelifer, one of the species found on book-shelves in Ceylon, has been brought thither from Europe.] The latter, which is a familiar genus, comprises several species, of which only two have as yet been described; one is of a large size, most graceful in its movements, and singularly beautiful in appearance, owing to the whiteness of the pearly scales from which its name is derived. These, contrasted with the dark hue of the other parts, and its tri-partite tail, attract the eye as the insect darts rapidly along. Like the chelifer, it shuns the light, hiding in chinks till sunset, but is actively engaged throughout the night feasting on the acari and soft-bodied insects which assail books and papers. _Millepeds_.--In the hot dry season, and more especially in the northern portions of the island, the eye is attracted along the edges of the sandy roads by fragments of the dislocated rings of a huge species of millepede[1], lying in short curved tubes, the cavity admitting the tip of the little finger. When perfect the creature is two-thirds of a foot long, of a brilliant jet black, and with above a hundred yellow legs, which, when moving onward, present the appearance of a series of undulations from rear to front, bearing the animal gently forwards. This _Julus_ is harmless, and may be handled with perfect impunity. Its food consists chiefly of fruits and the roots and stems of succulent vegetables, its jaws not being framed for any more formidable purpose. Another and a very pretty species[2], quite as black, but with a bright crimson band down the back, and the legs similarly tinted, is common in the gardens about Colombo and throughout the western province. [Footnote 1: _Julus ater_.] [Footnote 2: _Julus carnifex_, Fab.] CRUSTACEA.--The seas around Ceylon abound with marine articulata; but a knowledge of the crustacea of the island is at present a desideratum; and with the exception of the few commoner species that frequent the shores, or are offered in the markets, we are literally without information, excepting the little that can be gleaned from already published systematic works. [Illustration: CALLING CRAB OF CEYLON.] In the bazaars several species of edible crabs are exposed for sale; and amongst the delicacies at the tables of Europeans, curries made from prawns and lobsters are the triumphs of the Ceylon cuisine. Of these latter the fishermen sometimes exhibit specimens[1] of extraordinary dimensions and of a beautiful purple hue, variegated with white. Along the level shore north and south of Colombo, and in no less profusion elsewhere, the nimble little Calling Crabs[2] scamper over the moist sands, carrying aloft the enormous hand (sometimes larger than the rest of the body), which is their peculiar characteristic, and which, from its beckoning gesture has suggested their popular name. They hurry to conceal themselves in the deep retreats which they hollow out in the banks that border the sea. [Footnote 1: _Palinurus ornatus_, Fab. P--n. s.] [Footnote 2: _Gelasimus tetragonon_? Edw.; _G. annulipes_? Edw.; _G. Dussumieri_? Edw.] _Sand Crabs_.--In the same localities, or a little farther inland, the _Ocypode_[1] burrows in the dry soil, making deep excavations, bringing up literally armfulls of sand; which with a spring in the air, and employing its other limbs, it jerks far from its burrows, distributing it in a circle to the distance of several feet.[2] So inconvenient are the operations of these industrious pests that men are kept regularly employed at Colombo in filling up the holes formed by them on the surface of the Galle face. This, the only equestrian promenade of the capital, is so infested by these active little creatures that accidents often occur through horses stumbling in their troublesome excavations. [Footnote 1: _Ocypode ceratophthamus_. Pall.] [Footnote 2: _Ann. Nat. Hist_. April, 1852. Paper by Mr. EDGAR L. LAYARD.] _Painted Crabs_.--On the reef of rocks which lies to the south of the harbour at Colombo, the beautiful little painted crabs[1], distinguished by dark red markings on a yellow ground, may be seen all day long running nimbly in the spray, and ascending and descending in security the almost perpendicular sides of the rocks which are washed by the waves. _Paddling Crabs_[2], with the hind pair of legs terminated by flattened plates to assist them in swimming, are brought up in the fishermen's nets. _Hermit Crabs_ take possession of the deserted shells of the univalves, and crawl in pursuit of garbage along the moist beach. Prawns and shrimps furnish delicacies for the breakfast table; and the delicate little pea crab, _Pontonia inflata_[3], recalls its Mediterranean congener[4], which attracted the attention of Aristotle, from taking up its habitation in the shell of the living pinna. [Footnote 1: _Grapsus strigosus_, Herbst.] [Footnote 2: _Neptunus pelagicus_, Linn.; _N. sanguinolentus_, Herbst, &c. &c.] [Footnote 3: MILNE EDW., _Hist. Nat. Crust_., vol. ii. p. 360.] [Footnote 4: _Pinnotheres veterum_.] ANNELIDÆ.--The marine _Annelides_ of the island have not as yet been investigated; a cursory glance, however, amongst the stones, on the beach at Trincomalie and in the pools that afford convenient basins for examining them, would lead to the belief that the marine species are not numerous; tubicole genera, as well as some nereids, are found, but there seems to be little diversity, though it is not impossible that a closer scrutiny might be repaid by the discovery of some interesting forms. _Leeches_.--Of all the plagues which beset the traveller in the rising grounds of Ceylon, the most detested are the land leeches.[1] They are not frequent in the plains. which are too hot and dry for them; but amongst the rank vegetation in the lower ranges of the hill country, which is kept damp by frequent showers, they are found in tormenting profusion. They are terrestrial, never visiting ponds or streams. In size they are about an inch in length, and as fine as a common knitting needle; but they are capable of distension till they equal a quill in thickness, and attain a length of nearly two inches. Their structure is so flexible that they can insinuate themselves through the meshes of the finest stocking, not only seizing on the feet and ankles, but ascending to the back and throat and fastening on the tenderest parts of the body. In order to exclude them, the coffee planters, who live amongst these pests, are obliged to envelope their legs in "leech gaiters" made of closely woven cloth. The natives smear their bodies with oil, tobacco ashes, or lemon juice[2]; the latter serving not only to stop the flow of blood, but to expedite the healing of the wounds. In moving, the land leeches have the power of planting one extremity on the earth and raising the other perpendicularly to watch for their victim. Such is their vigilance and instinct, that on the approach of a passer-by to a spot which they infest, they may be seen amongst the grass and fallen leaves on the edge of a native path, poised erect, and preparing for their attack on man and horse. On descrying their prey they advance rapidly by semi-circular strides, fixing one end firmly and arching the other forwards, till by successive advances they can lay hold of the traveller's foot, when they disengage themselves from the ground and ascend his dress in search of an aperture to enter. In these encounters the individuals in the rear of a party of travellers in the jungle invariably fare worst, as the leeches, once warned of their approach, congregate with singular celerity. Their size is so insignificant, and the wound they make is so skilfully punctured, that both are generally imperceptible, and the first intimation of their onslaught is the trickling of the blood or a chill feeling of the leech when it begins to hang heavily on the skin from being distended by its repast. Horses are driven wild by them, and stamp the ground in fury to shake them from their fetlocks, to which they hang in bloody tassels. The bare legs of the palankin bearers and coolies are a favourite resort; and, as their hands are too much engaged to be spared to pull them off, the leeches hang like bunches of grapes round their ankles; and I have seen the blood literally flowing over the ledge of a European's shoe from their innumerable bites. In healthy constitutions the wounds, if not irritated, generally heal, occasioning no other inconvenience than a slight inflammation and itching; but in those with a bad state of body, the punctures, if rubbed, are liable to degenerate into ulcers, which may lead to the loss of limb or even of life. Both Marshall and Davy mention, that during the march of troops in the mountains, when the Kandyans were in rebellion, in 1818, the soldiers, and especially the Madras sepoys, with the pioneers and coolies, suffered so severely from this cause that numbers perished.[3] [Footnote 1: _Hæmadipsa Ceylanica_. Bose. Blainv. These pests are not, however, confined to Ceylon, they infest the lower ranges of the Himalaya.--HOOKER, vol. i. p. 107; vol. ii. p. 54. THUNBERG, who records (_Travels_, vol. iv. p. 232) having seen them in Ceylon, likewise met with them in the forests and slopes of Batavia. MARSDEN (_Hist_. p. 311) complains of them dropping on travellers in Sumatra. KNORR found them at Japan; and it is affirmed that they abound in islands farther to the eastward. M. GAY encountered them in Chili.--(MOQUIN-TANDON, _Hirudinées_, p. 211, 346). It is very doubtful, however, whether all these are to be referred to one species. M. DE BLAINVILLE, under _H. Ceylanica_, in the _Dict. de Scien. Nat_. vol. xlvii. p. 271, quotes M. Bosc as authority for the kind, which that naturalist describes being "rouges et tachetées;" which is scarcely applicable to the Singhalese species. It is more than probable therefore, considering the period at which M. BOSC wrote, that he obtained his information from travellers to the further east, and has connected with the habitat universally ascribed to them from old KNOX'S work (Part 1. chap. vi.) a meagre description, more properly belonging to the land leech of Batavia or Japan. In all likelihood, therefore, there may be a _H. Boscii_, distinct from the _H. Ceylanica_. That which is found in Ceylon is round, a little flattened on the inferior surface, largest at the anal extremity, thence gradually tapering forward, and with the anal sucker composed of four rings, and wider in proportion than in other species. [Illustration: EYES AND TEETH OF THE LAND LEECH OF CEYLON] It is of a clear brown colour, with a yellow stripe the entire length of each side, and a greenish dorsal one. The body is formed of 100 rings; the eyes, of which there are five pairs, are placed in an arch on the dorsal surface; the first four pairs occupying contiguous rings (thus differing from the water-leeches, which have an unoccupied ring betwixt the third and fourth); the fifth pair are located on the seventh ring, two vacant rings intervening. To Mr. Thwaites, Director of the Botanic Garden at Peradenia, who at my request examined their structure minutely, I am indebted for the following most interesting particulars respecting them. "I have been giving a little time to the examination of the land leech. I find it to have five pairs of ocelli, the first four seated on corresponding segments, and the posterior pair on the seventh segment or ring, the fifth and sixth rings being eyeless (_fig_. A). The mouth is very retractile, and the aperture is shaped as in ordinary leeches. The serratures of the teeth, or rather the teeth themselves, are very beautiful. Each of the three 'teeth,' or cutting instruments, is principally muscular, the muscular body being very clearly seen. The rounded edge in which the teeth are set appears to be cartilaginous in structure; the teeth are very numerous, (_fig_. B); but some near the base have a curious appendage, apparently (I have not yet made this out quite satisfactorily) set upon one side. I have not yet been able to detect the anal or sexual pores. The anal sucker seems to be formed of four rings, and on each side above is a sort of crenated flesh-like appendage. The tint of the common species is yellowish-brown or snuff-coloured, streaked with black, with a yellow-greenish dorsal, and another lateral line along its whole length. There is a larger species to be found in this garden with a broad green dorsal fascia; but I have not been able to procure one although I have offered a small reward to any coolie who will bring me one." In a subsequent communication Mr. Thwaites remarks "that the dorsal longitudinal fascia is of the same width as the lateral ones, and differs only in being perhaps slightly more green; the colour of the three fasciæ varies from brownish-yellow to bright green." He likewise states "that the rings which compose the body are just 100, and the teeth 70 to 80 in each set, in a single row, except to one end, where they are in a double row."] [Illustration: LAND LEECHES IN PURSUIT] [Footnote 2: The Minorite friar, ODORIC of Portenau. writing in A.D. 1320, says that the gem-finders who sought the jewels around Adam's Peak, "take lemons which they peel, anointing themselves with the juice thereof, so that the leeches may not be able to hurt them."--HAKLUYT, _Voy._ vol. ii. p. 58.] [Footnote 3: DAVY'S _Ceylon_, p. 104; MARSHALL'S _Ceylon_, p. 15.] One circumstance regarding these land leeches is remarkable and unexplained; they are helpless without moisture, and in the hills where they abound at all other times, they entirely disappear during long droughts;--yet re-appear instantaneously on the very first fall of rain; and in spots previously parched, where not one was visible an hour before, a single shower is sufficient to reproduce them in thousands, lurking beneath the decaying leaves, or striding with rapid movements across the gravel. Whence do they re-appear? Do they, too, take a "summer sleep," like the reptiles, molluscs, and tank fishes? or may they, like the _Rotifera_, be dried up and preserved for an indefinite period, resuming their vital activity on the mere recurrence of moisture?[1] [Footnote 1: See an account of the _Rotifera_ and their faculty of repeated vivifaction, in the note appended to this chapter.] Besides a species of the medicinal leech, which[1] is found in Ceylon, nearly double the size of the European one, and with a prodigious faculty of engorging blood, there is another pest in the low country, which is a source of considerable annoyance, and often of loss, to the husbandman. This is the cattle leech[2], which infests the stagnant pools, chiefly in the alluvial lands around the base of the mountain zone, whither the cattle resort by day, and the wild animals by night, to quench their thirst and to bathe. Lurking amongst the rank vegetation that fringes these deep pools, and hid by the broad leaves, or concealed among the stems and roots covered by the water, there are quantities of these pests in wait to attack the animals on their approach to drink. Their natural food consists of the juices of lumbrici and other invertebrata; but they generally avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by the dipping of the muzzles of the animals in the water to fasten on their nostrils, and by degrees to make their way to the deeper recesses of the nasal passages, and the mucous membranes of the throat and gullet. As many as a dozen have been found attached to the epiglottis and pharynx of a bullock, producing such irritation and submucous effusion that death has eventually ensued; and so tenacious are the leeches that even after death they retain their hold for some hours.[3] [Footnote 1: _Hirudo sanguisorba_. The paddi-field leech of Ceylon, used for surgical purposes, has the dorsal surface of blackish olive, with several longitudinal striæ, more or less defined; the crenated margin yellow. The ventral surface is fulvous, bordered laterally with olive; the extreme margin yellow. The eyes are ranged as in the common medicinal leech of Europe; the four anterior ones rather larger than the others. The teeth are 140 in each series, appearing as a single row; in size diminishing gradually from one end, very close set, and about half the width of a tooth apart. When full grown, these leeches are about two inches long, but reaching to six inches when extended. Mr. Thwaites, to whom I am indebted for these particulars, adds that he saw in a tank at Kolona Korle leeches which appeared to him flatter and of a darker colour than those described above, but that he had not an opportunity of examining them particularly. [Illustration: DORSAL.] [Illustration: VENTRAL.] Mr. Thwaites states that there is a smaller tank leech of an olive-green colour, with some indistinct longitudinal striæ on the upper surface; the crenated margin of a pale yellowish-green; ocelli as in the paddi-field leech; length, one inch at rest, three inches when extended. Mr. E.L. LAYARD informs us, _Mag. Nat. Hist_. p. 225, 1853, that a bubbling spring at the village of Tonniotoo, three miles S.W. of Moeletivoe, supplies most of the leeches used in the island. Those in use at Colombo are obtained in the immediate vicinity.] [Footnote 2: _Hæmopsis paludum_. In size the cattle leech of Ceylon is somewhat larger than the medicinal leech of Europe: in colour it is of a uniform brown without bands, unless a rufous margin may be so considered. It has dark striæ. The body is somewhat rounded, flat when swimming, and composed of rather more than ninety rings. The greatest dimension is a little in advance of the anal sucker; the body thence tapers to the other extremity, which ends in an upper lip projecting considerably beyond the mouth. The eyes, ten in number, are disposed as in the common leech. The mouth is oval, the biting apparatus with difficulty seen, and the teeth not very numerous. The bite is so little acute that the moment of attachment, and the incision of the membrane is scarcely perceived by the sufferer from its attack.] [Footnote 3: Even men, when stooping to drink at a pool, are not safe from the assault of the cattle leeches. They cannot penetrate the human skin, but the delicate membrane of the mucous passages is easily ruptured by their serrated jaws. Instances have come to my knowledge of Europeans into whose nostrils they had gained admission and caused serious disturbance.] * * * * * ARTICULATA. _APTERA_. THYSANURA. Podura _albicollis_. _atricollis_. _viduata_. _pilosa_. Archoreutes _coccinea_. Lepisma nigrofasciara, _Temp_. _nigra._ ARACHNIDA. Buthus afer. _Linn_. Ceylonicus, _Koch_. Scorpio _linearis_. Chelifer librorum. _oblongus_. Obisium _crassifemur_. Phrynus lunatus, _Pall_. Thelyphonus caudatus, _Linn._ Phalangium _bisignatum_. Mygale fasciata, _Walck_. Olios taprobanius, _Walck_. Nephila ... ? Trombidium tinctorum, _Herm_. Oribata ... ? Ixodes ... ? MYRIAPODA. Cermatia _dispar_. Lithobius _umbratilis_. Scolopendra _crassa_. spinosa, _Newp_. _pallipes_. _Grayii_? _Newp_. tuberculidens, _Newp_. Ceylonensis, _Newp_. flava, _Newp_. _olivacea_. _abdominalis_, Cryptops _sordidus_. _assimilis_. Geophilus _tegularius_. _speciosus_. Julus _ater_. carnifex, _Fabr_. _pallipes_. _fiaviceps_. _pallidus_. Craspedosoma _juloides_. _præusta_. Polydesmus _granulatus_. Cambala _catenulata_. Zephronia _conspicua_. _CRUSTACEA_. DECAPODA BHACHTUEA. _Polybius_. Neptunus pelagicus, _Linn._ sanguinolentus, _Herbst_. Thalamlta ... ? Thelphusa _Indica, Latr_. _Cardisoma_ ... ? Ocypoda ceratophthalmus, _Pall_, _macrocera, Edw_. Gelasimus _tetragonon, Edw_. _annulipes, Edw_. Macrophthalmus _carinimanus, Latr_. Grapsus _messor, Forsk_. strigosus, _Herbst_. Plagusia depressa, _Fabr_. Calappa philargus, _Linn._ _tuberculata, Fabr_. Matota victor, _Fabr_. Leucosia _fugax, Fabr_. _Dorippe_. DECAPODA ANOMURA. _Dromia_ ... ? Hippa Asiatica, _Edw_. Pagurus affinis, _Edw_. _punctulatus, Oliv_. _Porcellana_ ... ? DECAPODA MACRURA. Scyllarus _orientalis, Fabr_. Palinurus ornatus, _Fabr_. affinis, _N.S._ _Crangon_ ... ? _Alpheus_ ... ? Pomonia inflata, _Edw_. Palæmon carcinus, _Fabr_. Steaopus ... ? Peneus ...? STOMATOPODA. _Squilla_ ... ? Gonodactylus chiragra, _Fabr_. _CIRRHIPEDIA_. _Lepas_. _Balanus_. _ANNELIDA_. Tubicolæ. Dorsibranchiata. Abranchia. Hirudo _sanguisorba_. _Thwaitesii_. Hæmopsis _paludum_. Hæmadipsa Ceylana. _Blainv_. Lumbricus ... ? * * * * * NOTE ON THE FACULTY OF REPEATED RE-VIVIFICATION POSSESSED BY THE _ROTIFERA_, ETC. The _Rotifer_, a singular creature, although it can only truly live in water, inhabits the moss on house-tops, dying each time the sun dries up its place of retreat, to revive as often as a shower of rain supplies it with the moisture essential to its existence; thus employing several years to exhaust the eighteen days of life which nature has allotted to it. These creatures were discovered by LEUWENHOECK, and have become the types of a class already numerous, which undergo the same conditions of life, and possess the same faculty. Besides the _Rotifera_, the _Tardigrades_, (which belong to the _Acari_,) and certain paste-eels, all exhibit a similar phenomenon. But although these different species may die and be resuscitated several times in succession, this power has its limits, and each successive experiment generally proves fatal to one or more individuals. SPALLANZANI, in his experiments on the _Rotifera_, did not find that any survived after the sixteenth alternation of desiccation and damping, but paste-eels bore seventeen of those vicissitudes. SPALLANZANI, after thoroughly drying sand rich in _Rotifera_, kept it for more than three years, moistening portions taken from it every five or six months. BAKER went further still in his experiments on paste-eels, for he kept the paste from which they had been taken, without moistening it in any way, for twenty-seven years, and at the end of that time the eels revived on being immersed in a drop of water. _If they had exhausted their lives all at once and without these intermissions, these Rotifera and paste-eels would not have lived beyond sixteen or eighteen consecutive days._ To remove all doubt as to the complete desiccation of the animalcules experimented on by SPALLANZANI and BAKER, M. DOYÈRE has published, in the _Annales des Sciences Naturales_ for 1842, the results of his own observation, in cases in which the mosses containing the insects were dried under the receiver of an air-pump and left there for a week; after which they were placed in a stove heated to 267° Fahr., and yet, when again immersed in water, a number of the _Rotifera_ became as lively as ever. Further particulars of these experiments will be found in the Appendix to the _Rambles of a Naturalist, &c._, by M. QUARTREFAGE. INDEX. * * * * * ABOU-ZEYD, his account of fish on dry land, 350 n. Abyssinia, fishes of, 352. _Acalephæ_, 398. _See_ Radiata. Acanthopterygii, 360. Accipitres, 245. _Acherontia Sathanas_, 427 Adam's Peak, elephants on the summit, 109. Ælian's account of the mermaid, 69. his statement as to the export of elephants from Ceylon, 77 _n_., 209 _n_. error as to the shedding of the elephant's tusks, 79 _n_. describes elephants killing criminals with their knees. 87 _n_. error as to elephants' joints, 102. his account of Ceylon tortoises, 293. his account of the superiority of the elephants of Ceylon, 209 _n_. his description of the performances of the trained elephants at Rome, 237. his account of the sword-fish, 328. describes a _Cheironectes_, 331. African elephant, its peculiarities, 65. not inferior to the Indian in tractability, 208. Albino buffalo, 57. deer, 59. Albyrouni, on the pearl oyster, 375. Alce, described by Pliny and Cæsar, 101 _n_. Alexandria, story of the dogs at, 34. Alligator, 283. _See_ Crocodile. Almeida, Manoel de, on burying fishes, 353 _n_. Amboina, mermaids at, 70. Ampullaria, its faculty of burying itself, 355. _Anabas_, 354. Daldorf's account of, doubted, 349, 350. accidents from, 351 n. Angling bad in Ceylon, 335 _n_., 341. _Annelidæ_, leeches, 479. land-leech, its varieties, 482. land-leech, its teeth and eyes, 480. its tormenting bite, 482. list of, 485. Anseres, 260. Ansted, Prof., on the geology of Ceylon, 61. his statement as to the height of Indian elephants, 100 _n_. Antiochus, elephants used by, 208. Antipater, the first to bring the Indian elephant to Europe, 207. Ant-lion, 411. _See_ Insects. Ants, 420 _See_ Insects. red, 420, 422. white, 412. _See Termites_. their faculty in discovering food, 421. Armandi's work on the use of elephants in war, 208 _n_. Aphaniptera, 433. _Arachnidæ_, spiders, 464. extraordinary webs, _ib_. _Olios Taprobanius_, 470. _Mygale fasciata_, 465. erroneously called "tarentula," _ib_. anecdote of, 466. spiders, the Mygale, 465. birds killed by it, 468. Galeodes, 470. ticks, their multitude, 471. mites, 472. _Trombidium tinctorum_, 472. list of, 485. Argus cowrie, 369. Aripo, the sea-shore, 373. Aristotle, account of fishes migrating overland, 344. sounds made by elephants, 97. his error as to the elephant's knees, 101. Armitage, Mr., story of an elephant on his estate, 139. Articulata, list of, 485. Athenæus, anecdotes of fishes on dry land, 346. Avicula, 373. _See_ Pearl Fishery. Avitchia, story of, 244. _See_ Jackdaw. Ayeen Akbery, elephant stomach described in, 128. Baker, Mr., his theory of the passion for sporting, 142 n. its accuracy questionable, 142 _n_. Badger, the Ceylon, 38. _See_ Mongoos. Bandicoot rat, 44. Barbezieux, on the elephant, 104. _Batocera rubus_, 406. Batrachia, 318. Bats, 13 _See_ Mammalia _and_ Cheiroptera. orange-coloured bats, 14. bats do not hybernate in Ceylon, 18. horse-shoe bat, 19. sense of smell and touch, 19. small bat, _Scotophilus Coromandelicus_, 20. their parasite (Nycteribia), 20-22. Batticaloa, musical fish, 380. Bears, 22. _See_ Mammalia. ferocity of, 23. charm to protect from, 25 _n_. Beaters for elephants, 150. Beaver, on African elephant, 234. Beckman's account of fishes on dry land, 346. Bees, 419. _See_ Insects. Beetles, 405. _See_ Insects. instincts of the scavenger beetle, 405. coco-nut beetle, 407. tortoise beetle, 408. Bell, Sir Charles, on the elephant's shoulder, 108. Benary, his derivation of the word elephant, 76 _n_. Bengal mode of taking elephants, 164. Bennett's account of Ceylon, _Introd_. work on its Ichthyology, 323. Bernier, on the Ceylon elephant, 209. Bertolacci, on form of _chank shell_, 372. Bestiaries, 104. Bicho de Mar. _See_ Holothuria. Birds of Ceylon, 241. their number and character, _ib_. few songsters, 242. pea-fowl, 244. eagles and hawks, 245. owls, devil bird, 246, 247. swallows, 248. edible bird' nests, 248. kingfisher, sun birds, 249. bulbul, tailor bird, weaver bird, 251. crows, anecdotes of, 253. paroquets, 256. pigeons, 257. jungle-fowl, 259. _grallæ_, flamingoes, 260. list of Ceylon birds, 265. Bird-eating spiders, 469. Birds' nests, edible, 248. Blainville, De, on the age of the elephant, 232. Blair, on the anatomy of the elephant, 123 _n_. Bles, Marcellus, on the elephants of Ceylon. 113 _n_., 215 _n_. Blood-suckers, 275. Blyth, Mr., of Calcutta, his cultivation of zoology, 4. his revision of this work, _Introd_. Boa, 303. _See_ Python. Boar, wild, 59. Bochart, 68. his derivation of the word "elephant," 76 _n_. Bora-chung, a curious fish, 367. Bosquez, Demas, account of a mermaid, 70. Bowring, Sir John, on the fishes of Siam, 348. Broderip, on the elephant, 122. Browne, Sir Thomas, _vulgar errors_, 100, 105. error as to elephants' joints, 102. Brun, Le, account of the elephants at Colombo, 77 _n_. Bruno _or_ Braun, his account of the Guinea worm, 397. Buchanan, story of buffalo "rogues," 115 _n_. Buffalo, 54. _See_ Mammalia. its temper, 54. sporting buffaloe, 55. peculiar structure of its foot, 56. rogue buffalo, 115 _n_. buffalo's stomach and its water-cells, 129 _n_. Buffon, on the elephant, 113 _n_., 215. Bugs, 433. _See_ Insects _and_ Coffee-bug. Buist, Dr., account of fish fallen from clouds, 362. Bulbul, 251. _See_ Birds. _Bulimi_, their vitality, 357. _Bullia_, curious property of, 370. Bullocks for draught, 50. Burying fishes, 351. Butterflies, 403, 425. _See_ Insects. migration of, 403 _n_. the spectre butterfly, 426. Cæcilia, 317. _See_ Reptiles. Cæsar's description of the "_alce_," 100 _n_. Cajan, 373 _n_. Caldera, in Chili, musical sounds under water, 383. Calotes, the green, 276. Camel, attempt to domesticate in Ceylon, 53 _n_. stomach of, 128. antipathy to the horse, 83 _n_. Camper, on the anatomy of the elephant's stomach, 125. Carawala, 296. _See_ Reptiles. Carnivora, 74. Carpenter bee, 418. _See_ Insects. Caterpillars, stings of, 429. Cats attracted by the _Cuppa-may-niya,_ 33. Centipede, 474. _See_ Myriapoda _and_ Scolopendræ. _Ceratophora_, 279. _Cerithia_, 381. probably musical, 381 _n._ _Cermatia_, 473. _See_ Myriapoda. Cetacea, 68, 74. described by Megasthenes and Ælian, 69. Chameleon, 278. _See_ Reptiles. Chank shell, Turbinella rapa, 371. _See_ [Greek: Kochlious] and _Schenek_. Cheetah, 26. _See_ Leopard. Cheironectes, described by Ælian, 331. Cheiroptera, 13, 74. _Chelifer_, 475. Chelonia, 322. Chena cultivation, 130. Cicada, 432. _See_ Insects. _Cirrhipeda_, 486. Cissa, 252. Civet, 32. _See_ Genette. Climbing fish (_Anabas scandens_), 349. Cluverius, 68. Cobra de Capello, anecdotes of, 297. legend of, 297 _n_. a white cobra, 298 _n_. a tame cobra, 299 _n_. cobra crossing the sea, 300. curious belief as to the cobra, 300, 301. worship of, 303. Cobra-tel, poison, 272. _See_ Kabara-tel. Coecilia glutinosa, 317. attacked and killed by ants, 422. Coco-nut beetle, 407. Coffee-bug, _Lecanium Caffeæ_, 436. Coffee rat, 43. Coleoptera, 405. Columbidæ, 257. Conchology. _See_ Shells. Cooroowe, elephant catchers, 181. Corral for taking elephants, 156, 164. _See_ Elephant. process of its construction, 170. mode of conducting the capture, 156, 169. Corse, Mr., account of elephants, 114. Cosmas Indico pleustes, his reference to chanks at Marallo, 371. Cotton-thief, 250. _See_ Tchitrea. Crabs, 477. _See_ Crustacea. Cripps, Mr., on sounds produced by elephants, 98. his story of an elephant which feigned death, 135. his account of fishes after rain, 343. Crocodile, 282. _See_ Reptiles. its sensibility to tickling, 285. habit of the crocodile to bury itself in the mud, 286. its flesh eaten, 284 _n._ their vitality, 288 _n_. one killed at Batticaloa, 287. Crows, 233. _See_ Birds. anecdotes of, 254. story of a crow and a dog, 255. Cruelty to turtle, &c., 291. _Crustacea_, calling crabs, 477. Sand crabs (ocypode), 478. Painted crabs, 478. Paddling crabs, 478. Hermit crabs, 478. Pea crabs, 479. List of Ceylon Crustacea, 486. Ctesias' error as to the elephant's knee, 101. Cumming, Mr. Gordon, on the power of the elephant in overturning trees, 218 _n_. _Cuppa-moy niya_ plant, its attraction for cats, 33 _n_. Cuvier, on the elephant, 133. on the structure of its tusks, 228. on the elephant's age, 232. Daldorf's account of climbing fish, 350. his story doubted, 350. Darwin, burying-place of llamas and goats, 236 _n_. on the coleoptera of Brazil, 405. Davy, Dr. John, describes the reptiles of Ceylon, 3. stimulates study of natural history, 3. operation on a diseased elephant, 224. Dawson, Captain, story of an elephant, 107. Deafness frequent in elephants, 98. Death's-head moth, 427. Decoy elephants, 157. _Decapoda brachyura_, 486. _anomura_, 486. _macrura_, 486. Deer, 57. meminna, 58. Ceylon elk, 59. milk-white, 59 _n_. Demon-worship, anecdote of, 408. Denham, error as to height of elephants, 99. Devil-bird, 246. _See_ Owls. Mr. Mitford's account of, 247 _n_. Diard, M., sends home an elephant for dissection, 123 _n_. Dicuil on the elephant, 103. Diptera, 434. Dogs, 33. device of, to escape fleas, 433, 434. dog-tax, 33. republican instincts, 34. disliked by elephants, 82, 84. Donne, on the elephant, 105. Doras, fish of Guiana, 347. Dragon-flies, 411. _See_ Insects. Dugong, 68, 69. abundant at Manaar, 69. origin of the fable of the mermaid, 69. Dutch belief in the mermaid, 70. Eagles, 245. _See_ Birds. Edentata, 46, 74. Edrisi, the Arabian geographer, his account of musk, 32 _n_. Eels, 337, 347 _n_. Eginhard, life of Charlemagne, 103. Elephant, 64, 75. Sumatran species, 64. points of distinction, 65. those of Ceylon extolled, 209. elephants on Adam's Peak, 109. numbers in Ceylon, 76. [Greek: Elephas], derivation of the word, 76 _n_. antiquity of the trade in, 77. numbers diminishing, 77. mode of poisoning, 77 _n_. tusks and their uses, 78. disposition gentle, 81. accidents from, 81. antipathy to other animals, 82; to the horse, 83. jealousy of each other, 86. mode of attacking man, 87. anecdote of a tame elephant, 89. African elephant differs from that of Ceylon, 64. skin, 91. white elephant, 92. love of shade, 94. water, not heat, essential to them, 94. sight limited--smell acute, 95. anatomy of the brain, 95. power of smell, 96. sounds uttered by, 96. subject to deafness, 98. exaggeration as to size, 98. source of this mistake, 98 _n_. stealthy motions, 100. error as to the elephant's want of joints, 100. probable origin of this mistake, 106. mode of lying down, 107. ability to climb acclivities, 108. mode of descending a mountain, 110. a herd is a family, 111. attachment to young, 112. young suckled by all the females in a herd, 113. theory of this, according to White, 113 _n_. a rogue, what, 114. savage attacks of rogues, 116. character of the rogues, 116, 147. habits of the herd, 117. anecdote of, 118. elephant's mode of drinking, 120. their method of swimming, 121. wells sunk by, 122. receptacle in the stomach, 122. stomach, anatomy of, 124. food of the elephant, 129. instinct in search of food, 130. dread of fences, 131. their caution exaggerated, 132. spirit of curiosity in elephants, 132. anecdote of Col. Hardy, 132, 133. sagacity in freedom over-estimated, 134. leave the forests during thunder, 134. cunning, feign death, 135. stories of encounters with wild elephants, 136. sporting, numbers shot, 142. butchery by expert shots, 142 _n_. fatal spots in the head, 144, 145. peculiar actions of elephants, 148. love of retirement, 149. elephant-trackers, 150. herd charging, 151. carcase useless 153. remarkable recovery from a wound, 154. _See Lieut_. Fretz. mode of taking in India, 157-162. height measured by the circumference of the foot, 159. mode of shipping elephants at Manaar, 162. mode of shipping elephants at Galle, in 1701, 163 _n_. _keddah_ for taking elephants in Bengal, 164. a corral (kraal) described, 165, 166. derivation of the word _corral_, 165 _n_. corral, its construction, 167, 172. corral, driving in the elephants, 173. the capture, 177. mode of securing, 181. the "cooroowe," or noosers, 181. tame elephants, their conduct, 182, 191. captives, their resistance and demeanour, 184. dread of white rods, 186. their contortions, 190. a young one, 206. conduct in captivity, 207. mode of training, 211. their employment in ancient warfare, 207. superiority of Ceylon, a fallacy, 209. elephant driver's crook (hendoo), 212. hairy elephants in Ceylon, 215 _n_. Elephants, capricious disposition of, 215. first labour intrusted to them, 217. his comprehension of his duties, 218. exaggeration of his strength in uprooting trees, 218 _n_. Mahouts and their duties, 221. Their cry of _urre!_ 222 _n_. elephant's sense of musical notes, 223. its endurance of pain, 224. diseases in captivity, 225. subject to tooth-ache, 227. questionable economy of keeping trained elephants for labour, 229. their cost, 230. their food, 230 _n_. fallacy of their alleged reluctance to breed in captivity, 231. duration of life in the elephant, 232. theory of M. Fleurens, 232. instances of very old elephants in Ceylon, 233. dead elephant never found, 234. Sinbad's story, 236. passage from Ælian regarding the, 237. Elk, 59. _See_ Deer; Mammalia. Emydosauri, 321. Emys trijuga, 290. Englishman, anonymous, his story of a fight between elephants and horses, 84. Falconer, Dr., height of Indian elephant, 99 _n_. Falkland Islands, peculiarity in the cattle there, 372 _n_. Fauna of Ceylon, not common to India, _Introd_. 62. peculiar and independent, _Introd_. 62. have received insufficient attention, 3. first study due to Dr. Davy, 3. subsequent, due to Templeton, Layard, and Kelaart, 3, 4. Fishes of Ceylon, little known, 323. seir fish, and others for table, 324. abundance of perch, soles, and sardines, 324. explanation of Odoric's statement, 324 _n_. sardines, said to be poisonous, 324. shark, and sawfish, 325. sawfish, 325. ray, 326. swordfish, 328. cheironectes of Ælian, 331. fishes of rare forms, and of beautiful colours, 332. fresh-water fishes, their peculiarities, 335. fresh-water, little known, _ib_.; reason, 335 _n_. eels, 337. reappearance of fishes after the dry season, 340. Fishes, similar mysterious re-appearances elsewhere, 342 _n_. method of taking them by hand, 340. a fish decoy, 342. fish filling from clouds, 342 _n_., 362. buried alive in mud, 347. Mr. Yarrell's theory controverted, 344. travelling overland, 345. the fact was known to the Greeks and Romans, 345. instances in Guiana and Siam, 347. faculty of all migratory fish for discovering water, 347 _n_. on dry land in Ceylon, 348. fish ascending trees, 349. excerpt from letter by Mr. Morris, 348 _n_. Anabas scandens, 349, 350. Daldorf's statement, anticipated by Abou-zeyd, 350 _n_. accidents when fishing, 351 _n_. burying fishes and travelling fish, 351. occurrence of similar fish in Abyssinia and elsewhere, 352. statement of the patriarch Mendes, 553 _n_. knowledge of habits of Melania employed judicially by E.L. Layard, 355 _n_. illustrations of æstivating fish and animals, 356. æstivating shell-fish and water-beetlea, 351. fish in hot water, 358. list of Ceylon fishes, 359. Professor Huxley's memorandum on the fishes of Ceylon, 364. Dr. Gray's memorandum, 366. _Note_ on the _Bora-chung_, 367. Fishing, native mode of, 340. Fish insect, 475. Flamingoes, 261. _See_ Birds. Fleas, 433. _See_ Insects. Fleurens, on the duration of life in the elephant, 232. Flies, their instinct in discovering carrion, 196 _n_. mosquitoes, the plague of, 434. Flowers, fondness of monkeys for, 7. Flying Fox. _Pteropus Edwardsii_, 14. _See_ Mammalia. its sizes, 14. skeleton of, 15. food, 16. habits, 16. numbers, 16. strange attitudes, 17. food and habits, 18. drinking toddy, 18. Flying squirrels, 41. Fresh-water fishes, 335. Fretz, Lieut., his singular wound, 154. Frogs, 318. tree frogs, 319, 320. Galle, elephants shipped in 1701, 163 _n_. Gallinæ, 259. Galloperdix bicalcaratus, 259. Gallwey, Capt. P.P., great number of elephants shot by him, 142. Game birds, 265. Gardner, Dr., his account of the coffee bug, 436-441. Gaur, 49 _See_ Mammalia. Knox's account of the gaur, 49. Geckoes, 281. Gemma Frisius, 68. Genette, 32. Geology of Ceylon, errors as to, 60. previous accounts, 61. traditions of ancient submersion, 61, 67. Ceylon has a fauna distinct from India, 62. "Golden Meadows," 211 _n_. _See_ Massoude. Golunda rat, 43. _Goondah_, 114. _See_ Rogue. Gooneratne, Mr., _Introd_. his story of the jackal, 35. Gordon Cumming, his butchery of elephants in Africa, 146 _n_. Gowra-ellia, 49. Grallæ, 260. Gray, Dr. J.E., Brit. Mus., _Introd_. notice of Ceylon fishes, 366. Great fire-fish, 332. Guinea worm, 397. Günther, Dr. A., on Ceylon reptiles, 275 _n_., 304. Gwillim's Heraldry, error as to elephants, 105 _n_. Hambangtotte, elephants of, 99. Hardy, Col, anecdote of, when chased by an elephant, 133. Hardy, Rev. Spence, describes a white monkey, 8. Haroun Alraschid, sends an elephant to Charlemagne, 103. Harrison, Dr., 95. his anatomy of the elephant, 123 _n_., 126. his account of elephant's head, 142. of the elephant's ear, 223. Hastisilpe, a work on elephants, 87 _n_., 91. Hawking, 246. Hawks. _See_ Birds, 246. Hedge-hog, 46. Helix hæmastoma, its colouring, 372. Hemiptera, 433, 462. Hendoo, crook for driving elephants, 212. Herd, a, of elephants, is a family, 111. its mode of electing a leader, 117. Herodotus, on mosquitoes, 435. antipathy of the elephant to the camel, 83 _n_. Herpestes, 38. Herport, Albrecht, his work on India, 71 _n_. _Hesperidæ_, 426. Hill, Sir John, error as to elephants, 98. Hippopotamus rogues, 115 _n_. Histiophorus, 330. _See_ Sword-fish. Holland, Dr., his theory as to the formation of tusks, 89 _n_. _Holothurin_, sea-slug and Trepang, 396. Home, Sir Everard, on the elephant's stomach, 124. error as to the elephant's ear, 223. Home, Randal, error as to elephant, 105 _n_. Homoptera, 462, 463. Honey-comb, great size of, 418. Hooker, Dr. J.D., on the elephants of the Himalaya, 110 _n_. error as to white ants' nests, 413. on ticks in Nepal, 471 _n_., 472. _Hora_, 115. _See_ Rogue. Horace, alludes to a white elephant, 92 _n_. Hornbill, _Buceros_, 242, 243. Horse, alleged antipathy to the elephant, 83. to the camel, 83 _n_. story of, and an elephant, 89. horses taught to fight with elephants, 84. Hotambeya, 40. _See_ Mongoos. Hot-water fishes, 358. Hunt, mode of conducting an elephant-hunt, 157. Hunter, Dr. John, his theory of æstivation, 356. Hurra! 223 _n_. Huxley, Prof., _Introd_. his memorandum on the fishes of Ceylon, 364. Hydrophobia in jackals, 36. Hymenoptera, 416. _Ianthina_, 370. Ichneumon, 39. _See_ Mongoos. Iguana, 271. _See_ Reptiles. _Infusoria_, Red, in the Ceylon seas, 400. Insects of Ceylon, 403. their profusion and beauty, 403. hitherto imperfectly described, 404. coleoptera, 405. Beetles, scavengers, 405. coco-nut beetle, tortoise beetle, 407. tortoise beetle, 408. Orthoptera, 408. the soothsayer, leaf-insect, 410. Neuroptera, 411. dragon-flies, 411. ant-lion, 411. white ant, termites, 411. Insects, _Hymenoptera_, mason-wasp, 416. wasps, bees, wasps' nest, 418. carpenter bee, 418. ants, 420. value of scavenger ants to conchologists, 421. dimiya or red ant, 422. introduced to destroy coffee-bug, 423. _Lepidoptera_, butterflies, 424. _lycænidæ, hesperidæ_, 426. _acherontia sathanas_, 427. moths, silk-worm, 427. stinging caterpillars, 429. oiketicus, 430. _Homoptera, cicada_, the "knife-grinder," 432. Flata, 433. _Aphaniptera_--fleas, 433. _Diptera_--mosquitoes, 434. Coffee bug, 436-441. Mr. Walker's memorandum on Ceylon insects, 442. list, 447. Ivory, annual consumption, 78 _n_. superiority of Chinese, _ib_. Jackal, 35. its cunning, 35. probably the "fox" of Scripture, 35. its sagacity in hunting, 36. subject to hydrophobia, 36. jackal's horn, the _narric comboo_, 37. superstitions connected with, 37. Jackdaw, fable of, 244. _See_ Avitchia. Jardine, Sir W., error as to elephants shedding their tusks, 79 _n_. Jay, the mountain, 252. _See_ Cissa. Joinville, on the parasite of the bat, 20. _Julus_, 477. Jungle fowl, 259. _See_ Birds. Juvenal's allusion to fishes on land, 346. Kabragoya, 272, 273. _See_ Iguana. Kabara-tel, poison, 274. Kanats in Persia, 339 _n_. Keddah, for taking elephants, 164. Kelaart, Dr., work on the Zoology of Ceylon, 4. examination of the Radiata, 395. discoveries as to the pearl oyster, 375. Kingfisher, 249. _See_ Birds. Kinnis, Dr., cultivates zoology, 4. Kite, on Egyptian sculpture, 246 _n_. Knife-grinder, 432. _See_ Cicada. Knox, R., account of Ceylon fauna, _Introd_. his description of the Wanderoo, 5. of elephants executing criminals, 87. of the mode of catching elephants, 157. Knox, his description of natives fishing, 340. [Greek: Kochlious], 371. Kombook tree, its bark, 170. _Korahl_, 165. _See_ Kraal _and_ Corral. derivation of the word, 165 _n_. Kornegalle, beauty of the place, 167. Kottiar, immense oysters, 371 _n_. _See_ Cottiar. Kraal, 165. _See_ Corral _and_ Korahl. Krank-bezoeker, 71 _n_. Layard, E.A., his knowledge of Ceylon zoology, 4. his collections of Ceylon birds, 241. story of fish on dry land, 318. anecdote of burying molluscs, 355. Leaf insect. 408-410. _See_ Insects. Leaping fish, 332. _See Salarias alticus_. _Lecanium Caffeæ_, 436. Leeches, 479. _See Annelidæ_. land leech, 479. medicinal leech, 483. cattle leech, 344. Leopard, 25. in Ceylon confounded with the _cheetah_, 26. superstitions regarding, 26. anecdotes of their ferocity, 27. attracted by the small-pox, 28. story of Major Skinner, 29. monkeys killed by leopards, 31. Lepidoptera, 424. _Lepisma_, the fish insect, 474. Lima, General de, his account of the weight of elephants' tusks at Mozambique, 79 _n_. Livingstone's account of the "rogue" hippopotamus, 115 _n_. Llama of the Andes, its stomach, 128 _n_. Livy, account of fishes on dry land, 346. Lizards, 271. _See_ Reptiles. Lophobranchi, 362. _Loris_, 12. _See_ Mammalia. two varieties in Ceylon, 12. torture inflicted on it, 13. Lucan, description of the ichneumon, 39. _Lycænidæ_, 426. Lyre-headed lizard, 277. Macabbees iii. Book, allusion to elephants, 87 _n_., 211 _n_. Macacus monkey, 5. Machlis described by Cæsar, 101. Macready, Major, account of a noise made by elephants, 97. his opinion as to the vulnerable point in the elephant's head. 145 _n_. Mahawanso, mentions a white elephant, 93. Mahout, an elephant driver, 181. _See_ Ponnekella. Mahout, alleged short life, 222. _Malacopterygii abdominales_, 362. _sub-branchiati_, 362. _apoda_, 362. Mammalia, 3. Monkeys, 5. Rilawa,5. Wanderoo, 6. error as to the Ceylon Wanderoo, 6, _n_. Wanderoo, mode of flight among trees, 9. monkeys never found dead, 11. _Loris_, 12. tortures inflicted on it, 13. Bat, flying fox, 14. skeleton of, 14. attracted by toddy to the coco-nut palms, 18. horse-shoe bat, 18. parasite of the bat, Nycteribia, 20, 21. bears, 22. bears dreaded in Ceylon, 24. leopards, 25. attracted by the odour of small pox, 28. anecdote of a leopard, 29. lesser felines, 32. dogs, Pariah, 34. jackal, 34. the jackal's horn, 36. Mongoos, 37. assaults of Mongoos on the serpent, 38. squirrels, 41. the flying squirrel, 41. rats, the rat snake, 42. coffee rat, 43, 44. bandicoot, 44, 45. porcupine, 45. pengolin, 46-48. the gaur, 49. the ox, 50. anecdote of, 51. draft oxen, 51-53. the buffalo, 54. sporting buffaloes, 55. peculiarity of the buffalo's foot, 56. deer, 57. meminna, 57, 58. Ceylon elk, 59. wild boar, 59. elephant, 69, 75. whale and dugong, 68, 69. peculiarities of Ceylon mammalia, 73. list of, 73. Manaar, mermaid taken at, 69. elephants shipped at, 162. pearl fishery, 373. Manis. _See_ Pengolin, 46. Mantis, 410. Massoudi, on the use of elephants in war, 211 _n_. his account of pearl-diving, 377 _n_. _Mastacembelus_, 338. _See_ Eels. Megasthenes' account of the mermaid, 69. Mehemet Ali, story of, 34. _Melania Paludina_, its habit of burying itself, 355. its hybernation, 355. Melania, story of a law suit decided by, 355 _n_. Meleagrina, 373 _n_. _See_ Pearl fishery. Meminna deer, 58. Mercator, 68. Mercer, Mr., his story of an elephant fight, 86. Mermaid, 68. _See_ Dugong. Mermaids, at Manaar, 69. at Amboina, 70. at Booro, 71. at Edam, 72. Millipeds, _Julus_, 477. Mites, 472. Mollusca. _See_ Shells. Molyneux, on the anatomy of the elephant, 122 _n_. Mongoos, 38. _See_ Ichneumon. species at Neuera-ellia, _Herpestes Vitticollis_, 38. story of its antidote against the bite of serpents, 39. its mode of killing snakes, 39. Monkeys, 5. never found dead, 11. a white monkey, 8. Moors of Galle, make ornaments of the elephant's teeth, 153. Moors, as caravan drivers, 53. Moose deer, 58. _See_ Meminna. Morris, Mr., account of fishes on land, 348. Mosquitoes, their cunning, 434. Herodotus, account of, 436. probably the plague of flies, 434 _n_. Moths, 427. _See_ Insects. Munster, Sebastian, 68. Musical fishes, 380. account of, at Batticaloa, 380. similar phenomena at other places, 383 _n_. fishes known to utter sounds, 384. _Tritonia arborescens_, 385. Musk, 32. Mygale, spider, 465. Myriapods, 472. Narric-comboo, 37. _See_ Jackal's Horn. Natural history neglected in Ceylon, 3. Neela-cobeya, pigeon, 258. Neuroptera, 411. Nietner, on Ceylon insects, _Introd_. _Nycteribia_, parasite of the bat, 20, 21. its extraordinary structure, 22. Odoric of Portenau, his cure for leech bites, 481. his account of birds with two heads, 243. his account of fishes in Ceylon, 324 _n_. _Oiketicus_, 430. Oil-bird, 269. Ophidia, 321. Ortelius, 68. Orthoptera, 408. Ouanderoo. _See_ Wanderoo. Owen, Professor, on the structure of the elephant's tusk, 228. on the Protopterus of the Gambia, 352. Owls. _See_ Birds. Oxen, their uses and diseases, 50. anecdote of a cow and a leopard, 51. white, eight feet high, seen by Wolf, 52 _n_. Oysters at Bentotte, 371. immense, at Kottiar, 371 _n_. Pachydermata, 59, 74. Padivil, the great tank, 262. Pallegoix, on the elephants of Siam, 98 _n_. on the fishes of Siam, 347. Palm-cat, 32. Panickeas, elephant catchers, 150, 158. their skill, 159. Pariah dogs, 33. Paris, Matthew, on the elephant, 103. Paroquets, their habits; anecdote of, 256. Passeres, 248. Patterson, R., Esq., _Introd_. Pea-fowl, 244. _See_ Birds. fable of the jackdaw, 244. Pearl fishery of Ceylon, its antiquity, 373. dreary scenery of Aripo, 373. disappearances of the pearl-oyster, 374. capable of transplantation, 376. operation of diving, 377. endurance of the divers under water, 377. growth of the pearl-oyster, 379. pearls of Tamblegam, 380. Pelicans, 262. strange scene at their breeding place, 263. Pengolin, 46. its habits and food, 47. skeleton of, 48. Phile, his account of the elephant, 103. error as to its joints, 107. describes its drinking, 121 _n_. its dispositions, 216 _n_. on the elephant's ear, 224. on elephants burying their dead, 235. Phillipe, on the elephant of Ceylon, 209. Phyllium, 410. _See_ Leaf Insect. Physalus urticulus, 400. _See_ Portuguese Man-of-war. Pictet, Mon., his derivation of the word "elephant," 76 _n_. Pigeons, 257. _See_ Birds. Pigeons, Lady Torrington's pigeon, 258. _Placuna placenta_, pearls of, 380. _Planaria_, 398. _See Radiata_. Pliny's nereids, 72 _n_. error as to elephants shedding their tusks, 79 _n_. error as to their antipathy to other animals, 85. error as to elephant's joints, 100. account of the _machlis_, 101 _n_. his knowledge of the vulnerability of the elephant's head, 144 _n_. of fishes on dry land, 346. Ponnekella. _See_ Mahout. Polybius' account of fishes on dry land, 346. Pomponius, Mela, account of fishes on land, 346. Porcupine, 45. Portuguese belief in the mermaid, 69. Man-of-war, 400. Pott, his derivation of the word elephant, 76 _n_. Presbytes _cephalopterus_, 7. _ursinus_, 6, 9. _Thersites_, 6, 10. its fondness of attention, 10. _Priamus_, 10. its curiosity, 11. Protopterus of the Gambia, 352. Pseudophidia, 322. Pterois volitans, 333. _Pterophorus_, 430. _See_ Insects. Pteropus, 14. _See_ Flying Fox. Pyrard de Laval, on the Ceylon elephant, 209. Python, its great size, 303. Quadrumana, 5, 74. Quatrefage on the Rotifera, 487. _Radiata_, star-fish, 395. sea-slugs, holothuria, 396. parasitic worms, 396. Guinea worm, 397. _planaria_, 398. _acalephæ_, 398. Portuguese Man-of-war, 400. Red infusoria, 400. Raja-kariya, forced labour, in elephant hunts, 170. Raja-welle estate, story of an elephant at, 133 _n_. Ramayana, Ceylon elephants mentioned in, 210. Rats, 42. eaten as food in Oovah and Bintenne, 43. liable to hydrophobia, 43. coffee rat, 43. bandicoot, 44. Rat snake, anecdote of, 43. Rat-snake, domesticated, 299 _n_. Ray, 326, 327. Reinaud, on the ancient use of the elephant in Indian wars, 205 _n_. Reptiles of Ceylon described by Dr. Davy, _Introd_. lizards, iguana, 271. kabara-tel, poison, 272. blood-suckers, 275. calotes, the green, 276. lyre-headed lizard, 277. chameleon, 278. _ceratophora_, 279. gecko, anecdotes of, 281, 282. crocodile, anecdotes of, 282, 283. crocodile and alligator, skulls of, 283. tortoises, 289. parasites of the tortoise, 289. Terrapins, 290. cruel mode of cutting up turtle, 291. turtle, said to be poisonous, 292. hawk's-bill turtle, 293. cruel mode of taking tortoise-shell, 293. snakes, few poisonous, 294. tic-polonga, 296. cobra de capello, 297. legends of the cobra, 297-298 _n_. _uropeltis_, 301. the python, 303. haplocercus, 304. tree-snakes, 305. water snakes, 308. sea snakes, 308. the snake-stone and its composition, 312-317. _cæcilia_, 317. frogs, 318. tree frogs, 319. list of Ceylon reptiles, 321. snakes peculiar to Ceylon, 322. Rhinolophus, 19. _See_ Horse-shoe Bat. Ribeyro's account of pearl-diving, 378. Rilawa monkey, 5. Rodentia, 41, 74. Rogers, Major, story of his horse, 84. his death by lightning, 84 _n_. anecdote of an elephant killed by him, 107. great numbers of elephants shot by him, 142. "A Rogue" elephant. _See_ Elephant, 114. derivation of the term "Rogue," 114. _Ronkedor_, 114. _See_ "Rogue." _Ronquedue_, 114. _See_ "Rogue." dangerous encounters with, 136. Rotifera, marvellous faculty in, 486. Rousette. _See_ Flying-fox _and_ Pteropus, 14. Ruminantia, 49, 74. _Salarias Alticus_, 332. almasius, 68. Sardines, said to be poisonous, 324. Saw fish, 325. _See_ Fishes. Scaliger, Julius, 68. Scansores, 256. _Scarus harid_, 335. _Schenck_, 371. _See_ Chank. Schlegel's essay on the elephant, 208 _n_. Schlegel, Prof., of Leyden, his account of the Sumatran elephant, 66. Schmarda, Prof., 5. Schomburgk, Sir R., on the fishes of Guiana, 347. Sciurus Tennentii, 41 _n_. _Scolopiendræ_, centipede, 474. Scorpions, 474. Sea slugs, _holothuria_, 397. Sea snakes, 308. Seir-fish, 324. Seneca, account of fishes on dry land, 346. Septuagint, allusion to elephants in, 87, 210 _n_. Serpents, 294. _See_ Reptiles. Shakspeare, on the elephant, 105. describes its capture in pit-falls, 157 _n_. Sharks, 325. Shark charmer, 378. Shaw, error as to elephants shedding their tusks, 79 _n_. Shells of Ceylon, 369. lanthina, 370. Bullia vittata, 370. chanks, 371. oysters, immense, 371 _n_. Helix hæmastoma, 372. Pearl fishery, 373. Musical shells, 381. Mr. Henley's memorandum, 386. uncertainty as to species, 387. list of Ceylon shells, 388. Siam, fishes on dry land, 347. Silk, cultivated by the Dutch, 429. Silkworm. _See_ Insects. Sindbad's story of the elephants burying-place, 236. Skinner, Major, knowledge of Ceylon. _Introd_. _n_. adventure with a leopard, 30. great number of elephants killed by him, 142. description of the Panickeas or elephant catchers, 158, 159 _n_. anecdotes of elephants, 118. collection of Ceylon fish, 339. Small-pox attracts the leopard, 28. native superstition, 29. Snakes, 294. _See_ Reptiles. few venomous, 296. tic-polonga, 296. cobra de capello, 297. legends of, 297 _n_. stories of, 298. Snakes, tamed snakes, 299 _n_. snakes crossing the sea, 300. curious tradition of the cobra-de-capello, 300. uropeltis, and explanation of the popular belief, 302. reluctance of Buddhists to kill snakes, 303. python or "boa," 303. tree snakes, 305. the _Passerita fusca_, 306. water snakes, 308. sea snakes, 308. their geographical distribution, 309. their habits, 310. cæcilia, 317. Snake-stone, its alleged virtue, 312. anecdotes of its use, 312. analysis of, by Professor Faraday, 315. Sofala, pearls at, 375 _n_. Solinus, on the elephant, 103. Soothsayer insect, 410. Spectre butterfly, 426. Spiders. _See Arachnida_, 464. at Gampola, 465. at Pusilawa, 471. Squirrel, 41. the flying squirrel, 44. Star-fish, 396. _See Radiata_. Stick insect, 410. _See_ Insects. Stinging caterpillars, 429. Strabo, his account of fishes on dry land, 346. Strachan, Mr., account of the elephants shipped at Ceylon, 163 _n_, 210 _n_. Stuckley, on the anatomy of the elephant, 123 _n_. Sumatra confounded with Ceylon, 67. elephant of, 64. points in which it differs from that of India, 65. Sun bird, 249. _See_ Birds. Superstitions:--Singhalese folk-lore regarding bears, 24 _n_. leopards, 27, 29. mongoos, 38. kabra-goya, 273. cobra-de-capello, 300. use of snake-stones, 315. elephants' burial-place, 236. Suriya trees, caterpillars on, 429. Syrnum Indranee, 246. _See_ Devil-bird. Swallows, 248. _See_ Birds. Sword-fish, 328. Tailor-bird, 251. _See_ Birds; Tamblegam, lake of, 380. pearls, 380. Tarentula, _Mygale fasciata_, 465. fight with a cockroach, 467. numerous at Gampola, 465. Tavalam, a caravan of bullocks, 53. Tavernier, error as to Ceylon elephants, 203, 214. Taylor, the translator of Aristotle, his error as to elephants' joints, 102. Tchitrea paradisi, 250. Temminck, his discovery of the Sumatran elephant, 64. his account of it, 65. Templeton, Dr. R.A., his knowledge of Ceylon, _Introd_. his valuable aid in the present work, _ib_. his cultivation of zoology, 4. notice of Ceylon monkeys, 6. _Termites_, white ants, their ravages, 412. whence comes their moisture, 412 _n_. Terrapins, 290. Terrier, attacks an elephant, 85. Testudinata, 289. Thaun, Philip de, on the elephant, 104. Theobaldus' _Physiologus_, 104. Theophrastus' account of fishes on dry land, 344, 345. Thevenot, on the Ceylon elephant, 203. Thomson's "_Seasons_," error as to the elephant, 106. Thunberg, account of the snake-stone, 317. _Thysdnura_, 464. Ticks, 475. Tic-polonga, 296. See Reptiles. Tiger at Trincomalie, 25 _n_. Toad, 319. Torrington, Viscount, his tax on dogs, 33. Tortoises, 289, 291. _See_ Turtle. parasite of, 289. fresh-water tortoises, 290. _See_ Terrapins. Tortoise-shell, cruel mode of taking, 293. Tree frogs, 320. Tree snakes, 304. Trepang, 396. _See_ Sea-slug. _Tritonia arborescens_, 385. _See_ Musical Fish. letter on, 401. _Trombidium tinctorum. See_ Mites. Trumpeting of elephants, 97, 201. Trunk, elephant's, origin of the name, 97 _n_. Tsetse fly of Africa, 40. Turbinella rapa, 371. _See_ Chank. Turtle, 291. _See_ Reptiles. barbarous treatment of, 291. Tushes, 79. Tusks, 79. _See_ Elephant; Ivory. fallacy that they are shed, 79. weight of, 80. their uses, 80. singular shapes of, 88 _n_. Tusks, Dr. Holland's theory of their formation, 88 _n_. Tytler, Mr., story of an elephant, 133 _n_. _Uropeltis_, 301. Urré! cry of the elephant drivers, 222. Valentyn's account of the mermaid, 70. Dutch mode of taking elephants, 164. Venloos Bay, its profusion of shells, 369. Vossius, Isaac, 68. Waloora. _See_ Wild-boar, 59. dreaded by the Singhalese, 59. Wanderoo monkey, 5. Wasps, wasps' nest, 418. mason-wasp, 416. Water-fowl, 260, 262. Water snakes, 308. Weaver-bird, 251. Whales, 68. _See_ Cetacea. White, Adam, Esq., Brit Mus., _Introd_. White, of Selbourne, his theory of animals suckled by strange mothers, 113 _n_. White ants, 411. _See_ Termites. Whiting, Mr., account of buried fishes, 342 _n_., 354. Wild-boar, 59. Wolf, Jo. Christian, travels in Ceylon, 99 _n_., 115 _n_. his account of elephants there, 99. describes pitfalls for elephants, 157 _n_. Wood-carrying moth, 430. See Insects. Worms, parasite, 396. _See Radiata_. Wound when elephant shooting, 154. Wright, Thomas, Esq., F.S.A., 104. Yarrell's theory of buried fish, 342. Yule's embassy to Ava, 216 _n_. Zimb fly, 434. Zoology neglected in Ceylon, 3. _See_ Natural History. partial extent to which it has been cultivated, _Introd_. THE END. LONDON PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. NRW-STREET SQUARE 
2036	----	Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon by Samuel White Baker CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Colombo--Dullness of the Town--Cinnamon Garden--A Cingalese Appo--Ceylon Sport--Jungle Fever--Newera Ellia--Energy of Sir E. Barnes--Influence of the Governor--Projected Improvements. CHAPTER II. Past Scenes--Attractions of Ceylon--Emigration--Difficulties in Settling--Accidents and Casualties--An Eccentric Groom--Insubordination--Commencement of Cultivation--Sagacity of the Elephant--Disappointments--"Death" in the Settlement--Shocking Pasturage--Success of Emigrants--"A Good Knock-about kind of a Wife". CHAPTER III. Task Completed--The Mountain-top--Change in the Face of Nature--Original Importance of Newera Ellia--"The Path of a Thousand Princes"--Vestiges of Former Population--Mountains--The Highlands of Ouva--Ancient Methods of Irrigation--Remains of Aqueducts--The Vale of Rubies--Ancient Ophir--Discovery of Gold-Mineral Resources--Native Blacksmiths. CHAPTER IV. Poverty of Soil--Ceylon Sugar--Fatality of Climate--Supposed Fertility of Soil--Native Cultivation--Neglect of Rice Cultivation--Abandoned Reservoirs--Former Prosperity--Ruins of Cities--Pollanarua--The Great Dagoba--Architectural Relics--The Rock Temple--Destruction of Population--Neglected Capabilities--Suggestions for Increasing Population--Progress of Pestilence--Deserted Villages--Difficulties in the Cultivation of Rice--Division of Labor--Native Agriculture. CHAPTER V. Real Cost of Land--Want of Communication--Coffee-planting--Comparison between French and English Settlers--Landslips--Forest-clearing--Manuring--The Coffee Bug--Rats--Fatted Stock--Suggestions for Sheep-farming--Attack of a Leopard--Leopards and Chetahs--Boy Devoured--Traps--Musk Cats and the Mongoose--Vermin of Ceylon. CHAPTER VI. "Game Eyes" for Wild Sports--Enjoyments of Wild Life--Cruelty of Sports--Native Hunters--Moormen Traders--Their wretched Guns--Rifles and Smooth-bores--Heavy Balls and Heavy Metal--Beattie's Rifles--Balls and Patches--Experiments--The Double-groove--Power of Heavy Metal--Curious Shot at a Bull Elephant--African and Ceylon Elephants--Structure of Skull--Lack of Trophies--Boar-spears and Hunting-knives--"Bertram"--A Boar Hunt--Fatal Cut. CHAPTER VII. Curious Phenomenon--Panorama of Ouva--South-west Monsoon--Hunting Followers--Fort M'Donald--River--Jungle Paths--Dangerous Locality--Great Waterfall--Start for Hunting--The Find--A Gallant Stag--"Bran" and "Lucifer"--"Phrenzy's" Death--Buck at Bay--The Cave Hunting-box--"Madcap's" Dive--Elk Soup--Former Inundation--"Bluebeard" leads off--"Hecate's" Course--The Elk's Leap--Variety of Deer--The Axis--Ceylon Bears--Variety of Vermin--Trials for Hounds--Hounds and their Masters--A Sportsman "shut up"--A Corporal and Centipede. CHAPTER VIII. Observations on Nature in the Tropics--The Dung Beetle--The Mason-fly--Spiders--Luminous Insects--Efforts of a Naturalist--Dogs Worried by Leeches--Tropical Diseases--Malaria--Causes of Infection--Disappearance of the "Mina"--Poisonous Water--Well-digging Elephants. CHAPTER IX. Instinct and Reason--Tailor Birds and Grosbeaks--The White Ant--Black Ants at War--Wanderoo Monkeys--Habits of Elephants--Elephants in the Lake--Herd of Elephants Bathing--Elephant-shooting--The Rencontre--The Charge--Caught by the Tail--Horse Gored by a Buffalo--Sagacity of Dogs--"Bluebeard"--His Hunt--A True Hound. CHAPTER X. Wild Fruits--Ingredients for a "Soupe Maigre"--Orchidaceous Plants--Wild Nutmegs--Native Oils--Cinnamon--Primeval Forests--Valuable Woods--The Mahawelli River--Variety of Palms--Cocoa-nut Toddy--Arrack--Cocoa-nut Oil--Cocoa-nut-planting--The Talipot Palm--The Areca Palm--Betel Chewing--Sago Nuts--Varicty of Bees--Waste of Beeswax--Edible Fungi--Narcotic Puff-ball--Intoxicating Drugs--Poisoned Cakes--The "Sack Tree"--No Gum Trees of Value in Ceylon. CHAPTER XI. Indigenous Productions--Botanical Gardens--Suggested Experiments--Lack of Encouragement to Gold-diggers--Prospects of Gold-digging--We want "Nuggets"--Who is to Blame?--Governor's Salary--Fallacies of a Five Years' Reign--Neglected Education of the People--Responsibilities of Conquest--Progress of Christianity. CHAPTER XII. The Pearl Fishery--Desolation of the Coast--Harbor of Trincomalee--Fatal Attack by a Shark--Ferocious Crocodiles--Salt Monopoly--Salt Lakes--Method of Collection--Neglect of Ceylon Hides--Fish and Fishing--Primitive Tackle--Oysters and Penknives--A Night Bivouac for a Novice--No Dinner, but a Good Fire--Wild Yams and Consequences--The Elephants' Duel--A Hunting Hermitage--Bluebeard's last Hunt--The Leopard--Bluebeard's Death--Leopard Shot. CHAPTER XIII. Wild Denizens of Forest and Lake--Destroyers of Reptiles--The Tree Duck--The Mysteries of Night in the Forest--The Devil-Bird--The Iguanodon in Miniature--Outrigger Canoes--The Last Glimpse of Ceylon--A Glance at Old Times. EIGHT YEARS' WANDERINGS CHAPTER I. Colombo--Dullness of the Town--Cinnamon Garden--A Cingalese Appo--Ceylon Sport--Jungle Fever--Newera Ellia--Energy of Sir E. Barnes--Influence of the Governor--Projected Improvements. It was in the year 1845 that the spirit of wandering allured me toward Ceylon: little did I imagine at that time that I should eventually become a settler. The descriptions of its sports, and the tales of hairbreadth escapes from elephants, which I had read in various publications, were sources of attraction against which I strove in vain; and I at length determined upon the very wild idea of spending twelve months in Ceylon jungles. It is said that the delights of pleasures in anticipation exceed the pleasures themselves: in this case doubtless some months of great enjoyment passed in making plans of every description, until I at length arrived in Colombo, Ceylon's seaport capital. I never experienced greater disappointment in an expectation than on my first view of Colombo. I had spent some time at Mauritius and Bourbon previous to my arrival, and I soon perceived that the far-famed Ceylon was nearly a century behind either of those small islands. Instead of the bustling activity of the Port Louis harbor in Mauritius, there were a few vessels rolling about in the roadstead, and some forty or fifty fishing canoes hauled up on the sandy beach. There was a peculiar dullness throughout the town--a sort of something which seemed to say, "Coffee does not pay." There was a want of spirit in everything. The ill-conditioned guns upon the fort looked as though not intended to defend it; the sentinels looked parboiled; the very natives sauntered rather than walked; the very bullocks crawled along in the midday sun, listlessly dragging the native carts. Everything and everybody seemed enervated, except those frightfully active people in all countries and climates, "the custom-house officers:" these necessary plagues to society gave their usual amount of annoyance. What struck me the most forcibly in Colombo was the want of shops. In Port Louis the wide and well-paved streets were lined with excellent "magasins" of every description; here, on the contrary, it was difficult to find anything in the shape of a shop until I was introduced to a soi-disant store, where everything was to be purchased from a needle to a crowbar, and from satin to sail-cloth; the useful predominating over the ornamental in all cases. It was all on a poor scale and after several inquiries respecting the best hotel, I located myself at that termed the Royal or Seager's Hotel. This was airy, white and clean throughout; but there was a barn-like appearance, as there is throughout most private dwellings in Colombo, which banished all idea of comfort. A good tiffin concluded, which produced a happier state of mind, I ordered a carriage for a drive to the Cinnamon Gardens. The general style of Ceylon carriages appeared in the shape of a caricature of a hearse: this goes by the name of a palanquin carriage. Those usually hired are drawn by a single horse, whose natural vicious propensities are restrained by a low system of diet. In this vehicle, whose gaunt steed was led at a melancholy trot by an equally small-fed horsekeeper, I traversed the environs of Colombo. Through the winding fort gateway, across the flat Galle Face (the race-course), freshened by the sea-breeze as the waves break upon its western side; through the Colpettytopes of cocoanut trees shading the road, and the houses of the better class of European residents to the right and left; then turning to the left--a few minutes of expectation--and behold the Cinnamon Gardens! What fairy-like pleasure-grounds have we fondly anticipated! what perfumes of spices, and all that our childish imaginations had pictured as the ornamental portions of a cinnamon garden! A vast area of scrubby, low jungle, composed of cinnamon bushes, is seen to the right and left, before and behind. Above, is a cloudless sky and a broiling sun; below, is snow-white sand of quartz, curious only in the possibility of its supporting vegetation. Such is the soil in which the cinnamon delights; such are the Cinnamon Gardens, in which I delight not. They are an imposition, and they only serve as an addition to the disappointments of a visitor to Colombo. In fact, the whole place is a series of disappointments. You see a native woman clad in snow-white petticoats, a beautiful tortoiseshell comb fastened in her raven hair; you pass her--you look back--wonderful! she has a beard! Deluded stranger, this is only another disappointment; it is a Cingalese Appo--a man--no, not a man--a something male in petticoats; a petty thief, a treacherous, cowardly villain, who would perpetrate the greatest rascality had he only the pluck to dare it. In fact, in this petticoated wretch you see a type of the nation of Cingalese. On the morning following my arrival in Ceylon, I was delighted to see several persons seated at the "table-d'hôte" when I entered the room, as I was most anxious to gain some positive information respecting the game of the island, the best localities, etc., etc. I was soon engaged in conversation, and one of my first questions naturally turned upon sport. "Sport!" exclaimed two gentlemen simultaneously--"sport! there is no sport to be had in Ceylon!"--"at least the race-week is the only sport that I know of," said the taller gentleman. "No sport!" said I, half energetically and half despairingly. "Absurd! every book on Ceylon mentions the amount of game as immense; and as to elephants--" Here I was interrupted by the same gentleman. "All gross exaggerations," said he--"gross exaggerations; in fact, inventions to give interest to a book. I have an estate in the interior, and I have never seen a wild elephant. There may be a few in the jungles of Ceylon, but very few, and you never see them." I began to discover the stamp of my companion from his expression, "You never see them." Of course I concluded that he had never looked for them; and I began to recover front the first shock which his exclamation, "There is no sport in Ceylon!" had given me. I subsequently discovered that my new and non-sporting acquaintances were coffee-planters of a class then known as the Galle Face planters, who passed their time in cantering about the Colombo race-course and idling in the town, while their estates lay a hundred miles distant, uncared for, and naturally ruining their proprietors. That same afternoon, to my delight and surprise, I met an old Gloucestershire friend in an officer of the Fifteenth Regiment, then stationed in Ceylon. From him I soon learnt that the character of Ceylon for game had never been exaggerated; and from that moment my preparations for the jungle commenced. I rented a good airy house in Colombo as headquarters, and the verandas were soon strewed with jungle-baskets, boxes, tent, gun-cases, and all the paraphernalia of a shooting-trip. What unforeseen and apparently trivial incidents may upset all our plans for the future and turn our whole course of life! At the expiration of twelve months my shooting trips and adventures were succeeded by so severe an attack of jungle fever that from a naturally robust frame I dwindled to a mere nothing, and very little of my former self remained. The first symptom of convalescence was accompanied by a peremptory order from my medical attendant to start for the highlands, to the mountainous region of Newera Ellia, the sanitarium of the island. A poor, miserable wretch I was upon my arrival at this elevated station, suffering not only from the fever itself, but from the feeling of an exquisite debility that creates an utter hopelessness of the renewal of strength. I was only a fortnight at Newera Ellia. The rest-house or inn was the perfection of everything that was dirty and uncomfortable. The toughest possible specimen of a beef-steak, black bread and potatoes were the choicest and only viands obtainable for an invalid. There was literally nothing else; it was a land of starvation. But the climate! what can I say to describe the wonderful effects of such a pure and unpolluted air? Simply, that at the expiration of a fortnight, in spite of the tough beef, and the black bread and potatoes, I was as well and as strong as I ever bad been; and in proof of this I started instanter for another shooting excursion in the interior. It was impossible to have visited Newera Ellia, and to have benefited in such a wonderful manner by the climate, without contemplating with astonishment its poverty-stricken and neglected state. At that time it was the most miserable place conceivable. There was a total absence of all ideas of comfort or arrangement. The houses were for the most part built of such unsubstantial materials as stick and mud plastered over with mortar--pretty enough in exterior, but rotten in ten or twelve years. The only really good residence was a fine stone building erected by Sir Edward Barnes when governor of Ceylon. To him alone indeed are we indebted for the existence of a sanitarium. It was he who opened the road, not only to Newera Ellia, but for thirty-six miles farther on the same line to Badulla. At his own expense he built a substantial mansion at a cost, as it is said, of eight thousand pounds, and with provident care for the health of the European troops, he erected barracks and officers' quarters for the invalids. Under his government Newera Ellia was rapidly becoming a place of importance, but unfortunately at the expiration of his term the place became neglected. His successor took no interest in the plans of his predecessor; and from that period, each successive governor being influenced by an increasing spirit of parsimony, Newera Ellia has remained "in statu quo," not even having been visited by the present governor. In a small colony like Ceylon it is astonishing how the movements and opinions of the governor influence the public mind. In the present instance, however, the movements of the governor (Sir G. Anderson) cannot carry much weight, as he does not move at all, with the exception of an occasional drive from Colombo to Kandy. His knowledge of the colony and of its wants or resources must therefore, from his personal experience, be limited to the Kandy road. This apathy, when exhibited by her Majesty's representative, is highly contagious among the public of all classes and colors, and cannot have other than a bad moral tendency. Upon my first visit to Newera Ellia, in 1847, Lord Torrington was the governor of Ceylon, a man of active mind, with an ardent desire to test its real capabilities and to work great improvements in the colony. Unfortunately, his term as governor was shorter than was expected. The elements of discord were at that time at work among all classes in Ceylon, and Lord Torrington was recalled. From the causes of neglect described, Newera Ellia was in the deserted and wretched state in which I saw it; but so infatuated was I in the belief that its importance must be appreciated when the knowledge of its climate was more widely extended that I looked forward to its becoming at some future time a rival to the Neilgherries station in India. My ideas were based upon the natural features of the place, combined with its requirements. It apparently produced nothing except potatoes. The soil was supposed to be as good as it appeared to be. The quality of the water and the supply were unquestionable; the climate could not be surpassed for salubrity. There was a carriage road from Colombo, one hundred and fifteen miles, and from Kandy, forty-seven miles; the last thirteen being the Rambodde Pass, arriving at an elevation of six thousand six hundred feet, from which point a descent of two miles terminated the road to Newera Ellia. The station then consisted of about twenty private residences, the barracks and officers' quarters, the resthouse and the bazaar; the latter containing about two hundred native inhabitants. Bounded upon all sides but the east by high mountains, the plain of Newera Ellia lay like a level valley of about two miles in length by half a mile in width, bordered by undulating grassy knolls at the foot of the mountains. Upon these spots of elevated ground most of the dwellings were situated, commanding a view of the plain, with the river winding through its centre. The mountains were clothed from the base to the summit with dense forests, containing excellent timber for building purposes. Good building-stone was procurable everywhere; limestone at a distance of five miles. The whole of the adjacent country was a repetition Of the Newera Ellia plain with slight variations, comprising a vast extent of alternate swampy plains and dense forests. Why should this place lie idle? Why should this great tract of country in such a lovely climate be untenanted and uncultivated? How often I have stood upon the hills and asked myself this question when gazing over the wide extent of undulating forest and plain! How often I have thought of the thousands of starving wretches at home, who here might earn a comfortable livelihood! and I have scanned the vast tract of country, and in my imagination I have cleared the dark forests and substituted waving crops of corn, and peopled a hundred ideal cottages with a thriving peasantry. Why should not the highlands Of Ceylon, with an Italian climate, be rescued from their state of barrenness? Why should not the plains be drained, the forests felled, and cultivation take the place of the rank pasturage, and supplies be produced to make Ceylon independent of other countries? Why should not schools be established, a comfortable hotel be erected, a church be built? In fact, why should Newera Ellia, with its wonderful climate, so easily attainable, be neglected in a country like Ceylon, proverbial for its unhealthiness? These were my ideas when I first visited Newera Ellia, before I had much experience in either people or things connected with the island. My twelve months' tour in Ceylon being completed, I returned to England delighted with what I had seen of Ceylon in general, but, above all, with my short visit to Newera Ellia, malgre its barrenness and want of comfort, caused rather by the neglect of man than by the lack of resources in the locality. CHAPTER II. Past Scenes--Attractions of Ceylon--Emigration--Difficulties in Settling--Accidents and Casualties--An Eccentric Groom--Insubordination--Commencement of Cultivation--Sagacity of the Elephant--Disappointments--"Death" in the Settlement--Shocking Pasturage--Success of Emigrants--"A Good Knock-about kind of a Wife". I had not been long in England before I discovered that my trip to Ceylon had only served to upset all ideas of settling down quietly at home. Scenes of former sports and places were continually intruding themselves upon my thoughts, and I longed to be once more roaming at large with the rifle through the noiseless wildernesses in Ceylon. So delightful were the recollections of past incidents that I could scarcely believe that it lay within my power to renew them. Ruminating over all that bad happened within the past year, I conjured up localities to my memory which seemed too attractive to have existed in reality. I wandered along London streets, comparing the noise and bustle with the deep solitudes of Ceylon, and I felt like the sickly plants in a London parterre. I wanted the change to my former life. I constantly found myself gazing into gunmakers' shops, and these I sometimes entered abstractedly to examine some rifle exposed in the window. Often have I passed an hour in boring the unfortunate gunmakers to death by my suggestions for various improvements in rifles and guns, which, as I was not a purchaser, must have been extremely edifying. Time passed, and the moment at length arrived when I decided once more to see Ceylon. I determined to become a settler at Newera Ellia, where I could reside in a perfect climate, and nevertheless enjoy the sports of the low country at my own will. Thus, the recovery from a fever in Ceylon was the hidden cause of my settlement at Newera Ellia. The infatuation for sport, added to a gypsy-like love of wandering and complete independence, thus dragged me away from home and from a much-loved circle. In my determination to reside at Newera Ellia, I hoped to be able to carry out some of those visionary plans for its improvement which I have before suggested; and I trusted to be enabled to effect such a change in the rough face of Nature in that locality as to render a residence at Newera Ellia something approaching to a country life in England, with the advantage of the whole of Ceylon for my manor, and no expense of gamekeepers. To carry out these ideas it was necessary to set to work; and I determined to make a regular settlement at Newera Ellia, sanguinely looking forward to establishing a little English village around my own residence. Accordingly, I purchased an extensive tract of land from the government, at twenty shillings per acre. I engaged an excellent bailiff, who, with his wife and daughter, with nine other emigrants, including a blacksmith, were to sail for my intended settlement in Ceylon. I purchased farming implements of the most improved descriptions, seeds of all kinds, saw-mills, etc., etc., and the following stock: A half-bred bull (Durham and Hereford), a well-bred Durham cow, three rams (a Southdown, Leicester and Cotswold), and a thorough-bred entire horse by Charles XII.; also a small pack of foxhounds and a favorite greyhound ("Bran"). My brother had determined to accompany me; and with emigrants, stock, machinery, hounds, and our respective families, the good ship "Earl of Hardwick," belonging to Messrs. Green & Co., sailed from London in September, 1848. I had previously left England by the overland mail of August to make arrangements at Newera Ellia for the reception of the whole party. I had as much difficulty in making up my mind to the proper spot for the settlement as Noah's dove experienced in its flight from the ark. However, I wandered over the neighboring plains and jungles of Newera Ellia, and at length I stuck my walking-stick into the ground where the gentle undulations of the country would allow the use of the plough. Here, then, was to be the settlement. I had chosen the spot at the eastern extremity of the Newera Ellia plain, on the verge of the sudden descent toward Badulla. This position was two miles and a half from Newera Ellia, and was far more agreeable and better adapted for a settlement, the land being comparatively level and not shut in by mountains. It was in the dreary month of October, when the south-west monsoon howls in all its fury across the mountains; the mist boiled up from the valleys and swept along the surface of the plains, obscuring the view of everything, except the pattering rain which descended without ceasing day or night. Every sound was hushed, save that of the elements and the distant murmuring roar of countless waterfalls; not a bird chirped, the dank white lichens hung from the branches of the trees, and the wretchedness of the place was beyond description. I found it almost impossible to persuade the natives to work in such weather; and it being absolutely necessary that cottages should be built with the greatest expedition, I was obliged to offer an exorbitant rate of wages. In about fortnight, however, the wind and rain showed flags of truce in the shape of white clouds set in a blue sky. The gale ceased, and the skylarks warbled high in air, giving life and encouragement to the whole scene. It was like a beautiful cool mid-summer in England. I had about eighty men at work; and the constant click-clack of axes, the felling of trees, the noise of saws and hammers and the perpetual chattering o the coolies gave a new character to the wild spot upon which I had fixed. The work proceeded rapidly; neat white cottages soon appeared in the forest; and I expected to have everything in readiness for the emigrants on their arrival. I rented a tolerably good house in Newera Ellia, and so far everything had progressed well. The "Earl of Hardwick" arrived after a prosperous voyage, with passengers and stock all in sound health; the only casualty on board had been to one of the hounds. In a few days all started from Colombo for Newera Ellia. The only trouble was, How to get the cow up? She was a beautiful beast, a thorough-bred "shorthorn," and she weighed about thirteen hundredweight. She was so fat that a march of one hundred and fifteen miles in a tropical climate was impossible. Accordingly a van was arranged for her, which the maker assured me would carry an elephant. But no sooner had the cow entered it than the whole thing came down with a crash, and the cow made her exit through the bottom. She was therefore obliged to start on foot in company with the bull, sheep, horse and hounds, orders being given that ten miles a day, divided between morning and evening, should be the maximum march during the journey. The emigrants started per coach, while our party drove up in a new clarence which I had brought from England. I mention this, as its untimely end will be shortly seen. Four government elephant-carts started with machinery, farming implements, etc., etc., while a troop of bullock-bandies carried the lighter goods. I had a tame elephant waiting at the foot of the Newera Ellia Pass to assist in carrying up the baggage and maidservants. There had been a vast amount of trouble in making all the necessary arrangements, but the start was completed, and at length we were all fairly off. In an enterprise of this kind many disappointments were necessarily to be expected, and I had prepared myself with the patience of Job for anything that might happen. It was well that I had done so, for it was soon put to the test. Having reached Ramboddé, at the foot of the Newera Ellia Pass, in safety, I found that the carriage was so heavy that the horses were totally unable to ascend the pass. I therefore left it at the rest-house while we rode up the fifteen miles to Newera Ellia, intending to send for the empty vehicle in a few days. The whole party of emigrants and ourselves reached Newera Ellia in safety. On the following day I sent down the groom with a pair of horses to bring up the carriage; at the same time I sent down the elephant to bring some luggage from Ramboddé. Now this groom, "Henry Perkes," was one of the emigrants, and he was not exactly the steadiest of the party; I therefore cautioned him to be very careful in driving up the pass, especially in crossing the narrow bridges and turning the corners. He started on his mission. The next day a dirty-looking letter was put in my hand by a native, which, being addressed to me, ran something in this style: "Honord Zur "I'm sorry to hinform you that the carrige and osses has met with a haccidint and is tumbled down a preccippice and its a mussy as I didn't go too. The preccippice isn't very deep bein not above heighy feet or therabouts--the hosses is got up but is very bad--the carrige lies on its back and we can't stir it nohow. Mr. ---- is very kind, and has lent above a hunderd niggers, but they aint no more use than cats at liftin. Plese Zur come and see whats to be done. "Your Humbel Servt, "H. PERKES." This was pleasant, certainly--a new carriage and a pair of fine Australian horses smashed before they reached Newera Ellia! This was, however, the commencement of a chapter of accidents. I went down the pass, and there, sure enough, I had a fine bird's-eye view of the carriage down a precipice on the road side. One horse was so injured that it was necessary to destroy him; the other died a few days after. Perkes had been intoxicated; and, while driving at a full gallop round a corner, over went the carriages and horses. On my return to Newera Ellia, I found a letter informing me that the short-horn cow had halted at Amberpussé, thirty-seven miles from Colombo, dangerously ill. The next morning another letter informed me that she was dead. This was a sad loss after the trouble of bringing so fine an animal from England; and I regretted her far more than both carriage and horses together, as my ideas for breeding some thorough-bred stock were for the present extinguished. There is nothing like one misfortune for breeding another; and what with the loss of carriage, horses and cow, the string of accidents had fairly commenced. The carriage still lay inverted; and although a tolerable specimen of a smash, I determined to pay a certain honor to its remains by not allowing it to lie and rot upon the ground. Accordingly, I sent the blacksmith with a gang of men, and Perkes was ordered to accompany the party. I also sent the elephant to assist in battling the body of the carriage up the precipice. Perkes, having been much more accustomed to riding than walking during his career as groom, was determined to ride the elephant down the pass; and he accordingly mounted, insisting at the same time that the mahout should put the animal into a trot. In vain the man remonstrated, and explained that such a pace would injure the elephant on a journey; threats prevailed, and the beast was soon swinging along at full trot, forced on by the sharp driving-hook, with the delighted Perkes striding across its neck, riding, an imaginary race. On the following day the elephant-driver appeared at the front door, but without the elephant. I immediately foreboded some disaster, which was soon explained. Mr. Perkes had kept up the pace for fifteen miles, to Ramboddé, when, finding that the elephant was not required, he took a little refreshment in the shape of brandy and water, and then, to use his own expression, "tooled the old elephant along till he came to a standstill." He literally forced the poor beast up the steep pass for seven miles, till it fell down and shortly after died. Mr. Perkes was becoming an expensive man: a most sagacious and tractable elephant was now added to his list of victims; and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was one of the few men in the world who had ridden an elephant to death. That afternoon, Mr. Perkes was being wheeled about the bazaar in a wheelbarrow, insensibly drunk, by a brother emigrant, who was also considerably elevated. Perkes had at some former time lost an eye by the kick of a horse, and to conceal the disfigurement he wore a black patch, which gave him very much the expression of a bull terrier with a similar mark. Notwithstanding this disadvantage in appearance, he was perpetually making successful love to the maidservants, and he was altogether the most incorrigible scamp that I ever met with, although I must do him the justice to say he was thoroughly honest and industrious. I shortly experienced great trouble with the emigrants; they could not agree with the bailiff, and openly defied his authority. I was obliged to send two of them to jail as an example to the others. This produced the desired effect, and we shortly got regularly to work. There were now about a hundred and fifty natives employed in the tedious process of exterminating jungle and forest, not felling, but regularly digging out every tree and root, then piling, and burning the mass, and leveling the cleared land in a state to receive the plough. This was very expensive work, amounting to about thirty pounds per acre. The root of a large tree would frequently occupy three men a couple of days in its extraction, which, at the rate of wages, at one shilling per diem, was very costly. The land thus cleared was a light sandy loam, about eighteen inches in depth with a gravel subsoil, and was considered to be far superior to the patina (or natural grass-land) soil, which was, in appearance, black loam on the higher ground and of a peaty nature in the swamps. The bailiff (Mr. Fowler) was of opinion that the patina soil was the best; therefore, while the large native force was engaged in sweeping the forest from the surface, operations were commenced according to agricultural rules upon the patinas. A tract of land known as the "Moon Plains," comprising about two hundred acres, was immediately commenced upon. As some persons considered the settlement at Newera Ellia the idea of a lunatic, the "Moon Plain" was an appropriate spot for the experiment. A tolerably level field of twenty acres was fenced in, and the work begun by firing the patina and burning off all the grass. Then came three teams, as follows: Lord Ducie's patent cultivator, drawn by an elephant; a skim, drawn by another elephant, and a long wood plough, drawn by eight bullocks. The field being divided into three sections, was thus quickly pared of the turf, the patent cultivator working admirably, and easily drawn by the elephant. The weather being very dry and favorable for the work, the turf was soon ready for burning; and being piled in long rows, much trouble was saved in subsequently spreading the ashes. This being completed, we had six teams at work, two horse, two bullock, and two elephant; and the ploughing was soon finished. The whole piece was then sown with oats. It was an interesting sight to see the rough plain yielding to the power of agricultural implements, especially as some of these implements were drawn by animals not generally seen in plough harness at home. The "cultivator," which was sufficiently large to anchor any twenty of the small native bullocks, looked a mere nothing behind the splendid elephant who worked it, and it cut through the wiry roots of the rank turf as a knife peels an apple. It was amusing, to see this same elephant doing the work of three separate teams when the seed was in the ground. She first drew a pair of heavy harrows; attached to these and following behind were a pair of light harrows, and behind these came a roller. Thus the land had its first and second harrowing at the same time with the rolling. This elephant was particularly sagacious; and her farming work being completed, she was employed in making, a dam across a stream. She was a very large animal, and it was beautiful to witness her wonderful sagacity in carrying and arranging the heavy timber required. The rough trunks of trees from the lately felled forest were lying within fifty yards of the spot, and the trunks required for the dam were about fifteen feet long and fourteen to eighteen inches in diameter. These she carried in her mouth, shifting her hold along the log before she raised it until she had obtained the exact balance; then, steadying it with her trunk, she carried every log to the spot, and laid them across the stream in parallel rows. These she herself arranged, under the direction of her driver, with the reason apparently of a human being. The most extraordinary part of her performance was the arranging of two immense logs of red keenar (one of the heaviest woods). These were about eighteen feet long and two feet in diameter, and they were in tended to lie on either bank of the stream, parallel to the brook and close to the edge. These she placed greatest with the care in their exact positions, unassisted by any one.[1] She rolled them gently over with her head, then with one foot, and keeping her trunk on the opposite side of the log, she checked its way whenever its own momentum would have carried it into the stream. Although I thought the work admirably done, she did not seem quite satisfied, and she presently got into the stream, and gave one end of the log an extra push with her head, which completed her task, the two trees lying exactly parallel to each other, close to the edge of either bank. Tame elephants are constantly employed in building stone bridges, when the stones required for the abutments are too heavy to be managed by crowbars. Many were the difficulties to contend against when the first attempts were made in agriculture at Newera Ellia. No sooner were the oats a few inches above ground than they were subjected to the nocturnal visits of elk and hogs in such numbers that they were almost wholly destroyed. A crop of potatoes of about three acres on the newly-cleared forest land was totally devoured by grubs. The bull and stock were nearly starved on the miserable pasturage of the country, and no sooner bad the clover sprung up in the new clearings than the Southdown ram got hoven upon it and died. The two remaining rams, not having been accustomed to much high living since their arrival at Newera Ellia, got pugnacious upon the clover, and in a pitched battle the Leicester ram killed the Cotswold, and remained solus. An epidemic appeared among the cattle, and twenty-six fine bullocks died within a few days; five Australian horses died during the first year, and everything seemed to be going into the next world as fast is possible. Having made up my mind to all manner of disappointments, these casualties did not make much impression on me, and the loss of a few crops at the outset was to be expected; but at length a deplorable and unexpected event occurred. The bailiff's family consisted of a wife and daughter; the former was the perfection of a respectable farmer's wife, whose gentle manners and amiable disposition bad gained her many friends; the daughter was a very pretty girl of nineteen. For some time Mrs. Fowler had been suffering from an illness of long standing, and I was suddenly called to join in the mournful procession to her grave. This was indeed a loss which I deeply deplored. At length death left the little settlement, and a ray of sunshine shone through the gloom which would have made many despond. Fortune smiled upon everything. Many acres of forest were cleared, and the crops succeeded each other in rapid succession. I had, however, made the discovery that without manure nothing would thrive. This had been a great disappointment, as much difficulty lay in procuring the necessary item. Had the natural pasturage been good, it would soon have been an easy matter to procure any amount of manure by a corresponding number of cattle; but, as it happened, the natural pasturage was so bad that no beast could thrive upon it. Thus everything, even grass-land, had to be manured; and, fortunately, a cargo of guano having arrived in the island, we were enabled to lay down some good clover and seeds. The original idea of cultivation, driving the forests from the neighborhood of Newera Ellia, was therefore dispelled. Every acre of land must be manured, and upon a large scale at Newera Ellia that is impossible. With manure everything will thrive to perfection with the exception of wheat. There is neither lime nor magnesia in the soil. An abundance of silica throws a good crop of straw, but the grain is wanting: Indian corn will not form grain from the same cause. On the other hand, peas, beans, turnips, carrots, cabbages, etc., produce crops as heavy as those of England. Potatoes, being the staple article of production, are principally cultivated, as the price of twenty pounds per ton yields a large profit. These, however, do not produce larger crops than from four to six tons per acre when heavily manured; but as the crop is fit to dig in three months from the day of planting, money is quickly made. There are many small farmers, or rather gardeners, at Newera Ellia who have succeeded uncommonly well. One of the emigrants who left my service returned to England in three years with three hundred pounds; and all the industrious people succeed. I am now without one man whom I brought out. The bailiff farms a little land of his own, and his pretty daughter is married; the others are scattered here and there, but I believe all are doing well, especially the blacksmith, upon whose anvil Fortune has smiled most kindly. By the bye, that same blacksmith has the right stamp of a "better half" for an emigrant's wife. According to his own description she is a "good knock-about kind of a wife." I recollect seeing her, during a press of work, rendering assistance to her Vulcan in a manner worthy of a Cyclop's spouse. She was wielding an eighteen-pound sledgehammer, sending the sparks flying at every blow upon the hot iron, and making the anvil ring again, while her husband turned the metal at every stroke, as if attending on Nasmyth's patent steam hammer. It has been a great satisfaction to me that all the people whom I brought out are doing well; even Henry Perkes, of elephant-jockeying notoriety, is, I believe, prospering as a groom in Madras. [1] Directed of course by her driver. CHAPTER III. Task Completed--The Mountain-top--Change in the Face of Nature--Original Importance of Newera Ellia--"The Path of a Thousand Princes"--Vestiges of Former Population--Mountains--The Highlands of Ouva--Ancient Methods of Irrigation--Remains of Aqueducts--The Vale of Rubies--Ancient Ophir--Discovery of Gold-Mineral Resources--Native Blacksmiths. In a climate like that of Newera Ellia, even twelve months make a great change in the appearance of a new settlement; plants and shrubs spring up with wonderful rapidity, and a garden of one year's growth, without attendance, would be a wilderness. A few years necessarily made a vast change in everything. All kinds of experiments had been made, and those which succeeded were persevered in. I discovered that excellent beer might be made at this elevation (six thousand two hundred feet), and I accordingly established a small brewery. The solitary Leicester ram had propagated a numerous family, and a flock of fat ewes, with their lambs, throve to perfection. Many handsome young heifers looked very like the emigrant bull in the face, and claimed their parentage. The fields were green; the axe no longer sounded in the forests: a good house stood in the centre of cultivation; a road of two miles in length cut through the estate, and the whole place looked like an adopted "home." All the trials and disappointments of the beginning were passed away, and the real was a picture which I had ideally contemplated years before. The task was finished. In the interim, public improvements had not been neglected; an extremely pretty church had been erected and a public reading-room established; but, with the exception of one good house which had been built, private enterprise had lain dormant. As usual, from January to May, Newera Ellia was overcrowded with months of visitors, and nearly empty during the other months of the year. All Ceylon people dread the wet season at Newera Ellia, which continues from June to December. I myself prefer it to what is termed the dry season, at which time the country is burnt up by drought. There is never more rain at Newera Ellia than vegetation requires, and not one-fourth the quantity fills at this elevation, compared to that of the low country. It may be more continuous, but it is of a lighter character, and more akin to "Scotch mist." The clear days during the wet season are far more lovely than the constant glare of the summer months, and the rays of the sun are not so powerful. There cannot be a more beautiful sight than the view of sunrise from the summit of Pedrotallagalla, the highest mountain in Ceylon, which, rising to the height of 8300 feet, looks down upon Newera Ellia, some two thousand feet below upon one side, and upon the interminable depths of countless ravines and valleys at its base. There is a feeling approaching the sublime when a solitary man thus stands upon the highest point of earth, before the dawn of day, and waits the first rising of the sun. Nothing above him but the dusky arch of heaven. Nothing on his level but empty space,--all beneath, deep beneath his feet. From childhood he has looked to heaven as the dwelling of the Almighty, and he now stands upon that lofty summit in the silence of utter solitude; his hand, as he raises it above his head, the highest mark upon the sea-girt land; his form above all mortals upon this land, the nearest to his God. Words, till now unthought of, tingle in his ears: "He went up into a mountain apart to pray." He feels the spirit which prompted the choice of such a lonely spot, and he stands instinctively uncovered, as the first ray of light spreads like a thread of fire across the sky. And now the distant hill-tops, far below, struggle through the snowy sheet of mist, like islands in a fairy sea; and far, how far his eye can scan, where the faint line upon the horizon marks the ocean! Mountain and valley, hill and plain, with boundless forest, stretch beneath his feet, far as his sight can gaze, and the scene, so solemnly beautiful, gradually wakens to his senses; the birds begin to chirp; the dew-drops fall heavily from the trees, as the light breeze stirs from an apparent sleep; a golden tint spreads over the sea of mist below; the rays dart lightning-like upon the eastern sky; the mighty orb rises in all the fullness of his majesty, recalling the words of Omnipotence: "Let there be light!" The sun is risen! the misty sea below mounts like a snowy wreath around the hill-tops, and then, like a passing thought, it vanishes. A glassy clearness of the atmosphere reveals the magnificent view of Nature, fresh from her sleep; every dewy leaf gilded by the morning sun, every rock glistening with moisture in his bright rays, mountain and valley, wood and plain, alike rejoicing in his beams. And now, the sun being risen, we gaze from our lofty post upon Newera Ellia, lying at our feet. We trace the river winding its silvery course through the plain, and for many miles the alternate plains and forests joining in succession. How changed are some features of the landscape within the few past years, and how wonderful the alteration made by man on the face of Nature! Comparatively but a few years ago, Newera Ellia was undiscovered--a secluded plain among the mountaintops, tenanted by the elk and boar. The wind swept over it, and the mists hung around the mountains, and the bright summer with its spotless sky succeeded, but still it was unknown and unseen except by the native bee-hunter in his rambles for wild honey. How changed! The road encircles the plain, and carts are busy in removing the produce of the land. Here, where wild forests stood, are gardens teeming with English flowers; rosy-faced children and ruddy countrymen are about the cottage doors; equestrians of both sexes are galloping round the plain, and the cry of the hounds is ringing on the mountain-side. How changed! There is an old tree standing upon a hill, whose gnarled trunk has been twisted by the winter's wind for many an age, and so screwed is its old stem that the axe has spared it, out of pity, when its companions were all swept away and the forest felled. And many a tale that old tree could tell of winter's blasts and broken boughs, and storms which howled above its head, when all was wilderness around. The eagle has roosted in its top, the monkeys have gamboled in its branches, and the elephants have rubbed their tough flanks against its stem in times gone by; but it now throws a shadow upon a Christian's grave, and the churchyard lies beneath its shade. The church-bell sounds where the elephant trumpeted of yore. The sunbeam has penetrated where the forest threw its dreary shade, and a ray of light has shone through the moral darkness of the spot. The completion of the church is the grand improvement in Newera Ellia. Although Newera Ellia was in the wild state described when first discovered by Europeans, it is not to be supposed that its existence was unknown to the Cingalese. The name itself proves its former importance to the kings of Kandy, as Newera Ellia signifies "Royal Plains." Kandy is termed by the Cingalese "Newera," as it was the capital of Ceylon and the residence of the king. However wild the country may be, and in many portions unvisited by Europeans, still every high mountain and every little plain in this wilderness of forest is not only known to the natives of the adjacent low country, but has its separate designation. There is no feature of the country without its name, although the immense tracts of mountain are totally uninhabited, and the nearest villages are some ten or twelve miles distant, between two and three thousand feet below. There are native paths from village to village across the mountains, which, although in appearance no more than deer-runs, have existed for many centuries, and are used by the natives even to this day. The great range of forest-covered Newera Ellia mountains divides the two districts of Ouva and Kotmalie, and these native paths have been formed to connect the two by an arduous accent upon either side, and a comparatively level cut across the shoulders of the mountains, through alternate plain and forest, for some twenty-five miles. These paths would never be known to Europeans were it not for the distant runs of the hounds, in following which, after some hours of fatiguing jungle-work, I have come upon a path. The notches on the treestems have proved its artificial character, and by following its course I have learnt the country. There is not a path, stream, hill, or plain, within many miles of Newera Ellia, that I do not know intimately, although, when the character of the country is scanned by a stranger from some mountain-top, the very act of traversing it appears impossible. This knowledge has been gained by years of unceasing hunting, and by perseveringly following up the hounds wherever they have gone. From sunrise till nightfall I have often ploughed along through alternate jungles and plains, listening eagerly for the cry of the hounds, and at length discovering portions of the country which I had never known to exist. There is a great pleasure in thus working out the features of a wild country, especially in an island like Ceylon, which, in every portion, exhibits traces of former prosperity and immense population. Even these uninhabited and chilly regions, up to an elevation of seven thousand feet, are not blank pages in the book of Nature, but the hand of man is so distinctly traced that the keen observer can read with tolerable certainty the existence of a nation long since passed away. As I before mentioned, I pitched my settlement on the verge of the highland, at the eastern extremity of the Newera Ellia plain, where the high road commences a sudden descent toward Badulla, thirty-three miles distant. This spot, forming, a shallow gap, was the ancient native entrance to Newera Ellia from that side, and the Cingalese designation for the locality is interpreted "the Path of a Thousand Princes." This name assists in the proof that Newera Ellia was formerly of some great importance. A far more enticing name gives an interest to the first swampy portion of the plain, some three hundred paces beyond, viz., "the Valley of Rubies." Now, having plainly discovered that Newera Ellia was of some great importance to the natives, let us consider in what that value consisted. There are no buildings remaining, no ruins, as in other parts of Ceylon, but a liquid mine of wealth poured from these lofty regions. The importance of Newera Ellia lay first in its supply of water, and, secondly, in its gems. In all tropical countries the first principle of cultivation is the supply of water, without which the land would remain barren. In a rice-growing country like Ceylon, the periodical rains are insufficient, and the whole system of native agriculture depends upon irrigation. Accordingly, the mountains being the reservoirs from which the rivers spring, become of vital importance to the country. The principal mountains in Ceylon are Pedrotallagalla, eight thousand two hundred and eighty feet; Kirigallapotta, seven thousand nine hundred; Totapella, eight thousand feet; and Adam's Peak, seven thousand seven hundred; but although their altitude is so considerable, they do not give the idea of grandeur which such an altitude would convey. They do not rise abruptly from a level base, but they are merely the loftiest of a thousand peaks towering from the highlands of Ceylon. The greater portion of the highland district may therefore be compared to one vast mountain; hill piled upon hill, and peak rising over peak; ravines of immense depth, forming innumerable conduits for the mountain torrents. Then, at the elevation of Newera Ellia the heavings of the land appear to have rested, and gentle undulations, diversified by plains and forests, extend for some thirty miles. From these comparatively level tracts and swampy plains the rivers of Ceylon derive their source and the three loftiest peaks take their base; Pedrotallagalla rising from the Newera Ellia Plain, "Totapella" and Kirigallapotta from the Horton Plains. The whole of the highland district is thus composed of a succession of ledges of great extent at various elevations, commencing with the highest, the Horton Plains, seven thousand feet above the sea. Seven hundred feet below the Horton Plain, the Totapella Plains and undulating forests continue at this elevation as far as Newera Ellia for about twenty miles, thus forming the second ledge. Six miles to the west of Newera Ellia, at a lower elevation of about nine hundred feet, the district of Dimboola commences, and extends at this elevation over a vast tract of forest-covered country, stretching still farther to the west, and containing a small proportion of plain. At about the same elevation, nine miles on the north of Newera Ellia, we descend to the Elephant Plains; a beautiful tract of fine grass country, but of small extent. This tract and that of Dimboola form the third ledge. Nine miles to the east of Newera Ellia, at a lower elevation of one thousand five hundred feet, stretches the Ouva country, forming the fourth ledge. The features of this country are totally distinct from any other portion of Ceylon. A magnificent view extends as far as the horizon, of undulating open grassland, diversified by the rich crops of paddy which are grown in each of the innumerable small valleys formed by the undulations of the ground. Not a tree is to be seen except the low brushwood which is scantily distributed upon its surface. We emerge suddenly from the forest-covered mountains of Newera Ellia, and, from a lofty point on the high road to Badulla, we look down upon the splendid panorama stretched like a waving sea beneath our feet. The road upon which we stand is scarped out of the mountain's side. The forest has ceased, dying off gradually into isolated patches and long ribbon-like strips on the sides of the mountain, upon which rich grass is growing, in vivid contrast to the rank and coarse herbage of Newera Ellia, distant only five miles from the point upon which we stand. Descending until we reach Wilson's Plain, nine miles from Newera Ellia, we arrive in the district of Ouva, much like the Sussex Downs as any place to which it can be compared. This district comprises about six hundred square miles, and forms the fourth and last ledge of the high lands of Ceylon. Passes from the mountains which form the wall-like boundaries of this table-land descend to the low country in various directions. The whole of the Ouva district upon the one side, and of the Kotmalee district on the other side, of tilt Newera Ellia range of mountains, are, with the exception of the immediate neighborhood of Kandy and Colombo, the most populous districts of Ceylon. This is entirely owing, to the never-failing supply of water obtained from the mountains; and upon this supply the wealth and prosperity of the country depend. The ancient history of Ceylon is involved in much obscurity, but nevertheless we have sufficient data in the existing traces of its former population to form our opinions of the position and power which Ceylon occupied in the Eastern Hemisphere when England was in a state of barbarism. The wonderful remains of ancient cities, tanks and water-courses throughout the island all prove that the now desolate regions were tenanted by a multitude--not of savages, but of a race long since passed away, full of industry and intelligence. Among the existing traces of former population few are more interesting than those in the vicinity of Newera Ellia. Judging from the present supply of water required for the cultivation of a district containing a certain population, we can arrive at a tolerably correct idea of the former population by comparing the present supply of water with that formerly required. Although the district of Ouva is at present well populated, and every hollow is taken advantage of for the cultivation of paddy, still the demand for water in proportion to the supply is comparatively small. The system of irrigation has necessarily involved immense labor. For many miles the water is conducted from the mountains through dense forests, across ravines, round the steep sides of opposing hills, now leaping into a lower valley into a reservoir, from which it is again led through this arduous country until it at length reaches the land which it is destined to render fertile. There has been a degree of engineering skill displayed in forming aqueducts through such formidable obstacles; the hills are lined out in every direction with these proofs of industry, and their winding course can be traced round the grassy sides of the steep mountains, while the paddy-fields are seen miles away in the valleys of Ouva stretched far beneath. At least eight out of ten of these watercourses are dry, and the masonry required in the sudden angles of ravines, has, in most cases, fallen to decay. Even those water-courses still in existence are of the second class; small streams have been conducted from their original course, and these serve for the supply of the present population. From the remains of deserted water-courses of the first class, it is evident that more than fifty times the volume of water was then required that is in use at present, and in the same ratio must have been the amount of population. In those days rivers were diverted from their natural channels; opposing hills were cut through, and the waters thus were led into another valley to join a stream flowing in, its natural bed, whose course, eventually obstructed by a dam, poured its accumulated waters into canals which branched to various localities. Not a river in those times flowed in vain. The hill-sides were terraced out in beautiful cultivation, which are now waving with wild vegetation and rank lemon grass. The remaining traces of stone walls point out the ancient boundaries far above the secluded valley now in cultivation. The nation has vanished, and with it the industry and perseverance of the era. We now arrive at the cause of the former importance of Newera Ellia, or the "Royal Plains." It has been shown that the very existence of the population depended upon the supply of water, and that supply was obtained from the neighborhood of Newera Ellia. Therefore, a king in possession of Newera Ellia had the most complete command over his subjects; he could either give or withhold the supply of water at his pleasure, by allowing its free exit or by altering its course. Thus, during rebellion, he could starve his people into submission, or lay waste the land in time of foreign invasion. I have seen in an impregnable position the traces of an ancient fort, evidently erected to defend the pass to the main water-course from the low country. This gives us a faint clue to the probable cause of the disappearance of the nation. In time of war or intestine commotion, the water may have been cut off from the low country, and the exterminating effects of famine may have laid the whole land desolate. It is, therefore, no longer a matter of astonishment that the present plain of Newera Ellia should have received its appellation of the "Royal Plain." In those days there was no very secure tenure to the throne, and by force alone could a king retain it. The more bloodthirsty and barbarous the tyrant, the more was he dreaded by the awe-stricken and trembling population. The power of such a weapon of annihilation as the command of the waters may be easily conceived as it invested a king with almost divine authority in the eyes of his subjects. Now there is little doubt that the existence of precious gems at Newera Ellia may have been accidentally discovered in digging the numerous water-courses in the vicinity; there is, however, no doubt that at some former period the east end of the plain, called the "Vale of Rubies," constituted the royal "diggings." That the king of Kandy did not reside at Newera Ellia there is little wonder, as a monarch delighting in a temperature of 85 Fahrenheit would have regarded the climate of a mean temperature of 60 Fahrenheit as we should that of Nova Zembla. We may take it for granted, therefore, that when the king came to Newera Ellia his visit had some object, and we presume that he came to look at the condition of his water-courses and to superintend the digging for precious stones; in the same manner that Ceylon governors of past years visited Arippo during the pearlfishing. The "diggings" of the kings of Kandy must have been conducted on a most extensive scale. Not only has the Vale of Rubies been regularly turned up for many acres, but all the numerous plains in the vicinity are full of pits, some of very large size and of a depth varying from three to seventeen feet. The Newera Ellia Plain, the Moonstone Plain, the Kondapallé Plain, the Elk Plains, the Totapella Plains, the Horton Plains, the Bopatalava Plains, the Augara Plains (translated "the Diggings"), and many others extending over a surface of thirty miles, are all more or less studded by deep pits formed by the ancient searchers for gems, which in those days were a royal monopoly. It is not to be supposed that the search for gems would have been thus persevered in unless it was found to be remunerative; but it is a curious fact that no Englishmen are ever to be seen at work at this employment. The natives would still continue the search, were they permitted, upon the "Vale of Rubies;" but I warned them off on purchasing the land; and I have several good specimens of gems which I have discovered by digging two feet beneath the surface. The surface soil being of a light, peaty quality, the stones, from their greater gravity, lie beneath, mixed with a rounded quartz gravel, which in ages past must have been subjected to the action of running water. This quartz gravel, with its mixture of gems, rests upon a stiff white pipe-clay. In this stratum of gravel an infinite number of small, and for the most part worthless, specimens of gems are found, consisting of sapphire, ruby, emerald, jacinth, tourmaline, chrysoberyl, zircon, cat's-eye, "moonstone," and "star-stone." Occasionally a stone of value rewards the patient digger; but, unless he thoroughly understands it, he is apt to pass over the gems of most value as pieces of ironstone. The mineralogy of Ceylon has hitherto been little understood. It has often been suggested as the "Ophir" of the time of Solomon, and doubtless, from its production of gems, it might deserve the name. It has hitherto been the opinion of most writers on Ceylon that the precious metals do not exist in the island; and Dr. Davy in his work makes an unqualified assertion to that effect. But from the discoveries recently made, I am of opinion that it exists in very large quantities in the mountainous districts of the island. It is amusing to see the positive assertions of a clever man upset by a few uneducated sailors. A few men of the latter class, who had been at the gold diggings both in California and Australia, happened to engage in a ship bound for Colombo. Upon arrival they obtained leave from the captain for a stroll on shore, and they took the road toward Kandy, and when about half-way it struck them, from the appearance of the rocks in the uneven bed of a river, called the Maha Oya, "that gold must exist in its sands." They had no geological reason for this opinion; but the river happened to be very like those in California in which they had been accustomed to find gold. They accordingly set to work with a tin pan to wash the sand, and to the astonishment of every one in Ceylon, and to the utter confusion of Dr. Davy's opinions, they actually discovered gold! The quantity was small, but the men were very sanguine of success, and were making their preparations for working on a more extensive scale, when they were all prostrated by jungle fever--a guardian-spirit of the gold at Amberpussé, which will ever effectually protect it from Europeans. They all returned to Colombo, and, when convalescent, they proceeded to Newera Ellia, naturally concluding that the gold which existed in dust in the rivers below must be washed down from the richer stores of the mountains. Their first discovery of gold at Newera Ellia was on the 14th June, 1854, on the second day of their search in that locality. The first gold was found in the "Vale of Rubies." I had advised them to make their first search in that spot for this reason: that, as the precious stones had there settled in the largest numbers, from their superior gravity, it was natural to conclude that, if gold should exist, it would, from its gravity, be somewhere below the precious stones or in their vicinity. From the facility with which it has been discovered, it is impossible to form an opinion as to the quantity or the extent to which it will eventually be developed. It is equally impossible to predict the future discoveries which may be made of other minerals. It is well known that quicksilver was found at Cotta, six miles from Colombo, in the year 1797. It was in small quantities, and was neglected by the government, and no extended search was prosecuted. The present search for gold may bring to light mineral resources of Ceylon which have hitherto lain hidden. The minerals proved to exist up to the present time are gold, quicksilver, plumbago and iron. The two latter are of the finest quality and in immense abundance. The rocks of Ceylon are primitive, consisting of granite, gneiss and quartz. Of these the two latter predominate. Dolomite also exists in large quantities up to an elevation of five thousand feet, but not beyond this height. Plumbago is disseminated throughout the whole of both soil and rocks in Ceylon, and may be seen covering the surface in the drains by the road side, after a recent shower. It is principally found at Ratnapoora and at Belligam, in large, detached kidney-shaped masses, from four to twenty feet below the surface. The cost of digging and the transport are the only expenses attending it, as the supply is inexhaustible. Its component parts are nineteen of carbon and one of iron. It exists in such quantities, in the gneiss rocks that upon their decomposition it is seen in bright specks like silver throughout. This gneiss rock, when in a peculiar stage of decomposition, has the appearance and consistency of yellow brick, speckled with plumbago. It exists in this state in immense masses, and forms a valuable buildingstone, as it can be cut with ease to any shape required, and, though soft when dug, it hardens by exposure to the air. It has also the valuable property of withstanding the greatest heat; and for furnace building it is superior to the best Stourbridge fire-bricks. The finest quality of iron is found upon the mountains in various forms, from the small iron-stone gravel to large masses of many tons in weight protruding from the earth's surface. So fine is that considered at Newera Ellia and the vicinity that the native blacksmiths have been accustomed from time immemorial to make periodical visits for the purpose of smelting the ore. The average specimens of this produce about eighty per cent. of pure metal, even by the coarse native process of smelting. The operations are as follows: Having procured the desired amount of ore, it is rendered as small as possible by pounding with a hammer. A platform is then built of clay, about six feet in length by three feet in height and width. A small well is formed in the centre of the platform, about eighteen inches in depth and diameter, egg-shaped. A few inches from the bottom of this well is an air-passage, connected with a pipe and bellows. The well is then filled with alternate layers of charcoal and pulverized iron ore; the fire is lighted, and the process of smelting commences. The bellows are formed of two inflated skins, like a double "bagpipe." Each foot of the "bellows-blower" is strapped to one skin, the pipes of the bellows being fixed in the air-hole of the blast. He then works the skins alternately by moving his feet up and down, being assisted in this treadmill kind of labor by the elasticity of two bamboos, of eight or ten feet in length, the butts of which, being firmly fixed in the ground, enable him to retain his balance by grasping one with either hand. From the yielding top of each bamboo, a string descends attached to either big toe; thus the downward pressure of each foot upon the bellows strains upon the bamboo top as a fish bears upon a fishing-rod, and the spring of the bamboo assists him in lifting up his leg. Without this assistance, it would be impossible to continue the exertion for the time required. While the "bellows-blower" is thus getting up a blaze, another man attends upon the well, which he continues to feed alternately with fresh ore and a corresponding amount of charcoal, every now and then throwing in a handful of fine sand as a flux. The return for a whole day's puffing and blowing will be about twenty pounds weight of badly-smelted iron. This is subsequently remelted, and is eventually worked up into hatchets, hoes, betel-crackers, etc., etc. being of a superior quality to the best Swedish iron. If the native blacksmith were to value his time at only sixpence per diem from the day on which he first started for the mountains till the day that he returned from his iron-smelting expedition, he would find that his iron would have cost him rather a high price per hundredweight; and if he were to make the same calculation of the value of time, he would discover that by the time he had completed one axe he could have purchased ready made, for one-third the money, an English tool of superior manufacture. This, however, is not their style of calculation. Time has no value, according to their crude ideas; therefore, if they want an article, and can produce it without the actual outlay of cash, no matter how much time is expended, they will prefer that method of obtaining it. Unfortunately, the expense of transit is so heavy from Newera Ellia to Colombo, that this valuable metal, like the fine timber of the forests, must remain useless. CHAPTER IV. Poverty of Soil--Ceylon Sugar--Fatality of Climate--Supposed Fertility of Soil--Native Cultivation--Neglect of Rice Cultivation--Abandoned Reservoirs--Former Prosperity--Ruins of Cities--Pollanarua--The Great Dagoba--Architectural Relics--The Rock Temple--Destruction of Population--Neglected Capabilities--Suggestions for Increasing Population--Progress of Pestilence--Deserted Villages--Difficulties in the Cultivation of Rice--Division of Labor--Native Agriculture. From the foregoing description, the reader will have inferred that Newera Ellia is a delightful place of residence, with a mean temperature of 60 Fahrenheit, abounding with beautiful views of mountain and plain and of boundless panoramas in the vicinity. He will also have discovered that, in addition to the healthiness of its climate, its natural resources are confined to its timber and mineral productions, as the soil is decidedly poor. The appearance of the latter has deceived every one, especially the black soil of the patina, which my bailiff, on his first arrival declared to be excellent. Lord Torrington, who is well known as an agriculturist, was equally deceived. He was very confident in the opinion that "it only required draining to enable it to produce anything." The real fact is, that it is far inferior to the forest-land, and will not pay for the working. Nevertheless, it is my decided opinion that the generality of the forest-land at Newera Ellia and the vicinity is superior to that in other parts of Ceylon. There are necessarily rich lots every now end then in such a large extent as the surface of the low country; but these lots usually lie on the banks of rivers which have been subjected to inundations, and they are not fair samples of Ceylon soil. A river's bank or a valley's bottom must be tolerably good even in the poorest country. The great proof of the general poverty of Ceylon is shown in the failure of every agricultural experiment in which a rich soil is required. Cinnamon thrives; but why? It delights in a soil of quartz sand, in which nothing else would grow. Cocoa-nut trees flourish for the same reason; sea air, a sandy soil and a dry subsoil are all that the cocoa-nut requires. On the other hand, those tropical productions which require a strong soil invariably prove failures, and sugar, cotton, indigo, hemp and tobacco cannot possibly be cultivated with success. Even on the alluvial soil upon the banks of rivers sugar does not pay the proprietor. The only sugar estate in the island that can keep its head above water is the Peredinia estate, within four miles of Kandy. This, again, lies upon the bank of the Mahawelli river, and it has also the advantage of a home market for its produce, as it supplies the interior of Ceylon at the rate of twenty-three shillings per cwt. upon the spot. Any person who thoroughly understands the practical cultivation of the sugar-cane can tell the quality of sugar that will be produced by an examination of the soil. I am thoroughly convinced that no soil in Ceylon will produce a sample of fine, straw-colored, dry, bright, large-crystaled sugar. The finest sample ever produced of Ceylon sugar is a dull gray, and always moist, requiring a very large proportion of lime in the manufacture, without which it could neither be cleansed nor crystalized. The sugar cane, to produce fine sugar, requires a rich, stiff, and very dry soil. In Ceylon, there is no such thing as a stiff soil existing. The alluvial soil upon the banks of rivers is adapted for the growth of cotton and tobacco, but not for the sugar-cane. In such light and moist alluvial soil the latter will grow to a great size, and will yield a large quantity of juice in which the saccharometer may stand well; but the degree of strength indicated will proceed from an immense proportion of mucilage, which will give much trouble in the cleansing during boiling; and the sugar produced must be wanting in dryness and fine color. There are several rivers in Ceylon whose banks would produce good cotton and tobacco, especially those in the districts of Hambantotte and Batticaloa; such as the "Wallawé," the "Yallé river," the "Koombookanaar," etc.; but even here the good soil is very limited, lying on either bank for only a quarter of a mile in width. In addition to this, the unhealthiness of the climate is so great that I am convinced no European constitution could withstand it. Even the natives are decimated at certain seasons by the most virulent fevers and dysentery. These diseases generally prevail to the greatest extent during the dry season. This district is particularly subject to severe droughts; months pass away without a drop of rain or a cloud upon the sky. Every pool and tank is dried up; the rivers forsake their banks, and a trifling stream trickles over the sandy bed. Thus all the rotten wood, dead leaves and putrid vegetation brought down by the torrent during the wet season are left upon the dried bed to infect the air with miasma. This deadly climate would be an insurmountable obstacle to the success of estates. Even could managers be found to brave the danger, one season of sickness and death among the coolies would give the estate a name which would deprive it of all future supplies of labor. Indigo is indigenous to Ceylon, but it is of an inferior quality, and an experiment made in its cultivation was a total failure. In fact, nothing will permanently succeed in Ceylon soil without abundance of manure, with the exception of cinnamon and cocoa-nuts. Even the native gardens will not produce a tolerable sample of the common sweet potato without manure, a positive proof of the general poverty of the soil. Nevertheless, Ceylon has had a character for fertility. Bennett, in his work entitled "Ceylon and its Capabilities," describes the island in the most florid terms, as "the most important and valuable of all the insular possessions of the imperial crown." Again he speaks of "its fertile soil, and indigenous vegetable productions," etc., etc. Again: "Ceylon, though comparatively but little known, is pre-eminent in natural resources." All this serves to mislead the public opinion. Agricultural experiments in a tropical country in a little garden highly manured may be very satisfactory and very amusing. Everything must necessarily come to perfection with great rapidity; but these experiments are no proof of what Ceylon will produce, and the popular idea of its fertility has been at length proved a delusion. It is a dangerous thing for any man to sit down to "make" a book. If he has had personal experience, let him write a description of those subjects which he understands; but if he attempts to "make" a book, he must necessarily collect information from hearsay, when he will most probably gather some chaff with his grain. Can any man, when describing the "fertility" of Ceylon, be aware that newly-cleared forest-land will only produce one crop of the miserable grain called korrakan? Can he understand why the greater portion of Ceylon is covered by dense thorny jungles? It is simply this--that the land is so desperately poor that it will only produce one crop, and thus an immense acreage is required for the support of a few inhabitants; thus, from ages past up to the present time, the natives have been continually felling fresh forest and deserting the last clearing, which has accordingly grown into a dense, thorny jungle, forming what are termed the "Chénars" of Ceylon. So fully aware are the natives of the impossibility of getting more than one crop out of the land that they plant all that they require at the same time. Thus may be seen in a field of korrakan (a small grain), Indian corn, millet and pumpkins, all growing together, and harvested as they respectively become ripe. The principal articles of native cultivation are rice, korrakan, Indian corn, betel, areca-nuts, pumpkins, onions, garlic, gingelly-oil seed, tobacco, millet, red peppers, curry seed and sweet potatoes. The staple articles of Ceylon production are coffee cinnamon and cocoa-nut oil, which are for the most part cultivated and manufactured by Europeans. The chief article of native consumption, "rice," should be an export from Ceylon; but there has been an unaccountable neglect on the part of government regarding the production of this important grain, for the supply of which Ceylon is mainly dependent upon importation. In the hitherto overrated general resources of Ceylon, the cultivation of rice has scarcely been deemed worthy of notice; the all-absorbing subject of coffee cultivation has withdrawn the attention of the government from that particular article, for the production of which the resources of Ceylon are both naturally and artificially immense. This neglect is the more extraordinary as the increase of coffee cultivation involves a proportionate increase in the consumption of rice, by the additional influx of coolie labor from the coast of India; therefore the price and supply of rice in Ceylon become questions of similar importance to the price of corn in England. This dependence upon a foreign soil for the supply involves the necessary fluctuations in price caused by uncertain arrivals and precarious harvests; and the importance of an unlimited supply at an even rate may be imagined when it is known that every native consumes a bushel of rice per month, when he can obtain it. Nevertheless, the great capabilities of Ceylon for the cultivation of this all-important "staff of life" are entirely neglected by the government. The tanks which afforded a supply of water for millions in former ages now lie idle and out of repair; the pelican sails in solitude upon their waters, and the crocodile basks upon their shores; the thousands of acres which formerly produced rice for a dense population are now matted over by a thorny and impenetrable jungle. The wild buffalo, descendant from the ancient stock which tilled the ground of a great nation, now roams through a barren forest, which in olden times was a soil glistening with fertility. The ruins of the mighty cities tower high above the trees, sad monuments of desolation, where all was once flourishing, and where thousands dwelt within their walls. All are passed away; and in the wreck of past ages we trace the great resources of the country, which produced sufficient food to support millions; while for the present comparatively small population Ceylon is dependent upon imports. These lakes, or tanks, were works of much art and of immense labor for the purpose of reservoirs, from the supply of which the requisite amount of land could be irrigated for rice cultivation. A valley of the required extent being selected, the courses of neighboring or distant rivers were conducted into it, and the exit of the waters was prevented by great causeways, or dams, of solid masonry, which extended for some miles across the lower side of the valley thus converted into a lake. The exit of the water was then regulated by means of sluices, from which it was conducted by channels to the rice-lands. These tanks are of various extent, and extremely numerous throughout Ceylon. The largest are those of Minneria, Kandellai, Padavellkiellom, and the Giant Tank. These are from fifteen to twenty-five miles in circumference; but in former times, when the sluices were in repair and the volume of water at its full height, they must have been much larger. In those days the existence of a reservoir of water was a certain indication of a populous and flourishing neighborhood; and the chief cities of the country were accordingly situated in those places which were always certain of a supply. So careful were the inhabitants in husbanding those liquid resources upon which their very existence depended that even the surplus waters of one lake were not allowed to escape unheeded. Channels were cut, connecting a chain of tanks of slightly varying elevations, over an extent of sixty or seventy miles of apparently flat country, and the overflow of one tank was thus conducted in succession from lake to lake, until they all attained the desired level. In this manner was the greater portion of Ceylon kept in the highest state of cultivation. From the north to the south the island was thickly peopled, and the only portions which then remained in the hands of nature were those which are now seen in the state of primeval forest. Well may Ceylon in those times have deserved the name of the "Paradise of the East." The beauties which nature has showered upon the land were heightened by cultivation; the forest-capped mountains rose from a waving sea of green; the valleys teemed with wealth; no thorny jungles gave a barren terminable prospect, but the golden tints of ripening crops spread to the horizon. Temples stood upon the hill-tops; cities were studded over the land, their lofty dagobas and palaces reflected on the glassy surface of the lakes, from which their millions of inhabitants derived their food, their wealth and their very life. The remains of these cities sufficiently attest the former amount of population and the comparative civilization which existed at that remote era among the progenitors of the present degraded race of barbarians. The ruins of "Anaradupoora," which cover two hundred and fifty-six square miles of ground, are all that remain of the noble city which stood within its walls in a square of sixteen miles. Some idea of the amount of population may be arrived at, when we consider the present density of inhabitants in all Indian houses and towns. Millions must, therefore, have streamed from the gates of a city to which our modern London was comparatively a village. There is a degree of sameness in the ruins of all the ancient cities of Ceylon which renders a description tedious. Those of "Anaradupoora" are the largest in extent, and the buildings appear to have been more lofty, the great dagoba having exceeded four hundred feet in height; but the ruins do not exhibit the same "finish" in the style of architecture which is seen in the remains of other towns. Among these, "Toparé," anciently called "Pollanarua," stands foremost. This city appears to have been laid out with a degree of taste which would have done credit to our modern towns. Before its principal gate stretched a beautiful lake of about fifteen miles circumference (now only nine). The approach to this gate was by a broad road, upon the top of a stone causeway, of between two and three miles in length, which formed a massive dam to the waters of the lake which washed its base. To the right of this dam stretched many miles of cultivation; to the left, on the farther shores of the lake, lay park-like grass-lands, studded with forest trees, some of whose mighty descendants still exist in the noble "tamarind," rising above all others. Let us return in imagination to Pollanarua as it once stood. Having arrived upon the causeway in the approach to the city, the scene must have been beautiful in the extreme: the silvery lake, like a broad mirror, in the midst of a tropical park; the flowering trees shadowing its waters; the groves of tamarinds sheltering its many nooks and bays; the gorgeous blossoms of the pink lotus resting on its glassy surface; and the carpet-like glades of verdant pasturage, stretching far away upon the opposite shores, covered with countless elephants, tamed to complete obedience. Then on the right, below the massive granite steps which form the causeway, the water rushing from the sluice carries fertility among a thousand fields, and countless laborers and cattle till the ground: the sturdy buffaloes straining at the plough, the women, laden with golden sheaves of corn and baskets of fruit, crowding along the palm-shaded road winding toward the city, from whose gate a countless throng are passing and returning. Behold the mighty city! rising like a snow-white cloud from the broad margin of the waters. The groves of cocoa-nuts and palms of every kind, grouped in the inner gardens, throwing a cool shade upon the polished walls; the lofty palaces towering among the stately areca trees, and the gilded domes reflecting a blaze of light from the rays of a midday sun. Such let us suppose the exterior of Pollanarua. The gates are entered, and a broad street, straight as an arrow, lies before us, shaded on either side by rows of palms. Here stand, on either hand, the dwellings of the principal inhabitants, bordering the wide space, which continues its straight and shady course for about four miles in length. In the centre, standing in a spacious circle, rises the great Dagoba, forming a grand coup d'oeil from the entrance gate. Two hundred and sixty feet from the base the Dagoba rears its lofty summit. Two circular terraces, each of some twenty feet in height, rising one upon the other, with a width of fifty feet, and a diameter at the base of about two hundred and fifty, from the step-like platform upon which the Dagoba stands. These are ascended by broad flights of steps, each terrace forming a circular promenade around the Dagoba; the whole having the appearance of white marble, being covered with polished stucco ornamented with figures in bas-relief. The Dagoba is a solid mass of brickwork in the shape of a dome, which rises from the upper terrace. The whole is covered with polished stucco, and surmounted by a gilded spire standing upon a square pedestal of stucco, highly ornamented with large figures, also in bas-relief; this pedestal is a cube of about thirty feet, supporting the tall gilded spire, which is surmounted by a golden umbrella. Around the base of the Dagoba on the upper terrace are eight small entrances with highly-ornamented exteriors. These are the doors to eight similar chambers of about twelve feet square, in each of which is a small altar and carved golden idol. This Dagoba forms the main centre of the city, from which streets branch off in all directions, radiating from the circular space in which it stands. The main street from the entrance-gate continues to the further extremity of the city, being crossed at right angles in the centre by a similar street, thus forming two great main streets through the city, terminating in four great gates or entrances to the town--north, south, east and west. Continuing along the main street from the great Dagoba for about a mile, we face another Dagoba of similar appearance, but of smaller dimensions, also standing in a spacious circle. Near this rises the king's palace, a noble building of great height, edged at the corner by narrow octagon towers. At the further extremity of this main street, close to the opposite entrance-gate, is the rock temple, with the massive idols of Buddha flanking the entrance. This, from the form and position of the existing ruins, we may conceive to have been the appearance of Pollanarua in its days of prosperity. But what remains of its grandeur? It has vanished like "a tale that is told;" it is passed away like a dream; the palaces are dust; the grassy sod has grown in mounds over the ruins of streets and fallen houses; nature has turfed them in one common grave with their inhabitants. The lofty palms have faded away and given place to forest trees, whose roots spring from the crumbled ruins; the bear and the leopard crouch in the porches of the temples; the owl roosts in the casements of the palaces; the jackal roams among the ruins in vain; there is not a bone left for him to gnaw of the multitudes which have passed away. There is their handwriting upon the temple wall, upon the granite slab which has mocked at Time; but there is no man to decipher it. There are the gigantic idols before whom millions have bowed; there is the same vacant stare upon their features of rock which gazed upon the multitudes of yore; but they no longer stare upon the pomp of the glorious city, but upon ruin, and rank weeds, and utter desolation. How many suns have risen and how many nights have darkened the earth since silence has reigned amidst the city, no man can tell. No mortal can say what fate befell those hosts of heathens, nor when they vanished from the earth. Day and night succeed each other, and the shade of the setting sun still falls from the great Dagoba; but it is the "valley of the shadow of death" upon which that shadow falls like a pall over the corpse of a nation. The great Dagoba now remains a heap of mouldering brickwork, still retaining its form, but shorn of all its beauty. The stucco covering has almost all disappeared, leaving a patch here and there upon the most sheltered portions of the building. Scrubby brushwood and rank grass and lichens have for the most part covered its surface, giving it the appearance rather of a huge mound of earth than of an ancient building. A portion of the palace is also standing, and, although for the most part blocked up with ruins, there is still sufficient to denote its former importance. The bricks, or rather the tiles, of which all the buildings are composed, are of such an imperishable nature that they still adhere to each other in large masses in spots where portions of the buildings have fallen. In one portion of the ruins there are a number of beautiful fluted columns, with carved capitals, still remaining in a perfect state. Among these are the ruins of a large flight of steps; near them, again, a stone-lined tank, which was evidently intended as a bath; and everything denotes the former comfort and arrangement of a first-class establishment. There are innumerable relics, all interesting and worthy of individual attention, throughout the ruins over a surface of many miles, but they are mostly overgrown with jungle or covered with rank grass. The apparent undulations of the ground in all directions are simply the remains of fallen streets and buildings overgrown in like manner with tangled vegetation. The most interesting, as being the most perfect, specimen, is the small rock temple, which, being hewn out of the solid stone, is still in complete preservation. This is a small chamber in the face of an abrupt rock, which, doubtless, being partly a natural cavern, has been enlarged to the present size by the chisel; and the entrance, which may have been originally a small hole, has been shaped into an arched doorway. The interior is not more than perhaps twenty-five feet by eighteen, and is simply fitted up with an altar and the three figures of Buddha, in the positions in which he is usually represented--the sitting, the reclining and the standing postures. The exterior of the temple is far more interesting. The narrow archway is flanked on either side by two inclined planes, hewn from the face of the rock, about eighteen feet high by twelve in width. These are completely covered with an inscription in the old Pali language, which has never been translated. Upon the left of one plain is a kind of sunken area hewn out of the rock, in which sits a colossal figure of Buddha, about twenty feet in height. On the right of the other plane is a figure in the standing posture about the same height; and still farther to the right, likewise hewn from the solid rock, is an immense figure in the recumbent posture, which is about fifty-six feet in length, or, as I measured it, not quite nineteen paces. These figures are of a far superior class of sculpture to the idols usually seen in Ceylon, especially that in the reclining posture, in which the impression of the head upon the pillow is so well executed that the massive pillow of gneiss rock actually appears yielding to the weight of the head. This temple is supposed to be coeval with the city, which was founded about three hundred years before Christ, and is supposed to have been in ruins for upward of six hundred years. The comparatively recent date of its destruction renders its obscurity the more mysterious, as there is no mention made of its annihilation in any of the Cingalese records, although the city is constantly mentioned during the time of its prosperity in the native history of Ceylon. It is my opinion that its destruction was caused by famine. In those days the kings of Ceylon were perpetually at war with each other. The Queen of the South, from the great city of Mahagam in the Hambantotte district, made constant war with the kings of Pollanarua. They again made war with the Arabs and Malabars, who had invaded the northern districts of Ceylon; and as in modern warfare the great art consists in cutting off the enemy's supplies, so in those days the first and most decisive blow to be inflicted was the cutting off the "water." Thus, by simply turning the course of a river which supplied a principal tank, not only would that tank lose its supply, but the whole of the connected chain of lakes dependent upon the principal would in like manner be deprived of water. This being the case, the first summer or dry season would lay waste the country. I have myself seen the lake of Minneria, which is twenty-two miles in circumference, evaporate to the small dimensions of four miles circuit during a dry season. A population of some millions wholly dependent upon the supply of rice for their existence would be thrown into sudden starvation by the withdrawal of the water. Thus have the nations died out like a fire for lack of fuel. This cause will account for the decay of the great cities of Ceylon. The population gone, the wind and the rain would howl through the deserted dwellings, the white ants would devour the supporting beams, the elephants would rub their colossal forms against the already tottering houses, and decay would proceed with a rapidity unknown in a cooler clime. As the seed germinates in a few hours in a tropical country, so with equal haste the body of both vegetable and animal decays when life is extinct. A perpetual and hurrying change is visible in all things. A few showers, and the surface of the earth is teeming with verdure; a few days of drought, and the seeds already formed are falling to the earth, springing in their turn to life at the approach of moisture. The same rapidity of change is exhibited in their decay. The heaps of vegetable putridity upon the banks of rivers, when a swollen torrent has torn the luxuriant plants from the loosened soil, are but the effects of a few hours' change. The tree that arrives at maturity in a few years rots in as short a time when required for durability: thus it is no mystery, that either a house or a city should shortly fall to decay when the occupant is gone. In like manner, and with still greater rapidity, is a change effected in the face of nature. As the flowers usurp the place of weeds under the care of man, so, when his hand is wanting, a few short weeks bury them beneath an overwhelming mass of thorns. In one year a jungle will conceal all signs of recent cultivation. Is it, therefore, a mystery that Ceylon is covered with such vast tracts of thorny jungle, now that her inhabitants are gone? Throughout the world there is a perpetual war between man and nature, but in no country has the original curse of the earth been carried out to a fuller extent than in Ceylon: "thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." This is indeed exemplified when a few months neglect of once-cultivated land renders it almost impassable, and where man has vanished from the earth and thorny jungles have covered the once broad tracts of prosperous cultivation. A few years will thus produce an almost total ruin throughout a deserted city. The air of desolation created by a solitude of six centuries can therefore be easily imagined. There exists, however, among the ruins of Pollanarua a curious instance of the power of the smallest apparent magnitude to destroy the works of man. At some remote period a bird has dropped the seed of the banian tree (ficus Indicus) upon the decaying summit of a dagoba. This, germinating has struck its root downward through the brickwork, and, by the gradual and insinuating progress of its growth, it has split the immense mass of building into two sections; the twisted roots now appearing through the clefts, while the victorious tree waves in exultation above the ruin: an emblem of the silent growth of "civilization" which will overturn the immense fabric of heathen superstition. It is placed beyond a doubt that the rice-growing resources of Ceylon have been suffered to lie dormant since the disappearance of her ancient population; and to these neglected capabilities the attention of government should be directed. An experiment might be commenced on a small scale by the repair of one tank--say Kandellai, which is only twenty-six miles from Trincomalee on the highroad to Kandy. This tank, when the dam and sluices were repaired, would rise to about nine feet above its present level, and would irrigate many thousand acres. The grand desideratum in the improvement of Ceylon is the increase of the population; all of whom should, in some measure, be made to increase the revenue. The government should therefore hazard this one experiment to induce the emigration of the industrious class of Chinese to the shores of Ceylon. Show them a never-failing supply of water and land of unlimited extent to be hid on easy terms, and the country would soon resume its original prosperity. A tax of five per cent. upon the produce of the land, to commence in the ratio of 0 per cent. for the first year, three per cent. for the second and third, and the full amount of five for the fourth, would be a fair and easy rent to the settler, and would not only repay the government for the cost of repairing the tank, but would in a few cars become a considerable source of revenue, in addition to the increased value of the land, now worthless, by a system of cultivation. Should the first experiment succeed, the plan might be continued throughout Ceylon, and the soil of her own shores would produce a supply for the island consumption. The revenue would be derived direct from the land which now produces nothing but thorny jungle. The import trade of Ceylon would be increased in proportion to the influx of population, and the duties upon enlarged imports would again tend to swell the revenue of the country. The felling and clearing of the jungle, which cultivation would render necessary, would tend, in a great measure, to dispel the fevers and malaria always produced by a want of free circulation of air. In a jungle-covered country like Ceylon, diseases of the most malignant character are harbored in these dense and undisturbed tracts, which year after year reap a pestilential harvest from the thinly-scattered population. Cholera, dysentery, fever and small-pox all appear in their turn and annually sweep whole villages away. I have frequently hailed with pleasure the distant tope of waving cocoa-nut trees after a long day's journey in a broiling sun, when I have cantered toward these shady warders of cultivation in hopes of a night's halt at a village. But the palms have sighed in the wind over tenantless abodes, and the mouldering dead have lain beneath their shade. Not a living soul remaining; all swept away by pestilence; huts recently fallen to decay, fruits ripening, on the trees, and no hand left to gather them; the shaddock and the lime falling to the earth to be preyed upon by the worm, like their former masters. All dead; not one left to tell the miserable tale. The decay of the population is still progressing, and the next fifty years will see whole districts left uninhabited unless something can be done to prevent it. There is little doubt that if land and water could be obtained from government in a comparatively healthy and populous neighborhood, many would migrate to that point from the half-deserted districts, who might assist in the cultivation of the country instead of rotting in a closing jungle. One season of pestilence, even in a large village, paves the road for a similar visitation in the succeeding year, for this reason: Say that a village comprising two hundred men is reduced by sickness to a population of one hundred. The remaining one hundred cannot keep in cultivation the land formerly open; therefore, the jungle closes over the surface and rapidly encroaches upon the village. Thus the circulation of air is impeded and disease again halves the population. In each successive year the wretched inhabitants are thinned out, and disease becomes the more certain as the jungle continues to advance. At length the miserable few are no longer sufficient to cultivate the rice-lands; their numbers will not even suffice for driving their buffaloes. The jungle closes round the village; cholera finishes the scene by sweeping off the remnant; and groves of cocoa-nut trees, towering over the thorny jungle, become monuments sacred to the memory of an exterminated village. The number of villages which have thus died out is almost incredible. In a day's ride of twenty miles, I have passed the remains of as many as three or four, how many more may have vanished in the depths of the jungle! Wherever the cocoa-nut trees are still existing, the ruin of the village must have been comparatively recent, as the wild elephants generally overturn them in a few years after the disappearance of the inhabitants, browsing upon the succulent tops, and destroying every trace of a former habitation. There is no doubt that when sickness is annually reducing the population of a district, the inhabitants, and accordingly the produce of the land, must shortly come to an end. In all times of pestilence the first impulse among the natives is to fly from the neighborhood, but at present there is no place of refuge. It is, therefore, a matter of certainty that the repair of one of the principal tanks would draw together in thousands the survivors of many half-perished villages, who would otherwise fall victims to succeeding years of sickness. The successful cultivation of rice at all times requires an extensive population, and large grazing-grounds for the support of the buffaloes necessary for the tillage of the land. The labor of constructing dams and forming watercourses is performed by a general gathering, similar to the American principle of a "bee;" and, as "many hands make light work," the cultivation proceeds with great rapidity. Thus a large population can bring into tillage a greater individual proportion of ground than a smaller number of laborers, and the rice is accordingly produced at a cheaper rate. Few people understand the difficulties with which a small village has to contend in the cultivation of rice. The continual repairs of temporary dams, which are nightly trodden down and destroyed by elephants; the filling up of the water-courses from the same cause; the nocturnal attacks upon the crops by elephants and hogs; the devastating attacks of birds as the grain becomes ripe; a scarcity of water at the exact moment it is required; and other numerous difficulties which are scarcely felt by a large population. By the latter the advantage is enjoyed of the division of labor. The dams are built of permanent material; every work is rapidly completed; the night-fires blaze in the lofty watch-house, while the shouts of the watchers scare the wild beasts from the crops. Hundreds of children are daily screaming from their high perches to scare away the birds. Rattles worked by long lines extend in every direction, unceasingly pulled by the people in the watch-houses; wind-clackers (similar to our cherry-clackers) are whirling in all places; and by the division of the toil among a multitude the individual work proceeds without fatigue. Every native is perfectly aware of this advantage in rice cultivation; and were the supply of water ensured to them by the repair of a principal tank, they would gather around its margin. The thorny jungles would soon disappear from the surface of the ground, and a densely-populated and prosperous district would again exist where all has been a wilderness for a thousand years. The system of rice cultivation is exceedingly laborious. The first consideration being a supply of water, the second is a perfect level, or series of levels, to be irrigated. Thus a hill-side must be terraced out into a succession of platforms or steps; and a plain, however apparently flat, must, by the requisite embankments, be reduced to the most perfect surface. This being completed, the water is laid on for a certain time, until the soil has become excessively soft and muddy. It is then run off, and the land is ploughed by a simple implement, which, being drawn by two buffaloes, stirs up the soil to a depth of eighteen inches. This finished, the water is again laid on until the mud becomes so soft that a man will sink knee-deep. In this state it is then trodden over by buffaloes, driven backward and forward in large gangs, until the mud is so thoroughly mixed that upon the withdrawal of the water it sinks to a perfect level. Upon this surface the paddy, having been previously soaked in water, is now sown; and, in the course of a fortnight, it attains a height of about four inches. The water is now again laid on, and continued at intervals until within a fortnight of the grain becoming ripe. It is then run off; the ground hardens, the ripe crop is harvested by the sickle, and the grain is trodden out by buffaloes. The rice is then separated from the paddy or husk by being pounded in a wooden mortar. This is a style of cultivation in which the Cingalese particularly excel; nothing can be more beautifully regular than their flights of green terraces from the bottoms of the valleys to the very summits of the hills: and the labor required in their formation must be immense, is they are frequently six feet one above the other. The Cingalese are peculiarly a rice-growing nation; give them an abundant supply of water and land on easy terms, and they will not remain idle. CHAPTER V. Real Cost of Land--Want of Communication--Coffee-planting--Comparison between French and English Settlers--Landslips--Forest-clearing--Manuring--The Coffee Bug--Rats--Fatted Stock--Suggestions for Sheep-farming--Attack of a Leopard--Leopards and Chetahs--Boy Devoured--Traps--Musk Cats and the Mongoose--Vermin of Ceylon. What is the government price of land in Ceylon? and what is the real cost of the land? These are two questions which should be considered separately, and with grave attention by the intending settler or capitalist. The upset price of government land is twenty shillings per acre; thus, the inexperienced purchaser is very apt to be led away by the apparently low sum per acre into a purchase of great extent. The question of the real cost will then be solved at his expense. There are few colonies belonging to Great Britain where the government price of land is so high, compared to the value of the natural productions of the soil. The staple commodity of Ceylon being coffee, I will assume that a purchase is concluded with the government for one thousand acres of land, at the upset price of twenty shillings per acre. What has the purchaser obtained for this sum? One thousand acres of dense forest, to which there is no road. The one thousand pounds passes into the government chest, and the purchaser is no longer thought of; he is left to shift for himself and to make the most of his bad bargain. He is, therefore, in this position: He has parted with one thousand pounds for a similar number of acres of land, which will not yield him one penny in any shape until he has cleared it from forest. This he immediately commences by giving out contracts, and the forest is cleared, lopped and burnt. The ground is then planted with coffee and the planter has to wait three years for a return. By the time of full bearing the whole cost of felling, burning, planting and cleaning will be about eight pounds per acre; this, in addition to the prime cost of the land, and about two thousand pounds expended in buildings, machinery etc., etc., will bring the price of the land, when in a yielding condition, to eleven pounds an acre at the lowest calculation. Thus before his land yields him one fraction, he will have invested eleven thousand pounds, if he clears the whole of his purchase. Many persons lose sight of this necessary outlay when first purchasing their land, and subsequently discover to their cost that their capital is insufficient to bring the estate into cultivation. Then comes the question of a road. The government will give him no assistance; accordingly, the whole of his crop must be conveyed on coolies' heads along an arduous path to the nearest highway, perhaps fifteen miles distant. Even this rough path of fifteen miles the planter must form at his own expense. Considering the risks that are always attendant upon agricultural pursuits, and especially upon coffee-planting, the price of rough land must be acknowledged as absurdly high under the present conditions of sales. There is a great medium to be observed, however, in the sales of crown land; too low a price is even a greater evil than too high a rate, as it is apt to encourage speculators in land, who do much injury to a colony by locking up large tracts in an uncultivated state, to take the chance of a future rise in the price. This evil might easily be avoided by retaining the present bona fide price of the land per acre, qualified by an arrangement that one-half of the purchase money should be expended in the formation of roads from the land in question. This would be of immense assistance to the planters, especially in a populous planting neighborhood, where the purchases of land were large and numerous, in which case the aggregate sum would be sufficient to form a carriage road to the main highway, which might be kept in repair by a slight toll. An arrangement of this kind is not only fair to the planters, but would be ultimately equally beneficial to the government. Every fresh sale of land would ensure either a new road or the improvement of an old one; and the country would be opened up through the most remote districts. This very fact of good communication would expedite the sales of crown lands, which are now valueless from their isolated position. Coffee-planting in Ceylon has passed through the various stages inseparable from every "mania." In the early days of our possession, the Kandian district was little known, and sanguine imaginations painted the hidden prospect in their ideal colors, expecting that a trace once opened to the interior would be the road to fortune. How these golden expectations have been disappointed the broken fortunes of many enterprising planters can explain. The protective duty being withdrawn, a competition with foreign coffee at once reduced the splendid prices of olden times to a more moderate standard, and took forty per cent. out of the pockets of the planters. Coffee, which in those days brought from one hundred shillings to one hundred and forty shillings per hundred-weight, is now reduced to from sixty shillings to eighty shillings. This sudden reduction created an equally sudden panic among the planters, many of whom were men of straw, who had rushed to Ceylon at the first cry of coffee "fortunes," and who had embarked on an extensive scale with borrowed capital. These were the first to smash. In those days the expenses of bringing land into cultivation were more than double the present rate, and, the cultivation of coffee not being so well understood, the produce per acre was comparatively small. This combination of untoward circumstances was sufficient cause for the alarm which ensued, and estates were thrust into the market and knocked down for whatever could be realized. Mercantile houses were dragged down into the general ruin, and a dark cloud settled over the Cinnamon isle. As the after effects of a "hurricane" are a more healthy atmosphere and an increased vigor in all vegetation, so are the usual sequels to a panic in the commercial world. Things are brought down to their real value and level; men of straw are swept away, and affairs are commenced anew upon a sound and steady basis. Capital is invested with caution, and improvements are entered upon step by step, until success is assured. The reduction in the price of coffee was accordingly met by a corresponding system of expenditure and by an improved state of cultivation; and at the present time the agricultural prospects of the colony are in a more healthy state than they have ever been since the commencement of coffee cultivation. There is no longer any doubt that a coffee estate in a good situation in Ceylon will pay a large interest for the capital invested, and will ultimately enrich the proprietor, provided that he has his own capital to work his estate, that he gives his own personal superintendence and that he understands the management. These are the usual conditions of success in most affairs; but a coffee-estate is not unfrequently abused for not paying when it is worked with borrowed capital at a high rate of interest under questionable superintendence. It is a difficult thing to define the amount which constitutes a "fortune:" that which is enough for one man is a pittance for another; but one thing is certain, that, no matter how small his first capital, the coffee-planter hopes to make his "fortune." Now, even allowing a net profit of twenty per cent. per annum on the capital invested, it must take at least ten years to add double the amount to the first capital, allowing no increase to the spare capital required for working the estate. A rapid fortune can never be made by working a coffee estate. Years of patient industry and toil, chequered by many disappointments, may eventually reward the proprietor; but it will be at a time of life when a long residence in the tropics will have given him a distaste for the chilly atmosphere of old England; his early friends will have been scattered abroad, and he will meet few faces to welcome him on his native shores. What cold is so severe as a cold reception?--no thermometer can mark the degree. No fortune, however large, can compensate for the loss of home, and friends, and early associations. This feeling is peculiarly strong throughout the British nation. You cannot convince an English settler that he will be abroad for an indefinite number of years; the idea would be equivalent to transportation: he consoles himself with the hope that something will turn up to alter the apparent certainty of his exile; and in this hope, with his mind ever fixed upon his return, he does nothing for posterity in the colony. He rarely even plants a fruit tree, hoping that his stay will not allow him to gather from it. This accounts for the poverty of the gardens and enclosures around the houses of the English inhabitants, and the general dearth of any fruits worth eating. How different is the appearance of French colonies, and how different are the feelings of the settler! The word "adieu" once spoken, he sighs an eternal farewell to the shores of "La belle France," and, with the natural light-heartedness of the nation, he settles cheerfully in a colony as his adopted country. He lays out his grounds with taste, and plants groves of exquisite fruit trees, whose produce will, he hopes, be tasted by his children and grandchildren. Accordingly, in a French colony there is a tropical beauty in the cultivated trees and flowers which is seldom seen in our possessions. The fruits are brought to perfection, as there is the same care taken in pruning and grafting the finest kinds as in our gardens in England. A Frenchman is necessarily a better settler; everything is arranged for permanency, from the building of a house to the cultivation of an estate. He does not distress his land for immediate profit, but from the very commencement he adopts a system of the highest cultivation. The latter is now acknowledged as the most remunerative course in all countries; and its good effects are already seen in Ceylon, where, for some years past, much attention has been devoted to manuring on coffee estates. No crop has served to develop the natural poverty of the soil so much as coffee; and there is no doubt that, were it possible to procure manure in sufficient quantity, the holes should be well filled at the time of planting. This would give an increased vigor to the young plant that would bring the tree into bearing at an earlier date, as it would the sooner arrive at perfection. The present system of coffee-planting on a good estate is particularly interesting. It has now been proved that the best elevation in Ceylon to combine fine quality with large crops is from twenty-five hundred to four thousand feet. At one time it was considered that the finest quality was produced at the highest range; but the estates at an elevation of five thousand feet are so long at arriving at perfection, and the crop produced is so small, that the lower elevation is preferred. In the coffee districts of Ceylon there is little or no level ground to be obtained, and the steep sides of the hills offer many objections to cultivation. The soil, naturally light and poor, is washed by every shower, and the more soluble portions, together with the salts of the manure applied to the trees, are being continually robbed by the heavy rains. Thus it is next to impossible to keep an estate in a high state of cultivation, without an enormous expense in the constant application of manure. Many estates are peculiarly subject to landslips, which are likewise produced by the violence of the rains. In these cases the destruction is frequently to a large extent; great rocks are detached from the summits of the hills, and sweep off whole lines of trees in their descent. Wherever landslips are frequent, they may be taken as an evidence of a poor, clay subsoil. The rain soaks through the surface; and not being able to percolate through the clay with sufficient rapidity, it lodges between the two strata, loosening the upper surface, which slides from the greasy clay; launched, as it were, by its own gravity into the valley below. This is the worst kind of soil for the coffee tree, whose long tap-root is ever seeking nourishment from beneath. On this soil it is very common to see a young plantation giving great promise; but as the trees increase in growth the tap-root reaches the clay subsoil and the plantation immediately falls off. The subsoil is of far more importance to the coffee-tree than the upper surface; the latter may be improved by manure, but if the former is bad there is no remedy. The first thing to be considered being the soil, and the planter being satisfied with its quality, there is another item of equal importance to be taken into consideration when choosing a locality for a coffee estate. This is an extent of grazing land sufficient for the support of the cattle required for producing manure. In a country with so large a proportion of forest as Ceylon, this is not always practicable; in which case land should be cleared and grass planted, as it is now proved that without manure an estate will never pay the proprietor. The locality being fixed upon, the clearing of the forest is commenced. The felling is begun from the base of the hills, and the trees being cut about half through, are started in sections of about an acre at one fall. This is easily effected by felling some large tree from the top, which, falling upon its half-divided neighbor, carries everything before it like a pack of cards. The number of acres required having been felled, the boughs and small branches are all lopped, and, together with the cleared underwood, they form a mass over the surface of the ground impervious to man or beast. This mass, exposed to a powerful sun, soon becomes sufficiently dry for burning, and, the time of a brisk breeze being selected, the torch is applied. The magnificent sight of so extensive a fire is succeeded by the desolate appearance of blackened stumps and smouldering trunks of trees: the whole of the branches and tinderwood having been swept away by the mighty blaze, the land is comparatively clear. Holes two feet square are now dug in parallel lines at a distance of from six to eight feet apart throughout the estate, and advantage being taken of the wet season, they are planted with young coffee trees of about twelve inches high. Nothing is now required but to keep the land clean until the trees attain the height of four feet and come into bearing. This, at an elevation of three thousand feet, they generally do in two years and a half. The stem is then topped, to prevent its higher growth and to produce a large supply of lateral shoots. The system of pruning is the same as with all fruit trees; the old wood being kept down to induce fruit bearing shoots, whose number must be proportioned to the strength of the tree. The whole success of the estate now depends upon constant cleaning, plentiful manuring and careful pruning, with a due regard to a frugal expenditure and care in the up-keep of buildings, etc., etc. Much attention is also required in the management of the cattle on the estate, for without a proper system the amount of manure produced will be proportionately small. They should be bedded up every night hock deep with fresh litter and the manure thus formed should be allowed to remain in the shed until it is between two and three feet deep. It should then be treated on a "Geoffrey" pit (named after its inventor). This is the simplest and most perfect method for working up the weeds from an estate, and effectually destroying their seeds at the same time that they are converted into manure. A water-tight platform is formed of stucco--say forty feet square--surrounded by a wall two feet high, so as to form a tank. Below this is a sunken cistern--say eight feet square--into which the drainage would be conducted from the upper platform. In this cistern a force-pump is fitted, and the cistern is half filled with a solution of saltpetre and sal-ammoniac. A layer of weeds and rubbish is now laid upon the platform for a depth of three feet, surmounted by a layer of good dung from the cattle sheds of one foot thick. These layers are continued alternately in the proportion of three to one of weeds, until the mass is piled to a height of twenty feet, the last layer being good dung. Upon this mass the contents of the cistern are pumped and evenly distributed by means of a spreader. This mixture promotes the most rapid decomposition of vegetable matter, and, combining with the juices of the weeds and the salts of the dung, it drains evenly through the whole mass, forming a most perfect compost. The surplus moisture, upon reaching the bottom of the heap, drains from the slightly inclined platform into the receiving cistern, and is again pumped over the mass. This is the cheapest and best way of making manure upon an estate, the cattle sheds and pits being arranged in the different localities most suitable for reducing the labor of transport. The coffee berry, when ripe, is about the size of a cherry, and is shaped like a laurel berry. The flesh has a sweet but vapid taste, and encloses two seeds of coffee. These are carefully packed by nature in a double skin. The cherry coffee is gathered by coolies at the rate of two bushels each per diem, and is cleared from the flesh by passing through a pulper, a machine consisting of cylindrical copper graters, which tear the flesh from the berry and leave the coffee in its second covering of parchment, The coffee is then exposed to a partial fermentation by being piled for some hours in a large heap. This has the effect of loosening the fleshy particles, which, by washing in a cistern of running water, are detached from the berry. It is then rendered perfectly dry in the sun or by means of artificially heated air; and, being packed in bags, it is forwarded to Colombo. Here, it is unpacked and sent to the mill, which, by means of heavy rollers, detaches the parchment and under silver skin, and leaves the grayish-blue berry in a state for market. The injured grains are sorted out by women, and the coffee is packed for the last time and shipped to England. A good and well-managed estate should produce an average crop of ten hundredweight per acre, leaving a net profit of fifteen shillings per hundredweight under favorable circumstances. Unfortunately, it is next to impossible to make definite calculations in all agricultural pursuits: the inclemency of seasons and the attacks of vermin are constantly marring the planter's expectations. Among the latter plagues the "bug" stands foremost. This is a minute and gregarious insect, which lives upon the juices of the coffee tree, and accordingly is most destructive to an estate. It attacks a variety of plants, but more particularly the tribe of jessamine; thus the common jessamine, the "Gardenia" (Cape jessamine) and the coffee (Jasminum Arabicum) are more especially subject to its ravages. The dwelling of this insect is frequently confounded with the living creature itself. This dwelling is in shape and appearance like the back shell of a tortoise, or, still more, like a "limpet," being attached to the stem of the tree in the same manner that the latter adheres to a rock. This is the nest or house, which, although no larger than a split hempseed contains some hundreds of the "bug." As some thousands of these scaly nests exist upon one tree, myriads of insects must be feeding upon its juices. The effect produced upon the tree is a blackened and sooty appearance, like a London shrub; the branches look withered, and the berries do not plump out to their full size, but, for the most part, fall unripened from the tree. This attack is usually of about two years' duration; after which time the tree loses its blackened appearance, which peels off the surface of the leaves like gold-beaters' skin,--and they appear in their natural color. Coffee plants of young growth are liable to complete destruction if severely attacked by "bug." Rats are also very destructive to an estate; they are great adepts at pruning, and completely strip the trees of their young shoots, thus utterly destroying a crop. These vermin are more easily guarded against than the insect tribe, and should be destroyed by poison. Hog's lard, ground cocoa-nut and phosphorus form the most certain bait and poison combined. These are some of the drawbacks to coffee-planting, to say nothing of bad seasons and fluctuating prices, which, if properly calculated, considerably lessen the average profits of an estate, as it must be remembered that while a crop is reduced in quantity, the expenses continue at the usual rate, and are severely felt when consecutive years bring no produce to meet them. Were it not for the poverty of the soil, the stock of cattle required on a coffee estate for the purpose of manure might be made extremely profitable, and the gain upon fatted stock would pay for the expense of manuring the estate. This would be the first and most reasonable idea to occur to an agriculturist--"buy poor cattle at a low price, fatten them for the butcher, and they give both profit and manure." Unfortunately, the natural pasturage is not sufficiently good to fatten beasts indiscriminately. There are some few out of a herd of a hundred who will grow fat upon anything, but the generality will not improve to any great degree. This accounts for the scarcity of fine meat throughout Ceylon. Were the soil only tolerably good, so that oats, vetches, turnips and mangel wurtzel could be grown on virgin land without manure, beasts might be stall-fed, the manure doubled by that method, and a profit made on the animals. Pigs are now kept extensively on coffee estates for the sake of their manure, and being fed on Mauritius grass (a coarse description of gigantic "couch") and a liberal allowance of cocoa-nut oil cake ("poonac"), are found to succeed, although the manure is somewhat costly. English or Australian sheep have hitherto been untried--for what reason I cannot imagine, unless from the expense of their prime cost, which is about two pounds per head. These thrive to such perfection at Newera Ellia, and also in Kandy, that they should succeed in a high degree in the medium altitudes of the coffee estates. There are immense tracts of country peculiarly adapted for sheep-farming throughout the highlands of Ceylon, especially in the neighborhood of the coffee estates. There are two enemies, however, against which they would have to contend--viz., "leopards" and "leeches." The former are so destructive that the shepherd could never lose sight of his flock without great risk; but the latter, although troublesome, are not to be so much dreaded as people suppose. They are very small, and the quantity of blood drawn by their bite is so trifling that no injury could possibly follow, unless from the flies, which would be apt to attack the sheep on the smell of blood. These are drawbacks which might be easily avoided by common precaution, and I feel thoroughly convinced that sheep-farming upon the highland pasturage would be a valuable adjunct to a coffee estate, both as productive of manure and profit. I have heard the same opinion expressed by an experienced Australian sheep-farmer. This might be experimented upon in the "down" country of Ouva with great hopes of success, and by a commencement upon a small scale the risk would be trifling. Here there is an immense tract of country with a peculiar short grass in every way adapted for sheep-pasturage, and with the additional advantage of being nearly free from leopards. Should sheep succeed on an extensive scale the advantage to the farmer and to the colony would be mutual. The depredations of leopards among cattle are no inconsiderable causes of loss. At Newera Ellia hardly a week passes without some casualty among the stock of different proprietors. Here the leopards are particularly daring, and cases have frequently occurred where they have effected their entrance to a cattle-shed by scratching a hole through the thatched roof. They then commit a wholesale slaughter among sheep and cattle. Sometimes, however, they catch a "Tartar." The native cattle are small, but very active, and the cows are particularly savage when the calf is with them. About three years ago a leopard took it into his head to try the beefsteaks of a very savage and sharp-horned cow, who with her calf was the property of the blacksmith. It was a dark, rainy night, the blacksmith and his wife were in bed, and the cow and her calf were nestled in the warm straw in the cattle-shed. The door was locked, and all was apparently secure, where the hungry leopard prowled stealthily round the cowhouse, sniffing the prey within. The scent of the leopard at once aroused the keen senses of the cow, made doubly acute by her anxiety for her little charge, and she stood ready for the danger as the leopard, having mounted on the roof, commenced scratching his way through the thatch. Down he sprang!--but at the same instant, with a splendid charge, the cow pinned him against the wall, and a battle ensued which can easily be imagined. A coolie slept in the corner of the cattle-shed, whose wandering senses were completely scattered when he found himself the unwilling umpire of the fight. He rushed out and shut the door. In a few minutes he succeeded in awakening the blacksmith, who struck a light and proceeded to load a pistol, the only weapon that he possessed. During the whole of this time the bellowing of the cow, the roars of the leopard and the thumping, trampling and shuffling which proceeded from the cattle-shed, explained the savage nature of the fight. The blacksmith, who was no sportsman, shortly found himself with a lanthorn in one hand, a pistol in the other, and no idea of what he meant to do. He waited, therefore, at the cattle-shed door, and holding the light so as to shine through the numerous small apertures in the shed, he looked in. The leopard no longer growled; but the cow was mad with fury. She alternately threw a large dark mass above her head, then quickly pinned it to the ground on its descent, then bored it against the wall as it crawled helplessly toward a corner of the shed. This was the "beef-eater" in reduced circumstances! The gallant little cow had nearly killed him, and was giving him the finishing strokes. The blacksmith perceived the leopard's helpless state, and, boldly opening the door, he discharged his pistol, and the next moment was bolting as hard as he could run, with the warlike cow after him. She was regularly "up," and was ready for anything or anybody. However, she was at length pacified, and the dying leopard was put out of his misery. There are two distinct species of the leopard in Ceylon--viz., the "chetah," and the "leopard" or "panther." There have been many opinions on the subject, but I have taken particular notice of the two animals, and nothing can be more clear than the distinction. The "chetah" is much smaller than the leopard, seldom exceeding seven feet from the nose to the end of tile tail. He is covered with round black "spots" of the size of a shilling, and his weight rarely exceeds ninety pounds. The leopard varies from eight to nine feet in length, and has been known to reach even ten feet. His body is covered with black "rings," with a rich brown centre--his muzzle and legs are speckled with black "spots," and his weight is from one hundred and ten to one hundred and seventy pounds. There is little or no distinction between the leopard and the panther, they are synonymous terms for a variety of species in different countries. In Ceylon all leopards are termed "chetahs" which proceeds from the general ignorance of the presence of the two species. The power of a leopard is wonderful in proportion to his weight. I have seen a full-grown bullock with its neck broken by the leopard that attacked it. It is the popular belief that the effect is produced by a blow of the paw; this is not the case; it is not simply the blow, but it is the combination of the weight, the power and the momentum of the spring which renders the effects of a leopard's attack so surprising. Few leopards rush boldly to the attack like a dog; they stalk their game and advance crouchingly, making use of every object that will afford them cover until they are within a few bounds of their prey. Then the immense power of muscle is displayed in the concentrated energy of the spring; he flies through the air and settles on the throat, usually throwing his own body over the animal, while his teeth and claws are fixed on the neck; this is the manner in which the spine of an animal is broken--by a sudden twist, and not by a blow. The blow from the paw is nevertheless immensely powerful, and at one stroke will rip open a bullock like a knife; but the after effects of the wound are still more to be dreaded than the force of the blow. There is a peculiar poison in the claw which is highly dangerous. This is caused by the putrid flesh which they are constantly tearing, and which is apt to cause gangrene by inoculation. It is a prevalent idea that a leopard will not eat putrid meat, but that he forsakes a rotten carcase and seeks fresh prey. There is no doubt that a natural love of slaughter induces him to a constant search for prey, but it has nothing to do with the daintiness of his appetite. A leopard will eat any stinking offal that offers, and I once had a melancholy proof of this. I was returning from a morning's hunting; it was a bitter day; the rain was pouring in torrents, the wind was blowing a gale and sweeping the water in sheets along the earth. The hounds were following at my horse's heels, with their cars and sterns down, looking very miserable, and altogether it was a day when man and beast should have been at home. Presently, upon turning a corner of the road, I saw a Malabar boy of about sixteen years of age, squatted shivering by the roadside. His only covering being a scanty cloth round his loins, I told him to get up and go on or he would be starved with cold. He said something in reply, which I could not understand, and repeating my first warning, I rode on. It was only two miles to my house, but upon arrival I could not help thinking that the boy must be ill, and having watched the gate for some time to see if he passed by, I determined to send for him. Accordingly, I started off a couple of men with orders to carry him up if he were sick. They returned in little more than an hour, but the poor boy was dead!--sitting crouched in the same position in which I had seen him. He must have died of cold and starvation; he was a mere skeleton. I sent men to the spot, and had him buried by the roadside, and a few days after I rode down to see where they had laid him. A quantity of fresh-turned earth lay scattered about, mingled with fragments of rags. Bones much gnawed lay here and there on the road, and a putrid skull rolled from a shapeless hole among a confused and horrible heap. The leopards had scratched him up and devoured him; their footprints were still fresh upon the damp ground. Both leopards and chetahs are frequently caught at Newera Ellia. The common trap is nothing more or less than an old-fashioned mouse-trap, with a falling door on a large scale; this is baited with a live kid or sheep; but the leopard is naturally so wary that he frequently refuses to enter the ominous-looking building, although he would not hesitate to break into an ordinary shed. The best kind of trap is a gun set with a line, and the bait placed so that the line must be touched as the animal advances toward it. This is certain destruction to the leopard, but it is extremely dangerous, in case any stranger should happen to be in the neighborhood who might inadvertently touch the cord. Leopards are particularly fond of stealing dogs, and have frequently taken them from the very verandas of the houses at Newera Ellia in the dusk of the evening. Two or three cases have occurred within the last two years where they have actually sprung out upon dogs who have been accompanying their owners upon the high road in broad daylight. Their destruction should be encouraged by a government reward of one pound per head, in which case their number would be materially decreased in a few years. The best traps for chetahs would be very powerful vermin-gins, made expressly of great size and strength, so as to lie one foot square when open. Even a common jackal-trap would hold a leopard, provided the chain was fastened to an elastic bough, so that it would yield slightly to his spring; but if it were secured to a post, or to anything that would enable him to get a dead pull against it, something would most likely give way. I have constantly set these traps for them, but always without success, as some other kind of vermin is nearly certain to spring the trap before the chetah's arrival. Among the variety of small animals thus caught I have frequently taken the civet cat. This is a very pretty arid curious creature, about forty inches long from nose to tip of tail. The fur is ash-gray, mottled with black spots, and the tail is divided by numerous black rings. It is of the genius Viverra, and is exceedingly fierce when attacked. It preys chiefly upon fowls, hares, rats, etc. Its great peculiarity is the musk-bag or gland situated nearly under the tail; this is a projecting and valued gland, which secretes the musk, and is used medicinally by the Cingalese, on which account it is valued at about six shillings a pod. The smell is very powerful, and in my opinion very offensive, when the animal is alive; but when a pod of musk is extracted and dried, it has nothing more than the well-known scent of that used by perfumers. The latter is more frequently the production of the musk-deer, although the scent is possessed by many animals, and also insects, as the musk-ox, the musk-deer, the civet or musk-cat, the musk-rat, the musk-beetle, etc. Of these, the musk-rat is a terrible plague, as he perfumes everything that he passes over, rendering fruit, cake, bread, etc., perfectly uneatable, and even flavoring bottled wine by running over the bottles. This, however, requires a little explanation, although it is the popular belief that he taints the wine through the glass. The fact is, he taints the cork, and the flavor of musk is communicated to the wine during the process of uncorking the bottle. There is a great variety of rats in Ceylon, from the tiny shrew to the large "bandicoot". This is a most destructive creature in all gardens, particularly among potato crops, whole rows of which he digs out and devours. He is a perfect rat in appearance, but he would rather astonish one of our English tom-cats if encountered during his rambles in search of rats, as the "bandicoot" is about the same size as the cat. There is an immense variety of vermin throughout Ceylon, including many of that useful species the ichneumon, who in courage and strength stands first of his tribe. The destruction of snakes by this animal renders him particularly respected, and no person ever thinks of destroying him. No matter how venomous the snake, the ichneumon, or mongoose, goes straight at him, and never gives up the contest until the snake is vanquished. It is the popular belief that the mongoose eats some herb which has the property of counteracting the effects of a venomous bite; but this has been proved to be a fallacy, as pitched battles have been witnessed between a mongoose and the most poisonous snakes in a closed room, where there was no possibility of his procuring the antidote. His power consists in his vigilance and activity; he avoids the dart of the snake, and adroitly pins him by the back of the neck. Here he maintains his hold, in spite of the contortions and convulsive writhing of the snake, until he succeeds in breaking the spine. A mongoose is about three feet long from the nose to the tip of the tail, and is of the same genus as the civet cat. Unfortunately, he does not confine his destruction to vermin, but now and then pays a visit to a hen-roost, and sometimes, poor fellow! he puts his foot in the traps. Ceylon can produce an enticing catalogue of attractions, from the smallest to the largest of the enemies to the human race--ticks, bugs, fleas, tarantulas, centipedes, scorpions, leeches, snakes, lizards, crocodiles, etc., of which more hereafter. CHAPTER VI. "Game Eyes" for Wild Sports--Enjoyments of Wild Life--Cruelty of Sports--Native Hunters--Moormen Traders--Their wretched Guns--Rifles and Smooth-bores--Heavy Balls and Heavy Metal--Beattie's Rifles--Balls and Patches--Experiments--The Double-groove--Power of Heavy Metal--Curious Shot at a Bull Elephant--African and Ceylon Elephants--Structure of Skull--Lack of Trophies--Boar-spears and Hunting-knives--"Bertram"--A Boar Hunt--Fatal Cut. In traveling through Ceylon, the remark is often made by the tourist that "he sees so little game." From the accounts generally written of its birds and beasts, a stranger would naturally expect to come upon them at every turn, instead of which it is a well-known fact that one hundred miles of the wildest country may be traversed without seeing a single head of game, and the uninitiated might become skeptical as to its existence. This is accounted for by the immense proportion of forest and jungle, compared to the open country. The nature of wild animals is to seek cover at sunrise, and to come forth at sunset; therefore it is not surprising that so few are casually seen by the passing traveler. There is another reason, which would frequently apply even in an open country. Unless the traveler is well accustomed to wild sports, he has not his "game eye" open in fact; he either passes animals without observing them, or they see him and retreat from view before he remarks them. It is well known that the color of most animals is adapted by Nature to the general tint of the country which they inhabit. Thus, having no contrast, the animal matches with surrounding objects, and is difficult to be distinguished. It may appear ridiculous to say that an elephant is very difficult to be seen!--he would be plain enough certainly on the snow, or on a bright green meadow in England, where the contrasted colors would make him at once a striking object; but in a dense jungle his skin matches so completely with the dead sticks and dry leaves, and his legs compare so well with the surrounding tree-stems, that he is generally unperceived by a stranger, even when pointed out to him. I have actually been taking aim at an elephant within seven or eight paces, when he has been perfectly unseen by a friend at my elbow, who was peering through the bushes in quest of him. Quickness of eye is an indispensable quality in sportsmen, the possession of which constitutes one of their little vanities. Nothing is so conducive to the perfection of all the senses as the constant practice in wild and dangerous sports. The eye and the ear become habituated to watchfulness, and their powers are increased in the same proportion as the muscles of the body are by exercise. Not only is an animal immediately observed, but anything out of the common among surrounding objects instantly strikes the attention; the waving of one bough in particular when all are moving in the breeze; the switching of a deer's ear above the long grass; the slight rustling of an animal moving in the jungle. The senses are regularly tuned up, and the limbs are in the same condition from continual exercise. There is a peculiar delight, which passes all description, in feeling thoroughly well-strung, mentally and physically, with a good rifle in your hand and a trusty gun-bearer behind you with another, thus stalking quietly through a fine country, on the look-out for "anything," no matter what. There is a delightful feeling of calm excitement, if I might so express it, which nothing but wild sports will give. There is no time when a man knows himself so thoroughly as when he depends upon himself, and this forms his excitement. With a thorough confidence in the rifle and a bright lookout, he stalks noiselessly along the open glades, picking out the softest places, avoiding the loose stones or anything that would betray his steps; now piercing the deep shadows of the jungles, now scanning the distant plains, nor leaving a nook or hollow unsearched by his vigilant gaze. The fresh breakage of a branch, the barking of a tree-stem, the lately nibbled grass, with the sap still oozing from the delicate blade, the disturbed surface of a pool; everything is noted, even to the alarmed chatter of a bird: nothing is passed unheeded by an experienced hunter. To quiet, steady-going people in England there is an idea of cruelty inseparable from the pursuit of large game; people talk of "unoffending elephants," "poor buffaloes," "pretty deer," and a variety of nonsense about things which they cannot possibly understand. Besides, the very person who abuses wild sports on the plea of cruelty indulges personally in conventional cruelties which are positive tortures. His appetite is not destroyed by the knowledge that his cook his skinned the eels alive, or that the lobsters were plunged into boiling water to be cooked. He should remember that a small animal has the same feeling as the largest and if he condemns any sport as cruel, he must condemn all. There is no doubt whatever that a certain amount of cruelty pervades all sports. But in "wild sports" the animals are for the most part large, dangerous and mischievous, and they are pursued and killed in the most speedy, and therefore in the most merciful, manner. The government reward for the destruction of elephants in Ceylon was formerly ten shillings per tail; it is now reduced to seven shillings in some districts, and is altogether abolished in others, as the number killed was so great that the government imagined they could not afford the annual outlay. Although the number of these animals is still so immense in Ceylon, they must nevertheless have been much reduced within the last twenty years. In those days the country was overrun with them, and some idea of their numbers may be gathered from the fact that three first-rate shots in three days bagged one hundred and four elephants. This was told to me by one of the parties concerned, and it throws our modern shooting into the shade. In those days, however, the elephants were comparatively undisturbed, and they were accordingly more easy to approach. One of the oldest native hunters has assured me that he has seen the elephants, when attacked, recklessly expose themselves to the shots and endeavour to raise their dead comrades. This was at a time when guns were first heard in the interior of Ceylon, and the animals had never been shot at. Since that time the decrease in the game of Ceylon has been immense. Every year increases the number of guns in the possession of the natives, and accordingly diminishes the number of animals. From the change which has come over many parts of the country within my experience of the last eight years, I am of opinion that the next ten years will see the deer-shooting in Ceylon completely spoiled, and the elephants very much reduced. There are now very few herds of elephants in Ceylon that have not been shot at by either Europeans or natives, and it is a common occurrence to kill elephants with numerous marks of old bullet wounds. Thus the animals are constantly on the "qui vive," and at the report of a gun every herd within hearing starts off for the densest jungles. A native can now obtain a gun for thirty shillings; and with two shillings' worth of ammunition, he starts on a hunting trip. Five elephants, at a reward of seven shillings per tail, more than pay the prime cost of his gun, to say nothing of the deer and other game that he has bagged in the interim. Some, although very few, of the natives are good sportsmen in a potting way. They get close to their game, and usually bag it. This is a terrible system for destroying, and the more so as it is increasing. There is no rest for the animals; in the day-time they are tracked up, and on moonlight nights the drinking-places are watched, and an unremitting warfare is carried on. This is sweeping both deer and buffalo from the country, and must eventually almost annihilate them. The Moormen are the best hunters, and they combine sport with trade in such a manner that "all is fish that comes to their net." Five or six good hunters start with twenty or thirty bullocks and packs. Some of these are loaded with common cloths, etc., to exchange with the village people for dried venison; but the intention in taking so many bullocks is to bring borne the spoils of their hunting trip--in fact, to "carry the bag." They take about a dozen leaves of the talipot palm to form a tent, and at night-time, the packs, being taken off the bullocks, are piled like a pillar in the centre, and the talipot leaves are formed in a circular roof above them. The bullocks are then secured round the tent to long poles, which are thrown upon the ground and pinned down by crooked pegs. These people have an intimate knowledge of the country, and are thoroughly acquainted with the habits of the animals and the most likely spots for game. Buffaloes, pigs and deer are indiscriminately shot, and the flesh being cut in strips from the bones is smoked over a green-wood fire, then thoroughly dried in the sun and packed up for sale. The deer skins are also carefully dried and rolled up, and the buffaloes' and deer horns are slung to the packs. Many castes of natives will not eat buffalo meat, others will not eat pork, but all are particularly fond of venison. This the Moorman fully understands, and overcomes all scruples by a general mixture of the different meats, all of which he sells as venison. Thus no animal is spared whose flesh can be passed off for deer. Fortunately, their guns are so common that they will not shoot with accuracy beyond ten or fifteen paces, or there would be no game left within a few years. How these common guns stand the heavy charges of powder is a puzzle. A native thinks nothing of putting four drachms down a gun that I should be sorry to fire off at any rate. It is this heavy charge which enables such tools to kill elephants which would otherwise be impossible. These natives look upon a first-class English rifle with a sort of veneration. Such a weapon would be a perfect fortune to one of these people, and I have often been astonished that robberies of such things are not more frequent. There is much difference of opinion among Ceylon sportsmen as to the style of gun for elephant-shooting. But there is one point upon which all are agreed, that no matter what the size of the bore may be, all the guns should be alike, and the battery for one man should consist of four double-barrels. The confusion in hurried loading where guns are of different calibres is beyond conception. The size and the weight of guns must depend as much on the strength and build of a man as a ship's armament does upon her tonnage; but let no man speak against heavy metal for heavy game, and let no man decry rifles and uphold smooth-bores (which is very general), but rather let him say, "I cannot carry a heavy gun," and "I cannot shoot with a rifle." There is a vast difference between shooting at a target and shooting at live game. Many men who are capital shots at target-practice cannot touch a deer, and cannot even use the rifle as a rifle at live game, but actually knock the sights out and use it as a smoothbore. This is not the fault of the weapon; it is the fault of the man. It is a common saying in Ceylon, and also in India, that you cannot shoot quick enough with the rifle, because you cannot get the proper sight in an instant. Whoever makes use of this argument must certainly be in the habit of very random shooting with a smoothbore. How can he possibly get a correct aim with "ball" out of a smoothbore, without squinting along the barrel and taking the muzzle-sight accurately? The fact is, that many persons fire so hastily at game that they take no sight at all, as though they were snipe-shooting with many hundred grains of shot in the charge. This will never do for ball-practice, and when the rifle is placed in such hands, the breech-sights naturally bother the eye which is not accustomed to recognize any sight; and while the person is vainly endeavouring to get the sight correctly on a moving object, the animal is increasing his distance. By way of cutting the Gordian knot, he therefore knocks his sight out, and accordingly spoils the shooting of the rifle altogether. Put a rifle in the hands of a man who knows how to handle it, and let him shoot against the mutilated weapon deprived of its sight, and laugh at the trial. Why, a man might as well take the rudder off a ship because he could not steer, and then abuse the vessel for not keeping her course! My idea of guns and rifles is this, that the former should be used for what their makers intended them, viz., shot-shooting, and that no ball should be fired from any but the rifle. Of course it is just as easy and as certain to kill an elephant with a smooth-bore as with a rifle, as he is seldom fired at until within ten or twelve paces; but a man, when armed for wild sport, should be provided with a weapon which is fit for any kind of ball-shooting at any reasonable range, and his battery should be perfect for the distance at which he is supposed to aim. I have never seen any rifles which combine the requisites for Ceylon shooting to such a degree as my four double-barreled No. 10, which I had made to order. Then some persons exclaim against their weight, which is fifteen pounds per gun. But a word upon that subject. No person who understands anything about a rifle would select a light gun with a large bore, any more than he would have a heavy carriage for a small horse. If the man objects to the weight of the rifle, let him content himself with a smaller bore, but do not rob the barrels of their good metal for the sake of a heavy ball. The more metal that the barrel possesses in proportion to the diameter of the bore, the better will the rifle carry, nine times out of ten. Observe the Swiss rifles for accurate target-practice--again, remark the American pea rifle; in both the thickness of metal is immense in proportion to the size of the ball, which, in great measure, accounts for the precision with which they carry. In a light barrel, there is a vibration or jar at the time of explosion, which takes a certain effect upon the direction of the ball. This is necessarily increased by the use of a heavy charge of powder; and it is frequently seen that a rifle which carries accurately enough with a very small charge, shoots wide of the mark when the charge is increased. This arises from several causes, generally from the jar of the barrel in the stock, proceeding either from the want of metal in the rifle or from improper workmanship in the fittings. To avoid this, a rifle should be made with double bolts and a silver plate should always be let into the stock under the breech; without which the woodwork will imperceptibly wear, and the barrel will become loose in the stock and jar when fired. There is another reason for the necessity of heavy barrels, especially for two-grooved rifles. Unless the grooves he tolerably deep, they will not hold the ball when a heavy charge is behind it; it quits the grooves, strips its belt, and flies out as though fired from a smoothbore. A large-bore rifle is a useless incumbrance, unless it is so constructed that it will bear a proportionate charge of powder, and shoot as accurately with its proof charge as with a single drachm. The object in a large bore is to possess an extra powerful weapon, therefore the charge of powder must be increased in proportion to the weight of the ball, or the extra power is not obtained. Nevertheless, most of the heavy rifles that I have met with will not carry an adequate charge of powder, and they are accordingly no more powerful than guns of lighter bore which carry their proportionate charge--the powder has more than its fair amount of work. Great care should be therefore taken in making rifles for heavy game. There cannot be a better calibre than No 10; it is large enough for any animal in the world, and a double-barreled rifle of this bore, without a ramrod, is not the least cumbersome, even at the weight of fifteen pounds. A ramrod is not required to be in the gun for Ceylon shooting, as there is always a man behind with a spare rifle, who carries a loading rod, and were a ramrod fitted to a rifle of this size, it would render it very unhandy, and would also weaken the stock. The sights should be of platinum at the muzzle, and blue steel, with a platinum strip with a broad and deep letter V cut in the breech-sights. In a gloomy forest it is frequently difficult to catch the muzzle sight, unless it is of some bright metal, such as silver or platinum; and a broad cut in the breech-sights, if shaped as described, allows a rapid aim, and may be taken fine or coarse at option. The charge of powder must necessarily depend upon its strength. For elephant-shooting, I always rise six drachms of the best powder for the No. 10 rifles, and four drachms as the minimum charge for deer and general shooting; the larger charge is then unnecessary; it both wastes ammunition and alarms the country by the loudness of the report. There are several minutiae to be attended to in the sports of Ceylon. The caps should always be carried in a shot-charger (one of the common spring-lid chargers) and never be kept loose in the pocket. The heat is so intense that the perspiration soaks through everything, and so injures the caps that the very best will frequently miss fire. The powder should be dried for a few minutes in the sun before it is put into the flask, and it should be well shaken and stirred to break any lumps that may be in it. One of these, by obstructing the passage in the flask, may cause much trouble in loading quickly, especially when a wounded elephant is regaining his feet. In such a case you must keep your eyes on the animal when loading, and should the passage of the powder-flask be stopped by a lump, you may fancy the gun is loaded when in fact not a grain of powder has entered it. The patches should be of silk, soaked in a mixture of one part of beeswax and two of fresh hog's lard, free from salt. If they are spread with pure grease, it melts out of them in a hot country, and they become dry. Silk is better than linen as it is not so liable to be cut down by the sharp grooves of the rifle. It is also thinner than linen or calico, and the ball is therefore more easily rammed down. All balls should be made of pure lead, without any hardening mixture. It was formerly the fashion to use zinc balls, and lead with a mixture of tin, etc., in elephant-shooting. This was not only unnecessary, but the balls, from a loss of weight by admixture with lighter metals, lost force in a proportionate degree. Lead may be a soft metal, but it is much harder than any animal's skull, and if a tallow candle can be shot through a deal board, surely a leaden bullet is hard enough for an elephant's head. I once tried a very conclusive experiment on the power of balls of various metals propelled by an equal charge of powder. I had a piece of wrought iron five-eights of an inch thick, and six feet high by two in breadth. I fired at this at one hundred and seventy yards with my two-grooved four-ounce rifle, with a reduced charge of six drachms of powder and a ball of pure lead. It bulged the iron like a piece of putty, and split the centre of the bulged spot into a star, through the crevice of which I could pass a pen-blade. A ball composed of half zinc and half lead, fired from the same distance, hardly produced a perceptible effect upon the iron target. It just slightly indented it. I then tried a ball of one-third zinc and two-thirds lead, but there was no perceptible difference in the effect. I subsequently tried a tin bill, and again a zinc ball, but neither of them produced any other effect than slightly to indent the iron. I tried all these experiments again at fifty yards' range, with the same advantage in favor of the pure lead; and at this reduced distance a double-barreled No. 16 smoothbore, with a large charge of four drachms of powder and a lead ball, also bulged and split the iron into a star. This gun, with a hard tin ball and the same charge of powder, did not produce any other effect than an almost imperceptible indentation. if a person wishes to harden a bill for any purpose, it should be done by an admixture of quicksilver to the lead while the latter is in a state of fusion, a few seconds before the ball is cast. The mixture must be then quickly stirred with an iron rod, and formed into the moulds without loss of time, as at this high temperature the quicksilver will evaporate. Quicksilver is heavier than lead, and makes a ball excessively hard; so much so that it would very soon spoil a rifle. Altogether, the hardening of a ball has been shown to be perfectly unnecessary, and the latter receipt would be found very expensive. If a wonderful effect is required, the steel-tipped conical ball should be used. I once shot through fourteen elm planks, each one inch thick, with a four-ounce steel-tipped cone, with the small charge (for that rifle) of four drachms of powder. The proper charge for that gun is one-fourth the weight of the ball, or one ounce of powder, with which it carries with great nicety and terrific effect, owing to its great weight of metal (twenty-one pounds); but it is a small piece of artillery which tries the shoulder very severely in the recoil. I have frequently watched a party of soldiers winding along a pass, with their white trousers, red coats, white cross-belts and brass plates, at about four hundred yards, and thought what a raking that rifle would give a body, of troops in such colors for a mark. A ball of that weight with an ounce of powder, would knock down six or eight men in a row. A dozen of such weapons well handled on board a ship would create an astonishing effect; but for most purposes the weight of the ammunition is a serious objection. There is a great difference of opinion among sportsmen regarding the grooves of a rifle; some prefer the two-groove and belted ball; others give preference to the eight or twelve-groove and smoothbore. There are good arguments on both sides. There is no doubt that the two-groove is the hardest hitter and the longest ranger; it also has the advantage of not fouling so quickly as the many-grooved. On the other hand, the many-grooved is much easier to load; it hits quite hard enough; and it ranges truly much farther than any person would think of firing at an animal. Therefore, for sporting purposes, the only advantage which the two-groove possesses is the keeping clean, while the many-groove claims the advantage of quick loading. The latter is by far the more important recommendation, especially as the many-groove can be loaded without the assistance of the eye, as the ball, being smooth and round, can only follow the right road down the barrel. The two-grooved rifle, when new, is particularly difficult to load, as the ball must be tight to avoid windage, and it requires some nicety in fitting and pressing the belt of the ball into the groove, in such a manner that it shall start straight upon the pressure of the loading-rod. If it gives a slight heel to one side at the commencement, it is certain to stick in its course, and it then occupies much time and trouble in being rammed home. Neither will it shoot with accuracy, as, from the amount of ramming to get the ball to its place, it has become so misshapen that it is a mere lump of lead, and no longer a rifle-ball. My double-barreled No. 10 rifles are two-grooved, and an infinity of trouble they gave me for the first two years. Many a time I have been giving my whole weight to the loading rod, with a ball stuck half-way down the barrel, while wounded elephants lay struggling upon the ground, expected every moment to rise. From constant use and repeated cleaning they have now become so perfect that they load with the greatest ease; but guns of their age are not fair samples of their class, and for rifles in general for sporting purposes I should give a decided preference to the many-groove. I have had a long two-ounce rifle of the latter class, which I have shot with for many years, and it certainly is not so hard a hitter as the two-grooved No. 10's; but it hits uncommonly hard, too; and if I do not bag with it, it is always my fault, and no blame can be attached to the rifle. For heavy game-shooting, I do not think there can be a much fairer standard for the charge of powder than one-fifth the weight of the ball for all bores. Some persons do not use so much as this; but I am always an advocate for strong guns and plenty of powder. A heavy charge will reach the brain of an elephant, no matter in what position he may stand, provided a proper angle is taken for attaining it. A trifling amount of powder is sufficient, if the elephant offers a front shot, or the temple at right angles, or the ear shot; but if a man pretend to a knowledge of elephant-shooting, he should think of nothing but the brain, and his knowledge of the anatomy of the elephant's head should be such that he can direct a straight line to this mark from any position. He then requires a rifle of such power that the ball will crash through every obstacle along the course directed. To effect this he must not be stingy of the powder. I have frequently killed elephants by curious shots with the rifles in this manner; but I once killed a bull elephant by one shot in the upper jaw, which will at once exemplify the advantage of a powerful rifle in taking the angle for the brain. My friend Palliser and I were out shooting on the day previous, and we had spent some hours in vainly endeavouring to track up a single bull elephant. I forget what we bagged, but I recollect well that we were unlucky in finding our legitimate game. That night at dinner we heard elephants roaring in the Yallé river, upon the banks of which our tent was pitched in fine open forest. For about an hour the roaring was continued, apparently on both sides the river, and we immediately surmised that our gentleman friend on our side of the stream was answering the call of the ladies of some herd on the opposite bank. We went to sleep with the intention of waking at dawn of day, and then strolling quietly along with only two gun-bearers each, who were to carry my four double No 10's, while we each carried a single barrel for deer. The earliest gray tint of morning saw us dressed and ready, the rifles loaded, a preliminary cup of hot chocolate swallowed, and we were off while the forest was still gloomy; the night seemed to hang about it, although the sky was rapidly clearing above. A noble piece of Nature's handiwork is that same Yallé forest. The river flows sluggishly through its centre in a breadth of perhaps ninety yards, and the immense forest trees extend their giant arms from the high banks above the stream, throwing dark shadows upon its surface, enlivened by the silvery glitter of the fish as they dart against the current. Little glades of rank grass occasionally break the monotony of the dark forest; sandy gullies in deep beds formed by the torrents of the rainy season cut through the crumbling soil and drain toward the river. Thick brushwood now and then forms an opposing barrier, but generally the forest is beautifully open, consisting of towering trees, the leviathans of their race, sheltering the scanty saplings which have spring from their fallen seeds. For a few hundred yards on either side of the river the forest extends in a ribbon-like strip of lofty vegetation in the surrounding sea of low scrubby jungle. The animals leave the low jungle at night, passing through the forest on their way to the river to bathe and drink; they return to the low and thick jungle at break of day and we hoped to meet some of the satiated elephants on their way to their dense habitations. We almost made sure of finding our friend of yesterday's trek, and we accordingly kept close to the edge of the river, keeping a sharp eye for tracks upon the sandy bed below. We had strolled for about a mile along the high bank of the river without seeing a sign of an elephant, when I presently heard a rustle in the branches before me, and upon looking up I saw a lot of monkeys gamboling in the trees. I was carrying my long two-ounce rifle, and I was passing beneath the monkey-covered boughs, when I suddenly observed a young tree of the thickness of a man's thigh shaking violently just before me. It happened that the jungle was a little thicker in his spot, and at the same moment that I observed the tree shaking almost over me, I passed the immense stem of one of those smooth-barked trees which grow to such an enormous size on the banks of rivers. At the same moment that I passed it I was almost under the trunk of a single bull elephant, who was barking the stem with his tusk as high as he could reach, with his head thrown back. I saw in an instant that the only road to his brain lay through his upper jaw, in the position in which he was standing; and knowing that he would discover me in another moment, I took the eccentric line for his brain, and fired upward through his jaw. He fell stone dead, with the silk patch of the rifle smoking in the wound. Now in this position no light gun could have killed that elephant; the ball had to pass through the roots of the upper grinders, and keep its course through hard bones and tough membranes for about two feet before it could reach the brain; but the line was all right, and the heavy metal and charge of powder kept the ball to its work. This is the power which every elephant-gun should possess: it should have an elephant's head under complete command in every attitude. There is another advantage in heavy metal; a heavy ball will frequently stun a vicious elephant when in full charge, when a light ball would not check him; his quietus is then soon arranged by another barrel. Some persons, however, place too much confidence in the weight of the metal, and forget that it is necessary to hold a powerful rifle as straight as the smallest gun. It is then very common during a chase of a herd to see the elephants falling tolerably well to the shots, but on a return for their tails, it is found that the stunned brutes have recovered and decamped. Conical balls should never be used for elephants; they are more apt to glance, and the concussion is not so great as that produced by a round ball. In fact there is nothing more perfect for sporting purposes than a good rifle from a first-rate maker, with a plain ball of from No. 12 to No. 10. There can be no improvement upon such a weapon for the range generally required by a good shot. I am very confident that the African elephant would be killed by the brain-shot by Ceylon sportsmen with as much case as the Indian species. The shape of the head has nothing whatever to do with the shooting, provided the guns are powerful and the hunter knows where the brain lies. When I arrived in Ceylon one of my first visits was to the museum at Colombo where I carefully examined the transverse sections of an elephant's skull, until perfectly acquainted with its details. From the museum I cut straight to the elephant-stables and thoroughly examined the head of the living animal, comparing it in my own mind with the skull, until I was thoroughly certain of the position of the brain and the possibility of reaching it from any position. An African sportsmen would be a long time in killing a Ceylon elephant, if he fired at the long range described by most writers; in fact, he would not kill one out of twenty that he fired at in such a jungle-covered country as Ceylon, where, in most cases, everything depends upon the success of the first barrel. It is the fashion in Ceylon to get as close as possible to an elephant before firing; this is usually at about ten yards' distance, at which range nearly every shot must be fatal. In Africa, according to all accounts, elephants are fired at thirty, forty, and even at sixty yards. It is no wonder, therefore, that African sportsmen take the shoulder shot, as the hitting of the brain would be a most difficult feat at such a distance, seeing that the even and dusky color of an elephant's head offers no peculiar mark for a delicate aim. The first thing that a good sportsmen considers with every animal is the point at which to aim so to bag him as speedily as possible. It is well known that all animals, from the smallest to the largest, sink into instant death when shot through the brain; and that a wound through the lungs or heart is equally fatal, though not so instantaneous. These are accordingly the points for aim, the brain, from its small size, being the most difficult to hit. Nevertheless, in a jungle country, elephants must be shot through the brain, otherwise they would not be bagged, as they would retreat with a mortal wound into such dense jungle that no man could follow. Seeing how easily they are dropped by the brainshot if approached sufficiently near to ensure the correctness of the aim, no one would ever think of firing at the shoulder who had been accustomed to aim at the head. A Ceylon sportsman arriving in Africa would naturally examine the skull of the African elephant, and when once certain of the position of the brain he would require no further information. Leave him alone for hitting it if he knew where it was. What a sight for a Ceylon elephant-hunter would be the first view of a herd of African elephants--all tuskers! In Ceylon, a "tusker" is a kind of spectre, to be talked of by a few who have had the good luck to see one. And when he is seen by a good sportsman, it is an evil hour for him--he is followed till he gives up his tusks. It is a singular thing that Ceylon is the only part of the world where the male elephant has no tusks; they have miserable little grubbers projecting two or three inches from the upper jaw and inclining downward. Thus a man may kill some hundred elephants without having a pair of tusks in his possession. The largest that I have seen in Ceylon were about six feet long, and five inches in diameter in the thickest part. These would be considered rather below the average in Africa, although in Ceylon they were thought magnificent. Nothing produces either ivory or horn in fine specimens throughout Ceylon. Although some of the buffaloes have tolerably fine heads, they will not bear a comparison with those of other countries. The horns of the native cattle are not above four inches in length. The elk and the spotted deer's antlers are small compared with deer of their size on the continent of India. This is the more singular, as it is evident from the geological formation that at some remote period Ceylon was not an island, but formed a portion of the mainland, from which it is now only separated by a shallow and rocky of some few miles. In India the bull elephants have tusks, and the cattle and buffaloes have very large horns. My opinion is that there are elements wanting in the Ceylon pasturage (which is generally poor) for the formation of both horn and ivory. Thus many years of hunting and shooting are rewarded by few trophies of the chase. So great is the natural inactivity of the natives that no one understands the preparation of the skins; thus all the elk and deer hides are simply dried in the sun, and the hair soon rots and fills off. In India, the skin of the Samber deer (the Ceylon elk) is prized above all others, and is manufactured into gaiters, belts, pouches, coats, breeches, etc.; but in Ceylon, these things are entirety neglected by the miserable and indolent population, whose whole thoughts are concentrated upon their bread, or rather their curry and rice. At Newera Ellia, the immense number of elk that I have killed would have formed a valuable collection of skins had they been properly prepared, instead of which the hair has been singed from them, and they have been boiled up for dogs' meat. Boars' hides have shared the same fate. These are far thicker than those of the tame species, and should make excellent saddles. So tough are they upon the live animal that it requires a very sharp-pointed knife to penetrate them, and too much care cannot be bestowed upon the manufacture of a knife for this style of hunting, as the boar is one of the fiercest and dangerous of animals. Living in the thickest jungles, he rambles out at night in search of roots, fruits, large earthworms, or anything else that he can find, being, like his domesticated brethren, omnivorous. He is a terrible enemy to the pack, and has cost me several good dogs within the last few years. Without first-rate seizers it would be impossible to kill him with the knife without being ripped, as he invariably turns to bay after a short run in the thickest jungle he can find. There is no doubt that a good stout boar-spear, with a broad blade and strong handle, is the proper weapon for the attack; but a spear is very unhandy and even dangerous to carry in such a hilly country as the neighbourhood of Newera Ellia. The forests are full of steep ravines and such tangled underwood that following the hounds is always an arduous task, but with a spear in the hand it is still more difficult, and the point is almost certain to get injured by striking against the numerous rocks, in which case it is perfectly useless when perhaps most required. I never carry a spear for these reasons, but am content with the knife, as in my opinion any animal that can beat off good bounds and a long knife deserves to escape. My knife was made to my own pattern by Paget of Piccadilly. The blade is one foot in length, and two inches broad in the widest part, and slightly concave in the middle. The steel is of the most exquisite quality, and the entire knife weighs three pounds. The peculiar shape added to the weight of the blade gives an extraordinary force to a blow, and the blade being double-edged for three inches from the point, inflicts a fearful wound: altogether it is a very desperate weapon, and admirably adapted for this kind of sport. A feat is frequently performed by the Nepaulese by cutting off a buffalo's head at one blow of a sabre or tulwal. The blade of this weapon is peculiar, being concave, and the extremity is far heavier than the hilt; the animal's neck is tied down to a post, so as to produce a tension on the muscles, without which the blow, however great, would have a comparatively small effect. The accounts of this feat always appeared very marvellous to my mind, until I one day unintentionally performed something similar on a small scale with the hunting-knife. I was out hunting in the Elk Plains, and having drawn several jungles blank, I ascended the mountains which wall in the western side of the patinas (grass-plains), making sure of finding an elk near the summit. It was a lovely day, perfectly calm and cloudless; in which weather the elk, especially the large bucks, are in the habit of lying high up the mountains. I had nine couple of hounds out, among which were some splendid seizers, "Bertram," "Killbuck," "Hecate," "Bran," "Lucifer," and "Lena," the first three being progeny of the departed hero, old "Smut," who had been killed by a boar a short time before. They were then just twelve months old, and "Bertram" stood twenty-eight and a half inches high at the shoulder. To him his sire's valor had descended untarnished, and for a dog of his young age he was the most courageous that I have ever seen. In appearance he was a tall Manilla bloodhound, with the strength of a young lion; very affectionate in disposition, and a general favorite, having won golden opinions in every contest. Whenever a big buck was at bay, and punishing the leading hounds, he was ever the first to get his hold; no matter how great the danger, he never waited but recklessly dashed in. "There goes Bertram! Look at Bertram! Well done, Bertram!" were the constant exclamations of a crowd of excited spectators when a powerful buck was brought to bay. He was a wonderful dog, but I prophesied an early grave for him, as no dog in the world could long escape death who rushed so recklessly upon his dangerous game.[1] His sister "Hecate," was more careful, and she is alive at this moment, and a capital seizer of great strength combined with speed, having derived the latter from her dam, "Lena," an Australian greyhound, than whom a better or truer bitch never lived. "Old Bran," and his beautiful son "Lucifer," were fine specimens of grayhound and deerhound, and as good as gold. There was not a single elk track the whole of the way up the mountain, and upon arriving at the top, I gave up all hope of finding for that day, and I enjoyed the beautiful view over the vast valley of forest which lay below, spangled with green plains, and bounded by the towering summit of Adam's Peak, at about twenty-five miles' distance. The coffee estates of Dimboola lay far beneath upon the right, and the high mountains of Kirigallapotta and Totapella bounded the view upon the left. There is a good path along the narrow ridge on the summit of the Elk Plain hills, which has been made by elephants. This runs along the very top of the knife-like ridge, commanding a view of the whole country to the right and left. The range is terminated abruptly by a high peak, which descends in a sheer precipice at the extremity. I strolled along the elephant-path, intending to gain the extreme end of the range for the sake of the view, when I suddenly came upon the track of a "boar," in the middle of the path. It was perfectly fresh, as were also the ploughings in the ground close by, and the water of a small pool was still curling with clouds of mud, showing most plainly that he had been disturbed from his wallowing by my noise in ascending the mountain-side. There was no avoiding the find; and away went "Bluebeard," "Ploughboy," "Gaylass" and all the leading hounds, followed by the whole pack, in full chorus, straight along the path at top speed. Presently they turned sharp to the left into the thick jungle, dashing down the hillside as though off to the Elk Plains below. At this pace I knew the hunt would not last long, and from my elevated stand I waited impatiently for the first sounds of the bay. Round they turned again, up the steep hillside, and the music slackened a little, as the bounds had enough to do in bursting through the tangled bamboo up the hill. Presently, I heard the rush of the boar in the jungle, coming straight up the hill toward the spot where I was standing; and, fearing that he might top the ridge and make down the other side toward Dimboola, I gave him a halloo to head him back. Hark, for-r-rard to him! yo-o-ick! to him! Such a yell, right in his road, astonished him, and, as I expected, he headed sharp back. Up came the pack, going like race-horses, and wheeling off where the game had turned, a few seconds running along the side of the mountain, and then such a burst of music! such a bay! The boar had turned sharp round, and had met the hounds on a level platform on the top of a ridge. "Lucifer" never leaves my side until we are close up to the bay; and plunging and tearing through the bamboo grass and tangled nillho for a few hundred yards, I at length approached the spot, and I heard Lord Bacon grunting and roaring loud above the din of the hounds. Bertram has him for a guinea! Hold him, good lad! and away dashed "Lucifer" from my side at the halloo. In another moment I was close up, and with my knife ready I broke through the dense jungle and was immediately in the open space cleared by the struggles of the boar and pack. Unluckily, I had appeared full in the boar's front, and though five or six of the large seizers had got their holds, he made a sudden charge at me that shook them all off, except "Bertram" and "Lena." It was the work of an instant, as I jumped quickly on one side, and instinctively made a downward cut at him in passing. He fell all of a heap, to the complete astonishment of myself and the furious pack. He was dead! killed by one blow with the hunting knife. I had struck him across the back just behind the shoulders, and the wound was so immense that he had the appearance of being nearly half divided. Not only was the spine severed, but the blade had cut deep into his vitals and produced instant death. One of the dogs was hanging on his hind quarters when he charged, and as the boar was rushing forward, the muscles of the back were accordingly stretched tight, and thus the effect of the cut was increased to this extraordinary degree. He was a middling-sized boar, as near as I could guess, about two and a half hundredweight. Fortunately, none of the pack were seriously hurt, although his tusks were as sharp as a knife. This was owing to the short duration of the fight, and also to the presence of so many seizers, who backed each other up without delay. There is no saying to what size a wild boar grows. I have never killed them with the hounds above four hundredweight; but I have seen solitary boars in the low country, that must have weighed nearly double. I believe the flesh is very good; by the natives it is highly prized; but I have so strong a prejudice against it from the sights I have seen of their feasting upon putrid elephants that I never touch it. The numbers of wild hogs in the low country is surprising, and these are most useful in cleaning up the carcases of dead animals and destroying vermin. I seldom or never fire at hog in those districts, as their number is so great that there is no sport in shooting them. They travel about in herds of one and two hundred, and even more. These are composed of sows and young boars, as the latter leave the herd when arrived at maturity. [1] Speared through the body by the horns of a buck elk and killed shortly after this was written. CHAPTER VII. Curious Phenomenon--Panorama of Ouva--South-west Monsoon--Hunting Followers--Fort M'Donald--River--Jungle Paths--Dangerous Locality--Great Waterfall--Start for Hunting--The Find--A Gallant Stag--"Bran" and "Lucifer"--"Phrenzy's" Death--Buck at Bay--The Cave Hunting-box--"Madcap's" Dive--Elk Soup--Former Inundation--"Bluebeard" leads off--"Hecate's" Course--The Elk's Leap--Variety of Deer--The Axis--Ceylon Bears--Variety of Vermin--Trials for Hounds--Hounds and their Masters--A Sportsman "shut up"--A Corporal and Centipede. From June to November the south-west monsoon brings wind and mist across the Newera Ellia mountains. Clouds of white fog boil up from the Dimboola valley like the steam from a huge cauldron, and invade the Newera Ellia plain through the gaps in the mountains to the westward. The wind howls over the high ridges, cutting the jungle with its keen edge, so that it remains as stunted brushwood, and the opaque screen of driving fog and drizzling rain is so dense that one feels convinced there is no sun visible within at least a hundred miles. There is a curious phenomenon, however, in this locality. When the weather described prevails at Newera Ellia, there is actually not one drop of rain within four miles of my house in the direction of Badulla. Dusty roads, a cloudless sky and dazzling sunshine astonish the thoroughly-soaked traveler, who rides out of the rain and mist into a genial climate, as though he passed through a curtain. The wet weather terminates at a mountain called Hackgalla (or more properly Yakkadagalla, or iron rock). This bold rock, whose summit is about six thousand five hundred feet above the sea, breasts the driving wind and seems to command the storm. The rushing clouds halt in their mad course upon its crest and curl in sudden impotence around the craggy summits. The deep ravine formed by an opposite mountain is filled with the vanquished mist, which sinks powerless in its dark gorge; and the bright sun, shining from the east, spreads a perpetual rainbow upon the gauze-like cloud of fog which settles in the deep hollow. This is exceedingly beautiful. The perfect circle of the rainbow stands like a fairy spell in the giddy depth of the hollow, and seems to forbid the advance of the monsoon. All before is bright and cloudless; the lovely panorama of the Ouva country spreads before the eye for many miles beneath the feet. All behind is dark and stormy; the wind is howling, the forests are groaning, the rain is pelting upon the hills. The change appears impossible; but there it is, ever the same; season after season, year after year, the rugged top of Hackgalla struggles with the storms, and ever victorious the cliffs smile in the sunshine on the eastern side; the rainbow reappears with the monsoon, and its vivid circle remains like the guardian spirit of the valley. It is impossible to do justice to the extraordinary appearance of this scene by description. The panoramic view in itself is celebrated; but as the point in the road is reached where the termination of the monsoon dissolves the cloud and rain into a thin veil of mist, the panorama seen through the gauze-like atmosphere has the exact appearance of a dissolving view; the depth, the height and distance of every object, all great in reality, are magnified by the dim and unnatural appearance; and by a few steps onward the veil gradually fades away, and the distant prospect lies before the eye with a glassy clearness made doubly striking by the sudden contrast. The road winds along about midway up the mountain, bounded on the right by the towering cliffs and sloping forest of Hackgalla, and on the left by the almost precipitous descent of nearly one thousand feet, the sides of which are clothed by alternate forest and waving grass. At the bottom flows a torrent, whose roar, ascending from the hidden depth, increases the gloomy mystery of the scene. On the north, east and south-east of Newera Ellia the sunshine is perpetual during the reign of the misty atmosphere, which the south-west monsoon drives upon the western side of the mountains. Thus, there is always an escape open from the wet season at Newera Ellia by a short walk of three or four miles. A long line of dark cloud is then seen, terminated by a bright blue sky. So abrupt is the line and the cessation of the rain that it is difficult to imagine how the moisture is absorbed. This sudden termination of the cloud-capped mountain gives rise to a violent wind in the sunny valleys and bare hills beneath. The chilled air of Newera Ellia pours down into the sun-warmed atmosphere below, and creates a gale that sweeps across the grassy hilltops with great force, giving the sturdy rhododendrons an inclination to the north-east which clearly marks the steadiness of the monsoon. It is not to be supposed, however, that Newera Ellia lies in unbroken gloom for months together. One month generally brings a share of uninterrupted bad weather; this is from the middle of June to the middle of July. This is the commencement of the south-west monsoon, which usually sets in with great violence. The remaining portion of what is called the wet season, till the end of November, is about as uncertain as the climate of England--some days fine, others wet, and every now and then a week of rain at one bout. A thoroughly saturated soil, with a cold wind, and driving rain and forests as full of water as sponges, are certain destroyers of scent; hence, hunting at Newera Ellia is out of the question during such weather. The hounds would get sadly out of condition, were it not for the fine weather in the vicinity which then invites a trip. I have frequently walked ten miles to my hunting grounds, starting before daybreak, and then after a good day's sport up and down the steep mountains, I have returned home in the evening. But this is twelve hours' work, and it is game thrown away, as there is no possibility of getting the dead elk home. An animal that weighs between four hundred and four hundred and fifty pounds without his insides, is not a very easy creature to move; at any time, especially in such a steep mountainous country as the neighborhood of Newera Ellia. As previously described, at the base of the mountains are cultivated rice-lands, generally known as paddy-fields, where numerous villages have sprung up from the facility with which a supply of water is obtained from the wild mountains above them. I have so frequently given the people elk and hogs which I have killed on the heights above their paddy-fields that they are always on the alert at the sound of the bugle, and a few blasts from the mountain-top immediately creates a race up from the villages, some two or three thousand feet below. Like vultures scenting carrion, they know that an elk is killed, and they start off to the well-known sound like a pack of trained hounds. Being thorough mountaineers, they are extraordinary fellows for climbing the steep grassy sides. With a light stick about six feet long in one hand, they will start from the base of the mountains and clamber up the hillsides in a surprisingly short space of time, such as would soon take the conceit out of a "would-be pedestrian." This is owing to the natural advantages of naked feet and no inexpressibles. Whenever an elk has given a long run in the direction of this country, and after a persevering and arduous chase of many hours, I have at length killed him on the grassy heights above the villages, I always take a delight in watching the tiny specks issuing from the green strips of paddy as the natives start off at the sound of the horn. At this altitude, it requires a sharp eye to discern a man, but at length they are seen scrambling up the ravines and gullies and breasting the sharp pitches, until at last the first man arrives thoroughly used up and a string of fellows of lesser wind come in, in sections, all thoroughly blown. However, the first man in never gets the lion's share, as the poor old men, with willing spirits and weak flesh, always bring up the rear, and I insist upon a fair division between the old and young, always giving an extra piece to a man who happens to know a little English. This is a sort of reward for acquirements, equivalent to a university degree, and he is considered a literary character by his fellows. There is nothing that these people appreciate so much as elk and hog's flesh. Living generally upon boiled rice and curry composed of pumpkins and sweet potatoes, they have no opportunities of tasting meat unless upon these occasions. During the very wet weather at Newera Ellia I sometimes take the pack and bivouac for a fortnight in the fine-weather country. About a week previous I send down word to the village people of my intention, but upon these occasions I never give them the elk. I always insist upon their bringing rice, etc., for the dogs and myself in exchange for venison, otherwise I should have some hundreds of noisy, idle vagabonds flocking up to me like carrion-crows. Of course I give them splendid bargains, as I barter simply on the principle that no man shall come for nothing. Thus, if a man assist in building the kennel, or carrying a load, or cutting bed-grass, or searching for lost hounds, he gets a share of meat. The others bring rice, coffee, fowls, eggs, plantains, vegetables, etc., which I take at ridiculous rates-a bushel of rice for a full-grown elk, etc., the latter being worth a couple of pounds and the rice about seven shillings. Thus the hounds keep themselves in rice and supply me with everything that I require during the trip, at the same time gratifying the natives. The direct route to this country was unknown to Europeans at Newera Ellia until I discovered it one day, accidentally, in following the hounds. A large tract of jungle-covered hill stretches away from the Moon Plains at Newera Ellia toward the east, forming a hog's back of about three and a half miles in length. Upon the north side this shelves into a deep gorge, at the bottom of which flows, or rather tumbles, Fort M'Donald river on its way to the low country, through forest-covered hills and perpendicular cliffs, until it reaches the precipitous patina mountains, when, in a succession of large cataracts, it reaches the paddy-fields in the first village of Peréwellé (guava paddy-field). Thus the river in the gorge below runs parallel to the long hog's back of mountain. This is bordered on the other side by another ravine and smaller torrent, to which the Badulla road runs parallel until it reaches the mountain of Hackgalla, at which place the ravine deepens into the misty gorge already described. At one time, if an elk crossed the Badulla road and gained the Hog's Back jungle, both he and the hounds were lost, as no one could follow through such impenetrable jungle without knowing either the distance or direction. "They are gone to Fort M'Donald river!" This was the despairing exclamation at all times when the pack crossed the road, and we seldom saw the hounds again until late that night or on the following day. Many never returned, and Fort M'Donald river became a by-word as a locality to be always dreaded. After a long run one day, the pack having gone off in this fatal direction, I was determined, at any price, to hunt them up, and accordingly I went some miles down the Badulla road to the limestone quarries, which are five miles from the Newera Ellia plain. From this point I left the road and struck down into the deep, grassy valley, crossing the river (the same which runs by the road higher up) and continuing along the side of the valley until I ascended the opposite range of hills. Descending the precipitous side, I at length reached the paddy-fields in the low country, which were watered by Fort M'Donald river, and I looked up to the lofty range formed by the Hog's Back hill, now about three thousand feet above me. Thus I had gained the opposite side of the Hog's Back, and, after a stiff pull lip the mountain, I returned home by a good path which I had formerly discovered along the course of the river through the forest to Newera Ellia, via Rest-and-be-Thankful Valley and the Barrack Plains, having made a circuit of about twenty-five miles and become thoroughly conversant with all the localities. I immediately determined to have a path cut from the Badulla Road across the Hog's Back jungle to the patinas which looked down upon Fort M'Donald on the other side and, up which I had ascended on my return. I judged the distance would not exceed two miles across, and I chose the point of junction with the Badulla road two miles and a half from my house. My reason for this was, that the elk invariably took to the jungle at this place, which proved it to be the easiest route. This road, on completion, answered every expectation, connecting the two sides of the Hog's Back by an excellent path of about two miles, and débouching on the opposite side on a high patina peak which commanded the whole country. Thus was the whole country opened up by this single path, and should an elk play his old trick and be off across the Hog's Back to Fort M'Donald river, I could be there nearly as soon as he could, and also keep within hearing of the bounds throughout the run. I was determined to take the tent and regularly hunt up the whole country on the other side of the Hog's Back, as the weather was very bad at Newera Ellia, while in this spot it was beautifully fine, although very windy. I therefore sent on the tent, kennel-troughs and pots, and all the paraphernalia indispensable for the jungle, and on the 31st May, 1852, I started, having two companions--Capt. Pelly, Thirty-seventh Regiment, who was then commandant of Newera Ellia, and his brother on a visit. It was not more than an hour and a half's good walking from my house to the high patina peak upon which I pitched the tent, but the country and climate are so totally distinct from anything at Newera Ellia that it gives every one the idea of being fifty miles away. We hewed out a spacious arbor at the edge of the jungle, and in this I had the tent pitched to protect it from the wind, which it did effectually, as well as the kennel, which was near the same spot. The servants made a good kitchen, and the encampment was soon complete. There never could have been a more romantic or beautiful spot for a bivouac. To the right lay the distant view of the low country, stretching into an undefined distance, until the land and sky appeared to melt together. Below, at a depth of about three thousand feet, the river boiled through the rocky gorge until it reached the village of Peréwellé at the base of the line of mountains, whose cultivated paddy-fields looked no larger than the squares upon a chess-board. On the opposite side of the river rose a precipitous and impassable mountain, even to a greater altitude than the facing ridge upon which I stood, forming as grand a foreground as the eye could desire. Above, below, around, there was the bellowing sound of heavy cataracts echoed upon all sides. Certainly this country is very magnificent, but it is an awful locality for hunting, as the elk has too great an advantage over both hounds and hunters. Mountainous patinas of the steepest inclination, broken here and there by abrupt precipices, and with occasional level platforms of waving grass, descend to the river's bed. These patina mountains are crowned by extensive forests, and narrow belts of jungle descend from the summit to the base, clothing the numerous ravines which furrow the mountain's side. Thus the entire surface of the mountains forms a series of rugged grasslands, so steep as to be ascended with the greatest difficulty, and the elk lie in the forests on the summits and also in the narrow belts which cover the ravines. The whole country forms a gorge, like a gigantic letter V. At the bottom roars the dreaded torrent, Fort M'Donald river, in a succession of foaming cataracts, all of which, however grand individually, are completely eclipsed by its last great plunge of three hundred feet perpendicular depth into a dark and narrow chasm of wall-bound cliffs. The bed of the river is the most frightful place that can be conceived, being choked by enormous fragments of rock, amidst which the irresistible torrent howls with a fury that it is impossible to describe. The river is confined on either side by rugged cliffs of gneiss rock, from which these fragments have from time to time become detached, and have accordingly fallen into the torrent, choking the bed and throwing the obstructed waters into frightful commotion. Here they lie piled one upon the other, like so many inverted cottages; here and there forming dripping caverns; now forming walls of slippery rock, over which the water falls in thundering volumes into pools black from their mysterious depth, and from which there is no visible means of exit. These dark and dangerous pools are walled in by hoary-looking rocks, beneath which the pent-up water dives and boils in subterranean caverns, until it at length escapes through secret channels, and reappears on the opposite side of its prison-walls; lashing itself into foam in its mad frenzy, it forms rapids of giddy velocity through the rocky bounds; now flying through a narrowed gorge, and leaping, striving and wrestling with unnumbered obstructions, it at length meets with the mighty fall, like death in a madman's course. One plunge! without a single shelf to break the fall, and down, down it sheets; at first like glass, then like the broken avalanche of snow, and lastly!--we cannot see more--the mist boils from the ruin of shattered waters and conceals the bottom of the fall. The roar vibrates like thunder in the rocky mountain, and forces the grandeur of the scene through every nerve. No animal or man, once in those mysterious pools, could ever escape without assistance. Thus in years post, when elk were not followed up in this locality, the poor beast, being hard pressed by the hounds, might have come to bay in one of these fatal basins, in which case, both he and every bound who entered the trap found sure destruction. The hard work and the danger to both man and bound in this country may be easily imagined when it is explained that the nature of the elk prompts him to seek for water as his place of refuge when hunted; thus he makes off down the mountain for the river, in which he stands at bay. Now the mountain itself is steep enough, but within a short distance of the bottom the river is in many places guarded by precipices of several hundred feet in depth. A few difficult passes alone give access to the torrent, but the descent requires great caution. Altogether, this forms the wildest and most arduous country that can be imagined for hunting, but it abounds with elk. The morning was barely gray when I woke up the servants and ordered coffee, and made the usual preparations for a start. At last, thank goodness! the boots are laced! This is the troublesome part of dressing before broad daylight, and nevertheless laced ankle-boots must be worn as a protection against sprains and bruises in such a country. Never mind the trouble of lacing them; they, are on now, and there is a good day's work in store for them. It was the 30th May, 1853, a lovely hunting morning and a fine dew on the patinas; rather too windy, but that could not be helped. Quiet now!--down, Bluebeard!--back, will you, Lucifer! Here's a smash! there goes the jungle kennel! the pack squeezing out of it in every direction as they hear the preparations for departure. Now we are all right; ten couple out, and all good ones. Come along, yo-o-i, along here! and a note on the horn brings the pack close together as we enter the forest on the very summit of the ridge. Thus the start was completed just as the first tinge of gold spread along the eastern horizon, about ten minutes before sunrise. The jungles were tolerably good, but there were not as many elk tracks as I had expected; probably the high wind on the ridge had driven them lower down for shelter; accordingly I struck an oblique direction downward, and I was not long before I discovered a fresh track; fresh enough, certainly, as the thick moss which covered the ground showed a distinct path where the animal had been recently feeding. Every hound had stolen away; even the greyhounds buried their noses in the broad track of the buck, so fresh was the scent; and I waited quietly for "the find." The greyhounds stood round me with their cars cocked and glistening eyes, intently listening for the expected sound. There they are! all together, such a burst! They must have stolen away mute and have found on the other side the ridge, for they were now coming down at full speed from the very summit of the mountain. From the amount of music I knew they had a good start, but I had no idea that the buck would stand to such a pack at the very commencement of the hunt. Nevertheless there was a sudden bay within a few hundred yards of me, and the elk had already turned to fight. I knew that he was an immense fellow from his track, and I at once saw that he would show fine sport. Just as I was running through the jungle toward the spot, the bay broke and the buck had evidently gone off straight away, as I heard the pack in full cry rapidly increasing their distance and going off down the mountain. Sharp following was now the order of the day, and away we went. The mountain was so steep that it was necessary every now and then to check the momentum of a rapid descent by clinging to the tough saplings. Sometimes one would give way and a considerable spill would be the consequence. However, I soon got out on the patina about one-third of the way down the mountain, and here I met one of the natives, who was well posted. Not a sound of the pack was now to be heard; but this man declared most positively that the elk had suddenly changed his course, and, instead of keeping down the hill, had struck off to his left along the side of the mountain. Accordingly, off I started as hard as I could go with several natives, who all agreed as to the direction. After running for about a mile along the patinas in the line which I judged the pack had taken, I heard one hound at bay in a narrow jungle high up on my left. It was only the halt of an instant, for the next moment I heard the same hound's voice evidently running on the other side of the strip of jungle, and taking off down the mountain straight for the dreaded river. Here was a day's work cut out as neatly as could be. Running toward the spot, I found the buck's track leading in that direction, and I gave two or three view halloos at the top of my voice to bring the rest of the pack down upon it. They were close at hand, but the high wind had prevented me from hearing them, and away they came from the jungle, rushing down upon the scent like a flock of birds. I stepped of the track to let them pass as they swept by, and "For-r-r-a-r-d to him! For-r--r-ard!" was the word the moment they had passed, as I gave them a halloo down the hill. It was a bad look-out for the elk now; every hound knew that his master was close up, and they went like demons. The "Tamby"[1] was the only man up, and he and I immediately followed in chase down the precipitous patinas; running when we could, scrambling, and sliding on our hams when it was too steep to stand, and keeping good hold of the long tufts of grass, lest we should gain too great an impetus and slide to the bottom. After about half a mile passed in this manner, I heard the bay, and I saw the buck far beneath, standing upon a level, grassy platform, within three hundred yards of the river. The whole pack was around him except the greyhounds, who were with me; but not a hound had a chance with him, and he repeatedly charged in among them, and regularly drove them before him, sending any single hound spinning whenever he came within his range. But the pack quickly reunited, and always returned with fresh vigor to the attack. There was a narrow, wooded ravine between me and them, and, with caution and speed combined, I made toward the spot down the precipitous mountain, followed by the greyhounds "Bran" and "Lucifer." I soon arrived on a level with the bay, and, plunging into the ravine, I swung myself down from tree to tree, and then climbed up the opposite side. I broke cover within a few yards of him. What a splendid fellow he looked! He was about thirteen hands high, and carried the most beautiful head of horns that I had ever seen upon an elk. His mane was bristled up, his nostril was distended, and, turning from the pack, he surveyed me, as though taking the measure of his new antagonist. Not seeming satisfied, he deliberately turned, and, descending from the level space, he carefully, picked his way. Down narrow elk-runs along the steep precipices, and, at a slow walk, with the whole pack in single file at his heels, he clambered down toward the river. I followed on his track over places which I would not pass in cold blood; and I shortly halted above a cataract of some eighty feet in depth, about a hundred paces from the great waterfall of three hundred feet. It was extremely grand; the roar of the falls so entirely hushed all other sounds that the voices of the hounds were perfectly inaudible, although within a few yards of me, as I looked down upon them from a rock that overhung the river. The elk stood upon the brink of the swollen torrent; he could not retreat, as the wall of rock was behind him, with the small step-like path by which he had descended; this was now occupied by the yelling pack. The hounds knew the danger of the place; but the buck, accustomed to these haunts from his birth, suddenly leapt across the boiling rapids, and springing from rock to rock along the verge of the cataract, he gained the opposite side. Here he had mistaken his landing-place, as a shelving rock, upon which he had alighted, was so steep that he could not retain his footing, and he gradually slid down toward the river. At this moment, to my horror, both "Bran" and "Lucifer" dashed across the torrent, and bounding from rock to rock, they sprung at the already tottering elk, and in another moment both he and they rolled over in a confused mass into the boiling torrent. One more instant and they reappeared, the buck gallantly stemming the current, which his great length of limb and weight enabled him to do; the dogs, overwhelmed in the foam of the rapids, were swept down toward the fall, in spite of their frantic exertions to gain the bank. They were not fifteen feet from the edge of the fall, and I saw them spun round and round in the whirlpools being hurried toward certain destruction. The poor dogs seemed aware of the danger, and made the most extraordinary efforts to avoid their fate. They were my two favorites of the pack, and I screamed out words of encouragement to them, although the voice of a cannon could not have been heard among the roar of waters. They had nearly gained the bank oil the very ver-e of the fall, when a few tufts of lemon grass concealed them from my view. I thought they were over, and I could not restrain a cry of despair at their horrible fate. I felt sick with the idea. But the next moment I was shouting hurrah! they are all right, thank goodness, they were saved. I saw them struggling up the steep bank, through the same lemon grass, which had for a moment obscured their fate. They were thoroughly exhausted and half drowned. In the mean time, the elk had manfully breasted the rapids, carefully choosing the shallow places; and the whole pack, being mad with excitement, had plunged into the waters regardless of the danger. I thought every hound would have been lost. For an instant they looked like a flock of ducks, but a few moments afterward they were scattered in the boiling eddies, hurrying with fatal speed toward the dreadful cataract. Poor "Phrenzy!" round she spun in the giddy vortex; nearer and nearer she approached the verge--her struggles were unavailing--over she went, and was of course never heard of afterward. This was a terrible style of hunting; rather too much so to be pleasant. I clambered down to the edge of the river just in time to see the elk climbing, as nimbly as a cat up the precipitous bank on the opposite side, threading his way at a slow walk under the overhanging rocks, and scrambling up the steep mountain with a long string of hounds at his heels in single file. "Valiant," "Tiptoe" and "Ploughboy" were close to him, and I counted the other hounds in the line, fully expecting to miss half of them. To my surprise and delight, only one was absent; this was poor "Phrenzy." The others had all managed to save themselves. I now crossed the river by leaping from rock to rock with some difficulty, and with hands and knees I climbed the opposite bank. This was about sixty feet high, from the top of which the mountain commenced its ascent, which, though very precipitous was so covered with long lemon grass that it was easy enough to climb. I looked behind me, and there was the Tamby, all right, within a few paces. The elk was no longer in sight, and the roar of the water was so great that it was impossible to hear the hounds. However, I determined to crawl along his track, which was plainly discernible, the high grass being broken into a regular lane which skirted the precipice of the great waterfall in the direction of the villages. We were now about a hundred feet above, and on one side of the great fall, looking into the deep chasm into which the river leapt, forming a cloud of mist below. The lemon grass was so high in tufts along the rocks that we could not see a foot before us, and we knew not whether the next step would land us on firm footing, or deposit us some hundred feet below. Clutching fast to the long grass, therefore, we crept carefully on for about a quarter of a mile, now climbing the face of the rocks, now descending by means of their irregular surfaces, but still stirring the dark gorge down which the river fell. At length, having left the fall some considerable distance behind us, the ear was somewhat relieved from the bewildering noise of water, and I distinctly heard the pack at bay not very far in advance. In another moment I saw the elk standing on a platform of rock about a hundred yards ahead, on a lower shelf of the mountain, and the whole pack at bay. This platform was the top of a cliff which overhung the deep gorge; the river flowing in the bottom after its great fall, and both the elk and hounds appeared to be in "a fix." The descent had been made to this point by leaping down places which he could not possibly reascend, and there was only one narrow outlet, which was covered by the hounds. Should he charge through the hounds to force this passage, half a dozen of them must be knocked over the precipice. However, I carefully descended, and soon reached the platform. This was not more than twenty feet square, and it looked down in the gorge of about three hundred feet. The first seventy of this depth were perpendicular, as the top of the rock overhung, after which the side of the cliff was marked by great fissures and natural steps formed by the detachment from time to time of masses of rock which had fallen into the river below. Bushes and rank grass filled the interstices of the rocks, and an old deserted water-course lay exactly beneath the platform, being cut and built out of the side of the cliff. It was a magnificent sight in such grand scenery to see the buck at bay when we arrived upon the platform. He was a dare-devil fellow, and feared neither hounds nor man, every now and then charging through the pack, and coming almost within reach of the Tamby's spear. It was a difficult thing to know how to kill him. I was afraid to go in at him, lest in his struggles he should drag the hounds over the precipice, and I would not cheer the seizers on for the same reason. Indeed, they seemed well aware of the danger, and every now and then retreated to me, as though to entice the elk to make a move to some better ground. However, the buck very soon decided the question. I made up my mind to halloo the hounds on, and to hamstring the elk, to prevent him from nearing the precipice: and, giving a shout, the pack rushed at him. Not a dog could touch him; he was too quick with his horns and fore feet. He made a dash into the pack, and then regained his position close to the verge of the precipice. He then turned his back to the hounds, looked down over the edge, and, to the astonishment of all, plunged into the abyss below! A dull crash sounded from beneath, and then nothing was heard but the roaring of the waters as before. The hounds looked over the edge and yelled with a mixture of fear and despair. Their game was gone! By making a circuit of about half a mile among these frightful precipices and gorges, we at length arrived at the foot of the cliff down which the buck had leapt. Here we of course found him lying dead, as he had broken most of his bones. He was in very fine condition; but it was impossible to move him from such a spot. I therefore cut off his head, as his antlers were the finest that I have ever killed before or since. To regain the tent, I had a pull for it, having to descend into the village of Peréwellé, and then to reascend the opposite mountain of three thousand feet; but even this I thought preferable to returning in cold blood by the dangerous route I had come. Tugging up such a mountain was no fun after a hard morning's work, and I resolved to move the encampment to a large cave, some eight hundred feet lower down the mountain. Accordingly, I struck the tent, and after breakfast we took up our quarters in a cavern worthy of Robin Hood. This had been formed by a couple of large rocks the size of a moderate house, which had been detached from the overhanging cliff above, and had fallen together. There was a smaller cavern within, which made a capital kennel; rather more substantial than the rickety building of yesterday. Some of the village people, hearing that the buck was killed and lying in the old water-course, went in a gang to cut him up. What was their surprise on reaching the spot to find the carcase removed! It had evidently been dragged along the water-course, as the trail was distinct in the high grass, and upon following it up, away went two fine leopards, bounding along the rocks to their adjacent cave. They had consumed a large portion of the flesh, but the villagers did not leave them much for another meal. Skin, hoofs, and in fact every vestige of an elk, is consumed by these people. For my own part, I do not think much of elk venison, unless it be very fit, which is rarely the case. It is at all times more like beef than any other meat, for which it is a very good substitute. The marrow-bones are the "bonne bouche," being peculiarly rich and delicate. Few animals can have a larger proportion of marrow than the elk, as the bones are more hollow than those of most quadrupeds. This cylindrical formation enables them to sustain the severe shocks in descending rough mountains at full speed. It is perfectly wonderful to see an animal of near six hundred pounds' weight bounding down a hillside, over rocks and ruts and every conceivable difficulty of ground, at a pace which will completely distance the best hound; and even at this desperate speed, the elk will never make a false step; sure-footed as a goat, he will still fly on through bogs, ravines, tangled jungles and rocky rivers, ever certain of his footing. The foregoing description of an elk-hunt will give the reader a good idea of the power of this animal in stemming rapids and climbing dangerous precipices; but even an elk is not proof against the dangers of Fort M'Donald river, an example of which we had on the following morning. The hounds found a doe who broke cover close to me in a small patina and made straight running for the river. She had no sooner reached it than I beard her cry out, and as she was closely followed I thought she was seized. However, the whole pack shortly returned, evidently thrown out, and I began to abuse them pretty roundly, thinking that they had lost their game in the river. So they had, but in an excusable manner; the poor doe had been washed down a rapid, and had broken her thigh. We found her dead under a hollow rock in the middle of the river. Here we had a fine exemplification of the danger of the mysterious pools. While I was opening the elk, with the pack all round me licking their lips in expectation, old "Madcap" was jostled by one of the greyhounds, and slipped into a basin among the rocks, which formed an edge of about two feet above the surface. The opposite side of the pool was hemmed in by rocks about six feet high, and the direction of the under-current was at once shown by poor old "Madcap" being swept up against this high wall of rock, where she remained paddling with all her might in an upright position. I saw the poor beast would be sucked under, and yet I could not save her. However, I did my best at the risk of falling in myself. I took off my handkerchief and made a slip-knot, and begging Pelly to lie down on the top of the rock, I took his hand while I clung to the face of the wall as I best could by a little ledge of about two inches' width. With great difficulty I succeeded in hooking the bitch's head in the slip-knot, but in my awkward position I could not use sufficient strength to draw her out. I could only support her head above the water, which I could distinctly feel was drawing her from me. Presently she gave a convulsive struggle, which freed her head from the loop, and in an instant she disappeared. I could not help going round the rock to see if her body should be washed out when the torrent reappeared, when, to my astonishment, up she popped all right, not being more than half drowned by her subterranean excursion, and we soon helped her safe ashore. Fortunately for her, the passage had been sufficiently large to pass her, although I have no doubt a man would have been held fast and drowned. There was so much water in the river that I determined to move from this locality as too dangerous for hunting. I therefore ordered the village people to assemble on the following morning to carry the loads and tent. In the mean time I sent for the dead elk. There could riot be a better place for a hunting-box than that cave. We soon had a glorious fire roaring round the kennel-pot, which, having been well scoured with sand and water, was to make the soup. Such soup!--shades of gourmands, if ye only smelt that cookery! The pot held six gallons, and the whole elk, except a few steaks, was cut up and alternately boiled down in sections. The flesh was then cut up small for the pack, the marrowbones reserved for "master," and the soup was then boiled until it had evaporated to the quantity required. A few green chilies, onions in slices fried, and a little lime-juice, salt, black pepper and mushroom ketchup, and--in fact, there is no rise thinking of it, as the soup is not to be had again. The fire crackled and blazed as the logs were heaped upon it as night grew near, and lit up all the nooks and corners of the old cave. Three beds in a row contained three sleepy mortals. The hounds snored and growled, and then snored again. The servants jabbered, chewed betel, spit, then jabbered a little more, and at last everything and everybody was fast asleep within the cave. The next morning we had an early breakfast and started, the village people marching off in good spirits with the loads. I was now en route for Bertram's patinas, which lay exactly over the mountain on the opposite side of the river. This being perpendicular, I was obliged to make a great circuit by keeping the old Newera Ellia path along the river for two or three miles, and then, turning off at right angles, I knew an old native trace over the ridge. Altogether, it was a round of about six miles, although the patinas were not a mile from the cave in a straight line. The path in fact terminates upon the high peak, exactly opposite the cave, looking down upon my hunting-ground of the day before, and on the other side the ridge lie Bertram's patinas. The extreme point of the ridge which I had now gained forms one end of a horse-shoe or amphitheatre; the other extremity is formed by a high mountain exactly opposite at about two miles' distance. The bend of the horse-shoe forms a circuit of about six miles, the rim of which is a wall of precipices and steep patina mountains, which are about six or seven hundred feet above the basin or the bottom of the amphitheatre. The tops of the mountains are covered with good open forest, and ribbon-like strips descend to the base. Now the base forms an uneven shelf of great extent, about two thousand feet above the villages. This shelf or valley appears to have suffered at some remote period from a terrible inundation. Landslips of great size and innumerable deep gorges and ravines furrow the bottom of the basin, until at length a principal fissure carries away the united streams to the paddy-fields below. The cause of this inundation is plain enough. The basin has been the receptacle for the drainage of an extensive surface of mountain. This drainage has been effected by innumerable small torrents, which have united in one general channel through the valley. The exit of this stream is through a narrow gorge, by which it descends to the low country. During the period of heavy rains a landslip has evidently choked up this passage, and the exit of the water being thus obstructed, the whole area of the valley has become a lake. The accumulated water has suddenly burst through the obstruction and swept everything before it. The elk are very fond of lying under the precipices in the strips of jungle already mentioned. When found, they are accordingly forced to take to the open country and come down to the basin below, as they cannot possibly ascend the mountain except by one or two remote deer-runs. Thus the whole hunt from the find to the death is generally in view. From every point of this beautiful locality there is a boundless and unbroken panorama of the low country. Unfortunately, although the weather was perfectly fine, it was the windy season, and a gale swept across the mountains that rendered ears of little use, as a hound's voice was annihilated in such a hurricane This was sadly against sport, as the main body of the pack would have no chance of joining the finding hound. However, the hounds were unkenneled at break of day, and, the tent being pitched at the bottom of the basin, we commenced a pull up the steep patinas, hoping to find somewhere on the edge of the jungles. "There's scent to a certainty!--look at old Bluebeard's nose upon the ground and the excited wagging of his stern. Ploughboy notices it--now Gaylass they'll hit it off presently to a certainty, though it's as cold as charity. That elk was feeding here early in the night; the scent is four hours old if a minute. There they go into the jungle, and we shall lose the elk, ten to one, as not another hound in the pack will work it up. It can't be helped; if any three hounds will rouse him out, those are the three." For a couple of hours we had sat behind a rock, sheltered from the wind, watching the immense prospect before us. The whole pack were lying around us except the three missing hounds, of whom we had seen nothing since they stole away upon the cold scent. That elk must have gone up to the top of the mountains after feeding, and a pretty run he must be having, very likely off to Matturatta plains; if so, good-bye to all sport for to-day, and the best hounds will be dead tired for to-morrow. I was just beginning to despair when I observed a fine large buck at about half a mile distance, cantering easily toward us across an extensive flat of table-land. This surface was a fine sward, on the same level with the point upon which we sat, but separated from us by two small wooded ravines, with a strip of patina between them. I at once surmised that this was the hunted elk, although, as yet, no hounds were visible. On arrival at the first ravine we immediately descended, and shortly after he reappeared on the small patina between the two ravines, within three hundred yards of us. Here the strong gale gave him our scent. It was a beautiful sight to see him halt in an instant, snuff the warning breeze and, drawing up to his full height, and wind the enemy before him. Just at this moment I heard old "Bluebeard's" deep note swelling in the distance, and I saw him leading across the table-land as true as gold upon the track; "Ploughboy" and "Gaylass" were both with him but they were running mute. The buck heard the hounds as well as we did, and I was afraid that the whole pack would also catch the sound, and by hurrying toward it, would head the elk him from his course. Up to the present time and turn they had not observed him. Still the buck stood in an attitude of acute suspense. He winded an enemy before him and he heard another behind, which was rapidly closing up, and, as though doubting his own power of scent, he gave preference to that of hearing, and gallantly continued his course and entered the second ravine just beneath our feet. I immediately jumped up, and, exciting the hounds in a subdued voice, I waved my cap at the spot, and directed a native to run at full speed to the jungle to endeavor to meet the elk, as I knew the hounds would then follow him. This they did; and they all entered the jungle with the man except the three greyhounds, "Lucifer," "Bran" and "Hecate," who remained with me. A short time passed in breathless suspense, during which the voices of the three following hounds rapidly approached as they steadily persevered in the long chase; when suddenly, as I had expected, the main body of the pack met the elk in the strip of jungle. Joyful must have been the burst of music to the ears of old "Bluebeard" after his long run. Out crashed the buck upon the patinas near the spot where the pack had entered, and away he went over the grassy hills at a pace which soon left the hounds behind. The greyhounds will stretch his legs for him. Yo-i-ck to him, Lucifer! For-r-r-ard to him, Hecate! Off dashed the three greyhounds from my side at a railway pace, but, as the buck was above them and had a start of about two hundred yards, in such an uphill race both Bran and Lucifer managed to lose sight of him in the undulations. Now was the time for Hecate's enormous power of loin and thigh to tell, and, never losing a moment's view of her game, she sped up the steep mountain side and was soon after seen within fifty yards of the brick all alone, but going like a rocket. Now she has turned him! that pace could not last up hill, and round the elk doubled and came flying down the mountain side. From the point of the hill upon which we stood we had a splendid view of the course; the bitch gained upon him at every bound, and there was a pitiless dash in her style of going that boded little mercy to her game. What alarmed me, however, was the direction that the buck was taking. An abrupt precipice of about two hundred and fifty feet was lying exactly in his path; this sunk sheer down to a lower series of grass-lands. At the tremendous pace at which they were going I feared lest their own impetus should carry both elk and dog to destruction before they could see the danger. Down they flew with unabated speed; they neared the precipice, and a few more seconds would bring them to the verge. The stride of the buck was no match for the bound of the greyhound: the bitch was at his flanks, and he pressed along at flying speed. He was close to the danger and it was still unseen: a moment more and "Hecate" sprang at his ear. Fortunately she lost her hold as the ear split. This check saved her. I shouted, "He'll be over!" and the next instant he was flying through the air to headlong destruction. Bounding from a projecting rock upon which he struck, he flew outward, and with frightfully increasing momentum he spun round and round in his descent, until the centrifugal motion drew out his legs and neck as straight as a line. A few seconds of this multiplying velocity and--crash! It was all over. The bitch had pulled up on the very brink of the precipice, but it was a narrow escape. Sportsmen are contradictory creatures. If that buck had come to bay, I should have known no better sport than going in at him with the knife to the assistance of the pack; but I now felt a great amount of compassion for the poor brute who had met so terrible a fate. It did not seem fair; and yet I would not have missed such a sight for anything. Nothing can be conceived more terribly grand than the rush of so large an animal through the air; and it was a curious circumstance that within a few days no less than two bucks had gone over precipices, although I had never witnessed one such an accident more than once before. Upon reaching the fatal spot, I, of course, found him lying stone dead. He had fallen at least two hundred and fifty feet to the base of the precipice; and the ground being covered with detached fragments of rock, he had broken most of his bones, beside bursting his paunch and smashing in the face. However, we cut him up and cleaned him, and, with the native followers heavily laden, we reached the tent. The following morning I killed another fine buck after a good run on the patinas, where he was coursed and pulled down by the greyhounds; but the wind was so very high that it destroyed the pleasure of hunting. I therefore determined on another move--to the Matturatta Plains, within three miles of my present hunting ground. After hunting four days at the Matturatta Plains, I moved on to the Elephant Plains, and from thence returned home after twelve days' absence, having killed twelve elk and two red deer. The animal known as the "red deer" in Ceylon is a very different creature to his splendid namesake in Scotland; he is particularly unlike a deer in the disproportionate size of his carcase to his length of leg. He stands about twenty-six inches high at the shoulder and weighs (live weight) from forty-five to fifty pounds. He has two sharp tusks in the upper jaw, projecting about an inch and a half from the gum. These are exactly like the lower-jaw tusks of a boar, but they incline in the contrary direction, viz., downward, and they are used as weapons of defence. The horns of the red deer seldom exceed eight inches in length, and have no more than two points upon each antler, formed by a fork-like termination. This kind of deer has no brow antler. They are very fast, and excel especially in going up hill, in which ground they frequently escape from the best grey-hounds. There is no doubt that the red-deer venison is the best in Ceylon, but the animal itself is not generally sought after for sport. He gives a most uninteresting run; never going straight away like a deer, but doubling about over fifty acres of ground like a hare, until he is at last run into and killed. They exist in extraordinary numbers throughout every portion of Ceylon, but are never seen in herds. Next to the red deer is the still more tiny species, the "mouse deer." This animal seldom exceeds twelve inches in height, and has the same characteristic as the red deer in the heavy proportion of body to its small length of limb. The skin is a mottled ash-gray, covered with dark spots. The upper jaw is furnished with sharp tusks similar to the red deer, but the head is free from horns. The skull is perfectly unlike the head of a deer, and is closely allied to the rat, which it would exactly resemble, were it not for the difference in the teeth. The mouse deer lives principally upon berries and fruits; but I have seldom found much herbage upon examination of the paunch. Some people consider the flesh very good, but my ideas perhaps give it a "ratty" flavor that makes it unpalatable. These little deer make for some well-known retreat the moment that they are disturbed by dogs, and they are usually found after a short run safely ensconced in a hollow tree. It is a very singular thing that none of the deer tribe in Ceylon have more than six points on their horns, viz., three upon each. These are, the brow-antler point, and the two points which form the extremity of each horn. I have seen them occasionally with more, but these were deformities in the antlers. A stranger is always disappointed in a Ceylon elk's antlers; and very naturally, for they are quite out of proportion to the great size of the animal. A very large Scotch red deer in not more than two-thirds the size of a moderately fine elk, and yet he carries a head of horns that are infinitely larger. In fact, so rare are fine antlers in Ceylon that I could not pick out more than a dozen of really handsome elk horns out of the great numbers that I have killed. A handsome pair of antlers is a grand addition to the beauty of a fine buck, and gives a majesty to his bearing which is greatly missed when a fine animal breaks cover with only a puny pair of horns. There is as great a difference in his appearance as there would be in a life-guardsman in full uniform or in his shirt. The antlers of the axis, or spotted deer, are generally longer than those of the elk; they are also more slender and graceful. Altogether, the spotted deer is about the handsomest of that beautiful tribe. A fine spotted stag is the perfection of elegance, color, strength, courage and speed. He has a proud and thorough-bred way of carrying his head, which is set upon his neck with a peculiar grace. Nothing can surpass the beauty of his full black eye. His hide is as sleek as satin--a rich brown, slightly tinged with red, and spotted as though mottled with flakes of snow. His weight is about two hundred and fifty pounds (alive). It is a difficult thing to judge of a deer's weight with any great accuracy; but I do not think I am far out in my estimation of the average, as I once tried the experiment by weighing a dead elk. I had always considered that a mountain elk, which is smaller than those of the low country, weighed about four hundred pounds when cleaned, or five hundred and fifty pounds live weight. I happened one day to kill an average-sized buck, though with very small horns, close to the road; so, having cleaned him, I sent a cart for his carcase on my return home. This elk I weighed whole, minus his inside, and he was four hundred and eleven pounds. Many hours had elapsed since his death, so that the carcase must have lost much weight by drying; this, with the loss of blood and offal, must have been at least one hundred and fifty pounds, which would have made his live weight five hundred and sixty-one pounds. Of the five different species of deer in Ceylon, the spotted deer is alone seen upon the plains. No climate can be too hot for his exotic constitution, and he is never found at a higher elevation than three thousand feet. In the low country, when the midday sun has driven every other beast to the shelter of the densest jungles, the sultan of the herd and his lovely mates are sometimes contented with the shade of an isolated tree or the simple border of the jungle, where they drowsily pass the day, flipping their long ears in listless idleness until the hotter hours have passed away. At about four in the afternoon they stroll upon the open plains, bucks, does and fawns, in beautiful herds; when undisturbed, as many as a hundred together. This is the only species of deer in Ceylon that is gregarious. Neither the spotted deer, nor the bear or buffalo, is to be found at Newera Ellia. The axis and the buffalo being the usual denizens of the hottest countries, are not to be expected to exist in their natural state in so low a temperature; but it is extraordinary that the bear, who in most countries inhibits the mountains, should in Ceylon adhere exclusively to the low country. The Ceylon bear is of that species which is to be seen in the Zoological Gardens as the "sloth bear;" an ill-bred-looking fellow with a long-haired black coat and a gray face. A Ceylon bear's skin is not worth preserving; there is no fur upon it, but it simply consists of rather a stingy allowance of black hairs. This is the natural effect of his perpetual residence in a hot country, where his coat adapts itself to the climate. He is desperately savage, and is more feared by the natives than any other animal, as he is in the constant habit of attacking people without the slightest provocation. His mode of attack increases the danger, as there is a great want of fair play in his method of fighting. Lying in wait, either behind a rock or in a thick bush, he makes a sudden spring upon the unwary wanderer, and in a moment he attacks his face with teeth and claws. The latter are about two inches long, and the former are much larger than a leopard's; hence it may easily be imagined how even a few seconds of biting and clawing might alter the most handsome expression of countenance. Bears have frequently been known to tear off a man's face like a mask, leaving nothing but the face of a skull. Thus the quadrupeds of Newera Ellia and the adjacent highlands are confined to the following classes: the elephant, the hog, the leopard, the chetah, the elk, the red deer, the mouse deer, the hare, the otter, the jackal, the civet cat, the mongoose and two others (varieties of the species), the black squirrel, the gray squirrel, the wanderoo monkey (the largest species in Ceylon), the porcupine, and a great variety of the rat. Imagine the difficulty of breaking in a young hound for elk-hunting when the jungles are swarming with such a list of vermin! The better the pup the more he will persevere in hunting everything that he can possibly find; and with such a variety of animals, some of which have the most enticing scent, it is a source of endless trouble in teaching a young hound what to limit and what to avoid. It is curious to witness the sagacity of the old hounds in joining or despising the opening note of a newcomer. The jungles are fearfully thick, and it requires great exertion on the part of the dog to force his way through at a pace that will enable him to join the finding hound; thus he fears considerable disappointment if upon his arrival he finds the scent of a monkey or a cat instead of his legitimate game. An old hound soon marks the inexperienced voice of the babbler, and after the cry of "wolf" has been again repeated, nothing will induce him to join the false finder. Again, it is exceedingly interesting to observe the quickness of all hounds in acknowledging their leader. Only let them catch the sound of old "Bluebeard's" voice, and see the dash with which they rush through the jungle to join him. They know the old fellows note is true to an elk or hog, and, with implicit confidence in his "find," they never hesitate to join. There are numerous obstacles to the breaking and training of dogs of all kinds in such a country. A hound when once in the jungle is his own master. He obeys the sound of the halloo or the born, or not, as he thinks proper. It is impossible to correct him, as he is out of sight. Now, the very fact of having one or two first-rate finders in a pack, will very likely be the cause of spoiling the other hounds. After repeated experience their instinct soon shows them that, no matter how the whole pack may individually hunt, the "find" will be achieved by one of the first-rate hounds, and gradually they give up hunting and take to listening for the opening note of the favorite. Of course in an open country they would be kept to their work by the whip, but at Newera Ellia this is impossible. This accounts for the extreme paucity of first-rate "finders." Hunting in a wild country is a far more difficult task for hounds than the ordinary chase at home. Wherever a country is cultivated it must be enclosed. Thus, should a flock of sheep have thrown the hounds out by crossing the scent, a cast round the fences must soon hit it off again if the fox has left the field. But in elk-hunting it is scarcely possible to assist the hounds; a dozen different animals, or even a disturbed elk, may cross the scent in parts of the jungle where the cry of the hounds is even out of hearing. Again, an elk has a constant habit of running or swimming down a river, his instinct prompting him to drown his own scent, and thus throw off his pursuers. Here is a trial for the hounds!--the elk has waded or swum down the stream, and the baffled pack arrive upon the bank; their cheering music has ceased; the elk has kept the water for perhaps a quarter of a mile, or he may have landed several times during that distance and again have taken to water. Now the young hounds dash thoughtlessly across the river, thinking of nothing but a straight course, and they are thrown out on the barren bank on the other side. Back they come again, wind about the last track for a few minutes, and then they are forced to give it up--they are thrown out altogether. Mark the staunch old hounds!--one has crossed the river; there is no scent, but he strikes down the bank with his nose close to the ground, and away he goes along the edge of the river casting for a scent. Now mark old "Bluebeard," swimming steadily down the stream; he knows the habits of his game as well as I do, and two to one that he will find, although "Ploughboy" has just started along the near bank so that both sides of the river are being hunted. Now this is what I call difficult hunting; bad enough if the huntsman be up to assist his hounds, but nine times out of ten this happens in the middle of a run, without a soul within a mile. The only way to train hounds in this style of country is to accustom them to complete obedience from puppyhood. This is easily effected by taking them out for exercise upon a road coupled to old hounds. A good walk every morning, accompanied by the horn and the whip, and they soon fall into such a habit of obedience that they may be taken out without the couples. The great desideratum, then, is to gain their affection and confidence, otherwise they will obey upon the road and laugh at you when in the jungle. Now "affection" is a difficult feeling to instill into a foxhound, and can only be partially attained by the exercise of cupboard love; thus a few pieces of dry liver or bread, kept in the pocket to be given to a young hound who has sharply answered to his call, will do more good than a month of scolding and rating. "Confidence," or the want of it, in a hound depends entirely upon the character of his master. There is an old adage of "like master, like man;" and this is strongly displayed in the hound. The very best seizer would be spoiled if his master were a leetle slow in going in with the knife; and, on the other hand, dogs naturally shy of danger turn into good seizers where their master invariably leads them in. Not only is their confidence required and gained at these times, but they learn to place implicit reliance upon their master's knowledge of hunting, in the same manner that they acknowledge the superiority of a particular hound. This induces them to obey beyond any method of training, as they feel a certain dependence upon the man, and they answer his halloo or the horn without a moment's hesitation. Nothing is so likely to destroy the character of a pack as a certain amount of laziness or incapacity upon the master's part in following them up. This is natural enough, as the best hounds, if repeatedly left unassisted for hours when at bay with their game until they are regularly beaten off, will lose their relish for the sport. On the other hand, perseverance on the huntsman part will ensure a corresponding amount in the hounds; they will become so accustomed to the certain appearance of their master at the bay at some time or other that they will stick to their game till night. I have frequently killed elk at two or three o'clock in the afternoon that have been found at six in the morning. Sometimes I have killed them even later than this when, after wandering fruitlessly the whole day in every direction but the right one, my ears have at length been gladdened by the distant sound of the bay. The particular moment when hope and certainty combined reward the day's toil is the very quintessence of joy and delight. Nothing in the shape of enjoyment can come near it. What a strange power has that helpless-looking mass--the brain! One moment, and the limbs are fagged, the shins are tender with breaking all day through the densest jungles, the feet are worn with unrequited labor and--hark! The bay! no doubt of it--the bay! There is the magic spell which, acting on the brain, flies through every nerve. New legs, new feet, new everything, in a moment! fresh as though just out of bed; here we go tearing through the jungle like a buffalo, and as happy as though we had just come in for a fortune--happier, a great deal. Nevertheless, elk-hunting is not a general taste, as people have not opportunities of enjoying it constantly. Accordingly, they are out of condition, and soon be, come distressed and of necessity "shut up" (a vulgar but expressive term). This must be fine fun for a total stranger rather inclined to corpulency, who has dauntlessly persevered in keeping up with the huntsman, although at some personal inconvenience. There is a limit to all endurance, and he is obliged to stop, quite blown, completely done. He loses all sounds of hounds and huntsman, and everything connected with the hunt. Where is he? How horrible the idea that flashes across his mind! he has no idea where he is, except that he is quite certain that he is in some jungle in Ceylon. Distraction! Ceylon is nearly all jungle, two hundred and eighty miles long and he is in this--somewhere He tries to recollect by what route he has come; impossible! He has been up one mountain, and then he turned to the right, and got into a ravine; he recollects the ravine, for he fell on his head with the end of a dead stick in his stomach just as he got to the bottom; he forgets every other part of his route, simply having an idea that he went down a great many ravines and up a number of hills, and turned to the right and left several times. He gives it up; he finds himself "lost," and, if he is sensible, he will sit down and wait till some one comes to look for him, when he will start with joy at the glad sound of the horn. But should he attempt to find his way alone through those pathless jungles, he will only increase his distance from the right course. One great peculiarity in Newera Ellia is the comparative freedom from poisonous vermin. There are three varieties of snakes, only one of which is hurtful, and all are very minute. The venomous species is the "carrawellé," whose bite is generally fatal; but this snake is not often met with. There are no ticks, nor bugs, nor leeches, nor scorpions, nor white ants, nor wasps, nor mosquitoes; in fact, there is nothing venomous except the snake alluded to, and a small species of centipede. Fleas there are certainly--indeed, a fair sprinkling of fleas; but they are not troublesome, except in houses which are unoccupied during a portion of the year. This is a great peculiarity of a Ceylon flea--he is a great colonist; and should a house be untenanted for a few months, so sure will it swarm with these "settlers." Even a grass hut built for a night's bivouac in the jungle, without a flea in the neighborhood, will literally swarm with them if deserted for a couple of months. Fleas have a great fancy for settling upon anything white; thus a person with white trowsers will be blackened with them, while a man in darker colors will be comparatively free. I at first supposed that they appeared in larger numbers on the white ground because they were more easily distinguished; but I tried the experiment of putting a sheet of writing-paper and a piece of brown talipot leaf in the midst of fleas; the paper was covered with them, while only two or three were on the talipot. The bite of the small species of centipede alluded to is not very severe, being about equivalent to a wasp's sting. I have been bitten myself, and I have seen another person suffering from the bite, which was ludicrous enough. The sufferer was Corporal Phinn, of H.M. Fifteenth Regiment. At that time he was one of Lieutenant de Montenach's servants, and accompanied his master on a hunting-trip to the Horton Plains. Now Phinn was of course an Irishman; an excellent fellow, a dead hand at tramping a bog and killing a snipe, but (without the slightest intention of impugning his veracity) Phinn's ideality was largely developed. He was never by himself for five minutes in the jungle without having seen something wonderful before his return; this he was sure to relate in a rich brogue with great facetiousness. However, we had just finished dinner one night, and Phinn had then taken his master's vacant place (there being only one room) to commence his own meal, when up he jumped like a madman, spluttering the food out of his mouth, and shouting and skipping about the room with both hands clutched tightly to the hinder part of his inexpressibles. "Oh, by Jasus! help, sir, help! I've a reptile or some divil up my breeches! Oh! bad luck to him, he's biting me! Oh! oh! it's sure a sarpint that's stinging me! quick, sir, or he'll be the death o' me!" Phinn was frantic, and upon lowering his inexpressibles we found the centipede about four inches long which had bitten him. A little brandy rubbed on the part soon relieved the pain. [1] An exceedingly active Moorman, who was my great ally in hunting. CHAPTER VIII. Observations on Nature in the Tropics--The Dung Beetle--The Mason-fly--Spiders--Luminous Insects--Efforts of a Naturalist--Dogs Worried by Leeches--Tropical Diseases--Malaria--Causes of Infection--Disappearance of the "Mina"--Poisonous Water--Well-digging Elephants. How little can the inhabitant of a cold or temperate climate appreciate the vast amount of "life" in a tropical country. The combined action of light, heat and moisture calls into existence myriads of creeping things, the offspring of the decay of vegetation. "Life" appears to emanate from "death"--the destruction of one material seems to multify the existence of another--the whole surface of the earth seems busied in one vast system of giving birth. An animal dies--a solitary beast--and before his unit life has vanished for one week, bow many millions of living creatures owe their birth to his death? What countless swarms of insects have risen from that one carcase!--creatures which never could have been brought into existence were it not for the presence of one dead body which has received and hatched the deposited eggs of millions that otherwise would have remained unvivified. Not a tree falls, not a withered flower droops to the ground, not a fruit drops from the exhausted bough, but it is instantly attacked by the class of insect prepared by Nature for its destruction. The white ant scans a lofty tree whose iron-like timber and giant stem would seem to mock at his puny efforts; but it is rotten at the core and not a leaf adorns its branches, and in less than a year it will have fallen to the earth a mere shell; the whole of the wood will have been devoured. Rottenness of all kinds is soon carried from the face of the land by the wise arrangements of Nature for preserving the world from plagues and diseases, which the decaying and unconsumed bodies of animals and vegetables would otherwise engender. How beautiful are all the laws of Nature! how perfect in their details! Allow that the great duty of the insect tribe is to cleanse the earth and atmosphere from countless impurities noxious to the human race, how great a plague would our benefactors themselves become were it not for the various classes of carnivorous insects who prey upon them, and are in their turn the prey of others! It is a grand principle of continual strife, which keeps all and each down to their required level. What a feast for an observant mind is thus afforded in a tropical country! The variety and the multitude of living things are so great that a person of only ordinary observation cannot help acquiring a tolerable knowledge of the habits of some of the most interesting classes. In the common routine of daily life they are continually in his view, and even should he have no taste for the study of Nature and her productions, still one prevailing characteristic of the insect tribe must impress itself upon his mind. It is the natural instinct not simply of procreating their species, but of laying by a provision for their expected offspring. What a lesson to mankind! what an example to the nurtured mind of mail from one of the lowest classes of living things! Here we see no rash matrimonial engagements; no penniless lovers selfishly and indissolubly linked together to propagate large families Of starving children. Ail the arrangements of the insect tribe, though prompted by sheer instinct are conducted with a degree of rationality that in some cases raises the mere instinct of the creeping thing above the assumed "reason" of man. The bird builds her nest and carefully provides for the comfort of her young long ere she lays her fragile egg. Even look at that vulgar-looking beetle, whose coarse form would banish the idea of any rational feeling existing in its brain--the Billingsgate fish-woman of its tribe in coarseness and rudeness of exterior (Scarabaeus carnifex)--see with what quickness she is running backward, raised almost upon her head, while with her bind legs she trundles a large ball; herself no bigger than a nutmeg, the ball is four times the size. There she goes along the smooth road. The ball she has just manufactured from some fresh-dropped horse-dung; it is as round as though turned by a lathe, and, although the dung has not lain an hour upon the ground, she and her confederates have portioned out the spoil, and each has started off with her separate ball. Not a particle of horsedung remains upon the road. Now she has rolled the ball away from the hard road, and upon the soft, sandy border she has stopped to rest. No great amount of rest; she plunges her head into the ground, and with that shovel-like projection of stout horn she mines her way below: she has disappeared even in these few seconds. Presently the apparently deserted ball begins to move, as though acted on by some subterranean force; gradually it sinks to the earth, and it vanishes altogether. Some persons might imagine that she feeds upon the ordure, and that she has buried her store as a dog hides a bone; but this is not the case; she has formed a receptacle for her eggs, which she deposits in the ball of dung, the warmth of which assists in bringing the larvae into life, which then feed upon the manure. It is wonderful to observe with what rapidity all kinds of dung are removed by these beetles. This is effected by the active process of rolling the loads instead of carrying, by which method a large mass is transported at once. The mason-fly is also a ball-maker, but she carries her load and builds an elaborate nest. This insect belongs to the order "Hymenoptera," and is of the Ichneumon tribe, being a variety of upward of four hundred species of that interesting fly. The whole tribe of Ichneumon are celebrated for their courage; a small fly will not hesitate to attack the largest cockroach, who evinces the greatest terror at sight of his well-known enemy; but the greatest proof of valor in a fly is displayed in the war of the ichneumon against the spider. There is a great variety of this insect in Ceylon, from the large black species, the size of the hornet down to the minute tinsel-green fly, no bigger than a gnat; but every one of these different species wages perpetual war against the arch enemy of flies. In very dry weather in some districts, when most pools and water-holes are dried up, a pail of water thrown upon the ground will as assuredly attract a host of mason-flies as carrion will bring together "blow-flies." They will be then seen in excessive activity upon the wet earth, forming balls of mud, by rolling the earth between their fore feet until they have manufactured each a pill. With this they fly away to build their nest, and immediately return for a further supply. The arrangement of the nest is a matter of much consideration, as the shape depends entirely upon the locality in which it is built: it may be in the corner of a room, or in a hole in a wall, or in the hollow of a bamboo; but wherever it is, the principle is the same, although the shape of the nest may vary. Everything is to be hermetically sealed. The mason-fly commences by flattening the first pill of clay upon the intended site (say the corner of a room); she then spreads it in a thin layer over a surface of about two inches, and retires for another ball of clay. This she dabs upon the plastic foundation, and continues the apparently rude operation until some twenty or thirty pills of clay are adhering at equal distances. She then forms these into a number of neat oval-shaped cells, about the size of a wren's egg, and in each cell she deposits one egg. She then flies off in search of spiders, which are to be laid tip in stores within the cells as food for the young larvae, when hatched. Now the transition from the larva to the fly takes place in the cell, and occupies about six weeks from the time the egg is first laid; thus, as the egg itself is not vivified for some weeks after it is deposited, the spiders have to be preserved in a sound and fresh state during that interval until the larva is in such an advanced stage as to require food. In a tropical country every one knows that a very few hours occasion the putrefaction of all dead animal substances; nevertheless these spiders are to be kept fresh and good, like our tins of preserved meats, to be eaten when required. One, two, or even three spiders, according to their size, the mason-fly deposits in each cell, and then closes it hermetically with clay. The spiders she has pounced upon while sunning themselves in the centre of their delicate nets, and they are hurried off in a panic to be converted into preserved provisions. Each cell being closed, the whole nest is cemented over with a thick covering of clay. In due time the young family hatch, eat their allowance of spiders, undergo their torpid change, and emerge from their clay mansion complete mason-flies. Every variety of Ichneumon, however (in Ceylon), chooses the spider as the food for its young. It is not at all uncommon to find a gun well loaded with spiders, clay and grubs, some mason-fly having chosen the barrel for his location. A bunch of keys will invite a settlement of one of the smaller species, who make its nest in the tube of a key, which it also fills with minute spiders. In attacking the spider, the mason-fly his a choice of his antagonist, and he takes good care to have a preponderance of weight on his own side. His reason for choosing this in preference to other insects for a preserved store may be that the spider is naturally juicy, plump and compact, combining advantages both for keeping and packing closely. There are great varieties of spiders in Ceylon, one of which is of such enormous size as to resemble the Aranea avicularia of America. This species stands on an area of about three inches, and never spins a web, but wanders about and lives in holes; his length of limb, breadth of thorax and powerful jaws give him a most formidable appearance. There is another species of a large-sized spider who spins a web of about two and a half feet in diameter. This is composed of a strong, yellow, silky fibre, and so powerful is the texture that a moderate-sized walking-cane thrown into the web will be retained by it. This spider is about two inches long, the color black, with a large yellow spot upon the back, and the body nearly free from hair. Some years ago an experiment was made in France of substituting the thread of the spider for the silk of the silkworm: several pairs of stockings and various articles were manufactured with tolerable success in this new material, but the fibre was generally considered as too fragile. A sample of such thread as is spun by the spider described could not have failed to produce the desired result, as its strength is so great that it can be wound upon a card without the slightest care required in the operation. The texture is far more silky than the fibre commonly produced by spiders, which has more generally the character of cotton than of silk. Should this ever be experimented on, a question might arise of much interest to entomologists, whether a difference in the food of the spider would affect the quality of the thread, as is well known to be the case with the common silkworm. A Ceylon night after a heavy shower of rain is a brilliant sight, when the whole atmosphere is teeming with moving lights bright as the stars themselves, waving around the tree-tops in fiery circles, now threading like distant lamps through the intricate branches and lighting up the dark recesses of the foliage, then rushing like a shower of sparks around the glittering boughs. Myriads of bright fire-flies in these wild dances meet their destiny, being entangled in opposing spiders' webs, where they hang like fairy lamps, their own light directing the path of the destroyer and assisting in their destruction. There are many varieties of luminous insects in Ceylon. That which affords the greatest volume of light is a large white grub about two inches in length, This is a fat, sluggish animal, whose light is far more brilliant than could be supposed to emanate from such a form. The light of a common fire-fly will enable a person to distinguish the hour on a dial in a dark night, but the glow from the grub described will render the smallest print so legible that a page may be read with case. I once tried the experiment of killing the grub, but the light was not extinguished with life, and by opening the tail, I squeezed out a quantity of glutinous fluid, which was so highly phosphorescent that it brilliantly illumined the page of a book which I had been reading by its light for a trial. All phosphorescent substances require friction to produce their full volume of light; this is exemplified at sea during a calm tropical night, when the ocean sleeps in utter darkness and quietude and not a ripple disturbs the broad surface of the water. Then the prow of the advancing steamer cuts through the dreary waste of darkness and awakens into fiery life the spray which dashes from her sides. A broad stream of light illumines the sea in her wake, and she appears to plough up fire in her rush through the darkened water. The simple friction of the moving mass agitates the millions of luminous animalcules contained in the water; in the same manner a fish darting through the sea is distinctly seen by the fiery course which is created by his own velocity. All luminous insects are provided with a certain amount of phosphorescent fluid, which can be set in action at pleasure by the agitation of a number of nerves and muscles situated in the region of the fluid and especially adapted to that purpose. It is a common belief that the light of the glow-worm is used as a lamp of love to assist in nocturnal meetings, but there can be little doubt that the insect makes use of its natural brilliancy without any specific intention. It is as natural for the fire-fly to glitter by night as for the colored butterfly to be gaudy by day. The variety of beautiful and interesting insects is so great in Ceylon that an entomologist would consider it a temporary elysium; neither would he have much trouble in collecting a host of different species who will exhibit themselves without the necessity of a laborious search. Thus, while he may be engaged in pinning out some rare specimen, a thousand minute eye-flies will be dancing so close to his eyeballs that seeing is out of the question. These little creatures, which are no larger than pin's heads, are among the greatest plagues in some parts of the jungle; and what increases the annoyance is the knowledge of the fact that they dance almost into your eyes out of sheer vanity. They are simply admiring their own reflection in the mirror of the eye; or, may be, some mistake their own reflected forms for other flies performing the part of a "vis-à-vis" in their unwearying quadrille. A cigar is a specific against these small plagues, and we will allow that the patient entomologist has just succeeded in putting them to flight and has resumed the occupation of setting out his specimen. Ha! see him spring out of his chair as though electrified. Watch how, regardless of the laws of buttons, he frantically tears his trowsers from his limbs; he has him! no he hasn't!--yes he has!--no--no, positively he cannot get him off. It is a tick no bigger than a grain of sand, but his bite is like a red-hot needle boring into the skin. If all the royal family had been present, he could not have refrained from tearing off his trowsers. The naturalist has been out the whole morning collecting, and a pretty collection he has got--a perfect fortune upon his legs alone. There are about a hundred ticks who have not yet commenced to feed upon him; there are also several fine specimens of the large flat buffalo tick; three or four leeches are enjoying themselves on the juices of the naturalist; these he had not felt, although they had bitten him half an hour before; a fine black ant has also escaped during the recent confusion, fortunately without using his sting. Oil is the only means of loosening the hold of a tick; this suffocates him and he dies; but he leaves an amount of inflammation in the wound which is perfectly surprising in so minute an insect. The bite of the smallest species is far more severe than that of the large buffalo or the deer tick, both of which are varieties. Although the leeches in Ceylon are excessively annoying, and numerous among the dead leaves of the jungle and the high grass, they are easily guarded against by means of leech-gaiters: these are wide stockings, made of drill or some other light and close material, which are drawn over the foot and trowsers up to the knee, under which they are securely tied. There are three varieties of the leech: the small jungle leech, the common leech and the stone leech. The latter will frequently creep up the nostrils of a dog while he is drinking in a stream, and, unlike the other species, it does not drop off when satiated, but continues to live in the dog's nostril. I have known a leech of this kind to have lived more than two months in the nose of one of my hounds; he was so high up that I could only see his tail occasionally when lie relaxed to his full length, and injections of salt and water had no effect on him. Thus I could not relieve the dog till one day when the leech descended, and I observed the tail working in and out of the nostril; I then extracted him in the usual way with the finger and thumb and the tail of the coat. I should be trespassing too much upon the province of the naturalist, and attempting more than I could accomplish, were I to enter into the details of the entomology of Ceylon; I have simply mentioned a few of those insects most common to the every-day observer, and I leave the description of the endless varieties of classes to those who make entomology a study. It may no doubt appear very enticing to the lovers of such things, to hear of the gorgeous colors and prodigious size of butterflies, moths and beetles; the varieties of reptiles, the flying foxes, the gigantic crocodiles; the countless species of waterfowl, et hoc genus omne; but one very serious fact is apt to escape the observation of the general reader, that wherever insect and reptile life is most abundant, so sure is that locality full of malaria and disease. Ceylon does not descend to second-class diseases: there is no such thing as influenza; whooping-cough, measles, scarlatina, etc., are rarely, if ever, heard of; we ring the changes upon four first-class ailments--four scourges, which alternately ascend to the throne of pestilence and annually reduce the circle of our friends--cholera, dysentery, small-pox and fever. This year (1854) there has been some dispute as to the routine of succession; they have accordingly all raged at one time. The cause of infection in disease has long been a subject of controversy among medical men, but there can be little doubt that, whatever is the origin of the disease, the same is the element of infection. The question is, therefore, reduced to the prime cause of the disease itself. A theory that animalcules are the cause of the various contagious and infectious disorders has created much discussion; and although this opinion is not generally entertained by the faculty, the idea is so feasible, and so many rational arguments can be brought forward in its support, that I cannot help touching upon a topic so generally interesting. In the first place, nearly all infectious diseases predominate in localities which are hot, damp, swampy, abounding in stagnant pools and excluded from a free circulation of air. In a tropical country, a residence in such a situation would be certain death to a human being, but the same locality will be found to swarm with insects and reptiles of all classes. Thus, what is inimical to human life is propitious to the insect tribe. This is the first step in favor of the argument. Therefore, whatever shall tend to increase the insect life must in an inverse ratio war with human existence. When we examine a drop of impure water, and discover by the microscope the thousands of living beings which not only are invisible to the naked eye, but some of whom are barely discoverable even by the strongest magnifying power, it certainly leads to the inference, that if one drop of impure fluid contains countless atoms endowed with vitality, the same amount of impure air may be equally tenanted with its myriads of invisible inhabitants. It is well known that different mixtures, which are at first pure and apparently free from all insect life, will, in the course of their fermentation and subsequent impurity, generate peculiar species of animalcules. Thus all water and vegetable or animal matter, in a state of stagnation and decay, gives birth to insect life; likewise all substances of every denomination which are subjected to putrid fermentation. Unclean sewers, filthy hovels, unswept streets, unwashed clothes, are therefore breeders of animalcules, many of which are perfectly visible without microscopic aid. Now, if some are discernible by the naked eye, and others are detected in such varying sizes that some can only just be distinguished by the most powerful lens, is it not rational to conclude that the smallest discernible to human intelligence is but the medium of a countless race? that millions of others still exist, which are too minute for any observation? Observe the particular quarters of a city which suffers most severely during the prevalence of an epidemic, In all dirty, narrow streets, where the inhabitants are naturally of a low and uncleanly class, the cases will be tenfold. Thus, filth is admitted to have at least the power of attracting disease, and we know that it not only attracts, but generates animalcules; therefore filth, insects and disease are ever to be seen closely linked together. Now, the common preventives against infection are such as are peculiarly inimical to every kind of insect; camphor, chloride of lime, tobacco-smoke, and powerful scents and smokes of any kind. The first impulse on the appearance of an infectious disease is to purify everything as much as possible, and by extra cleanliness and fumigations to endeavor to arrest its progress. The great purifier of Nature is a violent wind, which usually terminates an epidemic immediately; this would naturally carry before it all insect life with which the atmosphere might be impregnated, and the disease disappears at the same moment. It will he well remembered that the plague of locusts inflicted upon Pharaoh was relieved in the same manner: "And the Lord turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts and cast them into the Red Sea; there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt." Every person is aware that unwholesome air is quite poisonous to the human system as impure water; and seeing that the noxious qualities of the latter are caused by animalcules, and that the method used for purifying infected air are those most generally destructive to insect life, it is not irrational to conclude that the poisonous qualities of bad water and bad air arise from the same cause. Man is being constantly preyed upon by insects; and were it not for ordinary cleanliness, he would become a mass of vermin; even this does not protect him from the rapacity of ticks, mosquitoes, fleas and many others. Intestinal worms feed on him within, and, unseen, use their slow efforts for his destruction. The knowledge of so many classes which actually prey upon the human system naturally leads to the belief that many others endowed with the same propensities exist, of which we have at present no conception. Thus, different infectious disorders might proceed from peculiar species of animalcules, which, at given periods, are wafted into certain countries, carrying pestilence and death in their invisible course. A curious phenomenon has recently occurred at Mauritus, where that terrible scourge, the cholera, has been raging with desolating effect. There is a bird in that island called the "martin," but it is more property the "mina." This bird is about the size of the starling, whose habits its possesses in a great degree. It exists in immense numbers, and is a grand destroyer of all insects. On this account it is seldom or never shot at, especially as it is a great comforter to all cattle, whose hides it entirely cleans from ticks and other vermin, remaining for many hours perched upon the back of one animal, while its bill is actively employed in searching out and destroying every insect. During the prevalence of the cholera at Mauritius these birds disappeared. Such a circumstance had never before occurred, and the real cause of their departure is still a mystery. May it not have been, that some species of insect upon which they fed had likewise migrated, and that certain noxious animalcules, which had been kept down by this class, had thus multiplied within the atmosphere until their numbers caused disease? All suppositions on such a subject must, however, remain in obscurity, as no proof can be adduced of their correctness. The time may arrive when science may successfully grapple with all human ailments, but hitherto that king of pestilence, the "cholera," has reduced the highest medical skill to miserable uncertainty. Upon reconsidering the dangers of fevers, dysentery, etc., in the swampy and confined districts described, the naturalist may become somewhat less ardent in following his favorite pursuit. Of one fact I can assure him that no matter how great the natural strength of his constitution, the repeated exposure to the intense heat of the sun, the unhealthy districts that he will visit, the nights redolent of malaria, and the horrible water that he must occasionally drink, will gradually undermine the power of the strongest man. Both sportsman and naturalist in this must share alike. No one who has not actually suffered from the effect can appreciate the misery of bad water in a tropical country, or the blessings of a cool, pure draught. I have been in districts of Ceylon where for sixteen or twenty miles not a drop of water is to be obtained fit for an animal to drink; not a tree to throw a few yards of shade upon the parching ground; nothing but stunted, thorny jungles and sandy, barren plains as far as the eye can reach; the yellow leaves crisp upon the withered branches, the wild fruits hardened for want of sap, all moisture robbed from vegetation by the pitiless drought of several months. A day's work in such a country is hard indeed carrying a heavy rifle for some five-and-twenty miles, sometimes in deep sand, sometimes on good ground, but always exposed to the intensity of that blaze, added to the reflection from the sandy soil, and the total want of fresh air and water. All Nature seems stagnated; a distant pool is seen, and a general rush takes place toward the cheering sight. The water is thicker than pea soup, a green scum floats through the thickened mass, and the temperature is upward of 130 Fahrenheit. All kinds of insects are swarming in the putrid fluid, and a saltish bitter adds to its nauseating flavor. I have seen the exhausted coolies spread their dirty cloths on the surface, and form them into filters by sucking the water through them. Oh for a glass of Newera Ellia water, the purest and best that ever flows, as it sparkles out of the rocks on the mountain-tops! what pleasure so perfect as a long, deep and undisturbed draught of such cold, clear nectar when the throat is parched with unquenchable thirst! In some parts of Ceylon, especially in the neighborhood of the coast, where the land is flat and sandy, the water is always brackish, even during the rainy season, and in the dry months it is undrinkable. The natives then make use of a berry for cleansing it and precipitating the impurities. II know the shrub and the berry well, but it has no English denomination. The berries are about the size of a very large pea, and grow in clusters of from ten to fifteen together, and one berry is said to be sufficient to cleanse a gallon of water. The method of using them is curious, although simple. The vessel which is intended to contain the water, which is generally an earthen chatty, is well rubbed in the inside with a berry until the latter, which is of a horny consistency, like vegetable ivory, is completely worn away. The chatty is then filled with the muddy water, and allowed to stand for about an hour or more, until all the impurities have precipitated to the bottom and the water remains clear. I have constantly used this berry, but I certainly cannot say that the water has ever been rendered perfectly clear; it has been vastly improved, and what was totally undrinkable before has been rendered fit for use; but it has at the best been only comparatively good; and although the berry has produced a decided effect, the native accounts of its properties are greatly exaggerated. During the prolonged droughts, many rivers of considerable magnitude are completely exhausted, and nothing remains but a dry bed of said between lofty banks. At these seasons the elephants, being hard pressed for water, make use of their wonderful instinct by digging holes in the dry sand of the river's bed; this they perform with the horny toes of their fore feet, and frequently work to a depth of three feet before they discover the liquid treasure beneath. This process of well-digging almost oversteps the boundaries of instinct and strongly, savors of reason, the two powers being so nearly connected that it is difficult in some cases to define the distinction. There are so many interesting cases of the wonderful display of both these attributes in animals, that I shall notice some features of this subject in a separate chapter. CHAPTER IX. Instinct and Reason--Tailor Birds and Grosbeaks--The White Ant--Black Ants at War--Wanderoo Monkeys--Habits of Elephants--Elephants in the Lake--Herd of Elephants Bathing--Elephant-shooting--The Rencontre--The Charge--Caught by the Tail--Horse Gored by a Buffalo--Sagacity of Dogs--"Bluebeard"--His Hunt--A True Hound. There can be no doubt that man is not the only animal endowed with reasoning powers: he possesses that faculty to an immense extent, but although the amount of the same power possessed by animals may be infinitely small, nevertheless it is their share of reason, which they occasionally use apart from mere instinct. Although instinct and reason appear to be closely allied, they are easily separated and defined. Instinct is the faculty with which Nature has endowed all animals for the preservation and continuation of their own species. This is accordingly exhibited in various features, as circumstances may call forth the operation of the power; but so wonderful are the attributes of Nature that the details of her arrangements throughout the animal and insect creation give to every class an amount of sense which in many instances surmounts the narrow bounds of simple instinct. The great characteristic of sheer instinct is its want of progression; it never increases, never improves. It is possessed now in the nineteenth century by every race of living creatures in no larger proportion than was bestowed upon them at the creation. In general, knowledge increases like a rolling snowball; a certain amount forms a base for extra improvement, and upon successive foundations of increasing altitude the eminence has been attained of the present era. This is the effect of "reason;" but "instinct," although beautiful in its original construction, remains, like the blossom of a tree, ever the same--a limited effect produced by a given cause; an unchangeable law of Nature that certain living beings shall perform certain functions which require a certain amount of intelligence; this amount is supplied by Nature for the performance of the duties required; this is instinct. Thus, according to the requirements necessitated by the habits of certain living creatures to an equivalent amount is their share of instinct. Reason differs from instinct as combining the effects of thought and reflection; this being a proof of consideration, while instinct is simply a direct emanation from the brain, confined to an impulse. In our observations of Nature, especially in tropical countries, we see numberless exemplifications of these powers, in some of which the efforts of common instinct halt upon the extreme boundary and have almost a tinge of reason. What can be more curious than the nest of the tailor-bird--a selection of tough leaves neatly sewn one over the other to form a waterproof exterior to the comfortable little dwelling within? Where does the needle and thread come from? The first is the delicate bill of the bird itself, and the latter is the strong fibre of the bark of a tree, with which the bird sews every leaf, lapping one over the other in the same manner that slates are laid upon a roof. Nevertheless this is simple instinct; the tailor-bird in the days of Adam constructed her nest in a similar manner, which will be continued without improvement till the end of time. The grosbeak almost rivals the tailor-bird in the beautiful formation of its nest. These birds build in company, twenty or thirty nests being common upon one tree. Their apparent intention in the peculiar construction of their nests is to avoid the attacks of snakes and lizards. These nests are about two feet long, composed of beautifully woven grass, shaped like an elongated pear. They are attached like fruit to the extreme end of a stalk or branch, from which they wave to and fro in the wind, as though hung out to dry. The bird enters at a funnel-like aperture in the bottom, and by this arrangement the young are effectually protected from reptiles. All nests, whether of birds or insects, are particularly interesting, as they explain the domestic habits of the occupants; but, however wonderful the arrangement and the beauty of the work as exhibited among birds, bees, wasps, etc., still it is the simple effect of instinct on the principle that they never vary. The white ant--that grand destroyer of all timber--always works under cover; he builds as he progresses in his work of destruction, and runs a long gallery of fine clay in the direction of his operations; beneath this his devastation proceeds until he has penetrated to the interior of the beam, the centre of which he entirely demolishes, leaving a thin shell in the form of the original log encrusted over the exterior with numerous galleries. There is less interest in the habits of these destructive wretches than in all other of the ant tribe; they build stupendous nests, it is true, but their interior economy is less active and thrifty than that of many other species of ants, among which there is a greater appearance of the display of reasoning powers than in most animals of a superior class. On a fine sunny morning it is not uncommon, to see ants busily engaged in bringing out all the eggs from the nest and laying them in the sun until they become thoroughly warmed, after which they carry them all back again and lay them in their respective places. This looks very like a power of reasoning, as it is decidedly beyond instinct. If they were to carry out the eggs every morning, wet or dry, it would be an effort of instinct to the detriment of the eggs; but as the weather is uncertain, it is an effort of reason on the part of the ants to bring out the eggs to the sun, especially as it is not an every-day occurrence, even in fine weather. In Mauritius, the negroes have a custom of turning the reasoning powers of the large black ant to advantage. White ants are frequently seen passing in and out of a small hole from underneath a building, in which case their ravages could only be prevented by taking up the flooring and destroying the nest. The negroes avoid this by their knowledge of the habits of the black ant, who is a sworn enemy to the white. They accordingly pour a little treacle on the ground within a yard of the hole occupied by the white ants. The smell of the treacle shortly attracts some of the black species, who, on their arrival are not long in observing their old enemies passing in and out of the hole. Some of them leave the treacle; these are evidently messengers, as in the course of the day a whole army of black ants will be seen advancing, in a narrow line of many yards in length, to storm the stronghold of the white ants. They enter the hole, and they destroy every white ant in the building. Resistance there can be none, as the plethoric, slow-going white ant is as a mouse to a cat in the encounter with his active enemy, added to which the black ant is furnished with a most venomous sting, in addition to a powerful pair of mandibles. I have seen the black ants returning from their work of destruction, each carrying a slaughtered white ant in his mouth, which he devours at leisure. This is again a decided effort of reason, as the black ant arrives at the treacle without a thought of the white ant in his mind, but, upon seeing his antagonist, he despatches messengers for reinforcements, who eventually bring up the army to the "rendezvous." Numerous instances might be cited of the presence of reasoning powers among the insect classes, but this faculty becomes of increased interest when seen in the larger animals. Education is both a proof and a promoter of reason in all animals. This removes them from their natural or instinctive position, and brings forth the full development of the mental powers. This is exhibited in the performance of well-trained dogs, especially among pointers and setters. Again, in the feats performed by educated animals in the circus, where the elephant has lately endeavored to prove a want of common sense by standing on his head. Nevertheless, however absurd the trick, which man may teach the animal to perform, the very fact of their performance substantiates an amount of reason in the animal. Monkeys, elephants and dogs are naturally endowed with a larger share of the reasoning power than other animals, which is frequently increased to a wonderful extent by education. The former, even in their wild state, are so little inferior to some natives, either in their habits or appearance, that I should feel some reluctance in denying them an almost equal share of reason; the want Of speech certainly places them below the Veddahs, but the monkeys, on the other hand, might assert a superiority by a show of tails. Monkeys vary in intelligence according to their species, and may be taught to do almost anything. There are several varieties in Ceylon, among which the great black wanderoo, with white whiskers, is the nearest in appearance to the human race. This monkey stands upward of three feet high, and weighs about eighty pounds. He has immense muscular power, and he has also a great peculiarity in the formation of the skull, which is closely allied to that of a human being, the lower jaw and the upper being in a straight line with the forehead. In monkeys the jaws usually project. This species exists in most parts of Ceylon, but I have seen it of a larger size at Newera Ellia thin in any of the low-country districts. Elephants are proverbially sagacious, both in their wild state and when domesticated. I have previously described the building of a dam by a tame elephant, which was an exhibition of reason hardly to be expected in any animal. They are likewise wonderfully sagacious in a wild state in preserving themselves from accidents, to which, from their bulk and immense weight, they would be particularly liable, such as the crumbling of the verge of a precipice, the insecurity of a bridge or the suffocating depth of mud in a lake. It is the popular opinion, and I have seen it expressed in many works, that the elephant shuns rough and rocky ground, over which he moves with difficulty, and that he delights in level plains, etc., etc. This may be the case in Africa, where his favorite food, the mimosa, grows upon the plain, but in Ceylon it is directly the contrary. In this country the elephant delights in the most rugged localities; he rambles about rocky hills and mountains with a nimbleness that no one can understand without personal experience. So partial are elephants to rocky and uneven ground that should the ruins of a mountain exist in rugged fragments along a plain of low, thorny jungle, five chances to one would be in favor of tracking the herd to this very spot, where they would most likely be found, standing among the alleys roamed by the fragments heaped around them. It is surprising to witness the dexterity of elephants in traversing ground over which a man can pass with difficulty. I have seen places on the mountains in the neighborhood of Newera Ellia bearing the unmistakable marks of elephants where I could not have conceived it possible for such an animal to stand. On the precipitous sides of jungle-covered mountains, where the ground is so steep that a man is forced to cling to the underwood for support, the elephants still plough their irresistible course. In descending or ascending these places, the elephant a always describes a zigzag, and thus lessens the abruptness of the inclination. Their immense weight acting on their broad feet, bordered by sharp horny toes, cuts away the side of the hill at every stride and forms a level step; thus they are enabled to skirt the sides of precipitous hills and banks with comparative case. The trunk is the wonderful monitor of all danger to an elephant, from whatever cause it may proceed. This may arise from the approach of man or from the character of the country; in either case the trunk exerts its power; in one by the acute sense of smell, in the other by the combination of the sense of scent and touch. In dense jungles, where the elephant cannot see a yard before him, the sensitive trunk feels the hidden way, and when the roaring of waterfalls admonishes him of the presence of ravines and precipices, the never-failing trunk lowered upon the around keeps him advised of every inch of his path. Nothing is more difficult than to induce a tame elephant to cross a bridge which his sagacity assures him is insecure; he will sound it with his trunk and press upon it with one foot, but he will not trust his weight if he can perceive the slightest vibration. Their power of determining whether bogs or the mud at the bottom of tanks are deep or shallow is beyond my comprehension. Although I have seen elephants in nearly every position, I have never seen one inextricably fixed in a swamp. This is the more extraordinary as their habits induce them to frequent the most extensive morasses, deep lakes, muddy tanks and estuaries, and yet I have never seen even a young one get into a scrape by being overwhelmed. There appears to be a natural instinct which warns them in their choice of ground, the same as that which influences the buffalo, and in like manner guides him through his swampy haunts. It is a grand sight to see a large herd of elephants feeding in a fine lake in broad daylight. This is seldom witnessed in these days, as the number of guns have so disturbed the elephants in Ceylon that they rarely come out to drink until late in the evening or during the night; but some time ago I had a fine view of a grand herd in a lake in the middle of the day. I was out shooting with a great friend of mine, who is a brother-in-arms against the game of Ceylon, and than whom a better sportsman does not breathe, and we had arrived at a wild and miserable place while en route home after a jungle trip. Neither of us was feeling well; we had been for some weeks in the most unhealthy part of the country, and I was just recovering from a touch of dysentery: altogether, we were looking forward with pleasure to our return to comfortable quarters, and for the time we were tired of jungle life. However, we arrived at a little village about sixty miles south of Batticaloa, called "Gollagangwelléwevé" (pronunciation requires practice), and a very long name it was for so small a place; but the natives insisted that a great number of elephants were in the neighborhood. They also declared that the elephants infested the neighboring tank even during the forenoon, and that they nightly destroyed their embankment, and would not be driven away, as there was not a single gun possessed by the village with which to scare them. This looked all right; so we loaded the guns and started without loss of time, as it was then one P. M., and the natives described the tank as a mile distant. Being perfectly conversant with the vague idea of space described by a Cingalese mile, we mounted our horses, and, accompanied by about five-and-twenty villagers, twenty of whom I wished at Jericho, we started. By the by, I have quite forgotten to describe who "we" are--F. H. Palliser, Esq., and myself. Whether or not it was because I did not feel in brisk health, I do not know, but somehow or other I had a presentiment that the natives had misled us, and that we should not find the elephants in the tank, but that, as usual, we should be led tip to some dense, thorny jungle, and told that the elephants were somewhere in that direction. Not being very sanguine, I had accordingly taken no trouble about my gun-bearers, and I saw several of my rifles in the bands of the villagers, and only one of my regular gun-bearers had followed me; the rest, having already had a morning's march, were glad of an excuse to remain behind. Our rate lay for about a quarter of a mile through deserted paddy-land and low jungle, after which we entered fine open jungle and forest. Unfortunately, the recent heavy rains bad filled the tank, which had overflowed the broken dam and partially flooded the forest. This was in all parts within two hundred yards from the dam a couple of feet deep in water, with a proportionate amount of sticky mud beneath, and through this we splashed until the dam appeared about fifty yards on our right. It was a simple earthen mound, which rose about ten feet from the level of the forest, and was studded with immense trees, apparently the growth of ages. We knew that the tank lay on the opposite side, but we continued our course parallel with the dam until we bad ridden about a mile from the village, the natives, for a wonder, having truly described the distance. Here our guide, having motioned us to stop, ran quickly up the dam to take a look out on the opposite side. He almost immediately beckoned us to come up. This we did without loss of time, and knowing that the game was in view, I ordered the horses to retire for about a quarter of a mile. On our arrival on the dam there was a fine sight. The lake was about five miles round, and was quite full of water, the surface of which was covered with a scant, but tall, rushy grass. In the lake, browsing upon the grass, we counted twenty-three elephants, and there were many little ones, no doubt, that we could not distinguish in such rank vegetation. Five large elephants were not more than a hundred and twenty paces distant; the remaining eighteen were in a long line about a quarter of a mile from the shore, feeding in deep water. We were well concealed by the various trees which grew upon the dam, and we passed half an hour in watching the manoeuvres of the great beasts as they bathed and sported in the cool water. However, this was not elephant-shooting, and the question was, how to get at them? The natives had no idea of the sport, as they seemed to think it very odd that we did not fire at those within a hundred paces' distance. I now regretted my absent gun-bearers, as I plainly saw that these village people would be worse than useless. We determined to take a stroll along the base of the dam to reconnoitre the ground, as at present it seemed impossible to make an attack; and even were the elephants within the forest, there appeared to be no possibility of following them up through such deep water and heavy ground with any chance of success. however, they were not in the forest, being safe, belly and shoulder deep, in the tank. We strolled through mud and water thigh-deep for a few hundred paces, when we suddenly came upon the spot where in ages past the old dam had been carried away. Here the natives had formed a mud embankment strengthened by sticks and wattles. Poor fellows! we were not surprised at their wishing the elephants destroyed; the repair of their fragile dam was now a daily occupation, for the elephants, as though out of pure mischief, had chosen this spot as their thoroughfare to and from the lake, and the dam was trodden down in all directions. We found that the margin of the forest was everywhere flooded to a width of about two hundred yards, after which it was tolerably dry; we therefore returned to our former post. It struck me that the only way to secure a shot at the herd would be to employ a ruse, which I had once practiced successfully some years ago. Accordingly we sent the greater part of the villagers for about a half a mile along the edge of the lake, with orders to shout and make a grand hullaballoo on arriving at their station. It seemed most probable that on being disturbed the elephants would retreat to the forest by their usual thoroughfare; we accordingly stood on the alert, ready for a rush to any given point which the herd should attempt in their retreat. Some time passed in expectation, when a sudden yell broke from the far point, as though twenty demons had cramp in the stomach. Gallant fellows are the Cingalese at making a noise, and a grand effect this had upon the elephants; up went tails and trunks, the whole herd closed together and made a simultaneous rush for their old thoroughfare. Away we skipped through the water, straight in shore through the forest, until we reached the dry ground, when, turning sharp to our right, we soon halted exactly opposite the point at which we knew the elephants would enter the forest. This was grand excitement; we had a great start of the herd, so that we had plenty of time to arrange gun-bearers and take our position for the rencontre. In the mean time, the roar of water caused by the rapid passage of so many large animals approached nearer and nearer. Palliser and I had taken splendid positions, so as to command either side of the herd on their arrival, with our gun-bearers squatted around us behind our respective trees, while the non-sporting village followers, who now began to think the matter rather serious and totally devoid of fun, scrambled up various large trees with ape-like activity. A few minutes of glorious suspense, and the grand crash and roar of broken water approached close at hand, and we distinguished the mighty phalanx, headed by the largest elephants, bearing down exactly upon us, and not a hundred yards distant. Here was luck! There was a grim and very murderous smile of satisfaction on either countenance as we quietly cocked the rifles and awaited the onset: it was our intention to let half the herd pass us before we opened upon them, as we should then be in the very centre of the mass, and he able to get good and rapid shooting. On came the herd in gallant style, throwing the spray from the muddy water, and keeping a direct line for our concealed position. They were within twenty yards, and we were still undiscovered, when those rascally villagers, who had already taken to the trees, scrambled still higher in their fright at the close approach of the elephants, and by this movement they gave immediate alarm to the elders of the herd. Round went the colossal heads; right about was the word, and away dashed the whole herd back toward the tank. In the same instant we made a rush in among them, and I floored one of the big leaders by a shot behind the ear, and immediately after, as bad luck would have it, Palliser and I both took the same bird, and down went another to the joint shots. Palliser then got another shot and bagged one more, when the herd pushed straight out to the deep lake, with the exception of a few elephants, who turned to the right; after which Palliser hurried through the mud and water, while I put on all steam in chase of the main body of the herd. It is astonishing to what an amount a man can get up this said steam in such a pitch of excitement. However, it was of no use in this case, as I was soon hip-deep in water, and there was an end to all pursuit in that direction. It immediately struck me that the elephants would again retreat to some other part of the forest after having made a circuit in the tank. I accordingly waded back at my best speed to terra firma, and then striking off to my right, I ran along parallel to the water for about half a mile, fully expecting to meet the herd once more on their entrance to the jungle. It was now that I deplored the absence of my regular gun-bearers; the village people had no taste for this gigantic scale of amusement, and the men who carried my guns would not keep up; Fortunately, Carrasi, the best gun-bearer, was there, and he had taken another loaded rifle, after handing me that which he had carried at the onset. I waited a few moments for the lagging men, and succeeded in getting them well together just is I heard the rush of water, as the elephants were again entering the jungle, not far in advance of the spot upon which I stood. This time they were sharp on the qui vive, and the bulls, being well to the front, were keeping a bright look-out. It was in vain that I endeavored to conceal myself until the herd had got well into the forest; the gun-bearers behind me did not take the same precaution, and the leading elephants both saw and winded us when at a hundred paces distant. This time, however, they were determined to push on for a piece of thicker jungle, which they knew lay in this direction, and upon seeing me running toward them, they did not turn back to the lake, but slightly altered their course in an oblique direction, still continuing to push on through the forest, while I was approaching at right angles with the herd. Hallooing and screaming at them with all my might to tease some of the old bulls into a charge, I ran at top speed through the fine open forest, and soon got among a whole crowd of half-grown elephants, at which I would not fire; there were a lot of fine beasts pushing along in the front, and toward these I ran as hard as I could go. Unfortunately, the herd seeing me so near and gaining upon them, took to the ruse of a beaten fleet and scattered in all directions; but I kept a few big fellows in view, who were still pretty well together, and managed to overtake the rearmost and knock him over. Up went the tail and trunk of one of the leading bulls at the report of the shot, and trumpeting shrilly, he ran first to one side, then to the other, with his ears cocked and sharply turning his head to either side. I knew this fellow had his monkey up, and that a little teasing would bring him round for a charge. I therefore redoubled my shouts and yells and kept on in full chase, as the elephants were straining every nerve to reached a piece of thick jungle within a couple of hundred paces. I could not go any faster, and I saw that the herd, which was thirty or forty yards ahead of me, would gain the jungle before I could overtake them, as they were going at a slapping pace and I was tolerably blown with a long run at full speed, part of which had been through deep mud and water. But I still teased the bull, who was now in such an excited state that I felt convinced he would turn to charge. The leading elephants rushed into the thick jungle, closely followed by the others, and, to my astonishment, my excited friend, who had lagged to the rear, followed their example. But it was only for a few seconds, for, on entering the thick bushes, he wheeled sharp round and came rushing out in full charge. This was very plucky, but very foolish, as his retreat was secured when in the thick jungle, and yet he courted further battle. This he soon had enough of, as I bagged him in his onset with my remaining barrel by the forehead shot. I now heard a tremendous roaring, of elephants behind me, as though another section was coming in from the tank; this I hoped to meet. I therefore reloaded the empty rifles as quickly as possible and ran toward the spot. The roaring still continued and was apparently almost stationary; and what was my disappointment, on arrival, to find, in place of the expected herd, a young elephant of about four feet high, who, had missed the main body in the retreat and was now roaring for his departed friends! These young things are excessively foolhardy and willful, and he charged me the moment I arrived. As I laid the rifle upon the ground instead of firing at him, the rascally gunbearers, with the exception of Carrasi, threw down the rifles and ran up the trees like so many monkeys, just as I had jumped on one side and caught the young elephant by the tail. He was far too strong for me to hold, and, although I dug my heels into the ground and held on with all my might, he fairly ran away with me through the forest. Carrasi now came to my assistance and likewise held on by his tail; but away we went like the tender to a steam-engine; wherever the elephant went there we were dragged in company. Another man now came to the rescue; but his assistance was not of the slightest rise, as the animal was so powerful and of such weight that he could have run away with half a dozen of us unless his legs were tied. Unfortunately we had no rope, or I could have secured him immediately, and seeing that we had no power over him whatever, I was obliged to run back for one of the guns to shoot him. On my return it was laughable to see the pace at which he was running away with the two men, who were holding on to his tail like grim death, the elephant not having ceased roaring during the run. I accordingly settled him, and returned to have a little conversation with the rascals were still perched in the trees. I was extremely annoyed, as these people, if they had possessed a grain of sense, might have tied their long comboys (cotton cloths about eight feet long) together, and we might have thus secured the elephant without difficulty by tying his hind legs. It was a great loss, as he was so tame that he might have been domesticated and driven to Newera Ellia without the slightest trouble. All this was occasioned by the cowardice of these villainous Cingalese, and upon my lecturing one fellow on his conduct he began to laugh. This was too much for any person's patience, and I began to look for a stick, which the fellow perceiving he immediately started off through the forest like a deer. He could run faster than I could, being naked and having the advantage of bare feet; but I knew I could run him down in the course of time, especially as, being in a fright, he would soon get blown. We had a most animated hunt through water, mud, roots of trees, open forest and all kinds of ground, but I ran into him at last in heavy ground, and I dare say he recollects the day of the month. In the mean time, Palliser had heard the roaring of the elephant, followed by the screaming and yelling of the coolies, and succeeded by a shot. Shortly after he heard the prolonged yells of the hunted villager while he was hastening toward my direction. This combination of sounds naturally led him to expect that some accident had occurred, especially as some of the yells indicated that somebody had come to grief. This caused him a very laborious run, and he arrived thoroughly blown, and with a natural desire to kick the recreant villager who bad caused the yells. If the ground had been ever tolerably dry, we should have killed a large number of elephants out of this herd; but, as it happened, in such deep mud and water the elephants had it all their own way, and our joint bag could not produce more than seven tails; however, this was far more than I had expected when I first saw the herd in such a secure position. On our return to the village we found Palliser's horse terribly gored by a buffalo, and we were obliged to leave him behind for some weeks; fortunately, there was an extra pony, which served him as a mount home, a distance of a hundred and fifty miles. This has been a sad digression from our argument upon instinct and reason, a most unreasonable departure from the subject; but this is my great misfortune; so sure as I bring forward the name of an elephant, the pen lays hold of some old story and runs madly away in a day's shooting. I now have to speak of the reasoning powers of the canine race, and I confess my weakness. I feel perfectly certain that the pen will serve me the same trick, and that it will be plunging through a day's hunting to prove the existence of reason in a hound and the want of it in the writer. Thrash me, good critics; I deserve it; lay it on with an unsparing thong. I am humiliated, but still willful; I know my fault, but still continue it. Let us think; what was the subject? Reason in dogs, to be sure. Well, every one who has a dog must admit that he has a strong share of reason; only observe him as he sits by your side and wistfully watches the endless transit of piece after piece, bit after bit, as the fork is conveying delicate morsels to your mouth. There is neither hope nor despair exhibited in his countenance--he knows those pieces are not for him. There is an expression of impatience about the eye as he scans your features, which seems to say, "Greedy fellow! what, not one bit for me?" Only cut a slice from the exterior of the joint--a piece that he knows you will not eat--and watch, the change and eagerness of his expression; he knows as well as you do that this is intended for him--he has reasoned upon it. This is the simple and every-day performance of a common house-dog. Observe the pointers in a field of close-cut stubble--two well-broken, reasonable old dogs. The birds are wild, and have been flushed several times during the day, and the old dog has winded them now in this close-cut stubble, from which he knows the covey will rise at a long range. Watch his expression of intense and yet careful excitement, as he draws upon his game, step by step, crouching close to the ground, and occasionally moving his head slowly round to see if his master is close up. Look at the bitch at the other end of the field, backing him like a statue, while the old dog still creeps on. Not a step farther will he move: his lower jaw trembles with excitement; the guns advance to a line with his shoulder; up they rise, whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z!--bang! bang! See how the excitement of the dog is calmed as he falls to the down charge, and afterward with what pleasure he follows up and stands to the dead birds. If this is not reason, there is no such thing in existence. Again, look at the sheep-dog. What can be more beautiful than to watch the judgement displayed by these dogs in driving a large flock of sheep? Then turn to the Mont St. Bernard dog and the Newfoundland, and countless instances could be produced as proofs of their wonderful share of reasoning power. The different classes of hounds, being kept in kennels, do not exhibit this power to the same amount as many others, as they are not sufficiently domesticated, and their intercourse with man is confined to the one particular branch of hunting; but in this pursuit they will afford many striking proofs that they in like manner with their other brethren, are not devoid of the reasoning power. Poor old "Bluebeard!"--he had an almost human share of understanding, but being simply a hound, this was confined to elk hunting; he was like the foxhunter of the last century, whose ideas did not extend beyond his sport; but in this he was perfect. Bluebeard was a foxhound, bred at Newera Ellia, in 1847, by F. J. Templer, Esq. He subsequently belonged to F. H. Palliser, Esq., who kindly added him to my kennel. He was a wonderful hound on a cold scent, and so thoroughly was he versed in all the habits of an elk that he knew exactly where to look for one. I am convinced that he knew the date of a track from its appearance, as I have constantly seen him strove his nose into the deep impression, to try for a scent when the track was some eight or ten hours old. It was a curious thing to watch his cleverness at finding on a patina. In most of the plains in the neighborhood of Newera Ellia a small stream flows through the centre. To this the elk, who are out feeding in the night, are sure to repair at about four in the morning for their last drink, and I usually try along the banks a little after daylight for a find, where the scent is fresh and the tracks are distinctly visible. While every hound has been eagerly winding the scent upon the circuitous route which the elk has made in grazing, Bluebeard would never waste his time in attempting to follow the innumerable windings, but, taking a fresh cast, he would invariably strike off to the jungle and try along the edge, until he reached the spot at which the elk had entered. At these times he committed the only fault which he possessed (for an elk-hound); he would immediately open upon the scent, and, by alarming the elk at too great a distance, would give him too long a start. Nevertheless, he made up for this by his wonderful correctness and knowledge of his game, and if the run was increased in length by his early note, we nevertheless ran into our game at last. Some years ago he met with an accident which partly deprived him of the use of one of his bind legs; this made the poor old fellow very slow, but it did not interfere with his finding and hunting, although the rest of the pack would shoot ahead, and the elk was frequently brought to bay and killed before old Bluebeard had finished his hunt; but he was never thrown out, and was sure to come up at last; and if the pack were at fault during the run, he was the hound to show them the right road on his arrival. I once saw an interesting proof of his reasoning powers during a long and difficult hunt. I was hunting for a few days at the Augora patinas, accompanied by Palliser. These are about five hundred feet lower than Newera Ellia, and are situated in the district of Dimboola. They are composed of undulating knolls of fine grass, with a large and deep river flowing through the centre. These patinas are surrounded by wooded hills of good open jungle. We had found upon the patina at break of day, and the whole pack had gone off in full cry; but the whereabout was very uncertain, and having long lost all sound of the hounds we wandered here and there to no purpose. At length we separated, and took up our stations upon different knolls to watch the patina and to listen. The hill upon which I stood commanded an extensive view of the patina, while the broad river flowed at the base, after its exit from the jungle. I had been only a few minutes at my post when I observed, at about six hundred yards distant, a strong ripple in the river like the letter V, and it immediately struck me that an elk had come down the river from the jungle and was swimming down the stream. This was soon proved to be the case, as I saw the head of a doe elk in the acute angle of the ripple. I had the greyhounds with me, "Lucifer," "Lena," "Hecate" and "Bran," and I ran down the hill with these dogs, hoping to get them a view of her as she landed on the patina. I had several bogs and hollows to cross, and I accordingly lost sight of the elk; but upon arriving at the spot where I imagined the elk would land, I saw her going off across the patina, a quarter of a mile away. The greyhounds saw her, and away they flew over the short grass, while the pack began to appear from the jungle, having come down to the halloo that I had given on first seeing the elk swimming down the river. The elk seemed determined to give a beautiful course for, instead of pushing straight for the jungle, she made a great circuit on the patina, as though in the endeavor to make once more for the river. The long-legged ones were going at a tremendous pace, and, being fresh, they rapidly overhauled her; gradually the distance between them diminished, and at length they had a fair course down a gentle inclination which led toward the river. Here the greyhounds soon made an end of the hunt; their game was within a hundred yards, going at top speed: but it was all up with the elk; the pace was too good, and they ran into her and pulled her down just as the other hounds had come down upon my scent. We were cutting up the elk, when we presently heard old Bluebeard's voice far away in the jungle, and, thinking that he might perhaps be running another elk, we ran to a hill which overlooked the river and kept a bright look-out. We soon discovered that he was true upon the same game, and we watched his plan of hunting, being anxious to see whether he could hunt up an elk that had kept to water for so long a time. On his entrance to the patina by the river's bank he immediately took to water and swam across the stream; here be carefully hunted the edge for several hundred yards down the river, but, finding nothing, he returned to the jungle at the point from which the river flowed. Here he again took to water, and, swimming back to the bank from which he had at first started, he landed and made a vain cast down the hollow. Back he returned after his fruitless search, and once more he took to water. I began to despair of the possibility of his finding; but the true old bound was now swimming steadily down the stream, crossing and recrossing from either bank, and still pursuing his course down the river. At length he neared the spot where I knew that the elk had landed, and we eagerly watched to see if he would pass the scent, as he was now several yards from the bank. He was nearly abreast of the spot, when he turned sharp in and landed in the exact place; his deep and joyous note rung across the patinas, and away went the gallant old hound in full cry upon the scent, while I could not help shouting, "Hurrah for old Bluebeard!" In a few minutes he was by the side of the dead elk--a specimen of a true hound, who certainly had exhibited a large share of "reason." CHAPTER X. Wild Fruits--Ingredients for a "Soupe Maigre"--Orchidaceous Plants--Wild Nutmegs--Native Oils--Cinnamon--Primeval Forests--Valuable Woods--The Mahawelli River--Variety of Palms--Cocoa-nut Toddy--Arrack--Cocoa-nut Oil--Cocoa-nut-planting--The Talipot Palm--The Areca Palm--Betel Chewing--Sago Nuts--Varicty of Bees--Waste of Beeswax--Edible Fungi--Narcotic Puff-ball--Intoxicating Drugs--Poisoned Cakes--The "Sack Tree"--No Gum Trees of Value in Ceylon. Among the inexperienced there is a prevalent idea connected with tropical forests and jungles that they teem with wild fruits, which Nature is supposed to produce spontaneously. Nothing can be more erroneous than such an opinion; even edible berries are scantily supplied by the wild shrubs and trees, and these, in lieu of others of superior quality, are sometimes dignified by the name of fruit. The guava and the katumbillé are certainly very numerous throughout the Ouva district; the latter being a dark red, rough-skinned kind of plum, the size of a greengage, but free from stone. It grows upon a thorny bush about fifteen feet high; but the fruit is too acid to please most palates; the extreme thirst produced by a day's shooting in a burning sun makes it refreshing when plucked from the tree; but it does not aspire to the honor of a place at a table, where it can only appear in the form of red currant jelly, for which it is an undeniable substitute. Excellent blackberries and a very large and full-flavored black raspberry grow at Newera Ellia; likewise the Cape gooseberry, which is of the genus "solanum." The latter is a round yellow berry, the size of a cherry; this is enclosed in a loose bladder, which forms an outer covering. The flavor is highly aromatic, but, like most Ceylon wild fruits, it is too acid. The sweetest and the best of the jungle productions is the "morra." This is a berry about the size of a small nutmeg, which grows in clusters upon a large tree of rich dark foliage. The exterior of the berry is brown and slightly rough; the skin, or rather the case, is brittle and of the consistence of an egg-shell; this, when broken and peeled off, exposes a semi-transparent pulp, like a skinned grape in appearance and in flavor. It is extremely juicy but, unfortunately, a large black stone occupies the centre and at least one-half of the bulk of the entire fruit. The jambo apple is a beautiful fruit in appearance being the facsimile of a snow-white pear formed of wax, with a pink blush upon one side. Its exterior beauty is all that it can boast of, as the fruit itself is vapid and tasteless. In fact, all wild fruits are, for the most part, great exaggerations. I have seen in a work on Ceylon the miserable little acid berry of the rattan, which is no larger than a currant, described as a fruit; hawthorn berries might, with equal justice, be classed among the fruits of Great Britain. I will not attempt to describe these paltry productions in detail; there is necessarily a great variety throughout the island, but their insignificance does not entitle them to a description which would raise them far above their real merit. It is nevertheless most useful to a sportsman in Ceylon to possess a sufficient stock of botanical information for his personal convenience. A man may be lost in the jungles or hard up for provisions in some out-of-the-way place, where, if he has only a saucepan, he can generally procure something eatable in the way of herbs. It is not to be supposed, however, that he would succeed in making a good dinner; the reader may at any time procure something similar in England by restricting himself to nettle-tops--an economical but not a fattening vegetable. Anything, however simple, is better than an empty stomach, and when the latter is positively empty it is wonderful how the appetite welcomes the most miserable fare. At Newera Ellia the jungles would always produce a supply for a soupe maigré. There is an esculent nillho which grows in the forest in the bottoms of the swampy ravines. This is a most succulent plant, which grows to the height or length of about seven feet, as its great weight keeps it close to the ground. It is so brittle that it snaps like a cucumber when struck by a stick, and it bears a delicate, dark-blue blossom. When stewed, it is as tender as the vegetable marrow, but its flavor approaches more closely to that of the cucumber. Wild ginger also abounds in the forests. This is a coarse variety of the "amomum zintgiber." The leaves, which spring from the ground, attain a height of seven or eight feet; a large, crimson, fleshy blossom also springs from the ground in the centre of the surrounding leaf-stems. The root is coarse, large, but wanting in fine flavor, although the young tubers are exceedingly tender and delicate. This is the favorite food of elephants on the Ceylon mountains; but it is a curious fact that they invariably reject the leaves, which any one would suppose would be their choicest morsel, as they are both succulent and plentiful. The elephants simply use them as a handle for tearing up the roots, which they bite off and devour, throwing the leaves on one side. The wild parsnip is also indigenous to the plains on the mountains. As usual with most wild plants of this class, it has little or no root, but runs to leaf. The seeds are very highly flavored, and are gathered by the natives for their curries. There is, likewise, a beautiful orchidaceous plant, which is very common throughout the patinas on the mountains, and which produces the very finest quality of arrowroot. So much is this valued in the Nepaul country in India, that I have been assured by a person well acquainted with that locality, that this quality of arrowroot is usually sold for its weight in rupees. In vain have I explained this to the Cingalese; they will not attempt its preparation because their fathers did not eat it; and yet these same men will walk forty miles to cut a bundle of sticks of the galla gaha tree for driving buffaloes!--their fathers did this, and therefore they do it. Thus this beautiful plant is only appreciated by those whose instinct leads them to its discovery. The wild hogs plough up the patinas and revel in this delicate food. The plant itself is almost lost in the rank herbage of the patinas, but its beautiful pink, hyacinth-shaped blossom attracts immediate attention. Few plants combine beauty of appearance, scent and utility, but this is the perfection of each quality--nothing can surpass the delicacy and richness of its perfume. It has two small bulbs about an inch below the surface of the earth, and these, when broken, exhibit a highly granulated texture, semi-transparent like half-boiled sago. From these bulbs the arrowroot is produced by pounding them in water and drying the precipitated farina in the sun. There are several beautiful varieties of orchidaceous plants upon the mountains; among others, several species of the dendrobium. Its rich yellow flowers hang in clusters from a withered tree, the only sign of life upon a giant trunk decayed, like a wreath upon a grave. The scent of this flower is well known as most delicious; one plant will perfume a large room. There is one variety of this tribe in the neighborhood of Newera Ellia, which is certainly unknown in English collections. It blossoms in April; the flowers are a bright lilac, and I could lay my band upon it at any time, as I have never seen it but in one spot, where it flourishes in profusion. This is about fourteen miles from Newera Ellia, and I have never yet collected a specimen, as I have invariably been out hunting whenever I have met with it. The black pepper is also indigenous throughout Ceylon. At Newera Ellia the leaves of this vine are highly pungent, although at this elevation it does not produce fruit. A very short distance toward a lower elevation effects a marked change, as within seven miles it fruits in great perfection. At a similar altitude, the wild nutmeg is very common throughout the forests. This fruit is a perfect anomaly. The tree is entirely different to that of the cultivated species. The latter is small, seldom exceeding the size of an apple-tree, and bearing a light green myrtle-shaped leaf, which is not larger than that of a peach. The wild species, on the contrary, is a large forest tree, with leaves equal in size to those of the horse chestnut; nevertheless, it produces a perfect nutmeg. There is the outer rind of fleshy texture, like an unripe peach; enclosed within is the nutlike shell, enveloped in the crimson network of mace, and within the shell is the nutmeg itself. All this is perfect enough, but, alas, the grand desideratum is wanting--it has no flavor or aroma whatever. It is a gross imposition on the part of Nature; a most stingy trick upon the public, and a regular do. The mace has no taste whatever, and the nutmeg has simply a highly acrid and pungent taste, without any spicy flavor, but merely abounding in a rank and disagreeable oil. The latter is so plentiful that I am astonished it has not been experimented upon, especially by the natives, who are great adepts in expressing oils from many substances. Those most common in Ceylon are the cocoa-nut and gingerly oils. The former is one of the grand staple commodities of the island; the latter is the produce of a small grain, grown exclusively by the natives. But, in addition to these, there are various other oils manufactured by the Cingalese. These are the cinnamon oil, castor oil, margosse oil, mee oil, kenar oil, meeheeria oil; and both clove and lemon-grass oil are prepared by Europeans. The first, which is the cinnamon oil, is more properly a kind of vegetable wax, being of the consistence of stearine. This is prepared from the berries of the cinnamon shrubs which are boiled in water until the catty substance or so-called oil, floats upon the surface; this is then skimmed off and, when a sufficient quantity is collected, it is boiled down until all watery particles are evaporated, and the melted fat is turned out into a shallow vessel to cool. It has a pleasant, though, perhaps, a rather faint aromatic smell, and is very delicious as an adjunct in the culinary art. In addition to this it possesses gentle aperient properties, which render it particularly wholesome. Castor oil is also obtained by the natives by boiling, and it is accordingly excessively rank after long keeping. The castor-oil plant is a perfect weed throughout Ceylon, being one of the few useful shrubs that will flourish in such poor soil without cultivation. Margosse oil is extracted from the fruit of a tree of that name. It has an extremely fetid and disagreeable smell, which will effectually prevent the contact of flies or any other insect. On this account it is a valuable preventive to the attacks of flies upon open wounds, in addition to which it possesses powerful healing properties. Mee oil is obtained from the fruit of the mee tree. This fruit is about the size of an apricot, and is extremely rich in its produce; but the oil is of a coarse description, and is simply used by the natives for their rude lamps. Kenar oil and meeheeria oil are equally coarse, and are quite unfit for any but native purposes. Lemon-grass oil, which is known in commerce as citronella oil, is a delightful extract from the rank lemon grass, which covers most of' the hillsides in the more open districts of Ceylon. An infusion of the grass is subsequently distilled; the oil is then discovered on the surface. This is remarkably pure, with a most pungent aroma. If rubbed upon the skin, it will prevent the attacks of insects while its perfume remains; but the oil is so volatile that the scent quickly evaporates and the spell is broken. Clove oil is extracted from the leaves of the cinnamon tree, and not from cloves, as its name would imply. The process is very similar to that employed in the manufacture of citronella oil. Cinnamon is indigenous throughout the jungles of Ceylon. Even at the high elevation of Newera Ellia, it is one of the most common woods, and it grows to the dimensions of a forest tree, the trunk being usually about three feet in circumference. At Newera Ellia it loses much of its fine flavor, although it is still highly aromatic. This tree flourishes in a white quartz sandy soil, and in its cultivated state is never allowed to exceed the dimensions of a bush, being pruned down close to the ground every year. This system of close cutting induces the growth of a large number of shoots, in the same manner that withes are produced in England. Every twelve months these shoots attain the length of six or seven feet, and the thickness of a man's finger. In the interim, the only cultivation required is repeated cleaning. The whole plantation is cut down at the proper period, and the sticks are then stripped of their bark by the peelers. These men are called "chalias," and their labor is confined to this particular branch. The season being over, they pass the remaining portion of the year in idleness, their earnings during one crop being sufficient to supply their trifling wants until the ensuing harvest. Their practice in this employment naturally renders them particularly expert, and in far less time than is occupied in the description they run a sharp knife longitudinally along a stick, and at once divest it of the bark. On the following day the strips of bark are scraped so as entirely to remove the outer cuticle. One strip is then laid within the other, which, upon becoming dry, contract, and form a series of enclosed pipes. It is subsequently packed in bales, and carefully sewed up in double sacks for exportation. The essential oil of cinnamon is usually made from the refuse of the crop; but the quantity produced, in proportion to the weight of cinnamon, is exceedingly small, being about five ounces of oil to half a hundred-weight of the spice. Although the cinnamon appears to require no more than a common quartz sand for its production, it is always cultivated with the greatest success where the subsoil is light, dry and of a loamy quality. The appearance of the surface soil is frequently very deceitful. It is not uncommon to see a forest of magnificent trees growing in soil of apparently pure sand, which will not even produce the underwood with which Ceylon forests are generally choked. In such an instance the appearance of the trees is unusually grand as their whole length and dimensions are exposed to view, and their uniting crowns throw a sombre shade over the barren ground beneath. It is not to be supposed that these mighty specimens of vegetation are supported by the poor sandy soil upon the surface; their tap-roots strike down into some richer stratum, from which their nourishment is derived. These forests are not common in Ceylon; their rarity accordingly enhances their beauty. The largest English oak would be a mere pigmy among the giants of these wilds, whose stature is so wonderful that the eye never becomes tired of admiration. Often have I halted on my journey to ride around and admire the prodigious height and girth of these trees. Their beautiful proportions render them the more striking; there are no gnarled and knotty stems, such as we are accustomed to admire in the ancient oaks and beeches of England, but every trunk rises like a mast from the earth, perfectly free from branches for ninety or a hundred feet, straight as an arrow, each tree forming a dark pillar to support its share of the rich canopy above, which constitutes a roof perfectly impervious to the sun. It is difficult to guess the actual height of these forest trees; but I have frequently noticed that it is impossible to shoot a bird on the higher branches with No. 5 shot. It is much to be regretted that the want of the means of transport renders the timber of these forests perfectly valueless. From age to age these magnificent trees remain in their undisturbed solitudes, gradually increasing in their apparently endless growth, and towering above the dark vistas of everlasting silence. No on can imagine the utter stillness which pervades these gloomy shades. There is a mysterious effect produced by the total absence of animal life. In the depths of these forests I have stood and listened for some sound until my cars tingled with overstrained attention; not a chirp of a bird, not the hum of an insect, but the mouth of Nature is sealed. Not a breath of air has rustled a leaf, not even a falling fruit has broken the spell of silence; the undying verdure, the freshness of each tree, even in its mysterious age, create an idea of eternal vegetation, and the silvery yet dim light adds to the charm of the fairylike solitude which gradually steals over the senses. I have ridden for fifteen or twenty miles through one of these forests without hearing a sound, except that of my horse's hoof occasionally striking against a root. Neither beast nor bird is to be seen except upon the verge. The former has no food upon such barren ground; and the latter can find no berries, as the earth is sunless and free from vegetation. Not even monkeys are to be seen, although the trees must produce fruit and seed. Everything appears to have deserted the country, and to have yielded it as the sole territory of Nature on a stupendous scale. The creepers lie serpent-like along the ground to the thickness of a man's waist, and, rearing their twisted forms on high, they climb the loftiest trees, hanging in festoons from stern to stem like the cables of a line-of-battle-ship, and extending from tree to tree for many hundred yards; now felling to the earth and striking a fresh root; then, with increased energy, remounting the largest trunks, and forming a labyrinth of twisted ropes along the ceiling of the forest. From these creepers hang the sabre-beans. Everything seems on a supernatural scale--the bean-pod four feet or more in length, by three inches in breadth; the beans two inches in diameter. Here may be seen the most valuable woods of Ceylon. The ebony grows in great perfection and large quantity. This tree is at once distinguished from the surrounding stems by its smaller diameter and its sooty trunk. The bark is crisp, jet black, and has the appearance of being charred. Beneath the bark the wood is perfectly white until the heart is reached, which is the fine black ebony of commerce. Here also, equally immovable, the calamander is growing, neglected and unknown. This is the most esteemed of all Ceylon woods, and it is so rare that it realizes a fancy price. It is something similar to the finest walnut, the color being a rich hazel brown, mottled and striped with irregular black marks. It is superior to walnut in the extreme closeness of the grain and the richness of its color. There are upward of eighty different woods produced in Ceylon, which are made use of for various purposes; but of these many are very inferior. Those most appreciated are-- Calamander, Ebony, chiefly used for furniture and cabinet work. Satin-wood, Suria (the tulip tree). Tamarind. Jackwood. Halmileel. Cocoa-nut. Palmyra. The suria is an elegant tree, bearing a beautiful yellow blossom something similar to a tulip, from which it derives its name. The wood is of an extremely close texture and of a reddish-brown color. It is exceedingly tough, and it is chiefly used for making the spokes of wheels. The tamarind is a fine, dark red wood, mottled with black marks; but it is not in general use, as the tree is too valuable to be felled for the sake of its timber. This is one of the handsomest trees of the tropics, growing to a very large size, the branches widely spreading, something like the cedars of Lebanon. Jackwood is a coarse imitation of mahogany, and is used for a variety of purposes, especially for making cheap furniture. The latter is not only economical, but exceedingly durable, and is manufactured at so low a rate that a moderate-sized house might be entirely furnished with it for a hundred and fifty pounds. The fruit of the jack grows from the trunk and branches of the tree, and when ripe it weighs about twenty pounds. The rind is rough, and when cut it exposes a yellow, pulpy mass. This is formed of an infinite number of separate divisions of fleshy matter, which severally enclose an oval nut. The latter are very good when roasted, having a close resemblance to a chestnut. The pulp, which is the real fruit, is not usually eaten by Europeans on account of its peculiar odor. This perfume is rather difficult to describe, but when a rainy day in London crams an omnibus with well-soaked and steaming multitudes, the atmosphere in the vehicle somewhat approaches to the smell of the jack-fruit. The halmileel is one of the most durable and useful woods in Ceylon, and is almost the only kind that is thoroughly adapted for making staves for casks. Of late years the great increase of the oil-trade has brought this wood into general request, consequent upon the increased demand for casks. So extensive and general is the present demand for this wood that the natives are continually occupied in conveying it from certain districts which a few years ago were utterly neglected. Unfortunately, the want of roads and the means of transport confine their operations to the banks of rivers, down which the logs are floated at the proper season. I recollect some eight years ago crossing the Mahawelli river upon a raft which my coolies had hastily constructed, and reaching a miserable village near Monampitya, in the extreme north of the Veddah country. The river is here about four hundred paces wide, and, in the rainy season a fine volume of water rolls along in a rapid stream toward Trincomalee, at which place it meets the sea. I was struck it the time with the magnificent timber in the forests on its banks, and no less surprised that with the natural facilities of transport it should be neglected. Two years ago I crossed at this same spot, and I remarked the wonderful change which a steady demand had effected in this wild country. Extensive piles of halmileel logs were collected along the banks of the river, while the forests were strewed with felled trees in preparation for floating down the stream. A regular demand usually ensures a regular supply, which could not be better exemplified than in this case. Among fancy woods the bread-fruit tree should not be omitted. This is something similar to the jack, but, like the tamarind, the value of the produce saves the tree from destruction. This tree does not attain a very large size, but its growth is exceedingly regular and the foliage peculiarly rich and plentiful. The fruit is something similar in appearance to a small, unripe jack-fruit, with an equally rough exterior. In the opinion of most who have tasted it, its virtues have been grossly exaggerated. To my taste it is perfectly uneatable, unless fried in thin slices with butter; it is even then a bad imitation of fried potatoes. The bark of this tree produces a strong fibre, and a kind of very adhesive pitch is also produced by decoction. The cocoa-nut and palmyra woods at once introduce us to the palms of Ceylon, the most useful and the most elegant class in vegetation. For upward of a hundred and twenty miles along the western and southern coasts of Ceylon, one continuous line of cocoa-nut groves wave their green leaves to the sea-breeze, without a single break, except where some broad clear river cleaves the line of verdure as it meets the sea. Ceylon is rich in palms, including the following varieties: The Cocoa-nut. The Palmyra. The Kittool. The Areca The Date. The Sago. The Talipot. The wonderful productions of this tribe can only be appreciated by those who thoroughly understand the habits and necessities of the natives; and, upon examination, it will be seen that Nature has opened wide her bountiful hand, and in the midst of a barren soil she has still remembered and supplied the wants of the inhabitants. As the stream issued from the rock in the wilderness, to the cocoa-nut tree yields a pure draught from a dry and barren land; a cup of water to the temperate and thirsty traveler; a cup of cream from the pressed kernel; a cup of refreshing and sparkling toddy to the early riser; a cup of arrack to the hardened spirit-drinker, and a cup of oil, by the light of which I now extol its merits-five separate and distinct liquids from the same tree! A green or unripe cocoa-nut contains about a pint of a sweetish water. In the hottest weather this is deliciously cool, in comparison to the heat of the atmosphere. The ripe nut, when scraped into a pulp by a little serrated, semi-circular iron instrument, is squeezed in a cloth by the hand, and about a quarter of a pint of delicious thick cream, highly flavored by cocoa-nut, is then expressed. This forms the chief ingredient in a Cingalese curry, from which it entirely derives its richness and fine flavor. The toddy is the sap which would nourish and fructify the blossom and young nuts, were it allowed to accomplish its duties. The toddy-drawer binds into one rod the numerous shoots, which are garnished with embryo nuts, and he then cuts off the ends, leaving an abrupt and brush-like termination. Beneath this he secures an earthen chatty, which will hold about a gallon. This remains undisturbed for twenty-four hours, from sunrise to sunrise on the following morning; the toddy-drawer then reascends the tree, and lowers he chatty by a line to an assistant below, who empties the contents into a larger vessel, and the chatty is replaced under the productive branch, which continues to yield for about a month. When first drawn the toddy has the appearance of thin milk and water, with a combined flavor of milk and soda-water, with a tinge of cocoa-nut. It is then very pleasant and refreshing, but in a few hours after sunrise a great charts takes place, and the rapidity of the transition from the vinous to the acetous fermentation is so great that by midday it resembles a poor and rather acid cider. It now possesses intoxicating properties, and the natives accordingly indulge in it to some extent; but from its flavor and decided acidity I should have thought the stomach would be affected some time before the head. From this fermented toddy the arrack is procured by simple distillation. This spirit, to my taste, is more palatable than most distilled liquors, having a very decided and peculiar flavor. It is a little fiery when new, but as water soon quenches fire, it is not spared by the native retailers, whose arrack would be of a most innocent character were it not for their infamous addition of stupefying drugs and hot peppers. The toddy contains a large proportion of saccharine, without which the vinous fermentation could not take place. This is procured by evaporation in boiling, on the same principle that sugar is produced from cane-juice. The syrup is then poured into small saucers to cool, and it shortly assumes the consistence of hardened sugar. This is known in Ceylon as "jaggery," and is manufactured exclusively by the natives. Cocoa-nut oil is now one of the greatest exports of Ceylon, and within the last few years the trade has increased to an unprecedented extent. In the two years of 1849 and 1850, the exports of cocoa-nut oil did not exceed four hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred gallons, while in the year 1853 they had increased to one million thirty-three thousand nine hundred gallons; the trade being more than quadrupled in three years. The manufacture of the oil is most simple. The kernel is taken from the nut, and being divided, it is exposed to the sun until all the watery particles are evaporated. The kernel thus dried is known as "copperah." This is then pressed in a mill, and the oil flows into a reservoir. This oil, although clear and limpid in the tropics, hardens to the consistence of lard at any temperature below 72 Fahrenheit. Thus it requires a second preparation on its arrival in England. There it is spread upon mats (formed of coir) to the thickness of an inch, and then covered by a similar protection. These fat sandwiches are two feet square, and being piled one upon the other to a height of about six feet in an hydraulic press, are subjected to a pressure of some hundred tons. This disengages the pure oleaginous parts from the more insoluble portions, and the fat residue, being increased in hardness by its extra density, is mixed with stearine, and by a variety of preparations is converted into candles. The pure oil thus expressed is that known in the shops as cocoa-nut oil. The cultivation of the cocoa-nut tree is now carried to a great extent, both by natives and Europeans; by the former it is grown for a variety of purposes, but by the latter its profits are confined to oil, coir and poonac. The latter is the refuse Of the nut after the oil has been expressed, and corresponds in its uses to the linseed-oil cake of England, being chiefly employed for fattening cattle, pigs and poultry. The preparation of coir is a dirty and offensive occupation. The husk of the cocoa-nut is thrown into tanks of water, until the woody or pithy matter is loosened by fermentation from the coir fibre. The stench of putrid vegetable matter arising from these heaps must be highly deleterious. Subsequently the husks are beaten and the fibre is separated and dried. Coir rope is useful on account of its durability and power of resisting decay during long immersion. In the year 1853, twenty-three hundred and eighty tons of coir were exported from Ceylon. The great drawback to the commencement of a cocoa-nut plantation is the total uncertainty of the probable alteration in the price of oil during the interval of eleven years which must elapse before the estate comes into bearing. In this era of invention, when improvements in every branch of science follow each other with such rapid strides, it is always a dangerous speculation to make any outlay that will remain so long invested without producing a return. Who can be so presumptuous as to predict the changes of future years? Oil may have ceased to be the common medium of light--our rooms may be illumined by electricity, or from fifty other sources which now are never dreamed of. In the mean time, the annual outlay during eleven years is an additional incubus upon the prime cost of the plantation, which, at the expiration of this term, may be reduced to one-tenth of its present value. The cocoa-nut tree requires a sandy and well-drained soil; and although it flourishes where no other tree will grow, it welcomes a soil of a richer quality and produces fruit in proportion. Eighty nuts per annum are about the average income from a healthy tree in full bearing, but this, of course, depends much upon the locality. This palm delights in the sea-breeze, and never attains the same perfection inland that it does in the vicinity of the coast. There are several varieties, and that which is considered superior is the yellow species, called the "king cocoanut." I have seen this on the Maldive Islands in great perfection. There it is the prevailing description. At the Seychelles, there is a variety peculiar to those islands, differing entirely in appearance from the common cocoa-nut. It is fully twice the size, and is shaped like a kidney that is laid open. This is called by the French the "coco de mer" from the large numbers that are found floating in the sea in the neighborhood of the islands. The wood of the cocoa-nut tree is strong and durable; it is a dark brown, traversed by longitudinal black lines. There are three varieties of toddy-producing palms in Ceylon; these are the cocoa-nut, the kittool and the palmyra. The latter produces the finest quality of jaggery. This cannot be easily distinguished from crumbled sugar-candy which it exactly resembles in flavor, The wood of the palmyra is something similar to the cocoa-nut, but it is of a superior quality, and is much used for rafters, being durable and of immense strength. The kittool is a very sombre and peculiar palm. Its crest very much resembles the drooping plume upon a hearse, and the foliage is a dark green with a tinge of gray. The wood of this palm is almost black, being apparently a mass of longitudinal strips, or coarse linen of whalebone running close together from the top to the root of the tree. This is the toughest and most pliable of all the palm-woods, and is principally used by the natives in making "pingos." These are flat bows about eight feet in length, and are used by the Cingalese for carrying loads upon the shoulder. The weight is slung at either end of the pingo, and the elasticity of the wood accommodates itself to the spring of each step, thereby reducing the dead weight of the load. In this manner a stout Cingalese will carry and travel with eighty pounds if working on his own account, or with fifty if hired for a journey. A Cingalese will carry a much heavier weight than an ordinary Malabar, as he is a totally different man in form and strength. In fact, the Cingalese are generally a compactly built and well-limbed race, while the Malabar is a man averaging full a stone lighter weight. The most extraordinary in the list of palms is the talipot. The crest of this beautiful tree is adorned by a crown of nearly circular, fan-shaped leaves of so touch and durable a texture that they are sewn together by the natives for erecting portable tents or huts. The circumference of each leaf at the extreme edge is from twenty to thirty feet, and even this latter size is said to be frequently exceeded. Every Cingalese throughout the Kandian district is provided with a section of one of these leaves, which forms a kind of fan about six feet in length. This is carried in the hand, and is only spread in case of rain, when it forms an impervious roofing of about three feet in width at the broad extremity. Four or five of these sections will form a circular roof for a small hut, which resembles a large umbrella or brobdignag mushroom. There is a great peculiarity in the talipot palm. Is blossoms only once in a long period of years, and after this it dies. No flower can equal the elegance and extraordinary dimensions of this blossom; its size is proportionate to its leaves, and it usurps the place of the faded crest of green, forming a magnificent crown or plume of snow-white ostrich feathers, which stand upon the summit of the tall stem as though they were the natural head of the palm. There is an interesting phenomenon at the period of flowering. The great plume already described, prior to its appearing in bloom, is packed in a large case or bud, about four feet long. In this case the blossom comes to maturity, at which time the tightened cuticle of the bard can no longer sustain the pressure of the expanding flower. It suddenly bursts with a loud report, and the beautiful plume, freed from its imprisonment, ascends at this signal and rapidly unfolds its feathers, towering above the drooping leaves which are hastening to decay. The areca is a palm of great elegance; it rises to a height of about eighty feet, and a rich feathery crest adorns the summit. This is the most delicate stem of all the palm tribe; that of a tree of eighty feet in length would not exceed five inches in diameter. Nevertheless, I have never seen an areca palm overturned by a storm; they bow gracefully to the wind, and the extreme elasticity of the wood secures them from destruction. This tree produces the commonly-called "betel-nut," but more properly the areca-nut. They grow in clusters beneath the crest of the palm, in a similar manner to the cocoa-nut; but the tree is more prolific, as it produces about two hundred nuts per annum. The latter are very similar to large nutmegs both in size and appearance, and, like the cocoa-nut, they are enclosed in an outer husk of a fibrous texture. The consumption of these nuts may be imagined when it is explained that every native is perpetually chewing a mixture of this nut and betel leaf. Every man carries a betel bag, which contains the following list of treasures: a quantity of areca-nuts, a parcel of betel leaves, a roll of tobacco, a few pieces of ginger, an instrument similar to pruning scissors and a brass or silver case (according to the wealth of the individual) full of chunam paste--viz., a fine lime produced from burnt coral, slacked. This case very much resembles an old-fashioned warming-pan breed of watch and chateleine, as numerous little spoons for scooping out the chunam are attached to it by chains. The betel is a species of pepper, the leaf of which very much resembles that of the black pepper, but is highly aromatic and pungent. It is cultivated to a very large extent by the natives, and may be seen climbing round poles and trees in every garden. It has been said by some authors that the betel has powerful narcotic properties, but, on the contrary, its stimulating qualities have a directly opposite effect. Those who have attributed this supposed property to the betel leaf must have indulged in a regular native "chew" as an experiment, and have nevertheless been ignorant of the mixture. We will make up a native "chew" after the most approved fashion, and the reader shall judge for himself in which ingredient the narcotic principle is displayed. Take a betel leaf, and upon this spread a piece of chunam as large as a pea; then with the pruning scissors cut three very thin slices of areca-nut, and lay them in the leaf; next, add a small piece of ginger; and, lastly, a good-sized piece of tobacco. Fold up this mixture in another betel leaf in a compact little parcel, and it is fit for promoting several hours' enjoyment in chewing, and spitting a disgusting blood-red dye in every direction. The latter is produced by the areca-nut. It is the tobacco which possesses the narcotic principle; if this is omitted, the remaining ingredients are simple stimulants. The teeth of all natives are highly discolored by the perpetual indulgence in this disgusting habit; nor is this the only effect produced; cancer in the cheek is a common complaint among them, supposed to be produced by the caustic lime which is so continually in the mouth. The exports of areca-nuts from Ceylon will give some idea of the supply of palms. In 1853 no less than three thousand tons were shipped from this colony, valued at about 45,000 l. The greater portion of these is consumed in India. Two varieties of palms remain to be described--the date and the sago. The former is a miserable species, which does not exceed the height of three to five feet, and the fruit is perfectly worthless. The latter is indigenous throughout the jungles in Ceylon, but it is neither cultivated, nor is the sago prepared from it. The height of this palm does not exceed fifteen or twenty feet, and even this is above the general average. It grows in the greatest profusion in the Veddah country. The stem is rough and a continuation of rings divides it into irregular sections. The leaves are a rich dark green, and very light and feathery, beneath which the nuts grow in clusters similar to those of the areca palm. The only use that the natives make of the produce of this tree is in the preparation of flour from the nuts. Even this is not very general, which is much to be wondered at, as the farina is far superior in flavor to that produced from most grains. The natives ascribe intoxicating properties to the cakes made from this flour; but I have certainly eaten a fair allowance at one time, and I cannot say that I had the least sensation of elevation. The nut, which is something similar to the areca in size, is nearly white when divested of its outer husk, and this is soaked for about twenty-four hours in water. During this time a slight fermentation takes place and the gas generated splits the nut open at a closed joint like an acorn. This fermentation may, perhaps, take some exhilarating effect upon the natives' weak heads. The nuts being partially softened by this immersion are dried in the sun, and subsequently pounded into flour in a wooden mortar. This flour is sifted, and the coarser parts being separated, are again pounded until a beautiful snow-white farina is produced. This is made into a dough by a proper admixture with water, and being formed into small cakes, they are baked for about a quarter of an hour in a chatty. The fermentation which has already taken place in the nut has impregnated the flower with a leaven; this, without any further addition, expands the dough when in the oven, and the cake produced is very similar to a crumpet, both in appearance and flavor. The village in which I first tasted this preparation of the sago-nut was a tolerable sample of such places, on the borders of the Veddah country. The population consisted of one old man and a corresponding old woman, and one fine stout young man and five young women. A host of little children, who were so similar in height that they must have been one litter, and three or four most miserable dogs and cats, were additional tenants of the soi-disant village. These people lived upon sago cakes, pumpkins, wild fruits and berries, river fish and wild honey. The latter is very plentiful throughout Ceylon, and the natives are very expert in finding out the nests, by watching the bees in their flight and following them up. A bee-hunter must be a most keen-sighted fellow, although there is not so much difficulty in the pursuit as may at first appear. No one can mistake the flight of a bee en route home, if he has once observed him. He is no longer wandering from flower to flower in an uncertain course, but he rushes through the air in a straight line for the nest. If the bee-hunter sees one bee thus speeding homeward, he watches the vacant spot in the air, until assured of the direction by the successive appearance of these insects, one following the other nearly every second in their hurried race to the comb. Keeping his eye upon the passing bees, he follows them until he reaches the tree in which the nest is found. There are five varieties of bees in Ceylon; these are all honey-makers, except the carpenter bee. This species is entirely unlike a bee in all its habits. It is a bright tinsel-green color, and the size of a large walnut, but shaped like the humble bees of England. The month is armed with a very powerful pair of mandibles, and the tail with a sting even larger and more venomous than that of the hornet. These carpenter bees are exceedingly destructive, as they bore holes in beams and posts, in which they lay their eggs, the larvae of which when hatched greedily feed upon the timber. The honey bees are of four very distinct varieties, each of which forms its nest on a different principle. The largest and most extensive honey-maker is the "bambera". This is nearly as large as a hornet, and it forms its nest upon the bough of a tree, from which it lines like a Cheshire cheese, being about the same thickness, but five or six inches greater in diameter. The honey of this bee is not so much esteemed as that from the smaller varieties, as the flavor partakes too strongly of the particular flower which the bee has frequented; thus in different seasons the honey varies in flavor, and is sometimes so highly aperient that it must be used with much caution. This property is of course derived from the flower which the bee prefers at that particular season. The wax of the comb is the purest and whitest of any kind produced in Ceylon. So partial are these bees to particular flowers that they migrate from place to place at different periods in quest of flowers which are then in bloom. This is a very wonderful and inexplicable arrangement of Nature, when it is considered that some flowers which particularly attract these migrations only blossom once in "seven years." This is the case at Newera Ellia, where the nillho blossom induces such a general rush of this particular bee to the district that the jungles are swarming with them in every direction, although during the six preceding years hardly a bee of the kind is to be met with. There are many varieties of the nillho. These vary from a tender dwarf plant to the tall and heavy stern of the common nillho, which is nearly as thick as a man's arm and about twenty feet high. The next honey-maker is very similar in size and appearance to our common hive bee in England. This variety forms its nest in hollow trees and in holes in rocks. Another bee, similar in appearance, but not more than half the size, suspends a most delicate comb to the twigs of a tree. This nest is no larger than an orange, but the honey of the two latter varieties is of the finest quality, and quite equal in flavor to the famed "miel vert" of the Isle de Burbon, although it has not the delicate green tint which is so much esteemed in the latter. The last of the Ceylon bees is the most tiny, although an equally industrious workman. He is a little smaller than our common house-fly, and he builds his diminutive nest in the hollow of a tree, where the entrance to his mansion is a hole no larger than would be made by a lady's stiletto. It would be a natural supposition that so delicate an insect would produce a honey of corresponding purity, but instead of the expected treasure we find a thick, black and rather pungent but highly aromatic molasses. The natives, having naturally coarse tastes and strong stomachs, admire this honey beyond any other. Many persons are surprised at the trifling exports of wax from Ceylon. In 1853 these amounted to no more than one ton. Cingalese are curious people, and do not trouble themselves about exports; they waste or consume all the beeswax. While we are contented with the honey and carefully reject the comb, the native (in some districts) crams his mouth with a large section, and giving it one or two bites, he bolts the luscious morsel and begins another. In this manner immense quantities of this valuable article are annually wasted. Some few of the natives in the poorest villages save a small quantity, to exchange with the travelling Moormen for cotton cloths, etc., and in this manner the trifling amount exported is collected. During the honey year at Newera Ellia I gave a native permission to hunt bees in my forests, on condition that he should bring me the wax. Of course he stole the greater portion, but nevertheless, in a few weeks he brought me seventy-two pounds' weight of well-cleaned and perfectly white wax, which he had made up into balls about the size of an eighteen-pound shot. Thus, in a few weeks, one man had collected about the thirtieth part of the annual export from Ceylon; or, allowing that he stole at least one-half, this would amount to the fifteenth. It would be a vain attempt to restrain these people from their fixed habit; they would as soon think of refraining from betel-chewing as giving up a favorite food. Neither will they be easily persuaded to indulge in a food of a new description. I once showed them the common British mushroom, which they declared was a poisonous kind. To prove the contrary, I had them several times at table, and found them precisely similar in appearance and flavor to the well-known, "Agaricus campestris;" but, notwithstanding this actual proof, the natives would not be convinced, and, although accustomed to eat a variety of this tribe, they positively declined this experiment. There is an edible species which they prefer, which, from its appearance, an Englishman would shun: this is perfectly white, both above and below, and the upper cuticle cannot be peeled off. I have tasted this, but it is very inferior in flavor to the common mushroom. Experiments in these varieties of fungi are highly dangerous, as many of the most poisonous so closely resemble the edible species that they can with difficulty be distinguished. There is one kind of fungus that I have met with in the forests which, from its offensive odor and disgusting appearance, should be something superlatively bad. It grows about four inches high; the top is round, with a fleshy and inflamed appearance; the stalk is out of all proportion in its thickness, being about two inches in diameter and of a livid white color; this, when broken, is full of a transparent gelatinous fluid, which smells like an egg in the last stage of rottenness. This fungus looks like an unhealthy excrescence on the face of Nature, who, as though ashamed of the disgusting blemish, has thrown a veil over the defect. The most exquisite fabric that can be imagined--a scarlet veil, like a silken net--falls over this ugly fungus, and, spreading like a tent at its base, it is there attached to the ground. The meshes of this net are about as fine as those of a very delicate silk purse, and the gaudiness of the color and the size of the fungus make it a very prominent object, among the surrounding vegetation. In fact, it is a diminutive, though perfect circular tent of net-work, the stem of the fungus forming the pole in the centre. I shall never forget my first introduction to this specimen. It was growing in an open forest, free from any underwood, land it seemed like a fairy bivouac beneath the mighty trees which overshadowed it. Hardly believing my own eyes at so strange and exquisite a structure, I jumped off my horse and hastened to secure it. But the net-work once raised was like the uncovering of the veiled prophet of Khorassan, and the stem, crushing in my fingers, revealed all the disgusting properties of the plant, and proved the impossibility of removing it entire. The elegance of its exterior only served to conceal its character-like Madame Mantilini, who, when undressed, "tumbled into ruins." There are two varieties of narcotic fungi whose properties are so mild that they are edible in small quantities. One is a bright crimson on the surface; this is the most powerful, and is seldom used. The other is a white solid puff-ball, with a rough outer skin or rind. I have eaten the latter on two occasions, having been assured by the natives that they were harmless. The flavor somewhat resembles a truffle, but I could not account for the extreme drowsiness that I felt soon after eating; this wore off in the course of two or three hours. On the following day I felt the same effect, but to a still greater degree as, having convinced myself that they were really eatable, I bad taken a larger quantity. Knowing that the narcotic principle is the common property of a great variety of fungi, it immediately struck me that the puff-balls were the cause. On questioning the natives, it appeared that it was this principle that they admired, as it produced a species of mild intoxication. All people, of whatever class or clime, indulge in some narcotic drug or drink. Those of the Cingalese are arrack, tobacco, fungi and the Indian hemp. The use of the latter is, however, not so general among the Cingalese as the Malabars. This drug has a different effect from opium, as it does not injure the constitution, but simply exhilarates, and afterward causes a temporary lethargy. In appearance it very nearly resembles the common hemp, but it differs in the seed. The leaves and blossoms are dried, and are either smoked like tobacco, or formed into a paste with various substances and chewed. When the plant approaches maturity, a gummy substance exudes from the leaves; this is gathered by men clothed in dry raw hides, who, by walking through the plantation, become covered with this gum or glue. This is scraped off and carefully preserved, being the very essence of the plant, and exceedingly powerful in its effects. The sensation produced by the properties of this shrub is a wild, dreamy kind of happiness; the ideas are stimulated to a high degree, and all that are most pleasurable are exaggerated till the senses at length sink into a vague and delightful elysium. The reaction after this unnatural excitement is very distressing, but the sufferer is set all right again by some trifling stimulant, such as a glass of wine or spirits. It is supposed, and confidently asserted by some, that the Indian hemp is the foundation of the Egyptian "hashisch," the effects of which are precisely similar. However harmless the apparent effect of a narcotic drug, common sense must at once perceive that a repeated intoxication, no matter how it is produced, must be ultimately hurtful to the system. The brain, accustomed to constant stimulants, at length loses its natural power, and requires these artificial assistants to enable it to perform its ordinary functions, in the same manner that the stomach, from similar treatment, would at length cease to act. This being continued, the brain becomes semi-torpid, until wakened up by a powerful stimulant, and the nervous system is at length worn out by a succession of exciting causes and reactions. Thus, a hard drinker appears dull and heavy until under the influence of his secret destroyer when he brightens up and, perhaps, shines in conversation; but every reaction requires a stronger amount of stimulant to lessen its effect, until mind and body at length become involved in the common ruin. The seed of the lotus is a narcotic of a mild description, and it is carefully gathered when ripe and eaten by the natives. The lotus is seen in two varieties in Ceylon--the pink and the white. The former is the most beautiful, and they are both very common in all tanks and sluggish streams. The leaves are larger than those of the waterlily, to which they bear a great resemblance, and the blossoms are full double the size. When the latter fade, the petals fall, and the base of the flower and seed-pod remains in the shape of a circular piece of honeycomb, full of cells sufficiently large to contain a hazel-nut. This is about the size of the seed, but the shape is more like an acorn without its cup. The flavor is pleasant, being something like a filbert, but richer and more oily. Stramonium (Datura stramonium), which is a powerful narcotic, is a perfect weed throughout the island, but it is not used by the natives otherwise than medicinally, and the mass of the people are ignorant of its qualities, which are only known to the Cingalese doctors. I recollect some years ago, in Mauritius, where this plant is equally common, its proprieties were not only fully understood, but made use of by some of the Chinese emigrants. These fellows made cakes of manioc and poisoned them with stramonium. Hot manioc cakes are the common every-day accompaniment to a French planter's breakfast at Mauritius, and through the medium of these the Chinese robbed several houses. Their plan was simple enough. A man with cakes to sell appeared at the house at an early hour, and these being purchased, he retired until about two hours after breakfast was concluded. By this time the whole family were insensible, and the thieves robbed the house at their leisure. None of these cases terminated fatally; but, from the instant that I heard of it, I made every cake-seller who appeared at the door devour one of his own cakes before I became a purchaser. These men, however, were bona fide cake-merchants, and I did not meet with an exception. There are a great variety of valuable medicinal plants in the jungles of Ceylon, many of which are unknown to any but the native doctors. Those most commonly known to us, and which may be seen growing wild by the roadside, are the nux vomica, ipecacuanha, gamboge, sarsaparilla, cassia fistula, cardamoms, etc. The ipecacuanha is a pretty, delicate plant, which bears a bright orange-colored cluster of flowers. The cassia fistula is a very beautiful tree, growing to the size of an ash, which it somewhat resembles in foliage. The blossom is very beautiful, being a pendant of golden flowers similar to the laburnum, but each blossom is about two and a half feet long, and the individual flowers on the bunch are large in proportion. When the tree is in full flower it is very superb, and equally as singular when its beauty has faded and the seed-pods are formed. These grow to a length of from two to three feet, and when ripe are perfectly black, round, and about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. The tree has the appearance of bearing, a prolific crop of ebony rulers, each hanging from the bough by a short string. There is another species of cassia fistula, the foliage of which assimilates to the mimosa. This bears a thicker, but much shorter, pod, of about a foot in length. The properties of both are the same, being laxative. Each seed within the pod is surrounded by a sweet, black and honey-like substance, which contains the property alluded to. The gamboge tree is commonly known in Ceylon as the "ghorka." This grows to the common size of an apple tree, and bears a corrugated and intensely acid fruit. This is dried by the natives and used in curries. The gamboge is the juice of the tree obtained by incisions in the bark. This tree grows in great numbers in the neighborhood of Colombo, especially among the cinnamon gardens. Here, also, the cashew tree grows to great perfection. The bark of the latter is very rich in tannin, and is used by the natives in the preparation of hides. The fruit is like an apple in appearance, and small, but is highly astringent. The well-known cashew-nut grows like an excrescence from the end of the apple. Many are the varieties and uses of vegetable productions in Ceylon, but of these none are more singular and interesting than the "sack tree," the Riti Gaha of the Cingalese. From the bark of this tree an infinite number of excellent sacks are procured, with very little trouble or preparation. The tree being felled, the branches are cut into logs of the length required, and sometimes these are soaked in water; but this is not always necessary. The balk is then well beaten with a wooden mallet, until it is loosened from the wood; it is then stripped off the log as a stocking is drawn off the leg. It is subsequently bleached, and one end being sewn lip, completes a perfect sack of a thick fibrous texture, somewhat similar to felt. These sacks are in general use among the natives, and are preferred by them to any other, as their durability is such that they sometimes descend from father to son. By constant use they stretch and increase their original size nearly one half. The texture necessarily becomes thinner, but the strength does not appear to be materially decreased. There are many fibrous barks in Ceylon, some which are so strong that thin strips require a great amount of strength to break them, but none of these have yet been reduced to a marketable fibre. Several barks are more or less aromatic; others would be valuable to the tanners; several are highly esteemed by the natives as most valuable astringents, but hitherto none have received much notice from Europeans. This may be caused by the general want of success of all experiments with indigenous produce. Although the jungles of Ceylon produce a long list of articles of much interest, still their value chiefly lies in their curiosity; they are useful to the native, but comparatively of little worth to the European. In fact, few things will actually pay for the trouble and expense of collecting and transporting. Throughout the vast forests and jungles of Ceylon, although the varieties of trees are endless, there is not one valuable gum known to exist. There is a great variety of coarse, unmarketable productions, about equal to the gum of the cherry tree, etc., but there is no such thing as a high-priced gum in the island. The export of dammer is a mere trifle--four tons in 1852, twelve tons in 1853. This is a coarse and comparatively valueless commodity. No other tree but the doom tree produces any gum worth collecting; this species of rosin exudes in large quantities from an incision in the bark, but the amount of exports shows its insignificance. It is a fair sample of Ceylon productions; nothing that is uncultivated is of much pecuniary value. CHAPTER XI. Indigenous Productions--Botanical Gardens--Suggested Experiments--Lack of Encouragement to Gold-diggers--Prospects of Gold-digging--We want "Nuggets"--Who is to Blame?--Governor's Salary--Fallacies of a Five Years' Reign--Neglected Education of the People--Responsibilities of Conquest--Progress of Christianity. The foregoing chapter may appear to decry in toto the indigenous productions of Ceylon, as it is asserted that they are valueless in their natural state. Nevertheless, I do not imply that they must necessarily remain useless. Where Nature simply creates a genus, cultivation extends the species, and from an insignificant parent stock we propagate our finest varieties of both animals and vegetables. Witness the wild kale, parsnip, carrot, crab-apple, sloe, etc., all utterly worthless, but nevertheless the first parents of their now choice descendants. It is therefore impossible to say what might not he done in the improvement of indigenous productions were the attention of science bestowed upon them. But all this entails expense, and upon whom is this to fall? Out of a hundred experiments ninety-nine might fail. In Ceylon we have no wealthy experimentalists, no agricultural exhibitions, no model farms, but every man who settles in a colony has left the mother country to better himself; therefore, no private enterprise is capable of such speculation. It clearly rests upon the government to develop the resources of the country, to prove the value of the soil, which is delivered to the purchaser at so much per acre, good or bad. But no; it is not in the nature of our government to move from an established routine. As the squirrel revolves his cage, so governor after governor rolls his dull course along, pockets his salary, and leaves the poor colony as he found it. The government may direct the attention of the public, in reply, to their own establishment--to the botanical gardens. Have we not botanical gardens? We have, indeed, and much good they should do, if conducted upon the principle of developing local resources; but this would entail expense, and, like everything in the hands of government, it dies in its birth for want of consistent management. With an able man as superintendent at a good salary, the beautiful gardens at Peredenia are rendered next to useless for want of a fund at his disposal. Instead of being conducted as an experimental farm, they are little more than ordinary pleasure-grounds, filled with the beautiful foliage of the tropics and kept in perfect order. What benefit have they been to the colony? Have the soils of various districts been tested? have new fibres been manufactured from the countless indigenous fibrous plants? have new oils been extracted? have medicinal drugs been produced? have dyes been extracted? have improvements been suggested in the cultivation of any of the staple articles of Ceylon export? In fact, has ANYTHING ever been done by government for the interest of the private settler? This is not the fault of the manager of the gardens; he has the will, but no funds. My idea of the object of a botanical garden is, that agricultural theories should be reduced to facts, upon which private enterprise may speculate, and by such success the government should ultimately benefit. It is well known to the commonest school-boy that soil which may be favorable to one plant is not adapted to another; therefore, where there is a diversity of soils it stands to reason that there should be a corresponding variety of crops to suit those soils, so as to make the whole surface of the land yield its proportion. In Ceylon, where the chief article of production is coffee, land (upon an estate) which is not suitable to this cultivation is usually considered waste. Thus the government and the private proprietor are alike losers in possessing an amount of unprofitable soil. Now, surely it is the common sense object in the establishment of a botanical garden to discover for each description of soil a remunerating crop, so that an estate should be cultivated to its uttermost, and the word "waste" be unknown upon the property. Under the present system of management this is impossible; the sum allowed per annum is but just sufficient to keep the gardens in proper condition, and the abilities of the botanist in charge are sacrificed. Many a valuable plant now lies screened in the shades of remote jungles, which the enterprising botanist would bring to light were he enabled by government to make periodical journeys through the interior. These journeys should form a part of his duties; his botanical specimens should be his game, and they should be pursued with the ardor of the chase itself, and subsequently transferred to the gardens and their real merits discovered by experiments. But what can be expected from an apathetic system of government? Dyes, fibres, gums may abound in the forests, metals and even gold may be concealed beneath our feet; but the governor does not consider it a part of his duty to prosecute the search, or even to render facilities to those of a more industrious temperament. What can better exemplify the case than the recent discovery of gold at Newera Ellia? Here was the plain fact that gold was found in small specks, not in one spot, but everywhere throughout the swamps for miles in the vicinity--that at a depth of two or three feet from the surface this proof was adduced of its presence; but the governor positively refused to assist the discoverers ("diggers," who were poor sailors visiting Ceylon), although they merely asked for subsistence until they should be able to reach a greater depth. This may appear too absurd to be correct, but it is nevertheless true. At the time that I commenced these sketches of Ceylon the gold was just discovered, and I touched but lightly upon it, in the expectation that a few months of labor, aided by government support, would have established its presence in remunerating quantities. The swampy nature of the soil rendered the digging impossible without the aid of powerful pumps to reduce the water, which filled the shaft so rapidly that no greater depth could be obtained than eighteen feet, and even this at immense labor. The diggers were absolutely penniless, and but for assistance received from private parties they must have starved. The rainy season was at its height, and torrents fell night and day with little intermission. Still, these poor little fellows worked early and late, wet and dry, ever sanguine of success, and they at length petitioned the Government to give them the means of subsistence for a few months--"subsistence" for two men, and the assistance of a few coolies. This was refused, and the reply stated that the government intended to leave the search for gold to "private enterprise." No reward was offered for its discovery as in other colonies, but the governor would leave it to "private enterprise." A promising enterprise truly, when every landholder in Ceylon, on referring to his title-deeds, observes the reservation of all precious metals to the crown. This is a fair sample of the narrow-minded, selfish policy of a government which, in endeavoring to save a little, loses all; a miserable tampering with the public in attempting to make a cat's paw of private enterprise. How has this ended? The diggers left the island in disgust. If the gold is there in quantity, there in quantity it remains to the present time, unsought for. The subject of gold is so generally interesting, and in this case of such importance to the colony, that, believing as I do that it does exist in large quantities, I must claim the reader's patience in going into this subject rather fully. Let us take the matter as it stands. The reader will remember that I mentioned at an early part of these pages that gold was first discovered in Ceylon by the diggers in the bed of a stream near Kandy--that they subsequently came to Newera Ellia, and there discovered gold likewise. It must be remembered that the main features of the country at Newera Ellia and the vicinity are broad flats or swampy plains, surrounded by hills and mountains: the former covered with rank grass and intersected by small streams, the latter covered with dense forest. The soil abounds with rocks of gneiss and quartz, some of the latter rose-color, some pure white. The gold has hitherto been found in the plains only. These plains extend over some thirty miles of country, divided into numerous patches by intervening jungles. The surface soil is of a peaty nature, perfectly black, soapy when wet, and as light as soot when dry; worthless for cultivation. This top soil is about eighteen inches thick, and appears to have been the remains of vegetable matter washed down from the surrounding hills and forests. This swampy black soil rests upon a thin stratum of brownish clay, not more than a few inches thick, which, forming a second layer, rests in its turn upon a snow white rounded quartz gravel intermixed with white pipe-clay. This contains gold, every shovelful of earth producing, when washed, one or more specks of the precious metal. The stratum of rounded quartz is about two feet thick, and is succeeded by pipe-clay, intermixed with quartz gravel, to a depth of eighteen feet. Here another stratum of quartz gravel is met with, perfectly water-worn and rounded to the size of a twelve-pound shot. In this stratum the gold was of increased size, and some pieces were discovered as large as small grains of rice; but no greater depth was attained at the time Of writing than to this stratum, viz., eighteen feet from the surface. No other holes were sunk to a greater depth than ten feet, on account of the influx of water, but similar shafts were made in various places, and all with equal success. From the commencement of the first stratum of quartz throughout to the greatest depth attained gold was present. Upon washing away the clay and gravel, a great number of gems of small value remained (chiefly sapphire, ruby, jacinth and green tourmaline). These being picked out, there remained a jet-black fine sand, resembling gunpowder. This was of great specific gravity, and when carefully washed, discovered the gold--some in grains, some in mere specks, and some like fine, golden flour. At this interesting stage the search has been given up: although the cheering sight of gold can be obtained in nearly every pan of earth at such trifling depths, and literally in every direction, the prospect is abandoned. The government leaves it to private enterprise, but the enterprising public have no faith in the government. Without being over-sanguine, or, on the other side, closing our cars with asinine stubbornness, let us take an impartial view of the facts determined, and draw rational conclusions. It appears that from a depth of two and a half feet from the surface to the greatest depth as yet attained (eighteen feet), gold exists throughout. It also appears that this is not only the case in one particular spot, but all over this part of the country, and that this fact is undeniable; and, nevertheless, the government did not believe in the existence of gold in Ceylon until these diggers discovered it; and when discovered, they gave the diggers neither reward nor encouragement, but they actually met the discovery by a published prohibition against the search; they then latterly withdrew the prohibition and left it to private enterprise, but neglected the unfortunate diggers. In this manner is the colony mismanaged; in this manner is all public spirit damped, all private enterprise checked, and all men who have anything to venture disgusted. The liberality of a government must be boundless where the actual subsistence for a few months is refused to the discoverers of gold in a country where, hitherto, its presence had been denied. It would be speculative to anticipate the vast changes that in extended discovery would effect in such a colony as Ceylon. We have before us the two pictures of California and Australia, which have been changed as though by the magician's wand within the last few years. It becomes us now simply to consider the probability of the gold being in such quantities in Ceylon as to effect such changes. We have it present these simple data--that in a soft, swampy soil gold has been found close to the surface in small specks, gradually increasing in size and quantity as a greater depth has been attained. From the fact that gold will naturally lie deep, from its specific gravity, it is astonishing that any vestige of such a metal should be discovered in such soil so close to the surface. Still more astonishing that it should be so generally disseminated throughout the locality. This would naturally be accepted as a proof that the soil is rich in gold. But the question will then arise, Where is the gold? The quantities found are a mere nothing--it is only dust: we want "nuggets." The latter is positively the expression that I myself frequently heard in Ceylon--"We want nuggets." Who does not want nuggets? But people speak of "nuggets" as they would of pebbles, forgetting that the very principle which keeps the light dust at the surface has forced the heavier gold to a greater depth, and that far from complaining of the lack of nuggets when digging has hardly commenced, they should gaze with wonder at the bare existence of the gold in its present form and situation. The diggings at Ballarat are from a hundred to an hundred and sixty feet deep in hard ground, and yet people in Ceylon expect to find heavy gold in mere mud, close to the surface. The idea is preposterous, and I conceive it only reasonable to infer from the present appearances that gold does exist in large quantities in Ceylon. But as it is reasonable to suppose such to be the case, so it is unreasonable to suppose that private individuals will invest capital in so uncertain a speculation as mining without facilities from the government, and in the very face of the clause in their own title-deeds "that all precious metals belong to the crown." This is the anomalous position of the gold in Ceylon under the governorship of Sir G. Anderson. Nevertheless, it becomes a question whether we should blame the man or the system, but the question arises in this case, as with everything else in which government is concerned, "Where is the fault?" "Echo answers 'Where?'" But the public are not satisfied with echoes, and in this matter-of-fact age people look to those who fill ostensible posts and draw bona fide salaries; and if these men hold the appointments, no matter under what system, they become the deserved objects of either praise or censure. Thus it may appear too much to say that Sir G. Anderson is liable for the mismanagement of the colony in toto--for the total neglect of the public roads. It may appear too much to say, When you came to the colony you found the roads in good order: they are now impassable; communication is actually cut off from places of importance. This is your fault, these are the fruits of your imbecility; your answer to our petitions for repairs was, "There is no money;" and yet at the close of the year you proclaimed and boasted of a saving of twenty-seven thousand pounds in the treasury! This seems a fearful contradiction; and the whole public received it as such. The governor may complain that the public expect too much; the public may complain that the governor does too little. Upon these satisfactory terms, governors and their dependants bow each other out, the colony being a kind of opera stall, a reserved seat for the governor during the performance of five acts (as we will term his five years of office); and the fifth act, as usual in tragedies, exposes the whole plot of the preceding four, and winds up with the customary disasters. Now the question is, how long this age of misrule will last. Every one complains, and still every one endures. Each man has a grievance, but no man has a remedy. Still, the absurdity of our colonial appointments is such that if steps were purposely taken to ensure the destruction of the colonies, they could not have been more certain. We will commence with a new governor dealt out to a colony. We will simply call him a governor, not troubling ourselves with his qualifications, as of course they have not been considered at the Colonial Office. He may be an upright, clear-headed, indefatigable man, in the prime of life, or he may be old, crotchety, pigheaded, and mentally and physically incapable. He may be either; it does not much matter, as he can only remain for five years, at which time his term expires. We will suppose that the crotchety old gentleman arrives first. The public will be in a delightful perplexity as to what the new governor will do--whether he will carry out the views of his predecessor, or whether he will upset everything that has been done in the past five years; all is uncertainty. The only thing known positively is, that, good or bad, he will pocket seven thousand a year![1] His term of government will be chequered by many disappointments to the public, and, if he has any feeling at all, by many heartburnings to himself. Physically incapable of much exertion, he will be unable to travel over so wild a country as Ceylon. A good governor in a little island may be a very bad governor in a large island, as a good cab-driver might make a bad four-in hand man; thus our old governor would have no practical knowledge of the country, but would depend upon prejudiced accounts for his information. Thus he would never arrive at any correct information; he would receive all testimony with doubt, considering that each had some personal motive in offering advice, and one tongue would thus nullify the other until he should at length come to the conclusion of David in his haste, "that all men are liars," and turn a deaf ear to all. This would enable him to pass the rest of his term without any active blunders, and he might vary the passive monotony of his existence by a system of contradiction to all advice gratis. A little careful pruning of expenses during the last two years of his term might give a semblance of increase of revenue over expenditure, to gain a smile from the Colonial Office. On his return the colony would be left with neglected roads, consequent upon the withdrawal of the necessary funds. This incubus at length removed from the colony, may be succeeded by a governor of the first class. He arrives; finds everything radically wrong; the great arteries of the country (the roads) in disorder; a large outlay required to repair them. Thus his first necessary act begins by an outlay at a time when all outlay is considered equivalent to crime. This gains him a frown from the Colonial Office. Conscious of right, however, he steers his own course; he travels over the whole country, views its features personally, judges of its requirements and resources, gathers advice from capable persons, forms his own opinion, and acts accordingly. We will allow two years of indefatigable research to have passed over our model governor; by that time, and not before, he may have become thoroughly conversant with the colony in all its bearings. He has comprehended the vast natural capabilities, he has formed his plans methodically for the improvement of the country; not by any rash and speculative outlay, but, step by step, he hopes to secure the advancement of his schemes. This is a work of time; he has much to do. The country is in an uncivilized state; he sees the vestiges of past grandeur around him, and his views embrace a wide field for the renewal of former prosperity. Tanks must be repaired, canals reopened, emigration of Chinese and Malabars encouraged, forests and jungles cleared, barren land brought into fertility. The work of years is before him, but the expiration of his term draws near. Time is precious, but nevertheless he must refer his schemes to the Colonial Office. What do they know of Ceylon? To them his plans seem visionary; at all events they will require an outlay. A correspondence ensues--that hateful correspondence! This ensures delay. Time flies; the expiration of his term draws near. Even his sanguine temperament has ceased to hope; his plans are not even commenced, to work out which would require years; he never could see them realized, and his successor might neglect them and lay the onus of the failure upon him, the originator, or claim the merit of their success. So much for a five years' term of governorship, the absurdity of which is superlative. It is so entirely contrary to the system of management in private affairs that it is difficult to imagine the cause that could have given rise to such a regulation. In matters great or small, the capability of the manager is the first consideration; and if this be proved, the value of the man is enhanced accordingly; no employer would lose him. But in colonial governments the system is directly opposite, for no sooner does the governor become competent than he is withdrawn and transferred to another sphere. Thus every colony is like a farm held on a short lease, which effectually debars it from improvement, as the same feeling which actuates the individual in neglecting the future, because he will not personally enjoy the fruits of his labor, must in some degree fetter the enterprise of a five years' governor. He is little better than the Lord Mayor, who flutters proudly for a year, and then drops his borrowed feathers in his moulting season. Why should not governors serve an apprenticeship for five years as colonial secretaries to the colonies they are destined for, if five years is still to be the limited term of their office? This would ensure a knowledge of the colony at a secretary's salary, and render them fit for both the office and salary of governor when called upon; whereas, by the present system, they at once receive a governor's salary before they understand their duties. In casually regarding the present picture of Ceylon, it is hard to say which point has been most neglected; but a short residence in the island will afford a fair sample of government inactivity in the want of education among the people. Upon this subject more might be said than lies in my province to dwell upon; nevertheless, after fifty years' possession of the Kandian districts, this want is so glaring that I cannot withhold a few remarks upon the subject, as I consider the ignorant state of the native population a complete check to the advancement of the colony. In commencing this subject, I must assume that the conquerors of territory are responsible for the moral welfare of the inhabitants; therefore our responsibility increases with our conquests. A mighty onus thus rests upon Great Britain, which few consider when they glory in the boast, "that the sun never sets upon her dominions." This thought leads us to a comparison of power between ourselves and other countries, and we trace the small spot upon the world's map which marks our little island, and in every sphere we gaze with wonder at our vast possessions. This is a picture of the present. What will the future be in these days of advancement? It were vain to hazard a conjecture; but we can look back upon the past, and build upon this foundation our future hopes. When the pomps and luxuries of Eastern cities spread throughout Ceylon, and millions of inhabitants fed on her fertility, when the hands of her artists chiseled the figures of her gods from the rude rock, when her vessels, laden with ivory and spices, traded with the West, what were we? A forest-covered country, peopled by a fierce race of savages clad in skins, bowing before druidical idolatry, paddling along our shores in frames of wickerwork and hide. The ancient deities of Ceylon are in the same spots, unchanged; the stones of the Druids stand unmoved; but what has become of the nations? Those of the East have faded away and their strength has perished. Their ships are crumbled; the rude canoe glides over their waves; the spices grow wild in their jungles; and, unshorn and unclad, the inhabitants wander on the face of the land. Is it "chance" that has worked this change? Where is the forest-covered country and its savage race, its skin-clad warriors and their frail coracles? There, where the forest stood, from north to south and from east to west, spreads a wide field of rich fertility. There, on those rivers where the basket-boats once sailed, rise the taut spars of England's navy. Where the rude hamlet rested on its banks in rural solitude, the never-weary din of commerce rolls through the city of the world. The locomotive rushes like a thunder-clap upon the rail; the steamer ploughs against the adverse wind, and, rapid as the lightning, the telegraph cripples time. The once savage land is the nucleus of the arts and civilization. The nation that from time to time was oppressed, invaded, conquered, but never subjected, still pressed against the weight of adversity, and, as age after age rolled on, and mightier woes and civil strife gathered upon her, still the germ of her destiny, as it expanded, threw off her load, until she at length became a nation envied and feared. It was then that the powers of the world were armed against her, and all Europe joined to tear the laurels from her crown, and fleets and armies thronged from all points against the devoted land, and her old enemy, the Gaul, hovered like his own eagle over the expected prey. The thunder of the cannon shook the world, and blood tinged the waves around the land, and war and tumult shrieked like a tempest over the fair face of Nature; the din of battle smothered all sounds of peace, and years passed on and thicker grew the gloom. It was then the innate might of the old Briton roused itself to action and strained those giant nerves which brought us victory. The struggle was past, and as the smoke of battle cleared from the surface of the world, the flag of England waved in triumph on the ocean, her fleets sat swan-like on the waves, her standard floated on the strongholds of the universe, and far and wide stretched the vast boundaries of her conquests. Again I ask, is this the effect of "chance?" or is it the mighty will of Omnipotence, which, choosing his instruments from the humbler ranks, has snatched England from her lowly state, and has exalted her to be the apostle of Christianity throughout the world? Here lies her responsibility. The conquered nations are in her hands; they have been subject to her for half a century, but they know neither her language nor her religion. How many millions of human beings of all creeds and colors does she control? Are they or their descendants to embrace our faith?--that is, I are we the divine instrument for accomplishing the vast change that we expect by the universal acknowledgement of Christianity? or are we--I pause before the suggestion--are we but another of those examples of human insignificance, that, as from dust we rose, so to dust we shall return? shall we be but another in the long list of nations whose ruins rest upon the solitudes of Nature, like warnings to the proud cities which triumph in their strength? Shall the traveler in future ages place his foot upon the barren sod and exclaim, "Here stood their great city!" The inhabitants of Nineveh would have scoffed at such a supposition. And yet they fell, and yet the desert sand shrouded their cities as the autumn leaves fall on the faded flowers of summer. To a fatalist it can matter but little whether a nation fulfills its duty, or whether, by neglecting it, punishment should be drawn down upon its head. According to his theory, neither good nor evil acts would alter a predestined course of events. There are apparently fatalist governments as well as individuals, which, absorbed in the fancied prosperity of the present, legislate for temporal advantages only. Thus we see the most inconsistent and anomalous conditions imposed in treaties with conquered powers; we see, for instance, in Ceylon, a protection granted to the Buddhist religion, while flocks of missionaries are sent out to convert the heathen. We even stretch the point so far as to place a British sentinel on guard at the Buddhist temple in Kandy, as though in mockery of our Protestant church a hundred paces distant. At the same time that we acknowledge and protect the Buddhist religion, we pray that Christianity shall spread through the whole world; and we appoint bishops to our colonies at the same time we neglect the education of the inhabitants. When I say we neglect the education I do not mean to infer that there are no government schools, but that the education of the people, instead of being one of the most important objects of the government, is considered of so little moment that it is tantamount to neglected. There are various opinions as to the amount of learning which constitutes education, and at some of the government schools the native children are crammed with useless nonsense, which, by raising them above their natural position, totally unfits them for their proper sphere. This is what the government calls education; and the same time and expense thus employed in teaching a few would educate treble the number in plain English. It is too absurd to hear the arguments in favor of mathematics, geography, etc., etc., for the native children, when a large proportion of our own population in Great Britain can neither read nor write. The great desideratum in native education is a thorough knowledge of the English tongue, which naturally is the first stone for any superstructure of more extended learning. This brings them within the reach of the missionary, not only in conversation, but it enables them to benefit by books, which are otherwise useless. It lessens the distance between the white man and the black, and an acquaintance with the English language engenders a taste for English habits. The first dawn of civilization commences with a knowledge of our language. The native immediately adopts some English customs and ideas, and drops a corresponding number of his own. In fact, he is a soil fit to work up on, instead of being a barren rock as hitherto, firm in his own ignorance and prejudices. In the education of the rising native generation lies the hope of ultimate conversion. You may as well try to turn pitch into snow as to eradicate the dark stain of heathenism from the present race. Nothing can be done with them; they must be abandoned like the barren fig-tree, and the more attention bestowed upon the young shoots. But, unfortunately, this is a popular error, and, like all such, one full of prejudice. Abandon the present race! Methinks I hear the cry from Exeter Hall. But the good people at home have no idea to what an extent they are at present, and always have been, abandoned. Where the children who can be educated with success are neglected at the present day, it may be imagined that the parents have been but little cared for; thus, in advocating their abandonment, it is simply proposing an extra amount of attention to be bestowed upon the next generation. There are many large districts of Ceylon where no schools of any kind are established. In the Ouva country, which is one of the most populous, I have had applications from the natives, begging me to interest myself in obtaining some arrangement of the kind. Throngs of natives applied, describing the forlorn condition of their district, all being not only anxious to send their children to some place where they could learn free of expense, but offering to pay a weekly stipend in return. "They are growing up as ignorant as our young buffaloes," was a remark made by one of the headmen of the villages, and this within twelve miles of Newera Ellia. Now, leaving out the question of policy in endeavoring to make the language of our own country the common tongue of a conquered colony, it must be admitted that, simply as a question of duty, it is incumbent upon the government to do all in its power for the moral advancement of the native population. It is known that the knowledge of our language is the first step necessary to this advancement, and nevertheless it is left undone; the population is therefore neglected. I have already adverted to the useless system in the government schools of forcing a superabundant amount of knowledge into the children's brains, and thereby raising them above their position. A contrasting example of good common-sense education has recently been given by the Rev. Mr. Thurston (who is indefatigable in his profession) in the formulation of an industrial school at Colombo. This is precisely the kind of education which is required; and it has already been attended with results most beneficial on its limited scale. This school is conducted on the principle that the time of every boy shall not only be of service to himself, but shall likewise tend to the support of the establishment. The children are accordingly instructed in such pursuits as shall be the means of earning a livelihood in future years: some are taught a trade, others are employed in the cultivation of gardens, and subsequently in the preparation of a variety of produce. Among others, the preparation of tapioca from the root of the manioc has recently been attended with great success. In fact, they are engaged during their leisure hours in a variety of experiments, all of which tend to an industrial turn of mind, benefiting not only the lad and the school, but also the government, by preparing for the future men who will be serviceable and industrious in their station. Here is a lesson for the government which, if carried out on an extensive scale, would work a greater change in the colony within the next twenty years than all the preaching of the last fifty. Throughout Ceylon, in every district, there should be established one school upon this principle for every hundred boys, and a small tract of land granted to each. One should be attached to the botanical gardens at Peredenia, and instruction should be given to enable every school to perform its own experiments in agriculture. By this means, in the course of a few years we should secure an educated and useful population, in lieu of the present indolent and degraded race: an improved system of cultivation, new products, a variety of trades, and, in fact, a test of the capabilities of the country would be ensured, without risk to the government, and to the ultimate prosperity of the colony. Heathenism could not exist in such a state of affairs; it would die out. Minds exalted by education upon such a system would look with ridicule upon the vestiges of former idolatry, and the rocky idols would remain without a worshiper, while a new generation flocked to the Christian altar. This is no visionary prospect. It has been satisfactorily proved that the road to conversion to Christianity is through knowledge, and this once attained, heathenism shrinks into the background. This knowledge can only be gained by the young when such schools are established as I have described. Our missionaries should therefore devote their attention to this object, and cease to war against the impossibility of adult conversion. If one-third of the enormous sums hitherto expended with little or no results upon missionary labor had been employed in the establishments as proposed, our colonies would now possess a Christian population. But are our missionaries capable? Here commences another question, which again involves others in their turn, all of which, when answered, thoroughly explain the stationary, if not retrograde, position of the Protestant Church among the heathen. What is the reader's conceived opinion of the duties and labors of a missionary in a heathen land? Does he, or does he not imagine, as he pays his subscription toward this object, that the devoted missionary quits his native shores, like one of the apostles of old, to fight the good fight? that he leaves all to follow "Him?" and that he wanders forth in his zeal to propagate the gospel, penetrating into remote parts, preaching to the natives, attending on the sick, living a life of hardship and self-denial? It is a considerable drawback to this belief in missionary labor when it is known that the missionaries are not educated for the particular colonies to which they are sent; upon arrival, they are totally ignorant of the language of the natives, accordingly, they are perfectly useless for the purpose of "propagating the gospel among the heathen." Their mission should be that of instructing the young, and for this purpose they should first be instructed themselves. I do not wish to throw a shade upon the efforts of missionary labor; I have no doubt that they use great exertions privately, which the public on the spot do not observe; but taking this for granted as the case, the total want of success in the result becomes the more deplorable. I have also no doubt that the missionaries penetrate into the most remote parts of Ceylon and preach the gospel. For many years I have traversed the wildernesses of Ceylon at all hours and at all seasons. I have met many strange things during my journeys, but I never recollect having met a missionary. The bishop of Colombo is the only man I know who travels out of the high road for this purpose; and he, both in this and many other respects, offers an example which few appear to follow. Nevertheless, although Protestant missionaries are so rare in the jungles of the interior, and, if ever there, no vestige ever remains of such a visit, still, in spots where it might be least expected, may be seen the humble mud hut, surmounted by a cross, the certain trace of some persevering priest of the Roman faith. These men display an untiring zeal, and no point is too remote for their good offices. Probably they are not so comfortable in their quarters in the towns as the Protestant missionaries, and thus they have less hesitation in leaving home. The few converts that have been made are chiefly Roman Catholics, as among the confusion arising from our multitudinous sects and schisms the native is naturally bewildered. What with High Church, Low Church, Baptists, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, etc., etc., etc., the ignorant native is perfectly aghast at the variety of choice. With the members of our Church in such a dislocated state, progression cannot be expected by simple attempts at conversion; even were the natives willing to embrace the true faith, they would have great difficulty in finding it amidst the crowd of adverse opinions. Without probing more deeply into these social wounds, I must take leave of the missionary labors in Ceylon, trusting that ere long the eyes of the government will be fixed upon the true light to guide the prosperity of the island by framing an ordinance for the liberal education of the people. [1] [since reduced to five thousand pounds]. CHAPTER XII. The Pearl Fishery--Desolation of the Coast--Harbor of Trincomalee--Fatal Attack by a Shark--Ferocious Crocodiles--Salt Monopoly--Salt Lakes--Method of Collection--Neglect of Ceylon Hides--Fish and Fishing--Primitive Tackle--Oysters and Penknives--A Night Bivouac for a Novice--No Dinner, but a Good Fire--Wild Yams and Consequences--The Elephants' Duel--A Hunting Hermitage--Bluebeard's last Hunt--The Leopard--Bluebeard's Death--Leopard Shot. While fresh from the subject of government mismanagement, let us turn our eyes in the direction of one of those natural resources of wealth for which Ceylon has ever been renowned--the "pearl fishery." This was the goose which laid the golden egg, and Sir W. Horton, when governor of Ceylon, was the man who killed the goose. Here was another fatal instance of the effects of a five years' term of governorship. It was the last year of his term, and he wished to prove to the Colonial Office that "his talent" had not been laid up in a napkin, but that he had left the colony with an excess of income over expenditure. To obtain this income he fished up all the oysters, ruined the fishery in consequence; and from that day to the present time it has been unproductive. This is a serious loss of income to the colony, and great doubts are entertained as to the probability, of the oyster-banks ever recovering their fertility. Nothing can exceed the desolation of the coast in the neighborhood of the pearl-banks. For many miles the shore is a barren waste of low sandy ground, covered for the most part with scrubby, thorny jungle, diversified by glades of stunted herbage. Not a hill is to be seen as far as the eye can reach. The tracks of all kind of game abound on the sandy path, with occasionally those of a naked foot, but seldom does a shoe imprint its civilized mark upon these lonely shores. The whole of this district is one of the best in Ceylon for deer-shooting, which is a proof of its want of inhabitants. This has always been the case, even in the prosperous days of the pearl fishery. So utterly worthless is the soil, that it remains in a state of nature, and its distance from Colombo (one hundred and fifty miles) keeps it in entire seclusion. It is a difficult to conceive that any source of wealth should exist in such a locality. When standing on the parched sand, with the burning sun shining in pitiless might upon all around, the meagre grass burnt to a mere straw, the tangled bushes denuded of all verdure save a few shriveled leaves, the very insects seeking shelter from the rays, there is not a tree to throw a shadow, but a dancing haze of molten air hovers upon the ground, and the sea like a mirror reflects a glare, which makes the heat intolerable. And yet beneath the wave on this wild and desolate spot glitter those baubles that minister to man's vanity; and, as though in mockery of such pursuits, I have seen the bleached skulls of bygone pearl-seekers lying upon the sand, where they have rotted in view of the coveted treasures. There is an appearance of ruin connected with everything in the neighborhood. Even in the good old times this coast was simply visited during the period for fishing. Temporary huts were erected for thousands of natives, who thronged to Ceylon from all parts of the East for the fascinating speculations of the pearl fishery. No sooner was the season over than every individual disappeared; the wind swept away the huts of sticks and leaves; and the only vestiges remaining of the recent population were the government stores and house at Arripo, like the bones of the carcase after the vultures had feasted and departed. All relapsed at once into its usual state of desolation. The government house was at one time a building of some little pretension, and from its style it bore the name of the "Doric." It is now, like everything else, in a state of lamentable decay. The honeycombed eighteen pounder, which was the signal gun of former years, is choked with drifting sand, and the air of misery about the place is indescribable. Now that the diving helmet has rendered subaqueous discoveries, so easy, I am surprised that a government survey has not been made of the whole north-west coast of Ceylon. It seems reasonable to suppose that the pearl oyster should inhabit depths which excluded the simple diver of former days, and that our modern improvements might discover treasures in the neighborhood of the old pearl-beds of which we are now in ignorance. The best divers, without doubt, could never much exceed a minute in submersion. I believe the accounts of their performances generally to have been much exaggerated. At all events, those of the present day do not profess to remain under water much more than a minute. The accounts of Ceylon pearl fisheries are so common in every child's book that I do not attempt to describe the system in detail. Like all lotteries, there are few prizes to the proportion of blanks. The whole of this coast is rich in the biche de mer more commonly called the sea-slug. This is a disgusting species of mollusca, which grows to a large size, being commonly about a foot in length and three or four inches in diameter. The capture and preparation of these creatures is confined exclusively to the Chinese, who dry them in the sun until they shrink to the size of a large sausage and harden to the consistency of horn; they are then exported to China for making soups. No doubt they are more strengthening than agreeable; but I imagine that our common garden slug would be an excellent substitute to any one desirous of an experiment, as it exactly resembles its nautical representative in color and appearance. Trincomalee is the great depot for this trade, which is carried on to a large extent, together with that of sharks' fins, the latter being used by the Chinese for the same purpose as the biche de mer. Trincomalee affords many facilities for this trade, as the slugs are found in large quantities on the spot, and the finest harbor of the East is alive with sharks. Few things surpass the tropical beauty of this harbor; lying completely land-locked, it seems like a glassy lake surrounded by hills covered with the waving foliage of groves of cocoa-nut trees and palms of great variety. The white bungalows with their red-tiled roofs, are dotted about along the shore, and two or three men-of-war are usually resting at their ease in this calm retreat. So deep is the water that the harbor forms a perfect dock, as the largest vessel can lie so close to the shore that her yards overhang it, which enables stores and cargo to be shipped with great facility. The fort stands upon a projecting point of land, which rises to about seventy feet above the level of the galle face (the race-course) which faces it. Thus it commands the land approach across this flat plain on one side and the sea on the other. This same fort is one of the hottest corners of Ceylon, and forms a desirable residence for those who delight in a temperature of from 90 degrees to 140 degrees in the shade. Bathing is the great enjoyment, but the pleasure in such a country is destroyed by the knowledge that sharks are looking out for you in the sea, and crocodiles in the rivers and tanks; thus a man is nothing more than an exciting live-bait when he once quits terra firma. Accidents necessarily must happen, but they are not so frequent as persons would suppose from the great number of carnivorous monsters that exist. Still, I am convinced that a white man would run greater risk than a black; he is a more enticing bait, being bright and easily distinguished in the water. Thus in places where the natives are in the habit of bathing with impunity it would be most dangerous for a white man to enter. There was a lamentable instance of this some few years ago at Trincomalee. In a sheltered nook among the rocks below the fort, where the natives were always in the habit of bathing, a party of soldiers of the regiment then in garrison went down one sultry afternoon for a swim. It was a lovely spot for bathing; the water was blue, clear and calm, as the reef that stretched far out to sea served as a breakwater to the heavy surf, and preserved the inner water as smooth as a lake. Here were a fine lot of English soldiers stripped to bathe; and although the ruddy hue of British health had long since departed in the languid climate of the East, nevertheless their spirits were as high as those of Englishmen usually are, no matter where or under what circumstances. However, one after the other took a run, and then a "header" off the rocks into the deep blue water beneath. In the long line of bathers was a fine lad of fifteen, the son of one of the sergeants of the regiment; and with the emulation of his age he ranked himself among the men, and on arriving at the edge he plunged head-foremost into the water and disappeared. A crowd of men were on the margin watching the bathing; the boy rose to the surface within a few feet of them, but as he shook the water from his hair, a cloudy shadow seemed to rise from the deep beneath him, and in another moment the distinct outline of a large shark was visible as his white belly flashed below. At the same instant there was a scream of despair; the water was crimsoned, and a bloody foam rose to the surface--the boy was gone! Before the first shock of horror was well felt by those around, a gallant fellow of the same regiment shot head first into the bloody spot, and presently reappeared from his devoted plunge, bearing in his arms one-half of the poor boy. The body was bitten off at the waist, and the lower portion was the prize of the ground shark. For several days the soldiers were busily employed in fishing for this monster, while the distracted mother sat in the burning sun, watching in heart-broken eagerness, in the hope of recovering some trace of her lost son. This, however, was not to be; the shark was never seen again. There is as much difference in the characters of sharks as among other animals or men. Some are timid and sluggish, moving as though too lazy to seek their food; and there is little doubt that such would never attack man. Others, on the contrary, dash through the water as a pike would seize its prey, and refuse or fear nothing. There is likewise a striking distinction in the habits of crocodiles; those that inhabit rivers being far more destructive and fearless than those that infest the tanks. The natives hold the former in great terror, while with the latter they run risks which are sometimes fatal. I recollect a large river in the southeast of Ceylon, which so abounds with ferocious crocodiles that the natives would not enter the water in depths above the knees, and even this they objected to, unless necessity compelled them to cross the river. I was encamped on the banks for some little time, and the natives took the trouble to warn me especially not to enter; and, as proof of the danger, they showed me a spot where three men had been devoured in the course of one year, all three of whom are supposed to have ministered to the appetite of the same crocodile. Few reptiles are more disgusting in appearance than these brutes; but, nevertheless, their utility counterbalances their bad qualities, as they cleanse the water from all impurities. So numerous are they that their heads may be seen in fives and tens together, floating at the top of the water like rough corks; and at about five P.M. they bask on the shore close to the margin of the shore ready to scuttle in on the shortest notice. They are then particularly on the alert, and it is a most difficult thing to stalk them, so as to get near enough to make a certain shot. This is not bad amusement when no other sport can be had. Around the margin of a lake, in a large plain far in the distance, may be seen a distinct line upon the short grass like the fallen trunk of a tree. As there are no trees at hand, this must necessarily be a crocodile. Seldom can the best hand at stalking then get within eighty yards of him before he lifts his scaly head, and, listening for a second, plunges off the bank. I have been contradicted in stating that a ball will penetrate their scales. It is absurd, however, to hold the opinion that the scales will turn a ball--that is to say, stop the ball (as we know that a common twig will of course turn it from its direction, if struck obliquely). The scales of a crocodile are formed of bone exquisitely jointed together like the sections of a skull; these are covered externally with a horny skin, forming, no doubt, an excellent defensive armor, about an inch in thickness; but the idea of their being impenetrable to a ball, if struck fair, is a great fallacy. People may perhaps complain because a pea rifle with a mere pinch of powder may be inefficient, but a common No. 16 fowling-piece, with two drachms of powder, will penetrate any crocodile that was ever hatched. Among the most harmless kinds are those which inhabit the salt lakes in the south of Ceylon. I have never beard of an accident in these places, although hundreds of persons are employed annually in collecting salt from the bottom. These natural reservoirs are of great extent, some of them being many miles in circumference. Those most productive are about four miles round, and yield a supply in August, during the height of the dry season. Salt in Ceylon is a government monopoly; and it has hitherto been the narrow policy of the government to keep up an immense price upon this necessary of life, when the resources of the country could produce any amount required for the island consumption. These are now all but neglected, and the government simply gathers the salt as the wild pig feeds upon the fruit which falls from the tree in its season. The government price of salt is now about three shillings per bushel. This is very impure, being mixed with much dirt and sand. The revenue obtained by the salt monopoly is about forty thousand pounds per annum, two-thirds of which is an unfair burden upon the population, as the price, according to the supply obtainable, should never exceed one shilling per bushel. Let us consider the capabilities of the locality from which it is collected. The lakes are some five or six in number, situated within half a mile of the sea, separated only by a high bank of drift sand, covered for the most part with the low jungle which clothes the surrounding country. Flat plains of a sandy nature form the margins of the lakes. The little town of Hambantotte, with a good harbor for small craft, is about twenty miles distant, to which there is a good cart road. The water of these lakes is a perfect brine. In the dry season the evaporation, of course, increases the strength until the water can no longer retain the amount of salt in solution it therefore precipitates and crystalizes at the bottom in various degrees of thickness, according to the strength of the brine. Thus, as the water recedes from the banks by evaporation and the lake decreases in size, it leaves a beach, not of shingles, but of pure salt in crystallized cubes, to the depth of several inches, and sometimes to half a foot or more. The bottom of the lake is equally coated with this thick deposit. These lakes are protected by watchers, who live upon the margin throughout the year. Were it not for this precaution, immense quantities of salt would be stolen. In the month of August the weather is generally most favorable for the collection, at which time the assistant agent for the district usually gives a few days' superintendence. The salt upon the shore being first collected, the natives wade into the lake and gather the deposit from the bottom, which they bring to the shore in baskets; it is then made up into vast piles, which are subsequently thatched over with cajans (the plaited leaf of the cocoanut). In this state it remains until an opportunity offers for carting it to the government salt stores. This must strike the reader as being a rude method of collecting what Nature so liberally produces. The waste is necessarily enormous, as the natives cannot gather the salt at a greater depth than three feet; hence the greater proportion of the annual produce of the lake remains ungathered. The supply at present afforded might be trebled with very little trouble or expense. If a stick is inserted in the mud, so that one end stands above water, the salt crystallizes upon it in a large lump of several pounds' weight. This is of a better quality than that which is gathered from the bottom, being free from sand or other impurities. Innumerable samples of this may be seen upon the stakes which the natives have stuck in the bottom to mark the line of their day's work. These, not being removed, amass a collection of salt as described. Were the government anxious to increase the produce of these natural reservoirs, nothing could be more simple than to plant the whole lake with rows of stakes. The wood is on the spot, and the rate of labor sixpence a day per man; thus it might be accomplished for a comparatively small amount. This would not only increase the produce to an immense degree, but it would also improve the purity of the collection, and would render facilities for gathering the crop by means of boats, and thus obviate the necessity of entering the water; at present the suffering caused by the latter process is a great drawback to the supply of labor. So powerful is the brine that the legs and feet become excoriated after two or three days' employment, and the natives have accordingly a great aversion to the occupation. Nothing could be easier than gathering the crop by the method proposed. Boats would paddle along between the rows of stakes, while each stick would be pulled up and the salt disengaged by a single blow; the stick would then be replaced in its position until the following season. Nevertheless, although so many specimens exist of this accumulation, the method which was adopted by the savage is still followed by the soi-disant civilized man. In former days, when millions occupied Ceylon, the demand for salt must doubtless have been in proportion, and the lakes which are now so neglected must have been taxed to their utmost resources. There can be little doubt that the barbarians of those times had some more civilized method of increasing the production than the enlightened race of the present day. The productive salt lakes are confined entirely to the south of Ceylon. Lakes and estuaries of sea-water abound all round the island, but these are only commonly salt, and do not yield. The north and the east coasts are therefore supplied by artificial salt-pans. These are simple enclosed levels on the beach, into which the sea-water is admitted, and then allowed to evaporate by the heat of the sun. The salt of course remains at the bottom. More water is then admitted, and again evaporated; and this process continues until the thickness of the salt at the bottom allows of its being collected. This simple plan might be adopted with great success with the powerful brine of the salt lakes, which might be pumped from its present lower level into dry reservoirs for evaporation. The policy of the government, however, does not tend to the increase of any production. It is preferred to keep up the high rate of salt by a limited supply, which meets with immediate demand, rather than to increase the supply for the public benefit at a reduced rate. This is a mistaken mode of reasoning. At the present high price the consumption of salt is extremely small, is its rise is restricted to absolute necessaries. On the other hand, were the supply increased at one half the present rate, the consumption would augment in a far greater proportion, as salt would then be used for a variety of purposes which at the present cost is impossible, viz. For the purpose of cattle-feeding, manures, etc., etc. In addition to this, it would vastly affect the price of salt fish (the staple article of native consumption), and by the reduction in cost of this commodity there would be a corresponding extension in the trade. The hundreds of thousands of hides which are now thrown aside to rot uncared for would then be preserved and exported, which at the present rate of salt is impossible. The skins of buffaloes, oxen, deer, swine, all valuable in other parts of the world, in Ceylon are valueless. The wild buffalo is not even skinned when shot; he is simply opened for his marrow-bones, his tail is cut off for soup, his brains taken out for cotelettes, and his tongue salted. The beast himself, hide and all, is left as food for the jackal. The wandering native picks up his horns, which find their way to the English market; but the "hide," the only really valuable portion, is neglected. Within a short distance of the salt lakes, buffaloes, boars, and in fact all kind of animals abound, and I have no doubt that if it were once proved to the natives that the hides could be made remunerative, they would soon learn the method of preparation. Some persons have an idea that a native will not take the trouble to do anything that would turn a penny; in this I do not agree. Certainly a native has not sufficient courage for a speculation which involves the risk of loss; but provided he is safe in that respect, he will take unbounded trouble for his own benefit, not valuing his time or labor in pursuit of his object. I have noticed a great change in the native habits along the southern coast which exemplifies this, since the steamers have touched regularly at Galle. Some years ago, elephants, buffaloes, etc., when shot by sportsmen, remained untouched except by wild beast; but now within one hundred and fifty miles of Galle every buffalo horn is collected and even the elephant's grinders are extracted from the skulls, and brought into market. An elephant's grinder averages seven pounds in weight, and is not worth more than from a penny to three half-pence a pound; nevertheless they are now brought to Galle in large quantities to be made into knife-handles and sundry ornaments, to tempt the passengers of the various steamers. If the native takes this trouble for so small a recompense, there is every reason to suppose that the hides now wasted would be brought into market and form a valuable export, were salt at such a rate as would admit of their preparation. The whole of the southern coast, especially in the neighborhood of the salt lakes, abounds with fish. These are at present nearly undisturbed; but I have little doubt that a reduction in the price of salt would soon call forth the energies of the Moormen, who would establish fisheries in the immediate neighborhood. This would be of great importance to the interior of the country, as a road has been made within the last few years direct from this locality to Badulla, distant about eighty miles, and situated in the very heart of the most populous district of Ceylon. This road, which forms a direct line of communication from the port of Hambantotte to Newera Ellia, is now much used for the transport of coffee from the Badulla estates, to which a cheap supply of salt and fish would be a great desideratum. The native is a clever fellow at fishing. Every little boy of ten years old along the coast is an adept in throwing the casting net; and I have often watched with amusement the scientific manner in which some of these little fellows handle a fine fish on a single line; Isaak Walton would have been proud of such pupils. There is nothing like necessity for sharpening a man's intellect, and the natives of the coast being a class of ichthyophagi, it may be imagined that they excel in all the methods of capturing their favorite food. The sea, the rivers, and in fact every pool, teem with fish of excellent quality, from the smallest to the largest kind, not forgetting the most delicious prawns and crabs. Turtle likewise abound, and are to be caught in great numbers in their season. Notwithstanding the immense amount of fish in the various rivers, there is no idea of fishing as a sport among the European population of Ceylon. This I cannot account for, unless from the fear of fever, which might be caught with more certainty than fish by standing up to the knees in water under a burning sun. Nevertheless, I have indulged in this every now and then, when out on a jungle trip, although I have never started from home with such an intention. Seeing some fine big fellows swimming about in a deep hole is a great temptation, especially when you know they are grey mullet, and the chef de cuisine is short of the wherewithal for dinner. This is not infrequently the case during a jungle trip; and the tent being pitched in the shade of a noble forest on the steep banks of a broad river, thoughts of fishing naturally intrude themselves. The rivers in the dry season are so exhausted that a simple bed of broad dry sand remains, while a small stream winds along the bottom, merely a few inches deep, now no more than a few feet in width, now rippling over a few opposing rocks, while the natural bed extends its dry sand for many yards on either side. At every bend in the river there is of course a deep hole close to the bank; these holes remain full of water, as the little stream continues to flow through them; and the water, in its entrance and exit being too shallow for a large fish, all the finny monsters of the river are compelled to imprison themselves in the depths of these holes. Here the crocodiles have fine feeding, as they live in the same place. With a good rod and tackle there would be capital sport in these places, as some of the fish run ten and twelve pounds weight; but I have never been well provided, and, while staring at the coveted fish from the bank, I have had no means of catching them, except by the most primitive methods. Then I have cut a stick for a rod, and made a line with some hairs from my horse's tail, with a pin for a hook, baited with a shrimp, and the fishing has commenced. Fish and fruit are the most enjoyable articles of food in a tropical country, and in the former Ceylon is rich. The seir fish is little inferior to salmon, and were the flesh a similar color, it might sometimes form a substitute. Soles and whiting remind us of Old England, but a host of bright red, blue, green, yellow, and extraordinary-looking creatures in the same net dispel all ideas of English fishing. Oysters there are likewise in Ceylon; but here, alas I there is a sad falling off in the comparison with our well-remembered "native." Instead of the neat little shell of the English oyster, the Ceylon species is a shapeless, twisted, knotty, rocky-looking creature, such as a legitimate oyster would be in a fit of spasms or convulsions. In fact, there is no vestige of the true breed about it, and the want of flavor equals its miserable exterior. There are few positions more tantalizing to a hungry man than that of being surrounded b oysters without a knife. It is an obstinate and perverse wretch that will not accommodate itself to man's appetite, and it requires a forcible attack to vanquish it; so that every oyster eaten is an individual murder, in which the cold steel has been plunged into its vitals, and the animal finds itself swallowed before it as quite made up its mind that it has been opened. But take away the knife, and see how vain is the attempt to force the stronghold. How utterly useless is the oyster! You may turn it over and over, and look for a weak place, but there is no admittance; you may knock it with a stone, but the knock will be unanswered. How would you open such a creature without a knife? This was one of the many things that had never occurred to me until one day when I found myself with some three or four friends and a few boatmen on a little island, or rather a rock, about a mile from the shore. This rock was rich in the spasmodic kind of oyster, large detached masses of which lay just beneath the water in lumps of some hundredweight each, which had been formed by the oysters clustering and adhering together. It so happened that our party were unanimous in the love of these creatures, and we accordingly exerted ourselves to roll out of the water a large mass; which having accomplished, we discovered to our dismay that nothing but one penknife was possessed among us. This we knew was a useless weapon against such armor; however, in our endeavors to perform impossibilities, we tickled the oyster and broke the knife. After gazing for seine time in blank despair at our useless prize, a bright thought struck one of the party, and drawing his ramrod he began to screw it Into the weakest part of an oyster; this, however, was proof, and the ramrod broke. Stupid enough it may appear, but it was full a quarter of an hour before any of us thought of a successful plan of attack. I noticed a lot of drift timber scattered upon the island, and then the right idea was hit. We gathered the wood, which was bleached and dry, an we piled it a few feet to windward of the mass of oysters. Striking a light with a cap and some powder, we lit the pile. It blazed and the wind blew the heat strong upon the oysters, which accordingly began to squeak and hiss, until one by one they gave up the ghost, and, opening their shells, exposed their delightfully roasted bodies, which were eaten forthwith. How very absurd and uninteresting this is! but nevertheless it is one of those trifling incidents which sharpen the imagination when you depend upon your own resources. It is astonishing how perfectly helpless some people are if taken from the artificial existence of every-day life and thrown entirely upon themselves. One man would be in superlative misery while another would enjoy the responsibility, and delight in the fertility of his own invention in accommodating himself to circumstances. A person can scarcely credit the unfortunate number of articles necessary for his daily and nightly comfort, until he is deprived of them. To realize this, lose yourself, good reader, wander off a great distance from everywhere, and be benighted in a wild country, with nothing but your rifle and hunting-knife. You will then find yourself dinnerless, supperless, houseless, comfortless, sleepless, cold and miserable, if you do not know how to manage for yourself. You will miss your dinner sadly if you are not accustomed to fast for twenty-four hours. You will also miss your bed decidedly, and your toothbrush in the morning; but if, on the other hand, you are of the right stamp, it is astonishing how lightly these little troubles will sit on you, and how comfortable you will make yourself under the circumstances. The first thing you will consider is the house. The architectural style will of course depend upon the locality. If the ground is rocky and hilly, be sure to make a steep pitch in the bank or the side of a rock form a wall, to leeward of which you will lie when your mansion is completed by a few sticks simply inclined from the rock and covered with grass. If the country is flat, you must cut four forked sticks, and erect a villa after this fashion in skeleton-work, which you then cover with grass. You will then strew the floor with grass or, small boughs, in lieu of a feather bed, and you will tie up a bundle of the same material into a sheaf, which will form a capital pillow. If grass and sticks are at hand, this will be completed thus far in an hour. Then comes the operation of fire-making, which is by no means easy; and as warmth comes next to food, and a blaze both scares wild animals and looks cheerful, I advise some attention to be paid to the fire. There must be a good collection of old fallen logs, if possible, together with some green wood to prevent too rapid a consumption of fuel. But the fire is not yet made. First tear off a bit of your shirt and rub it with moistened gunpowder. Wind this in a thick roll round your ramrod just below the point of the screw, with the rough torn edge uppermost. Into these numerous folds sprinkle a pinch of gunpowder; then put a cap on the point of the screw, and a slight tap with your hunting-knife explodes it and ignites the linen. Now, fire in its birth requires nursing like a young baby, or it will leave you in the lurch. A single spark will perhaps burn your haystacks, but when you want a fire it seldom will burn, out of sheer obstinacy; therefore, take a wisp of dry grass, into which push the burning linen and give it a rapid, circular motion through the air, which will generally set it in a blaze. Then pile gently upon it the smallest and driest sticks, increasing their size as the fire grows till it is all right; and you will sit down proudly before your own fire, thoroughly confident that you are the first person that ever made one properly. There is some comfort in that; and having manufactured your own house and bed, you will lie down snugly and think of dinner till you fall asleep, and the crowing of the jungle-cocks will wake you in the morning. The happiest hours of my life have been passed in this rural solitude. I have started from home with nothing but a couple of blankets and the hounds, and, with one blanket wrapped round me I have slept beneath a capital tent formed of the other with two forked sticks and a horizontal pole--the ends of the blanket being secured by heavy stones, thus-- This is a more comfortable berth than it may appear at first sight, especially if one end is stopped up with boughs. The ridge-pole being only two feet and a half high, renders it necessary to crawl in on all-fours; but this lowness of ceiling has its advantages in not catching the wind, and likewise in its warmth. A blanket roof, well secured and tightly strained, will keep off the heaviest rain for a much longer period than a common tent; but in thoroughly wet weather any woven roof is more or less uncomfortable. I recollect a certain bivouac in the Angora patinas for a few days' hunting, when I was suddenly seized with a botanical fit in a culinary point of view, and I was determined to make the jungle subscribe something toward the dinner. To my delight, I discovered some plants which, from the appearance of their leaves, I knew were a species of wild yam; they grew in a ravine on the swampy soil of a sluggish spring, and the ground being loose, I soon grubbed them up and found a most satisfactory quantity of yams about the size of large potatoes--not bad things for dinner. Accordingly, they were soon transferred to the pot. Elk steaks and an Irish stew, the latter to be made of elk chops, onions and the prized yams; this was the bill of fare expected. But, misericordia! what a change cone over the yams when boiled! they turned a beautiful slate color, and looked like imitations of their former selves in lead. Their appearance was uncommonly bad, certainly. There were three of us to feed upon them, viz., Palliser, my huntsman Benton and myself. No one wishing to be first, it was then, I confess, that the thought just crossed my mind that Benton should make the experiment, but, repenting at the same moment, I punished myself by eating a very little one on the spot. Benton, who was blessed with a huge appetite, picked out a big one. Greedy fellow, to choose the largest! but, n'importe, it brought its punishment. Palliser and I having eaten carefully, were just beginning to feel uncomfortable, when up jumped Benton, holding his throat with both hands, crying, "My throat's full of pins. I'm choked." "We are poisoned, no doubt of it," said Palliser, in his turn. "I am choking likewise." "So am I." There we were all three, with our throats in an extraordinary state of sudden contraction and inflammation, with a burning and pricking sensation, in addition to a feeling of swelling and stoppage of the windpipe. Having nothing but brandy at hand, we dosed largely instanter, and in the course of ten minutes we found relief; but Benton, having, eaten his large yam, was the last to recover. There must have been highly poisonous qualities in this root, as the quantity eaten was nothing in proportion to the effects produced. It is well known that many roots are poisonous when raw (especially the manioc), which become harmless when cooked, as the noxious properties consist of a very volatile oil, which is thrown off during the process of boiling. These wild yams must necessarily be still worse in their raw state; and it struck me, after their effects became known, that I had never seen them grubbed up by the wild hogs; this neglect being a sure proof of their unfitness for food. In these Augora patinas a curious duel was lately fought by a pair of wild bull elephants, both of whom were the raree aves of Ceylon, "tuskers." These two bulls had consorted with a herd, and had no doubt quarreled about the possession of the females. They accordingly fought it out to the death, as a large tusker was found recently killed, with his body bored in many directions by his adversary's tusks, the ground in the vicinity being trodden down with elephant tracks proving the obstinacy of the fight. The last time that I was in this locality poor old Bluebeard was alive, and had been performing feats in elk-hunting which no dog could surpass. A few weeks later and he ran his last elk, and left a sad blank in the pack. Good and bad luck generally come in turn; but when the latter does pay a visit, it falls rather heavily, especially among the hounds. In one year I lost nearly the whole pack. Seven died in one week from an attack upon the brain, appearing in a form fortunately unknown in England. In the same year I lost no less than four of the best hounds by leopards, in addition to a fearful amount of casualties from other causes. Shortly after the appearance of the epidemic alluded to, I took the hounds to the Totapella Plains for a fortnight, for chance of air, while their kennel was purified and re-whitewashed. In these Totapella Plains I had a fixed encampment, which, being within nine miles of my house, I could visit at any time with the hounds, without the slightest preparation. There was an immense number of elk in this part of the country; in fact this was a great drawback to the hunting, as two or more were constantly on foot at the same time, which divided the hounds and scattered them in all directions. This made hard work of the sport, as this locality is nothing but a series of ups and downs. The plains, as they are termed, are composed of some hundred grassy hills, of about a hundred feet elevation above the river; these rise like half oranges in every direction, while a high chain of precipitous mountains walls in one side of the view. Forest-covered hills abound in the centre and around the skirts of the plains, while a deep river winds in a circuitous route between the grassy hills. My encampment was well chosen in this romantic spot. It was a place where you might live all your life without seeing a soul except a wandering bee-hunter, or a native sportsman who had ventured up from the low country to shoot an elk. Surrounded on all sides but one with steep hills, my hunting settlement lay snugly protected from the wind in a little valley. A small jungle about a hundred yards square grew at the base of one of these grassy hills, in which, having cleared the underwood for about forty yards, I left the rarer trees standing, and erected my huts under their shelter at the exact base of the knoll. This steep rise broke off into an abrupt cliff about sixty yards from my tent, against which the river had waged constant war, and, turning in an endless vortex, had worn a deep hole, before it shot off in a rapid torrent from the angle, dashing angrily over the rocky masses which had fallen from the overhanging cliff, and coming to a sudden rest in a broad deep pool within twenty yards of the tent door. This was a delicious spot. Being snugly hidden in the jungle, there was no sign of my encampment from the plain, except the curling blue smoke which rose from the little hollow. A plot of grass of some two acres formed the bottom of the valley before my habitation, at the extremity of which the river flowed, backed on the opposite side by an abrupt hill covered with forest and jungle. This being a chilly part of Ceylon, I had thatched the walls of my tent, and made a good gridiron bedstead, to keep me from the damp ground, by means of forked upright sticks, two horizontal bars and numerous cross-pieces. This was covered with six inches' thickness of grass, strapped down with the bark of a fibrous shrub. My table and bench were formed in the same manner, being of course fixtures, but most substantial. The kitchen, huts for attendants and kennel were close adjoining. I could have lived there all my life in fine weather. I wish I was there now with all my heart. However, I had sufficient bad luck on my last visit to have disgusted most people. Poor Matchless, who was as good as her name implied, died of inflammation of the lungs; and I started one morning in very low spirits at her loss, hoping to cheer myself up by a good hunt. It was not long before old Bluebeard's opening note was heard high upon the hill-tops; but, at the same time, a portion of the pack had found another elk, which, taking an opposite direction, of course divided them. Being determined to stick to Bluebeard to the last, I made straight through the jungle toward the point at which I had heard a portion of the pack join him, intending to get upon their track and follow up. This I soon did; and after running for some time through the jungle, which, being young "nillho," was unmistakably crushed by the elk and hounds, I came to a capital though newly-made path, as a single elephant, having been disturbed by the cry of the hounds, had started off at full speed; and the elk and hounds, naturally choosing the easiest route through the jungle, had kept upon his track. This I was certain of, as the elk's print sunk deep in that of the elephant, whose dung, lying upon the spot, was perfectly hot. I fully expected that the hounds would bring the elephant to bay, which is never pleasant when you are without a gun; however, they did not, but, sticking to their true game, they went straight away toward the chain of mountains at the end of the plain. The river, in making its exit, is checked by abrupt precipices, and accordingly makes an angle and then descends a ravine toward the low country. I felt sure, from the nature of the ground and the direction of the run, that the elk would come to bay in this ravine; and, after half an hour's run, I was delighted, on arriving on the hill above, to hear the bay, of the bounds in the river far below. The jungle was thick and tangled, but it did not take long, to force my way down the steep mountain side, and I neared the spot and heard the splashing in the river, as the elk, followed by the hounds, dashed across just before I came in view. He had broken his bay; and, presently, I again heard the chorus of voices as he once more came to a stand a few hundred paces down the river. The bamboo was so thick that I could hardly break my way through it; and I was crashing along toward the spot, when suddenly the bay ceased, and shortly after some of the hounds came hurrying up to me regularly scared. Lena, who seldom showed a symptom of fear, dashed up to me in a state of great excitement, with the deep scores of a leopard's claws on her hindquarters. Only two couple of the hounds followed on the elk's track; the rest were nowhere. The elk had doubled back, and I saw old Bluebeard leading upon the scent up the bank of the river, followed by three other bounds. The surest, although the hardest work, was to get on the track and follow up through the jungle. This I accordingly did for about a mile, at which distance I arrived at a small swampy plain in the centre of the jungle. Here, to my surprise, I saw old Bluebeard sitting up and looking faint, covered with blood, with no other dog within view. The truth was soon known upon examination. No less than five holes were cut in his throat by a leopard's claws, and by the violent manner in which the poor dog strained and choked, I felt sure that the windpipe was injured. There was no doubt that he had received the stroke at the same time that Lena was wounded beneath the rocky mountain when the elk was at bay; and nevertheless, the staunch old dog had persevered in the chase till the difficulty of breathing brought him to a standstill. I bathed the wounds, but I knew it was his last day, poor old fellow! I sounded the bugle for a few minutes, and having collected some of the scattered pack I returned to the tent, leading the wounded dog, whose breathing rapidly became more difficult. I lost no time in fomenting and poulticing the part, but the swelling had commenced to such an extent that there was little hope of recovery. This was a dark day for the pack. Benton returned in the afternoon from a search for the missing hounds, and, as he descended the deep hill-side on approaching the tent, I saw tent he and a native were carrying something slung upon a pole. At first I thought it was an elk's head, which the missing hounds might have run to bay, but on his arrival the worst was soon known. It was poor Leopold, one of my best dogs. He was all but dead, with hopeless wounds in his throat and belly. He had been struck by a leopard within a few yards of Benton's side, and, with his usual pluck, the dog turned upon the leopard in spite of his wounds, when the cowardly brute, seeing the man, turned and fled. That night Leopold died. The next morning Bluebeard was so bad that I returned home with him slung in a litter between two men. Poor fellow! he never lived to reach his comfortable kennel, but died in the litter within a mile of home. I had him buried by the side of old Smut, and there are no truer dogs on the earth than the two that there lie together. A very few weeks after Bluebeard's death, however, I got a taste of revenge out of one of the race. Palliser and I were out shooting, and we found a single bull elephant asleep in the dry bed of a stream; we were stealing quietly up to him, when his guardian spirit whispered something in his ear, and up he jumped. However, we polished him off, and having reloaded, we passed on. The country consisted of low, thorny jungle and small sandy plains of short turf, and we were just entering one of these open spots within a quarter of a mile of the dead elephant, when we observed a splendid leopard crouching at the far end of the glade. He was about ninety paces from us, lying broadside on, with his head turned to the opposite direction, evidently looking out for game. His crest was bristled up with excitement, and he formed a perfect picture of beauty both in color and attitude. Halting our gun-bearers, we stalked him within sixty yards; he looked quickly round, and his large hazel eyes shone full upon us, as the two rifles made one report, and his white belly lay stretched upon the ground. They were both clean shots: Palliser had aimed at his head, and had cut off one ear and laid the skin open at the back of the neck. My ball had smashed both shoulders, but life was not fairly extinct. We therefore strangled him with my necktie, as I did not wish to spoil his hide by any further wound. This was a pleasing sacrifice to the "manes" of old Bluebeard. E. Palliser had at one time the luck to have a fair turn up with a leopard with the dogs and hunting-knife. At that time he kept a pack at Dimboola, about nine miles from my house. Old Bluebeard belonged to him, and he had a fine dog named "Pirate," who was the heaviest and best of his seizers. He was out hunting with two or three friends, when suddenly a leopard sprang from the jungle at one of the smaller hounds as they were passing quietly along a forest path. Halloaing the pack on upon the instant, every dog gave chase, and a short run brought him to bay in the usual place of refuge, the boughs of a tree. However, it so happened that there was a good supply of large sharp stones upon the soil, and with these the whole party kept up a spirited bombardment, until at length one lucky shot hit him on the head, and at the same moment he fell or jumped into the middle of the pack. Here Pirate came to the front in grand style and collared him, while the whole pack backed him up without an exception. There was a glorious struggle of course, which was terminated by the long arm of our friend Palliser, who slipped the hunting-knife into him and became a winner. This is the only instance that I know of a leopard being run into and killed with hounds and a knife. CHAPTER XIII. Wild Denizens of Forest and Lake--Destroyers of Reptiles--The Tree Duck--The Mysteries of Night in the Forest--The Devil-Bird--The Iguanodon in Miniature--Outrigger Canoes--The Last Glimpse of Ceylon--A Glance at Old Times. One of the most interesting objects to a tourist in Ceylon is a secluded lake or tank in those jungle districts which are seldom disturbed by the white man. There is something peculiarly striking in the wonderful number of living creatures which exist upon the productions of the water. Birds of infinite variety and countless numbers--fish in myriads--reptiles and crocodiles--animals that feed upon the luxuriant vegetation of the shores--insects which sparkle in the sunshine in every gaudy hue; all these congregate in the neighborhood of these remote solitudes, and people the lakes with an incalculable host of living beings. In such a scene there is scope for much delightful study of the habits and natures of wild animals, where they can be seen enjoying their freedom unrestrained by the fear of man. Often have I passed a quiet hour on a calm evening when the sun has sunk low on the horizon, and lie cool breeze has stolen across the water, refreshing all animal life. Here, concealed beneath the shade of some large tree I have watched the masses of living things quite unconscious of such scrutiny. In one spot the tiny squirrel nibbling the buds on a giant limb of the tree above me, while on the opposite shore a majestic bull elephant has commenced his evening bath, showering the water above his head and trumpeting his loud call to the distant herd. Far away in the dense jungles the ringing sound is heard, as the answering females return the salute and slowly approach the place of rendezvous. One by one their dark forms emerge from the thorny coverts and loom large upon the green but distant shores, and they increase their pace when they view the coveted water, and belly-deep enjoy their evening draught. The graceful axis in dense herds quit the screening jungle and also seek the plain. The short, shrill barks of answering bucks sound clearly across the surface of the lake, and indistinct specks begin to appear on the edge of the more distant forests. Now black patches are clotted about the plain; now larger objects, some single and some in herds, make toward the water. The telescope distinguishes the vast herds of hogs busy in upturning the soil in search of roots, and the ungainly buffaloes, some in herds and others single bulls, all gathering at the hour of sunset toward the water. Peacocks spread their gaudy plumage to the cool evening air as they strut over the green plain; the giant crane stands statue-like among the shallows; the pelican floats like a ball of snow upon the dark water; and ducks and waterfowl of all kinds splash, and dive, and scream in a confused noise, the volume of which explains their countless numbers. Foremost among the waterfowl for beauty is the water-pheasant. He is generally seen standing upon the broad leaf of a lotus, pecking at the ripe seeds and continually uttering his plaintive cry, like the very distant note of a hound. This bird is most beautifully formed, and his peculiarity of color is well adapted to his shape. He is something like a cock pheasant in build and mode of carriage, but he does not exceed the size of a pigeon. His color is white, with a fine brown tinsel glittering head and long tail; the wings of the cock bird are likewise ornamented with similar brown tinsel feathers. These birds are delicious eating, but I seldom fire at them, as they are generally among the lotus plants in such deep water that I dare not venture to get them on account of crocodiles. The lotus seeds, which they devour greedily, are a very good substitute for filberts, and are slightly narcotic. The endless variety of the crane is very interesting upon these lonely shores. From the giant crane, who stands nearly six feet high, down to the smallest species of paddy bird, there is a numerous gradation. Among these the gaunt adjutant stands conspicuous as he stalks with measured steps through the high rushes, now plunging his immense bill into the tangled sedges, then triumphantly throwing back his head with a large snake writhing helplessly in his horny beak; open fly the shear-like hinges of his bill--one or two sharp jerks and down goes one half of an incredibly large snake; another jerk and a convulsive struggle of the snake; one more jerk--snap, snap goes the bill and the snake has disappeared, while the adjutant again stalks quietly on, as though nothing had happened. Down goes his bill, presently, with a sudden start, and again his head is thrown back; but this time it is the work of a moment, as it is only an iguana, which not being above eighteen inches long, is easy swallowing. A great number of the crane species are destroyers of snakes, which in a country so infested with vermin as Ceylon renders them especially valuable. Peacocks likewise wage perpetual war with all kinds of reptiles, and Nature has wisely arranged that where these nuisances most abound there is a corresponding provision for their destruction. Snipes, of course, abound in their season around the margin of the lakes; but the most delicious birds for the table are the teal and ducks, of which there are four varieties. The largest duck is nearly the size of a wild goose, and has a red, fatty protuberance about the beak very similar to a muscovy. The teal are the fattest and most delicious birds that I have ever tasted. Cooked in Soyer's magic stove, with a little butter, cayenne pepper, a squeeze of lime juice, a pinch of salt, and a spoonful of Lea and Perrins' Worcester sauce (which, by the by, is the best in the world for a hot climate), and there is no bird like a Ceylon teal. They are very numerous, and I have seen them in flocks of some thousands on the salt-water lakes on the eastern coast, where they are seldom or ever disturbed. Nevertheless, they are tolerably wary, which, of course, increases the sport of shooting them. I have often thought what a paradise these lakes would have made for the veteran Colonel Hawker with his punt gun. He might have paddled about and blazed away to his heart's content. There is one kind of duck that would undoubtedly have astonished him, and which would have slightly bothered the punt gun for an elevation: this is the tree duck, which flies about and perches in the branches of the lofty trees like any nightingale. This has an absurd effect, as a duck looks entirely out of place in such a situation. I have seen a whole cluster of them sitting on one branch, and when I first observed them I killed three at one shot to make it a matter of certainty. It is a handsome light brown bird, about the size of an English widgeon, but there is no peculiar formation in the feet to enable them to cling to a bough; they are bona fide ducks with the common flat web foot. A very beautiful species of bald-pated coot, called by the natives keetoolle, is also an inhabitant of the lakes. This bird is of a bright blue color with a brilliant pink horny head. He is a slow flyer, being as bulky as a common fowl and short in his proportion of wing. It is impossible to convey a correct idea of the number and variety of birds in these localities, and I will not trouble the reader by a description which would be very laborious to all parties; but to those who delight in ornithological studies there is a wild field which would doubtless supply many new specimens. I know nothing more interesting than the acquaintance with all the wild denizens of mountain and plain, lake and river. There is always something fresh to learn, something new to admire, in the boundless works of creation. There is a charm in every sound in Nature where the voice of man is seldom heard to disturb her works. Every note gladdens the ear in the stillness of solitude, when night has overshadowed the earth, and all sleep but the wild animals of the forest. Then I have often risen from my bed, when the tortures of mosquitoes have banished all ideas of rest, and have silently wandered from the tent to listen in the solemn quiet of night. I have seen the tired coolies stretched round the smouldering fires sound asleep after their day's march, wrapped in their white clothes, like so many corpses laid upon the ground. The flickering logs on the great pile of embers crackling and sinking as they consume; now falling suddenly and throwing up a shower of sparks, then resting again in a dull red heat, casting a silvery moonlike glare upon the foliage of the spreading trees above. A little farther on, and the horses standing sleepily at their tethers, their heads drooping in a doze. Beyond them, and all is darkness and wilderness. No human dwelling or being beyond the little encampment I have quitted; the dark lake reflecting the stars like a mirror, and the thin crescent moon giving a pale and indistinct glare which just makes night visible. It is a lovely hour then to wander forth and wait for wild sounds. All is still except the tiny hum of the mosquitoes. Then the low chuckling note of the night hawk sounds soft and melancholy in the distance; and again all is still, save the heavy and impatient stamp of a horse as the mosquitoes irritate him by their bites. Quiet again for a few seconds, when presently the loud alarm of the plover rings over the plain--"Did he do it?"--the bird's harsh cry speaks these words as plainly as a human being. This alarm is a certain warning that some beast is stalking abroad which has disturbed it from its roost, but presciently it is again hushed. The loud hoarse bark of an elk now unexpectedly startles the ear; presently it is replied to by another, and once more the plover shrieks "Did he do it?" and a peacock waking on his roost gives one loud scream and sleeps again. The heavy and regular splashing of water now marks the measured tread of a single elephant as he roars out into the cooled lake, and you can hear the more gentle falling of water as he spouts a shower over his body. Hark at the deep guttural sigh of pleasure that travels over the lake like a moan of the wind!--what giant lungs to heave such a breath; but hark again! There was a fine trumpet! as clear as any bugle note blown by a hundred breaths it rung through the still air. How beautiful! There, the note is answered; not by so fine a tone, but by discordant screams and roars from the opposite side, and the louder splashing tells that the herd is closing up to the old bull. Like distant thunder a deep roar growls across the lake as the old monarch mutters to himself in angry impatience. Then the long, tremulous hoot of the owl disturbs the night, mingled with the harsh cries of flights of waterfowl, which doubtless the elephants have disturbed while bathing. Once more all sounds sink to rest for a few minutes, until the low, grating roar of a leopard nearer home warns the horses of their danger and wakes up the sleeping horsekeeper, who piles fresh wood upon the fires, and the bright blaze shoots up among the trees and throws a dull, ruddy glow across the surface of the water. And morning comes at length, ushered in, before night has yet departed, by the strong, shrill cry of the great fish-eagle, as he sits on the topmost bough of some forest tree and at measured periods repeats his quivering and unearthly yell like an evil spirit calling. But hark at that dull, low note of indescribable pain and suffering! long and heavy it swells and dies away. It is the devil-bird; and whoever sees that bird must surely die soon after, according to Cingalese superstition. A more cheering sound charms the ear as the gray tint of morning makes the stars grow pale; clear, rich, notes, now prolonged and full, now plaintive and low, set the example to other singing birds, as the bulbul, first to awake, proclaims the morning. Wild, jungle-like songs the birds indulge in; not like our steady thrushes of Old England, but charming in their quaintness. The jungle partridge now wakes up, and with his loud cry subdues all other sounds, until the numerous peacocks, perched on the high trees around the lake, commence their discordant yells, which master everything. The name for the devil-bird is "gualama," and so impressed are the natives with the belief that a sight of it is equivalent to a call to the nether world that they frequently die from sheer fright and nervousness. A case of this happened to a servant of a friend of mine. He chanced to see the creature sitting on a bough, and he was from that moment so satisfied of his inevitable fate that he refused all food, and fretted and died, as, of course, any one else must do, if starved, whether he saw the devil-bird or not. Although I have heard the curious, mournful cry of this creature nearly every night, I have never seen one; this is easily accounted for, as, being a night-bird, it remains concealed in the jungle during the day. In so densely wooded a country as Ceylon it is not to be wondered at that owls, and all other birds of similar habit are so rarely met with. Even woodcocks are rarely noticed; so seldom, indeed, that I have never seen more than two during my residence in the island. From the same cause many interesting animals pass unobserved, although they are very numerous. The porcupine, although as common as the hedge-hog in England, is very seldom seen. Likewise the manis, or great scaled ant-eater, who retires to his hole before break of day, is never met with by daylight. Indeed, I have had some trouble in persuading many persons in Ceylon that such an animal exists in the country. In the same manner the larger kinds of serpents conceal themselves by day and wander forth at night, like all other reptiles except the smaller species of lizard, of which we have in Ceylon an immense variety, from the crocodile himself down to the little house-lizard. Of this tribe the "cabra goya" and the "iguana" grow to a large size; the former I have killed as long as eight or nine feet, but the latter seldom exceeds four. I have often intended to eat one, as the natives consider them a great delicacy, but I have never been quite hungry enough to make the trial whenever one was at hand. The "cabra goya" is a horrid brute, and is not considered eatable even by the Cingalese. One curious species of lizard exists in Ceylon; it is little brown species with a peculiarly rough skin and a serrated spine. A long horn projects from the snout, and it is a fac-simile in miniature of the antediluvian monster, the "iguanodon," who was about a hundred feet long and twelve feet thick--an awkward creature to meet in a narrow road. However, the crocodiles of modern times are awkward enough for the present day, and sometimes grow to the immense length of twenty two feet. It has frequently surprised me that they do not upset the small canoes in which the natives paddle about the lakes and rivers. These are formed in the simplest manner, of very rude materials, by hollowing out a small log of wood and attaching an outrigger. Some of these are so small that the gunwale is close to the water's edge when containing only one person. Even the large sea-canoes are constructed on a similar principle; but they are really very wonderful boats for both speed and safety. A simple log of about thirty feet in length is hollowed out. This is tapered off at either end, so as to form a kind of prow. The cylindrical shape of the log is preserved as much as possible in the process of hollowing, so that no more than a section of one fourth of the circle is pared away upon the upper side. Upon the edges of this aperture the top sides of the canoe are formed by simple planks, which are merely sewn upon the main body of the log parallel to each other, and slightly inclining outward, so as to admit the legs of persons sitting on the canoe. A vessel of this kind would of course capsize immediately, as the top weight of the upper works would overturn the flute-like body upon which they rested. This is prevented by an outrigger, which is formed of elastic rods of tough wood, which, being firmly bound together, project at right angles from the upper works. At the extremity of these two rods, there is a tapering log of light wood, which very much resembles the bottom log of the canoe in miniature. This, floating on the water, balances the canoe in an upright position; it cannot be upset until some force is exerted upon the mast of the canoe which is either sufficient to lift the outrigger out of the water, or on the other hand to sink it altogether; either accident being prevented by the great leverage required. Thus, when a heavy breeze sends the little vessel flying like a swallow over the waves, and the outrigger to windward shows symptoms of lifting, a man rims out upon the connecting rod, and, squatting upon the outrigger, adds his weight to the leverage. Two long bamboos, spreading like a letter V from the bottom of the canoe, form the masts, and support a single square sail, which is immensely large in proportion to the size and weight of the vessel. The motion of these canoes under a stiff breeze is most delightful; there is a total absence of rolling, which is prevented by the outrigger, and the steadiness of their course under a press of sail is very remarkable. I have been in these boats in a considerable surf, which they fly through like a fish; and if the beach is sandy and the inclination favorable, their own impetus will carry them high and dry. Sewing the portions of a boat together appears ill adapted to purposes of strength; but all the Cingalese vessels are constructed upon this principle: the two edges of the planks being brought together, a strip of the areca palm stern is laid over the joints, and holes being drilled upon each plank, the sewing is drawn tightly over the lath of palm, which being thickly smeared with a kind of pitch, keeps the seams perfectly water-tight. The native dhonies, which are vessels of a hundred and fifty tons, are all fastened in this simple and apparently fragile manner; nevertheless they are excellent sea-boats, and ride in safety through many a gale of wind. The first moving object which met my view on arrival within sight of Ceylon was an outrigger canoe, which shot past our vessels as if we had been at anchor. The last object that my eyes rested on, as the cocoa-nut trees of Ceylon faded from sight, was again the native canoe which took the last farewell lines to those who were left behind. Upon this I gazed till it became a gray speck upon the horizon and the green shores of the Eastern paradise faded from my eyes for ever. How little did I imagine, when these pages were commenced in Ceylon, that their conclusion would be written in England! An unfortunate shooting trip to one of the most unhealthy parts of the country killed my old horse "Jack," one coolie, and very nearly extinguished me rendering it imperative that I should seek a change of climate in England. And what a dream-like change it is!--past events appear unreal, and the last few years seem to have escaped from the connecting chain of former life. Scarcely can I believe in the bygone days of glorious freedom, when I wandered through that beautiful country, unfettered by the laws or customs of conventional life. The white cliffs of Old England rose hazily on the horizon, and greeted many anxious eyes as the vessel rushed proudly on with her decks thronged with a living freight, all happy as children in the thoughts of home. The sun shone brightly and gave a warm welcome on our arrival; and as the steamer moored alongside the quay, an hour sufficed to scatter the host of passengers who had so closely dwelt together, as completely as the audience of a theatre when the curtain falls. That act of life is past--"exeunt omnes," and a new scene commences. We are in England. A sudden change necessarily induces a comparison, and I imagine there are few who have dwelt much among the Tropics who do not acquire a distaste for the English climate, and look back with lingering hopes to the verdant shores they have left so far behind. The recollection of absent years, which seem to have been the summer of life, makes the chill of the present feel doubly cold, and our thoughts still cling to the past, while we strive against the belief that we never can recall those days again. How, as my thoughts wander back to former scenes every mountain and valley reappears in the magic glass of memory! Every rock and dell, every old twisted stem, every dark ravine and wooded cliff, the distant outlines of the well-known hills, the jungle-paths known to my eye alone, and the far, still spots where I have often sat in solitude and pondered over the events of life, and conjured up the faces of those so far away, doubtful if we should ever meet again. Thus even now I picture to myself the past; and so vivid is the scene that I can almost hear the fancied roar of the old waterfalls, and see the shadowy tints which the evening sun throws upon the tree-tops. My old home rises before me like a dissolving view, and I can see the very spot where it was my delight to live, where a warm welcome awaited every friend. And lastly, the faces of those friends seem clear before me, and bring back the associations of old times. Those who have shared in common many of these scenes I trust to meet again, and look back upon the events of former days as landscapes on the road of life that we have viewed together. For me Ceylon has always had a charm, and I shall ever retain a vivid interest in the colony. I trust that a new and more prosperous era has now commenced, and that Ceylon, having shaken off the incubus of mismanagement, may, under the rule of a vigorous and enterprising governor, arrive at that prosperity to which she is entitled by her capabilities. The governor recently appointed (Sir H. Ward,) has a task before him which his well-known energy will doubtless enable him to perform. 
14346	----	Distributed Proofreaders Team. AN Historical Relation Of the Island CEYLON, IN THE EAST-INDIES: TOGETHER, With an ACCOUNT of the Detaining in Captivity the AUTHOR and divers other Englishmen now Living there, and of the AUTHOR'S Miraculous ESCAPE. Illustrated with Figures, and a Map of the ISLAND. By ROBERT KNOX, a Captive there near Twenty Years. LONDON, Printed by Richard Chiswell, Printer to the ROYAL SOCIETY, at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard, 1681. At the Court of Committees for the East-India Company the 10th of August, 1681. We Esteem Captain Knox a Man of Truth and Integrity, and that his Relations and Accounts of the Island of Ceylon (which some of us have lately Perused in Manuscripts) are worthy of Credit, and therefore encouraged him to make the same Publick. Robert Blackbourne, Secretary. By Order of the said Court. August 8. 1681. Mr. Chiswell, I Perused Capt. Knox's Description of the Isle of Ceylon, which seems to be Written with great Truth and Integrity; and the Subject being new, containing an Account of a People and Countrey little known to us; I conceive it may give great Satisfaction to the Curious, and may be well worth your Publishing. Chr. Wren. TO THE Right Worshipful The GOVERNOR, the DEPUTY GOVERNOR, and Four and Twenty Committees of the Honorable the EAST-INDIA Company, Viz. Sir Josiah Child Baronet, Governor. Thomas Papilion Esq; Deputy. The Right Honorable George Earl of Berkley, Sir Joseph Ashe Baronet, Sir Samuel Barnardiston Baronet, Mr. Christopher Boone, Mr. Thomas Canham, Colonel John Clerke, Mr. John Cudworth, John Dubois Esquire, Sir James Edwards Knight, and Alderman, Richard Hutchinson Esquire, Mr. Joseph Herne, Mr. William Hedges, Sir John Lawrence Knight, and Alderman, Mr. Nathaniel Letton, Sir John Moore Knight, and Alderman, Samuel Moyer Esquire, Mr. John Morden, Mr. John Paige, Edward Rudge Esquire, Mr. Jeremy Sambrooke, Mr. William Sedgwick, Robert Thomson Esquire, Samuel Thomson Esquire, James Ward Esquire. Right Worshipful, What I formerly Presented you in Writing, having in pursuance of your Commands now somewhat dressd by the help of the Printer and Graver, I a second time humbly tender to you. 'Tis I confess at best too mean a Return for your great Kindness to me. Yet I hope you will not deny it a favourable Acceptance, since 'tis the whole Return I made from the Indies after Twenty years stay there; having brought home nothing else but (who is also wholly at your Service and Command) London 1st. of August, 1681. ROBERT KNOX. THE PREFACE. How much of the present Knowledge of the Parts of the World is owing to late Discoveries, may be judged by comparing the Modern with the Ancient's Accounts thereof; though possibly many such Histories may have been written in former Ages, yet few have scaped the Injury of Time, so as to be handed safe to us. 'Twas many Ages possibly before Writing was known, then known to a few, and made use of by fewer, and fewest employed it to this purpose. Add to this, that such as were written, remain'd for the most part Imprison'd in the Cells of some Library or Study, accessible to a small number of Mankind, and regarded by a less, which after perished with the Place or the Decay of their own Substance. This we may judge from the loss of those many Writings mentioned by Pliny and other of the Ancients. And we had yet found fewer, if the Art of Printing, first Invented about 240 years since, had not secured most that lasted to that time. Since which, that Loss has been repaired by a vast number of new Accessions, which besides the Satisfaction they have given to Curious and Inquisitive Men by increasing their Knowledge, have excited many more to the like Attempts, not only of Making but of Publishing also their Discoveries. But I am not ignorant still; that as Discoveries have been this way preserved, so many others nave been lost, to the great Detriment of the Publick. It were very desirable therefore that the Causes of these and other Defects being known, some Remedies might be found to prevent the like Losses for the future. The principal Causes I conceive may be these; First, The want of sufficient Instructions (to Seamen and Travellers,) to shew them what is pertinent and considerable, to be observ'd in their Voyages and Abodes, and how to make their Observations and keep Registers or Accounts of them. Next, The want of some Publick Incouragement for such as shall perform such Instructions. Thirdly, The want of fit Persons both to Promote and Disperse such Instructions to Persons fitted to engage, and careful to Collect Returns; and Compose them into Histories; by examining the Persons more at large upon those and other Particulars. And by separating what is pertinent from what is not so, and to be Rejected; who should have also wherewith to gratifie every one according to his Performances. Fourthly, The want of some easie Way to have all such Printed: First singly, and afterwards divers of them together. It having been found that many small Tracts are lost after Printing, as well as many that are never Printed; upon which account we are much oblig'd to Mr. Haclute and Mr. Purchas, for preserving many such in their Works. Fifthly, The want of taking care to Collect all such Relations of Voyages and Accounts of Countries as have been Published in other Languages; and Translating them either into English, or (which will be of more general use) into Latin, the learned Language of Europe. There being many such in other Countries hardly ever heard of in England. The Difficulties of removing which Defects is not so great but that it might easily fall even within the compass of a private Ability to remove, if at least Publick Authority Would but Countenance the Design, how much less then would it be if the same would afford also some moderate Encouragement and Reward? The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, has not been wanting in preparing and dispersing Instructions to this end, and is ready still to promote it, if the Publick would allow a Recompence to the Undertakers. The desirableness and facility of this Undertaking may, I hope, in a short time produce the Expedients also. In the Interim all means should be used, to try what may be obtain'd from the Generosity of such as have had the Opportunities of knowing Foreign Countries. There are but few who, though they know much, can yet be persuaded they know any thing worth Communicating, and because the things are common and well known to them, are apt to think them so to the rest of Mankind; This Prejudice has done much mischief in this particular as well as in many other, and must be first remov'd. There are others that are conscious enough of their own Knowledge, and yet either for want of Ability to write well, or of use to Compose, or of time to Study and Digest, or out of Modesty and fear to be in Print, or because they think they know not enough to make a Volume, or for not being prompted to, or earnestly solicited for it, neglect to do it; others delay to do it so long till they have forgotten what they intended. Such as these Importunity would prevail upon to disclose their knowledge, if fitting Persons were found to Discourse and ask them Questions, and to Compile the Answers into a History. Of this kind was lately produc'd in High Dutch a History of Greenland, by Dr. Fogelius of Hamborough, from the Information of Frederick Martin, who had made several Voyages to that Place, in the doing of which, he made use of the Instruction given by the Royal Society. 'Tis much to be wondred that we should to this Day want a good History of most of our West-Indian Plantations. Ligon has done well for the Barbadoes, and somewhat has been done for the Summer Islands, Virginia, &c. But how far are all these short even of the knowledge of these and other Places of the West-Indies, which may be obtain'd from divers knowing Planters now Residing in London? And how easie were it to obtain what is Defective from some Ingenious Persons now Resident upon the Places, if some way were found to gratifie them for their Performances? However till such be found, 'tis to be hoped that the kind Acceptance only the Publick shall give to this present Work, may excite several other Ingenuous, and knowing Men to follow this Generous Example of Captain Knox who though he could bring away nothing almost upon his Back or in his Purse, did yet Transport the whole Kingdom of Cande Uda in his Head, and by Writing and Publishing this his Knowledge, has freely given it to his Countrey, and to You Reader in, particular. 'Twas not I confess without the earnest Solicitations and Endeavours of my self, and some others of his Friends obtain'd from him, but this uneasiness of parting with it was not for want of Generosity and Freedom enough in Communicating whatever he knew or had observed, but from that usual Prejudice of Modesty, and too mean an Opinion of his own Knowledge and Abilities of doing any thing should be worthy the view of the Publick. And had he found leisure to Compose it, he could have filled a much greater Volume with useful and pertinent, as well as unusual and strange Observations. He could have inrich't it with a more particular Description of many of their curious Plants, Fruits, Birds, Fishes, Insects, Minerals, Stones; and told you many more of the Medicinal and other uses of them in Trades and Manufactures. He could have given you a compleat Dictionary of their Language, understanding and speaking it as well as his Mother Tongue. But his Occasions would not permit him to do more at present. Yet the Civil Usage this his First-born meets with among his Countreymen, may 'tis hoped oblige him to gratifie them with further Discoveries and Observations in his future Travels. To conclude, He has in this History given you a tast of his Observations. In which most Readers, though of very differing Gusts, may find somewhat very pleasant to their Pallat. The Statesman, Divine, Physitian, Lawyet, Merchant, Mechanick, Husbandman, may select something for their Entertainment. The Philosopher and Historian much more. I believe at least all that love Truth will be pleas'd; for from that little Conversation I had with him I conceive him to be no ways prejudiced of byassed by Interest, affection, or hatred, fear or hopes, or the vain-glory of telling Strange Things, so as to make him swarve from the truth of Matter of Fact: And for his opportunity of being informed, any one may satisfie himself when he understands his almost 20 years Abode and Converse among them. His Skill in the Language and Customs of the People, his way of Employment in Travelling and Trading over all Parts of the Kingdom; add to this his Breeding till 19 years of Age under his Father a Captain for the East-India Company, and his own Natural and acquired parts; but above all his good Reputation, which may be judged from the Employment That Worshipful Company have now freely bestowed upon him, having made him Commander of the Tarquin Merchant, and intruded him to undertake a Voyage to Tarquin. Read therefore the Book it self, and you will find your self taken Captive indeed, but used more kindly by the Author, than he himself was by the Natives. After a general view of the Sea Coasts, he will lead you into the Country by the Watches, through the Thorney Gates, then Conduct you round upon the Mountains that Encompass and Fortifie the whole Kingdom, and by the way carry you to the top of Hommalet or Adam's Peak; from those he will descend with you, and shew you their chief Cities and Towns, and pass through them into the Countrey, and there acquaint you with their Husbandry, then entertain you with the Fruits, Flowers, Herbs, Roots, Plants and Trees, and by the way shelter you from Sun and Rain, with a Fan made of the Talipat-Leaf. Then shew you their Beasts, Birds, Fish, Serpents, Insects; and last of all, their Commodities. From hence he will carry you to Court, and shew you the King in the several Estates of his Life; and acquaint you with his way of Governing, Revenues, Treasures, Officers, Governors, Military Strength, Wars: and by the way entertain you with an account of the late Rebellion against him. After which he will bring you acquainted with the Inhabitants themselves, whence you may know their different Humours, Ranks and Qualities. Then you may visit their Temples such as they are, and see the Foppery of their Priests Religious Opinions and Practices both in their Worship and Festivals, and afterwards go home to their Houses and be acquainted with their Conversation and Entertainment, see their Housewifery, Furniture, Finery, and understand how they Breed and Dispose of their Children in Marriage; and in what Employments and Recreations they pass their time. Then you may acquaint your self with their Language, Learning, Laws, and if you please with their Magick & Jugling. And last of all with their Diseases, Sickness, Death, and manner of Burial. After which he will give you a full account of the Reason of his own Going to, and Detainment in the Island of Ceylon, and Kingdom of Conde-Uda. And of all his various Conditions, and the Accidents that befel him there during Nineteen years and an halfs abode among them. And by what ways and means at last he made his Escape and Returned safe into England in September last, 1680. Aug. 1. 1681. Robert Hooke. To the Right Worshipful Sir William Thomson Knight, Governor, Thomas Papillon Esquire; Deputy, and the 24 Committees of the Honorable EAST-INDIA Company hereunder Specified, Viz. The Right Honorable George Earl of Berkley, The Right Honorable James Lord Chandois. Sir Matthew Andrews Knight, Sir John Bancks Baronet, Sir Samuel Barnardiston Baronet, Mr. Christopher Boone, John Bathurst Esquire, Sir Josia Child Baronet, Mr. Thomas Canham, Collonel John Clerk, Sir James Edwards Knight, Mr. Joseph Herne, Richard Hutchinson Esquire, James Hublon Esquire, Sir John Lethieullier Knight, Mr. Nathaniel Petton, Sir John Moor Knight, Samuel Moyer Esquire, Mr. John Morden, Mr. John Paige, Edward Rudge Esquire, Daniel Sheldon Esquire, Mr. Jeremy Sambrook, Robert Thomson Esquire. Right Worshipful, Since my return home to my Native Countrey of England, after a long and Disconsolate Captivity, my Friends and Acquaintance in our Converse together have been Inquisitive into the State of that Land in which I was Captivated; whose Curiosity I indeavour to satisfie. But my Relations and Accounts of Things in those Parts were so strange and uncouth, and so different from those in these Western Nations, and withal my Discourses seeming so Delightful and Acceptable unto them, they very frequently called upon me to write what I knew of that Island of Ceilon, and to digest it into a Discourse, and make it more Publick; unto which motion I was not much unwilling, partly that I might comply with the Desires and Councels of my Friends, and chiefly that I might Publish and Declare the great Mercy of God to me, and Commemorate before all Men my singular Deliverance out of that Strange and Pagan Land, which as often as I think of or mention, I cannot but admire and adore the goodness of God towards me, there being in it so many notable Footsteps of his signal Providence. I had then by me several Papers, which during my Voyage homeward from Bantam at leisure times I writ concerning the King and the Countrey, and concerning the English there, and of my Escape; which Papers I forthwith set my self to Peruse and draw into a Method, and to add what more might occur to my Thoughts of those Matters, which at length I have finished, contriving what I had to relate under four Heads. The first concerning the Countrey and Products of it. The second concerning the King and his Government. The third concerning the Inhabitants, and their Religion and Customs, and the last concerning our Surprize, Detainment and Escape; In all which I take leave to Declare, That I have writ nothing but either what I am assured of by my own personal Knowledge to be true, and wherein I have born a great and a sad share, or what I have received from the Inhabitants themselves of such things as are commonly known to be true among them. The Book, being thus perfected, it required no long Meditation unto whom to present it, it could be to none but your selves (my Honoured Masters) by whose Wisdom and Success the East-Indian Parts of the World are now near as well known, as the Countries next adjacent to us. So that by your means, not only the Wealth, but the Knowledge of those Indies is brought home to us. Unto your Favour and Patronage therefore (Right Worshipful) I humbly presume to recommend these Papers and the Author of them, who rejoyceth at this opportunity to acknowledge the Favours you have already conferred on him, and to profess that next unto God, on you depend his Future Hopes and Expectations; being Right Worshipful, Your most obliged and most humble and devoted Servant to be Commanded, Robert Knox. Lond. 18th. March, 1680/81. The CONTENTS. PART I. CHAP. I. A General Description of the Island. The Inland Parts of it hitherto unknown. The chief Places on the Sea-Coasts. The Names of the Provinces and Counties of the Inland Country. Which are divided from each other by Woods. The Countrey Hilly, but inriched with Rivers. The great River Mavelagonga described. Woody. Where most Populous and Healthful. The nature of the Vallies. The great Hill, Adams Peaky, described. The natural Strength of this Kingdom. The difference of the Seasons in this Country. What Parts have most Rain. CHAP. II. Concerning the chief Cities and Towns of this Island. The most Eminent Cities are Five. Viz. Cande, Nellemby, Alloutneur. The Country of Bintan described. Badoulf. The Province of Ouvah. Digligy, the place of the King's Residence. Gauluda. Many ruines of Cities. Anarodgburro. The nature of the Northern Parts. The Port of Portaloon Affords Salt. Leawava Affords Salt in abundance, Described. Their Towns how built. Many ly in ruins and forsaken. and upon what occasion. CHAP III. Of their Corn, with their manner of Husbandry. The Products and Commodities of the Country. Corn of divers sorts. Rice. Growes in water. Their ingenuity in watering their Corn-lands. Why they do not always sow the best kind of Rice? They sow at different times, but reap together. Their artificial Pooles, Alligators harbor in them. They sow Corn on the mud. A sort of Rice that growes without water. The Seasons of Seed-time and Harvest. A particular description of their Husbandry. Their Plow. The convenience of these Plowes. Their First plowing. Their Banks, and use of them. Their Second plowing. How they prepare their Seed-Corn. And their Land after it is plowed. Their manner of Sowing. How they manure & order Young Corn. Their manner of reaping. They tread out their Corn with Cattel. The Ceremonies they use when the Corn is to be trodden. How they unhusk their Rice. Other sorts of Corn among them. Coracan, Tanna, Moung, Omb. CHAP. IV. Of their Fruits and Trees. Great Variety of Fruits and delicious. The best Fruits where ever they grow reserved for the Kings use. Betel-Nuts, The Trees, The Fruit, The Leaves, The Skins, and their use. The Wood. The Profit the Fruit yields. Jacks, another choyce Fruit. Jambo another. Other Fruits found in the Woods. Fruits common with other Parts of India. The Tallipot; the rare use of the Leaf. The Pith good to eat. The Kettule. Yields a delicious juice. The Skin bears strings as strong as Wyer. The Wood; its Nature and Use. The Cinnamon Tree. The Bark, The Wood, The Leaf, The Fruit. The Orula. The Fruit good for Physic and Dying. Water made of it will brighten rusty Iron, and serve instead of Ink. The Dounekaia. The Capita. Rattans. Their Fruit. Canes. The Betel tree. The Bo-gauhah or God-Tree. CHAP. V. Of their Plants, Herbs, Flowers. Roots for Food, The manner of their growing. Boyling Herbs, Fruits for Sawce. European Herbs and Plants among them. Herbs for Medicine. Their Flowers, A Flower that serves instead of a Dyal, called Sindric-mal. Picha-mais, Hop-inals. CHAP. VI. Of their Beasts Tame and Wild. Insects. What Beasts the Country produceth. Deer no bigger than Hares. Other Creatures rare in their kind. The way how a wild Deer was catched for the King. Of their Elephants. The way of catching Elephants. Their understanding. Their Nature. The dammage they do. Serve the King for executing his Malefactors. Their Disease. The Sport they make. Ants of divers sorts. How one sort of them, called Coddias, came to sting so terribly. These Ants very mischievous. The curious Buildings of the Vaeos, another kind of them. The manner of their death. Bees of several kinds. Some build on Trees like Birds. The people eat the Bees, as well as their Honey. Leaches, that ly in the grass, and creep on Travaylers Legs. The Remedies they use against them. Apes and Monkeys of divers kinds. How they catch Wild Beasts. How they take the Wild Boar. CHAP. VII. Of their Birds, Fish, Serpents, and Commodities. Their Birds. Such as will be taught to speak. Such as are beautiful for Colour. A strange Bird. Water-Fowls resembling Ducks and Swans. Peacocks. The King keeps Fowl. Their Fish, How they catch them in Ponds, And how in Rivers. Fish kept and fed for the King's Pleasure. Serpents. The Pimberah of a prodigious bigness. The Polonga. The Noya. The Fable of the Noya ana Polonga. The Carowala. Gerendo. Hickanella. Democulo, a great Spider. Kobbera-guson, a Creature like an Aligator. Tolla-guion. The people eat Rats. Precoius Stones, Minerals, and other Commodities. The People discouraged from Industry by the Tyranny they are under. PART II. CHAP. I. Of the present King of Cande. The Government of this Island. The King's Lineage. His Person, Meen and Habit. His Queen and Children. His Palace; Situation and Description of it: Strong Guards about his Court. Negro's Watch next his Person. Spies sent out a Nights. His Attendants. Handsome Women belong to his Kitchin. His Women. And the Privileges of the Towns, where they live. His State, when he walks in his Palace, or goes abroad. His reception of Ambassadors. His delight in them. CHAP. II. Concerning the Kings Manner, Vices, Recreation, Religion. Spare in his Diet. After what manner he eats. Chast himself, and requires his Attendants to be so. He committed Incest, but such as was allowable. His Pride. How the People address to the King. They give him Divine Worship. Pleased with high Titles. An instance or two of the King's haughty Stomach. He slights the defection of one of his best Generals. He scorns to receive his own Revenues. The Dutch serve their ends upon his Pride by flattering him. The People give the way to the Kings foul Cloths. His natural Abilities, and deceitful temper. His wife saying concerning Run-awayes. He is naturally Cruel. The Dogs follow Prisoners to Execution. The Kings Prisoners; their Misery. He punisheth whole Generations for the sake of one. The sad condition of young Gentlemen that wait on his Person. His Pleasure-houses. Pastimes abroad. His Diversions at home. His Religion. He stands affected to the Christian Religion. CHAP. III. Of the King's Tyrannical Reign. His Government Tyrannical. His Policy. He farms out his Countrey for Service. His Policy to secure himself against Assassinations and Rebellions. Another Point of his Policy. Another which is to find his People work to do. A Vast work undertaken and finished by the King, viz. Bringing Water divers Miles thro Rocks, Mountains and Valleys unto his Palace. The turning this Water did great injury to the People. But he little regards his Peoples Good. By craft at once both pleaseth and punisheth his People. In what Labours he employs his People, He Poisons his only Son. The extraordinary Lamentation at the Death of his Sister. His Craft and Cruelty shewn at once. CHAP. IV. Of his Revenues and Treasure. The King's Rents brought three times in a year. The first is accompanied with a great Festival. How the Nobles bring their Gifts, or Duties. Inferior Persons present their New-years Gifts. What Taxes and Rents the People pay. The accidental incoms of the Crown. The Profits that accrue to the King from Corn-Lands. Custom of Goods Imported formerly paid. His Treasuries. He has many Elephants. Great Treasures thrown into the River formerly. The Treasure he most valueth. CHAP. V. Of the King's great Officers, and the Governors of the Provinces. The two Greatest Officers in the Land. The next Great Officers. None can put to Death but the King. Theso Dissauvas are Durante bene placito. Whom the King makes Dissauvas. And their Profits and Honours. Other benefits belonging to other Officers. They must always reside at Court. The Officers under them, viz. The Cour-lividani. The Cong-conna. The Courli-atchila. The Liannah. The Undia. The Monannuh. Some Towns exempt from the Dissauvas Officers. Other Officers yet. These Places obtained by Bribes. But remain only during pleasure. Country Courts. They may appeal. Appeals to the King. How the Great Officers Travel upon Public Business. Their Titles and signs of State. The misery that succeeds their Honour. The foolish ambition of the Men and Women of this Country. CHAP. VI. Of the King's Strength and Wars. The King's Military affairs. The natural strength of his Countrey. Watches and Thorn-gates. None to pass from the King's City without Pasports. His Soldiery. All men of Arms wait at Court. The Soldiers have Lands allotted them insted of Pay. To prevent the Soldiers from Plotting. The manner of sending them out on Expeditions. Requires all the Captains singly to send him intelligence of their affairs. When the War is finished they may not return without order. The condition of the Common Soldiers. He conceals his purpose when he sends out his Army. Great Exploits done, and but little Courage. They work chiefly by Stratagems. They understand the manner of Christian Armies. Seldom hazard a Battel. If they prove unsuccessful, how he punishes them. CHAP. VII. A Relation of the Rebellion made against the King. A Comet ushereth in the Rebellion. The Intent of the Conspirators. How the Rebellion began. The King flyes. They pursue him faintly. They go to the Prince and Proclaim him King. The carriage of the Prince. Upon the Prince's flight, the Rebels scatter and run. A great Man declares for the King. For the space of eight or ten days nothing but Killing one another to approve themselves good Subjects. The King Poysons his Son to prevent a Rebellion hereafter. His ingratitude. Another Comet, but without any bad Effects following it. PART III. CHAP. I. Concerning the Inhabitants of this Island. The several Inhabitants of the Island. The Original of the Chingulays. Wild Men. Who pay an acknowledgement to the King. How they bespeak Arrows to be made them. They rob the Carriers. Hourly wild Men Trade with the People. Once made to serve the King in his War. Their Habit and Religion. A skirmish about their Bounds. Curious in their Arrows. How they preserve their Flesh. How they take Elephants. The Dowries they give. Their disposition. The Inhabitants of the Mountains differ from those of the Low-Lands. Their good opinion of Virtue, tho they practice it not. Superstitions. How they Travel. A brief character of them. The Women, their habit and nature. CHAP. II. Concerning their different Honours, Ranks, and Qualities. How they distinguish themselves according to their Qualities. They never Marry beneath their rank. In case a Man lyes with a Woman of inferior rank. Their Noble men. How distinguished from others. The distinction by Caps. Of the Hondrews or Noble men two forts. An Honour like Unto Knighthood. Goldsmiths, Blacksmiths, Carpenters, and Painters. The Privilege and state of the Smiths. Craftsmen. Barbers. Potters. Washers. Jaggory-makers. The Poddah, Weavors, Basket-makers. Mat-makers. The lower ranks may not assume the habit or names of the higher. Slaves. Beggers. The reason the Beggers became so base and mean a People. They live well. Their Contest with the Weavors about dead Cows. Incest common among them. A Punishment, to deliver Noble women to these Beggers. Some of these Beggars keep Cattel and shoot Deer. Refuse Meat dressed in a Barbar's house, and why. CHAP. III. Of their Religion, Gods, Temples, Priests. Their Religion is Idolatry. They worship Gods and Devils. And the God, that saves Souls. The Sun and Moon they seem to repute Deities. Some of their Temples of exquisite work. The form of their Temples. The shape of their Idols. They worship not the Idol, but whom it represents. The Revenues of the Temples, and the Honours thereof. They are dedicated to Gods. Private Chappels. The Priests. The first Order of them. The habit of these Priests. Their Privileges. What they are Prohibited. When any are religiously disposed, these Priests sent for in great Ceremony. None ever used violence towards them before this present King. The Second Order of Priests. The third Order. How they dedicate a Red Cock to the Devil. Their Oracle. CHAP. IV. Concerning their Worship and Festivals. The chief dayes of Worship. How they know what God or Devil hath made them sick; The Gods of their Fortunes, viz the Planets. What Worship they give Devils. Who eat the Sacrifices. Their Gods are local. The Subjection of this People to the Devil. Sometimes the Devil possesseth them. The Devils voice often heard. Their Sacrifice to the chief Devil. Their Festivals. Festivals to the honour of the Gods that govern this World. The Great Festival in June, with the manner of the Solemnity. The Feast in November. The Festival in honour of the God of the Soul. The high honour they have for this God. CHAP. V. Concerning their Religious Doctrines, Opinions and Practices. As to their Religion they are very indifferent. If their Gods answer not their Desires, they curse them. They undervalue and revile their Gods. A Fellow gives out himself for a Prophet. His Success. The King fends for one of his Priests. Flyes to Columbo. Pretends himself to be a former Kings Son. Flyes from the Dutch. The King catches and quarters him. The Peoples high opinion still of this new God. Their Doctrines and Opinion. The highest points of their Devotion. Their Charity. The Privilege of the Moorish Beggars. Respect Christians, and why. CHAP. VI. Concerning their Houses, Diet, Housewifery, Salutation, Apparel. Their Houses mean. No Chimneys. The Houses of the better sort. Their Furniture. How they eat. How the great Men eat. Discouraged from nourishing Cattel. Cleanly in dressing their meat; Their manner of drinking and eating. Their manner of washing before and after meals. None must speak while the Rice is put into the Pot. Sawce made of Lemmon juice. Their sweet meats. A kind of Puddings. The Womens Housewifry. How they entertain Strangers, And Kindred. When they Visit. Their manner of Salutation. The Nobles in their best Apparel. The fashion of their hair. The Women dressed in their Bravery. How they dress their heads. They commonly borrow their fine Cloths. CHAP. VII. Of their Lodging, Bedding, Whoredome, Marriages, Children. Their Bed, and how they sleep a Nights. They rise often in the Night. Children taught to sing at going to bed. Young People ly at one anothers Houses. Nothing so common as Whoredome. They are guilty of the thing, but love not the Name. The man may kill whom he finds in bed with his Wife. The Womens craft to compass and conceal their Debauchery.They do treat their Friends with the use of their Wives or Daughters. The Mother for a small reward prostitutes her Daughter. Marriages. No Wooing The Bridegroom goes to the Brides house. How the bridegroom carries home his Bride. A Ceremony of Marriage. Man and Wife may part at pleasure. Men and Women change till they can please themselves. Women sometimes have two Husbands. Women unclean. Privileges of Men above Women. Privileges of Women. They often destroy New-born Infants, But seldom a First-born. Their Names. They are ambitious of high Titles. CHAP. VIII. Of their Employments and Recreations. Their Trade. Work, not discreditable to the best Gentleman. How they geld their Cattle. How they make Glew. Their Manufactures. How they make Iron. How they make Butter. Shops in the City. Prices of Commodities. Or their Measures. Their Weights. Measures bigger than the Statute punishable; but less, not: And why. Of their Coin. Of their Play. A Play or a Sacrifice: For the filthiness of it forbid by the King. A cunning Stratagem of an Officer. Tricks and Feats of Activity. At leisure times they meet and discourse of Newes. Drunkenness abhorred. Their eating Betel-Leaves. How they make Lime. CHAP. IX. Of their Lawes and Language. Their Lawes. Lands descend. In case Corn receives dammage by a Neighbours Cattel. The loss of letting out Land to Till. The great Consideration for Corn borrowed. A Debt becomes double in two years. If the Debtor pay not his Debt, he is lyable to be a Slave for it. Divers other Lawes and Customes. For deciding Controversies. Swearing in the Temples, The manner of swearing in hot Oyl. How they exact. Fines. Of their Language. Titles given to Women according to their qualities. Titles given to Men. No difference between a Country-man and a Courtier for Language. Their Speech and manner of Address is courtly and becoming. Their Language in their Address to the King. Words of form and Civility. Full of Words and Complement. By whom they swear. Their way of railing and scurrility. Proverbs. Something of their Grammar. A Specimen of their Words. Their Numbering. CHAP. X. Concerning their Learning, Astronomy and Art Magick. Of their Learning. Their Books and Arts. How they learn to write. How they make and write a Book. The Priests write Books of Bonna. The Kings Warrants how wrapped up. They write upon two sorts of Leaves. Their Skill in Astronomy. Their Almanacks. They pretend to know future things by the Stars. Their �ra. Their Years, Months, Weeks, Days, Hours. How they measure their Time. Their Magic. The Plenty of a Country destroyed by Magic. Their Charm to find out a Thief. The way to dissolve this Charm. Inscriptions upon Rocks. CHAP. XI. Of their Sickness, Death and Burial. The Diseases this Countrey is subject to. Every one a Physician to himself. To Purge: To Vomit. To heal Sores. To heal an Impostume. For an hurt in the Eye. To cure the Itch. The Candle for Lying-in Women. Goraca, a Fruit. Excellent at the Cure of Poyson. They easily heal the biting of Serpents by Herbs, And Charms. But not good at healing inward Distempers. They both bury and burn their Dead. They send for a Priest to pray for the Soul of the Departed. How they mourn for the Dead. The nature of the Women. How they bury. How they burn. How they bury those that dy of the Small Pox. PART IV. CHAP. I. Of the reason of our going to Ceylon, and Detainment there. The subject of this Fourth Part. The occasion of their coming to Ceylon. They were not jealous of the People being very Courteous. A Message pretended to the Captain from the King. The beginning of their Suspition. The Captain seized and seven more. The Long-boat men seized. The General's craft to get the Ship as well as the Men. The Captains Order to them on board the Ship. The Captains second Message to his Ship. The Ships Company refuse to bring up the Ship. The Captain orders the Ship to depart. The Lading of Cloath remained untouched. The probable reason of our Surprize. The number of those that were left on the Island. The Dissauva departs. CHAP. II. How we were carried up in the Country, and disposed of there, and of the Sickness, Sorrow and Death of the Captain. They intend to attempt an Escape, but are prevented. Their Condition commiserated by the People. They are distributed into divers Towns. An Order comes from the King to bring them up into the Country. How they were treated on the way in the Woods. And in the Towns among the Inhabitants. They are brought near Cande, and there separated. The Captain and his Son and two more quartered together. Parted: How they fared: The Captain and his Son placed in Coos-swat. Monies scarce with them. But they had good Provisions without it. The Town where they were sickly. How they passed their time. Both fall Sick. Deep grief, seizes the Captain. Their Sickness continues. Their Boys' Disobedience adds to their trouble. His excessive Sorrow. His Discourse and Charge to his Son before his Death. His Death, and Burial. The Place where he lies. Upon the Captain's Death a Message sent from Court to his Son. CHAP. III. How I lived after my Father's Death, And of the Condition of the rest of the English: and how it fared with them. And of our Interview. His chief Imployment is Reading: He looseth his Ague: How he met with an English Bible in that Country: Struck into a great Passion at the first sight of the Book: He casts with himself how to get it: Where the rest of the English were bestowed: Kept from one another a good while, but after permitted to see each other: No manner of Work laid upon them: They begin to pluck up their hearts: What course they took for Cloths: Their Fare: What Employment they afterwards followed: How the English domineered: What Satisfaction one of them received from a Potter. A scuffle between the English and Natives. The Author after a year sees his Countreymen. Their Conference and Entertainment. He consults with his Countreymen concerning a future livelihood. The difficulty he met with in having his Rice brought him undressed. He reasons with the People about his Allowance. Builds him an House. Follows Business and thrives. Some attempted running away, and were catched. Little encouragement for those that bring back Run-awayes. CHAP. IV. Concerning some other Englishmen detained in that Countrey. The Persia Merchant-men Captives before them. Plundred by the Natives. Brought up to the King. They hoped to have their liberty, but were mistaken. A ridiculous action of these Men. They had a mind to Beef and how they got it. A passage of their Courage. Two of this Company taken into Court. The One out of favour. His End. The other out of Favour. And his lamentable Death. The King sends special Order concerning their good Usage. Mr. Vassal's prudence upon his Receit of Letters. The King bids him read his Letters. The King pleased to hear of Englands Victory over Holland. Private discourse between the King and Vassal. CHAP. V. Concerning the means that were used for our Deliverance. And what happened to us in the Rebellion. And how we were setled afterwards. Means made to the King for their Liberty, Upon which they all meet at the City. Word sent them from the Court, that they had their Liberty. All in general refuse the Kings Service. Commanded still to wait at the Palace. During which a Rebellion breaks out. They are in the midst of it, and in great danger. The Rebels take the English with them, designing to engage them on their side: But they resolve neither to meddle nor make. The day being turned, they fear the King; but he justifies them. They are driven to beg in the High-wayes. Sent into New Quarters, and their Pensions settled again. Fall to Trading and have more freedom than before. CHAP. VI. A Continuation of the Author's particular Condition after the Rebellion. At his new Quarters builds him another House. The People counsel him to Marry, which he seems to listen to. Here he lived two years. A Fort built near him by the Dutch; but afterwards taken by the King. He and three more removed out of that Countrey; and settled in a dismal place. A Comfortable Message brought hither from the King concerning them. Placed there to punish the People tor a Crime. Weary of this Place. By a piece of craft he gets down to his old Quarters. Began the world anew the third time. Plots to remove himself. Is encouraged to buy a piece of Land. The situation and condition of it. Buys it. Builds an House on it. Leaves Laggendenny. Settled at his new Purchase with three more living with him. Their freedom and Trade. His Family reduced to two. CHAP. VII. A return to the rest of the English, with some further accounts of them. And some further Discourse of the Authors course of Life. They confer together about the lawfulness of marrying with the Native women. He resolves upon a single life. What Employments they follow. The respect and credit they live in. A Chingulay punished for beating an English man. An English man preferred at Court. Some English serve the King in his Wars. Who now live miserably. He returns to speak of himself. Plots and consults about an Escape. A description of his House. He takes up a new Trade and thrives on it. His Allowance paid him out of the Kings Store-Houses. CHAP. VIII. How the Author had like to have been received into the Kings Service, and what Means he used to avoid it. He meditates and attempts an Escape but is often prevented. He voluntarily forgoes his Pension. Summoned before the King. Informed that he is to be preferred at Court: But is resolved to refuse it. The answer he makes to the Great Man: Who sends him to another Great Officer: Stayts in that City expecting his Doom. Goes home, but is sent for again. Having escaped the Court-Service, falls to his former course of life: His Pedling forwarded his Escape. The most probable course to take was Northwards. He and his Companion get three days Journey Northwards; But return back again: Often attempt to fly this way, but still hindred. In those Parts is bad water, but they had an Antidote against it. They still improve in the knowledg of the Way. He meets with his Black Boy in these Parts, Who was to guide him to the Dutch: But disappointed. An extraordinary drought for three or four years together. CHAP. IX. How the Author began his Escape, and got onward on his way about an hundred miles. Their Last and Successful attempt. The Way they went. They design for Anarodgburro: Turn out of the way to avoyd the King's Officers: Forced to pass thro a Governours Yard. The Method they used to prevent his Suspition of them. Their danger by reason of the Wayes they were to pass. They still remain at the Governors to prevent suspition. An Accident that now created them great fear: But got fairly rid of it. Get away plausibly from the Governor. In their way, they meet with a River, which they found for their purpose. They come safely to Anarodgburro: This Place described. The People stand amazed at them. They are examined by the Governor of the Place. Provide things necessary for their Flight. They find it not safe to proceed further this way. Resolve to go back to the River they lately passed. CHAP. X. The Authors Progress in his Flight from Anarodgburro into the Woods, unto their arrival in the Malabars Country. They depart back again towards the River, but first take their leave of the Governor here. They begin their Flight; Come to the River along which they resolve to go; Which they Travel along by till it grew dark. Now they fit themselves for their Journey. Meeting with an Elephant they took up for the second Night. The next morning they fall in among Towns before they are aware. The fright they are in lest they should be seen. Hide themselves in a hollow Tree. They get safely over this danger. In that Evening they Dress Meat and lay them down to sleep. The next morning they fear wild Men, which these Woods abound with. And they meet with many of their Tents. Very near once falling upon these People. What kind of Travelling they had. Some account of this River. Ruins. The Woods hereabouts. How they secured themselves anights against wild Beasts. They pass the River, that divides the King's Countrey from the Malabars. After four or five days Travel, they come among Inhabitants. But do what they can to avoid them. As yet undiscovered. CHAP. XI. Being in the Malabar Territories how they encountred two Men, and what passed between them. And of their getting safe unto the Dutch Fort. And their Reception there; and at the Island Manaar, until their Embarking for Columbo. They meet with two Malabars. To whom they relate their Condition. Who are courteous to them. But loath to Conduct them to the Hollander. In danger of Elephants. They overtake another Man, who tells them they were in the Dutch Dominions. They arrive at Arrepa Fort. The Author Travelled a Nights in these Woods without fear, and slept securely. Entertained very kindly by the Dutch. Sent to Manaar, Received there by the Captain of the Castle, Who intended they should Sail the next day to Jafnipatan to the Governor. They meet here with a Scotch and Irish Man. The People Flock to see them. They are ordered a longer stay. They Embark for Columbo. CHAP XII. Their Arrival at Columbo, and Entertainment there. Their Departure thence to Batavia. And from thence to Bantam; Whence they set Sail for England. They are wondered at at Columbo, ordered to appear before the Governor. Treated by English there. They come into the Governor's presence. His State. Matters the Governor enquired of; Who desires him to go with him to Batavia. Cloths them, And sends them Money, and a Chirurgeon. The Author writes a Letter hence to the English he left behind him. The former Demands and Answers penned down in Portugueze by the Governor's Order. They Embark for Batavia. Their friendly Reception by the Governor there; Who furnishes them with Cloths and Money; And offers them passage in their Ships home. Come home from Bantam in the Cæsar. CHAP. XIII. Concerning some other Nations, and chiefly Europeans, that now live in this Island; Portugueze, Dutch. Malabars that Inhabit here. Their Territories. Their Prince. That People how governed. Their Commodities and Trade. Portugueze: Their Power and Interest in this Island formerly. The great Wars between the King and them forced him to send in for the Hollander. The King invites the Portugueze to live in his Countrey. Their Privileges. Their Generals. Constantine Sa. Who loses a Victory and Stabs himself. Lewis Tissera served as he intended to serve the King. Simon Careé, of a cruel Mind. Gaspar Figazi. Splits Men in the middle. His Policy. Gives the King a great Overthrow, loseth Columbo, and taken Prisoner. The Dutch. The occasion of their coming in. The King their implacable Enemy, and why. The Damage the King does them. The means they use to obtain Peace with him. How he took Bibligom Fort from them. Several of their Embassadors detained by the King. The first Embassador there detained since the Author's Remembrance. His Preferment, and Death. The next Ambassador dying there, his Body is sent down to Columbo in great State. The third Ambassador. Gets away by his Resolution. The fourth was of a milder Nature. The fifth brings a Lion to the King as a Present. The number or Dutch there. They follow their Vice of Drinking. The Chingulays prejudiced against the Dutch, and why. CHAP. XIV. Concerning the French. With some Enquiries what should make the King detain white men, as he does. And how the Christian Religion is maintained among the Christians there. The French come hither with a Fleet. To whom the King sends Provisions, and helps them to build a Fort. The French Ambassador offends the King. He refuseth to wait longer for Audience. Which more dipleaseth him. Clapt in Chains. The rest of the French refuse to dwell with the Ambassador. The King useth means to reconcile them to their Ambassador. The Author acquaints the French Ambassador in London, with the Condition of these men. An Inquiry into the reason of this King's detaining Europeans. The Kings gentleness towards his White Soldiers. They watch at his Magazine. How craftily the King corrected their negligence. The Kings inclinations are towards White men. The Colour of White honoured in this Land. Their privilege above the Natives. The King loves to send for and talk with them. How they maintain Christianity among them. In some things they comply with the worship of the Heathen. An old Roman Catholick Priest used to eat of their Sacrifices. The King permitted the Portugueze to build a Church. ERRATA. Besides divers Mispointings, and other Literal Mistakes of smaller moment, these are to be amended. Page 1. Line 16. after Parts, strike out the Comma, p. 3. l. 25. for Oudi pallet read Oudi pollat, p. 7. l. 31, after they dele that, p. 12. l. 43. for Ponudecarse read Ponudecars, p. 13. after rowling dele it, p. 22. l. 38. for Out-yards read Ortyards, p. 25. l. 6. for tarrish read tartish, p. 27. l. 10. for sometimes read some, p. 29. l. 33. for Rodgerari read Rodgerah, p. 33. l. 15, 25, 29. for Radga in those three lines, read Raja., p. 35. l. 12. for a read at, Ibid. l. 51. for being none read none being, p. 39. l. 1. dele a, p. 47. l. 36. for Gurpungi read Oulpangi, Ibid. l. 43 for Dackini read Dackim, p. 50. l. 16. for Roterauts read Roterauls, Ibid. l. 17. after these read are, Ibid. l. 24. after them read to, p. 51. l. 2. after them a Semicolon, Ibid. Marg. l. 3. for others read these, Ibid. l. 18. for their read theirs, Ibid. l. 19. dele and Ibid. l. 49. for Courti-Atchila read Courli-atchila, p. 58. l. 30. after were read or were, p. 62. Marg. l. 1. for By read Pay, Ibid. l. 18 after shooting add him; Ibid. Marg. l. 14. for one read once, p. 69. l. 28. after lace dele the Comma, Ibid. l. 30. for Kirinerahs read Kinnerahs, p. 71. l. 3. after places add and, p. 73. 14. dele they say, Ibid. l. 42. for ward read reward, p. 74. l. 5. dele the Semicolon after Vehar, and place it after also, Ibid. l. 27. for hands read heads, p. 76. l. 23. for God read Gods, Ibid. l. 36. after know a Period, p. 80. l. 3. for him read them, p. 87. l. 27. after Hens a Semicolon, p. 88. l. 35. for stream read steam, p. 89. l. 7. for a read the, p. 101. l. 28. for Husband read Husbandman, p. 102. l. 23. after considerable a Comma, p. 103. Marg. l. 4. for benefit read manner, p. 105, l. 26. for so read To, p. 109. l. 1. read Heawoy com-coraund, To fight, as much as to say, To act the Soldier, p. 110. l. 29. after go add their Journey, p. 111. l. 9. for Friday read Iridah, p. 112. l. 52. after temple add in, p. 118. l. 41. after and add his, p. 128. l. 51. dele no, p. 132. l. 38. dele the Comma after Holstein, p. 134. l. 47. For Crock read crook, p. 138. l. 37. for ny read any, Ibid., l. 47. after they read had, p. 148. l. 52. for go read got, p. 151. l. 6. for here read have, p. 154. l. 27. for favors read feavors, p. 155. l. 4. dele the first [it] Ibid. l. 18. for he read we, p. 161. l. 43. for Diabac read Diabat. p. 168. l. 4. after before add us, Ibid. l. 7. after comparing add it, p. 176. l. 22. for the read great, p. 179. l. 21. for be read beg, Ibid. l. 34. dele what they keep, And instead of Cande uda thro-out the Book, read Conde uda. AN Historical Relation OF ZEILON, (Aliàs Ceylon,) AN Island in the EAST-INDIES. PART I CHAP. I. A general Description of the Island. How this Island lyes with respect unto me Neighbouring Countries, I shall not speak at all, that being to be seen in our ordinary Sea-Cards, which describe those Parts; and but little concerning the Maritime parts of it, now under the Jurisdiction of the Dutch: my design being to relate such things onely that are new and unknown unto these Europæan Nations. It is the Inland Countrey therefore I chiefly intend to write of which is yet an hidden Land even to the Dutch themselves that inhabit upon the Island. For I have seen among them a fair large Map of this Place, the best I believe extant, yet very faulty: the ordinary Maps in use among us are much more so; I have procured a new one to be drawn, with as much truth and exactness as I could, and his Judgment will not be deemed altogether inconsiderable, who had for Twenty Years Travelled about the Iland, and knew almost every step of those Parts, especially, that most want describing. I begin with the Sea-Coasts. Of all which the Hollander is Master: On the North end the chief places are Jafnipatan, and the Iland of Manaur. On the East side Trenkimalay, and Batticalow. To the South is the City of Point de Galle. On the West the City of Columbo, so called from a Tree the Natives call Ambo, (which bears the Mango-fruit) growing in that place; but this never bare fruit, but onely leaves, which in their Language is Cola> and thence they called the Tree Colambo: which the Christians in honour of Columbus turned to Columbo. It is the chief City on the Sea-coasts where the chief Governour hath his residence. On this side also is Negumba, and Colpentine. All these already mentioned are strong fortified places: There are besides many other smaller Forts and Fortifications. All which, with considerable Territories, to wit, all round bordering upon the Sea-coasts, belong to the Dutch Nation. [A general division of the Inland Countrey.] I proceed to the Inland-Country, being that that is now under the King of Cande. It is convenient that we first understand, that this land is divided into greater or less shares or parts. The greater divisions give me leave to call Provinces, and the less Counties, as resembling ours in England, tho not altogether so big. On the North parts lyes the Province of Nourecalava, consisting of five lesser Divisions or Counties; the Province also of Hotcourly (signifying seven Counties:) it contains seven Counties. On the Eastward is Mautaly, containing three Counties. There are also lying on that side Tammanquod, Bintana, Vellas, Paunoa, these are single Counties. Ouvah also containing three Counties. In this Province are Two and thirty of the Kings Captains dwelling with their Soldiers. In the Midland within those already mentioned lye Wallaponahoy (it signifies Fifty holes or vales which describe the nature of it, being nothing but Hills and Valleys,) Poncipot, (signifying five hundred Souldiers.) Goddaponahoy, (signifying fifty pieces of dry Land;) Hevoihattay (signifying sixty Souldiers,) Cote-mul, Horsepot (four hundred Souldiers.) Tunponahoy (three fifties.) Oudanour (it signifies the Upper City,) where I lived last and had Land. Tattanour (the Lower City) in which stands the Royal and chief City, Cande. These two Counties I last named, have the pre-eminence of all the rest in the Land. They are most populous, and fruitful. The Inhabitants thereof are the chief and principal men: insomuch that it is a usual saying among them, that if they want a King, they may take any man, of either of these two Counties, from the Plow, and wash the dirt off him, and he by reason of his quality and descent is fit to be a King. And they have this peculiar Priviledge, That none may be their Governour, but one born in their own Country. These ly to the Westward that follow, Oudipollat, Dolusbaug, Hotteracourly, containing four Counties; Portaloon, Tuncourly, containing three Counties; Cuttiar. Which last, together with Batticalaw, and a part of Tuncourly, the Hollander took from the King during my being there. There are about ten or twelve more un-named, next bordering on the Coasts, which are under the Hollander. All these Provinces and Counties, excepting six, Tammanquod, Vellas, Paunoa, Hotteracourly, Hotcourly, and Neurecalava, ly upon Hills fruitful and dwell watered: and therefore they are called in one word Conde Uda, which signifies, On top of the Hills, and the King is styled, the King of Conde Uda. [Each County divided by Woods.] All these Counties are divided each from other by great Woods. Which none may fell, being preserved for Fortifications. In most of them there are Watches kept constantly, but in troublesome times in all. [The Country Hilly, but enriched with Rivers.] The Land is full of Hills, but exceedingly well watered, there being many pure and clear Rivers running through them. Which falling down about their Lands is a very great benefit for the Countrey in respect of their Rice, their chief Sustenance. These Rivers are generally very rocky, and so un-navigable. In them are great quantities of Fish, and the greater for want of Skill in the People to catch them. [The great River, Mavelagonga described.] The main River of all is called Mavelagonga; Which proceeds out of the Mountain called Adams Peak (of which afterwards:) it runs thro the whole Land Northward, and falls into the Sea at Trenkimalay. It may be an Arrows flight over in bredth, but not Navigable by reason of the many Rocks and great falls in it: Towards the Sea it is full of Aligators, but on the Mountains none at all. It is so deep, that unless it be mighty dry weather, a man cannot wade over it, unless towards the head of it. They use little Canoues to pass over it: but there are no Bridges built over it, being so broad, and the Stream in time of Rains (which in this Countrey are very great) runs so high, that they cannot make them, neither if they could, would it be permitted; for the King careth not to make his Countrey easie to travel, but desires to keep it intricate. This River runs within a mile or less of the City of Cande. In some places of it, full of Rocks, in others clear for three or four miles. There is another good large River running through Catemul, and falls into that before mentioned. There are divers others brave Rivers that water the Countrey, tho none Navigable for the cause above said. [Woody.] The Land is generally covered with Woods, excepting the Kingdome of Ovuah, and the Counties of Oudipallet, and Dolusbaug, which are naturally somewhat clear of them. [Where most populous and healthful.] It is most populous about the middle, least near about by the Sea; how it is with those Parts under the Hollander, I know not. The Northern parts are somewhat sickly by reason of bad water, the rest very healthful. [The nature of the Valleys.] The Valleys between their Hills are many of them quagmires, and most of them full of brave Springs of pure water: Which watery Valleys are the best sort of Land for their Corn, as requiring much moisture, as shall be told in its place. [The great Hill Adams Peak, described.] On the South side of Conde Uda is an Hill, supposed to be the highest on this Island, called in the Chingulay Language, Hamalell; but by the Portuguez and the Europæan Nations, Adams Peak. It is sharp like a Sugar-loaf, and on the Top a flat Stone with the print of a foot like a mans on it, but far bigger, being about two foot long. The people of this Land count it meritorious to go and worship this impression; and generally about their New Year, which is in March, they, Men, Women and Children, go up this vast and high Mountain to worship. The manner of which I shall write hereafter, when I come to describe their Religion. Out of this Mountain arise many fine Rivers, which run thro the Land, some to the Westward, some to the Southward, and the main River, viz. Mavelagonga before mentioned, to the Northward. [The natural Strength of this Kingdom] This Kingdom of Conde Uda is strongly fortified by Nature. For which way soever you enter into it, you must ascend vast and high mountains, and descend little or nothing. The wayes are many, but are many, but very narrow, so that but one can go abreast. The Hills are covered with Wood and great Rocks, so that 'tis scarce possible to get up any where, but onely in the paths, in all which there are gates made of Thorns; the one at the bottom, the other at the top of the Hills, and two or three men always set to watch, who are to examine all that come and go, and see what they carry, that Letters may not be conveyed, nor Prisoners or other Slaves run away. These Watches, in case of opposition, are to call out to the Towns near, who are to assist them. They oftentimes have no Arms, for they are the people of the next Towns: but their Weapons to stop people are to charge them in the Kings Name; which disobeyed, is so Severely punished; that none dare resist. These Watches are but as Sentinels to give notice; for in case of War and Danger the King sends Commanders and Souldiers to ly here. But of this enough. These things being more proper to be related, when we come to discourse of the Policy and Strength of the Kingdom. [The difference of the Seasons in this Country.] The one part of this Island differs very much from the other, both in respect of the Seasons and the Soyl. For when the Westwardly Winds blow, then it rains on the West side of the Island: and that is the season for them to till their grounds. And at the same time on the East side is very fair and dry weather, and the time of their Harvest. On the contrary, when the East Winds blow, it is Tilling time for those that inhabit the East Parts, and Harvest to those on the West. So that Harvest is here in one part or other all the Year long. These Rains and this dry weather do part themselves about the middle of the Land; as oftentimes I have seen, being on the one side of a Mountain called Cauragas hirg, rainy and wet weather, and as soon as I came on the other, dry, and so exceeding hot, that I could scarcely walk on the ground, being, as the manner there is, barefoot. [What parts have most Rain.] It rains far more in the High-Lands of Conde Uda, then in the Low-Lands beneath the Hills. The North End of this Island is much subject to dry weather. I have known it for five or six Years together so dry, (having no Rains, and there is no other means of water but that; being but three Springs of running water, that I know, or ever heard of) that they could not plow nor sow, and scarcely could dig Wells deep enough to get water to drink, and when they got it, its tast was brackish. At which time in other Parts there wanted not Rain; Whither the Northern People were forced to come to buy food. Let thus much suffice to have spoken of the Countreys, Soyl and Nature of this Island in general. I will proceed to speak of the Cities and Towns of it, together with some other Remarkable Matters there-unto belonging. CHAP. II. Concerning the Chief Cities and Towns of this Island. [The most Eminent Cities are Five.] In this Island are several Places, where, they say, formerly stood Cities; and still retain the Name, tho little or nothing of Building be now to be seen. But yet there are Five Cities now standing, which are the most Eminent, and where the King hath Palaces and Goods; yet even these, all of them, except that wherein his Person is, are ruined and fallen to decay. [Candy.] The First is the City of Candy, so generally called by the Christians, probably from Conde, which in the Chingulays Language signifies Hills, for among them it is situated, but by the Inhabitants called Hingodagul-neure, as much as to say, the City of the Chingulay people, and Mauneur, signifying the Chief or Royal City. This is the Chief or Metropolitical City of the whole Island. It is placed in the midst of the Island in Tattanour, bravely situate for all conveniences, excellently well watered. The Kings Palace stands on the East corner of the City, as is customary in this Land for the Kings Palaces to stand. This City is three-square like a Triangle: but no artificial strength about it, unless on the South side, which is the easiest and openest way to it, they have long since cast up a Bank of Earth cross the Valley from one Hill to the other; which nevertheless is not so steep but that a man may easily go over it any where. It may be some twenty foot in height. In every Way to come to this City about two or three miles off from it are thorn-Gates and Watches to examine all that go and come: It is environed round with Hills. The great River coming down from Adams Peak runs within less than a mile of it on the West side. It has oftentimes been burnt by the Portuguez in their former Invasions of this Island, together with the Kings Palace and the Temples. Insomuch that the King has been fain to pay them a Tribute of three Elephants per annum. The King left this City about Twenty Years ago, and never since has come at it. So that it is now quite gone to decay. [Nellemby] A second City is Nellemby-neur, lying in Oudipollat, South of Cande, some Twelve miles distance. Unto this the King retired, and here kept his Court, when he forsook Candy. [Allout-neur] Thirdly, The City Allout-neur on the North East of Cande. Here this King was born, here also he keeps great store of Corn and Salt, &c. against time of War or Trouble. [The Country of Bintan described.] This is Situate in the Countrey of Bintan, which Land, I have never been at, but have taken a view of from the top of a Mountain, it seems to be smooth Land, and not much hilly; the great River runneth through the midst of it. It is all over covered with mighty Woods and abundance of Deer. But much subject to dry Weather and Sickness. In these Woods is a fort of Wild People Inhabiting, whom we shall speak of in their place. [Badoula.] Fourthly, Badoula Eastward from Cande some two dayes Journey, the second City in this Land. The Portugals in time of War burnt it down to the ground. The Palace here is quite ruined; the Pagodas onely remain in good repair. [The Province of Ouvah.] This City stands in the Kingdom or Province of Ouvah, which is a Countrey well watered, the Land not smooth, neither the Hills very high, wood very scarce, but what they plant about their Houses. But great plenty of Cattle, their Land void of wood being the more apt for grazing. If these Cattle be carried to any other Parts in this Island they will commonly dye, the reason whereof no man can tell, onely they conjecture it is occasioned by a kind of small Tree or Shrub, that grows in all Countreys but in Ouvah, the Touch or Scent of which may be Poyson to the Ouvah Cattel; though it is not so to other. The Tree hath a pretty Physical smell like an Apothecaries Shop, but no sort of Cattle will eat it. In this Cuontry grows the best Tobacco that is on this Land. Rice is more plenty here then most other things. [Digligy, the place of the Kings constant Residence.] The fifth City Digligy-neur towards the East of Cande, lying in the Country of Hevahatt. Where the King ever since he was routed from Nellemby in the Rebellion Anno 1664. hath held his Court. The scituation of this place is very Rocky and Mountainous, the Lands Barren; So that hardly a worse place could be found out in the whole Island. Yet the King chose it, partly because it lyes about the middle of his Kingdom, but chiefly for his safety; having the great Mountain [Gauluda.] Gauluda behind his Palace, unto which he fled for Safety in the Rebellion, being not only high, but on the top of it lye three Towns, and Corn Fields, whence he may have necessary supplies: and it is so fenced with steep Cliffs, Rocks and Woods, that a few men here will be able to defend themselves against a great Army. [Many Ruins of Cities.] There are besides these already mentioned, several other ruinous places that do still retain the name of Cities, where Kings have Reigned, tho now little Foot steps remaining of them. At the North end of this Kings Dominions is one of these Ruinous Cities, called [Anurodgburro.] Anurodgburro where they say Ninety Kings have Reigned, the Spirits of whom they hold now to be Saints in Glory, having merited it by making Pagoda's and Stone Pillars and Images to the honour of their Gods, whereof there are many yet remaining: which the Chingulayes count very meritorious to worship, and the next way to Heaven. Near by is a River, by which we came when we made our escape: all along which is abundance of hewed stones, some long for Pillars, some broad for paving. Over this River there have been three Stone Bridges built upon Stone Pillars, but now are fallen down; and the Countrey all desolate without Inhabitants. At this City of Anurodgburro is a Watch kept, beyond which are no more people that yield obedience to the King of Candy. This place is above Ninety miles to the Northward of the City of Candy. [The nature of the Northern Parts.] In these Northern Parts there are no Hills, nor but two or three Springs of running water, so that their Corn ripeneth with the help of Rain. [The Port of Portaloon: It affords Salt.] There is a Port in the Countrey of Portaloon lying on the West side of this Island, whence part of the Kings Countrey is supplyed with Salt and Fish: where they have some small Trade with the Dutch, who have a Fort upon the Point, to prevent Boats from coming: But the Eastern Parts being too far, and Hilly, to drive Cattel thither for Salt, Gods Providence hath provided them a place on the East side nearer them, which in their Language they call [Leawava affords Salt in abundance.] Leawava. Where the Eastwardly Winds blowing, the Sea beats in, and in Westwardly Winds (being then fair weather there) it becomes Salt, and that in such abundance, that they have as much as they please to fetch. [Described.] This Place of Leawava is so contrived by the Providence of the Almighty Creator, that neither the Portuguez nor Dutch in all the time of their Wars could ever prevent this People from having the benefit of this Salt, which is the principal thing that they esteem in time of Trouble or War; and most of them do keep by them a store of Salt against such times. It is, as I have heard, environed with Hills on the Land side, and by Sea not convenient for Ships to ride; and very sickly, which they do impute to the power of a great God, who dwelleth near by in a Town they call Cotteragom, standing in the Road, to whom all that go to fetch Salt both small and great must give an Offering. The Name and Power of this God striketh such terror into the Chingulayes, that those who otherwise are Enemies to this King, and have served both Portuguez and Dutch against him, yet would never assist either to make Invasions this way. [Their Towns how Built.] Having said thus much concerning the Cities and other Eminent places of this Kingdom, I will now add a little concerning their Towns. The best are those that do belong to their Idols, wherein stand their Dewals or Temples. They do not care to make Streets by building their Houses together in rowes, but each man lives by himself in his own Plantation, having an hedg it may be and a ditch round about him to keep out Cattel. Their Towns are always placed some distance from the High-ways, for they care not that their Towns should be a thorough-fair for all people, but onely for those that have business with them. They are not very big, in some may be Forty, in some Fifty houses, and in some above an Hundred: and in some again not above eight or ten. [Many lye in Ruins, and forsaken; and upon what occasion.] And as I said before of their Cities, so I must of their Towns, That there are many of them here and there lie desolate, occasioned by their voluntary forsaking them, which they often do, in case many of them fall sick, and two or three die soon after one another: For this they conclude to happen from the hand of the Devil. Whereupon they all leave their Town and go to another, thinking thereby to avoid him: Thus relinquishing both their Houses and Lands too. Yet afterwards, when they think the Devil hath departed the place, some will sometimes come back and re-assume their Lands again. CHAP. III. Of their Corn, with their manner of Husbandry. [The Products and Commodities of the Countrey.] Having discoursed hitherto of the Countrey, method will require that I proceed now to the Products of it; Viz. their Fruits, Plants, Beasts, Birds, and other Creatures, Minerals, Commodities, &c. whereof I must declare once for all, That I do not pretend to write an Exact and Perfect Treatise, my time and leisure not permitting me so to do; but only to give a Relation of some of the chief of these things, and as it were a tast of them, according as they that occur to my Memory while I am writing. I shall first begin with their Corn, as being the Staff of their Countrey. [Corn of divers sorts.] They have divers sorts of Corn, tho all different from ours. And here I shall first speak of their Rice, the Choice and Flower of all their Corn, and then concerning the other inferior kinds among them. [Rice.] Of Rice they have several sorts, and called by several names according to the different times of their ripening: However in tast little disagreeing from one another. Some will require seven Months before it come to maturity, called Mauvi; some six, Hauteal; others will ripen in five, Honorowal; others in four, Henit; and others in three, Aulfancol: The price of all these is one and the same. That which is soonest ripe, is most savoury to the tast; but yieldeth the least increase. It may be asked then, why any other sort of Rice is sown, but that which is longest a Ripening, seeing it brings in most Profit? In answer to this, you must know, [Grows in Water. Their Ingenuity in watering their Corn Lands.] That all these sorts of Rice do absolutely require Water to grow in, all the while they stand; so that the Inhabitants take great pains in procuring and saving water for their Grounds, and in making Conveyances of Water from their Rivers and Ponds into their Lands, which they are very ingenious in; also in levelling their Corn Lands, which must be as smooth as a Bowling-Green, that the Water may cover all over. Neither are their steep and Hilly Lands uncapable of being thus overflown with Water. For the doing of which they use this Art. They level these Hills into narrow Allies, some three; some eight foot wide one beneath another, according to the steepness of the Hills, working and digging them in that fashion that they lye smooth and flat, like so many Stairs up the Hills one above another. The Waters at the top of the Hills falling down wards are let into these Allies, and so successively by running out of one into another, water all; first the higher Lands, and then the lower. The highest Allies having such a quantity of Water as may suffice to cover them, the rest runs over unto the next, and that having its proportion, unto the next, and so by degrees it falls into all these hanging parcels of Ground. These Waters last sometimes a longer, and sometimes a shorter Season. [Why they do not alwayes sow the best kind of Rice.] Now the Rice they sow is according as they foresee their stock of Water will last. It will sometimes last them two or three, or four or five Months, more or less; the Rice therefore they chuse to cast into the Ground, is of that sort that may answer the duration of the Water. For all their Crop would be spoilt if the Water should fail them before their Corn grew ripe. If they foresee their Water will hold out long, then they sow the best and most profitable Rice, viz. that which is longest a ripening; but if it will not, they must be content to sow of the worser sorts; that is, those that are sooner ripe. Again, they are forced sometimes to sow this younger Rice, for the preventing the damage it might otherwise meet with, if it should stand longer. For their Fields are all in common, which after they have sown, they enclose till Harvest; But as soon as the Corn first sown becomes ripe, when the Owner has reaped it, it is lawful for him to break down his Fences, and let in his Cattle for grazing; which would prove a great mischief to that Corn that required to stand a Month or two longer. Therefore if they are constrained to sow later than the rest, either through want or sloth, or some other Impediment, yet they make use of that kind of Rice that will become ripe, equal with that first sown. [They sow at different times, but reap together.] And so they all observe one time of reaping to prevent their Corn being trampled down or eaten up by the Cattle. Thus they time their Corn to their Harvest; some sowing sooner, some later, but all reaping together, unless they be Fields that are enclosed by themselves; and peculiar to one Man. [Their Artificial Pools.] Where there are no Springs or Rivers to furnish them with Water, as it is in the Northern Parts, where there are but two or three Springs, they supply this defect by saving of rain Water; which they do, by casting up great Banks in convenient places to stop and contain the Rains that fall, and so save it till they have occasion to let it out into their Fields: They are made rounding like a C or Half-Moon, every Town has one of these Ponds, which if they can but get filled with Water, they count their Corn is as good as in the Barn. It was no small work to the ancient Inhabitants to make all these Banks, of which there is a great number, being some two, some three Fathoms in height, and in length some above a Mile, some less, not all of a size. They are now grown over with great Trees, and so seem natural Hills. When they would use the Water, they cut a gap in one end of the Bank, and so draw the Water by little and little, as they have occasion for the watering their Corn. These Ponds in dry weather dry up quite. If they should dig these Ponds deep, it would not be so convenient for them. It would indeed contain the Water well, but would not so well nor in such Plenty empty out it self into their Grounds. [Aligators harbor in them.] In these Ponds are Aligators, which when the Water is dried up depart into the Woods, and down to the Rivers; and in the time of Rains come up again into the Ponds. They are but small, nor do use to catch People, nevertheless they stand in some fear of them. The Corn they sow in these Parts is of that sort that is soonest ripe, fearing lest their Waters should fail. As the Water dries out of these Ponds, they make use of them for Fields, treading the Mud with Buffeloes, and then [They sow Corn on the Mud.] sowing Rice thereon, and frequently casting up Water with Scoops on it. I have hitherto spoken of those Rices that require to grow in Water. [A sort of Rice that grows Without Water.] There is yet another sort of Rice, which will ripen tho' it stand not alway in Water: and this sort of Corn serves for those places, where they cannot bring their Waters to overflow; this will grow with the Rains that fall; but is not esteemed equal with the others, and differs both in scent and taste from that which groweth in the watery Fields. [The Seasons of Seed-time and Harvest] The ordinary Season of seed time, is in the Months of July and August, and their Harvest in or about February; but for Land that is well watered, they regard no Season; the Season is all the year long. When they Till their Grounds, or Reap their Corn, they do it by whole Towns generally, all helping each other for Attoms, as they call it; that is, that they may help them as much, or as many days again in their Fields, which accordingly they will do; They Plough only with a crooked piece of Wood, something like an Elbow, which roots up the Ground, as uneven as if it were done by Hogs, and then they overflow it with water. [A particular description of their Husbandry.] But if any be so curious as to know more particularly how they order and prepare their Lands, and sow their Corn, take this account of it. But before we go to work, it will be convenient first to describe the Tools. [Their Plough.] To begin therefore with their Plough. I said before it was a crooked piece of Wood, it is but little bigger than a Man's Arm, one end whereof is to hold by, and the other to root up the Ground. In the hollow of this Plough is a piece of Wood fastned some three or four Inches thick, equal with the bredth of the Plough; and at the end of the Plough, is fixt an Iron Plate to keep the Wood from wearing. There is a Beam let in to that part of it that the Plough-man holds in his hand, to which they make their Buffaloes fast to drag it. [The convenience of these Ploughs.] These Ploughs are proper for this Countrey, because they are lighter, and so may be the more easie for turning, the Fields being short, so that they could not turn with longer, and if heavier, they would sink and be unruly in the mud. These Ploughs bury not the grass as ours do, and there is no need they should. For their endeavour is only to root up the Ground, and so they overflow it with Water, and this rots the Grass. [Their first Ploughing.] They Plough twice before they sow. But before they begin the first time, they let in Water upon their Land, to make it more soft and pliable for the Plough. After it is once Ploughed, they make up their [Their Banks, and use of them.] Banks. For if otherwise they should let it alone till after the second Ploughing, it would be mere Mud, and not hard enough to use for Banking. Now these Banks are greatly necessary, not only for Paths for the People to go upon through the Fields, who otherwise must go in the Mud, it may be knee deep; but chiefly to keep in and contain their Water, which by the help of these Banks they overflow their Grounds with. These Banks they make as smooth with the backside of their Houghs, as a Bricklayer can smooth a Wall with his Trowel. For in this they are very neat. These Banks are usually not above a Foot over. [Their second Ploughing.] After the Land is thus Ploughed and the Banks finished, it is laid under water again for some time, till they go to Ploughing the second time. Now it is exceeding muddy, so that the trampling of the Cattel that draws the Plough, does as much good as the Plough; for the more muddy the better. Sometimes they use no Plough this second time, but only drive their Cattel over to make the Ground the muddier. [How they prepare their Seed-Corn.] Their Lands being thus ordered, they still keep them overflowed with Water, that the Weeds and Grass may rot. Then they take their Corn and lay it a soak in Water a whole night, and the next day take it out, and lay it in a heap, and cover it with green leaves, and so let it lye some five or six days to make it grow. [And their Land after it is Ploughed.] Then they take and wet it again, and lay it in a heap covered over with leaves as before, and so it grows and shoots out with Blades and Roots. In the mean time while this is thus a growing, they prepare their Ground for sowing; which is thus: They have a Board about four foot long, which they drag over their Land by a yoke of Buffaloes, not flat ways, but upon the edge of it. The use of which is, that it jumbles the Earth and Weeds together, and also levels and makes the Grounds smooth and even, that so the Water (for the ground is all this while under water) may stand equal in all places. And wheresoever there is any little hummock standing out of the Water, which they may easily see by their eye, with the help of this Board they break and lay even. And so it stands overflown while their Seed is growing, and become fit to sow, which usually is eight days after they lay it in soak. When the Seed is ready to sow, they drain out all the Water, and with little Boards of about a foot and a half long, fastned upon long Poles, they trim the Land over again, laying it very smooth, making small Furrows all along, that in case Rain or other Waters should come in, it might drain away; for more Water now would endanger rotting the Corn. [Their manner of sowing.] And then they sow their Corn, which they do with very exact evenness, strewing it with their hands, just as we strew Salt upon Meat. [How they Manure and order their young Corn.] And thus it stands without any Water, till such time as the Corn be grown some three or four Inches above the Ground. There were certain gaps made in the Banks to let out the water, these are now stopped to keep it in. Which is not only to nourish the Corn, but to kill the weeds. For they keep their Fields as clean as a Garden without a weed. Then when the Corn is grown about a span high, the Women come and weed it, and pull it up where it grew too thick, and transplant it where it wants. And so it stands overflown till the Corn be ripe, when they let out the water again to make it dry for reaping. They never use any dung, but their manner of plowing and soaking of their Ground serves instead thereof. [Their manner of Reaping.] At reaping they are excellent good, just after the English manner. The whole Town, as I said before, as they joyn together in Tilling, so in their Harvest also; For all fall in together in reaping one man's Field, and so to the next, until every mans Corn be down. And the Custome is, that every man, during the reaping of his Corn, finds all the rest with Victuals. The womens work is to gather up the Corn after the Reapers, and carry it all together. [They tread out their Corn with Cattel.] They use not Threshing, but tread out their Corn with Cattel, which is a far quicker and easier way. They may tread out in a day forty or fifty Bushels at least with the help of half a dozen Cattel. [The Ceremonies they use when the Corn is to be trodden.] When they are to tread their Corn they choose a convenient adjoyning place. Here they lay out a round piece Ground some twenty or five and twenty foot over. From which they cut away the upper Turf. Then certain Ceremonies are used. First, they adorn this place with ashes made into flowers and branches, and round circles. Then they take divers strange shells, and pieces of Iron, and some sorts of Wood, and a bunch of betel Nuts, (which are reserved for such purposes) and lay all these in the very middle of the Pit, and a large stone upon them. Then the women, whose proper work it is, bring each their burthen of reaped Corn upon their heads, and go round in the Pit three times, and then fling it down. And after this without any more ado, bring in the rest of the Corn as fast as they can. For this Labour, and that of weeding, the Women have a Fee due to them, which they call Warapol, that is as much Corn, as shall cover the Stone and the other Conjuration-Instruments at the bottom of the Pit. They will frequently carry away their new reaped Corn into the Pit; and tread it out presently as soon as they have cut it down, to secure it from the Rains, which in some Parts are very great and often; and Barns they have none big enough, But in other places not so much given to Rains, they will sometimes set it up in a Cock, and let it stand some months. [How they unhusk their Rice.] They unshale their Rice from its outward husk by beating it in a Mortar, or on the Ground more often; but some of these sorts of Rice must first be boyled in the husk, otherwise in beating it will break to powder. The which Rice, as it is accounted, so I by experience have found, to be the wholsomest; This they beat again the second time to take off a Bran from it; and after that it becomes white. And thus much concerning Rice-Corn. [Other sorts of Corn among them.] Besides this, tho far inferior to it, there are divers other sorts of Corn, which serve the People for food in the absence of Rice, which will scarcely hold out with many of them above half the Year. [Coracan.] There is Coracan, which is a small seed like Mustard-seed, This they grind to meal or beat in a Mortar, and so make Cakes of it, baking it upon the Coals in a potsheard, or dress it otherwise. If they which are not used to it, eat it, it will gripe their Bellies; When they are minded to grind it, they have for their Mill two round stones, which they turn with their hands by the help of a stick: There are several sorts of this Corn. Some will ripen in three months, and some require four. If the Ground be good; it yields a great encrease; and grows both on the Hills and in the Plains. [Tanna.] There is another Corn called Tanna; It is much eaten in the Northern Parts, in Conde Uda but little sown. It is as small as the former, but yieldeth a far greater encrease. From one grain may spring up two, three, four or five stalks, according as the ground is, on each stalk one ear, that contains thousands of grains. I think it gives the greatest encrease of any one feed in the World. Each Husbandman sowes not above a Pottle at a Seeds-time. It growes up two foot, or two foot and an half from the ground. The way of gathering it when ripe, is, that the Women (whose office it is} go and crop off the ears with their hands, and bring them home in baskets. They onely take off the ears of Coracan also, but they being tough, are cut off with knives. This Tanna must be parched in a Pan, and then is beaten in a Mortar to unhusk it. It will boyl like Rice, but swell far more; the tast not bad but very dry, and accounted wholsome; the fashion flattish, the colour yellow and very lovely to the Eye. It ripens in four months, some sorts of it in three. There are also divers other sorts, which grow on dry Land (as the former) and ripen with the Rain. [Moung.] As Moung, a Corn somewhat like Vetches, growing in a Cod. [Omb.] Omb, a small seed, boyled and eaten as Rice. It has an operation pretty strange, which is, that when it is new it will make them that eat it like drunk, sick and spue; and this only when it is sown in some Grounds, for in all it will not have this effect: and being old, none will have it. Minere, a small seed. Boumas, we call them Garavances. Tolla, a seed used to make Oyl, with which they anoint themselves; and sometimes they will parch it and eat it with Jaggory, a kind of brown Sugar. And thus much of their Corn. CHAP. IV. Of their Fruits, and Trees [Great variety of Fruits, and delicious.] Of Fruits here are great plenty and variety, and far more might be if they did esteem or nourish them. Pleasant Fruits to eat ripe they care not at all to do, They look only after those that may fill the Belly, and satisfie their hunger when their Corn is spent, or to make it go the further. These onely they plant, the other Fruits of Pleasure plant themselves, the seeds of the ripe Fruits shedding and falling on the ground naturally spring up again. They have all Fruits that grow in India. Most sorts of these delicious Fruits they gather before they be ripe, and boyl them to make Carrees, to use the Portuguez word, that is somewhat to eat with and relish their Rice. [The best Fruits, where-ever they grow, reserved for the King.] But wheresoever there is any Fruit better than ordinary, the Ponudecarso, or Officers of the Countrey, will tie a string about the Tree in the Kings Name with three knots on the end thereof, and then, no man, not the Owner himself, dares presume under pain of some great punishment, if not death, to touch them. And when they are ripe, they are wrapped in white cloth, and carried to him who is Governour of that Countrey wherein they grow: and if they be without any defect or blemish, then being wrapped up again in white cloth, he presents them to the King. But the owner in whose Ground they grow is paid nothing at all for them: it is well if he be not compelled to carry them himself into the bargain unto the King, be it never so far. These are Reasons why the People regard not to plant more than just to keep them alive. [Betel-Nuts.] But to specifie some of the chief of the Fruits in request among them, I begin with their Betel-Nuts, the Trees that bear them grow only on the South and West sides of this Island. They do not grow wild, they are only in their Towns, and there like unto Woods, without any inclosures to distinguish one mans Trees from anothers; but by marks of great Trees, Hummacks or Rocks each man knows his own. They plant them not, but the Nuts being ripe fall down in the grass and so grow up to [The Trees.] Trees. They are very streight and tall, few bigger than the calf of a mans Leg. [The Fruit.] The Nuts grow in bunches at the top, and being ripe look red and very lovely like a pleasing Fruit. When they gather them, they lay them in heaps until the shell be somewhat rotted, and then dry them in the Sun, and afterwards shell them with a sharp stick one and one at a time. These trees will yield some 500, some a 1000, some 1500 Nuts, and some but three or four hundred. They bear but once in the Year generally, but commonly there are green Nuts enough to eat all the Year long. [The Leaves.] The leaves of it are somewhat like those of a Coker-Nut Tree, they are five or six foot long, and have other lesser leaves growing out of the sides of them, like the feathers on each side of a quill. The Chingulays call the large leaves the boughs, and the leaves on the sides, the leaves. They fall off every Year, and the skin upon which they grow, with them. [The Skins, and their use.] These skins grow upon the body of the Tree, and the leaves grow out on them. They also clap about the buds or blossoms which bear the Nuts, and as the buds swell, so this skin-cover gives way to them, till at length it falls quite off with the great leaf on it. It is somewhat like unto Leather, and of great use unto the Countrey People. It serves them instead of Basons to eat their Rice in, and when they go a Journey to tie up their Provisions: For in these skins or leaves they can tie up any liquid substance as Oyl or water, doubling it in the middle, and rowling it in the two sides, almost like a purse. For bigness they are according to the Trees, some bigger, some less, ordinarily they are about two foot length, and a foot and an half in breadth. In this Countrey are no Inns to go to, and therefore their manner when they Travel is, to carry ready dressed what provisions they can, which they make up in these leaves. The Trees within have onely a kind of pith, and will split from one end to the other, the [The Wood.] Wood is hard and very strong; they use it for Laths for their Houses, and also for Rails for their Hedges, which are only stakes struck in the ground, and rails tyed along with rattans, or other withs growing in the Woods. [The profit the Fruit yields.] Money is not very plentiful in this Land, but by means of these Nuts, which is a great Commodity to carry to the Coasts of Cormandel, they furnish themselves with all things they want. The common price of Nuts, when there was a Trade, as there was when I came first on this Land, is 20000 for one Doller; but now they ly and grow, or rot on the ground under the Trees. Some of these Nuts do differ much from others in their operation, having this effect, that they will make people drunk and giddy-headed, and give them some stools, if they eat them green. [Jacks.] There is another Fruit, which we call Jacks; the Inhabitants when they are young call them Polos, before they be full ripe Cose; and when ripe, Warracha or Vellas; But with this difference, the Warracha is hard, but the Vellas as soft as pap, both looking alike to the eye no difference; but they are distinct Trees. These are a great help to the People, and a great part of their Food. They grow upon a large Tree, the Fruit is as big as a good Peck loaf, the outside prickly like an Hedg-hog, and of a greenish colour; there are in them Seeds or Kernels, or Eggs as the Chingulayes call them, which lie dispersed in the Fruit like Seeds in a Cucumber. They usually gather them before they be full ripe, boreing an hole in them, and feeling of the Kernel, they know if they be ripe enough for their purpose. Then being cut in pieces they boil them, and eat to save Rice and fill their Bellies; they eat them as we would do Turnips or Cabbage, and tast and smell much like the latter: one may suffice six or seven men. When they are ripe they are sweet and good to eat raw. The Kernels do very much resemble Chesnuts both in colour and tast, and are almost as good: the poor people will boyl them or roast them in the embers, there being usually a good heap of them lying in a corner by the fire side; and when they go a Journey, they will put them in a bag for their Provisions by the way. One Jack may contain three pints or two quarts of these seeds or kernels. When they cut these Jacks, there comes running out a white thick substance like tar, and will stick just like Birdlime, which the Boyes make use of to catch Birds, which they call Cola, or bloud of the Cos. Some will mix this with the flower of Rice, and it will eat like Eggs. [Jombo.] Another Fruit there is which I never saw in any other Parts of India, they call it Jombo. In tast it is like to an Apple, full of Juice, and pleasant to the Palate, and not unwholsom to the Body, and to the Eye no Fruit more amiable, being white, and delicately coloured with red, as if it were painted. [Other fruits found in the Woods.] Also in the wild Woods are several sorts of pretty Fruits, as Murros, round in shape, and as big as a Cherry, and sweet to the tast; Dongs, nearest like to a black Cherry. Ambelo's like to Barberries. Carolla cabella, Cabela pooke, and Polla's, these are like to little Plums, and very well tasted. Paragidde, like to our Pears, and many more such like Fruits. [Fruits common with other parts of India.] Here are also, of Indian Fruits, Coker-nuts; Plantins also and Banana's of divers and sundry sorts, which are distinguished by the tast as well as by the names; rare sweet Oranges and sower ones, Limes but no Lemons, such as ours are; Pautaurings, in tast all one with a Lemon, but much bigger than a mans two fists, right Citrons, and a small sort of sweet Oranges. Here are several other sorts of Lemons, and Oranges, Mangoes of several sorts, and some very good and sweet to eat. In this sort of Fruit the King much delights, and hath them brought to him from all Parts of the Island. Pine-Apples also grow there, Sugar Canes, Water-Melons, Pomegranates, Grapes both black and white, Mirablins, Codjeu's, and several other. There are three other Trees that must not here be omitted; Which tho they bear no eatable Fruit, yet the Leaves of the one, and the Juice of the other, and the Bark of the third are very renowned, and of great benefit. [The Tallipot; the rare Uses of the Leaf.] The first is the Tallipot; It is as big and tall as a Ships Mast, and very streight, bearing only Leaves: which are of great use and benefit to this People; one single Leaf being so broad and large, that it will cover some fifteen or twenty men, and keep them dry when it rains. The leaf being dryed is very strong, and limber and most wonderfully made for mens Convenience to carry along with them; for tho this leaf be thus broad when it is open, yet it will fold close like a Ladies Fan, and then it is no bigger than a mans arm. It is wonderful light, they cut them into pieces, and carry them in their hands. The whole leaf spread is round almost like a Circle, but being cut in pieces for use are near like unto a Triangle: They lay them upon their heads as they travel with the peaked end foremost, which is convenient to make their way thro the Boughs and Thickets. When the Sun is vehement hot they use them to shade themselves from the heat. Souldiers all carry them; for besides the benefit of keeping them dry in case it rain upon the march, these leaves make their Tents to ly under in the Night. A marvelous Mercy which Almighty God hath bestowed upon this poor and naked People in this Rainy Country! one of these I brought with me into England, and you have it described in the Figure. These Leaves all grow on the top of the Tree after the manner of a Coker. It bears no kind of Fruit until the last year of its life, and then it comes out on the top, and spreads abroad in great branches, all full first of yellow blossoms, most lovely and beautiful to behold, but smell very strong, and then it comes to a Fruit round and very hard, as big as our largest Cherries, but good only for seed to set: and tho this Tree bears but once, it makes amends, bearing such great abundance, that one Tree will yield seed enough for a Countrey. If these Trees stand near any houses, the smell of the blossoms so much annoyes them, that they regarding not the seed, forthwith cut them down. This Tree is within a [The pith good to eat.] Pith only, which is very good to eat if they cut the Tree down before it runs to seed. They beat it in Mortars to Flower, and bake Cakes of it; which tast much like to white bread. It serves them instead of Corn before their Harvest be ripe. [The Kettule yields a delicious juice.] The next Tree is the Kettule. It groweth streight, but not so tall or big as a Coker-Nut-Tree; the inside nothing but a white Pith, as the former. It yieldeth a sort of Liquor, which they call Tellegie: it is rarely sweet and pleasing to the Pallate, and as wholsom to the Body, but no stronger than water. They take it down from the Tree twice, and from some good Trees thrice, in a day. An ordinary Tree will yield some three, some four Gallons in a day, some more and some less. The which Liquor they boyl and make a kind of brown Sugar, called Jaggory; but if they will use their skill, they can make it as white as the second best Sugar: and for any use it is but little inferior to ordinary Sugar. The manner how they take this Liquor from the Tree is thus; When the Tree is come to maturity, first out of the very top there cometh out a bud, which if they let it grow, will bear a round fruit, which is the seed it yieldeth, but is only good to set for encrease. This bud they cut and prepare, by putting to it several sorts of things, as Salt, Pepper, Lemons, Garlick, Leaves, &c. which keeps it at a stand, and suffers it not to ripen. So they daily cut off a thin slice off the end, and the Liquor drops down in a Pot, which they hang to catch it. [The Skin bears strings as strong as wyer.] It bears a leaf like to that of a Betel-Nut-Tree, which is fastned to a Skin as the Betel-Nut Leaves were, onely this Skin is hard and stubborn like a piece of Board: the Skin is all full of strings as strong as Wyer; they use them to make Ropes withal. As long as the Tree is growing the leaves shed; but when the Tree is come to its full growth, they remain many years upon the Tree before they fall; and when they fall, there are no new ones come again: The top-bud, as it ripens and withers, other buds come out lower and lower every Year till they come to the bottom of the Boughs, and then it hath done bearing, and so may stand seven or ten years, and then dyeth. [The Wood; its Nature and Use.] The Wood of this Tree is not above three inches thick, mighty strong and hard to cut in two, but very apt to split from top to bottom; a very heavy wood, they make pestles of it to beat their Rice with; the colour black, but looks not like natural wood, but as if it were composed of divers pieces. The budds of this Tree, as also of the Coker, and Betel Nut-Tree, are excellent in tast, resembling Walnuts or Almonds. [The Cinnamon Tree.] I proceed to the third Tree, which is the Cinnamon, in their Language Corunda-gauhah. It grows wild in the Woods as other Trees, and by them no more esteemed; It is most on the West side of the great River Mavela-gonga. It is much as plenty as Hazel in England in some places a great deal, in some little, and in some none at all. The Trees are not very great, but sizable. The Cinnamon is the [The Bark.] Bark or Rind, when it is on the Tree it looks whitish. They scrape it and pull it off and dry it in the Sun: they take it onely from off the smaller Trees, altho the Bark of the greater is as sweet to the smell and as strong to the tast. The [The Wood.] Wood has no smell, in colour white, and soft like Fir. Which for any use they cut down, favouring them no more than other wild Trees in the Wood. The [The Leaf.] Leaf much resembleth the Laurel both in colour and thickness; the difference is, whereas the Laurel hath but one strait rib throughout, whereon the green spreads it self on each sides, the Cinnamon hath three by which the Leaf stretches forth it self. When the young leaves come out they look purely red like scarlet: Break or bruise them, and they will smell more like Cloves than Cinnamon. It bears a [The Fruit.] Fruit, which is ripe in September, much like an Acorn, but smaller, it neither tasts nor smells much like the Bark, but being boyled in water, it will yield an Oyl swimming on the top, which when cold is as hard as tallow and as white; and smelleth excellently well. They use it for Oyntments for Aches and Pains, and to burn in Lamps to give light in their houses: but they make no Candles of it, neither are any Candles used by any but the King. Here are many sorts of Trees that bear Berries to make Oyl of, both in the Woods and Gardens, but not eatable, but used only for their Lamps. There are other Trees remarkable either for their strangeness, or use, or both. Of these I shall mention a few. [The Orula, the Fruit good for Physick, and Dying.] The Orula, a Tree as big as an Apple-Tree, bears a Berry somewhat like an Olive, but sharper at each end, its Skin is of a reddish green colour, which covereth an hard stone. They make use of it for Physic in Purges; and also to dy black colour: Which they do after this manner; They take the fruit and beat it to pieces in Mortars, and put it thus beaten into water; and after it has been soaking a day or two, it changeth the water, that it looks like Beer. Then they dip their cloth in it, or what they mean to dy, and dry it in the Sun. And then they dip it in black mud, and so let it ly about an hour, then take it and wash it in water: and now it will appear of a pale black. Then being dry, they dip it again into the aforesaid Dy, and it becomes a very good black. [This water will brighten rusty Iron, and serve instead of Ink.] Another use there is of this water. It is this: Let any rusty Iron ly a whole night in it, and it will become bright; and the water look black like Ink, insomuch that men may write with it. These Trees grow but in some Parts of the Land, and nothing near so plentiful as Cinnamon. The Berries the Drugsters in the City there, do sell in their Shops. [The Dounekaia] The Dounekaia gauhah, a shrub, bears leaves as broad as two fingers, and six or eight foot long, on both sides of them set full of Thorns, and a streak of Thorns runs thro the middle. These leaves they split to weave Matts withal. The Tree bears a bud above a span long, tapering somewhat like a Sugar-loaf. Leaves cover this bud folding it about, like the leaves of a Cabbage. Which leaves smell rarely sweet, and look of a lovely yellow colour like gold. This bud blowes into divers bunches of Flowers, spreading it self open like a Plume of Feathers, each Flower whitish, but very small. The Roots of this shrub they use for Ropes, splitting them into Thongs, and then making them into Ropes. [The Capita.] The Capita gauhah, is a shrub never bigger than a mans arm. The Wood, Rind and Leaves have all a Physical smell; and they do sometimes make use of it for Physic. The Leaf is of a bright green, roundish, rough, and as big as the palm of an hand. No sort of Cattel will eat it, no, not the Goats, that will sometimes brouze upon rank poyson. There is abundance of these Trees every where, and they grow in all Countreys, but in Ouvah. And this is supposed to be the cause, that the Ouvah Cattle dy, when they are brought thence to any other Country. They attribute it to the smell of this Tree, of such a venomous nature it is to Beasts. And therefore to destroy their Fleas, or to keep their houses clear of them, they sweep them with Brooms made of this shrub. 'Tis excellent good for firing, and will burn when it is green. There are no other coals the Goldsmiths use, but what are made of this wood. [Rattans.] Rattans grow in great abundance upon this Island. They run like Honey-suckles either upon the Ground, or up Trees, as it happens, near Twenty fathom in length. There is a kind of a shell or skin grows over the Rattan, and encloseth it round. Which serves for a Case to cover and defend it, when tender. This Skin is so full of prickles and thorns, that you cannot touch it. As the Rattan growes longer and stronger, this Case growes ripe, and falls off prickles and shell and all. [Its Fruit.] It bears fruit in clusters just like bunches of Grapes, and as big. Every particular Berry is covered with a husk like a Gooseberry, which is soft, yellow and scaly, like the scales of a Fish, hansome to look upon. This husk being cracked and broken, within grows a Plum of a whitish colour: within the Plum a stone, having meat about it. The people gather and boyl them to make sour pottage to quench the thirst. [Canes.] Canes grow just like Rattans, and bear a fruit like them. The difference onely is, that the Canes are larger. [The Betel Tree.] The Tree that bears the Betel-leaf, which is so much loved and eaten in these parts, growes like Ivy, twining about Trees, or Poles, which they stick in the ground, for it to run up by: and as the Betel growes, the Poles grow also. The form of the Leaf is longish, the end somewhat sharp, broadest next to the stalk, of a bright green, very smooth, just like a Pepper leaf, onely different in the colour, the Pepper leaf being of a dark green. It bears a fruit just like long Pepper, but not good for seed, for it falls off and rots upon the ground. But when they are minded to propagate it, they plant the spriggs, which will grow. [The Bo-gauhah, or God Tree.] I shall mention but one Tree more as famous and highly set by as any of the rest, if not more, tho it bear no fruit, the benefit consisting chiefly in the Holiness of it. This Tree they call Bo-gauhah; we, the God-tree. It is very great and spreading, the Leaves always shake like an Asp. They have a very great veneration for these Trees, worshipping them; upon a Tradition, That the Buddou, a great God among them, when he was upon the Earth, did use to sit under this kind of Trees. There are many of these Trees, which they plant all the Land over, and have more care of, than of any other. They pave round under them like a Key, sweep often under them to keep them clean; they light Lamps, and set up their Images under them: and a stone Table is placed under some of them to lay their Sacrifices on. They set them every where in Towns and High wayes, where any convenient places are: they serve also for shade to Travellers. They will also set them in memorial of persons deceased, to wit, there, where their Bodies were burnt. It is held meritorious to plant them, which, they say, he that does, shall dy within a short while after, and go to Heaven: But the oldest men onely that are nearest death in the course of Nature, do plant them, and none else; the younger sort desiring to live a little longer in this World before they go to the other. CHAP. V. Of their Roots, Plants, Herbs, Flowers. [Roots for Food.] Some of these are for Food, and some for Medicine. I begin with their Roots, which with the Jacks before mentioned, being many, and generally bearing well, are a great help towards the sustenance of this People. These by the Chingulays by a general name are called Alloes, by the Portugals and us Inyames. They are of divers and sundry sorts, some they plant, and some grow wild; those that grow wild in the Woods are as good, onely they are more scarce and grow deeper, and so more difficult to be plucked up. It would be to no purpose to mention their particular names; I shall onely speak a little in general of them. They serve both for Food, and for Carrees, that is, sauce, or for a relish to their Rice. But they make many a meal of them alone to lengthen out their Rice, or for want of it: and of these there is no want to those that will take pains but to set them, and cheap enough to those that will, buy. [The manner of their growing.] There are two sorts of these Alloes; some require Trees or Sticks to run up on; others require neither. Of the former sort, some will run up to the tops of very large Trees, and spread out very full of branches, and bear great bunches of blossoms, but no use made of them; The Leaves dy every year, but the Roots grow still, which some of them will do to a prodigious bigness within a Year or two's time, becoming as big as a mans wast. The fashion of them somewhat roundish, rugged and uneven, and in divers odd shapes, like a log of cleft wood: they have a very good, savoury mellow tast. Of those that do not run up on Trees, there are likewise sundry sorts; they bear a long stalk and a broad leaf; the fashion of these Roots are somewhat roundish, some grow out like a mans fingers, which they call Angul-alloes, as much as to say Finger-Roots; some are of a white colour, some of a red. Those that grow in the Woods run deeper into the Earth, they run up Trees also. Some bear blossoms somewhat like Hopps, and they may be as big as a mans Arm. [Boyling Herbs.] For Herbs to boyl and eat with Butter they have excellent good ones, and several sorts: some of them are six months growing to maturity, the stalk as high as a man can reach, and being boyled almost as good as Asparagus. There are of this sort, some having leaves and stalks as red as blood, some green: some the leaves green, and the stalk very white. [Fruits for sawce.] They have several other sorts of Fruits which they dress and eat with their Rice, and tast very savoury, called Carowela, Wattacul, Morongo, Cacorebouns, &c. the which I cannot compare to any things that grow here in England. [European Herbs and Plants among them.] They have of our English Herbs and Plants, Colworts, Carrots, Radishes, Fennel, Balsam, Spearmint, Mustard. These, excepting the two last, are not the natural product of the Land, but they are transplanted hither: By which I perceive all other European Plants would grow there: They have also Fern, Indian Corn. Several sorts of Beans as good as these in England: right Cucumhers, Calabasses, and several sorts of Pumkins, &c. The Dutch on that Island in their Gardens have Lettice, Rosemary, Sage, and all other Herbs and Sallettings that we have in these Countreys. [Herbs for Medicine.] Nor are they worse supplyed with Medicinal Herbs. The Woods are their Apothecaries Shops, where with Herbs, Leaves, and the Rinds of Trees they make all their Physic and Plaisters, with which sometimes they will do notable Cures. I will not here enter into a larger discourse of the Medicinal Vertues of their Plants, &c. of which there are hundreds: onely as a Specimen thereof, and likewise of their Skill to use them; I will relate a Passage or two. A Neighbour of mine a Chingulay, would undertake to cure a broken Leg or Arm by application of some Herbs that grow in the Woods, and that with that speed, that the broken Bone after it was set should knit by the time one might boyl a pot of Rice and three carrees, that is about an hour and an half or two hours; and I knew a man who told me he was thus cured. They will cure an Imposthume in the Throat with the Rind of a Tree called Amaranga, (whereof I my self had the experience;) by chawing it for a day or two after it is prepared, and swallowing the spittle. I was well in a day and a Night, tho before I was exceedingly ill, and could not swallow my Victuals. [Their Flowers.] Of Flowers they have great varieties, growing wild, for they plant them not. There are Roses red and white, scented like ours: several sorts of sweet smelling Flowers, which the young Men and Women gather and tie in their hairs to perfume them; they tie up their hair in a bunch behind, and enclose the Flowers therein. [A Flower that serves instead of a Dial.] There is one Flower deserves to be mentioned for the rarity and use of it, they call it a Sindric-mal, there are of them some of a Murry colour, and some white. Its Nature is, to open about four a clock in the Evening, and so continueth open all Night until the morning, when it closeth up it self till four a clock again. Some will transplant them out of the Woods into their Gardens to serve them instead of a Clock, when it is cloudy that they cannot see the Sun. There is another white Flower like our Jasmine, well scented, they call them Picha-mauls, which the King hath a parcel of brought to him every morning, wrapt in a white cloth, hanging upon a staff, and carried by people, whose peculiar office this is. All people that meet these flowers, out of respect to the King, for whose use they are, must turn out of the Way; and so they must for all other things that go to the King being wrapt up in white cloth. These Officers hold Land of the King for this service: their Office is, also to plant these Flowers, which they usually do near the Rivers where they most delight to grow: Nay, they have power to plant them in any mans Ground, and enclose that ground when they have done it for the sole use of their Flowers to grow in: which Inclosures they will keep up for several years, until the Ground becomes so worn, that the Flowers will thrive there no longer, and then the Owners resume their own Lands again. Hop-Mauls, are Flowers growing upon great Trees, which bear nothing else, they are rarely sweet scented; this is the chief Flower the young people use; and is of greatest value among them. CHAP. VI. Of their Beasts, Tame and Wild, Insects. [What Beasts the Country produceth.] Having spoken concerning the Trees and Plants of this Island, We will now go on to speak of the Living Creatures on it, viz. Their Beasts, Insects, Birds, Fish, Serpents, &c. useful or noxious. And we begin first with their Beasts. They have Cowes, Buffaloes, Hogs, Goats, Deer, Hares, Dogs, Jacols, Apes, Tygers, Bears, Elephants, and other Wild Beasts. Lions, Wolves, Horses, Asses, Sheep, they have none. [Deer no bigger than Hares.] Deer are in great abundance in the Woods, and of several sorts, from the largeness of a Cow or Buffalo, to the smalness of a Hare. For here is a Creature in this Land no bigger, but in every part rightly resembleth a Deer, It is called Meminna, of colour gray with white spots, and good meat. [Other Creatures rare in their kind.] Here are also wild Buffalo's; also a sort of Beast they call Gauvera, so much resembling a Bull, that I think it one of that kind. His back stands up with a sharp ridg; all his four feet white up half his Legs. I never saw but one, which was kept among the Kings Creatures. Here was a Black Tygre catched and brought to the King, and afterwards a Deer milk white; both which he very much esteemed; there being no more either before or since ever heard of in that Land. [The way how a Wild Deer was catched.] If any desire to know how this white Deer was caught, it was thus; This Deer was observed to come on Evenings with the rest of the Herd to a great Pond to drink; the People that were ordered to catch this Deer, fenced the Pond round and plain about it with high stakes, leaving onely one wide gap. The men after this done lay in ambush, each with his bundle of Stakes ready cut. In the Evening the Deer came with the rest of the Herd to drink according to their wont. As soon as they were entred within the stakes, the men in ambush fell to their work, which was to fence in the gap left, which, there being little less than a Thousand men, they soon did; and so all the Herd were easily caught; and this among the rest. [Of their Elephants.] The King hath also an Elephant spotted or freckled all the body over, which was lately caught; and tho he hath many and very stately Elephants, and may have as many more as he pleases, yet he prefers this before them all. And since I am fallen upon discourse of the Elephant, the creature that this Countrey is famed for above any in India, I will detain my self a little longer upon it. [The way of catching Elephants.] I will first relate the manner of taking them, and afterwards their Sagacity, with other things that occur to my memory concerning them. This Beast, tho he be so big and wise, yet he is easily catched. When the King commands to catch Elephants, after they have found them they like, that is such as have Teeth, for tho there be many in the Woods, yet but few have Teeth, and they males onely: unto these they drive some She-Elephants, which they bring with them for the purpose; which when once the males have got a sight of, they will never leave, but follow them wheresoever they go; and the females are so used to it, that they will do whatsoever either by a word or a beck their Keepers bid them; and so they delude them along thro Towns and Countreys, thro the Streets of the City, even to the very Gates of the Kings Palace; Where sometimes they seize upon them by snares, and sometimes by driving them into a kind of Pound, they catch them. After they have brought the Elephant which is not yet caught together with the She, into the Kings presence, if it likes him not, he commands to let him go; if it does, he appoints him some certain place near unto the City, where they are to drive him with the Females; for without them it is not possible to make him stay; and to keep him in that place until the Kings further order and pleasure is to catch him, which perhaps may not be in two or three or four Years; All which time there are great men with Souldiers appointed to watch there about him: and if he should chance to stray a little out of his bounds set by the King, immediately they bring him back fearing the Kings displeasure, which is no less than death it self. Here these Elephants do, and may do, great dammage to the Country, by eating up their Corn, and trampling it with their broad feet, and throwing down their Coker-Nut Trees, and oftentimes their Houses too, and they may not resist them. It is thought this is done by the King to punish them that ly under his displeasure; And if you ask what becomes of these Elephants at last; sometimes after they have thus kept watch over them two or three Years, and destroyed the Countrey in this manner, the King will send order to carry them into the Woods, and let them go free. For he catcheth them not for any use or benefit he hath by them, but onely for his recreation and pastime. [The understanding of Elephants. Their Nature.] As he is the greatest in body, so in understanding also. For he will do any thing that his Keeper bids him, which is possible for a Beast not having hands to do. And as the Chingulayes report, they bear the greatest love to their young of all irrational Creatures; for the Shees are alike tender of any ones young ones as of their own: where there are many She Elephants together, the young ones go and suck of any, as well as of their Mothers; and if a young one be in distress and should cry out, they will all in general run to the help and aid thereof; and if they be going over a River, as here be some somewhat broad, and the streams run very swift, they will all with their Trunks assist and help to convey the young ones over. They take great delight to ly and tumble in the water, and will swim excellently well. Their Teeth they never shed. Neither will they ever breed tame ones with tame ones; but to ease themselves of the trouble to bring them meat, they will ty their two fore-feet together, and put them into the Woods, where meeting with the wild ones, they conceive and go one Year with young. [The damage they do.] It is their constant practice to shove down with their heads great Trees, which they love to eat, when they be too high, and they cannot otherwise reach the boughs. Wild ones will run much faster than a man, but tame ones not. The People stand in fear of them, and oftentimes are kill'd by them. They do them also great dammage in their Grounds, by Night coming into their Fields and eating up their Corn and likewise their Coker-nut-Trees, &c. So that in Towns near unto the Woods, where are plenty of them, the people are forced to watch their Corn all Night, and also their Outyards and Plantations; into which being once entred with eating and trampling they will do much harm, before they can get them out. Who oftentimes when by lighting of Torches, and hollowing, they will not go out, take their Bowes and go and shoot them, but not without some hazard, for sometimes the Elephant runs upon them and kills them. For fear of which they will not adventure unless there be Trees, about which they may dodg to defend themselves. And altho here be both Bears and Tygers in these Woods, yet they are not so fierce, as commonly to assault people; Travellers and Way-faring men go more in fear of Elephants than of any other Beasts. [Serve the King for Executing Malefactors.] The King makes use of them for Executioners; they will run their Teeth through the body, and then tear it in pieces, and throw it limb from limb. They have sharp Iron with a socket with three edges, which they put on their Teeth at such times; for the Elephants that are kept have all the ends of their Teeth cut to make them grow the better, and they do grow out again. [Their Diseases.] At some uncertain seasons the males have an infirmity comes on them, that they will be stark mad, so that none can rule them. Many times it so comes to pass that they with their Keepers on their backs, run raging until they throw them down and kill them: but commonly there is notice of it before, by an Oyl that will run out of their cheeks, which when that appears, immediately they chain them fast to great Trees by the Legs. For this infirmity they use no Medicine, neither is he sick: but the females are never subject to this. [The Sport they make.] The Keepers of the Kings Elephants sometimes make a sport with them after this manner. They will command an Elephant to take up water, which he does, and stands with it in his Trunk, till they command him to squirt it out at some body, which he immediately will do, it may be a whole paleful together, and with such a force, that a man can hardly stand against it. [Ants of divers sorts.] There are Ants of several sorts, and some worthy our remark. First of all, there are the Coumbias, a sort of small reddish Ants like ours in England. Secondly, the Tale-Coumbias, as small as the former but blackish. These usually live in hollow Trees or rotten Wood, and will sting most terribly. Thirdly, the Dimbios, great red Ants. These make their nests upon the Boughs of great Trees, bringing the Leaves together in clusters, it may be as big as a mans head; in which they lay their Eggs and breed. There will be oftentimes many nests of these upon one Tree, insomuch that the people are afraid to go up to gather the Fruits lest they should be stung by them. A fourth sort of Ants are those they call Coura-atch. They are great and black, living in the ground. Their daily practice is to bring up dirt out of the ground, making great hollow holes in the Earth, somewhat resembling Cony-Burrows; onely these are less, and run strait downwards for some way, and then turn away into divers paths under ground. In many places of the Land there are so many of these holes, that Cattle are ready to break their Legs as they go. These do not sting. A fifth is the Coddia. This Ant is of an excellent bright black, and as large as any of the former. They dwell always in the ground; and their usual practice is, to be travelling in great multitudes, but I do not know where they are going, nor what their business is; but they pass and repass some forwards and some backwards in great hast, seemingly as full of employment as People that pass along the Streets. These Ants will bite desperately, as bad as if a man were burnt with a coal of fire. But they are of a noble nature: for they will not begin; and you may stand by them, if you do not tread upon them nor disturb them. [How these Coddia's come to sting so terribly.] The reason their bite is thus terribly painful is this; Formerly these Ants went to ask a Wife of the Noya, a venomous and noble kind of Snake; and because they had such an high spirit to dare to offer to be related to such a generous creature, they had this vertue bestowed upon them, that they should sting after this manner. And if they had obtained a Wife of the Noya, they should have had the priviledg to have stung full as bad as he. This is a currant Fable among the Chingulays. Tho undoubtedly they chiefly regard the wisedom that is concealed under this, and the rest of their Fables. [These Ants a very mischievous sort.] There is a sixth sort called Vaeos. These are more numerous than any of the former. All the whole Earth doth swarm with them. They are of a middle size between the greatest and the least, the hinder part white, and the head red. They eat and devour all that they can come at; as besides food, Cloth, Wood, Thatch of Houses and every thing excepting Iron and Stone. So that the people cannot set any thing upon the ground within their houses for them. They creep up the walls of their houses, and build an Arch made of dirt over themselves all the way as they climb, be it never so high. And if this Arch or Vault chance to be broken, they all, how high soever they were, come back again to mend up the breach, which being finished they proceed forwards again, eating every thing they come at in their way. This Vermin does exceedingly annoy the Chingulays, insomuch that they are continually looking upon any thing they value, to see if any of these Vaeos have been at it. Which they may easily perceive by this Case of dirt, which they cannot go up any where without building as they go. And wheresoever this is seen, no doubt the Ants are there. [The curious Buildings of the Vaeos.] In places where there are no houses, and they can eat nothing belonging to the people, they will raise great Hills like Butts, some four or five or six foot high; which are so hard and strong, that it would be work enough to dig them down with Pick-Axes. The Chingulays call these Humbosses. Within they are full of hollow Vaults and Arches where they dwell and breed, and their nests are much like to Honeycombs, full of eggs and young ones. These Humbosses are built with a pure refined Clay by the ingenious builders. The people use this Clay to make their Earthen Gods of, because it is so pure and fine. [The manner of their death.] This sort of creatures as they increase in multitudes, so they dy in multitudes also. For when they come to maturity they have wings, and in the Evening after the going down of the Sun, (never before) all those that are fledged and ripe, will issue forth in such vast numbers, that they do almost darken the Sky, flying to such an height, as they go out of sight, and so keep flying till they fall down dead at last upon the Earth. The Birds that tarry up late, and are not yet gone to roost, fly among them and make good Suppers of them. The People in this Land never feed their Poultry. But they feed upon these Ants, which by scraping among the leaves and dirt they can never want; and they delight in them above Rice or any thing else. Besides all these Ants already mentioned, there are divers other distinct sorts of them. [Bees of several kinds.] But we will proceed to a more beneficial Insect, the Bee. Of which there be three sorts. The first are the Meemasses, which are the right English Bees. They build in hollow Trees, or hollow holes in the ground, which the Vaeo's have made. Into which holes the men blow with their mouths, and the Bees presently fly out. And then they put in their hands, and pull out the Combs, which they put in Pots or Vessels, and carry away. They are not afraid of their stinging in the least, nor do they arm themselves with any cloths against them. [Bees that build on Trees like Birds.] The second are the Bamburo's, larger and of a brighter colour than our English Bees. Their Honey is thin like water comparatively. They make their Combs upon limbs of Trees, open and visible to the Eye, generally of a great height. At time of year whole Towns, forty or fifty in company together will go out into the Woods, and gather this honey, and come home laden with it for their use. The third sort they call Connameia, signifying a blind Bee. They are small like a Fly, and black. They build in hollow Trees; and their honey somewhat tarrish: and they make such small quantities of it, that the people little regard it. The Boyes will sometimes cut a hole and take it out. [The people eat the Bees, as well as their honey.] When they meet with any swarms of Bees hanging on any Tree, they will hold Torches under to make them drop; and so catch them and carry them home. Which they boyl and eat, and esteem excellent food. [Leaches that ly in the grass, and creep on Travellers Legs.] There is a sort of Leaches of the nature of ours, onely differing in colour and bigness. For they are of a dark reddish colour like the skin of Bacon, and as big as a Goose quill, in length some two or three inches. At first, when they are young, they are no bigger than a horse hair, so that they can scarce be seen. In dry weather none of them appear, but immediately upon the fall of Rains, the Grass and Woods are full of them. These Leaches seize upon the Legs of Travellers; who going barefoot according to the custom of that Land, have them hanging upon their Legs in multitudes, which suck their blood till their bellies are full, and then drop off. They come in such quantities, that the people cannot pull them off so fast as they crawl on. The blood runs pouring down their Legs all the way they go, and 'tis no little smart neither, so that they would willingly be without them if they could, especially those that have sores on their Legs; for they all gather to the sore. [The remedies they use against them.] Some therefore will tie a piece of Lemon and Salt in a rag and fasten it unto a stick, and ever and anon strike it upon their Legs to make the Leaches drop off: others will scrape them off with a reed cut flat and sharp in the fashion of a knife. But this is so troublesom, and they come on again so fast and so numerous, that it is not worth their while: and generally they suffer them to bite and remain on their Legs during their Journey; and they do the more patiently permit them, because it is so wholsome for them. When they come to their Journeys end they rub all their Legs with ashes, and so clear themselves of them at once: but still the blood will remain dropping a great while after. But they are most annoyed by them when they go out to stool a-Nights, being small and of the colour of their bodies, so that they can neither see nor feel to pull them off. And these, tho they be in such quantities in some of these Countreys, yet in others there are none at all, nor ever were known to have been. But besides these, there are Water Leaches the same with ours. [Apes and Monkeys of divers kind.] Monkeys. Of which there are abundance in the Woods, and of divers sorts, some so large as our English Spaniel Dogs, of a darkish gray colour, and black faces, with great white beards round from ear to ear, which makes them shew just like old men. There is another sort just of the same bigness, but differ in colour, being milk white both in body and face, having great beards like the others; of this sort of white ones there is not such plenty. But both these sorts do but little mischief, keeping in the Woods, eating onely leaves and buds of Trees, but when they are catched, they will eat any thing. This sort they call in their Language, Wanderows. There is yet another sort of Apes, of which there is great abundance, who coming with such multitudes do a great deal of mischief to the Corn, that groweth in the Woods, so that they are fain all the day long to keep Watch to scare them out: and so soon as they are gone to fray them away at one end of the Field; others who wait for such an opportunity come skipping in at the other; and before they can turn, will fill both bellies and hands full, to carry away with them; and to stand all round to guard their Fields is more than they can do. This sort of Monkeys have no beards, white faces, and long hair on the top of their heads, which parteth and hangeth down like a mans. These are so impudent that they will come into their Gardens, and eat such Fruit as grows there. They call these Rillowes. The flesh of all these sorts of Apes they account good to eat. There are several sorts of Squirrels also, which they do eat when they can catch them. Before I make an end of my discourse of their Beasts, it may be worthwhile to relate the ways they use to catch them. At which they are very crafty. [How they catch wild Beasts.] For the catching of Deer or other wild Beasts, they have this ingenious device. In dark Moons when there are drisling Rains, they go about this design. They have a basket made with canes somewhat like unto a funnel, in which they put a potsheard with fire in it, together with a certain wood, which they have growing there, full of sap like pitch, and that will burn like a pitch-barrel. This being kindled in the potsheard flames, and gives an exceeding light. They carry it upon their heads with the flame foremost; the basket hiding him that is under it, and those that come behind it. In their hands they carry three or four small bells, which they tingle as they go, that the noyse of their steps should not be heard. Behind the man that carries the light, go men with Bowes and Arrows. And so they go walking along the Plains, and by the Pond sides, where they think the Deer will come out to feed. Which when they see the light, stand still and stare upon it, seeing onely the light, and hearing nothing but the tingling of the bells. The eyes of the Deer or other Cattle first appear to them glittering like Stars of light or Diamonds: and by their long experience they will distinguish one Beast from another by their eyes. All Creatures, as Deer, Hares, Elephants, Bears, &c. excepting onely wild Hogs, will stand still, wondering at this strange sight, till the people come as near as they do desire, and so let fly their Arrows upon them. And by this means they seldom go, but they catch something. The blades of their hunting-Arrowes are at least a foot or a foot and an half long, and the length of the staff of their Arrowes is a Rian, that is about two cubits. Again, they will observe where a Deers haunt is to break over their Hedges into the Corn Grounds. There they will set a sharp pole like a Spear full against the Haunt. So that the Deer when she leaps over thrusts her self upon the point of it. If a Tyger chance to come into their Grounds and kill a Cow, they will take notice of the place thro which he passed, and set a Cross-bow there ready charged. The Tyger coming that way again touches something that is fastned to the tricker of the Cross-bow, and so it discharges upon him. [How they take the Wild Boar.] The wild Hog is of all other the hardest to be caught; and 'tis dangerous to attempt the catching of him. For the people make valour to consist in three things, one is to fight against the Enemy, another to hunt the Elephant, and the third to catch Hoggs. Yet sometimes by their art they entrap them. And that they do after this manner. They dig an hole in the Earth of a convenient depth, and fix divers sharp stakes in the bottom of it. Then they cover it over lightly with Earth and Leaves, and plant thereupon roots which the Hog loves, as Potatoes or such like, which will grow there. And the pit remains, it may be sometimes months or half a year, till at last an Hog comes, and while he is rooting his weight betrayes him and in he falls. Again, sometimes they will set a falling trap of an exceeding weight, and under it plant Roots and such like things, which the Hog delights in. There are contrivances under the weeds and leaves, which when he goes to eat by touching or treading upon something fastned to the trap, it falls down upon him. These are made so artificially, that people sometimes have been caught and destroyed by them. Once such a trap in my remembrance fell upon three women and killed them. Who having been stealing Cotton in a Plantation, and fearing to be catched went to creep out at a hole, where this Trap stood. And thus I have related some of their ways of taking wild Cattel. They are good also at catching Birds and Vermin; In fine, they are the cunningest people in the World for such kind of traps and gins. And all of them they make onely by the help of their Knives with green sticks and withs that grow in the Woods. And so much of their Beasts. CHAP. VII. Of their Birds, Fish, Serpents, Commodities. [Their Birds.] In the next place I will entertain you with some relation of the other living Creatures among them. I begin with their Birds. In that Land there are Crowes, Sparrowes, Tom-titts, Snipes, just like these in England, Wood-Pigeons also, but not great flocks of any sorts, as we have, onely of Crowes and Pigeons. I have seen there Birds just like Woodcocks and Partridges, but they are scarce. A great many wild Peacocks: small green Parrots, but not very good to talk. But here is another [Such as will be taught to speak.] Bird in their Language called Mal-cowda, which with teaching will speak excellently well. It is black with yellow gills about the bigness of a Black-Bird: And another sort there is of the same bigness, called Cau-cowda, yellow like gold, very beautiful to the eye, which also might be taught to speak. [Such as are beautiful for colour.] Here are other sorts of small Birds, not much bigger than a Sparrow, very lovely to look on, but I think good for nothing else: some being in colour white like Snow, and their tayl about one foot in length, and their heads black like jet, with a tuft like a plume of Feathers standing upright thereon. There are others of the same sort onely differing in colour, being reddish like a ripe Orange, and on the head a Plume of black Feathers standing up. I suppose, one may be the Cock, and the other the Hen. [A strange Bird.] Here is a sort of Bird they call Carlo, which never lighteth on the ground, but always sets on very high Trees. He is as big as a Swan, the colour black, the Legs very short, the Head monstrous, his Bill very long, a little rounding like a Hawks, and white on each side of the head, like ears: on the top of the crown groweth out a white thing, somewhat like to the comb of a Cock; commonly they keep four or five of them together; and always are hopping from bough to bough; They are seldom silent, but continually make a roaring noyse, somewhat like the quacking of a Duck, that they may be heard at least a mile off; the reason they thus cry, the Chingulayes say, is for Rain, that they may drink. The bodies of these Fowls are good to eat. [Water-Fowls resembling Ducks and Swans.] Here is a sort of Bird very much resembling a Duck, but not very plentiful. And another sort of Fowl as big as a Duck, cole black, which liveth altogether upon Fish. It is admirable to see, how long they will remain under water, and at what a distance they will rise again. Besides these, there are many other kinds of Birds, much larger than Swans, which keep about the Ponds and Marshes to catch Fish, but the people eat them not: Nature hath endowed them with an admirable understanding, that they are not to be catched by the Allegators, tho there be many of them in those waters. [Peacocks.] The Peacocks in rainy weather are sometimes hunted and caught by Dogs; for their Feathers being wet, they are uncapable of flying far. [The King keeps Fowl.] The King hath Geese, Ducks, Turkeys, Pigeons, which he keeps tame, but none else may. Turkeys he delights not in, because they change the colour of their heads: Neither doth he kill any of these to eat, nor any other creature of what sort soever, and he hath many, that he keeps tame. [Their Fish.] They have no want of Fish, and those good ones too. All little Rivers and Streams running thro the Valleys are full of small Fish, but the Boyes and others wanting somewhat to eat with their Rice, do continually catch them before they come to maturity: nay all their Ponds are full of them, which in dry weather drying up, the people catch multitudes of them in this manner. [How they catch them in Ponds.] They have a kind of a Basket made of small Sticks, so close that Fish cannot get thro; it is broad at bottom, and narrow at top, like a funnel, the hole big enough for a man to thrust his Arm in, wide at the mouth about two or three foot; these baskets they jobb down, and the ends stick in the mud, which often happen upon a Fish; when they do, they feel it by the Fish beating it self against the sides. Then they put in their hands and take them out. And rieve a Rattan thro their gills, and so let them drag after them. One end of this Rattan is stuck in the fisher's girdle, and the other knotted, that the fish should not slip off: which when it is full, he discharges himself of them by carrying them ashore. Nay every ditch and little plash of water but anckle deep hath fish in it. The great River, Mavela-gonga, abounds exceedingly with them. Some of them as big as Salmons. But the people have little understanding in the way of taking them. [How they catch Fish in the River.] In very dry weather, they stretch a With over the River, which they hang all full of boughs of Trees to scare the Fish. This With thus hung they drag down with the stream, and to Leeward they place Fish-pots between the Rocks, and so drive the Fish into them. Nets or other wayes they have few or none. [Fish kept and fed for the Kings Pleasure.] At a Passage-place near to the City of Candy, the Fish formerly have been nourished and fed by the Kings order, to keep them there for his Majesties pleasure; whither, having used to be thus provided for, notwithstanding Floods and strong Streams, they will still resort: and are so tame, that I have seen them eat out of mens hands; but death it is to them that presume to catch them. The people passing over here, will commonly feed them with some of their Rice, accounting it a piece of charity so to do, and pleasure to see them eat it. In many other places also there are Fish thus fed and kept onely for the Kings Recreation: for he will never let any be catched for his use. [Serpents. The Pimberah of a prodigious bigness.] Of Serpents, there are these sorts. The Pimberah, the body whereof is as big as a mans middle, and of a length proportionable. It is not swift, but by subtilty will catch his prey; which are Deer or other Cattel; He lyes in the path where the Deer use to pass, and as they go, he claps hold of them by a kind of peg that growes on his tayl, with which he strikes them. He will swallow a Roe Buck whole, horns and all; so that it happens sometimes the horns run thro his belly, and kill him. A Stag was caught by one of these Pimberahs, which siesed him by the buttock, and held him so fast, that he could not get away, but ran a few steps this way and that way. An Indian seeing the Stag run thus, supposed him in a snare, and having a Gun shot him; at which he gave so strong a jerk, that it pulled the Serpents head off while his tayl was encompassing a Tree to hold the Stag the better. [The Polonga.] There is another venomous Snake called Polongo, the most venomous of all, that kills Cattel. Two sorts of them I have seen, the one green, the other of a reddish gray, full of white rings along the sides, and about five or fix foot long. [The Noya.] Another poysonous Snake there is called Noya, of a grayish colour, about four foot long. This will stand with half his body upright two or three hours together, and spread his head broad open, where there appears like as it were a pair of spectacles painted on it. The Indians call this Noy-Rogerati, that is, a Kings-Snake, that will do no harm. But if the Polonga and the Noya meet together, they cease not fighting till one hath kill'd the other. [The Fable of the Noya and Polonga.] The reason and original of this fatal enmity between these two Serpents, is this, according to a Fable among the Chingulays. These two chanced to meet in a dry Season, when water was scarce. The Polonga being almost famished for thirst, asked the Noya, where he might go to find a little water. The Noya a little before had met with a bowl of water in which a Child lay playing. As it is usual among this people to wash their Children in a bowl of water, and there leave them to tumble and play in it. Here the Noya quenched his thirst, but as he was drinking, the Child that lay in the bowl, out of his innocency and play, hit him on the Head with his hand, which the Noya made no matter of but bare patiently, knowing it was not done out of any malice: and having drunk as much as sufficed him, went away without doing the Child any harm. Being minded to direct the Polonga to this bowl, but desirous withal to preserve the Child, he told him, That he knew of water, but that he was such a surly hasty creature, that he was fearful to let him know where it was, lest he might do some mischief; Making him therefore promise that he would not, he then told him, that at such a place there was a bowl of water with a Child playing in it, and that probably the Child might, as he was tumbling give him a pat on the Head, as he had done to him before, but charged him nevertheless not to hurt the Child, Which the Polonga having promised went his way towards the water, as the Noya had directed him. The Noya knowing his touchy disposition, went after him, fearing he might do the Child a mischief, and that thereby he himself might be deprived of the like benefit afterwards. It fell out as he feared. For as the Polonga drank, the Child patted him on the head, and he in his hasty humour bit him on the hand and killed him. The Noya seeing this, was resolved to be revenged; and so reproaching him for his baseness, fought him so long till he killed him, and after that devoured him. Which to this day they ever do, always fight when they meet, and the Conquerour eats the the body of the vanquished. Hence the Proverb among the Chingulayes, when they see two men irreconcileable, they compare them to the Polonga and Noya, and say, Noya Polonga waghe, like a Noya and Polonga. [The Carowala.] There is the Carowala, about two foot in length very poysonous, that lurks in the holes and thatch of houses. The Cats will seize these and kill and eat them. [Gerende.] Other Snakes there are, called Gerende, whereof there are many but not venomous. Of the former there are but a few in comparison. These last mentioned the greatest mischief they do, is to destroy young Birds and Eggs, and young Hares. Rabbets cannot be kept here to run wild, because of these and other Vermin, such as Polecats, Ferrets, Weazels, &c. [Hickanella.] Hickanella, much like a Lizzard, venomous, but seldom bites unless provoked, these ly in the thatch of the houses. [A Great Spider.] There is a Spider called Democulo, very long black and hairy, speckled and glistering. Its body is as big as a mans fist with feet proportionable. These are very poysonous; and they keep in hollow Trees and holes. Men bitten with them will not dy, but the pain will for some time put them out of their Sences. Cattle are often bit by some of these Snakes, and as often found dead of them, tho not eaten. Treading upon them sleeping, or the like, may be the cause of it. When the people are bitten by any of these, they are cured by Charms and Medicines, if taken and applyed in time. There are also a sort of Water Snakes they call Duberria; but harmless. Alligators may be reduced hither: there be many of them. Of which we have said somewhat before. [Kobbera-guion, a creature like an Alligator.] There is a Creature here called Kobbera guion, resembling an Alligator. The biggest may be five or six foot long, speckled black and white. He lives most upon the Land but will take the water and dive under it: hath a long blew forked tongue like a sting, which he puts forth and hisseth and gapeth, but doth not bite nor sting, tho the appearance of him would scare those that knew not what he was. He is not afraid of people, but will ly gaping and hissing at them in the way, and will scarce stir out of it. He will come and eat Carrion with the Dogs and Jackals, and will not be feared away by them, but if they come near to bark or snap at him, with his tayl, which is about an Ell long like a whip, he will so slash them, that they will run away and howl. This Creature is not eatable. [Tolla-guion.] But there is the Tolla guion very like the former, which is eaten, and reckoned excellent meat. The Chingulays say it is the best sort of flesh; and for this reason, That if you eat other flesh at the same time you eat of this, and have occasion to vomit, you will never vomit out this tho you vomit all the other. This creature eats not carrion, but only leaves and herbs; is less of size than the Kobbera guion, and blackish, lives in hollow Trees and holes in the Humbosses: And I suppose is the same with that which in the West Indies they call the Guiana. [The People eat Rats.] This Countrey has its Vermin also. They have a sort of Rats, they call Musk-Rats, because they smell strong of Musk. These the Inhabitants do not eat of, but of all other sort of Rats they do. Before I conclude my discourse of the Growth and Product of this Countrey, it will not be improper to reduce under this head its Precious Stones, Minerals, and other Commodities. Of which I shall briefly speak, and so make an end of this First Part. [Precious Stones.] In this Island are several sorts of Precious Stones, which the King for his part has enough of, and so careth not to have more discovery made. For in certain places where they are known to be, are sharp Poles set up fixed in the ground, signifying, that none upon pain of being stuck and impaled upon those Poles, presume so much as to go that way; Also there are certain Rivers, out of which it is generally reported they do take Rubies and Saphires for the Kings use, and Cats eyes. And I have seen several pretty coloured stones, some as big as Cherry-stones, some as Buttons, and transparent, but understood not what they were. Rubies and Saphires I my self have seen here. [Minerals and other Commodities.] Here is Iron and Christal in great plenty. Salt-Petre they can make. Brimstone some say, is here, but the King will not have it discovered. Steel they can make of their Iron. Ebony in great abundance, with choice of tall and large Timber. Cardamums, Jaggory, Rack, Oyl, black Lead, Turmeric, Salt, Rice, Bettel-Nuts, Musk, Wax, Pepper, Which last grows here very well, and might be in great plenty, if it had a Vend. And the peculiar Commodity of the Island, Cinnamon. Wild Cattel, and wild Honey in great plenty in the Woods; it lyes in holes or hollow Trees, free for any that will take the pains to get it. Elephants Teeth, and Cotton, of which there is good plenty, growing in their own Grounds, sufficient to make them good and strong cloth for their own use, and also to sell to the People of the Uplands, where Cotton is not so plenty. All these things the Land affords, and it might do it in much greater quantity, if the People were but laborious and industrious. But that they are not. For the Chingulays are Naturally, a people given to sloth and laziness: if they can but any ways live, they abhor to work; onely what their necessities force them to, they do, that is, to get Food and Rayment. Yet in this I must a little vindicate them; [The People discouraged from Industry by the Tyranny they are under.] For what indeed should they do with more than Food and Rayment, seeing as their Estates encrease, so do their Taxes also? And altho the People be generally covetous, spending but little, scraping together what they can, yet such is the Government they are under, that they are afraid to be known to have any thing, lest it be taken away from them. Neither have they any encouragement for their industry, having no Vend by Traffic and Commerce for what they have got. PART II. CHAP. I. Of the present King of Cande. [The Government of this Island.] Hitherto I have treated of the Countrey, with the Provisions and Wealth of it: Our next Discourses shall be of the Political Government there exercised. And here Order will lead us to speak first of the King and Matters relating to him. Antiently this Countrey consisted of Nine Kingdoms, all which had their several Kings; but now by the vicissitude of Times and Things, they are all reduced under one King, who is an absolute Tyrant, and Rules the most arbitrarily of any King in the World. We will first speak of him as to his Personal Capacity, and next as to his Political. In his Personal Capacity, are to be considered his Birth and Parentage, his Person, his Relations, his State, his Manners, his Pleasures and Recreations, his Religion. [The King's Lineage.] Radga-Singa is his Name, which signifies a Lyon-King. He is not of the right Descent of the Royal-Blood. For the former King deceased leaving his Queen a Widow, and two young Princes, which he had issue by her. She was a Christian, having been baptized by the Portuguez, and named Dona Catharina. She afterwards married to the Chief Priest, whom in their Language they call Tirinanxy. And by him had this Son, the present King. The Tirinanx his Father reigned and ruled the Land during the minority of the young Princes: but being aged, he divided the Countrey between the three Princes by Lot, intending Conde Uda, which is the best part of the Land, for his own Son, Radga-Singa. Which was obtained by this device. The names of the three Kingdoms being written on three Papers, were put into a Pot, and one was appointed, who knew the matter to take them out, and deliver them one to each, beginning with the Eldest, craftily delivering that which had Conde Uda written in it unto Radga-Singa; and so it came to pass according to the old Kings determination. All these three in the beginning of their Reigns joyned together against the Portuguez, but soon after fell out among themselves, and this King in the end prevailed, and got all the Countrey. Danna Polla Rodgerah the youngest, King of Mautoly, being overthrown, fled down to the Portuguez to Columba, who sent him to Goa, where he dyed. The other named Comaure-Singa, King of Owvah, dyed in Cande. [His Person, Meen and Habit.] As to the Person of the present King. He is not tall, but very well set, nor of the clearest colour of their complexion, but somewhat of the blackest; great rowling Eyes, turning them and looking every way, alwayes moving them: a brisk bold look, a great swelling Belly, and very lively in his actions and behaviour, somewhat bald, not having much hair upon his head, and that gray, a large comely Beard, with great Whiskers; in conclusion, a very comely man. He bears his years well, being between Seventy and Eighty years of age; and tho an Old man, yet appears not to be like one, neither in countenance nor action. His Apparel is very strange and wonderful, not after his own Countrey-fashion, or any other, being made after his own invention. On his head he wears a Cap with four corners like a Jesuits three teer high, and a Feather standing upright before, like that in the head of a fore-horse in a Team, a long band hanging down his back after the Portuguez fashion, his Doublet after so strange a shape, that I cannot well describe it, the body of one, and the sleeves of another colour; He wears long Breeches to his Anckles, Shoes and Stockings. He doth not always keep to one fashion, but changes as his fancy leads him: but always when he comes abroad, his Sword hangs by his side in a belt over his shoulder: which no Chingulays dare wear, only white men may: a Gold Hilt, and Scabberd most of beaten Gold. Commonly he holdeth in his hand a small Cane, painted of divers colours, and towards the lower end set round about with such stones, as he hath, and pleaseth, with a head of Gold. [His Queen, and Children.] His right and lawful Queen, who was a Malabar, brought from the Coast, is still living, but hath not been with him, as is known, this Twenty years, remaining in the City of Cande, where he left her; She wants indeed neither maintenance nor attendance, but never comes out of the Palace. Several Noble-mens Daughters hold Land for this Service, viz. to come to her Court in their turns to wait upon her Majesty. She bare him a Prince, but what became of him, shall hereafter be shewn. He had also a Daughter by Her, she came also in her Youth to a piteous and unfortunate death, as I shall relate in its place. [His Palace, Situation and Description of it.] He keeps his Court at Digligy nour, whither he fled in a Rebellion against him. His Palace stands adjoyning to a great Hill, which was before mentioned; near unto that part of the Hill next abutting upon his Court none dares presume to set his foot: that being for his safeguard to fly unto in time of need. The Palace is walled about with a Clay Wall, and Thatched, to prevent the Claye's being melted by the Rains, which are great and violent: Within this Wall it is all full of houses; most of which are low and thatched; but some are two Stories high, and tyled very handsomely, with open Galleries for Air, rayled about with turned Banisters, one Ebony, and one painted, but not much Prospect, standing between two Hills. And indeed the King lives there not so much for pleasure as security. The Palace it self hath many large and stately Gates two leaved; these Gates, with their Posts excellently carved; the Iron work thereunto belonging, as Bolts and Locks, all rarely engraven. The Windows inlayd with Silver Plates and Ebony. On the top of the houses of his Palace and Treasury, stand Earthen Pots at each corner; which are for ornament; or which is a newer fashion, something made of Earth resembling Flowers and Branches. And no Houses besides, except Temples, may have these placed upon them. The contrivance of his Palace is, as I may say, like Woodstock Bower, with many turnings and windings, and doors, he himself having ordered and contrived all these Buildings, and the manner of them. At all the Doors and Passages stand Watches: and they who thus give attendance are not to pass without special Order from one place to another, but are to remain in that place or at that Gate, where the King hath appointed them. By means of these contrivances it is not easie to know in what part or place his Person is, neither doth he care they should. [Strong Guards about his Court.] He has strong Watches night and day about his Court. And they are his Grandees, who themselves in person watch in certain places, where the King himself appoints them: and they dare not be absent from thence, without it be to go to eat, or upon such like occasions. At Night they all have their set places within the Court, where they cannot one come to the speech of the other, neither dare they that are near together, or in fight one of the other, so much as come and sit together and talk, to pass away the Nights. All these great men have Souldiers under them, and they are also to come by turns to watch the Court. But at Night as their Masters and Commanders watch within the Walls, so they must watch without, in outward Courts and Guards; neither dare any of them be seen within with their Commanders. At the end of every Watch there are a multitude of Trumpets and Drums to make a noise; which is to keep his People waking, and for the honour of his Majesty. There are also Elephants, which are appointed all night to stand and watch, lest there should be any Tumult; which if there should, could presently trample down a multitude. [Next his own Person Negro's watch.] He hath also a Guard of Cofferies or Negro's, in whom he imposeth more confidence, then in his own People. These are to watch at his Chamber door, and next his Person. [Spies sent out a Nights.] At uncertain times he will send out a Spy by Night, to see what Watch is kept. Who once finding one of the Great Men asleep, took his Cap, his Sword and other Arms, and brought them to the King; who afterwards restored them to the Owner again, reproving him, and bidding him take more heed for the future. These Spyes also are to hear and see what passes: neither is there any thing said or done but he has notice of it. Formerly he used in the Nights to disguise himself and walk abroad in the Streets to see all passages, but now he will not adventure so to do. [His attendants.] Most of his Attendants are Boyes, and Young Men, that are well favoured, and of good Parentage. For the supplying himself with these, he gives order to his Dissava's or Governors of the Countreys to pick and choose out Boyes, that are comely and of good Descent, and send them to the Court. These Boyes go bare-headed with long hair hanging down their backs. Not that he is guilty of Sodomy nor did I ever hear the Sin so much as mentioned among them. [Handsom women belong to his Kitchin.] He hath many Women belonging to his Kitchin, choosing to have his Meat dressed by them. Several times he hath sent into the Countreys a Command to gather handsome young Women of the Chingulayes to recruit his Kitchin, with no exceptions whether married or unmarried and those that are chosen for that Service never return back again. Once since my being on the Land, all the Portuguez Women that were young and white were sent for to the Court, no matter whether Maids or Wives; where some remained until now, and some that were not amiable in his sight were sent home; and some having purchased his displeasure were cast into a River, which is his manner of executing Women. And some sent Prisoners in the Countrey, being none admitted to speech or fight of them. [His Women, and the Priviledg of the Towns where they live.] Concubines he keepeth not many. Some are within his Palace. And those whose Office is about his Kitchin are reported to be so, which is not improbable, seeing he admits none but them that are young and very handsom to the imployment. Other of his women dwell in Towns near to the City. Into which no Stranger is permitted to go, nay it is dangerous to approach near. These Towns have this Priviledg, that if any Slave flee from his Master and come hither, he is safe and free from his Masters service, but still remains a Slave there to them. [His State when he walks in his Palace; or goes abroad.] Sometimes he walketh about his Palace, where there are certain Pedestalls of Stone, whitened with Lime and laid in Oyl, so that they look purely white, made and set up in divers places, here he stands when he comes forth, that he might be above the rest of the People, and see about him. But when he is minded to go abroad, though it be never so little a way, and he seldom or never goes far, Order is given some time before, for all Soldiers of his Guards which are a great many, it may be Thousands, together with a Dutch and Portugal Captain with their Flags and Soldiers, Drummers, Trumpeters, Fifers, Singers, and all belonging, as Elephants, Horses, Falkeners with their Faulkons and many others, to stand at the Gate in a readiness to attend his pleasure. And tho he means not to come forth, yet they must wait in this manner, until he give order, that they may depart to their houses. Commonly all this assembly are gathered together at the Palace three or four times before he comes out once. And oftentimes he comes out when none there are aware of it, with only those that attend on his person within his Palace. And then when it is heard, that his Majesty is come forth, they all run ready to break their necks, and place themselves at a distance to Guard his Person and wait his pleasure. Sometimes, but very seldom, He comes forth riding upon an Horse or Elephant. But usually he is brought out in a Pallenkine; which is nothing so well made as in other parts of India. The ends of the Bambou it is carried by, are largely tipped with Silver, and curiously wrought and engraven: for he hath very good workmen of that profession. The place where he goeth when he comes thus abroad, is to a Bankqueting-house built by a Pond side, which he has made. It is not above a Musquet shot from his Palace. Where he goeth for his diversion. Which I shall by and by more particularly relate. [His reception of Embassadors.] Another instance of his State and Grandure will appear in his reception of Ambassadors. Who are received with great honour and show. First he sends several of his great men to meet them with great Trains of Soldiers, the ways all cut broad, and the grass pared away for many miles: Drums and Trumpets, and Pipes, and Flags going before them, Victuals and all sorts of varieties are daily brought to them, and continue to be so all the time they are in the Land, and all at free-cost. For the Custom here is, Embassadors, stay they never so long, are maintained at the Kings Cost and Charges. And being in the City, have their Victuals brought them out from the Kings Palace, ready dressed. Presents, Goods or whatsoever they please to bring with them, the King prepareth men to carry. And when they are come to the House that is prepared for them, which is hung top and sides with white Callico, they are kept under a Guard, and great Commanders with Soldiers appointed to watch at their Gates, which is accounted for a great honour. But these Guards dare not permit any to come to the Speech of them, for the King careth not that any should talk with Ambassadors, but himself, with whom he taketh [His delight in them.] great delight to have conference, and to see them brought before him in fine Apparrel, their Swords by their sides with great State and Honour, and that the Ambassadors may see and take notice of the greatness of his Majesty. And after they have been there some times, he gives them both Men and handsom young Maids for their Servants, to attend and also to accompany them: often causing them to be brought into his presence to see his Sports and Pastimes, and not caring to send them away; but in a very familiar manner entertaining discourse with them. CHAP. II. Concerning the King's Manners, Vices, Recreation, Religion. Under the Consideration of his Manners, will fall his Temperance, his Ambition and Pride, his Policy and Dissimulation, his cruel and bloody Disposition. [Sparing in his Dyet.] He is temperate both in his Diet and his Lust. Of the former, I am informed by those that have attended on his Person in his Palace, that though he hath all sorts of Varieties the Land affords brought to his Table, yet his chief fare is Herbs, and ripe pleasant Fruits: and this but once a day. Whatsoever is brought for him to eat or drink is covered with a white cloath, and whoever brings it, hath a Mufler tyed about his mouth, lest he should breath upon the Kings Food. [After what manner he Eats.] The Kings manner of eating is thus. He sits upon a Stool before a small Table covered with a white cloath, all alone. He eats on a green Plantane-Leaf laid in a Gold Bason. There are twenty or thirty Dishes prepared for him, which are brought into his Dining-Room. And which of these Dishes the King pleases to call for, a Nobleman appointed for that service, takes a Portion of and reaches in a Ladle to the Kings Bason. This person also waits with a mufler about his mouth. [Chast himself, and requires his Attendants to be so.] And as he is abstemious in his eating, so in the use of women. If he useth them 'tis unknown and with great secrecy. He hath not had the Company of his Queen this twenty years, to wit, since he went from Candy, where he left her. He allowes not in his Court Whoredom or Adultery; and many times when he hears of the misdemeanors of some of his Nobles in regard of women, He not only Executes them, but severely punisheth the women, if known: and he hath so many Spyes, that there is but little done, which he knows not of. And often he gives Command to expel all the women out of the City, not one to remain. But by little and little when they think his wrath is appeas'd, they do creep in again. But no women of any Quality dare presume, and if they would, they cannot, the Watches having charge given them not to let them pass. Some have been taken concealed under mans Apparel, and what became of them all may judg, for they never went home again. Rebellion does not more displease this King, then for his Nobles to have to do with women. Therefore when any are admitted to his Court to wait upon him, they are not permitted to enjoy the Company of their Wives, no more then any other women. Neither hath he suffered any for near this twenty years to have their Wives in the City, except Slaves or inferior servants. [He committed incest, but such as was allowable.] Indeed he was once guilty of an Act, that seemed to argue him a man of most unbridled Lust. For he had a Daughter that was with Child by himself: but in Childbed both dyed. But this manner of Incest is allowable in Kings, if it be only to beget a right Royal Issue, which can only be gotten that way. But in all other 'tis held abominable, and severely punished. And here they have a common and usual Proverb, None can reproach the King nor the Beggar. The one being so high, that none dare; the other so low that nothing can shame or reproach them. [His Pride.] His Pride and affectation of honour is unmeasurable. Which appears in his Peoples manner of Address to him, which he either Commands or allows of. [How the people Address to the King.] When they come before him they fall flat down on their Faces to the Ground at three several times, and then they sit with their legs under them upon their Knees all the time they are in his presence: And when he bids them to absent, they go backwards, untill they are out of his sight or a great distance from him. But of Christian People indeed he requires no more then to kneel with their Hats off before him. [They give him divine worship.] Nay, He takes on him all the Ceremonies and Solemnities of Honour, which they shew unto their Gods; making his account that as he is now their King, so hereafter he shall be one of their Gods. And the People did call him God. Formerly since my being on that Land, he used not to come out of his Palace into the sight of the People but very seldom out of State and Haughtiness of Spirit; but now of later times he comes forth daily. And altho he be near fourscore years of age, yet his greatest delight is in Honour and Majesty, being [Pleased with high Titles.] most pleased with high and windy Titles given him. Such as Mauhawaul, a Phrase importing Greatness, but not expressible in our Language. Hondrewné Boudouind, Let your Majesty be a God. When the King speaks to them, they answer him at every period, Oiboa, many Lives. Baula Gaut, the limb of a Dog, speaking to the King of themselves: yet now of late times since here happened a Rebellion against him, he fears to assume to himself the Title of God; having visibly seen and almost felt, that there is a greater power then His ruling on Earth, which set the hearts of the People against Him: and so hath given command to prophane that great Name no more, by ascribing it to him. [An instance or two of the King's haughty stomach.] In Anno 1675, one of the Kings greatest and most Valiant Generals, and that had been notably successful against the Dutch, had done many pieces of good service for the King, expelled the Hollander out of several Forts, taking and killing many or them, this man the King was jealous of, and did resolve to take away his Head as a reward of his Valour; which he had some private Intelligence of, and so Fled, being then in Camp against the Dutch, and got to Columba with his wife and goods. By which the King had an invaluable Loss. [He slights the defection of one of his best Generals.] Yet the King out of the height of his Stomach, seemed not in the least to be vexed thereat, neither did he regard it; as if it were beneath the quality of such a Monarch to be moved with such a Trifle. But sent down another General in his place; And as for the house and estate of him that Fled, and whatsoever he left behind him, he let it lye and rot, scorning to esteem or regard it. [He scorns to receive his Revenues.] To give you an Instance or two more of this Princes Spirit. At the time of New-year, all his Subjects, high and low, do bring him certain Presents, or rather Taxes, each one a certain rate; which formerly he used constantly to take, but of late years, He so abounds with all things, continually putting into his Treasury, and but seldom taking out, and that but little, that he thinks scorn to receive these his due revenues, least his people should think it were out of necessity and want. Nevertheless the Great Men still at the New-year, bring their Presents day after day before the King at his coming forth, hoping it will please him to accept them, but now of many years he receives them not. His mind is so haughty, that he scorns to seem to value any thing in the world. When tydings are sometimes brought him, that the Dutch have made an Invasion into his Countrey, although he be well able to expel them, he will not so much as regard it. [The Dutch serve their ends upon his Pride by flattering him.] The Dutch knowing his Proud Spirit make their advantage of it, by Flattering him with their Ambassadors, telling him that they are his Majesties humble Subjects and Servants; and that it is out of their Loyalty to him, that they build Forts, and keep Watches round about his Countrey, to prevent Forraign Nations and Enemies from coming. And that as they are thus imployed in his Majesties service, so it is for sustenance, which they want, that occasioned their coming up into his Majesties Countrey. And thus by Flattering him, and ascribing to him High and Honourable Titles, which are things he greatly delights in, some times they prevail to have the Countrey (they have invaded,) and he to have the Honour. Yet at other times, upon better Consideration, he will not be Flattered, but falls upon them at unawares, and does them great damage. [The people give away to the King's foul cloaths.] Such a Veneration does he expect from the People, that whatsoever things are carrying to him which are known by the white Cloath they are wrapt up in, all persons meeting them turn out of the way: not excepting the Kings foul Cloaths. For when they are carried to washing (which is daily) all even the greatest rise up, as they come by, which is known by being carried on an hand heaved upwards, covered with a Painted cloth. [His natural abilities, and deceitful temper.] He is crafty, cautious, a great dissembler, nor doth he want wisdom. He is not passionate in his anger. For with whomsoever he be angry, he will not shew it: neither is he rash or over-hasty in any matters, but doth all things with deliberation, tho but with a little advise: asking Counsel of no body but himself. He accounts it Wit and Policy to lie and dissemble, that his intents and purposes may the better be concealed; but he abhorreth and punisheth those that lie to him. [His wise saying concerning Runnawayes.] Dutch Runnawayes, whereof there are several come to him, he saith are Rogues that either have robbed or killed, or else would never run away from their own Nation. And tho he receiveth them, yet esteemeth them not. [Naturally cruel.] He seems to be naturally disposed to Cruelty: For he sheds a great deal of blood, and gives no reason for it. His Cruelty appears both in the Tortures and Painful deaths he inflicts, and in the extent of his punishments, viz, upon whole Families for the miscarriage of one in them. For when the King is displeased with any, he does not alwayes command to kill them outright, but first to torment them, which is done by cutting and pulling away their flesh by Pincers, burning them with hot Irons clapped to them to make them confess of their Confederates; and this they do, to rid themselves of their Torments, confessing far more than ever they saw or knew. After their Confession, sometimes he commands to hang their two Hands about their Necks, and to make them eat their own flesh, and their own Mothers to eat of their own Children; and so to lead them thro the City in public view to terrifie all, unto the place of Execution, the [The Dogs follow Prisoners to execution.] Dogs following to eat them. For they are so accustomed to it, that they seeing a Prisoner led away, follow after. At the place of Execution, there are alwayes some sticking upon Poles, others hanging up in quarters upon Trees; besides, what lyes killed by Elephants on the ground, or by other ways. This place is alwayes in the greatest High-way, that all may see and stand in awe. For which end this is his constant practice. [The Kings Prisoners; their Misery.] Moreover, he hath a great many Prisoners, whom he keepeth in Chains, some in the common Gaol, some committed to the custody of Great Men; and for what or for how long time none dare enquire. Commonly they ly thus two, four or six years; and some have Victuals given them, and some not having it, must ask leave to go out and beg with a Keeper. It is according as the King appoints, when they are committed. Or some of them being driven to want do get food by work, such as, sewing, making Caps, Doublets, Purses. This coming once to the Kings Ears, he said, I put them there to torment and punish them, not to work and be well maintained; and so commanded to take away their Sizzars and Needles from them. Yet this lasted not long, for afterwards they fell to their work again. Those that have been long there are permitted to build little Shops on the Street side against the Prison, and to come out in the day time, and sell their work as they make it; but in the Night time are shut up again. When the Streets are to be swept about the Palace, they make the Prisoners come out in their Chains, and do it. And after all their Imprisonment, without any examination, they are carried forth and executed: and these not only the common sort, but even the greatest and most nobly descended in the Land: For with whom he is displeased, he maketh no difference. [He punishes whole generations for the sake of one.] Nor is his wrath appeased by the Execution of the Malefactor, but oftentimes he punisheth all his Generation; it may be kills them alltogether, or gives them all away for Slaves. [The sad condition of young Gentlemen that wait on his Person.] Thus he often deals with those, whose Children are his Attendants. I mentioned before, that young Men of the best Families in the Land, are sought out to wait upon the King in his Court. These after they have served here some small time, and have as it were but seen the Court, and known his Customs and Manners, he requiteth them by cutting off their Heads, and putting them into their Bellies: other faults none do know. Heretofore, as it is reported, he was not so Cruel, but now none escapes, that serves in his Palace. Then he recruits his Slain out of the Countries, by giving Orders to his Dissava's or Governors to send him others to Court. Whither they go like an Ox to the Slaughter, but with far more heavy hearts. For both they and their Parents full well know what end the King's honorable Service will bring them to. Howbeit there is no remedy. Being thus by Order sent unto the Court, their own Parents must provide for and maintain them, until the King is pleased to call them to his Use which it may be will not be in some years. Sometimes it happens, that the Boys thus brought, before the King makes use of them about his Person, are grown too big, and so escape. But those that are employed in the Palace, enjoy this favour, That all such Taxes, Customs, or other Duties belonging to the King, which their Fathers were wont to pay, are released, until such time as they are discharged from the King's Employment; which is always either by Execution, or by being given to somebody for perpetual Bondmen. During the time of the King's favour, he is never admitted to go home to Visit his Parents and Friends. The Malekind may come to see him, but no Women are admitted, be it his Mother that bare him. And after he is killed, tho' for what no man knows, he is accounted a Rebel and Traitor against the King: and then his Father's House, Land and Estate is seized on for the King. Which after some time by giving of Fees and Gifts to the great ones, they do redeem again: And sometimes the whole Family and Generation perish, as I said before. So that after a Lad is taken into the King's Palace, his Kindred are afraid to acknowledge Alliance to him. But these matters may more properly be related, when we come to speak of his Tyranny. [His Pleasure Houses.] Sometimes for his Pleasure, he will ride or be carried to his Banquetting-House, which is about a Musquet-shot from his Palace. It stands on a little Hill; where with abundance of pains and many Months labour, they have made a little Plain, in length not much above an Arrows flight, in breadth less. Where at the head of a small Valley, he hath made a Bank cross to stop the Water running down. It is now become a fine Pond, and exceeding full of Fish. At this Place the King hath several Houses built according to his own appointment very handsom, born up with carved Pillars and Painted, and round about Rails and Banisters turned, one Painted and one Ebony, like Balconie. Some standing high upon a Wall, being for him to sit in, and see Sport with his Elephants, and other Beasts, as also for a Prospect abroad. Others standing over this Pond, where he himself sits and feedeth his Fish with boiled Rice, Fruits and Sweet-meats. They are so tame that they will come and eat in his hand; but never doth he suffer any to be catch'd. This Pond is useful for his Elephants to wash in. The Plain was made for his Horses to run upon. For often-times he commands his Grooms to get up and ride in his Presence; and sometimes for that good Service, gives the Rider five or ten Shillings, and it may be a piece of Cloath. Always when he comes forth, his Horses are brought out ready saddled before him; but he himself mounts them very seldom. All of which he had from the Dutch, some sent to him for Presents, and some he hath taken in War. He hath in all some twelve or fourteen: some of which are Persian Horses. [His Pastimes abroad.] Other Pastimes and Recreations he hath (for this is all he minds or regards.) As to make them bring wild Elephants out of the Woods, and catch them in his Presence. The manner how they get them unto the City, I have mentioned already. Also when he comes out of his Court, he Delights to look upon his Hawks, altho' he never use them for his Game; sometimes on his Dogs, and tame Deer, and Tygers, and strange kind of Birds and Beasts; of both which he hath a great many. Also he will try his Guns, and shoot at Marks, which are excellently true, and rarely inlay'd with Silver, Gold, and Ivory. For the Smiths that make them dare not present them to his hand, not having sufficiently proved them. He hath Eight or Nine small Iron Cannon, lately taken from the Dutch, which he hath mounted in Field-Carriages, all rarely carved, and inlay'd with Silver and Brass, and coloured Stones, set in convenient places, and painted with Images and Flowers. But the Guns disgrace the Carriages. He keeps them in an House on the Plain. Upon some Festival times he useth them. I think, they are set there chiefly for a Memorial of his late Victories: For he hath many, and far better Guns of Brass that are not so regarded. [His Diversion at home.] In his Palace he passeth his time with looking upon certain Toyes and Fancies that he hath, and upon his Arms and Guns, calling in some or other of his great Men to see the same, asking them if they have a Gun will shoot further than that: and how much Steel such a Knife, as he will shew them, needs to have in it. He takes great delight in Swimming, in which he is very expert. And the Custom is, when he goes into the Water, that all his Attendance that can Swim must go in likewise. [His Religion.] And now lastly for his Religion, you cannot expect much from him. Of the Religion of his Countrey he makes but a small Profession; as perceiving that there is a greater God, than those that they thro long custom, have and do Worship. And therefore when an Impostor, a Bastard Moor by Nation born in that Land; came and publickly set up a new nameless God, as he styled him; and that he was sent to destroy the Temples of their Gods, the King opposed it not for a good while, as waiting to see which of these Gods would prevail, until he saw that he aimed to make himself King, then he allowed of him no longer: as I shall shew more at large hereafter: when I come to speak of the Religion of the Countrey. [How he stands affected to the Christian Religion.] The Christian Religion, he doth not in the least persecute, or dislike, but rather as it seems to me, esteems and honours it. As a sign of which take this passage. When his Sister died, for whom he had a very dear Affection, there was a very grievous Mourning and Lamentation made for her throughout the whole Nation; all Mirth and Feasting laid aside, and all possible signs of sorrow exprest: and in all probability, it was as much as their lives were worth, who should at this time do any thing, that might look like joy. This was about Christmas. The Dutch did notwithstanding adventure to keep their Christmas by Feasting. The News of this was brought to the King. And every body reckoned it would go hard with the Dutch for doing this. But because it was done at a Festival of their Religion, the King past it by, and took no notice of it. The Value also that he has for the Christian Religion, will appear from the respect he gives the Professors of it; as will be seen afterwards. CHAP. III. Of the Kings Tyrannical Reign. Wee have all this while considered this King, with respect unto his Person, Temper, and Inclinations, now we will speak of him with more immediate respect unto his Office and Government, as he is a King. And here we will discourse of the manner of his Government, of his Treasure and Revenues, of his Great Officers, and lastly, of his Strength and Wars. [His Government Tyrannical.] As to the manner of his Government, it is Tyrannical and Arbitrary in the highest degree: For he ruleth Absolute, and after his own Will and Pleasure: his own Head being his only Counsellor. The Land all at his Disposal, and all the People from the highest to the lowest Slaves, or very like Slaves: both in Body and Goods wholly at his Command. Neither wants He those three Virtues of a Tyrant, Jealousie, Dissimulation, and Cruelty. [His Policy.] But because Policy is a necessary endowment of a Prince, I will first shew in an instance or two, that he is not devoid of it. [He Farms out His Countrey for Service.] The Countrey being wholly His, the King Farms out his Land, not for Money, but Service. And the People enjoy Portions of Land from the King, and instead of Rent, they have their several appointments, some are to serve the King in his Wars, some in their Trades, some serve him for Labourers, and others are as Farmers to furnish his House with the Fruits of the Ground; and so all things are done without Cost, and every man paid for his pains: that is, they have Lands for it; yet all have not watered Land enough for their needs, that is, such Land as good Rice requires to grow in; so that such are fain to sow on dry Land, and Till other mens Fields for a subsistence. These Persons are free from payment of Taxes; only sometimes upon extraordinary occasions, they must give an Hen or Mat or such like, to the King's use: for as much as they use the Wood and Water that is in his Countrey. But if any find the Duty to be heavy, or too much for them, they may leaving their House and Land, be free from the King's Service, as there is a Multitude do. And in my judgment they live far more at ease, after they have relinquished the King's Land, than when they had it. Many Towns are in the King's hand, the Inhabitants whereof are to Till and Manure a quantity of the Land according to their Ability, and lay up the Corn for the King's use. These Towns the King often bestows upon some of his Nobles for their Encouragement and Maintenance, with all the fruits and benefits that before came to the King from them. In each of these Towns there is a Smith to make and mend the Tools of them to whom the King hath granted them, and a Potter to fit them with Earthen Ware, and a Washer to wash their Cloaths, and other men to supply what there is need of. And each one of these hath a piece of Land for this their Service, whether it be to the King or the Lord; but what they do for the other People they are paid for. Thus all that have any Place or Employment under the King, are paid without any Charge to the King. [His Policy to Secure himself from Assassination or Rebellion.] His great Endeavour is to Secure himself from Plots and Conspiracies of his People, who are sorely weary of his tyrannical Government over them, and do often Plot to make away with him; but by his subtilty and good fortune together, he prevents them. And for this purpose he is very Vigilant in the Night: the noise of Trumpets and Drums, which he appoints at every Watch, hinders both himself and all others from sleeping. In the Night also he commonly does most of his Business, calling Embassadors before him, and reading the Letters; also displacing some of his Courtiers, and promoting others, and giving Sentence to execute those whom he would have to live no longer; and many times Commands to lay hold on and carry away great and Noble men, who until that instant knew not that they were out of his favour. [Another point of his Policy.] His Policy is to make his Countrey as intricate and difficult to Travel as may be, and therefore forbids the Woods to be felled, especially those that divide Province from Province, and permits no Bridges to be made over his Rivers: nor the Paths to be made wider. [Another, which is to find his People work to do.] He often employs his People in vast works, and that will require years to finish, that he may inure them to Slavery, and prevent them from Plotting, against him, as haply they might do if they were at better leisure. Therefore he approves not that his People should be idle; but always finds one thing or other to be done, tho the work be to little or no purpose. According to the quantity of the work, so he will appoint the People of one County or of two to come in: and the Governor of the said County or Counties to be Overseer of the Work. At such times the Soldiers must lay by their Swords, and work among the People. These works are either digging down Hills, and carrying the Earth to fill up Valleys; thus to enlarge his Court, which standeth between two Hills, (a more uneven and unhandsom spot of ground, he could not well have found in all his Kingdom); or else making ways for the Water to run into the Pond, and elsewhere for his use in his Palace. Where he hath it running thro in many places unto little Ponds made with Lime and Stone, and full of Fish. [A vast work undertaken and finished by the King.] To bring this Water to his Palace, was no small deal of labour. For not having a more convenient way, they were forced to split a great Mountain in twain to bring the Water thro, and after that to make a Bank cross a Valley far above a Cables length, and in height above four Fathom, with thickness proportionable to maintain it, for the Water to run over the top. Which at first being only Earth, the Water would often break down; but now both bottom and sides are paved and wrought up with Stone. After all this, yet it was at least four or five Miles to bring this Water in a Ditch; and the ground all Hills and Valleys, so that they were forced to turn and wind, as the Water would run. Also when they met with Rocks which they could not move, as this Ground is full of them, they made great Fires with Wood upon it, until it was soundly hot; and hereby it became so soft, that they could easily break it with Mawls. [The turning this water did great injury to the People.] This Water was that which nourished that Countrey, from whence it was taken. The People of which ever since have scarce been able to Till their Land. Which extremity did compel the People of those Parts to use a means to acquaint the King how the Countrey was destroyed thereby, and disabled from performing those Duties and Services, which they owed unto the King; and that there was Water sufficient both for His Majestie's Service, and also to relieve their Necessities. Which the King took very ill from them, as if they would seem to grudge him a little Water. And sure I am, woe be to him, that should mention that matter again. [But he little regards his Peoples good.] So far is he from regarding the good of his Countrey that he rather endeavours the Destruction thereof. For issue he hath none alive, and e're long, being of a great Age Nature tells him, he must leave it. Howbeit no love lost between the King and his People. Yet he daily contriveth and buildeth in his Palace like Nebuchadnezzar, wet and dry, day and night, not showing the least sign of Favour to his People. Who oftentimes by such needless Imployments, are Letted from the seasonable times of Ploughing and Harvest, to their great prejudice, and sometimes utter undoing. [The king by craft at once both pleased and punished his People.] After the Rebellion, when the People that lived at a further distance, saw that the King intended to settle himself near the Mountain to which he fled, Viz. Digligy, and not to come into the old City again, it being very troublesom and tedious to bring their Rents and Taxes thither, they all jointly met together, being a great number, and sent an Address to intimate their Desires to him; which was with great Submission, That His Majesty would not leave them destitute of his Presence, which was to them as the Sun, that he would not absent himself from them to dwell in a Mountain in a desolate Countrey; but seeing there was no further danger, and all the Rebels destroyed, that he would return to his old Palace again, vowing all Fidelity to him. The King did not like this Message, and was somewhat afraid there being such a tumultuous Company met together, and so thought not fit to drive them away, or publickly to declare his displeasure at them; but went to work like a Politician. Which was to tell them that he thanked them for their love and affection towards him; and that he was desirous to dwell among them in such a part of their Countrey as he named: and so bad them all go to work to build him a Palace there. The People departed with some Satisfaction, and fell to work might and main: and continued at it for near two years together, felling Timber, and fetching it out of the Woods, laying Foundations, hewing Stone, till they were almost killed with labour. And being wrought quite tyred, they began to accuse and grumble at one another for having been the occasion of all this toil. After they had laboured thus a long while, and were all discouraged, and the People quiet, the King sent word to them to leave off. And now it lies unfinished, all the Timber brought in, rots upon the place, and the building runs to ruin. [In what labours he employs his People.] And this is the manner how he employs his People; pulling down and building up again, equalling unequal grounds, making sinks under ground for the passage of water thro' his Palace, dragging of great Trees out of the Wood to make Pounds to catch Elephants in his Presence; altho' they could catch them with far less labour, and making houses to keep them in, after they are taken. [He Poysons his only son.] He stands not upon any Villainy to establish himself, or strike terror into his People. This made him cut off his only Son, a young man of about Fifteen years. After the Rebellion the Kingdom being setled in the King's hands again, and knowing that the hearts of the People disaffecting him, stood strongly bent towards the Prince, and fearing his own safety as the Prince grew to riper years, to prevent all, he poisoned him. For about a year after the rebellion, his Son was Sick, the King takes this Opportunity to dispatch him by pretending to send Physic to him to Cure him. The People hearing of the Death of the Prince, according to the Custom of the Land when any of the Royal Blood is deceased, came all in general towards the City where he was, with black or else very dirty Cloaths, which is their Mourning, the Men ail bare-headed, the Women with their hair loose and hanging about their Shoulders, to mourn and lament for the Death of their young Prince. Which the King hearing of, sent this word unto them, That since it was not his fortune to live, to sit on his Throne after him and Reign over the Land, it would be but in vain to mourn; and a great trouble and lett unto the Countrey: and their voluntary good will was taken in as good part as the mourning it self, and so dismist the Assembly; and burned the Princes dead Body without Ceremonies or Solemnities. [The extraordinary lamentation at the Death of his Sister.] Yet the Death of an old Sister which he had, caused no small lamentation. It was she that carried the Prince away in the Rebellion. Which I shall relate by and by. Countrey after Countrey came up to mourn, giving all signs of extraordinary sadness, both in Habit and Countenance; the King himself was seen to weep bitterly. The White men also came, which the King took well. Insomuch that the Hollanders supposing the King himself to be dead, came up to take Possession of the Countrey; but hearing the contrary and understanding their mistake returned back again. The King and all his Countrey for more than a years time went in mourning. And her Body was burnt with all the Honour and State that could be. Yet notwithstanding all the love and respect he bare unto her, he did not once Visit her in all the time of her Sickness. And it is now for certain reported that there is not one of his Generation left. [His craft and cruelty shewn at once.] Once to try the hearts of his Attendants, and to see what they would do; being in the Water a swimming, he feigned himself to be in extremity, and near Drowning, and cryed out for help; upon which two young Men more venturous and forward than the rest, immediately made way and came to his help: who taking hold of his Body brought him safe to Land. At which he seemed to be very glad. Putting on his Cloaths he went to his Palace: then he demanded to know who and which they were that had holpen him out of the Water. They, supposing by his Speech it was to give them a reward for the good Service they had so lately done him, answered, We were they. Whereupon he Commands to call such a great Man. (For it is they whom he appoints always to see Execution done by their Soldiers.) To whom he gave Command, saying, Take both these, and lead them to such a place, and cut off their Heads, who dared to presume to lay their hands on my Person, and did not prostrate themselves rather that I might lay my hand on them for my relief and safety. And accordingly they were Executed. CHAP. IV. Of his Revenues and Treasure. [The King's rents brought three times in the year.] Three times in the year they usually carry their Rents unto the King. The one is at the New-year called Ourida cotamaul. The other is for the First fruits, Alleusal cotamaul. And the last is at a certain Sacrifice in the Month of November to their God, called Ilmoy cotamaul. But besides these, whatsoever is wanting in the King's House at any other time, and they have it, they must upon the King's Order bring it. These Rents are but little Money, but chiefly Corn, Rice, or what grows out of the Ground. [The first is accompanied with a great Festival.] To speak a little of first time, Viz. at the beginning of the New year, when the King's Duties are brought him. Their New year is always either the 27th, or the 28th, or the 29th of March: At this time upon a special and good day (for which the Astrologers are consulted) the King washes his head, which is a very great Solemnity among them. The Palace is all adorned with Tor-nes, a sort of Triumphal Arches, that make a very fine shew. They are high Poles standing in rows before all the Gates of the Palace, either nine or seven in a row, the middlemost being the highest, and so they fall lower and lower on each side. Thro the middle of them there is an arched passage which serves for a Door. On the top of the Poles are Flags flying, and all about hung full of painted Cloth with Images, and Figures of Men, and Beasts, and Birds, and Flowers: Fruits also are hanged up in great order and exactness. On each side of the entrance of the Arch stand Plantane Trees, with bunches of Plantanes on them as if they were growing. There are also in some places single Poles of an exceeding height standing by, with long Penons of divers colours flying, and a Bell at the end of each, as in the Figure B. And now they say, The Palace is adorned beyond Heaven. All the Army is summoned in to stand and wait at the Palace, for the greater State. In the mean time he goes to his Washing-houses, houses built on purpose for him to wash in, called Oulpungi, here are Baths, and Streams and Conveyances of Water, and many Servants, whose Office it is to wait upon the business of these houses. Here he washes his head. Which when he has done, he comes forth into Public view, where all his Militia stand in their Arms. Then the great Guns are fired. [How the Nobles bring their Gifts, or Duties.] Now all the great Men, the Nobles and the Governors of the Countrey make their appearance before him with their Dackini, their New-years Gifts, which are due and accustomed Presents, for Persons in their Places and Offices to give. There is a certain Rate for it. Their manner of bringing these Gifts or rather Duties is thus, Their Servants bring them wrapt up in white Cloth to the Court, and then they take them at their hands, put them upon their heads, and so come in humble manner, and lay them at the King's feet. These Presents are Gold, Jewels, Plate, Arms, Knives, Cloth, each one by a rate according to the Place he is in, and the Countrey he hath under him: And most of them are to present a Sum of Money besides. And if they can procure any precious Stone, or Rarity, or any other thing, which they think the King will accept, that also they bring, and glad they are to be honoured with the favour of his acceptance. These New-years Gifts for these many years he thinks scorn to receive, and bids them carry them away again till another time. Thus they come with them time after time presenting them, which he as often refusing; at last they bring them no more. [Inferior Persons present their New-years Gifts.] All sorts of Tradesmen also, and such as by their Skill can any ways get Money, at the New year are to pay into the Treasury each one a certain rate. Which now adayes he accepts not, though formerly he always did. [What Taxes and Rents the People pay.] At this and the other times the things which the People carry as their Rents and Taxes, are Wine, Oyl, Corn, Honey, Wax, Cloth, Iron, Elephants Teeth, Tobacco, Money. They bring themselves, and wait at Court with them commonly divers Months, before they be received. The great Officers tell the King, the People have brought their Rents. The King saith, 'Tis well. But if he give no order withal to receive the things brought (as he seldom does) there is no remedy, but there they must wait with them. And this he doth out of State. The Rents and Duties brought at the two other times are after the same manner; the great Men do only bring theirs once at the New year. [The accidental Incomes of the Crown.] There are other Revenues the King hath, which are accidental; but bring in great wealth; That whensoever any man dies, that hath a stock of Cattel, immediately out thence must be paid a Bull and a Cow with a Calf, and a Male and Female Buffalo, which tax they call Marral. And there are Officers appointed, whose place it is, to come and carry them away. Also at Harvest yearly there is a certain rate of Corn to be paid by every man according to the Land they hold and enjoy. Heretofore the King granted, that upon Payment of a Sum of Money, they should be clear from this yearly Tax of Corn so long, till the present Possessor died, and the Land descended to his Son or some body else. And then the Estate became liable again to the forementioned Duties. But now of late there is no mention of any discharge by Money. [The Profits that accrue to the King from Corn-Lands.] So that in time all Houses and Families in the Kingdom will be liable to the Payment of this Tax of Corn; which will bring in no small quantity of Provision to the King. Only Soldiers that are slain in the Wars, their Lands are free from the Payment of this Tax; but if they die naturally they are not. The Farmers all in general, besides their measures of Corn, pay a certain Duty in Money, with their Rents. If they Sell or Alienate their Inheritances, the Kings accustomed Duties must not be diminished, whosoever buyeth or enjoyeth them. Neither is here any Land which doth not either pay, or do some Duty to the King. Only one case excepted, and that is, if they give or dedicate Land to a Priest, as an Alms or Deed of Charity in God's Name. On that there is never any more Tax or Duty to be imposed, as being Sacrilegious to take ought from one that belongs to the Temple. [Custom of goods imported formerly paid.] Formerly the King had the Benefit of the trade of two Ports Cotiar and Portalone, unto each of which used to come yearly some twenty or thirty Sail of small Vessel, which brought considerable Customs in. But now the Hollander has deprived him of both, suffering no Vessels to come. [His Treasuries.] The King hath several Treasure-houses, in several places, in Cities and Towns, where always are Guards of Soldiers to watch them both day and night. I cannot certainly declare all that is contained in them. There are Precious Stones such as his Land affords, many, but not very much, Cloth, and what he hath got by Shipwrack, Presents, that have been sent him from other Nations, Elephants-teeth, Wax, good store of Arms, as Guns, Bowes and Arrows, Pikes, Halberds, Swords, Ammunition, store of Knives, Iron, Tallipat-Leaves, whereof one will cover a large Tent, Bedsteads, Tables, Boxes, Mats of all sorts. I will not adventure to declare further the Contents of his Treasuries, lest I may be guilty of a mistake. But sure I am he hath plenty of all such things, as his Land affords. For he is very Provident, and Careful to be well furnished with all things. And what he does abound with, he had rather it should lye and rot, then be imbezelled and wasted, that is, distributed among his Servants, or Slaves; of which he hath great store. [He has many Elephants.] He hath some hundreds of Elephants, which he keepeth tame, and could have as many more as he pleaseth; but altho not catched, yet they are all his, and at his Command when he pleaseth. [Great Treasure thrown into the River formerly.] It is frequently reported and I suppose is true, that both he and his Predecessors, by the distress they have been driven to by the Portuguezes, have cast some store of Riches into the great River, Mavelagonga, running by the City, in deep holes among Rocks, which is irrecoverable, and into a made Pond by the Palace in the City of Cande, or Hingodegul-neur. Wherein are kept to this day two Alligators, so that none dare go into the water for fear of being devoured by them. And often times they do destroy Cows, that go to drink there. But this Pond by cutting the Bank might easily be drained. [The Treasure he most valueth.] To conclude, the Land that is under his jurisdiction, is all his, with the People, their Estates, and whatsoever it affords, or is therein. But that which he doth chiefly value and esteem, are Toys and Novelties, as Hawks, Horses, Dogs, strange Birds, and Beasts, and particularly a spotted Elephant, and good Arms, of which he hath no want. CHAP. V. Of the Kings great Officers, and the Governours of the Provinces. [Two greatest Officers in the Land.] There are two, who are the greatest and highest Officers in the Land. They are called Adigars, I may term them Chief Judges; under whom is the Government of the Cities, and the Countries also in the Vacancy of other Governours. All People have liberty in default of Justice to appeal to these Adigars, or if their causes and differences be not decided by their Governours according to their minds. To these there are many Officers and Sergeants belonging. All which, to be known, carry staves in their hands like to Bandyes, the crooked end uppermost, which none but they dare carry. The sight of which staves upon what message soever they be sent, signifies as much as the Adigars Hand and Seal. If the Adigar be ignorant in what belongs to his place and office, these men do instruct him what and how to do. The like is in all other places which the King bestows: if they know not what belongs to their places, there are Inferiour Officers under them, that do teach and direct them how to Act. [The next great Officers.] Next under the Adigars, are the Dissauva's, who are Governours over Provinces and Counties of the Land. Each Province and County has its Governour; but all Governours are not Dissauva's, nor other great Officers known by other names or Titles, as Roterauts and Vidanies. But all these Generals or Chief Commanders, who have a certain number of Soldiers under them. These great men are to provide, that good orders be kept in the Countries over which they are placed, and that the Kings accustomed dutie be brought in due season to the Court. They have Power also to decide controversies between the People of their Jurisdiction, and to punish contentious and disorderly persons, which they do chiefly by amercing a Fine from them, which is for their Profit for it is there own: and also by committing them Prison. Into which when they are once fallen, no means without mony can get them out again. But be the fact never so hainous (Murther it self) they can put none to death. [None can put to death but the King.] The sentence of death being pronounced only by the King. They also are sent upon expeditions in War with their Soldiers, and give Attendance, and watch at Court in their appointed Stations. These Dissauva's are also to see that the Soldiers in their Countries do come in due season and order for that purpose. [These Dissauva's are durante bene placite.] They are appointed by the King himself, not for life, but during his good pleasure. And when they are dead or removed, oftentimes their places lay void, somtimes for months, somtimes perhaps for years; during which time the Adigar rules and governs those Countries; and for his labour receiveth all such Incoms and Profits as are accustomed and of right do belong to the Governour. [Whome the King makes Dissauva's And their Profits and Honours.] The King when he advances any to be Dissauva's, or to any other great Office regards not their ability or sufficiency to perform the same, only they must be persons of good rank, and gentile extraction: and they are all naturally discreet and very solid, and so the fitter for the Kings employment. When he first promotes them, he shews them great testimonies of his Love and Favour, (especially to those that are Christians, in whose service he imposeth greater confidence than in his own people, concluding that they will make more conscience of their ways, and be more faithful in their Office) and gives them a Sword, the hilt all carved and inlaid with Silver and Brass very handsomly, the Scabberd also covered with Silver, a Knife and Halberd; and lastly, a Town or Towns for their maintenance. The benefit of which is, that all the Profits which before the King received from those Towns, now accrues unto the Kings Officer. These Towns are composed of all sorts of Trades and People that are necessary for his service to whom the King hath given them a Potter, a Smith, a Washer, And there is a piece of Land according to the ability of the Town, which the Townsmen are to Till and manure, and to lay up the Corn for his use. Which matters I mentioned before in the third Chapter. And besides the Customs or Taxes that all other free Towns pay to the King, there is a due, but smaller, to be paid to the Governour out of them. But these are not all his advantages. [Other Benefits belonging to other Officers.] When there is a new Governour made over any Countrey, it is the Custom that that whole Countrey comes up to appear before him at the Court, for there his Residence is. Neither may they come empty handed, but each one must bring his Gift or Present with him. These also are expected at other times to be brought unto him by the people, tho they have no business with him, no suits or causes to be decided: even private Soldiers at their first coming tho to their due watch, must personally appear before their Commander, and if he have nothing else, he must Present him with forty leaves of green Betle, which he with his own hand receiveth, and they with both their and delivers into his, which is taken for an honour he vouchsafes them. [They must always reside at Court.] These Governours, nor any other admitted to Court into the Kings service, are never after to return home, altho they are not employed at present, and might be spared, neither are they permitted to enjoy their wives: and they are day and night to stand guard in certain stations, where the King appoints them. [The Officers under them.] Things thus standing with them, they cannot go in Person to visit and oversee their several Charges themselves. They have therefore several Officers under them to do it. The chief of whom is the [Courlividani.] Courlividani. This person beside his entertainment in the Countrey unto which he is sent to Govern under the Dissauva, hath a due revenue, but smaller then that of the Governour. His chief business is to wrack and hale all that may be for his Master, and to see good Government, and if there be any difference or quarrel between one or other, he takes a Fine from both, and carrieth to the Governour, not regarding equity but the profit of himself and him that imploys him. But he hears their case and determines it. And if they like not his sentence, they may remove their business unto the Governour himself, whose desire is not so much to find out the right of the cause, as that that may be most for his own interest and profit. And these carriages cannot reconcile them much love among the people; but the more they are hated by the people for their rigorous government, the better they please the King. For he cares not that the Countrey should affect the Great men. The Dissauva's by these Courlividani their Officers do oppress and squeez the people, by laying Mulcts upon them for some Crimes or Misdemeanors, that they will find and lay to their Charge. In Fine this Officer is the Dissauva's chief Substitute, who orders and manages all affairs incumbent upon his Master. [Congconna, Courti-atchila.] Next to him is Congconna, An Overseer. Who is to oversee all things under the Courlividani. But besides him, there is a Courti-A-chila like our Cunstable, who is to put that in execution that the Governour orders, to dispatch any thing away that the Land affords for the Kings use, and to send persons to Court, that are summoned. And in the discharge of this his Office, he may call in the assistance of any man. [The Liannah.] The next Officer under the Governor is the Liannah, The Writer. Who reads Letters brought, and takes accounts of all Business, and of what is sent away to the Court: He is also to keep Registers, and to write Letters, and to take notice of things happening. [The Undia.] Next to him is the Undia. A word that signifieth a lump. He is a Person that gathers the King's Money: and is so styled because he gathereth the King's Monies together into a lump. [The Monnannah.] After him is the Monnannah, The Measurer. His Place is to go and measure the Corn that grows upon the King's Land. Or what other Corn belongeth to him. The Power of these Officers extends not all a whole County or Province over, but to a convenient part or division of it. To wit, so much as they may well manage themselves. And there are several sets of the like Officers appointed over other Portions of the Countrey. As with us there are divers Hundreds or Divisions in a County. To each of which are distinct Officers belonging. [Some Towns exempt from the Dissauva's Officers.] These Officers can exercise their Authority, throughout the whole Division over which they are constituted, excepting some certain Towns, that are of exempt jurisdiction. And they are of two sorts. First, such Towns as belong to the Idol-Temples, and the Priests, having been given and bestowed on them long ago by former Kings. And secondly, The Towns, which the King allots to his Noblemen and Servants. Over these Towns, thus given away, neither the forementioned Officers, nor the chief Magistrate himself hath any Power. But those to whom they are given and do belong to, do put in their own Officers, who serve to the same purposes as the abovesaid do. [Other Officers yet.] But these are not all the Officers; there are others, whose place it is, upon the Death of any Head of a Family to fetch away the King's Marrals, Harriots as I may call them; Viz. a Bull and a Cow, a Male and Female Buffalo, out of his Stock. Which is accustomably due to the King, as I have mentioned before. And others, who in Harvest time carry away certain measures of Corn out of every Man's Crop according to the rate of their Land. [These Places obtained by Bribes.] These Inferior Officers commonly get their Places by Bribery; Their Children do pretend a right to them after their Father's Death, and will be preferred before others, greazing the Magistrate. [But remain only during pleasure.] None of these have their Places for life; and no longer than the Governor pleaseth. And he pretty often removes them or threatens to do so upon pretence of some neglects, to get Money from them. And the People have this privilege, that upon Complaint made of any of these Officers, and request that they may be changed and others made, They must be displaced, and others put in; but not at their Choice, but at the Choice of the Chief Magistrate, or Owner of the Town. [Countrey-Courts.] For the hearing Complaints and doing Justice among Neighbours, here are Countrey-Courts of Judicature, consisting of these Officers, together with the Head-Men of the Places and Towns, where the Courts are kept: and these are called Gom sabbi, as much as to say, Town-Consultations. But if any do not like, and is loath to stand by what they have determined, and think themselves wronged, they may [They may appeal.] appeal to their Head-Governor, that dwells at Court; but it is chargeable, for he must have a Fee. They may appeal also from him to the Adigars, or the Chief Justices of the Kingdom. But whoso gives the greatest Bribe, he shall overcome. For it is a common saying in this Land, That he that has Money to see the Judge, needs not fear nor care, whether his cause be right or not. The greatest Punishment that these Judges can inflict upon the greatest Malefactors, is but Imprisonment. From which Money will release them. [Appeals to the King.] Some have adventured to Appeal to the King sometimes; falling down on the ground before him at his coming forth, which is the manner of their obeisance to him, to complain of Injustice. Sometimes he will give order to the great ones to do them right, and sometimes bid them wait, until he is pleased to hear the Cause, which is not suddenly: for he is very slow in all his Business: neither dare they then depart from the Court, having been bidden to stay. Where they stay till they are weary, being at Expence, so that the Remedy is worse than the Disease. And sometimes again when they thus fall before him, he commands to beat them and put them in Chains for troubling of him; and perhaps in that Condition they may lay for some years. [How these great Officers Travel upon publick Business.] The King's great Officers when they go abroad into the Countries about the King's Business, they go attended with a number of Soldiers armed both before and behind them; their Sword if not by their side, a Boy carrieth after them, neither do they carry their Swords for their safety or security. For in travelling here is little or no danger at all. But it is out of State, and to shew their greatness. The Custom is that all their journey Victuals be prepared for them ready dressed; and if their Business requires hast, then it is brought on a Pole on a Man's shoulder, the Pots that hold it hanging on each end, so that nothing can be spilt out into the road; and this is got ready against the great Man's coming. So that they are at no charge for Diet: It is brought in at the charge of the Countrey. But however this is not for all his Soldiers that attend him (they must bring their own Provisions with them) but only for himself, and some of his Captains. [Their Titles and Signs of State.] The greatest Title that is allowed in the City to be given to the greatest Man is Oussary, which signifieth Worshipful. But when they are abroad from the King, men call them Sihattu and Dishondrew, implying, Honour and Excellency. These Grandees whensoever they walk abroad, their manner is in State to lean upon the arm of some Man or Boy. And the Adigar besides this piece of State, wheresoever he goes, there is one with a great Whip like a Coach-whip goes before him slashing it, that all People may have notice that the Adigar is coming. [The misery that succeeds their Honour.] But there is something comes after, that makes all the Honour and Wealth of these great Courtiers not at all desirable: and that is, that they are so obnoxious to the King's displeasure. Which is a thing so customary, that it is no disgrace for a Nobleman to have been in Chains, nay and in the Common Goal too. And the great Men are as ready when the King Commands, to lay hold on one another, as he to command them: and glad to have the Honour to be the King's Executioners, hoping to have the Place and Office of the Executed. When any of these are thus dispatched, commonly he cuts off or imprisoneth all the Male kind, that are near of kin, as Sons or Brothers, fearing they should plot revenge, and seizes on all the Estate. And as for the Family, after Examination with Punishment to make them confess where the Estate lyes, they have Monthly Allowance out of the same. But the Wife or Women-Kindred are now nothing at all in esteem for Honorable Ladies as they were before. Yet sometimes he will send for the Sons or Brothers of these whom he hath cut off for Traitors, and remand them out of the Prisons where he had committed them; and prefer them in honorable Employment. [The foolish ambition of the Men and Women of this Countrey.] It is generally reported, and I have seen it so, that those whom he prefers unto the greatest and weightiest Imployments are those whom he intends soon to cut off, and contrariwise those whom he doth affect, and intends to have longer Service of, shall not be so laden with Places and Honours. Howbeit altho they know and see this before their eyes daily, yet their hearts are so haughty and ambitious, that their desires and endeavours are to ascend unto the highest degrees of honour: tho that be but one remove from Death and utter Destruction. And the Women's ambition is so great also, that they will put their Husbands on to seek for Preferment, urging how dishonorable it is for them to sit at home like Women, that so they may have respect, and be reputed for great Ladies. CHAP. VI. Of the King's Strength and Wars. [The King's Military Affairs.] It remains now that I speak a little of the King's Military Affairs. His Power consists, in the natural Strength of his Countrey, in his Watches, and in the Craft, more than the Courage, of his Soldiers. [The natural strength of his Countrey.] He hath no Artificial Forts or Castles, but Nature hath supplied the want of them. For his whole Countrey of Cande Uda, standing upon such high Hills, and those so difficult to pass, is all an Impregnable Fort: and so is more especially Digligy-neur his present Palace. These Places have been already described at large; and therefore I omit speaking any further of them here. [Watches and Thorn-gates.] There are constant Watches set in convenient places in all parts of the Countrey, and Thorn-gates: but in time of danger, besides the ordinary Watches, in all Towns, and in all places and in every cross Road, exceeding thick, that 'tis not possible for any to pass unobserved. These Thorn-gates which I here mention and have done before, are made of a sort of Thorn-bush or Thorn-tree, each stick or branch whereof thrusts out on all sides round about, sharp prickles, like Iron Nails, of three or four inches long: one of these very Thorns I have lately seen in the Repository at Gresham College: These sticks or branches being as big as a good Cane, are platted one very close to another, and so being fastned and tyed to three or four upright spars, are made in the fashion of a Door. This is hung upon a Door-case some ten or twelve foot high, (so that they may, and do ride thro upon Elephants) made of three pieces of Timber like a Gallows, after this manner the Thorn door hanging upon the transverse piece like a Shop window; and so they lift it up, or clap it down, as there is occasion: and tye it with a Rope to a cross Bar. [None to pass from the Kings City without Pasports.] But especially in all Roads and Passages from the City where the King now Inhabits, are very strict Watches set: which will suffer none to pass not having a Passport: which is the print of a Seal in clay: It is given at the Court to them that have Licence to go thro the Watches. The Seals are different, according to the Profession of the Party: as to a Soldier the print of a man with a Pike on his Shoulder: to a Labourer, a Man with two Bags hanging on each end of a Pole upon his Shoulder, which is the manner they commonly carry their Loads. And to a white man, the Passport is the print of a Man with a Sword by his side, and a Hat on his head. And so many Men as there are in the Company, so many prints there must be in the Clay. There is not half the examination for those that come into the City, as for those that go out, whom they usually search to see what they carry with them. [Their Soldiery.] To speak now of their Soldiery, their Expeditions and manner of Fight. Besides the Dissauvas, spoken of before, who are great Generals, there are other great Captains. As those they call Mote-Ralls; as much as to say, Scribes. Because they keep the Rolls or Registers of certain Companies of Soldiers, each containing 970 Men, who are under their Command. Of these Mote-Ralls, there are four principal. But besides these, there are smaller Commanders over Soldiers; who have their Places from the King, and are not under the Command of the former great ones. [All Men of Arms wait at Court.] All these both Commanders and common Soldiers must wait at the Court. But with this difference. The great Men must do it continually: each one having his particular Watch appointed by the King. But the private Soldiers take their turns of Watching. And when they go, they do carry all their Provisions for the time of their stay with them upon their Backs. These Soldiers are not listed, (listing Soldiers being only upon extraordinary occasions) but are by Succession the Son after the Father. [The Soldiers have Lands allotted them instead of Pay.] For which Service they injoy certain Lands and Inheritances, which is instead of Wages or Pay. This duty if they omit or neglect they loose or forfeit their Inheritance. Or if they please to be released or discharged, they may, parting with their Land. And then their Commander placeth another in their room; but so long as the Land lies void, he converts the Profits to his own proper use. And he that after takes it, gives a Bribe to the Commander, who yet notwithstanding will not permit him to hold it above two or three years, unless he renew his Bribes. [To prevent the Soldiers from Plotting.] The Soldiers of the High Lands called Cande Uda, are dispersed all over the Land; so that one scarcely knows the other, the King not suffering many Neighbours and Townsmen to be in one Company; which hath always heretofore been so ordered for fear of Conspiracies. [The manner of sending them out on Expeditions.] When the King sends any of these Commanders with their Armies abroad to War or otherwise, sometimes they see not his face, but he sends out their Orders to them by a Messenger; sometimes admits them into his Presence, and gives them their Orders with his own mouth, but nothing in Writing. And when several of them are sent together upon any Design, there is not any one appointed to be Chief Commander or General over the whole Army; but each one as being Chief over his own Men, disposeth and ordereth them according to his pleasure; the others do the like. Which sometimes begets disagreement among themselves, and by that means their Designs are frustrated. Neither doth he like or approve, that the great Commanders of his Soldiers should be very intimate or good Friends, lest they should conspire against him, nor will he allow them to disagree in such a degree that it be publickly known and observed. [The King requires all the Captains singly to send him intelligence of their Affairs.] And when there is any tidings to send the King, they do not send in general together by consent, but each one sends particularly by himself. And there common custom and practice is to inform what they can one against another, thinking thereby to obtain the most favour and good will from the King. By this means there can nothing, be done or said, but he hath notice thereof. [When the War is finished they may not return without order.] Being in this manner sent forth, they dare not return, altho they have performed and finished the Business they were sent upon, until he send a special Order and Command to recall them. [The Condition of the common Soldiers.] When the Armies are sent abroad, as he doth send them very often against the Dutch, it goeth very hard with the Soldiers; who must carry their victuals and Pots to dress it in upon their Backs, besides their Arms, which are Swords, Pikes, Bows and Arrows, and good Guns. As for Tents, for their Armies alwayes ly in the Fields, they carry Tallipat leaves, which are very light and convenient, along with them. With these they make their Tents: Fixing sticks into the ground, and laying other pieces of Wood overthwart, after the manner of the roof of an House, and so lay their leaves overall, to shoot the Rains off. Making these Tents stronger or slighter, according to the time of their tarriance. And having spent what Provisions they carried out with them, they go home to fetch more. So that after a Month or two a great part of the Army is always absent. [He conceals his purpose, when he sends out his Army.] Whensoever the King sends his Armies abroad upon any Expedition, the Watches beyond them are all secured immediately, to prevent any from passing to carry Intelligence to the Enemy. The Soldiers themselves do not know the Design they are sent upon, until they come there. None can know his intentions or meaning by his actions. For sometimes he sends Commanders with their Soldiers to ly in certain places in the Woods until farther order, or until he send Ammunition to them. And perhaps when they have laid there long enough, he sends for them back again. And after this manner oftentimes he catches the Hollanders before they be aware, to their great prejudice and dammage. He cares not that his great Men should be free-spirited or Valiant; if there be any better than the rest, them to be sure suddenly he cuts off, lest they might do him any mischief. [Great exploits done, and but little Courage.] In their War there is but little valour used, altho they do accomplish many notable Exploits. For all they do is by crafty Stratagems. They will never meet their Enemies in the Field, to give them a repulse by Battel, and force of Arms: [They work chiefly by Stratagems.] neither is the Enemy like to meet with any opposition at their first goings out to invade the King's Coasts, the King's Soldiers knowing the adverse Forces are at first wary and vigilant, as also well provided with all Necessaries. But their usual practice is to way lay them, and stop up the wayes before them: there being convenient places in all the Roads, which they have contrived for such purposes. And at these places the Woods are not suffered to be felled, but kept to shelter them from the fight of their enemies. Here they lye lurking, and plant their Guns between the Rocks and Trees, with which they do great damage to their Enemies before they are aware. Nor can they then suddenly rush in upon them, being so well guarded with Bushes and Rocks before them, thro which before their Enemies can get, they flee carrying their great Guns upon their Shoulders and are gone into the Woods, where it is impossible to find them, until they come them selves to meet them after the former manner. Likewise they prepare against the enemies coming great bushy Trees, having them ready cut hanging only by withs which grow in the Wood; these as they march along they let fall among them with many shot and Arrows. Being sent upon any design they are very circumspect to keep it hidden from the Enemies knowledg; by suffering only those to pass, who may make for their Benefit and advantage; their great endeavour being to take their Enemies unprovided and at unawares. [They understand the manner of Christian Armies.] By the long wars first between them and the Portugueze, and since with the Hollander, they have had such ample experience, as hath much improved them in the art of War above what they were formerly. And many of the chief Commanders and Leaders of their Armies are men which formerly served the Portugueze against them. By which they come to know the disposition and discipline of Christian Armies. Insomuch as they have given the Dutch several overthrows, and taken Forts from them, which they had up in the Countrey. [They seldom hazzard a battel.] Heretofore for bringing the head of an Enemy, the King used to gratify them with some reward, but now the fashion is almost out of use. The ordering of their battel is with great security, there being very few lost in Fight. For if they be not almost sure to win the battel, they had rather not fight, than run any hazzard of loosing it. [If they prove unsuccessful, how he punishes them.] If his men do not successfully accomplish the design he sends them upon, to be sure they shall have a lusty piece of work given them, to take revenge on them; for not using their weapons well he will exercise them with other tools houghs and pickaxes, about his Palace. And during the time they stay to work, they must bring their Victuals with them not having monies there to buy: They cannot carry for above one month, and when their Provisions are all spent, if they will have any more, they must go home and fetch them. But that is not permitted them without giving a Fee to the Governour or his Overseer. Neither can they go without his leave, for besides the punishment, the Watches which are in every Road from the Kings City will stop and seize them. CHAP. VII. A Relation of the Rebellion made against the King. [A Comet ushered in the Rebellion.] For the Conclusion of this Part, it will not be improper to relate here a dangerous rising of the People against the King. It happened in the year 1664. About which time appeared a fearful Blazing-Star. Just at the Instant of the Rebellion, the Star was right over our heads. And one thing I very much wondred, at, which was that whereas before this Rebellion, the Tail stood away toward the Westward from which side the Rebellion sprung, the very night after (for I very well observed it) the Tail was turned and stood away toward the Eastward. And by degrees it diminished quite away. [The intent of the Conspirators.] At this time, I say, the people of this land, having been long and sore oppressed by this Kings unreasonable and cruel Government, had contrived a Plot against him. Which was to assault the Kings Court in the night, and to slay him, and to make the Prince his Son, King. He being then some twelve or fifteen years of age, who was then with his Mother the Queen in the City of Cande. At this time the King held his Court in a City called Nillemby. The Situation of which is far inferior to that of Cande, and as far beyond that of Digligy where he now is. Nillemby lyeth some fourteen miles southward of the City of Cande. In the place where this City stands it is reported by Tradition an Hare gave chase after a Dog, upon which it was concluded that place was fortunate, and so indeed it proved to the King. It is invironed with Hills and Woods. [How the Rebellion began.] The time appointed to put their design in action was the one and twentieth of December 1664. about Twelve in the night. And having gotten a select company of men, how many well I know not, but as is supposed, not above two hundred, neither needed they many here, having so many Confederates in the Court; in the dead of the night they came marching into the City. The Watch was thought to be of their confedracy: but if he were not, it was not in his power to resist them. Howbeit afterwards, whether he were not, he was executed for it. The said men, being thus in the City, hastened and came down to the Court; and fell upon the great men, which then laid without the Palace upon Watch: since which by the Kings order they lye allways within the Palace. For they were well informed before who were for them and who not. Many who before were not intrusted to know of their design, were killed and wounded; and those that could, seeing the slaughter of others, got in unto the King. Who was walled about with a Clay-wall, thatched: that was all his strength. Yet these people feared to assault him, laying still until the morning. At which time the [The King Flyes.] King made way to flee, fearing to stay in his Palace, endeavouring to get unto the mountains, and had not with him above fifty persons. There were horses went with him, but the wayes were so bad, that he could not ride. They were fain to drive an Elephant before him, to break the way through the Woods, that the King with his followers might pass. [They pursue him faintly.] As he fled, they pursued him, but at a great distance, fearing to approach within shot of him. For he wanted not for excellent good Fowling-pieces, which are made there. So he got safe upon a Mountain, called Gauluda, some fifteen miles distant, where many of the Inhabitants, that were near, resorted to him. Howbeit had the people of the Rebel-party been resolute, who were the major part (almost all the Land;) this Hill could not have secured him, but they might have driven him from thence; there being many ways by which they might have ascended. There is not far from thence a high and peaked hill called Mondamounour, where there is but one way to get up, and that very steep, at the top are great stones hanging in chains to let fall when need requireth. Had he fled hither, there had been no way to come at him. But he never will adventure to go, where he may be stopped in. [They go to the Prince and Proclaim him King.] The People having thus driven away the old King, marched away to the City of Cande, and proclaimed the Prince, King: giving out to us English who were there, that what they had done they had not done rashly, but upon good Consideration, and with good advice; the King by his evil Government having occasioned it, who went about to destroy both them and their Countrey: As in keeping Ambassadours, disanulling of Trade, detaining of all people that come upon his Land, and killing of his Subjects and their Children, and not suffering them to enjoy nor to see their Wives. And all this was contrary to reason, and as, they were informed, to the Government of other Countries. [The carriage of the Prince.] The Prince being young and tender, and having never been out of the Palace, nor ever seen any but those that attended on his person, as it seemed afterwards, was scared to see so many coming and bowing down to him, and telling him that he was King, and his Father was fled into the mountains. Neither did he say or act any thing as not owning the business, or else not knowing what to say or do. This much discouraged the Rebells, to see they had no more thanks for their pains. And so all things stood until the five and twentieth of December, at which time they intended to march and fall upon the old King. [Upon the Prices Flight, the Rebells scatter and run.] But in the Interim, the Kings Sister Flyes away with the Prince from the Court into the Countrey near unto the King; which so amazed the Rebells, that the mony and cloth and plunder which they had taken, and were going to distribute to the Strangers to gain their good will and assistance, they scattered about and fled. Others of their Company seeing the Business was overthrown, to make amends for their former fact, turned and fell upon their Consorts, killing and taking Prisoners all they could. The people were now all up in arms one against another, killing whom they pleas'd, only saying they were Rebells and taking their goods. [A great man declares for the King.] By this time a great man had drawn out his men, and stood in the Field, and there turned and publickly declared for the old King: and so went to catch the Rebells that were scattered abroad. Who when he understood that they were all fled, and no whole party or body left to resist him, marched into the City killing all that he could catch. [For eight or ten days nothing but killing one another to approve themselves good Subjects.] And so all revolted, and came back to the King again: whilst he only lay still upon his mountain. The King needed not to take care to catch or execute the Rebells, for they themselves out of their zeal to him, and to make amends for what was past, imprisoned and killed all they met; the Plunder being their own. This continued for some eight or ten days. Which the King hearing of, commanded to kill no more, but that whom they took they should imprison, until examination passed; which was not so much to save innocent persons from violence, as that he might have the Rebells to torment them, and make them confess of their Confederates. For he spared none that seemed guilty: some to this day lye chained in Prison, being sequestred of all their Estates, and beg for their living. One of the most noted Rebells, called Ambom Wellaraul, he sent to Columba to the Dutch to execute, supposing they would invent new Tortures for him, beyond what he knew of. But they instead of executing him, cut off his chains, and kindly entertained him, and there he still is in the City of Columba, reserving him for some designs they may hereafter have against the Countrey. [The King poysons his Son to prevent a Rebellion hereafter.] The King could but not be sensible, that it was his rigorous government that had occasioned this Rebellion, yet amended it not in the least; but on the contrary like to Rehoboam added yet more to the Peoples yoak. And being thus safely re-instated in his Kingdom again, and observing that the life of his Son gave encouragement to the Rebellion, resolved to prevent it for the future by taking him away. Which upon the next opportunity he did by Poysoning him, which I have related before. [His ingratitude.] But one thing there is, that argues him guilty of imprudence and horrible ingratitude, that most of those that went along with him when he fled, of whose Loyalty he had such ample experience, he hath since cut off; and that with extreme cruelty too. [Another Comet, but without any bad effects following it.] In the year 1666 in the month of February, there appeared in this Countrey another Comet or stream in the West, the head end under the Horizon, much resembling that which was seen in England in the year 1680 in December. The sight of this did much daunt both King and People, having but a year or two before felt the sad event of a Blazing-Star in this Rebellion which I have now related. The King sent men upon the highest mountains in the Land to look if they could perceive the head of it, which they could not, being still under the Horizon. This continued visible about the space of one month, and by that time it was so diminished, that it could not be seen. But there were no remarkable passages that ensued upon it. PART III. CHAP. I. Concerning the Inhabitants of this Island. Wee shall in this Part speak of the Inhabitants of this Countrey, with their Religion, and Customs, and other things belonging to them. [The several Inhabitants of this Island.] Besides the Dutch who possess, as I judg, about one fourth of the Island, there are Malabars, that are free Denizons and pay duty to the King for the Land they enjoy, as the Kings natural Subjects do; there are also Moors, who are like Strangers, and hold no Land, but live by carrying goods to the Sea-Ports, which now are in the Hollanders hands. The Sea-Ports are inhabited by a mixt people, Malabars and Moors, and some that are black, who profess themselves Roman Catholicks, and wear Crosses, and use Beads. Some of these are under the Hollander; and pay toll and tribute to them. But I am to speak only of the natural proper People of the Island, which they call Chingulays. [The Original of Chingulays.] I have asked them, whence they derive themselves, but they could not tell. They say their Land was first inhabited by Devils, of which they have a long Fable. I have heard a tradition from some Portugueze here, which was; That an antient King of China had a Son, who during his Fathers Reign, proved so very harsh and cruel unto the people, that they being afraid he might prove a Tyrant if he came to the Crown, desired the King to banish him, and that he might never succeed. This that King, to please the people, granted. And so put him with certain Attendants into a ship, and turned them forth unto the Winds to seek their fortune. The first shore they were cast upon, was this Island. Which they seated themselves on, and peopled it. But to me nothing is more improbable than this Story. Because this people and the Chineses have no agreement nor similitude in their features nor language nor diet. It is more probable, they came from the Malabars, their Countrey lying next, tho they do resemble them little or nothing. I know no nation in the world do so exactly resemble the Chingulays as the people of Europe. [Wild-men.] Of these Natives there be two sorts, Wild and Tame. I will begin with the former. For as in these Woods there are Wild Beasts so Wild Men also. The Land of Bintan is all covered with mighty Woods, filled with abundance of Deer. In this Land are many of these wild men; they call them Vaddahs, dwelling near no other Inhabitants. They speak the Chingulayes Language. They kill Deer, and dry the Flesh over the fire, and the people of the Countrey come and buy it of them. They never Till any ground for Corn their Food being only Flesh. They are very expert with their Bows. They have a little Ax, which they stick in by their sides, to cut hony out of hollow Trees. Some few, which are near Inhabitants, have commerce with other people. They have no Towns nor Houses, only live by the waters under a Tree, with some boughs cut and laid round about them, to give notice when any wild Beasts come near, which they may hear by their rustling and trampling upon them. Many of these habitations we saw when we fled through the Woods, but God be praised the Vaddahs were gone. [By an Acknowledgment to the King.] Some of the tamer sort of these men are in a kind of Subjection to the King. For if they can be found, tho it must be with a great search in the Woods, they will acknowledg his Officers, and will bring to them Elephants-Teeth, and Honey, and Wax, and Deers Flesh: but the others in lieu thereof do give them near as much, in Arrows, Cloth &c. fearing lest they should otherwise appear no more. [How they bespeak Arrows to be made them.] It hath been reported to me by many people, that the wilder sort of them, when they want Arrows, will carry their load of Flesh in the night, and hang it up in a Smith's Shop, also a Leaf cut in the form they will have their Arrows made, and hang by it. Which if the Smith do make according to their Pattern they will requite, and bring him more Flesh: but if he make them not, they will do him a mischief one time or another by shooting in the night. If the Smith make the Arrows, he leaves them in the same place, where the Vaddahs hung the Flesh. [They violently took away Carriers goods.] Formerly, in this Kings Reign these wild men used to lye in wait, to catch Carriers people, that went down with Oxen to trade at the Sea-Ports, carrying down Betelnuts, and bringing up Cloth, and would make them to give them such things as they required, or else threatning to shoot them. They fearing their lives, and not being able to resist, were fain to give them what they asked; or else most certainly they would have had both life and goods too. At which this King sent many Commanders with their Soldiers to catch them, which at length they did: But had not some of themselves proved false to them, being incouraged by large promises, they could never have taken them. The chief being brought before the King, promising amendment, were pardoned: but sent into other Woods with a Command not to return thither any more, neitheir to use their former courses. But soon after their departure, they forsook those Woods they were put into, and came to their old haunt again, falling to their former course of Life. This the King hearing of, and how they had abused his Pardon, gave command either to bring them dead or alive. These Vaddahs knowing now there could be no hope of Pardon, would not be taken alive, but were shot by the Treachery of their own men. The heads of two of the chiefest were hanged on Trees by the City. And ever since they have not presumed to disturb the Countrey, nor the King them he only desiring their quiet, and not to be against him. [Hourly Vadahs trade with the people.] About Hourly the remotest of the Kings Dominions there are many trade with the of them, that are pretty tame, and come and buy and sell among the people. The King once having occasion of an hasty Expedition against the Dutch, the Governour summoned them all in to go with him, which they did. [One made to serve the King.] And with their Bows and Arrows did as good service as any of the rest but afterwards when they returned home again they removed farther in the Woods, and would be seen no more, for fear of being afterwards prest again to serve the King. [Their habit and Religion.] They never cut their hair but tye it up on their Crowns in a bunch. The cloth they use, is not broad nor large, scarcely enough to cover their Buttocks. The wilder and tamer sort of them do observe a Religion. They have a God peculiar to themselves. The tamer do build Temples, the wild only bring their sacrifice under Trees, and while it is offering, dance round it, both men and women. [A Skirmish about their bounds.] They have their bounds in the Woods among themselves, and one company of them is not to shoot nor gather hony or fruit beyond those bounds. Neer the borders stood a Jack-Tree; one Vaddah being gathering some fruit from this Tree, another Vaddah of the next division saw him, and told him he had nothing to do to gather Jacks from that Tree, for that belonged to them. They fell to words and from words to blows, and one of them shot the other. At which more of them met and fell to skirmishing so briskly with their Bows and Arrows, that twenty or thirty were left dead upon the spot. [Curious in their Arrows.] They are so curious of their Arrows that no Smith can please them; The King once to gratifie them for a great Present they brought him, gave all of them of his best made Arrow-blades: which nevertheless would not please their humour. For they went all of them to a Rock by a River and ground them into another form. The Arrows they use are of a different fashion from all other, and the Chingulays will not use them. [Now they preserve their flesh.] They have a peculiar way by themselves of preserving Flesh. They cut a hollow Tree and put honey in it, and then fill it up with flesh, and stop it up with clay. Which lyes for a reserve to eat in time of want. [How they take Elephants.] It has usually been told me that their way of catching Elephants is, that when the Elephant lyes asleep they strike their ax into the sole of his foot, and so laming him he is in their power to take him. But I take this for a fable, because I know the sole of the Elephants foot is so hard, that no ax can pierce it at a blow; and he is so wakeful that they can have no opportunity to do it. [The dowries they give. Their disposition.] For portions with their Daughters in marriage they give hunting Dogs. They are reported to be courteous. Some of the Chingulays in discontent will leave their houses and friends, and go and live among them, where they are civilly entertained. The tamer sort of them, as hath been said, will sometimes appear, and hold some kind of trade with the tame Inabitants, but the wilder called Ramba-Vaddahs never shew themselves. [A description of a Chingulay.] But to come to the civilized Inhabitants, whom I am chiefly to treat of. They are a people proper and very well favoured, beyond all people that I have seen in India, wearing a cloth about their Loyns, and a doublet after the English fashion, with little skirts buttoned at the wrists, and gathered at the shoulders like a shirt, on their heads a red Tunnis Cap, or if they have none, another Cap with flaps of the fashion of their Countrey, described in the next Chapter, with a handsom short hanger by their side, and a knife sticking in their bosom on the right side. [Their disposition.] They are very active and nimble in their Limbs: and very ingenious: for, except Iron-work, all other things they have need of, they make and do themselves: insomuch that they all build their own houses. They are crafty and treacherous, not to be trusted upon any protestations: for their manner of speaking is very smooth and courteous, insomuch that they who are unacquainted with their dispositions and manners, may easily be deceived by them. For they make no account nor conscience of lying, neither is it any shame or disgrace to them, if they be catched in telling lyes: it is so customary. They are very vigilant and wakeful, sufficed with very little sleep: very hardy both for diet and weather, very proud and self conceited. They take something after the Bramines, with whom they scruple not both to marry and eat. In both which otherwise they are exceeding shy and cautious. For there being many Ranks or Casts among them, they will not match with any Inferiour to themselves; nor eat meat dressed in any house, but in those only that are of as good a Cast or Race as themselves: and that which any one hath left, none but those that are near of kin will eat. They are not very malitious one towards another; and their anger doth not last long; seldom or never any blood shed among them in their quarrels. It is not customary to strike; and it is very rare that they give a blow so much as to their Slaves; who may very familiarly talk and discourse with their Masters. They are very near and covetous, and will pinch their own bellies for profit; very few spend-thrifts or bad husbands are to be met with here. [The Inhabitants of the Mountains differ from those of the Low-Lands.] The Natures of the Inhabitants of the Mountains and Low-lands are very different. They of the Low-lands are kind, pittiful, helpful, honest and plain, compassionating Strangers, which we found by our own experience among them. They of the Up-lands are ill-natured, false, unkind, though outwardly fair and seemingly courteous, and of more complaisant carriage, speech and better behaviour, than the Low-landers. [Their good opinion of Virtue, though they practice it not.] Of all Vices they are least addicted to stealing, the which they do exceedingly hate and abhor, so that there are but few Robberies committed among them. They do much extol and commend Chastity, Temperance, and Truth in words and actions; and confess that it is out of weakness and infirmity, that they cannot practice the same, acknowledging that the contrary Vices are to be abhorred, being abomination both in the sight of God and Man. They do love and delight in those Men that are most Devout and Precise in their Matters. As for bearing Witness for Confirmation in any matters of doubt, a Christians word will be believed and credited far beyond their own: because, they think, they make more Conscience of their words. [Superstitious.] They are very superstitious in making Observations of any little Accidents, as Omens portending good to them or evil. Sneezing they reckon to import evil. So that if any chance to sneeze when he is going about his Business, he will stop, accounting he shall have ill success if he proceeds. And none may Sneeze, Cough, nor Spit in the King's Presence, either because of the ill boding of those actions, or the rudeness of them or both. There is a little Creature much like a Lizzard, which they look upon altogether as a Prophet, whatsoever work or business they are going about; if he crys, they will cease for a space, reckoning that he tells them there is a bad Planet rules at that instant. They take great notice in a Morning at their first going out, who first appears in their sight: and if they see a White Man, or a big-bellied Woman, they hold it fortunate: and to see any decrepit or deformed People, as unfortunate. [How they travail.] When they travel together a great many of them, the Roads are so narrow, that but one can go abreast, and if there be Twenty of them, there is but one Argument or Matter discoursed of among them all from the first to the last. And so they go talking along all together, and every one carrieth his Provisions on his back for his whole Journey. [A brief Character of them.] In short, in Carriage and Behaviour they are very grave and stately like unto the Portugals, in understanding quick and apprehensive, in design subtil and crafty, in discourse courteous but full of Flatteries, naturally inclined to temperance both in meat and drink, but not to Chastity, near and Provident in their Families, commending good Husbandry. In their dispositions not passionate, neither hard to be reconciled again when angry. In their Promises very unfaithful, approving lying in themselves, but misliking it in others; delighting in sloath, deferring labour till urgent necessity constrain them, neat in apparel, nice in eating; and not given to much sleep. [The Women their Habit and Nature.] As for the Women, their Habit is a Wastcoat of white Callico covering their Bodies, wrought into flourishes with Blew and Red; their Cloath hanging longer or shorter below their Knees, according to their quality; a piece of Silk flung over their heads; Jewels in their Ears, Ornaments about their Necks, and Arms, and Middles. They are in their gate and behaviour very high, stately in their carriage after the Portugal manner, of whom I think they have learned: yet they hold it no scorn to admit the meanest to come to speech of them. They are very thrifty, and it is a disgrace to them to be prodigal, and their Pride & Glory to be accounted near & saving. And to praise themselves they will sometimes say, That scraps and parings will serve them; but that the best is for their Husbands. The Men are not jealous of their Wives, for the greatest Ladies in the Land will frequently talk and discourse with any Men they please, altho their Husbands be in presence. And altho they be so stately, they will lay their hand to such work as is necessary to be done in the House, notwithstanding they have Slaves and Servants enough to do it. Let this suffice concerning the Nature and Manners of the People in general: The ensuing Chapters will be spent in more particular accounts of them. And because they stand much upon their Birth and Gentility, and much of what is afterwards to be related hath reference unto it: I shall first speak of the various ranks and degrees of Men among them. CHAP. II. Concerning their different Honours, Ranks, and Qualities. [How they distinguish themselves according to their qualities.] Among this People there are divers and sundry Casts or degrees of Quality, which is not according to their Riches or Places of Honour the King promotes them to, but according to their Descent and Blood. And whatsoever this Honour is, be it higher or lower, it remains Hereditary from Generation to Generation. They abhor to eat or drink, or intermarry with any of Inferior Quality to themselves. The signs of higher or meaner Ranks, are wearing of Doublets, or going bare-backed without them: the length of their Cloth below their knees; their sitting on Stools, or on Blocks or Mats spread on the Ground: and in their Caps. [They never marry beneath their rank.] They are especially careful in their Marriages, not to match with any inferior Cast, but always each within their own rank: Riches cannot prevail with them in the least to marry with those by whom they must eclipse and stain the Honour of their Family: on which they set an higher price than on their lives. And if any of the Females should be so deluded, as to commit folly with one beneath her self, if ever she should appear to the sight of her Friends, they would certainly kill her, there being no other way to wipe off the dishonour she hath done the Family, but by her own Blood. [In case a Man lies with a Woman of inferior rank.] Yet for the Men it is something different; it is not accounted any shame or fault for a Man of the highest sort to lay with a Woman far inferior to himself, nay of the very lowest degree; provided he neither eats nor drinks with her, nor takes her home to his House, as a Wife. But if he should, which I never knew done, he is punished by the Magistrate, either by Fine or Imprisonment, or both, and also he is utterly ecluded from his Family, and accounted thenceforward of the same rank and quality, that the Woman is of, whom he hath taken. If the Woman be married already, with whom the Man of better rank lies, and the Husband come and catch them together; how low soever the one be and high the other, he may kill him, and her too, if he please. And thus by Marrying constantly each rank within it self, the Descent and Dignity thereof is preserved for ever; and whether the Family be high or low it never alters. But to proceed to the particular ranks and degrees of Men among them. [Their Noblemen.] The highest, are their Noblemen, called Hondrews. Which I suppose comes from the word Homdrewné, a Title given to the King, signifying Majesty: these being honourable People. 'Tis out of this sort alone, that the King chooseth his great Officers and whom he imploys in his Court, and appoints for Governors over his Countrey. Riches are not here valued, nor make any the more Honourable. For many of the lower sorts do far exceed these Hondrews in Estates. But it is the Birth and Parentage that inobleth. [How distinguished from others.] These are distinguished from others by their names, and the wearing of their cloth, which the Men wear down half their Legs, and the Women to their Heels: one end of which Cloth the Women fling over their Shoulders, and with the very end carelesly cover their Breasts; whereas the other sort of Women must go naked from the wast upwards, and their Cloaths not hang down much below their Knees: except it be for cold; for then either Women or Men may throw their Cloth over their Backs. But then they do excuse it to the Hondrews, when they meet them, saying, Excuse me, it is for warmth. [The distinction by Caps.] They are distinguished also by their own Countrey-Caps, which are of the fashion of Mitres: there are two flaps tied up over the top of the Crown. If they be Hondrews, their Caps are all of one Colour, either White or Blew: if of inferior quality, than the Cap and the flaps on each side be of different Colours, whereof the Flaps are always Red. [Of the Hondrews two sorts.] Of these Hondrews there be two sorts, the one somewhat Inferior to the other as touching Marriage; but not in other things. The greatest part of the Inhabitants of the Land are of the degree of Hondrews. All Christians either White or Black are accounted equal with the Hondrews. The Whites are generally Honourable, only it is an abatement of their Honour that they eat Beef, and wash not after they have been at Stool; which things are reckoned with this People an Abomination. [An Honour like unto Knighthood.] Among the Noblemen may be mentioned an Honour, that the King confers, like unto Knighthood; it ceaseth in the Person's death, and is not Hereditary. The King confers it by putting about their Heads a piece of Silk or Ribbond embroidered with Gold and Silver, and bestowing a Title upon them. They are stiled Mundianna. There are not above two or three of them now in the Realm living. [Goldsmiths, Blacksmiths, Carpenters, &c.] Next after the degree of Hondrews may be placed Goldsmiths, Blacksmiths, Carpenters and Painters. Who are all of one degree and quality. But the Hondrews will not eat with them: however in Apparel there is no difference; and they are also privileged to sit on Stools, which none of the Inferior ranks of People hereafter mentioned, may do. Heretofore they were accounted almost equal to the Inferior sort of Hondrewes, and they would eat in these Artificers Houses, but afterwards they were degraded upon this occasion. It chanced some Hondrews came to a Smith's Shop to have their Tools mended, when it came to be Dinner time, the Smith leaves work, and goes in to his House to dine, leaving the Hondrewes in his Shop: who had waited there a great while to have their work done. Now whether the Smith fearing lest their hunger might move them to be so impudent or desperate as to partake with him of his Dinner, clapt to his Door after him: Which was taken so hainously by those hungry People in his Shop, that immediately they all went and declared abroad what an affront the Smith had put upon them. Whereupon it was decreed and confirmed, that for ever after all the People of that rank should be deposed, and deprived of the Honour of having the Hondrewes to eat in their Houses. Which Decree hath stood in force ever since. [The Privilege and state of the Smiths.] Nevertheless these Smiths take much upon them, especially those who are the King's Smiths; that is, such who live in the King's Towns, and do his work. These have this Privilege, that each has a parcel of Towns belonging to them, whom none but they are to work for. The ordinary work they do for them is mending their Tools, for which every Man pays to his Smith a certain Rate of Corn in Harvest time according to ancient Custom. But if any hath work extraordinary, as making new Tools or the like, besides the aforesaid Rate of Corn, he must pay him for it. In order to this, they come in an humble manner to the Smith with a Present, being Rice, Hens, and other sorts of Provision, or a bottle of Rack, desiring him to appoint his time, when they shall come to have their work done. Which when he hath appointed them, they come at the set time, and bring both Coals and Iron with them. The Smith sits very gravely upon his Stool, his Anvil before him, with his left hand towards the Forge, and a little Hammer in his Right. They themselves who come with their work must blow the Bellows, and when the Iron is to be beaten with the great Maul, he holds it, still sitting upon his Stool, and they must hammer it themselves, he only with his little Hammer knocking it sometimes into fashion. And if it be any thing to be filed, he makes them go themselves and grind it upon a Stone, that his labour of fileing may be the less; and when they have done it as well as they can, he goes over it again with his file and finisheth it. That which makes these Smiths thus stately is, because the Towns People are compelled to go to their own Smith, and none else. And if they should, that Smith is liable to pay Dammages that should do work for any in another Smith's Jurisdiction. [Craftsmen.] All that are of any Craft or Profession are accounted of an inferior degree, as Elephant Catchers, and Keepers, who are reckoned equal with the Smiths, &c. abovesaid, tho they neither eat nor marry together; and these may wear Apparel as do the Hondrews, and sit on Stools, but the Hondrews eat not with them. No Artificers ever change their Trade from Generation to Generation; but the Son is the same as was his Father, and the Daughter marries only to those of the same Craft: and her Portion is such Tools as are of use, and do belong unto the Trade: tho the Father may give over and above what he pleaseth. [Barbars.] Next are are Barbars; both the Women and Men may wear Doublets, but not sit on Stools, neither will any eat with them. [Potters] Potters yet more Inferior, may not wear any Doublets, nor their Cloth much below the Knee, nor sit on Stools, neither will any eat with them. But they have this Privilege, because they make the Pots, that when they are athirst being at a Hondrew's House, they may take his Pot, which hath a Pipe to it, and pour the Water into their mouths themselves: which none other of these inferior degrees may be admitted to do: but they must hold their hands to their mouths and gape, and the Hondrews themselves will pour the Water in. The Potters were at first denied this Honour, upon which they joyntly agreed to make Pots with Pipes only for themselves, and would sell none to the Hondrews that wanted; whereat being constrained, they condescended to grant them the Honour above other inferior People, that they should have the favour to drink out of these Pots with spouts at their Houses. [Washers.] The next are the Ruddaughs, Washers. Of these there are great Numbers. They wash Cloths for all People to the degree of a Potter; but for none below that degree. Their usual Posture is to carry a Cloth on their Shoulder, both Men and Women: They use Lye in their washing, setting a Pot over the Fire holding seven or eight Gallons of Water, and lay the foul Cloths on the top; and the steam of the water goes into the Cloths and scalds them. Then they take them and carry them to a River side, and instead of rubbing them with their hands, slap them against the Rock, and they become very clean; nor doth this tear the Cloths at all, as they order it. [Jaggory-Makers.] Another rank after these are the Hungrams, or Jaggory-Makers. Tho none will eat with them, yet it is lawful to buy and eat the Jaggory they make, (which is a kind of Sugar) but nothing else. [The Poddah.] Another sort among them is the Poddah. These are of no Trade or Craft, but are Husbandmen and Soldiers, yet are inferior to all that have been named hitherto. For what reason neither I, nor, I think, themselves can tell: only thus it falls to them by Succession from their Predecessors, and so will ever remain. [Weavers.] After these are the Weavers. Who beside their Trade, which is Weaving Cloth, are Astrologers, and tell the People good Days and good Seasons: and at the Birth of a Child write for them an account of the day, time and Planet, it was born in and under. These accounts they keep with great Care all their Life-time: by which they know their Age, and what success or evil shall befall them. These People also beat Drums, and play on Pipes, and dance in the Temples of their Gods, and at their Sacrifices; they eat and carry away all such Victuals as are offered to their Idols. Both which to do and take, is accounted to belong to People of a very low degree and quality. These also will eat dead Cows. [Basket-Makers.] Next to the Weavers are the Kiddeas or Basket-Makers. Who make Fans to fan Corn, and Baskets of Canes, and Lace, Bedsteds and Stools. [Mat-Makers.] Then follow the Kirinerahs. Whose Trade is to make fine Matts. These Men may not wear any thing on their Heads. The Women of none of these sorts ever do. Of these two last there are but few. [The lower ranks may not assume the Habit or Names of the higher.] All below the Couratto or Elephant-Men, may not sit on Stools, nor wear Doublets, except the Barbar, nor wear the Cloth low down their Legs. Neither may any of these ranks of People, either Man or Woman, except the Potter and the Washer, wear the end of their Cloth to cover their Bodies, unless they be sick or cold. Neither may they presume to be called by the Names that the Hondrews are called by; nor may they, where they are not known, change themselves by pretending or seeming to be higher than Nature hath made them: and I think they never do, but own themselves in the rank and quality wherein they were born, and demean themselves accordingly. All Outlandish People are esteemed above the inferior ranks. The Names of the Hondrews always end in oppow, of others below the degree of the Elephant People in adgah. [Slaves.] The Slaves may make another rank. For whose maintenance, their Masters allow them Land and Cattle. Which many of them do so improve; that except in Dignity they are not far behind their Masters, only they are not permitted to have Slaves. Their Masters will not diminish or take away ought, that by their Diligence and Industry they have procured, but approve of it, as being Persons capable to repose trust in. And when they do buy or otherways get a new Slave, they presently provide him a Wife, and so put him forward to keep House, and settle, that he may not think of running away. Slaves that are born of Hondrew Parents, retain the Honour of their degree. [Beggars.] There is one sort of People more, and they are the Beggars: who for their Transgression, as hereafter shall be shewn, have by former Kings been made so low and base, that they can be no lower or baser. And they must and do give such titles and respects to all other People, as are due from other People to Kings and Princes. [The Reason they became so base and mean a People.] The Predecessors of these People, from whom they sprang, were Dodda Vaddahs, which signifies Hunters: to whom it did belong to catch and bring Venison for the King's Table. But instead of Venison they brought Man's flesh, unknown; which the King liking so well, commanded to bring him more of the same sort of Venison. The king's Barbar chanced to know what flesh it was, and discovered it to him. At which the King was so inraged, that he accounted death too good for them; and to punish only those Persons that had so offended, not a sufficient recompence for so great an Affront and Injury as he had sustained by them. Forthwith therefore he established a Decree, that all both great and small, that were of that Rank or Tribe, should be expelled from dwelling among the Inhabitants of the Land, and not be admitted to use or enjoy the benefit of any means, or ways, or callings whatsoever, to provide themselves sustinence; but that they should beg from Generation to Generation, from Door to Door, thro the Kingdom; and to be looked upon and esteemed by all People to be so base and odious, as not possibly to be more. And they are to this day so detestable to the People, that they are not permitted to fetch water out of their Wells; but do take their water out of Holes or Rivers. Neither will any touch them, lest they should be defiled. And thus they go a begging in whole Troops, both Men, Women, and Children, carrying both Pots and Pans, Hens and Chickens, and whatsoever they have, in Baskets hanging on a Pole, at each end one, upon their Shoulders. The Women never carry any thing, but when they come to any House to beg, they Dance and shew Tricks, while the Men beat Drums. They will turn Brass Basons on one of their fingers, twirling it round very swift, and wonderfully strange. And they will toss up Balls into the Air one after another to the number of Nine, and catch them as they fall, and as fast as they do catch them, still they toss them up again; so that there are always Seven up in the Air. Also they will take Beads of several Colours, and of one size, and put them in their mouths, and then take them one by one out of their mouths again each Colour by themselves. And with this Behaviour, and the high and honourable Titles which they give, as to Men, Your Honour, and Your Majesty; and to Women, Queens, Countesses; and to white Men, White of the Royal Blood, &c. They do beg for their living; and that with so much importunity, as if they had a Patent for it from the King, and will not be denied; pretending that it was so ordered and decreed, that by this very means they should be maintained, and unless they mean to perish with hunger they cannot accept of a denyal. The People on the other hand cannot without horrible shame, lift up their hand against them to strike or thrust them away; so rather than to be troubled with their importunity, they will relieve them. [They live well.] And thus they live, building small Hovels in remote Places, Highways, under Trees. And all the Land being, as it were of Necessity, Contributers towards their maintenance, these Beggars live without labour, as well or better, than the other sorts of People; being free from all sorts of Service and Duties, which all other are compelled to perform for the King. [Their Contest with the Weavers about dead Cows.] Of them it is only required to make Ropes of such Cow-hides, as die of themselves, to catch and tie Elephants with: By which they have another Privilege, to claim the flesh there of for themselves, from the Weavers. Who when they meet with any dead Cows, use to cut them up and eat them. But if any of these Roudeahs, Beggars, see them, they will run to them and drive them away, offering to beat them with the Poles, whereon they carry their Baskets, saying to them, How can we perform the King's Service to make Ropes of the Hide, if the Weavers hack and spoil it? telling them also, That it is beneath such honourable People as they, to eat such Unclean and Polluted flesh. By these words, and the fear the Weavers are in to be touched by that base People, than which nothing could be more infamous, they are glad to get them away as fast as they can. [Incest common among them.] These Men being so low that nothing they can do, can make them lower, it is not unusual with them to lay with their Daughters, or for the Son to lay with his Mother, as if there were no Consanguinity among them. [A Punishment to deliver Noble Women to these Beggars.] Many times when the King cuts off Great and Noble Men, against whom he is highly incensed, he will deliver their Daughters and Wives unto this sort of People, reckoning it, as they also account it, to be far worse Punishment than any kind of Death. This kind of Punishment being accounted such horrible Cruelty, the King doth usually of his Clemency shew them some kind of Mercy, and pittying their Distress, Commands to carry them to a River side, and there to deliver them into the hands of those, who are far worse than the Executioners of Death: from whom, if these Ladies please to free themselves, they are permitted to leap into the River and be drowned; the which some sometimes will choose to do, rather than to consort with them. [Some of these Beggars keep Cattle and shoot Deer.] There are some of this sort of People which dwell in remote Parts, distant from any Towns, and keep Cattle, and sell them to the Chingulayes, also shoot Deer and sell them where they fall in the Woods; for if they should but touch them, none would buy them. [Refuse Meat dressed in a Barbar's house.] The Barbar's Information having been the occasion of all this misery upon this People, they in revenge there of abhor to eat what is dressed in the Barbar's House even to this day. CHAP. III. Of their Religion, Gods, Temples, Priests. To take a more particular view of the state of this Countrey, we shall first give some account of their Religion, as it justly requires the first place, and then of their other secular concerns. Under their Religion will come to be considered, Their Gods, their Temples, their Priests, their Festivals, Sacrifices, and Worship, and their Doctrines and Opinions; and whatsoever other matters occur, that may concern this Subject. [Their Religion, their gods.] The Religion of the Countrey is Idolatry. There are many both Gods and Devils, which they worship, known by particular Names, which they call them by. They do acknowledge one to be the Supreme, whom they call Ossa polla maupt Dio, which signifieth the Creator of Heaven and Earth; and it is he also, who still ruleth and governeth the same. This great Supreme God, they hold, sends forth other Deities to see his Will and Pleasure executed in the World; and these are the petty and inferior gods. These they say are the Souls of good men, who formerly lived upon the Earth. There are Devils also, who are the Inflicters of Sickness and Misery upon them. And these they hold to be the Souls of evil men. [They worship the God that saves Souls.] There is another great God, whom they call Buddou, unto whom the Salvation of Souls belongs. Him they believe once to have come upon the Earth. And when he was here, that he did usually fit under a large shady Tree, called Bogahah. Which Trees ever since are accounted Holy, and under which with great Solemnities they do to this day celebrate the Ceremonies of his Worship. He departed from the Earth from the top of the highest Mountain on the Island, called Pico Adam: where there is an Impression like a foot, which, they say, is his, as hath been mentioned before. [The Sun and Moon they repute Deities.] The Sun and Moon they seem to have an Opinion to be gods from the Names they sometimes call them by. The Sun in their Language is Irri, and the Moon Handa. To which they will sometimes add the Title Haumi, which is a name they give to Persons of the greatest Honour; and Dio, that signifies God: saying Irrihaumi, Irridio: Handahaumi, handa Dio. But to the Stars they give not these Titles. [Some of their Temples of exquisite Work.] The Pagoda's or Temples of their Gods are so many that I cannot number them. Many of them are of Rare and Exquisite work, built of Hewn Stone, engraven with Images and Figures; but by whom and when I could not attain to know, the Inhabitants themselves being ignorant therein. But sure I am they were built by far more Ingenious Artificers, than the Chingulayes that now are on the Land. For the Portugueze in their Invasions have defaced some of them, which there is none found that hath Skill enough to repair to this day. [The form of their Temples.] The fashion of these Pagoda's are different; some, to wit those that were anciently built, are of better Workmanship, as was said before; but those lately erected are far Inferior; made only with Clay and Sticks, and no Windows. Some, viz. Those belonging to the Buddou, are in the form of a Pigeon-House, foursquare, one Story high, and some two; the Room above has its Idols as well as that below. Some of them are Tiled, and some Thatched. [The shape of their Idols.] In them are Idols and Images most monstrous to behold, some of silver, some of brass and other metals: and also painted sticks, and Targets, and most strange kind of Arms, as Bills, Arrows, Spears and Swords. But these Arms are not in the Buddou's Temples, he being for Peace: therefore there are in his Temples only Images of men cross-legged with yellow coats on like the Gonni-Priests, their hair frilled, and their hands before them like women. And these they say are the spirits of holy men departed. Their Temples are adorned with such things as the peoples ability and poverty can afford; accounting it the highest point of Devotion, bountifully to dedicate such things unto their Gods, which in their estimation are most precious. [They worship not the Idol, but whom it represents.] As for these Images they say they say they do not own them to be Gods themselves but only Figures, representing their Gods to their memories; and as such, they give to them honour and worship. [The revenues of the Temples; and the honours thereof.] Women having their natural infirmities upon them may not, neither dare they presume to come near the Temples or houses of their Gods. Nor the men, if they come out of houses where such women are. [They are dedicated to Gods.] Unto each of these Pagodas, there are great Revenues of Land belonging: which have been allotted to them by former Kings, according to the State of the Kingdom: but they have much impaired the Revenues of the Crown, there being rather more Towns belonging to the Church, than unto the King. These estates of the Temples are to supply a daily charge they are at; which is to prepare victuals or sacrifices to set before the Idols. They have Elephants also as the King has, which serve them for State. Their Temples have all sorts of Officers belonging to them, as the Palace hath. Most of these Pagodas are dedicated to the name and honour of those, whom they call Dio or Gods: to whom, they say, belong the Government on earth, and of all things appertaining to this life. [Private Chappels.] Besides these Publick Temples, many people do build in their yards private Chappels, which are little houses, like to Closets, sometimes so small, that they are not above two foot in bigness, but built upon a Pillar three or four foot from the ground wherein they do place certain Image of the Buddou, that they may have him near them, and to testifie their love and service to him. Which they do by lighting up candles and lamps in his house, and laying flowers every morning before him. And at some times they boyl victuals and lay it before him. And the more they perform such ceremonious service to him here, the more shall be their ward hereafter. All blessings and good success, they say, come from the hand of God, but sickness and diseases proceed from the Devil; not that of himself he hath such absolute power, but as servants have power, licence and authority from their Masters, so they from God. [The Priests.] But the Gods will require some to wait at their Altars; and the Temples, men to officiate in them: their Priests therefore fall under the next confederation. Of these there are three sorts according to the three differences of Gods among them. And their Temples are also called by three different names. [The first order of them.] The first and highest order of Priests are the Tirinanxes. Who are the Priests of the Buddou God. Their Temples are styled Vehars. There is a religious house in the City of Digligy, where they dwell and assemble and consult together about their affairs, which being the meeting place of such holy men, they call it a Vihar; also they admit none to come into their order but persons of the most noble birth, and that have learning and be well bred; of such they admit many. But they do not presently upon their admission arrive unto the high degree of a Tirinanx. For of these there are but three or four: and they are chose out of all the rest of the order unto this degree; These Tirinanxes only live in the Vihar, and enjoy great Revenues, and are as it were the Superiors of all the Priests, and are made by the King. Many of the Vehars are endowed and have Farms belonging to them. And these Tirinanxes are the Landlords, unto whom the Tenants come at a certain time and pay in their Rents. These Farmers live the easiest of any people in the Land, for they have nothing to do but at those set times to bring in their dues and so depart, and to keep in repair certain little Vehars in the Countrey. So that the rest of the Chingulais envy them and say of them, Though they live easy in this world, they cannot escape unpunished in the life to come for enjoying the Buddou's land and doing him so little service for it. [The habit of these Priests.] All the rest of the order are called Gonni. The habit is the same to the whole order, both Tirinanxes and Gonni. It is a yellow coat gathered together about their wast, and comes over their left shoulder, girt about with a belt of fine pack-thread. Their heads are shaved, and they go bare-headed and carry in their hands a round fan with a wooden handle, which is to keep the sun off their hands. [Their Priviledges.] They have great benefit and honour. They enjoy their own lands without paying scot or lot or any Taxes to the King. They are honoured in such a measure, that the people, where ever they go, bow down to them as they do to their Gods, but themselves bow to none. They have the honour of carrying the Tallipot with the broad end over their heads foremost; which none but the King does: Wheresoever they come, they have a mat and a white cloth laid over upon a stool for them to sit upon; which is also an honour used only to the King. [What they are prohibited.] They are debarred from laying their hands to any manner of work; and may not marry nor touch women, nor eat but one meal a day, unless it be fruit and rice and water, that they may eat morning and evening: nor must they drink wine. They will eat any lawful flesh that is dressed for them, but they will have no hand in the death of it; as to give order or consent to the killing of it. They may lay down their order, if they please; which some do, that they may marry. This is done by pulling off their coat, and flinging it into a River, and washing themselves head and body, and then they become like other lay-men. [When any is religiously disposed, these Priests sent for in great ceremony.] There is a benefit that accrueth to them, which is, when any man is minded to provide for his soul, they bring one of these Priests under a cloth held up by four men, unto his house, with drums and Pipes and great solemnity which only can be done unto the King besides. Then they give him great entertainment and bestows gifts on him according as they are able: which, after he hath tarried a day or more, they carry for him, and conduct him home with the like solemnities as he came. But the night that he tarries with them he must sing Bonna, that is matter concerning their Religion out of a Book made of the leaves of Tallipot: and then he tells them the meaning of what he sings, it being in an eloquent style which the Vulgar people do not understand. [None ever used violence towards them before the present King.] Some of these Priests, against whom the King took displeasure, were beheaded, afterwards cast into the River. Which thing caused amazement in all the people, how the King durst presume to do it towards such holy and reverend persons. And none heretofore by any former Kings have ever been so served: being reputed and called Sons of Boddou. But the reason the King flew them was because they conspired in the Rebellion. They threw aside their Habits, and got their swords by their sides. [The second order of their Priests.] The second order of Priests are those called Koppuhs. Who are the Priests that belong to the Temples of the other Gods. Their Temples are called Dewals. These are not distinguished by any habit from the rest of the People, no, nor when they are at their worship; only they wear clean cloths, and wash themselves before they go to their service. These are taken out from among the Hondrews. They enjoy a piece of Land that belongs to the Dewal where they officiate, and that is all their benefit, unless they steal somewhat that is dedicated to the Gods. They follow their Husbandry and employments as other men do, but only when the times of worship are, which usually is every morning and evening, oftner or seldomer according as the Revenue will hold out, that belongs to that Temple, whereof each is Priest. The service is, that when the boyled rice and other victuals are brought to the Temple door by others, he takes it and presents it before the Idol. Whence, after it hath stood a while, he brings it out again, and then the drummers, pipers, and other servants that belong to the Temple, eat it. These Gods have never any flesh brought in sacrifice to them, but any thing else. [The third order.] The third order of Priests are the Jaddeses, Priests of the Spirits, which they call Dayautaus. Their Temples are called Covels, which are inferior to the other Temples, and have no revenues belonging to them. A man piously disposed, builds a small house at his own charge, which is the Temple, and himself becomes Priest thereof. Therein are Bills, and Swords, and Arrows, and Shields, and Images, painted upon the walls like fierce men. This house is seldom called Gods house, but most usually Jacco, the Devils. Upon some extradinary festival to the Jacco, the Jaddese shaves off all his beard. [How they dedicate a red Cock to the Devil.] When they are sick, they dedicate a red Cock to the Devil. Which they do after this manner. They send for the Jaddese to their house, and give him a red Cock chicken, which he takes up in his hand and holds an Arrow with it, and dedicates it to the God, by telling him that if he restore the party to his health, that Cock is given to him; and shall be dressed and sacrificed to him in his Covel. They then let the Cock go among the rest of the Poultry, and keep it afterwards, it may be, a year or two: and then they carry it to the Temple, or the Priest comes for it. For sometimes he will go round about, and fetch a great many Cocks together, that have been dedicated, telling the owners that he must make a sacrifice to the God; though it may be when he hath them, he will go to some other place and convert them into mony for his own use, as I my self can witness, We could buy three of them for four pence half-peny. When the people are minded to enquire any thing of their Gods, the Priests take up some of the Arms and Instruments of the Gods, that are in the Temples, upon his shoulder; and their he either fains himself to be mad, or really is so: which the people call Pissowetitch; and then the spirit of the Gods is in him, and whatsoever he pronounceth, is looked upon as spoken by God himself, and the people will speak to him, as if it were the very person of God. CHAP. IV. Concerning their Worship, and Festivals. [The chief days of worship.] Wednesdays and Saturdays are the days, when people, who have any business with the Gods, come and address themselves; that is either to pray to their God for health, or for their help in some weighty matters, as in War &c. or to swear concerning any matter in controversy, which is done before the Idols. [How they know what God or Devil have made them sick.] But one of their great and frequent businesses with their Gods is for the Recovery of health. And that God or Devil that hath made them sick, in his power only it is to restore them. Therefore when they feel themselves sick or sore, first, they use means to know which God or Devil hath been the cause or author thereof. Which to find they use these means. With any little stick they make a bow, and on the firing thereof they hang a thing they have to cut Betel-nuts, somewhat like a pair of Sizzars; then holding the stick or Bow by both ends, they repeat the names of all both God and Devils: and when they come to him who hath afflicted them, then the Iron on the bow-string will swing. They say by that sign they know their ilness proceeds from the power of that God last named; but I think this happens by the power of the Hands that hold it. The God being thus found, to him chiefly they offer their oblations and sacrifices. [The Gods of their fortunes.] There are nine Deities, which they call Gerehah, which are the Planets (reckoning in probably the Dragons head and Tail.) From whom proceed their Fortunes. These they reckon so powerful, that if they be ill affected towards any party, neither God nor Devil can revoke it. [What worship they give the Planets.] When they are disposed to worship these Gerehah, they make Images of Clay according to the number that stand disaffected, towards them, which by certain Magick Tricks they know these Images, which are made by the Weavers, they paint of divers colours, of horrible and monstrous shapes; some with long tusks like a Boar, some with hornes like a Bull, all in a most deformed manner, but something resembling the shape of a man. Before them they prostrate Victuals, the sick party sitting all the while before them. These ceremonies are always celebrated in the night with Drums and Pipes and dancing until almost day, and then they take these Images and cast them out into the high ways to be trampled under foot: and the Victuals taken away and eaten by the attendants, and despicable people that wait there on purpose. [What worship they give Devils.] When they worship those whom they call Devils, many of whom they hold to be the Spirits of some that died heretofore, they make no Images for them, as they did for the Planets; but only build a new house in their yard, like a Barn very slight, covered only with leaves, and adorn it with Branches and Flowers. Into this House they bring some of the Weapons or Instruments, which are in the Pagods or Temples, and place them on Stools at one end of the house, which is hanged with Cloth for that purpose, and before them on other Stools they lay Victuals: and all that time of the Sacrifice there is Drumming, Piping, Singing, and Dancing. [Who eat the Sacrifices.] Which being ended, they take the Victuals away, and give it to those which Drum and Pipe, with other Beggars and Vagabonds; for only such do eat of their Sacrifices; not that they do account such things hallowed, and so dare not presume to eat them, but contrariwise they are now looked upon as polluted meat. And if they should attempt to eat thereof, it would be a reproach to them and their Generations. [Their Gods are local.] These Spirits or Gods are local. For those which they worship in one County or part of the Land, are not known or owned to have power over the People in other parts. But each Countrey hath several Spirits or Devils, that are peculiar to those places, and do domineer over them, and are known by several names they call them by: under whose subjection the People do acknowledge themselves to be: and, as I well perceive, do stand in a greater awe of them, than they do of them, whom they call and own to be their Gods. [The subjection of this People to the Devil.] And indeed it is sad to consider, how this poor People are subjected to the Devil, and they themselves acknowledge it their misery, saying their Countrey is so full of Devils, and evil Spirits, that unless in this manner they should adore them, they would be destroyed by them. Christians they do acknowledge have a Prerogative above themselves, and not to be under the Power of these infernal Spirits. [Sometimes the Devil possesses them.] I have many times seen Men and Women of this People strangely possest, insomuch that I could judge it nothing else but the effect of the Devil's power upon them: and they themselves do acknowledge as much. In the like condition to which I never saw any that did profess to be a worshipper of the Holy Name of JESUS. They that are thus possest, some of them will run mad into the Woods, screeching and roaring, but do mischief to none; some will be taken so as to be speechless, shaking, and quaking, and dancing, and will tread upon the fire and not be hurt; they will also talk idle, like distracted folk. This may last sometimes two or three Months, sometimes two or three dayes. Now their Friends reckoning it to proceed from the Devil, do go to him and promise him a reward if he will cure them. Sometimes they are cured, and sometimes die. The People do impute this madness to some breach of promise that the Party affected had made to the Devil, or else for eating some fruit or Betel-leaves dedicated to him: For they do dedicate some fruit-trees to the Devil; and this they do, to prevent People from stealing them (which few will dare to do after such a Dedication) and also to excuse themselves in not bestowing their fruit upon any that might ask or desire it. But before this dedicated fruit is lawful for them to use, they must carry some of it to the Temple. [The Devil's Voice often heard.] This for certain I can affirm, That oftentimes the Devil doth cry with an audible Voice in the Night; 'tis very shrill almost like the barking of a Dog. This I have often heard my self; but never heard that he did any body any harm. Only this observation the Inhabitants of the Land have made of this Voice, and I have made it also, that either just before or very suddenly after this Voice, the King always cuts off People. To believe that this is the Voice of the Devil these reasons urge, because there is no Creature known to the Inhabitants, that cry like it, and because it will on a sudden depart from one place, and make a noise in another, quicker than any fowl could fly: and because the very Dogs will tremble and shake when they hear it; and 'tis so accounted by all the People. This Voice is heard only in Cande Uda, and never in the Low Lands. When the Voice is near to a Chingulaye's house, he will curse the Devil, calling him Geremoi goulammah, Beef-eating Slave be gone, be damned, cut his Nose off, beat him a pieces. And such like words of Railery, and this they will speak aloud with noise, and passion, and threatning. This Language I have heard them bestow upon the Voice; and the Voice upon this always ceaseth for a while, and seems to depart, being heard at a greater distance. [Their Sacrifice to the chief Devil.] When smaller Devils do fail them, they repair unto the great one. Which they do after this manner. They prepare an Offering of Victuals ready dressed; one dish whereof is always a red Cock. Which they do as frequently offer to the Devil, as Papists do Wax-Candles to Saints. This Offering they carry out into a remote place in the Woods, and prostrate it to the honour and service of the Grand Devil, before which there are men in an horrible disguise like Devils, with Bells about their Legs and Doublets of a strange fashion, dancing and singing, to call, it it were possible, the Devil himself to come and eat of the Sacrifices they have brought; the sick Party is all the while present. [Their Festivals.] I have hitherto spoke of their ordinary and daily Worship, and their private and occasional Devotions; besides these they have their solemn and annual Festivals. Now of these there are two sorts, some belonging to their Gods that govern the Earth, and all things referring to this life; and some belonging to the Buddou whose Province is to take care of the Soul and future well-being of Men. [Festivals to the honour of the Gods that govern this World.] I shall first mention the Festivals of the former sort. They are two or three. That they may therefore honour these Gods, and procure their aid and assistance, they do yearly in the Month of [The great Festival in June.] June or July, at a New Moon, observe a solemn Feast and general Meeting, called Perahar; but none are compelled, and some go to one Pagoda, and some to another. The greatest Solemnity is performed in the City of Cande; but at the same time the like Festival or Perahar is observed in divers other Cities and Towns of the Land. The Perahar at Cande is ordered after this manner. The Priest bringeth forth a painted stick, about which strings of Flowers are hanged, and so it is wrapped in branched Silk, some part covered, and some not; before which the People bow down and worship; each one presenting him with an Offering according to his free will. These free-will Offerings being received from the People, the Priest takes his painted stick on his Shoulder, having a Cloth tied about his mouth to keep his breath from defiling this pure piece of Wood, and gets up upon an Elephant all covered with white Cloth, upon which he rides with all the Triumph that King and Kingdom can afford, thro all the Streets of the City. But before him go, first some Forty or Fifty Elephants, with brass Bells hanging on each side of them, which tingle as they go. Next, follow men dressed up like Gyants, which go dancing along agreeable to a Tradition they have, that anciently there were huge men, that could carry vast Burthens, and pull up Trees by the Roots. &c. After them go a great multitude of Drummers, and Trumpetters, and Pipers, which make such a great and loud noise, that nothing else besides them can be heard. Then followeth a Company of Men dancing along, and after these Women of such Casts or Trades as are necessary for the service of the Pagoda, as Potters and Washer-women, each cast goeth in Companies by themselves, three and three in a row, holding one another by the hand; and between each Company go Drummers, Pipers and Dancers. After these comes an Elephant with two Priests on his back: one whereof is the Priest before spoken of, carrying the painted stick on his Shoulder, who represents Allout neur Dio, that is, the God and Maker of Heaven and Earth. The other sits behind him, holding a round thing, like an Umbrello, over his head, to keep off Sun or Rain. Then within a yard after him on each hand of him follow two other Elephants mounted with two other Priests, with a Priest sitting behind each, holding Umbrello's as the former, one of them represents Cotteragom Dio, and the other Potting Dio. These three Gods that ride here in Company are accounted of all other the greatest and chiefest, each one having his residence in a several Pagoda. Behind go their Cook-women, with things like whisks in their hands to scare away flies from them; but very fine as they can make themselves. Next after the Gods and their Attendance, go some Thousands of Ladies and Gentlewomen, such as are of the best sort of the Inhabitants of the Land, arrayed in the bravest manner that their Ability can afford, and so go hand in hand three in a row; At which time all the Beauties on Zelone in their Bravery do go to attend upon their Gods in their Progress about the City. Now are the Streets also all made clean, and on both sides all along the Streets Poles stuck up with Flags and Pennons hanging at the tops of them, and adorned with boughs and branches of Coker Nut-Trees hanging like Fringes, and lighted Lamps all along on both sides of the Streets, both by day and night. Last of all, go the Commanders sent from the King to see these Ceremonies decently performed, with their Soldiers after them. And in this manner they ride all round about the City once by day and once by night. This Festival lasts from the New Moon until the Full Moon. Formerly the King himself in Person used to ride on Horseback with all his Train before him in this Solemnity, but now he delights not in these Shows. Always before the Gods set out to take their Progress, they are set in the Pagoda-Door, a good while, that the People may come to worship and bring their Offerings unto them; during which time there are Dancers, playing and shewing many pretty Tricks of Activity before him; To see the which, and also to shew themselves in their Bravery, occasions more People to resort hither, than otherwise their Zeal and Devotion would prompt them to do. Two or thee days before the Full Moon, each of these Gods hath a Pallenkine carried after them to add unto their honour. In the which there are several pieces of their superstitious relicts, and a Silver Pot. Which just, at the hour of Full Moon they ride out unto a River, and dip full of water, which is carried back with them into the Temple, where it is kept till the year after and then flung away. And so the Ceremony is ended for that year. This Festival of the Gods taking their Progress thro the City, in the year 1664. the King would not permit to be performed; and that same year the Rebellion happened, but never since hath he hindred it. At this time they have a Superstition, which lasteth six or seven days, too foolish to write; it consists in Dancing, Singing, and Jugling. The reason of which is, lest the eyes of the People, or the Power of the Jacco's, or Infernal Spirits, might any ways prove prejudicial or noisom to the aforesaid Gods in their Progress abroad. During the Celebration of this great Festival, there are no Drums allowed to be beaten to any particular Gods at any private Sacrifice. [The Feast in November.] In the Month of November the Night when the Moon is at the Full, there is another great solemn Feast, called in their Language Cawtha Poujah. Which is celebrated only by lighting of Lamps round about the Pogada. At which time they stick up the longest Poles they can get in the Woods, at the Doors of the Pagods and of the King's Palace. Upon which they make contrivances to set Lamps in rows one above the other, even unto the very tops of the Poles, which they call Tor-nes. To maintain the charge hereof, all the Countrey in general do contribute, and bring in Oil. In this Poujah or Sacrifice the King seems to take delight. The reason of which may be, because he participates far more of the Honour, than the Gods do, in whose name it is celebrated; his Palace being far more decked and adorned with high Poles and Lights, than the Temples are. This Ceremony lasteth but for one Night. [The Festival in honour of the God of the Soul.] And these are their Anniversary Feasts to the honour of those Gods, whose power extends to help them in this Life; now follows the manner of their Service to the Buddou, who it is, they say, that must save their Souls, and the Festival in honour of him. To represent the memorial of him to their eye, they do make small Images of Silver, Brass, and Clay, and Stone, which they do honour with Sacrifices and Worship, shewing all the signs of outward reverence which possibly they can. In most places where there are hollow Rocks and Caves, they do set up Images in memorial of this God. Unto which they that are devoutly bent, at New and Full Moons do carry Victuals, and worship. His great Festival is in the Month of March at their New-years Tide. The Places where he is commemorated are two, not Temples, but the one a Mountain and the other a Tree; either to the one or the other, they at this time go with Wives and Children, for Dignity and Merit one being esteemed equal with the other. The Mountain is at the South end of the Countrey, called Hammalella, but by Christian People, Adam's Peak, the highest in the whole Island; where, as has been said before, is the Print of the Buddou's foot, which he left on the top of that Mountain in a Rock, from whence he ascended to Heaven. Unto this footstep they give worship, light up Lamps, and offer Sacrifices, laying them upon it, as upon an Altar. The benefit of the Sacrifices that are offered here do belong unto the Moors Pilgrims, who come over from the other Coast to beg, this having been given them heretofore by a former King. So that at that season there are great numbers of them always waiting there to receive their accustomed Fees. The Tree is at the North end of the King's Dominions at Annarodgburro. This Tree, they say, came flying over from the other Coast, and there planted it self, as it now stands, under which the Buddou-God at his being on earth used, as they say, often to fit. This is now become a place of solemn worship. The due performance whereof they reckon not to be a little meritorious: insomuch that, as they report, Ninety Kings have since reigned there successively, where by the ruins that still remain, it appears they spared not for pains and labour to build Temples and high Monuments to the honour of this God, as if they had been born only to hew Rocks, and great Stones, and lay them up in heaps. These Kings are now happy Spirits, having merited it by these their labours. Those whose Ability or Necessity serve them not to go to these Places, may go to some private Vihars nearer. [The high honour they have for this God.] For this God above all other, they seem to have an high respect and Devotion; as will appear by this that follows. Ladies and Gentlewomen of good Quality, will sometimes in a Fit of Devotion to the Buddou, go a begging for him. The greatest Ladies of all do not indeed go themselves, but send their Maids dressed up finely in their stead. These Women taking the Image along with them, carry it upon the palms of their hand covered with a piece of white Cloth; and so go to mens houses, and will say, We come a begging of your Charity for the Buddou towards his Sacrifice. And the People are very liberal. They give only of three things to him, either Oyl for his Lamps, or Rice for his Sacrifice, or Money or Cotton Yarn for his use. Poor men will often go about begging Sustenance for themselves by this means: They will get a Book of Religion, or a Buddou's Image in a Case, wrapping both in a white Cloth, which they carry with great reverence. And then they beg in the name of the Book or the God. And the People bow down to them, and give their Charity, either Corn, or Money, or Cotton yarn. Sometimes they will tell the Beggar, What have I to give? And he will reply, as the saying is, as much as you can take up between your two fingers is Charity. After he has received a gift from any, he pronounceth a great deal of blessing upon him, Let the blessing of the Gods and the Buddou go along with you; let your Corn ripen, let your Cattle increase, let your Life be long, &c. Some being devoutly disposed, will make the Image of this God at their own charge. For the making whereof they must bountifully reward the Founder. Before the Eyes are made, it is not accounted a God, but a lump of ordinary Metal, and thrown about the Shop with no more regard than any thing else. But when the Eyes are to be made, the Artificer is to have a good gratification, besides she first agreed upon reward. The Eyes being formed, it is thenceforward a God. And then, being brought with honour from the Workman's Shop, it is dedicated by Solemnities and Sacrifices, and carried with great state into its shrine or little house, which is before built and prepared for it. Sometimes a man will order the Smith to make this Idol, and then after it is made will go about with it to well-disposed People to contribute toward the Wages the Smith is to have for making it. And men will freely give towards the charge. And this is looked upon in the man that appointed the Image to be made, as a notable piece of Devotion. I have mentioned the Bogahah Tree before, which in memory of this God they hold Sacred, and perform Sacrifices, and celebrate Religious Meetings under. Under this Tree at some convenient distance about ten or twelve foot at the outmost edge of the Platform, they usually build Booths or Tents; some are made slight only with leaves for the present use, but some are built substantial with hewn Timber and Clay Walls, which stand many years. These Buildings are divided into small Tenements for each particular Family. The whole Town joyns, and each man builds his own Appartment: so that the Building goes quite round like a circle, only one gap is left, which is to pass thro to the Bogahah Tree: and this gap is built over with a kind of Portal. The use of these Buildings is for the entertainment of the Women. Who take great delight to come and see these Ceremonies, clad in their best and richest Apparel. They employ themselves in seeing the Dancers, and the Juglers do their Tricks: who afterwards by their importunity will get Money of them, or a Ring off their Fingers, or some such matters. Here also they spend their time in eating Betel, and in talking with their Consorts, and shewing their fine Cloths. These Solemnities are always in the Night, the Booths all set round with Lamps; nor are they ended in one Night, but last three or four, until the Full Moon, which always puts a Period to them. CHAP. V. Concerning their Religions Doctrines, Opinions, And Practices. [As to their Religion they are very indifferent.] There are few or none zealous in their worship, or have any great matter of esteem for their Gods. And they seldom busie themselves in the matters of their Religion, until they come to be sick or very aged. They debar none that will come to see the Ceremonies of their worship; and if a stranger should dislike their way, reprove or mock at them for their Ignorance and Folly, they would acknowledge the same, and laugh at the superstitions of their own Devotion, but withall tell you that they are constrained to do what they do, to keep themselves safe from the malice and mischiefs that the evil spirits would otherwise do them, with which, they say, their Country swarm. [If their Gods answer not their desires, they Curse them.] Sometimes in their Sickness they go to the House of their Gods with an Offering, with which they present him, intreating his favour and aid to restore them to health. Upon the recovery whereof they promise him not to fail but to give unto His Majesty (for so they entitle him) far greater Gifts or Rewards, and what they are, they do particularly mention; it may be, Land, a Slave, Cattle, Money, Cloth, &c. and so they will discourse, argue and expostulate with him, as if he were there present in Person before them. If after this, he fails on his part, and cannot restore them to their health, then the fore-promised things are to remain where they were; and instead of which perhaps he gets a Curse, saying, He doth but cheat and deceive them. [They undervalue and revile their Gods.] It is a usual saying, and very frequent among them (if their Gerahah, which is their fortune, be bad) What can God do against it: Nay, have often heard them say, Give him no Sacrifice, but shit in his Mouth, what a God is He? So slight an estimation have they of their Idol-Gods; and the King far less esteems them. For he doth not in the least give any countenance either to the Worshipper, or to the manner of worship. And God's name be magnified, that hath not suffered him to disturb or molest the Christians in the least in their Religion, or ever attempt to force them to comply with the Countreys Idolatry. But on the contrary, both King and People do generally like the Christian Religion better than their own: and respect and honour the Christians as Christians; and do believe there is a greater God than any they adore. And in all probability they would be very easily drawn to the Christian or any other Religion: as will appear by this story following. [A fellow gives out himself for a Prophet.] There was lately one among them that pretended himself a Prophet sent to them from a new God, that as yet was nameless. At which the People were amused, especially because he pretended to heal the Sick, and do Miracles: and presently he was had in high veneration. He gave out it was the command of the new nameless God to spoil and pull down the Dewals, that is, the Temples of the former Gods. This he made a good progress in, with no let or impediment from King or People. The King all this while inclined neither to one or other, as not regarding such matters, until he might see which of these Gods would prevail, the old or the new. For this People stand in fear of all that are called Gods; and this especially surprized them, because without a Name; so contrary to all their old ones, who have Names. This new-found God therefore went on boldly and successfully without controul: [His Success.] the People all in general began to admire him thus come among them. And great troops of People daily assembled thither with Sacrifices, and to worship him. Whereby seeing their inclination so strong towards him, he began to perceive it was not only possible, but also easie and probable to change his Priesthood for a Kingdom. [The King sends for one of his Priests.] At which time, whether the King began to suspect or not, I cannot say; but he sent for one of his Priests to be brought up to the Court. For this God had his residence in the Countrey at Vealbow in Hotcourly, somewhat remote from the King. This Priest having remained at the City some days, the King took a Ring from off his Finger, and put it in an Ivory Box, and sent it by three of his great Men to him, bidding him to enquire of his nameless God what it was that was therein; which amazed this Priest; but he returned this subtil answer, that he was not sent to divine, but to heal the Diseases and help the Infirmities of the People. Upon which the King gave Command to take him and put him in the Stocks under a Tree, there to be wet with the Rain, and dry again with the Sun. Which was executed upon him accordingly. [Flies to Columba, pretends himself to be a former King's Son.] The Chief Priest, who was the first Inventor of this new God, hearing what the King had done, and fearing what might follow, suddenly dispatched, and carried all what he had plundered out of the Pagods with him to Columba, and stole one of the King's Elephants to carry it upon. Where being arrived, he declares himself to be Son of the King of Mautoly; who was elder Brother to this King that now is, and for fear of whom he fled to Columba; being at that time when the Portugals had it, who sent him to Goa, where he died. [Flies from the Dutch.] This being noised abroad that he was a Prince, made the People flock faster to him than before. Which changed both his heart and behaviour from a Priest to a King. Insomuch that the Dutch began to be in doubt what this might grow to. Who to prevent the worst, set a watch over him: which he not liking of, took the advantage of the night, and fled with all his Followers and Attendance up to the King again, and came to the same place where he lay before. [The King catches and quarters him.] No sooner had the King notice of his arrival, but immediately he dispatched five of his greatest Commanders with their Soldiers to catch him, and to bring him up to him. Which they did, laying both him and all his followers in Chains. The King commanded to keep him in a certain Pagoda of the Chingulayes, until the matter were examined, the People in general much lamenting him, tho not able to help. The chief of their Church-men, viz. their Gonni-nancies, were all commanded to make their Personal appearance at Court. Which all thought was to see the Prince or Priest, should have a legal Trial. But in the mean time, the King commanded to cut him in four quarters, and hang them in places, which he appointed. Which was done. [The Peoples opinion still of this new God.] Nevertheless the Vulgar People to this day do honour and adore the name & memorial of the nameless God. With which if he could have been content, and not have gone about to usurp the Crown, the King so little regarding Religion, he might have lived to dye a natural death. [Their Doctrins and Opinions.] These people do firmly believe a resurrection of the body, and the Immortality of Souls, and a future State. Upon which account they will worship their Ancestors. They do beleive that those they call Gods are the spirits of men that formerly have lived upon the earth. They hold that in the other world, those that are good men tho they be poor and mean in this world, yet there they shall become high and eminent; and that wicked men shall be turned into beasts. There is a Spider among them, that breeds an Egg, which she carries under her belly, 'tis as wide as groat, and bigger then the body of the Spider. This egg is full of young Spiders that breed there: it hangs under her belly wheresoever she goes: and as their young ones grow to bigness they eat up the old one. Now the Chingulayes say, that disobedient children shall become Spiders in the other world, and their young ones shall eat them up. They hold that every mans good or bad Fortune was predetermined by God, before he was born, according to an usual Proverb they have, Ollua cottaula tiana, It is written in the head. [The highest points of Devotion.] They reckon the chief poynts of goodness to consist in giving to the Priests, in making Pudgiahs, Sacrifices to their Gods, in forbearing shedding the blood of any creature: which to do they call Pau boi, a great Sin: and in abstaining from eating any flesh at all, because they would not have any hand, or any thing to do in killing any living thing. They reckon Herbs and Plants more innocent food. It is religion also to sweep under the Bogaha or God-Tree, and keep it clean. It is accounted religion to be just and sober and chast and true and to be endowed with other vertues, as we do account it. [Their Charity.] They give to the poor out of a Principle of Charity, which they extend to forraigners, as well as to their own Country-men. But of every measure of rice they boyl in their houses for their families they will take out an handful, as much as they can gripe, and put into a bag, and keep it by it self, which they call Mitta-haul. And this they give and distribute to such poor as they please, or as come to their doors. [The priviledg of the Moorish beggars.] Nor are they charitable only to the poor of their own Nation, but as I said to others: and particularly to the Moorish beggars, who are Mahometans by religion. These have a Temple in Cande. A certain former king gave this Temple this Priviledg, that every Free-holder should contribute a Ponnam to it. And these Moors go to every house in the land to receive it. And if the house be shut, they have power to break it open, and to take out of goods to the value of it. They come very confidently when they beg, and they say they come to fulfill the peoples charity. And the people do liberrally releive them for charity sake. There is only one County in the Land, viz. Dolusbaug, that pays not the aforesaid duty to the Moors Temple. And the reason is, that when they came first thither to demand it, the Inhabitants beat them away. For which act they are free from the payment of that Ponnam and have also another priviledg granted them for the same, That they pay no Marral, or Harriots, to the King as other Countreys do. These Moors Pilgrims have many pieces of Land given them by well disposed persons out of charity, where they build houses and live. And this land becomes theirs from generation to generation for ever. [They respect Christians, and why.] They lay Flowers, out of religion, before their Images every morning and evening, for which Images they build little Chappels in their yards as we said before. They carry beads in their hands on strings, and say so many prayers as they go. Which custom in all probability they borrowed of the Portugueze. They love a man that makes conscience of his ways. Which makes them respect Christians more than any others, because they think they are just and will not lye. And thus we have finished our discourse of their Religion. CHAP. VI. Concerning their Houses, Diet, Housewifry, Salutation, Apparel. Having already treated of their Religion, we now come to their secular concerns. And first we will lead you into their houses, and shew you how they live. [Their houses.] Their Houses are small, low, thatched Cottages, built with sticks, daubed with clay, the walls made very smooth. For they are not permitted to build their houses above one story high, neither may they cover with tiles, nor whiten their walls with lime, but there is a Clay which is as white, and that they use sometimes. They employ no Carpenters, or house-builders, unless some few noble-men, but each one buildeth his own dwelling. In building whereof there is not so much as a nail used; but instead of them every thing which might be nailed, is tyed with rattans and other strings, which grow in the woods in abundance; whence the builder hath his Timber for cutting. The Country being warm, many of them will not take pains to clay their walls, but make them of boughs and leaves of Trees. The poorest sort have not above one room in their houses, few above two, unless they be great men. Neither doth the King allow them to build better. [No chimneys.] They are not nice nor curious in their houses. They have no Chimneys in them, but make their fires in one corner, so that the roof is all blacked with the smoak. [The houses of the better sort.] The great people have handsom and commodious houses. They have commonly two buildings one opposit to the other, joined together on each side with a wall, which makes a square Court-yard in the middle. Round about against the walls of their houses are banks of clay to sit on; which they often daub over with soft Cow-dung, to keep them smooth and clean. Their Slaves and Servants dwell round about without in other houses with their wives and children. [Their Furniture.] Their Furniture is but small. A few earthen pots which hang up in slings made of Canes in the middle of their houses, having no shelves; one or two brass Basons to eat in, a stool or two without backs. For none but the King may sit upon a stool with a back. There are also some baskets to put corn in, some mats to spread upon the ground to sleep on: which is the bedding both for themselves and friends when they come to their houses. Also some Ebeny pestels about four foot long to beat rice out of the husk, and a wooden Morter to beat it in afterwards to make it white, a Hirimony or Grater to grate their Coker-nuts with, a flat stone upon which they grind their Pepper and Turmeric, &c. With another stone which they hold in their hands at the same time. They have also in their houses Axes, Bills, Houghs, Atches Chissels, and other Tools for their use. Tables they have none, but sit and eat on the ground. [How they eat.] And now we are mentioning eating, let us take a view of this people at their meals. Their Dyet and ordinary fare is but very mean, as to our account. If they have but Rice and Salt in their house, they reckon they want for nothing. For with a few green Leaves and the juice of a Lemmon with Pepper and Salt, they will make a hearty meal. Beef here may not be eaten; it is abominable: Flesh and Fish is somewhat scarce. And that little of it they have, they had rather sell to get mony to keep, then eat it themselves: neither is there any but outlandish men, that will buy any of them. It is they indeed do eat the fat and best of the Land. Nor is it counted any shame or disgrace, to be a niggard and sparing in dyet; but rather a credit even to the greatest of them, that they can fare hard and suffer hunger, which they say, Soldiers ought to be able to endure. [How the great men eat.] The great ones have always five or fix sorts of food at one meal, and of them not above one or two at most of Flesh or Fish, end of them more pottage than meat, after the Portugal fashion. The rest is only what groweth out of the ground. The main substance with which they fill their bellies is Rice, the other things are but to give it a relish. [Discouraged from nourishing Cattel.] If these people were not discouraged from rearing and nourishing of Cattle and Poultry, provisions might be far more plentiful. For here are many Jackalls, which catch their Hens and some Tigres, that destroy their Cattle: but the greatest of all is the King; whose endeavour is to keep them poor and in want. For from them that have Hens his Officers take them for the Kings use giving little or nothing for them; the like they do by Hogs. Goats none are suffered to keep, besides the King, except strangers. [Cleanly in dressing their meet.] In dressing of their victuals they are not to be discommended: for generally they are cleanly and very handy about the fame. And after one is used to that kind of fare, as they dress it, it is very savoury and good. They sit upon a mat on the ground, and eat. But he, whom they do honour and respect, sits on a stool and his victuals on another before him. [Their drink and manner of eating.] Their common drink is only water: and if they drink Rack, it is before they eat, that it may have the more operation upon their bodies. When they drink they touch not the Pot with their mouths, but hold it at a distance, and pour it in. They eat their Rice out of China dishes, or Brass Basons, and they that have not them, on leaves. The Carrees, or other sorts of Food which they eat with their Rice, is kept in the Pans it is dressed in, and their wives serve them with it, when they call for it. For it is their duties to wait and serve their Husbands while they eat, and when they have done, then to take and eat that which they have left upon their Trenchers. During their eating they neither use nor delight to talk to one another. [Their manner of washing before and after meals.] They always wash their hands and mouths both before and after they have eaten; but for others to pour the water on their hands is looked upon as an affront. For so they do to them, whom they account not worthy to handle their Water pot. But when they wash, with one hand they pour it themselves upon the other. They are very cleanly both in their bodies and heads, which they do very often wash, and also when they have been at stool they make use of water. [None must speak while the Rice is put into the Pot.] But to give you a little of their Cookery. If People be in the room talking together, the woman being ready to put the Rice into the Pot, bids them all be silent till she has put it in, and then they may procede with their discourse. For if they should talk while the Rice is putting in, it would not swell. [Sawce made of Lemmon juyce.] At the time of the year that there is most plenty of Lemmons, they take them and squeez the juyce into an earthen Pot, and set over the fire, and boil it so long, till it becomes thick and black like Tar. This they set by for their use, and it will keep as long as they please. A very small quantity of it will suffice for sawce. They call it Annego. [Their sweet meats.] They have several sorts of sweet-meats. One they call Caown. It is like to a Fritter made of Rice-flower, and Jaggory. They make them up in little lumps, and lay them upon a Leaf, and then press them with their thumbs, and put them into a Frying-Pan, and fry them in Coker-nut Oyl or Butter. When the Dutch came first to Columba, the King ordered these Caown to be made and sent to them as a royal Treat. And they say, the Dutch did so admire them, that they asked if they grew not upon Trees, supposing it past the Art of man to make such dainties. Oggulas another sort of sweet-meats, made of parched Rice, Jaggory, Pepper, Cardamum, and a little Cinnamons. They rowl them up in Balls, which will grow hard. These they tie up in bags and carry them with them when they travail to eat in afternoons when they are hungry. Alloways made much after the former manner, only they are flat in the fashion of a Lozenge; which are good for faintings and thirsty souls to relish their water, and to eat of in afternoons when they are at home. We carried some of these along with us in our travayl. [A kind of Puddings.] Tacpetties, made of Rice-flower, and the meat of the Coker-nut and Jaggory. They are made up into small lumps, and so put in a Leaf, and laid on a cloth over a Pot of boyling water. The stream of which heats that which is laid upon it: and so they are sodden like a Pudding. They tast like white bread, Almonds and Sugar. Pitu. Which is made thus. They take flower of Coracan, and sprinkle a little water into it, being both put into a large Pot for the purpose. Then they stir and rowl it in the Pot with their hands: by which means it crumbles into corns like Gun-Powder. Then they have a Pot of boyling water with a cloth tyed over it; and upon this cloth they lay so much of this corn flower as they can conveniently cover with another Pot. And so the steam coming through the cloth boils it, that it will be much like unto a Pudding. And this they use to eat as they do Rice. [The Womens Houswifry.] The womens Housewifry is to beat the Rice out of the husk; which they do with an Ebeny Pestle before mentioned. They lay the Rice on the ground, and then beat it, one blow with one hand, and then tossing the Pestle into the other, to strike with that. And at the same time they keep stroke with their feet (as if they were dancing) to keep up the Corn together in one heap. This being done, they beat it again in a wooden Morter to whiten it, as was said before. This work tho it be very hard, belongeth only to the women: as also to fetch both wood and water. The wood they bring upon their heads, the water in an earthen Pot, placing it upon their hip. To the women also belongs a small bill to cut Herbs, Pumkins &c. Which she is to dress. Which bill she lays upon the ground, the edg upwards, and sets her self upon a Staff or handle to hold it fast, and what she meaneth to cut, she lays it upon the edge, and shoveth it on it. [How they entertain strangers.] When one comes to anothers house, being set down the Entertainment is, green Leaves, they call Bullat, which they eat raw with Lime and Betel-nut, and Tobacco. And being set a while, the man of the house will ask the Stranger what he comes tor, which if he does not suddenly, the Stranger will take exceptions at it, as thinking he is not welcom to him. Neither do they ever go one to visit the other, unless it be for their own ends, either to beg or borrow. [And Kindred.] And if Kindred, that are very nearly related come together, they have no loving or private conference one with the other, but fit like strangers very solid and grave. And if they stay above one night, which is the common custom, then they do help and assist the man of the house in any work or service he hath to do. [When they visit.] When any friends go to anothers house to visit, they never go empty handed, but carry provisions and sweat meats with them to their friend. And then he makes them a Feast according to his ability, but they never eat of those things, which themselves brought. But there is but little feasting among them unless at a Wedding. We have been long enough in the house, let us walk abroad, and show you how the People demean themselves without doors. [Their manner of Salutations.] When they meet one another, their manner of Salutation or obeisance is, to hold forth their two hands, the Palms upwards, and bow their Bodies: but the superior to the inferior holds forth but one hand, and if the other be much beneath, him he only nods his head. The women salute by holding up both their hands edgways to their Foreheads. The general complement one to another at first meeting is to say Ay; it signifies how do you: and the other answers, Hundoi, that is, well. [The Nobles in their best Apparel.] The Habit of the men when they appear abroad is after this sort. The Nobles wear Doublets of white or blew Callico, and about their middle a cloth, a white one next their skin, and a blew one or of some other colour or painted, over the white: a blew or shash girt about their loyns, and a Knife with a carved handle wrought or inlaid with Silver sticking in their bosom; and a compleat short Hanger carved and inlaid with Brass and Silver by their sides, the Scabbard most part covered with Silver; bravely ingraven; a painted Cane and sometimes a Tuck in it in their hands, and a boy always bare-headed with long hair hanging down his back waiting upon him, ever holding a small bag in his hand, which is instead of a Pocket, wherein is Betel-leaves and nuts. Which they constantly keep chewing in their mouths, with Lime kept in a Silver Box rarely engraven, which commonly they hold in their hands, in shape like a Silver Watch. [The fashion of their hair.] The great ones also generally, and spruce young men, do wear their hair long hanging down behind: but when they do any work or travail hard, it annoying them, they tie it up behind. Heretofore generally they bored holes in their ears and hung weights in them to make them grow long, like the Malabars, but this King not boring his, that fashion is almost left off. The men for ornament do wear Brass, Copper, Silver Rings on their Fingers, and some of the greatest Gold. But none may wear any Silk. But the women in their Apparel do far surpass the men, neither are they so curious in clothing themselves as in making their wives fine. The mens Pride consists in their Attendance, having men bearing Arms before and behind them. [The Women drest in their bravery.] In their houses the women regard not much what dress they go in, but so put on their cloths as is most convenient for them to do their work. But when they go abroad, and make themselves fine, They wear a short Frock with sleeves to cover their bodies of fine white Callico wrought with blew and red Thread in flowers and branches: on their Arms Silver Bracelets, and their fingers and toes full of Silver Rings, about their necks, Necklaces of Beads or Silver, curiously wrought and engraven, guilded with Gold, hanging down so low as their brests. In their ears hang ornaments made of Silver set with Stones, neatly engraven and guilded. Their ears they bore when they are young, and rowl Coker-nut leaves and put into the holes to stretch them out, by which means they grow so wide that they stand like round Circles on each side of their faces, which they account a great ornament, but in my Judgment a great deformity, they being well featured women. [How they dress their heads.] Their other ornaments and Apparel show very comely on them Their Hair they oyl, with Coker-nut oyl to make it smooth, and comb it all behind. Their hair grows not longer than their wasts, but because it is a great ornament to have a great bunch of hair, they have a lock of other hair fastened in a Plate of engraved Silver and guilded, to tie up with their own, in a knot hanging down half their Backs. Their hands are bare, but they carry a scarf of striped or branched Silk or such as they can get, casting it carelesly on their head and shoulders. About their Wasts they have one or two Silver girdles made with Wire and Silver Plate handsomly engraven, hanging down on each side, one crossing the other behind. And as they walk they chew Betel. But notwithstanding all their bravery neither man nor woman wears shoos or stockings, that being a Royal dress, and only for the King himself. [They commonly borrow their fine cloths.] It is in general a common custom with all sorts of People, to borrow Apparel or Jewels to wear when they go abroad, which being so customary is no shame nor disgrace to them, neither do they go about to conceal it. For among their friends or strangers where they go, they will be talking saying, This I borrowed of such an one, and this of another body. Their Poverty is so great, that their ability will not reach to buy such Apparel as they do desire to wear; which nevertheless is but very mean and ordinary at the best. CHAP. VII. Of their Lodging, Bedding, Whoredom, Marriages, and Children. Having been thus entertained with the fine Ladies abroad, it is time now to return home to our Lodging. And the night coming on, we will lead you to their Bed-Chambers, and shew you how they sleep. About which they are not very curious. If their house be but one room (as it often is) then the men sleep together at one end and the women at the other. [Their Bed, and how they sleep a nights.] They have Bedsteads laced with Canes or Rattans, but no Testars to them, nor Curtains; that the King allows not of; neither have they nor care they for more than one Bedstead, which is only for the Master of the house to sit or sleep on. To this Bedstead belongs two mats and a straw Pillow. The Woman with the Children always lyes on the ground on mats by the fire-side. For a Pillow she lays a block or such like thing under her mat, but the Children have no Pillows at all. And for covering and other bedding they use the cloth they wear by day. But always at their feet they will have a fire burning all night. Which makes more work for the Women; who must fetch it all upon her head. For it is accounted a disgrace for the man to meddle or make with those affairs, that properly do belong unto the Woman. [They rise in the night.] The younger sort of Children, such as go naked by day, creep in under a corner of their mothers cloths. And if they feel themselves cold in the night, they rise and blow the fire with their mouths, having no Bellows in that Countrey, and so sit and warm themselves thereby. They are so little given to sleep, that they do rise many times in the night to eat Beatel and to take Tobacco. Which done they lay them down, and sing songs until they fall a sleep again. [Children taught to sing at going to Bed.] At their first going to bed, it is very seldom that they do pray to God, neither do they ever teach their Children so to do. But sometimes will say Auh Dio, which is God help or keep me. But they do instead of that, teach and bid their Children to sing songs when they go to bed. [Young People lie at one anotheir houses.] Where their houses consist but of one room, the Children that are of any years always go and sleep in other houses among their neighbours. Which please them better than their own. For so they come to meet with bedfellows, nor doth it displease the Parents, if young men of as good quality as themselves become acquainted with their daughters, but rather like well of it; knowing that their daughters by this means can command the young men to help and assist them in any work or business that they may have occasion to use them in. And they look upon it so far distant from a disgrace, that they will among their consorts brag of it, that they have the young men thus at their command. [Nothing so common as Whoredom.] So that youth are bred up to Whoredom. Indeed here are no Publick Whores allowed by Authority. In the City some that have followed that Trade, have oftentimes by the King's order been severely punished by Whipping, and having their Ears and Hair cut off. But in private few or none can exempt themselves. And for the matter of being with Child, which many of them do not desire, they very exquisitely can prevent the same. [They are guilty of the thing, but love not the name.] Indeed the Publick Trade would be bad, and hardly maintain them that exercised it, the private one being so great. And tho I think they be all Whores, yet they abhor the Name of Vesou, which is Whore. Neither do they in their anger reproach one another with it, unless they should lay with a Man of an inferior quality to themselves, And the Woman reckons her self as much obliged to the Man for his Company, as he does to her for hers. In these affairs the Women are very expert (it being their continual practice) to keep their design from the Husbands knowledge: tho by his own Experience he cannot be ignorant of Womens devices. And unless he catch them in the act he doth not much trouble himself to prove himself a Cuckold; Cuckolds being so common, that it is not here regarded. [The Man may kill whom he finds in Bed with his Wife.] It is a Law here, that if a Man catch another in Bed with his Wife, he may, be it whosoever, kill him and her, if he please. It hath so happened that the Man hath come to the Door, when another hath been within with his Wife, there being no way to escape, the Woman has took a pan of hot ashes, and as she opened the Door, her Husband being entring, cast them in his Eyes, and so she and her Bedfellow made an escape. [The Womens craft to compass and conceal their Debauchery.] To fetch wood out of the Woods to burn, and to fetch home the Cattle is the Woman's work. If they cannot have their opportunities at home, now they appoint their meetings, while the Husband stays at home holding the Child. In the Evenings it is common for them with whom the Women be acquainted, to come and wait behind the House when it is dark to attend their coming forth to them. To which end they give them notice either by breaking of a stick, or by putting some Betel over the Wall to fall in such places as they have appointed, where she will look to find it. And when she has such notice, she cannot want an excuse to go forth to meet him. They bear such love to their Bedfellows, that I have known this done, The Husband hath beset the House, and the Womans Friend in it, when she hath holpen him to make a hole thro the Thatch to get out at, which he hath done and made his Escape, and she remain behind to suffer all the blame her self. When other opportunities are wanting to enjoy the Company of their Paramours whole Nights together, they usually take occasion to be discontented and fall out with their Husbands, and so go home to their Friends houses, to get longer enjoyments. Who to shew their Friendship will not hinder but further them in what they delight in. [They do treat their Friends with the use of their Wives and Daughters.] In some Cases the Men will permit their Wives and Daughters to lye with other Men. And that is, when intimate Friends or great Men chance to Lodge at their houses, they commonly will send their Wives or Daughters to bear them company in their Chamber. Neither do they reckon their Wives to be Whores for lying with them that are as good or better than themselves. [The Mother for a small reward prostitutes her Daughter.] They do not matter or regard whether their Wives at the first Marriage be Maids or not. And for a small reward the Mother will bring her Daughter being a Maiden unto those that do desire her. But it is so much abhorred for Women of the high Cast or Descent to admit Men of the low Cast to have any thing to do with them, that I think they never do it. [Marriages.] But enough of this Ribaldry, let us turn away to more honest Practices. To speak of their Marriages, which make the Bed lawful. There are not many Ceremonies used in or about the same. [No wooing.] Here is no wooing for a Wife. The Parents commonly make the Match, and in their choice regard more the Quality and Descent than the Beauty. If they are agreed, all is done. The Match being thus made, the Man carrieth or sends to the Woman her Wedding Cloths; which is a Cloth containing six or seven yards in length, and a Linnen Wast-coat wrought with Blew and Red. If the Man be so poor that he cannot buy a Cloth, it is the Custom to borrow one. In case the Man with his Friends goes and carries it himself, that Night they both sleep together to beget acquaintance one with the other. And then they appoint a day when he is to come and fetch her home; which is the Marriage-Day. [The Bridegroom goes to the Brides House.] The day being come, he attended with his Friends goes to her house, which is always in the Evening, and brings Provisions and Sweet-meats with him according to his Ability, towards the Charges of the Wedding. Which is never more than two Meals. Whereof Supper is the first. Then the Bride and Bridegroom both eat together in one Dish, which is to intimate that they are both of one rank and quality, and sometimes they tye their Thumbs together, but not always: and that Night go to sleep together. [How the Bridegroom carrieth home his Bride.] The next day having dined he taketh his Bride and departeth home with her, putting her before him, and he following her, with some of her Friends to Conduct her. For it is the constant Custom and Fashion in this Land for the Husband to follow his Wife. The reason whereof is a Tradition among them, that a Man once going foremost, it happened that his Wife was stoln away, and he not aware of it. Being come home the Bridegroom makes a Feast as he is able. [A Ceremony of Marriage.] Some few days after, her Friends usually come to see her bringing a present of Provision with them. And sometimes they use this Ceremony, the Man is to stand with one end of the Woman's Cloth about his Loins, and she with the other, and then they pour water on both their Heads, wetting all their Bodies: which being done, they are firmly Married to live together, so long as they can agree. The Elder sorts of People usually woe and conclude their Marriages as they are in Bed together. For when they have lost their Maidenheads, they fear not much what Man comes to sleep with them, provided he be of as good quality as they, having nothing more to lose. And at the day appointed the Man gives the Woman her Cloths, and so takes her home. [Man and Wife may part at pleasure.] But their Marriages are but of little force or validity. For if they disagree and mislike one the other; they part without disgrace. Yet it stands firmer for the Man than for the Woman; howbeit they do leave one the other at their pleasure. They do give according to their Ability a Portion of Cattle, Slaves and Money with their Daughters; but if they chance to mislike one another and part asunder, this Portion must be returned again, and then she is fit for another Man, being as they account never the worse for wearing. [Men and Women change till they can please themselves.] Both Women and Men do commonly wed four or five times before they can settle themselves to their contentation. And if they have Children when they part, the Common Law is, the Males for the Man, and the Females for the Woman. But many of the Women are free from this controversie, being Childless. [Women have two Husbands.] In this Countrey each Man, even the greatest, hath but one Wife; but a Woman often has two Husbands. For it is lawful and common with them for two Brothers to keep house together with one Wife, and the Children do acknowledge and call both fathers. [Women unclean] So long as the Women have their Infirmities or Flowers upon them, they are accounted very unclean, insomuch that the very house is polluted in that degree that none will approach near it. And even she her self cares not to conceal it, but calls out to them that come near, that they may avoid her house. But after she hath washed her Head and Body all is purified again. [Privileges of Men above Women.] It is lawful for no Woman, altho they be great Men's Wives, to sit on a Stool in the presence of a Man. It is customary for Men upon any frivolous account to charge one another in the King's Name to do or not to do, according as they would have it. This the Women upon Penalty of having their Tongues cut out, dare not presume to do. As it is usual to punish Men for faults committed by Imprisonment and Chains, or by making them stand with a weight on their Backs, until they do pay such a Sum of Money as is demanded: which for ordinary faults may be five or ten Shillings. So the Punishment which is inflicted upon Women, is to make them stand with a Basket of Sand upon their Heads, so long as they shall think fitting, who appoint the Punishment. Punishment by stripes is never used either to Men or Women, but only to those on whom the King Commands them to be laid. [Privileges of Women.] Lands of Inheritance which belong to Women are exempted from paying Harriots to the King. Women pay no Custom for things they carry to the Sea-Ports. Neither is any Custom paid for what is carried upon any Female Cattel, Cow or Buffalo. [They often destroy new born Infants.] They have no Midwives, but the neighbouring good Women come in and do that Office. As soon as the Child is born, the Father or some Friend apply themselves to an Astrologer to enquire, whether the Child be born in a prosperous Planet, and a good hour or in an evil. If it be found to be in an evil they presently destroy it, either by starving it, letting it lye and die, or by drowning it, putting its head into a Vessel of water, or by burying it alive, or else by giving it to some body of the same degree with themselves; who often will take such Children, and bring them up by hand with Rice and Milk; for they say, the Child will be unhappy to the Parents, but to none else. We have asked them why they will deal so with their poor Infants, that come out of their Bowels. They will indeed have a kind of regret and trouble at it. But they will say withal, Why should I bring up a Devil in my House? For they believe, a Child born in an ill hour, will prove a plague and vexation to his Parents by his disobedience and untowardliness. [But seldom a First-born.] But it is very rare that a First-born is served so. Him they love and make much of. But when they come to have many, then usual it is, by the pretence of the Childs being born under an unlucky Planet, to kill him. And this is reputed no fault, and no Law of the Land takes cognizance of it. [Their Names.] In their Infancy they have Names, whereby one may be called and distinguished from the other. But when they come to years it is an affront and shame to them either Men or Women, to be called by those Names. Which they say is to be like unto Dogs. Then they change their Names into Titles according to the Town wherein they were born or do dwell. Also they have other Names, which may be compared to Coats of Arms, properly and only belonging to that Family: by which likewise they are called. [They are ambitious of high Titles.] This People are very Ambitious of their Titles having but little else that they can boast in; and of Names and Titles of respect they have great plenty in their Language; instances whereof shall be given afterwards. CHAP. VIII. Of their Employments and Recreations. It is full time now, that we relate what course of life the People take, and what means they use for a livelihood. This has been in part already related. [Their Trade.] As for Commerce and Merchandize with Foreign Nations, there is little or nothing of that now exercised. Indeed in the times when the Portugueze were on this Island, and Peace between them and the King, he permitted his People to go and Trade with them. The which he would never permit them to do with the Hollander, tho they have much sought for it. They have a small Traffic among themselves, occasioned from the Nature of the Island. For that which one part of the Countrey affords, will not grow in the other. But in one part or other of this Land they have enough to sustain themselves, I think, without the help of Commodities brought from any other Countrey: exchanging one Commodity for another; and carrying what they have to other parts to supply themselves with what they want. [Work not discreditable to the best Gentleman.] But Husbandry is the great Employment of the Countrey, which is spoken of at large before. In this the best men labour. Nor is it held any disgrace for Men of the greatest Quality to do any work either at home or in the Field, if it be for themselves; but to work for hire with them is reckoned for a great shame: and very few are here to be found that will work so; But he that goes under the Notion of a Gentleman may dispence with all works, except carrying, that he must get a man to do when there is occasion. For carrying is accounted the most Slave-like work of all. [How they geld their Cattel.] Under their Husbandry, it may not be amiss to relate how they geld their Cattel. They let them be two or three years old before they go about this work; then casting them and tying their Legs together; they bruise their Cods with two sticks tied together at one end, nipping them with the other, and beating them with Mallets all to pieces. Then they rub over their Cods with fresh Butter and Soot, and so turn them loose, but not suffer them to lye down all that day. By this way they are secured from breeding Maggots. And I never knew any die upon this. [How they make Glew.] Whensoever they have occasion to use Glew, they make it after this fashion. They take the Curd of milk, and strain the water from it through a cloth. Then tying it up in a cloth like a Pudding, they put it into boyling water, and let it boyl a good while. Which done it will be hard like Cheese-curd, then mixing it with Lime, use it. If it be not for present use, they will roul up these Curds into a Ball; which becomes hard, and as they have occasion will scrape some of it off with a Knife, and so temper it with Lime. This Lime with them is as soft as Butter. [Their Manufactures.] Their Manufactures are few: some Callicoes, not so fine as good strong Cloth for their own use: all manner of Iron Tools for Smiths, and Carpenters, and Husbandmen: all sorts of earthen ware to boil, stew, fry and fetch water in, Goldsmith's work, Painter's Work, carved work, making Steel, and good Guns, and the like. But their Art in ordering the Iron-Stone and making Iron, may deserve to be a little insisted on. For the Countrey affords plenty of Iron, which they make of Stones, that are in several places of the Land; they lay not very deep in the ground, it may be, about four or five or six foot deep. [How they make Iron.] First, They take these Stones, and lay them in an heap, and burn them with wood, which makes them more soft and fitter for the Furnace. When they have so done they have a kind of Furnace, made with a white sort of Clay, wherein they put a quantity of Charcoal, and then these Stones on them, and on the top more Charcoal. There is a back to the Furnace, like as there is to a Smith's Forge, behind which the man stands that blows, the use of which back is to keep the heat of the fire from him. Behind the Furnace they have two logs of Wood placed fast in the ground, hollow at the top, like two pots. Upon the mouths of these two pieces of hollow wood they tie a piece of a Deers Skin, on each pot a piece, with a small hole as big as a man's finger in each skin. In the middle of each skin a little beside the holes are two strings tied fast to as many sticks stuck in the ground, like a Spring, bending like a bow. This pulls the skin upwards. The man that blows stand with his feet, one on each pot, covering each hole with the soles of his feet. And as he treads on one pot, and presseth the skin down, he takes his foot off the other, which presently by the help of the Spring riseth; and the doing so alternately conveys a great quantity of wind thro the Pipes into the Furnace. For there are also two Pipes made of hollow reed let in to the sides of the Pots, that are to conduct the wind, like the nose of a Bellows, into the Furnace. For the ease of the Blower, there is a strap, that is fastned to two posts, and comes round behind him, on which he leans his back: and he has a stick laid cross-ways before him, on which he lays both his hands, and so he blows with greater ease. As the Stones are thus burning, the dross that is in them melts and runs out at the bottom, where there is a slanting hole made for the purpose so big as the lump of Iron may pass thro: out of this hole, I say, runs out the dross like streams of fire, and the Iron remains behind. Which when it is purified, as they think, enough, so that there comes no more dross away, they drive this lump of Iron thro the same sloping hole. Then they give it a chop with an Ax half thro, and so sling it into the water. They so chop it, that it may be seen that it is good, Iron for the Satisfaction of those that are minded to buy. [How they make Butter.] For a farewel of their labours, let it not be unacceptable to relate here a piece of their Housewifry; and tell you how they make Butter. First, They boil the Milk, then they turn it into a Curd; the next morning they skim off the Cream, and drill it in an earthen Vessel with a stick having a cross at the bottom of it, somewhat like a Chocolate stick. When the Butter is come, they put it in a pan, and fry it, to get all the water dry out of it, and so put it into an earthen pot for use. [Shops in the City.] There are no Markets on the Island. Some few Shops they have in the Cities, which sell Cloth, Rice, Salt, Tobacco, Limes, Druggs, Fruits, Swords, Steel, Brass, Copper, &c. [Prizes of Commodities.] As to the Prices of Commodities, they are sold after this rate. Rice in the City, where it is dearest, is after six quarts for fourpence half-peny English, or a small Tango, or half a Tango; six Hens as much; a fat Pig the same: a fat Hog, three shillings and six pence or four shilling: but there are none so big as ours. A fat Goat, two and fix pence. Betle-nuts 4000 nine pence Currant price, when a Trad. And now we are discoursing or their Traffick, we will speak a little of their Measures, Weights, and Coin. [Of their Measures.] First for Measures. A Rian is a Cubit, which is with them from the bone on the inside of the Elbow to the tip of the fourth Finger. A Waddo rian is the Carpenters Rule. It is as much as will reach from one Elbow to the other, the Thumbs touching one the other at the tops, and so stretching out both Elbows. For their Corn-measures, the least is a Potta, which is to contain as much Grain as a man can hold heaped up in his whole hand palm and fingers and all. Four Pottas make a lawful or Statute-measure, called Bonder Nellia, signifying the King's measure. Which is the King's ordinary allowance to a man, that is as much as he can eat in a day. But we Englishmen were allowed two. Four of these Bonder Nellias make a Courney. In fashion it is an handsom turned measure, some of them are made with Canes like a Basket. Ten of these Courneys make a Pale, that is forty measures, which is the usual quantity that they sell for a Laree, or fifth part of a Piece of eight, the usual price in Cande Vda. But in time of Harvest two Pales for a Laree. Four of these Pales make an Ommouna. In which they keep the account of their Corn, reckoning by Ommounas. [Their Weights.] For their Weights, their smallest is Collonda, six make just a Piece of eight. They have half Collondas and quarter Collondas. When they are to weigh things smaller than a Collonda, they weigh them with a kind of red Berries, which grow in the Woods, and are just like Beads. The Goldsmiths use them, Twenty of these Beads make a Collonda and Twenty Collondas make a Pallum. [Measures bigger than the Statute punishable, but less not; and why.] Here is no Punishment for those that make less weights and measures. They are more circumspect that their measures be not too big than too little. For Money being scarce, Corn passeth instead of Money, and every man mets by his own measure. Which therefore he makes as large as he can or dares, that so when he receives his Debt of Corn, he may get as much as he can. Which upon this account would be a great injury to the poorer sort of People, who commonly are the Debtors. Therefore the Adigars Officers will go about the Towns to examine the measures by a Statute-Measure; and where they find great ones they cut them in pieces, and hang them up in the Streets to terrifie others, and sometimes will amerce a Fine upon them that have them. [Of their Coin.] Of Money they have but three sorts that passeth for Coin in the King's Dominions. The one was Coined by Portugals, the King's Arms on one side, and the Image of a Frier on the other, and by the Chingulayes called Tangom massa. The value of one is nine pence English, Poddi Tangom, or the small Tangom is half as much. There is another sort, which all People by the King's Permission may and do make. The shape is like a fish-hook, they stamp what mark or impression on it they please. The Silver is purely fine beyond pieces of Eight. For if any suspect the goodness of the Plate, it is the Custom to burn the Money in the fire red hot, and so put it in water: and if it be not then purely white, it is not Currant Money. The third sort of Money is the King's proper Coin. For none upon pain of Death may Coin it. It is called a Ponnam. It is as small as a Spangle: Seventy five make a piece of Eight, or a Spanish Dollar. But all sorts of Money is here very scarce: And they frequently buy and sell by exchanging Commodities. [Of their Play.] Pass we now from their Business to their Pastimes and Diversions. They have but few Sports, neither do they delight in Play. Only at their New year, they will sport and be merry one with another. Their chief Play is to bowl Coker-nuts one against the other, to try which is the hardest. At this time none will work, until their Astrolagers tell them, it is a good hour to handle their Tools. And then both Men and Women do begin their proper works; the Man with his Ax, Bill, and Hough, and the Woman with her Broom, Pestle, and Fan to clean her Corn. [A Play or a Sacrafice.] There is another Sport, which generally all People used with much delight, being, as they called it, a Sacrifice to one of their Gods; to wit, Potting Dio. And the benefit of it is, that it frees the Countrey from grief and Diseases. For the beastliness of the Exercise they never celebrated it near any Town, nor in sight of Women, but in a remote place. The manner of the Game is thus. They have two crooked sticks like Elbows, one hooked into the other, and so with contrivances they pull with Ropes, until the one break the other; some riding with one stick, and some with the other; but never is Money laid on either side. Upon the breaking of the stick, that Party that hath won doth not a little rejoyce. Which rejoycing is exprest by Dancing and Singing, and uttering such sordid beastly Expressions, together with Postures of their Bodies, as I omit to write them, as being their shame in acting, and would be mine in rehearsing. For he is at that time most renowned that behaves himself most shamelesly and beast-like. [For the filthiness of it forbid by the King.] This filthy Solemnity was formerly much in use among them; and even the King himself hath spent time in it, but now lately he hath absolutely forbidden it under penalty of a forfeiture of Money. So that now the practice hereof is quite left off. [A cunning stratagem of an Officer.] But tho it is thus gone into dis-use, yet out of the great delight the People had in it, they of Gompala would revive it again; and did. Which coming to the King's ear, he sent one of his Noblemen to take a Fine from them for it. The Nobleman knew the People would not come to pay a Fine, and therefore was fain to go to work by a Stratagem. Pitching therefore his Tents by a Pond, he gave order to call all the People to his assistance to catch Fish for the King's use. Which they were very ready to do, hoping to have the refuse Fish for themselves. And when they were all thus assembled together with their Tools, and necessary Instruments for that purpose, the Nobleman charged them all in the King's Name according to the Countries fashion, which was by pulling off his Cap, and falling down upon the ground three times, that not a man of them should budge till they had paid such a Sum of Money, which was so much a piece, for reviving that Play that the King had forbid. Which they were forced to do before they departed from the Pond side. And the Money was carried into the King's Exchequer. [Tricks and feats of Activity.] When they would be merry, and particularly at their great Festival in the New Moon of June or July (before mentioned;) they have People that shew pretty tricks and feats of Activity before them. A man sets a Pole of seven or eight foot long upon his Breast; a Boy gets to the top of this Pole, and leans with his Belly upon the end of it; and thus the man danceth with the Pole on his Breast, and the Boy on it, and but little holding the Pole. A man takes four Arrows with blades about a foot long, they are tied one cross another, and so laid upon the end of a Pole, which rests upon the man's Breast. On a sudden he squatts down upon the ground, and the four Arrows all fall on the four sides of him, sticking in the ground. Two Cross-bows stand bent one opposite to the other, charged with Arrows drawn up to the heads: they are placed just so high, as they may fly over a man's back when he lyes flat upon the ground. A man danceth between them and shows Tricks, and when he is pleased, he touches a string made fast to both their trickers, at which they both instantly Discharge, and he falls flat down between them, and the Arrows fly over his back, which if they hit him, undoubtedly fly thro his Body. A Woman takes two naked Swords under each Arm one, and another she holds in her mouth, then fetcheth a run and turns clear over, and never touches the ground till she lights on her feet again, holding all her Swords fast. There are divers other Diversions of this nature too large to mention. [At leisure times they meet, and discourse of News.] At their leisure when their affairs will permit, they commonly meet at places built for strangers and way-faring men to lodge in, in their Language called Amblomb, where they sit chewing Betel, and looking one upon the other very gravely and solidly, discoursing concerning the Affairs at Court, between the King and the great Men; and what Employment the People of the City are busied about. For as it is the chief of their business to serve the King, so the chief of their discourse is concerning such matters. Also they talk of their own affairs, about Cattel and Husbandry. And when they meet with Outlandish-men they enquire about the Laws and Government of their Countrey, and if it be like theirs; and what Taxes and Duties we are bound to pay, and perform to our King, &c. [Drunkenness abhored.] And this manner of passing their leisure time they account the greatest Recreation. Drunkenness they do greatly abhor, neither are there many that do give themselves to it. Tobacco likewise they account a Vice, but yet is used both by Men and Women; but more eaten than drunk in Pipes. [Their great delight in Betel.] But above all things Betel leaves they are most fond of, and greatly delighted in: when they are going to Bed, they first fill their mouths with it, and keep it there until they wake, and then rise and spit it out, and take in more. So that their months are no longer clear of it, than they are eating their Victuals. This is the general practice both of Men and Women, insomuch that they had rather want Victuals or Cloths than be without it; and my long practice in eating it brought me to the same condition. And the Reasons why they thus eat it are, First, Because it is wholsom. Secondly, To keep their mouths perfumed: for being chewed it casts a brave scent. And Thirdly, To make their Teeth black. For they abhor white Teeth, saying, That is like a Dog. The better sort of Women, as Gentlewomen or Ladies, have no other Pastime but to sit and chew Betel, swallowing the spittle, and spitting out the rest. And when Friends come to see and visit one the other, they have as good Society thus to sit and chew Betel, as we have to drink Wine together. [The Manner of their eating Betel-leaves.] But to describe the particular manner of their eating these Leaves. They carry about with them a small Box filled with wet Lime; and as often as they are minded to eat Betel, they take some of this Lime, as much as they judge convenient, and spread it thin upon their leaf; then they take some slices of the Betel-nut, and wrap them up in the leaf, and so eat it, rubbing their Teeth therewith ever and anon to make them black. Thus they eat it generally: but sometimes they eat it otherwise, according as they please; neither spreading the Lime on the leaf, nor rolling up slices of the Nut into it: But they will take a little of the Lime out of their Box between their Fingers, and put it in their mouths, and eat of the Nut and the Leaf by themselves. But whensoever they eat of the Betel-leaf, the Lime and the Nut always accompany it. [How they make Lime.] They have a pretty shift of making their Lime, when they chance to need it as they are travailing. They take certain Shells, almost resembling Snails Shells, which they pick up in fresh water Rivers, washed a shore with the water beating upon the Rocks. These Shells, mixed with Charcoal and, fire they wrap up in a wisp of Rice-straw, and bind them together in a round bundle of a convenient bigness, tying all up with green Withs, that they may not fall in pieces. By a With some four foot long they hold it in their hands, swinging it round over their heads. Which motion blows the Coals and makes them burn. And as they are weary with swinging it in one hand, they shift and take it in the other: and so keep swinging it for half an hour or thereabouts. By which time it will be burnt to very good Lime, and most part of the straw consumed: but it is still kept together by the green Withs. Then they take it and wet it in water, and put it into their Pots or Boxes for their use. The Lime made of white stone burnt in a Kiln they do indifferently use to eat with their Leaves, as well as this made of Shells now described. CHAP. IX. Of their Laws and Language. There are three things, that ingenious men may possibly be inquisitive after, which have not yet been professedly handled, their Laws, their Language, and their Learning. [Their Laws.] Concerning the first, here are no Laws, but the Will of the King, and whatsoever proceeds out of his mouth is an immutable Law. Nevertheless they have certain antient usages and Customes that do prevail and are observed as Laws; and Pleading them in their Courts and before their Governors will go a great way. [Lands descend.] To hint some of them, their Lands are hereditary, and do descend from Parents to their Children. But the eldest son by Priviledg of Birth-right does not possess and enjoy all the Land, but if the Father please he can divide it among his Children. Yet in case the eldest son does enjoy the Land, then without dispute he is to maintain his Mother and her Children until they come to years or ability to provide for themselves. [In case Corn receives dammage by a Neighbours Cattle.] They have a custom in the Land Ouvah, which is a great breeder of Cattle, and hath but very little Wood, so that they have not where with to make hedges; It is that when they sow their Lands, they drive their Cattle thence, and watch them all day that they break not into the Corn; and at night they tie their Cattle to secure them from straying into the Corn-Lands: otherwise if one Neighbours Cattle eats another neighbours Corn, he must pay the dammage. Those that are lazy and loath to Plow, or that are Poor and want Corn to sow, the Custom is, to let out their ground to others to Till at Ande, that is at halves; but fees and accustomable dues taken, out by the Husbandman that tills it, the Owner of the Land receives not much above a third part. [The loss of leting out land to Till.] For the Husband hath divers considerable payments besides his half share of the Corn. As namely, first he hath Cotoumaun, that is, so much Corn as they scratch off from the whole heap of trodden Corn by drawing a bundle of Thorns over it. Secondly, Waracool, that is a consideration for the expences they are at in Tilling and Sowing; for which there is a Rate according to the bigness of the field. Thirdly, Warrapoll, that is the Corn they leave at the bottom of the heap after they have done fanning. Which is the Womans fee for their pains in weeding the Corn, and in pulling it it up where it is too thick, and planting it where it is thin, &c. Fourthly, Bolerud which is the Chaff and sweepings of the Pit. This sometimes comes to a considerable value according to the quantity of Corn that is trodden. Fifthly, Peldorah, which is a piece of Corn they leave standing before the watch house, which is set up in their Corn grounds to watch their Corn from the wild beasts. And this left standing is the fee for watching. There is yet another due Ockyaul which belongs to their Gods, and is an offering sometimes carried away by the Priest; and sometimes they bestow it upon the beggar, and sometimes they will take it and hang it up in their houses, and at convenient time sacrifice it themselves. It is one of their measures, which is about half a Peck. [The great consideration for Corn borrowed.] And in the mean time until this Corn is ripe, the Owner is fain to go a borrowing Corn to sustain himself and Family. Which he pays consideration for; which is, when his own Corn is ripe, a bushel and an half for a bushel that is, at the rate of Fifty per Cent. Which manner of lending Corn is a means that doth maintain many strangers and others. For they who have got a small stock of Corn by that Profit may competently live upon it. Which was the means that Almighty God prepared for my relief and maintenance. Corn thus lent is somewhat difficult to receive again. For the Debtor being Poor, all the Creditors will come into the field, when the Corn is a shareing, that being the place of payment: and as soon as it is divided each one will scramble to get what he can. And having taken possession of it, from thence the Creditor must carry it home himself, be it far or near. [The debt becomes double in two years.] If the Debt remains in the Debtors hands two years, it becomes doubled: and from thence forward be it never so long, no more use is to be paid by the Law of the Land, which Act was established by the King in favour of the Poor, there having been some whole Families made Slaves for a bushel of Corn. [If the debtor pay not his debt he is lyable to be a slave for it.] But yet it is lawful for the Creditor, missing Corn, to lay hands on any of his goods: or if the sum be somewhat considerable on his Cattle or Children, first taking out a License from the Magistrate so to do, or if he have none, on himself or his wife, if she came with him to fetch the debt, if not, she is clear from this violence; but his Children are not. [Divers other Laws and Customes.] If a woman goes away from her Husband without his consent, no Man may marry her, until he first be married. In lending of mony by the use of it in one years time, it becomes double. And if the Creditor receive not his mony at the expiration of the year, but lets it lie in the Debtors hands never so long after, no more than double is to be paid, the encrease never runs up higher as it is in lending Corn. If a Bond-woman has Children by a Free-man, the Children all are Slaves to her Master: but if a Bond-man has Children by a Free-woman, the Children are free: For the Children are always as the Mother, whether Bond or Free. No man may cut down a Coker-nut-Tree. If any man to a bargain or promise gives a stone in the Kings name, it is as firm as hand and seal. And if any after this go back of his word, it will bear an Action. If any man be taken stealing, he must restore seven for one, or else be made a Slave, if he be not able to pay it. It is lawful and customary for a man in necessity to sell or pawn his Children, or himself. No man building an house either in his own or another mans ground, if he be afterwards minded to leave his Land, where his house stood, may pull it down again: But must let it stand for the benefit of whosoever comes after him. [For deciding controversies.] For the deciding of matters in controversie especially of more abstruse cognizance, the parties do both swear before their Gods, sometimes in their Temples, and sometimes upon more extraordinary occasions in hot Oyl. [Swearing in the Temples.] Sometimes in their Temples. To explain which, take this following relation. A Slave was accused by a Merchant to have robbed his house. Whereupon to clear himself, the Slave desired he might swear. So the Merchant and Slave went both to the Temple to swear. The Merchant swore positively that the Slave had robbed his house; and the Slave swore as poynt blank that he had not robbed his house: and neither of them having any witnesses, God who knew all things was desired to shew a Judgment upon him that was forsworn. They both departed to their houses, waiting to see upon whom the Judgment would fall. In the mean time the Slave privatly sets the Merchants house on fire, and his house was burnt down to the ground. Then it was clear by this supposed divine Judgment, the Merchant was forsworn. The Slave presently demands satisfaction for laying Theft falsly to his charge. The Merchant could not tell what to say to it, but would give him none. The Slave was now to take his own satisfaction, as he had opportunity. And his Master bids him seize upon the Merchants Person or any other relating to him, and bring them to his house, and there detain them. Within a short time after, the Slave seeing a Kinsman of the Merchants passing by, offers to seize him. But he, rather than be taken, draws his Knife and Stabs the Slave on the shoulder, and so escapes. In Fine, the Merchant was fain to bribe the Great Men to save himself from further dammage, and sit down contented with the loss of his goods and house. Though the Slave was a person of a very bad reputation, and had done divers Thefts; and some of his stolen goods he hath brought to me to sell. [The benefit of swearing in hot Oyl.] Sometimes they do decide their debates by swearing in hot Oyl. Which because it is remarkable, I will relate at large. They are permitted thus to swear in matters of great importance only, as when Law Suits happen about their Lands, or when their is no witness. When they are to swear, each party hath a Licence from the Governor for it, written with his hand to it. Then they go and wash their heads and bodies, which is a religious ceremony. And that night they are both confined Prisoners in an house with a guard upon them, and a cloth tyed over each of their right hands and sealed, least they might use any charm to harden their fingers. The next morning they are brought out; they then put on clean cloths, and purifie themselves, reckoning they come into the presence of God. Then they tie to their wrists the Leaf wherein the Governors Licence is, and repair under some Bogahah, God-Tree, and all the Officers of the County assemble with a vast number of people besides. Coker-nuts are brought, and Oyl is there extracted from them in the sight of the people, that all may see their is no deceit. Also they have a Pan of Cow-dung and water boyling close by: The Oyl and Cow-dung being both boyling and throughly hot, they take a young leaf of a Coker-nut Tree and dip that into the Oyl, that all may see it is hot. For it singes, and frizzels up, and roars as if you poured water into hot boyling Oyl. And so they do likewise to the Cow-dung. When all are satisfied the Oyl is hot, the two men come and stand on each side of this boyling Oyl; and say, The God of Heaven and Earth is witness, that I did not do this that I am accused of; Or, The four sorts of Gods be witness, That this Land in controversie is mine. And then the other swears quite contrary. But first the Accuser alwayes swears. The Accused also relates his own innocence, or his own Right and Title. The cloths that their hands were bound up in are taken off. And immediatly upon using the former words, he dips his two fingers into the hot Oyl, flinging it out three times. And then goes to the boyling Cow-dung, and does the same. And so does the other. Then they tie up their hands again with the cloth, and keep both of them Prisoners till the next day. When their hands are looked upon, and their fingers-ends rubbed with a cloth, to see if the skin come off. And from whose fingers the skin comes, he is forsworn. The Penalty of which is a great forfeiture to the King and great satisfaction to the Adversary. I am able to testifie, that the fingers of some of these that have thus sworn have been whole from any scald after this use of hot Oyl: but whether it be their innocence or their Art, that it thus comes to pass, I know not. The penalty of the breach of the Laws or Customes of this Land is at the pleasure of the Judg, either amercement, or imprisonment, or both. [How they exact Fines.] For the taking of Fines from men, on whom they are laid, this is their Custom. The Officers, wheresoever they meet the man, stop him in the place. Where they take away his Sword and Knife; and make him pull off his Cap and Doublet; and there he sits with his Keepers by him, till he pays the Fine. And if he delays paying it, they clap a great Stone upon his back; in which condition he must remain till he pays it. And if he doth not pay, they load him with more Stones, until his compliance prevent further pains. Another way they have to exact the payment of the Fines laid upon them. They take some sprigs of Thorns, and draw them between the mans naked Legs till he pays. But if he remain obstinate they clap him up in chains. They have an odd usage among them to recover their debts. Which is this. They will sometimes go to the house of their debtor with the leaves of Neiingala a certain Plant, which is rank Poyson, and threaten him, that they will eat that Poyson and destroy themselves, unless he will pay him what he ows. The debtor is much afraid of this, and rather than the other should Poyson himself, will sometimes sell a Child to pay the debt: Not that the one is tender of the life of the other, but out of care of himself. For if the party dyes of the Poyson, the other for whose sake the man Poysoned himself must pay a ransome for his life. By this means also they will sometimes threaten to revenge themselves of those with whom they have any contest, and do it too. And upon the same intent they will also jump down some steep place or hang or make away with themselves; that so they might bring their Adversary to great dammage. [Of their Language.] To speak now a little of their Language. It is a language peculiar to that Island: and I know not any Indian Nations that speak it but themselves. There are a few words that are common to the Chingulays and the Malabars, which they might borrow of one another, by Intercourse and Commerce, but the words are so few, that a Malabar cannot understand a Chingulay, nor on the contrary. Their language is Copious Smooth, Elegant, Courtly; according as the People that speak it are. Who are full of words, Titles and Complements. They have no less than twelve or more Titles that they use when they speak to Women according to their ranks and qualities. [Titles to women according to their qualities.] Puddeci. A word for a woman of the lowest condition. Kiddekel. A term of more respect, given to a young wench. Nanda. A term for an inferior woman something in years signifies also Ant. Nandadga. A little higher yet, of the like years. Nauchere. A Title may be given to an ordinary woman, still, but yet higher. Lamhaumi. A Title higher than any yet. Ettani. Higher still. Lam-Ettani. Of more respect. Ettanihaumi. Higher than that. Maugi. Proper only to an old woman but of good quality. Maugiwanxi. Better then the Maugi. Comaurehaumi. A Title due to the greatest Ladies. Hondreunié. Given to the Queen or the King. So that it is hard to speak to a woman without they know what she is before, least they might mistake her Title. And the women are much pleased with some of the better Titles. [Titles given to men.] The men also have various Titles, tho not so many as the women. People give to them these Titles according to the business they have with them. If they come for some favour or kindness to be done them, they bestow the better sort of Titles upon them. They have seven or eight words for Thou, or You, which they apply to persons according to their quality, or according as they would honour them. And they are so, Topi, Umba, Umbela, Tomnai, Tomsi, Tomsela, Tomnanxi. All these words are gradually one higher than the other. [No difference between a Country man and a Courtier for Language.] Their ordinary Plow men and Husbandmen do speak elegantly, and are full of complement. And there is no difference between the ability and speech of a Country-man and a Courtier. When any hath a favour to beg of a Noble-man, or any business with him, they do not abruptly speak their desires or errand at first, but bring it in with a long harangue of his worth or good disposition or abilities; [Their speech and manner of Addresses is Courtly and becoming.] and this in very handsom and taking stile. They bring up their Children to speak after this manner, and use them to go with errands to great men; and they are able to tell their tale very well also. In their speech the people are bold without sheepish shame facedness, and yet no more confidence than is becoming. [Their Language in their address to the King.] The King they call by a name, that signifies somewhat higher than a man, and next to God. But before the Wars they stiled him Dionanxi, which is a Title higher than God by the addition of Nanxi. This Title the King took before the Rebellion, but since he forbad it. When they speak to the King concerning themselves, they do not speak in the first person, and say I did so or so, but Baulagot the limb of a Dog did it or will do it. And when they speak of their Children unto the King, they call them Puppies. As if he ask them how many Children they have, they say so many Puppy dogs, and so many Puppy-bitches. By which by the way, we may conjecture at the height of the King and the slavery of the People under him. [Words of Form and Civility.] They have certain words of Form and Civility, that they use upon occasion. When they come to another mans house, he asks them what they come for, which is his civility, and they answer Nicamava, I come for nothing, which is their ordinary reply, tho they do come for something. And upon this they have a Fable. A God came down upon earth one day, and bad all his Creatures come before him and demand what they would have and it should be granted them. So all the beasts and other Creatures came, and one desired Strength, and another Legs, and another Wings, &c. And it was bestowed on them. Then came the White men, the God asked them, what they came for? And they said, they desired Beauty and Valour and Riches. It was granted them. At last came the Chingulays, the God required of them, what they came for. They answered, Nicamava, I come for nothing. Then replyed he again, do you come for nothing, then go away with nothing. And so they for their complement fared worse than all the rest. When one proffers something as a gift to another, altho it be a thing that he is willing to have, and would be glad to receive, yet he will say, E eppa queinda, No, I thank you; how can I be so chargeable to you? And in the same time while the words are in his mouth, he reacheth forth his hand to receive it. [Full of words and complement.] Neither are they free or forward to requite them, from whom they have received a gift or good turn, otherwise than with words and windy protestations; the which shall not be wanting. But forwards they are to receive, yet very backward to part with any thing. And if one neighbour asketh ought of another, or to borrow any thing, which the other is unwilling either to give or lend, they never will plainly deny by saying, I cannot or will not; but with dissembling they will excuse themselves, saying, They have it not, or is it lent abroad already, altho it be with them in the house at the same time. [By whom they swear.] Their usual manner of swearing in protestations, is by their Mother, or by their Children, or by their two Eyes, oftner than by their Gods. But their protestations be they never so deep, and seem they never so serious, they are not to be regarded, as proceeding more from custom than truth. [Their Railery] Some of their words of Reproach, or Railery are such as these. One brother will say to another, and that in presence of their Mother, Tomotowoy, go lye with your Mother, the other replyes go you and lye with your Mother. And the Mother will say to the Daughter, Jopi oppota audewind, go lye with your Father; intimating she is good for nothing. They will commend their Children, when they can use their tongues in their own defence by scolding and say, Hoerri, oppana, Well said, valiantly spoken. They will say also in reproach, Creep between my legs, cut your Nose off. If you have five hundred lives, you shall be damned. The worst railery they can give a woman is to tell her, she has laid with ten sorts of inferior ranks of People, which they will rather dye than do. If any thing be stole out of their grounds or Plantations fruit or the like, they will cry out aloud, This was done by some low-cast begotten Rogue, or She was a whore to some inferior rank who dressed it; and this Language they will continue for half an hour together, tho they know not who hath done it. The worst word they use to Whites and Christians, is to call them Beaf-eating Slaves. I shall conclude this Discourse of their Language, by giving you a tast of their Proverbs, some hints of the strain of their Speech. [Proverbs.] Miris dilah, ingurah gotta. I have given Pepper, and got Ginger. Spoken when a man makes a bad exchange. And they use it in reference to the Dutch succeeding the Portugueze in their Island. Datta horrala Badda perind. Pick your Teeth to fill your Belly. Spoken of stingy niggardly People. Caula yonawa ruah atti. To eat before you go forth is handsom and convenient. Which they therefore ever do. Kiallah tiannah, Degery illand avah oppala hanguand mordy, As the saying is, if I come to beg Butter-milk, why should I hide my Pan. Which is ordinarily spoken to introduce the business that one man comes to speak to the other about. Hingonna wellendam cor cottonwat geah par wardenda netta. A Begger and a Trader cannot be lost. Because they are never out of their way. Atting mitting delah hottarah harracurnowah. To lend to another makes him become an Enemy. For he will hate you if you ask him for it again. Annuna min yain ecka ourowaying younda eppa. Go not with a Slave in one Boat. It signifies, to have no dealing or correspondence with any ones Slave. For if any dammage should happen, it would fall upon your head, and by their Law you must make it good. Issara otting bollanowa pos cotting. First look in the hand, afterwards open the mouth. Spoken of a Judge, who first must have a Bribe before he will pronounce on their side. Take a Ploughman from the Plough, and wash off his dirt, and he is fit to rule a Kingdom. Spoken of the People of Cande Uda, where there are such eminent Persons of the Hondrew rank; and because of the Civility, Understanding, and Gravity of the poorest Men among them. No body can reproach the King and the Beggar. Because the former is above the slander of the People, and nothing can be said bad enough of the latter: Like Noia and Polonga. Denoting Irreconcileable Enemies. The story of which two Serpents hath been related before. He that hath Money to give to his Judge, needs not fear, be his Cause right or wrong. Because of the corruption of the great Men, and their greediness of Bribes. If our Gerehah, fortune be bad, what can God do against it? Reckoning that none of their Gods have Power to reverse the fate of an ill Planet. The Ague is nothing, but the Head-ach is all. That Countrey is very subject to Agues, which do especially afflict their heads who have them. I might multiply many more of their Proverbial sayings, but let these suffice. I cannot pretend to give an account, of the Grammar of this Tongue; I shall only give a few instances of their words, and leave it to the Learned to make their Conjectures. First, I will give you some of their Nouns Plural. [Something of their Grammer.] Minnia, A Man. Minnis, Men. Cucula, A Cock. Cuculong, Cocks. Cole-la, A Boy. Colani, Boyes. Gahah, A Tree. Gos, Trees. Auhoun, A Horse. Auspio, horses. Polaha, A young Jack Polas, Jacks. But usually when they have occasion to speak of many they express themselves by Numerals set after the Noun; as Dissawva two, three, &c. An Egg, Bittera, Eggs, Bittera cattei, word for word, Egg many. Their Verbs they form after this manner: Mam conna, I eat. Mam conyum, I will eat. Mam cava, I have eat. Conowa, Eating. Caupoudi, Let him eat. Caum, Let us eat. Conda, To eat. Caula, Eaten. Mam denyam, I will give. Mam Doun na, I gave. Dila, I have given. Dendi, Shall I give? To give. Dem, Let us give. Dennowa, Giving. Dipon, Give him. Douna, or Dila tiana, Given. Mam yonyam, I'le go. Mam yonda oni, I will go. Yong, Let us go. Yonowa, Going. Yonda dipadi, Let him go. Pollatch, Gone, spoken of an ordinary person. Pollad-da, Gone, spoken of a person of great quality. Mam oy, I am, Eai, He, or They or He is. Mam gia atti, I have been. [Atti] signifieth [have] Gia dendi. Let him, or give him leave to go. [A Specimen of their words.] Dio, God. Dio loco, Heaven. Jacco, The Devil. Narra cauda, Hell. Aucoi, The Sky. Taurcoi, A Star. Deure, Water. Gindere, Fire. Gani, A Woman. Rodgura, A King. Haul, Raw rice. Bat, Boyled rice. Banglale, A Table. Wellau, Time. Wauri, Season. Colading, Harvest Oppa, Father. Pianannah, Oppatchi, Omma, Mother. Ommandea, Puta, Son. Putandi, Dua, Daughter. Donianna, Molla, A flower. Gauhah, A tree. Courilla, A bird. Gom, A town. Oppuland, To wash cloths. Naund, To wash the body. Pinaund, To swim. Coppaund, To cut. Horraund, To bore. Hoppacaund, To bite. Coraund, To do. (done. Corowaund, To cause to be Goumanic, A journey. Gauman corowaund, To send, word for word, to cause to do a journey. Heuwoya, All words Signifying Common Soldiers, only they Heuwoynanna, are titles one above another, and the two last Heuwoynanoura, are as much to say Gentlemen Soldiers. Heuwaycom, To fight Coraund, as much as as to say, To act the Soldier. Mihi, To dye. Mich, Dead. Mienyum, I will dye. Mioenowa, Dying. Eppa, Do not. Negatind, To rise. Upaudénowa, The Resurrection. Negantind Eppa, Do not rise. Tonnaund, To build. Tannitch, Built. Touncheroutwitch, It is finished. Na & Natti, No, or not. I shall only make one Observation from these words, and that is concerning the four first. It is this, that they have no words of their own Language for God and Heaven, but in all probability borrowed them from the Portugueze. But for the two next, The Devil and Hell, words of their own. They number thus, [Their Numbering.] Eckhoi I. Deckhoi II. Tunhoi III. Hotterhoi IV. Pauhhoi V. Hoyhoi VI. Hothoi VII. Ot hoi VIII. Novihoi IX. Dauhoihoi X. Eckolauhoi XI. Dolahoi XII. Dauhottunhoi XIII. Dauhotterhoi XIV. Paulohoi XV. Dauhossahoi XVI. Dauhahottoi XVII. Dauha ot hoi XVIII. Dauhanovihoi XIX. Vishoi XX. Tihoi XXX. Hottalehoi XL. Ponnahoi L. CHAP. X. Concerning their Learning, Astronomy, and Art Magick. [Of their Learning.] Their Learning is but small. All they ordinarily learn is to read and to write. But it is no shame to a man if he can do neither. Nor have they any Schools wherein they might be taught and instructed in these or any other Arts. [Their Books, and Arts.] Their Books are only of their Religion and of Physick. Their chief Arts are Astronomy and Magick. They have a Language something differing from the vulgar tongue (like Latin to us) which their Books are writ in. [How they learn to write.] They learn to write upon Sand, spreading it upon the ground, and making it smooth with the hand, and so write the letters with their fingers to bring their hand in use. They write not on Paper, for of that they have little or none; but on a Talli-pot leaf with an Iron Bodkin, which makes an impression. This leaf thus written on, is not folded, but rolled up like Ribbond, and somewhat resembles Parchment. [How they make and write a Book.] If they are to write a Book, they do it after this manner. They take the Tallipot leaf, and cut it into divers pieces of an equal shape and size, some a foot, some eight inches, some a foot and an half long, and about three fingers broad. Then having thus prepared the leaves, they write in them long ways from the left hand to the right, as we do. When the Book is finished they take two pieces of board, which are to serve for the cover of the Book. To these boards are fastened two strings, which do pass thro every leaf of the Book, and these tye it up fast together. As the Reader hath read each leaf, he lifts it up, and lays it by still hanging upon the strings, and so goes to the next leaf, something resembling Bills filed upon Wyre. [The Priests write Books of Bonna.] The Gonnies, who are men of leisure, write many Books of Bonna, that is of the Ceremonies of their Religion: and will sometimes carry them to great Men, as a present, and do expect a reward. [The King's Warrants how wrapped up.] The King when he sends any Warrants or Orders to his Officers, hath his Writings wrapped up in a way proper to himself, and none else do or may fold up their leaves in that manner but He. [They write upon two sorts of leaves.] They write upon the Tallipat leaves Records or matters of great moment, or that are to be kept and preserved: but for any ordinary business as Letters, &c. they commonly use another leaf, called Taulcole. The leaves of which will bear a better impression than the Tallipat, but they are more stubborn, and harder than the other, and will not fold. [Their Skill in Astronomy.] But to speak a little of their Astronomy. They who have understanding in it, and practise it, are the Priests of the highest Order, of which the present King's Father was. But the common sort of Astronomers are the Weavers. These men can certainly foretel Eclipses of the Sun and Moon. They make [Their Almanacks.] Leet, that is Almanacks that last for a Month. They are written upon a Tallipat leaf, a little above a foot long, and two fingers broad. In them are told the Age of the Moon, and the good Seasons and times to begin to Plough or to Sow, or to go a Journey, or to take any work in hand. On this precise time they will be sure to sprinkle their first Seed, tho they sow all their Field it may be a Month after. And so they will begin to set forth at the very moment, tho possibly they will not go till some days after. These Astronomers tell them also when the old year ends to the very minute. At which time they cease from all work, except the Kings, which must not be omitted. They acquaint them also with the good hour of the New year, they are to begin to work. At which time every Man and Woman begins to do somewhat in their employment they intend to follow the ensuing year. They have also another season directed them by their Astronomers: that is, when to begin to wash their heads, which is assigned to every one according to the time of their Nativities, which Ceremony they observe very religiously. [They pretend to know future things by the Stars.] These Astronomers, or rather Astrologers, are skilful in the Knowledge of the Stars, and Planets, of which they reckon nine: 'tis supposed they may add the Dragon's Head and Tail. By which they pretend to foretel all things concerning the health and recovery of Sick Persons; also concerning the fate of Children born, about which the Parents do presently consult them, and save their Children or kill them according to the fortunate or unfortunate hour they tell the Parents they were born in. When a Person is Sick, he carries to the men his Nativity, which they call Hanna hom pot, upon the perusal of which they tell his destiny. These also direct fit times for beginning Journeys, or other undertakings. They are likewise consulted concerning Marriages by looking upon the Man and Womans Nativity. [Their �ra, Their Years, Months, Weeks, Days, Hours.] They reckon their Time from one Saccawarsi an ancient King. Their year consists of 365 days, They begin their year upon our Eight and twentieth day of March, and sometimes the Seven and twentieth, and sometimes, but very seldom, on the Nine and twentieth. The reason of which I conceive to be, to keep it equal to the course of the Sun, as our Leap year doth. They call the year Ouredah. This they divide in to Twelve Months, named, Wasachmaha, Pomaha, Ahalamoha, Micheneha, Bochmoha, &c. They divide their Months into Weeks, each consisting of seven days, called Fridah, Sandudah, Onghorudah, Bodadah, Braspotindah, Secouradah, Henouradah. The first of which they account a good and a fortunate day to begin to do or undertake any thing: and it falls out upon our Sunday. On their Wednesdays, and Saturdays they open their Churches, and perform their Ceremonies. Their day, which they call Dausack, they divide into Thirty Pays, hours or parts, and begin their account from the Sun rising, and their Night also into as many, and begin from Sun-setting: So that the Fifteenth Pay is Twelve a Clock at Noon. They have a Flower by which they judge of the time, which constantly blows open seven Pays before Night. [How they measure their time.] They have no Clocks, Hour-glasses, or Sun-Dials, but keep their time by guess. The King indeed hath a kind of Instrument to measure time. It is a Copper Dish holding about a Pint, with a very small hole in the bottom. This Dish they set a swimming in an Earthen Pot of water, the water leaking in at the bottom till the Dish be full, it sinks. And then they take it out, and set it empty on the water again, and that makes one Pay. Few or none use this but the King, who keeps a man on purpose to watch it continually. The People will use it upon some occasions, as if they are to sow their Corn at any particular hour, as being the good lucky Season, then they make use of the Copper Pan, to know the time exactly. [Their Magick.] They do practise Magick. Whereof take these two remarkable instances of many that might be given. [The Plenty of a Countrey destroyed by Magick.] The Countrey of Neurecalava formerly brought forth great plenty of Corn, occasioned by reason of its large waterings. A Neighbour Kingdom, the Kingdom of Cournegal which lyes in Hotcourley, in those times was brought to a great dearth. At which the King sends to the People of Neurecalava, that they would bring a supply of Corn to his Countrey, which they did in great store upon Beasts in Sacks, and arrived at the King's City: and there for the more expeditious measuring out every Housholder his proportion of Corn, they made a hole in the Sacks, and let it run out, still driving on the Beasts before them: and all that was shed before every man's House, was to be his share. This exceedingly gratified the King. Afterward the King to requite them, asked what they most needed in their Countrey? They answered, They had plenty of all things only they wanted Cahah mirris, that is Turmeric and Pepper. The King to gratifie them sent them such a quantity of each as his Country could afford. As soon as this was brought to the People of Neurecalava, they went to measure it out to every man his Portion, but finding it of so small a quantity, they resolved to grind it, as they do when they use it with their Victuals, and put it into the River to give a seasoning to the water, and every Man was to take up his Dish of water thus seasoned. From whence Neurecalava had its denomination, viz. from Neur, signifying a City, and Cahah that signifies Turmeric, and Lava, as if it were Lalla, put into the River. The King hearing of this Action of theirs was offended, in that they so contemned his gift; but concealed his displeasure. Sometime after he took a Journey to them, and being there, desired to know how their Countrey became so very fruitful. They told him, it was the water of the River pent up for their use in a very vast Pond. Out of which they made Trenches to convey the water down into their Corn Grounds. This Pond they had made with great Art and Labour with great Stones and Earth thrown up of a vast length and thickness, in the fashion of an half Moon. The King afterwards took his leave of them and went home; and by the help of his Magicians brake down this vast Dam that kept in the water, and so destroyed the Pond. And by this means this fruitful Countrey wanting her water is become as ordinary Land as the rest, having only what falls out of the Sky. [Their Charm to find out a Thief.] When a Robbery is committed to find the Thief, they Charm a Coker-nut, which is done by certain words, and any one can do it, that can but utter the Charm words. Then they thrust a stick into it, and set it either at the Door or hole the Thief went out at. Then one holds the stick with the Nut at the end of it, and the Nut pursues and follows in the Tract that the Thief went. All the way it is going they still continue Charming, and flinging the Blossoms of the Betel-nut-Tree upon it. And at last it will lead to the house or place where the Thief is, and run upon his Feet. This Nut will sometimes go winding hither and thither, and sometimes will stand still. Then they follow their Charms, strewing on Blossoms, and that sets it forward again. This is not enough to find the Thief guilty; but if they intend to prosecute the Man upon this Discovery, the Charmer must swear against him point blank: which he sometimes will do upon the Confidence of the Truth of his Charm. And the supposed Thief must either Swear or be Condemned. [The way to dissolve this Charm.] Oftentimes Men of courage and metal, will get Clubs, and beat away the Charmer, and all his Company, and by this means put all to an end. If the Thief has the wit to lay his tail by the way, the Coker-nut when it comes thither will stop and run round about it, but go no further. I doubting the truth hereof, once took the stick, and held it my self, when they were upon this Business, but it moved not forward while I held it in my hand, tho they strewed their Flowers, and used their mutterings to provoke it. But afterwards when another took it, it went forward. I doubted whether they did not guide it with their hand, but they assured me it guided their hand. [Inscriptions upon Rocks.] Here are some antient writings engraven upon Rocks which poseth all that see them. There are divers great Rocks in divers parts in Cande Uda, and in the Northern Parts. These Rocks are cut deep with great Letters for the space of some yards, so deep that they may last to the worlds end. Nobody can read them or make any thing of them. I have asked Malabars, Gentuses, as well as Chingulays and Moors, but none of them understood them. You walk over some of them. There is an antient Temple Goddiladenni in Tattanour stands by one place where there are of these Letters. They are probably in memorial of something, but of what we must leave to learned men to spend their conjectures. CHAP. XI. Of their Sickness, Death and Burial. [The diseases this Countrey is subject to.] Nothing now remains, but to carry you to their Sick-beds, and to tell you what they do with the Bodies of their friends deceased, and their Behavior on these occasions. They live to a great Age very often to fourscore, and hale at that age the Kings Sister was near an hundred. They are healthy and of a sound constitution. The Diseases this Land is most subject to are Agues and Feveurs, and sometimes to Bloody-fluxes. The Small-Pox also sometimes happeneth among them. From which they cannot free themselves by all their charms and inchantments, which are often times successful to them in other distempers. Therefore they do confess like the Magicians in Egypt, that this is the very finger of Almighty God. They are also subject to Aches and Pains in their Bodies. For the Remedy whereof they have excellent oyntments and oyls, which they make and keep to have ready when they have occasion. [Every one a Physitian to himself.] Here are no professed Physitians nor Chyrurgeons, but all in general have some skill that way, and are Physitians and Chyrurgeons to themselves. Their Medicines they make of the leaves that are in the Woods, and the barks of Trees. With which they purge and vomit themselves, and will do notable Cures upon green wounds, and also upon sore eyes. To give a few hints of their method of Physick and what Ingredients they make use of. [To purge.] For purging they make use of a Tree called Dallugauhah. It bears no leaves, nothing but thorns, and is of a soft substance. Being cut there runs out a white thick milk; in which we soak some whole corns of Pepper a whole night. The next day the Pepper is taken out, and washed clean, and then boyled in fair water with a sower fruit they call Goraca, which we shall speak of by and by. This they drink, and it purgeth very well. This milk is rekoned as rank Poyson as any thing can be, and yet the Goats eat of the Tree greedily without harm. [To Vomit.] For a Vomit, there is is a leaf of a Plant called Warracole in colour like a Cabbage leaf, but smaller; it grows upon a long stalk some three foot high. This leaf as soon as it is broken from the stalk is full of milk, which runs out. In this milk they put a lump of Salt, and let it lye a whole night. The next day they take the Salt out, which is not dissolved, and wash it clean: then boyl a little Rice and Water together. After tis taken off the fire, they put this salt into it, and drink it. There is a strong Purge they make with a berry called Jawpolls, which is a little long greenish berry. Of it self it is rank Poyson. They boyl it with Goraca, and Pepper in water, and drink a little of the water. [To heal Sores.] For drawing and healing of Sores, they have a leaf called Mockina-cola; it is a very like our Tunhoof or Ground-ivy, only it is a brighter green; it runs along upon the ground and spreads it self as Tunhoof doth. They only take the leaf and clap it upon the sore. [To heal an Impostume.] For an Impostume in the Throat, we take the rind of the Tree Amaranga and bruise it and rub it with green Turmeric, and wrap it up in a Plantane leaf, and bury it in hot ashes, and there let it lye an hour or two till the fire hath well qualified it. Then the Patient takes it, and keeps chewing it for a day or two swallowing the spittle. The Virtue of this I my self can testifie being exceedingly ill with a sore Throat, and could not swallow. By the use of this I was well within a day and a night. [For a hurt in the Eye.] For a sore or hurt in the eye, they take Oulcande-cole, Goderacole, two herbs, the juyce of each, and womans milk and having mingled them, drop them into the eye. I had a Thorn of a considerable length run into the gray of my eye, and put me to great pain, the Chingulays advised me to use this means, assuring me how successful it was wont to be; but I was loath to tamper with so tender a place; and thanks be to God, after some days the Thorn fell out of it self. [To cure the Itch.] It is a speedy Cure of the Itch, to take Coudouro giddi, a fruit of a Tree in form somewhat like a Mussel but bigger. This fruit they cut in slices and fry it in Coker-nut oyl. And with this oyl they anoint the body. [The Caudle for Lying in women.] The ordinary Caudle for Women in Child-bed, is Goraca boyled in water with Pepper and Ginger. Women in that condition use nothing else. This [Goraca.] Goraca is a fruit round like an Apple marked with divers creases along the sides of it. Being ripe it is within and without red like blood, but sower, they use this fruit as we do Lemons and Oranges. The core is sweet and pleasant, but They regarding it not sling it away. If you bite this fruit, it sticks to the Teeth like wax or pitch. But their chief use of it, is to boyl it with other things to make them tast sower. They gather them at the time of year, and break the cloves assunder by their fingers, for they, if they be pulled, will part at the creases. And then they lay them in the Sun and dry them, being dryed they look like mens ears. And so they keep them for their use. Two or three of these will give a pleasant sower relish unto a large vessel of any liquid thing. This Goraca is in great use among them. [Excellent at the cure of Poyson.] As there are in this Countrey very many Poysonous Plants, and Creatures, so the People have excellent skill in the healing thereof. There is one plant among the rest so strong a venom, that no creature will eat or touch it; and this is the leaf, that the People sometimes carry with them when they go to demand their debts, and threaten their debtors, they will poyson themselves before them, unless they will pay them. It is called Neiingala, a sprig that springs out of the ground almost like an Hony-suckle, but not so big: and bears a curious Flower much like an Hony-suckle. [They easily heal the biting of Serpents, by herbs.] They are oftentimes stung with venomous Serpents, upon which sudden death follows without speedy help: But if the bite be taken in time, they can certainly cure themselves, and make nothing of it. Which they perform both by Herbs and Charms. Tho upon the sting they presently vomit blood. The knowledg of these antidotal Herbs they have learned from the Mounggoutia a kind of Ferret. This creature when the Noya and he meets always fight. If he chanceth to be bitten by the Serpent, which is very venomous, he runs away to a certain herb and eats it and so is cured, and then comes back and fights again. The Chingulays when they see these two creatures fighting, do diligently observe them, and when they see the Mounggouttia goes away, they take notice of the herbs he eats, and thereby have learned what herbs are proper to cure such venoms. [And charms.] They are skilful also in the use of Charms, to cure the stings of Serpents or to prevent them, the Noyas they can charm to that pass, that they will take them up in their hands and carry them in baskets and handle them and kiss them without any harm. But the Polonga will not hear a charm. They charm other wild and venomous creatures also; as the Tyger that he shall not hurt their Cattel. [Nor good at healing inward distempers.] But to cure inward diseases they are not excellent. But generally when they are sick they apply themselves to their Gods. But their chief supplication they make to the Devil, as being God's instrument, sent to punish and afflict whom he pleaseth; as I have discoursed at large already. [They both bury and burn their dead.] These People are very loath to dye, and as much afraid of the Devil in their sickness, whom at such times they chiefly invoke. Being dead none will come near the house for many days, lest they should be defiled. The better sort burn the dead, because worms and maggots should not eat them. But the poorer sort who regard not such matters bury them making a hole in the Woods, and carrying the body wrapped up in a mat upon a Pole on their shoulders with two or three attending it, and so laying it in without any ceremony, and covering it. [They send for a Priest to pray for his Soul.] Some days after his decease, if his friends wish well to his Soul, they send for a Priest to the house, who spends a whole night in praying and singing for the saving of that Soul. This Priest besides very good entertainment, in the morning must have great gifts and rewards. And to encourage them therein, he tells them that the like bounty and liberality as they shew to him, shall the Soul of their departed friend receive in the other world. And so according to their ability they freely give unto him, such things as they are possessors of. And he out of his Wonderful good nature refuseth not any thing, be it never so mean. And thus with Drums and Pipes sounding before him, they conduct him home to his house. [How they mourn for the dead.] Their manner of mourning for the dead is, that all the Women that are present do loose their hair, and let it hang down, and with their two hands together behind their heads do make an hideous noise, crying and roaring as loud as they can, much praysing and extolling the Virtues of the deceased, tho there were none in him: and lamenting their own woful condition to live without him. Thus for three or four mornings they do rise early, and lament in this manner, also on evenings. Mean while the men stand still and sigh. [The nature of the Women.] These women are of a very strong couragious spirit, taking nothing very much to heart, mourning more for fashion than affection, never overwhelmed neither with grief or love. And when their Husbands are dead, all their care is where to get others, which they cannot long be without. [How they Bury.] It may not be unacceptable to relate how they burn their Dead. As for Persons of inferior Quality, they are interred in some convenient places in the Woods, there being no set places for Burial, carried thither by two or three of their Friends, and Buried without any more ado. They lay them on their Backs, with their heads to the West and their feet to the East, as we do. Then those People go and wash; for they are unclean by handling the Dead. [How they Burn.] But Persons of greater quality are burned, and that with Ceremony. When they are dead they lay them out, and put a Cloth over their Privy Parts, and then wash the Body, by taking half a dozen Pitchers of water, and pouring upon it. Then they cover him with a Linnen cloth, and so carry him forth to burning. This is when they burn the Body speedily. But otherwise, they cut down a Tree that may be proper for their purpose, and hollow it, like a Hog-trough, and put the Body being Embowelled and Embalmed into it, filled up all about with Pepper. And so let it lay in the house, until it be the King's Command to carry it out to the burning. For that they dare not do without the King's order, if the Person deceased be a Courtier. Sometimes the King gives no order in a great while, it may be not at all. Therefore in such cases, that the Body may not take up house-room, or annoy them, they dig an hole in the floar of their house, and put hollowed tree and all in and cover it. If afterwards the King commands to burn the Body, they take it up again in obedience to the King, otherwise there it lyes. Their order for burning is thus. If the Body be not thus put into a Trough or hollowed Tree, it is laid upon one of his Bedsteds, which is a great honour among them. This Bedsted with the Body on it, or hollowed Tree with the Body in it, is fastned with Poles, and carried upon Mens Shoulders unto the place of Burning: which is some eminent place in the Fields or High ways, or where else they please. There they lay it upon a Pile of Wood some two or three foot high. Then they pile up more Wood upon the Corps, lying thus on the Bedsted, or in the Trough. Over all they have a kind of Canopy built, if he be a Person of very high Quality covered at top, hung about with painted Cloth, and bunches of Coker-nuts, and green Boughs; and so fire is put to it. After all is burnt to ashes, they sweep together the ashes into the manner of a Sugar-loaf: and hedg the place round from wild Beasts breaking in, and they will sow Herbs there. Thus I saw the King's Uncle, the chief Tirinanx, who was as it were the Primate of all the Nation, burned, upon an high place, that the blaze might be seen a great way. If they be Noblemen, but not of so high quality, there is only a Bower erected over them, adorned with Plantane Trees, and green boughs, and bunches as before. [How they bury those that that die of the Small Pox.] But if any dye of the small Pox, be his Degree what it will, he must be Buried upon Thorns, without any further Ceremony. PART IV. CHAP. I. Of the reason of our going to Ceilon, and Detaimnent there. [The subject of this fourth Part.] In this Fourth and last Part, I purpose to speak concerning our Captivity in this Island, and during which, in what Condition the English have lived there, and the eminent Providence of God in my escape thence, together with other matters relating to the Dutch, and other European Nations, that dwell and are kept there. All which will afford so much variety, and new matters, that I doubt not but the Readers will be entertained with as much delight in perusing these things, as in any else that have been already related. I begin with the unhappy Occasion of our going to this Countrey. [The occasion of their coming to Ceilon.] Anno MDCLVII. The Ann Frigat of London, Capt. Robert Knox Commander, on the One and twentieth day of January, set Sail out of the Downs, in the Service of the Honourable the English East-India Company, bound for Fort S. George, on the Coast of Cormandel, to Trade one year from Port to Port in India. Which we having performed, as we were Lading of Goods to return for England, being in the Road of Matlipatan, on the Nineteenth of November Anno MDCLIX. happened such a mighty Storm, that in it several Ships were cast away, and we forced to cut our Main-Mast by the Board, which so disabled the Ship, that she could not proceed in her Voyage. Whereupon Cotiar, in the Island of Ceilon, being a very commodious Bay, fit for our present Distress, Thomas Chambers Esq; (since Sir Thomas) the Agent at Fort S. George, ordered, That the Ship should take in some Cloth, and go to Cotiar Bay, there to Trade, while she lay to set her Mast. Where being arrived according to the appointment of those Indian Merchants of Porta Nova we carried with us, to whom those Goods belonged, they were put ashore, and we minded our Business to set another Main-mast, and repair our other Dammages we had sustained by the late Storm. [They were not jealous of the People, being very courteous.] At our first coming thither, we were shy and jealous of the People of the Place, by reason our Nation never had any Commerce or Dealing with them. But now having been there some Twenty days, and going a Shore and coming on Board at our Pleasure without any molestation, the Governor of the Place also telling us, that we were welcom, as we seemed to our selves to be, we began to lay aside all suspitious thoughts of the People dwelling thereabouts, who had very kindly entertained us for our Moneys with such Provisions and Refreshings as those Parts afforded. [A pretended Message to the Captain from the King.] By this time the King of the Countrey had notice of our being there, and as I suppose grew suspicious of us, not having all that while by any Message made him acquainted with our intent and purpose in coming. Thereupon he dispatched down a Dissauva or General with his Army to us. Who immediately sent a Messenger on Board to acquaint the Captain with his coming, and desired him to come ashore to him, pretending a Letter to him from the King. We saluted the Message with firing of Guns, and my Father the Captain ordered me with Mr. John Loveland, Merchant of the Ship, to go on shore and wait upon him. When we were come before him, he demanded who we were, and how long we should stay? We told him, We were English, and not to stay above twenty or thirty days, and desired Permission to Trade in his Majestie's Port. His answer was, the King was glad to hear that the English were come to his Countrey, and had commanded him to assist us as we should desire, and had sent a Letter to be delivered to none, but to the Captain himself. We were then some twelve Miles from the Sea-side. Our reply was, That the Captain could not leave his Ship to come so far, but if he pleased to come down to the Sea-side himself, the Captain would immediately wait upon him to receive the Letter. Upon which the Dissauva desired us to stay that day, and on the morrow he would go down with us. Which being a small request, and we unwilling to displease him, consented to. [The beginning of their Suspition.] The same day at Evening, the Dissauva sent two of his chief Captains to the House where we lay to tell us, That he was sending a Present to the Captain, and if we pleased we might send a Letter to him; that he would send the Present in the Night, and himself with us follow the next Morning. At which we began to suspect, and accordingly concluded to write and advise the Captain not to adventure himself, nor any other on shore till he saw us. We having writ a Letter to this purpose they took it and went away, but never delivered it. [The Captain seized, and seven more.] The next Morning the Present, which was Cattle, Fruit, &c. was brought to the Sea-side, and delivered to the Captain; the Messengers telling him withal, that we were upon the way coming down, with the Dissauva; who desired his Company on shore against his coming, having a Letter from the King to deliver into his own hand. Hereupon the Captain mistrusting nothing, came up with his Boat into a small River, and being come ashore, sat down under a Tamarind Tree, waiting for the Dissauva and us. In which time the Native Soldiers privately surrounded him and Men, having no Arms with them; and so he was seized on and seven men with him, yet without any violence or plundering them of any thing: and then they brought them up unto us, carrying the Captain in a Hammock upon their Shoulders. [The Long-boat Men seized.] The next day after, the Long-boats Crew, not knowing what had happened, came ashore to cut a Tree to make Cheeks for the Main-mast, and were made Prisoners after the same manner, tho' with more violence. For they being rough and making resistance, were bound with Wyths, and so were led away till they came where the People got Ropes. Which when our Men saw brought to them, they were not a little affrighted. For being already bound, they concluded there could be no other use for those Ropes but to hang them. But the true use of them was to bind them faster, fearing lest the Wyths might break, and so they were brought up farther into the Countrey; but afterwards being become more tame, they were loosed. They would not adventure to bring them to us, but quartered them in another House, tho in the same Town. Where without leave we could not see one another. The House wherein they kept the Captain and us, was all hanged with white Callico, which is the greatest Honour they can shew to any. But the House wherein the other men were, that were brought up after us, was not. They gave us also as good Entertainment as the Countrey afforded. [The General's Craft to get the Ship, as well as the Men.] Having thus taken both our Boats and Eighteen men of us, their next care was, fearing lest the Ship should be gone, to secure her: Therefore to bring this about, the Dissauva told the Captain that the reason of this their detainment was, that the King intended to send Letters and a Present to the English Nation by him, and therefore that the Ship must not go away, till the King was ready to send his Messenger and Message, and thereupon desired the Captain to send on Board to order her stay; and it being not safe for her to ride in the Bay, lest the Dutch might come and fire her, that he should take order for her bringing up into the River. Which advice of his, the Captain approved not of. But concealing his dislike of it, replied, that unless he could send two of his own men on Board with his Letter and Order, those in the Ship would not obey him, but speedily would be gone with the Ship. Which he, rather than he would run the hazzard of the Ships departing, granted; imagining that the Captain would order the Ship to be brought up into the River, as he had advised, tho the Captain intended to make another use of this Message. [The Captain's Order to them on board the Ship.] Upon which the Captain sent two of his men, some Indians accompanying them in a Canoo to the Ship, the Captain ordering them when they were aboard not to abuse the Indians, but to entertain them very kindly, and afterwards that setting them ashore, they should keep the Canoo to themselves, instead of our two Boats, which they had gotten from us, and to secure the Ship, and wait till further order. These two men stayed on Board, and came not back again. This together with the Ships not coming up displeased the Dissauva, and he demanded of the Captain the reason thereof. His answer was, That being detained on Shore, the Men on Board would not obey his Command. Upon this some days after the Dissauva bid the Captain send his Son with order to those aboard that the Ship might be brought into the River, but provided that he would be Security for my return; which he promised he would. His order to me was, to see the top Chains put upon the Cables, and the Guns Shotted, and to tell Mr. John Burford chief Mate, and all the rest, as they valued their Lives and Liberties to keep a Watch, and not to suffer any Boat to come near, after it was dark: and charged me upon his Blessing, and as I should answer it at the great Day, not to leave him in this Condition, but to return to him again. Upon which I solemnly vowed according to my Duty to be his Obedient Son. [The Ships Company refuse to bring up the Ship.] So having seen all done according to his appointment, I wrote a Letter in the Name of the Company to clear my Father and my self, to this effect; That they would not obey the Captain, nor any other in this matter, but were resolved to stand upon their own defence. To which they all set their hands. Which done according to my Promise and Duty I returned again, and delivered the Letter to the Dissauva, who was thereby answered, and afterwards urged the Captain no more in that matter: but gave him leave at his pleasure to write for what he pleased to have brought to him from the Ship: still pretending the King's order to release us, was not yet, but would suddenly come. And so we remained expecting it about two Months, being entertained as formerly with the best Diet and Accommodation of the Countrey. [The Captain orders the ship to depart.] Having continued thus long in suspence, and the time and season of the year spending for the Ship to proceed on her Voyage to some other place, and our condition being, as we feared, and afterwards found to be, the beginning of a sad Captivity, the Captain sent order to Mr. John Burford to take the charge of the Ship upon him, and to set Sail for Porto Nova whence we came, and there to follow the Agent's order. [The Lading of Cloth remained untouched.] If any inquire what became of the Cloth of our Lading, which we brought thither, they only took an account to see what it was, and so left it where and as it was before, and there it remained until both House and Goods rotted, as the People of the same Town informed me afterwards. [The Probable season of our Surprize.] I impute the main reason of our Surprize to our Neglect, viz. in not sending a Letter and Present to the King at our first coming. Who looking upon himself as a great Monarch, as he is indeed, requires to be treated with sutable State. [The number of those that were left on the Island.] Thus were Sixteen of us left to the mercy of those Barbarians, the Names of which are as follow. The Captain, Mr. Joh. Loveland, John Gregory, Charles Beard, Roger Gold, Stephen Rutland, Nicolas Mullins, Francis Crutch, John Berry, Ralph Knight, Peter Winn, William Hubbard, Arthur Emery, Richard Varnham, George Smith, and my Self. Tho our hearts were very heavy, seeing our selves betrayed into so sad a Condition, to be forced to dwell among those that knew not God nor his Laws; yet so great was the mercy of our gracious God, that he gave us favour in the sight of this People. Insomuch that we lived far better than we could have expected, being Prisoners or rather Captives in the hands of the Heathen; from whom we could have looked for nothing but very severe usage. [The Dissauva departs.] The Ship being gone, the King sent to call the Dissauva speedily to him, who upon this order immediately marched away with his Army, leaving us where we were. But concerning us was no order at all. CHAP. II. How we were carried up into the Countrey, and disposed of there, and of the sickness, sorrow and death of the Captain. [They intend to attempt an Escape, but are prevented.] The Dissauva with his men being gone, the people of the Town were appointed to guard and secure us until further order. But they carryed us some six miles higher into the Countrey, and would not yet adventure to bring the Long boats-crew unto us, but kept them by themselves in another Town, fearing lest we might make an Escape, as certainly we would have attempted it had they not removed us. There was a small Moors Vessel, which lay in the River, which they had seized on about this time, as we supposed they would have done by our Ship if they could have catched her there. This Vessel had some forty men belonging to her who were not made Prisoners as we were, but yet lay in the same Town: with those we had concluded, that they would furnish us with Arms, and in the night altogether to march down, and get on board of their Vessel, and so make our escape. But being prevented in this design by our departure, we were fain to lay at their mercy. [Their condition commiserated by the People.] In our new quarters our entertainment proved as good as formerly. And indeed there was this to mitigate our misery, that the People were courteous to us and seemed to pity us. For there is a great difference between the People inhabiting the high-lands, or the mountains of Cande, and those of the low-lands where we now are placed, who are of a kinder nature by far than the other. For these Countreys beneath the mountains formerly were in subjection unto the Portugueze. Whereby have been exercised and acquainted with the customs and manners of Christian People. Which pleasing them far better than their own have begot and bred in them a kind of love and affection towards Strangers, being apt to shew Pity and Compassion on them in their distress. And you shall hear them oftentimes upbraiding the High-landers for their insolent and rude behavior. [They are distributed into divers Towns.] It was a very sad Condition whilst we were all together, yet hitherto each others company lessened our sufferings, and was some comfort that we might condole one another. But now it came to pass that we must be separated and placed asunder, one in a Village, where we could have none to confer withall or look upon, but the horrible black faces of our heathen enemies, and not understand one word of their Language neither, this was a great addition to our grief. Yet God was so merciful to us, as not to suffer them to part my Father and I. [An Order comes from the King to bring them up into the Countrey.] For it was some sixteen days after our last remove, the King was pleased to send a Captain with Soldiers to bring us up into the Countrey. Who brought us and the other men taken in the Long boat together: Which was an heavy meeting; Being then, as we well saw, to be carried Captives into the mountains. That night we supped together, and the next morning changed our condition into real Captivity. Howbeit they gave us many comfortable promises, which we believed not; as, that the Kings intent was not to keep us any longer, than till another Ship came to carry us away. Altho we had but very little to carry, God knows, yet they appointed men to carry the cloths that belonged to the Captain and Officers. [How they were Treated on the way in the Woods.] We still expected they would plunder us of our cloths, having nothing else to be plundered of: but the Chingulay Captain told us, that the King had given order that none should take the value of a thread from us: Which indeed they did not. As they brought us up they were very tender of us, as not to tyre us with Travelling, bidding us go no faster than we would our selves. This kindness did somewhat comfort us. The way was plain and easie to Travail through great Woods, so that we walked as in an Arbour, but desolate of Inhabitants. So that for four or five nights we lay on the Ground, with Boughs of Trees only over our heads. And of Victuals twice a Day they gave us as much as we could eat, that is, of Rice, Salt-fish, dryed Flesh: And sometimes they would shoot Deer and find Hony in the Trees, good part of which they always brought unto us. And drink we could not want, there being Rivers and Puddles full of Water as we Travelled along. [And in the Towns among the Inhabitants.] But when we came out of the Woods among Inhabitants and were led into their Towns, they brought us Victuals ready dressed after their fashion, viz. Rice boiled in Water, and three other sorts of Food, whereof one Flesh, and the other two Herbs or such like things that grow in their Countrey, and all kinds of ripe Fruit, which we liked very well and fed heartily upon. Our entertainment all along was at the Charge of the Countrey: So we fed like Soldiers upon free Quarter. Yet I think we gave them good content for all the Charge we put them to. Which was to have the satisfaction of seeing us eat, sitting on Mats upon the Ground in their yards to the Publick view of all Beholders. Who greatly admired us, having never seen, nor scarce heard of, English-men before. It was also great entertainment to them to observe our manner of eating with Spoons, which some of us had, and that we could not take the Rice up in our hands, and put it to our mouths without spilling, as they do, nor gaped and powred the Water into our Mouths out of Pots according to their Countreys custom. Thus at every Town where we came they used both young and old in great Companies to stare upon us. [They are brought near Cande, and there Seperated.] Being thus brought up all together somewhat near to the City of Cande. Now came an Order from the King to separate us, and to place us one in a Town. Which then seemed to us to be very hard, but it was for the convenience or getting Food, being quartered upon the Countrey at their Charge. [The Captain and his Son and two more quartered together.] The Captain Mr. John Loveland, my self and John Gregory were parted from the rest, and brought nearer to the City, to be ready when the King should send for us. All the Rest were placed one in a Town according to the aforesaid Order. Special Command also was given from the King, that we all should be well entertained, and according to the Countrey fare we had no cause to complain. We four were thus kept together some two Months, faring well all the while. But the King minding us not, [Parted.] Order came from the great Men in Court to place us in Towns, as the rest were; only my Father and I were still permitted to be together, and a great Charge given to use us well. [How they fared.] And indeed twice a Day we had brought unto us as good fare as the Countrey afforded. All the rest had not their Provisions brought to them, as we had, but went to eat from house to house, each house taking its turn. [The Captain and his Son placed in Coos-wat.] On the Sixteenth of September, 1660. My Father and I were placed in a Town called Bonder Coos-wat the situation was very pleasing and commodious, lying about Thirty Miles to the Northward of the City of Cande, in the Countrey called Hotcurly and distant from the rest of our People a full days journey. We were removed hither from another Town nearer to the City where the Nobles at Court supposing that the King would call for us, had placed us to have us ready. Being thus brought to Bonder Cooswat, the People put it to our choice which House we would have to reside in. The Countrey being hot and their Houses dark and dirty, my Father chose an open House, having only a Roof but no Walls. Wherein they placed a Cot, or Bed-stead only with a Mat upon it for him, which in their Account is an extraordinary Lodging; and for me a Mat upon the Ground. [Moneys scarce with them.] Moneys at that time were very low with us. For although we wanted not for opportunity to send for what we would have brought unto unto us from the Ship, yet fearing we should be plundered of it, sent not for any thing only a Pillow for my Father. For we held it a point without dispute, that they that made Prisoners of our Bodies would not spare to take our Goods; my Father also alledging, that he had rather his Children at home should enjoy them. [But they had good Provisions without it.] But to make amends for that, we had our Provisions brought us without money, and that twice a Day, so much as we could eat, and as good as their Countrey yielded; to wit, a Pot of good Rice, and three Dishes of such things as with them is accounted good Cheer; one always either Flesh, Fish or Eggs; but not over much of this Dish, the other Dishes, Herbs, Pumkins or such like, one of which is always made sower. [The Town where they were, Sickly.] The first year that we were brought into this Town, this part of the Land was extraordinary Sickly by Agues and Feavours, whereof many People dyed; insomuch that many times we were forced to remain an hungry, there being none well enough either to boil or bring Victuals unto us. [How they passed their time.] We had with us a Practice of Piety, and Mr. Rogers seven Treatises, called the Practice of Christianity. With which companions we did frequently discourse; and in the cool of the Evening walk abroad in the Fields for a refreshing, tyred with being all day in our House or Prison. [They both fall Sick.] This Course lasted until God was pleased to visit us both with the Countrey Sickness, Ague and Feavour. The sight of my Fathers misery was far more grievous unto me than the sence of my own, that I must be a Spectator of his Affliction, and not any ways able to help him. And the sight of me so far augmented his grief, that he would often say, What have I done when I charged you to come ashore to me again, your dutifulness to me hath brought you to be a Captive. I am old and cannot long hold out, but you may live to see many days of Sorrow, if the mercy of God do not prevent it. But my prayers to God for you shall not be wanting, that for this cause he would visit you with his Mercy, and bestow on you a Blessing. [Deep Grief seizes the Captain.] My Father's Ague lasted not long, but deep grief daily more and more increased upon him, which so over-whelmed even his very heart, that with many a bitter sigh he used to utter these words, These many years even from my youth have I used the Seas, in which time the Lord God hath delivered me from a multitude of Dangers; rehearsing to me what great Dangers he had been in, in the Straits by the Turks and by other Enemies, and also in many other places, too large here to insert, and always how merciful God was to him in delivering him out of them all, So that he never knew what it was to be in the hand of an Enemy; But now in his old Age, when his head was grown grey, to be a Captive to the Heathen, and to leave his Bones in the Eastern Parts of the World, when it was his hopes and intention, if God permitted him to finish this Voyage, to spend and end the residue of his days at home with his Children in his Native Countrey, and to settle me in the Ship in his stead; the thoughts of these things did even break his heart. [Their Sickness continues.] Upwards of three Months my Father lay in this manner upon his Bed, having only under him a Mat and the Carpet he sat upon in the Boat when he came ashore, and a small Quilt I had to cover him withall. And I had only a Mat upon the Ground and a Pillow to lay on, and nothing to cover me but the Cloths on my back: but when I was cold, or that my Ague came upon me, I used to make a Fire, Wood costing nothing, but the fetching. [Their Boy's disobedience adds to their trouble.] We had a black Boy my Father brought from Porto Nova to attend upon him, who seeing his Master to be a Prisoner in the hands of the People of his own Complexion, would not now obey his Command, further than what agreed unto his own humour, neither was it then as we thought in our Power to compel or make him; but it was our ignorance. As for me, my Ague now came to a settled course; that is, once in three days, and so continued for Sixteen Months time. [His excessive sorrow.] There appearing now to us no probability, whereupon to build any hopes of Liberty, the sence of it struck my Father into such an Agony and strong Passion of Grief, that once I well remember in Nine days time nothing came into his mouth, but cold water; neither did he in three Months together ever rise up out of his Bed, but when the course of Nature required it: always groaning and sighing in a most piteous manner: which for me to hear and see come from my dear Father, my self also in the same Condition, did almost break my heart. But then I felt that Doctrine most true, which I had read out of Mr. Roger's Book, That God is most sweet, when the world is most bitter. In this manner my Father lay until the Ninth of February 1660/61. By which time he was consumed to an Anatomy, having nothing left but Skin to cover his Bones; yet he often would say, That the very sound of Liberty would so revive him, that it would put strength into his Limbs. But it was not the will of him, to whom we say, Thy will be done, to have it so. [His Discourse and charge to his Son before his Death.] The evening before his Death, he called me to come near his Bed side, and to sit down by him, at which time also I had a strong Feavor upon me. This done, he told me, That he sensibly felt his life departing from him, and was assured that this Night God would deliver him out of this Captivity, and that he never thought in all his Lifetime that Death could be so easie and welcom to any Man, as God had made it to be to him, and the joyes he now felt in himself he wanted utterance to express to me. He told me, These were the last words, that ever he should speak to me, and bid me well regard and be sure to remember them, and tell them to my Brother and Sister, if it pleased God, as he hoped it would, to bring us together in England; where I should find all things settled to my contentation, relating to me after what manner he had settled his Estate by Letters which he sent from Cotiar. In the first place and above all, He charged me to serve God, and with a circumspect care to walk in his ways, and then, he said, God would bless me and prosper me. And next, he bad me have a care of my Brother and Sister. And lastly, He gave me a special charge to beware of strong Drink, and lewd Company, which as by Experience many had found, would change me into another man, so that I should not be my self. It deeply grieved him, he said, to see me in Captivity in the prime of my years, and so much the more because I had chosen rather to suffer Captivity with him than to disobey his Command. Which now he was heartily sorry for, that he had so commanded me, but bad me not repent of obeying the command of my Father; seeing for this very thing, he said, God would bless me, and bid me be assured of it, which he doubted not of, viz. That God Almighty would deliver me; which at that time I could not tell how to conceive, seeing but little sign of any such Matter. But blessed be the Name of my most gracious God, who hath so bountifully sustained me ever since in the Land of my Captivity, and preserved me alive to see my Deceased Father's word fulfilled! And truly I was so far from repenting, that I had obeyed the Command of my Father, and performed the Oath and Promise I made unto him upon it, that it rather rejoyced me to see that God had given me so much Grace. [His Death.] But tho it was a trouble to him, that by his means I was thus made a Captive; yet it was a great Comfort to him, he said, to have his own Son sit by him on his Death-bed, and by his hands to be Buried, whereas otherwise he could expect no other but to be eaten by Dogs or wild Beasts. Then he gave me order concerning his Burial, That having no winding sheet, I should pull his Shirt over his head, and slip his Breeches over his feet, and so wrap him up in the Mat he layd upon: and then ceased speaking, and fell into a Slumber. This was about Eight or Nine a Clock in the Evening, and about Two or Three in the Morning he gave up the Ghost, Feb. the Ninth, 1660. being very sensible unto the very instant of his Departure. [And Burial.] According to his own appointment with my own hands I wrapped him up ready for the Grave; my self being very sick and weak, and as I thought ready to follow after him. Having none but the black Boy with me, I bad him ask the People of the Town for help to carry my Father to the Grave, because I could not understand their Language. Who immediately brought forth a great Rope they used to tye their Cattle withal, therewith to drag him by the Neck into the Woods, saying, They could afford me no other help, unless I would pay for it. This Insolency of the Heathen grieved me much to see, neither could I with the Boy alone do what was necessary for his Burial, though we had been able to carry the Corps, having not wherewithal to dig a Grave, and the ground very dry and hard. Yet it was some comfort to me that I had so much Ability as to hire one to help; which at first I would not have spared to have done, had I known their meaning. [The Place where he lyes.] By this means I thank God, in so decent a manner as our present condition would permit, I laid my Father's Body in the Grave. Most of which I digged with my own hands; the place being in a Wood, on the North-side of a Corn Field, where heretofore we had used often to walk, going up to Handapoul: that Division, as I have said, being called Bonder Cooswat, because formerly it had belonged to the Revenues or Jointure of the Queen, Bonder implying something relating to the King. It lyes towards the Northwest of the middle of the Island in the County Hotcurly. Thus was I left Desolate, Sick, and in Captivity, having no earthly Comforter, none but only He who looks down from Heaven to hear the groaning of the Prisoners, and to shew himself a Father of the Fatherless, and a present help to them that have no helper. [Upon the Captain's death, a Message sent his Son from Court.] The News of my Father's Death being carried to Court, presently two Messengers were sent from thence to see me, and to know of me, How and in what manner my Father died, and what he had left. Which was a Gold Ring, a Pagoda, and some two or three Dollars and a few old Cloths; God knows but a very little, yet it scared me not a little, fearing they would take it away from me, and my want being so great; but they had no such order nor intent. But the chief occasion of their coming was to renew the former order unto the People of that Town, that they should be kind to me and give me good Victuals, left I might dye also as my Father had done. So for a while I had better entertainment than formerly. CHAP. III. How I lived after my Father's Death. And of the Condition of the rest of the English: and how it fared with them. And of our Interview. [His chief employment is Reading.] I still remained where I was before, having none but the black Boy, and my Ague to bear me Company. Never found I more pleasure in Reading, Meditating and Praying than now. For there was nothing else could administer to me any Comfort, neither had I any other Business to be occupied about. I had read my two Books so often over, that I had them almost by heart. For my custom was after Dinner to take a Book and go into the Fields and sit under a Tree, reading and meditating until Evening; excepting the Day when my Ague came, for then I could scarce hold up my head. Often have I prayed as Elijah under the Juniper Tree, that God would takeaway my life, for it was a burthen to me. [He loses his Ague.] At length it pleased God my Ague began to be a little moderate; and so by degrees it wore away, after it had held me sixteen Months. [How he met with an English Bible in that Countrey.] Provisions falling short with me, tho Rice I thank God, I never wanted, and Monies also growing low; as well to help out a Meal as for Recreation, sometimes I went with an Angle to catch small Fish in the Brooks, the aforesaid Boy being with me. It chanced as I was Fishing, an old Man passed by, and seeing me, asked of my Boy, If I could read in a Book. He answered, Yes. The reason I ask, said the old Man, is because I have one I got when the Portugueze left Columbo, and if your Master please to buy it, I will sell it him. Which when I heard of; I bad my Boy go to his House with him, which was not far off, and bring it to me to see it, making no great account of the matter, supposing it might be some Portugueze Book. The Boy having formerly served the English, knew the Book, and as soon as he had got it in his hand came running with it, calling out to me, It is a Bible. It startled me to hear him mention the name of a Bible. For I neither had one, nor scarcely could ever think to see one. Upon which I flung down my Angle and went to meet him. The first place the Book opened in after I took it in my hand, was the Sixteenth Chapter of the Acts, and the first place my eye pitched on, was the Thirtieth and one and Thirtieth Verses, where the Jailor asked S. Paul, What must I do to be saved? And he answered saying, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thine house. [Struck into a great Passion at the sight of the Book.] The sight of this Book so rejoiced me, and affrighted me together, that I cannot say, which Passion was greater, the joy, for that I had got sight of a Bible, or the fear, that I had not enough to buy it, having then but one Pagoda in the World, which I willingly would have given for it, had it not been for my Boy, who dissuaded me from giving so much, alledging my Necessity for Money many other ways, and undertaking to procure the Book for a far meaner price, provided I would seem to slight it in the sight of the old Man. This counsel after I considered I approved of, my urgent Necessities earnestly craving, and my Ability being but very small to relieve the same: and however, I thought, I could give my piece of Gold at the last cast, if other means should fail. I hope the Readers will excuse me, that I hold them so long upon this single passage, For it did so affect me then, that I cannot lightly pass it over as often as I think of it, or have occasion to mention it. The sight indeed of this Bible so overjoyed me, as if an Angel had spoke to me from Heaven. To see that my most gracious God had prepared such an extraordinary Blessing for me; which I did, and ever shall look upon as miraculous, to bring unto me a Bible in my own Native Language, and that in such a remote part of the World, where his Name was not so much as known, and where any English Man was never known to have been before. I looked upon it, as somewhat of the same nature with the Ten Commandments he had given the Israelites out of Heaven; it being the thing for want whereof I had so often mourned, nay and shed tears too; and than the enjoyment whereof there could be no greater joy in the world to me. [He casts with himself how to get it.] Upon the sight of it I left off Fishing, God having brought a Fish to me, that my Soul had longed for; and now how to get it and enjoy the same, all the Powers of my Soul were employed. I gave God hearty thanks that he had brought it so near me, and most earnestly prayed that he would bestow it on me. Now, it being well towards Evening, and not having wherewithal to buy it about me, I departed home, telling the old Man, that in the Morning I would send my Boy to buy it of him. All that Night I could take no rest for thinking on it, fearing lest I might be disappointed of it. In the Morning as soon as it was day, I sent the Boy with a knit Cap he had made for me to buy the Book, praying in my heart for good success, which it pleased God to grant: For that Cap purchased it, and the Boy brought it to me to my great joy, which did not a little comfort me over all my Afflictions. [Where the rest of the English were bestowed.] Having said all this concerning my Father and my Self, it will be time now to think of the rest of our poor Countreymen, and to see what is become of them. They were carried into the County of Hotteracourly, Westward from the City of Cande, and placed singly according to the King's Order aforesaid, some four, some six Miles distant one from the other. It was the King's Command concerning them that the People should give them Victuals, and look after them. So they carried each man from house to house to eat, as their turns came to give them Victuals, and where they Supped there they Lodged that Night. Their Bedding was only a Mat upon the Ground. [Kept from one another a good while, but after permitted to see each other.] They knew not they were so near to one another a great while; till at length Almighty God was pleased by their grief and heaviness to move those Heathen to Pity and take Compassion on them: So that they did bring some of them to one another. Which joy was but Abortive, for no sooner did they begin to feel the Comfort of one anothers Company, but immediately their Keepers called upon them to go from whence they came: fearing they might consult and run away, altho Columbo the nearest Port they could fly to was above two days Journey from them. But as it is with wild Beasts beginning to grow tame, their Liberty encreaseth: So it happened to our Men; so that at length they might go and see one another at their pleasures; and were less and less watched and regarded. And seeing they did not attempt to run away, they made no matter of it, if they stayed two or three days one with the other. [No manner of work laid upon them.] They all wondered much to see themselves in this Condition, to be kept only to eat, and the People of the Countrey giving it unto them, daily expecting when they would put them to work, which they never did, nor dared to do. For the King's order was to feed them well only, and to look after them until he pleased to send for them. This after some time made them to change their minds, and not to think themselves Slaves any more, but the Inhabitants of the Land to be their Servants, in that they laboured to sustain them. Which made them to begin to Domineer, and would not be content unless they had such Victuals as pleased them, and oftentimes used to throw the Pots, Victuals and all at their heads that brought them, which they patiently would bear. [They begin to pluck up their hearts.] And as they lived here longer, they knew better what Privileges they had in belonging unto the King, and being maintained by virtue of his Command. And their Privileges they made use of to no purpose, as I shall relate an instance or two by and by; and showed their English Metal. [What course they took for Cloths.] Victuals was the only thing allowed them, but no Cloths. By this time the Cloths they had were almost worn out. This put them to a study what course to take to procure more, when those on their backs were gone. The readiest way that they could devise was this, that whereas they used to take their Victuals brought to them ready dressed, they should now take them raw; and so to pinch somewhat out of their Bellies, to save to buy Cloths for their Backs. And so accordingly they concluded to do: and by the favour that God gave them in the sight of the People, by alledging the Innocency of their Cause, and the Extremity of their present Condition, having not the least ability to help or relieve themselves, they consented to give them two Measures of Rice a day each man. One of which is as much as any man can eat in a day, so that the other was to serve for advance towards Cloths. [Their fare.] For besides Rice, they gave them to eat with it Salt, Pepper, Limes, Herbs, Pumpkins, Coker Nuts, Flesh a little. These and such like things were their constant fare. [What Employment they afterwards followed.] And thus they made a shift to live for some years, until some of them had an insight in knitting Caps, by whom all afterwards learned, and it proved to be the chief means and help we all had to relieve our wants. The ordinary price we sold these Caps for, was Nine pence a piece in value English Money, the Thread standing us in about three pence. But at length, we plying hard our new Learned Trade, Caps began to abound, and Trading grew dead, so that we could not sell them at the former price: which brought several of our Nation to great want. [How the English Domineered.] The English began now to pluck up their hearts, and tho they were entred into a new Condition, they kept their old Spirits, especially considering they were the King's Men, and quartered by his special order upon the People. When they had obtained to have their Allowance raw, if any brought them not their full due, they would go in and Plunder their Houses of such Goods as they found there, and keep them until they came and brought them their compleat allowance to redeem their Goods back again. [What Satisfaction one of them received from a Potter.] Some of our English men have proceeded further yet. One for example went to buy Pots of a Potter. Who because he would not let him have them at his own price fell to quarrel, in which the English man met with some blows. Which he complained of to the Magistrate as being a Person that belonged unto the King, and therefore claimed better usage. And the Magistrate condemned the Potter as guilty in lifting up his hand against him, and sent some of his Soldiers to bind him, and then bad the English man go and content himself by paying him in the same Coin again, as he had served our Countreyman; which he did until he was satisfied, and moreover, ordered him to take the Pots he came to buy and pay nothing. But the Law was not so satisfied neither, for the Soldiers laid on many blows besides. [A scuffle between the English and Natives.] Another time at a certain Feast, as they were drinking and wanting Wine, they sent Money to buy more; but the Seller refused to give it them for their Money. Which they took so hainously, that they unanimously concluded to go and take it by force. Away they went each man with his Staff in his hand, and entred the House and began to Drink; which the People not liking of, gathered their Forces together, and by blows began to resist them. But the English men bravely behaved themselves, and broke several of their Pates. Who with the Blood about their Ears went to the City to complain to the great Men. They demanded of them, If they had ever sold them Wine before. They answered, Yes. They asked them again, Why then did they refuse to sell them now? And that they were well served by the English for denying them drink for their Money: and so sent them away laughing at them. Our Men got two or three black and blew Blows, but they came home with their Bellies full of Drink for their pains. [The Author after a year sees his Countreymen.] But to return unto my self. It was a full year after my Father died, before I had sight of any of my Countreymen and Fellow Prisoners. Then John Gregory with much ado obtained leave to come and see me: which did exceedingly rejoyce me. For a great Satisfaction it was, both to see a Countreyman, and also to hear of the welfare of the rest. But he could not be permitted to stay with me above one day. Until then, I knew not punctually where the rest of my Countreymen were, but having heard that they were within a days Journey of me, I never ceased importuning the People of the Town where I dwelt, to let me go and see them. Which tho very loath, yet at last they granted. Being arrived at the nearest English man's House, I was joyfully received, and the next day he went and called some of the rest of our Countreymen that were near. So that there were some seven or eight of us met together. [Their Conference and Entertainment.] We gave God thanks for his great Mercies towards us, being then, as we did confess, in a far better Condition than we could have expected. They were now no more like the Prisoners I left them, but were become House keepers, and Knitters of Caps and had changed their Habit from Breeches to Clouts like the Chingulays. They entertained me with very good chear in their Houses beyond what I did expect. [He consults with his Countreymen for a future livelyhood.] My Money at the same time almost gone, and Cloaths in the same condition, it was high time for me now to take some course in hand to get more. Therefore I took some advice with them about Knitting, my Boy having Skill therein. Likewise they advised me to take my Victuals raw, wherein they found great Profit. For all this while here being no signs of releasing us, it concerned me now to bethink my self how I should live for the future. For neither had I, any more than my Countreymen, any allowance for Cloths, but Victuals only. Having stayed here some two or three days, we did take leave of one another, hoping to see one another oftner, since we knew each others Habitations: and I departed to my House, having a Keeper with me. [The difficulty he met with of having raw Rice.] By this time I began to speak the Language of the Countrey. Whereby I was inabled the better to speak my mind unto the People that brought me my Victuals. Which Was henceforward not to boil my Rice, but to bring it raw according to the quantity that the other English men had. This occasioned a great deal of disputing and reasoning between us. They alledged, That I was not as they, being the Captain's Son, and they but his Servants, and therefore that it was ordered by the great Men at Court, that my Victuals should be daily brought unto me, whereas they went always from house to house for theirs: Neither was it fitting for me, they said, to imploy my self in such an Inferior Office as to dress my own Meat, being a Man that the King had notice of by Name, and very suddenly before I should be aware of it, would send for me into the Presence, where I should be highly promoted to some Place of Honour. In the mean time, they told me, as pretending to give me good counsel, That it was more for my credit and repute to have my Provisions brought unto me ready Dressed as they were before. [He reasons with the People about his allowance.] Altho I was yet but a Novice in the Countrey, and knew not much of the People, yet plain reason told me, that it was not so much for my good and credit that they pleaded, as for their own benefit. Wherefore I returned them this answer, That if as they said I was greater in quality than the rest, and so held in their Estimation, it would be but reason to demand a greater allowance, whereas I desired no more than the other English men had. And as for the toyl and trouble in dressing of it, that would be none to me, for my Boy had nothing else to do. And then I alledged several inconveniencies in bringing my Victuals ready boiled; as first, that it was not dressed according to my Diet; and many times not brought in due Season, so that I could not eat when I was an hungry. And the last and chief reason of all was, that I might save a little to serve my Necessity of Clothing: and rather than want Cloths for my Back, I must pinch a little out of my Belly, and so both go share and share like. And so at length, thanks be to God, I obtained, tho with much ado, to get two Measures of Rice per day for my self, and one for my Boy; also Coker-nuts, Pumpkins, Herbs, Limes, and such like enough, besides Pepper and Salt; and sometimes Hens, Eggs, or Flesh: Rice being the main thing they stand upon, for other things they refuse not to give what they have. [He builds him an House.] Now having settled all Business about my allowance, my next concern was to look after an House more convenient, for my present one was too small to dress my Victuals in, and to sleep in too. Thereabouts was a Garden of Coker-nut Trees, belonging unto the King, a pleasant situation; this place I made choice of to build me a House in. And discovering my desire to the People, they consented, and came and built it for me: but before it was finished, their occasions called them away, but my Boy and I made an end of it, and whitened the Walls with Lime, according to my own Countrey fashion. But in doing this I committed a Capital Offence: for none may white their Houses with Lime, that being peculiar to Royal Houses and Temples. But being a Stranger nothing was made of it, because I did it in ignorance: had it been a Native that had so done, it is most probable it would have cost him his Head, or at the least a great Fine. [He follows business and thrives.] Being settled in my new House, I began to keep Hogs and Hens; which by God's Blessing thrived very well with me, and were a great help unto me. I had also a great benefit by living in this Garden. For all the Coker-nuts that fell down they gave me, which afforded me Oyl to burn in the Lamp, and also to fry my meat in. Which Oyl being new is but little inferior to this Countrey Butter. Now I learned to knit Caps, which Skill I quickly attained unto, and by God's Blessing upon the same, I obtained great help and relief thereby. [Some attempted running away, but were catched.] In this manner we all lived, seeing but very little sign that we might build upon, to look for Liberty. The chief of our hopes of it was that in process of time when we were better acquainted we might run away. Which some of our People attempted to do too soon, before they knew well which way to go, and were taken by the Inhabitants. For it is the custom of the Chingulays to suspect all white People, they meet travailing in the Countrey, to be Runaways; and to examine them: and if they cannot give satisfactory answers, they will lay hold of them and carry them back unto the City. Where they will keep them Prisoners under a guard of Soldiers in an open House like a Barn with a little Victuals sometimes, and sometimes with none at all. Where they have no other remedy to help themselves but Begging. And in this Condition they may lye perhaps for their Lifetime, being so kept for a Spectacle unto the People. [Little incouragement for those that bring back Runnaways.] Tho the common way whereby the King gratifies such as catch Runawayes and bring them up, is not over acceptable. For they are appointed to feed and watch them until he calls for them to be brought before him. At which time his promise is bountifully to reward them. But these Promises I never knew performed. Neither doth he perhaps ever think of it after. For when the King is made acquainted with the matter, the men that have brought up the Prisoner are in a manner as bad Prisoners themselves, not daring to go home to their Houses without his leave, but there they must remain. After some years stay, the common manner is, for them to give a Fee unto the Governor of the Countrey, and he will licence them to go home, which they must be contented with instead of the promised reward. CHAP. IV. Concerning some other English men detained in that Countrey. [The Persia Merchant's men Captives before us.] In the same Captivity with our selves on this Island, was another Company of English Men, who were taken about a year and an half before us, viz. in the year MDCLVIII. They were Thirteen in number, whose names were as follow, Viz. Mr. William Vassal, John Merginson, Thomas March, Thomas Kirby, Richard Jelf, Gamaliel Gardiner, William Day, Thomas Stapleton, Henry Man, Hugh Smart, Daniel Holstein, an Hamburger, James Gony, and Henry Bingham. The occasion of their Seizure was thus. The Ship these Men belonged unto was the Persia Merchant, Capt. Francis Johnson Commander, which was lost upon the Maldives Islands. But they escaped in their Boats, and passing along by this Land went on shore to recruit and buy Provisions, and so were taken. The Chingulays that took them [Plundered by the Natives.] Plundered them of what they had, except their Cloths. Yet one of them, John Merginson by name, having cunningly hid his Money about him, saved it from the Heathen, but from his own Countrymen he could not, some of whom knowing of it set upon him and robbed him of it. But it did them little good, for the King hearing of it sent and robbed the Robbers. [Brought up to the King.] These men thus seized were carried up before the King. Of whom he demanded, whether the English had Wars with the Hollanders. They answered, No. Or, if the English could beat them. They answered, They could and had done it lately. Then he gave order to give them all some Cloths, and to Mr. William Vassal, being the chief of them, a double Portion. And out of them made choice of two Lads; whom afterwards he sent and took into his Court. Their honours and their ends we shall see by and by. They were all placed in the City of Cande, and each of them had a new Mat given them to sleep on, and their Diet was Victuals dressed and brought them twice a day from the King's own Palace. They had Cloths also distributed to them another time. So that these men had the advantage of us. For we neither had Mats nor Cloths, nor had the honour of being ever brought into the King's Presence. [They hoped to obtain Liberty, but were mistaken.] This civil Reception upon their first coming up into the City, put these Persia Merchant-men in hope, that the King would give them their Liberty. There was at that time an old Portugueze Father, Padre Vergonse by name, Living in the City. With him they discoursed concerning the probability of their Liberty, and that the favours the King had shewn them seemed to be good signs of it: but he told them the plain truth, that it was not customary there to release white Men. For saying which, they railed at him, calling him Popish Dog, and Jesuitical Rogue, supposing he spoke as he wished it might be. But afterward to their grief they found it to be true as he told them. [A ridiculous action of these Men.] Their entertainment was excellently good according to the poor condition of the Countrey, but they thought it otherwise, very mean and not according to the King's order. Therefore that the King might be informed how they were abused, each man took the Limb of an Hen in his hand, and marched rank and file in order thro the Streets with it in their hands to the Court, as a sign to the great Men whereby they might see, how illy they were served; thinking hereby the King might come to hear of their misusage, and so they might have order to be fed better afterwards. But this proved Sport to the Noblemen who well knew the fare of the Countrey, laughing at their ignorance, to complain where they had so little cause. And indeed afterwards they themselves laughed at this action of theirs, and were half ashamed of it, when they came to a better understanding of the Nature of the Countreys Diet. [They had a mind to Beef, and how they got it.] Yet notwithstanding being not used to such short Commons of Flesh, tho they had Rice in abundance, and having no Money to buy more, they had a desire to kill some Cows, that they might eat their Bellies full of Beef, but made it somewhat a point of Conscience, whether it might be lawful or not, to take them without leave. Upon which they apply themselves to the old Father abovesaid, desiring him to solve this Case of Conscience. Who was very ready to give them a Dispensation. And told them, That forasmuch as the Chingulayes were their Enemies and had taken their Bodies, it was very lawful for them to satisfie their Bodies with their Goods. And the better to animate them in this design, bid them bring him a piece, that he might partake with them. So being encouraged by the old Father, they went on boldly in their intended Business. [A Passage of the Courage of the Men.] Now if you would have an account of the Metal and Manfulness of these men, as you have already had a tast of ours, take this passage. The Jack Fruit the Kings Officers often gather wheresoever it grows, and give to the Kings Elephants, and they may gather it in any mans grounds without the Owners leave, being for the Kings use. Now these English men were appointed to dwell in an house, that formerly belonged unto a Noble man, whom the King had cut off, and seized upon it. In the ground belonging to this House stood a Jack Tree full of Fruit. Some of the Kings men came thither to gather some of them to feed the Elephants. But altho the English had free liberty to gather what they could eat or desire, yet they would permit none but themselves to meddle with them, but took the Officers by the shoulders and turned them out of the Garden, altho there were more a great many than they could tell what to do with. The Great men were so Civil, that notwithstanding this Affront, they laid no Punishment upon them. But the Event of this was, that a few days after they were removed from this house to another, where was a Garden but no Trees in it. And because they would not allow the King a few, they lost all themselves. [Two of his Company taken into Court.] I mentioned before two Lads of this Company, whom the King chose out for his own service, their Names were Hugh Smart and Henry Man. These being taken into his Court, obtained great Favour and Honour from him, as to be always in his presence, and very often he would kindly and familiarly talk with them concerning their Country, what it afforded; and of their King and his Strength for War. Thus they lived in his Favour for some time. [The one out of Favour, his end.] Till at length Hugh Smart, having a desire to hear news concerning England, privatly got to the Speech of a Dutch Embassadour. Of which the King had notice, but would not believe it, supposing the information was given him out of Envy to his Favorite, but commanded privately to watch him, and if he went again, to catch him there. Which he not being aware of, went again, and was catched. At which the King was very angry. For he allows none to come to the speech of Ambassodours, much less one that served in his presence, and heard and saw all that passed in Court. But yet the King dealt very favourably with him. For had it been a Chingulay, there is nothing more sure than that he should have dyed for it. But this English mans Punishment was only to be sent away and kept a Prisoner in the Mountains without Chains, and ordered him to be well used there. Where indeed he lived better content than in the Kings Palace. He took a Wife here and had one Son by her, and afterwards dyed by a mischance, which was thus. As he was gathering a Jack from the Tree by a Crock, it fell down upon his side, and bruised him so that it killed him. [The other out of Favour, and lamentable Death.] Henry Man the other, yet remained in Favour, and was promoted to be Chief over all the Kings Servants that attended on him in his Palace. It happened one Day, that he broke one of the Kings China Dishes. Which made him so sore afraid, that he fled for Sanctuary into a Vehar, a Temple where the Chief Priests always dwel, and hold their consultations. This did not a little displease the King; this Act of his supposing him to be of Opinion that those Priests were able to secure him against the Kings displeasure. However he shewing Reverence to their Order would not violently fetch him from thence; but sent a kind Message to the English man, bidding him not to be afraid for so small a matter as a Dish (And, it is probable had he not added this fault he might have escaped without Punishment) and that he should come and Act in his place as formerly. At which Message he came forth, and immediatly, as the King had given order, they took hold of him and bound his Arms above the Elbows behind, which is their fashion of binding men. In which manner he lay all that Night, being bound so hard that his Arms swelled, and the Ropes cut throw the Flesh into the Bones. The next day the King Commanded a Noble man to loose the Ropes off his Arms, and put Chains on his Legs, and keep him in his House, and there feed him and cure him. Thus he lay some Six Months, and was cured, but had no Strength in his Armes, and then was taken into his Office again, and had as much Favour from the King as before. Who seemed much to lament him for his folly, thus to procure his own ruine. Not long after he again offended the King. Which as it is reported was thus. A Portugueze had been sent for to the City to be employed in the Kings Service; to which Service he had no Stomach at all, and was greatly afraid of, as he justly might be. For the avoiding therefore of it he sends a Letter to this English Courtier, wherein he entreated him to use his interest to excuse him to the King. The English man could not read the Letter being writ in the Portugueze Tongue, but gave it to another to read. Which when he knew the contents of thought it not safe for him to meddle in that business, and so concealed the Letter. The person to whom the English man had given it to read, some time after informed the King thereof. Whereupon both the Portugueze that sent the Letter, and the English man to whom it was sent, and the Third Person that read it, because he informed no sooner, were all three at one time and in one place torn in pieces by Elephants. [The King sends special order concerning their good usage.] After this Execution the King supposing that we might be either discontented in our selves, or discountenanced by the People of the Land, sent special order to all parts where we dwelt, that we should be of good cheer, and not be discouraged, neither abused by the Natives. Thus jealous is the King of Letters, and allows none to come or go. We have seen how dear it cost poor Henry Man. Mr. William Vassal, another of the Persia-Merchant men, was therefore more wary of some Letters he had, and came off better. [Mr. Vassals prudence upon the receit of Letters.] This man had received several Letters, and it was known abroad that he had. Which he fearing lest the King should hear of, thought it most convenient and safe to go to the Court and present him himself; that so he might plead in his own Defence to the King. Which he did. He acknowledged to him that he had received Letters, and that they came to his hands a pretty while ago: but withall pretended excuses and reasons to clear himself. As first, that when he received them, he knew not that it was against the Law and manner of the Countrey; and when he did know, he took Council of a Portugueze Priest, (who was now dead) being old and as he thought well experienced in the Countrey. But he advised him to defer a while the carrying them unto the King until a more convenient season. After this he did attempt, he said to bring them unto the King, but could not be permitted to have entrance thro the Watches: so that until now, he could not have opportunity to present them. [The King bids him to read his Letters.] The King at the hearing hereof, seemed not to be displeased in the least, but bid him read them. Which he did in the English Language, as they were writ; and the King sat very attentive as if he had understood every word. After they were read, the King gave Vassal a Letter he had intercepted, sent to us from Sir Edward Winter, then Agent at Fort St. George; and asked the News and Contents thereof. Which Mr. Vassal informed him at large of. It was concerning the Victory we had gained over the Dutch when Obdam Admiral of Holland was slain, and concerning the number of our Ships in that Fight, being there specified to be an Hundred and Fifty Sail. The King inquired much after the number of Guns and Men they carried. The number of Men he computed to be one Ship with another about Three Hundred per Ship. At that rate, the King demanded of him how many that was in all. Which Mr. Vassal went about to cast up in the Sand with his finger. But before he had made his Figure the King had done it by Head, and bid him desist, saying it was 45000. [The King pleased to hear of England Victory over Holland.] This News of the Hollanders overthrow, and the English Victory much delighted the King: and he inquired into it very particularly. Then the King pretended he would send a Letter to the English Nation, and bad Mr. Vassal inform him of a Trusty Bearer. Which he was very forward to do, and named one of the best which he had made trial of. One of the Great men there present, objected against him, saying, he was insufficient, and asked him, if he knew no other. At which Vassal suspected their Design, which was to learn who had brought those Letters to him; and so framed his answer accordingly, which was that he knew no other. [Private discourse between the King and Vassal.] There was much other discourse passed between the King and him at this time in the Portugueze Tongue. Which what it was I could never get out of him, the King having commanded him to keep it secret. And he saith, he hath sworn to himself not to divulge it, till he is out of the Kings hands. At parting, the King told him, for Secrecy he would send him home privatly, or otherwise he would have dismist him with Drums and Honour. But after this the King never sent for him again. And the man, that he named as fit and able to carry the Kings Letter, was sent away Prisoner to be kept in Chains in the Countrey. It is supposed, that they concluded him to have been the man that brought Vassal his Letters. And thus much of the Captivity and Condition of the Persia-Merchant men. CHAP. V. Concerning the means that were used for our Deliverance. And what happened to us in the Rebellion. And how we were setled afterwards. [Means made to the King for our Liberty.] All of us in this manner remained until the year MDCLXIV. At which time arrived a Letter on our behalf to the King from the Right Worshipful Sir Edward Winter, Governour of Fort St. George, and Agent there. The Dutch Embassadour also at that time by a Commission from the Governour of Columba treated with the King for us. With Sir Edward's Message the King was much pleased, and with the Dutch's mediation so prevailed with, that he promised he would send us away. [Upon which they all met at the City.] Upon this, he commanded us all to be brought to the City. Whither when we came, we were very joyful not only upon the hopes of our Liberty, but also upon the sight of one another. For several of us had not seen the others since we were first parted. Here also we met with the Persia Merchant men, whom until this time we had not seen. So that we were nine and twenty English in all. [Word sent them from the Court, that they had their Liberty.] Some few days after our Arrival at the City, we were all called to the Court. At which time standing all of us in one of the Palace Court-yards, the Nobles by command from the King came forth and told us, that it was his Majesties Pleasure to grant unto us our Liberty, and to send us home to our Countrey, and that we should not any more look upon our selves as Prisoners or detained men. At which we bowed our heads and thanked his Majesty. They told us moreover, that the King was intended to send us either with the Dutch Embassadour, or by the Boat which Sir Edward Winter had sent; and that it was his Majesties good will to grant us our choice. We humbly referred it to his Majesties pleasure. They answered, his Majesty could and would do his pleasure, but his will was to know our minds. After a short consultation we answered, since it was his Majesties pleasure to grant us our choice, with many Thanks and Obeisance we chose to go with the Dutch Embassadour, fearing the Boats insufficiency, she having, as we were well sensible, laid there a great while: and if we had chosen the Boat, the danger of going that way might have served them for a Put off to us, and a Plea to detain us still, out of care of us. And again, had we refused the Embassadours kindness at this time, for the future, if these things succeeded not with us now, we could never have expected any more aid or friendship from that Nation. [All in general refuse the King's service.] In the next place they told us, It was the Kings pleasure to let us understand, that all those that were willing to stay and serve his Majesty, should have very great rewards, as Towns, Monies, Slaves and places of Honour conferred upon them. Which all in general refused. Then we were bidden to absent, while they returned our answers to the King. By and by there came Order to call us in one at a time, where the former promises were repeated to every one of us of great Favours, Honours and Rewards from the King to those that were willing to stay with him. And after each one had given his answer, he was sent into a corner in the Court, and then another called and so all round one after another, they inquiring particularly concerning each mans trade and office; Handycrafts-men and Trumpetters being most desired by the King. We being thus particularly examined again, there was not one of us was tempted by the Kings rewards, but all in general refused the Kings honourable employment, choosing rather to go to our Native Countrey. By which we purchased the Kings Displeasure. [Commanded still to wait at the Palace. During which a Rebellion breaks out.] After this they told us, we must wait at the Palace gate dayly, it being the Kings pleasure, that we should make our personal appearance before him. In this manner we waited many days. At length happened a thing which he least suspected, viz. a general Rebellion of his People against him. Who assaulted his Palace in the Night: but their hearts failed them, daring not to enter into the Apartment where his Person was. For if they had had courage enough, they might have taken him there. For he stayed in his Palace until the Morning; and then fled into the Mountains, and escaped their hands, but more thro their cowardliness than his valour. This Rebellion I have related at large in the second Part, whither he that desires to know more of it may have recourse. Only I shall mention here a few things concerning our selves, who were gotten into the midst of these Broils and Combustions, being all of us now waiting upon the King in the City. [They are in the midst of It, and in great danger.] It was a great and marvellous mercy of Almighty God to bring us safe thro these dangers, for it so happened all along that we were in the very midst. Before they gave the Assault on the Kings Palace, they were consulting to lay hands on us, fearing lest we might be prejudicial to their Business, in joyning to the help and assistance of the King against them. For tho we were but few in comparison, yet the Name of White men was somewhat dreadful to them. Whereupon at first their Counsels were to cut us off. But others among them advised that it would be better to let us alone; For that we being ignorant of their Designs, as indeed we were, and at quiet in our several Lodgings, could not be provided to hurt or indanger them. But otherwise if they should lay hands on us, it would certainly come to the Kings Ears, and Allarm him, and then all would be frustrated and overthrown. This some of their own Party have related to us since. These Counsels were not given out of any secret good will any of them bore to us (as I believe ) but proceeded from the over-ruling hand of God, who put those things into their hearts for our safety and preservation. The People of the City whence the King fled, ran away also leaving their Houses and Goods behind them. Where we found good Prey and Plunder; being permitted to Ransack the Houses of all such as were fled away with the King. [The Rebels take the English with them.] The Rebels having driven away the King, and marching to the City of Cande to the Prince, carried us along with them; the Chief of their Party telling us that we should now be of good cheer; for what they done upon very good advisement they had done, the Kings ill Government having given an occasion to it. Who went about to destroy both them & their Countrey; and particularly insisted upon such things as might be most plausible to Strangers, such as, keeping Embassadours, discouraging Trade, detaining of Forainers that come upon his Land, besides his cruelties towards themselves that were his natural People. All which they told us, They had been informed was contrary to the Government of other Countries; and now so soon as their business was settled, they assured us, They would detain none that were minded to go to their own Countreys. [They design to ingage the English with them.] Being now at Cande, on Christmas-Day of all the days in the year, they sent, to call us to the Court, and gave us some Money and Cloths first, to make us the more willing to take Arms, which they intended then to deliver unto us, and to go with them upon a Design to fall upon the old King in the place whither he was fled. But in the very interim of time, God being merciful unto us, the Prince with his Aunt fled. Which so amazed and discouraged them, that the Money and Cloths which they were distributing to us and other Strangers to gain us over to them, they scattered about the Court and fled themselves. And now followed nothing but cutting one anothers Throats to make themselves appear the more Loyal Subjects, and make amends for their former Rebellion. [They resolve neither to meddle or make.] We for our parts little thinking in what danger we were, fell in to scramble among the rest to get what we could of the Monies that were strewed about, being then in great necessity and want. For the allowance which formerly we had was in this Disturbance lost, and so we remained without it for some three Months, the want of which, this Money did help to supply. Having gotten what we could at the Court, we made way to get out of the hurly burly to our Lodgings; intending as we were Strangers and Prisoners, neither to meddle nor make on the one side or the other, being well satisfied, if God would but permit us quietly to sit, and eat such a Christmas Dinner together, as he had prepared for us. [The day being turned, they fear the King.] For our parts we had no other dealings with the Rebels, than to desire them to permit us to go to our Native Countrey, which Liberty they promised we should not want long. But being sent for by them to the Court, we durst not but go, and they giving us such things as we wanted, we could not refuse to take them. But the day being turned put us into great fear, doubting how the King would take it at our hands, from whom we knew this could not be hid. [But he justifies them.] Into our Houses we got safely. But no sooner were we there, but immediately we were called again by a great Man, who had drawn out his Men, and stood in the Field. This Man we thought had been one of the Rebels, who to secure himself upon this change, had intended to run away down to Columbo to the Dutch. Which made us repair to him the more cheerfully, leaving our Meat a roasting on the Spit. But it proved otherwise. For no sooner had he gotten us unto him, but he Proclaimed himself for the old King, and forthwith he and his Company taking us with him marched away to Fight or seize the Rebels, but meeting none went into the City, and there dismissed us, saying, He would acquaint the King, how willing and ready we were to fight for him, if need had required; altho, God knows, it was the least of our thoughts and intents, yet God brought it to pass for our good. For when the King was informed of what we had received of the Rebels, this piece of good Service that we had done, or rather supposed to have done, was also told unto him. At the hearing of which himself justified us to be innocent; saying, Since my absence, who was there that would give them Victuals? And, It was mere want that made them to take what they did. Thus the Words of the King's own mouth acquitted us. And when the Sword devoured on every side, yet by the Providence of God not one hair of our heads perished. [They are driven to beg in the Highways.] The Tumults being appeased, and the Rebellion vanished, the King was settled in his Throne again. And all this happened in five days time. We were now greatly necessitated for food, and wanted some fresh Orders from the King's mouth for our future subsistence. So that having no other remedy, we were fain to go and lay in the High way that leads to the City a begging; for the People would not let us go any nearer towards the King, as we would have done. There therefore we lay, that the King might come to the knowledge of us, and give Command for our allowance again. By which means we obtained our purpose. For having laid there some two Months, the King was pleased to appoint our Quarters in the Countrey as formerly, not mentioning a word of sending us away, as he had made us believe before the Rebellion. [Sent into new quarters there, and their Pensions settled again.] Now we were all sent away indeed, but not into our own Countrey, but into new Quarters. Which being God would have to be no better we were glad it was so well, being sore a weary of laying in this manner. For some three Months time we had no manner of allowance. We were all now placed one in a Town as formerly, together with the Persia Merchant men also, who hitherto had lived in the City of Cande, and had their Provisions brought them out of the King's Palace ready dressed. These were now sent away with us into the Countrey. And as strict a charge was given for our good entertainment as before. [Fall to Trading, and have more freedom.] We were thus dispersed about the Towns here one and there another, for the more convenient receiving our allowance, and for the greater case of the People. And now we were far better to pass than heretofore, having the Language, and being acquainted with the Manners and Customs of the People, and had the same proportion of Victuals, and the like respect as formerly. And now they fall into employments as they please, either Husbandry or Merchandizing, or knitting Caps, being altogether free to do what they will themselves, and to go where they will, excepting running away: and for that end, we are not permitted to go down to the Sea, but we may travel all about the Countrey, and no man regards us. For tho the People some of the first years of our Captivity, would scarcely let us go any whither, and had an eye upon us afterwards, yet in process of time all their Suspitions of our going away wore off; especially when several of the English had built them Houses, and others had taken them Wives, by whom they had Children, to the number of eighteen living when I came away. Having said all this in general of the English People there, I will now continue a further account of my self. CHAP. VI. A Continuation of the Author's particular Condition after the Rebellion. Purchaseth a piece of Land. [The Author at his new quarters builds him another House.] My hap was to be quartered in a Countrey called Handapondown, lying to the Westward of the City of Cande. Which place liked me very well, being much nearer to the Sea than where I dwelt before, which gave me some probable hopes, that in time I might chance to make an escape. But in the mean time to free my self from the Suspition of the People, who watched me by Night, and by Day, had an eye to all my actions, I went to work with the help of some of my Neighbors to Build me another House upon the Bank of a River, and intrenched it round with a Ditch, and Planted an Hedge: and so began to settle my self; and followed my business in Knitting and going about the Countries a Trading; seeming to be very well contented in this Condition. [The People counsel him to Marry.] Lying so long at the City without allowance, I had spent all to some Seven shillings, which served me for a stock to set up again in these new Quarters. And by the Blessing of my most gracious God, which never failed me in all my Undertakings, I soon came to be well furnished with what that Countrey afforded: insomuch that my Neighbours and Townsmen no more suspected my running away; but earnestly advised me to marry, saying, It would be an ease and help to me, knowing that I then dressed my Victuals my self: having turned my Boy to seek his Fortune when we were at the City: They urged also, That it was not convenient for a young man as I was to live so solitarily alone in a house: and if it should so come to pass that the King should send me hereafter to my Country, their manner of Marriage, they said, was not like ours, and I might without any Offence discharge my Wife, and go away. [Which he seemed to listen to.] I seemed not altogether to slight their counsel, that they might the less suspect I had any thoughts of mine own Countrey, but told them, That as yet I was not sufficiently stocked, and also, That I would look for one that I could love: tho in my heart I never purposed any such matter; but on the contrary, did heartily abhor all thoughts tending that way. [Here he lived two years.] In this place I lived two years; and all that time could not get one likely occasion of running for it. For I thought it better to forbear running too great a hazard by being over hasty to escape, than to deprive my self of all hopes for the future, when time and experience would be a great help to me. [A Fort built near him, but afterward taken by the King.] In the year MDCLXVI. the Hollanders came up and built a Fort just below me, there being but a ridge of Mountains between them and me. But tho so near, I could not come to them, a Watch being kept at every passage. The King sent down against them two great Commanders with their Armies, but being not strong enough to expel them, they lay in these Watches to stop them from coming up higher. The name of this Fort was called Arrandery. Which altho they could not prevent the Dutch from building at that time. Yet some years after when they were not aware, they fell upon it and took it, and brought all the People of it up to Cande, where those that remained alive of them were, when I came from thence. [He and three more removed thence] In this Countrey of Hotteracourly, where the Dutch had built this Fort, were four English men placed, whereof I was one. All whom the King immediately upon the News of the Dutche's Invasion, sent order to bring up out of the danger of the War into Cande Uda, fearing that which we were indeed intended to do, viz. to run away. This Invasion happening so unexpectedly and our remove so sudden, I was forced to leave behind me that little Estate which God had given me, lying scattered abroad in Betel-nuts, the great Commodity of that Countrey, which I was then parting from: and much ado I had to get my Cloths brought along with me, the Enemies, as they called them, but my Friends being so near. And thus was I carried out of this Countrey as poor as I came into it, leaving all the fruits of my Labour and Industry behind me. Which called to my remembrance the words of Job. Naked came I into this world, and naked shall I return: God gave and God hath taken away, blessed be the Name of the Lord. [Settled in a dismal place.] We all four were brought up together into a Town on the top of a Mountain called Laggendenny. Where I and my dear Friend and fellow Prisoner, and fellow Batchelor Mr. John Loveland lived together in one House. For by this time not many of our People were as we, that is, single men; but seeing so little hopes, despaired of their Liberty, and had taken Wives or Bedfellows. At our first coming into this Town, we were very much dismayed, it being, one of the most dismal places that I have seen upon that Land. It stands alone upon the top of a Mountain, and no other Town near it, and not above four or five Houses in it. And oftentimes into this Town did the King use to send such Malefactors as he was minded suddenly to cut off. Upon these accounts our being brought to this place could not but scare us, and the more, because it was the King's special Order and Command to place us in this very Town. [A comfortable Message from the King concerning us.] But this our trouble and dejection (thanks be to God) lasted but a day. For the King seemed to apprehend into what a fit of Fear and Sorrow this our Remove would cast us, and to be sensible, how sadly we must needs take it to change a sweet and pleasant Countrey, such as Handapondown and the Countrey adjacent was, for this most sad and dismal Mountain. And therefore the next day came a comfortable Message from the King's own mouth, sent by no less Man than he, who had the chief Power and Command over those People who were appointed to give us our Victuals, where we were. This Message, which as he said himself, he was ordered by the King to deliver to the People in our hearing, was this, That they should not think that we were Malefactors, that is, such who having incurred the King's displeasure were sent to be kept Prisoners there, but men whom his Majesty did highly esteem, and meant to promote to great Honour in his Service, and that they should respect us as such, and entertain us accordingly. And if their ability would not reach thereunto, it was the King's Order, he said, to bid them sell their Cattel and Goods, and when that was done their Wives and Children, rather than we should want of our due allowance: which he ordered, should be as formerly we used to have: and if we had not Houses thatched, and sufficient for us to dwell in, he said, We should change, and take theirs. [Placed there to punish the People for Crime.] This kind Order from the King coming so suddenly, did not a little comfort and encourage us. For then we did perceive the King's purpose and intent in placing us in those remote Parts, was not to punish us, but them: that we might be his Instruments to Plague and take revenge of that People; who it seems had Plundred the King's Palace in the time of the late Rebellion, when he left it and fled; for this Town lies near unto the same: and their Office lying about the Court they had the fairer opportunity of Plundering it. For the Service they are to perform to the King, is to carry his Pallenkine when he pleaseth to ride therein, and also to bring Milk every Morning to the Court, being Keepers of the King's Cattel. [Weary of this place.] In this Town we remained some three years; by which time we were grown quite weary of the place, and the place and People also grown weary of us, who were but troublesom Guests to them; for having such great Authority given us over them, we would not lose it; and being four of us in call one of another, we would not permit or suffer them to domineer over us. Being thus tired with one anothers Company, and the King's Order being of an old Date, we used all means we could to clear our selves of one another: often repairing unto the Court to seek to obtain a Licence that we might be removed and placed any where else. But there was none that durst grant it, because it was the King's peculiar Command, and special Appointment that we must abide in that very Town. During the time of our stay here, we had our Victuals brought us in good order and due season: the Inhabitants having such a charge given them by their Governour and he from the King, durst not do otherwise. So that we had but little to do, only to dress and eat, and sit down to knit. [By a piece of Craft he gets down to his old Quarters.] I had used the utmost of my skill and endeavour to get a Licence to go down to my former Quarters, all things being now pretty well settled, hoping that I might recover some of my old Debts: but by no means could I obtain it. The denial of so reasonable a desire, put me upon taking leave. I was well acquainted with the way, but yet I hired a man to go with me, without which I could not get thro the Watches. For altho I was the Master and he the Man, yet when we came into the Watches, he was the Keeper and I the Prisoner. And by this means we passed without being suspected. [Began the world anew the third time.] Being come into my old Quarters, by pretending that this man was sent down from the Magistrate to see that my Debts and Demands might be duely paid and discharged, I chanced to recover some of them, and the rest gave over for lost; for I never more looked after them. And so I began the world anew, and by the Blessing of God was again pretty well recruited before I left this Town. [Plots to remove himself.] In the time of my residence here, I chanced to hear of a small piece of Land that was to be sold. About which I made very diligent inquiry. For altho I was sore a weary of living in this Town, yet I could not get out of it, not having other new Quarters appointed me, unless I could provide a place for my self to remove to: which now God had put into my hand. As for the King's Command I dreaded it not much, having found by observation, that the King's Orders wear away by time, and the neglect of them comes at last to be unregarded. However I was resolved to put it to a hazard, come what will. [Is incouraged to buy a piece of Land.] Altho I had been now some seven or eight years in this Land, and by this time came to know pretty well the Customs and Constitutions of the Nation, yet I would not trust my own knowledge, but to prevent the worst, I went to the Governor of that same Countrey where the Land lay, to desire his advice, whether or no I might lawfully buy that small piece of Land. He inquired, Whose and what Land it was, I informed him, That it had been formerly dedicated to a Priest, and he at his death had left it to his Grandson: who for want was forced to sell it. Understanding this, the Governor approved of the business, and encouraged me to buy it: saying, That such kind of Lands only were lawful here to be bought and sold, and that this was not in the least litigious. [The Situation and condition of it.] Having gotten both his consent and advice, I went on chearfully with my purchase. The place also liked me wondrous well; it being a point of Land, standing into a Corn Field, so that Corn Fields were on three sides of it, and just before my Door a little Corn ground belonging thereto, and very well watered. In the Ground besides eight Coker-nut Trees, there were all sorts of Fruit Trees the Countrey afforded. But it had been so long desolate, that it was all overgrown with Bushes, and no sign of a House therein. [Buys it.] The price of this Land was five and twenty Larees, that is five Dollars, a great Sum of Money in the account of this Countrey; yet thanks be to God, who had so far inabled me after my late and great loss, that I was strong enough to lay this down. The terms of Purchase being concluded on between us, a Writing was made upon a leaf after that Countrey manner, witnessed by seven or eight Men of the best Quality in the Town: which was delivered to me, and I paid the Money, and then took Possession of the Land. It lyes some ten Miles to the Southward of the City of Cande in the County of Oudaneur, in the Town of Elledat. [Builds an House on it.] Now I went about Building an House upon my Land, and was assisted by three of my Countreymen that dwelt near by, Roger Gold, Ralph Knight, and Stephen Rutland, and in short time we finished it. The Countrey People were all well pleased to see us thus busie our selves about buying of Land and Building of Houses, thinking it would ty our Minds the faster to their Countrey, and make us think the less upon our own. [Leaves Laggendenny.] Tho I had built my new House, yet durst I not yet leave my old Quarters in Laggendenny, but wait until a more convenient time fell out for that purpose. I went away therefore to my old home, and left my aforesaid three English Neighbours to inhabit in it in my absence. Not long after I found a fit season to be gone to my Estate at Elledat. And upon my going, the rest left the Town also, and went and dwelt elsewhere, each one where he best liked. But by this means we all lost a Privilege which we had before: which was that our Victuals were brought unto us, and now we were forced to go and fetch them our selves; the People alledging (true enough) that they were not bound to carry our Provisions about the Country after us. [Settled at his new purchase, with three more living with him.] Being settled in my new House, I began to plant my ground full of all sorts of Fruit Trees; and by the Blessing of God all grew and prospered, and yielded me great Plenty, and good increase, sufficient both for me, and for those that dwelt with me. For the three English men I left at my House when I departed back to Laggendenny, still lived with me. We were all single men; and we agreed very well together, and were helpful to one another. And for their help and assistance of me, I freely granted them Liberty to use and enjoy Whatsoever the ground afforded, as much as my self. And with a joynt consent it was concluded amongst us, That only single Men and Batchellors should dwell there, and such as would not he conformable to this present agreement should depart and absent himself from our Society, and also forfeit his right and claim to the forementioned Privilege, that is, to be cut off from all benefit of whatsoever the Trees and Ground afforded. I thought fit to make such a Covenant, to exclude women from coming in among us, to prevent all strife and dissention, and to make all possible Provision for the keeping up love and quietness among our selves. In this manner we four lived together some two years very lovingly and contentedly, not an ill word passing between us. We used to take turns in keeping at home, while the rest went forth about their Business. For our house stood alone and no Neighbour near it. Therefore we always left one within. The rest of the English men lived round about us, some four or five miles distant, some more. So that we were, as it were, within reach one of another; which made us like our present Situation the more. [Their freedom and Trade.] Thus we lived upon the Mountains, being round about us beset with watches, most of our People being now married: so that now all talk and suspition of our running away was laid aside. Neither indeed was it scarce possible. The effect of which was, that now we could walk from one to the other, or where we would upon the Mountains, no man molesting or disturbing us in the least. So that we began to go about a Pedling, and Trading in the Country farther towards the Northward, carrying our Caps about to sell. [His Family reduced to two.] By this time two of our Company seeing but little hopes of Liberty, thought it too hard a task thus to lead a single life, and married. Which when they had done according to the former agreement departed from us. So that our Company was now reduced to two, viz. my Self and Stephen Rutland; whose inclination and resolution was as stedfast as mine against Marriage. And we parted not to the last, but came away together. CHAP. VII. A return to the rest of the English, with some further accounts of them. And some further discourse of the Authors course of life. [Confer together about the lawfulness of Marrying with the Native Women.] Let us now make a Visit to the rest of our Country-men, and see how they do. They reckoning themselves in for their Lives, in order to their future settlement, were generally disposed to Marry. Concerning which we have had many and sundry disputes among ourselves; as particularly concerning the lawfulness of matching with Heathens and Idolaters, and whether the Chingulays Marriages were any better than living in Whoredome: there being no Christian Priests to join them together, and it being allowed by their Laws to change their Wives and take others as often as they pleased. But these cases we solved for our own advantage after this manner, That we were but Flesh and Blood, and that it is said, It is better to Marry than to burn, and that as far as we could see, we were cut off from all Marriages any where else, even for our Life time, and therefore that we must marry with these or with none at all. And when the People in Scripture were forbidden to take Wives of Strangers, it was then when they might intermarry with their own People, and so no necessity lay upon them. And that when they could not, there are examples in the Old Testament upon Record, that they took Wives of the Daughters of the Lands, wherein they dwelt. These reasons being urged, there was none among us, that could object ought against them, especially if those that were minded to marry Women here, did take them for their Wives during their lives, as some of them say, they do: and most of the Women they marry are such as do profess themselves to be Christians. [He resolves upon a single life.] As for mine own part, however lawful these Marriages might be, yet I judged it far more convenient for me to abstain, and that it more redounded to my good, having always a reviving hope in me, that my God had not forsaken me, but according to his gracious promise to the Jews in the XXX Chapter of Deuteronomy, and the beginning, would turn my Captivity and bring me into the Land of my Fathers. These and such like meditations, together with my Prayers to God, kept me from that unequal Yoke of Unbeleivers, which several of my Countrey men and fellow Prisoners put themselves under. [What employments they follow.] By this time our People having plyed their Business hard, had almost knit themselves out of work; and now Caps were become a very dead Commodity, which was the chief stay they had heretofore to trust to. So that now most of them betook themselves to other employments; some to Husbandry, Plowing Ground, and sowing Rice, and keeping Cattle, others stilled Rack to sell, others went about the Country a Trading. For that which one part of the Land affords is a good Commodity to carry to another that wants it. And thus with the help of a little allowance, they make a shift to subsist. Most of their Wives spin Cotton yarn, which is a great help to them for cloathing, and at spare times also knit. [The respect and credit they live in.] After this manner by the blessing of God our Nation hath lived and still doth, in as good fashion as any other People or Nation whatsoever, that are Strangers here, or as any of the Natives themselves, only the Grandees and Courtiers excepted. This I speak to the Praise and Glory of our God; who loves the Stranger in giving him Food and Raiment; and that hath been pleased to give us Favour and a good Repute in the sight of our Enemies. We cannot complain for want of justice in any wrongs we have sustained by the People; or that our cause hath been discountenanced; but rather we have been favoured above the Natives themselves. [A Chingulay punished for beating an English man.] One of our men happened to be beaten by his Neighbour. At which we were all very much concerned, taking it as a reproach to our Nation, and fearing it might embolden others to do the like by the rest of us. Therefore with joint consent we all concluded to go to the Court to complain, and to desire satisfaction from the Adigar. Which we did. Upon this the man who had beat the English man was summoned in to appear before him. Who seeing so many of us there, and fearing the cause will go very hard with him, to make the Judg his friend, gave him a bribe. He having received it would have shifted off the Punishment of the Malefactor. But we day after day followed him from house to Court, and from place to place, where-ever he went, demanding Justice and Satisfaction for the wrong we received, shewing the black and blew blows upon the English mans shoulders to all the rest of the Noble men at Court. He fearing therefore lest the King might be made acquainted herewith was forced tho much against his will to clap the Chingulay in Chains. In which condition after he got him, he released him not till besides the former fee he had given him another. [An English man preferred at Court.] Lately was Richard Varnham taken into the Kings service, and held as Honourable an employment as ever any Christian had in my time, being Commander of Nine Hundred and Seventy Soldiers, and set over all the great Guns, and besides this, several Towns were under him. A place of no less Profit than Honour. The King gave him an excellent Silver Sword and Halberd, the like to which the King never gave to any White man in my time. But he had the good luck to die a natural Death. For had not that prevented, in all probability he should have followed the two English men that served him, spoken of before. [The English serve the King in his Wars.] Some years since some of our Nation took up Arms under the King. Which happened upon this occasion. The Hollanders had a small Fort in the Kings Countrey, called Bibligom Fort. This the King minded to take and demolish, sent his Army to beseige it. But being pretty strong; for there were about Ninety Dutch men in it, besides a good number of Black Soldiers, and four Guns on each point one, being in this condition it held out. Some of the great men informed the King of several Dutch runnaways in his Land, that might be trusted, not daring to turn again for fear of the Gallows, who might help to reduce the Fort. And that also there were white men of other Nations that had Wives and Children, from whom they would not run: and these might do him good service. Unto this advice the King inclined. Whereupon the King made a Declaration to invite the forrain Nations into his Service against Bibligom Fort, that he would compel none, but such as were willing of their own free accord, the King would take it kindly, and they should be well rewarded. Now there entred into the Kings Service upon this Expedition some of all Nations; both Portugueze, Dutch and English, about the number of Thirty. To all that took Arms he gave to the value of Twenty shillings in money, and three pieces of Callico for Cloaths, and commanded them to wear Breeches, Hats and Doublets, a great honour there. The King intended a Dutch-man, who had been an old Servant to him, to be Captain over them all. But the Portuguese not caring to be under the Command of a Dutch-man, desired a Captain of their own Nation, which the King granted, studying to please them at this time. But the English being but six, were too few to have a Captain over them, and so were forced some to serve under the Dutch and some under the Portugueze Captain. There were no more of the English, because being left at their liberty they thought it safest to dwell at home, and cared not much to take Arms under a Heathen against Christians. [Who now live miserably.] They were all ready to go, their Arms and Ammunition ready with Guns prepared to send down, but before they went, Tydings came that the Fort yeilded at the Kings Mercy. After this the Whites thought they had got an advantage of the King in having these gifts for nothing, but the King did not intend to part with them so; but kept them to watch at his Gate. And now they are reduced to great Poverty and Necessity. For since the Kings first Gift they have never received any Pay or Allowance; tho they have often made their Addresses to him to supply their wants, signifying their forwardness to serve him faithfully. He speaks them fair, and tells them he will consider them, but does not in the least regard them. Many of them since, after three or four years service, have been glad to get other Poor run away Dutch men to serve in their steads, giving them as much mony and cloths as they received of the King before; that so they might get free, to come home to their Wives and Children. The Dutch Captain would afterwards have forced the rest of the English to have come under him, and called them Traytors because they would not, and threatned them. But they scorned him, and bid him do his worst, but would never be persuaded to be Soldiers under him, saying, that it was not so much his zeal to the Kings Service as his own Pride to make himself greater by having more men under him. [He returns to speak of himself. Plots and Consults about an Escape.] I will now turn to the Progress of my own Story. It was now about the year MDCLXXII. I related before, that my family was reduced to two, my self and one honest man more, we lived solitarily and contentedly being well setled in a good House of my own. Now we fell to breeding up Goats: we began with two, but by the blessing of God they soon came to a good many; and their Flesh served us instead of Mutton. We kept Hens and Hogs also: And seeing no sudden likelihood of Liberty, we went about to make all things handsome and convenient about us: which might be serviceable to us, while we lived there, and might farther our Liberty whensoever we should see an occasion to attempt it: which it did, in taking away all suspition from the People concerning us: who not having Wives as the others had, they might well think, lay the readier to take any advantage to make an escape. Which indeed we two did Plot and Consult about, between our selves with all imaginable Privacy, long before we go away: and therefore we laboured by all means to hide our designs; and to free them from so much as suspition. [A description of his House.] We had now brought our House and Ground to such a perfection that few Noble mens Seats in the Land did excel us. On each side was a great Thorn Gate for entrance, which is the manner in that Countrey: the Gates of the City are of the same. We built also another House in the Yard all open for Air, for our selves to sit in, or any Neighbours that came to talk with us. For seldome should we be alone, our Neighbours oftner frequenting our House than we desired; out of whom to be sure we could pick no Profit. For their coming is always either to beg or borrow. For altho we were Strangers and Prisoners in their Land, yet they would confess that Almighty God had dealt far more bountifully with us than with them, in that we had a far greater plenty of all things than they. [He takes up a new Trade and Thrives on it.] I now began to set up a new Trade. For the Trade of Knitting was grown dead, and Husbandry I could not follow, not having a Wife to help and assist me therein, a great part of Husbandry properly belonging to the woman to manage. Whereupon I perceived a Trade in use among them, which was to lend out Corn. The benefit of which is fifty per cent, per annum. This I saw to be the easiest and most profitable way of Living, whereupon I took in hand to follow it: and what stock I had, I converted into Corn or Rice in the Husk. And now as customers came for Corn, I let them have it, to receive their next Harvest, when their own Corn was ripe, the same quantity I lent them, and half as much more. But as the Profit is great, so is the trouble of getting it in also. For he that useth this Trade must watch when the Debtors Field is ripe, and claim his due in time, otherwise other Creditors coming before will seize all upon the account of their Debts, and leave no Corn at all for those that carrie later. For these that come thus a borrowing, generally carry none of their Corn home when it is ripe, for their Creditors ease them of that Labour by coming into their Fields and taking it, and commonly they have not half enough to pay what they ow. So that they that miss getting ther Debts this year must stay till the next when it will be double, two measures for one: but the Interest never runs up higher, tho the Debt lye seven years unpaid. By means hereof I was put to a great deal of trouble, and was forced to watch early and late to get my Debts, and many times miss of them after all my Pains. Howbeit when my Stock did encrease that I had dealings with many, I mattered not if I lost in some places, the profit of the rest was sufficient to bear that out. And thus by the Blessing of God my little was encreased to a great deal. For he had blessed me so; that I was able to lend to my Enemies, and had no need to borrow of them. So that I might use the words of Jacob, not out of Pride of my self, but thankfulness to God, That he brought me hither with my Staff and blessed me so here, that I became two Bands. [His Allowance paid him out of the King's Store-houses.] For some years together after I removed to my own House from Laggen denny, the People from whence I came continued my allowance that I had when I lived among them. But now in plain Terms they told me they could give it me no more, and that I was better able to live without it than they to give it me. Which tho I knew to be true, yet I thought not fit to loose that Portion of Allowance, which the King was pleased to allot me. Therefore I went to Court and appealed to the Adigar to whom such matters did belong. Who upon consideration of the Peoples poor condition, appointed me monthly to come to him at the Kings Palace for a Ticket to receive my Allowance out of the King's Store-houses. Hereby I was brought into a great danger, out of which I had much ado to escape, and that with the loss of my Allowance for ever after. I shall relate the manner of it in the next Chapter. CHAP. VIII. How the Author had like to have been received into the Kings Service, and what means he used to avoid it. He meditates and attempts an escape, but is often prevented. [He voluntarily forgoes his pension.] This frequent Appearance at the Court, and waiting there for my Tickets, brought me to be taken notice of by the Great men: insomuch that they wondered I had been all this while forgotten, and never been brought before the King, being so fit, as they would suppose me, for his use and service, saying, That from henceforward I should fare better than that Allowance amounted to, as soon as the King was made acquainted with me. Which words of theirs served instead of a Ticket, Whereupon fearing I mould suddainly be brought in to the King, which thing I most of all feared, and least desired, and hoping that out of sight might prove out of mind, I resolved to forsake the Court, and never more to ask for Tickets, especially seeing God had dealt so bountifully with me as to give me ability to live well enough without them. As when Israel had eaten of the Corn of the Land of Canaan, the Manna ceased; so when I was driven to forego my Allowance that had all this while sustained me in this wilderness, God otherways provided for me. [Summoned before the King.] From this time forward to the time of my Flight out of the Land, which was five years. I neither had nor demanded any more Allowance, and glad I was that I could escape so. But I must have more trouble first. For some four or five days after my last coming from Court, there came a Soldier to me, sent from the Adigar, with an Order in writing under his hand, that upon sight thereof I should immediatly dispatch and come to the Court to make my personal appearance before the King and in case of any delay, the Officers of the Countrey, were thereby Authorized and Commanded to assist the Bearer, and to see the same Order speedily performed. The chief occasion of this had been a Person, not long before my near Neighbour and Acquaintance, Oua Matteral by name, who knew my manner of Life, and had often been at my House; but now was taken in and employed at Court; and he out of friendship and good will to me was one of the chief Actors in this business, that he might bring me to Preferment at Court. [He is informed that he is to be preferred at Court.] Upon the abovesaid summons there was no Remedy, but to Court I must go. Where I first applyed my self to my said old Neighbour, Oua Motteral, who was the occasion of sending for me. I signified to him that I was come in obedience to the Warrant, and I desired to know the reason why I was sent for? To which he answered, Here is good news for you; you are to appear in the Kings Presence, where you will find great Favour, and Honourable entertainment, far more than any of your Countrey men yet here found. Which the great man thought would be a strong Inducement to persuade me joyfully to accept of the Kings Employments. But this was the thing I always most dreaded, and endeavoured to shun, knowing that being taken into Court would be a means to cut of all hopes of Liberty from me, which was the thing I esteemed equal unto life it self. [But resolves to refuse it.] Seeing my self brought unto this pass, wherein I had no earthly helper, I recommended my cause to God, desiring him in whose hands are the hearts of Kings and Princes to divert the business. And my cause being just and right I was resolved to persist in a denial. My case seemed to me to be like that of the four Lepers at the Gate of Samaria. No avoiding of Death for me: If out of Ambition and Honour, I should have embraced the Kings Service, besides the depriving my self of all hopes of Liberty, in the end I must be put to death, as happens to all that serve him; and to deny his service could be but Death. And it seemed to me to be the better Death of the two. For if I should be put to Death only because I refused his service, I should be pitied as one that dyed innocently; but if I should be executed in his Service, however innocent I was, I should be certainly reckon'd a Rebel and a Traytor, as they all are whom he commands to be cut off. [The answer he makes to the Great man.] Upon these confederations having thus set my resolutions, as God enabled me, I returned him this answer: First, That the English Nation to whom I belonged had never done any violence or wrong to their King either in word or deed. Secondly, That the causes of my coming on their Land was not like to that of other Nations, who were either Enemies taken in War, or such as by reason of poverty or distress, were driven to sue for relief out of the Kings bountiful liberality, or such as fled for the fear of deserved punishment; Whereas, as they all well knew, I came not upon any of these causes, but upon account of Trade, and came ashore to receive the Kings Orders, which by notice we understood were come concerning us, and to render an account to the Dissauva of the Reasons and Occasions of our coming into the Kings Port. And that by the grief and sorrow I had undergone by being so long detained from my Native Countrey, (but, for which I thanked the Kings Majesty, without want of any thing) I scarcely enjoyed my self. For my heart was alwayes absent from my body. Hereunto adding my insufficiency and inability for such honourable Employment, being subject to many Infirmities and Diseases of Body. To this he replied, Cannot you read and write English? Servile Labour the King requireth not of you. I answered, When I came ashore I was but young, and that which then I knew, now I had forgot for want of practice, having had neither ink nor paper ever since I came ashore. I urged moreover, That it was contrary to the Custome and Practice of all Kings and Princes upon the Earth to keep and detain men that came into their Countreys upon such peaceable accounts as we did; much less to compel them to serve them beyond their power and ability. [He is sent to another great Officer.] At my first coming before him he looked very pleasingly, and spake with a smiling countenance to me: but now his smiles were turned into frowns, and his pleasing looks into bended brows, and in rough Language, he bad me be gone and tell my tale to the Adigar. Which immediatly I did; but he being busie did not much regard me, and I was glad of it, that I might absent the Court. But I durst not go out of the City. Sore afraid I was that evil would befall me and the best I could expect was to be put in Chains. All my refuge was Prayer to God, whose hand was not shortned that it could not save, and would make all things work together for good to them that trust in him. From him only did I expect help and deliverance in this time of need. [He stays in the City expecting his doom.] In this manner I lodged in an English mans house that dwelt in the City about ten days, maintaining my self at my own charge, waiting with a sorrowful heart, and daily expecting to hear my Doom. In the mean time my Countrey men and Acquaintance, some of them blamed me for refusing so fair a Profer; whereby I might not only have lived well my self, but also have been helpful unto my Poor Country-men and friends: others of them pittying me, expecting, as I did, nothing but a wrathful sentence from so cruel a Tyrant, if God did not prevent. And Richard Varnham, who was at this time a great man about the King, was not a little scared to see me run the hazard of what might ensue, rather than be Partaker with him in the felicities of the Court. [He goes home but is sent for again.] It being chargable thus to lye at the City, and hearing nothing more of my business, I took leave without asking, and went home to my House; which was but a Days distance, to get some Victuals to carry with me and to return again. But soon after I came home I was sent for again. So I took my load of Victuals with me, and arrived at the City, but went not to the Court, but to my former Lodging, where I staid as formerly, until I had spent all my Provisions: and by the good hand of my God upon me, I never heard any more of that matter. Neither came I any more into the Presence of the Great-men at Court, but dwelt in my own Plantation, upon what God provided for me by my Labour and Industry. [Having escaped the Court service, falls to his former course of life.] For now I returned to my former course of life, dressing my Victuals daily with mine own hands, fetching both Wood and Water upon mine own back. And this, for ought I could see to the contrary, I was like to continue for my life time. This I could do for the Present, but I began to consider how helpless I should be, if it should please God I should live till I grew old and feeble. So I entred upon a Consultation with myself for the providing against this. One way was the getting of me a Wife, but that I was resolved never to do. Then I began to enquire for some poor body to live with me, to dress my Victuals for me, that I might live at a little more ease, but could not find any to my mind. Whereupon I considered, that there was no better way, than to take one of my poor Country-mens Children, whom I might bring up to learn both my own Language and Religion. And this might be not only Charity to the Child, but a kindness to my self also afterwards. And several there were that would be glad so to be eased of their charge, having more than they could well maintain, a Child therefore I took, by whose aptness, ingenuity and company as I was much delighted at present, so afterwards I hoped to be served. It was now about the year M DC LXXIII. Altho I had now lived many years in this Land, and God be praised, I wanted for nothing the Land afforded, yet could I not forget my native Countrey England, and lamented under the Famine of Gods Word and Sacraments, the want whereof I found greater than all earthly wants: and my dayly and fervent Prayers to God were, in his good time to restore me to the enjoyment of them. [Their pedling forwarded their escape.] I and my Companion were still meditating upon our escape and the means to compass it. Which our pedling about the Countrey did greatly forward and promote. For speaking well the Language and going with our Commodities from place to place, we used often to entertain discourse with the Countrey people; viz. concerning the ways and the Countreys, and where there were most and fewest inhabitants, and where and how the Watches laid from one Countrey to another; and what Commodities were proper to carry from one part to the other, pretending we would from time to time go from one place to another, to furnish our selves with ware that the respective places afforded. None doubted but we had made these inquiries for the sake of our Trade, but our selves had other designs in them. Neither was there the least suspition of us for these our questions: all supposing I would never run away and leave such an estate as in their accounts and esteem I had. [The most probable course to take, was Northwards.] By diligent inquiry I had come to understand, that the easiest and most probable way to make an escape was by travailing to the Northward, that part of the Land being least inhabited. Therefore we furnished our selves with such wares as were vendible in those parts, as Tobacco, Pepper, Garlick, Combs, all sorts of Iron Ware, &c. and being laden with these things, we two set forth, bending our course towards the Northern Parts of the Island, knowing very little of the way; and the ways of this Countrey generally are intricate and difficult: here being no great High-ways that run thro the Land, but a multitude of little Paths, some from one Town to another, some into the Fields, and some into the Woods where they sow their Corn; and the whole Countrey covered with Woods, that a man cannot see any thing but just before him. And that which makes them most difficult of all, is, that the ways shift and alter, new ways often made and old ways stopped up. For they cut down Woods, and sow the ground, and having got one Crop off from it, they leave it, and Wood soon grows over it again: and in case a Road went thro those Woods, they stop it, and contrive another way; neither do they regard tho it goes two or three miles about: and to ask and inquire the way for us white men is very dangerous, it occasioning the People to suspect us. And the Chingulays themselves never Travail in Countreys where they are not experienced in the ways without a guide, it being so difficult. And there was no getting a guide to conduct us down to the Sea. [They get three days journey Northward.] But we made a shift to travail from Cande Uda downwards towards the North from Town to Town; happening at a place at last which I knew before, having been brought up formerly from Cooswat that way, to descend the Hill called Bocaul, where there is no Watch, but in time of great disturbance. Thus by the Providence of God we passed all difficulties until we came into the County of Neurecalava, which are the lowest parts that belong to this King; and some three days journey from the place whence we came. [But return back again.] We were not a little glad that we were gotten so far onwards in our way, but yet at this time we could go no farther; for our ware was all sold, and we could pretend no more excuses; and also we had been out so long, that it might cause our Towns-men to come and look after us, it being the first time that we had been so long absent from home. [They attempted often to fly this way, but still hindred.] In this manner we went into these Northern Parts eight or ten times, and once got as far as Hourly a Town in the extremities of the Kings Dominions, but yet we could not attain our purpose. For this Northern Countrey being much subject to dry weather and having no springs, we were fain to drink of Ponds of Rain water, wherein the Cattel lie and tumble, which would be so thick and muddy, that the very filth would hang in our Beards when we drank. This did not agree with our Bodies, being used to drink pure Spring water only. By which means when we first used those parts we used often to be Sick of violent Favors and Agues, when we came home. Which Diseases happened not only to us, but to all other People that dwelt upon the Mountains, as we did, whensoever they went down into those places; and commonly the major part of those that fall sick, dyes. At which the Chingulays are so feared, that it is very seldom they do adventure their Bodies down thither: neither truly would I have done it, were it not for those future hopes, which God of his mercy did at length accomplish. For both of us smarted sufficiently by those severe Favors we got, when we should both lay Sick together and one not able to help the other. Insomuch that our Countrymen and Neighbours used to ask us, if we went thither purposing to destroy our selves, they little thinking, and we not daring to tell them our intent and design. [In those parts is bad Water, but they had an Antidote against it.] At length we learned an Antidote and Counter-Poyson against the filthy venomous water, which so operated by the blessing of God, that after the use thereof we had no more Sickness. It is only a dry leaf; they call it in Portugueze Banga, beaten to Powder with some of the Countrey Jaggory: and this we eat Morning and Evening upon an empty Stomach. It intoxicates the Brain, and makes one giddy, without any other operation either by Stool or Vomit. [They still improve in the knowledge of their Way.] Thus every Voyage we gathered more experience, and got lower down, for this is a large and spacious Countrey. We travailed to and fro where the ways led us, according to their own Proverb, The Beggar and the Merchant is never out of his way; because the one begs and the other trades wherever they go. Thus we used to ramble until we had sold all our ware, and then went home for more. And by these means we grew acquainted both with the People and the Paths. [Meets with his black Boy in these parts, who was to guide him to the Dutch.] In these parts I met with my black Boy, whom I had divers years before turned away, who had now Wife and Children. He proved a great help to me in directing me in the ways; for he had lived many years in these parts. Perceiving him to be able, and also in a very poor and sad condition, not able to maintain his Family, I adventured once to ask him if a good reward would not be welcome to him, for guiding us two down to the Dutch. Which having done he might return again and no Body the wiser. At which Proposition he seemed to be very joyful, and promised to undertake the same: only at this time for reasons he alledged, which to me seemed probable, as that it was Harvest time and many People about it, it could not so safely and conveniently be done now, as it might be some two Months after. The Business was concluded upon, and the time appointed between us. But it so fell out, that at the very precise time, all things being ready to depart on the morrow, it pleased God, whose time was not yet come, to strike me with a most grievous pain in the hollow on my right side, that for five days together I was not able to stir from the fire side, but by warming it, and fomenting and chafing it I got a a little ease. [But disapointed.] Afterward as soon as I was recovered, and got strength, we went down and carried one English man more with us for company, for our better security, seeing we must travail in the Night upon our Flight: but tho we took him with us, we dared not to tell him of our design, because he had a Wife, intending not to acquaint him with it, till the Business was just ready to be put into action. But when he came expecting to meet with our guide, he was gone into another Countrey; and we knew not where to find him, and we knew not how to run away without him. Thus we were disapointed that time. But as formerly, we went to and fro until we had sold our ware; and so returned home again and delivered the man to his wife; but never told him any thing of our intended design, fearing lest, if he knew it, he might acquaint her with it, and so all our purposes coming to be revealed might be overthrown for ever afterwards. For we were resolved by Gods help still to persevere in our design. [An extraordinary drought for three or four years together.] Some eight or nine years one after another we followed this Trade, going down into this Countrey on purpose to seek to get beyond the Inhabitants, and so to run away thro the Woods to the Hollanders. Three or Four years together the dry weather prevented us; when the Countrey was almost starved for want of Rain: all which time they never tilled the Ground. The Wells also were almost all dry; so that in the Towns we could scarcely get Water to drink, or Victuals to eat. Which affrighted us at those times from running into the Woods, lest we might perish for Thirst. All this while upon the Mountains, where our dwelling was, there was no want of Rain. We found it an inconvenience when we came three of us down together, reckoning it might give occasion to the people to suspect our design, and so prevent us from going thither again. Some of the English that followed such a Trade as we, had been down that way with their Commodities, but having felt the smart of that Countries Sickness, would go there no more, finding as much profit in nearer and easier Journeys. But we still persisted in our courses this way, having some greater matter to do here than to sell Wares, viz. to find out this Northern Discovery; which in Gods good time we did effect. CHAP. IX. How the Author began his Escape; and got onward of his Way about an Hundred miles. [Their last and successful attempt.] Having often gone this Way to seek for Liberty, but could not yet find it; we again set forth to try what Success God Almighty would now give us, in the Year MDCLXXIX, on the Two and twentieth of September, furnished with such Arms as we could well carry with safety and secrecy, which were Knives and small Axes; we carried also several sorts of Ware to sell as formerly: the Moon being seven and twenty dayes old. Which we had so contrived, that we might have a light Moon, to see the better to run away by: having left an Old Man at home, whom I had hired to live with me, to look after my House and Goats. [The way they went.] We went down at the Hill Bocawl, where there was now no Watch, and but seldom any. From thence down to the Town of Bonder Cooswat, where my Father dyed; and by the Town of Nicavar, which is the last Town belonging to Hotcurly in that Road. From thence forward the Towns stand thin. For it was sixteen miles to the next Town called Parroah, which lay in the Country of Neure Cawlava, and all the way thro a Wilderness called Parroah Mocolane, full of wild Elephants, Tigres and Bears. [They design for Anarodgburro.] Now we set our design for Anarodgburro, which is the lowest place inhabited belonging to the King of Cande: where there is a Watch alwayes kept: and nearer than twelve or fourteen miles of this Town as yet we never had been. [They turn out of the way to avoid the King's Officers.] When we came into the midst of this Countrey, we heard that the Governor thereof had sent Officers from the Court to dispatch away the Kings Revenues and Duties to the City, and that they were now come into the Country. Which put us into no small fear, lest if they saw us they should send us back again. Wherefore we edged away into the Westernmost Parts of Ecpoulpot, being a remote part of that Countrey wherein we now were. And there we sate to knitting until we heard they were gone. But this caused us to overshoot our time, the Moon spending so fast. But as soon as we heard they were departed out of the Countrey, we went onwards of our Journey, having kept most of our Ware for a pretence to have an occasion to go further. And having bought a good parcel of Cotton Tarn to knit Caps withal, the rest of our Ware we gave out, was to buy dryed flesh with, which only in those lower Parts is to be sold. [Forced to pass thro the Chief Governours yard.] Our way now lay necessarily thro the chief Governors Yard at Colliwilla. Who dwells there purposely to see and examine all that go and come. This greatly distressed us. First, because he was a stranger to us, and one whom we had never seen. And secondly, because there was no other way to escape him: and plain reason would tell him, that we being prisoners were without our bounds. Whereupon we concluded, that our best way would be to go boldly and resolutely to his house, and not to seem daunted in the least, or to look as if we did distrust him to disallow of our Journey, but to shew such a behaviour, as if we had authority to travail where we would. [The Method they used to prevent his suspicion of them.] So we went forward, and were forced to enquire and ask the way to his house, having never been so far this way before. I brought from home with me Knives with fine carved handles, and a red Tunis Cap purposely to sell or give him, if occasion required, knowing before, that we must pass by him. And all along as we went, that we might be the less suspected, we sold Caps and other Ware, to be paid for at our return homewards. There were many cross Paths to and fro to his house, yet by Gods Providence we happened in the right Road. And having reached his house, according to the Countrey manner we went and sate down in the open house; which kind of Houses are built on purpose for the reception of Strangers. Whither not long after the Great Man himself came and sate down by us. To whom we presented a small parcel of Tobacco, and some Betel. And before he asked us the cause of our coming, we shewed him the Ware we brought for him, and the Cotton Yarn which we had trucked about the Country; telling him withall how the case stood with us: viz. That we had a Charge greater than the Kings allowance would maintain; and that because dryed Flesh was the chief Commodity of that Part, we told him, That missing of the Lading which we used to carry back, we were glad to come thither to see, if we could make it up with dryed Flesh. And therefore if he would please to supply us either for such Ware as we had brought, or else for our Money, it would he a great favour, the which would oblige us for the future to bring him any necessaries that he should name unto us, when we should come again unto those Parts, as we used to do very often: and that we could furnish him, having dealings and being acquainted with the best Artificers in Cande. At which he replyed, That he was sorry we were come at such a dry time, wherein they could not catch Deer, but if some Rain fell, he would soon dispatch us with our Ladings of Flesh. But however, he bade us go about the Towns, and see whether there might be any or no, tho he thought there was none. This answer of his pleased us wondrous well, both because by this we saw he suspected us not, and because he told us there was no dryed Flesh to be got. For it was one of our greatest fears that we should get our Lading too soon: for then, we could not have had an excuse to go further. And as yet we could not possibly fly: having still six miles further to the Northward to go before we could attempt it, that is, to Anarodgburro. [Their danger by reason of the ways they were to pass.] From Anarodgburro it is two dayes Journey further thro a desolate Wilderness before there is any more Inhabitants. And these Inhabitants are neither under this King nor the Dutch, but are Malabars, and are under a Prince of their own. This People we were sorely afraid of, lest they might seize us and send us back, there being a correspondence between this Prince and the King of Cande; wherefore it was our endeavour by all means to shun them; lest according to the old Proverb, We might leap out of the Frying pan into the Fire. [They still remain at the Governours, to prevent suspition.] But we must take care of that as well as we could when we came among them, for as yet our care was to get to Anarodgburro. Where altho it was our desire to get, yet we would not seem to be too hasty, lest it might occasion suspition: but lay where we were two or three dayes: and one stay'd at the Governors House a knitting, whilst the other went about among the Towns to see for Flesh. The Ponds in the Country being now dry, there was Fish every where in abundance, which they dry like red Herrings over a fire. They offered to sell us store of them, but they, we told them, would not turn to so good profit as Flesh. The which, we said, we would have, tho we stayed ten dayes longer for it. For here we could live as cheap, and earn as much as if we were at home, by our knitting. So we seemed to them as if we were not in any hast. [An accident that now created them great fear.] In the mean time happened an Accident which put us to a great fright. For the King having newly clapped up several Persons of Quality, whereof my old Neighbour Ova Matteral, that sent for me to Court, was one, sent down Souldiers to this High Sheriff or Governor, at whose house we now were, to give him order to set a secure Guard at the Watches, that no suspitious persons might pass. This he did to prevent the Relations of these imprisoned persons from making an Escape, who thro fear of the King might attempt it. This always is the Kings custome to do. But it put us into an exceeding fear, lest it might beget an admiration in these Soldiers to see White men so low down: which indeed is not customary nor allowed of: and so they might send us up again. Which doubtless they would have done, had it not been of God by this means and after this manner to deliver us. Especially considering that the King's Command came just at that time and so expresly to keep a secure Guard at the Watches, and that in that very Way that alwayes we purposed to go in: so that it seemed scarcely possible for us to pass afterwards, tho we should get off fairly at present with the Soldiers. [But get fairly rid of it.] Which we did. For they having delivered their Message, departed, shewing themselves very kind and civil unto us. And we seemed to lament for our hard fortune, that we were not ready to go upwards with them in their good company: for we were Neighbours dwelling in one and the same County. However we bid them carry our commendations to our Countrymen the English, with whom they were acquainted at the City, and so bad them farewel. And glad we were when they were gone from us. And the next day in the morning we resolved, God willing, to set forward. But we thought not fit to tell our Host, the Governor, of it, till the very instant of our departing, that he might not have any time to deliberate concerning us. That Night he being disposed to be merry, sent for people whose trade it is to dance and shew tricks, to come to his house to entertain him with their Sports. The beholding them spent most part of the Night. Which we merrily called our Old Host's Civility to us at our last parting: as it proved indeed, tho he, honest man, then little dreamed of any such thing. [They get away fairly from the Governour.] The morning being come, we first took care to fill our Bellies; then we packed up those things which were necessary for our Journey to carry with us, and the rest of our Goods, Cotton Yarn, and Cloth and other things; that we would not incumber our selves withall, we bound up in a Bundle, intending to leave them behind us. This being done, I went to the Governor, and carried him four or five charges of Gunpowder, a thing somewhat scarce with them, intreating him rather than we should be disappointed of Flesh, to make use of that and shoot some Deer; which he was very willing to accept of, and to us it could be no wayes profitable, not having a Gun. While we, we told him, would make a step to Anarodgburro to see what Flesh we could procure there. In the mean time, according as we had before layd the business, came Stephen with the Bundle of Goods, desiring to leave them in his house, till we came back. Which he was very ready to grant us leave to do. And seeing us leave such a parcel of Goods, tho, God knowes, but of little account in themselves, yet of considerable value in that Land, he could not suppose otherwise but that we were intended to return again. Thus we took our leaves, and immediately departed, not giving him time to consider with himself, or consult with others about us. And he like a good natured man bid us heartily farewel. Altho we knew not the way to this Town, having never been there in all our lives, and durst not ask, lest it might breed suspition; yet we went on confidently thro a desolate Wood: and happened to go very right, and came out directly at the place. [In their way they meet with a River which they found for their purpose.] But in our way before we arrived hither, we came up with a small River, which ran thro the Woods, called by the Chingulayes Malwat oyah: the which we viewed well, and judged it might be a probable guide to carry us down to the Sea, if a better did not present. Howbeit we thought good to try first the way we were taking, and to go onward towards Anarodgburro, that being the shortest and easiest way to get to the Coast: and this River being as under our Lee, ready to serve and assist us, if other means failed. [They come safely to Anarodgburro. This Place described.] To Anarodgburro therefore we came, called also Neur Waug. Which is not so much a particular single Town, as a Territory. It is a vast great Plain, the like I never saw in all that Island: in the midst whereof is a Lake, which may be a mile over, not natural, but made by art, as other Ponds in the Country, to serve them to water their Corn Grounds. This Plain is encompassed round with Woods, and small Towns among them on every side, inhabited by Malabars, a distinct People from the Chingulayes. But these Towns we could not see till we came in among them. Being come out thro the Woods into this Plain, we stood looking and staring round about us, but knew not where nor which way to go. At length we heard a Cock crow, which was a sure sign to us that there was a Town hard by; into which we were resolved to enter. For standing thus amazed, was the ready way to be taken up for suspitious persons; especially because White men never come down so low. [The People stand amazed at them.] Being entred into this Town, we sate our selves under a Tree, and proclaimed our Wares, for we feared to rush into their Yards, as we used to do in other places, lest we should scare them. The People stood amazed as soon as they saw us, being originally Malabars, tho Subjects of Cande. Nor could they understand the Chingulay Language in which we spake to them. And we stood looking one upon another until there came one that could speak the Chingulay Tongue: Who asked us, from whence we came? We told him, From Cande Uda. But they believed us not, supposing that we came up from the Dutch from Manaar. So they brought us before their Governor. [They are examined by the Governour of the Place.] He not speaking Chingulais, spake to us by an Interpreter. And to know the truth, whether we came from the place we pretended, he inquired about News at Court; demanded, Who were Governors of such and such Countreys? and what was become of some certain Noble-men, whom the King had lately cut off? and also What the common people were employed about at Court, for it is seldom that they are idle. To all which we gave satisfactory answers. Then he enquired of us, Who gave us leave to come down so low? We told him That priviledg was given to us by the King himself full Fifteen Years since at his Palace at Nellemby, when he caused it to be declared unto us, that we were no longer prisoners, and (which indeed was our own addition) that we were free to enjoy the benefit of Trade in all his Dominions. To prove and confirm the truth of which, we alledged the distance of the Way that we were now come from home, being near an hundred miles, passing thro several Counties, where we met with several Governors and Officers in their respective Jurisdictions; who had they not been well sensible of these Priviledges granted us, would not have allowed us to pass thro their Countries. All which Officers we described to him by name; and also that now we came from the High Sheriff's House at Colliwilla, where we had been these three dayes, and there heard of the Order that was come to secure the Watches; which was not for fear of the running away of White men, but of the Chingulayes. These Reasons gave him full satisfaction, that we were innocent Traders, seeing also the Commodities that we had brought with us: this further confirmed his opinion concerning us. [Provide things necessary for their flight.] The People were very glad of our coming, and gave us an end of an open house to ly in: but at present they had no dryed Flesh, but desired us to stay two or three days and we should not fail: which we were very ready to consent to, hoping by that time to come to the knowledg of the way, and to learn where about the watch was placed. To Prevent the least surmise that we were Plotting to run away, we agreed, that Stephen should stay in the house by the things, while I with some few went abroad; pretending to enquire for dryed Flesh to carry back with us to Cande, but intending to make discoveries of the way, and provide necessaries for our Flight, as Rice, a Brass Pot to boil our Rice in, a little dryed Flesh to eat and a Deers-skin to make us Shooes of. And by the Providence of my gracious God, all these things I happened upon and bought. But as our good hap was, Deers-Flesh we could meet with none. So that we had time enough to fit our selves; all People thinking that we stayed only to buy Flesh. [They find it not safe to proceed further this way.] Here we stayed three days; during which we had found the great Road that runs down towards Jafnapatan, one of the Northern Ports belonging to the Dutch, which Road we judged led also towards Manaar a Dutch Northern Port also, which was the Place that we endeavoured to get to, lying above two or three days Journey distant from us. But in this Road there was a Watch lay, which must be passed. Where this Watch was placed, it was necessary for us punctually to know, and to endeavour to get a sight of it. And if we could do this, our intent was to go unseen by Night, the people being then afraid to travayl, and being come up to the Watch, to slip aside into the Woods and so go on untill we were past it; and then strike into the Road again. But this Project came to nothing, because I could not without suspition and danger go and view this Watch; which layd some four or five miles below this Plain; and so far I could not frame any business to go. But several inconveniences we saw here, insomuch that we found it would not be safe for us to go down in this Road. For if we should have slipt away from them by Night, in the Morning we should be missed, and then most surely they would go that way to chace us, and ten to one overtake us, being but one Night before them. Also we knew not whether or no, it might lead us into the Countrey of the Malabar Prince, of whom we were much afraid. [Resolve to go back to the River they lately passed.] Then resolving to let the great Road alone, we thought of going right down thro the Woods, and steer our course by the Sun and Moon: but the Ground being so dry we feared we should not meet with Water. So we declined that Counsel also. Thus being in doubt, we prayed God to direct us, and to put it into our hearts which way to take. Then after a Consultation between our selves, all things considered, we concluded it the best course to go back to Malwat oyah, the River we had well viewed that lay in our way as we came hither. And back thither we resolved to repair. CHAP. X. The Author's Progress in his Flight from Anarodgburro, into the Woods, unto their arrival in the Malabars Countrey. [They depart back again towards the River.] Now God of his Mercy having prospered our Design hitherto, for which we blessed his Holy Name, our next care was how to come off clear from the People of Anarodgburro, that they might not presently miss us, and so pursue after us. Which if they should do, there would have been no escaping them. For from this Town to Colliwilla, where the Sheriff lived, with whom we left our Goods, they are as well acquainted in the Woods as in the Paths. And when we came away we must tell the People, that we were going thither, because there is no other way but that. Now our fear was, lest upon some occasion or other any Men might chance to Travel that way soon after we were gone, and not finding us at Colliwilla, might conclude, as they could do no otherwise, that we were run into the Woods. Therefore to avoid this Danger, we stayed in the Town till it was so late, that we knew none durst venture to Travel afterwards for fear of wild Beasts. By which means we were sure to gain a Nights Travel at least, if they should chance to pursue us. [But first take their leave of the Governor here.] So we took our leaves of the Governor, who kindly gave us a Pot of Milk to drink for a farewel; we telling him, We were returning back to the Sheriff at Colliwilla, to whom we had given some Gunpowder when we came from him to shoot us some Deer, and we doubted not but by that time we should get to him, he would have provided flesh enough for our lading home. Thus bidding him and the rest of the Neighbours farewel, we departed, they giving us the Civility of their accustomed Prayers, Diabac, that is, God bless, or keep you. [They begin their flight.] It was now the Twelfth day of October on a Sunday, the Moon eighteen days old. We were well furnished with all things needful, which we could get, Viz. Ten days Provision, Rice, Flesh, Fish, Pepper, Salt, a Bason to boil our Victuals in, two Calabasses to fetch Water, two great Tallipats for Tents, big enough to sleep under if it should rain, Jaggory and Sweet-meats, which we brought from home with us, Tobacco also and Betel, Tinder-Boxes two or three for sailing, and a Deers Skin to make us Shooes, to prevent any Thorns running into our feet as we travelled through the Woods; for our greatest Trust under God was to our feet. Our Weapons were, each man a small Axe fastned to a long Staff in our hands, and a good Knife by our sides. Which were sufficient with God's help to defend us from the Assaults of either Tiger or Bear; and as for Elephants there is no standing against them, but the best defence is to flee from them. In this Posture and Equipage we marched forward. When we were come within a Mile of this River, it being about Four in the Evening, we began to fear, lest any of the People of Anarodgburro from whence we came, should follow us to Colliwella. Which place we never intended to come at more: the River along which we intended to go, laying on this side of it. That we might be secure therefore that no People came after us, we sat down upon a Rock by a hole that was full of water in the High-way; until it was so late, that we were sure no People durst Travel. In case any had come after us, and seen us sitting there and gotten no further, we intended to tell them, That one of us was taken Sick by the way, and therefore not able to go. [They come to the River along which they resolved to go.] But it was our happy chance there came none. So about Sundown we took up our Sacks of Provisions, and marched forward for the River, which under God we had pitched upon to be our guide down to the Sea. [Which they travel along by till it was dark.] Being come at the River, we left the Road, and struck into the Woods by the River side. We were exceeding careful not to tread on the Sand or soft Ground, lest our footsteps should be seen; and where it could not be avoided, we went backwards, so that by the print of our feet, it seemed as if we had gone the contrary way. We were now gotten a good way into the Wood; when it grew dark and began to Rain, so that we thought it best to pitch our Tents, and get Wood for Firing before it was all wet, and too dark to find it. Which we did, and kindled a fire. [Now they fit themselves for their Journey.] Then we began to fit our selves for our Journey against the Moon arose. All our Sale-wares which we had left we cast away, (for we took care not to sell too much) keeping only Provisions and what was very necessary for our Journey. About our Feet we tied pieces of Deers-hide to prevent Thorns and Stumps annoying our feet. We always used to Travel bare foot, but now being to travel by Night and in the Woods, we feared so to do. For if our feet should fail us now, we were quite undone. And by the time we had well-fitted our selves, and were refreshed with a Morsel of Portuguez Sweet-meats, the Moon began to shine. So having commended our selves into the hands of the Almighty, we took up our Provisions upon our shoulders, and set forward, and travelled some three or four hours, but with a great deal of difficulty; for the Trees being thick, the Moon gave but little light thro, but our resolution was to keep going. [Meeting with an Elephant they took up for that night.] Now it was our chance to meet with an Elephant in our way just before us: which we tryed, but could not scare away: so he forced us to stay. We kindled a Fire and sate down, and took a Pipe of tobacco, waiting till Morning. Then we looked round about us, and it appeared all like a Wilderness, and no sign that People ever had been there: which put us in great hopes that we had gained our Passage, and Were past all the Inhabitants. Whereupon we concluded that we were now in no danger of being seen, and might Travel in the Day securely. There was only one great Road in our way, which led to Portaloon from the Towns which by and by we fell into; this Road therefore we were shy of, lest when we passed it over, some Passengers travelling in it, might see us; and this Road we were in expectance about this time to meet withal, secure, as I said before, of all other danger of People. [They fall in among Towns before they are aware.] But the River winding about to the Northward brought us into the midst of a parcel of Towns called Tissea Wava, before we were aware. For the Countrey being all Woods, we could not discern where there were Towns, until we came within the hearing of them. That which betrayed us into this danger was, that meeting with a Path, which only led from one Town to another, we concluded it to be that great Road above mentioned; and so having past it over, we supposed the Danger we might encounter in being seen, was also past over with it; but we were mistaken; for going further we still met with other Paths, which we crossed over, still hoping one or other of them was that great Road; but at last we perceived our Error; viz. That they were only Paths that went from one Town to another. And so while we were avoiding Men and Towns, we ran into the midst of them. This was a great trouble to us, hearing the Noise of People round about us, and knew not how to avoid them; into whose hands we knew if we had fallen, they would have carried us up to the King, besides Beating and Plundring us to boot. We knew before that these Towns were here away, but had we known that this River turned and run in among them, we should never have undertaken the Enterprize. But now to go back, after we had newly passed so many Paths, and Fields and places where People did resort, we thought not advisable, and that the danger in so doing might be greater than in going forward. And had we known so much then, as afterwards did appear to us, it had been safer for us to have gone on, than to have hid there as we did; which we then thought was the best course we could take for the present extremity: viz. To secure our selves in secret until Night, and then to run thro in the dark. All that we now wanted was a hole to creep in to lye close, for the Woods thereabouts were thin, and no shrubs or bushes, under which we might be concealed. [Their fright lest they should be seen.] We heard the noise of People on every side, and expected every moment to see some of them to our great terror. And it is not easie to say in what Danger, and in what apprehension of it we were; it was not safe for us to stir backwards or forwards for fear of running among People, and it was as unsafe to stand still where we were, lest some body might spy us: and where to find Covert we could not tell. [Hid themselves in a hollow Tree.] Looking about us in these straits we spyed a great Tree by us, which for the bigness thereof 'tis probable might be hollow. To which we went, and found it so. It was like a Tub, some three foot high. Into it immediately we both crept, and made a shift to sit there for several hours, tho very uneasily, and all in mud and wet. But however it did greatly comfort us in the fright and amazement we were in. [They get safely over this Danger.] So soon as it began to grow dark, we came creeping out of our hollow Tree, and put for it as fast as our Legs could carry us. And then we crossed that great Road, which all the day before we did expect to come up with, keeping close by the River side, and going so long till dark Night stopped us. We kept going the longer, because we heard the Voice of Men hollowing towards Evening: which created us a fresh disturbance, thinking them to be People that were coming to chace us. But at length we heard Elephants behind us, between us and the Voice, which we knew by the noise of cracking the Boughs and small Trees, which they break down and eat. These Elephants were a very good Guard behind us, and were methought like the Darkness that came between Israel and the Egyptians. For the People we knew would not dare to go forwards hearing Elephants before them. [They dress Meat and lay down to sleep.] In this Security we pitched our Tents by the River side, and boiled Rice and roasted flesh for our Supper, for we were very hungry, and so commending our selves to God's keeping laid down to sleep. The Voice which we heard still continued, which lasting so long we knew what it meant; it was nothing but the hollowing of People that lay to watch the Corn Fields, to scare away the wild Beasts out of their Corn. Thus we past Monday. [They fear wild Men, which these Woods abound with.] But nevertheless next Morning so soon as the Moon shone out bright, to prevent the worst we took up our Packs, and were gone: being past all the tame Inhabitants with whom we had no more trouble. But the next day we feared we should come among the wild ones; for these Woods are full of them. Of these we were as much afraid as of the other. For they would have carried us back to the King, where we should be kept Prisoners, but these we feared would have shot us, not standing to hear us plead for our selves. [They meet with many of their Tents.] And indeed all along as we went, by the sides of the River till we came to the Malabar Inhabitants, had been the Tents of wild Men, made only of Boughs of Trees. But God be praised, they were all gone, tho but very lately before we came: as we perceived by the Bones of Cattle, and shells of Fruit, which lay scattered about. We supposed that want of water had driven them out of the Countrey down to the River side, but since it had rained a shower or two they were gone again. Once about Noon sitting down upon a Rock by the River side to take a Pipe of Tobacco and rest our selves; [Very near falling upon the wild People.] we had almost been discovered by the Women of these wild People, coming down, as I suppose, to wash themselves in the River. Who being many of them, came talking and laughing together. At the first hearing of the noise being a good distance, we marvailed what it was; sitting still and listning, it came nearer a little above where we sat; and at last we could plainly distinguish it to be the Voices of Women and Children. Whereupon we thought it no boot to sit longer, since we could escape undiscovered, and so took up our Bags and fled as fast as we could. [What kind of travelling they had.] Thus we kept travelling every day from Morning till Night, still along the River side, which turned and winded very crooked. In some places it would be pretty good Travelling, and but few Bushes and Thorns, and in others a great many. So that our Shoulders and Arms were all of a Gore, being grievously torn and scratched. For we had nothing on us but a clout about our Middles, and our Victuals on our Shoulders, and in our hands a Tallipat and an Ax. [Some account of this River.] The lower we came down this River, the less Water, so that sometimes we could go a Mile or two upon the Sand, and in some places three or four Rivers would all meet together. When it happened so, and was Noon, the Sun over our head, and the Water not running, we could not tell which to follow, but were forced to stay till the Sun was fallen, thereby to judge of our course. We often met with Bears, Hogs, Deer, and wild Buffaloes, but all ran so soon as they saw us. But Elephants we met with no more than that I mentioned before. The River is exceeding full of Aligators all a long as we went; the upper part of it nothing but Rocks. Here and there by the side of this River is a World of [Ruins.] hewn Stone Pillars, standing upright, and other heaps of hewn Stones, which I suppose formerly were Buildings. And in three or four places are the ruins of Bridges built of Stone; some Remains of them yet standing upon Stone Pillars. In many places are Points built out into the River like Wharfs, all of hewn Stone; which I suppose have been built for Kings to sit upon for Pleasure. For I cannot think they ever were employed for Traffick by Water; the River being so full of Rocks that Boats could never come up into it. [The Woods hereabouts.] The Woods in all these Northern Parts are short and shrubbed, and so they are by the River side, and the lower the worse; and the Grounds so also. [How they secured themselves a nights against wild Beasts.] In the Evenings we used to pitch our Tent, and make a great Fire both before and behind us, that the wild Beasts might have notice where we lay; and we used to hear the Voices of all sorts of them, but, thanks be to God, none ever came near to hurt us. Yet we were the more wary of them, because once a Tiger shewed us a cheat. For having bought a Deer, and having nothing to salt it up in, we packed it up in the Hide thereof salted, and laid it under a Bench in an open House, on which I lay that Night, and Stephen layd just by it on the Ground, and some three People more lay then in the same House; and in the said House a great Fire, and another in the Yard. Yet a Tiger came in the Night, and carried Deer and Hide and all away. But we missing it, concluded it was a Thief. We called up the People that lay by us, and told them what had happened. Who informed us that it was a Tiger, and with a Torch they went to see which way he had gone, and presently found some of it, which he let drop by the way. When it was day we went further, and pickt up more which was scattered, till we came to the Hide it self, which remained uneaten. [They pass the River that divides the King's Countrey from the Malabars.] We had now Travelled till Thursday Afternoon, when we crossed the River called Coronda oyah which was then quite dry; this parts the King's Countrey from the Maladars. We saw no sign of Inhabitants here. The Woods began to be very full of Thorns, and shrubby Bushes with Clifts and broken Land; so that we could not possibly go in the Woods; but now the River grew better being clear of Rocks, and dry, water only standing in holes. So we marched along in the River upon the Sand. Hereabouts are far more Elephants than higher up: by Day we saw none, but by Night the River is full of them. [After four or five days travel they come among Inhabitants.] Friday about Nine or Ten in the Morning we came among the Inhabitants. For then we saw the footing of People on the Sand, and tame Cattel with Bells about their Necks. Yet we kept on our way right down the River, knowing no other course to take to shun the People. And as we went still forwards we saw Coracan Corn, sowed in the Woods, but neither Towns nor People; nor so much as the Voice of Man. But yet we were somewhat dismayed, knowing that we were now in a Countrey inhabited by Malabars. The Wanniounay or Prince of this People for fear pay Tribute to the Dutch, but stands far more affected towards the King of Cande. [But do what they can to avoid them.] Which made our care the greater to keep our selves out of his hands; fearing lest if he did not keep us himself, he might send us up to our old Master. So that great was our terror again, lest meeting with People we might be discovered. Yet there was no means now left us how to avoid the Danger of being seen. The Woods were so bad, that we could not possibly Travel in them for Thorns; and to Travel by Night was impossible, it being a dark Moon, and the River a Nights so full of Elephants and other wild Beasts coming to drink; as we did both hear and see laying upon the Banks with a Fire by us. They came in such Numbers because there was Water for them no where else to be had, the Ponds and holes of Water, nay the River it self in many places being dry. [As yet undiscovered.] There was therefore no other way to be taken but to Travel on in the River. So down we went into the Sand, and put on as fast as we could set our Legs to the ground, seeing no People (nor I think no body us), only Buffaloes in abundance in the Water. CHAP. XI. Being in the Malabar Territories, how they encountred two Men, and what passed between them. And of their getting safe unto the Dutch Fort. And their Reception there, and at the Island Manaar, until their Embarking for Columbo. [They met with two Malabars. To whom they relate their Condition.] Thus we went on till about three of the Clock afternoon. At which time coming about a Point, we came up with two Bramins on a sudden, who were sitting under a Tree boyling Rice. We were within forty paces of them; when they saw us they were amazed at us, and as much afraid of us as we were of them. Now we thought it better Policy to treat with them than to flee from them; fearing they might have Bows and Arrows, whereas we were armed only with Axes in our hands, and Knives by our sides; or else that they might raise the Countrey and pursue us. So we made a stand, and in the Chingulay Language asked their leave to come near to treat with them, but they did not understand it. But being risen up spake to us in the Malabar Tongue, which we could not understand. Then still standing at a distance we intimated our minds to them by signs, beckoning with our hand: which they answered in the same Language. Then offering to go towards them, and seeing them to be naked men and no Arms near them, we laid our Axes upon the ground with our Bags, lest we might scare them, if we had come up to them with those weapons in our hands, and so went towards them with only our Knives by our sides: by signs with our hands shewing them our bloody Backs we made them understand whence we came, and whither we were going. Which when they perceived they seemed to commiserate our condition, and greatly to admire at such a Miracle which God had brought to pass: and as they talked one to another they lifted up their hands and faces towards Heaven, often repeating Tombrane which is God in the Malabar Tongue. [They are courteous to them.] And by their signs we understood they would have us bring our Bags and Axes nearer; which we had no sooner done, but they brought the Rice and Herbs which they had boiled for themselves to us, and bad us eat; which we were not fitted to do, having not long before eaten a hearty Dinner of better fare; yet could not but thankfully accept of their compassion and kindness, and eat as much as we could; and in requital of their courtesie, we gave them some of our Tobacco. Which after much entreating they did receive, and it pleased them exceedingly. [But loathe to conduct them to the Hollander.] After these civilities passed on either side, we began by signs to desire them to go with us and shew us the way to the Dutch Fort: which they were very unwilling to do, saying, as by signs and some few words which we could understand, that our greatest danger was past, and that by Night we might get into the Hollanders Dominions. Yet we being weary with our tedious journey, and desirous to have a guide, shewed them Money to the value of five Shillings, being all I had; and offered it them to go with us. Which together with our great importunity so prevailed, that one of them took it; and leaving his fellow to carry their Baggage he went with us about one Mile, and then began to take his leave of us and to return. Which we supposed was to get more from us. Having therefore no more Money, we gave him a red Tunis Cap and a Knife, for which he went a Mile farther, and then as before would leave us, signifying to us, that we were cut of danger, and he could go no further. Now we had no more left to give him, but began to perceive, that what we had parted withall to him, was but flung away; and altho we might have taken all from him again being alone in the Wood, yet we feared to do it, left thereby we might exasperate him, and so he might give notice of us to the People, but bad him farewel, after he had conducted us about four or five Miles. And we kept on our journey down the River as before, until it was Night, and lodged upon a Bank under a Tree: [In danger of Elephants.] but were in the way of the Elephants; for in the Night they came and had like to have disturbed us, so that for our preservation we were forced to fling Fire brands at them to scare them away. The next Morning being Saturday as soon as it was light, having eaten to strengthen us, as Horses do Oats before they Travail, we set forth going still down the River; the Sand was dry and loose, and so very tedious to go upon: by the side we could not go, being all overgrown with Bushes. The Land hereabouts was as smooth as a bowling-green, but the Grass clean burt up for want of Rain. [They overtake another man, who tells them they were in the Dutch Dominions.] Having Travailed about two hours, we saw a Man walking in the River before, whom we would gladly have shunned, but well could not, for he walked down the River as we did, but at a very slow rate, which much hindred us. But we considering upon the distance we had come, since we left the Bramin, and comparing with what he told us, we concluded we were in the Hollanders jurisdiction: and so amended our pace to overtake the Man before us. Whom we perceiving to he free from timerousness at the sight of us, concluded he had used to see White-men. Whereupon we asked him, to whom he belonged. He speaking the Chingulay Language answered, To the Dutch; and also that all the Country was under their Command, and that we were out of all danger, and that the Fort of Arrepa was but some six miles off. Which did not a little rejoyce us, we told him, we were of that Nation, and had made our escape from Cande, where we had been many years kept in Captivity; and having nothing to give him our selves, we told him, that it was not to be doubted, but the Chief Commander at the Fort would bountifully reward him, if he would go with us and direct us thither. But whether he doubted of that, or no, or whether he expected something in hand, he excused himself pretending earnest and urgent occasions that he could not defer: but advised us to leave the River, because it winds so much about, and turn up without fear to the Towns, where the People would direct us the way to the Fort. [They Arrive at Arrepa Fort.] Upon his advice we struck up a Path that came down to the River, intending to go to a Town, but could find none; and there were so many cross Paths that we could not tell which way to go: and the Land here so exceedingly low and level, that we could see no other thing but Trees. For altho I got up a Tree to look if I could see the Dutch Fort, or discern any Houses, yet I could not; and the Sun being right over our heads neither could that direct us: insomuch that we wished our selves again in our old friend, the River. So after so much wandring up and down we sat down under a Tree waiting until the Sun was fallen, or some People came by. Which not long after three or four Malabars did. One of which could speak a little Portugueze. We told these Men, we were Hollanders, supposing they would be the more willing to go with us, but they proved of the same temper with the rest before mentioned. For until I gave one of them a small Knife to cut Betel-nuts, he would not go with us: but for the lucre of that he conducted us to a Town. From whence they sent a Man with us to the next, and so we were passed from Town to Town, until we arrived at the Fort called Arrepa: it being about four of the Clock on Saturday afternoon. October the eighteenth MDCLXXIX. Which day God grant us grace that we may never forget, when he was pleased to give us so great a deliverance from such a long Captivity, of nineteen years, and six Months, and odd days, being taken Prisoner when I was nineteen years old, and continued upon the Mountains among the Heathen till I attained to Eight and Thirty. [He Travailed a Nights in the Woods without fear, and slept securely.] In this my Flight thro the Woods, I cannot but take notice with some wonder and great thankfulness, that this Travelling by Night in a desolate Wilderness was little or nothing dreadful to me, whereas formerly the very thoughts of it would seem to dread me, and in the Night when I laid down to rest with wild Beasts round me, I slept as soundly and securely, as ever I did at home in my own House. Which courage and peace I look upon to be the immediate gift of God to me upon my earnest Prayers, which at that time he poured into my heart in great measure and fervency. After which I found my self freed from those frights and fears, which usually possessed my heart at other times. In short, I look upon the whole Business as a miraculous Providence, and that the hand of God did eminently appear to me, as it did of old to his People Israel in the like circumstances, in leading and conducting me thro this dreadful Wilderness, and not to suffer any evil to approach nigh unto me. The Hollanders much wondered at our Arrival, it being so strange that any should escape from Cande; [Entertained very kindly.] and entertained us very kindly that Night: and the next Morning being Sunday, sent a Corporal with us to Manaar, and a Black Man to carry our few things. [Sent to Manaar. Received by the Captain of the Castle.] At Manaar we were brought before the Captain of the Castle, the Cheif Governor being absent. Who when we came in was just risen from Dinner; he received us with a great deal of kindness and bad us set down to eat. It seemed not a little strange to us, who had dwelt so long in Straw Cottages among the Black Heathen, and used to sit on the Ground and eat our Meat on Leaves, now to sit on Chairs and eat out of China Dishes at a Table. Where were great Varieties, and a fair and sumptuous House inhabited by White and Christian People; we being then in such Habit and Guize, our Natural colour excepted, that we seemed not fit to eat with his Servants, no nor his Slaves. [Who intended them to Sail the next day to Jafnapatan.] After Dinner the Captain inquired concerning the Affairs of the King and Countrey, and the condition of their Ambassadors and People there. To all which we gave them true and satisfactory Answers. Then he told us, That to Morrow there was a Sloop to sail to Jafnapatan, in which he would send us to the Commander or Governor, from whence we might have passage to Fort St. George, or any other place on that Coast, according to our desire. After this, he gave us some Money, bidding us go to the Castle, to drink and be merry with our Country-men there. For all which kindness giving him many thanks in the Portuguese Language, we took our leaves of him. [Here they meet with a Scotch and Irish man.] When we came to the Court of Guard at the Castle, we asked the Soldiers if there were no English men among them. Immediatly there came forth two men to us, the one a Scotchman named Andrew Brown; the other an Irishman whose name was Francis Hodges. Who after very kind salutes carried us unto their Lodgings in the Castle, and entertained us very nobly, according to their Ability, with Rack and Tobacco. [The People flock to see them.] The News of our Arrival being spread in the Town, the People came flocking to see us, a strange and wonderful sight! and to enquire about their Husbands, Sons, and Relations, which were Prisoners in Cande. In the Evening a Gentleman of the Town sent to invite us to his House, were we were gallantly entertained both with Victuals and Lodging. [They are ordered a longer stay.] The next day being Munday, ready to Embark for Jafnapatan, came Order from the Captain and Council, that we must stay until the Commander of Jafnapatan who was daily expected, came thither. Which we could not deny to do: and order was given to the Victualers of the Soldiers, to provide for us. The Scotch and Irish man were very glad of this Order, that they might have our company longer; and would not suffer us to spend the Captains benevolence in their company, but spent freely upon us at their own charges. Thanks be to God we both continued in health all the time of our Escape: but within three days after we came to Manaar, my Companion fell very Sick, that I thought I should have lost him. [They embark for Columbo.] Thus we remained some ten days; at which time the expected Commander arrived, and was received with great ceremonies of State. The next day we went before him to receive his orders concerning us. Which were, to be ready to go with him on the morrow to Columbo, there being a Ship that had long waited in that Road to carry him, In which we embarked with him for Columbo. At our coming on board to go to Sea, we could not expect but to be Sea-sick, being now as Fresh men, having so long disused the Sea, but it proved otherwise, and we were not in the least stirred. CHAP. XII. Their Arrival at Columbo, and entertainment there. Their departure thence to Batavia. And from thence to Bantam: Whence they set Sail for England. [They are wondred at Columbo.] Being arrived safely at Columbo, before the Ship came to an Anchor, there came a Barge on board to carry the Commander ashore. But being late in the evening, and my Consort sick of an Ague and Fevor, we thought it better for us to stay until Morning, to have a day before us. The next morning we bid the Skipper farewel, and went ashore in the first Boat, going strait to the Court of Guard: where all the Soldiers came staring upon us, wondring to see White-men in Chingulay Habit. We asked them if there were no English-men among them; they told us, There were none, but that in the City there were several. A Trumpetter being hard by, who had formerly sailed in English Ships, hearing of us came and invited us to his Chamber, and entertained my Consort being sick of his Ague, in his own Bed. [Ordered to appear before the Governour.] This strange news of our arrival from Cande, was presently spread all about the City, and all the English men that were there immediatly come to bid us welcome out of our long Captivity. With whom we consulted how to come to speech of the Governour. Upon which one of them went and acquainted the Captain of the Guard of our being on shore. Which the Captain understanding went and informed the Governour thereof. Who sent us answer that to morrow we should come before him. [Treated by English there.] After my Consort's Fit was over, our Countreymen and their Friends invited us abroad, to walk and see the City. We being barefoot and in the Chingulay Habit, with great long Beards, the People much wondred at us, and came flocking to see who and what we were; so that we had a great Train of People about us as we walked in the Streets. After we had walked to and fro, and had seen the City, they carried us to their Land-Ladies House, where we were kindly treated both with Victuals and Drink; and returned to the Trumpetter's Chamber, as he had desired us, when we went out. In the Evening came a Boy from the Governor's House to tell us, that the Governor invited us to come to Supper at his House. But we having Dined late with our Countreymen and their Friends, had no room to receive the Governor's Kindness: and so Lodged that Night at the Trumpetters. [They come into the Governor's presence. His state.] The next Morning the Governor, whose Name was Ricklof Van Gons, Son of Ricklof Van Gons General of Batavia, sent for us to his House. Whom we found standing in a large and stately Room, paved with black and white Stones; and only the Commander, who brought us from Manaar, standing by him: who was to succeed him in the Government of that place. On the further side of the Room stood three of the chief Captains bare-headed. First, He bid us welcom out of our long Captivity, and told us, That we were free men, and that he should have been glad if he could have been an Instrument to redeem us sooner, having endeavoured as much for us as for his own People. For all which we thanked him heartily, telling him, We knew it to be true. [Matters the Governor enquired of.] The Governor perceiving I could speak the Portugueze Tongue, began to inquire concerning the Affairs of the King and Countrey very particularly, and oftentimes asked about such Matters as he himself knew better than I. To all his Questions my too much Experience inabled me to give a satisfactory Reply. Some of the most remarkable matters he demanded of me were these. First, They inquired much about the reason and intent of our coming to Cuttiar. To which I answered them at large. Then they asked, If the King of Cande had any Issue? I told them, As report went, he had none. And, Who were the greatest in the Realm next to him? I answered. There were none of Renown left, the King had destroyed them all. How the hearts of the People stood affected? I answered, Much against their King. He being so cruel. If we had never been brought into his presence? I told them, No, nor had ever had a near sight of him. What strength he had for War. I answered, Not well able to assault them, by reason the hearts of his People were not true to him. But that the strength of his Countrey consisted in Mountains and Woods, as much as in the People. What Army he could raise upon occasion? I answered, I knew not well, but as I thought about Thirty Thousand men. Why he would not make Peace with them, they so much sueing for it, and sending Presents to please him? I answered, I was not one of his Council, and knew not his meaning. But they demanded of me, What I thought might be the reason or occasion of it? I answered, Living securely in the Mountains he feareth none; and for Traffick he regardeth it not. Which way was best and most secure to send Spyes or Intelligence to Cande? I told them, By the way that goeth to Jafniputtan, and by some of that Countrey People, who have great correspondence with the People of Neurecaulava, one of the Kings Countries. What I thought would become of that Land after this King's Decease? I told them, I thought, He having no issue, it might fall into their hands. How many English men had served the King, and what became of them? which I gave them an account of. Whether I had any Acquaintance or Discourse with the great Men at Court? I answered, That I was too small to have any Friendship or Intimacy, or hold Discourse with them. How the common People used to talk concerning them? I answered, They used much to commend their Justice and good Government in the Territories, and over the People belonging unto them. Whether the King did take Counsel of any, or rule and act only by his own will and pleasure? I answered, I was a Stranger at Court, and how could I know that? But, they asked further, What was my Opinion? I replied, He is so great, that there is none great enough to give him counsel. Concerning the French, If the King knew not of their coming before they came? I answered, I thought, not, because their coming seemed strange and wonderful unto the People. How they had proceeded in treating with the King? I answered, as shall be related hereafter; when I come to speak of the French detained in this Land. If I knew any way or means to be used whereby the Prisoners in Cande might be set free? I told them, Means I knew none, unless they could do it by War. Also they enquired about the manner of Executing those whom the King commands to be put to Death. They enquired also very curiously concerning the manner of our Surprizal, and Entertainment or Usage among them. And in what parts of the Land we had our Residence. And particularly, concerning my self: in what Parts of the Land, and how long in each I had dwelt, and after what manner I lived there, and of my Age; and in what Part or Place when God sends me home, I should take up my abode. To all which I gave answers. They desired to know also, how many English men there were yet remaining behind. I gave them an account of Sixteen Men, and also of Eighteen Children born there. They much enquired concerning their Embassadors detained there, and of their behaviour and manner of living; also what the King allowed them for Maintenance; and concerning several Officers of Quality Prisoners there, and in general about all the rest of their Nation. And what Countenance the King shewed to those Dutch men that came running away to him? I answered, The Dutch Runnawayes the King looks upon as Rogues. And concerning the Portugueze they enquired also. I told them, The Portugueze were about some fifty or threescore persons, and six or seven of those, Europe men born. They asked me moreover, How we had made our Escape, and which way, and by what Towns we passed, and how long we were in our Journey? To all which I answered at large. [The Governor desires him to go to Batavia.] Then the Governor asked me, What was my intent and desire. I told him, To have Passage to our own Nation at Fort S. GEORGE. To which he answered, That suddenly there would be no convenient opportunity. But his desire was that we would go with him to Batavia, where the General his Father would be very glad to see us. Which was not in our power to deny. Then he commanded to call a Dutch Captain, who was over the Countreys adjacent, subject to their jurisdiction. To him he gave Order to take us home to his House, and there well to entertain us, [Cloths them.] and also to send for a Tailor to make us Cloths. Upon which I told him, his Kindness shewn us already was more than we could have desired; it would be a sufficient favour now to supply us with a little Money upon a Bill to be paid at Fort S. George, that we might therewith Cloth our selves. To which he answered, That he would not deny me any Sum I should demand, and Cloth us upon his own account besides. For which we humbly thanked his Lordship: and so took our leaves of him; and went home with the aforesaid Captain. [Sends them Money.] The Governor presently sent me Money by his Steward for Expences when we walked abroad in the City. We were nobly entertained without lack of any thing all the time we stayed at Columbo. My Consort's Ague increased, and grew very bad; [And a Chirurgeon.] but the chief Chirurgeon by order daily came to see him, and gave him such Potions of Physick, that by God's Blessing he soon after recovered. [The Author writes a Letter to the English at Cande.] During my being here, I writ a Letter to my fellow Prisoners I left behind me in Cande. Wherein I described at large the way we went, they might plainly understand the same. Which I finding to be safe and secure, advised them, when God permitted, to steer the same course. This Letter I left with the new Governor, and desired him when opportunity presented, to send it to them. Who said he would have it Copied out into Dutch for the benefit of their Prisoners there, and promised to send both together. [The former Demands and Answers penned down in Portugueze by the Governor's order.] The Governor seemed to be pleased with my aforesaid Relations, and Replies to his Demands, insomuch that he afterwards appointed one that well understood Portugueze to write down all the former particulars. Which being done, for further satisfaction they brought me Pen and Paper, desiring me to write the same that I had related to them in English and sign it with my hand, which I was not unwilling to do. [They Embark for Batavia.] Upon the Governor's departure there were great and royal Feasts made. To which he always sent for me. Here were exceeding great Varieties of Food, Wine, and sweet Meats, and Musick. Some two and twenty days after our Arrival at Columbo, the Governor went on board ship to sail to Batavia, and took us with him. At which time there were many Scores of Ordnance fired. We Sailed all the way with Flag and Penant under it, being out both Day and Night, in a Ship of about Eight hundred Tuns Burthen; and a Soldier standing armed Sentinel at the Cabin door both Night and Day. He so far favoured me, that I was in his own Mess, and eat at his Table. Where every Meal we had Ten or Twelve Dishes of Meat with variety of Wine. We set Sail from Columbo the Four and twentieth of November, and the Fifth of January anchored in Batavia Road. [His friendly Reception at Batavia with the Governor.] As we came to greater Men so we found greater Kindness; for the General of Batavia's Reception of us, and favours to us exceeded (if possible) those of the Governor his Son. As soon as we came before him, seeming to be very glad, he took me by the hand and bad us heartily welcom, thanking God on our behalf that had appeared so miraculously in our deliverance; telling us withal, That he had omitted no means for our Redemption, and that if it had layd in his Power, we should long before have had our Liberty. I humbly thanked his Excellency, and said, That I knew it to be true; and that tho it missed of an effect, yet his good will was not the less, neither were our Obligations, being ever bound to thank and pray for him. [Furnishes them with the Cloths and Money.] Then his own Tailor was ordered to take measure of us, and furnish us with two Sutes of Apparel. He gave us also Moneys for Tobacco and Betel, and to spend in the City. All the time we stayed there, our Quarters were in the Captain of the Castle's House. And oftentimes the General would send for me to his own Table, at which sat only himself and Lady; who was all bespangled with Diamonds and Pearls. Sometimes his Sons and Daughters-in-Law, with some other Strangers did eat with him; the Trumpet founding all the while. We finding our selves thus kindly entertained, and our Habits changed, saw, that we were no more Captives in Cande, nor yet Prisoners elsewhere; therefore cut off our Beards which we had brought with us out of our Captivity; for until then we cut them not; God having rolled away the reproach of Cande from us. Here also they did examine me again concerning the passages of Cande, causing all to be writ down which I said, and requiring my hand to the same. Which I refused, as I had done before, and upon the same account, because I understood not the Dutch Language. Whereupon they persuaded me to write a Certificate upon another Paper under my Hand, that what I had informed them of, was true. Which I did. This Examination was taken by two Secretaries, who were appointed to demand Answers of me concerning the King of Ceilon and his Countrey: which they committed to Writing from my mouth. [Offer him passage in their Ships.] The General's youngest Son being to go home Admiral of the Ships this year, the General kindly offered us passage upon their Ships, promising me Entertainment at his Son's own Table, as the Governor of Columbo had given me in my Voyage hither. Which offer he made me, he said, That I might better satisfie their Company in Holland concerning the Affairs of Ceilon, which they would be very glad to know. [Come home from Bantam in the Cæsar.] At this time came two English Merchants hither from Bantam, with whom the General was pleased to permit us to go. But when we came to Bantam, the English Agent very kindly entertained us, and being not willing, that we should go to the Dutch for Passage, since God had brought us to our own Nation, ordered our Passage in the good Ship Cæsar lying then in the Road, bound for England, the Land of our Nativity, and our long wished for Port. Where by the good Providence of God we arrived safe in the Month of September. CHAP. XIII. Concerning some other Nations, and chiefly Europæans, that now live in this Island. Portugueze, Dutch. Having said all this concerning the English People, it may not be unacceptable to give some account of other Whites, who either voluntarily or by constraint Inhabit there. And they are, besides the English already spoken of, Portugueze, Dutch, and French. But before I enter upon Discourse of any of these, I shall detain my Readers a little with another Nation inhabiting in this Land, I mean, the Malabars; both because they are Strangers and derive themselves from another Countrey, and also because I have had occasion to mention them sometimes in this Book. [Concerning Malabars that inhabit this Island. Their Territories.] These Malabars then are voluntary Inhabitants in this Island, and have a Countrey here; tho the Limits of it are but small: it lyes to the Northward of the King's Coasts betwixt him and the Hollander. Corunda Wy River parts it from the King's Territories. Thro this Countrey we passed, when we made our Escape. The Language they speak is peculiar to themselves, so that a Chingulays cannot understand them, nor they a Chingulays. [Their Prince.] They have a Prince over them, called Coilat wannea, that is independent either upon the King of Cande on one hand, or the Dutch on the other, only that he pays an acknowledgment to the Hollanders. Who have endeavoured to subdue him by Wars, but they cannot yet do it: yet they have brought him to be a Tributary to them, viz. To pay a certain rate of Elephants per annum. The King and this Prince maintain a Friendship and Correspondence together. And when the King lately sent an Army against the Hollanders, this Prince let them pass thro his Countrey; and went himself in Person to direct the King's People, when they took one or two Forts from them. [The People how governed.] The People are in great subjection under him: they pay him rather greater Taxes than the Chingulays do to their King. But he is nothing so cruel. He Victualleth his Soldiers during the time they are upon the Guard, either about the Palace or abroad in the Wars: they are now fed at his Charge: whereas 'tis contrary in the King's Countrey; for the Chingulay Soldiers bear their own Expences. He hath a certain rate out of every Land that is sown, which is to maintain his Charge. [Their Commodities and Trade.] The Commodities of this Countrey are, Elephants, Hony, Butter, Milk, Wax, Cows, wild Cattel: of the three last great abundance. As for Corn it is more scarce than in the Chingulays Countrey; neither have they any Cotton. But they come up into Neure Caulava yearly with great droves of Cattel, and lade both Corn and Cotton. And to buy these they bring up Cloth made of the same Cotton, which they can make better than the Chingulays; also they bring Salt and Salt Fish, and brass Basons, and other Commodities, which they get of the Hollander: because the King permits not his People to have any manner of Trade with the Hollander; so they receive the Dutch Commodities at the second hand. [Concerning the Portugueze. Their Power and Interest in this Island formerly.] We now proceed unto the Europæan Nations. And we begin with the Portugueze, who deserve the first place, being the oldest Standers there. The Sea-Coasts round about the Island were formerly under their Power and Government, and so held for many years. In which time many of the Natives became Christians, and learned the Portugueze Tongue. Which to this day is much spoken in that Land: for even the King himself understands and speaks it excellently well. The Portugueze have often made Invasions throughout the whole Land, even to Cande the Metropolis of the Island. Which they have burnt more than once, with the Palace and the Temples: and so formidable have they been, that the King hath been forced to turn Tributary to them, paying them three Elephants per Annum. However the middle of this Island, viz. Cand' Uda, standing upon Mountains, and so strongly fortified, by Nature, could never be brought into subjection by them, much less by any other, but hath always been under the Power of their own Kings. [The great Wars between the King and them, force him to send in for the Hollanders.] There were great and long Wars between the King of Ceilon and the Portugueze: and many of the brave Portugal Generals are still in memory among them: of whom I shall relate some passages presently. Great vexation they gave the King by their irruptions into his Dominions, and the Mischiefs they did him, tho oftentimes with great loss on their side. Great Battels have been lost and won between them, with great destruction of Men on both parts. But being greatly distressed at last, he sent and called in the Hollander to his aid. By whose reasonable assistance together with his own Arms, the King totally disposessed the Portugueze, and routed them out of the Land. Whose rooms the Dutch now occupy, paying themselves for their pains. [The King invites the Portugueze to live in his Countrey.] At the Surrender of Columbo, which was the last place the Portugueze held, the King made Proclamation, That all Portugueze, which would come unto him, should be well entertained. Which accordingly many did, with their whole Families, Wives, Children, and Servants, choosing rather to be under him than the Dutch, and divers of them are alive to this day, living in Cande Uda; and others are born there. [Their Privileges.] To all whom he alloweth monthly maintenance; yea also, and Provisions for their Slaves and Servants, which they brought up with them. This People are privileged to Travel the Countreys above all other Whites, as knowing they will not run away. Also when there was a Trade at the Sea Ports, they were permitted to go down with Commodities, clear from all Customs and Duties. Besides these who came voluntarily to live under the King, there are others whom he took Prisoners. The Portugueze of the best Quality the King took into his Service, who are most of them since cut off according to his kind Custom towards his Courtiers. The rest of them have allowance from that King, and follow Husbandry, Trading about the Countrey, Stilling Rack, keeping Taverns; the Women sew Womens Wastcoats, the Men sew Mens Doublets for Sale. [Their Generals.] I shall now mention some of the last Portugueze Generals, all within this present King's Reign, with some passages concerning them. [Constantine &c.] Constantine Sa, General of the Portugals Army in Ceilon, when the Portugueze had footing in this Land, was very successful against this present King. He ran quite thro the Island unto the Royal City it self, which he set on Fire with the Temples therein. Insomuch that the King sent a Message to him signifying, that he was willing to become his Tributary. But he proudly sent him word back again, That that would not serve his turn; He should not only he Tributary, but Slave to his Master the King of Portugal. This the King of Cande could not brook, being of an high Stomach, and said, He would fight to the last drop of Blood, rather than stoop to that. There were at this time many Commanders in the Generals Army who were natural Chingulays; with these the King dealt secretly, assuring them that if they would turn on his side, he would gratifie them with very ample Rewards. The King's Promises took effect; and they all revolted from the General. The King now daring not to trust the Revolted, to make tryal of their Truth and Fidelity, put them in the forefront of his Battel, and commanded them to give the first Onset. The King at that time might have Twenty or Thirty thousand Men in the Field. Who taking their opportunity, set upon the Portugueze Army, and gave them such a total overthrow, that as they report in that Countrey not one of them escaped. The General seeing this Defeat, and himself like to be taken, called his Black Boy to give him water to drink, [He loses a Victory and stabs himself.] and snatching the Knife that stuck by his Boy's side, stabbed himself with it. [Lewis Tisséra served as he intended to serve the King.] Another General after him was Lewis Tifféra. He swore he would make the King eat Coracan Tallipa, that is a kind hasty Pudding, made of Water and the Coracan Flower; which is reckoned the worst fare of that Island. The King afterwards took this Lewis Tisséra, and put him in Chains in the Common Goal, and made him eat of the same fare. And there is a Ballad of this Man and this passage, Sung much among the common People there to this day. [Simon Caree, of a cruel Mind.] Their next General was Simon Caree, a Natural Chingulays, but Baptized. He is said to be a great Commander. When he had got any Victory over the Chingulays, he did exercise great Cruelty. He would make the Women beat their own Children in their Mortars, wherein they used to beat their Corn. [Gaspar Figari Splits Men in the middle.] Gaspar Figari, had a Portugueze Father and Chingulays Mother. He was the last General they had in this Countrey. And a brave Soldier: but degenerated not from his Predecessors in Cruelty. He would hang up the People by the heels, and split them down the middle. He had his Axe wrapped in a white Cloth, which he carried with him into the Field to execute those he suspected to be false to him, or that ran away. Smaller Malefactors he was merciful to, cutting off only their right hands. Several whom he hath so served, are yet living, whom I have seen. [His Policy.] This Gaspar came up one day to fight against the King, and the King resolved to fight him. The General fixed his Camp at Motaupul in Hotteracourly. And in order to the King's coming down to meet the Portugueze, Preparation was made for him at a place called Cota coppul, which might be Ten or Twelve miles distant from the Portugueze Army. Gaspar knew of the place by some Spies; but of the time of the Kings coming he was informed, that it was a day sooner than really it happened. According to this information he resolved privatly to march thither, and come upon him in the night unawares. And because he knew the King was a Polititian, and would have his Spies abroad to watch the Generals motion, the General sent for all the Drummers and Pipers to Play and Dance in his Camp, that thereby the Kings Spies might not suspect that he was upon the March, but merry and secure in his Camp. In the mean time, having set his People all to their Dancing and Drumming, he left a small party there to secure the Baggage, and away he goes in the night with his Army, and arrives to Catta coppul, intending to fall upon the King. But when he came thither, he found the King was not yet come: but into the Kings Tents he went, and, sits him down in the seat appointed for the King. [Gives the King a great overthrow.] Here he heard where the King was with his Camp: which being not far off, he marched thither in the morning and fell upon him: and gave him one of the greatest Routs that ever he had. The King himself made a narrow escape; for had it not been for a Dutch Company, which the Dutch had sent a little before for his Guard, who after his own Army fled, turned head and stopped the Portugueze for a while, he had been seized. The Portugueze General was so near the King, that he called after him, Houre, that is Brother, stay, I would speak with you, but the King being got a top of the Hills; was safe. And so Gaspar retyred to his Quarters. [Looses Columbo, and taken Prisoner.] This Gallant expert Commander, that had so often vanquished the Chingulays, could not cope with another Europæan Nation. For when the Hollanders came to beseige Columbo, he was sent against them with his Army. They told him before he went, that now he must look to himself, for he was not now to Fight against Chingulays, but against Soldiers, that would look him in the Face. But he made nothing of them, and said, he would serve them as he had served the Chingulays. The Hollanders met him, and they fought: but had before contrived a Stratagem, which he was not aware of: they had placed some Field-pieces in the Rear of their Army. And after a small skirmish they retreated as if they had been worsted; which was only to draw the Portugueze nearer upon their Guns. Which when they had brought them in shot of, they opened on a suddain to the right and left, and fired upon them, and so routed them, and drove them into Columbo. This Gaspar was in the City when it was taken, and himself taken Prisoner. Who was afterwards sent to Goa, where he died. And so much of the Portugueze. [The Dutch the occasion of their coming in.] The Dutch succeeded the Portugueze. The first occasion of whose coming into this Land was, that the present King being wearied and overmatched with the Portugueze, sent for them into his aid long ago from Batavia. And they did him good service, but they feathered their own nests by the means, and are now possessed of all the Sea-Coasts, and considerable Territories thereunto adjoyning. [The King their implacable enemy, and why!] The King of the Countrey keeps up an irreconcileable War against them. The occasion of which is said to be this. Upon the beseiging of Columbo, which was about the year MDCLV. it was concluded upon between the King and the Dutch, that their Enemies the Portugueze being expelled thence, the City was to be delivered up by the Dutch into the Kings hands. Whereupon the King himself in person with all his Power went down to this War to assist and joyn with the Hollanders, without whose help, as it is generally reported, the Dutch could not have taken the City. But being surrendred to them, and they gotten into it, the King lay looking, when they would come according to their former Articles, and put him into possession of it. Mean while they turned on a suddain & fell upon him, contrary to his expectation (whether the King had first broke word with them,) and took Bag and Baggage from him: Which provoked him in so high a manner, that he maintains a constant hostility against them, detains their Ambassadours, and forbids his People upon pain of Death to hold Commerce with them. [The dammage the King does them.] So that the Dutch have enough to do to maintain those places which they have. Oftentimes the King at unawares falls upon them and does them great spoil, sometimes giving no quarter, but cutting off the Heads of whomsoever he catches, which are brought up, and hung upon Trees near the City, many of which I have seen. Sometimes he brings up his Prisoners alive, and keeps them by the Highway sides, a spectacle to the People in memory of his Victories over them: many of these are now living there in a most miserable condition, having but a very small Allowance from him; so that they are forced to be, and it is a favour when they can get leave to go abroad and do it. [The means they use to obtain Peace with him.] The Dutch therefore not being able to deal with him by the Sword, being unacquainted with the Woods and the Chingulays manner of fighting, do endeavour for Peace with him all they can, dispatching divers Embassadours to him, and sending great Presents, by carrying Letters to him in great State wrapped up in Silks wrought with Gold and Silver, bearing them all the way upon their Heads in token of great Honour, honouring him with great and high Titles, subscribing themselves his Subjects and Servants, telling him the Forts they build are out of Loyalty to him, to secure his Majesties Country from Forraign Enemies; and that when they come up into his Countrey, tis to seek maintenance. And by these Flatteries and submissions they sometimes obtain to keep what they keep what they have gotten from him, and sometimes nothing will prevail, he neither regarding their Embassadours nor receiving the Presents, but taking his opportunities on a suddain of setting on them by his Forces. [How he took Bibligom Fort.] His Craft and Success in taking Bibligom Fort in the County of Habberagon, may deserve to be mentioned. The Chingulays had beseiged the Fort: and knowing the Dutch had no Water there; but all they had was conveyed thro a Trench wrought under Ground from a River near by, they beseiged them so close, and planted so many Guns towards the mouth of this Trench, that they could not come out to fetch Water. They cut down Wood also, and made bundles of Faggots therewith, which they piled up round about their Fort at some distance, and every night removed them nearer and nearer. So that their works became higher than the Fort. Their main intent by these Faggot-works, was to have brought them just under the Fort, and then to have set it on Fire, the Walls of the Fort being for the most part of Wood. There was also a Bo-gahah Tree growing just by the Fort: on which they planted Guns and shot right down into them. The houses in the Fort being Thatched, they shot also Fire-Arrows among them: So that the beseiged were forced to pull off the Straw from their Houses, which proved a great inconvenience to them being a Rainy Season: so that they lay open to the weather and cold. The Dutch finding themselves in this extremity desired quarter which was granted them at the Kings mercy. They came out and laid down their Arms, all but the Officers, who still wore theirs. None were plundered of any thing they had about them. The Fort they demolished to the Ground, and brought up the Four Guns to the Kings Palace; where they among others stand mounted in very brave Carriages before his Gate. The Dutch were brought two or three days journey from the Fort into the Countrey they call Owvah: and there were placed with a Guard about them, having but a small allowance appointed them; insomuch that afterwards having spent what they had, they perished for Hunger. So that of about ninety Hollanders taken Prisoners, there were not above five and twenty living when I came away. [Several Embassadors detained by the King.] There are several white Embassadours, besides other Chingulay People, by whom the Dutch have sent Letters and presents to the King whom he keeps from returning back again. They are all bestowed in several houses with Soldiers to Guard them: And tho they are not in Chains, yet none is permitted to come to them or speak with them; it not being the custom of that Land for any to come to the speech of Embassadours. Their allowance is brought them ready dressed out of the Kings Palace, being all sorts of Varieties, that the Land affords. After they have remained in this condition some years, the Guards are somewhat slackned, and the Soldiers that are to watch them grow remiss in their Duty; so that now the Ambassadours walk about the Streets, and any body goes to their houses and talks with them: that is, after they have been so long in the Countrey, that all their news is stale and grown out of date. But this liberty is only winked at, not allowed. When they have been there a great while, the King usually gives them Slaves, both men and women, the more to alienate their minds from their own Country, and that they may stay with him with the more willingness and content. For his design is, to make them, if he can, inclinable to serve him. As he prevailed with one of these Embasssadours to do for the love of a woman. The manner of it I shall relate immediatly. There are five Embassadors whom he hath thus detained since my coming there; of each of whom I shall speak a little, besides two, whom he sent away voluntarily. [The first Embassador there detained since the Authors remembrance.] The first of these was sent up by the Hollanders some time before the Rebellion against the King; Who had detained him in the City. After the Rebellion the King sent for him to him to the Mountain of Gauluda whither he had retreated from the Rebels. The King not long after removed to Digligy, where he now keeps his Court, but left the Embassador at Gauluda remaining by himself, with a Guard of Soldiers. In this uncomfortable condition, upon a dismal Mountain void of all society, he continued many days. During which time a Chingulay and his Wife falls out, and she being discontented with her Husband to escape from him flies to this Embassadors house for shelter. The woman being somewhat beautiful, he fell greatly in love with her. And to obtain her he sent to the King, and profered him his service, if he would permit him to enjoy her company, Which the King was very willing and glad to do, having now obtained that which he had long aimed at, to get him into his service. [His preferment, and death.] Hereupon the King sent him word that he granted his desire, and withall sent to both of them rich Apparel, and to her many Jewels and Bracelets of Gold and Silver. Suddainly after there was a great House prepared from them in the City, furnished with all kind of furniture out of the Kings Treasure and at his proper cost and charges. Which being finished he was brought away from his Mountain into it. But from thence forward never saw his Wife more, according to the custom of Court. And he was entertained in the Kings Service, and made Courtalbad, which is cheif over all the Smiths and Carpenters in Cande Uda. Some short time after the King about to send his Forces against a Fort of the Hollanders, called Arundery built by them in the year MDCLXVI. He tho in the Kings service, yet being a well wisher to his Countrey, had privatly sent a Letter of advice to the Dutch concerning the Kings intention and purpose, an Answer to which was intercepted and brought to the King, wherein thanks was returned him from the Dutch for his Loyalty to his own Nation, and nhut they would accordingly prepare for the Kings assault. The King having this Letter, sent for him, and bad him read it, which he excused pretending it was so written, that he could not. Whereupon immediatly another Dutchman was sent for, who read it before the King, and told him the Contents of it. At which it is reported the King should say, Beia pas mettandi hitta pas ettandi, That is, He serves me for fear, and them for love; or his fear is here and his love is there; And forth with commanded to carry him forth to Execution: which was accordingly done upon him. Tis generally said, that this Letter was framed by somebody on purpose to ruine him. [The next Embassador dying there his Body is sent down to Columbo in great State.] The next Ambassador after him was Hendrick Draak; a fine Gentleman, and good friend of the English. This was he who was Commissioned in the year MDCLXIV. to intercede with the King on the behalf of the English, that they might have liberty to go home, and with him they were made to beleive they should return: which happened at the same time that Sir Edward Winter sent his Letters to the King for us. Which I have already spoke of in the fifth Chapter of this Part. This Embassador was much in the Kings favour, with whom he was detained till he died. And then the King sent his Body down to Columbo carried in a Pallenkine with great State and Lamention, and accompanied with his great Commanders, and many Soldiers. [The third Embassador. Gets away by his resolution.] Sometime after the loss of the Fort of Arrundery which was about the year MDCLXX. the Dutch sent up another Embassador to see if he could obtain a Peace, which was the first time their Embassadors began to bring up Letters upon their heads in token of extraordinary reverence. This man was much favoured by the King, and was entertained with great Ceremony and Honour, cloathing him in Chingulay Habit, Which I never knew done before nor since. But being weary of his long stay, and of the delays that were made; having often made motions to go down, and still he was deferred from day to day, at length he made a resolution, that if he had not leave by such a day, he would go without it; saying that the former Embassador who died there, died like a Woman, but it should be seen that he would die like a man. At the appointed day, he girt on his Sword, and repaired to the Gates of the Kings Palace, pulling off his Hat, and making his obeysance as if the King were present before him, and thanking him for the Favours and Honours he had done him, and so took his leave. And there being some Englishmen present, he generously gave them some money to drink his Health; and in this resolute manner departed, with some two or three Black-servants that attended on him. The upshot of which was, that the King, not being willing to prevent his resolution by Violence, sent one of his Noblemen to conduct him down; and so he had the good fortune to get home safely to Columbo. [The fourth was of a milder Nature.] The next Ambassador after him was John Baptista. A Man of a milder Spirit than the former, endeavouring to please and shew compliance with the King. He obtained many Favours of the King, and several Slaves both Men and Women. And living well with Servants about him, is the more patient in waiting the King's leisure till he pleaseth to send him home. [The fifth brings a Lion to the King as a Present.] The last Embassador that came up while I was there, brought up a Lion: which the Dutch thought would be the most acceptable Present that they could send to the King, as indeed did all others. It was but a Whelp. But the King did never receive it, supposing it not so famous as he had heard by Report Lions were. This Man with his Lion was brought up and kept in the County of Oudapollat, near Twenty Miles from the King's Court. Where he remained about a year, in which time the Lion died. The Embassador being weary of living thus like a Prisoner with a Guard always upon him, often attempted to go back, seeing the King would not permit him Audience. But the Guards would not let him. Having divers times made disturbances in this manner to get away home, the King commanded to bring him up into the City to an House that was prepared for him, standing some distance from the Court. Where having waited many days, and seeing no sign of Audience, he resolved to make his Appearance before the King by force, which he attempted to do, when the King was abroad taking his Pleasure. The Soldiers of his Guard immediately ran, and acquainted the Noblemen at Court of his coming, who delayed not to acquaint the King thereof. Whereupon the King gave Order forthwith to meet him, and where they met him, in that same place to stop him till further order. And there they kept him, not letting him go either forward or backward. In this manner and place he remained for three days, till the King sent Order that he might return to his House whence he came. This the King did to tame him. But afterwards he was pleased to call him before him. And there he remained when I left the Countrey, maintained with Plenty of Provisions at the King's charge. [The number of Dutch there.] The number of Dutch now living there may be about Fifty or Sixty. Some whereof are Ambassadors, some Prisoners of War, some Runaways, and Malefactors that have escaped the hand of Justice and got away from the Dutch Quarters. To all whom are allotted respective allowances, but the Runaways have the least, the King not loving such, tho giving them entertainment. [They follow their Vice of Drinking.] The Dutch here love Drink, and practise their proper Vice in this Countrey. One who was a great Man in the Court, would sometimes come into the King's Presence half disguised with Drink, which the King often past over; but once asked Him, Why do you thus disorder yourself, that when I send for you about my Business, you are not in a capacity to serve me? He boldly replied, That as soon as his Mother took away her Milk from him, she supplied it with Wine, and ever since, saith he, I have used myself to it. With this answer the King seemed to be pleased. And indeed the rest of the white Men are generally of the same temper: insomuch that the Chingulays have a saying, That Wine is as natural to white Men, as Milk to Children. [The Chingulays prejudiced against the Dutch, and why.] All differences of Ranks and Qualities are disregarded among those Chingulay People that are under the Dutch. Neither do the Dutch make any distinction between the Hondrews, and the low and Inferior Casts of Men: and permit them to go in the same Habit, and sit upon Stools, as well as the best Hondrews; and the lower Ranks may eat and intermarry with the higher without any Punishment, or any Cognizance taken of it. Which is a matter that the Chingulays in Cand' Uda are much offended with the Dutch for; and makes them think, that they themselves are sprung from some mean Rank and Extract. And this prejudiceth this People against them, that they have not such an Esteem for them. For to a Chingulay his Rank and Honour is as dear as his life. And thus much of the Dutch. CHAP. XIV. Concerning the French: With some Enquiries what should make the King detain white Men as he does. And how the Christian Religion is maintained among the Christians there. [The French come hither with a Fleet.] About the year MDCLXXII. or LXXIII, there came Fourteen Sail of great Ships from the King of France to settle a Trade here. Monsieur De la Hay Admiral, put in with this Fleet, into the Port of Cottiar. From whence he sent up Three men by way of Embassy to the King of Cande. Whom he entertained very Nobly, and gave every one of them a Chain of Gold about their Necks, and a Sword all inlay'd with Silver, and a Gun. And afterwards sent one of them down to the Admiral with his Answer. Which encouraged him to send up others: that is, an Ambassador and six more. Who were to reside there till the return of the Fleet back again, being about to Sail to the Coast. [To whom the King sends Provisions, and helps them to build a Fort.] To the Fleet the King sent all manner of Provision, as much as his Ability could afford: and not only permitted but assisted them to build a Fort in the Bay. Which they manned partly with their own People, and partly with Chingulays, whom the King sent and lent the French. But the Admiral finding that the King's Provisions, and what else could be bought in the Island would not suffice for so great a Fleet, was forced to depart for the Coast of Coromandel; promising the King, by the Ambassador afore-mentioned, speedily to return again. So leaving some of his Men with the King's Supplies to keep the Fort till his return, he weighed Anchor, and set sail. But never came back again. Some reported they were destroyed by a Storm, others by the Dutch. The Admiral had sent up to the King great Presents, but he would not presently receive them, that it might not seem as if he wanted any thing, or were greedy of things brought him: but since the French returned not according to their promise, he scorned ever after to receive them. At first he neglected the Present out of State, and ever since out of Anger and Indignation. This French Fort at Cotiar was a little after easily taken by the Dutch. [The French Ambassador offends the King.] But to return to the Embassador and his Retinue. He rode up from Cotiar on Horseback, which was very Grand in that Countrey. And being with his Company gotten somewhat short of the City, was appointed there to stay, until an House should be prepared in the City for their Entertainment. When it was signified to him that their House was ready for their Reception, they were conducted forward by certain Noblemen sent by the King, carrying with them a Present for his Majesty. The Ambassador came riding on Horse-back into the City. Which the Noblemen observing, dissuaded him from, and advised him to walk on foot; telling him, It was not allowable, nor the Custom. But he regarding them not, rode by the Palace Gate. It offended the King, but he took not much notice of it for the present. [He refuses to wait longer for Audience.] The Ambassador alighted at his Lodgings. Where he and his Companions were nobly Entertained, Provisions sent them ready Dressed out of the King's Palace three times a day, great Plenty they had of all things the Countrey afforded. After some time the King sent to him to come to his Audience. In great State he was Conducted to the Court, accompanied with several of the Nobles that were sent to him. Coming thus to the Court in the Night, as it is the King's usual manner at that Season to send for foreign Ministers, and give them Audience, he waited there some small time, about two hours or less, the King not yet admitting him. Which he took in such great disdain, and for such an affront, that he was made to stay at all, much more so long, that he would tarry no longer but went towards his Lodging. Some about the Court observing this, would have stopped him by Elephants that stood in the Court, turning them before the Gate thro which he was to pass. But he would not so be stopped, but laid his hand upon his Sword, as if he meant to make his way by the Elephants; the People seeing his resolution, called away the Elephants and let him pass. [Which more displeased the King. Clapt in chains.] As soon as the King heard of it, he was highly displeased; insomuch that he commanded some of his Officers, that they should go and beat them, and clap them in Chains: which was immediately done to all excepting the two Gentlemen, that were first sent up by the Admiral: for these were not touched, the King reckoning they did not belong unto this Ambassador; neither were they now in his Company; excepting that one of them in the Combustion got a few Blows. They were likewise disarmed, and so have continued ever since. Upon this the Gentlemen, Attendants upon the Embassador, made their Complaints to the Captain of their Guards, excusing themselves, and laying all the blame upon their Ambassador; urging, That they were his Attendants, and a Soldier must obey his Commander and go where he appoints him. Which sayings being told the King, he approved thereof, and commanded them out of Chains, the Ambassador still remaining in them, and so continued for six Months. After which he was released of his Chains by means of the Intreaties his own men made to the great Men in his behalf. [The rest of the French refuse to dwell with the Ambassador.] The rest of the French men, seeing how the Embassador's imprudent carriage had brought them to this misery, refused any longer to dwell with him. And each of them by the King's Permission dwells by himself in the City; being maintained at the King's charge. Three of these, whose Names were Monsieur Du Plessy, Son to a Gentleman of note in France, and Jean Bloom, the third whose Name I cannot tell, but was the Ambassador's Boy, the King appointed to look to his best Horse, kept in the Palace. This Horse sometime after died, as it is supposed of old Age. Which extremely troubled the King; and imagining they had been instrumental to his Death by their carelessness, he commanded two of them, Monsieur Du Plessy and Jean Bloom to be carried away into the Mountains, and kept Prisoners in Chains, where they remained when I came thence. The rest of them follow Employments; some whereof Still Rack, and keep the greatest Taverns in the City. [The King uses means to reconcile the French to their Ambassador.] Lately, a little before I came from the Island; the King understanding the disagreements and differences that were still kept on foot betwixt the Ambassador and the rest of his Company, disliked it and used these means to make them Friends. He sent for them all, the Ambassador and the rest, and told them, That it was not seemly for Persons as they were at such a distance from their own Countrey, to quarrel and fall out; and that if they had any love for God, or the King of France, or himself, that they should go home with the Ambassador and agree and live together. They went back together, not daring to disobey the King. And as soon as they were at home, the King sent a Banquet after them of Sweetmeats and Fruits to eat together. They did eat the King's Banquet, but it would not make the Reconcilement. For after they had done, each man went home and dwelt in their own Houses as they did before. It was thought that this carriage would offend the King, and that he would at least take away their Allowance. And it is probable before this time the King hath taken Vengeance on them. But the Ambassador's carriage is so imperious, that they would rather venture whatsoever might follow than be subject to him. And in this case I left them. [The Author acquaints the French Ambassador in London, with the condition of these Men.] Since my return to England, I presumed by a Letter to inform the French Ambassador then in London of the abovesaid Matters, thinking my self bound in Conscience and Christian Charity to do my endeavour, that their Friends knowing their Condition, may use means for their Deliverance. The Letter ran thus, These may acquaint your Excellency, That having been a Prisoner in the Island of Ceilon, under the King of that Countrey near Twenty years; by means of this my long detainment there, I became acquainted with the French Ambassador, and the other Gentlemen his Retinue; being in all Eight Persons; who was sent to Treat with the said King in the Year MDCLXXII. by Monsieur De la Hay, who came with a Fleet to the Port of Cotiar or Trinkemalay, from whence he sent these Gentlemen. And knowing that from thence it is scarce possible to send any Letters or Notice to other Parts, for in all the time of my Captivity I could never send one word, whereby my Friends here might come to hear of my Condition, until with one more I made an Escape, leaving Sixteen English men yet there; The Kindness I have received from those French Gentlemen, as also my Compassion for them, being detained in the same place with me, hath obliged and constrained me, to presume to trouble your Lordship with this Paper; not knowing any other means where I might convey Notice to their Friends and Relations, which is all the Service I am able to perform for them. The Ambassador's Name I know not; there is a Kinsman of his called Monsieur le Serle, and a young Gentleman called Monsieur du Plessey, and another named Monsieur la Roche. The rest by Name I know not. And then an account of them is given according to what I have mentioned above. I shall not presume to be farther tedious to your Honour; craving Pardon for my boldness which my Affection to those Gentlemen being detained in the same Land with me hath occasioned. Concerning whom if your Lordship be pleased farther to be informed, I shall be both willing and ready to be, Yours, &c. The Ambassador upon the receipt of this, desired to speak with me. Upon whom I waited, and he after some Speech with me told me he would send word into France of it, and gave me Thanks for this my Kindness to his Countreymen. [An inquiry into the reason of this King's detaining Europæans] It may be worth some inquiry, what the reason might be, that the King detains the Europæan People as he does. It cannot be out of hope of Profit or Advantage; for they are so far from bringing him any, that they are a very great Charge, being all maintained either by him or his People. Neither is it in the power of Money to redeem any one, for that he neither needs nor values. Which makes me conclude, it is not out of Profit, nor Envy or ill will, but out of Love and Favour, that he keeps them, delighting in their Company, and to have them ready at his Command. For he is very ambitious of the Service of these Men, and winks at many of their failings, more than he uses to do towards his Natural Subjects. [The King's gentleness towards his white Soldiers.] As may appear from a Company of White Soldiers he hath, who upon their Watch used to be very negligent, one lying Drunk here and another there. Which remisness in his own Soldiers he would scarce have indured, but it would have cost them their lives. But with these he useth more Craft than Severity to make them more watchful. [They watch at his Magazine.] These Soldiers are under two Captains, the one a Dutch man and the other a Portugueze. They are appointed to Guard one of the King's Magazines, where they always keep Sentinel both by Day and Night. This is a pretty good distance from the Court, and here it was the King contrived their Station, that they might swear and swagger out of his hearing, and that no body might disturb them, nor they no body. The Dutch Captain lyes at one side of the Gate, and the Portugueze at the other. [How craftily the King corrected their Negligence.] Once the King to employ these his white Soldiers, and to honour them by letting them see what an assurance he reposed in them, sent one of his Boys thither to be kept Prisoner, which they were very Proud of. They kept him two years, in which time he had learnt both the Dutch and Portugueze Language. Afterwards the King retook the Boy into his Service, and within a short time after Executed him. But the King's reason in sending this Boy to be kept by these Soldiers was, probably not as they supposed, and as the King himself outwardly pretended, viz. To shew how much he confided in them, but out of Design to make them look the better to their Watch, which their Debauchery made them very remiss in. For the Prisoners Hands only were in Chains, and not his Legs; so that his possibility of running away, having his Legs at liberty, concerned them to be circumspect and wakeful. And they knew if he had escaped it were as much as their lives were worth. By this crafty and kind way did the King correct the negligence of his white Soldiers. [The King's Inclinations are towards white Men.] Indeed his inclinations are much towards the Europæans; making them his great Officers, accounting them more faithful and trusty than his own People. With these he often discourses concerning the Affairs of their Countreys, and promotes them to places far above their Ability, and sometimes their Degree or Desert. [The colour of white honoured in this Land.] And indeed all over the Land they do bear as it were a natural respect and reverence to White Men, in as much as Black, they hold to be inferior to White. And they say, the Gods are White, and that the Souls of the Blessed after the Resurrection shall be White; and therefore, that Black is a rejected and accursed colour. [Their Privilege above the Natives.] And as further signs of the King's favour to them, there are many Privileges, which White Men have and enjoy, as tolerated or allowed them from the King; which I suppose may proceed from the aforesaid Consideration; as, to wear any manner of Apparel, either Gold, Silver, or Silk, Shoes and Stockings, a shoulder Belt and Sword; their Houses may be whitened with Lime, and many such like things, all which the Chingulayes are not permitted to do. [The King loves to send and talk with them.] He will also sometimes send for them into his Presence, and discourse familiarly with them, and entertain them with great Civilities, especially white Ambassadors. They are greatly chargeable unto his Countrey, but he regards it not in the least. So that the People are more like Slaves unto us than we unto the King. In as much as they are inforced by his Command to bring us maintenance. Whose Poverty is so great oftentimes, that for want of what they supply us with, themselves, their Wives, and Children, are forced to suffer hunger, this being as a due Tax imposed upon them to pay unto us. Neither can they by any Power or Authority refuse the Payment hereof to us. For in my own hearing the People once complaining of their Poverty and Inability to give us any longer our Allowance, the Magistrate or Governor replied, It was the King's special Command, and who durst disannul it. And if otherwise they could not supply us with our maintenance he bad them sell their Wives and Children, rather than we should want of our due. Such is the favour that Almighty God hath given Christian People in the sight of this Heathen King; whose entertainment and usage of them is thus favourable. [How they maintain Christianity among them.] If any enquire into the Religious exercise and Worship practised among the Christians here, I am sorry I must say it, I can give but a slender account. For they have no Churches nor no Priests, and so no meetings together on the Lord's Dayes for Divine Worship, but each one Reads or Prays at his own House as he is disposed. They Sanctifie the Day chiefly by refraining work, and meeting together at Drinking-houses. They continue the practice of Baptism; and there being no Priests, they Baptize their Children themselves with Water, and use the words, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; and give them Christian Names. They have their Friends about them at such a time, and make a small Feast according to their Ability: and some teach their Children to say their Prayers, and to Read, and some do not. [In some things they comply with the worship of the Heathen.] Indeed their Religion at the best is but Negative, that is, they are not Heathen, they do not comply with the Idolatry here practised; and they profess themselves Christians in a general manner, which appears by their Names, and by their Beads and Crosses that some of them wear about their Necks. Nor indeed can I wholly clear them from complyance with the Religion of the Countrey. For some of them when they are Sick do use the Ceremonies which the Heathen do in the like case, as in making Idols of clay, and setting them up in their Houses, and Offering Rice to them, and having Weavers to Dance before them. But they are ashamed to be known to do this; and I have known none to do it, but such as are Indians born. Yet I never knew any of them, that do inwardly in Heart and Conscience incline to the ways of the Heathen, but perfectly abhor them: nor have there been any, I ever heard of, that came to their Temples upon any Religious account, but only would stand by and look on; [An old Priest used to eat of their Sacrifices.] without it were one old Priest named Padre Vergonce, a Genoez born, and of the Jesuits Order who would go to the Temples, and eat with the Weavers and other ordinary People of the Sacrifices offered to the Idols: but with this Apology for himself, that he eat it as common Meat, and as God's Creature, and that it was never the worse for their Superstition that had past upon it. But however this may reflect upon the Father, another thing may be related for his Honour. There happened two Priests to fall into the hands of the King; on whom he conferred great Honours; for having laid aside their Habits they kept about his Person, and were the greatest Favourites at Court. The King one day sent for Vergonse, and asked him, if it would not be better for him to lay aside his old Coat and Cap, and to do as the other two Priests had done, and receive Honour from him. He replied to the King, That he boasted more in that old habit and in the Name of Jesus, than in all the honour that he could do him. And so refused the King's Honour. The King valued the Father for this saying. He had a pretty Library about him, and died in his Bed of old Age: whereas the two other Priests in the King's Service died miserably, one of a Canker, and the other was slain. The old Priest had about Thirty or Forty Books, which the King, they say, seized on after his Death, and keeps. [The King permitted the Portugueze to build a Church.] These Priests, and more lived there, but all deceased, excepting Vergonse, before my time. The King allowed them to build a Church; which they did, and the Portugueze assembled there, but they made no better than a Bawdy-house of it; for which cause the King commanded to pull it down. Although here be Protestants and Papists, yet here are no differences kept up among them, but they are as good Friends, as if there were no such Parties. And there is no other Distinctions of Religion there, but only Heathens and Christians: and we usually say, We Christians. FINIS. Books printed for, and sold by Richard Chiswel. FOLIO. Speed's Maps and Geography of Great Britain and Ireland, and of Foreign Parts. Dr. Cave's Lives of the Primitive Fathers. Dr. Cary's Chronological Account of Ancient time. Wanly's Wonders of the little World, or History of Man. Sir Tho. Herbert's Travels into Persia, &c. Holyoak's large Dictionary, Latin and English. Sir Richard Baker's Chronicle of England. Causin's Holy Court. Wilson's compleat Christian Dictionary. Bishop Wilkin's Real Character, or Philosophical Language. Pharmacopoeia Regalis Collegii Medicorum Londineisis reformata. Judge Jone's Reports in Common Law. Judge Vaughn's Reports in Common Law. Cave Tabula Ecclesiasticorum Scriptorum. Hobbe's Leviathan. Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning. Sir W. Dugdale's Baronage of England, in 2 Vol. QUARTO. Dr. Littleton's Dictionary. Bishop Nicholson on the Church Catechism. The Compleat Clerk. History of the late Wars of New England. Dr. Outram de Sacrificiis. Bishop Taylor's Disswasive from Popery. Dr. Gibb's Sermons. Parkeri Disputationes de Deo. History of the future State of Europe. Dr. Fowler's Defence of the Design of Christianity, against John Bunyan. Dr. Sherlock's Visitation-Sermon at Warrington. Dr. West's Assize-Serm. at Dorchester, 1671. Lord Hollis's Relation of the Unjust Accusation of certain French Gentlemen charged with a Robbery, 1671. The Magistrates Authority asserted, in a Sermon by James Paston. OCTAVO. Elborow's Rationale upon the English Service-Book. Dr. Burnet's Vindication of the Ordination of the Church of England. Bishop Wilkin's Natural Religion. Hard-castle's Christ. Geography and Arithmetick. Dr. Ashton's Apology for the Honours and Revenues of the Clergy. Lord Hollis's Vindication of the Judicature of the House of Peers, in the case of Skinner. ----Jurisdiction of the House of Peers in case of Appeals. ----Jurisdiction of the House of Peers in case of Impositions. ----Letter about the Bishops Vote in Capital Cases. Dr. Grew's Idea of Phytological History continued on Roots. The Spaniards Conspiracy against the State of Venice. Several Tracts of Mr. Hales of Eaton, of the Sin against the Holy Ghost, &c. Bishop Sanderson's Life. Dr. Tillotson's Rule of Faith. Dr. Simpson's Chymical Anatomy of the York-shire Spaws; with a Discourse of the Original of Hot Springs and other Fountains. ----His Hydrological Essays, with an Account of the Allum-works at Whitby, and some Observations about the Jaundies. Dr. Cox's Discourse of the Interest of the Patient in reference to Physick and Physicians. Organon Salutis: Or an Instrument to cleanse the Stomach: with divers New Experiments of Tobacco and Cofee: with a Preface of Sir H. Blunt. Dr. Cave's Primitive Christianity, in three Parts. Allen's Discourse of two Covenants, 1672. Ignatius Fuller's Sermons of Peace and Holiness. Buckler of State and Justice against France's Design of Universal Monarchy. A free Conference touching the Present State of England at home and abroad, in order to the Designs of France. Bishop Taylor of Confirmation. Mystery of Jesuitism, third and fourth Parts. Dr. Salmon's Dispensatory. Dr. Samway's Unreasonableness of the Romanists. Record of Urines. Dr. Ashton's Cases of Scandal and Persecution. DUODECIMO. Hodder's Arithmetick. Grotius de Veritate Religionis Christianæ. Bishop Hacket's Christian Consolations. VICESIMO QUARTO. Valentine's Devotions. Guide to Heaven. Books lately printed. Guillim's Display of Herauldry, with large Additions. Dr. Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England, Folio, in two Volumes. Dr. Burlace's History of the Irish Rebellion, folio. Herodoti Historia, Græ. Lat. Fol. Cole's Latin and English Dictionary, with large Additions. William's Sermon before the Lord Mayor, Octob. 12. 1679. ----Impartial Consideration of the Speeches of the Five Jesuits Executed for Treason, Fol. Dr. Burnet's Relation of the Massacre of the Protestants in France, Quarto. ----His Letter written upon the Discovery of the late Plot, Quarto. ----Decree made at Rome, March 2. 1679. condemning some Opinions of the Jesuits and other Casuists, Quarto. Tryals of the Regicides, Octavo. Mr. James Brome's Two Fast Sermons. Dr. Jane's Fast Sermon before the House of Commons, April 11. 1679. Mr. John James's Visitation Sermon, April 9. 1671. Quarto. Mr. John Cave's Fast Sermon on Jan. 30. 1679. quarto. ----His Assize Sermon at Leicester, July 31. 1679. quarto. ----His Gospel preached to the Romans, Octavo. Certain Genuine Remains of the Lord Bacon, in Arguments Civil, Moral, Natural, &c. with a large Account of all his Works, by Dr. Tho. Tenison. Octavo. Dr. Puller's Discourse of the Moderation of the Church of England, Octavo. Dr. Saywel's Original of all the Plots in Christendom; with the Danger and Remedy of Schism. Sir John Munson Baronet, of Supreme Power and Common Right. Octavo. Dr. Edw. Bagshaw's Discourses upon Select Texts, Octavo. Mr. Rushworth's Historical Collections: The Second Part. Fol. ----His large and exact Account of the Trial of the E. of Straf. with all the Circumstances preliminary to, concomitant with, and subsequent upon the same, to his Death. Fol. Remarques relating to the state of the Church of the three first Centuries. By Ab. Seller. Octavo. Speculum Baxterianum, or Baxter against Baxter. Quarto. The Countrey-man's Physician. For the use of such as live far from Cities, or Market-Towns. Octavo. Dr. Burnet's Sermon upon the Fast for the Fire, 1680. quarto. ----Conversion and Persecutions of Eve Cohan, a Person of Quality of the Jewish Religion, lately Baptized a Christian. quarto. ----His Life and Death of the late Earl of Rochester. Octavo. ----His Fast Sermon before the Commons, Decemb. 22. 1680. ----His Sermon on the 30th of Jan. 1680/1. New England Psalms. Twelves. An Apology for a Treatise of Humane Reason. Written by Mr. Clifford Esq; Twelves. The Laws of this Realm concerning Jesuits, Seminary Priests, &c. explained by divers Judgments and Resolutions of the Judges; with other Observations thereupon, by William Cawley Esq; Fol. Bishop Sanderson's Sermons, with his Life. Fol. Fowlis his History of Romish Conspiracies, Treasons, and Usurpations. Fol. Markmam's Perfect Horseman. Octavo. Dr. Parker's Demonstration of the Divine Authority of the Law of Nature and the Christian Religion. quarto. Dr. Sherlock's practical discourse of Religious Assemblies. Octavo. A Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet's Unreasonableness of Separation. Octavo. Dr. Outram's Sermons. Octavo. FINIS. 
56614	----	VILLAGE FOLK-TALES OF CEYLON Vol. I Collected and Translated by H. PARKER Late of the Irrigation Department, Ceylon LONDON LUZAC & CO Publishers to the India Office 1910 CONTENTS PAGE Introduction 1 PART I. STORIES OF THE CULTIVATING CASTE AND VAEDDAS. NO. 1 The Making of the Great Earth 47 2 The Sun, the Moon, and Great Paddy 52 3 The Story of Senasura 54 4 The Glass Princess 57 5 The Frog Prince 67 6 The Millet Trader 72 7 The Turtle Dove 79 8 The Prince and the Princess 93 9 Tamarind Tikka 100 10 Matalange Loku-Appu 108 11 The White Turtle 113 12 The Black Storks' Girl 120 13 The Golden Kaekiri Fruit 129 14 The Four Deaf Persons 134 15 The Prince and the Yaka 137 16 How a Yaka and a Man fought 146 17 Concerning a Man and Two Yakas 148 18 The Three Questions 150 19 The Faithless Princess 157 20 The Prince who did not go to School 160 21 Nagul-Munna 169 22 The Kule-baka Flowers 173 23 Kurulu-gama Appu, the Soothsayer 179 24 How a Prince was chased by a Yaksani 186 25 The Wicked King 191 26 The Kitul Seeds 197 27 The Speaking Horse 199 28 The Female Quail 201 29 The Pied Robin 206 30 The Jackal and the Hare 209 31 The Leopard and the Mouse-deer 213 32 The Crocodile's Wedding 216 33 The Gamarala's Cakes 219 34 The Kinnara and the Parrots 224 35 How a Jackal settled a Lawsuit 228 36 The Jackal and the Turtle 234 37 The Lion and the Turtle 241 PART II. STORIES OF THE LOWER CASTES. 38 The Monkey and the Weaver-Bird (Potter) 247 39 The Jackal Devatawa (Washerman) 249 STORIES OF THE TOM-TOM BEATERS. The Foolishness of Tom-tom Beaters 252 40 A Kadambawa Man's Journey to Puttalam 253 41 The Kadambawa Men and the Hares 255 42 The Kadambawa Men and the Mouse-deer 256 43 The Kadambawa Men and the Bush 257 44 How the Kadambawa Men counted Themselves 258 45 The Kadambawa Men and the Dream 260 46 The Four Tom-tom Beaters 262 47 The Golden Tree 264 48 The Seven Princesses 270 49 Mr. Janel Siñña 278 50 The Nikini Story 284 51 The Aet-kanda Leniya 291 52 The Wimali Story 302 53 The Pots of Oil 304 54 The Mouse Maiden 308 55 Sigiris Siñño, the Giant 312 56 The Proud Jackal 316 STORIES OF THE DURAYAS. 57 The Seven Robbers 317 58 The Stupid Boy 319 59 The Gamarala and the Washerman 322 60 The Two Thieves 330 61 The Margosa Tree 334 62 The Gamarala's Foolish Son 336 63 The Jackal's Judgment 339 64 The Heron and the Crab 342 65 The Jackal and the Brahmana 347 66 The Cat who guarded the Precepts 349 67 The Lizard and the Leopard 355 68 The Lion and the Jackal 359 STORIES OF THE RODIYAS. 69 The Roll of Cotton 364 70 The Jackal and the Leopard 367 71 How the Boars killed the Rakshasa 370 72 The Grateful Jackal 373 STORIES OF THE KINNARAS. 73 Concerning a Monk and a Yaka 375 74 The Three Suitors 378 75 The Crocodile and the Jackal 380 Index 383 INTRODUCTION When the forest and jungle of north-central or north-western Ceylon is viewed from the upper part of a hill of considerable height, it has the appearance of a dark green sea, across which, if there be any wind, waves closely resembling those of the ocean roll along in parallel lines as the swaying tree tops bend under the gusts of the breeze. As clouds pass between it and the sun their shadows of darker green follow each other over this seemingly illimitable ocean. The undulations of the ground are lost; all appears to be at one general level, except that here and there a little island is visible where a low rocky mound succeeds in raising its head above the verdant waves. Any hills of lower elevation than our post of observation look strangely dwarfed, while higher ones behind us stand out more prominently than ever. In the immediate neighbourhood, perhaps glimpses may be obtained of one or two pale green rice fields, contrasting with the darker foliage around them, and of the light blue reflection of the sky in the water of a village tank; but further away there is no break in the uniformity of the forest sea. No houses are to be seen nor sounds heard, and the visible country appears to be an uninhabited silent wilderness of vegetation. Let us descend from such an elevated post, and proceed to examine the depths of the green ocean at closer quarters. I shall assume that the reader is accompanying me on a visit to a Kandian village, where we can learn something of the mode of life and the ideas of the dwellers in this jungle, and become acquainted with some of the animals who are introduced into the stories which they relate. We leave the dusty main roads, and follow a winding village path, never straight for a hundred yards except by accident--not such a path as was constantly encountered thirty or more years ago, on which the overhanging thorny bushes often made it necessary to bend low or run the risk of having one's clothes torn, but a track flanked with grass, having the bushes completely cleared away for a width of twelve feet. For a long distance we journey under an exhausting, pitiless, brazen sun, which during all the middle part of the day the traveller feels but never sees--never directing his gaze towards its blinding glare. The heat is reflected from the unsheltered path. Shut out from the cooling breath of the wind, we have on each side only closely interlaced jungle, a tangled growth, consisting chiefly of leafy thorns and creepers from ten to fifteen feet high, interspersed at varying intervals with a few large trees. This is the wild growth that has sprung up on the sites of abandoned chenas or jungle clearings, and will be cut down again for them from five to seven years afterwards. An occasional recent example of such a clearing may be passed, having a few large surviving scorched trees, and several smaller ones, interspersed among the growing crop of green millet. Round this a rough fence made by laying sticks and blackened sapling trunks horizontally between pairs of crooked posts--part of the unconsumed remains after the cut and dried up bushes had been burnt--protects the crop from the intrusion of deer and pigs and buffaloes. Near the middle of the clearing, where two young trees grow in proximity, two thin posts have been fixed in the ground, and between these four supports a floor of sticks has been constructed at a height of ten or twelve feet above the ground, reached by a rough stick ladder with rungs two feet apart, and having a thatched roof overhead, and a flimsy wall of sticks, interwoven with leafy twigs or grass on the windward side. A thin floor of earth, watered and beaten until it became hard, permits a small fire of sticks to be made in the shelter if the nocturnal air be chilly. In this solitary watch-hut a man, or sometimes two, sit or lie nightly, in order to drive away intruding animals that may successfully evade or break through the protecting fence, and feed on the crop. In such clearings are cultivated chiefly millet of different sorts, or edible grasses, sesame, and a small pulse called mun; while in the richer soil around some scattered conical brown anthills are planted maize, pumpkins, or red chillies, and a few small cucumbers called kaekiri, bearing yellow or reddish fruit some six inches long. Climbing up two or three of the smaller trees are to be seen gourds, with their curious, hanging, pale, bottle-shaped fruit. Along the path through the chena jungle there are not many signs of life. A Monitor Lizard or "Iguana," about four feet long, which we frighten as it was licking up ants and other insects on the roadside with its extensile thin tongue, scurries off quickly, and disappears down a hole in the side of an anthill. Over the jungle come the slow monotonous calls, "Tok, tok, tok, tok," of a small Barbet, perched on the topmost twig of one of the higher trees, jerking its body to the right and left as it repeats its single note. A Woodpecker crosses the path with a screaming cry, three times repeated, and a few other birds may appear at intervals, but otherwise there is not much to break the sameness. Then, if one be lucky, comes a tract of the original forest that has escaped the chena clearer's destructive bill-hook and fires, in which is immediately experienced the welcome relief afforded by the delightful cool shade cast by the forest trees of many species which stretch high above the lower bushes. This is the home of the Elephant, traces of which are observed in the wide footprints and an occasional broken-down sapling or fractured branch. A slightly leaning tree on the side of the path has tempted one to rub his back on it, and lower down are the scratches left by a Leopard's claws, as he scraped them on it like a cat. As we pass along the leaf-strewn way, the loud hoarse cry, "Ho, ho," of the large grey Monkeys (Semnopithecus priamus) whom we startle, resounds through the trees. They cease to feed on the succulent young leaves, and shake the rustling branches in their bold leaps among the higher ones. This is soon followed by a sudden stillness as they mysteriously conceal themselves, vanishing as though by magic among the denser foliage. Bird calls unfamiliar to a stranger are heard, especially the short cry of two notes, rather than the crow, of the Jungle-cock--the wild game-fowl of Ceylon,--the sheep-like bleats of the Lesser Hornbill, sometimes the rich notes of the Crested Drongo, or the often reiterated whistle, "To meet ye´-ou," of the Whistling Babbler. A charming Ground Dove that was picking up seeds on the path, flies off quickly down the path, and turns suddenly through the bushes. A few white or brown or striped Butterflies, and sometimes the lovely, large, dark velvety-green or steely blue Ornithoptera, flit about. A few sharp notes, uttered as a small timid creature, little bigger than a hare, darts off under the bushes, tell us that we have startled a little Mouse-deer, Miminna. These fragile-looking animals always stand on tiptoe, appearing exactly, as Mr. R. A. Sterndale expressed it in his work, The Mammalia of India, "as if a puff of wind would blow them away." But as a rule, there is not much animal life noticeable even in these forests, unless one can spare time to search for it. Another patch of the chena jungle succeeds the forest, and then the path reaches one end of the embankment of a village tank or reservoir, a shallow sheet of water varying in size from two or three acres to more than one hundred, but commonly from twenty to fifty in area. The trim, earthen, grass-sloped embankment, nearly straight, from an eighth of a mile to half a mile long, from nine to sixteen feet high, and six feet wide on the top, rises a few feet above the water level. In its contrast with the parched and heated ground along which we have come, the scene always appears strikingly beautiful. There are few fairer spots on the earth than some of the village tanks when they are nearly full of water. Here we may sit in the cool shelter of an umbrageous tree, and contemplate nature in its most idyllic aspect. The busy world, with its turmoil and stress, its noisy factories and clanging machinery, its hurrying railway trains and motor-cars, its crowded cities full of an artificial and unhealthy existence, has disappeared, as though it had been merely a fantastic vision of the night. Here all is peace: an uneventful calm that has survived the changes of perhaps two thousand years, and that may be unaltered in another two thousand. One may wonder if the fevered life of the present western civilisation will last as long, or will have burnt itself out, and been swept away like that of the dead civilisations that preceded it. Abandoning these day dreams, which the seclusion of the site induces, we look around us. At both sides of the tank and along the outer toe of the embankment grow lofty trees, with grey trunks often strengthened by wide buttresses, which are thrown out so as to afford their support in the direction in which it is chiefly needed. If a branch become unduly expanded on one side of the tree, always that on which it receives the rays of the sun, so as to displace the centre of gravity, the trunk at once proceeds to develop these thin triangular buttresses under it, wide at the base, and extending ten or fifteen feet upward. As though designed by an engineer, there are usually two which act as struts, and support the trunk below the overweighted branch; and on the opposite side a broader one which acts as a tie, and assists in holding back the stem. There is no lack of varied forms of animal life here. Often a party of brown Monkeys who have come to drink at the tank are to be seen in some of the trees, sitting quietly inspecting the visitors, or walking leisurely along the branches, a few of the females carrying under their bodies a young one tightly clutching them. In many tanks, a low grey or dark-stained rock in the water affords a favourite basking ground for the sluggish muddy-brown Crocodiles that make their home in all but a few of the smallest of these tanks. They lie on it like stranded logs, exposed to the sun's rays, often with wide-open mouths, as though overcome by the heat, from which, however, they make no effort to escape. A few black Cormorants and a white Egret or two may also be there, resting on another part of the rock; and close to the water even one or two little Black Tank Turtles, but not the edible White Tank Turtle (Kiri-ibba), which is much less common. On a stump in the water is usually perched a Darter, a bird that can outswim its fishy prey, with long snake-like neck, drying its expanded wings under the fiery tropical rays. Its mate will be immersed in the water, in which it swims with only its head and neck visible above the surface. Near the upper margin of the tank wades, with long deliberate strides, a lanky Great White Egret (Herodias alba), its neck outstretched in advance, and head held ready for a rapid spear-like thrust of its long tapering bill at any frog or small fish incautious enough to remain within its fatal reach. Nearer the edge of the shallowest water Lesser Egrets step more hurriedly in search of frogs, and often chase them as they rush spluttering along its surface. At the larger tanks the hoarse scream of a White-tailed Fishing Eagle (Polioaetus ichthyaetus), perched on one of the higher branches of a tall tree overhanging the water, resounds across the open space, without frightening a flock of reddish-brown Whistling Teal that float motionless near some lotus leaves, watching the human intruders, who monopolise all their attention. As we proceed along the embankment, we disturb some of the large Frogs that were sunning themselves on it, or catching flies near the edge of the water, and that plunge headlong into it with extended hind legs. We now perceive on the low side of the tank a stretch of fields, a couple of hundred yards, a quarter of a mile, or half a mile long, or even more, in which the clear uniform light green sheet of the paddy or growing rice affords a pleasant relief after the uninteresting chena jungle. A long group of feathery-fronded Coconut trees near the tank, fringing the far side of the field, indicates that we are close to a Kandian village. The thatched grey roofs of some of the houses are soon distinguishable below the palms, nearly concealed among the plantain trees and other bushes growing about them. Above these stand out several tall, deep green, pointed-leaved Mango trees, and higher still a few wide-spreading Tamarinds and slender Halmilla trees. Before we reach them, our attention is again arrested by the repeated mewing calls of the light-coloured Jacanas (Hydrophasianus chirurgus), with pheasant-like tails and enormously lengthened toes, which distribute their weight over a wide area. This enables them to walk on the round floating leaves of the lotus plants that cover one portion of the tank, picking unwary insects out of the water. Near the side of the tank are to be seen the upper parts of the dark heads of buffaloes, of which the bodies are immersed, as they lazily chew the cud. A White Egret is perched on one whose back appears above the water. At intervals a head disappears quietly below the surface, and the dense crowd of small flies that had settled on it is driven to flight, only to return once more as soon as it rises again. In the shallower water near them, and nearly stationary, or moving a few feet only at a time, stands a small silent Pond Heron (Ardeola grayi), avoiding observation as much as possible. Its shoulders are raised, and its head is drawn down, so that it appears to have no neck; its dorsal plumes spread over the closed wings and completely hide them. When it stands still in this, its usual, attitude it is almost unnoticeable among the aquatic weeds. On our approach it flies off with a croak, transformed into a bird displaying broad white wings and a long thin neck. It is far from being the voracious bird that a well-known tale represents it to be. A Chestnut Bittern (Ardetta cinnamomea), that had stationed itself at the foot of the embankment, flits silently across the water, and a Blue or Pied Kingfisher is seen poising itself with down-turned bill, over a shoal of small fishes, on which it drops unexpectedly with a sudden splash, and then wings its way to another position where others have been detected. On a patch of grass at the upper side of the tank we observe a couple of white-necked Black Storks (Ciconia leucocephala) promenading sedately in search of luckless frogs, but maintaining a careful watch for human enemies who may be tempted to endeavour to approach within gunshot. Near this end of the embankment, a party of village women who have brought their large, narrow-mouthed, brown earthen pots or "chatties" for water, holding them on their hips by passing an arm round the neck, will probably take to flight on seeing the white strangers, or otherwise stand as far off the path as the space permits, until they pass. A cry of rapidly shouted words is repeated through the village, announcing the arrival of "gentlemen," and soon some of the men emerge, and after saluting us with hands raised to the chest and palms touching each other, guide us into it. On our way we pass by single houses or groups of two or three, built in the midst of each little paddock, fifty or one hundred feet wide or more, often with a very slight fence around it, of the scattered area under the coconut palms which forms the gardens of the Kandian village. Decently clad men and women come out of their mud-walled and often whitewashed dwellings to stare at the strangers, as well as children of all sizes, in varying stages of scanty clothing, from a short piece of white calico which reaches from the waist to the ankles, down to its vanishing point. The men wear a plain white cloth from the waist to the ankles. The women have a white or coloured one about twelve feet long, one end passing from the waist over the front of the figure, with the corner thrown over the right shoulder, and hanging down behind as far as the waist; the rest of the cloth is wrapped twice round the lower part of the figure, from the waist downwards. When they visit other villages many of the people of both sexes wear white jackets; in the women's jackets the sleeves are gathered and puffed out at the shoulder, and reach only to the elbow, and there is a wide, sometimes frilled, double collar. Our guides lead us on until we reach a dwelling possibly a little more carefully constructed than the others, close to which is a thatched, open, rectangular shed, about twelve feet long by nine feet wide, with its roof resting on plain round wooden posts. Its raised earthen floor is hastily swept, a heavy wooden mortar cut out of a piece of tree trunk, and used for pounding rice in order to remove the skin, is rolled away, and the shed is then ready for our temporary occupation. This is a maduwa, or shed erected for travellers and strangers, as well as for the general use of the owner, in which the women may plait mats, or clean paddy or rice in the wooden mortar, with a long wooden pestle having an iron ring round the lower end. Here also the man's friends may sit and chat, and chew the leaf of the Betel vine with broken-up bits of the nut of the Areka Palm, and a little lime, and a fragment of tobacco leaf, while they discuss the state of the crops, or the local news. When such a shed is erected on the side of a path for public use, it may have, but rarely, half walls four feet high; or the posts may be tenoned into a rectangle of substantial squared logs that are halved into each other at the angles, where they rest upon large stones, so as to be clear of the ground, and thus partly protected from attacks by white ants. The squared beams act as seats for the tired passer-by. At the end of the maduwa in the village there is sometimes a very small room of the same width, in which is stored millet or pulse in bags, or ash-pumpkins, together with a few articles required about the house, such as surplus grass mats, and flat winnowing baskets. Under the roof of the maduwa, above the cross-beams and some sticks laid on them, will be the owner's little plough, and board for levelling the mud of the rice field before sowing, and some short coils of rope made from the twisted inner bark of tough creepers, and one or two fish creels. When there is no suitable shed of this kind for the visitor, a hut, usually one belonging to the village headman, is swept out and temporarily given up to our use. If information of the coming visit had been sent beforehand, the hut or shed would have been provided with a ceiling made of lengths of white calico borrowed from the family washerman, and perhaps the walls also would have been hung with others, sometimes including such coloured ones as he had washed for some of the villagers. While food is being prepared by our servants in a small shed or kitchen close to the house, we stroll through the village, and observe as we go that all the houses lie east and west, or north and south, and are thatched with straw or plaited Coconut leaves. They are all rectangular, usually eight or nine feet wide and some twelve feet long, and are raised a couple of feet from the ground, on a solid earthen foundation. Each one has a low veranda, two feet six inches or three feet wide, along the front side, and one heavy door of adzed or sawn timber near the middle; but there is very rarely a window, and even then only one of the smallest size. Near the end of the house, and within sight of the veranda, there are one or two round corn stores, considerably wider at the top than at the base, with conical thatched roofs. They rest upon cross sticks placed upon four horizontal adzed logs, which are supported by four small rough blocks of stone at the corners. Their walls are made of a wicker frame hung from four or five durable posts set in the ground, which are usually the heart wood of trees that are not eaten by white ants. The upper part of the wicker frame is firmly tied to the tops of these, and the whole wicker work is then thickly overlaid and stiffened by successive coatings of mixed clay and sand, on which, as on all the walls and floor of the dwelling house, there is placed a thin surface wash of cow-dung. These corn stores contain the household supply of paddy or millet. They are entered only by raising the loose conical roof on one side by a long prop, and getting inside by means of a rough ladder, at the opening thus made, over the top of the wall, which rises eight or nine feet above the ground. Sometimes, but rarely in the northern Kandian districts, a small rectangular hut is used as a corn store, the entrance in that case being made through a doorway in the middle of one side. The open ground along the front of the house is clean, and free from grass and weeds, and is swept every morning. In this space, called the midula, there is a stand of peeled sticks supported on thin posts, and having a stick platform about four feet, or a little more, in length and two feet in width, raised three feet from the ground, with often another similar platform below it. On these are laid, after being washed, the blackened earthenware cooking pots of the house, and spoons made of segments of coconut shell with long wooden handles, which are used with them. In the little kitchen at the end of the house, with a lean-to roof, the hearths or fire-places called lipa are formed of three round stones fixed on the ground, about eight inches apart, on which are set the cooking pots, over a fire of dry sticks. Sometimes a separate small shed is built as a kitchen, but often the cooking is done inside the single apartment of the house, at one end of it. In each garden are a number of Coconut trees, some thin Halmilla trees, and often a Mango tree, or a dark-leaved Jak tree, with its enormous light green fruit hanging on pedicles from the trunk or larger branches, as well as a Lime tree, and four or five clumps of Plantain stems nearer the dwelling. Round the base of one or two of the Coconuts or Halmilla trees are piled on end long bundles of firewood, nearly two feet thick and six or eight feet long, the unconsumed sticks from the chena, collected by the women, tied round with creepers, and carried home on their heads. Climbing up a small tree in front of the house is a fine Betel vine, which is watered every day during the dry weather. We notice that a bleached skull of a bull is fixed among the leaves to guard the creeper from the unlucky glance of the "Evil Eye," which might cause its premature decay. In the damper ground adjoining the rice field a few slender Areka palms are growing, with their clusters of small fruit hanging below their leafy crowns. On the outer side of the village, near the embankment of the tank, there are the large, rough-stemmed Tamarind trees that we noticed as we came. A number of separate thin posts are fixed in the bare ground below them, to which are tethered a few small Buffalo calves, which will be joined by their mothers at dusk, after their bath in the tank is finished. Further on, there is a small enclosure protected by a stick fence, round which a few thorns are placed. At the entrance, the halves of a split log, about nine inches wide, form gate posts; and five moveable horizontal bars pass easily through holes cut through them, a few loose thorns being rolled against them when the enclosure is shut up at night. This is a cattle-fold, or gala, into which the little harmless black humped cattle are driven each evening by some boys, with the repeated long-drawn cry, Gale, "Into the fold." In some districts tobacco or chillies will be planted on this well-manured plot of ground in the following spring, a new cattle fold being then made. On our return to the shed we see that our host's wife has cooked his evening meal of boiled rice and vegetable curry, with a bit of sun-dried fish as a flavouring, these last being often made burning hot with red chillies. She serves it in the raised veranda to him and a relative who has come from a distant village, after giving them water for rinsing out their mouths. Both sit or "squat" on their heels, and convey the food to their mouths with their right hands, out of the shallow, rather wide basins that act as plates. Where the supply of such household articles runs short, leaf plates made of a piece of plantain leaf, or two or three halmilla leaves pinned together, are used. When they have finished the meal, and have rinsed their right hands and drunk water--which is never taken while eating--and have been served with a chew of betel leaf and its accompaniments, the wife eats the remains of the meal alone, inside the house. If she and her husband were alone they would take it together, the husband being first served. The men now sit on mats spread in the narrow veranda, where a little oil lamp is perhaps hung, and the woman, after throwing out the remains of the food for the dog, and washing the basins and cooking utensils, and arranging them on their stand, joins the party, and shares in the evening's conversation. Sometimes, however, she finds it necessary to pound some paddy until bed-time, in order to remove the husk, in readiness for the meals of the following day; or millet or rice may require grinding into flour in the stone quern. If some intimate village friends were there, this would be the time when, after discussing the events of the day, or making arrangements for the morrow, a member of the party might finish the evening's chat by relating one of the familiar old stories of which translations appear in this book. In the end the woman retires, the visitor stretches himself on his grass mat in the veranda, and the host extinguishes the lamp, if one had been lit, and enters the single room of his house. On the next night it will be his turn to occupy the watch-hut at the chena, where his partner is sitting now. All take care to lie, if possible, in an east and west direction, and on no account with their heads to the south. This is the abode of Yama, the god of death, while the north is the quarter inhabited by demons. These directions are therefore exposed to evil influences which might affect the sleeper, and perhaps cause such unlucky omens as evil dreams. The dog curls himself on the ground at the front of the house, the cat wanders off to join some village cronies, and all is silent in the village, except the rustling of the Coconut fronds overhead, the monotonous call, "Wuk; chok-cho-tok," uttered by a small owl in one of the higher trees, and the more distant chorus of the frogs in the adjoining rice field. Now and again we hear at some villages the long-drawn, human-like cry, "Hoo, hoo, hoo," of a large Wood-Owl (Syrnium indranee), that is flying round high in the air, and answering its distant mate. It is a weird unearthly sound, which is always firmly believed by the villagers to be uttered by demons, as will be noticed in some of the stories. The earliest cry of the morning is the deep booming note, three or four times repeated, of the large Ground Cuckoo (Centrococcyx rufipennis), which is heard soon after dawn appears. Our host's wife is at work before daylight, scraping into shreds the kernel of a half coconut, and preparing some milk-rice--rice boiled in milk made by squeezing grated coconut in water until the latter assumes the colour of milk. By sun-rise, the Crows of the village are astir, and the Parrakeets, commonly called "Parrots" in the East, which have been sleeping in the coconut trees, fly away in parties in search of food. The notes of the double kettle-drum at a neighbouring wihara, or Buddhist temple, consisting of three deep-toned strokes at short intervals, followed by five rapid blows on a higher key, once repeated, the whole series being many times sounded, now announce to the villagers within hearing that this is one of the four Poya days of the month, the Buddhist Sabbath, kept at each of the quarters of the moon. About an hour later, our host's wife is joined by a party of eight or ten women, and one or two men, all dressed in clean white clothes. They proceed to the temple, each carrying in a small bowl a present of milk-rice and a few cakes, covered with a white cloth. There they chant three times, after the resident monk, the Buddhist creed, "I go to the Buddha-refuge, I go to the Faith-refuge, I go to the Community (of Monks)-refuge"; this is followed by some more stanzas in the ancient language, Pali, after which they return, and resume the ordinary occupations of the day. Our host is about to leave his room after his night's rest, when the chirp of a little pale-coloured House Lizard on the wall causes him to turn back suddenly, in order to avoid the evil influences against which the wise Lizard had uttered its warning voice. He occupies himself in the house for a short time longer, and then, at a luckier moment, makes his appearance afresh, taking care to step over the threshold with the right foot first. He is cheered by finding that nothing obstructs his way in the least after he comes out, and that we are the first living beings on which his gaze rests. To begin the day by seeing first a person of superior status is a lucky omen of the favourable character of the rest of the day, and one with which he is not often blessed. We increase the auspicious impression by a few judicious friendly remarks; but are careful not to offer any decided praise regarding any of his possessions, since we are aware of his opinion that one never knows if such sayings may not have a reverse effect through the malevolence of jealous evil spirits. There is an Evil Mouth, as well as an Evil Eye. A man or two, and a few boys, come from the adjoining houses to watch our doings, from the open space in front of the house, or the veranda; but all turn their faces away and ignore us from the moment when we sit down to our "early tea," and until it is finished. This is done so as to avoid any risk of our food's affecting us injuriously, owing to a possible glance of the Evil Eye, which a person may possess without being aware of the fact. We notice a little copper tube slung on the right upper arm of our host's wife, by means of a yellow thread which passes through two rings on its under side. In reply to our carefully worded inquiry regarding it, he informs us that as she had been troubled with evil dreams they had thought it advisable to get a friend of his, a Vedarala or doctor, who was acquainted with astrological and magical lore, to supply her with a magical diagram and spell against dreams, inscribed on a strip of dried palm leaf, which was rolled up and placed in the tube. The thread, a triple one, was coloured with saffron, and nine knots were made on it before it was tied on her arm, a magical spell being repeated as each knot was made. Thanks to this safeguard the dreams had ceased, but it was considered advisable not to remove the thread and charm for a few weeks longer. Our host's relative, having eaten some milk-rice, and taken a chew of betel and areka-nut in his mouth, is about to return to his distant village, and now leaves, saying only, "Well, I am going." "It is good; having gone come," is the reply. The latter word must not be omitted, or it might appear that his return in the future was not desired. So he sets off on his journey, the host accompanying him to the garden fence. However, in a few minutes he is back again, and explains that he had met with a bad omen which made it necessary to postpone the departure. A dog stood in the path, obstructing his way, and made no attempt to move even when he spoke to it. The host cordially agrees that it would be most unwise to continue the journey after such an unfavourable omen on starting, and it is settled that he will leave early in the afternoon, when the danger, whatever it may be, probably will have passed away. And so on, like a perpetual nightmare haunting him during his whole journey through life, the Kandian villager sees his dreaded portents in the simplest occurrences of his daily life. A few are prognostications of good luck; but far more in number are those which are to him obvious warnings, not to be disregarded with impunity, of some unknown but impending evil that he must avoid if possible. Every evil is directly due to evil spirits, either specially instigated to injure him by inimical magicians, or taking advantage of some accidental opportunity. The evil spirits are innumerable and malevolent, and ever ready to make use of any chance to annoy or injure human beings. Thus it would be the height of foolhardiness to ignore events that appear to be signs of some approaching unfavourable action on their part. One man informed me that in the dusk one evening he was unable to find the little exit path from his chena, and was compelled to remain all night there before the clearing work was finished. He attributed this entirely to the malicious action of an evil spirit, who had blocked it up in order to annoy him. When daylight came the path was clear, and so plainly to be seen that he was certain that he could not have missed it at night had it been in a similar state at that time. I knew of one instance in which a man who had arranged to make a lengthy trading journey, and had loaded his cart with produce ready for an early start at daybreak, abandoned the trip because he had a dream in the night which he considered indicated an unfavourable prospect. The reader will find a similar tale included among these stories; and although the villagers laugh at the foolish men of whom it is related, there are scores of others who would return home under such circumstances. It is a holiday season for the villagers, during which they can devote themselves to the congenial occupation of contemplating the growth of the rice and the millet crop; but it was preceded by much hard work in the rice field and the chena. The felling of the thorny jungle at the chena, the lopping and burning of the bushes, the clearing and hoeing of the ground, and the construction of the surrounding fence, were carried on continuously under a scorching sun from morning to night, until the work was completed shortly before the first light showers enabled the seed to be sown, after a further clearing of the weeds that had sprung up over the ground. As soon as the heavier rains had softened the hard soil of the rice field, baked, where not sandy, by the tropical sun until it became like stone, the work of ploughing and preparing the land for the paddy crop was one that permitted little or no intermission. Every morning the men carried their little ploughs on their shoulders, and yoking a couple of buffaloes to each of them, spent many hours in guiding the blunt plough backwards and forwards through the soil, overgrown since the last crop by a covering of grass. It requires no slight labour to convert such an apparently intractable material into a smooth sheet of soft mud, eight inches deep. After that is done, all the little earthen ridges that form the raised borders of each of the rectangular plots into which the field is divided, and that are necessary for retaining the sheet of water which is periodically flooded over the rice, must be repaired and trimmed. When that is accomplished the ground must be sown by hand without delay, with paddy which has already sprouted, and being merely scattered lightly on the surface of the thick mud, will grow at once. The preparation of the paddy for this purpose is one of the duties of the women, who soak it in water, and spread it a few inches thick on large mats laid on the floor of the shed or the veranda. In three days it will be sprouted, and ready for immediate sowing. After the sowing is completed, there still remains the repair or reconstruction of the stick fence which protects the field from cattle, or, in some parts, deer. It is thought to be essential for obtaining a satisfactory crop, that each of the more important operations of these or any other works should be commenced on a day and at an hour that have been selected by the local astrologer as auspicious. There must be no unfavourable aspects of the planets, which are held to have a most powerful and often deleterious influence on all terrestrial matters; planets or no planets, certain days are also recognised by every person who claims a modicum of intelligence, as being notoriously unlucky. After the time for beginning the ploughing, or commencing the clearing of the jungle at the chena, has been so chosen, a start must be made at that hour, even though it be nothing more than a beginning; and usually the plough is once run at that time through each little plot of the field, several days before the real ploughing is undertaken. In the case of the chena, a few branches will be lopped off at the lucky moment, and the remainder of the work can then be done when convenient. Without such necessary precautions no village cultivator would be astonished at the subsequent failure or unproductiveness of the crops, either through excess or deficiency of the rainfall, or damage caused by wild animals, or, in the case of the rice, by an excessive irruption of "flies" or bugs, which suck out the milky juices of the immature grains. The surprise would be felt, not at the failure of the crops under such unfavourable conditions, but at the survival of any crop worth reaping. Of course, in the case of the "flies" on the rice the usual remedy of their forefathers will be tried. A Bali Tiyanna, a priest who makes offerings to arrest or avert the evil influences due to unpropitious planets, will be summoned. After presenting a small offering, he will march round the crop, blowing a perforated chank shell in order to alarm any unfavourable spirits; at each side of the field he will formally exorcise the flies, and in a loud voice order them to depart. [1] But on the whole, notwithstanding the thorough confidence of the exorcist in the efficacy of this treatment, it is felt to be a last resort, which ought to be, but often is not, altogether as successful as the owner of the crop might desire. Planets and flies are sometimes intractable, and will not hearken to the charmer. Besides, thinks the cultivator, who knows if the Bali Tiyanna was so foolish as to speak to some one on his march round the field, and thus break the spell? Now that he comes to consider the matter, the cultivator remembers that he heard the cry of a Woodpecker [2] as he was leaving the house for the first ploughing. He thought at the time that, as the hour had been declared to be a fortunate one, that warning scream was intended for some other person; but now he is of opinion that it may have been addressed to him. It is unfortunate; it must have been settled by Fate that he should neglect it, but he will exercise more care another time. He feels that he can always place confidence in the House Lizards and Woodpeckers, because they receive their information from the gods themselves. When the chena crop is ripe, the wives of the owners collect a number of friends and relatives, and proceed with them to the place, each carrying a light sack or two, and a diminutive sickle. With this they cut off the heads of the millet, storing them in the sacks; the straw is left as useless. All the party are rather gaily dressed, usually in white, and often have a broad strip of calico tied over the head, with the ends falling down the back. This work is looked upon as a recreation, and is carried on amid a large amount of chatter and banter, and the singing of songs by first one and then another, each verse being repeated by the whole party. Some that are sung are simple verses from the olden time, which probably are believed to have a magical influence. At noon and in the evening the bags full of millet are carried to the houses of the owners of the crop. Meals are provided for the whole party by them, and no payment is made for the work. In most districts the men never take any part in this reaping, and their presence would be thought objectionable. As one of them expressed it, they stay at home and boil water. For the reaping of the rice crop, the man to whom it belongs collects a few assistants in the same way, the women also sometimes joining in the work. The stems of the plants are cut near the ground, and are tied up in little sheaves, which are collected first at some of the junctions of the earthen ridges in the field. The whole are removed afterwards and built into larger stacks at the side of the field, near a flat threshing-floor of hard earth, surrounded by a fence in which a few trees are planted as a shade. The threshing of the stacks is a business of great importance, which must be performed according to ancient customs that are supposed to have a magical effect, and prevent injurious demoniacal interference with the out-turn. After the floor has been thoroughly cleaned and purified, a magical circular diagram, with mystical symbols round it, is drawn on the ground round a central post, before the threshing can be commenced. The unthreshed rice is laid over the floor in a circle round the central post, and four buffaloes in a row are driven over it, round and round the post, following the direction taken by the sun, that is, from the east towards the south and so on through the circle, the stems of the rice being shaken up from time to time. After the corn has been thus trampled out of the ears it is collected and poured gradually out of baskets held high in the air, so that the wind may blow away the chaff. The corn is then placed in sacks and carried to the store. After the crop of the chena or field has been gathered in, a small offering of the first-fruits is made at the local Dewala, or demon temple, and cleaned rice is also presented to the resident monk at the local Buddhist temple. When the crop is placed in the store, the household supply of food for at least a great part of the year, and commonly for the whole year, has been provided for. Such additions as salt, sun-dried fish, and some of the condiments used in curries are obtained by bartering coconuts, or paddy, or millet, at little roadside shops which are established at a few places along the main roads throughout the country. These are kept by Muhammadan trades--commonly termed Tambi, with, in village talk, the honorific addition ayiya, "elder brother,"--or Sinhalese from the Low Country districts, or Tamils from Jaffna; and rarely or never by Kandians. From these shops, also, clothes are procured at long intervals in the same way, or a special journey is made to the nearest town or larger shopping centre. As a general rule, in the interior it is all a matter of barter, and very little money is used, so little indeed that if the crops be less satisfactory than usual the villager often has difficulty in paying the tax of a rupee and a half (two shillings), which is collected by Government each year from adult males, towards the cost of keeping the roads in order. In the poorer districts, the payment of this, the only direct tax of the villager, is like a recurring annual nightmare, which worries him for weeks together, and unfortunately cannot be charmed away, like his other nightmares, by a magic thread. Village life is on the whole a dull one. Its excitements are provided by demon-ceremonies for the cure of sickness, occasional law-suits, and more especially by weddings, which afford a welcome opportunity for feasting, and displaying clothes and jewellery, but sometimes also cause quarrels owing to caste or family jealousies. It would be too long a digression to attempt to describe these here. Pilgrimages to important Buddhist temples are also undertaken, about nine-tenths of the pilgrims being women, a proportion sometimes observable in church attendance in England. One of the pleasantest features of village life is the family re-union at the Sinhalese New Year, April 11 or 12, when all the members meet at their old home if possible, and make little presents to each other, and pay ceremonial visits, dressed in their best clothes, to their relatives and friends. The men also call on their local headmen, who in the same way visit their superiors. I have known considerable numbers of villagers tramp ninety miles on hot dusty roads, with an equally long return journey in prospect, in order to be present at this home gathering. For three weeks before the day, the whole village life is disorganised by preparations for this festival. The houses are furbished up, plantains and palm sugar are collected, often from places many miles away, new clothes are purchased, and every one's mind is given up to anticipation of the event and provision for it, to the complete exclusion of all ordinary work. It is also a busy time for astrologers, who are required to fix a suitable day and a lucky hour for the first lighting of the New Year's fire, the first cooking of food, and, three or four days later, the hour at which the heads of all shall be anointed, pending which important ceremony no work is begun or journey commenced. In many villages the women produce from some dark hiding-place the little board with fourteen little cup-shaped hollows, in two rows each consisting of seven cups, on which the ancient game called in Ceylon "Olinda" is played. Four bright red seeds of the Olinda creeper are placed in each cup, and the two players, who sit on opposite sides of the board, "sow" them one by one in the holes. As a rule, only the women play at this game, at which many of them are adepts, carrying it on for hours at a time with the greatest rapidity and skill. At the conclusion of the New Year's holiday, or soon after it, the boards are returned to their hiding-places, and often are not used again for another year. In the villages where Low Country influence has penetrated, many of the men find gambling a more attractive amusement, as well as a more exciting one, at this time. About once in a couple of years a party of Gypsies who speak Telugu, and broken Tamil and Sinhalese, come along the high road, and settle down on a patch of open grass near a tank. The talipat palm leaves with which their diminutive oblong huts are roofed, and strong creepers or bamboos curved in a semicircle, for making the skeleton framework, are transported on small donkeys, the women and children carrying the other few household goods and cooking utensils in bundles on their heads. Some take about with them large numbers of goats. As soon as they have raised their little huts, each about four feet high, and surrounded by a shallow channel for carrying off rain water, the adults leave them in charge of the children and old women, and spread through all the villages of the neighbourhood in order to collect food or money. The man carries in a round, flat, black basket slung in a cloth from his shoulder, a cobra or two, which are made to "dance," a term which means merely sitting coiled up (the head with the hood expanded being raised about fifteen inches from the ground), and making attempts to strike the moving knee or hand of the crouching exhibitor. The women tell fortunes by the lines on the hands. All the village girls endeavour to raise the requisite three halfpence or twopence so as to hear, often for the third or fourth time, of their past and future experiences, and to be promised handsome husbands possessing fields and cattle. The adults pay a little rice for the exhibition of the cobras. When the Gypsies have exhausted the contributory possibilities of the adjoining villages they move on again to another camping ground. They have always a number of dogs which assist in catching animals for the food supply, and it is few, whether provided with legs or without legs, that are thought unfit to eat. The diet includes white ants, rat-snakes, owls, and munguses, as well as any stray village fowls that can be acquired surreptitiously. These Gypsies of Ceylon are an interesting race, and I may be permitted a digression in order to furnish some details regarding them. I am not aware how long they have settled in Ceylon; they are permanent dwellers in the island, and are especially found in the northern half and the eastern districts, but also in the south and in the hill districts. In the Sinhalese districts they have developed a dialect which appears to be a curious compound of Telugu and Sinhalese. Thus fowls, which in Telugu are termed Kollu, are known by them as Guglu, the Sinhalese Kukulu. From a Gypsy with whom, by the aid of pecuniary intervention, I established friendly relations, cemented by my presenting him one day with a fine newly-caught cobra, I learnt that they enjoy general good health, notwithstanding the apparent hardships of their life. They attribute this to their constant changes of drinking-water and camping-sites, no camp being maintained in one place for more than seven days in the Sinhalese districts. In the Eastern Province, where the Gypsies possess very large herds of cattle, amounting sometimes to four or five hundred, they camp in one spot for a month if the grazing be sufficiently good. They do not keep their cobras for more than a month. After being kept for that period, they not only become too tame to "dance," but, what is far more important, their poison fangs grow afresh, and it would be dangerous to retain them. They are therefore always released at the end of that time, if not earlier. They are fed regularly upon fowls' eggs and occasional rats. My friend characterised as nonsense the idea of their handling and using cobras which have not had their fangs excised. The reader may remember Sir Bartle Frere's note in Old Deccan Days, p. 329, regarding a boy who continued to handle with impunity poisonous snakes with unremoved fangs, until at last one killed him. The reader is also referred to Drummond Hay's Western Barbary, 1844, pp. 105-108, in which an account is given of a snake-charmer who allowed a deadly snake to bite him. A fowl that it bit immediately afterwards died in a minute, while the man did not suffer from the bite. Hay saw the snake's fangs. He mentions another instance at Tangier, in which a youth who was sceptical regarding the poison allowed the snake to bite him, and died from the effect of it. I saw this Gypsy cut off the fangs of the cobra that I gave him. This was done with a common pen-knife which he kept for the purpose. The head being held sideways on a thick stick, so that the upper jaw lay on it, the fang was cut off at the base. The head was then turned, and the other fang removed. The man then passed his fore-finger along the jaw, and finding a slight roughness or projection, sliced off a little of the bone at each side. After this he released the cobra, which followed him and sprang at him furiously, time after time, and had its first lesson on the ease with which he evaded its strokes. When it became tired of attempting the impossible, he consigned it to his basket--another cobra ready for exhibition. Some of these men are extraordinarily expert in making pretended captures of cobras which they apparently fascinate by their pipes, so as to attract them from their holes or hiding-places. They perform this feat so cleverly as to deceive many people, who insist that it is a real capture. I have twice got them to do it for me--in the Southern and the North-western Provinces--and although I watched them from a very short distance, I was unable to see whence the cobra was produced. On both occasions I examined the mouth of the cobra immediately after it was captured, and in both instances I found that the fangs had been removed. My Gypsy friend also assured me that it was a mere trick which only a few learn. In each case, the man, who was dressed only in a cloth extending from the waist to the calf, after piping for some time at the edge of the bushes in which the snake might possibly be found, bent down suddenly, half entering the bush, and apparently endeavoured to seize a cobra which eluded him. After resuming the piping for a few seconds more, he bent down again at the same spot, and drew out a large cobra--one was nearly six feet long; it extended to the full length of his outstretched hands--holding it by the tail; then slipping his other hand rapidly along its body he grasped it tightly behind the jaws. Probably when first bending down he placed a cobra on the ground, afterwards seizing it by the tail as it was moving off. In one case, a pretence at being bitten on the thumb on the way back from the bush was very effective. There were two bleeding punctures between the nail and the knuckle, at the right distance apart, and the expressions of pain no doubt were not altogether simulated. The supposed poison was extracted by means of the usual spells and remedial agents--a charmed piece of creeper and a tiny ball of lime, the latter to check the progress of the poison along the arm, and the former to draw it down to the wounds; and two "snake stones"--nearly flat rectangular pieces of horn slightly hollowed on one side--which were placed on the wounds to extract the poison. These "stones" adhere by atmospheric pressure when wetted and pressed on the skin with the hollowed side downwards. I have been informed that the wounds are made by pressing on the thumb a thorny seed capsule which has two sharp spikes at a suitable distance apart. One of these men afterwards proceeded to a large village about a mile away, and appeared to capture three more cobras in the same manner at houses where the residents denied that any were to be found; but in the end I was told by the villagers that he had only two cobras in his basket, this being the number that I saw in his possession before these last pretended captures were made. These people are said to live well, better, indeed, than the majority of the villagers. The women are given to lavish personal adornment of an inexpensive kind, chiefly articles of brass and glass. On one lady, perhaps considered a beauty, I counted sixteen bead necklaces; twenty-four bangles, chiefly of common black glass, on the wrists; four silver armlets on the upper arms; and six rings on each finger and thumb, excepting only the middle finger of each hand. The Kandian village is a self-contained unit, producing everything that the inhabitants require, with the exception of the few articles previously mentioned. It hears a faint echo of the news of the great outer world, without feeling that this has any connexion with its own life. It would listen with almost equal indifference to a statement that the sky was blue, or that England was at war with a European power, or that a new Governor had been appointed. When I asked a villager's opinion regarding the transfer of a Government Agent who had ruled a Province for some years, he replied, "They say one Agent has gone and another Agent has come; that is all." The supervision of the work of maintaining in order the embankment of the village reservoir or "tank," upon which the rice crops depend, as well as of the fencing of the rice field, is in the hands of the Gamarala, now termed in other parts than the North-central Province, the Vidane. The latter title is not recognised in any of the folk-tales, in which (with one exception) the Gamarala is the only headman represented. His jurisdiction extends over two or three closely adjoining villages, or sometimes over one only. Of a higher rank and different functions is the Aracci (pronounced Aratchy), who rules over five or six villages, and who is responsible for the maintenance of order, arrests and prosecutes offenders, and acts as general factotum for seeing that the orders received from superior headmen are promulgated and obeyed. Of much more important authority are the Korale-Aracci and Korala, the latter being the head of a considerable district, and above these again is the Ratemahatmaya, who is the supreme and very influential chief of a large part of a Province. By successive steps in promotion the members of influential or respectable families may rise to any of these offices. Though all but the highest one are unsalaried, they are competed for with a good deal of eagerness on account of the power which they confer, the possibility of further promotion, and also for the opportunities which they afford for receiving "presents," which flow in a pleasing though invisible, but not therefore less remunerative, stream towards all but the Vidanes and Gamaralas. A few words may be added regarding the castes of the Kandian districts whose stories are given in this work, or who are referred to. The Smiths come next to the cultivating caste, sometimes occupying separate hamlets, but often living in the same village as the superior caste, though divided from it by an impassable gulf, of which only the women preserve the outward sign. Those of the cultivating caste are alone permitted by social custom to dress in one outer robe in one piece; all of lower rank must wear a separate garment from the waist upward. The Smiths are considered to be the highest class of their caste, called Nayide, the artificers. There are said to be five classes of Nayides:--(1) Acari (pronounced Atchary), which includes the Smiths, Painters, and Sculptors; (2) Badahaela, Potters; (3) Mukkara or Karawa, Fishers; (4) Madinna, Toddy-drawers ("toddy" is fresh palm-juice); (5) all "Moormen," the descendants of Muhammadan settlers. All these, and the other low castes, except the Rodiyas, cultivate rice and millet. The Potters live by making all local forms of earthen pottery, and tiles and bricks if required. They build up large temporary kilns filled with alternate layers of pots and fire-wood, and are often intelligent men. Some of them are priests or conductors of services for the propitiation of planets and other evil astronomical bodies, as well as astrologers. Next in the villages come the Washermen (Radawa, or Henaya, or Henawalaya), who possess great power as the arbiters regarding cases of the violation of social etiquette or custom. The disgrace of a refusal on their part to wash the clothes of objectionable persons is a form of social ostracism, and the offender soon has sad experience of the truth of the statement of the Maha Bharata that there is nothing (except fire) that is so purifying as gold (or its value). Some of the washermen are officiators at demon ceremonies. They are paid for their services as washermen in produce of various kinds, each family giving an annual subvention in paddy, etc., in return for its washing. One whom I knew could improvise four-line stanzas for an indefinite time, on the spur of the moment, each verse being composed while the audience chanted the refrain after the preceding one. The Tom-tom Beaters (Berawaya) are a peculiar and interesting caste, who formerly combined their present duties with the weaving of cotton fabrics in frames. Although the arduous work of their profession--often a whole night's hard dancing or tom-toming--leads at the time to a considerable consumption of "arrack," the spirit distilled from palm juice, I believe that few of them take much liquor at other times. In their own work many of them are very expert, the result of many years of training. On one occasion three tom-tom beaters requested permission to give me an exhibition of their skill. The leader first played a short simple tune, which was repeated in turn by the second and third players. They continued to play in this way, in turn, the tunes becoming increasingly difficult and rapid; whatever impromptu changes the leader introduced were all repeated in the same manner by the others. A number of villagers who were present, and listening critically, stated that it was a clever performance; it was also a noisy one. The boys are taught to learn thoroughly, without using a tom-tom, the whole of the complicated airs that are played, repeating a series of sounds such as ting, tang, etc., which with varying emphasis represent the various notes to be played on the tom-tom. Not until they can give in this manner the whole of an air correctly, as regards notes, time, and emphasis, are they considered to know it. It is a tonic sol-fa system. To these professionals, every air has its name and meaning, often expressed in words which fit the notes; so that when a very few notes have been heard they can state what is being said. The reader will find one or two references to this in the folk-tales. The Durayas are the carriers of baggage for the higher caste, and nearly always have tanks and fields of more than average quality. These have been granted to them in former times by the cultivating caste in return for their services, which could be claimed at any time if a man were about to proceed on a journey, and required himself or his luggage carrying. They still occupy a very low social position. Formerly the women were not allowed to wear above the waist more clothing than a strip of calico of about a hand's breadth, across the breast; a coloured handkerchief now generally takes its place. Much has been written about the Rodiyas. They may be of partly different descent from the Sinhalese, but I do not know how far this matter has been investigated. Their hamlets are never called gama, "village," but kuppayama. [3] I am not aware that any of them cultivate rice fields; they make ropes, and guard chenas and cattle for others. They also partly subsist by begging, and, it is said, by theft; some are gamblers also. The women usually wear no clothing above the waist. Their dialect differs from Sinhalese to some extent. Nothing is known regarding the origin of the Kinnaras, the lowest caste of all, in whose case there are several anomalies that deserve investigation. They do not hunt as a profession. They have village tanks and rice fields, own cattle, and have good houses and neat villages. Their caste occupation is mat weaving in frames, with Niyanda fibre alone or combined with grass. Some have their heads covered with a mass of thick, short, very curly hair, being the only people in the island possessing this distinctive characteristic. The features and the colour of the skin are of the ordinary type of the lower castes, and would not enable them to be recognised from others. Social rules forbid the growth of the hair beyond the neck. The dress of the women is restricted like that of the Durayas. Though they can never enter Buddhist temples, or the enclosures round them, they are all Buddhists. I was informed that their social ceremonies, as well as the religious ones, that is, those for propitiating evil spirits, whether demoniacal or planetary, closely resemble those of the other castes; and that they, as well as the Rodiyas, have their own medical practitioners, astrologers, soothsayers, and kapuwas or officiators at demon ceremonies. The men of the Chetti caste, or Hettiyas, who are mentioned in some of the stories, are either Indians, or the descendants of Indian settlers. The Chetti caste is one of great importance, and many of its members are persons of the highest respectability and often of great wealth. The persons referred to in these tales are only some of the inferior members of the race, some of whom have little road-side shops or cultivate small fields and gardens. Coming at last to the stories themselves, I may quote the words of the late Mr. W. Goonetilleke, the learned editor of The Orientalist, a journal published during the years 1884-1892, in which many folk-tales of Ceylon were given. Mr. Goonetilleke said (vol. i. p. 36), "What is really wanted ... are the genuine stories of the Sinhalese [and other races also], those which are quite free from foreign influences, and have existed among the people from time immemorial. These can only be gathered from the inhabitants of villages and of the remoter parts of the island into which western civilization has not yet penetrated." It is an adherence to this advice, and, I may say also, the complete absence of all attempts to give the tales a literary appearance that the originals do not possess, which constitute the special features of the present work. Though all have been collected by myself, I have only myself written down a very limited number from dictation. All the rest have been written for me in Sinhalese by the narrators themselves, or by other villagers employed by me to collect them, who wrote them just as they were dictated. I preferred this latter method as being free from any disturbing foreign influence. Only three very short stories were written down by me in English; two of them were related in English by a Sinhalese gentleman, and the other, a variant of another story, was written immediately after a Buddhist monk had related it to me in Sinhalese. The stories, as they now appear, are practically literal translations of the written Sinhalese originals, perhaps it may be thought in some respects too literal. My aim has been to present them as nearly as possible in the words in which they are related in the villages. The only liberty of any importance that I have taken has been the insertion of an occasional word or phrase where it was evidently omitted by the narrator, or was necessary in order to elucidate the meaning, or complete the sense. It was unavoidable that many expressions, such as "afterwards," "after that," "at that time," "then," "again," with which the village story-teller repeatedly begins his sentences, should be deleted. Many past participles which Sinhalese grammar requires have been transformed into the past tense, and most of the tense errors have been corrected, and in rare instances an unmanageable sentence has been cut in two. Such a word as "came," when it expressed "came back," is sometimes translated "returned"; and "said," where it referred to an answer, is occasionally turned into "replied." The word translated as "behead," is merely "cut" in the original; but the context sometimes shows that the other meaning is to be understood. In other respects, the reader may rely on having here the tales in their true village forms, and expressed in the same simple manner. I have even left one peculiar idiom that is often used, according to which a question is described as being asked, or a statement made, "at the hand" of a person; but I do not follow the village story-teller in using this form in conversations carried on with the lower animals. It is quite usual in Sinhalese to state that a question was asked by a person "at the hand" (lit. "from the hand," the same word meaning also "fore-paw") of a jackal, a deer, or a reptile. It will be seen that I have not attempted to translate the interjections into English. It will be noticed that in the majority of the tales the characters are introduced in the present tense, which is then abandoned. The narrators sometimes relapse into it afterwards, but as a rule, unless action is being emphasised, I have adhered to the past tense in such instances, excepting in the stories told by the Village Vaeddas and the lowest castes, in which it seemed advisable to make as little change as possible. Attention may be invited to the tales told by the lowest castes, probably the only stories of theirs that have ever been collected in Ceylon. From the Tom-tom Beaters a considerable number were obtained, some of which will appear in a later volume. The few tales that have been told by the Rodiyas and Kinnaras are very simple; the chief fact is that they have any to tell. It appeared to be likely that some of the Sindbad series of adventures might be found in Ceylon, but inquiries made in different districts, including part of the west coast, failed to reveal any tales belonging to the "Arabian Nights," with the exception of one which probably was derived from a printed work, and orally transmitted from one of the towns. It is still possible that some may be found, as the Rukh is included in the Sinhalese tales, and the ogre called Rakshasa, who is a familiar personage in them, is correctly described in his folk-tale form, in one of the Sindbad voyages. In one story, which is not included in this work, there is the incident of the demon who was imprisoned in a bottle. The demon was Mara, Death personified, and his captor was a Vedarala, or medical practitioner. The age of the tale is uncertain. It is evident that many of the stories belong to distant times, but there is little to indicate their age more definitely. In one tale only, of this volume, the money mentioned is the kahawanuwa, in old Sinhalese kahawana, the Pali kahapana, a coin that ceased to be current by the tenth or eleventh century A.D., if not considerably earlier. Commonly, we find that the coinage is the masurama, plural masuran, which came into use in the eleventh century and was not coined after the thirteenth; but of course this is far from proving that the stories in which it occurs are not of much earlier date. There are no references to the Portuguese, who arrived in Ceylon at the beginning of the sixteenth century, or to later foreign residents; but a Tamil king is mentioned. Although a large number of the stories relate the adventures of Kings, Queens, Princes and Princesses, it will be observed that these personages sometimes behave like ordinary villagers. The Queen or Princess often cooks the rice for the family meal; Sir Bartle Frere has stated in the notes at the end of Old Deccan Days, p. 324, that this "would be nothing unusual in the house of a Rajah.... It is still the most natural precaution he can take against poison, to eat nothing but what has been prepared by his own wife or daughter, or under their eye in his own zenana, and there are few accomplishments on which an Indian Princess prides herself more than on her skill in cookery." It is not to be understood that such persons in these stories are supposed to be members of the family of the ruling monarch of Ceylon. These so-called "kings," ruling over a small district or even a single city, are in reality some of the more important parumakas or feudal chiefs of the inscriptions of pre-Christian or early post-Christian years. This old title does not make its appearance in the stories, however. Vaedda rulers who are termed "kings" receive notice in three stories. In one which was given in Ancient Ceylon, p. 93, a Vaedda youth was appointed the king of a Sinhalese district, which is stated to have prospered under his rule. In a tale in the present volume (No. 4) reference is made to a Vaedda "king" who dwelt in a forest, and who arrested some travellers and imprisoned them in what is termed a house. In another story, which is not included here, there is an account of another Vaedda "king" who lived in a forest, and who ordered his archers to kill a prince who had succeeded to the sovereignty of a neighbouring district on the death of his father, and was proceeding there in order to assume it. His offence lay in travelling through the forest without first obtaining the permission of the Vaedda ruler. We also find references to Vaeddas who were accustomed to enter the towns; one of them laid a complaint before a Sinhalese "king" that a person had threatened to kill him in the forest. Probably in all these instances we have a true picture of the actual position, in early times, of some of the Vaeddas who had not yet adopted, or had abandoned, the village life. Their chiefs were practically independent in their wild forests. The Rakshasas (in village spelling Rasaya, Rasi) who are introduced into many tales are ogres like those of Europe. The Yakas are always demons or evil spirits, of little intelligence, often having a human appearance but black in colour. They live chiefly upon human flesh, like the ogres, and possess like them some supernatural powers. With regard to the animals mentioned, it is strange to find such prominence accorded to the Lion, which has never existed in a wild state in Ceylon. Its characteristics are correctly described, even including its ear-splitting roar. The place taken by the Fox of European tales is filled by the Jackal, full of craft and stratagems, but sometimes over-reaching himself. The Hare and Turtle are represented as surpassing all the animals in cleverness, as in African and American Negro stories. Of all the animals, the poor Leopard is relegated to the lowest place, both as regards want of intelligence and cowardice; and in only one adventure does he come off better than the Jackal. Even in that one his position is a despicable one, and he is completely cowed by a little Mouse-deer, the clever animal of Malay stories. In Ceylon the Leopard occupies the place taken in India by the foolish Tiger. It is perhaps the chief merit of these stories, and certainly a feature which gives them a permanent value, that we have in them the only existing picture of the village life of ancient times, painted by the villagers themselves. From the histories we can learn practically nothing regarding the life of those of the ancient inhabitants of Ceylon who were not monks or connected with royalty, or the conditions under which they existed. It is here alone that the reader finds the daily experiences and the ideas and beliefs of the villagers gradually unfolded before him. In some of the stories we may see how the village life went on in the early centuries after Christ, and how little it has changed since that time. Others doubtless contain particulars which belong to a much later period, and in some there is an incongruous mixture of the old and the new, as when the slates of school children are introduced into what is evidently a tale of considerable age. In the case of stories like these, composed for the amusement of villagers only, and related by villagers to other villagers, it might be expected that a considerable number of objectionable expressions would occur. So far from this being the fact, I am able to state with much satisfaction that in only three or four instances in this volume has it been thought desirable to slightly modify any part of the stories. It is to be remembered that it is not the function of these tales in general to inculcate ideas of morality or propriety, although kindness of heart is always represented as meeting with some adequate reward or success, and the wicked and cruel are punished in most cases. But successful trickery and clever stratagems are always quoted approvingly, and are favourite themes in the tales which are most evidently of entirely local origin. In this respect they do not differ from many Indian stories. Undaunted bravery, and also self-abnegation and deep affection, are characteristics which are displayed by many of the heroes and heroines; but untruthfulness is practised, and is never condemned. The instances of polygamy are almost confined to the members of the royal families; there is one case of polyandry in which both the husbands were brothers. Infanticide was practised; in one tale a woman is recommended to kill her infant son because his horoscope was said to be unpropitious, and in another the parents abandoned their newly-born infant in order to carry home some fruit. In a story that is not included in this volume, a king is described as ordering all his female children to be killed immediately after birth. In another tale which is not given here, another king is stated to have sold his children during a time of scarcity. These "kings," however, are almost always depicted in an unfavourable light. They are represented as cowardly, selfish, licentious, unintelligent, and headstrong, ordering their sons or others to be executed for very slight faults, in sudden fits of anger. Murders are referred to as being commonly committed with impunity, and by no means of unusual occurrence. One man is said to have exchanged his wife for a bullock. Yet although the story-tellers do not relate social events which were not within the range of the common experience or traditions of the people at the time when the tales were invented, it may be doubted if the great mass of the villagers differed much as regards crime and morality from those of the present day. The humdrum life of the ordinary villager did not appeal to the story-teller, who required more stirring incidents. It is not necessary to assume that such events were of everyday occurrence. Considering the situation of Ceylon and the Indian origin of the people, it was certain that numerous tales would be similar to those of India, if not identical with them; but, with the exception of the story of the Creation, there are merely bare references to the Indian deities in about four of the tales in this volume. The great majority of the folk-tales collected by me, and almost the whole of those given in this volume, come from districts of the far interior of the island, where story-books in Sinhalese, Tamil, [4] or Arabic do not appear to have penetrated, and English is unknown by the villagers. Such tales are therefore nearly free from modern extraneous influences, and must be looked upon as often of genuine Sinhalese origin, even when they utilise the usual stock incidents of Indian folk-stories. A very few which resemble Jataka stories may owe their dissemination to Buddhist teaching, and doubtless some also were orally transmitted by immigrants who were often of South Indian nationality--as their similarity to South Indian stories shows--or in some instances may have been settlers from the Ganges valley, or near it. With regard to the latter, it is not probable that they consisted only of the early immigrants of pre-Christian times. King Nissanka-Malla, who reigned from 1198 to 1207 A.D., has recorded in his inscriptions that he was a native of Sinhapura, then apparently the capital of the Kalinga kingdom, which extended far down the east coast of India, southward from the lower part of the Ganges valley; and he and his Chief Queen Subhadra, a Kalinga Princess, must have brought into Ceylon many of their fellow-countrymen. The Queens of two other earlier Kings of Ceylon were also Princesses from Kalinga. In the Galpota inscription at Polannaruwa (Prof. E. Müller's Ancient Inscriptions in Ceylon, No. 148), he stated that "invited by the King [Parakrama-Bahu I], who was his senior kinsman, to come and reign over his hereditary kingdom of Lakdiva [Ceylon], Vira Nissanka-Malla landed with a great retinue in Lanka" [Ceylon]. Further on in the same inscription he stated that "he sent to the country of Kalinga, and caused many Princesses of the Soma and Surya races to be brought hither." A connexion with the Kalinga kingdom seems to have been maintained from early times. In his inscriptions the same king claimed that the sovereignty of Ceylon belonged by right to the Kalinga dynasty. He described himself in his Dambulla inscription (Ancient Inscriptions, No. 143), as "the liege lord of Lakdiva by right of birth, deriving descent from the race of King Wijaya," the first king of Ceylon, who according to the Sinhalese historical works was also born at a town called Sinhapura, which is stated to have been founded by his father. In the Galpota inscription we read of "Princes of the Kalinga race to whom the island of Lanka has been peculiarly appropriate since the reign of Wijaya." Nissanka-Malla was succeeded by his elder half-brother, Sahasa-Malla, who remarked in his Polannaruwa inscription (Anc. Inscriptions, No. 156) that he also was born at Sinhapura. He, too, claimed that Wijaya was a member of their family. He said, "Because King Wijaya, having destroyed the Yakshas, established Lanka like a field made by rooting out the stumps, it is a place much protected by Kings from this very family." Thus it will be seen that stories which are current in Central India, or the lower part of the Ganges Valley, or even the Panjab, as well as tales of Indian animals such as the Lion, may have been brought direct to Ceylon by immigrants from Kalinga, or Magadha, or Bengal. Apparently it is in this manner that the evident connexion between the tales of Ceylon and Kashmir is to be explained, the stories passing from Magadha or neighbouring districts, to Kashmir on the one side, and from Magadha or Kalinga to Ceylon on the other. To show the connexion of the Sinhalese stories with those of India, the outlines of some Indian parallels have been appended after each tale, as well as a very few from the interior of Western Africa; but no European variants, except in two instances, where they are inserted for the benefit of readers in Ceylon. The stories have been arranged in two parts. In the first one are those told by members of the Cultivating Caste and Village Vaeddas; in the second one those related of or by members of lower castes. Those of each caste are given consecutively, the animal stories in each case coming last. The general reader is advised to pay no attention to diacritical marks or dots which indicate separate letters in the Sinhalese alphabet, or to note only the long vowels. In all cases ae is to be pronounced as a diphthong, like a in "hat," and not to rhyme with "me." It is short where not marked long. Enough material has been collected for a second volume, which it is hoped may be published next year. As reference has been made to the subject in the foregoing extracts from Sinhalese inscriptions, a few lines may be added regarding the district from which Wijaya came, and his journey to Ceylon. The sentences that have been quoted prove that at the beginning of the thirteenth century A.D., it was claimed by two kings of Ceylon who came from Sinhapura in the Kalinga country that they were of the same family as Wijaya. At a very early date the lands along the southern bank of the Ganges were divided into a series of states that once were independent. Proceeding eastward in the lower part of the valley, these were Magadha, occupying southern Bihar, with its capital Rajagaha (called also Rajagriha and Girivraja), afterwards abandoned in favour of Pataliputta, near Patna; Anga, separated from it by the river Campa (c pronounced as ch), on which was its capital Campa; Vanga or Banga, probably extending on both sides of the Ganges, and forming part of the modern Bengal; and Tamalitta, or Tamralipta, with a capital of the same name at Tamluk, near the southern mouth of the Ganges. Extending along the east coast was Kalinga; and between it and Magadha and Anga came the Pundra and Odra states, the latter occupying part of Orissa. An old legend recorded that several of these states had a common origin. It was said that the wife of a Yadava king Vali or Bali had five sons, Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, Pundra and Odra or Sunga, each of whom founded a separate state. The names of the first four are grouped together several times in the Maha Bharata, as taking part with Kosala and Magadha in the great legendary fight against the Pandavas, and on one day the troops from Magadha and Kalinga are said to have formed, with another people, one wing of the Kuru army. Regarding Kalinga, Pliny gives the name of a race called the Maccocalingæ, who have been thought to belong to Orissa, and he wrote that the Modogalingæ occupied a very large island in the Ganges, that is, apparently part of the delta. At a later date there were said to be three districts called collectively Trikalinga. Whether these were portions of the more southern part of the Kalinga country only, or included the land of the Modogalingæ, is not clear. If the Kalinga kingdom once included the territory of the Modogalingæ, the Tamalitta district would be part of the Kalinga country at that time; but apparently Vanga was unconnected with Kalinga, the two being mentioned as separate kingdoms. Divested of its impossibilities, the story of Wijaya's ancestry which is contained in the Sinhalese histories is that a king of Vanga, who had married the daughter of a king of Kalinga, had a daughter who joined a caravan that was proceeding to Magadha. On the way, either a robber chief called Siha, "Lion," attacked and plundered the caravan, and carried off the Princess, or she joined a member of the caravan who had that name. They settled down in a wild tract of country termed Lala, near the western border of the Vanga territory. There she had two children--the eldest being Siha-Bahu--with whom she afterwards returned to the Vanga capital, where her cousin Anura, who became King of Vanga, is said to have married her. Her son Siha-Bahu went back to his father's district, Lala, founded a town called Sihapura or Sinhapura, and lived there as the ruler of the country around. Evidently it was a subordinate district belonging to Vanga; it is stated that the Vanga king granted it to him (Mah. i. p. 31). It is not mentioned in the Ramayana, the Maha Bharata, the Jataka stories, or in the lists of countries given in the Puranas to which I have access; but the people of Lata are referred to in a tenth century grant from Bhagalpur, a town on territory that once formed the eastern part of Magadha (Indo-Aryans, by Dr. R. Mitra, ii. 273). The first marriage or elopement of the Princess does not appear to have affected the status of her son Siha-Bahu. According to the histories, his eldest son, Wijaya, eventually married the daughter of the Pandiyan king of the southern Madura, and his second son, Sumitta, who succeeded him, married the daughter of the King of Madda or Madra, probably a small eastern state of that name, rather than the distant Madda in the Panjab. The Sinhalese histories record that Wijaya was exiled on account of his lawless behaviour, but the truth of this statement may be doubted, and it is a suspicious fact that this part of the story resembles folk-tales from Kashmir. [5] We are informed in those works not only that he was exiled, but that he was also forcibly deported by sea, together with seven hundred followers, and their wives and children, that is, two or three thousand persons. All that is actually credible in this incident is that for a reason which is unknown, perhaps a love of adventure, or possibly at the solicitation of traders who had settled there, he proceeded by sea to Ceylon, where he became the first Sinhalese king. Most probably he accompanied a party of Magadhese or other merchants. It is recorded that from an early period vessels sailed across the Bay of Bengal from various ports on the Ganges. In the Jataka stories some are mentioned as passing down the Ganges from Benares with traders, and being far out at sea for several days, and even going to Suvanna Bhumi (Burma) and back. Tamalitta was a famous port in early times and for many centuries; and there is a definite and credible statement that vessels sailed direct from it to Ceylon in the reign of Asoka, in the third century B.C. There is no reason to suppose that similar voyages were not undertaken long prior to the period during which the Jatakas were being composed. If they are not mentioned in earlier Buddhist works, this may have been merely owing to the fact that their authors felt no interest in the trade of the countries near the mouth of the Ganges. In the presence of such evidence of the sea-going capabilities of the vessels which sailed from the ports on the Ganges, the statement of the Sinhalese histories that Wijaya embarked at Baroach, on the western coast, whether accompanied by a large party of followers and numerous women and children or not, cannot be credited. It is impossible to believe that any travellers who wished to proceed to Ceylon in the fifth century B.C., from a district lying between Anga and Vanga, and probably within a few miles of a port from which vessels sailed, would not step on board a ship at their own doors, so to speak, rather than undertake an arduous journey across several other countries, in order to embark at a port more than eight hundred miles away in a direct line, which when reached was still no nearer their destination. In any case, there is no likelihood that a large number of women and children were taken, unless we are prepared to accept the improbable hypothesis that a fleet of ships was expressly chartered for the voyage. In the case of the small vessels which ventured on such long trading expeditions, every foot of storage space would be required for the goods that were carried, and for the accommodation of the merchants who went to exchange these for the products of the ports at which they called. It is most unlikely that many other passengers were ever carried so far in Indian ships in early times, notwithstanding fanciful tales of imaginary ships with hundreds on board, in the Jataka stories. Nissanka-Malla and his brother do not claim that the Sinhapura at which they were born was the city founded by Wijaya's father. It is possible, however, that they could trace some distant connexion with the Lala family, and it has been noted already that Wijaya's great-great-grandfather was said to be a king of Kalinga. NOTE. With regard to the exorcism of the flies, I give a relation of the similar treatment of locusts in Abyssinia, by Father Francis Alvarez, who visited that country in 1520, in the suite of a Portuguese Ambassador. The account is appended in Pory's translation of the History of Africa, by Leo Africanus, 1600, p. 352. An appeal having been made to Alvarez to drive away an enormous flight of locusts, "which to our iudgement couered fower and twentie miles of lande," the following is his own record of the proceedings:-- "And so I went to the Ambassadour, and told him, that it would be very good to goe on procession, beseeching God that hee woulde deliuer the countrie, who peraduenture in his great mercie might heare vs. This liked the Ambassadour very well: and the day following we gathered togither the people of the land, with all the priests, and taking the consecrated stone, and the crosse, according to their custome, all we Portugals sung the Letanie, and appointed those of the land, that they should lift vp their voices aloud as we did, saying in their language Zio marina Christos, which is as much to say, as Lord God haue mercy vpon vs: and with this manner of inuocation we went ouer a peece of grounde, where there were fieldes of wheate, for the space of a mile, euen to a little hill: and heere I caused many of these locustes to be taken, pronouncing ouer them a certaine coniuration, which I had about me in writing, hauing made it that night, requesting, admonishing, and excommunicating them, enioining them within the space of three howers to depart towards the sea, or the lande of the Moores, or the desert mountaines, and to let the Christians alone: and they not performing this, I summoned and charged the birdes of heauen, the beasts of the earth, and all sorts of tempests, to scatter, destroy, and eate vp their bodies: and to this effect I tooke a quantitie of locusts, making this admonition to them present, in the behalfe likewise of them absent, [6] and so giuing them libertie, I suffered them to depart. It pleased God to heare us sinners, for in our returne home, they came so thicke vpon our backes, as it seemed that they woulde haue broken our heads, or shoulders, so hard they strooke against vs, as if we had beene beaten with stones and cudgels, and in this sort they went towards the sea: The men, women, and children remaining at home, were gotten vpon the tops, or tarrasses of their houses, giuing God thankes that the locusts were going away, some afore, and others followed. In the meane while towardes the sea, there arose a great cloude with thunder, which met them full in the teeth, and continued for the space of three howers with much raine, and tempest, that filled all the riuers, and when the raine ceased, it was a fearefull thing to behold the dead Locustes, which were more then two yardes [marginal note, or fathomes] in height vpon the bankes of the riuers, and in some riuers there were mightie heapes of them, so that the morning following there was not one of them found aliue vpon the earth." PART I STORIES TOLD BY THE CULTIVATING CASTE AND VAEDDAS. NO. 1 THE MAKING OF THE GREAT EARTH From the earliest time, the whole of this world, being filled up and overflowed by a great rain, and being completely destroyed, was in darkness. There were neither men, nor living beings, nor anything whatever. During the time while it was in this state, Great Vishnu thought, "In what manner, having lowered the water, should the earth be established?" Having thought this, Great Vishnu went to the God Saman. Having gone there, he asked at the hand of the God Saman, "What is the way to establish this earth?" The God Saman replied, "There is no one among us [gods] who can establish this earth." Thereupon the God Great Vishnu asked, "Then who is able to do it?" The God Saman said, "You must go to the residence of Rahu; he can do it." After that, the God Great Vishnu went to the abode of Rahu, and spoke to Rahu, the Asura Chief [7]: "Rahu, Asura Chief, our residence has been swallowed up by water; on account of that can even you make us an earth?" Then Rahu, the Asura Chief, said, "Countless beings having gone to the world of Brahma (i.e., having been destroyed in the water), how can I descend into the water which is there?" The God Great Vishnu asked, "In what way, then, can you make the earth?" Rahu told him to put a lotus seed into the water. After that, the God Great Vishnu, having returned to this world, placed a lotus seed in the water. Having placed it there, in seven days the lotus seed sprouted. Then the God Vishnu again went to the dwelling-place of Rahu. Having gone there, he spoke to Rahu, the Asura Chief: "The lotus plant has now sprouted." Afterwards Rahu arose, and came with the God Vishnu to this world. Having made ready to descend into the water, he asked Great Vishnu, "What thing am I to bring up from the bottom of the water?" Then Great Vishnu said, "I do not want any [special] thing; bring a handful of sand." Rahu, having said "Ha" (Yes), descending along that lotus stalk proceeded until he met with the earth. Having descended to the earth in seven days, taking a handful of sand he returned to the surface again in seven days more. Having come there, he gave the handful of sand into the hand of the God Great Vishnu. After it was given, taking it and squeezing it in his hand, the God Great Vishnu placed it on the water. Having placed it there the God Great Vishnu made the resolution: "This water having dried up, may the Earth be created." Afterwards, that small quantity of sand not going to the bottom, but turning and turning round on the surface of the water, the water began to diminish. Thus, in that manner, in three months and three-quarters of the moon, the water having diminished, the earth was made. After it was formed, this world was there in darkness for a long time. [After the light had appeared], the God Great Vishnu thought: "We must make men." Having gone to the God Saman he said, "What is the use of being the owner of this world when it is in this state? We must make men." The God Saman said, "Let us two make them." Then those two spoke to each other: "Let us first of all make a Brahmana." Saying that, they made a Brahmana from that earth, and having given breath to the Brahmana those two told him to arise. Then the Brahmana arose by the power of those Gods; and having arisen, that Brahmana conversed with those Gods. Then the God Vishnu said, "Brahmana, for thy assistance thou art to make for thyself a woman." Afterwards the Brahmana by the power of those very Gods made a woman, and from that time men began to increase in number up to to-day. North-western Province. This is evidently a story of the last creation. In Hinduism there is a series of four ages termed Yugas, each ended by a destruction of the world by fire, which is quenched by cataclysmal rainfall. These are the Krita, Treta, Dwapara, and Kali Yugas, their periods being respectively 4,000, 3,000, 2,000, and 1,000 divine years. There are also intermediate periods equal to one-tenth of each of the adjoining Yugas. A divine year being 360 times as long as a human year, the whole series, called a Maha Yuga, amounts to about 4,320,000 years (Vishnu Purana, Wilson, p. 24). When a series is ended the order is reversed, that is, the Kali Yuga, which is the present one, is followed by the Dwapara. The Vishnu Purana, p. 12, thus describes the state of things before the original creation: "There was neither day nor night, nor sky nor earth, nor darkness nor light, nor any other thing, save only One"--"the Universal Soul," the All-God, Vishnu in the form of Brahma. His action is thus summarised: "Affecting then the quality of activity Hari [Vishnu], the Lord of all, himself becoming Brahma, engaged in the creation of the universe." At the end of the Yuga, "the same mighty deity, Janarddana, invested with the quality of darkness, assumes the awful form of Rudra, and swallows up the universe. Having thus devoured all things, and converted the world into one vast ocean, the Supreme reposes on his mighty serpent couch amidst the deep: he awakes after a season, and again, as Brahma, becomes the author of creation (V.P., p. 19). In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 583, there were two Danavas, a form of Asura, "invincible even by gods," who impeded Prajapati in his work of creation. The only way which the Creator could hit upon to destroy them was to create two lovely maidens, one black and one white. Each of the Danavas wished to carry off both, so they fought over them and killed each other. It is only in the Sinhalese story that we find an Asura assisting in the creation. Rahu is usually known as a dark planetary sign, a dragon's head, which endeavours to swallow the sun and moon, and thus causes eclipses, at which time, only, it is seen. In the account of the great Churning of the Ocean, it is evident that he was supposed originally to have, or to be able to assume, a figure indistinguishable from those of the Gods. The story of the application of Vishnu for Rahu's assistance is based on the Indian notion that the Asuras were of more ancient date than the Gods. The Maha Bharata states that they were the elder brothers of the Gods, and were more powerful than the Gods, who were unable to conquer them in their strongholds under the sea. The God Saman is Indra, the elder brother of Vishnu. According to the Maha Bharata, Vishnu assuming the form of a boar raised the earth to the surface of the waters (which covered it to the depth of one hundred yojanas), on his tusk, without the aid of any other deity. The following accounts of the state of things in very early times are borrowed from The Orientalist, vol. iii., pp. 79 and 78, to which they were contributed by Mr. D. A. Jayawardana. "In the primitive good old days the sky was not so far off from the earth as at present. The sun and moon in their course through the heavens sometimes came in close contact with the house-tops. The stars were stationed so close to the earth that they served as lamps to the houses. "Once upon a time, there was a servant-maid who was repeatedly disturbed by the passing clouds when she was sweeping the compound [the enclosure round the house], and this was to her a real nuisance. One cloudy morning, when this naughty girl was sweeping the compound as usual, the clouds came frequently in contact with the broom-stick and interfered with her work. "Losing all patience she gave a smart blow to the firmament with the broom-stick, saying, 'Get away from hence.' The sky, as a matter of course, was quite ashamed at the affront [8] thus offered to it by a servant-girl, and flew away far, far out of human reach, in order to avoid a similar catastrophe again." The second account is as follows: "Till a long period after the creation, man did not know the use of most of the vegetables now used by him for food. His food at first consisted of some substance like boiled milk, which then grew spontaneously upon the earth. This substance since disappeared, and rice took its place, and grew abundantly without the husk. "The Jak fruit (Artocarpus integrifolia), one of the principal articles of food of the Sinhalese, was not even touched, as it was thought to be poisonous. The God Sakra [Indra] bethought himself of teaching mankind that Jak was not a deadly fruit, but an article of wholesome food." The story goes on to relate that, assuming the form of an old man, he got a woman to boil some Jak seeds for him, with injunctions not to eat them or she would die; but the smell being appetizing she first tasted one, and then ate a quantity. NO. 2 THE SUN, THE MOON, AND GREAT PADDY In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. There are also the children of those two persons, the elder brother and younger brother and elder sister. Well then, while these three persons were there, the man having died those children provided subsistence for the mother of the three. One day the three persons went to join a party of friends in assisting a neighbour in his work. [9] That mother stayed at home. For that woman there was not a thing to eat. Should those persons bring food, she eats; if not, not. When the three persons were eating the food provided for the working party, the elder sister and the elder brother having eaten silently, without even a [thought of the] matter of their mother, came away home. The younger brother thought, "Ane! We three persons having eaten here, on our going how about food for our mother? I must take some." Placing a similar quantity of cooked rice and a little vegetable curry under the corner of his finger nail, the three came back. Then the mother asked at the hand of the elder sister, "Where, daughter, is cooked rice and vegetable curry for me?" She said, "I have not brought any. Having indeed eaten I came [empty-handed]." Then the mother said to the daughter, "Thou wilt be cooked in hell itself." Having called the elder son she asked, "Where, son, is the cooked rice and vegetable curry for me?" The son said, "Mother, I have not brought it. Having indeed eaten, I came [empty-handed]." Then the mother said to the son, "Be off, very speedily." Having called the young younger brother she asked, "Where, son, is cooked rice and vegetable curry for me?" Then that son said, "Mother, hold a pot." After that, the mother brought it and held it. The son struck down his finger nail in it. Then the pot was filled and overflowed. Afterwards the mother, having eaten the rice and curry, gave authority to those three persons, to the elder brother, to the younger brother, and to the sister older than both of them. Firstly, having called the elder sister she said, "Thou shalt be cooked even in hell." That elder sister herself now having become Great Paddy, [10] while in hell is cooked in mud. She told the eldest son to go speedily. That elder brother himself having become the Sun, goes very speedily. For the Sun, in very truth (aettema), there is no rest. In the little time in which the eyelids fall, the Sun goes seven gawwas, [11] they say. At the time when the Great Paddy is ripening, the Sun goes across (harahin). [12] Because it is older than the Sun, [13] the Great Paddy represents the elder sister. Having called the younger son she said, "My son, go you in the very wind (pawanema) [14]." That one himself having become the Moon, now goes in the wind. For the Moon in very truth there is not a difficulty, by the authority given by the Mother. North-western Province. NO. 3 THE STORY OF SENASURA [15] In a certain country a man having been stricken by the evil influence (apale) of Senasura, any cultivation work or anything whatever which the man performs does not go on properly. The man having become very poor said, "I cannot stay in this country; I must go to another country"; and having gone away from that country he sat down at a travellers' shed. During the time while he was there a friend of the man's came there. That man, sitting down in the travellers' shed, said, "Friend, where are you going?" Then the man said, "What is it, friend? Well then, according to my reckoning there is no means of subsistence for me. I am going away to some country or other, to look if I shall obtain a livelihood." [He told him how everything that he did failed, owing to the ill-will of Senasura.] Then the friend said, "Friend, don't you go in that way; I will tell you a good stratagem. Having gone back to your village, when dry weather sets in cut chenas; when rain falls do rice field work." The man having come back again to his village, began to cut a chena. At the time when he was cutting the chena rain rained. Then, having dropped the chena cutting, he went to plough the rice field. Then dry weather again began to set in. Again having gone he chops the chena. Then rain rained. Again having gone he ploughs the rice field. In that manner he did the chena and rice field works, both of them. Having done the work, the [crops in the] chena and the rice field, both of them, ripened. After that, Senasura said at the hand of the man, "What of their ripening! I will not give more than an amuna (5·7 bushels) from a stack. Let it be so settled (aswanu)." Afterwards, having cut the rice crop, the man began to make the stacks separately of two or three sheaves apiece. Then having trampled out [the corn in] the stacks [by means of buffaloes] at the rate of the amuna from the stack--should there be one sheaf in it, an amuna; should there be two sheaves, an amuna--in that manner having trampled out [the corn in] the stacks he filled up two corn stores. Having cut the millet in the chena he filled up two corn stores of millet. In that very country there is an astrologer (naekatrala). Having gone to him, he informed the astrologer of the evil influence that there was from Senasura [and how he had outwitted him]. Then the astrologer said, "Until the time when you die the evil influence of Senasura over you will not be laid aside." The man said, "Can you tell me the place where Senasura is [and what I must say to him]?" The astrologer replied, "Senasura having taken a man's disguise and come to your house, will talk with you. Then say, 'The evil influence of Senasura has been over me. I did a good trick for it. I worked in both a chena and a rice field. I got the things into the corn stores. While staying here eating them I can do cultivation again [in the same way].'" Afterwards this man came home. While he was there, on the day foretold by the astrologer Senasura came. The man having given him sitting accommodation asked, "Where are you going?" Then Senasura said, "It is I indeed whom they call Senasura, the Divine King. Because of it tell me any matter you require." So the man said, "What is the matter I require? I have become very poor, having been stricken by the evil influence of Senasura. Now then, I want an assistance from you for that." Afterwards Senasura, the Divine King, having given the man a book said, "Without showing this book to anybody, place it in your house. Remain here, and make obeisance [to me] three times a day, having looked and looked into [the instructions in] the book. From any journey on which you may go, from any work you may do, you will obtain victory [that is, success]." Having said this, Senasura, the Divine King, went away. After that, having remained there in the very manner told by Senasura, the man became a person of much substance. North-western Province. In Indian Folk-Tales (Gordon), p. 61, a Jackal is represented as outwitting the great deity Siva or Mahadeo, by telling him that he was Sahadeo, the father of Mahadeo. See the notes at the end of Nos. 39 and 75. NO. 4 THE GLASS PRINCESS In a certain country there are seven Princes, the sons of a King. When the seven persons had grown up, messengers were sent to find the places where there were seven Princesses to be taken in marriage by them. They obtained intelligence that there was a kingdom where they were to be met with. After that, the seven portraits of the seven Princes having been painted, two or three ministers were summoned, and sent with the instructions, "Go to that kingdom, and observe if the seven Princesses are there. If they are there, take the portraits of the seven Princesses and come back with them." The ministers having gone there and looked, found that seven Princesses were there. So they went to the King, the father of the Princesses. After they had come, the King having given quarters to the ministers, and having given them food and drink, asked, "Where are you going?" Then the ministers said, "On account of news that you have seven Princesses, as there are seven Princes of the King of our country we have come, bringing the portraits of the seven Princes to show you, in order to marry the Princesses to those seven." The King and the Princesses having looked at the portraits were pleased with them. Afterwards, a suitable occasion for the marriage having been appointed, the portraits of the Princesses were painted, and given into the hands of the ministers, and they were sent away with them. The party having brought them, showed them to the King and the seven Princes. The King and the seven Princes being pleased with those persons after they had shown the portraits, the King of that city, on the very day appointed as the date for setting out for the marriage, having decorated an elephant for the King and Queen, and both of them having mounted on it, and having decorated seven other elephants for the seven Princes, the party made ready to go. Then the youngest Prince of all, having placed his sword on the back of the elephant, and made obeisance to his father, said, "I will not go. Should the Princess come after being married to the sword, let her come. If not, let her simply stop there." Having said this he did not go; he sent only the elephant, and the elephant and all the other persons went. Having gone there the six Princes were married to the six Princesses. Then the King whose Princesses they were, asked, "Is there not a Prince for the youngest Princess?" When he asked this, the King whose son was the Prince replied, "There is my youngest Prince. He has not come. If she will come after being married to the sword placed on the back of this elephant, he said she is to come; if not, he said that she is to remain here." The King whose Princess she was, was not satisfied with that. What of that? The youngest Princess was contented, and said, "Even a deaf man or a lame man would be good enough for me. Therefore I must be married." So having been married to the sword she came away with the others. The Prince who did not go, but stayed at home, knew that there was a pool on the way, and that there was also a Cobra which had charge of that pool. The Prince was well aware that if the people who went to the marriage came there, and being thirsty drank the water, that Cobra would ask for a human offering. How was that? A deity came to the Prince in a dream and told him. Having learnt this, the Prince went, and at the time when they were coming hid himself near the pool, and remained there. Then all the party having come there drank the water. Having drunk it, when they were setting out to come away, a large Cobra which had been in a rock cave near by, came out, and said, "Because you drank water from my pool one person must remain here as an offering to me. If not, I shall not permit even one of you to go." After that, the youngest Prince who had gone near and hidden himself came forward, and saying, "I will stay as the human offering; go you away," he started off all that marriage party, and sent them to their village. He said to the Princess who had come after being married to his sword, "Until whatever time it may be when I return, go and stay at the palace of mine which is there. There are servants at it. Set the party of them to work, and eat and drink in great contentment just as though I were there." After he had said this, the party returned to the city, and the youngest Prince went with the Cobra to the cave. After they had gone there, the Cobra said to the Prince, "There is an ulcer on my forehead. You may go after curing the ulcer. Because of your curing it I shall not require a human offering." The Prince said, "It is good," and continuing to eat the things for which it provided the expenses, stayed there. Twice a day he washed and washed the ulcer, while applying medicine to it, but it did not heal. Afterwards the Cobra said, "There is a certain daughter of the King of a city, called the Glass Princess. The Princess takes any disguise she likes and goes through the sky, supported by her power of flying through the air. The Princess knows a medicine by which, if it should be applied by her own hand, my ulcer will become healed; otherwise it will not heal, and there will be no going to your village for you." The Prince replied, "It is good. I will go and bring the Glass Princess." Having said this, he set off to go to the city where the Glass Princess lived. Having hurried along the road which led in that direction, there was a river to which he went. When he looked up the river he saw some rats coming floating in the water. Then what does he do? He seizes all those few rats, and goes and places them on the bank. After he had put them there the rats said, "Ane! O Lord, if Your Majesty should require any assistance, be pleased to think of us; then we will come and stay with you, and assist you." The Prince said, "It is good," and went to the city in which the Glass Princess dwelt. Having come there, being without a place to stay at he went to the spot where a widow-mother was stopping, and said, "Ane! Mother, give me a mat to sleep on." The widow-mother said, "It is good, son. Remain here. I am alone here, therefore it will be good for me also." Then the Prince said, "If so, mother, cook and give me a little rice. Having obtained some money to-morrow, I will bring it and give you it." The old woman having heard his words, cooked and gave him a little rice. When she had given it and he had eaten, the Prince asked that old woman, "Mother, what are the new things that are happening at this city?" The old woman replied, "What! Son, the new matters at this city are like those of other cities indeed; but there is one new affair at this city. If so, what is it? The daughter, called the Glass Princess, of the King of this city remains an [unwedded] Princess. The Princess, creating any disguise she wants, can go through the sky sustained by her power of flight through the air. Through the beauty of her figure she is a very celebrated person. Because of that, many royal Princes have come to ask to marry the Princess. Having come, they are asked, 'What have you come for?' When they have said, 'We have come to take this Princess in marriage,' the King puts on the hearth a very great cauldron of water, and having made it boil tells them to bathe in it without making the water lukewarm. There is a large iron tree in the open space in front of the palace. Having bathed in the water, he tells them to saw the iron tree in two. If they do not bathe in the water and cut it in two, he does not permit the Princes to go away; he beheads them there and then, and casts them out." The Prince asked the old woman, "Mother, can no one go to the place where the Glass Princess is staying?" The old woman said, "Ane! Son, even a bird which passes along in the air above cannot go to the place where the Glass Princess is." Then the Prince asked, "Mother, why do they say that the Princess is the Glass Princess?" The old woman said, "O son, they call her the Glass Princess. The bed on which the Princess sleeps is a bed of glass throughout. Glass is fixed all round the bed in such a manner that even the wind cannot get to her. [16] Because of that, they say that she is the Glass Princess." The Prince asked, "Mother, at what time does the Princess eat rice at night?" The old woman said, "O son, at night water for bathing, and cooked rice, having gone there for the Princess, they are placed in the upper story where the Princess sleeps alone. When the Princess has been sleeping at night, at about eight she awakes, and after bathing in the water eats rice. Before that she does not get up." Then the Prince, after listening to all these words, asked for a mat, and went off to sleep at the travellers' shed which was in front of the old woman's house. Having gone there, while he was lying down he thought, "Ane! O Gods, in any case you must grant me an opportunity of going to the place where that Princess is." Then while he was thinking, "Ane! Will even those rats that I took up that day out of the river and placed on the bank, become of assistance to me in this matter?" he fell asleep. After that, those rats, collecting thousands of rats besides, came there before the Prince awoke, and having come near the Prince while he was sleeping, waited until he awoke. When the Prince awoke and looked about, he saw that rats, thousands in number, had come and were there. The rats asked the Prince: "O Lord, what assistance does Your Majesty want us to give?" The Prince said, "I want you to excavate a tunnel, of a size so that a man can go along it erect, to the upper story of the house in which the Glass Princess is staying, and to hand it over without completing it, leaving a very little unfinished. It was on account of this that I thought of you." Then the rats went, and having dug it out that night, finished it and handed it over, and went away. The Prince having been in the travellers' shed until it became light, took the mat and went to the widow-mother. He gave her one masurama and said, "Here, mother, this is given for the articles I obtained. Bring things for you and me, and in order that I may go and get something to-day also, quickly cook and give me a little rice." The old woman speedily cooked and gave it. The Prince having eaten it, during the whole day walked round about the city. At night he went along the tunnel to the upper story where the Princess was. Having gone there, when he thought of looking in the direction of the Princess he could not through diffidence, it is said. The Princess was asleep on the glass bed; a lamp shone brightly. After that, the Prince having rubbed soap in the water which was ready for the Glass Princess, and washed in it, and eaten half the rice that was set on the table, and having eaten a mouthful of betel that was in the betel box, left the room without speaking, and went away after closing the opening through which he had come. The Princess arose at about eight, and having gone to bathe in the water, when she looked at it saw that soap had been rubbed in the water, and some one had washed in it. Then she went to the table on which was the rice, and when she looked half the rice had been eaten. So the Princess having returned without eating the rice, lay down and thought, "A much cleverer person than I, indeed, has done this work. Except a deity, no man can come to the place where I am staying. I shall seize that thief to-morrow." Having thought that, she went to sleep. The Prince having come away, and having been asleep in the travellers' shed, in the day-time went to the old woman and ate. Then having returned to the tunnel and slept there, he went that night also, and washed in the water and ate, and came away. That night, also, the Princess being asleep was unable to seize him. The Prince came back, and having slept that night, also, at the travellers' shed, in the day time asked the old woman for rice and ate it. Then he returned to the tunnel, and after sleeping in it, at about twelve went and washed in the water, and ate the rice. After eating betel he came away. The Princess being asleep on that night also, was unable to seize him. After that, what does the Princess do? At night, pricking her finger with a needle, and rubbing lime-juice in the place, she remained awake blowing it [on account of the smarting]. That night, also, the Prince went. The Princess having seen the Prince enter, took a sword in her hand, after awaking as though she had been asleep. Having seen that the figure of the Prince was beautiful, and being pleased with it, she closed her eyelids, pretending to be asleep. The Prince knew very well that the Princess was awake. Now, as on other nights, he went looking on the ground, and having soaped himself, washed himself in the water. Then having come to the table, he ate the rice. While he was eating it, the Princess, taking the sword, arose, and having come towards him, asked, "Who are you?" The Prince asked, "Who are you?" The Princess said, "I am she whom they call the Glass Princess." Then the Prince also said, "I am he whom they call the youngest Prince of the King of such and such a city." After that, the Prince and Princess ate the food, and having talked much, the Princess asked, "For what purpose have you come?" The Prince replied, "I have not come for anything else but to take you away." The Princess said, "Our hiding and going off would not be proper. Here, put away this jewelled ring and lock of hair. To-morrow morning, having gone to our father the King, say, 'I have come to marry your Princess.' "Then saying, 'It is good,' he will boil a cauldron of water and give you it, and tell you to bathe in it. And he will show you an iron tree, and tell you to saw it. When he has given you the water, put this jewelled ring in the water and bathe; it will be like cold water. When he has shown you the iron tree, pull this lock of hair across it; then it will saw it in two. After that, we two having been married, let us go to your city." Then taking the ring and the lock of hair, the Prince went back to the travellers' shed. Next day, the Prince in the very manner the Princess told him, came and spoke to the King. The King said, "It is good," and gave him those two tasks. The Prince performed both the tasks. After that, the King, being pleased, publicly notified the celebration of their marriage, and said, "If you wish to live here, stay here; if you wish to go, summon the Princess [to accompany you] and go." Afterwards, having performed the marriage ceremony, he called the Princess, and went to the place where that Cobra was staying. There she applied the medicine to the Cobra's ulcer, and it healed. The Cobra, being pleased, gave the two persons a hidden treasure consisting of gold, silver, pearls, and gems. After that, they went to the Prince's city. Thus, by bringing this Princess the Prince had two Princesses. The King, the Prince's father, was pleased because the Prince who went as the offering and the Princess had got married, and had returned. Having eaten the marriage feast they remained there. When those six elder brothers looked they saw that their Princesses were not so beautiful as the Glass Princess. Because of it, the six persons spoke together about killing the youngest Prince and taking the Glass Princess; and they tried to kill the Prince. The Glass Princess, knowing of it, told that Prince, and the two Princesses and the Prince set off to go to another King. While they were going in the midst of a forest, the Vaedda King who dwelt in that forest saw this Glass Princess. In order to take possession of the Princess, he seized the three persons, and having put them in a house, prepared to kill the Prince. So the Glass Princess, knowing this, became a mare, and placing the Prince on her back, and telling the other Princess to hang by her tail, went through the sky, and descended near another city. Having gone to the city and taken labourers, they engaged in rice cultivation. When they had been there a little while the King of the city died. After his death they decorated the royal tusk elephant, and set off with it in search of a new King. While they were going along taking it through the streets, the elephant went and knelt near this Prince. Then all the men having made obeisance, and caused the Prince to bathe, placing the Prince and the two Queens on the back of the elephant, went and stopped at the palace, and he became King. When he had been ruling a little time, there was no rain at the city of the King the Prince's father, and that country became abandoned. Those six Princes and their six Queens, and his father the King, and his mother, all these persons, being reduced to poverty, came to an almshouse which this King had established, bringing firewood to sell. There this King having seen them, recognising them, came back after summoning his father the King, and his mother, to the palace. He told them, "Because those six elder brothers and their six Queens tried to kill me in order that my elder brothers might seize and carry off the Glass Princess, I came away from the city, and was seized by a Vaedda King, but I escaped and came here." Then saying, "There is the place where I was cultivating rice. Go there, and cultivate rice and eat," he sent the brothers to that place. Having sent them, he gave them this advice: "For the crime that you tried to commit by killing me, that has befallen you. Therefore behave well now." After that, his father the King, his mother the Queen, the King and the two Queens, those five persons, remained at the palace. North-central Province. Although the whole story apparently has not been found in India, several of the incidents in it occur in Indian folk-tales. I have not met with the marriage to the sword in them, but in The Indian Antiquary, vol. xx, p. 423, it is stated by Mr. Prendergast that in southern India, among two Telugu castes, "the custom of sending a sword to represent an unavoidably absent bridegroom at a wedding is not uncommon. It is considered allowable among other Hindus also." In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (called by the translator, Pandita Natesa Sastri, The Dravidian Nights), p. 43, the Kings of Mathurapuri and Vijayanagaram caused the portraits of their respective son and daughter to be painted, and sent envoys with them in search of royal persons resembling them. The envoys met at a river, exchanged pictures there, and returned to their masters, who were satisfied with the portraits, and caused the wedding of the Prince and Princess to be celebrated at the latter's home, Vijayanagaram. In the same work, p. 12, a Prince in the form of a parrot, which was confined in a cage in the sleeping apartment of a Princess, on two successive nights resumed his human form, and smeared sandal and scent over the Princess while she slept, and then became a parrot once more. On the third night she was awake, and he told her his history. At page 103, also, the King of Udayagiri, father of a Prince who had run off when about to be beheaded, having been deprived of his kingdom by the King of the Otta country, was reduced to selling firewood for a living, together with his wife and six sons. They came for this purpose to the city over which the Prince had become sovereign, and were discovered by him and provided for. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 93, a thief gained access to the bedroom of a Princess by means of a tunnel. In Indian Fairy Tales (Thornhill), p. 122 ff., a Prince, riding a magical wooden horse, visited a Princess nightly while she was asleep, and pricking his arm each night, wrote "I love you," in blood on her handkerchief. Although she tried to keep awake, for six nights after the first one she was asleep when he came. On the next night she scratched her finger with a needle and rubbed salt into the wound, so that the pain might keep her awake. When he entered the room she started up and inquired who he was, and how and why he had come. In Indian Fairy Tales, Ganges Valley (Stokes), p. 163, the cutting of the tree trunk with the hair of the Princess occurs. In the Panchatantra (Dubois), an elephant released rats when caught and imprisoned in earthen pots, and the rats in their turn served him by filling up with earth the pit in which he had fallen. In the Katha Sarit Sagara, p. 360 ff., a Rakshasa King gave three tasks to the Prince who wished to marry his daughter. She assisted him by means of her magical powers, and he accomplished them successfully. NO. 5 THE FROG PRINCE At a city there is a certain King; a widow lives at a house near his palace. She subsists by going to this royal palace and pounding rice there; having handed it over she takes away the rice powder and lives on it. During the time while she was getting a living in this way she bore a frog, which she reared there. When it was grown up, the King of that city caused this proclamation to be made by beat of tom-toms: "I will give half my kingdom, and goods amounting to an elephant's load, to the person who brings the Jewelled Golden Cock [17] that is at the house of the Rakshasi (Ogress)." Every one said of it that it could not be done. The widow's Frog having heard the King's proclamation, said to the widow, "Mother, I will bring the Jewelled Golden Cock. Cook a bundle of rice and give me it." Having heard the Frog's words, the widow cooked a bundle of rice and gave it to him. The Frog took the bundle of rice, and hanging it from his shoulder went to an Indi (wild Date) tree, scraped the leaf off a Date spike (the mid-rib of the leaf), and strung the rice on it. While going away after stringing it, the Frog then became like a very good-looking royal Prince, and a horse and clothing for him made their appearance there. Putting on the clothes he mounted the horse, and making it bound along he went on till he came to a city. Hearing that he had arrived, the King of that city prepared quarters for this Prince to stay at, and having given him ample food and drink, asked, "Where art thou going?" Then the Prince said: "The King of our city has made a proclamation by beat of tom-toms, that he will give half his kingdom and an elephant's load of gold to the person who brings him the Jewelled Golden Cock that is at the Rakshasi's house. Because of it I am going to fetch the Jewelled Golden Cock." The King, being pleased with the Prince on account of it, gave him a piece of charcoal. "Should you be unable to escape from the Rakshasi while returning after taking the Jewelled Golden Cock, tell this piece of charcoal to be created a fire-fence, and cast it down," he said. Taking it, he went to another city. The King of that city in that very manner having prepared quarters, and made ready and given him food and drink, asked, "Where art thou going?" The Prince replied in the same words, "I am going to bring the Jewelled Golden Cock that is at the house of the Rakshasi." That King also being pleased on account of it gave him a stone, "Should you be unable to escape from the Rakshasi, tell this stone to be created a mountain, and cast it down," he said. Taking the charcoal and the stone which those two Kings gave him, he went to yet another city. The King also in that very manner having given him quarters, and food and drink, asked, "Where art thou going?" The Prince in that very way said, "I am going to bring the Jewelled Golden Cock." That King also being greatly pleased gave him a thorn. "Should you be unable to escape from the Rakshasi, tell a thorn fence to be created, and cast down this thorn," he said. On the next day he went to the house of the Rakshasi. She was not at home; the Rakshasi's daughter was there. That girl having seen the Prince coming and not knowing him, asked, "Elder brother, elder brother, where are you going?" The Prince said, "Younger sister, I am not going anywhere whatever. I came to beg at your hands the Jewelled Golden Cock which you have got." To that she replied, "Elder brother, to-day indeed I am unable to give it. To-morrow I can. Should my mother come now she will eat you; for that reason come and hide yourself." Calling him into the house, she put him in a large trunk at the bottom of seven trunks, and shut him up in it. After a little time had passed, the Rakshasi came back. Having come and seen that the Prince's horse was there, she asked her daughter, "Whose is this horse?" Then the Rakshasi's daughter replied, "Nobody's whatever. It came out of the jungle, and I caught it to ride on." The Rakshasi having said, "If so, it is good," came in. While lying down to sleep at night the sweet odour of the Prince having reached the Rakshasi, she said to her daughter, "What is this, Bola? [18] A smell of a fresh human body is coming to me." Then the Rakshasi's daughter said, "What, mother! Do you say so? You are constantly eating fresh bodies; how can there not be an odour of them?" After that, the Rakshasi, taking those words for the truth, went to sleep. At dawn on the following day, as soon as she arose the Rakshasi went to seek human flesh for food. After she had gone, the Rakshasa-daughter, taking out the Prince who was shut up in the box, told that Prince a device on going away with the Jewelled Golden Cock: "Elder brother, if you are going away with the Cock, take some cords and fasten them round my shoulders. Having put them round me, take the Cock, and having mounted the horse go off, making him bound quickly. When you have gone I shall cry out. Mother comes when I give three calls. After she has come, loosening me will occupy much time; then you will be able to get away." In the way she said, the Prince tied the Rakshasa-daughter, and taking the Jewelled Golden Cock mounted the horse, and making it bound quickly came away. As that Rakshasa-daughter said, while she was calling out the Rakshasi came. Having come, after she looked about [she found that] the Rakshasa-daughter was tied, and the Jewelled Golden Cock had been taken away. After she had asked, "Who was it? Who took it?" the Rakshasa-daughter said, "I don't know who it was." After that, she very quickly unfastened the Rakshasa-daughter, and both of them came running to eat that Prince. The Prince was unable to go quickly. While going, the Prince turned round, and on looking back saw that this Rakshasi and the Rakshasa-daughter were coming running to eat that Prince. After that, he cast down the thorn which the above-mentioned King of the third city gave him, having told a thorn fence to be created. A thorn fence was created. Having jumped over it they came on. After that, when he had put down the piece of stone which the King of the second city gave him, and told a mountain to be created, a mountain was created. They sprang over that mountain also, and came on. After that, he cast down the charcoal which the King of the first city gave him, having told a fire fence to be created. In that very manner a fire fence was created. Having come to it, while jumping over it both of them were burnt and died. From that place the Prince came along. While coming, he arrived at the Indi tree on which he had threaded the rice, and having taken off it all that dried-up rice he began to eat it. On coming to the end of it, the person who was like that Prince again became a Frog. After he became a Frog, the clothes that he was wearing, and the horse, and the Jewelled Golden Cock vanished. Out of grief on that account that Frog died at that very place. North-western Province. In the Jataka story No. 159 (vol. ii, p. 23) there is a tale of a Golden Peacock which lived upon a golden hill. A King got it caught and informed it that the reason was because "Your colour is golden; therefore (so it is said) those who eat your flesh become young and live so for ever." In the story No. 491 (vol. iv, p. 210) the chick is described as "of the colour of gold, with two eyes like gunja fruit, and a coral beak, and three red streaks ran down his throat and down the middle of his back." On p. 212, it is said that "they who eat his flesh will be ever young and immortal." This one lived in the Himalayas for seven thousand years. In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 56, a Queen bore a Tortoise Prince who had the power of leaving his shell. At p. 141, a Queen also bore a Tortoise, which was reared by her, and eventually went in search of divine Parijata flowers (Erythrina indica) from a tree which grew in Indra's heaven. He seems to have been a turtle and not a tortoise, being described as swimming for weeks across the Seven Seas. He climbed Udayagiri, the Mountain of the Dawn, and blocked the way of the Sun-god (who rises from behind it), in honour of whom he uttered 1,008 praises. Pleased with this, the deity gave him a splendid divine body like a man's, and the power to resume his tortoise shape at will; he directed him to a sage, who sent him to another, and this one to a third, by whose advice he secured the love and assistance of a divine nymph, an Apsaras, by concealing her robes when a party of them were bathing. With her aid he obtained the heavenly flowers. In Old Deccan Days, Ganges Valley (Frere), p. 69, a Prince, using a wand belonging to a Rakshasi, created in order to stop her pursuit, a river, a mountain, and apparently a forest. Lastly, by throwing down three of her hairs that he had secured he set the trees on fire, and she was burnt in the flames. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), p. 360 ff., the daughter of a Rakshasa King gave the Prince who wanted to marry her "some earth, some water, some thorns, and some fire, and her own fleet horse," telling him how to use them. He was chased by the brother of the King, whom he went to invite to the wedding. When he threw down the earth a mountain was produced behind him; the water became a great river; the thorns a dense thorny wood. When the Rakshasa emerged from the wood and was coming on, the Prince threw down the fire, which set the bushes and trees in front of him ablaze, and finding this difficult to cross he returned home, "tired and terrified." NO. 6 THE MILLET TRADER At a certain city two men were cutting jungle, it is said. Having cut it for many days, one man said, "Friend, I will go and bring millet [19] to sow in this chena clearing; you continue to cut the jungle." The other man said "Ha" (Yes), and that man went to seek millet. Having gone to a village, he went along asking the way to a house where there was millet. After he had gone there it became night, so he remained in a shed at the house. A lucky hour had been fixed by astrology for cutting the hair [for the first time] of a child at the house, on the following day after that. Having told at the hand of his wife to put rice in water [to clean it], and to cook cakes from it, the man of the house that evening went to the watch-hut in his chena. The woman having pounded the rice and cooked cakes, selected the best cakes and put them in the rice mortar in order to give them to another man. The millet trader in the shed remained there looking on. Afterwards the man who went to the watch hut returned, and when he was eating the cakes said, "Give a couple of cakes from them to that millet trader." Then the woman having selected burnt, very burnt ones, and given them to the millet trader, the trader saying, "I cannot bite these," put the cakes on the others in the rice mortar, and pounded them. The woman scowled at the millet trader, but because her husband was present she was unable to say anything, so she remained silent. The millet trader, having pounded all the cakes and eaten, tied up the surplus ones and put them aside. After that, the man went again to the watch hut. Then that woman quickly put a gill of rice in water, and having pounded it into flour and very hurriedly cooked cakes, placed them in the house, and lay down in it. The millet trader awoke, and while he was there looking about, saw a man coming. Arising quickly, he came to the open space in front of the house and coughed. Then the man, thinking, "Perhaps the man is at the house," went back again. After that, the millet trader went inside the house. That woman taking those cakes gave them in the dark to the millet trader, and said, "Ando! When I was cooking cakes I put the best cakes in the rice mortar in order to give them to you. Then, after being in the watch hut he (the husband) came, and while eating the cakes said to me, 'Give a couple of cakes to that millet trader'; so I gave them. After that, the millet trader, that Rodiya, having put the cakes in the rice mortar that was full of the best cakes, pounded them and ate. Then I again put a gill of rice into water, and pounded it into flour, saying that you will come; and only just now finished cooking." The millet trader said, "Ha. It is good," and ate. Afterwards the woman said, "Now then, are we not cutting the child's hair to-morrow? Now, what will you give on account of it?" The millet trader said, "What have I got to give? When coming for millet I only brought four tuttu." [20] Then the woman, saying, "Be off! Be off! Rodiya! Are you the millet trader, Bola?" drove him away. When he had gone back to the shed, she again put a gill of rice in water, and having pounded it and very rapidly cooked cakes and brought them into the house, lay down. Afterwards, while the millet trader was there looking about, he again saw that man coming, so he arose quickly, and came to the open space in front of the house and coughed. That man again went away. After that, the millet trader went into the house again. That woman rose quickly, and gave those cakes to him, and said to the man, "Ando! When I was cooking cakes to give to you I put the best cakes in the rice mortar. Afterwards he came from the watch hut, and while eating the cakes said to me, 'Give a couple of cakes to that millet trader.' So I gave them. Afterwards that Rodiya, putting the cakes in the rice mortar which was full of the best cakes, pounded them and ate. Then I again put a gill of rice in water, and cooked more cakes. Then, while I was looking out for you, some one like you came in the dark. I gave them to him. While he was eating them I said, 'Now then, are we not cutting the child's hair to-morrow? What will you give?' That Rodiya said, 'Only the four tuttu that I brought for millet.' Then I got to know who it was. I drove him away, and again put a gill of rice in water, and pounded it, and I have only just finished cooking more cakes." The millet trader, saying, "Ha. It is good," ate the cakes. Then the woman said, "Now then, are we not cutting the child's hair to-morrow? What will you give?" The millet trader said, "If you should ask me even another time, still the same four tuttu." The woman saying, "Be off! Be off! Millet trader, Rodiya! Hast come again, thou!" drove him away. Then it became light. Afterwards, the man who went to the watch hut came, and handed over the millet to the millet trader. On his giving it, the millet trader, tying it up in two bundles and placing them on his head, set off to go into the house. That man saw it, and asked, "Where are you going there?" The millet trader replied, "I don't know. During the whole of last night they were going and coming along this very way, so I thought, 'Maybe this is a high road.'" The man said, "Put down the packages of millet there," and having gone to the millet store-room, and handed over a greater quantity from the millet in it, beat that woman. From there the millet trader went to another village, and sitting down at a house unfastened that package of pounded cakes, and was eating them. A woman who was looking on said, "Ade! What are you eating?" The trader said, "They are pounded cakes of our country." The woman saying, "The colour of them is good indeed; give me some to look at," begged and got some. After eating them she said, "Ade! These millet cakes have a sweet taste; they are indeed good." The trader replied, "In our quarter the millet is of that very sort; let us go there together if you like." The woman said, "Ha" and having taken out all the effects in the house placed them in the jungle, ready for taking when she went. Afterwards, taking those things, as they were getting very far away the man said, "What have you forgotten? Consider well." The woman replied, "I have not forgotten anything. I only forgot my flowered hair comb. It is of the pattern of my flowered hair pin." The trader said, "To be without a flowered hair comb is not proper in my country. I shall be here; you go and fetch it. If I should not be here on your return, call me, saying, 'Day-before-Yesterday! Day-before-Yesterday!' My name is Day-before-Yesterday (Pereda)." Then the woman came running home. When she returned, taking the flowered hair comb, the man was not there. So saying, "Day-before-Yesterday! Day-before-Yesterday!" the woman called and called. The man was not there. The woman returned home, weeping and weeping. While she was there, her husband, having gone somewhere or other, came back, and asked, "What are you crying for?" The woman said, "He who was taking millet, Day-before-Yesterday, plundered the house." The man said, "If he plundered the house day before yesterday, why didst thou not tell me yesterday?" The woman replied, "Not day before yesterday. He who was taking millet, Day-before-Yesterday." Then the man said, "Isn't that just what I'm saying? When he plundered the house day before yesterday, why didst thou not tell me yesterday?" Having said this, he beat the woman. When the millet trader, taking the effects and the bundles of millet, went from there carrying his load, he came to another village. On going to a house, a woman was there weeping and weeping. As the man was placing the effects and the millet bundles on the veranda of the house, he said, "Appe! I have been to the other world and back," [21] and laying them on the veranda, said, "What are you crying for, mother?" The woman said, "My daughter died six days ago. When I think of her I am weeping." Then she asked the millet trader, "Ane! My Latti went to the other world; did you meet her there?" The millet trader said, "Don't cry, mother. I did meet her there. She is now in the other world. I have taken in marriage that very Latti. I have come for Latti's things that she puts on her arms and neck. She told me to come." The woman quickly arose, and having cooked abundantly for the trader, and given him to eat, he said, "Mother, I must go immediately. Where is father-in-law?" "He went to plough; wait till he comes," she said. "I cannot," he said. "It is our wedding feast to-morrow. I must be off now to go to the wedding." So she gave the trader the silver and golden things for placing on her daughter's arms and neck, also. Then the trader taking the bundles of millet, the effects, and the things for the arms and neck, went away. After that, when the woman's husband who had gone to plough came, the woman was laughing. Seeing it, he asked, "What are you laughing at?" The woman replied, "Bolan, why shouldn't I laugh? Our son-in-law came." "What son-in-law?" the man asked. The woman said over and over again, "Latti's man came, Latti's man came. Our son-in-law, to whom our daughter is given in the other world. It is true." The man asked, "Bola, can any one in the other world come to this world? Didst thou cook and also give him to eat?" The woman replied, "What! Didn't I cook and give him to eat! After I had given him to eat he said that Latti had told him to take away the things for her arms and neck. So I gave him those also." Then the man said, "Where is now, Bola, the horse that was here?" and asking, "Which way did he go?" and mounting on the horse's back, went to seek that millet trader. As the trader was going along in the rice field he looked back, and having seen a man coming on horseback, said, "That one is coming to seize me." There was a Timbiri tree very near there into which he climbed. While he was there, that man making the horse bound along, having come up, tied the horse to the root of the Timbiri tree. After he had climbed up the tree to catch the trader, the trader, descending from the ends of the Timbiri branches and cutting the fastening, mounted the horse, after placing on it also the bundles of millet and the other goods, and went off on the horse. Then that man descended slowly from the tree, and having called "Hu" to the millet trader [to arrest his attention], said, "Tell Latti that your mother-in-law gave you a few things to put on her arms and neck, but your father-in-law gave you a horse." Having returned to the house, he said to the woman, "It is true. He is really Latti's man. I said 'Don't go on foot,' and having given him the horse I came back." The woman said, "Isn't it so indeed! I told you so." Then the millet trader having gone to his village, and divided the goods with the chena cultivator, sowed the millet in the chena, and remained there. North-western Province. The story about Latti's husband occurs in The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 62, the dead girl's name being Kaluhami. Her father was a Gamarala, and the man who carried off the things for her was a beggar. This part of the story is also given, with slight variations, in Tales of the Sun, Southern India (Kingscote and Natesa Sastri), p. 135 ff. In Folklore in Southern India (Natesa Sastri), p. 131 ff., the rogue did not pretend to be married to the woman's daughter, but represented to her that her parents were living in the other world in a very miserable state, without proper clothing, and without the means of purchasing food. She handed over to him the clothing, jewels, and cash in the house, and he went off at once with them. The ending of the incident is the same as in Ceylon. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xviii, p. 120, there is a story from Southern India, by Pandita Natesa Sastri, in which a youth obtained work under an appa [22] (or "hopper") woman, giving his name as "Last Year." When he absconded with her cash-box she gave the alarm in the village by saying, "Last Year (he) stole and took my box," and was thought to be out of her mind. In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 182, the incident of the cakes pounded in the mortar is related. After eating part of the pounded cakes, the traveller was about to enter the corn-store in which the woman had concealed her lover. On the woman's stopping him, the husband's suspicions being aroused he examined the corn-store, and finding the man in it, beat him well, and his own wife also. NO. 7 THE TURTLE DOVE In a certain city there are two Princes, it is said. A flower-mother [23] cooks and gives food to the two Princes. The mother of the Princes is dead; the father is alive. The King has married another Queen, and because the Queen is not good to the Princes they live with the flower-mother. One day, while they were living in that manner, the two Princes having gone to shoot birds with bows and arrows, walked until night-fall, but were unable to find any birds. As they were coming back, there was a Horse-radish tree (Murunga) [24] at the front of the King's palace, in which was a turtle dove. The younger brother saw it, and said to the elder brother, "Elder brother, there! There is a turtle-dove." The elder brother shot at the turtle-dove, and it fell dead. Afterwards, the younger brother having picked it up and come back, said at the hand of the elder brother, "Elder brother, are we to give this to our father the King, or are we to give it to the flower-mother?" Then the elder brother said, "Why should we give it to our father the King? We will give it to the flower-mother who gives us food and clothing." Taking the turtle-dove, the two Princes came to the house of the flower-mother, and gave it into the flower-mother's hand. On that day the King was not at the palace; only the Queen was there. The Queen remained listening to all that the two Princes said, and stayed looking [to see] if they gave the turtle-dove into the hand of the flower-mother. That being so, after the King's return to the palace in the evening the Queen told at the hand of the King what the Princes said, and the fact that they gave the turtle-dove into the hand of the flower-mother. After that, the King settled to behead both Princes on the morrow. The flower-mother on hearing of it said at the hand of the Princes, "Children, the King said that he must behead you two to-morrow. To save both your lives go away somewhere." Having cooked a bundle of rice in the night, she placed gem-stones at the bottom of the bag and the cooked rice above them; and having tied up the bag she gave it into the hands of the Princes before it became light, and told them to go. The two Princes took the bundle of cooked rice and went away. Having gone on and on, being hungry they sat down in the shade of a great forest. For rinsing their mouths after chewing betel, before eating rice, there was no water. While they were seated there, a turtle-dove came and fell down, making a noise, "tas," as it struck the ground. The younger brother asked, "Elder brother, what shall we do with this turtle-dove?" Then the elder brother said, "Hide it in a heap of leaves, for us to eat it yet." The younger brother hid it. Thereupon a Vaedda came, and asked at the hand of the two brothers, "Ane! Didn't a turtle-dove fall here?" The two Princes said, "No." So the Vaedda sought for it, continuing to say, "Ane! After trying for seven years, I shot the turtle-dove with my bow and arrow." Then the Princes said, "Ane! Vaedi-elder-brother, why is the turtle-dove such a good one?" The Vaedda replied, "Why shouldn't it be good? The person who has eaten the right portion at that very time will receive the sovereignty. The person who has eaten the left portion will receive the sovereignty after seven years have gone by." Having said thus, the Vaedda sought and sought it; he was unable to find the turtle-dove, and he went away. Then, having cooked it, the elder Prince ate the right half; the younger Prince ate the left half. Having eaten it, the elder Prince, taking the small copper water-pot which the flower-mother gave them, went to seek for water. The younger brother remained there. The elder brother, breaking and throwing down branches all along the path, having gone on and on, came to a large stream. Hearing a beating of tom-toms while getting water in the pot, he stayed there, looking [to see] what it was about. While he was there, the tom-toming having come near him, a tusk elephant came close to the Prince and knelt down. The Prince knew that the royal elephant had selected him for the sovereignty, and said, "Ane! A younger brother of mine is there; how can I go without him? I will go there and come with him." Then the men who were there said, "You cannot seek your younger brother; you must mount now." Afterwards the Prince having mounted on the elephant, went to the city of that kingdom, and became the king. The younger brother, after having looked and looked for a long time, taking the bundle of cooked rice, came along the path on which the branches were broken, and descended to the stream. Then, having seen the elephant's footprints, continuing to say, "Ane! It is this very elephant that has killed elder brother," weeping and weeping he drank water; and having eaten part of the cooked rice, tied up the other part and went away. While going along the path on which were the elephant's footprints, he saw that his Prince's robes were torn and torn, and repeating, "Ane! Elder brother has been killed. It is this very elephant. Kill me also, O Gods," weeping and weeping, going on and on, he went after nightfall to a Hettiya's house at some city or other, and said, "Ane! You must give me a resting-place for the night." The Hettiya was not at home; only his wife was there. The woman said to the Prince, "No resting-place will be given here. We do not allow any one to come to our house. The Hettirala goes to the King, to fan his face. On that account the Hettirala does not permit any one to come to this house. To-day the Hettirala went to the King, to fan his face. He will come at this time. Before he comes go away quickly." The Prince said, "Ane! Don't say so. There is not a quarter to which I can go now. In some way or other you must give me it." Then the woman, taking a bit of mat, gave it into the Prince's hand, saying, "If so, go to that calf house. When the Hettiya comes don't even cough or anything. You must be silent." Afterwards, when the Prince was sitting in the calf house, the Hettiya returned, and while he was eating rice a cough came to the Prince. The Prince tried and tried to be silent. He could not. He coughed. The Hettiya having heard it said to his wife, "What is that, Bola, I hear there?" The woman said, "Ane! A youth, not vicious nor low, came and asked for a resting-place. I told him to go to the calf house. Do nothing to him. I told him to get up before daylight and go away." Then the Hettiya, saying, "I told thee, 'Do not give a resting-place to any one'; is it not so? Why didst thou give it?" beat the woman. Having finished eating rice he came into the raised veranda. When he was there, that Prince took the remains of his rice, and while eating it and thinking in his mind, "Ane! Was I not indeed a royal Prince before; why must I stop now in a calf house?" he saw the gem-stones at the bottom of the rice, and placing one on his knee ate the rice by its light. The Hettiya having seen the light, asked at the hand of the woman, "Ade! Did you go and give a light also to that one?" The woman said, "It is not a light that I took and gave him." Then the Hettiya got up and went to look, and having seen the gem-stone, scolded the woman. "Ade! When my friend from a foreign town came dost thou give him a resting-place in this way? What hast thou given it at the calf house for? Was there no better place to give?" Having said this, and again beaten the woman, "Quickly warm water," he said. After waiting while she was warming it, he took the water into the house, and having placed it there, said to the Prince, "Let us go, younger brother, to bathe," and gave him a bath. After finishing bathing him, having cooked food abundantly and laid the table, he gave him to eat. When that was finished, he prepared a bed for sleeping, and said, "Younger brother, come and sleep." The Prince came. Afterwards the Hettiya said to the Prince, "Younger brother, if there are any things of value in your hands give them into my hands. I will return them to you at the time when you ask for them. If they be kept in your hands they may be lost. There are thieves hereabouts; we cannot get rid of them. They will not let us keep anything; they carry it off." Then the Prince said, "Ane! There is nothing in my hands." The Hettiya said, "Nay, there was a gem-stone in your hand; I saw it. It will be there yet; give me it. I shall not take it in that way. I will give you it at the time when you ask for it." The Prince said, "Ane! Hetti-elder-brother, I know your Hetti slumber. It is necessary for me to arise early, while it is still night, and go away." Then the Hettiya said, "I shall give you it when you ask for it, no matter if I should be asleep. You can awake me; then I will give it." Having said thus and thus, the Prince gave all the gem-stones into the hands of the Hettiya. The Hettiya taking them and placing them in a house in the middle of seven houses, went to sleep. Afterwards, the Prince having been asleep, arose while it was still night, and awoke the Hettiya, saying, "Ane! Hetti-elder-brother, it is necessary for me to go expeditiously. Quickly give me those few gem-stones." Thus, in this manner he asks and asks. It is no affair of the Hettiya's. Then the woman said, "What is this! One cannot exist for this troubling. Must not persons who took a thing give it back? Must not this youth who is not vicious nor low go away? Why are you keeping them back?" After that, the Hettiya, having got up, opening the seven doors of the seven houses came out into the light, and saying, "When, Bola, did I get gem-stones from thee?" he cut off the hair-knot of the Prince, and took him for his slave. So the Prince remained there, continuing to do slave work for the Hettiya. Afterwards, one day the Hettiya and the Prince having gone on a journey somewhere, as they were coming to a stream the seven Princesses of the King of that country having been bathing in the stream, saw the Hettiya and the Prince going on the road. The youngest Princess said to the other Princesses, "Elder sisters, that one going there is indeed a Prince." The six Princesses said, "So indeed! The Hettiya's slave has become a Prince to thee!" Then the Princess said another time, "However much you should say it is not so, that is indeed a Prince going along there." The six Princesses said, "It is not merely that to thee the Hettiya's slave has become a Prince; he will come to call thee [to be his wife]." Then the Princess replied still another time, "It is really so; he is inviting me indeed. However much you should say that, it was really a Prince who went there." The six Princesses said, "If he is inviting thee go thou also. The Hettiya's slave is going there; go thou before he departs." The Princess replied, "I shall really go. You look. What though I have not gone now! Shall I not go hereafter?" After the seven Princesses had come to the palace, the youngest Princess said at the hand of her father the King, "When we were bathing now, a slave youth went along with the Hettiya. That slave youth is really a Prince." Then the King sent an order to the Hettiya that the Hettiya's slave and the Hettiya should come to him. Afterwards the Hettiya and the Hettiya's slave went to the King. The King asked, "Whence this slave youth?" Then before the Hettiya said anything the Prince replied, "I was formerly a royal Prince; now I am doing slave work for this Hetti-elder-brother." The King asked at the hand of the Hettiya, "Is he doing slave work for you?" The Hettiya said, "Yes." After that, the King decided that he would give his youngest daughter to the slave youth (as his wife), so he sent away the Hettiya, and the Princess with the slave youth. As those three were going to the Hettiya's house, the Hettiya, becoming hungry while on the way, gave money into the hand of the Prince, and said, "With this money get three gills of rice, and with these ten sallis (half farthings) get a sun-dried fish, and come back and cook them." He gave money for it separately into the Prince's hand. The Prince having bought three gills of rice with the money given for it, and placed it on the hearth to boil, took the ten sallis and went to the shops for the dried fish. When he looked at the dried fish there was none to get for ten sallis. As he was coming back bringing the ten sallis, a man was on the road, having laid down a heap of dried fish. When the Prince came there the man asked him, "Where, younger brother, are you going?" The Prince said, "I came for a dried fish; I have ten sallis. There being no dried fish to get for ten sallis I am going away." Then the man said, "Give me the ten sallis. Take any dried fish you want." So the Prince having given the ten sallis to the trader, selected a large dried fish, and putting it on his shoulder, as he was coming near the river the dried fish was laughing. After laughing, it asked, "Are you taking me in this manner to cook?" The Prince replied, "Yes, to cook indeed." The dried fish said, "Do not take me. You are going to die now. From that I will deliver you. Put me into the river." The Prince having placed the dried fish in the river, and come back "simply" (that is, without it), made sauce and cooked the rice. When he had finished, the Hettiya said, "Separate and give me the cooked rice boiled from two gills." So the Prince separated the rice from two gills and gave it. Then the Hettiya asked, "Where is the dried fish?" The Prince said, "I could not get a dried fish for ten sallis; I walked through the whole of the bazaar. I came back empty-handed ('simply')." Afterwards, the Hettiya having eaten half the rice in silence, heaped up the other half in the direction of the Princess (thus inviting her to eat it). The Princess saying, "Go thou! Have I come to eat rice out of the Hettiya's bowl?" [25] went to the place where the Prince was eating, and ate rice from the Prince's plate. Then the Hettiya said, "If it is wrong for thee to eat from my bowl, how is it thou art eating from my slave's bowl?" The Princess said, "Hettiya, shouldst thou any day say 'slave' again, I will tell it at the hand of my father the King, and get thee quartered and hung at the city gates." After that the Hettiya was silent. The whole three having finished eating rice, went on board the vessel that was to carry them along the river. While going along in the vessel, the Hettiya said to the Prince, "Cut me a mouthful of betel and areka-nut, and give me it." The Princess said, "Now then, having already cut betel and areka-nut, his food is done." The Prince saying, "It is not wrong; I will cut and give it," cut and gave it to the Hettiya. Afterwards the Hettiya again said to the Prince, "Get a little water and give me it." The Princess saying, "Now then, your doing slave work is stopped," told the Prince not to give it. The Prince said, "When there is thirst, how can one not give water? I will give him a little." While he was bending down over the side of the vessel to get the water, the Hettiya raised him, and threw him into the river. As the Prince fell into the river, the dried fish that he had previously put in the river took him on its back, and having brought him to the shore, left him there. The Hettiya and the Princess went on in the ship to the Hettiya's house. The Prince was in the sun, on a sandbank. Then, as a flower-mother was coming to the river for water, she saw the Prince, and said, "What is this, son, that you are in the sun? Come away and go with me." Inviting him, and going to her house with him, she warmed some water and made him bathe, and gave him food. While he was there, the Prince told all at the hand of the flower-mother. After telling it, when he said, "I must go again to the Hettiya's house," the flower mother said, "O son, let him do what he likes. Don't you go. Stop here." The Prince replying, "I cannot stay without going, O flower-mother; I will go there and come back to you," went there. After he had gone to the Hettiya's house he found that men had collected together there, and were saying that the Hettiya and the Princess were to be married on such and such a day. He stayed listening to them, and went again to the flower-mother's house. After he returned, asking for four sallis at the hand of the flower-mother he went to the potters' village, and giving them the four sallis told them, "When I come to-morrow you must have ready a kettle having three zig-zag lines round it and twelve spouts." So saying, he came back to the flower-mother's house. On the morning of the following day he walked to the potters' village, and taking the kettle, came to the Hettiya's house. As he arrived, men were dancing, and the King was looking on. At the time when they were finishing dancing he got on the raised veranda, and looked on. The dancing being ended he came out to the wedding hall. Then the Princess saw him and laughed. At that moment the Hettiya trembled. The Prince having gone there said, "Stop that. It is necessary for me to dance a little." Then he began to tell them all from the very beginning: "We were of such and such a city, the sons of the King of such and such a name. We were two Princes, an elder brother and a younger brother. Our mother was dead. A flower-mother gave us food and clothing." Having thus said a little of the story that he was relating, he danced, and while dancing sang to the kettle that he held in his hand-- Possessing three bent lines, a dozen spouts as well, Little kettle, hear this our trouble that befel. [26] Then he said, "While living thus we said one day, 'Let us go and shoot birds,' and elder brother and I went. Having walked till night-fall we did not meet with a single one. While we were returning home, as it was becoming night, there was a Horse-radish tree in front of the palace of our father the King. In that Horse-radish tree was a turtle-dove which elder brother shot; at the stroke it fell dead. "Afterwards I asked at elder brother's hand regarding it, 'Elder brother, to whom are we to give this?' Then elder brother said, 'There is no need to give it to our father the King; let us give it to the flower-mother who gives us food and clothing.' So saying, we took it home and gave it to the flower-mother." Again he danced, and sang while dancing-- Possessing three bent lines, a dozen spouts as well, Little kettle, hear this our trouble that befel. "Our Puñci-Amma (step-mother, lit. 'little mother') after hearing this, on the return of our father the King told him of it, and our father the King appointed to behead us. Afterwards our flower-mother to save the lives of us both told us to go away. Having cooked a bundle of rice, and tied up a bag of it, placing gem-stones at the bottom and the cooked rice above, she gave it into the hand of both of us, and told us to go away somewhere before it became light. So we both came away. Walking on and on, we came to a great forest, and both of us sat down in the shade." Then he danced again, and sang while dancing-- Possessing three bent lines, a dozen spouts as well, Little kettle, hear this our trouble that befel. After that, he told a further part of his tale, and then danced again. Thus, in that way he related all the things that had occurred. The King who had come to celebrate the wedding was the Prince's elder brother. While the Prince was relating all these things the King wept. Then the King asked at the hand of the Hettiya, "Is what he has said regarding the gem-stones, and the taking him as a slave, true?" The Hettiya replied, "It is true." Then the King caused the Hettiya to be quartered, and hung at the four gateways of the city. After the King had caused the Prince and Princess to be married, and had given that kingdom to the Prince, both the King and the Prince went to their cities. The elder brother who had eaten the right portion of the turtle-dove shot by the Vaedda, at that very time obtained the sovereignty. The younger brother having eaten the left portion, when seven years had passed, on that day obtained the sovereignty. So the Prince and Princess remained at their city. North-western Province. The notion that the persons who ate two birds, or the halves of one bird or of a fruit, would become Kings, or a King and his minister, is found throughout India in folk-tales. In the Jataka stories No. 284 (vol. ii, p. 280), and No. 445 (vol. iv, p. 24), two cocks were overheard to say that whoever ate one would get a thousand pieces of money, and the person who ate the other would become King, Chief Queen or Commander-in-Chief, and Treasurer or King's favourite cleric. The second one was selected and eaten, with the corresponding result. In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 150, there is a story by Miss S. J. Goonetilleke, in which a blind man, sitting under a tree, heard a Rakshasa who was in the tree saying to others that if the fruit of the tree were rubbed on the eyes of a blind man he would recover his sight, and that a person who ate the fruit on the top of the tree would become a King within seven days. The man regained his sight in this way, and having also eaten the fruit was selected as King by the royal elephant, which knelt before him. The man who had blinded him married his Prime Minister's daughter; and ascertaining how the King recovered his sight and obtained his position, he got his wife to treat him in the same way and leave him under a tree, where he died. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xvii, p. 75, there is a tale of two Princes who were ordered to be blinded because of a false charge made by the Queen, their step-mother. They escaped, and killed a Chakwa (Sheldrake) which they heard informing its mate that he who ate its head would become a King, and he who ate the liver would be very happy after twelve years' wanderings. The elder brother went for food to a city, where the royal elephant threw a garland over his neck, and he became King. The younger brother being unable to find him worked for a potter, then travelled on and took the place of a woman's son who was going to be offered to an Ogre, who had forced a King to give him daily a cart-load of sweet cakes, a couple of goats, and a young man. The Prince killed the Ogre while he was eating the cakes. The King gave him his daughter in marriage, and half the kingdom. The elder brother came to the wedding, and they recognised each other. When they visited their father he sent the Queen into exile. In the Tamil work, The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 125 ff., a Mango tree growing in a thick forest bore a magical fruit once in one hundred years. A sage waited for it, and went to bathe in order to purify himself before eating it. As two Princes whose parents had been reduced to poverty, were passing, the younger one picked up the fruit and placed it in their packet of rice. The sage followed them, but they denied all knowledge of the fruit. He informed them that the person who ate the outer part would become a king, and that from the mouth of the person who ate the seed, gems would drop whenever he laughed. The brothers divided the fruit in this way, and a royal elephant coming in search of a new King placed a garland on the neck of the elder one, and depositing him on its back went off with him. The younger one, thinking he was carried off by a wild elephant, left the wood, and was received at the house of a dancing girl. One day when he laughed gems fell from his mouth, and after getting many more, they gave him a purgative pill and secured the magic stone. After other adventures he was united to his brother, recovered the mango stone, and became a King himself. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 138 ff., Tales of the Punjab (F. A. Steel), p. 129, two Princes ran away on account of their step-mother's cruelty, and while resting under a tree heard a Maina (Starling) and a Parrot telling each other that the two persons who ate them would become a King and a Prime Minister. They shot the birds with crossbows, and ate them. The younger one went back for the other's whip, which was left at a spring, and was bitten and killed by a snake. The elder was selected as King, by a royal elephant. A magician found the dead Prince, drained the spring into his wife's small brass pot, and the snakes being waterless gave back the Prince's life. After stirring adventures, the younger Prince married a Prime Minister's daughter, who went on a ship with him. There he was thrown overboard, but caught a rope and got back to his wife's cabin unobserved. He met his brother the King at last, and was made to relate his life story. This he did in sections, on seven days, and at the end the King claimed him as his brother, and he became Prime Minister. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 276 ff., a step-mother got two Princes exiled. At night while they were under a tree two birds were heard predicting that those who ate them would become a King and a Minister, so they shot and ate them. The whip and snake incident are as above, the guilty snake being brought up by a cowry shell, of which the magician had despatched four to the four quarters. The snake breathed into the Prince's mouth and revived him. He had wonderful adventures, and married a Princess, went on a ship with her, was thrown overboard, and assisted a gardener. The Princess had been sold at the palace, where the King, who was the elder brother, wished to marry her. The younger brother went disguised as a woman, and related his story by sections in three days, when the Princess claimed him as her husband. His brother made him Chief Counsellor, and at last he succeeded to his father's kingdom. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 78, the persons who ate the head and breast of a bird became Kings. At p. 159, the King's elephant selected a person as King, the elephant bowing down to him, and the royal hawk perching on his hand. At p. 167 ff., two Princes who escaped their death sentence, which was due to their step-mother's plotting, heard two birds say of two others that they who ate them would become a King and Minister. They shot and ate them. The whip and snake incident occurred, the latter being a dragon. The elder brother was selected as King by the royal elephant and hawk. A jogi emptied the spring and made the dragon restore the Prince, who was captured by robbers, saved by the daughter of one, went with her on board a ship, was pushed overboard, and was saved by the girl. They landed at the city where the elder brother was reigning, and he was made Minister, and eventually King when the elder brother succeeded their father. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 99, a royal elephant with a rich howdah on its back selected a Prince as King, and took him to the city. NO. 8 THE PRINCE AND THE PRINCESS In a certain city there are a Prince and a Princess, it is said. Because these two go together to the school the teacher said, "You two came together to-day; on another day you must not do it again." When they were coming separately on that account, the Princess, being in front, one day went to the well, and having bent down while trying to drink water, her writing style fell into the well. Being there alone the Princess was unable to get the writing style. After the Prince came up she said, "Ane! My writing style fell into the well; get it and give me it." Then the Prince said, "I will get it and give you it if you will swear that you will not marry another person." The Princess said, "I will not marry another; I will only marry you yourself." Having touched the Prince's body she swore it, and the Prince having touched the body of the Princess also swore it. Then he got and gave her the writing pin, and one of them went in front and one went behind. Those two learnt their letters excellently. Afterwards, both having grown up, when they inquired about arranging the marriage for the Prince he said, "You must bring me in marriage such and such a Princess, of such and such a village. If not, I do not want a different marriage." Then the King said, "Do you want the kingdom, or do you want the Princess?" The Prince replied, "I do not want your kingdom at all; I want the Princess." Afterwards the King went and asked for the Princess. Then the father of the Princess said, "I will give the Princess to the persons who give me this well full of gold." So the Prince filled it and gave it, and the Prince and Princess having got married stopped many days at the Prince's house. Then the King said to the Prince, "Because at first you said that you did not want the kingdom, that you only wanted the Princess, you shall not live at my house. Go where you want." Then having gone to the Princess's house, after they had been living there many days the father of the Princess said, "Taking a well of gold, I sold the Princess. You shall not live at my house. Go where you want." So those two went away. As they were going the Princess went along sewing a jacket. Having gone very far, after they sat down at a travellers' shed near a city, the Princess gave the jacket that she had sewn into the Prince's hand, and said, "Take this, and having sold it at the bazaar bring something to eat." The Prince having taken it to the bazaar, after he had told the bazaar men to buy it they said, "We are unable to say a word about buying this. It is so valuable that we have not got the means to purchase it." The guards of the King of that country having been present looking on, and having seen this, told the royal servants to bring the jacket to the King. After they had brought it the King took it, and gave the Prince two bags of money. The Prince left one and took one away. The King having called his servants, ordered them, "Look at the place where that Prince goes and stays, and come back." Well then, the servants having gone and having seen that the Princess was stopping at the travellers' shed, came running, and said at the hands of the King, "There is a good-looking Princess at such and such a travellers' shed." The Prince having left at the travellers' shed the bag of money which he took, came for the other bag of money. While he was coming, the King, taking a horse also, went to the travellers' shed by a different road, and placing the Princess on horseback brought her to the palace. Well then, when the Prince, taking the other bag of money went to the travellers' shed the Princess was not there. He called and called; she did not come. Afterwards, taking both bags of money he comes away along the road. The Princess, while she was looked after by the guards, having seen from afar that the Prince was coming, said to the servants, "I am thirsty," and told them to bring an orange quickly. After it was brought and given to her, she opened the skin and wrote a letter thus: "Give even both those bags of money, and buying two horses come near the palace, and having tied up the two horses stay there without sleeping. After the King has gone to sleep I shall descend down robes tied together, and having come to you, when I mount a horse you mount the other horse, and we will go off." Having placed the letter inside the skin of the orange and shut it up completely, so as to appear like a whole orange fruit, she threw it behind the guards, in front of the approaching Prince. The Prince thinking, because he was hungry, "I must eat this," picked it up, and having gone into the shade of a Timbiri tree, sat down. When he opened the skin of the orange, having seen that there was a letter inside it he took it to the light, and read it aloud. A Karumantaya (a Kinnara, a man of the lowest caste) who was in the Timbiri tree heard all that was written in the letter. Well then, the Prince having given the two bags of money and taken two horses, and having come near the palace on the appointed day, tied the two horses there. While he was there the Karumantaya also came, saying, "Ane! I also must stop here at this resting place." The Prince said, "Do not stay here. Should the King hear of it he will drive us both away." The Karumantaya replied, "Don't say so. I also am going to stop here to-day," and stayed there. The Prince went to sleep; the Karumantaya remained awake. After the King had gone to sleep, the Princess, descending down some robes, came there. When she was mounting a horse, the Karumantaya mounted the other horse, and both of them went off together. Having gone off, when the Princess looked after it became light, she saw the Karumantaya. Afterwards she stopped the horse, and said to the Karumantaya, "Get and give me a little water." The Karumantaya said, "I will not; get it to drink yourself." After the Princess had said it yet another time, the Karumantaya dismounted from the back of the horse. When he had gone for water, the Princess cut with her sword the throat of the horse on which the Karumantaya came, and went off, making the horse bound along. The Karumantaya having run and run a great distance, returned again because he could not come up to her. While the Princess was going on horseback, she came to a place where seven Vaeddas were shooting with bows and arrows. Those seven persons having seen the Princess coming, said to each other, "That Princess who is coming is for me." The Princess having heard that saying, stopped the horse and asked, "What are you saying?" Then each of the seven said, "The Princess is for me, for me." Afterwards the Princess said, "You seven persons shoot your arrows together. I will marry the one whose arrow is picked up in front of the others." After that, they all seven having at one discharge shot their arrows, while the seven persons were running to pick up the arrows the Princess went off, making the horse bound along. Those seven persons having run and run for a great distance, returned again because they could not come up to her. The Prince having awoke, when he looked the two horses were not there, and the Princess was not there. So he walked away weeping and weeping. Then, while the Princess was going near yet another city, putting on Brahmana clothes she went to the school at that city, and there having begged from a child a slate [27] and slate pencil, [27] she wrote a name in Brahmana letters (Devanagari). When she had given it to the children who were at the school, nobody, including also the teacher, was able to read it. Then the teacher took it to the King of that country, and showed him it. The King also could not read it. So the King appointed her as a teacher, saying, "From to-day the Brahmana must teach letters at the school." Now, when the Brahmana had been teaching letters for a long time, men told the King tales about her: "That is a woman indeed; no Brahmana." Then the King having said, "Ha. It is good," told the servants, "Inviting that Brahmana, go to my flower garden. If it be a woman, she will pick many flowers and come away after putting them in her waist pocket. If it be a Brahmana, he will pick one flower, and come away turning it round and round near his eye." That Brahmana had reared a parrot. The parrot heard from the roof of the palace the words said by the King, and having gone to the school said to the Brahmana, "The King says thus." Next day, the Ministers having come to the school said, "Let us go to the flower garden," and inviting the Brahmana, went there. Keeping in mind the words said by the parrot, the Brahmana broke off one flower, and holding it near the eye came away turning it round and round. The King looking on said, "From to-day no one must say again that it is a woman." Again, in that manner, when she had been there a long time, people began to say to the King, "No Brahmana; that is a woman indeed." Then the King again said to the servants, "To-morrow, inviting the Brahmana, go to my betel garden. If it be a woman, she will pluck many betel leaves, and go away after putting them in her waist pocket. If it be a Brahmana, he will pluck one betel leaf, and holding it near his eye he will come away turning it round and round." Hearing that also from the roof of the palace, the Brahmana's parrot having gone to the Brahmana said, "The King says so and so." Next day, the King's Ministers having gone to the school said, "Let us go to the betel garden," and inviting the Brahmana, went there. Keeping in mind the words said by the parrot, in that very manner breaking off one betel leaf, and holding it near the eye, she came away turning it round and round. The King, looking on at it also, said, "From to-day I shall cut with this sword the one who says again that it is a woman." After that, the Brahmana having carved a figure like the Princess, gave it into the hands of the scholars, and said, "Taking this, go and collect donations (samadama). After you have gone, inviting to come with you him who on seeing this figure recognises it, return with him." After the scholars, taking the figure, had gone to a city, the seven Vaeddas saw it, and said, "Here is the Princess." Having drawn near they asked, "How is it that she has gone away for such a long time since she went from here that day? Where is she now?" Then the scholars, saying, "She is now at our city; let us go there," inviting those seven persons, returned with them. After they had come to the school the Brahmana said, "Cut them down, the seven persons." After they had cut them down, the Brahmana said to the scholars, "Take this again. Again inviting him whom you meet, return with him." The scholars took it again, and while they were going to another city met that Karumantaya. After he had said, "Ane! Amme! Where did you go for such a long time? Where is she now?" the scholars replied, "The Princess is now at our city; let us go there." After they had come to the school the Brahmana said, "Cut down that one also." After they had cut him down, she said to the scholars, "Take this again." The scholars, taking it, and having gone to another city, met with the Prince. Having come in front of it, the Prince fell down weeping. The scholars said, "Do not weep. She is in our city; let us go there." After they had come to the school, the Brahmana arose quickly, and having thrown off the Brahmana clothing, dressed herself in her Princess's robes. Having prepared warm water and made the Prince bathe, the Princess cooked ample food, and gave him to eat. While she was doing this, the scholars having gone to the King said, "It was a Princess who was there. After we went to a city to collect donations, having met with the Princess's Prince he came back with us. Both of them are now at the school." After that, the King, having come to the school, and having asked about those things from those two, built a house with a tiled roof, and gave it and half the village to the Princess as a present. North-western Province. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 86, a Prince induced three persons who were quarrelling over the ownership of some wonderful articles left by their master, a Fakir, to run for three arrows which he discharged in three directions. While they were absent, he took three of the articles, and seating himself on a magic seat which was one of the things, was conveyed away by it. At p. 306 ff. of the same work, a Prince and Princess eloped when the latter was about to be married to another Prince. While on their way, she remembered some jewels which she required, and he returned for them. In the meantime a robber had come up in the dark, and finding her servant asleep had ridden off with the Princess, who thought he was the Prince. When daylight came she found out her mistake, sent him to a village for food, and then rode off alone; and calling at a goldsmith's house for a drink, was detained and requested to marry him. On her agreeing, he gave her gold ear-rings and her jewels, with which she rode off, and stayed with a married couple, disguising herself as a man. An elephant selected her as King. Then she got an artist to paint her portrait, and she hung it in a thoroughfare of the city, with a guard who seized all who recognised her. These proved to be the robber, her servant, the goldsmith, and the two who befriended her, and lastly the Prince. When the Prince saw her portrait he fainted. He was first made Prime Minister, and afterwards the Princess revealed herself to him, and he became King. The robber and goldsmith were imprisoned, and the others rewarded. The resemblance to the Sinhalese story is striking. NO. 9 TAMARIND TIKKA In a certain city there are seven elder brothers and younger brothers, it is said. The seven have a younger sister, who cooks and gives food to all seven. While the seven brothers were cutting and cutting the sides of an earthen ridge (nira) in the rice field, they saw seven women coming, and said to them, "Where are you going?" The seven women replied, "We are seven elder sisters and younger sisters; and we are going to seek seven elder brothers and younger brothers." Then the seven brothers said, "We are seven elder brothers and younger brothers. Stop with us." The seven sisters said, "Ha." The seven brothers having brought the seven sisters to their house, leaving them there went again to the rice field, and chopped the ridges. Those seven sisters having boiled seven pots of paddy and spread it out to dry, said to their sister-in-law, "We are going for firewood; you stay at home and look after these things." After they had gone, that sister-in-law fell asleep. Then rain having fallen, the seven large mats (magal) on which the paddy was spread were washed away. When the seven sisters came, and saw that the mats and paddy had been washed away, they seized that woman, and having beaten her, drove her away from the house. So she went to the foot of a Tamarind tree on the roadside, and stayed there. When a long time had passed after she went there, all those seven women bore girls. The woman under the Tamarind tree bore a boy. As the eldest brother was going along the road on which was the tree, the woman said, "Ane! Elder brother, look at my boy's horoscope." He said, "I will not." As the next brother was going she said, "Ane! Elder brother, look at my boy's horoscope." He said, "I will not." Thus, in that way all the six elder brothers refused. Afterwards, when the youngest brother was going, on her saying, "Ane! Elder brother, look at my boy's horoscope," he said, "Ha," and went. When he looked at it, the astrologer said, "He is born such that he will bring misfortune to those seven girls. The child will be so lucky that he might obtain a kingdom." Then the brother having returned, said to that woman, "That one has been born such that he will eat thee. Knock his head on a stone or root, and kill him." The woman saying, "It is good. Let him eat me," reared him. The child having become big, said at the hand of the woman, "Mother, now then, oughtn't you to bring me an assistant (i.e. a wife)?" The woman replied, "Ane! Son, who will give in marriage to us?" Afterwards the youth went to a place where they were grinding flour, and having put a little flour under his finger nail, came back. "Mother, mother, quickly hold a basin," he said. The woman held one. Then, when he put into the basin the little flour that was under his finger nail, it filled it and ran over. Having gone again to a place where they were expressing coconut oil, in the same way he took a little coconut under his finger nail, and came back. "Mother, mother, hold that quickly," he said. The woman held it. That also was filled and overflowed. Again, having gone to a place where they were warming Palm-tree syrup, in the same way he took some under his finger nail, and came back. "Mother, mother, hold that quickly," he said. That also was filled and overflowed. Afterwards the youngster said, "Mother, cook cakes with those things, and give me them." So the woman having cooked them, tied up a pingo (carrying-stick) load, and gave it to him. The youngster, taking the pingo load, went to his eldest uncle [28]. After he asked him for his daughter's hand in marriage, the uncle said, "Be off! Be off! Who would give in marriage to Tamarind Tikka?" From there he went to the next uncle, and asked him. That uncle spoke in the same manner. All the six elder uncles spoke in the same manner. Then he went to the youngest uncle, and when he asked him the uncle said, "Put the packages of cakes there, then." (Intimating by this that he accepted him as a son-in-law. He alone knew of the nature of the boy's horoscope.) Afterwards, having cooked and given Tamarind Tikka to eat, the uncle said, "My buffalo cow has died, Tamarind Tikka. Let us go and bury it, and return." Tamarind Tikka said "Ha," and having gone to the place where the dead buffalo was lying, said, "Uncle, shall I make that get up?" The uncle said "Ha." So Tamarind Tikka went to the low bushes at the edge of the jungle, and came back cutting a white stick. Then calling out, "Into the cattle-fold, Buffalo cow! Into the cattle-fold!" he struck the buffalo. Then the buffalo cow that had been dead got up, and came running to the cattle-fold. By the calves from that buffalo cow the cattle herd was increased. One day, while the six uncles and Tamarind Tikka were watching cattle in the field, the uncles said, "Tamarind Tikka, we will watch. You go and eat, and come back." After he had gone home, the six uncles cut all the throats [29] of his cattle. When he returned the six uncles said, "Ane! Tamarind Tikka. Some men came, and having tied us all and thrown us down in the dust, cut all the throats of your cattle. Not a thing could we do." Tamarind Tikka said, "Ha. It is good." As he was going away, having seen people burying a corpse he waited while they were burying it, and after they had gone he dug out the grave, and raised the dead body to the surface. Then lifting up the body and taking it to a tank, he bathed it, dressed it in a cloth, tied a handkerchief round its waist, tied a handkerchief on its head, put a handkerchief over its shoulder, [30] and placing it on his shoulder went away with it. After nightfall, having gone to a village, Tamarind Tikka set the body upright against a clump of plantain trees, and asked at a house, "Ane! You must give us a resting-place to-night." When he said this the men in the house replied, "There will be no resting-place here. Go away, and ask at another house." Then he said, "Ane! Don't say so. Our great-grandfather is coming there." Women were driving cattle out of that garden. Tamarind Tikka said to them, "Ane! Our great-grandfather is coming there. His eyes cannot see anything. Don't hit him, any one." Then a woman at the raised terrace of the shop, having knocked down a stump, when she was throwing it at the cattle the dead body was hit, and fell down. At the blow Tamarind Tikka went running there, and cried out, "Appe! Great-grandfather is dead." The men came out of the house and said, "Tamarind Tikka, don't cry. We will give you a quart measure of money." "I don't want either a quart measure of money or two. Our great-grandfather is dead," Tamarind Tikka said, and cried aloud. Again the men said, "Appa! Tamarind Tikka, don't cry. We will give you three quart measures of money." Tamarind Tikka said, "I don't want either three or four. I want our great-grandfather." Again the men said, "Tamarind Tikka, don't cry. We will give you five quart measures of money." Tamarind Tikka said, "I don't want either five or six. Give me my great-grandfather." The men said, "Tamarind Tikka, don't cry. We will give you seven quart measures of money." Then Tamarind Tikka said, "Ha. It is good. Give me them. What of that! Will our great-grandfather come to his senses again?" Taking the seven quart measures of money, and returning to his village, Tamarind Tikka spread a mat on the raised veranda of his house, and having put the seven quart measures of money on it, was counting it. The six uncles having come, said, "Whence, Tamarind Tikka, this money?" "O! Will people with cattle hides to sell become in want of money?" he said. After that, the six uncles having cut the throats of all the cattle they had, and tied the skins into pingo loads, taking them to the villages asked, "Will you buy cattle hides?" The men said, "Go away. Go away. Who will give money for cattle hides?" Then the uncles having come to their village, becoming angry with Tamarind Tikka, spoke together, "We must kill him." So they went to him and said, "Tamarind Tikka, let us go on a journey together." He asked, "Where?" The six uncles said, "A daughter of ours has been asked in marriage. On that account we must go to-day to eat betel at the house of the people who have asked for her. Tamarind Tikka said "Ha," and went with the uncles. Having gone very far, they came to a foot-bridge made of a tree trunk (edanda), and on seeing it the uncles spoke together, "Let us hang Tamarind Tikka under this, and go away." So they put him in a sack, and having hung it under the foot-bridge, went off. While he was under it, as a washerman bringing a bundle of clothes was going over the bridge, Tamarind Tikka said, "Appe! The lumbago is a leetle better since I have been hanging here." Then the washerman said, "Tamarind Tikka, I also have lumbago; hang me up a little." Tamarind Tikka said, "If so, unfasten this sack." After the washerman unfastened it, Tamarind Tikka came out, and having put him in the sack, and again tied it in the same manner under the foot-bridge, took his bundle of clothes, came to the rice field with it, and spread the clothes out to dry. As the six uncles were returning, they cut the fastenings of the sack that hung under the bridge (thus letting it fall into the stream). While coming along afterwards to the village, they saw Tamarind Tikka in the rice field spreading clothes out, and asked, "Whence, Tamarind Tikka, these clothes?" Then he said, "O! Will people who have to be under foot-bridges become in want of clothes?" The six uncles said, "Hang us there also, Tamarind Tikka," and they brought six sacks and gave them to him. So he put the six uncles into the six sacks, and hung them under the foot-bridge, and afterwards cut the fastenings of the sacks. Then the six uncles were carried away down the river, and died in the sea. The six women (their wives) ran away; their six girls, saying, "Our fathers are going for clothes to wear. Let us go also," also ran away. So the six uncles, and the six women, and the six girls all died. Tamarind Tikka, and his wife, and uncle, and aunt, and mother, these five remained. North-western Province. In the Jataka story No. 432 (vol. iii, p. 304), a similar incident to the last one is related. A woman whom her son and his wife thought they had burnt while asleep, frightened a robber when he came to the cave in which she had taken refuge, and thus got his bundle containing jewels. When she returned home next day with the jewels, and was asked by her daughter-in-law where she got them, she informed her that all who were burnt on a wooden pile at that cemetery received a similar present. So she went there, and burnt herself. In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 97 ff., a Prince was requested to deliver letters to the departed relatives of all at the palace of the King under whom he was employed, who twice before had endeavoured to kill him by giving him apparently impossible tasks. By the aid of the magical powers of his wives, he jumped into a pit of fire with the letters, and was saved by Agni, the Fire God, who sent him back next day out of the fire, with costly jewels and a splendid dress. All the persons who were hoping to kill him decided to follow his example, and were burnt up. The Prince then became the ruler of the kingdom. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iii, p. 11, in a Bengal tale by G. H. Damant, six men burnt a farmer's house. He loaded two bags of the ashes on a bullock, and on the way met some men driving bullocks laden with rupees, changed two of their bags for his own, met the six men who burnt his house, and told them he got the money by selling the ashes. They burnt their houses and were beaten by people for trying to sell ashes. Then they went to the farmer's house, tied him, put him in a sack, and threw him into a river. He was saved by a man who was riding past, on his offering to cut grass for his horse without pay. He rode off on the horse, overtook the six men, and informed them that he found the horse in the river, where there were many more. They persuaded him to throw them in, tied in sacks, and all were drowned. In the same journal, vol. iv, p. 257, the incident is given as found among the Santals. A man who was in a sack, about to be drowned, induced another, a shepherd, to take his place. The man then took possession of the shepherd's cows, and when those who thought they had killed him heard from him that there were many more in the river, they allowed themselves to be tied up and thrown in. In vol. xviii, p. 120, in a South Indian story by Pandita Natesa Sastri, a man who had cheated some persons was carried off, tied up in a bag, to be burnt alive. While firewood was being fetched, he induced a cow-watcher to take his place, and he himself drove off the 1,001 cows of which the man had charge. When his enemies returned to his house after burning the watcher, they found him there to welcome them, the cows being all around. He informed them that on going to Kailasa, the residence of the God Siva, after being burnt, he met his father and grandfather, who stated that his allotted time on earth had not expired, and sent him back with the cows. The others decided to go also, and were tied up and burnt. A variant of the last incident is also found in West Africa, and is given in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 121. A sorceress captured a youth, whom she wished to destroy enclosed in three goat skins, and she set her daughter to watch the package while she dug a pit and filled it with wood, which she set on fire. The girl heard the boy apparently eating food inside, and questioned him about it. He said, "I have better than that; I have some dainties." As she wanted some she released him and was tied up in his place, while he escaped clothed in her dress. The sorceress returned, and threw the bundle into the fire. Although she heard a voice inside saying the boy had tied up the girl in it, she believed it was only a trick of his. A similar incident is related in another story in the same volume, p. 164. It also occurs in a folk-tale of the Southern Province which I contributed to The Orientalist (vol. ii, p. 53). As other incidents in that story resemble some in the tales given below, I give it in full here. I may add that however improbable the marriage of seven brothers to seven sisters may appear, it has been nearly matched in recent years in England. The Daily Mail of January 20, 1908, contained the following words regarding an old lady who had just died:--"She was one of seven members of her family who married seven sons and daughters of a neighbouring farmer." NO. 10 MATALANGE LOKU-APPU Once upon a time there lived a man and a woman, whose son was a youth named Matalange Loku-Appu. One day the mother went to the river to fetch water, telling her son to allow nothing whatever to enter the house in her absence. While she was away a small lizard (hikanala) ran into the house. As it approached, the boy called out to it to stop, but it took no notice of him, and climbed up into the roof, whereupon Loku-Appu set fire to the roof and burnt the house down. When his mother returned, and asked him how the house came to be burnt, he informed her that he had done it in driving the lizard out of the roof. Afterwards the father came home, and on learning what had occurred set off into the forest with his son to cut sticks, in order to build a new house. While he cut the sticks he ordered Loku-Appu to collect them. A river flowed through the forest, and Loku-Appu asked him where it ran. "To your house," he replied. The son, taking this literally, threw all the sticks into the river, so that it might transport them home. When the father discovered that all the sticks were lost in this way, he flew into a passion, tied the boy on a log, and set him afloat in the river, saying, "Go thou also." At a short distance down the river there was a sweet-potato garden. The gardener saw the log and boy floating past, and rescued Loku-Appu. He inquired the boy's name, and was told it was "Uprooter-of-Creepers, Sweet-Potato-Eater." Nevertheless, he placed the boy in charge of his garden. After two or three days, the gardener returned to inspect his garden, and found all the sweet potatoes pulled up and eaten. So he tied the boy on the log again, and set him afloat once more. Further down the river there was a plantain garden, the owner of which saw Loku-Appu on the log, and drew him ashore. When asked his name, Loku-Appu replied, "Eater-of-the-first-Comb-of-Plantains, Crusher-of-young-Plantain-Shoots." The man gave him charge of the garden. In a few days, the man came to see how his garden progressed, and found everything broken down and eaten. On this, he at once dismissed Loku-Appu. Having nothing to live upon, Loku-Appu now began to borrow from some tom-tom beaters. After a few months, these men, finding that he did not repay them, called on him to make him come to a settlement. Loku-Appu saw them at a distance, and guessing their errand, put a young girl into the corn store-room, and began to trim a club with his knife. When the creditors arrived he requested them to be seated. Soon afterwards he fetched up an old woman who lived in the house, gave her a smart blow with the club, and put her also into the corn-store. After a few minutes, he called for betel to be brought, and the little girl came out with it. At this, the tom-tom beaters were greatly astonished, and made inquiries regarding the miracle, for such they thought it. Loku-Appu told them that the virtue lay in the club, with which all old women could be converted into young girls. When they heard this, they became exceedingly anxious to possess the wonderful club, but Loku-Appu refused to part with it on any terms. At last, finding persuasion useless, the tom-tom beaters took it from him by force, and went straight home with it. There they called up part of the old women of their village, and after beating them well with the club, put them into the corn store-rooms. To give the charm time to work they waited three days. Then they went to examine the old women, expecting to find them become young again; but all were dead. Full of anger, they went to Loku-Appu to tell him that he had deceived them, and that the women were all dead. While they were still at a distance, Loku-Appu cried out, "Alas, alas! They have taken hold of the wrong end of the stick!" When they came near he explained to them the blunder they had made. As they took the stick from him by force he was not responsible for it. This time he cut a mark on the right end of the stick to be used, telling the tom-tom beaters that if the wrong end were used the women would certainly die, while the proper end would as certainly change them into young girls. When the tom-tom beaters returned to their village they fetched up all the rest of the old women, and after belabouring them well with the proper end of the club, put them also into the corn-stores. Yet after three days they found that the result was just the same as at first; all the women were dead. Determined to revenge themselves on Loku-Appu, they came to his house, tied him up in a sack, and set off to the river with him, intending to drown him. On the way, they heard the beating of tom-toms, whereupon they set the sack down on the road, and went to see what it was about. During their absence, a Muhammadan trader in cloth who was coming along the road, found the sack, and heard a voice proceeding from it: "Alas! What a trouble this is that has come upon me! How can I govern a kingdom when I cannot either read or write?" The trader immediately untied the sack, and questioned Loku-Appu as to how he came there. Loku-Appu explained to the trader that he was about to be made a king, but not possessing the requisite amount of knowledge for such a high position he had refused the dignity; and now he was being carried off in this way to be put on the throne. "By force they are going to make me king," he said. The trader remarked to him, "It will be a great favour if you will let them do it to me instead"; and eventually they changed places, Loku-Appu tying the trader in the sack, and he himself taking the man's clothes and bundle of cloth. Loku-Appu then hid himself. In a short time the tom-tom beaters came back, carried away the sack with the would-be king, and threw it into the river. As they were returning past a part of the river, they saw, to their intense surprise, Loku-Appu washing clothes in it. They came to him and said, "What is this, Loku-Appu? Where have you come from? Where did you get all this cloth?" He replied, "These are the things which I found in the river bottom when you threw me in with the sack. As they are rather muddy I am cleaning them." The tom-tom beaters said that they would be greatly obliged if he would put them in the way of getting such treasures, so he requested them to bring sacks like that in which he had been tied. They soon came back with the sacks, were tied up in them, and were thrown into the river by Loku-Appu. Then Loku-Appu went to the tom-tom beaters' village, and took possession of their lands and houses. Some of the incidents of this story are found in No. 58 also. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iii, p. 11, in a Bengal story, by Mr. G. H. Damant, some men who had been cheated by a farmer, called at his house regarding the matter. He offered them food, and when they sat down to the meal struck his wife with his bullock goad, and said, "Be changed into a girl, and bring in the curry." She went out, and sent back their little daughter with the food. He then sold the men the magic stick for one hundred and fifty rupees, telling them that if they beat their wives well with it they would all recover their youth. They acted accordingly, and beat them so thoroughly that the wives were all killed. Then they returned and burnt the farmer's house down, as noted at the end of the last story, where the later incidents are given. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xviii, p. 120, there is a South Indian story by Pandita Natesa Sastri, in which, when three persons who had been cheated by a man came to interview him regarding the frauds, they were welcomed by him. According to arrangement, he beat his wife, who was dressed as an old woman, with a pestle and put her inside the house, explaining to his guests that he had only done it to make her young again. Soon afterwards she reappeared as a young woman. He lent them the magic pestle for a week, but by its use they only killed their relatives. Then they returned in order to square up accounts with him, tied him in a bag, and carried him up a mountain, intending to burn him alive. When they went for the firewood, a cow-herd came up, learnt from him that he was about to be forcibly married to a girl, took his place, and was burnt, the impostor himself driving off the 1,001 cows which the man was watching. When the three cheated persons returned and learnt that he had been sent back from Kailasa with the cattle, as his time on earth had not expired, two of them got him to burn them in a similar way. NO. 11 THE WHITE TURTLE At a village there are an elder sister and a younger sister, two persons. The two are going away, it is said. While going, they saw two bulls going along. Then the cattle asked, "Where are you going?" "We are going to a country where they give to eat and to wear" (meaning that they were in search of husbands). "Are we good enough for you?" [31] the cattle asked. "What do you eat?" they asked. "Having been put in those chenas we eat paddy and jungle vegetables." Saying, "We don't want you," the two women go on. As they were going, they met with two jackal-dogs. "Where are you going?" they asked the two women. "We are going to a country where they give to eat and to wear," they said. "Are we good enough for you?" they asked. "What do you eat?" they asked. "We eat a few fruits and crabs," the two jackals said. "What do you eat?" "We eat dried-fish fry," they said. Saying, "We do not want two jackals," the two women still go on. While they were going, an elder brother and a younger brother were ploughing. They asked the two women, "Where are you going?" "We are going to a country where they give to eat and to wear," they said. "Are we good enough for you?" they asked. The two women asked, "What do you eat?" "We eat dry-fish fry," they said. "Then both parties eat it," they said. "It is good." "If so, it is good. Go to our house," the men said. [32] Afterwards those two men, having given the two keys of their houses into the hands of the elder sister and the younger sister, said, "The cooking things are in such a place; go there, and having opened the doors cook until we come." Then the two women went to the houses, and the elder sister opened the door of the elder brother's house and cooked; and the younger sister opened the door of the younger brother's house and cooked. Afterwards the two men came home, and having eaten, stopped there [with the sisters, as their husbands]. After many days had passed, the two sisters bore two girls. The younger sister had many things at her house; the elder sister had none. On account of that, the elder sister through ill-feeling thought, "I must kill younger sister." One day, the two sisters having cooked rice, while they were taking it to the rice field the younger sister went in front, and the elder sister went behind. On the way, they came near the river. Then the elder sister said, "Younger sister, didst thou never bathe? The skin on thy back is dirty. Take off that necklace and the clothes on thy body, and lay them down, and let us bathe and then go." They put down the two mat boxes of cooked rice, and having descended into the river, she called, while bathing, to her sister, "Younger sister, come here for me to rub thy back." While rubbing she threw her into the middle of the river. Then she took the two boxes of cooked rice and went to the rice field. The younger sister died in the river. After the elder sister went to the rice field, the younger brother asked at the hand of the elder sister, "Why has no one come from our house?" Then the elder sister said, "Ando! Catch her coming! [33] Isn't she playing [illicit] games at home?" Having given the two boxes of rice to the elder brother and the younger brother, that woman returned home. Afterwards that younger sister's girl asked, "Loku-Amma, [34] where is our mother?" Then the woman said, "Ando! Catch her coming! When I came she was still stopping in the rice field." After it became night, the elder brother and the younger brother having come home, the younger brother asked, "Girl, where is thy mother?" Then the girl said, "At noon she took cooked rice to the rice field with Loku-Amma; she has not come yet." The younger brother said, "Where? She did not go to the rice field." Then the girl said, "At the time when I asked at the hand of Loku-Amma, 'Where is our mother?' she said, 'She is at the rice field.'" Afterwards the elder sister, calling the elder brother and the younger brother, both of them [to be her husbands], took her sister's goods, and remained there with them. From the next day, having cooked she gave the rice into the hands of the two girls to take to the rice field. After the girls had gone near the river for two or three days, they saw one day a White Turtle in it, and approached and tried to catch it. When the elder sister's girl went to catch it, it went to the middle of the river; when the younger sister's girl went, it came to the bank, and rubbed itself over the whole of her body. After the elder sister's girl had gone home, she told the elder sister of it: "Mother, there is a White Turtle in the river. When that girl goes it comes to her; when I go it swims far away," she said. That elder sister said, "Ha. It is good. I shall eat it," and lay down. The younger sister's girl hearing it, went near the river, and said, "Mother, she must eat you, says Loku-Amma." Then the White Turtle said, "Ha. It is good, daughter. Let her eat. After she has cooked she will give you, also, a little gravy, and a bone. Drink the gravy, and take the bone to the cattle-fold, and having said, 'If it be true that you are our mother, may you be created a Mango tree,' throw it down." Afterwards, when those two men came home, having seen that the woman was lying down, "What are you lying down for?" they asked. Then the woman said, "It is in my mind to eat the White Turtle that is in the river." So the men went to the river, and having caught the White Turtle, and brought it home, and cooked it, gave it to the woman. Then the woman got up and ate it. She gave the girl a little gravy, and a bone. The girl having drunk the gravy, took the bone to the cattle-fold, and saying, "If it be true that you are our mother, may you be created a Mango tree," threw down the bone. After that, a Mango tree being created, in a day or two grew large and bore fruit. As the two girls were going near the Mango tree they saw that there were Mangoes on it, and went close to it. When the elder sister's girl went to pluck the Mango fruits, the branches rose up; when the younger sister's girl went to pluck them, the branches bent down, and spread over her body and head. Well then, after that girl had plucked and eaten as many as she wanted, the branches rose again. That also the elder sister's girl, having come home, told her: "Mother, there are fruits on the Mango tree at the cattle-fold. When I try to pluck them the branches rise; when that girl tries to pluck them the branches rub the ground." The woman said, "Ha. It is good. I will split that and warm it in the fire." After hearing that also, that girl, having gone to the Mango tree said, "Mother, having split you she must warm you in the fire, Loku-Amma says." Then the Mango tree said, "Ha. It is good, daughter. Let her split. A splinter having fallen will remain here. Take it, and having said, 'If it be true that you are our mother, may you be created a Kaekiri creeper,' put it down at the back of the house." Afterwards, when the elder sister's two men came, having seen that she was lying down, "What are you lying down for to-day also?" they asked. Then the woman said, "Having split the Mango tree at the cattle-fold, it is in my mind to have a few splinters warmed for me in the fire." So the two men having gone to the cattle-fold, and having cut and split up the Mango tree, and brought a few splinters home, put them in the fire and fanned it. After that, the woman got up, and warmed herself at the fire. Then that girl went to the place where the Mango tree was, and when she looked a splinter was there. Taking it, she came to the back of the house, and having said, "If it be true that you are our mother, may you be created a Kaekiri creeper," she put it down. In a day or two a Kaekiri creeper was created there, and bore fruits. On going there, the younger sister's girl said, "There is fruit," and having plucked and eaten as many as she wanted, she came home. When the elder sister's girl went to pluck them there was not a single fruit. Having returned home, the girl said regarding that also, "Mother, on the Kaekiri creeper which is at the back of the house there are many fruits when that girl goes to it; when I go, not a single one." The woman said, "Ha. It is good. Having uprooted it I will eat it in a dry curry." That girl after hearing that also, went near the Kaekiri creeper and said, "Mother, having uprooted you and cooked you in a dry curry, she must eat you, says Loku-Amma." The Kaekiri creeper said, "Ha. It is good, daughter. Let her eat. At the place where I am uprooted there will be a Kaekiri root. Take it to the river, and having said, 'If it be true that you are our mother, be created a Blue-Lotus flower,' throw it into the river." The elder sister having uprooted the Kaekiri creeper, took it home, and having cooked the curry, ate. After that, the girl went to the place where the Kaekiri creeper had been, and when she looked a Kaekiri root was there. Having taken it to the river, and said, "If it be true that you are our mother, be created a Blue-Lotus flower," she threw it into the river. Then a Blue-Lotus flower was created. When the two girls were going together to the river to bathe, having seen that there was a Blue-Lotus flower, that younger sister's girl went and held out her hands in a cup shape. Then the flower which was in the middle of the river came into the girl's hands, and opened out while in her hands. When the elder sister's girl was holding her hands for it, it goes to the middle of the river. That girl having come home, said of it also, "Mother, there is a Blue-Lotus flower in the river. When that girl goes it comes to her hands; when I go it moves far away." The woman said, "Ha! It is good. That also I shall seize, and take." The girl after having heard that also, went and said, "Mother, she must pluck you also, says Loku-Amma." Then the Blue-Lotus flower said, "Let that woman say so, daughter. She is unable to pluck me." Afterwards the woman having told at the hands of the two men, "Pluck the flower and come back," the two men having gone to the river tried to pluck it; they could not. When they are trying to pluck it, it goes to the middle of the river. Afterwards, the men having told it at the hand of the King of the country, and having told the King to cause the flower to be plucked and to give them it, the King also came near the river on the back of an elephant, together with the King's servants. The elder sister, and the two girls, and the two men stayed on this side. Then the people on this side and the people on that side try and try to take that flower; they cannot take it. That younger sister's girl having gone to one side, after looking on said, "Indeed I am able to take it, that flower." The King on the other side of the river having heard that, while he was on the back of the elephant, said, "What is it, girl, that you are saying?" Then that girl said, "O Lord, I am greatly afraid to speak; I indeed am able to take it, the flower." "Ha. Take it," the King said. Afterwards, when the girl was holding her hands in a cup shape, the flower that was in the middle of the river came into her hands. Afterwards the King, taking that flower, and placing the girl on the elephant, went to the King's city. North-western Province. In the Jataka story No. 67 (vol. i, p. 164), a woman went to a King and begged for "wherewith to be covered," by which she meant her husband, who had been arrested. She explained that "a husband is a woman's real covering." In Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes), p. 144, a girl who was supposed to be drowned became a pink-lotus flower which eluded capture, but came of its own accord into the hand of a Prince. NO. 12 THE BLACK STORKS' GIRL In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. The man cuts jungle at a chena clearing; the woman is weaving a bag. After the man comes home, the woman asks, "Is the jungle cut yet?" The man says, "A couple of bushes are cut; is the bag woven?" The woman says, "A couple of rows are woven." Continuing in that way, after the end of two or three days the man, while returning from cutting jungle, saw a Kaekiri creeper at a threshing-floor, and having come near, and seen that there was a fruit on it, plucked and ate it. A Kaekiri seed remained fixed in his beard. After he came home, the woman, seeing it, asked, "Where did you eat Kaekiri?" The man said, "When I was coming home there was a Kaekiri creeper at a threshing-floor on the way; on it there was a fruit. I ate it." Then the woman said, "There will be more on that creeper. After I have woven the bag let us go there." Afterwards, having gone with him to the threshing-floor, she saw that the Kaekiri creeper had spread completely over the floor, and that there were as many fruits as leaves. While plucking them, she bore a girl there. Afterwards, the man having plucked Kaekiri, and filled and tied up the bag, said to the woman, "Shall I take the girl, or shall I take the bag?" The woman told him to take the bag, leaving the girl there. So the girl was left at the threshing-floor, and the man and woman went home, taking the bag of fruit with them. While a Black Stork (Mana) and a female Black Stork (Mani) were going about seeking food, the female Stork saw that a girl was at the threshing-floor, and having gone near it, cried out, "Ade! A thing for me! Ade! A thing for me!" When the male Stork heard this he came running to the spot. Having looked at the girl, the two Black Storks took her to their house, and reared her there. After a time, the girl having become big, the female Black Stork and the male Black Stork said, "Daughter, we must go for golden bracelets and golden anklets for you." At that house there were a Parrot, a Dog, and a Cat, which were reared there. The two Storks told the girl, "Daughter, after we have gone, do not reduce the food of either the Parrot, or the Dog, or the Cat. Until we return, be careful not to put out the fire on the hearth, and not to go anywhere whatever." After saying this, they went to bring the golden bracelets and golden anklets. That girl having been careful for two or three days in the way the female Stork and male Stork told her, lessened the food of the Cat. That night the Cat extinguished the fire on the hearth. Next morning, the girl having gone to the hearth to cook, when she looked there was no fire on the hearth. So she said to the Parrot, "Younger brother, last night I reduced the food of the Cat a little. For that, the Cat has extinguished the fire on the hearth, and now there is no fire for cooking. You go and look from which house smoke is rising, and come back." Then the Parrot having gone flying, looked and looked. There was not any coming from any other houses; from the house of the Rakshasa, only, there was a smoke. The Parrot having come home, said, "Elder sister, I looked at the whole of the houses. There was not any; only from the house of the Rakshasa the smoke came." Afterwards the girl, having said, "If so, younger brother, you stop at home until I go and bring fire," went for the fire. The Rakshasa was not at home; only the Rakshasa's wife was there. The girl having gone to that house, said, "Give me a little fire." Then that woman made the girl boil and dry seven large baskets of paddy (unhusked rice), and pound the paddy in those seven, and bring seven large pots of water, and bring seven bundles of firewood. Then taking a piece of coconut shell with a hole in it, she put ashes at the bottom, and having placed a fire-charcoal on them, gave it to her. While the girl was going home, the ashes fell through the hole all along the path. Afterwards, when the Rakshasa came home, "What is this, Bolan?" he asked the woman; "there is a smell of a human body, a human body that has been here." The woman said, "A girl came for fire. Thinking you would come, I employed that girl, and having made her boil seven baskets of paddy, and dry it, and pound it, and bring seven large pots of water, and seven bundles of firewood, when I looked you were not to be seen. Afterwards, having placed ashes in a piece of coconut shell with a hole in it, I put a fire-charcoal on them, and gave her it. By this time she will have gone home. There will be ashes along the path on which that girl went. Go, looking and looking at the ashes-path," she said. Afterwards the Rakshasa went along the ashes-path. The Parrot having seen him coming in the rice field, said, "Elder sister, the Rakshasa is coming. Shut the door," he said. So the girl, shutting the door and bolting it, stopped in the house. The Rakshasa having come near the house, said, "Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter." Then the Parrot said, "No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister." Then the Rakshasa ran to catch the Parrot. He could not catch it; the Parrot went into the forest and stayed there. Afterwards the Rakshasa having come again near the house said, "Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter." Then the Dog, which was in the open space at the front of the house, said, "No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister." The Rakshasa having gone running after the Dog, and having caught and killed the Dog, came again near the house, and said, "Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter." Then the Cat that was in the raised veranda said, "No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister." The Rakshasa, having gone running, killed also the Cat, and again having come near the house, said, "Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter." Then the Gam-Murunga [35] tree said, "No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister." Afterwards the Rakshasa, having cut down and broken up the Gam-Murunga tree, again went near the house, and said, "Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter." Then the Murunga logs said, "No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister." The Rakshasa, having set fire to the logs, and gone near the house again, said, "Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter." Then the ashes of the burnt Murunga tree said, "No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister." The Rakshasa, having collected the ashes, and taken them to the river and placed them in it, and again having gone to the house, said, "Here are golden bracelets, O daughter. Here are golden anklets, O daughter. Open the door, my daughter." Then the water of the river said, "No golden bracelets, O elder sister. No golden anklets, O elder sister. Open not the door, wise elder sister." Afterwards, the Rakshasa, having gone to the river, and having drunk and drunk, could not finish the water, and at last he burst open and died. After that, the female Black Stork and the male Black Stork brought the golden bracelets and golden anklets, and having given them to the girl, remained there. North-western Province. In a variant of this story, related by a Duraya in the North-western Province, the persons who abandoned the child were a Gamarala and his wife, the Gama-mahage. On the Storks' finding it, they cried, "Ada! I have met with a gem!" Their home was in a rock-cave. When the Parrot warned the girl that the Rakshasa was coming, "having gone running, and having sprung into the cave, she shut the door. The Rakshasa says, 'Having brought bracelets for the arms, jackets for the body, cloths for the waist, O daughter, open the door, my daughter.' "Then the Parrot said, 'It is false that there are bracelets for the arms, jackets for the body, cloths for the waist. Open not the door, my elder sister.' "Then the Rakshasa tried to kill the Parrot. Having flown away it settled on a tree. The Rakshasa having smashed the Parrot's cage, again says, 'Having brought bracelets for the arms,'" etc. The Cat warned the girl and was killed, then the Dog, next the Ash-plantain tree, and lastly the Katuru-Murunga tree. I now translate again. "After that, he struck a finger-nail into the lintel, and having struck another finger-nail into the threshold, the Rakshasa went away. "After that, the male Black Stork and female Black Stork came. Having come, they say, 'Having brought bracelets for the arms, jackets for the body, cloths for the waist, open the door, my daughter.' "Then the Parrot says, 'It is true that there are bracelets for the arms, jackets for the body, cloths for the waist, elder sister. Open the door, my elder sister.' "As she was coming out opening the door, her foot was pricked by a finger-nail, and the crown of her head by a finger-nail. Then becoming unconscious she fell down, the finger-nails having entered her. Both Storks together drew out the finger-nails." She recovered, and they gave her the things they had brought, but sent her away. The rest of the story is an evident modern addition of no interest. She went to a large chena, and was taken home by a widow who was there. In another variant of the Western Province the two birds which reared the child were Crows. After the child was born, the mother, a Gamarala's wife (Gama-Mahage or Gama-Mahayiya) said, "Are we to take the child, or are we to take the bag of Kaekiri?" Her husband replied, "Should we take the child it will be [necessary] to give it to eat and to wear; should we take the bag of Kaekiri we shall be able to eat it for one meal." "So the Gama-Mahage, having put the child among the Kaekiri creepers, taking the bag went home." The Crows carried away the infant, and called it Emal Bisawa, Queen of the Flowers. When the girl had grown up, the birds went to bring pearls for her to wear, after giving her the usual injunctions regarding the food of the Dog, the Cat and the Parrot. She reduced the Dog's food, and it put out the fire. The Parrot found smoke rising from the house of a Rakshasi, and guided her to the place. The Rakshasi was absent; her two daughters gave the girl two amunas (nearly twelve bushels) of paddy to pound. "She thought, 'Having been pounded, go into the house,' and it became pounded of its own accord." Then they gave her seven perforated pots to be filled with water and brought. She filled them and handed them over. They gave her a piece of coconut husk with a hole in it, and a perforated coconut shell, and filled the former with sesame seeds, and the latter with ashes on which was placed burning charcoal. She hurried home with these, being warned by the Parrot that the Rakshasi was coming. When the Rakshasi asked her daughters who had been to the house, they replied that the female Crow's girl had taken some fire, and that there would be sesame and ashes along the path by which she had gone. The Rakshasi ran along it, found the door shut, and said, "Mother has come. Father has come. We are bringing pearls of the sea; we are bringing also wire for stringing the pearls. Open the door, O daughter." The Katuru-Murunga tree warned her that it was false; when it was burnt, its ashes repeated the warning, then the Dog, the Cat, and the Parrot. Then the Rakshasi, "having broken her finger nails, and having fixed one above and one below in the door-frame, went away. After that, her mother and father came, and said, 'Mother has come. Father has come. We are bringing pearls of the sea; we are bringing also wire for stringing the pearls. Open the door, my daughter.' The Parrot said the same. As she opened the door, a finger-nail having entered the crown of her head she died. When they asked the Parrot, 'What has happened?' 'Because of the Rakshasi elder sister died,' he said." In a fourth variant of the North-western Province the aspect of the story is partly changed, and I give a translation of the latter portion, because it contains an account of a runaway match, such as still sometimes occurs. In this story, a Gamarala's wife went with another woman to the chena while the Gamarala was asleep, and after eating as much fruit as possible they filled a bag also. As they were proceeding home rapidly with it, the Gamarala's wife gave birth to a child at a hollow in which pigs wallowed. She asked the other woman to carry it home for her, but this person refused, and took the bag of Kaekiri fruit instead, so the child was abandoned. Then the two Storks came, and carried the child to their cave, and reared it. After the girl grew up, they went off to seek bracelets and necklaces for her, instructing the girl to "give an equal quantity of food to the Cock, the Dog, the Cat, the Parrot, the Crow, the Rat, and the other creatures," and warning her that if she gave less to the Rat it would extinguish the fire. After some days she reduced the Rat's food, so it put out the fire. The Parrot found a house--not a Rakshasa's--from which smoke was rising, and guided the girl to it. The woman who was at it gave her some fire without delaying her, and she returned home with it. I now translate the concluding part. "After the son of the woman who had the fire came home, the woman says to her son, 'To-day a good-looking Princess came to the house.' Then the son asks, 'Mother, by which stile did the Princess go?' His mother says, 'Here, by this stile,' and showed him it. "Then the man having set off, and having gone near the cave, and seen the Princess, when he said, 'Let us go to our house,' the Princess said, 'Because my parents are not here [to give their consent] I cannot go.' This man says, 'No matter for that,' and seizing the hand of the Princess, they came to his house. "Afterwards the two Black Storks which went seeking bracelets and rings, having come near the cave, when they looked the Princess was not there. The Black Storks ask the Dog, the Cat, the Crow, the Parrot, the Rat, and the Cock, 'Where is the Princess?' They all say, 'A man came, and while the Princess was saying she could not go he seized her hand and took her away.' When the Storks asked, 'By which stile did he take her?' saying, 'There, by that stile,' the animals showed them it. "Then the two Black Storks having gone flying, when they looked the Princess was staying at the house. Afterwards the two Storks gave the Princess the bracelets, rings, and coral necklaces which they had brought; and having handed her over to the man, the two Black Storks went to their dwelling." In Old Deccan Days, Ganges Valley (Frere), p. 87 ff., there is a variant according to which the child was carried off to their nest by two eagles, from the side of the mother. After the eagles went to bring a ring for her, the cat stole some food, and on being punished by the girl put out the fire. The girl went to a Rakshasa's house for a light, and was detained by his mother, pounding rice and doing other housework. She left at last with instructions to scatter corn along the path. The Rakshasa followed the track and climbed to the nest, but the outer door was bolted, and he could not enter, so he left his nail in a crack of the door. When the girl opened the outer door--there were seven in all--the nail wounded her hand, and being poisonous apparently killed her. The eagles returned, and seeing this flew away. When a King arrived and drew out the nail, she recovered, and he married her. NO. 13 THE GOLDEN KAEKIRI FRUIT In a certain city there are a man and his daughter, it is said. The man's wife being dead, the girl cooks food for the man. The man cuts jungle at a chena clearing. The girl every day having cooked, and placed the food ready for her father, goes to rock in a golden swing. [36] Then a Mahage [37] comes and says, "Daughter, give me a little fire." The girl sitting in the swing says, "Is it here with me? It is at the hearth; take it." The Mahage goes into the house, pulls out and takes the things which that girl has cooked and placed there, and having eaten, carries away the fire. So, after two or three days had passed in that manner, the man asked, "Who, daughter, while I am coming home has eaten the rice that you have cooked and placed for me?" Then the girl said, "I don't know, father. Every day when I have cooked the food and placed it ready for you, and gone to rock in the golden swing, a Mahage comes and begs fire from me. Then I say, 'Is it here with me? It is at the hearth; take it.' It will be the Mahage." Then the man, having said, "Ha. Daughter, cook and arrange the food to-day also, and go to the golden swing," got onto the shelf, and stayed there. Afterwards the girl, having cooked and placed the food exactly as on other days, went to the golden swing. Then the Mahage having come on that day also, begged, "Daughter, give me a little fire." The girl said, "Is it here with me? It is at the hearth; take it." Then the Mahage having gone into the house, and drawn out the pots, and eaten part of the rice, when she was about to rise after taking the fire, the man on the shelf asked, "What is that you have been doing?" The Mahage said, "What indeed! Why don't you invite me [to be your wife]?" The man said, "Ha. Stop here." So the woman stayed. After a great many days had passed, the woman lay down. "What are you lying down for?" asked the man. The woman said, "It is in my mind to eat your daughter's two eyes." Afterwards the man called the girl, and said, "Daughter, a yoke of cattle are missing; let us go and seek them." While he went with the girl, taking a cord, the dog also followed behind. Having gone into a great forest, he said, "Daughter, come here in order that I may look at your head." [38] While he was looking and looking at it, the girl fell asleep. Then the man placed the girl against a tree, and tied her to it; and having cut out her two eyes, came home and placed one on the shelf and one in the salt pot. The dog that went with the man having come home, howled, rolling about in the open space in front of the house. There was also a child. That little one having gone somewhere, on coming back bringing a mango, asked that Mahage, "Loku-Amma, give me a knife." The woman said, "Have I got one here? It is on the shelf; get it." Then the child, going into the house, and putting his hand on the shelf, caught hold of the eye placed there by the man, and said, "This is indeed our elder sister's eye. Loku-Amma, give me a piece of salt." The woman said, "Have I got any here? Take it from the salt pot." When the child put his hand into the salt pot the other eye was there. He took it also. When he stepped down from the veranda of the house into the compound, the dog went in front, and the child followed after him. Having gone on and on, the dog came to the place in the great forest where the girl was, and stopped there. When the child looked, his elder sister was tied to the tree. He saw that red ants were biting her from her eyes downward, and having quickly unfastened her he took her to a tank, and bathed her. Then taking both her eyes in his hand, he said, "If these are our elder sister's eyes, may they be created afresh," and threw them down. After that, they were created better than before. Afterwards the girl said, "Younger brother, we cannot go again to that house. Let us go away somewhere." So they went off. While they were going along the road, a King was coming on horseback, tossing and tossing up a golden Kaekiri fruit. The child, after looking at it, said, "Elder sister, ask for the golden Kaekiri." The girl replied, "Appa! Younger brother, he will kill both of us. Come on without speaking." Then the child another time said, "Elder sister, ask for it and give me it." The King having heard it, asked, "What, Bola, is that one saying?" The girl replied, "O Lord, nothing at all." "It was not nothing at all. Tell me," the King said a second time. Then the girl replied, "O Lord, I am much afraid to say it. He is asking for that golden Kaekiri." The King said, "I will give the golden Kaekiri if thou wilt give me thy elder sister." The child said, "Elder sister and I, both of us, will come." So the King, having placed the girl on horseback, went to his city with the child, and married the girl. After many days had passed, when the King was about to go to a war the girl was near her confinement. So the King said, "If it be a girl, shake an iron chain. If it be a boy, shake a silver chain." Afterwards the girl bore a boy, and shook a silver chain. Before the King came back, the girl's father and Loku-Amma (step-mother), having collected cobras' eggs, polangas' [39] eggs, and the like, the eggs of all kinds of snakes, and having cooked cakes made of them, came to the place where the girl was. The girl's Loku-Amma told her to eat some of the cakes. When she did not eat them, that woman, taking some in her hand, came to her and rubbed some on her mouth. At that very moment the girl became a female cobra, and dropped down into a hole in an ant-hill. Her father and Loku-Amma went home again. The infant was crying on the bed. Afterwards, when the girl's younger brother was saying to the golden Kaekiri:-- They'll me myself to kill devise; In bed the gold-hued nephew cries; As a lady, gold-hued sister rise," [40] the cobra returned [in her woman's form], and having suckled and bathed the infant, and sent it to sleep, again [becoming a snake] goes back to the ant-hill. Then the King having returned, asked the younger brother, "Where, Bola, is thy elder sister?" The child said, "Our father and Loku-Amma having cooked a sort of cakes came and gave us them, and Loku-Amma told elder sister to eat. Afterwards, as she did not eat, Loku-Amma, taking some, rubbed them on elder sister's mouth. At that very moment elder sister became a female cobra, and dropped down into an ant-hill." Then the King asked, "Did she not return again, after she had dropped down into the ant-hill?" The child replied, "While I was calling her she came back once." The King said, "Call her again in that very way." So the boy said to the golden Kaekiri, They'll me myself to kill devise; In bed the gold-hued nephew cries; As a lady, gold-hued sister rise." Afterwards, the cobra came [in her woman's form], and having suckled and bathed the child, and sent it to sleep, cooked for the King, and apportioned the food for him. Then when she tried to go away [in her cobra form], the King cut the cobra in two with his sword. One piece dropped down into the ant-hill; the other piece became the Queen, and remained there. After that, the King collected cobras, polangas, all kinds of snakes, and having, with the Queen, put them into two corn measures, they took the two boxes, and went to the house where the Queen's father and Loku-Amma were. There they gave them the two boxes, and said, "We have brought presents for you. Go into the house, and having shut the door, and lowered the bolt, open the mouths of the two boxes. Otherwise, do not open the mouths in the light." The King and Queen remained outside. The Queen's father and Loku-Amma, taking the two boxes, went into the house, and having shut the door and bolted it, opened the mouths of the two boxes. At that moment, the snakes that were in them came out, and bit both of them, and both of them died. Afterwards, the King and Queen came to the city, and stayed there. North-western Province. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 132, a girl received a fan, the shaking of which summoned a Prince, however far away he might be. At p. 239 also, a Queen received a golden bell, the ringing of which summoned the absent King. In the Sinhalese story, it is evidently to be understood that the shaking of the chain would be heard by the King while he was away, although the narrator omitted to mention this. NO. 14 THE FOUR DEAF PERSONS In a certain city there were a woman and a man, it is said. Both of them were deaf. A female child was born to that man, and this child was also deaf. The man to whom she was given in marriage when she grew up was also deaf. The girl's husband went to plough a rice field at the side of the high road. While he was ploughing, a man who was going along the road asked the way. Continuing to plough with the yoke of bulls, the deaf man said, "I brought this bull from the village. This other bull is from father-in-law's herd." "What are the facts about the bulls to me? Tell me the way," the man said. The deaf man replied, "The bull is from my herd." The man said again, "What are the facts about the bulls to me? Tell me the way." Then the deaf man, replying, "Don't say that another time," beat the man with the goad, and the man having received the blows went away. Afterwards, the deaf man's wife having brought cooked rice to the field, he unfastened the cattle which had been ploughing, and while he was eating said to the woman, "A man came just now, and saying, 'Whose is the yoke of bulls?' quarrelled with me about them." The woman replied, "Through seeking firewood and water and vegetables, and cooking, I was a little late in the day in coming." Having quarrelled with him over it, she bounded off, and having gone home, went to the place where her mother was plaiting a mat, and said to her, "Mother, our house man quarrelled with me, saying that I was late in taking the rice." The woman said, "Marry thy father! What is it to thee whether my works are good or not good now?" and she quarrelled with her. The woman having gone to the place where her husband was watching a sweet-potato chena during the day time, on account of thieves uprooting the plants, said, "To-day my daughter having taken cooked rice to the field, and having given it and returned, quarrelled with me, saying that the plaiting of my mat was bad. I also indeed scolded her a great deal, saying, 'What is it to thee whether my works are good or not good now?' I have come to tell you about it." Then the man said, "Bola, you infamous woman! Because I stopped in the chena you cooked and ate three sweet-potatoes, did you?" and he beat and drove away the woman. Then saying that it was useless to go on with the chena when his wife was eating the crop, he cut the fence, and abandoned it to the cattle. And the man left the village and the district, and went away. North-western Province. The quarrels of deaf persons through misunderstanding each other's remarks form a common subject of folk-tales. The mistakes of three deaf people are related in Folklore in Southern India (Natesa Sastri), p. 3 ff., and Tales of the Sun (Kingscote and N. Sastri), p. 1 ff. The Abbé Dubois published another amusing South Indian variant, which recounted the mistakes of four deaf men (le Pantcha-Tantra, 1872, p. 339 ff.). The four persons in it were a shepherd, a village watchman, a traveller who was riding a stolen horse, and a Brahmana. The shepherd requested the watchman to look after his flock during his temporary absence. In reply the latter refused to let him have the grass that he had cut. On the shepherd's return, he offered him a lame lamb as a reward for the trouble he thought the man had taken, but the watchman fancied he was being accused of laming it. They stopped a horseman who was riding past, and asked him to decide their quarrel. In reply, he admitted that the horse was not his. Each thought the decision was against him, and cursed him for it; and while the quarrel was at its height they referred it to a Brahmana who came up, who replied that it was useless for them to stop him, as he was determined never to return to his wicked wife. "In the crew of devils I defy any one to find one who equals her in wickedness," he said. The horse-thief, observing men coming in the distance, made off on foot, the shepherd returned to his flock, the watchman, seeing the lamb left, took it home in order to punish the shepherd for his false charge, and the Brahmana stayed at a rest-house, and went home again next day. In the Contes Soudanais (W. Africa), by C. Monteil, p. 18 ff., there is a story which resembles both this South Indian one and the Sinhalese one, in part. A shepherd in search of a lost sheep asked a cultivator about it. He replied, "My field begins before me and ends behind me." The shepherd found the sheep, and offered it to the cultivator in payment for quarters for the night. The latter thought he was being charged with stealing it, and took him before a village headman, who remarked, "Still another story about women! Truly this can't continue; I shall leave the village." When he told his wife to accompany him, she said she would never live with a man who was always talking of divorcing her. NO. 15 THE PRINCE AND THE YAKA A king of a single city had one son, who was a Prince of five years. At that time, a Yaka [41] having settled in that kingdom began to devour the people of the city, and by reason of this the whole city was like to be abandoned. At last, the King and the men of the city, making great efforts, seized the Yaka, and having made an iron house, put him in it, and shut the door. At that time it became necessary for the King of the city to go to war. After he had gone off to the war, when the King's son one day had opened the door of the house in which was the man-eating Yaka, and was looking at him, the Yaka fell down, and made obeisance to him, and signifying his misery to the Prince, began to weep. So the Prince, pitying him, told the Yaka to go away. Then the Yaka, saying to the Prince, "It is good. I will assist you, too," went away. After he had left, when the Prince had gone home the King who had gone to the war returned, having conquered. When he looked at the room in which the Yaka had been, the door was open. The King asked who had opened the door. The Queen replied that the Prince opened it. Then the King said, "To-morrow I must behead that wicked Prince." The Queen, being sorry at this, having tied up a packet of cooked rice, and given it and money to the Prince, and having given him a horse and sword, said, "The King has settled to behead you to-morrow for letting the Yaka escape. Go away at night to any country you like." So the Prince, taking the money and the bundle of cooked rice, and the sword, mounted the horse, and set off to go to another country. There was a travellers' shed at the road along which he was going. As he was unable to go further on account of weariness, he went that night to the travellers' shed; and having fastened the horse to one of the posts of the shed, he lay down, placing the bundle of rice at his side. Then seeing a youth running along the road, he called him, and asked, "Boy, where art thou going?" The boy said, "I am going to a place where they give to eat and to wear." Then the Prince said, "I will give you pay. Stop and look after my horse." The youth said, "It is good. I will stay." The Prince said, "I do not know the fords in this country; therefore tell me of a path by which we can go to another country." The youth replied, "There is a river here. On the other side of it there is a city, to go to which there is not a short road from here. However, there is another road further on. By it we must pass over a bridge." "If so," said the Prince, "having bathed here let us go." Having seen that three Princesses who were at the city on the other side were bathing, he also was pleased at bathing there. After he had gone to bathe, the three Princesses of the King of the country on the other side, when they looked saw the good figure of this Prince. After that, as the Prince wished to go after bathing, the youth who was to look after the horse having mounted it, began to ride away, wearing the Prince's clothes, and taking the sword. When the Prince, having bathed, and seen the Princesses on the other bank putting on their clothes, came ashore to put on his clothes, on his looking for them there were no clothes, no sword, no horse. The youngest Princess of the three who had bathed on the other side well knew what had happened. This Prince, having on only his bathing cloth, bounded off, and while running along overtook the horse and youth. When he was still far away, the youth said, "Do not come near me; should you come I will cut you with the sword. If you are willing to look after this horse, take hold of its tail and come." Then because that one in any case must go to the city, he said, "It is good," and having taken hold of the horse's tail went with him. Going thus from there, they arrived at the city. It was a custom of the King of that country that, having sent a guard, when any one of the men of another country arrived, he was to write the names of those persons, and come to the King. When these persons arrived, a guard being there asked their names. The youth who came on the horse said, "My name is Manikka Settiya; except the youth who looks after my horse, there is no one else with me." The guard having gone, said to the King, "Lord, a person called Manikka Settiyare has come and is there, together with a horse-keeper." Then the King thought, "Because the man called Manikka Settiyare has this name, Manikka, he will be able to value my gem" (manikya). A gem of the King's having been taken through the whole country, no one had been able to value it. So having summoned that Manikka Settiyare, the King, after giving him food and drink, showed him it, and said, "Manikka Settiyare, there is my gem. Can you value it?" That Manikka Settiyare replied, "My horse-keeper will tell you the value." The King became angry because he said, "My horse-keeper will tell you it," and indignantly caused the horse-keeper to be brought speedily, and asked, "Can you value this?" The horse-keeper Prince said, "If I try hard I can." Then the King gave it into his hands. Taking it and weighing it, and learning when he looked at it that there was sand inside the gem, he said, "As it now appears to me, the value of this gem is four sallis" (half-farthings). The King becoming angry asked, "How do you know?" The Prince replied, "There is sand inside this gem." Then the King asked, "Can you cut it, and show me it?" The horse-keeper said, "If you will ask for the sword belonging to that Manikka Settiyare, I will cut it and show you it." After that, the King gave him the sword that was in the hand of the Settiyare. Then the horse-keeper, taking the sword, and remembering the name of his father the King, and thinking, "By the favour of the Gods, if it be appointed that it will happen to me to exercise sovereignty over this city, I must cut this gem like cutting a Kaekiri fruit," put the gem on the table, and cut it with the sword. Then the sand that was in the gem fell out, making a sound, "Sara sara." Afterwards the King, thinking, "When this horse-keeper knows so much, how much doesn't this Settirala know!" having given food and drink to the horse-keeper, and also to the Settiyare, and having greatly assisted them, made them stay there a little time. The youngest Princess well knew the wicked things that this Settiyare was saying about the horse-keeper youth. On account of her great sorrow concerning this horse-keeper, the Princess instructed the butler who gave the food at the royal house: "Give the horse-keeper who accompanied that Manikka Settiyare, food like that you prepare for me, and a bed for sleeping on, and assist him a little." After that, the butler and the rest helped him. The Prince was unwilling to enjoy that pleasure. "Ane! I am a horse-keeper. Do not you assist me in that way," he said. After that, the King's youngest Princess, for the sake of sending the Prince away from the post of looking after the horse, went to the King, and wept while saying thus: "Ane! Father, [42] because of this youth who looks after them, my sheep are nearly finished. On that account, taking the horse-keeper who came with that Settiyare, to look after my sheep, let us send the youth who looks after the sheep to look after the horse." The King replied, "Having asked the Settiyare we can do it." The King having asked the Settiyare the thing she told him, "You can do it," he said; and after he had thus spoken to the Settiyare it was done. So the horse-keeper went to look after the sheep. Having gone there, while he was looking after them for a long time, the sheep increased in number by hundreds of thousands. One day, when the King had gone for hunting sport into the midst of the forest, he was seized there by a Yaka. After being seized, he undertook to give the Yaka the King's three Princesses, and having escaped by undertaking this charge he came back. Next day he made a proclamation through the whole city by beat of tom-toms. What was it? "Having been seized yesterday in the forest by a Yaka, I only escaped by promising to give him my three Princesses. To-morrow a Princess, on the day after to-morrow a Princess, on the day after that a Princess; in this manner in three days I am giving the three Princesses. If a person who is able to do it should deliver them, having married that person to them, I will appoint him to the kingdom." Then Manikka Settiyare said, "I can do it." On that day, that Prince who was looking after the sheep went to look after them. While he was there, a man, taking a sheep, ran off into the chena jungle. While bounding after him in order to recover it, having gone very far, the Prince saw him go down the hole of a polanga snake. After going near the polanga's hole, and looking down it, and seeing that the hole descended into the earth, the Prince went along that tunnel. Having gone on from there it became dark, and going on in the darkness he saw a very great light. Having gone to the light, when he looked about there was a man asleep, wearing very many clothes. Then it was in the mind of this shepherd to go away, and in his mind not to go. If you should say, "Who was sleeping there?" it was the Yaka who had formerly been in that iron house, and had left it. That Yaka at that very time saw in a dream that the Prince who had sent him out of that house had come to him, and was there. While seeing him in the dream, the sleeping Yaka awoke, and when he looked up the Prince was beside him. The Yaka, getting up from there, went to the Prince, and while he was embracing him the Prince became afraid. Then the Yaka said, "Lord, let not Your Majesty be afraid. The Yaka whom you sent away from that house is I indeed." After that, the Prince sat down. Then the Yaka asked, "Where are you going?" The Prince replied, "That I sent you away, our father the King decreed as a fault in me, and appointed that I should be beheaded. Then our mother, having tied up and given me a bundle of cooked rice, told me to go anywhere I wanted." Having said this he told him all the matter. After that, the Yaka brought the lost sheep, and having given it to the Prince, asked, "What more do you want?" The Prince said, "I want another assistance." "What is the assistance?" he asked. The Prince replied, "After I had remained in this way, the King, the father of the Princess who looks after the sheep, and of two more Princesses, having gone hunting and been caught by a Yaka, is giving the three Princesses to him as demon offerings. If there should be a person who can deliver them, he has made proclamation by beat of tom-toms that having given to him the three Princesses in marriage, he will also give him a part of the kingdom." The Yaka said, "It is good. I will bring and give you victory in it. Be good enough to do the thing I tell you. After you have eaten rice in the evening, be good enough to come to this palace." He then allowed the Prince to return home. The Prince having eaten his rice in good time, went to the Yaka. After he had gone there, the Yaka having given him a good suit of clothes, and a horse, and a sword, instructed him: "As you go from here there will be a path. Having gone along that path, there will be a great rough tree. Go aside at it, and while you are waiting there the Yaka from afar will make a cry, 'Hu.' Having come to the middle of the chena jungle he will say again, 'Hu, Hu, Hu.' At the next step, having bounded to the place where the Princess is stopping, he will again say, 'Hu.' After he has said this, as he comes close to the Princess you will be good enough to step in front. Then the Yaka, becoming afraid, will look in the direction of your face; then be good enough to cut him down with the sword." The Prince having gone in that manner to the tree, when he looked about, Manikka Settiyare having climbed aloft was in a fork of the trunk, lamenting, having turned his back. While he was lamenting he saw this Prince coming, and [thinking it was the Yaka], trembled and lost his senses. Then, in the very manner foretold, the Yaka came, crying and crying out. As he came near the Princess, the Prince cut him down, and having drawn out and cut off his tongue, and also asked for a ring off the hand of the Princess, came away to the palace of the friendly Yaka. Having arrived there, and placed there the clothes, the horse, and the tongue, all of them, he returned to his house before any one arose. Manikka Settiyare, having descended in the morning, chopped the Yaka's body into bits, and smeared the blood on his sword. While he was there, the King went in the morning to see if the Princess was dead or alive. Having arrived there, he saw Manikka Settiyare there looking on, and he returned to the city, taking Manikka Settiyare and the Princess. On the next night, also, they went and tied another Princess. The Prince that night also having gone there, killed a Yaka who came, and cut off the Yaka's tongue, and after asking for a jewelled ring came away. That time, also, Manikka Settiyare went there, and after smearing blood on his sword remained there. The King went there in the morning, and calling the two persons came away. On the following day he did the very same to the other Princess. This Prince, having taken away the three jewelled rings that were on the hands of the three Princesses, and the three tongues of the three Yakas that he had cut off, remained silent. As Manikka Settiya had come falsely smearing blood on his sword each morning, as though he had killed the Yakas, the King sent letters to all royal personages: "Manikka Settiya has cut down three such powerful Yakas, and has delivered the three Princesses who had been devoted to be given as a demon offering to the Yaka who seized me when I went hunting. Because of that, I am giving the three Princesses to him in marriage. You must come to the festival, and look at the Yakas who have been killed." After that, the royal persons came from those countries. While they were there, that Prince went to the palace of the friendly Yaka. The Yaka having given that Prince golden clothes, and a golden crown and necklace, and a golden sword, told him to go, taking those rings and tongues, and mounted on a white horse. The Prince putting on those things, and mounting the white horse, went. When he went to the palace where the royal persons were who had come to fulfil the object of the occasion, those royal persons became afraid, and having made obeisance to him, asked, "Lord, where is Your Majesty going?" "'I have cut down a very powerful sort of Yaka.' Letters went through foreign countries to this effect, and that there is a marriage festival for the person who killed the Yaka. On account of the news I also have come to look," he said. After that, those royal persons said, "It is good, Lord," and with pleasure showed him the heads of the Yakas. Then this Prince asked, "Is there or is there not a tongue to every living being whatever?" Every one said, "Yes, there is one." The Prince having looked for the tongues in the mouths of the Yakas, asked, "What is this, that there are not tongues for these Yakas?" After that, every one asked it of Manikka Settiya. Manikka Settiya being afraid, remained without speaking. Then he asked it of the two eldest Princesses. The two Princesses said, "We do not know." At the time when he was asking it of the youngest Princess, she replied, seizing the hand of the Prince who split off the tongues and took the jewelled rings, "This one went away after taking in his hand the ring, and cutting off the tongue of the Yaka." After that, the Prince brought to light the three rings and the three tongues, and showed them. Speedily having beheaded and cast out Manikka Settiya, they carried out the wedding festival of the marriage of the three Princesses to the Prince. After that, those royal personages went to their own kingdoms, and the kingdom having been bestowed on this Prince he remained there ruling it. North-western Province. In the Jataka story No. 510 (vol. iv, p. 305), an iron house was built, in which a King's son was confined for sixteen years in order to preserve him from a female Yaka who had carried off two children born previously. The demon was unable to break into it. In the Jataka story No. 513 (vol. v, p. 13), there is an account of a King who was seized by an Ogre while hunting. The latter allowed the King to go home on a promise to come back next day to be eaten. His heroic son returned in his place, but was spared by the Ogre. The Prince said of these beings, "The eyes of Ogres are red, and do not wink. They cast no shadow, and are free from all fear." NO. 16 HOW A YAKA AND A MAN FOUGHT In a certain country three men went shooting, [43] it is said. At the time when the three persons were going, one man was obliged to go aside for a certain purpose. The man went aside without telling those two men. A Yaka saw the man separate from those two persons. Having seen it, the Yaka seized the man, and began to push against him. At that time those two men were very distant. The men having said, "What has happened to this man?" came to look for him. When they came [they saw that] there was a black one near the man. The two persons spoke together, "Let us shoot this black one." So they shot [43] him. Then the black one went out of the way. Afterwards the men went to look near at hand. When they went the man had fallen. After that, having taken hold of the man and raised him, when they looked at him the man's body having gone quite slimy he was unconscious also. Afterwards, while the two men, raising [and carrying] that man, were [endeavouring] to come away, the Yaka did not allow them to come. He shakes the bushes; he breaks the trees; he blocked up the path all along. One man of the two men looked upward. Then the Yaka spit into the man's eye, and the man's eye became blind. Well then, the two men having uttered and uttered spells, with pain lifting up [and carrying] that man, came to the village. Having come there, and summoned a Yaksa Vedarala [44] to restore the man to consciousness, when he arrived they showed him this man. Then the Yaksa Vedarala told them to warm a large pot of water. So they warmed the water. After that, having bathed the man, and having uttered spells, after the Vedarala had tied protective written spells and diagrams [45] on him the man became conscious. After that, the Yaksa Vedarala and those two men asked about the circumstances that had occurred. The man said, "A Yaka having come, seizing me pressed against me for me to roll over on to the ground. What of that? I did not fall [on account of it]. After you two fired, indeed, I fell. Then the Yaka bounded off, and went away. Well, I don't know anything after that. Whether you came and lifted me up, or what, I do not know." The man having recovered from that, again the Yaka came, and having possessed the man he began to have the powers conferred by "possession." [46] Afterwards that Yaksa Vedarala having come again, and given the Yaka many offerings placed on frames (dola pideni), the Yaka went out of the way. The man remained very well [afterwards]. North-western Province. NO. 17 CONCERNING A MAN AND TWO YAKAS In a certain country there was a man who had cut a chena. The man, without any one joining with him, went one day and made ready to cut a fresh chena at a place where there was a large tree. Then the Yaka who dwelt in the tree became afraid, and having descended to the ground, and having said, "Lord, do not cut a chena here. At every eventide I will bring and give you rice, coconuts, chillies, etc.," he made obeisance. The man said, "It is good," and went home. That very evening the Yaka brought and gave him rice and all things sufficient for curries, and went away. After that, in no long time the man became in a good position and wealthy, through the Yaka's bringing him his provisions. When coming afterwards, the Yaka met another Yaka, who asked, "Where are you taking those things?" The Yaka replied, "A man came to cut the residence in which I stay. On account of it, I promised to give him food and goods." Then the Yaka said, "Do thou give the things to-day only. I will kill the man to-morrow." The other Yaka said, "It is good." On the following day, when the man of that house was going somewhere or other, the Yaka who said, "I will kill him," came to the house, and having crept under the bed remained there. At that time the man returned, and sitting on the bed, said to his wife, "Bola, I am hungry enough to eat a Yaka." His wife had placed the knife on the shelf, and having plucked a pine-apple had put it under the bed. The woman [not seeing the Yaka], said, "Look there! On the shelf. Look there! Under the bed." So the man, taking the knife that was on the shelf, went near the bed to get the pine-apple. Then the Yaka, thinking he was coming to kill and eat him, said, "Lord, do not eat me. I will bring and give you each month anything you want." So the man saying, "It is good," sent away the Yaka. Then the Yaka met that other Yaka, and said, "When I went to set you free I also was caught. Both of us are in the same state." After that he gave the things monthly. Then this man having become a great wealthy person, remained so. North-western Province. In a variant in Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), pp. 258-260, a barber frightened a Bhuta (evil spirit) who was going to eat him, by threatening to put him in his bag. He took out his looking-glass, and showed the Bhuta his reflection, which the evil spirit thought was another imprisoned one. The Bhuta promised to obey the barber's orders, and provided money, and a granary filled with paddy. The Bhuta's uncle told him that he had been cheated; but he was treated in the same way, and made to build another granary, and fill it with rice. NO. 18 THE THREE QUESTIONS [47] In a certain country, as a man was going through the middle of a city he met a man of the city, and asked him, "In what manner does the King of this city rule?" The man said, "It does not appear to us that he has any fault." Then the man said [sarcastically]: "Does the King of this city know these three matters--the centre of this country, the number of the stars in the sky, and the work which the King of the world of the Devas [48] does?" Having asked this, that wicked man went through the midst of the city. Afterwards, the man of the city came to the palace, and declared to the King that there were three matters regarding which a man had wanted information. After he had informed him, the King asked, "What are the three matters?" The man said, "The centre of the country, the number of the stars in the sky, and the work which the King of the world of the Devas does; these three matters," he said. Then the King, having caused the Ratemahatmayas--(the highest provincial Chiefs)--to be told that he ordered them to come, after he had asked them concerning these three matters, the Chiefs said that they could not tell him the answers. When they said that, the king commanded that the Ratemahatmayas should be beheaded. Thereupon the executioners came and beheaded them. After that, he caused the Adikaramas--(the Ministers)--to be brought, and asked them if they knew these three matters. Those persons also said that they could not explain them. He commanded that party also to be beheaded, and the executioners came and beheaded them. Having beheaded all the people of both parties, there remained still the Royal Preceptor [49] only, so he caused the Royal Preceptor to be brought, and asked him regarding these matters. Then the Royal Preceptor said, "I cannot tell you about them to-day. I will tell you to-morrow." After he had said this he returned to his house, and having come there, lying down prone on the bed he remained without speaking a word. The youth who looked after the Royal Preceptor's goats came at that time, and asked, "For what reason are you lying down, Sir?" The Royal Preceptor said, "They beheaded the Adikarama party and the Ratemahatmaya party to-day; they will behead me to-morrow. The post that I have told thee of [under the executioner] will be made over to one's self." The youth said, "Lord, you must tell me the reasons for it." The Royal Preceptor replied, "If I should be unable to-morrow to say which is the centre of the country, the number of the stars, and the work which the God of the world of the Devas does, they will behead me to-morrow." Then the youth said, "Are you so much troubled about that? I will say those very things for you." Afterwards, at the time when the Royal Preceptor, on the morning of the following day, was setting off to go to the palace, he called the youth, and went with him to the palace. The King asked for the answers to these three sayings. Then the Royal Preceptor said, "What is there in these for me to tell you? Even the youth who looks after the goats for me knows those three sayings." Then he told the youth to come forward, and the youth came near the King. The King asked, "Dost thou know the centre of the country, and the number of the stars, and the work which the God of the world of the Devas does?" The youth fixed a stick in the ground, and showed it. "Behold! Here is the centre of one's country. Measure from the four quarters, and after you have looked at the account, if it should not be correct be good enough to behead me," he said. The King lost over that. Then he told him to say the number of the stars in the sky. Throwing down on the ground the goat-skin that he was wearing, "Count these hairs, and count the stars in the sky. Should they not be equal be good enough to behead me," he said. The King lost over that also. Thirdly, he told him to say what work the God of the world of the Devas does. The youth said, "I will not say it thus." The King asked, "If so, how will you say it?" The youth said, "Should you decorate me with the Royal Insignia, and put on me the Crown, and give the Sword into my hands, and place me on the Lion-throne, I will say it." Then the King, having caused that youth to bathe, and having decorated him, placed him upon the Lion-throne. After that, he called the executioners, and said to them, "Ade! This one beheaded so many [innocent] people; because of that take him and go, and having beheaded him, cast him out. Behold! That indeed is the work which the King of the world of the Devas does," he said. Thus, having killed the foolish King, the youth who looked after the goats obtained the sovereignty; and ruling the kingdom together with the Royal Preceptor, he remained there in prosperity. North-western Province. The dramatic, and apparently improbable, ending of this Kandian story is founded upon an historical fact. It is recorded in the Mahavansa, the Sinhalese history (Part I, chapter 35), that King Yasalalaka-Tissa, who reigned in Ceylon from 52 to 60 A.D., had a young gate porter or messenger called Subha, who closely resembled him in appearance. The Mahavansa relates the story of the King's deposition by him as follows (Turnour's translation):-- "The monarch Yasalalaka, in a merry mood, having decked out the said Subha, the messenger, in the vestments of royalty, and seated him on the throne, putting the livery bonnet of the messenger on his own head, stationed himself at a palace gate, with the porter's staff in his hand. While the ministers of state were bowing down to him who was seated on the throne, the King was enjoying the deception. "He was in the habit, from time to time, of indulging in these scenes. On a certain occasion (when this farce was repeated), addressing himself to the merry monarch, the messenger exclaimed: 'How does that messenger dare to laugh in my presence?' and succeeded in getting the King put to death. The messenger Subha thus usurped the sovereignty, and administered it for six years." A variant was related to me by the resident monk at a Buddhist temple to the south of Colombo. Its tenour was as follows:-- THE FOUR DIFFICULT QUESTIONS. A certain King put four questions to a Sangha-raja, or Superior of the Buddhist monks. The first one was, "How deep is the sea?" the second, "How many stars are there?" the third, "Which is the centre of the earth?" and fourthly, he must tell the King what he, the King, thought. The Sangha-raja was allowed a certain time in which to find answers to the questions. One day a monk seeing him sad, asked him the reason, and was told that the King had put these questions to him, and had threatened to take his life if he could not answer them. The monk told him not to have any fear, and said that he would go on the appointed day, and answer the King. When the day came round, the monk dressed himself in the Sangha-raja's robes, and appeared before the King, saying that he was ready to answer the questions. The King asked him, "How deep is the sea?" He replied, "At first it is knee-deep; as you go on it is waist-deep; further on it is up to the neck; and beyond that it is over the head." The King was satisfied. He next asked, "How many stars are there?" "Twenty lakshas (two millions)," said the monk. "If you do not believe it, count them." With this answer, also, the King was satisfied. He then inquired, "Where is the centre of the earth?" The monk took a staff which he had brought with him, and fixed it upright in the ground. "Here is the centre," he said. "Measure each way from it, and you will find the distance the same." The King was satisfied with this answer also. "Lastly, you must tell me what I am thinking," the King said. The monk replied, "You think I am the Sangha-raja, but I am only one of his monks." So the four questions were all answered satisfactorily. I heard the following version in Cairo:-- A certain King said to his Chief Minister, "Find me a man who can measure the world and show me the centre of it, and who can count me the number of the stars." The Minister considered the matter carefully, but could think of no way of complying with the King's orders. At last his wife said, "I can see that something is troubling you. Tell me what it is; perhaps I can assist you." Then he told her the orders of the King, and that he did not know where to look for any one who could do what the King desired. "Go," she said, "to the coffee-dealer's shop. You will find there a man who is always taking hashish. He may be able to help you" [his mental powers being exalted by the drug]. So he went to the coffee-dealer's, and told the hashish-eater his difficulty. "I can soon solve these questions for you," replied the hashish-eater. "Take me to the King." Thereupon they proceeded to the palace, and the Minister introduced the hashish-eater to the King. He came with a donkey, which was drawing a great load of rope. "First show me the centre of the world," said the King. "This place is the centre," said the hashish-eater. "If you doubt it, send your men to drag the other end of this rope up to the sky, and I will prove to you that you are just in the middle." "Very well," said the King, "that is a satisfactory answer. Now give me the number of the stars." "Let your people count the hairs on my donkey. You will find that they are exactly equal to the stars in number," said the man. The King admitted that he could not prove that he was answered incorrectly. The English version is given in the ballad termed "King John and the Abbot of Canterbury," and is found in Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (ed. 1844, ii, 328). I give some extracts, etc., for the benefit of readers in Ceylon, because of its resemblance to the second Sinhalese story. With a view to seizing the Abbot's wealth, the King put three questions to him, the penalty for failing to answer them being beheading. The Abbot received three weeks' grace in which to discover the replies, but the wisest doctors could not assist him: Away rode the Abbot all sad at that word; And he rode to Cambridge and Oxenforde; But never a doctor there was so wise, That could with his learning an answer devise. However, as in the Kandian version, the shepherd came to his assistance, and took his place on the appointed day, robed as the Abbot, whose features resembled his, and accompanied by the usual train of servants and monks. Now welcome, sire abbot, the king he did say, 'Tis well thou'rt come back to keepe thy day; For and if thou canst answer my questions three, Thy life and thy living both saved shall bee. And first, when thou seest me here in this stead, With my crown of golde so fair on my head, Among all my liege-men so noble of birthe, Tell me to one penny what I am worth. "For thirty pence our Saviour was sold Amonge the false Jewes, as I have bin told; And twenty-nine is the worth of thee, For I thinke, thou are one penny worser than hee." The king he laughed, and swore by St. Bittel, I did not think I had been worth so littel! --Now secondly tell me, without any doubt, How soone I may ride this whole world about. "You must rise with the sun, and ride with the same, Until the next morning he riseth againe; And then your grace need not make any doubt, But in twenty-four hours you'll ride it about." The king he laughed, and swore by St. Jone, I did not think, it could be gone so soone! --Now from the third question thou must not shrinke, But tell me here truly what I do thinke. "Yea, that shall I do, and make your grace merry: You thinke I'm the abbot of Canterbury; But I'm his poor shepheard, as plain you may see, That am come to beg pardon for him and for mee." The king he laughed, and swore by the masse, Ile make thee lord abbot this day in his place! "Now naye, my liege, be not in such speede, For alacke I can neither write, ne reade." Four nobles a weeke, then, I will give thee, For this merry jest thou hast showne unto mee; And tell the old abbot when thou comest home, Thou hast brought him a pardon from good king John. NO. 19 THE FAITHLESS PRINCESS In a certain country there is a Prince, it is said. The Prince, saying that women are faithless, does not marry. The God Sakra having ascertained this, came in the appearance of a man, and asked at the hand of the Prince whether if he created a Princess out of his own very body, and gave her to him, he would be willing to take her in marriage. The Prince said, "It is good." Afterwards the God Sakra created a Princess from the Prince's body, and gave her to him. When the Prince and Princess, having got married, had been living together for a very long time, the Princess associated with a Nagaya. [50] When they had been thus for a long time, the Princess and the Nagaya spoke together as to how to kill the Princess's Prince. Then the Nagaya said, "Ask at the hand of the Prince where the Prince's death is. After you have got to know the place where his death is, I will bite [51] him there." After that, the Princess asked at the hand of the Prince, "Where is your death?" The Prince did not tell her. Every day the Princess was asking it. On a certain day the Prince said, "To-day my death is in my thumb." Then the Princess told the Nagaya, "He said that his death is in his thumb." So the Nagaya went [in his snake form, as a cobra], and stopped on the path on which the Prince was going for his bath, in order to bite [51] him. Afterwards, the Prince's people went first; the Prince went in the middle. Then the people who went first saw the Nagaya, and killed it. Afterwards, the people and the Prince having returned from bathing, the Prince told at the hand of the Princess, "As we were going to bathe to-day a cobra was on the path; my people killed it." The Princess, clasping her hands with grief, asked, "Where was it?" The Prince told her of the place where the cobra was staying, and she knew that it was the Nagaya. Afterwards the Princess having given gold to the goldsmith, and having got a waist-chain made, told him to make a case for it. The goldsmith made it, and gave it. Then the Princess went to the place where the cobra was, and cut off its hood; and placing the cobra in the case of the golden waist-chain, the Princess put it round her waist. Having it there, when they had eaten and drunk in the evening, and lighted the lamp in the house, both of them went into the house. Then the Princess said to the Prince, "I will ask you a riddle. Should you be unable to explain it, I will kill you. Should you explain it, you shall kill me." The Prince said "Ha," and both of them swore it. The Princess saying, The Naga belt Naga patiya (Is) the golden waist-chain. Ran hawadiya. Explain (it), friend. Tora, sakiya. told the Prince to solve it. For fifteen paeyas (six hours), without extinguishing the lamp, he tried and tried to explain it. He could not. So she was to kill the Prince next day. A Devatawa (godling) who drank the smoke of the lamp of that house, was there looking on [invisibly] until the lamp was extinguished. After the lamp was put out, having drunk a little smoke, he took a little that was only slightly burnt with him for his wife. The Devatawa and Devatawi lived in an Ironwood tree on the roadside. This Prince's elder sister, and the man to whom she was given in marriage, having set off to come to the Prince's city, stayed that night at the resting-place under the Ironwood tree. Then that Devatawa having brought a little of the under-burnt smoke of the lamp, after he had given it to the Devatawi she quarrelled with him until fifteen paeyas (six hours) had gone, saying, "Where have you been?" The Devatawa said, "Do not quarrel. In such and such a city, such and such a Prince's Princess having associated with a Nagaya, the Prince's people killed the Nagaya. Having cut off the Nagaya's hood, and laid aside her golden waist-chain, putting it round her waist in order to kill the Prince, because of her anger at the killing of the Nagaya, the Princess told a riddle to the Prince. Having sworn that should the Prince be unable to solve it she is to kill the Prince: should he solve it he is to kill the Princess, the Princess said, The Naga belt Is the golden waist-chain. Explain it, friend. "From the evening, without extinguishing the lamp, he tried to solve it. The Prince could not explain it. After fifteen paeyas had gone by, he put out the light. Up to the very time when he extinguished the lamp, so long I remained there. She said that she will kill the Prince to-morrow." Hearing it, there stayed below the Ironwood tree the Prince's elder sister, and the man to whom she was given. After having heard it, as it became light, when they were coming along to the Prince's house, they saw from afar that they were going to behead the Prince. The elder sister said from afar, "A! Don't behead him. I will solve that riddle." Having come near, the Prince's elder sister explained the riddle in the manner stated by the Devatawa. So the Prince was saved, and they beheaded the Princess. North-western Province. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 227, a Fakir split a King, and made a wife for him from half his body, but warned him that she would be unfaithful. She fell in love with one of his wazirs, but they were detected, and she was killed. NO. 20 THE PRINCE WHO DID NOT GO TO SCHOOL In a certain country there is a King, it is said, and there are two Princes of the King. The two Princes are sent to school, and as they are going from the palace the two go along together. After they have walked a little way, the younger brother goes along the path to the school, and having arrived at the school, learns his letters and returns home. The elder brother, after playing and playing in the water of the river, puts the school aside, it is said; and having come round that way and joined the younger brother, again comes to the palace with him. After many days had gone by in that manner, the King one day told the two Princes, "To-day I must look at your lessons." The younger brother said, "Father-King, I indeed go to the school, and having said my lessons return. Elder brother and I having met here, and set off together, after we have gone part of the way, where elder brother goes I do not know. Having gone somewhere or other, when I have left the school and am returning, elder brother meets me on the road, and we two come again to the palace. I can say my lessons; elder brother indeed cannot." After that, the King looked into the lessons of the two Princes. When he looked, the younger Prince's lessons were good. When he asked the elder Prince, he knew nothing. So the King settled to behead the elder Prince. The King had, besides, a Prince older than that Prince. He said to that elder Prince, "Behead this one." Then the Prince having taken a sword to the chena jungle, and killed a "Blood-sucker" lizard (Calotes sp.), returned after rubbing the blood on the sword, and showed it to the King. "Behold! Father-King, I cut younger brother," he said. Afterwards their mother having cooked a bundle of rice, and given it, and also a sword, to the Prince who was ordered to be beheaded, said, "Go to any place you like." As the Prince was going away taking the bundle of cooked rice and the sword, he met with a man. The man having uprooted Palmira trees and Coconut trees, was taking them away and tying a fence. Having seen this, the Prince said to that man, "Come thou and go with me." The man having said "Ha," as the two persons were going along together, another man was cutting the earthen ridges in a rice field. The blade of the man's digging hoe was as large as a liyadda (one of the squares into which the rice field was divided). Having seen that, the Prince said to that man who was cutting the ridge in the field, "Come thou and go with me." The man having said "Ha," and laid down his digging hoe at that very place, came away with those two persons. As the three were going along together, they saw yet a man ploughing. Having seen that the man ploughed a liyadda at one ploughing (furrow), the Prince said, "Come thou and go with me." The man said "Ha," and laying down his plough at that very place, went with the three persons. The three persons whom the Prince had met with on the way were three giants. The four persons having gone on and on, went near the house of a Rakshasi at a city. Sitting down there, the Prince said to one of the giants, "There! Go to that house and bring thou cooking pots and fire." So that giant went to the house of the Rakshasi. As he arrived there, the Rakshasi was pouring water over (i.e. bathing) a child. The giant went near the Rakshasi, and said, "Ane! Give me fire and cooking pots." The Rakshasi told him the way to the house in which she ate human flesh, and said, "There! They are in that house; take them." After that, at the time when the giant was going into the house, the Rakshasi went running and shut the door, so that the giant could not come out. Those two giants and the Prince remained a long time looking out; the giant did not come. Afterwards the Prince again told a giant to go. The giant having gone, asked the Rakshasi, "Didn't a man come here?" The Rakshasi said, "He did not come here." Then the giant said, "If so, give me cooking pots and fire." Then the Rakshasi, in the same manner in which she told that giant, showed him the way to the house in which she ate human flesh. As the giant was going into the house, the Rakshasi, having gone running, shut the door. That Prince and the third giant having been there a long time, neither of the giants came. Afterwards the Prince told the other giant to go. The giant went, and asked the Rakshasi, "Didn't two men come here?" The Rakshasi said, "They did not come here." So the giant said, "If so, give me cooking pots and fire." The Rakshasi, in that very way having told him the path to the house in which she ate human flesh, at the time when the giant was going into it shut the door. The Prince remained looking out for a long time; the three giants did not come. Afterwards the Prince, taking his sword, came near the Rakshasi, and asked, "Didn't three men come here?" The Rakshasi said, "They did not come here." Then the Prince, seizing the Rakshasi's hair knot, prepared to chop at her with the sword. "Give me quickly my three men; if not, I shall chop thy head off," he said. Then the Rakshasi, saying, "Ane! Do not kill me. At any place where you want it I will assist you," gave him the three men. After that, the Prince and the three giants having gone away without killing the Rakshasi, the Prince caused the three giants to stay at a city; and having given into their hands a Blue-lotus flower, said, "Should I not be alive, this Blue-lotus flower will fade, and the lime trees at your house will die." So saying, the Prince, taking his sword, went quite alone. After going a long way he came to a city, and having gone to the house of a Rakshasa, when he looked, the Rakshasa had gone for human flesh as food and only a girl was there. The Prince asked the girl for a resting-place. The girl said, "Ane! What have you come here for? A Rakshasa lives at this house. The Rakshasa having eaten the men of this city they are now finished." The Prince said, "I will kill him. Are there dried coconuts and meneri [52] here?" The girl said there were. The Prince told her to bring them, and the girl brought them. Then the Prince asked, "How does he come to eat men?" The girl said, "Having come twelve miles--(three gawwas)--away, he cries, 'Hu'; having come eight miles away, he cries, 'Hu'; and having come four miles away, he cries, 'Hu'; and then he comes to this house." After that, the Prince having spread out, from the stile at the fence, the meneri seed and the dried coconuts, over the whole of the open ground near the front of the house, went to sleep in the veranda, placing the sword near him, and laying his head on the waist pocket of the girl. Then the Rakshasa, when twelve miles away, cried, "Hu." Tears fell from the girl's eyes, and dropped on the Prince's head. The Prince arose, and said to the girl, "What are you weeping for?" Then the Rakshasa cried, "Hu," eight miles away. The girl said, "There! The Rakshasa cried, 'Hu,' eight miles away." Continuing to say, "He will cry, 'Hu,' the next time, and then come here," the girl wept. The Prince, having told the girl not to weep, took the sword in his hand, and while he was there the Rakshasa, crying "Hu," came into the open space near the house. Then the Prince chopped at the Rakshasa with his sword, and the Rakshasa went backward. Thereupon the Prince said, "Will not even the Rakshasi whom I set free that day without killing her, render assistance in this?" The Rakshasi came immediately, and struck a thorn into the crown of the Rakshasa's head, and at that very instant the Rakshasa died. After that, the Prince buried the body, and marrying the girl remained there. When he had been there a long time, a widow-mother came and said to the Prince and the girl, "Children, I will come and live with you, as you are alone." Both of them said "Ha," so the woman stayed there. After she had lived there a long time, the woman said to the girl, "Daughter, ask in what place is the life of the Prince." Afterwards the girl said to the Prince, "Mother is asking where your life is." The Prince said, "My life is in my neck." The girl told the woman, "I asked him; he said his life is in his neck." The woman said, "It is not in the neck. He is speaking falsely. Ask again." So the girl asked again. The Prince said, "My life is in my breast." The girl told the woman, "He said it is in his breast." The woman said, "It is not in the breast. Tell him to speak the truth." Afterwards she said again to the Prince, "Mother says it is not in your breast. She said that you are to speak the truth." Then the Prince said, "My life is in my sword." So the girl told the widow-mother, "He said it is in his sword." When a long time had gone by, one day the Prince, laying down the sword, went to sleep. After the Prince had gone to sleep, the widow woman and that girl having quietly taken the sword, put it in the fire on the hearth. Then as the sword burnt and burnt away the Prince died. After that, the widow woman took the girl, and gave her to the King, and the woman also stayed at the palace. Then the Blue-lotus flower which the Prince gave to those three giants on going away, faded, and the lime trees died. When the giants saw this they said, "Ade! Our elder brother will have died," and having spoken together, the three giants came to seek the Prince. Having come there, and asked the men of the city at which the Prince stayed, regarding him, they went to the house in which he lived, and searched for him. As they were digging in a heap of rubbish, they found that a little bit of the end of the sword was there, and they took it. Afterwards the giants placed it on a bed, and after they had tended it carefully, the sword little by little became larger. When the sword became completely restored, the Prince was created afresh. Afterwards, when the Prince looked to see if the girl whom he had taken in marriage was there, neither the girl nor the widow-mother was there. Then the Prince went with the three giants to the King's palace, and on looking there they learnt that the girl was married to the King, and that the widow woman also was there. So the Prince said to the widow woman, "Quickly give me the Princess whom I married." The woman said, "Ane! The Princess whom I knew is not here. She did not come with me." Then the Prince cut off the woman's head with his sword, and having gone to the King, asked, "Where is my Princess? You must give her to me." The King said, "No Princess will be here." Thereupon the Prince cut off the King's head with his sword; and he and the three giants having cut down all the servants who were in the palace, summoning the Princess, remained in that very palace. North-western Province. The giving a plant or flower as a life index, which fades when illness or danger besets the giver, and dies at his death, is a very common incident in folk-tales. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 52--Tales of the Punjab (Steel), p. 47--it was a barley plant. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 189, a Prince planted a tree as his life index, and said, "When you see the tree green and fresh then you know that it is well with me; when you see the tree fade in some parts, then you know that I am in an ill case; and when you see the whole tree fade, then know that I am dead and gone." In Tota Kahani (Small), p. 43, when a man was about to leave his wife, she gave him a nosegay of flowers which would retain their freshness if she were faithful to him, and fade if she misconducted herself. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xvii, p. 54, a plant was given to each of two persons, as a Prince's life index. He said, "If this plant should fade, know that I am sick or in danger; if it should die know that I also am dead." The notion that a person's life may be concealed in some external object, usually a bird or a bee, is one of the commonest features of folk-tales. In the story numbered 24 in this volume, the King's life was in a golden parrot. In Wide-Awake Stories, p. 59--Tales of the Punjab, p. 52--a Jinni's life was in a bee, which was in a golden cage inside the crop (?) of a Maina [bird]. At pp. 62, 63, Tales of the Punjab, p. 55, a Prince's life was in his sword. When this was placed in the fire he felt a burning fever, and when it was made red-hot and a rivet came out of the hilt, his head came off. Afterwards, when the sword was repaired and repolished, the Prince was restored to life. At p. 83, Tales of the Punjab, p. 75, the life of a Princess was in a nine-lakh necklace, which was in a box inside a bee that lived in the body of a fish. When asked about it, she first said that her life was in each of the seven sons of the wicked Queen who wanted to kill her, all of whom were murdered by the Queen. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 49, the lives of Rakshasas were in seven cocks, a spinning-wheel, a pigeon, and a starling. At p. 134, the life of one was in a veranda pillar at his house; when it was broken he died. At p. 383, the life of one was in a queen-bee in a honey-comb hanging on a tree. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), pp. 2 and 6, the life of a Prince was in a golden necklace deposited in a wooden box which was in the heart of a fish. At pp. 85 and 86, the lives of seven hundred Rakshasas were in two bees which were on the top of a crystal pillar, deep in the water of a tank. If a drop of their blood fell on the ground, a thousand Rakshasas would start up from it. At p. 121, the life of a Rakshasi was in a bird that was in a cage. As its limbs were torn off, a corresponding limb dropped off the Rakshasi who had been made the Queen. At p. 253, the lives of two Rakshasas (m. and f.) were in two bees that were in a wooden box at the bottom of a tank. If a person who killed them allowed a drop of their blood to fall on the ground, he would be torn into seven hundred pieces by the Rakshasas. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. i, p. 86, in a Dardu legend (G. W. Leitner), the life of a King of Gilgit was in snow, and he could only die by fire. At p. 117, in a Bengal story (G. H. Damant), the lives of Rakshasas were in two bees in a gourd which was inside a crystal pillar at the bottom of a tank. If one drop of the bees' blood fell on the ground, the Rakshasas would be twice as numerous as before. The bees were killed by being squeezed to death. At p. 171, in a Bengal story (G. H. Damant), the lives of Rakshasas were in a lemon, and a bird. When the lemon was cut in Bengal, the Rakshasas in Ceylon died. As the bird's wings were broken, the Rakshasi Queen's arms were broken; when the bird died, she died. In vol. xvi, p. 191, the life of a giant was in a parrot; when it was killed he died. In vol. xvii, p. 51, a Prince's life was in a sword; if it rusted he was sick, and if it broke he died. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan, Allahabad (Shaik Chilli), p. 51, the life of a Prince was in the brightness of his sword. When it was placed in a furnace and lost the brightness, he died. A giant who was his friend found it, and discovering that a little brightness remained at the tip, rubbed it until it regained its lustre, on which the Prince revived. At p. 114, the lives of Rakshasas were in a number of birds; they died when these were killed. In a tale of the interior of W. Africa in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 154, the life of a King was in a little box inside a small goat-skin, which was in a little pot placed inside a large pot. When the King was told this he died. Doubtless this strange notion of a life safeguarded by being hidden away, is of early date, and may be due originally to the early magical idea prevalent in Egypt, Assyria, and India, that a person might be killed from any distance by piercing the heart of a figurine formed to represent him. This action is mentioned in the Commentary on the Atharva Veda (Bloomfield's translation, p. 359); and in the Rigveda, i, 29, 7 (Griffith's translation), prayer is made to Indra for the destruction of "him who in secret injures us." In the Jataka story No. 208 (vol. ii, p. 111), a monkey escaped from a crocodile that was going to kill it in order to get its heart, by telling it that monkeys kept their hearts hanging on trees. In the Maha Bharata, Vana Parva, 135, 52, a Rishi caused buffaloes to shatter a mountain, and thereby killed a child whose life was dependent on its existence, if not supposed to be actually in it. The recovery of the three giants from the house of the Rakshasi is evidently based on the story of Wijaya, the first King of Ceylon, and Kuweni, a female Yakkha or aboriginal Princess, who, taking the form of a devotee, had captured his followers one by one, and imprisoned them. The story is given in the Mahavansa, chapter vii, as follows:--"All these persons not returning, Wijaya becoming alarmed, equipping himself with the five weapons of war, proceeded after them; and examining the delightful pond [to which they had gone to bathe], he could perceive footsteps leading down only into the tank; and he there saw the devotee. It occurred to him: 'My retinue must surely have been seized by her.' 'Woman, hast thou seen my attendants?' said he. 'Prince,' she replied, 'what need hast thou of attendants? Do drink and bathe ere thou departest.' Saying to himself, 'Even my lineage, this Yakkhini is acquainted with it,' proclaiming his title, and quickly seizing his bow, he rushed at her. Securing the Yakkhini by the throat with a 'naracana' ring, with his left hand seizing her by the hair, and raising his sword with his right hand, he exclaimed, 'Slave! restore me my followers, or I will put thee to death.' The Yakkhini, terrified, implored that her life might be spared. 'Lord! spare my life; on thee I will confer this sovereignty; unto thee I will render the favours of my sex, and every other service according to thy desire.' In order that she might not prove herself treacherous, he made the Yakkhini take an oath. While he was in the act of saying, 'Instantly produce my followers,' she brought them forth" (Mahavansa, i, p. 32). The idea of the thorn which was driven into the head of the Rakshasa, is borrowed from magical practice. In the case of a figurine made for the destruction or injury of a person, pins or nails or thorns were run into various parts of the body, one being inserted in the crown of the head. In a variant of the story numbered 73 in this work, a female Yaka was kept in subjection by means of an iron nail that was driven into the crown of the head. In Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes), p. 12, a pin was fixed in the head of a woman who had been transformed into a bird. When it was drawn out she resumed her human form. In The Illustrated Guide to the South Indian Railway, 1900, p. 232, it is stated regarding the great stone Bull, 12 feet high, at the Tanjore temple, that "it was popularly supposed by the natives that this bull was growing, and as they feared it might become too large for the mandapam [stone canopy] erected over it a nail was driven into the back of its head, and since this was done the size of the monolith has remained stationary." NO. 21 NAGUL-MUNNA In a village there were two persons called Nagul-Munna and Mun-aeta Guruwa. While those two were living there they spoke together, "Friend, while we two are remaining in this way matters are not going on properly." At the time when they spoke thus, Mun-aeta Guruwa replied to Nagul-Munna's talk, and said, "It is good, friend. If that be so let us two cut a chena." Having spoken thus, the two persons went to the chena jungle, and there being no watch-hut there, built one; and taking supplies week by week, began to chop down the bushes while they were living at the house in the jungle. Having chopped down the jungle, and burnt it, and sown the chena, the millet plants grew to a very large size. When the two persons were at the watch-hut they remained talking one night for a long time, and said, "To-morrow we must go to the village to bring back supplies." After talking thus, they went to sleep, both of them. During the time while they were sleeping, Mun-aeta Guruwa's clothes caught fire. Then Nagul-Munna awoke, and jumped down to the ground, and ran away. Mun-aeta Guruwa was burnt in the shed and died. On account of his being killed, through fear of being charged with causing his death, Nagul-Munna bounded off into the jungle, and did not return to the village. That day the relatives of those people who were in the village, thinking, "Nagul-Munna and Mun-aeta Guruwa will be coming to fetch supplies," getting ready the supplies, stayed looking for them. On that day the two persons did not come; because they did not come two men went from the village to look for them. The two having gone and looked, and seen that the watch-hut had been burnt, spoke together concerning it: "Both these men have been burnt and died. Let us go back to the village." So they returned. Nagul-Munna, who sprang into the jungle that night, having come home during the night of the following day, spoke to his wife, who was in the house. The woman, thinking that he had died, was frightened at his speech, and cried out, "Nagul-Munna has been born as a Yaka, and having come here is doing something to me." At that cry the men of the village came running; when they looked he was not there, having run off through fear of being seized. In that manner he came on two days. The woman, being afraid, did not open the door. On the third day he arose, and hid himself at the tank near the village. While he was there, a tom-tom beater having gone to a devil-dance, [53] came bringing a bit of cooked rice, and a box containing his mask and decorations. [54] As he was coming along bringing them, this Nagul-Munna having seen him, went and beat the tom-tom beater, and taking the bit of cooked rice and the box of devil-dancer's things, bounded into the jungle. Having sprung into the jungle, and eaten the bit of rice, he unfastened the box of devil-dancer's goods, and taking the things in it, dressed himself in them, putting the jingling bracelets [55] on his arms and the jingling anklets [56] on his legs. There was a large mask in it. Taking it, and tying it on his face, he went to the village when it became night, and having gone to a house there, broke the neck of a calf that was tied near it, and sprang into the rice-field near by. Having made a noise by shaking the jingling bracelets, and given three cries, "Hu, Hu, Hu," he shouted, "If you do not give a leaf-cup of rice and a young coconut at dawn, and at night a leaf-cup of rice and a young coconut, I will kill all the cattle and men that are in your village, and having drunk their blood, go away." The men of the village becoming afraid on account of it, began to give rice every day in the way he said. Having given it for about four or five years in this manner, the men spoke together, "Let us fetch a sooth-sayer to seize that Yaka." After having said concerning it, "It is good," they fetched a doctor (Veda). When the doctor went to the tank to catch that Yaka, Nagul-Munna came, and seizing that doctor, cut his bathing cloth, and having taken him to the place where he was staying, killed him, and trampled on his bathing cloth. Through the seizing and killing of the doctor, the men of the village became afraid to a still greater degree. After that, having talked about bringing another sooth-sayer they fetched one. In the same manner, when he went to the tank the Yaka killed the sooth-sayer. At that deed the men of the village became more afraid still. Having fetched a Sannyasi (a Hindu religious mendicant) from Jaffna, they went to him, and told him to seize the Yaka. That man said, "It is good"; and having gone to the aforesaid tank to look for him, the Yaka was in a tree. So the sooth-sayer repeated incantations to cause the Yaka to descend. The Yaka did not descend. After that, because he did not descend, that person got to know that he was a man, and on his calling "Hu," to the men of the village the men came. Afterwards, seizing Nagul-Munna, who was in the tree, they went to the village. Because Mun-aeta Guruwa had died, the relatives of Mun-aeta Guruwa came for their [legal] action against him. Saying that he had cheated them, and eaten food wrongly obtained from them, the men of the village came for their action. Because he had stolen the rice and the box with tom-tom beater's things in it, the tom-tom beater came for his action. Saying that he killed the first sooth-sayer, his people came for their action. The second sooth-sayer's people also in the same way came for their action. For his killing the calf the owner came for his action. After all who had brought these actions had came to one spot, the man, saying, "Because my wife told me to cut the chena together with Mun-aeta Guruwa, and through my cutting the chena with him, this happened," killed his own wife. Then, while he was going for his trial a bear bit that man on the way, and he died. North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. iii, p. 31, there is a nearly similar story of a tom-tom beater who was supposed to be burnt in his watch hut. In reality, it was a beggar who was burnt. The man being afraid of being charged with murdering him, got hid in the jungle. He came to his house at night, but was supposed to be the Mala upan Yaka, "the evil spirit born from the dead," and was refused admittance by his wife, who gave an alarm. As men were coming on hearing it, he ran off. On another night when he came, his wife assailed him with a volley of invectives, as demon-scarers; so carrying off his dancing paraphernalia, he again retired, and afterwards robbed travellers, and frightened the people till they threatened to leave the district. The King offered a handsome reward for his apprehension, but he tied up a Kattadiya or devil priest who came to exorcise him. In the end he was captured by a Buddhist monk, taken before the King, and after relating his adventures, appears to have been allowed to go unpunished. In the Jataka story No. 257 (vol. ii, p. 209), there is an account of four actions brought against one man on the same day. It is a folk-tale in Ceylon also. NO. 22 THE KULE-BAKA FLOWERS In a certain country a King was ruling; the King was without children. The King having performed many meritorious deeds, five children were born. When they looked into the Naekata (or prognostics resulting from the positions of the planets) at the time when the children were born, those of four were good, but that of the fifth child was that on seeing him his father's two eyes would become blind. The King told them to take the Prince and put him down in the forest. So having taken the Prince they put him in the forest. After that, animals having come through the favour of the Prince's guardian deity, gave him milk, and reared him. After much time had passed, the Prince's father, the King, went to have the jungle driven (for shooting); and having gone, while they were driving the jungle that Prince came, and bounded round the King's enclosure. Then, the King having seen him his eyes became blind, and he went away without his eyes seeing anything. The people who went with the King, lifting him up, carried him to the palace. Having arrived there, various medical treatments were applied; he was not cured. After that, he caused sooth-sayers to be brought, and after he had asked them regarding it, they said, "By applying medical treatment you will not meet with a cure. In the midst of the Forest of the Gods there is a flower called Kule-baka. Having brought that flower, and burnt it on your eyes, your eyes will see." Afterwards the King asked the people, "Who is able to bring this flower?" All the people said they could not do it. Then the four eldest Princes of the King, having said, "Let us go," asked permission of the King; the King told them to go. So the four persons having started, went. As they were going, the four persons went to a city. A courtesan stayed in that city; her name was Diribari-Laka. [57] She gambled (i.e. kept a gambling house). These four persons went to her house, and having gone there prepared to gamble. Then the woman said, "Should you lose by this game, I shall make you four persons prisoners (that is, slaves)." The four persons having said, "It is good," gambled, and all four having lost remained there as prisoners. The Prince who was in the forest, having got to know all these matters, also set off to seek the flower, and on his way arrived at the city at which the Princes who were made prisoners were staying. This one, having gone to the King of the city, was appointed to do messenger's work there. While he was living thus, this one obtained news that the courtesan was gambling, and thereupon this Prince asked the King for leave of absence. Having obtained it, he went to the house of an old woman near the courtesan's house. Having gone there, this Prince having fallen down near the feet of that old woman and made obeisance, weeping and weeping, these words are what he said, "Mother, are you in the enjoyment of health? Do not you let your face be even visible (to) scrofulous offspring. When lightning has struck you (may it) take your progeny." [58] Having spoken and spoken with these honours he remained weeping. The woman's child, not of small age, was there, and having said similar things to the child also, and while weeping having paid respect, the woman made that Prince rise, and asked him, "Where were you for such a long period?" "I was with a King," the Prince said. "Mother, whose is that house?" he asked. The woman said, "Why, son? Do not say anything about it. That house is the house of a courtesan. There is a gambling game of that woman's, and by it many persons, having lost, remain as prisoners." The Prince asked, "Mother, how does one win by that game?" Then the woman said, "A bent lamp having been lighted, is placed at the gambling place. Below the lamp a cat is sitting. While the woman is gambling the cat raises its head; then victory falls to the woman. When another person is playing the cat lowers its head; then defeat falls to that man. If you are to win, having extinguished the bent lamp, and driven away the cat, and brought and placed there another lamp, if you should then play you can win." After that, the Prince went to gamble. Having gone there, when he was ready to gamble she said, "Should you lose in gambling, you will be condemned to imprisonment; should you win you marry me." The Prince said, "It is good," and gambled. When he was losing, he extinguished the lamp, and having beaten and driven away the cat, he told the woman to bring another lamp. After that, the woman brought a lamp. Having brought and placed the lamp there, they gambled. The woman having lost all, the Prince won. Afterwards, that woman married this Prince. During the time while he was living there, as this Prince was starting to go and bring the Kule-baka flower, the woman said, "Don't go." The Prince said, "I did not come for this gambling; I came for the Kule-baka flower. I must indeed go, after having set off for this purpose," he said. So the Prince went to bring the flower. Before this, he had allowed the imprisoned men to go, and said to the four Princes, "Stop until I return." Having thus gone, he entered into the midst of a forest. While he was there, human-flesh-eating serpents and forest animals that were in the midst of the forest sprang to devour this Prince, but he made supplication to his deity, so they were unable to do it, and went away. Then the Yaka who was guarding the Kule-baka garden, having seen the Prince, and having arisen and come near the Prince, asked, "Have you, a man born in the world of men, come into my presence to be a prey to me?" The Prince said, "My father the King for a fault said he must behead me. On account of it, having made my way into the midst of the forest, I have come to you for you to eat indeed. If you are going to eat me, eat me; if you are going to keep me, keep me alive." After that, the Yaka asked, "What do you eat?" The Prince said, "We eat wheat flour, ghi, sugar, and camels' flesh. [59] These indeed we eat." All these requisites having been brought by the Yaka, after he had given them to the Prince, the Prince made the food, and gave to the Yaka also. The Yaka having eaten the food, sprang up into the air, and said to the Prince, "I never ate a meal like this. I will do anything you tell me." Then the Prince said to the Yaka, "Where is the path to go to the Kule-baka garden?" The Yaka sprang up into the air, and fell on the ground, and beating his head, said, "If you had said so before this, by this time I should have eaten you. What can I do now that I have promised to help you?" Having said, "Go away from here," he told him about the path. Then the Prince went along it. There, also, a Yaksani [60] (female Yaka) was guarding it, and the Prince came to her. The Yaksani asked the Prince, "Where are you going?" The Prince said, "Having delayed in the midst of a forest, as I was returning I was unable to find the country with my village. Now I have met with you here." As he appeared good to the Yaksani she caused him to stay there, and married her daughter to him. The name of the girl to whom the Prince was married was Maha-Muda. [61] During the time while he was there the Prince remained angry. The girl asked, "What are you angry for?" The Prince said, "I must go to look at the Kule-baka garden." Then the girl spoke about this matter to her mother. So that woman having fetched rats, caused a tunnel to be made by them to the Kule-baka garden. Along that tunnel the Prince went to the flower garden, and having gone there, and plucked the flowers, came back again. Having returned there, calling Maha-Muda he came to the house of Diribari-Laka. Having arrived there, he burnt on the lower part of the back the four Princes who had remained as prisoners. The Prince who went for the Kule-baka flowers having burnt in this way the four Princes, who stayed as slaves at the house of Diribari-Laka, these four persons were freed from imprisonment. Then the Prince, Maha-Muda, and Diribari-Laka, taking the flowers, came to the Prince's native country. Having arrived there, he burnt the Kule-baka flowers on the two eyes of his father the King, and the two eyes of the King became well. After that, the King having asked the Prince regarding these matters, learnt that he was the King's Prince, [and he and his two wives continued to live there with him]. North-western Province. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 276 ff.--Tales of the Punjab, p. 263, 264--a rat assisted King Sarkap in games at Chaupur (the Pachis game), until it was frightened by a kitten that Prince Rasalu had rescued from a potter's kiln. At p. 250 of the former work it was predicted that if his father saw the Prince during the twelve years after his birth, he (the father) would die. In Indian Nights' Entertainment, Panjab (Swynnerton), p. 319, a rat which had been saved from drowning assisted a girl to defeat a Princess at Chaupur, by attracting the attention of a cat that moved the pieces for the Princess. The cat was struck by the girl while trying to seize the rat which she held; when it ran off she won. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 149, the cat belonging to a female gambler, at a sign from her mistress, extinguished the lamp whenever the game was going against her. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 277, a Princess, in order to get back her husband, started a gambling establishment at which they gambled with dice, the stake being one hundred thousand rupees, together with the imprisonment of the loser at her house. Her ruse was successful. A rich merchant's son, the Prefect's son, the Minister's son, and the Prince, all came in turn and lost. NO. 23 KURULU-GAMA APPU, THE SOOTH-SAYER In a certain city a man was stricken by a scarcity of food to eat, and he went to another country. Having gone there, during the time while he was residing in a village, the village men asked, "What sooth can you tell?" [62] He said, "I can tell one sooth; to do that sooth I want Jak-tree gum, Coconut oil, and Euphorbia milk" (the milky sap which exudes from cuts or bruises in the bark). Thereupon the men having collected those things that he mentioned, gave them to him. Then he went and warmed these things [making bird-lime] and placed [limed] twigs, and catching birds and coming with them, he gave them daily, two by two at each house, and thus ate. The man's name was Appu; his village was Kurulu-gama (Birds' village). While he was continuing to eat in this manner, the men of that village started to go to Puttalam, carrying produce for sale. That man also said, "I also must go." Then the men of the village asked, "You have nothing; what will you take?" Thereupon this one tying up a pingo load of chaff and coconut husks, goes with the men. Then the men who were going on that journey, having come down to the high road, set off to go. While they were going, the men having said [in fun] "Vedarala" (Doctor) to that man, he kept the name. Having gone very far, the Vedarala, telling the men who went with him to wait on the road, placed his pingo (carrying-stick) on the road, and went into an open place in the jungle. While going along in it, when he looked about, a yoke of cattle were entangled in the bushes. Then this Vedarala having gone near the yoke of cattle, looked at the letter marks branded on them, and having come back and taken up the pingo load, while they were going on it became night. This party having halted on the road near a village, sent the Vedarala to get a resting-place for the night. Having gone to a house in the village, when he asked for it the house men said, "What giving of resting-places is there for us! We are lamenting in sorrow for the difficulty we are in. Our yoke of cattle are missing." The Vedarala said, "Now then, what have we to do with your losing a yoke of cattle? Give us a resting-place." "If you want one, look there! There is the shed, come and stay there," they said. Then the Vedarala having come back, says to the people of the party, "There is a shed indeed. Stay if you like; go on, if you want to go," he said. So this party having come to the shed sat down. The people of the party said to the Vedarala, "Vedarala, why are you staying looking about? Night is coming on. We must seek a little firewood and water," they spoke together. The house persons having heard these words, said, "What is this, that you are saying 'Vedarala'? Does he know sooth and the like?" they asked. [63] The persons of the party said without a reason for it (nikamata), "To a certain extent he can tell matters of sooth." "If so, don't be delayed on account of anything you want. We will bring and give you rice, firewood, and water." So they brought and gave them five quarts of rice, a dried fish, a head of ash-plantains. This party, cooking amply, and having eaten, said at night to the person who owned the house, "Now then, bring a packet of betel leaves for him to tell you sooth." So the house person having brought the betel, gave it to the Vedarala. Thereupon the assumed (lit. "face") Vedarala, having taken the betel, after having looked at it falsely becoming "possessed," said, "It is a yoke of oxen of yours that have been lost, isn't it?" Then the house person said, "You have said the sooth very correctly. I asked it of the deities of many dewalas (demon-temples), and of sooth-sayers. There wasn't a person who told me even a sign of it." Thereafter the Vedarala asked, "What will you give me for seeking and giving you the yoke of cattle?" That person said, "Even if you can't give the full yoke of cattle, I will give a half share of the value"; thus he promised. The Vedarala having said, "It is good," and told him to get and bring a torch, cunningly having gone near the yoke of cattle that remained entangled in the bush at that place where he went on coming, asked if these were his oxen. Then the man said, "These are indeed my cattle," and having unfastened them and come back, in the morning gave him a half share [64] of the value of the cattle. Taking it, and throwing away the chaff and coconut husks, he went away. That day also, having gone on until the time when it was becoming night, he got a resting-place in the very way in which, having spoken before, he got one. At the time when they were in the shed the persons of the party said, "Vedarala, what are you staying looking about for? We must seek and get firewood and water." Then the house people say, "What are you saying 'Vedarala' for? Does he know to say sooth and the like?" After that, this party say, "He can also tell sooth. Last night he sought and gave a yoke of cattle." Then the house persons quickly having brought rice, fish, firewood, water, gave them to the men. This party having amply cooked and eaten, while they were sleeping, the house person, having brought a packet of betel leaves, spoke to the Vedarala: "How am I to ask sooth?" The Vedarala rebuked him. "All these persons being now without memory or understanding, what saying of sooth is there?" [65] Then that one having gone, he went to sleep. A woman of the house was there; her name was Sihibuddi. The woman having heard the words which the Vedarala said, came and having softly awakened the Vedarala, said, "The Sihibuddi you mention is I indeed. It was I indeed who stole this house person's packet of waragan. [66] I will give you a share; don't mention it." Thereupon the Vedarala says, "Where is it? Bring it quickly, and having brought it place it near that clump of plantains." Then this woman having brought the packet of waragan, and placed it at the foot of the plantain clump and gone away, he went to sleep. Afterwards the Vedarala called the house person. "Now then, bring betel for me to say sooth." The man having brought betel gave it to the Vedarala. Then the Vedarala, having taken the betel and looked at it, said, "It is a packet of waragan that has been lost, isn't it." That man said, "It is that indeed. Should you seek and give what has been lost of mine, I will give you a half share." Then the Vedarala having told him to get a light, becoming "possessed," went and took and gave him the packet of waragan that was at the foot of the plantain clump. Having taken from it a half share, at the time when the party were going on, thieves having broken into the box at the foot of the King's bed, [67] he made public by beat of tom-toms that many offices would be given by the King to a person who should seek and give it to him. At that time this party said, "In our party indeed, there is a sooth-sayer. On the night of the day before yesterday he sought out and gave a yoke of cattle. Yesternight he sought out and gave a packet of waragan." Thereupon the persons took this Vedarala near the King. Then the King asks, "Can he catch and give the thief who broke into the box at the foot of my bed?" The party said that he could. Then the sooth-sayer, having become afraid, thought, "I will tie a cord to my neck and die." So he said, "After tying white cloths in a house (as a decoration, on the walls and under the roof), and a piece of cord to the cross-beam, and placing a bed, chairs, and table in it, and setting on end a rice mortar, you must give me it in the evening." The King having prepared them in that very way, gave him them. Afterwards, the Vedarala, after it became night, having gone inside the house, told them to shut the door from the outside, and lock it. Then having mounted on the rice mortar, when he tried to put the cord round his neck it was too short. On account of it he said, "Both the cord is too short and the height is insufficient. What shall I do?" [68] As the Vedarala was saying this word Kumandaeyi, a citizen, Kumanda, an old thief, was there [listening outside]. Having heard this, he thought, "He is calling out my name"; so becoming afraid he came near and spoke to the Vedarala, and said, "It is I indeed whom you call Kumanda. It is I indeed who committed the theft. Don't say anything about it to the King." Then the Vedarala said, "If so, bring the things and put them in this house." Thereupon the old thief, having brought to the house all the things taken out of the box which was at the foot of the King's bed, gave them to the sooth-sayer through the window. Then the Vedarala slept until light having come it became daylight. Afterwards, the King having sent messengers in the morning, they awoke the Vedarala. Then the Vedarala, thinking it unseasonable, said, "Who is talking to me without allowing me to sleep?" and silently went to sleep again. So the messengers returned and told the King. Afterwards the King came and spoke to him, and opened the door. The Vedarala having come out, said, "O Lord, Your Majesty, I was unable to seize the thieves; the things indeed I met with." Then the King said, "The thief does not matter; after you have met with the things it is enough." Then the King, catching a great many fire-flies and putting them in a coconut shell, asked the Vedarala, "What is there in this?" The sooth-sayer, becoming afraid, went as far as he could see him, and thinking, "I will strike my head against a tree and die," came running and struck his head against a tree. [69] Then the sooth-sayer said, "O Father! It was as though a hundred fire-flies flew about." The King said, "That is true. They are indeed fire-flies that are in my hand." After that, the King caught a bird, and clenching it in his fist, asked the sooth-sayer, "What is there in this fist?" The sooth-sayer, having become afraid, began to beat his head on a stone. Then he said, "Kurulu-gama Appu's strength went (this time)." [70] The King said, "Bola, it is indeed a bird that is in my hand"; and having called the Vedarala, and given him many offices, and a house, told him to stay at that very city. Afterwards the Vedarala, thinking, "They will call me again to tell sooth," having put away the things that were in the house, and having set fire to the house, said, "Kurulu-gama Appu's sooth-saying is finished from to-day. The sooth books have been burnt." Having made it public he stayed at that very city. North-western Province. The second discovery of the sooth-sayer is extracted from a variant by a washerman, the rest of the story having been written by a man of the cultivating caste. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 272, there is an account of a pretended sooth-sayer, a poverty-stricken Brahmana. He first hid a horse, and when application was made to him to discover it, he drew diagrams and described the place where it would be found. After that, when a thief stole gold and jewels from the King's palace he was sent for and shut up in a room, where he began to blame his tongue, jivha, which had made a vain pretence at knowledge. The principal thief, a maid called Jivha, overheard him, and told him where she had buried her share of the plunder. Afterwards the King tested him by placing a frog in a covered pitcher. He expected that he would be killed, and said, "This is a fine pitcher for you, Frog (his father's pet name for himself), since suddenly it has become the swift destroyer of yourself in this place." He was thought a great sage, and the King presented him with "villages with gold, umbrella, and vehicles of all kinds." There is another story of a pretended sooth-sayer in vol. ii, p. 140, of the same work, but it does not, like the last, resemble the Sinhalese tale. NO. 24 HOW A PRINCE WAS CHASED BY A YAKSANI, AND WHAT BEFEL A prince went for hunting-sport. As he was going, a Yaksani (female Yaka) who was living in the midst of the forest, chased him, saying that she was going to eat the Prince, and drove the Prince down the path. The Prince having gone running, went bounding through the middle of a city. The Yaksani followed him in the disguise of a woman. The King of the city having seen them, sent the Ministers, and told them to look what it was about. The Ministers asked the Yaksani who was bounding behind him, "What is that for?" The Yaksani said, "My husband having quarrelled with me and left me, is running away. I am running after him because of it." The Ministers then brought her before the King, and having seen the beauty of the Yaksani, the King was pleased with her, and said, "If you should not go with him it does not matter; stay here." So the King, having prepared another house for the Yaksani, and having married her, establishing her in the office of Chief Queen, she remained there. While she was there, this Yaksani having gone like a thief during the time when all were sleeping, and killed and eaten the men of the city, brought a few of the bones, and placed them in a heap at the back of the houses in which the twelve Queens of the King slept. When a little time had gone by in this manner, the men of the city came to the King, and saying, "Since you have brought and are keeping this Yaksani this city is altogether desolate," made obeisance. Then the King made inquiry into the matter. Then that Yaksani said, "Ane! O Lord, Your Majesty, I indeed do not know about that, but I did indeed see that thief who eats human flesh, although I did not tell you." The King asked, "Who is it?" The Yaksani said, "If Your Majesty should look behind the houses of the twelve Queens you can ascertain." When the King went there and looked, he found that it was true, and gave orders for the twelve Queens to be killed. Then the Yaksani told him not to kill them, but to pluck out their eyes, and send them into the midst of the forest. Having heard the words which the Yaksani said, he acted in that very manner. So all this party of Queens went and stayed in one spot, and there all the twelve bore children. As each one was born, they divided and ate it. The youngest Queen put aside all the flesh that was given to her, and while she was keeping it she, also, bore a son. Then those eleven Queens made ready to eat that Prince, so that Princess gave them the flesh which she had kept, and the party ate it. As time went on that Prince having grown a little, began to bring and give them fruits that were lying on the ground. Then the Prince met with a bow and an arrow that had been concealed there. After that he began to shoot various kinds of small animals, and to bring and give them to the Queens. Afterwards he shot large animals, and having brought fire and boiled them, he gave the flesh to them. By this time the Prince understood all things thoroughly. After that, one day this Prince asked, "Mother, what is the reason why your eyes have become blind, and my eyes are well?" The party said, "We were the Queens of such and such a King; having taken a Yaksani in marriage, this was done to us through her enmity." Then the Prince remained thinking of killing the King. One day, as he was going hunting, he met with a Vaedda. Thinking he would kill the Vaedda, the Prince chased him along the path. The Vaedda, being afraid, went running away, and having met with the King said, "O Lord, Your Majesty, there is a very handsome Prince in the midst of this forest. One cannot say if the Prince is the son of a deity or a royal Prince. He does not come near enough to speak. When he sees a man he drives him away, saying he is going to eat him." He spoke very strongly about it. So the Ministers were sent by the King, who told them to seize and bring him. As the party were going to seize him, he sprang forward, saying that he was going to eat them. At that, the party became afraid, and ran away. Having come running, they told the King, "O Lord, Your Majesty, we cannot seize him. He comes springing at us saying he is going to eat us." Then the King came, bringing his war army. Thereupon the Prince, who before that was angry with the King in his mind, threw a stone in order to kill the King, and struck him. Being struck by the stone, the King's head was wounded (lit. split), so the King and all of them became afraid, and ran away. The King, having returned, wrote letters to foreign countries: "There is a wicked Prince in the midst of the forest in my kingdom. Who he is I cannot find out. Because of it you must come to seize the Prince." The Prince having got to know of it, and thinking, "It is not good for me to be killed at the hands of these men; having met with the King I will kill him," went to the royal palace. When he arrived there the King saw him, and asked, "Who are you?" The Prince said, "I am a royal Prince; I stay in the midst of this forest." The King said, "Would it be a bad thing if you remained at this palace?" The Prince asked, "What work would there be for me?" The King said, "Remain and do the work of the First Minister of the Ministers." The Prince asked, "How much pay would there be for me for the day?" The King replied, "I will give fifty masuran." "Fifty masuran are insufficient for me. Will you give me every day in the evening a hundred masuran?" he asked. The King said, "It is good," and after that he stayed there. While remaining there he came twice a day and assisted his twelve mothers. When no long time had gone by, some one was heard crying out in the night near the city. The King told him to look who was crying. The Prince having gone, taking his sword, when he looked, a dead body was hanging in a tree, and a Yaksani was springing up to eat the dead body. Being unable to seize it she was crying out. The Prince went and asked, "What is that for?" The Yaksani replied, "My son having gone into the tree cannot descend; because of it I am crying out." The Prince said, "Mount on my shoulders and unfasten him." The Yaksani having got on his shoulders, as she was about to eat the Prince he chopped at her with his sword. A foot was cut off, and she fled. Taking the foot and returning with it, the Prince showed it to the King. The King having seen the Prince's resoluteness, in order to cause him to be killed said that unless he should bring the other foot he could not take charge of this one. After that, the Prince went to the palace where the Yakas dwelt. There this Yaksani whom he had wounded came, and having made obeisance, fell down and said, "Lord, do not kill me. I will do anything you tell me." Summoning her to accompany him and returning, he showed her to the King. Afterwards he employed this Yaksani, and caused her to make a city at the place where his mothers were, and having made her construct a palace, he told the Yaksani and his mothers to dwell there. While they were there the Yaksani said to the Prince, "I know the place where the King's life is. Whatever you should do to the King himself you cannot kill him." The Prince asked, "Where is it?" "It is in a golden parrot in such and such a tree," she said. After that he went there and caught the parrot and killed it. Then the King died. After he died, the Prince having set fire to the palace there, and cut down the Yaksani who stayed with the King, left his mothers in charge of the city formed by the maimed Yaksani, and remained ruling the kingdom. Western Province. For some variants, see the notes at the end of the story numbered 48. In Indian Nights' Entertainment, Panjab (Swynnerton), p. 355, a Princess in man's disguise, acting as the King's guard, found a ghul in the form of a woman howling under a corpse that was hanging from a gallows. She stated that it was her son whom she could not reach, and she asked to be lifted up. When raised up to it by the Princess she began to suck the blood, on seeing which the Princess made a cut at her, but only severed a piece of her clothing, which proved to be of so rich a quality that the King ordered her to procure more for his wife. In the Jataka story No. 96 (vol. i, p. 235) an Ogress in the disguise of a woman followed a man into Takkasila, intending to devour him. The King saw her, was struck by her beauty, and married her. When he had given her authority over those who dwelt in the palace, she brought other Ogres at night, and ate the King and every one in the place. NO. 25 THE WICKED KING In a certain country there are a King and a Queen, it is said. The Queen has no children. During the time while she was rearing another (adopted) Prince, a child was born to the Queen. After it was born, the King and Queen having spoken together, "Let us kill the Prince whom we have brought up," said to the King's Minister, "Take this Prince and put him down in a clump of bamboos." The Minister having taken the Prince, and put him down in a clump of bamboos, returned. The Prince was seven years old. After that, a man having gone to the bamboo clump to cut bamboos, and having seen, when he looked, that this Prince was there, without stopping to cut bamboos took away this Prince. On the following day the King said to the Minister, "Look if the Prince is in the bamboo bush, and come back." Afterwards he went, and when he looked, the Prince was not there. So he came to the King, and said, "The Prince is not there." Then the King said, "The man who went away after cutting bamboos will have taken him. Give these thousand masuran, and bring him." Having said this, he gave him a thousand masuran. The Minister, having taken the thousand masuran, and given them to the man who took away the Prince, brought him and gave him to the King. Afterwards the King said to the Minister, "Take this one and put him down in the middle of the path to a cattle fold in which five hundred cattle are collected, and return, so that, having been trampled on as the cattle are going along the path, he may die." So the Minister having taken that Prince, and put him down in the middle of the path to a cattle fold in which five hundred cattle were collected, came away. After that, as the five hundred cattle were setting off to go into the cattle fold, when the great chief bull which went first was about to go in, having seen this Prince he placed him under his body, and allowing the other cattle to go in, this bull went afterwards. Subsequently, as the herdsman who drove the cattle was going along he saw this Prince, and taking the Prince the herdsman went away. On the following day the King said to the Minister, "Look if the Prince is at the cattle fold, and come back." The Minister went, and when he looked the Prince was not there. So the Minister came and said to the King, "He is not there." Then the King having given a thousand masuran into the Minister's hand said, "The herdsman who drove the cattle will have taken him. Give these thousand masuran and bring him." So the Minister having taken the thousand masuran, and given them to the herdsman, brought the Prince and gave him to the King. After that, the King said, "Take this one and put him down in the road on which five hundred carts are coming." So the Minister having taken the Prince, and put him down in the road on which five hundred carts were coming, returned. Then the carters, having seen from afar that the Prince was there, took the Prince, and placed him in a cart, and went home with him. On the following day the King said to the Minister, "Go and look if the Prince is in the road on which the five hundred carts come, and return." The Minister went, and when he looked the Prince was not there. So the Minister came and told the King, "The Prince is not there." Then the King gave the Minister a thousand masuran, and said, "The carters will have taken him. Give these thousand masuran and bring him." The Minister having given the thousand masuran to the carters, brought the Prince and gave him to the King. After that, the King said to the Minister, "Speak to the potter and come back. There is no other means of killing this one but surrounding him with pottery in the pottery kiln, and burning him." So the Minister went and spoke to the potter, "Our King tried thus and thus to kill this Prince; he could not. Because of that, how if you should surround him even in the pottery kiln?" The potter said, "Should you bring him I will surround him." So the Minister came and said to the King, "The potter told me to take the Prince." After that, the King wrote a letter: "Immediately on seeing the Prince who brings this letter, surround him in the pottery kiln, and kill him." Having written that in the letter, and given the letter to the Prince who had been adopted, he said, "Take this letter to such and such a potter, and having given it come back." Afterwards, as the Prince was going along taking the letter, the King's Prince having played at "Disks," [71] and the counters having been driven out, was dragging along the hop counters. Then, having seen this Prince, the King's Prince asked, "Where, elder brother, are you going?" The Prince said, "Father gave me this letter, and told me to give it to such and such a potter. Having given it I am going to return." The King's Prince said, "If so, elder brother, I will give that letter and come back. You drag these hop counters." Then this Prince having said "Ha," and given the letter into the hands of the King's Prince, dragged the hop counters. While the King's Prince was taking the letter, the potter was making ready the pottery kiln. After the Prince had given the letter to the potter, when the potter looked at it there was in the letter, "After you have seen this letter, surround in the pottery kiln the Prince who brings this letter, and set fire to it." So the potter taking the Prince surrounded him in the pottery kiln, and set fire to it. While it was burning in the pottery kiln the King's Prince died. After the adopted Prince finished dragging the hop counters, and came to the palace, the King asked, "Did you give the letter to the potter?" The Prince said, "As I was going there, younger brother having played at 'Disks,' and the counters being driven out, was dragging the hop counters. Having seen me going, younger brother asked, 'Where, elder brother, are you going?' I said, 'Father gave me this letter to give to such and such a potter; having given it I am going to return.' Then younger brother said, 'Elder brother, I will give that letter and come; you draw these hop counters.' So I gave the letter into the hand of younger brother, and I myself having drawn the hop counters came back." Then the King quickly said to the Ministers, "Go to the potter, and look if the Prince is there, and return." The Ministers went and asked the potter, "Is the Prince here?" The potter said, "I killed the Prince." So the Ministers came and told the King that the Prince was dead. The King immediately wrote a letter to the King of another city, that when he saw the Prince who brought the letter he was to kill him; and having given the letter into the hand of this adopted Prince, he said, "Give this letter to the King of such and such a city, and come back." The Prince having taken the letter went to the palace of the King of the city. At that time the King was not in the palace; the King's Princess was there. This Prince having grown up was beautiful to look at; the Princess thought of marrying him. Asking for the letter in the hand of the Prince, when she looked at it there was written that on seeing the Prince they were to kill him. Then the Princess having torn up and thrown away the letter, wrote a letter that on seeing the Prince they were to marry him to the Princess. Having written it and given it into the hand of the Prince, she said, "After our father the King has come give him this letter." After that, while the Prince, having taken the letter, was there, the King came. The Prince gave him the letter. When the King looked at the letter he learnt that on seeing the Prince he was to marry the King's Princess to him. So the King married the King's Princess to the Prince. Having married her, while the Prince was there, illness seized the King who brought up the Prince, and they sent letters for this Prince to come. The Prince would not. Afterwards they sent a letter: "Even now the King cannot be trusted [to live]; he is going to die even to-day. You must come." To that also the Prince replied, "I will not." The Princess said, "Having said 'I will not,' how will it be? Let us two go to-day." So the Prince and Princess came. When they arrived, the King was about to die, and breathing with difficulty. The Prince came and sat near the King's feet; the Princess sat near the King's head. The King told the Prince to come near in order to give him an oath [to repeat], in such a manner that he would be unable to seize any article of the King's. Well then, as the King was coming to mention the King's treasure houses and all other things, while he was opening his mouth to say the truth-oath to the Prince, the Princess, the King's daughter-in-law, being aware of it, stroked the King's neck, saying, "If so, father, for whom are they if not for us?" Then that which the King was about to say he had no opportunity of saying; while she was holding his neck he died. After that, the Prince having obtained the sovereignty, and the treasure houses, and the other different houses that were there, the Prince and Princess stayed at that very palace. Anun nahanda yanakota tamumma nahinawa. While they are going to kill others they die themselves. North-western Province. NO. 26 THE KITUL SEEDS A certain man and his son, who was a grown-up youth, were walking along a path one day, when they came to a place where many seeds had fallen from a Kitul Palm tree. The man drew his son's attention to them, and said, "We must gather these Kitul seeds, and plant them. When the plants from them grow up we shall have a large number of Kitul trees, from which we will take the toddy (juice), and make jaggery (a kind of brown sugar). By selling this we shall make money, which we will save till we shall have enough to buy a nice pony." "Yes," said the boy, "and I will jump on his back like this, and ride him," and as he said it he gave a bound. "What!" said the father, "would you break my pony's back like that!" and so saying, he gave him a blow on the side of the head which knocked him down senseless. E. G. Goonewardene, Esqre. North-western Province. There is another story of this type in the tale No. 53, below. In the Jataka story No. 4 (vol. i, p. 19), there is a tale of a young man who acquired a fortune and became Lord Treasurer by means of a dead mouse which he picked up and sold for a farthing, subsequently increasing his money by careful investments. In the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. i, p. 33, a nearly identical mouse story is given. In Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes), p. 31, there is a different one. A man who was to receive four pice for carrying a jar of ghi, settled that he would buy a hen with the money, sell her eggs, get a goat, and then a cow, the milk of which he would sell. Afterwards he would marry a wife, and when they had children he would refuse some cooked rice which they would offer him. At this point he shook his head as he refused it, and the jar fell and was broken. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 23, a man who was carrying a jar of butter on his head, and who expected to get three halfpence for the job, was going to buy a hen, then a sheep, a cow, a milch buffalo, and a mare, and then to get married. As he patted his future children on the head the pot fell and was broken. In The Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., i, p. 296) there is a well-known variant in which the fortune was to be made out of a tray of glass-ware. NO. 27 THE SPEAKING HORSE There was once a certain King who was greatly wanting in common sense, and in his kingdom there was a Panditaya who was extremely wise. The King had a very beautiful white horse of which he was very proud. The Panditaya was respected and revered by all, but for the King little or no respect was felt, on account of his foolish conduct. He observed this, and became jealous of the Panditaya's popularity, so he determined to destroy him. One day he sent for him. The Panditaya came and prostrated himself before the King, who said, "I hear that you are extremely learned and wise. I require you to teach my white horse to speak. I will allow you one week to consider the matter, at the end of which time you must give me a reply, and if you cannot do it your head will be cut off." The Panditaya replied, "It is good, O Great King," [72] and went home in very low spirits. He lived with a beautiful daughter, a grown-up girl. When he returned she observed that he was melancholy, and asked the reason, on which the Panditaya informed her of the King's command, and said that it was impossible to teach a horse to speak, and that he must place his affairs in order, in preparation for his death. "Do as I tell you," she said, "and your life will be saved. When you go to the King on the appointed day, and he asks you if you are able to teach his horse to speak, you must answer, 'I can do it, but it is a work that will occupy a long time. I shall require seven years' time for it. You must also allow me to keep the horse by me and ride it, while you will provide food for it.' The King will agree to this, and in the meantime who knows what may happen?" The Panditaya accepted this wise advice. He appeared before the King at the end of the week, and prostrated himself. The King asked him, "Are you able to teach my white horse to speak?" "Maharajani," he replied, "I am able." He then explained that it would be a very difficult work, and would occupy a long time; and that he would require seven years for it, and must have the horse by him all the time, and use it, while the King would provide food for it. The King was delighted at the idea of getting his horse taught to speak, and at once agreed to these conditions. So the Panditaya took away the horse, and kept it at the King's expense. Before the seven years had elapsed the King had died, and the horse remained with the Panditaya. E. G. Goonewardene, Esqre. North-western Province. NO. 28 THE FEMALE QUAIL A female Quail having laid an egg on a rock, went to eat food. Then the [overhanging] rock closed over it, and when the bird returned there was no egg. "Ando! There is no egg," she said. Well then, she went to the Mason. The Mason said, "Sit down, O Bird." "What is [the use of] sitting and staying? What is [the use of] betel leaf and areka nut at the corner of the bed? Cut the rock, and give me the egg, O Mason," she said. The Mason said, "I will not." From there she went to the Village Headman. [73] The Village Headman said, "Sit down, O Bird." "What is the use of sitting and staying? What is the use of betel leaf and areka nut at the corner of the bed? O Village Headman, tie up the house-door [74] of the Mason, the Mason who did not cut the rock, and give me the egg," she said. The Village Headman said, "I will not." From there she went to the Pig. The Pig said, "Sit down, O Bird." "What is the use of sitting and staying? What is the use of betel leaf and areka nut at the corner of the bed? O Pig, feed in the rice field of the Village Headman, the Village Headman who did not tie up the house-door of the Mason, the Mason who did not cut the rock, and give me the egg," she said. The Pig said, "I will not." From there she went to the Vaedda. The Vaedda said, "Sit down, O Bird." "What is the use of sitting and staying? What is the use of betel leaf and areka nut at the corner of the bed? O Vaedda, shoot (with bow and arrow) the Pig, the Pig who did not feed in the rice field of the Village Headman, the Village Headman who did not tie up the house-door of the Mason, the Mason who did not cut the rock, and give me the egg," she said. The Vaedda said, "I will not." From there she went to the Timbol creeper. [75] The Timbola said, "Sit down, O Bird." "What is the use of sitting and staying? What is the use of betel leaf and areka nut at the corner of the bed? O Timbola, prick the body of the Vaedda, the Vaedda who did not shoot the Pig, the Pig who did not feed in the rice field of the Village Headman, the Village Headman who did not tie up the house-door of the Mason, the Mason who did not cut the rock, and give me the egg," she said. The Timbola said, "I will not." From there she went to the Fire. The Fire said, "Sit down, O Bird." "What is the use of sitting and staying? What is the use of betel leaf and areka nut at the corner of the bed? O Fire, burn the Timbola, the Timbola that did not prick the body of the Vaedda, the Vaedda who did not shoot the Pig, the Pig who did not feed in the rice field of the Village Headman, the Village Headman who did not tie up the house-door of the Mason, the Mason who did not cut the rock, and give me the egg," she said. The Fire said, "I will not." From there she went to the Water-pot. The Water-pot said, "Sit down, O Bird." "What is the use of sitting and staying? What is the use of betel leaf and areka nut at the corner of the bed? O Water-pot, quench the Fire, the Fire that did not burn the Timbola, the Timbola that did not prick the body of the Vaedda, the Vaedda who did not shoot the Pig, the Pig who did not feed in the rice field of the Village Headman, the Village Headman who did not tie up the house-door of the Mason, the Mason who did not cut the rock, and give me the egg," she said. The Water-pot said, "I will not." From there she went to the Elephant. The Elephant said, "Sit down, O Bird." "What is the use of sitting and staying? What is the use of betel leaf and areka nut at the corner of the bed? O Elephant, make muddy the Water-pot, the Water-pot that did not quench the Fire, the Fire that did not burn the Timbola, the Timbola that did not prick the body of the Vaedda, the Vaedda who did not shoot the Pig, the Pig who did not feed in the rice field of the Village Headman, the Village Headman who did not tie up the house-door of the Mason, the Mason who did not cut the rock, and give me the egg," she said. The Elephant said, "I will not." From there she went to the Rat. The Rat said, "Sit down, O Bird." "What is the use of sitting and staying? What is the use of betel leaf and areka nut at the corner of the bed? O Rat, creep into the ear of the Elephant, the Elephant who did not make muddy the Water-pot, the Water-pot that did not quench the Fire, the Fire that did not burn the Timbola, the Timbola that did not prick the body of the Vaedda, the Vaedda who did not shoot the Pig, the Pig who did not feed in the rice field of the Village Headman, the Village Headman who did not tie up the house-door of the Mason, the Mason who did not cut the rock, and give me the egg," she said. The Rat said, "I will not." From there she went to the Cat. The Cat said, "Sit down, O Bird." "What is the use of sitting and staying? What is the use of betel leaf and areka nut at the corner of the bed? O Cat, eat the Rat, the Rat who did not creep into the ear of the Elephant, the Elephant who did not make muddy the Water-pot, the Water-pot that did not quench the Fire, the Fire that did not burn the Timbola, the Timbola that did not prick the body of the Vaedda, the Vaedda who did not shoot the Pig, the Pig who did not feed in the rice field of the Village Headman, the Village Headman who did not tie up the house-door of the Mason, the Mason who did not cut the rock, and give me the egg," she said. The Cat said "Ha" (Yes). Well then, the Cat went to catch the Rat, the Rat went to creep into the ear of the Elephant, the Elephant went to make muddy the Water-pot, the Water-pot went to quench the Fire, the Fire went to burn the Timbola, the Timbola went to prick the body of the Vaedda, the Vaedda went to shoot the Pig, the Pig went to feed in the rice field of the Village Headman, the Village Headman went to tie up the house-door of the Mason, the Mason went to cut the rock, and take and give the egg. Here the story ends. "Was the egg given?" I asked. "It would be given," the narrator said. "No, he gave it," said a listener. North-western Province. In a variant which I heard in the Southern Province, a bird laid two eggs in a crevice between two stones, which drew close together. She went to a Mason or Stone-cutter; (2) to a Pig; (3) to a Hunter; (4) to an Elephant, which she requested to kill him; (5) to a Lizard (Calotes), which she told to crawl up the Elephant's trunk into its brain; (6) to a Jungle Hen, which she told to peck and kill the Lizard; (7) to a Jackal, who, when requested to kill the Jungle Hen, at once agreed, and said, "It is very good," and set off after her. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 209--Tales of the Punjab, p. 195--there is a variant. While a farmer's wife was winnowing corn, a crow carried off a grain, and perched on a tree to eat it. She threw a clod at it, and knocked it down, but the grain of corn rolled into a crack in the tree, and the crow, though threatened with death in case of failure, was unable to recover it. It went for assistance, and requested (1) a Woodman to cut the tree; (2) a King to kill the man; (3) a Queen to coax the King; (4) a Snake to bite the Queen; (5) a Stick to beat the Snake; (6) Fire to burn the Stick; (7) Water to quench the Fire; (8) an Ox to drink the water; (9) a Rope to bind the Ox; (10) a Mouse to gnaw the Rope; (11) a Cat to catch the Mouse. "The moment the Cat heard the name Mouse, she was after it, for the world would come to an end before a Cat would leave a Mouse alone." In the end the Crow got the grain of corn, and saved its life. In Indian Folk Tales (Gordon), p. 53, there is an allied variant. A bird had bought three grains of corn for three cowries, and while she was on a new cart eating them one fell into a joint of the cart where she was unable to get it. She appealed to (1) the Carpenter to take the cart to pieces, so that she might obtain it; (2) the King to make him do it; (3) the Queen to persuade the King; (4) a Deer to graze in the Queen's garden; (5) the Stick to beat the Deer; (6) the Fire to burn the Stick; (7) the Lake to quench the Fire; (8) the Rats to fill up the Lake; (9) the Cat to attack the Rats; (10) the Elephant to crush the Cat; (11) an Ant to crawl into the Elephant's ear; (12) the Crow, "the most greedy of all creatures," to eat the Ant. The Crow consented, and the usual result followed. NO. 29 THE PIED ROBIN At a certain city, while a female Pied Robin [76] was digging and digging on a dung-hill, she met with a piece of scraped coconut refuse, it is said. She took it, and put it away, and having gone again, while she was digging and digging there was a lump of rice dust. Having taken it, and put it to soak, she said, "Sister-in-law at that house, Sister-in-law at this house, come and pound a little flour." [77] The women, saying, "No, no, with such a fragment you can pound that little bit yourself," did not come. The Pied Robin pounded the flour, and cooking a cake of the size of a rice mat (wattiya), and tying a hair-knot of the size of a box, and putting on a cloth of the breadth of a thumb, while she was going away she met with a Jackal. The Jackal asked, "Where are you going?" "Having looked for a [suitable] marriage, I am going to get married," she said. The Jackal said, "Would it be bad if you went with me?" [78] The bird asked, "What do you eat?" The Jackal said, "I eat a land crab, and drink a little water." Then the bird said, "Chi! Bullock, Chi!" and while going on again she met with a blind man. The blind man asked, "Where are you going?" "Having looked for a [suitable] marriage, I am going to get married," she said. The blind man said, "Would it be bad if you went with me?" The bird asked, "What do you eat?" The blind man said, "Having chewed an eel, I drink a little water." Then the bird said, "Chi! Bullock, Chi!" and while going on again she met with a Hunchback, chopping and chopping at a bank (nira) in a rice field. The Hunchback said, "Where are you going?" "Having looked for a [suitable] marriage, I am going to get married," she said. The Hunchback said, "Would it be bad if you went with me?" The bird asked, "What do you eat?" The Hunchback said, "I eat rice cakes." Then the bird having said, "Ha. It is good," the Hunchback said, "I put rice on the hearth to boil, and came away. You go and look after it." After the bird had gone to the Hunchback's house, she found that the water was insufficient for cooking the rice, and except that it was making a sound, "Kuja tapa tapa, kuja tapa tapa," it was not cooking. So the bird went to the Hunchback, and said, "The water is insufficient for cooking the rice. It only says 'Kuja tapa tapa, kuja tapa tapa.' [79] Bring water, O Hunchback." The Hunchback became angry [at the nicknames], and having come home, when he was taking a water-pot to the well, a frog sitting on the well mouth jumped into the well, making a sound, "Kujija bus." [80] Then the Hunchback, having drawn and drawn up the water from the well, caught and killed the frog, and tried to fill the water-pot with water. The water continuing, as he poured it, to make a sound "Kuja kutu kutu, kuja kutu kutu," [81] except that it splashed up does not fill the water-pot. Through anger at it, he took the water-pot and struck it against the mouth of the well, and smashed it. While he was coming home he met a Village Headman. The Village Headman asked, "Where, Mr. Hunchback, did you go?" The Hunchback said, "What is the journey on which I am going to thee, Bola, O Heretic?" and having come home, killed the Pied Robin, and ate the cakes that the bird brought. North-western Province. In Indian Folk Tales (Gordon), p. 59, a large grain measure (paila) having quarrelled with his wife, the small grain measure (paili), and beaten her, she ran off, and on her way met with a Crow, which invited her to stay with him. She inquired, "What will you give me to eat and drink, what to wear and what to spend?" The reply being unsatisfactory, she went on, and met a Bagula (crane or heron), which also invited her to stay, and when asked the same question gave an unsatisfactory answer. She next met a King, who said, "I will place one cushion below you and one above, and whatsoever you desire you may have to eat." She refused this, and met a dog, who told her that in the King's store there was much raw sugar, of which they would eat as much as they pleased. She accepted this offer, and they lived in the store; but one day the King's daughter threw in the scales, which wounded the dog on the head, so the measure jumped out. NO. 30 THE JACKAL AND THE HARE In a certain country there are a Jackal and a Hare living together, it is said. One day when the Jackal was rubbing himself in the morning in the open space at the front of the house, there was a pumpkin seed in his hair. He took it and planted it. Afterwards, when the Hare went to the open ground, and was rubbing himself, he also had a pumpkin seed in his hair. He, too, took it and planted it. That which the Jackal planted, being without water, died. The Hare having brought water in his ears, and watered his seed, it sprouted, grew large, and bore a fruit. After the fruit had become large, the Jackal and Hare spoke together, "Friend, with that pumpkin fruit let us eat pumpkin milk-rice." They also said, "Whence the rice, coconut, and the like, for it?" Then the Hare said, "We two will go to the path to the shops. You stay in the bushes. I will be lying down in the grass field (pitiya) at the side of the path. Men going along the road, having placed on the path the articles which they are carrying to the shops, will come to take me. Then you take the goods, and go off to the bushes." When the Jackal and Hare had gone to the path that led to the shops, and seen a man coming, bringing a bag of rice, the Hare lay down in the grass field as though dead. The Jackal hid himself and waited. That man having come up, and seen that the Hare was dead, said, "Appa! Bola, there is meat for me." So he placed the bag of rice on the road, and went to get the Hare. Then the Jackal came running, and carried off the bag of rice into the bushes. When the man was approaching the Hare, it got up and ran away. So the man had neither the bag of rice nor the Hare. He went home empty-handed (nikam). Again when the Jackal and Hare were looking out, they saw a man come, bringing a pingo (carrying-stick) load of coconuts, and the Hare went and lay down again in the grass field. The Jackal hid himself and looked out. Afterwards that man came up, and as he was going on from there he saw that the Hare was lying dead, and saying, "Appa! Bola, there is a Hare," placed the pingo load of coconuts on the path, and went to get the Hare. The Jackal, taking the pingo load of coconuts, went into the bushes. As that man approached the Hare it got up and ran away. So the man had neither the pingo load of coconuts nor the Hare. He went home empty-handed. As the Jackal and Hare were looking out again, they saw that a man was bringing a bill-hook and a betel-cutter, which he had got made at the forge. So the Hare went and lay down again in the field. The man came up, and when going on from there, having seen that the Hare was dead, placed the bill-hook and betel-cutter on the path, and went to get the Hare. Then the Jackal carried the bill-hook and the betel-cutter into the bushes. As that man was coming near to take the Hare, it got up and ran away. So that man had neither the bill-hook, nor the betel-cutter, nor the Hare. He went home empty-handed. As the Jackal and Hare were looking out again, they saw a potter coming, bringing a pingo load of pots, so the Hare went and lay down again in the grass field. The Jackal hid himself and waited. When the potter was going on from there, he saw that the Hare was dead, and having placed the pingo load of pots on the path, he went to get it. Then the Jackal, taking the pingo load of pots, went off into the bushes. As the man was coming near the Hare it got up and ran away. So that man had neither the pingo load of pots nor the Hare. He went home empty-handed. Then the Jackal and Hare took home the bag of rice, and the pingo load of coconuts, and the bill-hook, and the betel-cutter, and the pingo load of pots. After that, having plucked and cut up the pumpkin fruit, and washed the rice, and put it in the cooking pot, and placed it on the fire, and broken the coconut, and scraped out the inside, while squeezing it [in water in order to make coconut-milk], the Jackal said to the Hare, "Friend, I will pour this on the rice, and in the meantime before I take it off the fire, you go, and plucking leaves without a point bring them [to use] as plates." While the Hare was going for them, the Jackal ate all the rice, and placed only a little burnt rice in the bottom of the cooking pot. Then he lay down on the ash-heap. Afterwards the Hare returned, and saying, "Friend, there is not a leaf without a point. I have walked and walked through the whole of this jungle in search of one," gave into the paws of the Jackal two leaves with the ends bitten off. Then, without getting up, the Jackal said, "Ando! Friend, what is the use of a leaf without a point now? The rice people, the coconut people, the bill-hook and betel-cutter people, the pots people having eaten the rice, and beaten me also, rolled me over on this ash-heap. There will still be a little burnt rice in the bottom of the cooking pot. Scrape it off, and putting a little in your mouth, put a little in my mouth too." So the Hare having scraped off the burnt rice, and eaten a little of it, put a little in the Jackal's mouth. Then the Jackal said, "Friend, a tick is biting my nose; rid me of it." When the Hare was coming near to rid him of it, the Jackal vomited all over the Hare's body. Then the Hare bounded off to the river, and jumped into it, and having become clean returned to the place where the Jackal was. The Jackal asked, "How, Friend, did you become clean?" The Hare said, "I went to a place where a washerman-uncle is washing clothes, and got him to wash me." The Jackal asked, "Where is he washing?" The Hare said, "Look there! He is washing at the river." Afterwards the Jackal went to the river, and said to the washerman-uncle, "Ane! Washerman-uncle, wash me too, a little." When the washerman-uncle, having taken hold of the Jackal's tail, had struck a couple of blows with him on the stone, the Jackal said, "That will do, that will do, washerman-uncle, I shall have become clean now." But the washerman-uncle, saying, "Will you eat my fowls again afterwards? Will you eat them?" gave him another stroke. Then the washerman-uncle, having washed the clothes, went home. From that time the Jackal and Hare became unfriendly, and the Jackal said that whenever he saw Hares he would eat them. North-western Province. According to a variant, the washerman struck the Jackal on the stone until he was dead. NO. 31 THE LEOPARD AND THE MOUSE-DEER In a jungle wilderness in the midst of the forest there is a rock cave. In the cave a Leopard dwells. One day when the Leopard had gone for food a lame female Mouse-deer (Miminni) crept into the cave, and gave birth to two young ones. Afterwards the Mouse-deer having seen that the Leopard, having got wet at the time of a very great rainfall, was coming to the cave, began to beat the young ones, so the young ones began to squall. Then the Mouse-deer came out, saying, "There is fresh Leopard's flesh, there is dried Leopard's flesh; what else shall I give you? Having eaten these, still you are crying in order to eat fresh Leopard's flesh!" As the Mouse-deer was saying it, the Leopard heard it, and thought, "They are going to eat me," and having become afraid, sprang off and ran away, thinking, "I will go to my Preceptor, and tell him." Having gone to him, the Jackal said, "What is it, Sir? You are running as though afraid. Why?" he asked. The Leopard then replied, "Preceptor, the danger that has happened to me is thus: A Mouse-deer having crept into the cave that I live in, and having borne young ones there, as I was returning came shouting and springing to eat me. Through fear of it I came running away," he said to the Jackal. The Jackal then said, "What of that! Don't be afraid. I will come with you and go there. As soon as I go I will bite her and cast her out." As they went near the cave, the Leopard having lagged a very little behind, said, "Friend, I cannot go, I cannot go." Then the Jackal said, "If you are afraid to that extent, be so good as to go after tying a creeper to my neck, and tying the other end to your waist, Sir," he said to the Leopard. So bringing a creeper, and tying one end to the Jackal's neck, and tying the other end to the Leopard's waist, they set off to go to the cave. As they were going there, the Mouse-deer, having seen that the Jackal was bringing the Leopard, began to beat the young ones. When the young ones were squalling, the Mouse-deer having come out, says, "Don't cry; the Jackal is bringing another Leopard for you." Then she says to the Jackal, "Jackal-artificer, after I told you to bring seven yoke of Leopards, what has the Jackal-artificer come for, tying a creeper to only this one lean Leopard?" After she had asked this, the Leopard thought, "They have joined with the Jackal, and are going to kill me," and began to run off. Then the creeper having become tightened round the Jackal's neck, the Leopard ran away, taking him along, causing the Jackal-artificer to strike and strike against that tree, this tree, that stone, this stone. The Leopard having gone a great distance in the jungle, after he looked [found that] the creeper had become thoroughly tightened on the Jackal-artificer's neck. Having seen that he was grinning and showing his teeth, the Leopard says, "The laugh is at the Jackal-artificer. I was frightened, and there is no blood on my body," he said. When he looked again, the Jackal was dead, grinning with his teeth and mouth. North-western Province. This story is given in The Orientalist, vol. iv, p. 79 (D. A. Jayawardana), but the animals that went to the cave are wrongly termed tiger and fox, which are not found in Ceylon. It is also related in vol. iv, p. 121 (S. J. Goonetilleke), the animals being a hind and a tiger. In vol. i, p. 261, there is a Santal story (J. L. Phillips), in which a goat with a long beard, which had taken refuge in a tiger's cave frightened it when asked, "Who are you with long beard and crooked horns in my house?" by saying, "I am your father." A monkey returned with it, their tails being tied together. When they came to the cave, the monkey asked the same question, and received the same answer, which frightened both animals so much that they fled, the monkey's tail being pulled off. When the tiger stopped, and began to lick himself, he found the monkey's tail so sweet that he went back and ate the monkey. In the Panchatantra (Dubois), a bearded goat frightened a lion that he found in a cave in which he took refuge, by saying, "I am the Lord He-goat. I am a devotee of Siva, and I have promised to devour in his honour 101 tigers, 25 elephants, and 10 lions." He had eaten the rest, and was now in search of the lions. A jackal persuaded the lion to return, but the goat frightened them again. In Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 303, a pandit frightened a demon in this manner, by scolding a wrestler who brought for dinner an apparent goat which the pandit recognised as a demon. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 132 ff.--Tales of the Punjab, p. 123 ff.--a farmer's wife frightened a tiger that was going to eat a cow. A jackal persuaded it to return, their tails being tied together. On the tiger's running off again, the jackal was jolted to death. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iv, p. 257, there is a Santal story by Rev. E. T. Cole, of a tiger which was frightened by two brothers. The three sat round a fire and asked riddles. The tiger's was, "One I will eat for breakfast, and another like it for supper." The men expressed their inability to guess the answer, and their riddle was, "One will twist the tail, the other will wring the ear." When the tiger was escaping, they held the tail till it came off. In Tota Kahani (Small), p. 98, a lynx took possession of a tiger's cave, and behaved like the mouse-deer when the tiger came up. When the tiger returned with a monkey, the lynx frightened it like the mouse-deer, by telling its young ones that a monkey friend had sworn to bring a tiger that day. On hearing this, the tiger killed the monkey, and fled. NO. 32 THE CROCODILE'S WEDDING In a certain country there is a Crocodile in the river, it is said. On the high ground on the other bank there was a dead Elephant. A Jackal of the high ground on this side came to the river bank, and on his saying "Friend," the Crocodile rose to the surface. Then the Jackal said, "Now then, how are you getting on, living in that [solitary] way? I could find a wife for you, but to fetch you a mate I have no means of going over to the land on that bank." The Crocodile said, "Ane! Friend, if you would become of assistance to me in that way can't I put you on the other bank?" The Jackal said, "If so, Friend, put me on the ground on the other side, so that I may go to-day and ask for a mate for you, and come back again." Then the Crocodile, placing the Jackal on his back, swam across the river, and after placing the Jackal on the other bank returned to the water. The Jackal went and ate the body of that dead Elephant. Having eaten it during the whole of that day, he returned again to the river. Having arrived there, when he said "Friend," the Crocodile rose to the surface and asked the Jackal, "Friend, did you ask for a mate for me?" Then the Jackal said, "Friend, I did indeed ask for a mate; we have not come to an agreement about it yet. To-morrow I must go again to settle it. On that account put me on the ground on the other side." So the Crocodile, placing the Jackal on his back, swam across the river, and placed the Jackal on this bank. Next day, as it became light, the Jackal went to the river, and as he was saying "Friend," the Crocodile rose to the surface. The Jackal said, "Friend, in order that I may go and make a settlement of yesterday's affair and return again, put me on the other bank." Then the Crocodile, placing the Jackal on his back crossed the river, and having placed the Jackal on the other bank went again into the water. The Jackal having gone to the dead body of the Elephant, and eaten it even until nightfall, came to the river after night had set in. As he was saying "Friend," the Crocodile rose to the surface, and asked, "Friend, did you get it settled to-day?" The Jackal said, "Friend, I have indeed settled the matter. They told me to come to-morrow in order to summon her to come. On that account put me on the far bank." After that, the Crocodile, placing the Jackal on his back, went across the river, and having placed the Jackal on the ground on this side returned to the water. The Jackal next day also, as it became light, went to the river. When he said "Friend," the Crocodile rose to the surface. The Jackal said, "Friend, if I must bring and give you your mate to-day, put me on the other bank." After that, the Crocodile, placing the Jackal on his back, went across the river, and having placed the Jackal on the ground on the other side, went into the water. The Jackal went that day to the dead body of the Elephant, and having eaten it until nightfall the Elephant's carcase became finished. In the evening the Jackal came to the river, and when he was saying "Friend," the Crocodile rose to the surface, and asked, "Friend, where is the mate?" Then the Jackal said, "Ando! Friend, they made a mistake about it to-day; they told me to return to-morrow to invite her to come. Because of that put me on the other bank again. Having come to-morrow I will bring and give you the mate." After that, the Crocodile, placing the Jackal on his back, swam across the river, and having put down the Jackal on the ground on this side, went into the water. Then the Jackal, sitting down on the high ground on this bank, said to the Crocodile, "Foolish Crocodiles! Is it true that a Jackal King like me is going to ask for a wedding for thee, for a Crocodile who is in the water like thee? I went to the land on that bank to eat the carcase of an Elephant which died on that side. To-day the carcase was finished. So now I shall not come again. Thou art a fool indeed." Having said this, the Jackal came away. North-western Province. This story is known by the Village Vaeddas. In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 46, this story is given by Mr. E. Goonetilleke, the Crocodile being termed an Alligator. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 243--Tales of the Punjab, p. 230--there is a variant in which the Jackal was attracted by a fruit-laden wild plum tree. He made love to a lady Crocodile, and was carried across the river by her. NO. 33 THE GAMARALA'S CAKES At a village there are a Gamarala (a village headman or elder) and a Gama-Mahage (his wife) and their four sons, it is said. One day while they were there the Gamarala said to his wife, "Bolan, it is in my mind to eat cakes. For the boys and for me fry ample cakes, and give us them," he said. The Gamarala was looking out for them for many days; the Gama-Mahage did not cook and give him the cakes. Again one day the Gamarala thought of eating cakes. That day, also, the Gamarala reminded her of the matter of the cakes. On the following day the Gama-Mahage having fried five large cakes, placed them in the corn store. The boys having gone to the chena and come back, after they had asked, "Is there nothing to eat?" the Gama-Mahage said to the boys, "Look there! There are cakes in the corn store. I put them there for father, too; eat ye also," she said. The boys having gone to the corn store, all four ate the cakes. After they had eaten them, the Gamarala, having gone to the watch-hut, came back. After he came the boys said, "Father, we ate cakes." When the Gamarala asked, "Where are [some] for me?" "Mother puts them in the corn store," they said. When the Gamarala went to the corn store for the cakes to eat, there were no cakes. "Where, Bolan, are the cakes?" he asked. Saying, "Why are you asking for them at my hands? If there are none the boys will have eaten them," the Gama-Mahage pushed against the Gamarala. Then the Gamarala said, "Now I shall not remind you again. You do not make and give me the food I tell you about." Having said, "It is good," and thinking, "Having pounded and taken about half a quart of rice, and given it at a place outside, and got the cakes fried, I must eat them," pounding the rice he took it away. As he was going he saw a poor house. Having seen it the Gamarala thought, "Should I give it at this house, these persons because they are poor will take the rice, and I shall not be able to eat cakes properly." So having gone to a tiled house near it, and given a little rice, he said, "Make and give me five cakes out of this, please." The people of the house replied, "It is good," and taking a little of the rice fried some cakes. The woman who fried them then looked into the account. "For the trouble of pounding the rice and grinding it into flour, I want ten cakes," she said. "Also for the oil and coconuts I want ten cakes, and for going for firewood, and for the trouble of frying the cakes, I want ten cakes." So that on the whole account for cooking the cakes it was made out that the Gamarala must give five cakes. Next day the Gamarala, having eaten nothing at home, came to eat the cakes. Having sat down, "Where are the cakes?" he asked. Then the woman who fried the cakes said, "Gamarala, from the whole of the rice I fried twenty-five cakes. For pounding the rice and grinding it into flour I took ten cakes. For the oil and coconuts I took ten cakes. For going for firewood, and for the trouble of frying the cakes ten more having gone, still the Gamarala must bring and give me five cakes." Then the Gamarala thought, "Ada! What a cake eating is this that has happened to me!" After thinking thus, having gone outside and walked along, and come to that poor house, he sat down. As he was thinking about it that poor man asked, "What is it, Gamarala, that you are thinking about in that way?" The Gamarala said, "The manner in which they fried and gave me cakes at that house," and he told him about it. Then the man of that poor house said to the Gamarala, "Since we are poor you did not give the rice to us. If he had given it to us wouldn't the Gamarala have been well able to eat cakes? The Gamarala having given us the rice would have had cakes to eat, and still five cakes to give for that debt. "For those cakes I will teach the Gamarala a trick," that poor man said to the Gamarala. "The husband of the woman who fried the cakes has gone to his village. The woman is now connected with another man. Every day the man having come at night taps at the door when he comes. After she has asked from inside the house, 'Who is it?' he makes a grunt, 'Hum.' Then having opened the door he is given by her to eat and drink. To-day she will give the cakes made for the Gamarala. "After the Gamarala has gone at night in that manner, and tapped at the door, she will ask, 'Who is it?' Then say, 'Hum.' Then she will open the door. Having gone into the house without speaking, she will give to eat and drink. Having eaten and drunk, and been there a little time, open the door and come away." Thus the poor man taught his lesson to the Gamarala. In that manner, the Gamarala having gone after it became night, tapped at the house door. [82] "Who is it?" she asked. "Hum," he said. Then having opened the door and taken the Gamarala into the house, she gave him cakes and sweetmeats to eat. As he was eating them, some one else having come taps at the door. The Gamarala became afraid. "Don't be afraid," she said, and sent the Gamarala to the corn loft [under the roof of the house, at the level of the top of the side walls]. Having sent him there she asked, "Who tapped at the door?" "Hum," he said. Then she opened the door, and after she had looked it was the Tambi-elder-brother, [83] who was trading in the village. She got him also into the house, and gave him sweetmeats to eat. When a little time had gone, again some one tapped at the door. Then the Tambi-elder-brother, having become afraid, prepared to run off without eating the sweetmeats. "Don't be afraid," she said, and she put the Tambi also in another part of the corn loft [and he lay down]. Having come back, after she had opened the door and looked, it was the man of the house who, having been to the village, had come back. She gave him water to wash his face, hands, and feet. After he had finished washing, she gave him cakes and the like to eat, and water to drink. The man afterwards lay down to sleep. When a little time had gone, the man who went first to the corn loft, the Gamarala, asked for water, saying, "Water, water." Then the man of the house having opened his eyes, asked, "What is speaking in the corn loft?" "When you went to the village, as you were away a long time, I made an offering of a leaf-cup of water to the deity. Perhaps the deity is asking for it now," she said. Then the man told her to put a coconut in the corn loft. So the woman put a coconut in the corn loft. The Gamarala, taking the coconut in his hand, sought for a place on which to strike it [in order to break it, so that he might drink the water in it]. As he was going feeling with his hand, the Gamarala's hand touched a lump like a stone in hardness, the head of Tambi-elder-brother. After he touched it, the Tambi-elder-brother [not knowing what it was] through fear trembled and trembled, and did not speak. Then the Gamarala, taking the coconut, struck it very hard on the head of the Tambi-elder-brother, thinking it was a stone. The man of the house thought [before this], "The water in the coconut is insufficient for the deity. He will be ascending [and leaving us]." After he had quickly opened the door, and gone out to get more water to give him, the Tambi-elder-brother sprang from the corn loft, breaking his head, and ran away. Then the man who came out to get the water said, "My deity! Here is water, here is water," holding the water kettle in his hand. While he was calling out to him, the woman having opened her eyes said, "What is it, Bolan?" As she was coming outside the man said, "The deity jumped down and ran away." At that very time, breaking out from the corn loft, the Gamarala also jumped down and ran off. Then the man of the house asks the woman, "Who is that running away?" The woman says, "Why, Bolan, don't you understand in this way? Didn't the God Saman also run behind him?" Village Vaedda of Bintaenna. NO. 34 THE KINNARA AND THE PARROTS In a large forest there is a great Banyan tree. In that tree many Parrots roost. While they were doing so, one day, having seen a Crow flying near, a Parrot spoke to the other Parrots, and said, "Bolawu, [84] do not ye ever give a resting-place to this flying animal," he said. While they were there many days after he said it, one day, as a great rain was falling at night, on that day the flying Crow, saying, "Ka, Ka," came and settled on the tree near those Parrots. That night one Parrot out of the flock of Parrots was unable to come because of that day's rain. Having seen that this Crow was roosting on the tree, all the Parrots, surrounding and pecking and pecking the Crow, drove it out in the rain. Again, saying, "Ka, Ka," having returned it roosts in the same tree. As the Parrots getting soaked and soaked were driving off the Crow in this way, an old Parrot, sitting down, says, "What is it doing? Because it cannot go and come in this rain it is trying [85] to roost here. What [harm] will it do if it be here this little time in our company?" thus this old Parrot said. So the other Parrots allowed it to be there, without driving away the Crow. While it was there, the Crow in the night left excreta, and in the morning went away. At the place where the excreta fell a tree sprang up [from a seed that was in them]; it became very large. As it was thus, one day as Kinnaras were going near that [Crows'] village, having seen that another tree was near the tree in which the Parrots roosted, the Kinnaras spoke with each other, "In these days cannot we catch the Parrots that are in this tree?" they said. Before that, the Kinnaras were unable to catch the Parrots in the tree. There was then only that tree in which the Parrots roosted. When the Kinnaras were going along the tree to catch the Parrots, the Parrots got to know [owing to the shaking of the tree], so all the Parrots flew away. Because of that they were unable to catch the Parrots. The Kinnaras having [now] gone along the tree which had grown up through the Crow's dropping the seed under the tree, easily placed the net [over the Parrots' tree]. All the Parrots having come in the evening had settled in the tree. Having settled down, and a little time having gone, after they looked, all the Parrots being folded in the net were enclosed. The Parrots tried to go; they could not. While they were under the net in that way, the Parrot Chief says to the other Parrots, "How has another tree grown up under this tree that we live in?" thus the Parrot Chief asked the other Parrots. "At a time when I was not here did ye give a resting-place to any one else?" Then the Parrots say, "One day when it was raining at night, a Crow having come and stayed here, went away," they said. Then the Parrot Chief says, "I told you that very thing, 'Don't give a resting-place to any one whatsoever.' Now we all have become appointed to death. To-morrow morning the Kinnaras having come and broken our wings, seizing us all will go away." When a little time had gone, the Parrot Chief [again] spoke to the Parrots, and said, "I will tell you a trick. Should you act in that way the whole of us can escape," the Parrot Chief said. "When the Kinnaras come near the tree, all of you, tightly shutting your eyes and mouths, be as though dead, without even flapping your wings. Then the Kinnaras, thinking we are dead, having freed us one by one from the net, when they are throwing us down on the ground, and have taken and placed all there, fly away after they have thrown down the last one on the ground," he said. "That is good," they said. While they were there, a Kinnara, tying a large bag at his waist, having come to the bottom of the tree, says, "Every day [before], I couldn't [catch] ye. To-day ye are caught in my net." Having ascended the tree, as he was going [along it] the Kinnara says, "What is this, Bola? Are these dead without any uncanny sound?" Having climbed onto the tree, after he looked [he saw that] a part having hung neck downwards, a part on the branches, a part in the net, they were as though dead. Then the Kinnara saying, "Ada! Tell ye the Gods! Yesterday having climbed the tree I had no trouble in spreading the net; to-day having come to the tree I have no trouble in releasing the net. Ada! May the Gods be witnesses of the event that has occurred! What am I to do with these dead bodies!" and freeing and freeing each one from the net, threw it down on the ground. As he threw them to the ground he said "One" at the first one that he threw to the ground, and having taken the account [of them], after all had fallen, at the time when the Kinnara, freeing the net, was coming descending from the tree, the whole flock of Parrots went flying away. Village Vaedda of Bintaenna. A version of this story from the North-western Province, by a Duraya, though shorter, contains the same incidents, the tree, however, being another Fig, the Aehaetu, Ficus tsiela. It ends as follows-- "As he [the Kinnara] was throwing them down in this way, having been counting and counting 'One,' the Parrot which he counted last having flapped its wings and screamed, [according to a pre-arranged plan, to show] that the man was cheated and that it had escaped, flew away. All the Parrots having gone, after they had looked into the account of the whole flock [found that] they were all correct. "Then the Parrots said, 'Let us not give a resting-place to the Crow. At the places where he goes he is a dangerous one. To us also, this danger came now [through him]. Ada! Because we gave this one a resting-place. O Vishnu, burst thou lightning on him who did this to us! Ada! Where shall we all go now?' After flying and flying in the midst of the forest, all went to each place where they had relatives." The story is given in Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 114, with the variations that a thousand crows came to the tree instead of one, and that snares of thread were used in place of the net. The last parrot did not escape, but was taken away and sold. In Tota Kahani (Small), p. 64, when a parrot and its young ones were caught in a net they feigned death. All the young ones escaped by this means. The mother was captured and sold to the King, and regained her liberty by pretending to fetch some medicine to cure his illness. NO. 35 HOW A JACKAL SETTLED A LAWSUIT. In a village there is a rich foolish man. One son was born to the man. When they had been there in that way for a long time, as the rich man's son was growing up, his father died. Then all this wealth came into the hands of his son. The son was a fool just like the father. One day, having seen a wealthy man going in a carriage in which a horse was yoked, that rich man's son thought he ought to go in that way in a carriage in which a horse was yoked. This rich man having gone home spoke to a servant, and said, "I will give thee thy expenses for going and coming. Go thou, and buy and bring me a horse," he said. Having said it, he gave him a hundred masuran, and having given them sent him away. This servant having gone on and on, went to a great big country. Having gone there, he made inquiry throughout the country--"Are there horses to sell in this country?" Then a man of that country said, "The Gamarala of this country has many horses," he said. This servant who went to bring horses having given a masurama to the man whom he had met, said, "Please show me the house of the Gamarala who has the horses," he said. So the man, calling the servant, having gone to the Gamarala's house, sent him there. The Gamarala asked these men, "What have you come here for?" The servant who went to get horses said, "I have come to take a horse for money," he said. "For whom?" he asked. "For a rich man in a village," he said. Having given fifty masuran he got a horse. After he got it he again gave a masurama to that man who went with him. Having given it, and the two persons having gone a considerable distance, [86] this man left both the horse and the man to go [alone], and went home. When the servant had taken the horse, and gone a considerable distance, after he looked [he found that] night was coming on. On seeing it, taking the horse and saying, "This night I cannot go," having sought and sought for a resting-place, he met with a place where there were chekkus (mills for expressing oil). There this man found a resting-place; and having tied the horse to an oil-mill, this servant went to a village, and ate and drank, and having returned went to a shed at the side of the oil-mill, and lay down to sleep. Having become much fatigued because he had brought this horse very far, the servant went to sleep. At dawn, the man who owned the oil-mill, having arisen and come near the oil-mill, when he looked saw that a horse was tied near the oil-mill. So this man thought, "Last night the oil-mill gave birth to a horse"; and unloosing it from the place where it was tied, the owner of the oil-mill, having taken the horse home, tied it in the garden. Then the servant having opened his eyes, after he looked, because the horse was not near the oil-mill went seeking it. Having seen it tied in a garden close to a house, he spoke to the [people in the] house, "Having tied this horse near the oil-mill, in the night I went to sleep. This one breaking loose in the night came here." Unfastening it, as he was making ready to go, the man who owned the house came running, [and saying], "Where did my oil-mill give birth to this horse for thee last night?" he brought the horse back, and began to scold the servant. Then the servant thought, "Now I shall not be allowed to go and give this horse to the rich man. Because of it, I must go for a lawsuit." As he was going seeking a trial he met with a place where lawsuits were heard. The servant having gone [there] told the judge about the business: "When I was bringing yesterday the horse that I am taking for a rich man, it became night while I was on the road. As there was no way to go or come, I tied and placed the horse at this oil-mill, and went to sleep. Having arisen in the morning, after I looked, because the horse that I brought was not there I went looking and looking along its foot-prints. Having seen that it was tied in the garden near the house of the oil-mill worker, thinking, 'This one breaking loose has come here,' I unfastened it. As I was making ready to bring it away, having scolded me and said that the oil-mill gave birth to the horse, he took it," he said to the judge; and stopped. Then the judge says, "If the oil-mill gave birth to the horse, the horse belongs to the man who owns the oil-mill," the judge said. The servant having become grieved says, "What am I to do now? Without the masuran which the rich man gave me, and without the horse that I got after giving fifty masuran, having gone to the village what shall I say to the rich man, so that I may escape?" he said with much grief. Then a Jackal having come there along the same road, and having seen it, asks the servant, "Because of what matter are you going sorrowing in this way?" The servant says to the Jackal, "Jackal-artificer, [87] is the trouble that happened to me right to thee, according to what was said?" As they were going along, the Jackal, having gone behind him, asks again, "Tell me a little about it, and let us go. More difficult things than that have happened to us--folds [full] of scare-crows tangled together. As we cleared up those with extreme care there is no difficulty in clearing up this also." So the Jackal-artificer said to the servant. Then the servant told the Jackal the way in which the rich man gave the servant one hundred masuran; the way in which, having given fifty masuran, he got the horse; the way in which, having brought the horse, he tied and placed it at the oil-mill; the way in which the oil-mill owner, unfastening the horse, went and tied it; the way in which, after he went to ask for it he would not give it, saying that the oil-mill gave birth to the horse, and came to scold him; then also what the judge said. The servant told [these] to the Jackal-artificer, making all clear. Then the Jackal-artificer says, "Ane! That's thick work. I'll put that right for you. You must assist me also," he said. "You yourself having gone near the judge again, and made obeisance, you must say, 'The oil-mill did not give birth to the horse. The owner of the oil-mill, unfastening it from the place where I tied it, took it away. I have evidence of it. Having heard the evidence please do what you want,'" so the Jackal taught him. So the servant having gone, made obeisance to the judge. "What have you come again for?" the judge asked. Then the servant says, "The oil-mill did not give birth to the horse. Unfastening it from the place where I tied it, and having gone, he tied it up. I have evidence of it. Having heard the evidence do what you want, Sir," he said. The judge says, "It is good. Who is your witness?" "The Jackal-artificer," he said. So the judge sent a message to the Jackal to come. That day the Jackal did not come. On the following day, also, he sent a message. He did not come. Next day he sent a message. That day the Jackal, having thoroughly prepared himself, came to the judgment court. After the judge asked, "Dost thou know about this lawsuit?" "Yes, Sir," the Jackal-artificer said. "Why didst thou not come yesterday," the judge asked the Jackal. "Yesterday I did not come; I saw the sky," he said. While saying it the Jackal was sleepy. Again he asked, "Why didst thou not come on the first day?" "On that day I saw the earth," he said. While saying it the Jackal was sleepy. "Why hast thou come to-day?" he asked. "To-day I saw the fire," he said. "Having seen the sky why didst thou not come?" the judge asked. Then the Jackal says, "O Lord, the sky cannot be trusted. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it clears up. Because of that I did not come." Having said it he was sleepy. "Having seen the earth why didst thou not come?" he asked. "That also cannot be trusted," he said. "In some places there are mounds, in some places it is flat; in some places there is water, in some places there is not water," he said. Having said it he was sleepy. "What hast thou come to-day for?" the judge asked. "To-day I saw the fire," he said. "Because of that I came," he said. Then the Jackal says, "After the fire has blazed up you do not look after your cold hut. I do not look after my palace also." [88] Having said it the Jackal was sleepy. On account of that saying the judge having become angry, "Being here what art thou sleeping for?" he asked. "Ane! O Lord who will become a thousand Buddhas [in future existences], I am very sleepy indeed," he said. "Why, Bola?" he asked. "Last night I went to look at the fishes sporting on the land. Because of that I am sleepy," he said. Then the judge having become angry with the Jackal, says very severely, "Having beaten him, cast ye him out." This rascally Jackal having prayed with closed paws, saying, "O Lord, who will become a thousand Buddhas," fell down and made obeisance. "In what country, Bola, Jackal, do the fish who are in the water sport on the land?" the judge asked the Jackal. The Jackal said, "I must receive permission [to ask also a question], O Lord. How does an oil-mill which expresses the kinds of oils give birth to horses?" Then the judge, having become ashamed and his anger having gone, told the rich man's servant to take away the horse. Village Vaedda of Bintaenna. In Indian Fables, p. 45, Mr. P. V. Ramaswami Raju gives a South Indian variant of the latter part of this story. A thief stole a horse that was tethered to a tree, and then stated that he saw the tree eat the horse. The case was referred to a fox [jackal]. The fox said he felt dull. "All last night the sea was on fire; I had to throw a great deal of hay into it to quench the flames, so come to-morrow and I shall hear your case." When he was asked how hay could quench flames, he replied, "How could a tree eat up a horse?" In Indian Nights' Entertainment, Panjab (Swynnerton), p. 142, there is a story about a foal that was born in the night while a mare was left near an oil-press, and was claimed by the oil man. The King who tried the case decided that the "mare could not possibly have had this foal, because, you see, it was found standing by the oil-press." A jackal assisted the owner to recover it, and fell down several times in the court, explaining that during the night the sea caught fire, and he was tired out by throwing water on it with a sieve, to extinguish it. When asked how this could be possible, the jackal retorted by inquiring if any one in the world ever heard of an oil-press's bearing a foal. In the interior of West Africa there is a variant, given in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 23. A mare was buried near a house, and a pumpkin spread from the adjoining piece of land, until it extended round the stake to which she was formerly tied. When the owner of the pumpkin split open a fruit that grew near the stake, there were two foals inside it, which the owner of the mare claimed. The judgment was that as a dead mare could not bear foals nor a pumpkin contain horses, neither of the claimants had a right to the foals; but as one sowed the pumpkin, and the other had watered it, each should take one foal. In another tale in the same volume, p. 141, a hyaena had a bull and a hare a cow, which bore a calf in the hare's absence. This was claimed by the hyaena, as having been borne by the bull. The dispute was referred to a male rat, which sent its young ones to say that it could not leave its hole, as it was about to bear young ones. When the hyaena laughed at the idea, and inquired when such an occurrence had been known, the rat replied, "Since it has been the bulls which bore calves." NO. 36 THE JACKAL AND THE TURTLE At a village there is a large pond. At the margin of the pond two Storks [89] live. When they had been eating the small fishes in that pond in that way for a long time, the pond became dried up by a very great drought. These two Storks having eaten the small fishes in the pond until they were becoming finished, one day a Stork of these two Storks having spoken to the other Stork, says, "Friend, now then, that we have been here is no matter to us. Because of it let us go to another district." Thus he spoke. Now, a Turtle stayed in the pond. The Turtle having heard the speech of these two Storks, the Turtle says, "Ane! Friends, I also now have been staying in this pond a long time. The pond having now dried up, I also have nothing to eat, nor water to be in, and nowhere to go. Because of it, friends, having taken me to the village to which you two go, put me down there," the Turtle said to the two Storks. Then one Stork says to the Turtle, "Ane! Bola, foolish Turtles! How wilt thou go with us to another village?" Then the Turtle says, "Ane! Friends, I indeed cannot go flying to the village to which you go. You two somehow or other having gone with me must put me there." Then the two Storks say to the Turtle, "If thou, shutting thy mouth, wilt remain without speaking anything, we two having gone to the place where there is water will put thee down there," the two Storks said. Having said this they brought a stick, and said to the Turtle, "Grasp the middle of this stick tightly with the mouth, and hold it tightly." Having said this, the two Storks [holding the stick near the ends] took the Turtle. While they were going flying, as they were going above a dried field a Jackal saw the shadow going with the two Storks carrying the Turtle. Having seen it the Jackal says, "Isn't this a troublesome comrade they are taking?" Then the Turtle having become angry, says, "The troublesome comrade whom they are taking is for thy mother." So the Turtle's mouth was opened. Then the Turtle fell on the ground. The two Storks left him and went away. The Jackal having come running, after he looked saw the Turtle, and turning and turning it over to eat, when he tried to eat it the Turtle says, "I have now for a long time been staying dried up without water. In that way you cannot eat me. Having gone with me to a place where there is water and put me in it, should I become soaked you will be able to eat me," he said to the Jackal. Then the Jackal having taken hold of the Turtle with his mouth, and placed it in a pond containing water, when he had been treading on it [to prevent it from escaping] for a little time, the Turtle says, "Now every place is soaked. Under the sole of your foot, Sir, I have not got wet. Should you raise the sole of your foot a little it would be good," it said. So the Jackal raised the foot a little. Then the Turtle crept to the bottom of the mud. The Jackal quickly seized the Turtle [by its leg] again. After he had caught it the Turtle says, "The Jackal-elder-brother being cheated has got hold of the Ketala [plant] root." The Jackal-elder-brother quickly having let go the Turtle, speedily got hold of the Ketala root that was near by. Then the Jackal being unable [to go deeper], the Turtle going yet a little further in the water, says, "Bola! Even to-day you are Jackals! When didst thou eat us?" Many Jackals prated to the Jackal about the Turtle. On account of the Jackal's being unable to eat the Turtle or to seize it, he became much ashamed. While he was there, having contrived and contrived a trick, saying he must somehow or other kill the Turtle, another Jackal came there to drink water. Having drunk water, he asks the other Jackal, "What, friend, are you thinking of and clenching your nails about?" Then the Jackal who was unable to seize the Turtle, says, "Friend, a Turtle cheated me, and went into this pond. Having become angry on account of that, I am looking for it in order to kill that one should that one come onto the land," he said to the other Jackal. That Jackal says, "Ae, Bola! Fool! How many Turtles are there yet in the pond? How canst thou seek out the one that cheated thee?" the Jackal that came to drink water said. Every day in that manner this Jackal comes to the pond to drink water. One day when he came to drink water, having seen that a crowd of Turtles are grimacing on the lotus, the Jackal says, "If ye and we be friends, how much advantage we can gain by it!" Having spoken thus on that day the Jackal went away. Having gone, when he met the Jackal whom the Turtle cheated he said, "Friend, having met with a crowd of Turtles while they were in the pond to-day, I spoke words [to them]. We must devise together a trick to kill them." Having said this the two Jackals talked together. Again, on a day when the Jackal went to the pond to drink water, having seen in the [same] way as on that day the Turtles grimacing on the lotus, the Jackal says, "How can ye and we remain in this manner? Should ye and we, both parties, take wives [from each other] wouldn't it be good?" the Jackal asked the Turtles. Then the Turtles say, "If so, indeed how good it would be!" "Then one day we will come and speak with ye [about] the wedding." Having said this the Jackal went away. Having gone he says to the Jackals, "[After] speaking words with the Turtles who are in that pond regarding taking and giving wives I have come away." Then the other Jackals said, "It is very good. Some day let us all go." So they spoke. Again on a day, after the Jackal had gone to the pond to drink water, on that day, having seen that Turtles more than on the other day were [there], he says, "Friends, to-day about all of you are [here]. Because of it, on what day will it be good to come and summon [our wives]?" he asked. "We will say in a day or two days," they said. The Jackal having drunk water and having gone, said to the other Jackals, "They said they will say in a day or two days [on which day we are to go to summon our wives]." Then the Jackal whom the Turtle cheated said, "In some way or other we must completely destroy them. Friends, somehow or other having gone and spoken about this wedding, make ready quickly," he said. On the following day this Jackal went to drink water, and to speak about the wedding. Having drunk water the Jackal asked the Turtles, "When will it be good to come?" "To-morrow will be good," the Turtles said. Then the Jackal says, "We shall all come. All ye also having got ready be present." Having said this, the Jackal quickly came running, and after all the Jackals had collected together, said, "Let nobody of ye go anywhere to-morrow. We must all go to call the Turtles for the wedding, and return." The Jackal whom the Turtle cheated said, "Somehow or other having sought out the Turtle that cheated me and called it to the wedding, I must torture it and kill it," he said. After that, all the Jackals having collected together, started to go to call the Turtles for the wedding. Having set off, the Jackal who drank water at the pond having gone in front to invite the Turtles [to be ready], said, "They are coming to summon you to the wedding. All ye having prepared for it be pleased to be quite ready," he said. Then all the Turtles having come and climbed onto the branches of trees fallen in the pond, were looking out. The Jackal who came with the message having gone back near the Jackals, said, "All the Turtles having climbed on the trees and the branches, are present looking out till we come." Well then, all the Jackals having started, while they were going with the tom-tom beaters, the Jackal who drank water at the pond said, "You stay here. I will go and look if the Turtles are coming or what." Having gone, after he looked [he saw that] all the Turtles in the trees, more than the Jackals, all having climbed onto the branches, were looking out. Having seen [this] the Jackal says, "Haven't you tom-toms, drums, kettle-drums?" the Jackal asked the Turtles. "There! we indeed are coming beating well the tom-toms, kettle-drums, drums, and [blowing] trumpets," he said. Then the Turtle Chief said, "Beat our tom-toms," he said. Then all the Turtles began to beat tom-toms by singing, "Gaja, Gaja; Gora, Gora; Baka, Baka," enough to destroy the ears. Then the Jackal having come running to the front of the Jackals, said, "All the Turtles having climbed completely along the branches of the trees are there. We all having gone near the Turtles must go along the trees that we can mount onto, and seize the Turtles," he said. Then the Jackal Chief said, "Not so. As we come very near the Turtles beat this tom-tom verse," he said. Then all at a leap having jumped onto the trees where the Turtles are he told them to seize them. The very tom-tom verse that he told the tom-tom beaters to beat on the tom-toms is, "Ehe; Kata, kata, kata. Ehe; Kata, kata, kata." Then when they were far off, the Turtles having seen the Jackals coming, said, "There they are, Bola. Now then, get ready." As they were coming near, beating the tom-toms, "Ehe; Kata, kata, kata. Ehe; Kata, kata, kata," the Turtles having heard all this, all the Turtles began to cry out, "Baka, Baka," as they came near. Then, as they came very near, singing "Baka, Baka," all the Turtles sprang into the pond [and disappeared]. On account of this thing that they did, the Jackals became still more ashamed. "These Cattle-Turtles have cheated us," they said; and having become angry, went away. The way the Jackal-artificers called the Turtles to the wedding is good. Village Vaedda of Bintaenna. The first part of this tale is found in the Jataka story No. 215 (vol. ii, p. 123). In it two Hansas or sacred Geese asked a Turtle to accompany them to their home, a golden cave in the Himalayas. They carried it like the Storks. The Jackal is not introduced at all. Some village children saw the Turtle in the air, and made a simple remark to that effect. The Turtle, wishing to reply, opened its mouth, and was smashed by falling in the King's court-yard. In the Panchatantra (Dubois), as well as in a variant of the North-western Province of Ceylon, and elsewhere in the island, the story does not end at this point, but with the escape of the Turtle after the Jackal had soaked it in the water. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 37, the story ends with the fall of the Turtle, which was being carried to a lake in which there was water. In this case, as in the Jataka story, the point to be illustrated only required the Turtle to fall and be killed. The variant of the North-western Province is practically identical with the first part of the Vaedda tale, but the drought is stated to have lasted for seven years. The Jackal was about to howl, and on turning his head upward for the purpose saw two Black Storks carrying the Turtle. He asked, "Where are you taking a present?" (referring to the way in which a considerable load is sometimes carried slung on a stick, the ends of which rest upon the shoulders of two men, one in front and the other behind). The Turtle replied, "For your mother's head." When the Jackal tried to eat it he heard the Turtle laughing inside the shell, and said, "Friend, what are you laughing at?" The Turtle said, "I am laughing at your thinking you can eat me in that way. I have been dried up for seven years, and if you want to eat me you must first soak me in water." The Jackal did this, and the Turtle escaped in the way related by the Vaeddas. The rest of the story is, I think, found only among the Vaeddas. Although it is clear that it must have been invented by the settled inhabitants of villages, the marriage custom according to which the bride was to be taken to the bridegroom's house to be married is not that of the modern Sinhalese, but is in accordance with the story related in the Mahavansa, i, p. 33, regarding the marriage of a Vaedi Princess at the time of Wijaya's landing in Ceylon. The Sinhalese custom is found in the story of the Glass Princess (No. 4), in which six Princes accompanied by their parents, went to their brides' city to be married, returning home with their brides afterwards. It is probable that the original story ended with the escape of the Turtle from the Jackal after it was placed in the water. It is a folk-tale, and not a story written to illustrate a maxim. It appears to have been invented to show the folk-lore superiority of the Turtle's intelligence over that of the Jackal. The Turtle is always represented as a very clever animal, not only because of the ease with which he can protect himself by withdrawing his head and legs inside the shell--of which Mr. A. Clark, formerly of the Forest Department of Ceylon, and I once had an amusing illustration at a pool in the Kanakarayan-aru, when his bull-terrier made frantic attempts to kill one, like the Jackal--but possibly also because, as I was told of another amphibious animal in West Africa, "he lives both in the water and on the land, therefore he knows the things of both the land and the water." In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 134, the story as far as the escape of the Turtle was given by Mr. H. A. Pieris, the animals concerned being wrongly termed Tortoise, Cranes, and Fox; the two latter animals are not found in Ceylon. To this the Editor added the story found in the Hitopadesa, in which the animals were a Turtle and two Geese, which agreed to carry the Turtle to another lake in order that it might not be killed by some fishermen next day. Some herdsmen's boys saw it, and remarked that if it fell they would cook and eat it. The Turtle replied, "You shall eat ashes," fell down, and was killed by the men. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 37, the birds were "Swans" (probably Hansas, which are always represented as geese in ancient carvings in Ceylon). Some men made remarks to each other on the strange object that was being carried, and the Turtle, on asking the birds what the chattering was about, fell and was killed by the men. In Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 310, a Jackal escaped from an Alligator [Crocodile] in the same manner as the Turtle. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 155--Tales of the Punjab, p. 147--an Iguana or Monitor Lizard outwitted a Jackal who had caught him by the tail as he was entering the hole in which he lived. Both pulled for a long time without any result. At last the Lizard said he gave in, and requested the Jackal to allow him to turn round and come out. When released he disappeared into the hole. NO. 37 THE LION AND THE TURTLE In a jungle there is a Lion King. While he was there, one day there was no prey for the Lion King when he was walking about seeking it. He obtained nothing as prey that day. As the Lion through fatigue was staying below a great big tree, avoiding the heat, he went to sleep. While he was sleeping, a Turtle came out [of the bushes], having set off to go away from there. As he was going along, a "sara, sara" sound was heard, having been made by the dry leaves. The Lion King having opened his eyes [90] at the sound of this Turtle's going, after he had looked saw the Turtle, and having become angry sprang at once near the Turtle. Having said, "Bola! What art thou going on a rapid journey in this manner for? Didst thou not see that I am [here]?" the Lion King pushed against the Turtle. Then the Turtle says, "O Lord who will become a thousand Buddhas [in future existences], I didn't come to cause you alarm, Sir; I am walking to procure my food," the Turtle said to the Lion King. "What art thou going to seek and eat in this forest?" the Lion asked. Then the Turtle says, "O Lord, I am walking to obtain and eat any sort of things that I can eat," the Turtle said. Then anger having gone to the Lion, he sprang to eat the Turtle. Then the Turtle, having brought his head inside, became like a stone. After he became thus, the Lion turning the Turtle to that side and to this side, and having clawed him and bitten him, looked at him, having been unable to do anything to him. After he had been looking the Lion says, "Having been like a what-is-it stone, didn't you preach to me in overbearing words?" When he had been looking at him a little time, as the Turtle, having put his head outside again, was going off, the Lion says, "Bola, art thou a being who can do anything?" "O Lord, the things that you, Sir, can do you do. I do the things that I can do," the Turtle said. "Bola, canst thou, who endest by drawing slowly and slowly what is like a lump of stone, run, jump, roar, swim in rivers that way and this way, equal to me? And what canst thou do to me, who having roared and caused the bottom of the ears to burst, and killed every animal, eats it?" the Lion said. Then the Turtle says, "You, Sir, frighten and eat even all. You cannot frighten and kill, nor eat, me except on land. In the water, you, Sir, cannot swim that side and this side equal to me," the Turtle said to the Lion. After the Lion, having become angry, said, "Wilt thou come to swim that side and this side with me? If not, I will put thee under a large stone," the Turtle having become afraid that he would kill him, having given his word to swim with the Lion that side and this side in a river, went near the river. Having gone [there] the Turtle met with yet a Turtle, and said, "Friend, a great trouble has befallen me to-day." After the friendly Turtle asked, "What is it, friend?" the other Turtle says, "The Lion King has come and wagered with me to swim that side and this side," he said. Then the Turtle says, "Why are you afraid of that, friend? Say, 'It is good.' I will tell you a good trick; you act in that way. What is it? You place a red flower in your mouth. I will place a red flower in my mouth. You having been on this side with the Lion King, and having sprung into the river and hidden at the bottom of the water very near there, remain [there]. I having hidden near the river bank on that side will be [there]. The Lion King having come swimming, as he is going to land on that side, I being near the river bank and having said, 'Kurmarsha,' [91] taking the flower will land [before him]. You also in that way having been hidden near the bank on this side, as the Lion King is going to land, having said, 'Kurmarsha,' quickly land [before him]." The friendly Turtle having said [this], hid at the bottom of the water near the bank on that side of the river. The Turtle that spoke with the Lion went near the Lion. Then the Lion asks, "Art thou coming to swim?" he asked. "Yes, Your Majesty," the Turtle said. Then [after they had gone to the river] the Lion said to the Turtle, "Thou, having swum in front, be off. I having come slowly shall get in front of thee," he said. Then the Turtle, also holding a red flower in his mouth, having descended to the river, and having gone a little far, got hid at the bottom of the water. While it was hidden, as the Lion was going swimming near the river bank, the other Turtle which stopped at that side, having got in front before the Lion landed, and said, "Kurmarsha," having placed a red flower also in his mouth, landed on the river bank at once. The Lion having seen him, again sprang into the river. As he came to this side, the Turtle that remained at the bank at this side, having got in front of the Lion at once, taking the flower also, said, "Kurmarsha," and landed. Again the Lion swam to the other side. In that very way the Turtle having been there and said, "Kurmarsha," landed [in front of him]. Thus, in that way, when swimming seven or eight times, the Lion, who was without even any prey that day, having become unable to swim, and being without strength in the middle of the river, died. Village Vaedda of Bintaenna. In a variant of the North-western Province, the Lion lived in a cave, and met the Turtle when he went to the river to drink. He told the Turtle that it was unable to travel quickly because it always lived in one place. The Turtle shrugged its shoulders, and replied, "Can you travel better than I?" The Lion challenged it to race with him, and the Turtle accepted the challenge, fixing the time eight days later. The race of the two animals was not across the river, but along it, a series of Turtles having been stationed at various points where it was arranged that the Lion should come to the bank and call out, "Friend." At each place a Turtle rose on hearing this, and said, "What is it, friend?" At the fifth stage, the Lion leapt over two stages as quickly as one, and broke his neck. The resemblance of the race in this variant to that between Brer Rabbit and Brer Tarrypin in Uncle Remus is striking; it even extends to the number of stages, five in both stories. In The Orientalist, vol. i, pp. 87, 88, Mr. W. Goonetilleke gave a variant from Siam, by Herr A. Bastian, in which the animals were the Garuda [or Rukh] and the Turtle; and two others by Lord Stanmore, from Fiji, where the animals were a Crane and a Crab in one instance, and a Crane and a Butterfly in the other, the insect being perched on the bird's back during the race. PART II STORIES TOLD OF OR BY THE LOWER CASTES NO. 38 THE MONKEY AND THE WEAVER-BIRD In the midst of a forest there were a Wandura (a large grey Monkey, Semnopithecus) and a Weaver-bird. One day the Monkey came to the tree in which the Weaver-bird lodged, and after that a great rain-storm began. The Weaver-bird without getting wet remained in much comfort in its nest; the Monkey stayed in a fork of the tree, getting thoroughly soaked. Then the Weaver-bird said, "Why does a person endowed with hands and feet, and strength, like thee, get soaked in this rain? Such a small animal as I am having built a house stays in it without getting wet. Not a drop of rain leaks into it. If I were equal to thee I should build a good house." On account of that remark the Monkey became angry, and saying, "What is my business to thee?" broke down the nest of the Weaver-bird. Then the Weaver-bird went to the [Monkey] King, and instituted an action [against the Monkey]. Afterwards, orders were issued by the King to seize the Monkey. After remaining in concealment, the Monkey, thinking, "If I should be caught they will kill me," plucked a Jak fruit, and went with it to the King. After that [the King] caused the Weaver-bird to be brought, so that he might try the case. As he was inquiring into the case, it came to be accepted that on account of his breaking down the nest the fault lay with the Monkey. Then the Monkey said, "The action is coming to an end. Will the Maharaja be pleased to look behind me?" At that very time, when the King having considered [his judgment], looked around, he saw that there was a Jak fruit behind the Monkey. Then the King, thinking, "The Jak fruit has been brought to be given to me for the sake of obtaining my favour," said to the Weaver-bird, "The fault is in thy hands. Whether he gets soaked or however he may be, it is no affair of thine." Having said this, the King drove her away; and the Monkey, having given him the Jak fruit, went away. At that time animals were able to talk. Potter. North-western Province. The first part of this story is given in the Hitopadesa, but not the trial before the Monkey King. NO. 39 THE JACKAL DEVATAWA In a certain country there was a dead Elephant, it is said. A Jackal having gone to eat the Elephant's carcase, and having eaten and eaten a hole into the Elephant from behind, passed inside it. While he was eating and eating the carcase of the Elephant as he remained inside it, the skin [dried and] became twisted up, and the path by which the Jackal entered became closed. A man who was a tom-tom beater was going near it, taking a tom-tom for a devil-dance. Then among the bones the sound of tom-tom beating was heard. So the Jackal asked, "Who is going here?" The tom-tom beater said, "I am going to this devil-dance." The Jackal said, "What art thou going this way for, without permission?" The tom-tom beater replied, "O Lord, I am going without knowing about this [permission's being necessary]." The Jackal asked, "What wilt thou obtain for the dancing?" The tom-tom beater said, "I receive presents and the like." Then the Jackal said, "I will give thee a present better than money. It is owing to thy good luck that thou hast come this way. I am a Devatawa (deity) who is guarding his own treasure here. If I am to give thee the treasure, split one eye (end) of the tom-tom which is in thy hand, and having filled it with water and brought it here, pour it on this Elephant." After that, the tom-tom beater having plucked out the eye of the tom-tom, filling it with water brought it, and poured it on the Elephant's dried up carcase. The Jackal, also, sitting inside it, worked and worked it into the skin with its muzzle. Having made the skin pliable it sprang out, and went away. When this man looked inside, no deity was there, but there were many maggots. So the man, taking his broken tom-tom, went home. In a few days afterwards, a rain having fallen, the Elephant's carcase floated, and went down into the water-course. From the water-course it passed down to the stream. A flock of crows covered the carcase. As they were going eating and eating the dead body, it descended into the river, and from the river it passed down to the great sea. There the skin having rotted began to fall to the bottom. After the crows had looked [around], there was not even a tree [to be seen], and before they were able to fly to a place where there were trees their wings were broken, and they died. Washerman. North-western Province. A variant related in another village is nearly the same. Some tom-tom beaters passing the Elephant's carcase were accosted by the Jackal, to whom they replied that they were going to "a poya tom-tom beating," that is, one given on the Buddhist sabbath, at the quarter of the moon. When he inquired what profit they would get from it, they stated that they would receive cakes and milk-rice. "You don't want cakes and milk-rice," he said, "I will give you gold. Bring water to this Elephant's carcase." They did so, breaking open the "eyes" of their tom-toms for the purpose, and the Jackal escaped. The story concludes: "For the tom-tom beaters there was neither gold, nor cakes and milk-rice. Having broken their tom-toms, lamenting and lamenting they went to their village." In the Jataka story No. 148 (vol. i, p. 315), a Jackal became imprisoned in the same way, but escaped when a tempest soaked the skin. The tale is also given in No. 490 (vol. iv, p. 206). In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 77, a man crept inside the skin of an Elephant from which jackals had eaten the flesh. A rain-storm caused it to contract (?) and closed the aperture. The flood carried it into the Ganges and thence to the sea. There a Garuda [Rukh] picked it up, and took it to Ceylon, where the man escaped when it tore open the hide. I insert the following as an account of the supposed state of things in Ceylon under the rule of Vibhisana, the Rakshasa King of Ceylon, after the death of Ravana: "Two Rakshasas contemplated him from a distance with feelings of fear." They reported his arrival to Vibhisana, who sent for him and entertained him in a friendly and hospitable manner. When asked how he came to Ceylon, the Brahmana cunningly replied that he had been sent by Vishnu, who had informed him that Vibhisana would present him with wealth. He stayed some time in the island, and was allowed a young Garuda on which to ride about the country, and at last he was carried back to Mathura by it. In Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 179, a Jackal got inside a dead bullock, and informed the scavengers who came to bury it that he was the god of their village. They poured water on the hide, and he escaped. In Indian Folk Tales (Gordon), p. 61, a live Elephant swallowed a Jackal. The Jackal fed on the heart and killed the Elephant, but was imprisoned inside when the skin dried up. When the God Mahadeo (Siva), who was passing, heard cries and inquired who was there, the Jackal, after ascertaining who it was, said that he was Sahadeo, father of Mahadeo, and induced the latter to prove his identity by causing a heavy rainfall, owing to which the skin was softened and he escaped. It is said in the Southern Province that all tom-tom beaters are fools. [92] In the North-western Province the same opinion is held regarding some of them. To what extent it is justified I am unable to say, but an example which supported the general notion fell under my own observation. Some jungle was being cut for an irrigation channel, at the side of an uncultivated field belonging to a tom-tom beaters' village, and one of the men came to watch the progress of the work. I questioned him regarding eggs. He stated at first that only things which could fly laid eggs, but he admitted that this rule did not apply to crocodiles, lizards, and snakes. About bats he was not certain, but thought they do not lay eggs. Rats certainly do not lay them, he said. I had seen a Green Bee-eater flying near us, and I observed a small hole such as this bird makes as its nest-hole, in the sandy ground. I drew his attention to it, and he at once asserted that it was a rat-hole; of that he had no doubt whatever. "Well then, let us see if there are any eggs in it," I said, knowing that it was then the breeding season of the Bee-eaters. He looked on, smiling ironically, while I got one of my men to open the tunnel carefully. When he came to the end, there on the sand, in a little saucer-shaped cavity, were four shining, spherical white eggs of the bird. The man was astonished, but was quite satisfied that they were rat's eggs. "I saw them with my two eyes," he said to my men, who all laughed at him. The following stories were written for me as the foolish doings traditionally attributed to the tom-tom beaters of a village in the North-western Province. Apparently the village is at the side of a rice field. NO. 40 A KADAMBAWA MAN'S JOURNEY TO PUTTALAM In order to go to Puttalam, a Kadambawa man having yoked his bull in his cart, sent it in advance with the cart, saying, "My bull knows the way to Puttalam." He himself walked behind the cart. The bull [being without guidance], having gone completely round the rice field, came again to the path leading to the man's house. There the man's children came out, saying, "Ade! Has our father been to Puttalam and come back?" The man [thinking he had come to another village] said, "What are you saying 'Father' to me for? I am a Kadambawa man. I am going to Puttalam." Then he again sent on the bull in front [as before]. In the same manner as before, the bull having gone round the rice field came again to the house. Then those children saying, "Ade! Has our father been to Puttalam and come back?" went on in front. Then the man said, "Ha! At each place that I go to, the boys call me 'Father.' I am a Kadambawa man. I am going to Puttalam. At a village on the road, also, certain boys said 'Father' to me." So saying, he again sent on the bull in front. In the same way as before, the bull turning round the rice field came again to the village. Again the man's children said, "Ade! Has our father been to Puttalam and come back? Have you come on in front [of the others who went]?" Then the man said, "Ha! At each place that I go to, the boys say 'Father' to me. I am a Kadambawa man. I am going to Puttalam. At two villages on the road the boys called me 'Father.'" As he was setting off to go again, the man's wife came and spoke to him. Then the man having recognised that it was his own house, unfastened the bull, and having sent it off to eat food stayed quietly at home. In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 102, there is a story by Mr. A. E. R. Corea, in which a man who was going to a village in order to hire out his bull, allowed the animal to take its own way while he trudged behind it. The bull wandered about eating, and at last lay down near a stream. The man being tired out also lay down, and fell asleep. He was close to his own house, and was found by his children when they went for firewood. When they spoke to him, he denied that he was their father, and drove them away; but his wife afterwards came, and by means of her broom-stick convinced him that he was at home. NO. 41 THE KADAMBAWA MEN AND THE HARES The Kadambawa men having gone to set nets, a great many hares were caught in the nets. Afterwards the men, having seized the hares, doubled up the hind legs of the hares at the joints, and the fore-legs at the joints, and threw them on the ground, in order to make a heap of them in one place afterwards. Then all the hares ran away into the jungle. After all the hares in the nets had been finished, when they looked for the dead hares there was not even one hare. Then the men were astonished at the coming to life of the hares which they had killed, saying, "How thoroughly we killed the hares!" After having become fixed like stone [with astonishment] until nightfall, they went in the evening to their houses. NO. 42 THE KADAMBAWA MEN AND THE MOUSE-DEER The Kadambawa men having appointed a wedding-[day], and having caught a great many Mouse-deer [for eating at it], tied clappers on their necks like those on goats, and having made an enclosure put them in it, and came away. The Mouse-deer escaped into the jungle. Having gone to it on the wedding-day, when they looked there was not one Mouse-deer left. Then the men, saying, "Ane! The Mouse-deer that we reared have all gone," came back to the village, much astonished. NO. 43 THE KADAMBAWA MEN AND THE BUSH As the Kadambawa men were going away with some drums one night, to attend a devil-dance, they met with a Wara [93] bush on the path, which looked like an elephant. The men became afraid, thinking, "Maybe an elephant has come onto the path." At the shaking of the leaves of the Wara bush they said, "He is shaking his ears." Being afraid to go past the elephant, they beat the drums until it became light, to frighten the Wara bush. When they looked after it became light, it was not an elephant; it was a Wara tree. After that, they came back to their village. So they had neither the devil-dance nor went to sleep. NO. 44 HOW THE KADAMBAWA MEN COUNTED THEMSELVES Twelve Kadambawa men having gone to cut fence sticks, and having cut and tied up twelve bundles of them, set them on end leaning against each other [before carrying them home]. Then a man said, "Are our men all right? Have all come? We must count and see." Afterwards a man counted them. When he was counting he only counted the other men, omitting himself. "There are only eleven men; there are twelve bundles of fence sticks," he said. Then another man saying, "Maybe you made a mistake," counted them again in the same way. He said, "This time also there are eleven men; there are indeed twelve bundles of fence sticks." Thus, in that manner each one of the twelve men counted in the same way as at first. "There are eleven men and twelve bundles of fence-sticks. There is a man short," they said, and they went into the jungle to look for him. While they were in the chena jungle seeking and seeking, a man of another village, hearing a loud noise of shouting while he was going along the road, having come there to see what it was, found these twelve men quarrelling over it. Then this man asked, "What are you saying?" The men said, "Twelve of our men came to cut fence sticks. There are now twelve bundles of sticks; there are only eleven men. A man is short yet." When this man looked there were twelve men. So he said, "All of you take each one his own bundle of fence sticks." Then the twelve men having taken the twelve bundles of sticks came to their village. In Indian Fables (Ramaswami Raju), p. 61, twelve pigs crossed a stream, and counting themselves in the same way on the opposite bank, thought that one had been drowned. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 305, seven Buneyr men [weavers] counted their number as six, and were so delighted when a shepherd proved that there were seven that they insisted on doing a month's free labour for him. Next day, however, one killed his mother in driving a fly off her face, and another chopped off the heads of several goats for mocking him by chewing their cud while he was eating, so he dispensed with the rest of their services. In the Adventures of the Guru Paramarta (Dubois, 1872) the Guru and his five foolish disciples, after long delay because of the danger, crossed a river in which the water was only knee-deep. On reaching the far bank one of them counted the party several times, omitting himself, and they concluded that one had been drowned in the river, which they had heard was a treacherous one. They lamented, and cursed the river, one after another, until a traveller arrived. When he had heard their story he offered to restore the missing man to them by means of magic, for which service they agreed to pay him all the money they had, forty panams of gold. He said to the Guru, "It is a very little thing in comparison with the service that I promise to render you. However, as you say it is all that you possess, and as you are in other respects a good man who does not intend any malice thereby, I consent." He set the six persons in a row, and struck each one a good blow on the back with his stick as he counted him in a loud voice. In the Laughable Stories, of Bar-Hebraeus (Budge), the counting tale is No. 569. A man counted his asses and found there were ten, then having mounted on one he omitted it, and made the number nine. He dismounted and found there were ten; mounted again and counted only nine. He got down again, and saw that there were ten. Then saying, "Verily there is a devil in me, for whenever I mount an ass I lose one of them," he went on foot for fear of losing one permanently. The counting incident is found in China also. In A String of Chinese Peach-Stones, by W. A. Cornaby, p. 276, a stupid Yamun underling who was taking a rascally monk to prison, kept counting the things he had with him, "Bundle, umbrella, cangue (the heavy wooden collar on the prisoner's neck), warrant, monk, myself." On the way he got drunk and went to sleep. The monk took advantage of the opportunity to shave his head and place the cangue on his neck, after which he absconded. When the man awoke, and began to count the things, he found everything there but himself. NO. 45 THE KADAMBAWA MEN AND THE DREAM When some Kadambawa men, having joined together, were going away to Puttalam, it became night while they were on the road. Having got a resting-place, and cooked and eaten, while they were sleeping a tusk elephant appeared to a man in a dream. On the morning of the following day the man said to the other men, "Friends, last night I saw an evil dream." The men asked, "What was in the dream?" The man said, "I saw a tusk elephant." Then the men began to interpret the dream. They said, "What is the meaning? If there is a tusk elephant there will be elephant's dung; if elephant's dung, paddy [which the elephant has eaten]; if paddy, uncooked rice; if uncooked rice, cooked rice; if cooked rice, it is a thing [found only] in the village. Therefore the elephant means the village. Something must have happened. It is useless for us to go on. Let us go back to the village." So all, weeping and weeping, set out to return to the village. As they came to the rice field of the village, the women and boys of the village having heard the men coming crying and crying aloud, said, "Ane! Our men are coming crying and crying. What is it? It will be a dreadful thing." So the women and boys, having come from the houses to that side of the field before those men came across, began to cry also. On seeing them, the man who saw the dream said to those other men, "Look there! Did I tell you falsely?" Then the men cried the more. Having seen it, these boys and women, they also cried more and more. The two parties having come quite near each other still cried. The women and boys on that side of the stile [at the edge of the field], these men on the field side of it, except that they cried said nothing. While they were crying and crying until it became night, as a man from another village was going along the path he heard this uproar, and came to see what it was. He asked at the hand of the men, "What is it? Who is dead?" Then the men, crying and crying, said, "Who is dead we don't know." After that, the man having gone near those women and boys, asked, "What is it? Who is dead?" Then those persons also said, crying and crying, "Who is dead we don't know." Afterwards the man having stopped the crying of both parties, when he had asked them about it, there was nothing dreadful. So the man went away, and these men and women and boys, they also went to their houses. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 348, a weaver girl said to herself that it would be a good thing if she married in her own village, but if she had a son and he were to die, how her relatives and friends would lament! The thought of it made her cry. When her aunts and friends observed it they all cried too, and her father and uncles and brothers coming up and seeing all these people crying, also cried. When a neighbour asked the men what it was about, who was dead? they could not tell him, but referred him to the women. He then learnt that these also did not know, but cried because they saw the girl crying. NO. 46 THE FOUR TOM-TOM BEATERS This story is told in the Southern Province to illustrate the foolishness of this caste. Four Tom-tom Beaters when proceeding along a road together, met a man of lower caste than themselves. Before passing them he made an obeisance, and (as usual in such cases) said, "Awasara," "Permission"--that is, "Have I permission (to pass)?"--and then walked away. While the Tom-tom Beaters were going along afterwards a dispute arose over it, each person claiming that he was the one who had been addressed, and to whom the obeisance had been made, as being the superior man of the party. Each maintaining his own view, and being unable to settle it in any other way, the four persons decided to refer the matter to the man himself. They therefore turned back and ran after him, and on overtaking him requested him to state from which of them he had asked the permission. As the question plainly indicated the sort of persons they were, he replied, "From the biggest fool among you." This left matters just where they were, as each one, in order to prove his claim to the obeisance, then declared himself to be the greatest fool; and at last they related their foolish actions. These were pointless, and I did not preserve the details. Each, however, had two wives, this being one of the grounds on which all based their claims, and the details they gave consisted of accounts of the ill-treatment that they received from these women. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 65, a traveller threw four pence to four weavers, each of whom claimed all the money. A second traveller's reasonable suggestion that each should take a penny was rejected, and they ran after the man, and asked for whom he had given them. When he inquired which was the wisest they told stories that only indicated their extreme stupidity, and in the end he gave them four pence each, all being equal in this respect. The Abbé Dubois gave a similar story from the Tamil of Southern India, the men being four Brahmanas to whom a soldier said, "Saranam, eiyar" ("Homage, Sir"). The four replied, "Asirvatam" ("Benediction"), and the man went off. After disputing about it, they ran after him for a league, and asked him whom he saluted. He said, "Well, it is the biggest fool of four whom I intended to salute." Eventually the matter was referred to the headmen of the next village, who after hearing their accounts of their silly deeds, decided that each one might claim superiority over the others. "Thus," said they, "each one of you has gained his case." The men were satisfied, as each had won. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan (Shaik Chilli), p. 1, there is a version in which two men were saluted by an old woman as they passed her. After a dispute over it, when they ran back and asked her about it, she replied that she saluted the greater fool of the two. Then they related their experiences to her, and she adjudged one to be a bigger fool than the other. NO. 47 THE GOLDEN TREE At a certain city there is a King, it is said; there are three Princes of that King. The King, while sleeping, saw in a dream that a Golden Tree sprang up, and on that Golden Tree a Silver Flower blossomed. A Silver Cock that was sitting on the Silver Flower crowed. Afterwards the King caused the three Princes to be fetched. When the eldest Prince had been brought he asked him, "Son, can you explain this dream which I have had?" The Prince asked, "What appeared in the dream, Father-King?" The King said, "A Golden Tree having been created, on it a Silver Flower blossomed, and a Silver Cock crowed while sitting upon the flower." The Prince said, "Ane! Father-King, I cannot interpret it; perhaps my two younger brothers will explain it." Then the King having caused the next Prince to be fetched, asked him, "Son, can you explain this dream?" The Prince asked, "Father-King, what appeared in the dream?" The King told him the manner in which the things appeared in the dream. The Prince said, "Father-King, I cannot explain it; perhaps younger brother will interpret it." Then the King having caused the youngest Prince to be brought asked him, "Son, can you explain this dream?" The Prince asked, "Father-King, what appeared in the dream?" The King told him the manner in which the things appeared in the dream. Then the Prince said, "O Lord, Your Majesty, I will interpret that dream, but I must first go in search of the explanation." After that, the three Princes obtained leave of absence for three years. Having got it, the three persons, cooking a bundle of rice, and taking from their father permission to depart, started to go in search of the interpretation. Having gone on and on, they came to a junction of three roads. Having arrived at it, and eaten the bundle of cooked rice, the eldest Prince said, "I will go along this road; you go on those two roads." So the eldest Prince went along one road, the second Prince went along another road, and the youngest Prince went on the remaining road. Having gone on and on, the youngest Prince arrived at the house of a widow woman. The woman said, "Ane! Son, what have you come here for? We have not even firewood for cooking." The Prince asked, "Why, mother, is that?" The widow woman said, "There is a Yaka in the jungle in which is the firewood. The Yaka has now eaten all the people of this city; few people are now in it." The Prince asked, "How does that Yaka seize the men?" The widow woman said, "When they go to the jungle and are cutting firewood, he comes saying 'Hu,' and eats them." Afterwards the Prince, taking his sword, went to the jungle, and chopped a piece of firewood. The Yaka came, saying "Hu." Then the Prince chopped at the Yaka with that very sword, and the Yaka died there. After that, the Prince, taking a bundle of firewood, returned to the house of the widow woman. The widow woman asked, "Son, did you meet with the Yaka?" The Prince said, "I met with him; I killed the Yaka." Then having cooked with the firewood, she gave the Prince to eat. On the morning of the following day the King went to the jungle, and chopped firewood. That day the Yaka did not come, saying "Hu." Afterwards, through the Yaka's not saying "Hu," the King went to look for him, and saw that the Yaka was dead. So the King returned to the city, and saying, "I must find now, in a moment, the man who killed the Yaka," caused proclamation to be made by beat of tom-toms to that effect. Having heard it, this widow woman, summoning the Prince, went to the palace, and told the King that he had killed the Yaka. After that the King asked at the hand of the Prince, "How did you kill the Yaka?" The Prince said, "I went to the jungle, and while I was chopping firewood the Yaka having come crying "Hu," sprang onto me. Then I speedily chopped at him and killed him." Having heard this, the King gave the Prince a district of that kingdom, and an elephant's load of goods. Afterwards the Prince gave all those things to the widow woman, and having gone away to another city, came to the house of a widow-mother. Having arrived there, the Prince said to her, "Ane! Mother, you must give me a resting-place to-day." The widow-mother said, "I can indeed give you a resting-place, but there is no place to sleep in. You cannot sleep in the veranda; a light falls there during the night, and any person who sees that light dies. Nobody can stop the light. In order to stop it, the King has made public proclamation by beat of tom-toms that to any person who stops it he will give an elephant's load of goods, and a district of the kingdom." The Prince asked her, "Mother, where does the light fall first?" The widow-mother said, "In an open grass field in the middle of the city." The Prince then said, "If so, go and tell the King to fix a raised platform at the place where the light falls, and having placed there a winnowing basket made of cow-dung, and a large pot of water, to come away. I will go there to-night and stop it." So the widow-mother went and told the King. After that, the King prepared the things in that very manner, and came away. In the evening, the Prince, having eaten food, went onto the platform. Near midnight, while he was there the light fell there. When the Prince looked, the Naga King of the world of the Nagas, having come there, had ejected from his mouth the Cobra Stone, and having gone far away was eating food [as a cobra]. Then this Prince put the cow-dung winnowing basket on the stone, whereupon the Naga King came crying out to the water-pot, taking it for the person [who had done it]. The Prince then chopped at him with his sword, and the Naga King died. After that, taking the Cobra Stone, the Prince washed it with water from the pot, and put it away in the waist pocket of his cloth. While he was there it became light. Then the King came to see if he had stopped the light. When he looked he saw that the cobra was lying in a heap. The King asked at the hand of the Prince, "Did you stop the light?" The Prince said, "Look there! The very one that made the light has been killed there." Afterwards the King gave the Prince an elephant's load of goods, and a district of that kingdom. Afterwards, the Prince having given to the widow woman all the things that had been given to him, went along the path on which the Naga King had come, to the world of the Nagas. When he got there, all the three Princesses of the Naga King whom he had killed were there, sitting in one spot. The Princesses said to this Prince, "What have you come for? Should our father the King return now he will eat you." The Prince saying, "Your father the King cannot come. I have come here after killing your father the King," showed them the Cobra Stone. Then the Princesses asked, "What have you come here for?" The Prince said, "I have come on account of a sooth-saying, in order to get it explained." The Princesses asked, "What is the sooth?" The Prince said, "At the time when our father the King was sleeping, a Golden Tree having sprung up, and a Silver Flower having blossomed on it, a Silver Cock which was sitting upon the flower crowed." The three Princesses said, "We cannot explain it here. Let us go to your father the King." The Prince said "Ha," and the three Princesses and the Prince set off to come to him. They came to the junction of the three roads at which at first the three Princes separated. Having arrived there they went along the road on which the eldest brother of the Prince had gone, and having met with him the Prince said, "Let us go back, elder brother, these three Princesses will explain the dream"; so they returned. Then they all went along the road on which the next brother had gone, and having found him the Prince said, "Let us go back." Having summoned him to go with them, those three Princes and the three Princesses, six persons, having met together in this manner, came to the Princes' city. Having arrived there, this youngest Prince caused their father the King to be called. So the King came to them. Then these three Princesses who had come from the world of the Nagas said to this youngest Prince, "Cause us three persons to stand at the thread" (that is, to toe the line). So this Prince caused them to stand at the thread. Then the three Princesses said, "Cut off our three heads at one stroke." So this youngest Prince cut off their three heads at one stroke. Thereupon the Golden Tree was created, and the Silver Flower having blossomed on it, the Silver Cock that was sitting on the top of the flower crowed. Then this youngest Prince chopped down the Golden Tree with his sword, and the three Princesses came to life again. Having come to life, the three Princesses asked at the hand of the King, the father of the Princes, "Was it thus in the dream that appeared to you?" The King said "Yes." Then the three Princesses told him that they were the Golden Tree, and the Silver Flower, and the Silver Cock. After that, the three Princesses, having been married to the three Princes, remained there. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. The Cobra King with the gem, a diamond, which he laid down while feeding, and swallowed afterwards, occurs in Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 36. A girl, disguised as a Prince, hung in a tree a large iron trap fitted with knives underneath. Below it she scattered flowers and sweet scents "such as cobras love," and when the Cobra came at night she dropped the trap on him, and killed him. When she went to wash the diamond in the lake, the water on being touched by it rolled aside, and revealed a path which led to the garden at the Cobra's palace. In the garden she found a tree with a silver stem, golden leaves, and clusters of pearls as fruits. In the end, the Cobra's daughter came away with her. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 18, a Cobra rose out of a tank, with a brilliant gem on its hood, which shone "like a thousand diamonds," and lit up everything around. The snake put it down and went in search of food, and swallowed the two horses of a Prince and his friend, the son of the Minister, who were belated, and sitting in a tree. While the snake was at some distance, the Minister's son descended, covered the gem with horse dung, and climbed back. The snake rushed to the spot, but could not find the gem, and eventually died. Next morning they descended, washed the gem in water, and saw by its light a palace under the water, in which they found a Princess whom the Prince married. In the Jataka story No. 253 (vol. ii, p. 197) we learn that the Naga King called Mani-Kantha, "Jewel-throat," appears to have kept the gem in his throat. He said-- Rich food and drink in plenty I can have By means of this fine jewel which you crave. In the story No. 543 (vol. vi, p. 94), the Naga gem is mentioned as "the jewel which grants all desires." Naga youths are described as placing it on a hillock of sand, and "playing all night in the water by its radiance." One on the head of the Naga King is referred to on p. 97 as being one which, "bright-red like a lady-bird, glows on his head a diadem." In the Panchatantra (Dubois), three jogis when killed while eating became three large copper pots filled with gold and valuable jewels. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 176--Tales of the Punjab (Steel), p. 166--a Princess was brought to life by cutting off, at one blow of the Sword, the heads of a pair of ducks. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. i., p. 115, in a Bengal story by Mr. G. H. Damant, a King dreamt of a silver tree, with golden branches, diamond leaves, and pearl fruits; peacocks were playing in the branches and eating the fruits. The tree was a girl, imprisoned by Rakshasas. When a Prince cut her in two she became the tree; when he dropped the knife she took her own shape again. NO. 48 THE SEVEN PRINCESSES In a certain country there are a King and a Queen, it is said; there are seven Princesses [the daughters] of the King. A Prince younger than those seven is born. The King went to a war, and having gone there the King was defeated in the war. When he returned, the royal food was not made ready for the King. Having arrived, he asked the Queen, "Why did you not prepare the royal food for me?" Then the Queen said, "I cannot bring up your children, and prepare the royal food for you also." The King asked, "Why? What have the Princesses done?" The Queen replied, "They go to the river, and after bathing there come back and rub oil on their heads, and comb their hair, [instead of assisting me to prepare the food]." On account of that the King settled to behead the seven royal Princesses next day. The Queen having cooked a bundle of rice and given it to those seven said, "Go to any place you like, or the King will behead you to-morrow." After that, they went off to the river, and after sitting there and eating the bundle of rice, the seven went away. Having gone on and on, they went to the house of a Rakshasa. When they got there the Rakshasa was not at home. The seven persons asked for and obtained a resting place from the Rakshasi (female Rakshasa). Then the youngest Princess said, "We have no food; give us something to cook." So the Rakshasi gave them a little paddy. The youngest Princess, taking the paddy, said to the other six Princesses, "Elder sisters, come and pound this small quantity of paddy." The six persons refused. After that, the Princess having pounded it, when she went out to winnow it saw that there was a heap of human bones behind the house. The Princess bearing that in mind winnowed it, and returned without speaking about them. Then she called the Princesses to come and cook it; they did not come. Afterwards the Princess having cooked, summoned those six persons to eat the rice. The six persons refused. Thereupon the Princess fed the six Princesses [by dividing the rice and giving each one her share of it]. Now, in the evening the seven Princesses went to sleep. There were seven girls at the house, the daughters of the Rakshasa, and the seven wore white clothes. The seven Princesses wore blue clothes. Then the youngest Princess having awoke in the night, took the seven white cloths of the seven Rakshasa girls, and put them on the Princesses, placing the dark cloths of the Princesses on the girls. The Rakshasa having returned during the night, and having learnt from his wife of the arrival of the Princesses, put one of the girls out of those who wore the dark cloths, in a large cooking-pot, and having boiled her the Rakshasa ate his own daughter. After seeing this, when the Rakshasa had gone to sleep, the little Princess, awaking those six Princesses, told them about it, and all the Princesses escaped together during the night. Having come to a river they remained there lying on a sandbank. A King having come that way while they were there, asked, "Are you Yakas or human beings?" The Princesses asked, "Is it a Yaka or a human being who asks?" The King replied, "It is indeed a human being who asks, not a Yaka." Then the Princesses said, "We indeed are human beings, not Yakas," [and they told him how they had escaped from the house of the Rakshasa and had come there]. On hearing this the King said, "Can you go with me?" The Princesses having said, "We can," went with the King to his palace, and became his Queens. [94] On the night of the following day, a daughter of the Rakshasa, having heard how the King had taken away the Princesses, came there, and remained lying on the sandbank. On the next day, also, the King having come that way asked, "Are you a Yaka or a human being?" The Rakshasa's daughter said, "Is it a Yaka or a human being who asks?" The King replied, "It is indeed a human being who asks, not a Yaka." The Rakshasa's daughter said, "I also am indeed a human being, not a Yaka." Then the King said, "If so, can you go with me?" The Rakshasi having said, "I can," went with the King to the palace, [and also became his wife.] After a long time had gone by, all those seven Princesses were about to have children. One night, when the Princesses were asleep, the Rakshasi plucked out the eyes of the seven Princesses by magic, without awaking them, and having done so hid all the eyes. Then when the seven Princesses, having arisen, tried to go about, they were unable to go; they found that they could not see, so they lay down again. Afterwards the King came to awake them. "Why are you sleeping yet?" he said. The seven Princesses replied, "We are unable to get up; we have no eyes." The King asked, "How have your eyes become displaced?" The seven Princesses said, "What has happened we do not know; they have been plucked out while we were asleep." Afterwards the King having said, "If so, go where you like," drove them away. The King allowed only the Rakshasi to stay. The seven Princesses, having gone on and on, and having fallen down at a pool, gave birth to seven Princes there. Now, there was no food for the seven, so having cut up the Prince of the eldest Princess, and divided the body into seven parts, they ate for a day. On the next day, having cut up the next Princess's Prince and divided the body, they ate it. Thus, in that manner they ate the six Princes of the six persons. On the next day they settled to cut up the Prince of the youngest Princess. Then the youngest Princess, on each of the days having put away her portions of flesh, said, "You shall not cut up my Prince. Look, here is your flesh," she said, and gave them the six portions of flesh. The six persons ate them. [The narrator did not state how they subsisted after that.] While this youngest Princess was rearing that Prince there, after the Prince went to the chena jungle one day, he met with a Vaedda. The Vaedda said, "Let us go together to the King's city." [95] The Prince said "Ha," and went with him. There the King saw him, and being pleased with him gave him food and the like. The Prince having eaten, after he had come again to the pool the Prince's mother asked, "Where did you go?" The Prince said, "I went to the King's city." His mother asked, "What did you go for?" The Prince replied, "I went 'simply'" (that is, for no special purpose). The Princess having said, "Aha!" while she was still there the Prince said, "I am going to the forge." Having gone to the forge he said to the smith, "Make and give me a bow and an arrow." The smith said, "Cut a stick and come with it." So the Prince went to the chena jungle to cut a stick. There was no suitable stick, but a golden shoot had fallen down there, and having taken it he gave it to the smith. The smith said, "This is not good; bring another stick," so the Prince went and brought another stick. The smith made a good bow and arrow out of the stick, and gave them to him. Then the Prince having taken the bow and arrow, and shot a deer, carried it to the city. After he had gone there they gave him paddy, rice, flesh, and cooking-pots, and the like for it. Then the Prince having taken them to the pool where the Princesses were, gave them to his mother the Queen. Afterwards he shot a deer every day, and having taken it to the city carried back to the Princesses the things that he received for it. One day having shot a deer, as he was about to take it to the city the Prince's mother told him to carry it to the palace. While he was there the Rakshasi saw him, and having made inquiry got to know that he was the son of the youngest Princess. So she said to him, "Take a letter to our house for me," and gave it to him. As the Prince was going that day taking the letter, it became night, so he went to a city, and asked a widow woman for a resting-place for the night. The woman of the house said, "Ane! What have you come to this city for? A Yaka has eaten all who were in this city. To-night he will be coming for my daughter." The Prince asked, "How will the Yaka come?" The woman said, "Four miles away he says, 'Hu'; then a mile away he says, 'Hu'; and having come from there near the stile at the road, he says, 'Hu'." The Prince asked, "Are there Kaekuna [96] seeds here?" The daughter said, "There are," and she gave him a sackful of them. Then he told the daughter, whose father had been the King of the city, not to be afraid. "If the Yaka should come I will kill him," he said. So the Prince went to sleep, placing a sword that he had brought at his side, and laying his head on the waist pocket of the Princess. Afterwards the Yaka cried "Hu," when four miles away, and tears fell from the eyes of the Princess on the breast of the Prince when she heard it. Next, the Yaka cried "Hu," when a mile away. The Princess having spoken words to him on hearing it, he arose. "What is it?" he asked. The Princess said, "The Yaka is coming." Then the Prince emptied the sack of Kaekuna seeds at the door, and took up his sword. As the Yaka, having come, was springing into the doorway, he slipped on the seeds, and fell. Thereupon the Prince cut and killed the Yaka with his sword, and having put his body in a well which was there, covered it up with earth. After the Prince had told the Princess about himself and the seven Princesses, he said, "I must go now." The Princess asked him, "What else is there in your hands?" The Prince replied, "There is a letter which the Queen has ordered me to take to her home." The Princess having said, "Where is it? Let me look at it," took it, and when she looked at it there was written in it, "Mother, eat the Prince who brings this letter, and eat the eyes of those seven persons." Then the Princess having torn up the letter, wrote another letter, "Mother, having taken care of the Prince who brings this letter, send medicine for the eyes of those seven persons." Having written it she gave it into the hands of the Prince. The Prince carrying the letter, and having taken a bundle of cooked rice to eat on the way, went to the house of the Rakshasi. As he was coming near the house he saw a Rakshasi sitting at the road. When she saw him she said, "The flesh of that one who is coming is for me." The Prince asked, "What art thou saying?" and gave the letter to the Rakshasi, and asked for the medicine for the eyes. After reading the letter the Rakshasi prepared abundant food for him, and gave him lodgings that day. Next day, showing him a tree, she said, "After you have rubbed the juice of this tree on the eyes of the persons who are blind, their eyes will become well." The Prince said, "If so, tie a little of it in a packet and give me it." So the Rakshasi having tied up a packet of it gave him it. Then the Prince having taken it back, rubbed it on the eyes of those seven persons, and their eyes became well. Afterwards, the Prince having gone with them to the city where he killed the Yaka, married the Princess, and remained there. North-western Province. This story does not appear to have been met with among the people of Southern India, but variants are well-known in other parts of the country. In all these forms of the tale the wicked Rakshasa Queen is killed. In Indian Fairy Stories (Ganges Valley), by Miss Stokes, there are two variants, pp. 51 and 176. In both, a demoness or Rakshasi whom the King married induced him to cause the eyes of his other seven Queens to be plucked out, and six of the infants whom they bore were eaten, the seventh being saved as in Ceylon. In one story the boy was sent for the milk of a tigress, an eagle's feather, and night-growing rice; in the other he went for rose-water, flowers, and a dress. A friendly Fakir in one tale, and a Princess in the other, substituted other letters for those in which the demons or ogres were instructed to kill him, so that he was well received and succeeded in his errands. In one case he got the blind Queens' eyes, and ointment to make them as before; in the other he brought back magic water that cured them. In Tales of the Punjab (Steel), p. 89, and Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 98, the demoness Queen persuaded the King to give her the eyes of the seven Queens, which she strung as a necklace for her mother. The seventh boy, who was shooting game for the blind Queens' food, was sent for the eyes and got thirteen, one having been eaten. The written message which requested that he should be killed was changed by a Princess. On two other journeys he obtained the Jogi's white cow which gave milk unceasingly, and rice that bore a million-fold, by the aid of which the seven Queens became the richest people in the kingdom. After he had married the Princess who assisted him, the King heard the whole story, and killed the demoness. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 117, the Rakshasa Queen, after getting the seven Queens' eyes plucked out, ate up all the people, and no one remained to attend on the King. At last the boy offered his services. He always left before night, the time when the Ogress caught her victims. She sent him to her mother for a melon, with a letter which he tore up. He got back safely, bringing a bird in which was the life of the Ogress Queen; when he killed it she died. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. i, p. 170, there is a Bengal story by Mr. G. H. Damant. The Ogress or Rakshasa Queen obtained the eyes of the seven Queens from the King, and sent the boy for sea-foam, and afterwards for rice grown in Ceylon, "the home of the Rakshasas," that ripened in one day. A Sannyasi, or Hindu religious mendicant, changed him into a kingfisher on one trip and a parrot on the other, which brought the things, being re-converted into a Prince on the way back. Lastly, he was sent to Ceylon for a cow a cubit long and half a cubit high. The King paid him heavily for getting these things, and for the last one was obliged to sell his kingdom and give the proceeds to the boy. The Sannyasi instructed him to conciliate a Rakshasi by addressing her as "Aunt," and to deliver a pretended message from the Ogress Queen. He was well received, and learnt that the Rakshasas' lives were in a lemon and the Ogress Queen's in a bird. He cut the lemon and thus killed all the Rakshasas, brought back the blind Queens' eyes, and killed the bird, and with it the Ogress Queen. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan, Allahabad (Shaik Chilli), p. 105, the seven Queens were thrown into a large dry well; it is not stated that their eyes were plucked out. The seventh boy got his grandfather, a carpenter, to make him a wooden flying horse. He was sent for singing-water, magic rice, and news of the Rakshasa Queen's relatives. He met a lion, a wolf, and various other savage animals, which he appeased by addressing them as "Uncle," "Cousin," etc. A kind Yogi changed his letter, and he was welcomed by the Rakshasas, whose lives he learnt were in a number of birds. These he killed, taking back a pea-hen in which lay the life of the Ogress Queen, as well as the magic water and rice. Each of the animals sent a cub with him, and on his return these performed a dance, at the end of which he killed the pea-hen and the Ogress died. The persons who had been eaten by the Ogress revived when the magic water was sprinkled on their bones. The magic rice plant, called Vanaspati, grew into a tree forty yards high, and bore cooked rice. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 43, the seven Queens' eyes were put out, and they were thrown into a large dry well. The seventh boy was sent for the milk of a tigress, and then to the grandparents of the Ogress Queen. A friendly Fakir having altered the messages, he was well received, got medicine that cured the blind Queens' eyes, and also killed the birds and smashed a spinning-wheel in which were the lives of the Ogress Queen and her relatives. At p. 446, also, the eyes of a Queen which had been plucked out were replaced and healed. A variant of the Western Province of Ceylon, in which there were twelve Queens, whose sight was not regained, however, has been given already. See No. 24. NO. 49 MR. JANEL SIÑÑA In a certain city there are a King and a Queen, it is said. There are six Princes. The youngest Prince of the six plays with (lit. beats) the ashes on the ash-heap at the corner of the hearth; the other five Princes are doing work, and going on journeys together. The King said at the hands of the Queen that he must behead the Prince who was [idling] on the ash-heap. Then the Queen said, "What is the use of beheading him? Let us send the Prince whom we do not want to any place where he likes to go." Having come to the Prince, the Queen says, "Son, the King says that he must behead you; on that account go away to any place you like." Then the Prince said, "If so, give me a bundle of cooked rice, and a thousand masuran, in order to go and trade." So the Queen gave him a package of cooked rice and a thousand masuran. The Prince took the masuran and the package of cooked rice, and having gone on and on, when he was coming to a travellers' shed [saw that] a man was taking a brown Monkey, [97] in order to throw it into the river. This Prince called the man, and the man thereupon brought the Monkey and came to the travellers' shed. The Prince asked, "Where are you taking that Monkey?" The man said, "I am taking this to sell." The Prince asked, "For how much will you give it?" The man said he would give it for a thousand masuran. The Prince gave the thousand masuran that were in his hands, and got the Monkey, and that man having taken the thousand masuran went away. The Prince having unfastened the package of cooked rice, and given some to the Monkey also, and the Prince himself having eaten, took the Monkey and came back to the very city of the King. When he came there the King was not at the palace; only the Queen was there. The Queen asked, "What sort of goods have you brought?" The Prince says, "Mother, having given that thousand masuran I have brought a Monkey." Then the Queen says, "Ane! Son, should the King and the rest of them get to know that, he will behead you and behead me. As you have taken that Monkey put it away somewhere." So the Prince took the Monkey and put it in a rock cave in the jungle, and shutting the door came to the palace. While he was there the King saw him, and having seen him, called the Queen and said, "I shall not allow that one to stay in my palace for even a paeya (twenty minutes). I shall behead him to-morrow." Afterwards the Queen came to the Prince and said, "Son, the King says he must behead you to-morrow, therefore go to any place you like, and do not come back." The Prince said, "Give me a package of rice, and a thousand masuran." Afterwards the Queen having cooked a package of rice gave him it, and a thousand masuran. The Prince taking them, and having gone to the rock cave where the Monkey was, took it and went to [another] city. At that city he ate the package of rice at the travellers' shed, and having gone to the hearth the Prince slept on the ash-heap. The Monkey went away to dance in cities. Having gone and danced, collecting requisite articles, he came back to the place where the Prince was, and the Prince cooked some of the things he brought, and gave him to eat. The Monkey goes every day to dance; and having danced, the Prince and Monkey, both of them, eat the things he brings. In that way the Monkey brings things every day. One day, the Monkey having gone to a city and danced, fell down at the palace at that city. Then the King came and asked, "What is it, Monkey? Why have you fallen down there?" The Monkey says, "I have come to beg and take the measure [98] in which masuran are measured." Afterwards the King gave him the measure for measuring masuran. The monkey having taken it and having been absent for as much as a month, brought the measure back. Then the King asked, "What is this, Monkey, that having taken the measure thou hast been such a time [in returning it]?" The Monkey says, "For just so much time I measured masuran." The King asked, "Having measured them did you finish?" Then the Monkey said, "Ando! Could it be finished? Not even a quarter was finished." The King said, "Aha!" and was silent. The Monkey that day also having danced in that city, the King gave him many presents. Taking them, and stealing a cloth from a field where clothes were spread out [to dry], while he was coming a man having met him in the road asked the Monkey, "Monkey, to whom dost thou give the articles that thou art taking every day?" The Monkey says, "I give them to our Mr. Janel Siñña. I am supporting that gentleman." The Monkey having gone to the place where the Prince was, says, "Here is a cloth. It is good for the gentleman, is it not?" and he showed him the cloth which he had stolen. The Prince threw it aside, and said, "This cloth which I have is enough." Next day the Monkey having come to that city and danced, lay down on the lawn of the palace. Then the King asked, "What is it, Monkey, that you have fallen down there for?" Then the Monkey says, "Our Mr. Janel Siñña burnt his cloth while drinking. I have come to ask you to cause the cloth to be woven for him [anew]." The King said, "If so, bring it." Afterwards the Monkey having gone to the place where the Prince was, brought a thin cloth and gave it to the King. Afterwards the King caused one to be woven, and gave it to him. Then the Monkey says at the hand of the King, "You ought to marry your Princess to our Mr. Janel Siñña." The King said, "Ha. It is very good." The Monkey, begging two copper pots, [99] went away, and having gone, heated water in the two copper pots, and having made the Prince bathe, said to the Prince, "Do not eat largely of the sorts [of food] after I have cooked and given [the food] to you [at the palace]. I have asked for a [Princess in] marriage for you after I went there." Afterwards the Monkey, summoning the Prince also, went to the palace of the King of that city. Having gone there, and prepared a seat at the King's table, and made ready the food, after the Prince sat down to the food seven Princesses themselves began to divide [and serve] it. Then that Prince began to eat very plentifully. The Monkey having come and nudged him with his finger, said, "You have eaten enough." Taking no notice of it, the Prince went on eating. Having eaten that, he shaped his hand [into a cup] and reversing it there [when full], ate in excess. Then the King asked the Monkey, "What, Monkey, is [the reason of] that?" The Monkey said, "Our Mr. Janel Siñña having been overheated [by his bath] could not eat. Through that indeed it has befallen that he has lost his senses." That also the King kept in mind. Then the Prince and the King's eldest daughter were married. After that, the Monkey said that he wanted a thousand bill-hooks, and a thousand digging-hoes, and a thousand axes, and a thousand people. The King gave him a thousand bill-hooks, and a thousand digging-hoes, and a thousand axes, and a thousand people. [With these the royal party set off to deliver the Princess at the Prince's palace.] Afterwards, having given the tools to those people, the Monkey goes in front. The King and the Princess and the Prince come after. That Monkey goes [in the trees] jumping and jumping, and changing branches. The thousand people went footing and footing the road. While going thus they met with a city. Then the King quietly told the Monkey to halt; it stopped. Then the King asked the Monkey, "Whose is that city that is visible?" The Monkey says, "This city is our Mr. Janel Siñña's. It has been rented out to his work-people." Afterwards the King went on, keeping that also in his mind. The Monkey again went in front. Then again they met with a city. Again the King having called the Monkey asked, "Whose is that city?" Then the Monkey says, "It is our Mr. Janel Siñña's. It has been rented out to his work-people. In that way are the cities belonging to our Mr. Janel Siñña [given out]." Again the Monkey went off in front. Having gone thus, he went to the house of a Rakshasa, and having made the house ready in a second, when he stepped aside the King and the Prince and Princess went in. The King made the thousand work-people stay there, and having handed over the Princess, next day went back to his city. Afterwards the Monkey asked at the hand of the Prince, "For the help that you gave me I also am assisting you. What favour besides will you give me?" Then the Prince says, "When you have died I shall weep abundantly, and having made a coffin, and put you in the coffin, I will bury you." Then the Monkey said, "So much indeed is the assistance I want." One day the Monkey lay down, trickishly saying that he was getting fever. The Prince did not even go in that direction. Next day and the next day he stayed there; on those days he did not go. On the third day the Monkey cunningly shutting his eyes remained as though he had died. The Prince said to a man, "Look if that Monkey is dead." The man having gone near the Monkey, when he looked it was dead [in appearance]; he said at the hand of the Prince that it was dead. The Prince said, "Having put a creeper round its neck, drag it in the direction of that jungle, and having thrown it there come back." When the man tried to put the creeper on the Monkey's neck the Monkey got up. "Don't put the creeper on my neck," he said. Having gone near the Prince he said, "After I was dead [apparently], you were taking me without having put me in a coffin. Why do you [arrange to] drag me, having put a creeper on my neck? Don't take even so much trouble." Having said this, the Monkey went off to the midst of the forest, and died. Tom-Tom Beater. North-western Province. Of course, this is an Eastern form of Puss-in-Boots. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 226 ff., there is an account of a clever match-making Jackal which induced a King to marry his daughter to a weaver. NO. 50 THE NIKINI STORY [100] In a certain country there are a man and a woman, it is said. There is a girl (daughter) of those two persons. The girl was asked [in marriage] for a Gamarala of another country who had much wealth in money. The girl having been summoned, and having gone to the Gamarala, and been with him for a long time, he went to chop jungle [for making a chena]. There he met with a fawn, and having returned home said to the girl, "Bolan, there was a fawn in the chena." The girl said, "Ane! After you have gone to-morrow bring it." On the following day the Gamarala brought it. When the girl had reared it for a long time, a longing came to her, and she lay down. Afterwards the Gamarala asked the Deer, "What, Deer, is thy elder sister's illness?" Then the Deer said, "Our elder sister has a longing." The Gamarala said, "What can she eat for it?" The Deer replied, "Our elder sister can eat the stars in the sky." Afterwards the Gamarala, having gone to seek the stars, and to seek for the corner of the sky [where it joined the earth, so as to ascend to them], searched until he became aged, but was unable to find the corner; and the Gamarala died. Then the girl, having sold the Gamarala's village, took the money that was obtained there, and the wealth that he possessed [and left]. While the girl and the Deer were going on their way they met with a King. He asked the Deer, "Where, Deer, are ye going?" The Deer said, "Our elder sister on account of thirst is going to seek a little water." Then the King said, "Wilt thou give thy elder sister to me [in marriage]?" The Deer said "Ha"; so having placed the Deer and the Deer's elder sister on the back of the King's elephant, they went to the palace. When a long time had passed, a longing came again to the girl, and she lay down. The King asked the Deer, "What is thy elder sister's illness?" The Deer said, "Our elder sister has a longing." The King asked, "What can she eat for it?" The Deer said, "Should you bring for our elder sister the sand which is at the bottom of the ocean, if she slept upon it she would be well." Afterwards, when the King was going to the bottom of the sea to take the sand, he was soaked with the water, and died. After this, when the Deer and the Deer's elder sister, taking all the King's things, and cooking a bundle of rice, were on their way again, they met with a man. The man asked the Deer, "Where, Deer, are ye going?" The Deer said, "We are going to seek a man for our elder sister." The man said, "If so, give thy elder sister to me." The Deer said "Ha," and the Deer and the Deer's elder sister went to the man's house. When they had been there a long time, a longing came to the woman, and she lay down. The man asked, "What, Deer, is thy elder sister's illness?" The Deer said, "Our elder sister has a longing." The man asked, "What can she eat for it?" The Deer said, "Our elder sister must eat Nikini. Should she not eat it, it will not only be very difficult for her [to recover]; her life will be lost." Now the sort called "Nikini" is not in any place whatever in the world. That ignorant man, not knowing of its non-existence, on account of the love that he bore for his wife went away on a search for Nikini. Afterwards, when the foolish man was on his way to seek for Nikini, a man was ploughing. The man who was ploughing asked, "Where are you going?" This man said, "I am going to seek for a little Nikini." Then the man said to this man, "If so, come here [and help me to plough]." Those two having ploughed during the whole of that day, went in the evening to the house of the man who had been ploughing. Both of them having eaten cooked rice, the man who went to seek for Nikini asked that man, "Ane! Now then, tell me the place where there is Nikini." The man said, "Ane! I don't know. Go you away." After that, when he had slept there that night, that man gave him a little cooked rice. Having eaten a little, while he was going on his way to seek for Nikini, a man was chopping earthen ridges in a rice field. The man asked, "Where are you going?" This man said, "I am going to seek for a little Nikini." Then that man said, "If so, come here [and help me]." After those two persons had chopped the ridges during the whole day, they went in the evening to the man's house. While they were [there], having eaten cooked rice this man who went to seek for Nikini said, "Ane! Tell me the site where there is Nikini." The man said, "Ane! I don't know. Go and ask at the hand of another person." When this man had slept there that day night, on the next day that man gave him a little cooked rice. Having eaten it he set off to go and seek Nikini. Then a man was sowing a rice field. The man asked him, "Where are you going?" This man said, "I am going to seek for a little Nikini." The man asked, "What for?" This man replied, "A longing has come to our house-mistress, so she told me to go and bring a little Nikini." The man said, "If so, come here and sow." For the whole of that day those two sowed. In the evening they came to the man's house, and both of them having eaten cooked rice, while they were there this man said, "Now then, tell me the place where there is Nikini." Then the man said, "Yako, [101] that was not [asked for] through want of Nikini. That was said through wanting to cause you to be killed. Your wife has a paramour." The man quarrelled with him, saying, "Not in any way. My wife is very good. She has great love for me. If you again say such a thing as that one is there, I shall strike you." The other man asked, "What will you give me to catch that paramour for you?" The person who went on the search for Nikini said, "I have a gem which has continued with us from generation to generation. I will give you that gem." [The man accepted this offer]. Then the two persons made a cage called, "The Cage of the God Sivalinga," and tied white cloth in it [as a lining], and trimmed a wooden cudgel and placed it inside. The man [who had gone for Nikini] was also placed inside the cage with a cloth on his shoulders, and closed in with similar cloths. Men having been fetched [and engaged to carry it]--saying that he was bringing the God Sivalinga--took it on their shoulders, and going off with it they went to a Hettirala's shop. Then that man said [to the person inside the cage], "After I have placed it inside the shop, take the cash-box which is in it, and put it inside the cage." The Hettirala asked, "What is that cage?" The man said, "Our deity, the God Sivalinga." The Hettirala asked, "What is it, then, that is necessary for offering to that deity?" The man said, "The cooked rice from two quarts of raw rice, and sweet plantains are wanted." So the Hettirala brought and gave him the cooked rice from two quarts of raw rice, and ripe sweet plantains. After that, the man gave to the man in the cage the cooked rice from a quart of the raw rice, and half the plantains. The other man ate the rice from the other quart, and the remaining plantains. In the evening the man gave the cage into the hands of the Hettiya, and told him to place it in the house. So the Hettiya put the cage in the house. [During the night the man inside it stole the cash-box.] When it got near midnight the man asked for the cage, saying, "Hetti-elder-brother, give me my cage so that I may go." The Hettirala gave it. As the man, taking the cage, was going along he met with a city. Then that man said [to the man in the cage], "After I have taken this cage and placed it in the palace, you get the things in it and put them inside the cage." Having said this they went to the palace. The King asked, "What is that?" The man said, "Our deity, the God Sivalinga. We are able to say sooth and the like." The King asked, "What do you require for him?" The man said, "Rice cooked from raw rice, and sweet plantains are necessary." So the King gave him cooked rice and sweet plantains. The man having given [a share of them] to the man in the cage, said, "It is necessary to place this cage inside the palace [for the night]." The King having said "Ha," he brought it, and placed it inside the palace. As it was becoming light the man said, "Now then, I want the cage in order to worship the deity." So the King gave him the cage. Afterwards, as the man was taking the cage near a tank it became light. He remained there until it was night, and then went to the house of the man who went to seek Nikini, and found that the woman had called in another man who was there. That man asked, "What is that?" The man said, "This is our deity, the God Sivalinga. We are able to tell sooth." The man said, "Ha. It is good. There is a sooth that we, too, require to ask about." Then the [pretended] Kapurala, whom the God Sivalinga was [supposed to be] goading [102] to it, became possessed. When he was saying sooth, the wife of the man who went to seek Nikini and the false husband who had joined her, came with their arms interlaced, and saying to the deity that a long time had elapsed since her husband had gone in search of Nikini, they asked, "Has anything happened to him now?" At that time the God Sivalinga said through the person possessed by Sivalinga, "The man has now become blind. Besides that, he will not be permitted to return to his village. He will die while in that state." Then because he said this in the manner that was in the mind of the woman, she took the food off the fire, and together with the false husband brought the deity to her house, and gave the rice cooked from two quarts of raw rice, and sweet plantains, in order that the Kapurala might present an offering. That night, when he had eaten, the Kapurala said, "We must place this our cage inside that [room]." "You may do it," they said, and they placed it in the house. Then when the wife of the man who was inside the cage and the false husband were spreading mats [to lie upon], and making ready for sleeping, the Kapurala who remained outside said, "Except that [cage], there is no room for two." Thereupon the man who was inside the cage came out, and beat the false husband even on the cheeks with the cudgel that he had taken. So the man died. After that, the man, as it was becoming light, went and threw the Deer's elder sister into the river. Having returned, and gone to the village with the Deer, the man who went for Nikini cooked for the other man, and gave him to eat. Then the two divided the money, and he gave the man the gem which he had, as a present for him, and sent that man back to his village. Afterwards this man, taking another wife, remained there. [According to another version, however, he became a Buddhist monk.] Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. The story is also related in a contracted form in the Western Province. In a variant by a Tom-tom Beater of the North-western Province, a young Boar takes the place of the Deer, and the woman married first a King, and afterwards a Rakshasa who was sent for the Nikini. At the Boar's suggestion he died by jumping into a fire made by the girl, and the Boar then followed his example, and was burnt up. The girl is represented as "smearing a great deal of gold on herself" before this, apparently becoming gilded. NO. 51 THE AET-KANDA LENIYA [103] At a certain city there are the King and the Queen, it is said. They had one son, and while the Prince was living there the Queen bore yet [another] Prince. One day the two Princes having gone to the river to bathe, a Princess from another city came to bathe [at the same place], and the eldest Prince hid the robes of the Princess. Afterwards, on his inviting the Princess she went with the Prince to his city. After they had gone there, when the King got to know of it he said, "Should this rascal stay with me the kingdom will be destroyed," and he ordered them to behead the Prince. Then the Queen, the Prince's mother, having cooked a bundle of rice and given it to him, said, "Go away where you like [or the King will behead you]." The Prince having taken the packet of cooked rice to the river, ate it with the Princess. After eating it the two persons went to the house of a widow woman. The Prince made the Princess stay with her, and having given the Princess's robes into the hands of the widow woman, said, "Mother, put those robes into that box and this box" (that is, here and there, not all in one place, so that the Princess should not be able to find them). Afterwards, when the Prince had gone to the forge to get a sword made, the Princess said to the widow woman, "Mother, give me my robes to look at." The widow woman said, "Ane! Daughter, I don't know where they are." The Princess said, "Why are you telling me lies? Give them to me." On account of that, the widow woman opened the boxes, and gave the robes to the Princess. The Princess took the robes, and saying, "Should he see me again it will be as [wonderful as] if he should see the young of the Aet-Kanda Leniya, or white where charcoal has been rubbed," went away to the city of the Princess. When the Prince came after getting the sword made, he asked at the hand of the widow woman, "Where is the Princess?" The woman said, "On her asking for her robes I gave them. Taking them, she said, 'Should he see me again it will be as [wonderful as] if he should see the young of the Aet-Kanda Leniya, or white where charcoal has been rubbed' [and then she went away]." The Prince on that account rubbed and rubbed charcoal, and when he looked there was a little white [colour]. Having seen it, he told the widow woman to cook cakes. When they were cooked he took some and ate; and tying up a cloth package of them, and taking it, and the sword, he went off. As he was passing through the middle of a forest, he saw a cobra beginning to climb a tree in which were the little ones of the Aet-Kanda Leniya, and he cut it in two with the sword. While he was climbing the tree after killing it, the little ones of the Aet-Kanda Leniya came to eat him. Then he said to the little ones, "O unrighteous ones! Why are ye coming to eat me? Look ye on the ground." When the Aet-Kanda little ones had looked on the ground, and seen the cobra that he had cut in two, they said, "[As you have saved us from the cobra] we will render you any possible assistance." Then the Prince after going to the nest where they were, unfastened the package of cakes, and having given to them also, ate. After eating, the little ones of the Aet-Kanda Leniya said, "Mother will indeed eat you to-day when she has come." The Prince said, "Ane! Somehow or other you must save me." They said "Ha," and made him creep among their wings. While he was there the Aet-Kanda Leni (the female Rukh, their mother), having pierced with its claws a tusk elephant, came bringing it, after flying round the sea in three circles. After she had come she said, "What is this, children! Here is prey for you; are you delaying to eat? On other days you come screaming for it." Those young ones said, "Mother, to-day we are not hungry. Food has been given to us." "Whence?" she asked. The little ones said, "There is a man with us; [he gave it to us]." "Show me him," the Aet-Kanda Leni said. "You will eat him, mother," they replied. The Aet-Kanda Leni said, "I will not eat him." "If so, take us and swear," [104] the little ones said. Then the Aet-Kanda Leni swore, "I will not eat him." After that, the little ones showed the Aet-Kanda Leni the Prince. The Prince said to the Aet-Kanda Leni, "Look at the foot of the tree; [I have saved your little ones by killing the cobra]." After having looked, the Aet-Kanda Leni said, "I will give you any possible assistance because you have done this." Afterwards, the Prince having descended from the tree was unable to cross the river. So the Aet-Kanda Leni broke a stick, and bringing it in her mouth told the Prince to hang from it. While the Prince was hanging, the Aet-Kanda Leni flew to the other side of the river; after [leaving him there] she returned to the nest where the little ones were. The Prince went on. As he was going along, some men were taking a great many elephants. "What are you taking those elephants for?" he asked. Those men said, "We are taking them to kill at the city." The Prince said, "I will give you these hundred masuran; let them go." Those men, saying "Ha," took the hundred masuran, and let the elephants go. After that, when he had gone much further still, he saw men taking a great many pigs. The Prince asked, "Where are you taking these pigs?" "We are taking them to kill at the city," the men replied. The Prince said, "I will give you these hundred masuran; let them go." The men said "Ha," and taking the hundred masuran let them go. When the Prince had gone still a little further, men were taking a great quantity of turtle-doves. "Where are you taking those turtle-doves?" he asked. "We are taking them to the city to kill," the men replied. The Prince said, "I will give you these hundred masuran; let the turtle-doves go." The men said "Ha," and taking the hundred masuran let them go. When he had gone a little further still, men were taking a great many fire-flies. "Where are you taking them?" the Prince asked. Those men replied, "We are taking them to the city to fry." The Prince said, "I will give you these hundred masuran; let them go." The men said "Ha," and taking the hundred masuran let them go. When he had gone a little further yet, seven widow women came to the well for water [which they said they wanted in order] to pour water on the head of that Princess, who had become marriageable. A widow woman said to that Prince, "Take hold of this water-pot [and help me to lift it up]." Then the Prince having taken the jewelled ring that was on his hand, put it in the water-pot [unobserved]; after that he took hold of the water-pot [and helped her to lift it]. When they had taken the water, and were pouring it on the head of the Princess, the jewelled ring fell down. Having seen it [and recognised it], the Princess ordered the woman to tell the Prince to come. So the Prince went there. After he had gone there [and told her that he had made a white mark with charcoal, and had saved the lives of the little ones of the Aet-Kanda Leniya], that Princess said to the Prince, "[Before I will marry you, you must perform the tasks that I shall give you. First you must] cut a chena suitable for sowing one and a half amunas [105] of mun" (a small pulse). The Prince said "Ha," and having gone and cut a branch or two at the chena, thought, "Ane! Will the elephants that I set free by giving a hundred masuran render an assistance?" Those elephants that he freed, having come at this word, broke down all that jungle and went away. After that, the Prince went to the Princess, and said, "The chena has been cut." "Then set fire [to it]," the Princess said. So the Prince went and set fire [to the bushes]. The chena burnt excellently; nothing remained, so well it burnt. Having gone to the Princess he said, "I set fire to the chena." Then the Princess gave him one and a half amunas of mun, and said, "Sow this and come back." When the Prince had gone he took the mun and sowed it at the chena. Afterwards the Prince said, "Ane! Will the pigs that I set free by giving a hundred masuran render an assistance?" Then the pigs that he had freed by giving the hundred masuran all came and dug [with their snouts] the whole of the chena. The Prince went to the Princess, and said, "I have sowed the chena." After that, the Princess told him to collect and bring back the mun that he had sown in the chena. So the Prince having gone to the chena, and collected a little mun, said, "Ane! Will the turtle-doves that I freed by giving a hundred masuran render an assistance?" Then the turtle-doves that he had set free having all come, picked up the whole. The Prince, collecting it and taking it to the city said to the Princess, "After collecting the mun that I sowed in the chena I have come back." "Then measure it," she said. When he was measuring it there was one mun seed less. As she said this a turtle-dove dropped it at the measuring place. After that, the father of the Princess put that Princess and seven widow women in a dark room. Having put them [there] the King said, "Unless you select and take out the Princess, or if you take out any other person, I shall behead you." When the Prince had gone into the room [he thought], "Will the fire-flies that I freed by giving a hundred masuran render an assistance?" Then all the fire-flies having come, fastened on the body of the Princess, as a lamp. After that, the Prince took the Princess out into the light. [As he had performed all the tasks, the Prince was married to the Princess]. Afterwards the Prince, calling the Princess, went to the house of that widow woman. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In a variant of the first part of this story, a youth whose father was dead, and whose mother, finding him in the way, wanted to get rid of him in order to marry another man, was sent by his mother to bring some milk, to be used medicinally for curing a pretended illness of hers. He was sent first to the Aet-Kanda Lihiniya (Leniya is an alternative spelling), and had the same experiences at its nest, before he got the milk. The young birds told their mother that he was their elder brother, the son of their Puñci-Amma. [106] When he stated that he had come to ask for the milk, the Lihini (the female Rukh) said, "Ando! Son, when did any one get milk from me, and cure a sick person with it? She has done that to kill you, not through want of it. However, since you have come I will give you a little milk." One of the young birds accompanied him to his home. After his mother had drunk the milk she pretended to be still ill, and sent him for the milk of the Demon Hound, [107] which lived in a cave in a forest. I translate this part:-- The woman cooked and gave him a packet of rice. This youth, taking the packet of cooked rice and his sword, and making the little one of the Aet-Kanda Lihini stay at the house, went to the cave where the Demon Hound was. When he arrived, the Demon Hound was not there; only the little ones of the Demon Hound were there. As the youth was going [to the cave] the little ones came growling to eat him. When this youth unfastened the packet of cooked rice, and showed them it, they stopped. Afterwards, the youth, having divided the packet of cooked rice, gave [part] to the Demon Hound's little ones, and taking some himself, they ate. After they had eaten, the young dogs said, "When mother has come she will indeed eat you." Then this youth said, "Ane! To-day you must somehow or other save me. Do not let her eat me." The young dogs said "Ha," and putting the youth in the hollow of the cave, the young dogs came to this side, [towards the entrance], and remained there lying down. While they were there the Demon Hound came. After she had come she said, sniffing twice, "Where does this smell of fresh human flesh come from?" The little ones of the Demon Hound replied, "You eat fresh human flesh, and you bring fresh human flesh; what is this that you are saying?" The Demon Hound said, "No, children, a fresh human smell is coming to me. Tell me [how it is]. Tell me." The little ones said, "You will eat him." The Demon Hound said, "No, children, I will not eat him. Tell me." The little ones said, "Take us and swear." After that, the Demon Hound took her little ones and swore, "I will not eat him." Then the little ones showed her that youth, saying, "Here he is, mother; our little mother's son has come, our elder brother." The Demon Hound asked at the hand of this youth, "What, son, have you come for?" This youth replied, "Mother, our mother is ill. On account of it she said, 'Should you go and bring a little milk, when I have drunk it I shall become well.' Because of that I have come to ask for a little milk." The Demon Hound said, "Ando! Son, when did a sick person get milk from me and become well! To [get] you killed is the explanation of that. However, since you have come, take a little milk and go." So saying she gave him a little milk. Afterwards, as this youth was preparing to set off with it, a young dog said, "I also want to go with our elder brother," and howling [on account of it was allowed by his mother] to come away with the youth. Having arrived and given the milk to the woman, after she had drunk it he asked, "Now then, mother, is your illness cured?" The woman said, "Ando! Son, it is not cured." The youth asked, "If so, what shall I do?" The woman replied, "Bring a little milk from the Bear that is in the cave in the forest, and give me it." He went for it, leaving the young Demon Hound at the house, and his adventures and the conversations were a mere repetition of those at the cave of the Demon Hound. One of the young Bears returned to the house with him. Lastly, he was sent to bring the milk of the Crocodile that was in the Sea, "the reservoir [108] for the sky, and the reservoir for the earth." He ate his rice on a mound in the sea, after which, as he was descending into the sea, he observed a blue-lotus flower, and found the Crocodile at it. It came to eat him, but he held out his sword in front of him, so it asked him why he had come, and after hearing his explanation, in the very same words as before, gave him a little milk. It warned him, like the other animals, that the sending him for it was only a device to get him killed. He took the milk home, and after drinking it his mother informed him that she was cured. The story is then concluded as follows:-- Having said this, the woman went to the man [whom she wanted to marry], and said, "Now then, there is no means of killing that one. From the places to which he went he has escaped and come back. What, then, shall we do to that one?" That man said, "Cook to-day after it has become night. I will break something in the lower part of the garden. Then say, 'Son. There! Did you hear something break in the lower part of the garden? Maybe cattle have come in.' He will come to see, and when he has come, I will chop him with the bill-hook, and kill him." Afterwards, this woman having returned to the house, as she was cooking when it became night, the man came and broke a stick in the lower part of the garden. The woman said, "Ando! Son, maybe cattle have come in. Go quickly [and drive them out]." Then, as this youth, having gone into the house and taken his sword, was going out, that little one of the Aet-Kanda Lihini, and the little one of the Demon Hound, and the little one of the Bear went with him. The three of them having gone [in front] to the lower part of the garden, bit the man who waited there, and having killed him returned. When this youth went and looked, the man had been killed. Then the youth came back, and having killed his mother stayed quietly there. So that little one of the Aet-Kanda Lihini, and the little one of the Demon Hound, and the young Bear, and the youth remained at the house together. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. There are Indian versions of several of the incidents of these stories. In Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 15, a Prince killed a cobra that was about to ascend a tree in order to destroy two eaglets. They assisted him afterwards. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 221, the Garudas or Rukhs are described as being "of the nature of vultures." A Brahmana got hid among the back feathers of one while it was asleep, and was carried by it to the Golden City next day. These birds are referred to (vol. i, p. 78) as breeding on a mountain called Swarnamula, in Ceylon. Compare also the account of Bharunda birds in The Kathakosa (Tawney), p. 164. According to Prof. Sayce, the original idea of the Rukh is to be found in Zu, the storm-bird or god of the Sumerians (The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, p. 353). A lion-headed eagle with outspread wings, holding a lion by each of its feet, formed the symbol of Lagash or Shirpurla, one of the earliest Sumerian cities. It was the emblem of Ningirsu, the god of the city (A History of Sumer and Akkad, by L. W. King, 1910, pp. 98, 100). According to Mr. King's revised chronology, this takes back the notion of this gigantic eagle, which carried off and devoured the largest quadrupeds, to the fourth millenium B.C. Its Sumerian name was Imgig. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 134, a Prince's wife, disguised as a Sannyasi, or Hindu religious mendicant, on her way to join her husband who was ill--poisoned by lying on powdered glass that was spread over his bed--rested under a tree in which a pair of Rukhs (in this story called Bihangama and Bihangami) had their nest, containing two young birds. She cut in two a snake that was about to climb the tree, and that was accustomed to kill the young ones each year. She overheard the conversation of the birds, which was to the effect that some of their droppings would cure the Prince, if reduced to powder and applied with a brush to the Prince's body, after bathing him seven times, with seven jars of water and seven jars of milk. One of the birds carried her on his back to the Prince, with the rapidity of lightning. At p. 219, we learn that the dung of the young of this bird, when applied fresh to the eyeballs, would cure blindness. At pp. 189 and 192, a puppy and a young hawk joined a Prince on his journey, but apparently owing to the omission of some incident of the tale they were of no service to him. Such omissions are common; they can only be supplied by collecting variants. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), pp. 74, 75--Tales of the Punjab, pp. 66, 67--a crow, peacock, and jackal in turn warned a girl against a robber with whom she was going. At p. 273--Tales of the Punjab, p. 259--Prince Rasalu was given the task of separating a hundred-weight of millet seed from a hundred-weight of sand with which it had been mixed. This was done for him by crickets in return for his saving a cricket from a fire. In the Jataka story No. 444 (vol. iv, pp. 19, 20), a man laid his hand on the head of a boy who had been bitten by a snake, and then repeated a spell to restore him to health. The boy's father laid his hand on the boy's breast while saying a second spell. In the Tamil Story of Madana Kama Raja, or "Dravidian Nights" (Natesa Sastri), p. 21 ff., a Prince purchased for a hundred pagodas apiece, a kitten and a snake, which he reared for twelve years. They assisted him afterwards. At p. 91 ff., a Prince was ordered by a King to bring snake's poison, and afterwards whale's fat. At p. 109 ff., a Prince who had four heavenly wives lost them through his mother's returning to one of them her celestial garment, which had been concealed. When in search of a way to his wives, he saved an Ant-King, a Frog-King, and a Cricket-King. He went to Indra, who gave him four tasks, of which one was that after an acre of land had been sown with sesame seed and ploughed one hundred times, he was to collect all the seeds. The Ant-King brought his subjects and collected them for him. Another of the tasks, the last one, was the selection of Indra's daughter, who was one of his wives, from the four, who were all given the same appearance. The Cricket-King enabled him to do this, by hopping onto her foot. NO. 52 THE WIMALI STORY At a certain city there are a man and a woman, it is said. That woman was about to have a child. She cooked cakes to eat. While she was eating, a crow came, and stayed there looking on. "She will throw me a piece of cake, at least," it thought. The woman did not give it even a bit of the cakes. Afterwards the crow went to the house of the Rakshasa, and breaking off a mango fruit came to that house, and ate it in front of the woman who ate the cakes. While the crow was eating, the woman thought, "It will throw down a piece of it, at least." The crow did not give her any of it; it ate the whole and flew away. After the man of the house came, the woman said, "The crow brought a mango fruit, and turned it round and round, and ate the whole of it. [Somehow or other you must get me a mango.]" After that, the man went to the house of the Rakshasa, and having ascended the mango tree, tried to pluck a mango fruit. As he was plucking it the Rakshasa came home. Seeing the man in the tree, he asked, "Who is that in the tree?" "Ane! I am in the tree," said the man. "What are you plucking mangoes for?" he asked. "For our house-girl to eat. [She is about to have a child, and has asked for one,]" he said. "Well then, pluck one and descend," the Rakshasa said. So the man plucked one, and came down. After he had descended the Rakshasa said, "Should she bear a son he is for thee; should she bear a daughter, she is for me." The man said "Ha," and taking the mango fruit went home. News afterwards reached the Rakshasa that she had borne a girl. On account of it the Rakshasa went to the house [and took the girl]. As he was returning carrying the girl, he saw two boys going to school, and said, "Boys, boys, say a name for my daughter." The boys saying, "Wimali, Wimali" (pure or beautiful one), ran away. So the Rakshasa took the girl to his house, and shared it with her. Afterwards, when he had gone to eat human flesh, the Rakshasa heard the sound of tom-toms saying, "Wimali," [and thought they were calling the girl]. So he came home, and asked Wimali, "Have you been out?" "No, I have not been out. I have just got up," Wimali said. Next day he went again to eat human flesh. After he had gone he heard the sound of tom-toms saying, "Wimali." The Rakshasa came home, and asked Wimali again, "Have you been out?" "No, I have just put on my cloth," Wimali said. The Rakshasa having gone to eat human flesh on the following day, again heard the sound of tom-toms saying, "Wimali." He came home and asked Wimali, "Have you been out?" "No, I have only just combed my hair," Wimali said. After that, news reached the King that a girl called Wimali was at the Rakshasa's house. Having learnt this, the King came to take away Wimali. When he arrived there [the Rakshasa was out, so] he formed a figure of Wimali out of rice flour, and after placing that figure in the Rakshasa's house, took Wimali to the city. The Rakshasa came to the house and [finding that she was not there] said, "Wimali will not stay at home." Then he tried to eat her figure, and ate a great part of the flour figure. After he had eaten this [his mouth was choked with the flour, so] he said, "May a mouth be created on the top of my head." When he had said this [the mouth was created, and] the Rakshasa's head being split in two by it, he died. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 53 THE POTS OF OIL A man having gone to the Lower Twelve Pattus (the name of a district) to seek for coconuts, and having collected fifty or sixty coconuts at a shed [where he was lodging, found that] because of their great weight he was unable to bring them; and so he expressed [the oil from] them. Having expressed it, on the morning of the following day he asked for two large pots, and filling them with the oil he tied them as a pingo (carrying-stick) load (one below each end of the stick), and set off with them. During the time while he was coming on his way to his village, he met a man in the road, and having given him betel, etc., to eat, said, "Ane! Friend, you must assist me a little. Take this pingo load somewhat far, and hand it over to me. I will give you four tuttu" (three halfpence). [The man agreed to help him, and took the load.] Then the man, as he was going along the road, thought, "With the funds provided by these four tuttu I shall buy a hen chicken. Having taken it home, after it has become large and laid twelve eggs I shall [set them under it and] get twelve chickens. After the twelve chickens have become big, I shall sell them for sixpence apiece. With that money I shall get a he-goat and a she-goat, and that she-goat will bear two kids. "When the kids have become large I can sell them for five rupees apiece, and having given the ten rupees I shall get a buffalo cow. While I am rearing the buffalo cow she will bear a calf. At that time I shall go to ask about a lucky hour (fixed by astrology) for taking the [first] milk. "After I have got to know the lucky hour and gone to take the milk, the buffalo cow, becoming afraid, will kick at me." Saying this, he jumped aside in order to avoid it. As he was coming on the path, at this time he had reached a foot-bridge formed of a single tree trunk (edanda), and while going along at the middle of it he made the jump [to escape the cow's kick]. As he jumped, he fell off the tree trunk, taking the load of oil with him [and the two pots were smashed]. At his fall, the owner of the oil asked, "Having come so far taking care of this oil, why did you throw it down and break the pots at this foot-bridge, friend?" The man said, "With the funds provided by the four tuttu I thought of buying a chicken. This happened owing to that." Afterwards the owner of the oil, saying, "Never mind the spilling of the oil; you must go with me," invited the man to accompany him, and they went together. Having arrived at the village, because he was a capable man [the owner of the oil] gave him his daughter [in marriage]. Not a very long time afterwards, the men of the village said that they must go to Puttalam to load salt and sun-dried fish, and bring them back [bartering part of them on the way home]. The man said, "Father-in-law, I also must go to Puttalam." So the father-in-law made ready a cart load of goods, and giving them to him told him to go with the other men, and said, "[When disposing of the goods] the things which they count you also count and give; the goods which they give 'simply' (that is, without counting), you also give 'simply.'" [109] Afterwards the men who went from the village, while coming back from Puttalam, from place to place gave the goods they were bringing, and took [in exchange] the things they wanted. The man having observed which goods they counted, counted and gave the same goods, without [taking] money. The goods which the other men gave without counting, that man also gave without counting. Thus, in that manner he gave all the goods loaded into the cart, until at last only the cart and the yoke of bulls remained over. Afterwards the men who went in the party gave goods, and each one got a horse. This man gave the cart and yoke of bulls and got a horse. While they were coming bringing the horses, the men of the party gave goods, and each one got a goat of foreign breed. So this man gave his horse, and got a goat. While they were bringing the goats, the men of the party, saying, "We must each one get a dog with a party-coloured body," gave goods, and got one apiece. So this man gave the foreign goat that he was bringing, and got one. Having come to a shop where they were selling foreign pots, the men of the party gave goods, and each one got a foreign water-pot. This man giving the parti-coloured dog, also got one. Afterwards having come very close to their village, each of the men of the party, saying, "I will give four tuttu and get shaved," got shaved. So this man gave that foreign water-pot, and got himself shaved. In the end the man returned home without either cart, or yoke of bulls, or goods. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. Some Eastern variants have been mentioned above in the story of the Kitul seeds, No. 26. In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 102, there is a story by Mr. A. E. R. Corea, in which a man who was going in search of work gathered some leaves on the road-side, which are eaten as a vegetable. In another district where there were no vegetables he exchanged them for fishes, a leaf for a fish. Going on, he bartered these for digging hoes, and these again for oxen, with which he set off on his return home. Having nothing to eat, he continued to give two oxen for two rice cakes, until at last he arrived at his house empty-handed. In the Panchatantra (Dubois), a Brahmana who had been at two feasts on the same day, carried away from the second some pots of ghi--or liquid butter,--milk, and flour, and began to consider how he would acquire wealth by means of them. He would sell them, and buy a she-goat, which would have kids, and in a short time he would possess a flock. He would then sell the goats and buy a cow and a mare, by selling the calves and foals from which he would become a rich man. He would get married and have numerous children, who would be well educated and well dressed. His wife would become inattentive to her duties at the house. During her absence the children would run about near the cows, and the youngest one would be injured by them. For neglecting them he would beat his wife, and taking up his stick to beat her he smashed the pots containing his provisions. NO. 54 THE MOUSE MAIDEN [110] There are a King and a Queen of a certain city, and there is a daughter of the Queen. They asked [permission] to summon the daughter to go [in marriage] to the Prince of another city. The King said "Ha," so they came from that city to summon the King's Princess. After coming, they told the bride to come out [of her chamber] in order to eat the rice [of the wedding-feast]. The Queen said, "She is eating cooked rice in the house." Then they told her to come out in order to dress her in the robes [sent by the bridegroom (?)]. The Queen said, "She is putting on robes [in her chamber]." Then they told her to come out in order to go [to the bridegroom's city]. So the Queen told two persons to come, and having put a female Mouseling [110] in an incense box, brought it, and gave it into the hands of the two persons, and said, "Take ye this, and until seven days have gone by do not open the mouth of the box." Having taken it to the city, when they opened the mouth of the box after seven days, a mouse sprang out, [and hid itself] among the cooking pots. There was also a (servant) girl at the Prince's house. The girl apportioned and gave cooked rice and vegetable [curry] to the Prince, and covered up the cooking pots [containing the rest of the food]. Then the Mouseling came, and having taken and eaten some of the cooked rice and vegetables, covered up the cooking pots, and went again among the pots. On the following day the same thing occurred. The Prince said to the girl. "Does the Mouseling eat the cooked rice? Look and come back." The girl having gone and looked, came back and said, "She has eaten the cooked rice, and covered the cooking pots, and has gone." The Prince said, "Go thou also, and eat rice, and come back." So the girl went and ate rice, and returned. Next day the Prince said, "I am going to cut paddy (growing rice). Remain thou at the house, and in the evening place the articles for cooking near the hearth." Then the Prince went. Afterwards, in the evening the girl placed the things for cooking near the hearth, and went out of the way. The Mouseling came, and cooked and placed [the food ready], and again went behind the pots. After evening had come, that girl apportioned and gave the rice to the Prince. The Prince ate, and told the girl, "Go thou also, and eat rice, and come back." So the girl went and ate rice, and having covered the cooking pots came to the place where the Prince was. Then the Mouseling came and ate rice, and covered up the pots. After that, she said to the [other] mice, "Let us go and cut the paddy," and collecting a great number of mice, cut all the paddy, and again returned to the house, and stayed among the pots. Next day when the Prince went to the rice field to cut the paddy, all had been cut. Afterwards the Prince came back, and saying, "Let us go and collect and stack [the paddy]," collected the men, and stacked it, and threshed it by trampling [it with buffaloes]. Then they went and called the women, and having got rid of the chaff in the wind, brought the paddy home. After they had brought it, the Prince went near the place where the cooking pots were stored, at which the Mouseling was hidden, and said, "Having pounded this paddy [to remove the husk], and cooked rice, let us go to your village [to present it to your parents, as the first-fruits]." The Mouseling said, "I will not. You go." So the Prince told the girl to pound the paddy and cook rice, and having done this she gave it to the Prince. The Prince took the package of cooked rice, and went to the Mouseling's village, and gave it to the Mouseling's mother. The Queen asked at the hand of the Prince, "Where is the girl?" The Prince said, "She refused to come." The Queen said, "Go back to the city, and having placed the articles for cooking near the hearth, get hid, and stay in the house." After the Prince returned to the city, he did as she had told him. The Mouseling having come out, took off her mouse-jacket, and [assuming her shape as a girl] put on other clothes. While she was preparing to cook, the Prince took the mouse-jacket, and burnt it. Afterwards, when the girl went to the place where the mouse-jacket had been, and looked for it, it was not there. Then she looked in the hearth, and saw that there was one sleeve in it. While she was there weeping and weeping, the Prince [came forward and] said, "Your mother told me to burn the mouse-jacket." So the Mouseling became the Princess again, and the Prince and Princess remained there. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. The notion of a skin dress that could be put off and on, and that transformed a person into one of the lower animals, is well-known in folk-tales. It is found in Old Deccan Days (Frere), pp. 183, 193, where a King had a jackal-skin coat which turned him into a jackal when he put it on, until it was burnt. At p. 222, a Princess concealed herself by putting on the skin of an old beggar woman. She was discovered when she removed it in order to wash it and herself. In the end it was burnt by the Prince she had married, and she retained her true form as a Princess. In Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes), p. 41 ff., there is a Prince who had a monkey skin, which he could put on and off as he wished. In Indian Nights' Entertainment, Panjab (Swynnerton), p. 344, four fairies came in the form of doves, and took off their feather dresses in order to bathe. A Prince concealed one dress, and the fairy was unable to resume her bird form and fly away. In The Story of Madana Kama Raja, or "Dravidian Nights" (Natesa Sastri), pp. 56, 57, there is an account of a tortoise Prince who had the power of leaving his shell and assuming his human form. His mother one day saw the transformation, and smashed the shell, after which he remained a Prince. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan, Allahabad (Shaik Chilli), p. 54 ff., the daughter of the King of the Peris had the form of a monkey while she wore a monkey's skin, and her own form at other times. When a Prince burnt the skin she took fire, and flew away in a blaze to her father's palace. While she was ill there, the Prince discovered her and cured her, and she did not resume her monkey form. The feather-vest of the Dove-maidens--female Jinn--in the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed.), iii, p. 417 ff., is well known. They removed it for bathing, and could not fly without it. NO. 55 SIGIRIS SIÑÑO, THE GIANT In a country there was a great person called Sigiris Siñño. He was a very wealthy person; under him ten hired labourers worked. During the time while he was in this state, Sigiris Siñño having thought he would drink arrack (spirit distilled from palm juice), began to drink a very little. In that way he became accustomed to drink very largely. Afterwards having come [home] drunk he went to beat the labourers; also he did not give them their wages properly. When he had acted in this manner for many days, they, after speaking together, gave Sigiris Siñño a good beating, and on account of their [short] pay took the goods of Sigiris Siñño, and went away. Then no one would give work to Sigiris Siñño, so he drank until the goods in his house were finished. Then, there being nothing for this one to drink or eat, and having become like a madman, at the time when he was walking and walking about he saw a man carrying a young coconut. Begging, "Give me that," and taking it, he went to a travellers' resting-shed. While he was there eating the young coconut after breaking it, a great number of flies began to settle there. After he had struck at the flies with his hand, twenty died. Thereupon this one went to a person who did tin work, and said, "Ane! Friend, do a little work for me and give me it." "What is it?" the tin worker asked. This one said, "Cut on a sheet of tin in Tamil and Sinhalese, 'I killed twenty,' and give me it." Having said, "It is good," he cut it and gave it. After he had cut and given it, this one took it, and preparing a hanging board, and hanging the sheet of tin on it, put the cord on his neck, and walked along the roads. Men who saw this stepped on one side through fear, and went away. Certain Tamils having seen this at a city, said to Sigiris Siñño, "In our country the King has a giant. Should any one fight with him and win, the King said he will give him a present of five hundred masuran, and the post of Prime Minister. This being so, can you go there with us [and fight him]," they asked. Then Sigiris Siñño, thinking, "Let me go even should I be struck by lightning," said, "I am able to fight with the giant," and went to that city with the Tamils. Having arrived there, these Tamils handed him over to the King under whom that giant had a post. The King asked this one, "I have a giant. Canst thou fight with the giant and win?" Sigiris Siñño said instantly, "A son who has killed twenty giants better than that one am I." So the King said to his giant, "Now then, do what fighting thou knowest, and conquer that one." Then the giant said to Sigiris Siñño, "To-day you must come and swim [against me] in the great sea for eight days. We require from the King ten rupees in order to get things to eat while we are swimming." Having said this and got them, the two giants went to the shops, and got things for the ten rupees. Then Sigiris the Giant said to that giant, "What are these few things! For one meal I want six quarts of rice and I want three bottles of arrack. I can swim for eight or ten months." After that, this giant thought, "I can't eat as much as this one, and I can't drink as much, and I can't swim for eight or ten months. Therefore I am indeed unable to swim with this giant and beat him." He told the King so. The King said, "If so, thou wilt lose." The giant said, "At swimming I shall lose. We must fight each other." "It is good," said the King. Then the King asked Sigiris Siñño, "Canst thou fight with this one?" Sigiris Siñño replied, "I will give that one one blow." So the King said, "Fight ye each other to-morrow." Thereupon Sigiris the Giant said, "Not to-morrow. After a month has gone both giants will fight each other. Having proclaimed it, and put both of us into two houses under one roof, you must give us to eat until the month is finished." The King said, "It is good." Sigiris the Giant having sought for an iron nail, from that day dug into the wall of the house in which the giant was [which separated their two rooms]. Having dug [nearly through] it, when the month would be finished to-morrow Sigiris the Giant said to that giant, "Ade! Giant, give me a little tobacco." That giant said, "How can I give you tobacco there?" Sigiris the Giant replied, "Knock a hole through that wall with your hand, and give me it." "I cannot," that one said. Then Sigiris the Giant said, "What sort of a giant art thou, one who can't make a hole through that wall and give me a little tobacco!" Saying, "Look there! Give me it through there," Sigiris the Giant struck with his hand at the place which he had previously bored. When he struck it his hand made a hole through to the other side. That giant becoming afraid at the blow, began to tremble, and thought, "I can't win in fighting with this one." On the following day they made them come out to fight. The place was filled with people who had come to look on. Sigiris the Giant thinks in his mind, "To-day is indeed my Fate. How shall I escape?" That giant, through fear his thoughts were the same. The King said, "Strike ye each other." Having said, "It is good," each one being afraid of the other, said, "Strike thou." Sigiris says to the other, "Thou strike," he says. By that one and by this one not a blow was struck. Then the King says to Sigiris the Giant, "Strike thou first." Sigiris the Giant said, "It is good," and thinking of running away, and saying to the people, addressing them loudly, "Get to both sides, and stop there," looked round to run off. At that, the other giant, rolling the people over, began to run away, and the people who were there cried "Hu," after him. Then the King having become pleased with Sigiris Siñño, and having given him a present of five hundred masuran, established him in the post of Prime Minister. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 89--Tales of the Punjab, p. 80--a weaver who killed a mosquito thought himself a hero, and eventually became the ruler of half the country. In Indian Nights' Entertainment, Panjab (Swynnerton), p. 208, a weaver killed nine flies on his arm, and called himself Nomar Khan, the Nine-killing Prince. He became Commander-in-Chief. NO. 56 THE PROUD JACKAL In the midst of a certain forest a Lion stayed. Having joined with that very Lion, a Jackal was eating and eating the flesh of animals killed by the Lion. After a few days had gone by, the Jackal, becoming arrogant, said to the Lion, "Don't say 'Jackal' to me." Thereupon, "What shall I say?" the Lion asked. Then the Jackal says, "You must call me, saying to me, 'Jackal-artificer' (Nari nayide)." In this way, when the Lion had said, "Jackal-artificer," for many days, he said, "Don't say 'Jackal-artificer.'" "What name am I to say?" the Lion asked. "Say to me, 'Small Lion'; don't say, 'Jackal-artificer,'" he said. After the Lion had been saying, "Small Lion," for a few days, "Say to me, 'Great Lion'; don't say, 'Small Lion,'" he said to the Lion. Then the Lion says, "For me to say, 'Great Lion,' you must make the Lion's roar," the Lion said. Then the Jackal having gone near a tusk elephant, after he had cried out, as the Lion's roar, "Hokkiye, Hokkiye" (the beginning of the customary yelping cry of the Jackal), the tusk-elephant kicked the Jackal. Thereupon the Jackal died. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In the Jataka stories 143 (vol. i, p. 306) and 335 (vol. iii, p. 75), a Jackal who acted as a Lion's servant induced his master to let him go out in the latter's place, in order to kill animals. He howled and sprang at an elephant, but was crushed to death by it. STORIES OF THE DURAYAS NO. 57 THE SEVEN ROBBERS In a country there are seven robbers. Among them, in the same gang, there is a fool. One day they went to commit robbery. While they were there, they got a devil-dancer's box, containing his mask and ornaments. Having brought it, the seven persons went into a rock cave to sleep. When they had gone there that foolish man became hungry. After the others went to sleep that fool took out the devil-dancer's clothes, and having looked at them put them on. After he had put them on, one of those men opened his eyes. Then on account of the noise of the bells [of the devil-dancer] the others opened their eyes also. When they saw the man dressed in the devil-dancer's clothes they were frightened, and saying, "Ade! The Kohomba deity is coming," the other six persons ran away. As they were running, that man who had the clothes ran after them, saying, "Stay there, stay there." While they were running those six persons leaped over a well [in the path]. This one also jumped, but being held back by the clothes he fell into the mouth of the well. After he had fallen into the well, a woman came to draw water. Then he placed his weight in the bucket when she lowered it. After the woman had got to know of the weight, striving and striving she got the bucket near the mouth of the well. The man who had fallen, and was in it, said, "A little more, my mother." Then the woman hearing this [and seeing what she thought was a demon in the well], let go, and bounded away. Duraya. North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 136, a story is given regarding twenty-five idiots, in which is a variant of this tale. Some robbers whom one of them was assisting left him outside a house with a basket that he had brought out of it. While they were inside searching for booty, he found in the basket the dress worn in representations of a demon termed Gara Yaka, and put it on. When the robbers came out they thought he was the demon himself, and ran off, with the idiot at their heels. In the end, they jumped into a well, were followed by him, and all were drowned. NO. 58 THE STUPID BOY In a certain city there are a Gamarala, a Gama-gaeni (his wife), and a son of theirs. The Gamarala went to the chena. The Gama-gaeni lay down, and told the Gama-puta (the son) to examine her head [for insects]. While he was looking through the hair she fell asleep, and a fly settled on her head. "Ade! Fly, do not bite our mother's head," he said, "mother will scold me." The fly having gone flying away, settled again on her head. Saying, "Now then, this fly is biting mother's head again," he placed his mother's head gently on the ground. Then having gone and taken a rice pestle, and come back with it, he said, "Is the fly still biting the head?" and struck at the fly with the rice pestle, killing his mother with the blow. The boy's father having come, tried to arouse her. "How is it that mother is dead?" he asked. The boy said, "A fly was biting our mother's head. I struck it with the rice pestle. Because of it she died." So the Gamarala took the woman away and buried her. Then he came home with the boy. Having arrived, the Gamarala told the boy to make a pot of gruel. Having made the pot of gruel he told the boy to take it, and they went to the jungle to cut fence sticks. The man, cutting and cutting the fence sticks, told the boy to draw them out, and throw them down. Then the boy, taking the fence sticks, threw them into the river. Taking the pot of gruel, and making a raised platform of sticks, he placed it on it. The Gamarala said to the boy, "Now then, as you have come here, go and drink gruel." Then the boy having gone under the stick frame, and pierced the bottom of the pot, and made a hole through it, placed his mouth under it, and drank a sufficient quantity. Still the gruel comes from the pot, so the boy said to the pot of gruel, "Father is there. Don't come out, gruel." Having cut the fence sticks, the Gamarala came to drink gruel. There was nothing in the gruel pot. He asked at the hand of the boy, "Where, Ada! is the gruel?" "The gruel went out while I was saying don't go," he said. Then the Gamarala thought, "There is no need to keep this boy," and having beaten him he drove him away. As the boy was going, weeping and weeping, he met with a Buddhist monk. [111] There were two bundles in the Lord's hand. He told the boy to take the couple of bundles. As the boy was carrying them he asked at the hand of the Lord, "What is there in the bundles?" "Palm-sugar packets, [112] and plantains," he said. The Lord asked at the hand of the boy, "What is thy name?" The boy said, "My name is Aewariyakka Mulakka." As he was coming along from there the boy lagged behind. So the monk spoke to the boy, "Aewariyakka Mulakka, Ada! Come on quickly," he said. Then the boy ate some packets of sugar, [113] and rows of plantains. [114] The monk having gone to the pansala (monk's residence), when he looked [found that] packets of sugar and rows of plantains were missing. "Ada! where are the other plantains and palm-sugar that were in these?" he asked. "Lord, I am a packet eater (Mulakka), and a first-row-of-plantains eater (Aewariyakka)," he said. "I ate them." There and then, having beaten the boy, he chased him away. Then, as a washerwoman-aunt was washing clothes, she saw the boy going along, and asked him, "Can you live at our house?" "I can," he said. She asked his name; Giya ("He went") he said was his name. Having taken the washed clothes, and placed them in the house, he asked at the hand of the mother for the [unwashed] clothes that were in the house. She told him to come [and take them]. After the boy had come in, the mother asked at the hand of the boy, "What is your name?" The boy said, Awo ("He came"), and took the clothes away. Afterwards, because both the clothes and the boy were missing, [the washer-woman] having searched and looked for him, went home. On account of her going late the washerman called her [and asked the reason]. She said, "It is because of Giya" (the words might also mean, "It is because he went"). A man who was in the house having heard it, said, "Ada! He said Awo." While both were saying, "Giya," "Awo," ("He went, he came"), the boy took the clothes, and went to his village. Duraya. North-western Province. The fly-killing incident occurs in Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 306, in which a Buneyr man killed an old woman by throwing a stone at a fly that was on her face. In the Jataka story No. 44 (vol. i, p. 116), a boy killed his father by striking with an axe at a mosquito that had settled on his pate, splitting his head at the blow. In the next Jataka tale, a girl killed her mother by aiming a blow with a pestle at the flies that had settled on her head when she was lying down. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 284, there is a Kashmir story by the Rev. J. H. Knowles, in which a bear who had become friendly with a man, killed him by throwing a piece of rock at a bee which had settled on his mouth. Reference is also made to a similar story in the Journal A.S.B., vol. iii, part i, 1883. A considerable part of the story now given is a variant of No. 10 above. I have inserted it on account of the low caste of the narrator. When the monk repeated the boy's name on ordering him not to lag behind, he was in reality telling him to eat the plantains and sugar, the meaning of Aewariyak ka Mulak ka being, "Eat thou a first row of plantains; eat thou a packet (of the sugar)." NO. 59 THE GAMARALA AND THE WASHERMAN In a certain country there are a Gamarala and a Washerman. [115] Those two persons cut a chena. As they were cutting the chena a jungle-cock crowed. The Gamarala said to the Washerman, "Please catch that crowing jungle-cock, and come back." Then the Washerman said, "Will you do the chena work until I catch the jungle-cock and come back?" he asked. "Until you come I will do the chena work," he said. From there that man came home, and remained there. When the chena [crop] was ripening he caught the jungle-cock, and went back. "I shall not give thee a share of the chena," the Gamarala said. Thereupon the Washerman instituted a lawsuit against him. When they were going for it on the day of the trial, he borrowed a cloth from the Gamarala, and went after putting it on. When the action was being heard the Washerman said, "He will say next that this cloth is that gentleman's." Then the Gamarala said, "It is so indeed. If not, Bola, whose is that cloth?" he asked. The Washerman said, "There! I said so. O Lord, when coming on account of this day of the trial, was it necessary for me to ask for a cloth from that gentleman? Am I without clothes to that extent?" After that, the judge told them to divide the chena in two, [and each take half of it]. Afterwards, having come there they divided it in two. Again, this Washerman and the Gamarala sowed a paddy field (rice field). Of the paddy plants in the field, those things that were above the ground were for the Washerman, they said. Those which were below the ground were for the Gamarala, they said. Having cut the paddy when the crop ripened, they threshed it by trampling [with cattle], and the Washerman took the paddy. Afterwards they cut the ground; there was nothing for the Gamarala. Again, these two persons planted onions. This time, those things that were above the ground were for the Gamarala, they said. Those that were below the ground were for the Washerman, they said. When the crop was ready, the Gamarala having cut off the onion stumps, heaps them up together; the Washerman dug up and got the onions. After that, those two persons got a buffalo bull. The front part of that bull was for the Washerman, they said; the after part for the Gamarala, they said. Next, the two persons got a buffalo cow. The front part was for the Gamarala; the after part for the Washerman, they said. Thereupon the calves which the buffalo cow bore belonged to the Washerman, he said. When the Gamarala asked for calves because the front part did not give birth to calves, "There is nothing for you," he said. After that, the Gamarala, in order to build a house, cut Waewarana, Kaetakala, Milla, Kolon trees (good timber trees commonly used in building houses). The Washerman, also, saying, "I also must build a house," cut Paepol, Eramudu, Murunga trees (all of which are soft woods, quite useless for any kind of work). When the Gamarala's wife was coming near his house, the Washerman, taking the Naekat Pota (an astrological book which deals with prognostications), read aloud from it [these sham prognostications regarding the results to the occupiers if these woods be used in house building]: "For a house of Waewarana, diarrhoea; for a house of Kaetakala, quarrel; for a house of Milla, hanging; for a house of Eramudu, purity; for a house of Paepol, land." Then the Gamarala's wife having heard this, goes and says to the Gamarala, "You have done a foolish thing again. We shall have only sickness and trouble if we build the house with those trees. In the Naekat Pota it is so written. If we use the trees that the Washerman has cut we shall be fortunate." So the Gamarala went to the Washerman, and persuaded him to exchange trees with him. Then the Washerman built himself a good house with the Gamarala's trees. The trees which the Gamarala got were of no use to him. Duraya. North-western Province. The incident at the trial in the first part of this story occurs in a slightly different form in a folk-tale that I heard in Cairo. As I am not aware that it has been published I give it here, condensing the first portion (see No. 60). The planting incidents are related by Rabelais, in Pantagruel, chapters 45 and 46. For the benefit of readers in Ceylon, I give the account:-- THE DEVIL AND THE HUSBANDMAN This devil having arrived at the place, addressed a husbandman and asked him what he did. The poor man replied to him that he sowed that field of early wheat to assist him in living during the following year. "But really," said the devil, "this field is not thine; it is mine and belongs to me ...; however, I leave thee the field. But it is on condition we shall share the profit." "I agree to it," replied the husbandman. "I mean," said the devil, "that of the coming profit we shall make two shares. The one shall be what grows above the ground, the other what shall be covered in the earth. The choice belongs to me, for I am a devil of a noble and ancient race; thou art only a villein. I choose that which will be in the ground, thou shalt have that above. When will the reaping be?" "In the middle of July," replied the husbandman. "Now," said the devil, "I need not be present here. In other respects do thy duty. Work, villein, work." The middle of July having come, the devil presents himself again at the place, accompanied by a squadron of little chorister devilets. Meeting there the husbandman, he said to him, "And now, villein, how hast thou been since my departure? It is requisite to make our division now?" "That is right," replied the husbandman. Then the husbandman, with his people, began to reap the corn. The little devils similarly drew the stubble from the ground. The husbandman threshed his corn in the air, put it in sacks, and carried it to the market to sell. The devilets did the same, and at the market seated themselves near the husbandman to sell their stubble. The husbandman sold his corn very well, and with the money filled an old sock which he carried at his belt. The devils sold nothing, but on the contrary the peasants jeered at them in the midst of the market. The market being over, said the devil to the husbandman, "Villein, thou hast cheated me this time; at another thou shalt not deceive me." "My Lord Devil," replied the husbandman, "how have I cheated you who have chosen first? True it is that in that choice you thought of cheating me, hoping that nothing would come out of the ground as my share, and to find, below, the whole of the corn that I had sown.... But you are very young at the trade."... "Leave this discourse," said the devil; "with what canst thou sow our field this following year?" "For profit," replied the husbandman, "and good economy it is expedient to sow radishes." "Now then," said the devil, "thou art an honest man; sow plenty of radishes. I shall protect them from tempests, and shall not hail at all on them. But, understand thoroughly, I keep as my share what shall be above ground; thou shalt have what is below. Work, villein, work." The time for the reaping having come, the devil was present at the spot with a squadron of household devilets. There, meeting the husbandman and his people, he began to reap and collect the leaves of the radishes. After him the husbandman dug and drew out the large radishes, and put them into sacks. So they went all together to the market. The husbandman sold his radishes very well. The devil sold nothing. What was worse, they jeered at him publicly. "I see well, villain," the devil then said, "that I am cheated by thee. I want to make an end of the field between thee and me." I add a variant of the cultivating caste, as some incidents are new. THE GAMARALA AND THE WASHERMAN. (VARIANT.) In a certain country there is a Gamarala, it is said. A Washerman, having come there, became friendly with the Gamarala. Having become friendly, he takes charge of the Gamarala's cattle for grazing. During the time while he was grazing them the two persons chop chenas and do rice field work. Well then, the two persons having become very thoroughly friends, at the time while they were thus, the cattle grazed by the Washerman increased by a buffalo bull and a buffalo cow. Afterwards, the Washerman having come [to the other man] said, "Now then, Gamarahami, [116] we must divide the two cattle between us." The Gamarala said, "Ha. Let us divide them." Afterwards the Washerman having gone and caught the two cattle, tied them up. The Gamarala went there. Then the Washerman said, "Now then, the Gamarahami indeed has cattle. I myself have no cattle. Because of it, let the after portion of this buffalo cow be for me. The front portion the Gamarahami will be good enough to take." The Gamarala, having consented to that, said, "Ha. It is good." Well then, in complete agreement they shared the buffalo cow. Again, to share the buffalo bull the Washerman said, "Gamarahami, let the front side of the buffalo bull be for me, the after side the Gamarahami will be good enough to take." Well then, the Gamarala having consented to that also, by the agreement of the two persons they divided the buffalo bull also. During the time while they were thus, the Washerman having taken the buffalo bull ploughs for himself. The Gamarala also one day was going to take the buffalo bull to plough. Then the Washerman quarrelled with him: "The front part belongs to me; the after part belongs to you. I will not allow you to plough with my side," he said. [117] The Gamarala having become angry came home. The buffalo cow having gone to the Gamarala's house eats by stealth. Men having come told the Gamarala, "Gamarala, your buffalo cow comes to our rice field [and eats the crop]. On that account attend well to its grazing." Then the Gamarala said, "Don't tell me. Tell that to the Washerman." Then the men having gone, told the Washerman, "Washerman, the buffalo cow that you are causing to graze eats by stealth [in our rice field]. Attend well to its grazing." The Washerman said, "What are you telling me? Doesn't the front half belong to the Gamarahami? Isn't it the Gamarahami who must attend to the grazing?" [118] The Washerman having come to the Gamarala's house, quarrelled with the Gamarala [over it]. The Gamarala became very angry. Afterwards, the Gamarala went to institute a lawsuit against the Washerman [on account of these matters]. That day, having entered the suit, and having come back to the village, he went to the Washerman to tell him the day of the trial. Having told him, the Gamarala came home. On the following day, the Washerman came to the Gamarala. Afterwards, the Gamarala having given the Washerman to eat and drink, and having made ready to go for the day of the trial, the Washerman said, "Gamarahami, I have no [suitable] cloth to wear when going." The Gamarala gave (that is, lent) him a cloth. The Washerman putting on the cloth, both of them went for the trial-day. After they went, the assessors [119] having assembled heard the lawsuit. When they asked the Gamarala [regarding the matter], the Gamarala said, "The after portion of the buffalo cow belongs to the Washerman; the front portion belongs to me." When they asked the Washerman he said, "Because the front portion of the buffalo bull belongs to me, I will not allow him to plough with the buffalo bull. Because the front portion of the buffalo cow belongs to the Gamarahami, the Gamarahami must attend to the grazing," he answered. Then after the assessors had thus asked him they said, "What the Washerman said is true." Thereupon the Washerman says, "That gentleman (Rahami) will now say that this cloth which I am wearing is the gentleman's, maybe!" The Gamarala asked, "Yes, indeed. Whose is it, Bola, if that cloth is not mine?" Then the Washerman says to the assessors, "There! Be good enough to look. Didn't that gentleman just now say that the cloth I am wearing is the gentleman's. In that manner, indeed, he has brought this lawsuit, also." At that time the assessors said to the Gamarala, "There is not a thing for us to say regarding this [except that] he is to gain [the action] against you." Then the Gamarala having lost, came back with the Washerman to the village. At that time, while the Gamarala was angry with the Washerman, the Gamarala, having said that he must build a house for himself, and having gone to the jungle, cut Halmilla, Milla, Waewarana trees; these three sorts [of good timber trees]. Then the Washerman, having got news that he had cut these woods, also went to the jungle, and having said, "I also must build a house for myself," cut Paepol wood, Murunga wood, Eramudu wood; those three sorts [of soft useless woods]. After heaping them together, he wrote a book [of sham prognostications]: "For the house [built] of Halmilla, begging; for the house of Waewarana, killing; for the house of Milla, begging; for the house of Paepol, land; for the house of Eramudu, purity; for the house of Murunga, purity." After writing these, the Washerman taking up the book while the Gama-Mahage (the Gamarala's wife) was going past for water, says them over every day for the Gama-Mahage to hear. The Gama-Mahage having heard them, said to the Gamarala, "A book of the Washerman's says thus. Because of it, come with the Washerman, and having given him our small quantity of timber speak with him to allow us to take his small quantity of timber." Afterwards, the Gamarala having gone to the Washerman, asked at the hand of the Washerman, "Washerman, give me your small quantity of timber, and take for yourself my small quantity of timber." Then the Washerman says, "I don't know [if I can do it], Sir (Rahamiye). I cannot [willingly], through sorrow [at the loss to me], give you my small quantity of timber, indeed; but because the gentleman says it, any way whatever is good. Be good enough to take it." Afterwards the Gamarala brought [home] the Washerman's small quantity of timber. The Washerman brought the Gamarala's small quantity of timber. Having brought it, the Washerman with the small quantity of the Gamarala's timber thoroughly built the house for himself, the Gamarala also building the house for himself from the Washerman's timber. When only three months had gone, the Gamarala's house fell down, and the Gama-Mahage, having been underneath it, died. The house which the Washerman built from good timber remained in good condition. North-western Province. NO. 60 THE TWO THIEVES Two thieves at Cairo were in love with the same girl, who promised to marry the one who showed the greatest cleverness. The first one assisted a rich merchant in purchasing some cattle, and eventually purloined a bag of money which the merchant was carrying in the large pocket in the front of his gown, and put a similar bag in its place containing an orange or two. The theft was discovered when the merchant was about to pay the money for the cattle. The robber assumed the rôle of the sympathising friend, and suggested that a mistake might have been made by the merchant's wife, and the wrong bag given to him. The merchant went home to inquire about it, and on his return the robber ran up to him, and embraced and kissed him, saying, "Hallo, Friend! I am very glad to see you again. I hope you have succeeded in finding your money." As he said this he put back the purse, and took the bag of oranges. The merchant replied, "I hope God will hear what you say." The thief said, "You are playing me a trick; put your hand in your pocket, and feel if your purse is not there." So he put his hand in his breast pocket, and found his bag of money there. The thief explained the matter, and requested him to relate the particulars to the girl, who then decided that she would marry this thief. I give the rest of the story in full, as it was dictated to me:-- The second thief said, "Oh! that is nothing. I can play a better trick than that. Will you be kind enough to come to-morrow morning to the Government offices to see me?" The merchant man said, "I also will come to see the trick." Then the merchant went away, and the three remained there till evening. After dinner, the second robber went out to the café to spend the time, and there he met one of the higher class people. The robber said, "Salam," and sat down next this merchant. They both smoked hashish together, and the thief told him, "I have just arrived from outside the city. The four gates are now shut, and I cannot return. I do not know where to go to sleep." The merchant told him, "Don't you feel ashamed to say that to me when you know what size my house is?" The robber said, "Thank you for the favour," and at the end of their smoke they went together to the merchant's house. When the two entered, lights were put in the writing room, with two beds for them, so that they might sleep together there. While the merchant was fast asleep and snoring, the robber awoke, and took the key of the money-box and the seal from the merchant's pocket, opened the box, counted the money, wrote a promissory note giving the amount of each kind of money, signed it with the merchant's seal, and put all back again as before, keeping the note. He then went to sleep again. Next morning they breakfasted together, becoming very friendly, and the robber said, "Please can you lend me your horse and a clean suit of clothes, because I must go to report a person to the Government?" So the merchant gave him a clean suit and a horse, and told him, "You can change your clothes and wash here. I must go to my office." He then left. The robber put on the clothes, and rode off to the Government office, and explained his case, and asked for a man to be sent to fetch the merchant, as he had to recover a large sum of money from him. The Chief of the Police sent a man to call him. When the merchant came, the Chief of the Police asked him, "Why don't you pay this gentleman the money you owe him?" He says, "Which gentleman?" "This gentleman," said the Chief of the Police, pointing to the robber. "This one!" "Yes, I am the one," said the robber. The merchant said, "Don't you feel ashamed at saying I owe you some money?" "Of course," he replied, and then he took out the promissory note, and handed it to the Chief of the Police. The Chief of the Police looked at it, and said, "Hallo! That is a big amount." The merchant asked to see it, and he looked at the list, and said, "I have not got so much money in my box. If I have so much in my house it must really be yours." The Chief of the Police sent some men to bring the box to the station, and on counting the money in it, he found it was exactly the amount written in the promissory note. The woman, and the other robber, and the merchant who was tricked on the previous day were all present and listening, and were all astonished. The Chief of the Police said, "Well, it must be the claimant's money," and he gave it to him. The merchant was angry, so the robber said, "I suppose you will be saying next that the horse is yours, and the suit I am wearing"; and when the merchant angrily demanded them the robber requested the Chief of the Police to lock the man up, because he was now trying to steal his horse and clothes. Then the merchant was locked up, and the robber left the money in the box at the Police Station, and rode off to his own home, where he met the woman and the first robber. He asked them, "How do you like that trick?" She said, "A very clever man you are," and she agreed to marry him. After three days they both went to the merchant, and told him the whole story, and returned him the money, and the horse and clothes. And the merchant was so pleased to get them back that he gave them some money to live upon. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 297 ff., two thieves had one wife, who agreed that she should belong only to the one who brought her the most valuable spoil in two days. The King executed her, as being the instigator of the robberies they committed. NO. 61 THE MARGOSA TREE In a certain city there is a King, it is said. The King thought of growing a Margosa tree without bitterness [in the fruit], so one day he made proclamation accordingly by beat of tom-toms. While two friends of one village were coming to seek a means of subsistence they heard this sound of tom-toms. When they asked at the hand of a tom-tom beater, "What is the sound of tom-toms for?" he said, "What is it? His Majesty our King will give presents to any person who should grow and give him a Margosa tree without bitterness." One of the friends, saying, "I can [do it]," went to the royal palace. "Canst thou grow and give me a Margosa tree without bitterness?" the King asked. "Yes, your Majesty," he said. "What things dost thou want for it?" the King asked. "I want monthly a hundred-weight of sugar and a large pot of cow's butter," he said. After that, the King asked, "Where wilt thou grow it?" "I must grow it on the edge of a river," he said. Having built and given him a house on the edge of the river, he gave him a hundred-weight of sugar and a large pot of butter monthly. Seven times in succession he planted seven trees. Seven times the seven trees were washed away by the river. During the time while he was there in that way, the other friend having come, asked, "Where is the tree?" Then the friend who had planted the tree says, "Either the King, or I, or the river." [120] The words that he said meant, "Either His Majesty the King will die; if not, I shall die, because of no means of subsistence." "Having cheated the King I get a living. When it is so, the foolish King has been caught by my trick." Duraya. North-western Province. NO. 62 THE GAMARALA'S FOOLISH SON While a Gamarala and a Gama-gaeni (his wife) were at a village, as there were no children to those two for a long time they went to a Dewala, and worshipped the Gods in order to obtain a child. After that they obtained a child. As that child was growing up the Gamarala and Gama-gaeni were becoming very old. So one day the Gamarala says to the Gama-gaeni, "Before we die we must summon and give a bride to the youth." Having said this they summoned and gave him a small girl. During the time while they were living thus, the Gamarala had an illness. After that the Gamarala died. Afterwards, while the Gama-gaeni, and the son, and the son's wife were there, one day the wife of the Gama-puta (son of the Gamarala) said, "Now then, let us go to my village, and having gone there, sowing our rice field lands let us do cultivation"; and both of them went. While they were there, one day, as an illness settled on the Gama-puta's wife, the Vedarala (village doctor) went to see her. The Vedarala asked, "What is the illness?" Then he said, "My wife has tumours which are growing large." The Vedarala having made a medicine which was to be rubbed [on the places], and having come to the house gave it, saying, "Rub thou this medicine on them." When he had been rubbing it for four or five days they grew larger. The Gama-puta having seen this, said, "Ada! These tumours are becoming very severe. I cannot go for medicine every day if they go on like this. Let us go to my village." So they set off to come to the Gama-puta's village. As they were coming, a man was driving a bull on the road. This Gamarala's son asked, "Where are you taking the bull?" The man said, "I am taking it to my village," he said. "Where are you going?" he asked. "We are going to my village. My wife has tumours. We are going to apply medical treatment," he said. "Where? Let us look at them. I also know a little medical art," he said. Then he showed them. When the man who was taking the bull saw them he said, "They are growing larger; they will never become well," he said. Then the Gama-puta thought, "This woman does not matter to me." So he said, "It would be good for you to give me that bull and take this woman." So taking the bull he gave the woman. "This one has water in his stomach (i.e., he had drunk water); you will be careful," the man said. Then having taken the bull, as he was going to the village he took a large cloth and tied it round the middle of the bull. While he was there after tying it, a man came, carrying a bill-hook on his shoulder. When he saw it he asked, "What is this doing?" "This one has water in his stomach; on that account I have tied the cloth round it," he said. Having seen the bill-hook, "What is that?" he asked. "This is a bill-hook," the man said. After he asked, "What do you do with the bill-hook?" the man said, "Taking a packet of cooked rice and a water-gourd, it is for cutting the jungle," he said. When he asked, "Will you take this bull and give me the bill-hook," the man said, "It is good," and having given the bill-hook went away taking the bull. Then the Gama-puta, having taken the bill-hook, and gone to the village, during the time while he was there thought he would go to cut jungle. Having thought so, he took a packet of cooked rice and a water-gourd, and the bill-hook, and having placed them upon a rock he remained looking on. Seeing that the bill-hook stayed [there] without cutting the jungle, and thinking that it was because he was looking at it, he came home. Having come and eaten rice, and having gone back afterwards, when he looked, the bill-hook having been put in the sun had become extremely hot. So the Gama-puta thinks, "The bill-hook having got fever, is it on that account it did not eat the cooked rice and did not cut the jungle?" He went quickly for medicine. Having gone he told the Veda (village doctor). The Veda having looked [at it] told him to bury it under the frame on which the water pots were set. Afterwards, having come home, he buried it under the water-pots' frame. On the following day, after he had looked [he found that] having become thoroughly wetted by the water it was cold. Having seen that, he got into his mind [the notion], "Ada! The medical treatment is very good." When a little time had gone, one day the Gamarala's wife had a severe illness, having got fever. The Gama-gaeni said, "Son, I have much fever. Having gone for medical advice and brought a little medicine, give me it," she said. He said, "It is good," and speedily having cut a hole under the water-pots' frame, and put the Gama-gaeni in the hole, he covered her with earth. Afterwards when he looked, the fever having thoroughly gone down she had become cold like a plantain tree; and saying, "Ada! Mother's fever is completely well," he went away. Duraya. North-western Province. In Indian Fables (Ramaswami Raju), p. 71, a variant of the last incident is given. A man with severe fever having cooled a red-hot poker in cold water, thought he could cool himself in the same way, so he sat in a tub of cold water, with a fatal result. In Indian Nights' Entertainment, Panjab (Swynnerton), p. 83, a weaver got a smith to make a sickle that would cut corn of itself. He laid it beside the standing corn, which he ordered it to cut; but on returning he found no work done, and the sickle ill with fever, through being in the sun. The smith to whom he applied for advice recommended him to tie a string to it, and lower it into a well; this cooled it. When his mother caught fever he treated her in the same way until she died and became cold. NO. 63 THE JACKAL'S JUDGMENT At a village there is a tank. A Crocodile, making a burrow in the [foot of the] embankment, stayed in it. Afterwards the mud having dried and become hard, the Crocodile being unable to get out of the hole was going to die. As a man was going past to fetch a midwife-mother to attend to his wife, the Crocodile, hearing him, said to the man, "Somehow or other manage to save me by breaking up the earth so that I may get out." The man broke up the earth, and let it out. After that, as there was no water left in the tank, the man, placing the Crocodile on his shoulder, went to the edge of the river. Having gone there, after he had placed it in the water, the Crocodile seized the arm of that man in order to eat him. "Why wilt thou eat me?" he asked. "Dost thou not know the help I gave thee? Yet thou art going to eat me!" The Crocodile said, "It is true, indeed, regarding the assistance. It is because I am hungry that I am going to eat thee." The man said, "It is good. Eat thou me. There are my witnesses, two or three persons. First ask them [regarding the justice of it], and then eat me." So they went to ask the witnesses about it. Having met with a Kumbuk tree, [121] he said to the Kumbuk tree, "This Crocodile is going to eat me. I ask this one's opinion of it." "What is that about?" The man said, "This Crocodile was going to die. I saved it. It is now going to eat me. Is that right?" Then the Kumbuk tree says, "O Crocodile-cultivator, do not let that man go. There is no animal so wicked as that man. He stays near the tree in the shade, and having broken off the bark and the leaves he takes them away. At last he cuts down and takes the tree." From there he goes and asks it of the Cow. "O Cow, I saved this Crocodile from death. This Crocodile is now going to eat me. Do you think it right?" The Cow says, "O Crocodile-cultivator, do not let that man go. That man is a wicked man. He takes our milk, and at last kills and eats us. Do not let him go." After that he asks it of the Jackal. The Jackal asks, "What is it about?" He says to the Jackal, "O Jackal-artificer, without letting this Crocodile die, I saved it. Now it is going to eat me." The Jackal-artificer says, "I cannot give this decision, not having seen what is the meaning of it. You must show me the whole affair from the beginning." Then the man, placing the Crocodile on his shoulder, and having gone with it and put it in the house in which the Crocodile was at first, [and closed the entrance], and made the soil hard, the Jackal says, "Now then, don't you be afraid. I am on your side." Then the man says, "Jackal-artificer, hear this case." "I am both the judge and the witness," the Jackal said. "Now then, taking a cudgel beat thou him until he dies. I saw thy excellence and this one's wickedness." Duraya. North-western Province. This is one of the best-known of folk-tales. A Malay variant is given in Mr. W. Skeat's Fables and Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest, p. 20. A tiger, being released from a cage-trap by a man, seized him in order to eat him. When appealed to, the road and tree were against him. The Mouse-deer, which in Malaya fills the place of the clever animal in folk-tales, got the tiger to return to the cage, and called the neighbours to kill it. The tiger story is given in Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 198 ff., and the appeal was made to a banyan tree, camel, bullock, eagle, and alligator [crocodile], which were against the man. The Jackal settled it in his favour. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 116--Tales of the Punjab, p. 107--the matter was referred to a pipal (or bo) tree, a road, and the Jackal, who induced the tiger to re-enter the trap, and left him there. In Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes), p. 16, the matter was not referred to others, but the Jackal told the tiger a good way of eating the man, by getting inside a large bag and having him thrown in to it. When it was inside the bag, the Jackal, a dog who was present, and the man tied it up, and beat the tiger to death. The Panchatantra (Dubois), as in several other instances, comes nearest to the Sinhalese story. A Brahmana carried a Crocodile in a sack from a stream to the Ganges, and was then seized by it. In reply to his appeal to the Crocodile's virtue and gratitude, he was told, "The virtue and gratitude of our days is to devour those who nourish us and who do good to us." Reference was made to a mango tree, an old cow (both of which agreed with the Crocodile), and a Jackal, who, stating that he wished to get to the bottom of the matter, induced the Crocodile to re-enter the sack, after which the Jackal broke his head with a stone. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 134, a boy on his way to fetch his bride, killed a mungus that was attacking a snake, which then turned on him, to eat him, but gave him eight days' grace to get married. When he returned with his wife she remonstrated with the snake, and was referred to some trees. One had preserved a thief in its hollow interior, but he found sandalwood there, and cut it down; and now it had become a rule to do evil for good. For the future widow's protection, the snake gave her magic powder capable of reducing to ashes whatever it fell on, so she applied it to the snake, and burnt it to dust. The tale is found in West Africa also, in a form which is very close to the South Indian and Sinhalese one. In Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 53, a child found a tired Crocodile, and carried it back to water. The Crocodile asked if he knew how goodness was rewarded. "By evil," the child said. The Crocodile was going to eat him, but referred the matter to an old horse and an old ass (both of which recommended it to do so), and lastly to a Hare, which refused to believe that the child could have carried it. When this was proved, and the Crocodile taken back, the Hare said to the child, "Doesn't thy father eat Crocodile?" "Yes." "And thy mother?" "Yes." "Hast thou not an axe?" "I have one," the child replied. "Then break the Crocodile's head and eat it," the Hare said. In many West African tales the Hare is the clever animal who outwits the others. NO. 64 THE HERON AND THE CRAB There is a great big mountain. On the mountain there is a rock-hole [containing water]. In it there are some small fishes. At all other places a Heron [122] eats the small fishes. In this rock-hole the Heron cannot eat the small fishes; he goes along [in the air], above the rock cave. On account of it, the Heron puts on a false appearance. "I am indeed an ascetic," he said. "I do not kill living creatures," he said. Thereupon the small fishes came for a talk. After they came he said, "Being in this hole ye cannot go up and down," he said. "Because it is so, I will take you and put you in a river possessing length and breadth," he said. After that, having taken them one by one he ate them. At the time when he was taking the Crab which remained over from them, the Crab took hold of the neck of the Heron. While on the way, when the Heron was preparing to kill the Crab, the Crab getting to know of it, cut the neck of the Heron with his claws and killed it. Duraya. North-western Province. THE POND HERON. (VARIANT.) At the time of a great drought the water of a pool having nearly dried up, the fishes [123] saw that they were coming near dying. A Pond Heron [124] which saw it, having very speedily come flying, spoke to the fishes: "Friends, I will go and conduct you to a pool in which there is much water," he said. They were pleased at it. The Pond Heron holding one by his bill, and having gone and put it down at the pool in which there was water, again brought it near those that were in the pool at which the water had dried up, and let it go. The fish which he brought informed them that there was a pool in which there was water, in the way the Heron said. All the fishes that were in the dried-up pool became wishful to go. Now then, the Pond Heron having taken them one by one, leaving aside the pool in which there was water, took them to a tree near it, and ate them. After not many days the fishes were finished; the Pond Heron ate all. Having eaten them, below the tree on which he put them there was a heap of bones to the extent of a tree in height. Afterwards having seen that a Crab was in the dried-up pool, the Pond Heron spoke to it: "Friend, you also come to be conducted there," he said. The Crab also spoke to the Pond Heron: "Friend, my shell is very thin," he said. "I will take you carefully," the Pond Heron said. After he had said it the Crab became wishful to go. The Pond Heron took hold of his shell, and the Crab took hold of the neck of the Pond Heron with his two claws. Having taken hold of him the Pond Heron flew away. Having seen that, leaving the pool on this side, he was flying to the tree, the Crab spoke to him. "The pool is here," he said. "I am taking thee to eat," the Pond Heron said. At that time having seized the two claws the Pond Heron killed him. Washerman. North-western Province. THE POND HERON. (VARIANT.) In a certain country a Pond Heron stayed, it is said. At the time while the Pond Heron was there, seeking small fishes in the tanks, a great general drought befel. On account of it all the tanks dried up. The Pond Heron ate all the small fishes that stayed in them. Having eaten them, he remained hungry for two or three days, there being no more small fishes. Having been in that state, and having flown away to seek food, as he was going along he saw that a tank having dried up, small fishes were there, being unable to go elsewhere. The Pond Heron having gone there, asked the small fishes, "What, friends, are you there for?" Then the small fishes said, "Ane! Friend, the little water that there was for us having dried up, we are without water." After that, the Pond Heron said, "If so, friends, there is a good river for you. I will take you to it, and put you down there." The little fishes said, "It is good, friend. If so, take us and put us down there." The Pond Heron said, "If so, let one come [first, and see the river]," and holding it with his bill he took it to the river, and put it down. That small fish going in the water all round the river came near the Pond Heron. Then the Pond Heron having said to the small fish, "Let us go, friend," the small fish said, "Friend, I cannot go." The Pond Heron said, "No, friend, let us go. Can you remain, without going? Your other people are to come." Afterwards the small fish said "Ha." So the Pond Heron, taking the small fish with his bill, came flying back. Having come to a great rough tree, and settled on a branch of the tree, he ate the small fish. Again he went flying to the place where the small fishes were. The small fishes asked, "Friend, one of us went with you. Where is he?" The Pond Heron replied, "Friends, he said he would not come. He stayed in the river." Then those small fishes said, "If so, go with us, and put us down in it." After that, the Pond Heron, taking one of them, settled on the tree at which he ate that small fish, and ate it. Again he came to the place where the other small fishes were. Then those small fishes said, "Friend, take us also, and put us in the river." The Pond Heron again having taken a small fish and settled on that very tree, ate it. Thus, in that way having taken the small fishes until they were finished, he ate them all. Having finished the small fishes, a Crab was omitted outside. The Pond Heron came and asked the Crab, "What, friend, are you here alone for?" The Crab said, "Ane! Friend, the small fishes of this tank went to the quarters where they went. I alone remain." Then the Pond Heron said, "Friend, shall I take you also to the river, and put you down in it?" The Crab said "Ha." Afterwards the Pond Heron, holding the Crab with his bill, took it and settled on the tree on which he ate the small fishes. While he was there the Crab asked, "What, friend, have you delayed here for?" Then the Pond Heron said, "It is here that I ate also the few small fishes that stayed in the tank. It is here I shall eat you also." Afterwards the Crab, having stiffened his claws a little, seized the neck of the Pond Heron. Then the Pond Heron with his bill tightened his hold of the Crab. Thus, in that way holding each other, both of them died, and fell on the ground below the tree. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. The Jataka story No. 38 (vol. i, p. 96), about a Crane and a Crab, nearly agrees with the second of these tales, but the ending is like that of the first one, the Crab killing the Crane. It is also much more artificial and developed in the conversations. It is possible that the story related by the Duraya may represent a very early form of the tale, or perhaps the original one. If the story were derived from the Jataka tale, it is very improbable that in a country where ponds are more numerous than in any other, we should find the pool of the Jataka, to which the fishes were to be taken, displaced in two of these by a river. The story is given in Indian Fables (Ramaswami Raju), p. 88. A Crane pretended to carry the fish to a pond, and was killed by a Crab. In Skeat's Fables and Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest, p. 18, the bird was a Pelican, which was killed by a Crab. In the Panchatantra (Dubois), a Cormorant came to the fishes at a pool, and allayed their suspicions by putting on an appearance of piety and by alleging that he had become a religious devotee. He informed them that he foresaw a twelve years' drought, in which the pools would dry up and they would perish, and he offered to transport them to a mountain pool fed by a perennial spring. They were eaten on a rock, and the Crab strangled the bird. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 31, the animals were a Crane and a Makara, which is said by the translator to generally mean a crocodile, though in early carvings in Ceylon and India it is a fabulous animal with two short legs and a tail usually curved upon its back. The bird frightened the fish by saying that a man was coming to catch them with a net, and he offered to convey them to a lake. When the Makara was taken to the rock at which the others were killed, he cut off the Crane's head. This story nearly agrees with that in the Hitopadesa, in which a Crab killed the bird. NO. 65 THE JACKAL AND THE BRAHMANA In a certain city a Jackal according to custom was eating the fowls, it is said. Now, as the Jackal was there eating the fowls, by degrees he finished all the fowls in that manner. There was still one fowl at the royal palace. So this Jackal went to the royal palace to eat the fowl. After he had come there the Jackal tried to catch it, and while he was there striving to eat the fowl it became light. There being no means of going away because of the people, he sought a place in which to remain hidden. As he was seeking it, except that there was open ground and no jungle, when he looked there was only a clump of weeds as a hiding place. While he was in it peeping out, a Brahmana comes near. This Jackal asked, "You Brahmana! Where art thou going?" he asked. The Brahmana says, "I am going in search of a livelihood." The Jackal says, "I will give thee a means of subsistence; carry me here and there," he said. Then the Brahmana taking the Jackal slung him by his four legs. "Dost thou carry me by the legs to some place to give a livelihood to thee?" he said. "If not, how shall I carry thee?" the Brahmana asked. Then the Jackal says, "Having placed me in thy upper garment take me up and go," he said. "Look here! Take me and go thou along the road which leads to this jungle," he said. "Having taken me and gone on it there will be a clump of wild dates. Do thou put me down near the clump of wild dates," he said. So the Jackal came to the open ground in the bundle. Then the Jackal told this Brahmana, after he had placed the bundle on the ground, to stay looking in the direction of the sun. Having remained looking in the direction of the sun, he told him to look in the direction of the clump of wild dates, and to take the kahawanas (coins) which were placed in it. When he had looked in the direction of the clump of wild dates, the rays of the sun having entered his eyes a yellow colour went into everything, and he thought he saw some money in it. So the Brahmana crept into the clump of wild dates and passed his hand through it, and looked through it. Then because there were no kahawanas, he came out into the open ground. When he looked on the path there was no Jackal. Then the Brahmana said, "There is neither the journey that I came for, nor the kahawanas. Ada! Ada!" So he went away. Duraya. North-western Province. In this story we find one of the lowest castes of the Chandalas making fun of the highest caste of all, a mild revenge for their treatment by the latter. As part of the joke, the Jackal is represented as addressing the Brahmana in the manner in which the latter would have spoken to a Duraya, and as being carried about by him, thus turning the tables completely, the chief duty of the Durayas being carrying loads for others. In the Jataka story No. 113 (vol. i, p. 255) a Jackal having overslept himself in some bushes in Benares, concealed himself until a Brahmana came near. By promising him two hundred gold pieces he induced the man to carry him concealed under his robe until they reached the cremation ground. There he told him to dig up a tree in order to get the treasure, and then ran off while the man was occupied with the work. NO. 66 THE CAT WHO GUARDED THE PRECEPTS A Cat having seen that a sun-dried fish was in a bag of rice, at the time when he was going to it to eat it, a rosary [hanging there] fell on his neck. After it had fallen, as he was going away with it on his neck a Jungle-hen met him, and ran off. The Cat then says, "I am guarding (that is, keeping) the Precepts (of Buddha, sil rakinawa). Tummal Kitti, [125] come here and go with me." While he was taking her with him they met with a Ground Cuckoo. He called this one: "'Bug-bug'-singing Kaccale, [126] I am guarding the Precepts. Come here and go with me." As they were going they met with a Hare. He called him also: "Tokka [127] the Devil-dancer, come here and go with me. I am guarding the Precepts." Having gone to a rock cave [as a pansala or monk's residence], while they were there the Cat said, "Tokka the Devil-dancer, Tummal Kitti having scratched [the ground] in the pansala has defiled it. I must kill this one," he said. When the Hare said, "It is good," he killed her. After the Cat had said, "It is not a fault to eat a dead one, is it?" when the Hare replied, "No, there is not any fault in it," he ate her. Afterwards the Cat said, "Tokka the Devil-dancer, this 'Bug-bug'-singing Kaccale has been drinking arrack (palm spirit) until his eyes have become red." When he said, "I must kill this one," he killed it. Then saying, "There is no fault in eating a dead one," he ate it. Then he said, "Tokka the Devil-dancer, thou having dropped dung in the pansala art defiling it." When he said, "I must kill thee," the Hare said, "Yes, killing me is virtuous and proper. I must first perform a great gallop [128] and a little gallop, two gallops. [129] After that there will be no fault if you kill me," he said. "Yes, perform them," the Cat said. Then the Hare having run round [the cave], "There! The small gallop," he said. Again having gone running round, and [then] having jumped over the Cat's head, while he was running away he said, "There! The great gallop," and ran off. Duraya. North-western Province. HOW THE CAT BECAME AN UPASAKA. [130] (VARIANT.) At a certain time, at the house of a Gamarala, milk having been taken and placed on the shelf by him [to curdle], the Gamarala went to the chena. There is a Cat at the house. The Cat having looked [to see] when the Gamarala was not there, went to the shelf to eat the curds by stealth. Having gone there and eaten them by stealth, as he was coming away the Gamarala came home from the chena, and the Cat, becoming afraid, sprang down. The Gamarala's rosary was hanging on the shelf. As the Cat deceitfully was springing down, the rosary fell on the Cat's neck. Then while the rosary was on its neck it goes away. Why? Should the Gamarala get to know about its eating the curds he would thrash it inordinately. Well then, as it was going it met with a Rat. The Rat [seeing the rosary] asked the Cat, "Upasakarala, [131] where are you going?" "I am going to guard the Precepts," he said. "You also come and go along with me," he said. At the time when the two were going they met with the Squirrel called the Three-lined Chief. [132] "Upasakarala, where are you going?" he asked. "We are going to guard the Precepts. You also come and go with us," he said. The Squirrel having said, "Ha. I will come," the three went along [together]. As they were going they met with the Ground Cuckoo called Bum-bum the Tom-tom Beater. "Where, Upasakarala, are you going?" he asked. "We are going to guard the Precepts. You also come," he said. The Ground Cuckoo having said, "Ha. If so, I also will come," the four went together. At the time when they were going they met with the Hare called Tokkan the Devil-dancer. "Upasakaralas, where are you going?" he asked. "We are going to guard the Precepts. You also come and go with us," he said. Well then, the five went to the jungle. Having gone on and on, there was a rock cave. Having said, "Look there! Our pansala," he told the people to creep inside. "In order that I may go and rehearse the Precepts, let no single other person besides cause any disturbance," he said. Then the Rat, being hungry during the night, was wriggling about. So the Upasaka Cat said, "Ade! While Bum-bum the Tom-tom Beater stays there quietly, while the Three-lined Chief stays there [quietly], while Tokkan the Devil-dancer stays there [quietly], this one does not take [to heart] the things that were said. Being on guard over it I must put it out of the way." [133] Saying this, he ate the Rat. At the daybreak watch the Ground Cuckoo crowed [as usual]. After it had crowed, the Cat said, "While the Three-lined Chief stays there [quietly], while Tokkan the Devil-dancer stays there [quietly], because this one is making noises, and as I am on guard over it, I must put it out of the way," and seizing that one also he ate it. As it became light in the morning, at the time when the Squirrels were singing, "Tin-Tin," the Three-lined Chief also sang, "Tin-Tin." Then the Cat said, "While Tokkan the Devil-dancer stays there quietly, and I stay here [quietly], this one having said it through arrogance, and as I am on guard over it, I must put it out of the way." Having said this he ate that one also. Now then, the Hare called Tokkan the Devil-dancer ascertaining that he was eating it, began to cry in the morning. "What, Tokkan the Devil-dancer, are you crying for?" he asked. "I know thoroughly how to dance dances. Because there is no one to look at the dances I was sorry," he said. After he had said, "If so, dance a little for me to look at it," the Hare said, "Upasakarala, open the doorway so that a little light may fall into the cave. Having seen my dance you must eat me also," the Hare said. When he moved from the door, out of the way, for a little light to fall inside, the Hare, having jumped to the four corners of the cave, springing over the head of the Cat went away. P. B. Madahapola, Ratemahatmaya. North-western Province. HOW THE CAT PERFORMED BELL WORSHIP. (VARIANT.) In a certain country a man reared a Cat, it is said. The Cat every day goes to eat by stealth in the villages. On account of it the man one day caught the Cat, and having tied a hawk's bell [134] on its neck, let it go. After that, the Cat, without going that day into the village, went away along the path. As it was going along it met with a Rat. The Rat asked the Cat, "Where, O Cat-Lord, are you going?" Then the Cat said, "I am going for Bell Worship." The Rat asked, "Shall I come too?" The Cat said, "It is good." The Rat also having set off, as the two were going away they met with a Squirrel. The Squirrel asked the Cat, "Where, O Cat-Lord, are you going?" Then the Cat said, "I am going for Bell Worship." The Squirrel asked, "Shall I come too?" After that, the Cat said, "It is good." Now then, the Squirrel having set off, as the three were going away they met with a Jungle-cock. The Jungle-cock asked the Cat, "Where, O Cat-Lord, are you going?" Then the Cat said, "I am going for Bell Worship." The Jungle-cock said, "I shall come too." To that the Cat said, "It is good." The Jungle-cock having set off, the four persons went to a great rock cave in the jungle. Having made those three remain in the direction of the corner, the Cat stayed at the doorway. After being there [a short time], the Cat first of all said to the Rat, "O Rat, [135] I am hungry." Then the Rat said, "Let it be according to the wish of the Cat-Lord." After that, the Cat, seizing the Rat, ate it. In a little more time the Cat said to the Squirrel, "O Squirrel, [136] I am hungry." At that time the Squirrel also said, "Let it be according to the wish of the Cat-Lord." So the Cat having seized the Squirrel also, ate it. In a little more time the Cat said to the Jungle-cock, "O Jungle-cock, [137] I am hungry." At that time the Jungle-cock said falsely, "Let it be according to the wish of the Cat-Lord." Afterwards, when the Cat was approaching very near the Jungle-cock, having sprung at the Cat's face and with his spurs having plucked out both his eyes, the Jungle-cock flew away. The Cat there and then died. Cultivating Caste. North-western Province. The Precepts of Buddha to which reference is made in the first two stories, are the Ata-sil, or Eight Precepts, the keeping of which by lay devotees, called Upasakas, is a necessary obligation. The first one prohibits the taking of life. The others are against theft, immorality, lying, drinking intoxicants, eating after noon, attendance at theatrical amusements, dancing, singing, etc., and personal adornment. In the Jataka story No. 128 (vol. i, p. 281) there is an account of a Jackal who pretended to lead a saintly life, standing on one leg because the earth could not support his weight if he stood on all four, he said. He ate the rats which came to pay their respects to him, always seizing the hindmost as they left. The King of the Rats waited till the others had gone, and then sprang at the Jackal's throat and killed him. The next story, No. 129, is similar. In No. 384 (vol. iii, p. 170) a Crow pretended to be a saint, and also stood on one leg for the same reason, saying that it fed only on wind. When the other birds left it in charge of their young ones it ate them. At last it was killed by the other birds. In the Maha Bharata (Udyoga Parva) a Cat which pretended to be an ascetic killed the mice that placed themselves under its protection. In the Hitopadesa a Cat which gained the confidence of the birds by its pious demeanour ate their young ones. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 67, a pious Cat killed a hare and a bird. NO. 67 THE LIZARD AND THE LEOPARD At a village there are a Leopard and a Lizard. [138] The Lizard and Leopard cut a chena, it is said. Afterwards both having quarrelled they divided the chena between them. In the part which the Lizard got he planted Kaekiri creepers, which became large; in the part which the Leopard got the Kaekiri died, and he abandoned it. Then the Leopard ate the Kaekiri fruit in the Lizard's chena, and after eating rubbed himself on his hams over the fruits that were on the ground. So the Lizard gave some Kaekiri fruits to the smith, and having got a small knife made took it away. After getting it made, the Lizard ran it through some plucked Kaekiri fruits [and left it there]. Afterwards the Leopard came to eat Kaekiri. Having eaten, he rubbed himself on the plucked Kaekiri fruits. Then the knife pierced him. Over this matter the Leopard and Lizard quarrelled. Afterwards the Leopard, having eaten cattle flesh, became strong again. One day the Leopard told the Lizard that the Gamarala had a chena. The Lizard said, "Ade! Where is it? Let me look at it." Having gone with him to it, the Leopard shows him the fruits and says, "Ade! Lizard, eat thou there. Lizard, eat thou here." The Gamarala having heard it and having gone home, began to laugh. The Gama-Mahage (his wife) asked, "What are you laughing at?" The Gamarala said, "A Leopard sitting in the chena was saying and saying to a Lizard, 'Eat thou there, Lizard. Eat thou here, Lizard.'" Afterwards, when the Lizard was in the chena the Leopard goes to the house of the Gamarala and says, "Gamarala, see! The Lizard is eating thy chena." Then the Gamarala scolded him and said, "I heard thee telling the Lizard, 'Eat thou there, Lizard. Eat thou here, Lizard.'" Then the Leopard went to the Lizard, and said, "Friend, take thou my piece of chena, and give me thy piece of chena." Because the Lizard was afraid he said, "It is good," and they exchanged chenas. The Lizard planted the abandoned piece in a thorough manner. The Leopard ate the fruits in the part which he got, until they were finished. After that, the Leopard went to the Lizard again, and said, "Friend, let us exchange chenas again." The Lizard felt anger which he could not bear, but because he was afraid he said again, "It is good," to that also. Afterwards, the Lizard went to a man, and asked him to tell him a way of succeeding, so as to fight the Leopard. The man said, "When he asks you again, say you will not. The Leopard will come and quarrel with you. Then say, 'We cannot fight in that manner. You go, and after asking your mother about a means of success, return. I will go, and after asking my mother about a means of success, will return.' Having said it and come away, and having rolled in the mud and dried it, and again rolled in the mud and dried it, by rolling in the mud and doing thus you will become big. After that go to fight. The Leopard's claws will not enter your body." All this the man told the Lizard. Afterwards, one day the Leopard said, "Let us exchange chenas." The Lizard told him as the man said. When the Leopard went to his mother she told him to rub coconut oil over his body. The Lizard having gone to a mud hole, jumps into it, and climbs onto a post to dry the mud. Again it jumps into the mud and climbs onto the post. Thus, having acted in that manner he caused much mud to be smeared on his body. After that, having met each other, the Leopard and Lizard quarrelled again, and struck each other on the face. Then the Lizard springs on the Leopard's back and scratches his flesh. The Leopard jumps about, but only scratches mud off the Lizard. Having fought in that way, the Leopard, becoming afraid, went away. The Lizard went and washed off the mud. The Leopard having gone and crawled under the corn store at a house, while sitting there says, "Bite thou me here, too, Lizard. Bite thou me here, too, Lizard." [139] While he was there saying it he saw a boy [near him]. Then the Leopard says, "Ade! Do not tell any one, or I will kill thee." Because of it, the boy being afraid did not tell any one. Afterwards the Leopard, thinking, "The boy will tell it," came while the boy [140] was asleep on the bed [in the veranda], and having crept under the bed, lifted it on his back and went off with it, in order to eat him. When the boy awoke and saw that the Leopard was going along carrying him, he caught hold of a branch and hung by it. After the Leopard, having gone a long distance, looked back the boy was not there. Then the Leopard came running back to seek him. Having seen that the boy was on a branch, the Leopard asked, "Art thou descending to the ground, boy? I shall eat thee." The boy said, "Ade! Bola, art thou saying Bana? [141] I have no means of stretching out my hands to descend," he said. "What is in thy hands?" he asked. "In this hand I have small Lizard's eggs; in this other hand I have large Lizard's eggs," he said. "A sort of Lizards as big as Talipat trunks and Coconut trunks will be coming." Then the Leopard, saying, "Stay thou there, boy, until I have run a little far," bounded off and ran away. Duraya. North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 117 ff., the latter part of this tale was given by Miss J. A. Goonetilleke, containing the fight of the animals and the incidents that follow it. The animals were a "Bloodsucker" Lizard and a "tiger," a word often used in Ceylon where "leopard" is intended to be understood. There are no tigers in Ceylon. An incident like that in the chena, in which the knife wounded the Leopard, is found in Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 177. In it a barber tied a knife to a cucumber, and it wounded a Jackal who began to eat the fruit. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 240--Tales of the Punjab, p. 227--a woman who was being carried off by robbers while on her bed, seized a branch and climbed up a tree when they paused under a Banyan tree. The same incident is given in The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 40. With regard to the fear of the lizard which the leopard is described in the Sinhalese story as exhibiting, I am able to state that it is not much exaggerated. Many years ago, on returning to my bungalow one day, at a tank in a wild part of the jungle, I found that a lizard of the species mentioned in this tale--a Katussa or "Bloodsucker"--had entered my bedroom. I brought up a tame, full-grown leopard which I then had, and introduced it to the lizard, as a new experience for it. At first it was inclined to play with the lizard, but on pretending to seize it with its mouth it felt the spikes on the lizard's back, and immediately showed the greatest fear of it. The attempts which it made to escape when the lizard came in its direction were quite ridiculous, and it became so terrified that I was obliged to take it away to the security of its den, a large packing-case under a tree to which it was tethered, leaving the lizard the complete master of the situation, though probably nearly equally alarmed. NO. 68 THE LION AND THE JACKAL While an old Lion was in a rock cave, after a Jackal went there the Lion says, "Ane! Bola, I have been thinking of eating fresh pig's flesh." When he said, "When I ran and sprang at some Boars now I couldn't catch one," the Jackal said, "If it come near this cave can't you seize it, Sir?" "In that way I can still do it. But will a Boar come near me? The thing you are saying would be a wonder." The Jackal says, "Somehow or other I will bring a Boar." The jackal having walked about in the jungle, and having seen a Boar, says, "How many days have I now been seeking thee!" After he had said, "Why should I be of assistance to thee?" the Boar says, "Uwah! Why is there so much need of it by me? Thou wilt not be of any assistance to me." The Jackal said, "Our King is there, having now become old. Is it true or not, Cultivator, that as he told me to seek a person to give the sovereignty to, I have been going about seeking thee? If not, am I telling lies? Come along and go there with me." Having gone near the Lion, taking him with him, the Jackal says, "Now then, having gone near the King and made obeisance, take the sovereignty." As the Boar was approaching in great fear the Lion sprang at him. After he had seized him, the Boar, pushing off his paws, bounded away. Then the Jackal says, "Did a thunderbolt strike you, Sir? Why didn't you hold the Boar?" The Lion says, "Ane! Bola, did I fail? Are you saying it falsely? When will such a Boar come near me again?" As the King was sorrowful the Jackal says, "Are you mad, Sir, that you doubt my powers? I will bring that one again now." The Jackal having gone on the path on which the Boar went, and having seen the Boar says, "What is the matter with thee? Ade! Did a thunderbolt strike thee, that thou camest bounding away?" The Boar says, "What did I come away for? Truly, I was running away. If I had stayed there it would be seen why!" Then the Jackal says, "If thou hadst stopped he wouldn't eat thee. Art thou a person afraid to have the sovereignty bestowed on thee? What was it? Except that he merely looked at thee he did not attempt to eat thee, Cultivator. If he had done so wouldst thou be thus? [142] No. Did he attempt the crime of eating thee?" [At last the Boar agreed to return to the Lion.] Afterwards, when they went near the Lion together, the Jackal says, "Friend, go without fear, and tell him to hand over the sovereignty." In that manner the Boar went near the Lion. Having sprung with great force on the neck of the Boar, and broken the neck, and broken the bone of the head, as he was going to eat the brains the Jackal said, "Don't." When the Lion asked, "Why not, Bola?" the Jackal says, "Though you, Sir, exercise the sovereignty your wisdom is less than ours. Do kings eat and drink in that manner?" After he had said, "Blood has fallen on your body, Sir. Having gone to the river, bathing and drying your body there, and having returned, be good enough to eat sitting down," the Lion went to bathe. After he had caused him to go, the Jackal ate the Boar's brains, and remained there silently. The Lion having come back, and taken the skull in his paws, sought for the brain in order to eat it. When he said, "There is no brain," the Jackal said, "Sir, don't you know so much? Having once escaped death and gone away, would he again be caught for killing if he had had brains? That one had no brains," he said. Duraya. North-western Province. HOW THE JACKAL CHEATED THE LION. (VARIANT.) In a more ancient time than this, a Lion King dwelt in a certain forest. A Jackal who lived in that very forest, establishing a friendly state with the Lion began to reside near him. Should I state the mutual trust of them both [it was this]--the Lion knew that although by the aid of the Jackal's means of success (that is, advice and stratagems), the Lion was seizing and eating the flesh of other animals, he did not get from the Jackal any other assistance that ought to be given. When a little time had passed in that way, it was evident that the Jackal's body was becoming very fat. The Lion saw it, and assuming a false illness remained lying down at the time when the Jackal came. Having seen it, the Jackal made obeisance to the Lion, and asked, "What, O Lord, are you lying down for? Has some ailment befallen Your Majesty? Are you not going to hunt to-day?" Then the Lion said, "My friend Jackal, a headache having afflicted me to-day, I am in a very serious state. From this time onward, having hunted, and eaten only the small amount of the brains of the animals, I will give thee all the rest of the flesh. Do thou subsist on it. For the reason that I am not well enough to go to hunt this day, thou and I, both of us, must remain hungry. Art thou unable to go hunting [alone] this day only?" he asked. Thereupon the Jackal said to the Lion, "O Lord, is that which should be done a difficult thing? Your Majesty will stay thus. I will go, and will return calling some animal or other [to come] near Your Majesty." Having instructed him to spring up and seize it as soon as it comes, the Jackal went to seek animals. While going for this purpose [it saw that] a Goat was tied in a field. Having told many falsehoods to the Goat it returned, inviting it [to come] near the Lion. Then the Lion sprang to seize it. Thereupon the Goat, having become afraid, ran away. The Jackal went [after it], and causing it to turn back again, returned [with it]. Then the Lion, having killed the Goat, went to bathe in order [to purify himself, so as] to eat the small quantity of brains. In the meantime the Jackal removed the brains, and having eaten them replaced the skin. The Lion having returned after bathing, when he came to split open the skin in order to eat the brains, saw that there were no brains. Having seen it, the Lion asked the Jackal, "Where are my brains?" Thereupon the Jackal said, "O Lord, if this one had any brains would it have come twice near Your Majesty? It came twice because it had no brains." So saying the Jackal ate the small quantity of flesh also. Western Province. Improbable as the notion appears that an animal, other than insects or fishes, would return into the same danger shortly after escaping from it, one instance of this has come under the observation of myself and a friend, with whose approval I insert this account of the occurrence. As Mr. H. E. H. Hayes, late of the Public Works Department, Ceylon, was walking one day near the water, at the embankment of the Vilankulam tank in the Northern Province, a crocodile made its appearance suddenly in the water near him, apparently attracted by his young terrier. He fired a charge of snipe shot at its head, and it disappeared. He and I went to the spot on the following day. I remained on the look-out on the top of the bank, while he was partly hidden behind a tree nearer the water. There he tweaked or pinched the dog so as to make it yelp a little. Then we observed a crocodile's head raised among some weeds far out in the tank. Not many minutes afterwards the crocodile's head appeared out of the water only a few feet away from the dog. Mr. Hayes at once shot it with his rifle; and when he recovered it found the shot marks of the previous day in its head. In this case it might almost be said with truth that the animal had no brains, since the brain of an ordinary tank crocodile is only about the size of a large walnut. When I split the skull of one, the men who were with me could not find the brain cavity, and thought it had no brains. In Indian Nights' Entertainment, Panjab (Swynnerton), p. 268, a Tiger with a broken leg takes the place of the Lion, and a Jackal brought an Ass to eat what he represented to be the superior grass at the place. After the Tiger had killed it and eaten part of it, he crawled to a spring for a drink, and in his absence the Jackal ate the heart (which the Tiger wanted itself), and gave the same explanation of its absence. The author added a note, "the heart among the Punjabis being the seat of reason." In the Panchatantra (Dubois), an Ass was brought to a sick Lion King in order that he might eat the heart and ears, as a remedy for his illness. When he was brought back the second time by a Jackal, the Lion killed him and ate the heart and ears. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), p. 85, there is a similar story, except that after killing the Ass the Lion went to bathe, and the Jackal then ate the heart and ears. He told the Lion that "the creature never possessed ears or a heart, otherwise how could he have returned when he had once escaped?" STORIES OF THE RODIYAS NO. 69 THE ROLL OF COTTON In a certain country there is a city. In the city there are two persons, an elder sister and a younger sister. There are two female children of the two persons. The younger sister took to spinning cotton. At that time her daughter also came there. A roll of cotton was driven away in the wind out of the daughter's hand. Then her mother beat the daughter. "Wherever it should go do thou bring back the roll of cotton," she said. This girl, weeping and weeping, follows the roll of cotton. She came to a betel plot which a lame man had made. To this girl who was following the roll of cotton the lame man says, "Ane! Pour water on this betel plot and go, please," he said. Afterwards, having poured it she went on. "The betel has been plucked," she said. As she was going [she came to a place where] a dog was tied. "Ane! Younger sister, tie me in the shade and go, please," he said. "While you are going home to-morrow there will be a haunch of a bull tied up [for you]," he said. So having tied the dog in the shade she went on. Then the roll of cotton having gone on, stopped in a cane-brake. At that time a King came there. That girl was tying hooked sticks in order to get the roll of cotton. So the King said, "I will bring the roll of cotton. Go thou to the royal palace and cook," he said. The girl went and cooked. The King got the roll of cotton. The King having gone, gave the roll of cotton to the girl. After he had given it, both of them ate the cooked rice. After they had eaten it the King called the girl to the house. Having called her, he said to the girl, "Please take from these boxes any box thou wantest," he said. Then the girl, having looked at them, took a small sandalwood box. Afterwards the King said, "This will provide a livelihood for the persons who are rearing thee, also," he said. Taking the box, she came near the dog that was tied up. There the dog had tied up the haunch of a bull. Having taken the haunch of the bull from there, she came near the lame man. Having got betel from there, she came near her mother at the girl's house. Having come there she opened that box. Having opened it, after she looked [in it she found that] the box was full of silver and gold; the box had been filled. Then that other elder sister and the elder sister's daughter saw these articles [and heard how the girl obtained them]. On the following day that mother and daughter took to spinning cotton. Afterwards, from the mother's hand by force a roll of cotton was carried away [by the wind]; having been carried away she beat the daughter, and told her to bring the roll of cotton. So this daughter, weeping and weeping, goes after the roll of cotton. She goes near the lame man who is making the betel plot. Then the lame man said, "Please pour water [on these plants]." Having said, "I will not," she went by the place where the dog was. The dog said, "Ane! Elder sister, tie me in the shade and go. As you go [home] I will place a haunch of a bull for you," he said. Having said she would not she went away. The roll of cotton having gone into the very cane-brake, that also stopped there. Then this girl was tying hooked sticks in order to get the roll of cotton. Then the King [came there, and] said, "I will bring the roll of cotton. Go thou to the palace and cook," he said. The girl having gone, without any deficiency cooked rice and vegetables. The King having taken the roll of cotton [there], both of them went to eat the rice. Having gone and looked [at it in order] to eat it, they could not eat it; it had the taste of water. Having called the girl he said, "From these please take for thyself any box thou wantest," he said. This one having searched and searched, took in her arms a great chest. Afterwards the King said, "Go thou; please open the box at the place where thy mother and father are," he said. The girl, after it became night, having summoned every one, [143] opened the box. All [the things] in the box were cobras and polangas. The cobras and polangas having bitten the people of the village, destroyed them. They made all the village desolate. Rodiya. North-western Province. In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 178--Folk Tales of the Punjab, p. 167--there is an account of the good luck of a kind girl and the bad luck of an unkind girl, but the incidents are unlike those of the Sinhalese story. NO. 70 THE JACKAL AND THE LEOPARD In a certain country there is a Gamarala. There is a goat-fold of the Gamarala's. At that goat-fold one by one the goats are disappearing during the night. Afterwards the Gamarala having gone there [to watch for the thief] went to sleep. In the hand of the Gamarala there was a lump of salt chillies. Afterwards the Leopard came at night. The Leopard lifting each goat looks at it. Having looked, afterwards having lifted up the Gamarala [and found he was the heaviest] he took him. Carrying him away he took him to his rock cave. Then the Gamarala quickly [entered it, and] shut the door. The Leopard then was trying to go into the cave. Having heard the uproar the Jackal Panditaya came. "What is this, Sapu-flowers' Minister, you are doing?" he asked. "In other years I brought goats [and ate them without trouble]. That one having entered the cave has shut the door." "You, Sir, having put your tail inside the cave be pleased to wave it," he said; the Jackal Panditaya said. "Do not catch hold of the tail," he said [to the Gamarala]. "Otherwise, having put thy foot against the wall, and having folded it two-fold or three-fold, hold it [fast]," he said. "Do not jam a little of the golden salt chillies under the tail of the Sapu-flowers' Minister," he said. Then the Gamarala having seized the tail jammed in the salt chillies. Afterwards the Sapu-flowers' Minister pulling out his tail bounded away. Having bounded off and gone, he sat down on a flat rock. Afterwards the Jackal Panditaya asked, "What are you on that flat rock for?" "I am looking if this country is fruitful or unfruitful," [144] he said. Again, the Gamarala, saving his life, went to the village. The Jackal Panditaya went to the Gamarala. "What is it, Gamarala? Couldn't you kill him?" "While he was outside how could I, sitting in the cave, kill him?" "I will tell you a trick for that one," the Jackal Panditaya said. Afterwards he said, "You must make a trap for that one," he said. "Where shall I make the trap?" [the Gamarala] asked. "At the fence of the goat-fold," he said. Afterwards he made the trap. The Sapu-flowers' Minister was noosed in the trap. On the following day the Gamarala came to look. Having come before the Gamarala, also the Jackal Panditaya came near the trap. "Gamarala, to-day indeed he has been hanged," he said. Etana metana to gasanne Kambul baeta dipanne Kanda sewanata aedapanne "Strike thou there and here a blow; Knocks upon the cheeks bestow; Drag him to the hill's shadow," the Jackal Panditaya said. Hampottayi to ganne Malu tika mata denne. Then he said-- "'Tis the skin will be for thee, The little flesh thou'lt give to me." Rodiya. North-western Province. Part of this story was given in The Orientalist, vol. iv, p. 30. A Jackal that had followed a Leopard which was trying to get at a man who had taken refuge in a corn store, advised it to insert its tail through a gap in the doorway, and wave it about. When it did so, the Jackal said in the Peraelibasa, [145] which the Leopard did not understand, Katu anuwe potun detak, which when transposed becomes atu kanuwe detun potak, "Two or three twists round the pillar of the corn store." The man acted as advised, and held the tail fast. When some men came up they killed the Leopard. NO. 71 HOW THE BOARS KILLED THE RAKSHASA There is a certain city. There is a very great jungle belonging to the city. A wild Sow stays in the jungle. The Sow having come to a house on the high ground, and pains having come to her, gave birth to a little Boar. The men of the house having seen the little Boar, catching it and amply giving it to eat, reared it. [After he had grown up], one day that village Boar says, "I cannot remain thus." Having thought, "I must go to a great jungle," he went away. After that, having gone to the jungle, while he was there a Rakshasa having come to that jungle was eating the large Boars. Afterwards the village Boar said [to the others], "I will tell you a good trick," he said. "What is it?" the other large Boars in the jungle asked. "Please dig two very large wells. At the bottom make the two wells one," [146] he said. "The large village Boar will be [on the ground] in the middle of the two wells," he said. He told the other large Boars to be round the well. The Rakshasa every day comes to a rock. The large village Boar asks the other large Boars, "This Rakshasa having come, what will you do as he comes?" The other Boars say, "This Rakshasa having come makes grimaces at us." "Then ye also make grimaces," he said. "Again, he inflates his sides at us." "Do ye also inflate your sides," he said. "He makes a very great roar." "Do ye also at that time roar all together," he said. On the following day the Rakshasa having come, and having looked in the direction of the Boars, made grimaces, inflated his sides, and made a very great roar. [The Boars did the same.] Then the Rakshasa thought, "To-day these Boars will eat me." Thinking this he went near the Lion. Afterwards the Lion scolded him. "Ane! You also having gone, and having been unable [to do anything], have you come back?" "What am I to do? All that I do the Boars are doing." Afterwards the Rakshasa again came to the place where the Boars were. After that, the village great Boar says to the other Boars, "To-day the Rakshasa is coming to eat us indeed. What shall we do?" he said to the great Boars. "[This is what we will do.] The Rakshasa having come, when he springs at the great Boars I will jump into the well. Having jumped in, I will come to the ground by the tunnel [and the other well]," he said. "Before I ascend you eat the Rakshasa," he said. In that way the Rakshasa came. Having come, as he was springing [at the Boar] the Boar jumped into the well. Then the Rakshasa having jumped [in after him] they bit him and ate him up. Afterwards the great village Boar asked the other Boars, "Who else is there to eat your flesh?" Then, "Still there is a Lion King," they said. Saying, "Ada! Seeking him there, let us all go," they all went. The Lion King as the Boars were coming climbed up a tree. Then the Boars at once having broken the roots of the tree, felled the tree to the ground. The Lion ran away. Then the Boars, saying, "Seize him, seize him!" having gone chasing him, killed the Lion. Rodiya. North-western Province. This tale is given in the Jataka story No. 492 (vol. iv, p. 217). A Boar reared by a carpenter joined the wild ones, and taught them how to kill a Tiger that devoured them, by means of two pits. The tunnel connecting them is omitted. The Boar did not jump into the pit; 'only the Tiger fell into one of the pits when he sprang at the Boar. After killing the Tiger they proceeded to kill a sham ascetic who was his abettor, in the same manner as in the Sinhalese story. Although the Rodiyas are not often present at the services at the Buddhist temples, they go to them occasionally, not, however, being permitted to enter the temple enclosure, but standing outside it. There they can hear the reading of the sacred books (bana), and perhaps in this manner they have learnt the story of the Boars. I have not met with it as a folk-tale elsewhere. The reference to the tunnel connecting the two pits shows that it has independent features. This tunnel alone explains the excavation of the two pits, one to jump into and the other to escape by. NO. 72 THE GRATEFUL JACKAL In a certain village there was a boy who looked after cattle. One day, in the morning having taken the cattle [to graze], as they were going to water, that boy, when a python seizing a Jackal was going to eat it, went and beat the python, saying, "Ane! This python is going to eat the Jackal, isn't it?" Then the python having let the Jackal go seized the boy. So the boy cried out, "Anda! Anda! O my father! The python has seized me!" he cried. Then the Jackal having come running, when he looked [saw that] the python had caught the boy, and thinking "Ada! Because of me this one seized the boy," the Jackal looking and looking backwards, ran off [to fetch assistance]. After he had looked [to see] if there was any one, there was no one. The Jackal heard several people in the distance. The Jackal went running there. When he was going near the men, the men said, "A mad Jackal has come," they said. Then again the Jackal came running to the place where the python was. Again he came running to the place where the men were. Having come [there], after the Jackal looked [he saw that] the clothes of men who were bathing were under a tree. The Jackal having gone to the place where the clothes were, taking a waist cloth in his mouth ran off. Having run off, and having put down the cloth at the place where the python, holding the boy, was staying, the Jackal ran into the jungle. Then those men having seen that the Jackal which had taken the cloth in its mouth was running away, saying, "Ada! The mad Jackal taking our cloth in its mouth is running away," followed the Jackal. When they looked, having seen that the python had seized the boy, they said, "Ada! The python has caught such and such a one's boy and encircled him." Then those men who were ploughing and ploughing having all come running, and having beaten and thrown down the python, saved the boy. [Afterwards] those men asked at the hand of the boy, "What did the python seize thee for?" Then the boy said, "As I was coming the python had seized the Jackal, and I was sorry. At that time I tried to save the Jackal, and that one having let the Jackal go, seized me." Rodiya. North-western Province. STORIES OF THE KINNARAS NO. 73 CONCERNING A MONK AND A YAKA A monk, tying a Yaka [by magical spells] gets work from him. For seven years he got work. Then the time having come for the Yaka to go, the Yaka every day having gone near the monk says, "Monk, tell me a work [to do]." The monk said one day, "In Galgamuwa tank there will be seven islands. Having gone there and planed them down, come back." After that, the Yaka having gone and planed the tank, and having very quickly come, said at the hand of the monk, "Monk, tell me a work." Then the monk said, "Having cut a well of seven fathoms, and having cut a Damunu [147] tree, and removed the splinters, and put it down to the bottom of a well, and tied a creeper noose to the Damunu stick, you are to draw it up [from inside the well] to the ground." Afterwards the Yaka having cut a well of seven fathoms, and cut a Damunu tree, and removed the bark from it, and tied a creeper noose to it, and put the Damunu stick to the bottom of the well, the Yaka sitting on the ground holding the creeper noose tried to draw it out. He could not draw it. When he was drawing it, because there was slime on the Damunu stick he was unable to draw it out. On account of the time during which the Yaka had been delayed near the well, the monk being afraid of the Yaka, the monk went backwards and backwards for three gawwas (twelve miles). The Yaka having pushed against the monk for so much time, and having got a bill-hook also, on the road he drove him (the monk) away. Having gone there [afterwards] to kill the monk, he met with the monk. After that, the Yaka threw the bill-hook, so that having cut the monk with it he would die. After he had thrown it, the bill-hook was behind, [148] and the monk was in front [of it]. On account of that, the name [of the place] there became Kaettaepahuwa [a village twenty-one miles from Kurunaegala, on the road to Anuradhapura]. Kinnara. North-western Province. This story is known throughout the district to the north of Kurunaegala. The explanation of the Damunu tree incident which was given to me is that the monk, being unable to find enough work for the Yaka, gave him this task as one that would provide occupation for him for a long time. When the bark is freshly removed, the Damunu sticks are extremely slippery. The creeper was tied at one end in a ring which was passed over the smooth stem of the tree. When the Yaka endeavoured to raise the tree by pulling at the creeper, the ring slipped up the stem instead of raising the tree. Elsewhere in the same district I heard of another man, a villager, who had mastered a Yaksani (female Yaka), and who made her perform work for him. In appearance she was an ordinary female, and the man's wife was unaware of her true character, as he had not informed her of it, being afraid of alarming her. The man kept the Yaksani under control by means of a magic iron nail, which he had driven in the crown of her head. One day during his absence she went to her mistress, and told her that a thorn had run into her head while she was carrying firewood on it, and that she was unable to draw it out. The woman extracted the nail for her, and the Yaksani, being then free, killed the family, and escaped. In Folk-Lore of Southern India (Natesa Sastri), p. 272--Tales of the Sun, p. 285--there is a story of a landowner who learnt an incantation by means of which he summoned a Brahma-Rakshasa, who became his servant, at the same time informing him that if he failed to provide work the Rakshasa would kill him. Everything he could think of was done in an incredibly short time--tank repaired and deepened, lands all cultivated--and there being nothing more to be done the wife gave the demon a hair of her head to straighten. He failed to do it, but remembering that goldsmiths heated wires when about to straighten them, he placed the hair on a fire, which burnt it up. He was afraid to face his mistress after it, so he ran away. Regarding the thorn in the demon's head, see No. 20. NO. 74 THE THREE SUITORS In a certain country dwelt a man and a woman, it is said. These two had a son and a daughter. When a man came one day and asked for the daughter [in marriage] at the hand of the father, the father said, "It is good. Come on Wednesday." The man having said "Ha," went away. Afterwards another man came and asked for the girl at the hand of the mother. The mother said, "It is good. Come on Wednesday." The man having said "Ha," went away. After that, yet a man came and asked for her at the hand of the girl's younger brother. The younger brother said, "It is good. Come on Wednesday." The man having said "Ha," went away. Well then, the company of three persons having come on Wednesday and eaten rice and betel, caused the girl to come out [of the house], inviting her to go. Then the three persons endeavoured to call her to go in three [different] directions. Because the girl was unable to settle the dispute she ate a kind of poison, and lying down died there and then. Afterwards they buried her. After that, the man who came first went to a sooth-sayer. The man who came next watched alone at the place where they buried her. The man who came last having said, "It doesn't matter to me," went to his village. The man who went to ask for sooth having inquired about it, came to the place where they buried the girl. Having come and made incantations in the manner prescribed by the sooth-sayer, he made her arise, and got her [back to life]. After she had recovered she went to the village. The man also went there. Now then, after the three men had come together there, the man who brought her back to life asked, "To whom do you belong?" The girl said, "The man who watched alone at the grave is my mother. The man who went to inquire of the sooth-sayer is my father. The man who went to his village is my man." Having said this, the girl went with the man to his village. Kinnari. North-western Province. This is a story of Vikrama and the Vampire, one of the puzzling questions set to the King being a decision as to whom the girl belonged. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 237, the girl threw herself down from the house-top. One of the suitors sprang on the funeral pile, and was burnt with her. The second watched over the grave. The third became a Fakir, and learnt how to revive the dead. He revived both the girl and the burnt suitor. The merchant whose opinion was required decided that the two who were burnt together were brother and sister, the Fakir who gave them renewed life was their father, and the man who merely sat by the grave must become her husband. In the Jataka story No. 150 (vol. i, p. 321), there is an account of a person who had learnt the spell for reviving the dead. In this case it was a tiger, who killed him. In Tota Kahani (Small), p. 139, out of three suitors for the hand of a girl who was carried off by a fairy, one learnt the manner of her disappearance and the place where she was, the second made a magical flying wooden horse, on which the third rode to rescue her, killed the fairy, and brought her back. The Parrot's decision was that the last one had the best right to her, as he had risked his life for her. NO. 75 THE CROCODILE AND THE JACKAL In a river in a certain country a Crocodile stayed, it is said. While it was living there, the Crocodile having become friendly with a Crab, the Crocodile said to the Crab, "Friend, you call the Jackal to drink water, so that I may seize and eat the Jackal after he has come." The Crab said "Ha." On the bank of that river there were Muruta [149] trees, and there were flowers on those Muruta trees. The Crocodile said to the Crab, "I will lie down on the high ground. You bring flowers that have fallen below those Muruta trees and cover me." Having said [this], the Crocodile lay down on the high ground near the water, and the Crab having brought the Muruta flowers covered the Crocodile. Having covered him, the Crab, calling the Jackal, came to drink water. The Crocodile stayed as though dead. Then the Jackal having come near the Crocodile said, "In our country, indeed, dead Crocodiles wag their tails. This Crocodile, why doesn't he wag his tail? Maybe he isn't dead." Then that Crocodile which remained as though dead, wagged his tail. After that, the Jackal, without stopping even to drink water, bounded off, and went away. Afterwards the Crocodile said to the Crab, "Friend, to-morrow I will stop at the bottom of the water. You come there with the Jackal. Then I will seize and eat him." The Crab having said "Ha," on the following day came with the Jackal to the place where the Crocodile was. Then the Crocodile seized the Jackal by the foot [as he was going to drink water]. The Jackal said-- Kimbulundae raewatundae Ketala ale dae gandae? "Are the Crocodiles cheated quite, Thus the Ketala yam to bite?" Then the Crocodile let go. After that, on that day also without drinking water he bounded off, and went away. From that day, the Jackals having become angry with the Crabs, and having seized and bitten the Crabs in the rice fields, place the Crabs' claws on the earthen ridges in the fields. Kinnara. North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 46, there is a story of a Jackal and a Crocodile, in the latter part of which the first incident is given, the tree being a Veralu (Elaeocarpus serratus). The Crab is not introduced into it. In the Jataka story No. 57 (vol. i, p. 142) a Crocodile endeavoured to entrap a Monkey by lying still on the top of a rock. The Monkey, suspecting some trick, from the unusual height of the rock, addressed the rock and inquired why it did not reply as usual. The Crocodile then spoke. In Indian Folk Tales (Gordon), p. 63, the God Mahadeo (Siva) took the place of the Crocodile, in order to be revenged on the Jackal for cheating him in the matter of the dead elephant (see No. 39, note); and the two incidents of the shamming death and seizure of the root are related. In Old Deccan Days (Frere) p. 310, a Jackal escaped from an Alligator [Crocodile] in the same manner. NOTES [1] See note at the end of the Introduction. [2] Cf. Jataka, No. 206 (vol. ii, p. 106). [3] From the Tamil kuppam, a village of small houses, perhaps + ayam, ground. [4] The Tamil stories of Mariyada Raman, or some of them, are known in one district. Arabic is unknown. [5] Folk-Tales of Kashmir, Knowles, 2nd ed., pp. 258 and 331. [6] Agata anagata, as the early cave inscriptions say. [7] Asurendraya. [8] It is one of the greatest possible insults in the East to strike a person with a broom. Even demons are supposed to be afraid of being struck by it, and thus it is a powerful demon-scarer. [9] A Kayiya, usually to provide help in clearing jungle, or ploughing, or reaping, for which no pay is given, but the party are fed liberally. [10] Ma Vi, the name of the largest variety of rice. [11] Twenty-eight miles. According to Indian reckoning of about six winks to a second, as given in the Maha Bharata, this would be an orbit of about 14,500,000 miles, with a diameter of 4,620,000 miles. [12] That is, the sun rises in the latitude of the district where the story was related. This would be within a day or two of February 22. [13] I cannot explain this remark. [14] This is, where refreshing breezes blow. [15] The deity of the planet Saturn. [16] The narrator understood this to mean that large upright sheets of glass were fixed round the bed. [17] Mini Ran Kukula. The spelling in this and other instances is according to the manuscripts, except in such words as Rakshasa and Rakshasi, the village forms of which are Rasaya and Rasi; and Brahmana, which is usually given as Brahmanaya. [18] A word without any special meaning in English, often used in addressing a person familiarly and somewhat disrespectfully. [19] Amu (Paspalum scrobiculatum), the Tamil Varaku, a small grain cultivated in jungle clearings. [20] Three halfpence. [21] Elawa gihin melawa awa, "Having gone to that world I came to this world." This is a common saying, meaning in village talk, "What a long and tiring journey I have had." According to the Rev. C. Alwis it also means, "I almost died, and recovered." (The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 62.) [22] Light rice cakes. [23] Old flower-seller. [24] Moringa pterygosperma. [25] A thing only done by a man's wife. [26] Wangi tunak aeti, kembi dolahak aeti, Apata waeduna duka me asapan kota kotali. [27] Evidently a modern interpolation, as the Princess was represented as using only a writing style. [28] Loku mama. [29] Lit. necks. [30] This is the dress of a villager when visiting friends. A white jacket is now often added. [31] Literally, "Are we bad?" [32] Up to this point the story follows one related by a Duraya; the rest belongs to the cultivating caste. [33] Literally, "Is there any coming for her?" [34] Great Mother: The title of a mother's elder sister; her younger sister is called Puñci-Amma, Little Mother. The letter c is pronounced as ch in transliterations. I follow the village writers in not marking the various forms of n; they write punci or punci. [35] Moringa pterygosperma. [36] Ran oncillawa. [37] A well-to-do woman of the village. Gama-Mahage is the title of the wife of a Gamarala, a village headman or elder. [38] To search for insects. She would sit down for the purpose. [39] Daboia russelli. [40] Un mamma nasindayi, Ranwan baena aende andandayi, Ranwan akka samine wendayi. [41] In these stories the Yakas are always evil spirits or demons. [42] Piyanan-wahanse. [43] The word used indicates the use of guns, and not bows and arrows. [44] A Vedarala (medical practitioner) or another man who knows the spells and magical practices which have power over demons. [45] Araksha baendala. [46] E minihata waehila, mayan wenda patangatta. [47] The Sinhalese title is, "The manner in which the Youth who looked after the Goats became King." [48] Inferior Gods, ruled by Indra. [49] Raja Gurunnanse, probably the Purohita Brahmana, the King's spiritual adviser. [50] A supernatural being who could take at will either a human form or the shape of a cobra (naya or naga). [51] Dohta karanawa = Dashta k., to give a poisonous bite. [52] Panicum sp., probably miliare, an edible grass seed. [53] Kankariya. [54] Wes. [55] Gigiri walalu. [56] Silambu. [57] Learned Brow. [58] On account of the strangeness of this speech, I give the Sinhalese words as they were written: Umba kaburupanjati jati umbe muna (sic.) penendawat epa. Umbata hena waediyamin umbe jatakaya ganin. It appears to be a Rabelaisian joke, and was considered such by the person who narrated it. [59] Otunne malu. This proves that the story is Indian, and perhaps from the Panjab, there being no camels in Ceylon. [60] The usual village spelling. [61] Great Happiness. [62] Equivalent to saying, "What things do you know?" Saestara, the noun used, means sooth, knowledge of things, and science. [63] The title "Vedarala" is applied both to native medical practitioners and to demon expellers, who are also sooth-sayers. [64] Twenty rupees, in a variant. [65] Sihi buddi naetuwata mona saestara kiyamanada? This might also be interpreted, "On account of the absence of Sihibuddi what saying of sooth is there?" The long final i of female names is usually shortened in conversation. [66] A South Indian gold coin, with the figure of a boar, Varaha, on the obverse, said by Winslow to be worth three and a half rupees. [67] "A box in which the most valuable ornaments of the most frequent use are kept, and which for the sake of safety is always placed at the foot of the bed" (The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 59, footnote). [68] Kumandaeyi mama karanne, which if not very clearly heard might be translated, "It is Kumanda; I am doing it," or "I will do it." [69] He might do any unusual acts of this sort without exciting much astonishment, while apparently under the influence of "possession." [70] Kurulu gama Appuge rissa giya. This might be translated, "On the birds' moving, Appu's strength went." [71] Sillu, "Hopscotch," a game omitted from my account of village games in Ancient Ceylon. I have seen boys playing a form of Hopscotch which may be this one. I do not understand the reference to "dragging" the counters home after it, unless the meaning is "carrying." The Sinhalese verb used is adinawa, which is sometimes employed with this other meaning. [72] Sadhu Maharajani. [73] Gamaya. [74] Ge-dora, which probably means only "house-door" in this case, and not buildings, etc., in general. [75] A creeper with long sharp thorns, punctures by which usually cause ulcers. [76] Polmicca kirilli. [77] An imitation of the song of the bird, apparently. [78] Mat ekka giyama nakeyi? [79] "Stooping man, there is heat, heat." [80] Kujija is a man who stoops. He may have thought it said, "Stooping man, you are refuse." [81] Kuti is a bend. He appears to have interpreted it as, "Stooping man, you are bent, bent." All these expressions are imitations of some of the notes of the bird's song. [82] Ge dorata. [83] A Muhammedan trader or pedlar, called "elder brother" in an honorary sense. [84] Plural of Bola, regarding which see No. 5. [85] Lit. "making." [86] Hungak dura, "a great deal far," a common village expression. [87] Nari-nayide; see also No. 56, and p. 28. [88] The meaning is that no appearances can be trusted, not even those of the earth and sky; but that sometimes untrustworthy things, even such a dangerous thing as fire, are wrongly trusted. He was referring to the judge's acceptance of the ridiculous statement regarding the birth of the horse. [89] Kokka, a word applied to several species of large waders. The name of the Black Stork is Mana, but probably this is the bird referred to, as in the Sinhalese variant. [90] Aehae aeragassi. [91] Apparently this is Kurma, turtle + marsha, mrish. The meaning would be "Permit the Turtle" (to precede you). In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 87, in which this part of the story is also given, it is stated that there is a saying, Kurmaya prativadena sinhasya maranan yatha, "As the death of the lion by the reply [? Kurmarsha] of the turtle." [92] As in India, the tom-tom beaters were the weavers also in Ceylon, until cheap imported cloth put an end to weaving. In the Folk Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 233, the "proverbial simplicity" of weavers is mentioned, and in several stories in Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton) their foolishness is the chief theme. In the Jataka story No. 59 there is an account of a foolish tom-tom beater boy also. See also the story No. 10, in this volume. [93] Calatropis gigantea. [94] This is prosaic love-making! [95] Probably in order to sell deer's flesh there. [96] Canarium zeylanicum. [97] Macacus pileatus. [98] Berae. [99] Haeliya. [100] Called also, "The Deer and the Girl and Nikini." [101] An expression often used in village talk, without any connexion with its literal meaning, "O demon." "Fellow!" nearly expresses its ordinary meaning, which is less respectful than that of the word Bola. [102] Totra karanawa. [103] Also written Lihiniya, "the Glider," a name applied to some hawks and swallows, etc. The whole name is "Tusk-Elephant-Mountain Hawk," or Eagle. I could learn nothing of the "Tusk-Elephant Mountain." This bird is the Rukh or Roc of the Arabian Nights. [104] Apparently she was to swear by them, touching them at the time. See No. 8, in which a Prince and Princess touched each other when swearing an oath. [105] An amuna is 5·7 bushels in the district where this story was told. [106] Little Mother, an expression meaning the mother's younger sister, or the step-mother. [107] Yabbaelli, apparently a kind of demon in the shape of a dog. [108] Talla. [109] The word used, nikan, "no-act," is employed in several senses; when a thing is given nikan, it usually means "without payment." To come or go nikan, is to come or go without any special reason or business, and also to go empty-handed, as in a former tale. [110] Mi Paetikki. It might be either a rat or a mouse. [111] Unnanse namak. In the villages, namak, "a name," takes the place of kenek, "person", in speaking of monks. [112] Hakurun. [113] Mulakun. [114] Aewariyakun. [115] Senawalaya. [116] A contraction of Gama-ralahami. Hami is an intermediate form between swami, "lord", and himi; Wanniyas still use the latter. [117] The yoke of the plough is placed on the neck and fastened there, on the Washerman's half of the animal. [118] Because the mouth which grazes is in the Gamarala's half of the cow. [119] Rate wissa. The word is new to me; this appears to be the meaning. [120] Raja ho, ma ho, ganga ho. "Either the King, or I, or the river" [floods] will come to an end (naeti wenawa). He meant that if the periodical floods in the river did not come to an end, the job would last during the King's life-time, and that if he gave it up he had nothing else to live upon. [121] Terminalia glabra. [122] Kokka, a word which also means Egret, and some other large wading birds. [123] Lula (Ophiocephalus striatus). [124] Kanakoka (Ardeola grayi). [125] Triple-wreathed famous one. [126] Probably, "He that moves about in the jungle," derived from the Tamil words kadu, jungle--in compounds, kattu--and salam, Skt. cala, moving, unsteady. The bird is Centrococcyx rufipennis, which utters a booming call, and has red eyes. [127] Tamil, tonku, to move with leaps, Skt. twang, to leap, gallop + ka, doer. [128] Maha tokkama. [129] Tokkam dekak. [130] Lay devotee. [131] Rala is an honorific termination, nearly equivalent to our Mr. [132] Tun-iri Mudiyanse, (Sciurus tri-striatus), a small squirrel with three yellow dorsal lines. [133] Lit. "Having guarded, I must place it." [134] Mini-gedi. [135] Miyane. [136] Lenane. [137] Wali-kukulane. [138] Katussa (Calotes sp.), a small lizard with a long tail, and spikes on the back, commonly called "Bloodsucker" in Ceylon. [139] Perhaps this means that the Leopard found some places where the Lizard had not yet bitten him. [140] A variant says it was the Gamarala. [141] "Art thou reciting the Buddhist Scriptures?" Used colloquially with the meaning, "What nonsense you are talking." [142] Ehema nan ehemada, "If so (would it be) so?" [143] Seramantama. [144] That is, as we should say, "I have come here to enjoy a view of the scenery!" [145] There appears to be some doubt regarding the spelling of this compound word. I give it as I have heard it. Except in the last letter I have followed that of the late Mr. W. Goonetilleke, the learned Editor of The Orientalist, who in vol. i, p. 8, of that journal said of it: "Perelibase therefore means 'the language of transposition,' or 'the transposed language.'" In Clough's Dictionary the second word is spelt basa. In Mr. A. M. Gunasekara's excellent Sinhalese Grammar the spelling is peralibasa in the Index, and perali base (or bhashawa) in the paragraph dealing with it. Professor E. Müller-Hess has drawn my attention to the form pereli on one of the inscribed tablets at Mihintale. [146] That is, unite them by a tunnel. [147] Grewia tiliaefolia (?). [148] Kaetta pahuwuna. [149] Lagerstroemia flos-reginae. 
58889	----	VILLAGE FOLK-TALES OF CEYLON Vol. III Collected and Translated by H. PARKER Late of the Irrigation Department, Ceylon LONDON LUZAC & CO. Publishers to the India Office 1914 CONTENTS STORIES OF THE CULTIVATING CASTE NO. PAGE 178 Concerning the Friendship of the Hare and the Parrot 3 179 The Deer and its Friends 5 The Deer, the Jackal, and the Crow (Variant a) 8 The Rat and the Turtle that kept the Precepts (Variant b) 9 180 The Foolish Bird 13 181 The Golden Oriole 16 182 The Story of the Vira Tree Fish-Owls 18 183 The Lion and the Bull's trust in him 22 184 The Lizard and the Iguana 24 185 The Cobra and the Polanga 26 The Widow and the Mungus 27 185A The Crab and the Frog 29 186 A Louse and a Bug 30 STORIES OF THE LOWER CASTES STORIES OF THE POTTERS 187 The Three Yakas 35 188 The Time of Scholars 38 STORIES OF THE WASHERMEN 189 The Thief called Harantika 41 The Dexterous Thief and his Son (Variant) 43 190 The Story of the Four-fold Trap 48 191 The Foolish Prince 52 192 The Jackal and the Gamarala 54 STORIES OF THE TOM-TOM BEATERS 193 The Story of Batmasura 57 194 The Story of Ayiwanda 62 195 The Gamarala's Son-in-law 71 196 The Story of the Gamarala's Son 78 197 The Manner in which the Gamarala buried his Sons 84 198 The Story of the Wooden Peacock 89 199 The Wicked Step-mother 94 200 The Woman who ate by stealth 99 201 The Story of the Bitch 102 202 The Elephant Guard 106 203 The Elephant-Fool 110 204 The Girl who took Gruel 112 205 The Boy who went to learn the Sciences 115 206 The Prince and the Ascetics 117 207 The Turtle Prince 121 208 The Gem-set Ring 127 209 The Story of the Brahmana 136 210 The Story of a Siwurala 141 211 How the Poor Man became Wealthy 144 212 The Story of Madampe-rala 146 213 Æwariyakka 149 214 The Horikadaya Story 152 215 The Story of Bahu-Bhutaya 155 216 The Story of Golu-Bayiya 158 217 The Yaka of the Akaragane Jungle 161 218 The Four Rakshasas 166 219 The Story of the Rakshasa 173 220 The Thief and the Rakshasas 176 221 King Gaja-Bahu and the Crow 183 222 The Assistance which the Snake gave 185 223 The Leveret, or the Story of the Seven Women 187 224 The Greedy Palm-cat 189 STORIES OF THE WESTERN PROVINCE AND SOUTHERN INDIA NO. PAGE 225 The Wax Horse 193 226 The Three-cornered Hatter 200 227 The Gamarala who went to the God-World 207 The Tusk Elephant of the Divine World (Variant) 209 228 The Gamarala who ate Black Fowls' Flesh 212 229 How the Gamarala drove away the Lion 217 230 The Son who was Blind at Night 220 231 The Son and the Mother 223 The Wicked Daughter-in-law (Variant) 228 232 Concerning the Hetti Man's Son 230 233 The Fortunate Boy 234 234 How the Daughter-in-law got the Masuran 240 235 The Monkey and the Beggar 243 236 How the Beggar and the King gambled 249 237 The Story of the King 253 238 The King who learnt the Speech of Animals 258 239 The Mad King 261 The Kahawana sowing (Variant) 262 240 Concerning the Prince with his Life in his Sword 265 241 The Royal Prince and the Hettirala 272 242 Prince Sokka 285 243 The Affectionate Prince 293 244 The Prince who received the Turtle Shell 300 245 Concerning a Prince and a Kinnara Woman 304 246 The Way in which the Prince traded 310 247 A Princess and a Prince 313 248 Concerning a Royal Princess and Two Thieves 321 249 How the Nagaya became the Princess 325 250 The Story of the Cobra's Bite 328 251 How they killed the Great-bellied Tambi 336 252 How Maraya was put in the Bottle 339 253 The Woman Pre-eminent in Cunning 343 254 Matalana 347 255 The Five Lies quite like Truth 352 256 The Three Truths 354 257 The False Tale 355 258 The Story of Kota 359 The Flower-Garden Story (Variant) 361 259 The Story of Sokka 367 260 The Giant and his Two Friends 373 261 How they formerly Ate and Drank 380 262 The Gourd Fruit Devil-Dance 384 263 The Ascetic and the Jackal 386 SOUTH INDIAN STORIES 264 Concerning the Blind-Eyed Man 388 265 The Destiny Prince 392 266 The Teacher and his Pupil 400 The Teacher and the Bull (Variant a) 405 The Brahmana and the Scholar (Variant b) 407 SINHALESE TEXTS OF STORIES Introductory Remarks 413 81 Concerning a Royal Prince and a Princess 419 126 The Story of the Seven Wicked Women 423 134 The Story of the Rakshasa and the Princess 424 207 The Turtle Prince 426 216 The Story of Golu-Bayiya 429 225 The Wax Horse 430 APPENDIX ADDITIONAL NOTES, AND CORRECTIONS Omitted Incidents 457 Index 459 STORIES OF THE CULTIVATING CASTE NO. 178 CONCERNING THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE HARE AND THE PARROT In a certain country there are a Hare, and a Mouse-deer, and a Parrot near a river, it is said. The three every day come to the river to drink water. One day the Parrot said to the Hare, "Friend." Then the Hare having said, "What? We two are friends indeed. From our friendship what will be the profit? Should you find and give me a mate we should indeed be friends," afterwards the Parrot said, "If so, stay there until the time when I come [after] finding a mate for you," and the Parrot drank water and went away. On the following day, when the Parrot came he met with a Mouse-deer. Having seen the Parrot the Mouse-deer says, "Friend, where is your friend?" The Parrot says, "My friend has not come to-day." Then the Mouse-deer says, "What friendship with those Hares! If you become friendly with us what things cannot we do!" Then the Parrot says, "Friend, he is [my] former first friend; now then, I cannot abandon him." At that the Mouse-deer having become a little angry went away. Having so gone, the Mouse-deer, seeking the Hare, says to [1] the Hare, "Friend, with that Parrot what friendship! The food which that one eats is different, the place where that one lies down is different, that one is an animal which flies [in the air] above. Are we so? We lie down in one place, we eat one food. Because of it, give up [your] friendship with that one." At that the Hare became a little angry. After that, the Mouse-deer, having gone near the Parrot, says, "Take you [to heart] the things that I say, O Parrot-youngster." Thereupon the Parrot said, "What, friend?" The Mouse-deer says, "The sort called Hares at any place whatever are not trusted." Then the Parrot asked, "Well then, what are you telling me to do?" Then the Mouse-deer says, "On account of it, give up your friendship with the Hare." To that the Parrot did not consent. After that, the Mouse-deer, having gone near the Hare, said, "Friend, we having been in the midst of this forest, except that there is convenience through the water, through the food there is none. Because of it, let us go into the midst of the villages." The Hare also being pleased at this, and having said, "Ha; let us go," the two together went into the midst of the villages. Having gone there, the two crept into a bush. A man saw that this Hare and Mouse-deer crept into the bush. Having seen it, the man spoke to yet [other] men, and having brought nets they fixed them. When they had thus fixed them the Hare bounded away; the Mouse-deer was caught. The Hare having bounded away from there, went to the spot where it formerly stayed at first. After that, it met with the Parrot. Then the Parrot asked the Hare, [2] "Where, friend, is the Mouse-deer?" The Hare said, "Friend, men seized the one who tried to break the friendship of us two." Then the Parrot says, "Friend, through his going to break our friendship that we [have had] for a long time, danger befel that very one." Having said it, the friendship of the two was in the very same manner [as before], Anun nahanda yanakota tamumma nahinawa. While they are going to kill others they die themselves. North-western Province. NO. 179 THE DEER AND ITS FRIENDS At a certain time there were three years without rain. Because there was no rain, water everywhere was wanting. In the wilderness in the midst of the forest there was water at a single rock-hole. There a Deer drank water. At the time when the Deer, having eaten and eaten food in the jungle, was going, he met with a Crow. The Crow said, "Friend, you are in health, as though without any want of food or water. For us there is not a drop of water for bathing or drinking. Ane! Merit will be attained. [3] Please tell me also the place where you drink water." Thereupon he told the Crow the path to the rock-hole in which there is water. At the time when the two are coming thus and drinking the water, the Woodpecker met them. "Friends, where do you drink water? Merit will be attained; tell me also," the Woodpecker said. Afterwards they told the Woodpecker the path. At the time when the three were drinking the water, a Turtle met them. The Turtle also asked, "Friend, where do you drink water? We indeed are going (lit. making) to die. Merit will be attained. Tell us, too, the place where you drink water." They showed the path to the Turtle also. Well then, at the time when the four were drinking the water, a Jackal met them. The Jackal says, "Friend, where do you drink water? There is no want of food and water for you, indeed. Ane! Merit will be attained; tell me also." [The animals] having shown the path to the Jackal also, while the five were drinking the water there, a Vaedda having gone hunting also saw the water-hole. He saw that a Deer had drunk water at the water-hole. Having seen it, the Vaedda thought, "I must catch this Deer." He set a deer-hide noose there to catch the Deer. Well then, when the Deer was going [there] to drink water, the Deer was caught in that Vaedda's deer-hide noose. The Turtle, and the Crow, and the Woodpecker, and the Jackal, these four friends, having come to drink water, when they looked the Deer had been caught. Well then, the four having said, "Ane! Our friend who showed us the road to drink water to-day has been caught for killing," the other three said to the Jackal, "Ane! Friend, you indeed are able to bite this fold of deer-hide." The Jackal, thinking, "To-day a good eating has been hung up for me," said, "Ane! Friend, I am indeed unable to bite the deer-hide fold. My teeth are shaking about." Then those three said, "Ane! Friend, don't tell those lies; you can indeed somehow or other bite it." Having said, "Ane! I cannot," the Jackal lay down at the edge of the jungle. In [every] possible way the three told the Jackal. The Jackal did not bite it at all. Having said [to himself], "I shall obtain the stomach," he remained silent. The Turtle was biting and biting [the cord] as much as he could, during that day night-time. On the following day, as it became light, the Crow said to the Woodpecker, "Friend, you go, and when the Vaedda is preparing to come, make an evil omen (bada)." At dawn, the Vaedda having arisen says to the Vaedi woman (his wife), "Cook a packet of rice, and give me it. I have set a noose. In order to go to look at it." At that time the Woodpecker cried out. Then the Vaedda says, "Bolan, there is a bad omen. Having waited a little time, cook." [4] Afterwards, having waited a little time the woman arose. At that time, also, the Woodpecker cried out. When she was taking the rice also, the Woodpecker cried out, yet the woman having cooked the packet of rice gave it to the Vaedda. The Vaedda taking the axe and taking the packet of cooked rice, at the time when the Vaedda is going, the Woodpecker having come flying above tells the other friends, "Ane! Friend, now then indeed, we cannot save him. I made evil omens as much as possible; without hearkening to them the Vaedda is coming." Afterwards, the three beseeched the Jackal, and told it [to bite the cord]. Yet the Jackal did not bite it. Having said [to himself], "I shall obtain the stomach," without speaking he remained lying down. Then the Vaedda having come, and seen that the Deer has been caught, hung the packet of cooked rice on a tree, and taking the axe came near the Deer. As he was coming, the Crow tore open the packet of cooked rice. Then when the Vaedda is coming near the packet of cooked rice, the Crow goes away. When the Vaedda is going back near the Deer, again the Crow tears the packet of cooked rice. The Vaedda, having become angry at it, threw the axe to strike the Crow. The Crow flew away. The axe having struck the Jackal, the Jackal died. Then the Deer, breaking the deer-hide cord, bounded off. Well then, the friends having joined together went away. The Vaedda saying and saying, "Ane! Was it the Deer that I got, or the packet of cooked rice I got?" [5] went away. P. B. Madahapola, Ratemahatmaya, North-western Province. THE DEER, THE JACKAL, AND THE CROW. (Variant a.) In a certain country, when a Deer and a Crow were friends while a long time was going, one day the Deer met with a Jackal. The Jackal, having seen the Deer, says, "I also should be pleased to be friendly with you. Because of it, are you willing or not?" he asked. Then the Deer says, "I indeed am willing. I don't know if the Crow which has become my friend is willing or not." Then the Jackal asked the Crow. The Crow says, "I am not willing, but if the Deer is willing, remain," he said. After that the whole three were friendly. The Crow's dwelling was in a tree; the dwelling of the other two was under the tree. One day when the Jackal is going to seek food, having seen a rice field and come back, he says to the Deer, "Friend, let us two go for food. I have seen a good rice field to-day. You eat the rice there; I will eat crabs there," he said. The Deer says, "I will not. It is not good to go there; should we go there we shall come into danger," he said. The Jackal, on the following day having gone [there] and come back, says to the Deer, "Nothing having been done [to me] there, let us very two go to-morrow." This Jackal says thus with the intention that having killed the Deer he may eat the flesh. The Deer, trusting the word of the Jackal, went. Having gone, when he looked there is a paddy field. Having seen it and eaten the paddy (growing rice) that day, he came back. On the following day, too, the Jackal said, "Let us go." And because the Deer could not break the Jackal's word, on that day, also, he went. That day, the man whose field it is, the owner of the field, having come, when he looked saw that deer had eaten it; and having come home, and gone back taking a noose which was twisted from hides, he set it at the gap [in the fence] through which the Deer came. Thereupon, in order to eat the paddy the Jackal and Deer came to the field. While they were coming [through the fence] the Deer was caught in the noose which had been set. Then the Deer says, "Friend, to-day having come they will kill me. Because of it bite this noose," he said. Thereupon the Jackal says, "I cannot. This is Sunday; [6] how shall I bite hides to-day?" Having said this, the Jackal got hid and waited. The Crow, also, having seen that the Deer does not come for a long time, the Crow also came to seek the Deer. Having come, when he looked he saw that the Deer had been caught in the noose, and asked, "Friend, what is [the reason of] it?" And the Deer says, "This indeed is the Jackal's contrivance. To-day how shall I get free?" he asked the Crow. The Crow says, "I will tell you a stratagem. At the time when the rice-field owner is coming I will peck at your eye [as though you were dead]. I will caw at a [certain] time. At that time spring up and run away," he said. Thereupon the rice-field owner came, taking a cudgel. Having come, when he looked he saw that the Deer, having been caught in the noose, is dead. Then he began the folding up of the noose. When the Crow was cawing the Deer sprang up and ran away. Having seen the running Deer and thrown the cudgel that was in his hand, [it struck the Jackal, and] at the blow which was struck the Jackal died. (This is the story as it is found in the Hitopadesa, with an antelope in place of the deer.) North-western Province. THE RAT AND THE TURTLE THAT KEPT THE PRECEPTS. (Variant b.) In a certain country there is a river. At the river there is a Rat; in that river there is a Turtle. Every day when this Turtle rises to the surface this Rat is here. The Turtle said, "Friend, what are you [doing] there?" he said. "I am keeping the Precepts" (of Buddha). "Is it good for me also to come?" the Turtle said. This Rat said, "It is very good." After that the Turtle came. At the time when these two are keeping the Precepts a Deer came to the river for drinking water. Having seen these two here, "What, friends, are you [doing] there?" [he said]. "We are keeping the Precepts." "Is it good for me to come?" "Ane! It is very good," they said. After that, the Deer came. At the time when these three are keeping the Precepts a Crow came flying. The Crow said, "What, friends, are you [doing] there?" "We three are keeping the Precepts." "Would it be good for me to come, too?" he said. "You [Crows] are not trustworthy." "It is true, friend, [regarding the others]; nevertheless there is trustworthiness in me," he said. Thereupon they said, "Come." The Crow came. At the time when these four are keeping the Precepts a Jackal came. Having seen these four the Jackal said, "What, friends, are you [doing] there?" "We are keeping the Precepts." "Would it be good for me to come, too?" he said. "Your kind are not trustworthy," they said. "Yes, it is true [regarding the others]; nevertheless I am trustworthy," he said. "If so, come," they said. Afterwards the Jackal came. At the time when the five are keeping the Precepts, when the Jackal went for food and went to the Gamarala's chena, he saw that there is good corn there, and he said to the Deer, "Friend, there is a good food for you in the Gamarala's chena," he said. The Deer said, "[For you] to tell me the road let us go together," he said. The Jackal and Deer, both, having gone, the Deer ate food and filling his belly returned. On the following day, when the Jackal was going alone to the Gamarala's chena the Gamarala was [there]. This Jackal said, "Doesn't the corn disappear in this chena? The Deer, indeed, has eaten it. You can't find the gap [by which he came]; shall I find and show (lit., give) you it?" The Gamarala said "Ha." "Here, look; the gap. Having made the noose, and seized and killed it, you must give me meat," he said. The Gamarala made the noose. On the following day, when the Deer went to eat food on the high ground, he was tied in the noose. When the Jackal went he had been tied. The Jackal went near the Gamarala [and told him]. The Crow said, "Our friend went for food; why has he not come?" When he went to look, having seen that he had been tied in the noose, he said to the Rat, "Friend, that friend of ours went to eat food; having been tied in the noose he is unable to come." After that, the Rat having gone cut the noose. He said to this Deer, "Remain lying down in the grass field," he said. (To make it appear to be dead the Crow perched on the body of the Deer.) When [he saw that] this Crow had perched on the back of the Deer, that Gamarala says to the Jackal, "To-day indeed he has died." When this Gamarala was going near the Deer, the Deer, having said "Hu," bounded away. Then the Gamarala struck the Jackal [with his axe]. The Jackal says, "Not being obedient [to the Precepts], an axe-thunderbolt struck me," [and died]. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In The Jataka, No. 16 (vol. i, p. 49), a deer that was snared is described as shamming death [7] as in the second of these tales, and escaping when the hunter unfastened the noose. In the Jataka tale No. 216 (vol. ii, p. 106), when an antelope, a woodpecker, and a tortoise (turtle) lived near a lake, a hunter caught the antelope in a leather noose. While the tortoise endeavoured to gnaw through the leather, the woodpecker went off to make evil omens and delay the hunter in the early morning. It did this by uttering a cry, flapping its wings, and striking him in the face as he opened the front door of his hut. He thought "Some bird of evil omen has struck me," so he turned back and lay down for a short time. By repeating this at the back-door the bird made the man remain at home till sunrise. When at last he approached the antelope the tortoise had gnawed through all but one thong; the antelope burst this and escaped. The jackal is not introduced into this version, which being illustrated in the early Bharahat reliefs is of earlier date than 250 B.C. In Le Pantcha-Tantra of the Abbé Dubois, a crow, a rat, a turtle, and a gazelle formed a friendship together. When the gazelle was caught the rat brought others and gnawed through the nets and saved it. Afterwards when the rat and turtle were likely to be seized, the gazelle led the hunters away, and its friends escaped. The jackal is not mentioned. In the Hitopadesa a crow, a rat, a turtle, and an antelope were friends; a hunter caught the turtle and tied it to his bow in order to take it home. By the rat's advice the antelope feigned death, the crow perched on it, and while the hunter went with his knife to the antelope the rat gnawed in two the string that held the turtle, which at once plunged into the water; the antelope then ran off. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 52, a mouse takes the place of the rat. NO. 180 THE FOOLISH BIRD [8] In a certain country a hen bird laid eggs on a rock; when she was there a considerable time young ones were hatched from the eggs. While the young ones are on the rock, the bird having come [after] seeking food, gives it to the young ones. One day, when the bird was going seeking and seeking food, there was a Mi tree [9] in the jungle. The Mi flowers of that Mi tree had fallen on the ground. The bird, gathering the flowers, and having come and spread them out on the rock on which were the young ones, said to the young ones, "Children, until the time when I come [after] seeking food for you, look after these." Afterwards the young ones, having said "Ha," stayed looking in the very direction of the Mi flowers. The bird went to seek food. The sun's heat having fallen on them, [through their] drying and drying up the Mi flowers became extremely less; when one looked the Mi flowers were not even to be seen. The bird seeking food and having come, when she looked there were no Mi flowers. Having said, "The young birds ate them, indeed," she asked the young ones about it. The young birds said, "We did not eat them." The bird having become angry and said, "If ye did not eat them, who ate them?" struck all the young birds on the rock and killed them. Then the white lotus throne of Sakra, the Divine King, having become hot, he rained a rain. When it was thus raining it soaked those Mi flowers that had dried up, and [as they expanded again] the rock was filled with them in the same manner as before. The bird having been looking on, said, "Ane! My foolishness in killing my children!" and called her children. She called them in the manner of verse:-- They dried and dried until they shrank; my children on the rock I've slain. King Sakra's eyes divine beheld; he rainèd down a flowery rain. Then in the very form they had, a rock was filled with flowers again; But crying, "Son! My callow ones!" your mother called to you in vain. That indeed. Now also, those birds saying "Kuturun, Son, Son!" [10] call them. North-western Province. The text of the verse is:-- Weli weli adu-wena turu, daruwan gale gaesuwa. Saek rajune diwas bala, mal waessak waessa. Etakota mal tibunu lesama galen ekak piruna. "Pubborun, pute," kiya, amma anda-gaesuwa. In a variant by a Tom-tom Beater the verse is:-- Blossoms of jungle tree I saw and brought, and on the rock I strew. They dried and dried until they shrank; my children then I beat and slew. Now, crying, "Kuturu, Son, ku!" your mother vainly calls to you. Kaele gase pub daekala, gale genat waenuwa. Weli weli adu-wena turu, daruwan gasala maeruwa. "Kuturu, pute, ku,"[10] kiya, amma a[n]da-gasati. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 228, two pigeons collected ripe fruits and filled their nest with them. During drought which followed they shrank considerably; the male pigeon charged the female with eating them alone, and although she denied it he said, "If it were not that you have eaten them alone how could they have decreased?" and pecked her to death. When rain which fell afterwards caused the fruits to enlarge to their former size, the bird saw it, and felt remorse, and "then began to call his female with plaintive cries." In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iv, p. 117) there is a similar story. A pair of pigeons collected a store of wheat and barley during winter, but when summer came it was shrivelled with the heat, and shrank. The male pigeon charged the hen with eating it; when she denied it he beat and pecked her till he killed her. In the next cold season the grain swelled out again as at first; and the male pigeon, seeing that the hen was innocent, mourned over her, refused food, and died of grief. Sir R. Burton refers also to a variant in the Book of Sindibad, and Kalilah and Damnah. In the last line of the text of the verse on the preceding page, if Kuturu be corrected to Kuturu, and if the bird's cry is to be interpreted, the meaning might be, "[my] falsehood is great, O Son, [and my] guilt." NO. 181 THE GOLDEN ORIOLE At a certain time, a Golden Oriole having perched on a tree, while it was [there] reflected, "On account of my [golden] colour when shall I obtain a food [suitable] for me?" At the time when he was thinking thus, he saw that a fruit on a Jak-tree had ripened. Then a crow having come, dug into that very Jak-fruit. Thereupon the Golden Oriole, being pleased, laughed. Then after the crow flew away the Golden Oriole went near the Jak-fruit, and taking a section from it flew away. Putting away somewhere the food possessing the [golden] colour equal to his colour, he sang songs. He saw near there a King-Coconut tree, and thinking, "The fruit and flowers on the King-Coconut tree, and I, and my food are of one [golden] colour," he was pleased. Having perched on the King-Coconut tree, while he was eating the section of Jak a Crested Eagle, flying above, seizing the Golden Oriole for the purpose of the Crested Eagle's food, flew aloft [with him]. While it was flying [away with him] the Golden Oriole says, "For the fault that I committed (i.e., the pride in his personal appearance), taking me let us go flying still higher," he said to the Crested Eagle. Thereupon the Crested Eagle having killed the Golden Oriole ate him. North-central Province. This story reminds me of a little tragedy that I witnessed many years ago at Anuradhapura. While I was sitting in the veranda of the Rest-house, my attention was attracted by a friendly Black Robin (Thamnobia fulicata), a bird in habits much like the common Robin of Europe and with the same trustful confidence in man. After picking up insects on the ground close to the veranda it flew up, and perching in the shade on the lower branch of a tree a few feet distant from me, in the full enjoyment of its innocent life uttered a happy little song. Suddenly, in the midst of its notes there was a downward rush of a dark bird from behind, and in an instant the hapless Robin was being carried away in the merciless claws of a Sparrowhawk which must have been hidden in another part of the tree. The hawk was merely fulfilling the Law of Nature; the strong always devours the weak, without pity. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 355, a crow which uttered agreeable (that is, auspicious) sounds when a woman's husband was absent on a journey, was promised a golden cap by her if he returned safe and sound. When he came back in health and the crow repeated the agreeable sounds, she gave it the cap, and the crow put it on and flew about proudly with it. A falcon, seeing the cap, then tore off the crow's head on account of it (apparently because it coveted the gold). NO. 182 THE STORY OF THE VIRA TREE FISH-OWLS [11] There was a certain Bakarawata City. At the same city seven Fish-Owls who were friends dwelt at one place. Out of them the name of one was Rawana-Face; [the names of the others were] Great-Fisher, Long-Boned-One, Dumb-One, Trap-Setter, Noisy-Drummer, Big-Fool. [12] While they are in friendship in this way, without a marriage, one day, having called the others, [one of them] said thus:--"The whole of us are beings possessing much dignity. Because of it, let us summon a woman [as wife] for the whole seven of us." Having [thus] talked, for the purpose of asking for the daughter of King Motanis [in marriage] the two called Noisy-Drummer and Trap-Setter having gone to Kurupiti City, and perched on the portico (torana) near the palace of King Motanis, cried with the sound, "Um, Um." [13] At that time the King having come out, and perceiving, because he knows the Fish-Owl language, the matter for which they called out [to him], the King asks them, "What is the business that ye do? Your livelihood being of a different sort, how is it?" he asked Noisy-Drummer. Thereupon he says, "O King, Your Majesty, it is I indeed whom in Bakarawata City they call Noisy-Drummer. In the same city the Minister of King Kuru am I." Then the Fish-Owl called Trap-Setter says, "I am the son of King Motaba, who is near the same city," he said. Thereupon the King says, "Unless King Motaba will give marriage to you, we are unable [to do] so." Having said, "Ye are of the lower animals" (tirisannu), he abused them, and drove them away. After that Noisy-Drummer and Trap-Setter came to Bakarawata City, [and told the others of the failure of their mission]. While they were there, to Noisy-Drummer the other five say, "Ye fools! When ye asked for marriage in that way will they give it?" Having said [this], they quarrelled [with them]. What was that for? Because King Motaba is not an overlord of lineage, [14] if they had asked for the marriage from an overlord of lineage it would be good. Having said [this], they five quarrelled with them. After that, the two Fish-Owls called Great-Fisher and Long-Bones went to Sulambawati City in order to ask for [marriage with] the Nadakara Kumari, [15] the daughter of King Attapala. While they were there, sitting upon the porch of the palace of King Attapala, Long-Bones called out, "King Attapala!" After that the King having come, when he asked, "What is it?" as they were sitting upon the porch Long-Bones spoke to the King, "We came to ask for a marriage." At that time, King Attapala asks Great-Fisher, "Is this one thy brother, or thy friend?" Thereupon Great-Fisher says, "O Lord, this is our Long-Bones; he is my eldest brother. He is a person of the royal race. Just now, as we got cold in the head many days ago, our faces have become heavy [looking]," he said. After that, when the King asked them, "How do you get a living?" they say, "Aniccan dukkhan! [16] When Your Majesty is ruling you obtain all things, and get a subsistence [in that way]. We are not thus. For us seven brothers, at one place there are rice-fields [extending] over sixty yalas. [17] At yet [another] place there are nine amunas. The others indeed I am unable to mention separately. The whole [of the cultivators] of these rice-fields having come near us, after having asked [permission from] us work [in them], and bring and give the paddy at our very house." He wove and told a great many [such] lies. Having said, "It is good; I will give my Princess to thee. Come thou into the palace to look if she is beautiful," the King went inside the palace. At that time they also went. When he was threatening them,--"Now then, I will give ye a good marriage now!" becoming afraid, and having said, "There is no need of this marriage for us," they sprang off; and having gone even to Bakarawata City, they say to the others, "The King of that city is an extremely wicked one (wasa napurek). He abused and disgraced us in many ways," they said. Thereupon, Big-Fool says, "Ye are fools! If you went to a place where there is [good] lineage, and asked for a marriage, they will give it. By asking for a marriage from persons without lineage, will they give it?" Having said this, these two called Rawana-Face and Dumb-One also went for the purpose of finding the marriage. While they were journeying thus, they arrived near the Sun, the Divine King. While they were there, having seen the Sun they say thus, "O Lord, we came to ask to take in marriage for us Your Majesty's daughter, that is, Paduma Kumari," they said. Thereupon the Sun asked, "Of what lineage are ye, Fish-Owls?" "We are of Brahmana race," they said. Thereupon the Sun, the Divine King, having become angry, scolded them and drove them away. Then, having turned back and come to their own house, they say falsely in this way to the others, that is, "There is indeed a marriage. Because [our] country is far away he says he cannot give it," they said. After that, Big-Fool says, "No one of you is able to bring a [bride in] marriage. I must go." Tying up a package of cooked rice, and having gone quite alone to Totagamu City, and seen the King of the city, he got hid; and firstly having gone near the Fish-Owls of that city, he inquired, "How many daughters of the King are there?" Having looked, he ascertained that there are seven. Thereafter having gone near their palace, he cried out for the King to hear, "Will you give the youngest of the seven, Princess Sunumalli?" Princess Sunumalli having heard the voice, came outside and looked. Thereupon desire for the Fish-Owl having stirred her mind, secretly calling him near her they conversed; and he having been there many days, and thereafter having got hid, these two went to Bakarawata City. While there, this Princess was [the wife] in common for the whole seven; but because they were of the lower animals no children were born to her. To get medical treatment for it one of them went away, and when he asked the Vedarala (doctor) of Kukkapitiya, the Vedarala said, "Taking Black Cummin seed and White Cummin seed at the rate of four lahas (one-tenth of an amuna, of about six bushels), and having ground it, [you are] to give it to her to drink with human urine," he said. He having come home, in that manner the whole seven together made the medicine in the very way the Veda said, and gave it to her to drink. Thereupon, through the [quantity of the] four lahas, she burst open and died. After that, these seven having become very sorrowful, Long-Bones being unconscious, and Rawana-Face splitting his head, and Great-Fisher having jumped into the well, and Noisy-Drummer having jumped into the sea, and Dumb-One having cut his throat (neck), and Big-Fool having fallen from the top of a tree, [all these] died, Trap-Setter alone being left over. He, taking afresh a female Fish-Owl [as his wife], lived. North-western Province. This story is an evident satire, making fun of people who go about endeavouring to contract unsuitable marriages with the members of families much higher than their own in descent or position. The village medical practitioner is also parodied. NO. 183 THE LION AND THE BULL'S TRUST IN HIM A Jackal having seen that a Lion and a Bull are friendly, the Jackal went and asked the Bull, "Friend, how am I also to be friendly with you two?" Concerning it the Bull said, "You cannot." The Jackal being angry with the Bull because of it, thinking, "I must break the friendship of the Bull and the Lion," went one day, and said to the Lion, "O Lord, Your Majesty, your friend the Bull said at my hand regarding you, 'However much ability of that Lion there should be to do things, [after] taking and sifting out my share of it, should it be taken away the Lion will be destroyed.'" After that, the Jackal, having gone again near the Bull, said, "Ane! Friend, the Lion says of you, 'However much prowess and might of that one's there should be, should I once make the Lion's roar the other animals die, putting that one [out of consideration].'" Thereupon the Bull having said, "When we have remained on good terms such a time, if he says that of me I also am willing to fight with him." Having come near the Lion he said, "We two remained on good terms such a time. Because of [what you have said], to-day we must die." When he was fighting with the Lion the Lion made the Lion's roar. When he was making the Lion's roar the Bull came and gored him. In this way, on account of the Lion's roar the Bull died, [18] and the Bull having gored him the Lion died. After that, having said these false slanders and pushed the quarrel, the Jackal who had caused them to be killed having come after these two died, and having said, "He was unable through haughtiness to take me as his friend; how about it now?" ate the mouth from that one and the mouth from this one. While eating them, having summoned still [other] Jackals, and said, "I did such a clever deed; what did ye?" he laughed. "If ye also want, eat ye," he said. Central Province. In the Jataka story No. 349 (vol. iii, p. 100), a jackal in order to taste their flesh, set a friendly lion and bull at variance. "He said, 'This is the way he speaks of you,' and thus dividing them one from another, he soon brought about a quarrel and reduced them to a dying condition." When a King came to see them, "the jackal highly delighted was eating, now the flesh of the lion, and now that of the bull." This story, being included in the Bharahat carvings must be of earlier date than 250 B.C. In the Hitopadesa, as the lion was afraid of the bellowing of a bull that was abandoned on a journey, two jackals persuaded the bull to appear before the lion, which became friendly with it. Afterwards the jackals, determining to get the bull destroyed as it induced the lion to curtail their supply of meat, informed both the lion and bull that the other intended to kill it. When the bull approached the lion they had a long fight in which the lion was victorious. The same story is given in the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 27. In Le Pantcha-Tantra of the Abbé Dubois, p. 30, the story is nearly the same. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 192, a lioness before dying advised her cub and a calf she had reared to live together in peace. A fox which became jealous of the calf told it and the young lion false tales of their mutual intentions, and when they met they killed each other. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 325, the calumniator was a jackal. In the same work, p. 328, there is a variant in which the friendly animals were a lion and tiger which a jackal set at variance. When about to attack each other they spoke, ascertained that the whole quarrel was due to the jackal's falsehoods, and the lion thereupon killed it. This story is given in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, pp. 233 and 425; in the latter example a lion and bull killed each other. In Fables and Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest (Skeat), p. 30, a mouse-deer in the same way induced two bulls to fight, and when one was killed the deer feasted on the flesh, after frightening away a tiger that wanted to share it with him. NO. 184 THE LIZARD AND THE IGUANA At a certain time a small Lizard [19] and an Iguana [20] became friends it is said. In this state they remained for much time. During the time while they were thus, these two quarrelled; having quarrelled, both struck each other with their tails. When they were striking each other the small Lizard lost. The Lizard, having sprung aside, was panting and panting. There was an ant-hill there; the Iguana crept into the ant-hill. A Vaedda from a distant place when walking about for hunting, not meeting with game is coming away. While he is coming, this panting Lizard asked, "Friend, where are you going?" Then the Vaedda said, "Friend, I went hunting, and did not meet with game." After that, the Lizard says, "Friend, an Iguana having dropped into this ant-hill is staying in it. Break it open, and take it." Then the Vaedda, having gone to his village and brought a digging hoe, goes breaking and breaking open the ant-hill. Thereupon the Iguana also, digging and digging, goes on in front [of him]. The Vaedda, a half-day having passed [in this way], took much trouble over this. When he had been digging for a great distance he did not meet with the Iguana. Thereupon, anger on account of [getting] no game, and anger on account of the trouble [he had taken uselessly] having seized the Vaedda, and having become angry also at the Lizard, he struck the Lizard with the digging hoe that was in the hand of the Vaedda. The Lizard rolled over and died. Owing to the injustice through which he went to kill his friend, he himself died. North-western Province. In the Jataka story No. 141 (vol. i, p. 303), a chameleon induced an iguana-trapper to kill a number of iguanas by digging out their burrows because he found his friendship with one of them troublesome. NO. 185 THE COBRA AND THE POLANGA At the time of a drought there was not even a little water for a Cobra to drink, it is said. Well then, when the Cobra went to a village, a little child at a house was playing with the water in a large bowl. The child's mother was not at home. The Cobra having gone there, while it is drinking the water the child throws water out of the coconut shell on the Cobra's head, and strikes it with hand and foot. On account of it nothing angry is aroused in the Cobra; having drunk its belly full of water it goes away. Thus, in that manner, when the Cobra was going drinking and drinking the water for two or three days, one day it met with a Polanga. [21] The Polanga asked, "Where, friend, do you drink water?" The Cobra said, "I drink it nowhere whatever. In this drought where is there water for anyone to drink?" Again the Polanga said, "Friend, do not you say so; you have drunk. Tell me also the quarter where you drink." After the Cobra had continued not telling it, it afterwards said, "At such and such a house a little child is playing and playing with the water in the bowl. Having gone there, as I drink the water the child throws water on my head with the coconut shell, and strikes me with hand and foot. Not becoming angry at all, I drink and come away. You, indeed, will be unable [to restrain yourself]. If you can [remain] without doing anything [to the child], go and drink, and come away." The Cobra having sent the Polanga, went behind, and having got hid, while it remained looking on [the child] throws water on the [Polanga's] head with the coconut shell, and strikes it with hand and foot. Until the time when the Polanga drinks its belly full, it remains doing nothing [to the child]. After it drank it bit the crown of the child's head. At the blow the child fell into the bowl as though dead. The Cobra having come running, sucked the poison from the crown of the child's head, and having made it conscious pursued after the Polanga. Having joined the Polanga it bit and killed it. From that day the Cobra and Polanga are opposed. North-western Province. THE WIDOW AND THE MUNGUS I have not met with this tale as a true village folk-story, but it was related as one of the episodes in the series of tales included under the title of "The Four Panditayas," in which various stories were told in order to induce a King not to execute the youngest Panditaya for wiping off the Queen's body a drop of blood which fell on her at night when he cut in two a cobra that was about to bite the King. The whole story is an Indian one. The account given to me is as follows:--[The Panditaya said,] "O Lord, Your Majesty, I myself will tell you a story, be pleased to hear it." Having said this he began thus:--"At a time, at a city a widow-mother reared a Mungus. The widow-mother alone takes firewood and water home. One day the woman having placed her child in the house, while the Mungus stays there she went for firewood. Having gone for firewood, when she was returning, the Mungus, [22] having blood smeared on its body and head, came in front of the widow-woman. The woman thought that having indeed bitten her child it came here. At the time when through anger at it she struck the Mungus with the firewood sticks that were in her hand, causing it to fall, it died. "When she came home, having seen that the Mungus had bitten in pieces a Polanga which came to bite (lit., eat) the child, she said, 'Ane! If not for my Mungus the Polanga would have bitten my child. Now, not making inquiry I killed the Mungus, the Mungus!' and having become grieved she died. After her death the child also died." P. B. Madahapola, Ratemahatmaya, North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 213, Mr. H. A. Pieris gave this story, the widow killing the Mungus with the rice pestle, and in the end committing suicide. In the Hitopadesa and Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 300, the story is similar, the owner of the animal being a Brahmana, who was overwhelmed with grief when he realised what he had done. Regarding the supposed enmity between the Cobra and Polanga, Capt. R. Knox wrote, "if the Polonga and the Noya meet together, they cease not fighting till one hath kill'd the other." (Hist. Rel., p. 29.) In my own experience I have seen nothing to support this belief; but as both snakes live on similar food it is probable that on their casually meeting when in search of it the stronger or fiercer one will drive the other away, and occasionally this may result in a fight. NO. 185A THE CRAB AND THE FROG At a certain time for a certain Frog food became deficient. Having gone near a certain Crab he brought paddy. He having brought the paddy, after not much time had gone the Crab asked the Frog for the [repayment of the] paddy debt. Then the Frog said, "I will afterwards give [you] the debt." For the Frog's getting two from the naeliya [23] that holds four patas, the Crab falsely asked for seven. So the Frog in this fashion swears:--"By Karagama Devi, by the one daughter of mine, out of the naeliya of four patas [it was], two, two, two, two." [24] Then the Turtle, being there, says from a side, "If [you] got them, give; if [you] got them, give." [25] Notwithstanding this, the Frog did not give them. North-western Province. NO. 186 A LOUSE AND A BUG In a certain country, at a King's palace there is a delightful bed for reclining on. There was a female Louse which dwelt among the exceedingly white sheets spread on the bed. And that female Louse, drinking blood on the body of the King, passed the time in happiness. At that time, one day a certain Bug walking anywhere came to the bed. At that time the White Louse said with a displeased countenance, "Emba! O meritorious Bug, because of what camest thou to this place? Before anyone gets to know about it go thou quickly from here." At that time the Bug said, "Emba! O meritorious female, although [addressed even] to a wicked person who came to the house, speech like this is not proper. Whether of acrid taste, bitter taste, or sour taste, the fault of [requiring] food being the cause, various kinds of blood of several low men were sucked and drunk by me. By me at any time a sweet blood was not drunk. On that account, sitting down, if thou art willing, [the desire of] very sweet food being the cause, by sucking for myself thus, betimes, the blood--any blood, be it inferior--on the body of this King, to-day I shall dwell in happiness. Therefore, to me who, not having obtained food, came to the house, may you be pleased to give this very food. The drinking this King's blood solitarily, by thee only, is not proper," he said. Having heard that, the Louse said, "O meritorious Bug, I suck and drink the blood of this very King who has gone to sleep. If thou swiftly shouldst be drinking the blood with me, thou wilt drink much blood." Having heard that, the Bug said, "O meritorious female, I will not do in that way; while thou drinkest the blood I will not drink. In the presence of this excellent King I will do it till full." While both of them were talking in this way they approached the King's bed. Thereupon the Bug having arrived at great greediness, bit the King. At that time the King having arisen from the bed and gone, said, "There are bugs in the bed; wipe it down to clean it." The servants having come there, and at the time when they looked having seen the White Louse, killed it. The Bug crept into a corner of the bed [and escaped]. Uva Province. STORIES OF THE LOWER CASTES STORIES OF THE POTTERS NO. 187 THE THREE YAKAS In a spacious great city three Yakas were born. Well then, the three Yakas spoke together: "Let us three Yakas go to the school of the Chief of the Yaka forces (Yaksa Senadipotiya), [26] to learn letters." After they learnt letters the three spoke together: "Let us go to learn the sciences." The three having walked along the path came to the travellers' shed at the place where there are again three paths. The three spoke together. One said, "I will learn the science of killing a man." One said, "I will learn the science of causing [re-]birth." The other said, "I will learn to do magic." In the hand of one Yaka [was] the sword; in the hand of one Yaka, the betel-cutter; in the hand of one Yaka, the axe. Those three Yakas said, "You go on that path; I will go on this path." Then the three Yakas go on the three paths. Before they went they said, "When any matter of sickness has happened to a person out of us three, how shall we get to know?" Then one said, "I will plant a lime tree"; one said, "I will plant a flower tree"; one said, "I will make a flower pool." [27] Well then, saying that should any accident occur to the Yakas the fruit will fall from the lime tree, or the flowers on the flower tree will fade, or the water of the pool will become muddy, [28] they went on the three paths. Having gone on the three paths, when they came to three countries the three summoned three wives, ordinary women (nikan gaenu). The Yakas taking human appearance, putting on good clothes like men, putting aside the teeth of Yakas (Yak-dat), taking good teeth, the women do not know that the three are Yakas. After a long time, a man died in the village of the Yaka who planted the lime tree. That Yaka having taken the corpse after they buried it, and having drawn it to the surface, ate it. [29] An old thief saw it. Having seen it, on seeing that woman he told her, "In this manner, the man who is in your house in this way eats human flesh," having seen that woman, he told that. Owing to it, that woman that day got to know that said Yaka is a Yaka. After that she prepared to kill him. The Yaka's wife asked, "Where is your life?" The Yaka said, "In my stomach." "No, you are telling lies." The Yaka said, "In my breast." "That also is false," she says. "Tell me the truth." The Yaka said, "In my neck." "It is not there, also," she says. At last the Yaka said, "My life is in [the brightness of] my sword." Afterwards, placing the sword near his head, he went to sleep. Then this woman having gone, collected a bon-fire (gini godak), and quietly taking the sword put it into the hearth. Well then, the woman having come back, when she looked that Yaka was dead. That eldest Yaka having arisen, when he looked [saw that] the flowers and fruit had all fallen from the lime tree. The Yaka said, "Ane! Bola, there will have been some accident; I must go to look." Well then, the eldest Yaka having tied up the lime fruits, and come to that Yaka's country, taking them, when he looked his younger brother was dead. When he sought for that sword it was not [there]. Afterwards, when he looked at the fire heap that sword was in the heap. Well then, taking the limes and having cut them, when he was thoroughly polishing it with the limes that dead Yaka revived (lit., was born). Then the elder Yaka, calling the revived Yaka, came to his [own] house [with him]. A pestilence having stricken the second Yaka, one morning when those two looked the flowers on that planted tree had fallen. Well then, having said, "Appa! Bolan, some accident will have stricken our Yaka," putting together those flowers also, they went away. Having gone, and having offered the flowers to the Gods of that country, the disease was cured; and calling that Yaka also, they came to that eldest Yaka's house. Having come [there], that eldest Yaka said to one Yaka, "You do loading work, and having loaded cattle get your living." To the other Yaka he said, "You trade and get your living. I will cultivate," he said. Well then, the three taking human appearance, all remained at the city where that eldest Yaka was. That Yaka who loaded sacks [with produce with which he went on trading journeys] was ruined by that very thing, and died. Then [in the case of] the Yaka who traded [at a shop], an old thief stole all the goods [obtained] by his trading. Out of grief on that account that Yaka died. That eldest Yaka, doing cultivation and having become abundantly wealthy, stayed at that very city, and abandoned the Yaka appearance. Potter. North-western Province. NO. 188 THE TIME OF SCHOLARS In a certain country there is, it is said, a [man called] Dikpitiya. A [married woman called] Diktaladi is rearing an [adopted] child. While it was [there] no long time, a [female] child was born; to Diktaladi a child was born. On the boy, the [adopted] boy she reared, she put a cloth for ploughing (that is, he grew old enough to plough). After the [female] child grew great and big, [the parents] gave her [in marriage] to that youth whom Diktaladi reared, [and they went to live in another village]. The boy she reared, after no long time went by, seeking oil, honey, flour, and cooking a bag of cakes, and giving them to that woman [his wife, set off with her] in order to go to look at that mother-in-law and father-in-law. At the time when the two are going together, having seen that much water is going in the river [which it was necessary to cross], both of them became much afraid in mind. Thereupon, when they are staying [there], these two persons, having seen that the one called Dikpitiya was on the opposite bank fishing and fishing, said, "Ane! It is a great hindrance that has occurred to us. Ane! In our hand there is not a thing for us to eat, not a place to sit down at. Should you take us two [across] to that side, it will be charity"; and those two persons make obeisance to Dikpitiya. Afterwards Dikpitiya, having left his bait creeper [30] (fishing-line), came swimming to this side. Having come, "Where are ye two going?" he asked. "Ane! We are going to look at our mother-in-law and father-in-law." Dikpitiya placed the bag of cakes on one shoulder, and placed the woman on the [other] shoulder. Afterwards he crossed, swimming, to that [far] side. After having crossed to that side [he said to the woman], "What a man that man is! The scare-crow tied in the paddy field! We two are of one sort; let us two go [off together]." Afterwards, unfastening the bag of cakes [they counted them, and he] having given [some] to the woman, the inferior ones, eating and eating the cakes both of them began to go away. After that, [when her husband came across and claimed her], Dippitiya having cried out, and dragged her, and obstructed her going with feet and hands, he said, "Having snatched away my wife canst thou strike blows? Come and go [with me]"; and they went for the trial [regarding their rival claims to be the woman's husband]. Having gone near the King, [and laid a complaint regarding it], the King [finding that both men claimed her], says, "Imprison ye the three of them in three houses." Afterwards the King asks at the hand of Dippitiya, "What is the name of thy mother?" "Our mother's name is Sarasayu-wiri." [31] "Secondly, how many is the number of the cakes?" "Three less than three hundred." Having caused Diktaladi's daughter to be brought, he asks, "What is thy mother's name?" "Kamaloli" (Love-desiring). "How many is the number of the cakes?" "Three less than three hundred." After that, [as both agreed regarding the number] he handed over the wife [to him]. Both of them, making and making obeisance, went away. Potter. North-western Province. With the exception of the ending, this is the sixth test case which was settled by the wise Mahosadha, in The Jataka, No. 546 (vol. vi, p. 163); [32] but the variations show that, like some other Sinhalese folk-tales, it is not taken over directly from the Jataka story, which appears to be one of the latest in that collection. There was a village, apparently of Vaeddas, called Dippitigama, in the North-western Province [33]; and "the house of the Dippitiyas, [34] at the village called Kotikapola" is mentioned in the story numbered 215 in this volume, related by a Tom-tom Beater. This latter tale apparently contains a large amount of fact, and ends "the persons who saw these [things said] they are in the form of a folk-tale." Thus there is a possibility that this part of the Jataka story is derived from a Sinhalese folk-tale of which the Potter's story gives the modern version. STORIES OF THE WASHERMEN NO. 189 THE THIEF CALLED HARANTIKA In a certain city there was a thief, Harantikaya by name. The thief, together with his father, goes to commit robberies. For a long period, at the time when they are committing robberies at that city not a single person could seize that thief. One day, the father and son having spoken about breaking in to the box of valuables at the foot of the bed [35] of the King of the city, entered the King's palace. Having entered it, and gone by a window into the kitchen, and eaten the royal food that was cooked for the King, he went into the very room and broke into the box at the foot of the bed; and taking the goods and having come back into the kitchen, he put [outside] the articles he had brought. It was the father who went into the house, and put out the articles. The son stayed near the window, on the outer side. Well then, the father tries (lit., makes) to come out by the window; [because of the quantity of food he has eaten] he cannot come. [36] Thereafter, the father, having put out his neck through the window, told the son to drag him out. Well then, the son tried hard to drag him out. Because he also could not do it the son cut off the father's head. Then the thief called Harantika (the son), taking the head and the articles stolen out of the box at the foot of the bed, came home. Thereafter, having come home he says at the hand of his mother, "Mother, our father was unable to come [out by the window at which he entered the kitchen at the palace]. He endeavoured as much as possible. Because father was unable to come, cutting father's neck with the knife that was in my hand, [I brought away his head and] I returned here. The theft will come to light. Now then, to-morrow, during the day, having said, 'Whose is the corpse?' they will bring it along these four streets. Don't you either cry out, or lament, or tell about us." These matters he told his mother. On the morning of the following day, fixing a noose to the two feet of the dead body, the King ordered the Ministers to take it, and walk [dragging the corpse] along the four streets. Next, he gave orders to the city that everyone, not going anywhere, must remain to observe whose was this dead body. Thereafter, when the Ministers were going along dragging the corpse, the men [and women of the city] remained looking on. At the time when the wife of the dead man, [on seeing the body] is crying out, "O my husband!" the thief called Harantika, having been in a Murunga tree [in front of the doorway], broke a Murunga branch, and fell to the ground. Well then, these city people having said, "Who is this who cried out?" at the time when they hear it a part say, "A boy fell from a tree; on that account she is crying out." Well then, that she cried out on account of this corpse nobody knows. That thief called Harantika was saved by that. It is owing to that, indeed, they say, "The stratagems which the thief has, even the God Ganesa (the God of Wisdom) does not possess." Washerman. North-western Province. THE DEXTEROUS THIEF AND HIS SON. (Variant.) In a certain country there was a very dexterous thief, it is said. This thief had a son and two daughters. These two daughters were wealthy, wearing better silver and golden sorts of things than the women-folk of the other important families of the village. Well then, because this principal thief's son was a person possessing divine skill (sura-nuwana), ascertaining that they had become wealthy because of the dexterous character of his father's robbery, he got into his mind [the notion] to earn the very same livelihood as his father, having become a dexterous thief to the same degree. When this principal thief was going for robbery it was a custom [of his] to go [after] tying two pairs of small bells on both feet. When the thief's son asked his mother, "What is the motive for going for robbery, tying on the bells?" she said thus: "Why, son? As though they are not hearing the noise of your father's pair of little bells, he goes [after] tying on the pair of little bells, having put them on the foot by way of ingenuity, for the purpose of remembering to commit [only] theft." Well then, one day, when the father had started to go for robbery, the son also asked his mother [for permission] to go with him. At that time his mother said thus: "Son, because of [your not possessing] your father's dexterity, at no time are you able, indeed, to get a bare subsistence by doing that for a livelihood. Because of that don't you try to go." On the following day, when the father was going for robbery this son also went without concealing himself, just behind his father. [The father] having dug into a house, when he was becoming ready to enter the house, this son went behind quietly, and cutting off the two pairs of little bells that were on his father's two feet, came home. The father, also, perceiving, before entering the house, that some one had cut both pairs of little bells off his two feet, having dropped the doing house-robbery, and having gone running home, from that day remained lying down, without eating, without drinking. When this thief's wife asked, "Why are you doing that?" the thief says, "After he cut off my two pairs of little bells, which, from the day I was born, for so much time were committing robbery more cleverly than all, well, I shall not go for robbery, and shall not eat, and shall not drink," he said. Because the thief's wife had ascertained that his son had cut off his father's two pairs of little bells, having said to the thief, "Don't be grieved," she told him that his own son cut off the two pairs of little bells. Thereupon the thief was extremely satisfied regarding his son. Again one day, on the day when there was a feast at the King's house, the principal thief was ready to go to commit robbery in the royal house. His son also said that he was wishful to go. Thereupon the father said, "Because thou also art a dexterous thief of my own quality, come." They two having gone, and having dug into the royal palace, while the son remained outside the father went into the house, and having brought gold, silver, pearls, gems, various other things, gave them to his son. From the time when the father, having dug into the house, entered it, the son said, "Father, however sweet the royal food should be, don't eat even a little, indeed." But as soon as the father's nose perceived the sweet odour of the tasty sorts of food, the father began to eat the royal provisions to the possible extent. Having thus eaten, and having finished, taking also a quantity of goods, when, having filled his belly, [he was] coming to give them to his son, his belly having been filled and having become enlarged, he was unable to creep out by the place which he first dug; and he stuck fast. Thereupon the son, having gone running to the house, taking also the goods, informed his mother about this; and again having gone to the King's house, taking a sword also, and having seen that the father having been stuck fast was dead, cutting the father's neck with the sword he brought home only the head. On the following day, in the morning having perceived that the goods at the royal house have been stolen, and having caused soothsayers to be brought to find the thief, when [the King] asked the sooth the soothsayers said, "The thief has entered on such and such a side of such and such a store-house, having dug a long tunnel. The thief indeed can be found; the things cannot be found." Thereupon the King, having made inquiry and when he looked having seen that in the end of the tunnel a man without the head part had become stuck fast, for the purpose of finding who are the relatives whom the man has, and his friends, commanded that during the whole of three days [they were] to walk, bringing the corpse, everywhere in the city. Well then, as this corpse--the above-mentioned corpse--was coming to pass in front of the house of its owners, the above-mentioned son said to his mother and sisters, "They are now taking our father's corpse [and are about to pass] in front of our house. Having seen it, don't anyone of you lament." This word the mother and sisters accepted. But because this son thinks there is uncertainty if they will lament, having ascended a Murunga tree that was in front of the doorway he remained [there]. At the time when he is thus, as they are taking the corpse in front of the said house, that mother and the sisters, unable to go on restraining their grief, cried out, "Ane! O our father!" [37] There and then, the son who was in the Murunga tree, breaking a branch also from the tree jumped down, and was as though dead. At that time that mother and the sisters, calling out, "Ane! O my son! Ane! O our elder brother!" and having come running, and gone, taking the son, into the house, gave him medicine and began to attend to him. Thereupon the people who were carrying that corpse thought, "They are crying owing to that woman's son's having died," and went away. By this means the people of the thief's family, not tasting (lit., eating) death from the King, escaped. Western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 59, Mr. W. Goonetilleke gave the story as it was related in the Supplement to the Ceylon Observer. The thief passed through a small pre-existing tunnel into the King's palace, and after feasting inside stuck fast in it on his way back, and ordered his son to cut off his head and escape with it. The youth acted accordingly and threw it in a weighted basket into the river. The rest of the story agrees with those given above. In the story related by Herodotus (Euterpe, 121, 1) of the robbery of the treasury of King Rhampsinitus, the thief entered by removing a loose stone, laid for the purpose by his father when he was building the treasury. He did not feast inside the palace nor stick fast on his way out, but was caught in a trap laid for him in the treasury. His brother entered, and at his own request cut off his head to save the family reputation. The King hung the body from the wall, and stationed sentinels who were commanded to arrest anyone who wept on seeing it. The brother made them drunk and carried off the corpse by his mother's orders. After vainly making use of his daughter as a bait for the thief, in the end the King forgave him on account of his cleverness and married his daughter to him. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 93, Karpara, one of two thieves, broke through the wall of the palace and entered the room of the Princess. She fell in love with him, but he remained too long, and was arrested and hanged; while being led away he signalled to his friend to carry off the Princess. The friend, Ghata, at night dug a tunnel into the palace, found the Princess in fetters, and brought her away. The King set guards near Karpara's body to arrest anyone who came to burn the corpse and perform the funeral rites, but Ghata tricked them, lamented over the body, burned it, and threw the remains of the bones into the Ganges. Although the King offered half his kingdom if the thief would reveal himself, Ghata left the country with the Princess. The translator mentioned European and other parallels (pp. 93 and 100). In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 39, a weaver went with a clever nephew to break into a house. As he was passing feet foremost through the hole they made, the people inside seized his feet and began to drag him through, so the boy cut off his head and decamped with it. The King ordered the trunk to be exposed at the cross-roads in the main street, in order to arrest anyone who wailed over it. The youth, personating various people, wailed over it as a madman, burned it, presented cakes, and threw the bones into the Ganges. The King then set his daughter at the river bank as a bait, and left a guard near. After sending down a number of floating water vessels the thief covered his head with one, and swam to the Princess, who afterwards had a son by means of whom the King identified the thief, to whom he formally gave the Princess and half the kingdom. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 380, the story is similar. NO. 190 THE STORY OF THE FOUR-FOLD TRAP [38] In a certain country there was a Gamarala. The Gamarala having tried for seven years caught a White Rat-snake. A Devatawa having come by dream told the Gamarala that when he had eaten the Rat-snake's head he would obtain the kingship. Having told the Gamarala's wife to cook the White Rat-snake the Gamarala went to wash his head (to purify himself). [39] After that, a Tom-tom Beater (Naekatiyek), weaving a cloth, came to the Gamarala's house [with it]. The Gama-Mahage (the Gamarala's wife) through stinginess [unwilling] to give meat, gave the Tom-tom Beater rice and that White Rat-snake's head, not knowing [its property]. The Gamarala having come [after] washing his head, asked the Gama-Mahage for the White Rat-snake's head. Then the woman said, "I gave it to eat, to the Tom-tom Beater (Berawaya) who came [after] weaving the cloth." Thereupon the Gamarala said, "Thou gavest it to thy man! Why? When seven years have gone by from this time he will obtain the sovereignty." After the seven years went by, it was commanded to give the kingship to the Tom-tom Beater. But the people of the city said they could not give him the kingship, because he was a Tom-tom Beater. Because, through the act of his eating the White Rat-snake's head they were unable to avoid giving (nodi) him the kingship, they said, "Let us give him the sovereignty for one paeya (twenty-four minutes). A strong man having shot an arrow aloft, let us give the kingship until it falls to the ground." Having promised this he shot it. For thirty years that arrow did not fall to the ground; Sakra held it. After thirty years had gone, the arrow afterwards fell to the ground. The kingship of that King Mota-Tissa having been changed that day, again a Prince of the royal line, suitable for the city, obtained the kingship. After that, on account of the Tom-tom Beaters who were in this Lankawa (Ceylon) claiming, "We, too, are of the royal line," the King and the other people, also, having become angry, say, "Can anyone, indeed, construct a Four-fold Trap?" they asked. A smith who knows various expedients (upa-waeda), having said, "I can," constructed a Four-fold Trap. Inside the Four-fold Trap having placed cakes and milk-rice, the King said, "To the Tom-tom Beaters who are in Ceylon the King will give an eating (feast)." He sent letters to the Tom-tom Beaters to come. They call that one with one mouth (entrance) like the Habaka (a snare-trap) the Four-fold Trap (Hatara-maha Lula). Well then, after all the Tom-tom Beaters came, the King says, "All of you go at one time into that house," [40] he said. After that, all the Tom-tom Beaters at one time entered the house. Afterwards the King struck off (gaesuwaya) the Four-fold Trap. Well then, all the Tom-tom Beaters died. Because one pregnant woman, only, was at the corner (or end, asse), the woman's neck having been caught she died. As ten months had fully gone, the infant was brought forth outside. Thereafter, at the time when the Gamarala, and the King of the city, and the Washerman who washes the clothes are going near the Four-fold Trap, an infant was crying and crying. Afterwards the Gamarala and the Washerman (Rada miniha) having gone away carrying the infant, reared it. After not much time, the King having died another Prince obtained the kingship. For the purpose of making [his accession to] the sovereignty public to the world, he told them to beat on the double kettle-drum. Although all the people of the country beat on the double kettle-drum the sound did not spread. The King asked, "Who must beat it for the sound of this to spread?" Then the people say, "Should a Tom-tom Beater beat, indeed, the sound of this will spread." Thereupon the King asks, "Are there not Tom-tom Beaters in this city?" Then the people say, "In the time of such and such a King, having constructed the Four-fold Trap he killed all the Tom-tom Beaters." The King asked, "Because of what circumstance did he kill them in that way?" Well then, these people [said], "Previously one of them called Mota-Tissa was a King. Well then, because of their arrogance, the King who next obtained the sovereignty, having prepared a Four-fold Trap, killed them all." They told the King all the matters that occurred. After that, the King made public that he will give gold [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load to a person who should find and give him a Tom-tom Beater. Then the Gamarala [and Washerman] having spoken to the King:--"We will give a Tom-tom Beater," gave him that youth whom they had reared. Well then, the King having caused the youth to dress well, having decorated a tusk elephant, and placed the youth on the back of the tusk elephant, caused the proclamation tom-tom to be beaten by means of the youth. The youth does not know anything whatever of beating. The Gamarala and the Washerman who reared the youth taught him, "Beat thou the tom-tom (bere) thus: 'Thy mother [was] Tangi, thy father [was] Tongi; Tangi and Tongi.'" [41] When the youth beat in that manner the proclamation by beat of tom-toms (anda-bera) was published in the city. Well then, because there was not much weaving (bo wimak) by him (owing to his household work), the King says, "Out of this city, by any method thou wantest, take any woman thou wantest," he said to the youth. Subsequently, the Gamarala and that Washerman said to the youth, "Because the Smiths who constructed the Four-fold Trap killed thy family, on account of it go thou and bring a Smith (caste) woman." After that, the youth, having brought a Smith (caste) woman, married her. The King having given many offices to the youth, he lived in happiness at the city. Washerman. North-western Province. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales derived from Indian Sources (Ralston), p. 129, the widow of a son of the King of Videha, who had a son called Bahvannapana, was given in marriage by the King of Pañcala, her father, to his Purohita or spiritual adviser. The Purohita one day heard a Brahmana predict when he heard a cock crow near the house, that the person who ate its flesh would become King. He therefore killed the cock, told his wife to cook it at once, and went to the palace on business. During his absence Bahvannapana returned hungry from school, saw the bird in the pan, cut off its head, and ate it. When the Purohita came back he heard of this, and ate up the rest of the fowl. On consulting the Brahmana about it he was informed that he who ate the head would become King, and that one who killed him and ate his head in turn would also become King, so he determined to kill the boy. His mother perceived this and sent the boy away to Videha, and he lay down to sleep in a park there. The King had just died, apparently without an heir, and the funeral ceremonies could not be performed until a new King was chosen. The Ministers, officials, Brahmanas, etc., went in search of a suitable heir, saw the boy, aroused him, ascertained that he was the true heir to the throne, and proclaimed him King. Messrs. H. B. Andris and Co., of Kandy, have been good enough to inform me that the Hatara-maha Lula is a large four-sided trap, made for catching large animals, such as deer and wild pigs. It has four entrances and four nooses. They state that the Habaka mentioned on p. 49 is a similar but smaller trap, with one noose, used for catching hares, mouse-deer, wild cats, etc. NO. 191 THE FOOLISH PRINCE At a certain city there were a Prince and a Princess. One day when the two are staying talking and talking, the Princess says, "Lord, please tell a story for me to hear," she said. Then the Prince said, "It is good. I know a story that no one knows; I will tell you it," and beginning it he told the story. At the time when he was telling it a Brahmana was listening. The Brahmana having gone away, said to the Brahmana's wife, "I know a story." Then the woman said, "If so, tell the story, for me to hear it." The Brahmana told the story. The Brahmana's wife also learning it, having come on the following day told the story to that Princess. The Princess asked the Brahmana's wife, "Who told you this?" Then the woman said falsely, "I learnt it [some time] previously." Well then, this Princess having said [to herself], "My Prince is indeed associated with this woman. If not, how does this woman know to-day the story which my Prince told yesterday for me to hear?" and having become angry with the Prince, the Princess also associated with another Prince. This Prince, ascertaining this, killed the Princess. In no long time after that, the thought having occurred to the Prince, "If my Princess were [here] it would be good for me," having walked throughout the whole of Lankawa (Ceylon) he looked where the Princess is now. [42] One day, this Prince asked another man, "Did you see my Princess?" At that time the [other] Prince said, "I saw that the Princess was staying yesterday in the daytime in the midst of such and such a forest." Well then, this Prince, asking and asking the way, having gone to the midst of the forest, at the time when he was walking in it a bear having bitten the Prince he died. Washerman. North-western Province. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 4, it is stated that when the God Siva was relating a story to his wife Parvati, one of his dependants, a Gana named Pushpadanta, entered unseen by his magic power, and listened to it. Afterwards he related it to his wife Jaya, who recited it in the presence of Parvati, whereupon the Goddess lost her temper, reproached Siva for telling her an old story known by others, and when she heard from him the true explanation, cursed Pushpadanta and turned him into a mortal. NO. 192 THE JACKAL AND THE GAMARALA In a certain country, while a Gamarala, being without cattle to plough, was going for the purpose of asking for a yoke of cattle after making a lump of milk-rice, he met two Jackals. Thereupon the Jackals ask, "Where, Gamarala, are you going?" "I am going to borrow (lit., ask for) a yoke of cattle to plough." "What things are on your head?" "A box of milk-rice." "Should you give us the box we will plough." Having said, "Ijaw! Eat ye it," he gave it. Thereupon the Jackals ate it. After that, having come dragging the two Jackals and tied the yoke [on their necks], they tried to draw [the plough]; the Jackals cannot draw it. After that, having beaten and beaten them he threw them into the weeds. On the following day, while he is going [after] cooking a box [of milk-rice], having met with two Jackals [they said], "Gamarala, where are you going?" "I am going to borrow a yoke of cattle to plough." "What things are on your head?" "On my head is a box of milk-rice." "Should you give us the box we will plough." "Yesterday also, having given milk-rice to a yoke of Jackals I was foolish." "They were Jackals of the brinjal (egg-plant) caste; owing to being in full bloom we are Jackals of the tusk elephant caste," they said. After that, having said, "Indaw," he gave them it. After they ate it, having come dragging the two Jackals and tied the yoke [on their necks], he tried to plough. Thereupon, when they were unable to draw [the plough] having beaten and beaten them he threw them into the weeds. At that time they saw that those [former] Jackals are groaning and groaning. These Jackals also having gone away, lay down. A Jackal having gone near the Wild Cat, [43] says, "Preceptor, [tell me] how to eat a little milk-rice from the Gamarala's house?" "If so, having hidden at the place of the firewood bundles remain [there]." After that, the Jackal having gone, remained hidden at the place of the firewood bundles. Having waited there, at the time when the Gamarala's wife is going for water the Cat told the Jackal to come into the house. Thereupon the Jackal having gone into the house got upon the platform (at the level of the top of the side walls). Then the Cat having gone, gave him a little milk-rice in a piece of coconut shell. While he was on the platform with the Cat it became evening. At that time, in the evening the Jackals having come to the rice field, howled. Thereupon this Jackal said, "Preceptor, I must bring to remembrance my religion." [44] Then the Cat said, "Ane! Appa! Having killed thee they will kill me." Again the Jackals at midnight having come into the rice field, howled. Thereupon the Jackal [said], "Preceptor, I must bring to remembrance my religion; I cannot endure it." When [the Cat] was saying, "The top of thy head will be split," he howled, "Hokkiya!" Then the Gamarala having awoke, at the time when he looked on the platform he saw that a Jackal was [there]. Thereupon, having beaten the Jackal he killed it outright. Washerman. North-western Province. In the Tota Kahani (Small), p. 221, after an ass and a stag which were friends had feasted one night in a garden, the ass became exhilarated and suggested that they should sing a song together. The stag endeavoured to prevent this, but the ass would not listen to it, and began to bray, on which the gardener came with some men, and caught and crucified both the animals. In Folk-Tales from Tibet (O'Connor), p. 64, a hare and a fox induced a wolf to leave a dead horse on which it was feeding, and to accompany them to a house where there was a wedding feast, at which they could obtain plenty to eat and drink. They got through a window into the larder, and after feasting abundantly decided, at the hare's suggestion, to carry away other provisions, the hare some cheese, the fox a fowl, and the wolf a jar of wine through the handle of which he put his head. Then the hare proposed a song before they started, and after some persuasion the wolf began to sing. When the people heard it they rushed to the larder. The hare and fox jumped through the window, but the wolf was stopped by the jar of wine, and was killed by the men. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 323, an ass joined a bull which was accustomed to break through a fence and feed in the evening in the King's bean-field. After eating, the ass suggested that it should sing; the bull told it to wait until he had gone and then do as it pleased. When it began to bray it was seized, its ears were cut off, a pestle was fastened to its neck, and it was set free. The same story is given in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 374. In the former work, p. 337, and in the latter one, vol. ii, p. 417, it is stated with reference to the jackal's uncontrollable desire to howl, "it is according to the nature of things that jackals, if they hear a jackal howl without howling themselves, lose their hair." STORIES OF THE TOM-TOM BEATERS NO. 193 THE STORY OF BATMASURA [45] In a certain country there are a God Îswara (Siva) and a Princess (Uma), it is said. That God Îswara was a good soothsayer. News of it having reached another country, a man called Batmasura came to learn soothsaying. Having come and been there a long time he learnt soothsaying. That Batmasura who was learning it went to his village. Having gone and been there a long time, he again came near the God Îswara. When he came there the God Îswara was not at home; only the Princess was there. Having soaked the cloth which the Princess wore she had placed it in the veranda [before washing it]. That Batmasura taking the cloth, and having gone and washed it, as he was holding it out [to dry] this Princess saw him. Having seen him she sat silently. Then Batmasura having come [after] drying the cloth, gave it into the hand of the Princess. After that, the Princess gave Batmasura the rice which had been cooked for the God Îswara. As Batmasura, having eaten the cooked rice, was finishing, the God Îswara came. After he came that Princess set about making ready food for the God Îswara. Then the God Îswara asked at the hand of the Princess, "What is the food so late to-day for?" After that, the Princess said, "That Batmasura having come, and that one having washed and brought and given my (mange) cloth, on account of it I gave him the food. Did you teach that one all soothsaying?" the Princess asked at the hand of the God Iswara. The God Iswara said, "I taught him all soothsaying indeed; only the Iswara incantation (daehaena) I did not teach him." Then the Princess said, "Teach him that also." The God Iswara said, "Should I utter to him the Iswara incantation also, that one will seize me." The Princess said, "He will not do so; utter it." After that, the God Iswara told the Princess to call Batmasura near. The Princess called to Batmasura [to come] near; Batmasura came near. Thereupon the God Iswara said to that Batmasura, "When I have uttered the Iswara incantation to thee, thou wilt seize me, maybe." Then Batmasura said, "I will not seize thee; be good enough to utter it, Sir." After that, the God Iswara said, "Hold thou my hand," to Batmasura; so Batmasura held his hand. Thereupon the God Iswara uttered it (maeturuwa). After that, Batmasura thought to himself, "Having killed the God Iswara I will go to my village, summoning the Princess [to be my wife]." Thinking it, Batmasura bounded on the path of the God Iswara. When the God Iswara was going running, the brother-in-law (Vishnu) of the God Iswara was rocking and rocking in a golden swing. Having seen that this God Iswara is running, the brother-in-law of the God Iswara asked at the hand of the God Iswara, "Where are you running?" Then the God Iswara said, "At Batmasura's hand I uttered over the hand the Iswara incantation. That one is [now] coming to seize me." After that, the brother-in-law of the God Iswara told him to stop [after] having gone running still a little distance further. So the God Iswara having gone running a little distance further, stopped there. Then while the brother-in-law of the God Iswara, creating for himself the appearance of a woman (Mohini, the Deluder), was rocking and rocking in the golden swing, Batmasura came running [there]. Batmasura while coming there having seen with delight that woman who was rocking in the golden swing, his mind went to that woman. His mind having gone there, the [other] incantations that he had learnt were forgotten, and the Iswara incantation was forgotten. Then the woman asked at the hand of Batmasura, "Where are you going?" Then Batmasura said, "I am going to seek the God Iswara." Having said that, he asked at the hand of the woman, "What are you here for?" The woman said, "Nothing. I am simply here" (that is, for no special purpose). After that, Batmasura asked, "Can you go with me?" The woman said, "I can indeed go. Is there your wife?" (that is, "Have you a wife?"). Batmasura said, "There is." Then the woman said, "If so, how can I go? I am with child. You go, and having asked at the hand of your wife about it, come back." After that, Batmasura came home and asked at the hand of his wife, "There is a woman at the road, rocking and rocking in a golden swing. The woman is with child. Shall I summon her to come [as my wife]?" The woman told him to summon her to come. Afterwards, when Batmasura was coming again to the place where this woman was, the woman having borne a child, that one was in her hand, and again she was with child. Then Batmasura having come, said, "Let us go," to that woman. The woman said, "There is [a child] in hand, and again I am with child. Having asked [about it] come back." After that, Batmasura went home again and asked at the hand of the woman, "She is carrying one in the arms, and is again with child. Shall I summon her to come?" The woman said, "Summon her and come." Afterwards as Batmasura was coming again to the place where the woman was, the woman was carrying two in the arms, and was again with child. Then Batmasura came, and said to the woman, "Let us go." The woman said, "How shall I go carrying two in the arms, and again with child? Go and ask about it, and come back." Afterwards Batmasura, having gone home, asked at the hand of his wife, "She is carrying two in the arms, and is again with child." Then the woman told him to summon her and come. After that Batmasura having come to the place where this woman stayed, when he looked there was neither woman nor children. Thereupon that one went away home. After that, the God Îswara went away to the house of the God Îswara. Having gone there, when a long time had passed Batmasura died, and having come was [re]-born inside the God Îswara. Afterwards the God Îswara went near another deity and asked, "What is this? My belly is enlarging!" That deity said, "Another living being (parana-karayek) has been caused to come inside your body. On account of it, you must split open your body, and throw it away." The God Îswara could not split open his body. Having said, "I shall die," he came home. Having come there, he ate medicine from another doctor; that also was no good. Again he went near that very deity. Having gone there, the God Îswara asked at the hand of that deity, "What, now then, shall I do for this?" Then the deity said, "There is nothing else to do; you must split your body." Then the God Îswara said, "When I have split my body shall I not be destroyed?" The deity said, "You will not be destroyed; your life will remain over." Afterwards, the God Îswara told him to split open his body. Having split the body, when he looked there was a lump of flesh. He seized it and threw it away. After that, the God Îswara having become well, went home. When a Lord (Buddhist monk) was coming with the begging-bowl, that lump of flesh was on the path. Having gathered it together with his walking-stick it fell into a hole (wala). [46] Next day, as he was coming with the begging-bowl, that lump of flesh sprang at the body of the Lord. Then the Lord having said, "Ci! Wala, ha!" [47] gathered it together [again] with his walking-stick. Thence, indeed, was the Bear (walaha). Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. With reference to the last paragraphs, it is strange that a somewhat similar notion regarding the foetal form of newly born bears was long current in Europe. In the thirteenth century Encyclopedia of Bartholomew Anglicus (ed. 1535), cap. cxii, it is stated that "Avicenna saith that the bear bringeth forth a piece of flesh imperfect and evil shapen, and the mother licketh the lump, and shapeth the members with licking.... For the whelp is a piece of flesh little more than a mouse, having neither eyes nor ears, and having claws some-deal bourgeoning [sprouting], and so this lump she licketh, and shapeth a whelp with licking" (Medieval Lore, Steele, p. 137). This is taken from Pliny, who wrote of bears: "At the first they seeme to be a lumpe of white flesh without all forme, little bigger than rattons, without eyes, and wanting hair; onely there is some shew and appearance of clawes that put forth. This rude lumpe, with licking they fashion by little and little into some shape" (Nat. Hist., P. Holland's translation, 1601, p. 215.) NO. 194 THE STORY OF AYIWANDA In a certain city there are an elder brother and a younger sister, two persons, it is said. Of them, the elder brother is a very rich person; the younger sister has nothing (mokut nae). The younger sister is a widow woman; there is one boy. The boy himself lodges at his uncle's watch-huts and the like; the youngster's name is Ayiwanda. The uncle having scraped a little rice from the bottom of the cooking-pot, and given him it, says, "Ade! Ayiwanda, be off to the watch-hut [at the cattle-fold]." The youngster came to the watch-hut. The uncle having gone and looked, [saw that] one or two calves were dead in the cattle-fold. Then the uncle having come home scolds Ayiwanda, "Ayiwanda, at the time when thou wert going to the watch-hut thou drankest a little milk, and there being no milk for the calves they are dying." Afterwards Ayiwanda having gone that day to the watch-hut, and having said that he must catch the thieves, without sleeping stayed awake until the time when it became dawn. Then Gopalu Devatawa, having opened the entrance (kadulla), came into the cattle-fold. Having come there and placed on the path his cord and club, [48] he began to drink milk. Afterwards Ayiwanda, having descended from the watch-hut, very quietly got both the cord and the club. Taking them he went again to the watch-hut. Well then, Gopalu Devatawa having drunk milk and the like, when he looked for both the cord and the club in order to go, they were not [there]. Afterwards, Gopalu Devatawa having gone near the watch-hut asked for the cord and club. Ayiwanda taking the two descended from the watch-hut to the ground. Then Gopalu Devatawa asked for the rope and cudgel, both, at the hand of Ayiwanda. Then Ayiwanda said, "I have heard scoldings for so much time, that as I drank the milk the calves are dying. To-day I stayed awake and caught the thief. Except that if you will give me an authority on that account I will give you the rope and cudgel, I will not otherwise give them." Then Gopalu Devatawa said to Ayiwanda, "Think in your mind, 'If there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave, may that hill and this hill, both, become united into one.'" Afterwards Ayiwanda thought in that way. Then the two hills became united into one. Then Gopalu Devatawa said to Ayiwanda, "Think in your mind, 'If there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave, these hills are again to become separated.'" Afterwards Ayiwanda thought in that manner. The two hills again became separated. Gopalu Devatawa said to Ayiwanda, "Think in your mind, 'If there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave, that tree and this tree are both to become one.'" Afterwards Ayiwanda thought in that manner. The two trees became united into one. Gopalu Devatawa said again to Ayiwanda, "Think in your mind, 'If there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave, the two trees are again to become separate.'" Ayiwanda thought in that manner. Then the two trees became separate. Now then, Gopalu Devatawa said, "The authority that Gopalu Devatawa gave [you] is true." Having said that, and told him that having gone he was to keep it in mind, he assured him of the fact (satta dunna). After that, to Gopalu Devatawa Ayiwanda gave both the cord and the cudgel. Well then, Gopalu Devatawa taking them went away. Ayiwanda having been [there] until the time when it became light, came home and said at the hand of Ayiwanda's mother, "Mother, ask for uncle's girl and come back." Then Ayiwanda's mother says, "Ane! Son, who will give [marriage] feasts to us? [We have] not a house to be in; we are in the hollow of a Tamarind. I will not. You go and ask, and come back," she said. Afterwards Ayiwanda went and asked. Then Ayiwanda's uncle said, "Who will give girls to thee?" Having said, "Be off!" [49] he scolded him. After that, Ayiwanda having come back is silent. Having come from an outside village, [people] asked for Ayiwanda's uncle's girl [in marriage]. Then he promised to give her there. He appointed it to be on such and such a day. The men went away. Then Ayiwanda's uncle gave betel to shooters who were in the neighbourhood, [so that they should shoot animals for the wedding-feast]. Ayiwanda thought in his mind, "Let those shooters not meet with anything, if there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave." Afterwards the shooters walked about at the time when they are saying that the [wedding] feast is to-morrow. They did not meet with even a thing. After that, Ayiwanda went to his uncle's house. When he said that the [wedding] feast would be to-morrow, to-day in the evening he asked, "Uncle, give me that bow and arrow." Thereupon his uncle said, "Ansca! [50] Bola, because there is no hunting-meat have you come to rebuke me? So many shooters were unable [to do it], and [yet] you will seek hunting-meat!" Having said [this], he scolded Ayiwanda. "Through being without hunting-meat, my girl, leaving the house and the like, will not stay, [you think]!" [51] Afterwards Ayiwanda came home. Then his mother told Ayiwanda to eat the rice scraped from the cooking-pot which had been brought from his uncle's house. Ayiwanda having eaten a little of the scraped rice, gave the other little to Ayiwanda's mother, and thought in his mind, "Preparing the bow from the rice-pestle and preparing the arrow from love-grass, I having gone to the watch-hut and ascended into the watch-hut, if there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave, may a Sambhar deer with horns come there and remain sleeping as I arise in the morning." Having said [this] Ayiwanda went to sleep. Having awoke in the morning, when he looked a Sambhar deer with horns having come was sleeping in the middle of the cattle-fold. Ayiwanda having descended from the watch-hut, taking the bow made from the rice pestle and the arrow made from love-grass, came near the Sambhar deer, and thought in his mind, "If there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave, that which is shot at this Sambhar deer from this side is to be passed out from the other side." Having thought it he shot. In that very manner the Sambhar deer died. Ayiwanda having gone to his uncle's house, said, "Uncle, there! I have shot down a Sambhar deer with horns at the cattle-fold; it is [there]. Go and cut it up, and come back." Then his uncle said, "Ansca dukkan! There is no hunting-meat of thine. I shall not make the feast desolate; somehow or other I shall indeed give it. Hast thou come to rebuke me?" After that, Ayiwanda, calling men and having gone, having come back [after] cutting up the Sambhar deer, put down the meat at his uncle's house. Thereafter, just before the feasters came having cooked the meat and cooked rice, he placed for Ayiwanda a little of the rice scrapings and two bones from the meat; and having given them to Ayiwanda, he said, "Eat those, and go thou to the watch-hut." Ayiwanda having eaten them and gone to the watch-hut, thought, "Now, at daybreak, may those who take hold of the cloth at the place where [the bridegroom] gives it to wear, [52] remain in that very way, if there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave." In that very way, at daybreak, when he was giving [her] the cloth to put on they remain in the very position in which the bridegroom held an end and the bride an end. Then the palm-sugar maker and the washerman [53] having gone and said, "What are you doing? Be good enough to take that cloth," those two also remained in the position in which they took hold at the two ends. Then the girl's father having gone and said, "What is this, Bola, that thou hast not yet taken that cloth?" that man also remained in the very position in which he got hold of an end. The bride, the bridegroom, the palm-sugar maker, the washerman, the girl's father, in the position in which they took hold of the cloth, in that very manner had become [like] stone. Having seen it, the girl's mother went running in the village, and having summoned two men made them go on a journey for medicine. The two men having gone to the Vedarala's house are coming calling the Vedarala, by the middle of a large grass field. Then Ayiwanda came after being in the watch-hut, and while he is at the place where his aunt is, saw the Vedarala and the two men going. Ayiwanda thought, "If there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave, may the Vedarala think of sitting down on the bullock's skull which is in that grass field." Then the Vedarala sat down on the bullock's skull. From morning until the time when it became night he pressed on it. Those two men are calling and calling to the Vedarala to come. The bullock's skull will not get free. Thus, in that manner until it became night he pressed against it. Afterwards Ayiwanda thought, "If there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave, the bullock's skull having become free, may the Vedarala succeed in going back again." After that, the Vedarala's bullock's skull having become free he went back home. Having said, "Never mind that medical treatment," the two men who went to summon the Vedarala to come, came to the bride's house. Then the bride's mother asked, "Where is the Vedarala?" The two persons say, "Ando! How well the Vedarala came! There was a bullock's skull in that grass field. From morning the Vedarala sat on it, and got up and tried to release the bullock's skull [from himself]. He could not release it, being pressed [against it]. Hardly releasing himself now he went back home. He has not come; he said he wouldn't." Afterwards near Ayiwanda came the bride's mother. Having come there she said, "Father has consented in this way [you wish]. Now then, let the girl be for you. If you know [how], do something for this." Having said [this], the woman came away. Ayiwanda thought in his mind, "If there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave, as soon as each one is released may each one go away." Thereupon the persons who were holding the cloth having been freed, went away. They did not go summoning the bride; they did not [even] eat the cooked rice. Having been holding the cloth from morning, in the evening they went to their villages. Afterwards the aunt and uncle having gone, came back [after] summoning Ayiwanda, and gave the bride to Ayiwanda. Ayiwanda sleeps on the mat on which the girl wipes her feet and places them. Then he eats what has been left over on the girl's leaf [plate]. The girl says, "Ade! [54] Ayiwanda, eat thou this little." When she has told him he eats. The girl sleeps on the bed, Ayiwanda sleeps under the bed. Well then, they remained in that way, without the girl's being good to Ayiwanda. When they had been in that very way for seven or eight days, a fine young man of the village having died, they buried him. Ayiwanda having waited until the time when the girl was sleeping, opened the door and went out; and having brought the corpse, and cut and cut off a great deal of flesh, he put only the bones under the bed under which Ayiwanda sleeps; and he shut the door and went away. On the morning of the following day, Ayiwanda's mother stayed looking out [for him], having said, "Ayiwanda will come out." He did not come out. The woman came into the house, and when she looked [for him] there is a heap of bones under the bed. After that, the woman says, "Ane! This one ate my son." Having said this she wept; having wept she went away. Ayiwanda having gone, joined a Moormen's tavalama [55] and drove cattle for hire. At the time when he was driving the cattle for three or four days he said, "Ansca, Bola! Whence is this tavalama for thee? It is mine, isn't it?" Then the men said, "Ansca, Bola! Whence is it for thee, for a man called up for hire?" Ayiwanda said, "If it be your tavalama, throw up five hundred dried areka-nuts, and catch them without even one's falling on the ground." The men tried to catch them; all the dried areka-nuts fell on the ground. Then Ayiwanda, after throwing up five hundred dried areka-nuts, thought, "If there be an authority which Gopalu Devatawa gave, may I be able to catch the whole of these five hundred dried areka-nuts without even one's falling on the ground." Having thrown up the five hundred dried areka-nuts, Ayiwanda caught them without even one's falling on the ground. After that, the tavalama became secured (hayi-wuna) [56] to Ayiwanda himself. The Moormen left it and went away. Afterwards, getting ready hired labourers for Ayiwanda, he went to Puttalam. Having gone there, loading [sundried] salt fish, [57] now then, Ayiwanda, having become a very great wealthy person, set off to come to Ayiwanda's village, taking the tavalama, together with the hired labourers. Having come, he caused the sacks to be put down under a Kon tree [58] in the field near the house of his aunt and uncle. Ayiwanda's mother came to the tank to pluck the leaves of a plant [59] [to cook as a vegetable]. Having come, through hearing the wooden cattle-bells of the herd of cattle she came near the tavalama. Having come [there] she says, "Ane! A son of mine was like the Hettirala. That son having gone [to be married], at the place where he was made to stay the woman killed and ate my son." Having said [this] repeatedly at the very hand of Ayiwanda, she wept. Then Ayiwanda says, "Don't cry. There is salt fish [here]; take [some] and cooking it eat. What are you plucking vegetables for [but to eat in curry]?" Having said [this], he gave rice and salt fish to Ayiwanda's mother. Thus, in that way he gave them for seven or eight days. After that, his aunt and uncle came near Ayiwanda for salt fish. Then Ayiwanda said, "I am not the Hettirala. It is I myself they call Ayiwanda. Take ye these things, so as to go." Afterwards he dragged the tavalama and the salt fish to the house. Summoning that very bride, [60] Ayiwanda having eaten, when a little [food] is left over on the leaf [plate] he gives it to her. Ayiwanda [now] sleeps on the bed; Ayiwanda's wife sleeps on the mat on which Ayiwanda wipes his feet, under the bed on which Ayiwanda sleeps. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In a Tamil story taken from the New Year Supplement to the Ceylon Observer, 1885, and reproduced in The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 22, Katirkaman, a poet who had acquired magical powers, awoke one night to find that some burglars had broken into the house and were removing the goods in it. He scratched a spell on a piece of palm-leaf, placed it under his pillow, and went to sleep again. When he awoke he found all the robbers silent and motionless in the positions they occupied when the spell affected them, some with the goods on their heads or shoulders, others with their hands on keys or door handles. When he spoke to them they apologised humbly, stated that they had mistaken the place and person they were to encounter, and promised never to attempt to rob the house again. He made them put back the goods, gave them a bath and a good meal, and stated that in future they should always have the right to eat and drink there. NO. 195 THE GAMARALA'S SON-IN-LAW At a city there is a Gamarala. There are two daughters of the Gamarala's; one is given in diga [marriage] two gawwas (eight miles) distant, the other is not given. He said he would give her to him who comes to ask for her. From [the time] when he said it he did not give her. Having brought [a man] he caused him to stay. On the following day morning the father-in-law says, "Child, there is a rice field of mine of sixty yalas twelve amunas. [61] Having ploughed the rice field in just one day, and sown paddy there, and chopped the earthen ridges in it, and on that very day blocked up the gaps [in the fence], and come back, and given to the twelve dogs twelve haunches of Sambhar deer, and given leaves to the twelve calves, and poured water on the twelve betel creepers, and come back [after] cutting the Milla stump, and warmed water, can you bathe me?" he asks. Then the son-in-law says, "Aniccan dukkhan! Who can do these things?" he says. Then saying, "I shall cut off [your] nose," he cuts off his nose. In that country they cannot say, "Aniccan dukkhan"; should they say it he cuts off the nose. Well then, giving [his daughter] in this fraudulent way, in the aforesaid manner having told two or three persons [these works], in the same way he cut off [their] noses, too. During the time which is going by in that way, there are an elder brother and a younger brother, two persons. The elder brother's wife having died, he came in the said manner. When he asked for [the girl], the Gamarala said he will give her. Then in the aforesaid manner he cut off his nose. Having gone away, through shame at going home he remained hidden near the well. The above-mentioned younger brother's wife having gone [there], when she looked saw that he was hidden, and having come running back, on seeing her husband told him. He went, and when he looked saw that his brother is there. Having seen him, when he asked, "What is it?" he says, "He cut off my nose." When he asked, "Why so?" he told him in the aforesaid manner. After that, that man says, "Elder brother, you stay [here]; I will go." Having said [this], and given charge of his wife to the elder brother, he went. Having gone, he asked for the above-mentioned marriage. When he asked, [the Gamarala] said he will give her. Then he asked if he can work [62] in the above-mentioned manner. He said, "I can." "If so, go to the rice field," he said. Having said this, and loaded the paddy [to be sown], he gave it. The man, taking a plough, a yoke pole, a digging hoe, a water gourd, the articles for eating betel, and driving the cattle, went to the rice field. Having gone [there], and tied the yoke on the unoccupied pair of bulls, and tied them exactly in the middle [of the field], and tied at both sides [of the field] the bulls which draw the load, he tore open the corners of the sacks. Having torn [them open] and allowed the paddy to fall, he began to plough. While he was turning two or three times there and here along the rice field, all the paddy fell down. After it fell he unfastened the bulls, and taking the digging hoe, put two or three sods on the earthen ridges (niyara); and having come, and brought away the plough and the yoke pole, and set the yoke pole as a stake in the gap [in the fence], and fixed the plough across it and tied it, and gone away to the house driving the above-mentioned bulls, and cut up the six bulls, and given [their] twelve haunches to the twelve dogs, and drawn out two or three betel-creeper plants, and given them to the twelve calves, and come after cutting the Milla stump, he began to warm the water. When it was becoming hot, he took water and poured it on the betel creepers. Having left the remaining water to thoroughly boil, he called to his father-in-law, "[Be pleased] to bathe with the water," and having cooled a little water, he poured it first on his body. Secondly, taking [some] of that boiling water he sprinkled it on his body. Thereupon his body was burnt. The Gamarala, crying out, began to run about; having checked and checked him he began to sprinkle [him again]. Thereafter, both of them came home and stayed there. While they are there the Gamarala, talking to his wife, says, "This son-in-law is not a good sort of son-in-law. I must kill this one." Having sought [in vain] for a contrivance to kill him, he says, "We cannot kill this one. Let us send him near our elder daughter." Having cooked a kuruniya (one-fortieth of an amuna) of cakes, and written a letter, and put it in the middle of the cakes, and given it into the hand of his boy (son), he says to the son-in-law, "Child, go near my elder (lit., big) daughter [and give her this box of cakes], and come back." Having said [this] he sent him near the above-mentioned elder daughter. These two persons (the little son and the son-in-law) having set off, while they were going away, when the boy went into the jungle the son-in-law went [with the box of cakes] to the travellers' shed that was there; and having unfastened the cake box he began to eat. While he was going on eating he met with the above-mentioned letter. Taking it, and when he looked in it having seen that there was said in it that [the daughter] is to kill him, he tore it up. Then having thought of the name of the boy who goes with him and written that she is to kill the boy, he put it in the box, and as soon as he put it in tied up [the box] and placed [it aside]. The boy having come and taken the box, and said, "Let us go," they set off. Having gone to the house, while he is [there] the above-mentioned elder daughter having cooked and given him to eat, and unfastened the box, while going on eating the cakes met with this letter. Taking it, and when she looked having seen that there was said [that she was] to kill her brother, quite without inquiry she quickly killed him outright. There was a Bali (evil planetary influence) sending away [63] at the house in which she was. When the woman was wishing and wishing long life (that is, responding loudly, Ayibo! Ayibo!) the boy (her son) said that he wanted to go out. Thereupon, speaking to her sister's husband, she says, "Conduct this boy to the door." When she said it, the man, calling the boy, went to the door. There the man with his knife pricks him. Thereupon the boy in fear comes running near his mother. After a little time, when he again said he wanted to go out, his mother says, "Ane! Bolan, split this one's belly." [64] When she said it, having gone taking the boy he split his belly. Having come back he asked for a little water to wash the knife. The boy's mother having come crying, when she looked the boy was killed. This one bounded off, and came running to the very house of the above-mentioned Gamarala. The Gamarala having sent a letter to the elder daughter and told her to come, after she came says, "Daughter, when you have gone off to sleep we will put a rope into the house. Put that rope on that one's neck and fasten it tightly," he said. Having put the Gamarala's younger son-in-law, and younger daughter and elder daughter, these very three persons, in one house, and shut the door, and left them to sleep, he extended a rope from the cat-window (the space between the top of the outer wall and the roof). The elder daughter who had been taught the above-mentioned method [of killing the son-in-law], went to sleep, and stayed so. While this man was looking about, he saw that the rope is coming [over the wall into the room]. Taking the rope, he put it on the elder daughter's neck and made it tight. The Gamarala, who stayed outside, having tied the [other end of the] rope to the necks of a yoke of buffalo bulls, made them agitated. When the yoke of cattle had drawn the rope [tight], the Gamarala, springing and springing upward while clapping his hands, says, "On other days, indeed, he escaped. To-day, indeed, he is caught," he said. Thereupon the son-in-law, having stayed in the house, came outside and said, "It is not [done] to me; it is your elder daughter herself," he said. Thereupon the Gamarala in a perplexity says, "Aniccan dukkhan! It is the thing which this one has done!" Just as he was saying it the son-in-law cut off his nose. Having cut it off he went to his own country. Because the word which cannot be said was said [by the Gamarala] he cut off his nose. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 131, Mr. W. Goonetilleke gave a story about a Gamarala who cut off the nose of any servant who used the words Aniccan dukkhan. A young man took service under him in order to avenge his brother who had been thus mutilated; but the incidents differ from those related in the story given by me. The Gamarala was surprised into saying the forbidden words when the man poured scalding water over him. The servant immediately cut off his nose, ran home with it, and kicked his brother, who was squatting at the hearth, so that he fell with his face against the hearth stone. This reopened the wound; and when the Gamarala's nose was fitted on and bandaged there after application of the juice of a plant which heals cuts, it became firmly attached, and as serviceable as the original nose. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 106, there is a story of a Moghul who engaged servants on the condition that if he or the servant became angry the other should pull out his eye. A man who had accepted these terms was ordered to plough six acres daily, fence it, bring game for the table, grass for the mare, and firewood, and cook the master's food. He lost his temper when scolded, and his eye was plucked out. His clever brother determined to avenge him, was engaged by the Moghul, and given the same tasks. He ploughed once round the six acres and twelve furrows across the middle, set up a bundle of brushwood at each corner, tied the bullocks to a tree, and went to sleep. He played various other tricks on his master, including the cooking of his favourite dog for his food. When the master was going for a new wife, the servant, who was sent to notify his coming, said his master was ill and by his doctor's orders took only common soap made into a porridge with asafoetida and spices. He was sick in the night after taking it, and next morning the man refused to remove the vessel he had used. As the Moghul was carrying it out covered up with a sheet, the friends being told by the man that he was leaving through anger at the food they gave him, ran out and seized his arms to draw him back, and caused him to drop and break the vessel. On their way home they had a quarrel and a scuffle, the Moghul admitted he was angry at last, and the man got him down and plucked out his eye. Some of the incidents are found in the stories numbered 241 and 242 in this volume. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 98, there is an account of a merchant who cut off the nose of any servant who was angry or abusive. In order to be revenged on him, the brother of a man who had been thus mutilated took service under the merchant, irritated him in various ways, was struck in the face, and thereupon cut off his master's nose. In Folktales of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 124, a Prince and a merchant's son ran away, and were engaged as labourers on the condition that if they threw up their work they should lose one hand and one ear, the master to be similarly mutilated if he dismissed them while they were willing to work. When the Prince was ordered to hoe sugar-cane he dug it up, when told to scrape and spin hemp he cut it into pieces, when sent to wash his master's child he beat it on a stone as a washerman beats cloths until it was dead. To get rid of him the master sent him to his father-in-law with a letter in which it was requested that he should be killed. The Prince read it, wrote a fresh one requesting that he should be married to the father-in-law's daughter, and was married accordingly. He killed his master when about to be killed by him. Some of the incidents are given in the story numbered 242 in this volume. In the same work, p. 258, a Prince who had wasted his money, took service with a farmer on the terms that if he gave it up his little finger was to be cut off, and if dismissed while working well the master was to suffer the same penalty. His friend took his place and over-reached the farmer, who ran away to save himself. In the Kolhan tales (Bompas) appended to the same volume, p. 497, there is also a story of a Prince who was accompanied by a barber when he was exiled. To get a living the Prince took service on the mutilation terms, the penalty being the loss of a piece of skin a span long. He worked badly and was mutilated. The barber to avenge him took his place, and irritated his master until he got an opportunity of mutilating him in the same way. NO. 196 THE STORY OF THE GAMARALA'S SON In a certain country there is a Gamarala; the Gamarala had no wives. While he was thus, at one time (eka parama) he brought seven wives; all the seven had no children. Again he brought yet a woman; that woman also had no children. After that, when the man was going in order to escort the woman [on returning her to her parents], they met with a Sannyasi. The Sannyasi asked, "What is it? Where are you going?" The man said, "I brought seven wives; all seven had no children. After that, I brought this woman. Because the woman also had no children I am going in order to escort her [to her parents again]." Then the Sannyasi says, "I will perform a protective spell (arakshawa) for children to be born, if you will give me the lad who is born first of all." The Gamarala promised, "I will give him." Afterwards the Gamarala having come back, when a little time had gone she bore a boy. After the boy became somewhat big he planted a flower tree. The Gamarala having told the Sannyasi to come gave him the boy; the Sannyasi having taken him went away. The lad says to the Gamarala, "Should I die the flowers on the flower tree will fade." Younger than this lad [the Gamarala's wife] bore yet a boy. When the Sannyasi was taking the lad he met with a man. This man said to the lad, "Lad, the Sannyasi will give you a thread. Tie it to a tree, and having got out of the way remain [there]." The Sannyasi having gone with the lad near a hidden treasure, gave a thread into the boy's hand, saying, "Remain holding this." The lad tied the thread to a tree; having hidden himself he remained [there]. The Sannyasi put "life" into it. [65] Then the Yaka [who guarded the treasure] having come, asked from the Sannyasi, "Where is the demon offering (billa)?" Thereupon the Sannyasi said, "There (an) he is, [at the end of the thread]." Then when the Yaka looked there was no one. Well then, the Yaka broke the Sannyasi's neck and drank his blood. After the Yaka went away the hidden treasure burst open. That lad having come and taken the things of the hidden treasure (nindane kalamana), again went to a Gamarala's [66] house. Having gone, and taken lodgings at the house, while he is there they are preparing (tanawa) to give that Gamarala's girl in diga (marriage). They will give her for the manner in which the Cinnamon-peeler's cloth is worn, and to a person who wore the cloth [most correctly]. Well, anyone of those who were there was unable to do it. This youth wore it. After that, the Gamarala gave the girl to the lad. When the lad was bathing one day the girl saw the beauty of the lad's figure. After that, the girl having said, "This man's figure is too beautiful! [67] I don't want him," prepared a contrivance to kill him. Having got a false illness she lay down. Afterwards the lad said, "What is the difficulty for you?" Then the girl [said], "You must bring and give me the milk of the wild Elephant that is in the jungle; if not, I shall die." After that, the lad having taken the coconut water-vessel, [68] and having gone into the jungle, went near the Elephant calves. Then the Elephant calves [asked], "What have you come for?" This lad said, "Ane! I came to take a little milk from the Elephant for medicine for me." The Elephant calves said, "If so, you remain hidden there; we will take and give it to you." The Elephant calves having gone near the female Elephant, one Elephant calf stayed near the Elephant's trunk; the other one drinks a little milk, and puts a little into the coconut water-vessel. Having done thus, and collected milk for that coconut water-vessel, it brought and gave it to this lad. The lad having brought it, [69] gave it to the woman, and told her to drink it. Afterwards the woman drank it. In still a little time, again having said that she had an illness, she lay down. That lad asked, "What are you again lying down for?" The girl says, "Bring the milk of the female Bear (walasdena) in the jungle. Should I drink it this illness of mine will be cured." Afterwards, this lad, having taken the coconut water-vessel, and gone to the jungle and gone near a Bear cub, said, "Ane! You must take and give to me a little Bear's milk for medicine." Afterwards, the Bear cub having said, "If so, you remain hidden there until the time when I bring it," took the coconut water-vessel, and having gone near the female Bear, drinks a little milk, and again pours a little into the coconut water-vessel. In that way having collected it, it brought and gave it to that lad. The lad brought the Bear's milk home, and gave it to the woman to drink. The girl having drunk it, in still a few days again lay down. The lad asked, "What are you again lying down for (budi)?" Then the girl [said], "Having brought for me the milk of the Giju-lihini [70] which is in the jungle, should I drink it this illness will be cured." Afterwards the lad, having taken the coconut water-vessel and gone, went near the young ones of the Giju-lihini, and said, "Ane! I must take a little milk of the Giju-lihini for medicine." Afterwards, those Giju-lihini young ones having told the lad to remain hidden, in the very same manner as before brought and gave the milk. The lad brought and gave it to the girl to drink. The girl having drunk it said that the illness was cured. Well then, these two persons have a boy (son). Still having said that she had illness, this girl lay down. The lad asked her [about it] in the same manner as before. The girl said, "Having wrestled [71] with the Yaksani who is in the jungle, should you come back after conquering, indeed, my illness will be cured." After the lad went into the jungle he met with the Yaksani. Having met with her, the Yaksani said, "We two must wrestle to-day; having wrestled, the fallen person (waeticci kena) will lose." This lad said, "It is good," and having wrestled the lad fell, and the Yaksani killed the lad. Then at that place [where he planted it] the flower also faded. Well then, the Gamarala sent the other younger youth on horseback to look [for him]. When the youth was coming he met with the Yaksani who killed that lad. Having met with her the youth said, "Give me (dila) my elder brother," he asked. The Yaksani said, "I don't know [about that]." Then the youth [said], "Don't say 'No'; you must give him, quickly." The Yaksani said, "Let you and me wrestle. Having wrestled, should you fall I shall not give him; should I fall I will give you your elder brother." Both having agreed to it, they wrestled. Having wrestled, the Yaksani lost. After that, the Yaksani having caused that killed lad to come to life, [72] gave him to that youth. Well then, the elder brother and younger brother, both of them, having mounted on the back of the horse went to the very city where the elder brother stayed. The younger brother again came [home], having caused the elder brother to remain at that very place. Well then, that elder brother's boy having said, "Father, there is no stopping here for us; let us go to another country," the two started, and at the time when they were going they met with a tank. The boy asked, "Father, how far (koccara taen) can you swim in this tank?" The boy's father said "Let us see," and having swum a little space (tikak taen) being unable [to swim further] came back. The boy said, "Father, if you cannot swim, clasping my hand let us go," he said. The man was held by the boy's hand. While swimming, the boy when he was going to the far bank caught a shark also. Having taken it also and gone to the far bank, he cut up the shark and divided it into three. Having divided it, and eaten two heaps of it, and taken the other heap, [73] they go away to another country. Having gone there they arrived (eli-baessa) at the palace (vimane) of a Rakshasa. When they went two Rakshasa lads were [there]. The Rakshasa and Rakshasi went to eat human flesh. The two Rakshasa lads said, "Ane! What have you come to this place for? Should our mother and father come they will eat you up (kala damayi)." Then these two having said, "Ane! Don't say so; to-day you must somehow or other (kohomawat) save us and send us away," those two Rakshasa lads hid them. The Rakshasa and Rakshasi came. Having come there, "What is this smell of dead bodies?" they asked. The Rakshasa lads [said], "Having come after eating men's flesh, what do you say 'smell of dead bodies' for?" Well then, the Rakshasi and Rakshasa swore, "We will not eat; son, tell us." At that place these two Rakshasa lads showed those two, father and son, to these two. Although this Rakshasi and Rakshasa could not bear not to eat those two, because they had sworn that day they were forbearing. On the next day the two persons went away to another country. Having gone there they arrived near a tank. Both having descended at the bank, swam. When they were going to the middle of the tank both of them being soaked with the water died. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 197 THE MANNER IN WHICH THE GAMARALA BURIED HIS SONS In a certain country there are a Gamarala and a Gama-Mahage (his wife), it is said. When they were there not much time (nombo kalayak), for the Mahage [there was] pregnancy longing; well then, she is not eating food. The Gamarala asked, "What is it, Bolan? You are not eating food," he asked. The woman said, "I have pregnancy longing." The man asked, "What can you eat?" The woman said, "Seven days (haddawasak) having warmed water (paen) give it to me." The Gamarala having warmed water gave it [on] seven days; the Gama-Mahage bathed seven days [with] the water. The Gamarala asked, "Now then, is it well, the pregnancy longing?" The woman said, "It is well." Well, ten months having been fulfilled she bore a boy. Until the time the boy becomes able to talk they reared him. [Then] the Gamarala said, "To look what this boy says, having taken him let us bury him." [74] The Gama-Mahage also having said "Ha," they took him to bury. Having cut the grave (lit., hole) and placed him in the grave, they covered [him with] earth (pas waehaewwa). Then the boy said, "Ane! What did mother and father [75] bury me for? If I remained with [them]--the smith does not beat the piece of iron [after] having placed it on the anvil--many will I beat (hammer) for them both." [76] The Gamarala and the Mahage having said, "That one to us [is] a smith's boy," and having well trampled still [more] earth [on him] came home. When they were thus for no long time, for the Mahage again [there was] pregnancy longing; well then, she is not eating food. The Gamarala asked, "What is it, Bolan? You are not eating food." The woman said, "I have pregnancy longing." The Gamarala said, "What can you eat for the pregnancy longing?" The woman said, "[On] seven days from the Blue-lotus-flower pool having brought water, seven days having warmed it give me it (dilan) to drink." The Gamarala having brought the water, [on] seven days having warmed it gave it; the woman on the very seven days drank. The Gamarala asked, "Now then, is it well, the pregnancy longing?" The woman said, "It is well." Well then, ten months having been fulfilled (lit., filled) she bore a son. Until the time he became able to talk they reared him. [Then] the Gamarala said, "To look what this one says, let us bury him." The woman having said "Ha," they took him, and having cut the grave and placed him in the grave, they covered [him with] earth. The boy said and said, "Ane! What did they bury me for? If I remained [with them]--the potter does not beat [the clay for] the pots--[for] many will I beat it." The two persons having said, "That one is not ours [77]--a potter's boy," and having put still [more] earth [on him] and trampled it, came home. Having come there, when they were [there] no long time, for the woman [there was] pregnancy longing; she is without food. The Gamarala asked, "What is it, Bolan? You are not eating food." The woman said, "I have pregnancy longing." The Gamarala asked, "What can you eat?" The woman said, "Having cut a hollow well (puhu lindak) and brought the water (diya), seven days having warmed it give me it for me to bathe." The Gamarala having cut a hollow well, [on] seven days having warmed the water gave it. The woman seven days bathed [with] the water. The Gamarala said, "Now then even, is the pregnancy longing well?" The woman said, "It is well." When she was [there] not much time she bore a boy. Having reared him until the time when the boy became able to talk, the Gamarala said, "Having taken this one let us bury him, to look what he says." The Gama-Mahage having said "Ha," they took him, and having cut the grave and placed him in the grave, covered [him with] earth. The boy said, "Ane! If I remained [with them]--the washerman does not wash cloth for them--many will I wash." The two persons having said, "That one [is] not ours--a washerman's boy," put still [more] earth [on him] and having trampled it came home. (On the next occasion the woman stated, in reply to her husband's inquiry as to what food she wanted, that she required nothing. When the son was buried he said, "What [did they bury] me for? For them [78] I--the tom-tom beater does not beat the tom-tom--will beat many." [79] They said, "That one [is] not ours--a tom-tom beater's boy," and they finished the burial and returned home. On the fifth occasion, when asked what she could eat, the woman said, "There is the mind to eat (sic) buffalo milk." When the boy was placed in the grave he said, "Ane! What did our mother and father bury me for? If I remained [with them], having arrived near a King, [after I am] exercising the sovereignty won't our mother and father, both of them, get subsistence for themselves?" [80] The story continues:--) Well then, the two persons having said, "This one himself [is] our child," getting him to the surface [81] they brought him home. (On the sixth occasion the woman required cow's milk. After she had "eaten" it (lit., them, the word for milk being a plural noun) the longing was allayed. Like the others, the boy who was born was buried when he could talk. He said, "Ane! What did our mother and father bury me for? If I remained [with them] won't the two persons get a subsistence, I having even done cultivation and trading?") The rest of the story is as follows:--The two persons having said, "This one himself [is] our child," getting him to the surface they brought him home. When they were rearing him not much time, the Gamarala's two eyes became blind. This boy having become big is continuing to give assistance to the two persons. Then the Gamarala died. The elder (lit., big) boy has taken the sovereignty. The elder brother and younger brother, both, [assisting her]--one having done cultivation (goyitan) and trading, one having exercised the sovereignty--that woman is obtaining a subsistence. The woman having become old, one day (dawasakda) that younger brother went to see that elder brother and return to the city. Having gone, as he was coming back Sakra having come, taking an old appearance, took away the Gama-Mahage. The boy having come and looked [for her], at his mother's absence is weeping and weeping. Sakra, creating an old appearance, having come asked at the boy's hand, "What are you weeping for?" The boy said, "On account of our mother's absence I am weeping." Sakra said, "Why? While your mother has become old you weep! Whatever time it should be, life goes." The boy said, "I must go to see our mother's life." Sakra having taken him to the Sakra residence (bawana) showed him the boy's mother. Having shown her, Sakra asked, "Can you stay here?" Then the boy said, "I having asked at elder brother's hand must come," and came [back to earth]. Having gone to the elder brother's city and said, "Elder brother, our mother having gone is in the Sakra residence; I also will go," the elder brother replied, "If you can, go." He having said it, he came away to go, [but] the boy not knowing the path simply stayed [at home]. Finished. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. I have inserted this pointless tale on account of the evidence it affords of a belief that infanticide was practised in former times; I may add that I have adhered as closely as possible to the text. It agrees with the story numbered 243 in this volume (a tale from Ratmalana, about eight miles south of Colombo), that children who were not likely to prove useful were sometimes buried alive. For other instances of infanticide see the Index to vol. i. I am unable to refer to Indian instances in which Sakra occupies the position of Yama as the God of Death; but in Ceylon he is sometimes represented as being a Dharma-raja, a god of righteousness or justice, and this is a function of Yama. See the verse at the end of the story numbered 179 in vol. ii; in No. 107, vol. ii, it is Sakra who kills the wicked Princess. The reason for cutting a special well with the water of which the women wished to bathe, was that they would thus obtain undefiled water. NO. 198 THE STORY OF THE WOODEN PEACOCK In a certain country there are a Carpenter and a Hettirala, it is said. There are also the wives of the two persons; there are also the two sons of the two persons. The Carpenter and the Hettirala spoke together: "Let us send our two children to school." Having spoken thus, they sent the Carpenter's son and the Hettirala's son to school. At the time when the two had been going to school no long period, the Hettirala took and gave a cart and a bull to the Hettirala's son. Well then, the Hettirala's son goes to school in the cart; the Carpenter's son goes on the ground. A day or two having gone by he does not go again. Afterwards the Carpenter asked, "Why, Ade! dost thou not go to school?" Then said the youngster, "The Hettirala's son goes in the cart; I cannot go on the ground." After that, the Carpenter also took and gave (anna dunna) a cart and a yoke of bulls to the Carpenter's son. Now then, the Carpenter's son also, tying [the bulls to] the cart, goes to school. Then the Hettirala's son, having sold the cart and bull, got a horse and horse carriage. The Hettirala's son began to go in the horse carriage. Then the Carpenter's son does not go to school. Then the Carpenter asked, "What dost thou not go to school for?" The Carpenter's son said, "The Hettirala's son goes in the horse carriage; I cannot go in an ordinary (nikan) cart." Afterwards, the Carpenter having said, "If the Hettirala's son goes in the horse carriage, am I not a Carpenter? Having made a better one than that I will give you it," constructed a wooden Peacock (dandu mondara) and gave it to the Carpenter's son. Afterwards the Carpenter's son, rowing on the wooden Peacock [through the air], goes to school. When they were thus for not a long time, the Carpenter died; the Carpenter's wife also died. Afterwards this Carpenter's son thought to himself that he must seek for a marriage for himself. Having thought it he went rowing the wooden Peacock to a city. There is a Princess of that city. The Princess alone was at the palace when the Carpenter's son was going. Afterwards the Carpenter's son asked at the hand of the Princess, "Can you (puluhanida) go with me to our country?" Then the Princess said, "I will not go; if you be here I can [marry you]." After that, the Carpenter's son marrying [82] the Princess, stays [there]. While he was there two Princes were born. After that, the Carpenter's son said to the Princess, "Taking these two Princes also, let us go to our country." The Princess said "Ha." Well then, while the Princess and the Carpenter's son, and the two Princes of these two, were going [through the air] on the back of that wooden Peacock, that younger Prince said, "I am thirsty." [83] The Carpenter's son having split his [own] palm gave him blood. The Prince said, "I cannot drink blood; I must drink water." Afterwards, having lowered the wooden Peacock to the ground, [the Carpenter's son] went to seek water. [While he was absent] the younger Prince cut the cord of the wooden Peacock. The Carpenter's son having gone thus, [after] finding water came back and gave it to the Prince. Afterwards, after the Prince drank the water he tried to make the wooden Peacock row aloft; he could not, because [the young Prince] cut the wooden Peacock's cord. Afterwards, having left (damala) the wooden Peacock there, [the Carpenter's son] came to the river with the Princess and the two Princes; having come [there] they told the boatman to put them across (ekan-karawanda). Afterwards, the boatman firstly having placed the Carpenter's son on the high ground on the other bank (egoda gode), and having come back to this bank, placing the Princess in the boat took her below along the river, and handed over the Princess to the King of the boatman's city. The Carpenter's son having stayed on the high ground on the other bank, became a beggar, and went away. [84] Those two Princes having been weeping and weeping on this bank, jumped into the river. The two Princes went upwards and upwards in the river--there is a crocodile-house (burrow)--along the crocodile-house they went upward [and came to the surface of the ground]. Having gone there, while they were there weeping and weeping a widow woman having come for water (watura pare) asked, "What are you weeping and weeping there for?" at the hand of the two Princes. Then the two Princes say, "Ane! Being without our mother and father we are weeping and weeping." Then the widow woman said, "Come, if so, and go with me." Afterwards, having said "Ha," the two Princes went with the widow woman. Having thus gone, the widow woman gave food to the two Princes. While they were growing big and large the King said at the hand of that Princess, "Now then, let us marry." Then the Princess said, "In our country, when a Princess has either been sent away (divorced, aericcahamawat) or has made mistakes (padawari weccahamawat), she does not marry until the time when three years [85] go by. When the three years have gone (gihama) let us marry." Afterwards the King, having placed a guard for the Princess, waited until the time when the three years go by. These two Princes who jumped into the river one day went to be on guard. The Princess asked at the hand of the Princes, "Whence are you?" Then the Princes said, "While we were young at a very distant city our mother and father were lost near the river. A widow woman having brought us away is now rearing us." Then the Princess said, "It is your (umbale) mother indeed who is I; your father is now walking about, continuing to beg and eat. I will perform a meritorious deed (pinkomak) and bring him; you, also, join yourselves to the beggars' party." Having said this, and given the two Princes silver and gold things, she sent them away. That Princess at the hand of the King said, "I must perform a meritorious deed, to give money to those with crippled arms, lame persons, and beggars." Afterwards the King by the notification tom-toms gave public notice to those with crippled arms, and lame persons, and beggars, to come [for the alms-giving]. Afterwards they came; that Carpenter's son, the beggar, also came. To the whole of them [86] she gave money; to that Carpenter's son she gave much,--silver and gold. Having given it, the Princess said, "Having taken these and gone, not losing them, construct a city for us to stay in when we have come together again," she said. "Our two Princes also are near such and such a widow woman; [after] joining them, go." Afterwards that Carpenter's son, joining the two Princes also, went and built a city. Afterwards this Princess--having placed a guard over whom, the King had stopped--having bounded off, unknown to the King [87] went to the city which the Carpenter's son and the two Princes built. Well then, the Princess, and the Carpenter's son, and the two Princes stayed at the city. Finished. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In the Jataka story No. 193 (vol. ii, p. 82), a Prince who was travelling alone with his wife is described as cutting his right knee with his sword when she was overcome with thirst, in order to give her blood to drink. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 142, a Prince married a carpenter's daughter, and afterwards became poor, and a drum-beater for conjurers and dancers, a fate from which his second wife and her son rescued him. In a story of the Western Province numbered 240 in this volume, a Princess recovered her husband by giving a dana, or feast for poor people, and observing those who came to eat it. See also No. 247. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iii, p. 84), in the story of "Ali Shar and Zumurrud," the lady, who while disguised as a man had been chosen as King, recovered her husband by giving a free feast to all comers at the new moon of each month, and watching the persons who came, her husband Ali Shar, then a poor man, being present at the fifth full moon. At each of the earlier feasts she found and punished men who had been responsible for her own and her husband's misfortunes. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 101, a merchant's son who was travelling through a waterless desert for seven days, kept his wife alive by giving her his own flesh and blood. See vol. ii, Nos. 80 and 81, and the appended notes. NO. 199 THE WICKED STEP-MOTHER At a certain city there are a King and a Queen. There are also two Princes. During the time while they were living thus, while the Queen was lying down at noon, a hen-sparrow had built a house (nest) on the ridge-pole. The Queen remained looking at it. When the Queen was there on the following day [the bird] hatched young ones. When they had been there many days, a young sparrow, having fallen to the ground, died. The Queen, taking the young sparrow in her hand, looked at it. Having opened its mouth, when she looked in it there was a fish spine in the mouth. The Queen threw the young one away. After that, the hen-sparrow was not at the nest; another hen having come, stayed there. Afterwards, two young sparrows having fallen to the ground again and died, when the Queen taking them in her hand looked at them, two fish spines were in their mouths. The Queen threw them both away, too. On account of what she saw the Queen thought, "[This] is not the hen which hatched these young ones. [The cock-sparrow] having called in another one [as his mate], she has been making them eat these spines to kill them." Then from this the Queen got in her mind, "When I am not [here] it will indeed be like this for my children." Well then, through that grief the Queen died. After she died the King brought another Queen. This Queen beats and scolds the two Princes. Afterwards the Princes said to their father the King, "We must go even to our uncle's [88] house." "Why must you go?" asked the King. The Princes said, "Our step-mother beats and scolds us." Afterwards the King said, "Go there, you." When the two Princes went to their uncle's house, "What, Princes, have you come for?" the uncle asked. "Our step-mother beats and scolds us; on that account we came." "If so, stay," the uncle said. Afterwards, when they had been there in that way not much time, as they were going playing and playing with oranges through the midst of the city, an orange fruit fell in the King's palace. Then the Princes asked for it at the hand of the Queen: "Step-mother, give us that orange fruit." The Queen said, "Am I a slave to drag about anybody's orange?" After that, the big Prince having gone to the palace, taking the orange fruit came away. Afterwards, tearing the cloth that was on the Queen's waist, and stabbing herself with a knife [the Queen] awaited the time when the King, who went to war, came back. The King having come asked, "What is it?" "Your two Princes having come and done [this] work went away." On account of it the King appointed to kill the two Princes. Having given information of it to the King's younger brother also, the younger brother asked, "What is that for?" The King said, "After I went to the war these two Princes went to the palace, and tore the Queen's cloth also, and having stabbed and cut her with their knives, the blood was flowing down when I came." After that, the King's younger brother asked at the hand of those Princes, "Why did you come and beat the Queen, and stab and cut her with the knife, and go away?" The Princes said, "We did not do even one thing in that way. As we were coming playing and playing with oranges, our orange fruit having fallen in the palace, when we asked our step-mother for it she did not give it. 'Am I a slave to drag about oranges?' she said. Afterwards we went into the palace, and taking the orange fruit went away. We did not do a thing of that kind," they said. The King, however, did not take that to be true. "I must kill the two Princes," he said. Their uncle took the word of the two Princes for the truth. Afterwards the Princes' uncle said, "Go to the river, and [after] washing your heads come back." As they were setting off the Princes took a bow and arrow; and having gone to the river, while they were there, when they were becoming ready to wash their heads, two hares, bounding and bounding along, came in front of the two Princes. Having seen the hares, the younger son said, "Elder brother, shoot those two hares." He shot at them; at the stroke the two hares died. The two Princes, washing their heads, took away the two hares also. Having gone to the city, and given them into the uncle's hand, the uncle plucked out the four eye-balls of the hares, and gave them into the Queen's hands:--"Here; they are the four eye-balls of the Princes," he said. Afterwards, having looked and looked at the eyes, she brought an Indi (wild Date) spike, and saying and saying, "Having looked and looked with these eyes, did you torment me so much?" she went to the palace where the King was, and pierced [with the spike] the very four [eyes]. After that, having cooked the hares' flesh, and cooked and given them a bundle of rice, the uncle told the two Princes to go where they wanted, and both of them went away. (Apparently the story is incomplete, but the narrator knew of no continuation, and I did not meet with it elsewhere.) Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In The Jataka, No. 120 (vol. i, p. 265), a Queen of the King of Benares is described as scratching herself, rubbing oil on her limbs, and putting on dirty clothes in order to support the charge she brought against the Chaplain, of assaulting her during the King's absence on a warlike expedition. In No. 472 (vol. iv, p. 118) a Queen scratched herself and put on soiled clothes in order to induce the King to believe that her son-in-law, Prince Paduma, had assaulted her. Paduma was accordingly sentenced to be thrown down a precipice. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 27, a Queen who was a Prince's step-mother behaved in the same way until the King promised to kill the boy. He smeared the blood of a dog on his sword, and abandoned the boy in the forest. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 273, a King observed that two swallows had a nest in a veranda at the palace. The hen disappeared, having been caught by a falconer. The cock constantly attended to the young ones, but when it brought a fresh mate the two came only once on the second day, and the cock then disappeared. The King then examined the nest, and found in it four dead young ones, each with a thorn in its throat. He concluded that if his wife died and he married again the new Queen might ill-treat his two sons. After a while the Queen died and the King was persuaded by the Ministers to marry again. One day when the two Princes were amusing themselves with pigeons one of the birds alighted near the new Queen, who hid it under a basket and denied that she had seen it, but guided by signs made by an old nurse the younger Prince found and took it. On another occasion the elder Prince recovered one in the same way, though forcibly opposed by the Queen. The Queen then charged them with insulting her, the King banished them, and they went away. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 166, a King and Queen while in the veranda of the palace watched a pair of birds at a nest. One day a strange hen was seen to go with the cock to the nest, carrying thorns in her bill. When the nest was examined it was discovered that the thorns had been given to the young ones, and that they were dead. The King and Queen discussed it, and the King promised not to marry again if the Queen died. When she died, by the Ministers' advice and after many refusals he married a Minister's daughter who became jealous of the two Princes, complained of their disobedience and abusive language, and induced the King to order them to be killed in the jungle. There the soldiers' swords being turned into wood they allowed the boys to escape. The rest of the story is given in the last note, vol. i, p. 91. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iv, p. 71), in the Sindibad-nameh, the favourite concubine of the King of China fell in love with his only son and offered to poison his father, but on his rejection of her offers she tore her robes and hair, and charged him with assaulting her. The seven Wazirs told the King tales of the perfidy of women, and persuaded him to countermand the death penalty to which the Prince was sentenced, the Prince explained the affair, and the woman was sent away. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 107, the favourite concubine of a King being repulsed by the Crown Prince, charged him with improper conduct towards her, and induced the King to send him to govern the frontier districts. She and a Counsellor then forged an order that he must pluck out and send his eyes. When she received them she hung them before her bed and addressed opprobrious language to them. The Prince became a flute player, and while earning a living thus, accompanied by his wife, was recognised by his father, who scourged the two plotters with thorns, poured boiling oil on their wounds, and buried them alive. In Santal Folk Tales (Campbell), p. 33, a raja and his wife observed the attention paid by a hen-sparrow to her young ones, and that after she died another mate who was brought let them die of hunger. The queen pointed this out, and told the raja to take care of her children in case she died. When he was persuaded by his subjects to marry afresh after her death, the new wife took a dislike to the elder son, and by an assumed illness induced the raja to exile him. The other brother accompanied him, and they had various adventures. NO. 200 THE WOMAN WHO ATE BY STEALTH At a certain village there is a woman, it is said; the woman went in a diga [marriage]. Having gone in the diga, when she is there a great many days she began to eat by stealth (hora-kanda). Afterwards the man having said, "I don't want the woman who eats by stealth," and having gone [with her] to her village, put her back [there]. Afterwards, after many days went by, yet [another] man having come, went back, calling her [in marriage]. [When living] near (i.e., with) that man also she began to eat by stealth. Afterwards that man also having said, "I don't want this woman who eats by stealth," and having gone [with her] to her village, put her back [there]. Thus, in that way she went in ten or twelve diga [marriages], it is said. Because she eats by stealth, they bring her back and place her [at home again]. Afterwards, still a man came and asked [for her in marriage]. The woman's father said, "Child, I gave her in ten or twelve diga [marriages]. Because she eats by stealth, having brought and brought her, they put her [back here]. Because of it, should I give her to you it will not be successful," he said. Then the man said, "Father-in-law, no matter that she ate by stealth. If you will give her give her to me," he said. Afterwards the woman's father said, "If you are willing in that way, even now call her and go," he said. Thereupon the man, calling her, went away. [89] Having investigated for a great many days, when he looked [he saw that] she eats by stealth. Afterwards the man said to the woman, "Bolan, it has become necessary for me to eat a [special] food. How about it?" he said. "What is it?" the woman asked. "It is in my mind to eat milk-cake," [90] he said. Then the woman said, "Is that a very wonderful work? Let us cook it on any day you want it," she said. Afterwards the man said, "If so, when you cook it I cannot look and look on, eyeing it, and [then] eat it. To-day I am going on a journey; you cook." Having said [this], the man dressed himself well, and having left the house behind, and gone a considerable distance [returned and got hid]. When he was hidden, the woman, taking the large water-pot, went for water. Having seen it, the man went running, and having got on the platform in the room (at the level of the top of the side walls), remained looking out. The woman, taking rice and having put it to soak and pounded it into flour, began to cook. After having [cooked some cakes and eaten part of them, she] cooked a fresh package of cakes, and finished; and having put the fresh package of cakes into syrup, and laid the packet of cakes over the others which remained, and covered them, she took the water-pot and went to the well, and having taken water after bathing, set off to come back. The man quickly descended from the platform, and having gone to the path, got hid. The woman came to the house, taking the water, and having placed the water-pot [there], when she was taking betel the man came out from the place where he was hidden, and came to the house. Afterwards, the woman having apportioned the milk-cake on the plate, and said, "Inda! Eat," gave him it. Thereupon the man, looking in the direction of the plate, says, "What are ye saying? Get out of the way. Should she eat it secretly in that way, it is for her stomach, and should she eat it openly it is for her stomach," he said. In that way he says it two or three times. The woman heard. Afterwards the woman asked, "Without eating the milk-cake, what do you say that for?" she asked. Thereupon the man says, "These flies are saying to me that after you were cooking, you cooked a fresh package of cakes, and having finished, and put the package of cakes into syrup, you ate the package. Afterwards I said, 'Should she eat it secretly (hemin) it is for her (undaege) stomach; should she eat it openly it is for her stomach,'" he said. Beginning from that day, the woman, having said, "Do you tell tales in that way?" began to kill the flies. She also stopped eating by stealth. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 201 THE STORY OF THE BITCH In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. The woman has a pregnancy longing to eat Katuwala [yams]. There is a Bitch, also; she also has a pregnancy longing; that also is to eat Katuwala [yams]. After that, the man and the woman and the Bitch, the three, went to uproot Katuwala [yams]. Having gone there, and the man having said, "This is for her of ours" (his wife), [91] when he uprooted it on it there was no yam. Having said, "This is for the Bitch," when he uprooted it on it there were yams such that the hands could not lift them. Uprooting them, and having come home and boiled them, when they were eating the Bitch stayed at the doorway. Without giving [any] to the Bitch the man and woman ate them. Afterwards the Bitch thought, "For their not giving the Katuwala [yams] to me may the children born in my body be born in the woman's body, and the children born in the woman's body be born in my body." The Bitch went to the forest jungle (himale); having gone, and entered a rock cave, she bore two Princesses. Having borne them the Bitch went to eat food. [The Princesses grew up there.] Then a Vaedda having come shooting, when he looked there are two Princesses. Having seen them, the Vaedda, breaking and breaking branches [to mark the way to the cave], came to the city. Having come there he told at the hand of the King, "In the chena jungle, at such and such a place, in a rock cave there are two Princesses. It is to say this I have come here." Afterwards the King sent the King's two Princes to go with the Vaedda to summon the Princesses and come. While going there the Vaedda said on the road, to the Princes, "When I have gone and am begging for a little fire at the hand of the two Princesses, they will open the door in order to give the fire. Then you two must spring into the house." Having gone near the rock cave, the Vaedda asked for fire. Then the Princesses having opened the door a very little, when they were preparing to give the fire the two Princes sprang into the house. Then the two Princesses fainted, having become afraid. Afterwards, causing them to become conscious, summoning the two Princesses they went to the city [and married them]. The Bitch having come, when she looked the two Princesses were not [there]. After that, having gone along the path on which they had gone breaking branches she went to the city in which the Princesses are. Having gone there, when she went to the place where the elder Princess is, the Princess said, "Ci, Ci, [92] bitch!" and having beaten her, drove her away. Having gone from there, when she went to the place where the younger Princess is, she bathed her in water scented with sandal wood and placed her upon the bed. Then the Bitch became a golden ash-pumpkin. Then the Prince having come, asked at the hand of the Princess, "Whence the golden ash-pumpkin upon the bed?" The Princess said, "Our mother brought and gave it." Then the Prince thought, "When she brought so much to the house, after we have gone to her house how much will she not give!" Having said to the Princess, "Let us go," they take a cart also. On the road on which they are going there is a spired ant-hill (kot humbaha). Having gone near the ant-hill the Princess said, "Ane, Naga King! Whence has our mother silver and golden things? Let a thunderbolt strike me!" Then the Cobra [came out, and] not having raised his hood, said, "Look there. There are silver and golden things as much as you want [in the cave]." After that, the Prince and the Princess having taken the cart, and gone near the rock cave, when they looked silver and golden things had been created. Afterwards, loading them in the cart they brought them away. The elder Princess's Prince having seen that they are bringing silver and golden things, [and having heard their account of their journey for them], said at the hand of the Princess, "Younger brother having gone in that way, brought from your village silver and golden goods. Let us also go to bring [some]." When the elder Prince and Princess, having taken a cart, were going near the spired ant-hill that was on the road, the Princess said, "Ane, Naga King! Whence has our mother silver and golden goods? Please give me a thunderbolt." Then the Cobra having come and having raised his hood, bit the crown of the Princess's head, and went back into the ant-hill. The Prince, taking the cart, came to the city. The Princess died there. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 284, a poverty-stricken girl who was driven from home by her mother, married a Prince. When the mother came to her to claim a share of her good fortune, the girl prayed to the Sun for help; and on her husband's entering the room her mother had become a golden stool, which the girl declared had come from her home. The Prince determined to visit it, and again the girl appealed to the Sun for assistance. When they reached the hut they found it transformed into a golden palace, full of golden articles. When the Prince looked back after a three days' visit and saw only the hut, he charged his wife with being a witch, so she told him the whole story, and he became a Sun worshipper. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 18, a Raja's wife bore two puppies, and their pet dog bore two girls which she deposited in a cave. A Raja and his brother while hunting discovered the girls, whom they carried away and married. When the bitch went in search of them, the elder one treated it kindly, but the other ordered her servants to throw stones at it and drive it away. One stone wounded it on the head, and it died at the elder daughter's house. The Raja tripped over the basket under which the body was placed, and found under it the life-size figure of a dog made of precious stones set in gold, which his wife said was a present from her parents. As her husband determined to visit them she decided to commit suicide, and put her finger in the open mouth of a cobra that was on an ant-hill; by doing so she relieved it of a thorn which had stuck in the snake's mouth. The grateful cobra agreed to assist her, and when she returned with her husband they found a great palace built of precious stones and gold, with a Raja and his wife inside to represent her parents. After a visit of six months, when they looked back on their way home they saw the whole place in flames which totally destroyed it. On seeing the valuable presents they took back, and hearing her sister's story, the younger sister went in the same manner, put her finger in the cobra's mouth, was bitten by it, and died. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 125, in a Kalmuk tale, after the girl who had been taken out of a box found on the steppe [93] had three children, the people began to complain of her want of respectable relatives, and she went home with her sons. Instead of her former poor dwelling she found there palaces, many labourers at work, and a youth who claimed to be her brother. Her parents entertained her well, and the Khan and Ministers came, and returned quite satisfied. On the following morning the palaces and all had vanished, and she returned to the Khan's palace, perceiving that the Devas had created the illusion on her behalf. (As she had claimed to be the daughter of the Serpent God, it would appear to have been the Nagas who had exerted their powers and done this for her. In the story numbered 252 in this volume, Mara, the god of death, assisted the son of a woman who had stated that he was her husband.) NO. 202 THE ELEPHANT GUARD In a certain country there are a woman and a man; there are a boy and a girl of those two. During the time when these four were [there], they heard the notification tom-tom at another city. Then the man said, "I am going to look what this notification tom-tom is that we hear." After the man went to the city the King said, "Canst thou guard my elephants?" The man said, "What will you give me?" The King said, "I will give a thousand masuran, and expenses [94] for eating." Thereupon the man says, "It is too little for me and my wife, and my boy and girl, for us four persons." After that the King said, "I will give two thousand masuran, and expenses for eating for you four persons." Thereupon the man said, "Having returned to my village I will go and call my wife and children to come." As he was going, a jewelled ring of a Maharaja had fallen [on the path]. This man, taking the jewelled ring in his hand, thought, "It is bad for me to destroy this jewelled ring; this I must give to the King." Thinking thus he went home, and summoning his wife and children came to the city. After he presented [95] that jewelled ring to the King, the King asked, "Whence [came] this jewelled ring to thee?" This man said, "This jewelled ring as I was going to the village had fallen on the path. It is that [ring] indeed which I placed [before you] as this present." After that the King [said], "A ring of a greater King than I! Because it is so it is bad to destroy this ring. What dost thou say about [thy reward for] it?" "I say nothing. The thing that is given to me I will take." Thereupon the King said, "Are you quite satisfied [for me] to give a district from the kingdom, and goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load?" This man said "Ha." After he said it the King gave them. Thereupon this man took charge of the guarding of the elephants. One day when he was guarding the elephants the Rakshasa came. This man asked, "What came you for?" The Rakshasa said, "It is to eat thee that I came." This man said, "What will you eat me for? Eat our King," he said. After that, the Rakshasa having come into the city, when he went near the King the King asked, "What hast thou come for?" The Rakshasa said, "I came to eat you, Sir." "Who, Bola, told thee?" the King said. Thereupon the Rakshasa said, "The man who guards the elephants told me." Then the King said, "What will you eat me for? Go thou and eat the man who guards the elephants." Afterwards the Rakshasa went near the man who guards the elephants. Thereupon the man asked, "What have you come here again for?" The Rakshasa said, "The King told me to eat you," he said. After that, the man said, "[First] bring the few silver and gold articles that there are of yours," he said. The Rakshasa having gone home, after he brought the few silver and gold things this man said to the Rakshasa, "Having come [after] drawing out a creeper, tie a turn on the elephant's neck and on your neck tie a turn." The Rakshasa having come after drawing out a creeper, tied a turn on the elephant's neck and tied a turn on the Rakshasa's neck. Afterwards this man said, "Ha; now then, come and eat me." When the Rakshasa tried to go dragging the elephant, the elephant struck the Rakshasa; then the Rakshasa died. Afterwards, while this man, taking those few silver and gold things, is guarding the elephants, one day having been soaked owing to the rain when is he squatting at the bottom of a tree, a snake appeared. This man thinking, "Ane! I must go to warm myself with a little fire," having gone away, when he looked about there were two Princesses in a rock-house (cave). Having seen them he went near [and said], "Ane! Will you give me a little fire?" Afterwards the eldest Princess said, "Come here; having warmed yourself a little at the fire go away." After that, the man went into the rock-house and warmed himself at the fire, and taking the elephants came to the city, and told the King, "Having seen that in this manner there are two Princesses in a rock-house I came to tell you," he said. The King said, "Our elder brother and I and you, we three, let us go to-morrow to fetch the two Princesses." The man said "Ha." On the following day the three persons having gone near the rock-house, that man went near that rock-house and asked for fire. At that time, when the eldest Princess is preparing to give the fire these three persons sprang in, and having drawn the two Princesses outside, when they were seizing them the two Princesses lost their senses. Afterwards restoring them to consciousness they came to the King's city. When the mother of these two Princesses [after] seeking food came to the rock-house, these two Princesses were not [there]. After that, when this widow woman is going weeping and weeping along a path, having seen that a great tusk elephant King is on the path this woman said, "Did you meet with my two Princesses?" The tusk elephant King said, "Two royal thieves and a man who guards the elephants, placing the two Princesses on the back of an elephant went away." Afterwards, when this widow woman was going to the city along the path on which they took the tusk elephant she saw that the elder Princess is near the well. This widow woman having become thirsty asked for a little water. The Princess said, "Go away, widow woman, there is not any water to give thee." Afterwards, when this widow woman met with the younger sister's house, the Princess having been in the house came out, and said, "Our mother!" Quickly having bathed her with coconut milk scented with sandal wood and placed her on the bed, as she is going aside that woman said, "Daughter (pute), go for a little silver and gold for yourself. As you are going along the path on which you came there will be a tusk-elephant King. The tusk-elephant King will give it." Afterwards, [when she had got the silver and gold] the Princess and the widow woman went away. They went away with another King. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 203 THE ELEPHANT-FOOL There is a man's elephant. Yet [another] man having gone [to him], said, "Friend, give (that is, lend) me your elephant; there is a work for me to do for myself," and asked for it. Then the man who owned the elephant says, "Take it and go." Afterwards the man having taken it, while it was doing his work the elephant died. Afterwards this man having come, says, "Friend, while your elephant was with me it died. On that account am I to take an elephant and give it to you; or if not am I to give the money it is worth?" he asked. Thereupon the man who owned the elephant says, "I don't want another elephant; I don't want the money, too. Give me my elephant itself," he says. Then this man says, "I cannot give the elephant that died. Do the thing that thou canst," he said. Thereupon the man who owned the elephant says, "I will kill thee." One day, having seen this man who owned the elephant coming, this man's wife says to the man, "Placing a large water-pot near the door, shut the door." This one having said, "It is good," placed a large water-pot near the door, and shut the door. Thereupon the man who owned the elephant having come to the house, asked the woman, "Where is thy husband?" Then the woman said, "There. He is in the house." Having said, "Open the door, courtesan's son," when he struck his hand on the door the door opened, and the water-pot was broken. Then this woman asks for it, saying, "After thou hast broken my water-pot, give it to me immediately." The man said, "I will bring a water-pot and give you it." "I don't want another; give me my very water-pot," she says. Thereupon, being unable to escape from this woman, having said, "For the debt of the elephant let the water-pot be substituted," the man who owned the elephant went away. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. A variant related by a Potter is nearly similar, except that both persons instituted lawsuits for the recovery of the elephant and the waterpot. The judge who tried the cases was the celebrated Mariyada Raman, termed by the narrator "Mariyaddurame," a word which suggests the name Amir Abd ur-Rahman. There is also a Chinese variant, given in Chinese Nights' Entertainments (A. M. Fielde), p. 111, in which a dishonest old woman lent a newly-married girl her cat, in order to kill the mice. The cat ran home, and the woman then applied for its return, praised its excellence, and estimated its value at two hundred ounces of silver. The girl discovered that her father-in-law had once lent the woman an old wooden ladle, and when the old woman called again about the cat she reminded her of it, and demanded its return. The cases were taken before a magistrate. The girl claimed that the ladle was made from a branch which fell down from the moon, and never diminished the food, oil, or money from which anything was taken by means of it; and she asserted that her father-in-law had refused an offer of three thousand ounces of silver for it. The magistrate decided that the two claims balanced each other. NO. 204 HOW A GIRL TOOK GRUEL In a certain country there are a girl and the girl's father, it is said. While they were there, one day the man went to plough, saying to the girl, "Bring gruel to the rice field." They spring across a stream as they go to the rice field. The girl, cooking gruel, pouring it into a wide-mouthed cooking-pot and placing the pot on her head, goes away to the field. While going there she met a Prince near the river. The girl asked at the Prince's hand, "Where are you going?" Having told him to sit down and given to him from the gruel, she said, "Go to our house and wait until the time when I come after giving the gruel to father;" and placing the gruel pot on her head she went to the far bank of the river. Then the Prince asked, "Are you coming immediately?" The Princess said, "Should [it] come [I] shall not come; should [it] not come, I shall come." [96] The Prince got into his mind, "This meant indeed (lit., said), 'Should water come in the river I cannot come; should water not come I will come.'" Again the Prince asked, "On which road go you to your house?" Then the girl unfastened her hair knot; having unloosed it she went to the rice field. Afterwards the Prince thought to himself, "Because of the girl's unloosing her hair knot she goes near the Kitul palm tree indeed." [97] The Prince having gone near the Kitul tree to the girl's home, remained lying down in the veranda until the girl came. The girl having given the gruel came home. Having come there and cooked for the Prince she gave him to eat. Then the girl's father came. After that, the girl and the Prince having married remained there. While they were [there], one day the Prince said, "I must go to our city." Then the girl also having said that she must go, as the girl and the girl's father and the Prince, the three persons, were going along there was a rice field. The girl's father asked at the hand of the Prince, "Son-in-law, is this rice field a cultivated rice field, or an unworked rice field?" Then the Prince said, "What of its being cultivated! If its corners and angles are not cut this field is an unworked one." When they were going still a little distance there was a heap of fence sticks. Concerning it the Prince asked, "Father-in-law, are these cut fence-sticks, or uncut fence-sticks?" Then the father-in-law says, "What of their being cut! If they are not sharpened these are uncut sticks." Well then, having gone in that manner, and gone to the Prince's city, he made the girl and the girl's father stay in a calf house near the palace, saying, "This indeed is our house." The Prince having gone to the palace said at the hand of the Prince's mother, "Mother, I have come, calling [a wife] from such and such a city. The Princess is in that calf house. Call her and come back after going [there]." After that, the Queen having gone near the calf house, when she looked a light had fallen throughout the whole of the calf house. The girl was in the house. After that the Queen, calling the girl and the girl's father, came to the palace. Well then, the girl, and the girl's father, and the Prince remained at the palace. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. The questions and answers remind one of those asked and given by Mahosadha and Amara, the girl whom he married, in the Jataka story No. 546 (vol. vi, p. 182), and one remark is the same,--that regarding the river water. Heroines are sometimes described as emitting a brilliant light, as in No. 145, vol. ii. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 158, there is a Princess who "comes and sits on her roof, and she shines so that she lights up all the country and our houses, and we can see to do our work as if it were day." In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 133, a heavenly maiden illuminated a wood, though it was night. In the same volume, p. 145, a girl "gleamed as if she were the light of the sun." In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., pp. 484 ff., the son of a Wazir asked a farmer whom he accompanied a number of cryptic questions which were understood by the farmer's daughter, whom he afterwards married. They have a general resemblance to those in the Sinhalese story, but differ from them. In one he asked if a field of ripe corn was eaten or not, meaning that if the owner were in debt it was as good as eaten already. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding) there are several instances of enigmatical replies of this kind. See pp. 269, 349, 368. In a Kolhan tale appended to the vol. by Mr. Bompas, p. 462, a Princess who was in a Bel fruit had such brilliancy that the youth who split it open fell dead when he saw her. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), a brilliant Prince is described in vol. i, p. 301, and a heroine in vol. ii, p. 17. In vol. iii, p. 172, a Prince's face shone like the moon among the stars. Buddha is usually described as possessing great brilliancy. In No. 237 below, there is a Prince whose brilliance dazzled a Princess so much that she swooned. NO. 205 THE BOY WHO WENT TO LEARN THE SCIENCES In a certain country a boy was sent by his two parents near a teacher for learning the arts and sciences. Then the boy, [after] learning for a long time the sixty-four mechanical arts, [98] came back to his home. The boy's parents asked the boy, "Did you learn all the sciences?" The boy told his parents that he learnt the whole of the sciences. At that time his father asked, "Did you learn the subtlety (mayama) of women?" Thereupon the boy said he did not. Having said, "[After] learning that very science come back," he was sent away again by his two parents. The boy having set off from there, at the time when he was going along, in the King's garden were the King and Queen. The King was walking and walking in the garden. The Queen, sewing and sewing a shawl, [99] was [sitting] in the shade under a tree. Having seen that this very boy is going, the Queen, calling the boy, asked, "Where are you going?" Thereupon the boy says, "When I came home [after] learning the arts and sciences, and the sixty-four mechanical arts, my parents asked, 'Did you learn the arts?' I said, 'Yes.' Then they asked, 'Did you learn the subtlety of women?' When I myself said I did not, because they said, '[After] learning that very science come back,' I am going away to learn that very science," he said to the Queen. Thereupon that very Queen said, "I will teach you the subtlety," and calling the boy near, placed the boy's head on the Queen's thigh, and having told him to lie [still], and taken the shawl that the Queen was sewing and sewing, and covered the boy [with it], the Queen remained sewing and sewing. At that time the King was not there. After that, the King came there. Then the Queen, having called the King [and said], "I wish to tell you a story," told the King to listen to the story. The King was pleased regarding it. The Queen, leaving the thigh on which was the head of the above-mentioned boy, having placed the head of the King on the other thigh, and told him to lie [there], told the story. The story indeed was:--"Like we are here, a King and Queen of the fore-going time, like we came here went for garden-sport, it is said. At that time the King went to walk in the garden, it is said. While that very Queen was staying [there] sewing a shawl, a boy came there. Then the Queen asked the boy, 'Where are you going?' Thereupon the boy says, 'Because my parents said I am to learn the subtlety of women, I am going away to learn that very subtlety,' he said. Then the Queen having said, 'I will teach you,' called the boy, and having placed his head on her thigh, and told him to lie [still], sewed the shawl. At that time the King came, like you now have come here. Then, having told the King to place his head on the other thigh and having told him this story, with the shawl that covered the boy she covered the King." [As she said this, she covered the King with the shawl.] Thereupon the boy quickly jumped up and went away. When his parents afterwards asked the boy, "Did you learn the subtlety of women?" he said that he had learnt it. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In The Jataka, No. 61 (vol. i, p. 148), there is an account of a Brahmana youth who, on completing the usual education, was asked by his mother if he had learnt the Dolour Texts, and on his replying in the negative was sent back to learn them. There were no such texts, but his mother intended him to learn the wickedness of women. This he did, but not in the manner related in the Sinhalese story. NO. 206 THE PRINCE AND THE ASCETICS In a certain country there is a Prince, it is said. After the Prince became big, for the purpose of marrying him they began to visit all cities to seek an unpolluted Princess. Because they did not meet with one according to the Prince's thought, he began to look at many sooth books. While looking, from a book he got to know one circumstance. The matter indeed [was this]:--There was [written] in the book that when the Prince remains no long time inside the hollow of a large tree, a Princess will be born from the Prince's very blood. Thereupon having considered it, according to the manner in which it was mentioned he stayed inside the tree. When he was there not much time he met with a Princess, also, in that before-mentioned manner. The Prince thereupon took the Princess in marriage. After he took her in marriage, having constructed a palace in the midst of that forest both of them stayed in it. While they are [there], the Prince having come every day [after] shooting animals, skinned them, and taking the skins and having fixed them on the wall, asks the Princess, "What animals' skins are these?" He asks the names from the Princess. Then the Princess says, "I don't know." On the day after that, after the Prince went for hunting a Vaedda came near the palace. The Princess having seen the Vaedda called him. Then the Vaedda went to the palace. After he went the Princess asked the Vaedda, "What animals' skins are these?" The Vaedda informed (lit., told and gave) the Princess of the names of the animals. Then the Princess asks the Vaedda, "Where do you live?" The Vaedda says, "I, also, live very near this palace, in the midst of the forest." The Princess says, "Vaedda, advise me how to cause you to be brought to me at the time when I want you." Then the Vaedda said, "I will tie a hawk's-bell in my house, and having tied a cord to it, and tied it on a tree near the palace, and pointed it out, at the time when the Princess wants me shake the cord. Then I shall come," he said. The Vaedda having informed the Princess about this matter, after the Vaedda went away the Prince having come back [after] doing hunting, just as on other days asked the Princess the names of these animals. That day the Princess told him the names of the animals. After that, she was unable to inform him of the name of the animal he brought. The Prince having reflected, walked round the palace. When he looked about, having seen that a cord was tied to a tree he shook it. Then having seen that the Vaedda comes to the palace the Prince remained hidden. The Vaedda having come and spoken to the Princess, after the Vaedda went away the Prince having gone to the palace went for hunting. Walking in the midst of the forest he went near a river, and when he was looking about having heard the talk of men the Prince went into a tree. Having gone [there], while he was looking three men (minis) came, and having slipped off their clothes and finished, after they descended to bathe from the three betel boxes of the three persons three women came out. They having opened the mouths of the three betel boxes of the three women, when he was looking the Prince saw that three men are inside their three betel boxes. After that, the Prince descended from the tree to the ground, and asked the three men [when they had bathed], "Who are you?" Then the men say, "We all three are ascetics," they said. After that the Prince, calling the three persons, went to the palace. Having gone [there] the Prince told the Princess to cook rice for twelve. After she cooked he said, "Having set twelve plates of cooked rice, place them on the table." After she put them [there] the Prince told the ascetics to sit down to eat cooked rice. After they sat down he said, "Tell the three wives of you three persons to sit down." [They came out and sat down.] Then when he told the three men (minis) who are in the three betel boxes of the three women to sit down, all were astonished. Then he told the Princess to call that Vaedda, and return. "I don't know [anything about him]," the Princess said untruthfully. Then the Prince pulled that cord; the Vaedda came running. Afterwards the whole twelve sitting down ate cooked rice. Afterwards, those said three ascetics and the Prince having talked, abandoned this party, and the whole four went again to practise austerities (tapas rakinda). Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In The Jataka, No. 145 (vol. i, p. 310), the Bodhisatta is represented as remarking, "You might carry a woman about in your arms and yet she would not be safe." In No. 436 (vol. iii, p. 314), an Asura demon who had seized a woman kept her in a box, which he swallowed. When he ejected it and allowed her liberty while he bathed, she managed to hide a magician with her in the box, which the unsuspecting demon again swallowed. An ascetic knew by his power of insight what had occurred, and informed the demon, who at once ejected the box. On his opening it the magician uttered a spell and escaped. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. i, p. 9), two Kings whose wives had been unfaithful, saw a Jinni (or Rakshasa) take a lady out of a casket fastened with seven steel padlocks and placed in a crystal box; he went to sleep with his head on her lap under the tree in which they were hidden. Noticing the men in the tree, she put the Jinni's head softly on the ground, and by threatening to rouse her husband made them descend. In her purse she had a knotted string on which were strung five hundred and seventy seal rings of the persons she had met in this way though kept at the bottom of the sea, and adding their rings to her collection she sent them away. In vol. iv, p. 130, the story is told of a Prince, and the woman had more than eighty rings. In the Tota Kahani (Small), p. 41, a Yogi took the form of an elephant, and to insure his wife's chastity carried her in a hauda or litter on his back. A man climbed up a tree for safety from the elephant, which halted under the tree, put down the litter, and went off to feed. The man descended and joined the woman, who took out a knotted cord and added another knot on it, making a hundred and one, which represented the number of men she had met in that way. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 80, two young Brahmanas, hiding at night in a tree close to a lake, saw a number of men appear out of the water and prepare a place and food which a handsome person, who came out of the water also, came to eat. He ejected from his mouth two ladies who were his wives; they ate the meal and he went to sleep. The Brahmanas descended from the tree to inquire about it. When the elder youth declined the advances of one of the women she showed him a hundred rings taken from the lovers she had had. She then awoke her husband and charged the youth with attempted violence, but the other told the truth and saved him. The being whose wives the women were is termed a water-genius and later on a Yaksha, who was subject to a curse. He told the youths that he kept his wives in his heart, out of jealousy. There is a nearly similar story in the same work, vol. ii, p. 98, in which the being who came out of the water was a snake-god who ejected a couch and his wife. When he went to sleep a traveller who was lying under the tree became her hundredth lover. When the snake-god awoke and saw them he reduced them to ashes by fire discharged from his mouth. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 378, a Prince who had climbed up a tree saw a Brahmana, who first bathed there, eject from his mouth a pot, out of which came a woman. While the Brahmana was asleep she also ejected a pot out of which came a young man, her lover; when he afterwards re-entered the pot she swallowed it again. Then the Brahmana awoke, swallowed her in the same way, and went off. The Prince told the King to invite the Brahmana to a feast, at which food for three was set near him. On his saying he was alone the Prince invited him to produce the woman, and when he had done so, she was made to bring out her lover, and all three ate the meal together. The Prince thus proved to his father, who had kept his wives in seclusion, that it was useless to shut women up. NO. 207 THE TURTLE PRINCE [100] At a certain city two noblemen [101] stay in two houses. When they are there, for the two noblemen there are two Queens. One Queen bore seven female children; the other Queen bore six male children and a Turtle. Then the same two noblemen spoke: "Cousin, not contracting the marriages of your children and my children outside, let us ourselves do giving and taking," they said. Having said, "If so, let us marry the eldest children," they married them. The second two children they also married. The third two children they also married. The fourth two children they also married. The fifth two children they also married. The sixth two children they also married. There was no way to marry the seventh two children. The matter of their not [marrying] indeed [was this:--the father of the girls] said, "Cousin, my daughter is a daughter possessing much beauty. Because of it, your young child indeed is not good. Should you say, 'What of the matter of his not being good, indeed!' Your child is the Turtle; because it is so I cannot [marry my daughter to him]," he said. Then the other cousin says, "Cousin, you cannot say so. The Turtle who is my young child says, 'I, father, if there be not that marriage for me, I will jump into the well, and make various quarrels,' the Turtle says. Because it is so you must marry your very child [to him], he says. If you cannot [do] so, let us cancel the marriages of the whole of the several persons," says the Turtle's father. Then he says, "If so, cousin, no matter about cancelling the marriages; I will give my daughter to the Turtle," he said. Having thus given her, they contracted the marriage. Having married them, when they were [there] there was notified by the King of the same city, "Can anyone, having brought it, give me the Fire Cock [102] that is at the house of the Rakshasa?" [103] he notified. The same King published by beat of tom-toms that to the persons who brought and gave it he will give many offices. Secondly, "I will give my kingdom also," he notified. That word the Turtle having ascertained, he said, "Mother, you go, and seeing the King, 'The Turtle who is my son is able,' say, 'to bring and give the Fire Cock.'" [She went accordingly.] Then the King said, "Tell your son to come to-morrow morning," he said. The following day morning the same Turtle having gone says, "I can bring and give the Fire Cock in seven days." Then the King said, "Not to mention [104] the Turtle, should anyone [whatever] bring and give it, I will give him offices and my kingdom also." The Turtle having come home said to the Turtle's wife, "Bolan, having cooked for me a packet [105] of rice, bring it," he said. Then the Turtle's wife asked, "What is the packet of cooked rice for you for?" she asked. "It is arranged by the King for me to bring and give him the Fire Cock that is at the Rakshasa's house. Because it is so, cook the lump of rice," he said. "Having cooked the lump of rice I can give it, indeed. How will you take it and go?" she said. Then the Turtle said, "Having put the cooked rice in a bag, place it on my back and tie it. I am able to take it and go," he said. After having placed it on his back and tied it, the same Turtle, having gone on the journey, while on the road went to a screen formed by Mahamidi [trees]. [106] Having gone there and unfastened the packet of cooked rice, and removed and put aside the turtle jacket, he ate the lump of cooked rice. Having eaten and finished, he hid the turtle jacket, and went on the journey [in the form of a Prince]. When he was going on the journey, it having become night while he was on the road he went to the house of a widow-mother. Having gone [there], "Mother, you must give me a resting-place," he said. Then the widow-mother said, "A resting-place indeed I can give," she said; "to give to eat [there is] not a thing." "If so, no matter for the food; should you give me only the resting-place it will do," he said. Then the widow-mother asked, "Where are you, son, going?" she asked. Then he said, "I am going for the Jewelled Cock at the Rakshasa's house," he said. The widow-mother then said, "Son, go you to [your] village without speaking [about it]. People, many multitudes in number, having stayed in the resting-place here, went for the Fire Cock. Except that they went, they did not bring the Fire Cock. Because it is so don't you go." Then he said, "However much you, mother, should say it, I indeed must really go." "Since you are going, not paying heed to my saying, eat this little rice dust that I cooked, and go." Then he said, "Except that to-day you cooked rice dust [for me], I shall not be able to cook [even] rice dust again for you," he said. ["Raw-rice, be created."] With the same speed [as his saying it] raw-rice [107] was created, [and he gave her power to do the same]. "Son, like the power which you gave, I will give you a power. You having gone to the Rakshasa's house, at the time when you are coming back the Rakshasa will come [for the purpose of] stopping you. Then on account of it having taken this piece of stone and said, 'Ci! Mountain, be created,' cast it down; the mountain will be created. The Rakshasa having gone up the mountain, while he is descending below you will be able then to go a considerable distance." Taking that [stone and] power from there when he was going away, while he was on the road it became night. After it became night, again he went to the house of a widow woman. The widow woman asked, "Where, son, are you going in this way when it has become night?" Then he said, "I am going for the Fire Cock at the Rakshasa's house," he said. "Don't you go on that journey; the people who go for that Fire Cock, except that they go, do not return." "Don't at any rate tell that fact to me indeed; I indeed must really go for the Fire Cock. I came here at the time when I wanted a resting-place." "A resting-place indeed I can give. To give to eat [there is] not a thing," the widow-mother said. "No matter for the food; should you give me a resting-place it will do," he said. While the person of the resting-place was staying looking on, because he could not eat, from what she had cooked of rice dust she gave him a little to eat. "Mother, being unable to cook again for you, although to-day you cooked rice dust, I will give you a power," he said. "Raw-rice, be created," [and he gave her power to do the same]. "If so, son, I will give you a power. Here (Menna). Having taken away this bamboo stick, for the Rakshasa's stopping you on the path when you are coming away, say, 'Ci! Bamboo, be created,' and throw down the bamboo stick. Then the bamboo fence will be created. The Rakshasa having gone up it, while he is coming down [on the other side] you will be able to come a considerable distance." When he was going away from there on the following day, while he was on the road it became night. It having become night, again he went to the house of a widow woman. Having gone there he asked for a resting-place. "In this way when night has come, where are you going?" she asked. Then he said, "I am going to bring the Fire Cock at the Rakshasa's house," he said. "Except that thousands of robbers, thousands of archers [108] go, except that the persons who went there went, they did not come back. Because it is so don't you go." "I indeed must really go for the Fire Cock. For me to stay here [to-night] you must give the resting-place." Then she said, "I can indeed give it. To give you to eat [there is] not a thing to give." "No matter for food for me; should you give me a resting-place it will do." The widow-mother having cooked a little rice dust gave him to eat. "Mother, I shall not again be able to cook [even] rice dust for you. I will give you a good power." He gave her a power to create raw-rice. "Better than the power you gave me I will give you a power. Having gone to the Rakshasa's house, when you are coming, taking the Fire Cock also, the Rakshasa will come running to eat you. When he is thus coming, here, having taken away this piece of charcoal and said, 'Ci! Fire, be created,' throw it down; the fire fence will be created. Then the Rakshasa having come will jump into the fire. Without speaking, slowly come home." [The Prince went, stole the Fire Cock, and escaped from the pursuit of the Rakshasa by means of the three gifts. [109] The Rakshasa was burnt at the fire fence.] [The Prince] having come there [again], and gone to the place where the turtle jacket is, putting on his body the turtle jacket [and resuming his turtle shape], came to his village. Having come there he handed over the Fire Cock to the King. When he was giving it the King said, "From to-day my country, together with the goods, is in charge for thee." "There are goods [belonging] to me which are better than that; I don't want it," he said. The same King, in order to make a [religious] offering of those goods, commanded a Bana (recitation of the Buddhist scriptures). When the Turtle's wife and yet [other] women are going to hear the Bana, the other women who are coming to hear the Bana, say, "O Turtle's wife, come, to go to hear the Bana." Having gone there, while they are hearing the Bana the Turtle, having taken off the turtle jacket [and become a Prince again], went to hear the Bana. Then the Turtle's wife thought, "It is my very husband, [110] this." Having thought it and come home, at the time when she looked she saw that the turtle jacket was there, and taking out the goods that were in it she put the same jacket on the [fire on the] hearth, and went [back] to hear the Bana. The Turtle's wife's husband having come home, when he looked the turtle jacket was not [there]. Having got into the house he remained silent. The Turtle's wife came home gaily. Other women asked, "What is [the reason of] so much sportiveness of the Turtle's wife which there is to-day?" "You will perceive [the reason of] my playfulness when you have gone to the house." The other women, to look at [the meaning of] those words, came to the house of the Turtle's wife with the Turtle's wife. Having come, when they looked the husband of the Turtle's wife is like a King. This story is the two noblemen's. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 208 THE GEM-SET RING In a certain country there are a King and a Queen, it is said; there are seven Princes of these two persons. Out of the seven, the youngest Prince from the day on which he was born is lying down; only those six perform service, go on journeys after journeys (gaman sagaman). Well then, at the time when this Prince is living thus, the King said at the hand of the Queen, "Should this Prince remain there is no advantage to us; I must behead him." The Queen said, "There is no need to behead him. Drive away the Prince whom we do not want to a quarter he likes." The King said, "It is good." The Queen having come near the Prince, said, "Son, he must behead you, says the King. Because of it go to a place you like, to seek a livelihood." Then the Prince said, "For me to go for trading give me (dilan) a thousand masuran, and a packet of cooked rice." After that, the Queen gave him a packet of cooked rice and a thousand masuran. The Prince having taken the packet of cooked rice and the thousand masuran, arrived (eli-baessa) at a travellers' shed. At the time when he is sitting in the travellers' shed a man came, bringing a Cobra. Then the Prince asked, "For how much will you sell the Cobra?" The man said, "It is a thousand masuran." Afterwards the Prince said, "There are a thousand masuran of mine. Here (inda), take them." Having given the thousand masuran he got the Cobra. Taking it, and having unfastened the packet of cooked rice, the Cobra and the Prince ate, and the Prince, taking the Cobra, came back to the Prince's city. Then the Queen asked, "Son, what is the merchandise you have brought?" The Prince said, "Mother, having given those thousand masuran that I took, I brought a Cobra." Afterwards the Queen said, "Appa! Son, should that one remain it will bite us. Take it to a forest, and having conducted it a short distance come back." The Prince having taken it and put it in a rock house (cave) in the forest, shut the door, and came back. At the time when he was there the Queen said, "Son, should the King come to know that you are [here] he will behead you. Because of it go to any place you like." Afterwards the Prince said, "Give me a thousand masuran, and a packet of cooked rice." The Queen gave them. After that, the Prince taking them and having gone, while he was in that travellers' shed a man taking a Parrot came to the travellers' shed. The Prince asked, "Will you sell that Parrot?" The man said he would sell it. The Prince asked, "For how much?" The man said, "It is a thousand masuran." The Prince gave the thousand masuran and got the Parrot. The Prince and the Parrot having eaten the packet of cooked rice, the two came to the Prince's city. The Queen asked, "Son, what is the merchandise you have brought to-day?" The Prince says, "Mother, having given those thousand masuran that I took I have brought a Parrot." Afterwards the Queen said, "We don't want the Parrot. Take it and put it in the forest, and come back." The Prince having taken the Parrot and put the Parrot also in the rock house in which is the Cobra, shut the door, and came back. While he was there the Queen said, "Son, should the King see that you are [here] he will behead you. Because of it go to any place you like." The Prince said, "Mother, give me a thousand masuran, and a packet of cooked rice." The Queen gave him a packet of cooked rice and a thousand masuran. Afterwards, the Prince having taken them, while he was at that travellers' shed again a man is taking a Cat which eats by stealth, in order to put it into the river. This Prince asked, "Will you sell that?" The man said he would sell it. The Prince asked, "For how much?" The man [said], "I will sell it for a thousand masuran." Afterwards the Prince gave the thousand masuran that were in his hand, and taking the Cat, and the Prince and the Cat having eaten the packet of cooked rice, the two came to the Prince's city. Then the Queen asked, "Son, on this journey what have you brought?" The Prince says, "Mother, having given the thousand masuran that I took I brought a Cat." Then the Queen said, "Don't thou come again. Go to any place thou wantest." The Prince said, "Mother, give me a thousand masuran, and a packet of cooked rice." After that, the Queen gave him a packet of cooked rice and a thousand masuran. The Prince, taking them and taking also the Cat, came to the rock house; and the whole four having eaten the packet of cooked rice started to go away. Having gone away, and having gone near a large Na tree, [111] while they were there the Cobra said, "You stay [112] here until I come back [after] seeking the Naga King." The Cobra having gone, and having returned near the large Na tree [after] seeking [and bringing] the Naga King, the Cobra said to the Naga King, "This Prince has been of very great assistance to me. Because of it you must set me free [by giving a suitable ransom]." Afterwards the Naga King gave the Prince a gem-set ring (peraes-munda), and said, "With this ring you can create anything you want." [113] The Naga King, taking that Cobra, went away. As this Prince and the Parrot and the Cat were going away the Prince thought, "Let a palace and a Princess be created here for me." Putting the gem-set ring on his hand he thought it. Then a palace and a Princess were created. At the time when they were there, the Princess and Prince went to the sea to bathe. Having gone there, while bathing a lock of hair (isakeya raelak) from the head of the Princess fell into the sea. Having gone it became fastened in the net of net fishermen. They, taking it, gave it to the King. The King being unable to guess whether it was a hair or a golden thread, sent out the notification tom-toms. A widow stopped the tom-toms. Having stopped them the woman went near the King and said, "This is not a golden thread (kenda), it is indeed hair of the head (isakeya gahamayi)." After that the King said, "Can you find the Princess who owns this hair?" The woman having said, "I can," came to the very city where the Princess is. When she came there, there was not any work place there. She asked at the hand of the Princess, "How, daughter (pute), do you eat?" Then the Princess says, "We eat by the power of the gem-set ring." Afterwards, the woman that day night having stayed there, after the Prince went to sleep taking the gem-set ring and taking also the Princess [by means of it], gave them to the King. The Prince having awoke, when he looked there were no Princess and no gem-set ring. The Parrot indeed knows the place where they are. He cannot summon the Princess and come [with her], he cannot get the gem-set ring. Owing to it he told the Cat to be [lying as though] sleeping at the corn-stack threshing-floor (kola-kamate):--"While you are there the rats will put their paws into your mouth. Do not seize them. When the King has put his paws in it seize him; do not let him go." After that, the Cat having gone [there], while he was [lying as though] sleeping at the corn-stack threshing-floor, the rats put their paws in his mouth. He did not seize them. The Rat King having come, and said, "One with cooking pot's mouth (appalla-kata), are you asleep?" put his paw there. Then the Cat seized him. [He explained to the Rat King that he wanted a rat to assist him, as the condition on which he would release him.] The Rat King said, "Seize thou any rat thou wantest." Having said, "Take this rat chief," he gave him. Afterwards the Cat let go [the Rat King]. The Parrot, calling that rat [who had been appointed to assist him], went to the palace in which was the Princess. After the rat had cut [his way into] seven boxes, there was a gem-set ring [in the last one]. Taking it, when he gave it to the Parrot, the Parrot said, "This ring is not ours (apata nae)." Afterwards the Parrot and the rat having come near the Prince, [the rat] said, "I cut into seven boxes; there was one ring. When I gave it to the Parrot youngster (gira-pota­kayata) the Parrot said, 'It is not ours,'" he said. Then the Prince said, "Are there not other boxes?" The rat said, "There is one more." The Prince said, "If so, cut thou [a hole in] it." The Parrot and the rat having gone [there], the rat cut into that box. Then the gem-set ring was there. [The rat took it to the Parrot, who handed it over to the Prince. By means of it he recovered the Princess.] Taking the ring, and having brought back the Princess, they all remained at the palace. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In The Jataka, No. 73 (vol. i, p. 178), a snake, a parrot, and a rat assisted a Brahmana who had saved their lives. In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 20, a Prince whose uncle had usurped the throne received a hundred pagodas from his mother in order that he might trade. He first bought a kitten for the money, and subsequently, when she gave him another hundred, a snake; with these he went about begging for twelve years. The snake took him to visit its father, Adisesha, the Snake King, who in return for it gave him his ring which supplied everything wanted while it was worn. By means of the ring the Prince got a palace and kingdom and a capital; he married a Princess also. While she was bathing in the sea one of the hairs from her head came off and was cast on the shore. The King of Cochin found it, ascertained that it was twenty yards long, and promised rewards for the discovery of its owner. An old woman who was received into the Prince's palace learnt about the powers of the magic ring, and borrowing it to cure a headache returned to Cochin; by its power the Princess was brought there. She demanded a delay of eight days before marrying the King, in order to fast and make a religious donation to the poor. On the seventh day the Prince and his cat joined those who were fed. When rats came to eat the remnants the cat seized the largest one, who proved to be the Rat King, and offered him his liberty in return for the magic ring. His subjects found it in a box, and brought it to the cat, who gave it to the Prince. By means of it he recovered the Princess and his kingdom, and caused the Cochin kingdom to be destroyed and its King to become insane. In Folklore of the Santal Pargana (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 24, a youth set afloat in a leaf some hairs that came out while he was bathing. Two Princesses who were bathing lower down got the packet, found that the hairs were twelve cubits long, and the younger one refused food until their owner was discovered. A parrot met with him in the forest, and a crow enticed him to come by flying off with his flute. He married the Princess and became a Raja. See p. 75 ff., and Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, pp. 16 and 113. In a variant, p. 88, a youth bought a cat, an otter, a rat, and a snake that were about to be killed. The snake took him to its parents, from whom he received a magic ring which provided everything required if it were placed in a quart of milk. After he got married his wife stole the ring, and eloped with a former lover. The youth was imprisoned on a charge of murdering her, but the animals recovered the ring after the rat made the Prince's wife sneeze it up by tickling her nose with his tail. By means of it he brought up the absconders and was released. On p. 129 there is an account of the four animals and the ring given by the snake, by the aid of which a palace was made. On p. 228 ff., a boy who had a caterpillar's shape took off the skin when bathing in his own form. He set two hairs afloat in a leaf which a Princess bathing lower down the river recovered. She found that the hairs were twelve fathoms long, and refused to eat until their owner was brought. When he came she married him, saw him remove his skin covering at night, burnt it, and he remained in his own form afterwards. In the Kolhan tales (Bompas) appended to the same volume, p. 458, a man whose hair reached to his knees, while bathing set a hair afloat inside a split fruit. A Princess who found it determined to marry the owner, her father sent men who fetched him, and they were united. There is a similar story on p. 460. In Indian Fairy Tales (Thornhill), p. 67, a merchant's son who had saved the brother of the Snake King received from the latter a copper ring which converted into gold everything on which it was rubbed. By means of it he turned a palace into gold and married a Princess, whose hair touched the ring and became golden. A single hair fell into a stream, and was found by a Prince a thousand leagues lower down. A woman who was a magician went in search of the owner in a magic ebony boat smeared with the blood and fat of a tiger, which sailed upstream as she sang. She was engaged by the Princess, induced her to enter the boat to see the fishes, and carried her off. Before saving the snake, her husband had obtained a sea parrot and a white cat which divers brought up out of the sea, and he had left these at home on going away. When these two came in search of him and heard of the loss of the Princess they looked for her, the parrot carrying a letter tied on its leg. They delivered the letter and got a reply from her, the cat stole the ring from the old woman, and they returned and informed the Prince, who took an army and rescued his wife. In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 185, a Prince bought a cat, a dog, a parrot, and a snake, which he reared. The snake took him to its father, who in return for it gave him a ring which granted everything wished for. By means of it he obtained a Princess in marriage, after making a palace of gold in the sea; he also made her golden. One day she set afloat in a leaf cup two hairs which came out as she was washing. In another country a fisherman found them and gave them to the King, who sent a wise woman in search of their owner in a golden boat. She met with the Princess, stayed at the palace, learnt about the ring, induced the Princess to enter the boat, and took her away. The Princess refused to look at the King's son for six months. The parrot gave her husband the news, went in search of her with the cat, and learnt that the wise woman kept the ring in her mouth. The cat seized the longest-tailed rat that came to eat rice which the Princess scattered; it thrust its tail up the nose of the sleeping woman, and the sneeze she gave caused the ring to fly out of her mouth. The parrot took it to its master, who recovered the Princess by its aid. The ring was only effective when placed in the centre of a clean square place purified by being smeared with cow-dung, and there sprinkled with butter-milk. [114] In Folk-Tales of Bengal (L. Behari Day), p. 86, a Brahmana's son married a Princess whom he rescued from Rakshasas. She tied to a floating shell a hair that came off while she bathed; it was found by her husband's half-brother, who ascertained that it was seven cubits long. The Queen-Mother sent her servant, a Rakshasi, in search of the owner, in a magic boat which flew along the water wherever required when she uttered a spell and thrice snapped her fingers. She went to the palace, one day persuaded the Princess to enter the boat, and carried her away in it. The Princess said she had vowed not to look at a strange man's face for six months, her husband found her, was recognised by the King, and all ended happily; but the Rakshasi was buried alive, surrounded by thorns. A golden-haired Princess is often described in folk-tales. See No. 240 in this volume, and Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), pp. 62 and 98. In one of the Santal variants a grateful snake made a man's hair like gold by breathing on it (op. cit., p. 75). In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 20, a merchant's son bought a dog, cat, and snake that were likely to be killed. By means of a ring which the snake's father gave him he got a mansion and a wife with golden hair. She set afloat some hairs inside a reed; a Prince found them lower down the river, and his father sent his aunt, an ogress, to bring their possessor. She flew to the place in the form of a bee, became an old hag, was received as the girl's aunt, borrowed the ring, flew off with it, and by its means the Princess was brought away. She demanded a month's delay before marrying, the cat and dog found her, and secured the ring (which the ogress kept in her stomach) by seizing the Rat King's eldest son and getting it as his ransom, a rat having made the ogress cough it up by inserting its tail in her throat while she slept. They returned with it, and the Prince recovered his wife by it. At p. 132, a crow carried off the comb of a Princess whom a Prince had rescued from a Rakshasa and married, and it was discovered at a palace, inside a fish that had swallowed it when it was dropped in the sea. A woman sent to find the owner poisoned the Prince; the King carried off the widow, but she refused to marry him for six months. The Prince's two friends, a Brahmana and a Carpenter, found her, and by means of a magic horse of sandal wood which the latter made, that flew where required, they returned with her. By a touch the Brahmana restored to life the Prince's corpse which his wife had enclosed in a box. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 108, in a Kalmuk story, a Khan carried off a youth's wife who dropped in a stream, while bathing, a gem-set ring, which the Khan got. Her husband was killed and buried by his emissaries. When his life-index tree withered, his five comrades found and revived him, and made a flying bird by means of which he regained his wife. At p. 222, in a Kalmuk story, a maidservant gave a Khan some wonderful hairs which clung to her water jar, and which a wife whom the Snake King gave to a man had lost when bathing. The Khan's men captured her; after a year she made her husband dance, dressed in feathers, before her and the Khan. When the Khan to please her exchanged dresses with him, she ordered the Khan to be driven out, the dogs overtook and killed him, and her husband became King. Compare the ending of No. 18, vol. i. At p. 135, in a Kalmuk tale, a Brahmana's son bought and set free a mouse, a young ape and a young bear; when he was afterwards enclosed in a chest and thrown into the river the animals rescued him. He found a talisman as large as a pigeon's egg, made by its aid a city, palace, etc., exchanged the talisman for a caravan-load of goods, and all vanished. The animals recovered it, the palace was reconstructed, and he got a divine wife. In Korean Tales (Dr. Allen), p. 43, a man lost an amber talisman that a supernatural caller gave him. His dog and cat found it, and regained it by the aid of the rat-chief, who made a mouse creep into the soap-stone box in which it was hidden, after the rats gnawed a hole through the side. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 258, a King sent a youth for a Naga girl whose hairs, one hundred feet long, were found in a swallow's nest. By means of a cap of invisibility and shoes for walking on water, which he stole from two persons who were quarrelling about them, the youth fetched her; but seeing that the King was ugly she threw at him a cake of gold she had brought, the blow killed him, and the youth became King and married her. NO. 209 THE STORY OF THE BRAHMANA In a city a Brahmana has a small piece of ground; only that belongs to him. He sold that place for three masuran. "Now then, I shall go and earn a living. You remain [at home], getting a livelihood to the extent you can," he said to his wife. When the Brahmana was going along a path, yet [another] Brahmana was going in front. From the Brahmana who is going in front this Brahmana asks, "Emba! Brahmana, will you say a word [of advice] to me?" "If you will give me a masurama I will say it," he said. This one said, "I will give it." After he gave it, he says, "When you have gone to a country don't require honour." Having said it, the two persons go away [together]. When they had been going a considerable distance, this Brahmana asked, "Will you still say a word [of advice] to me?" "If you will give me yet a masurama I will say it," he said. "I will give it," he said. After he gave it, he said, "Don't do anything without investigation." He goes on in silence. When they had gone still a considerable distance, this one spoke, "Emba! Brahmana." "What is it?" he asked. "Will you say yet a word [of advice] to me?" he asked. "Then will you give me still a masurama?" he said. Having said, "I will give it," he gave him one masurama. "To one's own wife don't tell a secret." The Brahmana [whom he had met], turning to go along a different path, asked at the hand of this one, "Are there still masuran in your hand?" Then this one said, "I sold a plot of ground, and brought three masuran. For even my expenses there is no other in my hand." Having said, "If so, I will say a word without payment (nikan); don't tell lies to Kings," he went away. Thereupon this one being weakened by hunger, at the time when he was going on, a nobleman (sitanan kenek) of a city near there having died and there being no one to bury him, they gave notice by beat of tom-toms that they will give five hundred masuran to a person who can [do it]. This destitute Brahmana asked the tom-tom beater, "What is that tom-tom beating for?" The tom-tom beater says, "A man of this country has died and there is no one to bury him. Because of it I am beating the notice tom-tom," he said. This Brahmana thought, "'When one has gone to a country do not require honours,' he said." Having thought, "Because it is so I must bury this nobleman," this one said, "I can," and went. Thereupon this dead nobleman's son says to the Brahmana, "Thou having quite alone buried this dead body, come [to me]; I will give thy wages." This one having said, "It is good," and taken away the corpse, and cut the grave, thinks, "A sooth-saying Brahmana said to-day, 'Without investigation don't do a thing.'" Having said this he unfastened the cloth round the waist of this dead nobleman, and looked at the body. There was a belt. He unfastened it and looked [at it]; the belt was full of masuran. Having taken them he buried the corpse and came to the nobleman's house. Well then, the nobleman's son gave the Brahmana five hundred masuran. This one having taken them, came near a goldsmith, and causing him to make for his wife the things that she needed, he went to the Brahmana's village. Having gone he spoke to his wife and gave her these articles. After he gave them this woman asks the Brahmana, "Whence did you bring these?" in order that he should say the manner in which he brought them. This one thought, "Yet [another] Brahmana having taken one masurama from me said, 'To one's own wife don't tell a secret,' didn't he?" Thinking this, not telling her the way in which he brought them, he said, "Having become thirsty when I was coming home, when I looked about there was not a place to drink at. Having drunk a great quantity of Euphorbia milk [115] because the thirst was excessive, I was lying down upon a rock. Then the rock having split, masuran were thrown out. Collecting as many as I could, I got these things made," he said to his wife. As soon as he said it (kiwa wahama), this woman having gone running told it in this manner to a great number of women besides. Thereupon the women having come running to their houses said it to their husbands. Those persons, about twenty-five, taking cooking pots, went to drink Euphorbia milk. Out of the persons who drank it a portion died; the other persons [after] vomiting came back. Having said to this Brahmana and his wife, "You told our men to drink Euphorbia milk, and caused them to die," those women instituted a law-suit before a King. Thereupon the King caused both parties to be brought. The King asks the Brahmana, "How did this occur?" The Brahmana says, "Your Majesty (Devayan wahanse), having given three masuran, I asked for and got three words [of advice] from a Brahmana. 'Having gone to a country don't require honours,' he said; 'Without investigation don't do a thing,' he said; 'To one's own wife don't tell a secret,' he said; thereupon, the masuran being finished, he said without masuran, 'Don't tell lies to Kings.'" He then repeated to the King the true story (already given) of his adventures and actions, which I omit; and he ended by saying "On account of [the other Brahmana's] saying, 'Don't tell lies to Kings,' I told you the fact." The King having investigated the law-suit, set free the Brahmana and the Brahmana's wife. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. With this may be compared the advice given to the Prince in the story No. 250 in this volume. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 213 ff., a poor weaver who went away to improve his fortunes after borrowing forty rupees, met with a man who was silent until paid twenty rupees, when he said, "Friend, when four men give you [the same] advice, take it." When he gave the man his remaining twenty rupees, and said, "Speak again," the man warned him not to tell his wife what happened to him. After this, the weaver met with four men sitting round a corpse, and consented to carry it to the adjoining river for them, and throw it in. He found diamonds tied round its waist, appropriated them, returned home, repaid his loan, and lived in luxury. The village headmen wished to know how the weaver became rich, and the man's wife pestered him about it until he stated that while on his travels he was told to drink half a pint of mustard oil early in the morning, and he would then see hidden treasure. The headman's wife being told this by her, gave her husband and six children the dose at night, and in the morning they were all dead. When the King held an inquiry she charged the weaver's wife with advising her to do it; but the latter totally denied it, and the headman's wife was hanged. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 32, a Brahmana's wife sold to a Prince for a lakh of rupees four pieces of advice written by her husband, and the King banished the Prince for his foolishness in wasting the money thus. The advice was that a person when travelling must be careful at a strange place, and keep awake, (2) a man in need must test his friends, (3) a man who visits a married sister in good style will be well received, but if poor will be disowned, (4) a man must do his own work well. The Prince was saved from murder by keeping awake at night in his lodgings; was nearly executed when he visited his brother-in-law as a poor Yogi; rid a Princess of two snakes which issued from her nostrils, and was appointed her father's successor; was then received with humility by his brother-in-law, and cured his father's blindness by laying his hands on his eyes. At p. 332, four exiled Princes agreed to keep watch at night over the corpse of a great merchant; the reward was to be four thousand rupees. They had adventures with the corpse and demons. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 53, a Prince paid a man his only three gold coins for three pieces of advice, and the man gave him a fourth free of charge. The first was not to sit without moving the stool or mat offered; the second, not to bathe where others bathed; the third, to act according to the opinion of the majority; and, lastly, to restrain his anger, hear an explanation, and weigh it well before acting. The first saved him from being dropped into a well; the second saved his purse when left behind on bathing; the third obtained for him a roll of coin out of the waist cloth of a corpse which he threw into a ravine; and on returning home at night, when he found a pair of slippers and a sword outside his wife's door, inquiry showed that only her sister was with her. NO. 210 THE STORY OF A SIWURALA [116] In a certain country a Lord (monk) having been a monk is without clothes [to put on, in order] to abandon his monk's robes (siwru). Asking at the hand of a novice for a cloth and a handkerchief, he abandoned his robes (thus becoming a layman again). Having thus come away, when he was bathing in a river an elder sister and a younger sister were bathing lower down the river. Then, having seen that man who, having abandoned his robes and come [there], is bathing, the elder sister said, "That heap of wood which is coming is for me." Then the younger sister said, "The things that are in that heap of wood are for me." Then the elder sister went home for a cloth, to give to the man to wear. Afterwards the younger sister, having torn a piece from the cloth she was wearing, and having given it, goes away to her house with the man. Then the elder sister brings the cloth, too; having seen that these two are going the elder sister went back home. The younger sister and the Siwrala went home [and he remained there as her husband]. The man, continuing to eat without doing work, is quite unemployed. Afterwards the younger sister's mother, having told the younger sister and the Siwrala to eat separately, gave her a gill of rice, a small water-pot (koraha), a small cooking-pot (muttiya), a large cooking-pot (appalle), a rice-cleaning bowl (naembiliya), and a spoon. The man having gone into the village [117] and been [there], when he is coming the younger sister is weeping and weeping. So the man asked, "What are you crying for?" Then the woman says, "Having said that you do not work, mother told us to eat separately." Having said, "The things she gave (dipuwa), there they are," she showed him them. Afterwards the man having gone asked the Gamarala (his wife's father), "How [are we to do], then? There is not a thing for us to eat. I came here to ask to cut even a paela (quarter of an amuna) of your paddy on shares." The Gamarala said, "Ando! Thou indeed wilt not cut the paddy, having been sitting doing nothing." Then the man said, "No. I will cut a paela or two of paddy and come back." Having gone to the rice field, and that very day having cut the paddy [plants] for two paelas of paddy (when threshed), and collected them, and heaped them at the corners of the encircling [ridges], and carried them to the threshing floor, and trampled them [by means of buffaloes] that very day, he went to the Gamarala and said, "The paddy equal to two paelas has been cut and trampled (threshed). Let us go at once to measure it." Afterwards the Gamarala having gone there, [said], "I don't want this paddy; thou take it." The man having brought the paddy home, said [to his wife], "You present this as a religious act." [118] The woman having pounded the paddy and cooked it, gave away [the cooked rice] as a religious act. The man went [to a river near] the sea, to help men to cross to the other side. [119] When he helped them to cross, the man does not take the money which the men [offer to] give. When he was helping men to cross in that way, one day an old man came. He helped the man to cross. The man's betel bag, and walking stick, and oil bottle were forgotten [120] on that bank. Afterwards the old man says, "Ane! My betel bag was forgotten." That Siwrala, having gone to that bank, brought and gave him the betel bag. Then that old man said, "Ane! My walking-stick was forgotten." The Siwrala brought and gave that also. Then that old man said, "Ane! My oil bottle was forgotten." The Siwrala brought and gave that also. Well then, that old man tried to give money to this man; the Siwrala did not take it. The old man went away. This Siwrala came home. Having gone there, the Siwrala, having got fever, lay down. Well then, the Siwrala says, "I shall be still a little delayed." The woman asked, "What are you saying? Am I not becoming afraid [when you talk in that way]?" Then the man says, "Nay, I will say nothing. They are telling me to mount on that carriage, and telling me to mount on this carriage." The woman said, "That is false you are saying." Then the man said, "To look if it is false, string a flower garland and give me it." Afterwards the woman having strung a flower garland, gave it. The man, taking the flower garland, threw it on the [celestial] carriage [in the air]. Then the flower garland was arranged on the carriage. Having seen it, that woman, covering her face, died. Having died there, the woman having been [re]-born in the divine world, when she was coming again to the house the man had not yet died. On account of it the woman said, "Why have you not died yet? I, having died, and gone, and been [re]-born in the divine world,--is it not so?--came here. Come, and go with me," she said. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. The account of the dying man's words and the flower garland which hung on the celestial carriage is borrowed from Mah. I., p. 226 (Dr. Geiger's translation). When six gods invited the dying King Duttha-Gamani to join them on their celestial cars and proceed to their heavenly world, he motioned to them to wait while sacred verses were being chanted, and explained to the monks what his gesture signified. As it was thought that his mind was affected, he ordered flower garlands to be thrown into the air, and these arranged themselves on the cars, which were invisible to all but the King. NO. 211 HOW THE POOR MAN BECAME WEALTHY In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. During the time while they are there, there is an infant [son] of the two persons. After the infant became big they were stricken by a very great scarcity of food. Having given all and eaten, being without anything, at the time when, doing work at cities and having brought rice dust, they were continuing to eat, a King came, and calling that boy went away [with him]. The King having come again to this boy's house, said at the hand of the boy's mother and father, "How is the manner in which you get a living now?" The two persons said, "Having worked in these cities and brought rice dust [we cook and eat it]." The King said, "Can you go with me to my city?" The two persons having said "Ha," the two went with the King to the King's city. The King built and gave the two persons a house also (gekut), to be in, and the two, doing work at the city, [after] cooking continue to eat. All the city spoke of giving a danaya (religious feast) to the Gods and the host who come with the Gods. These two also spoke, "Let us also give (demu) a danaya." Having been there without eating for two or three days, they got together the things for the dana. When they will give the dana on the morrow, to seek a fish for the dana this man went to the sea quarter. As he is going, the sea fishermen, having drawn their nets ashore, are stringing the fishes together. Then the fishermen asked, "Where are you going?" This man said, "I am to give a danaya to the Gods to-morrow. For it I am going to seek a fish." The fishermen said, "We will give it. String these fishes." The man having said "Ha," until it became evening strung the fishes. Afterwards the fishermen gave that man a fish. Taking it, as he was coming a considerable distance he met a widow woman. The woman said, "Where did you go?" Then the man said, "I went to this sea quarter. I am giving a danaya to the Gods; I went to seek a fish for it." The woman said, "I also will go," and came with the man. At dawn the widow woman, asking [permission] from those two, cooked the dane for the Gods. One cannot stay in the city on account of the sweet [smell] of that fish having entered it. Those Gods and their host having come at the time of the dana, all at the city apportioned the whole of the food. [121] Near these three persons there was no one. So Sakra, [observing it], creating an old man's appearance, came. This man called to Sakra, "Come here, you; there is not a person here for the dane." Having spread a single-fold (tani-pota) mat, he gave the dane to Sakra. Sakra having eaten the dane went away. Those Gods and their host then also went. [122] As this man was folding the mat which he gave to that Sakra to sit upon, under it silver and golden things had been heaped up. The man with that silver and gold caused a city to be well built. That King's sovereignty having been changed, this man's son obtained the sovereignty. When he had been [there] not much time a very great scarcity of food struck the [former] King of the city, and the people. Doing work at the city of this [formerly] poor man, and having eaten, they remained there. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 212 THE STORY OF MADAMPE-RALA At a certain city there is a person, Madampe-rala. For that Madampe-rala he brought a [bride in] marriage, it is said. That bride (mangula) was sent away (aeruna). Still he brought a bride, it is said; that bride also was sent away. In that manner, he brought seven persons. The youngest one of the whole seven having prospered, remained. The whole of those very seven persons were sisters. Those six persons were sent away, having said they would not grind millet. While the above-mentioned youngest woman is prospering, one day the man says, "Bolan, cook for me to-morrow morning while it is still night, and give me it. It is [necessary] to go to cut jungle (wal)," he said. The woman during the night itself cooked seven [millet] cakes, and cooked the flesh of a deer, and packed them in a box; and having cooked still seven cakes and the flesh of a deer, and given [these last to him] to eat, he finished. That Madampe-rala ate the seven cakes and the flesh of the deer, and went to cut jungle, taking the other seven cakes and the flesh of the deer. Having gone, and having placed the things he took at the bottom of a tree, he began to cut jungle. Having cut three and a half chenas, [123] and come [to the tree] and eaten the seven cakes and the flesh of the deer which he took, and drunk a gourd (labbak) of water, he cut another three and a half chenas, and went home. A little time having halted and been at home, he came back to the chena, and having set fire to it he began to work [again]. Having sown it and finished, bringing his wife and bags after the millet (kurahan) ripened they went to the chena, and she began to cut the millet. In the whole seven chenas she cut the millet in just one day. Having cut it and collected it at one place, together with the man she dragged [124] (carried) it home. That she cut the millet in the whole seven chenas the man was much pleased. Having finished with the millet work, there having been a little paddy of his he cut that little, and collected it together. Having said that he must go to his father-in-law's village, while he is going away [after] tying five pingo (carrying-stick) loads, when going along through the middle of the King's rice field the men who are in the field seized him. Thereupon he says, "Don't seize me. There being no paddy for me to cut, a little paddy of my father-in-law's has ripened; to cut that little and return, I am going [after] tying also five pingo loads [of presents for my father-in-law]. I am unable [125] to stay to cut paddy [for you]," he said. Thereupon, the men while giving answer asked, "Bola, any person who goes through the middle of this field goes [after] having cut paddy. [126] If thou cut [some] and went, would it be bad?" Thereupon, the man began to cut the paddy. Having cut the seven amunas (about sixteen acres), and finished, he descended to the unripe paddy [127] and began to cut it. Having cut the unripe paddy and finished, he began to cut the young paddy. [128] That he cuts with an elephant's-rib pin. When he is cutting the young paddy, the men having gone running to the royal palace, say, "We called and got a man who was going on the path. That man having cut down all the [ripe] paddy is cutting the young paddy," they said. Thereupon the King having come to the rice field and called the man, when he asked, "What are you cutting the unripe paddy for?" the man says, "When I was going to father-in-law's village [after] tying five pingo-loads, they told me to cut paddy," he said. The King calling the man and having gone with him [to the palace], tied ten pingo-loads more, and sent him away with men [carrying them], it is said. Having gone to his father-in-law's house, while he is there, when the man is preparing to go to the watch hut [in the rice field] his father-in-law says, "Son-in-law, you cannot go. A malignant (wasa) boar comes to the rice field. It has eaten three or four men," he said. Having said, "No matter to me for that; I am not afraid of it," he went off, taking a large rice pestle. Having gone, when he was [there] the boar came; it having come there he shouted. Through fear at that it descended to rip open the man. When it was coming, the boar came and sprang to eat him. The man having given it blows with the rice pestle, killed it; having killed it he began to cut the paddy. In that paddy field he cut all the paddy before light falls. Having cut it and come away, he entered the watch hut and went to sleep. After light fell, his father-in-law who stayed at home was expecting that he would come; because [he did] not, with much grief he went to the rice field to look if the boar had eaten him. Having gone [there], when he looked he had gone to sleep. When his father-in-law spoke to him he turned and got up. When he said, "Boy, we were afraid that the boar would have eaten you," he replied, "The boar indeed came; I beat it. Look there; it is dead, look." Having looked at it, both of them went home, taking it. Thereafter he was much pleased with the son-in-law. Afterwards [the man] came home. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 213 ÆWARIYAKKA The first part of this story is a repetition, with little variation, of the incidents in No. 58, vol. i, and the first part of No. 10. After eating the fruit in the plantain garden the youth was set afloat in the river, and had a similar experience at a Kaekiri garden, where he said his name was Ena-ena-gaeta Kanna, Wael Peralanna,--Eater of the young fruits which keep coming, Turner-over of creepers. The present story continues:-- Then the ship (raft) went to the place where the washerman-uncle was washing clothes. "Ane! Washerman-uncle, take me out," the boy said. He got him ashore, and after taking him asked, "What is your name?" "Hu­kiyanna" (He who calls "Hu"), he said. Well then, calling him they went home. The woman who was in the house asked, "What is your name?" "Asiya," [129] he said. After that, the boy went with the washerman-uncle to a house, to tie cloths for decoration [on the walls and ceiling]. [130] While tying them the cloths became insufficient, so the washerman-uncle said, "Go home; take cloths from the box at the foot of the bed, [131] and bring them." The boy having gone home and opened the box, took cloths from it, and as he was coming back decorated with the cloths a Jambu tree [132] that was near the path. Having decorated it (that is, hung them from the branches), while he was there Hettiralas who were going trading in cloth [came up and] asked the boy, "What is that?" "This Jambu tree produces cloth as fruit," he said. When he said this, the Hettiralas said, "Give the cloth tree to us for money." Afterwards the boy having given them the cloth tree for money, said, "I have no cloth to wear. Give me those two cloths; the tree will bear other cloths for you." The men gave him the two cloths. After that, while he was taking the cloths he met with a Banyan tree, and decorated that tree also with the two cloths. While he was there [after] decorating it, a man was taking an elephant [along the path]. When he came near the tree he asked, "What is that?" "This Banyan tree produces cloth as fruit," the boy replied. After he said this [the man] said, "Taking this elephant give me that cloth tree." Then the boy, having given that man the cloth tree, took the elephant to a house. After he went there, having tied up the elephant he made the elephant eat (swallow) the gold [coins] which he had [got from the cloth traders]. Next morning it had voided them. Afterwards, taking [the elephant's dung], while he was washing it [and picking out the gold coins] the house man, [learning from him that the elephant always dropped gold coins in that way], said, "Give that elephant to me for money." He gave the elephant. After that, the boy, taking the money, went to his father's house. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. The last incident is given in The Indian Antiquary, vol. xviii, p. 120, in a Tamil story by Pandit Natesa Sastri. A Brahmana's son who was sent away by his father, stayed at a courtesan's house. At dawn he put two gold coins in each of the droppings of his horse, and when the sweeper came he refused to let him remove the horse dung until he took out his money. After the courtesan bought the horse, and learnt the spell which he said was necessary, he went away to Madura. In the same Journal, vol. iii, p. 11, in a Bengal story by Mr. G. H. Damant, a farmer made his cow swallow one hundred rupees. Six men who saw him afterwards collecting the rupees from the cow-dung, bought the animal for five thousand rupees. When they returned after discovering the trickery the stick incident followed, in which the wife was beaten in order to change her into a girl. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 109, a man made his servant insert rupees into his mule's dung overnight, and in the morning break it up and remove them. He then sold the mule for four thousand rupees to some people who had robbed his brother. In a Khassonka story of the interior of West Africa, given in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 66, a boy received from a credulous King a thousand slaves in exchange for a hen which he averred changed all the herbs it ate into nuggets of gold. He explained that he did not know what to do with it because gold was nothing to him. The King kept the hen in confinement for a month, caused the dung to be washed, and of course found no gold. NO. 214 THE HORIKADAYA STORY In a certain country there are seven Queens, it is said. For the whole seven Queens there are no children. In the King's garden one Jak fruit grew [133]; after the Jak fruit ripened he cut it; in it there was one section containing a seed (madula). Afterwards the King said, "Can a Queen eat this Jak section and bear a child?" Six Queens said they cannot; one Queen ate it. She having eaten it, ten months were fulfilled (lit., filled) for bearing a child. Then the King happened to go for a war. Afterwards pains seized that Queen; she bore a Chank shell. Then when the six Queens made an Asura figure, [134] having taken that Chank shell they buried it in the dunghill. Well then, having waited until the time when the King came, the six persons showed him the Asura figure. Afterwards the King having struck blows at the Queen who was confined, drove her away. A bull having come to the place where that Chank shell was buried, and dug it with its horns, saw the Chank shell and swallowed it. The bull having gone to the sea evacuated the Chank shell; there also the shark having seen it swallowed it. From there, having killed the shark, fishermen (kewulo) took it to the city; when taking it along the street to sell, the Queen who bore that Chank shell met with them. Having seen the shark the Queen asked, "For how much are you selling this shark?" The fishermen said, "We are selling it for four tuttu (three half-pence)." Afterwards the Queen having given four tuttu, took the shark. Having brought it to her lodgings and cut it, when she looked there was a Chank shell in its stomach. Having put the Chank shell away, [after] cooking the shark meat she ate. When she was [there after] putting away the Chank shell, one day she looked at it. Then having seen that inside the Chank shell a Prince is drinking milk that is in his hand, [135] she took the Prince out. At that time (e para) the Queen got to know that it was the Chank shell that she bore. She gave the Prince a jacket. At the time when she put it on [136] there was a cutaneous eruption (hori) on his body. Afterwards the Queen said he was Horikadaya (the one with the bit of hori). After the Prince became big he went to the smithy; having gone and brought a bow, and an arrow-stem, and an arrow-head, [137] he went to shoot animals, and shot a deer. Having come [after] shooting it, he gave it to his nearest uncle. [138] Thus, in that manner, shooting and shooting deer he eats. When he was thus, one day when going to shoot he met with an Egret (kokka); when he caught it alive (amuwen), taking it [home] he reared it. [After] rearing it, the Egret and Horikadaya every day go to the chena jungle for hunting-meat, [139] to shoot deer for themselves. One day when they were going thus they saw that there were a horse, and a Prince, and a Minister; afterwards the two went there. Having gone, at that Prince's hand, "What [are you doing here]?" Horikadaya asked. "Because our father the King tried to kill us, on account of it we came and sprang into the chena jungle," the Prince said. Afterwards the five live in one place. While there, Horikadaya said to the Prince, "Let us go to seek a marriage." Afterwards the whole five having gone very near a city to seek the marriage, the Prince and the Minister having gone inside the city, and having tied the horse in the open space (midula) of the city, Horikadaya and the Egret remained among the branches [in the jungle]. The Prince asked the city Princess [in marriage]. The Princess said, "To the Prince I cannot go; I will go indeed to Horikadaya." Afterwards Horikadaya and the Princess contracted (lit., tied) the marriage. When the whole six having collected together are coming to the village, the horse and the Prince and the Minister say, "We can't give that Princess to that Horikadaya; owing to it let us kill Horikadaya." Afterwards, when the three, summoning Horikadaya, were going to the forest they met with a well. They made Horikadaya descend into the well; having made him descend and thrown down stones, they trampled [them down]. There Horikadaya died. Afterwards the three, calling the Princess, came away (enda awa) to the village. The Egret being without Horikadaya went away (giya yanda). Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 82, a girl who was married to a King bore one hundred eggs, out of which eventually issued one hundred Princes. The Queen and concubines, being jealous of her, showed the King a piece of plantain fruit trimmed so as to represent a demon, and stated that she had given birth to it. They placed the eggs in a pot (cruche) and set it afloat in a river, whence a King of a country lower down obtained it. In the same work, vol. i, p. 305, Sakra gave a Queen of Pañcala a fruit, telling her that after eating it she would have a son. NO. 215 THE STORY OF BAHU-BHUTAYA In a certain city a woman had become dexterous at dancing. It became public everywhere that there was not a single person in the whole of Great Dambadiva (India) to dance with (i.e., equal to) the woman. At the same time, there was also a boy called Bahu-Bhutaya, a boy of a widow woman. While he is [there], one day the aforesaid woman went for dancing to the village called Balaellaewa. [140] Having danced that day, she obtained a thousand masuran. Thereafter, she went to dance at the house of the Dippitiyas [141], at the village called Kotikapola, which was near the same village. On the same day the aforesaid Bahu-Bhutaya also went in order to look at the woman's dances. Bahu-Bhutaya before this had learnt dances from the Dandapola Korala (headman). While Bahu-Bhutaya, having gone, and looked and looked, was there, she began to dance, having sung and sung poetical songs, and beaten and beaten cymbals. The woman says, "The savages that are to Lanka bound! Alas! the savages upon my Lanka bound!" [142] When, in singing it, she had made it about Lankawa (Ceylon), when she [thought she] had made no opportunity (idak) for any other dancing person who might be present [to surpass her], having sung the poetical song she danced. At that time Bahu-Bhutaya, after having decorated himself with [dancer's] dress, taking the udakkiya (the small hand tom-tom), and asking permission from all (according to the usual custom), sang a song (a parody of the other). The very song indeed [was]:-- "Alas! Alas! Daub oil my head around; Or, if you won't, Athwart my chest observe how hairs abound." [143] (Ane! Ane! Mage isa wata tel gapan Baeri nan bada [144] wata kehuru balan.) Having sung the song, Bahu-Bhutaya descended to dance. Because the Dandapola Korala previously taught Bahu-Bhutaya that same song, and because the same teacher had given his sworn word [not to teach it to another person], the woman was unable to dance the same song. After having made obeisance to Bahu-Bhutaya, she says, "You, Sir, must give me teaching," the woman said to Bahu-Bhutaya. After that, Bahu-Bhutaya, marrying that very woman, began to teach her. After he had taught her, one day the woman thinks, "I must kill this Bahu-Bhutaya," she thought. "What of my being married to this Bahu-Bhutaya! From dancing I have no advantage; he himself receives the things. Because of it I will kill him," she thought. One day, lying down in the house, saying, "I have a very severe (lit., difficult) illness," the woman remained lying down. Bahu-Bhutaya having gone for a work, when he came back saw that she is lying down. Having seen it, he says, "What is it? What illness have you?" he asked. The woman, in order to kill the man, says, "Now then, I shall not recover; I have much illness," she said. Thereupon Bahu-Bhutaya, because the woman was good-[looking], thinks, "What medical treatment shall I give for this?" he thought. After that, the woman says, "If you are to cure my illness, having brought a little water which is at the bottom of the Great Sea beyond the Seventh Ocean, should I drink it (bunnot) my illness will be cured," she said. After that, Bahu-Bhutaya began to go. Having gone on and on he went on the Great Ocean. Through affection for his wife, because she was very handsome, he jumped [into it] to get the water from the bottom of the ocean. After he jumped [into it], the fishes having bitten him and the water having soaked him, he died. Beginning from that time, this woman, having associated with another husband also, when dancing brought back presents. After a long time, that very woman also, through the crime committed respecting her first husband, fell into the water and died. From that time, the persons who saw these [things said] they are in the form of a folk-tale. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 216 THE STORY OF GOLU-BAYIYA [145] In a country there was, it is said, a man called Gonaka-Bokka. There were ten younger brothers of that Gona-Bokka, it is said. The ten younger brothers spoke: "From elder brother Gona-Bokka there is not any advantage for us [because he idles and does no work]. It is difficult for us, doing [house] work for ourselves. On account of it, we will bring one [woman in] marriage for us ten persons." After having said it, having said, "Let us go to the village called Otannapahuwa," the young younger brother went to the village, it is said. He went to that Otannapahuwa to ask about the marriage. After that, the other nine persons speak, it is said: "When we say to our elder brother, 'Gona-Bokka,' the woman they are bringing for us will say, Bola, that the name called Gona-Bokka is not good caste [enough] for her. The woman they are bringing for us will come [now]. On account of it, let us call him Golu-Bayiya. Let us give her to our Golu-Bayi elder brother also to neutralise [146] our [inferior] names," they are talking together, it is said. Then, several days wearing down the road, the youngest brother of all having come, said, it is said, "Elder brothers, I went to ask at Otannapahuwa. The woman indeed is of good lineage (wanse). They sent word, 'Who gives in marriage to a young youngster? [147] Tell the elder brothers, one of them, to come.'" After that, the ten persons speak [together], it is said, "Let us send elder brother Golu-Bayiya, older than we ten, to ask about the marriage," they talk. Well, the person they call Golu-Bayiya is a great fool, it is said. After that, those ten spoke: "Elder brother, if you also agree (lit., come) to the things we say, you also come [after] calling [a woman] to live in one marriage for the whole of us eleven." After that, Golu-Bayiya said, "It is good; I will go." Causing them to cook a lump of rice, he set off and went. He goes and he goes. Because he does not know the path, having gone [part of the way], sitting down on a rock in the midst of the forest he ate the lump of cooked rice. Having eaten it, while he is there a woman of another country, having become poor, is coming away, it is said, along the path. Having come, she sat down near the rock on which is that Golu-Bayiya. After that, the woman asks, it is said, "Of what country are you? Of what village?" the woman asked the man. The man said, "I am going to Otannapahuwa to ask about a marriage," he said. [He told her of his brother's visit.] After that, the woman says, "Aniccan dukkhan! The woman of that village who was asked is I. My two parents, having made a mistake, drove me away. Because of it I am going to a place where they give to eat and to drink," she said. After that, Golu-Bayiya having thought, "Because the woman is good-looking, and because she has been asked before, not having gone at all to Otannapahuwa I must go [back] calling her [in marriage]," summoning the woman whom he met with while on the path he came to the village. Having come, he says to his younger brothers, "I went to Otannapahuwa." Having said, "The bride,--there, [that is] the woman; for the whole of us let us call her [to be our wife]," he said. After that, the other ten persons, because they had not seen her [before], from that day marrying the woman stayed [there with her]. Marrying her, while they were there several days the younger ten persons speak: "Elder brother quite alone, without anyone whatever [to assist him], came back calling our [bride in] marriage. It was good cleverness that our elder brother showed (lit., did). Because of it let us all do work. Having handed over our wife to our elder brother Golu-Bayiya to guard her continually, let us do work. Elder brother, guard the woman," they said. Having said, "It is good; I will guard her," to the places where the woman goes and comes, and to all other places if the woman goes, that Golu-Bayiya also goes. While [matters were] thus, one day a man came to the village for trading. The man's name was Gaetapadaya. That Gaetapadaya for several days having continued to do trading at the same house, stayed in the maduwa (open shed) at the same house [at which the brothers lived]. While staying there, Golu-Bayiya's wife associated with the same man they call Gaetapadaya. While they are thus, on a day when the first-mentioned ten persons went to work, Gaetapadaya says to the aforesaid Golu-Bayiya, "I saw a dream to-day. What was it? At such and such a place on the path I saw that a Sambhar deer is dead." Gaetapadaya told Golu-Bayiya to look at it and come back. While Golu-Bayiya went to look at the Sambhar deer, Gaetapadaya taking the woman, taking also the goods that were at the house, both of them absconded. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 217 THE YAKA OF THE AKARAGANE JUNGLE In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. The man has worked in a rice field; in it he also built a watch-hut. The man is in the watch-hut every day. At the time when he is thus, a beggar came to the man's house. Afterwards the man having heaped up a great many coconut husks in the watch-hut [for making fires at night], told the beggar to go to the watch-hut. The beggar went to the watch-hut. Afterwards this man having gone to the watch-hut and set fire to the watch-hut, came back, and said at the hand of his wife, "You say, 'Our man, having been burnt at the watch-hut, died.'" [148] Furthermore he said, "Every day when I say 'Hu,' near the stile of the rice field, put a leaf-cup of cooked rice for me"; having said it the man went into the jungle. After it became night, the man having come to the rice field cried "Hu" near the stile. Then the woman brought the cooked rice and placed it there; having placed it there the woman went home. The man ate the cooked rice, and went again into the jungle. On the following day, also, the man, after it became night, came to the rice field and cried "Hu." Then the woman brought cooked rice and placed it there. While she was there, the man having come said, "Don't you bring cooked rice again; I am going to the Akaragane jungle." Afterwards the woman came home. That man, having eaten the cooked rice, went to the Akaragane jungle, and having rolled himself in a mud hole, [149] came to the path and remained [there]. Then, when a man was coming bringing cakes and plantains along the path, this man, breaking a bundle of branches, sprang in front of that man who was coming. Thereupon, the man having thrown down the cakes and plantains at that very spot, bounded off and went away. When this man, [after] taking and putting away the pingo (carrying-stick) load, was there, a potter comes along bringing a pingo load of pots. Then this man, again breaking a bundle of branches, sprang in front of that man who was coming. Thereupon the potter, having thrown down the pingo load of pots at that very spot, bounded off and went away. After that, the man, taking and putting away the pingo load of pots, remains [there]. (He frightened other men in the same manner, and secured pingo loads of coconuts, turmeric, chillies, salt, onions, rice, vegetables, and a bundle of clothes. Thus he had the materials that he required for making curries. The narrator gave the account of each capture in the same words as before.) Afterwards, this man having taken and put away there the pingo load of rice and vegetables,--near that forest there is a city,--having gone to the city and brought fire, [after] cooking ate. While he was [there], when a man who had gone to a devil-dance (kankariyakata) was coming, this man, breaking a bundle of branches, sprang in front of that man who was coming. Then that tom-tom beater, having thrown down there the box of decorations, and jingling bangles, and all, bounded off and went away. Afterwards, when this man was there [after] tying them on, while certain men who had gone to a [wedding] feast were coming calling the bride, again this man, breaking a bundle of branches, sprang in front of those men who were coming; and taking the bride and placing her in the chena jungle he sprang into a rock house (cave). Those men through fear bounded off and went away. Afterwards the King of the city said, "Who can seize that Yaka?" Then a man said, "I can." The King said, "What do you want?" "Having built a house in the chena jungle (lande) and tied white cloths [inside, on the walls and ceiling], [150] and put a bed [in it], you must give me it." Afterwards the King having caused a house to be built, and caused white cloths to be tied, and caused a bed to be placed [in it], gave it. Afterwards this man having caused the bride to stay in the rock house, and having gone much beforehand (kalimma), crept under the end of the bed in the house and remained [there] silently. The man who said he could seize the Yaka, after it became night having eaten and drunk, taking also a thread, came onto the bed in the house; having come he utters spells (maturanawa). Then the man who is under the bed shakes the jingling bangle a little. The man who is uttering spells, after saying, "Ha, are you getting caught?" utters spells loudly, loudly. [151] Then the man who was under the bed having arisen, taking the man together with the bed also, went to the rock house. Having gone there, when he was placing the bed in the rock house, the man who was on the bed, crying out and having got up, went to the city. Then the King asked, "What is it? Didst thou seize the Yaka?" The man having said, "Ane! O Lord, I indeed cannot seize him," went to the man's village. Afterwards the King having said that he can seize him, and the King having mounted on his horse, came with the army to the Akaragane jungle. Then this man, breaking a bundle of branches, sprang in front [of him]. Having sprung in front of the King who was coming, seizing the horse this man came to the rock house. The King and the army went to the city through fear. After they returned a Lord [152] came. The King asked if the Lord could seize the Yaka who is in the Akaragane jungle. Then the Lord asked, "When I have seized the Yaka what will you give me?" The King said, "I will give a district from the kingdom, and goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load, and the Akaragane jungle." The King said, "For seizing the Yaka what do you want?" The Lord said, "Having built a house, and tied cloths at it, and placed a bed [in it], please give me it." Afterwards the King having put a bed in that house which was built [already], gave him it. This man, just as on that day, crept beforehand under the bed in the house, and remained [there]. Afterwards the Lord having gone, taking also a thread, utters spells while sitting on the bed. Then the man who is under the bed shakes the jingling bangle a little. Then the Lord while uttering spells says, "Ha, being caught, come." Saying and saying it, he utters spells very loudly. Then the man who was under the bed, having shaken the jingling bangles loudly, lifting up [and carrying] the bed also, went to the rock house. Having gone there, when he was placing it [there], the Lord, crying out, bounded off and went away. Having thus gone, when he was [at the palace] the King asked, "What is it? Did you seize the Yaka?" Then the Lord having said, "Ane! I indeed cannot seize him," the Lord went to his pansala. Having caused the bride of the man who is in the rock house to remain in the rock house, and having taken off the man's jingling bangles and placed them in the rock house, [the man] came near the King. Then the King asked, "Can you seize the Yaka of the Akaragane jungle?" The man having said, "I can," said, "What will you give me?" The King said, "I will give a district from the kingdom, and goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load. I will also give the Akaragane jungle as a Nindema." [153] The King said, "For seizing the Yaka what do you want?" Then the man said, "I don't want anything." Having gone to the Akaragane jungle, and having come on the following day taking the jingling bangle and box of tom-tom beater's decorations, he showed them to the King, and said he seized the Yaka. Afterwards the King, having given the man the articles which the man took [to him], gave the man a district from the kingdom, and goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load, and the Akaragane jungle. The man having taken them, and come to the rock house, that woman and five children were [there]. The five children having gone to the man's village, in the man's village were his first wife and five children of the woman's. The children having sold the house at that village, and the two women and the ten children having come again to the Akaragane jungle, building a house in that jungle all remained in that very place. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 218 THE FOUR RAKSHASAS At a certain village there are five Gamaralas; for those five there are five wives. While the five persons are [there], five traders came to the house. To those women say the five traders, "Go with us." Having said, "Let us go," they went. Then when the five Gamaralas came home, having seen that the five women were not [there] they went to seek them. When going, they went into the forest jungle (himale) in which are four Rakshasas. The Rakshasas seized the men. Well then, the four Rakshasas having shared four men ate them; one person remained over. One Rakshasa said to another Rakshasa, "Take him for yourself." Then the other Rakshasa says, "I don't want him; you take him." This Rakshasa says, "I don't want him." Then that Rakshasa said, "Give him to me, if so." The other Rakshasa said, "I will not give him now, because previously when I was giving him you did not take him." Owing to it there having been a quarrel, the two [fought each other, and] died. Still two Rakshasas remained over. One Rakshasa having handed over the man to the other Rakshasa, says to the other Rakshasa, "You take charge of this man. Stay in this jungle; I am going to another jungle." After he said it the Rakshasa goes away. When going, he met with yet [another] man. Seizing the man he says, "What is in your box?" "In my box, cakes," he said. Then the Rakshasa says, "I don't want cakes; I must eat you." The man says, "It is I alone you eat now. [Spare me, and] I will give you cakes to eat," he said. The Rakshasa said, "I indeed don't eat these." The man says, "O Rakshasa (Raksayeni), it is for the name of thy Goddess, Midum Amma, [154] [that thou must spare me]." He having said this name, the Rakshasa, taking a cake, went to the river; he let the man go. Then the Rakshasa, having broken the cake into bits, says, "Under the protection (sarane) of Midum Amma, this cake is sprouting." Then it sprouted. Then the Rakshasa says, "On this tree four branches are being distributed, under the protection of Midum Amma." They were distributed. After they were distributed, he said, "On this tree four flowers are becoming full-grown, under the protection of Midum Amma." Then four flowers were full-grown. After that, he said, "Four cakes are becoming fruit on this tree, under the protection of Midum Amma." Then four cakes became fruit. After they became fruit the Rakshasa climbed the tree. While he was ascending, a Rakshasi came. Having come, she says, "O Rakshasa, please give me also cakes." The Rakshasa says, "Because I asked and got them from Midum Amma I cannot give them." The Rakshasi says, "Ane! O Rakshasa, you cannot say so. Please give me cakes." Then the Rakshasa gave her a [cake]-fruit. The Rakshasi said falsely, "The cake fell into the heap of cow-dung." Then the Rakshasa says, "To give cakes to thee, I shall not give again." The Rakshasi says, "O Rakshasa, [for me] to take [thee] to my house, place two cakes in thy two armpits, and taking one in [each] hand, do thou please jump into my sack." The Rakshasa says, "O Rakshasi, what happened to thy Rakshasa?" The Rakshasi says, "There is no Rakshasa of ours. O Rakshasa, I must take thee away." Then the Rakshasa says, "It is good." The Rakshasi says, "Having been in that cake tree, please jump into my sack." Then she held the sack. The Rakshasa jumped. He having jumped [into it], the Rakshasi tied the mouth of the sack, and placing it on her head goes on the path to the jungle. [155] When going, she met with a Moorman (Marakkek). The Rakshasi, having become afraid at seeing the man, bounded off. After she sprang off, the Moorman, having gone near the sack, placed the sack on his head; he took the sack away. Having gone again to the jungle he stays [there]. Then the Rakshasa came out and seized the Moorman. The man says, "What didst thou seize me for?" "Because there is not any food for me I seized thee to eat." The Moorman says, "Thou wilt eat me, only, now. There are five hundred children [of mine]. In the month I will give thee the children." Afterwards the Rakshasa let him go. The Moorman went home. The whole of the five hundred children of the Moorman go to school. When they came home from school the Moorman says, "Sons, come, to go on a journey." The five hundred and the Moorman having gone to the jungle, went to the place where the Rakshasa is. Having gone there, he called the Rakshasa; the Rakshasa came. Seeing the Rakshasa, this Moorman says, "O Rakshasa, they are in thy charge, these five hundred." Then the Rakshasa again seized the Moorman. The Moorman says, "What didst thou seize me for?" The Rakshasa says, "To eat thee I seized thee." Then the Moorman says, "My five hundred cattle are [there]; I will give them to thee." The Rakshasa says, "If so, wilt thou bring and give them?" The Moorman says, "I will bring and give them." Then the Moorman went to his house. Having gone [there], he came back, taking the five hundred cattle. He gave him them. Then the Rakshasa again seized the Moorman. The Moorman says, "What didst thou seize me for?" The Rakshasa says, "To eat thee." The Moorman says, "Five hundred goats are [there]. I will give them to thee; let me go." Then he let go the Moorman. The Moorman, having gone home, brought those five hundred goats and gave them. After he gave them the Rakshasa again seized the Moorman. When he was seizing him, he said to the Rakshasa, "I have brought and given thee so many things; thou didst not eat them." The Rakshasa says, "That is the truth. Take thy five hundred children; take thy five hundred cattle." When he said thus, the Rakshasa, taking the five hundred goats, ate. After that, the Moorman was sent home by the hand of the Rakshasa. After he sent him, this Rakshasa, having come to the Rakshasa's boundary, called the Moorman, and said, "Please take charge of this jungle; I am going away." The Moorman says, "O Rakshasa, where are you going?" The Rakshasa says, "I cannot live in this jungle!" The Moorman says, "If so, I will take over this chena jungle." He took it, the Moorman. The Rakshasa afterwards having gone from the jungle, a Yaka went into the jungle. In that jungle there is a very excellent [156] tree. In the excellent [tree] in that jungle the Yaka lives. When he was [there] he saw that the Rakshasa is going, the Yaka. The Yaka having become afraid began to run off, having descended. Then the Rakshasa came near the tree. Having come, when he looked he perceived that the Yaka had been [there]. The Rakshasa thought, "I must create for myself a man's disguise"; he created it. [After] creating it he ascended that tree; having ascended the tree he stayed [there] seven days. He saw two men taking a hidden treasure. The Rakshasa thought, "I must eat these two persons." Afterwards these two men came to that very tree. After they came the Rakshasa slowly descended. After having descended (baehaela hitan), having come near those men he says, "Where went ye?" Then the men say, "We came for no special purpose (nikan)." "What is this meat in your hand?" he asks. The men say, "This meat is indeed human." [157] Then the Rakshasa says, "Why didst thou tell me lies?" Having said it he seized them. Having finished seizing them, to those men says the Rakshasa, "I must eat you." The men say, "Shouldst thou eat us thy head will split into seven pieces." Then the Rakshasa says, "Art thou a greater person than I, Bola?" Thereupon the Rakshasa created and took the Rakshasa appearance. After he took it he asks, "Now then, art thou afraid of me now?" Then he ate a man. Seeing the other man, he seized his two hands. [158] After he seized them that man says, "O Rakshasa, what didst thou hold me for?" The Rakshasa says, "I hold thee for me to eat." "I have the tiger, greater than thee. Having employed the tiger I will kill thee," [the man said]. Then the Rakshasa, having abandoned the Rakshasa appearance, created the tiger appearance. After creating it, when he seized that man he says, "Is there a child of thine?" The man says, "There are two children of mine." The tiger says, "Am I to eat thee, or wilt thou give me thy two children?" he says. Then he says, "Don't eat me; I will give my two children." The tiger says, "Thou art telling lies." The man says, "In three days I will bring and give them to thee." Both the boys went to the jungle to break firewood. Afterwards, this man having come home, when he looked [they were] not at home. The man asked at the hand of his wife, "Where are the two youths?" The woman says, "The two boys went to break firewood." Then the man beat that woman. "Why didst thou send them to the chena jungle?" he said. The two youths came home. After they came they saw that their mother is weeping and weeping. "What, mother, are you weeping for?" they asked. Then said that woman, "Sons, your father beat me." Then the two youths say, "It is good, mother; if so, let him beat." [159] Thereupon the father called those two youths: "Having gone quite along this path, let one go on the rock that is on the path,--one," he said. He told the other youth to stay below the rock. Then he said to the youth who was going on the rock, "Having gone to the rock call your younger brother." Those boys having gone to that rock, the youth who went onto it called the other youth. The tiger heard that word. Having heard it he abandoned the tiger appearance; again he created the Rakshasa appearance. [After] creating it, he came running near the rock, the Rakshasa. Then after that youth who stayed on the ground had seen that Rakshasa, he seized the youth. After seizing him he says, "Who sent thee?" That youth said, "Father sent me into this chena jungle." The Rakshasa says, "Didst thou come alone?" [160] The youth says, "I came with my elder brother." Then the Rakshasa ate him. After that, that youth who is on the top of the rock says to his younger brother, "Younger brother, hold out your hands; I will jump." Having said, "Ha, jump," this Rakshasa opened his mouth. Then the youth jumped into his mouth. He having jumped into his mouth the Rakshasa ate him. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. This rambling story was related by a boy who supplied me with several other better ones. I have inserted it because it is the only one which mentions the deity of the Rakshasas, Midum Amma, the Mist Mother. The rest of the story gives a fair representation of some of the notions of the villagers regarding the Rakshasas. Their own statements to me regarding them are that the Rakshasas were found chiefly or only in the jungle called himale, the wild and little-frequented mixture of high forest and undergrowth. There are none in Ceylon now, they say; but in former times they are believed to have lived in the forest about some hills near this village of Tom-tom Beaters, at the north-western end of the Dolukanda hills, in the Kurunaegala district. Those at each place have a boundary (kada-ima), beyond which they cannot pass without invitation; this is referred to in the story No. 135. Ordinarily, they can only seize people who go within their boundary, unless they have been invited to enter houses or persons have been specially placed in their power. They are much larger than men, but can take any shape. Their teeth are very long, and are curved like bangles; they are as thick as a boy's arm. Their tangled hair hangs down over their bodies. They build good houses, and have an abundance of things in them, as well as silver and gold. They commonly rear only horses and parrots. They live on the men and animals they catch. Men are very much afraid when they see them; they seize anyone they can catch, and eat him,--or any animals whatever. Yakas (Yaksayo) do not usually eat men; they only frighten them. Rakshasas are much worse and more powerful than Yakas. Other notions of the villagers regarding these two classes of supernatural beings may be gathered from their folk-tales. In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 135, a Rakshasa is represented as living partly on goats. In the notes, p. 310, Sir R. Temple remarked that this was curious. It is in accordance with Sinhalese belief. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 602, a Rakshasa who had seized a man and was about to eat him, allowed him to go on his taking an oath that he would return, after doing a service for a Brahmana that he had promised. He got married in the place of the Brahmana's son, stole off in the night to redeem his promise, and was followed by his wife, who offered herself to the Rakshasa in his place. When the Rakshasa said that she could live by alms, and stated that if anyone refused her alms his head should split into a hundred pieces, the woman asked him for her husband by way of alms, and on his refusing to give him the Rakshasa's head split up, and he died. See also vol. i, p. 141, of these Sinhalese stories. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 405, a demon released a King on his promising to return to be eaten. NO. 219 THE STORY OF THE RAKSHASA In a certain country three youths, brothers, go to school. When not much time is going by, the youths' father called them in order to look at their lessons. The youngest one can say the lessons, the other two cannot say the lessons. After that their father drove them from the house. Well then, the two, setting off, went away from the house. Thereupon this young younger brother began to go with them both. Both those elder brothers having said, "Don't come," beat that youth. Taking no notice of it [161] he went behind them, weeping and weeping. Having gone thus, and entered a forest wilderness, while they were going they met with the Rakshasa's house. The youngest youth says, "Ane! Elder brother, having gone into the house place me in the middle, and sit down." At that time the Rakshasa brought and gave them food for all three to eat. These three said, "We cannot eat." After that, for the three persons to sleep the Rakshasa gave three mats. The Rakshasa sent the Rakshasa's two boys, also, to sleep. Those three wore red cloths; that Rakshasa's two boys wore white cloths. After that, the Rakshasa, having opened the door, came to eat those three persons. At that time the youngest youth was awake; owing to it the Rakshasa was unable to eat those boys. [162] He went back and lay down. Then that youngest youth taking the white cloths which the Rakshasa youths had put on, these three put them on. They put on those two the red cloths which these three had put on. When the Rakshasa came still [another] time, the three were lying down. That time, taking those two youths of the Rakshasa's who wore red cloths he ate them. When it was becoming light the three persons went to another village. After that, the two eldest contracted two marriages; that youngest youth remained to watch goats. To the owner of the goats those two who got married said, "At the Rakshasa's house there is a good parrot." The owner of the goats asked, "Who can bring it?" That youth who watched the goats said, "I can bring it." After that, the youth went at night to that Rakshasa's house, and having cut the parrot's cage brought the parrot, and gave it. Then those two said, "There is a good horse at that Rakshasa's house." Then, "Who can bring it?" he asked. The youth who watches the goats said, "I can bring it." After that, he went at night, and having unfastened the horse he brought it. Having brought it, he gave that also to the man who owned the goats. Then those two said, "At the Rakshasa's house there is a golden pillow." The man who owned the goats asked, "Who can bring the golden pillow?" The third boy said, "I can bring it." After that, having gone to the Rakshasa's house at night, opening the doors he went into the house. Having gone in, he took hold of the golden pillow in order to get it. On that occasion (e para) the Rakshasa awoke; after he awoke he seized that youth. He lit the lamp. Then he prepared to eat that youth, the Rakshasa. That youth said, "You cannot eat me in this way; having roasted me you must eat me." After that, that Rakshasa having given that youth into the hand of the Rakshasi, went to cut firewood. Then the youth calling the Rakshasi [to accompany him] came back, taking the Rakshasi and the pillow. Having brought them, he gave the pillow to the man who owned the goats. Thereupon the man who owned the goats told the boy to marry his girl (daughter). That youth said, "I cannot. When the woman who saved my life is here, I will marry that woman." After that, he married the Rakshasa's wife. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 220 THE THIEF AND THE RAKSHASAS In a certain village a man and a Rakshasa, having become friends, dwell. While they are there this friend went to the Rakshasa jungle. When going, the Rakshasa seized him to eat. Then the man says, "Don't eat me; I will give thee demon offerings." The Rakshasa, having said, "It is good," allowed him to go home. After that, that man having brought a youth gave him to the Rakshasa to eat. In that manner every day he brought and gave a youth until the time when the youths of the village were finished. All the youths having been finished there was not a youth for this man to give. While he was thus the man died. After he died, the Huniyan Yaka [163] began to come to the house [visiting the widow in the disguise of a man]. When he was coming, the woman's father having seen him went into the house to seize him. Having gone [there], when he looked there was not a Yaka. After that, the man having gone away went to sleep. Then the Huniyan Yaka having gone to that man's village, said, "Don't come to look at me." The man said afterwards to his daughter, "Daughter, ask for wealth at the hand of that man." After that, the woman says to the Yaka, "Bring and give me wealth." Thereupon the Yaka says, "I will bring and give it." Having gone to the place where that man is sleeping, says the Yaka, "Come thou, to go [with me] for me to give thee wealth." He went with the man near the hidden treasure. Having gone, he opened the door of the hidden treasure. "Take for thyself the treasure thou wantest," he said. Then the man took a golden necklace, two cloths, four gem-lamps, four cat's-eye stones (wayirodiya gal), and twelve pearls. Taking those, the man came home. When he was coming home, [four] other men having seen that he brought the wealth, the men went to break [into] the hidden treasure. After they went there, the four men having uttered spells, and put "life" [164] (i.e., magical life or power) into four stones, buried them at the four corners, in such a manner that no one could come [within the square formed by them]. After that, half the men break into the hidden treasure. (The others were repeating protective spells to keep away evil spirits.) The Huniyan Yaka ascertained about the breaking. Having ascertained it he came near the hidden treasure, but as the four stones are there he cannot seize the men. Having come, he created for himself the Cobra appearance; those four persons gave fowls' eggs to the Cobra. Again, he created the Elephant appearance; to the Elephant they gave a plantain stump. Again, a Hen with Chickens began to come near the hidden treasure; to the Chickens and to the Hen the men gave millet (kurahan). After having eaten they went away. [165] The Huniyan Yaka, [being unable to approach the place on account of the charmed stones, and the feeding of the animals], went to that woman's house. He went to the place where the woman's father is sleeping. The Yaka says, "Quickly go near the hidden treasure." Without hearing it the man slept. Then having come yet [another] time he struck the man. The man having arisen began to run naked near that hidden treasure. Those men who are breaking [into it], having seen the man [and thought he was a demon], uttered spells still more and more; they uttered spells to the extent they learnt. Notwithstanding, this man comes on. After having seen this man who is coming, those men began to run off through fear; they ran away. This man ran behind them. Those men, looking and looking back, run; this man runs behind. Then this man says, "Don't run; I am not a Yaka." The men say, "That is false which he says; that is indeed a Yaka." While running, one man stumbled and fell. Then that man who was coming behind went to the place where the man fell. After that, that man says, "Where are you going?" That man who had fallen says, "We having come to break [into] a hidden treasure, a Yaka came as we were running on the path. Then, indeed, I fell here." Those other men bounded off and went away. After that, these two men lament, "What is it that has happened to us? In this forest wilderness what are we to do?" they said. Having heard that lamenting, that Rakshasa came and said, "What are ye lamenting for?" Having come, he seized both of them. After he seized them he did not let either of them go. The men said, "Don't eat us. We two have two sons; we will give them to thee." Afterwards he let both of them go, and the men came to the village. After that, taking a youth they gave him to the Rakshasa. After that, they went and gave the other youth. Then that Rakshasa says to that man, "I must eat thee also; for to-morrow there is no corpse for me." Then the man says, "I must go home and come back," he said. The Rakshasa said, "Thou wilt not come." "I will come back," he said. Then the Rakshasa allowed him to go home. When he went home, the man having amply cooked, ate. After he ate, the man charmed his body (by repeating spells, etc.). Thereafter having gone to the jungle he called out to the Rakshasa. When the Rakshasa came, after he seized the man he ate him. After that, the Rakshasa remains there. A sleepiness came. After he went to sleep, the Rakshasa, having split in two, died. By the power of the [charmed] oil which that man rubbed [on his body], the Rakshasa having been split, died. The Rakshasa having gone, was [re]-born in the body of a Yaksani. The Yaksani says to the Yaka, "I am thirsty." Then the Yaka (her husband) having gone, brought and gave her water. The Yaksani again says to the Yaka, "I must sleep." The Yaka told her to go into the house and sleep. Then [while she was asleep], the Yaksani's bosom having been split, she died. That Rakshasa who was in her body at that time, splitting the bosom came outside. Having come he says to the Yaka (his apparent father), "You cannot remain in this jungle." Then the Yaka says, "Are thou a greater one than I?" The Yaka youngster (the former Rakshasa) says, "These beings called Yakas are much afraid of Rakshasas. Let us two go into the Rakshasa forest, the jungle (himale) where they are." Then that Yaka says, "Is that also an impossible thing [for me]?" The Yaka youngster became angry; then the two go to the Rakshasa forest. A parrot having been at the side of the road at the time when they are going away, says, "Don't ye go into the midst of this forest." Then that big Yaka through fear says he cannot go. That Rakshasa youngster says, "Where are you going?" "I am going to the new grave," that Yaka said. Well then, having gone to the burial place, he remains there. A man, catching a thief, is coming [with him] to the burial place. Having come [there], that man tied the thief to the corpse that was at the burial place, back to back. Then while the thief is [left] at the grave, the man came to his village. When he came he went to the thief's house, and seeing the mother and father he says, "Don't ye open the door; to-day, in the night, a Yaka will come." Having gone to the house, also, of that thief's wife, he says, "Don't thou open the door to-day; a Yaka will come to thy house to-day." Having gone to all the houses and said this, he went away. After that, taking on his back that dead body which was at the burial place, the thief came to his house. When he came he tells the woman to open the door. The woman is silent through fear. Then the thief says, "I am not a Yaka; you must open the door." The woman at that time, also, is silent through fear. He went to his father's house, this thief. Having gone, he says, "Mother, open the door." Then the woman through fear is silent. He went to the house of the thief's friends: "O friend, open the door." Having said, "This is a Yaka," the friends did not open the door. That thief afterwards went by the outside villages. When he was going on the journey the light fell. He went to the jungle in which is that Rakshasa. When going, the thief met with a parrot. Then the parrot says, "Friend, what did you come to this jungle for?" The thief thought, "Who spoke here?" When he looked up he got to know that the parrot is [there]. After that, he says to the parrot, "What art thou here for?" The parrot says, "I am sitting in my nest." The thief says, "If so, how shall I go from this jungle?" After the parrot descended it cut the tyings of that dead body. Having cut them and finished the parrot says, "Thou canst not go in this jungle." The thief says, "What is that for?" Then the parrot says, "In this there is the Rakshasa. Catching thee he will eat thee. Because of it don't thou go." The thief without hearkening to the parrot's word said he must go. Then the parrot says, "Listen to the word I am saying. The Rakshasa who is in this jungle is my friend. Say thou camest because I told thee to come." Afterwards the man went. After he went, the Rakshasa, with a great loud evil roar, seized the man on the path. After he seized him, the man says, "What didst thou seize me for?" Thereupon the Rakshasa says, "To eat thee." Then the man says, "A parrot told me to come in this manner: 'The Rakshasa is my friend,' [he said]." The Rakshasa says, "Those are lies thou art saying. Let us go, let us go, us two, near the parrot." When they came near the parrot, the Rakshasa says to the parrot, "Friend, didst thou send this one to my forest?" The parrot says, "I sent him." Then the Rakshasa says, "Am I to eat this one?" The parrot says, "Seize another man and eat him. Let that man go." Then the Rakshasa let him go; after that the man went away. Having gone and hidden, he stayed in the midst of the forest. The Rakshasa went to watch the path. After that, that man came to the Rakshasa's house. Having come, the man says to the Rakshasa's boy (son), "O youth (kolloweni), thy Rakshasa died." The Rakshasa youth is grieved, and says, "You are not my mother, not my father; what man are you?" Then the man says, "I am thy Rakshasa's elder brother." The man told a lie. The Rakshasa youth says, "It is good. There is much wealth of my father's," he said. Then the man went into the Rakshasa's house to take the wealth. Having gone in, there was a golden mat (kalale); he took it. There was a golden cloth; he took it. Taking these, the man went away unknown to the Rakshasa youths. [166] After he went secretly (himin), the Rakshasa next (dewanu) came to the house. Having finished coming, [167] he says, "Where is my golden mat?" he asked. Thereupon, the Rakshasa youth said, "Your elder brother came and took away the mat." Then the Rakshasa says, "Where have I, Bola, an elder brother?" That thief went near the parrot. "Look here, I met with a golden mat in the midst of this forest," he said. "Parrot, am I to take thee?" he said. Thereupon the parrot came near the thief. After he came, he seized the parrot by its two legs. Having waited until the time when he is catching it, when he caught it the thief killed the parrot. After that, the thief went away plucking and plucking off the feathers. The Rakshasa says to that Rakshasa's youth, "Where went this thief?" "He entered your forest wilderness," he said. The Rakshasa having gone along the thief's footprints, after he went to the place where the parrot was, the parrot was not [there]. He looked to see who killed this parrot:--"It is the very thief who killed this parrot." Then the Rakshasa fell down and wept through grief that the parrot was not [there]. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In the Maha Bharata (Santi Parva, CLXX) a crane sent a poor Brahmana to a Rakshasa King who was his friend. He was well-received on account of the bird's friendship, was presented with a large quantity of gold, returned to the bird, and killed and ate it. When the Rakshasa King noticed that the bird did not visit him as usual, he sent his son to ascertain the reason, the remains of the bird were found, and the Brahmana was pursued and cut to pieces. In Santal Folk Tales (Campbell), p. 81, a hero in search of gems possessed by an Apsaras (Indarpuri Kuri) fed, as he went and returned, her three animal guards stationed at her three doors,--an elephant with grass, a tiger with a goat, and a dog with a shoe which it worried. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 179, a man killed a monkey that had saved his life. In vol. iii, p. 51, a corpse was tied on a man's back. NO. 221 KING GAJA-BAHU AND THE CROW At the time when King Gaja-Bahu [168] was lying in the shade one day in his garden, he said, "There is not a greater King than I." He having said it, a Crow that was in the tree dropped excreta in his mouth. [169] Then he gave orders for the Crow to be caught alive, and published them by beat of tom-toms on the four sides. All the men said, "We cannot." Then a widow woman went to the King and said, "I can catch that Crow." The King asked, "What are the things you require for it?" The woman said, "I want a suckling woman and an [infant] child. How about the maintenance of those two?" The King said, "Up to the time when you catch the Crow I will give their maintenance." Afterwards the King caused a suckling woman and an [infant] child to be brought to her. With these two that woman went to her village, and having gone there began to give food to the crows every day. Many crows collected together there for it. She caused that child to be near the crows at the place where the crows were eating the food. During the time while it was there, that little one was playing in the midst of the party of crows, the crows surrounding it. [At last it came to understand their language.] Afterwards she taught the child, "When the crows are quarrelling, on hearing a crow say, 'It was thou who droppedst excreta in Gaja-Bahu's mouth,' seize that very Crow [which did it]." When the crows came to eat the food they quarrelled. At the time when they were quarrelling the child stayed in that very party of crows. Then a crow which was quarrelling said to another crow, "Wilt thou be [quiet], without quarrelling with me? It was thou who droppedst excreta in Gaja-Bahu's mouth." As it was saying the words the child seized that Crow. The woman having come, caught the Crow and imprisoned it, without allowing it to go. On the following day she took the Crow to the King. The King asked at the hand of that woman, "How didst thou recognise this Crow, so as to catch it?" The woman told him the manner in which it was caught. Then the King asked the Crow, "Why didst thou drop excreta in my mouth?" At the time when he was asking it there was a jewelled ring on his finger. The Crow replied, "You said, 'There is not a greater King than I.' I saw that there is a greater King than that; on that account I did this." Then the King asked, "How dost thou know?" The Crow said, "I have seen the jewelled ring that is on the finger of that King; it is larger than your jewelled ring. Owing to that I know." The King asked, "Where is that ring?" Then the Crow having said, "I can show you," calling him, went to a city. At that city there is a very large rock house (cave). Having gone near the rock house, he told him to dig in the bottom of the house, and look. The King caused them to dig, and having dug, a jewelled ring came to light. King Gaja-Bahu, taking the jewelled ring and the Crow, came back to his city. Having come there he put the jewelled ring on his head, and it fell down his body to the ground. Well then, the King on account of the strange event let the Crow go, and gave employment to the widow woman. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. NO. 222 THE ASSISTANCE WHICH THE SNAKE GAVE In a certain country the King's elephant every day having descended into a pool, bathes. In the water a Water Snake (Diya naya) stayed. One day a beggar went to the pool to bathe. As soon as he came the Snake came to bite him. When it came, the man having beseeched it and made obeisance, said, "Ane! O Lord, for me to bathe you must either go to the bottom or come ashore." "If so, because thou madest obeisance to me I will give thee a good assistance," the Snake said. "The King's tusk elephant every day comes to the pool to bathe. When it is bathing I will creep up its trunk. Having gone to the city from that place, the tusk elephant will fall mad on the days when it rains. [170] Then doctors having come, when they are employing medical treatment they cannot cure it. After that, you, Sir, having gone to the royal palace must say, 'Having employed medical treatment I can cure the tusk elephant.' Having heard it, the King will allow you to practise the medical treatment. Should you ask, 'What is the medical treatment?' [it is this:]--Having brought a large water-pot to the place where the tusk elephant is, and placed the elephant's trunk in the water, and covered and closed yourself and the tusk elephant with cloths, and tapped on the forehead of the elephant, [you must say], 'Ane! O Lord, you must descend into the water-pot; if not, to-day I shall cut my throat (lit., neck).' Then I shall descend into the water." This was all done as the Snake said. The beggar tapped on the tusk elephant's forehead, and said, "Ane! O Lord, you must descend into the water-pot; if not, to-day I shall cut my throat." Then the Snake came down the tusk elephant's trunk into the water-pot, as he had promised. The beggar then took the tusk elephant to the King; it was no longer mad. The King rode on it along the four streets, and came back to the palace, and descended. Then he asked the beggar, "How didst thou cure this sickness?" The beggar said, "I caused a Water Snake to come down the tusk elephant's trunk into the water-pot, and thus cured him." Then the King went with the beggar to look at the Snake. When he saw it in the water-pot he ascertained that the man's statement was true. After that he gave offices to the beggar. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. Dr. J. Pearson, Director of the Colombo Museum, has been good enough to inform me that the water-snake termed diya naya in Sinhalese (lit., Water Cobra) is Tropidonotus asperrimus. Though neither large nor venomous, snakes of this species sometimes attacked my men when they were bathing at a pool in a river, or endeavoured to carry off fishes which they had placed in the water after stringing them through the gills on a creeper. They did this even when the man held the other end of the creeper. NO. 223 THE LEVERET, OR THE STORY OF THE SEVEN WOMEN At a certain city there were seven women. The seven went into the jungle for firewood. Out of them one woman met with a young female Hare (Ha paetikki). The other six persons brought six bundles of firewood; the woman brought the Leveret. There were seven Princes (sons) of the woman who brought the Leveret. Out of them, to the youngest Prince she gave the Leveret in marriage. The above-mentioned seven Princes cut a chena. Having sown millet (kurahan) in the chena it ripened. After that, for cutting the millet the six wives of the above-mentioned six brothers having come out, said to the youngest Prince, "Tell your wife to come." Thereupon the Prince says, "How are there women for me? My parents gave me a female Leveret in marriage." Thereupon the Leveret says, "What is it to you? tik; I am proud, tik." [171] Having said it, springing into the house she stayed [there]. Having waited [there] in this way, when it was becoming night she went into the jungle, and collecting the whole of the hares of both sides (m. and f.) went to the chena, and having cut all the millet they carried the whole to the store-room. After that, having allowed all the hares (haho) to go, the Leveret the same night came home. After it became light, the above-mentioned female Hare's husband went to the chena. At the time when he looked there, ascertaining that the millet is cut and finished, he said thus, "Ane! Elder brothers' wives, with no helper, have finished the millet. Having divided the millet there they brought it [home]." Not a long time afterwards, while they are [there], people came for giving betel for a wedding at that village. [172] Having given betel there to the seven persons they went away. On the day for going there to the wedding they came [for them]. After that, the above-mentioned six women came out, and said, "Tell your wife to come out to go." Thereupon that Prince says, "How are there women for me? My two parents gave me a female Hare in marriage. I am unable to go," he said. Thereupon the female Hare says, "You go," she said. So the Prince went. Afterwards the female Hare went there; having taken off her hare jacket on the road, she went to the [wedding] feast. The Prince [recognised her there, went back, and found and] burned the hare jacket which she had hidden [so that she was unable to resume her hare form again]. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan (Shaik Chilli), p. 54, the youngest of seven Princes married a female Monkey who in the end proved to be a fairy, and took off her monkey skin. NO. 224 THE GREEDY PALM-CAT [173] At a certain city three cultivators cut a chena. Having cut it they spoke [about it]: "Let us plant plantains." Having planted plantains, the flowers that came on the plantains began to fall when the fruits were coming to mature. When they looked, having seen that except the fresh ones [the trees] were without ripe [fruits], they began to seek [the reason]. Having sought and sought it, they do not perceive whether some one is destroying them [or not]. Owing to it they contrived a device. What was it? Having brought a plantain tree they set it up [? after inserting poison in the fruits that were on it]. The flowers on it having fallen, and [the fruits] having become ripe, after they were emitting a fragrant smell [a female Palm-cat came there with its kitten]. When the [young] Palm-cat looked upward the female Palm-cat says, "Cultivator, that is not good." When it said it, the [young] Palm-cat says, "What though I looked up, if I didn't go up the tree!" it said. It went up the tree. Once more the female Palm-cat said again, "Don't." Thereupon the [young] Palm-cat says, "What if I went up the tree, if I didn't take hold of it!" it said. Having taken hold of it, it looked at it. When the female Palm-cat said, "What is that [you are doing]?" it said, "What if I took hold of it! If I didn't eat it is there any harm?" After it removed the rind, when she said, "What is that [you are doing]?" it says, "What if I removed the rind, if I didn't eat it!" Having set it to its nose it smelt at it. When she said, "What is that [you are doing]?" it said, "What if I put it to my nose, if I didn't eat it!" It put it in its mouth. "What if I put it in my mouth, if I didn't swallow it!" it said. It swallowed it; then it fell down. It having fallen down and died, the female Palm-cat went away lamenting. The thief of the garden was caught. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. STORIES OF THE WESTERN PROVINCE AND SOUTHERN INDIA NO. 225 THE WAX HORSE [174] In a certain country a son was born to a certain King, it is said. Having caused Brahmanas to be brought to write this Prince's horoscope, at the time when they handed it over, after they gave information to the King that when the Prince arrived at maturity he was to leave the country and go away, the King, for the Prince to be most thoroughly guarded, caused a room on an upper story to be made [for his occupation], it is said. This infant Prince having become somewhat big, being suitable for game amusements and the like, during the time while he was passing the days he saw in the street a Wax Horse that [persons] brought to sell; and having told his father the King to take and give him it, at the time when he considered it his father the King paid the price, and taking the horse gave it to his son, it is said. This horse, furnished with two wings, was one possessing the ability to fly in the sky. After he had got this horse for a little time, when the Prince became big to a certain extent, not concealing it from anyone whatever, by the help of the Wax Horse he went to fly. Well then, the saying, too, of the soothsayer-Brahmana became true. The Prince having gone flying by the power of the horse, went to the house of an old mother, who having strung [chaplets or garlands of] flowers gives them at the palace of yet [another] King. While here, having hidden the Wax Horse somewhere, when staying at the flower-mother's house he asked the flower-mother [about] the whole of the circumstances of the royal house, and got to know them. Ascertaining them in this way, and after a little time getting to know the chamber, etc., on the floor of the upper story in which the King's daughter stays, he went during the night time by the Wax Horse to a room in which is the beautiful Princess; and for even several days, without concealing himself having eaten and drunk the food and drink, etc., that had been brought for the Princess, he went away [before she awoke]. And the Princess, perceiving that after she got to sleep some one or other had come to the chamber and gone, on the following day not having slept, remained looking out, it is said. At that time the Prince having come, when he is partaking of the food and drink, etc., the Princess, taking a sword in one hand and seizing the Prince with one hand, asked, "Who art thou?" [175] The Prince having informed her that he was a person belonging to a royal family, and while conversing with her having become friendly, he, making a contract to marry her also, began to come during the following days after that. Well then, there was a custom of weighing this Princess in the morning on all days. [176] During the days after the Prince became [accustomed] to come, the Princess's weight having by degrees gone on increasing, the King, ascertaining that she was pregnant, and having thought that there will be a friendship of the Minister with the Princess, settled to kill the Minister. And during the time when the Minister was becoming very sorrowful, when the other daughters of the King having come asked the Minister, "Why are you in much grief?" he gave them information of the whole of the circumstances. The Princesses having assembled together, in order to save the Minister contrived a stratagem thus, that is, having thought that without a fault of the Minister's indeed, some one or other, a person from outside, by some stratagem or other will be coming near the Princess, they put poison in the bathing scented-water boat, and placed guards at the pool which is at the royal palace gateway. The Prince having come, when he bathed in the scented water prior to going to the Princess's chamber the poison burned him, and having gone running, when he sprang into the pool the guards seized him. Having gone [after] causing this Prince to be seized, when they gave the explanation of the affair to the King he freed the Minister, and ordered the Prince to be killed. At the time when the executioners were taking the Prince, having said "A thing of mine is [there]; I will take it and give it to you," he climbed a tree, and taking the Wax Horse which at first he had placed and hidden there among the leaves, he flew away. [177] Having gone thus a little far, and stopped, during the night time he came again to the royal palace; and calling the Princess, while they were going [on the flying horse] by the middle of a great forest wilderness, when pain in the body was felt by the Princess they alighted on the ground. Having caused her to halt [there] he went to a village near by, in order to bring medicine and other materials that she needed for it; and having set the Wax Horse near a shop and gone to yet [another] shop, when coming he saw that there having been a fire near the shop the Wax Horse having been melted had gone. After the Wax Horse was lost this Prince was unable to go to the place where the Princess stayed. And the Princess while in the midst of the forest having borne a son, said, "I don't want even the son of the base Prince"; and having put the child down she went into the neighbourhood of villages. During the time when this Princess's father went into the midst of the forest for hunting he met with this child, and having brought it to the royal house he reared it. The Princess who was this child's mother, having joined a company of girls, [178] during the time while she was dwelling [there] this boy whom [the King] reared having arrived at maturity went and sought a marriage; and having seen his own mother formed the design to marry her. Having thought thus, when on even three days he set off to go for the marriage contract there having been an unlucky omen while on the road, on even three days having turned he came back. One day, having mounted on horse-back, while he was on the journey going for the marriage contract some young birds having been trampled on by the horse, the hen in this way scolded the Prince, that is, "As it is insufficient that this one is going to take his mother [in marriage], he killed my few young ones." [Thus] she scolded him. Because during this day there was [this] unlucky omen, having turned back and come, he went on the following day. When going on that [second] day, a young goat having been trampled on by the horse the female goat also scolded him: "As it is insufficient that he is going to take this one's mother [in marriage], he killed our young ones." When going on the third day also, just as before there was the unlucky omen. This Prince in this way sought a marriage from the girls' society itself, because he being a foundling [179] no one gives a [daughter in] marriage on that account. Before this, one day while at the playground, when the other boys said, "He is base-born," he having asked the King who reared him where his two parents were, had ascertained that having brought him from the midst of the forest he reared him. Well then, on the third day, also, there having been the unlucky omen, not heeding it and having gone for the contract, not knowing even a little about his mother, from her bearing him up to the time when she came to the girls' society he asked about the principal occurrences [of her life. Hearing her account of her abandonment of her child], he said, "It was I indeed who was met with in the midst of the forest in such and such a district; because of it this is indeed my mother." Ascertaining it, and having gone spreading the news, and seeking out even his father and having returned, he was also appointed to the sovereignty in succession to the King his relative, or who was his mother's father; and having married [a Princess] from a royal family, he caused the time to go with glory, it is said. Western Province. See the first note after No. 81, vol. ii. In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Pandit Natesa Sastri), p. 50, a Prince who had been adopted by a King of Madura, whom he had succeeded on the throne, saw, at the house occupied by dancing-girls, his own mother, from whom he had been separated since his birth, and who had been banished,--and took a fancy for her. When he was about to visit the house in the evening he trod on the tail of a calf and crushed it. In reply to the calf's complaint, the cow exclaimed that such an act might well not be considered a dishonour by one who was about to visit his own mother. The young King, who understood the language of animals, retraced his steps, prosecuted inquiries, learnt from the Goddess Kali the story of his birth, his abandonment, and protection by her, and the history of his mother. He brought his mother to the palace, and thanks to Kali's advice recovered his father, who had been spirited away by the Sapta-kanyas or Seven Divine Maids. In The Kathakoça (Tawney), p. 49, a Prince, who when an infant had been carried off and adopted by a Vidyadhara, afterwards saw his mother seated at a window, fell in love with her, and by the magical art of the Vidyadharas, which he had acquired, carried her off in an aerial chariot. While he was in a garden with her he heard the conversation of two monkeys, and learnt from it that he was her son. Two hermits confirmed this, and in the end the Prince and his parents became Jain hermits. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., pp. 177 ff., the son of a woman who had been sent away during her husband's absence, in the belief that she was an ogress, was sold to a Queen soon after birth by the widow with whom his mother lodged, and was brought up as her son, the King believing her false statement that she had borne him. When he grew up, the supposed Prince saw his mother, who still lived with the widow, fell in love with her, and induced the King to agree to his marriage to her. She stated that she was already married, and obtained a postponement of the wedding for six months. In the meantime her husband returned, went in search of his wife, heard that she was to be married to the Prince, sent her his ring, and they were reunited. The Prince ascertained that he was their son, the widow who sold him was executed, and the Queen was banished. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 79, a Brahmana who had obtained a young Garuda or Rukh from Vibhisana, the Rakshasa King of Ceylon, visited on it, on three successive nights, a courtesan with whom he had fallen in love, whom he eventually married. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 145, there is an account of a Princess who was weighed every day against five lotus flowers, being no heavier than they were. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 1 ff., there is a story of a Princess who was weighed against one flower every day, after her bath. She was married by her parents to a Raja of the same weight as herself. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 376, a girl who was reared by a crane in its nest on the top of a tree was weighed daily by it. In this manner it ascertained that she had improper relations with a young man who had climbed up the tree and was concealed there by her. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan (Shaik Chilli), p. 108, a Prince got his grandfather, who was a carpenter, to make a wonderful wooden horse which could either move on the earth or fly in the air, as it was bidden. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iii, p. 137 ff.), an aged Persian sage presented a Persian King with a flying horse made of ebony, which could carry its rider where he wished, and "cover in a single day the space of a year." In return for it the King promised him his daughter in marriage, but her brother objected to this, tried the horse, and was carried far away before he found the pin which controlled the descent. He alighted at night on a palace roof, entered a Princess's room, was discovered, offered to fight all the troops if he had his own horse, and while they awaited his charge rose in the air and returned home. At night he sailed back and brought away the Princess. In a foot-note, p. 139, Sir R. Burton suggested that the Arabian magic wooden horse may have originated in an Indian story of a wooden Garuda [bird]. The legend of a flying horse, however, is found in the earliest hymns of the Rig Veda. If this period was about 2,000 B.C., the notion may have arisen in the third millennium B.C. In the hymn 163 of Book I, the horse is mentioned as possessing wings--"Limbs of the deer hadst thou, and eagle pinions" (Griffith's translation). In iv, 40, 2, the horse Dadhikras is described as having wings. In i, 85, 6, the wings of the spotted deer (clouds) which draw the cars of the Maruts, the Storm Gods, are referred to; the car of the Asvins was drawn by winged asses (i, 116-117, 2). At a later date, the account of the treasures produced by the great Churning of the Ocean by the Gods and Asuras includes the winged horse Uccaihsravas. In the Jataka tale No. 196, the Bodhisatta is described as transforming himself into a flying horse which carried a party of wrecked merchants and sailors from Ceylon to India. Two or three steps further bring us to the position in the folk-tales:--(1) the creation of a wooden flying horse by a supernatural being, (2) the construction of a similar animal by a human being, by magical art, (3) the construction of one by mechanical art. Thus, if this development occurred in India or Ceylon, the notion of a wooden or wax flying horse, such as the folk-tales describe, is possibly of earlier date than the time of Christ. Arabian traders or travellers may have carried the idea to their own country either by way of Persia or more directly by sea. They may have had a local tradition of flying quadrupeds, however, based on the winged lions and bulls of Assyria, belonging to the eighth and ninth centuries B.C. Winged quadrupeds of a composite character were known to the Babylonians in the time of Gudea, Patesi of Lagash (2450 B.C.), and probably some centuries earlier; [180] the idea may have spread from them to the early Aryans in the first place. NO. 226 THE THREE-CORNERED HATTER [181] In a certain country a greatly-poor man dwelt, it is said. The man having prayed to a friend of his [for assistance], received from his friend a calf. In order to sell the calf for himself, having set out from the village at which he stayed, and come and descended to the road, at the time when he was going along driving it he met with three young men of yet [another] village. At the time when the three young persons saw this poor man, they spoke together in this fashion. The speech indeed was, "Having cheated the man who is going driving this bull, let us seize the bull," they said. Having spoken to the man, when they asked him, "Will you give us the goat?" the poor man who is going driving the bull, says, "Friends, I am not taking the goat; it is a bull," he said. Then the men who were cheating him began to say, "Why, O fool, when you have come driving the goat, are you trying to make it a bull? We recognise goats, and we recognise bulls. Don't make fun [of us]. Having given us that goat, and taken a sufficient amount, go away," they said. Having said and said thus, when these three persons began to make an uproar [about it], the poor man who is driving the bull, having made the bull the goat, and spoken to the three persons, says, "It is good, friends. Taking this goat that I brought, and having fixed a sufficient price, give [me it]," he said. When he said thus, those three enemies say, "What are you saying? The full value of a goat is five rupees; this one is worth three rupees, but we shall not do in that manner to you. To you we will give four rupees," they said. Having said thus, and given that poor man four rupees, "Now then, you go away," they said. When they said thus, that man who went driving the bull having spoken [to himself]: "I will do a good work for these three persons," says, "Ane! Friends, except that I have a thought that I also having joined you three persons [should be] obtaining a livelihood, for what purpose should I go to my village? It is not the fact [that I think of going there]. It is my thought to live joined with you," he said. When he said this, those thieves say, "It is good. We also are much pleased at your living joined with us," they said. The two parties speaking thus, the man who came driving the bull stayed near those men who cheated him. Having stayed thus, after about eight days or ten days had gone, he said, "I will do a thing for their having cheated me and taken the bull"; and making a hat which had three corners he put it on his head. While he is there [after] thus putting the three-cornered hat on his head, those three persons ask, "What is it, friend? Where did you meet with a hat of a kind which is not [elsewhere]? This is the first time we saw such hats," they said. When they said thus, the man says, "Ane! Friends, if you knew the facts about this hat you will not speak in this way," he said. "Because of what circumstances are you praising this hat?" they asked. This poor man says, "By this hat I can obtain food and drink while at any place I like. Moreover, by the power of this hat I can also do anything I think of," he said. When he said thus, those three persons say, "Ane! Friend, will you give us that hat?" When they asked him, he says, "Having shown you the power which there is in my hat, I can give you the hat also for a sufficient sum," he said. They said, "If so, show us the power that is in your hat. We having looked at the power of the hat, we will give you the whole of the goods that there are of ours, and take the hat." Having said, "It is good. I will show you to-morrow the power of my hat," that day evening he went to the eating-houses that are in that village, and spoke to the persons who are in the eating-houses: "We four persons to-morrow are coming for food. When we have come you must promise to treat us four persons well. Take the money for it to-day." Having given the money, and also having gone to the place where they eat during the [mid]day, and the place where they drink tea, and the place where they eat at night, speaking in that manner he gave the money. On the following day he says to those three persons, "I will show you the power of my hat. Come along." [182] Summoning them, and putting on that hat, at the place where he came and gave the money first he went in, together with the three friends. Having taken off the three-cornered hat, when he lowered his head the men who were in the eating-house say, "It is good. Will you, Sirs, be seated there?" Having placed and given them chairs, and made ready the food, they quickly gave them to eat, and when they had finished, gave them cheroots. Having been talking and talking very much, the Three-cornered Hatter says, "Now then, we must go, and come [again]." When he said it, the men of the eating-house say, "It is good; having gone, come [again]. Should you come [this way] don't go away without coming here." When they said it, the Three-cornered Hatter says, "Yes; should we come, we will not go away without coming here." Having gone from there, and walked there and here, and at the time for the [mid] day rice having gone to the place where he gave the money, in that very manner they ate and drank. Having also gone to the tea drinking place, and in that very way having drunk, after it became night they went to the place where he gave the money for the night food, and ate. From the time when they came back to the place where they dwell, those three persons speak [together], "This hat is not a so-so [183] hat. To-day we saw the power there is in the hat. What are the goods for, that we have? Having given the whole of our goods, let us take that hat." Speaking [thus], and having spoken to the Three-cornered Hatter, they say, "Friend, taking any price you will take, give us this hat." When they said it [he replied], "Ane! Friends, having made the bull the goat, even should you [be willing to] take it, I cannot give this hat. My life is protected by that hat." When he said [this, they replied], "If so, it is good. Taking the whole of the goods that there are of us three persons, give us the hat." When they said [this], the Three-cornered Hatter says, "It is good. Because you are saying it very importunately, [184] and because up to this time from the first [I have been] the friend of you three persons, taking the hat give me the goods." Having said [this], tying all the goods belonging to the three persons in bundles, the Three-cornered Hatter says, "Now then, I am going. I gave you the hat that I had for the protection of my life; you will take good care of that hat." Having said it, the Three-cornered Hatter bounded off and went away. On the following day after that, those three persons made ready to go in the first manner, for eating. One putting on the hat, they went, and sitting in the eating-house they ate and drank. Having finished and talked, when they said, "We are going," [185] [the people of the eating-house] ask, "Where is the money?" When they said, "Having given the money, go away," where have these three got money to give? When they did not give it on the spot, the men who are in the eating-house, seizing them and having beaten them, put them out of the eating-house. When they put them out, these three persons are quarrelling along the road. [One of them] said, "Because, indeed, they did not see that you went [after] putting on the hat, we two also ate blows. I will see [about it]; I will put it on and go. Give me it here." This one, taking the hat from that man, and having gone [after] putting it on, to the place where they eat during the [mid] day, they ate and drank in the first manner. Having been there talking and talking for a little time, they say to the men of the eating-house, "Now then, we are going." When they said it, the men of the eating-house say, "Having gone, no matter if you should come again. For what you ate to-day we want the money. Give the money, and having gone, come [again]." When they said [this], these three persons, except that they ate in order to look at the power of the hat, whence are they to give the money? While they were there without speaking, they said in the very first manner, "Thrash these three thieves for the money," and there and then also seizing the men, beat them. When they had put them to the door, having descended to the path on the journey on which they are going, the man who did not put on the hat says, "[The people] not seeing you two [wearing it] and your putting on of that hat, can you go and look at the power of the hat, stupids both? If you want, you can look for yourselves [this] evening. Give me that hat. In the evening, at the place where they eat food I will show you the power of the hat." Having said [this], the man having gone in the evening [after] putting on the hat, to the place where they eat food, in the very first manner they ate and drank. Having been talking and talking, they say, "Well, we are going." When they said it, "Having given the money for what you ate, go," they said. Then these three persons, whence are they to give the money? Many a time (bohoma kalak) having asked for the money, while they were there without speaking, the men having well beaten these three persons put them out of the eating-house. The three persons that day's day having eaten blows three times, in much distress each one comes to his own house. In not many days, on account of these blows that they ate, and through sorrow at the loss of their goods, the end of the lives of the three persons was reached. The Three-cornered Hatter having gone away taking the goods of these three persons, and having eaten and drunk in happiness, [at last] he died. For their making the Three-cornered Hatter's bull the goat, taking the goods of these three he also destroyed the lives of the three persons. Western Province. In the Hitopadesa, a well-known form of the first incident occurs. Three rogues, seeing a Brahmana carrying home a goat on his shoulder for sacrifice, sat down under three trees at some distance apart on the road. As the man came up, the first rogue said, "O Brahmana, why dost thou carry that dog on thy shoulder?" "It is not a dog," said the Brahmana, "it is a goat for sacrifice," and he went on. When the second rogue asked the same question, the Brahmana put down the goat, looked at it, returned it to his shoulder, and resumed his journey. When the third man inquired in the same way, the Brahmana threw down the goat and went home without it, the rogues of course taking it to eat. This story is given in the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 68, with the difference that first one man spoke to the Brahmana, then two men, and lastly three. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 106, when a foolish man was passing through a village driving a buffalo that he had bought, some men asked him where he got the ram; and as the whole of them insisted that it was a ram he left it with them through fear of his brother's anger at his buying a ram instead of a buffalo. In Folk-Tales of the Telugus (G. R. Subramiah Pantulu), p. 61, it is repeated with the variation that the Brahmana had four or five goats which he was leading. Four Sudras (men of low caste) who wished to get them, in turn asked him why he was taking a number of mad dogs. The last Sudra suggested that it was unsafe to release them, so he tied them to a tree, whence the four men removed them when he had gone. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iii, p. 200), a thief promised another that he would steal an ass that a man was leading by a halter. He went up to it, quietly took off the halter and placed it on his own head without the ass-owner's observing it, and his friend led away the ass. When he had gone off with it, the haltered man stood still, and on the ass-owner's turning to look at his ass, told him that he was really the ass, and that he had been transformed into it because of his mother's curse when he went home drunk and beat her. She had now relented, and as the result of her prayers he had taken his original form once more. The ass-owner apologised for any bad treatment meted out to him, went home, and told his wife, who gave alms by way of atonement, and prayed to Heaven for pardon. Afterwards, when the owner went to purchase another ass he saw his own in the market, and whispered to it, "Doubtless thou hast been getting drunk again and beating thy mother! But, by Allah, I will never buy thee more." NO. 227 THE GAMARALA WHO WENT TO THE GOD-WORLD In a certain country there was a newly-married Gamarala, it is said. For the purpose of the livelihood of these two persons (himself and his wife), he begged and got a piece of chena from the King, to plant it on shares. [186] Near the time when they obtained the chena, having taken great pains and cut the ground and tied the fence, they sowed the millet (kurahan). But during the course of time having completely forgotten about the millet chena, they remained doing house work. After two or three months passed away in this manner, one day the Gama-Mahage (Gamarala's wife) having remembered the millet chena, spoke to her husband, "Have cattle eaten the millet chena?" and she sent him to look. The Gamarala, too, having gone hastily at the very time when he heard the word, saw at the time when he looked that rice mortars having gone had trampled the millet, and eaten it, and thrown it down. Having come home, perceiving at the time when he looked that his very own rice mortar had gone, making it fast he tied it to a tree. On the following day also having gone, and again having seen, at the time when he looked, that the rice mortars had come and had eaten the millet, he walked everywhere in the village, and ordered [the owners] to tie up the rice mortars that were at the whole of the houses. The residents in the village being other fools did in the way he said. On the third day, also, the Gamarala having come, and having seen at the time when he looked that the rice mortars still had come, he thought, "It is our own rice mortar," and having gone home he split the rice mortar with his axe, and burned it. The ashes he threw into the river. Nevertheless, on the fourth day having come, and at the time when he looked having seen that rice mortars had come, not being able to bear his anger he came home, and while he is [there] he remains in the house, extremely annoyed. "Why is it?" his wife asked. Thereupon the Gamarala replied thus, "The rice mortars having come to cause our millet eating to cease, I am not rich. Art thou clever enough to arrange a contrivance for it?" he asked. And the Gama-Mahage, having considered a little time, ordered the Gamarala to watch in the watch-hut at the chena. The Gamarala, accepting that word, on the following day went to the chena with a large axe, and during the night-time having been hidden, at the time when he was looking out saw that a tusk elephant, having come from the Divine World and trampled on the millet, and eaten it, and thrown it down, goes away. Having seen this wonderful tusk elephant, and thought that having hung even by his tail he must go to the Divine World, he went home and told the Gama-Mahage to be ready, putting on clothes to-morrow for the purpose of going to the Divine World. At the time when the Gama-Mahage also asked "In what manner is that [to be done]?" he made known to her all the news. The Gamarala's wife hereupon wanted to know the means to get clothes washed when she went to the Divine World. At that time the Gamarala said that they must perhaps take the washerman-uncle, [so he went to him and told him]. When the washerman-uncle set off to go he wanted his wife also to go, [and he brought her with him]. At last, these very four said persons having become ready and having been in the chena until the tusk elephant comes, after the tusk elephant came, at the very first the Gamarala hung by the tail. The Gamarala's wife hung at his back corner (piti mulla). After that, while the washerman-uncle and his wife were hung in turn behind the others, the tusk elephant, having eaten the millet, began to go to the Divine World. After these four persons with extreme joy went a little distance, the washerman-uncle's wife spoke to the Gamarala, and asked thus, "For a certainty, Gamarala, in that Divine World how great is the size of the quart measure which measures rice?" she asked. Thereupon the Gamarala, who was holding the tusk elephant's tail the very first, said, "The quart measure will be this size." Having put out his two hands he showed her the size. At that time, these very four persons being extremely high in the sky, and from that far-off place having fallen to the earth, each one went into dust. Western Province. THE TUSK ELEPHANT OF THE DIVINE WORLD (Variant). In a certain country a man having worked a rice field, after the paddy became big a tusk elephant comes from the Divine World and eats the paddy. The man having gone, when he looked (balapuwama) there are no gaps [in the fence] for any animal whatever to come; there are footprints. The man thought, "It is the rice mortars of the men of our village that have eaten this; I must tell the men to tie the rice mortars to the trees." Thinking it, in the evening the man having told it to the whole of the houses, [187] together with the man they tied all the rice mortars to the trees. Having tied them, the man who owned the rice field and the men of that village went to the rice field and remained looking out. Then from the Divine World they saw a tusk elephant, and with the tusk elephant also a man, come. Having seen them, when the men having become afraid are looking on, the tusk elephant eats the paddy. Then the men asked at the hand of the man who came with the tusk elephant, "You [come] whence?" Then the man said, "We come from the Divine World; if you also like, come." After that, the men having said "Ha," [added], "How shall we come now? At the speed at which you go we cannot come." Then the man said, "As soon as the tusk elephant has got in front [188] I will hang at the elephant's tail. One of you also take hold at my waist, [189] let still [another] man take hold at the man's waist, and thus in that manner all come." After that, the men having said "Ha," in that very way the tusk elephant got in front. The man having hung from the tusk elephant's tail, when they were going away, the other men holding the waists, there was a coconut tree in the path. Then the man who came from the Divine World said, "Ando! The largeness of these coconuts!" Then these men asked, "In the Divine World are the coconuts very large?" Then the man [in order] to say, "They will be this much [across]," released the hand which remained holding the tail of the tusk elephant. So the man fell to the ground, and all the other men fell to the ground. Only the tusk elephant went to the Divine World. Cultivating Caste, North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 234, Mr. C. J. R. Le Mesurier mentioned the man who tied up the rice mortars in the belief that the elephants' foot-prints in a rice field were caused by them. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 111, a man who got a tank made found that some animal tore up the surface of the embankment. When he remained on the watch for it he saw a bull descend from heaven, and gore it; and thinking he might go to heaven with it, he held the tail and was carried up to Kailasa, the bull evidently being the riding animal of the God Siva. After spending some time in happiness he descended in the same way, in order to see his friends. They asked him to take them with him on his return, and he consented. He seized the bull's tail, the next man held his feet, the third his, and so on, in a chain. While they were on their way upward one of the men inquired how large were the sweetmeats he ate in heaven. The first man let go, joined his hands in a cup shape, and said, "So big." Thereupon they all fell down and were killed. The story adds that "the people who saw it were much amused." NO. 228 THE GAMARALA WHO ATE BLACK FOWLS' FLESH AND HIN-AETI RICE In a certain country there were a Gamarala and a Gama-Mahage, it is said. There was a paramour for this Gama-Mahage, it is said. Because the Gamarala was at home the paramour was unable for many days to come to look at the Gama-Mahage. Because of it, the Gama-Mahage having thought she must make her husband's eyes blind, went on the whole of the days to the bottom of a spacious tree in which it was believed that there is a Devatawa, and cried, "O Deity, make my man's eyes blind." Having seen that in this way incessantly (nokadawama) the Gama-Mahage in the evening having abandoned all house work goes into the jungle, the Gamarala wanted to ascertain what she goes here for. The Gamarala also in order to stop this going of the Gama-Mahage settled in the afternoon that there will be a great quantity of work [for her] to do. The Gamarala, who saw that nevertheless, whatever extent of work there should be, having quickly finished all the possible extent she goes into the jungle, on the following day in the evening having been reminded of the preceding reflections, remained hidden in a hollow in the tree there. And the Gama-Mahage, just as on other days, in the evening having finished the work and having come, cried, "O Devatawa who is in this tree, make my man's eyes blind." Having cleared the root of the tree and offered flowers, she also lighted a lamp. The Gamarala who was looking at all these, having been struck with astonishment, after the Gama-Mahage went away descended from the tree and went home. On the following day, also, in the evening the Gamarala, catching a pigeon and having gone [with it], remained hidden in the hollow of the very same tree. At the time when he is staying in this way, the Gama-Mahage having come, and having offered oil, flowers, etc., just as before, when she cried out [to the deity] to blind her man's eyes, the Gamarala from the hollow of the tree, having changed his voice, spoke, "Bola!" Thereupon the Gama-Mahage, having thought, "It is this Deity spoke," said, "O Lord." At that time the Gamarala said thus, "If [I am] to make thy man's eyes blind, give [him] black fowls' flesh [190] and cooked rice of Hin-aeti rice." Having said [this], he allowed the pigeon which he had caught to fly away. Thereupon the Gama-Mahage having thought, "This Deity is going in the appearance of a pigeon," having turned and turned to the direction in which the pigeon is going and going, began to worship it. And the Gamarala after that having slowly descended from the tree, went away. Beginning from that day, the Gama-Mahage, walking everywhere, having sought for black fowls' flesh and Hin-aeti rice, began to give the Gamarala amply to eat. While the Gamarala, too, is eating this tasty food, after a little time he says to the Gama-Mahage, "Ane! Ban, [191] my eyesight is now less." When he said thus, the Gama-Mahage more and more gave him black fowls' flesh and cooked Hin-aeti rice. After a little time more went by, he informed her that by degrees the Gamarala's eyesight is becoming less. At this time the Gama-Mahage's paramour began to come without any fear. The Gamarala, groping and groping like a blind man, when he is walking in the house saw well that the paramour has come. Having said, "Ban, at the time when you are not [here], dogs having come into the house overturn the pots," the Gamarala asked for a large cudgel. Keeping the cudgel in this manner while he was lying down, when the paramour came having seized his two hands and beaten him with the cudgel, he killed him outright. While he was thus, when the Gama-Mahage came he said, "Look there, Ban. Some dogs having come from somewhere or other, came running and jumping into this. Having thrown them down with the cudgel, I beat them. What became of them I don't know." Having heard this matter, at the time when the Gama-Mahage looked she saw that the paramour was killed, and having become much troubled about it because there was also fear that blame would come to her from the Government, lifting up the corpse and having gone and caused it to lean against a plantain-tree in her father's garden, she set it there. Her father having gone during the night-time to safeguard the plantain enclosure, and having seen that a man is [there], beat him with his cudgel. Although the blows he struck were not too hard, having seen that the man fell and was killed, the plantain enclosure person, having become afraid, lifting up the corpse and having gone [with it], pressed the head part in the angle of the shop of a trader in salt, and went away. The salt dealer having thought, "A thief is entering the house," struck a blow with a cudgel. But having come near and looked, and seen that the man is dead, at the time when it became light he informed the Government. He said that the man could not die at his blow, and that some person or other had put him there. [192] Because on account of the dead man there was not any person to lament, having employed women for hire he caused them to lament. At this time one woman lamented: "First, it is my misfortune; next to that, father's misfortune; and after that the salt dealer's misfortune." [193] At the time when they asked, "What is that?" when she related the whole account for her punishment they ordered her to be killed. Western Province. In The Jataka, No. 98 (vol. i, p. 239), a man in order to cheat his partner got his father to enter a hollow tree, and personate a Tree-Sprite who was supposed to occupy it. When the matter in dispute was referred to this deity, the father gave a decision in favour of his son. In The Adventures of Raja Rasalu (Swynnerton), p. 138, a man whose wife absented herself every night, followed her and discovered that she prayed at the grave of a fakir that her husband might become blind. He hid himself in the shrine, and on the next night told her that if she fed her husband with sweet pudding and roast fowl he would be blind in a week; he then hurried home before her. Next morning she remarked that he was very thin and that she must feed him well; he acquiesced and was duly fed on the two dishes. He first stated that his eyes were getting dim, and after the seventh day that he was quite blind. Her paramour now began to visit the house openly. One day the man saw his wife hide him in a roll of matting; he tied it up, and saying he would go to Mecca, shouldered it and left. He met another man similarly cheated, and they agreed to let the lovers go. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 40, after two brothers buried at the foot of a tree two thousand gold dinars, one of them secretly carried them off, [194] and afterwards charged the other with stealing them. As the King could not decide the case, the thief claimed that the tree at which the money was buried would give evidence for him. The question was put to it next day and a voice replied that the innocent brother took the money; but when the officers applied smoke to the hollow the father who was hidden there fell out and died, so the thief was punished by mutilation. In Folk-Tales of the Telugus (G. R. Subramiah Pantulu), p. 28, there is a similar story in which the thief was sentenced to pay the whole amount to the other man. In the Kolhan folk-tales (Bompas) appended to Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 482, a Potter's wife whom a Raja advised to kill her husband, set up a figure of a deity in her house, and prayed daily to it that the man might become blind and die. On overhearing her, the Potter hid behind the figure, said her prayer was granted, and predicted that he would be blind in two days. When he feigned blindness she sent for the Raja, who together with the woman was killed at night by him, and his corpse placed in a neighbour's vegetable garden. Towards morning the neighbour saw an apparent thief, struck him on the head, and discovered he had killed the Raja. He consulted the Potter and by his advice placed the body among some buffaloes, where their owner knocked it over as a milk thief, and after consulting the Potter threw it into a well. It was discovered there and cremated. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 247, a smith was the hero in place of the Potter. The body of a Prince was left at three houses in turn, the last householder being imprisoned. In Santal Folk Tales (Campbell), p. 100, a man whose wife died left her corpse in a wheat field, tied in a bag loaded on a bullock, and got hid. When the field owner thrashed the bullock the man came forward, charged him with killing his sick wife, and received six maunds of rupees as hush money. The standard maund being one of 40 sers, each of 80 tolas or rupee-weights (Hobson-Jobson), this would be 19,200 rupees. Regarding the black fowls, Bernier stated that in India there was "a small hen, delicate and tender, which I call Ethiopian, the skin being quite black" (Travels, Constable's translation, p. 251). In a note, the translator added the remarks of Linschoten (1583-1589) on Mozambique fowls:--"There are certain hennes that are so blacke both of feathers, flesh, and bones, that being sodden they seeme as black as ink; yet of very sweet taste, and are accounted better than the other; whereof some are likewise found in India, but not so many as in Mossambique" (Voyage, i, 25, 26. Hakluyt Soc.). NO. 229 HOW THE GAMARALA DROVE AWAY THE LION In a certain country the wife of a Gamarala had a paramour. Having given this paramour to eat and drink, because she wants him to stay there talking and associated [with her] the Gama-Mahange every day at daybreak tells the Gamarala to go to the chena, and at night tells him to go to lie down at the watch hut; even having come to eat cooked rice, she does not allow him to stay at home a little time. The Gamarala, having felt doubtful that perhaps there may be a paramour for the Gama-Mahange, one day at night quite unexpectedly went home and tapped at the door. Then, because the paramour was inside the house, the Gama-Mahange practised a trick in this manner. During the day time the Gamarala had put in the open space in front of the house a large log of firewood that was [formerly] at a grave. "A Yaka having been in this log of firewood, and having caused me to be brought to fear, go and put down that log of firewood afar. Until you come I cannot open the door," the Gama-Mahange said. The Gamarala having been deceived by it, lifting up the log of firewood in order to go and put it away, went off [with it]. Then the paramour who was in the house having opened the door, she sent him out. When the Gamarala came back (apuwama) anybody was not there. After this, one day when the Gamarala came at the time when the door had been opened, because the paramour was in the house the Gama-Mahange told the paramour to creep out by the corner of the roof [over the top of the wall], to the quarter at the back of the house, and go away. But having crept a little [way], because he remained looking back the Gama-Mahange says, "You are laughing. Should he even cut my body there will be no blood [of yours shed]. Creep quickly. If not, there will be great destruction for us both." But because he does not speak, when she came near and looked she saw that the paramour having stuck fast was dead. Because his mouth was opened, this woman thought, "At that also he is laughing." Well then, when the Gamarala came into the house the Gama-Mahange said, "Look here. A thief having come and having prepared to steal the goods that are in the house, is dead on the path on which he crept from here when I was coming. It is a good work," she said. The Gamarala, taking this for the truth, buried the man. After this the Gama-Mahange met with another paramour. The man said to the Gama-Mahange, "We must kill the Gamarala. The mode of killing [shall be] thus:--Because it troubles men when a lion that is in the midst of such and such a forest in this country is roaring, to-morrow during the day the King will cause a proclamation tom-tom to be beaten [to notify] that he will give goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load to a person who killed [195] the lion, or to a person who drove it away. You having caused the proclamation tom-tom to halt, say that our Gamarala can kill the lion," the paramour taught the Gama-Mahange. In this said manner, the Gama-Mahange on the following day having stopped the proclamation tom-tom, said, "Our Gamarala can kill the lion." Well then, when the Gamarala came [home] they told him about this matter. Then the Gamarala, having scolded and scolded her, began to lament, and said, "Why, O archer, can I kill the lion?" But because the King sent the message telling the person whom they said can kill the lion, to come, when the Gamarala, having submitted to the King's command, went to the royal house [the King] asked, "What things do you require to kill the lion?" Thereupon the Gamarala thought, "Asking for [provisions] to eat and drink for three months, and causing a large strong iron cage to be made, I must go into the midst of the forest, and having entered the cage, continuing to eat and drink I must remain in it doing nothing." Having thought it, asking the King for the things and having gone into the midst of the forest, he got into the iron cage, and continuing to eat and drink stayed in it doing nothing. While he was staying in this manner, one day the lion having scented the iron cage looked at it. Then the Gamarala with a lance that was in his hand stabbed [at it, for the blade] to go along the nose. The Gamarala did thus through fear; but the lion having become afraid, not staying in the midst of that forest went to another forest. After that, the Gamarala [informed the King that he had driven it away, and] taking the goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load, went home and dwelt in happiness. Western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 175, in a story given by Mr. T. B. Panabokke, a foolish Adikar who was sent to kill a lion, ran off as it was coming, and climbed up a tree. The lion came, and resting its fore-paws against the tree trunk, tried to climb up it. The man was so terrified that he dropped his sword, which entered its open mouth and killed it. He then descended, cut off the head, and returned in triumph. In a variant in the same volume, p. 102, the animal was a tiger. The story is given in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 207, the animal being a lion. In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 85, a weaver who had been made Commander-in-Chief killed a savage tiger by accident in the same manner, through his dagger's falling into its open mouth when he was in a tree. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xiv, p. 109, in a South Indian story by Natesa Sastri, a man who was sent to kill a lioness climbed up a tree for safety. When the lioness came below it and yawned he was so much alarmed that he dropped his sword, which entered her open mouth and killed her. NO. 230 THE SON WHO WAS BLIND AT NIGHT In an older time than this, in a certain village there was a nobleman's family. In the nobleman's family there was a Prince whose eyes do not see at night. Because the nobleman-Prince is not of any assistance to his parents, the nobleman having spoken to his wife, told her that having given him suitable things, etc., she is to send off this one to any place he can go to, to obtain a livelihood. The lady (situ-devi) having tied up a packet of cooked rice and given it to her son, says, "Go in happiness, and earn your living." Thereupon this Prince whose eyes were blind at night, taking the packet of cooked rice and having started, goes away. Having gone thus, and at the time when it was becoming evening having eaten the packet of cooked rice, he thinks, "Should it become late at night my eyes do not see." Having thought, "Prior to that, I must go to this village near by," and having arisen from there very speedily, he arrived at a village. Having gone there and come to a house, during the time while he is dwelling with them this one says, "I am going away [from] there for no special reason (nikan). I am going for the purpose of seeking a marriage for myself," he said. Thereupon they say, "There is a daughter to be given with our assent. We do not give that person in that manner (i.e., not merely because she is sought for). From our grandfather's time there is a book in our house. To a person who has read and explained the book we are giving our daughter in marriage," they said. At that time this person who is blind at night asked for the book. The party brought and gave him the book. This person who is blind at night, taking the book into his hand, began to weep. When they asked, "What are you weeping for?" he says, "Except that in my own mind I completely understand the difficulty of the matters that are in this book, I wept because of the extreme difficulty that there is for some one else in expounding it," he said. At that time the party think, "To give our daughter [in marriage] we have obtained a suitable son-in-law." They gave her in marriage. At the time when he is living thus for a few days, his father-in-law having spoken, says, "Don't you be unoccupied (nikan). There is our chena; having gone to the chena with the other brothers-in-law, taking a tract of ground for yourself clear it and sow it for yourself." This one having said, "It is good," and having gone, taking a side of the chena began to clear it. This one worked more quickly than the other persons. Thereupon the father-in-law felt much affection for this person who was blind at night. During that time when he was clearing it, a porcupine having been there at the corner of a bush, he killed it unseen by anyone, and put it away and hid it. At the time when it became evening the other dependants (pirisa) went home. This one, his eyes not seeing, was in the chena, clasping the dead body of the porcupine. During the time while he was thus, the father-in-law came to seek him. Thereupon he says to the father-in-law, "It is excellent that you came first to do a work. Was it good to go home empty-handed? When I stopped for this business you went away, didn't you?" Thereupon the father-in-law says, "Don't you be displeased; we did not know that you stopped. Come, to go home." Then he says, "I cannot go in that way. Getting a stick and having come, hang this animal in the manner of the carrying-pole load (tada), in order to carry it," he said. Thereupon, tying the carrying-pole, and placing the father-in-law in front, [196] he came to the house. That his eyes do not see, this one did not inform the father-in-law. While a few days are going in that manner, the work in the chena having been finished he sowed it, and fitting up a watch-hut there he is [watching it] carefully. While he is thus, thieves having broken into the house of the King of that country came near the watch-hut to which this one goes, in order to divide the goods. When they were sitting there dividing the goods, this one opened his eyes, and becoming afraid says, "Seize them! Beat them! Tie them!" At once the thieves, leaving the goods and having become afraid, jumped up and ran away. When this one, collecting the heap of goods and having arrived at the house, informed the father-in-law, the father-in-law gave the King notice of it. The King having become much pleased, caused this one to be brought, and having given him various things appointed him to the office of Treasurer [197] of that city. Western Province. NO. 231 THE SON AND THE MOTHER [198] In a certain country a widow woman lived with her only son, it is said. At the time when her son arrived at a young man's age, this woman for the purpose of bringing and giving him a [bride in] marriage, having descended to the road, set off to go to a village not distant from it. While this woman was going thus, in order to quench her weariness she went to a travellers' shed that was at the side of the path. After a little time, yet [another] woman having arrived at this very travellers' shed, when these two were conversing one of those persons asked [the other] on account of what circumstances she went along by that road. At that time the woman who had come first to the travellers' shed gave answer thus, that is, "My husband having died I have only one son. Because of it, in order to seek a marriage for that son I set out and came in this manner," she said. Thereupon the other woman says, "My husband also having died, I have only one daughter. I came on the search for a suitable husband for that daughter," she said. After that, these two persons ascertaining that they were people belonging to the [good] castes, agreed to marry the son and daughter of these two persons. [After] promising in this manner, having given in marriage the other woman's daughter to the son of the first-mentioned woman, because the daughter's mother is living alone they summoned the whole four persons to one house, and resided there. When they are coming and dwelling in that manner a very little time, the young man said to his mother that his wife was not good. A very little time having gone thus, the young woman says to her husband, "I cannot reside here with your mother. Because of it [please] kill her. If it be not so, having gone away with my mother we shall live alone," she said. Although even many times he did not give heed to the word of his wife, because the young man was unwilling to kill his mother, in the end, at the time when his wife set off to go away, he said, "It is good; I will kill mother. You must tell me the way to kill her." Thereupon his wife said thus, "In the night time, when thy mother is sleeping, taking completely [199] the bed and having gone [with it], let us throw it in the river," she said. In the night time, at the time when all are sleeping, the young woman having tied a cord to the leg of the bed on which her mother-in-law is sleeping, went to sleep, placing an end of the cord in her hand. The young man having seen this circumstance, after his wife went to sleep unfastened the end of the cord that was tied to the leg of his mother's bed, and tied it to the leg of the bed of his wife's mother. While it was thus, suddenly this young woman arose, and spoke to her husband: "Now the time is good," she said. When he asked, "Because there is darkness how shall we find our mother's bed?" "I have been placing a mark," the woman said. Well then, because the end of the cord was tied to the leg of this woman's bed, both together lifting up the bed went and threw it in the river. After it became light, when she looked, perceiving that the young woman's mother was thrown into the river, and coming to grief, and having wept, she said thus to her husband, "For committing some fault [200] we have thrown my mother into the river. Well, let us kill your mother, too," she said again. The husband being not satisfied with this, because the request of his wife was stronger than that [disinclination], said, "It is good; let us kill her." When her husband further asked, "By what method shall we kill mother?" she said, "When thy mother is asleep, lifting up the bed completely and having gone [with it], and having placed a pile of sticks at a new grave, let us burn her." The husband approved of her word. On the following day, subsequently to its becoming light, when the woman whom the two persons were lifting up was asleep, having gone [after] lifting up the bed completely, they placed this woman together with the bed on the middle of the pile of firewood which they had gathered together previously. But to set fire to the heap of firewood they did not remember to take fire. Because of it, and because to bring fire each person was afraid to go alone, both set off and went. During the time while they were going thus, when strong dew was falling like rain the woman who was asleep on the pile of firewood having opened her eyes, said, "Am I not at this grave mound?" She also having looked far and near, [201] thought, "It is indeed a work, this, of my son and daughter-in-law;" and having descended from the pile of firewood, lifting up a new corpse that was at the grave, and having gone and placed it upon that bed that was on the pile of firewood, she plucked off her cloth, and having clothed the corpse she entered the jungle quite unclothed. The son and daughter-in-law having come, remained looking about. Then her son and daughter-in-law procuring fire, [202] and having come to the new grave, both persons made the fire burn at the two ends of the pile of firewood, and went away. The woman, who had looked very well at this business, because she was unclothed could not come near villages. Having entered a forest wilderness that was near there, when going a considerable distance she saw a rock house (cave). Having gone to this rock house, when she looked [in it] she saw that a great number of clothes, and ornaments, and kinds of food and drink were in this rock house, and having thought, "For these there will be owners," she remained quite afraid to seize them. At that time a gang of thieves who owned the goods, hundreds of thousands in number, that were in this rock house, having come and looked in the direction of the rock house, saw that an unclothed Yaksani had entered there. Having become afraid at it, the whole of them bounded off, and having gone running arrived near a Yakadura, [203] and said thus, "Friend, one Yaksani having entered is now staying at the rock house in which are the goods that we collected and placed [there] during the whole eight years in which we now have been committing robberies. Because of it, should you by any means of success whatever drive away the Yaksani for us, we will give a half from the goods," they said to the Yakadura. Thereupon the Yakadura being pleased, when he went to the neighbourhood of the rock house with the thieves, the thieves, through fear to go, halted. The Yakadura having gone quite alone to the rock house, when he asked the woman who was unclothed, "Art thou a human daughter [204] or a Yaksani?" she gave answer, "I am a human daughter." At that time the Yakadura said, "If so, I cannot believe thy word. Of a Yaksani, indeed, there is no tongue; of a human being there is the tongue. Because of it, please extend the tongue [for me] to look at it, having rubbed my tongue on thy tongue," the Yakadura said. Thereupon this woman thought thus, "If so, these men having thought I am a Yaksani, are afraid of me. Because of it, having frightened them a little more I must get these goods," she thought. Having thought thus, and having come near the Yakadura, at the time when he extended the tongue she bit his tongue. Thereupon, when the Yakadura began to run away, blood pouring and pouring from his mouth, the thieves, having become more frightened at it, ran away; and having said, "If she did so to the Yakadura who went possessing protective spells and diagrams, [after] uttering spells over limes, and uttering spells over threads coloured with turmeric, how will she do to us?" they did not go after that to even that district. Well then, that woman, putting on clothes that were in the rock house, and having eaten and drunk to the possible extent [after] making up the goods into bundles as much as possible, came to look for her son. When the daughter-in-law and son saw her coming while afar, having arrived at astonishment at it, they asked, "How have you who were put on the pile of firewood and burnt, come again? Whence are these goods?" Thereupon the woman says, "Why, Bola, don't you know that after their life, when they have burnt men they receive goods?" she asked. Then her daughter-in-law, having thought that she will be able to bring goods, said, "Ane! Please burn me also in that way." Having said, "It is good," the mother-in-law, having gone taking her daughter-in-law, and having put her on the pile of firewood, set fire [to it]. At that time, "Apoyi! I indeed cannot stay," she cried when she began to burn. Thereupon her mother-in-law cries out, "Ha! Ha! Don't cry out. Should you cry out you will not receive the goods. While you were burning me did I also cry out? Ane! Because you are stronger than I, [after] making a great many articles into bundles come back," she said. In this manner having told and told her, and having burnt the daughter-in-law, the mother-in-law went home. After a few days had gone, her son asks, "Mother, you by this time came bringing the goods. This giantess [205] has not [come] yet; what is that for?" he asked. She said, "No, son; she is staying to bring a great many goods." Having waited, one day the son having thoroughly tied the mother to kill her, on account of the manner in which he accepted the daughter-in-law's word, she said, "Why, Bola, fool! Dead men having arisen from the dead, will there be a country also to which they come? [206] I came in this manner," and having told her whole story, and employed her son, they went taking a great many carts, and brought to the village the whole of the goods that were in the above-mentioned rock house. After that, this son contracted another marriage. Having seen his wealthiness, the King of that country gave him a post as Treasurer. [207] Western Province. This is also a folk-tale called "The Wicked Daughter-in-law," in the North-western Province, the parents of the young man being a Gamarala and Gama-Mahage. The wife wished to kill her mother-in-law because the latter and her own mother were quarrelling. She and her husband threw the first bed into a forest pool (eba). The incident of the return of the robbers to the cave where they had hidden their plunder is omitted; the Mahage simply put on a number of silver and gold articles and carried home a bundle of others, including necklaces and corals. She told her daughter-in-law that there were many more at the burial ground, and the latter went to fetch them. When she arrived there she saw a fresh corpse, and became so much afraid that she fainted, and fell down and died. This story is given in The Jataka, No. 432 (vol. iii, p. 303). In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 88, a servant girl who had absconded with her master's store of gold, climbed up a leafy tree to escape from him. One of his servants climbed up it in search of her. Seeing that she would be captured, she pretended to be in love with him, and as she was kissing his mouth she bit off his tongue, and he fell down unable to speak. Her master thought he had been attacked by a demon, and at once ran off. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 141, a woman who wished to kill her mother-in-law persuaded her husband to believe that if she were burnt she would be re-born as a deity, and receive continual offerings from them. They made a great fire in a deep trench, gave a feast at it, and when the people had gone pushed the mother over the edge into it, and ran off. She fell on a ledge in the side of the trench and thus escaped, was unable to return home in the darkness, and climbed up a tree for safety from animals and demons. While she was there, robbers came to the foot of the tree with valuable articles they had stolen, and when they heard her sneeze ran off, thinking she was a demon. In the morning she returned home with a heavy bundle of jewellery they had left, told the daughter-in-law that she had become a deity and had therefore received these valuables, and offered to send her also. The fire was made up afresh, the man pushed his wife into it, and she was burnt up. NO. 232 CONCERNING THE HETTI MAN'S SON In a former time, in a certain country there was a certain Hetti family possessing a great quantity of goods, it is said. There were seven sons of the Hettiya. For the purpose of learning he sent the seven sons to school. Out of the Hetti children who go to school, as the youngest son was a mischievous rough fellow, having set out from the house in order to go to school, while on the road he got hid, not going to the school. At the time when, the school having been dismissed, the other children are coming back, this child also, like a person who went to school, comes to the house with his brothers, and dwells [there]. That this one did not go (nongiya) to school no one tells either the father or mother. Because of what thing? Because of the harshness that there is of his, should they give information to his parents that he did not go to school they are afraid he will cause great annoyance to the people who give the information. In that manner going to the school and coming according to his will, and making disturbance with the other children (lamo), and walking to several places at the time when he is dwelling [there], he one day in the eventide having descended to the city street goes to walk. While going, a certain horse-keeper taking a horse brought it for sale. He having stopped the horse-keeper, asks, "To which district are you taking this horse?" To that the horse-keeper gives answer, "I am taking this horse for sale." Thereupon he said, "It is good. For how much money will you give this horse?" Then the horse-keeper says, "You a man who takes horses, indeed! There is not any profit in telling you the amount. The value of this horse is much," he said. Thereupon, having much scolded the horse-keeper, and having arrived at his house calling [the man to bring] the horse, he speaks to his father and says, "Take and give me this horse." At that time his father the Hettiya having rebuked him, drove him away. As this one was a vile rough fellow, taking the saying heavily, he began to make disturbance with his father. Thereupon anger having gone to the father, seizing him and having beaten him, he drove him away. Having done thus, this one came into the house, and taking a gun speaks to his father and says, "Should you not take and give me this horse, shooting myself I will die." Thereupon his father having become afraid, took the horse and gave [him it]. From the day when he took and gave the horse, he did not even go to the school. Having gone away according to his own notion, he joined the war army of that country. During the time when he was thus, also, he began to work there, so as to be a great dexterous person. The Chief of the war army there showed him much favour. When a little time had gone thus, having been ordered to a war they came [for it]. Thereupon this one also having gone with the war force, and having been halted on the battle-ground, during the time while they are [there] the Chief of the Army spoke to this force (pirisa). When he said that in order to fight, a person who is able is to go to the enemy-King, and give the leaf missive (pattraya) which the Counsellor had prepared for the purpose, having seen that everyone remained without speaking, this one came forward, and having said, "I am able to go and give it," asked for the letter. When he thus asked, the Commander of the Army, having arrived at great sorrow, says, "By this fight to whom will occur victory, defeat, or any other thing I am unable to say. But should you stay on the battle-ground, harm not befalling you at any time, you may escape. The messenger who goes in order to give notice to this enemy-King does not escape at any time. When, having said the message, he is dismissed, the guards strike him down. I know that you are a person of a great wealthy family. I know that the advantage that is obtained from another twelve soldiers I am receiving from you. [But] because at the time when I spoke to any person who was willing to despatch and make known this message, you came forward, it is not justice to cause another person to go." Having said [this], the General arrived at great sorrow. Thereupon this one says, "Don't be afraid. Having gone and given the letter I shall come back. But I cannot go thus; I don't want these clothes. Please make afresh and give me clothes in the manner I say." When he said [this], the General, in the manner he said, made and gave him the clothes. Thereupon, putting on the clothes and having mounted on the back of the horse which his father took and gave him, taking the leaf that was written for the purpose of giving the notice to the enemy-King, he went off. At the time when he was going there, the guards of the King's house thought that a trader gentleman was coming in order to give assistance connected with the war. Without any fear whatever he went on horse-back to the royal palace; and having given the leaf and turned back, driving the horse a little slowly to the place where the guards are, and, having come there, driving the horse with the speed possible, he arrived at the place where his force is. When he arrived thus, the General, having become much attached to him, established this one as the third person for that force. After that, having fought he obtained victory in the fight also. After he obtained victory in the fight, he appointed him to the chiefship of the army. During the time while he was dwelling thus, he went and in still many battles he obtained victory. After that, having appointed him to the kingship, [208] he sent him to improve the out-districts. Having dwelt in that manner for much time, and having reached old age, he performed the act of death (kalakkiriya). Western Province. NO. 233 THE FORTUNATE BOY [209] At a certain city there was a poor family, it is said. Of that family, the father having died, the mother and also a son remained, it is said. The mother, by [reason of] her destitute state without food, was supported by pounding [rice into] flour for hire at the shops, it is said. While getting a living thus, having sent the son to school he began to learn letters. While he was staying in that way for learning them, one day [his mother] having sent him to school, at the time when he was coming home he was looking on nearby while a great rich man was getting a ship prepared on the sea shore. While he was thus looking, at the time when this boy having gone near looked, the work at the ship was becoming finished, it is said. Owing to it, the boy, speaking to the rich man, says, "Will you sell this ship?" He asked [thus], it is said. [In reply] to it, the rich man having looked in the boy's direction, said in fun, "Yes, I will sell it." The boy asked, "For how much will you sell it?" "For five hundred pounds for the ship on which pounds, thousands in number, have been spent I will give it," he said. On account of it the boy, having placed in pawn his books and slates at a shop near by, and having [thus got and] brought twenty-five cents, [210] and given them as earnest money for the ship, says, "To-morrow morning at nine, having secured the money I will take the ship," he said. The rich man through inability to say two words remained without speaking, it is said. The boy having gone home, at the time when he was there, when his mother asked, "Why, Bola, where are thy books and slates?" the boy says, "Having asked the price for a new ship of such and such a rich man, and agreed to take it, I placed the slates and books in pawn, and bringing twenty-five cents I gave them as earnest money," he said. His mother having become angry at it, and having beaten the boy, scolding him drove him away without giving him food, it is said. At the time when she drove him away, having gone near a Hettiya of that city he says, "Ane! Hettirala, I having agreed to take such and such a rich man's ship, and having gone to school, at the time when I was coming I placed my books and slates in pledge at a shop; and bringing twenty-five cents and having given them as earnest money, and agreed to secure the remaining money to-morrow morning at nine, I was going home meanwhile. When I told my mother these matters, she bringing anger into her (undae) mind, beat me, and drove me from the house without having given me food. Because it is so, you having paid this price for this ship keep it in your name," he said. The Hettiya becoming pleased at it, on the following day morning having made ready the money and gone with the boy, the Hettiya says, "I will stay here. You having gone with this money and given it to him, take the ship. As soon as you take it (e aragana wahama) speak to me; then I will come," he said. Then the boy, having gone in the manner he said, at the agreed time, and having spoken to the rich man, says, "According to the agreed manner, here (menna), I brought the price for you. Taking charge of it and having written the deeds, give me the ship," he said. The rich man, as soon as he was out of a great astonishment, [211] having gone and written the deeds, and having handed over the ship, says, "Ade! Bola, boy, is thy filth (kunu) a religious merit? Where, indeed, if this had not broken and fallen [on me], for a price of that manner was I to give the ship on which I incurred expenses to the amount of thousands of pounds! Thy birth having been consistent with it, it will be a debt [of a previous existence] which I was to give to thee. Because it is so, I will launch on the great sea this ship on which these five hundred pounds are spent, and will give [thee it there]," he said. On account of it, the boy having summoned the Hettiya, says, "There (Onna)! I got the ship! Although I got it, the price I gave for the ship was not mine; it was yours. Because of that, load into this ship the goods you want [to send], and having placed hired workmen [on board] for it, give charge of it to me. I having gone to some country or other [after] doing trading shall come back in happiness," he said. Then that man who sold the ship, having collected together people and incurred great expenses, and caused the ship to be launched on the sea, gave him it, it is said. Having acted in that manner and given it, out of that price not bringing a cent home, he spent it over that; and having related the circumstance to his family, not feeling (ne-gena) any grief, in good happiness he dispatched the time (kal aeriya), it is said. If you said, "What is [the reason of] that?" "There is no need for us to take [to heart] sorrow. From the debt that we were to give him [in a previous existence] we are released," he said. After that, the Hettiya having loaded into the ship bags of rice, thousands in number, and placed [over it] a hired captain, made the boy the principal (palamuweniya), and having given him charge sent it off, it is said. While the ship was going, time went by, many days in number, it is said; but while they were going on as a land (godak) was not yet to be perceived, the ship drifted to a great never-seen country, it is said. When they investigated in the country, and looked at the auspicious character of the kind of men who are [there], their faces were of the manner of dogs' faces, the body like these bodies of ours, [212] but the food was human-flesh food, it is said. On account of it, the persons who were in the ship being afraid, say, "Ane! This is indeed a cause for both ourselves and our ship to be lost!" While they are staying [there] the boy says anew, "I think of an expedient for this, that is, let us cook a great rice [feast] on the ship. Having cooked it, I will go to this village, and having spoken to the men and come [after] assembling them, and having eaten this food of ours, we will tell them to look [round the ship]." Having caused the rice to be made ready the boy went to the village, and having come [after] assembling the men, while giving them the food to eat, these men, perceiving that it was a food possessing great flavour that they had not eaten and not seen (no-ka nu-dutu) say, "This sort you call 'rice' we [first] saw to-day indeed. For what things will you give this?" [213] they asked. To that the sailors say, "Except that we give for money, for another thing we do not give," they said, it is said. Meanwhile the men (minisun) say, "In our country there is not a kind called 'money'; in our country there are pieces of silver and gold. If you will give it for them, give it," they said, it is said. After that, the sailors having spoken [together] and caused them to bring those things, began to measure and measure and give the rice, it is said. Should you say, "In what manner was that?" that kind of men, putting the pieces of silver and gold into sacks and having brought them, began to take away rice to the extent they give, it is said. During the time while they are doing taking and giving (ganu denu) in that way, because the sailors had great fear of staying, at night, at about the time when both heaps were equal (hari) by stealth they began to navigate the ship, it is said. At that very time, at the time when they looked at the accounts of that rice they gave, the cost had been not more than a hundred bags in number, it is said. For the rice that was of that cost there had been collected sacks of gold and silver,--about twelve were assembled, it is said. Having gone to yet [another] country, and sold those things, and made them into money (mudal kara), taking for the money yet nine ships, and together with this ship having loaded goods into the whole ten ships, he began to come to his own city. While coming there, at the time when [the citizens] looked at this it was like the mode of coming for a great fight. Meanwhile, not allowing them to approach their own country, the King asked, "Of what country are these ships? Are they coming for some fight, or what?" At that, having raised the flag of the ship they say, "No; we have not come for a fight. In these ships are trading-goods. In any other way but that we have not come," they said. Yet still the King asked, through the excess of his fear, saying and saying, "Whose ships? Who is the owner?" To that the boy, having caused them to raise the ship's flag, says, "Such and such a Hettirala's indeed are these ships," he said. Then speedily having caused the Hettiya to be brought, when he asked him, the Hettiya says, "These ships are not for me. I bought such and such a rich man's ship for such and such a boy, and loaded rice in it; since I sent it (aeriya haetiye) there is not even news yet," the Hettiya said. After that, having sent a boat, and caused the principal person of the ships to be brought, when he asked, indeed, thereafter the Hettiya gets to know [the facts]. As soon as he ascertained he caused the ships to be brought, and when the Hettiya asked the boy about these matters the boy gave account of (kiya-dunna) the wonderful things that occurred, it is said. At the time when he reported them the Hettiya says, "I will not take charge of these ships. Should you ask, 'What is [the reason of] that?' because your merit (pina) is great, when I have taken the things you obtained they will not flourish for me," he said. On account of it, the Hettiya took only the five hundred pounds that the Hettiya gave the boy, and the price of the rice, it is said. Thereupon the boy, having caused a great palace to be built, and having decorated his mother with great beauty, causing her to ascend a great horse-carriage, published it by beat of tom-toms; and obtaining the office of Treasurer (situ tanataera) he dwelt in that palace. Having established hired persons for the ships, he began to send them to various countries (rata ratawala), it is said. Western Province. NO. 234 HOW THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW GOT THE MASURAN In a certain city there was a nobleman. [214] There had been a great quantity of the nobleman's goods, but the goods in time having become destroyed, he arrived at a very indigent condition. During the time while he was [thus], existing by his son and daughter's continuing to strongly exert themselves as much as possible, at last this nobleman died. After that, at the time when his son arrived at full age, his mother began to say to the son, "Son, because I am now a person who is approaching old age, you are unable quite alone to provide for me. Because it is so, thou must take in marriage a woman from a suitable family," she said. Well then, after he had married, the woman does not exert herself for his mother. Her husband having succeeded in ascertaining that she does not exert herself in this manner, and having thought that for [counteracting] this he must make a means of success, collected a quantity of fragments of plates that were at the whole of the places in the village; and taking a large skin, and having caused a purse to be made from the skin, and put in the skin purse the quantity of fragments of plate that he collected, he says to his mother, "Mother, when you have come near that woman, open the box so as to be visible from afar, and having behaved as though there were great wealth in it, and shaken this skin bag, place it in the box [again], and put it away." When he said thus, his mother, taking [to heart] her son's saying, having made a sound with the skin bag in the manner he said, so as to be noticed by her son's wife, and having treated it carefully, placed it in the box. From the day on which the son's wife saw it, she began to exert herself for her mother-in-law. During the time when she is exerting herself thus, a leprosy disease attacked her mother-in-law. Thereupon the son spoke to his mother, and said, "Mother, taking that skin bag, and placing it at the spot where you sleep, say in this manner to your relatives and my wife, that is, 'Beginning on the day when I was little (podi dawase patan) until this [time] I gathered together these articles. For not any other reason but in order to give them at the time of my being near death, to a person who has exerted herself for me, I gathered these together. Should any person out of you exert [herself] for me, to that person I will give these.' You say [this]," he said secretly to his mother. After that, his mother having gathered together her relatives, and having called her daughter-in-law near, while in front of the whole of them she said in the mode which her son taught her, that to the person who exerted herself for her she will give the skin bag of masuran. Thereupon each one, competing according to the measure of her power, attended on this female leper. That son's mind arrived at [a state of] much delight. [After] in this manner enjoying pleasure, when a little time had gone this female leper died. Thereupon, anybody among the relatives not having hidden it, the son's wife, stealing the masuran bag, concealed it. Having buried the corpse, after the disturbance was done with the son's wife unfastened the bag of masuran. When she looked [in it], having seen that it had been filled with only the fragments of the plates that were in the village, she arrived at extreme grief. That woman's mother also having come at this time, very noisily asked, "Did my daughter receive the bag of masuran?" Thereupon her daughter having told her that she was cheated, when she had shown her the bag of fragments of plates both of them wept; and that woman having become angry with her husband separated from him, and went to her own house. Western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. iv, p. 121, Miss S. H. Goonetilleke published nearly the same story without the introductory part, presumably as it is found in Kandy. The son gave his mother a bag containing stones, telling her to pretend that it held valuables. She threatened to leave owing to her daughter-in-law's neglect of her, and to go to her own daughter's house, and she went off while the daughter-in-law was asleep. The son scolded his wife, and told her the bag of gold would now be left to his mother's daughter, so she went off next morning, coaxed her back, and attended to her carefully afterwards, and only learnt about the trick when the woman was dying. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 241, an old man who was wealthy, thinking he was about to die, divided his property among his sons, who afterwards neglected and abused him, and treated him with cruelty. A friend to whom he related his troubles afterwards came with four bags of stones, and told him to pretend that he had returned to pay off an old debt of large amount, on no account allowing the sons to get the bags. This had the desired effect; the sons attended carefully to him until he died, and then greedily opening the bags learnt how they had been tricked. NO. 235 THE MONKEY AND THE BEGGAR, OR THE MONKEY APPUSIÑÑO AND THE BEGGAR BABASIÑÑO A certain Beggar having gone from village to village was earning a subsistence by making a Monkey [215] dance and dance. By it those two collected a very little money. Having changed the small coins they got a pound in gold, and a rupee. During that time the Monkey was well accustomed to [visit] the royal house. For marrying and giving the Princess of the King of the country, the King began to seek Princes. At that time royal Princes not being anywhere in those countries, he stayed without doing anything (nikan). At that time the Monkey called Appusiñño asked Babasiñño the Beggar, "Am I to arrange and give you an opportunity [for a marriage]?" Then Babasiñño said, "What is this you are saying, Appusiñño? For you and for us what [wedding] feast!" Then Appusiñño said, "It doesn't matter to you. I will arrange and give it from somewhere or other." Having said thus, Appusiñño went to the royal house. At that time the King having seen Appusiñño, asked, "What have you come for?" Then Appusiñño said, "The Mudaliyar [216] Babasiñño told me to go and ask for the bushel for measuring golden pounds. On that account I came." Then the King thinking, "Who is it, Bola, who is a rich man to that degree?" told him to ask a servant for it, and go. So Appusiñño, asking a servant for it, went back [with it]. [Afterwards] taking the golden pound which, having changed [their small coins for it], they were hiding, and having glued it in the bushel so as not to be noticed, he handed over the bushel, with the golden pound also, at the royal house. Thereupon the King, having looked at the bushel, said, "Look here. A golden pound has been overlooked [217] in this. Appusiñño, take it away." Thereupon Appusiñño said, "Golden pounds like that are swept up into the various corners of the house of our Lord Mudaliyar Babasiñño. Because of it, what of that one!" The King thought, "Maybe this person is a richer man than I!" The Lord Mudaliyar Babasiñño and Appusiñño stay in a hut enclosed with leaves. [218] There are deficiencies of goods for those persons, for cooking and eating; there are only the small cooking pot (muttiya) and the large cooking pot (appalla) [as their goods]. On yet a day Appusiñño went running to the royal house. Having said that the Lord Mudaliyar told him to go and ask for the bushel for measuring rupees, he asked for it. At that time the King asked Appusiñño, "Whence comes this money?" Appusiñño said, "All is indeed the revenue which he receives from gardens, and grass fields, and rice fields." After that, he took away the vessel. At that time taking the rupee which was hidden, having brought it again, he gave it [with the rupee inside]. That day also the King said, "Look here. A rupee has been overlooked; take it away." Thereupon he says, "If one gather up rupees at home in that way there are many [there]. What of that one!" Appusiñño having gone, and having walked to the shops in the villages, [after] finding about a hundred old keys, returned. Having brought the keys, and having thoroughly cleaned them, and made them into a bunch of keys, he tied them at his waist. [After] tying them at his waist he went in the direction of the royal house. The King, having seen this bunch of keys, asked, "Whence, Appusiñño, keys to this extent?" "They are the keys of the cash-boxes in the wardrobes of the Lord Mudaliyar," he said. Having said it, Appusiñño said, "O Lord King, Your Majesty, will you, Sir, be angry at my speaking?" The King replied, "I am not angry at your speaking, or at your saying anything you want." Thereupon Appusiñño says, "Our Lord Mudaliyar having walked to every place in this country, there was not an opportunity (idak) [for a marriage] to be found." The Monkey informed the King that although during the little time that had passed he was poor, at present he was a great rich man, and that he was a person born formerly of an extremely important lineage. "Because of it I am speaking," he said. At that time the King said, "That there are signs of his wealth, I know. His caste and birth [219] I do not know. Hereafter (dewenu) having inquired [about them], I will say." Thereupon Appusiñño having gone into a multitude of villages, told the men, "The King having sent messages and told you to come, will ask, 'Is Babasiñño a very wealthy person? Is he a person of good lineage?' Then say, 'He is of a very good caste.'" After that, the King having summoned the Talipat fan men [220] who were in that country, made inquiry, "Is Babasiñño's house (i.e., lineage) good or bad?" The whole of them began to say, "He is a monied man, an overlord of lineage," [221] they said. After that, Appusiñño came once to the royal palace. At that time the King said to Appusiñño that he must see the bridegroom. Thereupon Appusiñño having gone home, and again having gone to the bazaar and bought a piece of soap, caused the Lord Mudaliyar Babasiñño to bathe. Again, the Monkey known as Appusiñño, splitting his head with a stone, went running to the royal house. Thereupon the King asked Appusiñño, "What has split your head?" Appusiñño says, "The Lord Mudaliyar sought for the keys to get clothes to go somewhere or other. Out of my hand the keys were lost. On account of it having beaten me with a club and my head having been split, I came running here," he said. Thereupon the King says, "You can find the keys some time. Until then, there are the needful clothes. Go and give him any cloth you want out of them," he said. So having taken a good cloth in which gold work was put, he dressed him, and he having come to the royal house, the King became pleased with the Lord Mudaliyar Babasiñño; and having caused the naekat (planetary prognostics) to be looked at, settled to marry [him to his daughter]. Thereupon, having told the men who were in that country, and having decorated the city, he observed the [wedding] festival, having also been surrounded by much sound of the five instruments of music in an extremely agreeable manner. Well then, while they were going summoning the Princess to Babasiñño's own country, the Monkey through extreme delight ran jumping and jumping in front. While the Monkey was going thus, a party of boys who were causing certain goats to graze, having heard the noise of the five instruments of music, became afraid. At the time when they asked, "What is this?" "They are coming breaking up a country, upsetting a country. If ye are to save these goats, say they are the Lord Mudaliyar Babasiñño's," the Monkey said. When they are going a little further, certain herdsmen who are looking after cattle having become afraid, at the time when they asked [what the noise was], "They are coming breaking up a country, upsetting a country. If ye are to escape say, 'We are causing the Lord Mudaliyar Babasiñño's cattle to graze,'" the Monkey said. When they are going a little further, certain men who are doing rice-field work having become afraid, at the time when they asked, "What is this noise?" he said, "They are coming breaking up a country, upsetting a country. If ye are to escape say, 'We are doing work in the Lord Mudaliyar Babasiñño's rice fields.'" At the whole of the aforesaid places the men observed the method which the Monkey said. The Monkey saw during the time he was staying in the midst of the forest, a house in which is a Yaksani. As in that house there are riches, silver and gold, like a palace, and because there was nothing in Babasiñño's house, he thought of going there. Having thought it, and having left the bride and bridegroom and the whole of them to come in carts, and having said, "Come on this path," Appusiñño got in front, and having gone to the place where the Yaksani is, said, "Isn't there even news that they are coming breaking up a country, upsetting a country? The King is coming to behead you. Because of it, go to that stone well and get hid." Thereupon, the Yaksani having gone to the stone well, got hid. While she was hiding [in it], this Appusiñño having thrown stones [into it], and having killed the Yaksani, swept the Yaksani's house, and when the party were coming was there. The King and the rest having come, when they looked much wealth and corn were there. Having said, "This one is a great rich person, indeed," while the servants and the Princess remained there the King came back to the city. But however much assistance the Monkey gave, Babasiñño having forgotten the whole of it did not even look whether they gave the Monkey to eat. Well then, while the party are staying there, one day, to look, "Does the Lord Mudaliyar Babasiñño regard me?" Appusiñño was getting false illness. At that time Babasiñño said, "What a vile remnant [222] is this! Take it and throw it away into the jungle." Thereupon the Monkey made visible and showed the absence (naetikama) of Babasiñño's good qualities (guna), bringing forward many circumstances [in proof of it. He said], "Putting [out of consideration] that I was of so much assistance, you said thus!" Having said, "Because of it, staying here is not proper," he went into the midst of the forest. Western Province. NO. 236 HOW THE BEGGAR AND THE KING GAMBLED In a certain country there was a King who having gambled gets the victory. At that time, in that country there was a Beggar. One day, Senasura, [223] having come near the Beggar, said, "Taking the money that thou hast begged and got, go near the King, and say thou, 'Let us gamble.' Then the King will say, 'I will not.' Then say thou, 'Somehow or other, to the degree in which you, Sir, hold [a wager], I will hold wagers. Because of that you ought to play.' Then the King will say, 'Ha.'" At that time the Beggar by begging had obtained about a thousand pounds. Having taken that little money he spoke to the King about the gambling. Then the King scolded him: "What gambling with thee, Beggar!" Then the Beggar says, "Should I hold the wager that you, Sir, hold, that is as much [as matters] to you, isn't it? Why are you saying so? Let us gamble." Then anger having come to the King, and having said "Ha, it is good," he became ready to gamble. Having made ready the two gambled. While gambling the King began to lose at the wagers they were laying and laying. Having thus lost, he staked (lit., placed) the palace, also, and played. By that [throw] also, he lost. Then having staked Lankawa (Ceylon) also, he played. By that [throw] also, he lost. After that, going from the palace the King and Queen made an outer palace, and the Beggar stayed in the palace. This King and Queen [afterwards] went away. Being unable to go on, they sat down at a place. While they were sitting the Queen lay down, and placed her head on the foot of the King. During the time while the Queen was asleep, the King taking a ball of straw placed it for the Queen's head; and while the Queen was sleeping there the King went away. At that time some men came there, bringing laden oxen. Then having heard the noise of the caravan (tavalama), the Queen awoke. When she looked about the King was not there. Then the Queen also having joined the caravan people, went away [with them]. Having gone, while she was lying down at a place, Senasura, having come taking the disguise of a leopard, sprang at the party of caravan cattle. Then all the cattle which were tied up, breaking [loose] bounded off. Having bounded off, while they were running all these men sprang off on that road. This Queen sprang off to one hand (a different direction). Having bounded off she entered a city. The mother who makes garlands for the royal house, being without a person [as an assistant], having sought one and walked there, met with this Queen. At the time when she asked at the hand of the Queen [if she would help her], she said, "I can work." Well then, the Queen stayed [there], doing and doing garland-making work. That King having abandoned the Queen, while he was going away, Senasura, taking the disguise of a polanga [224] (snake), stayed on the path. When the King was going from there the polanga said, "Having swallowed a prey I am here, unable to go. Because of it take hold of my tail, and having drawn me aside and left me, go away." Thereupon the King having taken hold of the tail of the polanga, while he was drawing it aside it bit him on the hand. Then leprosy having struck the King, the King's eye became foul. At that time a horse belonging to the King of yet [another] city was born. [The King went there, and was appointed as a horse-keeper under the King who owned the horse.] That garland-making mother (the ex-Queen) one day having gone taking flowers, placed them on the couches at the palace. When she was coming out, a trader who sold clothes when at that gambling city, having brought clothes to this city and having seen her as that garland-making mother was coming out, this trader made obeisance to this garland-making mother. Thereupon the Queen of the King of the city having seen it summoned the trader, and asked him, "Why didst thou make an obeisance to our garland-making mother?" The trader says, "What of that Queen's doing garland-making work! [She is] the Queen of the King of such and such a city. Having seen her before, through being accustomed to it I made obeisance." When she asked the garland-making mother about the circumstances, all was correct. After that having told the King, when the King, having heard of it, went looking at her she was the King's elder sister. Thereupon he caused the garland-making mother to bathe in sandal-wood water, and robed her. Having heard the circumstances, in order to find the King (her husband) he made use of an expedient in this manner. Settling to eat a feast, he sent letters to the royal personages of cities successively, to come to this city. Then on the day the whole of the Kings came. Before that, he had told that Queen that should that King come she was to ascertain it. All these royal parties and their horse-keepers having come, and the royal party having arrived at the palace, that horse-keeper (the former King) went to another quarter, and placed a gill of rice on the hearth [to boil]. Cooking it and having eaten, because he was a King before that he set off to look at this royal party when eating food, and having come, peeped a little and looked. When he looked he saw that that Queen was there. Thereupon both these persons having seen each other began to weep. Then the whole of the Kings, having hit upon a little about it, inquired, "What is it?" Then the [royal] party said, "It is thus and thus." Then the King summoned the horse-keeper, and having made him bathe in sandal-wood water, kept the Queen and the King in the palace. Having much thanked that royal party [of guests] and said, "It was for the sake of finding this one, indeed, that I laid this feast," he sent the party [of guests] to those cities. This party (the King and Queen) remained at this royal house. Western Province. This story is a variant of the Indian tale of King Nala and Queen Damayanti. The two dice, Kali and Dwapara, personified, as well as several Gods, were in love with Damayanti, but she married Nala, selecting him at a Swayamvara (at which a Princess makes her own choice of a husband). In order to separate them, Kali entered Nala when he had neglected his religious practices one day; and he became a drunkard and a gambler, and thus lost his kingdom, which was won by his brother at dice. He and his wife wandered away, and after showing her the path to her father's kingdom, he abandoned her while she was asleep. He met with Karkotaka, a snake King, and carried him from a fire which scorched him. The snake then bit him on the forehead, causing him to become deformed, and gave him garments which restored his original form when worn; and he entered the service of a King as cook and horse-keeper. Damayanti joined a caravan, and then became a palace attendant of a Queen who proved to be her mother's sister. A Minister of her father's recognised her; and on her story's becoming known her uncle sent her back to her father. She heard of a clever cook and horse-keeper whom she suspected to be Nala; when she got a false notice of a Swayamvara to be sent to the King his employer he made Nala drive him there. Nala was tested in various ways by Damayanti, who at last felt sure of his identity; she then sent for him, and Kali having now left him he told his story, put on his magic garments, and they were re-united. He afterwards recovered his kingdom from his brother. In the Sinhalese version which has been given, the dice are not mentioned, and the reason why Senasura brought about the misfortunes of the King and Queen,--that is, his jealousy,--is also not explained. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 144, the story is given without any intervention of the deities or personified dice. After being abandoned, the Princess was engaged as a servant at a palace, and the Prince became a groom at the same place. She saw and recognised him, and afterwards the younger brother restored half the kingdom to him. NO. 237 THE STORY OF THE KING In a certain country, during the time when a King was exercising sovereignty the King married a Queen, it is said. In the Queen's womb, begotten by the Great King, three Princes were conceived, it is said. While the three Princes were in the state approaching full age, the eldest Prince of the three Princes improved himself in throwing stones with the stone-bow, it is said. During the time when he was improving himself thus, he became a very skilful and dexterous person at stone-bow throwing. After that, the same Prince having abandoned the stone-bow began the shooting of animals with the bow and arrows. By that means, having shot at animals and killed animals, while eating the flesh with good joy and pleasure he passed the time in happiness with his father the King, and his mother the Queen, and his younger brothers who were the other two Princes. At the time when he passed the time thus, his mother reached the other world. Not much time after it the Great King effected the wedding festival for yet [another] Queen from another country. The Queen was a childless proud woman. Because it was so, her happiness was in passing the time in discourtesy. Furthermore, by this Queen there not being any notice of the three Princes, and as she was passing the time in anger and jealousy, the three Princes spoke together, "When our father the King has gone to war with any city, we three persons, taking three bags of masuran and causing a bag of cooked rice to be made ready, will go to another country." [After] saying [this], at the time when they are there the King received the message to go to a war. As soon as he received it, [225] having spoken to the Princes and the Queen, "Remain in happiness, looking after the country and the palace," the Great King having been adorned to go went away. After he went, the three Princes, making ready the bags of masuran and cooked rice, and forsaking the country, having started to go to another country, went off. While they were thus going, a very severe water-thirst [226] seized the elder Prince. While going seeking water, perceiving that there was no water he said to the other young Princes, "Having gone to a high hill or up a large tree, look if there is water near." Then a Prince having gone up a tree, when he looked said that very far away a pool of water is visible. After that, having gone to the quarter in which is the pool and having met with water, staying there and dividing the bag of cooked rice they ate. Having eaten and drunk, and having finished, they spoke together, "Let us three pluck three [lotus] flowers from this pool. [After] plucking them let us go to three countries. When we have gone there, should there be harm to anyone whatever of us, the flowers of the remaining two will fade." Having said [this], the three Princes [plucked three flowers, and taking them with them] went to three countries. After they went there, while the eldest Prince was going on the road, a palace of great height was visible. When he went to the palace that was visible, there was a Princess [at it] possessing much beauty. Having seen this Prince's splendour [227] that very Princess fell down unconscious, without sense. Afterwards the Prince having restored the Princess to consciousness, asked, "What happened?" The Princess having spoken, said, "Having seen your beauty, Sir, it caused a great dizziness to seize me, and I fell down." After that, the Prince, begging a little water from the Princess, drank. After he drank, "Why is there no one in this palace?" he asked. The Princess spoke, "My father the King, and mother went for bathing their heads with water. [228] I and the flower-mother alone are [here]," she said. When the Prince asked on account of it, "Will the party come now?" "They will come now quickly," said the Princess. Then the King and the Queen, [after] doing the head-bathing, came. The King and the Queen having seen this Prince became greatly afraid. "Of what country are you, Sir? Who and whose?" they asked the Prince. The Prince says, "I am a son of such and such a King of such and such a city," he said. Because of it, the Great King asked, "Came you with the thought of perhaps a war, or what?" Then the Prince said, "No. After my mother died, while I was remaining in great sorrow, when my father the King, marrying another Queen, was there, for me a great shame entered my mind because of the Queen's unseasonable action; and while the King went for a war I having forsaken my country came to this country." After that, the truth of it went to the Great King, to his mind. As soon as it went there, [229] when a [little] time was going by, having married and given the King's daughter [to him], and made it public by the proclamation tom-tom, and having handed over the country also, he decorated them [with the regal ornaments]. While he was exercising the kingship of that country, the other Princes of the country, having become angry concerning this Prince and having thought of a means of killing him, said, "We will give the flower-mother five hundred masuran to give him this small quantity of poisonous drug, having deceived the Princess by some method or other." [They said to her], "Should you do as we said, we will give you these presents." Should she be unable in that manner they told her to [tell] the Princess to ask where the Prince's life is. In that way, the flower-mother having prepared a new [sort of] food for the Prince, and having also put [into it] this drug and deceived the Princess, at the time when the Prince is eating food she told her to give him this new food. This having seemed the truth to the Princess, at the time when the Prince was eating food she gave it. The Prince, too, having been much pleased with the food, and having eaten and drunk, finished. Owing to it, anything did not happen. On the following day the flower-mother says to the Princess, "Where is the Prince's life?" She told her to ask. When she asked the Prince on account of it, "My life is in my breast," he said. When she told it to the flower-mother in the morning, the flower-woman said, "What he said is false." She told her to ask thoroughly. At night on the following day, when she asked he asked for oaths from the Princess, [of a nature to ensure] the impossibility of escaping from them, that the Princess must not tell it to any person. Afterwards the Princess swore, "I will not tell it." Then the Prince says, "My life is in my sword," he said. On the following day, when the flower-woman asked, having deceived the Princess, the Princess said, "If you will not tell it to anyone I will tell you. [For me] to tell it, you [must] take an oath with me," she said. When the flower-mother swore to it the Princess said, "The Prince's life is in the Prince's sword." From the day when she heard the fact for herself, that flower-mother to an extent never [done] before, began to pile up a heap of firewood and coconut husks. When the Princess asked, "What is that for?" she says, "For us to put in the hearth at the time when rain rains," she said. While not much time was going in that way, one day not having shut the door of the palace, at night this flower-mother stole the Prince's sword, put it into that piled up heap of firewood, and set it on fire; but the handle for holding the sword was left outside the flames. That fire fell into the heap. [230] At the time when it was thoroughly burning the Prince's life was becoming ended here. After the sword was burnt the Prince completely died. Not allowing them to bury the dead body, the Princess having caused a coffin to be made, and placed the dead body inside the coffin, remained in much grief. While she was thus, the flowers of the Prince's brothers having faded, when they came seeking him ascertaining the truth they went to the palace. At the time when they went, having seen the Princess who was in the palace they asked the Princess, "Why? For what [reason] are you without cause (nikan) in this great trouble?" they asked. To that the Princess says, "At the time when a Prince of such and such a King of such and such a country came to this country, my father the King having asked the Prince his age, and looked [into his horoscope], married and gave me to him; and having given him charge to rule the country also, that person (her father) died," she said. "After that, while he is exercising the kingship this flower-mother told me to ask where the Prince's life is. When I asked, the Prince's life is in the Prince's sword, he said. After that, whether such and such a thing occurred I do not understand," she said. When those Princes sought for the sword there was no sword. Afterwards they looked in that heap of ashes on the fire ground. They met with only the piece of that hilt for holding. Having met with it, one person having gone running and having come [after] plucking limes, began to polish that piece of sword. The other having opened that coffin (lit. corpse-box) was near it. While he was there, by an authorisation of the Deity the sword was restored (lit. went right) better than it was [before]. Then life being as though [re-]established for the Prince also, he arose. After that, having investigated about these matters and looked [into them], perceiving what the flower-mother did he impaled that woman and killed her. Afterwards these three Princes and the Princess sought their father the King, and went to [their own] country. Western Province. NO. 238 THE KING WHO LEARNT THE SPEECH OF ANIMALS In a certain country a King was rearing wild animals. The King had learnt in a thorough manner the speech of animals. One day at that time the fowls were saying, "Our King assists us very much; he gives us food and drink." They thanked the King very much. The King having heard their talk, the King laughed with pleasure. The royal Queen having been near, asked, "What did you laugh at?" "I merely (nikan) laughed," the King said. Should he explain and give the talk to any person the King will die. Because of it he did not explain and give it. That the King knows the speech of animals he does not inform anyone. The royal Queen says, "There is no one who laughs in that way without a reason. Should you not say the reason I am going away, or having jumped into a well I shall die." Thereupon the King, because he was unable to be released from [the importunity of] the Queen, thought, "Even if I am to die I must explain and give this." Thinking thus, he went to give food to the animals. Then it was evident to those animals that this King is going to die. Out of the party of animals first a cock says, "His Majesty our King is going to be lost. We don't want the food. We shall not receive assistance. Unless His Majesty the King perish thus we shall not perish. In submission to me there are many hens. When I have called them the hens come. When I have told them to eat they eat. When I have told them to go they go. The King, having become submissive in that manner to the thing that his wife has said, is going to die." The King having heard it, laughed at it, also. Then, also, the royal Queen asked, "What did you laugh at?" Thereupon, not saying the [true] word, the King said, "Thinking of constructing a tank, I laughed." Then the Queen said, "Having caused the animals that are in this Lankawa (Ceylon) to be brought, let us build a tank." Then the King having said, "It is good," caused the animals to be brought. The King having gone with the animals, showed them a place [in which] to build a tank; and telling them to build it came away. The animals, at the King's command being unable to do anything, all together began to struggle on the mound of earth. Those which can take earth in the mouth take it in the mouth. All work in this manner. The Jackal, not doing any work, having bounded away remained looking on. After three or four days, the King having gone [there] trickishly stayed looking on. The King saw that the other animals are all moving about as though working; the Jackal, only, having bounded off is looking on. Having seen it he asked the Jackal, "The others are all working; thou, only, art looking upward. Why?" Thereupon the Jackal said, "No, O Lord; I looked into an account." Then the King asked, "What account art thou looking at?" The Jackal says, "I looked whether in this country the females are in excess or the males are in excess." The King asked, "By the account which thou knowest, are the females in excess or the males in excess?" The Jackal said, "So far as I can perceive, the females are in excess in this country." Then the King said that men are in excess. Having said it the King said, "I myself having gone home and looked at the books, if males are in excess I shall give thee a good punishment." The King having come home and looked at the books, it appeared that the males were in excess. Thereupon the King called the Jackal, and said, "Bola, males are in excess." Then the Jackal says, "No, O Lord, Your Majesty; they are not as many as the females. Having also put down to the female account the males who hearken to the things that females say, after they counted them the females would be in excess." Then the Jackal said, "Are the animals able to build tanks? How shall they carry the earth?" Thereupon the King having considered it, and having said, "Wild animals, wild animals, you are to go to the midst of the forest," came home. At that time, the Queen asked, "Is the tank built and finished?" Then the King, taking a cane, began to beat the Queen. Thereupon the Queen, having said, "Ane! O Lord, Your Majesty, I will never again say anything, or even ask anything," began to cry aloud. The King got to know that the Jackal was a wise animal. Western Province. Compare vol. ii., Nos. 167 and 168. In Santal Folk-Tales (Campbell), p. 22, after a King had received from the Snake King the power of understanding the speech of animals, he laughed on hearing a dispute between a fly and an ant over some grains of rice. As the Queen insisted on being told the reason, to disclose which he had been warned would be fatal to him, he was about to tell her and then get her to push him into the Ganges, when he overheard the talk of some goats. A he-goat replied to a she-goat's request that he would bring her some grass from an island in the river, that he would not be made like this foolish King who vainly tried to please a woman and was about to die because of it. The King saw his foolishness, made the Queen kneel to pay obeisance to him in order to be told the secret, and then beheaded her. NO. 239 THE MAD KING In a certain country there was a King. Madness seized the King. It having seized him, he caused all the men of the city to be brought, and seized from them their gains; should the party say even a word about it he kills them. Having killed them in this manner, when the city was diminished a half share, he sent to tell the Treasurer (sitano) to come. He knows thoroughly that in order to kill that person he had been told to come. The Treasurer asked at the hand of the Treasurer's wife, "What shall I do for this?" Thereupon the woman said, "You having gone, to the talk which the King says having said nothing [else] in reply, say 'Eheyi' (Yes), [231] to the whole." Having heard her word the Treasurer went to the palace. The King asked, "Treasurer, is there rain in your quarter?" The Treasurer said "Eheyi, Lord." "Are you well now?" he asked. The Treasurer, not saying another speech, to that also said, "Eheyi, Lord." In this manner they talked until the time for eating rice in the day time. To all he said, "Eheyi." Then the King said to the Treasurer, "Treasurer, now the time for eating rice has come, hasn't it?" The Treasurer said, "Eheyi, Lord." Thereupon the King said, "Treasurer, let us go to bathe." The Treasurer said, "Eheyi, Lord." The King said, "Ask for the copper water-pot." The Treasurer said, "Eheyi, Lord." Having said it and gone, he returned [after] asking for [and getting] it. Then the King said, "Get in front." The Treasurer said, "Eheyi, Lord"; having said it the Treasurer got in front. Having gone to the river, the King took off his clothes, and putting on the bathing cloth, [entered the water, and] asked the Treasurer, "Treasurer, won't you bathe?" The Treasurer, having said, "Eheyi, Lord," remained on the rock. While the King was talking and going backwards and backwards, he was caught by an eddy in the water, and went to the bottom. Having sunk, when he was rising to the surface he said, "Treasurer, I shall die; draw me out quickly." Thereupon the Treasurer said, "Eheyi, Lord," [but did not move]. When he was going to the bottom the next time the King died. Then the Treasurer, taking the few royal ornaments, came home. Having come, he said at the hand of the Treasurer's wife, "The King died," [and he gave an account of his death]. Thereupon the woman said, "O fool! I said that indeed. Putting on those royal ornaments, go to the royal palace and say, 'It is I who am King; also I killed the King. If ye do not hearken to the things I say I will kill you also.'" The Treasurer did in that very way. The whole of the men of the city were afraid. Well then, the Treasurer exercising the sovereignty over the city, the Treasurer's wife became the Queen. Western Province. THE KAHAWANA SOWING (Variant) At a certain city there was a foolish King. At the time when the King says anything he kills the whole of the Ministers who do not give answer, "Yahapati" (It is good), to it. In this way, by not remembering to say Yahapati a great number of Ministers tasted death. [232] By his doing thus, on account of his making this order [in the end] there was not a Minister for the King. After that, he caused notice to be given by tom-toms in the city for a person to come for the ministership (aemaeptiya­kama). Because they were not willing to taste death anybody was unwilling to do it. At last, a drunken cheat having the name Jobbuwa arrived. "Yahapati; be pleased to give me the office of Minister," he said. The King having said, "Yahapati," gave him the office of Minister. While time was passing, he spoke to the Minister one day, and said, "Cannot I obtain profit by cultivating kahawanas (coins)?" "Yahapati; you can get much gain by it," he said. "If so, for the purpose of sowing them cause a chena to be cut," the King said to the Minister. The Minister, having said, "Yahapataeyi" (It is good), went away, and firstly having told the Chiefs (pradaninta) of the village to collect and bring Tamarind seeds, told the villagers to put in order a wide, level, open place on the border of a certain river. The villagers having put the Tamarind seeds into sacks and stitched them up, brought them. Having cut the chena, after it was completed the Minister having gone, asked the King for kahawanas [to sow in it]. The King said, "Take as many as you require for sowing in the chena." The Minister having brought the kahawanas home, caused the Tamarind seeds to be sown in the chena. After they sprouted, the King said he must go to look at the chena. The Minister inviting the King [to go], having gone in state (peraharin) with him, and caused the army to stay on one side, the King and the Minister went into the chena. Because, when the Tamarind seeds sprouted, many young shoots were of golden colour [233] the King said, "These are very good." While he was walking there a long time, having arrived at weariness the King went to the river to bathe. In that river the water is very rapid. Because of it, at the time when the King descended into the water he began to be drawn down into the water. Thereupon, at the time when the King says, "Take hold of me," the Minister, having said, "Yahapati," remained looking on. After the King had been swallowed up in the river and died, the Minister, having put on the royal ornaments and gone away with the army, exercised the sovereignty of that city with renown. Uva Province. NO. 240 CONCERNING THE PRINCE WITH HIS LIFE IN HIS SWORD In a certain country there was a King. There were seven Princes for the King. Having instructed the whole seven, the King tried to fit them [for their position]. The party without wanting to do anything whatever passed the days in amusement. The King thought when he looked [at their idleness], "From this party of seven persons there is not an advantage," and having punished (dada gahala) the whole seven, "Go to any kingdom you can; don't stay in this country," he said. The seven persons speaking [together] said, "Our father the King told us to go!" and the whole of them went. Out of them, the eldest Prince, took six flower seeds. The whole seven having arrived at a kingdom, to the youngest Prince the eldest Prince said, "Getting any livelihood you can, remain in this country. At the place where you stay plant this flower seed for yourself. It having sprouted, when the flower tree has grown, on the tree a flower will blossom. At the time when the flower has faded come seeking me." Having told him thus he made the Prince stay in that country. In that very way he made the other five stay in five countries. Having given to those persons five flower seeds, he told them [about them] in the very way he told that Prince. To the last country the eldest Prince went. When he was living in that country doing cultivation work, one day he went to walk in the midst of the forest. In the midst of the forest there is a house. The Prince saw it. Having gone to that rock house (cave), when he looked a Princess was [there]. He asked the Princess, "Are you a human daughter, or a Yaksa-daughter?" Thereupon the Princess said, "I am a daughter of a King. Having eaten food at night I went to sleep. That Yaka having brought me, I am in this rock house. I also do not know a path for going away; I stay in fear," the Princess said. Then the Prince asked the Princess, "Will you come to go with me?" At that time the Princess having said, "It is good," the two together having bounded off, proceeded to the place where the Prince who went there stays. During the time while these persons are staying there obtaining a livelihood, the Prince's life is in his sword. Except that his brothers know that his life is in this sword, no other person knows. The Princess one day went to the river to bathe. While bathing there, three or four hairs of her head in the Princess's hair knot having become loosened and having floated, went away in the river. When the Prince of the King of that country was bathing lower down in the river, those hairs of her head which went became entangled on the hand of the Prince. When the Prince, having said, "What is this?" was looking, it was a sort of long hairs of the head, hair of the head of gold colour, and about two fathoms' length. Having seen this hair, and known that these were the very best, like [those of] a royal Princess, he thought, "I must seek this Princess," and went to the palace. Having taken the hairs of the head he showed them to his father the King. Having shown them he told him to do whatever [was necessary], and seek and give him the Princess to whom this hair of the head belongs. He published by the notification tom-tom that to a person who, having found, gave her, he will give goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load. An old woman who stayed near there said, "I can." Having told the old woman to come, the King asked, "What do you want in order to go to seek the Princess?" "I don't want anything, O Lord; I only want a boat," she said. So he gave her a boat. Having gone to the river taking the boat, the old woman sat in the boat, saying and saying lamentations, and having floated she went up [234] the river. Having gone in that way, and tied the boat on that side, the old woman went to the place where the Princess possessing that hair, and the Prince, are staying. When the old woman was going there the Prince was not at home. To the Princess the old woman said, "Ane! Daughter, there is no person to look after me. Assist me for the sake of charity," she said. The Princess becoming grieved at it told the old woman to remain. After a little, the Prince came home. Having come he asked, "This mother, a person from where is she? What came she here for?" Thereupon the Princess also [said], "She came and said, 'There is no one to give me to eat!' Because of it, I being alone I said, 'Remain with me,'" she said. While she was [there] in that way, at the time when the Prince was not [there] the old woman said to the Princess, "You having eaten and drunk, when you are lying down by way of fun ask the Prince, 'Where is your life?'" So the Princess asked the Prince, "Where is your life?" At that time the Prince said, "My life is in my sword." Through the ignorance of the Princess regarding it, she told that old woman that his life is in the sword. Well then, the old woman from that day, having said that it was for putting in the hearth on rainy days, sought for firewood and heaped it up. When the old woman is going to sleep, every day having built a bon-fire she goes to sleep. One day during the day time, having been [there] at the time when the Prince is not there, she looked where the sword is. Thereupon, at night a rain began. Having said, "To-day there is rain," she strengthened the bon-fire. After the Princess and the Prince went to sleep she brought the sword and put it in the bon-fire. Having arisen in the morning, when she looked the Prince having died the Princess began to lament. The old woman also falsely lamented. The two persons having been lamenting and lamenting a little time, the old woman, calling the Princess, went to obtain shelter at another place. Having gone there, and handed over the Princess to the King of that country, taking the presents also, the old woman went home. At that time the King told the Princess to take that Prince in marriage. Thereupon the Princess said, "My Prince is now dead only two or three days. Because of it I want time for a month." Having found an upper-story house very near there, he sent the Princess to stay in the upper-story house in that street. Having seen that the flowers of the flower trees of the younger brothers of that Prince had faded, [his brothers] began to seek him. Seeking him, they went to the place where the Prince is dead. Having gone, these six persons together said, "Where is the sword?" and began to seek it. When seeking it, the sword having been in a heap of ashes they took it. Thereafter having taken the sword to the river, they cleaned it; at that time life was [re-]established for that Prince. Then the Prince having arisen spoke to those Princes, and having said, "Now then, go you to each of the places where you were," he did that cultivation work, and remained obtaining a livelihood [thus]. This one got news that that old woman having taken the Princess and given her to the King, received for herself presents and distinctions. At that time sorrow having gone to the Prince he went to seek the Princess. When [he was] going walking in the street in which is the Princess, the Princess saw that this one is going. The Prince did not see her. At that time the Princess began to write a letter. Having written the letter, the Princess remained in expectation of the time when the Prince is coming. The Prince, through news that she is in that very street, came back. At that time the Princess, having seen that the Prince is coming, taking the letter dropped it [so as] to fall in front of him. The Prince having taken the letter, when he looked at it and read it there was written, "That old woman who stayed near us having deceived us and having brought and given me to the King, received for herself presents and distinctions. The King said to me that he must marry and give me to the King's Prince. Thereupon I said, 'My Prince is not dead a month now.' Because of it, asking for time for a month, I am staying in another house," there was written. "I said so through the thought that I shall obtain my Prince again. In three days more we are going to the church (palliya) to marry. Because of it, having got a horse carriage should you come on that day to the church we can escape and go off," there was written. Thereupon the Prince on the day she told him having got a horse carriage also, went near the church in the disguise of a horse-keeper, and halting the carriage, remained [there]. On the wedding day the King, the Prince, the Princess, the whole of the party, went in a horse carriage. The Princess saw that that Prince is staying like the horse-keeper, holding the horse. But when the Princess looking [at him] went into the church, the horse-keeper [Prince] having remained standing, becoming sleepy reclined a little. Then the Prince went to sleep. That Princess having got married and come, and having ascended into the carriage which the Prince brought, not knowing that the Prince was asleep struck the horse, and making it bound went off as though she flew. The other people who were there, not observing the quarter to which the Princess went, went away. The King and the married Prince after that sought her; they did not meet with her. The sleeping horse-keeper Prince having ascertained that the carriage was not [there], weeping and weeping began to go along the path on which that Princess went. When the Princess was going in the midst of a forest wilderness, Vaeddas having been there came and watched in order to seize her. Having watched, they said to the Princess, "If thou come not with us we will shoot and kill thee." Thereupon the Princess asked, "I can come with one of you. How shall I come with four or five persons?" The Vaeddas asked the Princess, "If so, how is it [to be]?" Thereupon the Princess says, "You having been set in line, all at one discharge shoot. Having shot, I will join the person whose arrow should fall far, who came [after] picking up the arrow, and will come [with him]," she said. At that time the whole of the party having been fixed in line shot [for the arrows] to go very far. Having shot, all ran for the purpose of bringing the arrows. Thereupon the Princess having struck the horse, driving it off went away without being perceived. The Vaeddas having got the arrows and come, went away without the Princess. When she was going to that side from the forest wilderness in which are the Vaeddas, the Princess thought that should she go by the carriage she will be unable to escape. So she descended from the carriage to the ground, and having unloosed the horse drove it into the jungle. She rolled the carriage over into the jungle. The Princess having thrown away the Princess's dress, dressing like a Hettiya went away. In this manner she went to another kingdom. In that country, establishing shops, there was a rich Hettiya. She approached near him. At that time the shopkeeper Hettiya having become much pleased with the [apparent] Hettiya, told him to remain there. Well then, the shopkeeper Hettiya asked, "Who art thou?" Thereupon the Princess said, "I am a Hettirala of a country; I came to establish a shop." The shopkeeper having heard that word, said, "If so, let us two trade in partnership." Having said [this] he handed over a shop to the Princess resembling a Hettiya. He gave for it suitable servants. At that time this Princess says, "I having come to a new country, when establishing a shop have the thought to give a dana (free donation of food), and secondly to establish the shop." Thereupon the shopkeeper Hettirala having become pleased, and having said, "Let us two pay the amount that the cost comes to," they gave the dana. Then that horse-keeper Prince having come, approached there. The Hettirala having seen the horse-keeper gave him alms. The [Princess] Hettirala after the man ate the food put him in a house and told the servants to shut the door. During that night having given the dana and having finished, "Whence are you?" the new Hettirala asked the horse-keeper. At that time the horse-keeper said to that Hettirala, "Ane! Hettirala, I indeed am a royal Prince. The Princess whom I had married, driving off in the horse-carriage came here. I also having become hungry when coming here [saw that] there was an alms-house. Because of it I came here," he said. The Hettirala, having cast off those clothes and put on clothes in the manner of a Princess, came and asked, "Am I the Princess?" Having said, "You indeed are my Princess," holding her hand he began to weep. The clothes that she wore like the Hettirala that Prince put on. After that, having gone near the shopkeeper Hettirala, they told him completely the things that occurred to these people. This Hettirala having become pleased at it told them to stay at that very shop. The two persons trading at the shop and having become very wealthy, remained at that very city. Western Province. NO. 241 THE ROYAL PRINCE AND THE HETTIRALA [235] In a certain country both the royal Prince and the Minister-Prince were joined together by much friendship, it is said. Thus, having been in that way, one day the royal Prince having talked with the Minister-Prince, says, "Friend, we two having come to a foreign country, let us do trading." The Minister-Prince also having said, "It is good," the two persons taking as much money as each can carry for the purpose of trading, set off to go to a foreign country. During the time when they are going thus, the two having met with a junction of two roads, the two persons say, "We two having separated at these roads let us go to two districts." So speaking, having separated they went to two districts. Out of them, the royal Prince having arrived at the place where a courtesan woman is gambling, and having staked with the courtesan woman this money he brought, gambled. The courtesan woman won the whole of the money. Well then, the royal Prince having staked the clothes he was wearing, when he gambled the Prince lost them also. Well then, the Prince says, "It is good. [236] If so, you and I having staked ourselves let us gamble." So speaking, staking each against the other they gambled. Thereupon the Prince lost. Having shaved the Prince's head, taking him for the state of labourer, while he was drawing water and washing pots, when the Hettirala of that village was going by that street he saw the Prince who was washing and washing pots, and great sorrow having been produced for the Hettirala, he spoke to the courtesan woman, and says, "The labourer who is washing these pots is of very white colour. It is not worth [while] taking this work from him. If you will give me him I can give him a suitable means of livelihood." Thereupon the courtesan woman says, "Yes, if there is sorrow for you concerning him; although I can give him I cannot give him without payment (nikan). Why? He has let me in [237] for a thousand masuran. If the Hetti-elder-brother give that money I can give him; if not so, I cannot give him," the courtesan woman said. Then the Hettirala says, "It is good. Taking the money from me give me him." The Hettirala gave the money; and taking the Prince and having arrived at his house the Hettirala having spoken to the Prince, asks, "What can you do?" The Prince says, "I can do anything." Thereupon the Hettirala says, "Don't you do work [so as] to become tired. There are my shops; you can stay at a shop." When he asked, "Can you [do] letter accounts?" [238] the Prince said, "I can." When he said it, having said, "If so, go to my shop," he started him, and having gone with the Hettirala he gave him charge of the shop. Thereupon the Prince asks, "Do you give the shop goods on credit (nayata) and the like? How is the mode of selling the goods?" The Hettirala says, "Yes, give them on credit. When giving them on credit don't merely give them; [after] writing the name give them." Thereupon the Prince having said, "It is good," and taking charge, from that time spoke to men who are going on the road. When the men came he asked, "Where are you going? Where is your village? What is your name?" Afterwards he says, "It is good. Taking anything you want, go." Having said and said it, and having brought in that manner all the men going on the road, in a week's time he finished the goods that were in the shop. During the time when he was giving the goods in that way, should anyone come and having given money ask for goods, taking the money he gave goods for the money. When he finished the goods in that manner, the Hettirala, not knowing [about it], having become much pleased, said, "You are very good, having looked with this promptitude at the account of the money for which you sold the goods. Bringing goods afresh will be good, will it not?" When he was preparing to look at the accounts, having brought the book in which he wrote the men's names, and a little money, [the Prince] placed them [before him]. The Hettirala asked, "What is this?" Then the Prince says, "Why, what is it you are asking? Have I blundered? In the book, indeed, the names will be correct; having indeed written the names I gave the goods. I did not give goods to even a person without having written the name." The Hettirala says, "Ane! You are a great fool; you are not a person who can do trading." Having said [this], the Hettirala, calling the Prince, went home again. Having gone [there], when three or four days were going the Hettirala's wife began to scold the Hettirala, "For what reason are we causing this one to stay, and undergoing expense by giving him to eat and to wear?" When she shouted to the Hettirala, "If this thief is sitting unemployed, this very day having beaten him I shall drive him away," the Hettirala asks the Prince, "Child, there are many cattle of mine; can you look after the cattle?" At that time the Prince says, "It is good; I can look after cattle." Thereupon the Hettirala having gone, calling the Prince, to the district where the cattle are, and having shown him the cattle, says, "All these cattle are mine. You must look after them, taking care of them very well. Do not send them into outside gardens. You must tie the fastening (baemma) well." Thereupon the Prince says, "It is good, Hetti-elder-brother. Don't be afraid. Having well tied the fastening I shall look after the cattle." Having started off the Hettirala and sent him away, the Prince placed each one of the cattle at each tree, and having tied the fastenings and tightened them to the degree that they were unable to take breath, was looking in the direction of the cattle. While he was there some cattle died, some were drawing the breath (i.e., gasping for breath). At that time, the time of eating cooked rice went by. The Hettirala, having remained looking for the Prince's coming at the time of eating cooked rice during the day, when the time went by thought, "He is a great fool, isn't he? Having sent the cattle into the gardens of others they have been seized, maybe." As he did not come at noon to eat cooked rice, he said, "I must go to look"; and having come there, when he looked some had died at the very bottom of the trees to which they were tied, some are drawing and drawing breath. The Hettirala asks the Prince, "Why, fool, what a thing this is you did! Do you look after cattle in this way?" Having said [this], he scolded him. Thereupon the Prince says, "What is the Hetti-elder-brother saying? The Hetti-elder-brother said at first, 'Having tied the fastenings well, look after them, not letting (nendi) them go into the gardens of others.' I tied the fastenings well, and stayed looking at them. What is it you are saying? Have I tied them badly? If there is a fault in the tying, tell me." Well then, the Hettirala being without a reply to say, [thought], "Because I told this fool to tie the fastenings well, he, thinking foolishly, in observance of the order killed my few cattle. I was foolish; this fool will not have the ability to do this work;" and he went, calling the Prince again, to the Hettirala's house. When he is there three or four days, in the very [same] manner as at first the Hettirala's wife began to scold the Hettirala:--"Having come calling this thief again, is he simply sitting down? Even for a day there will not be [the means] here to give this one to eat, sitting down unemployed. This very day I will drive him from the house." Having said various things she scolded the Hettirala. Thereupon the Hettirala having spoken to the Prince asks, "Can you plough rice fields?" At that time the Prince says, "It is good. I am able to do that work." Thereupon the Hettirala says, "It is good. If so get ready to go to-morrow morning." Having given the Prince a plough also, and having arisen at daybreak, the Hettirala set off to go on a journey. Calling the Prince on the journey on which he is going, and having gone and shown the Prince the Hettirala's fields, he says, "Look there. From the place where that egret is perched plough to that side until the time when I have gone on this journey and come back." Well then, this Prince says to the Hettirala, "It is good, Hetti-elder-brother. Let Him go on the journey He is going. [239] I will plough to the place where the egret is." Taking over the charge, and having started off the Hettirala and sent him away, he tied the yoke of bulls in the plough. When he went driving them to the place where the egret is, the egret having gone flying perched at another place. Driving the yoke of bulls he went there also. The egret having gone flying from there also, perched at another place. Driving the yoke of bulls he went there also. From there also the egret having gone flying, perched at another place. Thereupon the Prince, driving the yoke of bulls and having gone to the root of the tree, taking a large stick and beating and beating the yoke of bulls, says, "Why, bulls (gonnune)! Go to the place where the egret is. Should you two not go to the place where the egret is I shall not succeed in escaping from the Hettirala; to-day there is not any work [done], and I myself did not eat." Saying and saying [this], he began to beat the yoke of bulls. While he was there beating and beating them it became night. The Hettirala, also, having made that journey, came to the house. Having come there the Hettirala asks, he asks from the house people, "Hasn't the fool himself who went to the rice field come?" Thereupon the house people say, "After he went with the Hetti-elder-brother in the morning, he did not come back." The Hettirala says, "Apoyi! As that fool himself came not there will be some accident or other!" Quickly having gone running to the rice field, when he looked, at no place in the rice field had [the ground] been ploughed, and he does not see the yoke of bulls or the man. When the Hettirala looks on that and this side, the Prince whom the Hettirala came to seek having seen him, breaking a large cudgel he began to beat the yoke of bulls more and more, as though he did not see him. Thereupon the Hettirala, having heard this noise when he looked, having heard it and gone running, asks, "Why, fool! What is this you are doing?" The Prince says, "Go away, go aside. From the morning itself I drove and drove this yoke of bulls [so as] to go to the place where the egret is. They did not go yet. You are good, the way the bulls have been trained!" Having said [this], the Prince began to scold the Hettirala. Thereupon the Hettirala says, "Yes, the way that yoke of bulls has been trained is indeed not good. Because the bulls will not go up trees those bulls are not good. Afterwards taking a yoke of bulls that go up trees you can plough. Let us go now, to go home." Having said [this], he came calling the Prince. The Hettirala's wife asks, "Even to-day did that fool do even that work?" The Hettirala says, "To-day indeed don't speak to that fool. He has been very angry. Because he was angry I came calling him, without speaking anything." Thereupon the woman having been silent that day, on the next day began to scold the Hettirala and the Prince. The Hettirala having thought, "Should I remain causing this fool to stay he will cause much loss to me. Having gone, taking him, and having spoken to my son-in-law, I must put him in a ship and send him away." Having thought thus, and having spoken to the Hettirala's wife, he says, "Don't you scold; I am sending him away soon." Thereupon the woman remained without making any talk. Then the Hettirala says, "Taking him I must go to-morrow or the next day; having prepared a suitable thing (food) for it give me it." Thereupon the woman having gone, and very well prepared a food box to give to her daughter and son-in-law, and for these two persons to eat for food on the road a package of cooked rice, gave him them. The Hettirala tied them well, and taking also a suit (coat and cloth, kuttamak) of the Hettirala's new clothes to wear when they got near the son-in-law's house, and having tied them in one bundle, and called the Prince, he says, "We two must go on a journey and return. Can you go?" When he asked the Prince, the Prince says, "It is good; I can go." The Hettirala having said, "If so, take these two bundles," gave him the two packages. Just as he is taking the two bundles in his hand, the Prince asks, "What are these?" Thereupon the Hettirala says, "One bundle is my clothes; one is things for us for the road, to eat." The Prince taking them, when he was starting to go on the journey the Hettirala's wife gave him yet a package. The Prince asks, "What is this?" Thereupon the woman says, "For our son-in-law there is need of snakes' eggs; in that packet there are snakes' eggs. Having gone, give that packet into either son-in-law's hand or daughter's hand." The Prince, taking the packet, put it away. The Hettirala, dressing well, mounted upon the back of a horse, and calling the Prince went off. When he had gone a considerable distance, the Prince alone ate the package which she prepared and gave him to eat for the road. Taking the food which was in the packet that she told him to give to the son-in-law, having said they were snakes' eggs, he ate of them to the possible extent; and having thrown the remaining ones there and here, and seen an ant-hill on the path when coming, he broke a stick, and taking it, prodding and prodding [the ground] round the ant-hill he began to cry out. The Hettirala having turned back, when he looked the Prince says, "The snakes that were in this packet, look! they entered this ant-hill!" Thereupon the Hettirala, ascertaining that he is telling lies, having said, "It is good; if so, you come on," calling him, goes on. At that time, the time for eating cooked rice at noon having arrived, the Hettirala, stopping the horse, said, "Bola, I am now hungry. Take out even the packet which you brought to eat for the road." Thereupon to the Hettirala the Prince says, "Hetti-elder-brother, what is this you say? Because you said, 'They are for the road, to eat,' I threw them away for the road to eat, and came. For eating for the road, what shall we eat?" Well then, much anger having gone to the Hettirala, because there was not a thing to do he said, "If so, come, to go." As they were going, the Hettirala, having hunger which he was unable to bear, says to the Prince, "Bola, can you climb this tree, and pluck a young coconut for me and give it?" Thereupon the Prince says, "I can." Having climbed the tree, and gone round the stems of the branches of the tree, holding two stems firmly, with his two feet he began to kick down the clusters of [ripe] coconuts into the jungle, and the clusters of young coconuts into the jungle. Thereupon the Hettirala having descended from the horse's back, began to shout, "Ha! Ha! Don't pluck them, don't pluck them!" At that time the person who owned the place having come, prepared to beat him. Thereupon the Hettirala says, "It is I who sent him up the tree to make him pluck a young coconut. He is a great fool; don't beat him." The man, treating with respect the Hettirala's saying, said, "It is good. If so, having eaten as many young coconuts as possible, go ye"; and the man went away. Thereupon the Prince having eaten young coconut with the Hettirala, when they set off to go the Hettirala says, "Having struck [thy hand] on my head, swear thou in such a way that thou wilt not go [in future] by even a foot-bridge (edanda) in which a coconut trunk is laid, putting [out of consideration] going up a coconut tree." Thereupon the Prince having struck on the Hettirala's head, swears, "I will not go up a coconut tree, and I will not go by a foot-bridge in which a coconut trunk is placed." Having sworn this, they began to go. When going they met with a bridge in which a great many coconut trunks were placed. The Hettirala having gone to the other side, spoke to the Prince, [telling him to follow]. Thereupon the Prince says, "Ane! I cannot come. Having struck on the head of the Hetti-elder-brother and sworn, how can I come?" Thereupon the Hettirala having descended from the back of the horse, came [across]; and lifting up the Prince and having gone [over], placed him on the other side. Through that disturbance the cloth that was on the Hettirala's head fell on the ground. The Hettirala did not see it. The Prince having seen that the cloth fell, took it with his foot, and having thrown it into the bush went on. When going a considerable distance, ascertaining that the cloth on the Hettirala's head was not [there], he asks the Prince, "My cloth fell on the ground; didn't you see it?" Thereupon the Prince says, "The thing which the Hetti-elder-brother has thrown away when coming, why should I bring? I threw it into the bush with my foot." Then the Hettirala says, "Since you threw away the cloth and came, beginning from this time when anything has fallen from us don't leave it and come." The Prince says, "It is good. If so, beginning from this time, without throwing it away I will bring it." Beginning from there, taking the horse-dung and earth from the staling-place he went along putting and putting them in the Hettirala's clothes box. Having gone there, when they came near the house of the Hettirala's daughter, [the Hettirala] having spoken to the Prince asking for the bundle of clothes, he unfastened it. When he looked, he saw that the horse-dung and mud were in the bundle of clothes, and much anger having gone to the Hettirala, he said, "Æ! Enemy, what is this?" Thereupon the Prince says, "What, Hetti-elder-brother, are you saying? At first you said, 'Don't throw away anything that falls from us.' What is this thing you are saying now?" Then the Hettirala thought to himself the word he said at the beginning was wrong; bearing it because of it, he says, "With these clothes on my back I cannot go to the house of son-in-law's people. My clothes are very dirty. I shall come when it has become night. Thou having gone immediately (daemmama) say that I am coming." Having said [this], and told the Prince the road going to the house, he started him. Thereupon the Prince having gone to that house and having spoken, says, "The Hetti-elder-brother started and came in order to come with me. Thereupon he got a stomach-ache. [240] Before this also [241] he got a stomach-ache. The Hetti-elder-brother having told me the medical treatment he applies for the stomach-ache, and started me quickly, sent me to prepare the medicine," he said. Thereupon the Hettirala's daughter having become much afraid, asked, "What is the medicine?" The Prince says, "Don't be afraid; it is not a difficult medicine [to prepare]. Taking both coconut oil of seven years and the dust of Ma-Vi (the largest kind of paddy), and having ground them together, when you have made ball-cakes (aggala), and placed them [ready], it will do; that indeed is the medicine. Don't give him any other thing to eat." Thereupon, the Hettirala's daughter very quickly having ground up coconut oil and Ma-Vi dust, and made ball-cakes, placed them [ready]. When, after a very long time, the Hettirala came, quickly having given him to wash his face, hands, and feet, as soon as he had finished she gave him that ball-cake to eat. Thereupon the Hettirala thinks, "My daughter and son-in-law having become very poor, are now without a thing also to eat"; but through shame to ask he remained without speaking. Well, then, at the time for eating rice at night, although the whole of the [other] persons ate cooked rice and finished, she did not give cooked rice to the Hettirala. Having made ready [the necessary things,--mat and pillow]--to sleep, only, she gave them. The Hettirala lay down. Having been in hunger during the daytime and night, when he had eaten the ball-cakes he began [to experience the purgative effect of the oil]. After he had [been affected] four or five times, being without water to wash his hands and feet, having spoken to the Prince he asks, "Bola, the water is finished; there is not a means to wash my hands and feet. Didn't you see a place where there is water?" Thereupon the Prince says, "I saw it. There is a sort of water-pot." Having gone to the place where there are pots of palm juice, and filled a cooking pot, he brought the palm juice, and saying it was water gave it. Thereupon the whole of his body having been smeared with the palm juice, he says, "Bola, this is not water; it is a sort of palm juice. Seek something to wipe this, and give me it." Then the Prince having torn in two the pillow that was [there] for placing the head upon, gave him the cotton to wipe off the palm juice. When the Hettirala was wiping off the palm juice with the cotton, the palm juice and cotton having held together, it became more difficult than it was. Thereupon having become very angry with the Prince, and having looked to that and this hand, finding a little water and slightly washing himself he came to the bed, and made ready to go to sleep. Again [the purgative affected him violently, and he was compelled to utilise a cooking-pot which the Prince brought him]. When he was removing it in the early morning, unobserved by the people at the house, [the Prince] having gone running says to the Hettirala's daughter, "Look there. Last night it was very difficult for your father. Having become angry that you did not pay attention to him he is going away." Thereupon the Hettirala's daughter having gone, embraced the Hettirala. When she embraced him, the Hettirala and the Hettirala's daughter were [befouled by the contents of the vessel]. The Hettirala having become very angry said, "He having done me much injury until this time, now he smeared this on my body, didn't he?" Being unable to bear it, and having told his son-in-law all these matters in secret, "Taking him, we will go away and put him in a distant country," he said. The son-in-law having said, "It is good," and having spoken to the Prince, says, "We two are to go on a journey. The three [of us] having gone together, let us return." So saying, on the following day after that, the Hettirala, and the Prince, and the Hettirala's son-in-law, the three persons together, went to the wharf (naew-totta). Thereupon the Prince thought, "Now then, it is not good; I must spring off and go." Having thought [this], when he said to the two persons, "I must go aside [for necessary reasons]," the two said, "If so, having gone, come back." Having gone running from there to the place where the Hettirala's daughter is, he says, "They told me to ask for the money which he gave yesterday to be put away, and to go back quickly." Having said it, asking for [and getting] the money from the Hettiya's daughter, he bounded off and ran, and in much time arrived at his city. The Hettirala and the Hettirala's son-in-law having remained looking till the Prince comes, said, "Let that fool go to any place he wants." When they went home, ascertaining that he went [after] taking the money also, [they searched until] they became much fatigued, but did not succeed in finding him. The Minister-Prince, who having joined with the royal Prince went away, [after] trading very well and gaining profit, again arrived in happiness at the city. Having seen the royal Prince, while the two are [there], having discussed each other's happiness and sorrow, and binding their friendship in the very first manner, when the royal Prince's father the King died, the royal Prince was appointed to the sovereignty, and gave the post of Chief Minister to the Minister-Prince. Western Province. (By Saddhunanda Sthavira of Ratmalana Wihara.) In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 149, a young man who went to gamble lost everything he possessed, and was himself made a prisoner until he was rescued by his wife. Regarding some of the Hettirala's experiences, see the story of the Moghul and his servant, of which a condensed account is appended to the tale numbered 195 in this volume. In "The Story of Hokka," given by Mr. W. Goonetilleke in The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 131 ff., there is the incident of the tying up of the cattle. The order of the Gamarala was that the man was to look after them, but the Sinhalese word balapiya means also "look at," and the servant acted accordingly after tying up the cattle, the result being that they were too weak to stand when the Gamarala went to inspect them. NO. 242 PRINCE SOKKA [242] At a certain city, a lion having been caught by the King of the city had been put in a house. While the King's Prince and the Minister's Prince were playing at ball near the house in which was the lion, the royal Prince's ball fell into the cage in which the lion is lying. Thereupon the Prince asked the lion for the ball. Then the lion said, "Should you let me go I will give the ball." Then the Prince having said, "It is good," and having cheated him, asking for [and getting] the ball remained without letting the lion go. Having come on the following day, while those two were playing at ball, that day, also, the royal Prince's ball went and fell at the place where the lion is. The Prince that day also asked the lion for the ball. At that time the lion says, "You shall not cheat me as on that day, indeed; to-day indeed, unless you let me go I shall not give it." Then the Prince having let the lion go, asking for [and getting] the ball, played. The King having come, when he looked the lion was not [there]. "Where is the lion?" the King asked the party of Ministers. The party of Ministers said, "By the Prince the lion [was] sent away." Then the King having said, "Should the disobedient Prince remain at this palace I will kill him," sorrow seized the Queen regarding it, and having given the Prince expenses, and given him also a horse, and said, "Having gone to any country you like, get a living," sent him off. The Prince having mounted on the horse, when he was going the Minister-Prince (son of the Minister), the friend of the Prince, asked, "Where are you going?" Then the Prince says, "Having been guilty of sending away the lion, it has occurred that I am to go away, not staying in this country." Thereupon, the Minister-Prince, having said, "If my friend the Prince be not here my remaining is not proper," set off to go with the Prince. Having set out, when the two had gone a little far together, [they saw that] a letter had been written, and fixed on a tree. Having taken the letter, when they looked in it there was said that should one go to the right district good will happen, should one go to the left district evil will happen. Thereupon, having looked at the letter the Minister-Prince went to the right district, the royal Prince went to the left district. While the royal Prince was going he met with a gambling place. He, also, having gone there gambled. Having gambled he lost all the money he took. After that, being without money, while he was staying looking on, owing to a rich Hettiya's being there he sold him the horse, and taking the money played [again]. That also he lost. After that, having written himself as the slave of the Hettiya, and having said, "Should I be unable to bring back the money I will do slave work," taking the money he gambled [again]. That also he lost. At that time, the Hettiya, having mounted upon the horse, calling the Prince for the horsekeepership went away. The Hettiya having gone home established the name "Sokka" [243] for the Prince. That Sokka he told to look after the horse, having well attended to it and bathed it. That Sokka not giving food and water to the horse, the horse went decrepit. Owing to it, the Hettirala having become angry, said, "Sokka, you cannot look after the horse. Because of it, work you in the flower garden." Then Sokka says, "Hettiralahami, in our kingdom it was that very work that was mine. I am much accustomed to it." Having said this he took charge. [After] taking charge, every day uprooting and uprooting the best (lit., good good) flower trees (plants) he began to plant [them afresh]. The Hettirala having gone one day, when he looked saw that all the flower trees had died. Having said, "Sokka, thou canst not [do] this work; thou hast completely done for my flower garden," he beat him. He said, "After that, that work is of no use for thee," and gave him charge of a plantain garden. Having handed it over he said, "Sell the plantains; having brought the money thou art to give it to me." Then Sokka said, "It is good, Hettiralahami; I am accustomed to that work." Well then, what does that Sokka do? Leaving aside the ripe plantains, having cut the immature plantains he takes them to the shop. No one taking them, having brought them back he throws them away. By this means, all the plantain garden went to waste. The Hettirala having gone one day, when he looked the plantain garden had been destroyed. Thereupon, having called Sokka, and having said, "Where is the revenue obtained from this? Thou art a Yaka come to eat me," he became angry, and scolded him. Having said, "Thou canst not do that work. Look here (Menna); from to-day attend thou to the grazing of these cattle," he gave him charge of them. Then Sokka, having said, "It is good, Hettiralahami. In our country I do that for a livelihood; I am well accustomed to it," took charge of them. Taking charge, he went driving the cattle to the jungle. Having gone there he looked for a bull to eat, and having killed it, cutting a haunch he came home [with it]. At that time the Hettirala having seen the haunch of flesh, asked, "What is that, Sokka?" Then Sokka says, "As I was going a leopard was [there], seizing a deer. Then I said 'Hu.' Then the leopard sprang off and ran away. After that, because I was unable to bring it I came [after] cutting off a haunch." Thereupon the Hettiralahami said, "Sokka, it is good," and stroked his head, and said, "Give ye abundantly to eat to Sokka." By that method he began to bring the haunch every day, one by one. The Hettirala and the Hetti-woman on those days were very kind to Sokka. When a few days had gone, because of the eating of the deer's meat it appeared that the cattle of the herd were finished. Then, having called Sokka, he asked, "Where are the cattle?" Sokka says, "I could not drive the cattle to the stalls; they are in the jungle." The Hettirala, not trusting the word he said, went into the jungle to look at the cattle. When he was going, the stench [of the dead bodies] began to strike him to the extent that he was unable to go into the jungle. Having gone in, when he looked he saw that there are the heads and legs of the cattle. "Sokka is good! I ate the meat. I must kill Sokka," he got into his mind. The Hettirala had taken a contract to give firewood to a ship. He told Sokka to cut firewood by the yard account for the ship. Because he must give firewood once a month, having cut the firewood by the yard account he was to heap it up. At that time, Sokka, having said, "It is very good, Hettiralahami," taking that work also, went for cutting firewood. The ship came after a month. The Hettirala went and looked, in order to give the firewood. There were only three or four yards of firewood; there was no firewood to give to the ship. When the ship person, having called the Hettirala, asked for the firewood, there being no firewood to give a great fault occurred. Having fined the Hettirala he destroyed the firewood contract. "After Sokka came there was great loss of money; this one lost it. I must kill him," the Hettirala got into his mind. Getting it in his mind, he said to the Hetti-woman, "I am going to the quarter in which younger sister is. Having prepared something to eat on the road please give me it." The Hetti-woman having prepared a box of sugared food, and made ready a box of clothes, and tied them as a pingo (carrying stick) load, placed [them ready]. The Hettirala having arisen at dawn in the morning and mounted on horse-back, and said, "Sokka, taking that pingo load, come thou," the Hettirala went on horse-back in front. Sokka, while going on and on (yaddi yaddi), ate the sugared food until the box was finished. When going a little far in that manner, the whip that was in the Hettirala's hand fell down. Sokka picked it up and threw it into the jungle. The Hettirala, having gone a little far, asked, "Where [is the whip], Bola? You met with it." Thereupon Sokka said, "I don't know; there is no whip." Then the Hettirala having become angry, said, "Thou must bring anything that falls, whether from me or from the horse," and he scolded him. After that, Sokka picked up the dung which the horse dropped, and began to put it in the clothes box. In that way and this way, at noon the time for eating came. On that road there was a travellers' shed. For the purpose of eating food at that travellers' shed they halted. Having opened the box in order to eat, when [the Hettirala] looked there was nothing of food in the box. "Where is the food that was in this?" he asked Sokka. Sokka said, "I don't know what was [in it] when it was given to me, indeed." The Hettirala being very hungry, and in anger with Sokka also, started to go. Having gone, when they were coming near his younger sister's village he said to Sokka, "Go thou, and tell them to be quick and cook a little food because I am fatigued." Then Sokka having gone said to the Hettirala's younger sister and brother-in-law, "The Hettirala is coming; as he has become ill he is coming. Because of it, he does not eat anything. He said that having removed the shells from unripe pulse and prepared balls of it, you are to place them [ready]; and that having killed a fowl for me I am to eat it with cooked rice, he said. The Hettirala at night is himself accustomed to salt gruel." Afterwards that party, having prepared them, gave them in the evening. The Hettirala because of fatigue having eaten these things and drunk a great deal of salt gruel, went to sleep. (It is necessary to draw a veil over the nocturnal difficulties of the Hettirala owing to the purgative action of his evening's repast. In the morning) the Hettirala thought to himself, "It is Sokka himself makes the whole of these traps. Because of it I must kill him." Well then, having said, "We must go," and having opened the clothes box, when he looked horse-dung had been put [in it]. Then at the time when the Hettirala asked, "Sokka, what is this?" he said, "That day you told me to take anything that falls from the Hettirala or from the horse. Because of it I put these things away; I put them in that, without omitting one." After that, having set off, they went away to go home. Having gone a considerable distance, when they were approaching the house he said to Sokka, "Go thou, and as there has been no food for me for two days or three days, tell grandmother to prepare something for food." Having said "Ha," Sokka having gone running, says, "Grandmother, madness having seized him, the Hettirala is coming. No one can speak [to him]; then he beats them. You will be unable to be rid of it." He said all these words. Then the grandmother asked, "What, Sokka, shall we do for it?" Thereupon Sokka says, "Putting on a black cloth and a black jacket, take two handfuls of branches, and without speaking having gone in front of him, please wave them." Having said it and come running back to the Hettirala, he said, "Hettiralahami, there is no means of doing anything in that way. Madness having seized grandmother she is dancing, [after] putting on a black cloth and a black jacket, and breaking two handfuls of branches." When the Hettirala was asking at the hand of Sokka, "What shall I do for it?" Sokka said, "Breaking two handfuls of branches, and having gone without even speaking, please strike them on the head of grandmother." Thereupon the Hettirala, having gone in that very way, without speaking began to beat her. The grandmother also began to beat the Hettirala. In this way constantly for half a day they beat each other. Afterwards having recovered their reason, when he learnt, while they were speaking, that it was a work of Sokka's, he thought of injuring him. On the following day after that, he wrote a letter to the Hettirala's brother-in-law: "In some way or other please kill the person who brings this letter." Having said, "Go and give this letter, and bring a reply from brother-in-law," he gave it into Sokka's hand. Sokka, taking the letter, went to a travellers' shed on the road. While he was there yet [another] man came there. Having broken open this letter and shown it to the man, he asked, "What things are in this letter?" The man, having looked at the letter, said, "'The person who brings this letter has caused a loss to me of three or four thousand pounds.' Because of it, it is said [that he is] to kill him." Thereupon Sokka, having thrown the letter away, went to a house, and asking for pen and ink and having come back, told that man and caused him to write the [following] letter:--"The person who brings this letter has been of great assistance to me. Because of it, having given to him your daughter [in marriage], give him a half share of your landed property." Having taken it and gone, he gave it. Thereupon the Hettirala's brother-in-law having looked at the letter and having been pleased, married to him and gave him his eldest daughter; [244] and having given him a half share of his money, and told him to go again to the place where this Hettiya is, sent him away. Well then, the Prince whom the Hettiya caught, taking his Hetti wife, went away to the district where the Minister-Prince is. Western Province. In the Aventures du Gourou Paramarta (Dubois), p. 312, while the Guru and his foolish disciples were on a journey, the Guru being on horseback, the branch of a tree caught his turban, and it fell down. Thinking his disciples would pick it up he said nothing at the time. As he had previously told them to do nothing without orders, however, they left it. When he afterwards asked for it and found it was not brought, he scolded them, and sent one to fetch it, at the same time giving them orders to pick up everything that fell from the horse. While the disciple was returning with the turban he accordingly collected and stored in it the horse's droppings that he found on the road, and handed over the bundle to his master. The Guru made them wash the turban, and told them when they grumbled at being reprimanded for obeying his orders, "There are articles that are worthy of being picked up, and others that are unworthy of it." In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 81, two brothers who had run away from home came to a place where the road bifurcated, and found there an inscription on a stone, which contained a warning that one of the roads should be avoided. The adventurous elder brother went on this road and was robbed by a witch; the younger one selected the other, and after being wrecked became a King. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 131 ff., Mr. W. Goonetilleke gave "The Story of Hokka," in which the man who was sent in advance to announce the coming of the Gamarala, told the daughter that he could take only paddy dust. He left in anger on the following morning, and sent Hokka to let his wife know of his return. Hokka advised her to meet her husband clothed in rags and sitting on an edanda, or foot-bridge. In the dusk, Hokka, who was in front, kicked her off, calling her "Bitch," and she fell into the stream and was drowned, the Gamarala thinking it was a dog. The Gamarala had previously mutilated Hokka's elder brother, as related in No. 195, and Hokka was determined to have his revenge. The portion omitted on p. 290 will be found at the end of the Additional Notes, by those who wish to see how the villager treats such matters. NO. 243 THE AFFECTIONATE PRINCE In a certain city there was a King; the King was married. If the Queen bore a Prince they rear the Prince; if she bore a Princess, at the very time when she was born, [even] should she be alive, they bury her. This order is a thing commanded by the King. The King's Queen formerly having given birth to a first-born Prince, and having reared him and been satisfied with him, he continued to stay there. During the time while he was there the Queen bore yet a Princess. Then the King told them to bury the Princess. The midwife having given her into the hand of a man told him to bury her. So the man in order to bury the Princess took her and went to the burial ground. At that very time, as the elder Prince of the King, who had been for sport, was coming back, he saw that this man [after] putting this Princess into a bundle was going to the ground for new burials; and he asked the man, "What is that you are going with, [after] making it into a bundle?" The man said, "In this bundle is your younger sister, Sir." Then the Prince said, "Ane! Stop there for me to look at her a little." So the man stopped. When this Prince went and looked, she was a Princess who was beautiful to the extent that through sorrow he could not look at her. Thereupon asking the man for the Princess, what does this Prince do? Having given her to another woman, having given sufficient hire for it, he said, "Having very thoroughly brought her up until she reaches maturity, not showing her to anyone, hand her over to me." The woman said. "It is good." Well then, the Princess in not much time had reached maturity. After that, this Prince, sewing suitable robes for the Princess, came, and causing the Princess to put them on went with her to the palace at which he stayed. Then the King, having become angry at the Prince, contrived a stratagem to kill her, that is, he wrote to a great person of the city, "My Princess is [here]. To kill the Princess make ready an eating (feast) at your house, and having put poison into the food for the Princess send a letter to all of us to come for the eating." So the great man having made it ready just like that, sent a letter to this King for all who are at the royal palace to come. Thereupon the King, having looked at the letter, prepared to go there. This Prince perceived that it was a device which was adopted by the King for the purpose of killing the Princess. Having perceived it and told those parties to go before, at the time when they were going this Prince and his younger sister, both of them, mounted on a cart (carriage), and went along another path to the midst of a forest. As they were going on, leaving the forest wilderness behind, there was a city which a [wild] tusk elephant, having come, is making desolate. They went to the city. While they were going to the city it did not become light. As this Prince and Princess were going, not knowing that there is a tusk elephant laying waste the city, the tusk elephant walked through the whole city, and having broken down the houses, while it was coming to go back to the midst of the forest this Prince and Princess met it in front. Having met it, it chased the Prince and Princess along the road. As it was going chasing them this Prince drew his sword and struck it. Then the sword went and pierced the stomach of the elephant, and it died. After it died they stayed that day night at the city. The King of the city having gone with the city tusk elephant to stay at night at certain other rock houses (caves), comes to this city only for hearing law-suits in the daytime. Having come and repaired the houses which that [wild] tusk elephant had broken, and heard law-suits, as it becomes night he goes to the rock house. The King [had] notified by beat of tom-toms [245]: "To the person who [shall have] killed this tusk elephant I will give a portion from my kingdom and marry my Princess, and I will send him to stay at this city." Every one was unable. On the morning on which this Prince killed the tusk elephant, men came in order to build [the damaged houses in] the city. When they looked about that day, they said that the tusk elephant is still staying there, sleeping; and the men having become afraid, ran away. After that, a man came, and having slowly come near the tusk elephant, when he was looking at it perceived that was dead. Thereupon the man having come near, when he looked [saw that] some one had stabbed the tusk elephant. There was a house near by. Having gone near it, when he looked he saw that a Prince and a Princess were sleeping. Having seen them, he spoke to the Prince and awoke him, and asked, "How did you kill this tusk elephant?" Then the Prince said, "I stabbed it with my sword and killed it." The man said, "Ane! By favour to me you must stay there a little," and having gone he said to the King, "Last night a Prince and Princess came to our city; and having stabbed the tusk elephant with the sword and killed it, they are still staying [there], sleeping." Thereupon the King having come, when he looked they were there. The King having heard from the Prince about the matter, and having gone calling them to the palace, and given them food and drink, asked to marry his Princess to the Prince. At that time the Prince said, "Until the time when I marry and give my younger sister I will not marry"; and they went away to yet a city. When he was going, [persons] are robbing the city of this [other] King. Because of it, [the King] gave notice by beat of tom-toms, "Can any one seize them?" Thereupon all said they could not. This Prince having said, "I will endeavour [to do] this," went away. While going, he met with a young Leopard, a young Parrot, and a Kitten. Taking the three and placing them in a cart, while going on he saw in the midst of the forest a very large house like a prison. Thereupon the Prince, not going to look at it during the daytime, waited until it became night; and having gone at daybreak, when he was looking about, the robbers having come [after] committing robbery he ascertained that they were making ready to sleep. Having waited a little time after the men had gone to sleep, when he looked for an opening, because there was not one, being on the back of his horse he sprang on the wall. Having sprung on it, when he looked [he saw that after] putting down their armour on going to sleep, they were sleeping well. Thereupon the Prince cut them all down, beginning from one end. One of them having been wounded and got hid in the room, remained; all the other men died. The blood that came from them flowed to the depth of the Prince's knee. After that, having waited until it became light he cut a hole, and having put the dead bodies into the hole he thoroughly washed the houses and cleaned them. Because there were many silver and golden things there he stayed a little time. While he was staying, one day, having told the Princess to remain [there], the Prince, taking a gun, went to hunt. At that time the Parrot, the Leopard, and the Cat went with the Prince. The three and the Prince, or a person who would send him away, not being near, that robber who had been wounded that day, and having got hid remained after the Prince went away, came out into the light; and asking for cooked rice from the Princess and having eaten it, became associated with the Princess, and stayed a few days without the Prince's knowing it, healing those wounds and the like. Then that robber spoke to the Princess, "Having killed your elder brother and we two having married, let us remain [here]." Thereupon the Princess also being willing regarding it, asked the robber, "How shall we kill elder brother?" Then the robber said, "At the time when your elder brother comes, say that you have got fever, and remain lying down. Then he having come will be grieved. Then say, 'Elder brother, the deity who protects us--who he is I do not know--said there is a pool in the midst of this forest. In the pool there is a lotus flower. Unless, plucking the lotus flower, you come and boil it, and I should drink the gravy, my fever will not be cured otherwise.'" The Princess asked the robber, "When he has gone to the pool what will happen?" The robber said, "There is a Crocodile in the pool. No one can descend into the pool. Because the Celestial Nymphs (Apsarases) bathe [there], should another person go the Crocodile will swallow him." Then the Princess having become pleased, at the time when the Prince, having gone for hunting-sport, came back, she remained lying down groaning and groaning. The Prince having come asked, "What is it, younger sister?" The Princess said, "Ane! Elder brother, I have got fever." Thereupon the Prince through grief that the Princess had got fever does not eat the cooked rice. Then the Princess said all the words which the robber told her. So having said, "I will bring the lotus flower," the Prince went. Having gone and found the pool, when he looked there was a large lotus flower in the manner she said. The Prince, putting on the bathing cloth, [246] and fastening his sword in his waist string, prepared to descend into the pool. Thereupon, the three animals that went with the Prince said, "Don't descend," and began to say it again and again. Out of them the Parrot said, "Elder brother, having gone flying, I will bring each pollen grain of the flower. Don't you descend." The Prince said, "While thou art going and bringing each grain of pollen it will become night. On that account I will go, and cutting the flower from the outside will come back"; and he descended into the pool. As he descended, the Crocodile having come swallowed him. When it was swallowing him the sword fixed at the Prince's waist pierced the Crocodile's stomach, and the Crocodile and the Prince died. Thereupon the three animals which remained on the bank, rolling over and over on the ground, breaking and breaking up the soil of the earth, began to cry out. At that time the Celestial Nymphs came to the pool to bathe. Having come, and seen the lamentation of these animals, they told the Devatawa of the pool to come, and splitting open the stomach of the Crocodile he caused the Prince to be [re]-born. Having come to life, the Prince, plucking the lotus flower, came to the bank. Then the four, taking the lotus flower and having come back, and boiled and given it to that Princess, the false fever of the Princess was cured. Well then, by that they were unable to kill him. So the robber asked the Princess, "Now then, how to kill your elder brother?" Then the Princess said, "Elder brother having come [after] walking, goes from this side near the screen to wash his face. You stay on the other side [of the screen] and cut him with your sword." So he remained that day in that way. That day the Prince having come [after] walking did not go to the side to which he goes before; he went to the other side. At that time the man having been [there] tried to spring away. Then having cut down the man with the sword that was in the Prince's hand, he asked the Princess, "Whence this man?" The Princess remained silent. Thereupon the Prince said, "I shall not do anything to you; say the fact." The Princess told him the fact. Then the Prince having said, "Thou faithless one! Go thou also," cut her down with the sword; and taking those things, went with the three animals to the city where he killed that tusk elephant. Having gone there, and told the King the manner in which he killed the robbers, and all the dangers that had befallen him, the King, having been pleased, married the King's Princess [to him]; and having given the kingdom also to that very Prince, he remained there. The Prince having gone to his [father's] city, said to the King, "Father, having destroyed the word which you, Sir, said, by the acts that I performed, I was made to ascertain [the wisdom of] it." Having made obeisance to his father the King, and told him all the circumstances that had occurred, thereafter he came back with contentment to that city. Having come, he remained ruling over that city. Western Province. In the Kolhan tales (Bompas) appended to Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 468, a girl and her brother, fearing their father wished to kill them, ran away and lived in the jungle. While the brother was hunting, a Raja met with the sister and wanted to marry her; thinking the youth would object the Raja persuaded the girl to try to get him killed. She pretended to be ill, and told him she could not recover unless he brought a flower which grew in a lake. When the boy was swimming to the flower a gigantic fish swallowed him; but a Rakshasa friend drank the pool dry, caught the fish, and took out the boy alive. The Raja carried off the girl, but was defeated by the youth and Rakshasa and some animal friends, gave the youth half his kingdom, and married him to his own daughter. In the actions of the animals, expressive of their grief at the death of the Prince, there is a striking resemblance to those ascribed to the Werewolf in William of Palerne (E.E.T.S., ed. Skeat), on discovering that the child he was rearing was missing: For reuliche (ruefully) gan he rore · and rente al his hide, And fret (gnawed) oft of the erthe · and fel doun on swowe, And made the most dool (sorrow) · that man mizt diuise. The English translation of this twelfth-century Romance is said to date from about A.D. 1350. In vol. i, p. 130, a dog shows its grief by rolling about and howling, and in vol. iii, p. 446, a man rolls on the ground in feigned sorrow. NO. 244 THE PRINCE WHO RECEIVED THE TURTLE SHELL In a certain country there was a son of a King. After this son had become big to a certain extent, for the purpose of teaching him he sent him near a teacher; but as time was going on, the teacher, ascertaining that he could not teach this one, gave notice to His Majesty the King. Thereupon the King having summoned the Prince near him, sent him to stay unoccupied (nikan) in the royal house. During the time while he was thus, the other Princes, having finished learning the sciences and having again arrived near the King, began to show him, one by one, their dexterity. Some of them began to make jests about this ignorant Prince. Thereupon this Prince being much ashamed, and his father the King also not concealing it, his Prince, putting on his ornaments and decorating himself with his sword, bow, etc., having entered a forest wilderness went away. When he had gone in this manner for a considerable distance through the midst of the forest wilderness, he saw a house of a cow-herd. The Prince went to this cow-herd's house, and having told him of his hunger, asked for a little food. The cow-herd's wife, having thought that she must take the Prince's costly ornaments, gave the Prince to eat, drink, and sit, and [permitted him] to stay; and having told him to unfasten his clothes and go to sleep, handed over to him a bed also. Thereupon having thought, "This woman is a most kind person," the Prince having taken off his ornaments, gave them together with his weapons to the cow-herd's wife. The Prince having been sleeping, after his eyes were opened, when he asked for the ornaments from the cow-herd's wife, without giving them she told the Prince to dwell there. Well then, a certain goddess who saw that this young Prince in this manner was causing the cattle to graze, having shown great compassion towards him, one day approached near him and said thus, "I will give thee a turtle shell and a spell. By the power of the spell thou canst do the thing thou thinkest. Having got inside the turtle shell thou canst stay there. If not in that way, thou canst become a Prince decorated with beautiful ornaments. But without saying the spell just now, thou art to say it when thou hast become twenty-five years of age," she said. But this Prince, for the purpose of seeing whether the spell is true or false, having said it, became a Turtle; and again having said it became a handsome Prince. After that, until the twenty-fifth year arrives he put away and hid the turtle shell. After this time, the Prince having stayed [there] causing the cattle to graze, when the twenty-fifth year arrived, taking also the turtle shell he set off in the very disguise of a poor man, and went away to another country. This Prince having arrived at the house of a flower-mother who gives flowers to the King of that country, dwelt [with her] like a son. During the time when he was staying thus, he got to know the affairs of the royal house. Out of the King's seven daughters six having contracted marriages, only the youngest Princess was left. When the husbands of those six Princesses went hunting, the Prince who stayed near the flower-mother having gone into the midst of the forest became an extremely handsome Prince; and having decorated himself with the sword, bow, etc., and mounted upon a horse, and waited to be visible to the other Princes who were in the midst of the forest, when they were coming to look [at him] immediately having become a Turtle he hides in a bush. When he acted in this manner on very many days, the husbands of the six Princesses related this circumstance while at the royal house. [Their account of] this matter the youngest Princess who was unmarried heard. Thereafter, one day the six Princesses and their husbands also, went to the festival pool to bathe. The youngest Princess went with these. The Prince who had become the son of the flower-mother, creating a most handsome Prince's body, and having gone after the whole of them, waited [there] to show a pleasure to these Princesses who came to bathe; and immediately having become a Turtle, got hid at the side of the pool. Only the youngest Princess saw this circumstance. Having thus seen it, catching the Turtle and wrapping it in her silk robe she took it to the palace. After she took it to the Princess's chamber, the Turtle, having become the Prince, talking with the Princess told her all his story, and when he told her that he was a royal Prince the two persons agreed to marry each other. Beginning from that time (taen), this Prince whom men were thinking was the son of the flower-mother, by the favour of the Princess began to go to the floor of the upper story where the Princess resides. During the progress of time, the King perceived that the Princess was pregnant, and having menaced the Princess and asked who was the offender regarding it, ascertaining that he was the flower-mother's son, he gave the Princess to the flower-mother's son, and turned them out of the palace. After this, one day because of a great feast at the royal house, the King ordered these six Princes to go for hunting, and return. Because the flower-mother's son was in an extremely poor condition, except that the other Princes made jests at him they did not notice him. The other six Princesses ask the Princess of the flower-mother's son, "Is your husband going for the hunting-sport to-day?" Then having exhibited a most sorrowful state, the Princess says, "That I do not know. I must ask my husband, and ascertain." When the other Princes had ornamented [themselves] for the hunting-sport, the flower-mother's son, seeking a rust-eaten sword and rotten bow, went to the midst of the forest, and taking a Prince's appearance, mounted upon a horse. Having gone [hunting], cutting off the tongues of the whole of the animals that he hunted [and killed], and taking only a rat-snake [besides], he returned to the palace before everybody [in his ordinary form]. The King required to look at the animals which these Princes had hunted [and killed]. Thereupon, to be visible above the meat procured by the hunting of the whole of them, [the Prince] placed [on the top of them] the dead body of his rat-snake. Then the whole of them abused this one, it is said. Thereupon this one says to the King, "It was not these Princes; I killed these animals." Having said, "If these killed them, where are the tongues of these animals?" he opened [their] mouths and showed them. Having shown the King the tongues of the animals which he had, and caused them to see [him in] the likeness of the Prince decorated with all the ornaments, like the full moon, this flower-mother's son stood before the King. Thereupon, the King and the other Princes also, retreated in extreme astonishment. Thereupon, when he gave the King information of all the account of this Prince from the commencement, [the King] having handed over the sovereignty to him he put on the crowns. [247] Western Province. NO. 245 CONCERNING A PRINCE AND A KINNARA WOMAN In a certain country there was a King, it is said. There was a single daughter of the King's. From many places they spoke of marriage to that royal Princess, but her father the King did not agree to it. At last, when a certain royal Prince asked to marry this Princess, her father the King, having made inquiry, because of his not happening to be a son of the Chief Queen was not satisfied with it. But on account of the Prince's possessing a mind extremely attached to the said Princess, having considered several means of success for bringing away this Princess, he made a very large brass lamp. The chamber of the lamp had a size [sufficient] for the Prince to be concealed [in it]. Having caused the lamp to be constructed in this manner, after the Prince entered there, having employed four persons they took this very lamp to sell. In order to go in this way, the Prince said thus to his servants, "There is necessity for me to enter such and such a royal house. While [you are] taking this lamp, when anyone [elsewhere] asks for it, mention a price which it is not worth; but having gone to the royal house give it at whatever they ask it for," he said. Thereafter the servants, keeping this word in mind, and the Prince being concealed [in it], took the lamp to the royal house, it is said. The King, having seen the lamp and having thought, "This is an extremely fine lamp. This is suitable for placing in my daughter's chamber," asked the price of it, it is said. Thereupon the servants who took the lamp fixed the price at four hundred masuran. And when the King said, "This is not worth so much; I will give seventy-five [248] masuran," the servants because of the Prince's word gave the lamp at that price, it is said. Thereafter, for the purpose of beautifying the royal Princess's chamber he placed there this lamp. The Prince, also, having entered the lamp was [in it]. Although for the care of the Princess many servants were staying there, the Prince obtained opportunity in order to bring about conversation with the Princess, it is said. By this method obtaining about a [half] share of the Princess's food, the Prince remained hidden for a time. They give the Princess only one quantity of food. It was the custom once in seven days to weigh this Princess; [249] but as the Prince was eating a share of the Princess's food, the Princess having become thin became less in weight. Having seen that the Princess's weight by degrees was growing less, the servant women, becoming afraid, informed the King that the Princess perhaps had some illness. The King also having thought that the Princess perhaps had some sickness (abadayak), made inquiry, and having ascertained that she had not a sickness in that way, ordered them to give additional food on account of it. After this time, having seen that the Princess is increasing in weight by the method, at the time when he inquired about it, he ascertained, it is said, that the Princess had been pregnant for eight months. After this, although the King investigated by several methods regarding the manner in which this disgrace occurred to the Princess, he was unable to learn it. Everyone in the country got to know about this. In this way, after the King was coming to great grief, he caused notification to be made by beat of tom-toms throughout the country that to a person who should seize and give him the wicked man who caused the disgrace to the royal Princess, he will give goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load. A certain old woman, having caused the proclamation tom-tom to stop, said, "I can catch and give the thief," it is said. Thereupon they took the old mother near the King. Then the King having spoken, asked, "Canst thou catch and give the thief?" "It is so; may the Gods cause me to be wise," the old woman said, it is said. "Dost thou require something for it?" he asked. "[You] must give me a permission for it in this manner," she said. "That is to say, whether in the [right] time or in unseasonable time, [250] it is proper that I should receive permission for coming to any place I please in the palace," she said. And the King gave permission for it. The old mother, upon that same permission having come to the royal house, while conversing in a friendly manner with the Princess after many days had gone by ascertained that from outside anyone was unable to approach the palace. But perceiving that some one could hide inside the lamp that is in the Princess's chamber, one day, in the evening, at the time when darkness was about to fall, she came to the Princess's chamber, and having been talking, dishonestly to the Princess she scattered white sand round the lamp, and went away. In the morning, having arrived, when she looked she saw the foot-marks of a person who went out of the lamp, and perceiving that most undoubtedly the rogue is in the lamp, told the King (rajuhata), it is said. Thereupon the King having employed the servants and brought the rogue out, made the tusk elephant drink seven large pots of arrack (palm spirit), and ordered them to kill him by means of the tusk elephant. Having made the Prince sit upon the tusk elephant, they went near the upper story where the Princess was. The elephant-driver was a servant who was inside the palace for much time. As he was a man to whom the Princess several times had given to eat and drink, the Princess said for the elephant-keeper to hear, "With the tusk-elephant face don't smash the tips of the cooked rice." [251] The elephant-keeper also understanding the speech, without killing the Prince saved him. Although he employed the tusk elephant even three times, and made it trample on his bonds, at the three times he escaped. Thereupon the King [said], "This one is a meritorious person;" [252] and having caused him to be summoned, and made notification of these things after he came, at the time when he asked, "Who art thou? What is thy name?" he told all, without concealing [anything]. Thereupon he married and gave the Princess to the Prince. While the two persons were living thus, a longing arose for the Princess to wear blue-lotus flowers. As this time was a season without flowers, having heard that there would be flowers only at one pool at a Kinnara village at a great distance, the Prince went there. While he was there, a Rodi (Kinnara) woman by means of a [knowledge of the] teaching of the Kala [253] spells caused the Prince to stop there, it is said. When time went in this manner without the Prince's coming, the King started off and sent four Ministers for the purpose of finding him. The four persons, ascertaining that the Prince had been captured and taken into the Kinnara caste, went there, and spoke to the Prince. Perceiving that while by the mouth of the Rodi (Kinnara) [254] woman the word "Go" was being said, he was unable to go, [255] they spoke to the Prince, and did a trick thus, it is said; that is, they told the Prince to say, "Certain of my friends have come; we must give them amply to eat and drink." "Because of it [be pleased] to tell the Kinnara woman to cook food amply," they said. When the Prince told the Kinnari to cook food in that manner she did so. When the Prince summoned the Ministers to the food, they, the four persons, putting sand in their waist pockets and mixing it with the food, endeavoured to eat, it is said. Having done so, the four Ministers said, "Although we came so far seeking our friend, we were unable to eat even a mouthful of rice from our friend without sand and stones [being] in it," and having scolded the Prince they went away. At that time the Prince appeared as though approaching great grief. The Rodi (Kinnara) woman who saw this spoke to the Prince, "Go, calling your friends to come," she said. After the way in which she said this [word] "Go," the Prince very speedily having started, went with the four Ministers to his own country. Having gone thus and arrived at the palace, he told of the beauty of the Kinnara woman, and all his story. In the meantime the Kinnara woman also having arrived in front of him, the Kinnara woman having said, "Here he is," when she seized the Prince's hand the King, having pushed the Rodi (Kinnara) woman from there, sent her out of the way. The Kinnara woman because of this trouble drew out her tongue, and having bit it died, it is said; and after that having cast out the dead body they burned it. On the grave mound a plant [used as a] vegetable grew. Two women of the village near this place came here to break fire-wood. Because one of the two women had pregnancy longing, uprooting the plant [used as a] vegetable, she cooked and ate it to allay the longing. After she ate thus, the woman having given birth to a female child she grew up extremely beautiful, like the dead Kinnara woman. During this time, the Prince in succession to his father-in-law had come to the sovereignty, it is said. At the time when the child born like the Kinnara woman had arrived at sufficient age, the King having come and having seen her when he was going [past], remembered the dead Kinnara woman, and having tied his affections on the young woman endeavoured to obtain her, it is said. But her two parents not being pleased at it, as the King was going to walk away beat him, and killed him. After the King died, when the King's men were burying him they gave the kingship to his son. After this son arrived at the time when he understood matters, he asked his mother how his father the King died, and ascertaining it he seized the men of the village at which they killed the King, and having put them in a ship he launched it on the sea. The men having cast nets, catching fish [in them] got their livelihood. After this, having cast the net and made efforts, catching a hundred Seer fishes they went to the village that was visible on shore. That village, indeed, is now Migamuwa (Negombo). Western Province. The capture of the Prince by a low-caste village girl is apparently borrowed from Sinhalese history. In the second century before Christ, Prince Sali, the only son of King Duttha-Gamani, fell in love with a beautiful village girl of low-caste,--according to tradition a Duraya girl--married her, and in order to retain her abandoned his succession to the throne. According to the historians, his infatuation was due to his grandfather's having been a pious man of low-caste in his former life, and to the Prince's marrying the girl in a previous existence, both of them then being of the same caste. NO. 246 THE WAY IN WHICH THE PRINCE TRADED In a certain country the son of a King having thought that he himself earning it he must obtain a living, asked permission for it from his father the King. Then the King said, "Son, if the goods that there are of mine will do without your earning a living and [thus] obtaining it, you can live happily, enjoying the possession of this wealth which there is," he said. But the Prince, being dissatisfied with it, said to his father the King, "In order for me to do trading, having loaded goods in a ship please give me charge of it," he said. Because of the strong wish of the Prince in this matter, the King having caused three ships to be constructed, loaded goods in one and gave the Prince charge of it, and sent the other two ships for the purpose of his protection. After these three ships had sailed a considerable distance, a strong wind struck them; and the two ships which went for his protection having sunk, the ship in which was the Prince drifted to a shore. Thereupon the Prince having said, "At what country have we arrived?" when he began to walk there for the purpose of looking, he saw a city in which were houses without men, and an abandoned palace. At that time, in order to find a country in which are men, he caused a dependant of this Prince to climb up a very high tree; when he looked he saw at a place not far from there a city at which men are dwelling, and they went there. When the Prince asked the men who were at the city the reason of there being a city with abandoned houses and an abandoned palace, the men said thus, that is, "Because the King who exercised the sovereignty over that city did much wrong, a deity having sent a fire-ball [256] through the whole city once in three months, began to destroy it." Thereupon this Prince who owned the ship, asking for a very clever clerk from the Minister who ruled the city, arrived there on the day on which he sends the fire-ball to destroy the city. When he is sending the fire-ball the Prince asked the deity, "What is the reason for sending this fire-ball?" The deity said, "The King who ruled here stole the goods of such and such men to these extents, put in prison falsely such and such men." When he is saying a quantity of such-like matters, the clerk who went with the Prince wrote down the whole. Thereupon the Prince said to the deity, "The goods which the King stole from the men I will apportion and give to them. I will assist the men who were put in prison without cause. Because of it, henceforward do not send the fire-ball and destroy the city." When he said it the deity accepted it. After that, the Prince having sold the goods that were in the ship and the ship also, and having assisted the families whom the wicked King had injured, together with the Minister governed the country. One day this Prince having gone for hunting-sport, when he was going hunting, a deer, feeling the wound at the shooting and shooting, ran off in front. The Prince having run after the deer, became separated from his retinue. Having seen, when going along, that a very beautiful Princess is at a rock cave in the midst of the forest, when he asked her [regarding] the circumstance, she said, "A Yaka brought me and put me in this rock cave. Once in three months he comes to look [at me]." Thereupon the Prince, calling for his retinue, and when it came having gone away taking this Princess, gave her in marriage to the Minister. After this, because neither this Princess nor the Minister, both of them, paid regard to this Prince who had assisted them, the Prince having become angry went away. Having gone thus, becoming wearied he went to sleep near a pool in the midst of the forest. At this time, two robbers having come, placed [there] a very beautiful Princess on a golden bed, and being unable to divide them, [each] cried out, saying, "The bed for me; the Princess for me. Give me them." Thereupon the Prince, having opened his eyes and said, "Who are ye?" sprang near them, taking his sword, and said, "I am such and such a Prince. I will kill you. If I am not to kill you, give me the Princess, and if ye want the bed take ye it away." The two robbers having become afraid, taking the bed went away. This Prince went away, taking the Princess, and having arrived at a country, dwelt there in misery. At this time, her father the King made public that to the person who, having found, gave him this Princess, he will give a share from the kingdom, and marry and give her. Well then, for the purpose of finding her, a young man from the Princess's country having walked to all places, at last arrived by chance at the place where both of them are residing. Recognising the Princess, and during that day night getting a resting-place there and having stayed at it, he stole the Princess, and went near her father the King. Thereupon the Princess said to her father the King, "Do not give me in marriage to this wicked one. There is a Prince who at the very first delivered me from robbers. While that Prince was there [after] finding me, this wicked one having gone [there], stealing me by force came away." Thereupon the King commanded them to impale this man, and kill him. Through grief at [her loss], that Prince who was [there] having come after seeking her for three months, [the King] gave him this Princess in marriage, and gave him the kingship of that country, also. Western Province. NO. 247 A PRINCESS AND A PRINCE In a certain country a King had an only daughter, it is said. The Princess was a possessor of an extremely beautiful figure. The King taught her the sciences to the extent to which she was able to learn. This Princess having arrived at maturity, the King ordained that a Prince who having heaped up masuran [amounting] to five tusk elephants' loads, should show [and give] him them, may marry her. After that, although from several countries Princes came to marry her because this Princess's figure is beautiful, having been unable to procure masuran [amounting] to five tusk elephants' loads their minds became disheartened, and they went away. At last, out of the seven sons of a certain Emperor-King, one person said to his father the King, "Father, [257] should you not give me masuran [equal] to five tusk elephants' loads, undoubtedly, cutting my throat (lit., neck) myself, I shall die." The King asked, "What is that for?" "In such and such a country there is a very beautiful daughter of the King. To marry her, first it is necessary to give masuran [equal] to five tusk elephants' loads." Thereupon the Emperor-King having loaded the masuran into a number of carts, handed them over to the Prince. Well then, this Prince, taking the masuran also, approached near the Princess's father, the King. Having weighed his masuran, when he looked [into the account] still a few were short. Because of it having sold even the tusk elephant which the Prince brought, and having righted the five tusk elephants' loads, after he showed them to the King, the father of the Princess, he gave the Princess in marriage to this Prince. Because of this Prince's act, the Princes who having come first to marry the Princess and having been unable went away, became angry, and formed the design to steal the Princess for themselves. After the Prince lived in happiness for a little time at the palace of the King, the father of the Princess, he asked the King, the Princess's father, for permission to go to his own country with the Princess. When he had asked permission even many a time because the father of the Princess was very unwilling, by very strong effort he set off to go, together with the Princess. When going thus, the Princess's father gave her ten masuran. As these two persons, taking the ten masuran, were going journeying they fell into a great forest wilderness. Leaving behind the forest wilderness, when they arrived at another country, because [only] two masuran remained over for them, getting a living became very difficult. Thereupon the Princess said to the Prince, "I know the means to earn our living, therefore be not afraid. For [the value of] the remaining two masuran bring threads of such and such colours," she said. The Prince having brought them, the beautiful Princess knitted a scarf [like one] she was wearing, and having put flower work, etc., [in it], and finished, gave it to the Prince, and said, "Having gone taking this scarf and sold it to a shop, please bring and give me the money," she said. Thereupon the Prince having taken it and gone, and having sold it for twenty masuran, thereafter bought at the price the requisite threads of several colours, and gave them to the Princess. Well then, while the Princess is making ready scarves, having obtained money and rented a house at the city, she dwelt with the Prince. While [they were] dwelling thus, a Prince came to the shop at which she sold the scarves, and buying an invaluable scarf of these, and ascertaining that it was the scarf woven by such and such a Princess, asked the shopkeeper, "Who brought and sold the scarves?" Then the shopkeeper said, "Such and such a handsome man sold them to me," he said. Having said, "When will the scarf trader come again to the shop?" and having ascertained it from the shopkeeper, he came on the day which the shopkeeper mentioned, in order to meet the Prince scarf trader. Having come thus, and met with the very Prince who trades in the scarves, and conversed well, he asked, "Who knits the scarves?" Then the Prince gave answer, "My wife knits them." Thereupon the other Prince said, "The scarves are extremely good. I want to get knitted and to take about ten or fifteen of them." Having said [this], and having come to the place where this Princess and Prince are living, and given a deposit of part of the money for the month, he got a resting-place there that day night. In this manner getting a resting-place and having been there, in the middle of the night stealing the Princess, the Prince who got the resting-place took her to his palace. This Prince, for the Princess whom he stole and the Prince who was her lord to become unconscious, caused them to drink a poisonous drug while they were sleeping. This Prince who stole the Princess was a person who at first having gone to marry her, was not wealthy [enough] to procure the masuran [amounting] to five tusk elephants' loads. Well then, on the day on which he went stealing the Princess, he received a letter from his father the King, that he must go for a war. Because of it, having put the Princess whom he stole in the palace, and placed guards, and commanded that they should not allow her to go outside it, he went for the war. While she was [there] in this manner, in the morning consciousness having come to the Prince who had married the Princess and become her lord, he opened his eyes, and having seen that the Princess was not there, as though with madness he began to walk to that and this hand. While going thus, he went to go by the street near the palace in which his Princess is put. When going there, after the Princess had looked in the direction of the street from the floor of the upper story, she saw that her Prince is going; and at that very time having written a letter she sent it to the Prince by the hand of a messenger. In the letter was said, "At night, at such and such a time please come to such and such a place. Then I having arrived there, and both of us having joined together, let us go by stealth to another country." The Prince as soon as he received the letter went near a jungle, and thinking, "Here are no men," read the letter somewhat loudly. Then a man who, having gone into the jungle to draw out creepers and having become fatigued, was lying down near there, heard his reading of the letter. Because the man heard this matter, in the night time, at the time which was written in the Princess's letter, taking a sword also, he went to the place which she mentioned. When the Princess, too, at the appointed time went to the said place, the man who went to cut creepers having waited there, seized her hand, and they quickly travelled away. While they were going, in order that the guards and city residents should not be able to recognise them, not doing much talking they journeyed quickly in the darkness, by the jungle, to the road. The Prince who was appointed the husband of the Princess, having read without patience the letter which the Princess sent, arrived at the place mentioned before the appointed time; and having [sat down and] leaned against a tree until she comes, after the journey he made went to sleep. At this time the man who went to cut creepers came, bringing the sword. If he had met with the Prince, he would have even killed him, with the design to take away the Princess. This Princess, together with that man, having arrived at a great forest wilderness, both persons went to sleep under a tree. After it became light, having opened her eyes, and when she looked having seen that she had come with a very ugly man, unpleasing to look at, becoming very distressed she began to weep. Then the man said, "After you have now come so far with me, should you leave me you will appoint yourself to destruction. Because of it, are you willing that I should marry you?" he asked. The Princess said, "I am willing; but in our country there is a custom. In that manner we must keep it," she said. The creeper cutter agreed to it, that is, the woman and man, both of them, who are to marry, having looked face to face, with two ropes of fine thread are to be tied at a post, and after they have proclaimed their willingness or unwillingness for their marrying, they must marry. "Well then, because in this forest wilderness there are not ropes of fine thread, let us tie ourselves with creepers," she said. Because there was not anyone to tie the two persons at once (eka parata), the other having tied one person, after this one proclaimed her or his willingness the other was to be tied. Firstly having tied the Princess with a turn of creeper, after she proclaimed her consent he unloosed her. After that, the Princess, having very thoroughly made tight and tied to the tree the creeper cutter, quickly went away backward to seek her lord. While going in that way she met with two Vaeddas. Thereupon the two Vaeddas, with the design to take this Princess, began to make uproar. Thereupon the Princess said, "Out of you two, I am willing to come with the skilful one in shooting furthest," she said. At that time the two Vaeddas, having exerted themselves as much as possible, shot the two arrows [so as] to go very far, and to fetch the arrows went running to the place where they fell. While they were in the midst of it the Princess went off very stealthily. The two Vaeddas having come and having seen that the Princess had gone, began to seek her. When they were thus seeking her, that creeper cutter whom she had tied and placed there when she came away, somehow or other unfastening the tying, came seeking the Princess; and having joined with these Vaeddas began to seek [her with them]. While they were in the midst of it, the Princess having gone walking, met with a trader. The trader, taking her and having journeyed, at noon became wearied, and went to sleep in the shade under a tree. Then the Princess taking a part of the trader's clothes and putting them on, went like a man, and arrived at a royal palace. The King having said to this one, "What can you do?" [after] ascertaining it, gave this one the charge to teach the King's son and also the Minister's son. During the time while she is thus educating in the sciences these two Princes, one day the Minister's son, because of an accidental necessary matter went into the room where this Princess who was made his teacher is sleeping. At the time when he went, the Princess's outer robe having been aslant, the Minister-Prince saw her two breasts, and went seeking the King's son to inform him that she was a woman. The Princess, ascertaining this circumstance, stealing from the palace the clothes of a royal Prince and putting them on, went away very hastily. She went away thus in the disguise of a Prince, by a street near a palace of the chief city in another country. Because a handsome husband, pleasing to the mind of the daughter of the King of that country, had not been obtained by her, she remained for much time without having married. Although many royal Princes came she was not pleased with them. But having been looking in the direction of the street from a window of the upper story floor, and having seen this Princess of extremely beautiful figure going in the disguise of a Prince, very hastily she sent to her father the King, and informed him, "Please give me the hand of that Prince who is travelling in the street, as my lord-husband." Then the King, having sent a messenger and caused this Prince to be brought near the King, and shown him the Princess, said, "You must marry this Princess. If not, I shall appoint you to death." This Princess who was in the disguise of a Prince through fear of death consented to it. After that, having appointed the wedding festival in a great ostentatious manner, they married these two persons. In that night the Princess who was in the disguise of a Prince, having told the other Princess all the dangers that occurred to her, and told her that she is a Princess, said to her, "Don't inform any one about it." Remaining in this manner, the Princess who is in the Prince disguise began to seek her husband. It was thus:--This Princess having caused to be made ready a very spacious hall which causes the minds of the spectators who saw it to rejoice to the degree that from the outer districts men come to look at it, began to cause donations [of food] to be given to all who arrive there. Having caused her own figure to be made from wax, and having put clothes on it, and established it at a place in front of this hall, she caused guards to be stationed around, and commanded them, "Any person having come near this wax figure, at the very time when he has touched it you are to bring that person near me." She said [thus] to the guards. While a few days were going, men came from many districts to look at this hall. Among them, having walked and walked seeking this Princess, were her Prince and the creeper cutter, the two Vaeddas and the trader, the royal Prince and the Minister-Prince. The whole of them having come and seen this wax figure, touched the hand of the wax figure. The guards who were stationed there, because the whole of these said persons touched the wax figure, arrested them and gave charge of them to the Princess. Thereupon the Princess commanded them to kill the creeper cutter. Having censured the Vaeddas she told them to go. To the son of the King who caused her to teach, she gave in marriage the Princess whom, having come in the disguise of the Prince, she married. Taking charge of her own Lord she from that time lived in happiness. Western Province. The story of the Prince and Princess (No. 8, vol. i) bears a close resemblance to this tale in some of the incidents; see also No. 108 in vol. ii. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iii, p. 62) the story of Ali Shar and Zumurrud also contains similarities. When the two had no other means of support, Zumurrud sent her master or husband to buy a piece of silk and thread for working on it. She then embroidered it for eight days as a curtain, which Ali Shar sold for fifty dinars to a merchant in the bazaar, after she had warned him not to part with it to a passer-by. They lived thus for a year, till at last he sold one to a stranger, owing to the urging of the merchants. The purchaser followed him home, inserted opiates into a half plantain which he presented to him, and when Ali Shar became unconscious fetched his brother, a former would-be purchaser of Zumurrud, and they carried off the girl. By arrangement with an old woman, a friend of the youth's, she lowered herself from a window at midnight, but Ali Shar, who waited there for her, had fallen asleep, and a Kurdish thief in the darkness took her away, and left her in charge of his mother. When this woman fell asleep she escaped on horse-back in male attire, was elected King at a city at which she arrived, and by giving a monthly feast to all comers in a great pavilion that she erected for the purpose, seized all her captors, and caused them to be flayed alive. At last she found her husband in this way. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 301, the marriage of the disguised wife of a Prince to a Princess occurs. While they were travelling the Prince was imprisoned on a false charge, his wife dressed as a man, was seen by a Princess who fell in love with her, and agreed to marry the Princess if according to the custom of her own country the vermilion were applied to the bride's forehead with a sword (the marriage to the sword). When she told the Princess her story the latter informed the Raja, who released the Prince and remarried his daughter to him. NO. 248 CONCERNING A ROYAL PRINCESS AND TWO THIEVES In a certain country there was a King. There was one Princess, only, of the King's. Except the King's Queen and Princess, only, there was not any other child. At the time when the Princess was twelve years old the King died. After he died any person does not go to do the work at the royal house as in the time when the King was there. By reason of this, the Princess and Queen are doing the work in the palace without any one. When not much time had gone, two men came to the royal house without [anything] to eat and to wear. At that time this royal Queen asked, "What have ye come for?" Thereupon these men said that being without [anything] to eat and to wear they came seeking a means of subsistence. Then the Queen said, "It is good. If so, remain ye here." The men having said, "It is good," stayed there. The work she gave them, indeed, was [this]: she told one person to cause the cattle to graze; she told one person to pour water [on the plants] at the flower garden. After that, the man who looks after the cattle having taken the cattle to a garden of someone or other and left them, was lying down under a tree. At that time the owner of the garden having come, and having beaten him and the cattle, drove them away. After that, the man having put the cattle somewhere else, [after] causing them to graze there went to the palace. The man to whom was given the charge to pour the water, from morning until evening comes having drawn water, became much fatigued. On the following day, with the thought of changing [the work of] both persons that day, he asked the man who went to cause the cattle to graze, "Friend, how is the work you went for? Is it easy or difficult?" Thereupon the man who looks after the cattle said, "Ane! Friend, having taken the cattle and put them in a garden, I lie down. When it becomes evening I come driving them, and tie them up. Except that, there is not any difficulty for me," he said. Having said thus, the man who looks after the cattle asked the man who pours the water, "How, friend, is your work?" The man said, "What, friend, is my work? Having poured a bucket or two of water on the flower trees I simply amuse myself." Then the man who looks after the cattle said, "If so, friend, I will pour the water at the flower garden to-morrow; you take the cattle." Thereupon the man, being thankful, said, "It is good." On the following day both persons did accordingly. That day, also, he beat the man who looks after the cattle, in an inordinate manner. The man who remained at home, having poured water until it became night, was wearied. Having seen that these two works were difficult, both these men in the evening spoke together very softly. The Queen and Princess having become frightened at it, put all the money into an iron box, and having shut it and taken care of it, put it away. These men having heard that noise, and having waited until the time when the Princess and the Queen were sleeping, these two, lifting up that box, came away with it. There was a waterless well. Having said they would hide it in the well, one told [the other] to descend into the well. What did the other do? Taking a large round stone, he dropped it into the well, so that the man who was in the well should die. Having dropped it, the man, taking the cash-box, went somewhere else. That stone not having struck the man who descended into the well, with much exertion he came to the surface of the ground, and when he looked the man was not [there]. On the following day, the Queen having arisen, at the time when she looked she perceived that the cash-box was not [there]. Having perceived it, she asked the man who remained [regarding it]. The man said, "Ane! I don't know." When the Queen asked, "Where is the other man?" this man said, "That man himself will have taken it. The man is not here." The Queen having said, "Well, what can I do?" remained without doing anything. The man who stayed at the palace having inquired on the following day, when he looked about met with the cash-box, [the other man] having placed it in the chena jungle. Having taken it, he came back and gave it to the Queen. Thereupon, the Queen being very thankful, and having married and given that Princess to the man, he remained [there] exercising the kingship virtuously, as [was done] before. Western Province. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (L. Behari Day), p. 160, two thieves determined to live honestly, and were engaged by a householder, one to tend a cow, the other to water a Champaka plant, at which he was told to pour water until some collected round it. The dry earth absorbed all he poured, and in the afternoon, tired out, he went to sleep. The cow taken out by the other man to graze was a wild vicious one; it galloped about into rice fields and sugar-cane plantations, and did much damage, for which the man was well scolded, together with fourteen generations of his forefathers. At last he managed to catch the cow, and bring it home. Each man told the other of the easy day he had had, intending to get the other man's work; and at last they arranged to exchange duties. On the following day, when they met in the evening, both worn out, they laughed, and agreed that stealing was preferable to what people called honest labour. They decided to dig at the root of the plant, and learn why it took so much water. Their subsequent adventures are given in vol. ii, p. 94. A similar story is given in Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Dr. Bodding), p. 139, the men being two brothers who went off and were engaged as labourers, one by an oilman and the other by a potter. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xxv, p. 21, in a story by Natesa Sastri, two rogues who agreed to work for an old woman had similar experiences, each boasting of the easy day he had had. In this tale the woman had secret subterranean channels which carried the water to a field that she cultivated. Afterwards, as she overheard them arranging to rob her she buried her treasure in a corner of the house, filled the box which had contained it with stones and pieces of old iron, told them she hid it in the well during the dark half of the month (when thieves might try to take it), and made them carry it there and drop it in. At night they went to remove it, the man who descended opened it in the well and found she had tricked them, but being afraid the other would leave him in the well he emptied it, sat in it, said it was full of treasure, and told the other to draw it up. The man absconded with it as soon as he raised it, until a voice told him to walk more slowly, on which he opened it and found the other rogue in it. NO. 249 HOW THE NAGAYA BECAME THE PRINCESS In a certain country there was a royal Prince, it is said. This Prince one day having gone for garden sport, and while on his return journey having seen a beautiful woman belonging to a nobleman's family, his mind was attracted towards her, it is said. When the Prince with his mind thus greatly attracted towards the woman is feeling keen sorrow, not obtaining sleep, dwelling foodless, for several days in succession not having eaten, his body grew extremely emaciated. At the time when his father the King inquired what were the reasons of it, he informed him that he wanted to take in marriage a nobleman's daughter, it is said. The King having heard his word, asked the assemblage of Ministers whether the transaction was suitable or unsuitable. And the assemblage of Ministers having said that should he take [a wife] in marriage in that manner a disgrace will go to the royal race, he rejected it. But having seen that because of the young Prince's grief from day to day his body becomes [more] emaciated, his father the King took and gave him a [bride in] marriage from another royal family. Yet except that he contracted this marriage because of the urgent request of his father the King, for himself, indeed, he did not desire even to look in the direction of the Princess whom he married. At the time when he is thus, having concealed from the King that he does not pay regard to his married wife, since thereafter the Prince attempted the obtaining of the nobleman's daughter for himself [the King] ordered the Prince to go out of the country. The Prince, upon the word of his father the King having mounted on a ship and become ready to go to the foreign country, put the Princess whom he took in marriage into a rock house (cave), and having placed guards around, and made them give her food once in four days, said thus to the Princess, "When, having gone to a foreign country, I come again to this country, having borne a Prince like me do thou keep and rear him virtuously. Should it not be so I will speedily cause thee to be killed and cut into bits," he said. The Prince said thus with the intention of indeed killing the Princess. Why was that? Because from the day when he contracted the marriage there had not been a [conjugal] association of these two. Well then, she ascertained that she cannot perform even one of the orders that were told to the Princess. Well, this Princess's father had presented and given to her two tunnelling rats. [258] By the help of these rats having made a tunnel [by which] to go outside from the rock house, she came out by the tunnel, and making even the guards her friends, went near a woman who knows extremely clever dances; and having given money, [after] learning up to the other shore itself [259] her art of dancing, she went to the neighbourhood [of the place] from which on the first occasion the Prince was to mount into the ship, putting on a dress that was attracting the wonder of each of the persons who saw it, in such a manner that anyone should be unable to recognise her. Having shown dances in front of the Prince, and caused his mind to long for her, and that day night having slept with him, on the following day she went to the house of the King her father. The Prince having gone to foreign countries, the Princess was living in happiness at the house of her father until learning news of his coming again to his own country. Having heard news that the Prince descended from the ship, and having gone to the rock house together with the guards of whom at first she was making friends, she remained [there] in the manner which the Prince ordered on going. Because the Prince came after a number of years had passed away, she had a fine infant Prince. Well then, the Prince, having descended from the ship and having come with the intention [after] having killed his wife to take in marriage the nobleman's Princess, opened the door of the rock house, and at the time when he looked saw that the Princess is [there] with an infant Prince in the very manner he said. While he was in extreme anger, the Princess, while in the midst between the Royal Council and her husband, related the method by which she obtained her child. After that, when in a very public manner the Prince completely abandoned his wife her parents did not take charge of her. Because of it, having gone near an indigent woman she dwelt with her child. Because the Prince had extreme affection for the child he thought to take the child [after] having given poison to the Princess and killed her. At this time, because the Situ Princess whom the Prince was intending to take in marriage had been taken and given and settled for another person, he contracted marriage with another Princess. On the day of the festival at which he contracts [260] this marriage, on his sending to his indigent former wife a sort of cakes in which poison was mixed, when she was partaking of them she performed the act of Yama. [261] After she died, a Naga maiden began to give milk to the infant. The Prince having gone on horseback to bring the infant, at the time when he brought it to the royal house the Naga maiden also went behind [in her snake form]. The Prince having seen the Naga maiden while the head part of the Nagaya was inside the doorway and the tail part outside the doorway, when he cut it in two with his sword the Nagaya vanished, and the Princess who was the mother of the infant remained in front [of him]. [262] The Prince ascertaining [thereby] that he was unable to kill her, established her in the post of Chief Queen. Western Province. NO. 250 THE STORY OF THE COBRA'S BITE In a certain country there was a King, it is said. Belonging to that King there was only a single son-Prince. He handed over this Prince to a Royal Preceptor for teaching him the arts and sciences. Although until this Prince became big to a [considerable] degree he was learning near the Royal Preceptor, he did not properly get to know even a single letter. While he was staying thus, a King of another country sent a letter to his father the King. Thereupon he gave this letter to the Prince to read. The Prince, bringing the letter near his forehead, looked at it, rubbing his eye he looked, (after) running round the house he looked; but he was unable to read it. The royal retinue who saw this laughed. At that time anger having arisen in the King concerning this, he very quickly caused the Royal Preceptor to be brought. He spoke to him angrily. The Royal Preceptor, becoming afraid [said], "Your Majesty, your son is unable to learn. Let this [other] child who learnt at the same time with that Prince, and this child who came to learn after that, read, if you please;" and he presented two children before him. Thereupon the two children read the letter with ease. After that, the King being angry with his Prince, settled to kill him on the following day. His mother the Queen having arrived at much grief concerning this, on the following day, at the point of its becoming light, having tied up a packet of masuran and given it to him, ordered him to set off and go away from the country. And the Prince, in the manner his mother said, taking the packet of masuran set off and went away from the country. While he was thus going he saw a place where an astrologer, assembling children (lamo) together, is teaching. The Prince having halted at that place and spoken to the teacher about learning [under him], remained there. And although, having stayed there much time, he endeavoured to learn, while he was there also he was unable to learn. During this time the astrologer-teacher having become afflicted with disease, dismissed and started off the whole of the scholars. He told the Prince to go away. At the time when the Prince was going, he approached to take permission from the teacher. Thereupon the teacher, having spoken to the Prince, said, "Learning even the advice which I now give to yourself, take it and establish it in your mind as long as there is life." The Prince answered, "It is good." The advice indeed was this:--"Having gone to a place to which you did not go [before], should they give any seat for sitting down, without sitting there at once you must draw out and shake the seat, and [then] sit down. While you are at any place, should they give to eat, not eating the food at once, [but] taking a very little from the food, after having given it to an animal and looked at it a little time you must eat. Having come to an evil place to take sleep, not lying down at once you must lie down at the time of being sleepy. Not believing anything that any person has only said, should you hear it with the ear and see it with the eye [even], not believing it on that account only, [but] having inquired still further, you must act." [After] hearing this advice the Prince having set out from there, went away. At the time when he had gone a considerable distance, the Prince became hungry; and the Prince having halted at a place, said to the house man, "Ane! Friend, I am very hungry. I will give you the expenses; give me to eat for one meal." Having said [this], the Prince unfastened the packet of masuran that was in his hand, and from it gave him a single masurama. The man after having seen these told his wife about the packet of masuran that the Prince had. [263] The wife also having become desirous to take the packet of masuran, told her husband the stratagem to kill the Prince and take them. Talking in this way, they dug a secret (boru) hole and covered it, and having fixed a seat upon it made him sit there to eat food. The Prince having established in his mind the advice which the astrologer-teacher gave, drew away and shook the seat; at the time when he endeavoured to look [at the place] all the things that were there fell into the secret hole. Having seen this and arrived at fear, the Prince set off from there and began to go away. Having thus gone a considerable distance, and having halted at a place because of hunger, the Prince said to a man, "On my giving the expenses give me to eat for one meal." Thereupon the man said, "It is good." Then the Prince, having unfastened the packet of masuran, bringing a masurama gave it to the man. The man having told his wife also about the matter of the masuran, they arranged a means to kill the Prince and take the masuran. Having thought of giving poison to the Prince to kill him while here, they put poison into the food, and having set a seat and brought a kettle of water for washing himself, gave it to him. The Prince, after washing his [right] hand and mouth, having gone and sat down, according to the advice of the astrologer-teacher taking from all the food a very little gave it to the dog and cat that were near the Prince, and remained looking [at them] a little time. While he was [waiting] thus, in a little time the dog and cat died and fell down. Having seen this and become afraid, the Prince set off from there and began to go away. Having gone on and on in this way, near the palace of another King through hunger-weakness he fell, and struck the ground. The men who saw this having gone running, said to the King [that] a man like a royal Prince had fallen down, and was not far from the palace. The King gave orders, "Very speedily bring him here." Thereupon the men having lifted him up, took him to the royal house. While he was there, when he asked him [regarding] the circumstances, "I am very weak through hunger; [264] for many days I have not obtained any food," he said. "At first having made rice gruel, give ye him a little," the King said. Thereupon the servants having said, "It is good" (Yahapataeyi), prepared and gave it. After his weakness was removed in this way, he asked him [about] the circumstances. Commencing at the beginning, from the time (taen) when he went near the Royal Preceptor, he told the story before the King (raju). Then the King spoke, "Wast thou unable to learn letters? Not thus should a royal Prince understand. Wast thou unable to learn the art of swords, the art of bows, etc.?" he asked. Thereupon, when answering he said he knew the whole of those arts; only letters he did not know. At that time the King thought thus, "Because of his not knowing only letters, ordering them to kill him was wrong, the first-born son. Remain thou near me," he commanded. Belonging to the King there was a single daughter only. As there were no sons he regarded this Prince like a son. When not much time had gone thus, the King thought of giving [a Princess] in marriage to him. The King having spoken to him, said thus, "Tell me which place is good for bringing [a Princess from], to marry to thee." Many a time he told him [this]. And the Prince when replying on all the occasions said, "I am not willing to leave His Majesty the King and go away." Thereupon ascertaining that he says thus through willingness that he should marry the King's daughter to him, he said, "I am not willing to give my daughter to thee. Shouldst thou say, 'Why is that?' seven times now, seven Princes married (baendeya) that person. They having died, on the following day after the Princes married her it befel that I must bury them. Because death will occur to thee in the very same way, I am not willing to give my daughter to thee," he said. Thereupon the Prince said thus, "To a person for whom death is not ordained death does not come; death having been ordained that person will die. Because of that, I am wishful to marry (bandinta) that very Princess," he said. Then the King fulfilled his wish. Thus they two having married, according to the custom he sent them away [into a separate dwelling]. While he was with that very Princess, having remembered the warning given on that day by the astrologer-teacher, being heavy with sleepiness while eating betel, he woke up many times. At this time the Princess had gone to sleep. [At last] he hears a sound in the house. The Prince having heard it and become afraid, at the time when he was looking about [after] taking his sword in his hand, he saw a cobra of a size equal to a Palmira trunk descending from the roof. This cobra, indeed, was a young man who had tied his affection to this Princess, a person who having died through his love [for her] was [re-]born a cobra. Through anger towards all who marry the Princess he killed them. The royal Prince having gone aside, in a little time it descended until it was near the ground. [Then] the Prince by one stroke of the sword cut the cobra into three pieces. Thus the danger which there had been for much time that day was destroyed. On the following day, according to custom with fear the servants arrived in front of the Princess's house. But the Prince having come out, placed the three pieces of the cobra upon a post. Thereupon having been amazed, the royal servants very speedily ran off and told the King (rajuhata) about this. The King, also, having arrived there was astonished, and commanded them to take the trunk of the cobra to the cemetery, and burn it. During these very days, another King having asked the Great King for assistance for a war, sent letters. And the King sent this Prince to the war, with the army. When he had thus gone, in a few days the Princess bore a son. The war lasted twelve years. After twelve years, having conquered in the war he was ready to come to his own country. By this time the Princess's son had become big. But the people of the country, not knowing whose son [he was], thought him a person who had married the Princess. And this news had become spread through the country. The royal Prince having arrived near his own country, the Prince got to hear the news; but having remembered the warning of the astrologer-teacher, he thought that to believe it in the future he must make inquiry. Coming close to the royal palace by degrees, he addressed the army; and thereafter, after he had beaten on the notification tom-tom, "Assemble ye," having allowed them to go, when it became night he arrived inside the palace by an outer window. Thus he arrived in the house called after the Princess. Having come in that way and seen that a youth was living with the Princess, he became angry, and said, "I will cut down the two persons," taking the sword in his hand. [But] having remembered the warning of the astrologer-teacher, he said, "Without being hasty I will still test them," and again he put the sword into the sheath. At the sound, the [young] Prince who was with his mother opened his eyes, and having seen his father and become afraid, saying, "Mother, mother," crept under the bed. The mother, too, having opened her eyes at this time and when she looked having seen her lord, spoke [to him]. Thereupon he told the Princess the whole circumstances, and for the Princess there was great sorrow [at the report spread regarding her]. On the morning of the following day, the Prince having seen the Great King told him about the war, and the manner in which he got the victory in it. And the King, being much pleased, appointed great festivals at the city; and having decorated the Prince with the Crown and given him the kingship, the King began to perform acts in view of the other world. Western Province. Compare the advice given to the Brahmana in No. 209 in this vol., and the variants appended. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (L. Behari Day), p. 100, a Queen was married afresh every day to a person selected by the royal elephant, this new King each morning being found dead in some mysterious manner in the bed-room. A merchant's son who had been obliged to leave his home was chosen as King by the elephant, and heard of the nocturnal danger. While he lay awake armed, he saw a long thread issue from the Queen's left nostril; it grew thicker until at last it was a huge snake. He at once cut off its head, and remained there as the permanent King. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 137, each time the daughter of a King was married the bride-groom was found dead in the chamber on the following morning. When royal bride-grooms could be obtained no longer, the King ordered that from each house in turn a person of either the royal or Brahmana caste should be brought and allowed to remain in the room for one night, on the understanding that anyone who survived should be married to the Princess. All died, until at last a brave Brahmana from another country offered to take the place of the son of the widow with whom he was lodging. He remained awake, and in the night saw a terrible Rakshasa open the door, and stretch out his arm. The Brahmana at once stepped forward and cut off the arm, and the Rakshasa fled. The hero was afterwards married to the Princess. He met with the Rakshasa in the same way at another city, and learnt from him that by Siva's orders he was preventing the Princesses from being married to cowards. In the same work, vol. ii, p. 449, there is an account of a Brahmana who placed himself under a teacher at Pataliputra, but was so stupid that he did not manage to learn a single syllable. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 32 ff., there is a variant; see note after No. 209 in this volume. The closest resemblance is in the episode in which the Prince takes the place of the Potter's son who was about to be summoned to be married to the Princess whose husbands had all died on their wedding night. During the night the Prince was careful not to sleep; he lay down with his sword in his hand. In the middle of the night he saw two snakes issue from the nostrils of the Princess, and come towards him. He struck at them and killed them. Next morning the King was surprised to find him alive, and chatting with his daughters. The Prince then told the King who he was, and he became the heir apparent. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 291, after a certain King died, the persons who were elected in turn as his successor died each night without any apparent cause. Vikramaditya and his companion, a youth who had been reared by wolves, took the place of a youth who had been chosen as King, and on inquiry learnt that as secret offerings that were made by the former King to the devas and spirits had been discontinued, it must be the offended spirits who killed each new King every night. When the offerings were made the deities were appeased, and no more deaths occurred in this way. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iii, p. 263), there is an account of a haunted house in Baghdad; any person who stayed during the night in it was found dead in the morning. This was the act of a Jinni (demon) who was guarding a treasure which was to be made over to a specified person only. He broke the necks of all others, but when the right man came he gave him the treasure. There is a variant of the first danger from which the youth escaped, in a Sierra Leone story given in Cunnie Rabbit, Mr. Spider, and the Other Beef (Cronise and Ward), p. 251. A King who had been falsely told that his son was likely to depose him, gave him two tasks which he accomplished successfully, and afterwards caused a deep hole to be dug, placed broken bottles in the bottom, spread a mat over it, set a chair on it, and told the boy to sit on it. The boy replied that he never sat down without first shaking the place. When he beat the mat with a heavy stick the chair fell into the hole, and the boy escaped. For the pit-fall compare No. 159, vol. ii, and the appended notes. NO. 251. HOW THEY KILLED THE GREAT-BELLIED TAMBI [265] In a certain country there was a King, it is said. This King's palace having been dug into by three dexterous thieves, they stole and got the goods. Having seized these very three robbers, for the purpose of effecting their trial they brought them into the presence of the King. When the King asked these three robbers if they committed the robbery or not, they said that they committed the robbery. "If you thus committed the robbery are ye guilty or not guilty persons?" he asked. Thereupon they gave notice that they were not guilty persons. When he asked, "How is that?" [they said that], as it was easy for them to dig into [the wall], because when the mason built the palace the mortar had been put in loosely, the mason was the guilty person owing to his doing that matter. Thereupon the King having summoned the mason, when he asked him whether, because he put in the mortar loosely, he was guilty or not guilty, he gave notice that he was not guilty. When he asked again, "How is that?" the mason said thus, "I had appointed a labourer to mix the lime. Owing to his inattention when doing it the mortar had become loose. Because of that, the labourer is the guilty person," the mason said. Thereupon having summoned the said labourer, he asked him whether because he put the mortar in loose (i.e., improperly mixed) he was guilty or not guilty. Then he gave notice that he was not the guilty person. How is that? While he was staying mixing the lime, having seen a beautiful woman going by that road, because his mind became attached to her the work became neglected. The labourer said that the woman was the guilty person. Thereupon having summoned the woman, just as before he asked whether, regarding the circumstance that having gone by that road she caused the neglect of the labourer's work, she was guilty or not guilty. She, too, said that she was not guilty. Why was that? A goldsmith having promised some of her goods, through her going to fetch them because he did not give them on the [appointed] day, this fault having occurred owing to her doing this business, the goldsmith was the guilty person. Thereupon having summoned the goldsmith, when he asked him just as before he was not inclined to give any reply. Because of that, the King, having declared the goldsmith the guilty person, commanded them to kill the goldsmith by [causing him to be] gored by the tusk of the festival tusk elephant. He ordered them to kill this goldsmith, having set him against a large slab of rock, and causing the tusk elephant to gore him through the middle of the belly. Well then, when the executioner was taking the goldsmith he began to weep. When [the King] asked him why that was, the goldsmith said thus, "Two such shining clean tusks of the King's festival tusk elephant having bored a hole through my extremely thin body and having struck against the stone slab, will be broken. Because of sorrow for that I wept," he gave answer. "What is proper to be done concerning it?" the King asked. Then the goldsmith says, "In the street I saw an extremely great-bellied Tambi. If in the case of that Tambi, indeed, the tusk elephant gore the belly, no wound will occur to the two tusks," the goldsmith said. Thereupon the King having summoned the great-bellied Tambi, caused the tusk elephant to gore him through his belly. The goldsmith and the whole of the aforesaid [persons] went away in happiness. Western Province. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xx, p. 78, a South-Indian variant was given by Natesa Sastri. In order to commit robbery, a thief made a hole through a wall newly built of mud which slipped down on his neck and killed him. His comrade found the body, and reported that the owner of the house had murdered him. The owner blamed the cooly who built the wall; he blamed the cooly who used too much water in mixing the mud; he attributed it to the potter's making too large a mouth for the water-pot; he blamed a dancing-girl for passing at the time and distracting his attention. She in turn laid the blame on a goldsmith who had not re-set in time a jewel which she gave him; he blamed a merchant who had not supplied it in time, though often demanded. He being unintelligent could offer no excuse, and was therefore impaled for causing the thief's death. NO. 252 HOW MARAYA WAS PUT IN THE BOTTLE In a certain country, a woman without a husband in marriage bore a son, it is said. At that time the men living in the neighbourhood having come, asked the woman, "Who is thy husband?" Then the woman replied, "My husband is Maraya." [266] Maraya having heard this word and being much pleased, thought, "I must get this woman's son into a successful state." Having thought thus, after some time had gone, speaking to the son Maraya said thus, that is to say, "Become a Vedarala. I will give you one medicine only. Should I stay at the head side of any sick person, by giving the sick person the medicine the sick person will become well. Should I be at the feet side you cannot cure the sick person." After that, this son having gone from place to place and having applied medical treatment, became a very celebrated doctor. One day when this Vedarala went to look at a sick person whom he very greatly liked, Maraya was at the feet part of the sick person. At that time the Vedarala having thought, "I must do a good work," told them to completely turn round the bed and the sick person. Then the head side became the part where Maraya stayed. Well then, when he had given him the Vedarala's medicine the sick person became well. Maraya having become angry with the Vedarala concerning this matter, and having thought, "I must kill him," Maraya sat on a chair of the Vedarala's. Because the Vedarala had a spell which enabled him to perform the matters that he thought [of doing], [267] he [repeated it mentally and] thought, "May it be as though Maraya is unable to rise from the chair." Having thought thus, "Now then, kill me," the Vedarala said to Maraya. Well then, because Maraya could not rise from the chair he told the Vedarala to release him from it. Then the Vedarala said to Maraya, "If, prior to killing me, you will give me time for three years I will release you," he said. Maraya, being helpless, [268] having given the Vedarala three years' time went away. After the three years were ended Maraya went to the Vedarala's house. The Vedarala having become afraid, did a trick for this. The Vedarala said to Maraya, "Kill me, but before you kill me, having climbed [269] up the coconut tree at this door you must pluck a young coconut to give me," he said. After Maraya climbed up the coconut tree, having uttered the Vedarala's spell the Vedarala thought, "May Maraya be unable to descend from the tree." Well then, Maraya, ascertaining that he could not descend from the tree, told the Vedarala to release him. At that time the Vedarala, asking [and obtaining] from Maraya [a promise] that he should not kill him until still three years had gone, having released Maraya sent him away. The three years having been ended, on the day when Maraya comes to the Vedarala's house the Vedarala entered a room, and shutting the door remained [there]. But Maraya entered straightway (kelimma) inside the room. Then the Vedarala asked, "How did you come into a room the doors of which were closed?" Thereupon Maraya said, "I came by the hole into which the key is put." The Vedarala then said, it is said, "If I am to believe that matter, be pleased to creep inside this bottle," he said. Well then, after Maraya crept into the bottle the Vedarala tightened the lid (mudiya) of the bottle, and having beaten it down put it away. From that day, when going to apply medical treatment on all days having gone taking the bottle in which he put Maraya, he placed the bottle at the head side of the sick person; and having applied medical treatment cured the sick person. In this manner he got his livelihood. Western Province. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. i, p. 345, in a Bengal story by Mr. G. H. Damant, a shepherd discriminates a demon from a man whose form he has taken,--living with his wife during the man's absence,--by boring through a reed, and saying that the true person must be the one who could pass through it. As the demon was passing through it he stopped both ends of the reed with mud, and killed him. In the South Indian Tales of Mariyada Raman (P. Ramachandra Rao), p. 43, a husband was returning home on an unlucky day (the ninth of the lunar fortnight), with his wife, who had been visiting her parents. When he left her on the path for a few moments, "Navami Purusha," the deity who presided over the ninth day, made his appearance in the form of the husband and went away with the wife. The husband followed, and took the matter before Mariyada Raman. The judge got a very narrow-necked jug prepared, and declared that he would give her to the claimant who could enter and leave the jug without damaging it or himself. When the deity did it the judge made obeisance to him, and was informed that the man's form had been taken by him to punish him for travelling on an unlucky day against the Purohita's advice. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 182, when a Brahmana returned home after some years' absence he was turned away by a person of his own appearance, and the King could not decide the matter. A boy elected as King by others in their play offered to settle it, and producing a narrow-mouthed phial stated that the one who entered it should have judgment in his favour. When the ghost transformed himself into "a small creature like an insect" and crept inside, the boy corked it up and ordered the Brahmana to throw it into the sea and repossess his home. The first part resembles a story in the Kathakoça (Tawney), p. 41, the interloper being a deity in it. In the well-known tale in the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. i, p. 33), the receptacle in which the Jinni was imprisoned was "a cucumber-shaped jar of yellow copper" or brass, closed by a leaden cap stamped with the seal-ring of Solomon. In vol. iii, p. 54, and vol. iv, p. 32, other Ifrits were enclosed in similar jars made of brass, sealed with lead. NO. 253 THE WOMAN PRE-EMINENT IN CUNNING [270] At a city there was a very rich Hetti young man. During the time when he was [there], they brought a bride [271] for the young man. What of their bringing her! The Hetti young man was [engaged] in giving goods to many ships. Because of it, while the bride [272] married (lit., tied) to the Hetti young man was staying at home, the Hettiya went to give goods to ships. Having gone, [before his] coming back about six months passed. At that time, [while he was absent], the Hetti girl who was married [to him] one day went to the well to bring [water]. When she was going, a beard-cutting Barber man having stayed on the path and seen this beautiful woman, laughed. Thereupon the woman, not looking completely on that hand, looked at him with the roguish eye (hora aehin), and went to the village. On the following day also, the Barber having come, just as before laughed. At that time also the woman, just as before, looked with the roguish eye, and went away. The woman on the following day also came in order to go for water. That day also, the Barber having stayed on the path laughed. That day the woman having spoken to the Barber, asked, "What did you laugh for when I was coming? Why?" The Barber said, "I did not laugh at anything whatever but because of the affection which you caused." Thereupon the woman asked, "Were you inclined to come with me?" The Barber said, "Yes." Then this woman said, "If you come, you cannot come in that way. [273] The Great King having gone, after the Second King has come to Ceylon (Seyilama), after jasmine flowers have blossomed without [being on] creepers, having cut twenty, having stabbed thirty persons, having pounded three persons into one, when two dead sticks are being kneaded into one having mounted on two dead ones, should you come you can talk with me." Thereupon the Barber went home, and grief having bound him because he could not do [according to] the words which this woman said, he remained unable to eat cooked rice also. At that time the Barber woman asked, "What are you staying [in this way] for, not eating cooked rice, without life in your body?" The Barber said, "I thought of taking in marriage such and such a Hetti woman. Owing to it the Hetti woman said, 'When the Great King has gone, when the Second King has come to Ceylon, when the flower of the creeperless jasmine has blossomed, having cut twenty, having stabbed thirty, having pounded three persons into one, when two dead sticks are becoming knocked into one, come mounted on the back of two dead ones.' Because I cannot do it I remain in grief." Thereupon the Barber woman said, "Indo! Don't you get so much grief over that. For it, I will tell you an advice. 'The Great King having gone, when the Second King came to Ceylon,' meant (lit., said), when the sun has set and when the moon is rising. 'When the creeperless jasmine flower is blossoming,' meant, when the stars are becoming clear. 'Having cut twenty,' meant, having cut the twenty finger [and toe] nails. 'Having stabbed thirty,' meant, having well cleaned the teeth (with the tooth-stick), to wash them well. 'Having pounded three persons into one,' meant, having eaten a mouthful of betel (consisting of betel leaf, areka-nut, and lime) you are to come. [These] are the matters she said. [274] Because of it, why are you staying without eating? If you must go, without getting grieved go in this manner, and come back." Thereupon the Barber having gone in that manner, while he was there yet two [other] persons heard that those two are talking. When they heard--there is a custom in that country. The custom indeed is [this]: There is a temple [kovila] in the country. Except that they give [adulterers, or perhaps only offenders against caste prohibitions in such cases as this?] as demon offerings (bili) for the temple, they do not inflict a different punishment [on them]. Because of it, seizing these two they took them for the purpose of giving [them as] demon offerings for the temple. This Barber woman, learning about it, in order to save her husband undertook the charge of the food offering [275] for the temple, and went to the temple taking rice and coconuts. Having gone there, and said that they were for the kapuwa [276] (priest) of the temple, she came away calling her husband, too. Then to that Hetti woman this Barber woman [said], "Having said that you are cooking the food offering (puse) which I brought, stay at the temple until the time when the Hettirala comes. The deity will not take you as the demon offering (billa). [277] Your husband having come back will seek and look [for you]. When he comes seeking, say, 'I having married my husband, he went away now six months ago. Because of it, having told my husband to come I undertook the charge for [cooking] the food offering. [278] Just as I was undertaking the charge he came. Because of it, not having seen the face of my lord (himiya), paying respect to the deity I came to cook the food offering.' Continue to say this." Thereupon the Hetti woman having done in that very manner, the Hettiya came. Well then, she having made the woman [appear] a good woman, [her husband], taking charge of her, came calling her to the house, and she remained [there] virtuously (honda seyin). This story was related by a woman in the North-central Province, to a man whom I sent to write down some stories at a village at which I had been promised them. Her name, given as Sayimanhami (Lady Simon), and expressions she used, show that she probably belonged originally to the Western Province. It is difficult to understand how the condemned persons escaped. The interesting fact of the tale is the reference to the presentation of human offerings at a temple devoted to either one of the demons or the goddess Kali. The Sinhalese expression, deviyan wahanse, deity, given in the text, might be applied to either. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 91, it is related in one story that "whenever a man is found at night with another man's wife, he is placed with her within the inner chamber of the Yaksha's (Manibhadra) temple." In the morning the man was punished by the King; the country in which this occurred is not stated, but it was far from Tamralipta. When a merchant and a woman were so imprisoned, the merchant's wife, hearing of it, went at night with offerings, and was permitted to enter. She changed clothes with the woman, and sent her out; and in the morning, as the woman in the temple was found to be the merchant's own wife, the King dismissed the case, and freed the merchant "as it were from the mouth of death." Thus the usual punishment appears to have been death, as in the Sinhalese tale. NO. 254 MATALANA In a certain country there was a man called Matalana, it is said. This man was the son of the concubine of the King of that country, it is said. That Matalana from infancy was getting his living by committing robbery. Having been committing robbery in this manner, and having arrived at the age of a young man, Matalana having spoken to his mother, asked, "Mother, who is our father?" Thereupon his mother says to him, "Son, thou art not a so-so (ese-mese) person. The King of this country is thy father." When his mother said thus, having said, "It is good. If so, I will do a good work," he began to steal things belonging to the King. During the time while he is thus committing robbery, the King in various ways having fixed guards, endeavoured to catch the thief, but he was unable to seize him. Matalana getting to know that guard has been very carefully placed at the royal house, without going for robbery to the royal house began to steal the goods belonging to the King that are outside. Thereupon the King, having thought that somehow or other having caught the thief he must put him in the stocks, and having made the guards stop everywhere, caused a carpenter to be brought and said, "Having seized the thief who steals the things that are the King's property, to make him fast in the stocks make a pair of stocks in a thorough manner. Regarding it, ask for and take the whole of the requisite things from the royal house." When the King ordered it, the carpenter, taking all the things suitable for it and having gone, made the stocks. On the day on which they were finished, Matalana, having arrived at the carpenter's house, and having been talking very well [with him], asks the carpenter, "Friend, what is this you are making?" Thereupon the carpenter says, "Why, friend, don't you know? These are indeed the stocks I am making for the purpose of putting in the stocks the thief who steals the goods belonging to the King," he said. When Matalana asked, "Ane! How do you put the thief in the stocks in this," the carpenter having put his two legs in the two holes of the stocks, to show him the method of putting him in the stocks at the time while he is making them, Matalana, having [thus] put the carpenter in the stocks, taking the key in his hand [after locking them], struck the carpenter seven or eight blows, and said, "[After] opening a hard trap remain sitting in it your own self, master," and saying a four line verse also, [279] went away. On the following day, when the King came to look at the stocks he saw that the carpenter has been put in the stocks. When he asked, "What is this?" he ascertained that the thief named Matalana, who is stealing the goods belonging to the King, had come, and having put the carpenter in the stocks and struck him blows went away. Thereupon the King having said, "It is good, the way the thief was put in the stocks!" dismissed the carpenter and went away. After that, Matalana having gone stealing the King's own clothes that were given for washing at the washerman's house, at night descended to the King's pool, and began to wash them very hard. The washerman, ascertaining that circumstance, gave information to the King. Thereupon the King, having mounted upon the back of a horse and the army also surrounding him, went near the pool to seize Matalana. Matalana getting to know that the King is coming, the army surrounding him, came to the bank at one side of the pool, carrying a cooking pot that he himself had taken, and having launched [it bottom upwards] and sent it [into the pool], began to cry out, "Your Majesty, look there! The thief sank under the water; [that is his head]. We will descend into the pool from this side; Your Majesty will please look out from that side." While he was making the uproar, the foolish King, having unfastened [and thrown down] his clothes, descended into the pool. Then Matalana [quickly came round in the dark, and] putting on the King's clothes, and having mounted upon the back of the horse, says, "Look there, Bola, the thief! It is indeed he." When he said, "Seize ye him," the royal soldiers having seized the King, who had unloosed [and thrown off] his clothes, tied him even while he was saying, "I am the King." Having tied the King to the leg of the horse on which Matalana had mounted, and, employing the King's retinue, having caused them to thrash him, Matalana, in the very manner in which he was [before], having unloosed [and thrown off] the clothes [of the King], bounded off and went away. After that, the retinue who came with the King having gone taking the [supposed] thief to the royal house, when they were looking perceiving that instead of the thief they had gone tying the King, were in fear of death. The King, not becoming angry at it, consoled his servants; and having been exceedingly angry regarding the deed done by Matalana, and having thought by what method he must seize Matalana, made them send the notification tom-tom everywhere. After that, Matalana, again arranging a stratagem to steal clothes from the washerman, and preparing a very tasty sort of cakes, hung the cakes on the trees in the jungle, in the district where the washerman washes. Matalana, taking in his hand two or three cakes and having gone eating and eating one, asked the washerman for a little water. Thereupon the washerman asked Matalana, "What is that you are eating?" "Why, friend, haven't you eaten the Kaeppitiya [280] cakes that are on the trees near this, where you wash?" he asked. Thereupon the washerman says, "Ane! Friend, although I washed so many days I have not eaten cakes of trees of the style you mention that are in this district," he said. "If so, please eat one from these, to look [what they are like]." When he gave it to the washerman, the washerman having eaten the cake and having found much flavour in it, [281] says, "Ane! Oyi! Until the time when I have gone [there] and come [after] plucking a few of these cakes, you please remain here." When he said it, having said, "It is good. Because of the heat of the sun I will stay beneath this tree," Matalana, having sent the washerman to pluck the Kaeppitiya cakes and return, [after] tying in a bundle as many of the King's clothes as there were, went away [with them]. When the washerman comes [after] plucking the cakes, either the clothes or the man he had set for their protection, not being visible, he went speedily and gave information to the King. The King having become more angry than he was before, again employed the notification tom-tom [to proclaim] that to a person who, having seized, gives him this Matalana who steals the things belonging to the King, he will give goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load, and a share from the kingdom. Matalana, ascertaining that he sent the notification tom-tom, having stayed on the path and made the notification tom-tom halt, promised: "I know Matalana. Within still three months I will seize and give that Matalana while in a courtesan's house." The notification tom-tom beater, accepting this word, went, and when he gave information to the King, the King, because of the anger there was [in him] with this thief, having become much pleased told him to summon the man to come. Thereupon, after Matalana came to the royal house, when he asked, "In about how many days can you seize and give Matalana?" he said, "In about three months I can." After that, Matalana having been like a friend of the King until three months are coming to an end, one day, at the time when the King is going to the courtesan's house, he said to the King's Ministers and servants, "To-day I saw the place where the Matalan-thief is. In order to seize him [be pleased] to come." Summoning in the night time the whole royal retinue, and having gone and surrounded the house of the courtesan, and said [the King] was Matalana, there and then also they seized the King. When they seized him in this way, the King through shame remained without speaking. After that, seizing the King and having gone, and having very thoroughly struck him blows, and put him in prison, and kept [him there], in the morning when they looked, just as before they saw that the King had been seized, and struck blows, and put in the stocks. After all these things, Matalana, having again broken into the King's house, stealing a great quantity of goods, reached an outside district, and dwelt there. Western Province. This story is partly a variant of No. 92 in vol. ii. NO. 255 THE FIVE LIES QUITE LIKE TRUTH [282] A certain King sent for his Minister and informed him that if he could not tell him next morning five lies so closely resembling the truth that he would believe them, he should be beheaded. The Minister went home with a sorrowful heart; he refused to eat or drink, and threw himself on his bed. His wife came and inquired the reason for such behaviour. "What has a dying man to do with eating and drinking?" he replied, "to-morrow morning I must die;" and then he told her what the King had said. His wife answered, "Don't be afraid; I will tell you what to say to the King;" and she persuaded him to take his food as usual. She then related to him this story:--In a certain country there were four friends, a carpenter, a goldsmith, an areka-nut seller, and a dried-fish seller. The three latter persons decided to go and trade, and for that purpose they requested the carpenter to build them a ship. The carpenter did so; and understanding that large profits were to be made in other countries, he also decided to join them. The four men then wished to engage a servant to cook for them on board the ship, but they had considerable difficulty in finding one. At last they met with a youth who lived with an old woman named Hokki, who had adopted him as her son. The youth was willing to go, and as there was no one at home to take charge of the old woman after he left, it was settled that she should accompany them. Then they all sailed away, the goldsmith taking a number of hair-pins (konda-kuru) for sale, and the other traders taking areka-nuts (puwak) and sun-dried fish (karawala). After going some distance the ship ran on a rock and was totally wrecked, and all the party were drowned. In his next life the carpenter became a Barbet, which bores holes in trees, looking for a good tree with which to build a ship. The goldsmith became a Mosquito, which always comes to the ears and asks for the hair-pins (kuru-kuru) that he lost. The dried-fish seller became a Darter, and constantly searches for his dried-fish in the water. The areka-nut seller became a Water-hen (Gallinula phoenicura), and every morning calls out, "Areka-nuts [amounting] to a ship [-load], areka-nuts!" (a good imitation of the cry of the bird, Kapparakata puwak', puwak'). And the cook became a Jackal, who still always cries for his mother, "Seek for Hokki, seek" (Hokki hoya, hoya, the beginning of the Jackal's howl). Next morning the Minister told the story to the King, who fully believed the whole of it. The Minister then explained that it was pure fiction, whereupon the King instead of cutting off his head gave him presents of great value. Matara, Southern Province. I met with a story of this kind among the Mandinko of the Gambia, in West Africa, and as it is unpublished I give it here. It was related in the Mandinka language, and translated by the clerk on the Government river steamer, the Mansa Kilah. NO. 256 THE THREE TRUTHS One day a Hyæna met a Goat by the way. He tells the Goat, "Before you move from this place you tell me three words which shall all be true, or I eat you." The Goat said, "You met me in this place. If you return, [and if] you reach the other Hyænas and tell them, 'I have met a Goat by the way, but I did not kill him,' they will say, 'You are telling a lie.'" The Hyæna said, "It is true." The Goat said, "If I get out here myself, if I reach the other Goats at home, and I tell them, 'I met a Hyæna by the way, but he did not kill me,' they will say, 'You are telling a lie.'" The Hyæna said, "It is true." He said to him, "The third one is:--If you see us two talking about this matter you are not hungry." Then the Hyæna said, "Pass, and go your way. I am not hungry; if I were hungry we should not be here talking about it." McCarthy Island, Gambia. NO. 257 THE FALSE TALE At a certain city there was a poor family, it is said. In that family there were only a man called Hendrik, a female called Lusihami, and a boy called Podi-Appu. There was a brother younger than Hendrik, it is said. That person's name was Juwan-Appu. At the time when the two brothers were getting a living in one house, they having quarrelled, Juwan-Appu in the day time went away into the country. While the afore-said three persons are getting a living in that way, Podi-Appu's father died. The boy was very young. While Lusihami was doing work for hire, her boy got to be a little big. At that time the boy is a boy of the size for walking about and playing. One day, when the boy went to another house he saw that the children are playing. Having thought, "This boy must go for those games," he went there. From that day the boy goes for those games daily. In another city there is a soothsayer. The soothsayer is a very good clever person for bringing hidden treasures, it is said, the city in which the soothsayer stayed not being included in this talk. When he was going looking in the manner of his sooth, it appeared to him that there is an outside city at which is a very great hidden treasure. For taking the hidden treasure it appeared, according to his sooth, that he must give a human demon offering (nara billak). When he looked who is the man for the human demon offering, it appeared, according to the sooth, that he must give for the demon offering Podi-Appu, being the son of the aforesaid Lusihami. The soothsayer set off to seek this boy. What did he bring? Plantains, biscuits, lozenges (losinjar); in that manner he brought things that gladden the mind of the child. Having come to the district in which is the boy, walking to the places where children are playing, when walking in that district while dwelling there, one day having gone to the place where Podi-Appu and the like are playing he stayed looking on. Meanwhile, according to the soothsayer's thought, he had in mind that Podi-Appu was good [for his purpose]. Next, the soothsayer having gone to one side, taking his medicine wallet, when he turned over and looked at the book there was mentioned that it was Podi-Appu [who should be offered]. Afterwards calling the boy near him he gave him sorts of food. Meanwhile the boy's mind was delighted. Next, he gave him a little money. To the boy said the soothsayer, "Your father is lost, is it not so?" he asked; "that is I," the soothsayer said. The soothsayer by some device or other ascertained that the person's father [283] had left the country and gone. Afterwards the boy, he having told that tale, went home and informed his mother. And the mother said, "Ane! Son, that your father indeed was [here] is true. For this difficult time for us, if that livelihood-bringing excellent person were here how good it would be! You go, and calling that very one return." Afterwards the boy having gone, came home with the soothsayer. While both are spending the days with much happiness, one day in the morning he said, "Son, let us go on a journey, and having gone, come; let us go," he said. [The boy] having said, "It is good," with the little boy the soothsayer went away. Well then, the boy goes and goes. Both his legs ache. The boy says, "Father, I indeed cannot go; carry me," he said. Having said, "It is a little more; come, son," while on the road in that way the boy, being [almost] unable to go, weeping and weeping went near the hidden treasure. The soothsayer, having offered there things suitable to offer, began to repeat spells. Then the door of the hidden treasure was opened; the path was [there]. He said to the boy, "Son, having descended into this, when you are going along it, in the chamber a standard lamp [284] is burning. Without rubbing that kettle (the round body of the lamp) with your body, having removed the lamp and immediately for the light to go out having tilted it from the top, come back bringing the lamp." Having said [this], he caused the boy to descend inside the hidden treasure [chamber]. The boy having descended, when he looked about the boy had not the mind to come from it. He says, "It will be exactly a heavenly world. I will mention an abridgement of the things that are in it: golden king-coconuts, golden oranges, golden pine-apples, golden mandarin-oranges." Having told him in that manner, "I cannot make an end of them, indeed," he said. The boy, plucking a great many of them and having gone into the chamber as the soothsayer said, placing the lamp on his shoulder came away near the door. The soothsayer says, "First give me the lamp, in order to get you to the surface." The boy says, "I cannot in that way; first take me out," he says. In that manner there is a struggle of the two persons there. At the time when they are going on struggling in that way, anger having come to the soothsayer he moved the door, for it to shut. Then the boy having got into the middle of [the doorway] the door shut. The soothsayer went away. While the boy quite alone is wriggling and wriggling about there, in some way or other again, as it was at first the door of the hidden treasure opened. The boy placing the lamp on his shoulder and having become very tired, [carried away and] put the lamp and book in his house; and because of too much weariness fell down and went to sleep. The soothsayer went to his village. Western Province. This appears to be the first part of the story of Ala-addin, transformed into a Sinhalese folk-tale; but the variant quoted below shows that the general idea is of much older date and of Indian origin. A variant from the Uva Province is nearly the same, and also ends with the boy's return home. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 558, an ascetic induced a King to join him in obtaining a magical sword. Accompanied by the King, the ascetic went at night, and in the King's words, "having by means of a burnt-offering and other rites discovered an opening in the earth, the ascetic said to me, 'Hero, enter thou first, and after thou hast obtained the sword, come out, and cause me also to enter; make a compact with me to do this.'" The King entered, found a palace of jewels, and "the chief of the Asura maidens who dwelt there" gave him a sword, the possession of which conferred the power of flying through the air and bestowed "all magical faculties." The ascetic took it from him afterwards, but the King at last recovered it. NO. 258 THE STORY OF KOTA In a certain country there were two brothers, it is said. Of these two the elder one got married. The younger brother had a secret friendship with his elder brother's wife. One day, the elder brother having succeeded in ascertaining about this, and having gone summoning the younger brother into the midst of the forest, cut off his two hands and his two feet. Then the younger brother says, "Elder brother, you having cut off my hands and feet gave me the punishment that is to be inflicted. Please stop even now," he said. Thereupon the elder brother, having placed this Kota [285] without hands and feet in a boat and launched it in the river, sent him away. Prior to launching and sending him off, because he told him to bring and give him a Bana [286] book that was at the younger brother's house, he brought the book and having placed it on Kota's breast sent him away. Well then, this boat with Kota also, going drifting by the margin of the river, two old women having been [there], one said, "That boat which comes drifting is for me." The other woman said, "Should there be anything whatever inside the boat it is for me." Well then, when the boat drifted ashore, out of these two women one took the boat, one having taken Kota gave him to eat. During the time when he is thus, having heard that they were beating a notification tom-tom on the road [to proclaim] that to a person who having seized gave him the thieves who are stealing flowers in the King's flower garden, [the King] will give goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load, Kota caused this notice tom-tom to stop, having said, "I can." Causing them to build a little house in the flower garden, and he himself having told men, they lifted him up and went [with him there]; and lying down inside the little house, on the loft, in a very sweet voice he began to read his Bana book. At the time when he is saying Bana in this way, at night seven Princesses having come to pluck flowers, and having heard the sweet sound of Kota's saying Bana, went near the house and told him to open the door. Then, because in order to arise he had not two feet nor also two hands, when Kota said that he was unable to open the door, one person out of these Princesses having put on a ring able to display extreme power which she had, caused Kota's hands and feet to be created [afresh]. Then Kota having opened the door said Bana for the Princesses. The Princesses having heard the Bana, when they were going the youngest Princess on whose hand was the ring went after the whole. Then Kota having seized the hand of the Princess who went after, and drawn her into the house, shut the door. After it became light, having gone taking the Princess, and having given charge of her to the old woman who took charge of Kota, Kota went to the royal house to say that he caught the thief who plucks the flowers. When going there, Kota went [after] putting on the Princess's ring of power, [287] having given part of [the Princess's] clothes to the old woman. Kota having gone, told the King that he caught the thief. He told him to come with the thief. When Kota came home to bring the thief, he saw that having cheated the old woman, the Princess [after] asking for [and getting] her clothes had gone, and had concealed herself; and Kota's mind having become disheartened, he went away out of that country. While thus travelling, having seen six Princesses taking water from a pool that was in the middle of the forest, when Kota went near them he recognised that they were the Princesses who went to steal the flowers; and having seen that the Princess whom he seized was not there, for the purpose of obtaining the Princess he invented a false story in order to go to the place where they are staying. That is, this one, having asked the Princesses for a little water to drink, and having drunk, put into one's water jar the ring of power that was on his hand, and having allowed them to go, he went behind. When these six royal Princesses went to the palace of their father the King, Kota also went. Then when the royal servants asked Kota, "Why have you come to the royal house without permission?" he said that the Princesses had stolen his priceless ring. He came in order to tell the King, and ask for and take the ring, he said. "The ring will be in one of the Princesses' water jars," he said. But the whole seven Princesses, ascertaining that it was the ring of the youngest Princess of them, gave information accordingly to the King. Thereupon the King having much warned Kota, told him to give information of the circumstances under which he had come, without concealing them. Then Kota in order to obtain the youngest Princess told him how he came. Having said, "If you are a clever person able to perform and give the works I tell you, I will give [you] the Princess in marriage," the King ordered Kota to plough and give in a little time a yam enclosure of hundreds of acres. This Kota, while going quickly from the old woman after having left the country, obtaining for money a pingo (carrying-stick) load of young pigs that [a man] was taking to kill, for the sake of religious merit sent them off to go into the jungle. When any necessity [for them] reached Kota, when he remembered the young pigs they promised to come and be of assistance to him. Again, when going, having seen that [men] are carrying a flock of doves to sell, and a collection of fire-flies, taking them for money, for the sake of religious merit [he released them, and] they went away. These doves and fire-flies promised to be of assistance to Kota. Because he had done these things in this manner, when [the King] told Kota to dig and give the yams he remembered about the young pigs. Then the young pigs having come, dug and gave all the yam enclosure. Well then Kota having [thus] dug and given the yams, pleased the King. Again, the King having sown a number of bushels of mustard [seed] in a chena, told him to collect the whole of it and give it to the King. Thereupon, when Kota remembered about the doves, all of them having come and collected the whole of the mustard seeds with their bills, gave him them. Having gone to the King and given that also, he pleased the King. At the last, the King having put all his seven daughters in a dark room, told him to take the youngest Princess by the hand among them, and come out into the light. Thereupon, when Kota remembered the fire-flies, the whole of them having come, when they began to light up the chamber, Kota, recognising the youngest Princess and taking her by the hand, came into the light. After that, the King gave the Princess in marriage to Kota. They two lived happily. Western Province. Regarding the ring in the jar of water, and the tasks to be performed before the Princess could be married, see vol. i, p. 294. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 142, a Brahmana who wished to let his wife, a Vidyadhari who had taken refuge on Udaya, the Dawn Mountain, know of his arrival, dropped a jewelled ring into a water pitcher when one of the attendants who had come for water in which to bathe her, asked him to lift it up to her shoulder. When the water was poured over his wife she saw and recognised the ring, and sent for him. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 71, Prince Sudhana, who had made his way to the city of the Kinnara King in search of his wife, the Kinnari Manohara, met with some Kinnara females drawing water for pouring over Manohara, to purify her after her residence with him. He placed her finger-ring in one pot, and requested that it might be the first to be emptied over her. When the ring fell down she recognised it and sent for him, introduced him to her father the King, and after he performed three tasks was formally married to him. The third task was the identification of Manohara among a thousand Kinnaris. In this she assisted him by stepping forward at his request. The incident of the ring sent in the water that was taken for a Princess's bath, also occurs in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 302. She recognised it, and sent for her husband who had thus notified his arrival in search of her. THE FLOWER-GARDEN STORY (Variant) In a certain country there are a King and a Queen, it is said. While the two persons were acquiring merit for themselves a son was born. The child having become big, while he was increasing in size [the Queen] again bore one. They sent the second Prince to a pansala (residence of a Buddhist monk) to learn letters. When he was at the pansala the two eyes of his father the King having been injured (antara-wela) became blind. The Queen's two eyes also became blind. Owing to it the big Prince told the younger brother to come. After he came he said, "Younger brother (Male), the trouble that has struck us! Do you night and day say Bana." [288] So the younger brother night and day says Bana. He called to the elder brother, "Elder brother, come here." The elder brother asked, "What?" "For us three persons you are unable to provide hospitality; you bring a wife (hirayak)," the younger brother said. The elder brother said, "For my ear even to hear that don't mention it to me." After that, the younger brother again called the elder brother near. "For us three persons you are unable to provide hospitality; you bring a [bride in] marriage." The elder brother on this occasion (gamane) said "Ha." When he said it, having gone to another city he asked a [bride in] marriage [289]; having asked he came back. Having gone again he returned, summoning her. After that, for the four persons the Prince is providing hospitality. One day (dawasakda) he having gone to chop the earthen ridges in the rice field, the Prince's Princess was pounding paddy in order to [convert it into rice and] cook. To winnow it she leaned the pestle against the wall; it having fallen upon a waterpot the waterpot broke. When, having seen it, the Princess was weeping and weeping, the Prince (her husband) came from the rice field. "What are you crying for?" he asked. "Here! (Men), I am crying at the manner you, husband, [290] behaved," the Princess said. Afterwards the Princess said, "Go and conduct me to my village." When the Prince said, "What shall I go and escort you for? Cook thou," he called to the younger brother, "Younger brother, come here." [291] The younger brother having come, asked, "What?" "While she is cooking for us let us go to cut a stick," the elder brother said. Afterwards the two persons having gone to the chena jungle cut the stick. After having cut it [292] the elder brother said, "You lie down [293] [for me] to cut the stick to your length." When he was lying down the elder brother cut off his two feet and two hands. He having cut them, when he was coming away the younger brother said, "If you are going, pick up my book and place it upon my breast." After having placed it, the elder brother went away [294]; the younger brother remained saying and saying Bana. After the elder brother went, seven widow women having gone to break firewood and having heard that he was saying Bana, the seven persons came to the place and saw the Prince. "A Yaka or a human being (manuswayekda)?" they asked. The Prince asked, "Does a Yaka or a human being ask? The Bana a human being indeed is saying," he said. "And human beings indeed ask," the widow women said. Well, having said thus they came to hear the Bana. While hearing it, a woman having said, "Ade! We having been here, the gill of rice will be spoilt [295]; let us go to break firewood," six persons went away. The other woman saying, "I [am] to go home carrying (lit., lifting) Kota," and having stayed, lifting him and having gone and placed him [there], and cooked rice, and given him to eat, while he was [there] he heard the notification by beat of tom-toms:--"At the King's garden thieves are plucking the flowers." On seeing that widow, Kota said, "I can catch the thieves; you go to the King and tell him." Then the woman having gone to the place where the King is, the King asked, "What have you come for?" Well then, the woman said, "There is a Kota (Short One) with (lit., near) me; that one can catch the thieves, he says." The King [asked], "What does he require [296] for it?" Afterwards she said, "You must build a house." Then the King having built a house in the flower garden, having taken Kota the woman placed him in the house. In the evening having placed [him there], and lit the lamp, and placed the book, she came to her house. Well then, when Kota is saying Bana, five Naga Maidens [297] having come to pluck the flowers hear the Bana. Until the very time when light falls they heard the Bana. When the light was falling the five Naga Maidens said, "We [are] to go; we must give him powers (waram)." That Kota said, "Who said she will give power to me?" Then out of the five persons one said, "I will give powers for one hand to be created"; well then, for one hand to be created the Naga Maiden gave powers. [For] the other hand to be created another Naga Maiden gave powers. Also [for] the two feet to be created other two gave powers. The other Naga Maiden's robes (salu) Kota hid himself. Those four persons were conducted away [298]; one person stayed in that house (that is, the one whose clothes he had concealed). After that, the King came to look at the flower garden. Having come, when he looked [299] the flowers [were] not plucked. Having become pleased at that he gave Kota charge of the garden, to look after it, and he gave a thousand masuran, also goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load, a district from the kingdom. That Kota handed over the district to the widow woman; those goods [300] [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load he gave to the woman. Having split his thigh he put those masuran inside it. Tom-tom Beater, North-western Province. In the Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 87, a Prince, by the advice of an old woman for whom he worked, carried off the robe of Indra's daughter when she came to bathe in a pool. He handed it to the old woman, who in order to conceal it tore open his thigh, placed the robe in the cavity, and stitched up the wound. NO. 259 THE STORY OF SOKKA In a certain country there was a man called Sokka, it is said. For the purpose of this man's living, catching a monkey (Wandura) and having made it dance, he began to get money. [After] getting money in that way, when Sokka, drinking arrack (palm spirit) very well, is walking to that and this hand, the monkey sprang off and went away. After that, Sokka, having by means of the money which remained again drunk arrack very well and become drunk, fell into the ditch. Thereupon many flies began to settle on this man's body. This Sokka having become angry at it, when he struck at the flies with both hands a great many flies fell dead. In a little time his intoxication having evaporated his sense came. Thorough sense having come in that manner, when he looked round about he saw near him the quantity (rasiya) of flies that had died. While he was there, thinking, "Æyi, Bola, at one blow with my hand they were deprived of life to this extent; isn't it so?" a very foolish man who dwelt in that village came to go near this Sokka. The man having seen Sokka asked, "Friend, what are you doing?" Thereupon Sokka says, "Ade! What art thou saying? I being a person who has now killed ten or fifteen, thou art not enough even to put on my bathing-cloth for me." [301] This foolish man having become frightened by the very extent [of the deaths] that he heard of in this word of Sokka's, began to run off. As he was running he met with yet a man who is going on the road; he asks at the hand of this foolish man, "What, friend, are you running for?" Then this fool says, "Friend, a man who killed ten or fifteen men tried to kill me. Because of it I am running through fear," he said. At that time that man also, through the extent [of the deaths] that he heard of in that speech having become afraid, began to run off. As these two persons were running they said thus to the men going on the road, that is, "On the road there is a great murderer. Don't any one go." After that, having [thus] made Sokka a great furious one, it became public. The King of the city also got to know of it. Well then, the King having caused this Sokka to be brought, [said], "You are a dexterous swordsman and a dexterous fighter, they say. Is it true?" Then Sokka says, "O King, Your Majesty, when I have struck with one hand of mine, should there be ten or fifteen staying on that side the men fall dead." Thereupon the King asks Sokka, "If you are a dexterous man to that degree, will you come to fight with the first dexterous fighter of my war army?" Sokka says, "When ten or fifteen are dying by one hand of mine, what occupation is there [for me] with one! I am now ready for it." The King says, "When for three days time is going by, on the third day you having fought in the midst of a great assembly, the person out of the two who conquers I will establish in the post of Chief of the Army (Sena-Nayaka)." Sokka was pleased at it. The King having put these two persons into two rooms, placed guards. While they were thus, Sokka having spoken to the dexterous fighter, says, "You having come for the fight with me will not escape. To this and this degree I am a dexterous one at fighting. Fight in the midst of the assembly, and don't be shy." The dexterous fighter having become frightened at Sokka's word, got out of the chamber by some means or other, and not staying in the city, bounded off and went away. [302] When the third day arrived, the whole of the forces dwelling in the city assembled together to look at the fight of these two persons. Thereupon, only Sokka arrived there. Then when Sokka became more and more famous the King was favouring him. During the time while he is thus, a war arrived for the King. The King says to Sokka, "We must do battle with a war army of this extent. Because of it, having gone together with my war army can you defeat the enemies?" [303] Sokka says, "I don't want Your Honour's army. Having gone quite alone I can defeat them." Thereupon the King said, "What do you require?" Sokka, asking for a very rapidly running horse and a very sharp-edged sword, mounted upon the back of the horse, and having bounded into the middle of the hostile army who were building the enemy's encampment, driving on the horse to the extent possible, he began to cut on that and this hand (e me ata). Sokka having cut down as many as possible, stringing a head, also, on his very sword, came to the royal palace. Thereupon, the forces (pirisa) who were building the encampment, thought, "If so much damage came from one man, how much will there be from the other forces!" Having thought [this], they bounded off and ran away. Then the King having been pleased, married and gave his daughter, also, to Sokka, and gave him much wealth also. During the time while Sokka is dwelling in this manner at the royal house, Sokka thought to drink arrack, [after] going and taking the ornaments that his wife is wearing. Having thought it, as though he had an illness he remained lying on a bed, not eating, not drinking. [304] Thereupon his wife having approached near him asked the cause of the illness. At that time Sokka asks, "Dost thou think that I have obtained thee (ti) without doing anything (nikan)? To obtain thee I undertook a great charge. The charge is that thou and I (tit mat) having gone to such and such a mountain must offer gifts." Thereupon the Princess says, "Don't be troubled. To-morrow we two persons having gone [there], let us fulfil the charge," she said. Sokka having become pleased at it, on the following day, with a great retinue also, they went to fulfil the charge. Having gone in this manner, and caused the whole of the retinue to halt on the road, these two persons went to the top of the mountain. Sokka thereupon says, "I have come here now for the purpose of killing thee, so that, having killed thee, taking thy ornaments I may drink arrack." Then the Princess asked, "If I and the ornaments belong to Your Honour, [305] for what purpose will you kill me?" At that time Sokka said, "[Even] should that be so, I must kill thee." The Princess thereupon says, "If Your Honour kill me now, fault will occur to you at my hand; because of it please bear with me until the time when you forgive me," she said. Having said thus while remaining in front of him, and having knelt, she made obeisance. Then having gone behind his back, and exhibited the manner of making obeisance, she seized his neck, and having pushed him threw Sokka from the mountain, down the precipice. Sokka having become scattered into dust, died. After that, the Princess turned back with her retinue, and went to the royal palace. Western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 176, the foolish Adikar (Minister) mentioned in the first note after the folk-tale numbered 229, was sent (on account of his destruction of the lion) at the head of an army, against an enemy who had defeated the best generals. His horse bolted and carried him towards the enemy's troops, who ran off when they observed his approach. He then rejoined and brought up his men, captured the contents of the camp, returned to the King with it, was handsomely rewarded, and retained the royal favour until his death. In The Jataka, No. 193 (vol. ii, p. 82), a woman in order to kill her husband pretended that she had taken a vow to make an offering to a hill spirit, and said, "Now this spirit haunts me; and I desire to pay my offering." They climbed up to the hill-top, taking the offering. She then declared that her husband being her chief deity she would first walk reverently round him, saluting him and offering flowers, and afterwards make the offering to the mountain spirit. She placed her husband facing a precipice, and when she was behind him pushed him over it. In No. 419 (vol. iii, p. 261), it was a robber who took his wealthy wife who had saved his life, to a mountain top, on the pretence of making an offering to a tree deity. They went with a great retinue, whom he left at the foot of the hill. When they arrived at the precipice at the summit, he informed her that he had brought her in order to kill her, so as to run off with her valuable jewellery. She said she must first make obeisance to him on all four sides, and when she was behind him threw him down the precipice, after which she returned home with her retinue. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 209, a potter who had caught a tiger, and had consequently been appointed Commander-in-Chief, made his wife tie him firmly on his horse when he was ordered to defeat an enemy's troops. His horse bolted towards the enemy. In the hope of checking it, he seized a small tree which came up by the roots, and holding this he galloped forward, frightening the opposing force so much that they all ran away, abandoning their camp and its contents. Peace was made, and he received great honours. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 210, the same story is given, the hero being a weaver. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 181, a poor weaver who had asked to marry the daughter of the King of India, was sent to attack an enemy who was invading the kingdom. His troops refused to fight under him, so he went on alone. His horse bolted towards the enemy, he seized a young tree which was pulled up by the roots and with which he knocked down several of the opposing troops. The rest fled, throwing away their arms and armour, and he loaded a horse with it and returned to the King in triumph. Afterwards he killed by accident a great fox and seven demons, became the King's son-in-law, and ruled half the kingdom. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xiv, p. 109, in a South Indian story by Natesa Sastri, a man who had accidentally saved a Princess whom some robbers were abducting, was sent to attack the enemy's troops who had invaded the kingdom. The horse given to him was wild, so he was tied on it. It galloped towards the enemy, swam across a river at which he seized a palmira tree that was about to fall, and the enemy, seeing him approaching with it, ran away. This version is also given in The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 102 ff., by Miss A. R. Corea. According to this Sinhalese tale the man succeeded to the throne at the death of the King, having previously been made Commander-in-Chief. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 50, a woman who wished to kill her husband pretended to have a headache, for which it was necessary to offer prayers on a mountain to a local deity. She accompanied her husband to a precipice, made him stand facing the sun, went round him several times, and then pushed him over. He was saved by falling into a tree. In vol. i, p. 112, a woman who had fallen in love with a cripple determined to kill her husband, who had saved her life. On the pretence of assisting him to collect fruits she accompanied him up a mountain and seized an opportunity to push him over a precipice. He was saved by a local deity. In vol. ii, p. 140, there is an account of the weaver who frightened the enemy's troops when those of his own side were being defeated; these returned and gained a complete victory. The man was made Minister, with rank next the King. NO. 260 THE GIANT AND HIS TWO FRIENDS In a certain country a Prince was born to a King, it is said. For the purpose of giving milk to the Prince he caused a wet-nurse [306] to be brought. Because the nurse's milk was insufficient for the Prince, he caused yet [another] person to be brought. That also being insufficient he caused yet [another] person to be brought. In that manner having caused seven wet-nurses to be brought, the whole seven gave milk to the Prince. That milk also being insufficient, for the day he gave him also the cooked rice from a quarter [bushel] of rice, and a quarter of a goat, to eat. Having eaten this food, during the time when the Prince became somewhat big [so as] to walk here and there, he gave him the cooked rice from a half bushel of rice and the meat of a goat, to eat. Until the time when ten years were completed for the Prince he gave food thus. At that time the Prince began to jump that side and this side in the river. That circumstance was published in all cities. During the time when it was thus published, the people of the cities were collected together to look at this Prince. Thereupon, when the Prince was jumping to that bank of the river, while in the midst of the great multitude he fell into water of about two fathoms. Thereupon the Prince, having swum with great shame and having gone to the bank, again jumped to this bank. That time he fell into water of about three fathoms. At that time the Prince becoming very highly ashamed, not speaking at all, went to the royal house, and having been adorned with the five weapons, [307] entered the midst of the forest and went away. While going thus a little far he met with an old mother. Thereupon this Prince speaks to the old woman, "Ane! Mother, I am very hungry. Prepare and give me a little cooked rice to eat," he said. When he said so, the old woman, calling the Prince and having gone to her house, and given [him] a sort of vegetable stew to eat, says, "Ane! Son, to cook and give boiled rice I cannot get water. The crocodile in the river has fallen mad. I cannot go also into the midst of the forest to get firewood, the leopard having fallen mad. Should you bring and give firewood and water I can cook and give cooked rice," she said. Thereupon the Prince having said, "It is good," and taken his sword, and gone into the midst of the forest, when [he was] breaking firewood the leopard came and sprang [at him]. After that, the Prince having chopped with the sword and killed the leopard, cutting off his tongue and breaking as much firewood as he can bring, brought it and threw it down at the old woman's house. Thereafter, having taken his sword and the water-pot, at the time when he is going near the river the crocodile came springing [at him]. Thereupon, having chopped it with the sword, he cut the crocodile into four or five [pieces], cutting off its tongue also; and having come back [after] taking also a pot of water he gave it to the old woman; and having told her to make ready and give the food, because of pain in the body of the Prince, as soon as he had reclined a little he went to sleep. While he was there for a little time, the old woman having seen that a man is lifting up the leopard which the Prince killed, and going away [with it], having spoken to the Prince, says, "Son, a man, killing the leopard which had fallen mad is taking it to the royal house. The King had appointed that to a person who, having killed, gave the leopard and the crocodile, he will give much wealth. The King having given much wealth to the man, at the time when you went into the midst of the forest didn't you meet with the leopard?" Having said it, she told him the whole of these matters. After that, the Prince, not speaking at all, went to the royal house behind the man who is lifting and going with the leopard. The man having gone to the royal house, and made obeisance to the King, [and shown him the leopard], said, "O King, in the midst of the forest I killed the leopard that had fallen mad. Regarding it, please give me the wealth that Your Honour has appointed." Thereupon the King being much pleased, at the time when he is preparing to give the wealth this Prince went near the King, [and said], "O Great King, I killed this leopard. This man, taking the carcase of the leopard I killed, came to obtain the wealth for himself. If this man killed it be good enough to look where this leopard's tongue is. I have killed not only this leopard. The crocodile, too, that had fallen mad in the river will be [found to be] killed." Having said, "Here, look; the two tongues of those two," he gave them to the King. The King, too, having taken the two tongues and looked at them, believed that he killed the leopard, and having killed the man who told the lies gave much wealth to this Prince. The Prince, bringing the wealth and having given it to the old woman, and been there two or three days, the Prince went to another district. While going thus he met with a dried areka-nut dealer. Thereupon the two persons having become friends, while they were going along they met with an arrow maker. The three persons having joined together, talk together: "Friend, what can you do?" Thereupon the dried areka-nut dealer says, "Having uttered spells over this dried areka-nut of mine, when I have struck it having gone everywhere it comes again into my hand. After that, I can do what I have thought (hitu andamak)," he said. When they asked the arrow maker, he informed them that, in the very way which the dried areka-nut dealer said, with the arrow also he can display power. After that, the Prince says, "The cleverness of you two is from the dried areka-nut and the arrow; my cleverness is from the strength of my body. Should I think of going in the sky further than ye two, having sprung into the sky I go," he said. Thereupon those two persons having made obeisance to the Prince, the whole three went to one district. In that village, at a great wealthy house, an illness due to a demon (yaksa ledak) having been caused in a young woman, they had been unable to cure her. These three persons at that very house got resting-places. These three persons ascertaining this circumstance, the Prince having performed many demon ceremonies and cured the young woman's demon illness, married and gave the young woman to the dried areka-nut dealer; and having planted a lime seedling in the open ground in front of the house, he says, "Some day, should the leaves of this lime tree wither and the fruit drop, ascertaining that an accident has occurred to me, plucking the limes off this tree come very speedily seeking me." Having made him stay there he went away with the arrow maker. When going a little far, anciently a great collection of goods having been at yet [another] house, and it afterwards having reached a state of poverty, the principal person of the family having died, they got resting-places at the house, at which there are only a daughter and a son. At the time when these two asked the two persons of the house, "Is there nobody of your elders?" they told these two the whole of the accidents that had happened to the people. Thereupon the Prince, having spoken to the arrow maker and made him halt there, just as in the former way planted a lime seedling; and in the very manner of the dried areka-nut dealer having given him warning, the Prince went away quite alone. Having gone thus and arrived at a certain village, when he looked about, except that the houses of the village were visible there were no men to be seen. Arriving at a nobleman's house [308] in the village, a house at which there is only one Situ daughter, this Prince got a resting-place. Having given the resting-place, this Situ daughter began to weep. Thereupon this Prince asked, "Because of what circumstance art thou weeping?" Thereupon this Situ daughter says, "My parents and relatives a certain Yaka ate; to-day evening he will eat me too. Through the fear of that death I weep," she said. At that time the Prince says, "Putting (taba) [out of consideration] one Yaka, should a hundred Yakas come I will not give them an opportunity [309] to eat thee. Don't thou be afraid." Having satisfied her mind he asks, "Dost thou know the time when the Yaka comes?" Thereupon the Situ daughter said, "Yes, I know it. When coming, he says three [times], 'Hu, Hu, Hu'; that is, when he is setting off, one Hu, and while near the stile, one Hu, and while near the house, one Hu; he says three Hus." Thereupon the Prince asked, "Are there dried areka-nuts?" Afterwards the Situ daughter said, "There are." "If so, filling a large sack please come [with it]," he said. The Situ daughter having brought a sack of dried areka-nuts gave them. The Prince also having put them down thinly at the doorway, the Prince sitting inside the house and taking his sword also in his hand, waited. Thereupon he said the Hu that he says when setting out. At that time the Situ daughter in fear began to weep. When the Prince is saying and saying to the Situ daughter, "Don't cry," he said "Hu," the other Hu near the stile. In a little time more having come to the open ground in front of the house saying a Hu, when he was springing into the house the Yaka fell on the heap of dried areka-nuts. At that time the Prince with his sword cut the Yaka into four or five [pieces]. [310] Taking in marriage the Situ daughter, while he was dwelling there a long time, to take in marriage the Situ daughter they began to come from many various countries, because the Situ daughter is very beautiful. Out of them, a Prince caused the notification tom-tom to be beaten [to proclaim] that should anyone take and give him the Princess who is at the nobleman's house in such and such a village, he will give him much goods. Thereupon a certain woman having said, "I can obtain and give her," stopped the notification tom-tom, and having gone to the royal house, asking for three months' time went to the village at which that Prince and Princess are, and having become the female servant at that house, remained there. Meanwhile this woman asks the Princess, "Ane! Please tell me by what means your lord displays strength and prowess to this degree," she asked with humility. Thereupon the Princess said, "Don't you tell anyone; our Prince's life is in his sword." That woman from that day began to collect coconut husks and coconut shells. The Princess having seen it asked, "What are you collecting those coconut husks and coconut shells for?" Thereupon the woman said, "Ane! What is this you are asking? For houses, on the days when it rains is there not much advantage in [having] coconut husks?" And the Princess having said, "It is good," did nothing. While she was thus, the three months were passing away. One day, when this Prince and Princess were sleeping, in the night this woman, stealing the sword that was upon the Prince's breast and having put it under those coconut husks and coconut shells that she had previously collected, set fire to the heap. When the sword was becoming red [hot] the Prince became unconscious. Before this, this woman had sent a message to the Prince who caused that notification tom-tom to be beaten, to come with his retinue, taking a ship. That very day at night the retinue came. After that Prince became unconscious, this retinue having taken that Princess by very force, put her in the ship to go to their city. That Prince's two friends having arisen in the morning, and when they looked, having seen that the leaves had faded on the lime trees and the fruits had dropped, plucking the limes off them came seeking the Prince. Having come there, when they looked, except that the Prince is unconscious there is no one to see. Having seen that a bonfire is blazing very fiercely, they quickly poured water in the bonfire and extinguished the fire. When they were looking, the sword having burnt [away] (piccila) a little was left. Having got this piece of sword these two persons took it away. Having cut the limes, when they were rubbing and rubbing them on it, by the influence of the Prince the sword became perfect. At that time the Prince arose in health; and when he is looking perceiving that the Princess is not [there], he went running with those two persons to the port, and saw that at the distance at which it is [just] visible the ship is going. This Prince asked these two, "Can you swim to that ship?" Thereupon these two persons said, "If you, Sir, will swim we also will come." Then the Prince asked, "When you have gone to the ship how many men can you cut down?" The dried areka-nut dealer said, "I can cut until the time when the blood mounts to the height of a knee." The arrow maker also said, "I can cut until the time when the blood mounts to the height of a hip." Thereupon the Prince having said, "If you two will cut until the blood is at the height of a knee, and until the blood is at the height of a hip, I will cut until the blood is at the height of a shoulder," the whole three persons sprang into the river. Having gone swimming and mounted upon the ship, the areka-nut dealer, taking the [Prince's] sword and having cut the dead bodies until the blood is a knee [deep], gave the sword to the arrow maker. The arrow maker taking the sword and having cut dead bodies until the blood is a hip [deep], gave the sword to the Prince. The Prince having cut the men until the blood is shoulder deep, and having cast the dead trunks into the river, causing the ship to turn arrived with the Princess at his village. Having come there, the Prince [and Princess] resided there in health. Those two persons having gone to the cities at which each of them (tamu tamun) stayed, passed the time in health. Western Province. NO. 261 HOW THEY FORMERLY ATE AND DRANK In a certain country there was a very important rich family, it is said. In this family were the two parents and their children, two sons only. In the course of time the people of the family arrived at a very poor condition, it is said. During the time when they are thus, the mother of these two young children having gone near a shipping town, [311] winnowed the rice of the ships and continued to get her living. One day when she was winnowing the rice of a ship, quite unperceived by her the ship went to sea [with her on board]. During the time when he was thus unaware to which hand this woman who was the chief support [312] of the family--or the mother--went, the father one day for some necessary matter having gone together with the two sons to cross to that other bank of the river, tied one son to a tree on the bank on this side and placed him [there]; and having gone with the other one to the bank on that side, and tied the son to a tree there, came to take the other son [across]. While on the return journey in this way, this old man having been caught by a current in the river, and been taken by force to a very distant country, went to a village where they dry salt fish. An old woman having seen the two children who had been tied on the two banks by him, unfastened their bonds (baemi); having heard [from one of them] about their birth and two parents, learning all the circumstances, she employed some person and caused even the child who was on the bank on that [other] side to be brought, and reared both of them. During the time while the father of the two children was getting his living, drying salt fish, the King of that country died. Well then, because there was not a Crown Prince [313] of the King of the country, according to the mode of the custom of that country having decorated the King's festival tusk elephant and placed the crown on its back, they sent it [in search of a new King]. And the tusk elephant having gone walking, and gone in front of that poor man who was drying salt fish, when it bent the knee he mounted on the back of the tusk elephant, and having come to the palace was appointed to the sovereignty. After he was thus exercising the sovereignty a little time, it became necessary for this King to go somewhere to a country, and having mounted on a ship it began to sail away. The two sons who belonged in the former time to this King, who were being reared by the old woman, having become big were stationed for their livelihood as guards on this very ship. Their mother who was lost during the former time, earned a living by winnowing rice on this very ship. Well then, while these very four persons remained unable to get knowledge of each other, during the night time, when the ship is sailing, in order to remove the sleepiness of the two brothers who were on the ship as guards, the younger brother told the elder brother to relate a story. And when the elder brother said, "I do not know how to tell stories," because again and again he was forcing him to relate anything whatever, he said, "I do know indeed how to relate the manner of [our] ancient eating and drinking." "It is good. If so, relate even that," the younger brother said. Thereupon, the elder brother, beginning from the time when their parents were lost, told the story of the manner in which they formerly ate and drank, up to the time when they came for the watching on the ship,--how the two persons, eating and drinking, were getting their living. These two persons' mother, and the King who was their father, both of them, having remained listening to this story from the root to the top, at the last said, "These are our two sons." Having smelt (kissed) each other, all four persons obtaining knowledge of each other after that lived in happiness, enjoying royal greatness. Western Province. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 154, a defeated King who was driven into exile with his wife and two children, engaged a passage by a vessel, but it sailed away with the Queen before the others got on board. She was sold to a merchant whom she agreed to marry if she did not meet with her husband and children in two years. The King, while returning for the other child after crossing a river with one, was carried away by the current, sank, and was swallowed by a fish, and saved by a potter when it died on the bank. He became a potter, and was selected as King by the royal elephant and hawk. A fisherman who had reared the two sons became a favourite, and the boys were kept near the King. When the merchant who bought the Queen came to trade, these youths were sent to guard his goods. At night, on the younger one's asking for a tale his brother said he would relate one out of their own experience, and told him their history, which the Queen overheard, thus ascertaining that they were her sons. By getting the merchant to complain to the King about their conduct she was able to tell him her story, on which he discovered that she was his wife, and all were united. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 183, while a Raja and his wife were travelling in poverty the Queen was shut up by a rich merchant. At a river the Raja was swept away while returning for the child left on the bank, and afterwards selected as King by two state elephants. The children, reared by an old woman, took service under him, were appointed as guards for the merchant's wife (the former Queen) when she was brought to a festival, and were recognised by her. The merchant complained of the guards, and on hearing their story the King discovered that they were his sons and the woman was his wife. In a variant the children were left on one bank of the river, and a fish swallowed their father, the boys being reared by a cow-herd. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iii, p. 366), a ship in which were an indigent Jew and his wife and two sons, was wrecked, one boy being picked up by a vessel, and the others cast ashore in different countries. The father secured buried treasures which a voice disclosed to him on an island, and became King there; the sons, hearing of his generosity, came to him and received appointments, but did not know each other. A merchant who came with their mother was invited to remain at the palace, the youths being sent to guard his goods and their mother at night. While conversing they found they were brothers; their mother, overhearing the story, recognised them, got the merchant to complain of their improper conduct, and on their repeating their history the King found they were his sons. The mother then unveiled herself, and all were united. NO. 262 THE GOURD FRUIT DEVIL-DANCE In a certain country a Gamarala cut a chena, it is said. Having planted a gourd creeper in the chena, on it a gourd fruit fruited. The gourd fruit, when not much time had gone, became very large, and ripened. The Gamarala, being unable to bring it alone, summoned several men of the village, and having given them to eat and gone with the men, and come back [after] plucking the fruit, and cut open the "eye" (at the end of the neck), placed it [for the contents] to rot. After it rotted he [cleaned it out and] dried it, so as to take it for work (use), and put it on a high place (ihalakin). In order to perform a devil-dance (kankariya) for the Gamarala, having given betel for it and told devil-dancers (yakdesso) to come, one day he made ready [for] the devil-dance. Having made ready that day, when they were dancing a very great rain rained, and the water was held up so that the houses were being completely submerged. At that time all the persons of this company being without a quarter to go to, all the men crept inside the Gourd fruit, and having blocked up with wax the eye that was cut open into the Gourd fruit, began to dance the devil-dance inside it. Then the houses, also, of the country having been submerged, the water overflowing them began to flow away. Then this Gourd fruit also having gone, went down into a river, and having gone along the river descended to the sea, and while it was going like a ship a fish came, and swallowed the Gourd fruit. Having swallowed it, the fish, as though it was stupefied, remained turning and turning round on the water. While it was staying there, a great hawk that was flying above having come and swallowed that fish, became unconscious on a branch. Then a woman says to her husband, "Bolan, [after] seeking something for curry come back." At that time, while the man, taking also his gun, is going walking about, he met with that hawk which had swallowed the fish. He shot the hawk. Having shot it and brought it home, he said to his wife that she was to pluck off the feathers and cook it. Then the woman having plucked off the feathers, when she cut [it open] there was a fish [inside]. Then the woman says, "Ade! Bolan, for one curry there are two meats!" [314] Taking the fish she cut [it open]; then there was a Gourd fruit. Thereupon the woman says, "Ade! Bolan, for one curry there are three meats!" When she looked the Gourd fruit was dried up. After that, having cooked those meats (or curries) and eaten, on account of hearing a noise very slightly in that Gourd fruit, taking a bill-hook she struck the Gourd fruit. Thereupon the whole of those men being in the Gourd fruit, said, "People, people!" and came outside. Having got down outside, when they looked it was another country. After that, having asked the ways, they went each one to his own country. And then only the men knew that light had fallen [and it was the next day]. Western Province. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 599, a fish swallowed a ship, with its crew and passengers. When it was carried by a current and stranded on the shore of Suvarnadwipa, the people ran up and cut it open, and the persons who were inside it came out alive. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, pp. 229 and 244, two infants who were thrown or fell into the water of rivers were swallowed by fishes and rescued alive after seven days, in the first instance by the child's father, and in the second by the King of the country in which the fish had been caught. NO. 263 THE ASCETIC AND THE JACKAL In a certain country, in the midst of a forest a pack of Jackals stayed, it is said. One out of the Jackals having gone near villages one day for the purpose of catching and eating the fowls and various animals, at the time when he was walking about having arrived at a shed in which was some toddy (fresh palm-juice), and having drunk toddy until his belly fills, after he became drunk fell down at one place and stayed [there], it is said. When he was staying thus, the Jackal went very thoroughly asleep, it is said. Having stayed in this way, when it was just becoming light the Jackal's eyes were opened. Well then, at that time the Jackal was unable to go to the pack. Because of what [reason] was that? Because the eyes of the whole of the persons in the village were opened. Owing to it he got into a jungle near by, and when he was there an extremely old ascetic came to go by the place where the Jackal is. The Jackal having seen the ascetic and spoken to him, says, "Meritorious ascetic, having been in which district are you, Sir, coming? I have sought and sought a meritorious person like you, Sir, and [now] I have met with you; it is very good," he said. When the Jackal spoke thus the ascetic asks, "On account of what matter dost thou speak to me in that manner?" When he asked him thus, the Jackal says, "I did not say thus to you, Sir, for my profit. I had sought and sought an excellent person like you, Sir. A quantity of my masuran are in the midst of such and such a forest. To give those masuran I did not meet with a good person like you, Sir. For many days I was watching and looking on this search, but until this occurred I did not meet with a meritorious excellent person, except only you, Sir. I am very happy to give the masuran to you, Sir," he said. The ascetic having been much pleased, asks the Jackal, "Regarding it, what must be done by me for thee?" When he said [this] the Jackal says, "I don't want you, Sir, to do any favour at all for me. If I am to give the masuran to you, Sir, please carry me to the place where the masuran are," he said. Thereupon the ascetic, carrying in his arms the Jackal, went into the midst of the forest where he said the masuran are. When he went into the midst of the forest, the Jackal having spoken to the ascetic, says, "Look, the masuran are here; please place me here," he said. Thereupon the ascetic placed the Jackal on the ground. The Jackal then says, "Taking your outer robe, Sir, and having spread it on the ground, please remain looking in the direction of the sun, not letting the eyelid fall. Having dug up the masuran I will put them into your robe, Sir," he said. When the Jackal said thus, the ascetic, through greed for the masuran, without thinking anything having spread the robe on the ground, was looking in the direction of the sun. When he was looking thus for a little time, the Jackal having dunged into the robe, and for a little time more having falsely dug the ground, said to the ascetic, "Now then, be pleased to take the masuran." Thereupon when the ascetic through greed for the masuran looks in the direction of the robe, because of the sun's rays his eyes having become weak, the Jackal dung that he had put [there] appeared like masuran. [315] Making [the robe] into a bundle he went away. The Jackal having bounded off, went into the midst of the forest. Western Province. This tale agrees in some respects with the Jataka story No. 113 (vol. i. p. 256), in which the person who carried the Jackal was a Brahmana, who, however, was not told to look at the sun, as in the Sinhalese tale No. 65, in vol. i, of which this is a variant. SOUTH INDIAN STORIES NO. 264 CONCERNING THE BLIND-EYED MAN In a certain country there was a blind man. The man had married a fine handsome woman. While the two persons were staying a little time begging, and seeking and getting a living, having said that country was not good and having thought of going to another country, one day the blind man said to his wife, "While we are staying in this country we have much inconvenience. Because of it let us go to another country." Thereupon the woman, too, said of it, "It is good." After that the two persons having set off, journeyed through the middle of a forest wilderness. At that time a Hettiya, also, of that city having quarrelled with his father, he also, as he was going to another country travelled on the path in the midst of the forest on which this blind man and his wife are going. The Hettiya encountered that blind man and his wife on the road. Thereupon, while this Hettiya was talking with the two persons he asked, "Where are you two going in the jungle in this forest wilderness?" Then this blind man and his wife said, "We are going to another country for the sake of a livelihood." The Hettiya said, "It is good, if so. I also having quarrelled with our father am going to another country. If so, let us all three go [together]." Thereupon all three having said, "It is good," while they were talking and journeying, because the blind person's wife is beautiful to the Hettiya his mind became attached to her, like marrying her. Because the Hettiya was a young man to the blind person's wife, also, her mind became attached to him. When these two persons, thinking in this manner, were going a little far, the Hettiya spoke to that woman, unknown to the blind person, [316] "Let us two go [off together]." Thereupon the woman gave her word, "It is good." To drop the blind person and go, the scheme which the woman told the blind person [was this]: "Ane! Husband, there is a kind of fruit-tree fruits in this forest wilderness which it gratifies me to eat. Therefore you must give permission to me to eat them and come back." Having said [this] she made obeisance. At that time the blind man, thinking it is true, said, "It is good. I will remain beneath this tree; you go, and having eaten the fruit come quickly." Thereupon the woman, saying, "It is good," while the blind person was continuing to stay there went with the Hettiya somewhere or other to a country. This blind man remained night and day in hunger beneath the tree, for six days. After that, yet [another] Hettiya, while going to the village of the woman who had married that Hettiya, tying up a packet of cooked rice also, to eat for the road, travelled with his wife by the middle of that forest wilderness. Thereupon the Hettiya met with that blind-eyed man. So the Hettiya spoke to his wife, "There is a man near that tree. Let us go near, and [after] looking let us go." The woman said, "It is good." Then the two persons having gone near that blind person, asked, "Who are you?" Then the blind person made many lamentations to that Hettiya: "Ane! Friend, I am a blind person. I having spoken with my wife about going to another country, while we were going in the middle of this forest wilderness, my wife got hid and went off with yet [another] man. I am now staying six days without any food. You arrived through my good luck. Ane! Friend, having gone, calling me, to the country to which you are going, send me to an asylum. [317] If not, in this forest wilderness there is not any all-refuge." [318] Thereupon the Hettiya, having become much grieved, unfastened the cooked rice that the party brought to eat for the road, and having given the blind person to eat, as they were going, inviting the blind person, to the city to which the party are going, he told that Hettiya's (his own) wife to come holding [one end of] the blind person's walking-stick (to guide him). Then the Hetti woman said, "Ane! O Lord, should I go holding this blind person's leading stick they will say I am the blind man's wife. I have heard that kind of story before this. But if you, Sir, say so, I will come holding it." The Hettiya said, "No matter, come holding it." While [she was] thus holding it, calling him they went to the city to which the party are going. Having gone [there] and told the blind man to stay [with them] that day night, they gave him amply food and drink, and the mat also for sleeping on. Next day after light fell having said to the blind person, "Now then; there! You having gone into that street and begged, seeking something, eat," with much kindness they started him. Then the blind person having gone near the royal house at that city, said, "Ane! O Deity, [319] when I was coming away with my wife by the middle of a forest wilderness, a Hettiya having quarrelled with his father, and said that he was going to another country, and for six days having not a meal, as he was coming fell behind us. We gave him the cooked rice that we brought for our expenses, and came calling him [to accompany us]. As though in that way the assistance were insufficient, the Hettiya uprooting my wife also [from me] said he will not give her to me, and drove me away. To whom shall I tell this suit? Do you investigate only suits for rich persons? Do you not institute suits for poor persons? Now then, how shall I obtain a living?" Having said [this] he began to weep. At that time the [royal] messengers having gone, told it to the King. Thereupon the King also having become grieved regarding it, sent messengers and caused the Hettiya who came with the blind person, and his wife, to be brought. Having heard the case, he said, "This young Hettiya did not take a wife [for himself]; he took the blind person's wife," and ordered them to behead the Hettiya. [320] Having said, "The woman having come in diga [marriage] to the blind person and in the meantime having endangered him, went with another man," he ordered them to put her in a lime-kiln and burn her. Having given a little money to the blind person he told him to go. Thereupon the blind person, taking the money also and having gone outside the royal palace, was saying and saying, "Ane! O Gods, what is it that has occurred to me! At the time when I remained for six days in the midst of the forest, this Hettiya and his wife having met with me while they are coming, and given food to me who was in hunger for six days, brought me to this city, and let me go. I having told all these (lit., these these) lies [in order] to take the woman, I was not allowed to take the woman, nor were the two persons allowed to live well together. The foolish King without giving me the woman ordered them to kill her. Now then, where shall I go?" At that time a man having heard him, quickly went and said to the King that this blind person says thus. Then the King quickly having caused the blind person to be brought, and having released the Hettiya and the woman from death, and given presents to the two persons, and sent them away, ordered the blind person to be killed. Immigrant from Malayalam, Southern India. (Written in Sinhalese, and partly related in that language.) This story is given in Tales of the Sun (Mrs. H. Kingscote and Natesa Sastri), p. 165. NO. 265 THE DESTINY PRINCE In a certain country a King had two Princes. After the two Princes became big, calling them near the King the King asked both, "Is Destiny the greatest thing or not?" [321] At that time the big Prince said, "Destiny is the greatest (widi lokuyi)"; the young Prince said, "It is insufficiently great (madi lokuyi)." Because the big Prince said, "Destiny is the greatest," the King commanded that they should behead and kill him. Thereupon the Prince's mother, having given him a little money, and said, "Son, go thou to a country thou likest," sent him away. Then the Prince having looked for a country to proceed to, went away. When he is going on the path, the men whom he meets ask, "Where are you going?" Thereupon the Prince, not saying another speech, gives answer to the talk, saying, "Destiny." However much they speak, this Prince, except that he says, "Destiny," does not give a different reply. While giving replies in this manner, this Prince walks through various countries. In yet [another] city, a daughter of the King, and a daughter of the Minister, and a daughter of a rich Hettiya called the Money Hettiya, these three having been born on one and the same day and the three having gone to one school learning letters, after they became big gave presents to the teacher. What of their giving presents to the teacher! Regarding the teacher's instructing these three children, it was in name only. There was a chief scholar; it was the scholar indeed who taught the letters to all these three children. Notwithstanding that it was so, they did not give him presents or anything. Because of it he being grieved at it, and thinking that if there should be a word which the King's daughter says, the Minister's Princess and the Money Hettiya's daughter hearken to it, he sent a letter in this manner to the royal Princess: "O Royal Princess, except that I taught you three persons the sciences [for him], our teacher did not teach them. Having tried so much and taught you three, at your not thinking of me I am much grieved." He wrote [thus] and sent it. The royal Princess had ordered the Minister's daughter and the Money Hettiya's daughter every day in the morning to come to the royal palace. Therefore the two persons, having stayed at home only at night, in the morning arrive at the royal palace. One day, while these very three are stopping and playing at the royal palace, a man brought a letter and gave it into the royal Princess's hand. Thereupon the royal Princess having broken open the letter, when she looked [in it] the party's second teacher [had written] that he was displeased. Then the Princess said thus to the Minister's daughter and the Money Hettiya's daughter: "Look. Omitting to give our presents or anything to our second teacher who took much trouble and taught us, and having given presents to our big teacher, when coming away we did not even speak, he has written. It is indeed foolishness at our hand. Because of it, let us write anything we want to send, and send a letter [to him]. Having sent it let us give anything he asks for," she spoke [to them]. [Thus] speaking, she wrote and sent: "Anything you ask we will give. Please write what thing you want." Thereupon, the letter having gone the party's second teacher received it. Having received it, owing to the form of the letter that person writes, "I want nothing. Because you three said you will give anything I want, I am coming to marry you three persons. What do you say about it?" He wrote and sent [this]. The letter having gone, the royal Princess, together with the other persons also, received it. When they looked at the letter, the party perceived that the letter they wrote was wrong. Perceiving it, the royal Princess said, "Comrades, [322] the word that we wrote and sent was wrong. The second teacher has sent letters [asking] how he is to come to marry us three. Because we made a mistake, and as we cannot tell lies, let us appoint a day and send [word]." Thereupon the two persons gave permission for such a word [to be sent]. She wrote and sent the letter: "To-morrow night, at twelve, you must come to the palace; at one you must come to the Minister's house; at three, you must come to the Money Hettiya's house." Having written it, [after] sending it in this manner the three persons making ready distilled Attar water [323] and several sweet drugs to put on his body when he comes, and priceless food, waited for him. That day, that royal Prince who is walking along saying "Destiny," coming to the city at night time and having become hungry, remained sleeping near the gate [324] of that palace. The second teacher loitered a little in coming. After the royal Prince had gone to sleep during the whole night [up to midnight], placing food and fragrant sorts on a tray in her own hands, and having come near the gate of the palace and felt about, when [the Princess] looked the Prince who says "Destiny" was there. At that time the royal Princess, thinking he was the second teacher, said, "What are you sleeping for? Get up." That Prince, saying, "Destiny," being unable to arise [through sleepiness,] remained lying down. Thereupon the royal Princess, touching his body with her hand, made him arise; and having given him this food to eat, and having sprinkled distilled Attar water on his body, and having complied with immoral practice, [325] the Princess went to the palace. Then the Prince who says "Destiny" was sleeping [again] near the gate of the palace. At that time the second teacher came. Having come there, he asked that Prince who says "Destiny," "Who are you, Ada?" Then that Prince said, "Destiny." "What is, Ada, Destiny?" he asked. Then again he gave answer, "Destiny." At this next occasion, having said, "What Destiny, Ada!" he pushed him away. Thereupon the Destiny Prince [having gone] near the gate of the Minister's house, was sleeping [there]. Then the Minister's daughter having come, asked, "Who are you?" The Prince said, "Destiny." Then the Minister's daughter said, "What is it you call Destiny? On account of the letter you sent, the royal Princess and we two also, having spoken have made ready. Eat these things quickly; I must go." Thereupon the Prince said, "Destiny." Then the Minister's daughter having touched him on the body and caused him to arise, gave him the food to eat, and having put distilled Attar water and several sweet drugs on the Prince's body, and complied with immoral practice, went away. The Destiny Prince went to sleep there. At that time the second teacher, having stayed looking about near the palace and the Princess not being [there], thinking he must go even to the Minister's house, came to the Minister's house. At that time the Destiny Prince was there. The second teacher having gone, asked this one, "Who are you, Ada?" He said, "Destiny." Thereupon having said, "What Destiny! Be off!" and having beaten him he drove him away. Having driven him away the second teacher stayed there looking about. The Destiny Prince having gone to the house of the Money Hettiya, there also stayed sleeping near the gate. Then the Hettiya's daughter having come with sandal-wood scent and distilled Attar water, asked, "Who are you?" At that time the Prince said, "Destiny." The Hettiya's daughter having said, "What Destiny! Get up," touched his body, causing him to arise; and having given him food also, putting distilled Attar water on his body, complied with immoral practice, and went into the house. The Destiny Prince went to sleep there. That second teacher having stayed looking about at the Minister's house, and having said [to himself] that because the Minister's daughter did not come he must go even to the Money Hettiya's house, came there. At that time, the Destiny Prince was sleeping there also. Then the second teacher asked, "Who are you, Ada?" Thereupon the Prince said, "Destiny." Saying, "What Destiny, Ada!" and having struck him a blow, he pushed him away. Thereupon the Destiny Prince having gone, remained sleeping in a grass field more than four miles away. That second teacher having stayed there watching until it was becoming light, went to his city. On the following day morning this fragrance [from the scents sprinkled on the Prince] having gone through the whole city, when the King was making inquiry [he learnt] that this Princess, too, had put on this scent. Thereupon the King thought, "Besides the Minister no other person comes to my palace. It is a work of his, this," he got into his mind. The Minister thinking, "Besides the King no other person comes to my house; this is a disgraceful step (kulappadiyak) of the King's," got angry. The Money Hettiya, thinking, "Except that the King comes, no one else comes to my house; because of that, this is indeed a disgraceful step of the King's," got angry. After that, the whole three having met at one place, speaking about this, when they were making inquiry the fragrance of the distilled Attar water on the body of the Destiny Prince came [to them]. Then seizing him and having come back, for the fault that he committed they appointed to kill him. At that time the royal Princess and the other two persons having come before them, said, "It is not an offence [of his]. After you kill that man please kill us three"; [and they gave a full account of the matter]. Before they said this word the Destiny Prince said even more words than anyone was saying and saying. After that, the King also having freed him from death, asked the Destiny Prince, "Of which village are you; of which country?" Then the Destiny Prince said, "I am of such and such a city, the son of the King. One day our father the King asked me and my younger brother, 'Is Destiny the greatest thing or not?' Thereupon I said, 'Destiny is the greatest'; younger brother said, 'It is not the greatest.' Because I said, 'Destiny is the greatest,' he appointed me for death. I having run away from there, I dwelt in this manner, walking through a multitude of cities. When they were speaking, I replied, 'Destiny.'" At that time the King and Minister, including also the Hettiya, speaking together, said, "This will be done to this one by the Gods. Therefore let us marry these three to this one; we did not marry and give the three to him." They married them accordingly, [and] the King handed over charge of the King's kingdom [to him]. After that, he remained exercising the kingship in a good manner, with justice. Another King having gone to the city in which the King the Prince's father stayed, [after] fighting him and taking the city, banished the King and his Queen and Prince. After that, the three persons having come away arrived at the city where the Destiny Prince was ruling, and stayed there, obtaining a living by breaking firewood and selling it. The Destiny Prince one day walking in the city, when returning saw that this King his father, and younger brother, and mother are selling firewood. Having seen them, and having come to the palace without speaking, he sent a messenger to tell the three firewood traders to come. The messenger having gone told the three firewood traders that the King says they are to come. Thereupon the three persons becoming afraid, and thinking, "Is selling firewood of the jungle of the Gods and getting a living by it, wrong?" in fear went to the royal palace. Then the Destiny Prince asked, "Of what city are you?" The party said, "We were exercising the kingship of such and such a city. Another King having gone [there], oppressing us and seizing the kingdom, told us to go away. Because of that, having come away and arrived at this city, we remain getting a living, breaking firewood in the jungle." Thereupon the Destiny King asked, "When you were staying at that city how many children had you?" The firewood trader said, "I had two Princes." Then the Destiny King asked, "Where then is the other Prince? Did he die?" The firewood trader said, "That Prince did not die. One day, when I was asking that Prince and this Prince, 'Is Destiny the greatest thing or not?' the Prince said, 'Destiny is the greatest'; this Prince said, 'It is insufficiently great.' Because of it I sent him out of the kingdom." Thereupon the Destiny Prince, saying, "It is I myself who am that Prince," told them the circumstances that had occurred to him. Both parties after that having become sorrowful, remained living [there], protecting that city in happiness. Immigrant from Malayalam, Southern India. (Written in Sinhalese, and partly related in that language.) In the Jataka story No. 544 (vol. vi, p. 117), the King of Videha sums up the Hindu belief in predestination from the day of a person's birth, as follows: "There is no door to heaven: only wait on destiny: all will at last reach deliverance from transmigration." His daughter afterwards illustrated the Buddhist doctrine that a person's destiny depends on his acts and thoughts in his present life as well as in previous ones:--"As the balance properly hung in the weighing-house causes the end to swing up when the weight is put in, so does a man cause his fate at last to rise if he gathers together every piece of merit little by little." The Maha Bharata (Santi Parva, cclviii), states that all gods must inevitably become mortals, and all mortals must become gods; and also (ccxcix) that whatever one's lot may be it is the result of deeds done in previous lives. The inevitable action of Karma is well exhibited in a story in Folk-Tales of the Telugus (G. R. Subramiah Pantulu), p. 59, in which when the God Siva and his wife Parvati saw a poverty-stricken Brahmana on his way home, and the latter wished to give him riches, Siva remarked that Brahma had not written on his face [at his birth] that he must enjoy wealth. To test this, Parvati threw down on the path a heap of a thousand gold muhrs (£1,500). When the Brahmana got within ten yards of it, he was suddenly struck by the idea that he would see if he could walk along like a blind man, so he shut his eyes, and did not open them until he had gone past the money. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 280, a Princess who had arranged through a confidante to meet a man in a temple at night, met there instead a Prince who was accidentally spending the night there, and without recognising who he was, accepted him as her husband, and afterwards returned to the palace. On the following day the Prince appeared before the King, who formally bestowed the Princess on him, one of the Ministers remarking to the King, "Fate watches to insure the objects of auspicious persons." In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 327, a King asked his two daughters which was the greater, Karma (fate, as the effect of acts in previous lives), or Dharma (righteousness). The younger said "Karma," the elder, "Dharma." He was so angry that he married the younger one to a young Brahmana thief; but he became very wealthy in a miraculous manner, and afterwards invited his father-in-law to a feast at which he was waited on by his daughter, the disgraced Princess, whom he did not recognise. At the end of it she told him who they were, and he promised to give the kingdom to her husband. In The Kathakoça (Tawney), p. 82, a Princess had as her companions the daughters of a merchant and a gardener who were born on the same day as herself. When the Princess was married she requested that her two comrades might be married to the same young man, and this was done. No. 266 THE TEACHER AND HIS PUPIL In a certain country there were a woman and her two children. After the woman's husband went and died, there not being any all-refuge (saw-saranak) for the woman and children, after the children became big they remained without learning. Thereupon the men of that country said to the woman, "Your children are male children, are they not? Because of it, make efforts and teach them. Should the persons learn a little it will be good for you." And the woman accepting this very speech, as she had nothing for expenses for teaching the children she went near a teacher, and said, "Ane! Mr. Teacher, from anyone whatever I have no all-protection. Therefore I have nothing to pay for an expense. Because of it, you, Sir, by favour to me having taught these two children, you taking one child be good enough to give me one child." The teacher also being pleased regarding it, said, "It is good," and took charge of the two children. [After] thus taking charge of them, although having made efforts he taught both children, and the young child, having more intelligence than the teacher, learnt, the other elder child was unable to learn even a little. Because he could not learn he sent him to look after the teacher's cattle. After the young child had thoroughly learned, the teacher, thinking a deceitful thought, for the purpose of causing the young child to remain and of sending the elder child home, taught the young child in this manner: "Child, I am sending a letter to your mother to-morrow [as follows]; 'Your young son indeed knows nothing; the elder child is learning very thoroughly. Because of it, having come [for him], go back summoning him [to accompany you].' When I have sent the letter your mother will come to-morrow. Then, putting on bad clothes, you remain, smearing cow-dung and the like on your hands. The elder child I shall dress well, and send to stay [at home]," he said. Because the young child was unable to say anything at that time on account of the teacher's word, he said, "It is good." After it became night, taking the disguise of a bird and having gone that night to his mother's house, and taught her [as follows], he came back:--"Mother, to-morrow our teacher will send you a letter [to this effect]: 'Your elder child is learning well; the young child indeed cannot [learn] anything. Because of it, you having come call the elder child and go.' In that way he will send the letter. Elder brother was unable to learn anything, therefore I am learning in a thorough manner. On account of it, to-morrow, when you are coming, our teacher, with the thought to cause me to stay, having smeared cow-dung on my body and put on me bad clothes, will put good clothes on elder brother. Then teacher will say, 'Look here. This big child indeed is learning a little; the young child cannot [learn] anything. Having put aside the young child for me, even to look after the cattle, call the big child and go.' Then you say, 'No, Mr. Teacher, you, Sir, having made such efforts, I do not want the child whom you have taught. Should you give me the young child it will do.' Somehow having made efforts, asking for me come [home]." And the teacher on the following day having written in the above-said manner, sent a letter. At that time the woman arrived at the teacher's house. After that the teacher said, "Your big child is learning the arts and sciences better than I; the young child knows nothing. Because of it, having caused the young child to stay to attend to the grazing of the cattle for me, you go back, summoning the elder child [to accompany you]." At that time, the woman said, "Ane! Teacher, you, Sir, having made such efforts, be good enough to take for yourself the child who has embraced [the learning]. Should you give me the young child, it will do." Thereupon the teacher said, "No, you are a poor woman, are you not? Because of it, calling the elder child go." Then the woman having said it in the very [same] way as before, calling the younger child went away. At that time the teacher having become angry regarding the young child, said: "Son of the courtesan! It is a work of yours, indeed, this! Somehow or other, should I be able I will take you." The young child having gone to his mother's house, the child said to his mother, "Mother, there is no way for us to obtain a livelihood. Because of it, I will create myself a vegetable garden. You having uprooted the vegetables and tied them in bundles, place them [aside]. Men will come and ask for vegetables. Give the vegetables; do not give the cord that is tied round the vegetables," he said. Thereupon, having said, "It is good," she did so, not giving the cord. Having sold the vegetables, for a few days they obtained a livelihood. After that, the child said to his mother, "Mother, now then, there is no way for us to obtain a livelihood. Because of it, I will become a fighting-cock. Men having come and given the price you say and say, will take the cock. Don't you give the cord only, with which the cock has been tied. Should you give it the men will capture me." His mother said of it, "It is good." After that, having become the fighting-cock, while he was so, certain men having come asked for the fighting-cock. After that, saying a great price and having given the cock, taking the cord that had tied the cock, and the money, with the money for a little time they obtained a livelihood. After that the child said to his mother, "Mother, because we have nothing for food or drink I will become a horse. Our teacher will come to take me. You give only the horse; don't give the cord." After that having become the horse, while he is it the teacher who taught him came. Having come and having offered a price for the horse he gave the money. Having given it, when he was preparing to bring away the horse that woman said she could not give the cord. At that time the teacher said, "I cannot give you the cord. I gave the money for the cord with it"; and not having given the cord to the woman, holding the cord and having mounted on the back of the horse he made it bound along without stopping, as though killing it. Causing it to bound along in this manner, when he was near a piece of water the horse, being unable to run [further], taking the appearance of a frog sprang into the water. The teacher became angry at it, and having collected a multitude of men besides, taking a net tried to catch the frog. At that time the frog having become a golden finger-ring, and crept inside [a crevice in] a stone step at the place where the royal Princess bathes at that tank, remained [there]. Although that teacher with extreme quickness made efforts to find the frog he did not meet with it. After that, a royal Princess and a female slave having come to the pool, when they were bathing the ring having been at the angle of the stone the female slave met with it. Having met with it she showed it to the royal Princess. Thereupon the royal Princess, taking it, put it on her hand. Placing it on her hand, and having bathed and finished, she went to the palace. The Princess having been sleeping, eats the evening food at about twelve at night. That day, in the night, the female slave, having taken cooked rice and gone to the royal Princess, and having placed it on the table, and made ready betel and areka-nut for the betel box, and placed it [ready], went to sleep. After all went to sleep, that ring, having loosened itself from the hand of that Princess and having become a man, and eaten a share from the cooked rice that was for the Princess, and eaten also a mouthful of betel, and come near the bed on which the royal Princess is sleeping, expectorated [326] on the Princess's clothes, and having come to her finger, remained like a ring on her hand. The Princess having arisen to eat the cooked rice, when she looked [saliva stained red by] betel [and areka-nut] had been expectorated on her clothes. Having said, "Who is it?" and having gone, when she looked at the cooked rice at that time a half of the cooked rice had been eaten. After that, not eating the rice, and thinking, "By whom will this work be done?" she went to sleep. Regarding this she did not tell anyone else. On the following day, also, in that way she went to sleep. That day, also, that ring having gone in that manner and eaten the cooked rice, and eaten the betel, and expectorated on the clothes, and gone [back] to the finger, remained [there]. The Princess that day also having awoke, when she looked, that day also, having eaten half the cooked rice and betel, he had expectorated on the clothes. On the following day, with the thought, "Somehow or other I must catch this man who comes," having pricked the Princess's finger with a needle and put a lime fruit on it, except that she simply stays closing her eyes, by its paining she remained without going to sleep. That day, also, that ring, with the thought, "This Princess will have gone to sleep," having loosened itself from the finger, when he was becoming ready to eat the cooked rice the Princess having come and said, "Who are you?" seized him. Thereupon the youth having told her all the circumstances, while staying there became the ring. The magic-performing boy, as it appears to him by the various sciences, said to the Princess, "The teacher who taught me the sciences will come here to-morrow to perform magic. I shall become a good beautiful necklace on your neck. He having come, and having thoroughly performed magic for the King's mind to become pleased, will think of getting presents. Then the King will ask, 'What dost thou want?' At that time that person will say, 'We indeed do not want any other thing; should you give that Princess's necklace it will be enough.' Then the King will tell you to give it. Thereupon, you, as though you became angry, having unfastened it from the neck and crushed it in the hand, throw it away into the open space in front of the palace. When throwing it there one grain will burst open. Then that magician, taking the appearance of a cock, will pick up each grain [of corn out of that one] and eat it. Then you remain treading on one grain [of corn] with your foot. Having been treading on it, when [the cock], having eaten all, is coming to an end, raise the foot. Then I having become a jackal, catching the cock will eat it." To that speech the Princess said, "It is good." On the following day, in the above-mentioned manner that magician came. In that way doing magic, he asked for that necklace as a present. The Princess did just as that youth said. At that time a grain burst. Thereupon the magician, having become a cock, ate the grains [of corn which came out of it]. Then the Princess having come, remained treading on one with the foot. The cock having eaten the grains, when they were becoming finished the Princess raised the foot. At that time the grain seed that was under the foot having become a jackal, caught and ate that cock. After that, the King, ascertaining that the youth was cleverer than that magician, having married and given to him the King's Princess, gave him the sovereignty also. After that, causing to be brought there the youth's mother and his elder brother also who stayed near the teacher, he remained exercising the kingship in a good manner. Immigrant from Malayalam, Southern India. (Written in Sinhalese, and partly related in that language.) THE TEACHER AND THE BULL (Variant a) In a certain country there was a most skilful teacher. One day when this teacher went to walk in the village, having seen that there were two sons of a widow woman at one house, asking for these two children from the woman for the purpose of teaching them the sciences he went away [with them]. The teacher began to teach these two the sciences. But perceiving that the elder one could not learn the sciences he taught him the method of cooking, and the younger one the sciences. After he had taught these two the sciences it was [agreed] that the mother should select the person [of them] whom she liked. When their learning was near being finished, the younger one having gone home said, "You ask for me; elder brother knows how to cook, only." The mother having said, "It is good," after their learning was finished the teacher told the mother to take the person she liked. That day she brought away the younger one. The teacher, perceiving the trick that the younger one had done for him, was displeased. The widow woman was very poor. One day the boy said, "Mother, let us sell cattle"; and taking a [charmed] cord and having given it to his mother, he said, "Having fixed this cord to my neck, at that time I shall become a bull. At the time when you sell the bull do not give the cord to anyone." When the woman put the cord on her son's neck he became a most handsome bull. Having taken the bull to the city and sold it, she brought the cord home. At the time when the merchant [who had bought the bull] looked in the evening, the bull had broken loose and gone away. After having done thus many a time, the merchant related the circumstance to the teacher of that district. The teacher, knowing the matter, said, "Having brought the bull together with the cord, place it and tie it at the side of a jungle." That woman on the following day having taken the bull [for sale], he gave about double the price he was paying for the bull, and having brought the cord also, tied it at the side of a jungle, [and informed the teacher]. While it was [there], in the evening the teacher having approached it in a leopard-disguise killed the bull. Uva Province. THE BRAHMANA AND THE SCHOLAR (Variant b) At a certain city there was a famous Brahmana. He taught a certain youth the whole of his science. After the scholar learnt the science the Brahmana became angry [with him]. While the time is going on thus, the Brahmana thought of killing the scholar. The scholar also got to know about it. While they were at a certain place, these two persons having struck [each other] on the face, the Brahmana chased the scholar along the path. The scholar being unable to run [further], took the appearance of a bull, and ran off. The Brahmana, also, bringing a leopard's appearance, chased him. The scholar being unable to run thus, becoming a parrot began to fly. The Brahmana, also, becoming a hawk began to go chasing it. At last the parrot, being unable to fly, entered the palace of a certain King by the window. The Brahmana, also, bringing a youth's appearance became appointed for looking after the oxen of a house near by. In this royal palace there was a Princess. The parrot having been during the day time in the disguise of a parrot, in the night time took also the appearance of a Prince. In the night time, in the appearance of a Prince he went near the Princess. Having been thus, in the day time, at the time when the parrot is bathing daily a cock comes. The parrot having gone away immediately got hid. Having been thus, and being unable to escape, one day at night having uttered spells over and given [the Princess] three Mi [327] seeds, he said that at the time when the cock comes she is to break them in pieces. On the following day, at the time when [the parrot] was bathing, the Brahmana came in the disguise of a cock. Thereupon she broke up the three Mi seeds. Immediately a jackal having come, seizing the neck of the cock went off [with it]. After that, the Prince, marrying the royal Princess, in succession to the King exercised the sovereignty over the city. Uva Province. This story with its variants is the first tale of The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 2. The two sons of a deposed King who became a beggar were educated by a Brahmana on the understanding that he should keep one of them. By the younger son's advice he was selected by the parents, his brother being too stupid to learn anything. He first became a hen which the King bought for a hundred pagodas; in the night she became a bandicoot, a large rat, and returned home. Then he became a horse which the Brahmana bought for a thousand pagodas, and rode and flogged till it was exhausted. At a pool the spirit of the Prince entered a dead fish, and the horse fell down lifeless; then to save himself he entered a dead buffalo which thereupon became alive, and lastly a dead parrot which when pursued by the Brahmana in the form of a kite took refuge in a Princess's lap, and was put in a cage. On two nights while she slept the Prince resumed his own shape, rubbed sandal on her, ate her sweetmeats, and returned to the cage; on the third night she saw him and heard his story. As predicted by him, the Brahmana came with rope-dancers, and as a reward for their performance demanded the bird. By the Prince's advice the Princess broke its neck when giving it, and his spirit entered her necklace. She broke it, casting the pearls into the court-yard, where they became worms. When the Brahmana while still in the swing took a second shape as a cock and began to pick up the worms, the Prince became a cat and seized it. By the King's intervention the enemies were reconciled, the Prince married the Princess, and afterwards recovered his father's kingdom. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 216, the first part is similar, the teacher being a fakir. The youth turned himself into a bull which was sold, without the head-stall, for a hundred rupees, disappeared, and became the youth again. When he next changed himself into a horse the fakir chased it; it became a dove and the fakir a hawk, then it turned into a fish and the fakir a crocodile. When near capture the fish became a mosquito and crept up the nostril of a hanging corpse; the fakir blocked the nostril with mud and induced a merchant to bring him the body. Then follow some of the Vikrama stories, and at last at the corpse's request the merchant removed the mud, and the youth escaped. The fakir then accepted the boy's challenge that he should be a goat and the fakir a tiger, and one should devour the other. The goat was tied outside the town at night, men who were stationed to shoot the tiger when it came, fired, and both animals were killed. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 134, a Queen bore two sons owing to magical aid given by a Jogi, who was to have one of them as a reward. The clever younger one whom he wanted ran off. The man first chased him as a leopard, then they were a pigeon and hawk, a fly and egret. The fly settled on the rice plate of a Queen; when the Jogi induced her to throw the rice on the ground the boy became a coral bead in her necklace. The man then got her to scatter the beads on the floor, and while as a pigeon he was picking them up, the boy took the form of a cat and killed it. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 342, a man became an ox when a witch tied a string round his neck, and regained his shape when it was removed. On p. 340 the animal was an ape; when the string was taken off a spell was also necessary to restore the man's form. In vol. ii, pp. 157, 168, a man was similarly turned into a peacock, and resumed his shape when the thread was removed. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 2, the elder son of a Khan studied without result under seven magicians for seven years; the younger son acquired their mystic knowledge by peeping through a crack in the door. The elder one afterwards sold the younger to them in the form of a horse; as they were killing it he entered a fish, which as seven larger fishes they chased. Then he became a dove, which when seven hawks pursued it took refuge in Nagarjuna's bosom and told him its story. When the seven men asked for his rosary he put the large bead in his mouth as requested by the youth, and biting the string, let the others fall, on which they became worms that seven cocks began to pick up. On the large bead's falling it changed into a man who killed the cocks with a stick; they became human corpses. In the same work, p. 273, when the father of Vikramaditya went to fight a demon he left his body near an image of Buddha for safety. On his younger wife's burning it on a pyre, he appeared in a heavenly form and stated that as his body was destroyed he could not revisit the earth. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. i, p. 118) a Princess-magician summoned an Ifrit (Rakshasa) who had turned a Prince into an ape, and with a sword made from a hair of her head cut him in two as a lion. They then became a scorpion and python, a vulture and eagle, a black cat and wolf. The cat became a worm which crept into a pomegranate; when this broke up and the seeds fell on the floor, the wolf (Princess) became a white cock which ate all but one that sprang into the water of a fountain and became a fish, the cock as a larger fish pursuing it. At last they fought with fire in their true forms, and were reduced to ashes. In the same work, vol. iv, p. 492, a magician warned a Prince not to part with the bridle of a mule which was a metamorphosed Queen, but her old mother bought the animal and got the bridle with it. When she removed the bridle and sprinkled water on the mule it became the Queen again at her orders. In the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. i, p. 420, the Asura Maya showed a King his former Asura body. The King magically re-entered the body, abandoning his own frame, and the dead Asura arose. He embalmed and kept his human body, saying that it might prove useful to him. Apparently this approaches the Egyptian belief in the return of the soul to its body after death. Mr. Tawney referred such ideas in China to Buddhist influence. In the same work, vol. ii, p. 353, a decrepit old hermit who had magical power left his own body, and entered that of a boy of sixteen years who was brought to be burnt, after which he threw his old abandoned body into a ravine, and resumed his ascetic duties as a youth. In Dr. De Groot's The Religious System of China, vol. iv, p. 134 ff, instances are quoted from Chinese writers, of bodies which had been reanimated by souls of others who died, and it is stated that "it is a commonplace thing in China, a matter of almost daily occurrence, that corpses are resuscitated by their own souls returning into them." In the Rev. Dr. Macgowan's Chinese Folk-lore Tales, p. 109, the spirit of a King who was murdered by being pushed into a well three years before, appeared to a monk, gave an account of the murder, and said, "My soul has not yet been loosed from my body, but is still confined within it in the well." The body was taken out, and revived when a few drops of the Elixir of Life were applied to the lips. (See also the first note on p. 376, vol. ii.) In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 71, a cord placed round the neck of a Prince by the daughter of a sorceress changed him into a ram; when it was accidentally removed he became a Prince again. In The Kathakoça (Tawney), p. 38, a Vidyadhara gave a Prince the power of entering another body. When he utilised it, it was given out that he was dead. His spirit returned to his own body by its own volition. SINHALESE TEXTS OF STORIES The texts of a few of the stories in the second and third volumes are appended at the suggestion of Professor Dr. Geiger of Erlangen, who has expressed the opinion that they will be of interest to philological students, retaining as they do some old grammatical forms and expressions which elsewhere have been abandoned. They are fair examples of the Sinhalese tongue which is found in the villages, and the dialogues in particular give the language exactly as it is spoken in them. I regret that the size to which the work has grown compels me to restrict the number of stories thus given in Sinhalese. In order that the texts should possess a representative character, stories by different narrators have been selected. The village orthography has been carefully adhered to except in instances where a consonant has been accidentally omitted, or has been duplicated in carrying forward part of a word to the next line. Where a missing letter has been thus inserted by me it is enclosed in square brackets. The stories were written in pencil, always in unbroken lines, without separation into words and sentences, and without punctuation except an occasional full-stop. For convenience of reference, however, I have marked the dialogues and sentences as in the translations. My acquaintance with Pali and Elu is too slight to enable me to make special observations on the grammatical forms met with in the stories generally. I therefore merely note a few peculiarities, most of which I think are not included in Mr. Gunasekara's Grammar. In the nouns and pronouns a genitive form in ae or lae is often employed in both the singular and plural numbers. Thus, among numerous other instances, in the singular we have:--Diribari-Lakalae gedara, the house of Diribari-Laka (i, 177, line 14); nænda­mamalae gedara giyaya, [they] went to the house of [his] mother-in-law and father-in-law (ii, 404, line 14); unnæhælae akkalae gedara sitinawa mama dækka misa, tamuselae dihata nam giye nae, except that I saw [he] is at the gentleman's elder sister's house, [he] did not go to your quarter, indeed (ii, 214, variant); mi pætikkilae gamata gihin, having gone to the f. mouseling's village (i, 310, line 2); rassayae gedara, the rakshasa's house (iii, 122, note); umbalae gamata, to your village; ummbalae gedara, your house; umbalae piya-rajjuruwo, your father the king; as well as the titles of Nos. 127 and 216. In the plural:--Mewwae ingan kiyapan, tell [us] the limits of these (ii, 241, line 5); umbalae piya-rajjuruwanda enda bae, umbalae piya-rajjuruwo, etc., your father the king cannot come, your father the king, etc. (i, 267, line 30); ayiyalae gaenu, the elder brothers' wives; mama danne nae ewae wagak, I don't know anything of those [matters]; umbalae mas, your flesh. (See also No. 207 below.) Hotae (vol. ii, 214, line 24) is perhaps a special plural form. I was informed that the word gara, a kind of demon, has two plurals, garayo and gærae; I do not remember other instances. As a termination, ae usually takes the place of a in such words as kawaddae, [328] kawdae, kiyatadae, kohedae, kohomadae, mokaddae, mokak weladae, mokatadae, monawadae; we have also such forms as, awæn passe, baendæn passe, damamuyæyi, giyæn pasu, issaræhæta, kapan­neyæyi, nikæ hitapan, palapannæyi, weyæyi, wunæyin pasu. There are numerous instances in which a noun or pronoun as the subject takes an instrumental position, always governed by wisin or wihin, by; this is a common feature in Hindustani and Gujarati also. In translating such sentences I have occasionally made use of the passive verb when it appeared to suit the context--(as in the last paragraph of No. 98)--in order to retain the preposition. I may here mention that the passive form with laba is practically never used by the villager; there are not half a dozen sentences in which it occurs in the stories. The following are a few examples of the subject in the instrumental position--or, rather, governed by wisin or wihin:-- Vol. i, 247, line 19: Rajjuruwo wihin wandura allanda niyama-keruwaya, (by) the king ordered [them] to seize the wandura. Vol. ii, 126, line 15: Itin weda wisin kiyanne, well then, (by) the veda says; line 31: Ewita raja wisin noyek tanantra di, thereupon (by) the king having given several great offices. Vol. ii, 137, line 3: Kumariyak genat dunna rajjuruwoyi dewinnanseyi wihin, a princess brought and gave (by) the king and queen. Vol. ii, 147, line 5: Mama wisin dæn maranawaya, (by) I shall now kill [you]. Vol. ii, 206, line 3: Purusaya wisin ... kiwaya, (by) the husband said. Vol. ii, 258, line 12: Raksayak wisin aragana giyaya, (by) a rakshasa took away. Vol. iii, 22, line 12: Ayet nariya wisin gona langata gihin, (by) the jackal having gone again near the bull. Other instances are: Anit badu horunda baena wisin dunna, the other goods (by) the son-in-law gave to the thieves. Raja wisin æhæwwa, (by) the king asked. Raja wisin asa, (by) the king having heard [it]. Some examples are noted in the stories also. In the Sinhalese Mahavansa, c. 37, v. 10, wisin is employed in the same manner; in the Swapna-malaya occurs the line, Satten kiwu e bawa pandi wisina, truly said regarding it (by) the pandit. As in Elu works, there is much irregularity in the indefinite forms of the terminations of feminine nouns, but very rarely in those of masculine nouns, and never in neuter nouns, although these last are irregular in Elu. Thus we have quite usually gaeniyak instead of gaeniyek, a woman, but always minihek, a man. Similar forms are:--diwidenak, a leopardess; duwak, a daughter; eludenak, a f. goat; girawak, a parrot; kaputiyak, a f. crow; kellak, a girl; kenak, a person; kumarikawak, kumarikawiyak, kumariyak, a princess; manamaliyak, a bride; miminniyak, a f. mouse-deer; mi-pætikkiyak, a f. mouseling; yaksaniyak, a yaksani. Similarly, in Mah. ii, 37, 159, we have dewiyaktomo; in Thup. (1901), p. 50, putakhu, p. 60, wandurakhu; in Amawatura (1887), i, p. 23, ajiwakayakhu, p. 31, dewduwak. With regard to the general use of the word atin,--which, in order to retain the expression, I have translated, "at the hand of," [329]--this has virtually the power of a postposition commonly meaning "to," "of" or "from," and more rarely "by." [330] The following are examples:--E miniha æhæwwa me gaeni atin, the man asked (of) this woman. E kumarayage kiri-appa atin kiwa, [he] told (to) the prince's grandfather. Sitanange gaeni atin kiwa, [he] told (to) the treasurer's wife. Welihinni me kolla atin æhæwwa, the f. bear asked (of) this youth. E minissu atin rilawat illuwa, (from) the men the monkey also begged. Ura atin æhæwwa ara hat dena, (of) the boar asked those seven. Gamarala ... ketta atin kiwa, the gamarala told (to) the girl. The same use of this expression is found in Elu:--Amawatura, i, p. 24, raja ... uyanpalla atin asa, the king having heard from the gardener; Thup., p. 40, bodhisattwayo atin tun siyak la, (by) the Bodhisattwa having put three hundred (masuran). One of the commonest forms of the conjunction "and" is ignored by the grammars. In these stories there are many hundreds of instances in which "and" is represented by the particle yi or uyi, suffixed to each conjoined word. When the word ends in a vowel, yi is suffixed; when it terminates in a consonant, uyi, the pronunciation of this being practically wi. Some examples have been given in the stories; a few others are:--gætayi gediyi maluyi, immature fruits and [ripe] fruits and flowers; hettiyage walatayi hettiyatayi, to the hettiya's slave and the hettiya; kolayi potuyi, leaves and bark; minihayi gaeniyi e bælliyi, the man and woman and the bitch; mol­gahayi wangediyayi kurahan-galayi bereyi, the rice pestle and rice mortar and millet stone (quern) and tom-tom; rilawayi pætiyayi ammayi, the monkey and youngster and [his] mother; talayi aluyi, sesame and ashes; udetayi haendaewatayi, in the morning and evening; yanawayi enawayi [they] are going and coming; duwekuyi putekuyi, a daughter and a son; girawekuyi, ballekuyi, balalekuyi, a parrot and a dog and a cat; akkayi mayi, elder sister and I; umbayi mamayi, you and I,--(but tit [331] mat, thou and I). As in ordinary Sinhalese, many words that are well known as pairs are commonly written without conjunctions, as amma-appa, mother and father, (also, ammayi appayi or ammayi abuccayi); akko-nago, elder sisters and younger sisters; ayiyo-malayo, elder brothers and younger brothers; aet-maet, far and near; rae-dawal, night and day; hawaha-ude, evening and morning; at-kakul, hands and feet; gan­kumburu, villages and rice fields; ganu-denu, taking and giving; bat­malu, boiled rice and curry, (but also batuyi maluyi). Usually when a particle, especially yi, is suffixed to a noun or pronoun ending in a long vowel, this is shortened, in accordance with the common village pronunciation, as in several of the examples given above. Thus miniha, with yi or ta, becomes minihayi, minihata; amma and ayiya, with yi or la, become ammayi, ammala, ayiyayi, ayiyala; mal-amma, with ta, is mal-ammata; girawa, nariya, and hawa, with yi, become girawayi, nariyayi, and hawayi; dewinnanse, with yi or ta, becomes dewinnanseyi, dewinnanseta. There are a few instances of a form of verbal noun derived from a participial adjective, which is not mentioned by Mr. Gunasekara. In vol. iii, 146, line 5, we have dipuwa, evidently equal to dipu ewwa, the things [she] gave. In vol. i, 274, line 14, there is also, me nuwara hitapuwo okkama yaka kaewa, [a] yaka ate all those who stayed at this city. In vol. iii, 79, line 20, the same noun occurs in the form hitapuwanda, those who were [there]. At p. 370, line 6, we have pala tanbapuwa wagayak kanta dila, having given [him] a sort of vegetable stew to eat. See also uyapuwæn p. 428, line 12. From another form of the participial adjective we have in vol. iii, 66, line 38, redda allagattuwo, those who took hold of the cloth. In the same vol., p. 228, line 1, there is, mæricci minissu malawungen nækita ena ratakut ædda, dead men having arisen from the dead will there be a country, also, to which they come? On p. 315, line 11, there is, ita wisalawu dutu dutuwange sit pina-wana ... salawak, a very spacious hall, which causes the minds of the spectators who saw it to rejoice. In the Swapna-malaya the same expression occurs:--dutuwanhata anituyi me sinat, for the beholders this dream, too, is inauspicious. There are several examples of a peculiar form of subjunctive, one of which has been given in vol. ii, 323, note 1. Some others are:--apage piya-rajjuruwo awotin umba kayi, should our father-king come [he] will eat you; e beheta e kumari atin dæmmotin, should the princess apply the medicine with [her] hand; kiri tikak biwotin misa, unless [I] should drink a little milk; yan wædak kiwuwotin, should [he] tell [you] any work. In the work Swapna-malaya there are other similar expressions, such as, pibidunotin, pibidunahotin, dutotin, dutuwotina; the second of these exhibits the uncontracted form. A short form of participle is often employed, with either a present or a past signification. As a present participle:--balla burana enawa, the dog comes growling; budiyana innakota, when [they] are sleeping; eka balana hitiya, [he] remained looking at it; kumaraya budiyana indala, the prince having been sleeping. With a past participial meaning:--atu mitiyak kadana issarahæta pænna, breaking a bundle of branches [he] sprang in front; ewwa kadana æwit, having come [after] plucking them; kændana æwidin, having come [after] calling [her]; okke isa tiyana budiya-gatta, placing [his] head on [her] waist-pocket, [he] slept; wastuwa hoyana enda, to come [after] seeking wealth. There is often omission to mark the long vowels, many of which, however, are shortened in the pronunciation of the Kandian villagers. As regards spelling, I have noted the following variations of the word gos, having gone:--gosin, gosin, gohin, gihin, gihun, gihun, guhin, gusin, gehun, gehun, ginun. I also here mention the marked avoidance of the use of the personal and possessive pronouns of the third person, and of the guttural n, the palatal ñ, and the cerebral n, as well as the employment of the binduwa in the story No. 207, "The Turtle Prince," for all forms of mute n when followed by any consonant. Its use in this manner in this story, as well as in others sometimes, may indicate the origin of the curled form of the attached semi-consonantal n of all classes, which originally appears to have been a degraded form of the binduwa written hurriedly and united by an upstroke to the next letter. The abandonment of the first two forms of n is, I venture to think, an advantage in every way, since the class of these letters, and especially of the first one, would rarely be mistaken in Sinhalese, whatever form be used, and every step towards simplification of the alphabet under such conditions is an improvement. On the other hand, the class of t or t, d or d, is never mistaken by these villagers, except in the word katantaraya (which is sometimes written katantaraya) and in another word or two; but la usually takes the place of la, and sa of s'a. In his Sumero-Accadian Grammar, Mr. Bertin has classified the grammatical elements of a sentence under seven headings:--s, the subject; o, the object; i, the indirect object; r, the reason for the action; c, the complement, or manner of the action; d, the determinative of time (dt), place (dp), or state (ds); and v, the verb, with or without pronouns and particles; together with q, any qualificative which explains or specifies these elements, as the words, 'of honour,' in the expression, 'sword of honour.' With this classification, the ordinary formula of the arrangement of a complete sentence in Sinhalese is, dt--dp--s--r--ds--i--o--c--v. In the stories, however, the order of the components is most irregular, and very rarely quite accords with this, although most of the sentences partly adhere to this sequence. I have not met with all the elements in one sentence, partly because of the constant omission of the pronouns. The accompanying few examples show the want of uniformity in the arrangement; their order follows the position in which s occurs: s--dt--ds--v--c. Ibba hat-awuruddak weli weli hitiya diya nætuwa, the turtle a seven-year having dried and dried up, stayed water without. dt--qs--qi--r--o--v. Ewita e nuwara rajjuruwo wena nuwara­walwala rajunda kæmata enda liyun æriyaya, at that time the city king to other cities' kings for the eating to come, letters sent. dt--s--ds--o--v--i. Ewita berawaya issara wagema salli illuwaya gamaralagen, at that time the tom-tom beater, in the former very manner, money asked-for from the gamarala. dt--r--qs--o--v. Me dawaswaladima, maha rajagen yuddayakata udaw illa, wena raja kenek liyun ewweya, during these very days, from the great king for a war assistance having asked, another king letters sent. r--dt--s--v. E kumarikawata dæn bohoma dawasaka hita pissu­rogayak saedila, for the princess, now many a day since, an insanity having been developed. dt--c--i--s--v--o. Etakota hinen gaenita dewatawa kiwa, "Tota, etc.," then, by dream, to the woman the dewatawa said, "For thee, etc." dt--qo--i--v--qs. Itapasse rajjen palatakuyi ætek-barata wastuwayi dewinnanseta dunna kumarayage piya-rajjuruwo, after that, from the kingdom a district and to a tusk-elephant-load wealth, to the queen gave the prince's father-king. i--o--v--s. E kumarayanta kaema uyala-denne mal-amma kenek, to the princes food having-cooked-gives a flower-mother. i--ds--o--v--s. E kumarayata, masuran haddahak dila, kumariyak genat-dunna rajjuruwoyi dewinnanseyi wihin, to the prince, masuran seven thousand having given, a princess having-brought-gave the king and queen (by). The following transliteration has been adopted in these texts, being the same as in the translations of the stories, with the exceptions æ, ae, and sa. Initials: a, a, i, i, u, u, e, e, o, o, au, æ, ae. Gutturals: ka, kha, ga, gha, na. Palatals: ca, cha, ja, jha, ña. Cerebrals: ta, tha, da, dha, na. Dentals: ta, tha, da, dha, na. Labials: pa, pha, ba, bha, ma. Semi-vowels: ya, ra, la, wa, la, n. Sibilants, etc.: sa, sa, sa, ha. Semi-consonants thus: ng, nd, nd, mb. NO. 81 CONCERNING A ROYAL PRINCE AND A PRINCESS RAJA-KUMARAYAKUT KUMARIKAWAK GÆNA Ekomat eka nuwaraka raja kenekuyi waduwekuyi henayakuyi hitiyaya. Me tun denage pirimi daruwo tun denek sitiyaya. Me lamayi tun dena yodunak ipita nohot hatara gawuwakin ipita guru­warayek la[n]gata akuru iganaganda hæriyaya. Me tun dena eka aewara nuwarin pitat-wela akurata giyama ara raja-kumarayat hena­kollat denna guhin akuru kiyala enakota waduwage puta tawama maga yanawa. Ara denna bohoma kadisarakamin yanawa. E nisa waduwage puta ohuge piya atin kiwuwa "Api tun dena eka aewara nuwarin pitat-wela giyama ara denna issara-wela guhin akuru kiyalat enawa. Ekama dawasakwat eka aewara guhin akuru kiyala enda bæri-unaya." Næwata waduwage putata da[n]du monara yantreyak tanala dila eya eka pædagana guhin akuru kiyala enakota ara denna tawama yanawa akurata. Eka dawasak raja-kumaraya waduge putata kiwuwa "Ane yaluwe matat denawada da[n]du monara yantre pædala balanda" kiyala æhæwuwaya. Ewita waduwage puta "Hondayi" kiyala lanu da[n]ge pagana hæti kiyala dunnaya. Kumaraya lanu da[n]ge allanakotama da[n]du monara yantre guhin ahase walakulwala ræ[n]dunaya. Ewita e nuwara rajjuruwot senawat baya-wela hit[iy]a. Næwata e nuwara saestra-karayot ganitak-karayot ekatu-karala æhæwuwa "Me kumaraya kawadata da[n]du monara yantre ænna pat-weyida." Ewita saestra-karayo kiwuwa "Tun awurudu tun masayak giya tæna æwit mude wætenawaya." Ewita rajjuruwo æmættayinda kiwuwa "E awurudu ganan dawas ganan ayiru-karagana indala muda wata­kara dæl damana i[n]dala kumaraya wætena wahama goda-ganda onaeya" kiyala niyama-keruwaya. Næwata kumaraya da[n]du monara yantre lanu allana welawata pat-bahinda patan-gattaya. Wenin nuwaraka sohon bumiyaka nuga uksayak pitata da[n]du monara yantre pat-unaya. Ewita kumaraya da[n]du monara yantre gaha uda tiyala gahen bæhæla e nuwarata guhin æwidinda patan-gattaya. E nuwara rajju[ru]wanne kumarikawat tawat kumari­kawo samaga wilaka nana welawata me kumarayat æwidagana yana welawata kumarikawa dutuwaya. Dækapu wahama kumarikawa hituwa "Kumaraya kara-kara bæ[n]da-gannawa nam ho[n]dayi" kiyala. Kumarayat hituwa "Me kumari mata kara-kara bæ[n]da-gannawa nam ho[n]dayi" kiyala. Denna dennata hita-gatta misa kata-karaganda maruwak næti nisa kumari e wile manel malak kadagana eka ise tiyala ibala hita næwata podi-karala pagala dæmmaya. Kumari mehema keruwe kumaraya sarana-pawa gatta­hama eyata yatahat-wela kikaru-wela, inna bawa dænendayi. Kumarayata eka terila hitata gattaya. Næwata kumaraya e nuwara æwidagana yana welawata kumari inna maligawa sambu-unaya. Kumaraya tika welawak etana inna welawata kumarikawa udu-mahan-talawe janeleyak ærala widiya diha bala inna welawata me kumaraya inna bawa dækala kata-keruwaya. Ewita kumarayata kiwuwa "Oba ræ unayin passe mama me janele ærala tiyanawa. Oba waren." Næwata kumaraya maligawe serama nida-gattata passe æwit balapuwama janele ærala tibunaya. Kumarita kata-karala maligawata ætul-unaya. Næwata denna kata-baha-karala kumaraya eli-wenda palamuwen maligawen pita-wela guhin ræ wena kal i[n]dala ayet enawaya. Ewita kumari kumaraya maligawema tiyaganna pinisa e nuwara acari minihekuta rahase enda kiyala masuran dahasakut dila miniha ho[n]data diwurawala kumari kiwuwa "Loku pan-kandak tanala eka ætule minihekuta inda tanala ekata yaturu iskuppu karakawala wikunanda genena hætiyata raja-wasalata ænna waren genahama mama rajjuruwanda kiyala mama gañan." Ewita gurunnæha guhin kumari kiyapu hætiyata pan-kanda tanala rajjuruwo la[n]gata genawaya. Næwata kumari æwit "Meka mata onae" kiyala ænna guhin maligawe tiya-gattaya. Gurunnæhæta rajjuruwo masuran pan siyayak dunnaya. Næwata ara kumaraya pan-kanda atulata damala hitiyaya. Nobo dawasak yanakota kumari bada-gærbba unaya. Kumari badin inna bawa rajjuruwanda dænila maligawa wateta mura tiyala a[n]da bera prasidda kala me hora allanda rajjuruwot mura-karayot puluwan ussaha-keruwa hora allanda numut bæri-unaya. Eka kanawændum gaeniyak kiwuwa "Mata allanda puluwani hora allanda mata hawaha udæhana kumari inna maligawata yanda denawa nam." Ewita rajjuruwo e gaenita tisse de wele yanda ida dunnaya. Kipa dawasak yana welawata ara pan-kanda ætule minihek inna bawa me gænita dænila dawasak hin wæli pottaniyakut æragana guhin kumari ekka kata-kara kara hitapu gaman wæli pottaniya pan-kanda wateta damala tuni-karala awaya. Kumarita meka soya-ganda bæri-una. Ara gæni pahuwa da udema guhin bæluwama kumarayage adi tibunaya ara wælle. Dutu wahama gæni guhin rajjuruwo ekka kiwuwa "Mama hora ælluwa. Yan balanda." Mæhælli guhin "Onna oya pan-kanda ætule tamayi hora inne" kiyala rajjuruwanda pennuwaya. Ewita rajju[ru]wo pan-kanda kadala bæluwama hora hitiyaya. Næwata rajjuruwo niyama-keruwa horata wada-karala ænna guhin kapala damanda kiyala wada-karuwanda kiwaya. Ewita wada-karuwo kumaraya bæ[n]da­gana wada-bera gahagana ara sohon bumiyata anna giyaya. Ewita kumaraya kiwuwa wada-karuwanda "Yam kenek maranawa nam eyata hitu de kanda bonda dila neweda maranne. E nisa mama me nuga gahata guhin nuga gedi dekak kala enakal obala me gaha wateta ræggana hitapalla. Mata wena pænala yanda tænak næta." Ewita wada-karuwo "Ho[n]dayi" kiyala kumaraya gahata goda-wela ara da[n]du monara yantreta goda-wela ahasata pæddaya. Wada-karuwo balana hitiyakota kumaraya igilila giyaya. Næwata wada-karuwo rajjuruwannen soli wæteyi kiyala katussek allala kapala kaduwe le gagana guhin rajjuruwanda pennuwa hora kapala dæmmaya kiyala. Eda hita kumari soken kanne bonne nætuwa hitiyaya. Kipa dawasakata passe kumaraya da[n]du monara yantre pædagana æwit kumari inna maligawa uda hitawala ulu ahak-karala kumarayage ate tibunu peræs-munda kumari inna tænata ætæriyaya. Kumarayage saluwakut ataeriyaya. Ewita kumari kumaraya bawa dænagana redi ihalata wisu-keruwaya. At-wæla bæ[n]dagana bahinda ewita kumaraya bæhæla kumarita kiwuwa "Mama maranda sohon bumiyata ænna giya. Mama wada-karuwo rawatawala gahata goda-wela mage da[n]du monara yantre gaha uda tibuna mama ekata goda-wela pædagana giyaya." Næwata kumarit kumarayat dennama giyaya. Yana welawata kumarita dasa masa sampurna-wela hitiyaya. Yana welawata bade ruda allanda patan-gattaya. Næwata da[n]du monara yantre maha himalekata pat-karala winadiyata atu-geyak tanala kumari wædu­waya. Ewita kumaraya kiwuwa "Mama mehe guhin gindara tikak aragana ena kal hitapan" kiyala kumarita kiyagana da[n]du monara yantre pædagana kumaraya giyaya. Guhin pol-lellakata gindara aragana pædagana muda mædin ena welawata pol-lella dala da[n]du monara yantreta gindara allala daewaya. Næwata kumaraya æwit mude wætunaya. Ara palamu kiyapu awurudu gananat edata kammutu-wela tibunaya. Mude dæl damana hitapu aya kumaraya wætunu wahama goda-gattaya. E kumaraya e nuwara uyan-wattak wawagana etana hitiyaya. Ara himale wadapu kumarita kisi sawu-saranak nætuwa inna atara e himale tapas rakina tapasa kenekuta me duka penila kumari inna tænata æwit kata-keruwaya. Ewita kumari tapasayo dutuwata passe hite tibunu karadare tikak arila tapasa-inda kiwuwa "Mama me wanantare æwidala palawæla tikak soyagana ena turu me lamaya bala-ganna­wada" kiyala æhæwuwa. Næwata tapasayo kiwuwa "Mama lamaya ælluwot mata kilutayi. E nisa oba mæssak tanala eka wælakin ellala mæsse wælak bæ[n]dala lamaya mæsse budi-karawala hita palayan. Lamaya a[n]dana welawata mama æwit wæla gawin allala hollanñan ewita lamaya nawatinawa æta." Tapasayo kiyapu hætiyata karala kumari palawæla soyagana kaewaya. Eka dawasak kumari lamayata kiri powala mæsse budi-karawala palawæla soyanda giyaya. Næwata ara lamaya mæssen peralila bimata wætila a[n]dana welawata tapasa-inda æhila æwit bæluwama lamaya peralila bima wætila hitiyaya. Ewita tapasa-inda lamaya allanda kiluta nisa malak kadala malata sattak kriya-karala "Me lamaya wagema lamayek mæwiyan" kiyala hituwaya. Næwata e wagema lamayek mæwunaya. Kumari æwit balapuwama lamayi dennek innawa dækala kumari tapasa-ingen æhæwuwa "Mokada ada lamayi dennek." Næwata tapasayo kiwuwa "Mama enakota lamaya wætila a[n]da a[n]da hitiya. Mata lamaya allanda kiluta nisa mama e wagema lamayek mæwuwaya." Næwata kumari kiwuwa "Mata oya wacane wiswasa-karanda bæriya. Ehe nan ayet lamayek mawanda onae mata balanda." Ewita tapasayo kiwuwa "Obata eka lamaya tanaganda tiyena amaruwe hætiyata tun denek unama kopamana amaruwakda." "Kamak næta. Mawala dendeyi. Mata tanaganda puluwani." Ewita tapasayo malak kadala sattak kriya-karala mæssa uda tiyapuwama e wagema lamayek mæwunaya. Næwata kumari santosa-wela lamayi tænuwaya. Næwata lamayi tænila e lamayi wihin wanantare æwidala palawæla soyagana æwit mawuta dila kanda patan-gattaya. Eka dawasak me tun dena æwidagana yana welawata loku gangawak sambu-unaya. Balapuwama ga[n]gen egoda loku uyan-wattak penenawaya. Ewita me tun dena "Pinanda pulu wanda" kiyala hu[n]gak durata pinala apahu æwidin "Heta udema emu" kiyagana tika tika palawæla soyagana guhin mawuta dila pahuwa da udema dunu italut æragana tun denama ga[n]ga gawata giyaya. Guhin tun denama pinagana uyan-wattata guhi[n] bæluwama noyek palawæla jati tibunaya. Næwata me tun dena kadala kana welawata e uyana rakina uyan-gowuwo dækala duwagana æwit allanda tænuwaya. Ewita me tu[n de]na dunu æraga[na] widinda tænuwaya. Næwata uyan-gowuwo pænala duwagana guhin rajjuruwo atin kiwuwaya. Me tun dena puluwan tarama kala hu[n]gak kadagana ekan-wela giyaya. Ewita rajjuru[wo] uyan-gowuwanda kiwuwa "Hetat me horu awot wahama mata dannawapallaya." Pahuwa dat ara tun dena æwit kadana welawata uyan-gowuwo guhin kiwuwa. Ewita rajjuruwo dunu italut aragana æwit widdaya. Widapuwama itale guhin ara kumarayo la[n]ga apahu bala wætunaya. Næwata e gollat rajjuruwanda widdaya. Et e hætiyatama itale guhin rajjuruwo la[n]ga apahu bala wætunaya. Næwata de-gollama lan-wela hita kata-keruwaya "Meka loku pudumayak une. De-gollagen katawat wædune næti kariya loku pudumayak. E nisa de-gollama yan panditayo la[n]gata meka toranda." Ewita de-gollama guhin panditayinda kiwuwa me unu kariya. Ewita panditayo torala kiwuwa rajjuruwanda "Tamunnanse dænata tun hatara awurudda­kata ihatadi kumarikawak kændana hitiya. E kumarige tamayi me tun dena tamunnanseta jataka daruwo. E nisa dewiyo wihin meka pennala inne. Kumarikawa inna tænakin guhin kændana endeyi" kiyala panditayo rajjuruwan[da] kiwaya. Næwata rajjuruwanda matakwela winadiyata næwak sarasagana panca-suriya (sic) naden ara kumari inna wanantareta guhin kumari a[n]da-gahagana æwit kumarit kumarayo tun denat rajjuruwot e uyane hitiyaya kiyala tibenawaya. Cultivator, North-Central Province. NO. 126 THE STORY OF THE SEVEN WICKED WOMEN NAPURU GAENU HADDENAGE KATANTARAYA Ekomat eka rataka akko nago haddenek at-wæl bændagana yanakota gaeniyak linda gawa indala æhæwwa "Kohedae tamala yanne" kiyala. Etakota e akko nago haddena kiwa "Api ayiyo malayo haddenek hoya-ganda yanawa" kiyala. Etakota me gaeni kiwa "Mage innawa ayyo malayo haddenek. Yamalla ehe nan ape gedara" kiyala e haddena kændana gihin gewal hatakata ærala wi petti hatak bala dunna. E haddena e wi tambala me gaenita "Naene mewwa bala-ganin" kiyala wi wanala e haddena dara pare giya. E gihin kata-wuna "Naena maranda api upaharana karamu" kiyala. Rilawek hitiya e rilawa alla-gana gedara genawa. Me nagata budi gihin maha warusawak wæhæla wi okkama agare giya. Ara haddena æwidin bælukota wi okkama agare gihin. Ita passe e haddena aye wi bala e wi kækulen kotanakota ara nagata æhæruna. E æhærila ara haddena atin æhæwwa "Naene bat tiyeyi" kiyala. Etakota e gaenu kiwa "Bat tiyenne api ateyæyi hæliye newe tiyenne" kiyala. E gaenu kalimma kotaleta kæbilicca katu kudu-karala damala tiyayi wi kotanne. Passe ara naena gihin bat kala "Naene watura dilala" kiyala me gaenu kiwa "Api ateyæyi tiyenne geyi kotale tiyanawa anna bipan" kiyala. Passe e naena kotale anna diya bonakota kæbilicca katu ugure rænduna. Me haddena kata-wuna "Okige ayiyala awot nan maranda bæri-weyi. Enda issara maramu" kiyala e kata-wela naenayi ara rilawayi mallakata damala bændala yata-liye elluwa. E ellala e haddena wi kotamin hita haddena hat parak gahanawa mol-gaswalin e mallata. E gahana gane ara rila pæna pæna ara malle inna gaeni suranawa. E surala passe mallen le bahinawa. Etakota e haddena "Itin inda narakayi mundala damamu" kiyala malla mundala e naena pilikannata dæmma. Etakota e naenage ayiyala gedara awa. E æwidin wædimal ayiya æhæwwa "Koyi ape naga" kiyala. Etakota me gaenu haddena kiwa "Api danne nae. Rodi passe gihin kula wætila on pilikanna diha anda anda innawa" kiyala. Passe wædimal ayiya gihin "Mokadae nage umbata wune" kiyala æhæwwa naga atin. Nagata kata-karanda bae kæbilicca katuwak ugure ræ[n]dila tiyana nisa. E ayiyala haddenama gihin kata-keruwa. Kata-keruwe næti nisa wædimal ayiya kiwa "Me naga kapanda katadae pustuhan" kiyala. Anit ayiyala pas denama bae kiwa bala ayiya kiwa "Mata nan pustuwani" kiyala. E kiyala bat gediyak uyawagana nagat kændana kaduwat aragana bat gediyat aragana himalekata giya. E gihin nagata kiwa "Nage umbe oluwe ukunan balanda budiya-ganin ko" kiyala. Passe naga budiya-gatta itin ayiya ukunan bindinda patan-gatta. Etakota nagata budi-giya. Passe e ayiya nagage oluwa himimma bima tiyala emin para gærendiyek kapala kaduwe le gagana gedara inna ættanda kaduwa pennuwa. Passe ara naga æhærila bælukota ayiya nae wanantare. Itin anda anda bat gediyat anna parakata pænala yanda patan-gatta. E gihin raksaya kana nuwara kiyala nuwarak tiyanawa e nuwara dan-sælak tiyanawa etenda gihin eli-bæssa. Etanin ara bat gediya kala dan dena ættanda ek-wela dan denda patan-gatta. Me ayiyala haddenageyi gaenu haddenageyi okkagema æs kana-wuna. Ita passe e ættandat aranci-wuna raksaya kana nuwara dan-sælak tiyanawa kiyala. Ita passe ewun daha-hatara denama e dan-sæla gawata giya. Ara naena digekut gihin darawekut wadalat innawa. Me gollata kaema dila ara naenayi naenage lamayayi budi-yenda tana­kota e lamaya kiwa naenata "Amme mata ahanda kata-wastuwak kiyapan" kiyala. Etakota e naena "Pute mama monawadae danne mata wecci ewwa nan kiyaññan" kiyala. Etakota puta kiwa "Hondayi kiyapan" kiyala. Passe me naenata wecca karana serama kiwa. E kiyana ewwa ara ayiyala haddenata æhila "Ane ape naga ada ape warune kiyanne" kiyala sadu-kara dipu parama ayiyala haddenagema æs paeduna. Gaenu haddenage æs paedune nae. E ayiyala haddenat naga inna nuwarama hitiya. Gaenu haddena badi-ginnema indala un maerila giya. Nimi. Cultivator, Hiriyala Hat Pattu District, North-Western Province. NO. 134 THE STORY OF THE RAKSHASA AND THE PRINCESS RAKSAYAGEYI KUMARIKAWAGEYI KATANTARAYA Ekomat eka rataka rajjuruwo kenekuyi dewinnanse kenekuyi innawa lu. E dewinnanse kumarikawak wæduwa. E ratema raksayekuyi raksiyekuyi innawa. E raksit raksayek waeduwa. Ara kumarikawage handahane tibuna raksayekuta kasata bandinawa kiyala ara raksayage handahane tibuna kumarikawak kasata bandinawa kiyala. E dennama hungak loku-wunata passe rajjuruwoyi dewinnanseyi mæruna ara kumarikawa witarayi maligawe inne. Raksayata hitapu deyak mawanda puluwani. E raksaya hituwa "Maligawayi maligawe tiyana raja wastuwayi serama næti-wenda" kiyala e hætiyatama næti-wuna. Kumarikawata inda tænak nætuwa anda anda innakota raksaya etenda æwit kumarikawa atin æhuwa "Mokada andanne" kiyala. Etakota kumarikawa kiwa "Mama andanne mata inda tænak nae kanda deyak nae e nisa" kiyala. Ita passe raksaya kiwa "Mama kae-ændima deññan. Ape gedara enda puluwanda" kiyala. Etakota kumarikawa kiwa "Puluwani" kiyala. Ita passe raksayayi kumarikawayi raksayage gedara awa. Etakota raksaya atin æhæwwa raksayage amma "Kawdae pute oye" kiyala. Etakota kiwa "Amme ahawal rajjuruwanne kumarikawa mama kændana awa umbata lehuwak karawa-ganda" kiyala. Ita passe raksi "Ha hondayi" kiyala kumarikawa raksinge wæda-kariyak wage serama wæda kumarikawa lawwa karawagana innakota raksita hit-una "Kumarikawa kanawa nam" kiyala. E hitila dawasakda raksi mini kanda yanda tanakota kumarikawa ati[n] kiwa "Mama enakota diya kalagedi hatak genat tiyala dara miti hatak genat tiyala wi hæli hatak tambala kotala gewal hate goma gala uyala mata nanda watura unu-karala tiyapiya næt nam to kanawa" kiyala raksi mini kanda giya. Ita passe kumarikawa anda anda sitiya. Etakota raksaya æhuwa "Mokada to andanne" kiyala. Kumarikawa kiwa "Amma mata meccara wæda kiyagana giya. Ewwa mama kohomada karanne" kiya. Etakota raksaya kiwa "To ekata hæka-wenda epa. Amma æwadin ahapuwama e wæda okkama keruwa kiyapiya" kiyala. Ita passe kumarikawa raksaya kiyapu hætiyatama karabana indala raksi atin e wæda keruwa kiyala. Raksi e wæda harida kiyala balapuwama serama hari. Itin kumarikawa kanda hætiyak nae raksita. Ita passe raksige nangata wacanaya æriya "Maligawe kellak innawa e kella mata kanda hætiyak nae koyi wædak kiwwawat e wæde hariya­tama karala tiyanawa. Itin kohomada kanne. Mama me kella umba langata ewaññan etakota umba kapan" kiyala. E raksi kumarikawa atin kiwa "Ape nangalae gedara gihin ehe mage pettiyak tiyanawa. Eka genawe næt nam to kanawa" kiyala. Ita passe kumarikawa kadulla langata æwit anda anda innakota raksaya etenda æwidin æhæwwa "Mokadae to andanne" kiyala. Etakota kumarikawa kiwa "Amma mata kiwa pinci ammalae gedara pettiyak tiyanawa. Gene[n]da kiyala næt nam kanawa kiyala pettiya pare giyama pinci amma mama kanawa æti. Ada nam mata berenda bae" kiyala. Ita passe raksaya "Pinci amma lipata pimba pimba innawa pettiya dora langa tiyanawa. To duwagana gihin pettiya aragana wara" kiyala. Passe duwagana gihin kumari baelu wita e raksi lipata pimba pimba innawa pettiya dora langa tibuna. Kumarikawa geta gihin pettiyat aragana duwagana awa. Raksit passen panna-gatta kanda bæri-wuna. Ara raksita etaninut kanda hætiyak nae. Ohoma ohoma hungak kalak innakota raksayata mangulak æhæwwa. E ahala raksit mangule yanda dodu-wela kumarikawa atin kiwa "Api manamali kændana enakota gedara hondata hari-gassala mesa putu hadala mangul-karayinda tæmma uyala tiyapiya" kiyagana raksi mangule giya. Raksaya pahu-wela indala kumarikawa atin kiwa "To karabana indala amma kiyapu wæda okkama keruwa kiyapiya" kiyala raksayat mangule giya. Passe kumarikawa karabana indala manamali kændagana mangul-karayo awata passe raksi kumarikawa atin æhæwwa "Mama kiyapu wæda okkama keruwada keruwada" kiyala. Ita passe kumarikawa "Ow" kiwa. Raksi bælukota e wæda serama hari etaninut kanda hætiyak nae. Passe e manamalita igænnuwa "Pute on oye kella umbata puluwan nan kapan mama puluwan hætiye kanda tænuwa" kiyala. Ita passe e kella puluwan kanda tænuwa kumarikawa kanda bæri-wuna. Ohoma ohoma hungak kal innakota raksayayi kumarikawayi hængila giya. E gihin kumarikawage raja maligawa tibuna hætiyatama mawala e denna maligawe hitiya. Nimi. Cultivator, Hiriyala Hat-Pattu District, North-Western Province. NO. 207 THE TURTLE PRINCE IBI KUMARAYA Ekomat eka nuwaraka hitanan dennek gedarawal dekaka hitinawa. E innakota e hitanan dennata dewinnansela dennakut hitinawa. E inna atara eka dewinnanse kenek gaenu daruwo hat denek wæduwa anik dewinnanse pirimi daruwo haya denakut ibbakut wæduwa. Etakota ema hitano denna kata-kala "Massine obe daruwoyi mage daruwoyi pitata kasata no-bæ[n]da api apima denu ganu karagamu" kiwa. "Ehenan waedimal daruwo denna kasata ba[n]dimu" kiya kasata bænda. Deweni daruwo dennat kasata bænda. Tunweni daruwo dennat kasata bænda. Hatara-weni daruwo dennat kasata bænda. Pasweni daruwo dennat kasata bænda. Haweni daruwo dennat kasata bænda. Hatweni daruwo denna kasata ba[n]dinta hætiyak næta. E næti kariya nan "Massine mage duwa bohoma alankara æti duwa. Ema nisa obe bala daruwa nan ho[n]da næta" kiwa. "E ho[n]da næti kariya nan mokadae kiwot obe daruwa ibba ema nisa bae" kiwa. Etakota anik massina kiyanawa "Massine ehema kiyala bæ. Mage bala daruwa wana ibba kiyanawa 'Mama appucciye mata e magula næt nan mama li[n]data payinawa noyekut perali-karanawa' kiyala ibba kiyanawa. Ema nisa obe daruwama kasata ba[n]dinda onae" kiyanawa. "Ehema bæri nan daru kipa dena­gema kasata katu-gamu" kiyanawa ibbage appa. Etakota kiyanawa "Ehe nan massine kasata katu-gaemen kamak nae mage duwa ibbata denawa" kiwa. E dila kasata bænda. E kasata bæ[n]dala innakota ema nuwara rajjuruwannen yeduna "Rassayae gedara inna gini kukula genat denta kata puluwanda" kiya yeduna. Ema rajjuruwannen genat dunnu kenekunda noyek tanantara denawa kiya anda-bera gæsuwa. Deweni "Mage rajjayat denawa" kiya yeduna. E wacane ibbata dæni "Amme oba gosin kiyapan rajjuruwo dækkin "Mage puta wana ibbata puluwani" kiyala kiyapan "gini kukula genat denda." Etakota rajjuruwo kiwa "Obe putata enda kiyapan heta ude" kiwa. Pasuwa da ude ema ibba gosin kiyanawa "Mata gini kukula genat denda puluwani saddawasata." Etakota rajjuruwo kiwa "Ibba tiya kawuru genat dunnat tanantara saha mage rajjayat denawa." Ibba gedara æwit ibbage gaenita kiwa "Mata bolan bat gediyak uyala genen" kiwa. Etakota ibbage gaeni æsuwa "Obata bat gediya mokatadae" kiya æsuwa. "Mata rajjuruwannen yeduna rassayæ gedara inna gini kukula genat denda yeduna. Ema nisa bat gediya uyapan" kiwa. Etakota "Bat gediya uyala denda nan puluwani oba kohomadæ ænna yanne" kiwa. Etakota ibba kiwa "Bat mallakata damala maye pite tiyala bæ[n]dapan mata ænna gihaeki" kiwa. Pite tiyala bændæn passe ema ibba gamana gosin magadin mahamidi gæsicci rodakata giya. E gosin bat gediya una ibi hættaya galawa tiya bat gediya kaewa. Kala ahak-wela ibi hættaya hanga gamana giya. E gamana yanakota magadi rae wela kanawændun ammage gedara giya. E gosin "Amme mata nawa-tænak denda onae" kiwa. Etakota kanawændun ammandi kiwa "Nawa-tænak nan denda puluwani" kiwa "kanda denda deyak nae." "Ehe nan kaemen kamak nae nawa-tæna witarak dunnot ati" kiwa. Etakota kanawændun anmandi æsuwa "Oba kohedae pute yanne" kiyala æsuwa. Etakota kiwa "Rassayæ gedara mini kukula pare yanawa" kiwa. Kanawændun ammandi etakota kiwa "Pute oba karaba­gana gamata palayan. Boho rasi gananak senaga metana nawa-tæne hitala gini kukula pare giya. Giya misa gini kukula ænna awe nae. Ema nisa oba yanda epa. Etakota kiwa "Oba amme koccara kiwat mama nan yandama onae. "Maye kima no salaka oba yanawata passe me man uyapu kudu-hunusal tikak kala palayan." Etakota kiwa, "Ada oba kudu-hunusal iwuwa misa aye obata kudu-hunusal uyanda hanba-wenne nae" kiyala kiwa. Ema wahama kækulu hal mæwuna. "Pute oba dunnu warama wage mamat obata waramak denñan. Oba rassayae gedara gosin ena welawata rassaya nawatagana eyi. E etakota me gal-kæte ænna gosin 'Ci kanda mæwiyan' kiyala damapan kanda mæweyi. Rassaya kanda diga ihalata gosin pahalata bahinakota obata etakota hungak tæn gi-haeki." Etanine warama æragana yanda yanakota magadin rae una. Rae unæn pasu ayet kanawændun anmandi kenekunnge gedarata giya. Kanawændun anmandi æsuwa "Kohedae pute oba me rae unu mana yanne." Etakota kiwa "Mama rassayae gedara gini [332] kukula pare yanawa" kiwa. "Oba oye gamana yanda epa gini[332] kukula pare yana senaga yanawa misa enne nae." "Kohetma e waga mata nan kiyanda epa mama nan gini[332] kukula pare yandama onae. Mama mehe awe nawa-tænak onae wela." "Nawa-tæna nan denda puluwani. Kanda denda deyak nae" kiyala kanawændun anmandi kiwa. "Kaemen kamak nae mata nawa-tæna dunnot æti" kiwa. Nawa-tæn karaya balana iddin kanda baeri handa kudu-hunusal uyapuwæn tikak kanda dunna. "Amme obata kudu-hunusal ada iwuwa misa aye uyanda hanbawenne nætuwa mama waramak denñan" kiyala "Kækulu hal mæwiyan kiyala kiwa. "Ehe nan pute obata man waramak denñan kiyala menna me una kotuwa ænna gosin rassaya oba pare nawatana enda enakota 'Ci una mæwiyan' kiyala una kotuwa damapan. Etakota una wæta mæweyi. Una pa[n]dura diga rassaya ihalata gosin pahalata enakota obata hu[n]gak tæn ae-haeki." Etanin pasuwa da yanda yanakota magadi rae una. Rae wela ayet kanawaendun anmandi kenekunne gedarakata giya. E gosin nawa-tænak illuwa. "Me rae wunu mana oba kohedae yanne" kiyala æsuwa. Etakota kiwa "Mama rassayae gedara gini kukula genenda yanawa" kiwa. "Kola das mala das yanawa misa e giya ætto giya misa awe nae. Ema nisa oba yanda epa." "Mama nan gini[332] kukula pare yandama onae. Mata metana inda nawa-tæna denda onae." Etakota kiwa "Denda nan puluwani kanda denda denda deyak nae." "Mata kaemen kamak nae mata nawa-tæna dunnot æti." Kanawændun anmandi wisin kudu-hunusal tikak uyala kanda dunna. "Amme obata aye kudu-hunusal uyanda læbenne nae mama ho[n]da waramak den[ñ]an." Kækulu hal mæwenda waramak dunna. "Oba dunnu waramata wada mama denñan waramak. Rassayage gedara gosin gini kukulat ænna enakota rassaya kanda duwagana eyi. E enakota menna me a[n]guru kæte ænna gosin 'Ci gini mæwiyan' kiyala damapan, gini wæta mæweyi. Etakota rassaya æwit gindarata pani. Karabana hemihita gedara waren." E æwadin ibi hættaya tiyana tænata gosin ibi hættaya æ[n]gata porawagana gamata awa. E æwadin rajjuruwanda gini kukula bara-dunna. E denakota rajjuruwo kiwa "Ada hitan mage rata saha wastu samaga tota barayi." "Oyita wada wastu mata tiyanawa mata epa" kiwa. Ema rajjuruwo wisin e wastu puja-karanda banak niyama-kala. E bana ahanda ibbage [gae]ni saha tawat gænu bana ahanda yanakota anik ena gaenu kiyanawa "Ibbæ gaeniye bana ahanda yanda wara." E gihin bana ahana­kota ibba ibi hættaya galawala bana ahanda giya. Etakota ibbi gaeni kalpana-kala "Maye minihamayi me" kiyala. Kalpana-wela gedara æwadin bælu kala ibi hættaya tiyanawa dækala eke tibba wastuwa ænna ema hættaya lipata dama bana ahanda giya. Ibbae gaenige miniha gedara æwit bælukota ibi hætte nae. Geta wela karabana hitiya. Ibbæ gaeni sellamen gedara awa. Wena gaenu "Ibbae gaenige ada occara tiyana sellama mokadae" kiya æsuwa. "Mage sellama gedara gihama dæneyi." Ibbae gaenit samaga wena gaenu e wacane balanda ibbæ gaenige gedara awa. Æwadin bælukota ibbæ gaenige miniha raja kenek samanayi. Me katantaraya hitanawaru dennage. Tom-tom Beater, Hiriyala Hat-Pattu District, North-Western Province. NO. 216 THE STORY OF GOLU-BAYIYA GOLU BAYIYÆ KATHAWA Eka rataka sitiya lu Gonaka Bokka kiyala minihek. E Gona Bokkage malayo dasa denek sitiya lu. Malayo dasa dena katha-karala "Apata Gona Bokka ayiyagen apata kisi prayojanak næta. Apata wædapala karana apata amaruyi. Ekata api dasa dena­tama eka magulak genamu" kiya hita "Otannapahuwa kiyana gamata yan" kiya gamata bala malaya giya lu. E Otannapahuwata magulak ahanta giyaya. Ita passe anik nawa dena katha-karanawa lu "Ape ayyata 'Gona Bokka' kiyanakota apata gena gæni kiyayi bola Gona Bokka ki[ya]na nama wansa næti ewuntayi kiya. Apata gena gæni yayi. Ekata Golu Bayiya kiyamu" kiya. "Ape Golu Bayi ayatat ape [na]m makanta demu" kiya katha-karagana innawa lu. Etakota kipa dawasak maga gewagena hæmatama bala malaya æwit hita kiwa lu "Ayiyanela Otannapahuwe mama ahanta giya Gæni nan wanse ho[n]dayi. 'Bala pætiyakuta magul denne kawudæ. Wædimal sahodarayinta ekkenakunta enta kiyapan' kiya-ewwaya." Ita passe e daha dena katha-karanawa lu "Api dasa denata wædimal Golu Bayi ayiya magul ahanta arimu" kiyala katha-karanawaya. Itin e Golu Bayiya kiyana ætta maha modayek lu. Ita passe ara dasa dena "Ayye api kiyana deta obat enawa nam api ekolohama eka magulak kændagana inta obat warenna" kiyala kata-karanawa lu. Ita passe Golu Bayya kiwa lu "Ho[n]dayi mama yaññan" kiya. Bat gedi[ya]k uyawagana pitat-wela giya lu. Yanawa yanawa. Para no-danna nisa gihun galak uda wanantare i[n]dagana bat gediya kæwaya. Kala innakota wenin rataka gæniyak duppat wela enta enawa lu para diga. Æwit e Golu Bayiya inna gala gawa i[n]da-gattaya. In pasu gæni ahanawa lu "Oba koyi rateda koyi gameda" kiya gæeni miniyagen æsuwaya. In pasu miniya kiwa lu "Mama magulak ahanta Otannapahuwata yanawaya" kiya kiwaya. Ita pasu gæni kiyanawa lu "Anicchan dukkhan e game æsu gæni mamayi. Mama mage de-mawu-piyo wæræddak-wela pænnuwaya. E nisa mama kanta bonda dena tænakata yanawaya" kiwuwaya. In pasu Golu Bayiya "Gæni ho[n]da nisat palamu ahala tiyena nisat mama Otannapahuwata no-gohinma kændagana yanda onæya" hita e paredi hamba-wunu gæni kændagana gamata awaya. Æwit malayalata kiyanawa "Mama Otannapahuwata giyaya. Malawali onna gæni" kiya "siyallatama kændagamu" kiyala kiwaya. Ita pasu anik dasa dena nu-dutu nisa eda patan gæni pawagana hitiyaya. Pawagana kipa dawasak inna atara e bala dasa dena katha-karanawa lu "Ape magul ayiya tanikarema kisi kenekma nætuwa kændagana awaya. Ape ayiya kale ho[n]da hapankamayi. E nisa api siyalu wædapala karamu. Ape gaeni nilantarayen ape Golu Bayi ayiyata rakinta baradi api wædapala karamu. Ayiya gæni ræk­apan" kiwaya. "Ho[n]dayi mama rakimi" kiya gæni yana ena tænata adi haema tænakata gaeni ya nan e Golu Bayiyat yanawaya. E atara ek dawasak wela[n]damata ek miniyek e gamata awaya. E miniyage nama Gætapadayaya. E Gætapadaya kipa dawasak ema gedara wela[n]dam kara kara ema gedara maduwe sitiyaya. Sitina ataradi ema Gætapadaya kiyana miniyata me Golu Bayiyage gæni ek-unaya. E inna atara palamu ki dasa dena wædata giya dawasakadi pera ki Golu Bayiyata Gætapadaya kiyanne "Mama ada hinayak dutuwaya. Mokada. Asawal tæna pare gonek mærila innawa dutuwaya." Eka balala enta Golu Bayiyata Gætapadaya kiwaya. Golu Bayiya e gona balanda gi atara Gætapadaya gaenit ænna gedara tibu badut æna dennama pala-giyaya. Golu Bayyae katawa. Tom-tom Beater, Hiriyala Hat-Pattu District, North-Western Province. NO. 225 THE WAX HORSE ITI ASWAYA Ekamat eka rataka raja kenekuta putrayek upanna lu. Brahmanayin genwa me kumarayage handahana liyawanta baradun wita kumaraya wædi-wiya pæmununama rata æra-yanta tibena bawa rajjuruwanta dænun dunnama rajjuruwo kumarayawa udu-mahal-tale kamarayaka ita su-rækiwa inta sælæssuwa lu. Me ladaru kumaraya taramak loku wi keli-sellam adiyehi yedi dawas yawana kalayedi withiye wikunanta gena-yannawu iti aswayek dæka uwa aragana denta kiya piya-rajjuruwanta sæla-kala kalhi piya-rajjuruwo aswayawa mila di rægena tama putrayata dunna lu. Me aswaya piyapat dekakin yuktawu guwanehi igilenta puluwan­kama æti ekek wiya. Me aswaya gattata pasu swalpa kalayak sita kumaraya taramak loku wunama kisiwek-hatawat no-hangawa iti aswayage upakarayen igili yanta giya lu. Itin sastrakara-Brahmanayinge kimat sæbae wiya. Kumaraya aswayage balayen igilligana gos tawat raja kenekunge maligawata mal amuna dena mahalu ammandi kenekuge gedarata giya lu. Mehidi iti aswayawa kotanada sangawa mal-ammage gedara sitimin raja gedara tora­turu siyallama mal-ammagen asa dæna-gatta lu. Mese dænagana tika kalak sita rajjuruwange diyaniyan sitina udu-mahal-tale kamara adiya dænagana laksanawu kumarikawak sitina kamarayakata ratri kalayedi iti aswayagen gos kumarikawata genat tibuna kaema bimadiya ka bi kipa dawasakma no-hangawa yanta giya lu. Kumarikawada kamarayata ae nida-gattata pasu kawuru-namut æwit gihin tibena bawa dæna pasuwa da no-nida bala sitiya lu. Ewita kumaraya æwit kaema bimadiya anubhawa karana-kota kumari kaduwa eka atakin aragana kumarayawa eka atakin alwagena "Topa kawudæyi" kiya æsuwa lu. Kumarayat raja pawulakata ayiti kenek bawa danwa ae samaga katha-bas-kota yalu-wi aewa kara-kara bandintat giwisagana ita pasuwa dawaswaladit enta patan-gatta lu. Itin me kumariwa saema dawaswalama udeta kirana siritak tibuna lu. Kumaraya enta wunata pasuwa dawaswaladi kumarige bara kramayen wædi-wegana gos ae bada-gæbbarin siti bawa rajjuruwo dænagana kumari samaga amatyayage mitra-satthawayak ætæyi sita amatyayawa maranta niyama-kala lu. Amatyayada ita sokayata pæmina sitina kalayedi rajjuruwange anikut duru æwi[t] "Ita sokayakin sitinne mandæyi" kiya ama­tyayagen æsu wita siyalu toraturuma owunta dænun dunna lu. E kumarikawan ræs-wi æmættayawa galawana pinisa mese upakramayak yeduwa lu enam amatyayage nam dosayak næta kawuru-namut pita-kenek mona upakramayakin namut kumari samipayata enawa ætæyi sita nana suwanda pæn oruwe wisa dama raja wasala doratuwe tibena pokune mura tibba lu. Kumaraya æwit kumarige kamareta yanta prathama suwanda pæn naewama ohuta wisa pattu-wi duwagana gos pokune pænnama murakarayo ohuwa alla-gatta lu. Me kumarayawa alwagana gos rajjuruwanta karana terum kara-dunnama æmættayawa bera kumarayawa maranta niyama-kala lu. Kumarayawa wada-karuwo genayana wita "Mage wastuwak tibenawaya eka topata aragana dennan (sic)" kiya gahakata nægi ehi kola aturehi palamuwen taba sangawa tibuna iti aswayawa aragana igilli-diwwa lu. Mese madak dura gos næwati ratri kalayehi næwatat raja wasalata æwit kumariyawat anda-gasagana maha wanantarayak mædin yanakota kumarita bada-rudawa sædunama bimata bæsa aewa nawatwa ita onae karana behet adi upakarana gena ena pinisa swamipa grama­yakata gos iti aswayawa kadayak langa taba tawat kadekata gihin enakota kade langa gindarak tibi iti aswayawa diya-wi gos tibuna dutuwa lu. Iti aswaya næti-wunayin pasu kumariya siti tænata me kumarayata yanta bæri-wuna lu. Kumarida wanantrayedi putrayek wada "Asat-purusawu kumarayage putrayawat mata epaya" kiyala daruwawat dama gam samipayakata ae giya lu. Me kumarige piya wanantaraye dadayamata giya kalayedi me ladaruwawa sambhawi raja gedarata genat æti-kala lu. Me ladaruwage maw wana kumarikawi kanya pantiyakata bændi wasaya-karana kalayedi me æti-karagatta lamaya wædi-wiya pæmina saranayak soya gos tamagema maeniyo dæka aewa kara-kara bandinta adahas kala lu. Mese sita tun dawasakma sarana wicaranta yanta pitat-wuna wita marggayedi bada wi tun dawasedima hæri awa lu. Eka dawasak aswaya pita nægi sarana wicaranta yana gamanedi kurul pætaw wagayak aswayata paegi kirilli kumarayata mese bænna lu enam "Mu muge mo ganta yanawa madiwata mage pætaw tikat mara-dæmmaya" kiya bænna lu. Me dawasedi bada wuna nisa apasu hæri æwit ita pasuwa da giya lu. Eda yanakota elu pætiyekwa aswayata paegi eludenat "Muge amma ganta yanawa madiwata ape pætaw mara-dæmuwaya" kiya bænna lu. Tunweni dawasedit yanakota pera sema bada wuna lu. Me kumaraya mese kanya pantiyenma saranayak sewwe ohu hadagat purusayek nisa kisikenek sarana no-dena bæwinya. Mita pera eka dawasak sellam­paledi "Awajatakayayayi" anikut lamayin wisin kiwama ohuwa æti-karagatta rajjuruwangen ohuge de-maw-piyo koyidæyi asa wanantaraye sita ohuwa genat hadagat bawa dænagana tibuna lu. Itin tunweni dawasedit bada wela e gæna no-salaka sarana wicaranta gos tamage maeniyo bawa madakwat no-dæna aege utpattiye sita kanya pantiyata a kalaya dakwa waga tu[n]ga asa "Wanantaraye ahawal palatedi samba-wi tibenne mawa tamayi e nisa me mage maeniyo tamayi" kiya. Dænagana aranci karagana gos tamage piyawat soyagana æwit ohuge siyawu hewat ohuge maeniyange piya wana rajjuruwange aewaemen rajjayatada pat-wi raja pawulakin kara-kara bænda yahatin kal yæwwa lu. Ratmalana, Western Province. Corrections.--Page 424, line 7, for pustuhan read puluhan. Line 9, for pustuwani read puluwani. APPENDIX ADDITIONAL NOTES, AND CORRECTIONS, VOLUME I. Page 21, line 4. For trades read traders. Page 27, line 19. For Ratemahatmaya read Ratemahatmaya. Page 40. Tamalitta. In the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. i, p. 329, note, Mr. Tawney stated that the Tamalitta district probably comprised the tract of country to the westward of the Hughli river, from Bardwan and Kalna on the north to the Kosai river on the south. Page 41. Lata. A country of this name is stated in a note in the same work in vol ii, p. 221, to have comprised Khandesh and part of Gujarat. It was a seat of the fine arts, and its silk weavers are mentioned in an inscription of 473-74 A.D., some of them having settled at Mandasor in the western Malwa (Ind. Ant., vol. xiv, p. 198). The Lala of Wijaya's father was evidently a different district. It is probably due to the similarity of the names of these two districts--the letters t and l being interchangeable--that Wijaya was supposed to have sailed for Ceylon from a port on the western coast of India, to which a resident in Lata would naturally proceed on his way to that island. Page 49. According to the Maha Bharata, the Kali Yuga is followed by the Krita Yuga. Page 51. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 401, the sky was formerly quite close to the earth; but one day when a woman after a meal threw out her leaf-plate a gust of wind carried it up to the sky. The supreme deity, the Sun, objected to be pelted with dirty leaf-plates, so he removed the sky to its present position. Page 53, note 3. Delete the second sentence. In Old Deccan Days, p. 169, the Sun, Moon, and Wind went to dine with Thunder and Lightning. The Sun and Wind forgot their mother, a star; but the Moon took home food for her under her finger-nails. The mother cursed the Sun and Wind, but blessed the Moon, her daughter, and promised that she should be ever cool and bright. Page 66. After Katha Sarit Sagara in the last note, add vol. i. In the same work, vol. i, p. 489, a King caused his portrait to be painted, and sent the artist to show it to another King and his beautiful daughter, and also to paint a likeness of her and return with it. She and the King were afterwards married. In vol. ii, p. 371, a King sent an ambassador to show a portrait of his son, and ask for a Princess in marriage for him. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 251, a Raja with five daughters determined to marry them to five brothers, and the Princes' father had a similar intention. Emissaries from both met at a river, the Princes and girls were seen, and the wedding day fixed. When his brothers went the eldest Prince gave them his shield and sword, and told them to perform the ceremony for him by putting the usual vermilion mark of Indian brides on his bride's forehead with the sword. Unlike the girl in the Sinhalese story, she at first refused to allow the ceremony to be performed, but in the end consented. On the return journey sixteen hundred Rakshasas devoured all the party except the eldest Princess, who was preserved by the Sun God, Chando. Her husband killed them, and brought the party to life. On p. 302, there is another account of a sword marriage, the bridegroom being a Princess disguised as a Prince. Page 71. In the Maha Bharata (Vana Parva, cxcii) King Parikshit married a Frog Princess who must never see water. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 49, a Prince received from a Rakshasi, thanks to a changed letter, a jar of soap that when dropped became a mountain, a jar of needles that when dropped became a hill bristling with needles, and a jar of water which when poured out became a sea. He used these only for conquering other countries. In Kaffir Folk-Lore (Theal), pp. 82, 87, the magic obstacles also occur. In the former instance, some fat which was given was to be put on a stone; the cannibal pursuers then fought for the stone. In the latter case, a girl carried an egg, a milk-sack, a pot, and a smooth stone; her father pursued her. When thrown down, the egg became a mist, the milk-sack a sheet of water, the pot became darkness, and the stone a rock over which the man could not climb. Pages 73, 74, 304, 306, and Index. For tuttu read tuttu. Page 92. In Chinese Folk-Lore Tales (Rev. Dr. Macgowan), p. 25, a person called Kwang-jui purchased a fish and set it free in the river in which it was caught. It proved to be the River God in disguise, who afterwards saved Kwang-jui when he was stabbed and thrown into a river. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 239, two Princes who had saved some young birds by killing the snake which annually ate those in the same nest, were given food by their parents, and informed that he who ate the first piece would marry a Raja's daughter and he who ate the second piece would spit gold. These results followed. Page 107. In the same vol., p. 189, a dwarf a span high let a buffalo hide fall among some thieves who were dividing their booty under the tree in which he was hidden; they ran off and he took home the gold they had left, and informed his uncles that he got it by selling his buffalo skin. They killed all their buffaloes and were laughed at when they took the hides to sell. They then burned his house down, after which followed the pretended sale of the ashes, etc., as in a Bengal variant. In Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, p. 30, the story is similar, the persons cheated being the father-in-law (a King) and brothers-in-law, who were drowned when they were put in the river in bags, in order to find cattle such as the boy obtained from a cow-herd by changing places with him. At p. 204 of Folklore of the Santal Parganas, a mungus-boy propped the dead body of his mother against a tree as a drove of pack-bullocks was approaching. When she was knocked down he charged the drovers with causing her death, and got their cattle and goods as compensation. Page 112. For his vicious tricks the brothers of the same mungus-boy carried him off in a palankin to drown him. While they were searching for a deep pool, a shepherd came up with a flock of sheep. The boy cried out that he was being carried off to be married against his will, and would change places with anyone. The shepherd, thinking it a cheap marriage, took his place and was drowned, the boy driving off his sheep. After some days he reappeared, and said he got the sheep in the pool into which he was thrown, but in the deeper parts there were oxen and buffaloes. The brothers in order to get these took palankins, and were pushed into the water in them by the boy, and were drowned. At p. 242, there is the incident of the pretended rejuvenation of the wife by beating her. The man who saw it stole the club and afterwards beat his own wife severely without success. In the Kolhan tales (Bompas) appended to the same vol., p. 455, a jackal got a drum made out of the skin of a goat of his which the other jackals killed and ate; he stated that he found it in the river, where there were many more. The other jackals jumped in to get them, and were drowned. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. 4, p. 367) a woman was sentenced to be tied on a cross by her hair, with ten men as guards. While the guards slept, an ignorant Badawi, coming that way, spoke to himself of his intention to taste honey fritters, and believed the woman when she informed him that she was to be freed after eating ten pounds of the fritters, which she detested. He offered to eat them for her, took her place, and she rode off on his horse, dressed in his clothes. Page 128. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 226, a potter's wife who gave birth to a boy while digging clay, decided to take home her basket of clay, and leave the child, which was found and reared by a tiger. On p. 289, a woman who had borne twins in the jungle while collecting fruit, left them, and took home her basket of fruit instead. They were found and reared by two vultures, rejoined their parents, and being discovered by the birds were torn in two during the struggle for them. Page 133. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 29, the King of Videha sent to the King of Kasi, as a present, a casket containing two poisonous snakes. When the King opened it the venom of the snakes blinded him. Page 136. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 348, a deaf Santal who was ploughing at cross roads was asked by a Hindu where the roads went, and not understanding the language thought he was claiming the bulls of the plough. After the question had been repeated several times he began to think the man really had a claim to them, so to avoid being beaten he unyoked them and handed them over to the man, who went off with them. The next mistake was about the food brought by his mother to the field; she complained of it when she returned home, and scolded her daughter-in-law. Page 145. In the Maha-Bharata (Adi Parva, cxlii), a Rakshasa called Vaka protected a country, but required daily one cart-load of rice, two buffaloes, and a man, as his supply of food. One of the five Pandava Princes, Bhimasena, at his mother's request took the place of a Brahmana whose turn had come to be eaten, ate up the food in front of the Rakshasa, and then threw him down and broke his neck. Page 159. In the Maha Bharata (Udyoga Parva, cix) it is stated that the residence of the gods who subsist on smoke is in the south. In Kaffir Folk-Lore (Theal), p. 22, it is said that "the hunger of the spirit is allayed with the smoke" of the burnt offerings of animals. Page 166. In the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. i, p. 86, Siva gave two red-lotus flowers to a man and his wife, saying that if one of them proved unfaithful the other's lotus would fade. In vol. ii, p. 601, a man said that his wife had given him a garland which would not fade if she remained chaste. In a Khassonka story in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 134, a lion gave a herb to his friend who had become King, telling him that while it was green and fresh the lion would be alive, but when it withered and became yellow he would be dead. In Kaffir Folk-Lore (Theal), p. 81, a boy who was about to visit cannibals stuck his assagai in the ground, and said, "If it stands still, you will know I am safe; if it shakes, you will know I am running; if it falls down, you will know I am dead." In Sagas from the Far East, p. 106, six friends separated at a place where six streams met, and each one planted at his stream a tree that would wither if evil befel him. When five returned and saw that the tree of the sixth had withered they went in search of him. Page 167. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir, 2nd ed., p. 73, the life of a sorcerer was bound up in an earthen pot which he left with his sister; when it was broken he died. In Folk-Tales from Tibet (O'Connor), p. 113, the life of an ogre was in a boy seated in an underground chamber, holding a crystal goblet of liquor, each drop of which was the spirit of a person whom the ogre had killed. At p. 154, the life of an ogre was in a green parrot in a rock cave. In the Arabian Nights, vol. 5, p. 20, the soul of a Jinni was in the crop of a sparrow which was shut up in a box placed in a casket; this was enclosed in seven others, outside which were seven chests. These were kept in an alabaster coffer which was buried in the sea, and only the person wearing Solomon's seal ring could conjure it to the surface. The Jinni died when the sparrow was strangled. In a story of Southern Nigeria (The Lower Niger and its Tribes, Leonard, p. 320) the life of a King was in a small brown bird perched on the top of a tree. When it was shot by the third arrow discharged by a sky-born youth the King died. Page 173, line 4 from bottom. For burnt read rubbed. Page 177, line 18. For burnt read rubbed. To the last note, add, A young man lost all he had, and was then made a prisoner. Page 178. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 245, a Raja became blind on kissing his youngest son. He ordered him to be killed, but his mother persuaded the soldiers to take him to a distant country instead; there he married the Raja's daughter, and in order to cure his father went by her advice in search of a Rakshasa, whose daughter he married. The two returned with a magical flower of hers and a hair of the Rakshasa's head, calling on the way for his first wife. By means of the hair a golden palace was created, and when his father's eyes were touched with the flower they were cured. Page 185. In the notes, lines 10 and 11, the letters v and h in jivha should be transposed. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 207, the King's money was stolen by two palace servants. After a soothsayer who was called had eaten the food they brought, he said, "Find or fail, I have at any rate had a square meal." The thieves' names being Find and Fail they thought he knew they were guilty, begged him not to tell the Raja, and disclosed the place where the money was buried. The soothsayer read a spell over mustard seed, tapped the ground with a bamboo till he came to the spot, and dug up and handed the money to the Raja, who gave him half. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 58, in a Kalmuk tale, an assumed soothsayer recovered a talisman that he saw a Khan's daughter drop. Through overhearing the conversation of two Rakshasas he was able to free the Khan from them, and at last by his wife's cleverness was appointed to rule half the kingdom. In Chinese Nights' Entertainment (Fielde), p. 18, a poor man, overhearing his wife and son's talk about food, pretended that he could find things by scent, and told his wife what food was in the cupboard. The news spread, and he was ordered to discover the Emperor's lost seal. He feared punishment, and remarked, "This is sharp distress! This is dire calamity!" Hearing this, two courtiers, Sharp and Dyer, told him they had thrown the seal into a well, and begged him not to betray them; he recovered the seal. The Empress then hid a kitten in a basket, and asked what it contained. Expecting to be beheaded, he said, "The bagged cat dies." When the basket was opened the kitten was dead. Page 190. In the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. i, p. 211, a woman having told a man that she wished to give her husband who was impaled a drink of water, he bent down and she stood on his back. On looking up he saw that she was eating the man's flesh. He seized her by one foot, but she flew away, leaving her jewelled anklet, which he gave to the King, who married him to his daughter. When the Queen wanted a second anklet the man met with the Rakshasi again at the cemetery; she gave him the anklet and married her daughter to him. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir, 2nd ed., p. 334, a Prince while keeping watch over a dead body, cut off the leg of an ogress who came. When he gave the King her shoe he was rewarded. Page 196. The escape of the Prince by sending his foster-brother finds a parallel in a story recorded in the Sinhalese history, the Mahavansa, chapter x. The uncles of Prince Pandukabhaya had endeavoured to murder him because of a prophecy that he would kill them in order to gain the sovereignty, and he had taken refuge among some herdsmen. The account then continues in Dr. Geiger's translation, p. 69:--"When the uncles again heard that the boy was alive they charged (their followers) to kill all the herdsmen. Just on that day the herdsmen had taken a deer and sent the boy into the village to bring fire. He went home, but sent his foster-father's son out, saying: 'I am footsore, take thou fire for the herdsmen; then thou too wilt have some of the roast to eat.' Hearing these words he took fire to the herdsmen: and at that moment those (men) despatched to do it surrounded the herdsmen and killed them all." In the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. i, p. 162, a King and Queen ordered their cook to kill the person who brought a message, and sent a Brahmana with it. On the way, the King's son told him to get a pair of ear-rings made, took the message, and was killed by the cook. In the Kathakoça, p. 172, a merchant who wished to get a youth killed, sent him with a letter to his son ordering poison (vishan) to be given to him. While the youth was asleep in the temple of the God of Love, the merchant's daughter Visha came there, read the letter, corrected the spelling of her name, and her brother married her to the youth. Eventually, the merchant's son was killed by mistake in place of the youth, who became the heir, and the merchant died of grief. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes, extracted from the Chinese Tripitaka), vol. i, p. 165, we find the Indian form of the whole story. A wealthy childless Brahmana householder adopted an abandoned infant (the Bodhisattva), but when his wife was about to be confined he left it in a ditch, where a ewe suckled it till the shepherd returned it to him. He next left it in a rut in a road, but when many hundred carts came next morning the bulls refused to advance until the child was placed in a cart. A widow took charge of it, the householder regretted what he had done, rewarded her, and regained it. Finding after some years that the boy was more intelligent than his own son, he abandoned him among some bamboos, but men seeking firewood saved him. When the householder heard of him he felt remorse, paid the men well, and took him back. Again becoming jealous of his intelligence and popularity, he sent him to a metal founder with a note in which the man was ordered to throw into his furnace the child who brought it. On his way the householder's son, who was playing with others at throwing walnuts, told him to collect his nuts, delivered the letter, and was thrown into the furnace. The householder feared some accident, but arrived too late to save him. Determined to kill the elder boy he sent him with a letter to a distant dependant, who was ordered to drown him. On the road the youth called at the house of a Brahmana friend of the householder, where during the night the host's clever daughter abstracted and read the letter, and replaced it by one giving instructions for the immediate marriage of the youth to her, and the presentation of handsome wedding presents; this was done. When he heard of it the householder became seriously ill; the couple went to salute him, and on seeing them he died in a fit of fury. Page 198. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 201, in a Kalmuk tale, a woman picked up some tufts of wool, said she would weave cloth and sell it until an ass could be bought for her child, and would have a foal. When the child said he would ride the foal, his mother ordered him to be silent and to punish him went after him with a stick; as he was trying to escape the blow fell on his head and killed him. In the Arabian Nights, vol. 5, p. 388, there is a story of a Fakir who hung over his head a pot-ful of ghi which he had saved out of his allowance. With the money for which he could sell it he thought he would get a ewe, and gradually breeding sheep and then cattle, would become rich, get married, and have a son whom he would strike if he were disobedient. As he thought this he raised his staff, which struck and smashed the pot of ghi; this fell on him, and spoilt his clothes and bed. Page 200. In the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. ii, p. 60, a foolish King who wished to make his daughter grow quickly, was told by his doctors that they must place her in concealment while they were procuring the necessary medicine from a distant country. After several years they produced her, saying that she had grown by the power of the medicine, and the King loaded them with wealth. This story is given in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. ii, p. 166. Page 206. In Reynard the Fox in Southern Africa (Dr. Bleek), p. 33, there is a Hottentot variant. The clothes of a tailor had been torn by a Mouse which denied it and blamed the Cat; the blame was passed on to the Dog, the Wood, the Fire, the Water, the Elephant, and the Ant. The tailor got the Baboon to try them; in order to catch the real culprit it made each one punish the other. In a Sierra Leone story in Cunnie Rabbit, etc. (Cronise and Ward), p. 313, a boy killed a bird with a stone and his sister ate it, giving him in exchange a grain of corn. White ants ate this and gave him a waterpot. This was swept away by the water, which gave him a fish. A hawk took it and gave him its own wing, which the wind carried off, giving him in exchange much fruit. A baboon ate this and gave him an axe; the Chief took this and satisfied him by presenting him with money and slaves. Page 208, line 6 of notes. For crane read egret. Page 212. In Folktales of the Santal Parganas, p. 338, the hare, wanting a dinner of rice cooked with milk, lay down while watch was kept by its friend the jackal. Men taking rice put down their baskets and chased the hare, the jackal meanwhile removing the rice. In this way they got also milk, firewood, a cooking-pot, and some leaf-plates. The jackal brought a fire-brand, cooked the food, and hurried over his bath, at which the hare spent a long time. While it was away, the jackal ate as much rice as he wanted, and filled up the pot with filth over which he placed the remaining rice. When the hare discovered this he threw the contents over the jackal, and drove it away. Page 215. In the same work, p. 339, the animals were a leopard and a he-goat which occupied its cave and frightened it by saying "Hum Pakpak." The leopard returned with the jackal, their tails tied together, but when the goat stood up and the leopard remarked on the dreadful expressions it used in the morning, they both ran away and the hair was scraped off the jackal's tail. In Folk-Tales from Tibet, p. 76, two jackals with three cubs occupied a tiger's den, frightened it by telling the cubs they would soon be eating tiger's flesh, and it returned with a baboon which laughed heartily at the story. The jackal called out to the baboon to bring up the tiger quickly, and said they had expected two or three at least. The tiger bolted and bumped the baboon to death, their tails being twisted together. In Les Avadanas (Julien), No. cxxii, vol. ii, p. 146, the animals are a tiger and stag which frightened it in the same way when a monkey was leading it in search of an animal to kill. It said, "I never would have believed the monkey was so wicked; it seems he wants to sacrifice me to pay his old debts." In Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest (Skeat), p. 45, in order to save an elephant a mouse-deer frightened a tiger. An ape went back with the tiger, the mouse-deer said it refused to accept only one tiger when two had been promised, and the tiger ran away. In Old Hendrik's Tales (Vaughan), p. 19, in a Hottentot variant a wolf and baboon, their tails tied together, were about to punish the jackal. When the female jackal made the cub squall, the male jackal said he had sent the baboon for wolf-meat and he was now bringing one. As he moved towards them, the wolf bolted, dragging the baboon, which got a kink in its tail. In Reynard the Fox in Southern Africa, p. 24, there is another Hottentot story, the animals being a leopard and ram. When the former ran off, a jackal took it back, fastened to it by a leather thong. As they drew near, the leopard wished to turn back. On the ram's praising the jackal for bringing the leopard to be eaten when its child was crying for food, it bolted and dragged the jackal till it was half-dead. Page 225, first line. For Crows' read Parrots'. Page 227. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 309, when a wise parrot saw a man take a large net to spread over their tree, the parrots roosted on a rock. Refusing the leader's advice to move again they were netted, and escaped as in the Sinhalese story, when the bird-catcher counted, "Seventy-one." Page 230. Mr. Pieris has pointed out in his recent work, Ceylon, vol. i, p. 554, that Nayide was formerly an honorific title of the sons of Chiefs. It is not now so applied. Page 233. See also The Jataka, No. 546 (vol. vi, p. 167), where one of the tasks of Mahosadha was to overcome the difficulty said to have arisen through the royal bull's being in calf; he settled it by a question. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 49, an oilman claimed that his bull bore a calf that a man left near it. The calf-owner was assisted by a night-jar and a jackal, which after pretending to sleep related their dreams; the former had seen one egg sitting on another, the latter had been eating the fishes burnt when the sea got on fire. When the jackal explained that they were as probable as the bull's bearing a calf, the man got it back. Page 240. In Les Avadanas, No. lvi, vol. i, p. 199. a turtle escaped when a boy at a man's recommendation threw it into water to drown it. This is given in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. ii, p. 230, in which work also two forms of the earlier part of the Sinhalese tale appear. In vol. i, p. 404, a single large crane carried away the turtle in its bill. While passing over a town the turtle continually asked "What's this? What's that?" At last the crane opened its mouth to reply, and the turtle fell and was killed and eaten. In vol. ii, pp. 340 and 430, the birds were two wild-geese, and the turtle let itself fall when it spoke. It was killed by the fall in one variant, and by children in the other. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 215, in a Kalmuk tale, a frog advised a crow that had caught it to wash it before eating it. When the crow put it into a streamlet it crept into a hole in the rock and escaped. Page 244. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 329, the animals which raced were an elephant and some ants. Whenever the elephant looked down it saw two ants on the ground, and at last it died of exhaustion. The challenging ants never ran; ants were so numerous that some were always to be seen. In The Fetish Folk of West Africa (Milligan), p. 214, a chameleon challenged an elephant to race through the forest. After starting it turned back, having arranged that others should be at the end of each stage. Page 240. In Kaffir Folk-Lore, p. 187, when a lion who had been cheated by a jackal chased it, the jackal took refuge in a hole under a tree, but the lion seized its tail as it entered. The jackal said, "That is not my tail you have hold of; it is a root of the tree." The lion then let go, and the jackal escaped into the hole. Page 248. The same portion of the tale is found in the Jataka story No. 321 (vol. iii, p. 48). Page 251. The incident of the crows on the floating carcase is given in the Jataka story No. 529 (vol. v, p. 131). Page 253. In the title, for Kadmbawa read Kadambawa. Page 259. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir, 2nd ed., p. 322, ten peasants who counted themselves as only nine, remained weeping until a man told them to put their skull-caps down and count them. Page 263. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 352, while three men were sitting under a tree a stranger came up, placed a bunch of plantains on the ground before them, bowed, and went away. Each claimed the obeisance and plantains, and called the others fools; they related their foolish actions in the matter of their wives, and at last divided the fruit equally. Page 275, line 20. For Rakshasi read Rakshasi. Page 277. In The Kathakoça (Tawney), p. 164, a Prince whose eyes had been plucked out heard a Bharunda bird tell its young one that if the juice of a creeper growing at the root of the Banyan tree under which he sat were sprinkled on the eyes of a blind Princess she would regain her sight. He first cured himself with it, and afterwards the Princess, whom he married. Page 279, line 19. For paeya (twenty minutes) read paeya (twenty-four minutes). Page 282, line 4. For footing and footing read clearing and clearing. Page 283. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir, 2nd ed., p. 186, a jackal whose life a farmer had spared persuaded a King to marry his daughter to him. He explained away the man's want of manners, and burned his house down when the King was on his way to visit it. Page 299. Add footnote. Large crocodiles that lived in the ocean are mentioned in the Arabian Nights, vol. 5, p. 14. Sir R. Burton stated in a note that the crocodile cannot live in sea water, but it is well known that a large and dangerous species (C. porosus) is found in the mouths of rivers, where at times of drought the water in some sites is almost pure sea water. When I resided at Mount Lavinia, about seven miles south of Colombo, one of these crocodiles found its way into the sea there during some floods, and lived in it for a week or ten days. Residents informed me that others had been known to remain in the sea there for several days. Page 300, first line. After 15 insert, and in Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes), p. 182. Page 301. In a variant by a person of the Cultivating Caste, N.W.P., a Queen sent her three sons to bring three turtle doves from the Pearl Fort (Mutu Kotte). On the way, while the youngest Prince, aged seven years, was asleep his eldest brother blinded him with two thorns (timbol katu); but after he had been abandoned he learnt from the conversation of two Devatawas, who lived in adjoining trees, that by eating the bark of one of their trees he would be cured. After being twice again blinded in this way and regaining his sight, he killed a cobra that each year destroyed and ate the young of two Mainas (starlings, Saela-lihiniya) which had a nest on a tree. He climbed up to the nest, had similar experiences to those related in the story, was carried to the Pearl Fort by a Maina, and brought away three turtle-doves. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 160, a Prince had three tasks before marrying a Princess; he was to crush the oil out of eighty pounds of mustard seed, to kill two demons, and to cut a thick tree trunk with a wax hatchet. Ants did the first task, two tigers killed the demons, and with a hair from the head of the Princess fixed along the edge of the hatchet he cut the tree. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 45, a girl was given three tasks by her sisters-in-law. (1) To collect a basket of mustard seed when sown; pigeons picked it up for her. (2) To bring bear's hair for an armlet; two bear cubs helped her to get it. (3) To bring tiger's milk; two tiger cubs got it for her. Three other tasks do not resemble those of the Sinhalese tale. In Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, p. 119, a variant occurs in which bear's milk replaces the hair. In the Kolhan tales (Bompas) appended to the former vol., p. 481, a Potter was sent by a Raja for tiger's milk, which he obtained by the aid of the cubs. On p. 469 a girl was ordered by her sisters-in-law to collect pulse sown in a field; pigeons helped her to do it. She then went for bear's milk, which a she-bear gave her. In Folk-Tales from Tibet, p. 98, a boy by killing a dragon saved three young gryphons that were in a nest on a cliff. When they told their parents, the gryphons fed him, and the male carried him to the Fairy King. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 72, the Kinnara King gave Prince Sudhana three tasks to perform before marrying his daughter. The last was her identification among a thousand Kinnaris; she assisted him by stepping forward. Page 307. In Folk-lore of the Telugus (G. R. Subramiah Pantulu), p. 48, a poor Brahmana who had been presented with a pot of flour, thought he would buy a kid with the money he would get for it, and gradually obtain cattle till he was worth three thousand rupees. He would then marry, and have an affectionate son, and keep his wife under control by an occasional kick. As he thought this he kicked, broke the pot, and lost the flour in the dust. In the Hitopadesa a Brahmana who got a pot containing bread thought he would get ten cowries for it, buy larger pots, and at last become a rich dealer in areka-nuts and betel leaves. He would marry four wives, the youngest being his favourite; and the others being jealous of her he would beat them with his stick. He struck the blow with his stick and smashed his pot. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 140, a man who was carrying some pots of oil for two annas, thought he would buy chickens with one anna and gradually obtain cattle and land, and get married. When his children told him to wash quickly on his return from work, he would shake his head, and say, "Not yet." As he said this he shook his head, and the pots on it fell and were smashed. In Folk-Tales from Tibet, p. 31, a foolish young Mussalman who was promised a hen in return for carrying a jar of oil, thought he would become rich in the same way, and get married. When his child was naughty he would stamp his foot; he stamped as he thought it, and the pot fell and was broken. Page 311. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 92, in a Kalmuk tale, the wife of a person who usually had the form of a white bird, burned his feathers, cage, and perch while he was absent in his human form at a festival. On his return he informed her that his soul was in the cage, and that he would be taken away by the gods and demons. At p. 221, also in a Kalmuk tale, a man received from the Serpent-King a red dog which laid aside its form and became a beautiful maiden whom he married. Every morning she became a dog, until one day when she went to bathe he burned her form,--apparently the skin. At p. 244, in a Mongolian account of Vikramaditya it is stated that Indra gave his father the form of an ass, which he left outside the door when he visited his wife. She burned it, and he remained a man. In Reynard the Fox in Southern Africa, p. 52, a lion who had eaten a woman preserved her skin whole, and wore it and her ornaments, "so that he looked quite like a woman." He went to her kraal, and at last was detected through part of the lion's hair being visible. The hut was removed and a grass fire made over the sleeping lion. In Kaffir Folk-Lore (Theal), p. 38, when a girl who had married a crocodile licked its face at its request, it cast off its skin, and became a powerful man. Page 315. In China it is believed that only wicked persons are struck by lightning. Doolittle's Social Life of the Chinese (Paxton Hood), p. 557. In The Kathakoça, p. 159, three persons who expressed evil thoughts were struck by lightning. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. i, p. 104, a Queen who caused the Bodhisatta, in the form of an elephant, to be destroyed in order that she might have his tusks, was killed by a thunderbolt when she looked at them. In vol. iii, p. 125, a man who was about to kill his mother was similarly destroyed. Page 318. In the Arabian Nights, vol. 4, p. 383, a girl in Baghdad pretended that while drawing water for a man her finger-ring fell into the well; when he threw off his upper clothes and descended she left him there. As the owner's groom was drawing water afterwards the man came up in the bucket, the groom thought him a demon, dropped the cord, and the man fell down again. The well-owner got him exorcised, but he came up again when the bucket was raised, and sprang out amid shouts of "Ifrit!" Page 319, last line. For greul read gruel. Page 320, line 9. For don't read Don't. Line 31. For plantains read plantains'. Page 321. In Les Avadanas, vol. ii, p. 51, and Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. ii, p. 183, a man who drank water that was flowing through a wooden pipe twice ordered the water to stop when he had finished. He was called a fool, and led away. In the latter work, vol. ii, p. 269, there is an account of the boy who killed the mosquito that had settled on his sleeping father's head. Page 327. Add to second note, In the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. ii, p. 497, the assessors at a trial acted as judges, but the sentence was pronounced by the King,--as in The Little Clay Cart, also. Compare also the orders of King Mahinda IV (A.D. 1026-1042) regarding the judicial powers of a court of village assessors, consisting of headmen and householders. They were required to try even cases of murder and robbery with violence, and to inflict the death penalty (Wickremasinghe, Epigraphia Zeylanica, vol. i, p. 249). Page 329. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iii, p. 28, in a Maisur story by V. Narasimmiyengar, the Bharatas' Government took as its share or tax the upper half of a root crop, and got only leaves and stalks. For the next year, when the Government announced that the root part of the crop would be taken, the cultivators sowed paddy, ragi (millet), wheat, etc., and the tax collector got only straw. In Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, p. 93, a tiger and crane joined together, and planted a garden with turmeric. The tiger had the first choice of his share of the crop, and decided to take the leaves, leaving the roots for the crane. When the crop was gathered and the tiger found his share was valueless he quarrelled with the crane, which pecked his eyes and blinded him. Page 335. A variant regarding a Maditiya tree (Adenanthera pavonina) was related by a Tom-tom Beater of the North-Western Province. A man told the King that he had planted a golden seedling, and was given food and drink and ordered to take great care of it. When a flood carried it away he lamented and rolled about in assumed grief before the King, who after pacifying him ordered him to plant another golden seed. He made the same cryptic remark to his wife as in the other tale. Page 338. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 260, the incident of the sickle that had fever occurs, but the person who left it to reap the crop was an intelligent man who pretended to be stupid so as to trick a farmer. Page 341. In two Sinhalese variants of the North-Western Province, the animal which the man saved was a crocodile, and the first animals applied to for their opinions were a lean cow and a Naga raja or cobra, both of which advised the crocodile to kill the man. When the jackal was appealed to it sat upon an ant-hill to hear the case, got the crocodile and man to come there out of the water, and then told the man to kill it with a stick, after which it ate the flesh. In Folk-Tales from Tibet, p. 12, a musk-deer that let a tiger out of a house was seized by it, and appealed to a tree, a buffalo cow, and a hare. The two former condemned it; the hare induced the tiger to re-enter the house, shut the door, and left it to die of starvation. In Reynard the Fox in Southern Africa, p. 11, there is a Hottentot variant. A white man saved a snake's life by removing a stone that had fallen on it. When it was about to bite him it agreed to obtain the opinions of some wise people. A hyæna when asked replied, "What would it matter?" A jackal when questioned about the matter refused to believe that the snake would be unable to rise when under the stone, got the man to replace the stone on it, and then told him to leave it to escape by itself. On p. 13, in a variant, application was first made to a hare and afterwards to these other animals. I am indebted to my friend Mr. McKie, of Castletown, for an Eastern Bengal variant recently published in an Isle of Man paper. A benevolent Brahmana saved a tiger that was stuck in the mud of a tank. As the tiger was then about to eat him he appealed to a Banyan tree and an old pot, both of which condemned him. When the opinion of the jackal was asked for, it wished to see the place where the tiger was stuck fast, got the animal into its original position, and then ran off accompanied by the man. The tiger sank more deeply in the mud, and perished. A variant of this story is given in Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, p. 40, the pot being replaced by a cow, and the Brahmana by several men, who at last stoned and killed the tiger. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 150, the Panjab form of the tale is given, in which the bride saved the man. In the same vol., p. 313, a leopard which was about to eat a man who had saved its life, agreed to make inquiry if this was fair. The water and tree recommended that he should be eaten, but the jackal induced the leopard to enter the man's sack as before, and then told the man to smash its head with a stone. Page 346. In Folk-tales of the Telugus, p. 72, the story is told of a crane and some fish, to which it stated that it was doing penance, predicted a twelve years' drought, offered to carry them to an adjoining lake, and ate them. The crab is not introduced into this story. In the Arabian Nights, vol. v, p. 391, no bird is mentioned. The fishes applied to the crab for advice on account of the drought, and were recommended to pray to Allah, and wait patiently. They did so, and in a few days a heavy rain refilled their pond. Page 349, in last line of Notes. For ka, doer, read eka, one. Page 354. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales, p. 344, there is a story like that in The Jataka, the animals being an old cat that pretended to be doing penance, and five hundred mice; the cat seized the last mouse as they returned to their hole. The mouse chief exposed its false penance. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. ii, p. 414, the same story is given, the animals that were eaten being rats. In vol. iii, p. 139, a heron suggested that it and other birds should live together; during their absence it ate their eggs and young ones. They noticed this, and scolded and left it. Page 358. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 23, the last incident regarding the boy and the leopard occurs with little variation. In Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, p. 42, the daily fights of a tiger and lizard are described, the latter being victorious each time. When the tiger was carrying off a man whom it intended to eat it was frightened away by being told that he had the lizard with him. Page 363. The jackal's instruction to the lion to eat while seated is in accordance with the rules given in the Maha Bharata (Anusasana Parva). Page 366. There is a variant in the Sierra Leone district, given in Cunnie Rabbit, etc., p. 265. The surviving wife of two ill-treated the other's daughter, and sent her to get the devil to wash their rice stick. She behaved civilly to some hoe handles tied in a bundle which spoke to her, and to a one-eyed person,--(both being forms assumed by the demon),--and removed insects from the devil's head; he washed the rice stick for her, and told her to take four eggs from his house. She selected small ones, threw them down, one after another, on her way home, as he told her, and received houses, servants, soldiers, wealth, goods, and jewellery. She also, as instructed by him, pounded rice on her dead mother's grave, and sang, calling her back to life. When the other woman's daughter was sent she behaved rudely to all, and selected four large eggs, out of which came bees that stung her, snakes that threatened her, men who flogged her, and fire which burned up her house, her mother, and herself. Page 368. In last line of text, for tika read tika. Page 377. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. iii, p. 250, a man was told when buying a demon (Pisaca) that he might be killed by him if he did not provide continual work for him. He did the work of ten men, and was employed for some years, his master becoming rich in consequence. One day when he forgot to provide work for the demon the latter put his master's son in a pot and cooked him. Page 379. After the first note, add, See also the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. ii, pp. 242, 258. Page 381. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 341, there is the story of the jackal who escaped from the crocodile; when he said it must be a fool to seize a root instead of his leg it released him. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iii, p. 10, in a Bengal story by Mr. G. H. Damant, the crocodile seized the jackal's leg, and let go on being told it was a stick for measuring the height of the water. It then waited in the jackal's house. He noticed this, and addressed the house, "O house! O house of earth! What have you to say?" The crocodile grunted in reply, and the jackal ran off. In Folk-Tales from Tibet, p. 145, a tortoise [turtle] wishing to punish a monkey, hid in the cave they both occupied. The monkey, suspecting it, called out "O great cave! O great cave!" When he repeated it and remarked on the absence of the usual echo, the tortoise repeated the words, and the monkey escaped. In Old Hendrik's Tales, p. 107, there is a Hottentot variant. The wolf, in order to settle some outstanding scores, got hid in the jackal's house during his absence; but the jackal, seeing his footprints, suspected this, and called out, "My ole house! My ole house!" When no reply came on his repeating it, he said he knew Ou' Wolf must be inside, or the house would say "Come in," as usual. On the wolf's repeating the words he laughed, and ordered it out. Page 384, line 16. For burning read rubbing. (I have been unable to examine the volumes of The Indian Antiquary after 1897.) VOLUME II. Page 13, footnote. For modaya read modaya. Page 20. The second footnote should be deleted, and in the story the last paragraph but one should be:--Thereafter, this Prince and Princess having caused that widow woman to be brought, and having tried her judicially (naduwa ahala), subjected her to the thirty-two tortures, etc. Messrs. H. B. Andris and Co., of Kandy, have been good enough to send me a list of the thirty-two tortures, compiled from Sinhalese manuscripts. As I think such a list has not been published I append it here, with the English equivalents. The Thirty-two Tortures. 1. Katu-saemitiyen taelima. Flogging with the thorny scourge. 2. We-waelen taelima. Flogging with cane. 3. Atak digata aeti muguruwalin taelima. Beating with clubs (or mallets) of the length of a hand. 4. Ata kaepima. Cutting off the hand. 5. Paya kaepima. Cutting off the foot. 6. At-pa de-kotasama kaepima. Cutting off both the hands and the feet. 7. Kana kaepima. Cutting off the ear. 8. Nasaya kaepima. Cutting off the nose. 9. Kan-nasa de-kotasama kaepima. Cutting off both the ears and the nose. 10. Ise sama galawa ehi kadi-diya waekkerima. Removing the skin of the head and pouring vinegar there. 11. Ise boralu ula sak patak men sudu-kerima. Rubbing gravel on the head, and cleaning it like a chank or leaf (of a manuscript book). 12. Mukhaya de-kan langata ira tel-redi purawa gini tibima. Splitting the mouth near the two ears, filling it with oiled cloth, and setting fire [to this]. 13. Siyalu sarira tel-piliyen wela gini tibima. Twining oiled cloth round the whole body and setting fire [to it]. 14. Hastayan tel-redi wela gini taebima. Twining oiled cloth on the hands and setting fire [to it]. 15. Sriwayehi patan hama galawa kendayehi taebima. Removing the skin, beginning at the neck, and placing it on the calf. 16. Tana mattehi patan sama uguluwa isehi taebima. Causing the skin to be plucked off, beginning at the top of the breasts, and placing it on the head. 17. Bima howa dedena de-waelamiti yahul gasa wata-kota gini dael-wima. Causing [the person] to lie on the ground, striking iron pins through both elbows, and making flames of fire round [him]. 18. Bili-katuwalin paehaera sam mas nahara uguluwa-daemima. Removing skin, flesh, with fish-hooks, and causing the tendons to be plucked completely out. 19. Kahawanu men sakala sarirayehi mas kaepima. Cutting the flesh from the whole body [in pieces] like kahapanas (coins). 20. Sakala sariraya kendila ksharawu karan gaelwima. Making incisions in the whole body and causing salt corrosiveness to sink [into them]. 21. Ek aelayakin bima howa kanehi yawul gasa karakaewima. Causing [the person] to lie on the ground in a trench, striking iron pins (or rods) in the ear, and turning them round. 22. Sarirayehi aeta-mas podi-kota piduru su[m]buluwak men kerima. Bruising the flesh on the bones in the body, and making it like a straw envelope. 23. Kakiyawana-lada tel aengehi isima. Sprinkling boiling oil on the body. 24. Sayin pidita sunakhayan lawa mas anubawa-kerima. Devouring the flesh by means of dogs suffering from starvation. 25. Katu-bere peralima. Rolling [the person] in the drum containing thorns. 26. Sakrame karakaerima. Turning [the person] round on the wheel. 27. Æsak uguluwa anik aesata penwima. Plucking out an eye, and showing it to the other eye. 28. Æha maeda yahul gasa karakaewima. Striking an iron pin into the middle of the eye, and turning it round. 29. Ænga-mas kapa baeda kaewima. Cutting off the flesh of the body, frying it, and making [the person] eat it. 30. Buta-seyyawen hinduwa nul gasa waeyen saehima. Setting [the person] in the attitude in which goblins recline (i.e., on the back), marking [the body by means of blackened] strings (as sawyers do), and slicing off [the projecting parts] with the adze. 31. Diwas-ula induwima. Setting [the person] on the impaling stake. 32. Kaduwen isa kapa-daemima. Cutting off the head completely with the sword. Page 26, note. For Tisse de wele read Tisse de wele. Page 32, line 19. After footnote add, and Part II, p. 164. Page 34, line 36. For seven read four. Page 36, note, and p. 116, note. For Sitana read Sitana. Page 46, line 23. For the figure, read a "Sending" (sihaerumak). Other Sendings are mentioned in vol. iii, pp. 178 and 250. Page 47. To the first note, add, See also Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. iii, p. 92. Pages 70, 71. For tuttu read tuttu. Page 80. Add, In Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, p. 127, a simpleton who accompanied some thieves placed boiling rice and milk in the open mouth of a man who said in his sleep, "I will eat." Page 89, line 14. For through read though. Page 97, footnote. For No. 263 read No. 262. Page 108. Add, In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. ii, p. 413, a sheep with its wool on fire owing to a blow with a fire-brand, set the hay on fire at the quarters of the royal elephants. In vol. iii, p. 145, a ram set fire to a village in the same manner. Page 119, note. For Honda read Honda. Page 126, line 13. For the read her. Page 136, footnotes, line 20. For 248 read 247. Page 160, second footnote. For 212 and 241 read 211 and 240. Page 165 and p. 169, footnotes. After 237 insert 240. Page 168, footnotes. After 208 add 240. Page 171. Add, In Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, p. 21, a man falsely claimed the reward for killing a demon whom two brothers had shot; when they exposed him he was beaten. On p. 59, a youth who was sent in search of the bones of an elephant that he had thrown across the Seven Seas, was joined by a giant who was fishing with a Palmira palm as a rod and an elephant as a bait. Afterwards they added to their party another who held a Banyan tree as a shade for his ploughmen. Page 184, line 24. For ambuda baendaganda read ambuda baendagana. Page 202, line 24. For four read three. According to Clough, the yama, or watch, is one of four hours, but the Swapna-malaya makes it three:-- Dawasakata paeya saeta For a [whole] day, paeyas sixty Weya, yamada atakata. Occur, and watches up to eight. In tis paeyaka raekata From them, thirty paeyas for a night, Yama satarak weya niyatata. [Or] watches four, occur for certain. Page 213. Regarding the Ridi, Tavernier remarked (Voyages, 1679, i, p. 589), "This money is called Larin, and is of the same standard as our écus. Five pieces are worth our écu." On p. 591, vol. ii, he noted that, "The rupee of gold ... is worth in the country [India] fourteen rupees of silver. We reckon the rupee of silver at thirty sols. Thus the rupee of gold comes to 21 livres of France.... All the gold and silver which enters on the lands of the Great Mogol is refined to the highest standard (au dernier tître) before being coined." Our sovereign contains 113 grains of fine gold; and as the full weight of the gold rupee or muhr (mohur) of the Mughal rulers was 175 grains, its full value as fine gold was £1 11s. of our money. At the mean weight of the gold (167.22 grs.) in 46 coins, as recorded in Hobson-Jobson, p. 438, the value would be £1 9s. 7 1/4d. By Tavernier's reckoning (at 21 livres) the full value was £1 11s. 6d. One-fourteenth of £1 11s. is 26.57d.; this was therefore the value of the silver rupee of the Mughals, which had the same weight as the gold coin. With the muhr at £1 11s. 6d. the value of the rupee would be 2s. 3d. At 26.57/30d., the French sol was worth 0.885d. Bernier remarked (Travels, Constable's translation, p. 200) that the value of the silver rupee was about 30 sols, and on p. 223, about 29 sols, Tavernier also agreeing that the actual value should be under 30 sols; in the latter case the sol would be equal to 0.916d. Taking the average value at 0.9d., and 20 sols to a livre, the value of the livre was 1s. 6d. Three livres were equal to one écu (4s. 6d.), one-fifth of which, as noted above, would make the value of the larin 10.8d. This was not an accurate estimate of its value, since according to Tavernier (i, p. 136) 46 livres 1 1/2 deniers (each = one-twelfth of a sol) were the exact equivalent of a Persian toman of that period, which was thus worth £3 9s. 2 1/4d. of our money; and as 80 larins made one toman (i, p. 136; ii, p. 590) the true value of the larin in Persia (and India) in the middle of the seventeenth century was 10.375d. This would require the silver in it to weigh 76.08 grains. According to Dr. J. G. Da Cunha, Sir John Chardin stated that the value was two and a half shahis, or 11 sols 3 deniers, that is, 10.122d.; but by Tavernier's reckoning (i, p. 135) two and a half shahis would be worth 10.406d. Tavernier added that from Baghdad to Ceylon all business was done in larins. W. Barret writing in 1584 on Money and Measures (Hakluyt), remarked of them, "These be the best currant money in all the Indies." Dr. Davy stated (Travels, etc., p. 181) that fifty ridis were equal to about twenty-nine shillings (1820); thus the value of the coin was then only about seven pence in Ceylon. Although Prof. Rhys Davids mentioned (Coins and Measures of Ceylon, p. 35) that five ridis were spoken of [about 1870] as the equivalent of a rix-dollar--both coins being then out of circulation--thus making the value of the ridi less than fivepence, he gave the weight of three of these coins as being from 72 1/2 to 74 1/2 grains. Dr. Da Cunha gave a weight of 68 1/2 to 72 grains (Contributions, etc., part 3, p. 10). With an allowance for wear, it is therefore probable that the Persian weight of 76 grains was adhered to in Ceylon, and also in India. In answer to my inquiry, Messrs. H. B. Andris and Co., of Kandy, have confirmed the statement made to me elsewhere, that the later value of the ridi in Ceylon was one-third of a rupee,--"panam pahayi salli hatarayi," five panams and four sallis. Prof. Rhys Davids noted that Pyrard stated the value of those made early in the seventeenth century in the Maldives, to be about eight sols, that is, 7.2d. It is not clear why the money had the low values recorded above, unless the quality of the silver had deteriorated. In Ceylon, in Knox's time all the coins were tested in the fire. According to the Mahavansa, King Bhuvaneka-Bahu VI in about A.D. 1475 constructed a relic casket out of seven thousand coins which are termed rajata in the Pali original, and ridi in the Sinhalese edition, both words meaning silver. As there appear to have been comparatively few other silver coins in the country, none, so far as is known, having been coined since the beginning of the previous century, these were probably larins. The next reference to the coin in Ceylon goes back to about the same date; it is given by Mr. Pieris (Ceylon: the Portuguese Era, i, p. 50), apparently taken from the manuscript history of de Queiroz. King Dharma Parakrama-Bahu in 1518 related to the Portuguese Governor of Colombo that in his youth a certain man who had killed another did not possess the fifty larins which would have ransomed his life, and therefore he was executed. One would understand from this that these coins were plentiful in the island before A.D. 1500. In the same work (i, p. 298) it is recorded that in 1596 the Portuguese captured five elephants laden with larins. Diogo do Couto mentioned that while besieged in Kotte in 1565, the Portuguese made some larins, "there being craftsmen of that calling" (Ferguson's translation, p. 233), thus confirming Knox's statement that this money was coined in Ceylon. The Massa or Masurama which is mentioned so frequently in the stories is probably in most cases a copper coin, but gold and silver massas were also issued. In vol. iii, pp. 136, 137, line 31, 150, 1. 24, 387, 1. 29, the coins appear to have been gold massas. It is apparently the gold massa which is referred to in Mah. ii, 81, v. 45, where it is stated that King Wijaya-Bahu (A.D. 1236-1240) paid 84,000 gold kahapanas to transcribers of "the sacred book of the law." Perhaps, also, in the stories the kahapanas may have been golden massas or double massas. Compare vol. i, p. 348, and vol. iii, p. 263, line 33, and see below. The commoner or standard coins of all three denominations have practically the same weight, which in the heavier examples is usually about 66 or 67 grains, though a few gold and silver coins exceed this weight, two silver ones of Nissanka-Malla, from Mahiyangana wihara, for which I am indebted to Prof. C. G. Seligmann, averaging 77 1/2 grains. Out of 150 copper coins only one turned the scale at 69 grains. If we assume that the Indian copper scale of General Cunningham was followed, and that, with allowance for wear and oxidation, the correct original weight of all three classes was 72 grains, a massa of fine gold would be worth 12s. 8.92d. of our money. Compared with the Persian larin, the value of the silver massa of 72 grains, if fine silver, would be 9.82d., or 1/15.56 of the gold one. Respecting the copper coin, Dr. Davy stated early last century (Travels, p. 245) that the ridi (or larin) was then equivalent to sixty-four "Kandian challies," that is, as he also terms them, "Dambadinia challies," the common village name of the copper massas; at this ratio the silver massa of 72 grains would be equivalent to 60.57 copper massas, each being worth 0.162d., or about one-sixth of a penny. [333] Late in the fifteenth century the Indian ratio of the value of copper to silver appears, according to Thomas, to have been 64 to 1, and at the beginning of the sixteenth, according to Whiteway, 80 to 1. [334] I have met with no villager who knew what the coins termed kahawanuwa (kahapana) and masurama were. Messrs. H. B. Andris and Co., of Kandy, have been good enough to send me the following table of the old values of Sinhalese coins, kindly supplied by the "High Priest" of the Malwatta Wihara, at Kandy, on what authority I am unaware:-- 4 salli = 1 tuttuwa. 8 tuttu = 1 massa. [? 20 tuttu]. 5 mahu (or masu) = 1 kahawanuwa. [? 2 masu]. In the latter half of last century, twelve salli, or four tuttu, made one copper panama, sixteen of which went to a rupee; the intrinsic value of this being 1s. 10 1/2d., the salliya was worth 0.117d., or nearly half a farthing. In the absence of more ancient data, applying this value to the coins in the table the ancient tuttuwa would be worth 0.468d., the massa 3.744d., and the silver kahawanuwa, 1s. 6.72d., a little less than the value of two silver massas of 72 grains. A double silver massa, which would appear to be this coin, has been discovered by Col. Lowsley; [335] its weight was not stated. With regard to the values of other coins, Capt. Percival wrote in 1803 that the rix-dollar "goes for about two shillings sterling; and four of them are equivalent to a star pagoda [the Tamil varakam, Sin. waragan], a Madras coin worth about eight shillings sterling" [in Ceylon; in India its official value was always three and a half rupees]. Page 229. Add, In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. iii, p. 226, a man observed that birds that visited an island, inaccessible to man, in which there were great quantities of jewels, roosted at night in tall trees planted by him. He prepared some exquisite food for them with which they satiated themselves, afterwards vomiting pearls that covered the whole ground. He collected them, and became very wealthy. Page 238, line 11. For paelas read hæliyas (large pots); and delete the following note in brackets. Page 257, first note. See also Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, pp. 8 and 9. In the same work, p. 25 ff., there is an account of a boy one span in height. See also ante, note to p. 107, vol. i. Page 261. Add, In Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, p. 19, some tigers who wanted to catch two men who had taken refuge on a palm tree, asked how they had ascended; they replied that they stood on each other's shoulders. When the tigers did the same, one of the men called to the other to give him his battle-axe, so that he might hamstring the tailless tiger (which was at the bottom). It jumped aside, and all fell down, and ran off. Page 266, note. For Bastda or Bastdara read Banda or Bandara. Page 274. Add, In Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, p. 12, a man who was in a tree was carried away in a bag by a demon. He escaped by putting a stone in it during the temporary absence of the demon, and was brought a second time. When the demon's daughter admired his long hair he informed her that it became long by being pounded, on which she put her head down to have her hair lengthened; he then killed her, cooked her, and the demon and his friends who came for the feast ate her. The man wore the daughter's clothes and was not recognised. Page 281, line 37. For tadak read tadak. Page 303. K. Raja-Sinha had a three-tiered hat (Knox, p. 34). Page 319, line 24, and Index. For Amrapali, read Amrapali. Page 321, note. For ewidinawa read aewidinawa. According to Mr. Gunasekara's Grammar, p. 452, this means, "the bees come as far as two miles." Page 324, line 12. After two feet insert (do paya). Page 344, line 37. Add, In vol. ii, p. 125, a lion was killed by the poisonous breath of a man-snake, and in vol. iii, p. 70, a lion and elephant perished in the same manner. Page 374, line 11. For 137 read 117. Page 398. Add, In Campbell's Santal Folk Tales, p. 12, a horse thief saddled and rode a tiger until daylight, thinking it a horse. On p. 46 it was a simpleton who rode. The tiger unwillingly returned with a jackal and bear, each holding the preceding one's tail. When they reached the thicket where the man was supposed to be, the tiger's courage gave way, and he bolted, dragging the others after him. A variant is given on p. 49, also. Page 408, line 7. For While read while. Page 433, line 7 of Sinhalese text. For deggatten read daeggatten. VOLUME III. Page 29, note 1. Through the kindness of Messrs. H. B. Andris and Co., I am able to add the following information regarding Kandian dry measures, chiefly furnished by Mr. A. J. W. Marambe, Ratemahatmaya of Uda Bulatgama. In the Kandian districts only heaped dry measures are employed, that is, the grain or whatever is being measured is raised up above the edge of the measure in as high a cone as is possible while pouring it out loosely. Kandian Dry Measures. 2 heaped pat (pl. of pata) = 1 heaped manawa [336] (0.01146 c. ft.). 2 heaped mana = 1 heaped naeliya (0.02292 c. ft.). 2 heaped naeli = 1 heaped seruwa (0.04584 c. ft.). 28 heaped seru (or 32 cut seru) = 1 imperial or cut bushel (1.28366 c. ft.). 5 heaped seru = 1 standard kuruniya or lahe. 10 heaped kuruni, lahas or las = 1 paela. 4 pael = 1 amuna. 20 amunu = 1 yala. A seruwa is a quart. Although the standard Kandian kuruniya is said by Mr. Marambe to be one of five heaped seru, there are others, according to him, of 4, 6 and 7 heaped seru, the latter being said to be employed in the Wanni or northern districts. In the interior of the North-Western Province, to the north and east of Kurunaegala, where most of the folk-tales were collected, the kuruniya was said to contain four heaped seru, according to which the local amuna would be 5.71 bushels. The Kandian amuna, at five seru to the kuruniya, would be equal to 7.1 bushels. An amuna of land is the extent sown by one amuna of seed, and varies according to the quality of the soil, less seed being needed for good land than poor land, where the plants are small. In the North-Western Province, an amuna of rice field is about two and a quarter acres, the amount of seed varying from two to three bushels per acre. One and a half heaped seru of kurahan (small millet) yield an amuna of crop in good chena soil; the yield from one heaped seruwa of tana, an edible grass cultivated in hill chenas, varies from one to two amunas; for the same out-turn with meneri four seru of seed are necessary. OMITTED INCIDENTS. The incidents which were omitted in vol. ii and vol. iii are as follows:-- Vol. ii, p. 260, line 3. Then at dawn, at the micturition time, urine having become oppressive (bara-wi) for the Tom-tom Beater, he spoke to the Gamarala. At that time the Gamarala having become frightened said, "The Rakshasa will eat us both; don't speak." Then the Tom-tom Beater, having remained on the upper-story floor, urinated. The urine came and fell on the body of the Rakshasa who was sleeping on the ground. At that time the Rakshasa having arisen asked the Gamarala's daughter. "What is the juice?" Then the girl said, "For the purpose of smearing the walls during the day-time, I put some water upon the upper floor. It will have been upset (namanda aeti) by the rats." Thereupon the Rakshasa silently went to sleep. Then the Tom-tom Beater still [another] time became [obliged] to go outside. [337] At that time having spoken to the Gamarala he told him. The Gamarala said, "Don't talk." Thereupon the Tom-tom Beater evacuated. Then the filth having gone, fell on the Rakshasa's body. The Rakshasa having arisen, at the hand of the girl, having scolded her, asked, "What is this?" Thereupon the girl says, "I put some cow-dung on the upper-story floor; it (lit. they) will have fallen." Then the Rakshasa without speaking went to sleep. Vol. iii, p. 290, line 4. Thereupon, in the night, for the Hettirala it became [necessary] to go outside.[337] So he spoke to Sokka, "I must go outside." Then Sokka cried out, "I cannot [find a utensil] in this night." When he was beseeching him to go to the door, having sought for a cooking-pot from there he gave him it. During the whole thirty [paeyas] of that night the Hettirala began to have diarrhoea. Then at dawn, when the Hettirala was saying, "Sokka, take away and put down this closet utensil (muttiya)," Sokka began to cry aloud, "I will not." Then at the time when the Hettirala was asking Sokka, "What shall I do for this?" Sokka says, "Putting on a cloth from the head [downwards], and placing the closet utensil in your armpit, go in the manner of proceeding to go outside, and having put it down please return." After that, the Hettirala having done thus, when the Hettirala was going Sokka went and said at the hand of the Hettirala's younger sister, "The Hettirala having become angry is going, maybe. Please go and take him by the hand." The woman having gone running and said, "Elder brother, where are you going?" caught him by the hand. Then the closet utensil having fallen on the ground, and the bodies of both persons having been smeared, both went and bathed. NOTES [1] Lit., with (ekka), a common form of expression. [2] Lit., from the hand of the Hare. [3] Pin sidda-weyi, a common expression of beggars when asking alms. [4] In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 285, it is stated that "an evil omen presenting itself to people engaged in any undertaking, if not counteracted by delay and other methods, produces misfortune." One of the other methods was a drinking bout (see the same work, vol. i, p. 331). [5] That is, "I lost the deer in order to save the packet of rice." [6] Sunday is not a good day for beginning any new work; of course this has no connection with the idea of the Christian sabbath. Wednesday and Saturday are the most unlucky days of the week. Thursday is the luckiest one for all purposes. (See vol. ii., p. 192.) [7] Partially trained cart-bulls, the little black humped ones, often pretend to be dead in order to avoid drawing a cart, and I have seen a wounded jackal and crocodile escape after behaving in this manner; I am not aware that deer act thus. (See Tennent's Nat. Hist., p. 285.) [8] Another title is, "The Story of the Female Turtle Dove." [9] Bassia longifolia. [10] An imitation of the notes of the Turtle Dove (Turtur suratensis). [11] Ketupa ceylonensis. The tree is Hemicyclia sepiaria. [12] The Sinhalese names are, Muna-Rawana, Pari-kewulla, Dik­aetaya, Goluwa, Atawanna, Nadakara-Panikkiya, Baka-modaya. [13] The ordinary call of this Fish-Owl; to be sounded through the nose, with the lips closed, the second note on a lower key than the first. [14] Wansadipatiyek. [15] Delight-making Princess. [16] See p. 64. [17] About 2,800 acres, at two and a half bushels of sowing extent per acre. The yala is 20 amunas, each 5.7 or 6 bushels. [18] In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 339, a jackal's heart broke into seven pieces on hearing several lions roar. [19] Katussa. [20] The Monitor Lizard (Varanus dracaena). [21] Daboia russelli, the most venomous snake in Ceylon. [22] Lit., by the Mungus. [23] A dry measure said by Clough to be about three pints wine measure. See the Additional Notes at the end of this volume. [24] Karagama Devi pal, eka mage duwa pal, hatara pata naeliyen dek, deka, deka, deka. Lit., "the protection of Karagama Devi," etc. The oaths of this kind most commonly heard are amma pal, "by [my] mother," and aes deka pal, "by [my] two eyes." But ammappa pal, "by [my] mother and father," and maha polowa pal, "by the great earth," are not unusual. [25] Gatta nan di, gatta nan di. All these are imitations of the voices of croaking frogs, the first being the rapid and shriller cries of the small frogs, and the second the deeper and slower calls of the larger frogs. [26] In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 115, the King of the demons is called Pañcika. Professor Chavannes noted that in the Divyavadana, p. 447, he has the title Yaksha-senapati, General of the Yakshas. [27] A pool containing lotuses. [28] In The Jataka, No. 506 (vol. iv, p. 283), the life-index of a serpent King was a pool, which would become turbid if he were struck or hurt, and blood-red if a snake-charmer seized him. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 321, the life-index of a cow was some of her milk, which would become red like blood if she were killed by a tigress, as she expected. [29] The narrator explained that this was in early times. He stated that they do not eat human flesh now; it is done only by Rakshasas. [30] Where bushes or reeds are in the water near the shore, fishing is usually done by means of a baited hook at the end of a short fishing line attached to the extremity of a number of canes tied end to end. These float on the surface of the water, and are gradually pushed forward until the bait is in an open space in the water. [31] "Soft are the six seasons of woman"; but the text is so full of mistakes that it is possible this may be intended for Sarasayu-wiri, "the bee's life is delicate," or Sarasayu-wiri, "soft are the six seasons of Love." [32] See also A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 134, in which the names are omitted. [33] See Ancient Ceylon, p. 100. [34] Dippitiyalage gedara. [35] Pamula pettiya. See vol. i, p. 183, footnote. [36] See vol. i, p. 10, on the small size of modern windows in the villages. [37] A very common exclamation of grief, surprise, or sometimes annoyance. The relative addressed is always either the father, the mother, or the elder brother, in such cases. [38] Hatara-maha Lula. I am doubtful regarding the meaning of maha; it appears to be derived from Skt. ma, to measure or be contained. According to Clough, lula is a snare or wicker fish-basket, perhaps from the Skt. lu, to cut or destroy. See final note. [39] This would include the bathing of the whole body. [40] The word ge, house, is used in the villages for "room." In this case the "house" was the trap. [41] Toge amma tangi, toge appa tongi; tangittongit. [42] Apparently, he thought she would be reborn on the earth again, with her former appearance. [43] Wal-bowa, a domestic cat that has become wild, or the descendant of such a cat. [44] After the manner of the Muhammadans, who chant prayers in the evening after sunset, and later on in the night. [45] More correctly spelt Bhasmasura. See another legend of him in Ancient Ceylon, p. 156. [46] The village spelling. [47] Ci, an exclamation of disgust. "Hole, don't," appears to be the meaning. [48] Bandayi pollayi. [49] Pala yanda. [50] The text has Ansca, evidently intended for Anicca. This is part of a Buddhist exclamation in Pali, Aniccan dukkhan, "transient is sorrow," often used colloquially to express astonishment. A Buddhist monk of my acquaintance invariably used it to express even slight surprise at anything, strongly accenting the last syllable of the first word; in fact, all is usually pronounced as though it formed only one word. See also p. 71 below. [51] This appears to be the meaning. [52] As a preliminary proceeding, the bridegroom gives the bride a new cloth to put on. [53] Kandeyayi henayayi. Kandeya, he of the hill = hakura. [54] This is a very disrespectful exclamation when addressed by a woman to a man, or an inferior to a superior. A Tamil head-mason once complained to me of the manner in which one of his men, a person of lower caste, had addressed him, and concluded by remarking, "He will say 'Ade!' to me next." [55] A drove of pack-oxen, driven in this instance by "Moormen" (Marakkala men). This method of transporting goods is still practised in districts deficient in cart roads. [56] See p. 138, vol. ii. [57] Karola, for karawala. [58] An Oak-like tree, Schleichera trijuga. [59] Mukunu-waella kola, apparently Alternanthera sp., termed by Clough Mukunu-waenna or Mikan-pala. [60] In the text the expression is mangula, feast; this word is sometimes used to denote the bride, as well as the wedding feast or the wedding itself. In a story not published we have, haya denekuta mangul genat innawa, for six persons brides have been brought. [61] The yala being twenty amunas, the total area was the extent that would be sown with 1,212 amunas, each being six bushels (or 5·7 bushels in the district where the story was related). At two and a half bushels per acre this would be about 2,900 acres. [62] Lit., Can he work. The same form of expression is used by the Irish. [63] Bali aerumak, conducted by a person termed Bali-tiyanna. The patient and a friend sitting on each side of him or her, respond in a loud voice, "Ayibo, Ayibo!" (Long life!) at each pause in the invocations. The wish of long life is addressed to the deity of the planet. [64] See vol. ii, p. 187. [65] Jivan keruwa, made magical "life" or power in it, by means of spells. [66] Gamarala kenekunne; this plural form is often used for the singular. A few lines further on we have, redda aendapu kenekundayi. [67] Probably said sarcastically; he may have had a bad figure. This kind of sarcastic talk is very common in the villages. [68] A coconut shell slung from cords, for use as a water-vessel (mungawe). [69] Lit., "them," kiri, milk, being a plural noun. [70] Compare the similar account on p. 296, vol. i. In Clough's Dictionary, Giju-lihiniya (lit., Vulture-glider or hawk) is termed Golden Eagle, a bird which is not found in India or Ceylon. Apparently the word is a synonym of Rukh (the Æt-kanda Lihiniya), which in the second note, p. 300, vol. i, is said to be "of the nature of vultures." In Man, vol. xiii, p. 73, Captain W. E. H. Barrett published an A'Kikuyu (East African) story in which when a man took refuge inside a dead elephant the animal was carried off by a huge vulture to a tree in the midst of a great lake. The man escaped by grasping one of the bird's tail feathers when it flew away, and being thus carried by it to land, without its knowledge. [71] Ottu-wela, having pushed against. [72] Lit., to be (re-)born. [73] The narrator, belonging to a village in the far interior, evidently thought a shark is a small fish, little larger than those caught in the tanks. Compare also No. 214, in which a Queen carries a shark home to eat. [74] Their idea apparently was that when at the point of death he would speak the truth, and they would thus learn if he were likely to be useful to them. [75] Ammayi abuccayi. [76] Ne owun dennata talanne. [77] Lit., Not for us. [78] Owanda. [79] Bere tadi-gahan[ne] naehae, newe talanne. [80] Raksa kara-gannawa nae. [81] Goda aragana. [82] Lit., "tying the hand"; the little fingers of the bride and bridegroom are tied together by a thread in the marriage ceremony. [83] Lit., "Water-thirst." [84] In the text this sentence follows the next one. [85] Lit., a tri-ennium, a three-year, tun-awuruddak. This is an invention of the woman's; there is no custom of the kind in Ceylon. [86] Ewunda okkotama. [87] Rajjuruwanda hemin. [88] Bappa, the father's younger brother. [89] The consent of the parent or legal guardian was the only essential for a legal marriage, according to the ancient customs. [90] Ki-roti. I do not know the cake, nor the meaning of the first syllable unless it be derived from kshira, milk. [91] Ape ewundaeta, a pl. hon. form. Husbands and wives do not usually mention each other's names; the wife is commonly termed ape gedara eki, "she of our house" (as in No. 125), or the mother of the youngest child if there be one, or "she of ours," or merely "she." [92] C is pronounced as ch in English. [93] See notes of variants appended to No. 139, vol. ii. [94] That is, the food materials. [95] Daekun tibbata passe. [96] Awot enne nae; nawot eññan. [97] Because Kitul fibre is like hair which is hanging loose. [98] Siwsaeta kala silpaya. [99] Saluwak. [100] The text of this story is given at the end of this volume. [101] Hitanan dennek. [102] Gini kukula, the fire [coloured] Cock. [103] Rassayae gedara. [104] Tiya, putting [out of consideration]. [105] Gediyak, a round lump, made into a package. [106] Premna latifolia. [107] Kaekulu hal, rice from which the skin has been removed without first softening it in hot or boiling water. It is used for making milk-rice (kiri-bat), but not usually for rice used with curries, as the grains are apt to coalesce when cooked. [108] Kola das, mala das. [109] As on p. 70, vol. i. [110] Lit., "man," the word translated "wife" in this story being also literally "woman." These words are commonly employed with these meanings by the villagers. [111] Nanga russayak, Ironwood tree. [112] Umbala hitilla. [113] The magical power lay in the Naga gem that was set in the ring. See notes, vol. i, p. 269, regarding the stone. [114] Compare the story of Prince Lionheart in Tales of the Punjab, p. 42 ff. [115] The milky sap which exudes from cuts in the bark or leaves. It is acrid, and blisters the skin if left on it. [116] An ex-monk. [117] Gaemmaedde. [118] Umba mewwa damma-dipan. [119] Ekan-karawanda. [120] Baeri-wuna, were unable (to be remembered), or omitted. [121] The food was to be eaten by any poor people who came for it. Of course the deities required only the essence. [122] Ara deviyoyi senawayi et giya. [123] That is, three and a half times the extent usually cleared by one man for the season's crop. [124] Æddeya. See note, vol. i, p. 193. [125] Lit., it is not for me to stay. [126] A common custom in the royal fields, I believe. Villagers employed on my works sometimes impressed wayfarers in this manner, as a joke. [127] Amu koyamata. [128] Dalu goyan. [129] Apparently "The Ace," with a personal suffix; but his real meaning was, "He who goes about cheating" (a + sri + ya). [130] Wiyan. This work is always done by the local washerman, who supplies the cloth for it. [131] Pamula pettiya. See note, vol. i, p. 183. [132] This is an old notion. In A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures (Beal), p. 74, it is stated, "Again, there are different kinds of kalpa trees which produce garments, from which they can select every sort of robe to wear." [133] Pala-gatta. [134] Danu rukadayak. [135] Ate kiri bonawa, usually meaning sucking the thumb. [136] Damapu para. [137] Dunnakuyi, igahakuyi, italayakuyi. [138] Ewaessa mama, mother's brother. [139] Dadayan para. [140] This may be the modern Balalli-waewa, on the Padeniya-Anuradhapura road. [141] Dippitiyalage gedara. [142] Laka wata baedi [*] sawaran! Ane! Mage Laka wata baedi sawaran! [*] There is a play on this word, baedi meaning jungle, while bae[n]di, which is sometimes written baedi, means tied, bound. A meaning might be, "The savages of the jungle around Lanka (Ceylon)." [143] A line of hairs from the throat to the navel is said to be considered a thing of beauty. [144] Bada is for banda. [145] The text is given at the end of this volume. [146] Makanta, to obliterate, but the meaning of the narrator appears to be more nearly expressed by the word I have inserted. [147] When a woman has more than one husband (brothers always), she goes through the marriage ceremony with the eldest, and is formally given to him only. [148] Apparently the fire originated accidentally, and the man was afraid of being charged with murdering the beggar. Compare story No. 21, vol. i, of which the Western Province has a variant. [149] Manda walaka. In village talk and writing, the semi-consonants n, n, and n are often inserted in words in which they do not occur in ordinary Sinhalese; on the other hand, these letters, and m as a semi-consonant, are often omitted in writing words in which they are always pronounced. [150] Wiyan baendala. [151] Hayiyen hayiyen. [152] Hamunduru namak, a Buddhist monk. [153] Tract "assigned for the exclusive use of the grantee," and his descendants. See Wickremasinghe (Epigraphia Zeylanica, vol. i, p. 244). [154] Mist Mother. In the Rig Veda, v, 32, 4, Sushna, the Danava, is termed Child of the Mist. [155] This episode is given in No. 138, vol. ii. [156] Ursha = vrisha. [157] Required as an offering to the demon in charge of the hidden treasure. Compare No. 196. [158] At deka gawin allagatta. [159] This reply is intended to show that the boys do not deserve sympathy. [160] To taniyenda awe? [161] E tiyaddin, "placing it" [aside or out of consideration]. [162] See footnote, vol. ii, p. 369. [163] The Yaka who gives effect to evil magic spells and charms, and to the evil eye and evil mouth, that is, evil wishes and curses. [164] Jivan karala. [165] In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., pp. 411, 412, a Prince who was going for a magical sandal-wood tree, fed two tigers which protected it, with the leg of a sheep, and the serpents with bread and curdled milk, after which they did not attempt to harm him. In Ceylon, it is believed that the demons who protect the treasure, or those who are summoned by means of evil invocations in other cases, take at first various forms of animals; and it is imperative that these animals must be fed with appropriate food, otherwise the demon would be able to destroy the persons engaged in the business. [166] Kollanta himin. [167] Æwadin ahakwela. [168] Probably Gaja-Bahu I, A.D. 113-135. [169] The Hitopadesa relates this of a traveller near Ujjain. [170] The narrator explained that when the rain came the snake would twist about inside the elephant's head, and drive it mad. [171] Obata mokada, tik; mama oda, tik. The tik represents the stamp of the hare's foot, or a snort, perhaps. [172] Each person who receives a packet is considered to be invited. [173] Kalavaedda (Paradoxurus musanga). [174] The text is given at the end of this volume. [175] This incident is also related on pp. 62 and 63 of vol. i. [176] In No. 245 the Princess was weighed once a week. [177] Lit., ran flying. [178] Kanya pantiyak; apparently they were courtesans or dancing girls. [179] Hadagat purushayek. [180] Mesopotamian Archæology (Handcock), pp. 295, 329. [181] Tun-mulu-Toppiya, the one with the three-cornered hat. [182] Lit., Come to go. [183] Ese-mese. [184] Bohoma durata, lit. very far. [185] Lit., We having gone, will come. [186] That is, the amount of the seed being first deducted, a certain share of the produce would be taken by the cultivator--sometimes one-half or one-third,--the rest going to the owner of the land, in this case the King. [187] Gedarawal ganettama. Gane or gana = gahana, multitude; compare kadawal ganema, vol. i, p. 86, line 17. [188] Issara weccahama. [189] Umbalat ekkenek mage ina gawin alla-ganilla (hon. pl.); gawin, "near," is commonly used for "at" or "by," as in ata gawin alla­gana, seizing the hand (vol. i, p. 127, line 23). [190] A breed of black fowls is considered to have the tenderest flesh of all; the flesh is very white, but the bones are black on the surface. [191] Contraction of Bolan, apparently; a Low-country expression. [192] These adventures of the corpse remind one of the Hunchback of the Arabian Nights, but they are Indian episodes. [193] Issarawela magane; i gawata appane; itat passe lunu huppane. magane = mage + anaya or ane. [194] When money stolen from me was buried, the leader of the thieves removed it during the same night, and buried it at a fresh place in the jungle. [195] Lit., having killed, gave. [196] That is, at the front end of the pole; the other man held the rear end on his shoulder, and was thus guided by it along the path which his eyes could not distinguish. [197] Or nobleman. [198] Puta saha Maeniyo; in the folk-tales the word meaning "son" is always spelt thus, with long a. [199] Pitimma [200] That is, as a punishment for some fault of theirs they had killed the wrong person. [201] Aet maet. [202] That is, blowing the glowing fire-sticks into flames. [203] A demon expeller of low caste. [204] Manuksa duwek: in the reply the first of these words is manussa. [205] Yodi, an expression often applied jestingly to a child, or a person who thinks herself strong. [206] In Sagas from the Far East, p. 22, a Khan's son with a friend had killed two serpent deities which ate the people, when he went to be their prey in the place of his father. His friend then suggested that they should return home, but the Khan's son replied, "Not so, for if we went back to our own land the people would only mock us, saying, 'The dead return not to the living!' and we should find no place among them." In vol. i, p. 77, of these Sinhalese tales, a man asks, "Can anyone in the other world come to this world?" But other Sinhalese stories show that there is, or was, a belief that people who have died may sometimes reappear on earth immediately, in their previous form, and not merely as new-born children, the common idea, as on p. 308, below. See Nos. 191 and 210. For the text of the sentence see p. 416. [207] Siti tanaturak. [208] Evidently a post in which he had the title of Raja, and not the general government of the whole country. A ruler termed "the Eastern King" (Pacina Raja) is mentioned in an early inscription (Dr. Müller's, No. 34A); as no such title is found in the histories, he may have been a district governor. The hero of this story appears to have received a somewhat similar post. [209] The Sinhalese title is, "The Story of the Ship and the Hettiya." [210] A quarter of a rupee, which in Ceylon was subdivided into one hundred cents about forty years ago. [211] Or, "having been in a great astonishment, speedily having gone," etc. The text is Mahat pudumayakin inda wahama gos. [212] In the paintings on the walls or ceilings of Buddhist temples, many Yakshas are represented as having the heads of animals, such as bears, dogs, snakes, and parrots, with bodies like those of human beings. [213] Lit., "these," hal, rice, being a plural noun. [214] Sitanan kenek. [215] Rilawa, the brown monkey, Macacus pileatus. A variant terms it a Wandura (Semnopithecus). [216] The title of a superior chief in the Low-country, equivalent to the Ratemahatmaya of the Kandians. [217] Baeri-wela tiyenawa. [218] That is, the spaces in the stick walls were merely closed with leafy twigs. [219] Jatiya-jamme. [220] Talattaeni minissu. [221] Kasi aettek, wansadipotiyek. [222] Narakatiyak. [223] The deity of the planet Saturn. [224] Daboia russelli. [225] Laebunu wahama. [226] There being several thirsts besides that caused by want of water,--such as thirsts for spirituous liquor, power, knowledge, happiness, etc.--the villager usually defines the former as water-thirst, diya or watura-tibbaha. [227] Tejase daeka. [228] Paen is-nanayata. It includes the bathing of the whole body. [229] E giya wahama. [230] That is, the fire burned into the midst of the heap, where the sword was placed. [231] A very respectful form of affirmative. [232] Maerum kaewoya, ate dying. [233] It is evident that some kahawanas were golden ones. See also vol. i, p. 348, and the Appendix, p. 454. [234] In the MS. the words are gañga-pahalata, 'down the river,' an evident mistake, as the hair passed down with the current. [235] The Sinhalese title is, "The Royal Prince and the Minister-Prince" (aemati-kumaraya). [236] This means here, "No matter." [237] Mata ahuwela tiyenne. [238] Akuru ganan, that is, "Can you keep accounts?" [239] The third person used honorifically instead of the second. [240] Bade gayak saedunaya. [241] Mita palamuwenut. [242] The Sinhalese title is, "Concerning the Royal Prince and the Minister-Prince." [243] Soka + eka, the one of sorrows; he was not aware that the sorrows were to be his own. [244] This incident occurs in Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 261, the young man being a servant who was playing tricks on a farmer and had burnt his house down. [245] Anda bera gaesuwaya, beat the proclamation tom-toms. [246] Ambuñda gahagana. [247] Ceylon was formerly sometimes termed Tri-Sinhala, because it was divided into three districts, Pihiti-rata, the northern part, containing the capital; Malaya-rata, consisting of the mountainous part; and Ruhunu-rata, the southern part, round the hills. It is very doubtful if the supreme King ever wore a triple crown that symbolised his rule over the three districts; on the other hand, a triple head-covering like the Pope's tiara was certainly known, and is represented in the frontispiece to Ancient Ceylon. [248] Tun pas-wissak, lit., three [times] a five [and] twenty. [249] Compare No. 225. [250] Welawe ho awelawe ho. [251] Æt-muhunin bat munu bindinta epaya. [252] Because he thought the elephant was supernaturally prevented from killing him. [253] Apparently from Skt. kal, to impel, hold, fasten. (See p. 340.) [254] The narrator thought that Rodiyas are Kinnaras. [255] That is, she said the word with a mental reservation that he should be unable to act accordingly. [256] Gini gediyak. [257] Piyaneni. [258] Uman-miyo. Compare p. 81, vol. ii. [259] Para-teratama, completely, from top to bottom. [260] Lit., ties. [261] The God of Death. [262] Compare the similar incident in vol. i, p. 133. [263] Lit., that was near the Prince. [264] Lit., "For me [there is] much hunger-weakness." [265] Moorman, a Muhammadan trader. [266] Mara, the God of Death, or Death personified. [267] Compare the Kala spell in No. 245 of this vol., and the notes, p. 342, vol. ii. and p. 70 in this vol. [268] Baeri taena, in a position of inability [to do anything]. [269] Bada gala, that is, by clasping his arms round it and rubbing his body on it, as he "swarmed" up it. [270] Prayoga parannawanta gaeni. [271] Mangulak, a word which usually means a [wedding] feast, but is often used in the villages to signify the bride. [272] Kasade, literally "marriage," here also used to signify the bride. [273] That is, merely because he was inclined to go. [274] The narrator omitted to make the woman explain the last two cryptic sayings. The final one, that he was to go mounted on the back of two dead ones, of course means that he was to wear a pair of shoes or sandals. [275] Puseka, also puse later on. Doubtless this is the Tamil pusei (Skt. puja), one meaning of which is food given as a religious offering. Puseka is puse + eka, one, used in such instances to express the definite article, as in koteka, the coat. [276] Kapiwata in the text. The meaning is uncertain, kapi being a monkey, a sacred animal at Hindu temples. [277] Perhaps because she would acquire sanctity through cooking the consecrated food. [278] That is, made a vow to present or cook a food offering. [279] Not given by the narrator. [280] A jungle bush or small tree on which lac is formed, Croton lacciferum. [281] Lit., much flavour having fallen. [282] This story appeared in The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 54. [283] The son's father's brothers are called his fathers in Sinhalese, the father's sisters being, however, his aunts, not mothers. [284] Kot vilakku panak. [285] Lit., "short person." [286] Buddhist Scriptures, and other religious works. [287] Bala-aeti mudda, power-possessing ring. [288] That is, recite the Buddhist Scriptures, apparently with a view to their parents' recovering their sight as a reward for his religious zeal. [289] Magulak aehaewwa. [290] Hura. To screen herself she blamed him for leaving her alone with the younger brother, thus suggesting that he had behaved improperly to her. [291] Male, mehe waren ko; ko is intensitive, making the order more imperative, like our "I say." [292] Kapala hitan. [293] Budiya-ganin. [294] Yanda giya. [295] Waeradeyi, will go wrong. [296] Onaenne = onae wenne. [297] Naga-kanyawo. [298] Aeradi-wuna ahakata; I am not sure of the exact meaning. [299] Balapuwama. [300] In these stories I have translated wastu as "goods," this being in the plural number, and wastuwa as "wealth." [301] Ambude gahagantawat. Compare p. 297, note. [302] Up to this point the story is a variant of the tale called "Sigiris Siñño the Giant," in vol. i, p. 312. [303] The meaning is, "Can you take my war army and defeat the enemies?" To express this in Sinhalese the narrator should have said, "Taking my war army, can you," etc. [304] Noka nombi. [305] Numba-wahanse. [306] Kiri-maw, milk-mother. [307] Sword, spear, bow, battle-axe, and shield (Clough). [308] Situ gedaraka. [309] Lit., leave place to them. [310] A similar episode occurs in vol. i, p. 163. [311] Naew-patunak. [312] Pradha stri. [313] Otunna-himi-kumarayek, lit., a Crown-Lord-Prince. [314] Eka maluwakata malu dekayi. The chief ingredients of curries are all termed malu or malu by villagers, whether meat, fish, or vegetables. The same word also means "curry." [315] Gold, according to a variant of the N.W. Province. Some of these coins were made of gold. See Appendix. [316] Pottayata hemin. [317] Seyilamakata. [318] Saw-saranak, refuge from all things. [319] Deviyane, honorific title of a King. [320] Lit., to cut the Hettiya's neck. [321] Widi lokuda madi lokuda, lit., Is Destiny great or insufficiently great? [322] The word in the text is golle, "O party." [323] Attara pini-diya. [324] Gettuwa. [325] Anacara darmme yedi. In the two later instances the second word is darmmayehi. [326] Leaving a red mark like blood, owing to the areka-nut he had chewed. [327] Bassia longifolia. [328] A form, kawadda, may indicate the intermediate stage; I think it occurs only once. [329] See Gunasekara's Grammar, p. 180. [330] Thup., quoted in the next paragraph. See vol. iii, p. 169, line 18. [331] Although Mr. Gunasekara states (Gram., p. 162, footnote) that ti is not used colloquially, the word is several times found in these tales, and I have heard it employed by villagers. [332] Corrected in MS., from Mini; apparently either word is correct. [333] This is the intrinsic value compared with our money; the purchasing value may have been thirty times as high in the stories, in which a masurama was paid for a day's food of rice and curry, and a country pony was bought for fifty. [334] A pound of copper was priced at 9.8d. of our money; the present wholesale values (July 9, 1914) are--silver, 25 7/8d. per oz. (Troy); copper, £62 5s. per ton, the ratio being 41.566. [335] Numismatic Chronicle, 1895, p. 221. [336] Apparently the same as the hunduwa (Tamil sundu), the colloquial term. [337] Eli-bahinda, a word which when thus used is well understood to refer to a necessary natural function. 
57399	----	VILLAGE FOLK-TALES OF CEYLON Vol. II Collected and Translated by H. PARKER Late of the Irrigation Department, Ceylon LONDON LUZAC & CO. Publishers to the India Office 1914 CONTENTS STORIES OF THE CULTIVATING CASTE NO. PAGE 76 A Legend of Kandy 3 77 The Gamarala's Daughter 4 78 The Gamarala's Girl 7 79 How Gourds were put in Small-Mouthed Pots 10 80 The Royal Prince and the Carpenter's Son 13 81 Concerning a Royal Prince and a Princess 23 82 The Princes who Learnt the Sciences 33 The Nobleman and his Five Sons (Variant A) 36 The Seven Princes (Variant B) 39 The Attempt of Four Brahmana Princes to Marry (Variant C) 42 83 The Story of Kalundawa 46 84 How the Poor Prince became King 50 85 How the Gardener became King 54 86 How the Foolish Man became King 57 87 The Foolish Man 60 88 The Story of Marirala 64 89 The Invisible Silk Robe 66 90 The Foolish Youth 70 91 The Story of the Seven Thieves 76 92 The King who became a Thief 81 93 The Female Fowl Thief 88 94 Gampolaya and Raehigamaya 90 95 The Story of the Two Liars 96 96 The Three Hettiyas 98 97 Concerning Two Friends 101 98 Concerning Four Friends 107 99 Concerning a Horse 109 100 The Story of the Pearl Necklace 111 101 The Widow Woman and Loku-Appuhami 116 102 The Decoction of Eight Nelli Fruits 121 103 The Prince and Princess and Two Devatawas 124 104 Concerning the Prince and the Princess who was Sold 130 105 The Princess Hettirala 137 106 The Maehiyalle-gama Princess 142 107 The Wicked Princess 146 108 Holman Pissa 151 109 Concerning a Vaedda and a Bride 157 110 A Story about a Vaedda 160 111 The Story of the Four Giants 162 112 The Story about a Giant 172 113 Hitihami the Giant 175 114 The New Speech 181 115 The Master and Servant 191 116 How the Son-in-Law Cut the Chena 192 117 A Girl and a Stepmother 195 118 The Wicked Elder Brother 198 119 Nahakota's Wedding Feast 201 120 How a Man Charmed a Thread 204 121 How the Rice and Curry became Raw 206 122 How a Woman ate Cooked Rice by Stealth 207 123 How a Woman Offered Cakes 208 124 The Manner in which a Woman prepared a Flour Figure 210 125 How a Woman became a Lapwing 212 126 The Story of the Seven Wicked Women 215 127 The Story of the Old Man 219 128 The Magic Lute Player 221 129 The Lad who Sang Songs 223 130 The Hunchback Tale 226 131 The Poor Man and the Jewels 228 132 The Learned Poor Man 230 133 A Poor Man and a Woman 234 134 The Story of the Rakshasa and the Princess 237 135 The Way the Rakshasi Died 241 136 How a Rakshasa turned Men and Bulls into Stone 244 137 The Rakshasa-eating Prakshasa 247 The Rakshasa-eating Prakshasa (Variant A) 256 The Rakshasis-eating Prakshasa (Variant B) 257 The Rice-dust Porridge (Variant C) 262 The Evidence that the Appuhami ate Paddy Dust (Variant D) 266 138 The Story of the Cake Tree 269 The Lad and the Rakshasi (Variant A) 275 The Cake Tree (Variant B) 276 139 The Girl, the Monk, and the Leopard 280 140 The Washerman and the Leopard 286 141 The Frightened Yaka 288 142 The Story of the Seven Yakas 292 143 The Yaka and the Tom-tom Beater 294 144 How a Tom-tom Beater got a Marriage from a Gamarala 296 145 The Gem Yaksani 299 146 The Na, Mi, and Blue-Lotus Flowers' Princesses 309 The Story of the She-Goat (Variant A) 320 The Story of a Nobleman's Son (Variant B) 323 147 The Loss that occurred to the Nobleman's Daughter 330 148 The Ratemahatmaya's Presents 333 149 The Prince and the Minister 334 150 The Story of King Bamba 339 151 Concerning a Royal Princess and a Turtle 345 152 The Story of a King and a Prince 356 153 The Story of the Gourd 361 154 The Story of the Shell Snail 364 155 The Queen of the Rock House 367 155A The Story of the Elder Sister and Younger Brother 377 156 The Queen and the Beggar 380 157 The Frog in the Queen's Nose 382 158 Concerning a Bear and the Queen 385 159 The Leopard and the Princess 388 160 The Story of the Foolish Leopard 393 161 The Story of the Dabukka 396 162 The Leopard and the Calf 399 163 The Ash-Pumpkin Fruit Prince 401 164 The Kabaragoya and the Widow 407 165 The Frog Jacket 409 166 The Four-faced King and the Turtle 411 167 The Story of the Cobra and the Prince 414 168 The Ant Story 417 169 The Gamarala and the Cock 419 170 Concerning the Golden Peacock 421 171 The Story of the Brahmana's Kitten 425 172 The Story of the Mango Bird 430 173 How the Parrot explained the Law-suit 435 174 The Parrot and the Crow 440 175 The Crow and the Darter 442 176 Concerning the Crows and the Owls 443 177 The Female Lark 445 Index 449 See Additional Notes and Corrections in the Appendix, Vol. III. STORIES OF THE CULTIVATING CASTE NO. 76 A LEGEND OF KANDY [1] At a certain place in Lankawa (Ceylon), there was an extensive forest. In that forest there were elephants, bears, leopards, wanduras, [2] and many other jungle animals. At any time whatever, at the time when any animal springs for seizing an animal that is its prey, it comes running near a rock that is in an open place in the forest. Having arrived near the rock, the animal that ran through fear goes bounding back after the animal that is chasing it. Regarding that rock, it was the custom that it was [known as] "The Rock of the Part where there is Tranquillity" (Sen-kada-gala [3]). One day a Basket-mender for the purpose of cutting bamboos went into this forest. While he was cutting bamboos a certain jackal went driving a hare on the path. At the time when the hare arrived near this rock the jackal began to run back, and the hare ran behind it. The Basket-mender, having been looking at this, examined the place, and having gone near the King who was ruling at that time, told him of this circumstance. And the King, having thought that it is a good victorious ground, went there, and having built a city makes it his capital (raja-dhaniya). For that city he made the name Senkadagala [Nuwara--that is, Kandy]. Uva Province. NO. 77 THE GAMARALA'S DAUGHTER In a certain country there were a Gamarala and a daughter of the Gamarala's, it is said. Well then, for the Gamarala they brought a Gama-mahage. [4] The Gama-mahage's daughter and that Gamarala's daughter stayed in one place. The Gamarala and the Gama-mahage cook and eat separately; the Gamarala's daughter and the Gama-mahage's daughter cook and eat separately. A King comes every day to the house in which are the two girls. Afterwards, the Gama-mahage's daughter, having quarrelled with the Gamarala's daughter, went to the Gama-mahage and told tales: "A King comes every day to the house we are in." Then the woman said, "Daughter, you go to that house to-day [and watch if he comes]." Having said "Ha" (Yes), that girl went. Afterwards the girl came to the house in which was the Mahage. After having come, she said, "Mother, to-day also the King came." Then that girl's mother, having cut her finger-nails [5] and given them into the hand of the girl, said, "Daughter, take these and place them upon the beam of the threshold." The girl, having taken them and placed them on the beam of the threshold, came to the Mahage's house. On the following day the girl did not go to the house of the Gamarala's daughter. That day, also, came the King. After he came he placed his foot on the beam of the threshold; then the finger-nails pricked him. Immediately the King went to the city on the back of the tusk elephant. On the following day, when that [Gamarala's] girl was weeping and weeping under a tree because he did not come, while some crows were swallowing and swallowing the fruits of the trees a crow said, "Ando! What is that Gamarala's daughter crying for?" The other crow said, "What is it to thee! Do thou in silence quickly swallow two or three fruits off that." Afterwards, it having become night, part of the crows went to the nests; two still remained over in the tree. One of them said, "Ane! What is that Gamarala's daughter crying for?" The other crow said, "What is it to thee! Do thou in silence swallow the fruits off that. All the crows went away; mustn't we also go? It has become night." Then the Gamarala's daughter laments, "A light was falling and falling [into my life]; it is not there now." The crow said, "Being without a light, what art thou lamenting for?" The girl said, "A King was coming and coming to our house. Our stepmother having placed some finger-nails on the threshold, they pricked the King's foot, and having gone to the city he does not come now. On account of that I am lamenting." Then the crow said, "What are you lamenting for on that account! Having shot (with bow and arrow) a crow that is flying [in the air] above, and extracted its fat, should you take it to the city in which the King is, when you have rubbed it on the wound in the foot it will heal." Afterwards the girl, having shot a crow that was flying above, and extracted its fat, and tied up a packet of it, and dressed in men's clothes, went to the city, taking the fat. The girl, having gone to the city, and gone to the palace in which is the King, said, "What will He give me to cure His foot?" [6] The King replied, "I will give a gold ring." Then the girl rubbed the oil [on the wound], and after she drew out the finger-nail the foot became well. After that the King gave the girl the gold ring. The girl, taking it, came home. The King, taking a sword, on the following day came on the back of the tusk elephant to the house in which is the girl. The girl was asleep. Then the King descended from the tusk elephant, and taking the sword went to the place where the girl was. "Get up, thou," he said. The girl arose. Then the King prepared to cut her neck. The girl, having made obeisance, said, "Don't cut me with the sword; it was I who cured His foot." "How didst thou cure it?" he said. "I went to the city in which He was, and having rubbed fat [on the wound] and drawn out the finger-nail, came back," the girl said. Then the King said, "How didst thou go to my palace?" The girl replied, "I went in men's clothes, and having rubbed oil on the foot and drawn out the finger-nail, I came back." "If thou drewest it out, where is now the gold ring I gave thee?" he said. Then the girl, saying, "Here is the gold ring He gave me," showed it to the King. After that, placing the girl on the back of the tusk elephant, he went to the palace in the city. North-western Province. Regarding the poisonous nature of the finger-nails, see vol. i, pp. 124 and 128. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 199, a Princess in the disguise of a Yogi cured a Prince who had married her, and who had been poisoned by means of powdered glass laid on his bed. She applied earth from the foot of a tree, mixed with cold water, and rubbed this over him for three days and nights. When the Prince wished to reward her, she asked for a ring and handkerchief that she gave him on their wedding day. She afterwards informed him that it was she who had cured him, but he would not believe her until she produced these articles. NO. 78 THE GAMARALA'S GIRL In a certain city there was a King, it is said. The King sends letters into various countries to be explained. When they were sent, no one could explain the things that were in the letters. When he sent the letters, on the following day [the recipients] must come near the King. When they come the King asks the meaning in the letter; no one can tell it. Well then, he beheads the man. Thus, in that manner he sent letters to seven cities. From the seven cities seven men came to hand over the letters. He beheaded the seven persons. On the eighth day a letter came to the Gamarala. There is a girl of the Gamarala's. When they brought the letter the girl was not at home; she went to the village to pound paddy. Pounding the paddy and taking the rice, when the girl is coming home the Gamarala is weeping and weeping. So the girl asked, "What is it, father, you are crying for?" Then the Gamarala says, "Daughter, why shouldn't I cry? The King who beheaded seven men of seven cities has to-day sent a letter to me also. Now then, the letter which the people of seven cities were unable to explain, how can I explain? Well then, mustn't I take the letter to-morrow? It is I who must take the letter. When I have gone he will behead me. Well then, owing to your being [left] without anyone, indeed, I am weeping." Then the girl said, "Where is it, for me to look at, that letter?" Asking for it, and having explained all the things that were in the letter, she said to the Gamarala, "Father, having gone to-morrow, to what the King asks say thus and thus." The Gamarala on the following day went and handed over the letter. The King, in the very way in which he asked those seven persons, brought up the Gamarala, and asked him. The Gamarala replied in the very way the girl said. Then the King asked the Gamarala, "Who expounded this?" The Gamarala said, "There is a daughter of mine; that daughter herself explained it." After that, the King said, "To-morrow we are coming for the marriage [to your daughter]. You go now, and having built inner sheds and outer sheds, and milked milk from oxen, and caused it to curdle, and expressed oil from sand, place them [ready]; those [previously] unperformed matters," he said. When the Gamarala is coming home the girl is not at home. Having gone to pound paddy, and having pounded the paddy, when she comes, taking the rice, that day, also, the Gamarala, weeping and weeping, is digging some holes for posts. So the girl asked, "What, father, are you crying for to-day also?" Then the Gamarala says, "Ane! Daughter, the King is coming to-morrow to summon you in marriage, and return. Owing to it, the King said to me, 'Having built inner sheds and outer sheds, having milked milk from oxen and caused it to curdle, and having expressed oil from sand, place them [ready].' Now, then, how shall I do those things? It is through being unable that I am weeping." Then the girl says, "Father, no matter for that. Simply stay [here]. Please build the [usual] sorts of inner sheds and outer sheds. How are you to milk milk from oxen and curdle it? How are you to express oil from sand?" Afterwards the Gamarala indeed built the inner sheds and outer sheds. On the very day on which the King said he is coming, the girl, with another girl, taking a bundle of cloth, went along the road to meet the King. On the road there is a sesame chena. By the chena they met the King. When coming very far away, the Ministers said at the hand of the King, "That one coming in front is the Gamarala's daughter herself." The Gamarala's daughter, too, did go in front. Then the King asked at the hand of the Gamarala's daughter, "Where, girl, art thou going?" The Gamarala's daughter replied, "We are going [because] our father has become of age [in the same manner as women]. On account of it [we are going] to the washermen." The King said, "How, girl, are men [affected like women]?" Then the girl said, "So, indeed! You, Sir, told our father that having built inner sheds and outer sheds, having milked milk from oxen, and caused it to curdle, and having expressed oil from sand, [he is] to place them [ready]. How can these be [possible]? In that way, indeed, is the becoming of age by males [in the same manner as women]." Then the King, having become pleased with the girl, asked yet a word. He plucked a sesame flower, and taking it in his hand asked the girl, "Girl, in this sesame flower where is the oil?" Then the girl asked, "When your mother conceived where were you. Sir?" [7] Immediately (e parama) the King descended from the horse's back; and placing the Gamarala's girl upon the horse, and the King also having got on the horse, they went to the palace. The other girl came alone to that girl's house. On the second day, the King having sent the Ministers and told the Gamarala to come, marrying the girl to the King she remained [there]. The Gamarala also stayed in that very palace. North-western Province. NO. 79 HOW GOURDS WERE PUT IN SMALL-MOUTHED POTS At a certain time a man cut a sesame chena. In the sesame chena the sesame flowers blossomed. There was a female child of the man's. The child one day having gone to the sesame chena, while she was there the King came, in order to go near the sesame chena. Thereupon the King asked at the hand of the girl, "Girl, the flower that has blossomed, where did it come from in the plant?" Then the girl asked at the hand of the King, "Before your mother was married where were you?" At that time, the King having become angry at the word which the girl said, told the girl's father to come. After he came he said, "Because your girl said such a wicked word, come [to me after] putting a hundred gourd fruits in a hundred [small-mouthed] copper pots." Thereupon, the man being afraid at this word went home, and remained a dead dolt (manda). Then the girl asked, "Why, father, are you without sense?" Then the man told her the word said by the King. Having heard it, the girl said, "Father, why are you frightened at that? I will tell you a stratagem for that," and told him to bring a hundred [small-mouthed] copper pots. After he brought them, she told him to bring a hundred gourd-flower fruits (the small fruit at the base of the flower). After he brought them, she told him to put the hundred gourds into those hundred copper pots, and after he put them in, the girl and the man went to the King, and handed them over. Having given them, as they were coming away, the King said to the girl, "I will cause thee to be in widowhood." Then the girl said, "I will get a dirty cloth [set] on your head." The King, after that man and girl went away, came and married her. Having married her, and stayed a little time, in order to make her a widow he went on a journey which delayed him six months. Having waited until the time when he was going, what does this girl do? Having made up her hair-knot on the top of her head, tying it there, tying on a bosom necklace (malayak) like the Hettiyas, she went to the sewing-shop. Learning sewing for the whole of the six months, she sewed a good hat, putting a dirty cloth at the bottom [inside it], and above it having fastened [precious] stones; it was at the sewing-shop. At that time, as that King, the six months having been spent, was coming home through the middle of the street, he saw a costly hat in the shop; and having given a thousand masuran, taking the hat and placing it on his head, he went away. Having gone, he said to the girl, "I caused thee to be in widowhood, didn't I? I said so." Then the girl said, "On your head you got my dirty cloth, didn't you? I said so." The King said, "You are not old enough [8] to get your dirty cloth on my head." Thereupon the girl said, "Break up the hat and look." Then when the King broke up the hat and looked the dirty cloth was there. After that, having said, "The two persons are equal to each other," they remained in much trust [in each other]. North-central Province. In Indian Night's Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 315, a girl, the daughter of a smith, whom a Prince wanted to marry, in order to show her cleverness made some large earthenware jars, and without burning them painted and enamelled them, and introduced a small water-melon into each. When the melons had grown so as to fill the jars, she sent two of them to the palace, with a request that the melons should be taken out without breaking the jars or melons. No one being able to do it, she obtained permission to visit the palace, wrapped a wet cloth round each jar until it became soft, expanded the mouths, extracted the melons, and remade the jars as before. The smart village girl is known in China also. There is an account of one in Chinese Nights' Entertainment (A. M. Fielde), p. 57, the incidents being unlike those of the Sinhalese tale, however. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iii, p. 202) there is a story of a smart village girl and a King of Persia, Kisra Anushirwan, in which the King married the girl. NO. 80 THE ROYAL PRINCE AND THE CARPENTER'S SON In a certain country there were a King and a Queen. In the same city there were a Carpenter and his wife. There was a Prince of the King's. There was a son of the Carpenter's. They sent these two near a teacher to learn letters and sciences. After a number of years, one day, in order to look at this Prince's learning, the King, having gone near the teacher who teaches the sciences, and made inquiry regarding the Prince's lessons, [ascertained that] the King's Prince was not able to [understand] any science; the Carpenter's son was conversant (nipuna) with all sciences. Thereupon the King, having become grieved, went to the palace, and said to the Queen, "Thy Prince is a decided miserable fool. [9] Because of it, I must behead the Prince," the King settled. Then the Queen said to the Prince, "As you have not got any learning he has settled to behead you. Because of it, leave this city, and go somewhere or other." Having said [this], and, unknown to the King, tied up and given the Prince a package of cooked rice, and given him a horse and a sword and a thousand masuran, she sent him on his journey. This Prince and the Carpenter's son were very great confidential friends. Because of it, the Prince, having said that he must go [after] having spoken to his friend, went near his friend, and said, "Our father, because I am unable to [understand] letters and sciences, has settled to behead me. Because of it, I am going to another country." Thereupon the Carpenter's son said, "If you, Sir, are leaving this city and going away, I also must go to the place where you are going." Having said [this], the Carpenter's son set out to go with the Prince. Then the Prince said, "As for me, blame having fallen on me from the King, I am going; there is no reason at all for you to go." That word the Carpenter's son would not hear. Both of them having mounted on the horse, entered the jungle, and began to go away. At the time when they had gone a number of gawuwas (each of four miles), it became night; and having gone upon a high rock, and eaten the packet of cooked rice that was brought, at the time when the two persons were talking the Prince saw that a great light had fallen somewhat far away. Having said, "Friend, get up and look what is that light," when that one arose and looked, a great Nagaya, having ejected a stone, is eating food. The Prince said, "How is the way to take the stone?" The Carpenter's son said, "You go, and, taking the stone, come back running, without having looked back. The Cobra will come running; then I will cut it down." The Prince said, "I cannot; you go and bring it." Thereafter, the Carpenter's son having gone, at the time when he was coming back [after] taking the stone, the Cobra came after him, crying and crying out. The Prince, taking [the stone] and having waited, cut it down. Instantly, both of them having mounted on the back of the horse, began to run off. Having gone very far, after they halted they looked at the stone. On the stone was written, "There is a well in this jungle. When one has held the stone to the well, the water will dry up. Having descended into the well, when one has looked there will be a palace; there will also be a Princess in the palace. If there should be a person who has obtained this stone, it is he himself whom this Princess will marry." [This] was written upon the stone. Thereafter, after it became light, these two persons began to seek the well. At the time when they were seeking and looking for it they met with the well. When they held the stone to the well the water dried up. Both of them having descended into the well, when they looked about, they met with the palace also; the Princess, too, was there. Thereupon the royal Prince said to the Carpenter's son, "Owing to your good luck we met with this gem-treasure [10] and the Princess. Because of that, let the Princess be for you." The Carpenter's son said to the Prince, "You, Sir, are a great fool. You are my royal Prince; it is not right to say this word to me." Thereafter, having married the Princess to the Prince, and united the two persons, and set that Naga gem in a ring, and put it on the Prince's finger, he said, "On the Princess's asking for this ring on any day whatever, [11] don't give it. Women are never to be trusted." Having taught the Prince [this], having said, "In any difficulty whatever, remember me," the Carpenter's son, plunging into the water, came to the surface of the ground, and went [back] to their city. While this Prince and Princess were [there], one day she begged and got the ring that was on the Prince's hand, in order to look at it. When she begged and looked at it, this Princess saw that these matters were written in Nagara letters. On the following day, begging the ring from the Prince, and having gone noiselessly, when she held it out to the well the water dried up. Thereupon, the Princess, having mounted upon the well mouth, and stayed looking about, came again to the palace. In that manner, several times begging for the ring she stayed on the well mouth, and came back. One day, at the time when the Vaedda who goes hunting for the King of that city was going walking [in the forest], the Vaedda, having heard that this Princess sitting on the mouth of the well is singing, went and peeped, and remained looking at her. Thereafter he went and told the King of that city, "In such and such a jungle there is a well. Sitting on the well mouth, a Princess was singing and singing songs. Having stayed there, she jumped into the well. When I went and looked there is only water. The beauty of her figure is indeed like the sun and moon. In this city there is not a woman of that kind." Thereupon the King having become much pleased, on the following day the Vaedda, and the King, and the Minister, the whole three persons, went to look at the Princess. Having gone, at the time when they were hidden the Princess came that day also, and sitting on the well-mouth sang songs. Thereupon the King, taking the sword, went running to seize the Princess. As soon as the Princess saw them she jumped into the well. The King having gone near the well, when he looked there is only water. The Princess was not to be seen. Thereafter, the King, having been astonished, came to the city. Having come, he gave public notice by beat of tom-toms that if there should be a person who brought and gave him the Princess who is in the well in such and such a jungle, he will give him goods [amounting] to a tusk-elephant's load, and a half share from the kingdom. [This] he made public by the notification tom-toms. At the time when they were going in the street beating the notification tom-toms, a widow woman stopped the notification tom-toms, and asked, "What is it?" The notification tom-tom beater said, "The King said that to a person who brought and gave him the Princess who is in the well in such and such a jungle, he will give these goods, and a share from the kingdom." Thereupon the widow woman said [to the King], "I can. [12] Having constructed a watch-hut near the well in that jungle, you must give it to me," she said. The King very speedily sent men, and built a watch-hut, and gave it. This old woman went [there], and at the time when she was in the watch-hut, the Princess came, and sitting down upon the well mouth, sang songs. Thereupon the widow woman, drawing together the folds of her rags, breaking [loose] her hair and letting it hang down, placing her hand to her head, weeping and weeping, crying and crying out, came to the place where the Princess is. The Princess asked, "What, mother, are you weeping and weeping for?" "Ane! Daughter, there is a male child of mine. The child does not give me to eat, and does not give me to wear. Having beaten me he drove me away, to go to any place I like." Then the Princess said, "I will give you to eat and to wear. There is not anyone with me." Calling this old woman she went to her palace. The Prince also having become pleased, amply provided for the old woman. Very many times calling this old woman, [the Princess] having gone to the well-mouth, and stayed [there] singing songs, returned. One day this old woman, taking a piece of stone in her hand, unknown (himin) to the Princess, asked at the hand of the Princess, "Ane! Daughter, how does the water dry up in this well? How does it fill?" The Princess said, "Mother, there is a stone in my hand. By its power the water dries up, and fills it." [Saying], "Ane! Daughter, where is it? Please let me, too, look at it," she begged for and got the stone. Having been looking and looking at it a little time, she dropped that piece of stone which was in her hand, for the Princess to hear. This gem-treasure the woman hid. [The Princess] having said, "Appoyi! Mother, you dropped the stone!" the two persons, striking and striking themselves, began to cry, saying and saying, "For us, in the midst of this forest, from whom will there be a protection from everything (saw-saranak)?" At the time when they were weeping and weeping, having said, "It is becoming night," the old woman said to the Princess, "Now then, daughter, for us two to remain thus, a fine place (hari taenak) is this forest wilderness! There will be elephants, bears, leopards. Because of that, let us go. There is my house; having gone [there], early to-morrow morning let us come again here." Having said [this], deceiving the Princess, they went away. The old woman with dishonest secrecy having sent word to the King, the King came, and calling the Princess went [with her] to the palace. Thereafter, the King published by beat of tom-toms that he has brought the Princess who stayed on the well mouth. He made public that on such and such a day he will marry this Princess. Thereupon the Princess said, "In that manner I cannot contract marriage. My two parents have told me that the Prince [I am to marry] and I, both of us, having rowed a Wooden Peacock machine [13] in the sky, and having come back, after that must contract marriage, they have ordered." This word the Princess said as the Princess knows that the first friend of the Prince's, that is, the Carpenter's son, can construct the Wooden Peacock machine. Thereafter, the King of this city employed the notification tom-tom, "Who can construct the Wooden Peacock machine? If there should be a person who can, speedily come summoning him near the King." At the time when they were beating the notification tom-tom, that Carpenter's son, having caused the notification tom-tom to halt, said, "I can construct the Wooden Peacock machine." Thereupon, summoning the Carpenter's son, they went to the royal house. The King ordered that he should receive from the palace many presents. The King commanded that having quickly constructed the Wooden Peacock machine, and also prepared a person to row it, he should bring it. Thereafter, the Carpenter's son, ascertaining about the Princess who stayed at the well, quickly having set off, went near the well in the jungle, and diving into the water, and having gone to the palace, when he looked, the Prince having become stupefied through want of sleep, [14] had fallen down unconscious. Thereupon the Carpenter's son, having spoken to the Prince, said, "Didn't I tell you, Sir, 'Don't give the ring into the hand of the Princess,' ascertaining that this danger will happen? But," he said to the Prince, "don't you at any time become unhappy. [15] I will again bring the Princess near this palace, and give her to you." Saying, "Please remain in happiness," the Carpenter's son returned to the city, and began to construct the Wooden Peacock machine. While constructing it, he made inquiry how this widow woman was, [and learnt that] a male child of this widow woman's was lost while very young (lit., from his small days). One day, in the night the Carpenter's son, tying up a bundle of clothes and a packet of cooked rice, went, just as it was becoming night, [16] to the house at which is the widow woman. Having gone [there] he spoke: "Mother, mother!" Thereupon the woman quickly having arisen and come, asked, "Where, son, where were you for so many days?" Thereupon the Carpenter's son said, "Ane! Mother, having tramped through many countries, I have not obtained any means of subsistence. I obtained a few pieces of cloth and a little rice." Saying "Here," he gave them into the hand of that woman. "What are these for, son? Look; I have received from the King much goods, and a part of the kingdom," she said to the Carpenter's son. The old woman thought he was her own son. Having allowed him to press her eyes while she is lying down, the old woman said, "Son, I have still got something." Having said, "Ane! Mother, where is it? Please let me look at it," begging for it, when he looked [it was] that gem-treasure. Thereafter, having given it [back] into the hand of the old woman, and waited until the time when the woman goes to sleep, stealing that stone the Carpenter's son came away. Then, constructing the Wooden Peacock machine, he went near the King. Having gone, he said, "Except myself no one else can row this." At that time, the King and the Princess, both of them, having mounted on the Wooden Peacock machine [after] putting on the royal ornaments, these three persons rowed [aloft in] the Wooden Peacock machine. Having rowed very high above the sea, and stopped the Wooden Peacock machine, the Carpenter's son, taking the sword in his hand, asked the King whence the King obtained this Princess. Thereupon the King said that a widow woman of this city brought and gave him the Princess who stayed at a well in the midst of the forest. Then the Carpenter's son said, "Why do you desire others' wives? How much [mental] fire will there be for this Princess's husband! What His Highness (tuma) did is a great fault." Having said this, he cut down the King and dropped him into the sea, and, taking the Princess, rowed near that well in the jungle. Having gone [down the well] to the palace, and caused that Prince to put on these royal ornaments, the Prince, and the Princess, and the Carpenter's son, the whole three persons, having gone on the Wooden Peacock machine to the city, and said that the King and the Princess had contracted the marriage, that day with great festivity ate the [wedding] feast; but any person of the city was unaware of this abduction [17] [of the King] which he effected. Thereafter, this Prince and Princess having been saluted [18] by that widow woman, having tried her judicially they subjected her to the thirty-two tortures and beheaded her, and hung her at the four gate-ways, it is said. The Carpenter's son became the Prince's Prime Minister. The Prince exercised the sovereignty with the ten [royal] virtues, it is said. North-western Province. The ten royal virtues are: Almsgiving, keeping religious precepts, liberality, uprightness, compassion, addiction to religious austerities, even temper, tenderness, patience, and peacefulness (Clough). Regarding the flying wooden Peacock, see also the next story and No. 198 in vol. iii. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 378, there is also an account of a similar flying-machine called a Peacock, on which a young man, accompanied by the maker, first went to marry a girl, and afterwards, against the advice of its maker, flew aloft to show the people his own skill. He did not know how to make it return, and at last the cords broke, it fell in the sea, and he was drowned. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), pp. 378, 380, etc., there are several accounts of houses under the water; these were the residences of Bongas or deities. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. i, p. 115, Mr. G. H. Damant gave a Bengal story in which a King's son descends into a well, and finds there a Princess in a house, imprisoned by Rakshasas. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (L. Behari Day), p. 17 ff., a Prince and a Minister's son who was his bosom friend, while on their travels obtained a Cobra's jewel, and by means of it saw a palace under the water of a tank. They dived down to it, found a Princess who had been imprisoned there by the Cobra, which had died on losing its magic jewel, and the Prince married her by exchanging garlands of flowers. After the Minister's son left them in order to prepare for their return, the Princess, while the Prince was asleep, by means of the magic jewel ascended to the surface of the water, and sat on the bathing steps. On the third occasion when she did this, a Raja's son saw and fell in love with her. As soon as she observed him she descended to her palace, and the young man went home apparently mad. The Raja offered his daughter's hand and half his kingdom to anyone who could cure his son. An old woman who had seen the Princess offered to do it, and a hut was built for her on the embankment of the tank. When the Princess came to the bank the woman offered to help her to bathe, secured the jewel, and the Princess was captured. When the Minister's son returned on a day previously arranged, he heard that the Princess was to be married in two days. He personated the widow's son, who was absent, and was well received by the widow, who handed him the magic jewel. He saw the Princess, managed to escape with her, and they joined the Prince. In The Kathakoça (Tawney), p. 91, a serpent Prince saved a Queen who had been pushed into a well by her stepmother, and made a palace in the well, in which she lived until she was able to rejoin her husband. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan (Shaik Chilli), p. 52, a Princess who had been carried off and was about to be married to a Raja's son, stated (by pre-arrangement with her husband's party, who had come to rescue her) that it was "the custom of her family to float round the city in a golden aerial car with the bridegroom and match-maker." The Raja sent men to find a car. Two of her husband's friends, a goldsmith and a carpenter, now produced such a car. When the Raja, his son, the Princess, and the witch who had abducted her, began to sail above the city in it, at the Princess's request the car was stopped at a pre-arranged place, the Prince and his four friends sprang into it, took it high in the air, drowned the Raja, his son, and the witch, and returned with the Princess to their own city. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iii, p. 137 ff.) there is an account of a flying ebony horse, which rose or descended when suitable pegs were turned. When it was brought to a Persian King, his son tried it, was carried away like the Prince in the next story, and at last descended on the roof of a palace, where he saw and fell in love with the royal Princess, and returning afterwards, carried her off. In the Tota Kahani (Small), p. 139, a young man made a flying wooden horse, by means of which a merchant's daughter, who had been abducted by a fairy, was recovered. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 57, a young Brahmana who plunged into the Ganges to rescue a woman who appeared to be drowning found a temple of Siva, and a palace in which the girl who was a Daitya (an Asura) lived. In the same volume, p. 392, there is an account of a flying chariot, "with a pneumatic contrivance," made by a carpenter. A man flew two hundred yojanas (each some eight miles in length) before descending; he then started it afresh and flew another two hundred. On p. 390 wooden automata made by the same carpenter are mentioned; they "moved as if they were alive, but were recognised as lifeless by their want of speech." A similar automaton is mentioned in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 170; it was able to sing and dance. (This work consists of translations from the Chinese Tripitaka; all appear to have been translated from Indian originals, usually in the early centuries after Christ.) In The Indian Antiquary, vol. x, p. 232 (Tales of the Panjab, p. 42), in the story of Prince Lionheart, by Mrs. F. A. Steel, his carpenter friend went in search of a Princess who had been carried off by a King. He made a flying palankin, and returned in it with her. NO. 81 CONCERNING A ROYAL PRINCE AND A PRINCESS [19] In a certain city there were a King, a Carpenter, and a Washerman. There were three male children of these three persons. They sent these three children to learn letters near a teacher a yojana distant, or four gawuwas [20] distant. These three having at one time set off from the city when they went for [learning] letters, both that royal Prince and the Washer lad went and said the letters; when they are coming back the Carpenter's son is even yet going on the road. Those two go with much quickness. Because of it, the Carpenter's son said at his father's hand, "We three having set off at one time from the city, when we have gone, those two having got in front and gone, and said their letters, come back. Having gone (started) at one time, on even a single day having said my letters I was unable to come [with them]." Thereafter, he made for the Carpenter's son a [flying] Wooden Peacock machine, and gave him it. He having gone rowing it [through the air], and said his letters, when he is coming back those two are still going [on the road], for [their] letters. One day the royal Prince said to the Carpenter's son, "Ane! Friend, will you let me row and look at the Wooden Peacock machine?" he asked. Thereupon the Carpenter's son, having said, "It is good," and having told him the manner of treading on the chain, gave him it. Just as the Prince was taking hold of the chain, he went [up] in the Wooden Peacock machine, and was fixed among the clouds in the sky. At that time the King of the city and the multitude were frightened. Thereafter, having assembled the city soothsayers and astrologers, [the King] asked, "When will this Prince, taking the Wooden Peacock machine, come down?" Thereupon the soothsayers said, "After he has gone for the space of [21] three years and three months, having come back he will fall in the sea." Thereupon the King said to the Ministers, "Having been marking that number of years and number of days, surrounding the sea (i.e., keeping a watch all along the shore), and having been laying nets, as soon as the Prince falls you must take him ashore," he commanded. Thereafter, at the time when the Prince was holding the cords of the Wooden Peacock machine, it began to descend lower. At a burial ground at another city the Wooden Peacock machine came down upon a Banyan-tree. Thereupon the Prince, having placed the Wooden Peacock machine on the tree, and descended from the tree, went to the city, and began to walk about. At the time when the Princess of the King of the city, with yet [other] Princesses, was bathing at a pool, the Princess saw him at the time when this Prince also was going walking. As soon as she saw him, the Princess thought, "If I marry the Prince it is good." The Prince also thought, "If I marry this Princess it is good." Except that the two thought to themselves of each other, there was no means of talking together. Because of it, the Princess, plucking a blue-lotus flower in the pool, placed it on her head after having smelt (kissed) it; and again, having crushed it, threw it down, and trampled on it. The Princess did thus for the Prince to perceive that when he married her she would be submissive and obedient to him. The Prince understood it, and kept it in mind. Thereafter, at the time when the Prince was going walking in the city, he met with the palace in which is the Princess. At the time when the Prince had been there a little while, the Princess opened a window of the upper story, and when she was looking in the direction of the street, saw that this Prince was [there], and spoke to him. At that time she said to the Prince, "After it has become night I [shall] have opened this window. You come [then]." Then the Prince having come after all in the palace got to sleep, when he looked the window was opened. Having spoken to the Princess, he entered the palace. The two having conversed, the Prince, before it became light, got out of the palace, and having gone away, and waited until the time when it became night, comes again. Thereupon the Princess, in order to keep the Prince in the very palace, told a smith of the city to come secretly; and having given him also a thousand masuran, and made the man thoroughly swear [to secrecy], the Princess said, "Having made a large lamp-stand, and made it [large enough] for a man to be inside it, and turned round the screw-key belonging to it, as though bringing it to sell bring it to the palace. When you bring it I will tell the King, and I will take it." The smith having gone, and made the lamp-stand in the manner the Princess said, brought it near the King. Then the Princess having come and said, "I want this," took it, and put it in the palace. To the smith the King gave five hundred masuran. Thereafter, having put that Prince inside the lamp-stand, he remained [there]. When not many days had gone by, the Princess became pregnant. The King having perceived that the Princess was pregnant, placed a guard round the palace, and having published by beat of tom-toms [that they were] to seize this thief, the King and the guards made all possible effort to seize the thief, but they were unable. A widow woman said, "I can seize him if you will allow me to go evening and morning to the palace in which is the Princess, to seize the thief." Thereupon the King gave permission to the woman to go and stay during the whole [22] of both times. When several days had gone by, this woman, having perceived that a man is inside that lamp-stand, one day having gone taking also a package of fine sand, during the visit, while she stayed talking and talking with the Princess put the sand of the package round the lamp-stand, and having spread it thinly, came away. The Princess was unable to find this out. When that woman went on the morning of the following day, and looked, the Prince's foot-prints were in that sand. As soon as she saw it, the woman went and said to the King, "I caught the thief. Let us go to look." The old woman having gone, said, "There! It is inside that lamp-stand, indeed, that the thief is," and showed them to the King. At that time, when the King broke the lamp-stand and looked, the thief was [there]. Thereafter the King gave orders that having tortured the thief, and taken him away, they were to behead him, he said to the executioners. Thereupon the executioners [after] pinioning the Prince, beating the execution tom-tom, took him to that burial-ground. At that time the Prince said to the executioners, "If you kill any person, having given him the things he thinks of to eat and drink--is it not so?--you kill him. Because of it, until the time when I come [after] going into this Banyan-tree and eating two Banyan fruits, remain on guard round this tree. There is no opportunity (taenak) for me to bound off and go elsewhere." Thereupon, the executioners having said, "It is good," the Prince ascended the tree, and having mounted on that Wooden Peacock machine, rowed into the sky. While the executioners were looking the Prince went flying away. The executioners having said that blame will fall [on them] from the King, caught and cut a lizard (katussa), and having gone [after] rubbing the blood on the sword, showed it to the King, and said that they beheaded the thief. From that day, the Princess from grief remained without eating and drinking. Several days afterwards, the Prince, having come rowing the Wooden Peacock machine, and caused it to stop on the palace in which is the Princess, and having removed the tiles, dropped the jewelled ring that was on the Prince's hand at the place where the Princess is. He also dropped a robe of the Prince's. Thereupon the Princess, getting to know about the Prince's [being on the roof], threw up the cloth [again]. Tying the hand-line to descend by, at that time the Prince, having descended, said to the Princess, "To kill me they took me to the burial-ground. I having caused the executioners to be deceived, and climbed up the tree--my Wooden Peacock machine was on the tree--I mounted it and went rowing away." Thereafter, the Prince and Princess, both of them, went away. At the time when they were going, ten months were completed for the Princess. While they were going, pains began to seize her. [The Prince] having lowered the Wooden Peacock machine in a great forest jungle, and in a minute having made a house of branches, the Princess bore [a child]. Thereupon the Prince said, "Remain here until I go and bring a little fire." Saying [this] to the Princess, the Prince went rowing the Wooden Peacock machine. Having gone, at the time when, taking the fire in a coconut husk, he was coming rowing the Wooden Peacock machine over the midst of the sea, the coconut husk having burnt, the fire seized the Wooden Peacock machine, and it burnt away. The Prince having come [there], fell in the sea. That foretold number of years also had been finished on that day. The person who stayed casting nets in the sea [there], as soon as the Prince fell got him ashore. The Prince, planting a vegetable garden at the city, remained there. While the Princess who bore [the child] in that forest jungle was without any protection from all things (sawu-saranak), this trouble having become visible to an ascetic person who practises austerity in that forest jungle, he came to the place where the Princess was, and spoke to her. Thereupon the Princess, after she saw the ascetic, having a little abandoned the trouble that was in her mind, said to the ascetic, "While I walk into the midst of this forest seeking a little ripe fruit, will you look after this child until I come?" she asked. The ascetic said, "Should I hold the child it is impure (kilutu) for me. Because of it, you having made a stick platform (maessak), and hung it by a creeper, and having tied a creeper to the platform, go after having sent the child to sleep on the platform. At the time when the child cries I will come, and hold the creeper by the end, and shake it; then the child will stop." Having done in the manner the ascetic said, the Princess, seeking ripe fruits, ate. One day, the Princess having suckled the child, and sent it to sleep on the platform, went to seek ripe fruits. Thereafter, that child having rolled off the stick platform and fallen on the ground, at the time when it was crying the ascetic heard it, and came; when he looked, the child having rolled over had fallen on the ground. Thereupon, because it was impure for the ascetic to hold the child, he plucked a flower, and having performed an Act of Truth for the flower, thought, "May a child be created just like this child." Thereafter, a child was created just like it. The Princess having come back, and having seen, when she looked, that two children are [there], the Princess asked the ascetic, "What is [the reason of] it? To-day two children!" The ascetic said, "When I was coming, the child, having fallen, was crying and crying. Because it is impure for me to hold the child, I created a child just like it." The Princess said, "I cannot believe that word. If so, you must create a child again, for me to look at it." Thereupon the ascetic said, "According to the difficulty there is for you to rear one child, when there are three how much difficulty [will there be]!" "No matter. [Please] create and give me it; I can rear it." Thereupon, the ascetic plucked a flower, and having performed an Act of Truth, when he put it on the stick platform a child was created just like it. Thereafter, the Princess having been pleased, reared the children. The children having grown up, walked in the midst of the forest, seeking ripe fruits, and having come back the children gave them to their mother, and [then] began to eat. One day, at the time when these three are going walking, they met with a great river. When they looked, on the other bank of the river a great vegetable garden is visible. Thereupon these three having said [to each other], "Can you swim?" swam a considerable distance, and came back, saying, "Let us come to-morrow morning." Having gone seeking a very few ripe fruits, they gave them to their mother. On the following day, early in the morning, taking bows and arrows, the whole three went to the edge of the river. Having gone [there], and the whole three having gone swimming to the vegetable garden, when they looked many kinds of ripe fruits were [there]. Thereafter, these three having plucked [some], at the time when they are eating them the gardeners who watch the garden saw them, and having come running, prepared (lit., made) to seize them. Thereupon these three, taking their bows, prepared to shoot. The gardeners bounded off, and having gone running, told it at the hand of the King. These three having eaten as much as possible, [after] plucking a great many crossed over [the river], and went away. At that time the King said to the gardeners, "Should these thieves come to-morrow also, let me know very speedily." The following day, also, those three persons came, and at the time when they are plucking [the fruit], the gardeners went and told him. Thereupon the King, taking bows and arrows, came and shot at them. When he shot, the arrow having gone, when near these Princes turned (lit., looked) back, and fell down. Thereafter, that party shot at the King. Then also, in the very [same] way, the arrow having gone, when near the King turned (looked) back, and fell down. Thereupon, the whole two parties, after having come near [each other], spoke, "This was a great wonder. The circumstance that out of the two parties no one was struck, is a great wonder. Because of it, let us, the whole two parties, go near the panditayas [for them] to explain this." Thereupon, the whole of the two parties having gone, told the panditayas this circumstance that had occurred. Then the panditayas, having explained it, said to the King, "You, Sir, now above three or four years ago, summoned a Princess [in marriage]. The Princess's, indeed, are these three, the children born to you, Sir. Because of it, the Gods have caused this to be seen. Go, and summoning the Princess from the place where she is, [be pleased] to come," the panditayas said to the King. Thereafter, the King having remembered her, at that moment decorating a ship, with the sound of the five musical instruments he went into the midst of the forest in which is that Princess; and having come back [after] calling the Princess, the Princess, and the three Princes, and the King remained at the garden, it is said. North-western Province. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 9, a Prince mounted on a magic wooden flying-horse that a friend of his, a carpenter's son, had brought to the palace, and flew away on it. The carpenter promised that it would return in two months. The Prince alighted by moonlight on a palace roof five hundred leagues away, and fell in love with a Princess whom he saw there. After they had conversed, he flew off, fixed the horse in pieces amid the branches of a large tree, and stayed at a widow's house, returning each night to the palace. In the end he was arrested and condemned to death. When the executioners were about to hang him he got permission to climb up the tree, put the horse together, sailed back to the palace, and carried off the Princess to his father's home. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 158, a Prince who had stolen a magic bed which transported those who sat on it wherever desired, visited a Princess at night by means of it, and afterwards married her. In the same work, p. 208, a Prince and Princess saw each other at a fair. While the Prince watched her from his tent, she took a rose in her hand, put it to her teeth, stuck it behind her ear, and lastly laid it at her feet. The Prince could not understand her meaning, but a friend explained it, and said that she intended him to know that her father's name was Raja Dant (King Tooth), her country the Karnatak (karna = ear), and her own name Panwpatti (Foot-leaf). In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 487, it is stated that while Sita, the wife of Rama, was dwelling at Valmiki's hermitage with her infant son Lava, she took the child with her when she went to bathe one day. The hermit, thinking a wild beast had carried it off, created another child resembling it, from kusa grass, and placed it in the hut. On her return he explained the matter to her, and she adopted the infant, to which the name Kusa was given. In the same work, vol. ii, p. 235, a girl who came to bathe gave signals to a Prince by means of a lotus flower, which she put in her ear, and then twisted into the form of an ornament called dantapatra, or tooth-leaf. After this she placed another lotus flower on her head, and laid her hand on her heart. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 215, a Princess covered her face with lotus petals, and held up an ivory box to be seen by a Prince who was looking at her. By these signals he learnt her name and that of her city. He went to the city, visited her each day in a magic swing, and at length they eloped and were married. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 110, a wood-carver's son fashioned a hollow flying Garuda (possibly in the form of a Brahminy Kite), inside which a friend whose wife had been abducted flew to the Khan's palace where she was detained, and brought her away. In the same work, p. 316, a Princess made signals to a King's young Minister as follows: She raised the first finger of her right hand, then passed the other hand round it, clasped and unclasped her hands, and finally laid one finger of each hand beside that of the other hand, and pointed with them towards the palace. In the Maha Bharata and Ramayana javelins or arrows are sometimes represented as returning to the sender, who in such cases was a being possessing supernatural power. Thus, according to one story of Daksha's sacrifice, when the energy of a dart thrown by Rudra at Vishnu was neutralised, it returned to Rudra. In the fight between Karna and Arjuna some arrows which the former discharged returned to him (Karna Parva, lxxxix.). In performing an Act of Truth such as is mentioned in this story, the person first states a fact and then utters a wish, which in reality is a conjuration, the efficacy of which depends on the truth of the foregoing statement. Thus, in the Jataka No. 35 (vol. i, p. 90) the Bodhisatta in the form of a helpless quail nestling [23] extinguished a raging bush fire that was about to destroy it and other birds, by an Act of Truth, which took this form:-- "With wings that fly not, feet that walk not, Forsaken by my parents here I lie! Wherefore I conjure thee, dread Lord of Fire, Primæval Jataveda, turn! go back!" The account then continues: "Even as he performed his Act of Truth, Jataveda [the Fire Deity] went back a space of sixteen lengths; and in going back the flames did not pass away to the forest, devouring everything in their path. No; they went out there and then, like a torch plunged in water." There are several other examples in the Jataka stories, and one in No. 83 in this volume. In the first volume, p. 140, the Prince cut in two the gem through the efficacy of an Act of Truth expressed in a slightly different form: "If so-and-so be true, may so-and-so happen." This is the usual type of the conjuration; it occurs also in the story numbered 11. See also the Mahavansa, Professor Geiger's translation, p. 125, footnote. Other examples are given in the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 330, vol. ii, p. 82; Sagas from the Far East, p. 47; Von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 284; Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. ii, pp. 358, 396; and in the Maha Bharata. In chapter xvii. of the Mahavansa (Professor Geiger's translation, p. 118), King Tissa proved the authenticity of the collar-bone relic of Buddha by an asseveration of this kind. In chapter xviii. (p. 125), the Emperor Asoka severed the branch of the Bo-tree at Gaya, in order to send it to Ceylon, by an Act of Truth, previously drawing a magic line with a pencil of red arsenic round the branch to mark the place where it was to break off. In chapter xxv. (p. 171), King Duttha-Gamani by similar means is said to have caused the armour of his troops to take the colour of fire, so that they might be discriminated from the Tamils whom he was fighting. With regard to the messages given by signals, the reader may remember Rabelais' account of the argument by signs between Panurge and Thaumaste (Pantagruel, cap. xix.). Kandian girls make almost imperceptible signals to each other. If without moving the head the eyes be momentarily directed towards the door, the question is asked, "Shall we go out?" An affirmative reply is given by an expressionless gaze, a negative one by closing the eyes for an instant. NO. 82 THE PRINCES WHO LEARNT THE SCIENCES At a certain city there is a King, it is said. There are four Princes (sons) of the King, it is said. At the time when he told the four persons to learn the sciences that are [known] in that country, they were unable to learn the sciences. After that, the King, bringing a sword, told them to [go elsewhere and] learn the sciences [or he would kill them]. So all the four Princes, tying up a bundle of cooked rice, went away, and having gone to yet a city and sat down at a halting-place (ruppayak), the eldest Prince said, "At the time when we are coming back we must assemble together at this very halting-place." After that, the eldest Prince arrived (baehunaya) at a city. At the time when he asked, "What is the science that is [known] in this city?" they said, "In this city there is sooth." "You must go and send me to the house where they say sooth," he said. Then they went and sent him. The Prince learnt sooth. The next (etanama) Prince arrived (baessa) at a city. He asked, "What is the science that is [known] in this city?" "In this city there is theft," they said. "Please go and conduct me to the house where theft is [known]," he said. That one learnt theft. The next Prince went and arrived at a city. "What is the science that is [known] in this city?" he asked. "Archery is [known] in this city," they said. "Please go and send me to the house where there is archery," he said. They went and sent him. That one learnt archery. The next Prince went and arrived at a city. "What is the science that is [known] in this city?" he asked. "In this city there is carpenter's work," they said. "Please go and send me to the house where there is carpenter's work," he said. That one learnt carpenter's work. After that, the soothsayer [Prince] looked into the sooth, [to ascertain] on what day the other three persons would come. When he looked, it appeared that on the very day when the eldest Prince comes back the other three persons also will come. The eldest Prince having set off and come, returned to the halting-place (ruppe) at which they stayed that day. Having come, while he was there the other three also came and arrived at that halting-place. "What is the science you learnt?" they asked from the eldest Prince. "I learnt sooth," he said. They asked the next Prince, "What is the science you learnt?" "I learnt theft," he said. They asked the next Prince, "What is the science you learnt?" "I learnt archery," he said. They asked the young Prince, "What is the science you learnt?" "I learnt carpenter's work," said the young Prince. The three persons asked the eldest Prince, "What is there at our house?" Then he said, "On the Palmira-tree a female crow (kawadi), having laid three eggs, is sitting on them," he said. "What is missing from our house?" they asked. "The Rakshasa having taken the King's Queen to that [far] shore of the sea, [after] putting her in the middle room (lit., house) in the midst of seven, [24] has put the seven keys in his mouth," he said. After that, the whole seven came to the city. The King having come rubbing (whetting) a sword, asked the eldest Prince, "What is the science you learnt?" "I learnt sooth," he said. He asked the next Prince, "What is the science you learnt?" "I learnt theft." He asked the next Prince; "I learnt archery." He asked the youngest Prince, "What is the science you learnt?" "I learnt carpenter's work," he said. Having said, "It is good," the King asked, "What is there at my house?" "On the Palmira-tree a female crow is sitting on three eggs," [the eldest Prince] said. "What is lost from my house?" he asked, to look [if he knew]. "The Rakshasa having gone away, and put the King's Queen in the middle house (room) in the midst of seven, has placed the seven keys in his mouth," he said. "Doer of theft, without the female crow's flying away, while it is [sitting there] in that manner, take an egg, and come back," he said. Without the crow's flying away, while it was [sitting] in that manner he took an egg, and came back. Having caused the egg to be buried under the rice winnowing tray, he said, "Archer, without swerving to that side or this side, shoot [for the arrow] to go cutting it quite across." He shot so as to go quite across. "Doer of carpenter's work, fasten this [egg] in the very manner in which it was [at first]," he said. He fastened it in the very way in which it was. "Robber, without the crow's flying (padinne), go and place [the egg in the nest], and come back," he said. He went and placed it [in the nest], and came back. "Can you bring back this Queen?" he asked. "We can," they said. The whole four persons having gone, the thief went into the [Rakshasa's] house, and brought out the Queen successfully. When he was bringing her the Rakshasa was asleep. Taking the Queen, they came away. When they were coming, they told [the soothsaying Prince] to look by [means of] sooth [what the Rakshasa was doing]. Still he slept. Having come very far in that way, they told him to look [again]. "He is now coming on the path," he said. When they were returning thus, [the Rakshasa], having come quite near, sprang at them. At that very time the archer shot [at him; the arrow] having gone cutting his neck, he fell. The ship in which they had gone was damaged (tuwala wuna). The carpenter made [the damage good]. Then, [after crossing the sea] they brought the Rakshasa's head and the Queen, and gave them to the King. Thereupon the King gave them the sovereignty. Then the soothsayer says, "[The sovereignty ought to belong to me]. Through my looking at the sooth, indeed, ye will get the country, [if ye receive it]," he said. Then the thief says, "[The sovereignty ought to belong to me]. It was necessary that I should go and take [the Queen] successfully from the Rakshasa. [If ye get it], it is owing to me that ye will get the country," he said. Then the archer says, "[The sovereignty ought to belong to me]. When the Rakshasa came in order to go [after] eating you, through my having shot him and killed him ye will get the country [if ye receive it]." Then the Carpenter says, "[The sovereignty ought to belong to me]. Your ship having broken, by my fastening it [together] at the time when it was becoming rotten, ye will get the country [if ye receive it]." Afterwards they gave the sovereignty to the eldest Prince. Bintaenna, Uva Province. THE NOBLEMAN [25] AND HIS FIVE SONS. (Variant a.) In a city there are five sons of a nobleman. In yet [another] city there is a Princess without both parents. The Princess is a person possessing many articles. Having thought that when the eldest son of the nobleman went there she must make him stop [there], and having spoken with the Princess's kinsfolk [regarding it], the eldest son having gone near the Princess she caused him to remain. After he stayed there many days, this Princess asks this nobleman's son, "What do you know of the sciences?" Then he says, "I don't know a single one." Having said, "If so, you cannot stay near me; go you away," she drove him away. This nobleman's son came home. The nobleman asks his son, "What have you come for?" "The Princess asked me, 'What do you know of the sciences?' I said, 'I don't know anything.' 'If so, you cannot stay near me,' she said. Because of that I came," he said. Immediately, this nobleman says to all his five sons, "Unless you five learn five sciences, without [doing so] don't come to my house." Having said it he drove them away. Thereupon, these five persons went to five cities, and learning five sciences, after much time came home. [One was a soothsayer, the second was a marksman, the third a thief, the fourth made very rapid journeys, and the fifth could bring the dead to life.] This nobleman, after that having summoned the eldest son, asked, "What is the science that thou knowest?" "I know [how] to tell sooth," he said. To look at this one's knowledge, the nobleman, having seen that a female crow had laid eggs in a tree, said, "Should you tell me the sooth that I ask, you are [really] an astrologer." Having given his son betel he asked it [mentally]. After he asked it, this one says, "Father, you have asked me if a female crow has laid eggs in a tree. Is it not so?" he asked. Thereupon, the nobleman said to the one who was able to shoot, "Come here. Without the female crow's knowing it, and without breaking the egg, shoot thou so that it may become marked [only],--an egg out of the eggs that are in that nest," he said. The nobleman's son having said, "It is good," shot in the manner he told him. Then this nobleman, having summoned the thief, says, "Go thou, and without the crow's knowing, bring thou only the egg which this one shot." Having said, "It is good," he brought that very egg. Then the nobleman said, "Go again, and place thou it [back in the nest]." He said, "It is good," and went and put it [back]. Thereupon, [having called the eldest son again], what sooth did the nobleman ask? Thinking it in his mind [only], he asked, "How are now the happiness and health of the Princess whom you at first summoned [in marriage]?" After he asked, this one having looked at the sooth, says, "The Princess having now died, they have taken her to bury," he said. Thereupon, the nobleman said to the one who is able to go on rapid journeys, "Go, and do not allow them to bury her"; he went accordingly. Then this nobleman said to the one who causes life to be restored, [26] "Go and restore the life of the Princess, and come thou back to my city." Having said, "It is good," this one went, and, causing her life to be restored, the person who made rapid journeys, and the one who caused life to be restored, and the Princess, all three persons, came to the nobleman's city. Thereupon the Prince who caused her life to be restored, says, "I shall take the Princess whose life I caused to be restored." Then the person who went on rapid journeys says, "Unless I had gone quickly, and had not allowed them to bury her, and if they had buried her, how would you take her? Because it is so, I shall take her." Then the soothsayer says, "If I had not looked at the sooth, and told [you about her death], how would you two take her? Because it is so, I shall take her." Then the nobleman says, "Unless I caused the sooth to be looked at, [27] how would you three otherwise take her? Because it is so, I shall take her." Owing to that, these four persons were quarrelling. Now then, out of these four persons, to whom does she belong? According to our thinking, indeed, she belongs to the nobleman. North-western Province. THE SEVEN PRINCES. (Variant b.) At a certain city there are a King and a Queen. There are seven Princes of the King. The King every day [goes] to fish (lit., to lower bait). One day, the Princes having said, "Let us also go to look at the fishing," the King and the seven Princes went to the river to fish. The King having fished three Lullu, [28] gave them into the hand of the seven Princes to bring. The youngest Prince said, "Elder brother, let us put these into the water to look if they go down (sink)." Afterwards they put the three fishes in the water. Two went down; one remained over. Taking that fish, the seven Princes came to the city. Having come, and given it into the hand of the Queen, they said, "Our father the King gave us three Lullu. [29] When we were bringing them younger brother said to us, 'Let us place the three Lullu in the water to look if they go down.' Afterwards we placed them [in it]. Then two Lullu went down; this Lula remained over. Having cooked this one for our father the King, cook for us and give us a packet of rice," they said. The Queen having cooked and placed [ready] the Lula for the King, cooked a packet of rice for the seven Princes, and gave it. After that, the seven Princes, taking the packet of cooked rice, went away. [30] Having thus gone, the whole seven ate the packet of cooked rice near a piece of garden. When the whole seven were going away again, they met with a soothsayer. Then the eldest Prince said, "I must stay near this soothsayer," and having said it he stopped near the soothsayer. When the other six persons were going away, they met with a man who knows the crows' language. After that, the next Prince stayed near the man who knows the crows' language. When the other five were going away they met with a shooter [31]; near the shooter stayed the next Prince. When the other four were going away they met with a plough carpenter; near the carpenter stayed the next Prince. When the other three were going away they met with a ball-playing man; near the ball-playing man stayed the next Prince. When the other two were going away they met with a gang of thieves; both of them stayed near the gang of thieves. A long time the two persons in the gang of thieves remained breaking and breaking into houses. Having been thus and thus, the two persons spoke together: "Seeking articles [to take back with us] let us go to look at our elder brothers." Having said [this, after] getting the articles they came near the Prince who stayed near the man who is striking balls. When they looked he was learning to play at balls better than the ball-playing man. That Prince said, "Let us go to see the other [next] elder brother of ours." Having said [this], the three Princes came near the Prince who remained near the plough-carpenter; when they looked the Prince also was learning to bore (widinda) ploughs better than the plough-carpenter. That Prince said, "Let us go to the place where elder brother is." They came to look at the Prince who remained near the shooter. Having come there, when they looked he, also, was learning to shoot better than the shooter. After that, the Prince said, "Let us go to look at that other elder brother of ours." They came near the Prince who remained near the man who knows the crows' language. Having come there, when they looked he, also, was learning the crows' language better than the man who knows the crows' language. After that, the Prince said, "Let us go near that other elder brother of ours, near the Prince who remained near the soothsayer." The whole of the six Princes having come, when they looked he, also, was learning to say sooth better than the soothsayer. After that, the whole of the seven Princes having [thus] met together, came to the Princes' city. Thereupon, the King and the seven Princes went to the river to bathe. When they were bathing a crow cawed; then the King said, "Who can explain the language of that crow?" Then the Prince who knows the crows' language said, "I can. That cawed, having been at the place where it is roosting on the eggs." Then the King said, "Who can take the eggs by stealth [without disturbing the crow]?" The two who stayed in the gang of thieves having said, "We can," the two Princes taking the crow-eggs gave them to the King. After that the King and the seven Princes having come to the city, the King asked, "Who can say sooth?" The eldest Prince said, "I can," he said. The King said, "Look and find by sooth seven Princesses for you seven persons," he said. Afterwards the Prince having looked by sooth, said, "At such and such a city there is a Princess; at such and such a city there is a Princess." Saying and saying [this], he mentioned separately seven Princesses who are at seven cities. Then the King said, "Who can, [after] stealing them, come with those seven Princesses?" The two who remained in the gang of thieves having said, "We can," that day night having gone and having stolen two and come back, he gave the two Princesses to the eldest elder brother and the next elder brother. On the following day night having gone and having come back [after] stealing a Princess, he gave the Princess to the next elder brother. On the following day they went, and [after] stealing two Princesses for the [next] two persons, thereafter they went back to the very gang of thieves. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. This story is probably defective in parts, and some incidents in the last portion appear to have been omitted,--regarding the ball player, the shooter, and the plough maker. THE ATTEMPT OF FOUR BRAHMANA PRINCES TO MARRY. (Variant c.) A certain Brahmana had a daughter named Candrapati. She was a person endowed with beauty. Four Brahmana Princes having heard of the excellence of her figure, came to try to marry her. The Brahmana her father having inquired what sciences they knew, each one said that he did not know [any]. He said that he could not marry and give the Princess-daughter to them. Thereupon, they four having arrived at shame, came near a travellers' rest-house, and conversing [said], "We four persons having gone separately to districts for learning sciences, [after] three months in succession again let us arrive at this very place." Promising [this], and having looked in the four directions, they departed. In this manner the four of them having arrived each in a different district, and having [become] conversant with the sciences,--looking at omens, going in the sky, abating poison, giving life [anew,--after] three months in succession arrived at the aforesaid travellers' rest-house. Thereafter, they four again departed for taking in marriage the Princess. At that time a Huna (House Lizard) cried. Then the person who was clever at omens told the remaining three persons that a cobra having bitten the Princess, they are taking her to the grave at that time. Thereupon the person who possessed the power of flight through the air, having gone by the power of flight through the air, together with the other three, halted at the grave of the dead body. Then the poison discharger reduced the poison; the other gave her life. Afterwards, while the four of them are one by one boasting of the gain due to themselves, they quarrelled over it. For that reason, not obtaining the Princess, they again went away. North-western Province. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 349, four Brahmana brothers decided to "search through the earth and acquire some magic power." So they separated and went east, west, north, and south, after fixing upon a meeting-place. The rest of the story differs from the Sinhalese one; they met together, found a piece of bone, gave it flesh, hide, limbs, and life, so that it became a lion which killed them. In the same work, vol. i, p. 499, four men wanted to marry a Princess; one was a clever weaver, one a Vaisya who knew the language of beasts and birds, the third a Kshatriya who was an expert swordsman, the fourth a Brahmana who could raise the dead to life. She refused all four, and died after three months, and the Brahmana was unable to restore life to her corpse as she was only human owing to a curse which had come to an end. See also vol. ii, p. 276. In the same work, vol. ii, pp. 242, 258, there are variants in the series of Trivikramasena and the Vetala, the second one being like the Sinhalese tales in several respects. The father promised a girl to a man who had magic power, the mother promised her to one who had knowledge, her brother promised her to a hero. When they all came on the appointed day, she had disappeared. The learned man ascertained that she had been abducted by a Rakshasa, the magician prepared a magic chariot in which all three went to rescue her, and the hero killed the Rakshasa. Each one claimed her in a similar form of words to that employed by the learned man, who said, "If I had not known where this maiden was, how would she have been discovered when concealed?" The King decided that the hero ought to marry her. In the Tota Kahani (Small), p. 51, a carpenter, goldsmith, tailor, and hermit, halting in a forest one night and each working in turn, carved the figure of a beautiful woman, robed it, adorned it, and caused it to be endowed with life. In the morning they quarrelled regarding the ownership of the woman, and all those to whom the matter was referred also claimed her. When the decision was left to a large old tree, "the tree of decision," it burst open, and the woman entering it became wood once more. In the same work, p. 139, three young men saved a merchant's daughter from a fairy who had abducted her. One discovered where she was, the second made a flying wooden horse, on which the third rode and brought her back after killing the fairy. They then quarrelled regarding their claims to marry her. The parrot which related the story considered that she belonged to the last one because he risked his life for her. At p. 157 also, a girl's husband who had vowed to offer his own head to a deity in case he married her, decapitated himself at the temple. A Brahmana who entered feared he would be charged with murdering him, and cut off his head also. The girl came, and was about to follow their example when a voice from the shrine informed her that if she joined the heads to the trunks the two persons would be restored to life. In doing this she misplaced the heads, and both persons then claimed her. The parrot was of opinion that she belonged to the man with her husband's head. There is a variant in the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 261, the second man being the girl's brother. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 109, five companions went in search of the sixth, whose life-index tree had withered. One found him buried under a rock; the second, a smith's son, broke it and took out the body; the third, a doctor's son, made a potion which caused it to revive. The five then helped the man to recover his wife, who had been abducted by a Khan, and each one claimed her as his reward. In their struggle for her she was torn in pieces. In the same work, p. 299, four youths, working in turn, made a girl out of wood and gave her a soul; each one claimed her. The decision was that she belonged to the fourth, who gave the figure life. In this work, p. 277, it is stated that Prince Vikramaditya learnt from robber bands the art of robbery, and from fraudulent dealers to lie. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 93, Prince Abhaya, son of Bimbisara, King of Magadha, is stated to have learnt coach-making; another son, Jivaka, became a celebrated doctor. A full account of him is given in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 331ff. Sir R. Burton stated that, according to ancient Mohammedan practice, all rulers should learn a handicraft. (Arabian Nights, Lady Burton's ed., vol. i, p. 339, note). In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 110, a Prince who had been trained by an expert robber stole the egg from under a hawk while it sat on its nest, without disturbing the bird. There are West African variants of the Sinhalese tale. One from the coast provinces on the north side of the Congo is given in Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort (Dennett), p. 33. A hunter who had three wives was killed while hunting. The first wife dreamt of this, the second guided the others to the spot, the third collected simples and revived him. When they quarrelled regarding the one to whom his life was due, and it was settled that the one whose food he ate first should be considered his preserver, he ate the food of the third wife, and the majority of the people approved of his decision. In the same work, p. 74, the beautiful daughter of Nzambi, the Earth Goddess, could only be won by an earthly being who could bring down the heavenly fire. The spider went to fetch it, assisted by the tortoise, rat, woodpecker, and sandfly. Each of the animals afterwards claimed the girl, and in the end, Nzambi, as she could not give her to all, paid each one her value, and the girl remained unwed. A variant of the Sierra Leone district is given in Cunnie Rabbit, Mr. Spider, and the Other Beef (Cronise and Ward), p. 200. A man who had four young sons was killed while hunting. The sons heard the story from their mother when they were full grown, and went in search of him. The eldest found his gun and bones, the second collected and joined them, the third re-made the body with mud, the youngest blew up the nose through a charmed horn, and he became alive. The narrator stated that it has been impossible to decide to whom of the three his restoration to life was due. NO. 83 THE STORY OF KALUNDAWA In a certain country there were a Gamarala and Gama-mahage (his wife). There were seven daughters of the Gamarala's; there was no male child. Taking another male child, they reared him for themselves. This child was very thoroughly doing the work at the Gamarala's house. Thereafter, after he became big, they asked at the hand of the Gamarala's daughters, "Who is willing to marry this child?" All [the elder ones] said, "We don't want that scabby filthy one," but there was willingness [on the part] of the last young one. The two persons having married, the other six began to treat this young one harshly, but she did not take to heart (lit., mind) the things they are saying. While they are thus, the Gamarala's son-in-law went to a smithy to get a digging hoe made. He said to the smith, "Ane! Make and give me a digging hoe." Although the smith took no notice of it, yet for many days he went again and again. He did not make and give the digging hoe. One day, at the time when the smith was eating cooked rice, having put into the heat a piece of iron refuse which this person had thrown away, he began to blow the skins (bellows). Then the figure of a great lion having come to the smith, he came running, leaving the cooked rice and food, and when he looked, having seen that very valuable iron is becoming hot, in an instant he made the digging hoe and gave it. Thereafter, the smith said to the Gamarala, "This child is a very virtuous royal Prince. To this one, without delay a kingdom is about to descend." This boy again one day went to another man to ask for (borrow) a yoke of oxen. When he went there the man said, "I cannot to-day; come to-morrow." [32] The man brought him there many days. He did not give the yoke of oxen: "There are no oxen with me to give," [he said]. Well then, this one in sorrow came to his house. Although two [semi]-wild male buffaloes of the Gamarala's are staying on two hills, no one is able to catch them. Thereafter, this one, taking a yoke and having gone to the rice field, performed an Act of Truth. [33] Having set up the yoke in the grass, he said, "The sovereignty will fall to me indeed. The wild one on that hill and the wild one on this hill, to-morrow morning must have presented [themselves] neck by neck to this yoke." Thereafter, on the following day morning, he said to this one's wife, "Taking a little food, come to the rice field; I am going to plough." Then the woman said, "Where have you cattle to plough?" Having said it, she laughed. This one said, "There will be a yoke of cattle for me in the rice field." Having gone to the field, when he looked, both the wild buffaloes had come, presenting their necks to the yoke. Well then, this one having tied the yoke began to plough. His wife having come to the rice field taking the food, when she looked, saw that this one is ploughing. Afterwards, having gone near the yoke, she said, "There will be much weariness; be good enough to eat a little food." Thereafter, having stopped the yoke of cattle, and gone to a shade [after] washing off the mud, and having eaten the food, through weariness he placed his head on the waist pocket of his wife a little time, and went to sleep. While he was sleeping there a little time a dream appeared: on the yoke a hive of Bambara bees has been fastened. Then having awoke, he said to the woman, "Ane! Bolan, in a dream a hive of Bambaras was fastened on the yoke; look." Then the woman laughed and said, "If so, a kingdom will fall to you now." When he had been [sleeping] there again a little time, [he said], "Ane! Bolan, maggots [34] fell on the great toe of my foot; look." At that, also, this woman laughed, and said, "If so, you will receive the sovereignty now." When he was there [asleep] a little time again, the clods (hi kaeta) which this one ploughed up appear to be of silver colour. Again he said to the woman, "The plough clods are silver colour; look." At that, also, this woman laughed, and said, "If so, you will receive the sovereignty immediately." Again, when he had been sleeping, he said, "Ane! Bolan, I hear a great noise; look." At that, also, this woman having laughed, says, "Fetching you to go, they are coming to appoint you to the sovereignty." Again, when he had been sleeping, he said, "Ane! Bolan, I hear the noise very near this; look." This woman says, "Ane! There is nothing to be seen. On account of the three worlds [35] that you ploughed your head is made crazy. Be good enough to sleep a little time without speaking." When a little time had gone again, she awoke him: "The sound of the five kinds of tom-toms, [36] and the decorated tusk elephant are coming. Be pleased to arise quickly." Just as this one was awaking, the tusk elephant having come, kneeled down. Thereafter, having caused this one to bathe in scented sandal-wood water, having put on him the royal ornaments, and having put in that very manner the ornaments on his wife also, they placed both of them on the back of the tusk elephant. As they were going, he caused the smith to be brought, and impaled him. Having caused the person who did not give the yoke of buffaloes to be brought, he heated cow-dung, and having held both his lips to both sides, he poured it down his throat. As he was going near the house of the Gamarala, the King said, for the Gamarala's daughters to hear:-- Kalundawa pinma kale. Kalundawa performed very meritorious acts. Kalu undae pin no-kale. The agreeable ones performed not meritorious acts. North-western Province. NO. 84 HOW THE POOR PRINCE BECAME KING In a certain country there was a Prince, [the son] of a poor King, it is said. The Prince went to another country to learn letters. Having gone there, and in no time learning his letters, he said to the teacher, "I must go to my village." Afterwards the teacher gave him permission. After that, while the Prince was coming to the city, the Prince having become hungry, remained sleeping near a tree. A man having come there said, "What, Prince, art thou sleeping there for? It is not good to sleep there; [be pleased] to get up," he said. Then the Prince said, "I cannot even get up. I am hungry; because of it, indeed, I have fallen down here." Then the man says, "Well, then, what shall I do? In my hand also there is not a thing to give for food. There is an Attikka tree [37]; on that Attikka tree the fruit will be ripe. Let us go [for me] to show it to thee." Causing the Prince to arise, and having come near the Attikka tree, that very man, having plucked Attikka and given it to the Prince, after he ate said to the Prince, "Now then, go you along that path. Well, I'm going;" and the man went away. After that, as the Prince also was coming along the path he met with a leopard [standing] across the path. The Prince cannot come [on account of it]. Well then, while the Prince is there a man is coming along in the direction in which the Prince is. Then, as the man would drive this leopard to the Prince, he shouted, and said "Hu," and clapped his hands. Then the leopard bounded off and went away. Afterwards that man having come near the Prince, asked, "Prince, where art thou going?" The Prince says, "Having gone in this manner to learn letters, I am going to my city." Then the man says, "Going to the city does not matter to you. Come, to go with me." The Prince says, "How shall I go in that way? My parents will seek me. Because of it, having gone to the city, and asked at the hand of my parents I will come," he said. Then the man said, "I will be of the assistance that parents are of. You come with me." Afterwards the Prince went with the man. Having gone, they went to a city. Staying at a resting-place at the city, and doing hired work in the city, the two persons are getting their living. When they were there no long time, one day the man said to the Prince, "Child, I cannot work in this manner. You go and seeking [materials] for food, come back." Afterwards the Prince from the following day went [alone] for hired work, and [after] finding [and doing] it, returned. In that way for not many days he is getting a living. One day, a King and soldiers came to that city from another country to fight the King of that country, and surrounded the city. After that, the King told the Ministers to go to the battle. The King did not go to the battle. Afterwards the Ministers prepared to go to the battle, taking weapons and implements. Then this Prince said to that man, "Grandfather, I also must go to the fight." Then the man says, "Ane! Child, what battle [is there] for us! We poor men, can we go to fight with a King? You remain silent, doing nothing." Then the Prince said, "No, grandfather, I can fight very well." The man still said "Don't." Then the Prince says, "Grandfather, however much you should say 'Don't,' I am indeed going." Having said [this] the Prince went when the Ministers were going. Having gone there and waited for the fight, when on both sides they were making ready, this Prince said at the hand of the Ministers, "Give [38] me a weapon from those which you brought, for me to remain for the fight." Then the Ministers say, "What fighting dost thou know? Do thou be silent, doing nothing." Having said it, they scolded the Prince. After that, the Prince having bounded to one side, remained doing nothing. Then, having begun the battle, they were fighting; on this side many Ministers were cut down. [After] cutting them down, this side is coming to lose. The Prince having seen it, taking a weapon of that dead Minister's, fought and cut down the King and army of that side; and this side having conquered, the Ministers and the remaining people and this Prince came to the city. The Ministers having come to the royal palace, said to the King, "Many of our army died." Then the King asked, "If so, owing to whom did you win in this battle?" The Ministers said, "A youngster went with us. It is owing to the youngster, indeed, that we conquered." Afterwards the King asked, "Where is the boy?" As the Prince was here he went before the King. The King asked, "From what country camest thou?" The Prince said, "I am a stranger." Then the King asked, "What dost thou want done?" The Prince said, "I will take anything I receive." After that the King gave him villages, gave goods. After that, staying in these villages, that man and the Prince, both of them, were obtaining a livelihood from the goods. At the time when they were [there], the King had become very aged. While he was thus the King died. For the King there was neither a Prince nor anyone. Because of it, at the time when the Ministers, decorating the tusk elephant, are going in the four streets with the sound of the five musical instruments, the tusk elephant, having gone to the house at which are that Prince and the man, kneeled near that Prince. Having been [there] at the time when it was kneeling, the Ministers, causing the Prince to bathe in scented water, and placing the Prince on the tusk elephant, came to the royal palace, [and he became King]. Until the end of the Prince's life he remained exercising the sovereignty. The man who stayed with the Prince having become the Minister to the King, stayed in the palace itself. North-western Province. NO. 85 HOW THE GARDENER BECAME KING In a certain city there is a King, it is said. The King told them to plant a garden. After that, he said, "Can anyone (kata) plant a garden?" One man said, "I can." Every day the King gave the things the man wanted. The man, cutting channels and fixing the fence, began to plant the garden; he set various kinds [of plants] in the garden. After that, the King went to look at the garden; he saw that there were various kinds of sugar-cane, sweet oranges, mandarin oranges, in the garden. The King said to the gardener that he must look well after the garden. In that way, after not many days, the King said to the gardener, "Take bows and arrows; should thieves come, shoot them." Thereupon, by the authority of the King, he was thinking of shooting should they come in from outside. Not many days after that, the King said to the Adikarama (Minister), "Let us go to the garden [secretly] to look into the examination [of it made] by the gardener." Then the Adikarama said, "The order made by Your Honour is [that he is] to shoot thieves. It is not good for us to go." The King said, "That man by this time is asleep." Afterwards the King and the Adikarama, after the foolish King had taken off the royal ornaments, that very night, taking the disguise of thieves, went to the garden. Having gone, they began to pluck oranges. Then the gardener awoke. The man, taking his bow, and having come, shot at the King; when he shot him (widapuhama) the King died. After that, the Adikarama and the gardener spoke together, "What shall we do about this?" Speaking [further] the Adikarama said, "The things that are to happen happened." [39] Having said [this], the Adikarama having told the gardener to cut a hole, when he cut it they buried the King. After that, the Adikarama said to the gardener, "Come, and go to the palace." The two persons having gone to the palace, and [the Minister] having decorated the gardener with the royal insignia (abarana), while he was on the Lion throne all the Chiefs make obeisance. [40] The Adikarama does not make obeisance. Regarding this matter the King thought he must tell him a parable. Having thought so, and having called the Adikarama, he said, "In the midst of the forest there are many kinds of trees. Having cut a tree of good race out of them, and shaved [the bark off] it, and planed it, and done carving work, they take it as a log for a travellers' shed (ambalama). Taking it [there], after they have built the travellers' shed, do both persons possessing lineage and persons of no lineage stay in the travellers' shed?" [41] he asked. When he asked, the Adikarama said, "All persons stay in the travellers' shed." After that, the King said, "[There is] service for persons possessing the Adikarama lineage, service for persons of no lineage, service for [all in] the world." [42] After that, the Adikarama from that day made obeisance to the King. Well then, the King remained exercising the sovereignty quite virtuously (hondinma), without injustice. North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 55, a similar story is given, as related to Mr. K. J. Pohath by a Buddhist monk. According to it, the King visited the garden alone, pretending to steal Kaekiri fruits, and was shot by the gardener. When he was dead the gardener reported the matter to the Adikar, who got the King buried secretly, and proclaimed the gardener King. Some poor people whose lands the Adikar had seized complained to the new King, who held an enquiry, and gave judgment in their favour, remarking, "Adikar, even though it should so happen that I might be obliged to go back to the Kaekiri garden, I cannot say that the lands in dispute belong to you." NO. 86 HOW THE FOOLISH MAN BECAME KING In a certain country there was a Gamarala, it is said. There was a daughter of the Gamarala's. Bringing a son-in-law for the daughter, when he was there for many days the men of the village spoke of going to Puttalam. Then this Gamarala's son-in-law said to the Gamarala, "Father-in-law, I also must go to Puttalam." The Gamarala said, "It is good, son-in-law." After that, the whole of them obtaining occupation in loading sacks, the son-in-law went on the journey, and the Gamarala remained [at home]. The son-in-law, setting off for the journey, at the time when he was going along driving thirty [pack] bulls, met with a company of men going [after] placing sacks on twelve horses. After he met with them this man said, "Ane! Friends, taking my thirty bulls, give me (dilalla) those few horses." Then the men said, "It is good." This man having given the thirty bulls, at the time when he was going along taking the twelve horses, he met with yet a company of men who were going taking two elephants. After that, this man said, "Friends, taking my twelve horses, will you give me those two elephants?" The men said, "It is good." Then this man, having given the twelve horses, at the time when he was going along taking the two elephants, he met with yet some men who were going hunting, taking twelve dogs. Then this man asked, "Friends, taking my two elephants, will you give me those twelve dogs?" The men said, "It is good." After that, this man having given the two elephants, at the time when he was going on taking the twelve dogs he met with a company of potters, taking some pingo (carrying-stick) loads of pots. Then the man asked, "From these twelve dogs taking six, will you give me for cooking in order to eat, a small cooking pot and a large cooking pot?" The men said, "It is good." After that, the man having given six dogs, taking a small cooking pot and a large cooking pot he went hunting with the other six dogs. Having gone into the jungle, and prepared a hearth near an ant-hill, in order, after having cooked, to eat cooked rice, at the time when he was breaking fire-wood a cobra that was in that ant-hill came and bit the man. Then the man swooned owing to the poison's having fallen there. At the time when a Vaedda of another distant place came walking [there] while hunting, he saw that there are six dogs; and having seen that there is a hearth, said, "Why are these six dogs here, and a hearth, without a man?" While he was seeking and looking about, he saw that the man had fallen down. Having seen him, and lifted him up, when he looked [at him] the man was [as though] dead. After that, the Vaedda having said, "What is this man dead for?" When he looked [after] going near the body, there was a wound, and the Vaedda perceived that a snake had bitten him. Ascertaining it, after he had applied medicine the man got up. Then the Vaedda asked, "What happened to you?" This man said, "The journey I came on is thus; the things that happened to me are thus. Having come hunting, and prepared the hearth, in order, after I had cooked here, to eat, when I was breaking firewood a cobra bit me." The Vaedda said, "Come away, and go with me." This man having said, "Ha," the six dogs and the man went with the Vaedda to the Vaedda's city. Having gone there, that day the Vaedda gave him food. During the time while the man was there, that very day night the King of the city died. On the following day morning, there being no person for the sovereignty, [after] decorating the tusk elephant the Ministers went [with it] to seek a King. At the time when they were going, this tusk elephant was going along looking at the Vaedda's house. As it was going, that man whom the cobra bit was lying down in the Vaedda's veranda. The tusk elephant went and knelt near the man. After that, the Ministers, having told this man to get up, when he arose bathed him with perfumed water, and having decorated him with the royal crown, placing him on the back of the tusk elephant went to the palace. After he went there, the King caused the Vaedda to be brought, and said, "Owing to you, indeed, I attained to such exalted things." Having said, "Because of it, receive the post of Adikarama (Minister)," he appointed the office of Adikarama to the Vaedda. Having given him it, he remained up to the end of his life exercising the sovereignty with the ten [royal] virtues. North-western Province. NO. 87 THE FOOLISH MAN In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. There are two daughters of the two persons. They gave one daughter [in marriage]. The man at the place where they gave the daughter had suitable things. A very rich man having come, asked the other daughter [in marriage]. Then the girl's father said, "I will not give her to you; the lineage (wanse) of your people is not good." After that another man came and asked. The man had nothing; his lineage alone was good. The girl's mind was to go to the man who formerly came and asked, [but she was given to the second one]. Well then, when the girl [after her marriage] is without [sufficient] to eat and to wear, one day the girl's father went to see the girl. Afterwards, having given the man sitting accommodation, [43] and got the fire together, and put a potsherd on the hearth, she put tamarind seeds in the potsherd, and they began to fry, making a sound, "Kas, kas." Then the girl's father says, "What, daughter, are you frying?" The girl said, "Father, I am frying our lineage, [the only thing we possess]." After that, anger having come to the man, he got up, and came to his village. Having come there, on the following day, he went to the place where the other daughter is. When he went there, the daughter, having cooked the sweetmeats called Wellawaehun for the father, gave him to eat. He had not eaten them since he was born. That day, having eaten, when he was coming to his village saying and saying, "Wellawaehun, Wellawaehun," in order not to forget the name of them, his foot struck a stone that was on the path. Then the man was caused to exclaim "Hobbancodi" [44]; "Wellawaehun" was forgotten. From there until the time when he comes to his village, having come saying and saying "Hobbancodi, Hobbancodi," he says to his wife, "Bolan, to-day in our girl's quarter I ate Hobbancodi. The taste is very good; you cook them, too." Thereupon the woman says, "Ane! I have not even heard of them since I was born, so how shall I cook them?" Then the man, saying and saying, "What, Bola! Strumpet! Do you say you don't know? I ate them now, and came." While the two old people are quarrelling about this, men of the village having come, a man said, "She indeed is doing all this, bringing her mouth like a Wellawaehun roll." "There! I [meant to] say those indeed," the man said. After that, they two, having joined together, cooked five Wellawaehun rolls. Thereupon the man said, "There are three for me, two for you." The woman, too, said, "There are three for me, two for you." They two being unable to divide these, made an agreement, that is, "Let us two remain without speaking. For the person who speaks first there are two," they agreed. Being satisfied with it, having shut the door, they lay down. While they are lying down thus, perceiving that there was not any sound of them, the men of the village came, and having spoken to the door, finding that there was no sound they said, "These will have died." Having split open the door and gone into the house, at the time when they looked they remained as though dead. After that, in order to carry them to bury, men tied their hands and feet. The man, while they are tying his feet, having got hurt, said, "Uwah." Thereupon the woman said, "There are two for you." Scolding and scolding these two persons for their act, the men went away. The first part of this story belongs to the North-western Province; the middle part is found in the Western Province also, to which, also, the latter part belongs. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 237, Mr. H. White mentioned that a story about the frying of the family honour is contained in a work called Atita-vakya-dipaniya. In that instance apparently the pan which was placed on the fire was empty. In the same Journal, vol. i, p. 136, a variant of the latter part of the tale is given by Miss S. J. Goonetilleke. Twenty-five idiots were employed by a Gamarala, and it was their duty to provide plantain leaf plates for the other servants and themselves. One day they decided that they gave themselves unnecessary trouble in doing work which a single person could perform, so it was settled that all should sleep, and that the man who first opened his eyes or uttered a sound should cut all the leaves. When the leaves were not forthcoming at the meal-time the Gamarala and his men went in search of the idiots, and being unable to arouse them, thought they were dead and dug a grave for them. One after another they were thrown into it in silence, but as they were being covered with earth a digging tool struck one on the leg, causing him to utter an involuntary groan. The others instantly arose and told him that henceforth he must provide all the leaf plates. In the stories appended to the Pantcha-Tantra of the Abbé Dubois, a man at night disputed with his wife as to whether men or women are the greater chatterboxes, and each wagered a betel leaf that the other would speak first. As they did not appear next day, the door of their apartment was broken open, and the two were found sitting up but deprived of speech. It was concluded that they were suffering from some inimical magic, for which a Brahmana recommended the application of heated gold to their bodies. The man was burnt on his sole, above the knees, at both elbows, on the stomach, and on the crown of the head, and bore it in silence; but when the woman was burnt on the sole she cried, "Appa! That is enough," and handed her husband the betel leaf. In Folklore in Southern India (Pandit Natesa Sastri), p. 277, (Tales of the Sun, p. 280), a beggar and his wife who had been at a feast at which they ate muffins (tosei), cooked five muffins, and agreed that whoever opened an eye or spoke first should have only two of them. They then bolted the door and lay down. After three days the villagers entered by the roof and saw that the couple were apparently dead. They were carried to the cremation ground, placed on two pyres which were raised, and lights were applied. When the fire reached the man's leg a voice came from his pyre, "I shall be satisfied with two muffins." From the other pyre a voice replied, "I have gained the day; let me have the three." When the villagers heard the story, it was decided that, having apparently died and been on the funeral pyre, they could not return to the village or it would perish, so a separate hut was built for them. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 14, a farmer and his wife who disputed regarding the shutting of the door, agreed that it should be closed by the one who spoke first. After a wild dog had eaten their food, the barber called, shaved the man's head and half his beard and moustache, and blackened him with lamp-black. When the wife, who had gone out, returned and asked what he had been doing, she was told that it was she who must close the door. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 209, a man and his wife made three cakes; each ate one, and they agreed that the first who spoke should allow the other to eat the third cake. Robbers broke in, began to collect all the goods in the house, and at last seized the wife. The man still did not utter a word; when the woman cried out and scolded him, he said, "Wife, it is certainly I who have gained the cake." NO. 88 THE STORY OF MARIRALA In a country a man near the [New] Year spoke to the people of the village: "To bring palm sugar let us go to the quarter where there is palm sugar." "It is good," a few people said. Having said "I am going to-morrow," and having plucked fifty coconuts and removed the husks, he placed them in the corner in the house. On the following day morning, bringing the pingo stick and two sacks outside, and having broken [open] the sacks, and placed them below the raised veranda, when he was going into the house to bring the coconuts [his] wife said, "Stop and eat cooked rice. Be good enough to tie the pingo load." Having said, "If so, give me the cooked rice at the raised veranda," at the time when he was eating the cooked rice his relatives brought a coconut apiece; when they said, "Bring and give each of us also a packet of palm sugar," he replied, "Put them into those sacks." Subsequently, having eaten cooked rice and arisen, at the time when, having lifted the two sacks, he looked at them, there were collected together [in them coconuts] to the extent that he can carry. Subsequently, taking from his house, for expenses [on the journey], rice and two coconuts, having put them in a sack he tied up the pingo load. Afterwards, having called up the people who are going [with him], taking the pingo load he set off and went. Having gone many gawwu (each of four miles) in number, [after] exchanging [the coconuts for] palm sugar, he came back to the village. On the following day morning, having summoned the people of the village who gave the coconuts, and looked at the account according to the manner in which they gave the coconuts, he apportioned and gave [the packets of palm sugar] to them. Subsequently, at the time when he looked in the sack there was [left] one packet of palm sugar. When he inquired about it and looked, he perceived that it was exchanged for one out of the two coconuts that he carried for expenses. Afterwards having gone into the house, when he looked [there] having seen that there was [still] in the corner the heap of coconuts which he had husked for carrying, [and that he had taken only his relatives' coconuts, and left his own at home], he said, "Apoyi! What is the thing that has happened to me!" and struck blows on his breast. Then his wife got to quarrelling with him. Unable [to bear] the worry, having gone running to the pansala that was near he told the Lord (monk) the whole of these matters that occurred. "A barterer, [45] a fool like you, there is nowhere whatever in this country," the Lord said. Beginning from that time (taen), until he dies everybody called him Mariya (Barterer). North-western Province. NO. 89 THE INVISIBLE SILK ROBE [46] A Brahmana having told some men to come from a certain city, and having praised the robes which the King of the city is wearing, this Brahmana made seven stanzas, and gave them to those seven men. Those very seven men having taken the seven stanzas and gone, employed yet [another] Brahmana and got them explained. Should you say, "How was the meaning?" it was praise of the copper [coloured] silk robe which the King of that city is wearing. After they got this meaning explained, these seven men spoke together, "Let us make up a trick at this place." Speaking [thus] together, they arrived at a city at which there is a foolish King. Arriving [there], they spoke to the King of the city: "Maharaja, what a robe that is which Your Majesty is wearing! We have woven a copper [coloured] silk robe for the King of our city, and given it. It is like the thin silk robes obtained from the divine world. Having looked in the direction of that King, when we looked in your direction you appear like a servant who is near that King," these seven men said. While hearing this word, shame was produced in the King. Having been produced, he thought to himself, "While I also am a King, what is it to me!" Thinking, "Cannot I cause those silk robes to be woven?" he asked, "For [weaving] the silk robes what sort of other things are necessary?" Then the seven men say regarding it, "Having obtained silk thread from good silk yarn (lit., thread), be good enough to give us it. Having constructed a place in your auspicious [47] Sal [trees] garden, you must give us it. You must bring to that place and give us food and drink," they said to the King. Having said it, they said at the very time, "The silk cloth that we weave is not visible to a base-born person. Should he be a well-born (saha-jataka) person it is visible to him," they said to the King. At that time the King having procured silk thread to his mind gave it. The men having taken it to the auspicious Sal garden, and the party putting the thread away, when people come to look at the copper [coloured] silk robes these seven men run there and here in the auspicious Sal [48] garden. The silk robe is not visible; only according to the manner in which these seven persons are running the extent [of it] is visible. Thereupon the men think in their minds, "Because we are base-born this copper [coloured] silk robe is not visible to us." What of their thinking so! Except that each separate person thinks it for himself, no one speaks it. The King sent a messenger for the purpose of looking whether, having woven the robes, they are finished. Having seen that, except that after tying the hand-lines (at-wael) they are causing [their arms] to row (paddanawa), [49] the robe is not visible, [he thought], "Should I say that I do not perceive the robe they will say I am the son of a courtesan." Because of shame at it, the messenger having gone to the royal house, said, "The gang of them having assembled together are weaving a priceless robe. His [50] work is not finished. Having completed the work they will dress Your Honour in the robe," he said. On account of the statement of the messenger, many persons went to look at the robe, but except that they were causing [their arms] to row, the robe was not visible to anyone. The whole of the retinue who came, through fear that they will say they are illegitimate persons, without seeing the robe having said and said, "We perceive it. It is indeed a very costly robe," went away. Having woven for seven days, after the seven days' date which they got to finish in had elapsed, the King went to look at the silk robe. Having gone, when he looked it was not visible to the King also. What of its not [being visible]! He does not tell anyone the word of its not being visible. After that, those men having come, said to the King, "Having woven the copper [coloured] silk robe, it is finished. For you, Sir, with our [own] hands we must robe you in it," they said. "Having got out all the clothes which there are, descended from seven ancestors in succession, you must dress. Having dressed, you must give us all those clothes," they said to the King. The King, having heard the word, taking out all the royal vestments [51] that were of the time of his ancestors, and having adorned himself in a good manner, and driven away everybody, gave the party these clothes and all the other clothes that there were. After he gave them, all the seven men having surrounded him and said that they are putting on the King the copper [coloured] silk dress, began to stroke his body everywhere. They began to stroke the head, having said that they were putting on the crown. They stroked the arms, having said that they were putting on the jacket. In that way having stroked all parts of the body, and having said that they had dressed him, they caused them to bring the King into the middle of the great retinue, and said thus to the citizens: "Neither His Majesty our King nor any person of the retinue dwelling in this city in the olden time before this, either put on a robe in this manner, or saw one. Because of that, the whole of you, [after our] dressing His Majesty the King in this robe, causing His Majesty the King to sit on the festival tusk elephant, and having caused him to perambulate towards the right through all places in the city, again conduct him to the royal house." Having said this, they brought the tusk elephant, and caused the King to sit on the tusk elephant naked; and they began to go in procession to all places of the city. These men, taking [the contents of] this house of the royal insignia (rajabandagare), and having acted deceitfully, and said that they had woven the copper [coloured] silk robe,--because they got [the contents of] the house of the royal insignia when they were going, established for the city the name "[City] of Tambraparnni Island," [52] and went away. This foolish King remained without clothes. North-western Province. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 60, a girl who had promised to prove that the King sometimes lied, invited the King to visit a palace she had built, and to see God there, but stated he was visible only to one person at a time, and only if he was of legitimate birth. The two Ministers first entered successively, saw nothing, and declared that they had seen God inside. The King then entered, and on coming out insisted that he also had seen God there. The girl then convicted him of telling a falsehood, and as usual in folk-tales was married by the King. In Les Avadanas (Julien), No. xxxix, vol. i, p. 150, there is a story of a fool who handed some cotton to a spinner, and begged him to make it into extremely fine thread. The man did so, but the fool thought it too coarse. The spinner became angry, and pointing to the air with his finger, said, "There are extremely fine threads." When the man asked how it was he could not see them, the spinner replied it was because of their extreme thinness, which was such that even the best workmen could not see them, much less a stranger. The fool gave him a fresh order, and paid him handsomely. NO. 90 THE FOOLISH YOUTH In a certain country there are a woman and a man and a youth (their son), it is said. While they were there, the woman having given eight panams [53] to the youth said, "Son, take these eight panams to the shop and bring two plates." After that, the youth taking the eight panams to the shop said to the trader, "Mudalali, give me two plates." The trader, taking two plates, gave them to the youth. The youth said, "How is the price for these plates?" Then the trader said, "For one plate it is seven tuttu (quarter panams); for two plates give me fourteen tuttu (= three and a half panams). After that, the youth says, "Mudalali, are you trying to cheat me? You cannot cheat me. I will not give fourteen tuttu; also I did not bring fourteen tuttu. Mother gave me eight panams. [54] For the eight panams she told me to get two plates. If you will give them for the eight panams, give me two plates." Having said this, and given the eight panams to the trader, while he was coming away, taking the two plates, he met with a gang of thieves. Having met with them, they asked at the hand of the youth, "Where did you go?" Then the youth says, "Having told me to go to the shop to bring two plates, mother gave me eight panams. Taking them, and going to the shop, I asked the price for plates. Well then, the man tried to cheat me. For the two plates he told me to give fourteen tuttu. Also in my hand there were not fourteen tuttu; it was eight panams that I took. Having given the eight panams I am taking home these two plates." Then the men said, "If so, don't you go home. We are going to break [into] a house; come, and go for that." Afterwards the youth, having said "Ha," went with the thieves to break [into] the house. Having gone there and bored a hole through the wall, the thieves said to the youth who went for plates, "Go inside the house and put out into the light both all the things which you can lift and [the things] which you cannot lift. We will take them." After that, the youth, having crept into the house, put out all the things which the youth could lift. Having put them out, the youth could not lift the stone on which coconut was ground. The man who owned the house was sleeping, placing his head on the stone. The youth having shaken the man's body, awoke him. "Get up quickly. To take this stone outside I cannot lift it alone. Take hold of this a little in order to get it out," he said. The man having awoke at once, and seized and tied the youth, caught part of those men; part of them ran off. The thieves who were caught, and the youth, and the man who owned the house, all went for the trial. As they were going on the road, says the youth, "I am not a thief at all. Our mother gave me eight panams to bring two plates from the shop. Having gone to the shop I asked the price for plates. The man tried to cheat me; for two plates he asked fourteen tuttu. I did not give them; also in my hand there were not fourteen tuttu. I only gave eight panams, and taking the two plates, as I was going away I met with these men. Then the men said to me, 'Where did you go?' they asked. 'I went to the shop to get two plates,' I said. Then the men said, 'If so, don't go home. We are going to break [into] a house; you come too.' So I came. Having come there, the men bored a hole through the wall, and said to me, 'Creep you into this. Put outside the things you can lift and the things you can't.' I afterwards crept into the house, and put outside those I could lift. I tried to lift the stone on which your head was placed while you were sleeping. I couldn't lift it, so in order to get it out I awoke you. Well then, so much is my fault; I am not a thief. Now then, if you are going to put me in prison, put me in prison." After that the man said, "I will not put you in prison; doing the work that I tell you, you can stay with me." The boy said, "Ha. I will stay [with you]." After that, having gone for the trial, and put the other thieves in prison, the man came home with that youth. In that very way, doing the work which the man told him, the youth remained a considerable time. One day the man said, "Youth, let us go to cut a [branch for a] plough." The youth said, "Ha, let us go," and taking an axe, the man and the youth went to the forest on the river bank. Having gone there, the man said to the youth, "Cut thou this tree at the root." The youth cut the tree at the root. After he had cut it, the plough of the tree was not good. Afterwards having gone near another tree, when they looked at it there was a good plough in [a branch of] the tree. When they cut the plough it would fall in the river. The man said, "Having gone up this tree, cut thou that plough which is to be seen." [He then left him]. Then the youth having gone up the tree, when he was cutting the root (lower end) of the plough while sitting down [on the branch] at the top (or outer end) of the plough, a certain Lord (Buddhist monk) came. When the Lord looked up at the tree, having seen that the youth sitting at the top of the plough was cutting at the root, he said, "Foolish youth! Why, while you are at the top, are you cutting at the root? When it is cut at the root it will fall together with thee also, will it not, into the river? Sitting at the root [end], chop towards the top." Having said this the Lord went away. The youth said, "What does the Lord know about it? I shall cut it this way." Having said this, as he was chopping and chopping, the plough being cut at the root, the plough and the youth and the axe fell into the water of the river. Then the youth, having got up quickly, walked ashore, taking the axe and the plough. He put down the plough, and taking the axe, ran along the path on which the Lord went. Having run there he overtook the Lord. Having joined him, he said, "Lord, as you said that I should fall into the river you must tell me the day when I shall die. If not, I shall chop you with this axe." The Lord, when he looked, thought that there was no means of saying otherwise; on that account he said, "On the day when a drop of rain has fallen on the crown of thy head thou wilt die." The Lord then went away. After that, the youth, taking the plough, came with the man to the man's house. Having come there, when he had been there a long time, on a certain day a drop of rain fell on the crown of the youth's head, and on that day he died. (The narrator did not know how he died). The details of his death are given in the following variant of the latter part of this story: The monk said, "In such and such a year, in such and such a month, on such and such a day, thou wilt die." From that day until the time when this stated number of years and number of months and number of days had gone, having been looking [into the account], on the stated day, when it became light he said, "To-day, having cooked amply give thou me to eat." Having eaten and finished, he said, "I shall die to-day"; and having said, "Don't anybody speak to me," went into the house, and shutting the door lay down (budiya-gatta). The men who stayed outside from morning until the time when it became evening, remained looking out. There was not any sound from this man. Afterwards they said, "What are we keeping this dead man for? Let us take him and carry him away," and having placed a bamboo [ready], they tied [the bier] to it. Having tied it, they go away, taking it. Between the house and the burial ground there is a hill-rice chena. Because there is no other path to go on, taking him into the chena they hurried on (lit., ran). Then the men who watch the hill-rice chena having been there, said, "What is this, Bola, that you are taking the corpse through the hill-rice chena?" and they scolded them. Then the dead man sat up and said, "Except that I am dead, you should see [what I would do to you]," he said. Then the men who took the corpse said, "Ade! This one is speaking!" and dropped him. Having fallen upon a cut [pointed] stump [it pierced him, and] the man died. North-western Province. To carry a corpse through a chena is considered to be a very inauspicious act, which might have an injurious effect upon the crop. Even to carry through one the tools necessary for digging the grave would meet with strong remonstrances. In one instance, some of my labourers were refused a passage along the footpath in a village because they carried pickaxes and digging hoes, thus appearing, as the villagers objected, like persons who were going to dig a grave. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 136, Miss S. J. Goonetilleke related a story about twenty-five idiots, in which the death prediction occurs. The monk stated that the idiot would die when the third drop of dew fell on his back while he was sheltering under a gourd. The drops fell when he was beneath a frame on which a gourd grew, waiting while some robbers whom he had joined entered a house in order to commit robbery. He bellowed out, "I am dead, I am dead," and they all ran away. In vol. i, p. 121, the editor, the late Mr. W. Goonetilleke, gave the Sinhalese story of the branch cutting, the monk's prediction of the man's death when a drop of water fell on his head from the roof, and his remarks when the bier carriers were scolded by the owner of a garden through which they were about to pass. He also added variants. In one found in an Indian work called Bharataka dva-trinsika (Thirty-two Tales of Mendicant Monks), a stupid monk called Dandaka went to cut a post, and sat on the branch while chopping. Some passing travellers pointed out that when the branch broke he would fall and die; when he fell he therefore believed he must be dead, and lay still. The other monks came to carry him to the cremation ground; but on the way the road bifurcated, and they quarrelled as to which path should be followed. The supposed corpse then sat up and said that when alive he always went by the left road. Bystanders intervened and pointed out that as he had spoken he could not be dead, but Dandaka insisted that he was really dead, and it was only after a long argument that the monks were convinced that he was alive. Mr. Goonetilleke also gave a translation of a similar Turkish story in Meister Nasr Eddin's Schwänke und Räuber und Richter, in which the man was told he would die when his ass eructated the second time. He lay down, believing he was dead. When the bier carriers were doubtful how they should pass a mudhole, the corpse sat up and said that when alive he avoided the place. The editor also added Lithuanian, German, and Saxon variants, as well as an English one related to him by the Rev. S. Langdon, in which, however, the man broke his neck in falling from the tree. In the South Indian account of the Guru Paramarta and his foolish disciples, annexed to the Abbé Dubois' Pantcha-Tantra, p. 305, one of the disciples was cutting a branch when a Purohita Brahmana warned him that he would fall when it broke. After falling he ran after the Brahmana and inquired when the Guru would die. The answer was that cold at the hinder-parts is a sign of death, [55] a remark to which the Guru's death eventually was due. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 89, the warning was given to a weaver by a traveller, who afterwards stated that the man's death would occur when his mouth bled. Some days afterwards the weaver saw in a glass a bit of scarlet thread stuck between his front teeth, concluded that it was blood, and lay down to die, until a customer showed him what it really was. In the same work, p. 139, there is a story of a foolish weaver who went to steal with some thieves. When they told him to look for a suitable pole for raising the thatch of a house, he woke up the people who were sleeping outside, and asked them to lend him a pole for the purpose. An outcry was raised, and the thieves decamped. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 30, the person who warned a youth who was cutting a branch, said he would die when he found a scarlet thread on his jacket. When a thread stuck on it in the bazaar, he went off, dug a grave, and lay in it until he heard a passer-by offer four pice to anyone who would carry his jar of ghi for him; he then jumped up and offered to carry it. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 199, a stupid boy who was sent by his mother to sell a piece of cloth for four rupees, refused six rupees that were offered for it. NO. 91 THE STORY OF THE SEVEN THIEVES In a certain country there were seven thieves, it is said. Among them one was a fool, or one who was learning robbery. One day when these seven persons were going to break [into] a house, while on the road they spoke to that robber who was learning, and said thus: "Only we six persons will go for breaking [into] the house; you stay outside." Teaching him [this], and having gone [there], and in that manner having made the man wait outside, those six persons got inside the house for house-breaking. Thereupon, while those six persons were delaying a little, a thought having occurred to this foolish thief, "I also must steal something from this," having thought [thus], when he was going passing his hand over the things that were there a large millet [grinding] stone was caught [by him]. Because he was unable to get it up quite alone, he spoke to a man who was sleeping on a raised veranda, and said, "Oyi! Oyi! Get up to lift this stone a little." Thereupon this man having said, "What is it?" when he cried out the robber sprang off and ran away. The seven persons having collected together at one spot, [the other six] having beaten and scolded that foolish thief, gave him advice. Again, also, one day having gone calling him for breaking [into] a house, in the aforesaid very manner having made the man wait outside, the six persons got inside the house for robbery. While this fool was staying in the open, shaking and shaking a post under the stick frame of an ash-pumpkin creeper (on which it grew), an ash-pumpkin fruit that was at the post having broken off, fell on his head. Thereupon the fool, having become [frightened], began to cry out, saying, "They killed me!" Thereafter, the house men having awakened, when there was a disturbance the whole of the thieves sprang off, and went running away. When they collected together in one place, they thought thus, "With this fool we shall not succeed in committing robbery; it is necessary to send this one for a few robberies alone." Having thought [this], one day they spoke to the man, "Beginning from to-day, [after] stealing something for food for us, come back," they said. And he having gone to a house in which was one old woman, and having found a little pulse (mun-aeta), thought, "I must fry this little and carry it away," and put it into a broken pot. When frying it, when it was coming to be fried to a certain extent, taking a spoon he put [some] of it in the mouth of the old woman who was sleeping in the house, to look if it was fried. Thereupon the woman, unable to bear the burning in her mouth, began to cry out. While the men who were sleeping, having said, "What is this?" were coming to look, the thief sprang off and ran away. Again, also, one day having spoken to the foolish robber, "Catching two fowls for us from this house, come back," they sent him. And the robber having gone there, while he was asking, "[Am I] to bring the black ones [or] to bring the red ones?" the owners, having said, "Who is this who is taking the fowls?" drove him away. Thereupon the robber sprang off and ran away. Again also, one day having seen that there are two clumps of sugar-cane at a house, they said, "Cutting two from that for food for us, come away," and sent him. And this one having gone there and seen that there are equal shares of black and white sugar-canes, while he was asking, "Which sugar-cane of these shall I bring?" just as before, the owners having come and said, "What are you cutting sugar-cane for?" drove him away. While he was continuing to commit robberies in that manner for not many days, one day having met with a Gamarala, when he was asking, "[Where] are you going?" "We are going for a means of livelihood," they said. Having said, "If so, come; there is a niyara chopping [56] in my rice field," calling them and having gone to the house and handed over the work to them, the Gamarala set off, and having gone somewhere or other, in the evening came to the house. Having seen that they also, having finished with the work and come to the house, were [there], and having given them food and drink, etc., and given a place to sleep in, and in the morning also, after it became light, having given them food, he started them off and sent them away. Thereafter, the Gamarala having gone to the rice field, and when looking having seen that all the earthen ridges had been cut and thrown down, arriving at vexation he came home. While all the robbers were going away from there, they met with yet a man, and when he was asking, "Where are you going?" they said, "We are going for a means of livelihood." Thereupon the man having spoken to them and said, "If so, come; there is a thatching at my house," and having gone to the house, calling them, said, "Here. Cover this large house with straw." Having ordered it, he went away on a journey. At that time, having got ready, and seen that a certain old woman was in that house, they covered her with the whole of the straw. Thereupon that woman becoming afraid, all at the house came while she was crying out. When they asked, "What is this you are doing?" they say, "The man who was at this house having said, 'Cover this mahage [57] with straw,' went away. That work we are doing," they said. Thereupon the house men say, "It is not that old woman. Cover the roof with straw." At the time when they said it they did the work in that manner; and having gone to the lodgings (wadiya) where they were at first, and made that foolish thief stay there, the six other persons went for a robbery. Stealing a certain tom-tom beater's box of decorations they placed it at their lodgings, and went to sleep. That foolish robber having seen it, after those six persons went to sleep, this fool putting on all those [things], stayed warming himself at the fire. At that time, while sleep was going to fall heavily on him, when the jingling bangles placed on his arms gave the [usual] sound, one of those who were sleeping awoke and looked. Having seen that the Yaka of the box of decorations had come and was [there], he spoke to the other men and bounded off. Thereupon they also becoming afraid, the whole of them began to run away. Having heard the noise, this one also got up, and he having gone running behind them, the whole of them fell into a well and died. [58] Finished. North-western Province. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 140, a silly weaver went with three friends who were thieves, to break into a house. They made a hole through the wall, and telling him to wait outside and keep watch, the thieves entered. After waiting some time he followed them, and began to cook some food that he found near the fire. The owner's wife was sleeping close by on a low bed; on turning over in her sleep her arm, palm uppermost, was stretched out in front of the weaver. Thinking she was asking for some of the food, he placed a spoonful boiling hot in her hand. She shrieked out, the men were caught, and the King imprisoned the others, but released the weaver. In Les Avadanas (Julien), No. xcvii, vol. ii, p. 76, a party of comedians who were benighted on a mountain haunted by men-eating demons, slept beside a fire. On account of the cold, one who played as a Rakshasa put on his own costume while the rest were asleep. Several others on looking up saw a Rakshasa there, and fled; the rest followed, the man who had alarmed them running close behind them. They left the mountain, crossed a river, threw themselves into pools, and at last fell down worn out with fatigue. In the morning they recognised their comrade. This story is also given in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 203. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 136 ff., in the tale of the twenty-five idiots referred to in the notes to the last story, Miss S. J. Goonetilleke gave an account of the attempt to remove the millet-grinding stone, the scalding of the old woman's mouth, and the assuming of the dress of the Yaka (said to be the Gara Yaka), and the subsequent drowning of the party in the well. In the same work, vol. i, p. 131, the editor gave the incident of the covering of the Mahage with straw, in a tale termed "The Story of Hokka." The old woman, who was the Gamarala's mother, was suffocated. NO. 92 THE KING WHO BECAME A THIEF In a certain country a Prince went to ask about a marriage, it is said. As he was going, while on the road he met with a Princess. Having met with her, the two persons spoke angrily. Having spoken thus, the Prince said to the Princess, "Some day or other, having called Her [in marriage], I will punish Her much." [59] Then the Princess said, "Having borne a Prince to you, Sir, and having employed the Prince [for it], I will tie you to your horse's leg, and cause [them] to strike you fifty blows." Afterwards, the Prince, having come back, built brick walls like a prison, and placed a drain in it, and caused a house to be prepared for putting the Princess into when he brought her. Having prepared it, and having come calling the Princess [in marriage], he put her in the house; and he puts cooked rice for the Princess at the corner of the drain. The Princess having eaten it, is [there] without even going outside. There were two field rats (waeli miyo) which the Princess had reared before. The two came to the place where this Princess is. Having come, they dug a tunnel below the brick wall; having dug it, the Queen got out by the corner of the tunnel, and came away. Having come thus, she was in a party of dancing women. While there, the Princess said to the dancing women, "Take me, and go and dance at such and such a city." She said this regarding the city to which the Princess came in diga [marriage]. "While dancing there I shall faint. Then while I am there [in that state] you come away, having said, 'We shall come again to call our child.'" She taught the women thus. The Princess having taught them it, these women danced near the King, the father of the Prince who had placed her as though in prison when she came in diga [marriage]. The Prince also is there. While dancing thus, the Princess fainted. Afterwards, these women having said, "Let her stay until the time when we come back to call our child to go. We cannot now, while she is unconscious," the women went away. The Princess remained there. That she was that Prince's Princess he does not know. Having said that the Princess will still be in that very [prison] house, he places cooked rice [there for her] by means of the drain. The women after three or four months came to call this Princess to go. Then that Prince having married her, she was with child. The women, notwithstanding that, called her and went away [with her]. Afterwards, when she was there a little time [with them] the Princess bore a Prince. The Prince became considerably big. Afterwards he asked at the hand of the Princess, "Mother, where is my father?" Then the Princess said, "Son, your father is such and such a King of such and such a city. The King having wagered that he will take me in marriage, said that he will inflict on me unimposed punishments. I said, 'Having borne a Prince to you, I will employ the Prince and [get him to] tie you to your horse's leg, and cause you to be struck fifty blows.'" "In the way the King said, calling me [in marriage], when I came he punished me like the punishment of the prison. Having come from there by the help of two rats which I reared before, I was in the dancing women's party. Being in it, and having gone to that city to dance with these women, the women came away while I was there. Afterwards they went back to come with me. "During the time when I was there, the King marrying me, you were born when these women were going about. While I was there they came and called me. It is that King himself who is your father." After that, the Prince said, "Mother, if so, seek a few things for food for me, and give me them, for me to go to seek a livelihood for myself." Afterwards the Princess found the things, and after she gave them, the Prince, taking them, went to the house of a widow woman who worked for hire, and said, "Mother, I, also, came to stay with you." Then the widow woman said, "It is good; stay. I am alone." Afterwards the Prince stayed there. Staying there, this Prince began to steal the things of the city. Then the King made it public that they are to catch the thief. Afterwards they try to seize him; no one is able to seize him. That widow woman also does not know [that he is the thief]. The woman having come [home], tells at the hand of the Prince all the talk uttered at the royal palace: "A thief of this country is committing this robbery; they cannot catch the thief." All these words she said to the Prince. Afterwards the Prince said, "Mother, cook a few cakes and give me them." So the woman cooked cakes and gave them. Thereupon the Prince, taking the cakes, went to the chena jungle, and strung the cakes on the trees near a pool at the road (mankada) where a washerman is washing clothes. Having strung them, keeping still two or three cakes in his hand, and continuing to eat them, he came to the place where that washerman is washing clothes. Then the washerman asked at the hand of the Prince, "Whence come you eating and eating certain cakes?" The Prince said, "Ando! The cake stems on these trees having fruited, there are as many as you want (onae haetiye). Go there to look." Afterwards, the washerman having said, "If so, Chief (nilame), be good enough to remain near these few clothes," the washerman went to pluck the cakes. Then the Prince, taking those few clothes, came to the house of the widow woman. That washerman [after] plucking the cakes having come back, when he looked both the Prince was not there and the clothes were not there. Afterwards the washerman went home empty-handed. [60] That Prince asked at the hand of the widow woman, "Mother, to-day, in the direction of that city--isn't it so?--there is a report about the thief?" Then the widow woman said, "Ando! Why not, son? To-morrow the King is going, they say, to catch the thief." On the following day, taking also a bundle of clothes, he went to a pool at the road, and having tied a cord to an earthen cooking-pot, and sent the earthen pot into the water, continuing to tread on the cord with his foot, [so as to keep the pot below the surface], he washes the clothes. Then the King came on horseback, together with the Ministers. This Prince who is washing clothes asked at the hand of those Ministers, "Where are you going?" The Ministers said, "We are going to seize the thief." Then the Prince says, "Look here; he sprang into this water. Having seen him coming, the King must be ready to seize him when he comes to the surface." Afterwards, the King descended from the back of his horse, and having taken off the royal ornaments, putting on the bathing cloth [61] got ready to seize the thief at the time when he rises to the surface. Then this Prince deceitfully slackened a little the cord on which he was treading with his feet; then the earthen pot which was in the water rose to the surface a little. Having said, "Perhaps it is the head of the thief," those Ministers and the King sprang into the water. Then this Prince who was washing clothes, putting on those royal ornaments, mounted on the [King's] horse, and said, "Look there! There is the thief, seize him!" Then all having come near that King seized him. After that this Prince said, "Having tied him to the leg of this horse, [you are] to strike him fifty blows." Then those Ministers, having taken the King and tied him to the horse's leg, struck him fifty blows. Having struck them, when they took him to the city the King's father says, "That thief is indeed like my son." Having looked in the direction of that Prince who was wearing the royal ornaments, he said, "This indeed is not my son. What of that? There is a little like my son's face." After that, the Prince who was wearing the royal ornaments, said, "Ask at your son's hand who I am"; he said it at the hand of the Prince's grandfather. [62] When he (the grandfather) asked at the hand of the King who had become the thief, he said, "I do not know who he is." Then the Prince said, "If so, am I to tell you?" He said, "Ha." Then at the hand of that King who had become the thief, this Prince says, "You brought for yourself the Queen of such and such a city, did you not? Before bringing her there was an anger-wager, was there not?" Then the King said, "It is true." Then the Prince said, "You will give punishment to the Queen, you said, did you not? Then the Queen said, did she not? 'After I have borne a Prince to you, having tied you to the leg of the horse I will cause you to be struck fifty blows.'" Then the King said, "It is true." "From there having brought the Queen, while you were giving her the punishment the Queen had previously reared two field rats. The two having come, dug [under] the brick wall, and the Queen went away from there. "Having gone away, and been in a party of dancing women, while she was in it one day they came here, the Queen and those women, to dance. Having come and caused the Queen to stay, those women went away. After three or four months the women came back, and calling her, went away with her. While she was here, [63] I was born to you." Afterwards the grandfather said, "You yourself remain exercising the sovereignty. My son cannot; a fool." He having said this, the Prince himself received the sovereignty. North-western Province. In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 246, a Prince told an oilmonger's daughter that he would marry her and imprison her for life. She retorted that she would bear him a son who should chastise him after first tying him up in a sack. When they were married the Prince shut her up in a room, her food being supplied through a small window. She escaped by a tunnel made by her father for her, learnt rope-dancing, and in disguise made a display of it before the court. The Prince fell in love with her, visited her daily, and she obtained from him his pearl necklace, diamond necklace, and ring. When the rope-dancers left, the girl rejoined her father, and bore a son, who learnt robbery and committed such daring thefts that the Prince, his father, determined to seize him himself at night. By a trick he got the Prince to enter a sack, dressed himself in the Prince's clothes, and handed it to the soldiers as containing the thief. In the morning he opened the sack and struck the Prince gently with the cord. The robber then explained everything to the King and Prince, his mother when fetched produced the articles given to her, and all ended happily. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 216, a merchant on leaving home on a long journey told his wife that on his return he expected to find that she had built a grand well, and had a son for him. By a trick she got money and built the well. Disguised as a milk-girl she met with her husband's boat, and sold milk at the river bank until he fell in love with her, married her, and took her to live on his boat. When he left after three months, giving her his cap and portrait, she returned home. On his arrival there she presented to him his son, and produced his gifts. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 620, a Brahmana told his bride, who had played a trick on him, that he would desert her; she retorted that a son whom she would bear him should bring him back. He put his ring on her finger while she slept, and went away to his own city, Ujjayini. She followed, and established herself as a courtesan, sending away each visitor without seeing her, until her husband came and, without recognising her, stayed some days with her. After returning home she bore a son, to whom she told the whole story. The boy went in search of his father, and by a wager made him his slave, took him back to his mother, and they were reconciled. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 104, a King of Kashmir and a girl whom he met while hunting made jokes at each other. The King married her and ignored her presence in his harem, so she returned to her parents. After three years she visited Kashmir, and stayed at the palace, where the King, who did not recognise her, fell in love with her. They exchanged rings, and she got his handkerchief, went home, and bore a son who became an expert thief, stealing an egg out of a hawk's nest without disturbing the bird. [64] He committed many impudent robberies in Kashmir, getting the high officials into ridiculous positions, and when the King offered his daughter in marriage and half the country if the thief would come forward, he confessed everything and restored the stolen money and goods. His mother came, explained everything and the impossibility of the marriage to his half-sister, produced the ring and handkerchief, and he became heir to the throne. NO. 93 THE FEMALE FOWL THIEF At a village a woman was married to a man. The woman has much fondness for food consisting of fowls' flesh. The woman having stolen the fowls, without the man's knowing it eats [them] in the night when the man has gone to sleep. When she was eating every day in this manner, the man perceived it one day. After that, the man through the necessity for catching this theft, one day said to the woman at night, "Bolan, I cannot [bear] in the cold. Go to the place where the bundles of firewood are, and bring a little firewood." Then the woman says, "Ane! Appa! In this darkness I cannot go through fear." After that, the man, not saying it again, remained without doing anything. On the following day, also, the man told her in the very same manner. On that day, also, this woman said, "Ane! Appa! I cannot go alone." On both these days he was unable to catch the woman's theft. In the night of the following day the man lay down, and in the manner as though asleep the man began to snore. On that day, too, having said [to herself], "The man has gone to sleep," the woman arose and went for fowl stealing. The man having allowed the woman to go, and having arisen also, began to go behind her. On that day a man of the village having died had been cremated also. The woman went to a village near the heap of fire-charcoal (the remains of the funeral pyre), and stealing a fowl from a house, came near that charcoal fire at the place of cremation (sohon), and having put the fowl upon the charcoal, roasted it. When she was eating the meat that man, having been hidden, threw a stone [at her]. When it struck her the woman says, "What are you throwing stones for?" [65] Having said, "Here. The demon-offering for ye; take that," she throws down a fowl bone. The man gathers the bone which she throws. The man again throws a stone. Having spoken in that very manner she throws away a bone; that also the man gathers. The man again throws a stone. In this very manner, the man having thrown stones, collected seven or eight bones. [After] collecting them he came home before the woman, and lay down. The woman having eaten the flesh and having finished, came back, and prepared to sleep. Then the man having gone to sleep [apparently], and as through arising having broken up his bodily reluctance [to get up], arose, and said, "Bolan, I cannot [bear] in the cold; bring a bundle of firewood from the place where the bundles of firewood are." That day, also, the woman said, "Ane! Appa! I cannot go alone." Then the man scolds her: "Bola, strumpet! During the whole night thou canst go to steal fowls; why canst thou not go to bring a bundle of firewood?" Well then, the woman having said, "It is not so," began to swear [to it]. Then the man having said, "What are these, Bola?" showed her the fowl bones. Then the woman's breath was drawn upward [66]; in that very way the woman's life departed. North-western Province. NO. 94 GAMPOLAYA AND RAEHIGAMAYA In a certain country there are a Gampolaya and a Raehigamaya, [67] it is said. The person called Gampolaya, having put Iriya [68] fruits in two bags, and said they were areka-nuts, tied them as a pingo load (one bag hanging under each end of the stick). Having been in his own country, he is going away to another country. The person called Raehigamaya tied up a pingo load of pepper (vine) leaves. The person called Raehigamaya, having said that the pingo load of pepper leaves was a pingo load of betel leaves, [69] is also going away to another country. At the time when he was going along there was a travellers' shed; in that travellers' shed he lodged. That person called Gampolaya, taking that pingo load of Iriya fruits, came there. Well then, those two persons came in contact [there]. The areka-nut trader (Gampolaya) asked, "What, friend, is your pingo load?" The betel trader (Raehigamaya) says, "[Betel leaves]. In our country areka-nuts are scarce to an inordinate (no-saehena) extent." "Ane! Friend, [I have brought areka-nuts]. In that very way, for our country there is difficulty over betel leaves," Gampolaya said. Having said, "If so, let us change our two pingo loads," the person possessing areka-nuts took the pingo load of betel leaves; the person who has the pingo load of betel leaves took the pingo load of areka-nuts. Gampolaya [afterwards] says, "I indeed met with a trading at a profit!" When he asked, "What was it?" "I obtained a pingo load of betel leaves" [he said]. Who asked it? A man going on the road. He took the pingo load of betel leaves to his country. Having gone there and having untied it, when he looked it was a pingo load of [worthless] pepper leaves. [The other man], taking the pingo load of areka-nuts, went to his village. Having gone [there] and unfastened it, when he looked they were [worthless] Iriya fruits. Well then, those two persons came together at the travellers' shed on another day. They spoke: "That day our trading did not go on properly. Now then, friend, we two being thieves at this city, [after] cooking rice and having eaten [together], at night let us go for robbery." Well then, except that those two say, "Let us cook," not even one of them brings the materials. [70] What is [the reason why] they do not bring them? They were persons who on former occasions had gone to the shop and brought things, [and had been cheated by another person's not bringing any], they said. In that manner it became night. One person, having said he is going to bathe, [went away, and] having eaten cooked rice at the shop, came back. The other [thought], "While he has gone to bathe, that one, going to the shop, will eat rice;" so this one having gone to another place ate cooked rice [there]. A second time they came to the travellers' shed. [Afterwards] they broke [into] the palace of the King of that city. Taking the box containing the gold things, and having gone [off with it], and during that very night having arrived at a rice field, they went to sleep at the bottom of a tree. Through dishonesty to one of them, the other, taking the box of things, bounded off. Having sprung off and gone, he crept into a mound of straw, and remained there. That [other] one having arisen, when he looked there was neither the man nor the box of things. Thereafter he seeks and looks about. When he was seeking and looking, [he noticed that] there was a threshing-floor near [the place] where they were sleeping. Having taken a [wooden] cattle-bell, on the following day, in the evening, he shook and shook the cattle-bell, and began to gore the corn stacks and mounds of straw that were at the threshing-floor. [71] Then that man who had got hid there, having said [to himself], "Perhaps it is a bull," spoke [to it, to drive it away]. Having spoken, when he looked it was the first thief. [When] they two are talking [about it, he said], "I didn't bring this box of things through dishonesty to you, but to look at your cleverness." During all the time each one is thinking of quietly taking the box of goods, and bounding off [with it]. Well then, those two persons having come back, and having walked to the sands of the sea, it became night. Placing that box of things in the midst of the two, when they were lying down the person who stole it at first went to sleep. Then the other man, taking the box, hid it at a recognisable place (ayiruwak) in the sea. Having hidden it and come back, and very quietly returned near the other one, he went to sleep. The person who hid the box of things and returned, went to sleep. Then the other one, having arisen very quietly, when he looks for the box of things, the box of things is not there. When he sought and looked about for it, he did not meet with it. [But] when he tasted [with the tip of his tongue], and looked at the body (skin) of that person who is sleeping, until the time when he comes [upward] near the hip there is salt taste. Now then, that one thought, "He will have hidden it in the water, waist deep in the sea." Having gone on account of the thought, when he looked in the water to the extent of a round [of the top] of the cloth (pili-watak, waist-deep) a tree was near. [The other man] having placed it near the tree he met with it [there]. As soon as he met with it, taking the box of things and having come to his village, he says to his wife and children, "Having sought me, should a man come here, say, 'He died yesternight. There is delay in going to bury him, until the time when his relatives assemble.'" Well then, they are lamenting falsely. Well, Gampolaya [having come there] says, "We, indeed, called Gampolaya and Raehigamaya, walked about and committed robbery at [each] city in turn. Now then, don't you be grieved that he died; I am more troubled in my mind than you. The agreement of us two indeed is that should I die first, he having come,--that kind of creeper called Habalossa; it is an extremely bad sort of thorn, [72]--having put [some] of the creepers on the neck there is a promise to go dragging me until the time when he goes to the edge of the grave. Should he die first the promise is [that I should act] in that very manner." Well then, having brought a Habalossa creeper, and put it round the neck of the person who was dead, when he prepared (lit., made) to drag him the person who was dead laughed. Having laughed, he says, "Friend, I did not bring the box of things on account of stealing it, [but] to look if you are a clever person." Well then, these two correctly divided in two the articles in the box of things. The two persons [afterwards] dwelt in happiness. North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 234, Mr. C. J. R. Le Mesurier gave a story in which five beggars agreed that each should put a handful of rice into a pot of boiling water, to make their common meal. When the time came to eat the meal the pot was found to contain only water, each one having placed an empty hand inside it, as though depositing rice. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (L. Behari Day), p. 165, when two thieves were digging, the younger one came on a jar full of gold muhrs (each worth about thirty shillings), and at once said it was only a large stone. While the younger man slept the elder thief returned to the spot, found there two jars of the coins, buried them in the mud of an adjoining tank, returned, and fell asleep near the other. When the younger thief awoke and found that the coins had been removed, he noticed mud on his comrade's legs, made a search at the tank, got the two jars, and went off with them, loaded on a cow. At dawn the other man missed his partner and the money, and went in pursuit, and by the slipper trick [73] got the cow and its load, and went home. When the younger man came up they divided the money except an odd coin, which was to be changed in the morning. In the morning the elder man who had charge of it pretended to be dead. His friend affected to pity the wife, made a straw rope, and dragged the body to the burning ground, but having no fire he climbed up a tree. The two afterwards frightened some robbers there, and got their booty. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 45, some of the Sinhalese incidents occur in an account of the doings of two merchants. One of them buried in the mud a brass plate which he stole from the other's house. The owner found and removed it, and the thief searched in vain for it. They cheated other people, and acquired forty thousand rupees with which one of them made off; the other recovered it by the slipper trick, buried it, pretended to be dead, and at the cemetery the two men frightened some robbers, got their booty, and made an equal division of all. In Folk-Tales of the Telugus (G. R. Subramiah Pantulu), p. 63, a man set out with a packet containing a quart of sand; a man of a different village was journeying with a packet containing a lump of cow-dung. They met in the evening, and halted at the same rest-house. Each wanted to get the other's packet, thinking it contained food. The second man said he had a packet of food (apparently cooked) but was not hungry, and asked the other what he had brought. The first one replied that he had uncooked rice with him, and felt very hungry. They exchanged packets, went off at once to avoid recriminations, and discovered that they were mutually cheated. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xxv, p. 21, in a Tamil story by Natesa Sastri, a man of Tanjore who was carrying a large ball of clay entirely hidden under cooked rice grains which his wife had stuck on it met with a man of Trichinopoly who had a brass pot full of sand covered with raw rice a quarter of an inch deep. Each wanted the other's rice. The first man stated that not being very well he was afraid to eat the cold rice he had brought, and would like to cook some raw rice. The second man made an exchange with him. After discovering that they were mutually cheated they became friendly, and had other experiences of each other's roguery (see the variant given after No. 248). In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 109, a foolish man, in order to avoid sharing with a friend some tasty food which his wife was cooking, pretended to be dead. The friend lamented loudly, neighbours came, they made a pyre at the burning ground, put the body on it and burnt it, the man having determined to die rather than give a share of the food. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 299, when two thieves had stolen some treasure from a caravan, one of them by means of the slipper trick got the whole, hurried home, and the pretended death and adventure with the robbers followed. In Folk-Tales from Tibet (O'Connor), p. 131, when two thieves by a fraud had secured a heavy bag of gold, one of them absconded with it. The other recovered the money by the boot-trick. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 316, a Brahmana who had some peas which were so old that it was impossible to cook them, took them to the market, and exchanged them for an ass which would never move when a load was put on its back, each of the barterers thinking he had got the best of the bargain. In the Sierra Leone stories, Cunnie Rabbit, etc. (Cronise and Ward), p. 300, there is a variant of the latter part of the Sinhalese tale in an account of two greedy men who lived in the east and west. The eastern man came to the western man's house carrying a box, and would not leave, intending to share in the rice that had been cooked. The owner of the house at last lay down, and told his wife to say he had died. The visitor remained all night, supplied clothes for the corpse, made a coffin, dug the grave, and had nearly covered the body when it requested to be taken out. In the end, the visitor got a share of their food. NO. 95 THE STORY OF THE TWO LIARS There are two Liars called the Eastern Liar and the Western Liar, it is said. The Eastern Liar was minded to go to seek the Western Liar, it is said. [74] Should you say, "What was that for?" it was for telling lies in competition (i.e., a lying match), it is said. Tying up the packet of cooked rice from one and a half amunas [75] of uncooked rice, and the flesh of twelve goats, and bringing it for the [mid] day food, he went to the house of the Western Liar. At the time when he was going there, the Liar was not at home; a daughter of his was there. He gave her the packet of cooked rice to put away. She took the packet of cooked rice with the point of the needle with which she was sewing and sewing, and put it away. The Eastern Liar [asked] the female child, "Where is thy father? In the forest?" Thereupon the child [said], "Our father [in order] to cover up the thundering went to skin a mosquito, and come back." Thereupon this very Liar, having become afraid, thinks, "At the time when this very child told lies to this degree, when her father has come to what extent will he tell lies?" Thinking it, and asking for the packet of cooked rice again, he went off back again. Because it was not yet day [76] [enough] for eating in the daytime, [76] having hung the bundle of cooked rice on a large Banyan tree he went to sleep. After that, at the time when the Western Liar, cutting sticks and creepers for a house and placing them under his armpits, was coming, the little female child who was at the house having gone in front [of him], says, "A man came to seek you," she said. Thereupon the man asked, "Where?" "Look; he went there," she said. Thereupon this very person, taking those sticks and creepers, and turning to the same quarter, went in chase of him. [77] At that time the Eastern Liar had gone to sleep. Having heard the sound of the coming of the Western Liar, he arose. That person having become frightened at the sound of his (the Western Liar's) coming, to take the packet of cooked rice seized the branch on which is the packet of cooked rice. Thereupon the tree, being completely uprooted, came into his hand. Taking also the tree itself, the same person having got in front ran away. This very person (the Western Liar), for [the purpose of] looking who it is, began to drive this very person backwards. Having heard this very sound, and having said, "Something is coming to happen in the country," an elephant-keeper who looked after a hundred tusk elephants, having sent off the elephants to their food and having become afraid, was looking about. Through that very despondency [which he felt] that some danger was coming to arrive at this very village, he said, "I must go to some other quarter"; and folding up the cloth in which he was dragging (= carrying) them, and in which were the whole hundred tusk elephants, he bolted. Then having gone to an outer open place, and having unfastened the cloth, when he looked [inside it], only the two white lice called Gourd and Ash-pumpkin were [there], having eaten the whole hundred tusk elephants. North-western Province. Nonsense stories such as this are rather unusual in the East. There is one in No. 29, vol. i, and an Indian one is quoted after it. No. 130 in this vol. is another Sinhalese variant, and No. 263 in vol. iii, is also a tale of this type. NO. 96 THE THREE HETTIYAS In a certain country there were three persons, Big Hettiya, Middle Hettiya, and Little Hettiya. During the time while they were there, the three persons having gone to dig [for] gems, dug [for] gems until the money of the parties was finished. They did not meet with even one gem. Because they did not, having come again to the village, certain acquaintances of those people were there. Taking (that is, borrowing) a little money from those parties, the whole three persons dug [for] gems again in partnership until the money was finished. They met with only one gem. It was in the mind of Big Hettiya to get it into a big box. It was in the mind of Middle Hettiya to get it into a middle [sized] box. It was in the mind of Little Hettiya to get it into a little box. Well then, the three persons having quarrelled about it, Little Hettiya made a little box, Middle Hettiya made a box larger than that, Big Hettiya made a box still larger than that. Having made them, they placed the gem in the little box of Little Hettiya, that box they placed inside Middle Hettiya's box, and having put it in they placed that box inside Big Hettiya's box. [Each one kept the key of his own box.] Having put it away in that manner, those three still borrowing a little money from suitable persons of the neighbourhood, went again to dig [for] gems. During the time while they were staying in that way, Little Hettiya, having made two false keys for Big Hettiya's box and Middle Hettiya's box, and opened both the boxes, taking out his own box and opening that box with the key he had, took the gem and hid it. This one, having thrown away both the false keys, remained like a man who had not committed theft. Not a long time after that, the men who lent the money came to ask for the money. Until the time when the money was finished they dug [for] gems; from it also they obtained nothing. After that, these three persons spoke to the creditors, "Having sold the gem which we have, let us give the money to these people." Having said so, the whole three having come, Big Hettiya, with the key that he had, opened the big box; Middle Hettiya, with the key that he had, opened [his]; Little Hettiya, with the key that he had, opened [his]. When they looked there was no gem. After that, the three keys being in the hands of the three persons, having said, "Who opened [the boxes]?" the three persons struck each other. [After] striking, they went near the King for a law suit. Having gone, the whole three persons said, "O Lord, Your Majesty, we three had a gem. Having put the gem into a little box, and put that into a still larger box, and put that into a still larger box, we three persons kept in our hands the three keys. Thereafter, when we three persons came together and looked [for it], it was not [there]. Because of it, Sir, somehow or other you must clear up this for us." After that, the King made much effort to sift the law suit. He being unable to explain the case, began to postpone it. The King's Queen having seen that the three Hettiyas are coming every day in this manner to the court of justice, one day asked the King, "O Lord, Your Majesty, three Hettiyas come every day to the court of justice. Why?" she asked. The King said, "The three Hettiyas having dug [for] gems, there was one gem. Little Hettiya having made a box and put it in, locked it and kept the key near him. Middle Hettiya having made a larger box than that, and placed that Little Hettiya's little box inside it, locked it and kept that key. Big Hettiya having made a large box, taking both those boxes placed them inside that box, and having locked it, he kept that key. Leaving the keys in the hands of the three persons, the gem was missing. I have been unable to explain the case. Because of it I postpone it every day," he said. After that, the Queen said, "If you will give me the sovereignty I will clear up the case." Thereupon he said, "It is good. Until you have heard the action I will give [you] the sovereignty." Having said, "It is good," the Queen went away and informed the Ministers, and told them to bring three bundles of cord and a whip. These people came bringing them. After that, the Queen having placed Big Hettiya on a support, told them to tie him. Having tied him, taking the whip and having said, "Will you give the gem? Will you give the gem?" she told them to flog him well. They flogged the Hettiya until blood came. Even after that he said, "No, indeed (naema)." Having also tied Middle Hettiya in that manner, they flogged him; that Hettiya said, "No, indeed." Having seized and tied up Little Hettiya also, they flogged him in that very way. When they had been striking four or five blows, he said, "I will give the gem." After that, she told him to bring the gem. That Little Hettiya having gone running, when he came [after] taking it from the dung-hill where he had buried and kept it, she told Big Hettiya and Middle Hettiya to divide [the value of] it. She gave nothing to Little Hettiya. Big Hettiya and Middle Hettiya divided [the value of] it between them. North-central Province. NO. 97 CONCERNING TWO FRIENDS At a certain time there were two men, friends. Of them, one person not having [food] to eat, was very poor. The other man had amply to eat and drink. At that time the man who had not [food] to eat, in order to get an assistance went near the friend who had [food] to eat. Then at the time when he went to the friend's house, having amply given him food and drink, the friend asked, "What have you come for?" Thereupon the man said, "Ane! Dear friend, not having to eat and to wear I came near you in order to get an assistance." Then the man having gone calling him to the bread shop, taking bread for ten shillings gave it to him, and said, "Here, friend, selling these things get a living. I am unable to give an assistance for more than ten shillings." Thereupon the man having said, "It is good," at the time when he was bounding about taking the bread box having walked until it was becoming black, did not sell [anything]. Through anger that he did not sell it, this man sat down near a tree, and said, "This day on which I got the evil-looking (musala) bread is not good; I will eat these things." At that time, the Devatawa who was in the tree, having become afraid, said, "Ane! O Lord, don't eat me; I will give you a good article," and gave him a plate. The man, taking the plate, asked, "With this plate what shall I do?" The Devatawa said, "Having taken away the plate, and well polished it, and spread a white cloth, place it upon the table. Then you will receive tasty food [from it]." So the man, taking the plate, came to the Hettiya's shop. The Hettiya asked, "Appuhami, have you met with anything even to-day?" The man said, "To-day, indeed, I met with a plate." [He gave the Hettiya an account of its good properties.] Thereupon, the Hettiya, having made the man drink arrack (spirit distilled from palm-juice), and made him drunk, and allowed him to sleep on the bed, took the plate. Taking it, he put another plate into the man's bread box. Then the man having become conscious, and gone home, told the man's wife, "Don't cook; we shall receive food." Having well polished the plate, and spread a white cloth, placing it upon the table he waited. Having ascertained that cooked rice did not descend, the man's wife came, and taking the plate threw it away, and having cooked, ate. On the following day, also, the man having walked without selling bread, came near that tree, and said in the former way, "I will eat. I will eat." [78] Thereupon, the Yaka [79] on that day gave him a ring, and said, "Having sold the ring, when you are going ten fathoms away the ring will come and place itself again in your hand." On that day, also, the Hettiya asked [what he had met with]. The man, just as in the former manner, said, "I obtained a ring," [and told him its property]. So the Hettiya on that day, also, made the man drunk, and taking the ring and having caused another ring to be made, put it on the man's hand. The man having become conscious, and gone away taking the ring, sold it. Having sold it, he went ten fathoms, and looked. That, also, did not come. Then the man on the following day also came without having sold the bread, and having come near that tree, said on that day, also, just as in the former manner. At that time the Devatawa gave him a cow which drops gold. "Having taken away this cow, take good care of it, and tie it up and keep it," he said. Thereupon the man, taking also the cow, just as before went away near that Hettiya's house. The Hettiya that day also asked, "What is it, Appuhami, that you have obtained to-day?" The man said, "To-day, indeed, I obtained, Hettirala, a cow which drops gold." So the Hettiya, that day also having given the man arrack to drink, and made him drunk, and allowed him to sleep on the bed, brought the Hettiya's old cow, and having tied it there the Hettiya took the cow which drops gold. Then that man having become conscious, and having gone away taking that cow also, washed the cow-dung which the cow dropped. Excepting cow-dung, there was no gold. Thereupon the man on the following day, also, having gone for bread-selling did not sell [any]. That day, also, he went near that tree, and said, "Thou son of a courtesan, when I told thee to provide me with a living thou cheatedst me. On account of it, to-day I shall eat thee indeed," and he began to chase the Yaka on the path. Then the Yaka said, "O Lord, do not chase me on the path." The Devatawa well knows about the theft of the articles. Having said, "The things that I give to this man yet [another] man takes," he gave him a cudgel. The man asked, "With this cudgel what shall I do?" The Yaka said, "Should anyone ask, 'What is this?' say 'Allan Bostan.' [80] Having said it, say, 'Stop, Bostan,' [in order to stop it]." Then the man, taking the cudgel, went just as before to the Hettiya's house. At that time the Hettiya, in the very same way as before, asked [what he had received]. The man said, "To-day I obtained a cudgel." Then the Hettiya asked, "What is the name of the cudgel?" The man said, "That, indeed, is Allan Bostan." Then the cudgel went and began to beat the Hettiya. Thereupon the Hettiya said, "Lord, don't beat me. I will give you all the things I took." So the man said, "Stop, Bostan." Then the cudgel stopped the beating. After that [the Hettiya] gave him that stolen plate and ring, and the cow that dropped gold, these very three things. After that, the man having become wealthy, remained so. North-central Province. In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 130, a Prince stole the articles left by a dying Sannyasi,--a cup which supplied food, a bag which yielded everything desired, sandals that transported their wearer where he wished to go, and a cudgel which thrashed all enemies but is not mentioned again. By means of the bag he obtained a palace, but two dancing women cheated him and stole all his magical articles; he recovered them by the aid of some miraculous fruits. In Folk-Tales of Bengal (L. Behari Day), p. 53, an indigent Brahmana received from the goddess Durga an earthen pot out of which food fell when it was reversed. At an inn it was changed for a common one, and he was driven away. Durga gave him another pot out of which when reversed a number of demons issued and beat him, returning to it when it was set mouth upwards. When he was bathing the innkeeper reversed the pot, was thrashed by the demons, and the Brahmana regained the pot formerly stolen. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Dr. Bodding), p. 83, an indigent Prince received a magic cow that granted everything desired, from a jackal whose protection he craved. It was afterwards changed by a man at whose house he lodged for the night, but by the help of the jackal he recovered it. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 182, a Brahmana who had seven daughters married the eldest to a jackal who was in reality a Raja in disguise and a magician. He gave the Brahmana a melon to plant; the fruits, which were ripe next day, contained precious stones, but, unaware of it, the man sold some and was cheated out of the others. The jackal gave him a pot which contained food when required, a Raja took it, and the man then received from his son-in-law another pot containing a stick and rope which would tie and beat people when ordered. When the Raja, hearing he had got a better pot than before, came to take it, the man caused him and his attendants to be beaten until he got back the former pot. In the same way he recovered all the precious stones. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 256, a religious mendicant gave an inexhaustible jar of copper to a poor man who had presented food to him, and warned him against inviting the King to his house. The man neglected the advice, and the King took the jar. He then received from the donor a pot filled with sticks and stones. When he demanded the copper jar the King ordered him to be seized, but the men were beaten by the articles which issued from the second jar, and the King returned the first one. In the same volume, p. 267, there is an account of a rice measure, a jar of ambrosia, and a bag of jewels which were all inexhaustible. When a King sent men to take them a magical stick drove them away. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 32, a foolish youth broke cakes into five pieces in the jungle, and said, "Now I'll eat this one, then the second, then the third, then the fourth, and then the fifth." The fairies who haunted the place thought he was about to devour them, and gave him a cooking pot out of which any food could be procured; at a cook's shop it was changed for a common one. When no food issued from this, he took five more cakes, repeated the words, received a box which produced any clothes required, and was drugged by the cook, who substituted a common box for it. He again took five cakes, and received a rope and stick which would tie and beat men when ordered. With these he recovered the other articles. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 13, a King called Putraka persuaded two Asuras to race for the possession of articles left by their father,--shoes on which one could fly, a staff that wrote only truth, and a food vessel. The King then put on the shoes, carried off the other things, and founded the city called Pataliputra after Patali (his wife) and himself. The translator gave references to an Indian variant in which the rod is replaced by a purse, and to European examples. In vol. ii., p. 3, of the same work four Yakshas presented a poor man with an inexhaustible food pitcher. When his kinsmen inquired about it he took it on his shoulder and began to dance, his foot slipped, the pitcher fell and was broken, and he reverted to his former poverty. This story is found in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 74. Inexhaustible bowls filled with jewels are mentioned in vol. ii, p. 220, also. In Les Avadanas (Julien), vol. ii, p. 8, and Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. ii, p. 185, the story of the demons (Pisacas) is almost the same as that above quoted. In the latter work, vol. iii, p. 259, two persons were quarrelling over a hat which rendered the wearer invisible, shoes with which he could walk on water, and a cudgel that would beat a person to death. When they raced for an arrow that a man shot he made off with the things. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 84, in a Kalmuk tale, a man who frightened away some demons found that they had left an inexhaustible gold goblet which provided food and drink. He exchanged it for a magic cudgel, a hammer which when struck on the ground nine times caused a nine story tower to rise, and a goat-skin bag out of which rain fell when it was shaken, in each case sending back the cudgel to recover the articles. In the Maha Bharata (Vana Parva, iii) Yudhishthira recited a Hymn to the Sun, on which this deity bestowed on him an inexhaustible copper pot out of which fruit, roots, meat, and vegetables were produced. There is a Bamana variant from the interior of Senegambia, given in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 58. A hyæna found a small pot called The Generous Pot, out of which he obtained rice, kus-kus (large millet), and other food. His hostess informed the King, who after testing it, kept it, and attached it to his arm. The hyæna then found a cutlas which told him its name was Cutlas-who-strikes. The King heard from his hostess that it was better than the pot. When he took it the hyæna stood beside his arm on which the pot hung, told him the name of the cutlas, and while it was striking him snatched away the pot and absconded. In Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria (Dayrell), p. 20, a King had a drum the beating of which caused food to appear, but if the owner stepped over a stick or tree the food went bad, and men with sticks beat the guests and owner. NO. 98 CONCERNING FOUR FRIENDS In a single country there were four friends. During the time while they were staying there all four reared a dog. At the time when it had grown up the dog became extremely large. After that, the four persons having spoken together: "Let us divide the [ownership of the] dog [among us]," divided the dog, to one person the fore-leg, to one person the hind-leg; in this manner the four persons divided it into four [shares]. [After] dividing it, when no long time had gone, one fore-leg of the dog was broken. After it was broken, the other three persons having told the man who owned the fore-leg that the fore-leg was broken, found fault [with him for not attending to it]. Thereupon the man, taking a medicine and an oil for it, soaked a rag, and tied it round [the leg]. After he had tied it round, the dog went near the hearth, and while it was staying there the fire caught that oiled rag. The four persons had planted a cotton garden, and having [picked and] dried the cotton, had heaped it up. This dog's body coming against the heap of cotton, the fire caught it, and all the cotton burnt away. After that, the four persons quarrelled [over it], and beat each other. [After] beating each other, they went near the King of the country. The whole three persons brought actions against the man [for the value of their shares of the burnt cotton]. How did they bring them? "Ane! O Lord, Your Majesty, we were rearing a dog and planting a cotton garden. We four persons divided the [ownership of the] dog [into shares]. While we were there after dividing it, the fore-leg belonging to this owner was broken. He wrapped it in a cloth [soaked in] oil for wounds. The dog, having gone near the hearth, was sleeping. The fire caught the dog. When it caught it, the dog having gone, jumped upon the heap of cotton which had been dried and heaped up. The cotton was burnt up. Because of it, we ask for [the amount of] the loss from this man." They brought the action thus. The man says, "I am not a guilty person. I only wrapped the oiled rag on the fore-leg for the wound to heal. I did not do it in order to burn the cotton." Thereupon those other three persons [said], "We don't know that. It is owing to you indeed that the cotton was burnt. Because of it, you must pay the [amount of the] loss to us three." After that the King asked, "Was the dog's broken leg so thoroughly broken that it could not place the foot on the ground?" The three persons said, "It could not place the foot on the ground even a little." Then the King having considered, said regarding it, "Because it went by means of the three legs which belonged to you three persons, by your fault the cotton has been burnt, and [the amount of] his loss must be given to that one by you three persons." After that, by those three persons the price of his share of the cotton was paid to the other man. North-central Province. This is one of the stories related of Mariyada Raman (translation by Mr. P. Ramachandra Rao, p. 11), in which four dealers in cotton reared a cat, each one owning one leg. The judgment was that given by the King in the Sinhalese version. This form of the story is known in Ceylon, and was related by a Tom-tom Beater of the interior of the North-western Province. NO. 99 CONCERNING A HORSE A man, taking a horse, went on its back. When so going the [skin on the] horse's back was broken, [a sore being formed which rendered the horse unserviceable]. After it was broken, the man removing the few horse cloths, while the horse was [left] there went away. An oil trader, when coming on that path taking oil, having seen that [the skin on] this horse's back was broken, smeared a little of that oil on it, and went away. Still [another] man having come, when he looked [saw that] a horse had fallen down. When the man looked at it he saw that the [skin on the] back was broken, and that man, taking a great many large rags, bandaged the back well, for it to become strong. Having bandaged it, and having further poured a little oil on it, he went away. Near the path on which was the horse a man cut a chena, and set fire to the chena. When it was blazing some fire-sparks having come and fallen on the oil-rags on this horse's back, the fire seized the horse. Having seized it, when [the rags were] burning it was unable to get up [at first]. The horse having got up, and gone running, jumped into a citronella (paengiri) garden, and while it was running there and here, the fire seized the citronella plants, and the citronella plants burnt completely. The man who owned that citronella garden went near the King for the law-suit. Having gone, he said to the King, "O Lord, Your Majesty, a horse, which having broken [the skin of] its back was wrapped with oil-rags, having jumped into my citronella garden, the citronella garden was totally burnt." Having said this he instituted the action. Regarding it the King said, "It is not the fault of the man who wrapped the oil-rags round it. It is not the fault of the horse. Because thou didst not tie the fence [properly] the fault is thine, indeed." The horse having been burnt in that very fire, died. North-central Province. NO. 100 THE STORY OF THE PEARL NECKLACE At a certain city there are a King and a Queen, it is said. While they are there, one day the Queen with the female slave went to bathe at the pool in the King's garden. Having gone there, the Queen, having taken off her garments and put them down, placed her necklace upon the garments; and having told the female slave to stay there the Queen went into the pool, and is bathing. Then the female slave went to bathe. A thievish female Grey Monkey (Waendiriyak) that was in the garden, took the necklace, and having placed it in a hole in a tree remained silent. The Queen having bathed and come ashore, when she looked for the necklace while putting on her garments, there was no necklace. Afterwards she asked at the hand of the female slave, "Where, Bola, is the necklace?" Then the female slave said, "I did not see a person who came here and went away [with it]." Then both of them having come to the palace, the Queen told the King that thieves took the necklace. Thereupon the King caused the Ministers to be brought, and said, "Go quickly and seek ye the necklace." The Ministers speedily tying [up their cloths], [81] began to run [in search of it]. At that time a poor man from a distant place came into the jungle to seek sticks and creepers. When he was coming, the Ministers watching there were saying, "Seize him; he bounded away here." This poor man having heard it thought to himself, "Should I stay here they will seize me. Because of it, having bounded away from here I must go to my village." At the time when the man was running away, the Ministers having gone and seized the man, and beaten and beaten the man with their hands and feet, took him near the King. Thereupon the King asked at the hand of the man, "Didst thou take a gold [and pearl] necklace in this manner?" Then the man thought to himself, "Should I say that I did not take this necklace, the King will behead me. Because of it, I must say that I took it." Having thought this, he said, "I took it." Then the King asked, "Where is it now?" The man said, "I gave it to the Treasurer (sitano) of this city." Afterwards the King having caused the Treasurer to be brought, asked, "Did this man give thee a necklace?" Thereupon the Treasurer thought to himself, "Should I say that he did not give it to me, he will now behead this poor man. Because of it, I must say that he gave it to me." Having thought this, he said, "He gave it." The King asked, "Where is the necklace now?" Then the Treasurer said, "I gave it to a courtesan woman." Afterwards the King caused the courtesan woman to be brought. "Did this Treasurer give thee a necklace?" Thereupon the courtesan woman thought to herself, "What will this be about, that such a Treasurer said he gave me a necklace? Because of it, it is bad to say he did not give it; I must say he gave it." Having thought this, she said, "He gave it." Then the King asked, "Where is it now?" The courtesan woman says, "I gave it to the man who knows the science of astrology (ganita saestara), or to the Gandargaya" (sic). Afterwards the King having caused the Gandargaya to be brought, asked, "Did this courtesan woman give thee a necklace?" At that time the Gandargaya thought to himself, "What is this thing that this woman said? It will be about something regarding which the woman is unable to save herself. It is because of that [she will have said] that I took it that day. Because of it, it is not good to say she did not give me it; I must say she gave it." Having thought this he said, "She gave it." Well then, on that day it became night; there was no time to hear the case. After that, the Ministers said, "Having put all these four persons in one room, outside we must listen secretly to the manner in which this party talk." The King gave permission [to act accordingly]. Afterwards, the Ministers having put the four persons in one room, and shut the door, stayed outside secretly listening. Then firstly that Treasurer asked at the hand of that poor man, "When didst thou give me a necklace? What is this thing thou saidst?" Then the poor man says, "Ane! O Treasurer, I am a very poor man. Your Honour is a very wealthy person. Because of it, in order that I may save myself I said that I gave it to Your Honour. It was for that. Otherwise, when did I give Your Honour a necklace?" Afterwards that courtesan woman asked at the hand of the Treasurer, "O Treasurer, when did you give me a necklace? What is this you said?" Then the Treasurer says, "Thou, also, art a possessor of much wealth. I also am a person who has much wealth. On account of it, because we two can escape from this injury that has occurred [to us], I said it. Otherwise, when did I give thee a necklace?" Then the Gandargaya asked the woman, "What, woman, is this thing that thou saidst? When didst thou give me a necklace?" The courtesan woman says, "Ane! O Gandarvaya, [82] thou, having said sooth, art a person who obtains much wealth. Because of it, as we, having even paid the debt (the value of the necklace), can escape, I said it. Otherwise, when did I give thee a necklace?" Well then, the talk of the four persons was heard by the Ministers who were secretly listening. That day, after it became light, taking the four persons out, they took them near the King. The Ministers who had listened in secret said to the King, "These four persons are not the thieves." Then the King asked the Ministers, "How did ye ascertain that they are not thieves?" The Ministers said, "We stayed listening in secret; by that we ascertained." The King said, "If so, who are the thieves who took this necklace?" Then the Ministers said, "According to the way in which it appears to us, maybe it is a thievish female Grey Monkey that is in the garden, who took the necklace." The Ministers said, "You ought to set free these four persons." After that, the King having released the four persons sent them away. Afterwards, the Ministers having gone to the garden, caught a male Grey Monkey. [After] catching it they came to the palace, and having sewn the jacket and breeches, and put the jacket on the Monkey, and put the breeches [on it], and put flower garlands [on it], and dressed the Monkey, and again sent the Monkey to the garden, the Ministers remained looking on. Then that thievish female Grey Monkey who took the necklace, having seen the Monkey that had been clothed, went to the fork of the tree in which she placed the necklace, and placing the necklace on her neck, came outside. These Ministers having seen it, the Ministers clapped their hands [to frighten her]. At the time when they were saying "Hu," as that female Grey Monkey was going jumping and jumping from tree to tree, the necklace that was on the female Monkey's neck fell to the ground. After that, the Ministers went, and picking it up, came to the royal palace and presented it to the King. On account of it, the King having become much pleased with the Ministers gave them many offices. North-western Province. This is evidently the Jataka story No. 92 (vol. i, p. 224), in which the man who was first caught declared that he gave the necklace to the Treasurer, who said that he passed it on to the Chaplain, who stated that it was given to the Chief Musician, who said he handed it to the Courtesan. To make the monkey produce and wear it, a number of bead necklaces were placed on the necks, wrists and ankles of other monkeys that were caught. In this story the last person charged totally denied having received the necklace. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 181, the Queen hung the necklace on a tree, whence a monkey stole it. A beggar who was arrested first charged a merchant with receiving it from him, and afterwards also, as accomplices, a courtesan, a lute player, and the son of the Minister. The Minister got the King to release the prisoners, and to take the Queen to the park wearing a necklace. When she danced the monkey imitated her, and the necklace fell off its neck. With reference to the remarks of the prisoners in the Sinhalese version, that being wealthy persons they could escape by paying the value of the missing necklace, a statement not found in the Jataka story, Sirr, who was a Deputy Queen's Advocate in Ceylon, stated in Ceylon and the Cingalese (1850), vol. ii., p. 231, that "theft was punished by a fine equal to the value of the stolen property, by flogging, and by imprisonment; or, if the thief immediately restored the property, he was only flogged and paraded through the village where the crime had been committed." According to Dr. Davy, flogging and imprisonment were not always inflicted, however. In the middle of the seventeenth century, according to Ribeiro, "if the thief confessed his crime he was condemned to pay the highest value of the article which satisfied the other party, and as a penalty for his offence double its value to the Royal Treasury" (History of Ceilão, translation by Pieris, 2nd ed., p. 152). NO. 101 THE WIDOW WOMAN AND LOKU-APPUHAMI At a village a Siti [83] widow-mother had a son having the name Appuhami. That Loku-Appuhami, having seen that the men of that district are gambling, came to his mother, and said, "Mother, the men of this village are gambling. Having cooked rice during the day time give me it, and a little money, for me to go to gamble," he said. Then the woman says, "Ane! Son, whence is there money for us? You be quiet," [84] she said. The boy having heard the mother's word, through being unable to gamble went outside the house. When going, this boy saw that two men having been at the cattle herd near a tamarind tree, went away. Having seen them, this boy went there and looked; when he looked two sallis (half-farthings) had fallen down there. After that, this boy having taken the two sallis, said to his mother, "Mother, now then, cook and give me rice, to go to gamble," he said. Hearing that, the old woman asked, "Whence is there money for you?" Then the boy said, "There were two sallis for me at the root of the tamarind tree; they will do for me," he said. After that, the widow-mother having cooked rice dust, gave it. The boy having eaten the rice, went to the gambling place. Having gone, he laid down those two sallis, and told the men to play. The men did not play. Then a youth of that very sort having been there played for it. Then for the two sallis yet two sallis came. Next, he wagered (lit., held) the whole four sallis. On that occasion, for those four sallis yet four sallis came. In this manner he that day won a large amount. Having won and gone from there, on the following day, also, he came. Having come, and when playing that day having lost the money, he played also on credit. Having played on credit, after he went away, on the following day those creditors, through ill-feeling for him, went in order to ask for the debts. When they were going, this boy they call Loku-Appuhami was colouring a cudgel in a good manner. Before that, he had said to his mother, [85] "At first when the men come, when I am asking for betel and areka-nut, you remain silent, looking on. Then I shall come and beat you [with this cudgel]; then fall down as though you died. When I am calling you a second time, do you, having gone into the house and dressed well, like a good-looking young girl, bring the betel box," he said. Well then, she did in that manner. When he did it (i.e., struck her) the woman in that very way fell down. Having fallen, when she was [there] that one (araya) again called her. Then [getting up and] dressing well [inside the house] like a young girl, she takes a betel box. When [she was] coming, those men who came to take the debts asked, "What did you to your mother?" they asked. Then he says, "I made her Tirihan," [86] he said. Having said it, the man went into the house. After he went into the house these men who came to take the debt, thinking, "Ade! It is good for us also to make our women Tirihan; we don't want this debt," and taking that cudgel, bounded off. When they were bounding off, that Loku-Appuhami having quickly (wijahata) sprung out and called those persons (arunta) says, "Ade! You are taking it; that is right. Beat seven persons, and put them into one house (room), and remain without opening the door until the time when seven days are going, [for them] to become Tirihan," he said. Having heard him the party went. Having gone, and having beaten seven persons, and put them into one house, when they were there seven days blue-flies began to go over the walls of the house. Then this party say, "It is indeed because they have become Tirihan that the blue-flies are going." Having said [this] they looked; when they looked all had died. After that, they came in order to seize Loku-Appuhami. Having come they seized him; seizing him, and having placed his arms behind his back and tying him, they went to throw him into the river. Having gone, there was a travellers' shed near the river; having tied him at the post of the travellers' shed, those men went outside, and went away [temporarily]. After they went, a Moorman, taking a drove of laden pack-bulls (tavalama), went near the travellers' shed. When going, having seen that man who is tied to the post, this Moorman asks, "Why, Loku-Appuhami, are you caught and tied to that tree?" "Ane! Tambi-elder-brother, because I have lumbago I am tied." Then he says, "Ane! Loku-Appu, I also have lumbago. Because of it, catch and tie me also to that tree," he says. Then Loku-Appu said, "If so, unfasten me." After that, the Tambi having come, unfastened him. After he unfastened him, Loku-Appuhami having caught him, and placed him at the tree, and tied him, went away, driving the drove of pack-bulls. After he went, those men having come, when they looked he was the Tambi. Then those men say, "Ade! Loku-Appuhami took the appearance of a Moorman!" Having spoken together, and seized that Moorman, they put him into the river and went away. Then Loku-Appuhami, taking that Moorman's drove of pack-bulls, goes through the midst of those men's houses. When [he was] going, a woman said to the men, "Look there! Loku Appuhami who went to be thrown into the river,--On! he is bringing a drove of pack-bulls!" she said. Then a man, being in the house, said, "Strumpet, don't thou tell lies." Scolding her in this manner, the man also came out and looked; when he looked, in very truth (haebaewatama) he is coming! After that, he asked, "Loku-Appuhami, whence (kohendae) are you bringing that drove of pack-bulls and the goods?" Then Loku-Appuhami said, "Having gone to the bottom of the water in the river, when I looked these were [there]. After that, having looked out a good one from them (i.e., a good drove of bulls), [after] selecting it I came away," he said. Having heard that word, the party, as many as stayed at home, said, "We also having gone there, put us into the river to bring an excellent [87] bit of pack-bull drove." Having said, "It is good," calling the party, Loku-Appuhami put a person into the water. Then, having gone into the water, when dying he made a sound, "Boka, Boka," [88] and dust came to the surface. Then the party who stayed on the bank asked, "What, Loku-Appuhami, is that?" Loku-Appuhami says, "That is [because] he is finding excellent droves of pack-bulls." Then the other persons, also, who were on the bank, said, "If so, put us in also, to select good droves of pack-bulls and come." After that, he put that party in also. In that very way the whole of the persons went and died in the river. Loku-Appuhami having returned, taking all the goods that were in those persons' houses, went to those persons' houses. Having gone, he became rich to a good degree (honda haetiyata). North-western Province. This story is another version of the tales numbered 9 and 12 in vol. i, at the end of which the outlines of some variants are given. There is also a Khassonka story of West Africa extremely like the later incidents of No. 10, in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 67. When his mother continually interrupted a young thief who was being questioned by a King, the son stabbed her with his dagger, in reality merely piercing a bottle of ox's blood which was concealed under her cloth. She fell down, the blood poured out, and she seemed to be dead. The son then, uttering spells, three times sprinkled the deceased's face with a cow's tail dipped in water. She recovered, and the son sold the cow's tail to the King for two thousand slaves. When the King cut the throat of his favourite wife and failed to restore her to life, he ordered the thief to be thrown into the river sewn up in an ox-hide. While the slaves who carried him left their bundle on the roadside, the thief, hearing the voices of a pious Muhammadan priest and his pupils and servants, began to cry out that he preferred a life on earth to one in Paradise. The priest opened the skin, and learning that the youth was being forcibly taken to Paradise, gladly exchanged places with him, and was drowned. The thief then took some gold that he found in the priest's house, and reported to the King that the King's father had sent him with it for the King, adding that there was much more to be got in Paradise. The King gave him half the gold, and got himself and his relatives sewn up in hides and thrown into the deepest part of the river. As they did not return the people made the thief King. NO. 102 THE DECOCTION OF EIGHT NELLI FRUITS [89] In a certain country there is a Vedarala. The Vedarala is a person possessing the knowledge of medical practice, a very clever person at telling prognostics (nimiti kimen). There is also a child of the Vedarala's. During the time while they are thus, the boy one day came running near the Vedarala, and said, "Ane! Father, you have been learning so much; you are now dying. Now then, where is your learning that you have taught me?" and he began to cry. After that, [the Vedarala] was not [sufficiently] conscious to tell him anything. While he was about to die, just as he was saying, "Ane! Son, you will have the decoction of eight Nelli [fruits]----" the Vedarala died. He having died, after a little time went by, a man's yoke of buffaloes were lost. After that, the man (minissa) speaks, "Ane! What shall I do? If the Vedarala were [here], he would look at the prognostics [to ascertain] on which hand the yoke of buffaloes went, and he would tell me. It is indeed to our loss that the Vedarala is lost." In that manner he spoke a word. Then one man who was present said, "Why are you saying thus? That Vedarala's son is [there]. Go and look for him, and ask it of him." After that, the man, having gone to the tree and plucked betel leaves, came in the manner in which they came before near the big Vedarala also, and having given betel leaves and money, asked that boy, "How, Vedarala, have my yoke of buffaloes been lost? On account of it you must look at the prognostics." Then the boy said regarding it, "Taking eight Nelli fruits, beat them and pour water [over them]; and having made a decoction, and made rock salt into powder, and put it in, and poured castor-oil in, drink it, and go and seek the yoke of buffaloes. Then they will be found," he said. Afterwards the man came home, and taking eight Nelli fruits, and having beaten them, and poured water [on them], made a decoction; and having made rock salt into powder, and put it in, and poured castor-oil in, drank it in the morning, and went to seek the lost cattle. When going a little far the man began to [experience the purgative effect of the medicine in a severe manner]. As he was going in the chena jungle he met with a pool. The man, washing his hands and feet at the pool, and sitting at noon near a tree at the pool because of the severity of the treatment, remained looking about. While he was looking about for a little time, the yoke of buffaloes, having stayed in that chena jungle and being thirsty, came there and drank water from that pool. While they were drinking, the man went to them, and catching the yoke of buffaloes, took them to the village. Having gone [there] he ate rice, and the [action of the medicine] ceased. On the following day, the man, tying up a pingo (carrying-stick) load and going with it, gave many presents to the Vedarala's boy. When a little time had passed, war having been made on the King of that country, and as still [another] King was coming to seize the country, because there were not people [left] to fight the King was in much fear. While he was thus, that man whose cattle having been lost were found, went and said, "O Lord, Your Majesty, the Vedarala's son, a small Vedarala indeed, somehow or other having made a stratagem on account of that, will do something so that they will not fight." After that, the King having sent men, asked for a device for it. On account of it, he said that everybody who was in the city should drink the decoction of eight Nellis. Thereupon, all in the city having made the decoction, and put in the rock salt and castor-oil, drank it that very night. Having drunk it, the whole of the people having entered the city, while they were sleeping all became [obliged] to go out. The men who stayed in the city would be about a hundred. At the city there is a small window at the back, called "the dark window" (aendiri kawla). From that window each one began to go out ten or twelve times to the open ground. The King who was coming to the city for the war, had sent spies to the city to look if [many] people are there. While the spies stayed looking at this, it was like a wonder. If there was not one, there was another went out until the time when it became light. Having said, "Leaving [out of consideration] the multitude who went out, how many people are there not in the city still! This war does not matter to us; because of it let us go away," all the men whom the King sent went away. After that, having said, "There are too many people at this city," through fear he did not come for the war. After that, the King of this city having given to the Vedarala's son many villages, fields, silver and gold, established him in the post of Minister. Thereafter, having been a soothsayer who bore a name just like that one's father, he was a very wealthy person. North-central Province. The "rock salt" (sahida-lunu) would be salt in crystals, this being the state in which the salt is collected in Ceylon after the water has evaporated. NO. 103. THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS AND TWO DEVATAWAS At a certain time, in the [Sun] Rising world, [90] a Prince was born. In the [Sun] Setting world [91] a Princess was born. When in the Rising world a Devatawa, and in the Setting world a Devatawi were coming to hear Bana (the Buddhist sacred writings), the Devatawa saw the Prince and the Devatawi saw the Princess. On that day, the Devatawa and the Devatawi, both of them, came later than on other days. The Devatawa asked the Devatawi, "Thou not having come [92] at the time when thou camest on other days, why hast thou delayed so much to-day?" Thereupon the Devatawi said, "I saw a Princess. As there is not in this world a beautiful Princess who is equal to the Princess, having stayed looking at the Princess I was delayed." Then the Devatawa [said], "Not like the Princess whom thou sawest, I saw a Prince possessing beauty to the degree which is not in this world. Because of it, having stayed looking at the Prince, I delayed so much." Well then, the Devatawa says, "The Prince whom I saw is more beautiful than the Princess whom thou sawest." The Devatawi says, "The Princess whom I saw is more beautiful than the Prince whom thou sawest." Having said [this], the two had a quarrel there. The Devatawa said, "When it is the time the Princess whom thou sawest is sleeping, for the purpose of looking if the Princess's beauty is more or the Prince's beauty is more, taking her together with even her bed while she is asleep, come thou to the place where this Prince is." Accepting the word, the Devatawi having brought the Princess, deposited her together with even the bed, near the place where the Prince has gone to sleep. After that, the Devatawa and Devatawi say, "We will now test the beauty of these two thus," that is, it was [settled] that when they have awakened these two from sleep, the beauty is the less of the person who first salutes, honours, and pays respects [to the other]. Well then, by the Devatawa the Prince was awakened. But the Prince [having seen the Princess] thinks, "It will be a thing that these parents of mine have done for the purpose of getting to know my motives in not marrying." Having put on the Princess's finger the jewelled ring that was on the Prince's hand, and putting the jewelled ring that was on the Princess's hand on the Prince's finger, not looking on that side, having looked on the other side (i.e., in another direction) he went to sleep. Thereafter awaking the Princess, she saluted and paid honours and respects to the Prince. Still the quarrel of the Devatawi and Devatawa not being allayed, for the purpose of looking which of their two words is right and which wrong, they summoned another Devatawa. The Devatawa having come, says, "Do not ye allow this quarrel to occur; the two persons are of equal beauty." Afterwards the Devatawa tells the Devatawi, "Please bring the Princess to her city, and place her [as before]," he said. The Devatawi did so. Afterwards, in the morning the Prince having arisen, not knowing this wonder that had happened, with the thought that it was done by his father the King, not eating, not drinking, he began to beg his father the King, and the Ministers, to give him the Princess. Thereupon, his father the King and the other persons, having thought, "Whence did we [bring and] place [there] this Princess of whom we are told! Through a malady's causing this to this Prince, he is babbling," began to apply medical treatment. The Princess, just like that, not eating, not drinking, began to beg for the Prince whom the Princess saw. Therefore her parents, just like that, to her also began to apply medical treatment. Vedaralas (doctors) having come, say, "We are unable to cure this malady." But one Vedarala said, "I can cure this malady." When he asked the Prince about the malady, the Prince [said], "I have no malady at all; but not obtaining the Princess whom I saw on the night of such and such a day is my malady." When he asked, "What mark of it have you, Sir?" the Prince said, "The ring that was on her hand,--look here, it is on my hand; the ring that was on my hand is on her hand." Well then, the Veda says, "In whatever country the Princess is I will bring her. You, Sir, without troubling [yourself], eat and drink, and be good enough to remain in pleasure." Thereupon a very great delight was produced for the Prince; the malady disappeared. Afterwards the Veda, taking the ring that was on the Prince's hand, and having gone from city to city successively, entered into the very city at which she alighted. At that time, the inhabitants of the city [said], "Our King's daughter has a malady." The Vedarala having heard it, when he asked, "What manner of illness is that malady?" the inhabitants say, "'Should I not obtain the Prince who was seen at night by me, my life will be lost,' the Princess says." Thereupon the Vedarala says, "I am able to cure the malady." [They informed the King accordingly.] Thereupon the King having given (promised) him several great offices, went summoning the Vedarala to the palace. Then the Vedarala asks the Princess, "What is the malady which has come to you?" When he said it, "Not obtaining the Prince whom I saw at night, indeed, is my malady," she replied. Then when the Vedatema (doctor) showed the ring that he took, with the quickness with which she saw the ring the malady became cured. Afterwards the Vedatema says [to the King], "Even should this malady be [apparently] cured in this manner, yet afterwards she may behave arrogantly. Because of it, there is my Preceptor [whom I must call in]. Having come with him, I must still apply medical treatment for this malady." After that, the King having said, "It is good," and having given him presents and distinctions, allowed him to go. The Vedarala having returned, went [back] with that Prince. After that, the two persons saw and married each other. When they had been [there] a little time, the two persons having come away for the purpose of seeing the Prince's two parents, when they were coming on the road, while she was sleeping near a river, suffering from weariness, the mouth of the Princess's box of ornaments having been opened by the Prince, he remained looking in it. A talisman [93] of the Princess's was there. A bird having carried the talisman aloft, began to go away with it. Thereupon the Prince began to go after the bird; after he had gone on a very distant unfrequented road, it became jungly (walmat), and being unable to find the path [on which he had come], he went to another city. As the Princess was afraid to go to seek the quarter to which the Prince went, putting on the Prince's clothes she went to another city. Having gone to the city, when she went near the King, the King asked what was the work she could do. This Princess says, "I can teach the arts and sciences." Thereupon the King appointed the [apparent] Prince to teach the Princesses, and when ships came from foreign countries to take charge of them [and examine their cargoes],--all these things. And the King, thinking this person is a Prince, married [to her] and gave her a Princess of the King's. Afterwards, not concealing from the Princess that she is a Princess, and the manner in which she is seeking her husband the Prince, she told her not to make it known; and she also concealed it in that very way. The Prince, on the journey on which he went to seek the ornament, having joined a man of another city, remained doing work for wages. While he was in that condition, when two birds were fighting, one having split open the stomach of the other threw it down. When the Prince looked at it, the ornament that he sought having been [in it], he met with it. From the country in which is the Prince, ships go to the country in which is the Princess. The gardener [under whom he worked] having obtained and given goods to the Prince, the Prince, taking the Princess's talisman and having put it in a box, [94] was about to go [in a ship] for the sale of the goods. But a little before he was coming away, they sent word that an illness had befallen the gardener, and when he went to look [at him] the ships went away. At that time the ships went to the other city. Afterwards, at the time when [the Princess] was examining the goods of the ships she met with this ornament. When she asked, "Whose are these goods?" on their saying they were those of such and such a gardener's labourer, she confiscated the goods until they brought him. Afterwards the sailors, having gone back, brought him. After that, having caused him to bathe in scented sandal water, and [the King] having appointed him to the sovereignty, marrying both the Princesses he remained [there]. P B. Madahapola, Ratemahatmaya, North-western Province. This story is evidently that found in the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. 2, p. 307), and termed there "Tale of Kamar al-Zaman," although in some details it adheres more closely to a story given in the Katha Sarit Sagara. In the Arabian Nights, the father of the Prince was King of the Khalidan Islands--(stated to be the Canaries)--and the Princess's father was the King of "the Islands of the Inland Sea in the parts of China." A Jinn Princess saw and admired the Prince, who had been imprisoned for refusing to marry; and an Ifrit saw the Princess, and by the order of the Jinn Princess brought her while asleep (without the bed) and laid her beside the sleeping Prince. At the suggestion of an Ifrit whom they summoned to decide their dispute as to which was the more beautiful, they awoke first the Prince and then, when he was asleep, the Princess, each of whom took the other's finger ring. The Princess was then carried back. Next day the two were thought to be insane, and they were kept in prison for three years. The Princess's foster-brother found the Prince, cured him by telling him about the Princess, and returned with him. He visited the Princess disguised as an astrologer; she at once recovered, and her father gave her in marriage to the Prince, as well as the rule over half the kingdom. The rest of the story agrees closely with that given above. The Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 209, contains a story which seems to be the Indian original of the first part of the tale. The second part relating to the loss and recovery of the talisman, appears to be an evident addition, since the first part is a complete tale by itself. The Indian story is as follows:-- At the orders of the God Ganesa, the Ganas his attendants transported Prince Sridarsana of Malava (without his bed), while asleep, to Hansadwipa, an island in the Western Sea, and placed him on the bed on which the King's daughter lay asleep. He awoke, thought it a dream, nudged her shoulder, and she awoke. When they had exchanged ornaments, the Ganas stupefied them and carried back the Prince. Next day the Prince's father, after hearing his story, issued a proclamation, but could not discover where Hansadwipa was. The Princess's father ascertained the facts by means of the power of contemplation possessed by an ascetic, who went "in a moment" by his mystical power to Malava, cured a madman by the touch of his hand, and was requested to restore the Prince to happiness. He carried him back to Hansadwipa, and after the two lovers were married conveyed them both to Malava, where the Prince eventually succeeded to the throne. In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 29, a Prince by means of a magic ring caused a Princess to be transported to him while asleep on her bed. They agreed to be married, and he then sent her back to her own room in the same way. On the following day she told her father that she had dreamt of this Prince and had determined to marry him. A few days afterwards the Prince's Ministers arrived to ask her hand in marriage, and when the Prince went there they were married. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 299, a Prince who refused to marry was imprisoned by his father. Three Bongas (deities) saw him, the wife of the Bonga chief proposed to give him a bride, and during the next night he found a Bonga maiden sitting beside him when he awoke. They exchanged rings, were seen by the warders, who informed the Raja, and they were married. NO. 104 CONCERNING THE PRINCE AND THE PRINCESS WHO WAS SOLD In a certain country there was the son of a King. He gave charge of him to a teacher, and told him to teach the son. On the day on which he was handed over he was not there. On the following day, only, having gone to the school, after that having said he was going to school he went to the high road, and during the whole day-time [95] having been eating and eating kaju [nuts] in the evening he comes home and says that he went to school. A single person does not know of this deceit. In this manner, while two or three years are going he did thus. The teacher also did not give information to the King about this matter. He not giving it, one day the King to look into this Prince's learning wrote a letter and placed it on the table. After that lying Prince came, having said that he went to school, [the King], with the view that "If he was learning it is good for me to ascertain easily by [means of] letters," said, "Son, on that table there is a letter. I omitted (baeri-wuna) to look at it. Break it [open] and look what the letter is." Thereupon the Prince, having broken [open] the letter and looked at it, said, "Ane! Father, except that in this there are a sort of strokes and strokes, and a sort of drops, I indeed cannot perceive anything." Then the King having become angry at the teacher sent him a letter. The teacher having looked at the King's letter, sent a letter thus: "Ane! O King, except that you, Sir, handed over your son, I have not even yet seen the Prince after that." Thereupon the King having said, "We do not want the disobedient son," caused the executioners to be brought, and having said, "Having taken him and gone into the midst of the forest, you must behead him," gave him [to them]. At that time the Prince's Mother-Queen said to the executioners, "Don't kill him"; and having spoken to them and given a hundred thousand masuran to the Prince, and said, "Without having come bounding into this country again, go you to another country and get your livelihood," sent him away. As the Prince was going away to another country, he saw that four persons, holding a man who is dead, are dragging him to the four sides, and he asked, "Ane! You are tormenting that dead man! Why?" Then the men [said], "We four men are to get four hundred masuran from this man. [For us] to let him go, will you give the four hundred masuran?" they asked. Thereupon this Prince, having seen the torment they were causing to the dead body, said, "It is good"; and having given four hundred masuran to the four men, and further having given five hundred masuran, and caused the corpse to be buried, the Prince went away. That dead man having gone, was [re]born, and became a fish in the sea. When this Prince went from that city to another city, he saw that on account of a want of money the King was selling a Princess and two Princes of the King of the city; and this Prince having become inclined to take that Princess asked the price for the Princess. The King said, "It is a thousand masuran." Then when the Prince looked at the account of the masuran which he had, except that there were a thousand masuran by account, there was not even one in excess. [96] After that, having been considering and considering it, he gave the thousand masuran, and taking the Princess, went away. That this Prince is a royal Prince no one knows. Then this Prince, calling the Princess also, went to a house at which washermen stayed. The washermen asked, "Where are ye going?" Thereupon the Princess and Prince said, "We are going to a place where they give to eat and to wear." Then the washermen, in order to take [them for] work for them, said, "It is good. If so, remain ye here." Thereupon the two persons stayed there. When they were [there] not much time, the washermen, thinking, "What are we giving to eat to these two for?" said, "Go ye to any quarter ye want." At that time, the young Prince and Princess [97] having gone to yet [another] garden, building a stick house [there], this Prince having told that Princess to be in the house went and plucked coconuts during the whole day-time (dawal tisse). Taking the coconuts given as his hire (baelagedi), and having given them at the shop, in the evening procuring two gills of rice and the requisite things for it he comes back. When he brought them, what does that Princess do? Each day she put away at the rate of half a gill from the rice, and cooked the other things; and having given to the Prince also, and the Princess also having eaten, in this manner, when three or four days had gone, the rice that she put away was collected [sufficient] for eating at still a meal or two. Then the Princess said to the Prince, "Elder brother, [in exchange] for the things you obtain to-day not getting anything [else], bring a cubit of cloth, and thread, and a needle." Thereupon, having given the coconuts obtained that day he brought a cubit of cloth, and thread, and a needle. After he brought them, having eaten and drunk in the evening, and spread and given the mat for the Prince to sleep on, what does this Princess do? Having cut the cubit of cloth, and put sewing on it worth millions (koti ganan) of masuran, she sewed a handkerchief. Having sewn it, and finished as it became light, she said to that Prince, "Elder brother, give this, and not stating a price, asking for only what the shopkeeper gave [for such an article] bring that." Thereupon the Prince, taking the handkerchief, went to three or four shops. The shopkeepers said, "We have no words [to say] regarding taking that handkerchief." At that time there was still a great shop; to it he took it. The shopkeepers, taking the handkerchief, having seen the marvel of it, asked, "For this handkerchief how much?" Then this Prince said, "I cannot state a price for that. Please give the price that you give." Thereupon the shopkeepers having said, "Take as much rice and vegetables as you can," after he got them gave also a hundred thousand masuran. This Prince taking them and having returned, those two persons remained eating and drinking. In those days the King who sold the Princess made a proclamation by beat of tom-toms, [98] that is, "If there should be a person who came [after] finding my Princess, having married the Princess to him I will decorate him with the royal crown." Thereupon the King's Minister having said, "I can come [after] finding her; I want time for three months, and a handkerchief that the Princess sewed," asked for [the handkerchief]. The King gave it. Then the Minister also having come by sea, landed at the city at which this Princess and Prince stay. Having come there, he showed and showed that handkerchief at the shops, while asking, "Are there handkerchiefs of this kind?" The shopkeepers who got that handkerchief said, "Here; we have one," and showed it. Thereupon the Minister asked at the hand of the shopkeepers, "Who gave this handkerchief?" The shopkeepers said, "Behold. The man who stays at the house in the lower part of that garden brought and gave it." So having gone near the house, when he looked only the Princess was [there], not the Prince. Having said at the hand of the Princess, "Your father the King said to you [that you are] to go with me," he showed the handkerchief. Thereupon the Princess said, "No. It is not father who provided subsistence for me for so much time. There is a person who provided my livelihood. Because of it, unless I ask from him and go, without [doing so] I will not go." At that time the Prince came. After he came this Princess said to the Prince, "Elder brother, my father the King having said that I am to go, has sent this Minister. What do you say about it?" she asked. The Prince said, "If you will go, go; if you will be [here], stay. It is [according to] any wish of yours." Then the Princess spoke, "Don't say so, elder brother. Except that if you told me to stay I will stay, and if you told me to go I will go, for the word of my father the King I will not go. Because of it, let the whole three of us go." Thereupon the Prince also having said, "It is good," the whole three having embarked began to go. While going thus, except that the Princess and Prince remain on one side, and that Minister on one side, they do not allow him to approach them. The Minister is much annoyed about it. They went six days on the sea. On the whole six days, having said that the Minister will put into peril and kill the Prince, the Princess without sleeping remains simply looking on when the Prince has gone to sleep. In that way, on the seventh day after they embarked, the Princess being sleepy could not bear up, and said to the Prince, "Elder brother, during the time while I sleep a little you remain awake." Having said [this], the Princess went to sleep. The Prince having been awake a little time, through the manner of his reclining went to sleep. Thereupon this Minister having awoke, when he looked having perceived that both were asleep, quickly rolled the Prince into the sea. Just as he was thus rolling him over, that dead man having become a fish and having been [there], came and seized him behind. Having thus seized him, placing him on its back the fish asked at the hand of the Prince, "What will you give me to put you ashore?" Then the Prince said, "I have not a thing to give now. From the [first] things that I obtain afterwards I will give you a half part." Thereupon the fish brought him and put him ashore. Afterwards the Prince went to the Princess's city. [Having landed], that Minister said to the Princess, "Let us go to the palace." Thereupon the Princess said, "I will not go with thee. Tell thou my father to come." So the Minister having gone, told the King to come. Thereupon the King came. At that time that Prince also stayed near, so that he should be visible to the Princess. The Princess, having seen the Prince, asked, "Father, in this country how are the laws now regarding journeys?" The King said, "What, daughter, are you saying that for? They are just like [they were] when you were [here]." Thereupon the Princess said, "At the time when you were sending letters to me, my elder brother who gave me food and clothing, and I, and the Minister, having embarked came away. My elder brother who provided subsistence for me was lost. You must make inquiry about it in a thorough manner." Then the King having made inquiry and looked [into the matter], getting to know that the Minister threw him into the sea, [found that] unless he beheads the Minister there was nothing else [to do]. Because of it, he commanded them to behead the Minister. After that they beheaded him. Then, this Princess first marrying the Prince himself, he appointed the Prince to the sovereignty. Well then, when they are there no long time, the two persons went to the sea to bathe. At that time that fish having come, seizing the Prince's leg asked, "Where is the charge you undertook for me that day?" This Princess having heard it, asked, "What does it say?" Thereupon the Prince said, "When I was falling into the sea that day, this fish, taking me on its back, asked at my hand, 'What will you give [me] to put you on shore?' Then I said, 'From the things that I obtain first I will give a [half] share.' That share it now asks for." At that time the Princess having given into the Prince's hand the sword that was on the shore, said, "It is I whom you obtained first. Because of it, having split a [half] share off me give it to the fish." Then the fish said, "No need of it for me. This Prince one day has expended one thousand (sic) four hundred masuran over a dead body. Please say you do not want that debt. [I was that dead body]." Thereupon the Prince said, "I do not want the debt." After that, the fish having completely let go went away. The Prince-King and the Princess-Queen, both of them, [after] bathing came to the palace. Finished. North-western Province. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. v, p. 304), Princess Miriam, daughter of the King of France, who had been in a vessel that was captured, was offered for sale in Alexandria, and was bought by a youth for a thousand gold dinars (about £500), all the money he had. Each night she knitted a silk girdle, which he sold in the morning for twenty gold dinars. While he was wearing on his head a beautiful silk handkerchief worked by her, the work was recognised by a Minister sent by the French King in search of her. He bought it for a thousand dinars, and gave a feast at which he made the youth drunk and induced him to sell the Princess for ten thousand dinars; she was carried back to France, and married to the Minister. After some adventures while the youth was endeavouring to carry her off, the two lovers escaped to Baghdad, and were formally married by the Khalif. With her own hand she killed the Minister when he came to demand her return to France. Sir R. F. Burton agreed with Dr. Bacher that this story is based on a legend of Charlemagne's daughter Emma and his secretary Eginhardt (vol. vi, p. 290). Notwithstanding its resemblance to this tale, the Sinhalese story may be an independent one. The account of the Princess who works a jacket or scarf occurs in Nos. 8 and 248, in which, also, the sale led to her abduction. In a variant, robbers carried her off and sold her for a thousand masu. NO. 105 THE PRINCESS HETTIRALA In a certain country there are a King and a Queen, it is said. There is also a Prince (son) of those two persons. Having given seven thousand masuran, a Princess was brought, and given to the Prince by the King and Queen. The Prince that night having spoken to the Princess, told her to warm a little water and give him it. To that having said, "I will not," the Princess went to sleep. On that account, next morning the Prince went and sent away the Princess. After that, again having given seven thousand masuran, and brought yet [another] Princess, they gave [her to him]. In that very way having told that Princess to warm water, because she did not warm it he went and sent her away. Thus in that manner having brought six Princesses, because they did not warm water in the night he sent away the whole six. After that, having given ten thousand masuran, and come summoning yet a Princess, they gave [her to him]. That Princess at the time when the Prince told her, having warmed water gave it. Well then, while he is causing the days to pass with much affection for the Princess, the whole of the men of that country became ready to go to Puttalam. This Prince also having thought of going, when he asked [permission] at the hand of the King, the King and Queen, both of them, said, "Don't go. If you eat the things that are here and stop [here], it will be sufficient for you. They go to Puttalam near the city of the courtesan woman. When they are going away from there the courtesan woman catches and takes them, having said, 'Don't even go.'" They said many things. But the Prince without hearkening to it went away to Puttalam with the men. Having gone, he went to the city of the courtesan woman. Then certain men having been there, said, "Here, indeed, is the tavalam place [99]; throw down the sacks." Well then, this party threw down the sacks. Having thrown down the sacks, when they were becoming ready to cook, the courtesan woman having come, said, "Don't you cook; I am preparing food for all." The woman, however many persons should come, gives food to the whole of them. That night, also, having prepared food for these people, and called them to the house, and apportioned the cooked rice and given it, she said, "Having eaten this cooked rice and eaten betel, should my cat be holding the light at the time when it is becoming finished, this multitude, the cattle, and the sacks are mine. Should it be unable [to do] thus, my city, people, cattle, sacks, and all my goods are yours," she wagered and promised. This multitude having become pleased at it, began to eat the cooked rice. When they began, the cat came, and sitting down in the midst of the multitude remained holding the light. Having eaten both the cooked rice and the betel, because at the time when they were finishing it remained holding the light, the multitude, the cattle, the sacks, became attached [100] to the courtesan woman (i.e., became her property). This multitude being unable to go away, a number of years went by. The Princess's parents having ascertained that that Prince's Princess is living alone, without the Prince, the two came to go away with the Princess. That King and Queen (the Prince's parents), having said that on the top of the sorrow at the loss of the Prince they cannot send away the Princess also, were much agitated. But the Princess's parents without listening to it, joining with the Princess went to the Princess's country. Well then, the Princess, for the purpose of bringing the Prince, spoke to the men of the Princess's country: "Let us go to Puttalam." The men said, "Having gone away to Puttalam, so many persons were caught at the courtesan woman's city so many years ago; if, again, we also go and should be caught, how shall we come back? We will not." Thereupon the Princess said, "Without your becoming caught, I will save you; without fear do you become ready to go with me." After that, many persons got ready. The Princess having cut a long bamboo stick, and cleaned it inside, caught seven mice and put them in it; and having caught a few frogs and put them in it for food for the mice, closed both ends and put a little polish on the outside. The Princess having dressed in Hetti dress, taking that staff made the name [for it], having said that the name was "tavalam staff." Well then, this Hettirala (the Princess) went away to Puttalam with those many persons. Having gone, when they came to the city of the courtesan woman, certain men having been [there] said, "Here, indeed, is the tavalama place; throw down the sacks." Well then, having thrown down the sacks, when they were becoming ready to cook, the courtesan woman came and said, "I am preparing food for you also; don't cook;" and in the very manner [in which she behaved] to that first party, gave rice and made the promise. When this party were eating cooked rice, the cat, sitting in the midst of this party, is holding the lamp. [101] This Princess who was the Hettirala, having opened one side (end) of the tavalama staff, sent two mice to go near the cat's head. The cat, not having even opened its eyes, did not look [at them]. This Princess sent still two mice. At that also it did not awake and look; silently it remained holding the light. Then she sent the other three mice. Instantly the cat, having let go the lamp, sprang to catch the mice. Well then, the city, the multitude of the city, the cattle, the sacks, and the whole of the goods became the property of the Princess. Well then, the Princess having told about this to the Princess's Prince also, and having started off that party [who accompanied her] to the Princess's country, the Prince and Princess went with the party from the Prince's country. When they were coming along to the Prince's country, the Prince's mother and the King too, remained weeping and weeping under a tree in the rice field, wearing a sort of ugly clothes, the hair of the head unfastened and hanging down, and mucus trickling down, filthy to the extent that they could not look at them. The Prince and Princess having seen from very far that these two are [there], dressed themselves. But the two persons were unable to recognise the Prince and Princess. Having come very near they asked the King and Queen, "What are you weeping there for?" Thereupon, the two say, "There was only a single son of ours. There is news that that son, having gone away to Puttalam, has been caught at the courtesan woman's city. Now then, we have nobody; because of it we are weeping." Thereupon these two persons said, "Well then, what shall we do about that? Will you give us a resting-place in your kingdom?" they asked. Then these two persons having said, "We can," and having gone summoning them to the palace, gave them the resting-place. This Princess, taking off the Hetti clothes, and the Prince, having put on other clothes in such a manner that they can recognise them, and having summoned the King and Queen, the Princess told all this account from the top to the root, and having said, "Behold! Your Prince is [here]," she handed him over to them. Thereupon, this King and Queen having prepared sandal milk, [102] and caused the Prince and Princess to bathe in it, gave charge of the King's kingdom to the Princess; and in that very palace these four persons passed the time in a good manner. North-western Province. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 149, a woman who kept a gambling house was accustomed to win from everyone by the aid of her cat, which brushed against the lamp and extinguished it when the play was going against her. A young woman whose husband had in this way lost everything he possessed, and who had lost his liberty also, went in search of him, bribed the servants to tell her the secret of the gambling woman's success, and then went to play disguised as a man, having a mouse concealed in her sleeve. When the cat approached the lamp she released the mouse, which was chased by the cat. In the meantime she won back all that her husband lost. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Dr. Bodding), p. 115, a Prince while travelling was robbed of all his belongings by a Raja, and became a labourer. His wife, hearing of it, went to the same place, and it was settled that the person towards whom the Raja's cat jumped should possess the wealth taken from the Prince. The Princess had taken a mouse with her, and kept partly uncovering it and covering it again with her shawl. When the cat was released it sprang towards her to seize the mouse, so she regained the property. In Folk-Tales of Tibet (O'Connor), p. 39, a young man bet a person at whose house he halted that when it became night a cat would not carry a lantern into the room. Each person wagered all his property. The landlord's cat being trained to bring in the lantern, he won the wager, and the man became his servant. His wife came in search of him disguised as a man. She made the usual bet, got her husband to conceal in his bosom a box containing three mice, and to release these in turn when the cat approached. The cat allowed the first two to run off, but dropped the lantern and chased the last one. The man and his wife returned home with all the landlord's goods as well as their own. NO. 106 THE MAEHIYALLE-GAMA PRINCESS In a certain city there are seven elder brothers and younger brothers, it is said. Younger than the whole seven there is a young younger brother. Those seven elder brothers said to the younger brother, "Younger brother, you must bring a wife for yourself. In that way having eaten a meal from that house and a meal from this house, you cannot end [your] existence." Then the younger brother said, "I indeed at any time whatever will not bring a wife." Thereupon the elder brother said to the younger brother, pushing him, "If so, remain looking out in order to call [in marriage] the Maehiyalle-gama Princess." After that, the younger brother, having said, "It is so indeed," tied a ladder in order to go to Maehiyalle-gama. When he had gone along the ladder a considerable distance, having fallen from the ladder to the ground the Prince went into dust (kuduwela giya). After that, having come from the city Awulpura, they picked up the bits into which the Prince was smashed; having come from the great city Handi they joined them together; having come from Upadda city they caused the Prince to be [re]-born. [103] After that, the Prince went to Maehiyalle-gama. When he went there, the Princess having gone to bathe, only the servants were at the palace. The servants having gone, said to the Princess, "Some one or other has come to our palace." Then the Princess told them to give him a mat at the calf-house. The servants having given him a mat at the calf-house, he did not sit down. Again the servants went and said at the hand of the Princess, "He did not sit down." After that, the Princess told them to give him a mat at the manduwa (open shed). The servants gave a mat at the shed. The Prince did not sit down. Again the servants went and said at the hand of the Princess, "He did not sit down." Then the Princess told them to spread a mat inside the palace and give it. The servants spread a mat inside the palace, and gave it. The Prince did not sit down. The servants again having gone, said at the hand of the Princess, "He did not sit down." Then the Princess told them to give him a chair. Afterwards the servants gave a chair. The Prince did not sit down. The servants again went and said at the hand of the Princess, "He did not sit down." The Princess told them to give him a couch. Afterwards the servants gave a couch. The Prince did not sit down. The servants went and said at the hand of the Princess, "Then, also, he did not sit down." Afterwards the Princess said, "Give the couch on which I recline, if so." The servants gave the couch on which the Princess reclines. After that, the Prince sat down. Then the Princess, also, [after] bathing came to the palace. Having come, the Princess said at the hand of the servants, "To that person who has come give food." Then the servants asked at the hand of the Princess, "In what shall we give the cooked rice?" Then the Princess told them to give pieces of leaf. Afterwards the servants having put the cooked rice on pieces of leaf gave him it. The Prince did not eat. After that, the servants said at the hand of the Princess, "He does not eat." Then the Princess told them to put it on a plate and give it. The servants having put it on a plate gave it. He did not eat. The servants said at the hand of the Princess, "He did not eat." Afterwards the Princess said, "If so, put the plate upon the betel tray and give it." The servants having put the plate upon the betel tray, gave it. The Prince did not eat. Again the servants said at the hand of the Princess, "Then, also, he did not eat." Afterwards the Princess said, "Put it on my golden dish and give it." The servants, having put it on the Princess's golden dish, gave it. The Prince ate. After that, the Princess having come near the Prince, asked, "What is He? [104] A Yaka, or a Deity?" Then the Prince said, "I am neither a Yaka nor a Deity; a man." Then the Princess asked, "For what matter has He Himself come here?" The Prince said, "To marry the Princess; I for no other business whatever have come." The Princess said, "If so, stay." After that, the Princess marrying the Prince, when he was there for a considerable time the Prince said, "I must go to our city and come back." Then the Princess said, "I also must come." The Prince having said, "Ha, it is good; let us go," the two went to the Prince's city. Near the city there is a well; near the well there is a tree. Having caused the Princess to stay in the tree, the Prince went into the city to bring a horse for the Princess to go to the city. After he went there, a woman of the smiths' caste (aciri gaeni) came to the well for water. Having come, when the smith woman looked in the direction of the well, the reflection of the Princess who was in the tree appears in the well. She saw the figure, the smith woman. Having seen it, the woman thought it was the woman's [own] figure, and having seen the beauty of it, thought, "Ade! I am such a good looking woman as this! Why came I for water?" When she looked up the tree she saw that the Princess is [there], and the smith woman says, "Ane! Having descended, please bathe with a little water [that I will draw for you]. Why are you there?" The Princess remained there without descending. The smith woman once more said, "Please descend." Afterwards, the Princess having descended, and taken off her clothes, while she was bathing the smith woman said, "Please bend down for me to rub your back." The Princess bent down. Then the smith woman raised her and threw her into the well. The Princess was unable to come to the ground. The smith woman, putting on the clothes of the Princess, climbed up the tree. Then the Prince having come there bringing a horse, the Prince stopped, and thinking that the smith woman was the Princess, told the smith woman to descend; and the Prince and the smith woman went to the city on the horse. Then a blind man came near the well for water. The Princess, being in the well, said, "Having torn the cloth of the person who came for water, and knotted the pieces together, put it into the well." Afterwards, having torn the blind man's cloth, he put it into the well. Seizing it, the Princess came to the ground; and making clear the two eyes of the blind man, she went with the blind man [? to her palace]. North-western Province. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 3, while a King and Queen were travelling, a shoemaker's wife pushed the Queen into a well when she was going to drink, and then took her place, and held the King's head on her lap. Evidently she was accepted by the King as his wife, since she accompanied him when he proceeded on his journey. In the same work, p. 143, while a Prince was sleeping, his Princess, who was sitting at his side, was induced by a woman who came up, to exchange clothes and hand over her jewellery. Afterwards the two strolled about, went, at the woman's suggestion, to look at themselves in the water of a well, and the woman then pushed her in, and took her place beside the Prince. When he awoke, the woman attributed the change in her appearance to the bad air of the country, and he went off with her, and married her. NO. 107 THE WICKED PRINCESS In a country there was a King; the King had a Prince (son). He sent the Prince to a school to learn the arts, and the Prince quickly learnt the arts. The teacher, having become pleased with the Prince, gave his daughter in marriage to the Prince. When they were thus for no long time the Prince's father, the King, died. At that time he set out to go back with the Princess to his own country. When going, they were obliged to go through the middle of a forest on the path on which they were going. In the midst of the forest there was a Vaedda King. The Vaedda King having seen this Princess and Prince, asked, "Who are you? To go where, came you?" Thereupon the Prince says, "I indeed am the Prince called Manam, of the King here; this is my Princess," he said. "It is good. Who gave you permission to go through the middle of this forest of mine? Owing to your coming without permission, I shall now kill you," he said. "Otherwise, if you wish to go to your kingdom, having now made this Princess remain here, you may go." The Prince says, "I will not go, leaving here my Princess whom I married in my youth. If you will not let us go, it will be better that we two should die." When he had said this, the Vaedda King, although he spoke about it again and again, did not listen to him. Afterwards, having caused his army to be brought, "Look now at this army of mine," he said; "they will kill you. Then you will not have your kingdom, nor your Princess. Obtaining your kingdom will be better than that, having caused your Princess to remain here, and having gone, saving your life," he said. Then the Prince said, "My kingdom does not matter to me if there be not my Princess." "It is good. If so, look, now, in a little [time], at the way I shall kill you." "No matter for that." "My army! Come. Kill this Prince." Then the Vaeddas came running, bringing bows and arrows. The Prince having said to the Princess, "You sit down. Look at what I do to these Vaeddas. Don't cry. The favour of the Gods is for us," taking his bow, fights with the army of the Vaedda King. Having said, "Shoot! Kill the Prince!" all came, and sprang [forward], and began to shoot. The Prince having given his sword into the hand of his very Princess, taking the bow began to shoot at them. Well then, all having fallen, a few persons, only, being left over, they bounded off and went away. At that time the Vaedda King said, "Is He [105] a great clever one! What of my army's inability! I will not allow Him [105] to take the Princess and go. Come to fight,--we two persons;" and he called him. Thereupon the Prince, after he (the Vaedda King) took his bow, says, "Not in that way. We two having wrestled, must cut off the head of the person who should fall," he said. "It is good. I am satisfied." "If so, come. Princess, take this sword of mine," he said. At that time, the Vaedda having looked in the direction of the Princess, and having spoken [to her] without the Prince's knowing, the Princess was mentally bound to the Vaedda King. He had no beauty,--a very black colour. The Prince was a very beautiful person. Well then, while they were wrestling, the Vaedda King having got underneath, fell. Then the Prince asked the Princess for the sword. The Princess quickly having given the sheath of the sword to the Prince, gave the sword blade to the Vaedda King. Well then, the Vaedda King cut the Prince's neck with the sword blade. The Prince died. The Princess says, "Good work! That indeed was in my mind. Now then, there is no fear; we can remain," she said. The Vaedda King says, "You are very good. If you were not [here] to-day, no life for me. Owing to your faithfulness, indeed, I survive. Having taken off your clothes, and the tied things (belt, bracelets, necklace, etc.) and ornaments, give them into my hand, in order to place them on the [other] bank of that river, and come back," he said. Seizing them, and having taken them and placed them somewhere, and returned [he said], "Let us go; we have not any fear." Taking her to the middle of the river, he said, "Throughout this world there is not an evil bad woman like you." Having said, "It is bad [even] to remain in the country in which is the woman who gave the sword sheath, in order to kill outright the Prince whom you married while young,--having tied your mind on me whom you saw to-day [only]," having said this, he bounded off and went away. Her ornaments and her clothes having been lost, without even a place to go to for food or clothing, while she was on the bank of the river in the midst of the forest, a Jackal came running to the place where the Princess was staying, holding in his mouth a piece of meat. Having come there [and seen the reflection of the meat in the water], he placed the piece of meat on the ground, and sprang to seize a piece of meat that was inside the river. Then a kite that was flying above, having come, flew away, taking the piece of meat. The Princess having been looking on at it, says, "Bola! Foolish Jackal! Putting aside the piece of meat that was in thy mouth, thou wentest to eat meat in the river! Was that good?" After she had scolded him, the Jackal says, "Not like my foolishness was yours. Having been staying married to the King here, having indeed gone to be married to the Vaedda King seen [by you] at that very instant, now you are staying in that way, without even to eat or to wear, or even a place to go to. It is thou thyself hast done foolishness more than I." Having said this, and scolded her well, he went away. Afterwards the God Sakra having come, taking a Jackal's disguise, because of the wickedness which the Princess did, bit her and tore her to pieces. (According to a variant related by a Washerman she joined a poor man and went about with him, getting a living by begging, until she died.) P. B. Madahapola, Ratemahatmaya, North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 184, this story was given by Mr. H. A. Pieris, extracted from a dramatic work called Kolan-kavi-pota. A King named Maname and his Queen while on a hunting excursion lost their way in the forest. The Vaedda King stopped them, but offered to release the King if he would hand over the Queen. The King refused, they fought, and the Vaedda King got him down. Maname asked the Queen for his sword; but as she had fallen in love with the handsome Vaedda she held out the sheath, and when the King seized it drew out the sword and gave it to the Vaedda, who cut off the King's head. Afterwards the Vaedda made off with her jewels and clothes at the river. While she sat there, Sakra appeared in the form of a fox (jackal), holding a piece of meat, Matali as a hawk, and another deva [Pañcasikka] as a fish. The jackal dropped its meat on the bank, and plunged into the water to seize the fish as it swam by; the hawk then carried off the piece of meat. The Queen remarked on the stupidity of the jackal, which replied that her folly was greater than his; and she died of a broken heart when she realised it. This story is simply the Jataka tale No. 374 (vol. iii, p. 145), except that in the Jataka the woman is not described as dying or being killed. In the Aventures de Paramarta of the Abbé Dubois, a dog which had stolen a leg of mutton in a village, while crossing a river with it observed its reflection in the water, let go its own mutton, and sprang to seize that of the other dog, of course losing both. In the Tota Kahani (Small), p. 81, a young married woman eloped with a stranger one night, and while near a pond he stole her jewels when she was asleep. In the morning a jackal came up, carrying a bone. Seeing a fish that had fallen on the bank, it dropped the bone and rushed to catch the fish, which floundered into the water. In the meantime the bone was carried off by a dog. The woman laughed, quoted a proverb, "He who leaves the half to run after the whole, gets neither the whole nor the half," and told the jackal her story. It recommended her to return home shamming insanity; she did this, and allayed suspicion by it. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 76, a fool who went to drink water at a tank saw in it the reflection of a golden-crested bird that was sitting on a tree. Thinking it was real gold, he entered the water several times to get it, but the movement of the surface caused it to disappear each time. In Julien's Les Avadanas this story is No. XLVI, vol. i, p. 171; in this tale the man saw the reflection of a piece of gold which the bird had placed in the tree. In the Preface to The Kathakoça, p. xvii, Mr. Tawney quoted from Professor Jacobi's introduction to the Parisishta Parvan the Jain form of the story, in which the robber left the Queen without clothing on the river bank. The Vyantara god, in order to save her soul, took the form of a jackal carrying a piece of flesh. When he dropped it and rushed to seize a fish that sprang on the bank, a bird carried off the meat. The Queen laughed, the jackal retorted, exhorted her to take refuge in the Jina, and she became a nun. In Les Avadanas (Julien), No. LXXV, vol. ii, p. 11, a woman eloped with her lover, who carried her gold, silver, and clothes across a river and abandoned her. A fox which had caught a sparrow-hawk came up, let go the hawk in order to spring at a fish in the river, and lost both. When the woman remarked on his stupidity, the fox admitted it, and retorted that hers was still greater. This is the form in which the story occurs in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 381; but in vol. ii, p. 367, there is a variant which agrees with the following Tibetan tale. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 232, a robber chief for whom a woman abandoned a blind man, sent her first into the river and then made off with her things. A jackal which came with a piece of flesh dropped it in order to seize a fish on the bank; this sprang into the water, and a vulture carried away the meat. After the usual retorts, the jackal agreed to assist her on her promising it meat daily, told her to stand in the water immersed to the neck, and persuaded the King whose wife she had been to pardon her on account of this penance. NO. 108 HOLMAN PISSA A certain King had a very beautiful Princess (daughter). With much affection he sent the Princess to school. Having sent her, during the time while she was learning, the teacher who was instructing her asked this Princess, "Princess, wilt thou come to marry me?" Thereupon, the Princess because he was her teacher did not scold him, and did not say, "It is good"; from that day she stopped going to school. At that time the Princess arrived at maturity. Because that teacher was also the astrologer (naekatrala), the King went near him to ask about the naekata (prognostics depending on the positions of the planets) for her arriving at maturity. When he went, the teacher, in order to marry the Princess to himself, said on account of the manner in which she arrived at maturity, "Should you keep this Princess in this city, this city will become desolate throughout." At that time, the King, the father of this Princess, having heard that word, becoming afraid, prepared a little ship; and having put food inside the ship, and put in the Princess, and spread the sails, and gone down to the mouth of the river, sent her away. [106] Thereupon, that ship having gone, descended near yet a city. At that time, the ship was visible to the King of that city. Having been seen by him, he told the Minister to look at it and return. Then the Minister having gone, when he looked a Princess of beauty such as could not be seen [elsewhere] was inside the ship. In order that the Minister might marry the Princess, he went to the King, and said, "O Lord, Your Majesty, a leopardess is coming in the ship." Thereupon the King having said, "It is good. If so, let us go to look at the leopardess," set off. Then the Minister, because the Minister's lie is coming to light, having gone to the road, said at the hand of the King, "O Lord, Your Majesty, I did not say it in the midst of your multitude. What though I said leopardess! It is a Princess who is wonderful to look at." The King taking that speech for the truth, having gone, when he looked it was a good-looking Princess. Then the King having asked the Princess regarding the circumstances, came back, summoning her to the palace, and married her. When she was there a little time a Prince was born. Having been born, during the time while he was there, that teacher who had imposed [on the King], in much grief wrote false letters to the whole of the various cities that her father the King was very unwell, and that having seen the letter she was to come speedily; and he sent the letters. The King who had married this Princess having received the letter and looked at the letter, told the Princess. Because a King does not go to yet [another] city, he told the Princess to go with the army and Minister, and come back, and started off the Princess-Queen to go to the city at which is her father the King. Thereupon, at the time when the Queen, carrying that Prince, was going with the Minister on the sea, the Minister said thus to the Queen, "O Queen, now then, that King does not matter to us. Because of it, let us go to another city." Then the Queen, at the time when they were going ashore, said thus, "Why do you speak in that manner in the company of that crowd? We are now going ashore; when we have gone ashore let us go somewhere or other," she said. The Minister said, "It is good." Having come ashore and said, "Let us go to another city," and gone a little far, the Queen gave into the Minister's hand the Prince, and having said, "I will go aside and return," went and hid herself. Having hidden herself, and gone into a tree on which are many leaves, she remained looking in the direction of this Minister. When he had been looking out for a considerable time, she remained there looking on, and said, "When I am not [there], he will put down the Prince and go; then having gone there I will go away, carrying the Prince." While she was looking, the Minister, having called the Queen, because she was lost took the Prince by both legs, and having split him, and thrown him into the sea, he sought the Queen. He could not find her. After that, this Minister went away. Having gone, he said to the King of the city, "The Queen got hid, and went off with another man." This Queen thinking, "What is it that he has killed that Prince! My womb has not become barren," descended from the tree, and having gone through the chena jungle to a cemetery at another city, came out into the open ground. Having come out, when she looked about a daughter of a Moorman (a resident of Arab descent) having died, he came near the grave in which she was buried, and saying and saying, "Arise, daughter; arise, daughter," the man was weeping and weeping. This Queen trickishly having stayed looking at it, and thinking, "It is good. This Moorman will come to-morrow also, and will weep here. Then, having been lying at the grave, when he is calling I will get up," remained hidden there. After the man went away, she scraped away a little earth on the grave, and at the time when the man was coming she remained lying there. The man having come, when he was calling, "Arise, daughter," she said, "What is it, father?" and arose. Thereupon, the man having put on the face cloth, [107] closing her to the extent that [her face] should not be visible to anyone whatever, took her to the man's house, and placed her on the floor of the upper story. That Minister having gone back, and said that the Queen went off, at the very time when he was saying it, it caused the young younger brother of the King to seek the Queen, and he came away [for the purpose]. Having come away, and come seeking her through the whole of the various cities, and come also to the city at which is this Queen, while he was walking [through it] this Queen, who was on the floor of the upper story, saw him, and waved her hand to the Prince, and causing him to be brought, wrote a letter and threw it below from upstairs. The Prince taking the letter, when he looked at it she said [in it] that the danger which had occurred to her was thus. [It continued], "Because of it, to-day night having brought a horse to such and such a place, and put on it two saddles, and made ready for both you and me to go off, come and speak to me." So the Prince having made ready in that very manner, came at night, and [leaving the horse went near, and] spoke to the Queen. Then the Queen, having descended from the floor of the upper room, and come running by another path, a man of the city who walks about at night, called Holman Pissa, was [there]. The man met her first. After that, having gone holding the man's hand, sitting on the back of the horse she gave him the whip, and told him to drive it along a good path. At that time, that Holman Pissa, owing to his insanity, [108] turned down a bye-path without speaking at all, and driving the horse they began to go away. As he was going driving it, it became light. There when the Queen looked the man was a madman. In order to come away and save herself from the man, she said, "It is good. Now then, we two must get a living. Because of it, go and bring water for cooking." The madman having said, "It is good," went for water. Thereupon this Queen having bounded off, went along in the chena jungle, and came out (eli-baessa) at another city. Then this Holman Pissa having come bringing water, when he looked the Queen was not [there]. Because of it, he said, "Ane! If there is not my piece of gold what should I stay for?" and began to seek her. At that time, the teacher, and the King, and the Minister, and the King's son, and the Moorman, and Holman Pissa were seeking her. After that, this Queen having got hid in the chena jungle of the city to which she went, while she remained there looking out, she saw that an Arab having died they are bringing him to bury. Having buried the Arab, after they went away this Queen broke open the grave, and taking all the few Arab clothes, dressed in the Arab trousers and put on the Arab jacket. Tying on the turban,--there was an axe--hanging it on her shoulder, she went to the Arab shops at the city, and practising the means of livelihood which that party were practising, she stayed [there] a little time. The younger brother of that King having gone to his village, while he was there the King of the city died, and there being no one for the sovereignty, they decorated the tusk elephant and sent it [in search of a King]. At that time, the tusk elephant having gone, kneeled down near that Arab Queen. After that, they appointed the Arab Queen to the sovereignty, and she remained there. She issued commands in such a way that to either the place where she bathes or the place where she sleeps, no one whatever could come. When she was there in that manner no long time, the city King who had first married her, having shot (with an arrow) a deer, when he was coming bounding along was unable to catch the deer. The Queen's father, the King, taking dogs and having gone hunting, while he was there this King's dogs having seen the deer, they also began to chase the deer along the path. While they were coming chasing it, they came to the city at which this Arab Queen is staying. At that time, the people of the city having shot the deer, killed it. After it died, the three parties began to institute law-suits. The King who had married the Arab Queen says, "If I had not shot it, how would your dogs chase it?" The King, the Arab Queen's father, says, "If there had not been my dogs, how would you catch the deer?" The men of this city say, "If we had not killed it, how would you kill the deer?" After that, as they were unable to settle it, they came for the law-suit, near the Arab King (Queen). That King having explained the law-suit, and said that it belonged to the whole three parties, ended the law-suit. None whatever of those parties was able to recognise this Queen yet; the Queen recognised all. Recognising them, she said, "Nobody of you can go away; I must give you an eating (kaemak)." Having said [this] she caused all to remain. Having stopped them, the Queen went away and dressed in woman's clothes, and having returned, asked, "Can you recognise me?" Then all the party asked her about the matters. The Queen having told them the manner in which all had occurred, caused that Moorman to be brought, and gave him presents. In addition, having caused Holman Pissa to be brought, she gave him to eat and drink. To the teacher because he taught her letters she did nothing. To the King's younger brother she gave very great presents and wealth. Because that Minister, having seized both the legs of the [baby] Prince, had split him in two, having taken the Minister to the place where there are two Palmira trees, and brought the [tops of the] trees together at one place, and tied an arm and leg, and an arm and leg to each of the two trees, they let go the two trees. At that time, in the very way he split that Prince he was split in two. After that, just as before, she remained exercising the sovereignty in a thorough manner. North-central Province. The "Arab" mentioned in the tale might be an Afghan. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 606, a young Brahmana who had arranged to elope with a girl, sent a servant to her house at night with a mule. When she mounted it the man took her away a long distance and came to another city, telling her that he intended to marry her himself. She acquiesced; and when he went to buy the articles for their wedding she fled, and took refuge with an old man who made garlands. After some time the young Brahmana came to the same town, was seen by her, and married her. NO. 109 CONCERNING A VAEDDA AND A BRIDE In the midst of a forest a Vaedda stayed. When the Vaedda's wife went to bring water, taking the large water-pot, the Vaedda, taking his bow and having gone in front of the woman, as she is coming shoots [his arrows] to go by the woman's ear. Every day he shoots in that manner. One day when the woman went to bring water she met with the woman's elder brother; he asked, "What is it, younger sister, that you are so thin for?" Then the woman said, "Ane, elder brother, when I have taken water and am going home, the Vaedda shoots [his arrows] to go by my ear. Through that trouble I am becoming thin." After that, the Vaedda [her brother] says, "Younger sister, for that I will tell you a clever trick. To-day also when he has shot as you are going, say, 'There will be better shooters than that.'" That day when he was shooting the woman said this word. Then the Vaedda asked, "What, Adiye! didst thou say?" Afterwards the woman says, "There will be better shooters than that in this country." Then the Vaedda says, "Where, Adin! are they? I must seek them and look at them. Tie up a bundle of cooked rice and bring it." So having cooked a bundle of cooked rice she gave it. Taking it, the Vaedda began to go through the forest jungle (himalaye). At the time when he was going he saw that a man is staying looking upwards. The Vaedda having gone near asked, "What are you staying looking upward for?" "It is now eight days since I shot at a bird. I am waiting until it falls." When a little time had gone, the bird's flesh, having become decomposed, fell down. At that time the Vaedda thought, "A better shooter than I is this one." In order to inquire further, the two persons, having joined together, began to go through the midst of the forest. At the time when they were going they saw yet a man who is looking upward. These two having gone near asked, "What are you staying looking upward for?" The man said, "I see the celestial nymphs [109] dancing in the divine world." The two persons spoke together: "In sight this person is more dexterous than we." Thereupon these three having joined together, at the time when they were going [they saw that] at the bottom of a Jak tree a bride was staying, leaning against the tree. A cobra was preparing to strike the woman. Then the shooter said, "I do not see far. You aim the arrow and show me [the direction]; then I will shoot." Then he shot at the cobra. The arrow having entered the cobra in the quarter of the cobra's tail, came out near the bride's head. The three Vaeddas went to the place where the bride is. That they had shot the cobra no one in the bride's party knows. Thereupon, when they tried to call the bride and go away, the Vaeddas did not allow them to call her and go. [They said], "If this cobra having bitten her she had died, where would there be a bride for you?" Both the parties instituted law-suits. Both the parties having gone near the King told him to decide the law-suit. The King having heard the law-suit, after he had looked [into the matter] was also unable to decide it. At that time he asked the Vaeddas, "To whom must this woman belong?" Thereupon the Vaeddas said, "To both parties she cannot belong. She must belong to our teacher." Should you say, "Did they say who that was?" it was indeed that woman who at first took the water. North-western Province. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan (Shaik Chilli), p. 83, a Prince while travelling met with an archer who had shot an arrow at a star fourteen years before and was awaiting its fall. He saw its approach when it was still a thousand miles away, and warned the Prince to avoid it. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 297, the chief amusement of a rich man was shooting his arrow every morning through one of the pearls of his wife's nose-ring. When her brother came to take her to visit her parents, he found her thin and miserable, as she feared the arrow might some day strike her face. Each day the husband asked her, "Was there ever a man as clever as I am?" and she replied that there never was one. Her brother advised her to say next time that there were many men in the world cleverer than he was. When she said this her husband left her in order to find one of them. He met a clever wrestler and a clever pandit, who joined him, and who frightened some demons that were going to eat them. NO. 110 A STORY ABOUT A VAEDDA [110] At a certain time, in a city, a danaya [111] was given at the royal palace. On the next day the surplus rice was deposited for animals to eat, and dogs, cats, pigs, fowls, and crows came and began to devour it. Then a Vaedi youth who had gone to kill some game and was hungry, came and saw the fowls and pigs eating some cold cooked rice, whereupon he went to the heap of rice, and pushing aside the upper part of it took a little from the bottom and ate it. At that time the royal Princess was at the open upper story of the palace. She saw this action of the Vaedda, and said to her mother, "Ane! Amme! However poor a man may be he does not do that disgusting work." The Queen admonished the Princess, and said to her, "Appa! My daughter, do not say so of any man whatever; you do not know what may happen to you" (meaning that it might be her fate to be married to such a man). Then the Princess, speaking in ridicule of the Vaedda's want of good looks, replied, "If so, why should I wear this costume? [I may as well begin to dress like my future husband's people]." The Vaedda, after stopping and hearing this conversation, went away. As a lion used to come to that city [and carry off the inhabitants] the King subsequently caused the following proclamation to be made by beat of tom-toms: "I will give my daughter to any person whatever who kills the lion which comes to this city." On hearing this, the Vaedi youth having dug a hole in the path by which the lion came, and having got hid in it, when the animal approached shot it with his bow and arrow and killed it. When the King learnt that somebody had killed the lion he gave public notice that its destroyer should be sought for. The Vaedi youth then came forward, and after he had [proved that he was the person who killed it] the King gave that royal Princess to him in marriage [and he went away with her]. While she was living with him another good-looking Vaedi youth accompanied him one day. On seeing him the Princess trickishly drove away the Vaedda who was her husband, and married that handsome Vaedi youth. It was not long before this Vaedda one night killed a buffalo, and [taking some of the flesh] said to the Princess, "Cook this, and give it to me." The Princess replied, "It would be disgusting work for me to do; it is no business of mine. [She added] "What does it matter if my first husband is not good-looking? He was good to me." Saying this, she drove this Vaedda away, and seeking the place where the first Vaedda whom she had married was stopping, went to him and said, "Let us go [off together]." But the Vaedda said, "I will not." After that, she put on her Princess's robes as before, and came away. In a little while afterwards that very Vaedda was appointed to the kingship, and everybody subsequently lived prosperously and in health. North-central Province. NO. 111 THE STORY OF THE FOUR GIANTS [112] In a certain country there were seven giants. The youngest giant of the seven of them without any means of subsistence remained on the ash-heap itself, near the hearth. At that time the other six persons scolded him: "How wilt thou eat and dress?" Then when this youngest giant was preparing to take a digging hoe with a broken corner the other persons scolded him regarding it [also]. Thereupon, having put down the digging hoe and gone, not bringing any tool, into the midst of a forest which had Wira, Palu, and such-like trees, and having looked for a place suitable for a rice-field, with his hand he loosened and uprooted and threw them all down. Having made the rice-field, and made the ridges in it, he came home and said, "I have made a little rice-field plot (liyadda); to sow it give me a little paddy," he asked his brothers. When he said it they did not give it. Thereafter, having gone near his uncle [113] he spoke thus, "I have made a rice-field plot; let us go to look at this rice-field plot. How about a little paddy for it?" he asked. Thereupon his uncle said, "Having looked at the rice-field I will give you paddy." The two together went to the rice-field. While there his uncle ascertained the size of the rice-field and the quantity of paddy that was necessary for it, and having come home told him to take a round corn store (bissak) in which sixty amunas (about 350 bushels) of paddy were tied up. Thereupon the giant who was on the ash-heap, placing the corn store of sixty amunas on his shoulder, brought it home; and having made [the paddy] sprout, sowed the rice-field. After the [paddy in the] rice-field ripened he cut it and trampled it [by means of buffaloes], and having collected and placed the paddy in a heap, came home. Having returned summoning his brothers, he told them to climb upon the heap of paddy, and look if the spires [of the dagabas] at Anuradhapura are visible. Having looked in that way, and having seen them, though they were visible they said they were not. Thereupon anger having come to the giant of the ash-heap, he kicked the paddy heap, and having come home, taking his sword began to go away somewhere. While going thus, he saw that yet [another] giant, having uprooted a Banyan-tree, is polishing his teeth [with it], and he went quite near. Thereupon, the giant asked the giant of the ash-heap, "Where are you going?" "I am going to seek a means of subsistence," he gave answer. The two persons having conversed in this manner, while the two were going away together they saw that yet a giant, having threaded an elephant on a fish-hook, had cast it in a river, [114] and they asked him, "What are you doing? Why have you thrown an elephant into the water?" The giant says, "I am trying to catch and take a sand fish. Where are you two going?" he asked these two persons. "We are going in order to seek a means of subsistence," these two said. Having said, "If so, I will come with you," and having abandoned his work, and cast away the elephant, he also set off with them, and the three persons began to go away. While they were going thus they met with a river. They saw that in the river yet [another] giant having placed his foot across the river, from this bank to the far bank, is causing the water to stop. The giant asked, "Where are you three persons going?" The three persons said, "We are going to seek a means of subsistence." "It is good. I also will come with you," the giant said. Well then, while these three are going, having met with yet a river, when the giant who was on the ash-heap told the other giants to hang on his body, the other giants hung on it. After that, having descended into the river, the giant began to swim in the river. At that time a fish came to swallow them. Having chopped the fish with his sword, the giant who stayed on the ash-heap, taking the fish and taking these giants, swam to the far bank. Thereafter, a giant having gone up a tree, they told him to look for a place where there is fire. He said that a fire smoke is rising. Then they told him to mark [the direction] and bring fire. The giant having gone, when he looked about saw that a woman, [after] placing a large pot of paddy on the hearth, was pouring water over (that is, bathing) a child. At the time when he asked for a little fire, she said, "I am pouring water over the child. You come and take it." The giant having gone, at the time when he was bending to take the fire the woman arose and came, and having lifted up and cast the giant on the heap of fire-charcoal, and killed him, put him in the house. Thereafter, to look for him yet [another] giant went. When that giant also in that way was bending down, the woman having arisen and come, and put him on the fire-heap, and killed him, put him into the house. When [the ash-heap giant] told that [other] giant to look for the two giants, he went, and asked, "Didn't our men come here?" Thereupon the woman said, "Those men I saw not." After that, like the giants who first got the fire, at the time when he was bending down to take the fire, the woman having arisen and killed him also in the way in which she killed the first giants, put him into the house. Thereafter, the giant who at first did cultivation work having gone, taking his sword also, asked, "Didn't my three men come here?" At that time the woman said, "I did not see them." Thereupon, at the time when the giant prepared to cut the woman with his sword, she said, "Ane! Don't cut me. I will give your men." Having said it, and restored the three men to consciousness, she gave them. [115] Taking the giants also who had brought the fire, and having come again near the last river, and roasted the fish, the four persons divided it, and ate. He put the [back] bone of the fish into the river. The four persons again began to go away. After that, having gone to the city, when they asked for a rest-house [the people] said, "The rest-house indeed we can give. A bone having become fixed across in this river, water has become scarce [on account of it]." They told them to remove the bone: "We will give a Princess of our King's for removing it. That also (et) anyone is unable to do." This speech the men of that country said to these giants. After that, these giants having said, "It is becoming night for us; we cannot go," stayed in the resting-place at that very spot. [Afterwards], that giant of the ash-heap having gone and thrown aside the bone, brought a pot of water. Yet [another] man, breaking the bone, took a piece near the King. And the King was ready to give the Princess to the man. Then the giant who was on the ash-heap having gone near the King (raju), taking the bone, said, "It was not that man; it was I who took and cast away the bone." Thereafter the King beheaded the man who said it falsely. He was ready to give the [Princess] to the giant who was on the ash-heap. But the giant gave the Princess to the giant who uprooted the Banyan-tree; and having planted a Lime-tree and put a Blue-lotus flower into a small copper pot full of water, and said, "Should any harm occur to me the Lime-tree will blanch, [116] or will become like dying; the Blue-lotus flower will fade. At that time thou must come seeking me," the giant of the ash-heap began to go away [with the other two giants]. Having gone to yet [another] city he asked for a resting-place. Thereupon they said, "Ane! We can give a resting-place indeed. A lion having come eats the city people. There is not a means of getting firewood [for cooking]. Also it is said that the King will give our King's Princess to a person who has killed the lion." After that, the giant of the ash-heap, getting a resting-place there, took an axe, and having gone into the jungle, at the time when he was walking about the lion was sleeping in the jungle. This giant having chopped with the axe at the head of the lion and killed it, came back [after] cutting off his ear. Yet [another] man having come [after] cutting off the lion's head, gave it to the King. Well then, the King became ready to give the Princess to the man. At that time this giant having gone near the King, said, "It is not that one who cut off the head; it is I [who killed it]," and he gave him the lion's ear. Thereafter, the King having beheaded the man who told him falsely, was ready to give [the Princess] to the giant of the ash-heap. The giant of the ash-heap gave the Princess to the giant who was stringing the elephant on the fish-hook; and in the very manner as at first having planted a Lime-tree and put a Blue-lotus flower in a small copper pot of water and given him it, he said, "Should any harm occur to me the Lime-tree will die, the Blue-lotus flower will fade. At that time you must come seeking me;" and those two giants began to go away. Having gone to a city they asked for a resting-place. Thereupon the men said, "In our country we cannot give resting-places. A leopard having come eats the men. There is a Princess of our King's. To a person who has killed the leopard he will give the Princess, he said. That also anyone is unable to do." Notwithstanding, these two giants got the resting-place there. The giant of the ash-heap taking also the axe, went into the jungle, and when he looked the leopard was sleeping. The giant having chopped at the leopard with the axe and killed it, came back [after] cutting off the ear. Another man having seen it, came [after] cutting off the head of the leopard, and gave it to the King. When the King was becoming ready to give the Princess to the man, the giant of the ash-heap went near the King, and said, "It is not that man who killed the leopard; it is I," and he gave him the leopard's ear. Thereafter, the King having beheaded the man who said it falsely, made ready to give the Princess to the giant of the ash-heap. The giant having given the Princess to the giant who stopped the water with his foot, and in the first manner having planted a Lime-tree and put a Blue-lotus flower into a small copper pot of water, and said, "If there be any harm to me the Lime-tree will die, the Blue-lotus flower will fade. At that time come seeking me," the giant of the ash-heap began to go away alone. Having gone to a city that had become abandoned, at the time when he is looking at the houses in a street, a Princess having been in an upper story says, "Our father having become insane, and having eaten all the city people, now this city is desolate. Why have you come?" Thereupon this giant said, "I came because of [the want of] a means of subsistence." Having halted there, and that day having eaten cooked rice from there, he asked at the hand of the Princess, "Are there meneri [seeds] [117] and dried areka-nuts?" Thereupon the Princess having said, "There are," sought and gave them. The giant of the ash-heap put down the meneri from inside the open ground in front of the house up to the house. The dried areka-nuts he put above it. Having put them down, taking the sword also and half shutting the door he remained [there]. At that time the King having come, sprang towards the doorway [and slipped upon the loose seeds and nuts]. Thereupon he of the ash-heap chopped at him with the sword, and killed the King. [118] Having killed him, taking the Princess he began to go away. Having thus gone, and having built a house near a river, they remained there. One day, when the Princess was bathing at the river, she uprooted a hair [119] of the Princess's, and it fell into the water. The hair having gone along the river, and having caught on a fish (malu kuriyekuta), the fish swallowed it. The fish fell into the net of the fisherman of the King of that country. Having cut open the fish, at the time when he looked [inside it] a hair had been made into a ball. When he unrolled the hair and looked at it, its length was seven fathoms seven hands. The fisherman gave it to the King. Thereupon the King said, "To a person who should find and give me the woman who owns this hair, I will give a fourth share from my city." A widow woman said, "I can, if you will give me a ship." Thereupon the King gave her a ship. The widow woman having taken the ship, found the Princess. Having been there a few days, she asked at the hand of the Princess, "Has your husband confidence in you?" The Princess said, "Yes, he has confidence in me." Thereupon the old woman said, "It is good. If he has confidence in you ask where his life is." The Princess asked at the hand of the Prince (giant), "Where is your life?" At that time the Prince (giant) said, "My life is in the sword." One day, the giant of the ash-heap, having placed the sword in the house, went on a journey. This Princess had previously (kalin, betimes) told at the hand of the widow woman that the giant's life is in the sword. That day the Princess said to the widow woman, "Look at my head" (to search for insects). After that, when the widow woman was looking and looking the Princess went to sleep. The widow woman having taken the sword that was on the ground [in the house], and put it into the fire on the hearth, [120] lifted up the Princess, and having put her in the ship, and crossed over to that bank, handed over the Princess to the King. The King gave the widow woman many presents and distinctions. The giant of the ash-heap having become unconscious, fell down. In the very way he told the three giants whom he caused to stay at first, the Lime-trees died, the Blue-lotus flowers faded. The three giants came seeking him. When they came he was dead. The three persons having dug the ash-heap, when they looked the sword was even yet there. Taking it, at the time when they were polishing it the giant of the ash-heap became conscious. His three friendly giants asked, "What is this that happened?" Thereupon the giant of the ash-heap said, "A widow woman stayed near us. It is that woman, indeed, who did this work." Thereupon the giants asked, "Whence came the woman?" "She came from the sea," he said. Well then, these very four giants having gone on the sea, and having gone to the city at which is the Princess, at the time when they looked saw that the Princess is bound [in marriage] to the King. Having cut down the King and the widow woman, the giant of the ash-heap exercised the sovereignty of that country; and the other giants went back to the very places where each of them stayed. [121] North-western Province. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xvii, p. 50, in a Salsette story by Mr. G. Fr. D'Penha, a Prince to avoid marrying his sister went away with a hunter and a carpenter. At a deserted city at which they stayed a Rakshasa came daily when one was left to cook, and ate the rice. On the third day the Prince was the cook, and he killed the Rakshasa. The Prince's life was in his sword; if it rusted he fell sick, if it broke he would die. He made the carpenter King of the city and the hunter King of another, giving them life-index plants. The Prince then went away, killed another Rakshasa, and got from his waist a diamond which showed a passage through the water of a tank to a palace where he married a Princess and became King. He then forgot his sword, and it rusted. His friends learnt by the fading plants that he was ill, and found him just alive. He recovered when they cleaned and repolished the sword, after which they became his Chief Officers of State. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan (Shaik Chilli), p. 45, a Prince, accompanied by the sons of a goldsmith, a pandit, and a carpenter, went to kill a giant. While they halted, a giant took the food that each in turn cooked. When the Prince cooked he vanquished the giant, who offered him his daughter in marriage, and joined his party. The Prince married her to the goldsmith's son, and went to another city where the Prince's giant killed a giant who ate the people. The King's daughter was married to the pandit's son. At a third city the giant killed a lion, and a Princess was married to the carpenter's son. When they arrived at the city of the giant they had come to kill, the Prince and giant found he was the one already killed at the second city. These giants could take any shape, and thus evidently were Rakshasas. The Prince married a Princess at the fourth city and lived there with his giant. One day his wife lost her shoe while bathing in a stream, and a Raja's son found it floating down. A witch undertook to find the owner, dived into the water, came to the fort, became the Princess's servant, and learnt that the Prince's life lay in the brightness of his sword; if it became rusty he would die. One night the witch burnt the sword in a furnace, the Prince died, and she took his wife through the water to her admirer's palace, where she demanded a year's delay before marrying him. The Prince's giant found and repolished the sword, and the Prince revived. They summoned the other friends, went in search of the Princess, killed the Raja, his son, and the witch, and returned home. In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. Steele), p. 42, when a Prince was travelling accompanied by a knife-grinder, a blacksmith, and a carpenter, a demon in the form of a mannikin ate the food which the last three cooked in turn, but was killed by the Prince when he cooked. The Prince married the knife-grinder to the King's daughter, the blacksmith to the daughter of a King at another city at which the Prince killed a ghost (Churel), and the carpenter to a Princess at a third city. To each of the friends the Prince gave a barley plant as his life index; if it drooped he would be in trouble and needing their help. He went on, killed a Jinn who had carried off a Princess with golden hair, married her, and lived at the Jinn's palace. When bathing she set one or two hairs afloat in a Bo-leaf cup, which was secured by a King lower down the river. A wise woman sent to find their owner, discovered her, ascertained that the Prince's life was in his sword, at night put it in a fire, and when the hilt rolled off the Prince died. She then carried off the Princess to the King. As the barley plants snapped in two, the three friends came with armies, found the body of the Prince and his sword, repaired and repolished the latter, and thus restored the Prince's life. The carpenter discovered the Princess, made a flying palankin, into which she, together with the King's sister and the wise woman, mounted with him, and he sailed back to the Prince, throwing down the other two women on the way. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 39, four companions took possession of a house on a hill. They cooked in turn, the other three going to hunt. On each day a demoness in the form of a woman a span high begged a taste of the food, and she and the food and cooking-pot then disappeared. The fourth man killed her. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 386, the sword incident varies. A Prince's wife, wishing to deprive him of the magic power conferred by the sword, put the weapon in a fire while he slept. He became unconscious when the sword was dimmed, but recovered when the Goddess Durga restored its brightness. In the same work, vol. ii, p. 487, an Asura's vital point was his left hand; he died when a King shot him through it. In the Maha Bharata (Vana Parva, cccxi) four of the Pandava Princes were killed in turn by a Yaksha as soon as they drank at a pool. When the eldest brother answered his questions satisfactorily he revived them. NO. 112 THE STORY ABOUT A GIANT In a certain country two men spoke together: "Let us two persons go to seek the kingdom gored [by] the Sky Buffalo," [122] they said, it is said. After that the two went, it is said. Procuring provisions, they began to go. At the time when they are going thus for not much time, one man was struck by inability [to proceed]. The man said, it is said, "Don't you go here alone," he said. "Without going alone what shall I do?" he said. After that, that man died. This man having gone, contracted (lit., tied) a marriage. Putting [out of consideration] the displeasure of the woman's two parents, he contracted the marriage. The mother-in-law and father-in-law, both of them, having said, "Don't you two remain in my house," told them to go. After that, the son-in-law having caused thieves to be brought, took the goods in the house that he had not brought; the best (honda honda) goods the man took, a few things those men got. The man, taking the woman, went to another city. At the time when they were at the city no long time, a child was born to the woman. The child, at the time when he was seven years of age, catching the remaining Hares and Mouse-deer dashes them to the ground. A long time after twelve years were fulfilled, having run after Sambhar deer and caught them he dashes them to the ground; [123] having caught Boars also he dashes them to the ground. That he is doing thus was known to everybody. Having perceived it they told the matter to the King of that city. The King, causing the young man to be brought, and having given him many offices, made him remain near the King; he is stopping there. Then a hostile army having come to the city and laid [siege] to the city, [124] after the Ministers told the King, causing the giant to be brought he asked, "A hostile army having come is surrounding my city. On account of it, art thou able to drive off and send away the army?" The giant said, "I am not unable to do it." After that, the King said, "What are the things thou wantest for it?" he asked. When he asked, he said, "Should I receive a tusk elephant and the sword, it will do." Afterwards he gave the tusk elephant and sword. Having waited until the time when he gives them, he went for the battle. Having gone, and having cut down that army, he came to the royal palace. Having come, he made obeisance [125] to the King [and related an account of his victory]. After that, the King having given half the kingdom to the giant, he remained [there]. Well then, beginning from that day, he remained exercising the sovereignty [over the half of the kingdom] until the time when he dies. North-western Province. I was informed that in the allusion to the Sky Buffalo which gored the earth, reference is made to the country in which the sky pierces (that is, touches) the earth (see vol. i, p. 284). The Sky Buffalo is not mentioned elsewhere in these stories. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 6, the God Siva is represented as saying, "Moreover, this world resembling a skull, rests in my hand; for the two skull-shaped halves of the [Mundane] egg before mentioned are called heaven and earth." It is evident that here also the two halves of the egg, that is, the sky and the earth, are supposed to be in contact, the sky resting on the earth. In the Rigveda they are termed two bowls; the sun travelled in the hollow space between them (i, clx, 2), and the upper one was supported by pillars. The feats of the youthful giant in chasing and seizing wild animals are borrowed from the Mahavansa, chapter xxiii (p. 161 of Professor Geiger's translation), where it is stated of Khañjadeva, one of the ten leading chiefs under King Duttha-Gamani in the second century B.C., that "when he went a-hunting with the village folk he chased at these times great buffaloes, as many as rose up, and grasped them by the leg with his hand, and when he had whirled them round his head the young man dashed them to the ground, breaking their bones." NO. 113 HITIHAMI THE GIANT In the Wanni country, in the north-western quarter of the Island of Lanka (Ceylon), there is a village called Andara-waewa. In that village a giant was born. His parents, cherishing him, reared the child. While the child is at the age for playing seated, he eats about two quarts of cooked rice [daily]. At the walking age he eats about three quarts of cooked rice. While seven years of age he eats about four quarts of cooked rice. Having gone with children who walked about for amusement, having caught hares and mouse-deer, and struck them on the ground, killing them, he brings them [home]. After he has brought them, his two parents ask, "Whence, son, are these?" Then the child says, "Mother, having gone running I seized them." Thus, having been living in that manner, at the age of about twelve years he said to his mother, "Mother, give me food [to enable me] to go to cut a chena." So his mother gave him food. The child having eaten the food, and gone to the jungle taking two bill-hooks, cut the chena that very day. Having cut it, and come home, he said to his mother, "Mother, I cut a chena. I don't know the time for setting fire to it. Because of it, tell father to set fire to the chena." After that, his mother said, "Our son cut a chena. Set fire to it; son does not know the time for setting fire [to it]." After that, the man went and set fire to the chena. This giant-child having gone, cut the fence [sticks] for the chena in one day; on the next day he went, and sowed it till he finished it. The sowing account was a paela (a quarter of an amuna of 5.7 bushels) of millet. [126] On the next day he said to his mother, "Mother, I cut a chena indeed; for the purpose of going and doing the work at a tawalla [127] also, give me food." Afterwards his mother gave him food. Having eaten the food, the child went to the tawalla, and put up earthen ridges over the ground for [making a field large enough for sowing in it] one and a half amunas (8.55 bushels) of paddy. [128] Having put them up he came home. Having gone on the following day, he made [the soil into] mud [129] [by causing cattle to trample it]. Having made [it into] mud he came home. Having come, he said to his mother, "Mother, place one and a half amunas of paddy in water [to cause it to sprout] for sowing in the tawalla." Afterwards his mother made the paddy sprout. This child took the one and a half amunas of paddy, and sowed it that very day. In the evening he came home. On the following day he said to his mother, "Mother, give me food. I indeed sowed the tawalla; there is still to build the watch-hut in it." Afterwards his mother gave him food. The child ate the food, and went to the tawalla. Having gone there, and that very day having made the fence, and that very day having built the watch-hut, he came home. Having eaten food, he went back to the watch-hut, and with his own foot he sprinkles water over the amuna and a half of paddy. [130] At that time the King caused a Mallawa [131] giant to be brought to Kandy. Many men wrestled with the Mallawa giant and fell. After that, the King said to the Ministers, "Go and find a thoroughly strong giant, and come back." Afterwards the Ministers spread the news: "Is there a giant able to wrestle with the Mallawa giant?" Then certain men said, "At the village called Andara-waewa there is a man called Hitihami, who eats the cooked rice from seven [quarts] of rice. That man is good for wrestling with the Mallawa giant." After they said it, the Ministers went to Andara-waewa to seek the giant Hitihami. When they went there, the boy Hitihami was not at home; only the giant's mother was there. They asked at the hand of his mother, "Where is now Hitihami?" Then his mother said, "My son went to the watch-hut at the tawalla." After that, the Ministers went to the tawalla to seek him. As they were going there they saw Hitihami sprinkling water for the tawalla with his foot. Thereupon the Ministers went to the place where Hitihami was sprinkling water. Having gone, the Ministers asked, "Is it you they call Hitihami of Andara-waewa?" Then Hitihami said, "Yes, it is I myself. What matter have you come about?" he asked. Then the Ministers said, "It has been arranged by the King [that you are] to go for the Mallawa wrestling. Because of it, get ready [132] for you to go." After that, Hitihami having come home with the Ministers, asked at the hand of his mother, "Mother, haven't you cooked yet?" His mother said, "Son, I have not yet cooked. I have only boiled five quarts of meneri." Then Hitihami having [drunk] the milk taken from seven buffalo cows in the large cooking-pot, and having eaten those five quarts of boiled meneri, [after] washing his [right] hand and taking his betel bag also, said to the Ministers, "Let us go;" and Hitihami and the Ministers went. At the time when they are going, there are a great many pumpkins at a chena on the path. Having seen them, Hitihami, plucking four pumpkins also and continuing to eat them, went to Kandy. The Ministers who went with him said to the King, "Hitihami of Andara-waewa has come." The King told Hitihami to come near, and said, "Can you wrestle with the Mallawa one?" Then Hitihami replied, "Putting one Mallawa person [out of consideration], should seven come I am not afraid." After that, the King told him to go for the wrestling with the Mallawa one. As soon as Hitihami went, he seized the Mallawa one. Then the bones of the Mallawa one were broken. The King said, "A! Kill not my Mallawa one!" So Hitihami let go. The Mallawa one having died, fell on the ground. After that, the King was displeased with Hitihami. Having become displeased he said to the Ministers, "You must put Hitihami on the other bank of the river (Mahawaeli-ganga)." The Ministers put Hitihami on the other bank. As Hitihami was coming away to his village, sixty persons having come together for a paddy kayiya, [133] were at the foot of a tree. Hitihami having gone there, asked, "What are you come together there for?" Then the men said, "We have come together to cut a paddy kayiya." Hitihami said, "Are you willing for me also to cut the paddy plants for a breath (husmak)?" The men said, "It is very good; let us cut." Afterwards, asking for the sickles from each one of the men, and having broken them, and thrown them down, and drawn out the betel-cutter that was in Hitihami's betel wallet (bulat-payiya), taking it he began to cut the paddy plants. Only the paddy plants of two amunas of paddy (about four and a half acres) were ripe; there were no more. He finished the two amunas of paddy plants, and because there were no [more] ripe paddy plants, cutting the fence of the upper field and having gone [there], he began to cut the green paddy plants. Then the men who owned the field said and said, "Don't cut [those]." He does not stop. Afterwards the men tied a ball. [134] Afterwards, the giant having come to the high ground [outside the field], when he came to the place where the men were near the tree, the men said, "Let us go to eat the kayiya." Then Hitihami said, "You go and eat the kayiya; I am going to my village." As he was coming on and on, having met with a wild buffalo it began to gore him. So Hitihami seized the two horns of the buffalo, and loosening the two horns, went to his village [with them]. Having gone [there], and given into his mother's hand the two horns, he said, "Mother, having conquered in the Mallawa wrestling, at the time when I was coming back about sixty men had come together to cut the paddy plants in a rice field. At the hand of the men I asked, 'What are you many men joined together there for?' Then the men said, 'We are [here] to cut a paddy kayiya.' "Afterwards, asking for the men's sickles, I broke them and threw them down, and taking the betel-cutter [135] that was in my betel wallet, descended to the field, and having cut the paddy plants, there also I got the victory. "As I was coming away, a wild buffalo came to gore me. Afterwards, loosening the buffalo's two horns [I brought them away]. These indeed are the two horns." He told her all the matters. Then his mother said, "Son, except that you have said that word to me, do not say it for anyone else to hear;" and having cooked several kinds of cakes, and milk-rice, gave them to Hitihami the Giant to eat. North-western Province. This story differs from nearly all the others in being almost certainly based on a considerable statum of fact. Apparently, it is the exaggerated tradition about a very strong man who defeated a celebrated Indian wrestler at Kandy. The story also gives more details concerning the village cultivations than any others I have met with. Perhaps it is not the only record of this Hitihami. Among the names of the deified chiefs of ancient times, termed Bandara, there is one called Hiti Bandara, who is said to have lived at a village called Gokaraella, twelve miles north-east of Kurunaegala. It is possible that he is the hero of this story; but as the names of the villages are different there is considerable doubt regarding it. There was a village called Andara-waewa (in the Wanni Hat-pattu district of the North-western Province) which was abandoned some centuries ago, the field and village tank having become overgrown with jungle and forest. As Kandy was founded early in the fourteenth century, according to the manuscript Pradhana nuwarawal, the story may record events of the fourteenth, fifteenth, or possibly the sixteenth century, A.D. NO. 114 THE NEW SPEECH [136] A certain Gamarala had a daughter, it is said. Many persons having come, ask to marry the daughter. After they have asked it, this [137] Gamarala asks those people who come, "Do you know the New Speech?" At that time those people say, "Ane! There is not a New Speech that we know." "If so, go you away," the [138] Gamarala says to those parties. Well then, those people go. Then still a party come. He asks that party, also, in that very manner, "Do you know the New Speech?" Thereupon that party say, "Ane! There is not a New Speech that we know." Then the man says, "If so, I will not give my girl. I will give her [only] to the man who knows the New Speech." In this manner, many persons having asked and asked, went away. Because even one person is not learning the New Speech, even one person does not obtain her. A young man at yet [another] village said thus: "Ane! Father, I know [139] a New Speech. Because of it, marry and give that Gamarala's daughter to me," he said. Thereupon, he having gone asks the Gamarala, "My son knows a New Speech. Because of it, can you marry your daughter to my son?" he asked. Then the Gamarala, having become pleased, said, "It is very good." On the following day after that the marriage took place. When not much time had gone, one day when the father-in-law and the son-in-law were getting ready to go and plough the rice field, they said at the hand of the girl's mother, "Bring cooked rice to the rice field," and went to plough. While ploughing, the father-in-law's goad having broken he went to the jungle below the rice field to cut a goad. Then that girl's mother, bringing the cooked rice and coming to the field, asked the son-in-law, "Where, son-in-law, is your father-in-law now?" Then the son-in-law said, "Ando! Mother-in-law, is there any stopping in the field for him! There, On! A woman was beckoning with her hands; he will have gone on that account;" and leaving aside the quarter to which that man went, he stretched out his hand in another direction. "He went there, On! You go, too," he said. Afterwards the mother-in-law went there. Then that father-in-law having come to the rice field [after] cutting a goad, asked at the hand of that son-in-law, "Son-in-law, where is your mother-in-law?" Then the son-in-law said, "Ando! Father-in-law, is there any staying here for her! Having brought and placed here the [mat] box of cooked rice, there, On! A man was beckoning with his hand. She will have gone on that account;" and leaving the quarter to which she went, he stretched out his hand in another direction. "She went there, On! You go too," he said. The Gamarala, taking the goad, went there to seek the woman. That woman is seeking the man; the man is seeking the woman. While seeking him in that manner that woman came to the rice field, and asked, "Son-in-law, hasn't he come yet, your father-in-law?" Then the son-in-law said, "Not he, mother-in-law; he hasn't come yet." While she was there, the father-in-law came up and beat the woman until the goad was broken to pieces. Afterwards the woman came home. While the two men, having eaten the cooked rice, were ploughing, the son-in-law asked at the hand of the father-in-law, "Father-in-law, she is a slut whom you have called [in marriage], isn't she?" The father-in-law asked, "What is [the meaning of] that, son-in-law?" The son-in-law replied, "Ando! You have been married such a long time, too! Don't you know about it? When you are sleeping, having come every day she licks your body. Sleep to-day, also; while you are sleeping she will lick your body, On!" Afterwards, having ploughed, when it became night the son-in-law, going in front, came home, and says at the hand of the mother-in-law, "Ando! Mother-in-law, he is a salt leaf-cutter whom you have married, isn't he?" Then the mother-in-law asked, "What is [the meaning of] that, son-in-law?" The son-in-law said, "Ando! You have been such a long time married, too! Don't you know about it? To-day, after father-in-law has gone to sleep lick his body. There is salt taste, On!" Afterwards, in the night when the father-in-law had gone to sleep, the mother-in-law went and licked his body. Then the father-in-law, having awoke, said, "Ci! Ci [140]! Slut!" The mother-in-law said, "Ci! Ci! Salt Leaf-cutter!" and the two quarrelled. When not much time had gone by, the [141] Gamarala said a speech to the son-in-law in this manner. His elder daughter had been given [in marriage] to a person at a distant village. "Son-in-law, as I have got news that my daughter's illness is severe, I am going because of it, and having gone there am returning." Saying, "Sow one and a half amunas of paddy (eight and a half bushels), and block up [the gaps in] the fence, and tie the fence of the garden, and heat water, and place it [ready] for me to bathe when I come," he went. Thereupon the man, getting the whole of these into his mind, said, "It is good." After the Gamarala went away, he lowered out of the corn-store one and a half amunas of paddy, and having taken them placed them in the rice field; and having come back, and gone [again] taking the yoke of cattle and the plough, and driven two or three furrows for the whole length of the field, and sown over the field the amuna and a half, and tied the cattle at a tree [in the jungle], and cut the fence that was round the field, and come home, and also cut the fence of the garden, and heated a pot of water, also, until it was thoroughly boiling, while he was placing it [ready] the Gamarala came, at the time when the ground is being stricken dark. Having come, he asked, "Did you do all these services?" That son-in-law said, "Yes." After he said it, he asked, "Did you warm water for me to bathe?" At that time he said, "Father-in-law, I heated the water, and the chill has been taken off. Come to bathe." He brought that pot of boiling water, and called him. Then the Gamarala said, "I can bathe [myself]. You go." Thereupon he says, "When do you bathe (that is, pour water over yourself) by your own hand? Please bathe by my hand." Having said, "It is good," the father-in-law tying on the bathing cloth (ambuda baendaganda), told him to bathe him. Thereupon the son-in-law poured on his back, from the pot, that water which was boiling. Then the Gamarala, as it was burning his back, cried, "What, son-in-law, did you do here?" Then the son-in-law says, "Don't shout in that way, father-in-law; that indeed is a piece of the New Speech." Because his back had been scalded, the hot water having been thrown on it, the relatives were dismissed from his mind. The Gamarala's back was scalded to the extent that he was unable to rise for two or three days. After two or three days had gone by, when he looked at the fence of the garden, the fence had been cut. Thereupon the Gamarala asked at the hand of the son-in-law, "Son-in-law, who cut the fence of the garden?" Then he says, "Father-in-law, that indeed is a part of the New Speech," he said. At that time, also, the Gamarala was angry. [After] looking at it, he went to the rice field, and when he looked, the fence of the rice field also had been cut, and paddy had been sown in the [unploughed] rice field. When he asked also at the hand of the son-in-law, "What is [the meaning of] that?" "A part of the New Speech, indeed, is that," he said. The Gamarala at that also became angry. Afterwards he asked the son-in-law thus, "Where is even my yoke of cattle?" Thereupon the son-in-law said, "They are tied in the chena jungle." He was angry also concerning that [the cattle being then dead or nearly so]. For many a day afterwards he remained without talking with the son-in-law. During the time while he is thus, that daughter who had been given [in marriage] to an out-village, sent word that [her] father and brother-in-law, both of them, must come. Next day that father-in-law having cooked cakes, tied them in a bag, and having cooked a bundle of rice, tied that also in a bag, in order to go to the place where the Gamarala's elder daughter was given in marriage. Then he called the son-in-law, saying, "Let us go." The son-in-law, taking the cake bag, asked, "Father-in-law, what sort is this?" The father-in-law replied, [jokingly,] "There are cobras in it." Then the son-in-law, taking the bag of cooked rice, asked, "Father-in-law, what sort is this?" The father-in-law said, "That is for the road." Afterwards the son-in-law, taking the cake bag, went in front; the father-in-law taking the bundle of cooked rice, went behind. The father-in-law was unable to go quickly. The son-in-law while going on and on ate those cakes. At the place where the cakes were finished he broke open the mouth of the bag, and setting it on an ant-hill stopped there looking at it. Then the father-in-law having come up, asked, "What, son-in-law, is that?" The son-in-law said, "I don't know, father-in-law. As you said those were cobras I placed it on the ant-hill for them to creep out." Afterwards taking the rice bag, also, that was in the hand of the father-in-law, he again went a long way in front, opened the rice bag, and ate the cooked rice, and having thrown away the bag, stopped there, sitting down. The Gamarala having come up, said, "Let us eat the bundle of cooked rice. Where, son-in-law, is the rice bag?" Then the son-in-law said, "I don't know, father-in-law. As you said that was for the road, I put it on the road and came away." They were near a [road-side] shop. At that time, having given the son-in-law a panama, [142] the Gamarala said, "Go to that shop and bring plantains." Then having gone to the shop, taking sixteen plantains for the panama he thought thus:--"Should I take these sixteen plantains near father-in-law, I shall receive eight plantains [as my share]. Because of that, I must eat the eight plantains here and go." Thereupon he ate eight plantains. Having eaten them, he thinks again, "Should I take these eight plantains father-in-law will not eat them without having given me four plantains. Because of it, I must eat the four plantains in this very place." So he ate the four plantains. Having eaten them, still he thinks, "Should I go taking these four, father-in-law will never eat without giving me two. Because of it, after eating the two in this very place I must go." So from the four he ate two. Having eaten these, still he thinks, "Should I take these two near father-in-law [143], he will never eat without giving me one. Because of it, I must go after eating one in this very place." So from the two he ate one. Having eaten it, still he thinks, "Should I take this near father-in-law [143] he will never eat without giving me a piece. Because of it, I must go after eating the piece here." So breaking the plantain in two he ate a piece. Having eaten it, he brought the remaining piece, and gave it to his father-in-law. Thereupon the Gamarala asks, "Is there [only] so much plantain, son-in-law?" he asked. Then the son-in-law said thus, "Father-in-law, I ate my portion; your portion is that much," he said. The village at which was the father-in-law's daughter, was very near. Afterwards the son-in-law said, "Father-in-law, isn't there scarcity of food now everywhere in the country? On that account it is wrong for us both to go there at the same time. You come behind; I will go in front." Having gone to the place where the daughter was, he said, "Father-in-law is coming there. It is bad for him to eat anything; he has eaten a medicine. On account of the medicine he is only eating [paddy] dust porridge; it is bad to eat anything else. On that account cook quickly a little porridge from paddy dust, and place it [ready] for him," he said. After that, having amply cooked rice and curry for the son-in-law, she gave him to eat; and for the daughter's father, taking some of the paddy dust that was in the store-room, she cooked porridge. While she was looking for him the Gamarala came; afterwards she gave him the porridge. The man, thinking, "Ane! Our daughter must be without anything to eat," having eaten a very little of the porridge went to sleep. In the night that daughter's girl was crying. Saying, "I want to go and sleep near grandfather," she went to the place where the man was. Having gone there the girl was crying in the same way. Then the son-in-law, hearing her, asked at the man's hand, "What, father-in-law, is that girl crying for?" The father-in-law, being very sleepy, said, "I don't know, son-in-law; we must split her belly, [144] maybe." Afterwards the son-in-law, having got up, came to the place where the girl was, taking a knife, and split the girl's belly. Next day, having buried the girl, the father-in-law and the son-in-law came to their village. After they went, the son-in-law, having become desirous to eat cakes, told [his wife] to cook cakes. Thereupon the Gamarala's wife said there was no palm sugar. On account of it, the son-in-law, having become hostile, was minded to go once again to the village at which the Gamarala's elder daughter was given [in marriage]. Having gone there, he said to the Gamarala's daughter, "Ane! Mother-in-law having died, I came here to tell you of the pinkama. [145] The pinkama is on the day after to-morrow. Because of it, cooking a few cakes and the like, come," he said. Thereupon the Gamarala's daughter wept. Then this son-in-law says, "What are you crying for? As for the name 'crying,' we also cried. Through crying you will not meet with her. Because of it, plucking and setting to ripen a spike of plantains and the like, and cooking a few cakes, come on the day after to-morrow." Having said this he came back. Having come there, he said to the Gamarala and the whole of the other persons who were listening, "Father-in-law, your daughter having died, the pinkama is on the day after to-morrow. Because of it, they said to the whole of you that you are to go [after] plucking and setting to ripen spikes of plantains, and cooking cakes." Afterwards the Gamarala, the Gamarala's wife, the son-in-law, the son-in-law's wife, all having wept and wept, cooked cakes and milk-rice; and taking ripe plantains, and tying pingo (carrying-stick) loads of cakes and spikes of plantains, the two parties went until the time when they came face to face. When they are coming in contact the Gamarala's wife goes weeping, "Ane! Daughter, he said you died." Thereupon the daughter comes weeping, "Ane! Mother, it is for your pinkama we came here." While both parties, having made lamentation in this manner, are weeping, the son-in-law who knows the Gamarala's New Speech, said, "To-day also you cannot cook cakes! Eat ye," and began to eat the cakes. After that, their troubles being allayed, when they asked from this one, "What is this you said?" he said, "This indeed, father-in-law, is a little of the New Speech. For the purpose of your getting to know it I did it." After that all were consoled. North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 131, Mr. W. Goonetilleke gives the incident of the plantain eating as part of a tale called "The Story of Hokka." The hero of it was a servant of the Gamarala's. He bought sixteen plantains, and ate his half share, on his way back repeating the process until only one was left, which he offered to the Gamarala. His master complained of his stupidity in getting only one plantain for the money. Hokka replied that he received sixteen, but had eaten the rest. "How did you [dare to] eat them, you dog?" asked the Gamarala. Hokka held up the plantain, peeled it, and put it in his mouth, saying, "This is the way I ate the plantains, your honour." In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 92, a foolish man who was taking money to the local treasury, put it in some flour which he handed to a baker's wife to be made into cakes. In the morning, when he remembered and asked for it, she refused to return it unless he told her two stories this way and two that way, and as he could think of none he went off without it. When his clever brother heard of it, he put some brass finger-rings into flour, handed it to the same woman, and in reply to her remarks stated that there were many rings at the bush where he picked these. When she went to pick some, thinking them gold, the man told her husband that she had followed a man who beckoned to her, the husband took a bamboo and gave her a sound beating. The clever brother, learning that the baker's daughter was betrothed to a lad at another village, told a person whom he met to inform the boy's parents that the girl had died from snake-bite; he himself told the girl's mother that wolves had attacked and killed the lad. The two mothers met on the way, quarrelled and fought, and became reconciled on finding the reports false. The brother told the baker's wife that he had now told her two stories this way, and she was glad to give him his brother's money before he told her two that way. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 289, a barber whose wife was visited by a King pretended to be sick, and informed the King that his wife was a witch who extracted and sucked his entrails while he slept, and then replaced them. When the barber went home he told his wife that his razor had broken on some abnormal and very sharp teeth of the King's. When the King came, and the barber's wife stretched out her hand to find the teeth, the King cried, "A witch! A witch!" and escaped. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. i, p. 355) a negro slave related how when his master sent him home for some article, he informed his wife and daughters that his master had been killed by the fall of an old wall. They rent their robes, overturned the furniture, and broke the windows and crockery, the slave assisting them. Then, led by him, they and the neighbours went lamenting to bring the body home. The Governor also took labourers with spades and baskets. The slave got ahead, told the master that his house had fallen and killed his wife, daughters, and everything else. While his master and his friends were lamenting and tearing their robes the procession of mourners arrived and the hoax was discovered. The Governor made the slave "eat stick" till he fainted. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 211, a man who was sent by his master to buy mangoes, only sweet and fine ones, tasted each one to ascertain if it was of the requisite quality. NO. 115 THE MASTER AND SERVANT While a certain Master and Servant were going on a journey, they having become hungry the Master said, "Ada! Bring plantain flowers," [146] and gave money to the Servant. The Servant having brought plantain flowers, for the purpose of eating them they sat down at a place. The Master spoke to the Servant, "Ada! Don't throw away their rinds (potu); having given money also [for them] what are you throwing them away for?" he said. "If so, you must eat them," the Servant said. Thereupon, while the Master first was eating the peel (leli) of the plantain fruits, his stomach having filled he became unable to eat the core [of the peeled fruit]. After that, the Servant ate the small quantity of the core. Uva Province. NO. 116 HOW THE SON-IN-LAW CUT THE CHENA In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. There is a daughter of those two persons. Having brought a man to the house for the girl, he stayed there. One day the father-in-law said to the son-in-law, "[After] asking for a Naekata (a lucky hour, depending on the positions of the planets), and returning, prepare to cut a little jungle [for making a chena]." After that, the son-in-law went near the Naekatrala (astrologer) and asked for a naekata. Then the Naekatrala said, "The naekata will be on Thursday" (Burahaspotinda, sic). Afterwards the son-in-law, saying, "Burahas, burahas," comes away. The path on which to come is along the [front of the] Gamarala's house; except that, there is no other path. When he is coming away along the [front of the] Gamarala's house, the Gamarala's dog comes growling (burana) in front of him. Well then, the son-in-law forgets the naekata. Well then, having gone back again near the Naekatrala, he said, "Ane! Naekatrala, not having remembered the day I have come here again." Then the Naekatrala says, "Why do you forget; didn't I say Thursday?" When the son-in-law, again saying and saying, "Burahas, burahas," is coming away along the [front of the] Gamarala's house, the dog comes growling. Well then, again this man forgets the naekat day. Again having gone near the Naekatrala, he asks him. Thus, in that manner, that day until it becomes night he walks there and here. Afterwards the Naekatrala said, "What has happened to you that you are forgetting in that way?" Then this son-in-law says, "What is it, Naekatrala? Isn't it because of the Gamarala's dog? What else?" Then the Naekatrala said, "Why do you become unable [to remember] because of the dog?" This son-in-law replies, "When I am going from here saying and saying, 'Burahas, burahas,' along the [front of the] Gamarala's house, that dog comes in front of me growling. Well then, I forget it." The Naekatrala having given into the man's hand a cudgel, said, "Should the dog come, beat it with this;" and saying, "The day is Thursday," sent him away. After that, the man came home in the manner the Naekatrala said. That day was Wednesday; the next day, indeed, was the naekata. On that day he said to the man's wife, "To-morrow, indeed, is the naekata, Thursday. Early in the morning you must make ready a bundle of cooked rice." On the following day the woman cooked a bundle of rice and gave him it. The man, having taken the bundle of cooked rice and hung it on a tree, clearing at the tree only [sufficient] for the man to lie down, slept there until the time when it becomes noon. At noon, bathing in water and returning, he ate the bundle of cooked rice; and having been sleeping there again until the time when it becomes night, he came home in the evening. Thus, in that way, until the time comes for setting fire to the jungle, he ate the bundles of cooked rice. Then when men told the son-in-law they were going to set fire to the jungle [at their chenas] he said, "Father-in-law, I must set fire to my jungle. I cannot quite alone. If you go too it will be good." Afterwards the father-in-law said, "Ha, if so, let us go," and taking a blind (smouldering) torch, and taking also a bundle of [unlit] torches, the father-in-law quite loaded, the son-in-law empty-handed in front, they go on and on, without end. The father-in-law said, "Where, son-in-law, are we going still?" The son-in-law says, "Still a little further. Come along." Having said this, and gone near the tree where he ate the rice, a buffalo was asleep in the place which he had cleared and had been sleeping at. The son-in-law, cutting a stick, came and struck the buffalo, and drove it away, saying, "What did you come to sleep in my chena for?" Then the father-in-law asked, "Where, son-in-law, is the chena?" The son-in-law says, "Ando! Father-in-law, this Candala [147] buffalo was sleeping in one part that I had cut. The others men stole and went off with, maybe." After that, the father-in-law, having become angry, came home. North-western Province. NO. 117 A GIRL AND A STEP-MOTHER At a certain time, at a village there was a certain Gamarala. There was a daughter of the Gamarala's. The daughter's mother died. After she died, for the Gamarala they brought another [woman in] marriage. Of the previous diga (marriage) of that woman there is a girl. The woman and the girl are not good to the Gamarala's daughter. At the time when the Gamarala is not [there], she tells the two girls to clean cotton. She told that step-mother's daughter to remain at the corner of the house, and clean the cotton. She told the daughter of the Gamarala's previous marriage to clean cotton in the lower part of the garden, under the lime tree. Having told her to clean it, the step-mother says, "Should a roll of cotton go away through the wind I will split thy head," she said. When with fear on account of it, the [Gamarala's] girl is cleaning the cotton, a great wind having struck her, all the small quantity of cotton went away owing to the wind. The step-mother saw that the cotton is going. Having seen it, she went and said to the girl, "Why did'st thou send away the cotton in the wind? Thou canst not remain here. Thou having gone near the female Bear, [after] begging for the golden spindle (ran idda), the golden bow for cleaning cotton (ran rodda), the golden spindle (ran wawnna), the golden spinning-wheel (ran yantare), feed the seven mouths of the Seven-mouthed Prince and get a living. Unless [thou dost] that, thou canst not obtain a living here." Having said [this], she beat her. The girl, hearing the word which her step-mother said, went near the female Bear, and asking for [and obtaining] the female Bear's golden spindle, golden cotton-bow, golden spindle, golden spinning-wheel, went to the place where the Seven-mouthed Prince is. The Seven-mouthed Prince is a human-flesh-eating man; there are seven mouths for that man. At the time when the girl was arriving there, the Seven-mouthed Prince had not come back since he went [148] to eat human flesh. This girl having hastened, having cooked seven quarts of rice and seven curries, and covered those things and placed [them ready], remained hidden when the Seven-mouthed Prince was coming. The Seven-mouthed Prince having come, when he looked some rice and curry had been cooked. The Seven-mouthed Prince asks, "Who has cooked these?" The girl does not speak about it. After that, the Seven-mouthed Prince having prepared himself, ate the whole of the cooked rice and curry. Having eaten, and having been sleeping, on the following day, in the morning, he went for human-flesh food. Having waited until the time when he goes, the girl that day having cooked six quarts of rice, and having cooked six curries, cleaned and swept the house, and that day also got hid. That day also, having come, he asked in that manner [who had done it]. That day, also, she did not speak. That day he obliterated one mouth. In this order, until the time when it became one quart, she cooked and gave him to eat. Out of the seven mouths he obliterated six; one remained over. On that day, having cooked in the day a half [quart] of rice, and cooked two curries, and having warmed and placed water for the Seven-mouthed Prince to bathe, and taken another sort of cloth [for him], she placed those things [ready] for him. Having expressed oil, she placed it [ready for him]. That day the Seven-mouthed Prince having come, says, "Come down, person who is assisting me." Having said it, he called her. After that, the girl came. After she came, he asked, "What is the reason of your assisting me in this way?" Then the girl tells him. The girl says, "I have no mother; father has brought a step-mother. That step-mother having beaten me said, 'Thou canst not be here and obtain a living. Thou having gone near the female Bear, [after] begging for the female Bear's golden spindle, golden cotton bow, golden spinning-wheel, golden spindle, go near the Seven-mouthed Prince, and feeding the seven mouths obtain a living. Except that, thou canst not get a living here,' she said. Owing to that I came," she said. Afterwards he became much pleased about it. Having become pleased he told her to stay [as his wife]. Afterwards having called the Prince, and caused him to bathe in warm water, and caused him to put on good cloths, and rubbed oil [on his hair], and combed his head, that day the two sitting down ate cooked rice. From that time, the party became rich there to a good degree. The girl's father, and step-mother, and step-mother's girl, having gone to the place where she is, obtained a subsistence from there. North-western Province. Messrs. H. B. Andris and Co., of Kandy, have been good enough to inform me that the wawnna is a kind of spindle or yarn-holder, two and a half feet long, on which the thread is wound after spinning. It is narrow in the middle part and wider at each end. The rodda is eighteen inches long. NO. 118 THE WICKED ELDER BROTHER In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. There is a younger sister of the man. The elder brother's wife is very dear to the younger sister; the younger sister is a very good girl. One day the elder brother said at the hand of the woman, "It is in my mind to call my younger sister [to be my wife]." The woman says, "Well, what is it to me, if it be good to you?" While she was there, the woman having placed paddy on the hearth, and waited until the time when it is boiling, said to that sister-in-law, "Sister-in-law, having gone rubbing castor-oil on your two legs take out the paddy that is on the hearth." The woman combed the man's head. She said it to the girl unnoticed by the man, to save the girl. That girl having gone rubbing her two legs, when she was taking out the paddy the heat of the fire on the hearth struck her two legs, and the castor-oil, having become warm, descends down her two legs. Then that woman, having been combing and combing the man's head, says at the hand of the man, "There! You say it is in your mind to call your younger sister [to be your wife]. Look there, at the matter from her legs; her legs are ulcerated." [149] Then the man says, "It is unnecessary to keep that one; you take that one, and having taken this bill-hook cut that one's neck, and come back." After that, the woman, calling her sister-in-law and having gone, handed her over to a widow woman, and having secretly taken that man's money also, gave it to the widow woman for her expenses on account of the girl. While returning, she cut a dog on the path, and smearing the blood on the bill-hook, came back and showed it to the man, "Look here (Menna). The blood that has been cut from your younger sister." Well then, to the man's mind it is good. At the time when the man is not at home, having cut a tunnel from the woman's house to the widow woman's house, and from the woman's house to the widow woman's house having drawn a silver chain and an iron chain, she said at the hand of the widow woman, "If there be a sorrow shake the iron chain; if there be a pleasure shake the silver chain." [150] Having said it the woman came home. On a certain day the girl arrived at marriageable age. The widow woman shook the silver chain. Afterwards, this girl having gone [there], when she looked the girl had arrived at a marriageable age; and having distributed the present given to the washerman on the occasion, and the like, she again said at the hand of the widow woman, "If there be a pleasure, shake the silver chain; if a sorrow, shake the iron chain," and came home again. Again one day she shook the silver chain. This woman having gone again, when she looked [she found that] to give the girl [in marriage] the name [of the man] had been decided. Afterwards, having distributed the [food of the] wedding [feast] and the like, the woman came home. The girl having been [married] a little time, bore a boy. Afterwards the girl said to the girl's man, "Tying pingo (carrying-stick) loads, let us go to our village." The man also having said "Ha," cooking cakes, and carrying the little one also, they came to the widow woman's house. Then the widow woman shook the silver chain. The girl's sister-in-law came. Having come, when she looked the girl's little one is there also. Having given from the cakes to the widow woman, she took the others, and calling the girl, calling the girl's husband also, and carrying the little one, she returned home [with them]. Having gone home, the girl's sister-in-law caused the little one to lie in the waist pocket of the girl's elder brother, and said, "There. Your younger sister's little one!" [and told him how she had been saved]. After that, the elder brother having wept, took the little one in his arms. North-western Province. NO. 119 NAHAKOTA'S WEDDING FEAST In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. While they were there the woman bore two girls and a boy. When they were there a long time the man died. After that, the big girl having grown up, they gave her in diga (marriage). The boy cannot speak well; his nose is short. The other girl has become considerably big. That boy is older than the girl. It is Nahakota's [151] endeavour to call that younger sister [in marriage]. That woman (their mother) having perceived that, went with the daughter to the place where the other big daughter was given; and having conducted her [there], came back. After that, a day or two having passed, Nahakota went, in order to call the girl back [to be his wife]. Having gone [he said] at the girl's hand, "Younger sister, mother told me to go back with thee; on that account I came here." While coming with that girl, having met with villages on the road that girl says, "Elder brother, is our village still far away?" Then Nahakota says, "Why do you say, 'Elder brother, elder brother?' Would it be bad if you said, 'Husband, husband' (Wahe)?" Then that girl being frightened, comes without speaking. Again, when coming a little further, she asks, "Elder brother, is our village still far away?" Then Nahakota says, "Why do you say, 'Elder brother, elder brother?' Would it be bad if you said, 'Husband, husband?'" Then the girl being frightened comes without speaking. Thus, in that way they came quite home. Having come, Nahakota said to Nahakota's mother, "Mother, pound flour and cook cakes. I am going to spread nets to catch [animals] for my [wedding] feast." Having said it, Nahakota went to spread nets, joining with a man. After that, the girl says, "Mother, when elder brother and I were coming, I asked at elder brother's hand, 'Elder brother, is our village still further on?' Then elder brother said, 'Why do you say, "Elder brother, elder brother?" If you said, "Husband, husband," would it be bad?'" Afterwards the woman says, "Daughter, let us two go somewhere or other before that one comes." Having said it, and cut the throat (lit., neck) of a cock, and hung it above the hearth, and placed a cooking-pot on the hearth, and blown the fire, and shut the house door, the woman and the girl went somewhere or other. Nahakota, having spread nets, came home. While he was in the veranda, as the blood of the fowl [hanging] in that house was falling into the cooking-pot, the pot having become heated, for three watches (each of four hours) when each drop of blood was falling it makes a noise, "Cos, cos," [152] like cooking cakes. Nahakota thought, "Our mother, etc., cooking cakes, indeed, that is." [153] Having sprung into the open space in front of the house, and beaten and beaten tom-toms on his rear, he began to dance, singing and singing, "Ade! Tude! They are cooking cakes for my Nahakota feast." Having danced, after it became night, on account of their not opening the door Nahakota knocked at the door and told them to open the door. They did not open it. Afterwards, having opened the door, when he looked there was nobody. A cock, only, was hung near the hearth, a cooking-pot placed on the hearth, only the fire is blazing on the hearth. Afterwards, Nahakota having wept, remained there quietly. [154] North-western Province. NO. 120 HOW A MAN CHARMED A THREAD In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. The woman having falsely said that she had the Kadawara disease, [155] taking on false illness lay down. The man every day goes to the watch-hut [in the chena]. One day when he was going to the watch-hut, he asked for thread at the hand of the woman, in order to bring it on the morrow morning, [after] charming it for the Kadawara. After that, the woman gave him thread, having become pleased at it. The man knows about the woman's trickery. Knowing it, that day evening having gone to the watch-hut the man charmed the thread. How did he charm it? The woman's father's name was Palinguwa. At the very time when the man was going to sleep, holding the thread, the very manner in which he charmed it [was this]: having made [nine] knots [on it], he charmed it [by] saying and saying [only], "Palinguwa's woman, Palinguwa's woman." On the following day morning he came back, and tied it on the woman's arm. At the very instant, the woman, quickly having arisen, does her work. While she was thus, the woman says, "Having hastened quickly, you must distribute [betel]." [156] Afterwards, the man also having said, "It is good," he gave betel to Kadawara Vedas [157] who dance well, and said, "Come on such and such a day." He collected for it the articles to be expended, and caused arrack (spirit distilled from palm-juice) to be brought, and prepared all. On the Kadawara day the men came, and having eaten and drunk, and dressed themselves [in their dancing costume and ornaments], as they were descending [from the raised veranda] into the open space in front of the house, this woman quickly took out the mat also, and stretching out her two feet at the doorway, sat down on it, (ready for the ceremony, which would be performed in front of her). Then this man having come speedily, bringing the rice pestle, beat that woman with the pestle and put her in the house. Having shut the door and locked it, and come outside, as he was coming out the Kadawara Vedas, becoming afraid, prepared to run away, saying, "Perhaps this man is a mad-man." Then this man said, "Don't you run away. Dance well. There is arrack; drink as much as you want." Afterwards, they having drunk and drunk and danced until it became light, in the morning the man cooked abundantly, and gave the Kadawara Vedas to eat, and having given them presents sent them away. North-western Province. NO. 121 HOW THE RICE AND CURRY BECAME RAW At a certain time there were a woman and her husband, two persons. During the time while they were [there], one day the husband said to the woman, "I am going to-day to the watch-hut. Having gone there, I shall not come back to-morrow morning; I shall be delayed, ploughing the field below that field. Because of it, you must bring me cooked rice to-morrow morning." Then the woman during the whole night [158] having abundantly given food and the like to her paramours, without sleeping, it became light. After that, the woman went to sleep. [After] going to sleep, being without the means of bringing cooked rice [through want of time to cook it], she washed rice, putting it in a cooking-pot, and cut up dried fish and brinjal, [159] putting them raw into a large cooking-pot, and took them to the rice field [uncooked]. After she went, that man said, "Bola! Strumpet! Didst thou stay with thy paramours until so much time has gone?" and scolded her [for being late]. Thereupon, this woman, saying, "Apoyi! Because you said such a vile word to me may the cooked rice and curry which I brought for you become raw," put them down on the ground. When the man looked, the woman's speech was true; the cooked rice and curry had become raw. After that, the man, having said to the woman that she was a good woman, thoroughly respected her. North-central Province. NO. 122 HOW A WOMAN ATE COOKED RICE BY STEALTH In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. There is also a little one of the woman's; the little one cannot talk well yet. Having waited until the time when the man goes to the watch-hut [at night], this woman every day while he is in the chena having cooked raw-rice [160] eats small beans (maekaral) [with it] in the house. Every day having cooked fry of them (the beans), and given to the little one, they eat it every day at night [without his knowledge]. One day, at the time when the man comes, the little one says, "Father, having cooked maekittan fry, and having cooked raw-rice, let us eat her, eh?" Then that man says at the hand of the woman, "What, Bolan, does this one say?" The woman says, "I don't know. He eats in dreams, [161] maybe. Cause thread to be charmed for it and come back." Afterwards the man, causing the thread to be charmed, came and tied it on the arm of the little one. North-western Province. NO. 123 HOW A WOMAN OFFERED CAKES In a certain country there are a man and a woman, it is said. The woman has been brought from another country (district). A paramour has become associated with the woman. She said to the woman's husband, "In our country there is a custom. In the lower part of the garden we must offer cakes to the Yaka who is in the lower part of the garden; if not, the Yaka causes sickness. When I was living at my village, too, I offered them every day. Because of it, we must offer them now also." Afterwards the man said, "Ha, it is good. Continue to offer them. For it, what else do you want, etc.?" After that, the woman said, "We don't want anything else. Having set up two sticks, cleft into four at the top (aewari kanu), we must offer on one twenty cakes, on one thirty cakes. That is all." Having cooked the cakes, on the day on which she offers them she cannot cook more [food]. At the house no one can eat [afterwards on that day]; should they eat they will die. After that, the man having prepared the two cleft sticks in the lower part of the garden, gave her them. From that day, the woman having cooked fifty cakes, at one cleft stick offers twenty, at one cleft stick thirty. [162] When it is becoming dark, the paramour having come is in the lower part of the garden. The woman having offered the cakes says, "Leaving the twenty, taking the thirty, go, O Yaka." Having said [this] the woman comes home. The paramour having come, leaving the twenty, eats the thirty, and goes away. Afterwards the woman having come [there], eats the twenty, and goes back. In that very manner, the woman every day having given cakes to that paramour, the woman also eats. That man was unable to find out the roguery. North-western Province. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 118, a man who wished to have meat to eat, induced his sons to kill a sheep and offer the flesh to the deity of a tree which stood in their field, telling them that their prosperity was due to this god. NO. 124 THE MANNER IN WHICH A WOMAN PREPARED A FLOUR FIGURE In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said; the woman is associated with a paramour. The woman has been brought from another country. One day (dawasakda) the woman said, "In our country there is a custom. Having constructed a flour figure, and having made it sit upon a chair near the hearth, we must cook cakes and offer them [before it]." After that, the man having sought for the articles for cooking cakes gave her them. After that, the woman, having pounded flour and made [enough] for two cooking pots, having increased the syrup for one pot, and diminished the syrup for one, and having been there until the time when the man goes somewhere or other (kohedo), told the paramour to come. After having put and smeared flour over the whole body [163] of the man, having brought a chair near the hearth and made him sit upon the chair, the woman sitting down near the hearth cooks the cakes. That man having come home, when he looked there is the flour figure. While the man in silence is looking on in the raised veranda, having seen that the woman puts the well-cooked cakes separately into a pot and the badly cooked cakes into another pot, and getting to know about the flour figure paramour, to make the woman get up of necessity,--a calf had been brought from the woman's village--the calf had been tied up,--the man having gone very quietly (himimma) unfastened the calf. Very quietly having come again to the veranda he said, "On (there)! The calf that was brought from your village is loose; tie it and come back." The woman says, "I am unable to go; [164] you go and tie it, and come." The man said, "I will not." Afterwards the woman having arisen went to tie the calf. [Then] this man, having arisen from the veranda, struck the oil cooking-pot that was on the hearth on the top of the head (ismundune) of the flour figure paramour. The flour figure, crying out, is wriggling about. That woman having tied up the calf and come, says, "I had prepared the flour figure. Having thrown it away that one will have come and sat there [in its place]. What shall I do? [When] he escaped from you even so much [time], am I indeed going to eat that one's liver? [165] Why didn't you split that one's head?" Having said [this] she caused the man to be deceived. Finished. North-western Province. The woman's remark regarding the liver is an instance of the survival of a very old expression, perhaps connected with magical practices. In the translations from the Chinese Tripitaka published by M. Chavannes in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. i, p. 120, a girl cried, "May I become a demoniacal and maleficent being to devour the liver of the elder brother." In Folk-lore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 419, it is stated that witches are believed to cause people's deaths by eating their livers. The Sinhalese text is, "Umbawaen occarawat beruwa mama nan okage kaewtu kanawa nae?" The final word is merely a colloquial expletive which adds emphasis to the question. It occurs also in No. 197, vol. iii, footnote No. 1, and elsewhere. Perhaps this is the original form of the curious syllable sometimes heard at the end of questions put to acquaintances by Burghers of the lower class in Ceylon, as in the query, "I say, man, what are you doing, no?" NO. 125 HOW A WOMAN BECAME A LAPWING [166] At a certain village there were an elder sister and a younger brother, it is said. He gave the elder sister [167] in diga [marriage] to a [man of another] country. For the younger brother they brought a wife to the house. When no long time had gone after the elder sister was given in diga, the elder sister's husband died; and being without [anything] to eat or drink, the elder sister came to the younger brother's house in order to beg for something. At that time, the man said, "Ade! Give our elder sister amply to eat and drink, and having tied up and given a bag of paddy amounting to a load, send her on her journey;" and in order to look at his wife's trustworthiness or untrustworthiness he stayed in a tree behind the house, looking out, near the path on which the elder sister goes. Thereupon, the man's wife, having given the man's elder sister a piece of stale cake to eat, put in a [mat] box a little worthless paddy chaff that had been blown away when she fanned paddy, and gave her it. After that, when this elder sister, being grieved, was going on the path, she went saying and saying, "Ane! If my younger brother were there she would not do thus. Sister-in-law gave me only paddy chaff and a few stale cakes; but [even] should my sister-in-law do magic against me, may a shower of flowers rain at my younger brother's doorway." Then, weeping and weeping she came home. Then the younger brother who stayed in the tree having been hearing that word, came home, and asked his wife, "Ade! Didst thou give my elder sister amply to eat and drink?" The woman said, "Andoma! When she had eaten I tied up a bag of paddy equal to a load, and gave it. What else will you tell me to give?" Thereupon the man having said, "It is good," and having been keeping it in his mind, after two or three days had gone, said, "Ade! Thy mother is ill. Prepare something and give me it [as a present for her, to enable me] to look at her and return," he said. The man said it falsely. The woman saying, "Perhaps it is true," cooked a packet of rice, and taking thirty ridis, [168] put them at the bottom of the packet of cooked rice, and tied and gave him it, for him to go to her parents' house and return. Unknown to the man [169] she did this dishonesty (i.e., put his money in the bag). Thereupon the man, taking the packet of cooked rice, went to the house of the man's elder sister. That day he remained there without coming back. That elder sister having unfastened the bag, when she looked [saw that] at the bottom of the rice there were thirty ridis. Afterwards the elder sister called the younger brother and asked, "Younger brother, whence are these thirty ridis at the bottom of the rice in this bag?" The younger brother said, "I told her of our house (ape gedara eki [170]) to cook and give me a packet of rice, in order to go to her village. She will have put in the thirty ridis." At that time a washerwoman who stayed in that village brought clothes to the younger brother's house. Thereupon this woman (his wife) asked at the hand of the washerwoman (radawi atin), "Washerwoman-aunt, our house man went to go to [my] village and return. Didn't you meet him on the way?" The washerwoman said, "Ane! Madam (mahattine), on the road indeed I did not meet with him; he is staying at the gentleman's (rahamille) elder sister's house. Except that it seemed that he is [171] at the house itself, he did not [otherwise] go to your quarter." Thereupon, at that instant [172] a disturbance (internal) having come to her, while this woman was saying, "Is it true, washerwoman? Is it true, washerwoman? Saw you him, washerwoman? Saw you him, washerwoman? Gave he them, washerwoman? Got she them, washerwoman? There are thirty ridis, there are thirty, there are thirty," [173] except that she got her breath upwards, she did not hold it down. Having gone in that very manner, when she said there were thirty ridis she became a female Red-wattled Lapwing, [174] and flew away. Now also the Red-wattled Lapwings say, "Hotae tikiri, hotae tikiri." [175] From that time, indeed, the Red-wattled Lapwings increased. Then the man having come back, not contracting another marriage he remained providing subsistence for his elder sister. Well then, we came here. [176] North-western Province. NO. 126 THE STORY OF THE SEVEN WICKED WOMEN [177] In a certain country, when seven elder sisters and younger sisters, fastening on bangles (at-wael) are going along, a woman having been near the well asked, "Where are they [178] going?" Then the seven elder sisters and younger sisters said, "We are going to seek for ourselves seven elder brothers and younger brothers." Then this woman said, "There are seven elder brothers and younger brothers of mine." Having said, "Let us go, if so, to our house," and having gone calling the seven persons and sent them to seven houses (rooms), she lowered [from the corn store] seven [mat] boxes of paddy, and gave them. The seven persons having boiled the paddy, and said, "Sister-in-law, look after this," [179] and spread it out to dry, the seven went for firewood. Having gone there they spoke, "Let us find a means [180] of killing sister-in-law." There was a Brown Monkey (rilawa); catching the monkey they brought it home. This younger sister having gone to sleep and a great rain having rained, all the paddy was washed away. [181] When those seven persons having come looked, all the paddy had been washed away. After that, the seven persons again having lowered paddy [from the corn-store], when they were pounding the paddy raw (lit., hard) that younger sister awoke. Having awoke thus, she asked at the hand of those seven, "Sister-in-law, is there cooked rice?" Then the women said, "Is there cooked rice in our hand? It is in the cooking pot, isn't it?" The women having previously (lit., betimes) broken up bits of potsherds, and put them in the drinking kettle, and put it away, are pounding paddy. Afterwards that sister-in-law having gone and eaten the cooked rice, and said, "Sister-in-law, give me water," these women said, "Is it in our hand? It is in the house, in the drinking kettle; take it and drink." Afterwards the sister-in-law having taken the drinking kettle, when she was drinking the water the pieces of potsherds stuck in her throat. These seven persons spoke, "Should that one's elder brothers come, indeed, we shall be unable to kill her. Before they come let us kill her." Having spoken thus, and having put the sister-in-law and that monkey into a bag and tied it, they hung it at the ridge pole. Having hung it, after the seven persons were pounding paddy the seven strike seven blows with the rice pestles at the bag. At the number they are striking, that monkey, jumping and jumping, scratches that woman who is in the bag. He having scratched her, afterwards blood descends from the bag. Then the seven persons having said, "Now then, it is bad [for her] to be [thus]; having released her let us put her down," having unfastened the bag, put down the sister-in-law at the veranda. Then the sister-in-law's elder brothers came home. Having come there the eldest brother asked, "Where is our younger sister?" Then these seven women said, "We don't know. Having gone behind Rodiyas, and her caste having [thus] fallen, there! she is weeping and weeping in the direction of the veranda." Afterwards the eldest elder brother having gone, "What, younger sister, happened to you?" he asked at the hand of the younger sister. The younger sister cannot speak, because a sharp piece of potsherd has stuck in her throat. The whole seven elder brothers having gone, spoke [to her]. Because she did not speak, the eldest elder brother said, "Who can cut [and kill] this younger sister?" The whole five other elder brothers said they could not; the young elder brother said, "I indeed can." Having said it, causing them to cook a bundle of rice, calling the younger sister also, and taking the sword, and taking the bundle of cooked rice, he went [with her] to a forest jungle (himalekata). Having gone there he said to the younger sister, "Younger sister, [for me] to look for lice on your head lie down." Afterwards the younger sister lay down; well then, the elder brother began to smash the lice. Then sleep went to the younger sister. Afterwards the elder brother having placed the younger sister's head very softly on the ground, and having cut a Rat-snake on the path he was coming on, [after] smearing the blood on the sword he showed the sword to the people who were at home. Afterwards that younger sister having awoke, when she looked her elder brother was not [there], in the midst of the forest. Well then, weeping and weeping, taking also the bundle of cooked rice, having bounded to a path she began to go. Having gone thus,--there is a city called "The City the Rakshasa eats"; there is an alms-hall at that city,--having gone, she arrived there. There, having eaten that bundle of cooked rice, and having joined herself to the people who are giving alms, she began to give alms. The eyes of the whole of these seven elder brothers and seven women became blind. After that, news reached those persons that there is an alms-hall of the city the Rakshasa eats. After that, they very fourteen persons went near the alms-hall. That sister-in-law also having gone in a diga [marriage], has borne a child also. She having given food to this party, when that sister-in-law and the sister-in-law's child were preparing (lit., making) to sleep, the child said to the sister-in-law, "Mother, for me to hear it tell me a story." Then the sister-in-law [said], "Son, what do I know? I will tell you the things indeed that happened to me." So the son said, "It is good, tell them." Afterwards she told him all the matters that occurred to this sister-in-law. Those seven elder brothers having heard the things she says, and having said, "Ane! Our younger sister to-day is relating our grandeur!" as soon as they gave the salutation "Sadhu!" the eyes of the whole seven elder brothers became clear. The eyes of the seven women did not become clear. The seven elder brothers also stayed at the very city at which is the younger sister. The seven women having been in much hunger they went and died. Finished. North-western Province. NO. 127 THE STORY OF THE OLD MAN [182] In a certain country an old man ground gunpowder. Having ground it until the time when it became night, he dried it in the sun. In the evening, at the time when he was preparing (lit., making) to put it in the powder-horn, the old gentleman's [183] grandson having come said, "Grandmother, let us burn (pussamu) gunpowder, to look at it." Then, having scolded the child she said, "Bring a fire-brand." Having brought it, "Grandmother, give me a little powder," he said. After that, she put gunpowder into a potsherd. Having put it in she told him to burn it. When he was placing the fire-brand [to it] the little powder that was in the potsherd all burnt. Because the old gentleman was near the potsherd the old gentleman's beard and body were burnt. On account of the difficulty of his body he said to his wife, "Warm and give me a little water," he said. The woman having warmed the water called him to bathe; at that time the old gentleman came there. After that, while the woman for the purpose of cooling the water went to bring cold water, the man, taking a piece of coconut shell, poured [the hot water] over his body. Because there was too much heat in the water his body began to burn. While he was crying out on his body's burning, a man having come said for that burning, "Cowdung (ela-goma) indeed is good." [184] Afterwards the man having gone running, bringing excrement deposited by a child called Goma, from the place where they tie the cattle, smeared it on the burning places. The [old] man perceiving the stench, at the time when he said to his wife, "What is this stench? Is this cowdung or what? Look," the woman brought a lamp. When she looked, perceiving that it was ordure, she said, "The things this foolish stubborn fellow is doing to himself!" Spitting, having brought water and bathed him she went with him into the house. Afterwards in many days she made him well. North-western Province. NO. 128 THE MAGIC LUTE PLAYER [185] In a country a Prince [after] constructing a Lute plays [186] it. Throughout the extent through which the sound was heard, not a female elephant nor tusk elephant stays away; it comes to look. In that manner he caused many elephants to be brought [up to him] in the jungles. A Princess of another city was minded to look at this Prince. Because it was so she said, "I will (would) give five hundred masuran to a person who brought and gave him; having given them I will marry that person." Yet [another] Prince asked, "I will bring and give him; will you marry me?" When he asked, the Princess says, "Cause him to be brought; I will [then] marry you." Thereupon this Prince having also taken a great quantity of white cloths, proceeded to that city. Having gone there, and having halted (natara-wela) in a jungle, cutting sticks he constructed a white tusk elephant with [them and] the white cloths; having made it this Prince is under the tusk elephant. Certain men (minissu wagayak) having seen this white tusk elephant, say to the Prince who having played the Lute causes the tusk elephant to be brought, "O Prince, there is a good white tusk elephant in that forest," they said. Afterwards this Prince took the Lute and played it as on other days; this tusk elephant did not come. Having said [to himself], "What is [the reason of] it, Bola? To-day this tusk elephant did not come!" and having gone a considerable distance he played it. Then this tusk elephant went a little further off (epitata). The Prince at that time went near and played it; then this elephant went still a little further. In that manner this Prince having placed and placed the Lute at the end (asse) of the tusk elephant's tail, plays it; still also this tusk elephant goes on. In that way these very two went to this Princess's city. Thereupon this Princess became much pleased, and having given five hundred masuran to this Prince got married to this Prince. The Prince who played the Lute she caused to remain as the Minister. North-western Province. Although there appears to be no Indian folk-tale of a musician who could attract the wild animals like the Finnish hero, the notion is found in that country, and one of the reliefs at the Ramaswami temple in Kumbakonam represents various wild animals listening to Krishna's flute playing. Colossal figures of animals are sometimes taken in processions; they are formed on a framework of bamboos or sticks; in one figure of an elephant the spaces in the frame were filled with leafy twigs. NO. 129 THE LAD WHO SANG SONGS At a certain time there was a man; the man had a girl and a boy. At the time when they were thus, the man went alone to the sea to catch fish (mas). Having gone, when he was catching fish a very large wave having knocked him into the sea, the man on account of the water (current) drifted away. At that time the men of the ferry-boat near there were laying nets. This man having gone was entangled (lit., tied) in the nets. Then the ferry-boat men drew out the nets. When they looked a man was entangled in a net. Then, taking the man ashore they laid him on his face, and while they were pressing on his belly with the feet, without the man's life going he breathed. [187] Then without having caused hurt to this man when they were treading on his belly for the water to go, the man became conscious. Then the men having said, "Of what country are you?" having spread the news around, and given him cooked rice which had been taken for the party to eat, they told him to choose [some] fishes. He having selected them, in the evening they went to the village, taking the man. Having gone [there], as this man who fell into the sea does not know the road to go to his village, doing work for hire for the ferry-boat men and continuing to eat [thus], he stayed [there]. The elder female child and the younger lad whom there were of the man who fell into the sea, went to the Hettiya's shop to bring salt. At the time when they went, the Hettiyas put the girl in the house, and shut the door. Having beaten the boy, they drove him away. At that time, the King of that city having made ready a very great eating (kaema), sent letters to the Kings of other cities to come for the eating. After that, those Kings all came to the city. In the royal party, the King of the city at which was the man who fell into the sea and went ashore, also came. Having come, all the party having assembled in that day night, after they ate the food this lad who had lost his father and elder sister had come [there]. Having given food to this lad, while he was [there] the royal party, having eaten and drunk, conversed together regarding the happiness and sorrow in the various cities. Then this lad who was without father and elder sister, thought of telling the matters which the party omitted, by way of a verse. Having thought of it he says, Apucci mude waetuna. Father fell into the sea. Akka Hettiya In his quarter the Chetti Padeta damala Elder sister has set; he Dora wahagatta. The door has shut on me. Ayinan! Ayinan! Alas! Alas! Thereupon, having met with this lad, hearing the words that ought to be known at the city at which they are, they spoke, "Hahak! Hahak! [188] don't speak." Having stopped the talk, they said, "Who is that lad who said the verse? Say that verse again for us to hear." Then the boy said again, Father fell into the sea. In his quarter the Chetti Elder sister has set; he The door has shut on me. Alas! Alas! Then the royal party, calling the boy near, and after that having heard of the matters that occurred, gave food to the lad from the royal house, and made him stay at the royal house. When he was [there] in that way for a little time, the King of that city having died, because a King was necessary to burn [the corpse] [189] they decorated the tusk elephant, and taking it they walk through the whole city. Then the tusk elephant keeps coming towards the palace itself. Because of it, men came out on the path on which the tusk elephant is coming. At that time, the tusk elephant having come, kneeling down made obeisance to that lad. Then those men, having made the lad bathe in sandal water (water perfumed with sandal), and placed him on the tusk elephant's back, went in procession round the city, and having come back they burnt that King, and made a funeral mound [over the ashes]. While exercising the sovereignty over the men of the city, when a little time had gone the King went to that place called the Hettiya quarter, and having beheaded all the Hettiyas, came back calling his elder sister [to accompany him], and gave her in marriage. There was a daughter of the dead King. After marrying that Princess, in a little time there was a child. After that, he went to that city in which his father is, and calling his father also, he returned. Having come back, he remained exercising the sovereignty in a good manner. North-central Province. NO. 130 THE HUNCHBACK TALE In a certain city, at one house there was a Hunchback. One day, at the time when this Hunchback went to the rice field, his wife, having cooked rice, called him, saying, "Hunchback! Hunchback!" Thereupon anger having come to him he went home and thrashed his wife; thereupon the woman died. Having buried the woman, at the grave he planted tampala. [190] When the tampala had become large a cow having approached there ate the tampala with the sound [191] that goes "Kuda caw caw." [192] At that time, also, anger having come to the man he struck and killed the cow. Having buried the cow, upon the grave he planted a foreign yam plant. [When it had grown], cutting up the foreign yam plant [after digging it up], and having gone and put it in a cooking-pot (haeliya), when he had placed it on the [fire on the] hearth, at the time when it boils [193] with the sound [191] that goes "Kuda goda goda, Kuda goda goda," [194] the man having become angry carried [the pot] also away, and struck it on the stone [and broke it]. After a few days, at the time when he was sleeping, with the sound that goes Kuda run [195] flies alighted on his body. Thereupon he having arisen, with the intention of killing the flies set fire to the house. After the fire became alight, having seen that it burns with the sound that goes "Kuda busu busu, Kuda busu busu," [196] he, also, sprang into the midst of the fire and was killed. Uva Province. The story is a variant of No. 29, vol. i, "The Pied Robin." NO. 131 THE POOR MAN AND THE JEWELS At a certain village attached to a seaport there was a poor man. The man tried to borrow twenty thousand pounds from rich men who were in the village. As there was not a thing to take from him [as security] any one was unwilling to give the money. While he was walking about asking for the money, a certain nobleman [197] having called him, said, "I will give you the money; I shall not take it again from you." Having said thus, he counted the money and gave it to him. And the man taking it, and having gone near the landing-place and expended two thousand pounds, caused a house to be built, and having expended sixteen thousand pounds caused the house to be filled with cow-dung, chaff, etc. After that, he set fire to the house, and having collected and put into sacks the whole of the ashes, he gave a thousand pounds, and bringing a ship for hire loaded the sacks into it. Having gone to a country in which cold, etc., proceed from serpents, [198] and heaped up the sacks, and told him to come in three months more, he sent away the shipmaster (naew-potiya). The man having unfastened the whole of the sacks of ashes, placed [the ashes] thinly [on the ground]. The whole of the serpents having come to the ashes, owing to their having slept there eject jewels. After three months he again put the ashes into the sacks. And the ship having arrived that day, he loaded the whole of the sacks [in it], and having gone to his own country and heaped up the sacks, and for the remaining cash taking a house for hire, he placed the sacks of ashes [in it], and dwelt there. One day having washed a little of the ashes from a bag, there was a quantity (rasiyak) of very valuable gems there. Having shown that to the nobleman who gave the money, he told him to take a part from the bags, but he said he did not want them. And the poor man having much importuned him, and given him a portion from the bags, the two persons lived in friendship. Finished. Uva Province. NO. 132 THE LEARNED POOR MAN In a certain country a poor man, having nothing to eat, went to another country. Having gone there, and gone to a travellers' shed, he remained lying down. During the time while he was there, still [another] man of the city who was without food and clothing came to the travellers' shed. Then the man who came first asked the man who came afterwards, "Where art thou going?" The man said, "Being without [food] to eat, I am going to this city to beg something." Then the man who came first says, "I, indeed, being without [food] to eat have come here. Now then, because we two are men without [food] to eat, I will tell you a device," said the man who came first to the man who came afterwards. Then the man who came afterwards asked, "What is it?" The man says, "Thou having gone to the royal palace and made obeisance, say at the hand of the King, 'From the exalted royal palace I ought to receive a salary.' Then the King will ask, 'On what account should I give pay to thee?' Then say thou, 'In this your kingdom, Sir, either for any needed fight, or any needed thing, when I have come into the midst of it I can manage the affair. I can [also] beat the notification tom-toms. Because of that, indeed, I am asking pay.'" Then the man having gone near the royal palace, asked in that manner. The King asked, "For what shall I give pay to thee?" The man replied in the very way which that man told him. Then the King having heard the words and being pleased, appointed a salary for that man, and said, "From to-day thou must look after the troubles of this city." The man having said, "It is good," said at the hand of the King, "I have nothing to eat," asking for the pay also, [and he received a sum in advance]. Having gone near that man who gave him the instructions, and told him this talk which occurred at the royal palace, and given the teacher a half share from that pay which was given, taking the other half share the man went to his village. That man who gave the instructions, not going anywhere else, remained cooking and eating at that very travellers' shed. Thereafter, for the man who received the pay the King established the name Beri-Nadaya. [199] Well then, when that Beri-Nadaya was coming and going to [and from] the palace, he was providing assistance for that teacher. At that time, on a road of the city a lion having lain in wait began to kill people. In those days, Beri-Nadaya, having come to his village, stayed [there]. Without telling Beri-Nadaya, because he was a new man, having sent the old accustomed Ministers and other multitudes for killing the lion, [the King] told them to return [after] killing the lion. Thereupon, the party having been sent to go, after they went, when Beri-Nadaya was going to the royal palace he went to the place where the teacher was staying. At that time, the news regarding this lion having reached the teacher, he said, "In this manner, a lion which eats men is staying at this city. I have news that men went from the royal palace to kill the lion. Because of it, as soon as you go, 'You must seize the lion,' the King will say. Thereupon, say 'I can,' and asking for a piece of cord, and placing it [coiled] round your neck, go. Then the men will come [after] killing the lion. Then say, 'There! People, the work you have done is good! (sarcastically). Asking for a cord I came from the palace [in order] to go [back after] seizing it [alive], so as to place it as a present [200] [for the King]. Concerning this, blame will fall on you from the King.' Having said this, frighten them. Thereupon the party will say, 'Ane! Beri-Nadaya, don't say that we killed it.' Then say thou, 'It is good. If so, let no one speak [about it]. Having placed [the deed] upon my own back, I will say it myself.' Then the men will say, 'It is good.'" When Beri-Nadaya was doing this, it happened in this very manner. [The King] gave Beri-Nadaya at the rate of a thousand masuran a month. Then Beri-Nadaya, taking the pay, as on other days continued to give little by little [only] to that teacher, so that his regard [for him] became lost, and remained so. At that time, to seize that city seven Kings and seven armies came, and surrounded the city. On account of it, this King having said, "To this Mara [201] army what shall I do?" was in fear. Then the King having waited until the time when Beri-Nadaya came, says, "It is not like you killed the lion. Seven Kings and seven armies having come, are near the city gates. Go and fight." That Beri-Nadaya went near that teacher, and told him this. The teacher said, "[After] asking for the King's festival tusk elephant and sword, come thou." After that, Beri-Nadaya having gone near the King, when he came [after] asking for the festival tusk elephant and the sword, both of them went for the fight. Having gone, Beri-Nadaya, being on the tusk elephant, when he peeped and looked having seen those monarchs [202] and the multitude, fell unconscious under the tusk elephant. Thereupon, that teacher, having dragged Beri-Nadaya aside, and cast him away, wrote a letter and shot it [attached to an arrow] to the place where those seven Kings were. The royal party said, "What is this that is fallen from the sky?" When they looked there was written, "It is I myself whom they call Danuddara Panditayo. [203] If you can, be pleased to come to fight." The royal party becoming afraid regarding it, all ran off to the quarters to which each one went. The Panditayo came to the palace on the tusk elephant. After he came, the Panditayo was placed by the King in the post of Prime Minister. North-western Province. In The Jataka, No. 80 (vol. i, p. 204) there is a story which closely agrees with this. The clever man was a dwarfish Brahmana who, aware that he would not be employed on account of his small size, joined with a huge ignorant weaver, who received an appointment as archer to the King at Benares. By following the Brahmana's instructions the weaver obtained all the credit of killing a tiger and buffalo as in this tale, but becoming proud, he treated his adviser with scorn. Afterwards, when ordered to attack a hostile force he was so overcome with fear that the Brahmana made him descend from the elephant on which they were riding, and he himself then attacked the enemy's camp, captured the King, and was loaded with honours. The despatch of the message attached to the arrow is not mentioned in this story; but in the Jataka tale No. 181 (vol. ii, p. 62) Prince Asadisa, son of a King of Benares, is represented as scratching a message on an arrow, firing it into the camp of some hostile forces headed by seven Kings who were besieging the city, and thereby scaring these enemies away. A footnote states that in the Mahavastu the message was wrapped round the arrow. In two instances in the Maha Bharata (Drona Parva, xcix, and cci) the senders' names were engraved on arrows. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. 4, p. 103), a Prince wrote a letter, set it on the point of an arrow, and shot it into a garden in which a lady was walking. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 519, a young Brahmana suggested to a Prince that he should receive a daily salary of one hundred gold pieces; this was paid to him. In the same work, vol. ii, p. 251, an unknown man demanded and received five hundred dinars (about £250) as his daily wage. In the Hitopadesa an unknown Rajput was granted four hundred gold pieces as his daily pay. While the Sinhalese were besieging the Portuguese in Colombo in A.D. 1588, the Sinhalese King shot into the fort a letter containing a demand for the safe conduct of officials who were to arrange a truce (Pieris, Ceylon, vol. i, p. 243). NO. 133 A POOR MAN AND A WOMAN At a certain city there were a poor woman and a man. Because the two persons had not [anything] to eat and to wear, the woman having pounded and pounded [paddy] obtained a livelihood. When not much time had gone in this manner, being unable to pound and eat, her strength and ability [to work] went. Thereupon she one day having beaten the man with the broom, [204] and having said, "Strumpet's son, bring thou from somewhere or other things for food," seized him by the hair-knot, and cast him out of the door-way. Then the man, through shame at what the woman had done, having gone along a road and sat down at a tree, when the time for eating rice came, wept. Thereupon, the Devatawa who stayed in that tree came and asked at the hand of the man, "Bola, what art thou crying for?" Then this man says, "O Lord, my wife having become without strength or ability [to work], because we two were unable to obtain [anything] having beaten me with the broom, seized me by the hair-knot and put me outside. Having come [here] owing to it, because I cannot bear my hunger I wept." The Devatawa asked, "What dost thou want?" The man said, "I want goods." Thereupon the Devatawa, having given the man three pills, says, "Taking these three pills, having thought of the thing thou wantest cast them down. The things thou wantest will be created." Then the man, taking the pills, for one said, "May my house be created a palace, together with the possession of wealth," and threw away one pill. In that manner this occurred. For the next one he said, "On each side of the door-way of my house, may a horse of silver and a tusk elephant of gold be created," and threw away a pill. In that manner they were created. For the other one he said, "A road to my house having been created, let a carriage for me to go in, and many things come into existence," and threw away the other pill. In that very way they were created. After that, having come home he remained in happiness. After that, a woman of another house came to this house for fire. Having come and seen these matters, she asked this woman, "Sister-in-law, how did you obtain these things?" Thereupon this woman says, "Having beaten my husband with the broom, I caught him by the hair-knot, and put him out at the door-way, to seek goods and come back. After that, he went, and having been near a tree came back [after] receiving them." Having said [this], she told the woman about these matters [and that her husband received the things he thought of]. Afterwards the woman, having gone home and beaten the woman's husband with the broom, caught him by the hair-knot, and put him out at the door-way. The man having gone also, stayed near the tree, weeping and weeping. At that time, by the Devatawa three pills were given (lit., gave) to [this] man also. The man, taking them, came home. Thereupon the woman having warmed water, and made him bathe, and given him to eat, and given him betel to eat, asked the man, "What have you brought?" The man showed her the three pills. The woman, taking the three pills in her hand, and having looked at them, said, "Are these ani that you have brought?" and threw them away. Then in every place on the woman's body ani were created. Then for three years having striven, finding the three pills she said, "Leaving the anus which was there, may the others be obliterated," and having picked up the three pills she threw them away. Thereupon she became as at first. North-central Province. The plight of the woman is nearly similar to that of Indra after he had been cursed by Gautama for visiting Ahalya, as related in the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. i, p. 123. In Folklore in Southern India (Natesa Sastri), p. 208, while an indigent Brahmana was asleep in a forest, the God Siva and his wife Parvati ate his cooked rice, leaving in its place five magic cups of gold out of each of which an Apsaras came and served him with delicious food. After he had returned home and given a feast to the villagers, a rich landholder went off to obtain similar prizes, the God and Goddess ate his rice, and left five cups for him. As soon as he returned home he summoned the whole village to a feast; but when the cups were opened out several barbers issued from each, and held and shaved all the guests clean. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iv, p. 114) a man heard in the Night of Power that three prayers would be granted to him. After consulting his wife, he prayed that his nose might be magnified, as a sign of his nobility, and it became so large that he could not move. He then prayed to be rid of it, and his nose disappeared altogether; his last prayer caused it to be restored to its first state. NO. 134 THE STORY OF THE RAKSHASA AND THE PRINCESS [205] In a certain country there are a King and a Queen, it is said. The Queen bore a Princess. In that very country there are a Rakshasa and a Rakshasi. The Rakshasi, too, bore a son. In that Princess's horoscope there was [found] that she will contract marriage with a Rakshasa; in that Rakshasa's horoscope there was [found] that he will marry a Princess. After both had become considerably big the King and Queen died; only that Princess is in the palace. The Rakshasa can create anything [he has] thought of. The Rakshasa thought, "The palace and royal goods that are in the palace all are to disappear." In that very manner they disappeared. There not being a place for the Princess to stay in, when she is weeping and weeping the Rakshasa having come there asked at the hand of the Princess, "What are you weeping for?" Then the Princess said, "I weep as there is not a place for me to be in, and not a thing to eat,--because of that." After that the Rakshasa said, "I will give food and clothing; can you come to our house?" Then the Princess said, "I can." After that, the Rakshasa and the Princess came to the Rakshasa's house. Then at the hand of the Rakshasa asked the Rakshasa's mother, "Who, son, is that?" Then he said, "Mother, I have come summoning such and such a King's Princess, for you to get [some] ease." [206] After that, the Rakshasi having said, "Yes, it is good," while, having employed the Princess, she was making her do all the work, the Princess being like a servant of the Rakshasi's, the Rakshasi had the thought, "[How] if I eat the Princess?" Having thought it, one day when the Rakshasi was preparing to go to eat human bodies she said at the hand of the Princess, "[By the time] when I am coming, having brought and placed [ready] seven large pots of water, and brought and placed [ready] seven bundles of firewood, and boiled and pounded seven paelas of paddy (each about three-eighths of a bushel), and plastered cow-dung on [the floors of] seven houses, and cooked, warm water for me to bathe and place thou it [ready]. If not, I will eat thee." Having said this the Rakshasi went to eat human bodies. After that, the Princess remained weeping and weeping. So the Rakshasa asked, "What art thou crying for?" The Princess said, "Mother, telling me so many works, went away. How shall I do them?" Then the Rakshasa said, "Don't thou be doubtful about it. When mother, having come back, has asked, say thou that thou didst all the works." After that, the Princess, having remained silent in the very manner the Rakshasa said, told at the hand of the Rakshasi [on her return] that she did the works. When the Rakshasi looked to see if the works were right, all were right. Well then, to eat the Princess there was no means for the Rakshasi. After that, she sent word to the Rakshasi's younger sister, "There is a girl of the palace [here]; I have no means of eating that girl; whatever work I told her that work has been quite rightly done. Now then, how shall I eat [her]? I will send this girl near you; then you eat her." The Rakshasi said at the hand of the Princess, "Go to the house of our younger sister's people; a box of mine is there. If thou dost not bring it I will eat thee." After that, the Princess having come near the stile, while she was weeping and weeping the Rakshasa came there and asked, "What art thou weeping for?" Then the Princess said, "Mother told me that there is a box at the house of little-mother's people. [207] Having said [I am] to bring it, if not she will eat me, when I have gone for the box little-mother will eat me. To-day indeed I cannot escape." After that, the Rakshasa [said], "Little-mother is blowing and blowing [the fire] at the hearth; the box is near the door. Thou having gone running, taking the box come away." Afterwards, having gone running, at the time when the Princess looked the Rakshasi is blowing and blowing at the hearth; the box was near the door. The Princess having gone into the house, taking the box came running. The Rakshasi chased after her; she was unable to eat her. For that Rakshasi [who sent her] there, also there was not a way to eat her. When she was there in that way for a considerable time they asked for a marriage for the Rakshasa. Having asked it, the Rakshasi also having become ready to go for the marriage, said at the hand of the Princess, "When we come summoning the bride, having well prepared the house, and set the tables and chairs, and boiled and cooked for the marriage party, place [the food ready]." Saying [this] the Rakshasi went for the marriage. The Rakshasa having been behind said at the hand of the Princess, "Thou having remained without speaking, say thou didst all the works that mother told thee." Having said it the Rakshasa, too, went for the marriage. Afterwards the Princess having been [there] without speaking, after the wedding-party, summoning the bride, returned, the Rakshasi asked at the hand of the Princess, "Didst thou do all the works I told thee? Didst thou do them?" The Princess said, "Yes." When the Rakshasi looked all the works were right; there also there was no way to eat her. Afterwards she taught the bride, "Daughter, there! Eat that girl if you can; I tried to eat her in [every] possible manner." After that, the girl tried if she could eat her; [208] she was unable to eat the Princess. When she was there in that manner a considerable time, the Rakshasa and the Princess having got hid went away. Having thus gone, and having created the Princess's royal palace in the very manner in which it was [before], the two remained at the palace. Finished. North-western Province. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 215, a Brahmana married a Rakshasi Princess, and there is an account of a similar union in the story No. 135 which follows. NO. 135 THE WAY THE RAKSHASI DIED In a certain city there is a Rakshasi, it is said. The Rakshasi seizing each man who is going along, eats him. While a Brahmana was going along, she seized the Brahmana, but because the Brahmana had a good beautiful figure, putting him in her rock-house (cave) and shutting the door, she remained without eating him. During the time while he was there a child was borne to the Brahmana by the Rakshasi; the child was like the Brahmana. Having sought food she continued to give it to the Brahmana and the little one. While the Rakshasi was there in that way the youngster (paetiya) became big. One day having waited until the time when the Rakshasi goes to seek food, the youngster asked at the hand of the Brahmana, "Father, what is [the reason why] you have one form and mother a [different] form?" Then the Brahmana says, "Son, your mother is a Rakshasi. Seizing each man who is going past this place, she eats him. I also came to go this way. Then seizing me she put me in the rock cave. She has not done any harm to me yet." The youngster said, "Father, we cannot remain in this way. Rakshasis and men cannot be in one place." Then the Rakshasi came, bringing food. So the youngster said, "Mother, when you are not here how will it be for us? Tell us the limits [of the power] of these persons" (that is, those who lived there). The Rakshasi said, "In width they are five gawwas (twenty miles); in length they are ten gawwas (forty miles)." On the following day, during the time when the Rakshasi went to seek food, the Brahmana and the youngster having taken a large quantity of excellent (honda honda) goods, the two persons bounded off to go by the quarter that was ten gawwas long, and went away. Then the Rakshasi having come [after] seeking food, when she looked neither Brahmana nor youngster [was there]. After that, while the Rakshasi was going along continuing to cry aloud, these two persons had not yet succeeded in bounding through the forest that was ten gawwas in length. The Rakshasi, weeping and weeping, having said, "What was this need for you to abandon me?" came back, summoning these two [to accompany her]. On the following day, after the Rakshasi went to seek food, these two persons having bounded through the quarter that was five gawwas in width, reached the far bank of a river. Then the Rakshasi having come [after] seeking food, when she looked these two were not [there]. After that, as the Rakshasi was coming continuing to cry aloud, these two came to this bank of the river; the Rakshasi, sitting down on the bank on that [other] side, remained crying aloud. While she was there the Rakshasi said, "Son, there is a spell of mine; [after] learning it go." Thereupon the youngster said, "I will not [return to learn it]; say it while sitting there." Afterwards the Rakshasi, sitting on the bank on that side, said the spell. The youngster, sitting on the bank on this side, learnt the spell. "When you have uttered that spell, on this side of twelve years you will meet with any lost thing," the Rakshasi said. After that, the Brahmana and the youngster came away to the Brahmana's village. That Rakshasi having been looking while a trace of the heads of these two was visible, through the affection there was for the two persons, when those two were hidden [from her view] the Rakshasi's bosom was rent, and she died. While that Brahmana and the youngster, having gone to the village, were staying there, certain goods of the King's having been lost, the King published a proclamation by beat of tom-toms that to a person who found and gave the goods he will give wealth [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load, and a district from the kingdom. Then the Brahmana's youngster having said, "I can," and having uttered the spell taught by that Rakshasi, obtained the goods and gave them to the King. He having given them, the King gave to the Brahmana's youngster wealth [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load, and a district from the kingdom. North-western Province. This is the first part of the Jataka story No. 432 (vol. iii, p. 298), in which the King and family priest hid some valuable jewels taken by them out of the treasury, in order to test a youngster's power. He discovered them, but the King insisted on his declaring also who was the thief. He endeavoured to avoid doing this, and when at last he made it known, the people rose, killed the King and priest, and set the youngster (who was the Bodhisatta) on the throne. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 360, a similar story is also given. The Brahmana was seized by a Kinnari, who is afterwards termed a Yakshi. When the son and father escaped she did not die, but sent the boy a guitar by playing on which he would preserve his life. If, however, he touched the first string with his finger he would experience misfortune; of course he did this. NO. 136 HOW A RAKSHASA TURNED MEN AND BULLS INTO STONE In a certain country there are seven elder brothers and younger brothers. In a certain [other] country there are seven elder sisters and younger sisters. At the time when they are there the whole of the seven elder brothers and younger brothers are without wives; the seven elder sisters and younger sisters are without men (husbands). At the time when the seven elder brothers and younger brothers are doing work in the rice field, the seven elder sisters and younger sisters are going by the place where they are working. "Where are you going?" they asked (haehuwwa). At the time when they asked they said, "Seven elder sisters and younger sisters are going to seek for themselves seven elder brothers and younger brothers." "We indeed are seven elder brothers and younger brothers." With the eldest elder brother the eldest elder sister contracted (lit., tied) marriage; with those [other] six persons these six [other] persons contracted marriage. To the seven houses they took the seven persons (their wives). A Rakshasa came for religious donations (samadame). Having come, at the very first he got donations from the eldest elder sister. When he begged from the other six, five persons gave donations abundantly (hondatama). When he begged for donations from the youngest younger sister, she tried to give them [while] sitting in the house. "We do not take them in that way," [he said]. When, having come to the doorway, she tried to give them [there, the Rakshasa] placed a walking-stick in his hand, and when he extended [it towards her] he began to go in front; the woman, weeping and weeping, began to go behind the Rakshasa [holding the other end of the magic stick]. Having gone on and on, at the time when he stopped there were seven stone posts. When the walking-stick that was in his hand prodded the ground she became stone [like them]. The young younger sister's seven elder brothers and younger brothers went [on a trading journey?] taking seven yokes of bulls. At the time when they were taking them, the seven yokes of bulls and the seven men he made into stone. [209] He restored that woman to consciousness again; having restored her to consciousness the Rakshasa went with her [to his] home. After he went, when the son of the elder sister of the younger sister who went with [the Rakshasa] proceeded there (etenta gihama) [to seek] the seven yokes of bulls and the men who went [with them], his seven fathers [210] and the seven yokes of bulls were there [turned into stone]. (Apparently this is only a portion of a longer story, but the narrator was unacquainted with the rest of it.) North-western Province. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 222, a Jogi turned into stone seven brothers who had followed him in order to recover the wife of one of them whom he had carried off by getting her arm-tassel and going away with it. She was compelled to follow him while it was in his possession. When her son who was left behind proceeded in search of her, he came to the place where his petrified uncles were. As he was eating his food there he saw the stones weeping, recognised them, and placed a little food on each for them to eat. Afterwards, when he had killed the Jogi and was returning with his mother, he bathed, and then spread a cloth over the stones, on which they recovered their human shape, became alive, and thought they had merely slept. In the Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 85, a Prince who had stolen the garments of Indra's daughter while she was bathing, was turned by her spells into stone when he looked back at her. He was revived by an old woman with whom he lived; she sprinkled water on the stone and uttered spells. In the same work, p. 149, the Turtle Prince was informed that if he looked back after stealing the garments of a divine maid or Apsaras while she was bathing, he would be turned into stone. See the first note after No. 151 in this volume. See the notes after No. 155. NO. 137 THE RAKSHASA-EATING PRAKSHASA [211] In a certain country there is an islet; on the islet there are a few houses. On the islet a Rakshasa dwells. This Rakshasa having seized them eats [the men] from each house at the rate of one man every day. When the Rakshasa is coming seizing and eating the men in that way for a great number of years, the men of the islet having become finished, at one house, only, men have remained over. In that family there are two parents and four children. The names of the four are One-cubit, Two-cubits, Three-cubits, Four-cubits. While these children are there, the Rakshasa seized even both the parents of these children. Out of the children, the child called Four-cubits is a female child. The female child for grief at the loss of her mother is weeping and weeping. While these three elder brothers are unable to pacify her, one day at night, One-cubit having spoken says, "Two-cubits, Three-cubits, being now without our mother and father, there is not a thing for us to eat. Our younger sister having remembered mother at all times, is weeping and weeping. Because of it, I and Two-cubits having gone to a country, will come back [after] seeking something for you to eat. Three-cubits, you stay [at home], looking after and soothing younger sister." One-cubit and Two-cubits having crossed over from the island, and having gone on and on, arrived at a country. Having arrived, while they are going thus, they met with a youth who is looking after cattle. Having met with him, he asked these two, "Where are you two going?" "We two are going seeking any sort of livelihood," they said. "Can you two stay to look after cattle?" he asked. "We can," they said. Having said, "Come. Our Gamarala has many cattle. For looking after them he still wants people," this youth who looks after cattle, calling these two, went to the Gamarala's house. When they went, the Gamarala asked this youth who looks after the cattle, "Who are these two youths?" "These two came seeking a livelihood," he said. Then the Gamarala asks these youths, "What can ye do for a living?" "We can graze cattle," they said. Then the Gamarala asked the big youth, "What name?" "One-cubit," he said. He asked the younger youth, "What is thy name?" "Two-cubits," he said. Thereupon the Gamarala, having given charge of one hundred cattle to One-cubit, and one hundred cattle to Two-cubits, said, "Having thoroughly caused the cattle given to you to eat and drink, and having looked after them, not giving the cattle to jungle quadrupeds, ye must bring them in the evening, and completely put them in the folds," the Gamarala said. After many days, the Gamarala thought, "I must go to look at the cattle [that are] with One-cubit and Two-cubits." One day in the evening, at the time when they were putting them in the folds, he went and remained looking on. The cattle are thoroughly healthy. When the Gamarala looked [at the numbers] those of both persons are correct. The Gamarala, having become much pleased, having gone home, says, "The cattle of One-cubit and Two-cubits are in very good [condition]. Please give food amply to both youths," the Gamarala ordered at the house. Thereupon, they give food amply to both persons. For [many] days besides, the two are thoroughly taking care of the cattle. While Three-cubits is looking after the younger sister, one day the younger sister, having called to remembrance her mother, began to weep. Thereupon he said, "Four-cubits, younger sister, don't cry. Our big elder brother and little elder brother [after] seeking food for us two will now bring it. Then I will give you a great deal to eat." While he was speaking in order to pacify her, she began to weep still still more. Three-cubits endeavoured much to pacify her; he was unable to pacify her. Then Three-cubits says, "Younger sister, don't you cry; I will go on the island, and bring a Kirala [212] fruit, and give you it. You remain [here] without going to bathe, or going anywhere. I will go quickly, and bring Kirala." Having said [this], Three-cubits went to the edge of the island. Just as he is going there, the Rakshasa having landed on the island to seize and eat human bodies, when he is coming looking and looking at the whole of the houses, he saw this Four-cubits, the little lass, [213] and having sprung into the house, lifted her up and ran away. On the other bank of the island, sitting in a boat a man is killing fish. Then, having seen this Rakshasa lifting up this child and going away, the man who is killing fish, having become afraid of the Rakshasa, sprang from the boat into the water, and remained under water (lit., swallowed up). After the Rakshasa, not seeing him, went away, the man who is killing fish mounted into the boat. Well then, Three-cubits, [after] plucking Kirala quickly having gone taking them to give to his younger sister, when he looked his younger sister was not [there]. Thereupon, when Three-cubits, saying and saying, "Four cubits! Younger sister, younger sister!" was going weeping and weeping, seeking her, through not seeing her he sought and sought still still further, and went to the edge of the island. While he was there weeping and weeping, saying and saying, "Four-cubits! Younger sister!" that man who was rowing the boat heard it, and came to see what this youth is lamenting for. Having come, "What is it, boy, thou art lamenting for?" the boatman asked. Then he says, "Ane! Our younger sister was weeping and weeping at home. Then, having come on the island to pluck a Kirala fruit, I went back [after] plucking a Kirala fruit, to give it to younger sister. Having gone home, when I looked for younger sister, younger sister was not [there]," the youth, weeping and weeping, said to the boatman, saying and saying [also], "When elder brothers have come now, and have asked, 'Where is younger sister?' what shall I say?" Then the boatman says, "Thou having now wept, what [good] will it do? Why didst thou come away, leaving thy younger sister quite alone? It would be thy younger sister whom, a little time before now, when I was fishing and fishing sitting in the boat, I saw the Rakshasa carrying, and going away with, after crossing to the other shore. I also sank in the water through fear, and got hid." Then this youth, Three-cubits, saying and saying, "Ayiyo! My younger sister! My younger sister!" and again having wept and wept, rolling on the ground, the boatman says to him, "Thou having now lamented, what [good] will it do? Be off home!" Well then, while Three-cubits is at home, weeping and weeping, One-cubit having said, "Two-cubits! Younger brother," says [also], "Now then, it is enough. We have stayed here. We don't know now what our Three-cubits and Four-cubits our younger sister are doing at this time. Let us go to look." One-cubit and Two-cubits spoke together, and said, "Let us tell the Gamarala to-day, and to-morrow go to the village, and return. To go to look at either little younger brother or younger sister is good." One-cubit and Two-cubits, the cattle having gone [home] in the evening, put them in the folds; and having gone to the house told the Gamarala, "We must go to our village, and [after] looking at our younger brother and younger sister, come back," they said to the Gamarala. Then the Gamarala said, "It is good. Go and come back again." When he said, "What do ye want to take?" they said, "Should you tie up and give us a few cakes to take to the village, it would be good." Then the Gama-gaeni (wife of the Gamarala) quickly having tied up two packets of cakes in sufficient quantity for both of them, gave them to them to take. Both of them, taking them, set off to go to the village, and went away. Having gone, and crossed over to that shore, when they went home only Three-cubits, their younger brother, was at home. "Where, little younger brother, is younger sister?" asked One-cubit and Two-cubits. Then Three-cubits said, "Elder brothers, after you went younger sister began to cry. Then I said, 'Don't cry; I will go on the island and pluck a Kirala fruit, and bring it.' Having gone, when coming [after] plucking a Kirala fruit, a man who was in the boat at the island saw that the Rakshasa went away taking younger sister," he said. Then both the elder brothers asked, "Where did he bring her?" "To that side of the island she was brought," he said. The whole three having been [there] a few days, the three spoke together: "Let us go to seek our younger sister." Having said, "It is good," while the whole three are going along eating and eating the two packets of cakes that they brought, the two elder ones, having seen that the two packets of cakes are coming to be finished, said to the younger brother, "Our cakes are coming to be finished. You go along this path, and return [after] seeking something for us to eat," they said. Three-cubits went; he went to seek some food, and return. When going, he went to the house of the Kudu Hettirala [214] of that village. Having gone he said, "Ane! Hettiralahami, the food we brought became finished. You must give something for us to eat for the present on the road." When he said it, there was much paddy dust at the house of the Hettirala's people. The Hettirala told them to give a little of it. Then he made a large bag (olaguwak), and putting in it paddy powder to the extent it holds, when he was coming he saw (dituwaya) a large tree in the midst of the jungle. When coming near the tree he saw a bats' place. When he looked there, having seen that many bats' skins had fallen down, those also in a sufficient quantity he put into the bag. When he was coming [after] putting them in, he saw that both One-cubit and Two-cubits, being without food, were sitting at the root of a tree. When he asked, "What are you doing here?" "Until you came we were looking out at the road," they said. When they asked, "What is there for us to eat?" "Only paddy dust and bats' skins," he said. "What are we to do? Let us go, eating and eating even those," they said. When they were going very far in that manner, having seen that a man is bringing an ass to sell, said Three-cubits, "One-cubit, Two-cubits, you must take that ass and give it to me," he said; "if not, I will not come to look for younger sister," he said. Then, taking the ass they gave him it. When going still further having seen that a man is bringing two flat winnowing trays, "One-cubit, Two-cubits, having taken those two winnowing trays, you must give them to me," he said. Taking also the two winnowing trays they gave him them. When going still a little further, having seen that they are bringing two bundles of creepers, he told them to take them also, and give him them. Taking them also, when going on having seen that yet [another] man was bringing a tom-tom, he told them to take that also, and give him it. Taking that also, they gave him it. Having seen that still a man was bringing two elephant's tusks, he told them to take them also, and give him them. Taking them also they gave him them. When going still a little further, having seen that a man was taking porcupine quills, he told them to ask for and give him a few of those also. They asked for and gave them. When going still a little further, having seen that there were two red ants' nests in a tree, "Please break and give these also to me," he said. Those also they broke off and gave. When they gave them, having made two wallets, and put the things in the two wallets, tying them well and loading all on the back of the ass, as they were going very far they met with an old mother. Having met with her she asked, "Ane! where are you going on this path? This path is a path going to the house of the Rakshasa. Should you go [on it] the Rakshasa will kill and eat you," she said. Then they say, "It is on this path itself that our younger sister will be. Let us go on. If the Rakshasa kill us let him kill." Having said [this], the three persons having gone on and on, when they were going met with a great big house. The three spoke together: "It has now become night. Having stayed at a resting-place at this house, let us go on in the morning to-morrow," they said. Having said, "It is good," when they went near the house the Rakshasa's wife asked, "Who are you? Where are you going? What came you here for?" "We are One-cubit, Two-cubits, Three-cubits. Our younger sister, Four-cubits, having been in the island, a Rakshasa brought her away. We are going seeking her," they said. "Ane! My elder brothers, (ayiyandila)! Did you come seeking me?" Having said, "It is I myself," holding her elder brothers she smelt [215] them, and said, "Apoyi! When the Rakshasa has come now he will eat you." Having quickly called them into the house, she told the whole of them (seramanta) to ascend to the upper room (uda geta), and remain [there]. Even the ass they took up. "When the Rakshasa has gone in the morning we can talk together," she said. Having said [this], the younger sister, having gone outside, and made fast and tied up the stile, and come back quickly, and given her elder brothers to eat, became as though not knowing anything [about them]. While she was there, when the Rakshasa is coming saying "Hu" three times, the three elder brothers were frightened. The ass was more frightened than that; it began to move about. Then the younger sister says, "Elder brother, there! The Rakshasa is coming! Remain without moving about until it becomes light to-morrow." "It is good, younger sister," Three-cubits, the youngest elder brother, said. There! When that little time was going the Rakshasa came. Washing his face and mouth, he sat down to eat food. Having sat down, eating and eating food, he says, "There is a smell of human flesh; there is a smell of human flesh." Then the Rakshasi says, "If you eat human flesh, and in your mouth there is human flesh, and in your hand there is human flesh, is there not a smell of human flesh?" "No, it is a smell of fresh human flesh." When the Rakshasi said, "If so, it is to eat me you say that," the Rakshasa, having eaten without speaking, rolled over at that very place and went to sleep. All One-cubit's party (Ekriyanala), through the fatigue of the journey, the whole of them (seramantama) went fast asleep. When a little time is going by, a red ant (dimiya) having come out of a red ants' nest, and as it was going along having climbed up the ass's leg, the red ant bit it. Then the ass, making a sound "Tok, tok," began to kick the boards [of the floor]. Then One-cubit opened his eyes. When he was looking what was the noise, it was the noise of the ass kicking. Then One-cubit held the legs of the ass, for it not to make the noise. Then the ass, becoming afraid, got up, making a sound, "Didi-bidi." The Rakshasa having become afraid, and having jumped up, when he was saying, "What, Bola, is this one? I am going to eat this one," Three-cubits says, "Come here, thou! To eat thee is insufficient for me!" he said. Then the Rakshasa, having been frightened, said, "Who art thou, Clever One, to eat me?" "I am the Rakshasa [216]-eating Prakshasa," he said. The Rakshasa, becoming thoroughly frightened, called out, "Get down, and come here." "Thou come here," Three-cubits called out. "Who art thou?" he asked again. "It is I indeed, the Rakshasa-eating Prakshasa," he said. "If so, throw down thy two Jak trees," [217] he said. Then he lifted up and threw down the two bundles of creepers. "Throw down thy two tusks," he said. He lifted up and threw down the two [elephant's] tusks. "Throw down thy two ears," he said. He lifted up and threw down the two winnowing trays. "Show me one eye," he said. Then having put down the tom-tom at the corner of a plank on which there was plaster he showed him it. He told him to tap on his belly, and show him it. Then, pressing one hand on one side (end) of the tom-tom, at the other side (end) he made a noise, "Bahak, bahak." Then the Rakshasa having become [more] frightened, standing up holding the Rakshasi's hand, and looking for the road so as to run off, told him to cry out. Then Three-cubits thinks, "When he is running away now, he will run off taking with him younger sister." Having become afraid of it, taking a red ants' nest softly to the end of the boards, he broke and threw down the red ants' nest on the Rakshasa's head. Then the Rakshasa having let go the hand of the Rakshasi, began to scratch his head and body in all places. At that very time having put the other red ants' nest into the two ears of the ass, the three persons began to prick it with the porcupine quills. Then when it began to give hundreds of brays (buruwe beri), the Rakshasa having become thoroughly frightened, said, "I don't want you below"; and having abandoned even the Rakshasi, crying "Hu," and breaking through the fence also and upsetting the village, on account of the noise of the ass and the cunning of the three persons and the power of the red ants, he ran away. Then the elder brother, and the younger brothers, the three persons, taking their younger sister, went to their village. Kumbukkan, Eastern Province. In a variant (a) of the North-western Province the persons were a youth termed One-span (Ek-wiyata), his two elder brothers, and his elder and younger sisters. A quarrel having arisen among them, One-span and his younger sister went off alone. While they were in the midst of a forest a Rakshasi carried off the girl during her brother's temporary absence, so he returned home, informed the others, and he and his two brothers set off in search of her. The elder sister having been angry with him, gave One-span some cold boiled rice to take with him, and to the others warm rice. When the two opened their bag of warm rice they heard worms or grubs (panuwo) that were in it making a sound, "Mini, mini," as they gnawed at it, so they begged their brother to share his cold rice with them. He did so, and afterwards when they objected to take and carry along with them a coconut tree, a palmira tree, an elephant calf (aet-wassek), and two or three large black ants (kadiyo), on each occasion he demanded the return of the rice and curry they had eaten. They found their younger sister at "a very large tiled house," and she hid them and the young elephant and the other things in the loft. The Rakshasi returned, said, "There is a smell of fresh human flesh," and afterwards was frightened as in the story given above, and ran away. If the names in this tale and variant indicate the heights of the persons, as appears probable, this is the only instance in which dwarfs are mentioned in the Sinhalese folk-tales that I have collected. In the Saddharma Pundarika (Kern, S.B.E., vol. xxi, p. 83), mention is made of a form of dwarf demons, "malign urchins, some of them measuring one span, others one cubit or two cubits, all nimble in their movements." In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. Steel), p. 3 (Wide-Awake Stories, p. 7), there is an account of a dwarf who was only one cubit high; he had magical powers. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 39, a demoness in the form of a woman one span high is mentioned (see p. 171). In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 189, there is an account of a man who was only a span high. In the last mentioned work, p. 81, two men who were in a tree frightened a Raja and his attendants by dropping a tiger's paunch and beating a drum out of which flew a number of bees that they had placed in it. These attacked and drove away the people below, and the men got their goods. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xiv, p. 135 (Folklore in Southern India, p. 116), in a Tamil story by Pandit Natesa Sastri, a tiger which knew magic took the form of a youth, married a girl who went off with him, and had a son who was a tiger. The girl sent a message to her three brothers, and they went to rescue her, taking an ass, an ant, a palmira tree, and a washerman's iron tub that they found. They were put in the loft by her. When the tiger told them to speak, one put the ant in the ear of the ass, to make it bray. He then told them to show him their legs and bellies; they held out the palmira tree and the tub, on seeing which he ran off, and they escaped with her. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 229, a blind man and a deaf man when going for a walk found and took with them a washerman's ass, and the large pot in which he boiled clothes, and also put some large black ants into a snuff-box. They took shelter from a storm in the house of a Rakshasa, and fastened the door. When the ogre tried to enter, saying "I'm a Rakshas," the blind man replied, "Well, if you're Rakshas I'm Bakshas, and Bakshas is as good as Rakshas." The Rakshasa asked to see his face and was shown the donkey's; he asked to see his head and was shown the pot; he told him to scream, and the ants were put in the ears of the ass, the braying of which frightened the Rakshasa away. When they went off next day with his treasure, he came with six friends to kill them. They climbed up a tree (as in the next variant), the ogres stood on each other's shoulders to reach them, the blind man lost his balance, fell on the uppermost one, and all tumbled down together. When the deaf man shouted, "Well done; hold on tight, I'm coming to help you," all the Rakshasas ran away. THE RAKSHASIS-EATING PRAKSHASA. [218] (Variant b.) At a certain village there were a Gamarala and a Tom-tom Beater. For the Tom-tom Beater there was nothing to eat. Because of it, having gone to the Gamarala's house he got a large basket of paddy on loan. While he was eating it the two persons having joined together worked the Gamarala's two rice fields. Out of them, the [rice in the] Gamarala's field being of very good quality was well developed; [that in] the Tom-tom Beater's field was undeveloped. Because of it, the arrangement which the Tom-tom Beater made was thus: "Because I am to give a debt to you, you take my rice field, please, and give me your rice field, please," the Tom-tom Beater said to the Gamarala. So the Gamarala having told him to take it, the Gamarala took the Tom-tom Beater's field. The Tom-tom Beater having cut the growing rice in the field and trampled it [with buffaloes], got the paddy. The Gamarala obtained hardly anything (tikapitika). So not much time was occupied in eating it. After that, a daughter of the Gamarala's was taken away by a Rakshasa. Then the Gamarala having come near the Tom-tom Beater, and said, "Let us go on a search for my daughter," both persons went together. At that time the Gamarala took a bag of money. The Tom-tom Beater, not showing it to the Gamarala, took a bag of fragments of broken plates. The Gamarala tied up a bag of cooked rice; the Tom-tom Beater tied up a bag of rice-dust porridge. At the time when they were going, being hungry they stopped at the bottom of a tree and made ready to eat the cooked rice. Having made ready, the Tom-tom Beater, taking a small quantity of rice from the Gamarala's leaf [plate] of cooked rice, ate it. Having eaten it, the Tom-tom Beater says, "Don't you eat the cooked rice which I have polluted by eating; be good enough to eat my bag of cooked rice." Having said it, he gave him the bag of rice-dust porridge. Then when the Gamarala unfastened the bag there was only porridge. Having said, "Well then, what [else] shall I do?" the Gamarala ate the rice-dust porridge. The Tom-tom Beater ate the package of good cooked rice which the Gamarala brought. Thereupon the Gamarala said at the hand of the Tom-tom Beater, "I ate the rice-dust porridge; don't tell anyone whatever," he said. The Tom-tom Beater said, "It is good." At the time when they were going away, yet [another] Tom-tom Beater, taking a drum to sell, came up. So this Tom-tom Beater, thinking of taking the drum, spoke to the Gamarala [about it]. Then the Gamarala said, "If there is money in thy hand give it, and take it." The Tom-tom Beater, having shaken the package of plate fragments said, "There is money by me; I cannot unfasten it. If you have money be good enough to give it." The Gamarala said, "I will not." [219] Then the Tom-tom Beater said, "If so, I will say that you ate the rice-dust porridge." Then the Gamarala said, "Here is money," and gave it. So the Tom-tom Beater got the drum. Taking it, at the time when they were going along the path again, a man came taking a deer-hide rope. That, also, the Tom-tom Beater having thought of taking, in the very same way as at first he asked the Gamarala for money. The Gamarala said, "I will not give it." So the Tom-tom Beater said, "I will say that you ate the rice-dust porridge." Then having said, "Don't say it," the Gamarala gave the money. After that, the Tom-tom Beater taking the deer-hide rope, at the time when they were going along the road, a man came bringing a pair of elephant tusks. Then the Tom-tom Beater in the very same way as at first asked the Gamarala for money. The Gamarala said, "I will not [give it]." So the Tom-tom Beater said, "If so, I will say that you ate the rice-dust porridge." Then the Gamarala, having said, "Don't say it," gave the money. The Tom-tom Beater taking the pair of elephant tusks, they went to the Rakshasa's house. When they went, the Rakshasa having gone for human flesh food, only the Gamarala's daughter was [there]. The girl quickly having given food to the two persons, the Gamarala's daughter told them to go to the upper story floor. [220] Afterwards the Gamarala and the Tom-tom Beater went to the upper story floor. In the evening, the Rakshasa having come said, "Smell of fresh human flesh!" Then the Gamarala's daughter said, "Having come [after] eating fresh human flesh, what smell of human flesh!" After that the Rakshasa without speaking lay down. Then at the time of dawn the Tom-tom Beater was minded to chant verses, so he spoke to the Gamarala [about it]. The Gamarala said, "Don't speak." Without listening to it he chanted verses softly, softly (hemin hemin). Thereupon the Rakshasa having arisen, asked, "Who art thou?" The Tom-tom Beater said, "I myself am the Rakshasis-eating Prakshasa." Then the Rakshasa said, "If so, show me thy teeth." The Tom-tom Beater showed him the pair of elephant tusks. Then the Rakshasa, becoming afraid, said, "Show me the hair of thy head." The Tom-tom Beater showed him the deer-hide rope. Then the Rakshasa said, "If that be so, let us roar." Then having said, "It is good," the Tom-tom Beater began to beat on the drum. The Rakshasa becoming [more] frightened, said that he was going near his preceptor, and ran away. Then the Tom-tom Beater and the Gamarala, in order to get hidden, went into the midst of the forest of Palmira trees. Then the Rakshasa, placing his preceptor in front, came up to go through the middle of the forest of Palmira trees. At that time, having seen the two Rakshasas, these two persons being afraid prepared to climb two trees. Thereupon the Tom-tom Beater, taking the drum, went up the tree. The Gamarala being unable to go up the tree, having gone to the middle of the tree, slid down [with a] siri siri [noise] to the ground. Thereupon the two Rakshasas came near the Gamarala. Then the Tom-tom Beater, from the top of the tree, having shaken the leaves and beaten the drum first, said, "After I descend leave the big one for me, and do thou eat the little one." Then the two Rakshasas becoming afraid, ran off. Then the Tom-tom Beater descended from the tree, and again having gone with the Gamarala to the Rakshasa's house, taking the Gamarala's daughter and the goods that were in the Rakshasa's house they came to their village. While at the village the Gamarala said, "Take thou the goods; after the girl was there it is sufficient for me." Then the Tom-tom Beater having brought [home] the goods became very wealthy. After a little time had gone by since that, the Gamarala came to the Tom-tom Beater's house to take the debt of paddy. Then what does the Tom-tom Beater do? Before the Gamarala's coming, a very large basket was tied up [by him], shells and chaff having been put in it. After the Gamarala went, the Tom-tom Beater said, "Because of you, indeed, I have tied up that basket. If you want it, be good enough to take it and go." Then the Gamarala having gone and opened the mouth of the basket, when he looked there were only shells and chaff. Thereupon, at the time when the Gamarala was asking, "What is this chaff?" the Tom-tom Beater said, "Apoyi! What has happened here? Through your bad luck there were other things, indeed! In that way, indeed, you came down from the Palmira tree that day," the Tom-tom Beater said. Then the Gamarala, without speaking, went home without the paddy. North-central Province. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xiv, p. 77, in a Tamil story related by Pandit S. M. Natesa Sastri, two men who had previously frightened some bhutas, or evil spirits, were belated at night in a wood they haunted, so they climbed up a tree for safety. The bhutas afterwards came there with torches in search of animals for food, and this so terrified one of the men that he fell down among them. The other man then shouted to him to catch the stoutest of them if he must eat one, on which the bhutas all ran away. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 38, when a barber and fakir had climbed up a tree in order to overhear the talk of a number of tigers who came there at night, and also to collect valuables left by the tigers, the fakir became so alarmed when he heard the tiger King using threatening language against them, that he lost his hold and fell into the midst of the tigers. The barber instantly cried out loudly, "Now cut off their ears," on hearing which the tigers ran away. The fakir, however, received such injuries that he died. I have omitted two nocturnal incidents due to the Tom-tom Beater's inability to control his bodily functions. THE RICE-DUST PORRIDGE. (Variant c.) In a certain country there are a Gamarala and a Tom-tom Beater, it is said. The Gamarala having become very poor had not a thing to eat. That Tom-tom Beater was a very rich man. While they were thus, one day the two persons having spoken about going on a journey and said, "Let us go to-morrow," made ready. There being not a thing for the Gamarala to eat before going, and being without a thing to take for the road, [after] stirring with a spoon a little rice-dust porridge and taking the porridge to the road, he was ready to go. The Tom-tom Beater, having amply cooked rice and curry, and eaten, tying up a packet of cooked rice for the road also, went to the Gamarala's house. Having gone there, the two persons went on the journey. The Gamarala took the rice-dust porridge, the Tom-tom Beater took the packet of cooked rice. Having gone on and on, after it became late in the morning the Tom-tom Beater said, "Ha. Now then, Gamarahami, let us eat the packet of cooked rice." Afterwards, the Gamarala having said "Ha," and both of them having unfastened the two bags, the Tom-tom Beater, taking the packet of cooked rice, eats it. When the Gamarala was taking the rice-dust porridge the Tom-tom Beater asked, "What, Gamarahami, are those?" Then the Gamarala said, "In order to cook rice for myself quickly, I came [after] cooking porridge. Don't tell it at the hand of anyone." The Tom-tom Beater says, "Ane! Gamarahami, I shall not tell it. The gentleman (Rahami) will be good enough to eat it." The two persons having eaten and finished, when they are going on again, a man is going taking a rice pestle to sell. Then this Tom-tom Beater says to the Gamarala, "Ane! Gamarahami, be good enough to take and give me that rice pestle." The Gamarala says, "Where, Bolat, [221] have I the money [for it]?" Then the Tom-tom Beater says, "If so, I will say that the Gamarahami ate rice-dust porridge." Afterwards the Gamarala,--there is a little money in his hand,--having given from it, taking the rice pestle, gave it to the Tom-tom Beater. Again, when they had gone a great distance, a man is coming taking a [wooden] rice mortar to sell. So the Tom-tom Beater again says, "Gamarahami, Gamarahami, take that rice mortar, and be good enough to give me it." Then the Gamarala says, "Ane! Bolat, come thou on without speaking there. Where have I money to that extent, to take and give you those things?" Thereupon the Tom-tom Beater says, "If so, I will say that the Gamarahami ate rice-dust porridge." Afterwards the Gamarala took and gave him the rice mortar also. Again, when they had gone a great distance, a man is going taking a millet stone (quern) to sell. The Tom-tom Beater says, "Gamaralahami, you must indeed take and give me that millet stone." Afterwards, anger having come to the Gamarala, he says, "O Vishnu! [222] Bolat, where have I money to that extent?" Then the Tom-tom Beater says, "If so, I will say that the Gamarahami ate rice-dust porridge." Afterwards, the Gamarala having given money to the man who owned the millet stone, taking the millet stone gave it to the Tom-tom Beater. Taking that also, again when they are going a great distance a Tom-tom Beater is coming, taking a tom-tom. Again that Tom-tom Beater says to the Gamarala, "Gamarahami, be good enough to take and give me that tom-tom." Then the Gamarala says, "Ando! I having come with this Tom-tom Beater lump, [223] [see] what is happening to me! Where is the money to take and give these things in this way?" Having said [this], and given money to the man who owned the tom-tom, taking the tom-tom and having given it to the Tom-tom Beater, again they go on. When the Tom-tom Beater, taking the rice pestle, and the rice mortar, and the millet stone, and the tom-tom, all of them, was going with the Gamarala it became night. After that, they went to a house to ask for a resting-place. The house was a Rakshasa's house. The Rakshasa was not at home; only the Rakshasa's wife was at home. This Gamarala and Tom-tom Beater asked at the hand of the woman for a resting-place. Then the woman says, "Ane! What have you come here for? This indeed is a Rakshasa's house. The Rakshasa having come and eaten you also, will eat me. Before he comes go away quickly." Afterwards these two persons say, "Ane! Don't say so. There is no place for us to go to now. Somehow or other you must give us a resting-place." After that, this woman said, "If so, remain without speaking, having gone to that upper story floor." Thereupon these two persons ascended to the upper floor, and stayed [there]. Then the Rakshasa having come, asked at the hand of the woman, "What, Bola, is this smell of a human body that came, a human body that came?" The woman says, "What is this thing that you are saying! Every day you are eating fresh human flesh indeed; how should there not be a corpse smell?" After that, the Rakshasa without speaking lay down. Then to the Gamarala says the Tom-tom Beater, "Gamarahami, I must go out." The Gamarala says, "Remain without speaking. Now then, after the Rakshasa has come he will eat us both." Then this Tom-tom Beater says, "If so, I will say you ate rice-dust porridge." Thereupon the Gamarala says, "Owing to this one, indeed, I shall not be allowed to save my life and go." The Rakshasa having heard the talk, said, "What, Bola, is that I hear?" The woman says, "On the upper story floor the coconut leaves are shaking." At that, also, the Rakshasa remained without speaking. Again that Tom-tom Beater says, "Gamarahami, I must go out." Then the Gamarala says, "The Gods be witnesses! Endless times, having heard the talk, the Rakshasa asked at the hand of the woman, 'What is that I hear?' Now then, having come on this journey indeed, he will eat us. What shall I do? Let him eat, on account of my foolishness in coming." Then the Tom-tom Beater says, "If so, I will say you ate rice-dust porridge." The Rakshasa, having heard that talk also, again asked at the hand of the woman, "What, Bola, is that I hear?" Then the woman says, "What is it, Ane! Appa! that you are making happen to-day? There is very much wind; owing to it will the coconut leaves stay without waving about?" At that time also, having said, "Aha," the Rakshasa remained without speaking. Then the Tom-tom Beater again says, "Gamarahami, I have the mind to beat a tom-tom verse." The Gamarala said, "What is the reason why you (ombaheta) have such a mind to die?" The Tom-tom Beater says, "So indeed! I will say that you ate rice-dust porridge." Then the Gamarala said, "Beat very slightly and slowly, so that [the sound] will not come even to the ear." The Tom-tom Beater having said "Ha," very loudly beat, "Dombitan, Dombitan." Then when the Rakshasa, without asking the woman [about this noise] was ascending a great distance along the ladder, in order to go to the upper floor, the Tom-tom Beater dropped the rice pestle on the Rakshasa, and dropped the rice mortar. When he dropped the millet stone the Rakshasa died. The Tom-tom Beater, taking the tom-tom, went to his village. The Gamarala calling the Rakshasa's wife [in marriage] remained at the Rakshasa's village. North-western Province. THE EVIDENCE THAT THE APPUHAMI ATE PADDY DUST. (Variant d.) In a certain country a Padu [224] man, and an Appuhami [225] having joined together, went away on a journey, it is said. Of the two persons, the Padu man tied up for himself a packet of cooked rice, the Appuhami tied up for himself a packet of paddy dust, it is said. Those two persons having gone taking the two packets, when the time for eating cooked rice in the daytime arrived they halted at one spot, and having become ready to eat cooked rice, unfastened the two packets, it is said. At the time when they unfastened the two packets, the two persons mutually saw the Padu man's cooked rice and curry, and the Appuhami's paddy dust. Having seen them, without having spoken they ate the food in their own packets, and having stayed a little time, set off and went away. When they are going a considerable distance, a man came, bringing a tom-tom (berayak) to sell. The Padda having asked the price of the tom-tom from the man who brings the tom-tom to sell, said to the Appuhami, "Please take and give me this tom-tom." Then anger having gone to the Appuhami [he said], "Be off, dolt! [226] That I should come with thee being insufficient, thou toldest me to take and give thee this tom-tom!" "It is good, Appuhami. If so, I will mention the evidence that you ate paddy dust," he said. The Appuhami having become afraid, and having said, "Ane! Bola, I will take and give thee the tom-tom. Don't tell any one about the matter of the dust eating," took and gave the tom-tom to the Padda. Taking the tom-tom, when they are going a considerable distance, still [another] man brought a devil-dancer's mask (wes-muhuna) to sell. The Padda having asked the price of the mask, said, "Appuhami, please take and give me this mask." Having said, "Be off, dolt! Having taken and given thee a tom-tom, am I to take and give thee a mask too?" the Appuhami scolded the Padda. "If so, I will mention the matter of the dust eating," he said. Thereupon the Appuhami having become afraid, took and gave the mask. Taking also the mask, when they are going a considerable distance, yet [another] man brought a pair of devil-dancer's hawk's bells to sell. The Padda having asked the price of the bells also, and having said, "Appuhami, take and give me this pair of bells," when the Appuhami said he would not, "If so, I shall mention the evidence that you ate the dust," he said. Thereupon, the Appuhami having become afraid, and having said, "Now then, having taken and given thee anything thou art telling and telling [me to give], my money is done, too," took and gave the pair of bells. After that, again having gone a considerable distance they descended to a great abandoned village. When they were going a considerable distance in the village they saw that there is a house. These two persons at the time when it was becoming evening went to that house. The house was a Rakshasi's house. The Rakshasi's daughter having been [there] and having wept says, "Ane! Brothers, [227] our mother is a Rakshasi. She is not at home now; at this time she will be coming. As soon as mother comes, [228] seizing you two she will eat you. Having gone to any possible place, escape," she said. The Appuhami through fear began to tremble. The Padda says, "Why, younger sister? This night where are we to go? By any possible method get us inside the house," he said. "If so, you two, not talking, having ascended to this store-loft (atuwa) sit down," she said. The Appuhami and the Padda having climbed up to the store-loft, stayed [there]. After a little time the Rakshasi came. When she asked, "What is the smell of human flesh?" the daughter says, "Why, mother? Night and day continually having eaten and eaten human flesh and having come, why do you ask me what is the smell of human flesh?" she said. Thereupon the Rakshasi, not speaking, went to sleep, together with the daughter. The Padda sitting above in the store-loft says to the Appuhami, "Ane! Appuhami, it was in my mind to dance a little." Thereupon the Appuhami says, "Cah, Bola! Dolt! You are preparing to dance; I am hiding in fear. Shouldst thou go for thy dancing, the Rakshasi having killed us both will seize and eat us," he said. "If so, I will mention the fact that the Appuhami ate the dust," he said. The Appuhami then says, "If so, having taken and placed the tom-tom aside, do thou imagine that thou hast beaten the tom-tom; bringing the devil-dancer's mask near thy face, imagine that thou hast tied it on; and imagining that thou hast tied the pair of bells on thy two legs, having taken and taken all, put them on one side," he said. And the Padda, having said, "It is good," tying on well the devil-dancer's mask and having made it tight, and tying the pair of bells on his two legs, and tying the tom-tom at his waist, saying "Hu" with great strength, sprang down from the store-loft to the place where the Rakshasi was sleeping; and began to dance. The Rakshasi having become afraid, asked her daughter, "What is this?" "Why, mother, isn't that the Rakshasas-eating Prakshasa?" [229] she said. Then the Rakshasi, having become afraid and having gone running, being unable to escape sprang into a well. The Padda having also gone running just behind her, and having rolled into the well some great stones, killed the Rakshasi. After that, he took in marriage even the Rakshasi's daughter. The Appuhami went away to his village. Western Province. NO. 138 THE STORY OF THE CAKE TREE In a certain country there are a woman, and a youngster, and a girl, it is said. The woman is a Yaksani. One day the youngster said, "Mother, let us cook cakes." Then the Yaksani said, "Son, for us to cook cakes, whence [can we get] the things for them?" After that, this youngster having gone to the place where they were pounding flour, and having come back [after] placing a little flour under the corner of his finger nail, said, "Mother, mother, hold a pot," he said. The Yaksani held a pot. Then he struck down the finger nail; then the pot having filled, overflowed. Again, having gone to a place where they were expressing [oil from] coconuts, and having come [after] placing a little oil under the corner of his finger nail, "Mother, mother, hold a pot," he said. The Yaksani held a pot. Then the youngster struck down the finger nail; then the pot having filled, overflowed. After that, the youngster having gone to a place where they were warming [palm] syrup, and having come [after] placing a little syrup under the corner of his finger nail, "Mother, mother, hold a pot," he said. The Yaksani held a pot. The youngster struck down the finger nail; then the pot having filled, overflowed. [230] After that, the youngster said, "Mother, now then, cook cakes." Having said it, the youngster went to school. During the time while he was going and was there, the Yaksani and the girl having cooked cakes, and the Yaksani and the girl having eaten all the cakes, placed for the youngster a cake that fell on the ash-heap while they were cooking; and both of them remained without speaking. Then the youngster having been at school, came home. Having come, he asked that Yaksani, "Mother, where are the cakes?" Then the Yaksani said, "Ane! Son, the cooked cakes the flour people took away, the oil people took away, the syrup people took away. The cake which fell on the ash-heap while [we were] cooking is there. There; eat even that." After that, when the youngster looked on the ash-heap there was a cake on it. Having taken it, and planted it in the chena jungle, he said, "When I come to-morrow, may the Cake tree (kæwun gaha), having sprouted, be [here]." Having said it he came home. Having gone on the following day, when he looked a Cake tree had sprouted. Afterwards the youngster said, "When I come to-morrow, may flowers having blossomed be [on it]." Having said it he came home. Afterwards having gone, when he looked flowers had blossomed. After that, the youngster said, "When I come to-morrow, may cakes having fruited be [on it]." Having said it he came home. Having gone on the following day, when he looked there were cakes. After that, the youngster having ascended the tree, ate the cakes. Then the Yaksani having gone [there], sitting at the bottom of the tree said, "Son, a cake for me also." The woman having taken a sack also, put it [there]. Afterwards the youngster threw down a cake. Then the Yaksani falsely said, "Ane! Son, it fell into the spittle heap." The youngster again threw one down. Then the Yaksani said, "Ane! Son, it fell into the mucus heap." Afterwards the youngster again threw one down. Then also the Yaksani said, "Ane! Son, it fell into the cow-dung heap." Having said, "Not so; holding them with your hand and mouth jump into the sack," she held the sack, through wanting to eat the youngster. Then the youngster, holding them with the hand and mouth, jumped into the sack. After that, the Yaksani, tying the sack, came away. In a rice field certain men were ploughing. Having placed the sack very near there, the Yaksani went seven gawwas (twenty-eight miles) away [for necessary reasons]. Thereupon that youngster says, "Ane! Unfasten this sack, some one who is in this rice field." Then the men who were very near having heard it, unfastened the sack. After that, the youngster having come out, put a great many ploughed-up clods from a plot of the field into the sack, and again having tied the sack in the very way in which it was [before], and placed it there, the youngster again went to the Cake tree and ate. Then the Yaksani having come, and taken the sack, and gone home, and placed it [there], said to the girl, "Daughter, this one is in the sack. Unfasten this, and having cut up this one, and placed the bowl of [his] blood beneath the stile, place the flesh on the hearth [to cook]." Having said it the Yaksani went away. After that, the girl having unfastened the sack, when she looked the youngster was not in it; there were a great many ploughed-up clods. Afterwards the girl having thrown aside the ploughed-up clods, put the sack in the house. The Yaksani came back. Having come, when she looked beneath the stile there was no bowl of blood. Having gone near the hearth, when she looked there was no flesh. After that, she asked at the hand of the girl, "Daughter, why didn't you cut up that one?" The girl [said], "Mother, there was a sort of ploughed-up clods in the sack; having thrown them aside I put the sack in the house." Then the Yaksani said, "If so, daughter, give me the sack;" and asking for the sack, and having gone near the Cake tree, when she looked the youngster was eating cakes in the tree. Sitting down near the tree she said, "Son, a cake for me also." Afterwards the youngster threw down a cake. Then the Yaksani said, "Son, it fell here, into the spittle heap." The youngster again threw one down. Then the Yaksani [said], "Son, it fell into the mucus heap." The youngster again threw one down. Then the Yaksani said, "Ane, Son, it fell into the cow-dung heap. Not so, son. Holding them with the hand and mouth jump into the sack." After that, the youngster, holding them with the hand and mouth, jumped into the sack. Thereupon, the Yaksani, in that very manner tying the sack and taking it, went away; and again having placed it in that rice field, went to the very quarter to which she went at first. Then the youngster said, "Unfasten this sack, some one who is in this rice field." Having heard it, those men unfastened the sack. Then the youngster having come out, caught a great number of rat snakes; and having put them in the sack, and tied it in that very way, and placed it there, the youngster again went to the Cake tree and ate cakes. Then the Yaksani having come, and taken the bag also, and gone home, told the girl, "Daughter, cut up this one, and having placed the bowl of [his] blood beneath the stile, put the flesh on the hearth." Having said it she went away. After that, the girl having unfastened the sack, when she looked there were a great many rat snakes [in it]. The girl having waited until the time when the rat snakes went off, put the sack in the house. Then the Yaksani having come, when she looked if the bowl of blood was beneath the stile, it was not [there]; when she looked if the flesh was on the hearth, that also was not [there]. After that she asked at the hand of the girl, "Daughter, didn't you cut up that one?" Then the girl says, "Mother, in it there were a great many rat snakes. Having waited there until the time when they went off, I put the sack in the house." After that, the Yaksani [said], "If so, daughter, give me that sack;" and asking for the sack, and having gone near the Cake tree, when she looked this youngster was eating cakes. Afterwards the Yaksani, sitting down, said, "Son, a cake for me also." The youngster threw down a cake. Then the Yaksani said, "Ane! Son, it fell into the spittle heap." Afterwards the youngster again threw one down. Then the Yaksani said, "Ane! Son, it fell into the mucus heap." The youngster again threw one down. Then the Yaksani [said], "Ane! Son, it fell into the cow-dung heap. Not so, son. Holding them with the hand and mouth jump into the sack." Afterwards the youngster, holding them with the hand and mouth, jumped into the sack. After that, the Yaksani tied the sack, and placing it on her head and having come quite home, and placed the sack in the veranda, said to the girl, "Daughter, to-day indeed that one is [here]. Cut up that one, and having placed the bowl of [his] blood beneath the stile, place the flesh on the hearth." Having said it she went away. Afterwards this girl having unfastened the sack, when she looked the youngster was [in it]. Having brought the bill-hook, when she was about (lit., making) to cut up the youngster, the youngster said, "Elder sister, don't cut me up just now. Lie down here for me to comb your head." After that, the girl lay down. As he was combing and combing the head, this girl went to sleep. Afterwards, this youngster having cut the girl's throat (lit., neck), placed the bowl of [her] blood beneath the stile, and having put the flesh on the hearth, the youngster, taking a rice mortar, and a pestle, and a millet [grinding] stone,--at the doorway there was a Palmira [palm] tree--ascended the Palmira tree. While he was there the Yaksani came, and having drunk the bowl of blood that was beneath the stile, and come near the hearth and taken the flesh that was on the hearth, began to eat. While she was eating it, the youngster, being in the Palmira tree, says thus:-- "They themselves eat their own children. The Palmira tree [is] at the doorway; Jen kitak kita." [231] The Yaksani having heard it and said, "Ade! Where is this one?" and having looked around, again eats that flesh. Then that youngster again says, "They themselves eat their own children. The Palmira tree [is] at the doorway; Jen kitak kita." Then the Yaksani having come into the open ground in front of the house, when she looked up the tree the youngster was there. Afterwards the Yaksani said, "Ade! Stop there. [I am going] to eat this one." As she was setting off to go up the tree that youngster let go the pestle. The Yaksani, saying and saying, "Thou art unable to kill me," goes upward. After that, that youngster let go the rice mortar; then the Yaksani fell to the ground. Then that youngster let go the millet stone; then the Yaksani died. Only the youngster remained. North-western Province. In the Kolhan tales (Bompas) appended to Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 464, occurs an Indian version of this peculiar story. A boy whose mother gave him two pieces of bread daily, one day left one on a rock and found next morning that a tree which bore bread as fruit had grown from it. When he was in the tree eating the fruit one day, a woman who was really a Rakshasi came up and asked for a loaf, and saying that if it fell on the ground it would become dirty, induced him to descend with it. She then put him in her bag and went off. While she was getting a drink at a pool some travellers let the boy out. He filled the bag with stones. On reaching her home the woman told her daughter she had brought a fine dinner, but the daughter found only stones in the bag. Next day the woman returned to the tree, secured the boy in the same way, brought him to her daughter, and went to collect firewood. In reply to the boy, the girl said he was to be killed by being pounded in a mortar; while she showed him how it was to be done he killed her with the pestle, put on her clothes, and cut her up. The ogress returned, cooked and ate her, and went to sleep, on which the boy struck her on the head with a large stone, killed her, and took all her property. THE LAD AND THE RAKSHASI. (Variant a.) In a certain country there are a female Crow and a male Crow. While they were thus, the female Crow having thought of eating cakes, went with the male Crow to break firewood. Having gone, [after] breaking firewood the male Crow took a bundle of firewood [and came away with it]. When the female Crow was there unable to lift up her bundle of firewood, she saw that a lad who looks after cattle was going by, and having called to him, when she said, "Son, lift up the bundle of firewood and go; I will give you cakes," the lad lifted it up and gave her it, and went away. After that, the lad having come to eat cakes, when he asked for cakes the female Crow gave him cakes. The lad, having gone away taking the cakes, and ascended a tree, when he was eating them a Rakshasi came. When she looked up the tree, having seen a lad eating cakes, she said, "Ane! Son, throw down cakes for me also." So the lad threw down a cake. Having said, "It is in the dung-heap," she told him to throw down one more. Thereupon the lad threw down one more. "That also is in the dung-heap," she said. After all were finished in that way, the Rakshasi says to the lad, "Now then, son, tying both legs and both hands jump into this bag," she said. Then the lad jumped. The Rakshasi having put the lad in the bag, and [after] tying it having gone home, gave it to the Rakshasi's daughter, and said, "Fry this, and put it away until the time when I come." Having said [this], the Rakshasi went away somewhere or other. After that, the Rakshasi's daughter opened the bag, and taking out the lad, told the lad to blow up the fire on the hearth. Thereupon the lad says, "I don't know [how]," he said. Then when the Rakshasi's daughter descends to the hearth to show him, the lad pushed the Rakshasi's daughter into the oil cooking-pot that was on the hearth. After she was fried, having taken it off and put it away, taking the chillies [grinding] stone he climbed up the Palmira tree which was at the doorway. While he is [there] the Rakshasi, having come back, says, "Wherever went my daughter? Can she have gone for firewood? Can she have gone for water?" [232] Having said and said it, when she is eating, the lad sitting in the tree says, "Of the heifer's flesh "Naembige malu The heifer herself [is] the eater. Naembima kanna. The Palmira tree at the doorway. Dorakada tal gaha. Dan, dun." Dan, dun." While he is saying it, when the Rakshasi had looked up and seen that the lad is in the tree, as she is going to climb the tree the lad threw down the chillies [grinding] stone on the Rakshasi's body. Thereupon the Rakshasi died. After that, the lad having descended from the tree, put the Rakshasi into a well, and went away. Bintaenna, Uva Province. THE CAKE TREE. (Variant b.) In a certain country there was a house of a Gamarala, it is said. At that house there were seven children. Out of the seven, the elder six persons having arisen on all days just at daybreak, go to do work in the rice field. The young person for the purpose of learning goes to school. Having joined with yet [other] children (lamo), the party of children began to go near a house at which a certain Rakshasi dwells at that village. During the time when they are going thus, the Rakshasi who saw these children, from the day on which she saw the children made ready to seize and eat them. Although she made ready in that manner, through fear because men dwelt in the neighbourhood she did not seize the children. But the Rakshasi being unable to remain without eating the children, thought, "Seizing the children by a certain device, I must employ my daughter, and [after] boiling I must eat them." Having broken off all the leaves of a tree that was on the road on which the children go to school, and having wrapped strips of white cloth at all places on the tree, and hung cakes and plantains, etc., at all places on the tree, the Rakshasi got into the jungle and waited. At the time when she is staying thus, the party of children who are going to school, when they approached the root of that tree having seen the tree on which the cakes and plantains had been hung, said, "Look here, Bola; a Cake Tree;" and the whole of them having ascended the tree, plucked the cakes and plantains to the extent to which they had been hung on the tree, and ate them. That day, except that the Rakshasi had gone into the jungle, she did not come to the place where the children are eating the cakes and plantains. Why? It was through fear that many children having come to the place where she is, at the time when she is seizing them the children having become afraid, and run to that and this hand, when they have told the men they will kill her. Having thought thus, that day after the whole of the children, plucking the cakes and plantains, went away, the Rakshasi having come from the jungle into the open, arrived at her house, and stayed [there]. On the following day also, as on the former day, at daybreak having gone taking cakes and plantains, and hung them on the tree, she got hid, and remained looking out. That day, when she is thus, out of that troop of children going to school, the Gamarala's child having arisen more towards daybreak than on other days, and hurried, and eaten food, and drunk, and gone in front of the other boys, with the thought that he must pluck the cakes very quickly went that day quite alone. Having gone in that way, he ascended the Cake Tree and began to pluck them. At the time when he is thus plucking them, the Rakshasi having sprung out, quickly taking the bag also, and having come to the bottom of the tree, spoke to the Gamarala's boy, and says, "Ade! Son, pluck and give me one cake," she said. When the Rakshasi said thus, he plucked one and gave it. The Rakshasi having thrown on the ground that bit of cake says, "Ane! Son, the cake fell on the ground. Sand being rubbed on it, I cannot eat it. Give me still one," she said. At the time when she said thus, he plucked one more and gave it. Having dropped that also on the ground, she says, "Ane! Having struck my hand that also fell on the ground. I cannot catch the cakes that you are plucking and giving me. I will tell you a very easy work; you do it. Plucking as many cakes as you can, jump into my bag. Jumping in that way is easier than descending [by climbing down] the tree," she said. When the Rakshasi told him in that manner, this foolish child, thinking, "It is an easy work the Rakshasi is telling me," and plucking as many as possible for both hands and waist-pocket, jumped into the Rakshasi's bag. The Rakshasi, tying the mouth of the bag and having gone taking him without being visible to the men, arrived at her house, and having spoken to the Rakshasi's daughter, says, "Daughter, to-day I must eat a good flavour. In the bag that I brought, placing it on my shoulder, there is a tasty meat. Boil the meat for me and give me it." Having given it to her daughter, the Rakshasi went about another thing that should be done. When the Rakshasi's daughter is unfastening the bag to prepare the meat, there is a boy [in it]. When the Rakshasi's daughter having unfastened the bag is going to take the child out, having spoken he says, "Ane! Elder sister, there are lice on your head." Thereupon the Rakshasi's daughter says, "Ane! Younger brother, if so, catch them." Having said [this] she sat down. The Gamarala's son, having been for a little time turning and turning over the hairs of her head to that and this side in the manner when looking at the head, taking the axe that had been brought to kill the boy, and at once having struck the head of the Rakshasi's daughter and killed her, and having put her in the cauldron of water which was there, and placed her on the hearth, and boiled her, and made her ready and placed her to eat when the Rakshasi is coming, collecting the rice mortar, pestle, and a great many knives that were at the house, and having gone and placed them in a Palmira tree that is at the doorway,--at the time when the Rakshasi comes this one having also ascended the tree stayed [there]. [233] When the Rakshasi came [after] bathing, at the time when she is coming she says, "Daughter, even to-day has tasty food been prepared? Don't do that work for the men of the village to get news of it; if so, the men of the village will kill us." Saying this, she came into the house. Well then, except that having boiled the meat it is there to eat, the daughter is not to be seen. While calling her on that and this hand, at the time when she is seeking her that youth, sitting on the Palmira tree, says, "Their own flesh they themselves will eat. On the Palmira tree at the doorway; tan, tun." Saying [this] he began to beat a tom-tom (rambana). Then the Rakshasi having looked up when coming running to seize this one, this one threw at the Rakshasi the rice mortar and pestle that he had taken to the top of the tree, and struck her. The Rakshasi died at the bottom of the tree. This one having descended from the tree, and gone home, and given information to the other brothers of this circumstance, came with them, and took away the goods of the Rakshasi's that there were. Having gone away they lived in happiness. Western Province. In Kaffir Folk-Lore (Theal), p. 120, a cannibal placed in a bag a girl whom he intended to eat. When he went for water her brother took her out and put a swarm of bees in her place. These stung the cannibal when he opened the bag, and he fell into a pool, where he became a block of wood. NO. 139 THE GIRL, THE MONK, AND THE LEOPARD In a certain country there were a Gamarala and a Gama-Mahage (his wife). There was a female child of the Gamarala's. After the child became suitable [for marriage] he went near the Lord or monk of the pansala [234] to look at her naekata. [235] The Gamarala said to the monk, "Ane! Lord, there is a female child of mine; the child became suitable [for marriage]. You must look at the naekata," he said to the Lord. Thereafter, when the monk looked at the naekata, besides that it is very good for both the parents, it was said in the naekata that the man who calls her [in marriage] on that very day is to obtain a kingdom. Because of it, the monk after having placed the Gamarala in subjection (i.e., made him promise obedience), said, "The naekata is very angry. For the two parents, and for the man who calls her [in marriage], there is anger to the degree [that they are] to die," he said to the Gamarala. This lie the monk said to the Gamarala in order for the monk to call the female [in marriage] for himself. At that time the Gamarala, having become much troubled, asked the Lord, "What shall I do for this?" The monk said, "Don't kill the child outright, [236] and don't [merely] turn her out of the house. You go home and make a box. After having made it, and made ready for the box [various] sorts of food and drink, put this child in the box, and having put into it the kinds of food and drink, after having closed it go to the river, and put it in." Thereupon, the Gamarala having done in the manner the monk said, and having informed the monk that on such and such a day he will put the box in the river, went to the river and put the box in it. [237] The monk told the pupils who were at the pansala to wait [for it]. He said, "You go and wait near the river. At the time when you are there a box will come floating down. Taking it ashore, bring it to the pansala;" the pupils went on the journey. The monk that day, for the purpose of eating the [wedding] feast amply preparing [various] sorts of food and drink, remained ready. Two boys of that country, or two young men, had set a trap at the bank [of the river]. At the time when these two persons went to look at it, a leopard was caught in the trap. These two having become afraid, having said, "What shall we do about this?" at the time when they were talking and talking on the river bank, they saw that a box is coming floating [down the river], and the two persons spoke together [about it]. Both having agreed that the things inside the box [should be] for one person, and the box for one person, they got the box ashore. Having opened the mouth of the box, when they looked [in it] there were a woman, and [various] kinds of food and drink. Taking them aside, they seized the leopard, and having put it in the box and shut it, they took it to the river and put it in. Out of the two persons, one took the woman, the effects one took. The person who took the woman that very day obtained the kingdom, it has been said. Thereafter, that box floated down to the place where the monk's pupils stayed. Getting the box ashore, and tying [it as] a load (tadak) for a carrying pole, they took it to the pansala. The monk, taking the box, quickly placed it inside the house. The monk told the pupils to stay: "To-day I must say Bana [238] from a different treatise (sutra); to-day you must respond, 'Sadhu,' loudly." After it became night the monk told the pupils, "You also lie down," and having lit the lamp in the house, [after] shutting the door he opened the mouth of the box. Just as he was opening it, the leopard having sprung out, began to bite (lit., eat) the monk. Thereupon the monk cried out, "Apoyi! The leopard is biting me!" The pupils began to respond, "Sadhu!" louder than on other days. At the time when the monk is shouting and shouting, the pupils loudly, loudly, began to respond, "Sadhu!" When he had been crying and crying out no long time, the monk died. In the morning, having cooked rice gruel for the obligatory donation (hil daneta), when they were waiting, looking out for the time when the monk arose, he did not get up. Until the time when it became well into the day (bohoma dawal), they remained looking out. Still he did not [come out]. An upasaka (lay devotee) of that village comes every day to the wihara to offer flowers. He, too, remained looking out near the wihara until the time when the monk comes. Thereafter the upasakarala having gone to the pansala, asked at the hand of the pupils, "What is the reason the Lord has not yet arisen?" Then the pupils said, "During last night it was not the Bana which he says on other days that he said; from another sutra he said Bana. He told us, also, to respond 'Sadhu' more loudly than on other days." At that time the upasakarala tapped at the door to awake the monk; he did not speak. Having struck the door loudly [the upasakarala] spoke to him. At that also there was not any sound. Thereafter, the upasakarala having mounted on the roof and put aside the tiles, when he looked [down] the leopard sprang at him, growling. The upasakarala having become afraid, fell from the roof and died. Thereafter, many men having joined together and broken down the door, and killed the leopard, when they looked for the monk he was killed. So having put the leopard and the monk into one grave, they covered [them with] earth. North-western Province. In The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 145, Mr. N. Visuvanathapillai, Mudaliyar, relates this as a Tamil story. The girl was Princess Devalli; to save the country she was condemned to death, but her mother bribed the executioners to set her afloat in the river, in a box. A hunter who had trapped a tiger on the river bank secured the box, released the Princess, and put in the tiger. The Guru (teacher) had heard of the Queen's stratagem, and sent a dozen of his pupils in a boat in search of the box. They brought it into a room in a deserted building, and remained in an adjoining one, being instructed to clap their hands and shout, "Hail! Long life to our Master!" when they heard the box opened. Amid this applause of the boys the tiger killed the Guru. (In The Orientalist, vol. iii, p. 269, Mr. J. P. Lewis noted that this story is from the Katha sintamani). In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 280, a Brahmana foretold that unless a baby Princess should be sent out of the country she would destroy it utterly. The Raja her father caused her to be placed in a box, which was launched on a river, and floated down. A merchant saw it, and got a fisherman to bring it ashore, the box to go to him and the contents to belong to the merchant. He got the Princess, reared her, and married her to his son. The rest of the tale is the legend of the Goddess Pattini, who caused Madura to be burnt in revenge for the execution of her husband on a false charge of stealing the Queen's bangle. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 102, an ascetic told a merchant that when his daughter got married all the family would die, and he advised him to set her adrift in a basket on the Ganges. Her father having promised to do this, the ascetic ordered his pupils to intercept the basket and bring it secretly to his monastery. A Prince who had gone to bathe found and opened the basket, married the girl by the Gandharva rite (in which a garland of flowers is thrown round the neck), put a fierce monkey in her place, and set the basket afloat again. The boys brought it, and the ascetic placed it in a room to perform incantations alone, he said. When he opened it the monkey flew at him and tore off his nose and ears, and he became the laughing-stock of the place. In the Kathakoça (Tawney), p. 132, an ascetic informed a merchant that the bad luck of his two daughters would bring about his destruction, and advised him to set them afloat in the Ganges in a wooden box, and cause a ceremony to be performed for averting calamity. The ascetic performed the ceremony for him, and sent his pupils to bring the box. The King of that city got the box ashore, took the girls, and put two apes in their place. When the ascetic opened the box at his monastery he was killed by the apes and became a Rakshasa. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., pp. 398, 399, 410, the incident occurs of newly-born infants being placed in boxes, set afloat in a river, and rescued by a person lower down. [239] At p. 445, a girl who had been married to a King was set afloat in a box, and rescued by a washerman. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 120, there is a Kalmuk variant in which a man who desired to take the wealth of an old couple, got inside a statue of Buddha, and instructed them to give their daughter to the man who knocked at their gate in the morning. The man himself came and knocked, and married her, and he and his new wife left with all their gold and precious stones. A Khan's son who was out hunting, taking a tiger with him, fired an arrow into a mound of sand; it struck something hard which proved to be a box which the man had placed there, containing the girl and jewels. The tiger was put in her place, and when the man carried off and opened the box in an inner room of his house it killed and ate him, and walked away next morning when the door was opened. The Prince married the girl. In the Sinhalese history, the Mahavansa, p. 147 (Dr. Geiger's translation), it is stated that in order to appease the sea-gods who had caused the sea to overflow the land on the western coast of Ceylon in the first half of the second century B.C., the King of Kaelaniya "with all speed caused his pious and beautiful daughter named Devi to be placed in a golden vessel whereon was written 'a king's daughter,' and to be launched upon that same sea." She was brought ashore at the extreme south-east of Ceylon, and married by the King of Ruhuna or Southern Ceylon. The original Indian story of the child who was consigned to the water in a basket or box appears to be that which is given in the Maha Bharata (Vana Parva). According to it, an unmarried Princess, Kunti, who bore a supernatural son to the deity Suriya, the Sun, placed the infant in a water-tight wicker basket, and set it afloat in the adjoining river, from which it passed down to the Ganges, and then drifted down that river until it arrived near Campa, the capital of the Anga kingdom. The basket was brought ashore and opened by a car-driver who had gone to the river bank with his wife. These two, being childless, adopted the infant, who afterwards became famous as Karna, the leading Kuru warrior in the great battle against the Pandava Princes and their allies. The story extends backward to the legend or history of Sargon I, of Akkad (about 2,650 B.C. according to the revised chronology), who stated in an inscription that his mother, a Princess, launched him on the Euphrates in a basket of rushes made water-tight with bitumen. He was rescued and reared by a cultivator, who placed him in charge of his garden. Through the affection of the Goddess Istar he acquired the sovereignty. NO. 140 THE WASHERMAN AND THE LEOPARD On a certain day, a man having gone to a chena which he had cut, and in which he had sown grain, as he was walking along at the edge of the fence, on this side of the corner of the stick fence a tail was visible, it is said. Having gone near very quietly, when he looked, a leopard lying at the edge of the fence, having let its tail come inside the chena, was asleep, it is said. Thereupon, this man on this side of the fence seized the leopard's tail which it had put there. After he seized it he cannot kill it, he cannot let go; should he let go, the leopard will kill the man. When the man was staying [there] thinking, "How is the expedient for this?" he saw a Washerman going along, taking a bundle of clothes. So this man called him, saying, "Washerman-uncle, come here." Then the Washerman having come, asked, "What is it?" He said, "Kill the leopard." Then the Washerman said thus, "Ane! His face is like our uncle's. Ane! I indeed cannot kill him." The man who was holding the leopard, said, "If so, I will kill him; you hold the tail." Then the Washerman having said, "It is good," took hold of the tail. At the time when he was holding it, this man said, "[You] who have become uncle and have become nephew, stay there," and came home. Thereafter, at the time when that Washerman was letting go the leopard's tail, the leopard killed and ate that Washerman, and went away. Subsequently, the man who owned this chena having gone [there], taking the bundle of clothes which that Washerman had taken and thrown down, came home. North-central Province. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 226, an old woman who was attacked by a bear, turned round a tree to avoid it. When the bear stretched its paws round the tree in trying to reach her, she seized and held them. A man who came up was requested by her to assist her to kill the animal and share the flesh. He accordingly also seized the paws; when he had got well hold the old woman let go and escaped, the man being afterwards mauled by the bear. NO. 141 THE FRIGHTENED YAKA In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said; there is also a boy of those two persons. In front of the house there is also a Murunga tree. A Yaka having come, remained seven years in the Murunga tree in order to "possess" the woman. While they were in that manner, one day the man and the boy went on a journey somewhere or other. The woman that day having [previously] put away the bill-hook, brought it to the doorway, and while preparing to cut a vegetable, said, "This bill-hook is indeed good [enough] to cut a Yaka." The Yaka who stayed in the Murunga tree at the doorway, having heard what the woman said, became afraid, and having waited until the time when the woman goes into the house [after] cutting the vegetable, the Yaka slowly descended from the Murunga tree. When he was going away, the woman's husband and boy, having gone on the journey, are coming back. The Yaka met them. Then the Yaka asked at the hand of those two, "Where did you go? I stayed seven years in the Murunga tree at the doorway of your house, to 'possess' your wife. To-day your wife, sharpening a bill-hook, came to the doorway, and looking in my direction said, 'This bill-hook is indeed good for cutting a Yaka.' Because of it, I am here, going away. Don't you go; that wicked woman will cut you. Come, and go with me; I will give you a means of subsistence. I, having now gone in front, will 'possess' such and such a woman of such and such a village. You two having said that you are Yaksa Vedaralas, [240] and having come [there], when you have told me to go I will go. Then the men having said that you are [really] Yaksa Vedaralas, will give you many things. When you have driven me from that woman, again I will 'possess' still [another] woman. Thus, in that manner, until the time when the articles are sufficient for you, I will 'possess' women. When they have become sufficient do not come [to drive me out]." Having said [this], the Yaka went in front and "possessed" the woman. After that, the man and the boy went and drove out the Yaka. From that day, news spread in the villages that the two persons were Yaksa Vedaralas. From that place the two persons obtained articles. The Yaka having gone, "possessed" yet a woman also. Having driven him from there, too, these two persons got articles. The Yaka "possessed" still [another] woman also. Thus, in that manner, until the very time when the things were sufficient for the two persons, the Yaka "possessed" women. After the articles became sufficient for the two persons, one day the Yaka said to the two, "The articles are sufficient for you, are they not?" The two persons said, "They are sufficient." Then the Yaka said, "If so, I shall 'possess' the Queen of such and such a King. From there I shall not go. Don't you come to drive me away." Having said it, the Yaka went to that city, and "possessed" the Queen. The two Yaksa Vedaralas came to their village, taking the articles they had obtained. Then a message came from the King for the Yaksa Vedaralas to go. The two persons not having gone, remained [at home], because of the Yaka's having said that he would not go. After that, the King sent a message that if they did not come he would behead the Yaksa Vedaralas. After that, the two persons, being unable to escape, went to drive out the Yaka. Having gone there, they utter and utter spells for the Yaka to go. The Yaka does not go. Anger came to the Yaka. In anger that, putting [out of consideration] his saying, "Don't," the two persons went and uttered spells, the Queen whom the Yaka has "possessed," taking a rice pestle, came turning round the house after him in three circles to kill the Vedarala. [241] When she was raising the rice pestle to strike the Vedarala, the man's boy said, "Look there, Yaka! Our mother!" Then, because he had been afraid [of her] formerly, when the boy said it, the Yaka, saying, "Where, Bola?" and also rolling the Queen over on the path, face upwards, and saying "Hu," went away. The Queen came to her senses. The King gave the two persons many articles. The Yaka did not again come to "possess" women. That man and boy having come to their village, and become very wealthy, remained without a deficiency of anything. North-western Province. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xvi, p. 217 (Folklore in Southern India, p. 214), in a Tamil story related by Natesa Sastri, a Brahmana was turned by Siva into a Brahma-Rakshasa for refusing to impart his knowledge of music to others, and he resided in a Pipal or Bo tree. A poor Brahmana of Sengalinirpattu (Chingleput, land of the blue lotus) assisted him to escape from the wretched music of a piper by removing into another tree, and out of gratitude the demon "possessed" the Princess of Maisur, in order that the Brahmana might obtain wealth by driving him out. Afterwards, when the demon "possessed" the Princess of Travancore, intending to remain, the Brahmana frightened him away by a threat that he would bring back the piper. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan (Shaik Chilli), p. 6, a beggar's wife beat him with a stick for coming home foodless, threw his turban into a tree and struck at it time after time, hitting the tree at each blow. The blows and her abuse frightened away from the tree the ghost or Bhut of a Brahmana of the family who had committed suicide. The ghost and the man travelled along together as friends in misfortune. By their arrangement the man drove the ghost from the Minister's daughter, but refused to officiate when it "possessed" the Sultan's daughter, until ordered to be executed. When the ghost threatened to kill him he told it he had terrible news, his wife would be there in a few minutes. The ghost left at once, and the man married the Princess and succeeded to the throne. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 298, a man's termagant wife was thrown into a well, and there married a demon, but in fear of her he soon hid as a man, in a mosque. Becoming friendly with the former husband, who recognised him, he promised to marry the man to the King's daughter, whom he thereupon "possessed." When the man drove him out she was given in marriage to him, together with half the kingdom. The demon, after warning him not to interfere, then "possessed" the Minister's daughter. After at first refusing to act, the man frightened him away by saying his former wife was coming. In The Enchanted Parrot (Rev. B. H. Wortham), a variant is given in the stories XLVI and XLVII. The woman terrified everyone around, and a goblin who lived in a tree near her house ran away. The husband also left, became friendly with him, and was advised to go and cure the King's daughter. He cured her, married her, and received half the kingdom. Then the goblin carried off this Princess. The man went in search of her, and frightened away the goblin by whispering that his wife was coming. NO. 142 THE STORY OF THE SEVEN YAKAS In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. One day the man went to plough. The woman placed a ripe pine-apple underneath the bed. On the very day she put it [there], seven Yakas having joined together and taken a hidden treasure, while six Yakas were dividing the articles one Yaka having come to the house of that man who went to plough, the Yaka remained sitting down under the bed at which is the pine-apple, in order to "possess" the woman. Then that man having ploughed came home. Having come there, sitting down on the bed he said to the woman, "Haven't you cooked yet? I have hunger [enough] to eat the Yaka." Then the woman said, "I am still cooking. If you cannot wait until the time [when I finish] there is [something] under the bed." The woman said it regarding the pine-apple. What of that! Because she did not explain and say [so] the Yaka thought, "It is regarding me, indeed, she said that;" and the Yaka having become afraid, very quickly having arisen said to the man, "Ane! Don't eat me. Come along (lit., come, to go), for me to show you a place where there is a good hidden treasure." After that, the man having got up from the bed and called the man's younger brother, the two persons went with the Yaka. Having gone, they went to the place where those six Yakas are dividing the articles. Then the Yaka said to the two men, "Until the time when I bring and give you the articles, there (onna), go to that tree." After that, the two men went into the tree to which the Yaka told them to go. Having gone there, while they are looking, six Yakas who had great beards and the Yaka who came summoning the men are apportioning the articles. Then, having seen the bearded youngsters (pollo), the elder became unconscious, and fell from the tree to the ground. Then the younger brother, being in the tree, said, "Elder brother, after you [have] jumped down seize the great-bearded youngster himself." Then because there are beards of the whole six, having said to each other, "It is for me, indeed, he said this; it is for me, indeed, he said this," one by one, in the very order (lit., manner) in which they sprang up and went, the whole six Yakas, having thrown down the articles, ran off. [Because] having been in the tree that man said thus after the man's elder brother fell down, those Yakas having said, "He will come and kill us," it was for that indeed the Yakas became afraid. Well then, [the Yaka] calling the men,--the elder brother and younger brother,--and together with the men the Yaka, the very three persons, having drawn (carried) all the articles--both the Yaka's portion and the six portions of those six who ran off--to that man's house, after they finished the Yaka went away. Those two men shared the articles. Finished. North-western Province. The first part of this story is a variant of part of the tale numbered 17 in vol. i. For the latter part, compare variant (b) of the story No. 137, and the notes after it. NO. 143 THE YAKA AND THE TOM-TOM BEATER In a country, at the time when a Tom-tom Beater was going to a devil-dance (kankariya), it became dark. While he was going along to the village in the dark, when he was near the village having the devil-dance, to the extent of two miles (haetaepma) from it, he met with [an adventure] in this manner. In the adjoining village, a man having died they took his dead body to the burning ground; and having raised a heap of firewood, and upon it having placed the corpse and set fire to it, at the time when his relatives went away in the evening Maha Son Yakshaya [242] came, and remained upon the burning funeral pyre. He said thus to the Tom-tom Beater, it is said, "Where art thou going?" When he asked it [he replied], "I am going to a devil-dance." At the time when [the Yaka] said, "Standing there, beat the [airs of] devil-dances, and the new ones that thou knowest," he unfastened the tom-tom, and tying it (i.e., slinging it from his neck), he beat various dances. The Yakshaya being pleased at it, said thus, "Do thou look every day in the house in which are the looms. [243] Don't tell anyone [about] the things that I give," he said. Beginning from that day, having gone into the house in which are the looms, at the time when he looked, raw-rice, and pulse (mun), and ash-plantains, and betel, and areka-nuts, and various things were there. Every day those said things were there. At the time when he is bringing them, his wife said, "Whence are these?" Every day she plagued him, and being unable to escape from it he told the woman. On the following day after the day on which he told her, at the time when he looked he had filled the looms with excrement. North-western Province. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. i, p. 143, Mr. W. C. Benett gave an Oudh story in which Bhawan Misr, a wrestler who had obtained gifts from a demon, lost them by revealing the secret to his wife. NO. 144 HOW A TOM-TOM BEATER GOT A MARRIAGE FROM A GAMARALA At a certain time there was a Gamarala. The Gamarala had a daughter. In the same country there was a very rich Tom-tom Beater (Naekatiyek). There was a son of the Tom-tom Beater's. In order to make search for a marriage for him he tramped through many countries. From those countries he did not obtain one. After that, he went to yet a country on the other side of a river. Having gone there, when he looked about there was a Gamarala at a village [who had a marriageable daughter]. When he asked for the daughter [in marriage], he said he would not give her. Thereupon, thinking and thinking of a scheme he acted accordingly, that is, in this manner. He caught an egret. He made a bundle of lights, and taking these he went again to the village at which the Gamarala stayed. Having gone [there], at the time when he looked about [he saw that] there was a large betel creeper on a tree in front of the doorway of the Gamarala's house. After that, having come at night and gone up the tree, and hidden himself so that he would not be seen, [after] lighting the bundle of lights he called the Gamarala: "Village Headman! Village Headman!" Then the Gamarala having come running, looked upward, and seeing that the bundle of lights were burning the Gamarala became afraid. Thereupon the Tom-tom Beater says, "I, indeed, the Devatawa of this village, am speaking. Wilt thou hearken to what I am saying?" he asked. The Gamarala, being afraid, said, "I will hearken." Then the Tom-tom Beater called the Devatawa, [said], "They say that thou wilt not give thy daughter to the boy of the Tom-tom Beater of such and such a village. Why?" The Gamarala said, "Because our pollution rules (indul) are different I said I cannot give her," he said. Then the Tom-tom Beater Devatawa who was in the tree [said], "Give thou thy daughter to him. On the seventh day from now he will obtain the sovereignty. If thou shouldst not give [her] I will kill thee." Tying the bundle of lights to the leg of the egret, he said, "I am going," and let the egret go. Thereupon, having seen that the lights were burning on the leg of the egret [as it flew away], the Gamarala thought that the Devatawa said it. Then the Tom-tom Beater, being invisible to everybody, descended from the tree, and went to his village. Two or three days afterwards, he came with the wedding party to the Gamarala's house, for the purpose of taking away the daughter. Thereupon, having eaten the [wedding] feast, on the morning of the following day, because the giving of the Gamarala's daughter was demeaning he put her in a sack, and having tied it as a bundle for carrying under a pole, [the Gamarala] gave her, placing [the pole] on the shoulders of two persons, and telling them to go. Then, lifting up the load, the party went away. Having gone thus, it having become night they stayed near a tree. At yet [another] city, the King of the city, having seized a bear that ate human flesh, and put it in a sack, and tied it as a bundle for carrying under a pole, gave it to two persons, and told them to take it and throw it into the river. At that time that party also came to the place where that [other] party were staying. Thereupon, without speaking they placed the two bundles in one spot. In the very same way again, without speaking they were sleeping in one place. On the morning of the following day, at dawn, the wedding party having arisen went to the village, taking the bundle in which the bear was tied. The people who remained here unfastened the bag in order to put the bear into the river. At that time [they saw that] a Princess was there. So the party having gone taking the Princess gave her to the King. Then the King married that Queen. The wedding party who went taking the bear bundle having gone to the house, that very day, in order that the faults (dosa) of the bride and bridegroom might go, drove away any evil influence of the planets (baliyak). At that time, having put the sack and the bridegroom into a house they shut and tied the door. Having tied it they conducted the service [against the evil influence of the planets] in the open. Thereupon the bridegroom who was inside the house unfastened the sack in order to take out the bride. Then the bear having come out began to bite the man. The bridegroom said, "Don't bite me! Don't bite me!" When he was saying it, the men who were sending away the evil planetary influences said, "Ayibo! Ayibo!" [244] The two who were in the house remained without speaking any words [after that]. Thereupon it became light. These people having gone [there] opened the door. Then the bear that ate men having sprung outside and bitten the [would-be] mother-in-law, went into the midst of the forest. The bridegroom, the bear having bitten him, died. North-central Province. In a variant of No. 59 in vol. i., the Gamarala inquired regarding the naekata at his daughter's reaching marriageable age. The man replied, "Through this little lass (paenci) seven men will die. Ane! O Gamarahami, because of this little lass don't make this country desolate," and advised killing her. When this man was carrying her away tied in a sack, intending in reality to marry her to his son, some people who had a savage bear in a similar sack found the bundle left on the roadside temporarily, and made an exchange. The son was killed by the bear while the father danced outside, beating a tom-tom (udaekkiya). NO. 145 THE GEM YAKSANI There were a King and a Queen of a single city. The two one day went for sport in the gardens. Then, sitting on a branch there was a little bird. At that time the Queen asked the King, "Is that little bird which is there the male or the female?" The King said, "The male." Then the Queen, having said, "It is not male; it is female," made a wager. What was the wager, indeed? "Let us catch it and look. Should it be the cock I will not stay with you; I will go away somewhere or other. Should it be the hen you must give me the sovereignty," she said. Thereupon the King said, "It is good." Having caught the bird they looked; when they looked the animal was the male. Then the Queen said, "I am going now," and she set off. The King said, "We said it for fun, didn't we? Are you going in that way for that little matter?" The Queen would not [stay], "I must really go," she said. Thereupon the King having said, "Are you going for that? We made monkey fun. [245] Owing to it where are you to go?" said much in the way of advice. Without hearkening to it the Queen went. What was [the real reason of] it? [It was] because the royal talk was Large. When the Queen was going, the [completion of the] ten months of her pregnancy was near; as she was going in a forest she bore a child. Carrying the infant, as she was going along a path there was a river in which the water had dried up. While she was going along the river the Prince began to cry. For the sake of stopping the crying she picked up a stone which was on the ground in the river; and having said, "Look here, son," she stopped the crying, and taking that little stone [with her] came to another city. Having come [there] and walked to all places, and looked about, and come to a house in which was a widow woman, she asked, "Mother, keeping this Prince for me, will you give me a little space to stay in, until the time when the Prince becomes big?" Thereupon the old woman said, "It is good, daughter. I also am alone; because of it remain here." The Queen, having said, "It is good," lived there, pounding paddy [at houses] throughout the streets; and up to the time when the Prince became big stayed there getting a living. By that time, seven years of the Prince's age had passed. While remaining [there] in this manner, one day the Prince said, "Mother, I am hungry," and cried. When he was crying, the stone which his mother had brought that day from the river in order to stop the Prince's [crying], had been thrown away into the open ground in front of the house (midula). This woman, having shown him the stone, said falsely, "Look there. Take that stone which is there, and having given it at the bazaar, and eaten rice cakes, come back." Then the Prince, having gone running, taking that stone, begged throughout the whole of the bazaar, "Ane! Take this stone and give me rice cakes." The men said to that Prince, "Who gives rice cakes for quartz stones, Bola?" and scolded him at each place to which he went. After that, the Prince, having asked at every place without [obtaining any cakes], went to the King's palace also, at the time when the King was walking at the Audience Hall, and said, "Ane! Take this stone, and give me rice cakes; I am hungry." Thereupon the King, having heard the sweet speech of this young Prince, becoming pleased, said, "Where, Bola, is the stone? Bring it here for me to look at it." The Prince took the stone, and gave it into the King's hand. The King taking the stone in his hand, when he looked at it, it was a gem-stone. Then the King asked, "Bola, whence [came] this stone to thee?" "This stone was in the open ground at the front of the house. Mother said to me, 'Take it, and having eaten rice cakes, come back.'" Then the King said, "I will give thee rice cakes. Go and tell thy mother to come." The Prince having gone running home, said, "Mother, a man said that you are to come, [so that he may] give rice cakes to me. The man, taking the stone, too, put it away." The Queen, walking with the Prince, said, "Which is the house?" Having said, "There, that house," the Prince stretched out his hand towards the royal palace. With the thoughts, "I shall be worn away with fear, I shall be worn away. Ane! The thing that this foolish boy has done! Having said that he gave him a quartz stone, the King, in order to appoint [the punishment for] his fault, told me to come here," she reached the royal palace. Thereupon the King having seen her, becoming much pleased, asked, "Whence didst thou obtain this stone?" Then the Queen began to tell him everything,--the way in which she made the bet with that King, the way in which she came away, the way in which she bore [a child], the way in which while coming, she stopped the [crying of the] Prince by picking up this stone from the river. Then the King said, "This is a gem-stone. Putting me [out of consideration], having appointed any person you like, he cannot state the value of this. I have not got even wealth [sufficient] to give for this. Because of it, having given to thee the wealth, too, thou hast not a place to put it in. Therefore stay ye in my palace itself until the Prince, having become big, marries a Princess." Having made ready and given them a good room, and given them the royal victuals, he made the two remain there. While they are staying there, having prepared two bracelets for the King's Queen, because there was not a stone more to [match] that stone for fixing in the two bracelets, he asked the Queen who gave the stone, "Canst thou find and bring a stone more, like this stone?" The Queen said, "I cannot go. If there be still [any] in the river, or what, I do not know." Then the Queen's Prince said to the King, "I can." The King asked, "Do you know the path to go on?" The Prince said, "I will ask mother, and go." Then the King said, "What is necessary for you?" The Prince [said], "From those that are in your stable be good enough to give me a horse which goes on hard journeys." Then the King gave the Prince the horse with the best qualities of all, a sword, and a bundle of cooked rice. The Prince would be about fifteen years of age. The Prince, having mounted on the horse, asked his mother, "Mother, on which hand is the river in which you picked up the stone?" The Queen said, "It is this hand," and stretched out her hand. Then driving the horse to that hand he began to go. Having gone away, and stopped at a river near that [gem] river, when he looked about, at a great rough tree [what was] like a large fire was visible. Then this Prince, in order to look at the conflagration, went near the tree. Having gone [there], when he looked a Devata-daughter endowed with much beauty [246] was there. Then this Prince asked the Devata-daughter, "Who art thou?" The woman said, "I am a Yaksani." Then the Yaksani asked the Prince, "Who art thou?" The Prince said, "I am a royal Prince." Then this Prince became mentally inclined towards the very beautiful Yaksani; the Yaksani also became mentally inclined towards the Prince. The Yaksani asked the Prince, "Where are you going, Sir?" The Prince said, "I came to seek a gem-stone." Then the Yaksani said, "We indeed remain in charge of this gem river. Should the Devatawa Unnaehae come he will kill you. It is I indeed they call the Gem Goddess. I can give gems. [After] marrying me and placing me on the horse, if you should not go twelve yojanas [247] before half a paeya (of twenty-four minutes) has gone, the Gem Devata Unnaehae [248] will come and behead both of us, and burn us." The Prince being pleased at it (that is, her proposal), said, "It is good", and placing the Princess on the back of the horse, asked, "Where are the gems?" The Devata-daughter said, "I will give them; I have them." Then he drove away the horse twelve yojanas before half a paeya [had passed]. Having driven it, when he went to the city the King asked the Prince, "Have you brought the gems?" That Yaksani had previously [249] said at the hand of the Prince that when the King asks, "Have you brought the gems?" he is to say, "I have brought [them]." Because of it, the Prince said, "I have brought the gems." Then the King said, "Where? Let me look at them." At that time the Devata-daughter said, "They will be outside," and threw down in the open space in front of the palace a gobbet [250] of saliva. When the King looked it was as though a rain of gems had rained. After that, the King, picking up the gems, went to the palace, and remained lying down without eating and drinking. The Minister having come, asked, "O Lord, what is the matter?" Then the King said, "The Prince who gave the gem has brought the Gem Princess. If I haven't the Princess what are these Gods for? What is this sovereignty for?" The Minister said, "Don't you, Sir, be troubled about it; I will tell you a stratagem for it." The King asked, "What is the stratagem?" The Minister said, "The stratagem indeed is in this manner:--You, Sir, be good enough to say to the Prince, 'Dear Prince, our mother and father died. Those persons are staying in the God-world. Canst thou [go there and after] looking [at their condition] come back?' Then the Prince through not understanding will say, 'I can.' Then, having summoned all them of the city and having cut an underground tunnel about a mile (haetaekma) deep (that is, in length), when you have told him to go by that way to the God-world, he will go. Then having put a stone on [the entrance to] it, and brought tusk elephants, and made them trample on it, you can take the Gem Princess." The King having become pleased at the word, caused the Prince to be brought, and asked, "Dear Prince, canst thou go to the God-world in three weeks' [time, to inquire after our father and mother], and come back?" The Prince said, "I can." Then the King having collected together the men of the city, and said falsely that he is cutting a path to go to the God-world, began to cause a tunnel to be cut, in order to kill the Prince. Thereupon the Prince said to the Gem Princess, "In this manner the King asked me: 'Can you go to the God-world and come back?' I said, 'I can.'" Then, owing to the wisdom of the Gem Princess she perceived that he is making the plan (suttare) to kill this Prince, and said, "Why, through foolishness did you, Sir, say you can? Since you said you can, [you must do as follows]:--Under the gem river an elder sister of ours is rearing rats. Having gone, and given her this ring of mine, be good enough to say, 'In such and such a city your younger sister is living. She said [you are] to send there two or three thousand rats.' Then she will send the rats. You [then] be good enough to come back, Sir." The Prince went, and having given her the ring, and told her in that very manner, the elder sister of the Gem Princess then said, "It is good; I will send them. You, Sir, be good enough to go." Then he came back. That day night, having started them off, she sent three thousand rats. The rats having come before the light fell, went to the room in which was the Gem Princess. At the time when they went, she gave food and drink to the rats, and said, "Before a week has gone they will cut the tunnel which the King is cutting, a mile deep. Because of it, you must cut [a path from here leading] into that tunnel at a mile from this room in which we are staying." So they cut and finished both tunnels on one day. Regarding the tunnel which the rats cut, the King was unable to learn even a little bit. Without making the tunnel which the rats cut break into and become part of [251] the King's tunnel, they turned it a little across [towards it at the end]. After that, having cut the [other] tunnel and finished it, and given the Prince a horse, and given him a sword, the King said, "Look here. We have cleared the path to go to the God-world. Having gone, come back." Then the Prince said, "It is good." Having said it, and gone near the Gem Princess, at the time when he was saying, "I will go, and come," [252] the Princess said, "Say to the King that you will come in a week; and go," she said. Then the Prince having told the King, "I shall come in a week," went. Having driven the horse into that tunnel which the King cut, and gone along the tunnel, and come to the other tunnel [excavated by the rats], during the daytime he stays in the tunnel. At night, having come near the Gem Princess, and eaten rice, and been sleeping, again as the light falls he goes to the tunnel and remains [there]. At the time when the Prince sprang into that tunnel, men threw stones into the tunnel, and heaped them up. They do not know the fact that that Prince is staying in the tunnel which the rats cut. After that, the King came, and spoke to the Princess, "Now then, let us two be married." Then the Princess said, "I will not. My husband has said that he will come in a week. Because of it, until he comes I will not marry any one whatever. If he come not I will marry," she said. The King having heard that word [said], "It is good. After a week has gone I will marry [you]." Thinking, "The Prince having been put into the tunnel, and stones trampled down [over it], when will he come again? That Princess, the Prince not [being here], in perplexity at his death is talking nonsense," he went away. What does the Princess do? Having taken gem-stones to the extent of many millions (in value), she caused to be sewn a diadem-wreath (otunu malawak), and a dress. Having sewn them, at early dawn (rae pandara) of the day following the week, having dressed this Prince, she said, "As the light is falling, having waited behind the King's palace be good enough to come as though returning," and sent him [there]. Thereupon, the Prince in that manner at the time when the King arises in the morning, presented himself for the King's cognizance (indiriyata). Then the King,--after becoming afraid concerning the return of the Prince whom he had put in the tunnel in which he had placed stones, and having employed tusk elephants had trampled them down,--asked, "Prince, whence camest thou?" Thereupon the Prince said, "O Lord, Your Majesty, your father the King and mother the Queen, also, are staying in happiness in the God-world. I went there. Having said my dress was bad (nakayi) they gave me, for wearing, a dress which, those persons having worn it, had become old," he said. When the King looked in the direction of his dress [he thought that] except that in the God-world [there might be] such a dress, it is of the kind which is not in this world. Because of it, it seemed to the King to be true. The Prince said, "The party said that you also, Sir, are to go. They tried not to permit me, also, to come back. Having said, 'I will come back,' for the purpose of what I am saying to you I returned. "When I went in the tunnel and looked about yet [another] path [leading] there had been cleared. Having gone on that path, when I looked the God-world was quite near." After that, the King, having collected the citizens, began to remove the earth at that tunnel which he cut to kill the Prince. Having heard of it, that Prince in order that the tunnel which the rats had cut should be closed, told the rats, and again made them push back the earth. Having pushed it back, while he is staying [there], on the following day the King alone went, and having said, "[After] looking [at the God-world] I shall return," went off. When he is descending into the hole to go, what does this Prince do? Having thrown down those stones that had been taken out, and blocked up the tunnel so as not to allow the King to return, the King died in the tunnel. After that, this Prince, having seized and beheaded the Minister who had told [the King] the stratagem for the purpose of killing him, summoned the whole of the citizens, and said to the people, "For the offence which the King committed against me I put the King into the tunnel, and killed him. From to-day the King of this city is I myself." [Thereafter] exercising the sovereignty, marrying the Gem Princess, and establishing that King's Queen as a female servant, he remained there. Siwurala (ex-monk). North-central Province. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 97, in a Kalmuk story a painter who was jealous of a wood-carver presented to the Khan a pretended note from his dead father, requesting that the carver might be sent to the kingdom of the Gods, and stating that the painter would show the way. The painter explained that the carver must be burnt in a pyre, with much drum beating, and rise to heaven on a horse through the clouds of smoke. The carver escaped by a tunnel which his wife excavated to the centre of the pyre, getting into it while the timber by which he was surrounded was burning. After a month he gave the Khan a letter from his father in heaven, ordering him to reward the carver richly, and to send the painter to decorate the temple which had been built. The painter was thus killed in the way he designed for the carver's death. There is a variant in the Sierra Leone country, given in Cunnie Rabbit, etc. (Cronise and Ward), p. 254. As advised by a messenger, a King who wished to kill his son told him that he should be King, and that in order to be crowned he must be tied in a mat, thrown into a deep pool, and left there three days. When the party halted on the way and left the bundle on the path for a time, the youth got a child to unfasten the package, and inserted a large stone which was afterwards duly thrown into the water. After three days the youth made his appearance wearing a crown and riding a horse. He was acclaimed as King, and he stated that he had been ordered to send his father's messenger to be crowned in the same way. He was seized, tied up, and drowned. NO. 146 THE NA, MI, AND BLUE-LOTUS FLOWERS' PRINCESSES In a certain country there is a King, and the King has three children, males. On the second poya day (the full-moon day), at the time when the moon has risen, having caused these three Princes to be brought, he asked, "Son, what is this moon good for?" The big son said, "This moon is good for [enabling] poor people to go on journeys; it is good for trampling stacks (threshing by means of buffaloes)." The King accepted this word. He asked at the hand of the next (ekkama) son; that son replied in that very manner. He asked at the hand of the next son. That son said, "It is good for [enabling] the Mi-flower [253] Princess, and the Na-flower [254] Princess, and the Blue-Lotus-flower Princess to perambulate on the carriage which they keep." Thereupon anger went to the King. Having caused the executioner to be brought, he started off the youngest Prince and the two elder Princes and the executioner, these four persons. He told him to behead the Prince. At the time when these four were going in the midst of the jungle, there was a Banyan-tree; the four persons sat down in the shade under the Banyan-tree. The youngest Prince having collected a heap of sand and having been [hidden] [255] in it, both the elder Princes and the executioner, these three persons, [not seeing him], set out to come away. Having come a considerable distance [the executioner], killing a lizard (katussa) and smearing the blood on the sword, came and told the King, "I beheaded him." The King took it for the fact. The Prince having arisen, when he looked about, his two elder brothers were not [there], and the executioner was not [there]. Because there was not a place to go to he went to sleep again under that very Banyan-tree. Having arisen in the morning, when he looked there was no water, no food. Having climbed up the tree, he saw that water was pouring down at the margin of a rocky hill. He descended from the Banyan-tree, and went along looking constantly at the hill. Taking a little water [at it], and washing his face, at the time when he was going up the hill a bee came, and turned (flew) round his head; then he struck at the bee. A second time having come it turned round his head; a second time he struck at it. Having come even the third time, when it was turning round his head he thought, "I must look for [the hive of] this." On the hill there were rocks. Having come [and found the hive], sitting down at them he drew out the comb. Having drawn it out, when he looked in the hive (miya) there was an ash-pumpkin [flower]. He took out the ash-pumpkin [flower], and when he looked in it there was a Princess. [256] Having gone away, taking the Princess also, after sitting down under a Na-tree and looking and looking around, eating and eating the honey he gave to the Princess also. This Princess in a day or two became big. Beneath that very Na-tree they stayed for three days. While one day sitting below the same Na-tree, when he looked upward in the Na-tree there was a large flower, a kind of ash-pumpkin [flower], in the Na-tree. He went up the tree for that flower also, and plucking the flower descended. After having thrown away the petals, when he looked [inside] there was a Princess. He gave honey to the Princess, and they remained under the same Na-tree. After four days they set out from beneath the Na-tree. In a day or two these two Princesses were [as big as though their age was] twelve years. Having gone along in the jungle, they came out at a certain country, and went to the house of a widow-Mahage (an old woman of good connections), and stayed there. The widow-Mahage eats by pounding paddy at the King's house and being given the rice-dust. She gave [some] to these three persons also; the two Princesses and the Prince were unable to eat it, they said. At that time the widow-Mahage having gone near the King says, "O King, Your Majesty, at the place where I live, two Princesses and a Prince having come thus, are staying." Thereupon the King says, "Widow-Mahage, wilt thou tell the Prince to come to my palace?" he said. The Mahage having come, told him. At the time when she is telling him, the Princesses say, "Should he tell you any work, don't say, 'Ha' (yes), and don't say, 'I cannot,' [257] and don't say, 'I can.' Having said, 'After having considered I will tell you,' come back," the Princesses say. To the Mi-flower Princess the chariot of the Gods is visible beyond a kalpa; to the Na-flower Princess the chariot of the Gods is visible beyond two kalpas. [When he went to the palace], "Prince," the King says to the Prince, "in the morning and in the evening I want seven handkerchiefs of Blue-lotus flowers." He did not say "Ha"; he did not say "I cannot." After having said, "I will consider and tell you," he came back to the place where he is living at the widow's house. This Prince having come, says to the two Princesses, "The King says to me, 'In the morning and in the evening I want seven and seven handkerchiefs of [Blue-lotus] flowers. Can you [bring them]?' Thereupon I said, 'After having considered I will tell you.'" The Princesses say, "Prince, when you have gone to pluck the flowers you would die while in the pool, [but we will save you]. In the pool there is a great Crocodile. Because the King is not clever [enough] to kill you and write (that is, contract) a marriage to us two, it is good to do thus," they said. Thereupon, the Prince having gone the second time near the King, this Prince says, "I can." After he came home taking seven handkerchiefs, both the Princesses, having called the Prince and having combed and tied up his hair (lit., head), uttered spells on his right over a handful of sand, and after giving it, say, "Having gone near the pool, throw down the handful of sand on the right. At that time the human-flesh-eating Crocodile having come will go ashore." Having given [the spells over] a handful on the left also, they said, "Plucking seven handkerchiefs of flowers, come out, and quickly on the left throw down this handful of sand, [or] the Crocodile will come." [He acted accordingly.] At the time when he was coming [after] plucking the flowers, a large Blue-lotus flower having been there he plucked that flower, and having come back, gave it [to the Princesses] at the house. Then having gone to the royal palace, taking also the seven handkerchiefs of flowers, [he gave them to the King]. Quickly having come back, taking the [Blue-lotus] flower at the house into his hand, and having cast away the petals, when he looked there was a Princess. At that time the widow-Mahage having gone to the royal house, says, "I don't know if this Prince is a magician; [258] I don't know if he is a person possessed of supernatural powers; [259] I cannot find out what he is. Now he is there, and three Princesses are there." Then the King thinks, "How [am I] to take these very three beautiful Princesses?" he thinks. Again he thinks, "Should I send this Prince to the Naga world I can take them; without it, indeed, I cannot." At that time the King says to the widow-Mahage, "Say thou to the Prince that I say he is to come." She accepted that word; having come she told the Prince. At the time when she is saying it, the Blue-lotus-flower Princess says to the Prince, "Prince, should he tell you any work, don't say, 'Ha'; don't say, 'I cannot'; don't say, 'I can.' Having gone to the royal palace, when he has said it come back, saying, 'After I have considered I will tell you.'" Having gone and returned, he says to these three Princesses, "The King says thus to me, 'How is it? Canst thou go to the Naga world?' he says. Thereupon I said, 'Having considered I will tell you.' Having said [this] I came back." Then these three Princesses say, "Prince, when [he thinks] you have died the King will come summoning us three to go [to become his wives]." These Princesses say to the Prince, "You go [to the King]. Having gone, say, 'I can.'" He having gone, and having returned after saying it, they thereupon summoned the Prince. Sitting near him, the Mi-flower Princess, taking a palmful of oil, after having uttered spells over it rubbed it on his head. The Na-flower Princess also having uttered spells over oil rubbed [it on his head]. The Blue-lotus-flower Princess also having uttered spells over oil rubbed [it on his head]. The Mi-flower Princess next having uttered spells over a handful of sand, gave it into his hand. The Na-flower Princess also having uttered spells [over sand] gave it into his hand, and told him to tie it himself at his waist. The Blue-lotus-flower Princess also having uttered spells over a handful of sand, said, "Having gone near the tunnel [leading to the Naga world], when just going into the hole throw down the sand of the Mi-flower Princess. At the time when you are descending and going down the hole, when going to the middle of the hole throw down the sand of the Na-flower Princess. When going to the foot of the tunnel, throw down the sand of the Blue-lotus-flower Princess." Having stayed at the house of the widow-Mahage, they cut a tunnel [which met the tunnel opened by the King, so that the Prince might escape by it]. The Prince does not go; the widow-Mahage does not know [about it]. Anyone you like [260] [sees it] not; they do not know [about it]. [On the appointed day] having gone into the tunnel at the King's midula (the open space in front of the palace), at the time when he is coming to this tunnel, the King, having blocked up the King's tunnel and having employed elephants and trampled [the earth down], and having come, says to the three Princesses, "Princesses, go ye to the royal palace." At that time these three say, "When our Prince has gone three months, and three poyas (at the quarters of the moon), and three days, and three half days, should he not return we will come. You, Sir, be good enough to go." Thereupon the King went back to the palace. [While he was there, the Prince, who had escaped by the secret tunnel, proceeded to the palace to see him.] Having [stated that he had] gone to the Naga world and come back, the Prince says to the King, "O King, Your Majesty's father, the [late] King, has arrived at old age; he says to you that you also are to go." At that time, [as he believed this], having removed the stones and earth [that he had placed] in the tunnel down which the Prince went, the King also began to go. Having handed over the sovereignty to the Crown and the Sword [of State], and gone near the tunnel, and summoned everybody (serotoma), he says, "Having handed over the sovereignty to the Crown and the Sword, I am going. When I have gone for the space (taena) of three months and three poyas, I shall come back. Until the time when I come be careful." At the very time when he is descending into the tunnel, they brought elephants, and having put stones and earth in it, when they trampled them down the King died. Three poyas and three days and three months went by. He came not ever. As the sovereignty was going to be lost, loading on the tusk elephant's back the robes and the Crown and the Sword, and having made notification by tom-toms, at the time when it is walking in the street the Mi-flower Princess, and Na-flower Princess, and Blue-lotus-flower Princess say to the Prince, "To-day you, Sir, will obtain the sovereignty. Do not go anywhere." Thereupon the Prince says, "How do you know?" These three say, "Now, now, you will obtain it." The tusk elephant having come, when it was making obeisance by kneeling he mounted on the tusk elephant, and putting on the Crown and taking the Sword in his hand, he went to the palace. For the dead King there were five hundred Princesses. Having separated them in a different house, he allowed the five hundred to be [there]. Thereafter, after building separate houses for the Mi-flower Princess, and for the Na-flower Princess, and for the Blue-lotus-flower Princess, he sent them to them. At the time when he was exercising the sovereignty in that manner, the country of his parents who told [the executioner] to behead this one, became abandoned. When this King was on the floor of the upper story, while this one's elder elder brother, taking a bundle of firewood [for sale], was going through the midst of the city, the King saw him. Having called him, and after he had thrown down the bundle of firewood having summoned him to come here, this King says, "There is not permission for yourself to come again to this city," and he sent away this one. At the next occasion, on the second day, at the time when the younger elder brother was coming, taking a pingo (carrying-stick) load of Jak [fruit], the King tells this one also. Calling him near he says, "Why hast thou brought Jak? Has thy city become waste, or what? Why is it?" he asks at the hand of this man who brought Jak. At that time this one says, "Our country having become waste, there is much scarcity of food to eat, for our King and people." Thereupon this King says, "Canst thou come here with the three persons (his parents and other brother)?" This one says, "Ane! O Lord; send us two, for us to come with those two." Thereupon the King, having been troubled [at the news], sent the two persons. These two having gone, say to this one's two parents, "Ane! Father-King, that King says that we four persons--between that city and this city there is a river--having come to the river he says we are to remain [there]." Thereupon, because there was no food for the four persons, and because they could not endure the hunger, on the second poya day, at the time when the moon had risen they came to the river, and stayed there. Thereupon the King, and the Mi-flower Princess, and the Na-flower Princess, and the Blue-lotus-flower Princess, sitting on the chariot, went near the river. Having seen these four persons, and descended from the chariot, he told that party of four persons to ascend the chariot. Then the four persons say, "Ane! We cannot mount on this. Whether you, Sir, [are going] to behead [261] us, or chop us [in pieces], [262] or kill us [in some other way], we do not know. We cannot mount on it." Making them mount by harassing them and combating [their objections], [263] they came to the palace. Having come to the palace, after having given them a separate house to live in, and given them expenses for food, he said, "Don't you be afraid; you remain [here]," this King says to these four persons. At the time when a long period had gone by in this manner, the King thought that with the four persons he must eat food at one table. Having thought so, after three or four months he sent four men to the four persons, and having caused them to bathe, and [then] caused them to bathe in coconut milk scented with sandal-wood, [264] and given to all the four persons four pairs of vestments that day, [265] he told [the servants] to send food [for all] to eat at one table. They having sent the food [and] table, and the four persons sitting down together with the Mi-flower, the Na-flower, the Blue-lotus-flower Princesses, at the time when he tells them to eat the cooked rice the four say, "Ane! We cannot eat at one table with you, Sir. How can you, Sir, a King, and we, eat [together]?" these four persons say. The King says, "Nothing will happen through your eating at one table with me." At the time when, through [his] harassing them and combating [their objections], [266] they are eating [after] having sat down at one table, the King asks, "Can you, or cannot you recognise me?" the King asks. Thereupon the four persons say, "Ane! We cannot recognise you." At the time when they have said and said [this], three drops of milk having come from the breast of his mother fell on the King's face. [267] When they fell she began to weep. Thereupon the King says, "Don't cry. The thing I said became correct." At that time the King [his father] becoming afraid and terrified, he said, "Father-King, here, behold! the Mi-flower Princess. Here, behold! the Na-flower Princess. Here, behold! the Blue-lotus-flower Princess," and showed them. Then the King says, "Are you willing to take the sovereignty of the city?" he asked at the hand of the King's father. "I can," he said. To his father he gave the sovereignty. To the elder brother he gave the Ministership (aemaetkoma); he appointed the [second] Ministership for the younger elder brother. "Now then," he said, "when we have gone you will not give us a little betel!" In this story is [related] the manner in which a foolish King, taking the sovereignty, without considering exercised the sovereignty. North-western Province. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xviii, p. 120, in a South Indian (Tamil) story by Pandit S. M. Natesa Sastri, a Brahmana who had seven sons asked them one night what they would like to do. The elders expressed good wishes, but the youngest stated that he would like to spend the fine moonlight in a beautiful house with lovely girls. The father turned him out for saying this, and he had various adventures unlike those of this Sinhalese story. In the same work, vol. xxvi, p. 109, in a Telugu story by G. R. Subramiah Pantulu, Divijakirtti, King of Cholamandala, had three sons, of each one of whom he inquired what he most desired. The first wished to be surrounded by learned men and to study the great Indian Epics and sacred books, the second wished to obtain wealth and visit sacred shrines, the third wanted to acquire a kingdom and gain a good reputation by making it prosperous. The King made over the sovereignty to the third one, giving the first one villages and the second one money to go on a pilgrimage. In The Jataka, No. 96 (vol. i, p. 234), the Bodhisatta received a charmed thread and some charmed sand from Pacceka Buddhas as safe-guards on a journey. These preserved him, the sand placed on his head and the thread twisted round his brow, from an Ogress (Rakshasi) who, with others, devoured all in the palace. In The Jataka, No. 380 (vol. iii, p. 161) a "being of perfect merit" fell from Sakra's heaven, and was re-born as a girl inside a lotus flower. "When the other lotuses grew old and fell, that one grew great and stood." An ascetic opened it, found the girl inside, and reared her. Sakra created a crystal palace for her, provided her with divine clothing and food, and in the end the King of Benares married her. In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 81, when a King of Udayagiri one moonlight night asked his seven sons what they would like to be doing, the first suggested leading an army into an enemy's country, the second wished to be irrigating some land, the third wished to be ploughing, the fourth to be walking from one village to another, the fifth to be hunting, the sixth to be a cooly. The seventh son wished to be the sole Emperor of the world, reclining on a couch, attended by four wives, the daughters of Indra, Agni, Varuna, and Adisesha (the serpent-king). His mother, hearing that he was to be executed for this wish, sent him away secretly with a bag of money. Next morning the executioners showed the blood of an animal as that of the Prince. The Prince acquired the wished-for wives, induced a King who tried to kill him, to jump into a fire from which he himself had come successfully by Agni's aid, and became King of a magic city. In the meantime his father had been driven out of Udayagiri, and with his wife and other sons got a living by selling firewood. The young King recognised them, gave the sovereignty to his father, and himself took the post of Minister. He had further adventures afterwards. There are several Indian accounts of girls who made their appearance out of fruits or flowers, and one of a Prince, in addition to the deity in the tale numbered 153, and the sons of King Sagara, mentioned in the note after it. In one old legend the Goddess Pattini in one incarnation was produced from a Mango fruit, and in another from a Blue-lotus flower. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 96, a girl was found inside a Mango fruit. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 11, a Prince and Princess who had been killed came to life afresh inside two fruits produced on a tree which grew at the spot where their livers had been thrown. At p. 81 a Princess reappeared full-grown inside a fruit in a King's garden. At p. 138, there is an account of a Princess who issued full-grown from a Bel fruit (�gle marmelos). After being drowned she became a Pink-lotus flower, and when this was destroyed she reappeared as an infant inside a Bel fruit. In the Kolhan tales (Bompas) appended to Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 461, there is a story of this type regarding a Princess who was in a Bel fruit. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 142, a tear of joy fell from the eye of a Vidyadhara maiden on a Jambu flower, and a fruit was produced; when it fell and broke open a heavenly maiden came out of it, and was reared by a hermit. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 327, a Buddhist nun, Amrapali, related an account of her previous births during ninety-one kalpas, from mango flowers. The details of her last birth are given; she became the mother of the celebrated physician Jivaka, the son of King Bimbisara, and afterwards took the religious vows. Professor Chavannes states that the work in which this story occurs was translated into Chinese between A.D. 148 and 170. In the same volume, p. 337, there is a story of the birth of two other girls from flowers, one from a Sumana flower and the other from a Blue lotus. In Korean Tales (Dr. H. N. Allen), p. 164, a girl who had drowned herself to appease an evil spirit who refused to allow the passage of some boats, was sent back to life in a large flower on a plant floating on the sea. A King who preserved the flower saw her when she emerged at night, and married her. In the Maha Bharata (Vana Parva, cxlvi ff.) Bhimasena, one of the Pandava Princes, went in search of golden lotus flowers, and found them in a lake at the Gandhamadana mountain, belonging to Kuvera, the God of Wealth. In Reynard the Fox in Southern Africa (Dr. Bleek), p. 55, a girl appeared out of a calabash in which a woman had placed her daughter's heart after it had been recovered from the body of a lion that had eaten her. The woman put with it the first milk of the cows which calved. THE STORY OF THE SHE-GOAT. (Variant a.) In a certain country there are a King and a Queen, it is said. There is an only Prince of the Queen's. The King was stricken by a very great scarcity (sayak). Well then, the Queen and the King and the Prince devoured (plundered) all the things and pansalas (monks' residences) that were in the city. Having devoured them, on the day when they were finished the King said at the hand of the Queen, "To-morrow I must behead our Prince." So the Queen, having tied a little cooked rice in a packet and given it into the hand of the Prince, said, "Go thou away to any place thou wantest." After that, the Prince taking the packet of cooked rice and having gone on and on, and eaten the packet of cooked rice sitting upon a rock, looked about, saying, "Where is a smoke rising?" When he looked a smoke was visible. After that, having descended from the rock, as he was going away he met with some goats; in the party of goats there was a large she-goat. When the Prince was going near the she-goat, the she-goat expectorated. The Prince, taking the piece of spittle and wrapping it in his handkerchief, went to the house of a widow woman. Having gone there and given the handkerchief into the hand of the widow-mother, he said, "Mother, having placed this handkerchief in the very bottommost pot, [268] put it away." After that, the woman having placed the handkerchief in the very bottommost pot, put it away. After seven days went by, having taken out the handkerchief, at the time when he looked [in the pot] three Princesses and four young rats were there, and filled the pot. Afterwards he took the three Princesses out of the pot. Having taken them out, placing the three Princesses in that very house, the Prince, marrying them, remained there. While he was living in that very way, news reached the King, the Prince's father, that this Prince is living with (lit., near) the widow-mother. Afterwards the King came there on horse-back, together with the army. Having come, he said to the Prince, "Can you pluck and give me the Blue-lotus flower which is in the Great Sea?" Then the Prince said, "I can." Owing to it, the widow woman was weeping at the Prince's saying he can. The three Princesses asked, "What, mother, are you weeping for?" Then the widow-mother says, "Ane! Now then, my son will die when he has gone into the Great Sea." Then the three Princesses say, "Ane! What do you weep at that for? Bring a little sand from an untrodden place." The widow woman brought a little sand from an untrodden place. Afterwards, the youngest Princess, having uttered spells over the sand, and given it into the Prince's hand, said, "Having gone into the Sea, when you put down this little sand, firm sand will become clear (i.e., will appear above the water). Having gone a little distance again, when you again put down a little sand, firm sand will become clear. Having come quite close [to the flower], when you have held the hands in a cup shape the Blue-lotus flower will come into the hands." Afterwards, the Prince, in that very manner having gone upon the hard sand, held his hands in a cup shape; then it came into his hands. Having taken it, when he comes back the King is still at the widow woman's house. Afterwards the Prince gave the Blue-lotus flower into the King's hand. Thereupon the King thought to himself, "Ah, Bola! by this also I was unable to kill this one." [269] There is a Bee-hive in a forest; no one can draw out [the honey combs]. The bees come further than two gawwas [270] (each of four miles) [to attack would-be plunderers of the hive]. To draw out that Bee-hive the King told this Prince. The Prince said, "I can." Afterwards that widow-mother is weeping. Then the three Princesses asked, "What is it, mother, you are weeping for?" Then the widow-mother said, "When my son has gone to draw out [the honey-combs at] the Bee-hive, the bees having stung (lit., eaten) him he will die." Then the Princesses said, "What are you crying for on that account? Come back [after] breaking a branch without disease or former disease." [271] Afterwards the woman, breaking a branch without disease or former disease, came back and gave it. After that, the youngest Princess, having uttered spells for the branch, and given it into the Prince's hand, said, "Strike at the Bee-hive with this branch; then the bees will go. Well then, you will be able to draw the Bee-hive." The Prince, having taken the branch, and gone to the place where the Bee-hive is, struck the Bee-hive with the branch. The bees went away. The Prince, drawing out [the honey-comb of] the Bee-hive, [272] came back and gave it to the King. The King thought to himself, "Ah, Bola! after I was unable to kill this one by this also, what shall I do?" Thinking [thus], he cut a well. Having cut it, and at the very bottom [273] having left a little earth, he said to the Prince, "Having descended down this, you must take out this earth to-morrow." Afterwards the Prince told it at the hand of the widow-mother; then the widow-mother wept. The young rats asked, "What is it, mother, that you are weeping for?" The widow-mother said, "When our son has gone into that well he will die." Then the four young rats said, "What are you weeping for at that?" From the house to the well they cut a tunnel. Having cut it, they said at the Prince's hand, "We have cut the tunnel from this house until the time when it goes to the well. When you have gone into the well, should the King close it with earth [274] come along this tunnel." Having said [this], they showed the tunnel to the Prince. On the following day, the King having told the Prince to descend into the well, the King remained on the surface. The Prince having descended into the well, when he is about (lit., making) to try to take a little earth the King closed it with earth. Then this Prince having come along that tunnel to the house of the widow-mother, remained [there]. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 549, it is stated that in a country in which the deficiency of rain had caused a famine, "the King began to play the bandit, leaving the right path, and taking wealth from his subjects unlawfully." In the same work, vol. ii, p. 569, a great sandbank is described as suddenly rising up in the midst of the sea, near Ceylon. THE STORY OF A NOBLEMAN'S SON. [275] (Variant b.) In a certain country there were three Princes, [the sons] of a nobleman. Having called the eldest Prince of the same three Princes he asks from the same Prince, "Son, what is the work thou canst do?" he asked. Thereupon the big Prince says, "Father, having gone to a threshing-floor on the [full moon] poya day, on the fifteenth of the light half [of the lunar month], it would be good to spread [and thresh] the stacks, if the moon be shining and shining," he said. Thereupon he told the same Prince to go aside. Having called the next Prince he asked, "Son, on the second poya day, on the fifteenth of this bright half [of the lunar month], what is the best work to do? What the best journey to go on?" The Prince says, "Father, according to me, on the second poya day, on the fifteenth of the bright half, when they have put packs on seven or eight pairs of bulls, if they drive them [on a trading journey] when the moon is shining and shining, it would be good," he said. Thereupon the father told the Prince to go aside. Having called the young Prince he asked, "Son, on this second poya day, on the fifteenth of the bright half [of the lunar month], what is the best work to do? What are the best journeys to go on?" Thereupon the young Prince says, "Father, according to me, if I should have placed the head on the Goat Queen's waist pocket, my shoulder on the Blue-Lotus Queen's waist pocket, my two feet on the Mi-flower Queen's waist pocket, it would be good," he said. Thereupon the father says to the above-mentioned two Princes, "Cut down this wicked Prince with the sword," he said. At that time, because they could not kill the young Prince, the above-mentioned two Princes did not speak. Then their mother, having called the above-mentioned two Princes, says, "Having fulfilled the hopes of seven kalpas, [276] [after] being hidden in the womb of one mother you [three] were born. Because of it, do not cut down your younger brother at your father's word," she said. Having said [to their father], "We are going away to cut him down," they abandoned him in the midst of a very great forest; and having killed a lizard (katussa) and said they killed the Prince, smearing the blood on the sword they came back, and said, "Father, we killed the Prince," and gave him the sword. Thereupon he became [filled] with happiness or great satisfaction. At the time when the Prince who was left in the midst of the forest was going along in the forest wilderness for seven days, as he was going along eating and eating sugar-canes, pine-apples, sweet oranges, various ripe fruits, he saw a great mountain. Having seen an aerial root of a Banyan which swung there, seizing the aerial root he went [climbing up it] to the rock, and when he looked about he saw a rock cave, and not a country furnished with villages (gama ratak). Thereupon, holding the aerial root of the Banyan he descended to the ground at the rock, and went away in the direction of the rock cave. Having seen a house near the rock the Prince went to the house. A woman, called the Mal-kara Amma (garland-making mother), who takes messages to the King of that country, saw that the Prince was going. At the time when she asked, "Where are you going?" a flock of goats which were there saw him, and a large female goat coughed. Thereupon a piece of mucus fell down. Taking the piece of mucus, he tied it up in his waist-pocket. Thereafter, to the garland-making mother he says, "I am going to a place where they give food and clothing." Then the garland-making mother says, "I have no child; come, for me to rear you," she said. The Prince said, "It is good," [and went to live with her]. Thereupon, having put [for him] outside [her room] cooked rice and curry, the flower mother went to inform the King. She having thus gone, the things that were in the waist-pocket of the above-mentioned Prince who came to the house, came to their time. [277] After three days, the Prince having arisen, on seeing the garland-making mother says, "Mother, I will take these flowers and give them to the King," he said. Thereupon the garland-making mother said, "Don't go." Thereafter, the garland-making mother went to the city [to present the flower-garlands], and came back. On the following day, when the above-mentioned Prince said that he must go to another place, the garland-making mother says, "Son, beginning from your young age, I reared you until the time when you are becoming as big as this. Now, to what place are you to go?" she said. "It is so, indeed. Give me the thing that I gave you that day to put away," he said. Thereupon, the garland-making mother, having gone to take the thing which she had put in the lowest earthen pot that was at the bottom of three or four earthen pots, when she looked saw that a Princess was in it, and being pleased took her out. Then the garland-making mother says, "This Princess is good for my son," and she gave her in marriage to him. Not much time afterwards, at the time when he was sleeping in that manner [which he mentioned to his father], placing his head on the waist-pocket of the above-mentioned Princess, the Ministers of the King of that country having seen it, told the tale to the King. On the following day, on seeing the garland-making mother he said, "Your son is a very great clever person. In the midst of the Great Sea there will be a great Blue-Lotus flower. Because of [his cleverness] tell him to bring and give me it," he said. The garland-making mother having come away weeping and weeping, came home. Thereupon, the Goat Queen asks, "What, mother, (maeniyan wahansa), are you crying for?" she asked. The mother says, "He said that he is to bring the Blue-Lotus flower that is in the midst of the Great Sea." "Without fear on that account, eat cooked rice," she said. Having waited a little time, she asked, "Can you bring and give [me] three handfuls of sand from a place they are not trampling on?" Having said "I can," she brought and gave them. The daughter-in-law, taking the three handfuls of sand, and having given them into the hand of her husband, says, "Having gone, taking those three handfuls of sand, throw down a handful; white sand will open out. Having gone upon that white sand, throw down the next handful; [the sand will then be extended]. Having thrown down the other handful of sand [the sand-bank will extend to the flower]; then taking the Queen of the Blue-Lotus flower, and plucking the flower, come back," she said. Having gone in the manner stated by his Queen, taking the Queen and the Blue-Lotus flower he came back. Marrying the Queen, he gave the Blue-Lotus flower into the mother's hand. The garland-making mother having gone to the royal house, and given the Blue-Lotus flower to the King, came back. Thereupon, the Ministers having come, for the above-mentioned Prince there was one Queen before; at the time when they looked now there are two. "Now then, indeed, the King will not succeed in exercising the sovereignty," they said. On the following day, the garland-making mother having waited [at the palace] until the time for going, [the King] says, "Your son is a great clever person. Because of it, tell him to break [into] the Royal Bee-hive [278] (Raja-miya) that is in the jungle, and come back [with the honey-combs]," he said. The garland-making mother having come back, when she was weeping and weeping, the above-mentioned Blue-Lotus-flower Queen asked, "What, mother, are you weeping and weeping for?" Thereupon the garland-making mother says, "Having brought [the honey-combs of] the Royal Bee-hive that is in the jungle, [the Prince] is to give him them, the King said. Because of it, indeed, I am weeping," she said. "Without fear on that account, come and eat cooked rice," she said. Then when the garland-making mother is eating cooked rice, the Blue-Lotus Queen says, "Can you bring and give me three handfuls of stones from a place they are not trampling on?" she said. Having said "I can," she brought and gave them. Thereupon the Blue-Lotus Queen, having given the three handfuls of stones into the hand of her husband, says, "From these three handfuls of stones taking one handful, go and throw it into the jungle. The bees will stop while you go three gawuwas (twelve miles). Having gone there, throw down the other handful; [they will then not attack you until you go to the bee-hive]. Having gone to the bee-hive they will assemble [to attack you]. Throw the other handful at the bee-hive, the head part of the bee-hive; the bees will go to the head part (the upper part). Then, breaking [into] the bee-hive, come back [with the honey-combs], calling the Queen who is in the bee-hive," she said. Thereupon, the Prince went, and breaking [into] the bee-hive and calling the Queen, came back, and gave [the honey-combs] into the hand of the garland-making mother. Then the garland-making mother, taking the honey and having gone to the city, gave it to the King. At that time the King says, "Because your son is a very great clever person he does the things I am saying and saying. Because of it, tell your son to come to the city to-morrow," he said. Thereupon, the garland-making mother having come weeping and weeping says, "To-morrow, indeed, he is really to kill my son. He says he is to go to the city." Then the Queen who was in the Royal Bee-hive says, "Without fear on that account, come and eat cooked rice." Thereafter she says [to the Prince], "The King's message indeed I know. Having told them to cut a well, and caused you to descend into the well, it is indeed to kill you he told you to go. For it, I will inform you of a stratagem," she said. When he asked "What is the stratagem?" she said, "Having gone near the well, without crookedness drawing a line from it, go a considerable distance. From there having gone cutting a tunnel, do thou cut it to the well, and come back," she said. He did in the manner his wife said. Having done the work, and gone to the city, he saw the King, and remained there. Then the King says, "The well has been [partly] filled up. Because of it, let us go to draw out the small quantity of earth." Having said this, that man and yet more people went. Having gone there, and put [a ladder of] bamboos into the well, he caused that man to descend. Having waited until the time when he descended to the foot of the well, he [drew up the ladder, and] began to throw down earth. Thereupon the man, ascertaining that he is throwing down earth, breaking down that little that remained at the tunnel that had been cut [by him], went into the tunnel, and having come along it, came to his house. Well then, the King, having filled the well, and said, "This one will be killed," with pleasure came to the city. This above-mentioned man having thought, "This King I must kill," made a stratagem. What was that stratagem, indeed? Cooking a box of cakes, and having gone to the city and given them to the King, he says, "Your Majesty (Devayan wahanse), having remained there at the time when you were putting me into the well, when you were closing it with earth I went to that [other] world. Having been there, I brought a box as a present (penum pettiyak) for Your Majesty." Thereupon the King says, "We also must go to that world. Because of it, put me down a well," he said. Then having put the King into the well they closed it with earth. In not many days, perceiving that the King was lost, and ascertaining that there was no one for the sovereignty, they decorated the tusk elephant, and went seeking a person for the sovereignty. The tusk elephant went and kneeled to the man whom they put in the well. Thereupon, they having come [to the palace] with that man and with those three Queens, he exercised the sovereignty. Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province. In the tale numbered 243, in vol. iii, a Prince was induced to go for a lotus flower which grew in a pool guarded by a great crocodile. In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 73, when a Prince was going to fetch a Golden Lotus flower that was on the far side of the Seven Seas, his wife, who understood magical arts, gave him seven pebbles, and told him that when he threw one into each ocean in turn, and said, "May the sea dry before and swell behind," a dry path would appear, along which he could proceed in safety. When he had crossed the Seven Seas in this manner, a Rakshasa in charge of a sacred pool beyond them sent on a note which the Prince had brought, to the Crocodile King, who forwarded the lotus to the Prince and ordered a crocodile to carry him back to his own country. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 227, a King of Sravasti, who wished to get possession of the beautiful wife of an upasaka, sent him, by the advice of his Ministers, to bring lotus flowers of five colours from a distant pool. All who were sent on this errand were killed by venomous snakes or demons or savage animals, but a demon whom he encountered saved the upasaka on learning of his piety, and fetched the flowers for him. When the King heard of this he begged his forgiveness. NO. 147 THE LOSS THAT OCCURRED TO THE NOBLEMAN'S DAUGHTER In a certain country there is a nobleman (Sitano), it is said. There is a Princess of the nobleman's, it is said. The Princess having become associated with the servant at the house, in secret they went to another country, it is said. At the time when the two persons had been there a long time, the Princess became pregnant. [279] When the ten months were coming to be fulfilled she said to the Princess's husband, "Dear (sondura), let us go to seek our two parents." At that word her husband was displeased. Afterwards, in not many days the child was born. When they had been some time thus, a fresh child was conceived. At the time when the ten months were coming to be fulfilled for that child, she said, "Dear, it is very difficult for me. Because of it, let us go to seek our two parents," she said. After that procuring all [necessary] provisions, afterwards they began to go. Having gone thus, that day it became night. They stayed near a tree in the midst of the forest. Because rain was coming, having said he must construct a leaf [parturition] house (kolasun geyak) he went to cut sticks, creepers, etc. Having gone, at the time when he was cutting them sitting upon an ant-hill, the Naga King who stayed in the ant-hill bit (datta kala) her husband in the leg; the man died there. At the time when that woman, placing the child near her, was staying [there], pain in the body having seized the woman she bore [a child]. Then rain began to rain. That night, until it became light, how much was her trouble for sleep! After it became light in the morning she went to seek her husband. Having gone, at the time when she was going walking she saw that the man is dead. From there, weeping and weeping, having walked [back] to the place where the children were, and having descended to the road carrying the two children, while she was going away to the very city of her two parents there was water in the river [that she must cross] on the road. After that, having gone to that [far] bank carrying the elder child, and having made the child stay there, she came to the middle of the river [in order] to return to this bank. Then, having seen that an eagle striking the child she bore yester-night was taking it, she clapped her hands and shouted. Then the child who was on that [far] bank said, "Mother is calling," and sprang into the river. Then, of both children, one the eagle took away, one having fallen in the water died. The two children were lost, and the man was lost. Well then, having said, "I myself must still go to seek my two parents," at the time when she was going she met with a man of that city whom she knew. From the man this woman asked, "Is the affliction of my two parents light, or what?" she asked. The man said, "Thy two parents' mansion (prasada) having broken down and fallen last night on account of the rain, and the two having died, it is the smoke, indeed, of the funeral pyre which burns the two, that is visible there," he said. After that, the woman lost her senses, and being without goods she began to go on still, quite like a mad person. The Devatawa taking as his dwelling-place the Banyan-tree near the road, thought, "Should this woman go on this path, through that depression of spirits she will jump into the fire that burns those two persons. I must show this woman a different path." Having said [this], he showed [her it]. The woman went on that path. Having gone, she went to a pansala. Having gone to it and become a nun she remained there until she died. (A variant agrees closely with this.) North-western Province. This is part of the story of the misfortunes of Krisa Gautami, one of the chief Buddhist nuns, as they are related in the Tibetan Kah-gyur (A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales, Ralston, p. 216). Her father was a rich householder of Benares, by whom she was married to a young merchant. For her first confinement she returned home, afterwards rejoining her husband. For the second, she and her husband went off in a waggon in which she was confined when they had gone about half way. Her husband sat down under a tree to await the event, fell asleep, a snake bit him, and he died on the spot. When the woman got down she found he was dead. In the meantime a thief stole the oxen. She then walked on with the children till she came to a river, flooded by a sudden rain. She carried the infant across, and while returning in the water for the other saw a jackal carry off the baby. When she waved her hands to frighten the animal, the elder child, thinking she was calling him, sprang down a high bank into the river, and was killed. The mother pursued the jackal, which dropped the infant, but it was then dead. At about the same time her parents and all their household but one man were destroyed by a hurricane. She met the survivor and heard his sad story, after which she wandered to a hill village, and lived with an old woman, spinning cotton yarn. After other unfortunate experiences she became a Buddhist nun. NO. 148 THE RATEMAHATMAYA'S PRESENTS A certain cultivator having gone to his Kaekiri garden, and having seen, when he looked [through it], that a very beautiful long Kaekiri fruit was ripe, presented it to the Chief of that country. The Ratemahatmaya, being pleased regarding it, presented to him a very valuable young bull. A man who lives in that country, ascertaining this, thought, "Should I also bring some present I shall receive a present [in return] in this manner" (that is, one of much higher value); and he presented to him a valuable heifer from his herd. Thereupon the Ratemahatmaya, this time being acquainted with the stratagem, presented to the man the Kaekiri fruit which the cultivator gave. North-western Province. My friend Mr. C. Tucker, of Harrogate, has been good enough to show me a variant of this story in a work called Lessons of Thrift, by a member of the Save-all Club, published in 1820. It is related of King Louis XI. of France. A peasant who had ingratiated himself by his services, when the King succeeded to the throne brought him a turnip of extraordinary size as the only present within his power. The King gave him one thousand livres in return. His landlord, a country squire, hearing of it, thought he must profit by this weakness of the King's, and said to himself, "If this madman give a thousand livres for a turnip, what will he give me for that beautiful horse in my best stable!" He took the horse to the Court. The King was delighted, and said, "Your noble disinterested present shall be richly rewarded." Then the King produced the turnip, with this sarcasm, "This, you know, cost me a thousand livres, and I give it you in return for your horse." In Keightley's Tales and Popular Fictions, pp. 253 ff., there are two Italian variants in which a cat was bestowed by a King as a gift in return for presents of great value. NO. 149 THE PRINCE AND THE MINISTER At a certain city there were a King and a Queen; the Queen had a Prince and a Princess. While they were thus, the King and Queen reached a very great age. Afterwards the King says to the Minister, "When the Prince has become big give him the kingship;" having said it, he gave the [temporary] kingship to the Minister. After that, the King and Queen died. After that, while the Minister and Prince and Princess, these three persons, are living thus, the Minister becomes changed towards the Prince. The men of that country perceived it. After that, men say to the Prince, "Should you, Sir, stay, the Minister will behead you; you go to another country," they said. After that, the Prince, taking the painting (portrait) of the Princess, said, "Don't you descend from the floor of the upper story until the time when I come back." Saying it, the Prince went to another city. The Prince went near a widow woman of that city. The widow woman asks, "Of what village are you?" she asked. The Prince says, "I don't know either my village or country," he said. After that, the widow woman says, "You stay near me." When she said it, the Prince having said, "It is good, mother," remained no long time. Afterwards, when the King of the city, having been at the palace, is going near the widow woman's house, the King having seen that the Prince is in the open space in front of the house, the King came back to the palace laughing with pleasure, and called the Minister. After the Minister came running, the King says, "To-day a pleasure has gone to me," he said. The Minister says, "Who is the man whom you, Sir, saw to-day in the morning? If you, Sir, see that man every day in the morning it will be good," he said. After that, the King says to the Minister, "Calling the widow woman and the boy, come back," he said. Afterwards the Minister, summoning them, came. The King says to the widow woman, "Give me the boy; I will give him food, drink, and clothing," he said. The widow woman gave him the boy. After that, the King having built a house for the boy, and given him food, drink, and clothing, said, "Show yourself to me in the morning at six," he said. The Prince on the following day went at six, and stayed [there]. After that, the Prince on the following day came at seven. Then the King says, "Why are you such a time?" he asked. The Prince says, "I went to sleep," he said. After that, the Prince on the following day at eight went near the King. Afterwards the King says to the Prince, "Should you not come at six to-morrow I shall behead you," and scolded him. On the day after that the Prince did not go at all. After that, the King, having called the servants, says, "Look ye for what [reason] that Prince did not come." The servants having gone, when they are peeping through the door, the Prince lying down and taking a painting, kisses it, weeps, places it on the ground, takes it again. These servants having seen it, told the King. "If so, seizing the Prince come [with him]," he said. The Minister, seizing him, came. The King asks, "Why did you not come?" Then the Prince said, "I went to sleep." Then the King said, "Give me your painting." Afterwards the Prince brought and gave it. As soon as the King looked at the painting he asked, "What [relative] of yours [280] is this Princess?" The Prince said, "My younger sister." Then the King says, "Bring the Princess for me to marry her." Then the Minister says, "Having been keeping that woman three months, because she is a courtesan I sent her away," he says. The Prince said, "This Minister neither saw my younger sister, and nor was keeping her. If you were keeping her, mention the Princess's marks." The Minister says to the King, "Please put this Prince in prison until the time when I come," he said to the King. He put the Prince in prison. Afterwards, the Minister, asking the King for the Princess's portrait, and taking a good entertainment, having embarked, went to the city in which is the Princess. Having gone [there] he exhibits the entertainment. The old woman who is with (lit., near) the Princess having seen it, [said] to the Princess, "There is an entertainment which was never at our city. Let us go to look at it," she said. After that, the Princess says, "Elder brother said, 'Until the time when I come don't descend from the floor of the upper story.' Because of it I will not. You look and come back," she said. Afterwards, having seen the old woman the Minister asks, "Is there a Princess [here] like this picture?" Then the old woman said, "There is," she said. The Minister said to the old woman, "[After] calling her come back," he said. After that, the old woman says, "The Princess's elder brother said, 'Until the time when I come back don't descend from the floor of the upper story,' he said; because of it she will not descend," she said. Then the Minister says, "Tell me a mark of the Princess's." Then the old woman said, "There is not another mark of the Princess's to tell you; on the right thigh there is the birth-mark (upan-lakuna)," she said to the Minister. After the Minister went back to the palace he said to the King, "Please tell that Prince to come," he said. The King caused the Prince to be brought. Afterwards the Minister said to the Prince, "On the right thigh of your younger sister there is the birth-mark only; no other mark," he said. The Prince said, "Yes, [it is so]." After that, the King commanded them to hang this Prince. The Prince says to the King, "I must [first] look at younger sister, and come." After that, the King sent the Prince with two men. The Prince having gone to the floor of the upper story, and beaten the Princess [and told her what the Minister said], the Prince came again to the city in which is the King. The Princess having been weeping and weeping went to sleep. Afterwards the King, [in order] to hang the Prince, took him upon the scaffold. That Princess learnt that he is hanging the Prince. After that, the Princess having mounted on a horse, the King saw her come driving it along. The King [said], "Don't hang the Prince just now." Afterwards, the Princess having come, and descended from the back of the horse, and tied the horse at a tree, the Princess sat on a chair near the King. The Princess asks at the hand of the King, "Why are these people [here] in this manner?" The King says, "To-day I am hanging a Prince; because of it the people have come." After that, the Princess says to the King, "The Minister having been keeping me three months, taking my slipper came away. Be good enough to ask for it, and give me it." The King said, "Minister, if you brought it give her it." The Minister says, "That Princess I neither kept nor know," the Minister said. Afterwards, having caused the Prince to descend from the scaffold, the King [said], "Who is this of yours?" The Prince said, "My younger sister." Afterwards the King having caused the Minister to be brought, [told him who she was, and asked], "Why did you tell lies?" After that the Minister says, "You, Sir, will marry the Princess; you will give the Minister's work to the Prince. Because of that." After that, the King ordered them to hang the Minister. The King married that Princess. [The Prince] having gone to the Prince's [own] palace, took the kingship from the Minister [who had been ruling temporarily]. To the Minister he gave the Minister's work [again]. Finished. North-western Province. With regard to the order to hang the Prince, and the subsequent hanging of the Minister, there is a reference to this punishment in the next story, in which a Minister recommends that a turtle which had frightened some Princesses should be hanged. In vol. i, p. 368, a jackal remarked that a leopard which had been caught in a noose had been "hanged," as though this were a well-known punishment. I think there is no other clear instance in these stories; but in vol. i, p. 189, a Prince found a Yaksani trying to eat a dead body which was hanging in a tree; if this had been a case of suicide the relatives might have removed the body. Hanging the body at the four gates of the city after quartering it is mentioned in two of these tales (vol. i, pp. 86 and 89, and in No. 80, p. 20 of the present volume). Hanging is not referred to in the stories of the Low-Country Sinhalese, where one might expect to meet with it. In the Wevaelkaetiya Inscription (Epigraphia Zeylanica, vol. i, p. 250), King Mahinda IV. (A.D. 1026-1042) ordered that persons convicted of robbery with violence should be hanged. Mr. Wickremasinghe in giving a translation of this inscription added a note to the effect that he had not found this punishment mentioned elsewhere in Sinhalese literature; but in the Mahavansa, ii, lxxv, vv. 166 and 196, and in the Rajavaliya (translation), p. 66, there are accounts of the hanging of people. In Marshall's Ceylon, p. 39, it is stated that "the punishment of death was usually carried into effect by hanging, or being killed by elephants." In Davy's work also, p. 182, it is said that "the sentence of death, in cases of murder, was carried into effect by hanging." In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 185, a young man who was in love with a Princess received her portrait from a painter, and "spent his time in gazing on, coaxing and touching, and adorning her picture; ... he seemed to see her, though she was only a painted figure, talking to him and kissing him, ... and he was contented, because the whole world was for him contained in that piece of painted canvas." In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. i, p. 183), when a Wazir showed his young son to a Sultan, the latter was so much pleased with him that he said, "O Wazir, thou must needs bring him daily to my presence." NO. 150 THE STORY OF KING BAMBA In a certain country there is a King. There are seven Princesses (daughters) of the King. He does not allow the seven Princesses to go anywhere outside [the palace precincts], and having caused a pool to be dug in the very palace for bathing, also, the Princesses bathe [in it]. When they have bathed, there is a drain for letting out the water. A Turtle came along the drain, and having entered the pool, when it was there, one day the water having filled the pool the Princesses went. While they were having water-games, one Princess struck against the Turtle, and while she was crying out [in alarm], the other six having become afraid sprang ashore. Having sprung there and gone running, they told their father the King. Afterwards the King and Ministers having come and opened the drain, when they looked after the water lowered there was a Turtle. The Ministers took away the Turtle. Thereupon the King said, "For the fault that it frightened my Princesses, what is the suitable punishment to inflict on this one?" Then a Minister said, "Having fixed a noose to its neck and hung it up for thirty paeyas (twelve hours), let it go." Thereupon another Minister said, "The punishment is not good enough. Not in that way. Having prepared a bon-fire you ought to put this Turtle into the bon-fire." Thereupon the Turtle laughed. Then yet [another] Minister said, "That punishment is not good enough; I will tell you one. In the Atirawati [281] river the water is very swift; the water goes and falls into the Naga residence. [282] Having taken that one you ought to put it into that." Then the Turtle, after having shrugged its shoulders, said, "O Lord, Your Majesty, though you should inflict all other punishments don't inflict that punishment on me." Just as it was saying it, the King said, "Ade! Take that to that very one and put it in." After that, the Ministers having taken the Turtle put it into the Atirawati river. When it was put in, the Turtle, having gone turning and turning round, fell into the Naga residence. Well then, the shore is not a suitable place. Now then, the Turtle thinks, "Should I stay thus the Nagayas, seizing me, will eat me. Because of it, I must go near the great Naga King, Mahakela [283] by name." The great Naga King, Mahakela by name, having seen this Turtle, asked, "Whence camest thou? Who art thou?" Then the Turtle gave answer, "O Lord, Your Majesty, they call me, indeed, the Minister, Purnaka by name, of King Bamba of Bamba City. Because there was no other man to come [to make] appearance (daekuma) before Your Honour (numba-wahanse), His Majesty our King sent me." Then the Naga King asked, "What is the business for which he sent thee?" Then the Turtle says, "There are seven Princesses of His Majesty our King. Out of them, His Majesty our King is willing to give any Princess you want, for the Naga residence. Because of it he sent me." Thereupon the Naga King says, "It is good. If he is thus willing I will cause two persons to make the journey with thee." Then the Turtle says, "O Lord, Your Majesty, permission has been given to me for [only] seven days' [absence]; because of it, I must go this very day." Afterwards the great Naga King, Mahakela by name, having despatched two Nagayas, said, "Ye having gone to the world of men (nara-lowa), looking into matters there, until ye come back do no injury to anyone." Well then, when these two Nagayas and the Turtle are coming along the Turtle says, "I am unable to go like Your Honours go; having lifted me up carry me a little." After that, the two Nagayas, lifting up the Turtle, came [with him] to this world. Having come near the city, the Turtle said, "Now then, place me on the ground; I cannot go thus. When I have gone to the palace, the Princesses having come and said, 'Our Minister has come,' will ask at my hand certain articles. Because of it, I will go to that pool; until the time when I come [after] plucking a handful of flowers, you stay here." Having said [this], the Turtle went to the pool; after it descended [into it] those two Nagayas are looking [out for it]. The Turtle having gone to the pool, got hid. The two Nagayas having gone to Bamba City, after they went near the King, the King asked, "From what country came ye?" Then the Nagayas said, "What is [the meaning of] that speech that Your Honour is saying? Your Honour must understand. By Your Honour a Minister [was] sent to our Naga dwelling-place--was he not?--thereafter to tell us to come. That there are Your Honour's seven Princesses, Your Honour's Minister, Purnaka by name, went and told our King. Afterwards our King sent us two, with Your Honour's Minister, Purnaka by name." Then King Bamba says, "Is it true that a King like me gives [in] marriage to frog-eating beasts like you?" Having said it, he scolded them with many low words. Afterwards the two Nagayas having gone again to the Naga residence told the Naga King, "King Bamba scolded us much;" having said it the two wept. Afterwards collecting as many Nagayas as were [there], the Naga King having come to Bamba City, the Naga King called Mahakela and yet [another] Naga King twined [themselves] from the King's head down to the two feet, and raising their heads above [him] asked at the hand of King Bamba, "Wilt thou give thy Princess or not?" King Bamba said, "To thy taking any Princess thou wantest to thy country, there is not any impediment by me." Afterwards the Naga King [284] having taken a good [looking] Princess, [a daughter of the King], and gone to the Naga residence, married the Princess to a Nagaya. During the time when she was [there] a child [was] conceived in her womb. After it was conceived, ten months having become complete she bore a Nagaya. That Nagaya in not much time having become big, asked at the hand of his mother, "Mother, what is [the reason] why you alone are unable to take the appearance you want?" Then the Princess said, "Son, how can I take the appearance I want? I am a human being (manussayek)." The Nagaya asks, "How, mother, was the manner in which you came to this country?" Then his mother says, "In this manner: As many Nagayas as were in this Naga residence having gone and fought with our father the King, taking me came away." Afterwards the Naga Prince says, "Mother, I cannot stay in this country; I must go to the world of men. For it, give me permission." Afterwards his mother gave the Naga Prince permission. Well then (etin), the Nagaya having come to the world of men began to practise asceticism in a rock cave. When no long time had gone in that manner, a Vaedda having seen that the Nagaya is in that rock cave, said to a snake charmer (ahi-kantayek), "I have seen a Nagaya thus. Canst thou catch him?" The snake charmer (ahi-kantakaya) having said "I can," and having gone with the Vaedda, as soon as he saw the Nagaya the snake charmer [by magic spells] put on it inability to move. [285] Having put it on, and caught the Nagaya, and at city by city successively [286] having made the Cobra dance, the snake charmer obtained many presents; the snake charmer became very wealthy. After that, the Nagaya's mother bore a Nagaya again. After that Nagaya also became big, just like the first Nagaya asked, he asked at the hand of his mother [regarding her appearance]. Then his mother, too, told him just like she told that first Nagaya. Afterwards, the Nagaya also asking permission at the hand of his mother to come to the world of men, on the very day when he came to the world of men, at the time when the snake charmer was making that first Cobra dance at the palace of King Bamba, creating a thousand hoods, the Nagaya who was born afterwards saw him. The dancing Nagaya also saw that that Nagaya is coming. At his very coming he sent a poisonous smoke to the snake charmer. The poisonous smoke having struck him, the snake charmer died at that very place. Afterwards, when the two Nagayas were conversing, the elder Nagaya said, "Our grandfather's palace, indeed, is this. Because of it, indeed, to-day I danced, creating a thousand hoods. From to-day I shall not dance again." Well then, the two, creating divine bodies, having gone to the midst of the forest, practised asceticism. North-western Province. In The Jataka, No. 543 (vol. vi, p. 83) there is an account of a tortoise (turtle) that frightened the semi-Naga sons of Brahmadatta, King of Benares, by raising its head out of the water of the royal pool when they were playing there. When it was netted the attendants suggested pounding it to powder in a mortar, or cooking and eating it, or baking it; and at last a Minister recommended that it should be thrown into the whirlpool of the Yamuna river. The turtle begged to be spared this last fate,--the one it desired,--but the King ordered it to be thrown into the river, in which a current led it to the dwelling of the Nagas. When the sons of the Naga King Dhatarattha found it, the turtle invented the story of its being a messenger called Cittacula, sent by the King of Benares to offer his daughter to the Naga King. Four Naga youths returned with the turtle to fix the wedding day, the turtle concealing itself in a pool on the way, on the plea of collecting lotus flowers. When the Nagas were treated with scorn, the Naga King and his forces compelled the King to surrender his daughter Samuddaja, who was married to the Naga King. Her second semi-Naga son out of four with only his Naga wife's knowledge went to fast on the earth, with a view to being re-born among the Gods. Lying as a cobra on an ant-hill he was pointed out by an outcast Brahmana, captured by means of a magical spell, taken to dance in villages, and at last brought to the King of Benares. The Naga's eldest brother disguised as an ascetic, with his Naga sister, disguised as a young frog that was hidden in his hair, rescued him. The heat from three drops of poison emitted by the frog turned the snake charmer into a leper; their virulence, had it not been magically quenched, would have caused a seven years' drought. Snake doctors in Ceylon classify the frog as a very poisonous form of serpent. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 213, a gold frog was the daughter of the Serpent King, who may have been a Naga. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 188, the story resembles that given in the Jataka tale. The King's name was Angada; he had a son and a daughter Añjana. When the turtle was caught the Ministers advised beheading it, burning it alive, or chopping it up and making it into soup; another said these deaths were not cruel enough, and recommended casting it into the sea; it was thrown into a river. The Naga's parents, sister, and brother sought for it in the form of birds, and the snake charmer was sent away by Angada, with presents. In the same work, vol. iii, p. 346, a Queen bore a human son after being visited by a great serpent while half asleep. Professor Chavannes referred to other early instances of such supposed births. In the Kolhan folk-tales (Bompas) appended to Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 452, there is an account of a woman who was married to a water-snake and lived with him under the water, where she bore four snake sons. In Kaffir Folk-Lore (Theal), p. 155, a girl became the wife of Long Snake; after she ran away her sister married him. When he visited their father the house was set on fire and he was killed. On p. 55 a girl married a five-headed snake who became a man. (See p. 401 below, also). NO. 151 CONCERNING A ROYAL PRINCESS AND A TURTLE At a certain period, at the time when a King and a Minister are passing the time with great trust [in each other], the King and the Minister had a talk in this manner. The talk, indeed, was thus: To the Minister the King says, "Minister, let us two at one time contract marriage; having contracted it, and your Queen (Devi) having borne a daughter, should my Queen bear a son let us accomplish the wedding festival of the two children who are born first." [This] was his speech. Thereupon the Minister said thus, "It is good, O King; your Queen having borne a Princess, should my Queen bear a Prince, [or] my Queen having borne a Princess should your Queen bear a Prince, let us accomplish the wedding festival," he said. At that the King having been much pleased, the two persons contracted marriage and remained passing the time in friendship. During the time when they are [thus], the royal Queen bore a Princess endowed with much beauty. On that very day [287] the Minister's Queen also bore a Turtle. Concerning the circumstance that the Minister's Queen bore the Turtle, the King and the Minister also remained in much grief. During the time when they were thus, the royal Queen bore yet six Princesses. At the time when she had borne [the last of them] ten years were fulfilled for the Princess whom she bore first. Thereupon this Minister asked the King thus, "O Lord, Your Majesty, for your Princess and my Turtle, for both of them, the age has now become equal. Because of it, now then, let us accomplish the wedding festival;" [thus] he spoke. At that time, getting into his mind the notion (lit., word) that, breaking the word the King has said at first, should he subsequently say a word otherwise he will go into hostility, the King unwillingly said thus: "You go and ask my Princess about it," he said. Thereupon the Minister having gone near the Princess asked her. The Princess said thus, "Ane! Appa! I cannot accomplish the festival of the marriage to that Turtle," she said. Thereupon the Minister, not even speaking anything about it, came out of the palace. Having come, while still a long time is going he remained without coming back. Having so remained, after no long time went by they were ready to accomplish the wedding festival for the other six Princesses of the King's, also. At that time the Minister having gone still [another] time, asked the King; the King told him in the very manner he said before that. Thereupon the Minister having gone asked the Princess. Thereupon the Princess said thus: "If I am to marry the Turtle, tell the Turtle to bring a Suriya-kanta flower; should he bring it I will marry him," she said. The Minister having returned [home], it having come [to him] he told it to the Turtle. "Father, I can bring and give it," the Turtle said. Then the Minister would say a word thus [doubtingly] to the Turtle, "Turtle, when would you bring it indeed?" Thereupon the Turtle, feeling (lit., bringing) shame at it in its mind, having descended into a river, went away; and having gone to the place where the Sun [God, Suriya], having risen, his chariot comes, and presented its head to [be crushed by] the chariot wheel, remained [there]. At that time the Sun asks thus, "O Turtle, why didst thou place thy head at this chariot wheel?" he asked. The Turtle says thus, "Ane! O Sun [God], you, Sir, must give me a fifth part from your rays (that is, one-fifth of their brilliancy). If not, unless I die here I will not go," it said. Thereupon the Sun having given power to the Turtle for the manner of its coming out into the light from its turtle shell, told it to come outside. Then by the authority of the Sun, the Turtle, abandoning the turtle shell, came into the light. After it came out it was created a man. Thereupon he gave him a fifth part from the Sun's rays. After he gave it, "What do you want still?" he asked. He said he wanted a Suriya-kanta flower also. Then the Sun, having shown the path to the house of the Devatawa who sleeps three months [at a time], and having said, "Thou having gone, when he arises while thou art displaying games then ask thou [regarding it]," the Sun rose on this side. Thereupon the Prince who was fettered by the disguise of the turtle, having gone near the Devatawa who sleeps three months, when he was displaying games the Devatawa awoke, and asked, "Because of what came you here?" The Prince said, "We came regarding the want of a Suriya-kanta flower for me." At that time the Devatawa showed him the path [leading] near the Devatawa who sleeps two months. Having gone there also, he awoke him. Having awakened, he asked the Prince thus, "Regarding what matter did you awake me?" he asked. There, also, the Prince said he came about the want of a Suriya-kanta flower. Thereupon the Devatawa showed him the path to the house of the Devatawa who sleeps one month. [288] Having gone there also, when he was displaying games that Devatawa also awoke. At that time he too asked regarding what want [he had come]. Thereupon he told him in the very manner he formerly said. After that, the Devatawa said thus, "Look there. When you have gone along that path there will be a pool in which the Virgin Women (Kanniya-Striyo [289]) bathe. Having gone there and been hidden, as soon as the Virgin Women have descended into the pool to bathe take even those persons' wearing apparel. There will be a dewalaya (temple) just there; having gone into the dewale shut the door yourself. Then the Virgin Women having come and told you to open the door, will make games, a disturbance, and the like. Do you, without opening the door through their saying those things, say thus: 'Except that should you bring and give me a Suri-kanta flower I will open the door and give you these ornaments, I will not otherwise give them.' Say [this]." While saying it he showed the Prince the path. The Prince having gone in that very manner, and got hid, while he was there, in the very way the Devatawa said, the Virgin Women came and descended into the pool to bathe. Thereupon this Prince, taking the wearing apparel of the Virgin Women, went into the dewalaya which was near there, and shut the door himself. At that time the Virgin Women having come played games [outside]. This Prince, not having looked in their direction even, in the very manner the Devatawa told him before asked for a Suriya-kanta flower. The Virgin Women said, "We will give a Suri-kanta flower; [be pleased] to give us our clothes." Thereupon the Prince while giving only [some] clothes for them to put on until the time when they give the Suriya-kanta flower, kept back the other wearing apparel. After that, the Virgin Women, having given oaths, begged for and got the other wearing apparel, too. [After] begging for them, they brought and gave him a Suriya-kanta flower. After they gave it, the Prince came near the Devatawa who told him the path. As soon as he came the Devatawa asked, "What else do you want?" "You must give me a power to beat men, even millions in number," he said. Thereupon the Devatawa having given him a cudgel, said, "However many [there may be], even to [the extent of] an army, place this cudgel in the road, and tell it [after] beating them to come back. [After] beating however many persons [there may be] it will come." Taking that also, the Prince went near the other Devatawa. When he went, that Devatawa also asked, "What else do you want?" Thereupon the Prince said, "You must still give me a [magic] lute (venawa), and a power to display the hidden things thought of." After that, having given him a bag called Kokka, [290] he said thus, "Having placed this bag called Kokka [hanging from your shoulder], think that anything you want is to make its appearance; anything you want will appear." Having said this he gave him it. He gave him a lute: "Being at any place you like, play (lit., rub) it; any person He [291] wants will hear and come," he said. Taking these and having come here from there, because the Virgin Women are possessors of the power of flight through the air, in order for them to come from the sky he remembered the party, and played the lute. Thereupon, the party came with the speed with which he played it. After they came, he gave that cudgel and the bag called Kokka, both of them, into the hand of the Virgin Women, saying, "When I want these, as soon as I play the lute you must very speedily bring and give me them;" and taking also the lute he crept into the turtle shell again, and came to his own city. What of his coming! Because he is inside the turtle shell he is still the Turtle. Well then, having given food and drink to the Turtle, "Did you bring a Suriya-kanta flower?" his father the Minister joked. Thereupon the Turtle said, "I have brought a Suriya-kanta flower." After that, "If so, bring it," the Turtle's father said. After that, having gone outside the city gate, when he was playing the lute the Virgin Women brought and gave him the Suri-kanta flower. After they gave it, having brought it he gave it into his father's hand. Having so given it, when he presented it to the Princess they accomplished the wedding festival of [the marriages of] six other Princes to the six younger Princesses who still remained to the King, and of the Turtle to the eldest Princess. Having accomplished it, during the time when they are thus those six Princes went hunting. Because they married and gave the eldest daughter to the Turtle, having built a house outside the palace and given it to these two, they separated [them from the others]. When this party are going near that house they ask at the hand of that eldest daughter, "Where [is he], Bola? Isn't thy Turtle going hunting?" Thereupon the Princess remains grieved at it. The Turtle, who had heard it, having called the Princess (devi), said, "Go to the royal palace, and asking for a horse and a sword for me bring them." At that speech the Princess went and asked for them at the King's hand. At that time the King having said, "For the Turtle what horses! what swords!" became angry at the Princess. The Princess having become grieved, told the Turtle that her father the King will not give them. After that, having said, "Asking for an old mare and a short sword, come [with them]," he sent her yet [another] time. After that, he gave her an old mare and a short sword. Having given them, after she brought them to the Turtle's house, to the Princess the Turtle says, "Pull creepers, and having placed me on the back of the mare, twine them [round me and the mare]." Thereupon the Princess having pulled creepers, wrapped [them round him on the mare]. Having wrapped them, making [the mare] bound he went somewhat far; and having come out of the turtle-shell, the Prince (as he now was), taking the lute, played the lute for the Virgin Women to come. Then the Virgin Women came. After they came, because those Princes went in white clothes on the backs of white horses, this Prince said, "You must bring and give me very speedily an excellent [292] horse, and a white dress, and an excellent [292] sword." Thereupon with that speed they brought and gave them. After they gave them, the Prince, having tied the old mare at a tree, putting on the [dress and] ornaments they brought, mounted on the back of the white horse. Having gone to a very large open place, and placed (that is, hung from his shoulder) the bag called Kokka, he thought, "A great number of all quadrupeds must assemble together in my presence." After that, all the quadrupeds that were in the midst of that forest, the whole having come, collected together. Without those six Princes meeting with any animal whatever, they approached near the Prince who had collected these quadrupeds together. Having arrived and said, "O Lord, where is Your Majesty going in the midst of this forest?" [the Princes], having paid reverence to him, made obeisance. Thereupon the Prince says, indeed, "I am the person who exercises sovereignty over the whole of the wild animals in the midst of this forest. Where are ye fellows going?" he asked falsely. At that time these six Princes said thus regarding it, "O Lord, we six persons came hunting; we did not meet with any animal whatever," they said. Thereupon this Prince says thus, "To you six persons I will give six deer should you cut off and give [me] six [pieces] of your cloths," he said. Thereupon having cut and given six pieces from the six cloths which the six Princes had been wearing, killing six deer they came away. Having allowed the party to come, this Prince descended from the back of the horse, and catching a rat and having killed it, brought it home; having come and having crept into the turtle-shell, he says thus [to his wife], "Give a half from this rat to your father the King, and cook the other piece for us two," he said. At that time the Princess doing thus, went and gave a half to the King. Thereupon the King having become angry at it, put her also outside the [palace] gate. The Princess, feeling (lit., bringing) vexation at it, having come weeping and weeping, the two cooked and ate the other half. In this way, six days they went hunting. On the whole of the six days the Turtle also having gone, gave hunting-meat to those six Princes, taking the jewelled rings from their fingers, ears, and the hairs of the head; all these when the seventh day was coming were finished. What of this Prince's acting with so much ability! That he is a Prince even yet any person you like has no knowledge. At the time when he is thus, having gone hunting and finished, on the seventh day making ready an eating like a very great feast they remained at the royal palace with the Kings [who had come for it]. Thereupon, on that day this Turtle was minded to bathe. Having become so minded, he told [his wife] to warm and give him water; having told her to give it, he told her to tie and give him mats also, round about [as a screen]. That day the Princess had boiled and boiled paddy at the hearth in the open space in front of the house. Having warmed water and tied the mats, she gave [it to him] to bathe. Having given it, this Princess went to light the fire [afresh] at the paddy hearth. When she was going, this Prince having gone to bathe, and having come out of the turtle-shell [within the screen], went outside from the place where the mats were tied, for the purpose of lowering water over his body. When he was going, this Princess having seen that he was a Prince, went running, and taking the turtle shell put it on the hearth at which she boiled that paddy. Thereupon the Prince having gone crying out, got only the lute that was in the turtle shell. The turtle shell burnt away. At that time the Prince, decorating himself, went to the royal palace. After he went he began to relate the manner in which he gave hunting-meat to the six Princes. While telling it he showed the [rings from the] fingers, ears, and hair, and the pieces of cloth of the six Princes. After he showed them, [the King], having given the sovereignty to the Prince, made the other Princes servants of the Prince. He married those six Princesses also to that very Prince. Finished. North-western Province. In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 141, a tortoise (turtle) Prince went to the Sun in search of divine Parijata flowers; see vol. i, p. 71. The Queen bore the turtle and the Minister's wife the girl. The Minister refused to agree to their marriage, but the girl told him that she had vowed to marry whoever brought the divine flowers. The Apsaras who gave him the flowers also presented him with a vina, or lute, playing on which would summon her. From the first sage who showed him the way and who opened his eyes at each watch he got a magic cudgel in exchange for it, from the second sage who opened his eyes after two watches a purse which supplied everything required, from the third sage who opened his eyes after three watches he received magic sandals which would transport their wearer wherever desired. After exchanging the lute for each of these articles he recovered it each time by the aid of the cudgel. Afterwards he left the articles with the Apsaras, returned as a turtle with the flowers, and was married to the Minister's daughter. After his marriage the husbands of his sisters-in-law went hunting, the turtle followed tied on the back of a horse, got his club from a banyan tree where he had hidden it, went to the hunt on the magic sandals, and got from his brothers-in-law (who thought him Siva) the tips of their little fingers and their rings. On regaining his Prince's form he produced these, but the brothers-in-law were not punished. His wife broke the turtle shell when he was bathing, and in the end he succeeded to the throne. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iv, p. 54, in a Bengal story by Mr. G. H. Damant, a Prince went in search of a beautiful woman seen in a dream by his father. An ascetic told him of five heavenly nymphs who came to bathe in a pool at the full moon, and instructed him to take their clothes and remain concealed. After being cursed and turned to ashes he was revived by the ascetic, again carried off their clothes, and sat in Siva's temple. They cursed him ineffectively and then agreed that he should marry one of them. He selected the ugliest, who was the disguised beauty; she gave him a flute by means of which he could summon her at any time. The rest of the story is unlike the Sinhalese one. In Mr. Thornhill's Indian Fairy Tales, p. 15, a Prince went in search of his wife, an Apsaras who had left him, to a sage who slept six months at a time, and after attending on him for three months was accompanied by him to the pool in which the Apsarases bathed on the full moon night. After being once turned to ashes and revived by the sage, he again stole his wife's shawl and escaped with it to the sage's hut, where he was safe. The Apsarases then agreed to give up his wife if he could select her. He picked out the ugliest, and Indra afterwards turned her into a mortal. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 343, a Prince secreted the feather dress of one of four fairies who, in the form of white doves, came to bathe at a pool in a palace garden. She was then unable to fly away, and he married her. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 452, a person who was in search of his master, a Prince, was advised by a hermit to carry off the clothes of one of the heavenly nymphs who came to bathe in a river. He did so, was followed by her, and the hermit agreed to return her garments on her giving information of the Prince's whereabouts; she afterwards became the ascetic's wife. She is termed a Vidyadhari. In the same work, vol. ii, p. 576, a gambler by order of the God Mahakala (Bhairava) similarly obtained a daughter of Alambusha, the Apsaras, as his wife. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 54, by the advice of a sage a hunter threw a magic unerring chain received from Nagas, over a Kinnara Princess when she bathed at a pool at the full moon; and she was unable to escape. She could fly only when wearing a head-jewel. The female Jinn who in the form of birds visited pools in order to bathe in them, and could not fly without their feather dresses, have been mentioned in vol. i, p. 311. See the Arabian Nights, vol. iii, p. 417, and vol. v, p. 68. In the second story the hero obtained in the Wak Islands a cap of invisibility, and a copper rod which gave power over seven tribes of Jinn, and by their aid recovered his wife and sons. He got the articles by inducing two sons of a magician to race for a stone which he threw; while they were absent he put on the cap and disappeared. On his return journey he presented the articles to the two magicians who had helped him. In the same work, vol. iv, p. 161, a man from Cairo obtained for a magician three magical articles, and received from him as a reward a pair of inexhaustible saddle-bags which provided any foods. In Folk-Tales of Hindustan (Shaik Chilli), p. 72, a Prince who was wandering in search of his fairy wife received from an ascetic, a musician, and a youth respectively, an iron rod which could beat anyone, a guitar that entranced all, and a cap of invisibility; from a Yogi he obtained balsam for healing burns, and slippers that transported him where desired. In Les Avadanas (Julien), No. lxxiv, vol. ii, p. 8, each one of two demons (Pisacas) had a box which supplied everything desired, a stick that rendered him invincible, and a shoe that enabled the bearer to fly, and each one wanted to possess those of the other demon. A man who offered to divide them put on both the shoes and flew off, taking the other articles. In Chinese Nights' Entertainment (A. M. Fielde), p. 10, a pious man who was wrecked and cast on an island obtained food and clothing from the inhabitants, and an apparent outcast gave him a hat of invisibility, a cloak of flight, and a basket that when tapped filled with gems. He left them to his three sons, and the power of the articles gradually declined. At p. 58, a woman had a son encased in a chank shell, which he could leave at will. His bride one night hid the shell, and he remained with her for some years, until her grandmother put it out to dry. He got into it, crawled into the sea, and disappeared. In Sagas from the Far East, p. 148, in a Kalmuk story, an inexhaustible bag was stolen from Dakinis (female evil spirits) by a man. When his brother went to get one the spirits seized him, drew out his nose to a length of five ells, and made nine knots on it. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 365, a Prince who worked as an under-gardener was selected by a Princess and married to her. The King's sons and sons-in-law through jealousy arranged a hunting expedition, and left him only a mare that no one could ride. He reached the jungle first, shot a jackal, bear, and leopard, cut off the tail, nose, and ear respectively, and when the others, who found no game, took back these animals and showed them as their own game, he produced his trophies. It was settled that he should succeed to the throne. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 41, the son of the youngest Queen, who was born with a removable monkey skin, three times performed the task of hitting a Princess with an iron ball in his Prince's form, and was married to her. After saving his life when the sons of the other six Queens threw him out of a boat into the water, his wife burnt his monkey skin, and he retained his human shape. At p. 130, the hunting incident is given, six Princes taking part in it and meeting with the Prince who, while disguised as a labourer, had been selected and married by the youngest daughter of their father-in-law. The others found no game, begged a meal from him, and were burnt with a red-hot pice on their backs, "the mark of a thief." The Prince rode home in his own form, and afterwards exposed the six Princes who had mocked him on account of his low origin. At p. 156, a Prince found four fakirs quarrelling over four articles, a flying bed, an inexhaustible bag, a bowl which yielded as much water as was required, a stick and rope that would beat and tie up everyone. While they raced for arrows that he shot, he got on the bed and went off with the other things. In Kaffir Folk-Lore (Theal), p. 170, a boy got a pair of inexhaustible horns which when spoken to supplied everything desired. They even provided him with a fine house. NO. 152 THE STORY OF A KING AND A PRINCE This is partly a variant of the story No. 22, in vol. i, called there "The Kule-Baka Flowers." The first part is a repetition of the narrative given in that one, up to the point where the King's sons were imprisoned at the gambling house. It then continues as follows:-- The Prince who also went afterwards having gone near a widow-mother of that very city [after] filling a bag with bits of plates, when he said, "Mother, a son of yours was lost before, is it not so?" the widow woman said "Yes." Then the Prince while weeping falsely said, "It is I myself." After that, she said, weeping, "Ane! Son, where did you go all this time?" [293] Having gone inviting him into the house, and given him to eat, after he finished she asked, "What is there in this bag, son?" The Prince says falsely, "In that bag are masuran, mother," he said. The woman says, "What are masuran to me, son! Look at that: the heap of masuran which the King has given for my having worked." After that, the Prince asks, "Whose house is that, mother?" Then the woman says, "Ane! Son, at that house an extremely wicked [294] woman gambles. Should anyone go to gamble she gives him golden chairs into which she puts [magical] life, to sit upon. She has put [magical] life into the lamp also. [When gambling], the woman is sitting upon the silver chair," she said. After that, after the woman went to sleep, the Prince having emptied the pieces of plate in the house, went to gamble [after] filling the bag with the [woman's] masuran. Afterwards, that gambling woman just as on other days having brought a golden chair, placed it for the Prince. Then the Prince says, "I am not accustomed to sit on golden chairs. Give me the silver chair," he said. The woman says, "It is not a fault to sit [on the golden chair]." The Prince says, "Having given me that silver chair here, and put aside this lamp also, come to gamble, bringing a good lamp," he said. Then the woman being unable [to effect] the punishment of the Prince, gave him the silver chair, and bringing a different lamp sat down to gamble. After that the Prince won. After he won he caused those aforesaid six Princes to be brought from the place where they were put in prison, and having burnt [their] names on their haunches, [295] sent them away. After that, this Prince said he must contract marriage with that woman who gambled. The woman says, "If you are to marry me please bring the Surangana flowers." [296] Then the Prince says, "That is not a journey for which I came here. The two eyes of my father the King have become blind. On account of it I am going to seek the Kule-Baka flowers. [After] finding them, on the return journey I will bring the Surangana flowers," he said. Having said this, he went to ask the path going to the Kule-Baka garden. When he was going near the Yakas who were on guard on it, a Princess whom the Yakas had seized and carried off came up, and said to the Prince, "What came you here for?" "Through news that you are here I came to marry you," [he replied]. Then the Princess says, "Should the Yakas come they will eat you up," she said. The Prince then says, "By any possible contrivance save me," he said. The Princess then opened the door of a rock house (cave), and having taken the Prince and put him in it, shut the door. After that, the Yakas having come, ask, "Who came here?" The Princess says, "Amme! I cannot be here [to be questioned] in this way. Seek and give me a husband." Then the Yakshani says, "There is no seeking and giving [297] for me. If you can, seek and take one," she said. The Princess says, "I will find one if you will not do any harm [to him]." The Yakshani said, "We will do no harm to him." "If you swear by the censure of your deity, I will show you my husband," she said. Afterwards she swore. After she took the Prince into the light, she asks the Prince, "What do you eat?" The Yakshani asks. The Prince said, "I eat ripe Jak, Waraka (a kind of Jak fruit), Sugar-cane, Pine-apples." The Yakshani went and brought and gave him them. Afterwards, after the Prince ate, she said, "Where are you going?" Then the Prince says, "Tell me the path [by which] to go to the Kule-Baka garden." Having informed him of the path, and given him also a robe [endowed] with the power of flying through the air, she told him to go. He went to the Kule-Baka garden, and [after] plucking the Kule-Baka flower that was in the pool, having come, calling the Princess, to the place where he gambled, he caused her to remain there. The Prince, taking the Kule-Baka flower, was going near his father the King. At the time when he was going across a river those six Princes were [there], cooking and cooking rice. Also at that very place a rich man without his two eyes was saying and saying, "To a man who should cure my two eyes I will give goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load, and also a tusk elephant." He was saying and saying [this]. This Prince having heard it, said, "I will give you them. [Please] bring the presents you mentioned." After he brought them he rubbed [298] his eyes with the Kule-Baka flower; after that, he succeeded in seeing the light. Those six Princes having seen it, spoke together: "Let us beat him, and snatch away the flower." The Prince having heard that speech, said, "Taking this flower for yourselves, give me a little cooked rice." Afterwards, taking the flower they gave him cooked rice. Having eaten the cooked rice the Prince came back to the place where he gambled. After that, while through hunger for them he was going to seek the Surangana flowers, three Princes who were coming mounted on horse-back asked this Prince, "Where are you going?" Then the Prince says falsely, "I am going in hunger in the midst of this forest." Then a Prince having unfastened a packet of cooked rice and given the Prince to eat, they went away. As they were going, this Prince went after them very softly. Having gone, when he looked he saw that those three Princes, having descended from horse-back, three times turned round the dewala (temple), and jumped into a vessel of boiling oil [and disappeared]. Having seen it, this Prince also having turned round the dewala three times, jumped into the oil vessel. After he jumped in, the deity, bringing that Prince out of the oil vessel, covered him with a white cloth when he had struck [him] three blows with a white wand. After he arose, when he asked, "What is the matter for which thou camest here?" [the Prince replied], "I came in order to seek and take Surangana flowers." Then the deity told him the path:--"Look there. When you are going along that path [you will meet with a pool. When she has put her cloth on the bank and is bathing], take the cloth of the woman who comes after three others to bathe in the pool, and come back [with it]," he said. After that, he took the cloth, and came. Afterwards that Princess having come running, gave him a chank shell into which she had put [magical] life, and taking the cloth went away. When he was coming taking the chank shell, an ascetic begged for the chank shell. The Prince says, "If you will give me presents I will give you the chank shell," he said. After that, he gave him a wallet (olo-payiya), assuring him that the things thought of will come into existence [in it]. After he gave it, the Prince, thinking of the things he wanted (the celestial flowers), put his hand into it, and when he looked they were inside the wallet. After that, the Prince, having become satisfied, with pleasure went away [and rejoined his two wives]. North-western Province. See the Notes appended to the previous story. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iii, p. 150, in a legend of the origin of Patna, by Mr. Basanta Kumar Ningi, two Rakshasas came to a boy with three articles left by their father, out of which he cheated them. One was a bag from which all kinds of jewels could be extracted when the hand was inserted. The story is stated to be from the Brihat Katha. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 13, they were the sons of the Asura Maya, and were wrestling for the things. The boy suggested that they should race for them and while they were doing so he put on the magic shoes which were included in them, and disappeared with the staff and the vessel which supplied any required food. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 378, a shipwrecked Prince arrived at a cave which was the residence of a Rakshasa who had carried off a Princess, and who kept her there. She received him well, and hid him in a strong box. When the Rakshasa returned he smelt the man, and insisted on being shown him; but the brave behaviour of the Prince pleased him, and he permitted him to live in the cave, and brought presents for the two when he returned from his expeditions in search of prey. As they still feared he might eat them, the Princess managed to ascertain from him that his life was in a queen-bee in a honey-comb which could be reached by anyone who sat on a magic stool that was in the cave, which transported the sitter where he wished. Next day, when the Rakshasa was absent, the Prince wrapped himself up, smashed the comb, crushed and killed the bee, the Rakshasa died, and they escaped on the stool. NO. 153 THE STORY OF THE GOURD The Queen of the King of Maeda Maha-Nuwara being without children, seven years went by. To obtain children she gave alms-halls (dan-sael). Having given them she obtained a child. It was [necessary] for the King to go for a war. In sorrow for it, having called together women who assist [at child-birth], and many people, he gave them [to the Queen]. On his return journey she had not borne a child. On the very day on which he came, pains having seized her she gave birth [to a Gourd]. The women who were there, having taken the Gourd which this Queen bore, in order to throw it away at another city took the Gourd to a flower garden at the city, and put it there. When the garland-making mother (mal-kara amma) went to pluck flowers, "May I also pluck flowers?" the Gourd asked. "How will you, Gourd, pluck flowers?" she said. "That does not matter to you; I will pluck flowers. I must go to the garland-making mother's house," it said. Having gone [there], "I will plait flower chaplets (malwadan)," it said. To plait the chaplets it asked for the thread and needle. Better than the plaiting of the flower chaplets on other days it plaited the flower chaplets, and gave them. Having seen [the beauty of] the flower chaplets [when the flower mother took them to the palace], the Princess asked, "Who plaited the flower chaplets to-day?" she asked; [she was informed that the Gourd did it]. The Gourd was minded to contract marriage with the young Queen (Princess). It asked the King of the city [to give his consent]. "If the Queen (Princess) [299] is willing I am willing," he said. [When it asked the Princess, she said], "Having carried upstairs gold from the house of the garland-making mother, should you tie up [as a decoration] cloths [worked] with gold, in the morning I will celebrate the wedding festival." In the morning the Gourd went upstairs. It having gone [with the gold and hung up the cloths], the wedding festival was celebrated. The Gourd laughs at its contracting (lit., tying) the marriage with the young Queen. Through shame at it, grief was produced in her. When she asked for a medicine for [the illness caused by] the grief, they said, "Should you eat the flesh of the Fish (mastaya) in the midst of the sea, and the fat, you will be cured." [The King] having constructed six ships for the six Princes [the brothers of the Princess], told them to go to bring the Fish. The Gourd also at that time said [to the Princess], "Ask [for permission] for me also to go." [She asked her father accordingly]. Regarding that the King said, "The Gourd itself will apply medical treatment!" Having said it he gave it a broken-legged horse and a piece of broken sword. Taking them, it went near a Bo tree, and having tied the horse at the tree, [and assumed a human shape], put on clothes [taken] from a hollow in the Bo tree, and went away from the palace. The Gourd, [now a Prince], says, "The God Sakra (Indra) is I myself." The six persons for whom the ships were constructed and given, went away [on the sea, in search of the Fish]. When [the Gourd Prince] told those six persons [to catch the Fish], the whole six on one side tried to take it, [but failed]. They having said, "We cannot take it," he asked, "For me to take and give you it, what mark am I to make on you?" [They came to terms, and he caught the Fish]. Having stretched out the tongues of the six persons he cut them, and they gave him their jewelled finger-rings. When they brought from the Gourd [Prince] and gave [the Princess] the flesh and fat [of the Fish] the illness was cured. [As the six Princes claimed to have caught the Fish themselves, the Prince, who had left his clothes at the Bo tree and had again taken the form of the Gourd], caused many persons to be brought, and told them to stretch out and look at the tongues of these six persons. [It also produced their finger-rings as proof that it was the Gourd who had caught the Fish]. Having shown that the tongues of the six persons were cut, the Gourd, having employed the servants, [made them] cut open the Gourd. [The God Sakra then rose out of it in his Prince's form, and said,] "I am not [of] the things conceived in a womb. Because for the god Sakra that is impure, having created the Gourd I was born [in it]. As there was deficiency of merit for our father the King, I [thus] caused it to be cast away." (Probably he then returned to Indraloka, his divine world, but the narrator omitted to state this. There were many other omissions at which it will be seen that I have endeavoured to supply the necessary words). North-western Province. In the Maha Bharata (Vana Parva, cvi), a wife of King Sagara bore a gourd. The King was about to throw it away, but a celestial voice ordered him to preserve the seeds carefully, and each became a son; these were sixty thousand in number. In Korean Tales (Dr. H. N. Allen), p. 98 ff., a number of people made their appearance out of gourds which grew on plants obtained from seeds brought by swallows. NO. 154 THE STORY OF THE SHELL SNAIL In a certain country there are a Gamarala and a Gama-mahange (his wife), it is said. The children of those two are two sons and a daughter. The big son one day having worked a rice field, at noon came home for food. The Gama-mahange was a little late in giving the food. The son quarrelled [with her] over it. That day at night the Gama-mahange spoke to the Gamarala that he must bring and give an assistant (a wife) to the son. On the next day the Gamarala having gone to seek a girl, while he was going asking and asking from village to village, in even a single place he did not meet with a girl. Afterwards the Gamarala having come to the village, when he was there a considerable time, again the son of the Gamarala quarrelled with the Gama-mahange. While he was quarrelling, the Gamarala and the Gama-mahange, both of them, said, "Don't thou stay making and making quarrels here. Go to any place thou wantest." Afterwards the son went somewhere or other. The other younger son is going for rice-field work. For that elder brother who went away the younger sister had much affection. Because of it, from the day on which the elder brother went away this younger sister through grief does not eat. Having said, "Without seeing our elder brother I cannot remain," she is weeping. Then the younger elder brother says, "Why, younger sister? I am [here]; is that insufficient for you?" Then the younger sister says, "Why, elder brother, are you saying thus? If two persons give me more assistance than the assistance of one person, how good it is for me!" Afterwards, that elder brother one day having gone to the rice field, at the time when he was chopping the earthen ridges (niyara) met with a Shell Snail (golu-bellek). Having brought the Snail home, and given it into the hand of the younger sister, he said, "There, younger sister! I brought for you a small round-backed elder brother. Because of it, don't you be sorrowful now." Afterwards, that younger sister, taking the Snail, having wrapped it in a cloth and placed it in a box, put it away. Having put it away, three times a day having taken the Snail and looked at it, she says, "Our two parents having quarrelled with our elder brother drove him away. On account of it our little elder brother brought you and gave you to me. Owing to it [also], little round-backed elder brother, there is grief in my mind." She having said and said [this], and every day having said thus when putting it away, one day the Gamarala stayed listening. Having been listening he says at the hand of the Gama-mahange, "What, Bolan, is this thing that our girl is saying? You also come and listen." Then the Gama-mahange having come and been listening, the two persons spoke together, "It is through grief, indeed, that her elder brother is not [here]. There is no need to say anything about it." Well then, while the girl in that manner for a considerable time is saying and saying thus to the Shell Snail, one day when the girl is saying so again, the snail shell having burst open a Prince was born looking like a sun or a moon. After that, the girl having thrown away the bits of shell into which the snail shell burst, bathed the Prince, and took him. Having sent milk into a finger for the Prince, he continued to drink milk from her finger. When he was there no long time a tale-bearer told the King that there was a very good [looking] Prince at the Gamarala's house. Afterwards the King having sent Ministers caused them to look. The Ministers having looked and having gone, told the King, "The Prince, indeed, is the royal Prince sort." Afterwards the King gave permission [300] for summoning the Prince and the mother who was rearing the Prince to come to the palace. After that, the Ministers having gone to the Gamarala's house brought the Prince and the Gamarala's girl to the palace. Afterwards, the King taking charge of the Gamarala's girl and the Prince, when for the Prince the age of about twelve years was filled up, the King died. Having appointed the Prince to the sovereignty he remained ruling the kingdom with the ten kingly virtues. North-western Province. The feeding of a Prince from the finger is found in the Maha Bharata (Drona Parva, lxii), in which Indra is represented as thus feeding Prince Mandhatri, who made his appearance in the world out of his father's left side, as a consequence of the latter's having drunk some sacrificial butter or ghi, which had the magic property of causing the birth of a son. The food thus provided was so nourishing that the infant grew to twelve cubits in as many days. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), this Prince was not fed thus, but was suckled by the eighty thousand wives of his father, having been born from a tumour on the crown of the King's head; his boyhood occupied twenty-one million (and a few hundred thousand) years. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 216, in a legend of the founding of the Vaisali kingdom, two children are described as being reared by a religious mendicant by means of a supply of milk which issued from his thumbs. NO. 155 THE QUEEN OF THE ROCK HOUSE [301] A certain Gamarala had two daughters and two sons. During the time when they were [there], the elder sister and the younger sister go to the pansala to make flower offerings. Having gone, the younger sister when making the flower offering wishes, "May I receive wealth," she says. The elder sister when making the flower offering wished, "May I succeed in eating the bodies of the relatives whom there are of mine." The younger sister does not mention the form in which she wishes this wish. When there is a little time [gone] in this manner, having spoken about a marriage for the big daughter, the wedding was [made] ready. It having taken place, they went calling her to another village. Having gone, after a little time had gone the woman began to eat the men of that city. Having eaten and eaten them, after the men of the city were finished she ate also the husband who married [302] her. Belonging to him a female child was born. Keeping the child, without anyone of the city being with the woman she was alone. Then her father came. That day night, having given him amply to eat and drink,--there was a house [303] adjoining the house [303] in which she is; in the direction of the house in which she is, between that house and this house the wall was closed with coconut leaves,--in the house she allowed her father who came, to sleep at night. Having given it she said, "Father, at this village is much small-pox. The men of this village and my husband were lost [by it]. Having been lost, [while] so much time was passing you did not remember me. It happened that you did not want me; you have wanted only younger sister. It is good. What am I to do?" Having said [this] she wept a weeping. [304] Thereupon the old man says, "No, daughter, I have been ill. Because of it, indeed, I did not succeed in coming," he said. In that manner having said false words, having been weeping and weeping, she told him to sleep in the house beyond the house in which she is, and having spread mats gave them. Having given them she said, "Father, don't you be afraid; I also, so long a time, remained alone, indeed, with this child," she said. This woman also, having come away, lay down. [305] Having been lying down, after her father went to sleep this woman brought a stick, and having beaten and killed him, during that night ate that man also. Owing to that man's being missing, his son came. Him, also, in that very way she ate. His younger brother also came; him, also, she ate in that manner. Owing to the three persons, the persons who went, not coming, both [the father's] wife and younger daughter went. When they went, says this woman, "Ane! Mother, the men of this city, and father who came from there also, and both younger brothers and all, died. Keeping this girl, I am alone in this village. From anyone of you, at any time whatever, there will not be assistance [for me]. I said you will come; since yesterday I have been expecting you," and weeping she went in front of her mother and younger sister. Having gone and talked, she allowed the two persons to sit in another house. Having allowed them to sit in it, she made ready and gave food and drink, and having allowed those two persons to lie down, she told them to go to sleep. She also having gone lay down. What though she allowed this mother and daughter to sleep! In the mind of that younger sister of hers is that formerly wished word when making the flower offering. Owing to that circumstance she remained during that day and night without sleep. Her mother, snoring and snoring, was sleeping well. Having heard the snoring, this human-flesh-eating woman, taking also the men-killing party, came in order to kill and eat these two persons. When [they were] coming there, that girl cried out, "Elder sister, a dog came," she cried. Then this girl having gone into the house, and having been in the house, at the time of her coming half closing the door, said, "Ci, Ci, dog!" and came crying out. In this way [the elder sister] came two or three times. What of her coming! She was unable to eat them. [306] In this manner the girl having been awake, at the watch when it becomes light came calling her mother, and they began to run away. At the time when they were going this human-flesh-eating Rakshasi awoke. Having awoke, when she looked she got to know that these two persons have gone. Ascertaining it, that woman, learning that they had done this very trick, began to run [after them]. At the time when she was going running she met with these two persons. When meeting with them that girl cried out. While [she was] coming, when the big woman looked [back], having seen that this one is running [after them] she became stone there. That girl began to run [off alone]. That Rakshasi having eaten the point of the stone which her mother had become, when she looked that girl was running off. Because she was unable to eat the stone she bounded on the girl's path. When she was going bounding [on it], at the root of an Indi (wild date) tree the door of a rock house opened. After that, this Princess crept into the rock house [and the door closed again]. After that, the Rakshasi who became a demon went away. Then, when a King, the Ministers, and gentlemen (mahattayo) came walking, [the King] said a four-line verse. When he was saying it, this Princess who was in the rock house at the root of the Indi tree also said a four-line verse. Then anger having come to the King, he said, "There! Who is the person who said that four-line verse? Look and seek," he said. Thereupon, when the party sought and looked, anyone you like was not there. The party having gone back, and come to the King, told him, "O Lord, Your Majesty, we sought and looked everywhere; we indeed are unable to find her," they said. After that, the King said yet a four-line verse. To that also the Princess, being in the rock, said a four-line verse. At that time, also, he told the Ministers to seek; on that occasion, too, they could not find her. On that occasion, also, having come to the King, they said, "O Lord, Your Majesty, we this time also looked; we indeed are unable to find her," they said. After that, the King having gone near the spot where she said the four-line verse, said yet also a four-line verse. When [he was] saying it, having been very near under the ground she said a four-line verse. Then the King asks, "Did a Yaka, or a Yaksani, or a Deity, or a Devatawa (Godling) say that four-line verse? You must inform me to-day," the King said. Then the Princess who is in the rock house at the root of the Indi tree, said, "I am not a Yaka, and not a Deity, and not a Devatawa; I am a human being. Who speaks outside there I cannot ascertain. Because of it you must tell me who it is," the Princess who is in the rock house at the root of the Indi tree said. Then the King says, "I am not a Yaka. Me indeed they call the King of this city," the King said. "If so, is the truth the contrary, is the truth the contrary?" three times she asked. The King also assured her of his kingly state. After that the stone door of the rock house at the root of the Indi tree opened. After it opened, having seen that the Queen was there, possessing a figure endowed with much beauty, to the degree that he was unable to look [at her], the King was minded to marry her. Having been so minded, placing her on the back of the tusk elephant he went to the city at which he stayed. Having gone [there, and married her], when a little time was going a child was conceived (uppannaya) in the Queen's womb. When it was conceived, because the city in which she stayed was a solitary city (tani nuwara) in that country there was no midwife-mother. Because of it, when going through the middle of the jungle in order to proceed to yet [another] city, [she and the King arrived at an abandoned city]. Having arrived, this King walked around the city, and when he looked about, from one house, only, he saw that smoke goes. Having seen it he went to the house, and when he looked a woman and the woman's little girl were [there]. After that, this woman saw that the King is going. Having seen him she asked at the King's hand, "Lord, where is Your Majesty going?" she asked. Then the King said, "The Queen of the rock house at the root of the Indi tree having married me, she is with a child. For it there being no midwife, I came to seek one," the King said. Then the Rakshasa-goblin [307] got into her mind, "What of my younger sister's being hidden that day indeed! To-day I shall eat her." Thinking [this], this woman-Rakshasi said, "Maharaja, I well know midwifery. Regarding that indeed, why will you go to another place and become wearied?" she said. The King having said, "It is good," on hearing her word went summoning her. On the very day she went, in the night pains seized the Queen of the rock house at the root of the Indi tree. She went to the place where they were seizing her. When she went that Queen got to know that she came in order to eat her. Although ascertaining it she did not mention it to the King. Well then, [the Rakshasi] having come, during the night she bore [a child]. After she bore [the child] that Rakshasi ate all the after-birth (waedu-mas) that was there. The Queen did not tell that also to the King. Well then, having finished (nimadu wela) at the parturition house (waedu-ge[yi]n), during that night [the Queen] went to sleep. After she went to sleep, lifting up the child and the Queen with the bed on which they were sleeping, this Rakshasi during the night began to go away. When going this Queen awoke. Having awoke, when going under trees she broke and broke dead sticks, and put them into the bed for weight to be caused (bara-gaehenda). On her placing them [there], when the bed is being made heavy the Rakshasi says, "It is good; make it heavy. What of my being unable to eat you, you having crept into the rock house at the root of the Indi tree!" Saying and saying, "To-day indeed I shall eat you," disputing and disputing with her she went along. When she was going thus, a banyan branch had bent down to the path; on the banyan branch this Queen hung. This Rakshasi went on, carrying simply the bed. Having gone, having put the bed on the ground, when she looked the Queen was not on the bed. Afterwards she came bounding again very near this banyan tree. This one ascertained that unless [the Queen] goes near the banyan tree, she is unable to go by another place. Ascertaining it, and having gone on and on among the branches and among the leaves in the tree, saying and saying, "I will eat thee, I will eat thee," she began to walk about. Although she is walking about that Queen is not visible through the power of the resolution of the Gods. Then, on the morning of the following day, when [the King] looked this Queen is not [present]. Afterwards the King, together with the Ministers, for the purpose of seeking the Queen having entered the jungle forest wilderness, when going away to seek her, in the midst of the forest, near a leafy banyan tree they heard a sound of a human voice, "I will eat thee, I will eat thee." When they look what affair this is, the King's Queen and the child are in the tree. That Rakshasi having said [to herself] that this King will cut her down, ran off through fear. The King asked the royal Queen, "By what means came you here?" he asked. Then the Queen said, "The midwife-mother came lifting my child and me with the bed, in order to eat me." After that, the King having taken the Queen and gone, and having sent her to the palace, made a bonfire (lit., fire-heap) in the midst of the wilderness, and set fire to it. Having set fire to it, when the smoke was going that Rakshasi having walked [there] asked, "Regarding what circumstance is [this done]?" she asked. When she was asking the King said, "The Queen of the rock house at the root of the Indi tree having died, we are making the tomb for her relics (da sohon)," he said. As soon as he says it, [308] having said, "Ane! If I did not eat a little flesh from my younger sister to-day, what am I living for?" she sprang into the blazing heap; having sprung [into it] she died. The King after that, together with the Queen, remained in happiness. Because through fear on the day when the stone door at the root of the Indi tree opened, she sprang into the house, and having been there was married to the King, she kept the name, "The Queen of the Rock House at the root of the Indi tree." North-western Province. This story contains references to several notions that are still preserved in the villages, such as the fulfilment of wishes, either silent or expressed aloud, when presenting offerings at the wiharas, the protection of human beings by the personal intervention of guardian deities, and the existence of internal apartments in certain rock masses. A high rounded hill of gneiss is pointed out at Nirammulla, in the North-western Province, [309] inside which King Vira-Bahu is stated to have constructed a palace; and many flat rocks which emit a hollow sound when trodden on are supposed to contain such an apartment or "house" as that mentioned in this tale. The belief that a human being may become a demon before death is, I think, not now held; but in the Jataka story No. 321 (vol. iii, p. 48) a wicked boy became a preta "while still alive." Examples of the wishes made on presenting religious offerings are to be seen in the Jataka stories Nos. 514, 527, and 531. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 137, it is stated, "Thus, when one pronounces a wish in the name of acts productive of goodness that one has effected, the realisation depends solely on the heart and good fortune; whatever may be the mark at which one aims there is no one who does not attain it." In Tales of the Sun (Mrs. H. Kingscote and Pandit Natesa Sastri), p. 220, a girl who was being carried off by robbers while on her cot, escaped like the Queen in this story. In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 227, the same incident is found, the person who escaped being the wife of a barber, whom thieves were carrying off. In this case she did not first increase the load on the bed by branches or fruits. (See also vol. i, p. 357.) In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 140, a Prince who was going in search of a magic Bel fruit was instructed by a fakir how to take it, and was warned that if he looked back while returning, he and his horse would be turned into stone. This occurred, and nothing was then done to them by the fairies and demons who were chasing them. Afterwards the fakir found them, cut his little finger from the tip to the palm, smeared the blood from it on the Prince's forehead and on the horse, prayed to God, and they became alive again. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 210, the son of a Brahmana smashed with a lighted piece of wood the skull of a person who was being burnt in a funeral pyre in a cemetery. Some of the brain flew out and entered his open mouth, and he immediately became a Rakshasa. In the same work, vol. ii, p. 578, an Apsaras who was the wife of a gambler was by a curse of Indra's turned into an image (apparently a wooden or stone relief) on a pillar in a temple. The Jewish legend of Lot's wife shows that the notion of such transformations, especially when a person disobeyed an injunction not to look back, was of very ancient date. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., pp. 191 ff., four Princes were changed into stones by a Jogi, or Hindu ascetic. In a footnote, p. 192, Mr. Knowles gives references to such metamorphoses elsewhere, among them being the turning of a hunter into stone [310] owing to a curse by Damayanti. Mr. Knowles states that many stones in Kashmir are believed to be the petrified bodies of men who have been cursed. I do not remember seeing or hearing of any instances of such petrifaction in Ceylon, but we may gather from the story just given and that numbered 136 that such a belief is held there. In the same work, pp. 401-403, there is an account of two Princes who went in search of a wonderful bird, and were changed into stone when they turned back in alarm. Their younger brother was more successful, and got a pot of magic water, which when sprinkled on his brothers and on many other stones lying on the ground, caused them to resume their human state. In Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest (W. Skeat), p. 67, it is remarked that the Malays believe that there were once numerous gigantic spirits who could transform people whom they addressed by name into wood or stone. In the Preface to The Kathakoça, p. xiii, Mr. Tawney quoted Dr. Bühler's words regarding the Jain belief in animism,--that souls are to be found "in apparently lifeless masses, in stone, in clods of earth, in drops of water, in fire and in wind"--and mentions that as far as he knew, the Jains stand alone in this belief. Nevertheless, in the cases of Ahalya and Rambha, and the Apsaras of the Katha Sarit Sagara,--who, while she was in the form of an image or relief, shed tears on seeing her husband,--as well as in the examples in the other folk-tales, [311] the notion appears to be that the soul or spirit continued to exist in the petrified body, which was ready to return to its original state as soon as some necessary occurrence took place, whether a sprinkling of charmed water which neutralised the former spell, or the termination of a period fixed by a curse, or otherwise. We can perhaps see further evidence of the existence of the same belief in India and Ceylon in the stone statues of guardian deities, such as Bhairava, Nagas, Yakshas, and Rakshasas, carved at religious edifices; they, as well as the figures in the Euphrates Valley and Egypt, appear to have been thought to act as protectors because, although formed of stone, a soul existed in them, that is, so far as evil spirits were concerned they were living stones, and not mere scarecrows. In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 219, there is an account of the death and burial of a Prince aged fifteen, whose soul remained in his body afterwards. When a pine tree which had been planted over the grave sent down a root that reached his heart, the soul became alarmed, climbed up the root, and lodged among the leaves of the tree. It had other adventures. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. i, p. 145), a lady described her arrival at a city in which the King and Queen and all the inhabitants had been transformed by Allah into black stones, with the sole exception of the King's only son, a devout Muhammadan. In vol. vi of the same work, p. 121, a man arrived at a great city in which all the inhabitants, with the exception of the royal Princess, had been changed into stone at the prayer of a Muhammadan Prophet. In both these instances the petrified persons were not revived. See also the Notes after the last story in vol. iii. In Kaffir Folk-Lore (Theal), p. 36, a rock opened at a boy's request, and he and his sister lived in it, leaving and returning at will. At p. 83, some boys when chased by cannibals took refuge in a rock which "a little man" turned into a hut; to the cannibals it was still a rock. With regard to the remarks on the last page, two Sinhalese histories, the Rajavaliya and Pujavaliya, give a legend which indicates a belief that even the statues of guardian animals possessed souls. It is recorded of King Mitta-Sena (A.D. 435-436) that on one occasion when the state elephant was not ready for him when he had been worshipping the Tooth-relic of Buddha, "the King became angry and asked whether the great elephant image could not take him on its back. The elephant, made of tile [brick] and mortar, approached the King, made him to sit on his back, took the King to the city, placed him in the palace, and went away" (Raj., Gunasekara's translation, p. 54). It is probable that the figures of guardian animals or deities carved only in relief, or even represented in paintings, may have been thought to possess souls of their own--that is, to act protectively as sentient beings. It is merely a step forward to the idea in the Quatrain of wise old Omar Khayyam:-- "I saw a busy potter by the way Kneading with might and main a lump of clay; And lo! the clay cried, 'Use me tenderly, I was a man myself but yesterday!'" NO. 155A THE STORY OF THE ELDER SISTER AND YOUNGER BROTHER At a certain village there was a Gamarala. While a woman contracting (lit., tying) marriage with him was [there], a female child and a male child were born. After they two were born the woman died. After that, for the man they again brought a woman. Because the woman [312] did not take notice of the children, the children think, "There is no advantage to us in staying here; let us leave the country and go." Having said [this] they began to go. While they were thus going they entered a forest jungle, and at the time when they were proceeding in it the flowers of a Kina tree [313] having blossomed and faded, the elder sister picked up flowers that had fallen, and took them and smelt them. Having said, "These flowers are not good," the younger brother went up the tree and plucked flowers. At the time when he was descending the younger brother disappeared (naeti-wuna). The elder sister through grief at it remained at the bottom of the tree. While a King of the city was going hunting, having seen that the woman is staying under the tree, the King came near and spoke [to her]. Thereupon the woman did not speak; but the King, holding her by the hand, [314] went summoning her to the city [and married her]. While staying at the city, the woman having become pregnant a child was born. The King told her to fix a name for the child. Then also (et) the woman did not speak. While the two persons were staying thus for a little time, again a child was born. The King told the woman to fix a name for that child also. Then also this woman did not speak. "Why don't you speak?" the King asked. Then also she did not speak. On yet a day, the King went hunting with the Ministers, and having gone walking and come near the city, told the Ministers to go. The Ministers having gone there, say at the hand of that woman, "A bear bit (lit., ate) the King to-day." When they are saying it falsely, the Queen, taking the two children, and having descended from the palace to the path, and fallen on the ground, sitting down says to the two Princes, "Sun-rays Prince, Moon-rays Prince, weep ye for your father; I am weeping for my younger brother." The King having secretly come again near the palace, remained listening. Having seen it, the Queen, taking the two Princes, got into (etul-wunaya) the palace. The King having come to the palace and entered it, said, "Why did you not speak for so much time?" Then the Queen says, "After our mother was summoned and came to our father, after I and a younger brother were born our mother died. Then they brought a step-mother. Because that mother disregards [315] younger brother and me, younger brother and I left the country, and having entered a forest jungle, when we were coming the flowers of a Kina tree had blossomed and fallen. Taking the faded flowers I smelt them. Thereupon younger brother said, 'Don't smell the faded flowers; I will pluck and give [you] flowers.' Having said [this] and gone up the tree, at the time when [after] plucking the flowers he was descending, younger brother disappeared. Owing to grief at that I remained unable to speak." Afterwards the King, taking axe and saw and calling people, having gone near the Kina tree, and cut and sawn the tree, when he looked [inside it] the younger brother who was lost was [there]. Then the King, calling the younger brother, came to the city, and showed him to the elder sister. The elder sister arrived at happiness again. North-western Province. The story provides no explanation of the cause of the brother's imprisonment inside the trunk of the tree. Apparently the deity--presumably a Yaka--who resided in the tree punished him in this manner for plucking the flowers, yet the King cut down the tree with impunity. At the present day, the Sinhalese villagers would not venture to injure or pluck flowers from a tree infested by a Yaka. Many years ago all refused to fell a Kumbuk tree of this kind which it was necessary to remove from an embankment I was restoring; but some of my Tamil coolies had not the same scruples when encouraged by extra pay, to counterbalance the risk. Probably they would have been less venturesome in their own country. The notion that a person may exist inside a tree trunk in a state of suspended animation is found in other folk-tales. In No. 47, vol. i, a Naga Princess became a tree; in an Indian variant on p. 269, the tree was a girl imprisoned thus by Rakshasas. (See the notes after No. 155, and also p. 245 of this volume.) NO. 156 THE QUEEN AND THE BEGGAR At a city there exists a Beggar, begging, and continuing to eat [thus]. There is a travellers' shed near the pool at which the Queen of that city bathes. The Beggar having come [after] begging and begging, eats at that travellers' shed. When the Queen was coming [after] bathing in the water, the Beggar went in front of her. Having said, "Why did a Beggar like thee come, and come in contact with me?" [316] she spat three times. He having felt (lit., thought) much shame, went to the house of the washerman who cleans the cloths of the city. He remained doing work for him for wages. The washerman asked, "Why are you working for wages?" "[In order] one day to get the crown and [royal] suit of clothes [317] I am working for wages,--at the time when the King (raju) is coming to the chamber," [he said]. At the time when [the King] was coming to the chamber in which is the Queen, he stopped, investigating [matters]. Before the King came, [the Beggar], putting on the royal ornaments [and clothes], went. The guards finished the auspicious wish; [318] after that he went into the chamber. The Queen having come and given the auspicious wish, he forbade the adjuration. [319] When forbidding it, having said, "What [sort of] woman art thou also!" he spat in her face. This one having spat went away. After that the King came. The guards thought, "To-day the King went here; what came he again for?" After he went to the chamber the Queen did not give him the auspicious wish. The King inquired why she did that. Having said, "Now, on one occasion (gamanaka), as I am bad you spat in my face; have I now become good?" she asked. After that, the King [on hearing her account] sitting down there, wrote two bars of a four-line stanza (siwpada de padayak):-- "The angry tone displayed, the King is desolating; The courier bold who charmed my love, long bound, is flying. Speak not so harshly, here with frowns me eyeing; He will not long rejoice, I pride that day abating." [320] Having given these two bars of a four-line stanza to the Ministers, [321] he said he will give many offices to persons who explain them. [322] North-western Province. NO. 157 THE FROG IN THE QUEEN'S NOSE In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. The woman has also a paramour. One day the man went to a rice field to plough. At that time, this woman having quickly cooked milk-rice, made it ready to give to her paramour to eat. While that man (her husband) was ploughing, the yoke broke; after that, the man came home. Having seen that the man was coming, she quickly put the pot of milk-rice under the bed in the maduwa (open shed). That man as soon as he came sat upon the bed; then the man was burnt [by the hot rice under him]. Thereupon the man looked under the bed. When he was looking he saw the pot of milk-rice. Afterwards, having taken the milk-rice the man ate it. At that time, when the Queen of the King of the country was smelling a flower, a little young frog that was in the flower had gone into her nose, seven days before. Up to that very time, six men came, saying that they can take out the frog; they came at the rate of a man a day. Having come there, when he is unable to take it out they cut the man's neck. At that rate they beheaded the six men who came. That day the King caused the proclamation tom-toms to be beaten:--"To the person who should take out the young frog that is in the Queen's nose, I will give a district from the kingdom, and goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load." Then this woman having heard it, went running, and said, "My husband can," and stopped the proclamation tom-toms. [323] She stopped them because the man of the house ate the milk-rice without her succeeding in giving it to the paramour, with the motive that having killed this man she should take the paramour to live [there]. Having stopped the proclamation tom-toms, and come near her husband, she said, "I stopped the proclamation tom-toms now. You go, and having taken out that young frog which is in the Queen's nose, come back." Then this man through fear of death lamented, and said, "Now six men have been beheaded, men who thoroughly know medical treatment. I not knowing anything of this, when I have gone there they will seize me at once and behead me. What is this you did?" Thereupon, through anger about the milk-rice she said, "There is no staying talking and talking in that way. Go quickly." As she was saying the words, the messenger whom the King sent arrived there to take the man to the palace. Well then, having [thus] quickly driven away the man, the woman speedily cooked milk-rice again, and having sent to the paramour to come, and given him to eat, made the man stop at that very house. Then the woman says to the paramour, "Thus, in that manner the gallows-bird [324] of our house by this time will be killed. Now then, you remain [here] without fear." The paramour having said, "It is good," stayed there. Well then, when the messenger brought that man to the palace, he said to the King: "Maharaja, Your Majesty, this man can take out the frog." While he was there, having become ready for death, the King, having been sitting at the place where the Queen is, says to this man, "Ha, it is good. Now then, don't stop [there] looking. If thou canst, apply medical treatment for this and take thou out the young frog. If thou canst not, be ready for death." Thereupon that man, having become more afraid also than he was, began to relate the things that happened to the man:-- "When to plough I went away, snapped the wooden yoke in twain; When the yoke in pieces broke, slowly home I come again; When I to the house returned, I upon the bed remain; When upon the bed I lay, felt my rear a burning pain; When my hinder part I burned, 'neath the bed I search amain; When beneath the bed I look, hidden milk-rice there had lain. As I ate that rice, I ween these afflictions on me rain. Having this affliction seen, jump out, O Froggy-pawn!" [325] Having said [this] he ended. The Queen, from the time when he began to tell this story being without a place for passing down the breath, when this story was becoming ended, because that breath had been shut back gave a snort [326] (huh gala), and when she was sending the breath from her nose, the young frog quite of itself fell to the ground. Well then, having given this man a district from the kingdom, and goods [amounting] to a tusk elephant's load, they made him stay at the palace itself. That woman became bound to that paramour. North-western Province. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iii, p. 360), an Arab doctor was taken before a King, who ordered him to cure his sick daughter. He was told by the attendants that all who failed were put to death. He discovered that her malady was a religious one, and cured her. NO. 158 CONCERNING A BEAR AND THE QUEEN At a certain city there were a sister and two brothers. These three one day went to eat Damba [fruits]. Having gone thus, the two brothers went up the Damba tree, [327] the sister remained on the ground. At that time a Bear having come, went off, taking the woman. Having thus gone, placing her in a rock cave he provided subsistence for her. Thereupon the two brothers, being unable to find her, went home. During the time while the Princess was in the rock cave she was rearing a cock. On yet [another] day the two Princes in order to make search for the Princess went into the midst of the forest. Then having heard the crowing of the cock which the Princess was rearing, they went to that place. At that time the Bear was not there; on account of food it went into the midst of the forest. Then [the brothers] having met with the sister, they spoke to her. The Princess said, "The time when the Bear comes is near. Because of that return to the village, and come to-morrow morning to go with me." So both of them went to the village. After that, the Bear having come, at the words which he had heard walked away growling and growling with anger. Thereafter the two brothers came, and returned with the Princess to the village. Two children had been born to the Bear; with those two also they went. Thereupon the Bear having come to the rock cave, and perceived when he looked that the Princess and children were not [there], came [after them] of his own accord. When he came, he saw by the light the Queen and two children. Those two sprang off and went away. The Bear asked the Queen, "What are you going for?" "A cleverer Bear than you told me to come. Because of that I am going," she said. The Bear having said, "Where is there a cleverer Bear than I? Show me him," went [with her]. Then the Queen, having gone near a well, showed the reflection of the Bear that was at the bottom of the water. At that time the Bear which was on the ground sprang into the well in order to bite the Bear that was in the well. Having sprung in he died. Then the two brothers, and the Princess, and the two children went home and stayed there. North-central Province. In Le Pantcha-Tantra of the Abbé Dubois, the animals had made an agreement with a savage lion that one of them should be given to it each day. When the jackal's turn came he determined to find some way of destroying their enemy. Seeing his own reflection in a well, he went to the lion and informed him that another lion was concealed in a well, and waiting for an opportunity to kill him. When the lion demanded to be shown him, the jackal led him to the well; showed him his own reflection, and the lion sprang at it. The jackal then summoned the other animals, which rolled large stones into the well and killed the lion. In the Hitopadesa there is a similar story, the two animals being a lion and a stag which said another lion had delayed it. In Indian Fables (Ramaswami Raju), p. 82, the animals were a tiger and hare. In Folk-lore of the Telugus (G. R. Subramiah Pantulu), p. 15, they were a lion and fox (jackal) which stated that another lion had carried off a fox that it was bringing as the lion's food. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 4, they were a tiger and a hare which laid the blame on another tiger for his being late, saying it claimed the country. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 172, they were a lion and a jackal and his wife who stated that they had been delayed by another lion. In The Enchanted Parrot (Rev. B. H. Wortham) this story is No. XXXI. The animals were a lion and a hare which said he had been kept a prisoner by a rival lion. This is the form of the tale in the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 32. In Folk-Tales from Tibet (O'Connor), p. 51, they were also a lion and a hare which recommended the lion to eat a large and fierce animal that lived in a pond, in place of itself. In Fables and Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest (W. Skeat), p. 28, they were a tiger and a mouse-deer which said it had been stopped by an old tiger with a flying-squirrel sitting on its muzzle, and so had been unable to bring it an animal for food. The squirrel which accompanied the mouse-deer sat on the tiger's muzzle and the deer on its hind-quarters when it went to drive the other away. The tiger then sprang at its reflection in the river, and was drowned. NO. 159 THE LEOPARD AND THE PRINCESS In a certain country there are seven Princes, it is said. Younger than all seven there is their younger sister. For the seven Princes seven Princesses have been brought; a Prince having been brought for the younger sister, is settled there. While they are thus, the younger sister has pregnancy longings (doladuk). One day, while the younger sister and her elder brothers were going to their houses, having seen the whole seven Princesses eating Damba [fruits] the younger sister also stayed there to eat them, and asked at the hand of the eldest sister-in-law, "Sister-in-law, a Damba fruit for me also." Then the sister-in-law said, "There will not be Damba here to give." She asked at the hand of the next sister-in-law. That sister-in-law also replied in the same way. Thus, in that manner having asked at the hand of the whole seven, not even one person gave it. Afterwards, the younger sister having cooked and eaten, went alone to pluck Damba, and having ascended the Damba tree, while she was eating Damba it became night. A Leopard having come near the Damba tree [said], "[How] if you should throw down a Damba branch with your golden little hand?" After that, the Princess threw down a Damba branch. The Leopard having eaten [the fruit on] it, said again, "[How] if you should throw down a Damba branch with your golden little hand?" Again she threw one down. Then the Leopard said, "Holding fast, fast, [how] if you should slowly slowly descend?" Then through fear the Princess is there without descending. The Leopard another time said, "Holding fast, fast, [how] if you should slowly slowly descend?" The Princess descended. Then the Leopard, placing the Princess on his back, went to his rock cave. While living in that manner the Princess bore a child. The Leopard and Princess stayed there very trustfully. The Leopard had much goods. The paddy store-rooms had been filled, the millet store-rooms had been filled, the meneri store-rooms had been filled, there are many cattle. When they had been living there many days, the Leopard said, "I am about to go on a journey to-morrow; I shall be unable to return for two or three days. You, shutting the rock cave, must be [here]. Until the time when I come do not go outside." On the following day the Leopard went away. Well then, while the Princess was alone in the rock cave, the elder brothers of the Princess having come hunting, a great rain rained. The Princes having been [sheltering] near a tree, when they were walking along in the rain they met with the rock cave, and saw also their younger sister. "What art thou here for? We sought and sought so much time, and could not find thee. Here thou art! What was the manner in which thou camest here?" they asked at the hand of their younger sister. Then the younger sister said, "I asked for Damba at the hand of sisters-in-law. The whole seven did not give it. On account of that I came to eat Damba, and while I was alone in the Damba tree the Leopard came. "Afterwards he told me to throw down a Damba branch; I threw down two Damba branches. Saying and saying [it was only] until the time when the Leopard was going, I stayed in the tree. "While I was there it became night. Then the Leopard told me to descend. I stayed [there] without descending. The Leopard told me twice to descend. Afterwards I descended. The Leopard, putting me on his back, came here. From that day I am living here." Then the Princes asked, "Where is the Leopard?" The Princess said, "This morning he went somewhere or other; he said he will not come for a day or two." After that, the Princes said, "No matter for that one; let us go away home. We will take the things that are here." The Princess said, "I will not." What of her saying, "I will not!" The Princes, having taken all the [household] things that were there, said to the Princess, "Let us go." Afterwards the Princess through anger cut that child, and hung it aloft, near the hearth. She placed the small pot on the hearth, and taking a [piece of] muslin, all along the path tore and tore and threw down pieces, until the time when they went to the house. Having gone there, without eating she is crying and crying. Then the Leopard came near the rock cave, and saw that the child having been cut had been hung up; and having seen, also, that the Princess was not there, came away. Having come all along the path on which the muslin has been torn and thrown down, and having come up to the house [in a human form]; he saw that the Princess is there. While the Leopard is in the open space in front of the house, the Princess saw that the Leopard is [there]; and having come laughing, and given water to the Leopard to wash his face, and given sitting accommodation, and betel to eat, she is cooking in order to give the Leopard to eat. Then the Princes placed an earthen pot of water on the hearth, to become heated. After it became heated, they cut a hole very deeply, and put sticks on it, and above that leaves, and above that earth; and having taken the pot of water and placed it there, they came near the Leopard, and said to the Leopard, "Let us go, brother-in-law, to bathe." The Leopard said, "I cannot bathe, brother-in-law. As I was coming I bathed; I cannot bathe another time." While the Leopard was saying he could not, having gone calling the Leopard they told him to place his feet at the place where those sticks and leaves and earth have been put; and having told him to bend, they poured that pot of boiling water on the Leopard's body. That one having fallen into the hole that was cut deep, died. Those seven Princes having thrown in earth and filled it up, came away and ate cooked rice. That younger sister, having cooked and finished, seeks the Leopard. While she is seeking him the sisters-in-law say, "Sister-in-law, you eat that cooked rice. Elder brother is eating cooked rice here." The Princess is [there] without eating. While she is there the sisters-in-law say again, "Sister-in-law, eat; elder brother is eating cooked rice here. He will not come there, having become angry that you have come [away]." After that, the Princess came to look [for him]. Having looked at the whole seven houses without finding the Leopard, she went to the place where he bathed, and when she looked [saw that] earth was [newly] cut and placed there. Having seen it, thinking, "Here indeed having murdered him, this earth has been cut and placed [over him]," she went into the house, and did not eat; and having been weeping and weeping, and been two or three days without food, the Princess died through very grief at the loss of the Leopard. The eight Princes and the seven Princesses, taking the Leopard's goods and the Princess's goods, remained there. North-western Province. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xiv, p. 135 ff. (Folklore in Southern India, p. 116), in a Tamil story by Natesa Sastri, a girl who had married and gone off with a tiger disguised in the form of a Brahmana youth, escaped when her three brothers, in response to her request sent by a crow, came to rescue her. She first tore in two the tiger cub she had borne, and hung the pieces to roast over the fire. The tiger followed in the form of a youth, was well received, and food was cooked. On the pretext of giving him the customary oil bath (of Southern India) before dining, the brothers put sticks across the well, and laid mats over them. When the tiger-youth sat there for the bath he fell into the well, which they filled with stones, etc. The girl raised a pillar (apparently of mud) over the well, with a tulasi (basil) plant at the top; and during the rest of her life she smeared the pillar in the morning and evening with cow-dung, and watered the plant. In the Kolhan folk-tales (Bompas), appended to Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 454, a tiger which assisted a Raja by carrying a load of grass for him, received in marriage one of the Raja's daughters as a recompense. He ate her, and when he went to ask for another in her place, saying she had died, boiling water was poured over him while he was asleep, and he was killed. At p. 470, a Raja married a she-bear which took the place of his bride in her palankin; apparently the bear had a human form. In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 57, the concealed pit-fall into which people fell is found. It was dug in one of the rooms of a merchant's house. A King, his son, and his wife the Queen were entrapped; but the King's daughter-in-law suspected some trick, refused to enter the house, and rescued them. There is a variant in the coast districts on the north bank of the River Congo, in West Africa. In Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort (Dennett), p. 49, a girl who had run away from home on account of her sisters' bad treatment of her, was married to a man who was a murderer. She wanted to return to her mother, made a flying basket, and escaped in it, carrying off his ornaments and slaves. Her husband saw the basket going through the air, and followed it. The girl's relations received him well, dug a deep hole and covered it with sticks and a mat, and prepared a great quantity of boiling water. Then they called the girl and her husband to sit there, placing the man over the hole. He fell into it, the water and burning wood were thrown over him, and he died. This Sinhalese story contains the only instance I have met with in Ceylon of a belief in power of the lower animals to take the form of men, with the exception of tales in which they have a removable skin or shell which hides a human form. In China the fox is thought to have the power of taking a human shape at will, and in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 76, one of these animals became a man in order to obtain a bag of roasted grain to present to an aged Brahmana. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 442, a man who had learnt witchcraft turned himself into a tiger in order to eat a calf. He gave his wife a piece of root first, and told her that when she applied it to his nose he would become a man again. Such changes as that occur in the Indian story numbered 266 in vol. iii, and its Sinhalese variants, in which the animals can then resume their human form. It is a common belief in Africa that some animals have this power (having the souls of men in them), and also that human beings can transform themselves into the lower animals, usually dangerous ones. In Reynard the Fox in Southern Africa (Dr. Bleek), p. 57, in a Hottentot story a woman became a lion at her husband's request, in order to catch a zebra for their food. In The Fetish Folk of West Africa (Milligan), p. 226, it is stated that "there is a man in the Gaboon of whom the whole community believes that he frequently changes himself into a leopard in order to steal sheep and to devour a whole sheep at a meal." NO. 160 THE STORY OF THE FOOLISH LEOPARD In a certain country, at the season when a Gamarala and his son are causing cattle to graze, having constructed a fold in a good manner the Gamarala encloses the cattle in the fold. One day, the Gamarala's son having driven in the cattle, while he was blocking up the gap (entrance) of the fold the Gamarala said, it is said, "Ade! Close the gap well; leopards and other animals (kotiyo-botiyo [328]) will come." When he was there, a big Leopard which was near having heard this speech that he is making, thinks, "The Leopard indeed is I; what is the Botiya?" In fear, with various ideas [about it], he got inside the fold; but having thought that the Botiya will come now, he went into the midst of the calves, and in the middle of them, his happiness being ended, he remained. In the meantime, a thief having got inside the fold, came lifting and lifting up the calves [to ascertain which was the heaviest]. Having come near the Leopard, when he lifted it up he placed the Leopard on his shoulder [in order to carry it away], because it was very heavy. The Leopard thinks, "This one, indeed, is the Botiya." Having thought, "Should I [try to] escape he will kill me," it was motionless. And the thief because he went quickly in the night [with it], for that reason thought that the calf was very good. At the time when he turned and looked at it he perceived that it was a Leopard, and he considered in what manner he could escape. Having seen a hill near there, near an abandoned pansala (the residence of a Buddhist monk), the man threw it down from the hill, and got inside the pansala. When he shut the door, anger having come to the Leopard by reason of the harm done to him [owing to his fall], at the time when he was near the door [trying to enter in order to kill the man], a Jackal asked the Leopard, "Why is this?" When he told the Jackal the reason, the Jackal thought he would like to eat the Leopard's flesh, [and therefore said], "I will tell you, Sir, a stratagem for opening the door. Should you put that tail of yours, Sir, through that hole the door will open." At the time when he said [this], the Leopard having thought that by this skilful act the door will open, put his tail through. Thereupon the thief twisted the tail round the post that was near the door. At the time when he was holding it, the Jackal went to the rice field near there in which men were working. While the Jackal was crying and crying out to the men, "Please come near, please come near," they went near the pansala. Having seen the Leopard, and beaten and killed the Leopard, they took away the skin, it is said. Then the Jackal with much delight ate the Leopard's flesh, it is said. North-western Province. This story is a variant of No. 70 in vol. i. In The Orientalist, vol. iv, p. 30, Mr. W. Goonetilleke gave a nearly similar story. The fold was one in which goats and sheep were enclosed. The man carried off the leopard which was concealed among them, and on discovering his mistake threw it down into a stream as he was crossing an edanda, or foot-bridge made of a tree trunk. He then ran off and got hid in a corn-store, where the jackal told him to twist the tail round a post, as related in vol. i, p. 368. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. xiv, p. 77 (Tales of the Sun, p. 93), in a Tamil story given by Natesa Sastri, a shepherd, when he left his flock temporarily, fixed his stick at the place with his rug over it, and told it to keep watch, or some thief or bhuta or kuta might try to steal one. A bhuta, or evil spirit, which had come for this purpose, overheard this, and being afraid of the unknown animal called a kuta, lay down amid the flock. Two men who came to steal a goat selected the bhuta, and carried it off as being the fattest. Thinking these were the kutas, the bhuta tried to escape, and eventually melted away. The later incidents do not resemble those of this Sinhalese story. NO. 161 THE STORY OF THE DABUKKA [329] In a certain country there were a man's eight asses. One of them having been lost one day, while he was going seeking and looking for it [he saw] in the night that there was a house near a great jungle. In the house he heard a talk. After that he halted, and when he is listening to ascertain what is this talk which he hears, a woman says, "Ane! O Gods, during this night I indeed am not afraid of either an elephant, or a bear, or a leopard, or a Yaka; I am only afraid of the Dabukka," she said. The Leopard listening very near there said [to himself], "What is the Dabukka of which she is afraid, which is greater than the elephant, and the bear, and the leopard, and the Yaka?" Having become afraid in his mind he stood on one side, and remained looking [out for it]. Then the man who being without that ass sought for it, saw the Leopard [in the semi-darkness], and having said, "Is it the ass?" went running and mounted on the back of the Leopard. Saying, "O ass of the strumpet's son, why were you hidden last night?" he began to beat the Leopard. Having thought "Ade! It is this indeed they call the Dabukka," through fear it began to run away. As it was becoming light, that man, perceiving that it was the Leopard, jumped off its back, and having gone running crept inside a hollow in a tree. The Leopard having gone running on and fallen, a Jackal, seeing that it was panting, asked, "Friend, what are you staying there for as though you have been frightened?" "Friend, during the whole of yester-night the Dabukka, having mounted on my back, drove me about, beating and beating me enough to kill me." Then the Jackal says, "Though you were afraid of it I indeed am not afraid. Show me it. Let us go for me to eat up that one," he said. The Leopard says, "I will not go first," he said. The Jackal said, "Pull out a creeper, and tying it at your waist tie [the other end] on my neck," he said. When they had tied the creeper, after the Jackal went in front near the tree in which that man stayed, the Leopard said, "There. It is in the hollow in that tree, indeed," he said. The Jackal snarled. Then when the man struck the Jackal in the midst of the mouth his teeth were broken. After that, [both of them], the Jackal howling and howling, having run off and gone away, when they were out of breath a Bear came and asked "Friends, what are you panting for to that extent?" The Leopard says, "Yester-night the Dabukka killed me. The Jackal having gone to eat it, when he howled and snarled it broke two [of his] teeth," he said. Then the Bear said, "What of your being unable [to kill it]! Let us go, for me to eat up that one." The whole three went, the Bear being in front and close to it the Jackal; the Leopard went behind them. Having gone, they showed the Bear the place where the man was. The Bear having put its head inside the hollow in the tree, roared. Then the man seized the hair of its head fast with his hand. When it was drawing its head back the hair came out. Then the whole three, speaking and speaking, ran away, with their teeth chattering and their tails between their legs. Afterwards the man having descended from the tree to the ground, came to his village with a party of men. North-western Province. In Indian Fairy Tales (Thornhill), p. 227, a tiger heard an old woman say, "I do not fear the tiger; what I fear is the dripping; when the rain falls the dripping comes through the thatch and troubles me." The tiger lay still, dreading the coming of the terrible Dripping. A washerman whose ass had strayed came there, and thinking he had found it struck it with his stick and drove it to the village pound, where he fastened it by the leg, the tiger believing he must be the Dripping. In the morning it begged for mercy, and was allowed to go on promising to leave the district and not eat men. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 206, the same story is repeated, the ass being one belonging to a potter who seized the tiger, beat and kicked it, rode it home, tied it to a post, and went to bed. Next day everyone came to see it, and the Raja gave the man great rewards, and made him a General. In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 211, when a weaver who had been ordered to kill a tiger was entering his house he saw it outside. Saying loudly that he was going to kill the tiger, he added that he did not care for the wet or the tiger, but only for the dripping of the rain from the roof. The tiger was afraid, and slunk into an outhouse, the door of which the weaver immediately shut and locked. Next morning he reported that he had captured it with his hands, without the use of weapons. In a Malinka story of Senegambia in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 137, a hare, while its partner, a hyæna, collected firewood, hid the flesh of a cow that they had killed, in a hollow baobab tree, the entrance being too small to admit the hyæna. The latter returned with an ostrich and saw the hare there. The ostrich came forward to seize it, but when its head was inside the hare slipped a noose over it and half-choked it. In its struggles the ostrich laid an egg, which the hyæna immediately devoured. The hare then induced it to believe that when they were half choked in the same way hyænas laid much better eggs. The hyæna accordingly inserted its head, and was noosed and strangled. NO. 162 THE LEOPARD AND THE CALF In a certain country, while cattle are coming along eating and eating food, a Leopard having been hidden and been there looking out seized a small Calf out of them, and at first ate an ear. Then the Calf says, "I am insufficient for food for you. When I have become big you can eat me, therefore let me go," he said to the Leopard. At that time the Leopard having said, "It is good," allowed the Calf to go. In a little time, having seen that the Calf has become big the Leopard came to eat him. Thereupon the Bull (the grown-up calf) says to the Leopard, "You cannot eat me in that way. Go to the jungle, and breaking a large creeper [330] come [back with it]," he said. Then when the Leopard brought a creeper the Bull said to the Leopard, "Tie an end round your waist [331] and the other end tie on my neck," he said. The Bull having dropped heated dung while the Leopard was doing thus, began to run in all directions [after they were tied together]. When he is running thus the Leopard says to the Bull [as he was jolted about], Bale--di--no--kae--kota While young--not--having--eaten thee Ma--ata--modakan--kota On my--part--I--did--foolishly. Gassa--gassa--no--duwa Jolting,--jolting--me,--don't--run, Periya--kan--kota O thou--great--short--earèd--one. The Leopard having been much wounded in this way, died. The Bull went near his master's son; he unfastened the Bull. North-western Province. In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 70, a lamb escaped from several animals that wanted to eat it by telling them to wait until it grew fatter. In the end it was eaten by a jackal. In Folk-Tales from Tibet (O'Connor), p. 43, a wolf that was about to eat a young wild ass was persuaded by it to wait a few months until it became fatter. When the time came for meeting it, the wolf was joined by a fox and a hare, to which it promised to give a share of the meat. The hare's suggestion that to avoid the loss of the blood the ass should be strangled was adopted, the fox borrowed a rope from a shepherd, the hare put slip-knots over the necks of each of the animals, and holding the end of the rope itself gave the word for all to pull. When they did so the wolf and fox were strangled, and the ass escaped. NO. 163 THE ASH-PUMPKIN FRUIT PRINCE At a certain time at a certain village there were a husband and a wife. During the time when they were [there] the two together went to a chena. Having gone, [after] plucking an Ash-pumpkin they brought it and placed it in a large pot under seven earthen cooking pots. When not much time had gone, the seven earthen cooking pots were shaken. Then this party having opened the mouths of the cooking pots, when they looked a Python had filled up the large pot. After that, the party plaited seven beds. [332] Having plaited them, they caused the Python to sleep on the seven beds. Next, having gone to a place where seven daughters were, they asked for an assistant (a wife) for that Python. Having asked, they brought the eldest sister. Having brought her, when they opened the house door the woman having seen this Python and being afraid, said, "Ane! The way in which fathers have sought and given me in marriage!" and just as it became light the girl went home. In that manner they brought the six women. All six being afraid of this Python went away. They brought the youngest girl of the seven. [She] having come there, when two or three months had gone they opened the house door. After that, the girl having seen the Python and being afraid, said in distress, "Ane! The danger that my parents have made for me, having given me in diga [marriage] to a Python! There is no place for me to lie down." Thereupon the Python having made room on one out of the seven beds, remained on six. On the following day she spoke in the same manner. Then the Python, having made room on two out of the seven beds, remained on five. On the following day in the evening she spoke in the same manner; then the Python, having made room on three out of the seven beds, was on four. On the following day in the evening she spoke in the same manner; then the Python, having made room on four out of the seven beds, was on three. On the following day evening she said the same; then the Python, having made room on five out of the seven beds, was on two. On the following day evening she said the same; then the Python, having made room on six out of the seven beds, was on one. On the seventh day morning the Python came to the veranda. At that time, the mother-in-law of the woman who had come in diga [marriage] to the Python, said to the woman, "Daughter, lower a little paddy from the corn store, [333] and having winnowed, boil it." Then the woman (girl), for the sake of causing the Python to speak, applied (dunna, presented) the forked pole [for raising the conical roof] on the outer side of the eaves. [334] Then the Python says, "In our country our mother said that on the other side (lit., hand) is the way." Thereupon the woman, having applied the forked pole on the inner side, and raised the (conical) roof, and lowered paddy, put it on the outer side of the winnowing tray, and began to winnow it. Then the Python says, "It is not in that way. In our country our mother said on the other side is the way." So the woman put it on the inner side of the winnowing tray, and winnowed the paddy. Having winnowed it, still for the sake of causing the Python to speak she put the paddy on the outer side of the large cooking pot, and prepared (lit., made) to boil it. Thereupon the Python says, "It is not in that way. In our country our mother said on the other side is the way." So the woman, having put it inside the large cooking pot, boiled the paddy. Still for the sake of causing the Python to speak having [taken out the paddy, and] placed it on the outer side of the mat, she prepared to spread out the paddy to dry. Thereupon the Python says, "It is not in that way. In our country our mother said on the other side is the way." So the woman, having put it on the inner side of the mat, spread out the paddy to dry. The woman, also for the sake of causing the Python to speak, having [taken it up after it was dried, and] placed it on the outer side (end) of the paddy mortar, prepared to pound the paddy. Thereupon the Python says, "It is not in that way. In our country our mother said at the other side (end) is the way." So having put it on the inside, and pounded the paddy [to remove the skin], she winnowed it. (It was now cleaned rice, ready for cooking.) Then a Bana (reading of the Buddhist Scriptures) having been appointed at the pansala near that village, all are going to the Bana. This woman says, "Owing to the fate which my parents have made for me there is also no hearing Bana [for me]." Thereupon the Python says, "Haven't you bracelets and rings to put on as ornaments? Haven't you dresses? Wearing them and adorning [yourself] in a good manner, go with our parents," he said. Then the woman says, "Other good caste (rate) women go, sending the men first. [335] It does not matter that I must go alone!" Thereupon, still the Python says, "I am staying at home. Go with my parents," he said. Then while the woman was going with her mother-in-law's party to hear Bana, the Python, having got hid, remained at the road on which she intended to go. At that time the Python having taken off his Python jacket and having placed it on the clothes-line in the enclosure (malu ane), went to hear the Bana [in the form of a Prince]. Thereupon, this woman having seen her husband who was going to the pansala, came home, and having taken the Python jacket which was placed on the clothes-line in the enclosure and put it [in the fire] on the hearth, the woman, too, went back to hear the Bana. Thereafter, the Python Prince having returned, when he looked for the Python jacket it had been put on the hearth [and burnt]. Thereupon he remained as a husband for that woman. After that, when not much time had gone, telling her, and having prepared, they went to the house of his mother-in-law and father-in-law. Thereupon the six women who were brought at first for the Python, having said, "Ane! Our husband is coming," came in front [of him]. Then this younger woman, having said, "At first having said ye do not want him, how does the Prince who has come become yours now? He belongs only to me," began to quarrel [with them]. Then of those six women the eldest woman having longed for this Python Prince, said, "Father, seek for a Python for me, and give me it," and remained without eating and without drinking. Thereupon, the man being unable to get rid [of the importunity] of that eldest daughter, calling men and having gone, and having set nets, when they were driving (elawana-kota) the middle of the forest a Python was caught in the net. Having brought the Python, the father of the woman, having asked her and said he brought it as her husband, put it in the house (room) of the woman, and said, "There. Take charge of it." Thereupon the woman having gone into the house, [after] shutting the door unfastened the sack in which was the Python. Then the Python seized the woman, and twisting around her, making fold after fold, began to eat her. At that time, the father of the woman [hearing sounds] like throwing down coconuts in the corn store, like pouring water into the water jar, said two or three times, "Don't kill my daughter, Ade!" Then the Python, having completely swallowed the woman, remained [as though] unconscious. On the following day, in the morning, the woman's parents having come and said, "Daughter, open the door," called her two or three times. Having called her, when they looked [for a reply] she did not speak. Because of that, having broken [through] the wall near the door bolt, and opened the door, when they looked, the Python, having swallowed the woman, [336] remained [as though] unconscious. Thereupon, they drove away and sent off the Python. North-central Province. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 595, a dependant of King Vikramaditya became a python on eating a gourd which he found in a garden. He was restored to his former shape by means of a sternutatory which was made from the extract obtained from a plant. In Chinese Nights' Entertainment (A. M. Fielde), p. 45, a man promised to give one of his three daughters in marriage to a serpent that seized him. The two elder ones refused; the youngest agreed to marry it. She lived with the snake in a palace. On her return one day with water from a distant spring after the well dried up she found the serpent dying of thirst, and plunged it in the water. The spell which bound it being thus neutralised it became a handsome man, with whom she continued to dwell happily. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 255, a herd-boy who saw a girl throw off a dog skin that she wore, and bathe, afterwards insisted on marrying this dog. Each night she removed the skin and went out, until on one occasion he threw the skin into the fire, after which she retained her human form. A friend of his determined to imitate him, and married a bitch with the usual ceremonies; but on the way home she was so savage that he let her go, and he was laughed at so much that he hanged himself. At p. 227 there is an account of a caterpillar boy who at night took off his outer skin and went to dance. The Princess who had selected and married him burnt his skin one night, and he retained his Prince's form afterwards. NO. 164 THE KABARAGOYA AND THE WIDOW In a certain country, to the house of a widow woman a Kabaragoya [337] continually comes. While time is going, the Kabaragoya, trusting the old woman, having come to the house dwells there. After much time went by, the Kabaragoya being like a son told the widow woman to find and give him a woman (wife). At that time, "Son, look at the manner of our house; besides that, to a Kabaragoya who will give a Kabaragoyi (female Kabaragoya)?" the widow asked. And the Kabaragoya having heard that speech, that very day night entreated that his house should be like a royal palace. On the following day morning, at the time when he looked the house was particoloured (wisituruwa) like a royal palace. The Kabaragoya that day also told her to seek and give him a woman. And the widow after that went to seek a woman in marriage for the Kabaragoya. There were seven Princesses of the King of that country who had come of age. The widow having gone near (kara) the King (raju), when she told him the matter he told her to take a person who was willing. And the widow having gone near the royal daughters, asked, "There is an only Kabaragoya of mine; is anyone willing to be married to it?" Six out of the seven royal daughters having said, "Are we also female Kabaragoyas to go with Kabaragoyas?" scolded and struck her; the young royal Princess who was the last, said, "Mother, I will go." At that time having come summoning the royal Princess, she married and gave her to the Kabaragoya. After a little time went thus, for the purpose of the occasion of a certain feast the King [338] sent a letter to the Kabaragoya and his royal daughter, [inviting them to it]. Thereupon the royal Princess having said, "Ane! How shall I go with this Kabaragoya, without shame?" While she is grieving, the Kabaragoya went to a certain rock cave, and having taken off and put there the Kabaragoya jacket, and decorated himself [in the form of a Prince], with royal ornaments, returned. At that time the royal daughter also, much pleased, went to the royal palace. After that, this Prince, wearing royal ornaments, remained in the appearance of a Prince. Uva Province. In Kaffir Folk-Tales (Theal), p. 38, a girl chose a crocodile as her husband. When at his request she licked his face he cast off the crocodile skin, and became a man. In a note (p. 209) the author states that he had been bewitched by his enemies. NO. 165 THE FROG JACKET In a certain country, at a house there was a very wealthy nobleman (sitana), but he had no children. Having seen that the men of the country are giving their children in diga [marriage] he was much grieved. While he is thus, one day at the time when he went to the rice field, having said, "Father," a certain female Frog fell weeping at the edge of his foot; and the nobleman having brought this female Frog home, nourished it. One day, having started on a journey, and tied up a bundle of cooked rice, and in the midst of it having put several rings, at the time when he was going along the path taking the bundle of cooked rice it became night while [he was] near a house, and he went there for the resting-place. At that house there was a young man. In the evening having unfastened the bundle of cooked rice, at the time when he was eating the rice he met with the rings, and having said, "Ane! My daughter's rings have fallen into the bundle of cooked rice," he showed them to the house people. Thereupon the house persons asked, "Is there a daughter?" "Yes, an only daughter of mine," he said. "There is an only male child of mine, also. Will you give your daughter to him?" the house-wife asked. The nobleman having said, "It is good," [after] fixing a day came away. On the appointed day, to look at the young woman the young man and his two parents came. At the time when they asked the nobleman, "Where is the daughter?" he said, "To-day she went with her grandfather." Having said, "If so, on such and such a day we will come to summon her to go," they went away. On that day, at the time when the young man and his two parents came he showed them his female Frog. After that, the young man's two parents were not satisfied, but the young man being satisfied, summoning the female Frog they went away. After a little time went by, they were to go to a [wedding] festival house. While the young man was in sorrow thinking of it, this female Frog took off her frog jacket [and thereupon became a young woman]. After that they went to the festival house. During the time afterwards, these two according to the usual custom dwelt excellently [together]. Uva Province. NO. 166 THE FOUR-FACED KING AND THE TURTLE At a certain city there was a King with four faces. The King thought he must take the city called Ibbawa. [339] For ten million lakhs (a billion) of turtles who are in that Ibbawa city, the Chief is the Turtle King. To kill the Turtle King and seize the city this Four-faced King went, taking many troops, and taking his sword. Having gone there, after having surrounded Ibbawa city, and set guards (raekala), he sent a letter to the Turtle King: "What is it? Wilt thou give thy city to us? If not, wilt thou fight?" Thereupon the Turtle King says, "For thy having thy four faces we are not afraid. What of thy four faces! We are dwelling with iron dishes both above and below us. Shouldst thou shoot at us and strike us, no harm will befall us." Afterwards the Four-faced King, having said, "Ha! If so, let us fight," began to fight. The Turtle King says to the other turtles, "Do ye decorate yourselves to go to battle." He gave notice to the whole of the turtles. The Four-faced King having ascertained that the turtles were being decorated for the battle, the King became afraid, and thought of going back. Because the King at first had not seen the turtles, although the Turtle King was about a yojana (perhaps sixteen miles) high and broad, and since it was the royal city, he says, "We did not come for the war, O Turtle King. I came to ask to marry Your Majesty's daughter to my son, Prince Kimbiya." After that, the Turtle King thinks, "At no time were men able to be tied [in marriage] to us. Because of it, we must give our daughter Gal-ibbi (Tortoise)." Having said [this] he was satisfied. So the Four-faced King and the King's army entered Ibbawa city. Well then, the Turtle King having given quarters to the army and the Four-faced King, made ready food. Because before that the turtles were not accustomed to give food and drink to men, having brought putrid birds (kunu sakunu) that turtles eat and drink, they gave them to all. After that, the Four-faced King says, "We do not eat this food." Then the turtles ask, "If so, O Four-faced King, what do you eat?" Thereupon the Four-faced King said, "We eat rice and curry." Then because the Turtle King receives the thing he wished for, having created very suitable food he gave it to the Four-faced King and the army. After that, the Turtle King and the Four-faced King having spoken [about it], appointed the [wedding] festival for the seventh day from to-day. The Four-faced King and the army having come to [their own] city, say, "We will not summon a [bride in] marriage from those turtles." Having said it, they remained without going to Ibbawa city. This Turtle King, after seven days passed, says to the other turtles, "Having said that they will take a [bride in] marriage from us, they treated us with contempt. Because of it, let us go to fight with the Four-faced King." Well then, the Turtle King, having come with the ten million lakhs of turtles, [after] setting guards round the city of the Four-faced King, says to the Four-faced King, "Will you fight with us, or take the marriage that was first spoken of?" After that, the Four-faced King began to fight with the Turtle King. Having fought for seven days, the Four-faced King having been defeated, and the city people also being killed, the Turtle King got the sovereignty of the city. Having spared only the son of the Four-faced King, Prince Kimbiya, to that Prince he gave Gal-Ibbi, the daughter of the Turtle King. Beginning from that time, the Turtle King exercised the sovereignty over both cities. Having summoned Gal-Ibbi [in marriage] seven Princes were begotten by Prince Kimbiya. The seven persons after they became big and great ascertaining that they were born from the womb of the tortoise, the mother of each of them, through shame ripping open (lit., splitting) each other, the whole seven died. North-western Province. NO. 167 THE STORY OF THE COBRA AND THE PRINCE In a country, during the time when a Prince is causing cattle to graze, the cattle having borne [calves] he goes to take milk in the morning every day, it is said. While he was going one day, at the time when he was bringing milk having met with a Nagaya and a female Cobra, [340] the Nagaya said, "Will you bring and give me every day, morning by morning, one leaf-cup of milk?" [341] he asked. The Prince said, "I will bring and give it." When he was bringing and giving it no long time, one day when he was taking the milk on that day the Nagaya was not [there]; the female Cobra and a Rat-snake were [there]. Well then, at his hand the female Cobra asked for the leaf-cup of milk. The Prince did not give it; he poured the milk into an ant-hill. At the time when the Nagaya came from the journey on which he went, the female Cobra says, "The Prince having come, not giving the milk went away." When she said this, the Nagaya having become angry went to the house at which the Prince stays, and remained at the corner of the mat on which the Prince sleeps. While it is [there] the Prince says [aloud to himself], "Now for a long time I was going and giving milk to a Nagaya and a female Cobra. To-day I went, taking the milk. When I was going the Nagaya was not [there]. Because the female Cobra and a Rat-snake were on the ant-hill, the female Cobra asked me for the milk. Not giving it I came home, having poured it into an ant-hill." The Nagaya having become angry regarding it, came back, and having bitten and killed the female Cobra, heaped her up. On the following morning, at the time when the Prince took the milk only the Nagaya was [there]; the female Cobra was killed. Further, the Nagaya says to the Prince, "Lie down there." The Prince without lying down began to run away. At the time when the Nagaya was going chasing after him the Prince fell. The Cobra having mounted on his breast, [said], "Do you without fear extend your tongue." The Prince afterwards in fear stretched out his tongue. On his tongue the Nagaya with the Nagaya's tongue wrote letters. "Having heard all kinds of creatures talk you will understand them. Do not tell it to anyone," [he said]. Afterwards the Nagaya died. He burnt up the Nagaya. The Prince having come home, while he is [there], when the Prince's wife is coming out from the house small red ants (kumbiyo) say, "A woman like the boards of this door, having trampled [on us] on going and coming, kills us," they said. The Prince having understood it, laughed. When his wife in various ways was asking, "Why did you laugh?" anger having come to him [he determined to burn himself on a funeral pyre, so] he said, "You in the morning having cooked food and apportioned it to me too, eat you also." Having eaten it, at the time when they are going, taking an axe, and a [water] gourd, and fire, two pigs having been digging and digging at a tank a pig says, "That Prince to-day will die." The [other] pig says, "The Prince will not die. Having constructed a funeral pyre (saeyak), the Prince will mount on it. Water-thirst having come, he will tell his wife to bring water," it said. "She having gone, when she is bringing the water she will slip and fall and will die," it said. He having constructed the funeral pyre, when the Prince mounted on it a water-thirst came. He told his wife to bring water. She went [to the tank for it], and having gone slipping through the amount of the weight, she fell in the water and died. Having put his wife on the pyre and burnt her, afterwards he went home. North-western Province. This story affords an illustration of a common belief in Ceylon, that cobras sometimes pair with rat-snakes. The Prince is evidently thought to have acted in a becoming manner in refusing to give the milk to the female cobra when she was improperly associating with the rat-snake during the absence of her mate. Regarding the drinking of milk by cobras, mention is made in the Jataka story No. 146 (vol. i, p. 311) of an offering of milk, among other things, made to Nagas. Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, F.R.S., the Secretary to the Zoological Society, has been good enough to reply as follows to my inquiry regarding the drinking of milk by cobras:--"I have not myself seen Cobras drinking milk, but I am sure that they will do so, and I see no reason to doubt it, as certainly many other snakes will drink milk." In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 382, there is a story the first part of which is a variant of this one, the latter part being a variant of the tale which follows. The daughter of a Naga King was beaten by a cow-herd, and complained to her father that the King of the country had done it. The Naga went at night as a snake, and while under the King's bed heard him tell the Queen that he had saved the girl from the cow-herd. Next day the Naga appeared before the King, offered to fulfil any wish of the King's, and at his request gave him the power of understanding the speech of all animals, informing him that he must be careful to let no one know of it (or, as the translator added in a note, the penalty would be death). When the King afterwards laughed on hearing the talk of some butterflies about their food, the Queen vainly asked the reason. After this occurred three times the Queen threatened to kill herself. The Naga, to save the King, by its magic power caused hundreds of sheep to cross a river in his presence. When the ram refused to return for a ewe she threatened to commit suicide, and reminded him that the King was about to lose his life because of his wife. The ram replied that the King was a fool to perish for the sake of his wife, and that the ewe might die, he had others. The King reflected that he had less wisdom than the ram, and when his wife again threatened to kill herself told her that she was free to do so; he had many wives and did not need her. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 394, a cow-herd who had relieved a Bonga (deity) of a heavy stone which had been placed on him, received from him the power to understand the language of ants. To give him this knowledge the Bonga merely blew into his ear. One day, when the man laughed heartily on hearing two ants abuse each other over a grain of rice, his wife insisted on being told the cause. On his telling her he lost the power conferred on him. NO. 168 THE ANT STORY At a city there is a King who knows the Ant language. At the time when the King and his Queen, both of them, are continuing to eat sugar-cane, a male Red Ant (kumbiya) and the Ant's wife having said, "Let us go to eat sugar-cane," went to the place where the two persons are eating it. Thereupon, the male Ant says, "Ane! Bolan, the things that women eat I cannot eat. Do you eat them. I will eat the things that the King is eating," the male Ant said to the Ant-wife. She having said, "It is good," out of the refuse which the King and Queen having eaten and eaten throw down, the male Ant eats the refuse which the King throws down, and the female Ant eats the refuse which the Queen throws down. Then the male Ant's belly being filled, he spoke to the Ant-wife, and said, "Now then, let us go." Then she says, "It is insufficient for me yet." Thereupon the male Ant says, "In any case women would be gluttonous; their bellies are large," he said. The King, understanding it, laughed. These two filling their bellies went away. Thereupon the Queen asks the King, "What did you laugh at? Please tell me," she asks. The King does not tell her. Well then, every day she asks. The King, being unable to get rid of it, went away into the midst of a forest. Having gone [there], while he was walking and walking in the forest, Sakra, having seen that this King is walking about hungry, creates five hundred Grey Monkeys (Semnopithecus) in the forest, plucking and plucking Mora [342] [fruit]. The party are eating [the fruits]. A female Monkey having said, "I don't want those things," quarrelled with the male Monkey. "If so, what shall I give thee?" the male Monkey asked. Having seen that there is a large Mora fruit at the end of the branch, she says, "Pluck that and give me it (dinan)." "One cannot go there to pluck that; eat thou these," the male Monkey said. The female Monkey said, "I will not." Thereupon the male Monkey says, "If five hundred are able to eat these, why canst thou not eat them?" Having said it, the male Monkey, taking a stick, beats her well. Then the female Monkey, weeping and weeping, was saying, "I will eat these." The King having been looking on at this quarrel, thinks, "These irrational animals are not afraid of their wives." Thinking, "Why am I in this fear?" he came to the King's palace [after] breaking a stick. At the very time when he was coming, the Queen said, "Tell me what it was you laughed at that day." Thereupon, at the time when the King, holding the Queen's hair-knot, was beating her, saying and saying, "Will you ask me again?" the Queen began to cry, saying and saying, "Ane! Lord, I will not ask again." Thereupon the King remained [there] quietly. North-western Province. In The Jataka, No. 386 (vol. iii, p. 175), a Naga King gave a King of Benares a spell which enabled him to understand all sounds. One day he heard ants conversing regarding the food that had fallen on the ground; on another occasion he heard flies talking; on a third he overheard more ant talk. As he laughed each time, the Queen pestered him about it and wanted to know the spell, to give which the Naga had warned him would ensure his instant death. When he was about to yield, Sakra saved him by advising him to beat his wife as the usual preliminary before repeating the spell to her; this effectually checked her curiosity. NO. 169 THE GAMARALA AND THE COCK In a certain country a Gamarala was continually quarrelling with his wife. In the Gamarala a disposition was manifested for ascertaining the motives of others. At the Gamarala's house there were twelve hens for one cock. One day, the two old people quarrelling while the Gamarala is on the raised veranda, the cock says to the hens, "Ane! What a fool this Gamarala is! I am keeping in order twelve wives; my master is unable to keep in order one wife. Should my wives make a disturbance I will beat the whole of them well," he said. The Gamarala having understood the motive for which the cock said it, and shame having been produced, went into the house and beat his wife well. After that, the woman and the Gamarala without a quarrel dwelt excellently [together]. Although this Gamarala can ascertain the motive in the minds of others, he does not tell it at any time to anybody. One day, the Gamarala and his wife having gone to the cattle shed (gawa maduwa), while they were [there] an ass asked a bull that having ploughed from morning was brought and tied [there], "Friend, is that work very difficult?" The friend to that remark says, "At present I have not strength to walk," he said. The Gamarala having understood that talk laughed. His wife teased him much and asked the reason why he laughed. Because of the woman's plaguing him the Gamarala said, "I laughed because this bull grinned at the cow." Uva Province. In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. i, p. 13), a merchant heard an ass advise a bull to feign sickness and refuse to draw the plough or to eat, so as to get a holiday. He made the ass pull the plough all day in its place. The ass then said to the bull that their master had ordered the bull to be killed if it refused to plough again, and the merchant laughed until he fell on his back. His wife pestered him for the reason, which he could not give on pain of instant death. As he was about to tell her, the dog rebuked a cock for crowing and flapping its wings when their master was going to die. The cock replied that if their master would give his wife a good beating with mulberry twigs he might enjoy life in peace. The merchant accordingly beat her until she was nearly senseless, and she became "submissive as a wife should be." NO. 170 CONCERNING THE GOLDEN PEACOCK In a certain country there is a King, it is said. Near the city there is also a mountain; on the mountain a [golden-coloured] Peacock lodges. A Vaedda of that country saw that the Peacock lodges on the mountain; having seen it the Vaedda for a long time made efforts to seize the Peacock. At that time the Peacock, getting to know that this Vaedda is saying, "I will seize it," went to another mountain. Having gone, during the time while it was at the mountain this Vaedda got to know of it. Learning about it, the Vaedda went near that mountain also, and made efforts to seize the Peacock. Age having gone to the Vaedda while he was trying to catch [it], when he was about (lit., making) to die he told the Vaedda's son about the matter of the Peacock. While saying it the Vaedda died. After the Vaedda's son became big he went near the mountain on which the Peacock lodged. Having gone there, owing to its freedom from danger (abiyata) he was unable to seize this Peacock. "I at least must seize this Peacock," he thought. After that, taking a pair of noose-posts (mala-kanu), and catching also a peahen, he went there as the first light came, and having fixed the pair of noose-posts he made the peahen cry out. When it was crying out the Peacock came and perched (waehaewwa) near the peahen. Thereupon it was fastened at the pair of noose-posts, and while it was fastened the Vaedda went and seized the Peacock. The Vaedda, seizing it, released the Peacock from the pair of noose-posts. Having released it and said [to himself] that the Peacock is dead, he placed it on one side. Having put it aside he opened the noose of the noose-posts. In the twinkling of an eye the Peacock, having been as though dead, flew away. The Vaedda sorrowed more than his first sorrow [at being unable to catch it]. The Peacock having flown away, without staying in that country went to another country. In that country it began to lodge on a mountain of that country also. At the time when a Vaedda of that country was going hunting he met with the Peacock alone, and told the King of that country, "There is a gold-coloured Peacock at such and such a cave." When he said it the King caused the notification tom-toms to be beaten, and told all the Vaeddas of that country to come. Then all the Vaeddas came. After they came the King said, "On such and such a mountain a Peacock lodges. Catching the Peacock come back." Then the Vaeddas having gone tried to catch it; the Vaeddas were unable to catch it, so the Vaeddas told the King, "We cannot catch it." Then the King having become angry with the Vaeddas said, "Without staying in my country go ye to another country." So the Vaeddas went away. Out of them one Vaedda stopped and said to the King, "O Lord, Your Majesty, I will go quite alone and come back [after] catching it." Then having said, "It is good," the King asked, "To catch the Peacock what are the things you want?" The Vaedda said, "I want, for five days, food-expenses and a pair of noose-posts." So the King gave them. Then the Vaedda, taking the articles also, went near the mountain. Having gone there, he stayed for three or four days to get to know the time when the Peacock comes and goes for food; he learnt the times when the Peacock comes and goes. [After] learning them having fixed the pair of noose-posts in the morning before it became light, he made the peahen [which he had caught and brought with him] call in the very same manner as at first. Then the Peacock came and perched on the pair of noose-posts [and was caught]. Thereupon the Vaedda, taking the Peacock, came near the King. The King took the Peacock, and gave the Vaedda many presents and distinctions. Having given them he kept the Peacock. When it had been there in that way a considerable time, a King of another country, taking his army also, came to seize that city. At the time when he came, this King having prepared to go to the war and having come carrying the Peacock, said, "Should I win in this war I will free thee; if not, I will kill thee." Then the Peacock said, "Taking my feather, and placing it on your head, and tying it there, should you go you will win." So the King having gone in that manner conquered in that war. Having conquered he came to the palace, and having come near the Peacock, he says, "By thy power, indeed, I conquered in this war." Having said, "Because of it, half the kingdom is for thee, the other half for me," dividing the kingdom he remained there. North-western Province. In The Jataka, No. 159 (vol. ii, p. 23), and also No. 491 (vol. iv, p. 210), there is a story of a Golden Peacock. "The egg which contained him had a shell as yellow as a kanikara bud; and when he broke the shell, he became a Golden Peacock, fair and lovely, with beautiful red lines under his wings." We learn that "when day dawned, as he sat upon the hill [at Dandaka], watching the sun rise, he composed a Brahma spell to preserve himself safe in his own feeding-ground." It was as follows:-- There he rises, king all-seeing, Making all things bright with his golden light. Thee I worship, glorious being, Making all things bright with thy golden light. Keep me safe, I pray Through the coming day. [343] During the reign of six Kings it could not be captured on account of the spell, but at last a hunter with the assistance of a tame peahen owing to whose presence the bird forgot to utter the spell, succeeded in catching it in a spring net. [344] The Peacock proved to the satisfaction of the King that he had been a devout monarch himself in a former life, keeping the five Precepts, and after being rewarded with an existence in the heaven of Sakra had been re-born on earth as a Golden Peacock. After this he was allowed to return to "the golden hill of Dandaka." The bird admitted that "all who eat of me become immortal and have eternal youth." In the second story the Peacock was released by the hunter, whom he converted to Buddhism. In all the earlier part of this Jataka tale there is no trace of Buddhism; the Peacock was a sun worshipper, pure and simple. It is evident that the latter part has been tacked on to it in order to give it a Buddhist complexion. It is possible, therefore, that the Sinhalese form of the tale preserves an early version which the composer of the Jataka story modified to suit his purpose. See my note in vol. i, p. 240, on the story of the Jackal and the Turtle. NO. 171 THE STORY OF THE BRAHMANA'S KITTEN In a certain country a Brahmana reared a kitten, it is said. He said that he reared the kitten in order to give it [in marriage] to the greatest person of all in this world. After the kitten became big he took it to give to the Sun, the Divine King. [345] Having taken it there he gave it to the Sun, the Divine King. The Sun, the Divine King, asked, "What is the reason why you brought this kitten?" Then the Brahmana said, "Rearing this kitten since the day when it was little, [346] I have brought it to give to the greatest person of all in this world." Then the Sun, the Divine King, said, "Although I fall as sun-heat (awwa) like fire, into the world, there is a greater person than I. Mr. Rain-cloud [347] having come, when he has spread his car for himself I am unable to do anything. The gentleman is greater than I. Because of it, having taken it give it to the gentleman." After that, the Brahmana having taken the kitten gave it to the Rain-cloud. Then the Rain-cloud asked, "What is the reason why you brought this kitten?" Then the Brahmana said, "I reared this kitten since the day when it was little, to give it [in marriage] to the Sun, the Divine King. When I brought and gave it to the Sun, the Divine King, he said, 'There is a greater person than I. Give it to Mr. Rain-cloud.' Because of it, I brought this kitten to give it to you to marry." Then the Rain-cloud says, "I, the Rain-cloud, having come, what of my car's spreading out and remaining! The Wind-cloud having come, and smashed and torn me into bits, throws me down. He is greater than I. Because of it give it to him." After that, the Brahmana having taken the kitten gave it to the Wind-cloud. Then the Wind-cloud asked, "What did you bring this kitten for?" Then the Brahmana said, "I reared this kitten since the day when it was little, to give it [in marriage] to [His Majesty of] the Sun race. The Sun, the Divine King, told me to give it to the Rain-cloud. The Rain-cloud told me to give it to the Wind-cloud. Because of it, I brought it to give it to you to marry." Then the Wind-cloud says, "I, the Wind-cloud, having gone, what of my going throwing down the Rain-cloud and smashing the trees! I am unable to do anything to the Ground [348] Ant-hill. However much wind blows, the Ant-hill does not even shake. Because of it he is greater than I. Take it and give it to him." After that, the Brahmana having taken the kitten gave it to the Ground Ant-hill. Then the Ground Ant-hill asked, "What have you brought this kitten for?" Then the Brahmana says, "I reared this kitten to give it [in marriage] to His Majesty the Sun. When I brought it near the Sun, the Divine King, he told me to give it to the Rain-cloud. The Rain-cloud told me to give it to the Wind-cloud. The Wind-cloud said, 'There is a greater than I, the Ground Ant-hill. Give it to him.' Because of it I brought it to give it to you." Then the Ground Ant-hill said, "The Sun, the Divine King, can do nothing to me, the Rain-cloud can do nothing to me, the Wind-cloud can do nothing to me, but there is a greater person than I, the Bull (gon-madaya). He having come and gored me, smashes me and throws me down. Because of that give it to the Bull." After that, the Brahmana having taken the kitten gave it to the Bull. Then the Bull asked, "What did you bring this kitten for?" The Brahmana says, "To give this kitten [in marriage] to His Majesty the Sun, I reared it since the day when it was little. When I brought it there, the Sun, the Divine King, told me to give it to the Rain-cloud. When I brought it near the Rain-cloud he told me to give it to the Wind-cloud. When I brought it there he told me to give it to the Ground Ant-hill. When I brought it there he said, 'The Bull is greater than I; give it to him.' Because of it I brought it to give it to you." Then the Bull says, "There is a greater person than I, the Leopard. It is true that I trample on the Ant-hill, and gore it and throw it down; but the Leopard chases me, and tears me, and eats my flesh, therefore he is greater than I. Because of it give it to him." After that, the Brahmana having taken the kitten gave it to the Leopard. Then the Leopard asked, "What did you bring this kitten for?" The Brahmana says, "This kitten reared I to give [in marriage] to His Majesty the Sun. Well then, having walked from there in this and this manner, the Bull told me to give it to you. On account of that I brought it to give it to you." Then the Leopard says, "The Cat is greater than I; my Preceptor is the Cat. He taught me to climb up trees, but I have not yet learnt how to descend. [349] Because of it give it to the Cat." After that, the Brahmana having taken the kitten gave it to the Cat. Then the Cat asked, "What did you bring this kitten for?" The Brahmana says, "For you I did not rear this kitten. Having reared it to give [it in marriage] to the most powerful person of all in the world, I took it to give to the Sun, the Divine King. Then he told me to give it to the Rain-cloud. When I took it near him he told me to give it to the Wind-cloud. When I took it near him he told me to give it to the Ground Ant-hill. When I took it near him he said, 'There is a greater person than I, the Bull.' When I took it near him he told me to give it to the Leopard. When I took it near him the Leopard said, 'Because the Cat is my Preceptor give it to the Cat.' Therefore I brought this kitten to give it to you." After that, the Cat having said, "It is good," marrying the kitten it remained there. North-western Province. In the Literary Supplement to The Examiner of Ceylon for 1875, it was stated that the cheetah (leopard) applied to the cat to teach him the art of climbing, but the cat forgot to show him how to descend. From that time the cheetah never spares the cat if he can catch him, but out of veneration for his old teacher he places the body on some elevation and worships it [that is, makes obeisance to it], instead of eating it. (Quoted by Mr. J. P. Lewis in The Orientalist, vol. ii, p. 149). In the short tales at the end of The Adventures of Raja Rasalu, (Panjab, Swynnerton), p. 179, the tiger was taught by the cat. When he thought he had learnt everything the cat knew, the tiger sprang at it, intending to eat it; but the cat climbed up a tree, and the tiger was unable to follow it. The story is repeated in Indian Nights' Entertainment, p. 350. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 56, an ambitious Candala girl who determined to marry a universal monarch saw the supreme King bow down to a hermit. She followed the latter, but when he prostrated himself at a temple of Siva she attached herself to that God. A dog behaved in such a manner at the shrine that she followed the dog, which entered a Candala's house and rolled at the feet of a young Candala; the girl therefore was married to him. In the same work, vol. ii, p. 72, a hermit transformed a young mouse into a girl, and reared her. When she had grown up he offered her to the Sun, saying he wished to marry her to some mighty one. He was referred in turn to the Cloud and the Mountains, but the Himalaya said that the Mice were stronger than he and dug holes in him. She was then transformed into a mouse once more, and married a forest mouse. This latter form of the tale is given in The Fables of Pilpay, in which it was the girl who wished to be married to a powerful and invincible husband. In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 168, the parents of a beautiful girl of a semi-aboriginal caste determined to marry her to the greatest person in the world. They took her in turn to the Sun, the Cloud, the Wind, the Mountain, and the Ground Rat. When they applied to the rat it informed them that their own people were more powerful than the rats, as they dug out and ate them; so in the end the girl was married to a man of their own caste. NO. 172 THE STORY OF THE MANGO BIRD In a certain country a hen bird is eating the mangoes at a Wild Mango tree, it is said. While a man was chopping the earthen ridges in the field at which is the Wild Mango tree, having seen the Mango Bird [350] the man went up the tree, and having caught the Mango Bird and descended from the tree to the ground, struck the Mango Bird on the root of the tree. Having struck it he asked the Mango Bird, "Mango Bird, was that day good [or] is to-day good?" [351] Then the bird says, "Both that day was good and to-day is good Through eating the mangoes of a Mango tree, And looking if hardness in Mango root there be." After that, the man having placed the Mango Bird in a gap in the earthen ridge in the rice field, in which there was water, asks the bird, "Mango Bird, was that day good, [or] is to-day good?" Then the bird says, "Both that day was good and to-day is good Through eating the mangoes of a Mango tree, Looking if hardness in Mango root there be, And 'mid the lower lands the frolic watery." After that, as the man was coming home taking the bird, there was a grass field by the path. Having struck the bird [on the ground] in the field, the man asked, "Mango Bird, was that day good, [or] is to-day good?" Then the bird says, "Both that day was good and to-day is good Through eating the mangoes of a Mango tree, Looking if hardness in Mango root there be, 'Mid the lower lands the frolic watery, Keeping up old customs on the grassy lea." After that, the man having taken the bird, as he was going home struck the bird on the road stile, and asked, "Mango Bird, was that day good, [or] is to-day good?" Then the bird says, "Both that day was good and to-day is good Through eating the mangoes of a Mango tree, Looking if hardness in Mango root there be, 'Mid the lower lands the frolic watery, Keeping up old customs on the grassy lea, Finding that the road stile would be crossed by me." After that, the man having taken the bird, as he was going to go (sic) into the house struck it on the door-frame, and asked the bird, "Mango Bird, was that day good, [or] is to-day good?" Then the bird says, "Both that day was good and to-day is good Through eating the mangoes of a Mango tree, Looking if hardness in Mango root there be, 'Mid the lower lands the frolic watery, Keeping up old customs on the grassy lea, Finding that the road stile would be crossed by me, Learning the defects of the door-frame's carpentry." After that, the man, having [broken the ligature round the end of a torch, and] lighted the torch, and set the bird upon [the flame, to singe off the feathers], asked, "Mango Bird, was that day good, [or] is to-day good?" Then the bird says, "Both that day was good and to-day is good Through eating the mangoes of a Mango tree, Looking if hardness in Mango root there be, 'Mid the lower lands the frolic watery, Keeping up old customs on the grassy lea, Finding that the road stile would be crossed by me, Learning the defects of the door-frame's carpentry, Fracture of the tying of the torch by thee." After that, the man cut up the bird with the bill-hook, and says, "Mango Bird, was that day good, [or] is to-day good?" Then the bird says, "Both that day was good and to-day is good Through eating the mangoes of a Mango tree, Looking if hardness in Mango root there be, 'Mid the lower lands the frolic watery, Keeping up old customs on the grassy lea, Finding that the road stile would be crossed by me. Learning the defects of the door-frame's carpentry, Fracture of the tying of the torch by thee, Looking the smith's bill-hook's cutting to see." After that, the man put the bird in the cooking vessel, and having placed it on the hearth [to cook], asked, "Mango Bird, was that day good, [or] is to-day good?" Then the bird says, "Both that day was good and to-day is good Through eating the mangoes of a Mango tree, Looking if hardness in Mango root there be, 'Mid the lower lands the frolic watery, Keeping up old customs on the grassy lea, Finding that the road stile would be crossed by me, Learning the defects of the door-frame's carpentry, Fracture of the tying of the torch by thee, Looking the smith's bill-hook's cutting to see, Looking at the sittings in the potter's pottery." After that, this man, having apportioned the cooked rice on the plate, and having apportioned the flesh of the bird, while he was eating [it] asked, "Mango Bird, was that day good, [or] is to-day good?" Then the bird says, "Both that day was good and to-day is good Through eating the mangoes of a Mango tree, Looking if hardness in Mango root there be, 'Mid the lower lands the frolic watery, Keeping up old customs on the grassy lea, Finding that the road stile would be crossed by me, Learning the defects of the door-frame's carpentry, Fracture of the tying of the torch by thee, Looking the smith's bill-hook's cutting to see, Looking at the sittings in the potter's pottery. Sir, behold! Be good enough to remain looking out." Having said [this], the Mango Bird flew out of the man's nose. The man died just as the bird was flying away. North-western Province. The Sinhalese query and rhyme are:-- �tamba kirilliye, edada honda adada honda? "Edat hondayi, adat hondayi, �tamba gahaka aetamba kaen, �tamba mule hayiya baelin, Owiti maenda paen keliyen, Pitiye sameyan keruwen, Man-kadulle yana eññan deggatten, Uluwasse wadu-hadukan iganagatin, Hulu-atte baemma kaedin, Aciriye kaette kaepun baeluwen, Badahaelaye walande indun baeluwen. Ralahami, On! Bala-inda hondayi." There is a variant in the Sierra Leone district, given in Cunnie Rabbit, Mr. Spider, and the Other Beef (Cronise and Ward), p. 160. A devil who lived near a town had forbidden traps to be set in the "bush" [forest and bushes] there. A stranger set a trap, and caught a pigeon. The pigeon then told him to carry it to his house. When he had done this, it told him to kill it; then to pluck off its feathers; then to clean it; to put the pot on the fire; to cut it up; to cook it immediately; to put in salt; to put in pepper; to taste the food; and lastly it told him to eat it up. He complied with all the instructions. In the evening he went to the "bush" again. When he opened his mouth to speak, the bird flew out, the man died, and his body was carried off by the devil. In a Soninka story of Senegambia in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil), p. 145, there are incidents of the same type. A hunter met with a female gazelle, which recommended him to look for a larger animal. He fired at it, but it did not fall. Then he killed it with a charmed bullet, saying, "Eh! Who is the stronger?" The animal replied, "Oh, oh! It is not finished!" It made the same remark when he cut its throat, when he skinned it, and also when he carried it home and learnt that his wife and son had died of colic. The man said no more words, but cut it up and placed it in a pot on the fire, on which it repeated the words. After cooking it for some hours he found the meat as hard as at first, and it murmured, "It is not finished." Neighbours seeing him cooking all day inquired what was in the pot. A voice came from it, "An antelope that won't be cooked. It is not finished." At last the man threw a magical powder into the pot, and the meat then became cooked, and he ate it without any ill result. NO. 173 HOW THE PARROT EXPLAINED THE LAW-SUIT In a certain country there is a King, it is said. For the King there is not a Queen. Near the royal palace there is a widow woman; the King is associating with that widow woman. The King gives the woman at the rate of five hundred masuran a day. While they were living in that way, another man thought of conversing much with that woman. Having thought it, one day the man having come near the woman, says, "Ane! Every day in a dream I am conversing much with you regarding the doubt in my mind." Then the woman said, "If so, seeking five hundred masuran come and converse much with me." After that, the man, seeking five hundred masuran, came on the following day. Having come there he gave the five hundred masuran into the hand of the woman. After that, the woman, taking the masuran and having placed them in the house, says to the man, "Ha; now then, should we converse much in the dream it is so much, should we converse in reality it is so much (that is, they are equal). Now then, our talk is finished; go you away." Having said it she neither gave the masuran nor conversed much with the man; she drove the man away. After she drove him away the man instituted a law-suit before the King who associates with the woman. After he instituted it, when hearing the action the King, because he is associating with the woman, declared judgment for the woman to win, and the man's [claim] came to be rejected. While the Parrot which had been reared in the palace was [there], this man's [claim] comes to be rejected. On account of it, the Parrot having gone there said to the King, "How was the way the woman won that law-suit? Is it not as though one saw a reflection below the water, what one says in a dream?" Having said [this], the Parrot explained the law-suit, and the five hundred masuran became the property of the man. Owing to it, the woman, through enmity against the Parrot, catching the Parrot and having given the Parrot into the hand of her girl (daughter), said, "Pluck this Parrot and cook it, and place it [for me to eat] when I come." Having said [this] the woman again went to the palace. The girl, having plucked the Parrot and finished it and placed the Parrot there, went into the house for the bill-hook in order to cut up the Parrot. At the place where the Parrot was put there was a covered drain. The Parrot having gone rolling and rolling over fell into that drain. When that girl, taking the bill-hook to cut up the Parrot, came there, the Parrot was not [there]. After that, the girl through fear of that woman having killed a chicken which was there, cooked it, and placed [it ready]. That woman having come and said, "Where is it? Quickly give me the Parrot's flesh," asked for it. Then that girl brought the fowl's flesh and gave it. Well then, that woman while eating the fowl's flesh, says, "Is it the Parrot's flesh! This I am eating is indeed the mouth that cleared up the law-suit! This I am eating is indeed the Parrot which said that he ought to give the masuran to that man!" Saying and saying it, she ate all the flesh of the chicken. When she was saying these things that Parrot stayed at the end of the drain; keeping them in his mind he remained silent. When cooking at the house, having washed the cooking pots they throw down the water at the end of the drain in which is the Parrot. Having squeezed coconut [in water, to make coconut milk], they also throw the coconut refuse there. When the Parrot, continuing to eat these things, was there a considerable time the Parrot's feathers came [again]. The woman thoroughly performed meritorious acts. The woman, having told a carpenter, causing a statue of Buddha to be made and placing the statue in the house, makes flower offerings evening and morning to it. After that, the Parrot having gone near a Barbet, said, "Ane! Friend, you must render an assistance to me." The Barbet asked, "What is the other assistance?" Then the Parrot said, "In the house of such and such a woman there is a statue of Buddha made of wood. You go and prepare a house (chamber) in it of the kind that I may be inside it. When I have gone inside it block it up." Afterwards the Barbet having said "Ha" and come with the Parrot, the Barbet dug out a house in the statue of the size that the Parrot can be in it. At the time when the Parrot crept into it, having blocked it up from the outer side so that they were unable to know the place where it was dug, the Barbet went away. After that, when the Parrot was there a considerable time, that woman every day in the morning and evening having come near the statue, and said stanzas, and made flower offerings, goes away. The Parrot every day remains listening. One day the woman having come and said stanzas, when she was making the flower offerings the Parrot being inside the statue said, "Now then, indeed! You are near going to the God-world. Still you have been unable to do one [really] meritorious act. Just as you are doing that meritorious act they will take you to the God-world while you are alive." Then the woman thought, "After the speaking of the statue, I am indeed near going to the God-world." Thinking it, she asked, "What is that meritorious act?" Then the Parrot said, "Having taken only this statue of Buddha half a mile (haetaekma) away and placed it there, and put all the other things in this house, and locked the house up, and sat outside, and set fire to this house, that indeed is the meritorious act." After that, the woman having taken the statue of Buddha and placed it half a mile away, and come back, and put all the other things into the house, and shut the door of the house, and locked it, the woman, sitting outside, set fire to the house. While the house is burning the woman is looking on, having said, "To take me to the God-world they will come at this very instant, they will come at this very instant." Then the Parrot, having been inside the statue of Buddha, came out, and having come flying says to this woman, "Haven't you gone yet to the God-world? There! Look! It is indeed in the God-world that that fire is blazing. Thou atest my mouth? For thy eating the mouth of the Parrot which explained the law-suit, this is what the Parrot did. There!" Having said [this] the Parrot flew away and went to the flock of Parrots. North-western Province. In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 118, a woodcutter dreamt that he married a dancing-girl and gave her a thousand gold muhrs. A dancing-girl who heard him say this determined to try to get the money from him, so she claimed him as her husband, demanded it from him, and took the matter before the Raja. Her friends having supported her statements the Raja could not decide the case, but a merchant's clever parrot (Vikrama Maharaja in disguise) gave judgment in favour of the woodcutter. When the girl afterwards obtained the parrot as a reward for her dancing, she ordered her maid to cook it. While the servant went for water after plucking it, the parrot got into the drain for kitchen refuse, the servant substituted a chicken for it, and the dancing-girl ate this, jeering meanwhile at the parrot. After its feathers grew again, it flew off and perched behind the statue of the deity in a temple. When the girl prayed to be transported to heaven, the parrot replied, "Your prayer is heard," and told her to sell everything, give away the money, break down her house, and return in seven days. She obeyed, and was accompanied by a crowd when she returned. Then the parrot flew over her head, told her it was a chicken she ate, and jeered at her. She fell down, dashed her head on a stone, and died. In Folk-Tales of the Telugus (G. R. Subramiah Pantulu), p. 17, a courtesan demanded one hundred pagodas from a Brahmana who had seen her in a dream. He appealed to the King, who promised to give her payment. He caused the money to be hung from the top of a post, and told her to take it out of a mirror placed beneath. In the Tota Kahani (Small), p. 14, a merchant who had left his parrot in charge of his house heard on his return from a journey that his wife had misconducted herself. Thinking the parrot had informed him she plucked out its feathers and threw it out, pretending the cat had run off with it. The parrot lived in a tomb at a cemetery on fragments of food left by travellers. When the merchant drove his wife away she went to the cemetery, and heard a voice--the parrot's--from a tomb telling her she should be reconciled to her husband after shaving her head and fasting for forty days. She did this; the parrot then told its master the wife's story was true regarding its being eaten by a cat, and that God had sent it to reconcile the husband and wife. The husband then brought her home again. In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 163, when a merchant who had made a bet of five horses that a courtesan could not induce him to visit her, stated that he had been with her in a dream, she claimed the horses. The King was unable to give a decision, but the Minister's wife settled the matter by allowing her to see the reflection of the horses at the edge of a sheet of water. In the same work, p. 172, after the King of Videha had married the daughter of the King of Pañcala, the latter induced his daughter to send him a clever parrot that was assisting the former King against him. He plucked it bare, threw it out of the window, a falcon caught it, and being promised daily food placed it in a temple, where it got hid and ordered offerings to be made daily by the King, who thought this was the deity's voice. When its feathers had grown, it induced the King, Queen, Prince, and Ministers to come with shaven heads to receive forgiveness of their sins, and then it flew aloft jeering at them. NO. 174 THE PARROT AND THE CROW A crow beginning to roost at the house at which a Parrot roosts, when much time had gone, as those two were talking together the Crow asked the Parrot, "Friend, what do you eat?" Then the Parrot said, "I eat fruits possessing a good flavour." Having said, "If so, I also must eat the [same] kinds of fruits," the Crow went with the Parrot to the midst of the forest. When it was eating fruits for many days, as the Crow was unaccustomed to that food, not having eaten the food [before], it arrived at great privation. Thereafter, at the time when the Parrot asked at its hand [regarding it], the Crow says, "This food, indeed, not being customary for me, from somewhere or other having found flesh you must give me it. If not, I shall now eat the flesh of your body," it said. The Parrot said, "If so, stay there a little until I have sought for flesh and returned," and went to seek flesh. Having gone, and walked and walked, being unable to find and take a little flesh from anywhere, it came to the royal house, and when it looked a piece of meat had been hung up in the cooking house. Having seen it, the Parrot went near the Crow and said, "Friend, there was not flesh anywhere, only inside the [cooking] house at the royal house a piece of meat has been hung. I will go on the wall and cut the string of the piece of meat. When I cut it you, taking it, fly away." The Parrot having gone, cut the string that was tied to the piece of meat. When it was falling on the ground, the Crow, taking the piece of meat, flew away. Having gone it ate it with pleasure. That day the cooking man, being without meat to cook for the King, went to the King and said, "There is no meat to cook for you, Sir, to-day. In this manner a Crow took it away." Thereupon he told him to seek the Crow and shoot it. Thereupon this Crow having said, "This Parrot is better than I for walking and seeking food," frightened it, and said that it was better for seeking and bringing meat; and it employed the Parrot, and making it seek meat began to eat [in that way]. Then this Parrot for the purpose of causing this Crow to be killed having settled upon the roof of the house of the man whom [the King] told to shoot and kill that Crow, spoke to him. The man saying, "A Parrot that speaks well!" went to catch it. The Parrot having stayed looking, without going away, until the time when it is caught, said at the hand of the man, "Should you come with me, I will show and give you the Crow which ate that King's meat." Having said "It is good," the man went on the ground. The Parrot having gone [through the air] above, remained talking and talking with the Crow. Thereupon the man shot the Crow; the Parrot flew off and went away. The King asked, "How did you shoot to-day the Crow that you were unable to shoot for so many days?" The man said, "A Parrot settled on the roof of my house. Having remained there while I went to catch the Parrot, the Parrot said to me, 'I will show you the place where the Crow is.' Afterwards, having gone with the Parrot I shot the Crow." Thereupon the King, in order to ask the Parrot about these matters, told him to seek the Parrot, and come back. He was unable to find the Parrot. Central Province. NO. 175 THE CROW AND THE DARTER In a country, at the time when a Crow is walking about and seeking food, having seen a Darter [352] eating small fishes, [353] and gone near the Darter, he said, "Friend, because there is no food for me assist me." Thereupon the Darter having said, "It is good; I will give you food," and having constructed the nest on the high ground at the side of the tank at which the Darter stays, and told the Crow to be in the nest, the Darter brought small fishes, and gave [them to him] near the nest. When he was [there] a long time eating the fishes, the Crow, having thought of going to his country in which he stayed [before], said to the Darter, "Friend, I must go to my village," he said. The Darter says, "Why are you going?" When he asked, "Can't you remain and eat the small fishes I give?" to say otherwise, because there was not a fault of the Darter's the Crow says, "Friend, because there is one fault at your hand I must go," he said. [As an excuse] for the Crow to go, because there was no fault he says to the Darter, "Friend, every day at the time when you go to seek fish, drawing up your anus to me you go to the bottom of the water. Because it is so I cannot endure it." "If so, go you away," the Darter said. North-western Province. The latter part of the story reminds one of the rude-mannered peacock of the Jataka story No. 32, and also of one which lost its election as King of the birds owing to its indecent behaviour. Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes) vol. ii, p. 332. NO. 176 CONCERNING THE CROWS AND THE OWLS In a rock cave Crows and Owls made their dwelling. At night (rae dawasata) the eyes of the Owls see; the Crows' do not see. Night after night having fallen, when the Crows and Owls had eaten, [the Owls] seized and seized the Crows, and began to pluck off the feathers [and eat them]. By that act the Crows began to be destroyed. Thereafter the Crows spoke together: "Should we [continue to] make our dwelling with this party we shall all be destroyed. Because of it let us go to another country." Out of that set one Crow said, "You must make me stay [in order] to come [after] having killed the Owls. You all go." He said further, "Having plucked off my feathers [until I am] like a pine-apple fruit, go ye." Afterwards those Crows having seized that Crow and plucked off his feathers [until he was] like a pine-apple fruit, went away. The Owls having come, when they looked there was not a single Crow. They asked that Crow, "What is it, friend, that has happened to you?" Then the Crow says, "Ane! Friend, they said to me also, 'Let us go.' Because I said, 'I will not,' they seized me and plucked off my feathers, and the whole of them went away." Afterwards the Owls said, "Friend, can you show us the country in which the Crows are?" Then the Crow says, "If you will assist me a little I can show you it. Until the time when my feathers come you must bring and give me food." The Owls, having said, "It is good," nourished the Crow until the time when its feathers came. It having said, "Ane! Friend, as it becomes evening a chill strikes me. At the time when you are coming you must bring and give me a very little firewood to warm me on account of the cold," the Owls one by one brought and gave the firewood. It heaped up on both sides of the doorway all this firewood that they are bringing. At the time when all the Owls were inside the rock cave, after they were there, the Crow, having heaped all that firewood in the doorway, stealing a fire-stick and having come [with it], set fire to the firewood at the doors. All the Owls having been burnt, became ashes. The Crow went to the party of Crows. North-western Province. In Le Pantcha-Tantra of the Abbé Dubois, the owls lived in a cave, the crows in a great tree some distance away. The Chief of the owls intended to cause himself to be elected King of the Birds. The crows foresaw the dangers to which this would expose them, and one of their Ministers offered to endeavour to save them, and going as a humble suppliant became an intimate friend of the owls. He afterwards went to the crows, returned with them at noon, each carrying firewood, blocked up the entrance to the cave while the owls were asleep, and then set fire to the wood and suffocated them. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 64, the crows lived in a great banyan tree; at night the owls killed many on account of their preventing the owl-King's election as King of the Birds. By his own advice the feathers of a crow-Minister were plucked out, and he was left under the tree. When the owls found him he told them that this was his punishment for recommending the crows to conciliate the owls; he was taken to their cave and fed well until his feathers grew afresh. He then offered to bring the crows back to their tree where the owls could kill them, and at his recommendation the crows blocked the entrance to their cave with grass and leaves. The crow then fetched all the crows, each one carrying a stick and he himself a firebrand, the grass and sticks were set on fire, and all the owls were destroyed. In Les Avadanas (Julien), No. V, vol. i, p. 31, the story is similar. It is also given in a contracted form in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 144. NO. 177 THE FEMALE LARK In a certain country a female Lark [354] having laid two eggs on the path on which they go and come at a rock, remained sitting on the two with affection. One day, when a tusk elephant was going along the path the elephant placed its foot on the two eggs; so the two eggs were broken to pieces. Owing to it the female Lark became at enmity with the tusk elephant, thinking that she must kill it; and one day having gone near the Frog the bird said, "Friend, laying two eggs on the path on which all go and come at such and such a rock, I remained sitting on the two with affection. [Although] so many persons went by there, nothing happened to those two eggs. One day the tusk elephant having come, trampled on my two eggs, and having broken them to pieces went away. On account of it, of what assistance will you be to me?" Then the Frog says, "Ane! Friend, I will be of any assistance you tell me." After that, the female Lark, having said, "It is good," and having gone from there, went near the Crow. Having gone there, she says to the Crow, "Ane! Friend, having laid two eggs on the path on which all go and come at such and such a rock, I remained sitting on the two with affection. [Although] so many persons went along the path, nothing happened to my two eggs. One day the tusk elephant having come, trampled on the two eggs, and having broken them to pieces went away. On account of it, of what assistance will you be to me?" Then the Crow says, "Ane! Friend, I will be of any assistance you tell me." After that, the female Lark said, "It is good." At that time, there not being water in the water-holes there was much drought. One day the tusk elephant, being without water, is walking about seeking it. The bird having seen it,--in the garden where the tusk elephant was walking there was a very deep pool like a tunnel,--the bird having gone near the Frog, said, "Friend, to-day the tusk elephant being without water is walking about seeking it. In the garden in which the tusk elephant is walking there is a pool like a tunnel. You go to the pool and cry out. Then the tusk elephant having said, 'There is water indeed,' will come there." After that, the Frog came and cried out in the pool. Then the tusk elephant thought, "At the place where that Frog is crying out there will indeed be water." Thinking "At places where there is nothing Frogs do not cry out," it went there. When it was listening and looking, the tusk elephant fell into that pool which was like a tunnel. Well then, the tusk elephant cannot come ashore from there. The Frog, having come ashore, says to the female Lark, "Look there. Friend, I was of another assistance [to you]. Now then, you look [after it yourself]." Having said it the Frog went to a tank. After that, the female Lark having gone near the Crow, says to the Crow, "Ane! Friend, that tusk elephant which broke into bits my two eggs has fallen into the pool in such and such a garden. You go and pluck out its eyes, and pierce and pierce its face in two or three places with your bill, and come back." After that, the Crow having come, plucked out the tusk elephant's two eyes and ate them; and having pierced and pierced the face in two or three places with its bill, came ashore, and said to the female Lark, "Look there. Friend, I was of another assistance [to you]. Now then, you look [after it yourself]." Having said it the Crow went away. After that, the female Lark having gone near the Bee says to the Bee, "Friend, the Frog was of assistance to me, the Crow also was of assistance to me; only you have not yet been. The tusk elephant that broke to pieces my two eggs has fallen into the pool at such and such a garden, and his eyes have been plucked out. You go and beat [and sting] his head." After that, the Bee having come and beaten the tusk elephant's head, the tusk elephant died in that very pool. Afterwards the Bee also went away. On account of it, they still say in the form of verse:-- Being a handful merely, the Bush Lark Hen Got a tusker killed. Was it right, O Hen? [355] North-western Province. According to a variant from Uva, the nest of the bird, containing its two young ones, fell on the path on which the elephants passed. The bird begged them to be careful, and not to tread on them, but the king of the elephants deliberately trampled on the young birds. With the help of the crow, the blue-fly, and the frog, the elephant was killed, and the bird then strutted about on its dead body. With regard to the elephant's falling into the pool and being unable to get out, the very thing occurred during a severe drought in the North-western Province in 1877. At a small pool in the upper part of a low rock in the forest, a few miles from Maha-Uswaewa, my station at that time, a female elephant and her young one fell into the water, and were unable to escape because of the steep smooth sides. When I heard of it I sent an overseer with some men, to feed them and release them by throwing in a quantity of branches. This succeeded better than we anticipated; by mounting on the heap of branches they managed to escape during the night, so that we did not capture them as we intended. When the narrator of the folk-story described the pool as being "like a tunnel," he doubtless meant a vertical tunnel or shaft, having steep sides up which the elephant could not ascend. In The Jataka, No. 357 (vol. iii, p. 115), this folk-tale is given, with an evident addition at the beginning, so as to adapt it for service as illustrating the goodness of the Bodhisatta, and the wickedness of Devadatta, his rival. The Bodhisatta, as the leader of a vast herd of elephants, sheltered a quail's young ones under his body until his herd had passed. Then came a "rogue" elephant (Devadatta) and wilfully trampled on them. The quail got a crow, a blue-fly, and a frog to mislead and destroy the animal. The crow pecked its eyes out, the fly laid its eggs in the sockets, and the frog induced the blinded animal to fall over a precipice below which it croaked. This story being illustrated in the carvings at Bharahat must be of earlier date than 250 B.C. In Le Pantcha-Tantra of the Abbé Dubois, a South Indian version, the same story is given, the bird being a kind of large lark, according to the Abbé's note. When the bird's eggs were broken, the jackal summoned a crow, a gadfly, and a frog, and went with them in search of the elephant. The crow pecked its eyes, the gadfly entered one of its ears, the frog sprang into an adjoining well and croaked as loudly as possible. The elephant, rushing in search of water in which it might escape from its tormentors, jumped or fell into the well. In the Tota Kahani (Small), p. 204, a pair of birds--"Sugar-eaters"--made a nest in a tree against which an elephant rubbed its back, the shaking thus caused making the eggs fall out of the nest. One of the birds, determined to be revenged, consulted a bird which had a long bill, a bee, and a frog, and obtained their assistance. The bee intoxicated the elephant by its "ravishing hum," the bird pecked out its eyes, and the frog enticed it to a deep pit into which it fell. NOTES [1] The Sinhalese title is, "The Jackal and the Basket-mender,"--at least this is what I take to be the meaning of Kulupotta, a word I do not know, deriving potta from the Tamil pottu, to mend; compare Kuluyara, a basket-maker. [2] A large monkey of two species (Semnopithecus). [3] Deriving Sen from sema. Kandy appears to have been founded at the beginning of the fourteenth century (Ancient Ceylon, p. 354, note). [4] The title of a Gamarala's wife. [5] In Sinhalese this expression includes the toe-nails, the toes being termed "fingers of the foot." [6] This query is addressed to the King himself, it being more respectful to use the third person than the second. In the story numbered 106 a Princess addresses a Prince in the third person, and there are several other examples. Compare the first couplet of the conversation of the King and goose in the Jataka story No. 502 (vol. iv, p. 266). In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iv, p. 121) a Wazir employs the third person while speaking to his sovereign. [7] In the next story, and in the Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 246, are given a Prince's question regarding sesame, and a smart village girl's reply. [8] Lit. "Your age is insufficient." This is a not unusual form of village repartee. [9] Tindu kalakanni modaya. [10] Manikka-ratne, the jewel of a Cakravarti sovereign or universal monarch. It casts a light for a distance of four miles (Clough). [11] Kaemati dawasaka, on any day you like. [12] So, also, in the Maha Bharata, it was an old woman who, when others were unable to do it, undertook to bring to Lomapada, King of Anga, the horned son of an ascetic whose presence was declared to be indispensable for causing rains to fall. She effected it by the aid of her pretty daughter, who decoyed him. [13] Dandu monara yantrayak. [14] Ahomat-wela. [15] Kalasan = kalya + a + san. [16] Rae-wenda, rae-wenda. [17] Upaharana. [18] According to the text, nawala, bathed, probably intended for namala. [19] The text of this story is given at the end of vol. iii. [20] The gawuwa is usually four miles, but in this instance it is evidently the fourth part of a yojana of about eight miles; the boys would still have a walk of sixteen miles each day. [21] Giya taena. [22] Tisse de wele, lit., the thirty of both times--that is, the thirty paeyas into which each day or each night is divided, the paeya being twenty-four minutes. [23] In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, p. 350, the bird was a pheasant, and the fire avoided a space eight feet in radius around the bird. [24] The room or "house" in the midst of seven, occurs in vol. i, p. 83. [25] Sitano. Except in a few instances in which a Treasurer appears to be referred to (as in No. 100), I have followed Clough in translating this word as "nobleman." In Mr. Gunasekara's excellent Sinhalese Grammar it is translated "Chief"; in the northern Kandian districts I have never heard it so used, the usual expression for a Chief being Nilame, a word, however, which occurs only once in these stories. The adjectival forms are Siti and Situ. Sitano is the honorific (pl.) form of Sitana. [26] Pana upaddan-eka. [27] Baelewwaen misa. [28] A large river and tank fish (Ophiocephalus striatus) which is usually caught with a line and live fish bait. At the present day, Kandian Sinhalese of the better castes consider it improper to fish with a hook, but this is done by some members of low castes. The story was related by a Tom-tom Beater. See Ancient Ceylon, p. 52. [29] The spelling of this word is according to the text. [30] They anticipated the usual death sentence or exile allotted to disobedient Princes in these tales. [31] The word which is used indicates one who shot with a gun. [32] Such a remark is a form of refusal, as in the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. i, p. 174), in which a man, asking a friend for assistance, was answered, "Bismillah! I will do all that thou requirest, but come to-morrow." The other replied in this verse: "When he who is asked a favour saith 'To-morrow,' The wise man wots 'tis vain to beg or borrow." In the Kaele-basa or Jungle language, "no" is expressed by saying Passe puluwani, "Afterwards [I] can." [33] Sattak kiriya-karala, lit., performed a Truth. [34] Panuwo. [35] The immense extent. [36] In the few instances in which their nature is mentioned, these stories agree with Clough's Dictionary in describing the five instruments of music (pañca-turya) as tom-toms. I presume that these are (1) the drum (dawula), (2) the ordinary hand tom-tom (beraya), (3) the double kettle-drum (tammaettama), (4) the small, narrow-waisted hand tom-tom (udakkiya or udikkiya, the Tamil udikkei), (5) the low hand-drum (rabana), unless a single-ended drum called daekke, the Tamil dakkei, be included. In Winslow's Tamil Dictionary the five musical instruments are defined as (1) skin instruments, (2) wind instruments, (3) stringed instruments, (4) metal instruments, (5) the throats of animals. In The Indian Antiquary, vol. v, p. 354, they are termed (1) tantri or sitara, (2) tal, (3) jhanjh, (4) nakara, (5) the trumpet or other wind instrument. Since this was in print, Messrs. H. B. Andris and Co., of Kandy, have informed me that the Sinhalese Pañca-turya are considered to be, (1) singarama, the drum, (2) bere, the ordinary tom-tom, (3) horanaewa, the horn trumpet, (4) tammattama, the double kettle-drum, (5) kayitalama, the cymbal. [37] A species of fig tree, Ficus glomerata. [38] Dilala, perhaps a mistake for dilalla, pl. hon. form. [39] Wenda tiyana de wuna. There is a strong belief in the action of Fate. When a person is accidentally killed a common remark is, "His day had come." [40] Muladaeni baehae dakinawa. [41] Like the people in the travellers' shed all alike were under the shelter of the King's authority, he meant. [42] That is, all, from the highest to the lowest, have duties which they should perform. [43] Probably a mat laid on the veranda. [44] As a possible derivation, I suggest that the first part of the word may be derived from sam + bhañj, meaning "shatter, smash," referring to his toes that were struck by the stone. The rest may consist of adi, foot, the whole word thus being sambhañjadi. In a variant the exclamation is Hottaeripancan. [45] Mariyek, probably intended for mariyek, from the Tamil root maru, in compounds mari, to exchange or barter. [46] Another title is, "Concerning a Foolish King." [47] Magul, auspicious or festival. [48] Shorea robusta. [49] As though using a shuttle. [50] Honorific, instead of "your." [51] Rajabarana, which usually refers to the ornaments and insignia; in No. 156, para. 5, and on p. 84, abarana includes the royal clothes. [52] A name of Ceylon. [53] Formerly this would be one shilling. The panama is one anna, sixteen being equal to a rupee. [54] Eight panams were thirty-two tuttu. [55] Asanam sitam jivana nasam. [56] Trimming of the earthen ridges which surround the plots of the field. [57] Maha ge is "large house"; mahage is an old or well-connected woman, such as the wife of a Gamarala. [58] A variant of the last incident is given in No. 57, vol. i. [59] See footnote, p. 5, on this use of the third person in place of the second. In this instance its employment is sarcastic. [60] This episode is also given in No. 254, vol. iii. [61] Ambuda gasagana. [62] That is, his own grandfather. It will have been noticed that the words his and her are avoided by these story-tellers. When they appear in the translation they are nearly always inserted by me; the same remark applies to the pronouns he, him, and she. [63] That is, with them, after they left. The first statement was that he was born after his mother went away. [64] This incident occurs in the Sinhalese story numbered 82 in this volume. [65] It is a general belief of village Sinhalese and Vaeddas that evil spirits or Yakas throw sand or stones at people during either the day or night. [66] It is said that death always occurs in this way; the breath is drawn upward to the head. [67] The names indicate that they were men of villages called Gampola and Raehigama. [68] A forest tree (Myristica iriya). [69] Betel leaves are packed in a special manner for carrying, enclosed above and below by circular plaited frames which everyone recognises. [70] Viyadama, expenses, but also employed with the meaning, "articles of food for which expenditure would be incurred"--that is, the results of it. [71] A favourite amusement of the little black humped bulls if they can get at them. [72] See the Jataka story, No. 486 (vol. iv, p. 184), for a parenthesis like this in the middle of a sentence. There are many instances in these Folk-tales. [73] Two valuable slippers or shoes are laid on a road at some distance apart. An approaching traveller passes the first one, which would be useless alone, but on seeing the second leaves his load at it and returns for the first one. The thief, who is hidden near the second one, then goes off with the load. [74] Compare the beginning of the last variant at the end of the previous story. [75] Eight and a half bushels. [76] Dawal. [77] Pannagana giya. [78] In Sinhalese this might mean, "I will eat [you]." [79] In the Jataka story No. 527 (vol. v, p. 112) a supposed tree-deity is termed a Yakkha (the Pali word for Yaka). [80] "Seize [him], Walking-stick" (bastama). [81] When a man is about to run quickly he pulls up his cloth to the upper part of the thighs, passes the loose portion between his legs, draws it tightly behind, and tucks the end through his belt. [82] Gandarvayini. [83] Feminine adjective of Sitana, a nobleman, or in some cases a Treasurer. [84] Nikan indin. [85] Maeniyaendaeta. [86] Tirisana is "one of the lower animals." In a variant of the Western Province he terms the stick a Tirihan cudgel. [87] Honda honda. [88] This resembles the cry, "Mok, Mok," made when driving cattle especially cart-bulls and pack-bulls. [89] Phyllanthus emblica. [90] Payana loke. [91] Bahina loke. [92] Naewit. [93] In the text it is termed yantraya, a machine, implement, contrivance; but maturapu yantraya is a talisman, a charmed implement. In the story given in the Arabian Nights it is termed a talisman, and it was on the Princess's neck. [94] In the Arabian Nights it was placed at the bottom of a jar of olives. [95] Dawal tisse, in the thirty [paeyas] of the day-time. [96] Some years appear to have elapsed since he went into exile. This is the case in other stories, although not mentioned by the narrators. [97] Ladaru kumarayo denna, the two young Princes. Kumarayo, Princes, is sometimes used when both a Prince and Princess are referred to. [98] Literally, made public a proclamation tom-tom. [99] A tavalama is a caravan or drove of pack cattle or buffaloes, loaded with sacks of goods. It was the old means of transport along paths that were impassable by carts, and is still employed in some jungle districts. [100] Hayi-wuna, lit., became fast. The words have a similar meaning in the last sentence of No. 157, a story by a different person. [101] Apparently the well-trained cat was sitting on its hams, holding the lamp between its fore-paws. [102] Handun kiri-paen, coconut milk, scented with a little sandal-wood. [103] The names of the three cities are verbal jokes. Awulpura is derived from awulanawa, to collect or pick up; Handi, from handi-karanawa, to join together; Upadda, from upaddanawa, to cause to be born. [104] See footnote, p. 5, regarding the use of the third person in addressing a person very respectfully. [105] The third person used as a sarcastic honorific in place of the second. [106] The account of the girl who was set afloat by the advice of an astrologer who wanted to marry her is also found in No. 139, where other references are appended. [107] Mukkaduwa. I have not seen this yashmak or veil worn in Ceylon; it is the top and back of the head which are covered in public by a cloth, which reaches to the waist or lower. The edge of this is sometimes drawn and held across the lower part of the face when strangers are passing. [108] Pissi gateta, probably intended for pissi gahatata, owing to [his] insane affliction. Holman Pissa means "the madman of uncanny noises." [109] Suranganawo, the Apsarases. [110] This story appeared in Ancient Ceylon, p. 93. [111] A free gift of food to the poor; see vol. iii, Nos. 212 and 241. [112] The Sinhalese title, is "The Story of the Seven Giants." [113] Mama, mother's brother. [114] This reminds one of the lines: "His hook he baited with a dragon's tail, And sat upon a rock and bobbed for whale." [115] This episode, and the Lotus-flower and Lime-tree as life indexes, are given in No. 20, vol. i, and the life indexes also in vol. iii, Nos. 187, 237, and 260. [116] He yayi, lit., will go white, that is, lose colour. [117] An edible grass, Panicum sp. [118] This episode occurs in vol. i, No. 20, and vol. iii, No. 260. [119] Isake gahak, lit., a head-hair tree. A similar episode occurs in vol. iii, No. 208. [120] The episode of the life in the sword which was burnt occurs in vol. i, No. 20, and vol. iii, Nos. 187, 237, 260. [121] Hitapu hitapu taenwalatama. [122] Asamima aenicci rajjaye. [123] Bima-gahanawa. [124] Nuwarata laewa. [125] Baehae daekka. [126] Kurahan, the Tamil kurakkan, the Indian ragi (Eleusine coracana). [127] A temporary rice-field made inside a village tank, at the edge of the water, after it has lowered considerably and left a tract of rich land exposed. Heavy crops are obtained from such fields, but they involve much labour, as the water for irrigating them must be raised from the level of that in the tank. [128] This would be a field of about three and a half acres. [129] Maendaewwa. [130] This is often done in such fields. The water is splashed sideways with one foot, out of the shallow channels in which it stands; the man balances himself on the other leg with the aid of a staff. [131] Probably Malwa in India; in the Jataka story No. 183 (vol. ii, p. 65), it is the Mallians who are referred to as well-known wrestlers. [132] Umbata yanda dodu-weyanin. [133] See vol. i, p. 52, foot-note. It is the Eastern form of the American "Bee." [134] Bolak baenda. I have no explanation of this expression. Probably it refers to a magical spell and charm for preventing anyone from unlawfully interfering with the crop. An instance of the employment of such a form of charm for this purpose occurred in 1901 in the Puttalam district; evidence regarding this was given in the Police Court there, and fines were inflicted on the placers of it, and were confirmed by the Supreme Court. [135] Puruk dae-kaetta. [136] Alut Kathawa. [137] Lit., by this. [138] Lit., by the. [139] Lit., "I am able for." The infinitive is often omitted: the villager says, Eka mata puluwani--"I am able [to do] it." Compare also No. 93. [140] C is pronounced as ch in English. [141] Lit., by the. [142] A sixteenth part of a rupee. [143] Mandi. [144] A village saying, perhaps intended to frighten the child and make her behave better. [145] The funeral feast given to Buddhist monks on such occasions. [146] He meant the fruits, as mentioned lower down. [147] The collective name of some of the lowest castes. [148] Giya haetiye awe nae. [149] Severe cases of ulceration of the lower part of the legs were formerly numerous in the jungle villages, and were due to a complaint termed the "Parangi disease." It is gradually dying out, now that people have more wholesome food and water. [150] Compare also vol. i, p. 131. [151] Short-nosed one. [152] In transliterations the letter c is pronounced as ch. The noise was a splutter. [153] This incident occurs in Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 154. A girl married to a tiger ran off after killing a cat and hanging it over the pan on the fire. When the tiger returned he thought she was cooking. [154] Nikan hitiya. The expression here implies, I think, that he did not again attempt to marry his sister. [155] Illness caused by one of the demons called Kadawara Devatawa. [156] Betel is presented to devil-dancers when inviting them to come for a demon ceremony. [157] A Veda (low caste) or Vedarala (good caste) is either a medical practitioner, or a soothsayer, or person who expels demons. [158] Rae tisse, during the thirty [paeyas, each being twenty-four minutes] of night. [159] Egg-plant, or aubergine (Solanum sp.). [160] Rice from which the skin has been removed without first softening it in hot water. After the cooking the grains adhere together. [161] This is considered to be a bad omen, hence the tying of the thread to put an end to such dreams; see vol. i, p. 15. I have been assured by those who have worn such threads that tying one on the arm has the desired effect in checking evil dreams. To dream of eating food is a prognostic of a future deficiency of food. [162] A leaf cup, a reversed cone, would be set point downwards in each cleft, and the cakes be heaped upon it. [163] �nga purama. [164] Mata yanda nae, lit., "There is not [an opportunity] for me to go." [165] The meaning is, "If you did not notice and punish him for so long, was it likely that I should?" [166] Another title is, "The Story of Thirty Ridis." [167] In a variant she is his younger sister. [168] Lit., "silvers." In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. i, p. 234) there is a similar expression denoting silver coins: "I gave the servant a few silvers." The ridi or larin is the silver wire "hook-money," at first imported from the Persian Gulf, where it was coined in Laristan, but afterwards made in Ceylon. Captain Robert Knox says of it, "There is another sort, which all People by the King's Permission may and do make. The shape is like a fish-hook, they stamp what mark or impression on it they please" (Hist. Relation of Ceylon, 1681, p. 97). Baldaeus remarked, "The most current coin here are the silver Laryns each whereof is worth about tenpence ... as well in Ceylon as Malabar two golden Fanams, at five-pence a piece, make a Laryn" (A Description of ye East India Coasts, etc., translation, 1672, p. 727). As a later value I was informed that three ridis were equal to one rupee. Further information regarding this money will be found in the Additional Notes at the end of vol. iii. [169] E minihata himin. Himin, hemin, or semin commonly means slowly, gently; hence in village talk, secretly, unperceived, unknown to. [170] See footnote on the first page of No. 201, vol. iii. [171] Innawa pewuni. [172] E parama, lit., at the very stroke. [173] The words are an imitation of the rapidly-uttered alarm notes of the common Lapwing of Ceylon:--Haebaeda ridiye, haebaeda ridiye, daekkada ridiye, dutuwada ridiye, dunnada ridiye, gattada ridiye, ridi tihayi, tihayi, tihayi. [174] Kirali (Lobivanellus indicus). [175] Perhaps this means, "[Our] bills are small." [176] The narrator is supposed to have been a spectator. [177] The text is given at the end of vol. iii, as an illustration of the usual conversational style in the villages. [178] Third person for second, in an honorific sense; she was speaking to the women. [179] Lit., "these," the word for paddy being plural, like that for rice. [180] Upaharana in the text, apparently intended for upakarana. [181] Agare giya; agaraya is a drainage area. The meaning is that the flow of the flood water over the ground carried away the paddy, which would be spread on mats laid on the ground. [182] Naki mahallae katantare. [183] Nakiralage. [184] From my own experience in the case of a severe burn, I can say that a paste of cow-dung smeared completely over a burnt place entirely removes all pain, and the wound soon heals under it. The paste dries immediately owing to the heat of the skin, and after that no unpleasant smell remains. [185] The Sinhalese title is, "The Story that tells the manner in which he played on the Lute for the Representation of the Tusk Elephant (�taerinba)." [186] The verb used throughout the story is ganawa, to rub. [187] Husma elunaya. [188] I do not know if this word is intended for an exclamation (= haha), or a noun, hasak, a sorrow. [189] See the variant from Tibetan Tales at the end of No. 190, vol. iii. [190] A vegetable cultivated in village gardens and chenas, Nothosærua brachiate. [191] Ana-karanayen; the verb ana-karanawa is usually "to order." [192] Apparently understood by him to be intended for Kuda chawa chawa. "Hunchback, [you are] vile, vile." [193] Idena, which ordinarily would mean "ripens." [194] He appears to have understood this to mean, "Hunchback, [you are] clownish, clownish," godaya being "clown." [195] Perhaps to be taken as one word, Kudarun, = Kudo + arun, "Hunchbacks [are] fellows." [196] Busa means chaff, cow-dung; he thought the meaning was, "Hunchback, [you are] chaff, chaff." [197] Sitana kenek. [198] Sarpayingen gahana sitadika ratakata gos. The meaning is not clear; apparently, as the bodies of snakes are always cold, they were in such numbers that they chilled the air. Like pariah dogs, they enjoyed the warmth and comfort afforded by the soft ashes, and on departing left the gems out of gratitude. [199] Tom-tom-voiced one (Bheri + nada + ya). [200] Daekun = dakshina. [201] Death personified. [202] Diviyan, for deviyan, literally, deities. [203] Many-bows-carrying Panditaya (Dhanu + ut + dara); it is a plural honorific form. [204] See foot-note, vol. i, p. 50. [205] The text of this story is given at the end of vol. iii. [206] Lehuwak. [207] Pinci ammalae gedara. Pinci or punci amma is the mother's younger sister. [208] Lit., tried can she eat her. This is the usual form of expression. It is common in Ireland also:--"A man came forward and asked me would I buy a stone with Irish letters on it" (Prehistoric Faith and Worship, p. 150). "He got into a bad rage entirely, and asked her was Manis asleep again" (Donegal Fairy Stories, p. 83). [209] Gal keruwa. He appears to have lain in wait for them. [210] Abuccala; the brothers of a man's father are termed his fathers. [211] In this tale the title is perhaps wrongly written Yakshayin kana Prakshaya, the Yakshas-eating Prakshaya. In variants of the latter part of the story the name is Rakshayan kana Prakshaya, Raksaya kana Praksaya, and Raksin kana Praksaya. [212] A species of cork-tree (Clough). [213] Gaenu kollawa, lit., the female lad or youth. [214] Perhaps a shopkeeper who sold rice, and who employed women to clean the husk (kudu) off paddy. [215] The only expression found in the stories, with one exception where a Prince kisses his sister's portrait; elsewhere "kiss" does not appear in them. It is the crown of the head which is smelt, or sniffed at with a strong inhalation; the effect seems to be quite satisfactory. [216] Yakshayin, in this story. [217] Sic, probably a euphemism. [218] Raksin kana Praksaya. [219] Mata bae, lit., "I cannot," but commonly used with the meaning "I will not." [220] Udu-mahal talawa. [221] The form of Bola used when addressing a person of low caste. [222] Vis unnahanse. [223] Gediya. [224] Padda is the Low-country name for a Duraya, a man of the Porter caste, Padu being the adjectival form. [225] Appuhami is a title applied to the son of a Chief, usually in the Low-country, Bastda or Bastdara being the Kandian equivalent. [226] Jadaya. [227] Sahodarayine. [228] A haetiye. [229] Rakshayan kana Prakshaya. [230] These incidents are given in vol. i, p. 101. [231] This is an instance of Peraeli-basa or Transposition, and the meaning is, "Go a little little [further]." Jen may be derived from ned; the other words are tika tikak. [232] Mage duwa kohe giyado? Darata giyado? Waturata giyado? [233] I have left this sentence as it was written, as a specimen of the village mode of expression. [234] Monk's residence. [235] Prognostics depending on the position of the planets at the time when she reached marriageable age. These are ascertained in the case of all girls. [236] Mara damanda epa. [237] Compare No. 108. [238] Buddhist sacred writings. To say Bana, is to recite or chant portions of these works. [239] This form of the story is found also in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues, vol. iii, p. 215. [240] Persons, often village doctors or soothsayers, who possess a knowledge of the incantations and procedure by means of which demons are driven away. [241] It is stated in the Maha Bharata (Vana Parva, ccxxix) that when a Yaksha enters a person he becomes insane. [242] A demon who frequents cemeteries. [243] The tom-tom beaters were formerly weavers also. [244] May life be long! This is the usual response made at incantations during ceremonies for removing sickness caused by demons or planets. The words are addressed to the power invoked, and must be uttered very loudly. [245] Kapi kawatakan, silly jokes. [246] The light that he saw was caused by her brilliance. See the end of No. 204, vol. iii. In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 16, a beautiful girl is described as having "a face like a full moon, and eyes like a blue lotus; she had arms graceful as the stalk of a lotus, and a lovely full bosom; she had a neck marked with three lines like a shell, and magnificent coral lips; in short she was a second Lakshmi" (the Goddess of Prosperity). [247] In these stories the yojana may usually be taken to represent four gawu of four miles--that is, it would be sixteen miles. [248] Unnaehae is nearly equivalent to Mr., and is used in names in the same way. [249] Literally, betimes (kalin). [250] Katak, a mouth. [251] Kada watta-wanne naetuwa. Watta appears to be derived from the Sanskrit and Sinhalese vant, part, share. [252] The common form of adieu among Sinhalese and Tamils. [253] Bee-hive flower. [254] Ironwood, Mesua ferrea. [255] The story is difficult to understand in several places; I have tried to express the apparent meaning. [256] It is clear that she got her name from a flower found in the hive, which might thus be termed a Mi-mala (Mi-flower), and not from the flower of the Mi-tree (Bassia longifolia). [257] Mata bae, which often is used with the meaning, "I will not." [258] Wijja-karayek. [259] Bhutiyan-karayek. [260] Kaemaeti kenek, a common expression meaning anyone whatever. [261] Kapantada. [262] Kotantada. [263] Waden poren. [264] Handun kiri-paen. [265] Eda dawasa. [266] Waden poren. [267] This incident is given in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 83. The hundred sons of a Queen attacked their father's capital. The Queen mounted on a tower, pointed out their wickedness, and pressing her breasts milk was projected into their mouths, and they recognised her. In vol. iii, p. 12, she was on a white elephant, and had five hundred sons. [268] Yatama yata taliyata. [269] The narrator has omitted to state the reason why the King was so anxious to kill the Prince--that is, in order to marry the Princesses. [270] De gawwak tiya mi-maesso ewidinawa. [271] Poroga, perhaps for pura-roga. [272] This is the Raja-miya, or Royal Bee-hive, of the Wanniyas; it has this name in the next variant. [273] Pallem pallem. Pallem may be palla, bottom + im, pl. of ima, boundary, limit. [274] Pas waehaewwotin. [275] The Sinhalese title is, The Story of a Nobleman (Sitana kenekunge kathawa). [276] A kalpa is a day and night of Brahma, or 1,000 Yugas, and therefore 432 million years (see vol. i, p. 49). [277] Warata awaya, that is, become mature. [278] For an account of the Royal Bee-hive, see Ancient Ceylon, p. 170. [279] Daru garbayek upanna. [280] Umbe kawuda, your who? a common form of expression. [281] Aciravati, now the Rapti. [282] Nanga bawanata; throughout the text Nagaya is spelt Nangaya. [283] In the Mahavansa, chap, xxxi, the name of the Naga King is Mahakala, but in the Sin. Thupavansaya, p. 87, it is Mahakela. [284] Nanga rajayo. [285] This power over snakes by means of spells (mantras) is mentioned in the Maha Bharata (Adi Parva, cxcii). There are spells which are believed to render any animal incapable of movement. See also vol. iii, Nos. 245 and 252. On one occasion, when I went after a "rogue" elephant I had with me an old tracker who claimed to know an infallible spell of this kind. After we had been charged by the animal, however, I discovered him in the upper part of an adjoining tree, his excuse being that the elephant was deaf and could not hear the words of the spell. [286] Nuwarak nuwarak pasa. [287] Eda dawasema, on that day's very day. [288] Two months, according to the MS. [289] Sun-maidens or women (Suriya-kantawo). [290] A mendicant's wallet. [291] Tamunta, hon. pl. of tama, he. [292] White, if the word written su was intended for sudu. [293] Metuwak kal. [294] Wasa napuru. [295] Gatawala nam pussa. [296] The flowers of the Celestial Nymphs, the Apsarases. [297] Soyanta diyak. [298] Pissa. In the story No. 22 the word is wrongly translated "burnt," owing to my confounding the Sinhalese word with pussa and pissuwa, the colloquial expressions for "burnt." [299] Devin-wahanse. [300] The "permission" of a King is a command. [301] The Sinhalese title is, "Concerning a Woman's becoming a Rakshi (Rakshasi)." [302] Lit., tied the marriage. The little fingers or thumbs of the bride and bridegroom were tied together by a thread during the ceremony. [303] A room. The word meaning "room" is rarely used in these stories, the usual expression, kamara, being a Portuguese word. [304] In The Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. ii, p. 140), it is stated of a man that he "fell to weeping a weeping." [305] Budiya gatta. In village talk, the same expression is used for sleeping and lying down, the context alone showing which meaning is intended. The villagers rarely lie down except when about to sleep, or when ill. On p. 415, line 5, the same expression occurs. [306] In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 43, it is stated of Rakshasas, Yakshas, and Pisacas, "They never attack chaste men, heroes, and men awake." [307] Raksappreti. [308] Kiyana wahama. [309] The hill on the left side in Fig. 46, Ancient Ceylon. [310] Ashes, according to the Katha Sarit Sagara, vol. i, p. 564. To this may be added the transformation of Ahalya into stone by her husband, the hermit Gautama, for her intimacy with Indra, and the Rishi Visvamitra's turning the Apsaras Rambha into stone for disturbing his devotions (Maha Bharata, Anusasana Parva). [311] See especially the note to No. 136 of this vol. [312] Lit., by the woman. [313] Calophyllum sp., a tall forest tree. [314] Lit., near the hand, ata langin; in other cases the expression is sometimes ata gawin, with the same meaning. [315] Alessan-karana = alissam-k., with dat. [316] That is, meet me face to face; this would be an unfavourable omen. [317] �ndun kuttama. Kuttama being a pair, the reference appears to be to the jacket and cloth. [318] Some formal auspicious wish, such as, "May you be victorious, O King," or more simply, "Victory, O Great King." The word in the text is asiriwada, the Tamil asirvatam, and Skt. asirvada. [319] Anata ana-dunna. [320] "Koda nada pana e tibi huro nata denu we Madara dapana kal baedi wiri duta yanu we. Me tada bada kata no karan me mata raewanu we Mama oda eda baessa mu dura no pinu we." I offer the translation of these lines with considerable doubt. I have assumed that huro = suro, hon. pl. of sura; madara = ma adara; duta = duta; and pinu = pinu. The courier or messenger would be Kama, the god of love. Perhaps oda and eda ought to be transposed; the line would then end, "I that day's pride abating." [321] �maeta-inda. [322] Harigas kenakunda, lit., to persons who fit them (to the facts). [323] In The Kathakoça (Tawney), p. 29, when a king sent a crier with a drum to invite assistance in a certain affair of difficulty, a man stopped the proclamation by touching the drum. [324] Kadappuliya, apparently derived from the Tamil words kadam, grave-yard, and pilei, to escape. The Tamil word would be kadappileiyar, he (hon) who escaped from the grave-yard. Compare vedippulaya (for vedippileiyar), one who escaped from shooting (The Veddas, by Dr. and Mrs. C. G. Seligmann, p. 196). Handa giya kala wiya-gaha [324a] kaedune, Wiya-gaha kaedu kala gedarata emine, [324b] Gedarata a kala aenda uda sitine, �nda uda siti kala konda-pita daewe, Konda-pita dae kala aenda yata balane, �nda yata baelu kala kiri-bata tibune. Kiri-bata kalayi me duka waedune. Me duka balala paenapan Gembiritto! [324a] Lit., Yoke-tree, like our "axle-tree." [324b] ? Hemin en[n]e. [326] In trying to laugh at the man's doggerel, according to the narrator. [327] Jambu, the Rose-apple, Jambosa vulgaris. [328] There is not a word botiya, pl. botiyo, in Sinhalese, except when thus added to kotiya with the meaning given by me; compare praksaya in No. 137. [329] The meaning of the word dabukka is said to be waehi-poda, drop of rain, or drizzle. [330] In a variant it is termed a Kaburussa creeper, perhaps the same as the Habalossa creeper in No. 94. [331] In the variant both ends were tied on the animals' necks. [332] Beds are often made by a number of split canes laid longitudinally and fastened at the ends of the frame, with transverse canes interlaced through them. Coir strings (of coconut fibre) are also used. A grass mat is laid over the canes or strings. [333] See the description of the circular corn store, opened by raising the roof, in the Introduction, vol. i, p. 10. [334] Waru hantiya, end of the stack-like roof. [335] That is, they all go together, the men preceding the women. [336] I never heard of an instance of a python's swallowing a human being in Ceylon. Cases are known of their seizing dogs and deer; one which was brought to me had just killed the largest he-goat of a flock; it was eighteen feet long. In the story No. 72 in vol. i, a python is stated to have seized a boy who had rescued a jackal which it had caught. [337] A large amphibious lizard (Hydrosaurus salvator). [338] Lit., by the King. [339] Ibba is a fresh-water turtle; Ibbawa would be Turtle City. [340] Spelt by the narrator both haepinna and haepinni. [341] Udeta udeta eka eka kiri gotuwa. [342] A plum-like fruit, of pleasant flavour, but astringent, which grows on a tall forest tree, Nephelium longanum. [343] Similarly, in the Maha Bharata (Vana Parva, iii) it is declared that the repetition of the Hymn to the Sun recited by Yudhishthira grants any boon, and that its reading in the morning and evening twilight frees a man or woman from danger. [344] In the second story it was a spring noose, which held the Peacock dangling in the air, caught by the leg. Apparently this is what the Sinhalese narrator meant. [345] Suriya Diwa Rajaya. [346] Punci-da hita. [347] Waehi-megaya unnaehae. [348] This word is evidently inserted to distinguish it from the tree ant-hill, made of earth by a species of black ant. [349] The leopard often climbs up trees, but cannot descend more than a few feet down the trunk; from any considerable height it always jumps down. My tame leopard would climb down backwards for about six feet only. [350] �t-amba kirilli. [351] A form of comparison, meaning, "Which was the better, that day or to-day?" [352] Plotus melanogaster, diya-kawa (Sin.). [353] Kudamassan. [354] Kaeta kirilli, probably a Bush Lark (Mirafra affinis). One or two other species have this name in Sinhalese, but not the Quail. [355] Mitak witara aeti e kaeta kirilli �tek maerewwa. Harida kirilli? 
19550	----	[Frontispiece: FELIS TIGRIS.] NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAMMALIA OF INDIA AND CEYLON. BY ROBERT A. STERNDALE, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., &C., AUTHOR OF "THE DENIZENS OF THE JUNGLE;" "THE AFGHAN KNIFE;" "SEONEE, OR CAMP LIFE IN THE SATPURA RANGE," ETC. WITH 170 ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR, T. W. WOOD, AND OTHERS. CALCUTTA: THACKER, SPINK, AND CO. BOMBAY: THACKER AND CO., LIMITED. LONDON: W. THACKER AND CO. 1884. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. THIS POPULAR HISTORY OF OUR INDIAN MAMMALS IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED (BY PERMISSION) TO ONE WHO TAKES A DEEP INTEREST IN ALL THAT CONCERNS OUR EASTERN EMPIRE, THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK, G.C.S.I., LATE GOVERNOR-GENERAL AND VICEROY OF INDIA. PREFACE. This work is designed to meet an existing want, viz.: a popular manual of Indian Mammalia. At present the only work of the kind is one which treats exclusively of the Peninsula of India, and which consequently omits the more interesting types found in Assam, Burmah, and Ceylon, as well as the countries bordering the British Indian Empire on the North. The geographical limits of the present work have been extended to all territories likely to be reached by the sportsman from India, thus greatly enlarging the field of its usefulness. The stiff formality of the compiled "Natural Histories" has been discarded, and the Author has endeavoured to present, in interesting conversational and often anecdotal style, the results of experience by himself and his personal friends; at the same time freely availing himself of all the known authorities upon the subject. CONTENTS. NO. PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 ORDER BIMANA 3 ORDER QUADRUMANA 7 Genus Hylobates--The Gibbons-- 1. Hylobates hooluck (_White-fronted Gibbon_) 8 2. " lar (_White-handed Gibbon_) 11 3. " syndactylus (_Siamang_) 12 Genus Presbytes--Cuvier's Genus Semnopithecus-- 4. Semnopithecus _vel_ Presbytes entellus (_Bengal Langur_) 14 5. " _vel_ P. schistaceus (_Himalayan Langur_) 16 6. " _vel_ P. priamus (_Madras Langur_) 16 7. " _vel_ P. Johnii (_Malabar Langur_) 17 8. " _vel_ P. jubatus (_Nilgheri Langur_) 18 9. " _vel_ P. pileatus (_Capped Langur_) 18 10. " _vel_ P. Barbei (_Tipperah Langur_) 19 11. " _vel_ P. Phayrei (_Silvery-Leaf Monkey_) 19 12. " _vel_ P. obscurus (_Dusky-Leaf Monkey_) 20 13. " _vel_ P. cephalopterus (_Ceylon Langur_) 20 14. " _vel_ P. ursinus (_Great Wanderu_) 21 15. " _vel_ P. thersites 22 16. " _vel_ P. albinus (_White Langur_) 23 SUB-FAMILY PAPIONINAE 24 Genus Inuus-- 17. Inuus _vel_ Macacus silenus (_Lion Monkey_) 24 18. " _vel_ M. rhesus (_Bengal Monkey_) 25 19. " _vel_ M. pelops (_Hill Monkey_) 26 20. " _vel_ M. nemestrinus (_Pig-tailed Monkey_) 26 21. " _vel_ M. leoninus (_Long-haired Pig-tailed Monkey_) 27 22. " _vel_ M. arctoides (_Brown Stump-tailed Monkey_) 28 23. " _vel_ M. Thibetanus (_Thibetan Stump-tailed Monkey_) 28 Genus Macacus-- 24. Macacus radiatus (_Madras Monkey_) 28 25. " pileatus (_Capped Monkey_) 29 26. " cynomolgus (_Crab-eating Macacque_) 30 27. " carbonarius (_Black-faced Crab-eating Monkey_) 31 FAMILY LEMURIDAE 31 Genus Nycticebus-- 28. Nycticebus tardigradus (_Slow-paced Lemur_) 31 Genus Loris-- 29. Loris gracilis (_Slender Lemur_) 33 SUB-ORDER PLEUROPTERA--FAMILY GALAEOPITHECIDAE 33 Genus Galaeopithecus-- 30. Galaeopithecus volans (_Flying Lemur_) 34 ORDER CARNARIA 35 CHEIROPTERA 35 MEGACHIROPTERA--SUB-FAMILY PTEROPODIDAE 36 Genus Pteropus-- 31. Pteropus Edwardsii _vel_ medius (_Common Flying Fox_) 37 32. " Leschenaultii (Cynonycteris amplexicaudata) (_Fulvous Fox-Bat_) 40 Genus Cynopterus-- 33. Cynopterus marginatus (_Small Fox-Bat_) 40 34. Macroglossus (Pteropus) minimus (_Tenasserim Fox-Bat_) 41 Genus Eonycteris-- 35. Eonycteris spelaea 41 MICROCHIROPTERA--SUB-FAMILY VAMPYRIDAE 42 Genus Megaderma-- 36. Megaderma lyra (_Large-eared Vampire Bat_) 42 37. " spectrum (_Cashmere Vampire_) 43 38. " spasma 43 RHINOLOPHINAE 44 Genus Rhinolophus-- 39. Rhinolophus perniger _vel_ luctus (_Large Leaf-Bat_) 44 40. " mitratus (_Mitred Leaf-Bat_) 44 41. " tragatus _vel_ ferrum-equinum (_Dark-brown Leaf-Bat_) 45 42. " Pearsonii (_Pearson's Leaf-Bat_) 46 43. " affinis (_Allied Leaf-Bat_) 46 44. " rouxi (_Rufous Leaf-Bat_) 46 45. " macrotis (_Large-eared Leaf-Bat_) 47 46. " sub-badius (_Bay Leaf-Bat_) 47 47. " rammanika 47 48. " Andamanensis 48 49. " minor 48 50. " coelophyllus 48 51. " Garoensis 48 52. " Petersii 49 53. " trifoliatus 49 Genus Hipposideros _vel_ Phyllorhina-- 54. Hipposideros armiger (_Large Horse-shoe Bat_) 50 55. " speoris (_Indian Horse-shoe Bat_) 50 56. " murinus (_Little Horse-shoe Bat_) 51 57. " cineraceus (_Ashy Horse-shoe Bat_) 51 58. " larvatus 51 59. " vulgaris (_Common Malayan Horse-shoe Bat_) 52 60. " Blythii 52 61. Phyllorhina diadema 52 62. " Masoni 53 63. " Nicobarensis 53 64. " armigera 53 65. " leptophylla 54 66. " galerita 54 67. " bicolor 55 Genus Coelops-- 68. Coelops Frithii (_Frith's Tailless Bat_) 55 Genus Rhinopoma-- 69. Rhinopoma Hardwickii (_Hardwick's Long-tailed Leaf-Bat_) 56 SUB-FAMILY NOCTILIONIDAE 56 Genus Taphozous-- 70. Taphozous longimanus (_Long-armed Bat_) 57 71. " melanopogon (_Black-bearded Bat_) 57 72. " saccolaimus (_White-bellied Bat_) 58 73. " Theobaldi 58 74. " Kachhensis 58 Genus Nyctinomus-- 75. Nyctinomus plicatus (_Wrinkle-lipped Bat_) 59 76. " tragatus 59 SUB-FAMILY VESPERTILIONIDAE 60 Genus Plecotus-- 77. Plecotus auritus _vel_ homochrous 60 Genus Vesperugo-- 78. Vesperugo noctula 61 79. " leucotis 61 80. " maurus 62 81. " affinis 62 82. " pachyotis 62 83. " atratus 62 84. " Tickelli 63 85. " pachypus 63 86. " annectans 63 87. " dormeri 63 88. (Vesperugo) Scotophilus serotinus (_Silky Bat_) 63 89. " " Leisleri (_Hairy-armed Bat_) 64 Scotophilus pachyomus 64 90. (Vesperugo) Scotophilus Coromandelianus (_Coromandel Bat_) 64 91. " " lobatus (_Lobe-eared Bat_) 65 Genus Scotophilus-- 92. Scotophilus fuliginosus (_Smoky Bat_) 65 93. " Temminckii 65 94. " Heathii 66 95. " emarginatus 66 96. " ornatus 66 97. " pallidus 67 Noctulinia noctula 67 Nycticejus Heathii (_Large Yellow Bat_) 67 " luteus (_Bengal Yellow Bat_) 67 " Temminckii (_Common Yellow Bat_) 67 " castaneus (_Chestnut Bat_) 67 " atratus (_Sombre Bat_) 67 " canus (_Hoary Bat_) 67 " ornatus (_Harlequin Bat_) 68 98. " nivicolus (_Alpine Bat_) 68 Genus Harpiocephalus-- 99. Harpiocephalus harpia 69 100. " (Murina) suillus (_The Pig-Bat_) 69 101. " auratus 70 102. " griseus 70 103. " leucogaster 70 104. " cyclotis 70 Genus Kerivoula-- 105. Kerivoula picta (_Painted Bat_) 71 " pallida 72 106. " papillosa 72 107. " Hardwickii 72 Genus Vespertilio-- 108. Myotis (Vespertilio) murinus 73 109. " Theobaldi 73 110. " parvipes 73 111. Vespertilio longipes 73 112. " mystacinus 73 113. " muricola 73 114. " montivagus 74 115. " murinoides 74 116. " formosus 74 117. " Nepalensis 74 118. " emarginatus 75 Genus Miniopterus-- 119. Miniopterus Schreibersii 76 Genus Barbastellus-- 120. Barbastellus communis 76 121. Nyctophilus Geoffroyi 76 INSECTIVORA 77 FAMILY TALPIDAE--THE MOLES 79 Genus Talpa-- 122. Talpa micrura (_Short-tailed Mole_) 81 123. " macrura (_Long-tailed Mole_) 81 124. " leucura (_White-tailed Mole_) 81 FAMILY SORECIDAE 82 Genus Sorex-- 125. Sorex caerulescens (_Common Musk Shrew, better known as Musk-rat_) 83 126. " murinus (_Mouse-coloured Shrew_) 85 127. " nemorivagus (_Nepal Wood Shrew_) 85 128. " serpentarius (_Rufescent Shrew_) 85 129. " saturatior (_Dark-brown Shrew_) 86 130. " Tytleri (_Dehra Shrew_) 86 131. " niger (_Neilgherry Wood Shrew_) 86 132. " leucops (_Long-tailed Shrew_) 87 133. " soccatus (_Hairy-footed Shrew_) 87 134. " montanus (_Ceylon Black Shrew_) 87 135. " ferrugineus (_Ceylon Rufescent Shrew_) 87 136. " Griffithi (_Large Black Shrew_) 88 137. " heterodon 88 Genus Feroculus-- 138. Feroculus macropus (_Large-footed Shrew_) 88 139. Sorex Hodgsoni (_Nepal Pigmy-Shrew_) 88 140. " Perroteti (_Neilgherry Pigmy-Shrew_) 89 141. " micronyx (_Small-clawed Pigmy-Shrew_) 89 142. " melanodon (_Black-toothed Pigmy-Shrew_) 89 143. " nudipes (_Naked-footed Shrew_) 89 144. " atratus (_Black Pigmy-Shrew_) 89 Sub-genus Soriculus-- 145. Soriculus nigrescens (_Mouse-tailed Shrew_) 90 Genus Crossopus-- 146. Crossopus Himalaicus (_Himalayan Water-Shrew_) 90 Genus Nyctogale-- 147. Nyctogale elegans (_Thibet Water-Shrew_) 92 Genus Corsira-- 148. Corsira Alpina (_Alpine Shrew_) 92 Genus Anurosorex-- 149. Anurosorex Assamensis (_Assam Burrowing Shrew_) 93 FAMILY ERINACEIDAE--THE HEDGEHOGS 93 Genus Erinaceus-- 150. Erinaceus collaris (_Collared Hedgehog_) 96 151. " micropus (_Small-footed Hedgehog_) 96 152. " pictus (_Painted Hedgehog_) 97 153. " Grayi 97 154. " Blanfordi 97 155. " Jerdoni 97 156. " megalotis (_Large-eared Hedgehog_) 98 FAMILY HYLOMIDAE 99 Genus Hylomys-- 157. Hylomys Peguensis (_Short-tailed Tree-Shrew_) 99 FAMILY TUPAIIDAE 99 Genus Tupaia-- 158. Tupaia Ellioti (_Elliot's Tree-Shrew_) 101 159. " Peguana _vel_ Belangeri (_Pegu Tree-Shrew_) 101 160. " Chinensis 103 161. " Nicobarica 103 162. Gymnura Rafflesii (_Bulau_) 104 CARNIVORA 105 ARCTOIDEA--PLANTIGRADA 108 URSIDAE 108 Genus Ursus-- 163. Ursus Isabellinus (_Himalayan Brown Bear_) 111 164. " (Helarctos) torquatus _vel_ Tibetanus (_Himalayan Black Bear_) 113 165. " (Helarctos) gedrosianus (_Baluchistan Bear_) 116 166. " " Malayanus (_Bruang or Malayan Sun Bear_) 116 167. " (Melursus) labiatus (_Common Indian Sloth Bear_) 118 AILURIDAE 123 Genus Ailuropus-- 168. Ailuropus melanoleucos 124 Genus Ailurus-- 169. Ailurus fulgens (_Red Cat-Bear_) 128 SEMI-PLANTIGRADES 130 MELIDIDAE; OR, BADGER-LIKE ANIMALS 130 Genus Arctonyx-- 170. Arctonyx collaris (_Hog-Badger_) 131 171. " taxoides (_Assam Badger_) 132 Genus Meles (Sub-genus Taxidia)-- 172. Meles (Taxidia) leucurus (_Thibetan White-tailed Badger_) 133 173. " albogularis (_White-throated Thibetan Badger_) 134 Genus Mellivora-- 174. Mellivora Indica (_Indian Ratel or Honey-Badger_) 134 Genus Gulo--The Glutton or Wolverene 136 Genus Helictis-- 175. Helictis Nipalensis (_Nepal Wolverene_) 138 176. " moschata (_Chinese Wolverene_) 138 MUSTELIDAE--MARTENS AND WEASELS 139 Genus Martes--The Martens-- 177. Martes flavigula (_White-cheeked Marten_) 141 178. " abietum (_Pine Marten_) 142 179. " toufoeus 143 Genus Mustela--The Weasels-- 180. Mustela (Vison: _Gray_) sub-hemachalana (_Sub-Hemachal Weasel_) 145 181. " (Gymnopus: _Gray_) kathiah (_Yellow-bellied Weasel_) 145 182. " (Gymnopus: _Gray_) strigidorsa (_Striped Weasel_) 146 183. " erminea (_Ermine or Stoat_) 146 184. " (Vison: _Gray_) canigula (_Hoary Red-necked Weasel_) 146 185. " Stoliczkana 147 186. " (Vison) Sibirica 147 187. " alpina (_Alpine Weasel_) 147 188. " Hodgsoni 147 189. " (Vison) Horsfieldi 148 190. " (Gymnopus) nudipes 148 Genus Putorius--The Pole-cat-- 191. Putorius larvatus _vel_ Tibetanus (_Black-faced Thibetan Pole-cat_) 149 192. " Davidianus 149 193. " astutus 150 194. " Moupinensis 150 LUTRIDAE--The Otters 150 Genus Lutra-- 195. Lutra nair (_Common Indian Otter_) 153 196. " monticola _vel_ simung 155 197. " Ellioti 155 198. " aurobrunnea 155 Genus Aonyx--Clawless Otters-- 199. Aonyx leptonyx (_Clawless Otter_) 156 AELUROIDEA 156 FELIDAE--The Cat Family Genus Felis-- 200. Felis leo (_Lion_) 159 201. " tigris (_Tiger_) 161 THE PARDS OR PANTHERS 175 202. Felis pardus (_Pard_) 179 203. " panthera (_Panther_) 183 204. " uncia (_Ounce or Snow Panther_) 184 205. " Diardii _vel_ macrocelis (_Clouded Panther_) 185 206. " viverrina (_Large Tiger-Cat_) 187 207. " marmorata (_Marbled Tiger-Cat_) 188 208. " Bengalensis (_Leopard-Cat_) 189 209. " Jerdoni (_Lesser Leopard-Cat_) 191 210. " aurata (_Bay Cat_) 191 211. " rubiginosa (_Rusty-spotted Cat_) 192 212. " torquata (_Spotted Wild-Cat_) 193 213. " manul (_Black-chested Wild-Cat_) 193 214. " scripta 194 215. " Shawiana (_Yarkand Spotted Wild-Cat_) 194 216. " chaus (_Common Jungle-Cat_) 195 217. " isabellina (_Thibetan Lynx_) 197 218. " caracal (_Red Lynx_) 198 219. " jubata (_Hunting Leopard_) 200 HYAENIDAE--THE HYAENAS 203 Genus Hyaena-- 220. Hyaena striata (_Striped Hyaena_) 205 VIVERRIDAE--THE CIVET FAMILY 207 Genus Viverra-- 221. Viverra zibetha (_Large Civet Cat_) 208 222. " civettina (_Malabar Civet-Cat_) 209 223. " megaspila 209 224. " Malaccensis (_Lesser Civet-Cat_) 211 Genus Prionodon-- 225. Prionodon pardicolor (_Tiger Civet or Linsang_) 212 226. " maculosus (_Spotted Linsang_) 213 227. " gracilis (_Malayan Linsang_) 215 Genus Paradoxurus--The Musangs-- 228. Paradoxurus musanga (_Common Musang_) 216 229. " (Paguma _of Gray_) Grayii (_Hill Musang_) 217 230. " bondar (_Terai Musang_) 218 231. " trivirgatus (_Three-striped Musang_) 218 232. " leucotis (_White-eared Musang_) 219 233. " zeylanicus (_Golden Musang_) 220 234. " (Paguma) laniger 220 Genus Arctictis-- 235. Arctictis binturong (_Binturong_) 221 HERPESTIDAE--THE ICHNEUMON OR MUNGOOSE FAMILY 222 Genus Herpestes-- 236. Herpestes pallidus _vel_ griseus (_Common Grey Mungoose_) 223 237. " Jerdoni _vel_ monticolus (_Long-tailed Mungoose_) 225 238. " Smithii (_Ruddy Mungoose_) 225 239. " auropunctatus (_Gold-speckled Mungoose_) 225 240. " fuscus (_Neilgherry Brown Mungoose_) 226 241. " (Onychogale _of Gray_) Maccarthiae 226 242. " ferrugineus 226 243. " vitticollis (_Stripe-necked Mungoose_) 227 244. Urva cancrivora (_Crab-eating Mungoose_) 227 CYNOIDEA 228 Genus Canis--The Dog-- 245. Canis pallipes (_Indian Wolf_) 232 246. " laniger (Lupus chanco _of Gray_) (_Thibetan Wolf_) 235 247. " lupus (_European Wolf_) 237 248. " aureus (_Jackal_) 237 Genus Cuon-- 249. Canis (Cuon) rutilans (_Indian Wild Dog_) 239 Genus Vulpes-- 250. Vulpes Bengalensis (_Indian Fox_) 243 251. " leucopus (_Desert Fox_) 244 252. " ferrilatus (_Thibetan Grey Fox_) 245 253. " montanus (_Hill Fox_) 245 254. " pusillus (_Punjab Fox_) 245 255. " flavescens (_Persian Fox_) 246 256. " Griffithii (_Afghanistan Fox_) 246 MARINE CARNIVORA 246 ORDER CETACEA--THE WHALES 247 Denticete--The Toothed Whales 248 FAMILY DELPHINIDAE--THE DOLPHINS OR PORPOISES 250 Genus Platanista--The River Dolphins-- 257. Platanista Gangetica (_Gangetic Porpoise_) 251 Genus Orcella--The Round-headed River Dolphins-- 258. Orcella brevirostris (_Short-nosed Round-headed River Dolphin_) 255 259. " fluminalis (_Fresh-water Round-headed Dolphin_) 255 Genus Delphinus--The Marine Dolphins-- 260. Delphinus perniger (_Black Dolphin_) 258 261. " plumbeus (_Lead-coloured Dolphin_) 258 262. " gadamu 258 263. " lentiginosus (_Freckled Dolphin_) 259 264. " maculiventer (_Spot-bellied Dolphin_) 259 265. " fusiformis (_Spindle-shaped Dolphin_) 259 266. " pomeegra (_Black or Pomeegra Dolphin_) 260 267. " longirostris (_Long-snouted Dolphin_) 260 268. " velox 260 Genus Phocaena--The Porpoises 260 Genus Globicephalus--The Ca'ing or Pilot Whale-- 269. Globicephalus Indicus (_Indian Ca'ing Whale_) 261 PHYSETERIDAE--THE CACHELOTS OR SPERM WHALES 261 Genus Euphysetes-- 270. Physeter _or_ Euphysetes simus (_Snub-nosed Cachelot_) 261 MYSTICETE--WHALEBONE OR BALEEN WHALES 262 Genus Balaena--The Right Whales 262 Genus Balaenoptera--Finback Whales or Rorquals-- 271. Balaenoptera Indica (_Indian Rorqual_) 264 SIRENIA--THE MANATEES 267 Genus Halicore--The Dugong-- 272. Halicore dugong (_Dugong_) 268 ORDER RODENTIA--THE GNAWERS 269 SUB-ORDER SIMPLICIDENTATA--SIMPLE-TOOTHED RODENTS 272 SCIUROMORPHA 273 SCIURIDAE--THE SQUIRRELS 274 Genus Sciurus-- 273. Sciurus Indicus (_Bombay Squirrel of Pennant_) 276 274. " maximus (_Central Indian Red Squirrel_) 277 275. " macrourus (_Long-tailed Forest Squirrel_) 278 276. " giganteus (_Black Hill Squirrel_) 279 277. " lokriah (_Orange-bellied Grey Squirrel_) 280 278. " lokroides (_Hoary-bellied Grey Squirrel_) 280 279. " pygerythrus 282 280. " caniceps (_Golden-backed Squirrel_) 282 281. " Phayrei (_Laterally-banded or Phayre's Squirrel_) 282 282. " Blanfordii (_Blanford's Squirrel_) 283 283. " atrodorsalis (_Black-backed Squirrel_) 284 284. " erythraeus (_Assam Red-bellied Squirrel_) 285 285. " Gordoni (_Gordon's Squirrel_) 285 286. " hippurus (_Chestnut-bellied Assam Squirrel_) 285 287. " Sladeni (_Sladen's Squirrel_) 286 288. " ferrugineus (_Rusty-coloured Squirrel_) 287 289. " palmarum (_Common Indian Ground Squirrel_) 287 290. " tristriatus (_Three-striped Ground-Squirrel_) 289 291. " Layardi (_Layard's Striped Ground-Squirrel_) 289 292. " sublineatus (_Dusky-striped Ground-Squirrel_) 290 293. " McClellandi (_McClelland's Ground-Squirrel_) 290 294. " Berdmorei (_Berdmore's Ground-Squirrel_) 291 295. " quinquestriatus (_Stripe-bellied Squirrel_) 291 296. " (Rhinosciurus) tupaoides (_Long-nosed Squirrel_) 292 Genus Pteromys-- 297. Pteromys oral (_Brown Flying Squirrel_) 294 298. " cineraceus (_Ashy Flying Squirrel_) 296 299· " Yunnanensis (_Yunnan Flying Squirrel_) 296 300. " melanopterus (_Black-flanked Flying Squirrel_) 297 301. " alborufus (_Red and White Flying Squirrel_) 297 302. " magnificus (_Red-bellied Flying Squirrel_) 298 303. " albiventer (_White-bellied Flying Squirrel_) 299 304. " caniceps (_Grey-headed Flying Squirrel_) 299 305. " Pearsonii (_Hairy-footed Flying Squirrel_) 300 306. " fuscocapillus (_Small Travancore Flying Squirrel_) 300 307. " fimbriatus (_Grey Flying Squirrel_) 301 308. " alboniger (_Black and White Flying Squirrel_) 301 309. " spadiceus (_Red Flying Squirrel_) 302 ARCTOMYDINAE--THE MARMOTS 302 Genus Arctomys-- 310. Arctomys bobac (_Bobac, or Poland Marmot_) 303 311. " caudatus (_Red Marmot_) 304 312. " Hemachalanus (_Eastern Red Marmot_) 305 313. " aureus (_Golden Marmot_) 305 314. " dichrous 306 315. " robustus 306 MYOMORPHA--MOUSE-LIKE RODENTS 306 FAMILY MURIDAE 307 Genus Platacanthomys-- 316. Platacanthomys lasiurus (_Long-tailed Spiny Mouse_) 308 SUB-FAMILY GERBILLINAE 309 Genus Gerbillus-- 317. Gerbillus Indicus (_Indian Jerboa-Rat, or Kangaroo-Rat_) 309 318. " Hurrianae (_Desert Jerboa-Rat_) 311 319. " cryptorhinus (_Lobe-nosed Jerboa-Rat_) 312 320. " erythrurus (_Red-tailed Jerboa-Rat_) 313 321. " nanus (_Dwarf Jerboa-Rat_) 313 SUB-FAMILY PHLOEMYINAE 314 Genus Nesokia-- 322. Nesokia Hardwickii (_Hardwick's Field-Rat_) 315 323. " Huttoni (_Hutton's Field-Rat_) 315 324. " Scullyi (_Scully's Field-Rat_) 315 325. " providens (_Southern India Field-Rat_) 316 326. " Blythiana (_Bengal Field-Rat_) 317 327. " Barclayiana (_Barclay's Field-Rat_) 318 328. Mus (Nesokia) Elliotanus (_Elliot's Field-Rat_) 318 329. " " giganteus (_Bandicoot_) 319 SUB-FAMILY CRICETINAE 320 Genus Cricetus--The Hamsters-- 330. Cricetus phaeus (_Persian Hamster_) 321 331. " fulvus (_Sandy Hamster_) 321 SUB-FAMILY MURINAE 321 Genus Mus-- 332. Mus rattus (_Black Rat_) 322 333. " decumanus (_Brown Rat_) 323 334. " Andamanensis (_Andaman Rat_) 325 335. " robustulus (_Burmese Common Rat_) 325 336. " Sladeni (_Sladen's Rat_) 326 337. " rubricosa (_Small Red Rat of the Kakhyen Hills_) 326 338. " Yunnanensis (_Common House Rat of Yunnan_) 327 339. " infralineatus (_Striped-bellied Rat_) 327 340. " brunneus (_Tree Rat_) 327 341. " rufescens (_Rufescent Tree Rat_) 328 342. " niveiventer (_White-bellied House Rat_) 329 343. " nitidus (_Shining Brown Rat_) 329 344. " caudatior (_Chestnut Rat_) 329 345. " concolor (_Common Thatch Rat of Pegu_) 330 346. " palmarum (_Nicobar Tree Rat_) 330 347. " Ceylonus 330 348. " plurimammis 331 349. " aequicaudalis 331 350. " oleraceus (_Long-tailed Tree Mouse_) 331 351. " Nilagiricus (_Neilgherry Tree Mouse_) 332 352. " badius (_Bay Tree Mouse_) 332 353. " gliroides (_Cherrapoonjee Tree Mouse_) 333 354. " Peguensis (_Pegu Tree Mouse_) 333 355. " urbanus (_Common Indian Mouse_) 333 356. " homourus 335 357. " Darjeelingensis 335 358. " Tytleri 335 359. " bactrianus 335 360. " crassipes (_Large-footed Mouse_) 337 361. " sublimis 337 362. " pachycercus 337 363. " erythronotus 337 364. " cervicolor (_Fawn-coloured Field Mouse_) 338 365. " terricolor (_Earth-coloured Field Mouse_) 338 366. " Peguensis (_Pegu Field Mouse_) 338 367. " nitidulus (_Shiny Little House Mouse of Pegu_) 338 368. " Beaveni (_Beaven's Mouse_) 339 369. " cunicularis (_Little Rabbit-Mouse_) 339 370. " erythrotis (_Cherrapunji Red-eared Mouse_) 339 371. " fulvidiventris 340 372. " Kakhyenensis (_Kakhyen Mouse_) 340 373. " viculorum (_Kakhyen House Mouse_) 340 Genus Leggada-- 374. Leggada platythrix (_Brown Spiny Mouse_) 341 375. " spinulosa (_Dusky Spiny Mouse_) 342 376. " Jerdoni (_Himalayan Spiny Mouse_) 342 377. " lepida (_Small Spiny Mouse_) 342 Genus Golunda-- 378. Golunda Ellioti (_Bush Rat or Coffee Rat_) 343 379. " meltada (_Soft-furred Bush Rat_) 344 Genus Hapalomys-- 380. Hapalomys longicaudatus 345 381. Mus ouang-thomae (_Kiangsi Rat_) 346 382. " flavipectus (_Yellow-breasted Rat_) 346 383. " griseipectus (_Grey-breasted Rat_) 346 384. " Confucianus 347 385. " Chevrieri 347 386. " pygmaeus (_Pigmy Mouse_) 347 ARVICOLINAE 347 Genus Arvicola-- 387. Arvicola Stoliczkanus (_Yarkand Vole_) 349 388. " Stracheyi (_Kumaon Vole_) 349 389. " Wynnei (_Murree Vole_) 350 390. " Roylei (_Cashmere Vole_) 350 391. " Blanfordi (_Gilgit Vole_) 350 392. " Blythii 351 393. " mandarinus (_Afghan Vole_) 351 394. " Sikimensis (_Sikim Vole_) 351 395. " melanogaster 352 FAMILY SPALACIDAE 352 Genus Rhizomys--The Bamboo-Rat-- 396. Rhizomys badius (_Chestnut Bamboo-Rat_) 353 397. " erythrogenys (_Red-cheeked Bamboo-Rat_) 354 398. " pruinosus (_Hoary Bamboo-Rat_) 354 399. " minor (_Small Bamboo-Rat_) 354 FAMILY DIPODIDAE 355 Genus Dipus--The Jerboas-- 400. Dipus lagopus (_Yarkand Jerboa_) 357 Genus Alactaga-- 401. Alactaga Indica 358 HYSTRICOMORPHA--PORCUPINE-LIKE RODENTS 359 FAMILY HYSTRICIDAE--THE PORCUPINES 360 SUB-FAMILY HYSTRICINAE--THE TRUE PORCUPINES 360 Genus Atherura--The Long-tailed Porcupine-- 402. Atherura fasciculata (_Brush-tailed Porcupine_) 361 Genus Hystrix--The Porcupine-- 403. Hystrix leucura (_White-tailed Indian Porcupine_) 362 404. " Bengalensis (_Bengal Porcupine_) 365 405. " (Acanthion) longicauda (_Crestless Porcupine_) 366 406. " Yunnanensis 366 SUB-ORDER DUPLICIDENTATA--DOUBLE-TOOTHED RODENTS 367 FAMILY LEPORIDAE--THE HARES 368 Genus Lepus-- 407. Lepus ruficaudatus (_Common Indian Red-tailed Hare_) 369 408. " nigricollis (_Black-naped Hare_) 369 409. " Peguensis (_Pegu Hare_) 370 410. " hypsibius (_Mountain Hare_) 370 411. " pallipes (_Pale-footed Hare_) 370 412. " Tibetanus (_Thibet Hare_) 371 413. " Yarkandensis (_Yarkand Hare_) 371 414. " Pamirensis (_Pamir Hare_) 372 415. " Stoliczkanus (_Stoliczka's Hare_) 372 416. " craspedotis (_Large-eared Hare_) 372 417. " hispidus (_Hispid Hare_) 373 FAMILY LAGOMYIDAE--THE PIKAS, OR MOUSE-HARES 373 Genus Lagomys-- 418. Lagomys Roylei (_Royle's Pika_) 374 419. " Curzoniae (_Curzon's Pika_) 374 420. " Ladacensis (_Ladak Pika_) 374 421. " auritus (_Large-eared Pika_) 375 422. " macrotis 375 423. " griseus (_Grey Pika_) 375 424. " rufescens (_Red Pika_) 376 ORDER PROBOSCIDEA 377 Genus Elephas--The Elephant-- 425. Elephas Indicus (_Indian or Asiatic Elephant_) 389 ORDER UNGULATA 397 SUB-ORDER PERISSODACTYLA 397 FAMILY EQUIDAE--THE HORSE 398 Genus Equus-- 426. Equus onager (_Wild Ass of Kutch_) 399 427. " hemionus (_Kiang or Wild Ass of Thibet_) 401 FAMILY TAPIRIDAE--THE TAPIR 403 Genus Tapirus-- 428. Tapirus Malayanus (_Malay Tapir_) 404 FAMILY RHINOCEROTIDAE 405 Genus Rhinoceros-- 429. Rhinoceros Indicus 407 430. " Sondaicus (_Javan Rhinoceros_) 410 Genus Ceratorhinus-- 431. Rhinoceros _vel_ Ceratorhinus (Crossi?) lasiotis (_Ear-fringed Rhinoceros_) 411 432. Rhinoceros _vel_ Ceratorhinus Sumatrensis (_Sumatran Rhinoceros_) 412 SUB-ORDER ARTIODACTYLA 413 FAMILY SUIDAE--THE HOGS 414 Genus Sus-- 433. Sus scrofa (_European Wild Boar_) 415 434. " Indicus (_Indian Boar_) 416 435. " Andamanensis (_Andaman Island Pig_) 420 436. " Moupinensis 420 Genus Porcula-- 437. Porcula Salvania (_Pigmy Hog of the Saul Forests_) 421 RUMINANTIA--THE RUMINANTS 422 FAMILY BOVIDAE--HOLLOW-HORNED RUMINANTS 424 SUB-FAMILY CAPRINAE--GOATS AND SHEEP 424 Genus Ovis--The Sheep-- 438. Ovis Polii (_Marco Polo's Sheep_) 424 439. " Hodgsoni (_Argali or Ovis Ammon of Thibet_) 427 440. " Karelini (_Karelin's Wild Sheep_) 430 441. " Brookei (_Brooke's Wild Sheep_) 434 442. " Vignei (_Vigne's Wild Sheep_) 435 443. " cycloceros (_Punjab Wild Sheep_) 435 444. " Blanfordii (_Blanford's Wild Sheep_) 437 445. " nahura _vel_ burhel (_Blue Wild Sheep_) 438 Genus Capra--The Goats-- 446. Capra megaceros (_Markhor_) 441 447. " Sibirica (_Himalayan Ibex_) 444 448. " aegagrus (_Wild Goat of Asia Minor_) 446 Sub-genus Hemitragus-- 449. Capra _vel_ Hemitragus Jemlaicus (_Tahr_) 449 450. " " " hylocrius (_Neilgherry Wild Goat, or Ibex of Madras Sportsmen_) 451 THE GOAT ANTELOPES, OR CAPRICORNS 454 Genus Nemorhoedus-- 451. Nemorhoedus bubalina (_Serow, or Forest Goat_) 454 452. " rubida _vel_ Sumatrensis (_Arakanese Capricorn_) 456 453. " Edwardsii (_Thibetan Capricorn_) 457 454. " goral (_Small Himalayan Capricorn_) 457 Genus Budorcas-- 455. Budorcas taxicolor (_Takin_) 460 Genus Gazella--The Gazelles-- 456. Gazella Bennetti (_Indian Gazelle_) 463 457. " fuscifrons (_Baluchistan Gazelle_) 465 458. " subgutterosa (_Persian Gazelle_) 466 459. " picticaudata (_Thibetan Gazelle_) 467 Genus Pantholops-- 460. Pantholops Hodgsonii (_Chiru_) 469 Genus Antelope (restricted)-- 461. Antelope bezoartica (_Indian Antelope_) 472 Genus Portax--The Nylgao-- 462. Portax pictus _vel_ tragocamelus (_Nylgao or Blue Bull_) 476 Genus Tetraceros-- 463. Tetraceros quadricornis (_Four-horned Antelope_) 479 BOVINAE--CATTLE 480 Genus Gavaeus-- 464. Gavaeus gaurus (_Gaur, popularly called Bison_) 481 465. " frontalis (_Mithun or Gayal_) 486 466. " Sondaicus (_Burmese Wild Ox_) 488 Genus Poephagus--The Yak-- 467. Poephagus grunniens (_Yak or Grunting Ox_) 489 Genus Bubalus--The Buffalos-- 468. Bubalus arni (_Wild Buffalo_) 490 Genus Moschus--The Musk Deer-- 469. Moschus moschiferus (_Musk Deer_) 494 CERVIDAE--THE DEER 495 Genus Cervulus--The Muntjacs or Rib-faced Deer-- 470. Cervulus muntjac _vel_ aureus (_Muntjac or Rib-faced Deer_) 500 Genus Rusa--The Rusine Deer-- 471. Rusa Aristotelis (_Sambar_) 503 Genus Axis-- 472. Axis maculatus (_Spotted Deer_) 506 473. " porcinus (_Hog Deer_) 508 Genus Rucervus-- 474. Rucervus Duvaucelli (_Swamp-Deer_) 510 475. " _vel_ Panolia Eldii (_Brown Antlered or Eld's Deer_) 511 Genus Cervus-- 476. Cervus Cashmirianus (_Kashmir Stag_) 512 477. " affinis _vel_ Wallichii (_Sikhim Stag_) 514 TRAGULIDAE--THE CHEVROTIANS OR DEERLETS 515 Genus Tragulus-- 478. Tragulus napu (_Javan Deerlet_) 516 Genus Meminna-- 479. Meminna Indica (_Indian Mouse Deer_) 516 TRIBE TYLOPODA--THE CAMELS 518 ORDER EDENTATA 519 Genus Manis-- 480. Manis pentadactyla _or_ brachyura (_Five-fingered or Short-tailed Pangolin_) 520 481. " aurita (_Eared Pangolin_) 521 482. " Javanica (_Javan Ant-eater_) 522 APPENDIX A 523 APPENDIX B 525 APPENDIX C 526 APPENDIX D 532 INDEX 535 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. SECTION _Felis Tigris_ _Frontispiece_ Skull of _Hylobates hooluck_ 1 _Hylobates lar_; _Hylobates hooluck_ 2 _Presbytes entellus_ 4 " _thersites_ 15 _Macacus silenus_ 17 " _rhesus_ 18 " _nemestrinus_ 20 " _radiatus_ and _Macacus pileatus_ 24 " _cynomolgus_ 26 _Loris gracilis_ and _Nycticebus tardigradus_ 28 _Galaeopithecus volans_ 30 Sternum of _Pteropus_ Cheiroptera The Flying Fox at Home 31 Head of _Pteropus medius_ 31 _Cynopterus marginatus_ 33 _Megaderma lyra_ 36 " _spasma_ 38 _Rhinolophus luctus_ 39 " _ferrum-equinum_ 41 _Phyllorhina armigera_ (male and female) 64 Skull of _Rhinopoma_ 69 _Plecotus auritus_ 77 _Vesperugo noctula_ 78 " _Leisleri_ 89 _Scotophilus Temminckii_ 93 Skull of _Harpiocephalus harpia_ 99 _Vespertilio murinus_ 108 " _formosus_ 116 _Synotus barbastellus_ Genus Barbastellus Dentition of Shrew (magnified) Genus Sorex " of Hedgehog Family Erinaceidae Hedgehog Genus Erinaceus Dentition of _Tupaia_ 158 _Tupaia Peguana_ 159 _Gymnura Rafflesii_ 162 Dentition of Tiger and Indian Black Bear Carnivora " of Bear Ursidae Skull of Bear (under view) Ursidae _Ursus Isabellinus_ 163 " _Tibetanus_ 164 " _Malayanus_ 166 " _labiatus_ 167 _Ailuropus melanoleucos_ 168 _Ailurus fulgens_ 169 _Arctonyx collaris_ 170 _Mellivora Indica_ 174 Skull of _Putorius_ Mustelidae _Martes abietum_ 178 _Mustela_ Genus Mustela Otter's skull (side and under view) Lutridae _Lutra nair_ 195 Skull of Tiger (side view) Felidae Tendons of Tiger's toe Felidae Auditory apparatus of Tiger (section) Felidae _Felis leo_ (Indian variety) 200 Head of Tiger 201 Tiger's skull (under part) 201 _Felis panthera_ (_From a fine specimen in the Regent's Park Gardens_) 203 " _uncia_ 204 " _Diardii_ 205 Skull of _Felis viverrina_ 206 _Felis marmorata_ 207 " _aurata_ 210 " _caracal_ 218 " _jubata_ 219 Skull of _Felis jubata_ 219 Skull of Hyaena Hyaenidae _Hyaena striata_ 220 Dentition of Civet Viverridae _Viverra zibetha_ 221 " _megaspila_ 223 " _Malaccensis_ 224 _Prionodon maculosus_ 226 _Paradoxurus trivirgatus_ 231 _Arctictis binturong_ 235 _Urva cancrivora_ 244 Dentition of Wolf Genus Canis _Canis pallipes_ 245 _Cuon rutilans_ 249 _Platanista Gangetica_ 257 Gangetic Dolphin; Round-headed River Dolphin; Gadamu Dolphin; Freckled Dolphin; Black Dolphin Genus Delphinus Skull of Baleen Whale Genus Balaena Rorqual 271 _Halicore dugong_ 272 Skull of _Pteromys_ (Flying Squirrel) Genus Sciurus _Sciurus maximus_ 274 _Pteromys oral_ 297 Dentition of _Gerbillus_ Genus Gerbillus Dentition of _Cricetus_ Genus Cricetus _Cricetus_ Genus Cricetus Dentition of Black Rat 332 " of _Arvicola_ Arvicolinae _Rhizomys badius_ 396 Dentition of Jerboa Family Dipodidae _Dipus_ Genus Dipus Skull of Porcupine Family Hystricidae _Hystrix leucura_ 403 Dentition of Hare Sub-order Duplicidentata Side view of Grinders of Asiatic Elephant Genus Elephas Grinder of Asiatic Elephant Genus Elephas " of African Elephant Genus Elephas Section of Elephant's Skull Genus Elephas Skeleton of Elephant Genus Elephas Muscles of Elephant's Trunk Genus Elephas Dentition of Horse Family Equidae _Equus onager_ 426 Dentition of Tapir Family Tapiridae _Tapirus Malayanus_ 428 Dentition of Rhinoceros Genus Rhinoceros _Rhinoceros Indicus_ 429 " _Indicus_ 429 " _Sondaicus_ 430 " _lasiotis_ (_R. Indicus_ and _R. Sondaicus_ in the distance) 431 Bones of a Pig's foot Sub-order Artiodactyla Dentition of Wild Boar Family Suidae _Sus Indicus_ 434 _Porcula Salvania_ 437 _Ovis Polii_ 438 Horns of _Ovis Polii_ 438 _Ovis Hodgsoni_ 439 Skull of _Ovis Hodgsoni_ 439 Horns of _Ovis Karelini_ 440 _Ovis Brookei_ 441 " _cycloceros_ 443 " _nahura_ 445 _Capra megaceros_. No. 1 variety 446 " " No. 2 variety 446 " _Sibirica_ 447 _Hemitragus Jemlaicus_ 449 _Nemorhoedus bubalina_ 451 " _goral_ 454 _Budorcas taxicolor_ 455 _Gazella Bennetti_ (male and female) 456 " _subgutterosa_ 458 Saiga Antelope Genus Pantholops _Pantholops Hodgsoni_ 460 _Antelope bezoartica_ 461 _Portax pictus_ 462 _Tetraceros quadricornis_ 463 _Gavaeus gaurus_ 464 " _frontalis_ 465 _Bubalus arni_ 468 Skull of Musk Deer 468 _Moschus moschiferus_ 469 " _moschiferus_ 469 Stag with Horns matured Cervidae " " " in velvet Cervidae _Cervulus aureus_ 470 _Rusa Aristotelis_ 471 _Axis maculatus_ 472 " _porcinus_ 473 _Cervus Cashmirianus_ 476 _Tragulus napu_ 478 Mouse Deer 479 _Manis pentadactyla_ 480 Dentition of Dormouse (magnified) Appendix A _Myoxus_ Appendix A Osteology of the skull of _Platanista Gangetica_ Appendix B The Slow Loris Appendix C Osteology of the feet of Pig, or African deerlet; Javan deerlet; Roebuck; Sheep; Camel Appendix C Gaur Appendix C NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAMMALIA OF BRITISH INDIA AND CEYLON. INTRODUCTION. In laying before the public the following history of the Indian Mammalia, I am actuated by the feeling that a popular work on the subject is needed, and would be appreciated by many who do not care to purchase the expensive books that exist, and who also may be more bothered than enlightened by over-much technical phraseology and those learned anatomical dissertations which are necessary to the scientific zoologist. Another motive in thus venturing is, that the only complete history of Indian Mammalia is Dr. Jerdon's, which is exhaustive within the boundaries he has assigned to India proper; but as he has excluded Assam, Cachar, Tenasserim, Burmah, Arracan, and Ceylon, his book is incomplete as a Natural History of the Mammals of British India. I shall have to acknowledge much to Jerdon in the following pages, and it is to him I owe much encouragement, whilst we were together in the field during the Indian Mutiny, in the pursuit of the study to which he devoted his life; and the general arrangement of this work will be based on his book, his numbers being preserved, in order that those who possess his 'Mammals of India' may readily refer to the noted species. But I must also plead indebtedness to many other naturalists who have left their records in the 'Journals of the Asiatic Society' and other publications, or who have brought out books of their own, such as Blyth, Elliott, Hodgson, Sherwill, Sykes, Tickell, Hutton, Kellaart, Emerson Tennent, and others; Col. McMaster's 'Notes on Jerdon,' Dr. Anderson's 'Anatomical and Zoological Researches,' Horsfield's 'Catalogue of the Mammalia in the Museum of the East India Company,' Dr. Dobson's 'Monograph of the Asiatic Chiroptera,' the writings of Professors Martin Duncan, Flowers, Kitchen Parker, Boyd Dawkins, Garrod, Mr. E. R. Alston, Sir Victor Brooke and others; the Proceedings and Journals of the Zoological, Linnean, and Asiatic Societies, and the correspondence in _The Asian_; so that after all my own share is minimised to a few remarks here and there, based on personal experience during a long period of jungle life, and on observation of the habits of animals in their wild state, and also in captivity, having made a large collection of living specimens from time to time. As regards classification, Cuvier's system is the most popular, so I shall adopt it to a certain extent, keeping it as a basis, but engrafting on it such modifications as have met with the approval of modern naturalists. For comparison I give below a synopsis of Cuvier's arrangement. I have placed Cetacea after Carnivora, and Edentata at the end. In this I have followed recent authors as well as Jerdon, whose running numbers I have preserved as far as possible for purposes of reference. Cuvier divides the Mammals into nine orders, as follows. (_The examples I give are Indian ones, except where stated otherwise_):-- _Order I_.--BIMANA. Man. _Order II_.--QUADRUMANA. Two families--1st, Apes and Monkeys; 2nd, Lemurs. _Order III_.--CARNARIA. Three families--1st, _Cheiroptera_, Bats; 2nd, _Insectivora_, Hedgehogs, Shrews, Moles, Tupaiae, &c.; 3rd, _Carnivora_: Tribe 1, _Plantigrades_, Bears, Ailurus, Badger, Arctonyx; 2, _Digitigrades_, Martens, Weasels, Otters, Cats, Hyaenas, Civets, Musangs, Mongoose, Dogs, Wolves and Foxes. _Order IV_.--MARSUPIATA. Implacental Mammals peculiar to America and Australia, such as Opossums, Dasyures, Wombats, and Kangaroos. We have none in India. _Order V_.--RODENTIA. Squirrels, Marmots, Jerboas, Mole-Rats, Rats, Mice, Voles, Porcupines, and Hares. _Order VI_.--EDENTATA, or toothless Mammals, either partially or totally without teeth. Three families--1st, _Tardigrades_, the Sloths, peculiar to America; 2nd, _Effodientia_, or Burrowers, of which the Indian type is the Manis, but which includes in other parts of the world the Armadillos and Anteaters; 3rd, _Monotremata_, Spiny Anteaters or Echidnas, and the Ornithorynchus. _Order VII_.--PACHYDERMATA, or thick-skinned Mammals. Three families--1st, _Proboscidians_, Elephants; 2nd, _Ordinary Pachyderms_, Rhinoceroses, Hogs; 3rd, _Solidungula_, Horses. _Order VIII_.--RUMINANTIA, or cud-chewing Mammals. Four families--1st, _Hornless Ruminants_, Camels, Musks; 2nd, _Cervidae_, true horns shed periodically, Deer; 3rd, _Persistent horns_, Giraffes; 4th, _Hollow-horned Ruminants_, Antelopes, Goats, Sheep and Oxen. _Order IX._--CETACEA. Three families--1st, _Herbivorous Cetacea_, Manatees, Dugongs; 2nd, _Ordinary Cetacea_, Porpoises; 3rd, _Balaenidae_, Whales. ORDER BIMANA. Some people have an extreme repugnance to the idea that man should be treated of in connection with other animals. The development theory is shocking to them, and they would deny that man has anything in common with the brute creation. This is of course mere sentiment; no history of nature would be complete without the noblest work of the Creator. The great gulf that separates the human species from the rest of the animals is the impassable one of intellect. Physically, he should be compared with the other mammals, otherwise we should lose our first standpoint of comparison. There is no degradation in this, nor is it an acceptance of the development theory. To argue that man evolved from the monkey is an ingenious joke which will not bear the test of examination, and the Scriptural account may still be accepted. I firmly believe in man as an original creation just as much as I disbelieve in any development of the Flying Lemur (_Galeopithecus_) from the Bat, or that the habits of an animal would in time materially alter its anatomy, as in the case of the abnormal length of the hind toe and nail of the Jacana. It is not that the habit of running over floating leaves induced the change, but that an all-wise Creator so fashioned it that it might run on those leaves in search of its food. I accept the development theory to the extent of the multiplication of species, or perhaps, more correctly, varieties in genera. We see in the human race how circumstances affect physical appearance. The child of the ploughman or navvy inherits the broad shoulders and thick-set frame of his father; and in India you may see it still more forcibly in the difference between Hindu and Mahomedan races, and those Hindus who have been converted to Mahomedanism. I do not mean isolated converts here and there who intermarry with pure Mahomedan women, but I mean whole communities who have in olden days been forced to accept Islam. In a few generations the face assumes an unmistakable Mahomedan type. It is the difference in living and in thought that effects this change. It is the same with animals inhabiting mountainous districts as compared with the same living in the plains; constant enforced exercise tells on the former, and induces a more robust and active form. Whether diet operates in the same degree to effect changes I am inclined to doubt. In man there is no dental or intestinal difference, whether he be as carnivorous as an Esquimaux or as vegetarian as a Hindu; whereas in created carnivorous, insectivorous, and herbivorous animals there is a striking difference, instantly to be recognised even in those of the same family. Therefore, if diet has operated in effecting such changes, why has it not in the human race? "Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" is a quotation that may aptly be applied to the question of the classification of man; Cuvier, Blumenbach, Fischer, Bory St. Vincent, Prichard, Latham, Morton, Agassiz and others have each a system. Cuvier recognises only three types--the Caucasian, the Mongolian, and the Negro or Ethiopian, including Blumenbach's fourth and fifth classes, American and Malay in Mongolian. But even Cuvier himself could hardly reconcile the American with the Mongol; he had the high cheek-bone and the scanty beard, it is true, but his eyes and his nose were as Caucasian as could be, and his numerous dialects had no affinity with the type to which he was assigned. Fischer in his classification divided man into seven races:-- 1_st_.--_Homo japeticus_, divided into three varieties--_Caucasicus_, _Arabicus_ and _Indicus_. 2_nd_.--_H. Neptunianus_, consisting of--1st, the Malays peopling the coasts of the islands of the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, &c.; 2nd, New Zealanders and Islanders of the Pacific; and, 3rd, the Papuans. 3_rd_.--_H. Scythicus_. Three divisions, viz.: 1st, Calmucks and other Tartars; 2nd, Chinese and Japanese; and, 3rd, Esquimaux. 4_th_.--_H. Americanus_, and 5_th_.--_H. Columbicus_, belong to the American Continent. 6_th_.--_H. AEthiopicus_. The Negro. 7_th_.--_H. Polynesius_. The _inland_ inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, of the Islands of the Indian Ocean, of Madagascar, New Guinea, New Holland, &c. I think this system is the one that most commends itself from its clearness, but there are hardly two writers on ethnology who keep to the same classification. Agassiz classifies by realms, and has eight divisions. The Indian races with which we have now to deal are distributed, generally speaking, as follows:-- Caucasian.--(_Homo japeticus_, Bory and Fischer). Northerly, westerly, and in the Valley of the Ganges in particular, but otherwise generally distributed over the most cultivated parts of the Peninsula, comprising the Afghans (Pathans), Sikhs, Brahmins, Rajputs or Kshatryas of the north-west, the Arabs, Parsees, and Mahrattas of the west coast, the Singhalese of the extreme south, the Tamils of the east, and the Bengalis of the north-east. Mongolians (_H. Scythicus_), inhabiting the chain of mountains to the north, from Little Thibet on the west to Bhotan on the east, and then sweeping downwards southerly to where Tenasserim joins the Malay Peninsula. They comprise the Hill Tribes of the N. Himalayas, the Goorkhas of Nepal, and the Hill Tribes of the north-eastern frontier, viz. Khamtis, Singphos, Mishmis, Abors, Nagas, Jynteas, Khasyas, and Garos. Those of the northern borders: Bhotias, Lepchas, Limbus, Murmis and Haioos; of the Assam Valley Kachari, Mech and Koch. The Malays (_H. Neptunianus_) Tipperah and Chittagong tribes, the Burmese and Siamese. Now comes the most difficult group to classify--the aborigines of the interior, and of the hill ranges of Central India, the Kols, Gonds, Bhils, and others which have certain characteristics of the Mongolian, but with skins almost as dark as the Negro, and the full eye of the Caucasian. The main body of these tribes, which I should feel inclined to classify under Fischer's _H. Polynesius_, have been divided by Indian ethnologists into two large groups--the Kolarians and Dravidians. The former comprise the Juangs, Kharrias, Mundas, Bhumij, Ho or Larka Kols, Santals, Birhors, Korwas, Kurs, Kurkus or Muasis, Bhils, Minas, Kulis. The latter contains the Oraons, Malers, Paharis of Rajamahal, Gonds and Kands. The Cheroos and Kharwars, Parheyas, Kisans, Bhuikers, Boyars, Nagbansis, Kaurs, Mars, Bhunyiars, Bendkars form another great group apart from the Kolarians and Dravidians, and approximating more to the Indian variety of the Japetic class. Then there are the extremely low types which one has no hesitation in assigning to the lowest form of the Polynesian group, such as the Andamanese, the jungle tree-men of Chittagong, Tipperah, and the vast forests stretching towards Sambhulpur. On these I would now more particularly dwell as points of comparison with the rest of the animal kingdom. I have taken but a superficial view of the varieties of the higher types of the human race in India, for the subject, if thoroughly entered into, would require a volume of no ordinary dimensions; and those who wish to pursue the study further should read an able paper by Sir George Campbell in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society' for June 1866 (vol. xxxv. Part II.), Colonel Dalton's 'Ethnology of Bengal,' the Rev. S. Hislop's 'Memoranda,' and the 'Report of the Central Provinces Ethnological Committee.' There is as yet, however, very little reliable information regarding the wilder forms of humanity inhabiting dense forests, where, enjoying apparently complete immunity from the deadly malaria that proves fatal to all others, they live a life but a few degrees removed from the Quadrumana. I have in my book on the Seonee District described the little colonies in the heart of the Bison jungles. Clusters of huts imbedded in tangled masses of foliage, surrounded by an atmosphere reeking with the effluvia of decaying vegetation, where, unheedful of the great outer world beyond their sylvan limits, the Gonds pass year after year of uneventful lives. In some of these hamlets I was looked upon with positive awe, as being the first white man the _Baigas_ had seen. But these simple savages rank high in the scale compared with some others, of whom we have as yet but imperfect descriptions. Some years ago Mr. Piddington communicated to the Asiatic Society an account of some "Monkey-men" he came across on the borders of the Palamow jungle. He was in the habit of employing the aboriginal tribes to work for him, and on one occasion a party of his men found in the jungle a man and woman in a state of starvation, and brought them in. They were both very short in stature, with disproportionately long arms, which in the man were covered with a reddish-brown hair. They looked almost more like baboons than human beings, and their language was unintelligible, except that words here and there resembled those in one of the Kolarian dialects. By signs, and by the help of these words, one of the Dhangars managed to make out that they lived in the depths of the forest, but had to fly from their people on account of a blood feud. Mr. Piddington was anxious to send them down to Calcutta, but before he could do so, they decamped one night, and fled again to their native wilds. Those jungles are, I believe, still in a great measure unexplored; and, if some day they are opened out, it is to be hoped that the "Monkey-men" will be again discovered.[1] [Footnote 1: There has been lately exhibited in London a child from Borneo which has several points in common with the monkey--hairy face and arms, the hair on the fore-arm being reversed, as in the apes.] The lowest type with which we are familiar is the Andamanese, and the wilder sort of these will hardly bear comparison with even the degraded Australian or African Bosjesman, and approximate in debasement to the Fuegians. The Andamanese are small in stature--the men averaging about five feet, the women less. They are very dark, I may say black, but here the resemblance to the Negro ceases. They have not the thick lips and flat nose, nor the peculiar heel of the Negro. In habit they are in small degree above the brutes, architecture and agriculture being unknown. The only arts they are masters of are limited to the manufacture of weapons, such as spears, bows and arrows, and canoes. They wear no kind of dress, but, when flies and mosquitoes are troublesome, plaster themselves with mud. The women are fond of painting themselves with red ochre, which they lay thickly over their heads, after scraping off the hair with a flint-knife. They swim and dive like ducks, and run up trees like monkeys. Though affectionate to their children, they are ruthless to the stranger, killing every one who happens to be cast away on their inhospitable shores. They have been accused of cannibalism, but this is open to doubt. The bodies of those they have killed have been found dreadfully mutilated, almost pounded to a jelly, but no portion had been removed.[2] [Footnote 2: Since the above was written there has been published in the 'Journal of the Anthropological Institute,' vol. xii., a most interesting and exhaustive paper on these people by Mr. E. H. Man, F.R.G.S., giving them credit for much intelligence.] In the above description I speak of the savage Andamanese in his wild state, and not of the specimens to be seen at Port Blair, who have become in an infinitesimal degree civilised--that is to say, to the extent of holding intercourse with foreigners, making some slight additions to their argillaceous dress-suits, and understanding the principles of exchange and barter--though as regards this last a friend informs me that they have no notion of a token currency, but only understand the _argumentum ad hominem_ in the shape of comestibles, so that your bargains, to be effectual, must be made within reach of a cookshop or grocery. The same friend tells me he learnt at Port Blair that there were marriage restrictions on which great stress was laid. This may be the case on the South Island; there is much testimony on the other side as regards the more savage Andamanese. The forest tribes of Chittagong are much higher in the scale than the Andamanese, but they are nevertheless savages of a low type. Captain Lewin says: "The men wear scarcely any clothing, and the petticoat of the women is scanty, reaching only to the knee; they worship the terrene elements, and have vague and undefined ideas of some divine power which overshadows all. They were born and they die for ends to them as incomputable as the path of a cannon-shot fired into the darkness. They are cruel, and attach but little value to life. Reverence or respect are emotions unknown to them, they salute neither their chiefs nor their elders, neither have they any expression conveying thanks." There is, however, much that is interesting in these wild people, and to those who wish to know more I recommend Captain Lewin's account of 'The Hill Tracts of Chittagong.' ORDER QUADRUMANA. The monkeys of the Indian Peninsula are restricted to a few groups, of which the principal one is that of the _Semnopitheci_. These monkeys are distinguished not only by their peculiar black faces, with a ridge of long stiff black hair projecting forwards over the eyebrows, thin slim bodies and long tails, but by the absence of cheek pouches, and the possession of a peculiar sacculated stomach, which, as figured in Cuvier, resembles a bunch of grapes. Jerdon says of this group that, out of five species found on the continent there is only one spread through all the plains of Central and Northern India, and one through the Himalayas, whilst there are three well-marked species in the extreme south of the Peninsula; but then he omits at least four species inhabiting Chittagong, Tenasserim, Arracan, which also belong to the continent of India, though perhaps not to the actual Peninsula. Sir Emerson Tennent, in his 'Natural History of Ceylon,' also mentions and figures three species, of which two are not included in Jerdon's 'Mammals,' though incidentally spoken of. I propose to add the Ceylon Mammalia to the Indian, and therefore shall allude to these further on. The next group of Indian monkeys is that of the Macaques or Magots, or Monkey Baboons of India, the _Lal Bundar_ of the natives. They have simple stomachs and cheek pouches, which last, I dare say, most of us have noticed who have happened to give two plantains in succession to one of them. Although numerically the _Langurs_ or Entellus Monkeys form the most important group of the Quadrumana in India, yet the Gibbons (which are not included by Jerdon) rank highest in the scale, though the species are restricted to but three--_Hylobates hooluck_, _H. lar_ and _H. syndactylus_. They are superior in formation (that is taking man as the highest development of the form, to which some people take objection, though to my way of thinking there is not much to choose between the highest type of monkey and the lowest of humanity, if we would but look facts straight in the face), and they are also vastly superior in intellect to either the _Langurs_ or the _Macaques_, though inferior perhaps to the Ourangs. _GENUS HYLOBATES--THE GIBBONS_, Which, with the long arms of the Ourangs and the receding forehead of the Chimpanzee, possess the callosities of the true monkeys, but differ from them in having neither tail nor cheek pouches. They are true bipeds on the ground, applying the sole of the foot flatly, not, as Cuvier and others have remarked of the Ourangs, with the outer edge of the sole only, but flat down, as Blyth, who first mentions it, noticed it, with the thumb or big toe widely separated. NO. 1. HYLOBATES HOOLUCK. _The White-fronted Gibbon_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Hooluck_, _Hookoo_. HABITAT.--Garo and Khasia Hills, Valley of Assam, and Arracan. DESCRIPTION.--Males deep black, marked with white across the forehead. Females vary from brownish black to whitish-brown, without, however, the fulvous tint observable in pale specimens of the next species. "In general they are paler on the crown, back, and outside of limbs, darker in front, and much darker on the cheeks and chin."--_Blyth_. SIZE.--About two feet. [Figure: Skull of _Hylobates hooluck_.] I think of all the monkey family this Gibbon makes one of the most interesting pets. It is mild and most docile, and capable of great attachment. Even the adult male has been caught, and within the short space of a month so completely tamed that he would follow and come to a call. One I had for a time, some years ago, was a most engaging little creature. Nothing contented him so much as being allowed to sit by my side with his arm linked through mine, and he would resist any attempt I made to go away. He was extremely clean in his habits, which cannot be said of all the monkey tribe. Soon after he came to me I gave him a piece of blanket to sleep on in his box, but the next morning I found he had rolled it up and made a sort of pillow for his head, so a second piece was given him. He was destined for the Queen's Gardens at Delhi, but unfortunately on his way up he got a chill, and contracted a disease akin to consumption. During his illness he was most carefully tended by my brother, who had a little bed made for him, and the doctor came daily to see the little patient, who gratefully accepted his attentions; but, to their disappointment, he died. The only objection to these monkeys as pets is the power they have of howling, or rather whooping, a piercing and somewhat hysterical "Whoop-poo! whoop-poo! whoop-poo!" for several minutes, till fairly exhausted. They are very fond of swinging by their long arms, and walk something like a tipsy sailor. A friend, resident on the frontiers of Assam, tells me that the full-grown adult pines and dies in confinement. I think it probable that it may miss a certain amount of insect diet, and would recommend those who cannot let their pets run loose in a garden to give them raw eggs and a little minced meat, and a spider or two occasionally. In its wild state this Gibbon feeds on leaves, insects, eggs and small birds. Dr. Anderson notices the following as favourite leaves: _Moringa pterygosperma_ (horse-radish tree), _Spondias mangifera_ (amra), _Ficus religiosa_ (the pipal), also _Beta vulgaris_; and it is specially partial to the _Ipomoea reptans_ (the water convolvulus) and the bright-coloured flowers of the Indian shot (_Canna Indica_). Of insects it prefers spiders and the Orthoptera; eggs and small birds are also eagerly devoured. NO. 2. HYLOBATES LAR. _The White-handed Gibbon_. HABITAT.--Arracan, Lower Pegu, Tenasserim, and the Malayan Peninsula. [Figure: _HYLOBATES LAR_. _HYLOBATES HOOLUCK_.] DESCRIPTION.--"This species is generally recognisable by its pale yellowish, almost white hands and feet, by the grey, almost white, supercilium, whiskers and beard, and by the deep black of the rest of the pelage."--_Anderson_. SIZE.--About same as _H. hooluck_. It is, however, found in every variety of colour, from black to brownish, and variegated with light-coloured patches, and occasionally of a fulvous white. For a long time I supposed it to be synonymous with _H. agilis_ of Cuvier, or _H. variegatus_ of Temminck, but both Mr. Blyth and Dr. Anderson separate it. Blyth mentions a significant fact in distinguishing the two Indian Gibbons, whatever be their variations of colour, viz.: "_H. hooluck_ has constantly a broad white frontal band either continuous or divided in the middle, while _H. lar_ has invariably white hands and feet, less brightly so in some, and a white ring encircling the visage, which is seldom incomplete."[3] [Footnote 3: There is an excellent coloured drawing by Wolf of these two Gibbons in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' 1870, page 86, from which I have partly adapted the accompanying sketch.] _H. lar_ has sometimes the index and middle fingers connected by a web, as in the case of _H. syndactylus_ (a Sumatran species very distinct in other respects). The very closely allied _H. agilis_ has also this peculiarity in occasional specimens. This Gibbon was called "_agilis_" by Cuvier from its extreme rapidity in springing from branch to branch. Duvaucel says: "The velocity of its movements is wonderful; it escapes like a bird on the wing. Ascending rapidly to the top of a tree, it then seizes a flexible branch, swings itself two or three times to gain the necessary impetus, and then launches itself forward, repeatedly clearing in succession, without effort and without fatigue, spaces of forty feet." Sir Stamford Raffles writes that it is believed in Sumatra that it is so jealous that if in captivity preference be given to one over another, the neglected one will die of grief; and he found that one he had sickened under similar circumstances and did not recover till his rival (a Siamang, _H. syndactylus_) was removed. NO. 3. _HYLOBATES SYNDACTYLUS_. _The Siamang_. HABITAT.--Tenasserim Province, Sumatra, Malayan Peninsula. DESCRIPTION.--A more robust and thick-set animal than the two last; deep, woolly, black fur; no white supercilium nor white round the face. The skull is distinguished from the skull of the other Gibbons, according to Dr. Anderson, by the greater forward projection of the supraorbital ridges, and by its much deeper face, and the occipital region more abruptly truncated than in the other species. The index and middle toes of the foot are united to the last phalange. SIZE.--About three feet. This Gibbon is included in the Indian group on the authority of Helfer, who stated it to be found in the southern parts of the Tenasserim province. Blyth mentions another distinguishing characteristic--it is not only larger than the other Gibbons, but it possesses an inflatable laryngeal sac. Its arms are immense--five feet across in an adult of three feet high. The other species of this genus inhabiting adjacent and other countries are _H. Pileatus_ and _H. leucogenys_ in Siam; _H. leuciscus_, Java; _H. Mulleri_ and _H. concolor_, Borneo. _GENUS PRESBYTES--CUVIER'S GENUS SEMNOPITHECUS_. These monkeys are characterised by their slender bodies and long limbs and tails. Jerdon says the Germans call them Slim-apes. Other striking peculiarities are the absence of cheek pouches, which, if present, are but rudimentary. Then they differ from the true monkeys (_Cercopithecus_) by the form of the last molar tooth in the lower jaw, which has five tubercles instead of four; and, finally, they are to be distinguished by the peculiar structure of the stomach, which is singularly complicated, almost as much so as in the case of Ruminants, which have four divisions. The stomach of this genus of monkey consists of three divisions: 1st, a simple cardiac pouch with smooth parietes; 2nd, a wide sacculated middle portion; 3rd, a narrow elongated canal, sacculated at first, and of simple structure towards the termination. Cuvier from this supposes it to be more herbivorous than other genera, and considers this conclusion justified by the blunter tubercles of the molars and greater length of intestines and caecum, all of which point to a vegetable diet. "The head is round, the face but little produced, having a high facial angle."--_Jerdon_. But the _tout ensemble_ of the _Langur_ is so peculiar that no one who has once been told of a long, loosed-limbed, slender monkey with a prodigious tail, black face, with overhanging brows of long stiff black hair, projecting like a pent-house, would fail to recognise the animal. The _Hanuman_ monkey is reverenced by the Hindus. Hanuman was the son of Pavana, god of the winds; his strength was enormous, but in attempting to seize the sun he was struck by Indra with a thunderbolt which broke his jaw (_hanu_), whereupon his father shut himself up in a cave, and would not let a breeze cool the earth till the gods had promised his son immortality. Hanuman aided Rama in his attack upon Ceylon, and by his superhuman strength mountains were torn up and cast into the sea, so as to form a bridge of rocks across the Straits of Manar.[4] [Footnote 4: The legend, with native picture, is given in Wilkin's 'Hindoo Mythology.'] The species of this genus of monkey abound throughout the Peninsula. All Indian sportsmen are familiar with their habits, and have often been assisted by them in tracking a tiger. Their loud whoops and immense bounds from tree to tree when excited, or the flashing of their white teeth as they gibber at their lurking foe, have often told the shikari of the whereabouts of the object of his search. The _Langurs_ take enormous leaps, twenty-five feet in width, with thirty to forty in a drop, and never miss a branch. I have watched them often in the Central Indian jungles. Emerson Tennent graphically describes this: "When disturbed their leaps are prodigious, but generally speaking their progress is not made so much by _leaping_ as by swinging from branch to branch, using their powerful arms alternately, and, when baffled by distance, flinging themselves obliquely so as to catch the lower boughs of an opposite tree, the momentum acquired by their descent being sufficient to cause a rebound of the branch that carries them upwards again till they can grasp a higher and more distant one, and thus continue their headlong flight." Jerdon's statement that they can run with great rapidity on all-fours is qualified by McMaster, who easily ran down a large male on horseback on getting him out on a plain. A correspondent of the _Asian_, quoting from the _Indian Medical Gazette_ for 1870, states that experiments with one of this genus (_Presbytes entellus_) showed that strychnine has no effect on _Langurs_--as much as five grains were given within an hour without effect. "From a quarter to half of a grain will kill a dog in from five to ten minutes, and even one twenty-fourth of a grain will have a decided tetanic effect in human beings of delicate temperament."--_Cooley's Cycl_. Two days after _ten_ grains of strychnine were dissolved in spirits of wine, and mixed with rum and water, cold but sweet, which the animal drank with relish, and remained unhurt. The same experiment was tried with one of another genus (_Inuus rhesus_), who rejected the poisoned fruit at once, and on having strychnine in solution poured down his throat, died. The _Langur_ was then tried with cyanide of potassium, which he rejected at once, but on being forced to take a few grains, was dead in a few seconds. Although we may not sympathize with those who practise such cruel experiments as these above alluded to, the facts elucidated are worth recording, and tend to prove the peculiar herbivorous nature of this genus, which, in common with other strictly herbivorous animals, instinctively knows what to choose and what to avoid, and can partake, without danger, of some of the most virulent vegetable poisons. It is possible that in the forests they eat the fruit of the _Strychnos nux-vomica_, which is also the favourite food of the pied hornbill (_Hydrocissa coronata_). NO. 4. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES ENTELLUS. _The Bengal Langur_ (_Jerdon's No. 1_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Langur_, _Hanuman_, Hindi; _Wanur_ and _Makur_, Mahratti; _Musya_, Canarese. HABITAT.--Bengal and Central India. [Figure: _Presbytes entellus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Pale dirty or ashy grey; darker on the shoulders and rump; greyish-brown on the tail; paler on the head and lower parts; hands and feet black. SIZE.--Length of male thirty inches to root of tail; tail forty-three inches. The _Entellus_ monkey is in some parts of India deemed sacred, and is permitted by the Hindus to plunder their grain-shops with impunity; but I think that with increasing hard times the _Hanumans_ are not allowed such freedom as they used to have, and in most parts of India I have been in they are considered an unmitigated nuisance, and the people have implored the aid of Europeans to get rid of their tormentors. In the forest the _Langur_ lives on grain, fruit, the pods of leguminous trees, and young buds and leaves. Sir Emerson Tennent notices the fondness of an allied species for the flowers of the red hibiscus (_H. rosa sinensis_). The female has usually only one young one, though sometimes twins. The very young babies have not black but light-coloured faces, which darken afterwards. I have always found them most difficult to rear, requiring almost as much attention as a human baby. Their diet and hours of feeding must be as systematically arranged; and if cow's milk be given it must be freely diluted with water--two-thirds to one-third milk when very young, and afterwards decreased to one-half. They are extremely susceptible to cold. In confinement they are quiet and gentle whilst young, but the old males are generally sullen and treacherous. Jerdon says, on the authority of the _Bengal Sporting Magazine_ (August 1836), that the males live apart from the females, who have only one or two old males with each colony, and that they have fights at certain seasons, when the vanquished males receive charge of all the young ones of their own sex, with whom they retire to some neighbouring jungle. Blyth notices that in one locality he found only males of all ages, and in another chiefly females. I have found these monkeys mostly on the banks of streams in the forests of the Central Provinces; in fact, the presence of them anywhere in arid jungles is a sign that water is somewhere in the vicinity. They are timid creatures, and I have never seen the slightest disposition about them to show fight, whereas I was once most deliberately charged by the old males of a party of _Rhesus_ monkeys. I was at the time on field service during the Mutiny, and, seeing several nursing mothers in the party, tried to run them down in the open and secure a baby; but they were too quick for me, and, on being attacked by the old males, I had to pistol the leader. NO. 5. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES SCHISTACEUS.[5] _The Himalayan Langur_ (_Jerdon's No. 2_). [Footnote 5: Mr. J. Cockburn, of the Imperial Museum, has, since I wrote about the preceding species, given me some interesting information regarding the geographical distribution of _Presbytes entellus_ and _Hylobates hooluck_. He says: "The latter has never been known to occur on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, though swarming in the forests at the very water's edge on the south bank. The _entellus_ monkey is also not found on the north bank of the Ganges, and attempts at its introduction have repeatedly failed." _P. schistaceus_ replaces it in the Sub-Himalayan forests.] NATIVE NAMES.--_Langur_, Hindi; _Kamba Suhu_, Lepcha; _Kubup_, Bhotia. HABITAT.--The whole range of the Himalayas from Nepal to beyond Simla. DESCRIPTION (after Hodgson).--Dark slaty above; head and lower parts pale yellowish; hands concolorous with body, or only a little darker; tail slightly tufted; hair on the crown of the head short and radiated; on the cheeks long, directed backwards, and covering the ears. Hutton's description is, dark greyish, with pale hands and feet, white head, dark face, white throat and breast, and white tip to the tail. SIZE.--About thirty inches; tail, thirty-six inches. Captain Hutton, writing from Mussoorie, says: "On the Simla side I observed them also, leaping and playing about, while the fir-trees, among which they sported, were loaded with snow-wreaths, at an elevation of 11,000 feet."--'Jour. As. Soc. Beng.' xiii. p. 471. Dr. Anderson remarks on the skull of this species, that it can be easily distinguished from _entellus_ by its larger size, the supraorbital ridge being less forwardly projected, and not forming so thick and wide a pent roof, but the most marked difference lies in the much longer facial portion of _schistaceus_; the teeth are also larger; the symphysis or junction of the lower jaw is considerably longer and broader, and the lower jaw itself is generally more massive and deep. NO. 6. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES PRIAMUS. _The Madras Langur_. NATIVE NAME.--_Gandangi_, Telugu. HABITAT.--The Coromandel Coast and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Ashy grey, with a pale reddish or _chocolat-au-lait_ tint overlying the whole back and head; sides of the head, chin, throat, and beneath pale yellowish; hands and feet whitish; face, palms and fingers, and soles of feet and toes black; hair long and straight, not wavy; tail of the colour of the darker portion of the back, ending in a whitish tuft.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--About the same as _P. entellus_. Blyth, who is followed by Jerdon, describes this monkey as having a compressed high vertical crest, but Dr. Anderson found that the specimens in the Indian Museum owed these crests to bad stuffing. Kellaart, however, mentions it, and calls the animal "the Crested Monkey." In Sir Emerson Tennent's figure of _P. priamus_ a slight crest is noticeable; but Kellaart is very positive on this point, saying: "_P. priamus_ is easily distinguished from all other known species of monkeys in Ceylon by its high compressed vertical crest." Jerdon says this species is not found on the Malabar Coast, but neither he nor McMaster give much information regarding it. Emerson Tennent writes: "At Jaffna, and in other parts of the island where the population is comparatively numerous, these monkeys become so familiarised with the presence of man as to exhibit the utmost daring and indifference. A flock of them will take possession of a palmyra palm, and so effectually can they crouch and conceal themselves among the leaves that, on the slightest alarm, the whole party becomes invisible in an instant. The presence of a dog, however, excites such irrepressible curiosity that, in order to watch his movements, they never fail to betray themselves. They may be frequently seen congregated on the roof of a native hut; and, some years ago, the child of a European clergyman, stationed near Jaffna, having been left on the ground by the nurse, was so teased and bitten by them as to cause its death." In these particulars this species resembles _P. entellus_. NO. 7. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES JOHNII. _The Malabar Langur_ (_Jerdon's No. 4_). HABITAT.--The Malabar Coast, from N. Lat. 14 degrees or 15 degrees to Cape Comorin. DESCRIPTION.--Above dusky brown, slightly paling on the sides; crown, occiput, sides of head and beard fulvous, darkest on the crown; limbs and tail dark brown, almost black; beneath yellowish white.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Not quite so large as _P. entellus_. This monkey was named after a member of the Danish factory at Tranquebar, M. John, who first described it. It abounds in forests, and does not frequent villages, though it will visit gardens and fields, where, however, it shuns observation. The young are of a sooty brown, or nearly black, without any indication of the light-coloured hood of the adult. NO. 8. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES JUBATUS. _The Nilgheri Langur_ (_Jerdon's No. 5_). HABITAT.--The Nilgheri Hills, the Animallies, Pulneys, the Wynaad, and all the higher parts of the range of the Ghats as low as Travancore. DESCRIPTION.--Dark glossy black throughout, except head and nape, which are reddish brown; hair very long; in old individuals a greyish patch on the rump.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Length of head and body, 26 inches; tail, 30. This monkey does not, as a rule, descend lower than 2,500 to 3,000 feet; it is shy and wary. The fur is fine and glossy, and is much prized (Jerdon). Its flesh is excellent food for dogs (McMaster). Dr. Anderson makes this synonymous with the last. NO. 9. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES PILEATUS. _The Capped Langur_. HABITAT.--Assam, Chittagong, Tipperah. DESCRIPTION.--General colour dark ashy grey, with a slight ferruginous tint; darker near head and on shoulders; underneath and on the inside of the limbs pale yellowish, with a darker shade of orange or golden yellow on the breast and belly. The crown of the head is densely covered with bristly hairs, regularly disposed and somewhat elongated on the vertex so as to resemble a cap, whence the name. Along the forehead is a superciliary crest of long black bristles, directed outwardly; whiskers full and down to the chin: behind the ears is a small tuft of white hairs; the tail is long, one third longer than the body, darker near the end, and tufted; fingers and toes black. SIZE.--A little smaller than _P. entellus_. This monkey is found in Northern Assam, Tipperah and southwards to Tenasserim; in Blyth's 'Catalogue of the Mammals of Burmah' it is mentioned as _P. chrysogaster_ (_Semnopithecus potenziani_ of Bonaparte and Peters). He writes of it: "Females and young have the lower parts white, or but faintly tinted with ferruginous, and the rest of the coat is of a pure grey; the face black, and there is no crest, but the hairs of the crown are so disposed as to appear like a small flat cap laid upon the top of the head. The old males seem always to be of a deep rust-colour on the cheeks, lower parts, and more or less on the outer side of the limbs; while in old females this rust colour is diluted or little more than indicated." Dr. Anderson says that a young one he had was of a mild disposition, which however is not the character of the adult animal, which is uncertain, and the males when irritated are fierce, and determined in attack. No rule, however, is without its exception, for one adult male, possessed by Blyth, is reported as having been an exceeding gentle animal. NO. 10. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES BARBEI. _The Tipperah Langur_. HABITAT.--Tipperah, Tenasserim. DESCRIPTION.--No vertical crest of hair on the head, nor is the occipital hair directed downwards, as in the next species. Shoulders and outside of arm silvered; tail slightly paler than body, "which is of a blackish fuliginous hue." More information is required about this monkey, which was named by Blyth after its donor to the Asiatic Society, the Rev. J. Barbe. Blyth considered it as distinct from _P. Phayrei_ and _P. obscurus_, which last is from Malacca. Dr. Anderson noticed it in the valley of the Tapeng in the centre of the Kakhyen Hills, in troops of thirty to fifty, in high forest trees overhanging the mountain streams. Being seldom disturbed, they permitted a near approach. NO. 11. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES PHAYREI. _Syn_.--SEMNOPITHECUS CRISTATUS. _The Silvery-Leaf Monkey_ (_Blyth_). HABITAT.--Arracan, Malayan Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo. DESCRIPTION.-Colour dusky grey-brown above, more or less dark, with black hands and feet; a conspicuous crest on the vertex; under parts white, scarcely extending to the inside of the limbs; sides grey like the back; whiskers dark, very long, concealing the ears in front; lips and eyelids conspicuously white, with white moustachial hairs above and similar hairs below. SIZE.--Two feet; tail, 2 feet 6 inches. This monkey was named by Blyth after Captain (now Sir Arthur) Phayre, who first brought it to his notice; but he afterwards reconciled it as being synonymous with _Semnopithecus cristatus_. The colouring, according to different authors, seems to vary considerably, which causes some confusion in description. It differs from an allied species, _S. maurus_, in selecting low marshy situations near the banks of streams. Its favourite food is the fruit of the Nibong palm (_Oncosperma filamentosa_). NO. 12. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES OBSCURUS. _The Dusky-Leaf Monkey_. HABITAT.--Mergui and the Malayan Peninsula. DESCRIPTION.--Adults ashy or brownish black, darker on forehead, sides of face, shoulder, and sides of body; the hair on the nape is lengthened and whitish. The newly-born young are of a golden ferruginous colour, which afterward changes to dusky-ash colour, the terminal half of the tail being last to change; the mouth and eyelids are whitish, but the rest of the face black. SIZE.--Body, 1 foot 9 inches; tail, 2 feet 8 inches. This monkey is most common in the Malayan Peninsula, but has been found to extend to Mergui, where Blyth states it was procured by the late Major Berdmore. Dr. Anderson says it is not unfrequently offered for sale in the Singapore market. NO. 13. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES CEPHALOPTERUS. _The Ceylon Langur_. NATIVE NAME.--_Kallu Wanderu_. HABITAT.--The low lands of Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--General colour cinereous black; croup and inside of thighs whitish; head rufescent brown; hair on crown short, semi-erect; occipital hairs long, albescent; whiskers white, thick and long, terminating at the chin in a short beard, and laterally angularly pointed; upper lip thinly fringed with white hairs; superciliary hairs black, long, stiff and standing erect; tail albescent and terminating in a beard tuft; face, palms, soles, fingers, toes and callosities black; irides brown.--_Kellaart_. SIZE.--Length, 20 inches; tail 24 inches. Sir E. Tennent says of this monkey that it is never found at a higher elevation than 1,300 feet (when it is replaced by the next species). "It is an active and intelligent creature, little larger than the common bonneted macaque, and far from being so mischievous as others of the monkeys in the island. In captivity it is remarkable for the gravity of its demeanour and for an air of melancholy in its expression and movements, which are completely in character with its snowy beard and venerable aspect. In disposition it is gentle and confiding, sensible in the highest degree of kindness, and eager for endearing attention, uttering a low plaintive cry when its sympathies are excited. It is particularly cleanly in its habits when domesticated, and spends much of its time in trimming its fur and carefully divesting its hair of particles of dust. Those which I kept at my house near Colombo were chiefly fed upon plantains and bananas, but for nothing did they evince a greater partiality than the rose-coloured flowers of the red hibiscus (_H. rosa sinensis_). These they devoured with unequivocal gusto; they likewise relished the leaves of many other trees, and even the bark of a few of the more succulent ones." NO. 14. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES URSINUS. _The Great Wanderu_. NATIVE NAME.--_Maha Wanderu_. HABITAT.--The mountainous district of Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Fur long, almost uniformly greyish black; whiskers full and white; occiput and croup in old specimens paler coloured; hands and feet blackish; tail long, getting lighter towards the lower half. The young and adults under middle age have a rufous tint, corresponding with that of the head of all ages. SIZE.--Body about 22 inches; tail, 26 inches. The name Wanderu is a corruption of the Singhalese generic word for monkey, _Ouandura_, or _Wandura_, which bears a striking resemblance to the Hindi _Bandra_, commonly called _Bandar_--_b_ and _v_ being interchangeable--and is evidently derived from the Sanscrit _Banur_, which in the south again becomes _Wanur_, and further south, in Ceylon, _Wandura_. There has been a certain amount of confusion between this animal and _Inuus silenus_, the lion monkey, which had the name _Wanderu_ applied to it by Buffon, and it is so figured in Cuvier. They are both large monkeys, with great beards of light coloured hair, but in no other respect do they resemble. Sir Emerson Tennent says: "It is rarely seen by Europeans, this portion of the country having till very recently been but partially opened; and even now it is difficult to observe its habits, as it seldom approaches the few roads which wind through these deep solitudes. At early morning, ere the day begins to dawn, its loud and peculiar howl, which consists of quick repetition of the sound _how-how!_ may be frequently heard in the mountain jungles, and forms one of the characteristic noises of these lofty situations." This was written in 1861; since then much of the mountainous forest land has been cleared for coffee-planting, and the Wanderu either driven into corners or become more familiarised with man. More therefore must be known of its habits by this time, and information regarding it is desirable. NO. 15. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES THERSITES. NATIVE NAME.--_Ellee Wanderu_ (Kellaart). HABITAT.--Ceylon. [Figure: _Presbytes thersites_.] DESCRIPTION.--Chiefly distinguished from the others by wanting the head tuft; uniform dusky grey, darker on crown and fore-limbs; slaty brown on wrists and hands; hair on toes whitish; whiskers and beard largely developed and conspicuously white. The name was given by Blyth to a single specimen forwarded by Dr. Templeton, and it was for a time doubtful whether it was really a native, till Dr. Kellaart procured a second. Dr. Templeton's specimen was partial to fresh vegetables, plantains, and fruit, but he ate freely boiled rice, beans, and gram. He was fond of being noticed and petted, stretching out his limbs in succession to be scratched, drawing himself up so that his ribs might be reached by the finger, closing his eyes during the operation, and evincing his satisfaction by grimaces irresistibly ludicrous.--_Emerson Tennent_. Dr. Anderson considers this monkey as identical with _Semnopithecus priamus_, but Kellaart, as I have before stated, is very positive on the point of difference, calling _S. priamus_ emphatically the crested monkey, and alleging that _thersites_ has no crest, and it is probable he had opportunities of observing the two animals in life; he says he had a young specimen of _priamus_, which distinctly showed the crest, and a young _thersites_ of the same age which showed no sign of it. In Emerson Tennent's 'Natural History of Ceylon,' (1861) page 5, there is a plate of a group in which are included _priamus_ and _thersites_; in the original they are wrongly numbered--the former should be 2 and not 3, and the latter 3 and not 2. If these be correct (and Wolf's name should be a voucher for their being so) there is a decided difference. There is no crest in the latter, and the white whiskers terminate abruptly on a level with the eyebrow, and the superciliary ridge of hair is wanting. NO. 16. SEMNOPITHECUS _vel_ PRESBYTES ALBINUS (_Kellaart_). _The White Langur_. HABITAT.--Ceylon, in the hills beyond Matelle. DESCRIPTION.--Fur dense, sinuous, nearly of uniform white colour, with only a slight dash of grey on the head; face and ears black; palm, soles, fingers and toes flesh-coloured; limbs and body the shape of _P. ursinus_; long white hairs prolonged over the toes and claws, giving the appearance of a white spaniel dog to this monkey; irides brown; whiskers white, full, and pointed laterally.--_Kellaart_. The above description was taken by Dr. Kellaart from a living specimen. He considered it to be a distinct species, and not an Albino, from the black face and ears and brown eyes. The Kandyans assured him that they were to be seen (rarely however) in small parties of three and four over the hills beyond Matelle, but never in company with the dark kind. Emerson Tennent also mentions one that was brought to him taken between Ambepasse and Kornegalle, where they were said to be numerous; except in colour it had all the characteristics of _P. cephalopterus_. So striking was its whiteness that it might have been conjectured to be an Albino, but for the circumstance that its eyes and face were black. An old writer of the seventeenth century, Knox, says of the monkeys of Ceylon (where he was captive for some time) that there are some "milk-white in body and face, but of this sort there is not such plenty."--_Tennent's 'Natural History of Ceylon,' page 8_. NOTE.--Since the above was in type I have found in the List of Animals in the Zoological Society's Gardens, a species entered as _Semnopithecus leucoprymnus_, the Purple-faced Monkey from Ceylon--see P.Z.S. PAPIONINAE. This sub-family comprises the true baboons of Africa and the monkey-like baboons of India. They have the stomach simple, and cheek-pouches are always present. According to Cuvier they possess, like the last family, a fifth tubercle on their last molars. They produce early, but are not completely adult for four or five years; the period of gestation is seven months. The third sub-family of _Simiadae_ consists of the genera _Cercopithicus_, _Macacus_, and _Cynocephalus_, as generally accepted by modern zoologists, but Jerdon seems to have followed Ogilby in his classification, which merges the long-tailed Macaques into _Cercopithecus_, and substituting _Papio_ for the others. _GENUS INUUS_. Cuvier applies this term to the Magots or rudimentary-tailed Macaques. The monkeys of this genus are more compactly built than those of the last. They are also less herbivorous in their diet, eating frogs, lizards, crabs and insects, as well as vegetables and fruit. Their callosities and cheek-pouches are large, and they have a sac which communicates with the larynx under the thyroid cartilage, which fills with air when they cry out. Some naturalists of the day, however, place all under the generic name Macacus. NO. 17. INUUS _vel_ MACACUS SILENUS. _The Lion Monkey_ (_Jerdon's No. 6_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Nil bandar_, Bengali; _Shia bandar_, Hindi; _Nella manthi_, Malabari. HABITAT.--The Western Ghats of India from North Lat. 14 degrees to the extreme south, but most abundant in Cochin and Travancore (_Jerdon_), also Ceylon (_Cuvier_ and _Horsfield_), though not confirmed by Emerson Tennent, who states that the _silenus_ is not found in the island except as introduced by Arab horse-dealers occasionally, and that it certainly is not indigenous. Blyth was also assured by Dr. Templeton of Colombo that the only specimens there were imported. [Figure: _Macacus silenus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Black, with a reddish-white hood or beard surrounding the face and neck; tail with a tuft of whitish hair at the tip; a little greyish on the chest. SIZE.--About 24 inches; tail, 10 inches. There is a plate of this monkey in Carpenter and Westwood's edition of Cuvier, under the mistaken name of _Wanderoo_. It is somewhat sulky and savage, and is difficult to get near in a wild state. Jerdon states that he met with it only in dense unfrequented forest, and sometimes at a considerable elevation. It occurs in troops of from twelve to twenty. NO. 18. INUUS _vel_ MACACUS RHESUS. _The Bengal Monkey_ (_Jerdon's No. 7_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Bandar_, Hindi; _Markot_, Bengali; _Suhu_, Lepcha, _Piyu_, Bhotia. HABITAT.--India generally from the North to about Lat. 18 degrees or 19 degrees; but not in the South, where it is replaced by _Macacus radiatus_. [Figure: _Macacus rhesus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Above brownish ochrey or rufous; limbs and beneath ashy-brown; callosities and adjacent parts red; face of adult males red. SIZE.--Twenty-two inches; tail 11 inches. This monkey is too well-known to need description. It is the common acting monkey of the _bandar-wallas_, the delight of all Anglo-Indian children, who go into raptures over the romance of _Munsur-ram_ and _Chameli_, their quarrels, parting, and reconciliation, so admirably acted by these miniature comedians. NOTE.--For _Macacus rheso-similis_, Sclater, see P.Z.S. 1872, p. 495, pl. xxv., also P.Z.S. 1875, p. 418. NO. 19. INUUS _vel_ MACACUS PELOPS. _Syn_.--MACACUS ASSAMENSIS. _The Hill Monkey_ (_Jerdon's No. 8_). HABITAT.--The Himalayan ranges and Assam. DESCRIPTION.--Brownish grey, somewhat mixed with slaty, and rusty brownish on the shoulders in some; beneath light ashy brown; fur fuller and more wavy than in _rhesus_; canine teeth long; of stout habit; callosities and face less red than in the last species (_Jerdon_). Face flesh-coloured, but interspersed with a few black hairs (_McClelland_). NO. 20. INUUS _vel_ MACACUS NEMESTRINUS. _The Pig-tailed Monkey_. HABITAT.--Tenasserim and the Malay Archipelago. [Figure: _Macacus nemestrinus_.] DESCRIPTION.--General colour grizzled brown; the piles annulated with dusky and fulvous; crown darker, and the middle of the back also darker; the hair lengthened on the fore-quarters; the back stripe extends along the tail, becoming almost black; the tail terminates in a bright ferruginous tuft. This monkey is noted for its docility, and in Bencoolen is trained to be useful as well as amusing. According to Sir Stamford Raffles it is taught to climb the cocoa palms for the fruit for its master, and to select only those that are ripe. NO. 21. INUUS _vel_ MACACUS LEONINUS. _The Long-haired Pig-tailed Monkey_. HABITAT.--Arracan. DESCRIPTION.--A thick-set powerful animal, with a broad, rather flattened head above, and a moderately short, well clad, up-turned tail, about one-third the length of the body and head; the female smaller.--_Anderson_. Face fleshy brown; whitish round the eyes and on the forehead; eyebrows brownish, a narrow reddish line running out from the external angle of the eye. The upper surface of the head is densely covered with short dark fur, yellowish brown, broadly tipped with black; the hair radiating from the vertex; on and around the ear the hair is pale grey; above the external orbital angle and on the sides of the face the hair is dense and directed backwards, pale greyish, obscurely annulated with dusky brown, and this is prolonged downwards to the middle of the throat. On the shoulders, back of the neck, and upper part of the thighs, the hairs are very long, fully three inches in the first-mentioned localities; the basal halves greyish; and the remainder ringed with eleven bands of dark brown and orange; the tips being dark. The middle and small of the back is almost black, the shorter hair there being wholly dark; and this colour is prolonged on the tail, which is tufted. The hair on the chest is annulated, but paler than on the shoulders, and it is especially dense on the lower part. The lower halves of the limbs are also well clad with annulated fur, like their outsides, but their upper halves internally and the belly are only sparsely covered with long brownish grey plain hairs, not ringed. The female differs from the male in the absence of the black on the head and back, and in the hair of the under parts being brownish grey, without annulations. The shoulders somewhat brighter than the rest of the fur, which is yellowish olive; greyish olive on outside of limbs; dusky on upper surface of hands and feet; and black on upper surface of tail. SIZE.--Length of male, head and body 23 inches; tail, without hair, 8 inches; with hair 10 inches. The above description is taken from Dr. Anderson's account, 'Anat. and Zool. Res.,' where at page 54 will be found a plate of the skull showing the powerful canine teeth. Blyth mentions a fine male with hair on the shoulders four to five inches long. NO. 22. INUUS _vel_ MACACUS ARCTOIDES. _The Brown Stump-tailed Monkey_. HABITAT.--Cachar, Kakhyen Hills, east of Bhamo. DESCRIPTION.--Upper surface of head and along the back dark brown, almost blackish; sides and limbs dark brown; the hair, which is very long, is ringed with light yellowish and dark brown, darker still at the tips; face red; tail short and stumpy, little over an inch long. This monkey is one over which many naturalists have argued; it is synonymous with _Macacus speciosus_, _M. maurus_, _M. melanotus_, and was thought to be with _M. brunneus_ till Dr. Anderson placed the latter in a separate species on account of the non-annulation of its hair. It is essentially a denizen of the hills; it has been obtained in Cachar and in Upper Assam. Dr. Anderson got it in the Kakhyen Hills on the frontier of Yunnan, beyond which, he says, it spreads to the southeast to Cochin-China. NO. 23. INUUS _vel_ MACACUS THIBETANUS. _The Thibetan Stump-tailed Monkey_. DESCRIPTION.--Head large and whiskered; form robust; tail stumpy and clad; general colour of the animal brown; whiskers greyish; face nude and flesh-coloured, with a deep crimson flush round the eyes. SIZE.--Two feet 9 inches; tail about 3 inches. This large monkey, though not belonging to British India, inhabiting, it is said, "the coldest and least accessible forests of Eastern Thibet," is mentioned here, as the exploration of that country by travellers from India is attracting attention. _GENUS MACACUS_. Tail longer than in _Inuus_, and face not so lengthened; otherwise as in that genus.--_Jerdon_. NO. 24. MACACUS RADIATUS. _The Madras Monkey_ (_Jerdon's No. 9_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Bandar_, Hindi; _Makadu_ or _Wanur_, Mahratti; _Kerda mahr_ of the Ghats; _Munga_, Canarese; _Koti_, Telegu; _Vella munthi_, Malabar. HABITAT.--All over the southern parts of India, as far north as lat. 18 degrees. [Figure: _Macacus radiatus_ and _Macacus pileatus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Of a dusky olive brown, paler and whitish underneath, ashy on outer sides of limbs; tail dusky brown above, whitish beneath; hairs on the crown of the head radiated. SIZE.--Twenty inches; tail 15 inches. Elliott remarks of this monkey that it inhabits not only the wildest jungles, but the most populous towns, and it is noted for its audacity in stealing fruit and grain from shops. Jerdon says: "It is the monkey most commonly found in menageries, and led about to show various tricks and feats of agility. It is certainly the most inquisitive and mischievous of its tribe, and its powers of mimicry are surpassed by none." It may be taught to turn a wheel regularly; it smokes tobacco without inconvenience.--_Horsfield_. NO. 25. MACACUS PILEATUS (_vel_ SINICUS, _Lin_.). _The Capped Monkey_, or _Bonneted Macaque_ of _Cuvier_. NATIVE NAME.--_Rilawa_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Ceylon and China. DESCRIPTION.--Yellowish brown, with a slight shade of green in old specimens; in some the back is light chestnut brown; yellowish brown hairs on the crown of the head, radiating from the centre to the circumference; face flesh-coloured and beardless; ears, palms, soles, fingers, and toes blackish; irides reddish brown; callosities flesh-coloured; tail longish, terminating in short tuft.--_Kellaart_. SIZE.--Head and body about 20 inches; tail 18 inches. This is the _Macacus sinicus_ of Cuvier, and is very similar to the last species. In Ceylon it takes the place of our rhesus monkey with the conjurors, who, according to Sir Emerson Tennent, "teach it to dance, and in their wanderings carry it from village to village, clad in a grotesque dress, to exhibit its lively performances." It also, like the last, smokes tobacco; and one that belonged to the captain of a tug steamer, in which I once went down from Calcutta to the Sandheads, not only smoked, but chewed tobacco. Kellaart says of it: "This monkey is a lively, spirited animal, but easily tamed; particularly fond of making grimaces, with which it invariably welcomes its master and friends. It is truly astonishing to see the large quantity of food it will cram down its cheek pouches for future mastication." NO. 26. MACACUS CYNOMOLGUS. _The Crab-eating Macaque_. NATIVE NAME.--_Kra_, Malay. HABITAT.--Tenasserim, Nicobars, Malay Archipelago. [Figure: _Macacus cynomolgus_.] DESCRIPTION.--"The leading features of this animal are its massive form, its large head closely set on the shoulders, its stout and rather short legs, its slender loins and heavy buttocks, its tail thick at the base" (Anderson). The general colour is similar to that of the Bengal rhesus monkey, but the skin of the chest and belly is bluish, the face livid, with a white area between the eyes and white eyelids. Hands and feet blackish. SIZE.--About that of the Bengal rhesus. According to Captain (now Sir Arthur) Phayre "these monkeys frequent the banks of salt-water creeks and devour shell-fish. In the cheek-pouch of the female were found the claws and body of a crab. There is not much on record concerning the habits of this monkey in its wild state beyond what is stated concerning its partiality for crabs, which can also, I believe, be said of the rhesus in the Bengal Sunderbunds." NO. 27. MACACUS CARBONARIUS. _The Black-faced Crab-eating Monkey_. HABITAT.--Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--In all respects the same as the last, except that its face is blackish, with conspicuously white eyelids. FAMILY LEMURIDAE. The Indian members of this family belong to the sub-family named by Geoffroy _Nycticebinae_. _GENUS NYCTICEBUS_. NO. 28. NYCTICEBUS TARDIGRADUS. _The Slow-paced Lemur_ (_Jerdon's No. 10_). NATIVE NAME.--_Sharmindi billi_, Hindi. HABITAT.--Eastern Bengal, Assam, Garo Hills, Sylhet, Arracan.--_Horsfield_. [Figure: _Loris gracilis_ and _Nycticebus tardigradus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Dark ashy grey, with a darker band down middle of back, beneath lighter grey; forehead in some dark, with a narrow white stripe between the eyes, disappearing above them; ears and round the eye dark; tail very short.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Length about 14 to 15 inches; tail 5/8 of an inch. Nocturnal in its habits; sleeping during the day in holes of trees, and coming out to feed at night. Sir William Jones describes one kept by him for some time; it appeared to have been gentle, though at times petulant when disturbed; susceptible of cold; slept from sunrise to sunset rolled up like a hedgehog. Its food was chiefly plantains, and mangoes when in season. Peaches, mulberries, and guavas, it did not so much care for, but it was most eager after grasshoppers, which it devoured voraciously. It was very particular in the performance of its toilet, cleaning and licking its fur. Cuvier also notices this last peculiarity, and with regard to its diet says it eats small birds as well as insects. These animals are occasionally to be bought in the Calcutta market. A friend of mine had a pair which were a source of great amusement to his guests after dinner. (See Appendix C, p.526.) _GENUS LORIS_. Body and limbs slender; no tail; eyes very large, almost contiguous; nose acute. NO. 29. LORIS GRACILIS. _The Slender Lemur_ (_Jerdon's No. 11_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Tevangar_, Tamil; _Dewantsipilli_, Telegu. (_Oona happslava_, Singhalese.--_Kellaart_.) HABITAT.--Southern India and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Above greyish rufescent (tawny snuff brown: Kellaart); beneath a paler shade; a white triangular spot on forehead, extending down the nose; fur short, dense, and soft; ears thin, rounded (Jerdon). A hooped claw on inner toes; nails of other toes flat; posterior third of palms and soles hairy (Kellaart). SIZE.--About 8 inches; arm, 5; leg, 5-1/2. This, like the last, is also nocturnal in its habits, and from the extreme slowness of its movements is called in Ceylon "the Ceylon sloth." Its diet is varied--fruit, flower, and leaf buds, insects, eggs, and young birds. Sir Emerson Tennent says the Singhalese assert that it has been known to strangle pea-fowl at night and feast on the brain, but this I doubt. Smaller birds it might overcome. Jerdon states that in confinement it will eat boiled rice, plantains, honey or syrup and raw meat. McMaster, at page 6 of his 'Notes on Jerdon,' gives an interesting extract from an old account of 'Dr. John Fryer's Voyage to East India and Bombain,' in which he describes this little animal as "Men of the Woods, or more truly Satyrs;" asleep during the day; but at "Night they Sport and Eat." "They had Heads like an owl. Bodied like a monkey without Tails. Only the first finger of the Right Hand was armed with a claw like a bird, otherwise they had hands and feet which they walk upright on, not pronely, as other Beasts do." These little creatures double themselves up when they sleep, bending the head down between their legs. Although so sluggish generally, Jerdon says they can move with considerable agility when they choose. SUB-ORDER PLEUROPTERA.--FAMILY GALAEOPITHECIDAE. There is a curious link between the Lemurs and the Bats in the Colugos. (_Galaeopithecus_): their limbs are connected with a membrane as in the Flying Squirrels, by which they can leap and float for a hundred yards on an inclined plane. They are mild, inoffensive animals, subsisting on fruits and leaves. Cuvier places them after the Bats, but they seem properly to link the Lemurs and the frugivorous Bats. As yet they have not been found in India proper, but are common in the Malayan Peninsula, and have been found in Burmah. NO. 30. GALAEOPITHECUS VOLANS. _The Flying Lemur_. NATIVE NAME.--_Myook-hloung-pyan_, Burmese. HABITAT.--Mergui; the Malayan Peninsula. [Figure: _Galaeopithecus volans_.] DESCRIPTION.--Fur olive brown, mottled with irregular whitish spots and blotches; the pile is short, but exquisitely soft; head and brain very small; tail long and prehensile. The membrane is continued from each side of the neck to the fore feet; thence to the hind feet, again to the tip of the tail. This animal is also nocturnal in its habits, and very sluggish in its motions by day, at which time it usually hangs from a branch suspended by its fore hands, its mottled back assimilating closely with the rugged bark of the tree; it is exclusively herbivorous, possessing a very voluminous stomach, and long convoluted intestines. Wallace says of it, that its brain is very small, and it possesses such tenacity of life that it is very difficult to kill; he adds that it is said to have only one at a birth, and one he shot had a very small blind naked little creature clinging closely to its breast, which was quite bare and much wrinkled. Raffles, however, gives two as the number produced at each birth. Dr. Cantor says that in confinement plantains constitute the favourite food, but deprived of liberty it soon dies. In its wild state it "lives entirely on young fruits and leaves; those of the cocoanut and _Bombax pentandrum_ are its favourite food, and it commits great injury to the plantations of these."--_Horsfield's_ 'Cat. Mam.' Regarding its powers of flight, Wallace, in his 'Travels in the Malay Archipelago,' says: "I saw one of these animals run up a tree in a rather open space, and then glide obliquely through the air to another tree on which it alighted near its base, and immediately began to ascend. I paced the distance from one tree to the other, and found it to be seventy yards, and the amount of descent not more than thirty-five or forty feet, or less than one in five. This, I think, proves that the animal must have some power of guiding itself through the air, otherwise in so long a distance it would have little chance of alighting exactly upon the trunk." There is a carefully prepared skeleton of this animal in the Indian Museum in Calcutta. ORDER CARNARIA. CHEIROPTERA. It may seem strange to many that such an insignificant, weird little creature as a bat should rank so high in the animal kingdom as to be but a few removes from man. It has, however, some striking anatomical affinities with the last Order, _Quadrumana_, sufficient to justify its being placed in the next link of the great chain of creation. [Figure: Sternum of _Pteropus_.] "Bats have the arms, fore-arms and fingers excessively elongated, so as to form with the membrane that occupies their intervals, real wings, the surface of which is equally or more extended than in those of birds. Hence they fly high and with great rapidity."--_Cuvier_. They suckle their young at the breast, but some of them have pubic warts resembling mammae. The muscles of the chest are developed in proportion, and the sternum has a medial ridge something like that of a bird. They are all nocturnal, with small eyes (except in the case of the frugivorous bats), large ears, and in some cases membranous appendages to the nostrils, which may possibly be for the purpose of guiding themselves in the dark, for it is proved by experiment that bats are not dependent on eyesight for guidance, and one naturalist has remarked that, in a certain species of bat which has no facial membrane, this delicacy of perception was absent. I have noticed this in one species, _Cynopterus marginatus_, one of which flew into my room not long ago, and which repeatedly dashed itself against a glass door in its efforts to escape. I had all the other doors closed. Bats are mostly insectivorous; a few are fruit-eaters, such as our common flying-fox. They produce from one to two at a birth, which are carried about by the mother and suckled at the breast, this peculiarity being one of the anatomical details alluded to as claiming for the bats so high a place. Bats are divided into four sub-families--Pteropodidae, Vampyridae, Noctilionidae, and Vespertilionidae. MEGACHIROPTERA. SUB-FAMILY PTEROPODIDAE. _GENUS PTEROPUS_. These are frugivorous bats of large size, differing, as remarked by Jerdon, so much in their dentition from the insectivorous species that they seem to lead through the flying Lemurs (_Colugos_) directly to the _Quadrumana_. The dentition is more adapted to their diet; they have cutting incisors to each jaw, and grinders with flat crowns, and their intestines are longer than those of the insectivorous bats. They produce but one at birth, and the young ones leave their parents as soon as they can provide for themselves. The tongue is covered with rough papillae. They have no tail. These bats and some of the following genus, which are also frugivorous, are distinguished from the rest of the bats by a claw on the first or index finger, which is short. Dental formula: Inc., 4/4; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 2--2/3--3; molars, 3--3/3--3. NO. 31. PTEROPUS EDWARDSII _vel_ MEDIUS. _The Common Flying Fox_ (_Jerdon's No. 12_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Badul_, Bengali and Mahratti; _Wurbagul_, Hindi; _Toggul bawali_, Canarese; _Sikurayi_, Telegu. HABITAT.--All through India, Ceylon, and Burmah. [Figure: The Flying Fox at Home.] DESCRIPTION.--Head and nape rufous black; neck and shoulders golden yellow (the hair longer); back dark brown; chin dark; rest of body beneath fulvous or rusty brown; interfemoral membrane brownish black.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Length, 12 to 14 inches; extent of wings, 46 to 52 inches. These bats roost on trees in vast numbers. I have generally found them to prefer tamarinds of large size. Some idea of the extent of these colonies may be gathered from observations by McMaster, who attempted to calculate the number in a colony. He says: "In five minutes a friend and I counted upwards of six hundred as they passed over head, _en route_ to their feeding grounds; supposing their nightly exodus to continue for twenty minutes, this would give upwards of two thousand in one roosting place, exclusive of those who took a different direction." [Figure: Head of _Pteropus medius_.] Tickell's account of these colonies is most graphic, though Emerson Tennent has also given a most interesting and correct account of their habits. The former writes:--"From the arrival of the first comer until the sun is high above the horizon, a scene of incessant wrangling and contention is enacted among them, as each endeavours to secure a higher and better place, or to eject a neighbour from too close vicinage. In these struggles the bats hook themselves along the branches, scrambling about hand over hand with some speed, biting each other severely, striking out with the long claw of the thumb, shrieking and cackling without intermission. Each new arrival is compelled to fly several times round the tree, being threatened from all points, and, when he eventually hooks on, he has to go through a series of combats, and be probably ejected two or three times before he makes good his tenure." For faithful portraying, no one could improve on this description. These bats are exceeding strong on the wing. I was aware that they went long distances in search of food, but I was not aware of the power they had for sustained flight till the year 1869, when, on my way to England on furlough, I discovered a large flying fox winging his way towards our vessel, which was at that time more than two hundred miles from land. Exhausted, it clung on to the fore-yard arm; and a present of a rupee induced a Lascar to go aloft and seize it, which he did after several attempts. The voracity with which it attacked some plantains showed that it had been for some time deprived of food, probably having been blown off shore by high winds. Hanging head-downwards from its cage, it stuffed the fruit into its cheeks, monkey-fashion, and then seemed to chew it at leisure. When I left the steamer at Suez it remained in the captain's possession, and seemed to be tame and reconciled to its imprisonment, tempered by a surfeit of plantains. In flying over water they frequently dip down to touch the surface. Jerdon was in doubt whether they did this to drink or not, but McMaster feels sure that they do this in order to drink, and that the habit is not peculiar to the _Pteropodidae_, as he has noticed other bats doing the same. Colonel Sykes states that he "can personally testify that their flesh is delicate and without disagreeable flavour;" and another colonel of my acquaintance once regaled his friends on some flying fox cutlets, which were pronounced "not bad." Dr. Day accuses these bats of intemperate habits; drinking the toddy from the earthen pots on the cocoanut trees, and flying home intoxicated. The wild almond is a favourite fruit. Mr. Rainey, who has been a careful observer of animals for years, states that in Bengal these bats prefer clumps of bamboos for a resting place, and feed much on the fruit of the betel-nut palm when ripe. Another naturalist, Mr. G. Vidal, writes that in Southern India the _P. medius_ feeds chiefly on the green drupe or nut of the Alexandrian laurel (_Calophyllum inophyllum_), the kernels of which contain a strong-smelling green oil on which the bats fatten amazingly; and then they in turn yield, when boiled down, an oil which is recommended as an excellent stimulative application for the hair. I noticed in Seonee a curious superstition to the effect that a bone of this bat tied on to the ankle by a cord of black cowhair is a sovereign remedy, according to the natives, for rheumatism in the leg. Tickell states that these bats produce one at a time in March or April, and they continue a fixture on the mother till the end of May or beginning of June. NO. 32. PTEROPUS LESCHENAULTII (CYNONYCTERIS AMPLEXICAUDATA). _The Fulvous Fox-Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 13_). Dobson places this bat in the sub-group _Cynonycteris_. It seems to differ from _Pteropus_ only, as far as I can see, in having a small distinct tail, though the above-quoted author considers it closely allied to the next genus. HABITAT.--The Carnatic, Madras and Trichinopoly; stated also procurable at Calcutta and Pondicherry (_Jerdon_); Ceylon (_Kellaart_). DESCRIPTION.--Fur short and downy; fulvous ashy, or dull light ashy brown colour, denser and paler beneath; the hairs whitish at the base; membranes dark brown. SIZE.--Length, 5 to 5-1/2 inches; extent of wing, 18 to 20 inches. More information is required regarding the habits of this bat. _GENUS CYNOPTERUS_. This genus has four molars less than the last, a shorter muzzle; the cheek-bones or zygomatic arch more projecting; tongue rather longer and more tapering, and slightly extensile. Dental formula: Inc., 4/4 or 4/2; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 2--2/3--3; molars, 2--2/2--2. NO. 33. CYNOPTERUS MARGINATUS. _The Small Fox-Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 14_). NATIVE NAME.--_Chamgadili_, Hindi; _Coteekan voulha_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--India generally, and Ceylon. [Figure: _Cynopterus marginatus_.] DESCRIPTION.--General colour fulvous olivaceous, paler beneath and with an ashy tinge; ears with a narrow margin of white (_Jerdon_.) A reddish smear on neck and shoulders of most specimens; membranes dusky brown. Females paler (_Kellaart_). SIZE.--Length, 4-1/2 to 5-1/2 inches; extent of wing, 17 to 20 inches. This bat is found all over India; it is frugivorous exclusively, though some of this sub-order are insectivorous. Blyth says he kept some for several weeks; they would take no notice of the buzz of an insect held to them, but are ravenous eaters of fruit, each devouring its own weight at a meal, voiding its food but little changed whilst slowly munching away; of guava it swallows the juice only. Blyth's prisoners were females, and after a time they attracted a male which hovered about them for some days, roosting near them in a dark staircase; he was also caught, with one of the females who had escaped and joined him. Dr. Dobson writes that in three hours one of these bats devoured twice its own weight. This species usually roosts in trees. NO. 34. MACROGLOSSUS (PTEROPUS) MINIMUS. _The Tenasserim Fox-Bat_. NATIVE NAME.--_Lowo-assu_ (dog-bat), Javanese. HABITAT.--The Himalayas, Burmah, Tenasserim, and the Indian Archipelago. DESCRIPTION.--Ears half length of head, narrow and rounded at tip; face abruptly narrowed in front of eyes; muzzle long, narrow, cylindrical; lower jaw slightly projecting; eyes large; tongue very long, last third attenuated, covered with brush-like papillae; interfemoral membrane very narrow, especially at root of tail; fur reddish brown, and very long. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-3/10 inches. Like other _Pteropi_ this bat feeds on fruit of every description, but particularly attacks the various cultivated varieties of _Eugenia_ (Jamoon). _GENUS EONYCTERIS_. Muzzle long and cylindrical; nostrils scarcely projecting; upper lip with a shallow vertical groove in front; _index finger without a claw_; thumb short; part of the terminal phalanx included in the wing membrane; metacarpal bone of the second finger equal to the index finger in length; tail short and distinct; the base contained in the narrow interfemoral membrane; tongue long, as in _Macroglossus_. Dentition: Inc., 4/4; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 2--2/2--2; molars, 3--3/3--3. NO. 35. EONYCTERIS SPELAEA. HABITAT.--Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Head long; muzzle narrow, cylindrical, abruptly narrowed in front of the eyes; nostrils with an intervening emargination, which also passes down to the lips; tongue very long and pointed; ears conical, with rounded tips; body clothed with very short and thinly-spread fur of a uniform dark brown colour; the fur on the head extends only as far as the inner corners of the eye, leaving the rest of the face naked; tail half an inch. On each side, and a little behind the anal opening, are two small, kidney-shaped subcutaneous glandular bodies. SIZE.--Head and body, 4 inches; tail, 1/2 inch. Found in Farm Caves, Moulmein. The absence of the claw on the index finger is specially to be noted. MICROCHIROPTERA. SUB-FAMILY VAMPYRIDAE. _GENUS MEGADERMA_. Bats with simple or complicated nose-leaves or membranes. The conch of the ear very large, and joined together on the top of the head; tragus large and bifurcated; nasal membranes complicated; no tail; wings remarkably ample. They have four incisors below but none above, the intermaxillaries remaining cartilaginous. Dental formula: Inc., 0/4; can., 1--1/1--1; pre-m., 2--2/2--2; molars, 3--3/3--3. NO. 36. MEGADERMA LYRA. _The Large-eared Vampire Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 15_). HABITAT.--India and Ceylon. [Figure: _Megaderma lyra_.] DESCRIPTION.--Above ashy blue, slaty or pale mouse colour; albescent or yellowish ashy beneath; nasal appendage large, oblong, free at the tip, reaching to the base of the ears with a fold down the centre; tragus (_oreillon_) cordate, two-lobed, anterior long, narrow and pointed, posterior lobe half the height and rounded; muzzle truncated; under-lip cleft; wing membranes dark brown. SIZE.--Head and body, 3 or 3-1/2 inches; wing extent, 14 to 19 inches. Very abundant in old buildings. They are beyond doubt blood-suckers. Blyth noticed one fly into his room one evening with a small _vespertilio_, which it dropped on being chased. The smaller bat was weak from loss of blood, and next morning (the Megaderm having been caught), on both bats being put into the same cage, the little one was again attacked and devoured; it was seized both times behind the ear. McMaster writes that in Rangoon he had a tame canary killed by a bat, and the bird's mate soon afterwards was destroyed in the same way. The case was clearly proved. Mr. Frith informed Mr. Blyth that these bats were in the habit of resorting to the verandah of his house at Mymensing, and that every morning the ground under them was strewed with the hind quarters of frogs, and the wings of large grasshoppers and crickets. On one occasion the remains of a small fish were observed; but frogs appeared to be their chief diet--never toads; and of a quiet evening these animals could be distinctly heard crunching the heads and smaller bones of their victims. NO. 37. MEGADERMA SPECTRUM. _The Cashmere Vampire_ (_Jerdon's No. 16_). HABITAT.--Cashmere. DESCRIPTION.--Above slaty cinereous, whitish beneath; the vertical nose-leaf of moderate size, oval; inner lobe of tragus ovate (_Jerdon_). SIZE.--Two and three-quarter inches. Dobson makes this bat synonymous with the last. NO. 38. MEGADERMA SPASMA. HABITAT.--Tenasserim, Ceylon. [Figure: _Megaderma spasma_.] DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle, ear-conch, and tragus similar to those of _M. lyra_; the posterior portion of the tragus, however, is longer and more attenuated upwards, and more acutely pointed; the nose-leaf is shorter, with convex sides; but the anterior concave disc is considerably larger, and the base of the thickened process is cordate; thumbs and wings as in _M. lyra_; interfemoral membrane deeper; the calcaneum stronger; colour the same. SIZE.--Head and body, about 3 inches. This bat is alluded to by Jerdon as _M. Horsfieldii_. RHINOLOPHINAE. Nasal leaf complicated, and crests resting on the forehead, presenting more or less the figure of a horse-shoe; tail long and placed in the interfemoral membrane; ears large, but separate, and not joined at the base, as in the last genus; without a tragus, but often with a lobe at the base of the outer margin; wings large and long; forefinger of a single joint. _GENUS RHINOLOPHUS_. Nose-leaf cordate, or semi-orbicular, bi-lobed in front of the nostrils; a longitudinal crest along the nose and an erect frontal leaf posteriorly more or less lanceolate.--_Jerdon_. Dental formula: Inc., 2/4; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 2--2/2--2; molars, 3--3/3--3. NO. 39. RHINOLOPHUS PERNIGER _vel_ LUCTUS. _The Large Leaf-Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 17_). HABITAT.--Nepaul, Darjeeling, Khasya Hills. [Figure: _Rhinolophus luctus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Ears very large, much longer than the head; broad, acutely pointed; nasal apparatus very complicated; the lower leaf very large, concealing the upper lip like a door knocker; the upper leaf like a graduated spire; ears transversely striate; a rather large semi-circular lobe at base of ear; fur long, dense, soft, and lax, slightly curled or woolly black with a silvery grizzle, or greyish-black or rich chestnut-brown.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Length, 3-3/4; tail, 1-3/4; wing expanse, 17 inches. NO. 40. RHINOLOPHUS MITRATUS. _The Mitred Leaf-Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 18_). HABITAT.--Chybassa, Central India, Mussoorie(?) DESCRIPTION.--Ears large; anti-helix moderately developed; upper leaf triangular acute; tail extending beyond the tibia; color above light brown; paler beneath.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-1/2 inches; tail, 1-1/2 inch; wing expanse, 12 to 14 inches. NO. 41. RHINOLOPHUS TRAGATUS _vel_ FERRUM-EQUINUM. _The Dark-brown Leaf-Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 19_). HABITAT.--Nepaul, Mussoorie. [Figure: _Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum_.] DESCRIPTION.--Upper process like a barbed spear-head; central one small and narrow, a little expanded at the summit; anti-tragus less developed than usual; lips simple; colour a uniform deep brown, with tips of the hair paler, and somewhat rusty.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-5/8 inches; tail, 1-7/8 inch; wing, 15-1/2 inches. The tail of this species seems unusually long. It is found in cavities of rock, and issues forth soon after dusk--sooner, according to Hodgson, than the species of _vespertilio_. NO. 42. RHINOLOPHUS PEARSONII. _Pearson's Leaf-Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 20_). HABITAT.--Lower Himalayan range, Darjeeling, Mussoorie, &c. DESCRIPTION.--Colour above dark brown, with a slight shade of chestnut; underneath brown, with a sooty cast; fur very long, dense and soft; ears distinct, with an additional rounded lobe below, measuring anteriorly nearly three-fourths of an inch; point of the facial crest moderately developed; length from the tip of the nose to root of tail three inches; tail half an inch; length of fore-arm two inches; expanse of the wings eleven inches. Although allied to Mr. Hodgson's _R. tragatus_, possesses distinct characters.--_Horsfield_. SIZE.--As given by Horsfield above. This bat was first sent from Darjeeling by Mr. J. T. Pearson, and was named after him. It has also, according to Jerdon, been found by Captain Hutton at Mussoorie; it is therefore reasonable to suppose that it inhabits the whole range of the lower Himalayas. One striking difference between it and the last species is the very short tail, and it is easily to be recognised by the great length of the fur. NO. 43. RHINOLOPHUS AFFINIS. _The Allied Leaf-Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 21_). HABITAT.--Ceylon, Burmah, and perhaps the Malabar coast. DESCRIPTION.--Above bright red ferruginous brown; tips of hair darker, paler beneath; ears pointed and external; edge deeply emarginated; internal edge and basal third of external surface hairy; anti-helix well developed; nasal process apparently very similar to that of _R. mitratus_ (_Kellaart_). Upper leaf triangular, emarginate at the tip, reaching above the base of the ears (_Jerdon_). SIZE.--Head and body about 2-3/10 inches; tail, 1 inch; wing extent, 12 inches. This bat seems to vary much in colour. Kellaart says some are of a brighter red than others, and a few had a yellower tinge. Another marked variety was of a uniform pale yellow brown. NO. 44. RHINOLOPHUS ROUXI. _The Rufous Leaf-Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 22_). HABITAT.--India generally. DESCRIPTION.--Ears large, pointed, externally notched; tragus broad; tips of upper nose-leaf triangular, with its sides well emarginate, reaching above the base of the ears; no upper incisors [as in _Megaderma lyra_]; lower molars only five; canines very large; fur short, crisp; colour above smoky brown in some, reddish brown in others, and golden rufous in some; beneath paler.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Length, 2-3/8 inches; tail, 1-1/8; wing expanse, 13 inches. Hodgson considers this bat as allied to the two following species. It is the _R. lepidus_ of Blyth. NO. 45. RHINOLOPHUS MACROTIS. _The Large-eared Leaf-Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 23_). HABITAT.--Lower Himalayas. DESCRIPTION.--Ears very large, broad, oval, with pointed recurved tip, and a large obtuse tragus; anterior central crest of nose-leaf produced in front over the top of the flat transverse front edge; hinder leaf lanceolate triangular; above sooty brown or light earthy olive-brown, paler below, some with a rufous or Isabelline tint; no pubic teats.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 1-3/4 inch; tail, 3/4; wing expanse, 9-3/4. NO. 46. RHINOLOPHUS SUB-BADIUS. _The Bay Leaf-Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 24_). HABITAT.--Nepaul. DESCRIPTION.--Ears not larger than the head, obtusely pointed and ovoid; nasal appendage quadrate, with a transverse bar nearly surmounting it; upper leaf triangular, with slightly emarginate sides; clear brown above, paler below and on head and face. SIZE.--Head and body, 1-1/2 inch; tail, 1-1/4; wing expanse, 7-1/2.--_Jerdon_. NO. 47. RHINOLOPHUS RAMMANIKA (_Kellaart_). HABITAT.--Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Above rufescent, beneath ashy brown; face slightly fulvous; round the base of the ears and on the sides of the posterior half of the body bright fulvous; tail enclosed in the interfemoral membrane. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-1/2 inches; tail, 1; wing expanse, 10 inches. This is a doubtful species. Dr. Kellaart got one from Amanapoora hill at Kaduganava. He says: "As the specimen reached us in a dried condition, we are unable to say anything more about its nasal processes than that in place of a transverse process above the nostrils it had a small triangular peak over the usual horse-shoe process surrounding the nasal opening. This triangular crest was hairy; superiorly there was no appearance of a sac above it to the best of our recollection." NO. 48. RHINOLOPHUS ANDAMANENSIS. HABITAT.--Southern Andaman Island. DESCRIPTION (_apud_ Dobson).--Like _R. affinis_ generally, but the anterior horizontal horse-shoe shaped membrane is very broad, completely concealing the muzzle when viewed from above, as in _R. Pearsonii_; the posterior terminal leaf is also much longer, produced backwards between the ears, and not concave on the sides as in _R. affinis_. The thumb is also much longer. Fur bright reddish brown above and beneath. NO. 49. RHINOLOPHUS MINOR. HABITAT.--Burmah, Yunan. DESCRIPTION.--Light brown above, greyish brown beneath; ears slightly shorter than the head, sub-acutely pointed; anti-tragus large, separated by a deep angular notch; lower lip with three vertical grooves. SIZE.--Length of head and body from 1 to 1-3/4 inch. NO. 50. RHINOLOPHUS COELOPHYLLUS. HABITAT.--Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Fur brown, with whitish roots, light brownish white below; ears large, with pointed tips projecting outwards; "anti-tragus large, separated by an angular emargination from the outer margin of the ear; horse-shoe large; horizontal margins of central nose-leaf triangular, small; erect portion rather short, with parallel sides and rounded summit, meeting the connected vertical process at the same level" (_Dobson_). For a more detailed description see Dobson's Monograph, page 53. Three vertical grooves on lower lip. SIZE.--Length of head and body about 2 inches. NO. 51. RHINOLOPHUS GAROENSIS. HABITAT.--Garo Hills, Assam; Himalayas (Mussoorie). DESCRIPTION (_apud_ Dobson).--Ears acutely pointed, with a large anti-tragus, as in _R. affinis_; anterior vertical process of the sella maintaining the same breadth upwards and rounded off above, considerably exceeded in height by the upper edge of the connecting process, which develops a long acutely pointed projection; terminal portion of the posterior leaf broad with straight sides, forming an almost equilateral triangle. Wing membrane from the ankles, inter femoral membrane square behind; extreme tip of the tail free. SIZE.--Length of head and body about 1.5 inch. This bat is figured (head only) in Dobson's Monograph, page 48. NO. 52. RHINOLOPHUS PETERSII. HABITAT.--India. Precise locality unknown. DESCRIPTION.--Ears acutely pointed, with an emargination immediately beneath the tip; anti-tragus large, separated from the outer margin by a deep angular incision; nose-leaf horizontal, horse-shoe-shaped, not so broad as the muzzle; vertical part of the sella almost same breadth upwards, and rounded off above, exceeded considerably in height by the upper margin of the posterior connecting process; lower lip with three vertical grooves; fur dark brown above, greyish brown beneath. SIZE.--Length of head and body, 2.5 inches; tail, 1 inch. There are two good woodcuts of the head of this bat in Dobson's Monograph. NO. 53. RHINOLOPHUS TRIFOLIATUS. HABITAT.--East coast of India. DESCRIPTION.--Very much like _R. perniger_ (_luctus_), but is distinguished by its smaller size and by the more pointed vertical process of the central nose-leaf, which in the other is truncated. SIZE.--Length of head and body, 2 inches; tail about 1 inch. _GENUS HIPPOSIDEROS_ (_GRAY_) VEL _PHYLLORHINA_ (_BONAPARTE_). Nasal-leaf broad, depressed, transverse; ears with transverse wrinkles; a circular sac behind the nasal crest, which can be turned inside out; when alarmed the animal blows it out, and then withdraws it at each breath; it contains a waxy matter of green or yellow colour. Blyth thinks that this sac is affected by the amorous season, as in the case of the infra-orbital cavities of various ruminants and analogous glandular follicles in other animals. This genus is also distinguishable from the last by the form of the ear conch, the small size of the anti-tragus, and, as Dr. Dobson particularly points out, by the presence of _two_ joints only in all the toes, as also by the number and character of the teeth, which are as follows:-- Inc., 2/4; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 2--2/2--2; molars, 3--3/3--3. NO. 54. HIPPOSIDEROS ARMIGER. _The Large Horse-shoe Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 25_). HABITAT.--Lower Himalaya ranges; Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Nasal-leaf large and square; lips with a triple fold of skin on each side; tragus vaguely developed and wavily emarginate; of a uniform light-brown colour, with maroon tips to the hairs of the upper parts; membranes black. SIZE.--Head and body, 4-1/2 inches; tail, 2-1/2; wing expanse, 22. Jerdon makes this out to be the same as Kellaart's _H. lankadiva_ and the Malayan _H. nobilis_, but those are synonymous with _Phyllorhina diadema_. Kellaart supposed it to be identical with _H. insignis_, which will be found further on as _Phyllorhina larvata_, all those bats closely resembling each other in a general way. I think this No. 25 of Jerdon is the same as Peter's _Phyllorhina armigera_. Hutton found it at Darjeeling, and writes of it as follows:-- "When captured alive the large ears are kept in a constant state of rapid tremulous motion, and the animal emits a low purring sound, which becomes a sharp scream when alarmed or irritated. When suspended at rest the tail and inter-femoral membrane are turned up, not in front, like the _Rhinolophi_, but behind, over the lower part of the back; neither does it appear to envelope itself in its wings so completely as does _R. luctus._" He then goes on to say he has noticed the tremor of the ears and facial crests in all the _Rhinolophi_ when disturbed, and concludes with a graphic description of this species, sallying forth in the evening to prey upon the noisy _Cicadas_; leisurely wheeling with noiseless, cautious flight round some wide-spreading oak, "scanning each branch as he slowly passes by--now rising to a higher circle, and then perchance descending to the lower branches, until at length, detecting the unfortunate minstrel, it darts suddenly into the tree, and snatching the still screaming insect from its perch, bears it away." Jerdon procured specimens at Darjeeling, and Kellaart says it is found in great abundance at Kandy and its neighbourhood; Kurnegalle Tunnel swarms with them. NO. 55. HIPPOSIDEROS SPEORIS. _The Indian Horse-shoe Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 26_). HABITAT.--India generally and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Mouse brown or fulvous brown. Occasionally golden fulvous and sometimes dusky black above, paler beneath; membranes dusky brown; interfemoral membrane narrow, enclosing the tail except the last half joint (about 2-10ths of an inch), which is free. Ear large, erect and pointed, rounded at the base and emarginated on the outer edge; nasal process complicated. "Males have a frontal sac; females none" (_Kellaart_). Pubis naked, with two inguinal warts. SIZE.--Head and body, 2 inches; tail, 1-2/10; wing expanse, 12. Inhabits old buildings, wells, &c. NO. 56. HIPPOSIDEROS MURINUS. _The Little Horse-shoe Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 27_). HABITAT.--Southern India, Ceylon, and Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle short; body short and thick; a transverse frontal leaf with a sac behind it; no folds of skin on each side of the horse-shoe as in the last species; ears large, naked and rounded; colour dusky brown or mouse, sometimes light fawn; wing membrane blackish; interfemoral membrane large, and including the tail all but the tip. SIZE.--Head and body, 1-4/5 inch; tail, 1-1/5 inch; wing expanse, 10. Jerdon says the mouse-coloured variety is common in the Carnatic, but he has only seen the light fulvous race on the Nilgheries; but Mr. Elliot procured both in the southern Mahratta country. A dark variety of this bat was called _Rhinolophus ater_ by Templeton, and _H. atratus_ by Kellaart; in other respects it is identical, only a little smaller. NO. 57. HIPPOSIDEROS CINERACEUS. _The Ashy Horse-shoe Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 28_). HABITAT.--Punjab Salt range. DESCRIPTION.--Similar to the last, but larger, and I should think the argument against _H. atratus_ would apply to this as a distinct species. NO. 58. HIPPOSIDEROS LARVATUS. _Syn_.--PHYLLORHINA LARVATA. HABITAT.--Arracan. DESCRIPTION.--The fur of the upper part bright fulvous; more or less tinged with maroon on the back, lighter underneath; membranes dusky, but tinged with the prevailing colour of the fur; ears angulated; a minute false molar in front of the carnassial in the upper jaw. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-3/4 inches; tail, 1-1/4; wing extent, 12. Kellaart writes of this bat under his _H. aureus_. He describes it as head, neck, and body of a bright golden yellow, with a slight maroon shade on the tips of the hairs on the back. Females paler coloured. Frontal sac only in males; the waxy matter of a yellow colour, and quite transparent. NO. 59. HIPPOSIDEROS VULGARIS. _Syn_.--PHYLLORHINA LARVATA. _The Common Malayan Horse-shoe Bat_. HABITAT.--Arracan and Malayana. DESCRIPTION.--"It differs from the last in being rather smaller, and of a brown colour above, much paler at the base of the hairs and at their extreme tips, and lighter coloured below; the ears more apiculated, or rather they appear so from being strongly emarginated externally towards the tip."--_Blyth_. SIZE.--2-3/10 inches; tail 1-2/10; wing expanse about 12. NO. 60. HIPPOSIDEROS BLYTHII. HABITAT.--Ceylon, Fort Frederic. DESCRIPTION.--Above surface colour a rich dark tawny brown; base of hairs much lighter coloured, of a brighter yellow tinge; beneath paler; face partially blackish; ears black; tip of tail excerted; no frontal sac; membranes blackish; nasal processes as in _H. speoris_. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-2/10 inches; tail, 1; wing expanse, 12. Dr. Kellaart considered this a new and undescribed species, distinguished from _H. speoris_ and _H. vulgaris_ (_vel Templetonii_--Kellaart) by the greater length of the fore-arm, which is two inches. This remark however does not apply to _vulgaris_, of which Kellaart himself gives two inches as the length of the radius, and Blyth gives two and a quarter. The absence of the frontal sac would have been a greater proof, but both specimens on which Kellaart made his observations were females; and as colouring is so varied in the bat tribe as to preclude the division of species on this ground, I think we may put this down as a doubtful species on which more information is desirable. NO. 61. PHYLLORHINA DIADEMA. HABITAT.--India generally; Ceylon and Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--The fur with three shades--buff, then reddish brown with ashy tips, underneath greyish or pale brown. "The hinder erect nose-leaf," according to Dobson's description, "equals the horse-shoe and slightly exceeds the sella in width, its free margin forming a segment of the circumference of a circle, with a small blunt projection in the centre and three vertical ridges on its concave front surface; sella large, with a prominent ridge in the centre, forming a small projection above and one smaller on each side; sides of the muzzle with prominent vertical leaves, three on each side; no frontal pore." There is a good figure of the head of this bat in Cuvier's 'Animal Kingdom,' Carpenter's and Westwood's edition, under the name of _Rhinolophus nobilis_. It is the same also as Kellaart's _Hipposideros lankadiva_. Captain Hutton, who was a keen observer of the habits of the bats at Mussoorie, says of this one: "Like _R. affinis_, this species may frequently be heard during its flight cracking and crunching the hard wings of beetles, which in the evening hours are usually abundant among the trees; the teeth are strong, and the _tout ensemble_ of its aspect is not unlike that of a bull-dog."--'Proc. Zoo. Soc.,' 1872, page 701. NO. 62. PHYLLORHINA MASONI. HABITAT.--Burmah (Moulmein). DESCRIPTION.--This bat resembles the last closely; such difference as exists is that the concave surface of the terminal nose-leaf is divided into two cells only by a single central vertical ridge, and from the under surface of the juncture of the mandible a small bony process projects downwards about equal to the lower canine tooth in vertical extent, and covered by the integument. There is an excellent figure of this bat in Dobson's Monograph, from whence I have also taken the above description. NO. 63. PHYLLORHINA NICOBARENSIS. HABITAT.--Nicobar Island. DESCRIPTION.--"Ears large, acute; outer margin slightly concave beneath the tip; no frontal sac behind the nose-leaf; upper margin of the transverse terminal leaf simple, forming an arc of a circle, folded back and overhanging the concave front surface, which is divided into _two_ cells only by a single central longitudinal ridge; in front the margin of the horse-shoe is marked by three small points" (_Dobson_). Fur light brown, then greyish, with light brown tips. SIZE.--Length of head and body, 3 inches. NO. 64. PHYLLORHINA ARMIGERA. HABITAT.--The entire range of the Himalayas, Khasya Hills, and Ceylon. [Figure: _Phyllorhina armigera_. Male. Female.] DESCRIPTION.--The hinder erect nose-leaf narrow, not so broad as the horse-shoe; upper edge sinuate, slightly elevated in the centre, and at either extremity; vertical ridges beneath well developed, prominent, enclosing moderately deep cells; wart-like granular elevations on each side above the eyes are usually greatly developed, forming large thickened longitudinal elevations extending forward on each side of the posterior erect nose-leaf, and backwards towards the frontal sac (_Dobson_). The colour varies. SIZE.--Length of head and body from 3 to 4 inches; tail about 2. This is the largest of this genus, and one of the most interesting of the species. My space will not admit of extensive quotations from those who have written about it, but there is a fuller description of it in Dr. Dobson's book, and a very interesting account of its habits by Capt. J. Hutton, in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' 1872, page 701. NO. 65. PHYLLORHINA LEPTOPHYLLA. HABITAT.--Khasya Hills. DESCRIPTION.--Ears large, broad, triangular, with subacute tips; outer margin slightly concave; upper transverse nose-leaf small; upper edge simple, narrower than horse-shoe, thin; three vertical folds in front faintly descernible at base only; horse-shoe with small incision in centre of front free edge; frontal pore small, placed at some distance behind the transverse nose-leaf; fur and integuments dark throughout.--_Dobson_. SIZE.--Length of head and body, 2 inches; tail, 1-6/10. NO. 66. PHYLLORHINA GALERITA. HABITAT.--Central India, Deccan. DESCRIPTION.--"Ear comparatively small, as broad as long; inner margin very convex forward; outer margin slightly concave beneath the tip; nose-leaf as in _P. larvata_, but the transverse terminal leaf is more rectangular; the superior margin less convex, and its concave front surface is marked by three very prominent vertical ridges; frontal pore small, indistinct, not larger than in the females of _P. larvata_."--_Dobson_. SIZE.--Head and body about 2 inches; tail, 1 inch. NO. 67. PHYLLORHINA BICOLOR. HABITAT.--India (N. W. Himalaya), Nicobar Islands. DESCRIPTION.--Fur above reddish chestnut; the base of the hairs pale reddish-white, or base of hair pure white, the tip, dark reddish-brown. Ears as long as the head, broad; the lower half of the inner margin very convex; the summit of the ear conch rounded off broadly as far as a point on the outer side, where a slight but distinct flattening occurs, and indicates the position of the tip. Horse-shoe small, square; the concave front surface divided into four cells by three distinct vertical ridges; no secondary leaflets external to the horse-shoe; frontal sac distinct in males, rudimentary in females (_Dobson_). Blyth includes this bat in his Burmese Catalogue, but does not say much about it. GENUS COELOPS. Possesses the general characteristics of _Rhinolophus_, but the tail and calcanea wanting entirely; the intercrural membrane acutely emarginate to the depth of a line even with the knees; ears large, broad and rounded; the summit of the facial membranes rising abruptly, obtusely bifid, bent forward; fur long, delicately fine.--_Jerdon_. Dental formula: Inc., 1--1/4; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 2--2/2--2; molars, 3--3/3--3. NO. 68. COELOPS FRITHII. _Frith's Tailless Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 29_). HABITAT.--The Sunderbunds, Bengal. DESCRIPTION.--Colour dusky or blackish; the fur tipped with ashy brown above, paler and somewhat ashy beneath; membranes fuscous. SIZE.--Length, 1-7/8 inch; membrane beyond 3/4 inch; forearm, 1-3/4. This bat is rare. The above description, given by Jerdon, is based on one specimen sent to Mr. Blyth by Mr. Frith, who obtained it in the Sunderbunds. It also inhabits Java. Dr. Dobson examined a specimen from thence in the Leyden Museum. He says: "Calcanea and tail very short," whereas the above description says entirely wanting. "The ears are funnel-shaped, and thickly covered with fine hair. Metacarpal bone of thumb very long; the wing membrane enclosing the thumb up to the base of the claw; wing to the tarsus close to the ankles; feet very slender; toes with strong claws." _GENUS RHINOPOMA_. Ears moderate, but joined above, as in the Megaderms; the nostrils at the end of the muzzle, with a little lamina above, forming a kind of snout; tail slender and joined at the base with the intercrural membrane, but extending far beyond it. Dental formula: Inc., 2/4; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 1--1/2--2; molars 3--3/3--3. NO. 69. RHINOPOMA HARDWICKII. _Hardwick's Long-tailed Leaf Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 30_). HABITAT.--All over India, Burmah and Malayana. [Figure: Skull of _Rhinopoma_.] DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle long, thick, truncated, and surrounded by a small leaf; tragus oblong, bi-acuminate; forehead concave with a channel down the centre; fur soft and very fine, dull brown throughout; face, rump, and part of abdominal region naked.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-6/10 inches; tail, 2-1/2; expanse, 13. Frequents old ruins, caves, and clefts in rocks. SUB-FAMILY NOCTILIONIDAE. Bats without facial membranes; with short obtuse and bull-doggish heads; large lips. _GENUS TAPHOZOUS_. Have a small rounded indenture on the forehead; no raised lamina on the nostrils; the head pyramidal; eyes rather large; ears moderate in size and not joined at the base, but widely apart; the tip of the tail free above the membrane, which is much longer. The males have a transverse cavity under the throat; wings long and narrow, collapsing with a double flexure outwards; fur soft and velvety. (Dobson includes this genus in his Family _Emballonuridae_.) Dental formula: Inc., 1--1/4; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 2--2/2--2; molars, 3--3/3--3; premaxillaries cartilaginous, supporting only one pair of weak incisors with a gap between them. NO. 70. TAPHOZOUS LONGIMANUS. _The Long-armed Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 31_). HABITAT.--India generally. DESCRIPTION.--"Ears oval, with many distinct folds, naked except at the base; tragus securiform; fur thick, close, fuscous-black; or dark fuscous-brown above; beneath paler, except on the throat, the hairs being conspicuously tipped with grey, the upper hairs being all white at their base; face nude, and the membrane dark brownish-black" (_Jerdon_). The gular sac, though represented in the male, is almost absent in the female, being but a rudimentary fold of skin; in this it differs from another common Indian species, _T. saccolaimus_, in which the gular sac is well developed in both sexes, though larger in the male. SIZE.--Length, 5 inches; expanse, 15 to 16; tail, 1; fore-arm, 2-5/8; tibia, 1 inch. This bat frequents old buildings, dark cellars, old ruins, &c.; the young are fulvescent, and become darker with age. Blyth states that it has a surprising faculty for creeping about on the vertical board of a cage, hitching its claws into the minute pores of the wood. NO. 71. TAPHOZOUS MELANOPOGON. _The Black-bearded Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 32_). HABITAT.--Common about Calcutta, East Coast of India, Burmah, and Cochin China. DESCRIPTION.--"No gular sac, the openings of small pores appearing along a line corresponding to the position of the mouth of the gular sac in other species; in some male specimens the hair behind these pores is very long, forming a dense black beard" (_Dobson_). Ears moderate, oval, with the outer margin extending under the eyes, dilated into a large rounded lobe; the tragus leaf-shaped; the head, muzzle, and chin covered with short hairs. SIZE.--Length of head and body about 3-1/2; tail, 2/3; wing expanse, 14 inches. Horsfield says it occurs in caves in Java inhabited by the esculent swallows (_Collocalia nidifica_), the gelatinous nests of which are used for soup by the Chinese. Dobson remarks that the black beard is not always developed in the males; he conceives it to be owing to certain conditions, probably connected with the amorous seasons. In five males in the Indian Museum the beard is well developed; he found that only two per cent. of the Cochin China specimens in the Paris Museum possessed it. NO. 72. TAPHOZOUS SACCOLAIMUS. _The White-bellied Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 33_). HABITAT.--Peninsula of India, Burmah, and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--"Muzzle angular, naked, very acute; nostrils small, close; ears distant, shorter than the head, large inner margin recurved, outer margin dilated, reaching to the commissure of the mouth; tragus wide, securiform (i.e. axe-shaped); fur short, smooth, blackish on the head, chestnut brown on the back; beneath, dirty-white or black brown above with white pencillings; pure white below" (_Jerdon_). Dobson says of the fur: "above, white at the base, the terminal three-fourths of the hairs black, with a few irregular small white patches on the back; beneath dark brown." The gular sac is to be found in both sexes, but somewhat larger in the males. SIZE.--About 5 inches; wing expanse, 17. NO. 73. TAPHOZOUS THEOBALDI. HABITAT.--Tenasserim. DESCRIPTION.--The gular sac is absent in both sexes; ears larger than in any others of the sub-genus; the muzzle, from the corners of the eyes downwards, naked. SIZE.--Head and body about 3-1/10 inches; tail, 1-1/4. NO. 74. TAPHOZOUS KACHHENSIS. HABITAT.--Kachh, N. W. India. DESCRIPTION (_apud_ Dobson).--"Gular sac absent in both male and female; its usual position indicated in the male by a semi-circular fold of skin and nakedness of the integument in this situation; in other respects similar to _T. nudiventris_. The deposits of fat about the tail very large." SIZE.--Head and body about 3 inches; tail, 1-1/4. _T. nudiventris_, above alluded to, is an inhabitant of Asia Minor, Egypt, and Nubia; similar to the above, only that it has a small gular sac in the male, of which a trace only exists in the female. Its most striking peculiarity is the deposit of fat at the root of the tail, which may possibly be for purposes of absorption during the dormant winter season. _GENUS NYCTINOMUS_. "Ears broad, short, approximate or connate with the outer margin, terminating in an erect lobe beyond the conch; tragus small, concealed" (often very small and quadrate, but never reduced to a mere point, as in _Molossus_--Dobson); "wings narrow, folded as in _Taphozous_; intercrural membrane short, truncate; tall free at the tip; feet short, with strong toes; muzzle thick; lips tumid, lax; upper lip with coarse wrinkles."--_Jerdon_. Dental formula: Inc., 2/6 or 2/4; can., 1--1/1--1; premol., 2--2/2--2; mol., 3--3/3--3. NO. 75. NYCTINOMUS PLICATUS. _The Wrinkle-lipped Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 34_). HABITAT.--India generally. DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle broad and thick; upper lip overhanging the lower, marked by vertical wrinkles; ears large and quadrilateral; outer margin ending in a decided anti-tragus; tail thick; the lower part of the leg is free from the wing membrane, which however, is connected with the ankle by a strong fibrous band; fur dense, smoky or snuff brown above (or bluish black--_Dobson_); paler beneath. SIZE.--Head and body about 2-1/10 inches; tail, 1-1/10. Jerdon gives length, 4-1/4 to 4-1/10; expanse, 13-1/2; tail, 1-3/4. This bat is common about Calcutta, frequenting ruins, dark places and hollow trees. It is allied to _N. tenuis_ (_Horsfield_), and it is mentioned as inhabiting hollow trees in such numbers as to attract attention by the hissing noise from within, every available spot in the interior being occupied. A synonym of the genus is _Dysopes_. NO. 76. NYCTINOMUS TRAGATUS. HABITAT.--India generally. DESCRIPTION.--This differs from the last in having the wing membrane from the ankles, and in the free portion of the tail being shorter; ears united at the base; tragus broad and rounded above, partially concealed by the large anti-tragus. SIZE.--About the same as the last. SUB-FAMILY VESPERTILIONIDAE. These bats have simple nostrils, as in the frugivorous ones, with no complications of foliated cutaneous appendages; the muzzle is conical, moderately long, and clad with fur; the ears wide apart; the inner margins springing from the sides, not the top of the head; the tragi are large; eyes usually very small, and the tail, which is long, is wholly included in the membrane. Dentition (usually): Inc., 2--2/6; can., 1--1/1--1, premol., 3--3/3--3; mol., 3--3/3--3. The upper incisors are small, and placed in pairs near the canines, leaving a gap in the centre. The lower ones sharp-edged and somewhat notched. At birth there are twenty-two teeth, which are shed, and replaced by others, with sixteen additional ones, the adult bat having thirty-eight teeth. _GENUS PLECOTUS_. Ears very large, united at the base; outer margin of the ear conch terminating opposite the base of the tragus, the inner margin with an abrupt rounded projection directed inwards above the base; tragus very large, tapering upwards, with a lobe at the base of the outer margin. Dentition: Inc., 2--2/6; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 2--2/2--2; molars, 3--3/3--3. The English species _P. auritus_ is very common there, and also in France; its ears are nearly as long as its body, yet, when reposing, they are so folded as to be almost out of sight. The Indian species is only a variety distinguishable by its yet longer ears ("and comparative shortness of the thumbs"--_Dobson_). NO. 77. PLECOTUS AURITUS _vel_ HOMOCHROUS. HABITAT.--The Himalayas and the Khasia Hills. [Figure: _Plecotus auritus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Head slightly raised above the face-line; ears nearly as long as the fore-arm, joined by a low band across the forehead at the bases of their inner margins; wings from the base of the toes; feet slender; tip of the tail free; fur silky, short, and of a uniform dull brown. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.7 inch; ears, 1.55 (ears of English type of same size, 1.4 inch); tail, 1.7 inch. Jerdon gives larger results, but I put more reliance on Dobson's figures. _GENUS VESPERUGO_. Bats with very broad and obtuse muzzles; the glandular prominences much developed between the eyes and the nostrils; crown of the head flat; but what distinguishes it from the following genus, _Scotophilus_, is the presence of four incisors in the upper jaw, whereas _Scotophilus_ has two only--otherwise the two genera are very similar. NO. 78. VESPERUGO NOCTULA. HABITAT.--Nepal. [Figure: _Vesperugo noctula_.] DESCRIPTION.--Head broad and flat; ears oval and broad; the outer margin convex, reflected backwards, and forming a thick lobe terminating close to the angle of the mouth; tragus short and curved inwards; muzzle devoid of hair; fur dark reddish brown. NO. 79. VESPERUGO LEUCOTIS. HABITAT.--Deserts of Northern India, and Beluchistan. DESCRIPTION.--"Ears, sides of face, about the eyes, interfemoral membrane, antehumeral membrane, and that portion of the wing membrane along the sides of the body, white, very translucent; remaining portion of wing membrane sepia, traversed by very distinct reticulations; fur on the upper surface black at the base of the hairs for about half their length, remaining portion light yellowish brown; beneath the same, but paler, almost white."--_Dobson_. NO. 80. VESPERUGO MAURUS. HABITAT.--Khasya Hills. DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle broad and flat, with large labial development; ears broad, triangular, broadly rounded off above; tragus broad and square; fur long and dense, uniformly sooty brown, with greyish tips; membranes, nose, ears and lips black. SIZE.--Head and body 1-1/10 inch; tail, 1 inch. NO. 81. VESPERUGO AFFINIS. HABITAT.--Burmah (Bhamo, Yunan). DESCRIPTION (_apud_ Dobson).--Head flat; upper labial glands so developed as to cause a deep depression between them on the face behind the nostrils; ears broad as long from behind; the outer margin extends from the tip to its termination near the corner of the mouth without emargination or lobe; tragus broad; inner margin straight; outer convex; small triangular lobe at base. Fur chocolate brown above, lighter on head and neck; beneath dark brown with lighter tips on the pubes, and along the thighs dirty white or pale buff. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.9 inch; tail, 1.65 inch. There is a good figure of the head of this bat in Dobson's Monograph; it was obtained by Dr. J. Anderson at an elevation of 4500 feet at Bhamo. NO. 82. VESPERUGO PACHYOTIS. DESCRIPTION.--"This species is readily distinguished by the peculiar thickness of the lower half of the outer side of the ear-conch, which appears as it were excavated out of the thick integument of the neck; tragus short, curved inwards."--_Dobson_. This bat is more fully described with three illustrations in Dobson's Monograph; he does not mention where it is found, so it may or it may not be an Indian species. NO. 83. VESPERUGO ATRATUS. _Syn_.--NYCTICEJUS ATRATUS. HABITAT.--Darjeeling. DESCRIPTION.--Head broad; muzzle obtuse; upper labial glands largely developed; ears large, oval, with rounded tips, which in the natural position of the ears appear acute, owing to the longitudinal folding of the outer side of the conch on the inner, commencing at and almost bisecting the tip (_Dobson_). Fur long, dense and black; Jerdon says rich dark brown; paler beneath. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.9 inch; tail, 1.8 inch. NO. 84. VESPERUGO TICKELLI. HABITAT.--Chybassa, Jashpur, and Sirguja. DESCRIPTION.--Head broad and flat; labial glands developed; ears moderate, rounded above; outer edge straight, emarginate opposite base of tragus, terminating in a small lobe; tragus lunate; tail long; last vertebra free. The face is more clad with fur than in other species of this genus; fur of the body pale, straw brown above, pale buff beneath. For a fuller description and illustration, see Dobson's Monograph. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.65 inch; tail, 2 inches. NO. 85. VESPERUGO PACHYPUS. HABITAT.--Darjeeling, Tenasserim, and Andaman Islands. DESCRIPTION.--Crown of head very flat; ears short, triangular, with broadly rounded tips, tragus short; under surface of the base of the thumb and soles of the feet with broad fleshy pads; wings rather short; fur fine and dense, above reddish brown, paler beneath. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.75 inch; tail 1 inch. NO. 86. VESPERUGO ANNECTANS. HABITAT.--Naga Hills and Assam. DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle sharper; face hairy; ears pointed; tragus long; colour dark brown; illustration in Dobson's Monograph. SIZE.--About 2 inches; tail, 1.6 inch. Unites the appearance of a _Vespertilio_ to the dentition of _Vesperugo_. NO. 87. VESPERUGO DORMERI. HABITAT.--Southern India and Bellary Hills. DESCRIPTION.--Head flat; ears shorter, triangular, with rounded tips; tragus with a small triangular lobe near base of outer margin; fur brown, with ashy tips above, darker brown below, with the terminal third of the hairs white. Dentition approaches the next genus, there being only one pair of unicuspidate upper incisors placed, one by each upper canine. NO. 88. (VESPERUGO) SCOTOPHILUS SEROTINUS. _Syn_.--VESPERUGO SEROTINUS. _The Silky Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 35_). HABITAT.--Europe, but extending through Asia to the Himalayas, Beluchistan and Kashmir. DESCRIPTION.--Ears shorter than head, widely separate, ovate, angular, projecting forward, terminating in a convex; lobe ending on a level with the corner of the mouth; tragus twice the length of its breadth, semi-cordate; fur deep bay or chestnut brown; above fulvous, grey beneath; hairs of back long and silky, but the colour of the fur varies considerably. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-1/2 inches; tail, 2; wing expanse, 13. This is a rare bat in India, though Captain Hutton has procured it at Mussoorie. In England it is not uncommon even near London; it flies steadily and rather slow, and is found in ruins, roofs of churches, and sometimes old hollow trees. NO. 89. (VESPERUGO) SCOTOPHILUS LEISLERI. _Syn_.--VESPERUGO LEISLERI. _The Hairy-armed Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 36_). HABITAT.--Himalayas. [Figure: _Vesperugo Leisleri_.] DESCRIPTION.--Ears short, oval, triangular; tragus short, rounded at tip; membrane attached to base of outer toe; all toes short; membrane over the arms very hairy, some cross-lines of hair on the interfemoral membrane; fur long, deep fuscous brown at base, chestnut at the tip; beneath greyish brown.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-1/4 inches; tail, 3-3/4; expanse, 11-1/2. SCOTOPHILUS PACHYOMUS. (_Jerdon's No. 37._) Synonymous with his No. 35; see Dobson's Monograph. NO. 90. (VESPERUGO) SCOTOPHILUS COROMANDELIANUS. _Syn_.--VESPERUGO ABRAMUS; VESPERTILIO COROMANDELICUS. _The Coromandel Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 38_). HABITAT.--India generally, Burmah and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Ears triangular, rather large; outer margin straight or slightly concave; tragus lunate; feet small; wing membrane attached to the base of the toes; fur short, above dingy brown, the hairs tipped with a lighter tinge, paler beneath. SIZE.--2-1/2 inches, including tail, which is about 1-1/8; wing expanse, 7-1/2. This is a very common little bat, akin to the English Pipistrelle, and is found everywhere in roofs, hollow bamboos, &c. NO. 91. (VESPERUGO) SCOTOPHILUS LOBATUS. _Syn_.--VESPERUGO KUHLII. _The Lobe-eared Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 39_). HABITAT.--India generally. DESCRIPTION.--Ears small, triangular; the base of the margin very convex forward; a triangular lobule above the base of the outer margin; tragus short and uniform in width; a short muzzle; wings from the base of the toes; feet small; calcaneum long; tip of tail free; fur blackish yellow above, ashy beneath. SIZE.--Two and a-half inches, of which the tail is 1-1/4; expanse 7-2/3. Jerdon, quoting Tomes, states that this is the same as _V. Abramus_, but that is the synonym of the last species. _GENUS SCOTOPHILUS_. Muzzle short, bluntly conical, devoid of hair; ears longer than broad; tail shorter than the head and body; wing membrane attached to the base of the toes. Dentition: Inc., 1--1/6; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 1--1/2--2; molars 3--3/3--3. Jerdon's formula gives upper incisors 4. NO. 92. SCOTOPHILUS FULIGINOSUS. _The Smoky Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 40_). HABITAT.--Central Nepal. DESCRIPTION (_apud_ Hodgson).--"Feet very small, included in the wing membrane nearly to the end of the toes; ears acutely pointed, shorter than the head; muzzle groved, nudish; face sharp; rostrum somewhat recurved; wholly sooty brown; a little smaller than _Vesp. formosa_." I cannot find this bat mentioned by any other author, and Jerdon says it does not seem to be recognised. NO. 93. SCOTOPHILUS TEMMINCKII. _Syn_.--NYCTICEJUS TEMMINCKII (_Jerdon_). HABITAT.--India generally; Burmah and Ceylon. [Figure: _Scotophilus Temminckii_.] DESCRIPTION.--Ears short, rounded and narrow; tragus narrow, curved and pointed inwards; muzzle thick, blunt and conical; the fur varies, sometimes dark olive brown, fulvous beneath, and occasionally chestnut, with a paler shade of yellow below. SIZE.--Four and a-half inches, of which the tail is 1-1/2; expanse, 13. A very common species, appearing early in the evening. Horsfield says of it that it collects by hundreds in hollow trees, and feeds chiefly on white ants. NO. 94. SCOTOPHILUS HEATHII. HABITAT.--India and Ceylon (Rajanpore, Punjab). DESCRIPTION.--Similar to the above, but longer in all its measurements (_Dobson_). Judging from drawings, the head and muzzle of this are more in a line than in the last species, the ears project forward, and are also larger, the tragus especially, and there is a greater width between the ears. SIZE.--Five inches, of which the tail is 2. NO. 95. SCOTOPHILUS EMARGINATUS. HABITAT.--India; precise locality unknown. DESCRIPTION.--Head broad and flat; muzzle obtuse and thick; ears long and large, with rounded tips turning outwards; tragus short; thumb long with a strong claw; wing membrane quite devoid of hair, except on the interfemoral membrane, which is half covered; fur tricolored, first dark chestnut, buff, and then yellowish brown. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-1/10 inches; tail, 2 inches. NO. 96. SCOTOPHILUS ORNATUS. _Syn_.--NYCTICEJUS ORNATUS. HABITAT.--India and Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Head broad; muzzle short; ears triangular, erect, with rounded tips, and broadly rounded lobe at the base; tragus narrow, semi-lunate, curved towards the front; fur a light Isabelline brown, spotted with white; a white spot on the centre of the forehead, and from the back of the head down the spine for two-thirds of its length a narrow white streak; on each side of the body two white patches; a broad white collar, or rather demi-collar, from one ear spot to the other, passing under the throat. Dr. Dobson says the position of these patches is very constant, but the size varies, being greatest in individuals of a pale rusty red colour, and these he found always to be males. SIZE.--Head and body, 3 inches; tail, 2 inches; expanse, 15. NO. 97. SCOTOPHILUS PALLIDUS. HABITAT.--Mian Mir, Lahore. DESCRIPTION.--Head and muzzle as in _S. Temminckii_; ears slightly shorter than the head; internal basal lobe convex, evenly rounded; tip broadly rounded off; tragus moderately long and rounded at the tip; a prominent triangular lobe at base. Wing membrane from base of toes; lobule at the heel very narrow and long; last rudimentary caudal vertebra free; fur of the body, wings, and interfemoral membrane pale buff throughout. SIZE.--Head and body, 2 inches; tail, 1.4 inch. NOCTULINIA NOCTULA. (See _ante: Vesperugo noctula--Jerdon's No. 41_.) NYCTICEJUS HEATHII. _Large Yellow Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 42_). (See _ante: Scotophilus Heathii_.) NYCTICEJUS LUTEUS. _The Bengal Yellow Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 43_). NYCTICEJUS TEMMINCKII. _The Common Yellow Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 44_). Both the above (Nos. 43 and 44) are, according to Dr. Dobson, synonymous with _Scotophilus Temminckii_, which see. NYCTICEJUS CASTANEUS. _The Chestnut Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 45_). This is also a variety of _Scotophilus Temminckii_. NYCTICEJUS ATRATUS. _The Sombre Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 46_). (See _ante: Vesperugo atratus_.) NYCTICEJUS CANUS. _The Hoary Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 47_). (See _ante: Vesperugo lobatus_.) NYCTICEJUS ORNATUS. _The Harlequin Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 48_). (See _ante: Scotophilus ornatus_.) NO. 98. NYCTICEJUS NIVICOLUS. _The Alpine Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 49_). HABITAT.--Sikim. DESCRIPTION.--"Head and body above uniform light brown with a slight yellowish shade; underneath, from the throat to the vent, dark grey with a brownish tint, lighter on the sides of the throat. Ears long, attenuated to an obtuse point."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 3 inches; tail, 2 inches; expanse, 19 inches. This bat was described by Hodgson ('Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist.' 1855), but there is some doubt about it, and it has been classed as a _Lasiurus_ and also with _Scot. ornatus_ and _Vesp. formosa_, but Jerdon thinks it a _distinct_ species. I cannot find any mention of it in Dobson's monograph. _GENUS HARPIOCEPHALUS_. This is also the genus _Murina_ of Gray. Dr. Dobson explains his acceptance of the former term in the following way: that he first accepted _Murina_ on the score of priority in a paper showing that _Harpiocephalus_ and _Murina_ must be united in a single genus; but finding afterwards that Gray had founded _Murina_ on a specimen of what he believed to be _Vesp. suillus_ (Temm.), but which was in reality a specimen of a very different species from Darjeeling, belonging to the same section of the genus as _Vespertilio harpia_ (Temm.) the type of his genus _Harpiocephalus_, it remained therefore either to discard both names or to retain _Harpiocephalus_, in which course he was supported by Professor Peters, to whom he mentioned the facts. Horsfield's genus _Lasiurus_ is included in this one, though Jerdon considers it distinct from _Murina_. Muzzle elongated, conical; _nostrils prominent, tubular; produced beyond the upper lip_, opening laterally or sublaterally, emarginate between; crown of the head scarcely raised above the face line; ears thin, generally covered with glandular papillae; tragus long, attenuated towards the tip, and inclined outwards; thumb very large, with a large, strongly curved claw; wings around interfemoral membrane very hairy.--_Dobson_. Dentition: Inc., 2--2/6; can. 1--1/1--1; premolars, 2--2/2--2; molars, 3--3/3--3. NO. 99. HARPIOCEPHALUS HARPIA. _Lasiurus Pearsonii_ (_Horsfield_) (_Jerdon's No. 50_). HABITAT.--Darjeeling and Khasia hills. DESCRIPTION.--"Fur above very soft, silky, and rather long; colour on the head, neck, and shoulders brownish grey, with a ferruginous cast, variegated with whitish hairs; the rest of the body above, with the base of the membrane, the thighs and the interfemoral membrane, have a deep bay or reddish-brown hue, and delicate hairs of the same colour are scattered over the membrane and project from its border; the body underneath is thickly covered with a grey fur, which is paler on the breast and body; the interfemoral membrane marked with regularly parallel transverse lines" (_Horsfield_). Ears ovoid; tragus rather long, nearly straight, acute at the tip (_Jerdon_). Muzzle rather short, obtusely conical; end of nose projecting considerably beyond the lip, consisting of diverging tubular nostrils opening laterally, with a slight emargination between each (_Dobson_). SIZE.--Head and body, 3 inches; tail, 1-1/2 inch; expanse, 14. Hodgson, who procured it at Darjeeling, writes of it: "Entire legs and caudal membrane clad in fur like the body, which is thick and woolly. Colour bright rusty above; sooty below, the hairs tipped with hoary." [Figure: Skull of _Harpiocephalus harpia_.] This bat is, for its size, one of the most powerfully armed with teeth. The skull reminds one of that of a dog or hyaena in miniature; the teeth are very stout, the canines blunt and conical, and the cusps of the molars short and blunt, well coated with enamel; the jaws are correspondingly muscular and adapted to the food of the animal, which consists of hard-shelled beetles, the crushed cases of which have been found in its stomach. NO. 100. HARPIOCEPHALUS (MURINA) SUILLUS. _The Pig-Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 51_). HABITAT.--Darjeeling (_Jerdon_); Malayan archipelago. DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle narrow, elongated; nostrils very prominent, which, viewed from below, resemble in shape a small hour-glass placed horizontally at the extremity of the muzzle; ears moderate, shorter than the head, rounded at the tips; tragus moderately long, attenuated above and slightly curved outwards; fur light greyish-brown; extremities dark brown; beneath light greyish-brown throughout.--_Dobson_. SIZE.--Head and body, 1-3/4 to 2 inches; tail, 1-1/2 inch; expanse 9 to 10. NO. 101. HARPIOCEPHALUS AURATUS. HABITAT.--Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Head and muzzle as in _H. suillus_, but the nostrils are differently shaped; each nostril forms a distinct tube directed sublaterally with a circular aperture marked by a very small notch on the outer and upper margin (_Dobson_). The whole body is thickly clad; the fur on the back is black, with bright golden yellow tips; the back of the fore-arm covered with short golden hair; the hair of the under parts black with silvery tips, whiter on the lower jaw, neck and pubis; the interfemoral membrane is covered with very long hair, which forms a fringe along its free margin extending on the legs and feet, and projecting beyond the toes; underneath short silvery hair. SIZE.--Head and body 1.4 inch; tail 1.2. NO. 102. HARPIOCEPHALUS GRISEUS. HABITAT.--Jeripani, N.W. Himalayas. DESCRIPTION.--Head and muzzle as in _H. suillus_; fur above dark brown, with yellowish-brown extremities; beneath similar, but with the extreme points of the hairs ashy. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.4 inch; tail 1 inch. This bat was found near Mussoorie by Captain Hutton, who writes that it occurs, but sparingly, on the outer southern range of hills at 5500 feet. It skims close to the ground, and somewhat leisurely over the surface of the crops and grass; and one which flew into his room kept low down, passing under chairs and tables, instead of soaring towards the ceiling, as bats generally do. NO. 103. HARPIOCEPHALUS LEUCOGASTER. HABITAT.--N.W. Himalayas, Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Head and muzzle as in _H. harpia_; fur long and dense, above brown with grey bases; underneath whitish; sides light brown. It differs from the next species by a small projecting tooth on the inner margin of the ear conch, by the smaller size of the first upper premolar, and by the colour.--_Dobson_. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.9 inch; tail 1.5. NO. 104. HARPIOCEPHALUS CYCLOTIS. HABITAT.--Darjeeling, Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Similar to the last, but with round ears; fur bicoloured, the hairs being dark brown at the base, with bright ferruginous tips; below pale brown; the upper surface of the interfemoral membrane and back of the feet covered with hair, which also extends beyond the toes; the first premolar in the upper jaw nearly equal in size to the second, whereas in the last species it is only about three-fourths. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.7 inch; tail, 1.5. _GENUS KERIVOULA_. DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle long and narrow; skull very concave between the nasal bones and the vertex, so that the crown appears considerably vaulted; ears funnel-shaped and semi-transparent; tragus very long, narrow and pointed; wings very wide; tail longer than head and body, wholly contained within the interfemoral membrane. Dentition: Inc., 2--2/6; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 3--3/3--3; molars, 3--3/3--3. The generic name of this bat is composed of two Singhalese words--_kehel_ or _kela_, the plantain, and _voulha_, which is the Singhalese for bat, the specimen on which Gray founded his genus being the following:-- NO. 105. KERIVOULA PICTA. _The Painted Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 53_). HABITAT.--India generally, Burmah and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--"Fur fine, woolly; above yellowish-red or golden rufous, beneath less brilliant and more yellow; wing membranes inky black, with rich orange stripes along the fingers extending in indentations into the membrane."--_Jerdon_. Ears moderate, laid forwards; the tips reach midway between the eyes and the middle of the muzzle; tragus very long and straight; thumb short; wings to the base of the toes. SIZE.--Head and body, 1-1/2 inch; tail, 1.6 inch; expanse about 10 inches. This beautiful little bat is found all over India, but is not common; it is occasionally caught in plantain gardens, as it resorts to the leaves of that tree for shelter during the night, and may sometimes be discovered in the folds of a leaf. As Jerdon remarks, it looks more like a butterfly or a moth when disturbed during the day time. Dr. Dobson pertinently observes that the colours of this bat appear to be the result of the "protective mimicry" which we see so often in insects, the Mantidea and other genera, the colours being adapted to their abiding places. He alludes to Mr. Swinhoe's account ('P. Z. S.,' 1862, p. 357) of an allied species:--"The body of this bat was of an orange yellow, but the wings were painted with orange yellow and black. It was caught suspended head downwards on a cluster of the round fruit of the longan tree. (_Nephelium_ [_Scytalia_] _longanum_) [the _ash phul_ of Bengal]. Now this tree is an evergreen, and all the year through some portion of its foliage is undergoing decay, the particular leaves being in such a stage partially orange and black; this bat can therefore at all seasons suspend from its branches and elude its enemies by its resemblance to the leaf of the tree." This bat was named by Pallas _Vespertilio pictus_. Boddaert in 1785 termed it _Vesp. kerivoula_, and Gray afterwards took the second specific name for that of the genus, leaving the first as it is. KERIVOULA PALLIDA. (_Jerdon's No. 54._) This is synonymous with _Vespertilio formosus_, which see further on, it is the same as the _Kerivoula formosa_ of Gray. NO. 106. KERIVOULA PAPILLOSA. (_Jerdon's No. 55._) HABITAT.--Java, but said by Jerdon to have been found in Calcutta and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Fur fine woolly, long, bicoloured; above light shining brown, paler below; the free edge of the interfemoral membrane margined with small papillae. NO. 107. KERIVOULA HARDWICKII. HABITAT.--India (Assam--Shillong, Khasia hills). DESCRIPTION.--Same size as _K. picta_, but ears larger; fur uniformly dark above and below, with shining greyish-brown extremities. _GENUS VESPERTILIO_. Muzzle long; ears often larger than the head, oval, apart; tragus long, acute; crown of head vaulted; feet moderate; wing membrane from base of toes; tail, wholly included in interfemoral membrane, less than length of head and body. Dentition: Inc., 2--2/6; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 3--3/3--3; molars, 3--3/3--3. NO. 108. MYOTIS (VESPERTILIO) MURINUS. (_Jerdon's No. 61._) HABITAT.--N.W. Himalayas. [Figure: _Vespertilio murinus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Fur above light reddish or smoke brown beneath dusky white, the base of the hairs dark. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-1/2 inches; tail, 2 inches; expanse, 15 inches. NOS. 109 & 110. MYOTIS THEOBALDI and MYOTIS PARVIPES. (_Jerdon's Nos. 62 & 63._) Both these appear to be closely allied to the _pipistrelle_ of Europe, and are stated to have been found at Mussoorie and in Kashmir. NO. 111. VESPERTILIO LONGIPES. HABITAT.--Kashmir (caves of Bhima Devi, 6000 feet). DESCRIPTION.--Wings from the ankles; _feet very large_, about one-fourth the length of the head and body; fur black above, underneath black with whitish tips. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.75 inch; tail, 1.45 inch. NO. 112. VESPERTILIO MYSTACINUS. HABITAT.--Himalayas. DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle narrow; skull vaulted; ears as long as head, wings from base of toes; fur dark brown. NO. 113. VESPERTILIO MURICOLA. HABITAT.--Himalayas, Arracan. DESCRIPTION.--Similar to the above, but may be distinguished by a small lobe behind the heel, by the deep emargination of the upper third of the outer margin of the ear; by the intensely black colour of the fur and membranes, and by its small size.--_Dobson_. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.6 inch; tail, 1.55 inch. NO. 114. VESPERTILIO MONTIVAGUS. HABITAT.--Burmah, Hotha, Yunan. DESCRIPTION.--Head slightly elevated above the face line; muzzle obtuse; ears narrow, tapering, _with_ rounded tips slightly turned outwards; tragus long, narrow, and acutely pointed; feet very small; toes two-thirds the length of the whole foot; tail wholly contained in the membrane; wings from base of toes; fur dark brown above, the tips paler and shining, beneath much darker, almost black, with ashy tips to the hairs; face much covered with hair, which almost conceals the eyes; the tip of the nose alone naked; wing membranes partially covered with fur. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.8 inch; tail, 1.6 inch. This bat, of which the above description is taken from Dobson's monograph, was obtained by Dr. J. Anderson during the Yunan Expedition. NO. 115. VESPERTILIO MURINOIDES. HABITAT.--N.W. Himalayas (Chamba), 3000 feet. DESCRIPTION.--General form of the ear triangular, with narrow rounded tips; outer margin concave beneath tips; tragus slender and acutely pointed, with a quadrangular lobe at the base of the outer margin; fur dark brown above with light brown tips; dark brown below, almost black with greyish tips. SIZE.--Head and body, 2.5 inches; tail 2. NO. 116. VESPERTILIO FORMOSUS. HABITAT.--N.W. Himalayas (Nepal, Darjeeling), Khasia hills. [Figure: _Vespertilio formosus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Wing membrane broad and variegated with orange and rich dark brown; the portions of the dark-coloured membrane are triangular in form, and occupy the spaces between the second and third and third and fourth fingers; all the remaining portions of the membranes, including interfemoral, are orange, as are also the ears; the orange colour extends in narrow lines along each side of the fingers, and is dispersed over the dark triangular space in dots and streaks. SIZE.--Head and body, 2 inches; tail, 1.1; expanse 11. NO. 117. VESPERTILIO NEPALENSIS. HABITAT.--Khatmandu, Nepal. DESCRIPTION.--Fur of head and back long and dense, bicoloured; base black, tips brown; underneath the hairs are two-thirds black, with the remaining upper third pure white. SIZE.--Head and body, 1.65 inch; tail, 1.35. NO. 118. VESPERTILIO EMARGINATUS. VARIETY.--_Desertorum_. HABITAT.--Beluchistan. DESCRIPTION.--The upper third of the outer margin of the ears deeply emarginate; colour of fur light brownish; ears and interfemoral membranes pale yellowish white; membranes dusky white. SIZE.--Head and body, 2 inches; tail 1.6. _GENUS MINIOPTERUS_ (_Bonaparte_). DESCRIPTION.--Crown of head abruptly and very considerably raised above the face line; ears separate, rhomboidal, the outer margin carried forward to the angle of the mouth; tragus like that in _Vesperugo_; first phalanx of the second or longest finger very short; feet long and slender; tail as long as head and body, wholly contained in the membrane. Dentition: Inc., 2--2/6; can., 1--1/1--1, premolars, 2--2/3--3, molars, 3--3/3--3. NO. 119. MINIOPTERUS SCHREIBERSII. HABITAT.--Burmah and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Colour of fur varies, the basal half of the hair always dark greyish black, dark brown or black; the extremities varying from light grey to light reddish-grey, dark reddish-brown and black. For further details see Dobson's monograph. _GENUS BARBASTELLUS_. Ears large, connate at the base in front, triangular, emarginate on the outer margin, broad, concealing the back of the head, hairy in the middle; tragus broad at the base, narrow at the tip, and curved outwardly. [Figure: _Synotus barbastellus_.] Dentition: Inc., 2--2/6; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 2--2/2--2; molars, 3--3/3--3. NO. 120. BARBASTELLUS COMMUNIS. (_Jerdon's No. 65._) HABITAT.--Himalayas, Nepal and Mussoorie. DESCRIPTION.--Fur above blackish brown; the hairs fulvous at the tips; abdomen greyish brown; hairs fine silky. SIZE.--Head and body, 2 inches; tail, 1-2/12; expanse; 10-1/2.--_Jerdon_. This is the same as the English Barbastelle, and it appears in Dobson's monograph as _Synotus Darjeelinensis_. NO. 121. NYCTOPHILUS GEOFFROYI. (_Jerdon's No. 66._) HABITAT.--Mussoorie. Jerdon here goes back to the nose-leafed bats. I can find no trace of it in Dobson's monograph, which is so exhaustive as far as Asiatic species are concerned. DESCRIPTION.--Over the eyes, at the hind corner, a tuft of black hair; fur dark brown, above throat and flank brownish-white; below black with white tips. A simple transverse nose-leaf; ears large, ovoid, united at base as in _Plecotus_. SIZE.--Head and body, 1-3/4 to 2 inches; tail, 1-5/12; expanse, 9-3/4. * * * * * We have now concluded our notice of Indian bats but yet much is to be discovered concerning them. Very little is known of the habits of these small nocturnal animals, only a few of the most familiar large ones are such as one can discourse upon in a popular way; the lives and habits of the rest are a blank to us. We see them flit about rapidly in the dusky evening, and capture one here and there, but, after a bare description, in most cases very uninteresting to all save those who are "bat fanciers," what can be said about them? Many of them have been written about for a century, yet how little knowledge has been gained! It has been no small labour to collate all the foregoing species, and to compare them with various works; it would have been a most difficult task but for the assistance I have received from Dr. Dobson's book, which every naturalist should possess if he desires to have a thorough record of all the Indian Chiroptera. INSECTIVORA. These are mostly small animals of, with few exceptions, nocturnal habits. Their chief characteristic lies in their pointed dentition, which enable them to pierce and crush the hard-shelled insects on which they feed. The skull is elongated, the bones of the face and jaw especially, and those of the latter are comparatively weak. Before we come to the teeth we may notice some other peculiarities of this order. The limbs are short, feet five-toed and plantigrade, with the entire sole placed on the ground in running, and these animals are all possessed of clavicles which in the next order are but rudimentary; in this respect they legitimately follow the Bats. The mammae are placed under the abdomen, and are more than two. None of them (except _Tupaia_) have a caecum (this genus has been most exhaustively described in all its osteological details by Dr. J. Anderson: see his 'Anatomical and Zoological Researches'); the snout is usually prolonged and mobile. The dentition is eccentric, and not always easy to determine; some have long incisors in front, followed by other incisors along the sides of their narrow jaws and canines, all shorter than the molars; others have large separated canines, between which are placed small incisors. In Blyth's additions to Cuvier he states that "in this group we are led to identify the canine tooth as simply the first of the false molars, which in some has two fangs, and, as in the Lemurs, to perceive that the second in the lower jaw is in some more analogous in size and character to an ordinary canine than that which follows the incisors. The incisor teeth are never more than six in number, which is the maximum throughout _placental_ mammalia (as opposed by _marsupial_), and in several instances one or two pairs are deficient. (It should be remarked that a single tooth with two fangs is often represented by two separate teeth, each with one fang.) The canines, with the succeeding false molars, are extremely variable, but there are ordinarily three tuberculated molars posterior to the representative of the carnivorous or cutting grinder of the true _Carnivora_." All the molar teeth are studded with sharp points or cusps; the deciduous teeth are developed and disappear before birth. This order is divided into four families, viz., _Talpidae_ or Moles, _Sorecidae_ or Shrews, _Erinaceidae_ or Hedgehogs, and the _Tupaiadae_, Banxrings or Tree-shrews. Of all these well-defined types are to be found in India, but America and Africa possess various genera which we have not, such as the Condylures (_Condylura_, Illiger), the Shrew-moles (_Scalops_, Cuvier), belonging to _Talpidae_; the Solendons, Desmans, and Chrysochlores to _Sorecidae_; the Sokinahs, Tenrecs and Gymnures to _Erinaceidae_; and the Macroscelles or Elephant-mice of the Cape Colony form another group more allied to _Tupaia_ than the rest. This last family is the most interesting. Anatomically belonging to this order, they externally resemble the squirrels so closely as to have been frequently mistaken for them. The grovelling Mole and creeping Shrew are as unlike the sprightly Tupaia, as it springs from branch to branch, whisking its long bushy tail, as it is possible to conceive. I intend further on to give an illustration of this little animal. The first we have on record concerning it is in the papers relating to Captain Cook's third voyage, which are now in the British Museum, where the animal is described and figured as _Sciurus dissimilis_; it was obtained at Pulo Condore, an island 100 miles from Saigon, in 1780. Sir T. Stamford Raffles was the next to describe it, which he did under the generic name _Tupaia_--_tupai_ being a Malayan word applied to various squirrel-like small animals--but he was somewhat forestalled in the publication of his papers by MM. Diard and Duvaucel. Dr. Anderson relates how Sir T. Raffles engaged the services of these two naturalists to assist him in his researches, on the understanding that the whole of the observations and collections were to be the property of the East India Company; but ultimately on this point there arose a disagreement between them, and the paper that was first read before the Asiatic Society of Bengal on the 10th of March, 1820, was drawn up by MM. Diard and Duvaucel, though forwarded by Sir T. Raffles, whose own paper on the subject was not read before the Linnean Society until the 5th of December of that year, nor published till 1821; therefore to the others belongs the credit of first bringing this curious group to notice. They regarded it in the light of a true Shrew, disguised in the form and habits of a squirrel, and they proposed for it the name _Sorex-Glis_, i.e. Shrew-squirrel (_Glis_ properly means a dormouse, but Linnaeus used it for his rodential group which he termed _Glires_); this was afterwards changed by Desmarest and Giebel to _Gli Sorex_ and _Glisosorex_, which latter stands for one of the generic terms applied to the group. F. Cuvier, objecting to _Tupaia_, proposed _Cladobates_ (signifying branch walkers), and Temminck, also objecting to _Tupaia_, suggested _Hylogale_ (from Gr. _hyla_, forest, and _gale_, a weasel), so now we have four generic names for this one small group. English naturalists have however accepted _Tupaia_; and, as Dr. Anderson fairly remarks, though it is a pity that some definite rules are not laid down for the guidance of naturalists for the acceptance or rejection of terms, still those who reject _Tupaia_ on the ground of its being taken from a savage tongue should be consistent, and refuse all others of similar origin. He is quite right; but how many we should have to reject if we did so--_Siamanga_ in Quadrumana, _Kerivoula_ in Cheiroptera, _Tupaia_ in Insectivora, _Golunda_ in Rodentia, _Rusa_ in Ruminantia, and others! At the same time these names are wrong; they convey no meaning; and had they a meaning (which only _Kerivoula_ or _Kelivoulha_, i.e. plantain-bat, has) it is not expressed in languages common to all western nations, such as the Latin and Greek. _Tupaia_ is an unfortunate selection, inasmuch as it does not apply to one type of animal, but reminds me somewhat of the Madras _puchi_, which refers, in a general way, to most creeping insects, known or unknown. FAMILY TALPIDAE--THE MOLES. These animals have a small cylindrical body, very short arm attached to a large shoulder-blade, supported by a stout clavicle or collar-bone. The fore-feet are of great breadth, supported by the powerful muscles of the arm; the palm of the foot or hand is directed outwards or backwards, the lower edge being trenchant, with scarcely perceptible fingers armed with long, flat nails, strong and sharp, with which to tear up the ground and shovel the earth aside. The hind feet are small and weak in comparison, with slender claws. The head tapers to a point, the long snout being provided with a little bone which assists it in rooting, and the cervical muscles are very strong. The eyes are microscopical, and almost concealed in the fur. At one time it was a popular delusion that the mole was devoid of the power of sight, but this is not the case. The sense of hearing is extremely acute, and the tympanum is large, although externally there is no aural development. The tail is short, the fur set vertically in the skin, whence it is soft and velvety. The bones of the pubis do not join, and the young when produced are large. The mammae are six in number. The jaws are weak, the incisors are six above and eight below. The canines (false molars?) have two roots. There are four false molars above and three below, and three molars with pointed cusps. Moles live principally on earth-worms, snails, and small insects, though they are also said to devour frogs and small birds. They are more common in Europe than in India, where the few known species are only to be found in hilly parts. I have, I think, procured them on the Satpura range some years ago, but I cannot speak positively to the fact at this lapse of time, as I had not then devoted much attention to the smaller mammalia, and it is possible that my supposed moles were a species of shrew. They are seldom if ever trapped in India, for the simple reason that they are not considered worth trapping, and the destruction of moles in England has long been carried on in the same spirit of ignorance which led farmers, both there and in France, to destroy small birds wholesale, till they did themselves much injury by the multiplication of noxious insects. Moles, instead of being the farmers' foes, are the farmers' friends. Mr. Buckland in his notes to Gilbert White's 'Natural History of Selborne'(Macmillan's _edition de luxe_ of 1876)--says: "After dinner we went round the sweetstuff and toy booths in the streets, and the vicar, my brother-in-law, the Rev. H. Gordon, of Harting, Petersfield, Hants, introduced me to a merchant of gingerbread nuts who was a great authority on moles. He tends cows for a contractor who keeps a great many of the animals to make concentrated milk for the navy. The moles are of great service; eat up the worms that eat the grass, and wherever the moles have been afterwards the grass grows there very luxuriantly. When the moles have eaten all the grubs and the worms in a certain space, they migrate to another, and repeat their gratuitous work. The grass where moles have been is always the best for cows." In another place he says: "M. Carl Vogt relates an instance of a landed proprietor in France who destroyed every mole upon his property. The next season his fields were ravaged with wire-worms, and his crops totally destroyed. He then purchased moles of his neighbours, and preserved them as his best friends." The poor little despised mole has had its part to play in history. My readers may remember that William the Third's horse is supposed to have put his foot into a mole-pit, and that the king's death was hastened by the unconscious agency of "the little gentleman in black," who was so often toasted afterwards by the Jacobites. _GENUS TALPA_ NO. 122. TALPA MICRURA. _The Short-tailed Mole_ (_Jerdon's No. 67_). HABITAT.--The Eastern Himalayan range. NATIVE NAMES.--_Pariam_, Lepcha; _Biyu-kantyen_, Bhotia (_Jerdon_). DESCRIPTION.--Velvety black, with a greyish sheen in certain lights; snout nude; eyes apparently wanting. Jerdon says there is no perforation of the integument over the eyes, but this I doubt, and think that by examination with a lens an opening would be discovered, as in the case of the Apennine mole, which M. Savi considered to be quite blind. I hope to have an opportunity of testing this shortly. The feet are fleshy white, also the tail, which, as its specific name implies, is very small. "There are three small upper premolars between the quasi-canine tooth and the large scissor-toothed premolar, which is much developed." SIZE.--Length, 4-3/4 to 5 inches; head alone, 1-3/4; palm with claws, 7/8 inch; tail, 3/16 of an inch or less. Jerdon says: "This mole is not uncommon at Darjeeling, and many of the roads and pathways in the station are intersected by its runs, which often proceed from the base of some mighty oak-tree to that of another. If these runs are broken down or holes made in them they are generally repaired during the night. The moles do not appear to form mole-hills as in Europe." Jerdon's specimens were dead ones picked up, as the Lepchas do not know how to trap them. NO. 123. TALPA MACRURA. _The Long-tailed Mole_ (_Jerdon's No. 68_). HABITAT.--Sikim. DESCRIPTION.--Deep slaty blue, with a whitish or hoary gloss, iridescent when wet; the tail covered with soft hair. SIZE.--Head and body, 4 inches; tail, 1-1/4 inch; head alone, 1-1/8 inch; palm, 3/4 inch. NO. 124. TALPA LEUCURA (_Blyth_). _The White-tailed Mole_. HABITAT.--Sylhet, Burmah (Tenasserim). DESCRIPTION.--Similar to _micrura_, but with a short tail covered with white hairs, and it has one premolar less. FAMILY SORECIDAE. Small animals, which from their size, shape, and nocturnal habits are frequently confounded with rats and mice, as in the case of the common Indian Shrew, known to most of us as the Musk-rat; they have distinct though small eyes, distinct ears, the conch of which is like that of a mouse. The tail _thick_ and tapering, whence the generic name _Pachyura_, applied by De Selys Longchamp, and followed latterly by Blyth; but there is also a sub-family of bats to which the term has been applied. "On each flank there is a band of stiff closely-set bristles, from between which, during the rutting season, exudes an odorous fluid, the product of a peculiar gland" (_Cuvier_); the two middle superior incisors are hooked and dentated at the base, the lower ones slanted and elongated; five small teeth follow the larger incisors on the upper jaw, and two those on the lower. There are three molars with sharp-pointed cusps in each jaw, with a small tuberculous tooth in the upper. The feet are five-toed, separate, not webbed like the moles; the snout is long and pointed and very mobile. This family has been subdivided in various genera by naturalists, each one having his followers; and it is puzzling to know which to adopt. Simplicity being the great point to aim at in all these matters, I may broadly state that Shrews are divided into land and water shrews (_Sorex_ and _Hydrosorex_); the former includes _Crocidura_ of Wagner, _Corsira_ of Gray, and _Anurosorex_ of Milne-Edwards, the latter _Crossopus_ and _Chimarrogale_, Gray. For ages both in the West and East this poor little animal has been the victim of ignorance. In England, even in the last century, it was looked upon as an evil thing, as Gilbert White says: "It is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with loss of the use of the limb," the only remedy in such cases being the application of the twigs of a shrew ash, which was an ash-tree into which a large hole had been bored with an augur, into which a poor little shrew was thrust alive and plugged up (_see_ Brand's 'Popular Antiquities' for a description of the ceremonies). It is pleasant to think that such barbarities have now ceased, for though shrew ashes are to be found in various parts of England, I have never heard (in my own county, Derbyshire, at least) of the necessity for their use. In an article I contributed to a magazine some thirteen years ago, I pointed out a coincident superstition prevailing in India. Whilst marching as a Settlement officer in the district of Seonee, I noticed that one of my camels had a sore back and on inquiring into the cause was told by the natives that a musk-rat (our commonest shrew) had run over him. Jerdon also remarks that in Southern India (Malabar) the bite of _S. murinus_ is considered venomous, and so it is in Bengal. _GENUS SOREX_ (_Linn_.). SYNONYM.--_Pachyura_, De S. Long; _Crocidura_, Wagner. [Figure: Dentition of Shrew (magnified).] DESCRIPTION.--Upper front teeth large; "inferior incisors entire, or rarely so much as the trace of a serrated upper edge;" between these and the first cutting molar four teeth as follows: large, small, middling, very small; teeth wholly white; tail thick and tapering, with a few scattered hairs, some with glands secreting a pungent musky odour, some without. NO. 125. SOREX CAERULESCENS. _The Common Musk Shrew, better known as Musk-rat_. NATIVE NAME.--_Chachhunder_, Hind.; _Sondeli_, Canarese. HABITAT.--India generally. DESCRIPTION.--Bluish gray, sometimes slightly mouse-coloured; naked parts flesh-coloured. SIZE.--Head and body, 6 to 7 inches; tail 3-1/2 to 4 inches. This little animal is almost too well known, as far as its appearance is concerned, to need much description, though most erroneous ideas prevail about its habits. It is proverbially difficult to uproot an old-established prejudice; and, though amongst my friends I have been fighting its battles for the poor little shrew for years, I doubt whether I have converted many to my opinions. Certainly its appearance and its smell go strongly against it--the latter especially--but even here its powers are greatly exaggerated. I think by this time the old fallacy of musk-rats tainting beer and wine in bottles by simply running over them is exploded. When I came out in 1856 it was a common thing at the mess table, or in one's own house, to reject a bottle of beer or wine, because it was "musk-ratty;" but how seldom is the complaint made now since country-bottled beverages are not used? Jerdon, Kellaart, and every Indian naturalist scouts the idea of this peculiar power to do what no chemist has yet succeeded in, viz., the creation of an essence subtle enough to pass through glass. That musky bottles were frequent formerly is due to impregnated corks and insufficient washing before the bottle was filled. The musk-rat in a quiescent state is not offensive, and its odour is more powerful at certain seasons. I am peculiarly sensitive to smells, and dislike that of musk in particular, yet I have no objection to a musk-rat running about my room quietly if I do not startle him. I never allow one to be killed, and encourage their presence in the house, for I think the temporary inconvenience of a whiff of musk is amply repaid by the destruction of the numerous objectionable insects which lurk in the corners of Indian houses. The notion that they do damage by gnawing is an erroneous one, the mischief done by mice and rats being frequently laid to their charge; they have not the powerful dentition necessary for nibbling through wood and mortar. In my book on 'Camp Life in Seonee,' I say a good word for my little friends, and relate as follows an experiment which I tried many years ago: "We had once been talking at mess about musk-rats; some one declared a bottle of sherry had been tainted, and nobody defended the poor little beast but myself, and I was considerably laughed at. However, one night soon after, as I was dressing before dinner, I heard a musk-rat squeak in my room. Here was a chance. Shutting the door, I laid a clean pocket-handkerchief on the ground next to the wall, knowing the way in which the animal usually skirts round a room; on he came and ran over the handkerchief, and then, seeing me, he turned and went back again. I then headed him once more and quietly turned him; and thus went on till I had made him run over the handkerchief five times. I then took it up, and there was not the least smell. I then went across to the mess house, and, producing the handkerchief, asked several of my brother officers if they could perceive any peculiar smell about it. No, none of them could. 'Well, all I know is,' said I, 'that I have driven a musk-rat five times over that pocket-handkerchief just now.'" When I was at Nagpore in 1864 I made friends with one of these shrews, and it would come out every evening at my whistle and take grasshoppers out of my fingers. It seemed to be very short-sighted, and did not notice the insect till quite close to my hand, when, with a short swift spring, it would pounce upon its prey. A correspondent of _The Asian_, writing from Ceylon, gives an account of a musk-rat attacking a large frog, and holding on to it in spite of interference. McMaster says that these shrews will also eat bread, and adds: "insects, however, form their chief diet, so they thus do us more good than harm. I once disturbed one that evidently had been eating part of a large scorpion." NO. 126. SOREX MURINUS. _The Mouse-coloured Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 70_). HABITAT.--India generally, Burmah and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Brownish-grey above, paler beneath; fur coarser and longer than in the last species, and in the young ones the colour is more of a bluish-grey, browner on the back. The ears are larger than those of _S. caerulescens_; tail nearly equal to the body, thick at the base, and sparsely covered with long coarse hairs; feet and tail flesh-coloured in the living animal. SIZE.--Head and body about 6 inches; tail, 3-1/2 inches. "This," as Jerdon says, "is the common musk-rat of China, Burmah, and the Malayan countries, extending into Lower Bengal and Southern India, especially the Malabar Coast, where it is said to be the common species, the bite of which is considered venomous by the natives." Kellaart mentions it in Ceylon as the "common _musk shrew_ or rat of Europeans;" but he confuses it with the last species. He gives the Singhalese name as "_koone meeyo_." The musky odour of this species is less powerful, and is almost absent in the young. Blyth states that he was never able to obtain a specimen of it in Lower Bengal, yet the natives here discriminate between the light and dark-coloured shrews, and hold, with the people of Malabar, that the bite of the latter is venomous. Horsfield states that it has been found in Upper India, Nepal, and Assam, and he gives the vernacular name in the last-named country as "_seeka_." NO. 127. SOREX NEMORIVAGUS. _The Nepal Wood Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 71_). HABITAT.--Nepal. DESCRIPTION.--Differs from the last "by a stouter make, by ears smaller and legs entirely nude, and by a longer and more tetragonal tail; colour sooty black, with a vague reddish smear; the nude parts fleshy grey; snout to rump, 3-5/8 inches; tail, 2 inches, planta, 11/16 inch. Found only in woods and coppices."--_Hodgson_. NO. 128. SOREX SERPENTARIUS. _The Rufescent Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 72_). HABITAT.--Southern India, Burmah and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Colour dusky greyish, with rufous brown tips to the hairs (_Blyth_). Above dusky slate colour with rufescent tips to the fur; beneath paler, with a faint rufous tinge about the breast (_Jerdon_). Fur short ashy-brown, with a ferruginous smear on the upper surface; beneath a little paler coloured (_Kellaart_). Teeth and limbs small; tail slender. SIZE.--Head and body about 4-1/2 inches; tail, 2 inches; skull, 1-2/10 inch. The smell of this musk shrew is said by Kellaart, who names it _S. Kandianus_, to be quite as powerful as that of _S. caerulescens_. Blyth seems to think that this animal gets more rufescent with age, judging from two examples sent from Mergui. By some oversight, I suppose, he has not included this species in his 'Catalogue of the Mammals of Burmah.' NO. 129. SOREX SATURATIOR. _The Dark Brown Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 73_). HABITAT.--Darjeeling. DESCRIPTION.--"Colour uniform deep brown, inclining to blackish, with a very slight rufescent shade; fur short, with an admixture of a few lengthened piles, when adpressed to the body smooth, but reversed somewhat harsh and rough; tail cylindrical, long, gradually tapering; mouth elongated, regularly attenuated, ears moderate, rounded." SIZE.--Head and body, 5-1/2 inches; tail, 3 inches. Jerdon seems to think this is the same as _S. Griffithi_ or closely allied; I cannot say anything about this, as I have no personal knowledge of the species, but on comparison with the description of _S. Griffithi_ (which see further on) I should say they were identical. NO. 130. SOREX TYTLERI. _The Dehra Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 74_). HABITAT.--Dehra Doon. DESCRIPTION.--"Light rufescent sandy brown, paler beneath; unusually well clad even on the feet and tail, this last being covered with shortish fur having numerous long hairs intermixed; form very robust; basal portion of tail very thick." SIZE.--Head and body, 4-1/2 inches; tail, 2-3/4 inches; hind foot, 7/8 inch. NO. 131. SOREX NIGER. _The Neilgherry Wood Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 75_). HABITAT.--Ootacamund, Neilgherry hills. DESCRIPTION.--"Blackish-brown, with a rufescent shade on the upper parts; abdomen greyish; tail equal in length to the entire animal, exclusive of the head, gradually tapering to a point; snout greatly attenuated. Length of head and body, 3-1/2 inches; of the tail, 2-1/2 inches."--_Horsfield_. NO. 132. SOREX LEUCOPS. _The Long-tailed Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 76_). HABITAT.--Nepal. DESCRIPTION.--Uniform blackish-brown colour; tail very long and slender, exceeding in length the head and body, terminating in a whitish tip of half an inch long. SIZE.--Head and body, 3 inches; tail, 2-1/2 inches. Jerdon supposes that it is found at great altitudes, from Hodgson having in another place described it (MSS.) under the name _nivicola_. NO. 133. SOREX SOCCATUS. _The Hairy-footed Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 77_). HABITAT.--Nepal, Sikim, Mussoorie. DESCRIPTION.--According to Hodgson, nearly the size of _S. nemorivagus_, "but distinguished by its feet being clad with fur down to the nails, and by its depressed head and tumid bulging cheeks (mystaceal region); ears large and exposed; colour a uniform sordid or brownish-slaty blue, extending to the clad extremities; snout to rump, 3-1/2 inches; tail, 2-1/2 inches; planta, 13/16 inch. This animal was caught in a wood plentifully watered, but not near the water. It had no musky smell when brought to me dead." NO. 134. SOREX MONTANUS. _The Ceylon Black Shrew_. HABITAT.--Ceylon, mountainous parts. DESCRIPTION.--"Fur above sooty black without any ferruginous smear, beneath lighter coloured; whiskers long, silvery grey; some parts of legs and feet greyish, clothed with adpressed hairs; claws short, whitish; ears large, round, naked; outer margin lying on a level with the fur of the head and neck, the ears being thus concealed posteriorly; tail tetragonal, tapering, shorter than head and body."--_Kellaart_. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-3/4 inches; tail, 2-1/4 inches; hind feet, 1/3 inch. NO. 135. SOREX FERRUGINEUS. _The Ceylon Rufescent Shrew_. HABITAT.--Ceylon, Dimboola, below Newara Elia. DESCRIPTION.--"Colour uniform dusky or dusky slate, with the tips of the fur rufescent; fur long; large sebaceous anal glands; smell very powerful."--_Kellaart_. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-3/4 inches; tail, 2-1/4 inches. NO. 136. SOREX GRIFFITHI. _The Large Black Shrew_. HABITAT.--Khasia hills and Arracan. DESCRIPTION.--"Deep blackish-brown, with a slight rufous reflection in a certain light; fur short, close, soft, and adpressed; tail thick at the base, with a few long very slender straggling hairs along its entire length; ears small and rounded; snout elongated."--_Horsfield_. SIZE.--Head and body, 5-3/4 inches; tail, 2-1/2 inches. Horsfield puts this down as having been found in Afghanistan by Griffiths, but this is an error owing to Griffiths' Afghanistan and Khasia collections having got mixed up. NO. 137. SOREX HETERODON. HABITAT.--Khasia hills. DESCRIPTION.--"Very similar to _S. soccatus_ in general appearance, but less dark coloured, with shorter fur, and pale instead of blackish feet and tail underneath; the feet too are broader, especially the hind feet, and they have a hairy patch below the heel" (_Blyth_). The skull is narrower, and the upper incisors less strongly hooked. _GENUS FEROCULUS_. Teeth small; upper incisors shorter and less strongly hooked than in restricted _Sorex_; posterior spur large; lower incisors serrated with three coronal points. Feet very large. NO. 138. FEROCULUS MACROPUS. _The Large-footed Shrew_. HABITAT.--Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Fur, long, soft uniform blackish--faint rufescent tinge. SIZE.--Head and body 4-1/4 inches; tail 2-1/4. * * * * * The following species are of a more diminutive type, and are commonly called "pigmy-shrews;" in other respects they are true shrews. NO. 139. SOREX HODGSONI. _The Nepal Pigmy-Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 78_). HABITAT.--Nepal and Sikim. DESCRIPTION.--Brown, with a slight tinge of chestnut; feet and tail furred; claws white. SIZE.--Head and body 1-1/2 inch; tail, 1 inch. Found in coppices and fields; rarely entering houses. NO. 140. SOREX PERROTETI. _The Neilgherry Pigmy-Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 79_). HABITAT.--Neilgherry hills, probably also other parts of Southern India. DESCRIPTION.--"Back deep blackish-brown; belly pale; limbs and feet brown; palms and plantae clad with hairs; ears large, conspicuous." SIZE.--Head and body, 1-4/12 inch; tail, 11/12 inch. NO. 141. SOREX MICRONYX. _The Small-clawed Pigmy-Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 80_). HABITAT.--West Himalayas, Kumaon, Mussoorie. DESCRIPTION.--Claws very minute, with fine hairs impending them, only to be detected by a lens; fur paler and more chestnut-brown than any other of these minute shrews, and more silvery below. SIZE.--Head and body, 1-5/8 inch; tail 1-1/8 inch. NO. 142. SOREX MELANODON. _The Black-toothed Pigmy-Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 81_). HABITAT.--Calcutta. DESCRIPTION.--Called _melanodon_ from the remarkable colouring of its teeth, which are piceous and white-tipped; colour uniform fuscous, scarcely paler beneath. SIZE.--Head and body, 1-7/8 inch; tail, 1-1/16 inch. NO. 143. SOREX NUDIPES. _The Naked-footed Shrew_. HABITAT.--Tenasserim. DESCRIPTION.--"Remarkable for its naked feet and very large ears; also for the odoriferous glands on the sides being strongly developed, whereas we can detect them in no other of these minute species" (_Blyth_). Colour brown above, a little grizzled and glistening, more silvery below. SIZE.--Head and body, 1-3/4 inch; tail, 1-1/16 inch. NO. 144. SOREX ATRATUS. _The Black Pigmy-Shrew_. HABITAT.--Khasia hills. DESCRIPTION.--"Very dark colour, extending over the feet and tail which is even _blackish underneath_; fur blackish-brown above, a little tinged rufescent, and with dark greyish underneath; the feet and tail conspicuously furred, beside the scattered long hairs upon the latter."--_Blyth_. This species was determined by Blyth on a single specimen, which was found without its head, impaled by some shrike upon a thorn at Cherrapunji. The same thing occasionally occurs in England, when the common shrew may be found impaled by the rufous-backed shrike (_Lanius collurio_). _SUB-GENUS SORICULUS_ (_Blyth_). The foregoing species being of the _white-toothed_ variety (with the exception of _S. melanodon_, which, however, exhibits coloration decidedly the _reverse_ of the following type), we now come to the shrews with teeth tipped with a darker colour; the dentition is as in the restricted shrews, with the peculiarity of colour above mentioned. The hind feet of ordinary proportions, unadapted for aquatic habits, and the tail slender and tapering, like that of a mouse, instead of being cylindrical with a stiff brush at the end. NO. 145. SORICULUS NIGRESCENS. _The Mouse-tailed Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 82_). HABITAT.--Sikim and Nepal. DESCRIPTION.--"Above dark-blackish or blackish-brown, slightly tinged rufescent, and with a silvery cast in certain lights; beneath greyish-black" (_Jerdon_). Feet and claws pale; tail slender, straight and naked. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/4 inches; tail, 1-1/2 inch; hind foot, 5/8 inch. Jerdon says that Kellaart named an allied species from Ceylon _Corsira newera ellia_, but I have not been able to find it in his 'Prodromus Faunae Zeylanicae,' nor elsewhere. _GENUS CROSSOPUS_ (_Wagner_). The hind feet large; the lower surface, as also of the tail, fringed with stiff hairs; tail somewhat compressed towards the tip; habits aquatic. NO. 146. CROSSOPUS HIMALAICUS. _The Himalayan Water-Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 83_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Oong lagniyu_, Lepcha; _Choopitsi_, Bhot. HABITAT.--Darjeeling. DESCRIPTION.--Fur dark brown above, paler beneath; rusty brown on the lower part of throat and middle of belly, according to Jerdon; slate coloured back with scattered long hairs, which are longer and white-tipped on the sides and rump, according to Blyth's memoir; ears very small, hairy, concealed; tail long, slender, fringed with stiff whitish hair beneath; whiskers long and brown. SIZE.--Head and body, 5 to 6 inches; tail about 3-1/2 inches; hind foot, 3/4 to 11/12 inch. Jerdon procured this water-shrew at Darjeeling in the Little Rungeet river; it is said to live on small fish, tadpoles, water insects, &c. The movements of the English water-shrew, when swimming, are very agile. It propels itself by alternate strokes of its hind feet, but with an undulating motion, its sides being in a manner extended, and body flattened, showing a narrow white border on each side; then the fur collects a mass of tiny air bubbles which make the submerged portion glow like silver. It prefers clear still water, but at the same time will make its way up running streams and ditches, and occasionally wanders away into fields, and has been found in houses and barns. Its food is principally aquatic insects, worms, mollusca, and freshwater crustacea. In Bell's 'British Quadrupeds' its mode of poking about amongst stones in search of fresh-water shrimps (_Gammarus pulex_) is well described. Mr. F. Buckland states that he once dissected a water-shrew and found the intestines to contain a dark fluid pulpy matter, which, on being examined by a microscope, proved to consist entirely of the horny cases and legs of minute water insects. Continental writers declare that it will attack any small animal that comes in its way, giving it quite a ferocious character, and it is said to destroy fish spawn. I can hardly believe in its destroying large fish by eating out their brain and eyes. Brehm, who gives it credit for this, must have been mistaken. I have also read of its attacking a rat in a trap which was dead, and was discovered devouring it, having succeeded in making a small hole through the skin. In England this animal breeds in May. The young are from five to seven in number, and are brought forth in a small chamber in the bank, which is constructed with several openings, one of which is usually under the level of the water. Dr. Anderson has very fully described the Himalayan species under the name of _Chimarrogale Himalaica_. He caught a specimen in a mountain stream at Ponsee in the Kakhyen hills, 3500 feet above the sea level, and observed it running over the stones in the bed of the stream and plunging freely into the water hunting for insects. _GENUS NYCTOGALE_. Head and skull as in _Soricidae_, but with palmated feet and compressed tail, as in _Myogalidae_. Special characteristic, large pads on the soles of the feet, which form sucking discs. NO. 147. NYCTOGALE ELEGANS. _The Thibet Water-Shrew_. HABITAT.--Moupin in Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Fur of two kinds, a soft under down of slaty grey colour through which pass longer hairs, grey at the base with white tips, "causing the animal to vary considerably in appearance according as these hairs are raised or laid flat;" ears quite concealed, and without a conch; tail stout, longer than the body, quadrangular at the base, then triangular, and finally flattened; feet large and palmated, with large pads on the soles, depressed in the middle, forming sucking discs, which are a peculiar characteristic of this animal. SIZE.--Head and body about 3-1/2 inches; tail about 4 inches. Though this is not properly an Indian animal, I have thought fit to include it as belonging to a border country in which much interest is taken, and which has as yet been imperfectly explored. _GENUS CORSIRA_. Of Gray, _Amphisorex_ of Duvernoy; differs in dentition from the last in having the lower quasi-incisors serrated with three or four coronal points, and the anterior point of the upper incisors not prolonged beyond the posterior spur, tipped with ferruginous; the lateral small teeth in the upper jaw are five in number, diminishing in size from the first backwards. Tail cylindrical, not tapering, and furnished with a stiffish brush at the extremity. The common British land-shrew is of this type. NO. 148. CORSIRA ALPINA. _The Alpine Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 84_). HABITAT.--Darjeeling. DESCRIPTION.--Deep blackish brown, very slightly rufescent in certain lights; tail slender, nearly naked, very slightly attenuated, compressed at the tip. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-1/2 inches; tail 2-1/2 inches. This is identical with the European Alpine shrew; the _Sorex caudatus_ of Horsfield's Catalogue (No. 148), which was a specimen named by Hodgson, is also the same animal. _GENUS ANUROSOREX_. Remarkably for its large head, nude, scaly extremities, and extremely short, nude, scaly tail. "The structure of the ear, limbs and tail has special reference to a burrowing animal--the ear being valvular, so that it may be effectually closed against the entrance of foreign substances, and the feet devoid of hair, but scaly, and the tail reduced to very small dimensions. The eye is also excessively small, and buried deep in the dense silky fur. The hind feet, contrary to what is almost invariably the case in burrowing mammals, are larger than the fore feet."--_Anderson_. NO. 149. ANUROSOREX ASSAMENSIS. _The Assam Burrowing Shrew_. HABITAT.--Assam, Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--General colour dark slaty, faintly washed with brownish rusty on the long hairs of the rump; fur long and silky, longest over the rump; occasional long brown hairs with pale tips are scattered over the body; long whiskers, yellow claws; naked parts of snout, limbs and tail flesh-coloured. SIZE.--Head and body nearly 3 inches; tail, 1/2 inch; forefoot, 1/2 inch; hind foot, 3/4 inch. The skull and dentition of this animal are essentially soricine. The Thibetan species (_A. squamipes_) is described as being over four inches in length, of a greyish colour, with a greenish-brown tinge; feet and nails whitish. It lives in burrows which it digs in the earth. I think it should properly come after the moles, which it resembles in some particulars. FAMILY ERINACEIDAE--THE HEDGEHOGS. The molar teeth broad; the hinder ones nearly square, the tubercles on their upper surface rounded; the other teeth are three incisors on each side, of which the inner one is considerably larger than the rest; behind these, separated by a little gap, come three premolars gradually increasing in size, then one having much the appearance of a true molar, but furnished with a cutting edge; then three molar teeth, two of which are nearly square with strong tubercles. The last molar is small. In the lower jaw the lowermost incisor is very large, and projects almost horizontally forwards, and it is followed by three small teeth now acknowledged to be premolars, with another large premolar, which is of the nature of a carnassial or cutting tooth acting on the one in the upper jaw. Then three molars as above, two large and one small, but with sharp tubercles. The skull has a more carnivorous form; it has "a complete zygomatic arch, and the tympanic bone forms a bundle-like swelling on each side of the back of the skull." Feet pentadactylous or five-toed; legs very short. The tibia and fibula (two bones of the shank) are joined together. The back is clothed with hair intermixed with sharp spines or bristles. Tail short or wanting entirely. [Figure: Dentition of Hedgehog.] _GENUS ERINACEUS_. The European hedgehog is well known to most of us. Few boys who have lived a country life have been without one at some time or other as a pet. I used to keep mine in a hole at the root of an old apple-tree, which was my special property, and they were occasionally brought into the house at the cook's request to demolish the black-beetles in the kitchen. These they devour with avidity and pursue them with the greatest ardour. They also eat slugs, worms, and snails; worms they seize and eat from end to end, like a Neapolitan boy with a string of maccaroni, slowly masticating, the unconsumed portion being constantly transferred from one side of the mouth to the other, so that both sides of the jaws may come into play. Dr. Dallas quaintly remarks on the process: "This must be an unpleasant operation for the worm, much as its captor may enjoy it." Toads, frogs, mice, and even snakes are eaten by the European hedgehog. It would be interesting to find out whether the Indian hedgehog also attacks snakes; even the viper in Europe is devoured by this animal, who apparently takes little heed of its bite. The European species also eats eggs when it can get them, and I have no doubt does much damage to those birds who make their nests on the ground. Few dogs will tackle a hedgehog, for the little creature at once rolls itself into a spiny ball, all sharp prickles, by means of the contraction of a set of cutaneous muscles, the most important of which, the _orbicularis panniculi_, form a broad band encircling the body which draws together the edges of the spiny part of the skin. There is a most interesting account of the mechanism of the spines in Mr. F. Buckland's notes to White's 'Natural History of Selborne,' vol. ii., page 76. A jet of water poured on to the part within which the head is concealed will make the creature unroll, and it is said that foxes and some dogs have discovered a way of applying this plan, and also that foxes will roll a hedgehog into a ditch or pond, and thus make him either expose himself to attack or drown. Gipsies eat hedgehogs, and consider them a delicacy--the meat being white and as tender as a chicken (not quite equal to porcupine, I should say); they cook them by rolling them in clay, and baking them till the clay is dry; when the ball is broken open the prickles come off with the crust. [Figure: Hedgehog.] Hedgehogs have had several popular fallacies concerning them. They were supposed to suck cows dry during the night and to be proof against poisons. Mr. Frank Buckland tried prussic acid on one with fatal results, but he says the bite of a viper seemed to have no effect. Pallas, I know, has remarked that hedgehogs will eat hundreds of cantharides beetles with impunity, whereas one or two will cause extreme agony to a cat or dog. The female goes with young about seven weeks, and she has from three to eight in number. The little ones when born have soft spines--which, however, soon harden--are blind, and, with the exception of the rudimentary prickles, quite naked. They are white at birth, but in about a month acquire the colour of the mother. NO. 150. ERINACEUS COLLARIS. _The Collared Hedgehog_ (_Jerdon's No. 85_). HABITAT.--Northern India and Afghanistan. Dallas says from Madras to Candahar; but Jerdon calls it the North Indian hedgehog, and assigns to it the North-west, Punjab, and Sind, giving Southern India to the next species. DESCRIPTION.--Spines irregularly interwoven, ringed with white and black, with yellowish tips, or simply white and black, or black with a white ring in the middle; ears large; chin white; belly and legs pale brown. SIZE.--Head and body, 8 to 9 inches; tail, 7/12 inch. I have found this species in the Punjab near Lahore. One evening, whilst walking in the dusk, a small animal, which I took to be a rat, ran suddenly between my legs. Now I confess to an antipathy to rats, and, though I would not willingly hurt any animal, I could not resist an impulsive kick, which sent my supposed rat high in the air. I felt a qualm of conscience immediately afterwards, and ran to pick up my victim, and was sorry to find I had perpetrated such an assault on an unoffending little hedgehog, which was however only stunned, and was carried off by me to the Zoological Gardens. Captain Hutton writes of them that they feed on beetles, lizards, and snails; "when touched they have the habit of suddenly jerking up the back with some force so as to prick the fingers or mouth of the assailant, and at the same time emitting a blowing sound, not unlike the noise produced when blowing upon a flame with a pair of bellows." He also says they are very tenacious of life, bearing long abstinence with apparent ease; when alarmed they roll themselves up into a ball like the European species. Hutton also remarks that _E. collaris_, on hearing a noise, jerks the skin and quills of its neck completely over its head, leaving only the tip of the nose free. NO. 151. ERINACEUS MICROPUS. _The Small-footed Hedgehog_ (_Jerdon's No. 86_). HABITAT.--South India. DESCRIPTION.--"Ears moderately large; form somewhat elongated; tail very short, concealed; feet and limbs very small; head and ears nude, sooty-coloured; belly very thinly clad with yellowish hairs; spines ringed dark brown and whitish, or whitish with a broad brown sub-terminal ring, tipped white."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body about 6 inches. Dr. Anderson considers this as identical with _E. collaris_. NO. 152. ERINACEUS PICTUS. _The Painted Hedgehog_. HABITAT.--Central India, Goona, Ulwar, Agra, Kurrachee. DESCRIPTION.--Similar to the above, but the tips of the spines are more broadly white, and the brown bands below not so dark; the ears are somewhat larger than _micropus_, and the feet narrower and not so long. NO. 153. ERINACEUS GRAYI. HABITAT.--North-west India. DESCRIPTION.--The general colour is blackish-brown; the spines are narrowly tipped with black, succeeded by a narrowish yellow band; then a blackish-brown band, the rest of the spine being yellowish; the broad dark-brown band is so strongly developed as to give the animal its dark appearance when viewed from the side; some animals are, however, lighter than others. The feet are large; the fore-feet broad, somewhat truncated, with moderately long toes and powerful claws. SIZE.--Head and body about 6-3/4 inches. NO. 154. ERINACEUS BLANFORDI (_Anderson_). HABITAT.--Sind, where one specimen was obtained by Mr. W. T. Blanford, at Rohri. DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle rather short, not much pointed; ears moderately large, but broader than long, and rounded at the tips; feet larger and broader than in the next species, with the first toe more largely developed than in the last. The spines meet in a point on the forehead, and there is no bare patch on the vertex. Each spine is broadly tipped with deep black, succeeded by a very broad yellow band, followed by a dusky brown base; fur deep brown; a few white hairs on chin and anterior angle of ear. SIZE.--Head and body, 5.36 inches. NO. 155. ERINACEUS JERDONI (_Anderson_). HABITAT.--Sind, Punjab frontier. DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle moderately long and pointed; ears large, round at tip and broad at base; feet large, especially the fore-feet; claws strong. The spines begin on a line with the anterior margins of the ears; large nude area on the vertex; spines with two white and three black bands, beginning with a black band. When they are laid flat the animal looks black; but an erection the white shows and gives a variegated appearance. SIZE.--Head and body about 7-1/2 inches. NO. 156. ERINACEUS MEGALOTIS. _The Large-eared Hedgehog_. HABITAT.--Afghanistan. More information is required about this species. Jerdon seems to think it may be the same as described by Pallas (_E. auritus_), which description I have before me now ('Zoographica Rosso Asiatica,' vol. i. page 138), but I am unable to say from comparison that the two are identical--the ears and the muzzle are longer than in the common hedgehog. This is the species which he noticed devouring blistering beetles with impunity. It has a very delicate fur of long silky white hairs, covering the head, breast and abdomen, "forming also along the sides a beautiful ornamental border" (_Horsfield_, from a specimen brought from Mesopotamia by Commander Jones, I.N.) The space to which I am obliged to limit myself will not allow of my describing at greater length; but to those of my readers who are interested in the Indian hedgehogs, I recommend the paper by Dr. J. Anderson in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal' for 1878, page 195, with excellently drawn plates of the heads, skulls and feet of the various species. There is one peculiarity which he notices regarding the skull of _E. collaris_ (or, as he calls it, _micropus_): the zygomatic arch is not continuous as in the other species, but is broken in the middle, the gap being caused by the absence of the _malar_ or cheek-bone. In this respect it resembles, though Dr. Anderson does not notice it, the _Centetidae_ or _Tanrecs_ of Madagascar. Dr. Anderson's classification is very simple and good. He has two groups: the first, containing _E. micropus_ and _E. pictus_, is distinguished by the _second upper premolar simple, one-fanged, the feet club-shaped; soles tubercular_. The second group, containing _E. Grayi_, _E. Blanfordi_ and _E. Jerdoni_, has _the second upper premolar compound, three-fanged, and the feet well developed and broad_. The first group has also a division or bare area on the vertex; the second has not. FAMILY HYLOMIDAE (_Anderson_). The following little animal has affinities to both _Erinaceidae_ and _Tupaiidae_, and therefore it may appropriately be placed here. Dr. Anderson on the above ground has placed it in a separate family, otherwise it is generally classed with the _Erinaceidae_. Its skull has the general form of the skull of _Tupaia_, but in its imperfect orbit, in the rudiment of a post-orbital process, and in the absence of any imperfections of the zygomatic arch and in the position of the lachrymal foramen it resembles the skull of _Erinaceus_. The teeth are 44 in number: Inc., 3--3/3--3; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 4--4/4--4; molars, 3--3/3--3, and partake of the character of both _Tupaia_ and _Erinaceus_. The shank-bones being united and the rudimentary tail create an affinity to the latter, whilst its arboreal habits are those of the former. _GENUS HYLOMYS_. Head elongate; ears round; feet arboreal, naked below; tail semi-nude; pelage not spiny. NO. 157. HYLOMYS PEGUENSIS. _The Short-tailed Tree-Shrew_. HABITAT.--Burmah, Pegu, Ponsee in the Kakhyen hills. Appears to be identical with the species from Borneo (_H. suillus_). FAMILY TUPAIIDAE. These interesting little animals were first accurately described about the year 1820, though, as I have before stated, it was noticed in the papers connected with Captain Cook's voyages, but was then supposed to be a squirrel. Sir T. Stamford Raffles writes: "This singular little animal was first observed tame in the house of a gentleman at Penang, and afterwards found wild at Singapore in the woods near Bencoolen, where it lives on the fruit of the kayogadis, &c." Another species, _T. Javanica_, had, however, been discovered in Java fourteen years before, but not published till 1821. They are sprightly little creatures, easily tamed, and, not being purely insectivorous, are not difficult to feed in captivity. Sir T. S. Raffles describes one that roamed freely all over the house, presenting himself regularly at meal-times for milk and fruit. Dr. Sal. Muller describes the other species (_T. Javanica_) as a confiding, simple little animal, always in motion, seeking its food at one time amongst dry leaves and moss on the ground, and again on the stems and branches of trees, poking its nose into every crevice. Its nest, he says, is formed of moss at some height from the ground, supported on clusters of orchideous plants. Dr. Cantor, in his 'Catalogue of the Mammalia of the Malayan Peninsula,' writes as follows: "In a state of nature it lives singly or in pairs, fiercely attacking intruders of its own species. When several are confined together they fight each other, or jointly attack and destroy the weakest. The natural food is mixed insectivorous and frugivorous. In confinement, individuals may be fed exclusively on either, though preference is evinced for insects; and eggs, fish and earth-worms are equally relished. A short, peculiar, tremulous, whistling sound, often heard by calls and answers in the Malayan jungle, marks their pleasurable emotions, as for instance on the appearance of food, while the contrary is expressed by shrill protracted cries. Their disposition is very restless, and their great agility enables them to perform the most extraordinary bounds in all directions, in which exercise they spend the day, till night sends them to sleep in their rudely-constructed lairs in the highest branches of trees. At times they will sit on their haunches, holding their food between their forelegs, and after feeding they smooth the head and face with both fore-paws, and lick the lips and palms. They are also fond of water, both to drink and to bathe in. The female usually produces one young." The above description reminds one forcibly of the habits of squirrels, so it is no wonder that at one time these little creatures were confounded with the _Sciuridae_. _GENUS TUPAIA_. The dentition of this genus is as follows: Either four or six incisors in the upper jaw, but always six in the lower; four premolars and three molars in each jaw, upper and lower. The skull has a complete bony orbit, and the zygomatic arch is also complete, but with a small elongated perforation; the muzzle attenuated, except in _T. Ellioti_; ears oval; the stomach possesses a caecum or blind gut; the eyes are large and prominent, and the tail bushy, like that of a squirrel; the toes are five in number, with strong claws; the shank-bones are not united as in the hedgehogs. The diet is mixed insectivorous and frugivorous. NO. 158. TUPAIA ELLIOTI. _Elliot's Tree-Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 87_). HABITAT.--Southern India, Godavery district, Cuttack; the Central Provinces, Bhagulpore range. [Figure: Dentition of _Tupaia_.] DESCRIPTION.--Fur pale rufous brown, darker on the back and paler on the sides; the chin, throat, breast and belly yellowish, also a streak of the same under the tail; the upper surface of the tail is of the same colour as the centre of the back; there is a pale line from the muzzle over the eye, and a similar patch beneath it; the fur of this species is shorter and more harsh, and the head is more blunt than in the Malayan members of the family. SIZE.--Head and body, 7 to 8 inches; tail, 7 to 9 inches. NO. 159. TUPAIA PEGUANA. _Syn_.--TUPAIA BELANGERI. _The Pegu Tree-Shrew_ (_Jerdon's No. 88_). HABITAT.--Sikim (Darjeeling), Assam and through Arakan to Tenasserim. [Figure: _Tupaia Peguana_.] DESCRIPTION.--Jerdon says: "General hue a dusky greenish-brown, the hairs being ringed brown and yellow; lower parts the same, but lighter; and with a pale buff line; a stripe from the throat to the vent, broadest between the forearms and then narrowing; ears livid red, with a few short hairs; palms and soles dark livid red." Dr. Anderson remarks that the fur is of two kinds of hairs--one fine and wavy at the extremity, banded with black, yellow and black; the second being strong and somewhat bristly, longer than the other, and banded with a black basal half and then followed by rings of yellow and black, then yellow again with a black tip, the black basal half of the hairs being hidden, the annulation of the free portions produces a rufous olive-grey tint over the body and tail. SIZE.--Head and body about 7 inches; tail, 6-1/2. Jerdon says of it that those he procured at Darjeeling frequented the zone from 3000 to 6000 feet; they were said by the natives to kill small birds, mice, &c. The Lepcha name he gives is _Kalli-tang-zhing_. McMaster in his notes writes: "The Burmese Tupaia is a harmless little animal; in the dry season living in trees and in the monsoon freely entering our houses, and in impudent familiarity taking the place held in India by the common palm squirrel. It is, however, probably from its rat-like head and thievish expression, very unpopular. I have found them in rat-traps, however, so possibly they deserve to be so." He adds he cannot endorse the statement regarding their extraordinary agility mentioned by Dr. Cantor and quoted by Jerdon, for he had seen his terriers catch them, which they were never able to do with squirrels; and cats often seize them. Mason says: "One that made his home in the mango-tree near my house at Tonghoo made himself nearly as familiar as the cat. Sometimes I had to drive him off the bed, and he was very fond of putting his nose into the teacups immediately after breakfast, and acquired a taste both for tea and coffee. He lost his life at last by incontinently walking into a rat-trap." The Burmese name for it is _Tswai_ in Arracan. Jerdon states that it is one of the few novelties that had escaped the notice of Mr. Brian Hodgson, but Dr. Anderson mentions a specimen (unnamed) from Nepal in the British Museum which was obtained by Hodgson. NO. 160. TUPAIA CHINENSIS (_Anderson_). HABITAT.--Burmah, Kakhyen hills, east of the valley of the Irrawaddy. DESCRIPTION.--Ferruginous above, yellowish below, the basal two-thirds of the hair being blackish, succeeded by a yellow, a black, and then a yellow and black band, which is terminal; there is a faint shoulder streak washed with yellowish; the chest pale orange yellow, which hue extends along the middle of the belly as a narrow line; under surfaces of limbs grizzled as on the back, but paler; upper surface of tail concolorous with the dorsum. SIZE.--Head and body, 6-1/2 inches; tail, 6.16. The teeth are larger than those of _T. Ellioti_, but smaller than the Malayan _T. ferruginea_, and the skull is smaller than that of the last species, and the teeth are also smaller. Dr. Anderson says: "When I first observed the animal it was on a grassy clearing close to patches of fruit, and was so comporting itself that in the distance I mistook it for a squirrel. The next time I noticed it was in hedgerows." The other varieties of _Tupaia_ belong to the Malayan Archipelago--_T. ferruginea_, _T. tana_, _T. splendidula_, and _T. Javanica_ to Borneo and Java. There is one species which inhabits the Nicobars. NO. 161. TUPAIA NICOBARICA. HABITAT.--Nicobar Island. DESCRIPTION.--Front and sides of the face, outside of fore-limbs, throat and chest, golden yellow; inner side of hind limbs rich red brown, which is also the colour of the hind legs and feet; head dark brown, with golden hairs intermixed; back dark maroon, almost black; upper surface of the tail the same; pale oval patch between shoulders, dark band on each side between it and fore-limbs, passing forward over the ears. SIZE.--Head and body, 7.10; tail, 8 inches. * * * * * There is a little animal allied to the genus _Tupaia_, which has hitherto been found only in Borneo and Sumatra, but as Sumatran types have been found in Tenasserim, perhaps some day the _Ptilocercus Lowii_ may be discovered there. It has a rather shorter head than the true Banxrings, more like _T. Ellioti_, but its dentition is nearly the same, as also are its habits. Its chief peculiarity lies in its tail, which is long, slender and naked, like that of a rat for two-thirds of its length, the terminal third being adorned with a broad fringe of hair on each side, like the wings of an arrow or the plumes of a feather. There is an excellent coloured picture of it in the 'Proc. Zool. Society,' vol. of Plates. * * * * * I had almost concluded my sketch of the Insectivora without alluding to one most interesting genus, which ought properly to have come between the shrews and the hedgehogs, the _Gymnura_, which, though common in the Malay countries, has only recently been found in Burmah--a fact of which I was not aware till I saw it included in a paper on Tenasserim mammals by Mr. W. T. Blanford ('Jour. As. Soc. Beng.,' 1878, page 150). Before I refer to his notes I may state that this animal is a sort of link between the _Soricidae_ and the _Erinaceidae_, and De Blainville proposed for it the generic name of _Echinosorex_, but the one generally adopted is _Gymnura_, which was the specific name given to it by its discoverer, Sir Stamford Raffles, who described it as a _Viverra_ (_V. gymnura_); however, Horsfield and Vigors and Lesson, the two former in England and the latter in France, saw that it was not a civet, and, taking the naked tail as a peculiarity, they called the genus _Gymnura_, and the specimen _Rafflesii_. There is not much on record regarding the anatomy of the animal, and in what respects it internally resembles the hedgehogs. Outwardly it has the general soricine form, though much larger than the largest shrew. The long tail too is against its resemblance to the hedgehogs, which rests principally on its spiny pelage. The teeth in some degree resemble _Erinaceus_, the molars and premolars especially, but the number in all is greater, there being forty-four, or eight more. It would be interesting to know whether the zygomatic arch is perfect and the tibia and fibula united, as in the hedgehogs, or wanting and distinct as in the shrews. I have given a slight sketch in outline of the animal. NO. 162. GYMNURA RAFFLESII. _The Bulau_. HABITAT.--Tenasserim (Sumatra, Borneo); Malacca. [Figure: _Gymnura Rafflesii_.] DESCRIPTION.--Long tapering head, with elongated muzzle, short legs, shrew-like body, with a long, round, tapering and scaly rat-like tail, naked, with the exception of a few stiff hairs here and there among the scales. In each jaw on each side three incisors, one canine (those in the upper jaw double-fanged) and seven premolars and molars; feet five-toed, plantigrade, armed with strong claws. Fur of two kinds, fine and soft, with longer and more spiny ones intermixed. The colour varies a good deal, the general tint being greyish-black, with head and neck pale or whitish, and with a broad black patch over the eye. Some have been found almost wholly white, with the black eye-streak and only a portion of the longer hairs black, so that much stress cannot be laid on the colouring; the tail is blackish at the base, whitish and compressed at the tip. Mr. Blanford says: "The small scales covering the tail are indistinctly arranged in rings and sub-imbricate; on the lower surface the scales are convex and distinctly imbricate, the bristles arising from the interstices. Thus the under surface of the tail is very rough, and may probably be of use to the animal in climbing." He also refers to the fact that the claws of his specimen are not retractile, and mentions that in the original description both in Latin and English the retractability of the claws is pointed out as a distinction between _Gymnura_ and _Tupaia_. In the description given of the Sumatran animal both by Dallas and Cuvier nothing is mentioned about this feature. SIZE.--A Sumatran specimen: head and body, 14 inches; tail, 12 inches. Mr. Blanford's specimen: head and body, 12 inches; tail, 8.5. Mr. Blanford was informed by Mr. Davison, who obtained it in Burmah, that the _Gymnura_ is purely nocturnal in its habits, and lives under the roots of trees. It has a peculiar and most offensive smell, resembling decomposed cooked vegetables. The Bulau has not the power of rolling itself up like the hedgehog, nor have the similar forms of insectivores which resemble the hedgehog in some respects, such as the Tenrecs (_Centetes_), Tendracs (_Ericulus_), and Sokinahs (_Echinops_) of Madagascar. CARNIVORA. Speaking generally, the whole range of mammals between the _Quadrumana_ and the _Rodentia_ are _carnivorous_ with few exceptions, yet there is one family which, from its muscular development and dentition, is pre-eminently flesh-eating, as Cuvier aptly remarks, "the sanguinary appetite is combined with the force necessary for its gratification." Their forms are agile and muscular; their circulation and respiration rapid. As Professor Kitchen Parker graphically writes: "This group, which comprises all the great beasts of prey, is one of the most compact as well as the most interesting among the mammalia. So many of the animals contained in it have become 'familiar in our mouths as household words,' bearing as they do an important part in fable, in travel, and even in history; so many of them are of such wonderful beauty, so many of such terrible ferocity, that no one can fail to be interested in them, even apart from the fact likely to influence us more in their favour than any other, that the two home pets, which of all others are the commonest and the most interesting, belong to the group. No one who has had a dog friend, no one who has watched the wonderful instance of maternal love afforded by a cat with her kittens, no one who loves riding across country after a fox, no lady with a taste for handsome furs, no boy who has read of lion and tiger hunts and has longed to emulate the doughty deeds of the hunter, can fail to be interested in an assemblage which furnishes animals at once so useful, so beautiful and so destructive. It must not be supposed from the name of this group that all its members are exclusively flesh-eaters, and indeed it will be hardly necessary to warn the reader against falling into this mistake, as there are few people who have never given a dog a biscuit, or a bear a bun. Still both the dog and several kinds of bears prefer flesh-meat when they can get it, but there are some bears which live almost exclusively on fruit, and are, therefore, in strictness not carnivorous at all. The name must, however, be taken as a sort of general title for a certain set of animals which have certain characteristics in common, and which differ from all other animals in particular ways." I would I had more space at my disposal for further quotations from Professor Parker's 'General Remarks on the Land Carnivora,' his style is so graphic. The dentition of the Carnivora varies according to the exclusiveness of their fleshy diet, and the nature of that diet. In taking two typical forms I give below sketches from skulls in my possession of the tiger, and the common Indian black bear; the one has trenchant cutting teeth which work up and down, the edges sliding past each other just like a pair of scissors; the other has flat crowned molars adapted for triturating the roots and herbage on which it feeds. A skull of an old bear which I have has molars of which the crowns are worn almost smooth from attrition. In the most carnivorous forms the tubercular molars are almost rudimentary. [Figure: Dentition of Tiger and Indian Black Bear] The skull exhibits peculiar features for the attachment of the necessary powerful muscles. The bones of the face are short in comparison with the _cranial_ portion of the skull (the reverse of the _Herbivores_); the strongly built zygomatic arch, the roughened ridges and the broad ascending ramus of the lower jaw, all afford place for the attachment of the immense muscular development. Then the hinge of the jaw is peculiar; it allows of no lateral motion, as in the ruminants; the _condyle_, or hinge-bolt of a tiger's jaw (taken from the largest in my collection), measures two inches, and as this fits accurately into its corresponding (glenoid) cavity, there can be no side motion, but a vertical chopping one only. The skeleton of a typical carnivore is the perfection of strength and suppleness. The tissue of the bones is dense and white; the head small and beautifully articulated; the spine flexible yet strong. In those which show the greatest activity, such as the cats, civets and dogs, the spinous processes, especially in the lumbar region, are greatly developed--more so than in the bears. These serve for the attachment of the powerful muscles of the neck and back. The clavicle or collar-bone is wanting, or but rudimentary. The stomach is simple; the intestinal canal short; liver lobed; organs of sight, hearing, and smell much developed. Now we come to the divisions into which this group has been separated by naturalists. I shall not attempt to describe the various systems, but take the one which appears to me the simplest and best to fit in with Cuvier's general arrangement, which I have followed. Modern zoologists have divided the family into two great groups--the _Fissipedia_ (split-feet) or land Carnivora, and the _Pinnipedia_ (fin-feet) or water Carnivora. Of the land Carnivora some naturalists have made the following three groups on the characteristics of the feet, _viz_., _Plantigrada_, _Sub-plantigrada_ and _Digitigrada_. The dogs and cats, it is well known, walk on their toes--they are the _Digitigrada_; the bears and allied forms on the palms of their hands and soles of their feet, more or less, and thus form the other two divisions, but there is another classification which recommends itself by its simplicity and accuracy. Broadly speaking, there are three types of land carnivores--the cat, the dog, and the bear, which have been scientifically named _AEluroidea_ (from the Greek _ailouros_, a cat); _Cynoidea_ (from _kuon_, a dog); and _Arctoidea_ (from _arctos_, a bear). The distinction is greater between the families of _Digitigrades_, the cat and dog, than between the _Plantigrades_ and _Sub-plantigrades_, and therefore I propose to adopt the following arrangement:-- I. ARCTOIDEA |_Plantigrades_. |_Sub-plantigrades_. II. AELUROIDEA | |_Digitigrades_. III. CYNOIDEA | I may here remark that the Insectivora are in most cases plantigrade, therefore the term is not an apposite one as applied to the bear and bear-like animals only, but in treating of them under the term _Arctoidea_ we may divide them again into _Plantigrades_ and _Sub-plantigrades_. ARCTOIDEA. PLANTIGRADA. _URSIDAE_. The bears differ from the dogs and cats widely in form and manner, and diet. The cat has a light springy action, treading on the tips of its toes, a well-knit body glistening in a silky coat, often richly variegated, "a clean cut," rounded face, with beautifully chiselled nostrils and thin lips, and lives exclusively on flesh. The bear shambles along with an awkward gait, placing the entire sole of his foot on the ground; he has rough dingy fur, a snout like a pig's, and is chiefly a vegetarian--and in respect to this last peculiarity his dentition is modified considerably: the incisors are large, tri-cuspidate; the canines somewhat smaller than in the restricted carnivora; these are followed by three small teeth, which usually fall out at an early period, then comes a permanent premolar of considerable size, succeeded by two molars in the upper, and three in the under jaw. The dental formula is therefore: Inc., 3--3/3--3; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 4--4/4--4; molars, 2--2/3--3. In actual numbers this formula agrees with that for the dogs; but the form of the teeth is very different, inasmuch as the large premolars and the molars have flat tuberculated crowns, constituting them true grinders, instead of the trenchant shape of the cats, which is also, to a modified extent, possessed by the dogs, of which the last two molars have, instead of cutting edges, a grinding surface with four cusps. The trenchant character is entirely lost in the bear, even in the carnivorous species which exhibit no material difference in the teeth, any more than, as I mentioned at the commencement of this work, do the teeth of the human race, be they as carnivorous as the Esquimaux, or vegetarian as the Hindu. [Figure: Dentition of Bear.] [Figure: Skull of Bear (under view).] There is also another peculiarity in the bear's skull as compared with the cat's. In the latter there is a considerable bulging below the aperture of the ear called the _bulla tympani_, or bulb of the drum. This is almost wanting in the bear, and it would be interesting to know whether this much affects its hearing. I myself am of opinion that bears are not acute in this sense, but then my experience has been with the common Indian _Ursus_, or _Melursus labiatus_ only, and the skulls of this species in my possession strongly exhibit this peculiarity.[6] The cylindrical bones resemble those of man nearer than any other animal, the _femur_ especially; and a skinned bear has a most absurd resemblance to a robust human being. The sole of the hind foot leaves a mark not unlike that of a human print. [Footnote 6: On referring to Mr. Sanderson's interesting book, 'Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India,' and General Shakespear's 'Wild Sports,' I find that both those authors corroborate my assertion that the sloth bear is deficient in the sense of hearing. Captain Baldwin, however, thinks otherwise; but the evidence seems to be against him in this respect.] The Brown Bear of Europe (_Ursus arctos_) is the type of the family, and has been known from the earliest ages--I may say safely prehistoric ages, for its bones have been frequently found in post-pliocene formations along with those of other animals of which some are extinct. An extinct species of bear, _Ursus spelaeus_, commonly called the Cave Bear, seems to have been the ancestor of the Brown Bear which still is found in various parts of Europe, and is said to have been found within historic times in Great Britain. The bear of which we have the oldest record is almost the same as our Indian Brown or Snow Bear. Our bear (_U. Isabellinus_) is but a variety of _U. Syriacus_, which was the one slain by David, and is spoken of in various parts of the Bible. It is the nearest approach we have to the European _U. arctos_. NO. 163. URSUS ISABELLINUS. _The Himalayan Brown Bear_ (_Jerdon's No. 89_). NATIVE NAME.--_Barf-ka-rich_ or _Bhalu_, Hind.; _Harput_, Kashmiri; _Drin-mor_, Ladakhi. [Figure: _URSUS ISABELLINUS_.] DESCRIPTION.--A yellowish-brown colour, varying somewhat according to sex and time of year. Jerdon says: "In winter and spring the fur is long and shaggy, in some inclining to silvery grey, in others to reddish brown; the hair is thinner and darker in summer as the season advances, and in autumn the under fur has mostly disappeared, and a white collar on the chest is then very apparent. The cubs show this collar distinctly. The females are said to be lighter in colour than the males." Gray does not agree in the theory that _Ursus Syriacus_ is the same as this species; in external appearance he says it is the same, but there are differences in the skull; the nose is broader, and the depression in the forehead less. The zygomatic arch is wider and stronger; the lower jaw stronger and higher, and the upper tubercular grinders shorter and thicker than in _Ursus Isabellinus_. "It is found," Jerdon says, "only on the Himalayas and at great elevations in summer close to the snow. In autumn they descend lower, coming into the forests to feed on various fruits, seeds, acorns, hips of rose-bushes, &c., and often coming close to villages to plunder apples, walnuts, apricots, buckwheat, &c. Their usual food in spring and summer is grass and roots. They also feed on various insects, and are seen turning over stones to look for scorpions (it is said) and insects that harbour in such places. In winter they retreat to caves, remaining in a state of semi-torpidity, issuing forth in March and April. Occasionally they are said to kill sheep or goats, often wantonly, apparently, as they do not feed upon them. They litter in April and May, the female having generally two cubs. This bear does not climb trees well." * * * * * The next three species belong to the group of Sun Bears; _Helarctos_ of some authors. NO. 164. URSUS (HELARCTOS) TORQUATUS _vel_ TIBETANUS. _The Himalayan Black Bear_ (_Jerdon's No. 90_). NATIVE NAME.--_Bhalu_, Hind.; _Thom_, Bhot.; _Sona_, Lepcha. HABITAT.--The Himalayas, Nepal, Assam, Eastern Siberia, and China. [Figure: _URSUS TIBETANUS_.] DESCRIPTION.--Entirely black, with the exception of a broad white V-shaped mark on the chest and a white chin. Neck thick, head flattened; ears large; claws very long and curved; fur short; body and head more slender than the preceding species. Jerdon remarks that the specific name of this bear is unfortunate, since it is rare in Thibet. However the more appropriate specific name _torquatus_ is now more generally adopted. It seems to be common in all the Himalayan ranges, where it is to be found from 5000 to 12,000 feet. Jerdon says it lives chiefly on fruit and roots, apricots, walnuts, apples, currants, &c., and also on various grains, barley, Indian corn, buckwheat, &c., and in winter on acorns, climbing the oak trees and breaking down the branches. They are not afraid of venturing near villages, and destroy not only garden stuff, but--being, like all bears, fond of honey--pull down the hives attached to the cottages of the hill people. "Now and then they will kill sheep, goats, &c., and are said occasionally to eat flesh. This bear has bad eyesight, but great power of smell, and if approached from windward is sure to take alarm. A wounded bear will sometimes show fight, but in general it tries to escape. It is said sometimes to coil itself into the form of a ball, and thus roll down steep hills if frightened or wounded." If cornered it attacks savagely, as all bears will, and the face generally suffers, according to Jerdon; but I have noticed this with the common Indian Sloth Bear, several of the men wounded in my district had their scalps torn. He says: "It has been noticed that if caught in a noose or snare, if they cannot break it by force they never have the intelligence to bite the rope in two, but remain till they die or are killed." In captivity this bear, if taken young, is very quiet, but is not so docile as the Malayan species.[7] [Footnote 7: Since writing the above, the following letter appeared in _The Asian_ of May 11, 1880:-- "THE HIMALAYAN BLACK BEAR. "SIR,--Mr. Sterndale, in the course of his interesting papers on the Mammalia of British India, remarks of _Ursus Tibetanus_, commonly known as the Himalayan Black Bear, that 'a wounded one will sometimes show fight, but in general it tries to escape.' This description is not, I think, quite correct. As it would lead one to suppose that this bear is not more savage than any other wild animal--the nature of most of the _ferae_ being to try to escape when wounded, _unless_ they see the hunter who has fired at them, when many will charge at once, and desperately. The Himalayan Black Bear will not only do this _almost invariably_, but often attacks men without any provocation whatever, and is altogether about the most fierce, vicious, dangerous brute to be met with either in the hills or plains of India. They inflict the most horrible wounds, chiefly with their paws, and generally--as Mr. Sterndale states--on the face and head. I have repeatedly met natives in the interior frightfully mutilated by encounters with the Black Bear, and cases in which Europeans have been killed by them are by no means uncommon. These brutes are totally different in their dispositions to the Brown Bear (_Ursus Isabellinus_), which, however desperately wounded, will never charge. I believe there is no case on record of a hunter being charged by a Brown Bear; or even of natives, under any circumstances, being attacked by one; whereas every one of your readers who has ever marched in the Himalayas must have come across many victims of the ferocity of _Ursus Tibetanus_. As I said before, this brute often, unwounded, attacks man without any provocation whatever. Two cases that I know of myself may not be without interest. An officer shooting near my camp was stalking some thar. He was getting close to them, when a Black Bear rushed out at him from behind a large rock on his right and above him. He was so intent on the thar, and the brute's rush was so sudden, that he had barely time to pull from the hip, but he was fortunate enough to kill the animal almost at his feet. I heard this from him on the morning after it happened. On another occasion, I was shooting in Chumba with a friend. One evening he encamped at a village, about which there was, as usual, a little cultivation on terraces, and a good many apricot-trees. Lower down the khud there was dense jungle. The villagers told us that a Black Bear had lately been regularly visiting these trees, and generally came out about dusk, so that if we would go down and wait, we should be pretty sure of a shot. We went, and took up positions behind trees, about 200 yards apart, each of us having a man from the village with us. Intervening jungle prevented us from seeing each other. I had not been at my post more than ten minutes when I was startled by loud shrieks and cries from the direction of my companion. No shot was fired, and the coolie with me said that the bear had killed some one. In less than a minute I had reached the spot where I had left my friend. He, and the man with him, had disappeared; but, guided by the shrieks, which still continued, I made my way into the thick cover in front of his post, and about fifty yards inside it, much to my relief, came upon him, rifle in hand, standing over the dead body of a man, over which two people--the coolie that had been with my friend and an old woman--were weeping, and shrieking loudly, 'Look out!' said he, as I came up, 'the bear has just killed this fellow!' The first thing to be done was to carry him out into the open. I helped to do this, and directly I touched him I felt that he was stone cold, and a further examination showed he must have been dead some hours. That he had been killed by a bear was also very evident. He was naked to the waist, and had been cutting grass. His bundle lay by him, and the long curved kind of sickle that the hillmen used to cut grass with was stuck in his girdle, showing that he had not had time to draw it to strike one blow in his defence. The mark of the bear's paw on his left side was quite distinct. This had felled him to the ground, and then the savage brute had given him one bite--no more, but that one had demolished almost the whole of the back of his head, and death must have been instantaneous. The man had apparently cut his load of grass, and was returning with it to the village, when he disturbed the bear, which attacked him at once. The old woman was his mother, and the coolie with J---- some relation. Her son having been away all day, I suppose the old woman had gone to look for him. She found his body, as described, just below J----'s post, and at once set up a lamentation which brought the coolie, J----'s attendant, down to her, and J---- following himself, thought at first that the man had been killed then and there. There was such a row kicked up that no bear came near the apricots that night, and the next day we had to march, as our leave was up. I have heard of many other cases of the Black Bear attacking without any provocation, and from what I know of the brute I quite believe them; and, after all, the animal is not worth shooting. Their skins are always poor and mangy, and generally so _greasy_ that they are very difficult to keep until you can make them over to the dresser. The skin of the Snow or Brown Bear, on the other hand, particularly if shot early in the season, is a splendid trophy, and forms a most beautiful and luxurious rug, the fur being extremely soft, and several inches in depth. "SPINDRIFT."] In _The Asian_ of January 7th, 1879, page 68, a correspondent ("N. F. T. T.") writes that he obtained a specimen of this bear which was coal black throughout, with the exception of a dark dirty yellow on the lower lip, but of the usual crescentic white mark she had not a trace. This exceptional specimen was shot in Kumaon. Robinson, in his 'Account of Assam,' states that these bears are numerous there, and in some places accidents caused by them are not unfrequent. All the Sun Bears are distinguished for their eccentric antics, conspicuous among which is the gift of walking about on their hind legs in a singularly human fashion. Those in the London Zoological Gardens invariably attract a crowd. They struggle together in a playful way, standing on their hind legs to wrestle. They fall and roll, and bite and hug most absurdly. Captain J. H. Baldwin, in his 'Large and Small Game of Bengal,' puts this bear down as not only carnivorous, but a foul feeder. He says: "On my first visit to the hills I very soon learnt that this bear was a flesh-eater, so far as regards a sheep, goats, &c., but I could hardly believe that he would make a repast on such abominations (i.e. carrion), though the paharies repeatedly informed me that such was the case. One day, however, I saw a bear busy making a meal off a bullock that had died of disease, and had been thrown into the bed of a stream." In another page Captain Baldwin states that the Himalayan Bear is a good swimmer; he noticed one crossing the River Pindur in the flood, when, as he remarks, "no human being, however strong a swimmer, could have stemmed such a roaring rapid." NO. 165. URSUS (HELARCTOS) GEDROSIANUS. _Baluchistan Bear_. NATIVE NAME.--_Mamh_. HABITAT.--Baluchistan. DESCRIPTION.--Fur ranging from brown to brownish-black, otherwise as in last species. This is a new species, brought to notice by Mr. W. T. Blanford, and named by him. The skull of the first specimen procured was scarcely distinguishable from that of a female of _Ursus torquatus_, and he was for a time apparently in doubt as to the distinctness of the species, taking the brown skin as merely a variety; but a subsequently received skull of an adult male seems to prove that it is a much smaller animal. NO. 166. URSUS (HELARCTOS) MALAYANUS. _The Bruang or Malayan Sun Bear_. NATIVE NAME.--_Wet-woon_, Arracan. HABITAT.--Burmah, Malay Peninsula and adjacent islands. [Figure: _Ursus Malayanus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Smaller than _U. torquatus_, not exceeding four and a half feet in length. Fur black, brownish on the nose; the chest marked with a white crescent, or, in the Bornean variety, an orange-coloured heart-shaped patch; the claws are remarkably long; mouth and lower jaw dirty white; the lower part of the crescent prolonged in a narrow white streak down to the belly, where it is widened out into a large irregular spot. Marsden, in his 'History of Sumatra,' published towards the end of the last century, speaks of this bear under the name of _Bruang_ (query: is our _Bruin_ derived from this?), and mentions its habit of climbing the cocoa-nut trees to devour the tender part, or cabbage. It is more tamable and docile than the Himalayan Sun Bear, and is even more eccentric in its ways. The one in the London "Zoo," when given a biscuit, lies down on its back, and passes it about from fore to hind paws, eyeing it affectionately, and making most comical noises as it rolls about. Sir Stamford Raffles writes of one which was in his possession for two years:--"He was brought up in the nursery with the children; and when admitted to my table, as was frequently the case, gave a proof of his taste by refusing to eat any fruit but mangosteens, or to drink any wine but champagne. The only time I ever knew him out of humour was on an occasion when no champagne was forthcoming. He was naturally of a playful and affectionate disposition, and it was never found necessary to chain or chastise him. It was usual for this bear, the cat, the dog, and a small blue mountain bird, or lory, of New Holland, to mess together and eat out of the same dish. His favourite playfellow was the dog, whose teasing and worrying was always borne, and returned with the utmost good humour and playfulness. As he grew up he became a very powerful animal, and in his rambles in the garden he would lay hold of the largest plantains, the stems of which he could scarcely embrace, and tear them up by the roots." The late General A. C. McMaster gives an equally amusing account of his pet of this species which was obtained in Burmah. "Ada," he writes, "is never out of temper, and always ready to play with any one. While she was with me, 'Ada' would not eat meat in any shape; but I was told by one of the ship's officers that another of the same species, 'Ethel' (also presented by me to the Committee of the People's Park of Madras, and by them sent to England), while coming over from Burmah killed and devoured a large fowl put into her cage. I do not doubt the _killing_, for at that time 'Ethel' had not long been caught, and was a little demon in temper, but I suspect that, while attention was taken off, some knowing lascar secured the body of the chicken, and gave her credit for having swallowed it. 'Ada's' greatest delight was in getting up small trees; even when she was a chubby infant I could, by merely striking the bark, or a branch some feet above her head, cause her to scramble up almost any tree. At this time poor 'Ada,' a Burman otter, and a large white poodle were, like many human beings of different tastes or pursuits, very fast friends." In another part he mentions having heard of a bear of this species who delighted in cherry brandy, "and on one occasion, having been indulged with an entire bottle of this insinuating beverage, got so completely intoxicated that it stole a bottle of blacking, and drank off the contents under the impression that they were some more of its favourite liquor. The owner of the bear told me that he saw it suffering from this strange mixture, and evidently with, as may easily be imagined, a terrible headache." So much for the amusing side of the picture, now for the other. Although strictly frugivorous, still it has been known to attack and devour man in cases of the greatest want, and it also occasionally devours small animals and birds, in the pursuit of which, according to Dr. Sal Muller, it prefers those that live on a vegetable diet. The Rev. Mr. Mason, in his writings about Burmah, says "they will occasionally attack man when alone;" he instances a bear upsetting two men on a raft, and he goes on to add that "last year a Karen of my acquaintance in Tonghoo was attacked by one, overcome, and left by the bear for dead." In this case there was no attempt to devour, and it may have been, as I have often observed with the Indian Sloth Bear, that such attacks are made by females with young. Dr. Sal Muller states: "in his native forests this bear displays much zeal and ingenuity in discovering the nests of bees, and in extracting their contents by means of his teeth from the narrow orifices of the branches of the trees in which they are concealed." * * * * * The next species constitutes the genus _Melursus_ of Meyer or _Prochilus_ of Illiger. It is an awkward-shaped beast, from which it probably derives its name of "Sloth Bear," for it is not like the sloth in other respects. It has long shaggy hair, large curved claws (which is certainly another point of resemblance to the sloth), and a very much elongated mobile snout. Another peculiarity is in its dentition; instead of six incisors in the upper jaw it has only four. Blyth, in his later writings, adopts Illiger's generic name _Prochilus_. NO. 167. URSUS (MELURSUS) LABIATUS. _The Common Indian Sloth Bear_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Bhalu_, Hind.; _Reench_, Hind.; _Riksha_, Sanscrit; _Aswail_, Mahr.; _Elugu_, Tel.; _Kaddi_ or _Karadi_, Can.; _Yerid_ or _Asol_ of the Gonds; _Banna_ of the Coles. HABITAT.--All over the peninsula of India. Blyth says it is not found in Burmah. [Figure: _Ursus labiatus_.] DESCRIPTION.--General shape of the ursine type, but more than usually ungainly and awkward. Hair very long and shaggy, all black, with the exception of a white V-shaped mark on the chest, and dirty whitish muzzle and tips to its feet; snout prolonged and flexible; claws very large. SIZE.--A large animal of this species will measure from five to six feet in length, and stand nearly three feet high, weighing from fifteen to twenty stones. Our old friend is so well known that he hardly requires description, and the very thought of him brings back many a ludicrous and exciting scene of one's jungle days. There is frequently an element of comicality in most bear-hunts, as well as a considerable spice of danger; for, though some people may pooh-pooh this, I know that a she-bear with cubs is no despicable antagonist. Otherwise the male is more anxious to get away than to provoke an attack. This bear does not hibernate at all, but is active all the year round. In the hot weather it lies all day in cool caves, emerging only at night. In March and April, when the _mohwa_-tree is in flower, it revels in the luscious petals that fall from the trees, even ascending the branches to shake down the coveted blossoms. The _mohwa_ (_Bassia latifolia_) well merits a slight digression from our subject. It is a large-sized umbrageous tree, with oblong leaves from four to eight inches long, and two to four inches broad. The flowers are globular, cream coloured, with a faint greenish tint, waxy in appearance, succulent and extremely sweet, but to my taste extremely nasty, there being a peculiar disagreeable flavour which lingers long in the mouth. However not only do all animals, carnivorous as well as herbivorous, like them, but they are highly appreciated by the natives, who not only eat them raw, but dry them in the sun and thus keep them for future consumption, and also distil an extremely intoxicating spirit from them. The fresh refuse, or _marc_, after the extraction of the spirit is also attractive to animals. Some years ago I sent to Mr. Frank Buckland, for publication in _Land and Water_, an account of a dog which used to frequent a distillery for the purpose of indulging in this refuse, the result of which was his becoming completely intoxicated. This _marc_, after further fermentation, becomes intensely acid, and on one occasion I used it successfully in cleaning and brightening a massive steel and iron gate which I had constructed. I made a large vat, and filling it with this fermented refuse, put the gate in to pickle. The seeds of the _mohwa_ yield an oil much prized by the natives, and used occasionally for adulterating _ghee_. The wood is not much used; it is not of sufficient value to compensate for the flower and fruit, consequently the tree is seldom cut down. When an old one falls the trunk and large limbs are sometimes used for sluices in tanks, for the heart wood is generally rotten and hollow, and it stands well under water. If you ask a Gond about the _mohwa_ he will tell you it is his father and mother. His fleshly father and mother die and disappear, but the _mohwa_ is with him for ever! A good _mohwa_ crop is therefore always anxiously looked for, and the possession of trees coveted; in fact a large number of these trees is an important item for consideration in the assessment of land revenues. No wonder then that the villager looks with disfavour on the prowling bear who nightly gathers up the fallen harvest, or who shakes down the long-prayed-for crop from the laden boughs. The Sloth Bear is also partial to mangos, sugar-cane, and the pods of the _amaltas_ or _cassia_(_Cathartocarpus fistula_), and the fruit of the jack-tree (_Artocarpus integrifolia_). It is extremely fond of honey, and never passes an ant-hill without digging up its contents, especially those of white ants. About twenty years ago my first experience of this was in a neighbour's garden. He had recently built himself a house, and was laying out and sowing his flower-beds with great care. It so happened that one of the beds lay over a large ants' nest, and to his dismay he found one morning a huge pit dug in the centre of it, to the total destruction of all his tender annuals, by a bear that had wandered through the station during the night. Tickell describes the operation thus: "On arriving at an ant-hill the bear scrapes away with the fore-feet till he reaches the large combs at the bottom of the galleries. He then with violent puffs dissipates the dust and crumbled particles of the nest, and sucks out the inhabitants of the comb by such forcible inhalations as to be heard at two hundred yards distant or more. Large larvae are in this way sucked out from great depths under the soil." Insects of all sorts seem not to come amiss to this animal, which systematically hunts for them, turning over stones in the operation. The Sloth Bear has usually two young ones at a birth. They are born blind, and continue so till about the end of the third week. The mother is a most affectionate parent, defending her offspring with the greatest ferocity. A she-bear with cubs is always an awkward customer, and she continues her solicitude for them till they are nearly full grown. The young ones are not difficult to rear if ordinary care be taken. The great mistake that most people make in feeding the young of wild animals is the giving of pure cows' milk. I mentioned this in 'Seonee' in speaking of a bear:-- "The little brute was as savage as his elders, and would do nothing but walk to the end of the string by which he was attached to a tent peg, roll head over heels, and walk in a contrary direction, when a similar somersault would be performed; and he whined and wailed just like a child; one might have mistaken it for the puling of some villager's brat. Milford was going to give it pure cows' milk when Fordham advised him not to do so, but to mix it with one half the quantity of water. 'The great mistake people make,' he said, 'who try to rear wild animals, is to give them what they think is best for them, viz., good fresh cows' milk, and they wonder that the little creatures pine away and die, instead of flourishing on it. Cows' milk is too rich; buffalos' milk is better, but both should be mixed with water. It does not matter what the animal is: tiger-cub, fawn, or baby monkey--all require the same caution.'" I had considerable experience in the bringing up of young things of all sorts when in the Seonee district, and only after some time learnt the proper proportions of milk and water, and also that regularity in feeding was necessary--two-thirds water to one of milk for the first month; after that half and half. The Sloth Bear carries her cubs on her back, as do the opossums, and a singular little animal called the koala (_Phascolarctos cinereus_)--and she seems to do this for some time, as Mr. Sanderson writes he shot one which was carrying a cub as large as a sheep-dog. In that most charming of all sporting books ever written, Campbell's 'Old Forest Ranger,' there is an amusingly-told bit with reference to this habit of cub-carrying which I am sure my readers will forgive me for extracting. Old Dr. Jock M'Phee had been knocked over by a she-bear, and is relating his grievances to Charles:-- "Well, as I was saying, I was sitting at my pass, and thinking o' my old sweethearts, and the like o' that, when a' at ance I heard a terrible stramash among the bushes, and then a wild growl, just at my very lug. Up I jumps wi' the fusee in my hand, and my heart in my mouth, and out came a muckle brute o' a bear, wi' that wee towsie tyke sitting on her back, as conciety as you please, and haudin' the grip like grim death wi' his claws. The auld bear, as soon as she seed me, she up wi' her birse, and shows her muckle white teeth, and grins at me like a perfect cannibal; and the wee deevil he sets up his birse too, and snaps his bit teeth, and tries to grin like the mither o't, with a queer auld farrant look that amaist gart me laugh; although, to tell the blessed truth, Maister Charles, I thought it nae laughing sport. Well, there was naething else for it, so I lets drive at them wi' the grit-shot, thinking to ding them baith at ance. I killed the sma' ane dead enough; but the auld one, she lets a roar that amaist deeved me, and at me she comes like a tiger. I was that frighted, sir, I did na ken what to do; but in despair I just held out the muzzle o' the fusee to fend her off, and I believe that saved my life, for she gripped it atween her teeth, dang me o'er the braid o' my back, and off she set, trailing me through the bushes like a tether-stick; for some way or other I never let go the grip I had o' the stock. I was that stupefied I hae nae recollection what happened after this, till I found mysel' sticking in the middle o' a brier-bush, wi' my breeks rived the way you see, and poor old 'Meg' smashed in bits--de'el be in her skin that did it." Poor old Jock M'Phee! On the whole he did well to escape with but injury to his garments. I have seen several men mauled by she-bears; one of them was scalped and torn to such an extent that it was a long time before he recovered; and I always marvelled to think he got over it at all. The British soldier is rather fond of a bear cub as a pet; and Captain Baldwin tells an amusing story of one which followed the men on to the parade ground, and quite disorganised the manoeuvres by frightening the colonel's horse. In 1858 I was quartered for a time with a naval brigade; and once, when there was an alarm of the enemy, Jack went to the front with all his pets, including Bruin, which brought up the rear, shuffling along in blissful ignorance of the bubble reputation to be found at the cannon's mouth. Although as a rule vegetarian, yet this species is not altogether free from the imputation of being a devourer of flesh when it comes in its way. In such cases it possibly has been impelled by hunger, and I doubt whether it ever kills for the sake of eating. I have known even ruminants eat meat, and in their case hunger could not have been urged as an excuse. Mr. Sanderson mentions an instance when a Barking Deer he shot was partially devoured by a bear during the night. Very few elephants, however steady with tigers, will stand a bear. Whether it is that bears make such a row when wounded, or whether there be anything in the smell, I know not, but I have heard many sportsmen allude to the fact. A favourite elephant I had would stand anything but a bear and a pig. Few horses will approach a bear, and this is one difficulty in spearing them; and for this reason I think bear dancers should be prohibited in towns. Calcutta used to swarm with them at one time. It always makes me angry when I see these men going about with the poor brutes, whose teeth and claws are often drawn, and a cruel ring passed through their sensitive nostrils. I should like to set an old she-bear after the _bhalu-wallas_, with a fair field and no favour. The bear rising to hug its adversary is a fallacy as far as this species is concerned; it does not squeeze, but uses its claws freely and with great effect. * * * * * I think we have now exhausted our Indian bears. Some have spoken of a dwarf bear supposed to inhabit the Lower Himalayas, but as yet it is unknown--possibly it may be the _Ailuropus_. We now come to the Bear-like animals, the next in order, being the Racoons (_Procyon_), Coatis (_Nasua_), Kinkajous (_Cercoleptes_), and the Cacomixle (_Bassaris_) of North and South America, and then our own Panda or Cat-Bear (_Ailurus fulgens_). This, with the above-mentioned Racoons, &c., forms a small group of curious bear-like animals, mostly of small size. Externally they differ considerably, especially in their long bushy tails, but in all essential particulars they coincide. They are plantigrade, and are without a caecum or blind gut; the skull, however it may approach to a viverrine or feline shape, has still marked arctoid characteristics. The ear passage is well marked and bony, as in that of the bear, but the bulb of the drum (_bulla tympani_) is much developed, as in the dogs and cats. The molars are more tuberculated than in the bears, resembling the hinder molars of a dog. AILURIDAE. F. Cuvier, who received the first specimen of the type of this family from his son-in-law, M. Duvaucel, was not happy in his selection of a name, which would lead one to suppose that it was affixed to the cats instead of the bears. It certainly in some degree resembles the cat externally, and it has also semi-retractile claws, but in greater measure it belongs to the Arctoidea. There are only two genera as yet known--the Red Cat-Bear, _Ailurus fulgens_, and the Thibetan _Ailuropus melanoleucos_. _GENUS AILUROPUS_. This very rare and most curious animal should properly come between the bears and _Ailurus_, as it seems to form a link between the two. Such also is the idea of a naturalist friend of mine, who, in writing to me about it, expressed it as being a link between _Helarctos Malayanus_ and _Ailurus fulgens_. Very little is, however, known of the creature, which inhabits the most inaccessible portions of a little-known country--the province of Moupin in Eastern Thibet. It was procured there by the Abbe David, who, after a prolonged residence in China, lived for nearly a year in Moupin, and he sent specimens of the skull, skin, &c., to M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, from whose elaborate description in his 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes' I have extracted the following notice. The original article is too long to translate _in extenso_, but I have taken the chief points. NO. 168. AILUROPUS MELANOLEUCOS. HABITAT.--The hilly parts Moupin, Eastern Thibet. [Figure: _Ailuropus melanoleucos_.] DESCRIPTION.--The _Ailuropus_ has a thick-set heavy form. His head is short, rather slender in front, but extremely enlarged in the middle and after part; the nose is small and naked at its extremity; the forehead very large and convex; the eyes are small; the ears short, wide between and rounded at the ends; neck thick and very strong; the body is squat and massive; the tail is so short as to be hardly distinguishable. The feet are short, very large, nearly of the same length, terminated by five toes very large and with rounded ends, the general conformation of which recalls in all respects those of the bears, but of which the lower parts, instead of being completely placed on the sole in walking and entirely naked or devoid of hair, are always in great measure raised, and abundantly clad with fur to almost their full extent. On the hind feet can be noticed at the base of the toes a transverse range of five little fleshy pads, and towards the anterior extremity of the metatarsal region another naked cushion placed transversely; but between these parts, as well as the posterior two-thirds of the planta, the hair is as abundant and as long almost as on the upper part of the foot. In the fore-limbs the disposition is much the same, though the metacarpal cushion may be larger; and there is another fleshy pad without hair near the claws. The _Ailuropus_ is thus an animal not strictly plantigrade, like the Bears in general, or the same as the Polar Bear, of which the feet, although placed flat on the earth, are not devoid of hair; but, on the contrary, the _Ailuropus_ resembles the _Ailurus_, which is semi-plantigrade, yet hairy under Its soles. The colouring of the _Ailuropus_ is remarkable: it is white with the exception of the circumferences of the eyes, the ears, the shoulders, and the lower part of the neck which are entirely black. These stand out clearly on a groundwork of slightly yellowish-white; the spots round the eyes are circular, and give a strange aspect to the animal; those on the shoulders represent a sort of band placed transversely across the withers, widening as they descend downwards to lower limbs. The hinder limbs are also black from the lower part of the thigh down to the toes, but the haunches, as also the greater part of the tail, are as white as the back and belly; the colouring is the same in young and old. The fur is long, thick, and coarse, like that of the bears. From the general form of the skull it would seem impossible to determine the family to which this animal belongs. In effect the head differs considerably from the _Ursidae_ and the _Mustelidae_, and presents certain resemblances to that of the hyaena; but there are numerous and important particulars which indicate a special zoological type, and it is only by an inspection of the dental system that the natural affinities of the _Ailuropus_ can be determined. In the upper jaw the incisors are, as usual, in three pairs. They are remarkable for their oblique direction; the centre ones are small and a little widened at the base; the second pair are stronger and dilated towards the cutting edge; the external incisors are also strong and excavated outside to admit the canines of the lower jaw. The canines are stout, but short, with a well-marked blunt ridge down the posterior side, as in the Malayan bears. The molars are six in number on each side, of which four are premolars, and two true molars. The first premolar, situated behind, a little within the line of the canine, is very small, tuberculiform, and a little compressed laterally. The second is strong and essentially carnassial; it is compressed laterally and obliquely placed. It is furnished with three lobes: the first lobe is short, thick, and obtuse; the second is raised, triangular and with cutting edges; the third of the size of the first, but more compressed--in short, a double-fanged tooth. This molar differs considerably from the corresponding tooth of the bear by its form and relative development, since in that family it is one-fanged, very low and obtuse. On the contrary, it approaches to that of the hyaenas and felines. With the panda (_Ailurus fulgens_) the corresponding premolar is equally large, double-fanged and trenchant, but the division in lobes is not so marked. The third or penultimate molar of the _Ailuropus_ is larger and thicker than the preceding, divided in five distinct lobes--three outer ones in a line, and two less projecting ones within. The last premolar is remarkably large; it is much larger behind than in front, and its crown is divided into six lobes, of which five are very strong; the three external ones are much developed and trenchant, the centre one being the highest and of a triangular shape. Of the internal lobes, the first one is almost as large as the external ones; the second is very small, almost hidden in the groove between the last mentioned; and the third, which is very large, rounded and placed obliquely inwards in front, and outwards behind. Professor Milne-Edwards remarks that he knows not amongst the carnivora a similar example of a tooth so disposed. That of _Ailurus_ shows the least difference, that is to say it is nearest in structure, having also six lobes, but more thick-set or depressed. The true molars are remarkable for their enormous development: the first is almost square, with blunt rounded cusps, four-fanged, and presenting a strange mixture of characteristics, in its outward portion resembling an essentially carnivorous type, and its internal portion that of molars intended to triturate vegetable substances. Amongst bears, and especially the Malayan bears, this character is presented, but in a less striking degree; the panda resembles it more, with certain restrictions, but the most striking analogy is with the genus _Hyaenarctos_. The last molar is peculiar in shape, longer than broad, and is tuberculous, as in the bears, but it differs in this respect from the pandas, in which the last molar is almost a repetition of the preceding one, and its longitudinal diameter is less than its transverse. In the lower jaw the first premolar, instead of being small and tuberculate, as its corresponding tooth in the upper jaw, is large, double-fanged, trenchant and tri-lobed, resembling, except for size, the two following ones. The second is not inserted obliquely like its correspondent in the upper jaw, its axis is in a line with that of its neighbours; tricuspidate, the middle lobe being the highest. The third premolar is very large, and agrees with its upper one, excepting the lobule on the inner border. The first true molar is longer than broad, and wider in front; the crown, with five conical tubercles in two groups, separated by a transverse groove; the next molar is thicker and stouter than the preceding one, and the last is smaller, and both much resemble those of the bears, and differ notably from the pandas. From what M. Milne-Edwards describes, we may briefly epitomise that the premolarial dentition of the _Ailuropus_ is ailuroid or feline, and that the true molars are arctoid or ursine. The skull is remarkable for the elongation of the cranium and the elevation of the occipital crest, for the shortness of the muzzle, for the depression of the post-frontal portion, and for the enormous development of the zygomatic arches. In another part M. Milne-Edwards remarks that there is no carnivorous animal of which the zygomatic arches are so developed as in the _Ailuropus_. He states that it inhabits the most inaccessible mountains of Eastern Thibet, and it never descends from its retreats to ravage the fields, as do the Black Bears; therefore it is difficult to obtain. It lives principally on roots, bamboos and other vegetables; but we may reasonably suppose from its conformation that it is carnivorous at times, when opportunity offers, as are some of the bears, and as is the _Ailurus_. I have dwelt at some length on this animal, though not a denizen of India proper; but it will be a prize to any of our border sportsmen who come across it on the confines of Thibet, and therefore I have deemed it worthy of space. SIZE.--From muzzle to tail, about four feet ten inches; height about twenty-six inches. _GENUS AILURUS_. NO. 169. AILURUS FULGENS. _The Red Cat-Bear_ (_Jerdon's No. 92_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Wah_, Nepal; _Wah-donka_, Bhot.; _Sunnam_ or _Suknam_, Lepch.; _Negalya_, _Ponya_ of the Nepalese (_Jerdon_). In the Zoological Gardens in London it is called the _Panda_, but I am unable just now to state the derivation of this name. HABITAT.--Eastern Himalayas and Eastern Thibet. [Figure: _Ailurus fulgens_.] DESCRIPTION.--"Skull ovate; forehead arched; nose short; brain case ovate, ventricose; the zygomatic arches very large, expanded; crown bent down behind" (_Gray_). The lower jaw is very massive, and the ascending ramus unusually large, extending far above the zygomatic arch, forming almost a right angle with equal arms. Hodgson's description is: "Ursine arm; feline paw; profoundly cross-hinged, yet grinding jaw, and purely triturative and almost ruminant molar of _Ailurus_; tongue smooth; pupil round; feet enveloped in woolly socks with leporine completeness. It walks like the marten; climbs and fights with all the four legs at once, like the _Paradoxuri_, and does not employ its forefeet--like the racoon, coatis, or bears--in eating." Jerdon's outward description is: "Above deep ochreous-red; head and tail paler and somewhat fulvous, displayed on the tail in rings; face, chin, and ears within white; ears externally, all the lower surface and the entire limbs and tip of tail jet-black; from the eye to the gape a broad vertical line of ochreous-red blending with the dark lower surface; moustache white; muzzle black." The one at present in the London "Zoo" is thus described: "Rich red-chestnut in colour on the upper surface, jet black as to the lower surface, the limbs also black, the snout and inside of ears white; the tail bushy, reddish-brown in colour and indistinctly ringed." SIZE.--Head and body 22 inches; tail 16; height about 9; weight about 8 lbs. Jerdon has epitomised Hodgson's description of the habits of this animal as follows: "The Wah is a vegetivorous climber, breeding and feeding chiefly on the ground, and having its retreat in holes and clefts of rock. It eats fruits, roots, sprouts of bamboo, acorns, &c.; also, it is said, eggs and young birds; also milk and ghee, which it is said to purloin occasionally from the villages. They feed morning and evening, and sleep much in the day. They are excellent climbers, but on the ground move rather awkwardly and slowly. Their senses all appear somewhat blunt, and they are easily captured. In captivity they are placid and inoffensive, docile and silent, and shortly after being taken may be suffered to go abroad. They prefer rice and milk to all other food, refusing animal food, and they are free from all offensive odour. They drink by lapping with the tongue, spit like cats when angered, and now and then utter a short deep grunt like a young bear. The female brings forth two young in spring. They usually sleep on the side, and rolled into a ball, the head concealed by the bushy tail." (For the full account see 'Jour. As. Soc. Beng.' vol. xvi. p. 1113.) Mr. Bartlett, who has studied the habits of the specimen in the London Gardens, says that in drinking it sucks up the fluids like a bear instead of licking it up like a dog or cat, which disagrees with what Hodgson states above. "When offended it would rush at Mr. Bartlett, and strike at him with both feet, the body being raised like a bear's, and the claws projecting." General Hardwicke was the first to discover this animal, which he described in a paper read before the Linnaean Society on the 6th of November 1821, but it was not published for some years, and in the meanwhile M. Duvaucel sent one to M. F. Cuvier, who introduced it first to the world. Some years ago I had a beautiful skin of one offered to me for sale at Darjeeling by some Bhotias, but as it was redolent of musk and other abominations quite foreign to its innocent inodorous self, I declined to give the high price wanted for it. SEMI-PLANTIGRADES. These form part of the Plantigrada of Cuvier and part of the Digitigrada; they walk on their toes, but at the same time keep the wrist and heel much nearer to the ground than do the true Digitigrades, and sometimes rest on them. Of those Semi-plantigrades with which we now have to deal there are three sections, viz., the _Mustelidae_, containing the Gluttons, Martens, Weasels, Ferrets, Grisons, &c., the _Melidae_, _Melididae_ and _Melinidae_ of various authors: i.e. Badgers, Ratels, and Skunks; and the _Lutridae_ or Otters. Some writers bring them all under one great family, _Mustelidae_, but the above tripartite arrangement is, I think, better for ordinary purposes. To the mind of only moderate scientific attainments, a distinct classification of well-defined groups is always an easier matter than a large family split up into many genera defined by internal anatomical peculiarities. Of the Semi-plantigrades at large Jerdon remarks: "None of them have more than one true molar above and another below, which, however, vary much in development, and the flesh tooth is most marked in those in which the tuberculate is least developed, and _vice versa_. The great and small intestines differ little in calibre, and many of them (i.e. the family) can diffuse at will a disgusting stench." This last peculiarity is a specialty of the American members of the family, notably the skunk, of the power of which almost incredible stories are told. I remember reading not long ago an account of a train passing over a skunk, and for a time the majority of the passengers suffered from nausea in consequence. Sir John Richardson writes: "I have known a dead skunk thrown over the stockades of a trading port produce instant nausea in several women in a house with closed doors, upwards of a hundred yards distant." The secretion is intensely inflammatory if squirted in the eye. MELIDIDAE; OR, BADGER-LIKE ANIMALS. This group is distinguished by a heavier form, stouter limbs, coarse hair, and slower action; in most the claws are adapted for burrowing. None of them are arboreal, although in olden times marvellous tales were told of the wolverene or glutton as being in the habit of dropping down from branches of trees on the backs of large animals, clinging on to them and draining their life blood as they fled. Some of them are capable of emitting a noisome smell. The teledu of Java (_Mydaus meliceps_) is the worst of the family in this respect, and almost equals the skunk. It is possible that this animal may be found in Tenasserim. _GENUS ARCTONYX_. Dentition much the same as that of the Badger (_Meles_). Incisors, 6/6; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 3--3/3--3; molars, 1--1/1--1. The incisors are disposed in a regular curve, vertical in the upper jaw, obliquely inclined in the lower; canines strong, grinders compressed; general form of the badger, but stouter. Feet five-toed, with strong claws adapted for digging, that of the index finger being larger than the other. NO. 170. ARCTONYX COLLARIS. _The Hog-Badger_ (_Jerdon's No. 93_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Balu-suar_, Hind., Sand-pig, or, as Jerdon has it, _Bhalu-soor_, Hind., i.e. Bear-pig; _Khway-too-wet-too_, Arakanese. HABITAT.--Nepal, Sikim, Assam, Sylhet, Arakan, extending, as Dr. Anderson has observed, to Western Yunnan. The late General A. C. McMaster found it in Shway Gheen On the Sitang river in Pegu. I heard of it in the forests of Seonee in the Central Provinces, but I never came across one. [Figure: _Arctonyx collaris_.] DESCRIPTION.--"Hair of the body rough, bristly, and straggling; that of the head shorter, and more closely adpressed. Head, throat, and breast yellowish white; on the upper part this colour forms a broad regularly-defined band from the snout to the occiput; ears of the same colour; the nape of the neck, a narrow band across the breast, the anterior portion of the abdomen, the extremities, a band arising from the middle of the upper lip, gradually wider posteriorly, including the eyes and ears, and another somewhat narrower arising from the lower lip, passing the cheek, uniting with the former on the neck, are deep blackish-brown" (_Horsfield_). The tail is short, attenuated towards the end, and covered with rough hairs. SIZE.--From snout to root of tail, 25 inches; tail, 7 inches; height at the rump, 12 inches. M. Duvaucel states that "it passes the greatest part of the day in profound somnolence, but becomes active at the approach of night; its gait is heavy, slow, and painful; it readily supports itself erect on its hind feet, and prefers vegetables to flesh." Jerdon alludes to all this, and adds, "one kept in captivity preferred fruit, plantains, &c., as food, and refused all kinds of meat. Another would eat meat, fish, and used to burrow and grope under the walls of the bungalow for worms and shells." My idea is _Balu-suar_, or Sand-pig is the correct name, although _Bhalu-suar_ or Bear-pig may hit off the appearance of the animal better, but its locality has always been pointed out to me by the Gonds in the sandy beds of rivers in the bamboo forests of Seonee; and Horsfield also has it _Baloo-soor_, Sand-pig. Bewick, who was the first to figure and describe it, got, as the vulgar phrase hath it, the wrong pig by the lug, as he translates it _Sand-bear_. McMaster also speaks of those he saw as being in deep ravines on the Sitang river. The stomach of Arctonyx is simple; there is no caecum, as is the case also with the bears; the liver has five lobes; under the tail it has glands, as in the Badgers, secreting a fatty and odorous substance. NO. 171. ARCTONYX TAXOIDES. _The Assam Badger_. HABITAT.--Assam and Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Smaller than the last, with longer and finer fur, narrower muzzle, smaller ears, shorter tail, and more distinct markings. The measurement of the respective skulls show a great difference. The length of a skull of a female of this species given by Dr. Anderson is 4.75 inches against 6.38 of a female of _A. collaris_. The breadth across the zygomatic arch is 2.38 against 3.64 of _A. collaris_. The breadth of the palate between the molars is only 0.81 against 1.07. _GENUS MELES_. _SUB-GENUS TAXIDIA_. This sub-genus is that of the American type of Badger, to which Hodgson, who first described the Thibetan _T. leucurus_, supposed his species to belong; but other recent naturalists, among whom are Drs. Gray and Anderson, prefer to class it as _Meles_. Hodgson founded his classification on the dentition of his specimen, but Blyth has thrown some doubt on its correctness, believing that the skull obtained by Hodgson with the skin was that of _Meles albogularis_. Hodgson, however, says: "from the English Badger type of restricted _Meles_ our animal may be at once discriminated without referring to skulls by its inferior size, greater length of tail, and partially-clad planta or foot-sole." NO. 172. MELES (TAXIDIA) LEUCURUS. _The Thibetan White-tailed Badger_. NATIVE NAME.--_Tampha_. HABITAT.--The plains of Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--"Fur long, flaccid, dark iron-grey and white mixed; hair long, white, with a broad sub-lunate black band and a white tip; under fur abundant, long, white; a streak on each side of the forehead blackish grey, varied; chin, throat, legs and under side of the body black; tail, sides of head, and body whitish."--_Gray_. The aspect, according to Hodgson, is entirely that of a long-tailed Badger (Gray remarks: "it most resembles the European animal "), with somewhat smaller head, with longer, finer fur than usual; the entire sole of the foot is not naked, but only about two-thirds, and the toe-pads are very much developed, thus raising the powerful long fossorial claws from the ground in walking. SIZE.--Total length 37 inches, of which the tail, with the hair, is 10 inches, and without the hair 7 inches; the longest hair of the body is 4-1/2 inches. There is not much known about the _Tampha_. According to what Hodgson was able to gather concerning his habits, "he dwells in the more secluded spots of inhabited districts, makes a comfortable, spacious and well-arranged subterraneous abode, dwells there in peace with his mate, who has an annual brood of two to four young, molests not his neighbour, defends himself if compelled to it with unconquerable resolution, and feeds on roots, nuts, insects and reptiles, but chiefly the two former--on vegetables, not animals--a point of information confirmed by the prevalent triturant character of the teeth." The colouring of this animal is almost identical with the English badger, only that his tail is longer and whiter. NO. 173. MELES ALBOGULARIS. _The White-throated Thibetan Badger_. HABITAT.--Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Smaller and much less tufted ears than the last species; a shorter and much less bushy tail; and the fur shorter and coarser, though of finer texture than in the European badger, with much woolly hair at its base. Both the English badger and _M. leucurus_ are black throated; this one is white throated. The English animal has a broad band of brownish-black, which begins between the muzzle and the eye, and runs through the eye and ear till it fades off on the neck; the space of white between these two bands on the forehead runs back and contracts behind the ears. In the Thibetan animal it contracts just behind the eyes, and is continued as a faint narrow streak only as far as the ears. In the English one the cheeks are broadly white between the eye-band and the black throat; in the Thibetan there is a little white below the eye, and this is bordered by a narrow black stripe, beneath which is the white throat. There is another Thibetan badger mentioned by Professor Milne-Edwards in his 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes,' a white-throated one, _M. obscurus_, but it appears to be the same as _M. albogularis_. _GENUS MELLIVORA_. Tubercular grinder transverse; flesh-tooth larger, with a small internal lobe, and with a single tubercle; lower flesh-tooth tricuspidate, sharp-edged; head depressed; nose blunt; ears not visible externally; body stout, depressed; legs short, and strong; feet plantigrade, five-toed; front claws elongated and strong; the bald sole of the hind foot occupying the whole under surface, only slightly divided across about one-third of its length from the front; tail very short, with powerfully offensive glands; it has a thick loose skin and a subcutaneous layer of fat, which doubtless protect it from stings of bees, on which this genus is supposed to feed whenever it can. NO. 174. MELLIVORA INDICA. _The Indian Ratel or Honey-Badger_ (_Jerdon's No. 94_). NATIVE NAME.--_Biju_, Hind.; _Biyu-khawar_, Telegu; _Tavakaradi_, Tamil; _Bajru-bhal_, at Bhagulpore (Santali?); _Bharsiah_, Nepalese. HABITAT.--Throughout India. [Figure: _Mellivora Indica_.] DESCRIPTION.--The upper half of its body is ashy-grey; the lower half, muzzle, limbs, and tail black; the general appearance is that of a black animal with a grey cloak on its back. The only difference between the Indian and the Cape Ratel is, that the grey cloak of the latter has a conspicuous white border which is wanting in the Indian species; the tail also of the latter is shorter, otherwise they are the same, and were for a long time considered the same. SIZE.--Head and body, 26 to 32 inches; tail, 5 to 6 inches. Jerdon says it is chiefly found in hilly districts, and that he has not found it in Lower Bengal nor on the Malabar coast. In Central India it is not uncommon. It has got a reputation for digging into graves, and is called in some parts "the grave-digger;" but I do not believe in its carnivorous propensities to this extent; it lives principally on small fry, insects, and small animals, honey and vegetable food. Jerdon says it is destructive to poultry, which is probable, for it will eat small birds. Both it and the Cape species will eagerly look out for bees, but it is not to be supposed, as some books would make out, that bees and honey form the staple diet. Its thick and loose skin, the stiffness of the hair above, and the layer of fat below, effectually preserve it from the effects of the stings. The tail glands contain a very strong and pungent secretion. Some years ago, before I knew exactly what they were, the Ratels in the London Zoological Gardens used to interest me greatly. They had a low cage, on the ground I think, and their peculiar antics never failed to draw a crowd. They used to run round in an idiotic sort of way, and always at one point gravely turn head over heels and then proceed as before and repeat. In Cassell's 'Natural History' this is alluded to, only the writer says that now they are in fresh quarters, and the flitting seems to have disturbed them. He adds: "We have often watched one of them run round and round the cage in the usual purposeless manner of captive animals, but with this peculiarity: when he reached a particular corner of the den, he quietly, and without effort, turned head over heels, and then went on again. On one occasion, after he had been doing this with great regularity for some rounds he seemed to become abstracted, and passed the usual spot without the somersault; when, however, he had proceeded a few paces he recollected himself, stopped for a moment, returned to the exact place, turned over as usual, and proceeded without further let or hindrance." The African species is said to live largely on bees--I suppose ground bees, such as our English humble bee, for these animals are not arboreal--and it is said to exhibit great skill in tracking the flying insects to their nest. "Sparrman states that it seats itself on a hillock to look for the bees, and shades its eyes with one forepaw against the rays of the setting sun." Here is something for our Indian naturalists to observe. Some other animals are said to do the same; whether the Biju does it or not I cannot say. McMaster says of it: "Two that I saw in confinement appeared very good-tempered, and much more playful than tame bears would have been. They were, I think, fed entirely upon vegetables, rice and milk." This animal is the same as Hodgson's _Ursitaxus inauritus_, the _Bharsiah_ which figures as a separate genus in Cuvier. The skull is very like that of the wolverenes in general form. _GENUS GULO--THE GLUTTON OR WOLVERENE_. This animal was placed by Linnaeus among the _Ursidae_, and is classed by some with the _Melididae_, but its dentition is more that of the Martens, which occupy the next group. The true Glutton (_Gulo luscus_) is not known in India, but we have some so-called Wolverenes (_Helictis_) to which I shall presently allude. Still a few remarks about the typical animal, which is by no means an uninteresting creature, may not be out of place. The Glutton inhabits a wide tract of country in the Northern Hemisphere, the colder regions of Europe, Asia, and America; it is abundant in Siberia and Kamschatka, and is the pest of the trappers in North America. Fabulous stories were told of this animal in olden days, some of which are still propagated at the present time. It was supposed to be of insatiable appetite, and to attack its prey (deer, &c.) by dropping down from the branch of a tree on to the back of its victim, and to eat its way into a vital part, whilst being carried along--a decided fallacy, for neither the Glutton nor our Indian species of _Helictis_ are arboreal in their habits. Then it was accused of eating to such a pitch of distention that it had to squeeze itself between two close-growing trees for relief ere it returned again to the repast. There is no doubt, however, that it is to a great extent voracious and extremely cunning; and what it cannot eat it will carry off and hide. The trappers complain bitterly of it, and spare no pains to kill every one they can come across; but it is not easily to be caught, and only a very cunningly-devised bait will succeed. Were I to relate some of the stories recorded of this animal I might get accused, if not of being a romancer myself, at all events of being a too credulous propagator of other people's romances. It is told of it that it will discover hidden stores, and, digging them up out of the snow, carefully smooth the surface over again; that it will avoid every trap set for itself, and, going round to the back of spring guns, gnaw through the string connected with the trigger before it drags away the bait. It follows up the lines laid down by the trappers, taking the martens out, and devouring them, or hiding what it cannot eat, and by wearying out the patience of the hunters, compel them to strike a new "marten-road." It is said by Dr. Coues to possess a singular habit of sitting down on its haunches, shading its eyes with a forepaw, and gazing earnestly at the approaching enemy before it takes to flight. I have already alluded to the Cape ratel doing this on the look-out for bees. The Indian form of Wolverene is a slighter and much smaller animal, with a still more weasel-like appearance. The Glutton is comparatively a large beast, the body being about 2-1/2 feet, and the tail 10 inches; the _Helictis_ is only half the size, and there is a slight difference in the dentition. _GENUS HELICTIS_. "Head tapering; nose acute, conical; muzzle bald, obliquely truncated; other side hairy, with a central groove; nostrils inferior; ears ovate; body slender; legs short; toes 5.5; front claws elongate, curved; hinder short and acute; sole of foot hairy behind, bald in front, and rhombic for half the length of the foot, with three large oblong pads on the front, and three small ones on the hinder edge; toes elongate; thumb short; fur black, like _Herpestes_; tail moderate, sub-cylindrical; teeth, 38; premolars, 4--4/4--4; grinders, 5/6."--Gray. There are four species of this genus, and of these two come within the geographical limits of these papers, viz., _Helictis Nipalensis_ and _H. moschata_; the third, _H. orientalis_, belongs to Java; and the fourth, _H. subaurantiaca_, to Formosa. NO. 175. HELICTIS NIPALENSIS. _The Nepal Wolverene_ (_Jerdon's No. 95_). NATIVE NAME.--_Oker_, Nepalese; _Kyoung-pyan_, Arakanese. HABITAT.--Nepal, Arakan, and Pegu. DESCRIPTION.--Hodgson, who first described this animal in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Beng.' (vol. v. pp. 237-38), says: "Above earthy brown; below, with the edge of the upper lip, the insides of the limbs, and terminal half of the tail, yellow; a white mesial stroke from the nape to the hips, and a white band across the forehead, spreading on the cheeks, and confluent with the pale colour of the animal's lower surface; head and body vermi-formed; digits and nails of the anterior extremities stronger; half way from the os calcis to the fingers hairy; fur of two sorts and abundant, but not lengthened, nor harsh, nor annulated; tail cylindrico-tapered, pointed, half the length of the animal." He goes on to add: "The anterior limbs are decidedly fossorial, and the hinder suited for walking in a sub-plantigrade manner; both wholly unfitted for rapatory or scansorial purposes." SIZE.--Head and body 16 inches; tail 7-1/2 inches, 9 inches, including hair. The habits of this animal are nocturnal. Swinhoe mentions this in his account of the Formosan species, and Dr. Anderson relates that he is aware that the Nepal one is similar in its ways, and that it not unfrequently enters Bhotia huts at night; and on one occasion he killed one in a Bhotia hut, thinking it was a large rat, greatly to the chagrin of his host, who informed him that the animal was in the habit of visiting him nightly, and was most useful in destroying cockroaches and other insects. NO. 176. HELICTIS MOSCHATA. _The Chinese Wolverene_. HABITAT.--China, also Burmah (Pegu, Yunnan). DESCRIPTION.--Similar to the last, but differing in dentition and the formation of certain points in the skull. The teeth are smaller, and the infra-orbital foramen much larger. Both the above species are noted for long skulls and palate, whereas _H. orientalis_ has a short skull and palate. The following are the chief characteristics:-- Short head and palate, large teeth, _small_ infra-orbital foramen = _H. orientalis_. Long head and palate, large teeth, _small_ infra-orbital foramen = _H. Nipalensis_. Long head and palate, _small_ teeth, _large_ infra-orbital foramen = _H. moschata_. Dr. Anderson obtained a specimen of this species at an elevation of 5000 feet, at Teng-yue-chow in Yunnan. MUSTELIDAE--MARTENS AND WEASELS. In India the members of this family are restricted to the Weasels and Martens, but in other countries are included the Grisons, Zorillas, Skunks, &c. They are small animals of elongated form, with short legs, commonly expressed as vermiform; where the head of a weasel will go his body will follow--at least that was my experience in my boyish days, when I was particularly interested in vermin, and the gamekeeper was my first instructor in natural history. The face is rounded like a cat, but the skull behind the eye is very long and pear-shaped when viewed from above; in proportion to a cat's skull the brain case is a fourth longer. They are most sanguinary in their habits, and their agility is great, so on the whole they are most formidable to many animals, not only smaller, but in many cases four times their own size. The ferocity of the common weasel (_Putorius vulgaris_) ought to be as proverbial as its watchfulness. A case has been known of a kite carrying off one of these animals, but falling dead after a time with the large blood-vessels under the wing cut through by the savage little prisoner, who, on reaching _terra firma_, escaped apparently unhurt. I think in Wolff's admirable 'Illustrations of Natural History' this fact, related by Bell, is made the subject of a picture called "Catching a Tartar." [Figure: Skull of _Putorius_.] Most of the animals of this group are eagerly sought for on account of their fur. In Northern India the skin of one species, probably a variety of _Martes abietum_, is sold in the bazaars at Peshawur and Lahore. In 1868 I bought sufficient to line a large overcoat, which proved most comfortable in travelling in the cold weather in the Punjab, as well as in subsequent wanderings on the European continent in winter. Dr. E. Coues, in his monograph on the North American Mustelidae, gives the following interesting information regarding the number of skins of various species sold by the Hudson's Bay Company in London during the century 1769-1868:-- Sables, 1,240,511; otters, 674,027; wolverenes, 68,694; minks, 1,507,240; skunks, 218,653; badgers, 275,302; sea otters, 5349. In 1868, which appears to have been a prosperous year, the Company sold: Sables, 106,254; otters, 14,966; wolverenes, 1104; minks, 73,473; skunks, 6298; badgers, 1551; sea otters, 123.[8] [Footnote 8: In the same year were sold by other firms, 22,000 otter skins and 4500 sables. See Appendix _C_ for further statistics.] When one considers the number of those whose skins are damaged and cast aside, the number that fall victims to larger predatory animals, and the operations of disease, from which no animals, small or great, are free, we may form some idea of the immense multitude of these little creatures. The ordinary divisions of the restricted Mustelidae are the Martens (_Martes_), Pole-cats (_Putorius_), and Weasels (_Mustela_), but Gray has further subdivided them chiefly on the characteristics of the feet. The Martens have four more teeth than the rest, which are distinguished as follows:-- _Putorius_.--Short ovate head; feet very hairy, especially between the pads; body stout; underside blackish. _Mustela_.--Narrow, elongated head; feet very hairy between the pads; slender body; under-side yellow or white. _Vison_.--Head elongate, narrow; feet slightly hairy; pads exposed; body rather slender; under-side same colour as upper. _Gymnopus_.--Head elongate, narrow; feet rather naked, bald beneath, between, and rather behind the pads; toes largely webbed; soles hairy behind; body slender. It is doubtful whether these distinctions are of sufficient importance to warrant so much subdivision; and unnecessary multiplication of genera is a thing to be avoided as much as possible. _GENUS MARTES--THE MARTENS_. A more or less arboreal group of larger size, and possibly less sanguinary habits than the weasels, although in this respect I do not think there is much difference. The tail is longer, though not so long as the head and body, and it is bushy; the fur is fine and in general highly prized; the dentition differs from the typical _Mustela_ in having four more teeth and an additional false molar on either side in each jaw; and the inner side of the carnassial or flesh tooth has a tubercle which is not present in the weasels; head elongate; feet very hairy; space between the pads hairy, often covering them from sight, except in the case of _Martes flavigula_, of which the soles are nude. NO. 177. MARTES FLAVIGULA. _The White-cheeked Marten_ (_Jerdon's No. 96_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Mal-sampra_, Nepalese; _Tuturala_ in Kumaon; _Kusiah_ in Sirmoor; _Huniah_ or _Aniar_, Bhotia; _Sakku_, Lepcha. HABITAT.--Nepal, Thibet, Kumaon, Gurhwal, Sirmoor, Assam, Burmah, Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Glossy blackish brown, with the throat and breast yellow; the chin and lower parts white, from which I have preferred to call it after Pennant "the White-cheeked Marten" instead of the "yellow-throated," this characteristic belonging also to some other species. The fur seems to vary a good deal. Jerdon says of it: "The body is at times dirty brownish or chestnut brown, or brown mixed with grey, and the middle of the back is sometimes paler than the rest, or the same tint as the sides of the body. In some the top of the head is pale brown, but it is edged by a dark peripheral line, and in some there are one or more irregular dark spots between the fore-limbs." Blyth writes of the Burmese specimens that they are "similar to the Himalayan, but differing from the Malayan race--found also in Formosa--by having much longer fur, and a wholly black cap instead of a brown cap with a black periphery." The soles are nude. SIZE.--Head and body about 20 inches; tail, including fur, 12 inches. This Indian Marten, according to Jerdon, is also found in Ceylon; it was, however, apparently unknown to Kellaart, nor does Sir Emerson Tennent allude to it. It is to be had in the Neilgherries, the Khasia hills, and the ranges in Arakan, as well as in the valleys of the great Himalayan chain up to 7000 or 8000 feet of elevation. It is found in pairs or in small families of five or six. If hunted it takes to trees at once, being a good climber. According to Captain the Hon. C. Shore, who observed its habits in Kumaon and Gurhwal, "its food is chiefly birds, rats, mice, hares and even young fawns of the kakur or barking-deer." He adds: "The specimen sent to the Zoological Society was brought to me in September 1828, when it was about four months old. It had been caught when not many days old, and was so tame that it was always kept loose about a well, sporting about the windlasses, posts, &c., and playing tricks with the people who came to draw water." This is the one alluded to by Jerdon as having been described by Mr. Bennett in the 'Gardens and Menageries of the Zoological Society.' _Martes Gwatkinsi_ of Horsfield's Catalogue (page 99), is evidently, as Jerdon says, the same as _M. flavigula_, although the colouring is different, and is supposed to be the same animal in its summer fur, some specimens being darker than others. It is just one hundred years since this little animal was first described, the earliest record of it being in Pennant's 'History of Quadrupeds' (first edition), published in 1781. It must, however, have been known before that, for Pennant first observed it in Brooks's Menagerie in 1774, and named it the "White-cheeked Weasel," which Boddart afterwards in 1785 introduced into his 'Elenchus Animalium' under the name of _Mustela flavigula_ (_Horsfield_). NO. 178. MARTES ABIETUM. _The Pine Marten_. HABITAT.--Ladakh and the Upper Himalayas, Afghanistan (?) [Illustration: _Martes abietum_.] DESCRIPTION.--Brown; throat yellow or yellow spotted (_Gray_). Light yellowish-grey, rather deeper in a line along the back; the hair brown; extremities blackish; chin, threat and breast white (according to Horsfield). SIZE.--About 18 to 20 inches; tail 12 inches. Horsfield remarks that the specimens received in the Indian Museum combine the peculiarities of the Pine and Beech Martens respectively, and lead to the conclusion that both are varieties of one species. This idea was prevalent some time ago, and the Beech Marten (_M. foina_) was supposed to be merely a variety of the Pine species, but there are certain differences in the skulls of the two animals. It is stated by the editor of my edition of Cuvier that, on examination of the crania of the two, he found that those of _M. abietum_ are constantly smaller, with the zygomatic arch fully twice as strong as in the other. There is also a slight difference in the teeth, the hinder upper tubercular grinder in _M. foina_ not being quite so large as in the other. The Pine Marten has a wide distribution; the finest specimens are found in Sweden; in England it is becoming scarce, but in other parts of Europe and Asia it is common. Professor Parker and his brother write of it: "This animal is essentially arboreal in its habits, inhabiting chiefly thick coniferous woods, whence its name of Pine Marten is derived. In the branches the female makes a nest of leaves or moss, and sometimes spares herself this trouble by ejecting squirrels or woodpeckers, and occupying the vacant dwellings. For its size it is, like all the Mustelidae, extremely ferocious and strong. It attacks and kills fawns, notwithstanding their superior size; from these down to mice nothing comes amiss to it, and nothing is safe from its attacks." It seems almost incredible that such a small animal should venture on such large game, but the same is reported of _M. flavigula_; and a much smaller creature, the Yellow-bellied Weasel, _M. kathiah_, is reported by Hodgson to attack even goats and sheep. NO. 179. MARTES TOUFOEUS. NATIVE NAME.--_Toufee_. HABITAT.--Thibet. DESCRIPTION (from skins only).--General colour smoky brown, darker along the spine and on the limbs, but without marks, and paler to sordid yellowish hoary on the neck and head; head palest, except the mystaceal region and chin, which are embrowned; moustache moderate and dark brown. SIZE.--Head and body about 20 to 22 inches. The above description is taken from Hodgson, who had only received imperfect skins. Jerdon just alludes to it by name, but I cannot find it mentioned by any other author. As much stress cannot be laid on colouring in these animals, I feel inclined to think that it is a variety of _Martes abietum_, probably in its dark summer coat. _GENUS MUSTELA--THE WEASELS_. These are smaller animals of the true vermiform shape; the legs are very short in comparison with the body, and the neck is very thick and very long, and the head is small, so that head, neck, and body are almost equally cylindrical, and the length of the neck gives a far, set-back appearance to the forelegs, so much so that they seem to start from behind the chest instead of in front of it. The teeth are 34 in number, or four less than in the preceding genus; upper tubercular grinder transverse or broader than long; the feet are slightly webbed, covered with hair, and the space between the pads is hairy; the tail is short; fur dark above, white or yellowish beneath. [Illustration: _Mustela_.] Some authors contend that the weasel, though commonly referred to the genus _Mustela_, should be _Putorius_, which is an instance of the disagreement which exists among naturalists. I have however followed Gray in his classification, although perhaps Cuvier, who classes the weasels and pole-cats under the genus _Putorius_, has the claim of priority. Ray applied the name of _Mustela_ to the restricted weasels, and _Martes_ to the martens, but Cuvier gives _Mustela_ to the martens, and brings the weasels and pole-cats together under _Putorius_. NO. 180. MUSTELA (VISON: _Gray_) SUB-HEMACHALANA. _The Sub-Hemachal Weasel_ (_Jerdon's No. 97_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Zimiong_, Bhotia; _Sang-king_, Lepcha; _Kran_ or _Gran_, Kashmiri. DESCRIPTION.--"Uniform bright brown, darker along the dorsal line; nose, upper lip, and forehead, with two inches of the end of the tail black-brown; mere edge of upper lip and whole of lower jaw hoary; a short longitudinal white stripe occasionally on the front of the neck, and some vague spots of the same laterally, the signs, I suspect, of immaturity; feet frequently darker than the body or dusky brown; whiskers dark; fur close, glossy and soft, of two sorts, or fine hair and soft wool, the latter and the hair basally of dusky hue, but the hair externally bright brown; head, ears, and limbs more closely clad than the body, tail more laxly, tapering to the point."--_Hodgson_. SIZE.--Head and body about 12 inches; tail, 6 inches. Jerdon calls this the Himalayan Weasel, but I have preferred to translate Hodgson's' name, which, I confess, puzzled me for some time till I found out there was a Hemachal range in Thibet. NO. 181. MUSTELA (GYMNOPUS: _Gray_) KATHIAH. _The Yellow-bellied Weasel_ (_Jerdon's No. 98_). NATIVE NAME.--_Kathia-nyal_, Nepalese. HABITAT.--Nepal, Bhotan. DESCRIPTION.--Dark brown; upper lip, chin, throat, chest, underside of body and front of thighs, bright yellow; tail dark brown, shorter than the body and head, tapering, and of the same colour to the tip; the soles of the hind feet bald; pads well developed, exposed. SIZE.--Head and body, 10 inches; tail, 5 inches. Hodgson states that a horribly offensive yellowish-grey fluid exudes from two subcaudal glands. He says that the Nepalese highly prize this little animal for its services in ridding houses of rats. It is easily tamed; and such is the dread of it common to all murine animals that not one will approach a house wherein it is domiciled. Rats and mice seem to have an instinctive sense of its hostility to them, so much so that when it is introduced into a house they are observed to hurry away in all directions, being apprised, no doubt, of its presence by the peculiar odour it emits. Its ferocity and courage are made subservient to the amusement of the rich, who train it to attack large fowls, geese, and even goats and sheep. It seizes these by the great artery of the neck, and does not quit its hold till the victim sinks exhausted from the loss of blood--a cruel pastime which one could only expect of a barbarous people. NO. 182. MUSTELA (GYMNOPUS: _Gray_) STRIGIDORSA. _The Striped Weasel_ (_Jerdon's No. 99_). HABITAT.--Sikim. DESCRIPTION.--Dark chestnut-brown, with a narrow streak of long yellow hairs down the back; edge of upper lip, chin, throat, chest, and a narrow stripe down the centre of the belly, yellow, or yellowish-white. SIZE.--Head and body, 12 inches; tail, 5-1/2 inches without the hair, 6-1/2 inches with it. This is similar to the last, but is slightly larger, and distinguishable by the dorsal stripe. NO. 183. MUSTELA ERMINEA. _The Ermine or Stoat_. HABITAT.--Europe, America and Asia (the Himalayas, Nepal, Thibet, Afghanistan). DESCRIPTION.--Brown above; upper lip, chin, and lower surface of body, inside of limbs and feet yellowish-white; tail brown, with a black tip. In winter the whole body changes to a yellowish-white, with the exception of the black tip of the tail. SIZE.--Head and body, about 10 inches; tail, 4-1/2 inches. This is about the best known in a general way from its fur being used as part of the insignia of royalty. The fur however only becomes valuable after it has completed its winter change. How this is done was for a long time a subject of speculation and inquiry. It is, however, now proved that it is according to season that the mode of alteration is effected. In spring the new hairs are brown, replacing the white ones of winter; in autumn the existing brown hairs turn white. Mr. Bell, who gave the subject his careful consideration, says that in Ross's first Polar expedition, a Hudson's Bay lemming (_Myodes_) was exposed in its summer coat to a temperature of 30 degrees below zero. Next morning the fur on the cheeks and a patch on each shoulder had become perfectly white; at the end of the week the winter change was complete, with the exception of a dark band across the shoulder and a dorsal stripe. Hodgson remarks that the Ermine is common in Thibet, where the skins enter largely into the peltry trade with China. In one year 187,000 skins were imported into England. NO. 184. MUSTELA (VISON: _Gray_) CANIGULA. _The Hoary Red-necked Weasel_. HABITAT.--Nepal hills, Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Pale reddish-brown, scarcely paler beneath; face, chin, throat, sides of neck and chest white; tail half as long as body and head, concolorous with the back; feet whitish. Sometimes chest brown and white mottled, according to Gray. Hodgson, who discovered the animal, writes: "Colour throughout cinnamon red without black tip to the tail, but the chaffron and entire head and neck below hoary." SIZE.--15-1/2 inches; tail without hair 7-1/2 inches, with hair 9-1/2 inches. NO. 185. MUSTELA STOLICZKANA. HABITAT.--Yarkand. DESCRIPTION.--Colour pale sandy brown above; hairs light at base, white below; tail concolorous with back; small white spot close to anterior angle of each eye; a sandy spot behind the gape; feet whitish. SIZE.--Head and body, 12.2; tail, 3 inches, including hair. NO. 186. MUSTELA (VISON) SIBIRICA. HABITAT.--Himalayas (Thibet?); Afghanistan (Candahar). DESCRIPTION.--Pale brown; head blackish, varied; spot on each side of nose, on upper and lower lips and front of chin, white; tail end pale brown like back, varies; throat more or less white. This Weasel, described first by Pallas ('Specil Zool.' xiv. t. 4, f. 1.) was obtained in Candahar by Captain T. Hutton, who describes it in the 'Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal,' vol. xiv. pp. 346 to 352. NO. 187. MUSTELA ALPINA. _The Alpine Weasel_. HABITAT.--Said to be found in Thibet, otherwise an inhabitant of the Altai mountains. DESCRIPTION.--Pale yellow brown; upper lip, chin, and underneath yellowish-white; head varied with black-tipped hairs; tail cylindrical, unicolour, not so long as head and body.--_Gray_. NO. 188. MUSTELA HODGSONI. HABITAT.--Himalaya, Afghanistan. DESCRIPTION.--Fur yellowish-brown, paler beneath; upper part and side of head much darker; face, chin, and throat varied with white; tail long, and bushy towards the end. NO. 189. MUSTELA (VISON) HORSFIELDI. HABITAT.--Bhotan. DESCRIPTION.--Uniform dark blackish-brown, very little paler beneath; middle of front of chin and lower lip white; whiskers black; tail slender, blackish at tip, half the length of head and body. NO. 190. MUSTELA (GYMNOPUS) NUDIPES. _Gymnopus leucocephalus_ of Gray. HABITAT.--Borneo, Sumatra, Java, but possibly Tenasserim. DESCRIPTION.--Golden fulvous with white head. As so many Malayan animals are found on the confines of Burmah, and even extending into Assam, it is probable that this species may be discovered in Tenasserim. _GENUS PUTORIUS--THE POLE-CAT_. This is a larger animal than the weasel, and in form more resembles the marten, except in the shortness of its tail; the body is stouter and the neck shorter than in _Mustela_; the head is short and ovate; the feet generally hairy, and the space between the pads very much so; the under side of the body is blackish; the fur is made up of two kinds, the shorter is woolly and lighter coloured than the longer, which is dark and shining. The disgusting smell of the common Pole-cat (_Putorius foetidus_) is well known, and has become proverbial. In my county, as well as in many parts of England, the popular name is "foumart," which is said to be derived from "foul marten." The foumart is the special abhorrence of the game-keeper; it does more damage amongst game and poultry than any of the other _Mustelidae_, and consequently greater pains are taken to trap and shoot it, in fact, so much so that I wonder that the animal is not now extinct in the British Isles. Professor Parker writes: "It has been known to kill as many as sixteen turkeys in a single night; and indeed it seems to be a point of honour with this bloodthirsty little creature to kill everything it can overpower, and to leave no survivors on its battle-fields." According to Bell, a female Pole-cat, which was tracked to her nest, was found to have laid up in a side hole a store of food consisting of forty frogs and two toads, all bitten through the brain, so that, though capable of living for some time, they were deprived of the power of escape. Now, this is a most wonderful instance of instinct bordering upon reason. Only the Reptilia can exist for any length of time after injury to the brain; to any of the smaller mammalia such a process as that adopted by the Pole-cat, would have resulted in instant death and speedy decomposition. The Ferret (_Putorius furo_) is a domesticated variety of the Pole-cat, reputed to be of African origin. Certain it is that it cannot stand extreme cold like its wild cousin, and an English winter is fatal to it if not properly looked after. It inter-breeds with the Pole-cat. Ferrets are not safe pets in houses where there are young children. Cases have been known of their attacking infants in the cradle, and severely lacerating them. They are chiefly used for killing rats and driving rabbits out of burrows; in the latter case they are muzzled. As pets they are stupid, and show but little attachment. Forbearance as regards making its teeth meet in your fingers is, I think, the utmost you can expect in return for kindness to a ferret, and that is something, considering what a sanguinary little beast it is. NO. 191. PUTORIUS LARVATUS _vel_ TIBETANUS. _Black-faced Thibetan Pole-cat_. HABITAT.--Utsang in Thibet, also Ladakh. DESCRIPTION.--"Tail one-third of entire length; soles clad; fur long; above and laterally sordid fulvous, deeply shaded on the back with black; below from throat backwards, with the whole limbs and tail, black; head pale, with a dark mask over the face."--_Hodgson_. SIZE.--Head and body, 14 inches; tail, 6 inches, with hair 7 inches; palma, 1-3/4; planta, 2-3/8. This animal, according to Gray, is synonymous with the Siberian _Putorius Eversmannii_, although the sudden contraction of the brain case in front, behind the orbit, mentioned of this species, is not perceptible in the illustration given by Hodgson of the skull of this Thibetan specimen. Horsfield, in his catalogue, states that the second specimen obtained by Captain R. Strachey in Ladakh, north of Kumaon, agreed in external character. In some respects it is similar to the European Pole-cat, but as yet little is known of its habits. NO. 192. PUTORIUS DAVIDIANUS. HABITAT.--Moupin in Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Uniform fulvous brown, yellower under the throat; upper lip and round nostrils to corner of the eye white, darker on nose and forehead. SIZE.--Head and body about 11-1/2 inches; tail, 6-1/2 inches. This is one of the specimens collected by the Abbe David, after whom it is named. A fuller description of it will be found in Milne-Edwards's 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes,' page 343. There is also a plate of the animal in the volume of illustrations. NO. 193. PUTORIUS ASTUTUS. HABITAT.--Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--About the size of Ermine, but with a longer tail. Colour brown, the white of the chest tinted with yellow; tail uniform in colour, darker on head. SIZE.--Head and body, 10 inches; tail, 4-1/5 inches. This is also described and figured by Milne-Edwards. NO. 194. PUTORIUS MOUPINENSIS. HABITAT.--Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Reddish-brown, white under the chin, and then again a patch on the chest. _LUTRIDAE--THE OTTERS_. We now come to the third group of the musteline animals, the most aquatic of all the Fissipedia--the _Lutridae_ or Otters--of which there are two great divisions, the common Otters (_Lutra_) and the Sea-Otters, (_Enhydra_). With the latter, a most interesting animal in all its ways, as well as most valuable on account of its fur, we have nothing to do. I am not aware that it is found in the tropics, but is a denizen of the North Pacific. Of _Lutra_ we have several species in two genera. Dr. Gray has divided the Otters into no less than nine genera on three characteristics, the tail, feet, and muzzle, but these have been held open to objection. The classification most to be depended upon is the division of the tribe into long-clawed Otters (_Lutra_), and short or rudimentary-clawed Otters (_Aonyx_). The characteristics of the skulls confirm this arrangement, as the short-clawed Otters are distinguishable from the others by a shorter and more globose cranium and larger molars, and, as Dr. Anderson says, "the inner portion of the last molar being the largest part of the tooth, while in _Lutra_ the outer exceeds the inner half; the almost general absence of the first upper premolar; and the rudimentary claws, which are associated with much more feebly-developed finger and toe bones, which are much tapered to a point, while in _Lutra_ these bones are strong and well developed." Gray has separated a genus, which he called _Pteronura_, on account of a flattened tail arising from a longitudinal ridge on each side, but this flattening of the tail is common to all the genera more or less. All the Otters, though active on land, are still only thoroughly at home in the water, and they are therefore specially constituted for such a mode of life. They have an elongated flattened form; webbed feet with short claws; compressed and tapering tail; dense fur of two kinds, one of long brown shining hairs; the under fur short and fine, impervious to wet, and well adapted for keeping an equality of temperature; the skull is peculiar, the brain case being very long, and compressed from above downwards; the facial portion forms only about one-fourth of the extreme length; the teeth are strong and sharp; the upper flesh tooth very large. [Illustration: Otter's skull (side and under view).] Dental formula: Inc., 3--3/3--3; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 4--4/3--3; molars, 1--1/2--2. Jerdon states that the otter has a nictitating membrane or additional semi-transparent eyelid, similar to that in the eyes of birds, which he supposes is a defence to them under water; but I have not noticed this myself, and have failed to discover it in the writings of others. I should think that the vision of the animal under water would not require obscuring by a semi-transparent membrane, which none of the marine carnivora possess, though their eyes are somewhat formed for seeing better under water than when exposed to the full light above. Some idea of the rapidity of these animals in the water may be conceived when we think that their food is almost exclusively fish, of which they sometimes kill more than they can eat. They reside in burrows, making the entrance under water, and working upwards, making a small hole for the ventilation of their chamber. The female has about four or five young ones at a time, after a period of gestation of about nine weeks, and the mother very soon drives them forth to shift for themselves in the water. For a pretty picture of young otters at play in the water, nothing could be better than the following description from Kingsley's 'Water Babies':-- "Suddenly Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream--cooing, grunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into a bag two stock-doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, and left them there to settle themselves and make music. He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the noise: a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one moment of soft brown fur; and the next of shining glass, and yet it was not a ball, for sometimes it broke up and streamed away in pieces, and then it joined again; and all the while the noise came out of it louder and louder. Tom asked the dragon-fly, what it could be: but of course with his short sight he could not even see it, though it was not ten yards away. So he took the neatest little header into the water, and started off to see for himself; and when he came near, the ball turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, in the most charming fashion that ever was seen. And if you don't believe me you may go to the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid you won't see it nearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, and go down to Cordery's Moor, and watch by the great withy pollard which hangs over the back-water, where the otters breed sometimes), and then say if otters at play in the water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures you ever saw." Professor Parker, who also notices Kingsley's description,[9] states that the Canadian otter has a peculiar habit in winter of sliding down ridges of snow, apparently for amusement. It, with its companions, scrambles up a high ridge, and then, lying down flat, glides head-foremost down the declivity, sometimes for a distance of twenty yards. "This sport they continue apparently with the keenest enjoyment, until fatigue or hunger induces them to desist." [Footnote 9: In fact it was his quotation that induced me to buy a copy of that most charming little book, which I recommend every one to read.--R. A. S.] The following are the Indian species; _Lutra nair_, _L. simung vel monticola_, _L. Ellioti_, and _L. aurobrunnea_ of the long-clawed family, and _Aonyx leptonyx_ of the short-clawed. _GENUS LUTRA_. NO. 195. LUTRA NAIR. _The Common Indian Otter_ (_Jerdon's No. 100_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Ud_ or _Ood_, _Ood-bilao_, _Panikutta_, Hindi; _Nir-nai_, Canarese; _Neeru-kuka_, Telegu; _Jal-manjer_, Mahratti. HABITAT.--India generally, Burmah and Ceylon. [Illustration: _Lutra nair_.] DESCRIPTION.--Hair more or less brown above, sometimes with a chestnut hue, sometimes grizzled, or with a tinge of dun; yellowish-white, or with a fulvescent tinged white below; the throat, upper lip, and sides of head are nearly white; the line of separation of upper and lower parts not very distinctly marked. Some have whitish paws. SIZE.--Head and body, 29 to 30 inches; tail about 17 inches. This otter, which is synonymous with _L. Indica_, _L. Chinensis_ and Hodgson's _L. Tarayensis_, is well known throughout India, and indeed far beyond Indian limits. They are generally found in secluded spots, in parties of about half a dozen hunting in concert. The young ones are easily tamed, and become greatly attached if kindly treated. I had one for some time. Jerdon tells a curious story of one he had, and which used to follow him in his walks. He says: "As it grew older it took to going about by itself, and one day found its way to the bazaar and seized a large fish from a moplah. When resisted, it showed such fight that the rightful owner was fain to drop it. Afterwards it took regularly to this highway style of living, and I had on several occasions to pay for my pet's dinner rather more than was necessary, so I resolved to get rid of it. I put it in a closed box, and, having kept it without food for some time, I conveyed it myself in a boat some seven or eight miles off, up some of the numerous back-waters on this coast. I then liberated it, and, when it had wandered out of sight in some inundated paddy-fields, I returned by boat by a different route. That same evening, about nine whilst in the town about one and a-half miles from my own house, witnessing some of the ceremonials connected with the Mohurrum festival, the otter entered the temporary shed, walked across the floor, and came and lay down at my feet!" It is to be hoped Dr. Jerdon did not turn him adrift again; such wonderful sagacity and attachment one could only expect in a dog. McMaster gives the following interesting account of otters hunting on the Chilka Lake: "Late one morning I saw a party, at least six in number, leave an island on the Chilka Lake and swim out, apparently to fish their way to another island, or the mainland, either at least two miles off. I followed them for more than half the distance in a small canoe. They worked most systematically in a semicircle, with intervals of about fifty yards between each, having, I suppose, a large shoal of fish in the centre, for every now and then an otter would disappear, and generally, when it was again seen, it was well inside the semicircle with a fish in its jaws, caught more for pleasure than for profit, as the fish, as far as I could see, were always left behind untouched beyond a single bite. I picked up several of these fish, which, as far as I can recollect, were all mullet." Kingsley notices this. The old otter tells Tom: "We catch them, but we disdain to eat them all; we just bite out their soft throats and suck their sweet juice--oh, so good!" (and she licked her wicked lips)--"and then throw them away, and go and catch another." General McMaster also quotes from a letter by "W. C. R." in the _Field_ about the end of 1868, which gives a very curious incident of a crocodile stealing up to a pack of otters fishing, and got within thirty yards; "but no sooner was the water broken by the hideous head of the reptile, than an otter, which evidently was stationed on the opposite bank as a sentinel, sounded the alarm by a whistling sort of sound. In an instant those in the water rushed to the bank and disappeared among the jungle, no doubt much to the disgust of the _mugger_." I have not heard any one allude to the offensive glands of the Indian otter, but I remember once dissecting one and incautiously cutting into one of these glands, situated, I think, near the tail. It is now over twenty years ago, so I cannot speak with authority, but I remember the abominable smell, which quite put a stop to my researches at the time. This otter is trained in some parts of India, in the Jessore district and Sunderbunds of Bengal, to drive fish into nets. In China a species there is driven into the water with a cord round its waist, which is hauled in when the animal has caught a fish. NO. 196. LUTRA MONTICOLA _vel_ SIMUNG. (_Jerdon's No. 101_). HABITAT.--Nepal, Sumatra, and Borneo. DESCRIPTION.--"The colour is more rufous umber-brown than _L. nair_, and does not exhibit any tendency to grizzling, and the under surface is only somewhat hoary, well washed with brownish; the chin and edge of the lips are whitish; and the silvery hoary on the sides of the head, on the throat, and on the under surface of the neck and of the chest is marked; the tail above and below is concolorous with the trunk. The length of the skeleton of an adult female, measured from the tip of the premaxillaries to the end of the sacral vertebrae, is 23.25, and the tail measures 17.75 inches" (_Anderson_). Of the Sumatran specimen the first notice was published in 1785 in the first edition of Marsden's 'History of Sumatra.' This otter is larger than the common Indian one, the skull of a female, as given by Dr. Anderson, exceeding in all points that of male of _Lutra nair_. Jerdon has this as _Lutra vulgaris_, which is the common English otter, but there is a difference in the skull. NO. 197. LUTRA ELLIOTI. HABITAT.--Southern Mahratta country. DESCRIPTION.--The colouring is the same as the last, only a little darker; the distribution of the silvery white is the same; the muzzle is however more depressed than in the last species, and it differs from _L. nair_ by a broader, more arched head, and shorter muzzle. Dr. Anderson, who distinguishes it by the feature of its skull from the two preceding species, says: "It may be that this otter has a north-westerly distribution, and that it is the species which occurs in the lake at Mount Abu in Rajputana, and also in Sindh and in the Indus." NO. 198. LUTRA AUROBRUNNEA. HABITAT.--Nepal. DESCRIPTION.--Fur of a rich ferruginous brown colour, the upper surface of the head being a deeper brown than the back; the nose is bare; the ears are small and pointed posteriorily. All the strong bristles of the moustache, eyes, cheeks, and chin, are dark brown; claws as in _Lutra_ (_Anderson_). Hodgson says it has a more vermiform body than the rest of Indian otters; tail less than two thirds of the body; nails and toes feebly developed (whence it is classed by Gray in the next genus); fur long and rough, rich chestnut-brown above, golden red below and on the extremities. SIZE.--Head and body, 20 to 22 inches; tail, 12 to 13 inches. _GENUS AONYX--CLAWLESS OTTERS_. Muzzle bald, oblong; skull broad, depressed, shorter and more globose than in _Lutra_; the molars larger than in the last genus; flesh tooth larger, and with a large internal lobe; first upper premolar generally absent; feet oblong, elongate; toes slender and tapering; claws rudimentary. NO. 199. AONYX LEPTONYX. _The Clawless Otter_ (_Jerdon's No. 102_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Chusam_, Bhotia; _Suriam_, Lepcha. HABITAT.--Throughout the Himalayas, also in Lower Bengal and in Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--"Above earthy brown or chestnut brown; lips, sides of head, chin, throat, and upper part of breast white, tinged with yellowish-grey. In young individuals the white of the lower parts is less distinct, sometimes very pale brownish."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 24 Inches; tail, 13. Mason speaks of this species as common in Burmah, and McMaster mentions his having seen in the Sitang River a colony of white-throated otters smaller than _L. nair_, though larger than _L. aurobrunnea_, but he did not secure specimens. AELUROIDEA. This section includes the Cat family (_Felidae_); the Hyaenas (_Hyaenidae_); two families unknown in India, viz. the _Cryptoproctidae_ and the _Protelidae_; and the Civet family (_Viverridae_). _FELIDAE--THE CAT FAMILY_. This family contains the typical carnivores. There is in them combined the greatest power of destruction, accompanied by the simplest mechanism for producing it. All complications of dentition and digestion disappear. Here are the few scissor-like teeth with the enormous canines, the latter for holding and piercing the life out of their prey, the former for chopping up the flesh into suitable morsels for swallowing. Then the stomach is a simple sac, undivided into compartments, and the intestine is short, not more than three times the length of the body, instead of being some twenty times longer, as in some herbivores. This family has the smallest number of molars, a class of tooth which would indeed be useless, for the construction of the feline jaw precludes the possibility of grinding, and therefore a flat-crowned tuberculous tooth would be out of place. As I have before described it, the jaw of a tiger is incapable of lateral motion. The condyle of the lower jaw is so broad, and fits so accurately into its socket, the glenoid cavity, that there can be no departure from the up and down scissor-like action. The true Cats have, therefore, only one molar on each side of each jaw; those in the upper jaw being merely rudimentary, and placed almost at right angles to the rest of the teeth, and seem apparently of little use; those of the lower jaw are large and trenchant, cutting against the edge of the third upper premolar. [Illustration: Skull of Tiger (side view).] It may interest my readers to know which are premolars and which are molars. This can be decided only by dissection of the jaw of a young animal. True molars only appear as the animal approaches the adult stage. They are never shed, as are all the rest of the teeth, commonly called milk teeth. The deciduous or milk teeth are the incisors, canines, and premolars; they drop out and are replaced, and behind the last premolar comes up the permanent molar. Another peculiar feature of the Cat family is the power of sheathing their talons. Claws to a cat are of as great importance to him in the securing of his prey as are his teeth. The badger is a digger, Hodge, who carries his mattock on his shoulder; but the feline is the free-lance whose sword must be kept keen in its scabbard, so by a peculiar arrangement of muscles the points of the claws are kept off the ground, while the animal treads noiselessly on soft pads. Otherwise by constant abrasion they would get so blunted as to fail in their penetrating and seizing power. I give here an illustration of the mechanism of the feline claw. In the upper sketch the claw is retracted or sheathed; in the lower it is protruded as in the act of striking. [Illustration: Tendons of Tiger's toe.] [Illustration: Tiger's auditory apparatus.] The senses of hearing and smell are much developed, and the bulb of the ear (_bulla tympani_) is here found of the largest dimensions. I have once before alluded to this in writing of the bears, in whom this arrangement is deficient. I give here a section of the auditory apparatus. I do not know whether the engraver has effectually rendered my attempt at conveying an idea, based as it is on dissections by Professor Flower; but if he has failed I think the fault lies in the shakiness of my hand in attempting the fine shading after nearly breaking a saw and losing my temper over a very tough old skull which I divided before commencing my illustration. The great cavity is the _bulla tympani_ or bulb of the ear; _a m_ is the _auditory meatus_ or external hole of the ear. On looking into a dry skull the passage seems to be of no great depth, nor can an instrument be passed directly from the outside into the great tympanic cavity, the hindrance being a wall of bone, _s_, the _septum_ which divides the _bulla_ into two distinct chambers, the reason for which is not very clear, except that one may suppose it to be in some measure for acoustic purposes, as all animals with this development are quick of hearing. The communication between the two chambers lies in a narrow slit over the _septum_, the Eustachian tube, _e_, being on the outside of the _septum_ and between it and the tympanum or ear drum, _t_. The above are the chief characteristics of the family. For the rest we may notice that they have but a rudimentary clavicle imbedded among the muscles; the limbs are comparatively short, but immensely muscular; the body lithe and active; the foot-fall noiseless; the tongue armed with rough papillae, which enables them to rasp the flesh off bones, and their vision is adapted for both night and day. None of them are gregarious, as in the case of dogs and wolves. One hears sometimes of a limited number of lions and tigers being seen together, but in most cases they belong to one family, of which the junior members have not been "turned off on their own hook" as yet. _GENUS FELIS_. NO. 200. FELIS LEO. _The Lion_ (_Jerdon's No. 103_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Sher-babbar_, _Singh_, _Unthia-bagh_. HABITAT.--Guzerat and Central India. [Illustration: _Felis leo_ (Indian variety).] DESCRIPTION.--The lion is almost too well known to need description, and there is little difference between the Asiatic and African animal. It may, however, be generally described as being distinguished from other Cats by its uniform tawny colour, flatter skull, which gives it a more dog-like appearance, the shaggy mane of the male, and by the tufted tail of both sexes. SIZE.--From nose to insertion of tail, 6 to 6-1/2 feet; tail, 2-1/2 to 3 feet; height, 3-1/2 feet. The weight of one measured by Captain Smee, 8 feet 9-1/2 inches, was (excluding the entrails) thirty-five stone. This must be the one alluded to by Jerdon, but he does not state the extraction of the viscera, which would add somewhat to the weight. Young lions when born are invariably spotted; and Professor Parker states that there were in the Zoological Gardens in 1877 three lions which were born in the menagerie about ten years previously, and which showed "indistinct, though perfectly evident, spots of a slightly darker tawny than the general ground-tint on the belly and flanks." He adds: "This is also the case with the puma, and it looks very much as if all the great Cats were descended from a spotted ancestor." The more dog-like head of the lion is well known to all who have studied the physiognomy of the Cats, and I have not only noticed it in drawing the animal, but have seen it alluded to in the writings of others. It was not, however, till lately that I had an opportunity of comparing the skulls of the lion and tiger in the Calcutta Museum, and I am indebted to Mr. Cockburn of the museum, not only for the trouble he took in getting out the various skulls, but for his assistance in pointing out certain peculiarities known to him, but of which I was at the time ignorant. That the skull of the lion is flatter than, and wants the bold curve of, those of the tiger, leopard and jaguar, is a well-known fact, but what Mr. Cockburn pointed out to me was the difference in the maxillary and nasal sutures of the face. A glance at two skulls placed side by side would show at once what I mean. It would be seen that the nasal bones of the tiger run up higher than those of the lion, the apices of whose nasal and maxillary sutures are on a level. On leaving the museum I compared the tiger skulls in my possession with accurate anatomical drawings which I have of the osteology of the lion, and the result was the same. It is said that there is also a difference in the infra-orbital foramen of the two animals, but this I have failed to detect as yet, though asserted by De Blainville in his magnificent work on osteology ('Osteographie'). From all that has been written of the African and Indian lions I should say that the tiger was the more formidable of the two, as he is, I believe, superior in size. About twenty-two years ago my attention was drawn to this subject by the perusal of Mr. Blyth's article on the _Felidae_ in the old _India Sporting Review_ of 1856-57. If I am not mistaken there was at that time (1861) a fine skeleton of a lion in the museum, as well as those of several tigers, which I measured. I had afterwards opportunities of observing and comparing skeletons of the two animals in various museums in Europe, though not in my own country, for my stay in England on each occasion of furlough was brief, and in almost every instance I found the tiger the larger of the two. The book in which I recorded my observations, and which also contained a number of microscopic drawings of marine infusoria, collected during a five months' voyage, was afterwards lost, so I cannot now refer to my notes. I believe there was once a case of a fair fight between a well-matched lion and tiger in a menagerie (Edmonds's, I think). The two, by the breaking of a partition, got together, and could not be separated. The duel resulted in the victory of the tiger, who killed his opponent. The lion seems to be dying out in India, and it is now probably confined only to Guzerat and Cutch. I have not been an attentive reader of sporting magazines of late years, and therefore I cannot call to mind any recent accounts of lion-killing in India, if any such have been recorded. At the commencement of this century lions were to be found in the North-West and in Central India, including the tract of country now termed the Central Provinces. In 1847 or 1848 a lioness was killed by a native shikari in the Dumoh district. Dr. Spry, in his 'Modern India,' states that, when at Saugor in the Central Provinces in 1837, the skin of a full-grown male lion was brought to him, which had been shot by natives in the neighbourhood. He also mentions another lioness shot at Rhylee in the Dumoh district in 1834, of which he saw the skin. Jerdon says that tolerably authentic intelligence was received of the presence of lions near Saugor in 1856; and whilst at Seonee, within the years 1857 to 1864, I frequently heard the native shikaris speak of having seen a tiger _without stripes_, which may have been of the present species. The indistinct spots on the lion's skin (especially of young lions), to which I have before alluded, were noticed in the skin of the lioness shot at Dumoh in 1847. The writer says: "when you place it in the sun and look sideways at it, some very faint spots (the size of a shilling or so) are to be seen along the belly." Lions pair off at each season, and for the time they are together they show great attachment to each other, but the male has to fight for his spouse, who bestows herself on the victor. They then live together till the young are able to shift for themselves. The lioness goes with young about fifteen or sixteen weeks, and produces from two to six at a litter. But there is great mortality among young lions, especially about the time when they are developing their canine teeth. This has been noticed in menageries, confirming a common Arab assertion. In the London Zoological Gardens, during the last twenty years, there has been much mortality among the lion cubs by a malformation of the palate. It is a curious fact that lions breed more readily in travelling menageries than in stationary ones. NO. 201. FELIS TIGRIS. _The Tiger_ (_Jerdon's No. 104_). NATIVE NAME.--_Bagh_, _Sher_, Hindi; _Sela-vagh_, _Go-vagh_, Bengali; _Wuhag_, Mahrathi; _Nahar_ in Bundelkund and Central India; _Tut_ of the hill people of Bhagulpore; _Nongya-chor_ in Gorukpore; _Puli_ in Telegu and Tamil; also _Pedda-pulli_ in Telegu; _Parain-pulli_ in Malabar; _Huli_ in Caranese; _Tagh_ in Tibet; _Suhtong_ in Lepcha; _Tukh_ in Bhotia. These names are according to Jerdon. _Bagh_ and _Sher_ all Indian sportsmen are familiar with. The Gonds of the Central Provinces call it _Pullial_, which has an affinity with the southern dialects. HABITAT.--The tiger, as far as we are concerned, is known throughout the Indian peninsula and away down the eastern countries to the Malayan archipelago. In Ceylon it is not found, but it extends to the Himalayas, and ranges up to heights of 6000 to 8000 feet. Generally speaking it is confined to Asia, but in that continent it has a wide distribution. It has been found as far north as the island of Saghalien, which is bisected by N. L. 50 degrees. This is its extreme north-eastern limit, the Caspian Sea being its westerly boundary. From parallel 50 degrees downwards it is found in many parts of the highlands of central Asia. [Illustration: Head of Tiger.] DESCRIPTION.--A large heavy bodied Cat, much developed in the fore-quarters, with short, close hair of a bright rufous ground tint from every shade of pale yellow ochre to burnt sienna, with black stripes arranged irregularly and seldom in two individuals alike, the stripes being also irregular in form, from single streaks to loops and broad bands. In some the brows and cheeks are white, and in all the chin, throat, breast, and belly are pure white. All parts, however, whether white or rufous, are equally pervaded by the black stripes. The males have prolonged hairs extending from the ears round the cheeks, forming a ruff, or whiskers as they are sometimes called, although the true whiskers are the labial bristles. The pupil of the tiger's eye is round, and not vertical, as stated by Jerdon. SIZE.--Here we come to a much-vexed question, on which there is much divergence of opinion, and the controversy will never be decided until sportsmen have adopted a more correct system of measurement. At present the universal plan is to measure the animal as it lies on the ground, taking the tape from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail. I will undertake that no two men will measure the same tiger with equal results if the body be at all disturbed between the two operations. If care be not taken to raise the head so as to bring the plane of the skull in a line with the vertebrae, the downward deflection will cause increased measurement. Let any one try this on the next opportunity, or on the dead body of a cat. Care should be taken in measuring that the head be raised, so that the top of the skull be as much as possible in a line with the vertebrae. A stake should be then driven in at the nose and another close in at the root of the tail, and the measurement taken between the two stakes, and not round the curves. The tail, which is an unimportant matter, but which in the present system of measurement is a considerable factor, should be measured and noted separately. I am not a believer in tails (or tales), and have always considered that they should be excluded from measurements except as an addition. I spoke of this in 'Seonee' in the following terms: "If all tigers were measured honestly, a twelve-foot animal would never be heard of. All your big fellows are measured from stretched skins, and are as exaggerated as are the accounts of the dangers incurred in killing them--at least in many cases. But even the true method of measuring the unskinned animal is faulty; it is an apparent fact that a tail has very little to do with the worthiness of a creature, otherwise our bull-dogs would have their caudal appendages left in peace. Now every shikari knows that there may be a heavy tiger with a short tail and a light bodied one with a long tail. Yet the measurement of each would be equal, and give no criterion as to the size of the brute. Here's this tiger of yours; I call him a heavy one, twenty-eight inches round the fore-arm, and big in every way, yet his measurement does not sound large (it was 9 feet 10 inches), and had he six inches more tail he would gain immensely by it in reputation. The biggest panther I ever shot had a stump only six inches long; and according to the usual system of measuring he would have read as being a very small creature indeed." Tails do vary. Sir Walter Elliot was a very careful observer, and in his comparison of the two largest males and two largest females, killed between 1829 and 1833, out of 70 to 80 specimens, it will be seen that the largest animal in each sex had the shortest tail:-- --------------------------------------------------------------- | Adult Male. | Adult Female. ------------------------+-------------------+------------------ | ft. in. | ft. in. | ft. in. | ft. in. Length of head and body | 6 2 | 5 6 | 5 3-1/2 | 5 2 | | | | Length of tail | 3 1-1/2 | 3 3 | 2 11 | 3 2 |---------+---------|---------|-------- | 9 3-1/2 | 8 9 | 8 2-1/2 | 8 4 --------------------------------------------------------------- Campbell, in his notes to 'The Old Forest-Ranger,' gives the dimensions of a tiger of 9 ft. 5 in. of which the tail was only 2 ft. 10 in. From the other detailed measurements it must have been an enormous tiger. The number of caudal vertebrae in the tiger and lion should be twenty-six. I now regret that I did not carefully examine the osteology of all short-tailed tigers which I have come across, to see whether they had the full complement of vertebrae. The big tiger in the museum is short by the six terminal joints = three inches. This may have occurred during life, as in the case of the above-quoted panther; anyhow the tail should, I think, be thrown out of the calculation. Now as to the measurement of the head and body, I quite acknowledge that there must be a different standard for the sportsman and for the scientific naturalist. For the latter the only reliable data are derived from the bones. Bones cannot err. Except in very few abnormal conditions the whole skeleton is in _accurate_ proportion, and it has lately struck me that from a certain measurement of the skull a true estimate might be formed of the length of the skeleton, and approximately the size of the animal over the muscles. I at first thought of taking the length of the skull by a craniometer, and seeing what portion of the total length to the posterior edge of the sacrum it would be, but I soon discarded the idea on account of the variation in the supra-occipital process. [Illustration: Tiger's skull (under part).] I then took the palatal measurement, from the outer edge of the border in which the incisors are set to the anterior inside edge of the brain-hole, or foramen magnum, and I find that this standard is sufficiently accurate, and is 5.50 of the length taken from the tip of the premaxillaries to the end of the sacrum. Therefore the length of this portion of any tiger's skull multiplied by 5.50 will give the measurement of the head and body of the skeleton. For the purpose of working out these figures I applied to all my sporting friends for measurements of their largest skulls, with a view to settling the question about tigers exceeding eleven feet. The museum possesses the skeleton of a tiger which was considered one of the largest known, the cranial measurement of whose skull is 14.50 inches, but the Maharajah of Cooch Behar showed me one of his skulls which exceeded it, being 15 inches. Amongst others I wrote to Mr. J. Shillingford of Purneah, and he most kindly not only drew up for me a tabular statement of the dimensions of the finest skulls out of his magnificent collection, but sent down two for my inspection. Now in the long-waged war of opinion regarding the size of tigers I have always kept a reserved attitude, for if I have never myself killed, or have seen killed by others, a tiger exceeding ten feet, I felt that to be no reason for doubting the existence of tigers of eleven feet in length vouched for by men of equal and in some cases greater experience, although at the same time I did not approve of a system of measurement which left so much to conjecture. There is much to be said on both sides, and, as much yet remains to be investigated, it is to be hoped that the search after the truth will be carried on in a judicial spirit. I have hitherto been ranged on the side of the moderate party; still I was bound to respect the opinion of Sir Joseph Fayrer, who, as not only as a sportsman but as an anatomist, was entitled to attention; and from my long personal acquaintance I should implicitly accept any statement made by him. Dr. Jerdon, whom I knew intimately, was not, I may safely assert, a great tiger shikari, and he based his opinion on evidence and with great caution. Mr. J. Shillingford, from whom I have received the greatest assistance in my recent investigations, and who has furnished me with much valuable information, is on the other hand the strenuous assertor of the existence of the eleven-foot tiger, and with the magnificent skulls before me, which he has sent down from Purneah, I cannot any longer doubt the size of the Bengal tiger, and that the animals to which they belonged were eleven feet, _measured sportsman fashion_--that is round the curves. The larger of the two skulls measures 15.25 inches taken between two squares, placed one at each end; a tape taken from the edge of the premaxillaries over the curve of the head gives 17.37 inches; the width across the zygomatic arches, 10.50.[10] The palatal measurement, which is the test I proposed for ascertaining the length of the skeleton, is 12.25, which would give 5 feet 7.37 inches; about 3-3/4 inches larger than the big skeleton in the Museum. This may seem very small for the body of an animal which is supposed to measure eleven feet, but I must remind my readers that the bones of the biggest tiger look very small when denuded of the muscles; and the present difficulty I have to contend with is how to strike the average rate for the allowance to be added to skeleton for muscles, the chief stumbling block being the system which has hitherto included the tail in the measurement. It all tigers had been measured as most other animals (except felines) are--i.e. head and body together, and then the tail separately--I might have had some more reliable data to go upon; but I hope in time to get some from such sportsmen as are interested in the subject. I have shown that the tail is not trustworthy as a proportional part of the total length; but from such calculations as I have been able to make from the very meagre materials on which I have to base them, I should allow one 2.50th part of the total length of skeleton for curves and muscles. [Footnote 10: At Mr. Shillingford's request, I made over this skull to the Calcutta Museum.] In addition to a careful study of De Blainville's 'Osteographie,' where the bones are figured in large size to scale, I have made many careful measurements of skulls belonging to myself and friends, and also of the skulls and skeletons in the Calcutta Museum (for most willing and valuable assistance in which I am indebted to Mr. J. Cockburn, who, in order to test my calculations, went twice over the ground); and I have adopted the following formula as a tentative measure. I quite expect to be criticised, but if the crude idea can be improved on by others I shall be glad. I now give a tabular statement of four out of many calculations made, but I must state that in fixing an arbitrary standard of 36 inches for tail, I have understated the mark, for the tails of most tigers exceed that by an inch or two, though, on the other hand, some are less. _Formula_.--Measure from the tip of the premaxillaries or outer insertion of the front teeth (incisors) along the palate to the nearest inner edge of the foramen magnum. Multiply the result by 5.50. This will give the length of the skeleton, excluding the tail. Divide this result by 2.50, and add the quotient to the length for the proportionate amount of muscles and gain in curves. Add 36 inches for tail. ---------------------------------------------------------------- | Palatal | Add one | | | measure- | 2.50th | | | ment | part of | | | multi- | last for | | | plied | curves | | | by | and | | Total. | 5.50. | muscles. | Tail. | inches ft. in. -------------------+----------+----------+-------+-------------- Mr. Shillingford's | 67.37 | 26.94 | 36.00 | 130.31 10 10 tiger | | | | | | | | Big tiger in | 63.52 | 25.40 | 36.00 | 124.92 10 4-3/4 museum | | | | | | | | Maharajah of Cooch | 66.00 | 26.40 | 36.00 | 128.40 10 8.4 Behar's tiger | | | | | | | | A medium-sized one | 55.75 | 23.10 | 36.00 | 116.85 9 8-3/4 of my own | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------- Remarks: Mr. Shillingford's tiger's tail was over 3 ft. 2 in., which would make it 11 ft. The Maharajah writes to me that his measured on the ground 9 ft. 11 in. See further on. ---------------------------------------------------------------- It will be seen that my calculation is considerably out in the Cooch Behar tiger, so I asked the Maharajah to tell me, from the appearance of the skull, whether the animal was young or old. He sent it over to me, and I have no hesitation in saying that it was that of a young tiger, who, in another year, might have put on the extra nine inches; the parietal sutures, which in the old tiger (as in Mr. Shillingford's specimens) are completely obliterated, are in this one almost open. It must be remembered that the bones of the skull do not grow in the same ratio to the others, and that they attain their full size before those of the rest of the body. Therefore it is only in the case of the adult that accurate results can be calculated upon. Probably I have not done wisely in selecting a portion of the skull as a standard--a bone of the body, such as a femur or humerus might be more reliable--but I was driven to it by circumstances. Sportsmen, as a rule, do not keep anything but the skull, and for general purposes it would have been of no use my giving as a test what no one could get hold of except in a museum. I have always understood that the tiger of the plains grew to a greater size, that is in length, than the tiger of hilly country. I have never shot a tiger in Lower Bengal, therefore I cannot judge of the form of the beast, whether he be more lanky or not. If an eleven-foot Bengal tiger be anything like as robust in proportion as our Central Indian ones, I should say he was an enormous creature, but I believe the Central and Southern tiger to be the heavier one, and this is borne out by an illustration given by Mr. Shillingford in one of his able letters, which have called forth so much hostile criticism. He compares one of his largest with the measurement of a Southern India tiger:-- -------------------------------------------------------- Locality of Tiger. | Purneah | Southern India Length. | 11 ft. 0 in. | 10 ft. 2 in. Girth of Chest. | 4 ft. 6 in. | 6 ft. 1 in. Girth of Head. | 2 ft. 10 in. | 3 ft. 5 in. Tail. | 3 ft. 4 in. | 3 ft. 1 in. Round Fore-arm. | 2 ft. 2 in. | 2 ft. 10 in. Height. | 3 ft. 7 in. | 3 ft. 9 in. Total of ft. and in. | 27 ft. 5 in. | 29 ft. 4 in. -------------------------------------------------------- The shorter tiger has an advantage of nearly two feet in all-round measurement. Sir Joseph Fayrer has also been called in question for his belief in twelve feet tigers, but what he says is reasonable enough. "The tiger should be measured from the nose along the spine to the tip of the tail, as he lies dead on the spot where he fell, before the skin is removed. _One that is ten feet by this measurement is large, and the full-grown male does not often exceed this_, though no doubt larger individuals (males) are occasionally seen, and I have been informed by Indian sportsmen of reliability that they have seen and killed tigers over twelve feet in length." ('Royal Tiger of Bengal,' p. 29). Sir Joseph Fayrer in a letter to _Nature_, June 27, 1878, brings forward the following evidence of large tigers shot by sportsmen whose names are well known in India. Lieutenant-Colonel Boileau killed a tiger at Muteara in Oude, in 1861, over 12 feet; the skin when removed measured 13 feet 5 inches. Sir George Yule has heard once of a 12-foot tiger fairly measured, but 11 feet odd inches is the largest he has killed, _and that twice or thrice_. Colonel Ramsay (Commissioner) killed in Kumaon a tiger measuring 12 feet. Sir Joseph Fayrer has seen and killed tigers over 10 feet, and one in Purneah 10 feet 8 inches, in 1869. Colonel J. Sleeman does not remember having killed a tiger _over_ 10 feet 6 inches in the skin. Colonel J. MacDonald has killed one 10 feet 4 inches. The Honourable R. Drummond, C.S., killed a tiger 11 feet 9 inches, measured before being skinned. Colonel Shakespeare killed one 11 feet 8 inches. However, conceding that all this proves that tigers do reach occasionally to eleven and even twelve feet, it does not take away from the fact that the average length is between nine and ten feet, and anything up to eleven feet is rare, and up to twelve feet still more so.[11] [Footnote 11: Since writing the above I have to thank "Meade Shell" for the measurements of the skull of a tiger 11 ft. 6 in. The palatal measurement is 12 inches, which, according to my formula, would give only 10 ft. 8 in.; but it must be remembered that I have allowed only 3 ft. for the tail, whereas such a tiger would probably have been from 3-1/2 to 4 ft., which would quite bring it up to the length vouched for. The tail of a skeleton of a much smaller tiger in the museum measures 3 ft. 3-1/2 in., which with skin and hair would certainly have been 3-1/2 ft. Until sportsmen begin to measure bodies and tails separately it will, I fear, be a difficult matter to fix on any correct formula.--R. A. S. See Appendix _C_.] VARIETIES OF THE TIGER.--It is universally acknowledged that there is but one species of tiger. There are, however, several marked varieties. The distinction between the Central Asian and the Indian tiger is unmistakable. The coat of the Indian animal is of smooth, short hair; that of the Northern one of a deep furry pelage, of a much richer appearance. There is an idea which is also to be found stated as a fact in some works on natural history, that the Northern tiger is of a pale colour with few stripes, which arises from Swinhoe having so described some specimens from Northern China; but I have not found this to be confirmed in those skins from Central Asia which I have seen. Shortly before leaving London, in 1878, Mr. Charles Reuss, furrier, in Bond Street, showed me a beautiful skin with deep soft hair, abundantly striped on a rich burnt sienna ground, admirably relieved by the pure white of the lower parts. That light-coloured specimens are found is true, but I doubt whether they are more common than the others. Of the varieties in India it is more difficult to speak. Most sportsmen recognise two (some three)--the stout thick-set tiger of hilly country, and the long-bodied lankier one of the grass jungles in the plains. Such a division is in consonance with the ordinary laws of nature, which we also see carried out in the thick-set muscular forms of the human species in mountain tracts. Some writers, however, go further, and attempt subdivisions more or less doubtful. I knew the late Captain J. Forsyth most intimately for years. We were in the same house for some time. I took an interest in his writings, and helped to illustrate his last work, and I can bear testimony to the general accuracy of his observations and the value of his book on the Highlands of Central India; but in some things he formed erroneous ideas, and his three divisions, based on the habits of the tiger, is, I think, open to objection, as tending to create an idea of at least two distinct varieties. Native shikaris, he says, recognise two kinds--the _Lodhia Bagh_ and the _Oontia Bagh_ (which last I may remind my readers is one of the names of the lion). The former is the _game-killing_ tiger, retired in his habits, living chiefly among the hills, retreating readily from man. "He is a light-made beast, very active and enduring, and from this, as well as his shyness, generally difficult to bring to bag." I grant his shyness and comparative harmlessness (I once met one almost face to face)--and the nature of the ground he inhabits increases the difficulty in securing him--but I do not think he physically differs from his brother in the cattle districts. Mr. Sanderson says one of the largest tigers he had killed was a pure game-killer. "The cattle-lifter again," says Forsyth, "is usually an older and heavier animal (called _Oontia Bagh_, from his faintly striped coat, resembling the colour of a camel), very fleshy and indisposed to severe exertion." His third division is the man-eater. However, this is merely a classification on the habits of the same animal. I think most Central India sportsmen will agree with me when I say that many a young tiger is a cattle-eater, with a rich coloured hide, although it often happens that an old tiger of the first division, when he finds his powers for game failing by reason of age or increased bulk, transfers himself from the borders of the forest to the vicinity of grazing lands and villages, and he ultimately may come into the third division by becoming a man-eater. So that the _Lodhia_ becomes the _Oontia_ (for very old tigers become lighter in colour), and may end by being an _Adam-khor_, or man-eater. Tigers roam a great deal at times, and if in their wanderings they come to a suitable locality with convenience of food and water, they abide there, provided there be no occupant with a prior claim and sufficient power to dispute the intrusion. We had ample proof of this at Seonee. Close to the station, that is, within a short ride, were several groups of hills which commanded the pasture lands of the town. Many a tiger has been killed there, the place of the slain one being occupied ere long by another. On the other hand, if a tiger be accommodated with lodgings to his liking, he will stay there for years, roaming a certain radius, but returning to his home; and it is the knowledge of this that so often enables the hunter to compass his destruction. As long therefore as there are human habitations, with their usual adjuncts of herds and flocks, within a dozen miles of the jungle tiger's haunts, so long there will always be the transition from the game-killer to the cattle-lifter and the man-eater. Colour and striping must also be thrown out of the question, for no two individuals of any variety agree, and the characteristics of shade and marking are common to all kinds. The only reliable data therefore are derived from measurements, and from these it may be proved that the grass-jungle tiger of Bengal, though the longer animal, is yet inferior in all round measurement and probably in weight to the tiger of hilly country--see Mr. Shillingford's comparison quoted by me above. Let also any one compare the following measurements of one given by Colonel Walter Campbell with a tiger of equal length shot in the grassy plains of Bengal:-- ft. in. Length from point of nose to end of tail . . . . . 9 5 Ditto of tail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 10 Height from heel to shoulder . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2 Extreme length from shoulder to point of toe . . . 3 11 From elbow to point of toe . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 0 Girth of body just behind the shoulder . . . . . . 5 3 Ditto of forearm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 7 Ditto of neck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 0 Circumference of head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3 This is a remarkably short-tailed tiger. If the concurrence of evidence establishes the difference beyond doubt, then we may say that there are two varieties in India--the hill tiger, _Felis tigris, var. montanus_; and the other, inhabiting the alluvial plains of great rivers, _Felis tigris, var. fluviatilis_. Dr. Anderson says he has examined skulls and skins of those inhabiting the hill ranges of Yunnan, and can detect no difference from the ordinary Indian species. The tigress goes with young for about fifteen weeks, and produces from two to five at a birth. I remember once seeing four perfectly formed cubs, which would have been born in a day or two, cut from a tigress shot by my brother-in-law Col. W. B. Thomson in the hills adjoining the station of Seonee. I had got off an elephant, and, running up the glen on hearing the shots, came unpleasantly close to her in her dying throes. When about to bring forth, the tigress avoids the male, and hides her young from him. The native shikaris say that the tiger kills the young ones if he finds them. The mother is a most affectionate parent as a rule, and sometimes exhibits strange fits of jealousy at interference with her young. I heard an instance of this some years ago from my brother, Mr. H. B. Sterndale, who, as one of the Municipal Commissioners of Delhi, took a great interest in the collection of animals in the Queen's Gardens there. Both tiger and leopard cubs had been born in the gardens, and the mother of the latter shewed no uneasiness at her offspring being handled by strangers as they crept through the bars and strayed about; but one day, a tiger cub having done the same, the tigress exhibited great restlessness, and, on the little one's return, in a sudden accession of jealous fury she dashed her paw on it and killed it. I am indebted to Mr. Shillingford for a long list of tigresses with cubs killed during the years 1866 to 1880. Out of 53 cubs (18 mothers) 29 were males and 22 females, the sex of two cubs not being given. This tends to prove that there are an equal number of each sex born--in fact here the advantage is on the side of the males. I have heard it asserted that tigresses are more common, and native shikaris account for it by saying that the male tiger kills the cubs of his own sex; but I have not seen anything to justify this assertion, or the fact of there being a preponderance of females. Mr. Sanderson, however, writes: "Male and female cubs appear to be in about equal proportions. How it is that amongst mature animals tigresses predominate so markedly I am unable to say." Tigresses have young at all seasons of the year, and they breed apparently only once in three years, which is about the time the cubs remain with their mother. For the following interesting memorandum I have to thank Mr. Shillingford:-- Feet. "Cubs one year old measure . . . . . . Males 4-1/2 to 5-1/2 Females 4 to 5 Ditto two years old . . . . . . . . . Males 5-1/2 to 7 Females 5 to 6-1/2 Ditto three years old . . . . . . . . Males 7 to 8-1/2 Females 6-1/2 to 7-1/2 "When they reach three years of age they lose their 'milk' canines, which are replaced by the permanent fangs, and at this period the mother leaves them to cater for themselves." The cubs are interesting pets if taken from the mother very young. I have reared several, but only kept one for any length of time. I have given a full description of Zalim and his ways in 'Seonee.' He was found by my camp followers with another in a nullah, and brought to me. The other cub died, but Zalim lived to grow up into a very fine tiger, and was sent to England. I never allowed him to taste raw flesh. He had a little cooked meat every day, and as much milk as he liked to drink, and he throve well on this diet. When he was too large to be allowed to roam about unconfined I had a stout buffalo-leather collar made for his neck, and he was chained to a stump near the cook-room door. With grown-up people he was perfectly tame, but I noticed he got restless when children approached him, and so made up my mind to part with him before he did any mischief. I know nothing of the habits of the tiger of the grass plains, but those of the hill tiger are very interesting, the cattle lifter especially, as he is better known to men. Each individual has his special idiosyncrasy. I wrote of this once before as follows: "Strange though it may seem to the English reader that a tiger should have any special character beyond the general one for cruelty and cunning, it is nevertheless a fact that each animal has certain peculiarities of temperament which are well known to the villagers in the neighbourhood. They will tell you that such a one is daring and rash; another is cunning and not to be taken by any artifice; that one is savage and morose; another is mild and harmless. There are few villages in the wilder parts of the Seonee and Mandla districts without an attendant tiger, which undoubtedly does great damage in the way of destroying cattle, but which avoids the human inhabitants of the place. So accustomed do the people get to their unwelcome visitor that we have known the boys of a village turn a tiger out of quarters which were reckoned too close, and pelt him with stones. On one occasion two of the juvenile assailants were killed by the animal they had approached too near. Herdsmen in the same way get callous to the danger of meddling with so dreadful a creature, and frequently rush to the rescue of their cattle when seized. On a certain occasion one out of a herd of cattle was attacked close to our camp, and rescued single-handed by it's owner, who laid his heavy iron-bound staff across the tiger's back; and, on our rushing out to see what was the matter, we found the man coolly dressing the wounds of his cow, muttering to himself: 'The robber, the robber! My last cow, and I had five of them!' He did not seem to think he had done anything wonderful, and seemed rather surprised that we should suppose that he was going to let his last heifer go the way of all the others. "It is fortunate for these dwellers in the backwoods that but a small percentage of tigers are man-eaters, perhaps not five per cent., otherwise village after village would be depopulated; as it is the yearly tale of lives lost is a heavy one."[12] [Footnote 12: 'Seonee.'] Tigers are also eccentric in their ways, showing differences in disposition under different circumstances. I believe that many a shikari passes at times within a few yards of a tiger without knowing it, the tendency of the animal being to crouch and hide until the strange-looking two-legged beast has passed. The narrowest escape I ever had is an instance. I had hunted a large tiger, well known for the savageness of his disposition, on foot from ravine to ravine on the banks of the Pench, one hot day in June, and, giving him no rest, made sure of getting him about three o'clock in the afternoon. He had been seen to slip into a large nullah, bordered on one side by open country, a small water-course draining into it from the fields; here was one large _beyr_ bush, behind which I wished to place myself, but was persuaded by an old shikari of great local reputation to move farther on. Hardly had we done so when our friend bounded from under the bush and disappeared in a thicket, where we lost him. Ten days after this he was killed by a friend and myself, and he sustained his savage reputation by attacking the elephant without provocation--a thing a tiger seldom does. I had hunted this animal several times, and on one occasion saw him swim the Pench river at one of its broadest reaches. It was the only time I had seen a tiger swim, and it was interesting to watch him powerfully breasting the stream with his head well up. Tigers swim readily, as is well known. I believe it is not uncommon to see them take to the water in the Sunderbunds; and a recent case may be remembered when two of them escaped from the King of Oude's Menagerie, and one swam across the Hooghly to the Botanical Gardens. There has been some controversy about the way in which tigers kill their prey. I am afraid I cannot speak definitely on the subject, although I have on several occasions seen tigers kill oxen and ponies. I do not think they have a uniform way of doing it, so much depends upon circumstance--certain it is that they cannot smash in the head of a buffalo with a stroke, as some writers make out, but yet I have known them make strokes at the head, in a running fight, for instance, between a buffalo and a tiger--in which the former got off--and in the case of human beings. Of two men killed by the same tiger, one had his skull fractured by a blow; the other, who was killed as we were endeavouring to drive the tiger out of the village, was seized by the loins. He died immediately; the man with the fractured skull lingered some hours longer. Another case of a stroke at the head happened once when I had tied out a pony for a tiger that would not look at cows, over which I had sat for several successive nights. A tiger and tigress came out, and the former made a rush at the _tattu_, who met him with such a kick on the nose that he drew back much astonished; the tigress then dashed at the pony, and I, wishing if possible to save the plucky little animal's life, fired two barrels into her, rolling her over just as she struck at his head. But it was too late; the pony dropped at the blow and died--not from concussion, however, but from loss of blood, for the jugular vein had been cut open as though it had been done with a knife. So much for the head stroke, which is, I may say, exceptional. As a general rule I think the tiger bears down his victim by sheer weight, and then, by some means which I should hesitate to define, although I have seen it, the head is wrenched back, so as to dislocate the vertebrae. One evening two cows were killed before me. I was going to say the tiger sprang at one, but correct myself--it is not a spring, but a rush on to the back of the animal; he seldom springs all fours off the ground at once. I have never seen a tiger get off his hind legs except in bounding over a fallen tree, or in and out of a ravine. In this case he rushed on to the cow and bore it to the ground; there was a violent struggle, and in the dusky light I could not tell whether he used his mouth or paws in wrenching back the head, which went with a crack. The thing was done in a minute, when he sprang once more to his feet, and the second cow was hurled to the ground in like manner. As his back was turned to me I fired somewhat hastily, thinking to save the cow, but only wounded the tiger, which I lost. Both the cows, however, had their necks completely broken. I cannot now remember the position of the fang-marks in the throat. On another occasion I came across five out of a herd that had been killed, probably by young tigers; every one had the neck broken. Mr. Sanderson says that herdsmen have described to him how they have noticed the operation: "Clutching the bullock's fore-quarters with his paws, one being generally over the shoulder, he seizes the throat in his jaws from underneath and turns it upwards and over, sometimes springing to the far side in doing so, to throw the bullock over and give the wrench which dislocates its neck. This is frequently done so quickly that the tiger, if timid, is in retreat again almost before the herdsmen can turn round." This account seems reliable. A tiger may seize by the nape in order to get a temporary purchase, but it would be awkward for him to pull the head back far enough to snap the vertebral column. Now for a few remarks in conclusion. I have written more on the subject than I intended. That tigers are carrion feeders is well known, but that sometimes they prefer high meat to fresh I had only proof of once. A tiger killed a mare and foal, on which he feasted for three days; on the fourth nothing remaining but a very offensive leg; we tied out a fine young buffalo calf for him within a yard or two of the savoury joint. The tiger came during the night and took away the leg, without touching the calf; and, devouring it, fell asleep, in which condition we, having tracked him up the nullah, found and killed him. The tiger is not always monarch over all the beasts of the field. He is positively afraid of the wild dog (_Cuon rutilans_), which readily attacks him in packs. Then he often finds his match in the wild boar. I have myself seen an instance of this, in which the tiger was not only ripped to death, but had his chest-bone gnawed and crushed, evidently after life was extinct. Buffalos in herds hesitate not in attacking a tiger; and I saw one instance of their saving their herdsman from a man-eater. My camp was pitched on the banks of a stream under some tall trees. I had made a _detour_ in order to try and kill this man-eater, and had sent on a hill tent the night before. I was met in the morning by the _khalasi_ in charge, with a wonderful story of the tiger having rushed at him, but as the man was a romancer I disbelieved him. On the other side of the stream was a gentle slope of turf and bushes, rising gradually to a rocky hill. The slope was dotted with grazing herds, and here and there a group of buffalos. Late in the afternoon I heard some piercing cries from my people of "_Bagh! Bagh!_" The cows stampeded, as they always do. A struggle was going on in the bush, with loud cries of a human voice. The buffalos threw up their heads, and, grunting loudly, charged down on the spot, and then in a body went charging on through the brushwood. Other herdsmen and villagers ran up, and a charpoy was sent for and the man brought into the village. He was badly scratched, but had escaped any serious fang wounds from his having, as he said, seen the tiger coming at him, and stuffed his blanket into his open mouth, whilst he belaboured him with his axe. Anyhow but for his buffalos he would have been a dead man in three minutes more. THE PARDS OR PANTHERS. To these are commonly assigned the name of Leopard, which ought properly to be restricted to the hunting leopard (_Felis jubata_), to which we have also misappropriated the Indian name _Chita_, which applies to all spotted cats, _Chita-bagh_ being spotted tiger. The same term, derived from the adjective _chhita_, spotted or sprinkled, applies in various forms to the other creatures, such as _Chital_, the spotted deer (_Axis_), _Chita-bora_, a kind of speckled snake, &c. _Leopardus_ or lion-panther was, without doubt, the name given by the ancients to the hunting leopard, which was well known to them from its extending into Africa and Arabia. Assuredly the prophet Habakkuk spoke of the hunting chita when he said of the Chaldaeans: "That bitter and hasty nation . . . their horses also are swifter than the leopards," for the pard is not a swift animal, whereas the speed of the other is well known. The name was given to it by the ancients on the supposition that it was a cross between the lion and the pard, from a fancied resemblance to the former on account of the mane or ruff of hair possessed by the hunting leopard. Apparently this animal must have been more familiar to our remote ancestors than the pard, for the name has been attached for centuries to the larger spotted Cats indiscriminately. I have not time just now to attempt to trace the species of the leopard which formerly graced the arms of the English kings, but I should not be surprised if it were the guepard or chita. The old representations were certainly attenuated enough; and the animal must have been familiar to the crusaders, as we know it was before them to the Romans. Mr. Blyth, who speculated on the origin of the name, in one of his able articles on the felines of India in the _India Sporting Review_ of April 1856, makes no allusion to the above nor to the probable confusion that may have arisen in the middle ages over the spotted Cats. Although the term leopard, as applied to panthers, has the sanction of almost immemorable custom, I do not see why, in writing on the subject, we should perpetuate the misnomer, especially as most naturalists and sportsmen are now inclined to make the proper distinction. I have always avoided the use of the term leopard, except when speaking of the hunting chita, preferring to call the others panthers. Then again we come on disputed ground. Of panthers how many have we, and how should they be designated? I am not going farther afield than India in this discussion beyond alluding to the fact that the jaguar of Brazil is almost identical with our pard as far as marking goes, but is a stouter, shorter-tailed animal, which justifies his being classed as a species; therefore we must not take superficial colouring as a test, but class the black and common pards together; the former, which some naturalists have endeavoured to made into a separate species (_Felis melas_), being merely a variety of the latter. They present the same characteristics, although Jerdon states that the black is the smaller animal. They have been found in Java to inhabit the same den, according to Professor Reinwardt and M. Kuhl, and they inter-breed, as has been proved by the fact that a female black pard has produced a black and a fulvous cub at the same birth. This is noticed by Mr. Sanderson in his book, and he got the information from the director of the Zoological Society's Menagerie at Amsterdam. "Old Fogy," a constant contributor to the old _India Sporting Review_, a good sportsman and naturalist, with whom Blyth kept up a correspondence, wrote in October 1857 that, "in a litter of four leopard cubs one was quite black; they all died, but both the parents were of the ordinary colour and marking; they were both watched at their cave, and at last shot, one with an arrow through the heart. Near a hill village a black male leopard was often seen and known to consort with an ordinary female. I have observed them myself once, if not twice." An observant sportsman, "Hawkeye," in one of his letters to the _South of India Observer_, remarks that "on one occasion a gentleman saw an old leopard accompanied by two of her offspring, one red, the other black." He also says he has never known "of two black leopards in company," but black pards have bred in zoological gardens. I am told that cubs have been born in the Calcutta Garden, but they did not live. General MacMaster, in his notes on Jerdon, makes the pertinent remark: "If however black panthers are only accidental, it is odd that no one has yet come on a black specimen of one of the larger cats, _F. leo tigris_." I see no reason why such should not yet be discovered; he was perhaps not aware that the jaguar of Brazil, which comes next to the tiger, has been found black (_Felis nigra_ of Erxleben). A black tiger would be a prize. General MacMaster relates that he once watched a fine black cat basking in the sun, and noticed that in particular lights the animal exhibited most plainly the regular brindled markings of the ordinary gray wild or semi-wild cat. These markings were as black or blacker than the rest of his hair. His mother was a half-wild gray brindle. I think we have sufficient evidence that the black pard is merely a variety of the common one, but now we come to the pards themselves, and the question as to whether there are two distinct species or two varieties; Blyth, Jerdon and other able naturalists, although fully recognizing the differences, have yet hesitated to separate them, and they still remain in the unsatisfactory relation to each other of varieties. I feel convinced in my own mind that they are sufficiently distinct to warrant their being classed, and specifically named apart. It is not as I said before, that we should go upon peculiarities of marking and colour, although these are sufficiently obvious, but on their osteology and also the question of interbreeding and production. Grant their relative sizes, one so much bigger than the other, and the difference in colour and marking, has it ever been known that out of a litter of several cubs by a female of the larger kind, one of the smaller sort has been produced, or _vice versa_? This is a question that yet remains for investigation. My old district had both kinds in abundance, and I have had scores of cubs, of both sorts, brought to me--cubs which could be distinguished at a glance as to which kind they belonged to, but I never remember any mixture of the two. As regards the difference in appearance of the adults there can be no question. The one is a higher, longer animal, with smooth shiny hair of a light golden fulvous, the spots being clear and well defined, but, as is remarked by Sir Walter Elliot, the strongest difference of character is in the skulls, those of the larger pard being longer and more pointed, with a ridge running along the occiput, much developed for the attachment of the muscles, whereas the smaller pard has not only a rougher coat, the spots being more blurred, but it is comparatively a more squat built animal, with a rounder skull without the decided occipital ridge. There is a mass of evidence on the point of distinctness--Sir Walter Elliot, Horsfield, Hodgson, Sir Samuel Baker, Johnson (author of 'Field Sports in India'), "Mountaineer," a writer in the _Bengal Sporting Review_, even Blyth and Jerdon, all speak to the difference, and yet no decided separation has been made. There is in fact too much confusion and too many names. For the larger animal _Felis pardus_ is appropriate, and the _leopardus_ of Temminck, Schreber and others is not. Therefore that remains; but what is the smaller one to be called? I should say _Felis panthera_ which, being common to Asia and Africa, was probably the panther of the Romans and Greeks. Jerdon gives as a synonym _F. longicaudata_ (Valenciennes), but I find on examination of the skulls of various species that _F. longicaudata_ has a complete bony orbit which places it in Gray's genus _Catolynx_, and it is too small for our panther. We might then say that we have the pard, the panther, and the leopard in India, and then we should be strictly correct. Some sportsmen speak of a smaller panther which Kinloch calls the third (second?) sort of panther, but this differs in no respect from the ordinary one, save in size, and it is well known that this species varies very much in this respect. I am not singular in the views I now express. Years ago Colonel Sykes, who was a well known naturalist, said of the pard: "It is a taller, stronger, and slighter built animal than the next species, which I consider the _panther_." The skull of the pard in some degree resembles that of the jaguar, which again is nearest the tiger, whereas that of the panther appears to have some affinity to the restricted cats. In disposition all the pards and panthers are alike sanguinary, fierce and incapable of attachment. The tiger is tameable, the panther not so. I have had some experience of the young of both, and have seen many others in the possession of friends; and though they may, for a time, when young, be amusing pets, their innate savageness sooner or later breaks out. They are not even to be trusted with their own kind. I have known one to turn on a comrade in a cage, kill and devour him, and some of my readers may possibly remember an instance of this in the Zoological Gardens at Lahore, when, in 1868, a pard one night killed a panther which inhabited the same den, and ate a goodly portion of him before dawn. They all show more ferocity than the tiger when wounded, and a man-eating pard is far more to be dreaded than any other man-eater, as will be seen farther on from the history of one I knew. NO. 202. FELIS PARDUS. _The Pard_ (_Jerdon's No. 105_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Tendua_, _Chita_ or _Chita-bagh_, _Adnara_; Hindi, _Honiga_; Canarese, _Asnea_; Mahratti, _Chinna puli_; Telegu, _Burkal_; Gondi, _Bay-heera_; and _Tahr-hay_ in the Himalayas. HABITAT.--Throughout India, Burmah, and Ceylon, and extending to the Malayan Archipelago. DESCRIPTION.--A clean, long limbed, though compact body; hair close and short; colour pale fulvous yellow, with clearly defined spots in rosettes; the head more tiger-like than the next species; the skull is longer and more pointed, with a much developed occipital ridge. SIZE.--Head and body from 4-1/2 to 5-1/2 feet; tail from 30 to 38 inches. This is a powerful animal and very fierce as a rule, though in the case of a noted man-eater I have known it exhibit a curious mixture of ferocity and abject cowardice. It is stated to be of a more retiring disposition than the next species, but this I doubt, for I have frequently come across it in the neighbourhood of villages to which it was probably attracted by cattle. It may not have the fearlessness or impudence of the panther, which will walk through the streets of a town and seize and devour its prey in a garden surrounded by houses, as I once remember, in the case of a pony at Seonee, but it is nevertheless sufficiently bold to hang about the outskirts of villages. Those who have seen this animal once would never afterwards confuse it with what I would call the panther. There is a sleekness about it quite foreign to the other, and a brilliancy of skin with a distinctness of spots which the longer, looser hair does not admit of. But with all these external differences I am aware that there will be objection to classifying it as a separate species, unless the osteological divergences can be satisfactorily determined, and for this purpose it would be necessary to examine a large series of authenticated skulls of the two kinds. The concurrence of evidence as to the habits of this species is that it is chiefly found in hilly jungles preying on wild animals, wild pigs, and monkeys, but not unfrequently, as I know, haunting the outskirts of villages for the sake of stray ponies and cattle. The largest pard I have ever seen was shot by one of my own shikaris in the act of stalking a pony near a village. I was mahseer-fishing close by at the time, and had sent on the man, a little before dusk, to a village a few miles off, to arrange for beating up a tiger early next day. Jerdon says this is the kind most common in Bengal, but he does not say in what parts of Bengal, and on what authority. I have no doubt it abounds in Sontalia and Assam, and many other hilly parts. At Colgong, Mr. Barnes informed him that many cases of human beings killed by pards were known in the Bhaugulpore district. At Seonee we had one which devastated a tract of country extending to about 18 miles in diameter. He began his work in 1857 by carrying off a follower of the Thakur of Gurwarra, on whom we were keeping a watch during the troublous times of the mutiny. My brother-in-law, Colonel Thomson and I, went after him under the supposition that it was a tiger that had killed the man, and it was not till we found the body at the bottom of a rocky ravine that we discovered it was a pard. During the beat he came out before us, went on, and was turned back by an elephant and came out again a third time before us; but we refrained from firing as we expected a man-eating tiger. I left Seonee for two years to join the Irregular Corps to which I had been posted, and after the end of the campaign, returned again to district work, and found that the most dreaded man-eater in the district was the pard whose life we had spared. There was a curious legend in connection with him, like the superstitious stories of Wehr wolves in Northern Europe. I have dealt fully with it in "Seonee," and Forsyth has also given a version of it in the 'Highlands of Central India,' as he came to the district soon after the animal was destroyed. Some of the aborigines of the Satpura Range are reputed to have the power of changing themselves into animals at will, and back again into the human form. The story runs, that one day one of these men, accompanied by his wife, came to a glade in the jungle where some nilgai were feeding. The woman expressed a wish for some meat, on which the husband gave her a root to hold, and to give him to smell on his return. He changed himself into a pard, killed one of the nilgai, and came bounding back for the root; but the terrified woman lost her nerve, flung away the charm, and rushed from the place. The husband hunted about wildly for the root, but in vain; and then inflamed with rage he pursued her, and tore her to pieces and continued to wreak his vengeance on the human race. Such was the history of the man-eating panther of Kahani, as related in the popular traditions of the country, and certainly everything in the career of this extraordinary animal tended to foster the unearthly reputation he had gained. Ranging over a circle, the radius of which may be put at eighteen miles, no one knew when and where he might be found. He seemed to kill for killing's sake, for often his victims--at times three in a single night--would be found untouched, save for the fatal wound in the throat. The watcher on the high machaun, the sleeper on his cot in the midst of a populous village, were alike his prey. The country was demoralized; the bravest hunters refused to go after him; wild pigs and deer ravaged the fields; none would dare to watch the growing crops. If it had been an ordinary panther who would have cared? Had not each village its Shikari? men who could boast of many an encounter with tiger and bear, and would they shrink from following up a mere animal? Certainly not; but they knew the tradition of Chinta Gond, and they believed it. What could they do? On the morning of the second day, after leaving Amodagurh, the two sportsmen neared Sulema, a little village not far from Kahani, out of which it was reported the panther had taken no less than forty people within three years. There was not a house that had not mourned the loss of father, or mother, or brother, or sister, or wife or child, from within this little hamlet. Piteous indeed were the tales told as our friends halted to gather news, and the scars of the few who were fortunate enough to have escaped with life after a struggle with the enemy, were looked at with interest; but the most touching of all were the stories artlessly told by a couple of children, one of whom witnessed the death of a sister, and the other of a brother, both carried off in broad daylight, for the fell destroyer went boldly to work, knowing that they were but weak opponents."[13] I was out several times after this diabolical creature, but without success; as I sat out night after night I could hear the villagers calling from house to house hourly, "_Jagte ho bhiya! jagte ho!_" "Are you awake, brothers? are you awake!" All day long I scoured the country with my elephant, all night long I watched and waited. My camp was guarded by great fires, my servants and followers were made to sleep inside tents, whilst sentries with musket and bayonet were placed at the doors; but all to no purpose. The heated imagination of one sentry saw him glowering at him across the blazing fire. A frantic camp-follower spoilt my breakfast next morning ere I had taken a second mouthful, by declaring he saw him in an adjoining field. Then would come in a tale of a victim five miles off during the night, and then another, and sometimes a third. I have alluded before to his cowardice; in many cases a single man or boy would frighten him from his prey. On one occasion, in my rounds after him, I came upon a poor woman bitterly crying in a field; beside her lay the dead body of her husband. He had been seized by the throat and dragged across the fire made at the entrance of their little wigwam in which they had spent the night, watching their crops. The woman caught hold of her husband's legs, and, exerting her strength against the man-eater's, shrieked aloud. He dropped the body and fled, making no attempt to molest her or her little child of about four years of age. This man was the third he had attacked that night. [Footnote 13: 'Seonee.'] He was at last killed, by accident, by a native shikari who, in the dusk, took him for a pig or some such animal, and made a lucky shot; but the tale of his victims had swelled over two hundred during the three years of his reign of terror. NO. 203. FELIS PANTHERA. _The Panther_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Chita_, _Gorbacha_, Hindi; _Beebeea-bagh_, Mahrathi; _Bibla_, of the Chita-catchers; _Ghur-hay_ or _Dheer-hay_ of the hill tribes; _Kerkal_, Canarese. HABITAT.--India generally, Burmah and Ceylon, extending also into the Malayan countries. [Illustration: _FELIS PANTHERA_ (_From a fine specimen in the Regent's Park Gardens_.)] DESCRIPTION.--Much smaller than the last, with comparatively shorter legs and rounder head; the fur is less bright; the ground-work often darker in colour, and the rosettes are more indistinct which is caused by the longer hairs intermingling and breaking into the edges of the spots; tail long and furry at the end. According to Temminck the tail is longer than that of the last species, having 28 caudal vertebrae against 22 of the other; if this be found to be the normal state, there will be additional grounds for separating the two. SIZE.--Head and body, 3 to 3-1/2 feet; tail, 2-1/2 feet; height from 1-1/2 to 2 feet. This animal is more common than the pard, and it is more impudent in venturing into inhabited places. This is fortunate, for it is seldom a man-eater, although perhaps children may occasionally be carried off. I have before mentioned one which killed and partially devoured a pony in the heart of a populous town, and many are the instances of dogs being carried off out of the verandahs of Europeans' houses. A friend of mine one night being awoke by a piteous howl from a dog, chained to the centre pole of his tent, saw the head and shoulders of one peering in at the door; it retreated but had the audacity to return in a few minutes. Jerdon and other writers have adduced similar instances. It is this bold and reckless disposition which renders it easier to trap and shoot. The tiger is suspicious to a degree, and always apprehensive of a snare, but the panther never seems to trouble his head about the matter, but walks into a trap or resumes his feast on a previously killed carcase, though it may have been moved and handled. There is another thing, too, which shows the different nature of the beast. There is little difficulty in shooting a panther on a dark night. All that is necessary is to suspend, some little distance off, a common earthen _gharra_ or water pot, with an oil light inside, the mouth covered lightly with a sod, and a small hole knocked in the side in such a way as to allow a ray of light to fall on the carcase. No tiger would come near such an arrangement, but the panther boldly sets to his dinner without suspicion, probably from his familiarity with the lights in the huts of villages. I may here digress a little on the subject of night shooting. Every one who has tried it knows the extreme difficulty in seeing the sights of the rifle in a dark night. The common native method is to attach a fluff of cotton wool. On a moonlight night a bit of wax, with powdered mica scattered on it, will sometimes answer. I have seen diamond sights suggested, but all are practically useless. My plan was to carry a small phial of phosphorescent oil, about one grain to a drachm of oil dissolved in a bath of warm water. A small dab of this, applied to the fore and hind sights, will produce two luminous spots which will glow for about 40 or 50 seconds or a minute. Dr. Sal Muller says of this species that it is occasionally found sleeping stretched across the forked branch of a tree, which is not the case with either the tiger or the pard. According to Sir Stamford Raffles, the _Rimau-dahan_ or clouded panther (miscalled tiger) _Felis macrocelis_, has the same habit. I would remark in conclusion that in the attempt to define clearly the position of these two animals the following points should be investigated by all who are interested in the subject and have the opportunity. First the characteristics of the skull:-- _viz_.--Length, and breadth as compared with length of each, with presence or absence of the occipital ridge. _2ndly_.--Number of caudal vertebrae in the tails of each. _3rdly_.--Whether in a litter, from one female, cubs of each sort have been found. NO. 204. FELIS UNCIA. _The Ounce or Snow Panther_ (_Jerdon's No. 106_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Iker_, Tibetan; _Sah_, Bhotia; _Phale_, Lepcha; _Burrel-hay_, Simla hillmen; _Thurwag_ in Kunawur. _The Snow-Leopard_ of European sportsmen. HABITAT.--Throughout the Himalayas, and the highland regions of Central Asia. [Illustration: _Felis uncia_.] DESCRIPTION.--Pale yellowish or whitish isabelline, with small spots on the head and neck, but large blotchy rings and crescents, irregularly dispersed on the shoulders, sides and haunches; from middle of back to root of tail a medium irregular dark band closely bordered by a chain of oblong rings; lower parts dingy white, with some few dark spots about middle of abdomen; limbs with small spots; ears externally black; tail bushy with broad black rings. SIZE.--Head and body about 4 feet 4 inches; tail, 3 feet; height, about 2 feet. I have only seen skins of this animal, which is said to frequent rocky ground, and to kill _Barhel_, _Thar_, sheep, goats, and dogs, but not to molest man. This species is distinguishable from all the preceding felines by the shortness and breadth of the face and the sudden elevation of the forehead--_Gray_. Pupil round--_Hodgson_. NO. 205. FELIS DIARDII _vel_ MACROCELIS. _The Clouded Panther_ (_Jerdon's No. 107_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Tungmar_, Lepcha; _Zik_, Bhotia; _Lamchitta_, of the Khas tribe (_Jerdon_). _Rimau dahan_ of Sumatra. HABITAT.--Nepal, Sikim, Assam, Burmah, and down the Malayan Peninsula to Sumatra, Java and Borneo. [Illustration: _Felis Diardii_.] DESCRIPTION.--A short-legged long-bodied animal, with a very elongated skull; the upper canines are the longest in comparison of all living felines, and in this respect it comes nearest to the extinct species _Felis smilodon_. The ground-work of the colouring is a pale buff, with large, irregular, cloud-like patches of black. Blyth remarks that the markings are exceedingly beautiful, but most difficult to describe, as they not only vary in different specimens, but also in the two sides of one individual. Jerdon's description is as follows: "Ground colour variable, usually pale greenish brown or dull clay brown, changing to pale tawny on the lower parts, and limbs internally, almost white however in some. In many specimens the fulvous or tawny hue is the prevalent one; a double line of small chain-like stripes from the ears, diverging on the nape to give room to an inner and smaller series; large irregular clouded spots or patches on the back and sides edged very dark and crowded together; loins, sides of belly and belly marked with irregular small patches and spots; some black lines on the cheeks and sides of neck, and a black band across the throat; tail with dark rings, thickly furred, long; limbs bulky, and body heavy and stout; claws very powerful." Hodgson stated that the pupil of the eye is round, but Mr. Bartlett, whose opportunities of observation have been much more frequent, is positive that it is oval. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/2 feet; tail, 3 feet, but Jerdon states it grows to a larger size. This is one of the most beautiful of all the cat family. It is not, however, one of the most elegant in form and motion, but its colouring is exquisite; it is quite an arboreal feline, and is found only in forests, frequently sleeping or lying in wait across the forked branches of trees, from which habit it acquires its Malayan name, _dahan_, signifying the forked branch of a tree. The young seem to be easily tamed, according to Sir Stamford Raffles, who describes two which he had in confinement. Dr. Jerdon also states the same, he having procured a young one in the neighbourhood of Darjeeling. In the Zoological Gardens in London there was a very fine specimen about four years ago. Professor Parker says of it: "It was not always to be seen, as it was kept during the day fastened up in one of the sleeping apartments at the back of a cage in the lion-house, and was left out only for about half an hour before the gardens closed. It was well worth stopping to see. As soon as the iron door of its cell was raised, it would come out into the large cage with a peculiar sailor-like slouch, for owing to the shortness of its legs, its gait was quite different to that of an ordinary cat, and altogether less elegant. The expression of the face, too, was neither savage nor majestic nor intelligent, but rather dull and stupid. It was fond of assuming all sorts of queer attitudes." Brehm describes one as lying prone on a thick branch placed in its cage, with all four legs hanging down straight, two on each side of the branch--certainly a remarkable position for an animal to assume of its own free will. The type of this animal constitutes the genus _Neofelis_ of Gray, containing two species, this and the _Neofelis_ (_leopardus_) _brachyurus_ of Formosa. NO. 206. FELIS VIVERRINA. _The Large Tiger-Cat_ (_Jerdon's No. 108_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Mach-bagral_, _Bagh-dasha_, Bengali; _Bunbiral_, _Khupya-bagh_, Hindi; _Handoon-deeva_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--India generally, Burmah, the Malay countries, and Ceylon. Jerdon says he has not heard of it in Central India nor in the Carnatic, nor farther west of Nepal. I have been, however, informed that a wild cat was killed lately at Jeypore in the act of carrying off an infant of four months old. I know of no cat, save this species, capable of such a proceeding. The child was rescued alive. [Illustration: Skull of _Felis viverrina_.] DESCRIPTION.--"Of a mouse gray colour, more or less deep and sometimes tinged with tawny, with large dark spots, more or less numerous, oblong on the back and neck and in lines, more or less rounded elsewhere, and broken or coalescing" (but never ocellate: _Blyth_); "cheeks white; a black face stripe; beneath dull white; chest with five or six dark bands; belly spotted," (whence the name _celidogaster_ applied by Temminck) "tail with six or seven dark bands and a black tip" (sometimes spots only); "feet unspotted."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body 30 to 34 inches; tail only 10 to 13; height about 15 or 16; weight according to Hodgson and Jerdon, about 17 lbs. The frontal and jugal bones in old specimens of this species are united by a bar which forms a complete bony orbit--a peculiarity possessed, as I have before observed, by _F. longicaudata_, but by few other felines. _Felis rubiginosa_, _F. planiceps_, and _F. Ellioti_ are also cats of this type, which Gray has separated into the genus _Viverriceps_. This large cat is not uncommon near Calcutta, and is reputed to live much on fish and fresh-water shells, but also I should say on larger game. According to some authors (Buchanan-Hamilton, for instance), it is fierce and untameable, but Blyth states that he had several big toms, quite tame, and in the Surrey Zoological Gardens there was many years ago a very fine male which he had frequently handled and had even on his lap. He relates, however, in another part, that a newly caught male of this species killed a tame young leopardess of twice its own size, having broken through the partition of a cage, but he did not eat any portion of her. The Prince of Wales took home a very fine specimen of this cat among his collection of living animals. Mr. Rainey writes of the ferocity of this cat in the following terms: "I can testify to the existence of the above qualities in this animal (_Felis viverrina_, Bennett), which is rather abundant in these parts, generally taking up its quarters in low, swampy jungle, where it often carries off calves, for which the leopard (_F. leopardus_, Linn.), undeservedly gets credit. Lately, a couple of months ago, a pair of them at night broke into a matted house, and went off with a brace of ewes, which had half-a-dozen lambs between them, born only a short time before their mothers met with their bloody end. I have caught this species in traps, and when let loose in an indigo vat with a miscellaneous pack of dogs, they have invariably fought hard, and at times proved too much for their canine adversaries, so that I have had to go to their rescue, and put an end to the fight, by a spear-thrust, or a heavy whack on the back of the head with a stout club. Some years ago one got into my fowl-house at night, and just as I opened the door to enter inside, it made a fierce jump at me from a perch on the opposite side. I had just time to put the barrel of my gun forward, on the muzzle of which it fell, and had its chest blown to atoms, as I pulled the trigger instantly it alighted there." NO. 207. FELIS MARMORATA. _The Marbled Tiger-Cat_ (_Jerdon's No. 109_). HABITAT.--The Sikim Himalayas, Assam, Burmah, and the Malayan countries. [Illustration: _Felis marmorata_.] DESCRIPTION.--"Size of a domestic cat, but with stouter limbs and a much longer and thicker tail, of uniform thickness throughout and reaching back to the occiput when reflected; the upper canines are not remarkably elongated as in _F. macroceloides_ (_macrocelis_); ears rather small and obtusely angulated, with a conspicuous white spot on their hinder surface" (_Blyth_). "Ground colour dingy-fulvous, occasionally yellowish grey; the body with numerous elongate wavy black spots, somewhat clouded or marbled; the head and nape with some narrow blackish lines, coalescing into a dorsal interrupted band; the thighs and part of the sides with black round spots; the tail black, spotted, and with the tip black; belly yellowish white."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 18 to 24 inches; tail, 14 to 16. This beautiful little cat is almost a miniature of the clouded panther, and Blyth confuses the Malayan name of the latter, and applies it to this species, which probably arose from his quoting as a synonym, _F. diardii_, which, however, in the same paper he repudiates, as the description of the size of _F. diardii_ clearly proved a much larger animal. This is the type of Grey's genus _Catolynx_, the other species in India being _F. charltoni_. The genus is peculiar from the resemblance of the nasal bones to those of the lynx, and from the complete or nearly complete bony orbit; the skull differs, however, greatly from the _viverriceps_ form, being much more spherical with very short nasal bones. There is an admirable illustration in De Blainville's 'Osteographie' of it under the name of _F. longicaudata_. Very little is known as yet of the habits of this cat. NO. 208. FELIS BENGALENSIS. _The Leopard-Cat_ (_Jerdon's No. 110_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Bun Beral_, Bengali; _Jungli Bilao_, _Chhita Bilao_, Hindi; _Theet-kyoung_ in Arakan; _Lhan-rahn-manjur_, Mahrathi; _Wagati_, Mahratti of the Ghats. HABITAT.--India generally, in hilly parts; Assam, Burmah, and the Malay countries: also Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--About the size of the domestic cat, but with extremely variable colouring and a short, thick, cylindrical tail reaching, when turned back, above half way up the spine. Blyth says of it: "In general the ground hue is pale fulvous, with under parts of the purest white, richly marked with deep black; black lines on the crown and nape; angular spots on the body wholly or partially black, or, _en rosette_, with deeper fulvous within and round; black spots on the limbs and tail; sometimes the body markings unite more or less into longitudinal streaks and rarely a marbled appearance is assumed on the upper parts." SIZE.--Head and body, 24 to 26 inches; tail 11 to 12. It is useless to lay down, as in Jerdon, a very accurate description of the markings of this cat, for it varies to such an extent as to have given rise to at least sixteen synonymous names, if not more. You will find the same cat repeated over and over again in Gray's catalogue, and a different name in almost every book of natural history; it figures at large as _Felis Bengalensis_, _undata_, _Javanensis_, _Sumatrana_, _minuta_, _torquata Nipalensis_, _wagati_, _pardochrous_, _undulata_, _Ellioti_, _Horsfieldi_, _inconspicua_, _Chinensis_, _Reevesii_, and _Diardii_. Blyth pertinently remarks: "The varieties of this handsome little cat are endless, and nominal species may be made of it, _ad libitum_, if not rather _ad nauseam_." This is a very savage animal, and not tameable. Jerdon and Blyth both agree in this from specimens they kept alive. Hutton also writes: "I have a beautiful specimen alive, so savage that I dare not touch her." I should like to possess a young one, having been successful with many so-called savage animals. I had a wild-cat once which was very savage at first, but which ultimately got so tame as to lie in my lap whilst I was at work in office or writing, but she would never allow me to touch or stroke her; she would come and go of her own sweet will, and used to come daily, but she would spit and snarl if I attempted a caress. Blyth says that in confinement it never paces its cage, but constantly remains crouched in a corner, though awake and vigilant; but I have always found that the confinement of a cage operates greatly against the chance of taming any wild animal. Sir Walter Elliot says that the Shikaris attribute to it the same habit as that which used erroneously to be ascribed to the glutton, viz., that of dropping from trees on to its prey and eating its way into the neck. It preys chiefly on small game--poultry, hares, and is said to destroy small deer. McMaster relates he "saw one carry off a fowl nearly as large as itself, shaking it savagely meanwhile, and making a successful retreat in spite of the abuse, uproar, and missiles which the theft caused." Dr. Anderson says it is essentially arboreal, and the natives assert it lives on birds and small mammals, such as _Squirrels_ and _Tupaiae_. According to Hutton it breeds in May, producing three or four young in caves or beneath masses of rock. NO. 209. FELIS JERDONI. _The Lesser Leopard-Cat_ (_Jerdon's No. 111_). HABITAT.--Peninsula of India, probably also Assam and Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--"Very like _F. Bengalensis_; but smaller, the ground colour of the upper part grey, untinged with fulvous" (_Blyth_). A few small distinct black spots; spots of sides of legs round, long in the centre of the back; tail and feet dark greyish brown, but slightly spotted, if at all; chin, throat, and under parts white, with black spots. NO. 210. FELIS AURATA. _The Bay Cat_ (_Jerdon's No. 112_). HABITAT.--The Nepal and Sikim Himalayas, probably also Assam; and as it occurs in the Malayan islands, it should be found in Burmah. It is likewise an African species, Gold Coast. [Illustration: _Felis aurata_.] DESCRIPTION.--Deep bay red above, paler below; a few indistinct dark spots on the hind legs and sides; throat white; inside of ears black; the head beautifully striped with black, white and orange; the cheeks are yellowish, with two black streaks; a pale black edged line over the eyes; whiskers black, with white tips; claws black; Jerdon says that the lower surface in some is reddish white, with large and small maroon spots. SIZE.--Head and body, 31 inches and over; tail, 19. There is a fine illustration of this cat in Cassell's 'Natural History,' edited by Professor Martin Duncan, vol. ii., page 58. Very little is known of the habits of this cat. Mr. Hodgson's first specimen "was caught in a tree by some hunters in the midst of an exceedingly dense forest. Though only just taken it bore confinement very tranquilly, and gave evident signs of a tractable disposition, but manifested high courage, for the approach of a huge Bhotea dog to its cage excited in it symptoms of wrath only, none of fear." That it is found in Burmah is extremely probable, as it inhabits the Malay countries, and the Rev. J. Mason speaks of a tiger cat in Tenasserim, "which the Karens call the _Fire Tiger_ from the colour of its skin, which is of an uniform red." NO. 211. FELIS RUBIGINOSA. _The Rusty-spotted Cat_ (_Jerdon's No. 113_). NATIVE NAME.--_Namali pelli_, Tamil.--_Jerdon_. HABITAT.--Southern India and Ceylon. Jerdon says he never saw or heard of it in Central India, or on the Malabar Coast, but I got it at Seonee in the Central Provinces. DESCRIPTION.--Size of a small domestic cat, with a tail half the length of the body; colour greyish with a rufous tinge, or greenish grey tinged with rufous; the under parts white, with large rufous spots; ears small; four well defined dark brown or black lines along the forehead and nape, and three along the back, the latter being interrupted into longish spots; a series of rusty coloured spots on the sides; fur very short; tail uniform in colour, more rufous than the body, sometimes indistinctly spotted; insides of limbs with large brown spots; feet reddish grey above with black soles, whiskers long and white. SIZE.--Head and body, 16 to 18 inches; tail, 9-1/2. Jerdon says: "This very pretty little cat frequents grass in the dry beds of tanks, brushwood, and occasionally drains in the open country and near villages, and it is said not to be a denizen of the jungles. I had a kitten brought to me when very young, in 1846, and it became quite tame, and was the delight and admiration of all who saw it. Its activity was quite marvellous, and it was very playful and elegant in its motions. When it was about eight months old I introduced it into a room where there was a small fawn of the gazelle, and the little creature flew at it the moment it saw it, seized it by the nape, and was with difficulty taken off. I lost it shortly after this. It would occasionally find its way to the rafters of bungalows and hunt for squirrels." Jerdon doubted the existence of this cat in Central India, but, in 1859 or 1860, I had two kittens brought to me by a Gond in the Seonee district, and I kept them for many months. They became perfectly tame, so much so that, although for nine months of the year I was out in camp, they never left the tents, although allowed to roam about unconfined. The grace and agility of their motions was most striking. I have seen one of them balance itself on the back of a chair, and when one of the pair died it was ludicrous to see the attempts of a little gray village cat, which I got to be a companion to the survivor, to emulate the gymnastics of its wild comrade. At night the little cats were put into a basket, and went on with the spare tents to my next halting place; and on my arrival next morning I would find them frisking about the tent roof between the two canvasses, or scrambling up the trees under which we were pitched. Whilst I was at work I usually had one in my lap and the other cuddled behind my back on the chair. One day one of them, which had been exploring the hollows of an old tree close by, rushed into my tent and fell down in convulsions at my feet. I did everything in my power for the poor little creature, but in vain, it died in two or three minutes, having evidently been bitten by a snake. The survivor was inconsolable, refused food, and went mewing all over the place and kept rolling at my feet, rubbing itself against them as though to beg for the restoration of its brother. At last I sent into a village and procured a common kitten, which I put into the basket with the other. There was a great deal of spitting and growling at first, but in time they became great friends, but the villager was no match for the forester. It was amusing to see the wild one dart like a squirrel up the walls of the tent on to the roof; the other would try to follow, scramble up a few feet, and then, hanging by its claws, look round piteously before it dropped to the ground. NO. 212. FELIS TORQUATA. _The Spotted Wild-Cat_ (_Jerdon's No. 114_). NATIVE NAME.--_Lhan-rahn-manjur_, Mahrathi. HABITAT.--North-Western, Central, and Southern India. DESCRIPTION.--Ground colour pale greyish fulvous or cat-grey, with numerous round black spots, smaller on the head, nape, and shoulders; longitudinal lines on the occiput; cheek striped; breast spotted, but belly free from spots; on the limbs distinct cross bands; within the arms one or two broad black streaks; tail tapering more or less, and marked with a series of well-defined rings and a black tip; smallish ears; as in the domestic cat, reddish outside with a small dusky tuft at tip; paws black underneath. SIZE.--Head and body, from 16 to 24 inches; tail, about half the length. Blyth first obtained this from Hansi, where it was stated to frequent open sandy plains, living on field rats. Jerdon at Hissar and in the Central Provinces. At Hissar he found it among low sand-hills, where it appeared to feed on the jerboa-rat (_Gerbillus Indicus_), which is common there. Sykes seems to have confused this species with a domestic variety run wild, as the habits differ from the present species. NO. 213. FELIS MANUL. _The Black-chested Wild-Cat_. HABITAT.--Tibet, Central and Northern Asia. DESCRIPTION.--Rufescent pale grey; chest and front of neck and part of belly sooty black, "terminating forward near the ears horn-wise or crescent-wise; on the crown of the head several series of black dots are disposed more or less linearly and length-wise. On the cheeks, from eyes to articulation of jaws, are two sub-parallel zig-zag lines of jet black; five to seven straighter lines, less deep in hue, cross the lower back and blend gradually with the caudal rings, which, including the black tip, are about nine in number. These rings of the tail are narrow, with large intervals, diminishing towards its tip, as the interstices of the dorsal bars do towards the base of the tail; the black caudal rings are perfect, save the two basal, which are deficient below, whilst the two apical on the contrary are rather wider below and nearly or quite connected there. Outside the arms and sides are two or three transverse black bars, more or less freckled with the grey hairs of the body; ears outside grey, like the back, but paler, small and much rounded. The young show the marks more clearly" (_Blyth_, abridged from _Hodgson_). SIZE.--Head and body, 22 to 24 inches; tail, 10 to 11 inches. This animal which is allied to the European wild-cat, was first discovered by Pallas, who, however, has left little on record concerning its habits beyond that it is found in woody rocky countries preying on the smaller quadrupeds. NO. 214. FELIS SCRIPTA. HABITAT.--Thibet.[14] [Footnote 14: Milne-Edwards describes this animal in his 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes,' page 341.] NO. 215. FELIS SHAWIANA. _The Yarkand Spotted Wild-Cat_. NATIVE NAME.--_Molun_, Turki. HABITAT.--Turkistan, Yarkand. DESCRIPTION.--"General colour pale greyish fulvous above, the back rather darker than the sides; under parts white; the body marked throughout with rather small black spots which are largest on the abdomen, smaller and closer together on the shoulders and thighs, tending to form cross lines on the latter, and indistinct on the middle of the back; anterior portion of the face and muzzle whitish; cheek stripes of rusty red and black; hairs mixed; ears rather more rufous outside, especially towards the tip, which is blackish brown and pointed; the hairs at the end scarcely lengthened; interior of ears white; there are some faint rufous spots at the side of the neck; breast very faintly rufous, with one narrow brownish band across; inside of limbs mostly white; a black band inside the forearm, and a very black spot behind the tarsus; tail dusky above near the base, with five or six black bars above on the posterior half, none below, the dark bars closer together towards the tip; fur soft, moderately long, purplish grey towards the base." SIZE.--Apparently exceeds that of the common cat, and equals _F. chaus_; the tail about half the length of the body. I have taken the above description from Mr. W. T. Blanford ('Report on the Second Yarkand Mission: Mammalia') who has first described and named this new species. There is also an excellent plate in the same portion of the report, which unfortunately is published at an almost prohibitive price, and to be obtained at the Government Press. The black spots on the belly have been inadvertently left out; otherwise the plate is excellent, as are all the others, especially the osteological ones. NO. 216. FELIS CHAUS. _The Common Jungle-Cat_ (_Jerdon's No. 115_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Kutas_ (according to Jerdon, but I have always found this applied to the _Paradoxurus_), _Jangli-billi_, _Ban-bilao_, Hindi; _Ban beral_, Bengali; _Birka_, Bhagalpor Hill Tribes; _Maut-bek_, Canarese; _Kada-bek_ or _Bella-bek_ of Waddars; _Mota lahn manjur_, Mahrathi; _Bhaoga_, Mahrathi of the Ghats; _Jinki-pilli_, Telegu; _Cheru-pali_, Malabarese (_Jerdon_); _Khyoung-Tsek-koon_ in Arakan. HABITAT.--Common all over India from 7,000 or 8,000 feet of elevation in the Himalayas, down to Cape Comorin and the Island of Ceylon. It is also found in Assam and Burmah. This species appears to have a wide range, as it has been found also in Persia, on the borders of the Caspian and in Egypt. DESCRIPTION.--Larger somewhat, and more lanky than the domestic cat. The general appearance of the fur a rusty or grizzly grey; the hairs being pale fulvous brown with dark tips; more rufous on the sides of the abdomen and neck, the lower parts being white; faint transverse stripes, occasionally broken into spots on the sides, but these markings disappear with old age, and are more difficult to trace in the deeper furred specimens from cold countries; the markings are darker on the limbs, and there is a distinct black bar on the forearm near the elbow; inside are two or three dark stripes; the feet are blackish underneath; often a dark bar across the chest, and sometimes faint spots on the belly; rufous stripes on the cheek; a dark stripe ascends from the eye, especially in the young animal, and it has sometimes faint stripes on the nape mingling on the forehead; the ears are slightly tufted, dark externally, white within; the tail, which is short, is more or less ringed from the middle to the tip, which is black. Melanoid specimens have been found. SIZE.--Head and body, about 26 inches; tail, nine to ten; height at shoulder, 14 to 15 inches. This rather common cat is, in some degree, related to the lynxes, sufficiently distinct, yet resembling the latter in its tufted ears, short tail, long limbs, and some few peculiarities of the skull. Jerdon says of it: "It frequents alike jungles and the open country, and is very partial to long grass and reeds, sugar-cane fields, corn fields, &c. It does much damage to game of all kinds--hares, partridges, &c., and quite recently I shot a pea fowl at the edge of a sugar-cane field when one of these cats sprang out, seized the pea fowl, and after a short struggle (for the bird was not dead) carried it off before my astonished eyes, and in spite of my running up, made good his escape with his booty. It must have been stalking these birds, so immediately did its spring follow my shot." Blyth writes: "In India the _chaus_ does not shun, but even affects populous neighbourhoods, and is a terrible depredator among the tame ducks and poultry, killing as many as it can get at, but I have not known him to attack geese, of which I long kept a flock out day and night, about a tank where ducks could not be left out at night on account of these animals. A pair of them bred underneath my house, and I frequently observed them, and have been surprised at the most extraordinary humming sound which they sometimes uttered of an evening. Their other cries were distinguishable from those of the domestic cat." This species will, however, interbreed with the domestic cat. According to Hodgson it breeds twice a year in the woods, producing three or four kittens at a birth. It is said to be untameable, but in 1859, at Sasseram, one of the men of my Levy caught a very young kitten, which was evidently of this species. I wrote at the time to a friend about a young mongoose which I had just got, and added, "It is great fun to see my last acquisition and a little jungle cat (_Felis chaus_) playing together. They are just like two children in their manner, romping and rolling over each other, till one gets angry, when there is a quarrel and a fight, which, however, is soon made up, the kitten generally making the first advances towards a reconciliation, and then they go on as merrily as ever. The cat is a very playful, good tempered little thing; the colour is a reddish-yellow with darker red stripes like a tiger, and slightly spotted; the ears and eyes are very large; the orbits of the last bony and prominent. What is it? _Chaus_ or _Bengalensis_?[15] I am not as yet learned in cats when very young. If it be a real jungle cat--which my shikaris declare it to be--it strangely belies the savage nature of its kind, as Thomson says:-- 'The tiger darting fierce Impetuous on the prey his glance has doom'd The lively shining leopard speckled o'er With many a spot the beauty of the waste And scorning all the taming arts of man.' "Poets are not always correct. Tigers have often been tamed, though they are not to be depended on." [Footnote 15: Both reputed to be untameable.] Now we come to the true Lynxes, which are cats with very short tails, long limbs, tufted ears, the cheeks whiskered almost as long as Dundreary's, and feet the pads of which are overgrown with hair. Some naturalists would separate them from the other cats, but the connection is supplied by the last species which, though possessing certain features of the lynx, yet interbreeds with the true cats. The lynx was well known to the ancients, and was one of the animals used in the arena from its savage disposition, and its sight was considered so piercing as to be able to penetrate even stone walls! There are no true lynxes in India proper; we must look to the colder Trans-Himalayan countries for them. The following is from Thibet:-- NO. 217. FELIS ISABELLINA. _The Thibetan Lynx_. HABITAT.--Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--"Pale isabella-brown, with scarcely a trace of markings, but in some the spots come out even conspicuously in summer _pelage_, especially on the limbs and belly, and the crown and middle of the back are generally more or less infuscated, occasionally very much so; in some the face is almost white, with traces of frontal streaks, and there is always (the same as in the European lynx) a short, narrow, dark streak on each side of the nose towards its tip."--_Blyth_. This species is similar in some respects to the European animal, but the principal difference lies in the feet, the pads of which in the Thibetan species are prominent and bare, with short, close fur between them, whereas in the European lynx the long fur completely conceals the pads, and the latter is the larger animal. There is a very good photograph of _F. isabellina_ in Kinloch's 'Large Game Shooting in Thibet and the North-West,' taken from a carefully stuffed specimen. The author says: "On the 4th of July 1866, I was hunting _Oves Ammon_ on the high ground between Hanle and Nyima, when I suddenly came upon a female lynx with two young cubs. I shot the mother, and as the cubs concealed themselves among some rocks, I barricaded them in, and went on with my hunting. On arriving in camp I sent men back to try and catch the cubs; in this they succeeded, and brought them to me. They were about the size of half grown cats, and more spiteful vicious little devils cannot be imagined; they were, however, very handsome, with immense heads and paws. For two or three days they refused all food; but at the end of that time they fed quite ravenously from the hand. They soon became very tame and playful, though always ready to set their backs up if at all teased, or if a dog came near them." The next species differs from the typical lynx in wanting the ruff of hair round the face, and also in having the pads of the feet bald. The skull is that of a lynx, but the processes of the frontals and intermaxillae are not quite so much produced, and they do not entirely separate the nasal from the maxillae. There is a good illustration to be found in De Blainville's 'Osteographie.' NO. 218. FELIS CARACAL. _The Red Lynx_ (_Jerdon's No. 116_). NATIVE NAME.--_Siagosh_, Persian, i.e., black ear. HABITAT.--Scattered throughout India generally, Assam (Burmah and Ceylon?), but it has also a much wider range, being found throughout Africa, Syria, and Arabia, and also in Persia. [Illustration: _Felis caracal_.] DESCRIPTION.--Colour sandy fulvous, varying somewhat in individuals; paler beneath, in some almost white; tail the same colour as the body, with a black tip; the lower parts with some obscure spots, more or less distinct on the belly, flanks and insides of limbs; ears black externally, with a long dark ear tuft, white inside; a small blackish spot on the upper lip, and another above the eye, also a line down each side of the nose. In some individuals faint bars and caudal rings are discernible, and the chest is obscurely banded. SIZE.--Head and body, 26 to 30 inches; tail, 9 or 10; height, 16 to 18 inches. This handsome lynx is found, though not very common, in most parts of the Indian Peninsula, although Jerdon states that it is unknown in the Himalayas, Bengal, and the eastern countries. In those parts where it abounds it is very destructive to small game, such as gazelles, the smaller deer and hares. It also catches such birds as pea-fowl, florican, cranes, &c., frequently springing at them from the ground as they fly over. They are easily tamed. I had a young one at Seonee, and the natives of some parts are said to train them for sporting purposes in the manner in which the hunting leopard is trained. Blyth says a brace of siagosh are often pitted against each other by the natives who keep them, a heavy wager pending as to which of the two will disable the greater number out of a flock of tame pigeons feeding, before the mass of them can rise out of reach, and ten or a dozen birds are commonly struck down right and left. "It is a most sanguinary creature, yet the keepers manage them with facility, and slip the hood over their eyes with extreme dexterity, while they are engaged with their prey. In general they become quite tame to persons they know, and often sufficiently so to bear handling by a stranger. Much as I have seen of them I never heard one utter a sound, except hissing and growling." With regard to this last assertion of Mr. Blyth's I may say that the caracal differs very much from the European lynx, who, according to Tschudi, betrays his presence by horrible howlings audible at a great distance. Professor Kitchen Parker writes that the specimen now in the Zoological Gardens is a most cantankerous beast.[16] "If the American lynx, who is unfortunate enough to live in the same cage with him, dares to come betwixt the wind and his nobility, or even if he, in the course of his peregrinations, should, by chance, get sufficiently near his companion to be annoyed with the sight of so vulgar a beast, he immediately arches his back, lays back his ears, uncovers his great canines, and swears in a most fearful manner until the other unlucky animal is quite cowed, and looks as meek as its feline nature will allow it, evidently deprecating the anger of my lord; and although not conscious of having done wrong, quite ready to promise faithfully never to do it again." [Footnote 16: I can bear witness to this, having lately made his acquaintance.] * * * * * We now take up the last member of the Cat family; one differing so much in certain respects as to have been classed by some authors as a separate genus, to which Wagner gave the name of _Cynaelurus_, or dog-cat, which, however, is not appropriate, as the animal, though having the slender form of the greyhound, and in having the claws of its middle front toes but imperfectly retractile, is, in its anatomy and all osteological features, a true cat. As I have before remarked it is to this animal alone that the name leopard should be applied, the peculiar ruff or shagginess of hair on the neck having given rise to the ancient superstition that this animal was a cross between the lion and the pard, whence its name Leo-Pardus. There are three varieties found in Africa and India--one, the maneless leopard, is confined to Africa, where also is found in the south a woolly variety with light brown spots. The maned leopard is found all over South-West Asia, including India. NO. 219. FELIS JUBATA. _The Hunting Leopard_ (_Jerdon's No. 117_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Chita_, Hindi; _Yuz_ of the Chita-catchers; _Kendua-bagh_, Bengali; _Laggar_ in some parts; _Chita Puli_, Telegu; _Chircha_ and _Sivungi_, Canarese. HABITAT.--Central or Southern India, and in the North-West from Kandeish, through Scinde and Rajpootana, to the Punjab. It is also found in all Africa, with Syria and Arabia, and throughout Asia Minor. In India the places where it is most common are Jeypur in Upper India, and Hyderabad in Southern India. [Illustration: _Felis jubata_.] DESCRIPTION.--A tall, slim animal, with body much drawn in at the flanks like a greyhound; purely cat-like head with short round ears; long tail, much compressed at the end; in colour a bright rufous fawn, more or less deep, sometimes what Blyth calls a bright _nankeen_, dotted with numerous small black spots which are single, and not in rosettes, as in the pards; a black streak from the corner of the eye down the face; ears black at base externally, the rest whitish; the tail spotted, but having three or four black rings at the tip: the extreme tip is always white; the hair of the belly is lengthened with a shaggy fringe-like appearance; the fur generally is coarse; the nozzle is black, whereas in the tiger it is pink, and in a pard dusky pink; the pupils of the eye contract circularly. [Illustration: Skull of _Felis jubata_.] SIZE.--Head and body, about 4-1/2 feet; tail, 2-1/2; height, 2-1/2 to 2-3/4 feet. This animal is one of the most interesting of all the felines, both as regards its appearance, disposition, habits, and the uses to which it can be put. Throughout India it is in much request as a necessary appanage to regal state; and, therefore, a class of men devote themselves to the trapping of this creature which, when trained, finds a ready sale at the courts of Indian nobles. For this purpose the adult animal is always caught, it being considered by the chita-catchers that a young leopard would never turn out well for the purposes of the chase. A similar idea prevails amongst the falconers of Hindustan regarding nestlings, and it is surprising how soon a large adult and apparently savage animal can be reduced to a state of comparative slavery and obedient to the orders of his keepers. Dr. Jerdon describes one which he brought up from its earliest infancy; his bungalow was next to the one I inhabited for a time at Kampti, and consequently I saw a good deal of Billy, as the leopard was named. At my first interview I found him in the stables amongst the dogs and horses, and, as I sat down on his charpoy, he jumped up alongside of me, and laid down to be scratched, playing and purring and licking my hands with a very rough tongue. He sometimes used to go out with his master, and was gradually getting into the way of running down antelope, when Dr. Jerdon was ordered off on field service. The mode of hunting with the chita is so well known, and has been so frequently described, that I think I need not attempt a description. Its habits in a state of nature, and the mode of capture, are more to the purport of this work. It is said by shikarees to feed only once every third day, when, after gorging itself, it retires to its den for the other two. On the morning of the third day he visits some particular tree, which the animals of his species in the neighbourhood are in the habit of frequenting. Such trees are easily to be recognised by the scoring of the bark on which he whets his claws. Here, after having relieved himself in various ways and played about with such of his comrades as may be there, they go off on a hunting expedition. There is an interesting letter from "Deccanee Bear" in _The Asian_ of the 22nd of July, 1880, giving a description of the snaring of some of these animals, and the remarks he makes about their rendezvous at a particular tree, corroborates what has been asserted by other writers. He says: "Arrived at the spot the bullocks were soon relieved of their burden, and then work commenced. The nooses were of the same kind as those used for snaring antelope, made from the dried sinews of the antelope. These were pegged down in all directions, and at all angles, to a distance of 25 to 30 feet from the tree. The carts and bullocks were sent off into a road about a mile away. An ambush was made of bushes and branches some fifty or sixty yards away, and here, when the time came, I and three Vardis ensconced ourselves. I have sat near some dirty fellows in my life, but the stench of those three men baffles description; you could cut it with a knife. I could not smoke, so had to put up with the several smells until I was nearly sick. At last the sun commenced to sink, and the men who were looking round in all directions, suddenly pointed in the direction of the north. Sure enough there were four cheetahs skying away and playing together about 400 yards off; they came closer and closer, when they stopped about 100 yards off, looking about as if they suspected danger. However, they became reassured, and all raced away as hard as they could in the direction of the tree. Two were large and the other two smaller; the larger had the best of the race, and were entangled by all four feet before they knew where they were. The Vardis made a rush. I did the same, but in a second was flat on the ground, having caught my feet in the nooses. One of the men came and released me from my undignified position, and I could then see how the cheetahs were secured. A country blanket was thrown over the heads of the animal, and the two fore or hind legs tied together. The carts had come up by this time; a leather hood was substituted for the blanket--a rather ticklish operation, during which one man was badly bitten in the hand. The cheetahs know how to use their teeth and claws. Having been securely fastened on the carts, and the nooses collected, we started for camp, which we reached about eight in the evening. I was much pleased with what I had seen and learnt, but it took me a long time to get the smell of the Vardis out of my head. The next morning I went to see the cheetahs and found that they had been tied spread-eagle fashion on the carts, and with their hoods firmly tied. They were a pair, and in all probability the parents of the two smaller ones. Women and children are told off to sit all day long close to the animals, and keep up a conversation, so that they should get accustomed to the human voice. The female was snarling a good deal, the male being much quieter; they go through various gradations of education, and I was told they would be ready to be unhooded and worked in about six months' time. The man who had his hand bitten was suffering from considerable inflammation. I had him attended to, and, after rewarding them with 'baksheesh,' I let them proceed on their way rejoicing." Chita kittens are very pretty little things, quite grey, without any spots whatever, but they can always be recognised by the black stripe down the nose, and on cutting off a little bit of the soft hair I noticed that the spots were quite distinct in the under fur. I have not seen this fact alluded to by others. As a rule the young of all cats, even the large one-coloured species, such as the lion and puma, are spotted, but the hunting leopard is externally an exception, although the spots are there lying hid. I had several of them at Seonee. HYAENIDAE--THE HYAENAS. The second family of the AEluroidea contains only one genus, the _Hyaena_, which, though somewhat resembling the dog in outward appearance, connects the cat with the civet. The differences between the _Felidae_ and the _Viverridae_, setting aside minor details, are in the teeth, and the possession by the latter of a caudal pouch. My readers are now familiar with the simple cutting form of the feline teeth, which are thirty in number. The civets have no less than forty, and the grinders, instead of having cutting scissor-like edges, are cuspidate, or crowned with tubercles. Now the hyaena comes in as an intermediate form. He has four more premolars than the typical cat, and the large grinding teeth are conical, blunt and very powerful, the base of the cone being belted by a strong ridge, and the general structure is one adapted for crushing rather than cutting. Professor Owen relates that an eminent engineer, to whom he showed a hyaena's jaw, remarked that the strong conical tooth, with its basal ridge, was a perfect model of a hammer for breaking stones. Of course, such a formation would be useless without a commensurate motive power, and we may, therefore, look to the skull for certain signs of the enormous development of muscles, which this animal possesses. In shape it somewhat resembles the cat's skull, though not so short, nor yet so long as that of the civet or dog. The zygomatic arches are greatly developed, also the bony ridges for the attachment of the muscles, especially the sagittal or great longitudinal crest on the top of the head, which is in comparison far larger than that of even the tiger, and to which are attached the enormous muscles of the cheek working the powerful jaws, which are capable of crushing the thigh-bone of a bullock. Captain Baldwin, in his book, says he remembers once, when watching over a kill, seeing a hyaena, only some twelve feet below where he sat, snap with a single effort through the rib of a buffalo. [Illustration: Skull of Hyaena.] The hyaena also possesses the sub-caudal pouch of the civets, which gave rise amongst the ancients to various conjectures as to the dual character of its sex. The _bulla tympani_ or bulb of the ear is large as in the cats, but it is not divided into two compartments by a bony partition (which in the dogs is reduced to a low wall), but the paroccipital process or bony clamp on the external posterior surface is closely applied to the bulb as in the cats, and not separated by a groove as in the dogs. The cervical vertebrae sometimes become anchylosed, from whence, in former times, arose the superstition that this animal had but one bone in the neck. In its internal anatomy, digestive as well as generative, the hyaena is nearer to the cat than the dog, but it possesses the _caecum_, or blind gut, which is so large in the canidae, small in the felines, and totally absent in the bears. The tongue is rough, with a circular collection of retroflected spines. The hind legs are much shorter than the front, and the feet have only four toes with blunt worn claws, not retractile, but like those of the dog. The hair is coarse and bristly, and usually prolonged into a sort of crest or mane along the neck and shoulders, and to a slighter degree down the back; the tail is bushy. Dental formula: Inc., 3--3/3--3; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 4--4/3--3; molars, 1--1/1--1. There are only three known species of hyaena, of which one, our common Indian animal, belongs to Asia, and two, _H. crocuta_ and _H. brunnea_, to Africa. _GENUS HYAENA_ NO. 220. HYAENA STRIATA. _The Striped Hyaena_ (_Jerdon's No. 118_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Taras_, _Hundar_, _Jhirak_ (in Hurriana); _Lakhar-baghar_, _Lokra-bagh_, Hindi; _Naukra-bagh_, Bengali; _Rerha_ in Central India; _Kirba_ and _Kat-Kirba_, Canarese; _Korna-gandu_, Telegu. HABITAT.--All over India; but as far as I can gather not in Burmah nor in Ceylon; it is not mentioned in Blyth's and Kellaart's catalogues. It is also found in Northern Africa and throughout Asia Minor and Persia; it is common in Palestine. [Illustration: _Hyaena striata_.] DESCRIPTION.--Pale yellowish-grey, with transverse tawny or blackish bands which encircle the body, and extend downwards on to the legs. The neck and back are maned. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/2 feet; tail, about 1-1/2 feet. This repulsive and cowardly creature is yet a useful beast in its way. Living almost exclusively on carrion, it is an excellent scavenger. Most wild animals are too active for it, but it feeds on the remains left by the larger felines, and such creatures as die of disease, and can, on a pinch, starve for a considerable time. The African spotted hyaena is said to commit great havoc in the sheep-fold. The Indian one is very destructive to dogs, and constantly carries off pariahs from the outskirts of villages. The natives declare that the hyaena tempts the dogs out by its unearthly cries, and then falls upon them. Dr. Jerdon relates a story of a small dog belonging to an officer of the 33rd M. N. I. (the regiment he was with when I first knew him) being carried off by a hyaena whose den was known. Some of the sepoys went after it, entered the cave, killed the hyaena, and recovered the dog alive, and with but little damage done to it. The hyaena is of a timorous nature, seldom, if ever, showing fight. Two of them nearly ran over me once as I was squatting on a deer run waiting for sambar, which were being beaten out of a hill. I flung my hat in the face of the leading one, on which both turned tail and fled. The Arabs have a proverb, "As cowardly as a hyaena." The _Cryptoprocta ferox_ is not an inhabitant of India, being found only in the interior of Madagascar. The genus contains only one species, a most savage little animal; it is the most perfect link between the cats and the civets, having retractile claws, one more premolar in each jaw; five toes, and semi-plantigrade feet. It should properly come before the hyaenas, to which the next in order is the South African Aard-wolf (_Proteles Lalandii_), which forms the connection between the hyaena and the civet, though more resembling the former. It is placed in a family by itself, which contains but one genus and species. It has the sloping back of the hyaena, the hind legs being lower than the fore, and it might almost, from its shape and colouring, be taken for that animal when young. The skull however is prolonged, and the teeth are civet-like. It is nocturnal and gregarious, several living in the same burrow. Like the hyaena it lives on carrion. It has a fifth toe on the fore feet. VIVERRIDAE--THE CIVET FAMILY. The Civets are confined to the Old World; they are mostly animals with long bodies, sharp muzzle, short legs, long tapering tail and coarse fur; they are semi-plantigrade, walking on their toes, but keeping the wrist and ankle nearer to the ground than do the cats; the claws are only partially retractile; the skull is longer in the snout than that of felines, and, altogether narrower, the zygomatic arches not being so broad, the base of the skull is much the same, and the _bulla tympani_ shews little difference; the teeth, however, are decidedly different. There are four premolars and two molars on each side of each jaw, which, with the normal number of canines and incisors, give forty teeth in all; the canines are moderate in size, and sharp; the premolars conical, and the molars cuspidate, which gives them a grinding surface instead of the trenchant character of the cats; the tongue is rough, the papillae being directed backwards; the pupils are circular. The most striking characteristics of the family is, however, the sub-caudal pouch, which in most produces an odorous substance, and in the typical civet the perfume of that name. [Illustration: Dentition of Civet.] Dental formula: inc., 3--3/3--3; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 4--4/3--3; molars, 2--2/3--3. The family contains the Civet, Genette, Linsang, Suricate, Binturong and Mongoose, though this last is separated by Jerdon, who follows Blyth. _GENUS VIVERRA_. Anal pouch large, and divided into two sacs secreting the _civet_ perfume of commerce; pupil vertical and oblong; fur spotted and coarse, lengthened into an erectile mane on the back; diet mixed carnivorous and vegetivorous. NO. 221. VIVERRA ZIBETHA. _The Large Civet Cat_ (_Jerdon's No. 119_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Katas_, Hindi; _Mach-bhondar_, Bengali, also _Bagdos_ and _Pudo-gaula_ in some parts; _Bhran_ in the Nepal Terai; _Nit-biralu_, Nepalese; _Kung_, Bhotia; _Saphiong_, Lepcha, (_Jerdon_); _Khyoung-myen_, Aracanese. HABITAT.--According to Jerdon this species inhabits Bengal, extending northwards in Nepal and Sikhim, and into Cuttack, Orissa, and Central India on the south, but is replaced in Malabar by the next species; it is also found in Assam and Burmah, but apparently not in Ceylon, where _V. Malaccensis_ represents the family. [Illustration: _Viverra zibetha_.] DESCRIPTION.--Hoary or yellowish grey, generally spotted and striped with black; some specimens are marked with wavy bands, others are almost free from marks; throat white, with a transverse black band, another on each side of the neck; under-parts white; tail with six black rings; limbs dark. SIZE.--Head and body, 33 to 36 inches; tail 13 to 20. "This animal frequents brushwood and grass, and the thorny scrub that usually covers the bunds of tanks. It is very carnivorous and destructive to poultry, game, &c., but will also, it is said, eat fish, crabs and insects. It breeds in May and June, and has usually four or five young. Hounds, and indeed all dogs, are greatly excited by the scent of this civet, and will leave any other scent for it. It will readily take to water if hard pressed."--_Jerdon_. The drug civet is usually collected from the glands of this and other species, which are confined for the purpose in cages in which they can hardly turn round, and it is scraped from the pouch with a spoon. Sometimes the animal rubs off the secretion on the walls and bars of its cage, which are then scraped; but the highest price is given for the pouch cut from the civet when killed. In the London Zoological Gardens the collection of the perfume, which is rubbed off against the walls of the cage, is a valued perquisite of the keeper. Cuvier says of a civet which was kept in captivity in Paris: "Its musky odour was always perceptible, but stronger than usual when the animal was irritated; at such times little lumps of odoriferous matter fell from its pouch. These masses were also produced when the animal was left to itself, but only at intervals of fifteen to twenty days." NO. 222. VIVERRA CIVETTINA. _The Malabar Civet-Cat_ (_Jerdon's No. 120_). HABITAT.--Throughout the Malabar coast, abundant in Travancore, and found occasionally in the uplands of Wynaad and Coorg. DESCRIPTION.--Hair long, coarse, and of a dusky or brownish-grey, and marked with interrupted transverse bands or spots in rows, two obliquely transverse black lines on the neck; the snout, throat, and neck are white; the tail tinged with black. From the shoulders along the back a mane or crest of lengthened hair. SIZE.--Same as last species. This species closely resembles the African civet--only that in the latter the mane begins on the occiput. Jerdon supposes that it may be found in Ceylon, but it is not mentioned by Kellaart. It is found chiefly in forests and richly-wooded lowlands, and is stated to be very destructive to poultry. The young may, however, be reared on farinaceous food, with the addition of a little fish and raw meat; when older on flesh alone. NO. 223. VIVERRA MEGASPILA. NATIVE NAME.--_Khyoung-myen_. HABITAT.--Burmah, also Malayan peninsula and archipelago (?) [Illustration: _VIVERRA MEGASPILA_.] DESCRIPTION.--The body markings larger, blacker and fewer in number than in last species. SIZE.--Same as last. Blyth states that this is nearly allied to the last species, but differs from _V. tangalunga_ of Sumatra (with which some consider it synonymous) as the latter is smaller, with a more cat-like tail, and more numerous spots. Gray says that _V. tangalunga_ has the tail black above and ringed on the lower side. * * * * * The next species is smaller and more vermiform, with acute compressed claws, a shorter tail, and no crest, and of more scansorial habits. It forms the sub-genus _Viverricula_ of Hodgson, but it is not desirable to perpetuate the sub-division. NO. 224. VIVERRA MALACCENSIS. _The Lesser Civet-Cat_ (_Jerdon's No. 121_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Mushak-billi_, _Katas_, _Kasturi_, Hindi; _Gando-gaula_, _Gandha-gokul_, Bengali; _Jowadi-manjur_, Mahrathi; _Punagin-bek_, Canarese; _Punagu-pilli_, Telegu; _Sayer_, _Bug-nyul_, Nepalese; _Wa-young-kyoung-bank_, Aracanese; _Kyoung-ka-do_, Burmese; _Ooralawa_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--India generally, with Assam, Burmah, and Ceylon. It extends also to the Malayan countries, Java and China. [Illustration: _Viverra Malaccensis_.] DESCRIPTION.--General colour greyish-brown, spotted black; the dorsal spots elongated, and forming longitudinal interrupted streaks or stripes on the back and croup; the sides and limbs have also spots in lines; a long black streak from ear to shoulder, and some transverse lines on the sides of the neck. Abdomen nearly spotless; feet and part of legs dusky-brown; tail long and tapering, marked with eight or nine black rings. SIZE.--Head and body, 22 to 24 inches; tail, 16 to 17 inches. According to Jerdon, "it lives in holes in the ground or in banks, occasionally under rocks or in dense thickets, now and then taking shelter in drains and out-houses." Hodgson says: "These animals dwell in forests or detached woods and copses, whence they wander freely into the open country by day (occasionally at least) as well as by night. They are solitary and single wanderers, even the pair seldom being seen together, and they feed promiscuously upon small animals, birds' eggs, snakes, frogs, insects, besides some fruits or roots. In the Terai a low caste of woodmen, called Mushahirs, eat the flesh." Mr. Swinhoe affirms that the Chinese also eat its flesh, and adds: "but a portion that I had cooked was so affected with the civet odour that I could not palate it." The fur is valued in China as a lining for coats, and is bought by those who cannot afford the more expensive skins. Jerdon had one which was perfectly tame; it caught rats and squirrels at times, as also sparrows and other birds. It is kept alive by the natives in India and Ceylon for the sake of the secretion. Kellaart says it is a great destroyer of poultry, and that it will enter a yard in daylight and carry off a fowl or a duck. It is much dreaded by the Chinese for the havoc it commits in the hen-roost. _GENUS PRIONODON_. Between the last genus and this should come the _Genets_, which are not found in India, but chiefly in Africa, and one species is common in the south of Europe, where in some parts it is domesticated for the purpose of catching mice. It has rudimentary pouches only, which do not yield the musky secretion of the civets. The Linsang or _Prionodon_ is a very cat-like animal, which was once classed with the Felidae; the body is long and slender; the limbs very short; fur soft, close and erect, very richly coloured and spotted with black; the grinders are tubercular; claws retractile; soles furred; tail long, cylindrical, and ringed with black; no sub-caudal pouch. The female has two pectoral and two inguinal mammae. Teeth, 38; molars, 5--5/6--6. NO. 225. PRIONODON PARDICOLOR. _The Tiger Civet or Linsang_ (_Jerdon's No. 122_). NATIVE NAME.--_Zik-chum_, Bhotia; _Suliyu_, Lepcha. HABITAT.--Nepal, Sikim. DESCRIPTION.--"Rich orange buff or fulvous, spotted with black; the neck above with four irregular lines; the body above and on the sides with large, entire elliptic or squarish marks, eight in transverse, and seven in longitudinal series, diminishing in size on the dorsal ridge, which has an interrupted dark line, and extending outside the limbs to the digits; below entirely unspotted; tail with eight or nine nearly perfect and equal rings" (_Jerdon_). "Skull elongate; nose rather short, compressed; brain-case narrow in front, swollen over the ears, and contracted and produced behind; orbits, not defined behind, confluent with the temporal cavity; zygomatic arch slender; palate contracted behind" (_Gray_). Jerdon's description is a very good one, but it must not be taken as an accurate one, spot for spot, for the animal varies somewhat in colour. Take, for instance, a description from Gray: "Pale _whitish grey_; back of neck and shoulders with _three_ streaks diverging from the vertebral line; back with two series of large square spots; the shoulders, sides, and legs with round black spots; an elongated spot on the middle of the front part of the back, between the square spots on the sides of the body." SIZE.--Head and body, 16 inches; tail, 14 inches; height, 6 inches. Our Indian animal is closely allied to the Malayan species, which was first described as _Felis_ and afterwards _Prionodon gracilis_. It is mentioned in the English translation of Cuvier as the delundung, "a rare Javanese animal, of which there is only one species," but another was subsequently found by Mr. Hodgson in Nepal, and now a third has been discovered in Tenasserim. They are beautiful little creatures, with all the agility of cats, climbing and springing from branch to branch in pursuit of small mammals and birds, and I have no doubt it is a great enemy of the _Tupaiae_ and squirrels. It breeds in the hollows of trees. It is capable of being tamed, and according to several authors becomes very gentle and fond of being noticed. Hodgson says it never utters any kind of sound. He fed his on raw meat. NO. 226. PRIONODON MACULOSUS. _The Spotted Linsang_. HABITAT.--Tenasserim. [Illustration: _Prionodon maculosus_.] DESCRIPTION.--"Upper part brownish-black, broken up by greyish-white bands, lower parts white; tail brownish-black, with seven white rings; tips whitish; two broad black bands run down each side of the upper part of the neck, between them is a narrow greyish-white band with a faint mesial dark streak somewhat interrupted, and passing into two bands of elongate spots between the shoulders. The two broad dark bands pass into the dark patches on the back; on each side of these bands is a white rather wavy stripe, commencing at the ear, and continued along the neck above the shoulder and down the side to the thighs, becoming more irregular behind; below this again is a dark band somewhat broken up into spots in front, passing over the shoulder and continued as a line of large spots along the side. The back is chiefly brownish-black, crossed by six narrow transverse whitish bands, the first five equidistant, the foremost communicating with the mesial neck band, and the hinder all uniting with the white band on the side, so as to break up the dark colour into large spots. There are small spots on the fore neck, lower portion of the sides, and outside of the limbs, the spots in the neck forming an imperfect gorget. The white rings on the tail are not much more than half the breadth of the dark rings; the last ring near the tip and the first white ring are narrower than the others; nose dark brown mixed with grey; a dark ring round each orbit, with a streak running back to below the ear, and another passing up to the crown; forehead between and behind the eyes and in front of the ears and cheeks pale grey; ears rounded and clad with blackish hairs outside and near the margin inside, a few long pale hairs on the inner surface of the ear conch; whiskers long, extending to behind the ears, the upper brown, the lower entirely white; soles, except the pads, which are naked, covered with fine hair." The above careful description is by Mr. W. T. Blanford on specimens collected by Mr. Davison in Burmah. Mr. Davison lately showed me a beautiful specimen, which I should describe by a reverse process to Mr. Blanford's, taking the light colour as the ground work, and stating it to be of a yellowish-white or pale buff, with broad black bands and blotches as above described, or in general terms broad black patches over the back, two longitudinal interrupted black bands along the neck and sides, with two lines of elongated spots above and below the lower band, and numerous small spots on the throat, chest and limbs. SIZE.--Head and body, 18-1/4 inches; tail, 16 inches without the hair, 16-3/4 with it. This is a larger animal than _P. pardicolor_, and is distinguished from it by its larger marking. The fur is beautifully soft and close. From the richness of its colouring, the elegance of its shape, and the agility of its movements, it is one of the most beautiful and interesting of our smaller mammals. NO. 227. PRIONODON GRACILIS. _The Malayan Linsang_. HABITAT.--Malacca, Siam, Sumatra, and Tenasserim. DESCRIPTION.--Fur white, back with broad black cross-bands, sides of neck with a broad black streak continued along the sides of the body, confluent with the bands of the neck; back of neck with five parallel black streaks; tail with seven black and white streaks; a second streak, broken into spots, from the side of the neck to the haunches; legs with small black spots. Very similar to the last, only somewhat smaller. * * * * * Between _Prionodon_ and the next comes a genus _Hemigalea_, which contains one species, _H. Hardwickii_, inhabiting the Malay countries. It is a perfect link between _Prionodon_ and _Paradoxurus_. _GENUS PARADOXURUS--THE MUSANGS_. _Paradoxurus_ is a misnomer, signifying _queer-tailed_, which originated in an abnormal twist in the tail of the specimen first described and named by M. F. Cuvier. I do not think that it is even occasional, as stated by some naturalists, but is of comparatively rare occurrence; and such deformities are by no means confined to this genus only. The tail can be rolled up towards the end, and the hair is occasionally worn off, and some have a habit of curling it sideways; but I have never seen one as described by Kellaart when speaking of the genus: "The extreme or more distant half being, when extended, turned over so that the lower side is uppermost, and the animal can roll it up spirally from above downwards, and from the extremity to the base." In general appearance the musang resembles the civet, and it has in some species a sub-caudal glandular fold which contains a secretion, but without the musky odour of civet. The dentition is singularly like that of the dog, save that the flesh tooth is proportionally much stouter. The feet are five-toed, webbed; pads bald; claws semi-retractile; tail very long, with from thirty-six to thirty-eight vertebrae; the pupil of the eye is linear and erect. NO. 228. PARADOXURUS MUSANGA. _The Common Musang_ (_Jerdon's No. 123_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Khatas_, _Menuri_ (in Southern India), Lakati; _Jharka-kutta_, Hindi; _Bhonar_, Bengali; _Ud_, Mahrathi; _Kera-bek_, Canarese; _Manupilli_, Telegu; _Marra-pilli_, Malayan (toddy-cat and tree-cat of Europeans); _Sakrala_, _Khoonla_. HABITAT.--Throughout India, Burmah and Ceylon, extending to the Malay countries. DESCRIPTION.--It is difficult to lay down any precise rule for the colour of this animal, for it varies much. In general it is a fulvous grey, marked or clouded with black, or with black longitudinal stripes. No two naturalists describe it exactly alike. The limbs are, however, always dark, and there is usually a dark stripe down from the top of head to the centre of the nose. I will quote a few descriptions by various authors: "General colour brownish-black, with some dingy yellowish stripes on each side, more or less distinct, and sometimes not noticeable. A white spot above and below each eye, and the forehead with a whitish band in some; a black line from the top of the head down the centre of the nose is generally observable. In many individuals the ground colour appears to be fulvous, with black pencilling or mixed fulvous and black; the longitudinal stripes then show dark; limbs always dark brown; some appear almost black throughout, and the young are said to be nearly all black" (_Jerdon_). "General colour fulvous grey, washed with black; face darker coloured, with four white spots, one above and one below each eye, the latter more conspicuous; from three to five--more or less interrupted--black lines run from shoulder to root of tail, the central one broader and more distinct than the lateral lines; some indistinct black spots on the sides and upper parts of limbs; tail nearly all black; feet black, soles bald to the heel, flesh-coloured" (_Kellaart_). "Nose brown in the centre, with the brown colour extending under the eyes; the spot under the eye is small and indistinct" (_Gray_). The last remark is reverse of what Kellaart says. The muzzle of the young animal is flesh coloured; they are said to lose their black hairs when kept long in confinement, and become generally lighter coloured. SIZE.--Head and body about 20 to 25 inches; tail from 19 to 21 inches. This is a very common animal in India, frequently to be found in the neighbourhood of houses, attracted no doubt by poultry, rats, mice, &c. It abounds in the suburbs of Calcutta, taking up its abode sometimes in out-houses or in secluded parts of the main building. During the years 1865-66 a pair inhabited a wooden staircase in the Lieutenant-Governor's house at Alipore (Belvedere). We used to hear them daily, and once or twice I saw them in the dusk, but failed in all my attempts to trap them. That part of the building has since been altered, so I have no doubt the confiding pair have betaken themselves to other quarters. In a large banyan-tree in my brother's garden at Alipore there is a family at the present time, the junior members of which have lately fallen victims to a greyhound, who is often on the look-out for them. As yet the old ones have had the wisdom to keep out of his way. They are very easily tamed. I had one for a time at Seonee which had been shot at and wounded, and I was astonished to find how soon it got accustomed to my surgical operations. Whilst under treatment I fed it on eggs. In confinement it is better to accustom it to live partly on vegetable food, rice, and milk, &c., with raw meat occasionally. Its habits are nocturnal. I cannot affirm from my own experience that it is partial to the juice of the palm tree, for _toddy_ (or _tari_) is unknown in the Central Provinces, and I have had no specimens alive since I have been in Bengal, but it has the character of being a toddy-drinker in those parts of India where the toddy-palms grow; and Kellaart confirms the report. It is arboreal in its habits, and climbs with great agility. NO. 229. PARADOXURUS (PAGUMA _of Gray_) GRAYII. _The Hill Musang_ (_Jerdon's No. 124_). HABITAT.--South-east Himalayas and Burmah, from Nepal to Arakan. DESCRIPTION.--"Colour above light unspotted fulvous brown, showing in certain lights a strong cinereous tinge, owing to the black tips of many of the hairs; beneath lighter and more cinereous; limbs ash-coloured, deeper in intensity towards the feet, which are black; tail of the same colour as the body, the end dark, white-tipped; ears rounded, hairy, black; face black, except the forehead; a longitudinal streak down the middle of the nose, and a short oblique band under each of the eyes, which are gray or whitish."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 30 inches; tail, 20 inches. According to Hodgson, this species keeps to the forests and mountains, feeding on small animals and birds, and also vegetable food. "One shot had only seeds, leaves, and unhusked rice in its stomach. A caged animal was fed on boiled rice and fruits, which it preferred to animal food. When set at liberty it would lie waiting in the grass for mynas and sparrows, springing upon them from the cover like a cat, and when sparrows, as it frequently happened, ventured into its cage to steal the boiled rice, it would feign sleep, retire into a corner, and dart on them with unerring aim. It preferred birds, thus taken by itself, to all other food. "This animal was very cleanly, nor did its body usually emit any unpleasant odour, though when it was irritated it exhaled a most foetid stench, caused by the discharge of a thin yellow fluid from four pores, two of which are placed on each side of the intestinal aperture." NO. 230. PARADOXURUS BONDAR. _The Terai Musang_ (_Jerdon's No. 125_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Chinghar_, Hindi; _Bondar_, _Baum_, Bengali; _Mach-abba_ and _Malwa_ in the Nepal Terai. HABITAT.--Nepal, North Behar and Terai. DESCRIPTION.--Clear yellow, tipped with black, the fur coarse and harsh; under fur soft and woolly; legs blackish-brown outside; body without marks, but the bridge of the nose, upper lip, whiskers, broad cheek-band, ears, chin, lower jaw, and the terminal third of the tail blackish-brown; pale yellow round the eyes; snout and feet flesh-grey; nails sharp and curved. The female smaller and paler. SIZE.--Head and body, about 22 inches; tail, 20 to 22; skull of one 4-1/5 inches, less ventricose than that of _P. Grayii_. This species is found, like _P. Musanga_, in the vicinity of houses; it lives in hollow trees, where it also breeds. Its habits are in great measure those of the common musang, though it is probably more carnivorous; it will, however, eat fruit. Jerdon says: "It sleeps rolled up like a ball, and when angered spits like a cat. It is naturally very ferocious and unruly, but capable of domestication, if taken young. It has a keen sense of smell, but less acute hearing and vision by day than the mungooses." NO. 231. PARADOXURUS TRIVIRGATUS. _The Three-striped Musang_. NATIVE NAME.--_Kyoung-na-ga_, in Arakan. HABITAT.--Tenasserim and the Malay countries; also Assam. [Illustration: _Paradoxurus trivirgatus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Fur blackish-brown, slightly silvered with pale tips; three narrow black streaks down the back; under parts dirty white; head, feet, and tail black or blackish-brown. This animal forms a separate genus of Gray, following Professor Peters' _Arctogale_, on account of the smallness of the teeth and the protraction of the palate. I had a specimen of this Paradoxurus given to me early in the cold season of 1881 by Dr. W. Forsyth. I brought it home to England with me, and it is now in the Zoological Society's Gardens in Regent's Park. It was very tame when Dr. Forsyth brought it, but it became more so afterwards, and we made a great pet of it. It used to sleep nearly all day on a bookshelf in my study, and would, if called, lazily look up, yawn, and then come down to be petted, after which it would spring up again into its retreat. At night it was very active, especially in bounding from branch to branch of a tree which I had cut down and placed in the room in which it was locked up every evening. Its wonderful agility on ropes was greatly noticed on board ship. Its favourite food was plantains, and it was also very fond of milk. At night I used to give it a little meat, but not much; but most kinds of fruit it seemed to like. Its temper was a little uncertain, and it seemed to dislike natives, who at times got bitten; but it never bit any of my family, although one of my little girls used to catch hold of it by the forepaws and dance it about like a kitten. Its carnivorous nature showed itself one day by its pouncing upon a tame pigeon. The bird was rescued, and is alive still, but it was severely mauled before I could rescue it, having been seized by the neck. NO. 232. PARADOXURUS LEUCOTIS. _The White-eared Musang_. NATIVE NAME.--_Na-zwet-phyoo_, Arakanese. HABITAT.--Burmah and Assam. DESCRIPTION.--Fur longish, soft, and silky; upper parts tawny; reddish-brown on back and sides; thighs, legs, throat, and belly lighter; tail long, deep chestnut brown; nose with a central white line; ears yellowish. NO. 233. PARADOXURUS ZEYLANICUS. _The Golden Musang_. NATIVE NAME.--_Coolla-weddah_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--A golden-brown colour arising from the longer hairs having a bright golden tint; the shorter hairs brown, paler beneath; head and legs dark brown; muzzle and lips blackish; whiskers white or yellowish; ears small, dark brown externally, almost naked internally; tail sub-cylindrical, long; sometimes with a single pale sub-terminal band; tip rounded, paler than the body. According to Kellaart, three inconspicuous brown dorsal streaks diverging and terminating on the crupper, and some very indistinct spots seen only in some lights. Gray says these animals differ in the intensity of the colour of the fur--some are bright golden and others much more brown. The latter is _P. fuscus_ of Kellaart. SIZE.--Head and body, 19 inches; tail, 15 to 16 inches. Kellaart writes of this species: "The golden paradoxure appears to be a more frugivorous animal than the palm-cat (_Paradoxurus typus_[17]). Their habits are alike nocturnal and arboreal. In all the individuals of the former species examined at Newera-Ellia the stomach contained Cape gooseberries (_Physalis Peruviana_[18]), which grow there now in great abundance; and only one had the remains of animal matter in the stomach. When young they are tolerably docile, but as they grow up their natural ferocity returns." This seems strange, as they appear to be less carnivorous than the others. [Footnote 17: Cuvier's name for _P. musanga_.--R. A. S.] [Footnote 18: The _Tipari_ of Bengal.--R. A. S.] NO. 234. PARADOXURUS (PAGUMA) LANIGER. HABITAT.--Thibet. This requires further investigation. Gray says: "This species is only known from a skin without any skull, and in a very bad state." _P. strictus_, _quadriscriptus_ and _prehensilis_ are three species alluded to by Gray as requiring further examination, but probably Jerdon is right in considering them as varieties of _P. musanga_. A specimen with very large canines has been reported from the Andaman Islands (_P. Tytleri_?) in addition to these. Gray enumerates as an Indian species _P. nigrifrons_, which is likely to be a variety of _P. musanga_; it was described from a single specimen. The dorsal streaks and spots were absent, but then he says the animal had been in confinement, and, as I have said before, this tends to make the dark parts disappear. GENUS ARCTICTIS. This is a very curious animal, which, like the panda and the linsang, at first misled naturalists in assigning it a place. It was formerly classed with the racoons, which it superficially resembles; and, as Jerdon remarks, it may be considered as a sort of link between the plantigrade and digitigrade carnivora. The skeleton however is similar to that of the musangs as regards the great number (thirty-four) of the caudal vertebrae, but the bones of the feet have a more plantigrade character; the skull resembles that of a badger; the head is conical, with a large brain-case and acute turned-up nose; the orbit of the skull is imperfect, only defined by a prominence above; the ears are pencilled or tufted; the tail is very long, muscular and prehensile--although this was doubted by F. Cuvier, but it is now a well-known fact--and in climbing trees it is much assisted by the tail; the teeth are thirty-six in all; canines stout, upper ones long; grinders small and far apart; of the false grinders, the first and second are conical, the third compressed; the flesh-tooth is triangular, and as broad as long; the tubercular grinders are smaller than the flesh-tooth, the first triangular, the hinder cylindrical and smaller still; toes five in each foot, with powerful semi-retractile claws. NO. 235. ARCTICTIS BINTURONG. _The Binturong_ (_Jerdon's No. 126_). HABITAT.--Assam, Nepal, Simla hills, also Tenasserim, Arakan, and the Malayan countries. [Illustration: _Arctictis binturong_.] DESCRIPTION.--Long body, short legs, long prehensile tail, very thick at the base, and gradually tapering to a point, clad with very long bristling hair; the hair of the body very coarse; general colour, deep black, with a white border to the ears, a few brown hairs on the head and anterior surface of fore-legs. Some of the Malayan specimens are slightly sprinkled with brown, and have the head, face, and throat grizzled. It has a large sub-caudal gland, secreting an oily fluid. SIZE.--Head and body 28 to 30 inches; tail about the same. Jerdon gives 28 to 33 inches; tail 26 to 27 inches. According to Jerdon it is nocturnal, arboreal, and omnivorous, eating small animals, birds, insects, fruit and plants; more wild than viverrine animals in general, but easily tamed. Its howl is loud. In an illustration I have of one of these animals, it is drawn with white patches over the eyes. Cantor says the young are marked with eye spots. I have added the Simla hills to the list of places it inhabits, as Mr. Hume possesses the skin of one which I have lately examined, and which was procured in this neighbourhood. HERPESTIDAE--THE ICHNEUMON OR MUNGOOSE FAMILY. A well-defined genus of animals, with long vermiform bodies, clad with long, harsh grizzled hair, long muscular tails, thick at the base, and tapering to a fine point; semi-plantigrade feet with five toes, and partially retractile claws; the eyes are small, but glittering and snakelike; the tongue rough like a cat's. Dr. Gray has divided this family into two groups, _Herpestina_ and _Cynictidina_, the former containing thirteen genera, the latter one, which is separated on account of its having four toes only. Of the thirteen genera in Herpestina, we have only to do with _Herpestes_, _Calogale_, _Calictis_, _Urva_, _Taeniogale_, and _Onychogale_, which six are by most naturalists treated under _Herpestes_, and I will continue to do so, as the differences are hardly sufficient to warrant so much subdivision. _GENUS HERPESTES_. Long vermiform body; short legs with five semi-palmated toes with short compressed claws; eyes small, with linear erect pupils; long skull with forty teeth; the orbit complete in many cases, or only slightly imperfect; the hairs are long, rigid, and ringed like the quill of a porcupine, which gives the grizzled appearance peculiar to these animals. The female has only four mammae. They are very active and sanguinary, chiefly hunting along the ground, but can climb with facility. There are several species found within the limits of British India, and many more in Africa. NO. 236. HERPESTES PALLIDUS _vel_ GRISEUS. _The Common Grey Mungoose_ (_Jerdon's Nos. 127 and 128_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Mungus_, _Newul_, _Newra_, _Nyul_, Hindi; _Mungli_, Canarese; _Yentawa_, Telegu; _Koral_, Gondi; _Moogatea_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--India generally and Ceylon, but apparently not in Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Light iron grey with a yellowish tint, some more rufous, the hairs being ringed with brown and grey or yellowish-white; muzzle and feet brown; irides light brown. SIZE.--Head and body, 16 to 20 inches; tail, 14 to 16-1/2 inches. Jerdon calls this the Madras mungoose, and separates it from the next species, but they are apparently the same. Dr. Anderson prefers the specific name _pallidus_ to either _griseus_ or _Malaccensis_, as _griseus_ originally included an African species, and the latter name is geographically misleading. Hodgson's name _H. nyula_ is objectionable, as _nyul_ or _newul_ is applied by natives to all mungooses generally. Jerdon's Nos. 127 and 128 differ only in colour and size; according to him the lighter and larger, _griseus_, being the Southern India mungoose, and the browner and smaller, _Malaccensis_, the Bengal and the Northern India one. But at Sasseram in Behar, I some years ago obtained a very large specimen of the lighter species, and have lately seen a skin from the North-west Provinces. This animal is familiar to most English residents in the Mofussil; it is, if unmolested, fearless of man, and will, even in its wild state, enter the verandahs and rooms of houses. In one house I know a pair of old ones would not only boldly lift the bamboo chicks and walk in, but in time were accompanied by a young family. When domesticated they are capable of showing as much attachment as a dog. One that I had constantly with me for three years died of grief during a temporary separation, having refused food from the time I left. I got it whilst on active service during the Indian Mutiny, when it was a wee thing, smaller than a rat. It travelled with me on horseback in an empty holster, or in a pocket, or up my sleeve; and afterwards, when my duties as a settlement officer took me out into camp, "Pips" was my constant companion. He knew perfectly well when I was going to shoot a bird for him. He would stand up on his hind legs when he saw me present the gun, and rush for the bird when it fell; he had, however, no notion of retrieving, but would scamper off with his prey to devour it at leisure. He was a most fearless little fellow, and once attacked a big greyhound, who beat a retreat. In a rage his body would swell to nearly twice its size from the erection of the hair, yet I had him under such perfect subjection that I had only to hold up my finger to him when he was about to attack anything, and he would desist. I heard a great noise one day outside my room and found Master "Pips," attacking a fine male specimen I had of the great bustard, _Eupodotis Edwardsii_, and had just seized it by the throat. I rescued the bird, but it died of its injuries. Through the carelessness of one of my servants he was lost one day in a heavy brushwood jungle some miles from my camp, and I quite gave up all hopes of recovering my pet. Next day, however, in tracking some antelope, we happened to cross the route taken by my servants, when we heard a familiar little yelp, and down from a tree we were under rushed "Pips." He went to England with me after that, and was the delight of all the sailors on board, for his accomplishments were varied; he could sit on a chair with a cap on his head, shoulder arms; ready, present, fire!--turn somersaults, jump, and do various other little tricks. From watching him I observed many little habits belonging to these animals. He was excessively clean, and after eating would pick his teeth with his claws in a most absurd manner. I do not know whether a mungoose in a wild state will eat carrion, but he would not touch anything tainted, and, though very fond of freshly-cooked game, would turn up his nose at high partridge or grouse. He was very fond of eggs, and, holding them in his fore-paws, would crack a little hole at the small end, out of which he would suck the contents. He was a very good ratter, and also killed many snakes against which I pitted him. His way seemed to be to tease the snake into darting at him, when, with inconceivable rapidity, he would pounce on the reptile's head. He seemed to know instinctively which were the poisonous ones, and acted with corresponding caution. I tried him once with some sea-snakes (_Hydrophis palamoides_), which are poisonous, but he could get no fight out of them, and crunched their heads off one after the other. I do not believe in the mungoose being proof against snake poison, or in the antidote theory. Their extreme agility prevents their being bitten, and the stiff rigid hair, which is excited at such times, and a thick loose skin, are an additional protection. I think it has been proved that if the poison of a snake is injected into the veins of a mungoose it proves fatal. The female produces from three to four young at a time. The cry of the mungoose is a grating mew, varied occasionally by a little querulous yelp, which seems to be given in an interrogative sort of way when searching for anything. When angry it growls most audibly for such a small beast, and this is generally accompanied by a bristling of the hair, especially of the tail. NO. 237. HERPESTES JERDONI _vel_ MONTICOLUS. _The Long-tailed Mungoose_ (_Jerdon's No. 129_). HABITAT.--Indian peninsula, it having been found in the extreme south as well as Kashmir in the north and Singbhoom in the centre. DESCRIPTION.--Colour like the last, but more yellow in general tone; tail long, tipped with maroon and black, very hairy; feet dark reddish-brown; muzzle slightly tinged with red; under fur pale yellowish, the long hairs being broadly tipped with brown, darkest at the tip, paler at the base, then a white band; then three brown bands separated by white, the base of the hair being broadly white; the skull is distinguishable by the breadth of the frontal region across the post-orbital processes, and between the anterior margins of the orbit. Dr. Anderson considers this as identical with the Kashmir _H. thysanurus_, which has also been found by Mr. Ball in Singbhoom. Dr. Gray says it is very like the African _H. ichneumon_, only paler. Dr. Jerdon had only obtained it from the Eastern Ghats inland from Nellore, where it inhabits forests among the hills. SIZE.--Head and body, 20 inches; tail, 19 inches. NO. 238. HERPESTES SMITHII. _The Ruddy Mungoose_ (_Jerdon's No. 130_). NATIVE NAME.--_Deeto_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Southern India and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Reddish ferruginous brown, long hair, well grizzled, more red on the head and outer part Of limbs; hairs annulated dark and white, with reddish tips; muzzle long and flesh-coloured; feet black; tip of tail black. SIZE.--Head and body, 15 inches; tail, 12 to 13 inches. This is the same as _H. Ellioti_ of Blyth, and _H. rubiginosus_ of Kellaart, and _Calictis Smithii_ of Gray. NO. 239. HERPESTES AUROPUNCTATUS. _The Gold-speckled Mungoose_ (_Jerdon's No. 131_). HABITAT.--The plains near the hills from Afghanistan to Bengal, also Assam and Burmah, and on into the Malayan peninsula. DESCRIPTION.--General colour olive brown with a golden hue, or finely speckled with golden yellow, due to the fine annulation of the hair; the sides of the body slightly paler, and not so yellow; under parts dirty yellowish-white; limbs the same colour as the body; the under fur is purplish-brown in its lower two-thirds, and pale yellow in its terminal third; the long hair is smooth, fine, short, and adpressed; the tips are dark brown, then yellow, then brown, twice repeated; occasionally a yellow band at the base; in the tail there are generally eight bands, with the terminal dark brown; the skull is remarkable for the narrow and elongated character of its facial portion; the orbit is perfect in the adult. Length of skull about 1-5/12 inches; width at the zygoma, 1-1/4. SIZE.--Head and body, 12 to 13 inches; tail, 9 to 10 inches. This and _H. persicus_ are the smallest of the genus; it is included in Gray's genus _Calogale_, and he gives the specific name followed by Jerdon, _Nipalensis_, which is geographically misleading. I have therefore followed Dr. Anderson in retaining the more appropriate title. _H. persicus_ is closely allied, but the nasal portion of the palate is narrower. NO. 240. HERPESTES FUSCUS. _The Nilgherry Brown Mungoose_ (_Jerdon's No. 132_). HABITAT.--Madras Presidency, Neilgherries. DESCRIPTION.--General colour, brown; hair ringed black and yellow, tawny at the base; throat dusky yellowish.--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 18 inches; tail, with hair, 17 inches. NO. 241. HERPESTES (ONYCHOGALE _of Gray_) MACCARTHIAE. HABITAT.--Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Reddish-brown; elongate, flaccid, pale brown, with a broad thick sub-terminal band and a long whitish-brown tip; fur of hands and face shorter; feet blackish brown; hair white-tipped; tail redder; hair elongate, one coloured red; ears rounded, hairy.--_Gray_. NO. 242. HERPESTES FERRUGINEUS. HABITAT.--Sind. DESCRIPTION.--Resembles rufous specimens of _H. pallidus_, but the skull shows differences in the greater breadth of the post-orbital contraction of the frontals, and a shorter, broader muzzle, more particularly with posterior or nasal part of the palate. * * * * * The next species, which is included in Gray's genus _Taeniogale_, has the bony orbit always perfect, and the molars are 6--6/7--7. NO. 243. HERPESTES VITTICOLLIS. _The Stripe-necked Mungoose_ (_Jerdon's No. 133_). NATIVE NAME.--_Loco-moogatea_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Southern India, Ceylon, Burmah? DESCRIPTION.--Grizzled grey, more or less ferruginous, especially on the rump and tail; a dark stripe from the ear to the shoulder; tail rufous black at the tip; skull characteristics: large, with flattened and expanded frontal region, projected narrow muzzle and powerful teeth, larger than other Asiatic _Herpestes_, the last molar being proportionately greater. SIZE.--Head and body 21 inches; tail 15 inches. I have put Burmah in the list of places where this mungoose is found, having lately been shown by Mr. Davison the skin of a stripe-necked mungoose obtained by him in Burmah, which seemed to be of this species. * * * * * The next has been formed into a separate genus, _Urva_; the teeth are blunter than in _Herpestes_. NO. 244. URVA CANCRIVORA. _The Crab-eating Mungoose_ (_Jerdon's No. 134_). HABITAT.--South-east Himalayas, Assam, and Burmah. [Illustration: _Urva cancrivora_.] DESCRIPTION.--"General colour fulvous iron-grey, inner fur woolly, outer of long straggling lax hairs, generally ringed with black, white, and fulvous; in some the coat has a variegated aspect; in others a uniform tawny tint prevails, and in a few dark rusty brown mixed with grey is the prevalent hue; abdomen brown; limbs blackish-brown; a white stripe on either side of the neck from the ear to the shoulder; tail rufous or brown, with the terminal half rufous" (_Jerdon_). Gray's account is: "black grizzled hairs with a very broad white sub-terminal ring; a white streak on the side of the neck; legs and feet black; tail ashy red at the end." SIZE.--Head and body, 18 inches; tail, 11 inches. Somewhat aquatic in its habits, living on frogs and crabs. It has two anal glands, from which it can squirt a foetid secretion. It is the only mungoose mentioned in Blyth's 'Catalogue of the Mammals of Burmah,' but there are at least two more, and probably some of the Malayan species are yet to be found in Tenasserim. CYNOIDEA. This is the next and last section in the order I have adopted, of the land Carnivora, and contains the typical family _Canis_. All the animals that we shall have to deal with might and would be by some authors brought into this one genus, the only others recognised by them being the two African genera, _Megalotis_ and _Lycaon_, the long-eared fox and the hyaena-dog, and the _Nyctereutes_ or racoon-dog of Northern China and Amoorland. But although all our Indian species might be treated of under the one genus _Canis_, it will be better to keep to the separation adopted by Jerdon, and classify the wolves and jackals under _Canis_, and the foxes under _Vulpes_. As regards the wild dog of India, its dentition might warrant its being placed in a separate genus, but after all the name chosen for it is but merely a difference in sound, the two being the same thing in Latin and Greek. But although this group contains the smallest number of forms, the varieties of the domestic dog are endless, and no part of the world is without a species of the genus, except certain islands, such as the West Indies, Madagascar, the Polynesian isles, New Zealand and the Malayan archipelago; in these territories there is no indigenous dog. I speak of dogs in its broad sense of _Canis_, including wolves and foxes. The proper position of the _Cynoidea_ should be between the bears and the cats, as in their dentition they approximate to the former, and in their digitigrade character to the latter; but, with a view to make this work concurrent with that of Jerdon's, I have accepted the position assigned by him, though it be a little out of place. The general form of the skeleton of a dog resembles that of a feline, though the limbs may be to a certain extent longer; they also walk on the tips of their toes, but their claws are not retractile, although the ligament by which the process of retraction in the cat is effected is present in a rudimentary form, but is permanently overpowered by the greater flexor muscles. A dog's paw is therefore by no means such a wonderful piece of mechanism and example of power as that of the cat, but is feeble in comparison, and is never used as a weapon of offence, as in the case of felines, the prey being always seized by the teeth. The skull partakes of the characteristics of both cat and bear. It departs from the simple cutting dentition of the former by the addition of two tuberculated molars in each upper jaw, or one more than the rudimentary molar in the cat, whilst the lower jaw has two extra molars on each side; the premolars are also in excess, being four in number on each side of the upper and lower jaws, whereas in the feline there are three above and two below. There is also a difference in the lower carnassial or first molar, which impinges on the upper carnassial or fourth premolar; it has a protuberance behind, termed the heel, which is prominently marked, but it is in the molars in which the greatest deviation from the specially carnivorous dentition occurs. The incisors are somewhat larger than, but the canines and premolars approximate to, those of the felines; the crown of the incisors is cuspidate, and the premolars increase gradually in size, with the exception of the fourth in the upper jaw, the carnassial, which is treble the size of the one next to it. But it is in the molars that we find the similarity to the semi-herbivorous bears. The last two molars on each side of the upper and lower jaws are true grinders, divided into four cusps, which suits the dog to a mixed diet. Of course the increased number of teeth (the dog has forty-two against thirty of the cat) necessitates a prolonged muzzle, and therefore the skull has more of the bear than the cat shape. The nasal bones are long, the zygomatic arch smaller, but it has the ear-bulb or _bulla tympani_, so conspicuous in the cat and wanting in the bear, yet the character of the aperture of the ear or _auditory meatus_ approaches that of the latter, as the margins of its outer aperture are somewhat prolonged into a short tube or spout, instead of being flush, as in the felines. Then the bony clamp or par-occipital process, which in the cats is fixed against the hinder end of the bulla, is in the dogs separated by a decided groove. The intestinal peculiarities of this section consist of a very large caecum or blind gut, which is small in the cats and wholly absent in the bears, and in the very long intestines. Some have a sub-caudal gland secreting a pungent whey-like matter. _GENUS CANIS--THE DOG_. Muzzle obtuse; tail short; no caudal gland. Dental formula: inc., 6/6; can., 1--1/1--1; premolar, 4--4/4--4; molar, 2--2/3--3. [Illustration: Dentition of Wolf.] This genus contains the wolf and the jackal, as well as the dog proper. The origin of the domestic dog (_Canis familiaris_) is involved in obscurity; it is mentioned in its domestic state and in an infinity of varieties in records of remote ages. Job talks of "the dogs of my flock," and in the Assyrian monuments, as far back as 3400 years before Christ, various forms are represented; and in Egypt not only representations of known varieties, easy to be recognised, are found, but numerous mummies have been exhumed, the animal having been held in special veneration. There is a preponderance of opinion strongly in favour of the theory that the domestic dog sprang from the wolf, and much argument has been advanced in support of this idea. The principal objection made to this by those who hold opposite views is the fact that no dog in a wild state barks, but only howls. Now for the evidence adduced in support of the former assertion; some domesticated species of dog closely resembling the wild wolf. Sir John Richardson says of the Eskimo dog that it is not only extremely like the North American wolf (_Canis lupus_), both in form, colour, and nearly in size, but that the howl of both animals "is prolonged so exactly in the same key that even the practised ear of an Indian fails at times to discriminate them." He adds of the dog of the Hare Indians, a distinct breed, that it is almost the same as the prairie wolf (_Canis latrans_), the skull of the dog appeared to him a little smaller, otherwise he could detect no difference in form, nor fineness of fur, nor the arrangement of spots of colour. Professor Kitchen Parker writes: "Another observer remarks that, except in the matter of barking, there is no difference whatever between the black wolf-dog of the Indians of Florida and the wolves of the same country. The dogs also breed readily with the wild animals they so closely resemble. The Indians often cross their dogs with wolves to improve the breed, and in South America the same process is resorted to between the domesticated and the wild dogs." He then goes on to allude to many varieties of dogs closely resembling wolves--the shepherd dog of Hungary, which is so like that a Hungarian has been known to mistake a wolf for one of his own dogs. Some Indian pariahs, and some dogs of Egypt, both now and in the condition of mummies, closely resemble the wolf of their country. The domestic dogs of Nubia and certain mummified forms are closely related to jackals. The Bosjesman's dog is very like the black-backed jackal (_Canis mesomelas_). Domestic dogs which have run wild do in some measure, though not entirely, revert to the wolf type. The dingo of Australia is thought to be derived from some imported variety of dog. The wolf is easily tamed, and even in its wild state has some of the peculiarities of the dog; for instance, a young wolf, when surprised and threatened by the hunter, will crouch and fawn like a spaniel. Mr. Bell tells of a she-wolf in the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens which would bring her cubs to the bars of the cage, that they might be caressed by the visitors; and there is a most interesting account, too long for insertion here, in the third volume of the old _India Sporting Review_ (new series) chiefly taken from Major Lloyd's 'Scandinavian Adventures,' of the tameability of wolves, giving an instance of two cubs out of a litter of three becoming as faithfully attached as any dog. The period of gestation (sixty-three days) is the same in both animals, and they will interbreed freely, the progeny being also fertile. There only now remains the question of the bark, which, singularly enough, is peculiar to the domesticated dog only, and may have arisen in imitation of the gruffer tones of the human voice. The domestic dog run wild will in a few generations lose the power of barking. This happened on the island of Juan Fernandez; the dogs left there quite lost their bark in thirty-three years, and it is said that a few caught and removed after that period reacquired it very slowly. We may then, I think, accept Darwin's opinion that "it is highly probable that the domestic dogs of the world have descended from two good species of wolf (_C. lupus_ and _C. latrans_), and from two or three other doubtful species of wolves (namely, the European, Indian, and North African forms), from at least one or two South American canine species, and from several races or species of the jackal." NO. 245. CANIS PALLIPES. _The Indian Wolf_ (_Jerdon's No. 135_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Bheria_, _Bhera_, North and Central India; _Landagh_, South India; _Nekra_, in some parts; _Bighana_, _Hunder_, or _Hurar_, in Bundelkund; _Tola_, Canarese; _Toralu_, Telegu. HABITAT.--Throughout the whole of India, though Hodgson says he has not found it in the Himalayas, nor can I find any notice of it in Burmah, and it is likewise absent in Ceylon. [Illustration: _Canis pallipes_.] DESCRIPTION.--"Hoary fulvous or dirty reddish-white, some of the hairs tipped with black, which gives it a grizzled appearance; somewhat reddish on the face and limbs, the latter paler than the body; lower parts dingy white; tail thinly bushy, slightly black-tipped; ears rather small" (_Jerdon_). But, as a matter of fact, wolves vary greatly in colour. Every one who has seen much of them will bear testimony to this. Sir Walter Elliot says: "Several adults that I shot differed in their colours and general character." The late Brigadier-General McMaster, in his notes on Jerdon, wrote: "Wolves vary a good deal in colour and length of hair, probably with season and climate. I have seen some of light reddish-grey, and others much darker than any jackal;" and he speaks of another "nearly as red as an Irish setter." SIZE.--Head and body, about 3 feet; tail, 16 to 18 inches; height at shoulder, 26 inches. The Indian wolf is somewhat inferior in size to the European one, and is probably less ferocious, or at all events its ferocity is not called out by the severity of the climate, as in the case of _C. lupus_. We never hear of them attacking bodies of men and overwhelming them by numbers. In 1812 twenty-four French soldiers were surrounded by an immense troop of wolves; and though, it is said, the men killed two or three hundred of their assailants, they had to succumb at last to numbers, and were all devoured. This was doubtless an extreme case, but in the severe winters of the north, when these animals band together and roam abroad in search of food, they will attack anything that comes in their way, although a single wolf will hardly ever dare to meddle with a man. In India one seldom hears of their attacking grown-up men. I remember an instance in which an old woman was a victim; but hundreds of children are carried off annually, especially in Central India and the North-west provinces. Stories have been related of wolves sparing and suckling young infants so carried off, which, if properly authenticated, will bring the history of Romulus and Remus within the bounds of probability. I have not by me just now the details of the case of the "Boy-Wolf" of Lucknow, which was, I believe, a case vouched for by credible witnesses. It was that of a boy found in a wolf's lair, who had no power of speech, crawled about on his hands and knees, ate raw flesh, and who showed great wildness in captivity. I think he died soon after being caught. The story of the nursing is not improbable, for well-known instances have been recorded of the _ferae_, when deprived of their young, adopting young animals, even of those on whom they usually prey. Cats have been known to suckle young leverets. The wolf in its wild state is particularly partial to dog as an article of diet, yet in confinement it will attach itself to its domesticated canine companions, and interbreed with them. A writer in the _India Sporting Review_, vol. vi. of 1847, page 252, quoted by McMaster, says he received from Dr. Jameson, Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens at Saharunpore, a hybrid, the produce of a tame female wolf and a pointer dog. This hybrid died when twenty months old, and is said to have been mild and gentle; its howl seems to have had more of the bark in it than the cry of the hybrid jackal, and to have been more dog-like. "It exactly resembled the coarse black pariah to be seen about Loodhiana and Ferozepore," the black colour doubtless coming from the pointer sire. As General McMaster remarks, it would be interesting to know what the colours of the rest of the litter were. Wolves do, I think, get light-coloured with great age. I remember once having one brought into my camp for the usual reward by a couple of small boys, the elder not more than ten or twelve years of age, I should think. The beast was old and emaciated, and very light coloured, and, doubtless impelled by hunger, attacked the children, as they were herding cattle, with a view to dining off them; but the elder boy had a small axe, such as is commonly carried by the Gonds, and, manfully standing his ground, split the wolf's skull with a blow--a feat of which he was justly proud. Sir Walter Elliot's description of the manner in which wolves hunt has been quoted by Jerdon and others, but, as it is interesting, I reproduce it here:-- "The wolves of the southern Mahratta country generally hunt in packs, and I have seen them in full chase after the goat antelope _Gazella Arabica_ (_Bennettii_ ?). They likewise steal round the herd of _Antilope cervicapra_ and conceal themselves on different sides till an opportunity offers of seizing one of them unawares as they approach, while grazing, to one or other of their hidden assailants. On one occasion three wolves were seen to chase a herd of gazelle across a ravine in which two others were lying in wait. They succeeded in seizing a female gazelle, which was taken from them. They have frequently been seen to course, and run down hares and foxes; and it is a common belief of the ryots that in the open plains, where there is no cover or concealment, they scrape a hole in the earth, in which one of the pack lies down and remains hid, while the others drive the herd of antelope over him. Their chief prey, however, is sheep; and the shepherds say that part of the pack attack, and keep the dogs in play, while others carry off their prey, and that, if pursued, they follow the same plan, part turning and checking the dogs, while the rest drag away the carcase, till they evade pursuit. Instances are not uncommon of their attacking man. In 1824 upwards of thirty children were devoured by wolves in one pergunnah alone. Sometimes a large wolf is seen to seek his prey singly; these are called _Won-tola_, and are reckoned particularly fierce." McMaster corroborates the account of wolves hiding themselves by scratching holes in the ground whilst antelope were quietly walking up to the ambush; and there is a most amusing account given by Major Lloyd, in his 'Scandinavian Adventures,' of the wiles of a tame wolf in her efforts to get young pigs within her reach. He says: "When she saw a pig in the vicinity of her kennel, she evidently, with the purpose of putting him off his guard, would throw herself on her side or back, wag her tail most lovingly, and look innocence personified; and this amicable demeanour would continue until the grunter was beguiled within reach of her tether, when, in the twinkling of an eye, 'Richard was himself again!'" Major Lloyd asserts that but for this _penchant_ for his neighbours' pigs he would have trained this wolf as a pointer. Jerdon states that he has known wolves turn on dogs that were running at their heels, and pursue them smartly till close up to his horse. He adds: "A wolf once joined with my greyhounds in pursuit of a fox, which was luckily killed almost immediately afterwards, or the wolf might have seized one of the dogs instead of the fox. He sat down on his haunches, about sixty yards off, whilst the dogs were worrying the fox, looking on with great apparent interest, and was with difficulty driven away." NO. 246. CANIS LANIGER (LUPUS CHANCO _of Gray_). _The Thibetan Wolf_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Chanko_, _Changu_. HABITAT.--Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Yellowish-grey, with long soft hairs (_Kinloch_). Long sharp face, elevated brows, broad head, large pointed ears, thick woolly pelage, and very full brush of medial length; above dull earth-brown; below, with the entire face and limbs, yellowish-white; no marks on limbs; tail concolourous with the body, that is brown above and yellowish below, and no dark tip (_Hodgson_). SIZE.--Length, 4 feet; tail, 20 inches; height, 30 inches. Hodgson says this animal is common all over Thibet, and is a terrible depredator among the flocks, or, as Kinloch writes: "apparently preferring the slaughter of tame animals to the harder task of circumventing wild ones." The great Bhotea mastiff is chiefly employed to guard against it. According to Hodgson the chanko has a long, sharp face, with the muzzle or nude space round the nostrils produced considerably beyond the teeth, and furnished with an unusually large lateral process, by which the nostrils are much overshadowed sideways and nearly closed. The eye is small and placed nearer to the ear than to the nose; the brows are considerably elevated by the large size of the frontal sinuses; the ears are large and gradually tapered to a point from their broad bases, and they have the ordinary fissure towards their posteal base; the head is broad; the teeth large and strong; the body long and lank, the limbs elevated and very powerful; the brush extends to half-way between the mid-flexure (_os calcis_) of the hind limbs and their pads, and is as full as that of a fox. The fur or pelage is remarkable for its extreme woolliness, the hairy piles being few and sparely scattered amongst the woolliness, which is most abundant; the head as far as the ears, the ears, and the limbs are clad in close ordinary hair; the belly is thinly covered with longer hairs; but all the rest of the animal is clothed in a thick sheep-like coat, which is most abundant on the neck above and below. Gray ('P. Z. S.,' 1863, p. 94) says: "The skull is very much like, and has the same teeth as the European wolf (_C. lupus_)," but in this I think he is mistaken, as the upper carnassial in _C. lupus_ is much larger than in any of the Asiatic wolves, and in this particular _C. laniger_ is affined to _C. pallipes_. There is a black variety of the chanko, as there is of the European wolf, and by some he is considered a distinct species, but is really a melanoid variety, though Kinloch writes: "The black chanko is rather larger than the grey one; he is of a beautiful glossy black, with a small white star on the chest and a few grey hairs about the muzzle." He was fortunate enough to secure two cubs of this variety. "They fed ravenously on raw meat, and before long became pretty tame." After accompanying him for two months he left them at the hill station of Kussowlie, fearing that the heat at Meerut might prove too great for them; at the end of 2-1/2 months they were sent down. "By this time they had immensely increased in size, but, although they had not seen me for so long, they recognised me, and also my greyhound, of which they had previously been very fond. They soon became much attached to me, and would fawn on me like dogs, licking my face and hands; they were always, however, ready to growl and snap at a stranger. I took them to Agra at the time of the great Durbar there, and used to let them loose in camp with my dogs, so tame had they become." He eventually presented them to the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park, and their portraits appeared in the _Illustrated London News_ of November 21st, 1868. Whether the skins purchased at Kashgar by the Yarkand Mission were of _C. laniger_ or _lupus_ is doubtful, as no skulls were procured. In some particulars they seem to agree with the chanko in being rather larger (i.e., larger than _pallipes_); the hair long, and the under fur ash-grey and _woolly_, but the black line down the forelegs is like _C. lupus_. It is not stated whether the tail was dark-tipped or not, the absence of this dark tip, common to most other wolves, is a point noticed by Hodgson in speaking of _C. laniger_. Mr. Blanford describes another skin which was purchased at Kashgar, and which he supposes may belong to a new species, but there was no skull with it--it is that of a smaller canine, midway between a wolf and a jackal, the prevailing tint being black, mixed with pale rufous, and white along the back and upper surface of the tail; pale rufous on the flanks, limbs, anterior portion of the abdomen and under the tail; a distinct black line down the front of each foreleg; upper part of head rufous, mixed with whitish and black, the forehead being greyer, owing to the white tips to the hairs; the tip of the tail is quite black, and the tail itself is short, as in the jackal, but more bushy, the feet larger than the common jackal--a short, bushy tail agrees with _Cuon_, so also does the large foot. NO. 247. CANIS LUPUS. _The European Wolf_. HABITAT.--All over Europe and Northern Asia, in Turkestan and Yarkand(?) DESCRIPTION.--Fur long and coarse, dark yellowish-grey, sometimes almost black, but there is a good deal of variation in both colour and texture of the hair according to the country, whether cold or warm, from which the animal comes; a dark streak on the forelegs; the carnassial tooth is however the chief point of distinction between this and the Indian and Thibetan species; it is very much larger in the European animal, approximating to, and sometimes exceeding in size, the two molars together, which is not the case with the others. Mr. Blanford, in his report on the Mammalia of Yarkand published by Government in the 'Scientific Results of the Second Yarkand Mission,' quotes from Professor Jeitteles, of Vienna, the opinion that none of the larger domestic dogs could have descended from the European wolf, because of the relative proportions of their teeth, but that all must have been derived from the Indian wolf or from allied forms. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/2 to 4 feet; tail, 20 inches; height, about 30 to 32 inches. Mr. Blanford supposes, and with some degree of reason, that the flat skins purchased at Kashgar were those of this species; but unfortunately the absence of the skulls must for the present leave this in doubt, as variations in colour and texture of fur are frequent and dependent on climatic conditions. NO. 248. CANIS AUREUS. _The Jackal_ (_Jerdon's No. 136_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Srigala_, Sanscrit; _Geedhur_, Hindi; _Shial_, _Sial_, _Siar_ and _Shialu_, Bengali; _Kola_, Mahrathi; _Nari_, Canarese; _Nakka_, Telegu; _Nerka_, Gondi; _Shingal_ or _Sjekal_, Persia; _Amu_, Bhotia; _Myae-khawae_, Burmese; _Nareeah_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Throughout India, Burmah, and Ceylon; it is found over a great part of Asia, Southern Europe, and Northern Africa. DESCRIPTION.--"Fur dusky yellowish or rufous grey, the hairs being mottled black, grey, and brown, with the under fur brownish yellow; lower parts yellowish-grey; the tail reddish-brown, ending in a darkish tuft; more or less rufous on the muzzle and limbs; tail moderately hairy."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 28 to 30 inches; tail, 10 or 11 inches; height, 16 to 18 inches. The jackal is one of our best-known animals, both as a prowler and scavenger, in which capacity he is useful, and as a disturber of our midnight rest by his diabolical yells, in which peculiarity he is to be looked upon as an unmitigated nuisance. He is mischievous too occasionally, and will commit havoc amongst poultry and young kids and lambs, but, as a general rule, he is a harmless, timid creature, and when animal food fails he will take readily to vegetables. Indian corn seems to be one of the things chiefly affected by him; the fruit of the wild behr-tree (_Zizyphus jujuba_) is another, as I have personally witnessed. In Ceylon he is said to devour large quantities of ripe coffee-berries, the seeds, which pass through entire, are carefully gathered by the coolies, who get an extra fee for the labour, and are found to be the best for germination, as the animal picks the finest fruit. According to Sykes he devastates the vineyards in the west of India, and is said to be partial to sugar-cane. The jackal is credited with digging corpses out of the shallow graves, and devouring bodies. I once came across the body of a child in the vicinity of a jungle village which had been unearthed by one. At Seonee we had, at one time, a plague of mad jackals, which did much damage. Sir Emerson Tennent writes of a curious horn or excrescence which grows on the head of the jackal occasionally, which is regarded by the Singhalese as a potent charm, by the instrumentality of which every wish can be realised, and stolen property will return of its own accord! This horn, which is called _Nari-comboo_, is said to grow only on the head of the leader of the pack. The domestic dog is supposed to owe its origin to this species, as well as to the wolf, but all conjecture on this point can be but pure speculation. Certain it is that the pariahs about villages are strikingly like jackals, at least in many cases, and they will freely interbreed. The writer in the _India Sporting Review_ alluded to by me in writing of the wolf, mentions some experiments made in crossing dogs with jackals. "First cross, hybrid between a female jackal and Scotch terrier dog, or half jackal and half dog; second cross, between the hybrid jackal and terrier, or quarter jackal and three-quarters dog; third cross between the quarter jackal and terrier, or seven-eighths dog and one-eighth jackal. Of the five pups comprising the litter, of which the last was one, two were fawn-coloured and very like pariahs, while three had the precise livery of the jackal; noses sharp and pointed; ears large and erect; head and muzzle like the jackal. This cross, he remarks, appears to have gone back a generation, and to have resembled the jackal much more than their mother, whose appearance, with the exception of the very sharp muzzle, although she had so much jackal blood, was that of a sleek, well-fed pariah dog, colour yellow fawn, but her gait and gallop were precisely that of the jackal."--_McMaster_. _GENUS CUON_. Dentition as in restricted _Canis_, but wanting the second grinder behind the flesh-tooth in the lower jaw; the nose is short; skull arched; the forehead broad, convex, and gradually shelving from the nose line; nasals long, produced behind the hinder upper edge of the maxillaries. NO. 249. CANIS (CUON) RUTILANS. _The Indian Wild Dog_ (_Jerdon's No. 137_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Jungli-kutta_; _Son-kutta_; _Ban-kutta_, _Ram-kutta_, Hindi; _Kolsun_, _Kolusna_, _Kolsa_ and _Kolasra_, Mahrathi; _Reza-kutta_, _Adavi-kutta_, Telegu; _Shen-nai_, Malabarese; _Eram-naiko_, Gondi; _Sakki-sarai_, at Hyderabad; _Ram-hun_ in Kashmir; _Siddaki_, Thibetan, in Ladakh; _Suhu-tum_, Lepcha; _Paoho_, Bhotea; _Bhaosa_, _Bhoonsa_, _Buansu_ in the Himalayas, generally from Simla to Nepal (_Jerdon_); _Tao-khwae_, Burmese; _Assoo-adjakh_, _Assoo-kikkee_, Javanese; _Oesoeng-esang_, Sundese; _An-jing Utan_, Malay; _Hazzee_, Thibetan. HABITAT.--The whole of India and down the Burmese country to the Malayan archipelago, but not in Ceylon, although Jerdon asserts that it is common there. I however cannot find any authority for this, and both Kellaart and Sir Emerson Tennent affirm that there are no wild dogs in Ceylon. [Illustration: _Cuon rutilans_.] DESCRIPTION.--General colour bright rusty or red, somewhat paler beneath; ears large and erect, round at the tips; large, hairy-soled feet; very bushy, straight tail, reaching half-way from the hough to the sole, with a dark tip. It stands lower in front than behind; and, though somewhat resembling a jackal, has an unmistakable canine physiognomy; the eye is fuller and better placed, and forehead broader, and the muzzle less pointed. SIZE.--Head and body, 32 to 36 inches; tail, 16 inches; height 17 to 20 inches. It has been supposed that there were two or three species of wild dog to be found within the limits of British India, but it is now, I think, conclusively settled that the Malayan and Indian species are one, and that those from Darjeeling and other hills, which showed variation, are the same, with slight differences caused by climate. They are certainly not canine in disposition; the wolf and jackal are much more so, for in confinement they are as ill-conditioned brutes as it is possible to conceive. Those in the Regent's Park Gardens are active, snappy, snarly, wild-looking creatures. Hodgson writes of them: "Those I kept in confinement, when their den was approached, rushed into the remotest corner of it; huddled one upon another, with their heads concealed as much as possible. I never dared to lay hands on them, but if poked with a stick they would retreat from it as long as they could, and then crush themselves into a corner, growling low, and sometimes, but rarely, seizing the stick and biting it with vehemence. After ten months' confinement they were as wild and shy as the first hour I got them. Their eyes emitted a strong light in the dark, and their bodies had the peculiar foetid odour of the fox and jackal in all its rankness." McMaster sent one to the People's Park, at Madras, which he obtained in Burmah, and says of her: "'Evangeline,' as she is named, is certainly though an interesting and rare creature to have in a museum or wild-beast show, the most snarling, ill-mannered, and detestable beast I have ever owned." "Hawkeye," whose most interesting paper on the wild dog appeared in the _South of India Observer_, of January 7th, 1869, alludes to "Evangeline" in the following terms:--"I saw the beast at the People's Park, and a more untameable wretch I never met with; and why so fair a name for such a savage de'il, I know not." It is strange that the most dog-like of the wild canines should refuse domestication when even the savage European wolf has become so attached as to pine during the absence of his master. Jesse, in his 'History of the British Dog,' relates that a lady near Geneva had a tame wolf, which was so attached that when, on one occasion, she left home for a while he refused food and pined. On her return, when he heard her voice, he flew to meet her in an ecstasy of delight; springing up, he placed a paw on each of her shoulders, and the next moment fell backwards and expired. The wild dog, however, refuses all endearments, and keeps his savage nature to the last. I have never heard of their attacking men, but few four-footed beasts, even of large size, escape them. Fortunately they are not as common as jackals, otherwise little game would be left in the country. During my residence in the Seonee district from 1857 to 1864, I only came across them two or three times. Their mode of hunting has been described by various writers--Hodgson, Elliot, Jerdon, and others of less reliability--but one of the best descriptions, which I regret I have not space for _in extenso_, is that to which I have already alluded as written by "Hawkeye," and which may be found in the paper above mentioned, and also in McMaster's notes on Jerdon; but I give a few extracts:-- "Generally speaking, however, the wild dog has not been known to be the aggressor against mankind; and, though not displaying much dread of man, has hitherto refrained from actual attack, for I have never heard of any case proving it otherwise; at the same time it is well known and an established fact that the tiger and leopard are often driven away by these dogs. It is uncertain whether they really attack with intent to kill either the one or the other, but that they have been repeatedly seen following both there is no question. The wild dog in appearance bears much similitude to the English fox; he is however larger, and stands some inches higher, and has no white tip to his tail, which, with his muzzle, is perfectly black. The muscular development all over the body is extraordinary. One that I shot, when skinned, was a most perfect specimen of thews and sinews I ever beheld." He describes various hunts by packs of these dogs, in one of which, witnessed by a brother sportsman, the dogs, five in number, in pressing a Sambar stag, spread themselves out like a fan, which he considers a matter of instinct, so that in case of a flank movement the outer dogs would have a chance; in this case however the stag kept straight on, and, the ground being precipitous, he managed to escape. The evidence produced tends to confirm the opinion that the wild dog endeavours to seize the quarry by the flanks and tear out the entrails. According to Hodgson the _buansu_, as it is called in Nepal, runs in a long, lobbing canter, unapt at the double, and considers it inferior in speed to the jackal and fox. It hunts chiefly by day. Six or eight, or more, unite to hunt down their victim, maintaining the chase more by power of smell than by the eye, and usually overcome by force and perseverance, though occasionally mixing stratagem with direct violence. He asserts that in hunting they bark like hounds, but their barking is in such a voice as no language can express. "Hawkeye," however, states that the wild dog does not throw his tongue when in chase; he has heard them make a kind of tremulous whimper. The stories of their attacking and killing tigers must be received with caution, though it is certain they will harass both tigers and leopards. I wrote some time back, in 'Seonee': "The natives in all parts of India declare that even tigers are attacked by them; and we once heard a very circumstantial account given of a fight, which took place near the station of Seonee, between a tiger and a pack of these dogs, in which the latter were victors. They followed him about cautiously, avoiding too close a contact, and worried him for three successive days--a statement which should be received with caution. We have, however, heard of them annoying a tiger to such an extent as to make him surrender to them the prey which he had killed for himself." I agree with Jerdon in disbelieving the native superstition that the wild dog sheds a pungent secretion on his tail, and whisks it in the eyes of the animals it attacks, or covers the leaves of the bushes through which the victim graze, and then takes advantage of the temporary blindness thus caused; but it is a curious fact that the idea is prevalent in all parts of India, north and south, and has been accepted by many writers on Indian sports. The wild dog dwells and breeds in holes and caves in rocks. The breeding season is from January to March, and about six whelps are born at a time. The mammae are more numerous than in any other canine--from twelve to fourteen. Jerdon notices that Mr. Wilson at Simla discovered a breeding-place in holes under some rocks, where evidently several females were breeding together. At such times they endeavour to hunt their game towards their den, and kill it as near to it as possible. _GENUS VULPES_. The foxes form a distinct group of the Canidae; their bodies are long, with short legs, the muzzle more lengthened in comparison and much sharper, and the pupil of the eye contracts vertically instead of circularly; the tail is very bushy, with a gland at the base secreting a strong odorous substance. The female has six mammae. There are two types in India--the desert fox or fox of the plains, _Cynalopex_ of Hamilton Smith; and the hill fox, which approximates to the European species. The former has longer ears and longer and more slender limbs. NO. 250. VULPES BENGALENSIS. _The Indian Fox_ (_Jerdon's No. 138_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Lomri_, _Lokri_, _Lokeria_, Hindi; _Kokri_, Mahrathi; _Khekar_ and _Khikir_ in Behar; _Khek-sial_, Bengali; _Konk_, _Kemp-nari_, _Chanaak-nari_, Canarese; _Konka-nakka_ or _Gunta-nakka_, _Poti-nara_, Telegu.--_Jerdon_. HABITAT.--Throughout India; probably Ceylon, as Kellaart mentions having heard of a fox there, but I cannot trace it, or any other, in Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--"Reddish-grey; rufous on the legs and muzzle; reddish white beneath; ears long dark brown externally; tail long bushy, with a broad black tip; muzzle very acute; chin and throat whitish."--_Jerdon_. Here is Colonel Sykes's description of it in Southern India:-- "It is a very pretty animal, but smaller than the European fox; head short; muzzle very sharp; eyes oblique; irides nut-brown; legs very slender; tail trailing on the ground, very bushy; along the back and on the forehead fawn colour, with hair having a white ring to its tip; back, neck, between the eyes, along the sides, and half way down the tail reddish-grey; each hair banded black and reddish-white; all the legs reddish outside, reddish-white inside; chin and throat dirty white; along the belly reddish-white; ears externally dark brown, and with the fur so short as to be scarcely discoverable; edges of eyelids black; muzzle red brown." The colour however varies a good deal, according to season and locality. It becomes more grey in the cold season. McMaster writes that he once killed one silvery grey, almost white. SIZE.--Head and body, 20 to 21 inches; tail, 12 to 14 inches; weight, 5-1/2 lbs. This fox is common, not only in open country, but even in cantonments and suburbs of cities. Hardly a night passes without its familiar little chattering bark in the Dalhousie Square gardens, or on the Maidan, being heard; and few passengers running up and down our railway lines, who are on the look-out for birds and animals as the train whirls along, fail to see in the early morning our little grey friend sneaking home with his brush trailing behind him. Jerdon says of the manner in which he carries this that he trails it when going slowly or hunting for food; holds it out horizontal when running; and raises it almost erect when making a sudden turn. It also, like the jackal; will eat fruit, such as melons, ber, &c., and herbs. It breeds in the spring, from February to April, and has four cubs. Jerdon says the cubs are seldom to be seen outside their earth till nearly full grown. It is much coursed with greyhounds, and gives most amusing sport, doubling constantly till it gets near an earth; but it has little or no smell, so its scent does not lie. Sir Walter Elliot wrote of it in the Madras _Journal of Literature and Science_ (vol. x. p. 102): "Its principal food is rats, land-crabs, grasshoppers, beetles, &c. On one occasion a half-devoured mango was found in the stomach. It always burrows in open plains, runs with great speed, doubling like a hare; but instead of stretching out at first like that animal, and trusting to its turns as a last resource, the fox turns more at first; and, if it can fatigue the dogs, it then goes straight away." It is easily tamed if taken young, and is very playful, but Jerdon, in repeating the assertion that tame foxes sooner or later go mad, says he has known one or two instances where they have done so; but McMaster throws doubt on this, and puts the supposed madness down to excitement at the amorous season. He gives an interesting account of a pair kept by a friend, which lived on amicable terms with his greyhounds. The owner writes: "I sometimes took them on to the parade ground, and slipped a couple of greyhounds after them. They never ran far, as when tired they lay down on their backs, and were at once recognised by the dogs. On one occasion one fox was tired before the other, and after he had made friends with the dogs he joined them in the chase after the other." NO. 251. VULPES LEUCOPUS. _The Desert Fox_ (_Jerdon's No. 139_). HABITAT.--Northern India, and also on the Western Coast about Cutch. DESCRIPTION.--"Light fulvous on the face, middle of back and upper part of tail; cheeks, sides of neck and body, inner side, and most of the fore parts of the limbs, white; shoulder and haunch, and outside of the limbs nearly to the middle joint, mixed black and white; tail darker at the base above, largely tipped with white; lower parts nigrescent; ears black posteriorly; fur soft and fine as in _V. montanus_, altogether dissimilar from that of _V. Bengalensis_. The skull with the muzzle distinctly narrower, and the lower jaw weaker. One I killed at Hissar had the upper parts fulvous, the hair black-tipped; sides paler; whole lower parts from the chin, including the inside of the arm and thigh, blackish; feet white on the inner side anteriorly, with a blackish border on the anterior limbs; legs fulvous externally; all feet white; tail always with a white tip."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 20 inches; tail, 14 inches; weight, 5-1/2 lbs. According to Mountstuart Elphinstone the backs of the foxes in Hurriana are of the same colour as the common fox, but in one part of the desert their legs and belly, up to a certain height, are black, and in another white--the one seems to have been wading up to the belly in ink, and the other in whitewash. This fox lives chiefly on the jerboa-rat (_Gerbillus Indicus_) common on sandy plains. Jerdon thinks it more speedy than the common Indian fox. NO. 252. VULPES FERRILATUS. _The Thibetan Grey Fox_. NATIVE NAME.--_Iger_, Thibetan. HABITAT.--Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Pale fulvous, with grizzled white or iron-grey sides; shorter ears than in the Indian fox. * * * * * We now come to the true foxes, with shorter legs and moderate ears. NO. 253. VULPES MONTANUS. _The Hill Fox_ (_Jerdon's No. 140_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Loh_, Kashmiri; _Lomri_, Hindi, at Simla; _Wamu_, Nepalese. HABITAT.--Throughout the Himalayas. DESCRIPTION.--Pale fulvous, with a dark brownish or deep chestnut streak down the back; sides deeper fulvous; the haunches a steely grey, mixed with yellowish hairs; tail grey and very bushy, largely tipped with white; ears deep black on outside; cheeks and jowl greyish-white; moustaches black; legs chestnut in front, paling off behind. SIZE.--Head and body, 30 inches; tail, 19 inches; weight, 14 lbs. Not at all unlike an English fox, only more variegated. The foregoing description is taken chiefly from a very fine specimen shot in the garden of the house in which I stayed at Simla; but it is subject to great variation, and is in its chief beauty in its winter dress. Several specimens which I have seen are all more or less different in colour. I have never seen a handsomer fox; the fur is extremely rich, the longer hairs exceeding two inches, and the inner fur is fine and dense. It is said to breed in April and May, the female usually having three to four cubs. NO. 254. VULPES PUSILLUS. _The Punjab Fox_ (_Jerdon's No. 141_). HABITAT.--Punjab Salt Range. DESCRIPTION.--Similar to the last, but much smaller, being about the size of the Indian fox. Jerdon suggests that it may be a variety of the last species, dwarfed by a warmer climate, but Blyth and others keep it apart. NO. 255. VULPES FLAVESCENS. _The Persian Fox_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Tulke_, at Yarkand; _Wamu_, Nepalese. HABITAT.--Eastern Turkestan, Ladakh, Persia, and, according to Gray, Indian Salt Range; Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Fulvous, darker on back, very similar to _V. montanus_, only more generally rufous and paler, with longer hair and larger teeth; face, outer side of fore-legs and base of tail pale fulvous; spot on side of face, chin, front of fore-legs, and a round spot on upper part of hind foot blackish; hairs of tail tipped black; ears externally black; tail tipped largely with white. The skull of one mentioned by Mr. Blanford had larger auditory bullae than either the European fox or _V. montanus_. NO. 256. VULPES GRIFFITHII. _The Afghanistan Fox_. This was at first reckoned by Blyth as synonymous with the last, but was afterwards separated and renamed. It is stated by Hutton to be common about Candahar, where the skins are made into _reemchas_ and _poshteens_, the price in 1845 being about six annas a skin. MARINE CARNIVORA. We disposed of the land Carnivora in the last article, and now, before proceeding to the Cetacea, I will give a slight sketch of the marine Carnivora, of which, however, no examples are to be found on the Indian coasts. The Pinnipedia or Pinnigrada are amphibious in their habits, living chiefly in the water, but resorting occasionally to the land. There are some examples of the land Carnivora which do the same--the polar bear and otter, and more especially the sea-otter, _Enhydra lutris_, which is almost exclusively aquatic, but these are all decidedly of the quadrupedal type, whereas in the amphibia we see the approach to the fish form necessary for their mode of life. The skeleton reveals the ordinary characteristics of the quadruped with somewhat distorted limbs. The bones of the forelimbs are very powerful and short, a broad scapula, short humerus and the ulna and radius are stout, parallel to each other, and the latter much broader at the base; often in old animals the two are ankylosed at the joint, which is also the case with the tibia and fibula. The hip-bones are narrow and much compressed, the femur remarkably short, the shank-bones and the bones of the feet very long. In walking on land the feet are, in the case of the _Otaria_ or eared seals placed flat on the full sole; the common seals never use their hind limbs on the shore. The dentition is essentially carnivorous, but varies considerably in the different families, and even in the _Phocidae_ themselves. The stomach is simple, but the intestines are considerably longer than in the _Felidae_, averaging about fifteen times the length of the body; the digestion is rapid. The bones are light and spongy, and the spine particularly flexible, from the amount of cartilage between the bones. They have a large venous cavity in the liver, and the lungs are capacious, the two combining to assist them in keeping under water; the blood is dark and abundant. The brain is large, and in quantity and amount of convolution exceeds that of the land Carnivores. Their hearing is acute, but their sight out of water is defective. Their external features are an elongated pisciform body, the toes joined by a membrane converting the feet into broad flippers or fins, the two hind ones being so close as to act like the caudal fin of a fish. The head is flattish and elongated, or more or less rounded, but in comparison with the body it is small. Except in the _Otaridae_ there are no perceptible ears, and in them the ear is very small. The fur is of two kinds, one long and coarse, but the other, or under fur, is beautifully soft and close, and is the ordinary sealskin of commerce. The roots of the coarse hair go deeper into the skin than those of the under fur, so the furrier takes advantage of this by thinning the skin down to the coarse roots, cutting them free, and then the hairs are easily removed, leaving the soft fur attached to the skin. The Pinnigrada are divided into three families--the _Trichechidae_, or walruses; the _Otaridae_, or sea-lions or eared seals; and the _Phocidae_, or ordinary seals. As none of these animals have been as yet observed in the Indian seas, being chiefly denizens of cold zones, I will not attempt any further description of species, having merely alluded to them _en passant_ as forming an important link in the chain of animal creation. We must now pass on to the next order, a still more aquatic one. ORDER CETACEA--THE WHALES. These curious creatures have nothing of the fish about them, save the form, and frequently the name. In other respects they are warm-blooded, viviparous mammals, destitute of hinder limbs, and with very short fore-limbs completely enclosed in skin, but having the usual number of bones, though very much shortened, forming a kind of fin. The fin on the back is horizontal, and not rayed and upright like that of a fish; the tail resembles that of a fish in form, the caudal vertebrae running through the middle of it. The immense muscular power of this tail, with its broad flanges, arises from the flesh of the body, terminating in long cords of tendon, running to the tip. The vertebral column is often ankylosed in the fore-part, but is extremely elastic, owing to the cartilaginous cushion between each bone in the latter half. Thus, whilst the fore-part is rigid, the hinder is flexible in the extreme. The brain is large and much convoluted; the heart is very large, and the blood-vessels extremely full and numerous, with extensive ramifications, which, being filled with oxygenated blood, assist in supporting life whilst submerged. The lungs are also very large. The laryngeal and nasal passages are peculiar. The following description is by Dr. Murie: "In front of the larynx of man we all know that there is an elastic lid, the epiglottis, which folds over and protects the air passage as food is swallowed. The side cartilages constitute the walls of the organ of voice and protect the vocal chords. Now, in the comparatively voiceless whale, the cartilages, including the epiglottis, form a long rigid cylindrical tube, which is thrust up the passage at the back of the palate in continuity with the blow-hole. It is there held in place by a muscular ring. With the larynx thus retained bolt upright, and the blow-hole being meanwhile compressed or closed, the cetacean is enabled to swallow food under water without the latter entering the lungs." The stomach is peculiar, being composed of several sacs or chambers with narrow passages between; the intestines are long, glandular and, according to Dr. Murie, full of little pouches. There is no gall bladder; the gullet is very narrow in some and wider in others. Some have teeth, others are without. The eyes are small; the ears deficient externally, though the interior small ear-bones of ordinary mammals are in these massive and exceedingly dense, so much so, as Murie observes, as to be frequently preserved fossil when other osseous structures are destroyed. The cetacea have been divided into the _Denticete_, or Toothed Whales, and the _Mysticete_, or Whalebone Whales. The former contains the river dolphins, the ziphoid whales, the gigantic sperm whale, the sea dolphins, and the narwhal or sea unicorn. The latter contains the baleen whales. _DENTICETE--THE TOOTHED WHALES_. None of the larger species are found on these coasts, or in the Indian Ocean, the two most interesting of which are the gigantic sperm whales (_Physeter macrocephalus_), and the curious narwhal or sea unicorn (_Monodon monoceros_). The latter is an inhabitant of the northern seas only, but the sperm abounds in warmer waters, being frequently found in the sub-tropical oceans. I have occasionally seen them in the South Atlantic, though they are said to have diminished there of late years. It is a wonder that the species does not get scarce in many localities, so great is the chase after them. During the last forty years the Americans alone have taken at the rate of 10,000 barrels of sperm oil per annum, or upwards of four million barrels since 1835. The sperm whale, though of such enormous bulk and courage, yet has enemies besides man. The thrasher and the killer whale both attack it, and sailors assert that the sword-fish and thrasher combine against it, the latter stabbing from below, whilst the former leaps on it with stunning blows. I think by sword-fish (_Xiphias_), which is also a large but not so very sanguinary a fish, they mean the saw-fish (_Pristis_), which is allied to the sharks, and which attacks the largest whales. The sword-fish has however the character of being pugnacious. The old sperms, especially males, will show fight at times, but the younger ones are easily alarmed, and on being molested rush off in various directions, each looking out for himself. The sperm whale is known from the others by the way in which it spouts, the jet being thrown up obliquely forwards, and it blows at regular intervals. Although the old "bulls" show a certain amount of ferocity at times, their savageness is considerably exaggerated by the whalers, who love to spin yarns about them. Having watched the habits of these and the baleen whales with curiosity, I tried to get as much information about them as I could, from the whalers, but, with the exception of the officers of whaling ships, there was much that was unreliable in Jack's notions about the sperm. On one occasion I was just too late to see one killed. The boats, under full sail, were towing the carcase towards the ship. I would have given a good deal to have seen the encounter. The food of the sperm consists greatly of the huge rock squid or cuttle-fish, which they swallow in large lumps. I have heard whalers assert that a wounded sperm in the death agony will vomit immense pieces of squid. In this respect it differs much from the baleen whales, which have a narrow gullet. According to Professor Flower there is no sufficient evidence of the existence of more than one species of sperm whales, but an allied species, _Physeter_ (_Euphysetes_) _simus_, is found on the Madras coast, and to this I will allude further on. FAMILY DELPHINIDAE--THE DOLPHINS OR PORPOISES. _GENUS PLATANISTA--THE RIVER DOLPHINS_. A globular head with a long, compressed and, towards the end, spoon-shaped rostrum or snout; flippers short, broad and triangular; a long body of moderate girth; no back fin, but a slight elevation which takes its place. There is a decided depression between the head and body on the region of the neck; the eye is remarkably small, so much so as to be hardly perceptible; in an adult of eight feet long the whole eye-ball is no bigger than a pea, and the orifice of the ear is like a pin-hole. The skull has peculiar features. "The apparently rounded skull behind the snout has broad, thick zygomatic arches, and above and in front of these the cheek-bones (_maxillae_) each send forwards and inwards a great roughened sheet of bone or crest, which forms a kind of open helmet. In the large hollow between these bony plates, and somewhat behind, are situated the nasal orifices, which are slightly awry" (_Murie_).[19] Professor Flower's notice of the skull ('Osteology of the Mammalia') is thus worded: "The orbit is extremely small, the temporal fossa large, and the zygomatic processes of the squamosal are greatly developed. From the outer edge of the ascending plates of the maxillae, which lie over the frontals, great crests of bone, smooth externally, but reticulated and laminated on their inner surface, rise upwards, and, curving inwards, nearly meet in the middle line above the upper part of the face." [Footnote 19: See Appendix B for illustration.] The dentition is also curious, the upper and lower jaws being provided with a number of teeth, pointed and conical in front, and smaller and more flattened behind. They vary in number. In an example quoted by Dr. Murie the total was 117, viz., 27--28/30--32, but in a specimen examined by Dr. Anderson, who has most exhaustively described these animals, the total number of teeth amounted to 128, i.e. 33--32/32--31. (See Appendix B, p. 525.) The cervical vertebrae are movable, and not ankylosed, as in many of the cetacea; the caecum is small; the blow-hole is a narrow slit, not transverse as in other whales, but longitudinal. I have somewhat gone out of order in Jerdon's numbering in bringing in this genus here instead of letting it follow Delphinus, as he has done. These river Dolphins naturally come after the extinct Phocodontia or seal-toothed whales, and bear considerable resemblance in the dentition to the extinct genus Squalodon. NO. 257. PLATANISTA GANGETICA. _The Gangetic Porpoise_ (_Jerdon's Nos. 144 and 145_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Soonse_, _Soosoo_, _Soosa_, Hindi; _Susak_, _Shishuk_, Bengali; _Sisumar_, Sanscrit; _Bulhan_ or _Sunsar_, on the Indus; _Hihoo_, _Siho_; Assamese; _Huhh_ in Cachar and Sylhet. HABITAT.--In the larger rivers connected with the Ganges nearly up to the hills; also in the Brahmaputra and in the Indus, but in fresh water; only it does not go out to sea. [Illustration: _Platanista Gangetica_.] DESCRIPTION.--"A long compressed snout with a formidable array of teeth; a vaulted compressed forehead; longitudinal blow-hole; scarcely perceptible eye; distinct neck; broad and abruptly truncated pectoral fins, and small dorsal fin; and the male, a smaller but heavier-built animal than the female, with a shorter snout" (_Anderson_). The colour is from a dark lead to a sooty black; according to Jerdon "when old with some lighter spots here and there; shining pearl-grey when dry." SIZE.--From six to eight feet. This animal, though not often captured, at all events in the vicinity of Calcutta, is familiar to most people who have travelled on the larger Indian rivers. It is common enough in the Hooghly. I have frequently observed it in the river abreast of the Fort whilst we were slowly driving down the Course. I am largely indebted to Dr. Anderson for information concerning it, for he has not only most carefully watched the habits of this curious animal, but has most exhaustively described its anatomy in his 'Anatomical and Zoological Researches.' It is found in the Hooghly, chiefly in the cold weather, migrating during the hot and rainy season; at least so it was supposed, and Dr. Cantor conjectured that at such times it visited the sea, but this has been proved to be not the case. The _soosoo_ never leaves fresh water; and it is in the river during the rains, for fishermen catch it in their nets, but it is hardly ever seen at that time. It rises so as to expose the blow-hole only, and the rush of the swollen waters prevents the peculiar sound of respiration being heard. But in the cold weather, when the river is calm, the ear is attracted at once by the hissing puff of expiration, and the animal may be seen to bound almost out of the water. Dr. Anderson had one alive in captivity for ten days, and carefully watched its respirations. "The blow-hole opened whenever it reached the surface of the water. The characteristic expiratory sound was produced, and so rapid was the inspiration that the blow-hole seemed to close immediately after the expiratory act." He states that "the respirations were tolerably frequent, occurring at intervals of about one-half or three-quarters of a minute, and the whole act did not take more than a few seconds for its fulfilment." But it is probable that in a free state and in perfect health the animal remains longer under water. It has certainly been longer on several occasions when I have watched for the reappearance of one in the river. The food of the Gangetic dolphin consists chiefly of fish and crustacea; occasionally grains of rice and remains of insects are found in the stomach, but these are doubtless, as Dr. Anderson conjectures, in the fish swallowed by the dolphin. The period of gestation is said to be eight to nine months, and usually only one at a time is born, between April and July. The young are sometimes caught with their mothers, and are said to cling by holding on by the mouth to the base of the parent's pectoral fins. "The flesh and blubber are occasionally eaten by many of the low caste Hindus of India, such as the Gurhwals, the Domes of Jessore and Dacca districts, the Harrees, Bourees, Bunos, Bunpurs, Tekas, Tollahas, the Domes of Burdwan and Bhagulpore, who compare it to venison; also by the Teewars and Machooas of Patna, the Mussahars of Shahabad, the Gourhs and Teers of Tirhoot, and the Mullahs of Sarun. In the North-west Provinces about Allahabad, the Chumars, Passees, Kooras, Khewuts or Mullahs, have rather a high estimate of the flesh, which they assert resembles turtle. The Koonths of Benares, Phunkeahs, Natehmurrahs, and Buahoas of Moradabad, and also such gipsy tribes as the Sainsees, Kunjars and Hubbossahs, in the neighbourhood of Meerut, do not despise it. In the Punjab we find the Choorahs, Dhapels, Sainsees, Budous, and Burars eating the flesh; and in Sind the Kehuls. The Moras, a tribe of Mahomedan boatmen who lead a wandering life on the streams in the Punjab and in Sind, subsist on the dolphin when by good chance they catch one; this is also the case with the Cacharies and the Nagas of Assam. The Sansee women on the Indus eat the flesh under the idea that it makes them prolific. All along the Ganges, Brahmahputra, and Indus, the oil is universally considered as of great value as an embrocation in rheumatism and for giving much strength when rubbed on the back and loins. But many other animal oils, such as those of various species of turtle, the crocodile, and the pelican, have a similar reputation. It is said to be of a very penetrating nature, and, owing to this property, it is highly prized for preserving leather, such as harness, &c. The illuminating powers of this oil are said to be very high." (Anderson's 'Anatomical and Zoological Researches.') Jerdon gives, on the authority of Blyth, another species, _Platanista Indi_, or the Indus porpoise, but Dr. Anderson has conclusively proved that this is identical with the Gangetic dolphin. The dentition of the _soosoo_ is most curious. The perfect tooth in the young animal is sharp and pointed, but as the creature advances in age the fangs get broader, and the point wears down, till in old age the crown is so worn as to leave but a bony lump in its place. _GENUS ORCELLA--THE ROUND-HEADED RIVER DOLPHINS_. The generic characteristics of these dolphins are, according to Dr. Anderson, as follows: "Head globular; dorsal fin low, situated behind the middle of the body; pectoral fins oval, about one-sixth the length of the animal; teeth conical, large, and fewer in the lower than in the upper jaw, thirteen to seventeen teeth in the upper and twelve to fourteen teeth in the lower jaw; skull beaked; beak broad at the base, anteriorly pointed; premaxillary not much laterally dilated, bearing one tooth; vertebrae sixty-two to sixty-three; first two cervical vertebrae ankylosed; lumbar transverse process moderately long; vertebrae ribs twelve to thirteen, with one or two free ribs; pelvic bones opposite thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth vertebrae." These are the dolphins which were procured by Mr. Blyth in the Hooghly, and were supposed by him to be the young of the ca'ing whale (_Globicephalus_), which idea has also been adopted by Jerdon; but it has been since proved that the skeletons prepared from these supposed young whales are those of adults fully matured, and not of young animals, which have certain resemblances to _Globicephalus_ as well as to the killer whales, _Orca_, from which the generic name has been derived, but yet was undoubtedly distinct. The killer whales have a very high dorsal fin in the middle of the back, with very large pectoral flippers as broad as long; in _Orcella_ the back fin is low and behind the middle of the body, and the pectoral fin is only half as broad as long. In the ca'ing whale the back fin is more towards the shoulders, and the flippers are long and narrow; the genus _Orcella_ in fact seems to be intermediate between the dolphin and the ca'ing whale, combining the head of _Globicephalus_ with the body of _Delphinus_. Dr. Anderson, however, points out further differences than the external ones I have above alluded to. _Orca_, he says, is distinguished by a "more powerfully built skeleton, with considerably fewer vertebrae, there being only a maximum of fifty-three in it to a maximum of sixty-three in _Orcella_." In _Orca_ generally four or five cervical vertebrae are ankylosed as in the cachelots, but in the two species of _Orcella_ only the atlas and axis are joined. "In the killers and ca'ing whales the ribs are transferred to the transverse processes at the seventh dorsal, whilst in _Orcella_ the transference does not take place until the eighth." The skull resembles that of _Orca_ in the breadth of the upper jaw being produced by the maxillaries, whereas in _Globicephalus_ this effect is caused by the premaxillaries. The teeth resemble the killer's. As I have said so much about the killer whale, I may digress a little to explain what it is, though it is not a denizen of the Indian seas. It is to the Cetacea what the shark is to fishes--a voracious tyrant with a capacious mouth, armed with formidable teeth. It hesitates not to attack the largest sperm and Greenland whales, and the smaller whales, porpoises and seals will spring out of water and strand themselves on shore in terror at its approach. It ranges from twenty to thirty feet in length, and is of so gluttonous a character that in one recorded case a killer had been found choked in the attempt to swallow a _fifteenth_ seal, the other fourteen, with thirteen porpoises, being found in its stomach! According to Scammon three or four of them do not hesitate to grapple with the largest baleen whale; and, as described by Dr. Murie, "the latter often, paralysed through fear, lie helpless and at their mercy. The killers, like a pack of hounds, cluster about the animal's head, breach over it, seize it by the lips, and haul the bleeding monster underwater; and, should the victim open its mouth, they eat its tongue." In one instance he relates that a Californian grey whale and the young one were assaulted; the _Orcas_ killed the latter, and sprang on the mother, tearing away large pieces of flesh, which they greedily devoured. "These brutes have been known to attack a white-painted herring boat, mistaking it for a beluga; and it is stated that occasionally they will boldly lay siege to whales killed by the whalers, almost dragging them perforce under water. Near some of the Pacific sealing grounds they continually swim about, and swoop off the unwary young; even the large male sea-lions hastily retreat ashore and give these monsters a wide berth. The walrus also, with his powerful tusks, cannot keep the killers at bay, especially if young morses are in the herd. The cubs on such occasions will mount upon the mother's back for refuge, clinging for dear life, but the _Orca_, diving, comes suddenly up with a spiteful thud, and the cub, losing its balance, falls into the water, when in an instant it is seized by the remorseless whales." The speed of the killer whale is immense, as may be supposed when it can overtake the swift dolphins, which it catches and swallows alive. It has also been seen chasing salmon up the mouths of rivers. The genus _Orcella_ seems to come in between the sea and river dolphins, although _Orcella fluminalis_ of Dr. Anderson is a purely fluviatile animal, which apparently never goes out to sea. NO. 258. ORCELLA BREVIROSTRIS. _The Short-nosed Round-headed River Dolphin_. HABITAT.--The estuaries of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. DESCRIPTION.--"The head is convex from the blow-hole to the upper lip, but its sides immediately below the angle of the mouth are somewhat anteriorly convergent, but rounded; the gape posteriorly has a long upward curve; the eye, which is well developed, is near the angle at the gape, and in the adult is placed about one inch above it, with a slightly downward slope; the ear is nearly on the same level as the angle of the mouth, but is extremely small, crescentic, and not measuring more than 0.12 inch in diameter. The posterior margin of the blow-hole is immediately behind the anterior angle of the eye; the blow-hole is crescentic and unsymmetrical, being more to the left than to the right side; there are two slight eminences about one inch behind the blow-hole; the construction of the neck occurs below the ear and slightly behind it" (Anderson's 'Anatomical and Zoological Researches,' p. 370). The other characteristics are triangular flippers half as broad as long. The back fin rises behind the centre of the back; it is comparatively small, falcate, curved over the top to a blunt point, and concave behind. The line of the back is sharp from this fin down to the tail. The ventral line is the same for some inches behind the anus. The colour is dark slaty-blue above, almost black, a little paler below, without any streaks or marks, such as in _O. fluminalis_ and Risso's grampus. SIZE.--From snout to caudal notch, about 7 feet. I cannot find much on record concerning the habits of this dolphin, and my own acquaintance with it is too limited for me to afford much original information. NO. 259. ORCELLA FLUMINALIS (_Anderson_). _The Fresh-water Round-headed Dolphin_. HABITAT.--The Irrawaddy river; Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--This differs from the last in a "rather smaller, lower, and more falcate dorsal fin, its more pointed and less anteriorly bulging head, and rather shorter and broader pectoral fins" (_Anderson_). The colour is a pale bluish above, and white underneath, with numerous streaks, as in Risso's grampus. SIZE.--From 7 to 7-1/2 feet from snout to fork of tail. Dr. Anderson, who has fully described this species, says that he has "never observed it in tidal waters, so that it is even more strictly fluviatile than the Gangetic dolphin. From a little below Prome to as far up as Bhamo, which is about 550 miles, as the crow flies, from the sea, these animals abound. It is asserted by the Shans of Upper Burmah that these dolphins are not to be found beyond a point thirty miles above Bhamo, where the course of the river is interrupted by rocks, and which they style _Labine_ or Dolphin Point, from the circumstance that, according to them, it is the residence of certain _Nats_, who there impose so heavy a toll on dolphins as to deter them from proceeding upwards." This dolphin is somewhat like its marine cousins, being fond of gambolling round the river steamers. Solitary ones are seldom met with, usually two or three being together. When they rise to breathe the blow-hole is first seen; then, after respiration, the head goes down, and the back as far as the dorsal fin is seen, but rarely the tail flippers. They rise to breathe every 70 to 150 seconds, and the respiratory act is so rapid that it requires a very expert marksman to take aim and fire before the animal disappears. Dr. Anderson says: "I have observed some of them disporting themselves in a way that has never yet been recorded of _Cetacea_, as far as I am aware. They swam with a rolling motion near the surface, with their heads half out of the water, and every now and then nearly fully exposed, when they ejected great volumes of water out of their mouths--generally straight before them; but sometimes nearly vertically. The sight of this curious habit at once recalled to me an incident in my voyage up the river, when I had been quite baffled to explain an exactly similar appearance seen at a distance, so that this remarkable habit would appear to be not uncommonly manifested. On one occasion I noticed an individual standing upright in the water, so much so that one-half of its pectoral fins was exposed, producing the appearance against the background as if the animal was supported on its flippers. It suddenly disappeared, and again, a little in advance of its former position, it bobbed up in the same attitude, and this it frequently repeated. The Shan boatmen who were with me seemed to connect these curious movements with the season--spring--in which the dolphins breed." A similar thing has been noticed in the case of marine dolphins off the coast of Ceylon by Mr. E. W. H. Holdsworth, whose observations confirm the opinion of the Shan boatmen. (See 'P. Z. S.' 1872, p. 586.) "The food of the Irrawady dolphin is apparently exclusively fish. The fishermen believe that the dolphin purposely draws fish to their nets, and each fishing village has its particular guardian dolphin, which receives a name common to all the fellows of his school, and it is this supposition that makes it so difficult to obtain specimens of this cetacean. Colonel Sladen has told me that suits are not unfrequently brought into the native courts to recover a share in the capture of fish in which a plaintiff's dolphin has been held to have filled the nets of a rival fisherman" (_Anderson_). This reminds me that in the surveying voyage of the _Herald_, as related by Mr. H. Lee, the natives of Moreton Bay entreated the seamen not to shoot their tame porpoises, which helped them in their fishing. _GENUS DELPHINUS--THE MARINE DOLPHINS_. These are characterised by a convex forehead, with a protruding muzzle which forms a sort of beak; they have teeth in both jaws, numerous and conical, broad and high cranium, nasal passages vertical, no caecum. They are gregarious in habit, carnivorous and extremely swift, but they must not be confounded with the dolphin of sailors, which is a true fish (_Coryphaena hipparis_) of great velocity and brilliant colours, which change like rainbow tints when the fish is dying. I have several times in vain tried to catch the fleeting shades with both oil and water-colours, but without success; for within a few minutes they change from the most vivid of greens and blues to a pale silvery grey. The true dolphin, of which we are treating, is the dolphin of the ancients, represented in all the old pictures and sculptures. They have a medium dorsal fin, and the pectoral flippers are about two-thirds longer than the breadth. [Illustration: 1. Gangetic Dolphin--_Platanista Gangetica_. 2. Round-headed River Dolphin--_Orcella brevirostris_. 3. Gadamu Dolphin--_Delphinus Gadamu_. 4. Freckled Dolphin--_Delphinus lentiginosus_. 5. Black Dolphin--_Delphinus pomeegra_.] NO. 260. DELPHINUS PERNIGER. _The Black Dolphin_ (_Jerdon's No. 142_). HABITAT.--Bay of Bengal. DESCRIPTION.--"Twenty-six teeth on each side above and below, obtuse, slightly curved inwards; of a uniform shining black above, beneath blackish."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Total length, 5 feet 4 inches. This species was taken in the Bay of Bengal and sent to the Asiatic Society's Museum by Sir Walter Elliot, but it does not appear to be mentioned by Professor Owen in his notice of the Indian Cetacea collected by Sir Walter Elliot. NO. 261. DELPHINUS PLUMBEUS. _The Lead-coloured Dolphin_ (_Jerdon's No. 143_). HABITAT.--Malabar coast. DESCRIPTION.--Thirty-six teeth in each side in the upper jaw and thirty-two in the lower jaw; of a uniform leaden colour, with the lower jaw white. SIZE.--About 8 feet. Whether this be the same as or a different species to the next I am unable to say, as the description is meagre, and the number of teeth vary so much in the same species that no definite rule can be laid down on them. * * * * * The following are the species named by Professor Owen and collected by Sir Walter Elliot. NO. 262. DELPHINUS GADAMU. NATIVE NAME.--_Gadamu_. HABITAT.--Madras coast. DESCRIPTION.-Body fusiform, gaining its greatest diameter at the fore-part of the dorsal fin, decreasing forward to the head by straight converging lines, and with a gentle convex curve to the eyes and blow-hole; the forehead descends with a bold convex curve; the sides of the head converge from the eyes to the base of the snout, which is divided from the forehead by a transverse groove extending almost horizontally to the angles of the mouth, and it equals in length the distance from the base to the eyes, which is five inches and a-half; the lower jaw projects a little beyond the upper; the blow-hole is crescentic, in a line with the eyes, exactly in the middle of the head, with the horns of the crescent pointing towards the snout; the pectoral and dorsal fins are falcate and about equal in size; the colour is a dark plumbeous grey, almost black upon the fins, especially at their fore-part; the body below being of a pinkish ashy-grey, with a few small irregular patches of light plumbeous grey. The dentition varies from 24--24/24--24 = 96, to 23--23/27--28 = 101, and 27--27/27--27 = 108. SIZE.--About seven feet from snout to fork of tail; girth about 3 feet 9 inches. NO. 263. DELPHINUS LENTIGINOSUS. _The Freckled Dolphin_. NATIVE NAME.--_Bolla Gadimi_, Telegu. HABITAT.--Madras coast. DESCRIPTION.--Body fusiform, as in the last, but with smaller pectoral and dorsal but larger caudal fin; the back is straighter and not so much rounded on the shoulders, and the colour is bluish-cinerous or slaty, freckled with small irregular spots of brown or plumbeous, and longitudinal streaks of the same flecked with white; the under parts a shade lighter than rest of the body. The snout is six inches in length. Dentition: 32--32/32--33 = 129. SIZE.--Seven to eight feet; girth four feet. NO. 264. DELPHINUS MACULIVENTER. _Spot-bellied Dolphin_. NATIVE NAME.--_Suvva_. HABITAT.--Madras coast. DESCRIPTION.--Forehead more convex than even _D. gadamu_, and head proportionately larger and body deeper. A deep shining plumbeous black on the upper part, becoming paler near the belly, which from the underpart of the jaw to the perineum is ashy-grey, with irregular spots and blotches. Dentition: 27--27/30--30 = 114. SIZE.--About seven feet. NO. 265. DELPHINUS FUSIFORMIS. _The Spindle-shaped Dolphin_. HABITAT.--Madras coast. DESCRIPTION.--More slender in proportion to its length; a less elevated and less convex forehead than the last species; a proportionally thicker, broader, and more obtusely terminated snout; a deeper mandible or under jaw especially posteriorly, and smaller dorsal and pectoral fins, especially the latter. The greatest girth is in middle or fore-part of the dorsal fin, from which the body tapers to both ends, presenting the true spindle form. Colour plumbeous, lighter below, darkest on the fins and snout. Dentition: 22--22/21--21 = 86 teeth. SIZE.--About six feet. NO. 266. DELPHINUS POMEEGRA. _The Black or Pomeegra Dolphin_. NATIVE NAME.--_Pomeegra_. HABITAT.--Madras coast. DESCRIPTION.--More slender than any of the foregoing species; longish snout, with 173 teeth, viz. 41--41/45--46. It is well to note the irregularity here, not only an odd number, but the lower jaw has the greater number, whereas it is generally the other way. Colour almost black, lighter beneath. Professor Owen's description is not so full as in other cases, but from the illustration it seems that the flukes of the caudal fin are longer, and the posterior edge of the dorsal straighter than in the others. NO. 267. DELPHINUS LONGIROSTRIS. _The Long-snouted Dolphin_. HABITAT.--Indian Ocean; coast of Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Similar to the last, but with a longer and more slender snout. NO. 268. DELPHINUS VELOX. This is also given by Dr. Kellaart as a species found on the coast of Ceylon. Sir Walter Elliot mentions another species of dolphin, of which he had lost the drawing, about thirty-two inches long, of a uniform black colour, small mouth, and no dorsal fin, called by the Tamil fishermen _Molagan_. _GENUS PHOCAENA--THE PORPOISES_. No beak or rostrum; snout short and convex; numerous teeth in both jaws. Kellaart testifies to the existence of a true porpoise on the coasts of Ceylon--which he identifies with _Phocaena communis_--of a blackish colour above and whitish beneath. _GENUS GLOBICEPHALUS--THE CA'ING OR PILOT WHALE_. Head globular in front; teeth few in number; the dorsal fin is high, situated nearer to the head than to the tail; the flippers very long and narrow; the fingers possessing an unusually large number of bones. NO. 269. GLOBICEPHALUS INDICUS. _The Indian Ca'ing Whale_ (_Jerdon's No. 146_). HABITAT.--Bay of Bengal. DESCRIPTION.--Body cylindrical, tapering to the tail; dorsal fin high, falcate, and placed about the middle of the body proper, excluding the tail portion; the forehead with a prominent boss over the snout, which is short; pectoral fins long and narrow; colour uniform leaden black, paler beneath. SIZE.--Fourteen feet, flippers 2 feet; dorsal fin, 2-1/4 feet long, 11 inches high; tail flukes, 3 feet broad. Blyth's specimens were procured in the Salt Lakes near Calcutta. It was for the young of this that he mistook _Orcella brevirostris_. PHYSETERIDAE--THE CACHELOTS OR SPERM WHALES. _GENUS EUPHYSETES_. NO. 270. PHYSETER _or_ EUPHYSETES SIMUS. _The Snub-nosed Cachelot_. NATIVE NAME.--_Wonga_, Telugu. HABITAT.--Bay of Bengal. DESCRIPTION.--The general form of this animal resembles the porpoise, but the position of the mouth at once distinguishes it. It is small and situated, like that of the shark, considerably under the blunt rostrum, so much so as to lead one to conjecture whether or not it turns on its back in seizing its prey, as do the sharks. The blow hole is crescentic, but eccentrically placed to the left of the middle line of the head, and the horns of the crescent are turned diagonally backwards--that is to say, the lower limb points to the back whilst the upper one touches the middle line and points across; the eye is small; the pectoral fins are triangular, about one foot in length and four and a-half inches broad in the male, and four inches in the female; the dorsal fin is sub-falcate, standing about a foot high, and is nine to ten inches broad at the base, the male being the broader; the colour is a shining black above, paler and pinkish below. Dentition: 1--1/9--9 = 20. SIZE.--Six to seven feet. The peculiarity of this cetacean is the preponderance of the cranial over the rostral part, more so, as Professor Owen remarks, than in any other species. The asymmetry of the bones too is remarkable, although this is characteristic of all the catodon whales, especially as regards the bones of the anterior narial passages, the left of which is very much larger than the right. This is also the case in the large sperm whale, but in _Euphysetes_ the disproportion is still greater. In a notice on a New Zealand species (_E. Pottsii_), by Dr. Julius Haast, he gives the difference as fifteen times the size of the right aperture; the mouth is also peculiar from its position and small size, being very much overshot by the snout. It may, as Dr. Haast supposes, be a ground feeder, existing on the smaller hydroid zoophytes, otherwise it must, I think, turn on its side in seizing its prey. MYSTICETE--WHALEBONE OR BALEEN WHALES. _GENUS BALAENA--THE RIGHT WHALES_. They are distinguished from the last group by their enormous heads, with more symmetrical skulls, the facial portion of which is greatly in excess of the cranial. The bones of the lower jaw are not united at the symphysis, but are held together by strong fibrous bands; the two rami are very much rounded and arched outwards; there are no teeth. The maxillary and premaxillary bones are much produced, forming a rostrum tapering, narrow, compressed and much arched in the right whales. From this depends the mass of whalebone, which grows from a fleshy substance "similar," as is aptly described by Dr. Murie, "to the roots of our finger-nails. It grows continuously from the roots like the latter, and in many respects corresponds, save that the free end is always fringed. Baleen, therefore, though varying from a few inches to a number of feet long, in fact approximates to a series of, so to say, mouth nail-plates, which laminae have a somewhat transverse position to the cavity of the mouth, and thus their inner split edges and lower free ends cause the mouth to appear as a great hairy archway, shallower in front and deeper behind" (Cassell's Natural History). The object of this vast amount of whalebone is to strain from the huge gulps of water the mollusca, &c., on which this animal feeds. The tongue of these whales is very large, filling up the space between the lower jaws. The gullet is small in comparison. The nasal aperture differs from the _Denticete_ in being symmetrical, that is, having the double aperture, and in being directed forwards as in most mammals, instead of upwards and backwards as in the dolphins. The whale produces generally one at a birth, which it suckles for some length of time. The mammae are pudendal. The right whales have no fin on the back; those that have form a separate genus, Balaenoptera, i.e. fin-whales. They are the most valuable of the cetacea, except perhaps the cachelot or sperm whale, as producing the greatest amount of oil and whalebone. Of the various species the most sought after is the Greenland or right whale (_Balaena mysticetus_), which ordinarily attains a length of fifty to sixty feet. An average whale between forty and fifty feet in length will yield from sixty to eighty barrels of oil and a thousand pounds of baleen. [Illustration: Skull of Baleen Whale. Br, brain cavity; J J*, upper and lower jawbones; the arrows indicate narial passages; S, spout-hole; W, whalebone; _t_, tongue in dotted line; _n_, nerve aperture in lower jaw; _bo_, bone sawed through.] Formerly all whaling vessels were sailers, but now powerful steamships are used, and the harpoon often gives way to the harpoon gun. A whale, when struck, will sometimes run out a mile of line before it comes up again, which is generally in about half an hour. The whalers judge as best they can, from the position of the line, in which direction he will rise, and get as near as possible so as to use the lance or drive in another harpoon. When killed, the animal is towed to the vessel and fastened on the port side, belly uppermost, and head towards the stern; it is then stripped of its blubber, the body being canted by tackles till all parts are cleared. The baleen is then cut out, and the carcase abandoned to the sharks, killer whales, and sea birds. The baleen whales are not found in the intertropical seas. Of the known species there are the Greenland whale (_B. mysticetus_), the Biscay whale (_B. Biscayensis_), the Japan whale (_B. Japonica_), the Cape whale (_B. australis_), and the South Pacific whale (_B. antipodarum_). _GENUS BALAENOPTERA--FINBACK WHALES OR RORQUALS_. Are distinguished by their longer and narrower bodies, smaller heads, being one-fourth instead of one-third the length of the body, smaller mouths, shorter baleen, plaited throats, and smaller flippers; they have a dorsal fin behind the middle of the back, and the root of the tail is compressed laterally. They also present certain osteological differences from the right whales; the latter have the whole of the seven cervical vertebrae anchylosed, that is to say generally, for sometimes the seventh is free. In the finbacks the cervical vertebrae are, as a rule, all distinct and free, although occasionally anchylosis may take place between two or more of them. The sternum of the _Balaena_ consists of a broad, flattened, heart-shaped or oval presternum. "In the fin whales (_Balaenoptera_) it is transversely oval or trilobate, with a projecting backward xiphoid process" (_Professor Flower_). The ulna and radius in the rorquals are also comparatively longer than in the baleen whales. In the skull, the supraorbital processes of the frontals are broader in the rorquals than in others, and the olfactory fossa is less elongated. They are more muscular and active animals than the right whales, and have a less amount of blubber and much shorter whalebone, consequently are not so much sought after by whalers, as the risk in attacking them is not compensated for by the commercial results. Many of them grow to enormous size, far exceeding any of the baleen whales. The common rorqual, razorback, or pike-whale of the English coasts (_B. musculus_) attains a length of seventy feet; it is black above and pure white below. The sulphur-bottom whale (_B. sulfureus_) is known by its yellowish belly, and with Sibbald's whale (_B. Sibbaldii_) grows to a length of one hundred feet, to which size our Indian species also approaches. NO. 271. BALAENOPTERA INDICA. _The Indian Rorqual_ (_Jerdon's No. 147_). HABITAT.--The Indian Ocean. [Illustration: Rorqual.] DESCRIPTION.--External characteristics those of the genus, but from Mr. Blyth's observations the lower jaw of this species is more slender in proportion to its size than that of any other rorqual or even right whale. SIZE.--Up to 90 and possibly 100 feet. There is a most interesting article on the great rorqual of the Indian Ocean by Mr. Blyth in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society' for 1859, p. 481. He notices that the existence of great whales was known to and recorded by the ancients. Nearchus, the commander of Alexander's fleet, which sailed from the Indus to the Persian Gulf in B.C. 327, mentions having met with them, and that on the coast of Mekran the people constructed houses of the bones of stranded whales. In modern times an occasional one gets on shore, as was the case with one at Chittagong in 1842, another on the Arakan coast in 1851. In 1858 one of 90 feet was stranded at Quilon on the west coast, as reported by the Rev. H. Baker of Aleppi, who also mentions that one, said to be 100 feet long, was cast ashore some years previously. He writes to Mr. Blyth: "Whales are very common on the coast. American ships, and occasionally a Swedish one, call at Cochin for stores during their cruises for them; but no English whalers ever come here that I have heard of." I wonder at any whaling vessel coming out of their way after this species, for I have always heard from whalers that the finback is not worth hunting. It is possible that in cruising after sperms they may go a little out of their way to take a finback or two. However, to return to Blyth's remarks. Of the whale stranded on the Arakan coast a few bones were sent to the Society's Museum in Calcutta; they consisted of the two rami of the lower jaw, measuring 20 feet 10 inches, a right rib, the left radius, and five vertebrae, which are now to be seen at the Indian Museum. He writes as follows on them: "The proportional length of the radius indicates the animal to have been a Balaenoptera or rorqual, while the remarkable slenderness of the lower jaw suffices to prove it a distinct species from any hitherto-described rorqual." The finback does not confine itself entirely, or even chiefly, as stated by Blyth, to a diet of _Cephalapoda_, but is a fish-eater to boot, doing great damage to shoals of such fish as cod, herrings, &c., as many as six to eight hundred fish having been found in the stomach of one. They are not particularly shy, and will sometimes follow a vessel closely for days. I read not very long ago an account in one of the Indian newspapers of a steamer running over one of these animals, and nearly cutting it in two; the agony of the poor brute as he struggled in the water, vainly trying to sound, was graphically described. A similar adventure occurred some years ago to the B.I.S.N. Company's steamer _Euphrates_, on a voyage from Kurrachee to Bombay, when about sixty miles from the latter place. The captain writes: "It appears that the animal had for about half an hour amused itself by crossing and recrossing the bow, and then at last suddenly turned and came straight for the vessel, striking us about ten feet from the stem. It struck with such force as to send a considerable quantity of spray on deck. The only other instance that has occurred here lately was in the case of the S.S. _Dalhousie_, when about twelve miles from Kurrachee; it was in September of last year, and the Bombay papers had a full account of it at the time." I am indebted to my friend Mr. M. C. Turner for this and some other interesting letters on this subject. Captain A. Stiffe, of the late Indian Navy, writes regarding the drowning of a whale by entanglement with a submarine cable, off the coast of Mekran: "The telegraph cable was broken, and a dead whale hove up to the surface, with three turns of cable round the neck of his tail, by which he was drowned. I had the three turns in my office at Kurrachee, and there they are now I dare say. I don't remember any more details. There are always shoals of whales about that part, and it is supposed a 'bight' of the cable lying off the ground got wound up like a rope round a screw." I myself was in a sailing vessel going about five or six knots, when a whale played about for a time, and then rose and spouted just under the bow, covering the forecastle with spray. The captain, who was standing by me, quite expected a shock, and exclaimed--"Look out! hold on!" SIRENIA--THE MANATEES. This group contains the _phytophagous_ or _herbivorous_ cetacea. Their teeth have flat crowns, and they live on aquatic vegetation, though, according to Cuvier, they sometimes leave the water for pasture on shore, but this has not been authenticated, and is probably a mistake. The other characteristics of the group are pectoral mammae and hairy moustaches. The anterior narial aperture in the skull opens upwards, but the orifices of the nostrils are placed at the end of the muzzle. The stomach is complex, being divided into four sacs, and they have a large caecum. The flippers are broad, and the animal uses them with some dexterity in supporting its young in the act of suckling. As at such times they frequently raise the upper part of the body out of water, they have given rise to the ancient fables regarding mermaids and sirens. There is something human-like, although repulsive, in the aspect of these creatures, especially in the erect attitude just alluded to. No wonder the ancient mariners, with their restricted knowledge and inclination to the marvellous, should have created the fabulous mermaid, half-fish and half-woman, and have peopled the rocks and seas of Ceylon with seductive sirens with imaginary flowing tresses and sweet ensnaring voices. As regards the latter it may be that the strange phenomena related by Sir Emerson Tennent, of musical sounds ascending from the bottom of the sea, and ascribed by him to certain shell-fish, gave rise to the mermaid's song. Sir Emerson's account has in itself a touch of the romantic and marvellous. He says: "On coming to the point mentioned I distinctly heard the sounds in question. They came up from the water like the gentle thrills of a musical chord, or the faint vibrations of a wineglass when its rim is rubbed by a moistened finger. It was not one sustained note, but a multitude of tiny sounds, each clear and distinct in itself, the sweetest treble mingling with the lowest bass. On applying the ear to the wood-work of the boat the vibration was greatly increased in volume." Similar sounds have been heard elsewhere in the Indian seas, and doubtless the ancients connected this mysterious music of the ocean with the animals round which they had thrown such a halo of romance. But to return to the prose of the subject. The Sirenia consists of the Manatees (_Manatus_), the Dugongs (_Halicore_), and the Stellerines (_Rhytina_); the latter is almost extinct; it used to be found in numbers in Behring Straits, but was exterminated by sailors and others, who found it very good eating. The Manatee inhabits the African and American coasts, along the west coast of the former continent, and in the bays, inlets, and rivers of tropical America, but the one with which we have to do is the dugong or halicore, of which the distribution is rather widespread, from the Red Sea and East African coasts to the west coast of Australia. The latter country possesses an organised dugong fishery, which bids fair to exterminate this harmless animal. They are prized for the excellent quality of the oil they yield, which is clear and free from objectionable smell. _GENUS HALICORE--THE DUGONG_. Have grinders of two cones laterally united. The premaxillary region is elongated and bent downwards, overlapping the very deep lower jaw, which is similarly bent down. They have ordinarily two incisors in the upper jaw, none in the lower. No canines, and molars 3--3/3--3, total fourteen teeth. The incisor tusks in the bent-down upper jaw are longer in the male, and sometimes project beyond the thick fleshy lips, but in the female they are small. The head is round, the lips thick and bristled with moustaches, the body is elongated, and the tail terminated by a crescent-shaped flapper. NO. 272. HALICORE DUGONG. _The Dugong_. (_Jerdon's No. 240_). NATIVE NAME.--_Mooda Oora_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Indian Ocean off Ceylon. [Illustration: _Halicore dugong_.] DESCRIPTION.--Body pisciform, terminated by a horizontal fin with two lobes; colour slaty brown above, sometimes bluish black, whitish below. SIZE.--From 5 to 7 feet long usually, but said to reach 10. Dr. Kellaart says that at an early age this animal has as many as 32 teeth, viz. inc. 4/8, and molars 5--5/5--5, but when adult there are only 14, as mentioned above. The molars, according to Dr. Murie, succeed each other, the fore ones dropping out, and others from behind taking their places. It feeds on fucus and other seaweeds, and the flesh is considered good eating, and not unlike veal or, some say, pork. They are lethargic in disposition, and in those countries where they have been unmolested they are so fearless of man as to allow themselves to be handled--a confidence somewhat betrayed by the natives, who on such occasions manage to abstract the fattest calves, which are considered a delicacy. ORDER RODENTIA. THE GNAWERS. This order, GLIRES of Linnaeus and his followers, is composed of animals, chiefly of small size, which differ from all others by the peculiarity of their teeth. No one, even though he be most ignorant of comparative anatomy, could mistake the rat or rabbit-like skull of a rodent for that of any other creature. The peculiar pincer-like form of the jaws, with their curved chisel-shaped teeth in front, mark the order at a glance. There is no complexity in their dentition. There are the cutters or incisors, and the grinders; and of the cutters there are never more than two in each jaw, that is to say efficient and visible teeth, for there are in some species rudimentary incisors, especially in the young, but these either disappear or take no part in work. Between the grinders and incisors are toothless gaps. The formation and growth of the teeth are peculiar; and it is strange that the gigantic elephant should be the nearest approach to these small creatures in this respect. The teeth--in most cases the grinders, but always the incisors--grow continuously from a persistent pulp, and therefore loss from attrition is kept constantly supplied by growth from behind. The incisors are planted in a socket which is the segment of a circle. These segments are not equal in both jaws. The lower one is a small segment of a large circle, the upper one is the reverse, being a larger segment of a smaller circle. The angle at which they meet is always the same. Some curious malformations are occasionally found which illustrate the growth of these teeth. Should by any chance, accident or design, one of these incisors get diverted from its proper angle and not meet with the friction which is necessary to keep it in its normal condition, it goes on growing and growing, following its natural curve till it forms a ring, or by penetrating the mouth interferes with the animal's feeding. A case is recorded by Blyth of a rat which had an eye destroyed by a tooth growing into it. Here again occurs a similarity to the elephant, whose tusks grow in the same manner, and if abnormally deflected will occasion, as in the case of one lately described to me, serious hindrance to the movement of the trunk. The incisors of rodents are composed of dentine coated in front with a layer of hard enamel, the other surfaces being without this protection, except in the case of some, amongst which are the hares and rabbits, which have a thin coating as well all over. These forms are those with rudimentary incisors, and constitute the links connecting the other mammalia with the Gnawers. The molars are much alike in structure, and can hardly be divided, as they are by some naturalists, into molars and premolars. They take the three hindmost as molars, regarding the others as premolars. Sometimes these grinders have roots, but are more commonly open at the end and grow from a permanent pulp. They are composed of tubular and convoluted portions of enamel filed up with dentine, and their worn surfaces show a variety of patterns, as in the case of the Proboscidea. These enamelled eminences are always transverse, and according to Cuvier those genera in which these eminences are simple lines, and the crown is very flat, are more exclusively frugivorous; others, in which the teeth are divided into blunt tubercles, are omnivorous; whilst some few, which have no points, more readily attack either animals, and approximate somewhat to the Carnivora. The head is small in proportion to the body, the skull being long and flat above; the nasal bones are elongated; the premaxillaries very large on account of the size of the incisor teeth, and the maxillaries are, therefore, pushed back; the zygomatic arch is well developed in most, but is in general weak; the orbit of the eye is never closed behind; the tympanic bulla is very large; the jaw is articulated in a singular manner; instead of the lateral and semi-rotary action of the Herbivora, or the vertical cutting one of the flesh-eating mammals, the rodent has a longitudinal motion given by the arrangement of the lower jaw, the condyle of which is not transverse, but parallel with the median line of the skull, and the glenoid fossa, or cavity into which it fits, and which is situated on the under side of the posterior root of the zygoma, is so open in front as to allow of a backwards and forwards sliding action. The vertebral column is remarkable for the great transverse processes directed downwards, forwards, and widening at the ends. In the hare these processes are largely developed; the metapophyses or larger projections on each side of the central spinous process are very long, projecting upwards and forwards; the anapophyses or smaller projection in rear of the above are small; and the hypapophyses or downward processes are remarkably long, single and compressed; according to Professor Flower these latter are not found in the Rodentia generally. The tail varies greatly, being in some very small indeed, whilst in others it exceeds the length of the body; the sternum or breast-bone is narrow and long, and collar-bones are to be found in most of the genera; the pelvis is long and narrow. In most cases the hind limbs are longer and more powerful than the fore-limbs; in some, as in the jerboas (_Dipus_) and the Cape jumping hare (_Pedetes caffer_), attaining as disproportionate a length as in the kangaroos, their mode of progression being the same; the tibia and fibula are anchylosed; the forelimbs in the majority of this order are short, and are used as hands in holding the food to the mouth, the radius and ulna being distinct, and capable of rotatory motion. The feet have usually five toes, but in some the hind feet have only four, and even three. In point of intelligence, the rodents do not come up to other mammals, being as a rule timid and stupid; the brain is small and remarkably free from convolution. The cerebellum is distinctly separated from and not overlapped by the hemispheres of the cerebrum; the organs of smell, sight and hearing are usually well developed; the stomach is simple or in two sacs; the intestinal canal and caecum long. The latter is wanting in one family. Rodents have been divided in various ways by different authors. Jerdon separates his into four groups, viz. "_Sciuridae_, squirrels; _Muridae_, rats; _Hystricidae_, porcupines; and _Leporidae_, hares; which indeed are considered by some to embrace the whole of the order; to which has recently been added the _Saccomyidae_, or pouched rats, whilst many systematists make separate families of the dormice, _Myoxidae_; jerboas, Dipodidae; voles, _Arvidolidae_; mole-rats, _Aspalacidae_ and _Bathyergidae_; all included in the MURIDAE; and the _Caviadae_, _Octodontidae_, and _Hydrochoeridae_, belonging to the HYSTRICIDAE" ('Mammals of India,' p. 164). However, the system that most commends itself is that of Mr. E. R. Alston, proposed in the 'Proceedings' of the Zoological Society, and founded on the original scheme of Professor Gervais, by which the order is subdivided into two on the character of the incisor teeth. Those which have never more than two incisors, coated only in front with enamel are termed SIMPLICIDENTATA, or _Simple-toothed Rodents_. The other sub-order, the genera of which have rudimentary incisors, as in the case of hares, rabbits, &c., and in which the enamel is spread more or less over all the surface, is termed DUPLICIDENTATA or _Double-toothed Rodents_, and this is the system I propose to follow. SUB-ORDER SIMPLICIDENTATA. SIMPLE-TOOTHED RODENTS. These, as I before observed, are those of the order which never have more than two incisors in the upper jaw, and the enamel on these is restricted to the front of the tooth. They have also a well-developed bony palate, which in the Duplicidentata is imperfect, forming in fact but a narrow bridge from one jaw to the other. In the latter also the fibula, which is anchylosed to the end of the tibia, articulates with the calcaneum or heel-bone, which is not the case with the simple-toothed rodents. We now come to the subdivisions of the Simplicidentata. The order GLIRES has always been a puzzling one to naturalists, from the immense variety of forms, with their intricate affinities, and there is not much help to be gained from extinct forms, for such as have been found are mostly referable to existing families. The classification which I have adopted is, as I said before, that elaborated by Mr. E. R. Alston, F.G.S., F.Z.S., and reported in the 'Proceedings' of the Zoological Society for 1876. I said that he had founded it on Professor Gervais' scheme, but I see that the groundwork of the system was laid down in 1839 by Mr. G. R. Waterhouse, then curator of the Zoological Society, and it was afterwards, in 1848, taken up by Professor Gervais, and subsequently added to by Professor Brandt in 1855, and Lilljeborg in 1866. About ten years later Mr. Alston, working on the data supplied by the above, and also by Milne-Edwards, Gray, Gunther, Leidy, Coues, and Dr. Peters, produced a complete system of classification, which seems to be all that is to be desired. We have already divided the rodents into two sub-orders, to which, however, Mr. Alston adds a third, viz., _Hebetidentati_, or Blunt-toothed Rodents, which contains only the _Mesotherium_, a fossil form. We have now to subdivide the two. The Double-toothed Rodents are easily disposed of in two families--_Leporidae_ and _Lagomyidae_. The Simple-toothed Rodents are more numerous, and consist of about eighteen families arranged under three sections, which are _Sciuromorpha_, or Squirrel-like Rodents, _Myomorpha_ or Rat-like Rodents, and _Hystricomorpha_, or Porcupine-like Rodents. It would perhaps render it clear to the reader were I to tabulate the differences chiefly noticeable in these three sections:-- SECTION I.--SCIUROMORPHA, OR SQUIRREL-LIKE RODENTS. Molar dentition 4--4/4--4 or 5--5/4--4. In the latter case the foremost upper molar is small; the fibula is distinct, and never united, except in some cases where it is attached to the extremity of the tibia; the zygomatic arch is formed chiefly by the malar, which is not supported beneath by a continuation of the zygomatic process of the maxillary; collar-bones perfect; upper lip cleft; the muffle small and naked; tail cylindrical and hairy (except in _Castoridae_). Five families. SECTION II.--MYOMORPHA, OR RAT-LIKE RODENTS. Molar dentition from 3--3/3--3 to 6--6/6--6, the former being the usual number; the tibia and fibula are united for at least a third of their length. The zygomatic arch is slender, and the malar process rarely extends so far forward as in the preceding section, and is generally supported below by a continuation of the maxillary zygomatic process; collar bones are perfect (except in _Lophiomyidae_); upper lip and muffle as in the last; tail cylindrical, sometimes hairy, but commonly covered with scales arranged in rings. Seven families. SECTION III.--HYSTRICOMORPHA, OR PORCUPINE-LIKE RODENTS. With one exception (_Ctenodactylus_) have four molars in each upper and lower jaw; the tibia and fibula are distinct in young and old; the zygomatic arch is stout, and the malar does not advance far forward, nor is it supported by the maxillary zygomatic process; collar-bones perfect in some; the upper lip is rarely cleft; the muffle clad with fine hair; tail hairy, sub-naked or scaly. SECTION I.--SCIUROMORPHA. Contains the following families, those that are not Indian being in italics;-- (1) _Anomaluridae_; (2) Sciuridae; (3) _Ischyromyidae_, a fossil genus; (4) _Haplodontidae_; (5) _Castoridae_. The Anomalures are African animals resembling our flying squirrels, to which they were at first thought to belong, but were separated and named by Mr. Waterhouse, the chief peculiarity being the tail, which is long and well covered with hair, though not bushy as in the squirrels, and which has, at its basal portion, a double series of projecting horny scales, which probably help it in climbing trees. There are several other peculiarities, which I need not dwell on here, which have justified its separation from the true squirrels. The flying membrane, which is quite as large as that of the flying squirrels, extends from the elbow to the heel instead of from the wrist, and it is held out by a strong cartilaginous spur starting from the elbow. Of the Sciuridae we have many examples in India, which will be noticed further on. The _Ischyromyidae_ is founded on a single North American fossil genus (_Ischyromys typus_), which is nearly allied to the Sciuridae, but also shows some affinity to the beavers. The _Haplodontidae_ is also an American family, founded on one genus, but an existing and not a fossil animal. The _Haplodon rufus_ is a small burrowing rodent, valued by the Indians both for its flesh and its skin, of which from twenty to thirty are sewn together to form a robe; the teeth are rootless, simple, and prismatic, the surface of each being surrounded by a mere border of enamel. The _Castoridae_ is the beaver family, which is also unknown in India. Unlike as this animal is externally to the squirrels, its anatomy warrants its position in the Sciuromorpha, otherwise one would feel inclined to include it in the next section. We see that of the five families, of which this section is composed, only the second has its representatives in India. SCIURIDAE--THE SQUIRRELS. This family contains the true squirrels, including the flying ones, and the marmots. The distinctive characteristics of the former are as follows: The gnawing teeth are smooth, compressed. The grinding teeth are 5--5/4--4 or 4--4/4--4; in the former case the first upper premolar is small, and sometimes deciduous; they are tubercular, at least in youth, and rooted. Skull with distinct post-orbital processes; infra-orbital opening small, usually placed in front of the maxillary zygomatic process; palate broad and flat; twelve or thirteen pairs of ribs; tail cylindrical and bushy; feet either pentadactylous or with a tubercle in place of a thumb on the fore-feet. Mostly quite arboreal. _GENUS SCIURUS_. Premolars, 2--2/1--1; molars, 3--3/3--3; gnawing teeth smooth, orange-coloured, or brown; no cheek pouches; mammae three or four pairs; first upper premolar soon lost in many cases; limbs free; form agile; tail long and very bushy. Jerdon states that "there are three well marked groups in India distinguished by size, coloration and habits," by which he means the large forest squirrels, the medium size grizzled ones, and the little striped squirrels, to which however I must add one more form, which is found out of the geographical limits assigned to his work--the _Rhinosciurus_, or long-snouted squirrel, an animal singularly like a Tupaia. The squirrels, as a whole, form a natural and well-defined group, with a remarkable uniformity of dentition and skull, but of infinite variation in colour. In fact, it is most puzzling and misleading to find so great a diversity of pelage as is exhibited by a single species. I was shown by a friend a few months ago a fine range of colours in skins of a single species from Burmah--_S. caniceps_. I cannot attempt to describe them from memory, but the diversity was so marked that I believe they would have been taken by unscientific observers for so many different species. Now in domesticated animals there is great variation in colouring, but not in the majority of wild species. What the causes are that operate in the painting of the skin of an animal no one can say, any more than one can say how particular spots are arranged on the petal of a flower or the wing of a butterfly. That specific liveries have been designed by an all-wise Creator for purposes of recognition I have no doubt, as well as for purposes of deception and protection--in the former case to keep certain breeds pure, and in the latter to protect animals from attack by enabling them better to hide themselves, as we see in the case of those birds and quadrupeds which inhabit exposed cold countries turning white in winter, and in the mottled skin of the Galeopithicus, which is hardly discernible from the rough bark of the tree to which it clings. I have hardly ever noticed such varied hues in any wild animals, although the _Viverridae_ are somewhat erratic in colouring, as in the Indian squirrels, and it is doubtful whether several recorded species are not so nearly allied as to be in fact properly but one and the same. There is much in common in at least five species of Burmese squirrels, and it is open to question whether _S. caniceps_ and _S. Blanfordii_ are not the same. Dr. Anderson writes: "I have examined a very extensive series of squirrels belonging to the various forms above described, viz., _S. pygerythrus_, _S. caniceps_, _S. Phayrei_ and _S. Blanfordii_, and of others which appears to indicate at least, if not to prove, that all of them are in some way related to each other." In another place he says: "The skull of an adult male, _S. caniceps_, which had the bright red golden colour of the back well developed, presents so strong a resemblance to the skull of _S. Blanfordii_, that it is extremely difficult to seize on any point wherein they differ." After comparison of the above with skulls of _S. griseimanus_ and _S. Phayrei_, he adds: "such facts taken in conjunction with those mentioned under _S. Blanfordii_, suggest that there is a very intimate connection between all of these forms, if they do not ultimately prove to be identical" ('Anat. and Zool. Researches,' pp. 229, 231). [Illustration: Skull of _Pteromys_ (Flying Squirrel).] Blyth also, speaking of the larger squirrels, says: "It is difficult to conceive of the whole series as other than permanent varieties of one species; and the same remark applies to the races of _Pteromys_, and at least to some of those of _Sciuropterus_, as also to various named _Sciuri_" ('Cat. Mam.,' p. 98). The large forest squirrels come first on our list. They inhabit lofty tree jungle, making their nests on the tops of the tallest trees. They are most active in their habits, and are strictly arboreal, being awkward on the ground. When kept as pets they become very tame, though some are crotchety tempered, and bite severely. NO. 273. SCIURUS INDICUS. _The Bombay Squirrel of Pennant_ (_Sciurus Malabaricus and S. Elphinstonei in Jerdon, Nos. 148 and 150_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Jangli-gilheri_, Hindi; _Shekra_, Mahrathi; _Kesannalu_, Canarese of the Halapyks. HABITAT.--The dense forests of the Western Ghats, but extending easterly as far as Midnapore and Cuttack. DESCRIPTION.--Upper surface of body dark maroon red, lower part of back and rump and upper portions of limbs and the whole of the tail black, the latter ending in a broad brownish-yellow tip; the outside of the hind-legs and half-way down the outside of the fore-legs a uniform rich maroon red; the under parts from chin to vent, inside of limbs, lower part of fore-legs, the inter-aural region and the cheeks bright orange yellow; forehead and nose reddish-brown, with white hairs interspersed; ears small and tufted; a narrow maroon line from the anterior angle of the ear extends downwards to the side of the neck, with a yellow line behind it; whiskers and bristles black. Dr. Anderson also remarks on the skull of this species that it is considerably smaller than that of _S. maximus_, and has a narrower and less concave inter-orbital space; the nasals are also broader posteriorly, and less dilated anteriorly, the upper dental line being also shorter. SIZE.--Head and body, 20 inches; tail, 15-1/4 inches. Jerdon's description of this animal is taken _verbatim_ from Sykes, who named it after the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone, under the impression that it was a new species, but it is apparently the same as _S. Indicus_ of Erxleben and _S. Malabaricus_ of Schinz. NO. 274. SCIURUS MAXIMUS. _The Central Indian Red Squirrel_ (_Jerdon's No. 149_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Kat-berral_, Bengali; _Karat_, Hindi; _Rasu_ and _Ratuphar_ at Monghyr, according to Hamilton; _Kondeng_ of the Coles; _Per-warsti_, Gondi; _Bet-udata_, Telegu; _Shekra_, Mahrathi. HABITAT.--Malabar coast, Central India, and, according to Dr. F. B. Hamilton, the hills about Monghyr, whence doubtless the Calcutta market is supplied. Hodgson records it from the Himalayan Terai. [Illustration: _Sciurus maximus_.] DESCRIPTION.--"The upper surface and the sides of the neck, the shoulders, and the outside of the fore-limbs, the lumbar and sacral regions, the outside of the thighs and the tail are black, the black of the hind-quarters being prolonged forwards along the mesial line towards the black of the shoulders; a large dark maroon spot on the vertex, separated from the maroon of the nape by yellowish inter-aural area, which extends downwards and forwards to the cheeks; a maroon-coloured line passes downward from the front of the ear, with a yellow area behind it. The sides of the face and muzzle are pale yellowish, the latter being flesh-coloured; the other portions of the trunk and the lower half of the tibial portion of the hind limbs are maroon. The tail is either black or maroon black, sometimes tipped with yellowish brown. The whole of the under-parts and inside of the limbs and the hands and feet are rich yellowish; the ears strongly maroon and tufted" (_Dr. Anderson_). Jerdon's description of this animal is very meagre and doubtful. SIZE.--About the same as the last. This squirrel was tolerably common in the forests of Seonee, and we had one or two in confinement. One belonging to my brother-in-law was so tame as to allow of any amount of bullying by his children, who used to pull it about as though it were a puppy or kitten, but I have known others to bite severely and resent any freedom. NO. 275. SCIURUS MACROURUS. _The Long-tailed Forest Squirrel_ (_Jerdon's No. 152_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Rookeeah_ or _Dandoleyna_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Ceylon, Southern India, i.e. Malabar, Travancore, Mysore, Neilgherries. DESCRIPTION.--"Fur of the upper parts coarse and slightly waved; above, the colour varies from maroon-black to rufous brown; hairs sometimes grizzled and tipped white or pale yellow, particularly on the croup, sides, and upper parts of limbs; crown of the head darker in most specimens than other parts; cheeks, under-parts, and lower two-thirds of limbs of a fulvous white; occiput of a deeper fulvous, sometimes yellow or ferruginous brown; an indistinct dark spot on the cheek, which is sometimes absent; two-thirds or more of the basal portion of the tail black or brown; the rest grizzled grey or fulvous. In some the hairs of the whole tail are tipped white, and in others grizzled white throughout. In the young there is very little of brown or black; the whole tail is more or less formed of grey hairs, and the terminal third is nearly white. Grey is also the prevailing colour on the posterior half of the body; toes in all black or blackish brown; ears hairy, only slightly tufted in adults."--_Kellaart_. SIZE.--Head and body, 13-1/2 inches; tail, 11 inches. This squirrel also varies greatly in colouring, and has led several naturalists astray. Kellaart, in his 'Prodromus Faunae Zeylanicae,' says he has seen them in a transition state from dark brown to grizzled grey. NO. 276. SCIURUS GIGANTEUS. _The Black Hill Squirrel_ (_Sciurus macrouroides in Jerdon, No. 151_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Shingsham_, Bhotia; _Le-hyuk_, Lepcha; _Jelarang_, Javanese; _Chingkrawah-etam_, Malay; _Leng-thet_, in Arakan; _Sheu_, in Tenasserim. HABITAT.--North-west Himalayas to Assam, the Garo hills, Sylhet, and Cachar, spreading from Northern Assam across to Yunnan, and through Arakan and Tenasserim on to the Malayan peninsula and Borneo. DESCRIPTION.--"This species has well-tufted ears; the upper surface is either wholly black or reddish-brown, without any trace of white; the tail is generally jet black, also the outside of the fore and hind limbs, and the upper surface of the feet; an elongated black spot is almost invariably found below the eye from beyond the moustache, and the eye is encircled with black. There are generally two black spots on the under surface of the chin; the under parts and the inside of the limbs vary from pale yellowish-white to a rich rufous orange; the basal portion of the hairs of the under-parts is dark brown or black, and the ventral area has frequently a dull hue where the yellow tips are sparse; the coats of these squirrels are generally sleek, glossy and deep black, and while in this condition the under surface is most brilliant, especially at its line of junction with the black, along the sides of the body and limbs, tending to form a kind of bright band. "In some the upper parts have a brownish hue, but this is not characteristic of any particular locality, as two individuals, one from Nepal and the other from Borneo, are equally brown. While the fur is of this colour it is long and coarse, and the under-parts are less brilliant. These phases are probably seasonal, and connected with the breeding period."--_Anderson_. SIZE.--Head and body, about 15 inches; tail, about 16 inches. * * * * * The next group consists of squirrels of medium size with grizzled fur, as Jerdon remarks of the two species he mentions; but with the rich fields of Burmah and Assam we can swell our list to over a dozen. It is doubtful whether one or two of the named species are not varieties of one and the same, so nearly are they allied, but this remains to be proved. NO. 277. SCIURUS LOKRIAH. _The Orange-bellied Grey Squirrel_ (_Jerdon's No. 153_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Lokriah_, Nepalese; _Zhamo_, Bhotia, _Killi_, or _Kalli-tingdong_, Lepcha (_Jerdon_). HABITAT.--Nepal, Sikim, Assam (Khasia Hills), and Burmah (Arakan). DESCRIPTION.--A deep ferruginous olive-brown, the hairs tipped with orange, soft and silky; the under-parts from chin to vent and the outside of the thighs a rich orange; the tail is shorter than that of the next species, concolorous with the body above, but the banding of the hair is coarser, the apical black band being very broad, tipped with orange or white, generally the latter, the general hue being blackish washed with orange or white. In some the general hue is orange brown with obscure annuli; the arrangement of the hair is distichous or in two rows. SIZE.--Head and body, about 8 inches; tail, 6-1/2 to 8 inches, including hair. There is some confusion between this and the next species, _S. lokroides_, and the distinctive characteristics quoted by Jerdon and others, founded on colouring alone, are not to be depended upon, for colouring varies, but there is considerable difference in the skulls of the two, _S. lokriah_ having a smaller skull, with distinct peculiarities. The inter-orbital portion of the skull is narrower anteriorly and posteriorly, and the muzzle is narrow at the base, and of nearly equal breadth throughout. The nasals are long and narrow, and reach further back than in _S. lokroides_. These points, which are brought forward by Dr. Anderson, are sufficient to indicate that they are quite distinct species. As regards colouring _S. lokriah_ has normally red thighs, but even this is absent at times. Dr. Anderson says: "It is much more richly coloured than _S. lokroides_, with no rufous even on the thighs, and with generally a tuft of pure white hair behind the ear, by which it can be recognised, as it occurs in twenty instances out of twenty-five, and even when absent the hairs in that locality have a paler colour. As this whitish tuft lies backwards, it is only seen when the ear is carefully examined." NO. 278. SCIURUS LOKROIDES. _The Hoary-bellied Grey Squirrel_ (_Jerdon's No. 154_). HABITAT.--In the lower ranges of the South-eastern Himalayas, Nepal, Sikim, Assam, Tipperah and Arakan. DESCRIPTION.--This is a most difficult species to describe. Dr. Anderson writes: "I have before me sixty-two examples of various squirrels which have been referred to _S. lokroides_, _S. Assamensis_ and _S. Blythii_ by Hodgson, M'Clelland and Tytler, also the types of _S. similis_ (Gray), which were forwarded to the British Museum as _S. lokroides_ by Hodgson. After a careful consideration of these materials, they appear to me to be referable to one species. Hodgson, who first described it, referred to it all those Himalayan squirrels slightly larger than _S. lokriah_, and which had the ventral surface either pale whitish or slightly washed with rufous, the sides also being sometimes suffused with this tinge especially on the anterior half of the thigh, which in many is bright orange red; but this colour is variable, and many squirrels have this portion of the body white, of which _S. Blythii_ is an example; and others similar to it are before me from Bhutan and Assam which do not differ from _S. lokroides_ except in the presence of this white area, which is evidently only a variation on the red area, and probably a seasonal change, as many show merely a faint rufous tinge in the inguinal region, that colour being entirely absent on the outside of the thigh. "It is, however, worthy of note that those squirrels which have a rufous tinge in the inguinal region rarely, if ever, have the outside of the thigh bright red, and that the squirrels distinguished by white on their thighs are from Bhutan, Assam, and the Garo hills. But I do not see that these latter differ in any other respect from the squirrels sent by Hodgson as specimens of _S. lokroides_, with and without red thighs. Moreover, one of Hodgson's specimens of _S. lokroides_ shows a tendency in the thigh to become white" ('Anat. and Zool. Researches,' pp. 247, 248). The difficulty in laying down precise rules for colouring is here evident, but in general I may say that the upper parts are rufescent olive brown, the hair being grizzled or banded black and yellow, commencing with greyish-black at the base, then yellow, black, yellow with a dark brown or black tip; the lower parts are rufous hoary or grey, tinged with rufous, or the latter shade may be restricted to the groin or inguinal parts. The fur is coarser and more broadly ringed than in _S. lokriah_, and the ventral surface is never tinged with orange, as in that species; the tail is concolorous with the back; the hair more coarsely annulated; there is no white tuft behind the ears, as in the last species. SIZE.--About the same as the last, or Dr. Anderson says: "In the form referable to _S. Blythii_, a white spot occurs on the inguinal region of the thigh in the position in which the rufous of the so-called red-legged squirrels is developed. The groin in some of these squirrels shows also a decided rufous tinge, while the remainder of the belly is sullied grey white. If these forms were without the white thigh-spot, they would exactly conform to the type of _S. Assamensis_. A squirrel in the British Museum, labelled _S. Tytleri_ (Verreau, 'Indes Orientales'), agrees with _S. Blythii_" ('A. and Z. Res.', p. 249). Blyth has seen a squirrel of this species renewing its coat, and assuming a variegated appearance during its transition to the breeding dress. A jet-black squirrel of the same proportion occurs in Sylhet and Cachar, which Dr. Anderson is inclined to think belongs also to this species. We may, therefore, regard the following as being the same as _S. lokroides_, viz., _S. Assamensis_, _S. Blythii_, _S. similis_, and the black one, which has apparently not been named. Jerdon states that these squirrels are mostly seen in the autumn when the chestnuts, of which they are very fond, ripen. NO. 279. SCIURUS PYGERYTHRUS. HABITAT.--Burmah (Lower Pegu, and common in the neighbourhood of Rangoon). DESCRIPTION.--Upper parts dark olive grey; basal third of the tail concolorous with the back, its latter two-thirds ringed olive-yellow and black; the tip black; feet olive grey, sometimes washed with yellowish; under surface and inside of limbs orange yellow, which extends also along the middle of the under part of the tail. Paler varieties occur. The skull of this species is smaller than those of _S. caniceps_, _S. Phayrei_ and _S. Blanfordii_. NO. 280. SCIURUS CANICEPS. _The Golden-backed Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Burmah (Upper Tenasserim and Tavoy). DESCRIPTION.--General colour grey or fulvous above; limbs outside grizzled grey; feet yellowish-grey; in some cases the nape, shoulders, and upper parts of back are vivid light ferruginous or golden fulvous, sometimes extending downwards on to the base of the tail. Some have only a trace of this colouring, others none at all. There is infinite variety of colouring in this species, as I observed in my remarks on the genus, and it is closely allied to the next three, if they do not ultimately prove to be the same. "Out of a large series of specimens referable to _S. caniceps_, the males illustrate three phases of colouring, associated with a difference in the character of the fur. The first is a grey, the second a yellowish, and the third a phase in which the back becomes brilliant yellowish-red."--_Anderson_. NO. 281. SCIURUS PHAYREI. _The Laterally-banded or Phayre's Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Burmah. Common in Martaban; has also been obtained at Tounghu. DESCRIPTION.--Upper parts dark olive grey; lower parts rich orange red; the same colour being more or less continued along the under surface of the tail; the orange colour extends over the inside of the limbs, the front of the thigh and on the feet; the fore-limbs are dusky outside, with pale rufous yellow feet. Its chief distinguishing mark is a brown well-defined dark band on the flanks between the colour of the upper and lower parts. NO. 282. SCIURUS BLANFORDII. _Blanford's Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Upper Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Pale grey above, finely punctulated with black and grey; tail concolorous, with a black tip; under parts pale orange yellow; hands and feet yellow. Dr. Anderson shot a female at Pudeepyo, in the beginning of January, which had a distinct tendency to the formation of a dusky lateral stripe, as in the last species; the under-parts also were much more rich orange than in the type of this species. In the grey phase of _S. caniceps_ that species is so like _S. Blanfordii_ in the colouring of the upper parts and feet that it is almost impossible to distinguish them, but, according to Dr. Anderson, "on examining the under parts it is found that in these phases of _S. caniceps_ they are grey, whereas in _S. Blanfordii_ they are a beautiful rich orange, and the feet are yellow." Before proceeding to the next species, which is a better marked one, I will quote one more passage from Dr. Anderson's careful comparison of the four preceding squirrels. "_S. Phayrei_ corresponds in the colour of the upper fur to the yellow phase of _S. caniceps_, and the tail is the same as in it, having a black tip, which is the character also that that appendage has in _S. pygerythrus_. In some examples of _S. Phayrei_ the dusky or blackish is not confined to the lateral line, but extends over the outside of the fore-limbs, the feet being always yellow in squirrels presenting these characters. Some specimens of _S. pygerythrus_ show a distinct tendency to have yellow feet, and further research will probably prove _S. Phayrei_ to be only a variety of _S. pygerythrus_. When Blyth first encountered this form, he simply regarded it as a variety of _S. pygerythrus_, and I believe his first opinion will be ultimately found to be more in accordance with the real interpretation of the facts than the conclusion he afterwards adopted. In the Paris Museum there is an example of _S. Blanfordii_ from Upper Burmah which distinctly shows a dark lateral streak, so that, taking into consideration the other examples to which I have already referred, there seems to be a presumption that it and _S. Phayrei_ are one and the same species, and that they are probably identical with _S. pygerythrus_; moreover, my impression is that a more extensive series will establish their identity with _S. caniceps_. This view of the question is also supported by a small series of these squirrels in the Leyden Museum from Tounghu in Upper Burmah, presented by the Marquis of Tweeddale. From the characters manifested by these squirrels, and the circumstances that they were all shot in one locality, they are of great interest. One is an adult, and in its upper parts it exactly resembles _S. Blanfordii_, also in its yellow feet and black tip to its tail, but, like _S. Phayrei_, it has a broad blackish-brown lateral stripe. The others are smaller, and resemble the foregoing specimens in all their characters, except that they have no dark lateral streak, and that the feet of two are concolorous with the upper parts, while in the remaining squirrel the feet appear to be changing to yellow, as in the adult. The two former of these, therefore, conform to the type of _S. pygerythrus_, but the fur of the upper parts is greyer and not so richly coloured as in it, but the annulation of the fur has the same character in both. The remaining specimen in its features is distinctly referable to _S. Blanfordii_" ('Anat. and Zool. Researches,' p. 232). NO. 283. SCIURUS ATRODORSALIS. _The Black-backed Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Burmah and the Malayan countries. Common in Martaban. DESCRIPTION.--There are two phases of colouring, in which both old and young of this species are found: with the black on the back, and again without it. In the latter case the upper parts and feet are a yellowish-rufous. The upper surface of the head, as far back as to include the ears, orange red; under parts and inside of limbs more or less chestnut; under surface of neck orange yellow, with a centre line of the same on the chest; tail variable--in the young it has seven alternate orange and black bands, the orange being terminal; but the adults have sometimes only five bands, the apical one so broad as to make a rich orange tail with yellowish-white tipped hair. In those with black backs the colour of the upper fur is less fulvous, and the chestnut of the lower parts is darker; in some the tail has broad orange tipped hairs, whilst in others it is, with the exception of the base, wholly black, and not annulated. These differences in colouring are not sexual, nor due to age. The skull of _S. atrodorsalis_ resembles that of _S. caniceps_, but is broader, with a somewhat shorter muzzle, has smaller teeth, and would appear to be, from comparisons made by Dr. Anderson, smaller. NO. 284. SCIURUS ERYTHRAEUS. _The Assam Red-bellied Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Assam, Garo hills, Munipur. DESCRIPTION.--The upper parts glistening deep reddish-black, minutely grizzled with light fulvous or yellowish-brown, each hair having two annulations; under parts and inside of limbs dark reddish maroon; feet black; tail concolorous with the back from the basal third, then gradually less grizzled; the terminal half black; whiskers black. Pallas describes the black of the tail as passing upwards in a mesial line. SIZE.--Head and body, about 9 to 10 inches; tail with hair, from 11 to 12 inches. NO. 285. SCIURUS GORDONI. _Gordon's Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Upper Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Dr. Anderson, who first named this species, describes it as follows: "_S. Gordoni_ has the upper surface and a narrow line from between the fore-limbs along the middle of the body grizzled olive-brown or greyish, with a variable rufous tint; the annulations are not so fine as in _S. erythraeus_. The chin and sides of the throat are paler grizzled than on the back and the lower part of the throat; the chest, belly, and inside of the limbs are either pale yellow or rich orange-yellow, or passing into pale chestnut in the Assam variety, in which the belly is rarely lineated. The ears are feebly pencilled; the tail has the same proportion as in _S. erythraeus_ and _S. castaneoventris_[20] but it is more persistently and uniformly concolorous with the body than in these species, and is finely ringed with black and yellow, the rings being most distinct on the latter fourth; the tip is generally washed with orange yellow" ('Anat. and Zool. Res.'). [Footnote 20: A Chinese species: Western China, Formosa and Hainau.--R. A. S.] SIZE.--Head and body, 9 inches; tail, 7 inches. NO. 286. SCIURUS HIPPURUS. _The Chestnut-bellied Assam Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Assam; also in the Malayan peninsula. DESCRIPTION.--Upper parts of the body, with base of tail yellowish-rufous, punctulated with yellow and black; the lower parts deep ruddy ferruginous or chestnut; feet, tail (which is bushy) and whiskers black. Dr. Anderson, however, mentions several varieties. He writes: "The specimen in the British Museum referred by Dr. Gray to _S. rufogaster_, var. _Borneoensis_ differs from Malayan specimens in having portions of the upper parts unannulated and of a deep rich chestnut, which embraces the upper surface of the base of the tail, and is concolorous with the chestnut of the under parts. This, however, is evidently not a persistent form, because I have seen a specimen from the same island in which the red portion of the upper parts is grizzled and much of the same tint as Malayan individuals, except in the mesial line of the neck and back, where the colour is rich red-brown extending along the dorsum of the tail for about three inches. "Muller and Schlegel mention a variety that I have not seen, and of which they state that the red colour of the under parts extends to the heel, the forefoot and the toes, while the colour of the upper parts passes into a uniform lustrous black. They also remark, however, that the back not unfrequently assumes a pale yellowish brown tint" ('Anat. and Zool. Res.' p. 242). Horsfield remarks:--"This species is nearly allied to the _S. erythraeus_ of Pallas, but it varies in the depth of the colours both above and underneath." "In the skull the orbit is rather large, and the muzzle is so contracted at its base that the extremity is but little narrower."--_Anderson_. NO. 287. SCIURUS SLADENI. _Sladen's Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Upper Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--After Dr. Anderson ('Proc. Zool. Soc.' 1871, p. 139) who first obtained and named this species: "grizzled, rufous olive above, the annulations fine, and the fur of moderate length; the forehead, face, chin, throat, belly, inside of limbs, front of thighs, lower half of fore-limbs, and the hind-feet rich chestnut red; tail rather bushy, as long as the body without the neck and head, concolorous with the upper surface of the body, but slightly more rufous; with a bright chestnut red tip." SIZE.--Head and body, 10-1/4 inches; tail, including rufous tip, 8 inches. This handsome squirrel is figured in the volume of plates belonging to Dr. Anderson's work on the Zoology of the Yunnan Expedition. Speaking of the skull he says: "The skull of _S. Sladeni_ has a rather short muzzle, with considerable breadth across its base superiorly, and it is a shorter and broader skull than the skulls of squirrels referred to _S. Blanfordii_. Compared with the skull of the red-headed specimen of _S. erythraeus_ from Bhutan, there is a decided resemblance between the two, the chief distinction being the less breadth of the base of the muzzle of the latter, but the teeth of this specimen show it to be young, while the teeth of _S. Sladeni_ are much worn by use."--'A. and Z. Res.' p. 243. NO. 288. SCIURUS FERRUGINEUS. _The Rusty-coloured Squirrel_. HABITAT.--From Assam to Burmah and Siam, and the adjacent islands of Pulo Condor and Sichang. DESCRIPTION.--Colouring most diverse, no less than ten named species being referable to this one, viz., _S. Finlaysoni_, _S. ferrugineus_, _S. Keraudrenii_, _S. splendidus_, _S. cinnamomeus_, _S. Siamensis_, _S. splendens_, _S. Germani_, _S. Bocourtii_, _S. leucogaster_; some are rich red, one jet black, and another is white, but apparently most of the varieties come from Siam; the Assam and Burmah specimens being reddish, of which the following description is by Blyth, according to Horsfield's Catalogue, where it is entered as _S. Keraudrenii_: "Entirely of a deep rufo-ferruginous colour, rather darker above than below; the fur of the upper parts somewhat glistening; toes of all the feet blackish, as in the three preceding, and the extreme tip of the tail yellowish-white." * * * * * The following group consists of the striped squirrels, a smaller and more terrestrial species, allied to the ground squirrels (_Tamias_). NO. 289. SCIURUS PALMARUM. _The Common Indian Ground Squirrel_ (_Jerdon's No. 155_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Gilehri_, Hindi; _Beral_, _Lakki_, Bengali; _Kharri_, Mahrathi; _Alalu_, Canarese; _Vodata_, Telegu; _Urta_ of Waddurs (_Jerdon_). HABITAT.--India generally, except in some parts of Malabar and North-eastern Bengal. DESCRIPTION.--The upper parts are dusky greenish-grey, with five yellowish-white dorsal lines, the two outer ones being faint and indistinct; under parts whitish; the hairs of the tail are annulated with red and black; ears round. But the colouring varies; some are much darker than others; one I have is a deep ferruginous brown between the dorsal stripes. SIZE.--Head and body, 6-1/2 to 7 inches; tail, 5-1/2 to 6 inches. This beautiful little animal is well known to almost all who have lived in India, and it is one of the most engaging and cheerful of all the frequenters of our Mofussil bungalows, although I have heard the poor little creature abused by some in unmeasured terms, as a nuisance on account of its piercing voice. I confess to liking even its shrill chatter; but then I am not easily put out by noise, and am rather like the deaf old King of Oude, who sits and reads in his cockatoo house, and looks up smilingly, as half a dozen of them give vent to extra diabolical shrieks, and pleasantly remarks: "Ah: the birds are singing a little this morning!" I am not quite so bad as that; but as I now sit writing, I have a hill myna on one side of me imitating an ungreased cart-wheel and the agonies of an asthmatic _derzie_, and on the other side a small female of the rose-headed parrakeet, which has a most piercing selection of whistles and small talk, to say nothing of two small bipeds of five and seven, who cap all the rest for noise, till I sometimes wish I had the aural afflictions of the old king. I can, however, quite imagine the irritation the sharp chirrup-chirrup of this little squirrel would cause to an invalid, for there is something particularly ear-piercing about it; but their prettiness and familiarity make up in great measure for their noisiness. They are certainly a nuisance in a garden, and I rather doubt whether they are of any use, as McMaster says, "in destroying many insects, especially white ants, beetles, both in their perfect and larval state," &c. He adds: "They are said to destroy the eggs of small birds, but I have never observed this myself." I should also doubt this, were it not that the European squirrel is accused of the same thing. General McMaster, I think, got his idea from a quaint old book, which he quotes at times, Dr. John Fryer's 'Voyage to East India and Bombain,' who, writing on the nests of the weaver bird (_Ploceus baya_), says: "It ties it by so slender a Thread to the Bough of the Tree, that the Squirrel dare not venture his body, though his Mouth water at the eggs and Prey within." McMaster himself writes: "This familiar little pest is accused, but I believe unjustly, of robbing nests; were he guilty of this, it would in the breeding season cause much excitement among the small birds, in whose society he lives on terms of almost perfect friendship." There is much truth in this. Wood and others, however, state that the European squirrel has been detected in the act of carrying off a small bird out of a nest, and that it will devour eggs, insects, &c. Jerdon relates the Indian legend that, when Hanuman was crossing the Ganges, it was bridged over by all the animals; one small gap remained, which was filled by this squirrel, and as Hanuman passed over he put his hand on the squirrel's back, on which the marks of his five fingers have since remained. It is not unlike the chipmunk of America (_Tamias striatus_), but these true ground squirrels have cheeks pouches and live in burrows. Our so-called palm squirrel (though it does not affect palms any more than other trees) builds a ragged sort of nest of any fibrous matter, without much attempt at concealment; and I have known it carry off bits of lace and strips of muslin and skeins of wool from a lady's work-box for its house-building purposes. The skins of this species nicely cured make very pretty slippers. They are very easily tamed, and often fall victims to their temerity, in venturing unknown into their owner's pockets, boxes, boots, &c. One I have now is very fond of a mess of parched rice and milk. It sleeps rolled up in a ball, not on its side, but with its head bent down between its legs. NO. 290. SCIURUS TRISTRIATUS. _The Three-striped Ground-Squirrel_ (_Jerdon's No. 156_). NATIVE NAMES.--As in the last. _Leyna_ in Singhalese. HABITAT.--Ceylon and Southern India; on the Neilgherries. Has been found in Midnapur, and it is stated to range northward to the Himalayas. DESCRIPTION.--Somewhat larger and darker than the last species, manifesting considerable variation in the colour of the dark lines of the back. In some the lines are rufous; in others dark brown or blackish throughout, or black only from the shoulder to the lumbar region. The general tints are rusty red on the head, greyish on the shoulders, blackish in the middle of the back, rusty on the haunches. Three well-defined yellow dorsal lines, not extending the whole length of the back; the tail rusty beneath, darker than _S. palmarum_ on the sides. SIZE.--Head and body, 7-1/2 inches; tail, 7-1/2 inches. This squirrel is more shy than the last, and keeps to the woods, although occasionally it will approach houses. Dr. Jerdon says a pair frequented his house at Tellicherry, but they were less familiar than _S. palmarum_, and endeavoured to shun observation. Kellaart gives a careful description of it, but does not say anything about its habits, at which I wonder, for it is common there, and takes the place of our little Indian friend, though probably its more retiring disposition has prevented so much notice being taken of it. Were it in the habit of frequenting houses in the manner of its Indian cousin, I am sure Sir Emerson Tennent would have devoted a page to it, whereas he does not mention it at all. It had also escaped McMaster's notice, careful observer though he was. Waterhouse, in his description ('Proc. Zool. Soc.' 1839, p. 118), describes some differences in the skull of this and _S. palmarum_, but Dr. Anderson finds no difference whatever. NO. 291. SCIURUS LAYARDI. _Layard's Striped Ground-Squirrel_ (_Jerdon's No. 157_). HABITAT.--Ceylon; in the highlands and the mountains of Travancore in Southern India. DESCRIPTION.--Dark dingy olive, inclining more to ashy than fulvous, except on the head and flanks. Lower parts ferruginous, paler on the breast; middle of back very dark, with a narrow bright fulvous streak in the middle, reaching from between the shoulders to near the tail, and an obscure shorter stripe on either side, barely reaching to the croup; tail ferruginous along the centre, the hairs margined with black, with white tips; a narrower black band near the base of each hair; tip of tail black, forming a pencil tuft three inches long. In some specimens the centre dorsal streak is bright orange, the two intervening bands being jet black. In those in which the streaks are pale, the intervening bands differ only from the surrounding fur in being darker, but are grizzled like it. There is a narrow rufous area round the eye; the whiskers are black; the under-parts and inside of limbs are bright reddish-chestnut, and this colour extends along the under-part of the tail. Jerdon calls this squirrel _the Travancore striped squirrel_, but I see no reason to retain this name, as it is not peculiar to Travancore, but was first found in Ceylon by Mr. E. Layard, after whom Blyth named it. NO. 292. SCIURUS SUBLINEATUS. _The Dusky-striped Ground-Squirrel_ (_Jerdon's No. 158_). HABITAT.--The mountains of Ceylon and Southern India. DESCRIPTION.--Smaller than the palm squirrel; fur soft, dense, grizzled olive brown; base of hairs dusky black; three pale and four dark lines on the back and croup, the lineation being obscure, and reaching only from the shoulder to the sacral region. Under-parts variable, but always dusky, never bright, from grey to dusky brown washed with rufous; tail concolorous with the upper part of the body and obscurely annulated. SIZE.--Head and body, 5 to 6 inches; tail, 4-1/2 to 6 inches. Kellaart calls this _the Newara Elia ground-squirrel_, and Jerdon _the Neilgherry striped squirrel_, but, as it is not peculiar to either one or the other place, I think it better to adopt another popular name. It is common about Newara Elia and Dimboola, but it does not seem to descend lower than 3000 feet. In Southern India it is found in the Neilgherries, Wynaad and Coorg, but only at considerable elevations. NO. 293. SCIURUS MCCLELLANDI. _McClelland's Ground-Squirrel_ (_Jerdon's No. 159_). NATIVE NAME.--_Kalli-gangdin_, Lepcha. HABITAT.--"This species has a wide distribution, ranging from Nepal and Thibet to the east of China and Formosa, and through Assam and Cachar south-eastward to Tenasserim and Siam."--_Anderson_. DESCRIPTION.--General hue olive brown, each hair having a blackish tip, a sub-apical yellow band, and a slaty black base. A pale yellowish band on the side of the nose, passing underneath the eye and ear along the side of the neck, and continued along the side of the back to the base of the tail; its upper margin has a dusky line; a narrow black line from between the shoulders over the vertebrae to the root of the tail; tail grizzled dark above, fulvous beneath; whiskers black; limbs concolorous with the body: ears small, black edged, fulvous white within, and with white pencil tufts. SIZE.--Head and body, 5 inches; tail, 4 inches. Dr. Anderson obtained this species at Ponsee in Burmah, at an elevation of 3500 feet, and Dr. Jerdon, at Darjeeling, at from 4000 to 6000 feet. This species is synonymous with Blyth's _S. Barbei_. NO. 294. SCIURUS BERDMOREI. _Berdmore's Ground-Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Tenasserim and Martaban. DESCRIPTION.--General colour brownish, with a distinct rufous tinge on the middle of the back. It is punctulated with yellowish on the head, sides of face and body and outside of limbs, and with rich rufous on the middle of the back. An obscure narrow black line along the middle of the back from between the shoulders, but only extending half way down the trunk. On the sides of the back a yellow line from shoulder to articulation of femur; this is margined below with a broad black band, and above by an obscure dusky line. There is a broad pale yellow linear area below the former of these two dark bands, the portion of the side below it being concolorous with the thighs and fore-limbs. The rufous area of the back is confined between the two uppermost yellow lines; ears are large; all under-parts white, slightly washed here and there with yellowish; the tail moderately bushy, all the hairs annulated with four alternative orange and black bands, the terminal black band being occasionally tipped with white, and being as broad as the three remaining bands, so that the tail has a decidedly black tint washed with whitish, the orange bands, however, appearing through the black. SIZE.--Head and body, about 7-3/4 inches; tail without hair, 5 inches. NO. 295. SCIURUS QUINQUESTRIATUS. _The Stripe-bellied Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Kakhyen hills, on the Burmo-Chinese frontier. DESCRIPTION.--"Above grizzled olive, brownish-grey, with a distinct rufous tint, deepest on the dorsal surface; annulation fine, as in the grizzled squirrels generally; chin and throat obscurely grizzled greyish, washed with reddish; a rufous grizzled blackish-brown band from the chest along the middle line of the belly to the vent; external of this, on either side, a broad pure white well-defined band from the side to the chest along the belly and prolonged along the inguinal region to the vent; a broad black band from the hollow of the axilla along the side of the belly, expanding on the inside of the thighs, where it is faintly washed with greyish; inside of the fore-limbs blackish, washed with greyish; toes black, with rufous annulations. Tail nearly as long as the body and head, concolorous with body, but the black and rufous annulations much broader and more marked, assuming the form of indistinct rufous and black rings on the posterior third; tip of tail jet black, narrowly terminated with greyish."--_Dr. J. Anderson_ in 'Proc. Zool. Soc.' 1871, p. 142. SIZE.--Head and body, about 9-1/2 inches; tail, 7-1/4 inches. This curious squirrel was first discovered and named by Dr. Anderson, who states that it was common at Ponsee on the Kakhyen range of hills east of Bhamo, at an elevation of from 2000 to 3000 feet, and as yet it has only been found on those hills. There is a coloured plate of it in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1871. * * * * * The next animal forms a curious link in resemblance between the Tupaiidae and the squirrels. I mentioned some time back that the first Tupaia was taken for a squirrel; and certainly, to look at this long-snouted squirrel, one might easily be misled into supposing it to be a Tupaia, till an examination of its dentition proved it to be a rodent. It is supposed to be a Malayan species, but I was shown not long ago a specimen in Mr. Hume's collection which I understood Mr. Davison to say he had procured in Burmah. It has been classed by Dr. Gray in a separate genus, _Rhinosciurus_. NO. 296. SCIURUS (RHINOSCIURUS) TUPAOIDES. _The Long-nosed Squirrel_. HABITAT.--The Malayan peninsula and Borneo, and I believe the Tenasserim provinces. DESCRIPTION.--This animal differs from all other squirrels by the extreme length of its pointed muzzle, with which is associated a long and narrow skull. The coloration varies from light to dark, and almost blackish-brown; the tail is shorter than the body, moderately bushy, narrow at the base, but expanding towards the tip; the hairs are broadly banded with four alternate pale and dark brown bands, the last being the darkest and broadest, with a pale tip; the under-parts are white in some, rich orange yellow in others. SIZE.--Head and body, 7-1/2 inches; tail reaches to the eye. * * * * * The Flying Squirrels next engage our attention. In several groups of animals of strictly arboreal habits, nature has gone beyond the ordinary limits of agility afforded by muscular limbs alone, and has supplemented those limbs with elastic membranes which act like a parachute when the animal takes a leap into space, and gives it a gradual and easy descent. Amongst the lemurs the _Galeopithecus_, the _Pteromys_ in the squirrels, and the _Anomalurus_ in another family of rodents, are all thus provided with the apparatus necessary to enable them to float awhile in the air, for flying is scarcely the proper term for the letting-down easy principle of the mechanism in question. The flying squirrels, with which we have now to deal, are in general details the same as ordinary squirrels, but the skin of the flanks is extended between the fore and hind limbs, which, when spread out, stretches it into a wide parachute, increased in front by means of a bony spur which projects from the wrist. These animals have been subdivided into the large round-tailed flying squirrels, _Pteromys_, and the small flat-tailed flying squirrels, _Sciuropterus_. The distinction was primarily made by F. Cuvier on the character of the teeth, as he considered _Sciuropterus_ to have a less complex system of folds in the enamel of the molars, more like the ordinary squirrels than _Pteromys_; but modern research has proved that this is not a good ground for distinction. Dr. Anderson has lately examined the dentition in eleven species of _Pteromys_ and _Sciuropterus_, and he says: "According to my observations the form of the enamel folds in youth are essentially similar, consisting of a series of tubercular folds which are marked with wavy lines in some, and are smooth in others, but in all there is a marked conformity to a common type. The seemingly more complex character of the folds appears to depend on the extent to which the tubercular ridges are worn by use." He also questions the propriety of the separation according to the distichous arrangement of the hairs of the tail. After a careful examination of the organ in nearly all the members of the series, he writes: "I have failed to detect that it is essentially distinctive of them--that is, that the distichous arrangement of the hairs is always associated with a diminutive species; but at the same time there can be no doubt that it is more prevalent among such." He then goes on to show that the tail is bushy in seventeen species, partially distichous in one, and wholly so in ten, and concludes by saying: "I am therefore disposed to regard the flying squirrels generally as constituting a well-defined generic group, the parallel of the genus _Sciurus_, which consists of an extensive series of specific forms distinguished by a remarkable uniformity of structure, both in their skulls and skeletons, and in the formations of their soft parts." There is a laudable tendency nowadays amongst mammalogists to reduce as far as possible the number of genera and species, and, acting on this principle, I will follow Dr. Anderson, and treat all the Indian flying squirrels under _Pteromys_. _GENUS PTEROMYS_. General anatomy that of the squirrel, except that the skin of the flanks is extended between the limbs in such a manner as to form a parachute when the fore and hind legs are stretched out in the act of springing from tree to tree. NO. 297. PTEROMYS ORAL. _The Brown Flying Squirrel_ (_Pteromys petaurista in Jerdon, No. 160_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Oral_ of the Coles; _Pakya_, Mahrathi; _Parachatea_, Malabarese; _Egala dandoleyna_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--India, wherever there are large forests; Ceylon. [Illustration: _Pteromys oral_.] DESCRIPTION.--Upper parts dusky maroon black grizzled with white; this effect being due to the ends of the hairs being white, tipped with a small black point. The muzzle and around the eyes, and the feet are black; the limbs and side membrane a lighter rufous maroon; the male has an irregular rufous patch on the sides of the neck, according to Elliot, which in the female is a pale fawn colour; the tail is rather longer than the body, and very bushy; its terminal two-thirds or three-fourths are black or blackish--sometimes (rarely) a little white at the extreme tip; the under-parts are dingy brownish-grey or nearly white. The female has six mammae--two pectoral and four ventral. SIZE.--Head and body, 20 inches; tail, 21 inches; breadth of expanse, 21 to 24. This species is nocturnal in its habits as noticed by Mr. Baker ('Journ. As. Soc. Beng.' 1859, vol. xxviii. p. 287), Jerdon and others. Mr. Baker says it makes a noise at night in the depths of the jungle which is alarming to strangers. On the other hand Tickell, who was one of the first to bring it to notice, says its voice is seldom heard, and it is a weak, low, soft monotone quickly repeated, so low that in the same room you require to listen attentively to distinguish it. "It is to the Coles a sound ominous of domestic affliction. When angry the oral seldom bites, but scratches with its fore-claws, grunting at the same time like a guinea-pig." "When taken young it becomes a most engaging pet. It can be reared on goat's or cow's milk,[21] and in about three weeks will begin to nibble fruit of any kind. During the day it sleeps much, either sitting with its back bent into a circle, and its head thrust down to its belly, or lying on its back with the legs and parachute extended--a position it is fond of in sultry weather. During the night time it is incessantly on the move." [Footnote 21: I advise half water in the case of cow's milk, or one quarter water with buffalo milk.--R. A. S.] Jerdon says of it: "It frequents the loftiest trees in the thickest parts of the forest, and is quite nocturnal in its habits, usually making its appearance when quite dusk. The natives discover its whereabouts by noting the droppings beneath the trees it frequents. It is said to keep in holes of trees during the day, and breeds in the same places. In the Wynaad many are killed, and a few captured alive by the Coorumbars, a jungle race of aborigines, who are usually employed to fell the forest trees in clearing for coffee; and I have had several sent to me alive, caught in this way, but could not keep them for any time. It lives chiefly on fruits of various kinds; also on bark, shoots, &c., and, Tickell says, occasionally on beetles and the larvae of insects." Jerdon says he had several times witnessed the flight of this species from tree to tree, and on one occasion he noted a flight of over sixty yards. "Of course it was very close to the ground when it neared the tree, and the last few feet of its flight were slightly upwards, which I have also noticed at other times." I think Wallace has observed the same of the _Galeopithecus_. How this upward motion is accomplished more careful investigation will show; in all probability the depression or elevation of the tail may cause a deviation from a fixed course. According to Elliot it is very gentle, timid, and may be tamed, but from its delicacy is difficult to preserve. The fur is soft, beautiful and much valued. Jerdon gives the localities in which he has found it to be most common: Malabar, Travancore (the Marquis of Tweeddale, according to Dr. Anderson, got a specimen from this locality of a much lighter colour than usual), the Bustar forests in Central India, Vindhian mountains near Mhow, the Northern Circars, and the Midnapore jungles. NO. 298. PTEROMYS CINERACEUS. _The Ashy Flying Squirrel_. NATIVE NAME.--_Shau-byau_ in Arakan. HABITAT.--Assam, Burmah, viz. Arakan, Pegu and Tenasserim provinces. DESCRIPTION.--Very like the last, but with a greyish fur, and almost white tail, with a black tip. The fur generally is a mixture of pale grey and brownish, the hairs of the head and back having a whitish sub-terminal band; the tail consists almost entirely of the greyish hairs; the parachute is reddish brown; the under-parts white. Blyth, however, mentions a specimen from Tenasserim which is unusually rufous, with the tail concolorous with the upper parts. SIZE.--Same as the last. It is open to question whether this is not identical with _Pteromys oral_, merely a local variety. Blyth so termed it; and from what Dr. Anderson has written on the subject, I gather that he, too, inclines to the same opinion, as he says: "The dimensions are the same as those of _P. oral_, Tickell, of which it will probably prove to be a local race." NO. 299. PTEROMYS YUNNANENSIS. _The Yunnan Flying Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Kananzan mountains; Burmo-Chinese frontier. DESCRIPTION.--Dr. Anderson, who discovered and named this species, describes it as follows: "The general colour is a rich dark maroon chestnut on all the upper parts, the head and back in some being finely speckled with white, which is most marked in the young, but is always most profuse on the posterior half of the back, which in some individuals has almost a hoary tinge, from the extent to which the annulation of the hairs is carried. "In the adult, the upper surface of the parachute is of the same colour as the back, and the hairs are not annulated, except along its margin; but in younger specimens they are partially so on the upper surface, as are also the hairs on the first three or six inches of the tail, which are concolorous with the back, but broadly tipped with black, while the remaining portion of the tail is rich glossy black; the sides of the face, below the eye and ear, are yellowish-grey, mixed with chestnut, and the chin is dusky; the paws are rich black, also the margins of the limbs; the under surface is clad with a yellowish-white, rather woolly fur, which in some tends to a chestnut tint in the middle line, and to a darker tint of the same colour at the margin of the parachute. "The basal portion of the fur of the upper parts is a dark greyish-brown, the hairs at their base being wavy; then follows a palish chestnut band, succeeded by a dark maroon chestnut, which either may or may not have a pure white sub-apical band, the tips of the hairs being glossy deep maroon chestnut, in some verging on black. "The ears are large and rounded, and very sparsely covered with black hairs externally, with chestnut-coloured hairs on the anterior, and black on the posterior half of the dorsal surface. "The hairs on the outer side of the tarsus form a rather long and dense brush; the tail is moderately bushy."--'Anat. and Zool. Res.,' p. 282. SIZE.--Dr. Anderson only got skins of this beautiful squirrel, so accurate dimensions cannot be given, but the largest skin measured from muzzle to root of tail 24 inches, the tail being the same. NO. 300. PTEROMYS MELANOPTERUS. _The Black-flanked Flying Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--The back and top of the head are greyish-yellowish, the hairs being leaden grey at the base, passing into yellow, the sub-terminal part being brown, with a minute dark point; the upper surface of the parachute is almost wholly black, with a greyish-white border; under surface yellow; the belly greyish-ashy; feet black; limbs and tail concolorous with the body, the latter very bushy. SIZE.--Head and body, about 19-1/4 inches; tail, 17-1/4 inches. I have included this species, although it does not belong to India proper; still it would be well if travellers and sportsmen exploring our Thibetan frontiers would keep a look-out for this animal. At present all we know of it is from Professor Milne-Edwards's description of animals collected by the Abbe David, to whom we are also indebted for the next species. NO. 301. PTEROMYS ALBORUFUS. _The Red and White Flying Squirrel_. HABITAT.--Thibet; district of Moupin. DESCRIPTION.--I have but a bare note of this species taken long ago from Milne-Edwards's work on the Mammals of Thibet, so I will quote Dr. Anderson's description from the types he examined: "The head, the sides of the neck, the throat and upper part of the chest, variegated with white, through which the rich maroon of the ground colour is partially seen, and it forms a ring around the eye; the hinder part of the back is yellow, and the tail, immediately beyond its base, is also yellowish for a short way, fading into the deep maroon of its latter two-thirds. It has no black tip. The feet are concolorous with the body; the under parts are pale rich orange yellow; the ears are large and moderately pointed."--'Anat. and Zool. Res.,' p. 284. SIZE.--Head and body, about 23 inches; tail, 16 inches. NO. 302. PTEROMYS MAGNIFICUS. _The Red-bellied Flying Squirrel_ (_Jerdon's No. 162_). NATIVE NAME.--_Biyom_, Lepcha. HABITAT.--South-eastern Himalayas, Nepal, Sikim, Bhotan; also in the hill ranges of Assam. DESCRIPTION.--Upper parts dark chestnut or a rich lustrous dark maroon chestnut, with a golden yellow mesial line in some; the hairs are black tipped, the dark portions of the back being finely but obscurely punctulated with dark orange; the shoulders and thighs are golden yellow, and the under-parts are orange fawn or orange red; so is also the margin of the parachute; the ears are large, semi-nude, sparsely clad with pale red hair externally, and bright red posteriorly, the base of the upper surface being clad with long hair; the sides of the face below the eyes are yellowish; there is a black zone round the eyes; the chin and the feet are blackish; the tail is orange red, tipped more or less broadly with black. SIZE.--Head and body, about 16 inches; tail, 22 inches. The young of this species have not the dorsal line, the head and neck are concolorous with the body, as is also the tail at its base; the under parts are pale yellowish-red. According to Dr. Anderson the skulls of _Pteromys magnificus_ and _P. oral_ differ in the shorter muzzle and the more elevated character of the inter-orbital depression of the latter. This animal is occasionally found at Darjeeling, and according to Jerdon it used to be more common there before the station was so denuded of its fine trees. It frequents the zone from 6000 to 9000 feet, and feeds on acorns, chestnuts and other hard fruit; also on young leaves and shoots. There is a coloured plate of this species in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. xiii. part i. p. 67. NO. 303. PTEROMYS ALBIVENTER. _The White-bellied Flying Squirrel_ (_Pteromys inornatus of Jerdon, No. 161_). NATIVE NAME.--_Rusigugar_, i.e., flying rat, Kashmiri. HABITAT.--From Nepal, along the North-western Himalayas to Kashmir. DESCRIPTION.--Upper parts grizzled reddish-brown or dark grey with a rufous tinge, or a reddish-bay, darker on the upper surface of the parachute, and outside of limbs; head, neck, and breast greyish-rufous; cheeks grey; chin, throat and lower part of breast white, faintly tinged with rufous in the belly; under part of parachute rufous, tinged white, with a greyish posterior margin. Occasionally a dark brown band over the nose and round the eyes; the whiskers and feet blackish. SIZE.--Head and body, 14 inches; tail, 16 inches. This is a common squirrel at Simla. One was killed close to the house in which I was staying in 1880 at the Chota Simla end of the station by a native servant, who threw a stick at it, and knocked it off a bough, and I heard of two living ones being hawked about for sale about the same time--which, to my regret, I failed to secure, some one having bought them. They are common also in Kashmir, where they live in holes made in the bark of dead fir-trees. They are said to hybernate during the season there. A melanoid variety of this species is mentioned by Dr. Anderson as being in the Leyden Museum. It was obtained by Dr. Jerdon in Kashmir, and presented to the Museum by the late Marquis of Tweeddale. NO. 304. PTEROMYS CANICEPS. _The Grey-headed Flying Squirrel_ (_Sciuropterus caniceps of Jerdon, No. 163_). NATIVE NAME.--_Biyom-chimbo_, Lepcha. HABITAT.--Sikim and Nepal. DESCRIPTION.--At first sight this seems to be a grey-headed form of the last species, but with larger ears; the head is iron grey; round the eyes and a patch above and below orange fulvous or chestnut; the base of the ears the same. Regarding this Dr. Anderson, on comparing it with the last, writes: "On a more critical examination of _P. caniceps_ it appears to me, judging from Hodgson's types of the species, that it has larger ears, and if this should prove to be a persistent character, then the grey head and the chestnut speck above and below the eye, and the bright chestnut tuft behind the ears, assume a specific importance which they would not otherwise have." But he adds that his observations are merely from preserved specimens, and that the question of the magnitude of the ears is one yet to be settled by further investigation of the living animal. Jerdon's description is "entire head iron-grey; orbits and base of ears deep orange fulvous; whole body above, with parachute and tail, a mixture of blackish and golden yellow; limbs deep orange ochreous; margin of parachute albescent; beneath the neck whitish; rest of the lower parts pale orange-red; tip of tail black; ears nearly nude; tail sub-distichous." The fur is softer, denser, and longer than in the last two species. SIZE.--Head and body, about 14 inches; tail, 15 to 16 inches. NO. 305. PTEROMYS PEARSONII. _The Hairy-footed Flying Squirrel_ (_Sciuropterus villosus of Jerdon, No. 166_). HABITAT.--Sikim and Upper Assam. DESCRIPTION.--Upper part of head and back rich glossy reddish-brown, grizzled with black; the parachute blackish-brown, sparsely washed with faint reddish brown. "Fur very fine, soft, and rather long, but adpressed, and the hidden portion is almost black, narrowly tipped with the reddish-brown, the sides of the hair being blackish-brown. On the parachute only a few hairs have the reddish band, and these are most numerous towards the margin; the tail is rather bushy and but slightly distichous, and the hidden portion of its fur is pale fawn at the base, passing into pale chestnut brown, washed with dusky brown on the sides and upper surface; the margins of the eyelids are dark brown, and the sides of the face are pale rufous; the ears are moderately large and rounded, rather dark brown towards the tips, and pencilled at the base, anteriorly and posteriorly, with long delicate hairs. There are no true cheek bristles, but the moustachial hairs are very long; the under surface is pale ferruginous, palest on the mesial line, and most rufescent on the outer half of the membrane, the margin of which inferiorly is pale yellowish; the hairs on the membrane have dark slaty--almost black--bases, the ferruginous being confined to the tips; the fur of the under-parts is very soft and dense; the feet are well clad, more especially so those of the hind limbs."--_Anderson_. SIZE.--Head and body, 8 inches; tail, 8 inches. Jerdon says it is found at elevations of 3000 to nearly 6000 feet. NO. 306. PTEROMYS FUSCOCAPILLUS. _The Small Travancore Flying Squirrel_ (_Sciuropterus of Jerdon, No. 167_). HABITAT.--Southern India and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Upper parts rufous chestnut according to Kellaart, who named it _Sciuropterus Layardii_; rufescent fulvous or dark brownish isabelline hue, as Jerdon describes it; the fur dusky blackish colour for three-fourths of its length; the tips coarser and coloured rufous chestnut (_Kellaart_); hairs fuscous with a fulvous tip (_Jerdon_); two-thirds of the base dusky ashy, the remainder reddish-brown with a black tip (_Anderson_); the ears are moderate in size, posteriorly ovate with a long pencil of blackish hairs at the base of the posterior margin and at the external surface of the upper angle; cheek bristles well developed; the cheeks white, washed with yellowish, as also before the ears; the margin round the eyes blackish; the parachute is dark brown above washed with pale brown, and the edge is pale yellow; lower parts yellowish-white; the tail is very bushy, and not distichous in the adult, though partially so in the young; it is sometimes yellowish-brown, sometimes dusky brown, especially in the latter half, the under surface being pale brown at the base, passing into blackish-brown. Kellaart says of the Ceylon specimens: "Tail flat and broad, of a lighter chestnut above, washed with black, and under surface of a deep black, except at tip," but apparently he had only one specimen to go upon, and therefore we cannot accept his observations as conclusive. SIZE.--Head and body, 7-3/4 inches; tail, 6-3/4 inches with hair. NO. 307. PTEROMYS FIMBRIATUS. _The Grey Flying Squirrel_ (_Sciuropterus of Jerdon, No. 164_). HABITAT.--North-west Himalayas. DESCRIPTION.--Fur long, soft greyish, with sometimes a tinge of brown; the hairs are grey at the base, then brown with a black tip; face white; orbits dark brown; chin and under parts white; the tail is broad, bushy, and rather tapering, more or less fulvous washed with black, black towards the tip; the feet are broad, and according to Dr. Gray the outer edges of the hind feet have a broad fringe of hair, whence probably its specific name; but Dr. Anderson is of opinion that this character is unreliable. SIZE.--Head and body, 12 inches; tail, 11 inches. Blyth's _S. Barbei_ was probably the same as this; he had only drawings and assertions to go upon. The species is extremely doubtful. NO. 308. PTEROMYS ALBONIGER. _The Black and White Flying Squirrel_ (_Sciuropterus of Jerdon, No. 165_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Khim_, Lepcha; _Piam-piyu_, Bhotia. HABITAT.--Nepal, Sikim, Bhotan, Assam, Sylhet, Burmah, Western Yunnan and Cambodia. DESCRIPTION.--Dr. Anderson says the name applied to the species is not appropriate, as many individuals have the upper parts more or less yellowish, but it is dark above, blackish, faintly washed with hoary or rufous; white beneath with a slight yellow tinge; the ears and feet flesh-coloured. Jerdon says the young are pure black and white; the teeth are bright orange red. SIZE.--Head and body, 11 inches; tail, 8-1/4 to 9 inches. Jerdon procured it near Darjeeling; it frequents elevations from 3000 to 5000 feet. NO. 309. PTEROMYS SPADICEUS. _The Red Flying Squirrel_. NATIVE NAME.--_Kywet-shoo-byan_, Arakanese. HABITAT.--Arakan. DESCRIPTION.--Upper parts bright ferruginous bay; under parts woolly and dull white; the membrane, limbs, and tail dusky; the terminal third of the tail pale rufous. SIZE.--Head and body, 5 inches; tail, 4-1/4 inches. ARCTOMYDINAE--THE MARMOTS. Stout-bodied, short-tailed animals, with a rudimentary thumb with a flat nail. They are gregarious and terrestrial, living in burrows, where they store provisions against inclement seasons. Some of the genera have cheek pouches, but the true marmots, such as our Indian species, have not. They differ somewhat in dentition from the squirrels in having the first upper molar somewhat larger, and the other molars also differ in having transverse tubercles on the crown. The first upper tooth is smaller than the rest; the ears are short and round, as is also the tail; the hind-feet have five toes, the fore-feet a tubercle in the place of the thumb. _GENUS ARCTOMYS_. Stout body, short tail, large head and eyes, no cheek pouches, mammae ten to twelve. Dental formula: Inc., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 1--1/1--1; molars, 4--4/3--3. NO. 310. ARCTOMYS BOBAC. _The Bobac, or Poland Marmot_ (_Thibet Marmot of Jerdon, No. 168_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Brin_, Kashmiri; _Kadia-piu_, Thibetan; _Chibi_, Bhotia; _Lho_, or _Potsammiong_, Lepcha. HABITAT.--The Himalayan range from Kashmir to Sikim, in Thibet, Ladakh, Yarkand, also throughout Central Asia and Eastern Europe from the south of Poland and Gallicia over the whole of Southern Russia and Siberia, to the Amoor and Kamtchatka. DESCRIPTION.--Above sub-rufescent cat-grey, washed with blackish brown on the back and sides and front of face, rufescent yellow beneath; the hind limbs more rufous; fur close, adpressed, rather harsh; tail with a black tip. The hairs are tinged with three bands of dusky rufescent yellow and blackish-brown, the latter being most intense on the face, forehead, head and back (_see_ 'P. Z. S.' 1871, p. 560). In the plate given in the report by Mr. Blanford on the mammalia collected during the second Yarkand Mission the back is somewhat barred with dark brown, as is also the tail. The sexes are alike, and of nearly equal size. SIZE.--Head and body, about 24 inches; tail, 5 to 6 inches. This animal is seldom found at a lower elevation than 12,000 feet, and from that to 16,000 feet according to Jerdon, but Dr. Stoliczka noticed it in Ladakh at a height of 17,800 feet. "It burrows in the ground, living in small societies, and feeding on roots and vegetables. It lifts its food to its mouth with its fore-feet. It is easily tamed. One was brought alive to Calcutta some years ago, and did not appear, says Mr. Blyth, to be distressed by the heat of that place. It was quite tame and fearless, and used to make a loud chattering cachinnation. It was fond of collecting grass, &c., and carrying it to its den. Travellers and sportsmen often meet with this marmot, and speak of its sitting up in groups, and suddenly disappearing into its burrows. The cured skins form an important item of commerce, and are brought to Nepal, and in great numbers to China" (_Jerdon_). Mr. Blanford, in alluding to the conditions under which marmots are liable to produce permanent varieties, says: "each colony or group being isolated, and frequently at a distance of many miles from the next colony, the two in all probability rarely, if ever, breed with each other." Therefore several which are recorded as distinct species may in time be proved to be merely varieties of one. Mr. Blanford keeps to the specific name _Himalayanus_ of Hodgson in his report. NO. 311. ARCTOMYS CAUDATUS. _The Red Marmot_. NATIVE NAME.--_Drun_, Kashmiri. HABITAT.--The North-western Himalayan range. It is found in Kashmir, the Wurdan Pass, Ladakh, the valley of the Dras river. DESCRIPTION.--General colour rufous-ochreous, darkest above, "the tips of the hairs are washed with black, which is most intense on the back from the occiput to the lumbar region; pale yellow on the shoulders, which have few, if any, black-tipped hairs, and also along the sides, which are nearly free from them; chin, throat, belly, fore-legs and inside of front of lower limbs deep rusty red; the outside of thighs pale rufous yellow, with a few black-tipped hairs; greyish hairs around the lips; cheeks washed with blackish; a large deep black spot on the upper surface of the nose; the rest of the front of the face rufous yellow; tail black, washed more or less with yellowish-grey, the last four inches black; the fur coarse and nearly 2-1/2 inches in length, loose and not adpressed; the black tips are not very long, and the yellow shows through them as a rule, but there are patches where they wholly obscure it; the base of the hair generally is rather rufous dark brown, and is succeeded by a broad rufous yellow band followed by the apical black one. Palm, including nails, 2-4/12 inches; sole, including nails, 3-10/12 inches; the heel is more sparsely clad with hairs along its margin than is the tarsus of _A. bobac_" (_Dr. J. Anderson_, 'P. Z. S.' 1871, pp. 561, 562). Mr. Blanford, who writes of this as _Arctomys caudatus_ of Jacquemont, being of opinion that Hodgson's _A. Hemachalanus_ is a smaller and differently-coloured species, and doubting whether _A. caudatus_ inhabits the Eastern Himalayas, says: "_Arctomys caudatus_ is one of the largest species of marmot, being nearly two feet long exclusive of the tail, which measures with the hairs at the end half as much more. The general colour is yellowish-tawny, more or less washed with black on the back, and with all the under-parts and limbs rusty red. In some specimens (males?) the back is much blacker than in others, the hairs being dusky or black throughout, whilst other specimens have only the tips of the hairs black." I am inclined to think that Mr. Blanford is right, for Jerdon thus describes _A. Hemachalanus_: "General colour dark grey, with a full rufous tinge, which is rusty, and almost ochreous red on the sides of the head, ears, and limbs, especially in summer; the bridge of the nose and the last inch of the tail dusky brown; head and body above strongly mixed with black, which he equals or exceeds the pale one on these parts; claws long; pelage softer and fuller than in the last." SIZE.--Jerdon says of the _drun_: "Head and body, about 13 inches." Now the size given in the 'P. Z. S.' above quoted is, "length, 22 inches from tip of nose to vent; tail, 10-1/2 inches, exclusively of the hair, nearly half the length of the body and head." This agrees better with Mr. Blanford's account. NO. 312. ARCTOMYS HEMACHALANUS. _The Eastern Red Marmot_ (_Jerdon's No. 169_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Sammiong_, Lepcha; _Chipi_, Bhotia. HABITAT.--The Eastern Himalayas, Sikim, Nepal. DESCRIPTION.--As given above by Dr. Jerdon. SIZE.--Head and body, 13 inches; tail, 5-1/2 inches. Hodgson kept some of this species in his garden for some time. They were somnolent by day, active by night, and did not hybernate in Nepal. They were fed on grain and fruit, and would chatter a good deal over their meals, but in general were silent. They slept rolled up into a ball, were tame and gentle usually, but sometimes bit and scratched like rabbits, uttering a similar cry. NO. 313. ARCTOMYS AUREUS. _The Golden Marmot_. HABITAT.--Yarkand, Kaskasee pass, 13,000 feet, on the road from Kashgar to Sarikol and the Pamir. DESCRIPTION.--after Blanford, who described and named this species ('Jour. As. Soc. Beng.' 1875): "General colour tawny to rich brownish-yellow, the dorsal portion conspicuously tinged with black from all the hairs having black tips, but these are far more conspicuous in some specimens (males?) than in others; face grey to blackish, with a rufous tinge covered with black and whitish hairs mixed, about half an inch long on the forehead. The black hairs on the face are more prevalent in those specimens (perhaps males) which have the blackest backs; the middle of the forehead is in some cases more fulvous. On the end of the nose is a blackish-brown patch, and there is a narrow band of black hairs with a few white mixed round the lips; the sides of the nose are paler; whiskers black. Hairs of the back, 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 inches long, much mixed with woolly fibres, dark slaty at the extreme base for about a quarter inch, then pale straw colour, becoming deeper golden yellow towards the extremity, the end black. In the blackest specimens the black tips are wanting on the posterior portion of the back. Tail yellow, the same colour as the rump, except the tip, which is black, from a length varying from an inch to about 2-1/2 inches (in three specimens out of four it does not exceed an inch); hairs of the tail about two inches long, brown at the base. Lower parts rather browner, and sometimes with a rufous wash; the hairs shorter and thinner, chocolate brown at the base without the short woolly under fur, which is very thick on the back. Feet above yellowish-tawny, like the sides" ('Scientific Results of the Second Yarkand Mission': Mammalia). SIZE.--Head and body, 16 to 18 inches; tail, 5 to 6 inches. Though this agrees in size with _A. Hemachalanus_ it differs considerably in colour, and, according to Mr. Blanford, also in the skull. There is a beautifully drawn and coloured plate of this marmot in the work from which I have just quoted; also of _A. Himalayanus_ and _A. caudatus_. NO. 314. ARCTOMYS DICHROUS. HABITAT.--Afghanistan; mountainous country north of Cabul. DESCRIPTION.--Less yellow than the last, without any black on the back, and having the upper parts pale dull tawny, and the lower rufous brown. The tail concolorous with the belly, tinged here and there with rich rufous brown, the tip paling to nearly yellowish-brown. SIZE.--Head and body, 17 inches; tail, 6-1/2 inches.--_Anderson_, 'Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.,' vol. xvi. 1875. NO. 315. ARCTOMYS ROBUSTUS. Is a Thibetan species, described by Prof. Milne-Edwards, 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes,' p. 309. I have not the work by me just now. SECTION II.--MYOMORPHA--RAT-LIKE RODENTS. The second section of the order GLIRES, containing the following families--those that are not Indian being in italics:-- _Myoxidiae_, _Lophiomyidae_, Muridae, Spalacidae, _Geomyidae_, _Theridomyidae_ (fossil), Dipodidae. The molar dentition is from 3--3/3--3 to 6--6/6--6, the former being the usual number; the tibia and fibula are united for at least a third of their length; the zygomatic arch is slender, and the malar process rarely extends so far forwards as in the preceding section, and is generally supported below by a continuation of the maxillary zygomatic process; the collar-bones are perfect (except in _Lophiomyidae_). Upper lip cleft; the muffle small and naked; tail cylindrical, sometimes hairy, but commonly covered with scales arranged in rings. In all the Indian mammalogy this section is probably the most difficult to write about. Our knowledge of the smaller rodents is extremely imperfect, and is just engaging increased attention. In the meanwhile I feel that, while I make use of such material as is now available, before long much will have to be revised and corrected after the exhaustive inquiries now being made by Dr. Anderson are published. The Indian families with which we have to deal are but three--the _Muridae_, _Spalacidae_, and the _Dipodidae_. The _Arvicolidae_ of Jerdon's work is merely a sub-family of _Muridae_. Of these the _Muridae_ take the first place, as containing the greater number of genera. It is estimated that the total number of species known of this family throughout the world exceed 330, of which probably not more than one-fourth or fifth are to be found in India and adjacent countries. FAMILY MURIDAE. CHARACTER.--"Lower incisors compressed; no premolars; molars rooted or rootless, tuberculate or with angular enamel folds; frontals contracted; infra-orbital opening in typical forms high, perpendicular, wide above and narrowed below, with the lower root of the maxillary zygomatic process more or less flattened into a perpendicular plate; very rarely the opening is either large and oval, or small and sub-triangular. Malar short and slender, generally reduced to a splint between the maxillary and squamosal processes; external characters very variable; pollex rudimentary, but often with a small nail; tail generally sub-naked and scaly, rarely densely haired."--_Alston_, 'P. Z. S.' 1876. This family is divided into about ten sub-families, of which the Indian ones are as follows: _Platacanthyominae_; _Gerbillinae_; _Phlaeomyinae_; _Murinae_; _Arvicolinae_; _Cricetinae_. The other four are _Sminthinae_, _Hydromyinae_, _Dendromyinae_, and _Siphneinae_, none of which are found within our limits. _GENUS PLATACANTHOMYS_. CHARACTER.--Molars 3/3, divided into transverse laminae; infra-orbital opening as in typical _Muridae_; incisive foramina and auditory bullae small; form _myoxine_ (or dormouse-like); fur mixed with flat spines; tail densely hairy. The general resemblance of this animal to the dormouse (_Myoxus_) is striking, to which its hairy tail and its habits conduce, but on closer examination its small eyes, thin ears, short thumb of the fore-foot bring it into the murine family. The genus was first noted and named by Blyth, who seemed inclined to class it as a dormouse, but this has not been upheld for the reasons given above, and also that _Platacanthomys_ has the normal _murine_ number of molars, viz.: 3--3/3--3, whereas _Myoxus_ has an additional premolar above and below. These points were first brought to notice by Prof. Peters of Berlin (_see_ 'P. Z. S.' 1865, p. 397). There is a coloured plate of the animal in the same volume, but it is not so well executed as most of the illustrations in the Society's works. NO. 316. PLATACANTHOMYS LASIURUS. _The Long-tailed Spiny Mouse_ (_Jerdon's No. 198_). HABITAT.--Southern India. DESCRIPTION.--Light rufescent brown; the under fur paler, more rufous on the forehead and crown; whiskers black; under parts dull white; the hairs on the tail, which are arranged distichously, are darker than those of the body, infuscated except at the tip of the tail, where they are whitish; the muzzle is acute; ears moderate and naked; the fur above is mixed densely with sharp flat spines; the under coat is delicate and fine; the few spines on the lower parts are smaller and finer; the thumb is without a nail. SIZE.--Head and body, 6 inches; tail, 3-1/2, or five inches including the hair; planta, 1 inch. This species was discovered by the Rev. Mr. Baker in the Western Ghats of Malabar, and in Cochin and Travancore, at an elevation of about 3000 feet. He writes of it: "It lives in clefts in the rocks and hollow trees, and is said to hoard ears of grain and roots, seldom comes into the native huts, and in that particular neighbourhood the hillmen told me they are very numerous. I know they are to be found in the rocky mountains of Travancore, but I have never met with them on the plains." In another place he adds: "I have been spending the last three weeks in the Ghats, and, amongst other things, had a great hunt for the new spiny dormice. They are most abundant, I find, in the elevated vales and ravines, living only in the magnificent old trees there, in which they hollow out little cavities, filling them with leaves and moss. The hill people call them the 'pepper-rat,' from their destroying large quantities of ripe pepper (_Piper nigrum_). Angely and jackfruit (_Artocarpus ovalifolia_ and _integrifolia_) are much subject to their ravages. Large numbers of the _shunda_ palm (_Caryota_) are found in these hills, and toddy is collected from them. These dormice eat through the covering of the pot as suspended, and enjoy themselves. Two were brought to me in the pots half drowned. I procured in one morning sixteen specimens. The method employed in obtaining them was to tie long bamboos (with thin little branches left on them to climb by) to the trees; and, when the hole was reached, the man cut the entrance large enough to admit his hand, and took out the nest with the animals rolled up in it, put the whole into a bag made of bark, and brought it down. They actually reached the bottom sometimes without being disturbed. It was very wet, cold weather, and they may have been somewhat torpid; but I started a large brown rat at the foot of one of these trees, which ran up the stem into a hole, and four dormice were out in a minute from it, apparently in terror of their large friend. There were no traces of hoarding in any of the holes, but the soft bark of the trees was a good deal gnawed in places. I had two of these dormice alive for some time, but, as they bit and gnawed at everything intended to keep them in durance, I was obliged to kill both. I noticed that when their tails were elevated, the hairs were perfectly erect like a bottle-brush" ('Proc. As. Soc. Beng.' 1859, p. 290). SUB-FAMILY GERBILLINAE. Incisors narrow; molars divided into transverse laminae; pterygoid fossae short; auditory bullae usually large; hind limbs very long; tail long and hairy. _GENUS GERBILLUS_. Form murine, with the exception of the elongated hind-limbs; muzzle pointed; ears moderate and oval; eyes very large and bright; occipital region broad; auditory bullae large; upper incisors grooved; first molar with three laminae, the second with two, and third with one only; hinder tarsus and toes much elongated; the fore-limbs small; tail long and hairy, with a tuft at the end. [Illustration: Dentition of _Gerbillus_ (magnified).] NO. 317. GERBILLUS INDICUS. _The Indian Jerboa-Rat, or Kangaroo-Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 170_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Hirna-mus_, Hindi; _Jhenku-indur_, Sanscrit and Bengali; _Yeri-yelka_ of the Waddurs; _Tel-yelka_ of the Yanadees; _Billa-ilei_, Canarese. HABITAT.--All over India and in Ceylon, but apparently not in Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Light fulvous brown above or fawn colour, paling on the sides; under-parts white; the hairs of the back are ashy at the base, with fulvous tips, a few thin black hairs intermixed chiefly on the side and cheeks. The eyebrow is whitish; whiskers long and black and a few grey; the nose is elongated; the upper jaw projecting nearly half an inch beyond the lower; tail, which is longer than the body, is blackish above and below, pale laterally, and terminates with a black tufted tip; the ears are large and nearly naked; the eye is particularly large and lustrous, which, with its graceful bounds, have given it its Indian name of "antelope-rat" (_Hirna-mus_). SIZE.--Head and body, about 7 inches; tail, 8-1/2 inches; fore-foot, 5/10 inch; hind-foot, 2 inches. Weight, 6-3/4 ounces. This graceful little creature frequents bare plains and sandy country in general, where it forms extensive burrows. Hardwicke writes of it: "These animals are very numerous about cultivated lands, and particularly destructive to wheat and barley crops, of which they lay up considerable hoards in spacious burrows. A tribe of low-caste Hindus, called Kunjers, go in quest of them at proper seasons to plunder their hoards, and often within the space of twenty yards square find as much corn in the ear as could be crammed in a bushel." Sir Walter Elliot's account of their burrows is most interesting. He says: "The entrances, which are numerous, are small, from which the passage descends with a rapid slope for two or three feet, then runs along horizontally, and sends off branches in different directions. These galleries generally terminate in chambers from half a foot to a foot in width, containing a bed of dried grass. Sometimes one chamber communicates with another furnished in like manner, whilst others appear to be deserted, and the entrances closed with clay. The centre chamber in one burrow was very large, which the Wuddurs attributed to its being the common apartment, and said that the females occupied the smaller ones with their young. They do not hoard their food, but issue from their burrows every evening, and run and hop about, sitting on their hind legs to look round, making astonishing leaps, and on the slightest alarm flying into their holes." This account differs from that of Hardwicke as regards the hoarding of food, and from what I can learn is the more correct. The food of this animal is grain, grass, and roots, but Kellaart mentions certain carnivorous propensities, for one night several of them nearly devoured an albino rat which had been put into the same cage with them. McMaster says of its agility: "I have seen them when released from a trap baffle and elude dogs in the most extraordinary manner by wonderful jumps made over the backs, and apparently into the very teeth of their pursuers." Buchanan-Hamilton's assertion that "these animals live in holes which they dig in the abrupt banks of rivers and ponds" is misleading. They may do so occasionally, but in general they choose sandy plains. The female is prolific, bringing forth from eight to twelve young ones, and Dr. Jerdon states that it is said to have occasionally as many as sixteen to twenty. With regard to Kellaart's accusation of its being carnivorous at times, I may say I have noticed such tendencies amongst several other rodents which are supposed to be purely vegetarians. I have also known ruminants take to flesh-eating when opportunity offered. NO. 318. GERBILLUS HURRIANAE. _The Desert Jerboa-Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 171_). HABITAT.--The sandy deserts west of the Jumna and Hurriana; also in Afghanistan according to Horsfield's Catalogue, and probably in Rajpootana, Sindh, and the Punjab. DESCRIPTION.--Pale rufous or sandy above, with fine dusky lines, the hairs being blackish at the base, the rest fawn coloured, with a blackish tip very minute; sides paler, with fewer dusky lines; under-parts white, tinged more or less with fulvous or fawn on the belly; limbs pale fawn; orbits pale; whiskers whitish, a few of the upper ones dark; tail yellowish-rufous or fawn colour throughout, with a line of dusky brown hairs on the upper surface of the terminal half, gradually increasing in length to the tips. SIZE.--Smaller than the last species. Head and body, 5 inches; tail, 4-1/2. Jerdon says of this rat that it is "exceedingly numerous in the sandy downs and sand-hills of Hurriana, both in jungles and in bare plains, especially in the former, and a colony may be seen at the foot of every large shrub almost. I found that it had been feeding on the kernel of the nut of the common _Salvadora oleifolia_, gnawing through the hard nut and extracting the whole of the kernel. Unlike the last species, this rat, during the cold weather at all events, is very generally seen outside its holes at all hours, scuttling in on the near approach of any one, but soon cautiously popping its head out of its hole and again issuing forth. In the localities it frequents it is far more abundant than I have ever seen _G. Indicus_ in the most favourable spots" ('Mammals of India,' p. 186). NO. 319. GERBILLUS CRYPTORHINUS. _The Lobe-nosed Jerboa-Rat_. HABITAT.--Yarkand. DESCRIPTION.--after Mr. Blanford, who first described and named the species: "Colour above sandy rufescent, some specimens rather more rufous than others; below white, the two colours sharply divided on the sides; cheeks pale; supercilia whitish; feet white; tail above rather more rufous than the back, paler and occasionally whitish below, becoming dark brown or blackish above near the end, and with the slight tuft of longer hairs at the end of the same dark colour; fur soft and glossy, about half an inch long in the middle of the back, all the basal portion being at least three-quarters of the length, dark ashy; the terminal portion pale yellow brown to pale rufous, with numerous longer hairs with black tips mixed; on the under surface the hairs are white throughout; on the tail the hair is rather short, coarse, and close together; there are a very few longer black tips mixed, but scarcely enough to produce an effect in the general colour. "The ears are oval and of moderate length; densely clad with brown hairs on the anterior portion of the outer surface, and with a fringe of longer hairs on the anterior margin; the posterior portion of the external surface is nearly naked, except near the margin, and the anterior portion of the inner surface is completely destitute of hair, but the inner surface is more hairy near the hinder margin. The whiskers are very numerous, the longest slightly exceeding the head; the uppermost behind being black, all the rest white; all are mixed at the base with long hairs, which cover the side of the nose; soles of the fore-feet with scattered white hairs, but nearly naked; those of the hind-feet densely covered with hair everywhere except at the extreme tips of the toes and at the heel. "Mammae, eight--four pectoral and four inguinal, as usual in the genus. "The most remarkable character of these species is the presence at the end of the snout of a semi-circular lobe, which forms a flap completely covering the openings of the nostrils. This lobe can, of course, only be well seen in the specimens preserved in spirit. In the dried skin its presence can sometimes be detected, but not always. In the only spirit specimen, an adult female, the flap measures about 0.3 inch in breadth, and is barely an eighth of an inch long. "It is hairy both outside and inside, the hairs being very short and rather scattered inside; the surface below the nostrils covered by the flap is also hairy. The use of this lobe is evidently to keep out sand and dust from the air passages" (W. T. Blanford's 'Mammalia of the Second Yarkand Mission,' p. 56). SIZE.--Head and body, about 5-1/2 inches; tail, 5 inches; length of fore-foot, 0.5 inch; hind-foot, 1.4 inch. The peculiarity of the lobe, which was first detected by Mr. Oscar Fraser in removing a skull from a spirit specimen, distinguishes this species from the other Asiatic forms. There is also a peculiarity in the skull noticed by Mr. Blanford, which is that the lachrymal process, instead of being anchylosed to the adjoining bones, as in others of the genus, is free, and this species is therefore distinguished from the one most resembling it, _G. unguiculatus_ from Chinese Mongolia, in which the lachrymal process is united to the frontal. NO. 320. GERBILLUS ERYTHRURUS. _The Red-tailed Jerboa-Rat_. HABITAT.--Afghanistan and Persia. DESCRIPTION.--Rufous brown above, with a few long black hairs, more numerous on the rump and thighs; under fur slaty; under-parts white, gradually blending with the colour of the sides; ears much larger than in the last species, hairy outside and near the margin inside; soles of hind feet and toes thickly covered with hair, except on the hinder half of the tarsus; tail very rufous--brown with a black tip, black hairs are scattered along the upper surface, and form a black band towards the end above, finally covering the whole tip. SIZE.--Head and body, about 6 inches; tail, equal. Mr. Blanford, to whose 'Eastern Persia' I am chiefly indebted for the above description, writes: "From _G. Hurrianae_, which Jerdon thought might probably be the same, the present form is distinguished by its much larger ears and by the hind feet, and especially the toes, being more thickly covered with hair beneath; the fur too is longer and the colour browner on the back; the tail is more rufous, and the tip blacker; the skull is larger and broader; the nasal portion more elongate and less concave above, and the hind upper molar has a distinct talon, or rudimentary second transverse ridge, in young specimens, traces of which may be detected in the form of the worn tooth." Its habits are similar to those of the last species. NO. 321. GERBILLUS NANUS. _The Dwarf Jerboa-Rat_. HABITAT.--Baluchistan. DESCRIPTION.--The fur is soft and long, rufous brown or fawn colour above, white below, the colours being less sharply distinguished than in _G. Indicus_; the hairs of the upper parts have no black tips, and the basal two-thirds are slaty grey. There is a broad white supercilium in front, joining the white area of the sides of the face, so that the brown of the nose is reduced to a rather narrow band; ears almost naked, a few short whitish hairs near the edge only; whiskers nearly all white; a few of the upper hairs brown near the base; feet white above, naked beneath, tail light brown above, whitish beneath; towards the end a band of darker brown hairs runs along the upper portion, those at the end lengthened; but there is a less marked tuft than usual, and there are no black hairs at the end (Blanford's 'Eastern Persia,' vol. ii. p. 72, _with plate_). SIZE.--Head and body, 2.6 inches; tail, exclusive of hair, 4.5 inches; hair, 0.55 inches. This curious little animal was first found and named by Mr. W. T. Blanford, who obtained two specimens, with others of _G. Hurrianae_, in a large area of ground that was flooded. He at first supposed them to be the young of _G. Indicus_, but found on subsequent examination that they were full grown. SUB-FAMILY PHLOEMYINAE. Incisors broad; molars divided into transverse laminae; infra-orbital opening typical; claws large. _GENUS NESOKIA_. Muzzle blunt; ears moderate; claws long; fur rather harsh; tail short, scaly, sparsely haired; palate narrow; incisive foramina short; auditory bullae rather small; incisors broad; first molars with three laminae, the rest with only two.--_Alston_. There has been some confusion regarding the species of this genus. Jerdon, in his 'Mammals of India,' gives only two, including _Arvicola Indica_ and _Mus kok_ of Gray, _Mus providens_ of Elliot, and _Mus pyctoris_ of Hodgson, under _Nesokia Indica_, and classifying _Nesokia Huttoni_ with _N. Hardwickii_; but Dr. Anderson, after a most careful examination of specimens from all parts of India, has proved the distinctness of _Mus providens vel kok_ from the species called by Jerdon _Nesokia Indica_, which, being a synonym of _N. Hardwickii_, he has now renamed _Mus (Nesokia) Blythianus_ (_see_ 'Jour. As. Soc. Beng.' 1878, vol. xlvii. pt. ii.), and Mr. Blanford had clearly demonstrated that _N. Huttoni_ is a distinct species from _N. Hardwickii_ ('Zool. of Persia,' vol. ii. p. 59). NO. 322. NESOKIA HARDWICKII. _Hardwick's Field-Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 173_). HABITAT.--North-western India. DESCRIPTION.--General colour sandy brown on the upper parts, paler on the sides, dusky grey, with a tinge of yellowish-rufous on the under-parts; muzzle, feet, and tail flesh-coloured; ears of the same, but rather darker; head short and bluff; muzzle broad and deep; eye moderately large; ears moderate, rounded, clad with minute hairs; fur soft and moderately long, of three kinds, viz. short under-fur, ordinary hairs, and mixed with them, especially on the back and rump, numerous long black hairs which project a good way beyond the fur. SIZE.--Head and body, nearly 8 inches; tail, about 4-1/2 inches. It is probable that this species is identical with _Mus Griffithi_, though the dimensions given by Horsfield ('Cat. Mam. Mus. E. I. Comp.') and the description do not quite agree. He gives the size of head and body at 6-1/2 inches; tail, 3 inches, and says that the teeth are nearly white. NO. 323. NESOKIA HUTTONI. _Hutton's Field-Rat_. HABITAT.--Northern India, Afghanistan and Persia. DESCRIPTION.--Colour above from ferruginous brown to sandy brown, lower parts isabelline, but frequently appear dark in consequence of the fur being thin or worn; the basal portion dark slaty grey both above and below the animal; hairs on the back soft and of moderate length, a very few black hairs being scattered amongst the brown ones; tail naked, and ears almost naked, the latter having only a few extremely short hairs, thinly scattered, and the feet are covered above very sparsely with short whitish hairs (_see_ Blanford's 'Persia,' vol. ii., for description and plate). Nose and feet flesh-coloured; ears and tail darker and brownish; mammae eight, as usual in the genus. According to Dr. A. Barclay (quoted by Dr. Anderson) the holes of this rat do not run deep, but ramify horizontally just below the surface of the ground. It throws out a mound of earth at the exit of the hole. NO. 324. NESOKIA SCULLYI. _Scully's Field-Rat_. NATIVE NAME.--_Mughi_, Turki. HABITAT.--Kashgaria at Sanju, south-east of Yarkand. DESCRIPTION.--Light rufescent brown above, dirty white beneath; fur fine and silky, blackish-grey at the base, and for two-thirds, the last third of the longer hairs being fawn colour; face earthy brown; whiskers black, tipped with white; ears very short, semi-nude; feet and claws flesh-coloured; tail naked, with a few scattered fine short hairs. SIZE.--Head and body, 6.6 inches; tail, 5.2 inches. NO. 325. NESOKIA PROVIDENS. _The Southern India Field-Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 172_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Kok_, Canarese; _Golatta-koku_, Telegu of the Yanadees; _Yea-kwet_ (?) Burmese. HABITAT.--Southern India and Ceylon, probably Burmah, as one species is mentioned there by Blyth. DESCRIPTION.--Head short and truncated, with a deep muzzle; ears nearly round, semi-nude, sparsely covered with minute hairs; eyes moderately large, half-way between snout and ear; feet largish; claws short and stout; tail nearly equalling length of head and body, semi-nude, ringed, and with short brown bristly hairs round the margin of the annuli; whiskers full and long; colour of the fur--which is harsh and long, as in the rest of the genus, and of the usual three kinds--is a brown, mixed with a tinge of fawn; the under-parts are whitish, with a yellowish tinge; the nose, ears, and feet are dark flesh-coloured or brownish, and the feet are covered with short brown hair. The incisors are orange yellow; the claws yellowish. Sir Walter Elliot states that a variety found in red soil is much redder in colour than that inhabiting the black land. The skull is considerably smaller, according to Dr. Anderson, than that of the Bengal _Nesokia_, _N. Blythiana_, of the same age, from which it is also distinguished by its more outwardly arched malar process of the maxillary, by its considerably smaller teeth and long but less open anterior palatine foramina. The brain case is also relatively shorter and more globular than that of _Nesokia Blythiana_. SIZE.--Head and body, about 7 inches; tail, 6-1/2 inches. The habits of this rat are similar to those of the Bengal species, to which I will allude further on, and it has the same way of taking to water when pursued. Jerdon says that this rat is most destructive to tea-trees, biting the roots just below the surface, more, he believes, because they happen to come in the way of their burrows than to feed on them. Sir Walter Elliot writes: "In its habits it is solitary, fierce, living secluded in spacious burrows, in which it stores up large quantities of grain during the harvest, and when that is consumed lives upon the _huryale_ grass and other roots. The female produces from eight to ten at a birth, which she sends out of her burrow as soon as they are able to provide for themselves. When irritated it utters a low grunting cry, like the bandicoot. The race of people known by the name of Wuddurs, or tank-diggers, capture this animal in great numbers as an article of food, and during the harvest they plunder their earths of the grain stored up for their winter consumption, which in favourable localities they find in such quantities as to subsist almost entirely upon it during that season of the year. A single burrow will sometimes yield as much as half a seer (1 lb.) of grain, containing even whole ears of jowaree (_Holchus sorghum_)." Sir Walter Elliot goes on to give a most interesting account of the construction of the burrows of this animal. NO. 326. NESOKIA BLYTHIANA. _The Bengal Field-Rat_. NATIVE NAME.--_Yenkrai_, Bengalee. HABITAT.--From Ghazipur in the North-west to Eastern Bengal and Cachar. Very common about Calcutta. DESCRIPTION.--Fur coarse as in the genus, profusely intermixed with long piles, more numerous on the lumbar and sacral regions, which project a long way beyond the ordinary pelage. The general colour a dark brown with yellowish hairs intermingled, which give a somewhat rufous tinge, paler beneath. Nose, ears, and feet flesh-coloured; tail naked, ringed, and sparsely covered with short bristly hairs at the margin of the rings; feet moderately large; claws short and stout; eyes moderately large, placed a little nearer to the ear than to the snout; ears rounded, semi-nude, covered with a fine down; whiskers black; incisor teeth rich orange, but generally white towards their tips. The female has eight pairs of mammae. SIZE.--Head and body, 8-1/4 inches; tail, 6-1/2 inches. I have already alluded to the distinguishing features of the skull of this species, as compared with _Nesokia providens_. From the skull of _N. Hardwickii_ it differs in its considerably narrower incisors and smaller and more irregularly laminated molars, and by its long and open anterior palatine foramina. It has also a more arched skull (_Anderson_). This animal, which is included in Jerdon's _Nesokia Indica_, is very generally distributed over Lower Bengal. In the neighbourhood of Calcutta, Alipore for instance, it is abundant, and is a great nuisance in gardens. It burrows in tortuous directions, only a few inches below the ground, there being no definite plan, some being more complicated than others--the principal passage leading to a chamber containing a nest of leaves and grass. I have been told by natives that large quantities of grain are stored by these rats. When I first heard of its aquatic powers, I was led to believe that it was a species of vole, and was particularly desirous to get one, not being aware of any true water-rat in India. However, the reports of the natives have been confirmed by what Sir Walter Elliot states regarding the habits of _N. providens_, and by Dr. Anderson, who made several experiments with these rats in captivity. He says: "To test this aquatic power, I had two rats placed in a large wire birdcage, and the cage partially submerged; if the rats, when in those circumstances, were much annoyed, they immediately dived to the bottom of the cage, where they could be observed running about under water. I also had them removed from the cage, and let loose in the large sheet of water in the Zoological Gardens, between the two iron bridges. When let loose at the bank, and an attempt was made to catch them, they immediately dived; and the stronger of the two did not appear at the surface for some time, when it was observed at a considerable distance from the bank making for the opposite side." In confinement these rats are not engaging pets; they show a considerable amount of surliness and ferocity. I have noticed that on approaching the bars of the cage, one would grind its teeth, put back its ears, and fly at you with a grunt. NO. 327. NESOKIA BARCLAYIANA. _Barclay's Field-Rat_. HABITAT.--Northern India, the North-west and some parts of Bengal (Purneah) and Assam. DESCRIPTION.--General colour brownish; under surface silvery grey; feet and muzzle flesh-colour; tail nearly black; claws horny white; a white band from the nose through the eye; muzzle short and bluff; forehead slightly arched; tail exceeding the length of the trunk, but not equal to head and body, ringed, and sparsely clad; fur coarse; piles moderately long. SIZE.--Head and body, about 8-3/4 inches; tail, 7-1/4 inches. This rat was first discovered by Dr. Arthur Barclay at Goona in Central India, and apparently it appears to be identical with specimens collected at Srinagar in Kashmir, in the Purneah district, and in Cachar. * * * * * The next two have usually been classed as true _Mus_, and the latter is to be found in Jerdon; but, from the breadth of the incisors and the lamination of the molars, which are less sinuous and relatively larger than in _Mus_, and from other characteristics of the skull, they are nearer allied to _Nesokia_ than to the true rats. NO. 328. MUS (NESOKIA) ELLIOTANUS. _Elliot's Field-Rat_. HABITAT.--Bengal, Assam, Khasia hills. DESCRIPTION.--This rat is thus described by Dr. Anderson. It is the nearest approach in size to the bandicoot: "Head short and deep; muzzle deep and broad; eye half-way between ear and nose, moderately large; ears not large, rounded, sparsely covered with short hairs; feet large and well developed, with strong claws, and sparsely clad; tail sparsely covered with short bristles on the margins of the annuli, and nearly equalling the length of the body and head. Pelage coarse, with moderately large piles, most numerous on the back; vibrissae moderately long. "General colour, above brown, with intermixed yellowish or pale brown hairs producing much the same colour as in _M. (N.) Blythianus_; paler on the sides, and passing into greyish on the under-parts; nose and feet flesh-coloured; ears dark brown; tail blackish" ('J. A. S. B.' 1878, vol. xlvii; pt. ii. p. 231). NO. 329. MUS (NESOKIA) GIGANTEUS. _The Bandicoot_ (_Jerdon's No. 174_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Indur_, Sanscrit; _Ghunse_, Hindi; _Ikria_, Bengali; _Heggin_, Canarese; _Pandi-koku_, i.e. pig-rat, Telegu; _Oora-meyoo_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Throughout India; also in Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Fur coarse, consisting of the three kinds, of which the coarser piles are very long, and almost hide the general pelage on the lumbar and dorsal regions. These piles are almost absent on the head, neck, and sides; general colour earthy brown, with yellowish hairs intermixed; the piles blackish-brown; under-parts dusky brown, mixed with grey; limbs brownish; nose, inside of ear and feet flesh-coloured; tail black, ringed, and sparsely haired. The female has twelve mammae. SIZE.--Head and body, from 12 to 15 inches; tail, from 11 to 13. Weight, about 3 lbs. This is a well known rat, but it is not common in Calcutta, although supposed to be so. People frequently mistake very large specimens of the common brown house-rat (_Mus decumanus_) for this animal, which, Blyth remarks, is rare here. Jerdon states that it is common in the fort of Madras, where he killed many, some of large size. When assailed it grunts like a pig, hence its Telegu name _Pandi-koku_, from which the word bandicoot is derived. McMaster states that the bandicoot, though so formidable in appearance, does not show so good a fight as an ordinary English rat, being a sluggish and cowardly animal; and though, from its size and weight, it takes a good deal of worrying, it seldom does much in self defence, and any moderately good dog can kill it with ease. It is however a most destructive animal, doing much damage to granaries, gardens, and even poultry-yards. In some parts of the country, as for instance Fort St. George in Madras, Government used to pay a reward of one anna for every bandicoot killed within the walls. SUB-FAMILY CRICETINAE. CHARACTER.--Molars tuberculate; infra-orbital opening sub-typical, not much narrowed below, and the perpendicular plate little developed; large internal cheek pouches.--_Alston_. _GENUS CRICETUS--THE HAMSTERS_. Form thick-set, with short limbs and tail, the latter sparsely haired, not scaly. "Skull with marked but rounded supra-orbital ridges continued into temporal ridges; coronoid process high and falcate" (_Alston_). The incisors are plain; the molars tuberculated when young, but in the old animal the tubercles are worn down and exhibit laminae. They are very nearly related to the true rats, but differ conspicuously in the possession of large cheek pouches--like those of the pouched monkeys, into which they stuff the grain they carry to their burrows. The hind-limbs have five toes, the fore-feet four only, the thumb being represented by a wart. The European hamster is a very destructive little animal, from its numbers and the quantity of grain it stores away in its burrows. They have two sets of burrows for summer and winter, the latter being the deepest and most complicated. They pass the winter in a torpid state, but make up for it by their activity in the summer months. The young are produced twice in the year and in number varying from six to eighteen, and they develop very rapidly. Their eyes open in about a week, and when a fortnight old the parents drive them off to shift for themselves. The European hamster is a most savage little creature, and has been known to attack even a red-hot bar, and hold on in spite of the pain. [Illustration: Dentition of _Cricetus_.] [Illustration: _Cricetus_.] * * * * * The two following are dwarf species--_Cricetulus_ of some authors:--[22] [Footnote 22: Dallas mentions (Cassell's 'Nat. Hist.') a species from Kumaon, _Cricetus songarus_.] NO. 330. CRICETUS PHAEUS. _The Persian Hamster_. HABITAT.--Yarkand, Gilgit, Persia. DESCRIPTION.--Cinereous above, white below; the colour varies from pure ashy grey to grey with an isabelline tinge.--_Blanford_. SIZE.--Head and body, about 4 inches; tail, 1-1/4 inches. NO. 331. CRICETUS FULVUS. _The Sandy Hamster_. HABITAT.--Yarkand, Gilgit. DESCRIPTION.--Colour above light sandy brown to sandy grey; no band down the back; lower parts, feet, and tail white; fur very soft, fully half an inch long in the middle of the back in some specimens. Rather larger than the last species. (_See_ Blanford's 'Second Yarkand Mission,' p. 45.) SIZE.--Head and body about 4-1/2 inches; tail about 1-1/2 inches. SUB-FAMILY MURINAE. CHARACTER.--Molars tuberculate, at least in youth; infra-orbital opening typical; pterygoid fossae lengthened; auditory bullae moderate; cheek pouches absent or very small; tail scaly, more or less naked, cosmopolitan (_Alston_). Three molars in each jaw, the first of which is the largest and the hinder one the least. I think that, with the exception of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, some of the members of this family are known in every quarter of the globe. _GENUS MUS_. "Muzzle pointed; eyes prominent; ears rather large, sub-naked; fur soft (rarely mixed with spines); pollex rudimentary; claws short; tail moderate or long, scaly, with scattered hairs; no cheek pouches; skull elongate, narrow; temporal ridges nearly parallel; palate compressed; incisive foramina long; auditory bullae moderately large; coronoid process high, falcate; incisors rarely grooved; molars with transverse ridges, each composed in youth of three tubercles" (_Alston_). NO. 332. MUS RATTUS. _The Black Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 175_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Kala-mus_, _Kala-chuha_, Hindi; _Kala-meeyo_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Chiefly Europe, but is said to be of south Asian origin; it is stated to occur in towns near the sea-coast in India, and Kellaart obtained it in Trincomalee only. DESCRIPTION.--Greyish-black above, dark ashy beneath, or, as Kellaart describes it, "above blackish-brown, along the dorsal line nearly black; sides paler, some of the hairs with pale fulvous tips; beneath and inside of limbs fur very short, of a uniform sooty ash colour, separated from the colour above by a distinct line of demarcation; ears large, rounded, slightly fulvous externally" ('Prodromus Faunae Zeylanicae,' p. 58). [Illustration: Dentition of Black Rat.] SIZE.--Head and body about 6-1/2 to 7-1/2 inches; tail, 7-1/2 to 8 inches. Jerdon says of this rat that the muzzle is sharper than that of the brown rat; the ears are more oval; it is lighter in its make, and has much longer hair. Whether this rat be, as Jerdon seems to suspect, imported into India in ships or not, it is generally supposed to have had its origin in southern Asia, and is almost identical with the Egyptian rat (_M. Alexandrinus_). It was the common rat of England, and indeed of northern Europe, whence it was expelled by its formidable rival, the brown rat, before which it has gradually receded, and it is seldom found now in England. NO. 333. MUS DECUMANUS. _The Brown Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 176_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Ghur-ka-chuha_, Hindi; _Demsa-indur_, Bengali; _Manei-ilei_, Canarese; _Gaval-meeyo_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Throughout India, Ceylon, and in some parts of Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Fur greyish-brown, mixed with tawny above, with longer piles of a dark colour, almost black; ears round; tail generally longer than head and body, scaly, with short bristles at the margins of the rings. SIZE.--Head and body, from 8 to 10 inches; tail, from 6 to 11 inches. The brown rat of India is identical with that of Europe, most naturalists being now agreed that it originally came from the East. It was supposed by Pallas that the brown rat crossed over into Russia about the year 1727. When frightened by an earthquake, numbers swam over the Volga from countries bordering on the Caspian Sea. It seems to have driven out the black rat before it wherever it made its appearance. In England it was introduced by shipping about the middle of the last century, and has since then increased to such an extent as to swarm over the whole country, and render the old English black rat a comparatively rare animal. From its ferocity and fecundity the brown rat is a veritable pest; if it cannot beat a retreat from an enemy it will show most determined fight, and in large numbers will attack and kill even men. A story is related by Robert Stephenson, the great engineer, that in a coal-pit in which many horses were employed, the rats, allured by the grain, had gathered in large numbers. On the pit being closed for a short time, and the horses being brought up, the first man who descended on the re-opening of the work was killed, and devoured by the starving rats. Similar stories have been told of men in the sewers of Paris. In the horse slaughterhouses at Montfaucon in Paris, the rats swarm in such incredible numbers that the carcases of horses killed during the day would be picked clean to the bone during the night; sometimes upwards of thirty horses would be so devoured. This shows the carnivorous tendencies of these abominable pests. I confess to a general love for all animals, but I draw the line at rats. There is something repulsive about one of these creatures, and a wicked look about his large protruding eye, like a black glistening bead, and his ways are not pleasant; instead of keeping, as he ought, to sweet grain and pleasant roots, he grubs about for all the carrion and animal matter he can get. I find there is no bait so enticing to the brown rat as a piece of chicken or meat of any kind. I have heard stories of their attacking children, and even grown-up people when asleep, but I cannot vouch for the truth of this beyond what once happened to myself. I was then inhabiting a house which swarmed with these creatures, and one night I awoke with a sharp pain in my right arm. Jumping up, I disturbed a rat, who sprang off the bed, and was chased and killed by me. I found he had given me a nip just below the elbow. I once had a most amusing rat-hunt in the house I now occupy. I had then just taken it over on the part of the Government, in 1868. The whole building is floored with polished marble, which, being new, was like looking-glass. I found an enormous rat, which I took for a bandicoot, in one of the bath-rooms, and, shutting him in for a while, I closed the doors of a very large room adjoining, which was quite empty, and then turned my friend in with a small black-and-tan terrier. The scrimmage that ensued was most laughable, as both rat and dog kept slipping and sliding all over the place. At last the former was pinned in a corner, where he made a most determined stand, and left several marks before he died. They seldom now come so high as the third story, but we had two or three last year which dug a hole through a brick wall into my study, and they were surreptitiously disposed of unknown to my eldest little girl, whose passionate love for every living creature made her take even the rats under her protection, and one of them would come out every morning in the verandah to be fed by her with crumbs and grain. This one was spared for a while, but I was not sorry to find one day that it had fallen into a tub of water in a bath-room and was drowned. The brown rat breeds several times in the year, and has from ten to fourteen at a time, and it is to be hoped that there is considerable mortality amongst the infants. I have never kept rats as pets, but have noticed amongst mice a tendency on the part of the mother to devour her offspring. I have no doubt that this also is the case with the brown rat, and aids in keeping down its numbers. It is stated that they will attack, kill, and eat each other. The Rev. J. G. Wood remarks in his Natural History: "From some strange cause the male rats far outnumber the females, the proportion being about eight of the former to three or four of the latter. This disproportion of the sexes may possibly be caused by the cannibalistic habits of the rat, the flesh of the female being more tender than that of the opposite sex. Whatever may be the cause, it is clear that the wider increase of these creatures is greatly checked by the comparative paucity of females." During the late siege of Paris by the Germans, amongst the various articles of food which necessity brought into use, rats held a high place as a delicacy. It is a difficult matter to stop the burrowing of rats; the best plan is to fill the holes with Portland cement mixed with bits of bottle glass broken in small pieces. It is said that quicklime will temporarily prevent rats from entering a hole, as the lime burns their feet. A friend of mine lately told me of some wonderful Japanese bird-lime which he uses. It is spread on a board, and will retain any rat that puts even one foot on it. An albino variety is common, and is sold for pets. Rats are partial to certain scents, and some are consequently used by trappers. In Cooley's 'Cyclopaedia' the following receipts are given:-- 1. Powdered cantharides steeped in French brandy. It is said that rats are so fond of this that if a little be rubbed on the hands they may be handled with impunity. 2. Powdered assafoetida 8 grains, oil of rhodium 2 drams, oil of aniseed 1 dram, oil of lavender 1/2 dram. Mix by agitation. 3. Oil of aniseed 1/2 ounce, tincture assafoetida 1/4 ounce. 4. Oil of aniseed 1/4 ounce, nitrous acid 2 to 3 drops, musk (triturated with a little sugar) 1 grain. These scents are not only rubbed on traps, but a few drops are mixed with the various rat poisons, of which perhaps the most efficacious is phosphorous paste. NO. 334. MUS ANDAMANENSIS. _The Andaman Rat_. HABITAT.--The Andaman and Nicobar islands. DESCRIPTION.--A little darker on the back than _Mus decumanus_, paler on the sides, and dull white below. "The long piles are at once distinguished by their flattened spinous character, which is also slightly the case in _M. rattus_, though much less conspicuously than in the present species. It would appear to be a burrower in the ground" (_Blyth_). Ears round as in the brown rat. SIZE.--Head and body, about 8 inches; tail the same. NO. 335. MUS ROBUSTULUS. _The Burmese Common Rat_. HABITAT.--British Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Dark-brown above, under-parts whitish, stoutly formed, with tail not quite so long as head and body; feet conspicuously white. SIZE.--Head and body, about 6 inches; tail, a little shorter. Mr. Mason remarks of this rat that they are only second to the white ants for the mischief they perpetrate. "They burrow in the gardens, and destroy the sweet potatoes; they make their nests in the roofs by day, and visit our houses and larders by night. They will eat into teak drawers, boxes, and book-cases, and can go up and down anything but glass. In the province of Tonghoo they sometimes appear in immense numbers before harvest, and devour the paddy like locusts. In both 1857 and 1858 the Karens on the mountains west of the city lost all their crops from this pest." They seem to migrate in swarms, and cross rivers by swimming. Mr. Cross captured one out of a pair he observed swimming the Tenasserim river at a place where it is more than a quarter of a mile wide. _M. Berdmorei_ is the same as this species. * * * * * The following three are Burmese rats collected by Dr. Anderson during the Yunnan Expedition, and are new species named by him:-- NO. 336. MUS SLADENI. _Sladen's Rat_. HABITAT.--Kakhyen hills; Ponsee at 3500 feet. DESCRIPTION.--Head rather elongated; snout somewhat elongate; muzzle rather deep; ears large and rounded, sparsely clad with short hairs; feet well developed, hinder ones rather strong; claws moderately long and sharp; the feet pads markedly developed, indicating an arboreal habit of life; tail slightly exceeding length of head and body, coarsely ringed, there being three rings to each one-tenth of an inch; the hairs sparse and brown; general colour of upper surface reddish-brown, more rufous than brownish, palest on the head, many hairs with broad yellow tips; cheeks greyish-rufous; chin, throat, and chest whitish, also the remaining under-parts, but with a tinge of yellowish; ears and tail pale brownish. (Abridged from Anderson's 'Anat. and Zool. Res.' p. 305.) SIZE.--Head and body of one, about 6.30 inches; tail, 7.20 inches. Dr. Anderson says this species is closely allied to Hodgson's _Mus nitidus_, but its skull is less elongated, with a shorter facial portion, with very much shorter nasals, and with a more abruptly defined frontal contraction than either in _M. nitidus_ or _M. rufescens_ so called. He adds that this appears to be both a tree and a house rat. NO. 337. MUS RUBRICOSA. _The Small Red Rat of the Kakhyen Hills_. HABITAT.--Kakhyen hills and the Burma-Chinese frontier at Ponsee, and in the houses of the Shan Chinese at Hotha. DESCRIPTION.--"Snout moderately pointed and long; ears small, and somewhat pointed; hind foot long and narrow; claws moderately long, compressed and sharply pointed; upper surface dark rusty brown, darkest on the middle and back, and palest on the muzzle, head and shoulder; on the sides and lower part of shoulder the reddish brown tends to pass into greyish; feet greyish; the sides of the snout greyish; all the under-parts silvery grey tending to white, without any trace of rufous, or but with a very faint yellowish blush; the tail, dull brown, is somewhat shorter than the body and head, and it is coarsely ringed, 2-1/2 rings to one-tenth of an inch, the hair being short, sparse, and dark brown" ('Anat. and Zool. Res.' p. 306). SIZE.--Head and body, 5.70 inches; tail, 5.15 inches. NO. 338. MUS YUNNANENSIS. _The Common House Rat of Yunnan_. HABITAT.--Yunnan, at Ponsee; Hotha and Teng-yue-chow. DESCRIPTION.--"Muzzle rather short and broad; ear large and rounded, its height considerably exceeding the distance between the inner canthus and the front of the muzzle, sparsely clad with short hairs; feet well developed; hind foot moderately long; pads prominent; claws compressed, strong, curved, and sharp; tail coarsely ringed, three rings to one-tenth of an inch; upper surface dark rich brown, with intermixed pale hairs, with broad brown tips, the sides of the face below the moustachial area, chin, throat, and all the under-parts yellowish washed with rufous; the ears and tail dusky brown; feet pale yellowish, and more or less brownish above; the tail varies in length, but is generally longer than the body and head, although it may occasionally fall short of that length" ('Anat. and Zool. Res.' pp, 306, 307). SIZE.--Head and body, 5.70 inches; tail, 5.65 inches. An adult female had a much longer tail. NO. 339. MUS INFRALINEATUS. _The Striped-bellied Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 178_). HABITAT.--Madras; Bustar forests. DESCRIPTION.--"Above, the fur fulvous, with the shorter hairs lead coloured; throat, breast, and belly pure white, with a central pale fulvous brown streak; tail slightly hairy."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 5-1/2 inches; tail, not quite 5 inches; another about 5 inches; tail, 4-1/4 inches. Jerdon calls this a field rat in his popular name for it, but I think that the term should be restricted to the _Nesokia_ or true field and earth-burrowing rats. He is of opinion that Gray's _Mus fulvescens_ from Nepal is the same, the description tallying to some extent, concluding with: "in one specimen a central yellow streak," i.e. on the belly. NO. 340. MUS BRUNNEUS. _The Tree Rat_ (_Jerdon's. No. 179_). HABITAT.--India and Ceylon. The common house rat of Nepal. DESCRIPTION.--Above rusty brown; below rusty, more or less albescent; extremities pale, almost flesh-coloured; ears rather long; head rather elongated; tail equal to and sometimes exceeding head and body. SIZE.--Head and body, from 8-1/2 to 9-1/2 inches; tail, from 9 to 9-1/2 inches. Jerdon states that this rat, which Dr. Gray considered identical with _M. decumanus_ (_see_ 'Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.' vol. xv. 1845, p. 267), "is to be found throughout India, not habitually living in holes, but coming into houses at night; and, as Blyth remarks, often found resting during the day on the _jhil-mil_ or venetian blinds. It makes a nest in mango-trees or in thick bushes and hedges. Hodgson calls it the common house rat of Nepal, and Kellaart also calls it the small house rat of Trincomalee." It is probable that this is the rat which used to trouble me much on the outskirts of the station of Nagpore. It used to come in at night, evidently from outside, for the house was not one in which even a mouse could have got shelter, with masonry roof, and floors paved with stone flags. Kellaart evidently considered it as distinct from _M. decumanus_, which he stated to be rare in houses in the town of Trincomalee, though abundant in the dockyard. NO. 341. MUS RUFESCENS. _The Rufescent Tree Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 180_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Gachua-indur_, Bengali; _Ghas-meeyo_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--India generally; Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Fur above pale yellowish-brown; under fur lead coloured, mixed with longer piles of stiff, broad, plumbeous black tipped hairs; head long; muzzle narrow; whiskers long and black; ears large, subovate, slightly clad with fine hairs; eyes large; incisor teeth yellow; feet brownish above, but the sides and toes are whitish; tail longer than head and body. SIZE.--Head and body, from 5-1/2 to 7-1/2 inches; tail from 6-1/2 to 8-1/2 inches. This is _M. flavescens_ of Elliot, and is so noticed in Kellaart's 'Prodromus.' He calls it "the white-bellied tree-rat of Ceylon," and he states that it lives on trees or in the ceiling of houses in preference to the lower parts. Sir Walter Elliot observed it chiefly in stables and out-houses at Dharwar. According to Buchanan-Hamilton it makes its nests in cocoanut-trees and bamboos, bringing forth five or six young in August and September. "They eat grains, which they collect in their nests, also young cocoanuts. They enter houses at night, but do not live there." Kellaart's _M. tetragonurus_ is a variety of this, if not identical. NO. 342. MUS NIVEIVENTER. _The White-bellied House Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 181_). HABITAT.--The lower Himalayan ranges. DESCRIPTION.--"Above blackish-brown, shaded with rufous; below entirely pure white, tail and all."--_Blyth_. SIZE.--Head and body, 5-1/4 to 7 inches; tail, 6 to 7-1/2 inches. Hodgson stated this to be a house rat in Nepal, but not very common. Jerdon found it common at Darjeeling. Specimens have been received from Mussoorie. NO. 343. MUS NITIDUS. _The Shining Brown Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 182_). HABITAT.--Nepal; Darjeeling. DESCRIPTION.--Dusky brown above, dusky hoary below. According to Hodgson it is "distinguished for its smooth coat or pelage, wherein the long hairy piles are almost wanting. It is a house rat, like _M. niveiventer_, but much rarer, and frequents the mountains rather than the valleys." The long hairs are 11/16 inch in length, horny at the base, with black tip, the short fur ashy, with rufous tips. SIZE.--Head and body, 6-1/2 inches; tail 7-1/4 inches. Blyth writes of this species ('J. A. S. B.' vol. xxxii. 1863, p. 343): "We have several specimens of what I take to be this rat from Darjeeling. They are especially distinguished by the fineness and softness of the fur. One specimen only, of eight from Darjeeling, which I refer to this species, has the lower parts pure white, abruptly defined." There is a smaller rat, only four inches in length, which agrees exactly with the above, which Hodgson named _M. horietes_. It is not mentioned in Blyth's Catalogue, but it has not been overlooked by Blyth, as Jerdon's remarks would lead one to suppose, for in the 'Memoir on the Rats and Mice in India,' by the former, in the 'J. A. S. B.' vol. xxxii. for 1863, it is entered with a quotation from Hodgson. NO. 344. MUS CAUDATIOR. _The Chestnut Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 183_). HABITAT.--The lower Eastern Himalayas, i.e., Nepal, Darjeeling, &c.; also in Burmah, Lower Pegu, and Martaban. DESCRIPTION.--"Above a fine bright cinnamon colour, with inconspicuous black tips; the under-parts white, which is abruptly divided from the cinnamon hue above" (_Blyth_). Sometimes yellowish-white (_Jerdon_). Muzzle sharp; ears and tail long. SIZE.--Head and body, about six inches; tail, 7-3/4 inches. According to Blyth the Nepal specimens are darker than those from Burmah, which he says "differs only from the Nepalese animal of Mr. Hodgson by having the upper parts entirely of a bright cinnamon colour." NO. 345. MUS CONCOLOR. _The Common Thatch Rat of Pegu_. HABITAT.--Upper and Lower Burmah, Malayan peninsula. DESCRIPTION.--I have been unable to trace any accurate description of this rat, which Blyth says "conducts from the long-tailed arboreal rats to the ordinary house mice." In his 'Catalogue of the Mammals of Burmah,' published in the 'Jour. Asiatic Soc. Beng.' for 1875, he remarks that "it requires to be critically examined in the fresh state." In the 'J. A. S. B.,' vol. xxviii. p. 295, he describes a young one as dark greyish mouse colour; but this is not reliable, as the young rats and mice change colour as they attain full growth.[23] [Footnote 23: Since writing the above, Dr. Anderson has kindly allowed me to examine the specimens of _Mus concolor_ in the museum, and in the adult state they are considerably more rufescent. In one specimen, allowing for the effects of the spirit, the fur was a bright rufescent brown; but, whatever be the tint of the prevailing colour, it pervades the whole body, being but slightly paler on the under-parts. Size, about 4 inches; tail, about 4-1/2 inches.--R. A. S.] NO. 346. MUS PALMARUM. _The Nicobar Tree Rat_. HABITAT.--Nicobar Islands. NO. 347. MUS CEYLONUS. HABITAT.--Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Fur soft, lead colour; hair of upper parts tipped with dark fawn and black; ears large, naked; whiskers long, black; tail longer than the head and body, scaly. SIZE.--Head and body, 4-3/4 inches; tail, 6 inches. "This small rat is found in out-houses in the cinnamon gardens at Colombo. I have no reason to think it to be the young of the former species (_M. decumanus_); the teeth were well developed; the darker colour and long tail will easily distinguish the species from other Colombo rats" (_Kellaart_). The character of the molar teeth is all that can be depended on in the foregoing description, and this may require further investigation. The young of rats and mice are always darker than the adults, and the tail is longer in proportion. * * * * * The following are doubtful species:-- NO. 348. MUS PLURIMAMMIS. _Jerdon's No. 177_. This, which Blyth considered a good species, is, I am informed, referable with _M. Taraiyensis_ and _M. Morungensis_ to Gray's _Nesokia Bengalensis_. The type and drawing of it are in the British Museum. NO. 349. MUS AEQUICAUDALIS. of Hodgson, described in Horsfield's Catalogue as pure dark brown above, with a very slight cast of rufescent in a certain aspect; underneath from the chin to the vent, with interior of thighs, yellowish-white; ears nearly an inch long; head proportionately long ('Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.' new series, iii. p. 203). This, with Blyth's _M. nemoralis_, seems identical with _M. brunneus_. _Mus arboreus_ of Horsfield's Catalogue is _Mus rufescens_. It remains to be seen whether there is sufficient difference between _M. rufescens_ and _M. niveiventer_ to warrant the separation of the latter as a distinct species. * * * * * The following species lead on to the mice--beginning with the long-tailed arboreal species, _Vandeleuria_ of Gray, which connect the arboreal rats with the house mice. The characteristics of _Vandeleuria_ are: upper incisors triangular, grooved in front; ears hairy; fur soft, with long bristles interspersed; long tail, sparsely haired; hind feet very long, slender; soles bald beneath; toes .45 long, slender, compressed, the pads much more strongly developed than in ground mice; the inner and outer toes with a small flattened nail. NO. 350. MUS OLERACEUS. _The Long-tailed Tree Mouse_ (_Jerdon's No. 184_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Marad-ilei_, Canarese; _Meina-yelka_, Telegu of the Yanadees (_Jerdon_). HABITAT.--Throughout India from north to south, but has not been reported from Ceylon. In Burmah Dr. Anderson found it in the valley of the Nampoung, a frontier stream dividing Burmah from China. DESCRIPTION.--Upper surface rich rufous or chestnut red, paling to brown on the ears and muzzle before the eyes; under-parts white, with a yellowish tinge; feet pale brown, shading off into white on the toes; under surface of feet yellowish; tail brownish or dusky with grey hairs; it tapers to a point, finely ringed; sparsely haired between the rings, the hairs more numerous and longer towards the tips. The length of the head, according to Dr. Anderson, whose description ('Anat. and Zool. Res.' p. 313) is more complete than Jerdon's, is about one-third the length of the body; the muzzle is moderately long and slightly contracted behind the moustachial area; eyes large; ears ovate, sparsely clad. SIZE.--Head and body, from 2-1/2 to 3 inches; tail one-half longer than the combined length of body and head. Jerdon says of this pretty little mouse that "it is most abundant in the south of India, where it frequents trees, and very commonly palm-trees, on which it is said to make its nest generally. It, however, occasionally places its nest in the thatch of houses, on beams, &c. It is very active, and from its habits difficult to procure" ('Mammals of India,' p. 202). According to Sykes it constructs its nest of oleraceous herbs in the fields, and Hodgson states it to tenant woods and coppices in Nepal. NO. 351. MUS NILAGIRICUS. _The Neilgherry Tree Mouse_ (_Jerdon's No. 185_). HABITAT.--Ootacamund. DESCRIPTION.--"Above deep but bright chestnut brown, beneath bright fawn yellow, with a distinct line of demarcation between the two colours; head rather elongated; ears long, oval; tail somewhat hairy."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/2 inches; tail, 5 inches. This tree mouse was discovered and named by Dr. Jerdon. He says: "The first I observed was brought into the house by a cat. I afterwards, on two or three occasions, found the nest, a mass of leaves and grass, on shrubs and low trees, from four to five feet from the ground, and on one occasion it was occupied by at least eight or ten apparently full-grown mice." NO. 352. MUS BADIUS. _The Bay Tree Mouse_. HABITAT.--The valley of the Sittang, Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--"Similar to _M. oleraceus_, but with the eye fully twice as large, and black whiskers; colour of the upper parts a more rufous chestnut or cinnamon hue, of the lower parts white, almost pure."--_Blyth_. SIZE.--Head and body, 3 inches; tail, 4-3/8 inches. NO. 353. MUS GLIROIDES. _The Cherrapoonjee Tree Mouse_. HABITAT.--Khasia hills. DESCRIPTION.--Fur exceedingly dense and fine, of a light brown, tinged with fawn; the basal two-thirds of the piles are dusky ash coloured; the lower parts are white, very faintly tinged with fawn; the white purest about the lips and chin; whiskers long; feet large and sparsely clad with white hairs; a distinct brown mark on each hind foot reaching almost to the division of the toes; ears smallish, ovoid, naked. SIZE.--Head and body, 2 inches; tail (?) mutilated. Blyth says this animal has much of the aspect of the European dormouse (_Myoxus avellanarius_), but nothing is said about its dentition, which would at once settle the question whether the young specimen with its imperfect tail were a true _Mus_ or a species of _Myoxus_.[24] [Footnote 24: See Appendix A for description and dentition of _Myoxus_.] NO. 354. MUS PEGUENSIS. _The Pegu Tree Mouse_. HABITAT.--The Sittang valley, Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Fulvescent olive brown on the upper parts, yellowish-white below; whiskers remarkably long; the tail very long and conspicuously haired towards the tip; more so, Blyth remarks, than any other mouse, especially when held up to the light. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/8 inches; tail, 3-7/8; in one specimen, 4-1/2 inches. * * * * * We now come to the terrestrial or house mice. NO. 355. MUS URBANUS. _The Common Indian Mouse_ (_Jerdon's No. 186_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Lengtia-indur_, Bengali; _Mesuri_, _Musi_, _Chuhi_, Hindi. HABITAT.--Throughout India and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Somewhat resembling the English mouse, but with very much longer, coarser tail, larger eyes, and smaller ears; dusky reddish-brown above, somewhat paler below; the feet paler still, whitish in some; the tail nude, thick at base, longer by an inch than the head and body, and of a dark brown colour. The young are more dusky. SIZE.--Head and body, about 2 to 3 inches; tail, 3 to 4 inches. I have kept these mice in confinement for considerable periods, and have had many opportunities of studying their habits of late. During many years' residence in the Currency Office, I never once found a mouse in my private quarters on the third story, although I frequently observed them in the vaults and strong rooms on the ground floor. During my absence at Simla in 1880 my quarters were unoccupied, as the Public Works Department were giving the building a thorough repair. It was then, I suppose, a few of the mice from the ground floor were driven upstairs, and, being unmolested by us, as we liked to see the little things playing about, they increased to a most uncomfortable extent within eight months. I failed to discover their breeding places, though I suspect they made much use of a large doll's-house for the purpose, for on taking out the front staircase, under which the bells of the establishment were hung, I found a nest of torn paper, and I caught two young ones in one of the rooms. Some of them came out every night whilst we were at dinner, and paid a visit to a rose-headed parraquet (_Palaeornis rosa_), mounting up on Polly's perch, and sitting down to supper in the tin receptacles for food at each end. She generally treated them with silent contempt, or gave a snappish little peck if they were too familiar; sometimes, when they were too sky-larky, she retreated to her ring above, where she swung and looked down at them from a coign of vantage. Their agility in running up and down the wires of a cage is marvellous. They have also an extraordinary faculty for running up a perpendicular board, and the height from which they can jump is astounding. One day, in my study, I chased one of these mice on to the top of a book-case. Standing on some steps, I was about to put my hand over him, when he jumped on to the marble floor and ran off. I measured the height, and have since measured it again, 8 feet 9-1/2 inches. I consider this species the most muscular of all mice of the same size. I have had at the same time in confinement an English mouse (albino), a Bengal field mouse, and house mice from Simla of another species, and none of them could show equal activity. I use, for the purpose of taming mice, a glass fish-globe, out of which none of the other mice could get, but I have repeatedly seen specimens of _M. urbanus_ jump clear out of the opening at the top. They would look up, gather their hind quarters together, and then go in for a high leap. They are much more voracious than the Simla or other mice. The allowance of food given would be devoured in less than half the time taken by the others, and they are more given to gnawing. What sort of mothers they are in freedom I know not, but one which produced four young ones in one of my cages devoured her offspring before they were a week old. I have two before me just now as I write, and they have had a quarrel about the highest place on a little grated window. The larger one got the advantage, so the other seized hold of her tail, and gave it a good nip. * * * * * Now we come to some doubtful species, doubtful in the sense that they should not be separated, but considered as one to be named afterwards, according to priority of discovery. Dr. Anderson is at present investigating the matter, and we must await his decision, but from such external observations as I have been able to make, it appears probable that the following will prove identical:-- _Mus homourus_; _Mus Darjeelingensis_; _Mus Tytleri_; _Mus Bactrianus_; _Mus cervicolor_(?)--_Jerdon's Nos. 187, 189, 190, 191, and 192_. These are all hill mice, except the last, and found under the same conditions. NO. 356. MUS HOMOURUS. HABITAT.--Lower Himalayan range. DESCRIPTION.--Dark rufescent above, rufescent white below; hands and feet fleshy white; tail equal to length of head and body; "fur more gerbille-like in character than in _M. musculus_" (or _urbanus_), stated to be the common house mouse of the Himalayan hill stations from the Punjab to Darjeeling. Stated by Hodgson to have eight teats only in the female, other mice having ten. Possibly his description was founded on young specimens. I myself was of opinion for some time that I had got two species of hill mice, a larger and a smaller, the latter being so much darker in colour, but I kept them till the young ones attained full size in six months, at which time they were not distinguishable from the old ones. Hodgson may have overlooked the pectoral mammae when he noted the number. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/2 inches; tail, 3-1/2 inches. NO. 357. MUS DARJEELINGENSIS. DESCRIPTION.--Dusky brown, with a slight chestnut reflection; under-parts pale yellowish-white. SIZE.--Head and body, 3 inches; tail, 2-1/2 inches. NO. 358. MUS TYTLERI. HABITAT.--Dehra Doon. DESCRIPTION.--Fur long and full, pale, sandy mouse-coloured above, isabelline below; pale on the well-clad limbs, and also on the tail laterally and underneath. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-3/4 inches; tail, 2-3/4 inches. NO. 359. MUS BACTRIANUS. HABITAT.--Punjab, Kashmir, Candahar, Baluchistan, and Southern Persia. DESCRIPTION.--Upper parts brown above, with a sandy tinge, more on the head; the longer hairs with a dusky tip; the basal two-thirds deep ash; under-parts and feet white; tail clad thinly with fine whitish hair; the fur in general long, dense, and silky. SIZE.--Head and body, from 2-1/4 to 3-1/4 inches; tail, about the same. This is the mouse, I think, that I caught in the house at Simla in 1880. Of eight specimens I got--seven in a cupboard in the dining-room and one in a bath-room--I sent two in spirits to the Indian Museum and brought down to Calcutta three alive, which I kept for about seven months, when they died. I have since then seen living specimens of _M. bactrianus_ from Kohat, with which they appear to be identical. They also resemble--I speak under correction--_M. cervicolor_, which is a field mouse found in Bengal. I made the following notes regarding them: Fur very fine, close and silky, rufescent brown, more rufous on the head, isabelline below; feet flesh-coloured, hinder ones large, much larger than those of the English mouse; the hind-quarters are also more powerful; has a very pretty way of sitting up, with the body bent forwards, and its hands clasped in an attitude of supplication. The young mice seem darker both above and below, and are much more shy than the old ones, of which one soon after being caught took bits of cake from my fingers through the bars of its cage. More delicate looking than _Mus urbanus_, with a much shorter and finer tail; less offensive in smell. Dr. Anderson got, not long ago, two of these mice in a box from Kohat. They bore the journey uncommonly well, and were in lively condition when I saw them at the Museum. Whilst we were talking about them, we noticed an act of intelligence for which I should not have given them credit had I not seen it with my own eyes. They were in a box with a glass front; in the upper left-hand corner was a small sleeping chamber, led up to by a sloping piece of wood. The entrance of this chamber was barred by wires bent into the form of a lady's hair-pin, and passed through holes in the roof of the box. The mice had been driven out, and the sleeping-chamber barred, for they were having their portraits taken. Whilst we were talking we found, to our surprise, that one mouse was inside the chamber, although the bars were down. There seemed hardly space for it to squeeze through; however, it was driven out, and we went on with our conversation, but found, on looking at the cage again, that our little friend was once more inside, so he was driven out again, and we kept an eye on him. To our great surprise and amusement we saw him trot up his sloping board, put his little head on one side, and seize one of the wires, which worked very loosely in its socket, give it a hitch up, when he adroitly caught it lower down, hitched it up again and again till he got it high enough to allow him to slip in underneath, and then he was quite happy once more. He had only been in the box two days, so he was not long in finding out the weak point. I begin to believe now in rats dipping their tails into oil-bottles, and other wonderful stories of murine sagacity that one reads of. Mice, are supposed to live from two-and-a-half to three years. I had the English albino above mentioned for three. NO. 360. MUS CRASSIPES. _The Large-footed Mouse_ (_Jerdon's No. 188_). HABITAT.--Mussoorie and, according to Jerdon, the Neilgherries. DESCRIPTION.--This is stated to be like _M. homourus_, but the difference is well marked in a very much longer tail and much larger feet. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-3/4 inches; tail, 3/4 inch; hind foot, 3/4 inch. NO. 361. MUS SUBLIMIS. HABITAT.--Ladakh, 13,000 feet. DESCRIPTION.--Brown above; whitish below; the colours gradually blending; fur soft and long; all except the tips dark slaty grey, the terminal portions of the shorter hairs being light brown, and of the longer hairs dark brown; upper whiskers black; lower white; ears oval; feet thinly clad with short light brown hairs; tail with short bristly hairs, dusky brown above, whitish below; tail longer than head and body. SIZE.--Head and body, 2.6 inches; tail, 3.05; length of hind foot, 0.83 inch. Mr. Blanford, who named the above species, which was procured in the expedition to Yarkand, is doubtful whether it may not be referable to the last species. NO. 362. MUS PACHYCERCUS. HABITAT.--Yarkand. DESCRIPTION.--Sandy brown above; under-parts white; fur soft and very like _M. bactrianus_; ears large, rounded, hairy; feet clad above with white hair; soles naked; tail thick, shorter than head and body, and thinly clad with white bristles throughout; skin dark above, pale below; incisors deep yellow. SIZE.--Head and body, 2.35 inches; tail, 1.9 to 2 inches. Mr. Blanford says this is a house mouse. It is figured in Blanford's 'Mammalia of the Second Yarkand Mission.' NO. 363. MUS ERYTHRONOTUS. HABITAT.--Yarkand, Persia. DESCRIPTION.--Rufous, washed with blackish above, white below, abruptly separated; hairs on the back are slaty at the base, then blackish and bright ferruginous at the tips, the extreme points being black, except on the sides, where the black tip is wanting; upper whiskers black, lower white; ears large, rounded, naked; feet white above, dusky and naked below; tail equal to head and body, nearly naked. Mammae six. SIZE.--Head and body, 4 inches; tail, 4.2 inches. This mouse is figured and carefully described in Blanford's 'Eastern Persia,' vol. ii. p. 35. NO. 364. MUS CERVICOLOR. _The Fawn-coloured Field Mouse_. HABITAT.--Bengal, Nepal, Southern India. DESCRIPTION.--"Distinguished by its short tail. Above dull fawn, below sordid white; lining of ears and extremities pale" (_Blyth_). "Ears large, hairy" (_Jerdon_). Of the specimens I have seen the fur is soft and of a light sandy brown above and white below, very like _M. bactrianus_. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/2 inches; tail, 2-7/8 inches. NO. 365. MUS TERRICOLOR. _The Earth-coloured Field Mouse_. HABITAT.--India generally, I think. It has been found in the valley of the Ganges, in Bengal, in the Santal district west of Midnapore, and Southern India. DESCRIPTION.--The colour varies according to the soil, but in general fawn brown, more or less rufescent--those from the valley of the Ganges being darker than those from the ferruginous soil of other parts. The under-parts are white, abruptly separated from the brown; fur short and soft. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-1/2 inches; tail, 2-1/8 inches. NO. 366. MUS PEGUENSIS. _The Pegu Field Mouse_. HABITAT.--The valley of the Sitang River, Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--"Fur very full and dense, pale fulvescent olive brown on the upper parts, slightly yellowish-white below; whiskers remarkably long" (_Blyth_). Tail longer than head and body, and well clad with hairs, especially towards the tip. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/8 inches; tail, nearly 4 inches. NO. 367. MUS NITIDULUS. _The Shiny Little House Mouse of Pegu_. HABITAT.--The Sitang valley in Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--The description given of this mouse by Blyth is extremely vague. He says: "A house mouse apparently, with tail equal to head and body, and uniformly furnished with minute setae to the end; ears large and ample; colour nearly that of _M. decumanus_, with the under-parts subdued white, tolerably well defined." He remarks further on that the front teeth are conspicuously larger than those of _M. musculus_ and _M. urbanus_. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/4 inches; tail, the same. NO. 368. MUS BEAVENI. _Beaven's Mouse_. HABITAT.--Maubhum, and, according to Blyth's Catalogue, Burmah, valley of the Salween. DESCRIPTION.--"Above rusty brown, medially black; lips and the whole under side pale ochraceous; feet white, all the hair being slate coloured at the base; tail above brown, below with white hairs; upper whiskers black, lower white. Rather smaller and more delicately built than our common harvest mouse."--_Prof. Peters_, 'P. Z. S.' 1866, p. 559. NO. 369. MUS CUNICULARIS. _The Little Rabbit-Mouse_. HABITAT.--Cherrapunji, Assam. DESCRIPTION.--"A small field (?) mouse, remarkable for its ample ears and tail shorter than head and body; colour of a wild rabbit above, below white; and the feet with brownish hairs above, but with white hairs upon the toes; tail conspicuously ringed; the setae minute and inconspicuous."--_Blyth_. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-1/2 inches; tail, 2-1/8 inches; ears posteriorly half an inch. NO. 370. MUS ERYTHROTIS. _The Cherrapunji Red-eared Mouse_. HABITAT.--Cherrapoonji, Assam. DESCRIPTION.--A small mouse with very deep soft fur, very long and silky, of a rich dark brown colour, grizzled and brightly tinged with rufous or rufo-ferruginous towards the tail, and upon the ears conspicuously. In such spirit specimens as I have seen the colour was darker than in life, but the soft silkiness of the fur could be seen to advantage as it floated in the clear liquid; the lower parts are whitish, tinged with fawn; feet with brown hairs above; ears small and hirsute, and the tail is also hairy. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-1/4 inches; tail, 2-3/8 inches. NO. 371. MUS FULVIDIVENTRIS. HABITAT.--Ceylon, Trincomalee. DESCRIPTION.--This is a small mouse very like _Mus cervicolor_, or perhaps _M. terricolor_, which it more nearly approaches in size. Kellaart in his 'Prodromus,' calls it _cervicolor_, but Blyth afterwards separated it under the name given above, though after all I think he was doubtful whether it ought to have been so distinguished. The fur is long, soft, and glossy, fulvous fawn brown above, paler below; feet dingy grey. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-9/10 inches; tail, 2-5/10 inches. NO. 372. MUS KAKHYENENSIS. _The Kakhyen Mouse_. HABITAT.--Burmo-Chinese frontier, Ponsee. DESCRIPTION.--Differs from _Mus urbanus_ by its shorter tail, longer hind feet, and larger ears; muzzle moderately deep, and short; ears large and rounded; fur long, dense, and soft, reddish-brown on the upper parts, with a dark speckled appearance due to the stronger hairs having broad brown tips; sides of the head dusky greyish; chin to vent and under-parts greyish-white, with a silvery sheen; feet dusky pale brown; ears and upper surface of tail dark brown, under surface of tail pale brown.--_Anderson_. SIZE.--Head and body, 2.90 inches; tail, 3.36 inches. This mouse was discovered and named by Dr. Anderson, who procured one example at Ponsee, where it occurs, he says, on the old rice and Indian corn clearings. The next species is also a new one discovered and named by him. NO. 373. MUS VICULORUM. _The Kakhyen House Mouse_. HABITAT.--The Burmo-Chinese frontier, Ponsee. DESCRIPTION.--Muzzle rather sharply pointed, moderately long and not deep; ears moderately large, rounded; its height a little in excess of the distance between the inner canthus and the front of the muzzle; hind-feet not long; tail a little longer than the body and head, finely ringed, five rings to one-tenth of an inch; fur soft, short, dense, dull dark brown on the upper parts, tending to blackish on the back, paling to brownish on the sides, and passing into pale dusky brownish on the under parts with a silvery sheen; feet brownish; toes with shining greyish-yellow hairs; ears and tail brown. (_See_ Anderson's 'Anat. and Zool. Res.,' p. 308.) SIZE.--Head and body, 2-9/10 inches; tail, 3.14 inches. This species, according to Dr. Anderson, frequents the villages and houses of the Kakhyens. He obtained it at Ponsee. * * * * * We now come to an interesting little group of mice, of which the hairs are mixed with flat spines, which form the genus _Leggada_ of Gray, a term taken from the Wuddur name for the next species. _GENUS LEGGADA_. CHARACTERISTICS.--Molars high, with somewhat convex crowns; the cross ridges of the upper grinders deeply three-lobed; the front one with an additional lunate lobe at the base of its front edge; fur fine, mixed with numerous spines somewhat flattened. NO. 374. LEGGADA PLATYTHRIX. _The Brown Spiny Mouse_ (_Jerdon's No. 194_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Leggade_ and _Kal-yelka_, of Wuddurs; _Gijeli-gadu_, Telegu, of Yanadees; _Kal-ilei_, Canarese. HABITAT.--Southern India. DESCRIPTION.--Sandy brown or light brown fawn above, white underneath, with a band of pale fawn separating the two colours. The fur mixed with flat transparent spines, smaller beneath; head long; muzzle pointed; ears rather large, oblong, rounded, about half an inch in length. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/2 inches; tail, 2-1/2 inches. The following description has been given by Sir Walter Elliot and reproduced in Jerdon's 'Mammals': "The Leggade lives entirely in the red gravelly soil in a burrow of moderate depth, generally on the side of a bank. When the animal is inside the entrance is closed with small pebbles, a quantity of which is collected outside, by which its retreat may always be known. The burrow leads to a chamber in which is collected a bed of small pebbles on which it sits, the thick close hair of the belly protecting it from the cold and asperity of such a seat. Its food appears to be vegetable. In its habits it is monogamous and nocturnal. "In one earth which I opened, and which did not seem to have been originally constructed by the animal, I found two pairs, one of which were adults, the other young ones about three-parts grown. The mouth of the earth was very large, and completely blocked up with small stones; the passage gradually widening into a large cavity, from the roof of which some other passages appeared to proceed, but there was only one communication with the surface, viz. the entrance. The old pair were seated on a bed of pebbles, near which, on a higher level, was another collection of stones probably intended for a drier retreat; the young ones were in one of the passages, likewise furnished with a heap of small stones." Dr. Jerdon adds he has often opened the burrows of this mouse, and can confirm the above account. He also states that the Yanadees of Nellore declare that one variety uses small sticks instead of stones to sit upon, and they give it a distinct appellation, but he could not detect any difference in the specimens they brought him. NO. 375. LEGGADA SPINULOSA. _The Dusky Spiny Mouse_ (_Jerdon's No. 195_). HABITAT.--Punjab, and also Southern India. DESCRIPTION.--"Nearly affined to _M. platythrix_ (Sykes), but of a dark dusky colour above, with fulvous tips to the softer fur; below and all the feet dull whitish; upper rodential tusks orange, the lower white; whiskers long and fine, the posterior and longer of them black for the basal half or more, the rest white."--_Blyth_, 'J. A. S. B.' 1863. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-3/4 inches; tail, 3 inches. NO. 376. LEGGADA JERDONI. _The Himalayan Spiny Mouse_ (_Jerdon's No. 196_). HABITAT.--Himalayan range, up to 12,000 feet. DESCRIPTION.--"Bright dark ferruginous above, pure white below; some fine long black tips intermingled among the spines of the back; limbs marked with blackish externally; the feet white."--_Blyth's_ 'Mem., J. A. S. B.' vol. xxxii. SIZE.--Head and body, 4 inches; tail, 3-1/2 inches. Dr. Jerdon first found this mouse at Darjeeling, but afterwards in the valley of the Sutlej in Kunawur, at an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet, living under large stones. NO. 377. LEGGADA LEPIDA. _The Small Spiny Mouse_ (_Jerdon's No. 197_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Chitta-burkani_, _Chit-yelka_, _Chitta-ganda_, Telegu of Wuddurs; _Chitta-yelka_ of Yanadees.--_Jerdon_. HABITAT.--Southern India. DESCRIPTION.--Similar to _L. platythrix_, but smaller and more weakly spinous; above pale sandy brown, pure white below, the two colours clearly separated. "The spines are small, fine, transparent, and of a dusky tinge, tipped with fawn; head very long; muzzle pointed; ears large, ovate, naked; tail naked, limbs rather long, fine."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 2-1/2 to 3 inches; tail, 2-3/4 inches. Jerdon says of this mouse that he has found it in gravelly soil in gardens and woods in most parts of Southern India making a small burrow, which generally has a little heap of stones placed at a short distance from the hole. It is preyed on now and then by the common Indian roller or jay, and it is very generally used as a bait to catch that bird with bird-lime. _GENUS GOLUNDA_. The following rats are separated by Gray as a distinct genus, which from the Canarese name of the type he has called _Golunda_, the characteristics of which are: "the grinders, when perfect, low, with a broad, flat crown; the cross ridges of the crown of the upper grinders divided into three distinct slightly raised tubercles; upper incisors grooved; rest like _Mus_." NO. 378. GOLUNDA ELLIOTI. _The Bush Rat or Coffee Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 199_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Gulandi_, Canarese; _Gulat-yelka_ of Wuddurs; _Sora-panji-gadur_, Telegu of Yanadees; _Cofee-wattee-meeyo_, Singhalese (this name seems to me a corruption of "coffee rat"). DESCRIPTION.--Fur thick and stiff, fulvous brown, mixed with black, some olive brown mixed with fulvous, tawny grey beneath; hairs of upper parts flattened, ashy grey, tipped yellow, with some thinner and longer ones, also tipped yellow, with sub-terminal black band; under fur soft and of a light lead colour; face and cheeks rough; ears moderate, sub-ovate, hairy; tail round, tapering, scaly and hairy, dark brown above, yellowish below; cutting teeth yellow. SIZE.--Head and body, 4-1/2 inches; tail, 4 inches. Dr. Kellaart says these are the rats most destructive to coffee-trees, whole plantations being sometimes deprived of buds and blossoms by them. There is an illustration of one in Sir Emerson Tennent's 'Natural History of Ceylon' in the act of cutting off the slender branches which would not bear its weight in order to feed on the buds and blossoms when fallen to the ground. "The twigs thus destroyed are detached by as clean a cut as if severed with a knife." Sir Walter Elliot writes of it: "The _gulandi_ lives entirely in the jungle, choosing its habitation in a thick bush, among the thorny branches of which, or on the ground, it constructs a nest of elastic stalks and fibres of dry grass thickly interwoven. The nest is of a round or oblong shape, from six to nine inches in diameter, within which is a chamber about three or four inches in diameter, in which it rolls itself up. Round and through the bush are sometimes observed small beaten pathways along which the little animal seems habitually to pass. Its motion is somewhat slow, and it does not appear to have the same power of leaping or springing by which the rats in general avoid danger. Its food seems to be vegetable, the only contents of the stomach being the roots of the haryalee grass. Its habits are solitary (except when the female is bringing up her young) and diurnal, feeding in the mornings and evenings." Dr. Jerdon says: "The Yanadees of Nellore catch this rat, surrounding the bush and seizing it as it issues forth, which its comparatively slow actions enable them to do easily. According to Sir Emerson Tennent the Malabar coolies are so fond of their flesh that they evince a preference for those districts in which the coffee-plantations are subject to their incursions, where they fry the rats in cocoanut-oil or convert them into curry." Both he and Dr. Kellaart mention the migratory habits of this animal on the occurrence of a scarcity of food. Kellaart says that in one day on such visits more than a thousand have been killed on one estate alone. NO. 379. GOLUNDA MELTADA. _The Soft-furred Bush Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 200_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Mettade_, of Wuddurs; _Metta-yelka_, Telegu of Yanadees; _Kera ilei_, Canarese. HABITAT.--Southern India and Ceylon. DESCRIPTION.--Fur very soft; above deep yellowish, olive brown or reddish-brown, with a mixture of fawn; under fur lead colour; chin and under parts whitish; head short; muzzle sharp; ears long and hairy; tail shorter than body, scaly, but scales covered with short black adpressed hairs; feet pale. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/2 to 5-1/2 inches; tail, 2-1/4 to 4-1/4 inches. The specific name of this rat is an absurd corruption, such as is not unfrequent in Dr. Gray's names, of the native _mettade_, which means soft. According to that accurate observer Sir Walter Elliot, "the _mettade_ lives entirely in cultivated fields in pairs or small societies of five or six;[25] making a very slight and rude hole in the root of a bush, or merely harbouring among the heap of stones thrown together in the fields, in the deserted burrow of the _kok_,[26] or contenting itself with the deep cracks and fissures formed in the black soil during the hot months. Great numbers perish annually when these collapse and fill up at the commencement of the rains. The monsoon of 1826 having been deficient in the usual fall of rain at the commencement of the season, the _mettades_ bred in such numbers as to become a perfect plague. They ate up the seed as soon as sown, and continued their ravages when the grain approached to maturity, climbing up the stalks of jowaree and cutting off the ear to devour the grain with greater facility. I saw many whole fields completely devastated, so much so as to prevent the farmers from paying their rents. The ryots employed the Wuddurs to destroy them, who killed them by thousands, receiving a measure of grain for so many dozens, without perceptibly diminishing their numbers. Their flesh is eaten by the Tank-diggers. The female produces six to eight at a birth."--'_Madras Journ. Lit. Sc._' x. 1839. [Footnote 25: In this case probably parents and young.] [Footnote 26: _Nesokia providens_.] Kellaart's _Golunda Newera_ is, I fancy, the same, although the measurement he gives is less. Head and body, 3-1/4 inches; tail, 2-1/2. The description tallies, although Kellaart goes upon difference in size and the omission of Gray to state that _G. meltada_ had the upper incisors grooved. He says that "this rat is found in pairs in the black soil of Newara Elia, and is a great destroyer of peas and potatoes." So its habits agree. _GENUS HAPALOMYS_. This was formed by Blyth on a specimen from Burmah of a murine animal "with a long and delicately fine pelage and exceedingly long tail, the terminal fourth of which is remarkably flattened and furnished with hair more developed than in perhaps any other truly murine form; limbs short, with the toes remarkably corrugated underneath; the balls of the inguinal phalanges greatly developed, protruding beyond the minute claws of the fore-feet, and equally with the more developed claws of the hind-feet; head short; the ears small and inconspicuous; the skull approaches in form that of _Mus Indicus_,[27] but the rodential tusks are broader and flatter to the front. Molars as in the _Muridae_ generally, but much worn in the specimen under examination; they are considerably less directed outward than usual, and the bony palate has therefore the appearance of being narrow; the superorbital ridges project much outward in form of a thin bony plate, and there is a considerable process at the base of the zygoma anteriorly and posteriorly to the anti-orbital foramen; zygomata broad, and compressed about the middle." [Footnote 27: _Nesokia Blythiana_.] NO. 380. HAPALOMYS LONGICAUDATUS. HABITAT.--Shway Gheen, in the valley of the Sitang river in Burmah, or its adjacent hills. DESCRIPTION.--"Fur long and soft, measuring about five-eights of an inch on the upper parts, slaty for the basal two-thirds, then glistening brown with black tips, and a few long hairs of very fine texture interspersed; lower parts dull white; whiskers black, long and fine, and there is a tuft of fine blackish-hair anterior to the ears."--_Blyth_. SIZE.--Head and body of a male, 5-3/4 inches; tail 7-1/4 inches. Of another specimen, female: 5-1/4 inches; tail, 7-1/2 inches; sole, 1-1/8 inch; ears posteriorly, 1-1/4 inch. Specimens of adult male and female with a young one were forwarded to the Asiatic Society's Museum by Major Berdmore. * * * * * We have now come to the end of the purely murine group as far as they exist within the limits assigned to these investigations. I ought perhaps to give some short notices of the following specimens discovered in Thibet by the Abbe David, and described by Professor Milne-Edwards in his 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes.' NO. 381. MUS OUANG-THOMAE. _The Kiangsi Rat_. HABITAT.--Kiangsi in Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--A tawny grey above, mixed with long hairs, tipped with brown, greyish below; between the fore-paws a crescent of pure white, which is a distinguishing mark of the species. SIZE.--A little less than _Mus rattus_, which is about seven inches long; tail an inch longer. This rat Professor Milne-Edwards describes from a single specimen; it is apparently rare, and was named after the Abbe David's Chinese servant--'Recherches sur les Mammiferes,' p. 290. NO. 382. MUS FLAVIPECTUS. _The Yellow-breasted Rat_. HABITAT.--Moupin; Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Reddish-brown; chin greyish; throat and chest tawny, mixed with grey; belly and inside of limbs yellowish-grey; ears large, nearly naked; incisors deep yellow; tail brown, covered with short hairs. SIZE.--About 7-3/4 inches; tail, 6-1/4 inches.--'Mammiferes,' p. 289. NO. 383. MUS GRISEIPECTUS. _The Grey-breasted Rat_. HABITAT.--Moupin; Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Brown above; the under-parts of a clear grey. SIZE.--About the same as the last, but with a somewhat shorter tail.--'Mammiferes,' p. 290. NO. 384. MUS CONFUCIANUS. HABITAT.--Moupin; Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Fawn brown above, pure white below; lower part of cheek white; on the back the fur is interspersed with longer hairs of a blackish tint; feet pale. SIZE.--Head and body, about 4 inches.--'Mammiferes,' p. 286. NO. 385. MUS CHEVRIERI. HABITAT.--Moupin; Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--General colour tawny brown, grizzled with dark brown; lower parts of a clear grey, almost white; ears short; feet small; tail covered with short hair. SIZE.--About 4-3/4 inches; tail about 3-1/2 inches.--'Mammiferes,' p. 288. NO. 386. MUS PYGMAEUS. _The Pigmy Mouse_. HABITAT.--Moupin; Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Distinguished by its very short ears and the square form of its head; deep brown above; greyish-yellow beneath; tail shorter than in the common mouse. SIZE.--About 2-3/4 inches; tail, about 2 inches.--'Mammiferes,' p. 291. ARVICOLINAE. In this sub-family the molars are generally semi-rooted or rootless. The _Arvicolinae_ or Voles consist of the American Musquash (_Fiber zibethicus_), a very beaver-like water rat of large size; the Lemmings (_Myodes_), of which there are several species which are celebrated for their vast migrations; and the true Vole (_Arvicola_), which is the only genus found in India, and then only in the colder climate of the Himalayas. There are several species in Europe, of which three are found in England. According to Professor Dallas, the true Voles number about fifty species, arranged by various writers under a considerable number of sub-genera. In India we have only eight known species, and two more from the adjacent country of Thibet. [Illustration: Dentition of _Arvicola_.] The European forms of _Arvicolae_ have been divided by Blasius into four sub-genera of two divisions--the first division having rooted molars in the adult animal--containing one sub-genus only, _Hypudaeus_ of Illiger; the second division consists of three sub-genera with rootless molars, viz. _Paludicola_, _Agricola_, and _Arvicola_, which last has again been subdivided into long-eared and short-eared Voles--_Arvicola_ and _Microtus_--distinguished by the former having eight and the latter four mammae, and respectively six and four tubercles on the plantae, the ears of the latter being almost hidden by the fur. None of the forms with which we have now to deal belong to the first division, for, as far as the matter has been investigated, the Indian Voles have rootless molars, but the character of the teeth in some differs from the European forms, and therefore Mr. Blanford has proposed a new section, _Alticola_, for their reception. I have not space here, nor would it accord with the popular character of this work, to go minutely into all the variation of dentition which distinguish the different species. To those who wish to continue to the minutest details the study of the Indian Voles, I recommend a most careful and elaborate paper on them by Mr. W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. L., pt. ii.; but without entering into the microscopic particulars of each species, I may here give a general idea of the formation of the teeth of the _Arvicolae_ differing as it does so much from others of the myomorphic or mouse-like group of rodents. In these the general contour of the molar teeth is roundish oblong, the margins being wavy or indented, according to the convolutions of the enamel, but in the Voles there is a sharp angularity about these indentations; the marginal lines, instead of being in well-rounded curves, are sharply zigzag, forming acute angles. If you were to draw two close parallel zigzag lines it would give you some idea of the contour of these teeth. The molars are in fact composed of alternating triangular prisms, with the outer folds of enamel forming deep and acute angles. The other characteristics of this family are: skull, with brain case rhomboidal, frontals much contracted; infra-orbital opening typical; limbs moderate; tail moderate, or short and hairy. _GENUS ARVICOLA_. Muzzle blunt; fore-feet small, with short claws; soles naked; tail longer than the hind-foot, clad with short hairs; incisors plain, smooth in front. The fore-feet in some species have but a small wart in place of a thumb; in others there is a small thumb with a minute claw. The hind-feet have five toes. NO. 387. ARVICOLA STOLICZKANUS. _The Yarkand Vole_. HABITAT.--Yarkand. DESCRIPTION.--"Bright ferruginous brown above, pure white beneath; fur soft, rather woolly, 0.5 to 0.6 inch long on the middle of the back, the basal portion throughout both head and body being dark leaden grey; this is the case on the back for about three-quarters of the length of the hairs; the remaining quarter is rufous white, tipped with darker rufous, whilst numerous rather longer hairs are dark rufous-brown at the ends; rather a sharp line divides the rufous of the back from the white belly; upper part of the head the same colour as the back; upper whiskers dark brown, lower, including the longest, white; ears small, rounded, hairy, completely concealed by the fur, with rather short bright rufous hair near the margin inside; and covered outside with longer and paler hair; feet small, the thumb of the fore-foot quite rudimentary and clawless; remaining claws long, compressed, sharply pointed, but much concealed by the long white hairs which cover the upper part of the foot, sales naked; tarsus hairy below, a few hairs between the pads of the toes; tail short, apparently about a quarter the length of the body and head together, covered with stiff fulvescent white hair, which extends about half an inch beyond the end."--_W. T. Blanford_, 'Sc. Res. of Second Yarkand Mission,' p. 43. SIZE.--Head and body, about 4 inches; tail, with hair, 1-1/2. NO. 388. ARVICOLA STRACHEYI. _The Kumaon Vole_. HABITAT.--Kumaon. DESCRIPTION.--Light brown above, with a greyish tint and dusky forehead; under-parts, feet, and tail white; ears small, not longer than the fur, and thickly clad with hair; feet of moderate size; thumb as in the last; tail short and covered with white hairs. SIZE.--Head and body, about 3.7 inches; tail; 0.7. This vole was procured first by Capt. (now Lieut.-Gen.) R. Strachey at Kumaon. NO. 389. ARVICOLA WYNNEI. _The Murree Vole_. NATIVE NAME.--_Kannees_. HABITAT.--Northern Himalayas; Murree. DESCRIPTION.--Dark brown above, with a slight greyish tinge; head rufescent, and under-parts pale brown; tail dark brown; ears short and rounded, hidden by the fur; fore-feet rather large; thumb small, with a short claw; incisors orange. SIZE.--Head and body, about 4-3/4 inches; tail 1-1/4 inch. NO. 390. ARVICOLA ROYLEI. _The Cashmere Vole_ (_Jerdon's No. 202_). HABITAT.--Kashmir; Kunawur near Chini at 12,000 feet. DESCRIPTION.--Yellowish-brown, with a rufous tint on the back, paler below; tail brown above, whitish underneath; feet concolorous with the under-part; ears small, hairy and nearly hidden by the fur; incisors yellow in front. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-3/4 inches; tail, 1-2/12 inch. Jerdon states he got this vole at Kunawur, near Chini, again on the south side of the Barendo pass, and also in the Pir Punjal. NO. 391. ARVICOLA BLANFORDI. _The Gilgit Vole_. HABITAT.--Kashmir territory; Gilgit, at an elevation of 9000 to 10,000 feet. DESCRIPTION.--Light greyish-brown above, slightly tinged with rufous; greyish-white underneath; fur soft, the basal three-fourths being slaty grey, the rest fawn colour, in some instances with black tips, the hairs of the under-parts being white tipped; ears moderately large, well above the fur, hairy; very long whiskers, chiefly white, a few brown; feet whitish, moderate size; tail cylindrical, not tapering, and well clad with hair, which project about a fifth of an inch beyond the end of the vertebrae. SIZE.--Head and body, about 4-1/2 inches; tail, 2 inches. This vole was described by Dr. J. Scully in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' for November, 1880, vol. vi., and he named it after Mr. W. T. Blanford. It is said to be common on the mountains around Gilgit. * * * * * The next two species come under the section _Paludicola_. NO. 392. ARVICOLA BLYTHII. HABITAT.--Western Thibet, Leh and Ladakh. DESCRIPTION.--General colour above yellowish-brown, below pale isabelline; fur soft; basal two-thirds of the upper hairs, and one-half of the lower hairs, dark slaty; the upper hairs are tipped, some isabelline and some, which are coarser and longer, dark brown; ears round, small, equal, with the fur thinly clad with pale brown hairs inside, and more thickly so with longer hairs outside; upper whiskers dark brown, lower whitish; feet pale isabelline; soles naked; tail cylindrical, distinctly ringed, covered with short light brown hair like the under-parts in colour. SIZE.--Head and body, about 3 to 4 inches; tail, 1 to 1-1/4 inch. Mr. Blanford has written fully regarding this species, which was the type of Blyth's genus _Phaiomys_, in the 'Scientific Results of the Second Yarkand Mission,' page 39, in which he contends, after going through a mass of literature on the subject, that there are no grounds for constituting it the type of a new species; and, if this be conceded, then the specific name given by Blyth, viz. _leucurus_, being forestalled, it is necessary to rename it, which he has done in honour of that well-known naturalist. NO. 393. ARVICOLA MANDARINUS. _The Afghan Vole_. HABITAT.--Afghanistan; Chinese Mongolia. DESCRIPTION.--Light greyish rufescent brown above, white beneath; ears short, hidden by the fur and hairy; feet whitish; tail rufescent brown. SIZE.--About 4 inches; tail about 1 inch. This vole, which is described and figured by Milne-Edwards, is supposed to have been found in Afghanistan from a specimen in Griffith's collection. _A. mandarinus_ comes from Chinese Mongolia, and it is figured in the 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes.' * * * * * The next species was made a separate genus, _Neodon_, by Hodgson, which has been adopted by Jerdon; but there are no good grounds for continuing this separation. Mr. Blanford is certainly of this opinion, and in his remarks on it (_see_ his 'Sc. Results Second Yarkand Mission,' pp. 41-42) he writes: "The genus _Neodon_, appears to be founded on characters of only specific importance, and the type _N. Sikimensis_ is, I think, a true _Arvicola_." NO. 394. ARVICOLA SIKIMENSIS. _The Sikim Vole_ (_Jerdon's No. 203_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Phalchua_, Nepalese, apparently Hindi; _Cheekyu_, Kiranti; _Singphuci_, Thibetan. HABITAT.--Nepal; Sikim; Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Fur soft and silky. "Deep brownish-black above with a slight rusty shade, minutely and copiously grizzled with hairs of a deep ferruginous tint" (_Horsfield_). Or a deep golden brown from yellow hairs being intermixed; bluish-grey beneath, with a slight fulvous tint; fur leaden grey for the basal three-fourths, the terminal fourth being brownish or tawny with some tipped black; the hairs of the under-parts are dipped with dirty white; ears project beyond the fur moderately, and are hairy; feet very slender; tail thinly clad with short brown hair. The female has six mammae. SIZE.--Head and body, about 4-3/4 inches; tail, 1-1/2 inch. Horsfield gives 5 inches for head and body. According to Jerdon this vole has only been procured in Sikim near Darjeeling, at heights varying from 7000 to 15,000 feet; but I believe the area it inhabits to be much larger. Hodgson found his specimens at Darjeeling, and on one occasion got a nest in a hollow tree in the forest; it was saucer-shaped, of soft grass without any lining, and contained a male, female, and two young. The latter were "2-1/8 inches long, hairy above, nude below, and blind; the ears also closed." Jerdon writes: "Mr. Atkinson found it under fallen trees and stones on the top of Tonglo, near Darjeeling, 10,000 feet, whence also I had a specimen brought me." * * * * * The next species is one described and figured by Professor Milne-Edwards, and from Thibet he has two illustrations of it--one of an entire blackish-brown, the other darker above, but with the black belly. NO. 395. ARVICOLA MELANOGASTER. HABITAT.--Moupin in Tibet. DESCRIPTION.--"It is characterised by the colour of the lower parts, which are a blackish-grey. The upper parts are sometimes as black as a mole, sometimes grizzled with brown" ('Mammiferes,' p. 284). The brown specimen with the dark belly is evidently a rarity. FAMILY SPALACIDAE. The members of this family are characterised by very large incisors; some have premolars, as in _Bathyergus_ and two other genera, but not in the _Spalacinae_, of which our bamboo-rat (_Rhizomys_) is the representative in India. "The grinding teeth are rooted, not tuberculate, but with re-entering enamel folds; infra-orbital opening moderate or small, with no perpendicular plate; occipital plane high, often sloped boldly forward; palate narrow; form cylindrical; eye and ear-conch very small, sometimes rudimentary; limbs short and stout; claws large; tail short or absent" (_Alston_, 'P. Z. S.' 1876, p. 86). There are two subfamilies--_Spalacinae_ and _Bathyerginae_. _GENUS RHIZOMYS--THE BAMBOO-RAT_. "Form robust; eyes very small; ears very short, naked; pollex rudimentary; tail rather short, partially haired; skull broad; occipital plane only slightly sloped forward; infra-orbital opening small, sub-triangular; upper incisors arched forward; no premolar; upper molars with one deep internal and two or more external enamel-folds; the lower molars reversed."--_Alston_. NO. 396. RHIZOMYS BADIUS. _The Chestnut Bamboo-Rat_ (_Jerdon's No. 201_). NATIVE NAME.--Known to the Chingpaws or Kakhyens as the _Yewcron_.--_Anderson_. HABITAT.--The Sikim and Nepal Terai; Burmah; Arakan; Kakhyen Hills. [Illustration: _Rhizomys badius_.] DESCRIPTION.--Fine fur, of a grey or slaty grey for two-thirds of the basal portion, the remaining upper third being from a deep to a bright chestnut. "Most intense on the head, and dullest on the rump" (_Anderson_). "Below dark ashy grey" (_Jerdon_). "The fur of the under-parts in these Eastern examples of the species" (referring to those from the Kakhyen hills) "is paler and more reddish than chestnut, whereas in some Nepal animals it inclines even to slaty grey, washed with reddish. The area immediately around the muzzle and the chin is pale brownish, with a tinge of greyish, and the teeth are brilliant reddish, the nose, ears, feet, and tail being pale flesh-coloured" (_Anderson_, 'Anat. and Zool. Res.' p. 329). SIZE.--Head and body, 7 inches; tail, about 2-1/2 inches. Jerdon says of this species that "it eats the roots of bamboos and other trees, constructing burrows under the roots. It is said to be very bold, and easily taken." "In Burmah it constructs its burrows amongst a rank and tall jungle grass, on the roots of which it is said to live" (_Anderson_). Blyth, who writes of the Burmese form, says: "it is barely separable from _R. badius_, from which it seems to differ only in its much brighter colouring." NO. 397. RHIZOMYS ERYTHROGENYS. _The Red-cheeked Bamboo-Rat_. HABITAT.--Burmah; the Salween hill tracts; Tenasserim. DESCRIPTION.--Upper parts dark iron grey; almost black on the top of the head; the upper lip, chin and upper part of the throat are white, also the chest and belly, which are however more or less tinged with grey and reddish; the lower portion of the throat is dark grey; the sides of the head and cheeks are bright golden red; the feet are sparsely clad and leaden coloured, except the toes of the hind feet, which are fleshy white; tail rather thick at the base, quite naked, not scaly, and of a leaden hue; claws rather broad, and moderately strong. SIZE (of the living female).--Head and body, 14-3/4 inches; tail, 5.35 inches. Dr. Anderson, from whose work I have taken the above description, and who was the first to describe and name this animal, says that a female was recently received in the Zoological Gardens from Mr. A. H. Hildebrand. NO. 398. RHIZOMYS PRUINOSUS. _The Hoary Bamboo-Rat_. HABITAT.--Assam; very common about Cherrapoonjee; Burmah; Kakhyen hills east of Bhamo. DESCRIPTION.--Brown above, grizzled with white; the base of the fur being slaty grey, tipped with brown, and intermixed with longer hairs, terminating in white bands; underneath much the same, only the white-tipped hairs are shorter and less numerous; whiskers dark brown; the head is generally more grey; ears, nose, feet and tail of a dusky flesh tint; tail one-third of the body. SIZE.--Head and-body, about 11 to 13 inches; tail, 3 to 4 inches. NO. 399. RHIZOMYS MINOR. _The Small Bamboo-Rat_. NATIVE NAME.--_Khai_, Aracanese. HABITAT.--Burmah, Upper Martaban, and at Yanageen on the Irrawaddy.--_Blyth_. DESCRIPTION.--"Dark sooty brown above, slightly tinged with deep umber, which is most distinct on the sides of the head and neck, and in reflected light; the under parts are like the upper, only the brown tint is almost absent; the whiskers are black, and tail very sparsely haired" (_Anderson_). "Dusky brown colour, with white muzzle and around the eye, and pale naked feet" (_Blyth_). SIZE.--Head and body, 6-1/2 inches; tail, 1-3/4 inch. Blyth says he obtained a living specimen in Upper Martaban, and recognised it as the same as what had been obtained in Siam. The Rev. Mr. Mason writes of it: "This animal, which burrows under old bamboo roots, resembles a marmot more than a rat; yet it has much of the rat in its habits. I one night caught a specimen gnawing a cocoa-nut, while camping out in the jungles." * * * * * I may here mention a curious little animal, which is apparently a link between the MURIDAE and the SPALACIDAE, _Myospalax fuscocapillus_, named and described by Blyth ('J. A. S. B.' xv. p. 141), found at Quetta, where it is called the "Quetta mole." A full account of it by Mr. W. T. Blanford is to be found in the 'Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal,' (vol. L. pt. ii.). FAMILY DIPODIDAE. This family contains a form of rodent similar to, yet more pronounced than, the jerboa rats, of which I have already treated. It includes the true Jerboas (_Dipus_), the American Jumping Mice (_Zapus_), the _Alactaga_, and the Cape Jumping Hare (_Pedetes caffer_). The characteristics of the family are as follows:-- "Incisors compressed; premolars present or absent; grinding teeth rooted or rootless, not tuberculate, with more or fewer transverse enamel folds; skull with the brain-case short and broad; infra-orbital opening rounded, very large (often as large as the orbit); zygomatic arch slender, curved downwards; the malar ascending in front to the lachrymal in a flattened perpendicular plate; facial surface of maxillaries minutely perforated; mastoid portion of auditory bullae usually greatly developed; metatarsal bones elongated, often fused into a cannon bone; form gracile; front portion of body and fore-limbs very small; hind limbs long and strong, with from three to five digits; tail long, hairy. Three sub-families" (_Alston_ On the Order GLIRES, 'P. Z. S.' 1876). The three sub-families are _Zapodidae_,[28] _Dipodinae_ and _Pedetinae_, but we have only to deal with the second. [Footnote 28: Formerly _Jaculinae_.] [Illustration: Dentition of Jerboa.] _GENUS DIPUS--THE JERBOAS_. Hind feet with three digits; tail cylindrical and tufted; incisors grooved; premolars absent, or, if found, then in the upper jaw and rudimentary; skull with very broad occipital region; greatly developed auditory bullae; the cervical vertebrae are more or less anchylosed, and the metatarsals are united. They are not found in the plains of India, though one species inhabits Yarkand, and two more are found in Eastern Persia. [Illustration: _DIPUS_.] NO. 400. DIPUS LAGOPUS. _The Yarkand Jerboa_. HABITAT.--Koshtak, south of Yarkand; Yarkand; and Yangihissar.--_Blanford_. DESCRIPTION.--"Colour above light sandy brown, slightly washed with dusky, below pure white; a white band across the outside of the thigh; tail pale brown above, whitish below, with a tuft of longer hair, altogether about 2-1/2 inches long; at the end the terminal portion pure white, the proximal portion black or dark-brown on the upper part and sides, but brown or white beneath the tail. The fur is very soft and rather long, 0.6 to 0.8 inch in the middle of the back; on the upper parts it is ashy grey at the base and for the greater parts of its length, pale sandy brown near the end; the extreme tip dusky brown; on the lower parts it is white throughout; ears about half the length of the head, oval, naked inside, thinly clothed with short brown hair outside; face sandy; the hairs grey at the base; sides of head whitish; whiskers as usual very long, exceeding three inches; the uppermost brown; the longest white, except at the base; the lower entirely white; the long hairs beneath the hind feet all white, as are the feet throughout."--_Blanford_, 'Sc. Res. of Sec. Yarkand Mission,' pp. 58,59. _GENUS ALACTAGA_. "Hind feet with _five_ digits, of which the first and fifth do not reach the ground; tail cylindrical, tufted; skull with the occipital region less broad, and the auditory bullae smaller; infra-orbital opening with no separate canal for the nerve; incisors plain. One very small premolar present above only."--_Alston_. NO. 401. ALACTAGA INDICA. NATIVE NAME.--_Khanee_, Afghan. HABITAT.--Afghanistan; Eastern Persia. DESCRIPTION.--Fawn colour above; the hair with black tips and ashy grey at the base; under-parts white; upper parts of thigh white; a black spot behind and inside the thigh just below the white; remainder of the outside and lower part of the inside of the thighs brown; a white line running down the front, and extending over the upper portion of the tarsi and feet; proximal portion of tarsus brown at the sides. (_See_ 'Blanford's Eastern Persia,' vol. ii. p. 77.) The tail is brown with a white tip; ears thinly clad with brown hairs; head brown above, whitish around the eyes; whiskers black. SIZE.--Head and body, 3-1/2 inches; tail, 7 inches. This animal is unfortunately named, as it is not Indian at all; equally unfortunate, as Mr. Blanford has shown, is Blyth's name _Bactrianus_, for it does not inhabit that tract, so the original title stands. Hutton, in his 'Rough Notes on the Zoology of Candahar' ('J. A. S. B.' xv. p. 137), writes of it as follows: "This beautiful little animal is abundant over all the stony plains throughout the country, burrowing deeply, and when unearthed bounding away with most surprising agility after the manner of the kangaroo-rat. It is easily tamed, and lives happily enough in confinement if furnished with plenty of room to leap about. It sleeps all day, and so soundly that it may be taken from its cage and examined without awaking it; or at most it will half open one eye in a drowsy manner for an instant, and immediately close it again in sleep. It retires to its burrows about the end of October, and remains dormant till the following April, when it throws off its lethargy and again comes forth." There is a good engraving of this animal in Cassel's new Natural History. * * * * * We have now closed our account of the Myomorpha or Mouse-like Rodents, and will proceed to the next Section, HYSTRICOMORPHA, or Porcupine-like Rodents. SECTION III.--HYSTRICOMORPHA. PORCUPINE-LIKE RODENTS. This section contains six families, viz.:-- _Octodontidae_ = 3 sub-families, 18 genera. _Hystricidae_ = 2 sub-families, 5 genera. _Chinchillidae_ = 5 genera, of which two are fossil. _Dasyproctidae_ = 2 genera. _Dionymidae_ = 1 genus. _Caviidae_ = 3 genera. Of these we have to deal with but one, the second family, _Hystricidae_, the rest belonging to Africa in part, but the majority to the American continent, chiefly South America. I give the general characteristics of the section as laid down by Mr. Alston:-- "One premolar above and below (except in _Ctenodactylus_); grinding teeth rooted or rootless, not tuberculate; frontals with no distinct post-orbital processes (except in _Chaetomys_); infra-orbital opening large, sub-triangular, or oval; zygomatic arch proportionately stout; molar not advancing far forward, (except in _Ctenodactylinae_ and _Chinchillidae_) and not supported below by a continuation of the maxillary zygomatic process; incisive foramina small; foramina in the base of skull proportionally large; an inter-pterygoid fissure; mandible with its angular portion springing from the _outer side_ of the bony covering of the lower incisor, triangular, usually pointed behind; coronoid process small, and condyle low; clavicles perfect or imperfect; fibula persistent as a distinct bone throughout life; upper lip rarely cleft; muffle clad with fine hairs; nostrils pointed above, sigmoid or linear; ears usually emarginate behind; tail hairy, sub-naked, or scaly."--'P. Z. S.,' 1876, p. 90. As I have said before, we have only to do with the _Hystricidae_ or Porcupines, but many of the others are familiar by name. Of the _Octodontidae_ the best known is the coypu of the Andes, one of the largest of the rodents, and the ground-rat or ground-pig of western and southern Africa. The chinchilla, which is the typical form of the third family, is known to all, especially ladies, from its delicate soft fur. The agouti of South America is the representative of the _Dasyproctidae_. The family _Dinomyidae_ consists of one animal only, _Dinomys Branickii_; the only known example of which was obtained in Peru on the Montana de Vitoc. It was found walking about in a yard at daybreak, and showed so little fear of man that it suffered itself to be killed by the stroke of a sword. It is a pity no one was sensible enough to try and take it alive. As yet nothing is known of its habits. Of the last family, _Caviidae_, the cavy and the capybara are well known to travellers in South America, and the common guinea pig is familiar to us all. FAMILY HYSTRICIDAE--THE PORCUPINES. In this family the hairs of the body are more or less converted into spines or quills; the form of the skull is peculiar, being ovate, often greatly inflated with air cavities in the bones; the facial portion is broad and short; the malar portion of the zygomatic arch has no inferior angular process as in the _Octodontidae_; the occipital plane or hinder-surface is perpendicular, with a median ridge; the incisor teeth are large and powerful; the molars with external and internal folds, four in each jaw. The form is robust; limbs sub-equal; fore-feet with four toes, and a small wart-like thumb; hind-feet with four and five toes; tail long in some, short in others. There are two sub-families--_Sphingurinae_ and _Hystricinae_. With the genera of the first we have nothing to do. They include the prehensile-tailed porcupines of South America, _Sphingurus prehensilis_, _S. villosus_, and _S. Mexicanus_, all arboreal forms, and the Canada porcupine (_Erythizon dorsatus_) which is covered with woolly hairs and spines intermixed. The true porcupines, sub-family _Hystricinae_, consist of two genera, both of which are represented in India--_Atherura_ and _Hystrix_. [Illustration: Skull of Porcupine.] SUB-FAMILY HYSTRICINAE--THE TRUE PORCUPINES. Grinding teeth semi-rooted; skull rather more elongate; infra-orbital foramen of great size; clavicles imperfect, attached to the sternum, and not to the scapula; upper lip furrowed; tail not prehensile; soles of feet smooth. The female has six mammae. In these points they differ from the American arboreal porcupines (_Sphingurus_), the skull of which is very short, the tail prehensile, the soles of the feet tuberculated, and the female has only four mammae. The two genera, _Atherura_ and _Hystrix_, which compose this sub-family, are distinguished by long tail and flattened spines (_Atherura_); and short tail and round spines (_Hystrix_). _GENUS ATHERURA--THE LONG-TAILED PORCUPINE_. Nasal part of skull moderate; upper molars with one internal and three or four external folds, the latter soon separated as enamel loops; the lower teeth similar but reversed; the spines are flattened and channelled; the tail long and scaly, with a tuft of bristles at the end. NO. 402. ATHERURA FASCICULATA. _The Brush-tailed Porcupine_. HABITAT.--Assam, Khasia hills, Tipperah hills, Burmah, Siam, and the Malayan peninsula. DESCRIPTION.--"The general tint of the animal is yellowish-brown, freckled with dusky brown, especially on the back; the spines, taken separately, are brown white at the root, and become gradually darker to the point; the points of the spines on the back are very dark, being of a blackish-brown colour. The long and stout bristles, which are mixed with the spines on the back, are similarly coloured" (_Waterhouse_, 'Mammalia,' vol. ii. p. 472). The spines are flat on the under-surface and concave on the upper, sharply pointed and broadest near the root. Mixed with the spines on the back are long bristles, very stout, projecting some three inches beyond the spines, which are only about an inch in length; below these is a scanty undergrowth of pale coloured hairs; the tail is somewhat less than half the length of the head and body, scaly, and at the end furnished with a large tuft of flattened bristles from three to four inches long, of a dirty white colour, with sometimes dusky tips; the ears are semi-ovate; whiskers long and stout, and of a brown colour; muzzle hairy; feet short, five toes, but the thumb very small, with a short rounded nail. SIZE.--Head and body, 18 inches; tail, exclusive of tuft, 7-1/2 inches. Specimens of this animal were sent home to the Zoological Gardens, from Cherrapoonjee in the Khasia hills, by Dr. Jerdon. This species is almost the same as the African form (_A. Africana_). They are about the same in size and form and in general appearance. This last is found in such plenty, according to Bennett, in the Island of Fernando Po as to afford a staple article of food to the inhabitants. Blyth was of opinion that the Indian animal is much paler and more freckled than the African. _GENUS HYSTRIX--THE PORCUPINE_. "Spines cylindrical; tail short, covered with spines and slender-stalked open quills; nasal cavity usually very large; air sinuses of frontals greatly developed; teeth as in _Atherura_. The hind-feet with five toes; claws very stout." The hinder part of the body is covered by a great number of sharp spines, ringed black and white, mostly tipped with white; the spines are hollow or filled with a spongy tissue, but extremely tough and resistant, with points as sharp as a needle. The animal is able to erect these by a contraction of the skin, but the old idea that they could be projected or shot out at an assailant is erroneous. They easily drop out, which may have given an idea of discharge. The porcupine attacks by backing up against an opponent or thrusting at him by a sidelong motion. I kept one some years ago, and had ample opportunity of studying his mode of defence. When a dog or any other foe comes to close quarters, the porcupine wheels round and rapidly charges back. They also have a side-way jerk which is effective. NO. 403. HYSTRIX LEUCURA. _The White-tailed Indian Porcupine_ (_Jerdon's No. 204_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Kanta-sahi_, _Sayi_, _Sayal_, _Sarsel_, Hindi; _Sajru_, Bengali; _Chotia-dumsee_, Nepali; _Saori_, Gujrati; _Salendra_ and _Sayal_, Mahrathi; _Yed_, Canarese; _Ho-igu_, Gondi; _Phyoo_, Burmese; _Heetava_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--All over India (except perhaps Lower Bengal), Burmah and Ceylon. [Illustration: _Hystrix leucura_.] DESCRIPTION.--Blackish-brown; muzzle clad with short, stiff, bristly hairs; whiskers long and black, and a few white spines on the face; spines on the throat short, grooved, some with white setaceous points forming a half-collar; crest of head and neck formed of long black bristles, with here and there one with a long white tip; the spines of the sides are short, flattish, grooved or striated, mostly with white points; the large quills of the back are either entirely black or ringed at the base and middle with white, a few with white tips; the longer and thinner quills on the back and sides have long white terminations; many of these again, particularly the longest, have a basal and one or two central white rings; the short quills on the mesial line of the lumbar region are nearly all white, and the longer striated quills of this region are mostly white; quills of the tail white or yellowish, a few black ones at the root; pedunculated quills are long, broad, and much flattened in old animals. SIZE.--Head and body, 32 inches; tail, 8 inches. The description given in his 'Prodromus Faunae Zeylanicae' by Dr. Kellaart, who was a most careful observer, has been of great assistance to me in the above, as it was also, I fancy, to Jerdon, and his subsequent remarks are worthy of consideration. "The identification of species from single characters," he observes, "is at all times difficult and unsatisfactory in the genus _Hystrix_, particularly so as regard the conformation of the skull." And again: "The number of molars varies also in different specimens. In two adults obtained at Trincomalee there were only three molars on each side of the jaw, four being the dental formula of the genus _Hystrix_." I think such aberrations ought to warn us from trying to make too many genera out of these animals. Dr. Gray, whose particular forte--or shall I say weakness?--was minute subdivision, classed (in 1847) the Indian porcupines in three sub-families, _Hystrix_, _Acanthion_, and _Atherura_; and _Acanthion_ he some years after (1866, _see_ 'P. Z. S.' p. 308) divided again into three groups, _OEdocephalus_, _Acanthochaerus_ and _Acanthion_. The difference in the skull of _Hystrix_ and _Acanthion_ lies in the intermaxillaries and the grinders, as follows:-- _Hystrix_--Inter-max. broad, truncated, wide behind as before; _grinders_ oblong, longer than broad, one fold on the inner, and three or four on the outer side. _Acanthion_--Inter-max. triangular, tapering behind; _grinders_ sub-cylindrical, not longer than broad, one fold on the inner, two or three on the outer side. According to Waterhouse the European porcupine (_Hystrix cristata_ of Linnaeus) is the _Acanthion Cuvieri_ of Gray; and Gray, who afterwards modified his views of 1847 in 1866, wrote of it: "I am not aware of any external characters by which this species can be distinguished from the _Hystrix cristata_, though the skull is so different." Gray in another place writes that: "Though the skulls of _H. leucurus_ preserve a very distinct character, yet they vary so much amongst themselves as to show that skulls afford no better character for the distinction of species than any other single character, such as colour, but can only be depended on when taken in connection with the rest of the organisation." In these circumstances I think it will be better not to attempt any further subdivision of the Indian porcupines in the present work beyond the two already given, viz. _Hystrix_ and _Atherura_. There is a great similarity between the Indian _H. leucura_ and the European _H. cristata_. According to Waterhouse the quills in the lumbar region, which are white in the Indian, are dusky in the European, which last has long white points to the bristles of the crest, whereas in the Indian one some only of the points are white, and the rest quite brown. The Indian porcupine lives in burrows, in banks, hill sides, on the bunds of tanks, and in the sides of rivers and nullahs. It is nocturnal in its habits, and in the vicinity of cultivation does much damage to such garden stuff as consists of tubers or roots. In the jungle its food consists chiefly of roots, especially of some kinds of wild yam (_Dioscorea_). I have found porcupines in the densest bamboo jungles of the central provinces, where their food was doubtless young bamboo shoots and various kind of roots. The porcupine all the world over is known to be good eating, and is in many countries esteemed a delicacy. The flesh is white and tender, and is much prized by most people in those places where it abounds. Brigadier-General McMaster, in his 'Notes on Jerdon,' in speaking of the only instance where he found a porcupine on the move after daylight, says: "Just at dawn a porcupine appeared, and, as I suppose his house was somewhere between us, trotted and fed, grunting hog-like, about the little valley at our feet until long after the sun was well up, and until I, despairing of other game, and bearing in mind his delicious flesh (for that of a porcupine is the most delicate I know of), shot him. Well may the flesh be tender and of delicate flavour, for, as many gardeners know to their cost, porcupines are most scrupulously dainty and epicurean as to their diet. A pine-apple is left by them until the very night before it is fit to be cut. Peas, potatoes, onions, &c., are not touched until the owner has made up his mind that they were just ready for the table." The Gonds in Seonee were always on the lookout for a porcupine. I described in my book on that district the digging out of one. "The entrance of the animal's abode was a hole in a bank at which the dogs were yelping and scratching; but the bipeds had gone more scientifically to work by countermining from above, sinking shafts downwards at various points, till at last they reached his inner chamber, when he scuttled out, and, charging backwards at the dogs with all his spines erected, he soon sent them flying, howling most piteously; but a Gondee axe hurled at his head soon put an end to his career, for a porcupine's skull is particularly tender." The female produces from two to four young, which are born with their eyes open. Their bodies are covered with short soft spines, which, however, speedily harden. It is said that the young do not remain long with their mother, but I cannot speak to this from personal experience. I have had young ones, but not those born in captivity. NO. 404. HYSTRIX BENGALENSIS. _The Bengal Porcupine_ (_Jerdon's No. 205_). NATIVE NAME.--_Sajaru_ or _Sajru_, Bengali. DESCRIPTION.--"Smaller than the last; crest small and thin; the bristles blackish; body spines much flattened and strongly grooved, terminating in a slight seta Or bristle; slender flexible quills much fewer than in _leucura_, white, with a narrow black band about the centre; the thick quills basally white, the rest black, mostly with a white tip; a distinct white demi-collar; spines of lumbar region white, as are those of tail and rattle; muzzle less hirsute than in _leucura_." SIZE.--Head and body, 28 inches; tail, 8 inches. There is occasionally a variety to be found of this species with orange-coloured quills, or rather the orange hue is assumed at times. Jerdon mentions the fact that Sclater describes his _H. Malabarica_ as having certain orange-coloured quills in place of white, and also that Blyth considered the two species identical. He also states that Mr. Day procured specimens of the orange porcupine from the Ghats of Cochin and Travancore, and that they were considered more delicate eating by the native sportsmen, who aver that they can distinguish the two kinds by the smell from their burrows; but he was not apparently aware at the time that a specimen of _H. Malabarica_ with orange quills in the Zoological Gardens in London moulted, and the red quills were replaced by the ordinary black and white ones of the common Indian kind. Dr. Sclater afterwards (_see_ 'P. Z. S.' 1871, p. 234) came to the conclusion that _H. Malabarica_ was synonymous with _H. leucura_. NO. 405. HYSTRIX (ACANTHION) LONGICAUDA. _The Crestless Porcupine_ (_Jerdon's No. 206_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Anchotia-sahi_ or _Anchotia-dumsi_ in Nepal; _Sathung_, Lepcha; _O'--e_ of the Limbus (_Hodgson_). (N.B.--The _ch_ must not be pronounced as _k_, but as _ch_ in church.) _Anchotia_ means crestless, the crested porcupine being called _Chotia-dumsi_. HABITAT.--Nepal and Sikim, and on through Burmah to the Malayan peninsula, where it was first discovered. DESCRIPTION.--Distinguished from the other species "by its inferior size, total absence of crest on its head, neck, and shoulders, by its longer tail, by the white collar of the neck being evanescent; and lastly by the inferior size and smaller quantity of the spines or quills."--_Hodgson_. It is covered with black spinous bristles from two to three inches long, shortest on the head and limbs. The large quills of the back and croup are from seven to twelve inches long, mostly with one central black ring. SIZE.--Head and body, 24 inches; tail, 4, or with the quills, 5-1/2 inches. This is Hodgson's _H. alophus_, which is, I think, a more appropriate name than the one given, for its tail is not so very long in proportion. Hodgson says of it: "They breed in spring, and usually produce two young about the time the crops ripen. They are monogamous, the pair dwelling together in burrows of their own formation. Their flesh is delicious, like pork, but much more delicate flavoured, and they are easily tamed so as to breed in confinement. All tribes and classes, even high-caste Hindoos, eat them, and it is deemed lucky to keep one or two alive in stables, where they are encouraged to breed. Royal stables are seldom without at least one of them." This animal was described by Gray as _Acanthion Hodgsonii_, the _lesser Indian porcupine_. Waterhouse, in writing of _Hystrix_ (_Acanthion_) _Javanica_, says: "The habits of the animal, as recorded by Muller, do not differ from those of _H. Hodgsonii_"; and Blyth, as mentioned by Jerdon, was of opinion that the two species were one and the same. The _Acanthochaerus Grotei_, described and figured by Dr. Gray in 1866 ('P. Z. S.' p. 306), is the same as this species. It is to be found at Darjeeling amongst the tea plantations, between 4000 and 5000 feet elevation. NO. 406. HYSTRIX YUNNANENSIS. HABITAT.--Burmah, in the Kakhyen hills, at elevations of from 2000 to 4500 feet. DESCRIPTION.--after Dr. Anderson, who first discovered and named this species: "Dark brown on the head, neck, shoulders, and sides passing into a deep black on the extremities, a very narrow white line passing backwards from behind the angle of the mouth to the shoulder; under surface brownish; the spiny hairs of the anterior part of the trunk flattened, grooved or ungrooved. The crest begins behind the occiput and terminates before the shoulders; the hairs are long, slender and backwardly curved, the generality of them being about 4-1/2 inches long, while the longer hairs measure about six inches. "They are all paler than the surrounding hairs, and the individual hairs are either broadly tipped with yellowish-white, or they have a broad sub-apical band of that colour. The short, broad, spiny hairs, lying a short way in front of the quills, are yellow at their bases, the remaining portion being deep brown, whereas those more quill-like spiny hairs, immediately before the quills, have both ends yellow tipped. "The quills are wholly yellow, with the exception of a dark brown, almost black band of variable breadth and position. It is very broad in the shorter quills, and is nearer the free end of the quill than its base, whereas in the long slender quills it is reduced to a narrow mesial band. The stout strong quills rarely exceed six inches in length, whilst the slender quills are one foot long. Posteriorly above the tail and at its sides many of the short quills are pure white. The modified quills on the tail, with dilated barb-like free ends are not numerous, and are also white. There are three kinds of rattle quills, the most numerous measure 0.65 inch in the length of the dilated hollow part, having a maximum breadth of 0.21 inch, whilst there are a few short cups 0.38 inch in length, with a breadth of 0.17 inch, and besides these a very few more elongated and narrow cylinders occur."--'Anat. and Zool. Res.,' p. 332. SUB-ORDER DUPLICIDENTATA--DOUBLE-TOOTHED RODENTS. These rodents are distinguished by the presence of two small additional incisors behind the upper large ones. At birth there are four such rudimentary incisors, but the outer two are shed, and disappear at a very early age; the remaining two are immediately behind the large middle pair, and their use is doubtful; but, as Dallas remarks, "their presence is however of interest, as indicating the direction in which an alliance with other forms of mammalia more abundantly supplied with teeth is to be sought." Another distinctive characteristic of this sub-order is the formation of the bony palate, which is narrowed to a mere bridge between the alveolar borders, or portions of the upper jaw in which the grinding teeth are inserted. The following synopsis of the sub-order is given by Mr. Alston:-- "Incisors 4/2; at birth 6/2; the outer upper incisor soon lost; the next pair very small, placed directly behind the large middle pair; their enamel continuous round the tooth, but much thinner behind; skull with the optic foramina confluent, with no true alisphenoid canal; incisive foramina usually confluent; bony palate reduced to a bridge between the alveolar borders; fibula anchylosed to tibia below, and articulating with the calcaneum; testes permanently external; no vescicular glands. Two families."--'P. Z. S.' 1876, p. 97. [Illustration: Dentition of Hare.] There are only two families each of one existing genus--LEPORIDAE, genus _Lepus_, the Hare; and LAGOMYIDAE, genus _Lagomys_, the Pika, or Mouse-Hare, as Jerdon calls it. There are three fossil genera in the first family, viz. _Palaeolagus_, a fossil hare found in the Miocene of Dacota and Colorado, _Panolax_ from the Pliocene marls of Santa Fe, and _Praotherium_ from Pennsylvanian bone-caves. A fossil Lagomys, genus _Titanomys_, is found in the Post-Pliocene deposits in various parts of Europe, chiefly in the south. FAMILY LEPORIDAE--THE HARES. "Three premolars above and two below; molars rootless, with transverse enamel folds dividing them into lobes; skull compressed; frontals with large wing-shaped post-orbital processes; facial portion of maxillaries minutely reticulated; basisphenoid with a median perforation, and separated by a fissure from the vomer; coronoid process represented by a thin ridge of bone; clavicles imperfect; ears and hind-limbs elongated, tail short, bushy, recurved."--_Alston_. Hares are found all over the world except in Australasia. The Rabbit is much more localised; in India we have none, unless the Hispid Hare, the black rabbit of Dacca sportsmen, is a true rabbit; it is said to burrow, but whether it is gregarious I know not. Another point would also decide the question, viz. are the young born with eyes open or shut? The hare pairs at about a year old, and has several broods a year of from two to five; the young are born covered with hair and their eyes open, whereas young rabbits are born blind and naked. The hare lives in the open, and its lair or "form" is merely a slight depression in some secluded spot. It has been noticed that the hare always returns to its form, no matter to what distance it may have wandered or have been driven. _GENUS LEPUS_. NO. 407. LEPUS RUFICAUDATUS. _The Common Indian Red-tailed Hare_ (_Jerdon's No. 207_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Khargosh_, _Kharra_, Hindi; _Sasru_, Bengali; _Mullol_, Gondi. HABITAT.--India generally. DESCRIPTION.--"General hue rufescent, mixed with blackish on the back and head; ears brownish anteriorly, white at the base, and the tip brown; neck, breast, flanks and limbs more or less dark sandy rufescent, unmottled; nape pale sandy rufescent; tail rufous above, white beneath; upper lip small; eye-mark, chin, throat, and lower parts pure white."--_Jerdon_. SIZE.--Head and body, 20 inches; tail, with hair, 4 inches; ear externally about 5 inches; maximum weight, about 5 lbs. The Indian hare is generally found in open bush country, often on the banks of rivers, at least as far as my experience goes in the Central Provinces. Jerdon says, and McMaster corroborates his statement, that this species, as well as the next, take readily to earth when pursued, and seem to be well acquainted with all the fox-holes in their neighbourhood, and McMaster adds that they seem to be well aware which holes have foxes or not, and never go into a tenanted one. The Indian hare is by no means so good for the table as the European one, being dry and tasteless, and hardly worth cooking. NO. 408. LEPUS NIGRICOLLIS. _The Black-naped Hare_ (_Jerdon's No. 208_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Khargosh_, Hindi; _Malla_, Canarese; _Sassa_, Mahrathi; _Musal_, Tamil; _Kundali_, Telegu; _Haba_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Southern India and Ceylon; stated to be found also in Sind and the Punjab. DESCRIPTION.--"Upper part rufescent yellow, mottled with black; single hairs annulated yellow and black; chin, abdomen, and inside of hind-limbs downy white; a black velvety spot on the occiput and upper part of neck extending to near the shoulders; the spot under the neck is in some specimens of a bright yellow colour; ears long, greyish-brown, internally with white fringes, at the apical part dusky, posteriorly black at the base; feet yellowish; tail above grizzled with black and yellow, beneath white."--_Kellaart_. SIZE.--Head and body, 19 inches; tail, 2-1/2 inches; ears, 4-3/4 inches. A friend of Brigadier-General McMaster's, writing to him, says: "The black-naped hare of the Neilgherries, which appears to be the same as that of the plains, only larger from the effect of climate, often, when chased by dogs, runs into holes and hollow trees. I have found some of the Neilgherry hares to be nearly, if not quite, equal to the English hares in flavour. I think a great deal depends upon keeping and cooking." NO. 409. LEPUS PEGUENSIS. _The Pegu Hare_. NATIVE NAME.--_Yung_, Arakanese. HABITAT.--Pegu, Burmah. DESCRIPTION.--Very like _L. ruficaudatus_, but with the tail _black_ above; the colour of the upper parts is separated more distinctly from the pure white of the under parts. SIZE.--Head and body, about 20 inches. NO. 410. LEPUS HYPSIBIUS. _The Mountain Hare_. HABITAT.--Northern Ladakh. DESCRIPTION.--Colour rufous brown, more or less mixed with black on the back, dusky ashy on the rump; lower parts white with a slight rufescent tinge, fur long, woolly, rather curly, and thick; head brown, whitish round the eyes; whiskers partly black, partly white; outside surface of ears brown in front, whitish behind, the brown hairs having short black tips; the extreme tip of ears black; tail white; throughout limbs chiefly white, a brownish band running down the anterior portion of the fore-legs. SIZE.--Of skin about 24 inches. (_See_ Blanford's 'Second Yarkand Mission,' p. 60; also plate iii.) NO. 411. LEPUS PALLIPES. _The Pale-footed Hare_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Togh_, _Toshkhen_, _Yarkandi_, i.e. Mountain Hare. HABITAT.--Yarkand; Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--"Fur long, dense and soft, of a pale ochre colour, but on the back of the animal pencilled with black; haunches greyish; under-parts white, chest of a delicate yellow rufous tint; the front of the fore-legs and the fore-feet nearly of the same hue; tarsus almost white, but somewhat suffused with rufous in front; tail white, excepting along the middle portion of the upper surface, where it is grey."--Waterhouse's 'Mammalia,' vol. ii. p. 62. SIZE.--Head and body, about 18 inches; tail, with hair about 5 inches. This hare was first described by Hodgson ('J. A. S. B.,' vol. xi.), who also gave a plate; but there is a full description with an excellent plate in Blanford's 'Scientific Results of the Second Yarkand Mission.' NO. 412. LEPUS TIBETANUS. _The Thibet Hare_. HABITAT.--Little Thibet; Ladakh. DESCRIPTION.--Ears longer than the head, margined with yellow white internally, externally, with the apex, edged with black and with a narrow edging of black extending about half-way down the hinder margin. The general colour seems to vary, as is the case with most of the mountain hares. According to Waterhouse it is "palish-ashy grey; the back mottled with dusky and yellowish-white; the back of neck pale rufous brown." Two specimens, described by Blanford, are "general colour rufous brown (very dark brownish tawny)," and another, "above dusky brown, with an ashy tinge on the rump." Waterhouse's specimens may have been in the winter dress; the under-parts are white; legs longish and white; tail white, with the upper surface sooty or grey-black. The excellent plate in the Yarkand Report is nearer to Waterhouse's verbal portraiture, being of a mottled ashy grey. SIZE.--Head and body, about 18 inches; tail, with hair, 4-1/2 inches. NO. 413. LEPUS YARKANDENSIS. _The Yarkand Hare_. NATIVE NAME.--_Toshkhan_, Yarkandi. HABITAT.--The plains of Yarkand and Kashghar. DESCRIPTION.--General colour sandy, more or less mixed with dusky; pale isabelline on the sides; no grey on rump; tail dark brown above; ears without black tip; lower parts white; fur soft and long; fore-legs very pale, brown in front; hind-legs still paler, brown outside. SIZE.--Head and body, about 17 inches; tail, 4 inches. Mr. Blanford remarks that "one striking peculiarity of this very pale coloured hare is the absence of any black patches, and of all grey coloration throughout." The specimens were all shot in winter too. (_See_ Blanford's 'Scientific Results, Second Yarkand Mission,' p. 65, and plate iv., fig. 1.) NO. 414. LEPUS PAMIRENSIS. _The Pamir Hare_. HABITAT.--Lake Sirikal, Pamir. DESCRIPTION.--Pale sandy brown; almost isabelline on back and sides; rump greyish-white; tail black above; face and anterior portion of the ears concolorous with back; terminal portion of ears black outside at the edge; breast light rufous; lower parts white; fur fine, close and soft; fore-legs in front, and hind-legs outside, with a light brownish tinge. SIZE.--Head and body, about 17 inches; tail, 4 inches. The hare is described and named by Mr. W. T. Blanford, and from his full description I have abridged the above short notice. It is also well figured in the 'Yarkand Report,' plate v., fig. 1. NO. 415. LEPUS STOLICZKANUS. _Stoliczka's Hare_. HABITAT.--Kashghar, Altum Artush district, north-east of Kashghar. DESCRIPTION.--"General colour light sandy brown, much mixed with black on the back; the rump very little paler; tail rather long, black above; face and anterior portion of ears the same colour as the back; terminal portion of ears black outside; nape and breast light rufous; lower parts white. The skull differs much from that of _L. Yarkandensis_ and _L. Pamirensis_, the nasals being much more abruptly truncated behind than in either, and the parietal region or sinciput flatter" (Blanford's 'Scientific Results, Second Yarkand Mission,' p. 69, and plate v. fig. 2, skull plate, Va. fig. 2). SIZE.--Head and body, about 17 inches; tail, with hair, 5 inches. This hare was obtained by Dr. Stoliczka, and was first described and named by Mr. W. T. Blanford ('J. A. S. B.' vol. xiv. 1875, part ii. p. 110). NO. 416. LEPUS CRASPEDOTIS. _The Large-eared Hare_. HABITAT.--Baluchistan, Pishin. DESCRIPTION.--Colour brown above, white below; the fur of the back is very pale French grey at the base, then black, and the tip is pale brown, almost isabelline; the black rings are wanting on the nape, hind neck and breast, which, like the fore-legs and hinder part of the tarsi are pale rufous brown; ears externally mouse brown, blackish-brown on the posterior portion near the tip, the anterior edges white, with rather longer hairs, except near the tip, where the hair is short and black; the posterior margins inside pale isabelline, the pale edge becoming broader near the tip; tail black above, white on the sides and below; whiskers black near the base, white except in the shorter ones throughout the greater part of their length; a pale line from the nose, including the eye, continued back nearly to the ear (Blanford's 'Eastern Persia,' vol. ii. p. 81, with plate). SIZE.--Head and body, 15 inches; tail, with hair, 4.5 inches; ear, 6 inches; breadth of ear laid flat, 3.25 inches. This is a new species, described and named by Mr. W. T. Blanford. NO. 417. LEPUS HISPIDUS. _The Hispid Hare_. HABITAT.--The Terai and low forests at the base of the Himalayas. DESCRIPTION.--"General colour dark or iron grey, with an embrowned ruddy tinge, and the limbs shaded outside, like the body, with black, instead of being unmixed rufous" (_Hodgson_). The inner fur is soft, downy, and of an ash colour, the outer longer, hispid, harsh and bristly. Some of the hairs ringed black and brown, others are pure black and long, the latter more numerous; ears short and broad. SIZE.--Head and body, 19-1/2 inches; tail, with hair, 2-1/8 inches; ears, 2-3/4 inches. This animal seems to be a link between the hares and the rabbits. Like the latter, it burrows, and has more equal limbs; but, according to Hodgson, it is not gregarious, but lives in pairs. It would greatly help in the identification of its position if some one would procure the young or a gravid female, and see whether the young are born blind and naked as in the rabbits, or open-eyed and clad with fur as in the hares. Jerdon says it is common at Dacca, and is reported to be found also in the Rajmehal hills, and that its flesh is stated to be white, like that of the rabbit. FAMILY LAGOMYIDAE--THE PIKAS, OR MOUSE-HARES. One or two premolars above and below; grinding teeth as in _Leporidae_; skull depressed; the frontals are contracted, without the wing-like processes of the hares; a single perforation in the facial surface of the maxillaries; a curious prolongation of the posterior angle of the malar into a process extending almost to the ear tube, or auditory meatus; the basisphenoid is not perforated and separated from the vomer as in _Lepus_; the coronoid process is in the form of a tubercle; the clavicles are complete; ears short; limbs nearly equal; no tail. _GENUS LAGOMYS_. Animals of small size and robust form; short-eared and tailless; two premolars above and below. NO. 418. LAGOMYS ROYLEI. _Royle's Pika_ (_Jerdon's No. 210_). NATIVE NAME.--_Rang-runt_, or _Rang-duni_, in Kunawur.--_Jerdon_. HABITAT.--The Himalayan range, from Kashmir to Sikim. DESCRIPTION.--Rabbit grey or brown, with a yellowish-grey tinge, more or less rufous on the head, neck, shoulder and sides of body; a hairy brown muzzle, with pale under-lip; long whiskers, some white, the posterior ones dark; under-parts white; fur soft and fine. The upper lip is lobed as in the hare; ears elliptical, with rounded tops. SIZE.--From 6 to 8 inches. The first specimen was sent to England by Dr. Royle, in whose honour Mr. Ogilby named it. It was obtained not far from Simla. It lives in rocky ground or amongst loose stones in burrows, and is the tailless rat described by Turner in his 'Journey to Thibet,' which had perforated the banks of a lake by its holes. NO. 419. LAGOMYS CURZONIAE. _Curzon's Pika_. HABITAT.--The higher ranges of the Himalayas, from 14,000 to 19,000 feet. It has been found northerly in Ladakh, and easterly in Sikim. DESCRIPTION.--Pale buff above, tinged with rufous, the sides being more rufescent; head, as far back as the ears, decidedly rufescent; ears large and oval; sides of head and nose dirty fulvous white; under-parts white, with a faint yellow tinge; limbs and soles of feet white; whiskers, some black, some white; fur long, fine and silky. SIZE.--About 7 inches to 8 inches. NO. 420. LAGOMYS LADACENSIS. _The Ladak Pika_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Zabra_, _Karin_, or _Phisekarin_, Ladakhi. HABITAT.--High plateaux of Ladakh. DESCRIPTION.--"General hue of the upper body pale buff, fulvous, with a very slight rufous tint, and tipped with dark brown; below whitish with translucent dusky blue."--_Stoliczka_, quoted by Blanford. SIZE.--From 7 inches to 9 inches. It is as yet doubtful whether this is not identical with the last. Mr. Blanford has separated it, and Dr. Gunther, agreeing with him, named this species _L. Ladacensis_; but the skull characteristics of _L. Curzoniae_ have not as yet been compared with this, and the separation has been made on external characters only. NO. 421. LAGOMYS AURITUS. _The Large-eared Pika_. HABITAT.--Lukong, on the Pankong lake. DESCRIPTION.--General colour above smoky or wood brown; the head, shoulders and rump rather paler and more rufous; lower parts whitish, with the dark basal portion of the hair showing through; fur very soft, moderately long; ears large, round, clothed rather thinly inside near the margin with whitish-brown hairs, and outside with much longer hairs of the same colour; whiskers fine and long, the upper dark brown, the lower white; feet whitish. (_See_ Blanford's 'Sc. Res. Second Yarkand Mission,' p. 75, plate vi. fig. 2.) SIZE.--About 8 inches. NO. 422. LAGOMYS MACROTIS. This seems to be a doubtful species; it may probably prove to be the same as the last, the skulls being similar. Mr. Blanford remarks: "I am strongly disposed to suspect, indeed, that _L. auritus_ is the summer _L. macrotis_, the winter garb of the same species; but there are one or two differences which require explanation. The feet appear larger in _L. macrotis_, and the pads of the toes are black, whilst in _L. auritus_ they are pale coloured. In the former the long hair of the forehead is lead black at the base, in the latter, pale grey; the feet and lower parts generally are white in _L. macrotis_, buffy white in _L. auritus_, but this may be seasonable." NO. 423. LAGOMYS GRISEUS. _The Grey Pika_. HABITAT.--Yarkand, Kuenlun range, south of Sunju pass. DESCRIPTION.--General colour dull grey (almost Chinchilla colour), with a slight rufescent tinge on the face and back; lower parts white; fur very soft, about 0.9 inch long in the middle of the back; glossy leaden black at the base and for about two-thirds of its length, very pale ashy grey towards the end; the extreme tips of many hairs dark brown, and on the back the tips of all the hairs are brownish; the sides are almost pure light ashy; rump still paler; feet white; hair on the face long, light brown on the forehead, greyer on the nose, pure grey on the sides of the head. A few of the upper whiskers black, the rest white; ears large round with rather thin white hairs inside, very short hairs close to the margin, white outside, black inside, outer surface covered with whitish hairs, which become long near the base of the ear. (_See_ Blanford's 'Scientific Results, Second Yarkand Mission,' p. 77, and plate vii. fig. 1.) SIZE.-About 7 inches. NO. 424. LAGOMYS RUFESCENS. _The Red Pika_. HABITAT.--Afghanistan, Persia. DESCRIPTION.--Pale sandy red, darker on the top of the head, the shoulders and fore part of back; two large patches behind the ears; the feet and the under-parts are pale buff yellow; ears moderately large, subovate and well clad, rusty yellow, paler on the under part; whiskers very long, brown, a few brownish white; toe-pads blackish. SIZE.-About 8 inches. This species has been found in the rocky hills of Cabul. _Lagomys Hodgsonii_, from Lahoul, Ladakh and Kulu, is considered to be the same as the above, and _L. Nipalensis_, described by Waterhouse, as synonymous with _L. Roylei_. * * * * * Under the systems of older naturalists the thick-skinned animals were lumped together under the order UNGULATA, or _hoofed animals_, subdivided by Cuvier into _Pachydermata_, or thick-skinned non-ruminants, and _Ruminantia_, or ruminating animals; but neither the elephant nor the coney can be called hoofed animals, and in other respects they so entirely differ from the rest that recent systematists have separated them into three distinct orders--_Proboscidea_, _Hyracoidea_ and _Ungulata_, which classification I here adopt. ORDER PROBOSCIDEA. It seems a strange jump from the order which contains the smallest mammal, the little harvest mouse, to that which contains the gigantic elephant--a step from the ridiculous to the sublime; yet there are points of affinity between the little mouse and the giant tusker to which I will allude further on, and which bring together these two unequal links in the great chain of nature. The order Proboscidea, or animals whose noses are prolonged into a flexible trunk, consists of one genus containing two living species only--the Indian and African Elephants. To this in the fossil world are added two more genera--the _Mastodon_ and _Dinotherium_. The elephant is one of the oldest known of animals. Frequent mention is made in the Scriptures and ancient writings of the use of ivory. In the First Book of Kings and the Second of Chronicles, it is mentioned how Solomon's ships brought every three years from Tarshish gold and silver and ivory (or elephants' teeth) apes and peacocks. In the Apocrypha the animal itself, and its use in war, is mentioned; in the old Sanscrit writings it frequently appears. Aristotle and Pliny were firm believers in the superstition which prevailed, even to more recent times, that it had no joints. "The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; His legs are for necessity, not flexure"-- says Shakespeare. Even down to the last century did this notion prevail, so little did people know of this animal. The supposition that he slept leaning against a tree is to be traced in Thomson's 'Seasons'-- "Or where the Ganges rolls his sacred waves Leans the huge elephant." Again, Montgomery says-- "Beneath the palm which he was wont to make His prop in slumber." At a very early period elephants were used in war, not only by the Indian but the African nations. In the first Punic war (B.C. 264-241) they were used considerably by the Carthaginians, and in the second Punic war Hannibal carried thirty-seven of them across the Alps. In the wars of the Moghuls they were used extensively. The domestication of the African elephant has now entirely ceased; there is however no reason why this noble animal should not be made as useful as its Indian brother; it is a bigger animal, and as tractable, judging from the specimens in menageries. It was trained in the time of the Romans for performances in the arena, and swelled the pomp of military triumphs, when, as Macaulay, I think, in his 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' says, the people wondered at-- "The monstrous beast that had A serpent for a hand." It seems a cruel shame, when one comes to think of it, that thousands of these noble animals should perish annually by all sorts of ignoble means--pitfalls, hamstringing, poisoned arrows, and a few here and there shot with more or less daring by adventurous sportsmen, only for the sake of their magnificent tusks. Few people think, as they leisurely cut open the pages of a new book or play with their ivory-handled dessert-knives after dinner, of the life that has once been the lot of that inanimate substance, so beautiful in its texture, so prized from time immemorial; still less do they think, for the majority do not know, of the enormous loss of life entailed in purveying this luxury for the market. An elephant is a long-lived beast; it is difficult to say what is the extent of its individual existence; at fifty years it is in its prime, and its reproduction is in ratio slower than animals of shorter life, yet what countless herds must there be in Central Africa when we consider that the annual requirements of Sheffield alone are reported to be upwards of 46,000 tusks, which represent 23,000 elephants a year for the commerce of one single city! The African elephant must be decreasing, even as it has been extirpated in the north of that continent, where it abounded in the time of the Carthaginians, and the time may come when ivory shall be counted as one of the precious things of the past. Even now the price is going up, and is nearly double what it was a year ago. Now enhanced price means either greater demand or deficient supply, and it is probably to this last we must look for an answer to the question. True it is that if we want ivory animals must be killed to get it, for the notion that some people have gained from obsolete works on natural history, to the effect that elephants shed their tusks, is an erroneous one. It is generally supposed that elephants do not shed their tusks at all, not even milk-teeth, but that they grow _ab initio_, as do the incisors of rodents, from a persistent pulp, and continue growing through life. Mr. G. P. Sanderson, the author of 'Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts,' whom I have to thank for much and valuable information about the habits of these animals, assured me, when I spoke to him about the popular idea of there being milk-tusks, that he had watched elephants from their birth, and had never known them to shed their tusks, nor had his mahouts ever found a shed tusk; but Mr. Tegetmeier has pointed out that there are skulls in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, showing both the milk and permanent tusks, the latter pushing forward the former, which are absorbed to a great extent, and leave nothing but a little blackened stump, the size of one's finger. This was brought to my notice by a correspondent of _The Asian_, "Smooth-bore," and I have lately had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Tegetmeier, and speaking to him on the subject. There is apparently no limit to the growth of tusks, so that under favourable circumstances they might attain enormous dimensions, owing to the age of the animal, and absence of the attrition which keeps the incisors of rodents down. As in the case of rodents, malformations of whose incisors I have alluded to some time back, the tusks of elephants assume various freaks. I have heard of their overlapping and crossing the trunk in a manner to impede the free use of that organ. The tusks of fossil elephants are in many cases gigantic. There is a head in the Indian Museum, of which the tusks _outside the socket_ measure 9-3/4 feet, and are of very curious formation. The two run parallel some distance, and then diverge, which would lead one to suppose that the animal inhabited open country, for such a formation would be extremely uncomfortable in thick forest. That tusks of such magnitude are not found nowadays is probably due to the fact that the elephant has more enemies, the most formidable of all being man, which prevent his reaching the great age of those of the fossil periods. It may be said, by those who disbelieve in the extermination of this animal, that, as elephants have provided ivory for several thousand years, they will go on doing so; but I would remind them that in olden days ivory was an article in limited demand, being used chiefly by kings and great nobles; it is only of late years that it has increased more than a hundredfold. Our forefathers used buck-horn handled knives, and they were without the thousand-and-one little articles of luxury which are now made of ivory; even the requirements of the ancient world drove the elephant away from the coasts, where Solomon, and later still the Romans, got their ivory; and now the girdle round the remaining herds in Central Africa is being narrowed day by day. Mr. Sanderson is of opinion that it is not decreasing in India under the present restrictions, but there is no doubt the reckless slaughter of them in Ceylon has greatly diminished their numbers. Sir Emerson Tennent states that the Government reward was claimed for 3,500 destroyed in part of the northern provinces alone in three years prior to 1848, and between 1851 and 1856, 2000 were killed in the southern provinces. _GENUS ELEPHAS--THE ELEPHANT_. In the writings of older naturalists this animal, so singular in its construction, will be found grouped with the horse, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, tapir, coney, and pig, under the name of pachydermata, the seventh order of Cuvier, but these are now more appropriately divided, as I have said before, into three different orders--Proboscidea, the elephants; Hyracoidea, the conies; and the rest come under Ungulata. Apparently singular as is the elephant in its anatomy, it bears traces of affinity to both Rodentia and Ungulata. The composition of its massive tusks or incisors, and also of its grinders, resembles that of the Rodents. The tusks grow from a persistent pulp, which forms new ivory coated with enamel, but the grinders are composed of a number of transverse perpendicular plates, or vertical laminae of dentine, enveloped with enamel, cemented together by layers of a substance called _cortical_. The enamel, by its superior hardness, is less liable to attrition, and, standing above the rest, causes an uneven grinding surface. Each of these plates is joined at the base of the tooth, and on the grinding surface the pattern formed by them distinguishes at once the Indian from the African elephant. In the former, the transverse ridges are in narrow, undulating loops, but in the African they form decided lozenges. These teeth, when worn out, are succeeded by others pushing forward from behind, and not forced up vertically, as in the case of ordinary deciduous teeth, so that it occasionally happens that the elephant has sometimes one and sometimes two grinders on each side, according to age. In the wild state sand and grit, entangled in the roots of plants, help in the work of attrition, and, according to Professor W. Boyd Dawkins, the tame animal, getting cleaner food, and not having such wear and tear of teeth, gets a deformity by the piling over of the plates of which the grinder is composed. An instance of this has come under my notice. An elephant belonging to my brother-in-law, Colonel W. B. Thomson, then Deputy Commissioner of Seonee, suffered from an aggravated type of this malformation. He was relieved by an ingenious mahout, who managed to saw off the projecting portion of the tooth, which now forms a paper-weight. In my account of Seonee I have given a detailed description of the mode in which the operation was effected. [Illustration: Side view of Grinders of Asiatic Elephant.] [Illustration: Grinder of Asiatic Elephant.] [Illustration: Grinder of African Elephant.] [Illustration: Section of Elephant's Skull.] The skull of the elephant possesses many striking features quite different from any other animal. The brain in bulk does not greatly exceed that of a man, therefore the rest of the enormous head is formed of cellular bone, affording a large space for the attachment of the powerful muscles of the trunk, and at the same time combining lightness with strength. This cellular bone grows with the animal, and is in great measure absent at birth. In the young elephant the brain nearly fills the head, and the brain-case increases but little in size during growth, but the cellular portion progresses rapidly with the growth of the animal, and is piled up over the frontals for a considerable height, giving the appearance of a bold forehead, the brain remaining in a small space at the base of the skull, close to its articulation with the neck. According to Professor Flower, the cranial cavity is elongated and depressed, more so in the African than the Indian elephant. The tentorial plane is nearly vertical, so that the cerebellar fossa is altogether behind the cerebral fossa, or, in plainer terms, the division between the big brain (cerebrum) and the little one (cerebellum) is vertical, the two brains lying on a level plane fore and aft instead of overlapping. The brain itself is highly convoluted. The nasal aperture, or olfactory fossa, is very large, and is placed a little below the brain-case. Few people who are intimate with but the external form of the elephant would suppose that the bump just above the root of the trunk, at which the hunter takes aim for the "front shot," is really the seat of the organ of smell, the channels of which run down the trunk to the orifice at the end. The maxillo-turbinals, or twisted bony laminae within the nasal aperture, which are to be found in most mammals, are but rudimentary in the elephant--the elongated proboscis, according to Professor Flower, probably supplying their place in warming the inspired air. The premaxillary and maxillary bones are largely developed, and contain the socket of the enormous tusks. The narial aperture is thus pushed up, and is short, with an upward direction, as in the Cetacea and Sirenia, with whom the Proboscidea have certain affinities. There are no lower incisors (except in a fossil species), and only two of the molar teeth are to be seen on each side of the jaw at a time, which are pushed out and replaced by others which grow from behind. During the life-time of the animal, twenty-four of these teeth are produced, six in each side of the upper and lower jaws. The elephant has seven cervical vertebrae, the atlas much resembling the human form; of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae the number is 23, of which 19 or 20 bear ribs; the caudal vertebrae are 31, of a simple character, without chevron bones. The pelvis is peculiar in some points, such as the form of the ileum and the arrangement of its surfaces, resembling the human pelvis. The limbs in the skeleton of the elephant are disposed in a manner differing from most other mammalia. The humerus is remarkable for the great development of the supinator ridge. "The ulna and radius are quite distinct and permanently crossed; the upper end of the latter is small, while the ulna not only contributes the principal part of the articular surface for the humerus, but has its lower end actually larger than that of the radius--a condition almost unique among mammals" (_Prof. Flower_). On looking at the skeleton of the elephant, one of the first things that strikes the student of comparative anatomy is the perpendicular column of the limbs; in all other animals the bones composing these supports are set at certain angles, by which a direct shock in the action of galloping and leaping is avoided. Take the skeleton of a horse, and you will observe that the scapula and humerus are set almost at right angles to each other. It is so in most other animals, but in the elephant, which requires great solidity and columnar strength, it not being given to bounding about, and having enormous bulk to be supported, the scapula, humerus, ulna and radius are all almost in a perpendicular line. Owing to this rigid formation, the elephant cannot spring. No greater hoax was ever perpetrated on the public than that in one of our illustrated papers, which gave a picture of an elephant hurdle-race. Mr. Sanderson, in his most interesting book, says: "He is physically incapable of making the smallest spring, either in vertical height or horizontal distance. Thus a trench seven feet wide is impassable to an elephant, though the step of a large one in full stride is about six and a half feet." [Illustration: Skeleton of Elephant.] The hind-limbs are also peculiarly formed, and bear some resemblance to the arrangement of the human bones, and in these the same perpendicular disposition is to be observed; the pelvis is set nearly vertically to the vertebral column, and the femur and tibia are in an almost direct line. The fibula, or small bone of the leg, which is subject to great variation amongst animals (it being merely rudimentary in the horse, for instance), is distinct in the elephant, and is considerably enlarged at the lower end. The tarsal bones are short, and the digits have the usual number of phalanges, the ungual or nail-bearing ones being small and rounded. [Illustration: A. Muscles of Elephant's Trunk. B. Cross-section of ditto.] I have thus briefly summarised the osteology of the elephant, as I think the salient points on which I have touched would interest the general reader; but, in now proceeding to the internal anatomy, I shall restrict myself still more, referring only to certain matters affecting externally visible peculiarities. The trunk of the elephant differs somewhat from other nasal prolongations, such as the snouts of certain insectivora, which are simply development of the nasal cartilages. The nasal cartilages in the Proboscidea serve merely as valves to the entrance of the bony nares, the trunk itself being only a pipe or duct leading to them, composed of powerful muscular and membranous tissue and consisting of two tubes, separated by a septum. The muscles in front (_levatores proboscidis_), starting from the frontal bone, run along a semicircular line, arching upwards above the nasal bones and between the orbits. They are met at the sides by the lateral longitudinal muscles, which blend, and their fibres run the whole length of the proboscis down to the extremity. The depressing muscles (_depressores proboscidis_), or posterior longitudinals, arise from the anterior surface and lower border of the premaxillaries, and form "two layers of oblique fasciculi along the posterior surface of the proboscis; the fibres of the superficial set are directed downwards and outwards from the middle line. They do not reach the extremity of the trunk, but disappear by curving over the sides a little above the end of the organ. The fibres of the deeper set take the reverse direction, and are attached to a distinct tendinous raphe along the posterior median line" ('Anat. Ind. Elep.,' Miall and Greenwood). These muscles form the outer sheath of other muscles, which radiate from the nasal canals outwards, and which consist of numerous distinct fasciculi. Then there are a set of transverse muscles in two parts--one narrow, forming the septum or partition between the nasal passages, and the other broader between the narrow part and the posterior longitudinal muscles. When we consider the bulk of these well-knit muscles we can no longer wonder at the power of which this organ is capable, although, according to Mr. Sanderson, its capabilities are much exaggerated; and he explodes various popular delusions concerning it. He doubts the possibility of the animal picking up a needle, the common old story which I also disbelieve, having often seen the difficulty with which a coin is picked up, or rather scraped up; but he quite scouts the idea of an elephant being able to lift a heavy weight with his trunk, giving an instance recorded of one of these creatures lifting with his trunk the axle of a field-piece as the wheel was about to pass over a fallen gunner, which he declares to be a physical impossibility. Certainly the story has many elements of improbability about it, and his comments on it are caustic and amusing: _par exemple_, when he asks: "How did the elephant know that a wheel going over the man would not be agreeable to him?" That is the weak point in the story--but, however intelligent the animal might be, Mr. Sanderson says it is physically impossible. Another thing that strikes every one is the noiseless tread of this huge beast. To describe the mechanism of the foot of the elephant concisely and simply I am going to give a few extracts from the observations of Professor W. Boyd Dawkins and Messrs. Oakley, Miall, and Greenwood: "It stands on the ends of its five toes, each of which is terminated by comparatively small hoofs, and the heel-bone is a little distance from the ground. Beneath comes the wonderful cushion composed, of membranes, fat, nerves, and blood-vessels, besides muscles, which constitutes the sole of the foot" (_W. B. D. and H. O._). "Of the foot as a whole--and this remark apples to both fore and hind extremities--the separate mobility of the parts is greater than would be suspected from an external inspection, and much greater than in most Ungulates. The palmar and plantar soles, though thick and tough, are not rigid boxes like hoofs, but may be made to bend even by human fingers. The large development of muscles acting upon the carpus and tarsus, and the separate existence of flexors and extensors of individual digits, is further proof that the elephant's foot is far from being a solid unalterable mass. There are, as has been pointed out, tendinous or ligamentous attachments which restrain the independent action of some of these muscles, but anatomical examinations would lead us to suppose that the living animal could at all events accurately direct any part of the circumference of the foot by itself to the ground. The metacarpal and metatarsal bones form a considerable angle with the surface of the sole, while the digits, when supporting the weight of the body, are nearly horizontal" (_M. and G._). This formation would naturally give elasticity to the foot, and, with the soft cushion spoken of by Professor Dawkins, would account for the noiselessness of the elephant's tread. On one occasion a friend and myself marched our elephant up to a sleeping tiger without disturbing the latter's slumbers. It is a curious fact that twice round an elephant's foot is his height; it may be an inch one way or the other, but still sufficiently near to take as an estimate. Now we come to a third peculiarity in this interesting animal, and that is the power of withdrawing water or a similar fluid from apparently the stomach by the insertion of its trunk into the mouth, which it sprinkles over its body when heated. The operation and the _modus operandi_ are familiar to all who have made much use of elephants, but the internal economy by which the water is supplied is as yet a mystery to be solved, although various anatomists have given the subject serious attention. It is generally supposed that the receptacle for the liquid is the stomach, from the quantity that is ejected. An elephant distressed by a long march in the heat of the sun withdraws several quarts of water, but that it is water, and not a secretion produced by salivatory glands, is not I think sufficiently evident. In talking over the matter with Mr. Sanderson, he informed me that an elephant that has drunk a short time before taking an arduous march has a more plentiful supply of liquid at his disposal. Therefore we might conclude that it is water which is regurgitated, and in such quantity as to preclude the idea of its being stored anywhere but in the stomach; but the question is, how it is so stored there without assimulating with the food in the process of digestion. Sir Emerson Tennent, in his popular and well-known, but in some respects incorrect, account of the elephant, has adopted the theory that the cardiac end of the stomach is the receptacle for the water; and he figures a section of it showing a number of transverse circular folds; and he accepts the conclusion arrived at by Camper and Sir Everard Home that this portion can be shut off as a water chamber by the action of the fold nearest to the oesophagus; but these folds are too shallow to serve as water-cells, and it has not been demonstrated that the broadest fold near the oesophagus can be contracted to such an extent as to form a complete diaphragm bisecting the stomach. Messrs. Miall and Greenwood say: "The stomach is smooth, externally elongate, and nearly straight. The cardiac end is much prolonged and tapering. A number of transverse, nearly circular, folds project inwards from the cardiac wall; they almost disappear when the stomach is greatly distended, and are at all times too shallow to serve as water-cells, though they have been figured and described as such." That the stomach is the reservoir is, I think, open to doubt; but there is no other possible receptacle as yet discovered, though I shall allude to a supposed one presently, which would hold a moderate supply of water, and further research in this direction is desirable. Most of the dissections hitherto made have been of young and immature specimens. Dr. Watson's investigations have thrown some light on the way in which the water is withdrawn, which differs from Dr. Harrison's conclusions, which are quoted by Sir Emerson Tennent. Dr. Watson says regarding this power of withdrawal: "It is evident that were the throat of this animal similar to that of other mammals, this could not be accomplished, as the insertion of a body, such as the trunk, so far into the pharynx as to enable the constrictor muscles of that organ to grasp it, would at once give rise to a paroxysm of coughing; or, were the trunk merely inserted into the mouth, it would be requisite that this cavity be kept constantly filled with water, at the same time that the lips closely encircled the inserted trunk. The formation of the mouth of the elephant, however, is such as to prevent the trunk ever being grasped by the lips so as effectually to stop the entrance of air into the cavity, and thus at once, if I may so express it, the pump action of the trunk is completely paralysed. We find, therefore, that it is to some modification of the throat that we must look for an explanation of the function in question." He then goes on to explain minutely the anatomical details of the apparatus of the throat, which I will endeavour to sketch as simply, though clearly, as I can. The superior aperture of the pharynx is extremely narrow, so much so as to admit, with difficulty, the passage of a closed fist; but immediately behind this the pharynx dilates into a large pouch capable of containing a certain quantity of fluid--according to Dr. Watson a considerable quantity; but this is open to question. Professor Miall states that in the young specimen examined by him and Mr. Greenwood, a pint was the capacity of the pouch. However, according to Dr. Watson, it is capable of distention to a certain extent. The pouch is prolonged forward beneath the root of the tongue, which forms the anterior boundary, whilst the posterior wall is completed by depression of the soft palate; when the latter is elevated the pouch communicates freely with the oesophagus. I omit Dr. Watson's minute description of the anatomy of this part in detail, which the reader who cares to study the matter more deeply can find in his 'Contributions to the Anatomy of the Indian Elephant,' 'Journal of Anatomy and Physiology,' 1871-74, but proceed to quote some of his deductions from the observations made: "An elephant can," he says, "as the quotations sufficiently prove, withdraw water from his stomach in two ways--first, it may be regurgitated directly into the nasal passages by the action of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles, the soft palate being at the same time depressed, so as to prevent the passage of water into the mouth. Having in this manner filled the large nasal passages communicating with the trunk, the water contained in them is then forced through the trunk by means of a powerful expiration; or, in the second place, the water may be withdrawn from the cavity of the mouth by means of the trunk inserted into it." The second deduction is, I think, the more probable one. Before an elephant spirts water over his body, he invariably puts his trunk into his mouth for the liquid, whatever it may be. Messrs. Miall and Greenwood are also against the former supposition, viz. that the fluid is regurgitated into the nasal passages. They say: "We are disposed to question the normal passage of water along this highly-sensitive tract. Examination of the parts discovers no valve or other provision for preventing water, flowing from behind forward, from gaining free entrance into the olfactory recesses." Mr. Sanderson, in discussing the habits of elephants with me, informed me that, from his observations, he was sure that an elephant, in drawing up water, did not fill more than fifteen to eighteen inches of his trunk at a time, which confirms the opinion of the two last-mentioned authors. Now we go on with Dr. Watson's second deduction:-- "It is manifestly impossible that the water can be contained within the cavity of the mouth itself, as I have already shown that the lips in the elephant are so formed as effectually to prevent this. The water regurgitated is, however, by means of the elevation of the soft palate, forced into the pharyngeal pouch. The superior aperture of this pouch being much narrower than the diameter of the pouch itself, and being completely surrounded by the muscular fibres of the stylo-glossus on each side, and the root of the tongue in front, which is prolonged backwards so as to form a free sharp margin, we have thus, as it were, a narrow aperture surrounded by a sphincter muscle, into which the trunk being inserted, and grasped above its dilated extremity by the sphincter arrangement just referred to, air is thus effectually excluded; and, the nasal passages being then exhausted by the act of inspiration, water is lodged within these passages, to be used as the animal thinks fit, either by throwing it over his body, or again returning it into his mouth." This is doubtless a correct conclusion. The question still remaining open is, What is the fluid--water or a secretion? If water, where is it stowed in sufficient quantity? The testimony of several eminent anatomists appears to be against stomach complications such as before suggested. Dr. Anderson has told me that he had the opportunity of examining the stomachs of two very large elephants, which were perfectly simple, of enormous size; and he was astonished at the extent of mucous surface. If water were drawn from such a stomach, it would be more or less tainted with half-digested food, besides which, when drunk, it would be rapidly absorbed by the mucous surfaces. I think therefore that we may assume that these yield back a very fluid secretion, which is regurgitated, as before suggested, into the pharyngeal pouch, to be withdrawn as required. Sir Emerson Tennent figures, on the authority of Dr. Harrison, a portion of the trachea and oesophagus, connected by a muscle which he supposes "might raise the cardiac orifice of the stomach, and so aid this organ to regurgitate a portion of its contents into the oesophagus," but neither Dr. Watson nor Messrs. Miall and Greenwood have found any trace of this muscle. * * * * * Before proceeding to a detailed account of the Indian elephant, I will cursorily sketch the difference between it and its African brother. The African elephant is of larger size as a rule, with enormously developed ears, which quite overlap his withers. The forehead recedes, and the trunk is more coarsely ringed; the tusks are larger, some almost reaching the size of those mentioned above in the fossil head at the museum. An old friend of mine, well known to all the civilised--and a great portion of the uncivilised--world, Sir Samuel Baker, had, and may still have, in his possession a tusk measuring ten feet nine inches. This of course includes the portion within the socket, whereas my measurement of the fossil is from the socket to tip. The lamination of the molar teeth also is very distinct in the two species, as I have before stated--the African being in acute lozenges, the Indian in wavy undulations. Another point of divergence is, that the African elephant has only three nails on the hind feet, whereas the Asiatic has four. NO. 425. ELEPHAS INDICUS. _The Indian or Asiatic Elephant_ (_Jerdon's No. 211_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Hasti_ or _Gaja_, Sanscrit; _Gaj_, Bengali; _Hati_, Hindi; _Ani_ in Southern India, i.e. in Tamil, Telegu, Canarese, and Malabari; _Feel_, Persian; _Allia_, Singhalese; _Gadjah_, Malayan; _Shanh_, Burmese. HABITAT.--India, in most of the large forests at the foot of the Himalayas from Dehra Doon down to the Bhotan Terai; in the Garo hills, Assam; in some parts of Central and Southern India; in Ceylon and in Burmah, from thence extending further to Siam, Sumatra and Borneo. DESCRIPTION.--Head oblong, with concave forehead; small ears as compared with the African animal; small eyes, lighter colour, and four instead of three nails on the hind foot; the laminations of the molar teeth in wavy undulations instead of sharp lozenges, as in the African, the tusks also being much smaller in the female, instead of almost equal in both sexes. SIZE.--The maximum height appears to be about 11 feet, in fact the only authentic measurement we have at present is 10 feet 7 inches. "The huge elephant, wisest of brutes," has had a good deal of the romance about it taken away by modern observers. The staid appearance of the animal, with the intellectual aspect contributed by the enormous cranial development, combined with its undoubted docility and aptitude for comprehending signs, have led to exaggerated ideas of its intelligence, which probably does not exceed that of the horse, and is far inferior to that of the dog. But from time immemorial it has been surrounded by a halo of romance and exaggeration. Mr. Sanderson says, however, that the natives of India never speak of it as an intelligent animal, "and it does not figure in their ancient literature for its wisdom, as do the fox, the crow, and the monkey;" but he overlooks the fact that the Hindu god of wisdom, _Gunesh_, is always depicted with the body of a man, but the head of an elephant. However this is apparently an oversight, for both in his book and lecture he alludes to _Gunesh_. The rest of his remarks are so good, and show so much practical knowledge, that I shall take the liberty of quoting _in extenso_ from a lecture delivered by him at Simla last year, a printed copy of which he kindly sent me, and also from his interesting book, 'Thirteen Years amongst the Wild Beasts.' He says: "One of the strongest features in the domesticated elephant's character is its obedience. It may also be readily taught, as it has a large share of the ordinary cultivable intelligence common in a greater or less degree to all animals. But its reasoning faculties are undoubtedly far below those of the dog, and possibly of other animals; and in matters beyond the range of its daily experience it evinces no special discernment. Whilst quick at comprehending anything sought to be taught to it, the elephant is decidedly wanting in originality." I think one as often sees instances of decided stupidity on the part of elephants as of sagacity, but I think the amount of intelligence varies in individuals. I have known cases where elephants have tried to get their mahouts off their backs--two cases in my own district--in the one the elephant tried shaking and then lying down, both of which proved ineffectual; in the other it tried tearing off the rafters of a hut and throwing them over its back, and finally rubbing against low branches of trees, which proved successful. The second elephant, I think, showed the greatest amount of original thought; but there is no doubt the sagacity of the animal has been greatly overrated. I quote again from Mr. Sanderson, whose remarks are greatly to the point:-- "What an improbable story is that of the elephant and the tailor, wherein the animal, on being pricked with a needle instead of being fed with sweetmeats as usual, is represented as having deliberately gone to a pond, filled its trunk with dirty water, and returned and squirted it over the tailor and his work! This story accredits the elephant with appreciating the fact that throwing dirty water over his work would be the peculiar manner in which to annoy a tailor. How has he acquired the knowledge of the incongruity of the two things, dirty water and clean linen? He delights in water himself, and would therefore be unlikely to imagine it objectionable to another. If the elephant were possessed of the amount of discernment with which he is commonly credited, is it reasonable to suppose that he would continue to labour for man instead of turning into the nearest jungle? The elephant displays less intelligence in its natural state than most wild animals. Whole herds are driven into ill-concealed inclosures which no other forest creatures could be got to enter; and single ones are caught by being bound to trees by men under cover of a couple of tame elephants, the wild one being ignorant of what is going on until he finds himself secured. Escaped elephants are re-taken without trouble; even experience does not bring them wisdom. Though possessed of a proboscis which is capable of guarding it against such dangers, the wild elephant readily falls into pits dug in its path, whilst its fellows flee in terror, making no effort to assist the fallen one, as they might easily do by kicking in the earth around the pit. It commonly happens that a young elephant falls into a pit, in which case the mother will remain until the hunters come, without doing anything to assist her offspring--not even feeding it by throwing in a few branches. "When a half-trained elephant of recent capture happens to get loose, and the approach of its keeper on foot might cause it to move off, or perhaps even to run away altogether, the mahout calls to his elephant from a distance to kneel, and he then approaches and mounts it. The instinct of obedience is herein shown to be stronger than the animal's intelligence. When a herd of wild elephants is secured within a stockade, or _kheddah_, the mahouts ride trained elephants amongst the wild ones without fear, though any one of the wild ones might, by a movement of its trunk, dislodge the man. This they never do." On the other hand we do hear of wonderful cases of reasoning on the part of these creatures. I have never seen anything very extraordinary myself; but I had one elephant which almost invariably attempted to get loose at night, and often succeeded, if we were encamped in the vicinity of sugar-cane cultivation--nothing else tempted her; and many a rupee have I had to pay for the damage done. This elephant knew me perfectly after an absence of eighteen months, trumpeted when she saw me, and purred as I came up and stroked her trunk. I then gave her the old sign, and in a moment she lifted me by the trunk on to her head. I never mounted her any other way, and, as I used to slip off by a side rope, the constant kneeling down and getting up was avoided. Sir Emerson Tennent says: "When free in its native woods the elephant evinces rather simplicity than sagacity, and its intelligence seldom exhibits itself in cunning;" yet in the next page he goes on to relate a story told to him of a wild elephant when captured falling down, and feigning to be dead so successfully that all the fastenings were taken off; "while this was being done he and a gentleman by whom he was accompanied leaned against the body to rest. They had scarcely taken their departure and proceeded a few yards when, to their astonishment, the elephant arose with the utmost alacrity, and fled towards the jungles screaming at the top of its voice, its cries being audible long after it had disappeared in the shades of the forest." If this be correct it shows a considerable amount of cunning. Both Mr. Sanderson and Sir Emerson Tennent agree on the subject of the rarity of the remains of dead elephants. I have never been in real elephant country; the tracks of such as I have come across have been merely single wanderers from the Bilaspore herds, or probably elephants escaped from captivity. Forsyth once came upon the bones of a small herd of five that had been driven over a precipice from the summit of a hill, on which there was a Hindoo shrine, by the drums and music of a religious procession. The following taken from Mr. Sanderson's lecture is interesting as regards the constitution of the herds: "Herds of elephants usually consist of from thirty to fifty individuals, but much larger numbers, even upwards of a hundred, are by no means uncommon. A herd is always led by a female, never by a male. In localities where fodder is scarce a large herd usually divides into parties of from ten to twenty. These remain at some little distance from each other, but all take part in any common movement, such as a march into another tract of forest. These separate parties are family groups, consisting of old elephants with their children and grandchildren. It thus happens that, though the gregarious instincts of elephants prompt them to form large gatherings, if circumstances necessitate it a herd breaks up under several leaders. Cases frequently occur when they are being hunted; each party will then take measures for its individual safety. It cannot be said that a large herd has any _supreme_ leader. Tuskers never interest themselves in the movement of their herds; they wander much alone, either to visit cultivation, where the females, encumbered with young ones, hesitate to follow, or from a love of solitude. Single elephants found wandering in the forests are usually young males--animals debarred from much intimate association with the herds by stronger rivals; but they usually keep within a few miles of their companions. These wandering tuskers are only biding their time until they are able to meet all comers in a herd. The necessity for the females regulating the movements of a herd is evident, as they must accommodate the length and time of their marches, and the localities in which they rest and feed at different hours, to the requirements of their young ones." It is a curious fact that most of the male elephants in Ceylon are what are called _mucknas_ in India, that is, tuskless males--not one in a hundred, according to Sir Emerson Tennent, being found with tusks; nearly all, however, are provided with tushes. These, he says, he has observed them "to use in loosening earth, stripping off bark, and snapping asunder small branches and climbing plants, and hence tushes are seldom seen without a groove worn into them near their extremities." Sir Samuel Baker says that the African elephant uses his tusks in ploughing up ground in search of edible roots, and that whole acres may be seen thus ploughed, but I have never seen any use to which the Indian elephant puts his tusks in feeding. I have often watched mine peeling the bark off succulent branches, and the trunk and foot were alone used. Mr. Sanderson, in his 'Thirteen Years,' remarks: "Tusks are not used to assist the elephant in procuring food;" but he says they are formidable weapons of offence in the tusker, the biggest of whom lords it over his inferiors. The elephant usually brings forth, after a period of gestation of from eighteen to twenty-two months, a single calf, though twins are occasionally born. Mr. Sanderson says: "Elephant calves usually stand exactly thirty-six inches at the shoulder when born, and weigh about 200 lbs. They live entirely upon milk for five or six months, when they begin to eat tender grass. Their chief support, however, is still milk for some months. I have known three cases of elephants having two calves at a birth. It cannot be said that the female elephant evinces any special attachment to her offspring, whilst the belief that all the females of a herd show affection for each other's calves is certainly erroneous. During the catching of elephants many cases occur in which young ones, after losing their mothers by death or separation, are refused assistance by the other females, and are buffeted about as outcasts. I have only known one instance of a very gentle, motherly elephant in captivity, allowing a motherless calf to suck along with her own young one. When a calf is born the mother and the herd usually remain in that place for two days. The calf is then capable of marching. Even at this tender age calves are no encumbrance to the herd's movement; the youngest climb hills and cross rivers, assisted by their dams. In swimming, very young calves are supported by their mothers' trunks, and are held in front of them. When they are a few months old they scramble on to their mother's shoulders, and hold on with their fore-legs, or they swim alone. Though a few calves are born at other seasons, the largest number make their appearance about September, October, and November." Until I read the above I, from my limited experience, had come to the conclusion that elephant mothers are very fussy and jealous of other females. (See Appendix C, p. 527.) I have only once seen an elephant born in captivity, and that was in 1859, when I was in charge of the Sasseram Levy on the Grand Trunk road. Not far from the lines of my men was an elephant camp; they were mostly Burmese animals, and many of them died; but one little fellow made his appearance one fine morning, and was an object of great interest to us all. On one occasion, some years after, I went out after a tiger on a female elephant which had a very young calf. I repented it after a while, for I lost my tiger and my temper, and very nearly my life. Those who have read 'Seonee,' may remember the ludicrous scene in which I made the doctor figure as the hero. An elephant is full grown at twenty-five, though not in his prime till some years after. Forty years is what mahouts, I think, consider age, but the best elephants live up to one hundred years or even more.[29] [Footnote 29: See note in Appendix C on this subject.] _A propos_ of my remarks, in the introductory portion of this paper on Proboscidea, regarding the probable gradual extinction of the African elephant, the following reassuring paragraphs from the lecture I have so extensively quoted will prove interesting and satisfactory. Mr. Sanderson has previously alluded to the common belief, strengthened by actual facts in Ceylon, that the elephant was gradually being exterminated in India; but this is not the case, especially since the laws for their protection have come into force: "The elephant-catching records of the past fifty years attest the fact that there is no diminution in the numbers now obtainable in Bengal, whilst in Southern India elephants have become so numerous of late years that they are annually appearing where they had never been heard of before." He then instances the Billigarungun hills, an isolated range of three hundred square miles on the borders of Mysore, where wild elephants first made their appearance about eighty years ago, the country having relapsed from cultivation into a wilderness owing to the decimation of the inhabitants by three successive visitations of small-pox. He adds: "The strict preservation of wild elephants seems only advantageous or desirable in conjunction with corresponding measures for keeping their numbers within bounds by capture. It is to be presumed that elephants are preserved with a view to their utilisation. With its jungles filled with elephants, the anomalous state of things by which Government, when obliged to go into the market, finds them barely procurable, and then only at prices double those of twenty, and quadruple those of forty years ago, will I trust be considered worthy of inquiry. Whilst it is necessary to maintain stringent restrictions on the wasteful and cruel native modes of hunting, it will I believe be found advantageous to allow lessees every facility for hunting under conditions that shall insure humane management of their captives. I believe that the price of elephants might be reduced one-half in a year or two by such measures. The most ordinary elephant cannot be bought at present for less than Rs. 2,000. Unless something be done, it is certain that the rifle will have to be called into requisition to protect the ryots of tracts bordering upon elephant jungles. To give an idea of the numbers of wild elephants in some parts of India, I may say that during the past three years 503 elephants have been captured by the Dacca kheddah establishment, in a tract of country forty miles long by twenty broad, in the Garo hills, whilst not less than one thousand more were met with during the hunting operations. Of course these elephants do not confine themselves to that tract alone, but wander into other parts of the hills. There are immense tracts of country in India similarly well stocked with wild elephants. "I am sure it will be regarded as a matter for hearty congratulation by all who are interested in so fine and harmless an animal as is the elephant that there is no danger of its becoming extinct in India. Though small portions of its haunts have been cleared for tea or coffee cultivation, the present forest area of this country will probably never be practically reduced, for reasons connected with the timber supply and climate of the country; and as long as its haunts remain the elephant must flourish under due regulations for its protection." Elephants are caught in various ways. The pitfall is now prohibited, so also is the Assam plan of inclosing a herd in a salt lick. Noosing and driving into a _kheddah_ or inclosure are now the only legitimate means of capture. The process is too long for description here, but I may conclude this article, which owes so much to Mr. Sanderson's careful observations, with the following interesting account of the mode in which the newly-caught elephant is taught to obey:-- "New elephants are trained as follows: they are first tied between two trees, and are rubbed down by a number of men with long bamboos, to an accompaniment of the most extravagant eulogies of the animal, sung and shouted at it at the top of their voices. The animal of course lashes out furiously at first; but in a few days it ceases to act on the offensive, or, as the native say, 'shurum lugta hai'--'it becomes ashamed of itself,' and it then stands with its trunk curled, shrinking from the men. Ropes are now tied round its body, and it is mounted at its picket for several days. It is then taken out for exercise, secured between two tame elephants. The ropes still remain round its body to enable the mahout to hold on should the elephant try to shake him off. A man precedes it with a spear to teach it to halt when ordered to do so; whilst, as the tame elephants wheel to the right or left, the mahout presses its neck with his knees, and taps it on the head with a small stick, to train it to turn in the required direction. To teach an elephant to kneel it is taken into water about five feet deep when the sun is hot, and, upon being pricked on the back with a pointed stick it soon lies down, partly to avoid the pain, partly from inclination for a bath. By taking it into shallower water daily, it is soon taught to kneel even on land. "Elephants are taught to pick up anything from the ground by a rope, with a piece of wood attached, being dangled over their foreheads, near to the ground. The wood strikes against their trunk and fore-feet, and to avoid the discomfort the elephant soon takes it in its trunk, and carries it. It eventually learns to do this without a rope being attached to the object." Sir Emerson Tennent's account of the practice in Ceylon is similar. As regards the size of elephants few people agree. The controversy is as strong on this point as on the maximum size of tigers. I quite believe few elephants attain to or exceed ten feet, still there are one or two recorded instances, the most trustworthy of which is Mr. Sanderson's measurement of the Sirmoor Rajah's elephant, which is 10 ft. 7-1/2 in. at the shoulder--a truly enormous animal. I have heard of a tusker at Hyderabad that is over eleven feet, but we must hold this open to doubt till an accurate measurement, for which I have applied, is received. Elephants should be measured like a horse, with a standard and cross bar, and not by means of a piece of string over the rounded muscles of the shoulder. Kellaart, usually a most accurate observer, mentions in his 'Prodromus Faunae Zeylanicae' his having measured a Ceylon elephant nearly twelve feet high, but does not say how it was done. Sir Joseph Fayrer has a photograph of an enormous elephant belonging to the late Sir Jung Bahadur, a perfect mountain of flesh. * * * * * We in India have nothing to do with the next order, HYRACOIDEA or Conies, which are small animals, somewhat resembling short-eared rabbits, but which from their dentition and skeleton are allied to the rhinoceros and tapir. The Syrian coney is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, and was one of the animals prohibited for food to the Jews, "because he cheweth the cud and divideth not the hoof." The chewing of the cud was a mistake, for the coney does not do so, but it has a way of moving its jaws which might lead to the idea that it ruminates. In other parts of Scripture the habits of the animal are more accurately depicted--"The rocks are a refuge for the conies;" and again: "The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks." Solomon says in the Proverbs: "There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise." These are the ants, for they prepare their meat in summer, as we see here in India the stores laid up by the large black ant (_Atta providens_); the conies for the reason above given; the locusts, which have no king, yet go forth by bands; and the spider, which maketh her home in kings' palaces. ORDER UNGULATA. These are animals which possess hoofs; and are divided into two sub-orders--those that have an odd number of toes on the hind-foot, such as the horse, tapir, and rhinoceros, being termed the PERISSODACTYLA; and the others, with an even number of toes, such as the pig, sheep, ox, deer, &c., the ARTIODACTYLA; both words being taken from the Greek _perissos_ and _artios_, uneven or overmuch, and even; and _daktulos_, a finger or toe. We begin with the uneven-toed group. SUB-ORDER PERISSODACTYLA. This consists of three living and two extinct families--the living ones being horses, tapirs, and rhinoceroses, and the extinct the _Paleotheridae_ and the _Macrauchenidae_. I quote from Professor Boyd Dawkins and Mr. H. W. Oakley the following brief yet clear description of the characteristics of this sub-order:-- "In all the animals belonging to the group the number of dorso-lumbar vertebrae is not fewer than twenty-two; the third or middle digit of each foot is symmetrical; the femur or thigh-bone has a third trochanter, or knob of bone, on the outer side; and the two facets on the front of the astragalus or ankle-bone are very unequal. When the head is provided with horns they are skin deep only, without a core of bone, and they are always placed in the middle line of the skull, as in the rhinoceros. "In the _Perissodactyla_ the number of toes is reduced to a minimum. Supposing, for example, we compare the foot of a horse with one of our own hands, we shall see that those parts which correspond with the thumb and little finger are altogether absent, while that which corresponds with the middle finger is largely developed, and with its hoof, the equivalent to our nail, constitutes the whole foot. The small splint bones, however, resting behind the principal bone of the foot represent those portions (metacarpals) of the second and third digits which extend from the wrist to the fingers properly so-called, and are to be viewed as traces of a foot composed of three toes in an ancestral form of the horse, which we shall discuss presently. In the tapir the hind foot is composed of three well-developed toes, corresponding to the first three toes in man, and in the rhinoceros both feet are provided with three toes, formed of the same three digits. In the extinct _Paleotherium_ also the foot is constituted very much as in the rhinoceros." FAMILY EQUIDAE--THE HORSE. This family consists of the true horses and the asses, which latter also include the zebra and quagga. Apart from the decided external differences between the horse and ass, they have one marked divergence, viz. that the horse has corns or callosities on the inner side of both fore and hind limbs, whilst the asses have them only on the fore limbs; but this is a very trifling difference, and how closely the two animals are allied is proved by the facility with which they interbreed. It is, therefore, proper to include them both in one genus, although Dr. Gray has made a separation, calling the latter _Asinus_, and Hamilton Smith proposed _Hippotigris_ as a generic name for the zebras. [Illustration: Dentition of Horse.] We have no wild horse in India; in fact there are no truly wild horses in the world as far as we know. The tarpan or wild horse of Tartary, and the mustang of South America, though _de facto_ wild horses, are supposed to be descended from domesticated forms. In Australia too horses sometimes grow wild from being left long in the bush. These are known as _brumbies_, and are generally shot by the stock farmer, as they are of deteriorated quality, and by enticing away his mares spoil his more carefully selected breeds. According to Mr. Anthony Trollope they are marvels of ugliness. The Indian species of this genus are properly asses; there are two kinds, although it has been asserted by many--and some of them good naturalists, such as Blyth--that the _Kiang_ of Thibet and the _Ghor-khur_ of Sind and Baluchistan are the same animal. _GENUS EQUUS_. Incisors, 6/6; canines, 1--1/1--1; molars, 6--6/6--6; these last are complex, with square crowns marked by wavy folds of enamel. The incisors are grooved, and are composed of folds of enamel and cement, aptly described by Professor Boyd Dawkins and Mr. Oakley as being folded in from the top, after the manner of the finger of a glove the top of which has been pulled in. The marks left by the attrition of the surface give an approximate idea of the age of the animal. The stomach is simple--the intestinal canal very long and caecum enormous. NO. 426. EQUUS ONAGER. _The Wild Ass of Kutch_ (_Jerdon's No. 214_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Ghor-khur_, Hindi; _Ghour_, or _Kherdecht_, Persian; _Koulan_ of the Kirghiz. HABITAT.--Sind, Baluchistan, Persia. [Illustration: _Equus onager_.] DESCRIPTION.--Pale sandy colour above, with a slight rufescent tinge; muzzle, breast, lower parts and inside of limbs white; a dark chocolate brown dorsal stripe from mane to tail, with a cross on the shoulder, sometimes a double one; and the legs are also occasionally barred. The mane and tail-tuft are dark brown or black; a narrow dark band over the hoof; ears longish, white inside, concolorous with the body outside, the tip and outer border blackish; head heavy; neck short; croup higher than the withers. SIZE.--Height about 11 to 12 hands. The following account I extract from Jerdon's 'Mammals of India,' p. 238, which epitomises much of what has been written on the subject:-- "The _ghor-khur_ is found sparingly in Cutch, Guzerat, Jeysulmeer and Bikaneer, not being found further south, it is said, than Deesa, or east of 75 degrees east longitude. It also occurs in Sind, and more abundantly west of the Indus river, in Baluchistan, extending into Persia and Turkestan, as far north as north latitude 48 degrees. It appears that the Bikaneer herd consists at most of about 150 individuals, which frequent an oasis a little elevated above the surrounding desert, and commanding an extensive view around. A writer in the _Indian Sporting Review_, writing of this species as it occurs in the Pat, a desert country between Asnee and the hills west of the Indus, above Mithunkote, says: 'They are to be found wandering pretty well throughout the year; but in the early summer, when the grass and the water in the pools have dried up from the hot winds (which are here terrific), the greater number, if not all, of the _ghor-khurs_ migrate to the hills for grass and water. The foaling season is in June, July, and August, when the Beluchis ride down and catch numbers of foals, finding a ready sale in the cantonments for them, as they are taken down on speculation to Hindustan. They also shoot great numbers of full-grown ones for food, the ground in places in the desert being very favourable for stalking.' In Bikaneer too, according to information given by Major Tytler to Mr. Blyth: 'Once only in the year, when the foals are young, a party of five or six native hunters, mounted on hardy Sindh mares, chase down as many foals as they succeed in tiring, which lie down when utterly fatigued, and suffer themselves to be bound and carried off. In general they refuse sustenance at first, and about one-third only of those taken are reared; but these command high prices, and find a ready sale with the native princes. The profits are shared by the party, who do not attempt a second chase in the same year, lest they should scare the herd from the district, as these men regard the sale of a few ghor-khurs annually as a regular source of subsistence.' "This wild ass is very shy and difficult to approach, and has great speed. A full-grown one has, however, been run down fairly and speared more than once." I remember we had a pair of these asses in the Zoological Gardens at Lahore in 1868; they were to a certain extent tame, but very skittish, and would whinny and kick on being approached. I never heard of their being mounted. It is closely allied to, if not identical with, the wild ass of Assyria (_Equus hemippus_). The Hon. Charles Murray, who presented one of the pair in the London Zoological Gardens in 1862, wrote the following account of it to Dr. Sclater: "The ghour or kherdecht of the Persians is doubtless the onager of the ancients. Your specimen was caught when a foal on the range of mountains which stretch from Kermanshah on the west in a south-easterly direction to Shiraz; these are inhabited by several wild and half-independent tribes, the most powerful of which are the Buchtzari. The ghour is a remarkably fleet animal, and moreover so shy and enduring that he can rarely be overtaken by the best mounted horsemen in Persia. For this reason they chase them now, as they did in the time of Xenophon, by placing relays of horsemen at intervals of eight or ten miles. These relays take up the chase successively and tire down the ghour. The flesh of the ghour is esteemed a great delicacy, not being held unclean by the Moslem, as it was in the Mosaic code. I do not know whether this species is ever known to bray like the ordinary domestic ass. Your animal, whilst under my care, used to emit short squeaks and sometimes snorts not unlike those of a deer, but she was so young at the time that her voice may not have acquired its mature intonation." NO. 427. EQUUS HEMIONUS. _The Kiang or Wild Ass of Thibet_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Kiang_ or _Dizightai_, Thibetan. HABITAT.--Thibet and Central Asia; Ladakh. DESCRIPTION.--Darker in hue than the _ghor-khur_, especially on the flanks, contrasting abruptly with the white of the under-parts. It has the dark line along the back, but not the cross band on the shoulder; ears shorter. SIZE.--About 12 to 14 hands in height. From its larger size, shorter ears, and its shrill bray, which has been mistaken for a neigh, this animal has at times been taken for a horse, and described as such. The kiang, of which there is a living specimen in the London Zoological Gardens, inhabits the high plateaux of Thibet, ranging up to fifteen and sixteen thousand feet above the sea level. It is very swift and wary. The late Brigadier-General McMaster, in his 'Notes on Jerdon,' page 248, says: "An excellent sportsman and very close observer, who, being a cavalry officer, should be able to give a sound opinion on the matter, assured me that the voice of the wild horse of the snowy Himalayas is 'an unmistakeable _neigh, not a bray_,' and that he certainly looked on them as horses. He had seen several of these animals, and killed one." Captain (now General) R. Strachey wrote of it: "My impression as to the voice of the _kyang_ is that it is a shrieking bray and not a neigh;" and again: "the _kyang_, so far as external aspect is concerned, is obviously an ass and not an horse." Of this there is but little doubt. Moorcroft, in his travels, vol. i. p. 312, states: "In the eastern parts of Ladakh is a nondescript wild variety of horse which I may call _Equus kiang_. It is perhaps more of an ass than a horse, but its ears are shorter, and it is certainly not the gur-khor or wild ass of Sind." Further on, at page 442, he-adds: "We saw many herds of the kyang, and I made numerous attempts to bring one down, but with invariably bad success. Some were wounded, but not sufficiently to check their speed, and they quickly bounded up the rocks, where it was impossible to follow. They would afford excellent sport to four or five men well mounted, but a single individual has no chance. The kyang allows his pursuer to approach no nearer than five or six hundred yards; he then trots off, turns, looks and waits till you are almost within distance, when he is off again. If fired at he is frightened, and scampers off altogether. The Chanthan people sometimes catch them by snares--sometimes shoot them. From all I have seen of the animal I should pronounce him to be neither a horse nor an ass. His shape is as much like that of the one as the other, but his cry is more like braying than neighing. The prevailing colour is a light reddish-chestnut, but the nose, the under-part of the jaw and neck, the belly and the legs are white, the mane is dun and erect, the ears are moderately long, the tail bare and reaching a little below the hock. The height is about fourteen hands. The form, from the fore to the hind leg and feet to a level with the back is more square than that of an ass. His back is less straight, and there is a dip behind the withers and a rounding of the crupper which is more like the shape of the horse; his neck also is more erect and arched than that of the ass. He is perhaps more allied to the quagga, but without stripes, except a reported one along each side of the back to the tail. These were seen distinctly in a foal, but were not distinguished in the adults." FAMILY TAPIRIDAE--THE TAPIRS. These are somewhat hog-like animals, with elongated snouts, possessing four toes on their fore-feet, and three on the hinder ones. They live in dense forests, are nocturnal in habit, and live exclusively on a vegetable diet. The Indian tapir has a more powerful and extensile trunk than the American, and its skull shows in consequence a greater space for the attachment of the muscles. The dentition is as follows:--Inc., 3--3/3--3; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 4--4/4--4; molars, 3--3/3--3. The outer incisors somewhat resemble canines, whilst the others are very small. The canines themselves are not large. [Illustration: Dentition of Tapir.] The tapir is not found in India proper, but the Malayan species is occasionally to be come across in Burmah, having been killed in Tenasserim. _GENUS TAPIRUS_. NO. 428. TAPIRUS MALAYANUS. _The Malay Tapir_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Ta-ra-shu_, Burmese; _Kuda-ayer_, Malayan; _Sala-dang_ of the Limuns in Sumatra; _Gindol_ of the Mannas in Sumatra; _Babi-alu_ in Bencoolen; _Tennu_ in Malacca. HABITAT.--Tenasserim provinces, as high as the fifteenth degree north latitude; Lower Siam; the Malayan peninsula; Sumatra and Borneo. [Illustration: _Tapirus Malayanus_.] DESCRIPTION.--General colour glossy black, but with the back, rump, and sides of the belly white. The young are beautifully variegated, being striped and spotted with yellow fawn on the upper parts of the body, and with white below. Mr. Mason writes: "Though seen so rarely, the tapir is by no means uncommon in the interior of the Tavoy and Mergui provinces. I have frequently come upon its recent footmarks, but it avoids the inhabited parts of the country. It has never been heard of north of the valley of the Tavoy river." The tapir is naturally all the world over a very shy, retiring animal, but it is capable of being tamed when taken young, and of showing great attachment. FAMILY RHINOCEROTIDAE. "The skeleton of the rhinoceros viewed generally has a resemblance to that of the little hyrax, the tapir, and the horse. The skull is very much elevated at the base, being somewhat of a pyramidal form, and the nasal bones curve upwards and downwards, and are of such a size and thickness, in order to support one or more immense horns, that they are quite unparalleled for their development in any other existing quadruped. The nasal bones, together with the premaxillary and maxillary bones, form the general contour for the external apertures of the nostrils. This is peculiar, and found in no other animal with the exception of the tapir."--_Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins and Mr. Oakley_. The external appearance of this animal is familiar to most--a large ungainly creature, with a long head, a massive horn on its nose, sometimes two horns; a round unwieldly body covered with an immensely thick hide arranged in heavy folds; short tail and short legs, with three toes covered with broad nails or hoofs. The stomach is simple; the intestines about eight times the length of the body, and the caecum is large and sacculated. The horn is a mere agglutinated mass of hair or fibre superimposed on the skin, and has no bony core. The females have two inguinal mammae. The dentition is peculiar; "the grinders are implanted by distinct roots, and in the upper jaw their crowns are traversed by two deep folds of enamel which constitute open valleys. In the lower jaw they are composed of two crescent-shaped lobes, also open. The covering of cement is thin, and never fills up the valleys, as in the case of the more complex dental system in the horse. The normal number of grinders is seven in each jaw, while the incisors, as we have already remarked, vary not only in form but also are sometimes absent, and canines are not developed in any of the living or fossil members of the family."--_Boyd Dawkins and Oakley_. The Rhinocerotidae are divided into two groups--the Asiatic and the African; and the former consist of two genera--RHINOCEROS and CERATORHINUS, the former with one and the latter with two horns. It is a moot point whether the rhinoceros is or is not the unicorn of Scripture, though it is by no means clear that the animal in question was a one-horned creature, but according to some might have been the great wild ox or urus of Macedonia. An Indian single-horned rhinoceros was sent from India to the king of Portugal in 1513, and from it various most distorted pictures were disseminated throughout Europe. It was represented as covered with a wondrous suit of armour beautifully decorated, and with a second horn on its shoulders! The first one brought alive to England was in 1685. Parsons describes and figures one brought to Europe in 1739, and another in 1741 ('Philosophical Transactions,' xlii.). The Asiatic rhinoceroses differ from the African in having the skin divided into shields by well-marked folds, long upper cutting teeth, the African having none, and by the produced conical nasal bones of the skull instead of broad and rounded ones. There are one or two other minor yet well-marked differences which we need not mention here. _GENUS RHINOCEROS_. "The skin divided into shields by well-marked folds, lumbar and neck-folds well developed; horn single, anterior; part of occipital bone near the occipital condyle and the condyles themselves prominent."--_Gray_. [Illustration: Dentition of Rhinoceros. Lower Jaw. Upper Jaw.] There are two species in India, viz. _Rhinoceros Indicus_ and _R. Sondaicus_, the latter being the Javan species. For the following description of the former I have to thank Mr. J. Cockburn, who, with most unselfish kindness, kept back the article he was about to publish, and gave it to me to incorporate in this work. The following remarks on dentition are also his:[30]-- "The normal dentition of _R. Indicus_ is: Inc., 1--1/2--2; premolars, 4--4/4--4; molars, 3--3/3--3; but the dentition varies to a great extent; for example, in a specimen of _R. Sondaicus_ it stood: Inc., 1--1/2--2; molars, 6--7/6--6. The first premolar in both _Indicus_ and _Sondaicus_ is a deciduous tooth, which is not usually replaced, and gradually drops out with age, but it may be retained till extreme old age. In the majority of cases it is either lost or worn down before the last molar is in wear. The incisors also vary greatly in the adult animal; they are 1--1/2--2, the outer pair below being the formidable dagger-shaped tushes, with which they inflict the terrible gashes they can produce. The median pair lower are usually lost or absorbed by advancing age, having no functions, and the incisive tusks themselves are subject to very rapid wear, being often worn down before the animal has reached middle age. Occasionally _R. Indicus_ has six incisors in the lower jaw (the normal number in other mammalia), and four in the upper, but this is very exceptional."--_J. Cockburn_, MS. [Footnote 30: There are some interesting notes on the dentition of the rhinoceros, especially in abnormal conditions, by Mr. Lydekker in the 'J. A. S. B.' for 1880, vol. xlix., part ii.] NO. 429. RHINOCEROS INDICUS. (_Jerdon's No. 212_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Genda_, _Gonda_, _Ganda_, or _Genra_, Hindi; _Gor_, Assamese. HABITAT.--Himalayan Terai, from Central Nepal to the extreme eastern corner of the valley of Assam. "About three centuries ago this animal existed on the banks of the Indus. The Indian rhinoceros inhabits by preference heavy grass jungle, rarely entering forest. In this respect it differs from its ally _Sondaicus_, which is a forest-loving species, and even frequents mountainous countries. It is still numerous in the mighty grass jungles which extend along the foot of the Eastern Himalayas from their slopes to the banks of the Brahmaputra. It is yearly becoming more scarce in the Nepal Terai, but is found there from Rohilkund to the Bhootan Doars." [Illustration: _Rhinoceros Indicus_.] DESCRIPTION.--The accompanying outline sketch, taken from _Nature_ for April 1874, will give a better idea of the animal than a mere verbal description:-- [Illustration: _Rhinoceros Indicus_.] "For convenience of description I will divide the body into five segments--the head, the cervical, the scapular, the abdominal, and the gluteal. At the junction of the head with the neck is a large deep collar or ruff or fold of skin, which gives a very peculiar appearance to the animal. Behind this is a second similar but smaller ruff, which does not hang so low down from the throat as the first. On the dorsal surface it transversely crosses the nape. It is then continued down angularly to about the centre of the anterior edge of the scapular shield, where it forms an obtuse angle with its posterior but major half. It is at the point where it forms this angle that it gives off what I call the cervical fold, which forms the boundary of the top front edge of the scapular shield, but is lost at a point in the shoulder nearly over the centre of the fore limb. "The scapular shield is a thick cuirass-like plate of skin, studded with round projections about the size of a shilling, and bearing much resemblance to the heads of bolts by which the shield was riveted to the body, and hence called 'boiler-bolt tubercules.' This shield is often removed from the carcase of a slain rhinoceros as a trophy, 'and it is in its centre, but slightly low, that the fatal spot lies which will take him in the heart' (_Pollock_). "Between the scapular and the gluteal shields lies the abdominal segment. It calls for no particular description, except that the tubercles here are very much flatter and smaller than on either segments three and four. They are here about the size of a four-anna piece, and they seem to be crowded along the centre line of the body, while the dorsal surface is nearly free from them, and smooth. "We next come to the gluteal segment. It is in this portion that the boiler-bolt tubercles attain their greatest development, some of them being perhaps three-tenths of an inch high. "The gluteal segment is laterally crossed by three ridges of skin. The first, which is the only one indicated in the drawing, goes right across the buttock. In some animals there is an indication of a second below this, and about fourteen inches lower down a third, which only goes about a quarter of the way across. The tail is almost concealed in a deep groove, in which lie the perineum, &c. Both the front and hind limb from the point at which they project from the body are finely covered with reticulated skin, forming pentagonal and hexagonal scales, very much as in _R. Sondaicus_, only much finer and less prominent. "The Indian rhinoceros has the same habit as the African species of depositing its droppings in one spot till they form huge mounds, which the animal levels with its horns. It is probable that this rhinoceros was found throughout the plains of the N.W. Provinces in unreclaimed spots as late as the fifth or sixth century. According to the observation of Dr. Andrew Smith in South Africa these huge pachyderms do not absolutely require for their support the dense tropical vegetation we should think necessary to supply food to such huge beasts. This gentleman saw over fifty of them in one day in an open country covered with short grass and thorn-bushes about four feet high. From the affinities of the fauna of the N.W. Provinces, which are strongly African, it is probable that the plains of the N.W. Provinces were rather covered with scrubby open jungles and grass than with tropical primeval forests. "Here and there belts of Dhak (_Butea frondosa_) were found, and in favoured spots doubtless other tree jungle, but it is improbable that primeval forest has existed since the depression of the Indo-Gangetic plain."--_J. Cockburn_, MS. The rhinoceros is supposed to be a very long-lived animal. Dr. Gray ('P. Z. S.' 1867. p. 1011) states on the authority of Mr. Blyth that a pair lived in the Barrackpore Park for forty-five years. They were exactly alike in size and general appearance; they never bred. There is no difference in the horns or form of the skull in the two sexes (_Blyth_, 'J. A. S. B.' vol. xxxi. p. 155). NO. 430. RHINOCEROS SONDAICUS. _The Javan Rhinoceros_ (_Jerdon's No. 213_). NATIVE NAMES.--The same as last in Hindi; _Khyen-hsen_, Burmese; _Warak_, Javanese; _Badak_, Malayan. HABITAT.--"The Bengal Sunderbunds, Tipperah, the swamps at the base of the Garo, Khasia, and Naga Hills" (_Pollock_). "Munipurf, extending into the western provinces of China, southward into Burmah, the Malayan peninsula; Sumatra, Java, and Borneo" (_J. Cockburn_, MS.). [Illustration: _Rhinoceros Sondaicus_.] DESCRIPTION.--"Folds somewhat on the same plan as in _Indicus_, one marked distinction being that the lateral shoulder fold is continued upward over the back of the neck to form an independent saddle-shaped shield on the nape. The whole body covered with pentagonal or hexagonal warty insulae. Females hornless" (_J. Cockburn_, MS.). Males with one horn. SIZE.--Mr. Cockburn gives the following measurements of a female, which he states is the largest recorded specimen: "Length of body (head and body?), 12 feet 3 inches; tail, 2 feet 4-1/2 inches; height, 5 feet 6 inches." Dr. Jerdon gives: "Length 7 to 8 feet; height, 3-1/2 to 3-3/4 feet;" and he calls the animal "the lesser Indian rhinoceros," whereas Mr. Cockburn's measurement gives an animal somewhat longer, though not so high as the largest recorded specimen of _Indicus_. Blyth again writes ('Mammals of Burmah,' _see_ 'J. A. S. B.' vol. xliv. part ii. 1875, p. 50): "It is about a third smaller than _R. Indicus_, from which it is readily distinguished by having the tubercles of the hide uniformly of the same small size, and also by having a fold or plait of the skin crossing the nape in addition to that behind the shoulder-blades." This rhinoceros seems to be found at all elevations, like the Sumatran one which was found by General Fytche at an altitude of 4000 feet; it is much more of a forester than the last. Blyth and Jerdon suppose it to be the same as the species hunted by the Moghul Emperor Baber on the banks of the Indus. _GENUS CERATORHINUS_. "The skin divided into shields by deep folds; the lumbar fold rudimentary, short, only occupying the middle of the space between the groin and the back; horns two, the front longer, curved backward, the hinder small; conical skull; forehead narrow, flat; the upper part of the nose on each side of the horns narrow, rounded, sub-cylindrical; the occipital region erect, the part near the condyles rather concave; the occipital condyle short, broad, oblong, placed obliquely inferior, scarcely prominent; lachrymal bone very large, irregular shaped."--_Dr. Gray_, 'P. Z. S.' 1867, p. 1021. NO. 431. RHINOCEROS _vel_ CERATORHINUS (CROSSI?) LASIOTIS. _The Ear-fringed Rhinoceros_. HABITAT.--Arakan, Tenasserim provinces; one was caught near Chittagong in 1868. [Illustration: _Rhinoceros lasiotis_. (_R. Indicus_ and _R. Sondaicus_ in the distance.)] DESCRIPTION.--A thinner hide than with the preceding, and not tuberculated; the folds also are fewer in number; there is one great groove behind the shoulder-blades, and a less conspicuous one on the flank, and some slight folds about the neck and top of the limbs; the horns are two in number, the posterior one being the centre of the nose behind the anterior one, and almost over the anterior corner of the eye; the body (of a young specimen) is covered with long, fine, reddish hair, and the posterior margins of the ears have very long fringes of the same; the tail is short and hairy. A young specimen of this animal (of which there is an excellent coloured plate in 'P. Z. S.' 1872, p. 494) was captured in 1868 in Chittagong. She had got into a quicksand, and had exhausted herself by floundering about. The natives contrived to attach two ropes to her neck, and, hauling her out, managed to make her fast to a tree. Next morning they found her so refreshed and vigorous that they were afraid to do anything more to her, and so sent messengers to the magistrate of Chittagong to report the capture. The same evening Captain Hood and Mr. Wickes started with eight elephants to secure the prize, and after a march of sixteen hours to the south of Chittagong, they came up to the animal. The elephants at first sight bolted, but were brought back by considerable exertion, and the rhinoceros was made fast to one by a rope. The poor creature roared with fright, and a second stampede ensued, in which luckily the rope slipped off the leg of the rhinoceros to which it was attached. Ultimately she was secured between two elephants and marched into Chittagong, where she soon got very tame. Eventually she was sent to England, and was purchased by the Zoological Society for 1250 pounds--a very handsome price, owing doubtless to the rarity of the specimen. NO. 432. RHINOCEROS _vel_ CERATORHINUS SUMATRENSIS. _The Sumatran Rhinoceros_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Kyen-shan_, Burmese; _Bodok_, Malayan. HABITAT.--Tenasserim provinces; Burmah, extending into Siam; the Malayan peninsula and Sumatra. DESCRIPTION.--A smaller animal than the preceding, with a hard, black, rough, bristly skin; a deep fold behind the shoulder; ears set closer than in the last species, and filled with black hair internally; the muzzle in front of the first horn is broader; the horns are two in number, and attain a good size, curving, but slightly, backward; the tail is conspicuously longer than in _R. lasiotis_, and is tapering and not tufted. There is a well drawn and coloured plate of this species in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1872, p. 794, as also several engravings showing the heads of the two animals in juxtaposition. SIZE.--About 3 feet 8 inches in height at the shoulder. At first it was considered that _R. lasiotis_ was of this species, and as such it was described and sent to England; but on the subsequent arrival of a genuine _R. Sumatrensis_ from Malacca it was apparent that _R. lasiotis_ was quite distinct. The latter is of larger size, lighter colour, with wide-set ears and a tufted tail. The former is smaller, darker, with narrow-set ears and a long tapering semi-nude tail.[31] The Society paid Mr. Jamrach 600 pounds in 1872 for the female specimen from Malacca, which settled the question of separate species. A young _R. Sumatrensis_ was born in the Victoria Docks in London on December 7th, 1872, on board the steamship _Orchis_. There is a coloured sketch of the little one in the 'P. Z. S.' for 1873, and an interesting account of it and the mother by Mr. Bartlett, the Superintendent of the Society's Gardens. From the circumstances of the capture of the mother it appears that the period of gestation of the rhinoceros is about the same as that of the hippopotamus, viz. seven months. [Footnote 31: There is a very interesting letter in _The Asian_ for July 20, 1880, p. 109, from Mr. J. Cockburn, about _R. Sumatrensis_, of which he considers _R. lasiotis_ merely a variety. He says it has been shot in Cachar.--R. A. S.] Although the number of species of living rhinoceros is but few, there are a great many fossil species which show that the animal was more plentiful and in greater variety in prehistoric times. Remains of the woolly rhinoceros (_R. trichorhinus_) have been found, like those of the mammoth, imbedded in ice; it was about eleven and a-half feet in length, and its body was covered with woolly hair. A specimen found in 1771 or 1772 was entire, and clothed with skin, but so far decomposed as to prevent more than the head and feet being preserved; remains of other fossil species are found throughout Europe, including Great Britain, and also in India. In 'A Sketch of the History of the Fossil Vertebrata of India' by Mr. R. Lydekker, published in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. xlix., 1880, will be found the names of eight species of fossil rhinoceros, inclusive of _R. Indicus_, which is found in _recent alluvia_--it is found with two others in the Pleistocene formation, and five others are from the Pleiomiocene. SUB-ORDER ARTIODACTYLA. We now come to the second division, and a very large one, of the UNGULATA, which in itself is again subdivided into non-ruminants and ruminants. The former comprises the pigs of the Old and the peccaries of the New World and the hippopotami; the latter contains the camels, llamas, deerlets, oxen, antelope, and deer. In the _Artiodactyla_ the toes are even on all feet, being normally four (perfect and rudimentary) with the exception of the camel, giraffe and a few antelope, in which two only are present. To understand the subject thoroughly one must compare the fore-foot of a deer or pig with our own hand; what we call the knee of the former is merely our wrist. The bones which run through the palm of the hand to the knuckles are the metacarpals; they are five in number, corresponding with the thumb and four fingers. In the _Artiodactyla_--or, I should say, in the _Ungulata_ generally--the thumb is entirely wanting; in the _Artiodactyla_ the fore and little fingers are shorter, rudimentary, or entirely wanting, and the two centre metacarpals, the middle and ring fingers are prolonged into what we call the leg below the knee in these animals, which consist of separate or fused bones terminated by the usual three joints of the finger, on the last of which is placed the hoof. [Illustration: Bones of a Pig's foot. (See also Appendix C.)] The two halves are always symmetrical, and from this we may affirm that it is the thumb and not the little finger which is absent, for we know that, counting from the knuckles, our fingers have three joints, whereas the thumb has only two; so in the digits of the _Artiodactyla_ are three joints at the end of each metacarpal. In the pig the metacarpals of the fore and little fingers are produced from the carpus or wrist, or, as is popularly termed in the case of these animals, the knee. They are more attenuated in the chevrotians or deerlets, of which our Indian mouse-deer is an example; in the _Cervidae_ they are more rudimentary, detached from the carpus, and are suspended free and low down, forming the little hoof-points behind; and a little above the proper hoofs in these the two large metacarpals are more or less joined or fused into one bone, and they are still more so in the camel, in which the fore and little finger bones are entirely absent. In the giraffe and prong-horn antelope they are also wanting. The hind feet are similarly constructed.[32] [Footnote 32: See notes in Appendix C.] Of the non-ruminantia we have only the Suidae--the peccaries belonging to America, and the hippopotami to Africa. FAMILY SUIDAE--THE HOGS. These have incisors in both jaws, which vary in number, the lower ones slanting forward. Their canines are very large and directed outwards and upwards in a curve, grinding against each other to a sharp edge and fine point. Their metacarpal bones are four in number, and are all distinct, in which respect they differ from the peccaries, in which the central metacarpals and metatarsals are fused into a solid bone. The hogs have a prolonged snout, flexible at the end, with a firm cartilaginous tip, with which they are enabled to plough up the ground in search of roots. They have also a very keen sense of smell. The normal dentition of the true hogs is as follows:-- Inc., 6/6; can., 1--1/1--1; premolars, 4--4/4--4; molars, 3--3/3--3 = 44. [Illustration: Dentition of Wild Boar.] The hogs, unlike other pachyderms, are noted for their fecundity. _GENUS SUS_. Incisors, 4/6 or 6/6; the lower ones slanted; the canines large and curved outwards and upwards; molars tuberculate; four toes on each foot--that is, two major and two minor, each hoofed. NO. 433. SUS SCROFA. _The European Wild Boar_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Guraz_ or _Kuk_, Persian. HABITAT.--Persia and the Thian Shan mountains near Kashgar. DESCRIPTION.--Body dusky or greyish-brown, with a tendency to black, with black spots; large mouth with long projecting tusks; the hairs of the body coarse, mixed with a downy wool; bristles on the neck and shoulders. The young are marked with longitudinal stripes of reddish colour. The wild boar of Europe apparently extends to the limits sometimes reached by Indian sportsmen. It is found in Persia, and specimens were brought back from Kashgar by the Yarkand Mission in 1873-74. The only divergence which these specimens showed from the European boar was the darker colour of the feet and legs, which were nearly black. NO. 434. SUS INDICUS. _The Indian Boar_ (_Jerdon's No. 215_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Soor_ or _Suar_, _Bura-janwar_, or _Bad-janwar_, _Barha_, Hindi; _Dukar_, Mahratti; _Paddi_, Gondi; _Pandi_, Telegu; _Handi_, _Mikka_, _Jewadi_, Canarese; _Kis_ of the Bhaugulpore hill-tribes; _Tan-wet_, Burmese; _Walura_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Throughout India, from a considerable elevation (12,000 feet according to Jerdon) down to the sea level. It is also common in Burmah and in Ceylon. [Illustration: _Sus Indicus_.] DESCRIPTION.--The head of the Indian wild boar differs considerably from the German one. Sir Walter Elliot says: "The head of the former is larger and more pointed, and the plane of the forehead straight, while it is concave in the European, the ears of the former are small and pointed; in the latter larger and not so erect. The Indian is altogether a more active-looking animal, the German has a stronger, heavier appearance." Jerdon, who has in some measure adopted these remarks, adds that the tail is more tufted, and the malar beard is well marked. The colour of the full-grown animal is brownish-black, sparsely clad with black hair; the ears are scantily covered with black hairs externally, but more abundantly inside. A crest of stiff black bristles extends from the occiput over the neck and shoulders and down the back; the bristles of the throat and breast are reversed, growing forwards instead of backwards, the tips being sometimes white; the limbs, which are well covered with bristly hair outside, are nearly naked within, and the tail is short, slightly hairy, and with a flat tip fringed with lateral bristles set like the barbs of a feather. The young are more hairy, and are striped with brown and fulvous yellow. SIZE.--Head and body, about 5 feet; tail, 1 foot; height, from 30 to 36 inches. This species is so well known to residents in India, not only from personal experience but from the numerous accounts of its chase--one of the most exciting of Indian field sports--that it would be almost superfluous to add anything more to the already redundant porcine literature, so I will confine myself to the habits of the animal in the jungles. It is gregarious, living in herds, usually called _sounders_, the derivation of which has often puzzled me as well as others; but McMaster says it is to be found in Bailey's English Dictionary, of which the fifteenth edition was published in 1753 as (among hunters) _a herd or company of swine_. An old boar is generally the chief, but occasionally he gets driven from the herd, and wanders solitary and morose, and is in such a case an awkward customer to tackle. An old boar of this kind is generally a match for a tiger; in fact few tigers, unless young and inexperienced, would attack one. I have known two instances of tigers being killed by boars; one happened a few miles from the station of Seonee, to which place we had the animal carried. (See Appendix C.) On another occasion, whilst on tour in the district, a deputation from a distant village came into my camp to beg of me to visit them, and shoot a large boar which had taken possession of a small rocky hill, and from it made his nightly forays into their rice fields, and was given to attacking those who approached him. I went and got the boar out and shot him, but lost a tiger, which also sneaked out and broke through a line of beaters; these two were the sole occupants of this small isolated knoll, and lived evidently on terms of mutual respect. The boar was the largest I had ever seen or killed, but, as the sun was getting fierce, and I had far to ride to camp, I regret I left him to the villagers without taking any measurements. It is allowable to shoot hogs in some hilly parts of India where riding is out of the question, otherwise the shooting of a boar in riding country is deservedly looked upon as the crime of vulpecide would be in Leicestershire--a thing not to be spoken of. The boar possesses a singular amount of courage; he is probably the most courageous of all animals, much more so than the tiger, but unless irritated he is not prone to attack at first sight, except in a few cases of solitary individuals, like the one above mentioned. I was once rather ludicrously and very uncomfortably held at bay by a boar who covered the retreat of his family. One evening, after dismissing my _amlah_, I took up a shot gun, and, ordering the elephant to follow, strolled across some fields to a low scrub-covered hill where I thought I might pick up a few partridges or a peafowl before dusk. On entering the bush which skirted the base of the hill I was suddenly brought up by a savage grunt, and there in front of me stood an old boar with his bristles up, whilst the rest of his family scampered off into the thicket. I remembered Shakespeare's (the poet's--not the gallant shikari general's) opinion:-- "To fly the boar before the boar pursues Were to incense the boar to follow us," and therefore stood my ground, undergoing the stern scrutiny of my bristly friend, who cocked his head on one side and eyed me in a doubtful sort of way, whilst he made up his mind whether to go for me or not, whilst I on my part cogitated on the probable effect at close quarters of two barrels of No. 6 shot. However, he backed a bit, and then sidled to the rear for a few paces, when he brought up with another grunt, but, finding I had not moved, he finally turned round and dashed after his spouse and little ones. (See also Appendix C.) Colonel (now General) Shakespear winds up a thrilling account of a fight with one with the following paragraph, which will give a good idea of the endurance of these creatures:-- "There he was with a broken spear in his withers, the shaft sticking up a foot and a-half from the blade, knocking over a horseman and wounding his horse; receiving two bullets--ten to the pound each--the first in his neck and throat, a very deadly part in all animals; the second breaking his jaw, and fired within a few feet of the muzzle; making good his charge, cutting down his enemy like grass, wounding him, knocking over a second man armed with a spear, defying the dogs, and then, when in the act of charging again, shot to the brain and dying without a groan." Although I had not intended giving any shikar stories, I cannot resist quoting one from General McMaster's 'Notes on Jerdon.' He writes:-- "In further proof of the savage courage of a boar I may mention the following instance which is recorded in the 'Hunt Annals' of the 25th December, 1869. A large _unwounded_ boar had succeeded in getting into some thick bushes. On being bullied by a terrier he charged the nearest hunter, and ripped the horse very badly. Two other sportsmen who were not riding then tried to tempt the boar to charge, one by firing No. 10 or quail shot into the bush, the other by riding a camel into it. The last was successful, for, charging straight at the camel's legs (receiving some shot in his face on his way) he completely routed the whole arrangement, knocked over and ripped the camel, which broke its leg in falling, and then made away across the fields; he was followed and twice speared, but he was as cunning as courageous, and managed to give his pursuers the slip in some long grass and thick bushes. This boar's savage charge at the camel was within a few yards of all of us, for every one was trying to entice him to come forth; after his headlong rush out of the bush he reared so upright in his attempt to reach his clumsy disturber, which was quite frantic from deadly fear, that he succeeded in ripping it in what in a horse would be termed the stifle joint. The poor brute rolled over in its agony, smashed one of its legs in the fall, and was of course shot. Luckily the rider, one of the best known among the Nagpore Hunt, was not hurt." I believe a wild pig will charge at anything when enraged. I had an elephant who, though perfectly staunch with tigers, would bolt from a wild boar. The period of gestation is four months, and it produces twice a year; it is supposed to live to the age of twenty years, and, as its fecundity is proverbial, we might reasonably suppose that these animals would be continually on the increase, but they have many enemies, whilst young, amongst the felines, and the sows frequently fall a prey to tigers and panthers. Occasionally I have come across in the jungles a heap of branches and grass, and at first could not make out what it was, but the Gonds soon informed me that these heaps were the nests or lairs of the wild pigs, and they invariably turned them over to look for squeakers. These are funny little things, of a tortoiseshell colour, being striped reddish yellow and dark brown. There is an old writer on Indian field sports, Williamson, who makes some correct observations on the habits of the wild hog, although much in his book (now, I fancy, out of print) is open to question. He writes: "The wild hog delights in cultivated situations, but he will not remain where water is not at hand, in which he may, unobserved, quench his thirst and wallow at his ease; nor will he resort for a second season to a spot which does not afford ample cover, whether of heavy grass or of under-wood jungle, within a certain distance, for him to fly to in case of molestation, and especially to serve as a retreat during the hot season, as otherwise he would find no shelter. The sugar-cane is his great delight, both as being his favourite food and as affording a high, impervious, and unfrequented situation. These hogs commit great devastation, especially the breeding sows, which not only devour, but cut the canes for litter, and throw them up into little huts, which they do with much art, leaving a small entrance which they stop up at pleasure. Sows never quit their young pigs without completely shutting them up. This is, indeed, requisite only for a few days, as the young brood may be seen following the mother at a round pace when not more than a week or ten days old." The fields of _urhur_ or _ruhur dal_ (_Cajanus Indicus_) also afford good shelter to pigs. They feed chiefly at night, and in Central India numbers are shot by native shikaries in moonlight nights over water and favourite crops or in particular runs. Many castes of Hindus, who would turn with abhorrence from the village pig, will not scruple to eat the flesh of the wild boar. On the whole it is probably a cleaner feeder, but it will not hesitate to devour carrion if it should come across a dead animal in its wanderings. NO. 435. SUS ANDAMANENSIS. _The Andaman Island Pig_. HABITAT.--Andaman islands; Nicobars (?) DESCRIPTION.--Much smaller than the last. "The concavity of the cheeks in front of the orbit deeply concave." Tail short, a mere tubercle in fact; the body well clad with somewhat shaggy black hair, probably allied to _Sus Papuensis_. Dr. Gray was of opinion (_see_ his article on the _Suidae_, 'P. Z. S.' 1868) that the skull of this species is more allied to the _Babirussa_ than any others of the pigs, the front of the canines being rather more produced than in other species, but not nearly so much so as in _Babirussa_. NO. 436. SUS MOUPINENSIS. HABITAT.--Thibet. A description of this, which I have not by me at present, will be found in Professor Milne-Edwards's 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes,' p. 377. _GENUS PORCULA_. Head conical, moderate; ears small, erect, hairy; cheeks without any tubercles; tail very short, rudimentary; cutting teeth 6/6, the two upper front largest, the lateral lower small; intermaxillary moderate, not produced; canines small, scarcely elevated above the other teeth, the upper one rather spread out, but not reflexed; premolars, 4--4/4--4 (_Gray_); molars, 3--3/3--3; the fourth toe on all the feet small and unequal. Jerdon observes: "This genus, it will be remarked, makes an approach to the American peccaries in the non-excerted canines, the short tail, and the small fourth toe." Hodgson's dental formula shows one premolar less, viz. teeth: 6/6, 1--1/1--1, 6--6/6--6. NO. 437. PORCULA SALVANIA. _The Pigmy Hog of the Saul Forests_ (_Jerdon' s No. 216_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Sano-banel_, Nepalese; _Chota-suar_, Hindi. HABITAT.--The Saul forests of the Sikim and Nepal Terai. [Illustration: _Porcula Salvania_.] DESCRIPTION.--According to Mr. Hodgson "the pigmy hog is about the size of a large hare, and extremely resembles both in form and size a young pig of the ordinary wild kind of about a month old, except in its dark and unstriped pelage. The likeness of the limbs and members to those of the common hog is so close that every purpose of general description of the pigmy hog is served by pointing to that resemblance, desiring only that heed should be taken by the observer of the shorter jaws, and eye consequently placed midway between the snout and ear; of the much shorter tail, nude, straight, and not extending so far as the bristles of the rump, and lastly of the smallness of the inner hind toe. The ears also are quite nude, and the abdominal surface of the neck, as well as the insides of the limbs and the belly, are nearly so, but the upper and lateral external parts are covered thickly with bristles, even longer and more abundant than those of the wild or tame hog--save upon the ridge of the neck, where the common hog has more or less of, and generally a conspicuous mane, but the pigmy hog little or none"--"the colour of the animal is a black brown, shaded vaguely with dirty amber or rusty red." SIZE.--Head and body, from 18 to 20 inches; height, 8 to 10 inches; weight, 7 to 10 lbs. This little animal, according to Hodgson's account of it (a most interesting one, which will be found in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. xvi. May 1847), seems to have the disposition of the peccary as well as the resemblance; it goes, he says, in herds, and the males fearlessly attack intruders, "charging and cutting the naked legs of their human or other attackers with a speed that baffles the eyesight, and a spirit which their straight sharp laniaries renders really perplexing, if not dangerous." RUMINANTIA--THE RUMINANTS. These differ materially from the foregoing section of the Artiodactyla by the construction of their digestive organs. Instead of the food being masticated and passed at once into the stomach, each mouthful is but slightly bruised and passed into the paunch, whence at leisure it is regurgitated into the mouth to be chewed. For such an operation the machinery is of course more complicated than in other animals, and I must therefore attempt to describe briefly and as clearly as I can the construction of the ruminating stomach. Taking the ox as a typical specimen, we find four well-defined chambers varying in size. The first of these is the rumen or paunch, in which the unmasticated food is stored; it is a large sac partly bent on itself, and narrowing towards its junction with the oesophagus or gullet, and the entrance into the second chamber. It is lined with a mucous membrane, which is covered with a pile or villous surface, and this membrane is what is sold in butchers' shops as tripe. From this bag (the paunch) in the act of rumination a certain portion of the food is ejected into the second chamber, which is termed the reticulum (i.e. a little net) from the peculiar arrangement of its inner or mucous surface, which is lined with a network of shallow hexagonal cells. The functions of this receptacle are probably the forming of the food into a bolus, and by a spasmodic contraction the forcing of it back through the gullet into the mouth for mastication. Here it is well chewed, and, being thoroughly mixed with saliva passes back; on being swallowed in a soft pulpy state it passes the groove or valve communicating with the chamber from which it issued, and goes straight into the psalterium or manyplies, as the third chamber is called. This is globular, but most of its interior is filled up with folds like the leaves of a book, more or less unequal. It is not quite clear what the peculiar functions of this chamber are, but the semi-liquid food, passing through it, goes into the proper stomach (abomasum or reed) and is here acted upon by the gastric juice. Professor Garrod thus describes the probable order of events in the act of rumination: "The paunch contracts, and in so doing forces some of the food into the honeycomb bag, where it is formed into a bolus by the movement of its walls, and then forced into the gullet, from which by a reverse action it reaches the mouth, where it is chewed and mixed with the saliva until it becomes quite pulpy, whereupon it is again swallowed. But now, because it is soft and semi-fluid, it does not devaricate the walls of the groove communicating with the manyplies, and so, continuing on along its tubular interior, it finds its way direct into the third stomach, most of it filtering between the membrous laminae on its way to the fourth stomach, where it becomes acted on by the gastric juice. After the remasticated food has reached the manyplies, the groove in the reticulum is pushed open by a fresh bolus, and so the process is repeated until the food consumed has all passed on towards the abomasum or true digestive stomach." The ruminants are peculiar also in their dentition; in the so-called true ruminants there are no incisors or cutting teeth in the upper jaw, but the teeth of the lower jaw are opposed to a hard callous pad; the herbage is cropped by being nipped between these teeth and the pad, and detached by an upward motion; in some few, such as the musk deer, Chinese water deer and the rib-faced deer or muntjac the upper canines exist, and are largely developed. The camels and llamas possess two cutting teeth in the upper jaw, and in this respect they differ from the true ruminants, as also in some internal features. The grinding teeth are six on each side of the jaw, and are composed of alternate convolutions of enamel, dentine and cement, which wear unequally by the lateral motion of grinding, and so form the necessary inequality of surface. The centre metacarpal bones in the Ruminantia are fused into one common bone, except in the deerlets, which also have the two outer fore and little finger metacarpals distinct, whereas they are but rudimentary in the rest of the true ruminants, and totally absent in the camels. The following is the classification at present adopted: SUB-ORDER _Ruminantia_, containing two sections, viz. True Ruminants and the Camels (_Tylopoda_). SECTION _True Ruminants_, containing two divisions, viz. Horned Ruminants and Hornless Ruminants, such as the chevrotians or deerlets (_Tragulidae_). DIVISION Horned Ruminants, containing two groups, viz. Hollow-horned Ruminants (_Bovidae_), and Solid-horned Ruminants (_Cervidae_). The deerlets possess no psalterium or third stomach, except in a rudimentary form, and their feet approximate to those of the pigs, and they are destitute of horns. The hollow-horned ruminants are those which bear a persistent sheath of horn on a bony core; the others bear solid antlers which are periodically shed, and grow afresh. FAMILY BOVIDAE--HOLLOW-HORNED RUMINANTS. In these there is an elongated process of bone on the frontals, termed the "horn cores," which are covered with a horny sheath which is never shed, but continues to grow till full adult life, and probably whilst life lasts, the growth being from the base. In some of these the females are horned, but the majority are hornless. These have all the typical organs of rumination and digestion, and they consist of the goats, sheep, antelope, oxen, and buffalos. SUB-FAMILY CAPRINAE--GOATS AND SHEEP. These are noted for having, as a general rule, horns in both sexes, though of varying quality; they are usually compressed, triangular, rugose, with transverse ridges, and curving backwards or spirally; no canines. Feet pits in some; sub-orbital gland small or absent. _GENUS OVIS--THE SHEEP_. Horns in both sexes; in the male very large, angular, deeply wrinkled, turned downwards in a bold circle, with the point curved outwards; the nasal bones are arched; small feet pits; two mammae. NO. 438. OVIS POLII. _Marco Polo's Sheep_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Rass_ or _Roosh_ on the Pamir; _Kuch-kar_ (male), _Mesh_ (female), in Wakhan. HABITAT.--Thian Shan mountains, north of Kashgar, and Yarkand, at elevations exceeding 9000 feet. [Illustration: _Ovis Polii_.] DESCRIPTION.--During winter light greyish-brown on the sides of the body, with a dark line down the middle of the back, white below. In summer the grey changes to dark brown. The horns describe a circle of about one and a quarter when viewed from the side, and point directly outwards. One of the finest specimens I have seen, which was exhibited at a meeting of the Asiatic Society in December 1879, and is now in the Indian Museum, measures over sixty-seven inches from base to tip along the curve, with a circumference at base of sixteen inches and a width from tip to tip in a straight line of fifty-three inches; one in the British Museum measures sixty-three inches, but is wider in its spread, being fifty-four inches across at the tips. Major Biddulph, who presented the head to our museum, remarked that the strength of the neck muscles must be enormous to allow of so great a weight being easily carried, and it was doubtless owing to this weight that the _Ovis Polii_ and other great sheep that he had observed had a very erect carriage, which has also been noticed by others of the _Ovis Ammon_. I have never seen this animal in the flesh, and can only therefore give what I gather from others about it, which is not much, as it is not very well known. SIZE.--Stands nearly four feet at the shoulder. In the article on Asiatic sheep by Sir Victor Brooke and Mr. B. Brooke in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' in 1875, there is an excellent series of engravings of horns of these animals, amongst which are two of _Ovis Polii_. The description of the animal itself appears to be faulty, for it is stated that around the neck is a pure white mane, whereas Mr. Blanford wrote to the Society a few months later to the effect that he had examined a series of skins brought from Kashgar, and found that none possess a trace of a mane along the neck, as represented in a plate of the animal, there being some long hair behind the horns and a little between the shoulders, but none on the back of the neck. The animal has a very short tail also--so short it can hardly be seen in life. According to M. Severtzoff there is a dark line above the spinal column from the shoulders to the loins; a white anal disc surrounds the tail; this disc above is bordered by a rather dark line, but below it extends largely over the hinder parts of the thighs, shading gradually into the brown colour of the legs. The light greyish-brown of the sides shades off into white towards the belly. [Illustration: Horns of _Ovis Polii_.] He gives the following particulars concerning its habits: "It is not a regular inhabitant of the mountains, but of high situated hilly plains, where _Festuca_, _Artemisia_, and even _Salsolae_ form its principal food. It only takes to the mountains for purposes of concealment, avoiding even then the more rocky localities. It keeps to the same localities summer and winter. Its speed is very great, but the difficulty in overtaking wounded specimens may be partly attributed to the distressing effect of the rarefied air upon the horses, which has apparently no effect whatever on the sheep. The weight of an old specimen killed and gralloched by M. Severtzoff was too much for a strong mountain camel, the animal requiring four hours to do four versts (2.6 miles), and being obliged to lie down several times during the journey. He reckons the entire weight of a male _Ovis Polii_ to be not less than 16 or 17 poods (576 to 612 lbs.); the head and horns alone weigh over two poods (72 lbs.)."[33] [Footnote 33: It must be remembered that at such great elevations a camel is unable to bear a very heavy load.] I have before me a beautiful photograph by Mr. Oscar Malitte, of Dehra Doon, of a very large skull of this sheep, with the measurements given. The photograph is an excellent one of a magnificent head, and I should say if the measurements have been correctly made, that the horns are the longest, though not the thickest, on record. The dimensions given are as follows:-- Inches. Round the curve 73 From tip to tip 48 Girth at base 14 The next largest head to this is the very fine one in the Indian Museum, presented by Major Biddulph:-- Inches. Round the curve 67 From tip to tip 53 Girth at base 16 There is another in the British Museum:-- Inches. Round the curve 63 From tip to tip 54 Girth at base 16 From the above measurements it will be seen that the horns in the photograph before me are of greater length, but not so massive as the other two. They are also more compressed in their curvature than the others, and so the tip to tip measurement is less. The skull appears to be that of a very old animal; the horns are quite joined at the base, and from the incrustation on the bones I should say it had been picked up, and was not a shikar trophy. Anyhow it is a valuable specimen.[34] [Footnote 34: See notes to _Ovis Polii_ in Appendix C.] NO. 439. OVIS HODGSONI. _The Argali or Ovis Ammon of Thibet_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Hyan_, _Nuan_, _Nyan_, _Niar_, _Nyaud_ or _Gnow_. HABITAT.--The Thibetan Himalayas at 15,000 feet and upwards. [Illustration: _OVIS HODGSONI_.] DESCRIPTION.--The following description was given by a correspondent of the _Civil and Military Gazette_ in the issue of the 21st October, 1880: "The male dark earthy brown above, lighter below; rump lighter coloured; tail one inch; white ruff of long hairs on throat and chin; hair of body short, brittle, and close-set. The female darker coloured than the male, and may often be distinguished, when too far to see the horns, by the dark hue of the neck." Both male and female are horned; the horns of the former are very large, some are reported as being as much as four feet long, and 22 inches in circumference at the base. Dr. Jerdon quotes Colonel Markham in giving 24 inches as the circumference of one pair. They are deeply rugose, triangular, and compressed, deeper than broad at the base, forming a bold sweep of about four-fifths of a circle, the points turning outwards, and ending obtusely. The horns of the female are mentioned by various writers as being from 18 to 22 inches, slightly curved; but the correspondent of the _Civil and Military Gazette_ above quoted gives 24 inches as his experience. SIZE.--From 10 to 12 hands, sometimes an inch over. [Illustration: _Ovis Hodgsoni_.] A very interesting account of this animal, with a good photograph of the head, is given in Kinloch's 'Large Game-shooting in Thibet and the North-west.' He says: "In winter the _Ovis Ammon_ inhabits the lower and more sheltered valleys, where the snow does not lie in any great quantity. As summer advances, the males separate from the females, and betake themselves to higher and more secluded places. They appear to be particular in their choice of a locality, repairing year after year to the same places, where they may always be found, and entirely neglecting other hills which apparently possess equal advantages as regards pasturage and water. Without a knowledge of their haunts a sportsman might wander for days and never meet with old rams, although perhaps never very far from them. I have myself experienced this, having hunted for days over likely ground without seeing even the track of a ram, and afterwards, under the guidance of an intelligent Tartar, found plenty of them on exactly similar ground a mile or two from where I had been. The flesh of the _Ovis Ammon_, like that of all the Thibetan ruminants, is excellent; it is always tender, even on the day it is killed, and of very good flavour, possibly caused by the aromatic herbs which constitute so large a portion of the scanty vegetation of those arid regions. "No animal is more wary than the _Ovis Ammon_, and this, combined with the open nature of the ground which it usually inhabits, renders it perhaps the most difficult of all beasts to approach. It is however, of course, sometimes found on ground where it can be stalked, but even then it is most difficult to obtain a quiet shot, as the instant one's head is raised one of the herd is nearly sure to give the alarm, and one only gets a running shot. "_Ovis Ammon_ shooting requires a great deal of patience. In the first place, unless the sportsman has very good information regarding the ground, he may wander for days before he discovers the haunts of the old rams; and, secondly, he may find them on ground where it is hopeless to approach them. In the latter case all that can be done is to wait, watch them until they move to better ground, and if they will not do this the same day, they must be left till the next. Sooner or later they will move to ground where they can be stalked, and then, if proper care is exercised, they are not much more difficult to get near than other animals; but the greatest precautions must be taken to prevent being seen before one fires. Some men may think this sort of shooting too troublesome, and resort to driving, but this is very uncertain work, and frightens the animals away, when, by the exercise of patience, a quiet shot might be obtained." A writer in _The Asian_, whose 'Sportsman's Guide to Kashmir and Ladakh' contains most valuable information, writes thus in the issue of August 30, 1881, of the keen sense of smell possessed by this animal, and I take the liberty of quoting a paragraph:-- "The _Ovis Ammon_ is possessed of the sense of smell to a remarkable degree, and, as every one who has stalked in Ladakh is aware, the wind is treacherous. If the stalker feels a puff of wind on his back when within 700 or 800 yards of the game, he well knows that it is 'all up.' On the tops of the mountains and in the vicinity of glaciers these puffs of wind are of frequent occurrence; often they will only last for a few seconds, but that is sufficiently long to ruin the chance of getting a shot at the _Ovis_. Except for this one fact, we cannot admit that the nyan is harder to approach than any other hill sheep." NO. 440. OVIS KARELINI. _Karelin's Wild Sheep_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Ar_ or _Ghuljar_ (male), _Arka_ (female), Khirghiz; _Kulja_, Turki of Kashgar. HABITAT.--Mountains north-west of Kashgar, and thence northwards beyond the Thian Shan mountains on to the Semiretchinsk Altai. [Illustration: Horns of _Ovis Karelini_.] DESCRIPTION (by Sir Victor Brooke and Mr. Brooke, translated and abstracted from Severtzoff, _see_ 'P. Z. S.' 1875, p. 512).--"The horns are moderately thick, with rather rounded edges; frontal surface very prominent, orbital surface rather flat, narrowing only in the last third of its length. The horns are three times as long as the skull. The basal and terminal axis of the horns rise parallel with each other; the median axis parallel with the axis of the skull. The neck is covered by a white mane, shaded with greyish-brown. The light brown of the back and sides is separated from the yellowish-white of the belly by a wide dark line. The light brown of the upper parts gets gradually lighter towards the tail, where it becomes greyish-white, but does not form a sharply marked anal disc. On the back there is a sharply marked dark line running from the shoulders to the loins. I did not find any soft hair under the long winter hair in October." SIZE.--Height at the shoulder, 3 feet 6 inches; length of the horns, from 44 to 45 inches. The following is a description by Dr. Stoliczka of this animal, which he took to be _Ovis Polii_, and described it as such, in the 'P. Z. S.' for 1874, page 425. In the same volume is a plate which, however, is shewn by Mr. Blanford ('Sc. Res. Second Yarkand Mission,' p. 83) to be inaccurate:-- "_Male in winter dress_.--General colour above hoary brown, distinctly rufescent or fawn on the upper hind neck and above the shoulders, darker on the loins, with a dark line extending along the ridge of tail to the tip. Head above and at the sides a greyish-brown, darkest on the hind head, where the central hairs are from four to five inches long, while between the shoulders somewhat elongated hairs indicate a short mane. Middle of upper neck hoary white, generally tinged with fawn; sides of body and the upper part of the limbs shading from brown to white, the hair becoming more and more tipped with the latter colour. Face, all the lower parts, limbs, tail, and all the hinder parts, extending well above towards the loins, pure white. "The hairs on the lower neck are very much lengthened, being from five to six inches long. Ears hoary brown externally, almost white internally. Pits in front of the eye distinct, of moderate size and depth, and the hair round them generally somewhat darker brown than the rest of sides of the head. The nose is slightly arched and the muzzle sloping. The hair is strong, wiry, and very thickly set, and at the base intermixed with scanty, very fine fleece; the average length of the hairs on the back is 2 to 2-1/2 inches. The iris is brown. The horns are subtriangular, touching each other at the base, curving gradually with a long sweep backwards and outwards; and, after completing a full circle, the compressed points again curve backwards and outwards; their surface is more or less closely transversely ridged. "The colour of full-grown females does not differ essentially from that of the males, except that the former have much less white on the middle of the upper neck. The snout is sometimes brown, sometimes almost entirely white, the dark eye-pits becoming then particularly conspicuous. The dark ridge along the tail is also scarcely traceable. In size, both sexes of _Ovis Polii_ appear to be very nearly equal, but the head of the female is less massive, and the horns, as in allied species, are comparatively small: the length of horn of one of the largest females obtained is 14 inches along the periphery, the distance at the tips being 15 inches, and at the base a little more than one inch. The horns themselves are much compressed; the upper anterior ridge is wanting on them; they curve gradually backwards and outwards towards the tip, though they do not nearly complete even a semicircle. In young males, the horns at first resemble in direction and slight curvature those of the female, but they are always thicker at the base and distinctly triangular. "The length of the biggest horn of male along the periphery of curve was 56 inches, and the greatest circumference of a horn of a male specimen at the base 18-1/2 inches. "Mr. Blyth, the original describer of _Ovis Polii_, from its horns, was justified in expecting, from their enormous size, a correspondingly large-bodied animal; but in reality such does not appear to exist. Although the distance between the tips of the horns seems to be generally about equal to the length of the body, and although the horns are very much larger, but not thicker or equally massive, with those of the _Ovis Ammon_ of the Himalayas, the body of the latter seems to be comparatively higher. Still it is possible that the _Ovis Polii_ of the Pamir may stand higher than the specimens described, which were obtained from the Tian Shan range. "Large flocks of _Ovis Polii_ were observed on the undulating high plateau to the south of the Chadow-Kul, where grass vegetation is abundant. At the time the officers of the Mission visited this ground, i.e. in the beginning of January, it was the rutting season. The characters of the ground upon the Pamir and upon the part of the Tian Shan inhabited by these wild sheep are exactly similar." The following remarks on the habits of this species are from Sir Victor Brooke's abstract of Servertzoft's description: "_Ovis Karelini_, like other sheep, does not live exclusively amongst the rocks, as is the case with the different species of _Capra_. It is not satisfied, like the latter, with small tufts of grass growing in the clefts of the rocks, but requires more extensive feeding grounds; it is, therefore, more easily driven from certain districts than is the case with _Capra_. In the neighbourhood of Kopal, for instance, the goats are abundant in the central parts of the steppes of Kara, whilst the sheep have been partially driven from these places, only visiting them in autumn. "On the southern ranges of the Semiretchinsk Altai, in the vicinity of the river Ili, wherever good meadows and rocky places are found, _Ovis Karelini_ occurs at elevations of from 2000 to 3000 feet; at the sources of the rivers Lepsa, Sarkan, Kora, Karatala, and Koksa it goes as high as 10,000, and even to 12,000 feet in the neighbourhood of the Upper Narin. In winter it is found at much lower elevations." In a paper by Captain H. Trotter, R.E., read before the Royal Geographical Society on the 13th of May, 1878, on the geographical results of the mission to Kashgar under Sir Douglas Forsyth ('Journal R. G. S.' vol. xlviii., 1878, p. 193), I find the following account refering to this sheep, there mentioned under the name of _Ovis Polii_: "For twenty-five miles above Chakmak the road continues gently ascending along the course of the frozen stream, passing through volcanic rocks to Turgat Bela, a little short of which the nature of the country alters, and the precipitous hills are replaced by gently undulating grassy slopes, abounding with the _Ovis Polii_.[35] "These extensive grassy slopes, somewhat resembling the English downs, are a very curious feature of the country, and not only attract the Kirghiz as grazing grounds for their cattle, but are equally sought after by the large herds of guljar, in one of which Dr. Stoliczka counted no less than eighty-five." [Footnote 35: _Ovis Heinsi_ and _Ovis nigromontana_ are doubtful species allied to the foregoing, and are not found within the limits assigned to this work.] The Chakmak and Turgat Bela spoken of are on the southern slopes of the Thian Shan mountains, which form the boundary between Russia and Eastern Turkestan, separating the provinces of Semiretchinsk and Kashghar. The Turgat pass, about 12,760 feet, lies between the Kashgharian fort of Chakmak and the Russian fort Naryn or Narin. Captain Trotter mentions in a foot-note that these sheep, as well as ibex, abound in these hills in such large quantities that they form the principal food of the garrisons of the outposts. At Chakmak they saw a large shed piled up to the roof with the frozen carcases of these animals. (A most valuable map of the country is published in the 'Journal' with this paper.) The chief difference between this species and _Ovis Polii_ consists in the much greater length and divergence of horns of the latter and the longer hair on the neck. NO. 441. OVIS BROOKEI. _Brooke's Wild Sheep_. HABITAT.--Ladakh, or probably the Kuenluen range north of Ladakh. [Illustration: _Ovis Brookei_.] DESCRIPTION.--This species is founded on a single specimen, which, in the opinion of Mr. Blyth, Mr. Edwin Ward, F.Z.S., Sir Victor Brooke and others, differed materially from all other wild sheep, but, as they had only a head to go upon, further investigation in this direction is necessary. It is not even certain where the animal was shot, but it is believed to have been obtained in the vicinity of Leh in Ladakh. It is apparently allied to the _O. Ammon_ of Thibet, which Sir Victor and Mr. B. Brooke term in their paper _O. Hodgsonii_, but it differs in its much smaller size, in its deeply sulcated horns, the angles of which are very much rounded, and the terminal curve but slightly developed. It differs also from _O. Vignei_ and _O. Karelini_. The orbits project less, with greater width between them, the length of the molar teeth also exceeds the others. There are two wood-cuts of the skull and horns in the 'P. Z. S.' 1874, page 143, illustrating Mr. Edwin Ward's paper on the subject. The following are the dimensions of the specimen:-- Inches. Length of skull 11 Smallest breadth between orbits 4-5/8 Length of horns, round curve 33-1/2 Circumference of horns 13-3/8 NO. 442. OVIS VIGNEI. _Vigne's Wild Sheep_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Sha_ or _Shapoo_. HABITAT.--Little Thibet; Ladakh, from 12,000 to 14,000 feet. DESCRIPTION.--General colour brownish-grey, beneath paler; belly white; a short beard of stiffish brown hair; the horns of the male are sub-triangular, rather compressed laterally and rounded posteriorly, deeply sulcated, curving outward and backward from the skull; points divergent. The female is beardless, with small horns. The male horns run from 25 to 35 inches, but larger have been recorded. This sheep was for some time, and is still by some, confounded with the oorial (_Ovis cycloceros_), but there are distinct differences, as will be seen further on, when I sum up the evidence. It inhabits the elevated ranges of Ladakh, and is found in Baltistan, where it is called the _oorin_. NO. 443. OVIS CYCLOCEROS. _The Punjab Wild Sheep_ (_Jerdon's No. 236_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Oorial_ or _Ooria_, in the Punjab; _Koch_ or _Kuch_, in the Suleiman range. HABITAT.--The Salt range of the Punjab; on the Suleiman range; the Hazarah hills; and the vicinity of Peshawar. [Illustration: _Ovis cycloceros_.] DESCRIPTION.--General colour rufous brown; face livid, side of mouth and chin white; a long thick black beard mixed with white hairs from throat to breast, reaching to the knees; legs below knees and feet white; belly white, a blotch on the flanks; outside of legs and a lateral line blackish. The horns of the male are sub-triangular, much compressed laterally and posteriorly; in fact one may say concave at the sides, that is, from the base of the horn to about one half; transversely sulcated; curving outwards, and returning inward towards the face; points convergent. The female is more uniform pale brown, with whitish belly; no beard, and short straight horns. SIZE.--About 5 feet in length, and 3 feet high; horns from 25 to 30 inches round the curve.[36] The marked distinctions between the two species may be thus briefly summed up:-- _Ovis Vignei_. Horn rather compressed laterally. Rounded posteriorly. Curving outward and backward. Points divergent. General colour, brownish-grey. Beard short, of stiffish brown hairs. _Ovis cycloceros_. Horn much compressed laterally. Much compressed posteriorly. Curving outward and inward. Points convergent. General colour, rufous brown, with blotch on flanks and lateral line blackish. Beard profuse, reaching to knees, black intermixed with white hairs. [Footnote 36: See also Appendix C.] Mr. Sclater, with reference to the two in his paper on the Punjab Sheep living in the Zoological Society's Garden in 1860 ('P. Z. S.' 1860, page 126), says: "On comparing the skull (of _O. cycloceros_) with that of the shapoo we observe a general resemblance. But it may be noted that the sub-orbital pits in the present species are smaller, deeper, and more rounded; the nasal bones are considerably shorter and more pointed, and the series of molar teeth (formed in each skull of three premolars and three molars) measures only 2.85 instead of 3.20 inches in total length." There is a fine coloured plate of this animal in that magnificent folio work--Wolf's 'Zoological Sketches,' showing the male, female, and lambs; and in that valuable book of Kinloch's, 'Large Game-shooting in Thibet and the North-west' is a very clear photograph of the oorial's head, from which I give the above sketch. He gives the following account of its habits: "The oorial is found among low stony hills and ravines, which are generally more or less covered with thin jungle, consisting principally of thorny bushes. During the heat of the day the oorial conceal themselves a good deal, retiring to the most secluded places, but often coming down to feed in the evening on the crops surrounding the villages. Where not much disturbed, they will stay all day in the neighbourhood of their feeding grounds, and allow sheep and cattle to feed amongst them without concern; but where they have been much fired at they usually go a long distance before settling themselves for the day. They are generally found on capital ground for stalking, the chief drawback being the stony nature of the hills, which renders it difficult to walk silently. When fired at, oorial usually go leisurely away, stopping to gaze every now and then, so that several shots may often be fired at one herd." Dr. Leith Adams says regarding it, that it "frequents bleak and barren mountains, composed of low ranges intersected by ravines and dry river courses, where vegetation is scanty at all seasons, and goats and sheep are seldom driven to pasture. It is found in small herds, and, being fond of salt, is generally most abundant in the neighbourhood of salt mines. Shy and watchful, it is difficult to approach, and possesses in an eminent degree the senses of sight and smell. It is seldom seen in the day-time, being secreted among rocks, whence it issues at dusk to feed in the fields and valleys, returning to its retreat at daybreak. "When suddenly alarmed the males gives a loud shrill whistle, like the ibex. This is an invariable signal for the departure of the herd, which keeps moving all the rest of the day until dusk. Their bleat is like that of the tame species; and the males fight in the same way, but the form of the body and infra-orbital pits simulate the deer, hence it is often called the 'deer-sheep.' It equals the deer in speed and activity. The female gestates seven months. The rutting season is in September." According to Captain Hutton the flesh is good and well-flavoured, "while the horns are placed as trophies of success and proofs of skill upon tombs and temples." This sheep has bred in the Gardens of the Zoological Society in London. (_See_ notes to _Oorial_ in Appendix C.) NO. 444. OVIS BLANFORDII. _Blanford's Wild Sheep_. HABITAT.--Central hills of Khelat. DESCRIPTION.--The horns of this species are longer and more slender than those of _Ovis Vignei_, _O. cycloceros_, or _O. Gmelini_. Mr. Hume says ('J. A. S. B.' 1877, p. 327): "In all these three species, as far as I can make out, each horn lies in one plane, whereas in the present species the horn twists out in a capital-S fashion. There is, in fact, much the same difference between the horns of the present species and of _O. cycloceros_, that there is between those of _O. Kareleni_ and _O. Hodgsoni_. The lower part of the forehead at the nasal suture, and the whole of the frontals, are more raised and convex than in either _O. cycloceros_ or _O. Vignei_. "The frontal ridge between the bases of the horns is less developed in _O. Blanfordii_, and in this latter the posterior convex margin of the bony palate is differently shaped, being more pointed, and not nearly semi-circular as in _O. cycloceros_." The dimensions of the skull are given in detail by Mr. Hume in the paper above quoted, out of which I extract those of the horns:-- Inches. Length along curve 35.75 Circumference at base 9.0 Width from tip to tip 16.5 Greatest breadth of horn at base 2.25 Greatest depth of ditto 3.25 The horns of a specimen of _O. cycloceros_ of about the same age were 29.5 in length and 10 inches in circumference at base, so that the greater length and slenderness of the horns of _Ovis Blanfordii_ are apparent. Mr. Hume writes to me that there is a living specimen of this sheep at present in the London Zoological Gardens. NO. 445. OVIS NAHURA _vel_ BURHEL. _The Blue Wild Sheep_ (_Jerdon's No. 237_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Burhel_, _Buroot_, in the Himalayas; _Napu_, _Na_, or _Sna_, Thibet and Ladakh; _Nervati_, in Nepal. _Wa'_ or _War_ on the Sutlej. HABITAT.--This animal has a wide range; it is found from Sikim, and, as Jerdon says, probably Bhotan, right away through Thibet, as Pere David found it in Moupin, and it extends up to the Kuenluen mountains north of Ladakh, and in Ladakh itself, and it has been obtained by Prejevalski on the Altyn-Tagh, therefore the limits assigned by Jerdon must be considerably extended. [Illustration: _Ovis nahura_.] DESCRIPTION.--General colour a dull slaty blue, slightly tinged with fawn; the belly, edge of buttocks, and tail, white; throat, chest, front of fore-arm and cannon bone, a line along the flank dividing the darker tint from the belly; the edge of the hind limbs and the tip of the tail deep black; horns moderately smooth, with few wrinkles, rounded, nearly touching at the base, directed upwards, backwards and outwards, the points being turned forwards and inwards. The female is smaller, the black marks smaller and of less extent; small, straight, slightly recurved horns; nose straighter. The young are darker and browner. SIZE.--Length of head and body, 4-1/2 to 5 feet; height, 30 to 36 inches; tail, 7 inches; horns, 2 to 2-1/2 feet round the curve; circumference at base, 12 to 13 inches. An excellent coloured plate is to be found in Blanford's 'Scientific Results of the Second Yarkand Mission' and a life-like photograph of the head in Kinloch's 'Large Game-shooting.' According to the latter author the burrel prefers bare rocky hills, and when inhabiting those which are clothed with forest, rarely or never descends to the limits of the trees. "The favourite resorts of burrel are those hills which have slopes well covered with grass in the immediate vicinity of steep precipices, to which they can at once betake themselves in case of alarm. Females and young ones frequently wander to more rounded and accessible hills, but I have never met with old males very far from some rocky stronghold. The males and females do not appear to separate entirely during the summer, as I have found mixed flocks at all seasons, though, as a rule, the old males form themselves into small herds and live apart. In my opinion the flesh of the burrel surpasses in flavour the best mutton, and has moreover the advantage of being generally tender soon after the animal is killed." According to Jerdon the burrel is fattest in September and October. In the 'Indian Sporting Review' a writer, "Mountaineer," states that in winter, when they get snowed in, they actually browse the hair off each other, and come out miserably thin. The name _Ovis nahura_ is not a felicitous one, as it was given under a mistake by Hodgson, the nahoor being quite another animal. I think Blyth's name of _Ovis burhel_ should be adopted to the exclusion of the other, which, however, is in general use. There is a very interesting paper on this animal by Mr. R. Lydekker in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. xlix., 1880, in which he points out its affinity to the goats from the absence of eye-pits and their larminal depression in the lachrymal bone--from the similarity of the basi-occipital and in the structure and colour of its horns. On the other hand it agrees with _Ovis_ in the form of its lower jaw, in the absence of beard and any odour, and in the possession of interdigital pores in all feet. _GENUS CAPRA--THE GOATS_. Horns in both sexes curving backwards, angular and flattened, or in some cases twisted spirally. The nose is arched, and the chin of both sexes is more or less bearded; there are no eye-pits or inguinal pits, and feet-pits only in the fore-feet in most, and none in some. Mr. Blyth some years ago pointed out that a hind-quarter of goat with the foot attached can always be told from the same piece of mutton by the absence of the feet-pits in the goat. The males especially emit a strong odour. In other respects there is little difference between goats and sheep, and by interbreeding they produce a fertile offspring. Our domestic goat is supposed to have descended from the ibex, but certainly some of our Indian varieties may claim descent from the markhor. I noticed in 1880 at Simla herds of goats with horns quite of the markhor type, and one old fellow in a herd of about one hundred, which was being driven through the station to some rajah's place in the vicinity, had a remarkably fine head, with the broad flat twist of the markhor horn. I tried in vain to get a similar one; several heads were brought to me from the bazaar, but they were poor in comparison. Goats are more prolific than sheep. The power of gestation commences at the early age of seven months; the period is five months, and the female produces sometimes twice a year, and from two to occasionally four at a birth. The goat is a hardy animal, subsisting on the coarsest herbage, but its flesh and milk can be immensely improved by a selected diet. Some of the small domestic goats of Bengal are wonderful milkers. I have kept them for years in Calcutta for the use of my children, and once took two of them with me to Marseilles by the 'Messageries' Steamers. I prefer them to the larger goats of the North-west. My children have been singularly free from ailments during their infancy, and I attribute the immunity chiefly to the use of goats' milk drawn fresh as required. Of the wild goats, to which I must now confine my attention, there are two groups, viz. the true goats and the antelope goats. Of the former there is a sub-genus--_Hemitragus_--which have no feet-pits, but have a muffle and occasionally four mammae, which form a connecting link with the _Cervidae_. In all other respects _Hemitragus_ is distinctly caprine. NO. 446. CAPRA MEGACEROS. _The Markhor_ (_Jerdon's No. 234_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Mar-khor_ (i.e. snake-eater), in Afghanistan, Kashmir, &c.; _Ra-che_, or _Ra-pho-che_, Ladakhi. HABITAT.--The mountain districts of Afghanistan, and the highest parts of the Thibetan Himalayas. On the Pir Panjal, in Kashmir, the Hazarah hills, the hills north of the Jhelum, the Wurdwan hills west of the Beas river, on the Suleiman range, and in Ladakh. DESCRIPTION.--General colour a dirty light-blue gray, with a darker beard; in summer with a reddish tinge; the neck and breast clad with long dark hair, reaching to the knees; hair long and shaggy; fore-legs brown. The females are redder, with shorter hair, short black beard, but no mane, and with small horns slightly twisted. The horns of an old male are a magnificent trophy. Kinloch records having seen a pair, of which the unbroken horn measured sixty-three inches, and its fellow, which had got damaged, had fifty-seven inches left. Forty to fifty inches is, however, a fair average. According to Kinloch the very long horns are not so thick and massive as those of average length. Jerdon says the longest horns have three complete spiral twists. The horns of certain varieties differ so much that I may say species have been settled with less to go upon. Kinloch notes four varieties. I have hitherto reckoned only two, but he gives-- No. 1.--Pir Panjal markhor; heavy, flat horns, twisted like a corkscrew. No. 2.--Trans-Indus markhor; perfectly straight horns, with a spiral flange or ridge running up them. No. 3.--Hazarah markhor; a slight corkscrew, as well as a twist. No. 4.--Astor and Baltistan markhor; large, flat horns, branching out very widely, and then going up nearly straight with only a half turn. Of the two kinds I have seen, the one has the broad flat horn twisted like a corkscrew; the other a perfectly straight core, with the worm of a screw turned round it. Nothing could be more dissimilar than these horns, yet, in other respects the animal being the same, it has not been considered necessary to separate the two as distinct species.[37] [Footnote 37: Colonel Kinloch writes on my remarks as above, and gives the following interesting information: "I cannot consider the spiral-horned and the straight-horned markhor to be one species, any more than the Himalayan and Sindh ibex. The animals differ much in size, habits, and coat, as well as in the shape of their horns. Mr. Sterndale considers that the markhor is probably the origin of some of our breeds of domestic goats, and states that he has seen tame goats with horns quite of the markhor type. Has he ever observed that (as far as my experience goes) the horns of domestic goats invariably twist the _reverse way_ to those of markhor? I have observed that the horns of not only markhor, but also antelope, always twist one way; those of domestic goats the other."] SIZE.--Height, about 46 inches. There is a life-like photograph of No. 1 variety in Kinloch's 'Large Game of Thibet,' and of No. 3 a very fine coloured plate in Wolf's folio of 'Zoological Sketches.' [Illustration: _Capra megaceros_. No. 1 variety.] [Illustration: _Capra megaceros_. No. 2 variety.] The markhor frequents steep and rocky ground above the forests in summer, but descending in the winter. I cannot do better than quote Kinloch, who gives the following graphic little description: "The markhor inhabits the most precipitous and difficult ground, where nearly perpendicular faces of rock alternate with steep grassy slopes and patches of forest. It is very shy and secluded in its habits, remaining concealed in the densest thickets during the day-time, and only coming out to feed in the mornings and evenings. No animal's pursuit leads the sportsman over such dangerous ground as that of the markhor. Living so much in the forest, it must be followed over steep inclines of short grass, which the melting snow has left with all the blades flattened downwards; and amid pine-trees, whose needle-like spines strew the ground and render it more slippery and treacherous than ice. If one falls on such ground, one instantly begins to slide down the incline with rapidly increasing velocity, and, unless some friendly bush or stone arrests one's progress, the chances are that one is carried over some precipice, and either killed or severely injured. Many hair-breadth escapes occur, and the only wonder is that fatal accidents so seldom happen. "Early in the season the males and females may be found together on the open grassy patches and clear slopes among the forest, but during the summer the females generally betake themselves to the highest rocky ridges above the forest, while the males conceal themselves still more constantly in the jungle, very rarely showing themselves. They are always very wary, and require great care in stalking them." NO. 447. CAPRA SIBIRICA. _The Himalayan Ibex_ (_Jerdon's No. 235_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Sakin_, _Iskin_, or _Skeen_ of the Himalayas; _Buz_, in the upper part of the Sutlej; _Kale_, Kashmiri; _Tangrol_, in Kulu; _Skin_, the male, _L'Damuo_ the female, in Ladakh. HABITAT.--Throughout the Himalayas from Kashmir to Nepal. The localities given by Kinloch are Kunawar, Kulu, Lahoul, Spiti, Kashmir, Baltistan, and various parts of Thibet; also Ladakh according to Horsfield. [Illustration: _Capra Sibirica_.] DESCRIPTION.--General colour light brownish, with a dark stripe down the back in summer, dirty yellowish-white in winter; the beard, which is about six to eight inches long, is black; the horns, which are like those of the European ibex, are long and scimitar-shaped, curving over the neck, flattened at the sides, and strongly ridged in front; from forty to fifty inches in length. A pair is recorded in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1840 of fifty-one inches in length. The females have thin slightly curved horns about a foot long. Under the hair, which is about two inches long, is a soft down, and is highly prized for the fine soft cloth called _tusi_. SIZE.--Height at shoulder, about 44 inches. According to Colonel Markham the ibex "frequents the highest ground near the snows where food is to be obtained. The sexes live apart generally, often in flocks of one hundred and more. In October the males descend and mix with the females, which have generally twins in June and July. It is an extremely wary and timid animal, and can make its way in an almost miraculous manner over the most inaccessible-looking ground. No animal can exceed the ibex in endurance and agility." Kinloch writes as follows concerning it:-- "The ibex inhabits the most precipitous ground in the highest parts of the ranges where it is found, keeping above the forest (when there is any), unless driven down by severe weather. In the day-time it generally betakes itself to the most inaccessible crags, where it may sleep and rest in undisturbed security, merely coming down to the grassy feeding grounds in the mornings and evenings. Occasionally, in very remote and secluded places, the ibex will stay all day on their feeding grounds, but this is not common. In summer, as the snows melt, the old males retire to the highest and most unfrequented mountains, and it is then generally useless to hunt for them, as they have such a vast range, and can find food in places perfectly inaccessible to man. The females and young ones may be met with all the year round, and often at no very great elevation. "Although an excessively wary animal, the ibex is usually found on such broken ground that, if due care be taken, it is not very difficult to obtain a shot. The grand rule, as in all other hill stalking, is to keep well above the herd, whose vigilance is chiefly directed beneath them. In places where they have been much disturbed, one or two of the herd usually keep a sharp look-out while the rest are feeding, and on the slightest suspicion of danger the sentries utter a loud whistle, which is a signal for a general rush to the nearest rocks. Should the sportsman succeed in obtaining a shot before he is observed by the ibex, he may often have time to fire several shots before they are out of range, as they appear to be completely stupefied and confused by the sudden noise, the cause of which they are unable to account for if they neither see nor smell their enemy." Jerdon states that Major Strutt killed in the Balti valley an ibex of a rich hair-brown colour, with a yellowish-white saddle in the middle of its back, and a dark mesial line; the head, neck and limbs being of a dark sepia brown, with a darker line on the front of the legs; others were seen in the same locality by Major Strutt of a still darker colour. These seem to be peculiar to Balti; the horns are the same as the others. Kinloch remarks that a nearly black male ibex has been shot to the north of Iskardo. NO. 448. CAPRA AEGAGRUS. _The Wild Goat of Asia Minor_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Pasang_ (male), _Boz_ (female), generally _Boz-Pasang_, Persian (_Blanford_); _Kayeek_ in Asia Minor (_Danford_). HABITAT.--Throughout Asia Minor from the Taurus mountains; through Persia into Sindh and Baluchistan; and in Afghanistan. M. Pierre de Tchihatchef, late a distinguished member of the Russian Diplomatic Service, and well known as an author and a man of science, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making some time ago in Florence, found these goats most abundant on the Aladagh, Boulgerdagh and Hussandagh ranges of the Taurus. He made a very good collection of horns and skulls there, which are now in the Imperial Museum, St. Petersburg. Captain Hutton found it in Afghanistan. DESCRIPTION.--Hair short and brown, becoming lighter in summer; a dark, almost black line down the back; the males have a black beard; the young and females are lighter, with fainter markings; the horns are of the usual ibex type, but there is a striking difference between those of this species and all the others. As a rule the ibex horn is triangular in section, that is, the front part of the horn is square, with transverse knobs at short intervals all the way up, for about three-fourths of the length, whereas the horn of _C. aegagrus_ is more scimitar-like, flattish on the inner side and rounded on the outer, with an edge in front; the sides are wavily corrugated, and on the outer edge are knobs at considerable distances apart. It is believed that an estimate of the age of the animal can be made by these protuberances--after the third year a fresh knob is made in each succeeding one. Mr. Danford says: "The yearly growths seem to be greatest from the third to the sixth year, the subsequent additions being successively smaller." The horns sometimes curve inwards and sometimes outwards at the tips. Mr. Danford figures a pair, the tips of which, turning inwards, cross each other. The female horns are shorter and less characteristic. The size of the male horns run to probably a maximum of 50 inches. There is a pair in the British Museum 48-1/2 inches on the curve. Mr. Danford's best specimen was 47-1/2, the chord of which was 22-1/2, basal circumference 9-3/4, weight 10-1/4 lbs. Captain Hutton's living specimen had horns 40-1/2 inches in length. SIZE.--According to Herr Kotschy "it attains not unfrequently a length of 6-1/2 feet." Mr. Danford measured one 5 feet 5-1/2 inches from nose to tip of tail, 2 feet 9-1/2 inches at shoulder. (See also Appendix C.) I have not had an opportunity of measuring a very well-stuffed specimen in the Indian Museum, but I should say that the Sind variety was much smaller. Standing, as it does, beside a specimen of _Capra Sibirica_, it looks not much bigger than some of the Jumnapari goats. (See Appendix C.) The _aegagrus_ is commonly supposed to be the parent stock from which the domestic goat descended, and certainly the European and many Asiatic forms show a similarity of construction in the horn, but the common goat descended from more than one wild stock, for, as I have before stated, there are goats in India, which show unmistakable signs of descent from the markhor, _Capra megaceros_. In the article on _Capra aegagrus_ in the 'P. Z. S.' for 1875, p. 458, by Mr. C. G. Danford, F.Z.S., written after a recent visit to Asia Minor, it is stated that the late Captain Hutton found it common in Afghanistan, in the Suleiman and Pishin hills, and in the Hazarah and western ranges. I confess I had thought the ibex of these parts to be identical with _C. Sibirica_. Mr. Danford, describing where he met with it, says:-- "The picturesque town of Adalia is situated at the head of the gulf of the same name, and is the principal place in the once populous district of Pamphylia. It is surrounded on its landward side by a wide brushwood-covered plain, bounded on the north and north-east by the Gok and other mountains of the Taurus, and on the west by the Suleiman, a lofty spur of the same range, in which latter the present specimens were collected. "These mountains, the principal summit of which, the Akdagh (white mountain), attains a height of 10,000 feet (_Hoskyn_), rise abruptly from the plain and sea, and are of very imposing and rugged forms. The pure grey tints of the marble and marble-limestone, of which they are principally composed, show beautifully between the snowy summits, and the bright green of the pines and darker shades of the undergrowth of oak, myrtle and bay, which clothe their lower slopes. "The wild goat is here found either solitary or in small parties and herds, which number sometimes as many as 100; the largest which I saw contained 28. It is called by the natives _kayeek_, which word, though applied in other parts of the country to the stag, and sometimes even the roe, is here only used to designate the _aegagrus_, the fallow deer of this district being properly known as _jamoorcha_. The old males of the _aegagrus_ inhabit during summer the higher mountains, being often met with on the snow, while the females and young frequent the lower and easier ridges; in winter, however, they all seem to live pretty much together among the rocks, scattered pines, and bushy ground, generally preferring elevations of from 2000 to 5000 feet. Herr Kotschy says they never descend below 4000 feet in Cilicia; but his observations were made in summer. "Like all the ibex tribe, the _aegagrus_ is extremely shy and wary at ordinary times, though, as in the case with many other animals, they may be easily approached during the rutting season. I was told that they were often brought within shot at that time by the hunter secreting himself, and rolling a few small stones down the rocks. When suddenly disturbed they utter a short angry snort, and make off at a canter rather than a gallop. Though their agility among the rocks is marvellous, they do not, according to Mr. Hutton ('Calcutta Journ.' vii. p. 524), possess sufficient speed to enable them to escape from the dogs which are employed to hunt them in the low lands of Afghanistan. It is interesting to see how, when danger is dreaded, the party is always led by the oldest male, who advances with great caution, and carefully surveys the suspected ground before the others are allowed to follow; their food consists principally of mountain grasses, shoots of different small species of oak and cedar, and various berries. The young are dropped in May, and are one or two (Kotschy says sometimes three) in number. The horns appear very early, as shown in a kid of the year procured in the beginning of January." It appears to be very much troubled with ticks, and an _oestrus_ or bot which deposits its larvae in the frontal sinuses and cavities of the horns. _SUB-GENUS HEMITRAGUS_. Some naturalists do not separate this from _Capra_, but the majority do on the following characteristics, viz. that they possess a small muffle, and one of the two species has four mammae. The horns are trigonal, laterally compressed and knotted on the upper edge. NO. 449. CAPRA _vel_ HEMITRAGUS JEMLAICUS. _The Tahr_ (_Jerdon's No. 232_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Tehr_, _Jehr_, near Simla; _Jharal_, in Nepal; _Kras_ and _Jagla_, in Kashmir; _Kart_, in Kulu; _Jhula_ the male, and _Thar_ or _Tharni_ the female, in Kunawur; _Esbu_ and _Esbi_, male and female, on the Sutlej above Chini (_Jerdon_). HABITAT.--Throughout the entire range of the Himalayas, at high elevations between the forest and snow limits. According to Dr. Leith Adams it is very common on the Pir Panjal, and more so near Kishtwar. [Illustration: _Hemitragus Jemlaicus_.] DESCRIPTION.--The male is of various shades of brown, varying in tint from dark to yellowish, the front part and mane being ashy with a bluish tinge, the upper part of the limbs rusty brown, the fronts of legs and belly being darker. There is no beard, the face being smooth and dark ashy, but on the fore-quarters and neck the hair lengthens into a magnificent mane, which sometimes reaches to the knees. There is a dark mesial line; the tail is short and nude underneath; the horns are triangular, the sharp edge being to the front; they are about ten or eleven inches in circumference at the base where they touch, then, sweeping like a demi-crescent backwards, they taper to a fine point in a length of about 12 to 14 inches. The male has at times a very strong odour. The female is smaller, and of a reddish-brown or fulvous drab above, with a dark streak down the back, whitish below; the horns are also much smaller. SIZE.--Length of head and body, about 4-1/2 feet. Height, 36 to 40 inches. Col. Kinloch, whose two volumes are most valuable, both as regards interesting details and perfect illustrations, speaks thus of this species:-- "The tahr is a fine-looking beast, although his horns are small, and he cannot compare with his majestic relatives, the ibex and the markhor. The male tahr is about the same size as the ibex, but rather more heavily made. The general colour is a reddish-brown, deepening into a much darker tint on the hind-quarters, but individuals vary a good deal, and I have shot one which was of a yellowish-white. The face is covered with smooth short hair, and is nearly black; the hair of the body is long and coarse, attaining its greatest length on the neck, chest and shoulders, where it forms a fine flowing mane reaching below the animal's knees. The horns are curious, being triangular, with the sharp edge to the front; they are very thick at the base, and taper rapidly to a fine point, curving right back on to the neck. The largest horns attain a length of about 14 inches, and are 10 or 11 inches in circumference at the base. "The female tahr is very much smaller than the male; the hair is short, and the horns diminutive. The colour is a lightish red, with a dark stripe down the back. "The tahr is like the markhor, a forest-loving animal, and, although it sometimes resorts to the rocky summits of the hills, it generally prefers the steep slopes, which are more or less clothed with trees. Female tahr may be frequently found on open ground, but old males hide a great deal in the thickest jungle, lying during the heat of the day under the shade of trees or overhanging rocks. Nearly perpendicular hills with dangerous precipices, where the forest consists of oak and ringall cane, are the favourite haunts of the old tahr, who climb with ease over ground where one would hardly imagine that any animal could find a footing. Tahr ground indeed is about the worst walking I know, almost rivalling markhor ground; the only advantage being that, bad as it is, there are generally some bushes or grass to hold on to. "Owing to the ground it inhabits being so covered with jungle, the pursuit of the tahr is attended with a great deal of labour and uncertainty. Forcing one's way for hours through tangled bushes is very fatiguing, and, as it is impossible to do so without noise, chances are often lost which would be easy enough if the ground was more open. Frequently, although the tracks show that old tahr must be near, and in spite of the utmost care and caution, the first intimation one has of the presence of the game is a rush through the bushes, a clatter of falling stones, and perhaps a glimpse of the shaggy hind-quarters of the last of the herd as he vanishes over some precipice where it is perfectly impossible to follow him. "Early in the spring, when grass and leaves are scarce, and again in the rutting season, are the best times for tahr shooting, as the old males then come out on open slopes. "The tahr is very tenacious of life, and, even when mortally wounded, he will frequently make his escape into utterly impracticable ground. In autumn the tahr becomes immensely fat and heavy, and his flesh is then in high favour with the natives, the rank flavour suiting their not very delicate palates. An Englishman would rather not be within one hundred yards to leeward of him, the perfume being equal to treble-distilled 'bouquet de bouc.' Ibex is bad enough, but tahr is 'a caution.' The flesh of the female is, however, excellent." Colonel Markham says: "Seen at a distance it looks like a great wild hog, but when near it is a noble beast." According to Hodgson, it has interbred with a female spotted deer, and the offspring, which more resembled the mother, grew up a fine animal. There is a beautifully clear photograph in Kinloch's 'Large Game of Thibet,' and a large coloured plate in Wolf's 'Zoological Sketches.' NO. 450. CAPRA _vel_ HEMITRAGUS HYLOCRIUS. _The Neilgherry Wild Goat, or Ibex of Madras Sportsmen_ (_Jerdon's No. 233_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Warra-adu_ or _Warri-atu_, Tamil. HABITAT.--The Western Ghats, southerly towards Cape Comorin. DESCRIPTION.--According to Jerdon, "the adult male, dark sepia brown, with a pale reddish-brown saddle, more or less marked, and paler brown on the sides and beneath; legs somewhat grizzled with white, dark brown in front, and paler posteriorly; the head is dark, grizzled with yellowish-brown, and the eye is surrounded by a pale fawn-coloured spot; horns short, much curved, nearly in contact at the base, gradually diverging, strongly keeled internally, round externally, with numerous close rings not so prominent as in the last species. There is a large callous spot on the knees surrounded by a fringe of hair, and the male has a short stiff mane on the neck and withers. The hair is short, thick, and coarse." Colonel Douglas Hamilton, writing to the late Brigadier-General McMaster, says: "I think Jerdon's description is good, but I should call the saddles of the old males grizzled with white, and not pale reddish-brown. A real old 'saddle-back' has a white saddle and almost jet-black points. He makes a mistake about the length of the tail, 6 or 7 inches; it is not more than 3 inches." SIZE.--Height at shoulder, 41 to 42 inches. Jerdon gives 32 to 34, but he appears to have under-estimated the animal, unless it be a misprint for 42 and 44; although he questions Colonel W. Campbell's measurements of length and height, the former of which does seem excessive (6 feet 5 inches, including tail, probably taken from a skin), but the latter, 42 inches, is corroborated by Colonel Hamilton and several others. The size of the horns is given by Jerdon as occasionally 15 inches, rarely more than 12. Colonel Douglas Hamilton says, 9 inches in circumference and 15 to 15-1/2 or 15-3/4 in length is the average of a large horn. General McMaster writes, referring to the latter opinion: "Both he and I know of one 16 inches in length, shot by a well-known South Indian sportsman of the Madras Civil Service, and in February 1869 at Ootacamund, he and I measured the horn of a magnificent buck ibex, shot within 15 or 20 miles of that place. The exact measurements of this mighty horn were 17 inches in length, and 9-3/4 in circumference at the base." Jerdon states that this goat chiefly frequents the northern and western slopes of the Neilgherries, where the hills run down in a succession of steep stony slopes or rocky ridges to the high table-land of Mysore and the Wynaad, both of which districts are themselves hilly. It is occasionally seen on the summit of the northern and western faces, but more generally some distance down, at an elevation of 4000 to 6000 feet, and, if carefully looked for, the herd may be seen feeding on an open grassy glade at the foot of some precipice. "I have," he adds, "seen above twenty individuals in a flock occasionally, but more generally not more than six or seven. With the large herds there is almost always one very large old male conspicuous by his nearly black colour." Colonel D. Hamilton says he has seen 120 pass out of one valley, which he thinks were probably the aggregate of several herds, but he has counted sixty and sixty-five in a herd, and thirty-five in another, without a single adult buck amongst them. In the _South of India Observer_ for the 3rd and 17th of September, 1868, will be found most interesting descriptions of ibex-shooting by "Hawkeye" whose letters are largely quoted by McMaster; but I can only find space for one extract here, interesting to both sportsman and naturalist:-- "It is a pleasant sight to watch a herd of ibex, when undisturbed, the kids frisking here and there on pinnacles or ledges of rocks and beetling cliffs, where there seems scarcely safe foothold for anything much larger than the grasshopper or a fly; the old mother looking calmly on or grazing steadily while the day is young, cropping the soft moss or tender herbs and sweet short grass springing from the crevices of the craggy precipices in rich abundance. Then, again, to see the caution observed in taking up their resting or abiding places for the day, where they may be warmed by the sun, listening to the roar of many waters, and figuratively, we may say, chewing the cud of contentment, and giving themselves up to the full enjoyment of their nomadic life and its romantic haunts. Usually before reposing one of the herd, generally an old doe, may be observed intently gazing below, apparently scanning every spot in the range of her vision, sometimes for half an hour or more before she is satisfied that 'all is well;' strange to say, seldom or ever looking up to the rocks above. Then, being satisfied on the one side, she observes the same process on the other, eventually calmly lying down, contented with the precautions she has taken that all is safe. Her post as sentinel is generally a prominent one, on the edge and corner perhaps of some ledge, to be well sheltered from the wind and warmed by the sun, along which the rest of the herd dispose themselves as inclined, fully trusting in the watchful guardian, whose manoeuvres I have been describing. Should the sentinel be joined by another, or her kid come and lie down by her, they invariably place themselves back to back, or in such a manner that they can keep a look-out on either side. A solitary male goes through all this by himself, and wonderfully careful he is, but when with the herd he reposes in security, leaving it to the females to take precautions for their mutual safety. I have stated that these animals seldom look above them, except when any cause of alarm leads them to do so. I recollect an instance which I will relate, partly to show the advantage of a good colour for a stalker's dress, and to illustrate what I have mentioned above. I had disturbed a buck ibex accidentally one morning, and, after watching him a long distance with the glass, observed him to take up a position and commence the vigilant process previously mentioned. By this I knew he was preparing to lie down. He was a long time about it, but eventually he was satisfied, and took up his post on a prominent rock, from which, as lying with his back to the mountain, he held a clear view in front and on both sides. I approached from above, the wind all right, and the ibex reposing comfortably in fancied security. I had to pass a large rock to clear an intervening impediment, and gain a full view of the buck, as I could at first only see his horns. I had taken the precaution to remove my shoes, the grass being very dry and noisy. The crunching of the dry grass as I moved attracted the notice of the ibex, and suddenly he looked back and up towards me. He was not more than eighty or ninety yards below. I leaned against the rock, my shikar dress blending with the dark grey of the stone and burnt-up grass so completely as to deceive even my lynx-eyed prey. Long, long he looked, till my very knees trembled with anxiety. At last he turned his head, but I knew better than to move, being sure he would have another look. He did so and it proved to be his last, for, when he again turned his head away, I quietly subsided, and in another moment the buck died on his rocky bed." There is an illustration by Wolf of the animal in Colonel Walter Campbell's 'My Indian Journal.' The female has only two mammae, and usually produces two young at a time. THE GOAT ANTELOPES, OR CAPRICORNS. These animals form the link between the goats and the antelopes; their general characteristics are short, conical horns, ringed at the base, upright and curving backwards, and of nearly equal size in both sexes. The body is heavier than is usual amongst antelopes; the feet are large, and have false hoofs. _GENUS NEMORHOEDUS_. "Horns in both sexes round, black and ringed; a small muffle; eye-pits wanting or small; large feet-pits in all feet; no inguinal pits nor calcic tufts; tails short, hairy; four mammae" (_Jerdon_). NO. 451. NEMORHOEDUS BUBALINA. _The Serow, or Forest Goat_ (_Jerdon's No. 230_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Serow_, or _Serowa_, Pahari; _Eimu_, on the Sutlej; _Ramu_, _Halj_, _Salabhir_, Kashmiri; _Nga_, Leesaws of the Sanda valley; _Paypa_, of the Shans; _Shanli_, Chinese of the Burma-Chinese frontier. HABITAT.--The whole of the wooded ranges of the Himalayas from Kashmir down past Sikim on to the ranges dividing China from Burmah. [Illustration: _Nemorhoedus bubalina_.] DESCRIPTION.--I have before me several descriptions of this animal, of which I have little personal knowledge. The best of all is that of Colonel Kinloch, which has been, to some extent, quoted by Professor Garrod in Cassell's Natural History. I give it _in extenso_:-- "The serow is an ungainly-looking animal, combining the characteristics of the cow, the donkey, the pig, and the goat! It is a large and powerful beast, considerably larger than a tahr, and longer in the leg. The body is covered with very coarse hair, which assumes the form of a bristly mane on the neck and shoulders, and gives the beast a ferocious appearance, which does not belie its disposition. The colour is a dull black on the back, bright red on the sides, and white underneath, the legs also being dirty white. The ears are very large, the muzzle is coarse, and two singular circular orifices are situated two or three inches below the eyes. The horns are stout at the base, are ringed nearly to the tips, and curve back close to the neck, growing to the length of from nine to fourteen inches; they are very sharp-pointed, and the serow is said to be able to make good use of them. "The sexes vary very little, less than in any ruminating animal with which I am acquainted; both are furnished with horns of nearly the same size, those of an old male being rather thicker than those of the female. "The serow has an awkward gait; but in spite of this it can go over the worst ground; and it has, perhaps, no superior in going down steep hills. "It is a solitary animal, and is nowhere numerous; two or three may be found on one hill, four or five on another, and so on. It delights in the steepest and most rocky hill-sides, and its favourite resting-places are in caves, under the shelter of overhanging rocks, or at the foot of shady trees. It constantly repairs to the same spots, as testified to by the large heaps of its droppings which are to be found in the localities above alluded to. Although very shy and difficult to find, the serow is a fierce and dangerous brute when wounded and brought to bay. I have even heard of an unwounded male charging when his mate had been shot. "It is said that the serow will sometimes beat off a pack of wild dogs, and I believe that serow and dogs have been found lying dead together. It is therefore advisable to be cautious when approaching a wounded one. "When disturbed, the serow utters a most singular sound, something between a snort and a screaming whistle, and I have heard them screaming loudly when they had apparently not been alarmed." Colonel Markham says of it that it is something in appearance between a jackass and a _thar_, with long stout legs, and a strong neck. Jerdon's description is not clear; it is: "above black, more or less grizzled and mixed on the flanks with deep clay colour; a black dorsal stripe; forearms and thighs anteriorly reddish brown; the rest of the limbs hoary; beneath whitish." The deep clay colour is indefinite, as there are many sorts of clay, and people's ideas may differ as to the shade by the particular clay to which they are most accustomed. Dr. Anderson found it in the Western provinces of Yunnan; and General McMaster, in his 'Notes' (page 143), says that when he was quartered at Shuaygheen, on the Sitang river, in Burmah, a female of this species was brought alive to Major Berdmore by some Burmans, who had caught it in the river, by which it had probably been washed down from the Karanee mountains. He adds that even in its exhausted and dying state it was exceedingly savage, butting at every one who approached it. SIZE.--Height, about 3 feet, or an inch or two over; length, about 5 to 5-1/2 feet; weight, about 200 lbs.; horns, about a foot long as an average, varying from 9 to 14 inches. The female usually produces one kid in the autumn, about September or October, and the period of gestation is about seven months. NO. 452. NEMORHOEDUS RUBIDA _vel_ SUMATRENSIS. _The Arakanese Capricorn_. NATIVE NAME.--_Tan-Kseik_, Arakanese. HABITAT.--Arakan, through Pegu to (according to Blyth) the extremity of the Malayan peninsula, and occurs in Siam and Formosa, and also in Sumatra. Has been shot near Shillong in Assam. DESCRIPTION.--Blyth is of opinion ('Cat. Mam. British Burmah,' 'J. A. S. B.' 1875) that his _N. rubida_ is identical with _Sumatrensis_ and _Swinhoei_, and he could detect no difference in their skulls and skins. I therefore take the following description of _Capricornis Swinhoei_ from the 'P. Z. S.' 1862, page 263, where it is also figured, plate xxxv.:-- "The fur harsh and crisp, brown, with a narrow streak down the back of the neck; a spot on the knee and the front of the fore-legs below the knee black; the hind-legs are bay; the sides of the chin pale yellowish; the under-side of the neck yellow bay, this colour being separated from the darker colour of the upper part of the neck by a ridge of longer, more rigid hairs; the ears are long, brown, paler internally; the horns are short and conical; the skull has a deep and wide concavity in front of the orbits, and a keeled ridge on the cheek." Blyth says: "This species varies much in colour from red to black, and the black sometimes with a white nape, or the hairs of the nape may be white at the base only." Lieut. Bevan described one ('P. Z. S.' 1866) shot on the Zwagaben mountain, near Moulmein, as being of a mingled black and ferruginous colour. NO. 453. NEMORHOEDUS EDWARDSII. _The Thibetan Capricorn_. HABITAT.--Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--This differs from the Indian _N. bubalina_ by the uniform blackish brown of the upper parts tending to ferruginous on the thighs, and the red colour in place of the grey on the lower parts of the legs. It was discovered by the Abbe David, who named it after the well-known Professor A. Milne-Edwards. NO. 454. NEMORHOEDUS GORAL. _The Small Himalayan Capricorn_ (_Jerdon's No. 231_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Goral_, Pahari; _Pijur_, Kashmiri (_Jerdon_); _Rein_ or _Rom_, Kashmiri (_Kinloch_); _Sah_ or _Sarr_, in the Sutlej valley; _Suh-ging_, Lepcha; _Ra-giyu_, Bhotia. HABITAT.--The whole range of the Himalayas from Bhotan to Kashmir. [Illustration: _Nemorhoedus goral_.] DESCRIPTION.--Dull brownish-grey above, with a dark mesial line, paler below; a large white spot under the throat; chest and front of fore-legs dark brown; female paler. The general appearance is that of a high, or arched-backed goat. The females and young are lighter coloured; the horns spring from the crest of the frontals and incline backward, and are slightly curved and very sharp pointed, ringed at the base, and smooth for the apical half or third; some have more rings than others. Jerdon says from twenty to twenty-five rings, but a specimen from Bhutan, which I have before me as I write (a female, I think) has but ten annuli, or little more than one-third ringed. The following description is from Kinloch's 'Large Game of Thibet':-- "Gooral are not gregarious, like the true goats, all of which frequently assemble in large flocks, but are usually scattered about the hills, three or four being occasionally found close together, but more commonly they feed alone or in pairs. They are to be found in all sorts of ground, from bare crags to thick undulating forests, but their favourite resorts are steep rocky hills, thinly sprinkled with forest, especially where it consists of the Kolin pine. In bright weather they conceal themselves in shady places during the day-time, and only come out to feed on the open slopes in the morning and evening; but when the weather is cloudy they sometimes feed nearly all day. "From living so near human habitations, and constantly seeing shepherds and wood-cutters, gooral are not alarmed by seeing men at a distance, and where the ground is much broken they are not difficult to stalk. Where they are at all plentiful they afford very good sport, and their pursuit is a capital school for the young sportsman. Gooral-shooting is in fact like miniature ibex-shooting. The ground they inhabit is frequently difficult walking; the animals are quite sufficiently wary to test the generalship of the stalker; and as they do not present a very large mark, good shooting is required. "The best way to hunt them is (having discovered a good hill) to be on the ground by daylight and work along the face of the hill, keeping as high up as possible. Every slope should be carefully examined, and on reaching the edge of each ravine it should be thoroughly reconnoitred. Being good climbers, the gooral may be found in all sorts of places--on narrow ledges, on the face of steep precipices, on gentle slopes of young grass, and among scattered bushes or forest trees. As little noise as possible should be made; talking should never be allowed, for nothing frightens game so much. Frequently after firing a shot or two on a hill-side, other animals may be found quietly feeding a little further on, whereas if there has been any shouting or talking the beasts will have been driven away. Shooting over a hill does not appear to have the effect of frightening gooral away; when disturbed they seldom go far, and may be found again on their old ground in the course of a day or two. On detecting the presence of danger, the gooral generally stands still, and utters several sharp hisses before moving away." SIZE.--Height, 28 to 30 inches; length, about 4 feet; horns, from 6 to 9 inches. * * * * * I must here include one of the most curious animals in India, a creature resembling at first sight the African gnu. About a couple of years ago, a friend of mine, who hails from the "land o' cakes," called to ask me about a strange animal he had noticed in the Museum. "They call it a 'takin,'" said he; "and if I did not think they were above jokes in such a dry-bone establishment, I should say in the language of my native country, that it is a 'tak' in,' for it does not look natural at all." I turned up Hodgson's account of the creature for him, to prove that it was not a hoax. It was first brought to notice by the above naturalist about thirty years ago, and he gave it the name _Budorcas_, from the two Greek words signifying ox and gazelle. His account of it appears in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society,' vol. xix., 1850. It is again mentioned in the 'P. Z. S.' for 1853, with a plate (No. xxxvi.), and a further account of it, with several plates, will be found in Professor Milne-Edwards's 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes' (pp. 367 to 377). As my time has been very much occupied lately, I have not been able to go through all that has been written on this singular antelope, but I have been fortunate enough to find a willing helper in Mr. J. Cockburn, who, always ready to assist in the study to which he has devoted himself, has given me the following notes, which I have given in the following notice, as they stand under the heading DESCRIPTION. _GENUS BUDORCAS_. A heavily-built, somewhat cow-shaped animal, with curiously bent horns, which spring upwards, but soon bend laterally outward and then upwards and backwards with angular curves; a front view resembles a trident with the centre prong removed. The chevron is highly arched, and the false hoofs are very large. NO. 455. BUDORCAS TAXICOLOR. _The Takin_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Takin_ or _Takhon_, pronounced nasally. HABITAT.--The Mishmi hills, Assam, Thibet. [Illustration: _Budorcas taxicolor_.] DESCRIPTION.--"The takin is a large, heavily-built ruminant, about 3 feet 6 inches high at the shoulder and 6 feet in total length. The external peculiarities of the animal are: first, peculiar angularly curved horns in both sexes; second, the enormously arched chevron; third, the very great development of the spurious hoofs, which are obtusely conical, and about 1-1/2 inches in length in a small specimen. "The colour of the adult in one stage is fulvous throughout, some of the hairs being dark tipped. Legs, tail, muzzle and dorsal stripe black. "Old bulls appear to become of an uniform brownish-black at times, but the colour doubtless depends on the season, as each hair has the basal two-thirds yellow, and its apical third black, and the young its hair brown with a dark tint. The takin, pronounced takhon (nasally), is found just outside British limits in the Mishmi and Akha hills, north of Assam. It extends into the mountainous parts of Chinese Thibet, whence it has lately been procured by the adventurous Abbe David, and has been described by the great French naturalist A. Milne-Edwards, in his work 'Recherches sur les Mammiferes,' with some osteological details which were hitherto wanting, but no more than the limb bones appear to have been obtained. "The horns of the takin have been considered to bear some likeness to those of the gnu (_Catoblepas_), but I fail to trace a resemblance. Hodgson's description of the horns is as follows:-- "'The horns of the takin are inserted on the highest part of the forehead. The horns are nearly in contact at their bases. Their direction is first vertically upwards, then horizontally outwards, or to the sides, and then almost as horizontally backwards. The length of each horn is about 20 inches along the curves, but their thickness is great. The tail is about three inches long.' "This remarkable animal was originally described by Brian Hodgson in 1850, from specimens procured by Major Jenkins from the Mishmis, north-east of Sadya. Skulls and skins are fairly common among the residents of Debroogurh, and two perfect skins of adults were lately presented by Colonel Graham to the Indian Museum. "It is to be regretted that the skeleton of the animal remains unknown to science; from information collected by myself from the Mishmis, it was apparent that they might easily be procured. "The animal would appear to range from about 8000 feet to the Alpine region, which is stated to be its habitat. "While at Sadya a Mishmi chief pointed me out various spurs of the Himalayas, tantalisingly close, where he stated that he had hunted the animal. "Hodgson's paper on the takin was published in the 'Jour. As. Soc.' vol. xix., pp. 65, 75, with three plates, a drawing of the animal, and two views of the skull. "The next figure was by Wolf, in the 'Proc. of the Zool. Soc.' for 1853, pt. xxxvi., and is perhaps the worst he has ever done. Neither of these drawings are correct; and it is to be hoped that Professor Milne-Edwards has more materials for his picture than flat skins and limb bones. "Professor Milne-Edwards was inclined to consider his specimens a distinct variety from the Mishmi animal, and calls it _Budorcas taxicola (sic)_ var. _Tibetana_. "The difference the professor points out, namely the fulvous colour and the thinner undeveloped horns, exist in various specimens of the Mishmi takin, and there can be no question but that the animals are identical. "The slaty colour of Wolf's drawing is probably due to an incorrect conception of Hodgson's term grey, which he defines as a yellowish-grey. "The takin is essentially a serow (_Nemorhoedus_), with affinities to the bovines through the musk ox (_Ovibos moschata_), and other relationship to the sheep, goat and antelope. The development of the spurious hoofs would indicate that it frequents very steep ground."--_J. C._ _GENUS GAZELLA--THE GAZELLES_. These are small animals of slender frame; bovine muzzle; of sandy colour above and white underneath; small annulated horns, curved gracefully backwards, and in some species so elegantly formed as to take the shape of a lyre on looking at them full in front. The females of some have smaller, smoother horns, but others are hornless. The skull has an anteorbital vacuity, with a small anteorbital fossa. The auditory bullae are large; "eye-pits small; groin-pits distinct; large feet-pits in all feet; knees tufted" (_Jerdon_). The face has a white band running from the outer side of the base of each horn down to the muzzle, the space between forming a dark triangular patch bordered with a deeper tint. Sir Victor Brooke classifies the twenty or so known species as follows:-- I.--BACK UNSTRIPED. Dentition:--Inc. 0/3; can. 0/1; prem. 3/3; molars, 3/3. A.--_The white colour of the rump not encroaching on the fawn of the haunches._ _a_. BOTH SEXES WITH HORNS. Horns lyrate or semi-lyrate: _Gazella dorcas_; _G. Isabella_; _G. rufifrons_; _G. loevipes_; _G. melanura_. Horns non-lyrate: _Gazella Cuvieri_; _G. leptoceros_; _G. Spekii_; _G. Arabica_; _G. Bennetti_; _G. fuscifrons_. _b_. FEMALES HORNLESS. _Gazella subgutterosa_; _G. gutterosa_; _G. picticaudata_. B.--_White of rump projecting forwards in an angle into the fawn colour of the haunches._ _Gazella dama_; _G. mohr_; _G. Soemmerringii_; _G. Granti_. II.--BACK WITH A WHITE MEDIAN STRIPE. One premolar less in the lower jaw: _Gazella euchore_. Of the above species the following come under the scope of this work: _Gazella Bennetti_; _G. fuscifrons_; _G. subgutterosa_; _G. picticaudata_. NO. 456. GAZELLA BENNETTI. _The Indian Gazelle_ (_Jerdon's No. 229_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Chikara_, Hindi; _Kal-punch_, Hindi; _Kal-sipi_, Mahratti; _Hirni_, in the Punjab; _Tiska_, also _Budari_ and _Mudari_, Canarese; _Barudu-jinka_, Telegu; _Porsya_ (male) and _Chari_ (female), of Baoris. HABITAT.--Mr. W. Blanford defines the limits of this species as follows ('P. Z. S.,' 1873, p. 315)--the italics are mine: "It is found throughout the Punjab, North-west Provinces, Rajputana, Sind (unless in part replaced by the next species), Kachh, Kathiawar, Guzerat, and the whole Bombay Presidency, _with the exception of the Western Ghats and the low land on Konkan, along the western coast, south of the neighbourhood of Daman_. It is also met with in the Narbada and Tapti valleys, Bandelkand, the Son valley, and Rewah, in the Nagpur and Chanda country, Berar, the Hyderabad territories, and other parts of Southern India, _with the complete exception of the Malabar coast and the adjacent hills_." He adds that from the evidence of Colonel McMaster and Colonel Douglas Hamilton, both good authorities, it is not known to occur much south of the Krishna river, nor is it found in the Ganges valley east of Benares, in Eastern Behar, the Santal Pergunnahs, Chotia Nagpur, Birbhum, &c., Chhatisgurh, the Mahanadi valley, Orissa, Bastar, and the east coast, generally north of the river Krishna. He says it is met with in the Narbada valley, but I have also found it common on the plateaux of the Satpura range. [Illustration: _Gazella Bennetti_ (male and female).] DESCRIPTION.--"Fawn brown above, darker where it joins the white of the sides and buttocks; chin, breast, lower parts and buttocks behind white; tail, knee-tufts and fetlocks behind black; a dark brown spot on the nose, and a dark line from the eyes to the mouth, bordered by a light one above" (_Jerdon_). SIZE.--Length, 3-1/2 feet; height, 26 inches at shoulder, 28 inches at croup. The horns run from 10 to 14 inches in the male, but, in fact, few exceed a foot. The longest of six pairs in my collection measure 12 inches, and the head is looked upon as a fine one. I agree with Jerdon that there must be some mistake about 18-inch horns recorded from the Punjab. This pretty little creature, miscalled "ravine-deer," is familiar to most shikaris. How it got called a _deer_ it is difficult to say, except on the principle of "rats and mice, and such small deer." The Madras term of "goat-antelope" is more appropriate. I remember once, when out on field service with the late Dr. Jerdon during the Indian Mutiny, a few _chikara_ crossed our line of march. A young and somewhat bumptious ensign, who knew not of the fame of the doctor as a naturalist, called out: "There are some deer, there are some deer." "Those are not deer," quietly remarked Jerdon. "Oh, I say," exclaimed the boy, thinking he had got a rise out of the doctor; "Jerdon says those are not deer!" "No more they are, young man--no more they are; much more of the goat--much more of the goat." This gazelle frequents broken ground, with sandy nullahs bordered by scrub jungle, and is most common in dry climates. It is unknown, I believe, in Bengal and, according to Jerdon, on the Malabar coast, but is, I think, found almost everywhere else in India. It abounds in the Central provinces, and I have found it in parts of the Punjab, and it is common throughout the North-west. It is a wary, restless little beast, and requires good shooting, for it does not afford much of a mark. When disturbed they keep constantly shifting, not going far, but hovering about in a most tantalising way. Natives it cares little for, unless it be a shikari with a gun, of which it seems to have intuitive perception; but the ordinary cultivator, with his load of wood and grass, may approach within easy shot; therefore it is not a bad plan, when there is no available cover, to get one of these men to walk alongside of you, whilst, with a horse-cloth or blanket over you, you make yourself look as like your guide as you can. A horse or bullock is also a great help. I had a little bullock which formed part of some loot at Banda--a very handsome little bull, easy to ride and steady under fire--and I found him most useful in stalking black buck and gazelle. When alarmed, the _chikara_ stamps its foot and gives a sharp little hiss. It is generally found in small herds of four or five, but often singly. Jerdon, however, says that in the extreme North-west he had seen twenty or more together, and this is corroborated by Kinloch. They are sometimes hunted by hawks and dogs combined, the _churrug_ (_Falco sacer_) being the hawk usually employed, as mentioned both by Kinloch and Hodgson, writing of opposite ends of the great Himalayan chain. The hawk stoops at the head of its quarry and confuses it, whilst the dogs, who would otherwise have no chance, run up and seize it. The poor little gazelle has also many other enemies--jackals and wolves being amongst the number. Captain Baldwin, in his interesting book, writes: "Like other antelopes, the little ravine-deer has many enemies besides man. One day, when out with my rifle, I noticed an old female gazelle stamping her feet, and every now and then making that hiss which is the alarm note of the animal. It was not I that was the cause of her terror, for I had passed close to her only a few minutes before, and she seemed to understand by my manner that I meant no harm; no, there was something else. I turned back, and, on looking down a ravine close by, saw a crafty wolf attempting a stalk on the mother and young one. Another day, at Agra, a pair of jackals joined in the chase of a wounded buck." Brigadier-General McMaster also relates how he and two friends, whilst coursing, watched for a long time four jackals trying to force one of a small herd of young bucks to separate from the rest. "The gazelles stood in a circle, and maintained their ground well by keeping their heads very gallantly outwards to their foes, until at length, seeing us, both sides made off. We laid the greyhounds into and killed one of the jackals." NO. 457. GAZELLA FUSCIFRONS. _The Baluchistan Gazelle_. HABITAT.--The deserts of Jalk between Seistan and Baluchistan. DESCRIPTION.--"Central facial band strongly marked, grizzled black; light facial streak grey, fairly definite, as is also the blackish dark facial streak; cheeks and anterior of neck grey; back of the neck, back, sides, haunches and legs sandy; lateral streaks wanting; belly and rump whitish; knee-brushes long, black; ears very long; horns (of female only known) strongly annulated, bending forwards and very slightly inwards at the tips" (_Sir V. Brooke_, 'P. Z. S.,' 1873, p. 545). SIZE.--Total length, from tip of nose to end of tail, 4 feet; height at shoulder, 1 foot 11 inches. This curious species was first brought to notice by Mr. Blanford. It is distinguished, he says, from the Indian _G. Bennetti_--first by colour, and secondly by the greater length and more strongly marked annulation of the horns of the female. "The face in the Indian gazelle," he says, "is nearly uniform rufescent fawn colour; the parts that are black and blackish in _G. fuscifrons_ being only a little darker than the rest in _G. Bennetti_; the back also in the latter is more rufescent and less yellow, and the hairs are less dense." * * * * * The following two species belong to section _B_, of which the females are hornless. NO. 458. GAZELLA SUBGUTTEROSA. _The Persian Gazelle_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Kik_, _Sai-kik_, and _Jairan_, Turki of Yarkand and Kashgar (_Blanford_). HABITAT.--The high lands of Persia; to the north-west it is found as far as Tabriz; it is probably, according to Blanford, the gazelle of Meshed and Herat; on the east it extends to the frontier of India, and is found in Afghanistan and northern Baluchistan; a variety also exists in Yarkand. [Illustration: _Gazella subgutterosa_.] DESCRIPTION.--"Hair in winter rough and coarse, in summer much softer and smoother. During both seasons the dirty white of the face and cheeks is only relieved by the dark facial streak, which is short and narrow, but defined by a sprinkling of rufous hairs; the lateral and pygal bands are very faintly indicated, the dark bands being more rufous, the light band rather paler than the grey fawn colour of the upper parts of the body; breast and belly white; tail and ears moderate in length, the former blackish-rufous. Horns absent in the female; in the male long, annulated and lyrate, the points projecting inwards" (_Sir V. Brooke_). According to Blanford, who seemed doubtful whether it should not be raised to the rank of a species, the Yarkand variety differs from the typical _G. subgutterosa_ in the very much darker markings on the face, and in the much smaller degree to which the horns diverge; he adds, however, that as there is some variation in face-markings amongst Persian specimens, it is perhaps better to consider the Yarkand race as only a variety. He gives a very good coloured plate of the animal. ('Sc. Results, Second Yarkand Mission--Mammalia.') NO. 459. GAZELLA PICTICAUDATA. _Thibetan Gazelle_. NATIVE NAME.--_Goa_, Thibetan. HABITAT.--Ladakh. Abundant, according to Kinloch, on the plateau to the south-east of the Tsomoriri lake, on the hills east of Hanle, and in the Indus valley from Demchok, the frontier village of Ladakh, as far down as Nyima. He had also seen it on the Nakpogoding pass to the north of the Tsomoriri, and picked up a horn on the banks of the Sutlej beyond the Niti pass. DESCRIPTION.--Hair in winter long and softish; facial and lateral markings wanting; breast, belly and anal disk which surrounds the tail dirty white; the rest of the body grizzled fawn-colour, becoming more rusty towards the anal disk, a rusty line sometimes running through the disk to the short tail, the tip of which is rusty brown; the hairs about the corners of the mouth elongated. In the summer the coat is short and of a slaty-grey colour. Ears very short; horns long, annulated--diverge as they rise, bending forwards and backwards, again forwards, and a little inwards at the tips. Skull: anteorbital fossa _very_ shallow, nasals converging to a point, and rather elongated (_Sir Victor Brooke_, 'P. Z. S.,' 1873, p. 547). SIZE.--Height, about 18 inches. There is a lovely little photograph of this gazelle in Kinloch's 'Large Game of Thibet,' wonderfully life-like; the head seems to stand out from the page. He describes it under Hodgson's generic name, _Procapra_, but there is no reason for separating it from _Gazella_. He says: "The goa avoid rocky and steep ground, preferring the undulating plains and gently sloping valleys. Early in the season they are to be found in small herds, frequently close to the snow; as this melts they appear to disperse themselves over the higher ground, being often found singly or in twos and threes." _GENUS PANTHOLOPS_. Between the gazelles and antelopes proper comes the _chiru_ (_Pantholops Hodgsonii_), though strictly speaking it is, with the saiga antelope (_Saiga Tartarica_), though in a somewhat less degree, connected by cranial affinities with the sheep. The saiga is notable for its highly-arched nose and inflated nostrils, which are so much lengthened as to necessitate the animal's walking backwards when it feeds. The _chiru_ is not quite so developed in this respect. The skull of the saiga is unique among ruminants, and those who wish to become acquainted with its most minute osteological details should refer to an article on this animal by Dr. James Murie in the 'P. Z. S.,' 1870, p. 457. I can only here give a very brief summary of the chief characteristics. Looked at in profile, the nasal bones we find to be remarkably short, the face being hollowed out, as it were, between the upper nasal cartilage and the very long and narrow maxillary and pre-maxillary bones; great vertical depth from the top of the nasal to the bottom of the maxillary bones; a very prominent bovine orbit, above and a little behind which the short tapering horns of a gazelle type are placed. The lower nasal cartilage is prolonged on to the fibrous cord of the nares, and the profile view of the animal in life is that of a grotesquely Roman-nosed antelope with swollen nostrils. Its nearest relative in India is the _chiru_, which has certain points of resemblance. The nose is but slightly arched, but the nostrils are more swollen than in antelopes as a rule. This is not sufficiently rendered in an otherwise admirable coloured plate in Blanford's 'Scientific Results of the Second Yarkand Mission,' but it is more apparent in the photograph of the head in Kinloch's 'Large Game of Thibet.' Another approach to the saiga is in the position of the horns, which, though of the same class, are much longer and more attenuated, but the position over the eye and the osseous development of the orbit are the same. The nasal bones are also shorter in proportion to other antelopes. The super-orbital foramina just under the horns, which are marked in most antelope and deer, are very minute in _Pantholops_. Dr. Murie notices the inflation of the post-maxilla in the saiga, and states that a similar extension is to be found in the _chiru_. [Illustration: Saiga Antelope.] NO. 460. PANTHOLOPS HODGSONII. _The Chiru_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Chiru_ in Nepal; _Isos_ in Thibet (_Strachey_); also _Isors_ or _Choos_ (_Kinloch_). HABITAT.--The open plains of Thibet from Lhassa to Ladakh. [Illustration: _Pantholops Hodgsonii_.] DESCRIPTION.--The following description was written in 1830, apparently by Mr. Brian Hodgson himself, and was published in 'Gleanings in Science' (vol. ii., p. 348), probably the first scientific magazine in India. As I have seen no better account of this curious antelope I give it as it stands. Mr. Hodgson had the advantage of drawing from life, he having had a living specimen as a pet:-- "Antelope with very long, compressed, tapering, sub-erect (? sub-lyrated) horns, having a slight concave arctuation forwards, and blunt annulations (prominently ridged on the frontal surface), except near the tips; a double coat throughout, greyish blue internally, but superficially fawn-coloured above, and white below, a black forehead, and stripes down the legs; and a tumour or tuft above either nostril. "The ears and tail are moderate and devoid of any peculiarity; so likewise are the sub-orbital sinuses.[38] The horns are exceedingly long, measuring in some individuals nearly 2-1/2 feet. They are placed very forward on the head, and may popularly be said to be erect and straight, though a reference to the specific character will show that they are not strictly one or the other. "The general surface of the horns is smooth and polished, but its uniformity is broken by a series of from fifteen to twenty rings extending from the base to within six inches of the tip of each horn. Upon the lateral and dorsal surfaces of the horns these rings are little elevated, and present a wavy rather than a ridgy appearance; but on the frontal surface the rings exhibit a succession of heavy, large ridges, with furrows between; the annulation is nowhere acutely edged. The horns have a very considerable lateral compression towards the base, where their extent fore and aft is nearly double of that from side to side; upwards from the base the lateral compression becomes gradually less, and towards their tips the horns are nearly rounded. Compared with their length the thickness of the horns is as nothing--in other words they are slender, but not therefore by any means weak. The tips are acute rather than otherwise; the divergence at the points is from one-third to one-half of the length. At the base a finger can hardly be passed between the horns. Throughout five-sixths of their length from the base the horns describe an uniform slightly inward curve, and on the top angle of the curve they turn inwards again more suddenly, but still slightly, the points of the horns being thus directed inwards; the lateral view of the horns shows a considerable concave arctuation forwards, but chiefly derived from the upper part of the horns." [Footnote 38: These are wanting.--R. A. S.] There is an excellent coloured plate of this animal in Blanford's 'Mammalia of the Second Yarkand Mission.' The only fault I see lies in the muzzle, especially of the male, which the artist has made as fine as that of a gazelle. The photograph in Kinloch's 'Large Game of Thibet' shows the puffiness of the nostrils much better; the latter author says of it:-- "The Thibetan antelope is a thoroughly game-looking animal; in size it considerably exceeds the common black buck or antelope of India, and is not so elegantly made. Its colour is a reddish fawn, verging on white in very old individuals. A dark stripe runs down the shoulders and flanks, and the legs are also dark brown. The face alone is nearly black, especially in old bucks. The hair is long and brittle, and extraordinarily thick-set, forming a beautiful velvety cushion, which must most effectually protect the animal from the intense cold of the elevated regions which it inhabits. A peculiarity about this antelope is the existence of two orifices in the groin, which communicate with long tubes running up into the body. The Tartars say that the antelope inflates these with air, and is thereby enabled to run with greater swiftness! The muzzle of the Thibetan antelope is quite different from that of most of the deer and antelope tribe, being thick and puffed looking, with a small rudimentary beard; the eyes are set high up in the head; the sub-orbital sinus is wanting; the horns are singularly handsome, jet black, and of the closest grain, averaging about twenty-three or twenty-four inches in length. They are beautifully adapted for knife handles. The females have short black horns, and are much smaller than the males." The last is a doubtful point; as far as I have been able to gather evidence on the subject the female appears to be hornless, which allies _Pantholops_ more to the antelopes and the gazelles. Major Kinloch may have taken some young males for females, the general colouring being much the same. In the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1834, p. 80, there is an extract from a letter from Mr. Hodgson, which, with reference to previous correspondence, says: "The communications referred to left only the inguinal pores, the number of teats in the female, and the fact of her being cornute or otherwise, doubtful. These points are now cleared up. The female is hornless, and has two teats only; she has no marks on the face or limbs, and is rather smaller than the male. The male has a large pouch at each groin, as in _Ant. dorcas_; that of the female is considerably smaller." Mr. Hodgson further remarks that "the _chiru_ antelope can only belong either to the gazelline or the antelopine group. Hornless females would place it among the latter; but lyrate horns, ovine nose, and want of sinus, would give it rather to Gazella, and its singular inguinal purses further ally it to _Ant. dorcas_ of this group. But from Gazella it is distinguished by the accessory nostrils, of inter-maxillary pouch, the hornless females, the absence of tufts on the knees, and of bands on the flanks. The _chiru_, with his bluff bristly nose, his inter-maxillary pouches, and hollow-cored horns, stands in some respects alone." Hodgson was apparently not well acquainted at the time with saiga, or he would have certainly alluded to the affinity. Kinloch has the following regarding its habits:-- "In Chang Chenmo, where I have met with it, the elevation can be nowhere less than 14,000 feet, and some of the feeding grounds cannot be less than 18,000. In the early part of summer the antelope appear to keep on the higher and more exposed plains and slopes when the snow does not lie; as the season becomes warmer, the snow, which has accumulated on the grassy banks of the streams in the sheltered valleys, begins to dissolve, and the antelope then come down to feed on the grass which grows abundantly in such places, and then is the time when they may easily be stalked and shot. They usually feed only in the mornings and evenings, and in the day-time seek more open and elevated situations, frequently excavating deep holes in the stony plains, in which they lie, with only their heads and horns visible above the surface of the ground. It is a curious fact that females are rarely found in Chang Chenmo; I have met with herds of sixty or seventy bucks, but have only seen one doe to my knowledge during the three times that I visited the valley." _GENUS ANTELOPE_ (_restricted_). Horns in the male only; abnormal cases of horned females are on record, but they only prove the rule. No muffle; sub-orbital sinus moderate, somewhat linear; no canines; groin-pits large; feet-pits present. In the skull the sub-orbital fossa is large. NO. 461. ANTELOPE BEZOARTICA. _The Indian Antelope_ (_Jerdon's No. 228_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Mrig_ or _Mirga_, Sanscrit; _Harna_, _Hirun_, _Harin_ (male) and _Hirni_ (female), Hindi; also _Kalwit_, Hindi, according to Jerdon; _Goria_ (female) and _Kala_ (male), in Tirhoot; _Kalsar_ (male) and _Baoti_ (female), in Behar; _Bureta_, in Bhagulpore; _Barout_ and _Sasin_, in Nepal; _Phandayet_, Mahrathi (_Jerdon_). _Hiru_ and _Bamuni-hiru_, Mahrathi; _Chigri_, Canarese; _Irri_ (male), _Sedi_ (female), and _Jinka_, Telegu; _Alali_ (male) and _Gandoli_ (female), of Baoris. HABITAT.--In open plain country throughout India except in Lower Bengal and Malabar. In the Punjab it does not cross the Indus. Dr. Jerdon says: "I have seen larger herds in the neighbourhood of Jalna in the Deccan than anywhere else--occasionally some thousands together, with black bucks in proportion. Now and then, Dr. Scott informs me, they have been observed in the Government cattle-farm at Hissar in herds calculated at 8000 to 10,000." I must say I have never seen anything like this, although in the North-west, between Aligarh and Delhi, I have noticed very large herds; in the Central provinces thirty to forty make a fair average herd, though smaller ones are more common. These small parties generally consist of does, and perhaps two or three young sandy bucks lorded over by one old black buck, who will not allow any other of his colour to approach without the ordeal of battle. I have lately heard of them in Assam, but forget the precise locality. [Illustration: _Antelope bezoartica_.] DESCRIPTION.--Form supple and elegant, with graceful curves; the neck held up proudly; the head adorned with long, spiral, and closely annulated horns, close at the base, but diverging at the tips in a V form. In very large specimens there are five flexures in the horn, but generally four. They are perfectly round, and taper gradually to the tips, which are smooth; the bony cores are also spiral, so that in the dry skull the horn screws on and off. The colour of the old males is deep blackish-brown, the back and sides with an abrupt line of separation from the white of the belly; the dark colour also extends down the outer surface of the limbs; the back of the head, nape and neck are hoary yellowish; under parts and inside of limbs pure white; the face is black, with a white circle round the eyes and nose; the tail is short; the young males are fawn-coloured. The females are hornless, somewhat smaller, and pale yellowish-fawn above, white below, with a pale streak from the shoulder to the haunch. SIZE.--Length, about 4 feet to root of tail; tail, 7 inches; height at shoulder, 32 inches. Horns, average length about 20 inches--fine ones 22, unusual 24, very rare 26. Sir Barrow Ellis has or had a pair 26-1/2, with only three flexures; 28 has been recorded by "Triangle" in _The Asian_, and 30 spoken of elsewhere, but I have as yet seen no proof of the latter. The measurement should be taken straight from base to tip, and not following the curves of the spiral. I have shot some a little over 22, but never more. I believe, however, that the longest horns come from the North-west. This antelope is so well known that it is hardly necessary to dilate at length on it; every shikari in India has had his own experiences, but I will take from Sir Walter Elliot's account and Dr. Jerdon's some paragraphs concerning the habits of the animal which cannot be improved upon, and add a short extract from my own journals regarding its love of locality:-- "When a herd is met with and alarmed, the does bound away for a short distance, and then turn round to take a look; the buck follows more leisurely, and generally brings up the rear. Before they are much frightened they always bound or spring, and a large herd going off in this way is one of the finest sights imaginable. But when at speed the gallop is like that of any other animal. Some of the herds are so large that one buck has from fifty to sixty does, and the young bucks driven from these large flocks are found wandering in separate herds, sometimes containing as many as thirty individuals of different ages. "They show some ingenuity in avoiding danger. In pursuing a buck once into a field of _toor_, I suddenly lost sight of him, and found, after a long search, that he had dropped down among the grain, and lay concealed with his head close to the ground. Coming on another occasion upon a buck and doe with a young fawn, the whole party took to flight, but the fawn being very young, the old ones endeavoured to make it lie down. Finding, however, that it persisted in running after them, the buck turned round and repeatedly knocked it over in a cotton field until it lay still, when they ran off, endeavouring to attract my attention. Young fawns are frequently found concealed and left quite by themselves."--_Elliot_. Jerdon adds: "When a herd goes away on the approach of danger, if any of the does are lingering behind, the buck comes up and drives them off after the others, acting as whipper-in, and never allowing one to drop behind. Bucks may often be seen fighting, and are then so intently engaged, their heads often locked together by the horns, that they may be approached very close before the common danger causes them to separate. Bucks with broken horns are often met with, caused by fights; and I have heard of bucks being sometimes caught in this way, some nooses being attached to the horns of a tame one. I have twice seen a wounded antelope pursued by greyhounds drop suddenly into a small ravine, and lie close to the ground, allowing the dogs to pass over it without noticing, and hurry forward." ('Mamm. of India,' p. 278.) I have myself experienced some curious instances of the hiding propensities spoken of by Sir Walter Elliot and Dr. Jerdon. In my book on Seonee I have given a case of a wounded buck which I rode down to the brink of a river, when he suddenly disappeared. The country was open, and I was so close behind him that it seemed impossible for him to have got out of sight in so short a space of time; but I looked right and left without seeing a trace of him, and, hailing some fishermen on the opposite bank, found that they had not seen him cross. Finally my eye lighted on what seemed to be a couple of sticks projecting from a bed of rushes some four or five feet from the bank. Here was my friend submerged to the tip of his nose, with nothing but the tell-tale horns sticking out. This antelope attaches itself to localities, and after being driven away for miles will return to its old place. The first buck I ever shot I recovered, after having driven him away for some distance and wounded him, in the very spot I first found him; and the following extract from my journals will show how tenaciously they cling sometimes to favourite places:-- "I was out on the boundary between Khapa and Belgaon, and came across a particularly fine old buck, with very wide-spreading horns; so peculiar were they that I could have sworn to the head amongst a thousand. He was too far for a safe shot when I first saw him, but I could not resist the chance of a snap at him, and tried it, but missed; and I left the place. My work led me again soon after to Belgaon itself, and whilst I was in camp there I found my friend again; but he was very wary; for three days I hunted him about, but could not get a shot. At last I got my chance; it was on the morning of the day I left Belgaon, I rode round by the boundary, when up jumped my friend from a bed of rushes, and took off across country. I followed him cautiously, and found him again with some does about two miles off. A man was ploughing in the field close by; so, hailing him, I got his bullocks and drove them carefully up past the does. We splashed through a nullah, and waded through a lot of rushes, and at last I found myself behind a clump of coarse grass, with a nullah between me and the antelope. They jumped up on my approach, and Blacky, seeing his enemy, made a speedy bolt of it; but I was within easy range of him, and a bullet brought him down on his head with a complete somersault. Now this buck, in spite of the previous shot at him, and being hunted about from day to day, never left his ground, and used to sleep every night in a field near my tent." This antelope has been raised by the Hindoos amongst the constellations harnessed to the chariot of the moon. Brahmins can feed on its flesh under certain circumstances prescribed by the 'Institutes of Menu,' and it is sometimes tamed by Fakirs. It is easily domesticated, but the bucks are always dangerous when their horns are full grown, especially to children. The breeding season begins in the spring, but fawns of all ages may be seen at any time of the year. The flesh of this species is among the best of the wild ruminants. * * * * * The next group of antelopes are those with smooth horns, without knots; spiral in some African species, but short and straight, or but slightly curved in the Indian ones. Females hornless. There are but two genera in India, _Portax_ and _Tetraceros_. _GENUS PORTAX--THE NYLGAO_. Horns on back edge of frontal bone behind the orbit, short, recurved, conical and smooth, angular at the base; bovine nose with large moist muffle; small eye-pits; hind legs shorter than the front; tail long and tufted; back short, sloping down from high withers; the neck deep and compressed like a horse, with a short upright mane; on the throat of the male under a white patch is a long tuft of black hair. In the skull the nasal opening is small, and the molars have, according to Dr. Gray, supplementary lobes. Dr. Jerdon says: "There is a small pit in front of the orbit, and anterior to this a small longitudinal fold, in the middle of which there is a pore through which exudes a yellow secretion from the gland beneath." The female has sometimes in an abnormal condition been found with horns. Mr. J. Cockburn, in a letter to _The Asian_ (11th of November, 1879, p. 40), describes such a one. NO. 462. PORTAX PICTUS _vel_ TRAGOCAMELUS. _The Nylgao or Blue Bull_ (_Jerdon's No. 226_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Nilgao_, _Nilgai_, or _Lilgao_, _Lilgai_, _Rojra_ or _Rojh_, _Rooi_ (female), Hindi; _Guraya_, Gondi; _Maravi_, Canarese; _Manupotu_, Telegu. HABITAT.--India generally, from the Himalayas to the south. It is not common south of the Ganges, nor, according to Jerdon, is it found in the extreme south of India. [Illustration: _Portax pictus_.] DESCRIPTION.--A horse-like animal at the first glance, owing to its lean head, long, flat, and deep neck, and high withers, but with cervine hind-quarters, lower than in front. The male is of an iron grey colour, intensified by age; the inside of the ears, lips, and chin are white; a large white patch on the throat, below which is the pendant tuft of black hair; the chest, stomach, and rings on the fetlocks, white; mane, throat-tuft and tip of tail, black. The female is a sandy or tawny colour, and is somewhat smaller than the male. SIZE.--Length of male, 6-1/2 to 7 feet; tail 18 to 22 inches; height at shoulder, from 13 to 14-1/2 hands; horns, from 8 to 10 inches. The nilgao inhabits open country with scrub or scanty tree jungle, also, in the Central provinces, low hilly tracts with open glades and valleys. He feeds on beyr (_Zizyphus jujuba_) and other trees, and at times even devours such quantities of the intensely acrid berries of the _aonla_ (_Phyllanthus emblica_) that his flesh becomes saturated with the bitter elements of the fruit. This is most noticeable in soup, less so in a steak, which is at times not bad. The tongue and marrow-bones, however, are generally as much as the sportsman claims, and, in the Central provinces at least, the natives are grateful for all the rest. He rests during the day in shade, but is less of a nocturnal feeder than the sambar stag. I have found nilgao feeding at all times of the day. The droppings are usually found in one place. The nilgao drinks daily, the sambar only every third day, and many are shot over water. Although he is such an imposing animal, the blue bull is but poor shooting, unless when fairly run down in the open. With a sharp spurt he is easily blown, but if not pressed will gallop for ever. In some parts of India nilgai are speared in this way. I myself preferred shooting them either from a light double-barrelled carbine or large bore pistol when alongside; the jobbing at such a large cow-like animal with a spear was always repugnant to my feelings. They are very tenacious of life. I once knocked one over as I thought dead, and, putting my rifle against a tree, went to help my shikaree to _hallal_ him, when he jumped up, kicked us over, and disappeared in the jungle; I never saw him again. A similar thing happened to a friend who was with me, only he sat upon his supposed dead bull, quietly smoking a cigar and waiting for his shikarees, when up sprang the animal, sending him flying, and vanished. On another occasion, whilst walking through the jungle, I came suddenly on a fine dark male standing chest on to me. I hardly noticed him at first; but, just as he was about to plunge away into the thicket, I rapidly fired, and with a bound he was out of sight. I hunted all over the place and could find no trace of him. At last, by circling round, I suddenly came upon him at about thirty yards off, standing broadside on. I gave him a shot and heard the bullet strike, but there was not the slightest motion. I could hardly believe that he was dead in such a posture. I went up close, and finally stopped in front of him; his neck was stretched out, his mouth open and eyes rolling, but he seemed paralysed. I stepped up close and put a ball through his ear, when he fell dead with a groan. I have never seen anything like it before or since, and can only suppose that the shot in the chest had in some way choked him. I have alluded to this incident in my book on Seonee; it was in that district that it occurred. The nilgao is the only one of the deer and antelope of India that could be turned to any useful purpose. The sambar stag, though almost equal in size, will not bear the slightest burden, but the nilgao will carry a man. I had one in my collection of animals which I trained, not to saddle, for such a thing would not stay on his back, but to saddle-cloth. He was a little difficult to ride, rather jumpy at times, otherwise his pace was a shuffling trot. I used to take him out into camp with me, and made him earn his grain by carrying the servants' bundles. He was not very safe, for he was, when excited, apt to charge; and a charge from a blue bull with his short sharp horns is not to be despised. In some parts the Hindoos will not touch the flesh of this animal, which they believe to be allied to the cow. It has much more of a horsey look about it. McMaster says that in some parts of the Coimbatore district the natives described this creature to Colonel Douglas Hamilton as a wild horse, and called it by a name signifying such. He also notices the resemblance of the Gondi name _Guraya_, to the Hindi _Ghora_. _GENUS TETRACEROS_. Horns four, conical, smooth, slightly bent forward at tip, the anterior ones very short, sometimes rudimentary, which has led to the distinction of a separate species by some naturalists; slightly ringed at the base. The posterior ones situated far back on the frontal bone, the anterior ones above the orbits; eye-pits small, linear; muffle large; feet-pits in the hind feet; no groin-pits; four mammae; canine teeth in the males; females hornless. The skull is characterized by the large sub-orbital fossae which occupy nearly the whole cheek. The various species--_sub-quadricornutus_ of Elliot, _iodes_ and _paccerois_ of Hodgson--are but varieties of the following only Indian species. NO. 463. TETRACEROS QUADRICORNIS. _The Four-horned Antelope_ (_Jerdon's No. 227_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Chowsingha_, _Chowka_. Jerdon also gives _Bherki_, _Bekra_, and _Jangli-bakra_, but I have also heard these names given by natives to the rib-faced deer (_Cervulus aureus_); _Bhir-kura_ (the male) and _Bhir_(female) Gondi; _Bhirul_ of Bheels; _Kotri_, Bustar; _Kond-guri_, Canarese; _Konda-gori_, Telegu (_Jerdon_). Kinloch also gives _Doda_, Hindi. HABITAT.--Throughout India, but not in Ceylon or Burmah. [Illustration: _Tetraceros quadricornis_.] DESCRIPTION.--A small brownish-bay animal, slightly higher at the croup than at the shoulder, which gives it a poky look, lighter beneath and whitish inside the limbs and in the middle of the belly; fore-legs, muzzle, and edge of ears dark; fetlocks dark, sometimes ringed with lighter colour. The colouring varies a good deal. The horns are situated as I have before described; the anterior ones are subject to much variation; sometimes they are absent or represented merely by a black callous skin; others are merely little knobs; the largest seldom exceed an inch and a-half, and the posterior horns five inches. SIZE.--Head and body, 40 to 42 inches; height at shoulder, 24 to 26 inches; at croup a little higher. This little antelope, the smallest of Indian hollow-horned ruminants, is very shy and difficult to get, even in jungles where it abounds. It was plentiful in the Seonee district, yet I seldom came across it, and was long before I secured a pair of live ones for my collection. It frequents, according to my experience, bamboo jungle; but, according to Kinloch, Jerdon and other writers, it is found in jungly hills and open glades, in the forests, and in bushy ground near dense forests. It is an awkward-looking creature in action, as it runs with its neck stuck out in a poky sort of way, making short leaps; in walking it trips along on the tips of its toes like the little mouse-deer (_Meminna_). The young are stated to be born in the cold season. General Hardwicke created great confusion for a time by applying the name _chikara_, which is that of the _Gazella Bennetti_, to this species. It is not good eating, but can be improved by being well larded with mutton fat when roasted. McMaster believes in the individuality of Elliot's antelope (_T. sub-quadricornutus_), but more evidence is required before it can be separated from _quadricornis_. The mere variation in size, or the presence or absence of the anterior horns and the lighter shade of colour, are not sufficient reasons for its separation as a species, for the _quadricornis_ is subject to variation in like manner.[39] [Footnote 39: See notes in Appendix C.] BOVINAE--CATTLE. These comprise the oxen, and wind up the hollow-horned ruminants as far as India is concerned. There are in the New World some other very interesting animals of this group, such as the musk-ox (_Ovibos_), and the prong-horned antelope (_Antilocapra_), which last so far resembles the Cervidae that the horns, which are bifurcate, are also annually shed. They come off the bony core, on which the new horn is already beginning to form. The Bovines are animals of large size, horned in both sexes, a very large and broad moist muffle, massive bodies and stout legs. The horns, which are laterally wide spread, are supported on cores of cellular bone, and are cylindrical or depressed at the base. The nose broad, with the nostrils at the side. The skull has no sub-orbital pit or fissure, and the bony orbit is prominent; grinders with a well-developed supplementary lobe; cannon bone short. In India, the groups into which this sub-family may be divided, are oxen, the buffaloes, and the yaks. There are no true bison in our limits, the commonly so-called bison being properly a wild ox. The taurine or Ox group is divided into the _Zebus_, or humped domestic cattle; _Taurus_, humpless cattle with cylindrical horns; and _Gavaeus_, humpless cattle with flattened horns. According to Dr. Jerdon, in some parts of India small herds of zebus have run wild. He says:-- "Localities are recorded in Mysore, Oude, Rohilkund, Shahabad, &c., and I have lately seen and shot one in the Doab near Mozuffernugger. These, however, have only been wild for a few years. Near Nellore, in the Carnatic, on the sea-coast there is a herd of cattle that have been wild for many years. The country they frequent is much covered with jungle and intersected with salt-water creeks and back-waters, and the cattle are as wild and wary as the most feral species. Their horns were very long and upright, and they were of large size. I shot one there in 1843, but had great difficulty in stalking it, and had to follow it across one or two creeks." _GENUS GAVAEUS_. Massive head with large concave frontals, surmounted in _G. gaurus_ by a ridge or crest of bone; horns flattened on the outer surface, corrugated at the base, and smooth for the rest of the two-thirds, or a little more; wide-spreading and recurved at the tips, forming a crescent; greenish grey for the basal half, darker towards the tips, which are black; muffle small; dewlap small or absent; the spinous processes of the dorsal vertebrae are greatly developed down to about half the length of the back; legs small under the knee, and white in colour; hoofs small and pointed, leaving a deer-like print in the soil, very different to the splay foot of the buffalo. NO. 464. GAVAEUS GAURUS. _The Gaur, popularly called Bison_ (_Jerdon's No. 238_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Gaor_ or _Gaori-gai_, _Bun-boda_, Hindi; _Boda_ and _Bunparra_ in the Seonee and Mandla districts; _Pera-maoo_ of Southern Gonds; _Gaoiya_, Mahrathi; _Karkona_, Canarese; _Katuyeni_, Tamil; _Jangli-kulgha_ in Southern India; _Pyoung_ in Burmah; _Salandang_ in the Malay countries. Horsfield gives the following names under his _Bibos asseel_: _As'l Gayal_, Hindi; _Seloi_, Kuki; _P'hanj_ of the Mughs and Burmese, and some others which he considers doubtful. HABITAT.--Regarding this, I quote at length from Jerdon, whose inquiries were carefully made. He says: "The gaur is an inhabitant of all the large forests of India, from near Cape Comorin to the foot of the Himalayas. On the west coast of India it is abundant all along the Syhadr range on Western Ghats, both in the forests at the foot of the hills, but more especially in the upland forests and the wooded country beyond the crest of the Ghats. The Animally hills, the Neilgherries, Wynaad, Coorg, the Bababooden hills, the Mahableshwar hills, are all favourite haunts of this fine animal. North of this, it occurs to my own knowledge in the jungles on the Taptee river and the neighbourhood, and north of the Nerbudda; a few on the deeper recesses of the Vindhian mountains. On the eastern side of the peninsula it is found in the Pulney and Dindigul hills, the Shandamungalum range, the Shervaroys, and some of the hill ranges near Vellore and the borders of Mysore. North of this, the forest being too scanty, it does not occur till the Kistna and Godavery rivers; and hence it is to be found in suitable spots all along the range of Eastern Ghats to near Cuttack and Midnapore, extending west far into Central India, and northwards towards the edge of the great plateau which terminates south of the Gangetic valley. According to Hodgson it also occurs in the Himalayan Terai, probably however only towards the eastern portion, and here it is rare, for I have spoken to many sportsmen who have hunted in various parts of the Terai, from Sikhim to Rohilkund, and none have ever come across the gaur at the foot of the Himalayas."--'Mam. of Ind.,' p. 303. (See also Appendix C.) In the Central provinces the gaur is found in several parts of the bamboo-clad spurs of the Satpura range. My experience of the animal is limited to the Seonee district, where it is restricted to the now closely preserved forests of Sonawani in the south-east bend of the range, and a few are to be seen across occasionally, near the old fort of Amodagarh, on the Hirri river. It is also more abundant on the Pachmari and Mahadeo hills. On the east of the Bay of Bengal it is found from Chittagong through Burmah to the Malayan peninsula. It was considered that the gaur of the eastern countries was a distinct species, and is so noted in Horsfield's Catalogue, and described at some length under the name of _Bibos asseel_; but it appears that all this distinction was founded on the single skull of a female gaur, and is an instance of the proneness of naturalists to create new species on insufficient data. He himself remarks that when the skin was removed it was evident that the animal was nearly related to _Gavaeus gaurus_, or, as he calls it, _Bibos cavifrons_. Mr. G. P. Sanderson shot a fine old male of what he supposed to be the wild _gayal_, and he says: "I can state that there was not one single point of difference in appearance or size between it and the bison of Southern India, except that the horns were somewhat smaller than what would have been looked for in a bull of its age in Southern India;" and this point was doubtless an individual peculiarity, for Blyth, in his 'Catalogue of the Mammals of Burmah,' says: "Nowhere does this grand species attain a finer development than in Burmah, and the horns are mostly short and thick, and very massive as compared with those of the Indian gaurs, though the distinction is not constant on either side of the Bay of Bengal." Jerdon supposes it to have existed in Ceylon till within the present century, but I do not know on what data he founds his assertion. [Illustration: _Gavaeus gaurus_.] DESCRIPTION.--I cannot improve on Jerdon's description, taken as it is from the writings of Hodgson, Elliot, and Fisher, so I give it as it stands, adding a few observations of my own on points not alluded to by them:-- "The skull is massive; the frontals large, deeply concave, surmounted by a large semi-cylindric crest rising above the base of the horns. There are thirteen pairs of ribs.[40] The head is square, proportionately smaller than in the ox; the bony frontal ridge is five inches above the frontal plane; the muzzle is large and full, the eyes small, with a full pupil (? iris) of a pale blue colour. The whole of the head in front of the eyes is covered with a coat of close short hair, of a light greyish-brown colour, which below the eyes is darker, approaching almost to black; the muzzle is greyish and the hair is thick and short; the ears are broad and fan-shaped; the neck is sunk between the head and back, is short, thick, and heavy. Behind the neck and immediately above the shoulder rises a gibbosity or hump of the same height as the dorsal ridge. This ridge rises gradually as it goes back, and terminates suddenly about the middle of the back; the chest is broad; the shoulder deep and muscular; the fore-legs short, with the joints very short and strong, and the arm exceedingly large and muscular; the hair on the neck and breast and beneath is longer than on the body, and the skin of the throat is somewhat loose, giving the appearance of a slight dewlap; the fore-legs have a rufous tint behind and laterally above the white. The hind-quarters are lighter and lower than the fore, falling suddenly from the termination of the dorsal ridge; the skin of the neck, shoulders, and thigh is very thick, being about two inches and more. "The cow differs from the bull in having a slighter and more graceful head, a slender neck, no hump; and the points of the horns do not turn towards each other at the tip, but bend slightly backwards, and they are much smaller; the legs too are of a purer white. The very young bull has the forehead narrower than the cow, and the bony frontal ridge scarcely perceptible. The horns too turn more upwards. In old individuals the hair on the upper parts is often worn off. The skin of the under parts when uncovered is deep ochrey-yellow."--'Mammals of India,' p. 302. [Footnote 40: The true bison has fourteen pairs of ribs.--R. A. S.] The fineness of the leg below the knee is another noticeable feature, and also the well-formed pointed hoof, which leaves an imprint like that of a large deer. Mr. Sanderson states in his book that the bison, after a sharp hunt, gives out an oily sweat, and in this peculiarity he says it differs from domestic cattle, which never sweat under any exertion. This I have not noticed. The period of gestation seems to be about the same as that of the domestic cow, and the greatest number of calves are born in the summer. SIZE.--I cannot speak personally, for I regret now that I took no measurements in the days when I was acquainted with these magnificent animals, but the experiences of others I give as follows:-- Sir Walter Elliot gives-- Ft. In. Nose to root of tail 9 6-1/2 Height at shoulder (over 18 hands!) 6 1-1/2 " at rump 5 3 Tail 2 10-1/2 Length of dorsal ridge 3 4 Height of " 0 4-1/2 Head from muzzle to top of frontal ridge 2 1-3/4 Breadth of forehead 1 3-1/2 Ear 0 10-1/2 Circumference of horn at base 1 7-1/2 Distance between the points of the horns 2 1 I give the measurements of two fine heads:-- Ft. In. Ft. In. From tip to tip round the outer edge and across the forehead 6 2 6 11 Across the sweep 2 9 3 2-1/2 Circumference at base 1 7 1 5 Between tips 1 7 1 10-1/2 The following careful measurements are recorded by Mr. Blyth ('J. A. S. B.,' vol. xi., 1842, p. 588), and were furnished to him by Lieut. Tickell from the recently-killed animal, in order to assist in the setting up of the specimen in the Asiatic Museum:-- Ft. In. A string passed along the back to root of tail 8 8-1/2 From frontal ridge to tip of muzzle 2 0 Horns apart anteriorly at base 1 0-1/2 Tip to tip of horns 2 3-1/4 From nose to centre of eye 1 0-3/4 Eye to root of horn 0 4-1/4 Eye to base of ears 0 6 Humerus, &c. 1 11-1/4 Radius 2 8 Metacarpus 0 9-3/4 Pastern, &c., and hoof 0 7-1/4 Pelvis 1 4-1/2 Femur 1 7-1/4 Tibia and fibula 1 10 Metatarsus 1 4 Pastern to end of hoof 0 7-1/2 Height perpendicularly, about 5 9 Length of dorsal ridge 2 5-1/2 Tail, root to tip of hairs 3 1-3/4 Circumference of head behind horns 3 11 " " neck behind ears 4 0-1/2 " " chest 8 8 " " muzzle 1 9-1/4 " " forearm close to axilla 1 11-1/4 " " thigh close to body 3 0-3/4 " " thigh close above hock 1 6 I feel tempted to let my pen run away with me into descriptions of the exciting scenes of the past in the chase of this splendid creature--the noblest quarry that the sportsman can have, and the one that calls forth all his cunning and endurance. As I lately remarked in another publication, I know of no other animal of which the quest calls forth the combined characteristics of the ibex, the stag and the tiger-hunter. Some of my own experiences I have described in 'Seonee;' but let those who wish to learn the poetry of the thing read the glowing, yet not less true pages of Colonel Walter Campbell's 'Old Forest Ranger;' and for clear practical information, combined also with graphic description, the works of Captain J. Forsyth and Mr. G. P. Sanderson ('The Highlands of Central India' and 'Thirteen years among the Wild Beasts'). The gaur prefers hilly ground, though it is sometimes found on low levels. It is extremely shy and retiring in its habits, and so quick of hearing that extreme care has to be taken in stalking to avoid treading on a dry leaf or stick. I know to my cost that the labour of hours may be thrown away by a moment of impatience. In spite of all the wondrous tales of its ferocity, it is as a rule a timid, inoffensive animal. Solitary bulls are sometimes dangerous if suddenly come upon. I once did so, and the bull turned and dashed up-hill before I could get a shot, whereas a friend of mine, to whom a similar thing occurred a few weeks before, was suddenly charged, and his gun-bearer was knocked over. The gaur seldom leaves its jungles, but I have known it do so on the borders of the Sonawani forest, in order to visit a small tank at Untra near Ashta, and the cultivation in the vicinity suffered accordingly. Hitherto most attempts to rear this animal when young have failed. It is said not to live over the third year. Though I offered rewards for calves for my collection, I never succeeded in getting one. I have successfully reared most of the wild animals of the Central provinces, but had not a chance of trying the bison. NO. 465. GAVAEUS FRONTALIS. _The Mithun or Gayal_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Gayal_, _Gavi_ or _Gabi_, _Gabi-bichal_ (male), _Gabi-gai_ (female); _Bunerea-goru_ in Chittagong and Assam; _Mithun_. HABITAT.--The hilly tracts east of the Brahmaputra, at the head of the Assam valley, the Mishmi hills, in hill Tipperah, Chittagong, and then southwards through Burmah to the hills bordering on the Koladyne river. [Illustration: _Gavaeus frontalis_.] DESCRIPTION.--Very like the gaur at first sight, but more clumsy looking; similarly coloured, but with a small dewlap; the legs are white as in the last species. In the skull the forehead is not concave as in the gaur, but flat, and if anything rather convex. The back has a dorsal ridge similar to that of the gaur. The _gayal_ is of a much milder disposition than the _gaur_, and is extensively domesticated, and on the frontiers of Assam is considered a valuable property by the people. The milk is rich and the flesh good. There are purely domesticated _mithuns_ bred in captivity, but according to many writers the herds are recruited from the wild animals, which are tempted either to interbreed, or are captured and tamed. In Dr. F. Buchanan Hamilton's MS. (_see_ Horsfield's 'Cat. Mammalia, E. I. C. Mus.') the following account is given: "These people (i.e. the inhabitants of the frontiers) have tame gayals, which occasionally breed, but the greater part of their stock is bred in the woods and caught; after which, being a mild animal, it is easily domesticated. The usual manner employed to catch the full-grown gayal is to surround a field of corn with a strong fence. One narrow entrance is left, in which is placed a rope with a running noose, which secures the gayal by the neck as he enters to eat the corn; of ten so caught perhaps three are hanged by the noose running too tight, and by the violence of their struggling. Young gayals are caught by leaving in the fence holes of a size sufficient to admit a calf, but which excludes the full-grown gayal; the calves enter by these holes, which are then shut by natives who are watching, and who secure the calves. The gayal usually goes in herds of from twenty to forty, and frequents dry valleys and the sides of hills covered with forest." Professor Garrod, in his _Ungulata_ in Cassell's Natural History, quotes the following account from Mr. Macrae concerning the way in which the Kookies of the Chittagong hill regions catch the wild gayal: "On discovering a herd of wild gayals in the jungle they prepare a number of balls, the size of a man's head, composed of a particular kind of earth, salt and cotton. They then drive their tame gayals towards the wild ones, when the two herds soon meet and assimilate into one, the males of the one attaching themselves to the females of the other, and _vice versa_. The Kookies now scatter their balls over such parts of the jungles as they think the herd most likely to pass, and watch its motions. The gayals, on meeting these balls as they pass along, are attracted by their appearance and smell, and begin to lick them with their tongues, and, relishing the taste of the salt and the particular earth composing them, they never quit the place till all the balls are consumed. The Kookies, having observed the gayals to have once tasted their balls, prepare a sufficient supply of them to answer the intended purpose, and as the gayals lick them up they throw down more; and it is to prevent their being so readily destroyed that the cotton is mixed with the earth and the salt. This process generally goes on for three changes of the moon or for a month and a-half, during which time the tame and the wild gayals are always together, licking the decoy balls, and the Kookie, after the first day or two of their being so, makes his appearance at such a distance as not to alarm the wild ones. By degrees he approaches nearer and nearer, until at length the sight of him has become so familiar that he can advance to stroke his tame gayals on the back and neck without frightening the wild ones. He next extends his hand to them and caresses them also, at the same time giving them plenty of his decoy balls to lick. Thus, in the short space of time mentioned, he is able to drive them, along with the tame ones, to his _parrah_ or village, without the least exertion of force; and so attached do the gayals become to the _parrah_, that when the Kookies migrate from one place to another, they always find it necessary to set fire to the huts they are about to abandon, lest the gayals should return to them from the new grounds." NO. 466. GAVAEUS SONDAICUS. _The Burmese Wild Ox_. NATIVE NAME.--_Tsoing_, Burmese; _Banteng_ of the Javanese. HABITAT.--"Pegu, the Tenasserim provinces, and the Malayan peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo and Java; being domesticated in the island of Bali" (_Blyth_). DESCRIPTION.--This animal resembles the gaur in many respects, and it is destitute of a dewlap, but the young and the females are bright chestnut. The bulls become black with age, excepting always the white stockings and a white patch on each buttock. SIZE.--About the same as the last two species. This animal has bred in captivity, and has also interbred with domestic cattle. Blyth says he saw in the Zoological Gardens of Amsterdam a bull, cow, and calf in fine condition. "The bull more especially has an indication of a hump, which, however, must be specially looked for to be noticed, and he has a broad and massive neck like the gaur, but no raised spinal ridge, nor has either of these species a deep dewlap like the gayal" ('Cat. Mamm. Burmah'). The banteng cow is much slighter in build, and has small horns that incline backwards, and she retains her bright chestnut colour permanently. _GENUS POEPHAGUS--THE YAK_. Somewhat smaller than the common ox, with large head; nose hairy, with a moderate sized bald muffle between nostrils; broad neck without dewlap; cylindrical horns; no hump or dorsal ridge, and long hair on certain parts of the body. Requires an intensely cold climate. NO. 467. POEPHAGUS GRUNNIENS. _The Yak or Grunting Ox_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Yak_, _Bubul_, _Soora-goy_, _Dong_, in Thibet; _Bun-chowr_, Hindi; _Brong-dong_, Thibetan. HABITAT.--The high regions of Thibet and Ladakh, the valley of the Chang Chenmo, and the slopes of the Kara Koram mountains (_Kinloch_). DESCRIPTION.--"In size it is somewhat less than the common or domestic ox. The head is large, and the neck proportionally broad, without any mane or dewlap, having a downward tendency; the horns are far apart, placed in front of the occipital ridge, cylindrical at the base, from which they rise obliquely outward and forward two-thirds of their length, when they bend inward with a semi-circular curve, the points being directed to each other from the opposite sides; the muffle is small; the border of the nostrils callous; the ears short and hairy. At the withers there is a slight elevation, but no protuberance or hump, as in the Indian ox. The dorsal ridge not prominent; body of full dimensions; rump and hinder parts proportionally large; limbs rather small and slender; hoofs smooth, square, and well defined, not expanded as in the musk-ox; anterior false hoofs small, posterior large; tail short, not reaching beyond the houghs, naked for some inches at the root, very bushy, lax, and expanded in the middle; colour black throughout, but varying in tint according to the character of the hairy covering; this, on the anterior parts, the neck, shoulders, back, and sides, is short, soft, and of a jet-black colour, but long, shaggy, pendulous, and shining on the sides of the anterior extremities, and from the medial part of the abdomen over the thighs to the hinder parts" (_Horsfield_, 'Cat. Mam. Ind. Mus.'). _GENUS BUBALUS--THE BUFFALOS_. Horns very large, depressed and sub-trigonal at the base, attached to the highest line of the frontals, inclining upwards and backwards, conical towards the tip and bending upwards; muffle large, square. No hump or dorsal ridge; thirteen pairs of ribs; hoofs large. NO. 468. BUBALUS ARNI. _The Wild Buffalo_ (_Jerdon's No. 239_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Arna_ (male), _Arni_ (female), _Arna-bhainsa_, _Jangli-bhains_, Hindi; _Mung_, Bhagulpore; _Gera-erumi_, Gondi; _Karbo_ of the Malays; _Moonding_ of the Sundanese. HABITAT.--In the swampy terai at the foot of the hills from Oude to Bhotan, in the plains of Lower Bengal as far west as Tirhoot, in Assam and in Burmah, in Central India from Midnapore to Rajpore, and thence nearly to the Godavery; also in Ceylon. [Illustration: _Bubalus arni_.] DESCRIPTION.--This animal so closely resembles the common domesticated buffalo that it seems hardly necessary to attempt a description. The wild one may be a trifle larger, but every one in India is familiar with the huge, ungainly, stupid-looking creature, with its bulky frame, black and almost hairless body, back-sweeping horns, and long narrow head. SIZE.--A large male will stand 19 hands at the shoulder and measure 10-1/4 feet from nose to root of tail, which is short, reaching only to the hocks. Horns vary greatly, but the following are measurements of large pairs: In the British Museum are a pair without the skull. These horns measure 6 feet 6 inches each, which would give, when on the head, an outer curve measurement of nearly 14 feet. Another pair in the British Museum measure on the skull 12 feet 2 inches from tip to tip and across the forehead, but these horns do not exactly correspond in length and shape. The buffalo never ascends mountains like the bison, but keeps to low and swampy ground and open grass plains, living in large herds, which occasionally split up into smaller ones during the breeding season in autumn. The female produces one, or sometimes two in the summer, after a period of gestation of ten months. Forsyth doubts their interbreeding with the domestic race, but I see no reason for this. The two are identically the same, and numerous instances have been known of the latter joining herds of their wild brethren; and I have known cases of the domestic animal absconding from a herd and running wild. Such a one was shot by a friend of mine in a jungle many miles from the haunts of men, but yet quite out of the range of the wild animal. Probably it had been driven from a herd. Domestic buffalo bulls are much used in the Central provinces for carrying purposes. I had them yearly whilst in camp, and noticed that one old bull lorded it over the others, who stood in great awe of him; at last one day there was a great uproar; three younger animals combined, and gave him such a thrashing that he never held up his head again. In a feral state he would doubtless have left the herd and become a solitary wanderer. Dr. Jerdon, in his 'Mammals of India,' says: "Mr. Blyth states it as his opinion that, except in the valley of the Ganges and Burrampooter, it has been introduced and become feral. With this view I cannot agree, and had Mr. Blyth seen the huge buffalos I saw on the Indrawutty river (in 1857), he would, I think, have changed his opinion. They have hitherto not been recorded, south of Raepore, but where I saw them is nearly 200 miles south. I doubt if they cross the Godavery river. "I have seen them repeatedly, and killed several in the Purneah district. Here they frequent the immense tracts of long grass abounding in dense, swampy thickets, bristling with canes and wild roses; and in these spots, or in the long elephant-grass on the bank of jheels, the buffalos lie during the heat of the day. They feed chiefly at night or early in the morning, often making sad havoc in the fields, and retire in general before the sun is high. They are by no means shy (unless they have been much hunted), and even on an elephant, without which they could not be successfully hunted, may often be approached within good shooting distance. A wounded one will occasionally charge the elephant, and, as I have heard from many sportsmen, will sometimes overthrow the elephant. I have been charged by a small herd, but a shot or two as they are advancing will usually scatter them." The buffalo is, I should say, a courageous animal--at least it shows itself so in the domesticated state. A number of them together will not hesitate to charge a tiger, for which purpose they are often used to drive a wounded tiger out of cover. A herdsman was once seized by a man-eater one afternoon a few hundred yards from my tent. His cows fled, but his buffalos, hearing his cries, rushed up and saved him. The attachment evinced by these uncouth creatures to their keepers was once strongly brought to my notice in the Mutiny. In beating up the broken forces of a rebel Thakoor, whom we had defeated the previous day, I, with a few troopers, ran some of them to bay in a rocky ravine. Amongst them was a Brahmin who had a buffalo cow. This creature followed her master, who was with us as a prisoner, for the whole day, keeping at a distance from the troops, but within call of her owner's voice. When we made a short halt in the afternoon, the man offered to give us some milk; she came to his call at once, and we had a grateful draught, the more welcome as we had had nothing to eat since the previous night. That buffalo saved her master's life, for when in the evening the prisoners were brought up to court martial and sentenced to be hanged, extenuating circumstances were urged for our friend with the buffalo, and he was allowed to go, as I could testify he had not been found with arms in his hands; and I had the greatest pleasure in telling him to be off, and have nothing more to do with rebel Thakoors. Jerdon says the milk of the buffalo is richer than that of the cow. I doubt this. I know that in rearing wild animals buffalos' milk is better than cows' milk, which is far too rich, and requires plentiful dilution with water. There is a very curious little animal allied to the buffalo, of which we have, or have had, a specimen in the Zoological Gardens at Alipore--the _Anoa depressicornis_; it comes from the Island of Celebes, and seems to link the buffalo with the deer. It is black, with short wavy hair. * * * * * Before passing on to the true Cervidae I must here place an animal commonly called a deer, and generally classed as such--the musk-deer according to some naturalists. There is no reason, save an insufficient one, that this creature should be so called and classed, there being much evidence in favour of its alliance to the antelopes. In the first place it has a gall bladder, which the Cervidae have not, with the exception, according to Dr. Crisp, of the axis ('P. Z. S.'). On the other hand it has large canine tusks like the muntjacs, deerlets, and water-deer, and, as these are all aberrant forms of the true Cervidae, there is no reason why the same character should not be developed in the antelopes. Its hair is more of the goat than the deer, and the total absence of horns removes a decided proof in favour of one or the other. The feet are more like some of the Bovidae than the generality of deer, with the exception, perhaps, of _Rangifer_ (the reindeer), the toes being very much cloven and capable of grasping the rocky ground on which it is found. A very eminent authority, however, Professor Flower, is in favour of placing the musk-deer with the Cervidae, and he instances the absence of horns as in favour of this opinion, for in none of the Bovidae are the males hornless. There are many other points also, such as the fawns being spotted, some intestinal peculiarities, and the molar and premolar teeth being strictly cervine, which strengthen him in his opinion. (_See_ article on the structure and affinities of the musk-deer, 'P. Z. S.' 1879, p. 159.) [Illustration: Skull of Musk Deer.] _GENUS MOSCHUS--THE MUSK DEER_. Canines in both sexes, very long and slender in the male; no horns; feet much cloven, with large false hoofs that touch the ground; the medium metacarpals fused into a solid cannon bone; in the skull the intermaxillaries join the nasals; hinder part of tarsus hairy; fur thick, elastic, and brittle; muffle large; no eye, feet, or groin-pits; a large gland or praeputial bag under the stomach in the males, which contains the secretion known in commerce as "musk." NO. 469. MOSCHUS MOSCHIFERUS. _The Musk Deer_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Kastura_, Hindi; _Rous_, _Roos_, and _Kasture_, in Kashmir; _La-lawa_, Thibetan; _Rib-jo_, Ladakhi; _Bena_ in Kunawur (_Jerdon_); _Mussuck-naba'_, Pahari (_Kinloch_). HABITAT.--Throughout the Himalayas at elevations above 8000 feet, extending also through Central and Northern Asia as far as Siberia. [Illustration: _Moschus moschiferus_.] [Illustration: _Moschus moschiferus_.] DESCRIPTION.--It is difficult to describe the colour of this animal, for it so constantly changes; and, as I do not know the creature personally, I think it better to give the recorded opinions of three writers who have had personal experience. Markham describes it as a dark speckled brownish-grey, nearly black on the hind-quarters, edged down the inside with reddish-yellow; the throat, belly, and legs lighter grey. Leith Adams ('P. Z. S.' 1858, p. 528) says: "Some are very dark on the upper parts, with black splashes on the back and hips; under-parts white or a dirty white. Others are of a yellowish-white all over the upper parts, with the belly and inner sides of the thighs white. A brownish-black variety is common, with a few white spots arranged longitudinally on the back--the latter I found were young." Kinloch writes: "The prevailing colour is brownish-grey, varying in shade on the back, where it is darkest, so as to give the animal a mottled or brindled appearance." SIZE.--Length, about 3 feet; height, 22 inches. The musk-deer is a forest-loving animal, keeping much to one locality. It bounds with amazing agility over the steepest ground, and is wonderfully sure-footed over the most rocky hills. It ruts in winter, produces one or two young, which are driven off in about six weeks' time by the mother to shift for themselves. They begin to produce at an early age--within a year. The musk bag is an abdominal or praeputial gland which secretes about an ounce of musk, worth from ten to fifteen rupees. It is most full in the rutting season; in the summer, according to Leith Adams, it hardly contains any. The musk does not seem to affect the flavour of the meat, which is considered excellent. CERVIDAE--THE DEER. Of the horned ruminants these are the most interesting. In all parts of the world, Old and New, save the great continental island of Australia, one or other kind of stag is familiar to the people, and is the object of the chase. The oldest writings contain allusions to it, and it is frequently mentioned in the Scriptures. "Like as the hart desireth the water brooks," sang David. It is bound up in history and romance, and the chase of it in England is to this day a royal pastime. However, to come back from the poetry of the thing to dry scientific details, I must premise that the two main distinctions of the Cervidae, as separating them from the Bovidae, are horns which are not persistent, but annually shed, and the absence of a gall bladder, which is present in nearly all the Bovidae. The deer also, with one exception (the reindeer, _Rangifer tarandus_) have horns only in the males. Regarding the shedding of these horns, it is supposed that the operation is connected with the sexual functions. It is a curious fact that castration has a powerful effect on this operation; if done early no horns appear; if later in life, the horns become persistent and are not shed. Captain James Forsyth (in his 'Highlands of Central India'), was of opinion that the Sambar does not shed its horns annually, and states that this also is the opinion of native shikaris in Central India. This, however, requires further investigation. I certainly never heard of such a theory amongst them, nor noticed the departure from the normal state. There have been several classifications of the Cervidae, but I think the most complete and desirable one is that of Sir Victor Brooke (_see_ 'P. Z. S.' 1878, p. 883), which I shall endeavour to give in a condensed form. Dr. Gray's classification was based on three forms of antlers and the shape of the tail. But Sir Victor Brooke's is founded on more reliable osteological details. As I before stated in my introductory remarks on the Ruminantia, the first and fourth digits, there being no thumb, are but rudimentary, the metacarpal bones being reduced to mere splints; the digital phalanges are always in the same place, and bear the little false hoofs, which are situated behind and a little above the large centre ones, but the metacarpal splint is not always in the same place; it may either be annexed to the phalanges, or widely separated from them and placed directly under the carpus. The position of these splints is an important factor in the classification of the Cervidae into two divisions, distinguished by Sir Victor Brooke as the _Plesiometacarpals_, in which the splint is near the carpus, and the _Telemetacarpals_, in which the splint is far from the carpus, and articulated with the digital phalanges. All the known species of deer can be classified under these two heads; and it is a significant fact that this pedal division is borne out by certain cranial peculiarities discovered by Professor Garrod, and also, to a certain extent, by an arrangement of hair-tufts on the tarsus and metatarsus. In the Old World deer, which are with few exceptions _Plesiometacarpi_, those which have these tufts have them above the middle of the metatarsus, and those of the New World, which are, with one exception, _Telemetacarpi_, have them, when present, below the middle of the metatarsus. There is also another character in addition to the cranial one before alluded to, which was also noticed by Professor Garrod. The first cranial peculiarity is that in _Telemetacarpi_, as a rule, the vertical plate developed from the lower surface of the vomer is prolonged sufficiently downwards and backwards to become anchylosed to the horizontal plate of the palatals, forming a septum completely dividing the nasal cavity into two chambers. In the _Plesiometacarpi_ this vertical plate is not sufficiently developed to reach the horizontal plate of the palatals. The second cranial peculiarity is that in the Old World deer (_Plesiometacarpi_), the ascending rami of the premaxillae articulate with the nasals with one or two exceptions, whereas in the New World deer (_Telemetacarpi_), with one or two exceptions, the rami of the premaxillae do not reach the nasals. It will thus be seen that the osteological characters of the head and feet agree in a singularly fortunate manner, and, when taken in connection with the external signs afforded by the metatarsal tufts, prove conclusively the value of the system. In India we have to deal exclusively with the _Plesiometacarpi_, our nearest members of the other division being the Chinese water-deer (_Hydropotes inermis_), and probably _Capreolus pygargus_ from Yarkand, the horns of a roebuck in velvet attached to a strip of skin having been brought down by the Mission to that country in 1873-74. Now comes the more difficult task of subdividing these sections into genera--a subject which has taxed the powers of many naturalists, and which is still in a far from perfect state. To all proposed arrangements some exception can be taken, and the following system is not free from objection, but it is on the whole the most reliable; and this system is founded on the form of the antler, which runs from a single spike, as in the South American _Coassus_, to the many branches of the red deer (_Cervus elaphas_); and all the various changes on which we found genera are in successive stages produced in the red deer, which we may accept as the highest development; for instance, the stag in its first year develops but a single straight "beam" antler, when it is called a "brocket," and it is the same as the South American brocket (_Coassus_). On this being shed the next spring produces a small branch from the base of this beam, called the brow antler, which is identical almost with the single bifurcated horn of the _Furcifer_ from Chili. The stag is then technically known as a "spayad." In the third year an extra front branch is formed, known as the tres-tine. The antler then resembles the rusine type, of which our sambar stag is an example. In the fourth year the top of the main beam throws out several small tines called "sur-royals," and the brow antler receives an addition higher up called the "bez-tine." The animal is then a "staggard." In the fifth year the "sur-royals" become more numerous, and the whole antler heavier in the "stag," whose next promotion is to that of "great hart" of ten or more points. The finest heads are found in the German forests. Sir Victor Brooke alludes to some in the hunting Schloss of Moritzburg of the 15th to 17th century, of enormous size, bearing from 25 to 50 points--50 inches round the outside curve, 10 inches in circumference round the _smallest_ part of the beam, and of one of which the spread between the coronal tines is 74 inches. Professor Garrod mentions one as having sixty-six points, and states that Lord Powerscourt has in his possession a pair with forty-five tines. The deer with which we have to deal range from the elaphine, or red deer type, to the simple bifurcated antler of the muntjac, which consists of a beam and brow antler only. We then come to the rusine type of three points only--brow, tres, and royal tines, and of this number are also the spotted and hog deer of India, but the arrangement of the tines is different; and following the rusine type comes the rucervine, in which the tres and royal tines break out into points--the tres-tine usually bifurcate, and the royal with two, three or more points. The arrangements of the main limbs of the horns is strictly rusine--that is to say, the external and anterior tine is equal to or shorter than the royal tine, whereas it is the reverse in the axis (spotted deer), and therefore this genus should come between the two. Even in the sambar and axis there is a tendency to throw out abnormal tines. There are many examples in the Indian Museum, and I possess a magnificent head which bears a large abnormal tine on one horn, and a faint inclination in the corresponding spot on the other horn to do likewise. I have no doubt, had the animal lived another year, the second extra tine would have been developed. Professor Garrod has three phases of the rucervine type, which he calls the normal, the intermediate, and the extreme. The first has both branches of the beam, tres and royal of equal size (_ex_. Schomburgk's deer); the second has the tres-tine larger than the royal (_ex_. our swamp deer); and the extreme type is that in which the royal is represented merely by a snag, the whole horn being bent forward (_ex_. the Burmese _Panolia Eldii_). The true cervine type of horn I have already described in its progress from youth to age. The Kashmir and Sikim stags are the representatives of this form in India. In Japan there is an intermediate form in _Cervus sika_ which has no bez-tine. [Illustration: Stag with Horns matured.] Deer have large eye-pits, but no groin-pits; feet-pits in all four, or sometimes only in the hind feet. The female has four mammae. [Illustration: Stag with Horns in velvet.] At the time of reproduction of the antlers a strong determination of blood to the head takes place, enlarging the vessels, and a fibro-cartilaginous substance is formed, which grows rapidly, and takes the form of the antler of the species. The horns in their early stage are soft and full of blood-vessels on the surface, covered with a delicate skin, with fine close-set hairs commonly called the velvet. "As the horns ossify the periosteal veins become enlarged, grooving the external surface; the arteries are enclosed by hard osseus tubercles at the base of the horns, which coalesce and render them impervious, and, the supply of nutriment being thus cut off, the envelopes shrivel up and fall off, and the animals perfect the desquamation by rubbing their horns against trees, technically called 'burnishing.'"--_Jerdon_. * * * * * We now begin with the simplest form of tine we have, viz. with one basal snag only. _GENUS CERVULUS--THE MUNTJACS OR RIB-FACED DEER_. Of small size, slightly higher at the croup than at the shoulders; short tail; large pits in hind feet; no groin-pits; no tuft on the metatarsus. This genus is specially characterised, according to Sir Victor Brooke, by the absence of the lateral digital phalanges on all four feet; the proximal ends of the metacarpals are however present; horns situated on high pedicles of bone, covered with hair, continued down the face in two longitudinal ridges, between which the skin is ridged or puckered; horns small, composed of a single beam with a basal snag; skull with a very large, deep sub-orbital pit; forehead concave; large canine tusks in the upper jaw; moderate, moist muffle. NO. 470. CERVULUS MUNTJAC _vel_ AUREUS. _The Muntjac or Rib-faced Deer_ (_Jerdon's No. 223_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Kakur_, _Bherki_, _Jangli-bakra_, Hindi; _Maya_ Bengali; _Ratwa_, in Nepal; _Karsiar_, Bhotia; _Siku_ or _Suku_, Lepcha; _Gutra_, _Gutri_, Gondi; _Bekra_ or _Baikur_, Mahrathi; _Kankuri_, Canarese; _Kuka-gori_, Telegu; _Gee_, Burmese; _Kidang_, Javanese; _Muntjac_, Sundanese; _Kijang_, Malayan of Sumatra; _Welly_ or _Hoola-mooha_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--India, Burmah, Ceylon, the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Hainan, Banka and Borneo. [Illustration: _Cervulus aureus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Between the facial ridges the creases are dark brown, with a dark line running up the inside of each frontal pedestal; all the rest of the head and upper parts a bright rufous bay; chin, throat, inside of hind-legs, and beneath tail, white; some white spots in front of the fetlocks of all four legs; fore-legs from the shoulder downwards, the legs under the tarsal joints, and a line in front of hind-legs, dark blackish-brown. The doe is a little smaller, and has little black bristly knobs where the horns of the buck are. SIZE.--Head and body, about 3-1/2 feet; tail, 7 inches; height, 26 to 28 inches. Jerdon gives the size of the horn 8 to 10 inches, but in this he doubtless included the pedicle, which is about 5 inches, and the horns, from 2 to 5 inches. Of the only specimen I have at present in my collection the posterior measurement from cranium to tip of horn is 6-1/2 inches, of which the bony pedicle is 3 inches. It is a question whether we should separate the Indian from the Malayan animal. The leading authority of the day on the Cervidae, Sir Victor Brooke, was of opinion some time back (_see_ 'P. Z. S.,' 1874, p. 38), that the species were identical. He says: "In a large collection of the skins, skulls, and horns of this species, which I have received from all parts of India and Burmah, and in a considerable number of living specimens which I have examined, I have observed amongst adult animals so much difference in size and intensity of coloration that I have found it impossible to retain the muntjac of Java and Sumatra as a distinct species. The muntjacs from the south of India are, as a rule, smaller than those from the north, as is also the case with the axis and Indian antelope. But even this rule is subject to many exceptions. I have received from Northern India perfectly adult, and even slightly aged, specimens of both muntjac and axis inferior in size to the average as presented by these species in Southern India. These small races are always connected with particular areas, and are doubtless the result of conditions sufficiently unfavourable to prevent the species reaching the full luxuriance of growth and beauty of which it is capable, though not sufficiently rigorous to prevent its existence." In a later article on the Cervidae, written four years afterwards, he seems, however, to qualify his opinion in the following words: "This species appears to attain a larger size in Java, Sumatra, and Borneo than it does on the mainland; and I think it not improbable that persistent race characters may eventually be found distinguishing the muntjac of these islands from that of British India." The rib-face is a retiring little animal, and is generally found alone, or at times in pairs. Captain Baldwin mentions four having been seen together at one time, and General McMaster mentions three; but these are rare cases. It is very subtle in its movements, carrying its head low, and creeping, as Hodgson remarks, like a weasel under tangled thickets and fallen timber. In captivity I have found it to be a coarse feeder, and would eat meat of all kinds greedily. Its canine teeth are very long and sharp, and have a certain amount of play in the socket, but I am unable to state whether they are ever used for any purpose, whether of utility or defence. Its call is a hoarse, sharp bark, whence it takes its name of barking deer. What Jerdon says about the length of its tongue is true; it can certainly lick a good portion of its face with it. For excellent detailed accounts of this little deer I must refer my readers to Kinloch's 'Large Game Shooting,' and a letter by "Hawkeye," quoted by McMaster's 'Notes on Jerdon.' My space here will not allow of my quoting largely or giving personal experience, but both the above articles, as well as Captain Baldwin's notice, nearly exhaust the literature on this subject in a popular way. * * * * * The next development of antler is the rusine type, in which the main beam divides at the top into two branches, making with the basal tine a horn of three points only. _GENUS RUSA--THE RUSINE DEER_. Antlers with a brow tine, the beam bifurcating into a tres and royal tine; muffle large; lachrymal fossa large and deep; ante-orbital vacuity very large; rudimentary canines in both sexes, except in the hog deer; tail of moderate length; no feet-pits. The males heavily maned. NO. 471. RUSA ARISTOTELIS. _The Sambar_ (_Jerdon's No. 220_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Sambar_ or _Samhar_, Hindi; _Jerai_ and _Jerao_ in the Himalayas; _Maha_ in the Terai; _Meru_, Mahrathi; _Ma-oo_, Gondi; _Kadavi_ or _Kadaba_, Canarese; _Kannadi_, Telegu; _Ghous_ or _Gaoj_, Eastern Bengal, the female _Bholongi_ (_Jerdon_); _Schap_, Burmese (_Blyth_); _Gona-rusa_, Singhalese (_Kellaart_). HABITAT.--Throughout India from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin; through Assam round to the east of the Bay of Bengal, down through Burmah to the Malay peninsula; it is also found in Ceylon. [Illustration: _Rusa Aristotelis_.] DESCRIPTION.--The sambar stag is a grand animal, with fine erect carriage, heavily maned neck, and with massive horns of the rusine type. In size it is considerably larger than the red deer, and, though its horns are not so elegant, it is in its _tout ensemble_ quite as striking an animal. In colour it is dark brown, somewhat slaty in summer; the chin, inside of limbs and tail, and a patch on the buttocks yellowish or orange yellow. The head of the sambar is very fine; the eye large and full, with immense eye-pits, which can be almost reversed or greatly dilated during excitement. The ears are large and bell-shaped, and the throat surrounded by a shaggy mane--truly a noble creature. The female and young are lighter. SIZE.--A large stag will stand 14 hands at the withers, the length of the body being from 6 to 7 feet; tail about a foot; ears 7 to 8 inches. The average size of horns is about 3 feet, but some are occasionally found over 40 inches. Jerdon says: "some are recorded 4 feet along the curvature; the basal antler 10 to 12 inches or more." A very fine pair, with skull, in my own collection, which I value much, show the following measurements: right horn, 45 inches; left horn, 43 inches; brow antler from burr to tip, 18-1/4 inches circumference; just above the burr, 9 inches; circumference half-way up the beam, 7-1/4 inches. On the right horn underneath the tres-tine is an abnormal snag 9 inches long. The left horn has an indication of a similar branch, there being a small point, which I have no doubt would have been more fully developed had the animal lived another year. I have had no experience of deer-shooting in the regions inhabited by the Kashmir and Sikim stags, which are approximate to our English red deer; but no sportsman need wish for a nobler quarry than a fine male sambar. As I write visions of the past rise before me--of dewy mornings ere the sun was up; the fresh breeze at daybreak, and the waking cry of the koel and peacock, or the call of the painted partridge; then, as we move cautiously through the jungle that skirts the foot of the rocky range of hills, how the heart bounds when, stepping behind a sheltering bush, we watch the noble stag coming leisurely up the slope! How grand he looks!--with his proud carriage and shaggy, massive neck, sauntering slowly up the rise, stopping now and then to cull a berry, or to scratch his sides with his wide, sweeping antlers, looming large and almost black through the morning mists, which have deepened his dark brown hide, reminding one of Landseer's picture of 'The Challenge.' Stalking sambar is by far the most enjoyable and sportsmanlike way of killing them, but more are shot in _battues_, or over water when they come down to drink. According to native shikaris the sambar drinks only every third day, whereas the nylgao drinks daily; and this tallies with my own experience--in places where sambar were scarce I have found a better chance of getting one over water when the footprints were about a couple of days old. An exciting way of hunting this animal is practised by the Bunjaras, or gipsies of Central India. They fairly run it to bay with dogs, and then spear it. I have given in 'Seonee' a description of the _modus operandi_. When wounded or brought to bay the sambar is no ignoble foe; even a female has an awkward way of rearing up and striking out with her fore-feet. A large hind in my collection at Seonee once seriously hurt the keeper in this manner. Those who have read 'The Old Forest Ranger,' by Colonel Campbell, have read in it one of the finest descriptions of the stalking of this noble animal. I almost feel tempted to give it a place here; but it must give way to an extract from a less widely known, though as graphic a writer, "Hawkeye," whose letters to the _South of India Observer_ deserve a wider circulation. I cannot find space for more than a few paragraphs, but from them the reader may judge how interesting the whole article is:-- "The hill-side we now are on rapidly falls towards the river below, where it rushes over a precipice, forming a grand waterfall, beautiful to behold. The hill-side is covered with a short, scrubby rough-leafed plant, about a foot and a-half high. Bending low, we circle round the shoulder of the slope, beyond the wood. The quick eye of the stalker catches sight of a hind's ears, at the very spot he hoped for. The stag must be nigh. "Down on all-fours we move carefully along, the stalker keenly watching the ears. A short distance gained, and the hind detects the movement of our heads. At the same moment the upper tines of the stag's antlers are in sight; he lies to the right of the hind, about 120 yards distant, hidden by an inequality of the ground. Be still, oh beating heart! Be quiet, oh throbbing pulse! Steady, oh shaky hand, or all your toil is vain! Onward, yet only a few paces! Be not alarmed, oh cautious hind! We care not for you. Crouching still lower, we gain ground; the head and neck of our noble quarry are in sight; the hind still gazes intensely. Presently she elongates her neck in a most marvellous manner. We still gain. On once more we move, when up starts the hind. We know that in another moment she will give the warning bell, and all will vanish. The time for action has arrived. We alter our position in a second, bring the deadly weapon to bear on the stag; quickly draw a steady bead, hugging the rifle with all our might, and fire! The hinds flash across our vision like the figures in a magic lantern, and the stag lies weltering in his couch." _GENUS AXIS_. Horns of the rusine type, but with the tres-tine longer than the royal or posterior tine; beam much bent; horns paler and smoother than in the sambar; large muffle and eye-pits; canines moderate; feet-pits in the hind-feet only; also groin-pits; tail of moderate length; skin spotted with white; said to possess a gall-bladder. NO. 472. AXIS MACULATUS. _The Spotted Deer_ (_Jerdon's No. 221_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Chital_, _Chitra_, _Chritri-jhank_ (the male), Hindi; _Chatidah_ in Bhagulpore; _Boro-khotiya_, Bengali at Rungpore; _Buriya_, in Gorukpore; _Saraga_, Canarese; _Dupi_, Telegu; _Lupi_, Gondi (_Jerdon_); _Tic-mooha_, Singhalese (_Kellaart_); _Sarga_, _Jati_, _Mikka_, Canarese (_Sanderson_). HABITAT.--Throughout India, with the exception of the Punjab; nor is it found, I believe, in the countries east of the Bay of Bengal. It is however obtained in Ceylon, where it has been classed by Kellaart as a distinct species, _A. oryzeus_. [Illustration: _Axis maculatus_.] DESCRIPTION.--General colour like that of the English fallow deer, yellowish or rufous fawn, spotted with white; the spots on the sides low down assuming an elongated shape, forming lines; a dark dorsal stripe from nape to tail; head brownish, unspotted; muzzle dark; ears dark externally, white within; chin, throat, and under-parts whitish, as also the inside of limbs and tail; the horns frequently throw out snags on the brow antler. SIZE.--Length, 4-1/2 to 5 feet. Height at shoulder, 36 to 38 inches. I regret I cannot give accurate measurements just now of horns, as I am writing on board ship, with all my specimens and most of my books boxed up, but I should say 30 inches an average good horn. Jerdon does not give any details. This deer is generally found in forests bordering streams. I have never found it at any great distance from water; it is gregarious, and is found in herds of thirty and forty in favourable localities. Generally spotted deer and lovely scenery are found together, at all events in Central India. The very name _chital_ recalls to me the loveliest bits of the rivers of the Central provinces, the Nerbudda, the Pench, the Bangunga, and the bright little Hirrie. Where the bamboo bends over the water, and the _kouha_ and _saj_ make sunless glades, there will be found the bonny dappled hides of the fairest of India's deer. There is no more beautiful sight in creation than a _chital_ stag in a sun-flecked dell when-- "Ere his fleet career he took The dewdrops from his flanks he shook; Like crested leader, proud and high, Toss'd his beam'd frontlet to the sky; A moment gazed adown the dale, A moment snuff'd the tainted gale, A moment listen'd to the cry That thicken'd as the chase drew nigh; Then, as the headmost foes appeared, With one brave bound the copse he clear'd." Here I may fitly quote again from "Hawkeye," whose descriptions are charming: "Imagine a forest glade, the graceful bamboo arching overhead, forming a lovely vista, with here and there bright spots and deep shadows--the effect of the sun's rays struggling to penetrate the leafy roof of nature's aisle. Deep in the solitude of the woods see now the dappled herd, and watch the handsome buck as he roams here and there in the midst of his harem, or, browsing amongst the bushes, exhibits his graceful antlers to the lurking foe, who by patient woodcraft has succeeded in approaching his unsuspecting victim; observe how proudly he holds himself, as some other buck of less pretensions dares to approach the ladies of the group; see how he advances, as on tiptoe, all the hair of his body standing on end, and with a thundering rush drives headlong away this bold intruder, and then comes swaggering back! But, hark--a twig has broken! Suddenly the buck wheels round, facing the quarter whence the sound proceeded. Look at him now, and say, is he not a quarry well worth the hunter's notice? "With head erect, antlers thrown back, his white throat exposed, his tail raised, his whole body gathered together, prepared to bound away into the deep forest in the twinkling of an eye, he stands a splendid specimen of the cervine tribe. We will not kill him; we look and admire! A doe suddenly gives that imperceptible signal to which I have formerly alluded, and the next moment the whole herd has dashed through the bamboo alleys, vanishing from sight--a dappled hide now and again gleaming in the sunlight as its owner scampers away to more distant haunts." Jerdon is a follower of Hodgson, who was of opinion that there are two species of spotted deer--a larger and smaller, the latter inhabiting Southern India; but there is no reason for adopting this theory; both Blyth, Gray, and others have ignored this, and the most that can be conceded is that the southern animal is a variety owing to climatic conditions. Multiplication of species is a thing to be avoided of all naturalists--I have, therefore, not separated them. McMaster too writes: "I cannot agree with Jerdon that there are two species of spotted deer." And he had experience in Southern India as well as in other parts. He states that the finest _chital_ he ever came across were found in the forests in Goomsoor, where, he adds, "as in every other part of Orissa, both spotted deer and sambar are, I think, more than usually large." NO. 473. AXIS PORCINUS. _The Hog Deer_ (_Jerdon's No. 222_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Para_, Hindi; Jerdon also gives _Khar-laguna_, Nepal Terai; _Sugoria_ also in some parts. _Nuthurini-haran_ in some parts of Bengal; _Weel-mooha_, Singhalese (_Kellaart_). HABITAT.--Throughout India, though scarce in the central parts; it is abundant in Assam and Burmah, and is also found in Ceylon, but is stated not to occur in Malabar. [Illustration: _Axis porcinus_.] DESCRIPTION.--"Light chestnut or olive-brown, with an eye-spot; the margin of the lips, the tail beneath, limbs within, and abdomen, white--in summer many assume a paler and more yellow tint, and get a few white spots, and the old buck assumes a dark slaty colour; the horns resemble those of a young spotted deer, with both the basal and upper tines very small, the former pointing directly upwards at a very acute angle, and the latter directed backwards and inwards, nearly at a right angle, occasionally pointing downwards" (_Jerdon_). McMaster says: "I can corroborate Jerdon's statement that the young of this deer are beautifully spotted; but, although I have seen many specimens, dead and alive, and still more of the skins while I was in Burmah, I do not remember having remarked the few white spots which he says many of them assume in summer." The fawns lose their spots at about six months. SIZE.--Length, 42 to 44 inches; tail, 8 inches; height, 27 to 28. Average length of horns, 15 to 16 inches. This animal is seldom found in forest land; it seems to prefer open grass jungle, lying sheltered during the day in thick patches, and lies close till almost run upon by beaters or elephants. Its gait is awkward, with some resemblance to that of a hog carrying its head low; it is not speedy, and can easily be run down by dogs in the open. McMaster writes: "Great numbers of these deer are each season killed by Burmans, being mobbed with dogs." The meat is fair. Hog deer are not gregarious like _chital_; they are usually solitary, though found occasionally in pairs. The horns are shed about April, and the rutting season is September and October. This species and the spotted deer have interbred, and the hybrid progeny survived. * * * * * The next stage from the rusine to the cervine or elaphine type is the rucervine. In this the tres-tine, as well as the royal tine, throw out branches, and in the normal rucervine type the tres and royal are equal as in Schomburgk's deer, but in the extreme type, _Panolia_ or _Rucervus Eldii_ of Burmah, the tres-tine is greatly developed, whilst the royal is reduced to a mere snag. The Indian swamp-deer (_Rucervus Duvaucelli_) is intermediate, both tres and royal tines are developed, but the former is much larger than the royal. In none of the rucervine forms is the bez-tine produced. _GENUS RUCERVUS_. Horns as above; muzzle pointed. Canines in males only. NO. 474. RUCERVUS DUVAUCELLI. _The Swamp-Deer_ (_Jerdon's No. 219_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Bara-singha_, Hindi; _Baraya_ and _Maha_ in the Nepal Terai; _Jhinkar_ in Kyarda Doon; _Potiyaharan_ at Monghyr (_Jerdon_); _Goen_ or _Goenjak_ (male), _Gaoni_ (female), in Central India. HABITAT.--"In the forest lands at the foot of the Himalayas, from the Kyarda Doon to Bhotan. It is very abundant in Assam, inhabiting the islands and churs of the Berhampooter, extending down the river in suitable spots to the eastern Sunderbunds. It is also stated to occur near Monghyr, and thence extends sparingly through the great forest tract of Central India" (Jerdon's 'Mamm. Ind.'). I have found it in abundance in the Raigarh Bichia tracts of Mundla, at one time attached to the Seonee district, but now I think incorporated in the new district of Balaghat. In the open valleys, studded with sal forest, of the Thanwur, Halone, and Bunjar tributaries of the Nerbudda, may be found bits reminding one of English parks, with noble herds of this handsome deer. It seems to love water and open country. McMaster states that it is found in the Golcondah Zemindary near Daraconda. DESCRIPTION.--Smaller and lighter than the sambar. Colour rich light yellow or chestnut in summer, yellowish-brown in winter, sometimes very light, paler below and inside the limbs, white under the tail. The females are lighter; the young spotted. SIZE.--Height, about 44 to 46 inches; horns, about 36 inches. They have commonly from twelve to fourteen points, but Jerdon states he has seen them with seventeen. Like the spotted deer this species is gregarious; one writer, speaking of them in Central India, says: "The plain stretched away in gentle undulations towards the river, distant about a mile, and on it were three large herds of bara singhas feeding at one time; the nearest was not more than five hundred yards away from where I stood. There must have been at least fifty of them--stags, hinds, and fawns, feeding together in a lump, and outside the herd grazed three most enormous stags" ('Indian Sporting Review,' quoted by Jerdon). NO. 475. RUCERVUS _vel_ PANOLIA ELDII. _The Brown Antlered or Eld's Deer_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Thamin_, in Burmah; _Sungrai_ or _Sungnaie_, in Munipur, Eastern Himalayas, Terai, Munipur, Burmah, Siam, and the Malay peninsula. DESCRIPTION.--In body similar to the last, but with much difference in the horns, the tres-tine being greatly developed at the expense of the royal, which gives the antlers a forward cast; the brow-tine is also very long. In summer it is a light rufous brown, with a few faint indications of white spots; the under-parts and insides of ears nearly white; the tail short and black above. It is said to become darker in winter instead of lighter as in the last species. SIZE.--Height from 12 to 13 hands. This deer, which is identical with _Cervus frontalis_ and Hodgson's _Cervus dimorpha_, and which was discovered in 1838 by Captain Eld, has been well described by Lieutenant R. C. Beavan. The following extracts have been quoted by Professor Garrod; the full account will be found in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.' The food of this species seems to consist of grass and wild paddy. "In habits they are very wary and difficult of approach, especially the males. They are also very timid and easily startled. The males, however, when wounded and brought to bay with dogs, get very savage, and charge vigorously. On being disturbed they invariably make for the open instead of resorting to the heavy jungle, like hog deer and sambar. In fact the thamyn is essentially a plain-loving species; and although it will frequent tolerably open tree-jungle for the sake of its shade, it will never venture into dense and matted underwood. When first started the pace of the thamyn is great. It commences by giving three or four large bounds, like the axis or spotted deer, and afterwards settles down into a long trot, which it will keep up for six or seven miles on end when frequently disturbed." * * * * * The next phase of development of which we have examples in India is the true cervine or elaphine type of horn in which the brow-tine is doubled by the addition of the bez; the royal is greatly enlarged at the expense of the tres-tine, and breaks out into the branches known as the sur-royals. _GENUS CERVUS_. Horns as above, muzzle pointed, muffle large and broad, with a hairy band above the lip; hair coarse, and usually deep brown, with a light and sometimes almost white disc or patch round the tail, which is very short; eye-pits moderate. NO. 476. CERVUS CASHMIRIANUS. _The Kashmir Stag_ (_Cervus Wallichii of Jerdon, No. 217_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Hangul_ or _Honglu_ in Kashmir; _Barasingha_, Hindi. HABITAT.--Kashmir. Jerdon also gives out that it is found throughout great part of Western and Central Asia, as far as the eastern shores of the Euxine Sea, and that it is common in Persia, where it is called _maral_; but according to careful observations made by Sir Victor Brooke the _maral_ is a distinct species, to which I will allude further on. In Kashmir it frequents the Sind valley and its offshoots; the country above also. [Illustration: _Cervus Cashmirianus_.] DESCRIPTION.--Brownish-ash, darker along the dorsal line; caudal disk white, with a dark border; sides and limbs paler; ears light coloured; lips and chin and a circle round eyes white. The male has very long and shaggy hair on the lower part of the neck. The colour of the coat varies but little; at times it is liver-coloured or liver-brown, sometimes "bright pale rufous chestnut," with reddish patches on the inner sides of the hips. Jerdon says: "The belly of the male is dark brown, contrasting with the pale ashy hue of the lower part of the flanks; the legs have a pale dusky median line. In females the whole lower parts are albescent." SIZE.--Length, 7 to 7-1/2 feet; height, 12 to 13 hands; tail, 5 inches. The horns are very large and massive, with from ten to fifteen, or even more, points. Jerdon states that even eighteen points have been counted, but such cases are rare. Dr. Leith Adams says the largest he ever measured were four feet round the curves. "A. E. W." in his interesting papers on Kashmir game, published in _The Asian_, gives the following measurements of two heads:-- Inches. Inches. Length of horns. 47 46 Girth above brow antler. 7-3/4 8 Divergency at tips. Greatest. 56 50 Least. 29 32 Where obtained. Sindh Valley Sindh Valley I once saw a beautiful head at a railway-station, the property of an officer who had just come down from Kashmir, the horns of which appeared to me enormous. The owner afterwards travelled with me in the train, and gave me his card, which I regret I lost, and, having forgotten his name, I was never enabled to write to him, either on the subject of the horns or to send him some papers he wanted on Asiatic sheep. Dr. Leith Adams writes: "They (the horns) are shed in March, and the new horn is not completely formed till the end of October, when the rutting season commences, and the loud bellowings of the stags are heard all over the mountains." Of this bellowing Sir Victor Brooke says it is just like the voice of the Wapiti stag, which this animal closely resembles, and is quite different from that of the red deer. "In the former it is a loud squeal, ending in a more gutteral tone; in the latter it is a distinct roar, resembling that of a panther." Sir Victor Brooke also points out another peculiarity in this deer: namely, that "the second brow antler (bez) in _Cervus Cashmirianus_, with very rare exceptions, exceeds the brow antler in length; a peculiarity by which the antlers of this species may be distinguished from those of its allies." The female gives birth in April, and the young are spotted. The points on which this stag differs from the _maral_ are the longer and more pointed head of the latter. NO. 477. CERVUS AFFINIS _vel_ WALLICHII. _The Sikhim Stag_ (_Jerdon's No. 218_). NATIVE NAME.--_Shou_, Thibetan. HABITAT.--Eastern Himalayas; Thibet in the Choombi valley, on the Sikhim side of Thibet. DESCRIPTION.--Jerdon describes this stag as "of very large size; horns bifurcated at the tip in all specimens yet seen; horns pale, smooth, rounded, colour a fine clear grey in winter, with a moderately large disk; pale rufous in summer." Hodgson writes of the horns: "Pedicles elevate; burrs rather small; two basal antlers, nearly straight, so forward in direction as to overshadow the face to the end of the nasal; larger than the royal antlers; median or royal antlers directed forward and upwards; beam with a terminal fork, the prongs radiating laterally and equally, the inner one longest and thinnest." Jerdon adds: "Compared with the Kashmir stag this one has the beam still more bent at the origin of the median tine, and thus more removed from _C. elaphus_, and like _C. Wallichii_ (_C. Cashmirianus_)." The second basal tine or bez antler is generally present, even in the second pair of horns assumed. Moreover the simple bifurcation of the crown mentioned above is a still more characteristic point of difference both from the Kashmir _barasingha_ and the stag of Europe. Regarding the nomenclature of this species there seems to be some uncertainty. Jerdon himself was doubtful whether the _shou_ was not _C. Wallichii_, and the Kashmir stag _C. Cashmirianus_. He says: "It is a point reserved for future travellers and sportsmen to ascertain the limits of _C. Wallichii_ east and _C. affinis_ west, for, as Dr. Sclater remarks, it would be contrary to all analogy to find two species of the same type inhabiting one district." Sir Victor Brooke writes: "Should _Cervus Wallichii_ (_Cuvier_) prove to be specifically identical with _Cervus affinis_ (_Hodgson_), the former name, having priority, must stand." SIZE.--Length, about 8 feet; height at shoulders, 4-1/2 to 5 feet. Horns quoted by Jerdon 54 inches round curve, 47 inches in divergence between the two outer snags. Longest basal tine, 12 inches; the medians, 8 inches. * * * * * An allied stag, _Cervus maral_, is found in Circassia and Persia. Sir Victor Brooke mentions a pair kept for some years in one of his parks, which never interbred with the red deer, and kept apart from them. "The old stag _maral_, though considerably larger in size, lived in great fear of the red deer stag." Another very fine species, _Cervus Eustephanus_, was discovered by Mr. W. Blanford inhabiting the Thian Shan mountains. As yet it is only known from its antlers, which are of great size, and in their flattened crowns closely resemble Wapiti horns. TRAGULIDAE--THE CHEVROTIANS OR DEERLETS. Animals of small size and delicate graceful form, which are separated from the deer and oxen by certain peculiarities which approximate them to the swine in their feet. They are, however, ruminants, having the complex stomach, composed of paunch, honeycomb-bag and reed, the manyplies being almost rudimentary; but in the true ruminants the two centre metacarpals are fused into a single bone, whilst the outer ones are rudimentary. In the pig all the metacarpal bones are distinct, and the African Tragulus closely resembles it. The Asiatic ones have the two centre bones fused, but the inner and outer ones are entire and distinct as in the swine. The legs are, however, remarkably delicate, and so slight as to be not much thicker than an ordinary lead pencil. The males have pendant tusks, like those of the musk and rib-faced deer. _GENUS TRAGULUS_. Has the hinder part of metatarsus bald and callous. NO. 478. TRAGULUS NAPU. _The Javan Deerlet_. NATIVE NAME.--_Napu_. HABITAT.--Tenasserim and the Malay countries. [Illustration: _Tragulus napu_.] DESCRIPTION.--Above rusty brown, with three whitish stripes; under-parts white, tail tipped with white, muzzle black. * * * * * _Tragulus kauchil_ is another Malayan species yet smaller than the preceding; it may be found in Tenasserim. It is darker in colour than the last, especially along the back, with a broad black band across the chest. _GENUS MEMINNA_. Hinder edge of metatarsus covered with hair. NO. 479. MEMINNA INDICA. _Indian Mouse Deer_. NATIVE NAMES.--_Pisuri_, _Pisora_, _Pisai_, Hindi and Mahratti; _Mugi_ in Central India; _Turi-maoo_, Gondi; _Jitri-haran_, Bengali; _Gandwa_, Ooria; _Yar_ of the Koles; _Wal-mooha_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--In all the large forests of India; but is not known, according to Jerdon, in the countries eastward of the Bay of Bengal. It is common in the bamboo forests of the Central provinces, where I obtained it on several occasions. [Illustration: Mouse Deer. (From Sir Emerson Tennant's 'Ceylon,' by permission of Messrs. Longmans.)] DESCRIPTION.--"Above olivaceous, mixed with yellow grey; white below; sides of the body with yellowish-white lines formed of interrupted spots, the upper rows of which are joined to those of the opposite side by some transverse spots; ears reddish-brown" (_Jerdon_). The colour however varies; some are darker than others. SIZE.--Length, 22 to 23 inches; tail, 1-1/2 inches; height, 10 to 12 inches. Weight, 5 to 6 lbs. The above measurements and weight are taken from Jerdon. Professor Garrod (Cassell's Nat. His.) gives eighteen inches for length and eight inches for height, which is nearer the size of those I have kept in confinement; but mine were young animals. They are timid and delicate, but become very tame, and I have had them running loose about the house. They trip about most daintily on the tips of their toes, and look as if a puff of wind would blow them away. They are said to rut in June and July, and bring forth two young about the end of the rainy season. TRIBE TYLOPODA--THE CAMELS. This name, which is derived from the Greek [Greek: tulos], a swelling, pad, or knot, and [Greek: pous], a foot, is applied to the camels and llamas, whose feet are composed of toes protected by cushion-like soles, and not by a horny covering like those of the Artiodactyli generally. The foot of the camel consists of two toes tipped by small nails, and protected by soft pads which spread out laterally when pressed on the ground. The two centre metacarpal bones are fused into one cannon bone, and the phalanges of the outer and inner digits which are more or less traceable in all the other families of the Artiodactyli are entirely absent. The dentition of the camel too is somewhat different from the rest of the Ruminantia, for in the front of the upper jaw there are two teeth placed laterally, one on each side, whereas in all other ruminating animals there are no cutting teeth in the upper jaw--only a hard pad, on which the lower teeth are pressed in the act of tearing off herbage. The stomach of the camel is the third peculiarity which distinguishes it. The psalterium or manyplies is wanting. The abomasum or "reed" is of great length, and the rumen or paunch is lined with cells, deep and narrow, like those of a honeycomb, closed by a membrane, the orifice of which is at the control of the animal. These cells are for the purpose of storing water, of which the stomach when fully distended will hold about six quarts. The second stomach or reticulum is also deeply grooved. The hump of the camel may also be said to contain a store of food. It consists of fatty cells connected by bands of fibrous tissue, which are absorbed, like the fat of hibernating bears, into the system in times of deprivation. Hard work and bad feeding will soon bring down a camel's hump; and the Arab of the desert is said to pay particular attention to this part of his animal's body. There are two species of true camel, _Camelus dromedarius_, with one hump only, most commonly seen in India, and _C. bactrianus_, the two-humped camel, a shorter, coarser-looking, and less speedy animal. There never was a creature about whom more poetical nonsense has been written. He has been extolled to the skies as patient, long-suffering, the friend of man, and what not. In reality he is a grumbling, discontented, morose brute, working only under compulsion and continual protest, and all writers who know anything of him agree in the above estimate of his disposition. The camel is nowhere found in a wild state. ORDER EDENTATA. These are animals without teeth, according to the name of their order. They are however without teeth only in the front of the jaw in all, but with a few molars in some, the Indian forms however are truly edentate, having no teeth at all. In those genera where teeth are present there are molars without enamel or distinct roots, but with a hollow base growing from below and composed of three structures, vaso-dentine, hard dentine and cement, which, wearing away irregularly according to hardness, form the necessary inequality for grinding purposes. The order is subdivided into two groups: _Tardigrada_, or sloths, and _Effodientia_ or burrowers. With the former we have nothing to do, as they are peculiar to the American continent. The burrowers are divided into the following genera: _Manis_, the scaly ant-eaters; _Dasypus_, the armadillos; _Chlamydophorus_, the pichiciagos; _Orycteropus_, the ant-bears, and _Myrmecophaga_, the American ant-eaters. Of these we have only one genus in India; _Manis_, the pangolin or scaly ant-eater, species of which are found in Africa as well as Asia. _GENUS MANIS_. Small animals from two to nearly five feet in length; elongated cylindrical bodies with long tails, covered from snout to tip of tail with large angular fish-like scales, from which in some parts of India they are called _bun-rohu_, or the jungle carp; also in Rungpore _Keyot-mach_, which Jerdon translates the fish of the _Keyots_, but which probably means khet-mach or field-fish--but in this I am open to correction. The scales overlap like tiles, the free part pointing backwards. These form its defensive armour, for, although the _manis_ possesses powerful claws, it never uses them for offence, but when attacked rolls itself into a ball. In walking it progresses slowly, arching its back and doubling its fore-feet so as to put the upper surface to the ground and not the palm. The hind-foot is planted normally--that is, with the sole on the earth. The tongue is very long and worm-like, and covered with glutinous saliva; and, much of this moisture being required, the sub-maxillary glands are very large, reaching down under the skin of the neck on to the chest. The external ear is very small, and internally it is somewhat complicated, there being a large space in the temporal bone which communicates with the internal ear, so that, according to Professor Martin-Duncan, one tympanum is in communication with the other. These animals are essentially diggers. The construction of their fore-arms is such as to economise strength and the effectiveness of their excavating instruments. The very doubling up of their toes saves the points of their claws. The joints of the fore-fingers bend downwards, and are endowed with powerful ligaments; and in the wrist the scaphoid and semi-lunar bones are united by bone, which increases its strength. As Professor Martin-Duncan remarks: "Every structure in the creature's fore-limbs tends to the promotion of easy and powerful digging, and, as the motion of scratching the ground is directly downwards and backwards, the power of moving the wrist half-round and presenting the palm more or less upwards, as in the sloths and in man, does not exist. In order to prevent this pronation and supination the part of the fore-arm bone, the radius, next to the elbow, is not rounded, but forms part of a hinge joint." He also notices another interesting peculiarity in the chest of this animal, the breast-bone being very long; the cartilage at end large, with two long projections resembling those of the lizards. There is no collar-bone. NO. 480. MANIS PENTADACTYLA _vel_ BRACHYURA. _The Five-fingered or Short-tailed Pangolin_ (_Jerdon's No. 241_). NATIVE NAMES.--_Bajar-kit_, _Bajra-kapta_, _Sillu_, _Sukun-khor_, _Sal-salu_, Hindi; _Shalma_ of the Bauris; _Armoi_ of the Kols; _Kauli-mah_, _Kauli-manjra_, _Kassoli-manjur_, Mahratti; _Alawa_, Telegu; _Alangu_, Malabarese; _Bun-rohu_ in the Deccan, Central provinces, &c.; _Keyot-mach_, in Rungpore; _Katpohu_, in parts of Bengal; _Caballaya_, Singhalese. HABITAT.--Throughout India. Jerdon says most common in hilly districts, but nowhere abundant. I have found it myself in the Satpura range, where it is called _Bun-rohu_. [Illustration: _Manis pentadactyla_.] DESCRIPTION.--Tail shorter than the body, broad at the base, tapering gradually to a point. Eleven to thirteen longitudinal rows of sixteen scales on the trunk, and a mesial line of fourteen on the tail; middle nail of fore-foot much larger than the others. Scales thick, striated at base; yellowish-brown or light olive. Lower side of head, body, and feet, nude; nose fleshy; soles of hind-feet dark. SIZE.--Head and body, 24 to 27 inches; tail, about 18. Jerdon gives the weight of a female measuring 40 inches as 21 pounds. This species burrows in the ground to a depth of a dozen feet, more or less, where it makes a large chamber, sometimes six feet in circumference. It lives in pairs, and has from one to two young ones at a time in the spring months. Sir W. Elliot, who gives an interesting detailed account of it, says that it closes up the entrance to its burrow with earth when in it, so that it would be difficult to find it but for the peculiar track it leaves (_see_ 'Madras Journal,' x. p. 218). There is also a good account of it by Tickell in the 'Journal As. Soc. of Bengal,' xi. p. 221, and some interesting details regarding one in captivity by the late Brigadier-General A. C. McMaster in his 'Notes on Jerdon.' I have had specimens brought to me by the Gonds, but found them very somnolent during the day, being, as most of the above authors state, nocturnal in its habits. The first one I got had been kept for some time without water, and drank most eagerly when it arrived, in the manner described by Sir Walter Elliot, "by rapidly darting out its long extensile tongue, which it repeated so quickly as to fill the water with froth." The only noise it makes is a faint hiss. It sleeps rolled up, with the head between the fore-legs and the tail folded firmly over all. The natives believe in the aphrodisine virtues of its flesh. NO. 481. MANIS AURITA. _The Eared Pangolin_ (_Jerdon's No. 242_). HABITAT.--Sikhim, and along the hill ranges of the Indo-Chinese frontier. Dr. Anderson says it is common in all the hilly country east of Bhamo. DESCRIPTION.--Tail shorter and not so thick at the base as that of the last; the body less heavy; smaller and darker scales; muzzle acute; ears conspicuous; scales of head and neck not so small in proportion as in _M. pentadactyla_. SIZE.--Head and body of one mentioned by Jerdon, 19 inches; tail, 15-1/4 inches. NO. 482. MANIS JAVANICA. _The Javan Ant-eater_. HABITAT.--Burmah and the Malayan peninsula; also Tipperah. DESCRIPTION.--To be distinguished from the two preceding species by the greater number of longitudinal rows of scales, _M. pentadactyla_ having from eleven to thirteen, _M. aurita_ from fifteen to eighteen, and _M. Javanica_ nineteen. Taking the number of scales in the longitudinal mesial line from the nose to the tip of the tail in _M. pentadactyla_, it is forty-two; in _aurita_ forty-eight to fifty-six; in _Javanica_ as high as sixty-four; on the tail the scales are: _M. pentadactyla_, fourteen; _M. aurita_ sixteen to twenty; _M. Javanica_ thirty. * * * * * I am indebted to Dr. Anderson's 'Zoological and Anatomical Researches' for the following summary of characteristics:-- "_M. pentadactyla_ by its less heavy body; by its tail, which is broad at the base, tapering gradually to a point, and equalling the length of the head and trunk; by its large light olive-brown scales, of which there are only from eleven to thirteen longitudinal rows on the trunk, and a mesial line of fourteen on the tail; and by its powerful fore-claws, the centre one of which is somewhat more than twice as long as the corresponding claw of the hinder extremity. _M. aurita_ is distinguished from _M. pentadactyla_ by its less heavy body; by its rather shorter tail, which has less basal breadth than _M. pentadactyla_; by its smaller and darker brown, almost black scales in the adult, which are more numerous, there being from fifteen to eighteen longitudinal rows on the trunk, seventeen rows being the normal number, and sixteen to twenty caudal plates in the mesial line; and by its strong fore-claws, the middle one of which is not quite twice as long as the corresponding claw on the hind foot. "_M. Javanica_ is recognised by its body being longer and more attenuated than in the two foregoing species; by its narrower and more tapered tail; by its longer and more foliaceous or darker olive-brown scales, of which there are nineteen longitudinal rows on the trunk, and as many as thirty along the mesial line of the tail; and by the claws of the fore-feet being not nearly so long as in _M. aurita_, and being but little in excess of the claws of the hind-feet." APPENDIX A. FAMILY MYOXIDAE--THE DORMICE. These small rodents approximate more to the squirrels than the true mice; but they differ from all others intestinally by the absence of a caecum. They have four rooted molars in each upper and lower jaw, the first of each set being smaller than the other three, the crowns being composed of transverse ridges of enamel. In form they are somewhat squirrel-like, with short fore-limbs, and hairy, though not bushy, tails. The thumb is rudimentary, with a small, flat nail; hind-feet with five toes. [Illustration: Dentition of Dormouse (magnified).] The common English dormouse is a most charming little animal, and a great pet with children. I have had several, and possess a pair now which are very tame. They are elegant little creatures, about three inches long, with tails two and a-half inches; soft deep fur of a pale reddish-tawny above, pale yellowish-fawn below, and white on the chest. The eyes are large, lustrous, and jet-black. The tails of some are slightly tufted at the end. They are quite free from the objectionable smell of mice. In their habits they are nocturnal, sleeping all day and becoming very lively at night. I feed mine on nuts, and give them a slice of apple every evening; no water to drink, unless succulent fruits are not to be had, and then sparingly. The dormouse in its wild state lives on fruits, seeds, nuts and buds. In cold countries it hibernates, previous to which it becomes very fat. It makes for itself a little globular nest of twigs, grass, and moss, pine-needles, and leaves, in which it passes the winter in a torpid state. "The dormouse lives in small societies in thickets and hedgerows, where it is as active in its way amongst the bushes and undergrowth as its cousin the squirrel upon the larger trees. Among the small twigs and branches of the shrubs and small trees the dormice climb with wonderful adroitness, often, indeed, hanging by their hind feet from a twig, in order to reach and operate on a fruit or a nut which is otherwise inaccessible, and running along the lower surface of a branch with the activity and certainty of a monkey" (_Dallas_). This little animal is supposed to breed twice in the year--in spring and autumn. It is doubtful whether we have any true _Myoxidae_ in India, unless _Mus gliroides_ should turn out to be a _Myoxus_. The following is mentioned in Blanford's 'Eastern Persia': _Myoxus pictus_--new species, I think; I regret I have not the book by me at present--also _Myoxus dryas_, of which I find a pencil note in my papers. Mouse-red on the back, white belly with a rufous band between; white forehead; a black stripe from the nose to the ears, passing through the eye. [Illustration: _Myoxus_.] APPENDIX B. [Illustration: _Osteology of the Skull of Platanista Gangetica, section 257_. A. Side view. B. Upper view. C. Back tooth. D. Front tooth.] The above illustration was by accident omitted from the text. APPENDIX C. NOTES ON SOME OF THE FOREGOING SPECIES. _The Slow Loris_, No 28.--This creature sometimes assumes the erect posture, though in general it creeps. The following illustration shows an attitude observed and sketched by Captain Tickell, as the animal was about to seize a cockroach. When it had approached within ten or twelve inches, it drew its hind feet gradually forward until almost under its chest; it then cautiously and slowly raised itself up into a standing position, balancing itself awkwardly with its uplifted arms; and then, to his astonishment, flung itself, not upon the insect, which was off "like an arrow from a Tartar's bow," but on the spot which it had, half a second before, tenanted. [Illustration: Slow Loris and a cockroach.] _Trade Statistics of Fur-skins_, Mustelidae.--The Philadelphia _Times_, in an article on furs, says that the best sealskins come from the antarctic waters, principally from the Shetland Islands. New York receives the bulk of American skins, which are shipped to various ports. London is the great centre of the fur trade of the world. In the United States the sea-bear of the north has the most valuable skin. Since 1862 over 500,000 have been killed on Behring Island alone. In 1867 there were 27,500 sea-bears killed; in 1871 there was a very large decrease, only 3,614 being killed. There were 26,960 killed in 1876; and in 1880 the number killed was 48,504, a large increase. Sea-otter fur is about as expensive as any, and some 48,000 skins are used yearly. Over 100,000 marten or Russian sable skins are annually used. Only about 2,000 silver foxes are caught every year; and about 6,500 blue foxes. Other fox skins are used more or less. About 600 tiger skins are used yearly, over 11,000 wild cat skins, and a very large trade is being carried on in house cat skins. About 350,000 skunk and 42,000 monkey skins are utilised annually. The trade in ermine skins is falling off, as is also the trade in chinchilla. About 3,000,000 South American nutrias are killed every year, and a very large business is carried on in musk-rat skins. About 15,000 each of American bear and buffalo skins were used last year. There are also used each year about 3,000,000 lamb, 5,000,000 rabbit, 6,000,000 squirrel, and 620,000 filch skins; also 195,000 European hamster, and nearly 5,000,000 European and Asiatic hares. _Tigers_, No. 201.--Since writing on the subject of the size of tigers I have received the following extract from a letter addressed to the editor of _The Asian_. Both the animals were measured on the ground before being skinned, and in the presence of all whose names are given:-- "Tiger shot on the 6th of July, 1882. Party present: C. A. Shillingford, Esq.; J. L. Shillingford, Esq.; F. A. Shillingford, Esq.; A. J. Shillingford, Esq. Length of head, 1 ft. 8-1/2 in.; body, 5 ft. 6-1/2 in.; tail, 3 ft. 6-1/2 in.; total length, 10 ft. 9-1/2 in. Height at shoulder, 3 ft. 7 in. "Tiger shot on the 17th of March, 1883. Party present: The Earl of Yarborough; A. E. Fellowes, Esq.; Col. R. C. Money, B.S.C.; Capt. C. H. Mayne, A.D.C.; Lieut. R. Money; J. D. Shillingford, Esq. Length of head, 1 ft. 8 in.; body, 5 ft. 7 in.; tail, 3 ft. 5-1/2 in.; total length, 10 ft. 8-1/2 in. Height at shoulder, 3 ft. 8-1/2 in.; girth of head round jaw, 3 ft. 1-1/2 in.; girth of body round chest, 4 ft. 7 in. "The latter animal, though not so long as the former, was the larger animal of the two, being more massively built, and by far the finer specimen of a tiger. He was shot by Mr. Fellowes while out shooting in the Maharajah of Darbhanga's hunt in the Morung Terai." The following is an extract from a letter lately received by me from General Sir Charles Reid, K.C.B., with reference to an enormous tiger killed by him:-- "I had a tiger in the Exhibition of 1862, and which is now in the museum at Leeds, which was the largest tiger I ever killed or ever saw. As he lay on the ground he measured 12 feet 2 inches--his height I did not measure--from the tip of one ear to the tip of the other 19-1/2 inches. I never took skull measurements, nor did I ever weigh a tiger. I had another in the International Exhibition, which measured 11-1/2 feet fair measurement as he lay on the ground. The one at Leeds 12 feet 2 inches, as before mentioned, is not now more than 11 feet 6 inches. Mr. Ward was not satisfied with the Indian curing, and had it done over again, and it shrunk nearly a foot. The three tigers[41] mentioned are the largest I ever killed--all Dhoon tigers." [Footnote 41: The third tiger is one which Sir Charles Reid has had set up, and is now in his house; it measured, as he lay on the ground, 10 ft. 6 in. He then goes on to say that his father-in-law had killed in the Dhoon four or five tigers over 11 feet, and that the late Sir Andrew Waugh told him he had killed one in the same place 13 feet. He says: "I believe the Dhoon tigers are the largest and finest beasts that are found in any part of India." Their coats are longer and thicker also.] _Elephants_, No. 425--The two Indian elephants now in the Zoological Society's Gardens, in Regent's Park, are interesting examples of the growth of these animals in captivity. I regret extremely that I have not been able to get accurate statistics regarding them before leaving England; I was obliged to put off several proposed visits to the Gardens in consequence of ill health, and am now correcting the final proof-sheets of this work on board ship, preparatory to posting them at Suez, so I must trust to memory for what I heard concerning them. The large male, _Jung Pershad_, must be close upon nine feet high, and the female, _Suffa Kulli_, at least seven feet; and I was astonished to find that they were the same that I had seen as little things in the Prince of Wales's collection in 1876. _Suffa Kulli's_ age is not more than fifteen, yet she has been in a fair way of becoming a mother. There was no doubt as to the possibility, and she seemed to show some signs of it, but it ended in disappointment; however it is hoped that she will yet prove that these noble animals may be bred in captivity. _Osteology of the feet in Ruminantia_, Artiodactyla--The following illustrations were inadvertently omitted from the text in the section on the _Artiodactyla_. [Illustration: 1. Pig, or African deerlet. 2. Javan deerlet. 3. Roebuck. 4. Sheep. 5. Camel.] _Wild Boar_, No. 434.--A few days before leaving England, I called to say good-bye to an old friend well known in Calcutta and Lower Bengal, Dr. Charles Palmer. He asked me whether I had ever heard of a boar killing a tiger, and, on my answering in the affirmative, he told me he had just heard from his son, who had witnessed a fight between these two animals, in which the boar came off victorious, leaving his antagonist dead on the field. _Ovis Polii_, No. 438.--Mr. Carter in one of his letters to me says: "I see that you make the biggest horns of _Ovis Polii_ 53 inches from tip to tip. In a photo of one brought down by the Yarkhand Expedition, which had a foot rule laid close, so as to scale it, the distance from tip to tip is nearly five feet." I do not know which particular head is referred to, but two out of the three measurements given by me were of the finest heads brought down by the Expedition. There may have been a smaller pair with a wider spread, as the 73-inch horns I also mention, and which Sir Victor Brooke, to whom I sent a photograph, tells me is the finest head he has heard of, has only a spread of 48 inches. _Ovis cycloceros_, No. 443.--I gave from 25 to 30 inches as an average size for the horns of this species, but Captain W. Cotton, F.Z.S., writes to me that he sent home a pair of ovrial horns from Cabul, 35-1/2 inches, and that there is a pair in the R.A. mess at Attock 38-1/2 inches, but very thin. They were looted in the Jowaki campaign. This sheep has bred freely in the Zoological Society's Gardens, and two hybrids have been born there from a male of this species and the Corsican mouflon, _Ovis musimon_. I mentioned that there is in the Gardens a specimen of _Ovis Blanfordi_. I see by the Society's list that this was presented by Captain Cotton; the habitat given is Afghanistan. _The Wild Goat of Asia Minor_, No. 448.--Mr. Carter writes to me: "In one of your letters you mention the Scind ibex, which is a wild goat. I have a photo of a head 31 inches round curve, but Mr. Inverarity, barrister, Bombay, says he has seen one 52-1/2. The animal is not much bigger than the black buck." This last agrees with the estimate I formed from the specimens in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. _Tetraceros sub-quadricornutus_, No. 463.--It is doubtful whether Elliot's antelope should stand as a separate species; Blyth was against it, and Jerdon followed him, and I incline to think that it is only a variety. Dr. Sclater, to whom I mentioned the subject, appeared to me to agree in this view, but I see he includes it in his list of the Society's mammals. Being adverse to the multiplication of species, I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and included it with _T. quadricornis_; but, as I have received one or two letters from writers whose opinions are entitled to consideration, I mention them here, merely stating that I still feel inclined to doubt the propriety of promoting _sub-quadricornutus_ to the dignity of a species. Dr. Gray was certainly of opinion it was separate; but then, great naturalist as he was, his peculiar foible was minute sub-division. The claims of Elliot's antelope to separate rank are: absence of the anterior horns, or with only a trace; smaller size; lighter colour; but even the larger, darker _quadricornis_ is sometimes without the anterior horns; and, unless some other marked difference is found in the skull, it is hardly sufficient to warrant separation. However, I will give what others say on the subject. "I can scarcely agree with you as to Elliot's antelope not being a good species, I have therefore taken the trouble of having a most accurate and full-size sketch of the skull of one made, and if you will compare it with those of the ordinary _quadricornis_ I think you will see a well-marked difference. Dr. Gray wrote to me, and said that there was the recognised species of _sub-quadricornutus_."--Letter from Mr. H. R. P. Carter, "Smoothbore" of the _Field_. The following is an extract from a letter signed "Bheel," addressed to the editor of _The Asian_, which appeared in that paper:-- "In the jungles of Rajputana, especially about the Arravelli Range, I have shot repeatedly very small, exceedingly shy deer, called by the Bheels and shikaries in this part 'bhutar.' They are very much smaller than the four-horned antelope, having very sharp thin horns about two inches in length, which are perfectly smooth, as if polished, and black. The colour of the skin is light brown, somewhat like a chinkara, white inside the limbs and under the belly. The hair on the skin is short, smooth and glossy. The feet are exceedingly small, about one-third in size smaller than that of the four-horned antelope. They are very retiring little creatures, and very difficult to bag. They run, or, more appropriately, bound with amazing swiftness when disturbed, and disappear like some passing shadow. These little deer live on the lower spurs of the hills, and are generally found in pairs. They are very plump, and appear to be always in good condition. The last one I shot was last year. The females are hornless. "The four-horned antelope is described accurately by Mr. Sterndale, only that, in my humble opinion, I do not consider it to be the smallest of the ruminant species. The 'Bheel' name for this creature is 'fonkra.' It is found in the thick jungles at the foot of the hills. It selects some secluded spot, which it does not desert when disturbed, returning invariably to its hiding-place when the coast is clear. I noticed this very particularly. The hair of the 'fonkra' is comparatively much longer than the bhutar's, and the colour is a great deal darker. Could Mr. Sterndale kindly let me know the Latin name for the 'bhutar'? I am sure it can't be _Cervulus aureus_ (kakur, or barking deer), because the colour given of this deer is a beautiful bright glossy red or chesnut, while, as I have mentioned above, the colour of the bhutar is light brown." "Bheel's" "bhutar" is evidently Elliot's _sub-quadricornutus_. _The Gaur_, No. 464.--Jerdon doubted the existence of this animal in the Himalayan Terai, according to Hodgson's assertion; but Hodgson was right, for I have a letter before me which I received some time back from Dr. W. Forsyth, stating that a few days previously a companion of his shot a large solitary bull (6 feet 1 inch at the shoulder) in the Terai, and he himself knocked one and lost another the day before he wrote. The local name is _gauri-gai_. [Illustration: The Gaur.] I also received a letter through the columns of _The Asian_ from "Snapshot," vouching for the existence of the _gaur_ in the Darjeeling Terai. Another correspondent of _The Asian_ writes regarding the naming of this species:-- "In referring to Mr. Sterndale's descriptions of the gaur and gayal, in your issues of the 28th March and 11th April, I trust that that gentleman will not be offended by my making a few remarks on the subject, and that he will set me right if I am in the wrong. I see that he has perpetuated what appears to my unscientific self a mistake on the part of the old writers--Colebrooke, Buchanan, Trail, and others, who I fancy got confused, and mixed up the animals. The local name for the Central Indian ox is over a large tract of country the gayal, or gyll; and this, being the animal with the peculiar frontal development, was most probably named bos, or _Gavaeus frontalis_, whilst the mithun, or Eastern Bengal animal, was the gaur. It seems to me, therefore, that the names should be transposed. Will Mr. Sterndale consider this, if he has not already done so; and, if I am wrong, tell me why the animal with peculiar frontal development, and called the gayal locally, should not have been named _frontalis_, whilst the animal called mithun, with nothing peculiar in his frontal development, is so called? "Orissa, _April 15th, 1882_. "CHAMPSE. "P.S.--Do any of the Eastern Bengal races call this mithun gayal?" I think Hodgson's name _Bibos cavifrons_ is a sufficient proof that _Gavaeus gaurus_ is applicable to the animal with the high frontal crest, which is the species inhabiting the Himalayan Terai, and is locally known as the _gaur_, or _gauri-gai_. It is known as _gayal_ in some parts of India, but, where the people are familiar with the _mithun_, the _gaur_ is called _asl'gayal_, from whence Horsfield's name _Bibos asseel_. Probably the _mithun_ was called _frontalis_, under ignorance of a species with a still greater frontal development. _Gavaeus frontalis_ interbreeds freely with domesticated cattle of all kinds. In the Society's Gardens are several hybrids between this and _Bos Indicus_, one of which hybrids again interbred with American bison (_Bison Americanus_), the progeny being one-half bison, and one-quarter each _frontalis_ and _Indicus_. APPENDIX D. As many specimens are spoilt by either insufficient curing, or curing by wrong methods, I have asked Mr. Geo. F. Butt, F.Z.S., who was for many years manager to Edwin Ward, whom he has now succeeded, to give me a page or two of useful hints on the preservation of skins. The following notes are what he has kindly placed at my disposal. I know of no one I can more strongly recommend for good work than Mr. Butt. Some of his groups are works of art, with most lifelike finish. I have just seen a bear set up by him which seems almost to breathe. NOTES ON SKINNING THE MAMMALIA AND THE PRESERVATION OF SKINS. By GEO. F. BUTT, F.Z.S., Naturalist to the Royal Family, 49, Wigmore Street, London, W. The quadruped killed, the first and important step is to plug up the nostrils and throat with cotton-wool or tow, as also any wound from which blood may escape. Place the animal on its back, make a longitudinal incision with the knife at the lower part of the belly (the vent), and thence in as straight a line as possible extending to the chin bone, taking particular care that during the operation the hair is carefully divided and not cut. Vertical incisions may then be made extending down the inside of each leg to the claws. The skin can then be turned back in every direction as far as the extent of the incisions will admit of--the legs may now be freed from the skin. Next make a straight incision down the under part of the tail to the tip, turn the skin back until it is free. Having executed this, there remains only to remove the skin from the back and head; to do this place the carcase on its side, and with the scalpel carefully separate the skin by drawing it towards the head, in skinning which care being taken to cut the ears as close to the skull as possible, leaving the cartilage in the skin; the eyelids, also nose and lips, should be carefully skinned without injury. The skin is now free from the carcase. Turn the ears inside out, the nostrils, lips, and feet, removing all cartilage and flesh. Place the skin open on the ground with the fur side down, and remove the flesh and pieces of fat adhering; scrape the skin well, so as to get away all the loose particles of under-skin or pelt. When this has been thoroughly done, take powdered alum plentifully, and, with a _very_ small quantity of common salt, rub well into the skin, especially into the ears, nostrils, lips, and feet, so that every portion of the skin is powerfully impregnated. Allow the skin to lie in this condition for an hour or so, then place it on a line or branch to dry. The operation should be carried on in the shade, if possible. If the specimen is not for stuffing it may be pegged out to dry on the ground, but in no one instance should a skin be unduly strained out of shape, which is often done in order to make it appear larger than it really is, a mistake which is very common. When this operation is completed, and the skin dry, it is ready for packing, and should be folded, with the fur or hair inside, and placed in a sound box or case well protected against the visits of ants, beetles, or moth. Where it is intended that the animal should be ultimately stuffed whole, it is necessary to preserve the leg bones. These should be separated from the trunk at the os humeri or shoulder-joint, and at the os femoris or thigh bones; these bones cleanse from flesh. The skull in every instance should be preserved: remove the flesh and brain; to do this place the skull in boiling water for five or ten minutes--in the case of small skulls for five minutes only, care being taken that the teeth are not lost. In packing skulls each one should be tied up in paper, marked with a corresponding number to the skin to which it belongs, and packed firmly, to prevent rolling about, the result of which is often broken teeth and disappointment. Another excellent method for the preservation of skins of mammalia, where convenience will permit, and which can be followed with confidence, is as follows: After the skin has been treated according to the directions given--viz. thoroughly scraped and cleansed of all adherent particles of flesh, &c.--place it entirely in a tub or cask in which a solution or pickle has been previously prepared, as follows: to every gallon of cold water add 1 lb. powdered alum, 1/2 oz. saltpetre, 2 oz. common salt; well mix. Allow the skin to remain about a couple of days, after which hang it up to dry and for packing. INDEX. A. Acanthion longicauda, 405 Ailuropus melanoleucos, 168 Ailurus fulgens, 169 Alactaga Indica, 401 Antelope bezoartica, 461 Anurosorex Assamensis, 149 Aonyx leptonyx, 199 Arctictis binturong, 235 Arctomys aureus, 313 " bobac, 310 " caudatus, 311 " dichrous, 314 " Hemachalanus, 312 " robustus, 315 Arctonyx collaris, 170 " taxoides, 171 Arvicola Blanfordi, 391 " Blythii, 392 " mandarinus, 393 " melanogaster, 395 " Roylei, 390 " Sikimensis, 394 " Stoliczkanus, 387 " Stracheyi, 388 " Wynnei, 389 Atherura fasciculata, 402 Axis maculatus, 472 " porcinus, 473 B. Balaenoptera Indica, 271 Barbastellus communis, 120 Bubalus arni, 468 Budorcas taxicolor, 455 C. Canis aureus, 248 " laniger, 246 " lupus, 247 " pallipes, 245 " rutilans, 249 Capra aegagrus, 448 " hylocrius, 450 " Jemlaicus, 449 " megaceros, 446 " Sibirica, 447 Cervulus muntjac _vel_ aureus, 470 Cervus affinis _vel_ Wallichii, 477 " Cashmirianus, 476 " maral, 477 Coelops Frithii, 68 Corsira Alpina, 148 Cricetus fulvus, 331 " phaeus, 330 Cuon rutilans, 249 Cynonycteris amplexicaudata, 32 Cynopterus marginatus, 33 D. Delphinus fusiformis, 265 " gadamu, 262 " lentiginosus, 263 " longirostris, 267 " maculiventer, 264 " perniger, 260 " plumbeus, 261 " pomeegra, 266 " velox, 268 Dipus lagopus, 400 E. Elephas Indicus, 425 Eonycteris spelaea, 35 Equus hemionus, 427 " onager, 426 Erinaceus Blanfordi, 154 " collaris, 150 " Grayi, 153 " Jerdoni, 155 " megalotis, 156 " micropus, 151 " pictus, 152 Euphysetes simus, 270 F. Felis aurata, 210 " Bengalensis, 208 " caracal, 218 " chaus, 216 " Diardii _vel_ macrocelis, 205 " isabellina, 217 " Jerdoni, 209 " jubata, 219 " leo, 200 " manul, 213 " marmorata, 207 " panthera, 203 " pardus, 202 " rubiginosa, 211 " scripta, 214 " Shawiana, 215 " tigris, 201 " torquata, 212 " uncia, 204 " viverrina, 206 Feroculus macropus, 138 G. Galaeopithecus volans, 30 Gavaeus frontalis, 465 " gaurus, 464 " Sondaicus, 466 Gazella Bennetti, 456 " fuscifrons, 457 " picticaudata, 459 " subgutterosa, 458 Gerbillus cryptorhinus, 319 " erythrurus, 320 " Hurrianae, 318 " Indicus, 317 " nanus, 321 Globicephalus Indicus, 269 Golunda Ellioti, 378 " meltada, 379 Gymnura Rafflesii, 162 H. Halicore dugong, 272 Hapalomys longicaudatus, 380 Harpiocephalus auratus, 101 " cyclotis, 104 " griseus, 102 " harpia, 99 " leucogaster, 103 " suillus, 100 Helarctos gedrosianus, 165 " Malayanus, 166 " Tibetanus, 164 Helictis moschata, 176 " Nipalensis, 175 Hemitragus hylocrius, 450 " Jemlaicus, 449 Herpestes auropunctatus, 239 " ferrugineus, 242 " fuscus, 240 " Jerdoni _vel_ monticolus, 237 " Maccarthiae, 241 " pallidus _vel_ griseus, 236 " Smithii, 238 " vitticollis, 243 Hipposideros armiger, 54 " Blythii, 60 " cineraceus, 57 " diadema, 61 " larvatus, 58 " murinus, 56 " speoris, 55 " vulgaris, 59 Hyaena striata, 220 Hylobates hooluck, 1 " lar, 2 " syndactylus, 3 Hystrix Bengalensis, 404 " leucura, 403 " longicauda, 405 " Yunnanensis, 406 I. Inuus arctoides, 22 " leoninus, 21 " nemestrinus, 20 " pelops, 19 " rhesus, 18 " silenus, 17 " Thibetanus, 23 K. Kerivoula Hardwickii, 107 " pallida, 105-106 " papillosa, 106 " picta, 105 L. Lagomys auritus, 421 " Curzoniae, 419 " griseus, 423 " Ladacensis, 420 " macrotis, 422 " Roylei, 418 " rufescens, 424 Lasiurus Pearsonii, 99 Leggada Jerdoni, 376 " lepida, 377 " platythrix, 374 " spinulosa, 375 Lepus craspedotis, 416 " hispidus, 417 " hypsibius, 410 " nigricollis, 408 " pallipes, 411 " Pamirensis, 414 " Peguensis, 409 " ruficaudatus, 407 " Stoliczkanus, 415 " Tibetanus, 412 " Yarkandensis, 413 Loris gracilis, 29 Lutra aurobrunnea, 198 " Ellioti, 197 " monticola _vel_ simung, 196 " nair, 195 M. Macacus arctoides, 22 " carbonarius, 27 " cynomolgus, 26 " leoninus, 21 " nemestrinus, 20 " pelops, 19 " pileatus, 25 " radiatus, 24 " rhesus, 18 " silenus, 17 " Thibetanus, 23 Macroglossus minimus, 34 Manis aurita, 481 " Javanica, 482 " pentadactyla _vel_ brachyura, 480 Martes abietum, 178 " flavigula, 177 " toufoeus, 179 Megaderma lyra, 36 " spasma, 38 " spectrum, 37 Meles albogularis, 173 " leucurus, 172 Mellivora Indica, 174 Melursus labiatus, 167 Meminna Indica, 479 Miniopterus Schreibersii, 119 Moschus moschiferus, 469 Mus aequicaudalis, 349 " Andamanensis, 334 " bactrianus, 359 " badius, 352 " Beaveni, 368 " brunneus, 340 " caudatior, 344 " cervicolor, 364 " Ceylonus, 347 " Chevrieri, 385 " concolor, 345 " Confucianus, 384 " crassipes, 360 " cunicularis, 369 " Darjeelingensis, 357 " decumanus, 333 " Elliotanus, 328 " erythronotus, 363 " erythrotis, 370 " flavipectus, 382 " fulvidiventris, 371 " giganteus, 329 " gliroides, 353 " griseipectus, 383 " homourus, 356 " infralineatus, 339 " Khakhyenensis, 372 " Nilagiricus, 351 " nitidulus, 367 " nitidus, 343 " niveiventer, 342 " oleraceus, 350 " ouang-thomae, 381 " pachycercus, 362 " palmarum, 346 " Peguensis, 354; ibid. 366 (By oversight this species has been twice described.) " plurimammis, 348 " pygmaeus, 386 " rattus, 332 " robustulus, 335 " rubricosa, 337 " rufescens, 341 " Sladeni, 336 " sublimis, 361 " terricolor, 365 " Tytleri, 358 " urbanus, 355 " viculorum, 373 " Yunnanensis, 338 Mustela alpina, 187 " canigula, 184 " erminea, 183 " Hodgsoni, 188 " Horsfieldi, 189 " kathiah, 181 " Sibirica, 186 " Stoliczkana, 185 " strigidorsa, 182 Myotis murinus, 108 " parvipes, 110 " Theobaldi, 109 Myoxus, Appendix A N. Nemorhoedus bubalina, 451 " Edwardsii, 453 " goral, 454 " rubida _vel_ Sumatrensis, 452 Nesokia Barclayiana, 327 " Blythiana, 326 " Elliotanus, 328 " giganteus, 329 " Hardwickii, 322 " Huttoni, 323 " providens, 325 " Scullyi, 324 Noctulinia noctula, 97-98 Nycticebus tardigradus, 28 Nycticejus atratus, 97-98 " canus, 97-98 " castaneus, 97-98 " Heathii, 97-98 " luteus, 97-98 " nivicolus, 97-98 " ornatus, 97-98 " Temminckii, 97-98 Nyctogale elegans, 147 Nyctophilus Geoffroyi, 121 O. Orcella brevirostris, 258 " fluminalis, 259 Ovis Blanfordii, 444 " Brookei, 441 " cycloceros, 443 " Hodgsoni, 439 " Karelini, 440 " nahura _vel_ burhel, 445 " Polii, 438 " Vignei, 442 P. Panolia Eldii, 475 Pantholops Hodgsonii, 460 Paradoxurus bondar, 230 " Grayii, 229 " laniger, 234 " leucotis, 232 " musanga, 228 " trivirgatus, 231 " zeylanicus, 233 Phyllorhina armigera, 64 " bicolor, 67 " diadema, 61 " galerita, 66 " leptophylla, 65 " Masoni, 62 " Nicobarensis, 63 Physeter simus, 270 Platacanthomys lasiurus, 316 Platanista Gangetica, 257 Plecotus auritus _vel_ homochrous, 77 Poephagus grunniens, 467 Porcula Salvania, 437 Portax pictus _vel_ tragocamelus, 462 Presbytes albinus, 16 " Barbei, 10 " cephalopterus, 13 " entellus, 4 " Johnii, 7 " jubatus, 8 " obscurus, 12 " Phayrei, 11 " pileatus, 9 " priamus, 6 " schistaceus, 5 " thersites, 15 " ursinus, 14 Prionodon gracilis, 227 " maculosus, 226 " pardicolor, 225 Pteromys albiventer, 303 " alboniger, 308 " alborufus, 301 " caniceps, 304 " cineraceus, 298 " fimbriatus, 307 " magnificus, 302 " melanopterus, 300 " oral, 297 " Pearsonii, 305 " spadiceus, 309 " Yunnanensis, 299 Pteropus Edwardsii _vel_ medius, 31 " Leschenaultii, 32 " minimus, 34 Putorius astutus, 193 " Davidianus, 192 " larvatus _vel_ Tibetanus, 191 " Moupinensis, 194 R. Rhinoceros Indicus, 429 " lasiotis, 431 " Sondaicus, 430 " Sumatrensis, 432 Rhinolophus affinis, 43 " Andamanensis, 48 " coelophyllus, 50 " Garoensis, 51 " macrotis, 45 " minor, 49 " mitratus, 40 " Pearsonii, 42 " perniger _vel_ luctus, 39 " Petersii, 52 " rammanika, 47 " rouxi, 44 " sub-badius, 46 " tragatus _vel_ ferrum-equinum, 41 " trifoliatus, 53 Rhinopoma Hardwickii, 69 Rhinosciurus tupaoides, 296 Rhizomys badius, 396 " erythrogenys, 397 " minor, 399 " pruinosus, 398 Rucervus Duvaucelli, 474 " Eldii, 475 Rusa Aristotelis, 471 S. Sciurus atrodorsalis, 283 " Berdmorei, 294 " Blanfordii, 282 " caniceps, 280 " erythraeus, 284 " ferrugineus, 288 " giganteus, 276 " Gordoni, 285 " hippurus, 286 " Indicus, 273 " Layardi, 291 " lokriah, 277 " lokroides, 278 " macrourus, 275 " maximus, 274 " palmarum, 289 " Phayrei, 281 " pygerythrus, 279 " quinquestriatus, 295 " Sladeni, 287 " sublineatus, 292 " tristriatus, 290 " tupaoides, 296 Scotophilus emarginatus, 95 " fuliginosus, 92 " Heathii, 94 " ornatus, 96 " pallidus, 97 " Temminckii, 93 Semnopithecus albinus, 16 " Barbei, 10 " cephalopterus, 13 " entellus, 4 " Johnii, 7 " jubatus, 8 " obscurus, 12 " Phayrei, 11 " pileatus, 9 " priamus, 6 " schistaceus, 5 " thersites, 15 " ursinus, 14 Sorex atratus, 144 " caerulescens, 125 " ferrugineus, 135 " Griffithi, 136 " heterodon, 137 " Hodgsoni, 139 " leucops, 132 T. Taphozous longimanus, 70 " melanopogon, 71 " Kachhensis, 74 " saccolaimus, 72 " Theobaldi, 73 Tapirus Malayanus, 428 Taxidia leucurus, 172 Tetraceros quadricornis, 463 Tragulus napu, 478 Tupaia Chinensis, 160 " Ellioti, 158 " Nicobarica, 161 " Peguana _vel_ Belangeri, 159 U. Ursus gedrosianus, 165 " Isabellinus, 163 " labiatus, 167 " Malayanus, 166 " torquatus _vel_ Tibetanus, 164 Urva cancrivora, 244 V. Vespertilio Coromandelicus, 90 " emarginatus, 118 " formosus, 116 " longipes, 111 " montivagus, 114 " muricola, 113 " murinoides, 115 " murinus, 108 " mystacinus, 112 " Nepalensis, 117 Vesperugo Abramus, 90 " affinis, 81 " annectans, 86 " atratus, 83 " Coromandelianus, 90 " dormeri, 87 " Leisleri, 89 " leucotis, 79 " lobatus, 91 " maurus, 80 " noctula, 78 " pachyomus, 89-90 " pachyotis, 82 " pachypus, 85 " serotinus, 88 " Tickelli, 84 Viverra civettina, 222 " Malaccensis, 224 " megaspila, 223 " zibetha, 221 Vulpes Bengalensis, 250 " ferrilatus, 252 " flavescens, 255 " Griffithii, 256 " leucopus, 251 " montanus, 253 " pusillus, 254 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 
13552	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 13552-h.htm or 13552-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/3/5/5/13552/13552-h/13552-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/3/5/5/13552/13552-h.zip) CEYLON; AN ACCOUNT OF THE ISLAND PHYSICAL, HISTORICAL, AND TOPOGRAPHICAL WITH NOTICES OF ITS NATURAL HISTORY, ANTIQUITIES AND PRODUCTIONS by SIR JAMES EMERSON TENNENT, K.C.S. LL.D. &c. Illustrated by Maps, Plans and Drawings Fourth Edition, Thoroughly Revised VOLUME I LONDON 1860 [Illustration: Frontispiece for Vol I NOOSING WILD ELEPHANTS--Vol 2 p 359 368 &c] CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME PART I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. CHAPTER I. GEOLOGY.--MINERALOGY.--GEMS. I. General Aspect. Singular beauty of the island Its ancient renown in consequence Fable of its "perfumed winds" (note) Character of the scenery II. Geographical Position Ancient views regarding it amongst the Hindus,--"the Meridian of Lanka" Buddhist traditions of former submersions (note) Errors as to the dimensions of Ceylon Opinions of Onesicritus, Eratosthenes, Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, Agathemerus 8, The Arabian geographers Sumatra supposed to be Ceylon (note) True latitude and longitude General Eraser's map of Ceylon (note) Geological formation Adam's Bridge Error of supposing Ceylon to be a detached fragment of India III. The Mountain System Remarkable hills, Mihintala and Sigiri Little evidence of volcanic action Rocks, gneiss Rock temples Laterite or "Cabook" Ancient name Tamba-panni (note) Coral formation Extraordinary wells Darwin's theory of coral wells examined (note) The soil of Ceylon generally poor "Patenas," their phenomena obscure Rice lands between the hills Soil of the plains, "Talawas" IV. Metals.--Tin Gold, nickel, cobalt Quicksilver (note) Iron V. Minerals.--Anthracite, plumbago, kaolin, nitre caves List of Ceylon minerals (note) VI. Gems, ancient fame of Rose-coloured quartz (note) Mode of searching for gems Rubies Sapphire, topaz, garnet, and cinnamon stone, cat's-eye, amethyst, moonstone 37, Diamond not found in Ceylon (note) Gem-finders and lapidaries VII. Rivers.--Their character The Mahawelli-ganga Table of the rivers VIII. Singular coast formation, and its causes The currents and their influence Word "Gobb" explained (note) Vegetation of the sand formations Their suitability for the coconut IX. Harbours.--Galle and Trincomalie Tides Red infusoria Population of Ceylon CHAP. II. CLIMATE.--HEALTH AND DISEASE. Uniformity of temperature Brilliancy of foliage Colombo.--January--long shore wind February--cold nights (note) March, April May--S.W. monsoon Aspect of the country before it Lightning Rain, its violence June July and August, September, October, November. N.E. monsoon December Annual quantity of rain in Ceylon and Hindustan (note) Opposite climates of the same mountain Climate of Galle Kandy and its climate Mists and hail Climate of Trincomalie (text and note) Jaffna and its climate Waterspouts Anthelia Buddha rays Ceylon as a sanatarium.--Neuera-ellia Health Malaria Food and wine 76, Effects of the climate of Ceylon on disease Precautions for health CHAP. III VEGETATION.--TREES AND PLANTS. The Flora of Ceylon imperfectly known Vegetation similar to that of India and the Eastern Archipelago Trees of the sea-borde.--Mangroves--Screw-pines, Sonneratia The Northern Plains.--Euphorbiæ Cassia.--Mustard-tree of Scripture Western coast.--Luxurious vegetation Eastern coast Pitcher plant.--Orchids Vines Botany of the Mountains.--Iron-wood, Bamboo, European fruit-trees Tea-plant--_Rhododendron_--_Mickelia_ Rapid disappearance of dead trees in the forests Trees with natural buttresses Flowering Trees.--Coral tree The Murutu--Imbul--Cotton tree--Champac The Upas Tree--Poisons of Ceylon The Banyan The Sacred Bo-tree The India Rubber-tree--The Snake-tree Kumbuk-tree: lime in its bark Curious Seeds.--The Dorian, _Sterculia foetida_ The Sea Pomegranate Strychnos, curious belief as to its poison _Euphorbia_--The Cow-tree, error regarding (note) Climbing plants, Epiphytes, and flowering creepers Orchids--Brilliant terrestrial orchid, the Wanna-raja.--Square-stemmed Vine Gigantic climbing Plants Enormous bean Bonduc seeds.--Ratans--Ratan bridges Thorny Trees.--Raised as a natural fortification by the Kandyans The buffalo thorn, _Acacia tomentosa_ Palms Coco-nut--Talipat Palmyra Jaggery Palm--Arcea Palm Betel-chewing, its theory and uses Pingos Timber Trees Jakwood--Del--Teak Suria Cabinet Woods.--Satin-wood--Ebony--Cadooberia Calamander, its rarity and beauty Tamarind Fruit-trees Remarkable power of trees to generate cold and keep their fruit chill Aquatic Plants--Lotus, red and blue Desmanthus natans, an aquatic sensitive plant PART II. ZOOLOGY. CHAPTER I. MAMMALIA. Neglect of Zoology in Ceylon Monkeys Wanderoo Error regarding the _Silenus Veter_ (note) Presbytes Cephalopterus P. Ursinus in the Hills P. Thersites in the Wanny P. Priamus, Jaffna and Trincomalie No dead monkey ever found Loris Bats Flying fox Horse-shoe bat Carnivora.--Bears Their ferocity Singhalese belief in the efficacy of charms (note) Leopards Curious belief Anecdotes of leopards Palm-cat Civet Dogs Jackal The horn of the jackal Mungoos Its fights with serpents Theory of its antidote Squirrels Flying squirrel Tree rat Story of a rat and a snake Coffee rat Bandicoot Porcupine Pengolin _Ruminantia_.--The Gaur Oxen Humped cattle Encounter of a cow and a leopard Buffaloes Sporting buffaloes Peculiar structure of the hoof Deer Meminna Elephants Whales General view of the mammalia of Ceylon List of Ceylon mammalia Curious parasite of the bat (note) CHAP. II. BIRDS. Their numbers Songsters Hornbills, the "bird with two heads" Pea fowl Sea birds, their number I. _Accipitres_.--Eagles Falcons and hawks Owls--the devil bird II. _Passeres_.--Swallows Kingfishers--sunbirds Bul-bul--tailor bird--and weaver Crows, anecdotes of III. _Scansores_.--Parroquets IV. _Columbiæ_.--Pigeons V. _Gallinæ_.--Jungle-fowl VI. _Grallæ_.--Ibis, stork, &c. VII. _Anseres_.--Flamingoes Pelicans Game.--Partridges, &c.176 List of Ceylon birds List of birds peculiar to Ceylon CHAP. III. REPTILES. Lizards.--Iguana Kabragoya, barbarous custom in preparing the cobra-tel poison (note) The green calotes Chameleon Ceratophora Geckoes,--their power of reproducing limbs 185, Crocodiles Their power of burying themselves in the mud Tortoises--Curious parasite Land tortoises Edible turtle Huge Indian tortoises (note) Hawk's-bill turtle, barbarous mode of stripping it of the tortoise-shell Serpents.--Venomous species rare Cobra de capello Instance of land snakes found at sea Tame snakes (note) Singular tradition regarding the cobra de capello Uropeltidæ.--New species discovered in Ceylon Buddhist veneration for the cobra de capello Anecdotes of snakes The Python Water snakes Snake stones Analysis of one Cæcilia Large frogs Tree frogs List of Ceylon reptiles CHAP. IV. FISHES. Ichthyology of Ceylon, little known Fish for table, seir fish Sardines, poisonous? Sharks Saw-fish Fish of brilliant colours Curious fish described by Ælian (note) Fresh-water fish, little known,--not much eaten Fresh-water fish in Colombo Lake Immense profusion of fish in the rivers and lakes Their re-appearance after rain Mode of fishing in the ponds Showers of fish Conjecture that the ova are preserved, not tenable Fish moving on dry land Instances in Guiana (note) Perca Scandens, ascends trees Doubts as to the story of Daldorf Fishes burying themselves during the dry season The _protopterus_ of the Gambia Instances in the fish of the Nile Instances in the fish of South America Living fish dug out of the ground in the dry tanks in Ceylon Other animals that so bury themselves, Melaniæ, Ampullariæ, &c. The animals that so bury themselves in India (note) Analogous case of (note) Theory of æstivation and hybernation Fish in hot-water in Ceylon List of Ceylon fishes Instances of fishes failing from the clouds Overland migration of fishes known to the Greeks and Romans Note on Ceylon fishes by Professor Huxley Comparative note by Dr. Gray, Brit. Mus.231 CHAP. V. MOLLUSCA, RADIATA, AND ACALEPHÆ. I. Conchology--General character of Ceylon shells Confusion regarding them in scientific works and collections List of Ceylon shells II. _Radiata_.--Star fish Sea slugs Parasitic worms Planaria III. _Acalephæ_, abundant Corals little known CHAP. VI. INSECTS. Profusion of insects in Ceylon Imperfect knowledge of I. _Coleoptera_.--Beetles Scavenger beetles Coco-nut beetles Tortoise beetles II. _Orthoptera_.--Mantis and leaf-insects Stick-insects III. _Neuroptera_--Dragon flies Ant-lion White ants Anecdotes of their instinct and ravages (text and note) V. _Hymenoptera_.--Mason Wasps Wasps Bees Carpenter Bee Ants Burrowing ants VI. _Lepidoptera_.--Butterflies Sylph Lycænidæ Moths Silk worms (text and note) Wood-carrying Moths Pterophorus VII. _Homoptera_ Cicada VIII. _Hemiptera_ Bugs IX. _Aphaniptera_ X. _Diptera_.--Mosquitoes General character of Ceylon insects List of insects in Ceylon CHAP. VII. ARACHNIDE, MYRIOPODA, CRUSTACEA, ETC. Spiders Strange nests of the wood spiders _Olios Taprobanius_ _Mygale fasciata_ Ticks Mites.--_Trombidium tinctorum_ Myriapods.--Centipedes Cermatia Scolopendra crassa S. pollipes _Millipeds_--Iulus _Crustacea_ Calling crabs Land crabs Painted crabs Paddling crabs _Annelidæ_, Leeches.--The land leech Medical leech Cattle leech List of Articulata, &c.307 PART III. THE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. CHAPTER I. SOURCES OF SINGHALESE HISTORY--THE MAHAWANSO. Ceylon formerly thought to have no authentic history Researches of Turnour Biographical sketch of Turnour (note) The Mahawanso Recovery of the "tika" on the Mahawanso Outline of the Mahawanso Turnour's epitome of Singhalese history Historical proofs of the Mahawanso Identity of Sandracottus and Chandragupta Ancient map of Ceylon (note) List of Ceylon sovereigns CHAP. II. THE ABORIGINES. Singhalese histories all illustrative of Buddhism A Buddha Gotama Buddha, his history Amazing prevalence of his religion (note) His three visits to Ceylon Inhabitants of the island at that time supposed to be of Malayan type Legend of their Chinese origin Probably identical with the aborigines of the Dekkan Common basis of their language Characteristics of vernacular Singhalese State of the aborigines before Wijayo's invasion Story of Wijayo The natives of Ceylon described as _Yakkos_ and _Nagas_ Traces of serpent-worship in Ceylon Coincidence of the Mahawanso with the Odyssey (note) CHAP. III. CONQUEST OF WIJAYO, B.C. 543.--ESTABLISHMENT OF BUDDHISM, B.C. 307. Early commerce of Ceylon described by the Chinese Wijayo as a colonizer His treatment of the native population B.C. 505. His death and successors A number of petty kingdoms formed Ceylon divided into three districts: Pihiti, Rohuna, and Maya The village system established Agriculture introduced Irrigation imported from India The first tank constructed, B.C. 504 (note) Rapid progress of the island Toleration of Wijayo and his followers Establishment of Buddhism, 307 B.C. Preaching of Mahindo Planting of the sacred Bo-tree CHAP. IV. THE BUDDHIST MONUMENTS. Buddhist architecture introduced in Ceylon The first _dagobas_ built Their mode of construction and vast dimensions The earliest Buddhist temples Images and statues a later innovation First residences of the priesthood The formation of monasteries and _wiharas_ The first wihara built Form of the modern wiharas Inconvenient numbers of the Buddhist priesthood Originally fed by the kings and the people Caste annulled in the case of priests The priestly robe and its peculiarities CHAP. V. SINGHALESE CHIVALRY.--ELALA AND DUTUGAIMUNU. Progress of civilisation The new settlers agriculturists Malabars enlisted as soldiers and seamen B.C. 237. The revolt of Sena and Gutika B.C. 205. Usurpation of Elala His character and renown The victory of Dutugaimunu Progress of the south of the island Building of the great Ruanwellé Dagoba Building of the Brazen Palace Its vicissitudes and ruins Death and character of Dutugaimunu CHAP. VI. THE INFLUENCES OP BUDDHISM ON CIVILISATION. The Mahawanse or Great Dynasty The Suluwanse or Inferior Dynasty Services rendered by the Great Dynasty Frequent usurpations and the cause Disputed successions Rising influence of the priesthood B.C. 104. Their first endowment with land Rapid increase of the temple estates Their possessions and their vow of poverty reconciled Acquire the compulsory labour of temple-tenants Impulse thus given to cultivation And to the construction of enormous tanks Tanks conferred on the temples The great tank of Minery formed, A.D. 272 Subserviency of the kings to the priesthood Large possessions of the temples at the present day Cultivation of flowers for the temples Their singular profusion Fruit trees planted by the Buddhist sovereigns Edicts of Asoca CHAP. VII. FATE OF THE ABORIGINES. Aborigines forced to labour for the new settlers Immensity of the structures erected by them Slow amalgamation of the natives with the strangers The worship of snakes and demons continued Treatment of the aborigines by the kings Their formal disqualification for high office Their rebellions They retire into the mountains and forests Their singular habits of seclusion Traces of their customs at the present day CHAP. VIII. EXTINCTION OF THE GREAT DYNASTY. B.C. 104 Walagam-bahu I His wars with the Malabars The South of Ceylon free from Malabar invasion The Buddhist doctrines first formed into books The formation of rock-temples Apostacy of Chora Naga Ceylon governed by queens Schisms in religion Buddhism tolerant of heresy but intolerant of schism Illustrations of Buddhist toleration Tolerance enjoined by Asoca The Wytulian heresy Corruption of Buddhism by the impurities of Brahnmanism A.D. 275. Recantation and repentance of King Maha Sen End of the Solar race State of Ceylon at that period Prosperity of the North Description of Anarajapoora in the fourth century Its municipal organisation Its palaces and temples Popular error as to the area of the city (note) Multitudes of the priesthood described by Fa Hian CHAP. IX KINGS OF THE LOWER DYNASTY. Sovereigns of the Lower Dynasty, a feeble race Kings who were sculptors, physicians, and poets Earliest notice of Foreign Embassies to Rome and to China Notices of Ceylon by Chinese Historians Fa Hian visits Ceylon A.D. 413 Anecdote related by Fa Hian (note) History of "the Sacred Tooth" Murder of the king Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459 Infamous conduct of his son The fortified rock Sigiri CHAP. X. DOMINATION OF THE MALABARS. Origin of the Malabar invaders of Ceylon The ancient Indian kingdom of Pandya Malabar mercenaries enlisted in Ceylon B.C. 237. Revolt of Sena and Gutika B.C. 205. Usurpation of Elala B.C. 103. Second Malabar invasion A.D. 110. Third Malabar invasion Jewish evidence of Malabar conquest (note)396 A.D. 433. Fourth Malabar invasion The influence of the Malabars firmly established Distress of the Singhalese in the 7th century, as described by Hiouen Thsang A.D. 642. Anarajapoora deserted, and Pollanarrua built The Malabars did nothing to improve the island A.D. 840. A fresh Malabar invasion The Singhalese seek to conciliate them by alliances A.D. 990. Another Malabar invasion Extreme misery of the island A.D. 1023. The Malabars seize Pollanarrua and occupy the entire north of the island CHAP. XI. THE REIGN OF PRAKRAMA BAHU. A.D. 1071. Recovery of the island from the Malabars Wijayo Bahu I. expels the Malabars Birth of the Prince Prakrama His character and renown Immense public works constructed by him Restores the order of the Buddhist priesthood Intercourse between Siam and Ceylon Temples and sacred edifices built by Prakrama The Gal-Wihara at Pollanarrua Ruins of Pollanarrua Extraordinary extent of his works for irrigation Foreign wars of Prakrama His conquests in India The death of Prakrama Bahu CHAP. XII. FATE OF THE SINGHALESE MONARCHY. ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE, A.D. 1505. Prakrama Baku, the last powerful king Anarchy follows on his decease A.D. 1197. The Queen Leela-Wattee A.D. 1211. Return of the Malabar invaders The Malabars establish themselves at Jaffna Early history of Jaffna A.D. 1235. The new capital at Dambedenia Extending ruin of Ceylon Kandy founded as a new capital Successive removals of the seat of Government to Yapahoo, Kornegalle, Gampola, Kandy, and Cotta Ascendancy of the Malabars A.D. 1410. The King of Ceylon carried captive to China Ceylon tributary to China Arrival of the Portuguese in Ceylon PART IV. SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS. CHAPTER I. POPULATION, CASTE, SLAVERY, AND RAJA-KARIYA. Population encouraged by the fertility of Ceylon Evidence of its former extent in the ruins of the tanks and canals Means by which the population was preserved Causes of its dispersion--the ruin of the tanks Domestic life similar to that of the Hindus Respect shown to females Caste perpetuated in defiance of religious prohibition Particulars in which caste in Ceylon differs from caste in India Slavery, borrowed from Hindustan Compulsory labour or Raja-kariya Mode of enforcing it CHAP. II. AGRICULTURE, IRRIGATION, CATTLE, AND CROPS. Agriculture unknown before the arrival of Wijayo Rice was imported into Ceylon in the second century B.C. The practice of irrigation due to the Hindu kings Who taught the science of irrigation to the Singhalese (note) The first tank constructed B.C. 504 Gardens and fruit-trees first planted Value of artificial irrigation in the north of Ceylon In the south of the island the rains sustain cultivation Two harvests in the year in the south of the island In the north, where rains are uncertain, tanks indispensable Irrigation the occupation of kings The municipal village-system of cultivation "_Assoedamising_" of rice lands in the mountains Temple villages and their tenure Farm-stock buffaloes and cows A Singhalese garden described Coco-nut palm rarely mentioned in early writings Doubt whether it be indigenous to Ceylon The Mango and other fruits Rice and curry mentioned in the second century B.C. Animal food used by the early Singhalese Betel, antiquity of the custom of chewing it Intoxicating liquors known at an early period CHAP. III. EARLY COMMERCE, SHIPPING, AND PRODUCTIONS. Trade entirely in the hands of strangers Native shipping unconnected with commerce Same indifference to trade prevails at this day Singhalese boats all copied from foreign models All sewn together and without iron Romance of the "Loadstone Island" The legend believed by Greeks and the Chinese Vessels with two prows mentioned by Strabo Foreign trade spoken of B.C. 204 Internal traffic in the ancient city of Ceylon Merchants traversing the island Early exports from Ceylon,--gems, pearls, &c. The imports, chiefly manufactures Horses and carriages imported from India Cloth, silk, &c., brought from Persia Kashmir, intercourse with Edrisi's account of Ceylon trade in the twelfth century CHAP. IV. MANUFACTURES. Silk not produced in Ceylon Coir and cordage Dress; unshaped robes Manual and Mechanical Arts--Weaving Priest's robes spun, woven, and dyed in a day Peculiar mode of cutting out a priest's robe Bleaching and dyeing Earliest artisans, immigrants Handicrafts looked down on Pottery Glass Glass mirrors Leather Wood carving Chemical Arts--Sugar Mineral paints CHAP. V. WORKING IN METALS. Early knowledge of the use of iron Steel Copper and its uses Bells, bronze, lead Gold and silver Plate and silver ware Red coral found at Galle (note) Jewelry and mounted gems Gilding.--Coin Coins mentioned in the Mahawanso Meaning of the term "massa" (note) Coins of Lokiswaira General device of Singhalese coins Indian coinage of Prakrama Bahu Fish-hook money CHAP. VI. ENGINEERING. Engineering taught by the Brahmans Rude methods of labour Military engineering unknown Early attempts at fortification Fortified rock of Sigiri Forests, their real security Thorns planted as defences Bridges and ferries Method of tying cut stone in forming tanks Tank sluices Defective construction of these reservoirs The art of engineering lost The "Giants' Tank" a failure An aqueduct formed, A.D. 66 CHAP. VII. THE FINE ARTS. Music, its early cultivation Harsh character of Singhalese music Tom-toms, their variety and antiquity Singhalese gamut Painting.--Imagination discouraged Similarity of Singhalese to Egyptian art Rigid rules for religious design Similar trammels on art in Modern Greece (note) And in Italy in the 15th century (n.) Celebrated Singhalese painters Sculpture.--Statues of Buddha Built statues Painted statues Statues formed of gems Ivory and sandal-wood carved Architecture, its ruins exclusively religious Domestic architecture mean at all times Stone quarried by wedges Immense slabs thus prepared Columns at Anarajapoora Materials for building Mode of constructing a dagoba Enormous dimensions of these structures Monasteries and wiharas Palaces Carvings in stone Ubiquity of the honours shown to goose Delicate outline of Singhalese carvings Temples and their decorations Cave temples of Ceylon The Alu-wihara Moulding in plaster Claim of the Singhalese to the invention of oil painting Lacquer ware of the present day Honey-suckle ornament CHAP. VIII. SOCIAL LIFE. Ancient cities and their organisation Public buildings, hospitals, shops Anarajapoora, as it appeared in 7th century The description of it by Fa Hian Carriages and Horses Horses imported from Persia Furniture of the houses Form of Government.--Revenue The Army and Navy Mode of recruiting Arms.--Bows Singular mode of drawing the bow with the foot (note) Civil Justice CHAP. IX. SCIENCES. Education and schools Logic Astronomy and astrology Medicine and surgery King Buddha-dasa a physician Botany Geometry Lightning conductors Notice of a remarkable passage in the Mahawanso CHAP. X. SINGHALESE LITERATURE. The Pali language The temples the depositaries of learning Historiographers employed by the kings Ola books, how prepared A stile, and the mode of writing Books on plates of metal (note) Differences between Elu and Singhalese Pali works Grammar Hardy's list of Singhalese books (note) Pali books all written in verse The _Pittakas_ The _Jatakas_--resemble the Talmud Pali literature generally The _Milinda-prasna_ Pali historical books and their character The _Mahawanso_ Scriptural coincidences in Pali books (note) Sanskrit works: Principally on science and medicine Elu and Singhalese works: Low tone of the popular literature Chiefly ballads and metrical essays Exempt from licentiousness Sacred poems in honour of Hindu gods General literature of the people CHAP. XI. BUDDHISM AND DEMON-WORSHIP. Buddhism as it exists in Ceylon Which was the more ancient, Brahmanism or Buddhism Various authorities (note) Buddhism, its extreme antiquity Its prodigious influence Sought to be identified with the Druids (note) Buddhism an agent of civilisation Its features in Ceylon The various forms elsewhere Points that distinguish it from Brahmanism Buddhist theory of human perfection Its treatment of caste Its respect for other religions Anecdote, illustrative of (note) Its cosmogony Its doctrine of "necessity" Transmigration Illustration from Lucan (note) The priesthood and its attributes Buddhist morals Prohibition to take life Form of worship Brahmanical corruptions Failure of Buddhism as a sustaining faith Its moral influence over the people Demon-worship Trees dedicated to demons (note) Devil priests and their orgies Ascendency of these superstitions Buddhism as an obstacle to Christianity Difficulties presented by the morals of Buddhism Prohibition against taking away life (note) PART V. MEDIÆVAL HISTORY. CHAPTER I. CEYLON AS KNOWN TO THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. First heard of by the companions of Alexander the Great Various ancient names of Ceylon (note) Early doubts whether it was an island or a continent Mentioned by Aristotle Alleged mention of Ceylon in the Samaritan Pentateuch (note) Onesicritus's account Megasthenes' description Ælian's account borrowed from Megasthenes (note) Ceylon known to the Phoenicians and to the Egyptians (note) Hippalus discovers the monsoons Effect of this discovery on Indian trade Pliny's account of Ceylon Story of Jambulus by Diodoros Siculus (note) Embassy from Ceylon to Claudius Narrative of Rachias, and its explanation (note) Lake Megisba, a tank Early intercourse with China The Veddahs described by Pliny Interval between Pliny and Ptolemy Ptolemy's account of Ceylon Explanation of his errors Ptolemy discriminates bays from estuaries (note) v9 Identification of Ptolemy's names His map His sources of information Agathemerus, Marcianus of Heraclea Cosmas Indicopleustes Palladius--St. Ambrosius (note) State of Ceylon when Cosmas wrote Its commerce at that period In the hands of Arabs and Persians v4 Ceylon as described by Cosmas Story of his informant Sopater Translation of Cosmas The gems and other productions of Ceylon--"a gaou" (note) Meaning of the term "Hyacinth" (note) The great ruby of Ceylon, its history traced (note) Cosmas corroborated by the Peripius Horses imported from Persia Export of elephants Note on Sanchoniathon CHAP. II. INDIAN, ARABIAN, AND PERSIAN AUTHORITIES. Absurd errors of the Hindus regarding Ceylon Their dread of Ceylon as the abode of demons Rise of the Mahometan power Persians and Arabs trade to India Story in Beladory of the first invasion of India by the Mahometans (text and note) Character of the Arabian geographers Their superiority over the Greeks Greek Paradoxical literature A.D. 851. The two Mahometans Their account of Ceylon Adam's Peak Obsequies of a king Councils on religion and history Toleration Carmathic monument at Colombo (note) Galle, the seat of ancient trade Claim of Mantotte disproved Greek fire (note) "_Kalah_" is Galle The Maharaja of Zabedj help possession of Galle Evidence of this in the Garsharsp-Namah Derivation of "Galle" (text and note) Aversion of the Singhalese to commerce Identification of the modern Veddahs with the ancient Singhalese Their singular habits, as described by Robert Knox, Ribeyro, and Valentyn By Albyrouni By Palladius By Fa Hian By the Chinese writers (note) By Pliny For this reason the coast only known to strangers Arabian authors who describe Ceylon Albateny and Massoudi Tabari (note) Sinbad the Sailor Edrisi Kazwini Cinnamon, no mention of Was cinnamon a native of Ceylon? No mention by Singhalese authors No mention of by Latin writers The _Regio Cinnamomifera_ was in Africa (note) No mention by Arabs or Persians First noticed in Ceylon by Ibn Batuta By Nicola di Conti (note) Ibn Batuta describes Ceylon His Travels CHAP. III. CEYLON AS KNOWN TO THE CHINESE. Early Chinese trade with Ceylon Early Chinese travellers in India Chinese translations of M.S. Julien List of Chinese authors relating to Ceylon (note) Their errors as to its form and site Their account of Adam's Peak and its gems Chinese names for Ceylon Curious habit of its traders They describe the two races, Tamils and Singhalese Origin of the cotton "Comboy" Costume of Ceylon Early commerce Works for irrigation noticed Island of Junk-Ceylon Galle resorted to by Chinese ships Vegetable productions Elephants, ivory, and jewels Skill of Singhalese goldsmiths and statuaries Pearls and gems sent to China No mention of cinnamon Chinese account of Buddhism in Ceylon Monasteries for priests first founded in Ceylon Cities of Ceylon in the sixth century Patriotism of Singhalese kings Domestic manners of the Singhalese Embassies from China to Ceylon Chinese travels prior to the sixth century Fa Hian's travels in sixth century First embassy from Ceylon to China, A.D. 405 Narrative of the image which it bore (note) Ceylon tributary to China in sixth century Hiouen-Thsang describes Ceylon in the seventh century (note) Events in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries King of Ceylon carried captive to China, A.D. 1405 Last embassy to China, A.D. 1459 Traces of the Chinese in Ceylon Evidences of their presence found by the Portuguese Modern Chinese account of Ceylon (note) CHAP. IV. CEYLON AS KNOWN TO THE MOORS, GENOESE, AND VENETIANS. The Moors of Ceylon Their origin The early Mahometans in India Arabians anciently settled in Ceylon Real descent of the modern "Moormen" Their occupation as traders, ancestral Their hostilities with the Portuguese They might have been rulers of Ceylon Indian trade prior to the route by the Cape The Genoese and Venetians in the East Rise of the Mongol empire Marco Polo, A.D. 1271 Visits Ceylon Friar Odoric, A.D. 1318 Jordan de Severac, A.D. 1323 (note) Giov. de Marignola, A.D. 1349 (note) Nicola di Conti, A.D. 1444 The first traveller who speaks of Cinnamon Jerome de Santo Stefano (note) Ludov. Barthema, A.D. 1506 Odoardo Barbosa, A.D. 1509 Andrea Corsali, A.D. 1515 (note) Cesar Frederic, A.D. 1563 Course of trade changed by the Cape route Irritation of the Venetians ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE FIRST VOLUME MAPS. "Gobbs" on the East Coast By ARROWSMITH "Gobbs" on the "West Coast ARROWSMITH Ceylon, according to the Sanskrit and Pali authors SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT Map of Ancient India LASSEN Position of Colombo, according to Ptolemy and Pliny SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT Ceylon, according to Ptolemy and Pliny SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT PLANS AND CHARTS. Geological System By Currents in the N.E. Monsoon Currents in the N.W. Monsoon Diagram of Rain in India and in Ceylon DR. TEMPLETON Diagram of the Anthelia DR. TEMPLETON Plan of a Fish-corral Summit of a Dagoba, with Lightning apparatus WOOD ENGRAVINGS. Marriage of the Fig-tree and the Palm By MR. A. NICHOLL Fig-tree on the Ruins of Pollanarrua MR. A. NICHOLL The "Snake-tree" MR. A. NICHOLL The _Loris_ M.H. SYLVAT The _Uropeltis grandis_ M.H. SYLVAT A _Chironectes_ M.H. SYLVAT Method of Fishing in Pools From KNOX The _Anabas_ of the dry Tanks By DR. TEMPLETON Eggs of the Leaf Insect M.H. SYLVAT _Cermatia_ DR. TEMPLETON The Calling Crab Eyes and Teeth of the Land Leech DR. TEMPLETON Land Leeches DR. TEMPLETON Upper and under Surfaces of the _Hirudo sanguisorba_ DR. TEMPLETON The Bo-tree at Anarajapoora MR. A. NICHOLL A Dagoba at Kandy From a Photograph Ruins of the Brazen Palace By MR. A. NICHOLL The Alu Wihara MR. A. NICHOLL The fortified Rock of Sigiri MR. A. NICHOLS Coin of Queen Leela-Wattee Coin showing the _Trisula_ Hook-money Ancient and Modern Tom-tom Beaters From the JOINVILLE MSS. A Column from Anarajapoora Sacred Goose from the Burmese Standard Hansa, from the old Palace at Kandy Honeysuckle Ornament From FERGUSSON'S _Handbook of Architecture_ Egyptian Yoke and Singhalese Pingo Veddah drawing the Bow with his Foot By MR. R. MACDOWALL Method of Writing with a Style MR. R. MACDOWALL The "Comboy," as worn by both Sexes MR. A. FAIRFIELD NOTICE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. The gratifying reception with which the following pages have been honoured by the public and the press, has in no degree lessened my consciousness, that in a work so extended in its scope, and comprehending such a multiplicity of facts, errors are nearly unavoidable both as to conclusions and detail. These, so far as I became aware of them, I have endeavoured to correct in the present, as well as in previous impressions. But my principal reliance for the suggestion and supply both of amendments and omissions has been on the press and the public of Ceylon; whose familiarity with the topics discussed naturally renders them the most competent judges as to the mode in which they have been treated. My hope when the book was published in October last was, that before going again to press I should be in possession of such friendly communications and criticisms from the island, as would have enabled me to render the second edition much more valuable than the previous one. In this expectation I have been agreeably disappointed, the sale having been so rapid, as to require a fourth impression before it was possible to obtain from Ceylon judicious criticisms on the first. These in due time will doubtless arrive; and meanwhile, I have endeavoured, by careful revision, to render the whole as far as possible correct. J. EMERSON TENNENT. NOTICE TO THE THIRD EDITION. The call for a third edition on the same day that the second was announced for publication, and within less than two months from the appearance of the first, has furnished a gratifying assurance of the interest which the public are disposed to take in the subject of the present work. Thus encouraged, I have felt it my duty to make several alterations in the present impression, amongst the most important of which is the insertion of a Chapter on the doctrines of Buddhism as it developes itself in Ceylon.[1] In the historical sections I had already given an account of its introduction by Mahindo, and of the establishments founded by successive sovereigns for its preservation and diffusion. To render the narrative complete, it was felt desirable to insert an abstract of the peculiar tenets of the Buddhists; and this want it has been my object to supply. The sketch, it will be borne in mind, is confined to the principal features of what has been denominated "_Southern Buddhism_" amongst the Singhalese; as distinguished from "_Northern Buddhism_" in Nepal, Thibet, and China.[2] The latter has been largely illustrated by the labours of Mr. B.H. HODGSON and the toilsome researches of M. CSOMA of Körrös in Transylvania; and the minutest details of the doctrines and ceremonies of the former have been unfolded in the elaborate and comprehensive collections of Mr. SPENCE HARDY.[3] From materials discovered by these and other earnest inquirers, Buddhism in its general aspect has been ably delineated in the dissertations of BURNOUF[4] and SAINT HILAIRE[5], and in the commentaries of REMUSAT[6], STANISLAS JULIEN[7], FOUCAUX[8], LASSEN[9], and WEBER.[10] The portion thus added to the present edition has been to a great extent taken from a former work of mine on the local superstitions of Ceylon, and the "_Introduction and Progress of Christianity_" there; and as the section relating to Buddhism had the advantage, previous to publication, of being submitted to the Rev. Mr. GOGERLY, the most accomplished Pali scholar, as well as the most erudite student of Buddhistical literature in the island, I submit it with confidence as an accurate summary of the distinctive views of the Singhalese on the leading doctrines of their national faith. [Footnote 1: See Part IV., c. xi.] [Footnote 2: MAX MÜLLER; _History of Sanskrit Literature_, p. 202.] [Footnote 3: _Eastern Monachism_, an account of the origin, laws; discipline, sacred writings, mysterious rites, religious ceremonies, and present circumstances of the Order of Mendicants, founded by Gotoma Budha. 8vo. Lond. 1850; and _A Manual of Buddhism in its Modern Development_. 8vo. Lond. 1853.] [Footnote 4: BURNOUF, _Introduction à l'Histoire du Bouddhieme Indien_. 4to. Paris. 1845; and translation of the _Lotus de la bonne Loi_.] [Footnote 5: J. BARTHELEMY SAINT-HILAIRE _Le Bouddha et sa Religion_. 8vo. Paris. 1800.] [Footnote 6: Introduction and Notes to the _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_ of FA HIAN.] [Footnote 7: Life and travels of HIOUEN THSANG.] [Footnote 8: Translation of _Lalitavistára_ by M. PH. ED. FOUCAUX.] [Footnote 9: Author of the _Indische Alterthumskunde;_ &c.] [Footnote 10: Author of the _Indische Studien_; &c.] A writer in the _Saturday Review_[1], in alluding to the passage in which I have sought to establish the identity of the ancient Tarshish with the modern Point de Galle[2], admits the force of the coincidence adduced, that the Hebrew terms for "ivory, apes, and peacocks"[3] (the articles imported in the ships of Solomon) are identical with the Tamil names, by which these objects are known in Ceylon to the present day; and, to strengthen my argument on this point, he adds that, "these terms were so entirely foreign and alien from the common Hebrew language as to have driven the Ptolemaist authors of the Septuagint version into a blunder, by which the ivory, apes, and peacocks come out as '_hewn and carven stones_.'" The circumstance adverted to had not escaped my notice; but I forebore to avail myself of it; for, although the fact is accurately stated by the reviewer, so far as regards the Vatican MS., in which the translators have slurred over the passage and converted "_ibha, kapi_, and _tukeyim_" into [Greek: "lithôn toreutôn kai pelekêtôn"] (literally, "stones hammered and carved in relief"); still, in the other great MS. of the Septuagint, the _Codex Alexandrinus_, which is of equal antiquity, the passage is correctly rendered by "[Greek: odontôn elephantinôn kai pithêkôn kai taônôn]." The editor of the Aldine edition[4] compromised the matter by inserting "the ivory and apes," and excluding the "peacocks," in order to introduce the Vatican reading of "stones."[5] I have not compared the Complutensian and other later versions. [Footnote 1: Novemb. 19, 1859, p. 612.] [Footnote 2: _See_ Vol. II. Pt. VII., c. i. p. 102.] [Footnote 3: 1 _Kings_, x. 22.] [Footnote 4: Venice, 1518.] [Footnote 5: [Greek: Kai odontôn elephantinôn kai pithêkôn kai lithôn]. [Greek: BASIA TRITÊ]. x. 22. It is to be observed, that Josephus appears to have been equally embarrassed by the unfamiliar term _tukeyim_ for peacocks. He alludes to the voyages of Solomon's merchantmen to Tarshish, and says that they brought hack from thence gold and silver, _much_ ivory, apes, _and Æthiopians_--thus substituting "slaves" for pea-fowl--"[Greek: kai polus elephas, Aithiopes te kai pithêkoi]." Josephus also renders the word Tarshish by "[Greek: en tê Tarsikê legomenê thalattê]," an expression which shows that he thought not of the Indian but the western Tarshish, situated in what Avienus calls the _Fretum Tartessium_, whence African slaves might have been expected to come.--_Antiquit. Judaicæ_, l. viii. c. vii sec. 2.] The Rev. Mr. CURETON, of the British Museum, who, at my request, collated the passage in the Chaldee and Syriac versions, assures me that in both, the terms in question bear the closest resemblance to the Tamil words found in the Hebrew; and that in each and all of them these are of foreign importation. J. EMERSON TENNENT. LONDON: November 28th, 1859. NOTICE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The rapidity with which the first impression has been absorbed by the public, has so shortened the interval between its appearance and that of the present edition, that no sufficient time has been allowed for the discovery of errors or defects; and the work is re-issued almost as a corrected reprint. In the interim, however, I have ascertained, that Ribeyro's "Historical Account of Ceylon," which it was heretofore supposed had never appeared in any other than the French version of the Abbe Le Grand, and in the English translation of the latter by Mr. Lee[1], was some years since printed for the first time in the original Portuguese, from the identical MS. presented by the author to Pedro II. in 1685. It was published in 1836 by the Academia Real das Sciencias of Lisbon, under the title of "_Fatalidade Historica da Ilka de Ceilão_;" and forms the Vth volume of the a "_Colleção de Noticias para a Historia e Geograjia das Nações Ultramarinas_" A fac-simile from a curious map of the island as it was then known to the Portuguese, has been included in the present edition.[2] [Footnote 1: See Vol. II. Part vi. ch. i. p.5, note.] [Footnote 2: Ibid. p. 6.] Some difficulty having been expressed to me, in identifying the ancient names of places in India adverted to in the following pages; and mediæval charts of that country being rare, a map has been inserted in the present edition[1], to supply the want complained of. [Footnote 1: See Vol. I. p. 330.] The only other important change has been a considerable addition to the Index, which was felt to be essential for facilitating reference. J E.T. INTRODUCTION. There is no island in the world, Great Britain itself not excepted, that has attracted the attention of authors in so many distant ages and so many different countries as Ceylon. There is no nation in ancient or modern times possessed of a language and a literature, the writers of which have not at some time made it their theme. Its aspect, its religion, its antiquities, and productions, have been described as well by the classic Greeks, as by those of the Lower Empire; by the Romans; by the writers of China, Burmah, India, and Kashmir; by the geographers of Arabia and Persia; by the mediæval voyagers of Italy and France; by the annalists of Portugal and Spain; by the merchant adventurers of Holland, and by the travellers and topographers of Great Britain. But amidst this wealth of materials as to the island, and its vicissitudes in early times, there is an absolute dearth of information regarding its state and progress during more recent periods, and its actual condition at the present day. I was made sensible of this want, on the occasion of my nomination, in 1845, to an office in connection with the government of Ceylon. I found abundant details as to the capture of the maritime provinces from the Dutch in 1795, in the narrative of Captain PERCIVAL[1], an officer who had served in the expedition; and the efforts to organise the first system of administration are amply described by CORDINER[2], Chaplain to the Forces; by Lord VALENTIA[3], who was then travelling in the East; and by ANTHONY BERTOLACCI[4], who acted as auditor-general to the first governor, Mr. North, afterwards Earl of Guilford. The story of the capture of Kandy in 1815 has been related by an anonymous eye-witness under the pseudonyme of PHILALETHES[5], and by MARSHALL in his _Historical Sketch_ of the conquest.[6] An admirable description of the interior of the island, as it presented itself some forty years ago, was furnished by Dr. DAVY[7], a brother of the eminent philosopher, who was employed on the medical staff in Ceylon, from 1816 till 1820. [Footnote 1: _An Account of the Island of Ceylon_, &c., by Capt. R. PERCIVAL, 4to. London, 1805.] [Footnote 2: _A Description of Ceylon_, &c., by the Rev. JAMES CORDINER, A.M. 2 vols. 4to. London, 1807.] [Footnote 3: _Voyages and Travels to India, Ceylon, and the Red Sea_, by Lord Viscount VALENTIA. 3 vols. 4to. London, 1809.] [Footnote 4: _A View of the Agricultural, Commercial, and Financial Interests of Ceylon_, &c., by A. BERTOLACCI, Esq. London, 1817.] [Footnote 5: _A History of Ceylon from the earliest Period to the Year_ MDCCCXV, by PHILALETHES, A.M. 4to. Lond. 1817. The author is believed to have been the Rev. G. Bisset.] [Footnote 6: HENRY MARSHALL, F.R.S.E., &c. went to Ceylon as assistant surgeon of the 89th regiment, in 1806, and from 1816 till 1821 was the senior medical officer of the Kandyan provinces.] [Footnote 7: _An Account of the Interior of Ceylon_, &c., by JOHN DAVY, M.D. 4to, London, 1821.] Here the long series of writers is broken, just at the commencement of a period the most important and interesting in the history of the island. The mountain zone, which for centuries had been mysteriously hidden from the Portuguese and Dutch[1] was suddenly opened to British enterprise in 1815. The lofty region, from behind whose barrier of hills the kings of Kandy had looked down and defied the arms of three successive European nations, was at last rendered accessible by the grandest mountain road in India; and in the north of the island, the ruins of ancient cities, and the stupendous monuments of an early civilisation, were discovered in the solitudes of the great central forests. English merchants embarked in the renowned trade in cinnamon, which we had wrested from the Dutch; and British capitalists introduced the cultivation of coffee into the previously inaccessible highlands. Changes of equal magnitude contributed to alter the social position of the natives; domestic slavery was extinguished; compulsory labour, previously exacted from the free races, was abolished; and new laws under a charter of justice superseded the arbitrary rule of the native chiefs. In the course of less than half a century, the aspect of the country became changed, the condition of the people was submitted to new influences; and the time arrived to note the effects of this civil revolution. [Footnote 1: VALENTYN, In his great work on the Dutch possessions in India, _Oud_ _en Nieuw Oost-Indien_, alludes more than once with regret to the ignorance in which his countrymen were kept as to the interior of Ceylon, concerning which their only information was obtained through fugitives and spies. (Vol. v. ch. ii. p. 35; ch. xv. p. 205.)] But on searching for books such as I expected to find, recording the phenomena consequent on these domestic and political events, I was disappointed to discover that they were few in number and generally meagre in information. Major FORBES, who in 1826 and for some years afterwards held a civil appointment in the Kandyan country, published an interesting account of his observations[1]; and his work derives value from the attention which the author had paid to the ancient records of the island, whose contents were then undergoing investigation by the erudite and indefatigable TURNOUR.[2] [Footnote 1: _Eleven Years in Ceylon_, &c., by Major FORBES. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1840.] [Footnote 2: See Vol. I. Part III. ch. iii. p. 312.] In 1843 Mr. BENNETT, a retired civil servant of the colony, who had studied some branches of its natural history, and especially its ichthyology, embodied his experiences in a volume entitled "_Ceylon and its Capabilities_," containing a mass of information, somewhat defective in arrangement. These and a number of minor publications, chiefly descriptive of sporting tours in search of elephants and deer, with incidental notices of the sublime scenery and majestic ruins of the island, were the only modern works that treated of Ceylon; but no one of them sufficed to furnish a connected view of the colony at the present day, contrasting its former state with the condition to which it has attained under the government of Great Britain. On arriving in Ceylon and entering on my official functions, this absence of local knowledge entailed frequent inconvenience. In my tours throughout the interior, I found ancient monuments, apparently defying decay, of which no one could tell the date or the founder; and temples and cities in ruins, whose destroyers were equally unknown. There were vast structures of public utility, on which the prosperity of the country had at one time been dependent; artificial lakes, with their conduits and canals for irrigation; the condition of which rendered it interesting to ascertain the period of their formation, and the causes of their abandonment; but to every inquiry of this nature, there was the same unvarying reply: that information regarding them might possibly be found in the _Mahawanso_ or in some other of the native chronicles; but that few had ever read them, and none had succeeded in reproducing them for popular instruction. A still more serious embarrassment arose from the want of authorities to throw light on questions that were sometimes the subject of administrative deliberation: there were native customs which no available materials sufficed to illustrate; and native claims, often serious in their importance, the consideration of which was obstructed by a similar dearth of authentic data. With a view to executive measures, I was frequently desirous of consulting the records of the two European governments, under which the island had been administered for 300 years before the arrival of the British; their experience might have served as a guide, and even their failures would have pointed out errors to be avoided; but here, again, I had to encounter disappointment: in answer to my inquiries, I was assured that _the records, both of the Portuguese and Dutch, had long since disappeared from the archives of the colony_. Their loss, whilst in our custody, is the more remarkable, considering the value which was attached to them by our predecessors. The Dutch, on the conquest of Ceylon in the seventeenth century, seized the official accounts and papers of the Portuguese; and a memoir is preserved by VALENTYN, in which the Governor, Van Goens, on handing over the command to his successor in 1663, enjoins on him the study of these important documents, and expresses anxiety for their careful preservation.[1] [Footnote 1: VALENTYN, _Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien_, &c., ch. xiii. p. 174.] The British, on the capture of Colombo in 1796, were equally solicitous to obtain possession of the records of the Dutch Government. By Art. XIV. of the capitulation they were required to be "faithfully delivered over;" and, by Art. XI., all "surveys of the island and its coasts" were required to be surrendered to the captors.[1] But, strange to say, almost the whole of these interesting and important papers appear to have been lost; not a trace of the Portuguese records, so far as I could discover, remains at Colombo; and if any vestige of those of the Dutch be still extant, they have probably become illegible from decay and the ravages of the white ants.[2] [Footnote 1: Amongst a valuable collection of documents presented to the Royal Asiatic Society of London, by the late Sir Alexander Johnston, formerly Chief Justice of Ceylon, there is a volume of Dutch surveys of the Island, containing important maps of the coast and its harbours, and plans of the great works for irrigation in the northern and eastern provinces.] [Footnote 2: _Note to the second edition_.--Since the first edition was published, I have been told by a late officer of the Ceylon Government, that many years ago, what remained of the Dutch records were removed from the record-room of the Colonial Office to the cutcherry of the government agent of the western province: where some of them may still be found.] But the loss is not utterly irreparable; duplicates of the Dutch correspondence during their possession of Ceylon are carefully preserved at Amsterdam; and within the last few years the Trustees of the British Museum purchased from the library of the late Lord Stuart de Rothesay the Diplomatic Correspondence and Papers of SEBASTIAÕ JOZÉ CARVALHO E MELLO (Portuguese Ambassador at London and Vienna, and subsequently known as the Marquis de Pombal), from 1738 to 1747, including sixty volumes relating to the history of the Portuguese possessions in India and Brazil during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Amongst the latter are forty volumes of despatches relative to India entitled _Collecçam Authentica de todas as Leys, Regimentos, Alvarás e mais ordens que se expediram para a India_, _desde o establecimento destas conquístas; Ordenáda por proviram de 28 de Marco de 1754_.[1] These contain the despatches to and from the successive Captains-General and Governors of Ceylon, so that, in part at least, the replacement of the records lost in the colony may be effected by transcription. [Footnote 1: MSS. Brit Mus. No. 20,861 to 20,900.] Meanwhile in their absence I had no other resource than the narratives of the Dutch and Portuguese historians, chiefly VALENTYN, DE BARROS, and DE COUTO, who have preserved in two languages the least familiar in Europe, chronicles of their respective governments, which, so far as I am aware, have never been republished in any translation. The present volumes contain no detailed notice of the _Buddhist faith_ as it exists in Ceylon, of the _Brahmanical rites,_ or of the other religious superstitions of the island. These I have already described in my history of _Christianity in Ceylon._[1] The materials for that work were originally designed to form a portion of the present one; but having expanded to too great dimensions to be made merely subsidiary, I formed them into a separate treatise. Along with them I have incorporated facts illustrative of the national character of the Singhalese under the conjoint influences of their ancestral superstitions and the partial enlightenment of education and gospel truth. [Footnote 1: _Christianity in Ceylon: its Introduction and Progress under the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British and American Missions; with an Historical Sketch of the Brahmanical and Buddhist Superstitons_ by Sir JAMES EMERSON TENNENT. London, Murray, 1850.] Respecting the _Physical Geography_ and _Natural History_ of the colony, I found an equal want of reliable information; and every work that even touched on the subject was pervaded by the misapprehension which I have collected evidence to correct; that Ceylon is but a fragment of the great Indian continent dissevered by some local convulsion; and that the zoology and botany of the island are identical with those of the mainland.[1] [Footnote 1: It may seem presumptuous in me to question the accuracy of Dr. DAVY'S opinion on this point (see his _Account of the Interior of Ceylon, &c_., ch. iii. p. 78), but the grounds on which I venture to do so are stated, Vol. I. pp. 7, 27, 160, 178, 208, &c.] Thus for almost every particular and fact, whether physical or historical, I have been to a great extent thrown on my own researches; and obliged to seek for information in original sources, and in French and English versions of Oriental authorities. The results of my investigations are embodied in the following pages; and it only remains for me to express, in terms however inadequate, my obligations to the literary and scientific friends by whose aid I have been enabled to pursue my inquiries. Amongst these my first acknowledgments are due to Dr. TEMPLETON, of the Army Medical Staff, for his cordial assistance in numerous departments; but above all in relation to the physical geography and natural history of the island. Here his scientific knowledge, successfully cultivated during a residence of nearly twelve years in Ceylon, and his intimate familiarity with its zoology and productions, rendered his co-operation invaluable;--and these sections abound with evidences of the liberal extent to which his stores of information have been generously imparted. To him and to Dr. CAMERON, of the Army Medical Staff, I am indebted for many valuable facts and observations on tropical health and disease, embodied in the chapter on "_Climate_." Sir RODERICK I. MURCHISON (without committing himself as to the controversial portions of the chapter on the _Geology_ and _Mineralogy_ of Ceylon) has done me the favour to offer some valuable suggestions, and to express his opinion as to the general accuracy of the whole. Although a feature so characteristic as that of its _Vegetation_ could not possibly be omitted in a work professing to give an account of Ceylon, I had neither the space nor the qualifications necessary to produce a systematic sketch of the Botany of the island. I could only attempt to describe it as it exhibits itself to an unscientific spectator; and the notices that I have given are confined to such of the more remarkable plants as cannot fail to arrest the attention of a stranger. In illustration of these, I have had the advantage of copious communications from WILLIAM FERGUSON, Esq., a gentleman attached to the Survey Department of the Civil Service in Ceylon, whose opportunities for observation in all parts of the island have enabled him to cultivate with signal success his taste for botanical pursuits. And I have been permitted to submit the portion of my work which refers to this subject to the revision of the highest living authority on Indian botany, Dr. J.D. HOOKER, of Kew. Regarding the _fauna_ of Ceylon, little has been published in any collective form, with the exception of a volume by Dr. KELAART entitled _Prodromus Faunæ Zeilanicæ_; several valuable papers by Mr. EDGAR L. LAYARD in the _Annals and Magazine of Natural History_ for 1852 and 1853; and some very imperfect lists appended to PRIDHAM'S compiled account of the island.[1] KNOX, in the charming narrative of his captivity, published in the reign of Charles II., has devoted a chapter to the animals of Ceylon, and Dr. DAVY has described the principal reptiles: but with these exceptions the subject is almost untouched in works relating to the colony. Yet a more than ordinary interest attaches to the inquiry, since Ceylon, instead of presenting, as is generally assumed, an identity between its _fauna_ and that of Southern India, exhibits a remarkable diversity of type, taken in connection with the limited area over which they are distributed. The island, in fact, may be regarded as the centre of a geographical circle, possessing within itself forms, whose allied species radiate far into the temperate regions of the north, as well as into Africa, Australia, and the isles of the Eastern Archipelago. [Footnote 1: _An Historical Political, and Statistical Account of Ceylon and its Dependencies_, by C. PRIDHAM, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1849. The author was never, I believe, in Ceylon, but his book is a laborious condensation of the principal English works relating to it. Its value would have been greatly increased had Mr. Pridham accompanied his excerpts by references to the respective authorities.] In the chapters that I have devoted to its elucidation, I have endeavoured to interest others in the subject, by describing my own observations and impressions, with fidelity, and with as much accuracy as may be expected from a person possessing, as I do, no greater knowledge of zoology and the other physical sciences than is ordinarily possessed by any educated gentleman. It was my good fortune, however, in my journies to have the companionship of friends familiar with many branches of natural science: the late Dr. GARDNER, Mr. EDGAR L. LAYARD, an accomplished zoologist, Dr. TEMPLETON, and others; and I was thus enabled to collect on the spot many interesting facts relative to the structure and habits of the numerous tribes of animals. These, chastened by the corrections of my fellow-travellers, and established by the examination of collections made in the colony, and by subsequent comparison with specimens contained in museums at home, I have ventured to submit as faithful outlines of the _fauna_ of Ceylon. The sections descriptive of the several classes are accompanied by lists, prepared with the assistance of scientific friends, showing the extent to which each particular branch had been investigated by naturalists, up to the period of my departure from Ceylon at the close of 1849. These, besides their inherent interest, will, I trust, stimulate others to engage in the same pursuits, by exhibiting the chasms, which it still remains for future industry and research to fill up;--and the study of the zoology of Ceylon may thus serve as a preparative for that of Continental India, embracing, as the former does, much that is common to both, as well as possessing within itself a fauna peculiar to the island, that will amply repay more extended scrutiny. From these lists have been excluded all species regarding the authenticity of which reasonable doubts could be entertained[1], and of some of them, a very few have been printed in _italics_, in order to denote the desirability of comparing them more minutely with well determined specimens in the great national depositories before finally incorporating them with the Singhalese catalogues. [Footnote 1: An exception occurs in the list of shells, prepared by Mr. SYLVANUS HANLEY, in which some whose localities are doubtful have been admitted for reasons adduced. (See Vol. I, p. 234.)] In the labour of collecting and verifying the facts embodied in these sections, I cannot too warmly express my thanks for the aid I have received from gentlemen interested in similar pursuits in Ceylon: from Dr. KELAART and Mr. EDGAR L. LAYARD, as well as from officers of the Ceylon Civil Service; the HON. GERALD C. TALBOT, Mr. C.E. BULLER, Mr. MERCER, Mr. MORRIS, Mr. WHITING, Major SKINNER, and Mr. MITFORD. Before venturing to commit these chapters of my work to the press, I have had the advantage of having portions of them read by Professor HUXLEY, Mr. MOORE, of the East India House Museum; Mr. R. PATTERSON, F.R.S., author of the _Introduction to Zoology_, and by Mr. ADAM WHITE, of the British Museum; to each of whom I am exceedingly indebted for the care they have bestowed. In an especial degree I have to acknowledge the kindness of Dr. J.E. GRAY, F.R.S. for valuable additions and corrections in the list of the Ceylon Reptilia; and to Professor FARADAY for some notes on the nature and qualities of the "Serpent Stone,"[1] submitted to him. I have recorded in its proper place my obligations to Admiral FITZROY, for his most ingenious theory in elucidation of the phenomena of the _Tides_ around Ceylon.[2] [Footnote 1: See Vol. I. Part II. ch. iii. p. 199.] [Footnote 2: See Vol. II. Part VII. ch. i. p. 116.] The extent to which my observations on _the Elephant_ have been carried, requires some explanation. The existing notices of this noble creature are chiefly devoted to its habits and capabilities _in captivity_; and very few works, with which I am acquainted, contain illustrations of its instincts and functions when wild in its native woods. Opportunities for observing the latter, and for collecting facts in connection with them, are abundant in Ceylon, and from the moment of my arrival, I profited by every occasion afforded to me for studying the elephant in a state of nature, and obtaining from hunters and natives correct information as to its oeconomy and disposition. Anecdotes in connection with this subject, I received from some of the most experienced residents In the island; amongst others, Major SKINNER, Captain PHILIP PAYNE GALLWEY, Mr. FAIRHOLME, Mr. CRIPPS, and Mr. MORRIS. Nor can I omit to express my acknowledgments to PROFESSOR OWEN, of the British Museum, to whom this portion of my manuscript was submitted previous to its committal to the press. In the _historical sections_ of the work, I have been reluctantly compelled to devote a considerable space to a narrative deduced from the ancient Singhalese chronicles; into which I found it most difficult to infuse any popular interest. But the toil was not undertaken without a motive. The oeconomics and hierarchical institutions of Buddhism as administered through successive dynasties, exercised so paramount an influence over the habits and occupations of the Singhalese people, that their impress remains indelible to the present day. The tenure of temple lands, the compulsory services of tenants, the extension of agriculture, and the whole system of co-operative cultivation, derived from this source organisation and development; and the origin and objects of these are only to be rendered intelligible by an inquiry into the events and times in which the system took its rise. In connection with this subject, I am indebted to the representatives of the late Mr. TURNOUR, of the Ceylon Civil Service, for access to his unpublished manuscripts; and to those portions of his correspondence with Prinsep, which relate to the researches of these two distinguished scholars regarding the Pali annals of Ceylon. I have also to acknowledge my obligations to M. JULES MOHL, the literary executor of M. E. BURNOUF, for the use of papers left by that eminent orientalist in illustration of the ancient geography of the island, as exhibited in the works of Pali and Sanskrit writers. I have been signally assisted inn my search for materials illustrative of the social and intellectual condition of the Singhalese nation, during the early ages of their history, by gentlemen in Ceylon, whose familiarity with the native languages and literature impart authority to their communications; by ERNEST DE SARAM WIJEYESEKERE KAROONARATNE, the Maha-Moodliar and First Interpreter to the Governor; and to Mr. DE ALWIS, the erudite translator of the _Sidath Sangara._ From the Rev. Mr. GOGERLY of the Wesleyan Mission, I have received expositions of Buddhist policy; and the Rev. R SPENCE HARDY, author of the two most important modern works on the archæology of Buddhism[1], has done me the favour to examine the chapter on SINGHALESE _Literature,_ and to enrich it by numerous suggestions and additions. [Footnote 1: _Oriental Monachism,_ 8vo. London, 1850; and _A Manual of Buddhism,_ 8vo. London, 1853] In like manner I have had the advantage of communicating with MR. COOLEY (author of the _History of Maritime and Inland Discovery_) in relation to the _Mediæval History_ of Ceylon, and the period embraced by the narrative of the Greek, Arabian, and Italian travellers, between the fifth and fifteenth centuries. I have elsewhere recorded my obligations to Mr. WYLIE, and to his colleague, Mr. LOCKHART of Shanghæ, for the materials of one of the most curious chapters of my work, that which treats of the knowledge of Ceylon possessed by the Chinese in the Middle Ages. This is a field which, so far as I know, is untouched by any previous writer on Ceylon. In the course of my inquires, finding that Ceylon had been, from the remotest times, the point at which the merchant fleets from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf met those from China and the Oriental Archipelago; thus effecting an exchange of merchandise from East and West; and discovering that the Arabian and Persian voyagers, on their return, had brought home copious accounts of the island, it occurred to me that the Chinese travellers during the same period had in all probability been equally observant and communicative, and that the results of their experience might be found in Chinese works of the Middle Ages. Acting on this conjecture, I addressed myself to a Chinese gentleman, WANG TAO CHUNG, who was then in England; and he, on his return to Shanghæ, made known my wishes to Mr. WYLIE. My anticipations were more than realised by Mr. WYLIE'S researches. I received in due course, extracts from upwards of twenty works by Chinese writers, between the fifth and fifteenth centuries, and the curious and interesting facts contained in them are embodied in the chapter devoted to that particular subject. In addition to these, the courtesy of M. STANISLAS JULIEN, the eminent French Sinologue, has laid me under a similar obligation for access to unpublished passages relative to Ceylon, in his translation of the great work of HIOUEN THSANG; in his translation of the great work of HIOUEN THSANG; descriptive of the Buddhist country of India in the seventh century.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mémoires sur les Contrées Occidentales_, traduites du Sanscrit en Chinois, en l'an 648, par M. STANISLAS JULIEN.] It is with pain that I advert to that portion of the section which treats of the British rule in Ceylon; in the course of which the discovery of the private correspondence of the first Governor, Mr. North, deposited along with the Wellesley Manuscripts, in the British Museum[1], has thrown an unexpected light over the fearful events of 1803, and the massacre of the English troops then in garrison at Kandy. Hitherto the honour of the British Government has been unimpeached in these dark transactions; and the slaughter of the troops has been uniformly denounced as an evidence of the treacherous and "tiger-like" spirit of the Kandyan people.[2] But it is not possible now to read the narrative of these events, as the motives and secret arrangements of the Governor with the treacherous Minister of the king are disclosed in the private letters of Mr. North to the Governor-general of India, without feeling that the sudden destruction of Major Davie's party, however revolting the remorseless butchery by which it was achieved, may have been but the consummation of a revenge provoked by the discovery of the treason concocted by the Adigar in confederacy with the representative of the British Crown. Nor is this construction weakened by the fact, that no immediate vengeance was exacted by the Governor in expiation of that fearful tragedy; and that the private letters of Mr. North to the Marquis of Wellesley contain avowals of ineffectual efforts to hush up the affair, and to obtain a clumsy compromise by inducing the Kandyan king to make an admission of regret. [Footnote 1: Additional MSS., Brit. Mus., No. 13864, &c.] [Footnote 2: DE QUINCEY, _collected Works_, vol. xii. p. 14.] I am aware that there are passages in the following pages containing statements that occur more than once in the course of the work. But I found that in dealing with so many distinct subjects the same fact became sometimes an indispensable illustration of more than one topic; and hence repetition was unavoidable even at the risk of tautology. I have also to apologise for variances in the spelling of proper names, both of places and individuals, occurring in different passages. In extenuation of this, I can only plead the difficulty of preserving uniformity in matters dependent upon mere sound, and unsettled by any recognised standard of orthography. I have endeavoured in every instance to append references to other authors, in support of statements which I have drawn from previous writers; an arrangement rendered essential by the numerous instances in which errors, that nothing short of the original authorities can suffice to expose, have been reproduced and repeated by successive writers on Ceylon. To whatever extent the preparation of this work may have fallen short of its conception, and whatever its demerits in execution and style, I am not without hope that it will still exhibit evidence that by perseverance and research I have laboured to render it worthy of the subject. JAMES EMERSON TENNENT. LONDON: _July 13th, 1859._ PART I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. CHAPTER I PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.--GEOLOGY.--MINERALOGY.--GEMS, CLIMATE, ETC. GENERAL ASPECT.--Ceylon, from whatever direction it is approached, unfolds a scene of loveliness and grandeur unsurpassed, if it be rivalled, by any land in the universe. The traveller from Bengal, leaving behind the melancholy delta of the Ganges and the torrid coast of Coromandel; or the adventurer from Europe, recently inured to the sands of Egypt and the scorched headlands of Arabia, is alike entranced by the vision of beauty which expands before him as the island rises from the sea, its lofty mountains covered by luxuriant forests, and its shores, till they meet the ripple of the waves, bright with the foliage of perpetual spring. The Brahmans designated it by the epithet of "the resplendent," and in their dreamy rhapsodies extolled it as the region of mystery and sublimity[1]; the Buddhist poets gracefully apostrophised it as "a pearl upon the brow of India;" the Chinese knew it as the "island of jewels;" the Greeks as the "land of the hyacinth and the ruby;" the Mahometans, in the intensity of their delight, assigned it to the exiled parents of mankind as a new elysium to console them for the loss of Paradise; and the early navigators of Europe, as they returned dazzled with its gems, and laden with its costly spices, propagated the fable that far to seaward the very breeze that blew from it was redolent of perfume.[2] In later and less imaginative times, Ceylon has still maintained the renown of its attractions, and exhibits in all its varied charms "the highest conceivable development of Indian nature."[3] [Footnote 1: "Ils en ont fait une espèce de paradis, et se sont imaginé que des êtres d'une nature angélique les habitaient."--ALBYROUNI, Traité des Ères, &c.; REINAUD, Géographie d'Aboulféda, Introd. sec. iii. p. ccxxiv. The renown of Ceylon as it reached Europe in the seventeenth century is thus summed up by PURCHAS in _His Pilgrimage_, b.v.c. 18, p. 550:--"The heauens with their dewes, the ayre with a pleasant holesomenesse and fragrant freshnesse, the waters in their many riuers and fountaines, the earth diuersified in aspiring hills, lowly vales, equall and indifferent plaines, filled in her inward chambers with mettalls and jewells, in her outward court and vpper face stored with whole woods of the best cinnamons that the sunne seeth; besides fruits, oranges, lemons, &c. surmounting those of Spaine; fowles and beasts, both tame and wilde (among which is their elephant honoured by a naturall acknowledgement of excellence of all other elephants in the world). These all have conspired and joined in common league to present unto Zeilan the chiefe of worldly treasures and pleasures, with a long and healthfull life in the inhabitants to enjoye them. No marvell, then, if sense and sensualitie have heere stumbled on a paradise."] [Footnote 2: The fable of the "spicy breezes" said to blow from Arabia and India, is as old as Ctesias; and is eagerly repeated by Pliny? lib. xii. c. 42. The Greeks borrowed the tale from the Hindus, who believe that the _Chandana_ or sandal-wood imparts its odours to the winds; and their poete speak of the Malayan as the westerns did of the Sabæan breezes. But the allusion to such perfumed winds was a trope common to all the discoverers of unknown lands: the companions of Columbus ascribed them to the region of the Antilles; and Verrazani and Sir Walter Raleigh scented them off the coast of Carolina. Milton borrowed from Diodorus Siculus, lib. iii. c. 46, the statement that: "Far off at sea north-east winds blow Sabæan odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest." (_P.L._ iv. 163.) Ariosto employs the same imaginative embellishment to describe the charms of Cyprus: "Serpillo e persa e rose e gigli e croco Spargon dall'odorifero terreno Tanta suavita, ch'in mar sentire La fa ogni vento che da terra spire." (_Oil. Fur._ xviii. 138.) That some aromatic smell is perceptible far to seaward, in the vicinity of certain tropical countries, is unquestionable; and in the instance of Cuba, an odour like that of violets, which is discernible two or three miles from land, when the wind is off the shore, has been traced by Poeppig to a species of _Tetracera_, a climbing plant which diffuses its odour during the night. But in the case of Ceylon? if the existence of such a perfume be not altogether imaginary, the fact has been falsified by identifying the alleged fragrance with cinnamon; the truth being that the cinnamon laurel, unless it be crushed, exhales no aroma whatever; and the peculiar odour of the spice is only perceptible after the bark has been separated and dried.] [Footnote 3: LASSEN, _Indische Alterthumskunde_ vol. i. p. 198.] _Picturesque Outline_.--The nucleus of its mountain masses consists of gneissic, granitic, and other crystalline rocks, which in their resistless upheaval have rent the superincumbent strata, raising them into lofty pyramids and crags, or hurling them in gigantic fragments to the plains below. Time and decay are slow in their assaults on these towering precipices and splintered pinnacles; and from the absence of more perishable materials, there are few graceful sweeps along the higher chains or rolling downs in the lower ranges of the hills. Every bold elevation is crowned by battlemented cliffs, and flanked by chasms in which the shattered strata are seen as sharp and as rugged as if they had but recently undergone the grand convulsion that displaced them. _Foliage and Verdure_.--The soil in these regions is consequently light and unremunerative, but the plentiful moisture arising from the interception of every passing vapour from the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, added to the intense warmth of the atmosphere, combine to force a vegetation so rich and luxuriant, that imagination can picture nothing more wondrous and charming; every level spot is enamelled with verdure, forests of never-fading bloom cover mountain and valley; flowers of the brightest hues grow in profusion over the plains, and delicate climbing plants, rooted in the shelving rocks, hang in huge festoons down the edge of every precipice. Unlike the forests of Europe, in which the excess of some peculiar trees imparts a character of monotony and graveness to the outline and colouring, the forests of Ceylon are singularly attractive from the endless variety of their foliage, and the vivid contrast of its hues. The mountains, especially those looking towards the east and south, rise abruptly to prodigious and almost precipitous heights above the level plains; the rivers wind through woods below like threads of silver through green embroidery, till they are lost in a dim haze which conceals the far horizon; and through this a line of tremulous light marks where the sunbeams are glittering among the waves upon the distant shore. From age to age a scene so lovely has imparted a colouring of romance to the adventures of the seamen who, in the eagerness of commerce, swept round the shores of India, to bring back the pearls and precious stones, the cinnamon and odours, of Ceylon. The tales of the Arabians are fraught with the wonders of "Serendib;" and the mariners of the Persian Gulf have left a record of their delight in reaching the calm havens of the island, and reposing for months together in valleys where the waters of the sea were overshadowed by woods, and the gardens were blooming in perennial summer.[1] [Footnote 1: REINAUD, _Relation des Voyages Arabes, &c., dans le neuvième siècle_. Paris, 1845, tom. ii. p. 129.] _Geographical Position_.--Notwithstanding the fact that the Hindus, in their system of the universe, had given prominent importance to Ceylon, their first meridian, "the meridian of Lanka," being supposed to pass over the island, they propounded the most extravagant ideas, both as to its position and extent; expanding it to the proportions of a continent, and at the same time placing it a considerable distance south-east of India.[1] [Footnote 1: For a condensed account of the dimensions and position attributed to Lanka, in the Mythic Astronomy of the Hindus, see REINAUD's _Introduction to Aboulféda_, sec. iii. p. ccxvii., and his _Mémoire sur l'Inde_, p. 342; WILFORD's _Essay on the Sacred Isles of the West_, Asiat. Researches, vol. x, p. 140.] The native Buddhist historians, unable to confirm the exaggerations of the Brahmans, and yet reluctant to detract from the epic renown of their country by disclaiming its stupendous dimensions, attempted to reconcile its actual extent with the fables of the eastern astronomers by imputing to the agency of earthquakes the submersion of vast regions by the sea.[1] But evidence is wanting to corroborate the assertion of such an occurrence, at least within the historic period; no record of it exists in the earliest writings of the Hindus, the Arabians, or Persians; who, had the tradition survived, would eagerly have chronicled a catastrophe so appalling.[2] Geologic analogy, so far as an inference is derivable from the formation of the adjoining coasts, both of India and Ceylon, is opposed to its probability; and not only plants, but animals, mammalia, birds, reptiles, and insects, exist in Ceylon, which are not to be found in the flora or fauna of the Indian continent.[3] [Footnote 1: SIR WILLIAM JONES adopted the legendary opinion that Ceylon "formerly perhaps, extended much farther to the west and south, so as to include Lanka or the equinoctial point of the Indian astronomers."--_Discourse on the Institution of a Society for inquiring into the History, &c., of the Borderers, Mountaineers, and Islanders of Asia_.--Works, vol. i. p. 120. The Portuguese, on their arrival in Ceylon in the sixteenth century, found the natives fully impressed by the traditions of its former extent and partial submersion; and their belief in connection with it, will be found in the narratives and histories of De Barros and Diogo de Couto, from which they have been transferred, almost without abridgment, to the pages of Valentyn. The substance of the native legends will be found in the _Mahawanso_, c. xxii. p. 131; and _Rajavali_, p. 180, 190.] [Footnote 2: The first disturbance of the coast by which Ceylon is alleged to have been severed from the main land is said by the Buddhists to have taken place B.C. 2387; a second commotion is ascribed to the age of Panduwaasa, B.C. 504; and the subsidence of the shore adjacent to Colombo is said to have taken place 200 years later, in the reign of Devenipiatissa, B.C. 306. The event is thus recorded in the _Rajavali_, one of the sacred books of Ceylon:--"In these days the sea was seven leagues from Kalany; but on account of what had been done to the teeroonansee (a priest who had been tortured by the king of Kalany), the gods who were charged with the conservation of Ceylon, became enraged and caused the sea to deluge the land; and as during the epoch called _duwapawrayaga_ on account of the wickedness of Rawana, 25 palaces and 400,000 streets were all over-run by the sea, so now in this time of Tissa Raja, 100,000 large towns, 910 fishers' villages, and 400 villages inhabited by pearl fishers, making together eleven-twelfths of the territory of Kalany, were swallowed up by the sea."--_Rajavali_, vol. ii. p. 180, 190. FORBES observes the coincidence that the legend of the rising of the sea in the age of Panduwaasa, 2378 B.C., very nearly concurs with the date assigned to the Deluge of Noah, 2348,--_Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. ii. p. 258. A tradition is also extant, that a submersion took place at a remote period on the east coast of Ceylon, whereby the island of Giri-dipo, which is mentioned in the first chapter of the _Mahawanso_, was engulfed, and the dangerous rocks called the Great and Little Basses are believed to be remnants of it.--_Mahawanso_, c. i. A _résumé_ of the disquisitions which have appeared at various times as to the submersion of a part of Ceylon, will be found in a Memoir _sur la Géographie ancienne de Ceylon_, in the Journal Asiatique for January, 1857, 5th ser., vol. ix. p. 12; see also TURNOUR'S _Introd. to the Mahawanso_, p. xxxiv.] [Footnote 3: Some of the mammalia peculiar to the island are enumerated at p. 160; birds found in Ceylon but not existing in India are alluded to at p. 178, and Dr. A. GÜNTHER, in a paper on the _Geographical Distribution of Reptiles_, in the _Mag. of Nat. Hist._ for March, 1859, says, "amongst these larger islands which are connected with the middle palæotropical region, none offers forms so different from the continent and other islands as Ceylon. It might be considered the Madagascar of the Indian region. We not only find there peculiar genera and species, not again to be recognised in other parts; but even many of the common species exhibit such remarkable varieties, as to afford ample means for creating new nominal species," p. 280. The difference exhibited between the insects of Ceylon and those of Hindustan and the Dekkan are noticed by Mr. Walker in the present work, p. ii. ch. vii, vol. i. p. 270. See on this subject RITTER'S _Erdkunde_, vol. iv. p. 17.] Still in the infancy of geographical knowledge, and before Ceylon had been circumnavigated by Europeans, the mythical delusions of the Hindus were transmitted to the West, and the dimensions of the island were expanded till its southern extremity fell below the equator, and its breadth was prolonged till it touched alike on Africa and China.[1] [Footnote 1: GIBBON, ch. xxiv.] The Greeks who, after the Indian conquests of Alexander, brought back the earliest accounts of the East, repeated them without material correction, and reported the island to be nearly twenty times its actual extent. Onesicritus, a pilot of the expedition, assigned to it a magnitude of 5000 stadia, equal to 500 geographical miles.[1] Eratosthenes attempted to fix its position, but went so widely astray that his first (that is his most southern) parallel passed through it and the "Cinnamon Land," the _Regio Cinnamomifera_, on the east coast of Africa.[2] He placed Ceylon at the distance of seven days' sail from the south of India, and he too assigned to its western coast an extent of 5000 stadia.[3] Both those authorities are quoted by Strabo, who says that the size of Taprobane was not less than that of Britain.[4] [Footnote 1: STRABO, lib. v. Artemidorus (100 B.C.), quoted by Stephanus of Byzantium, gives to Ceylon a length of 7000 stadia and a breadth of 500.] [Footnote 2: STRABO, lib. ii. c. i. s. 14.] [Footnote 3: The text of Strabo showing this measure makes it in some places 8000 (Strabo, lib. v.); and Pliny, quoting Eratosthenes, makes it 7000.] [Footnote 4: STRABO, lib. ii. c. v. s. 32. Aristotle appears to have had more correct information, and says Ceylon was not so large as Britain.--_De Mundo_ ch. iii.] The round numbers employed by those authors, and by the Greek geographers generally, who borrow from them, serve to show that their knowledge was merely collected from rumours; and that in all probability they were indebted for their information to the stories of Arabian or Hindu sailors returning from the Eastern seas. Pliny learned from the Singhalese Ambassador who visited Rome in the reign of Claudius, that the breadth of Ceylon was 10,000 stadia from west to east; and Ptolemy fully developed the idea of his predecessors, that it lay opposite to the "Cinnamon Land," and assigned to it a length from north to south of nearly _fifteen degrees_, with a breadth of _eleven_, an exaggeration of the truth nearly twenty-fold.[1] Agathemerus copies Ptolemy; and the plain and sensible author of the "Periplus" (attributed to Arrian), still labouring with the delusion of the magnitude of Ceylon, makes it stretch almost to the opposite coast of Africa.[2] [Footnote 1: PTOLEMY, lib. vii. c. 4.] [Footnote 2: ARRIAN, _Periplus_, p. 35. Marcianus Heracleota (whose Periplus has been reprinted by HUDSON, in the same collection from which I have made the reference to that of Arrian) gives to Ceylon a length of 9500 stadia with a breadth of 7500.--MAR. HER. p. 26.] These extravagant ideas of the magnitude of Ceylon were not entirely removed till many centuries later. The Arabian geographers, Massoudi, Edrisi, and Aboulfeda, had no accurate data by which to correct the errors of their Greek predecessors. The maps of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries repeated their distortions[1]; and Marco Polo, in the fourteenth century, who gives the island the usual exaggerated dimensions, yet informs us that it is now but one half the size it had been at a former period, the rest having been engulfed by the sea.[2] [Footnote 1: For an account of Ceylon as it is figured in the _Mappe-mondes_ of the Middle Ages, see the _Essai_ of the VICOMTE DE SANTAREM, _Sur la Cosmographie et Cartographie_, tom. iii. p. 335, &c.] [Footnote 2: MARCO POLO, p. 2, c. 148. A later authority than Marco Polo, PORCACCHI, in his _Isolario_, or "Description of the most celebrated Islands in the World," which was published at Venice in A.D. 1576, laments his inability even at that time to obtain any authentic information as to the boundaries and dimensions of Ceylon; and, relying on the representations of the Moors, who then carried on an active trade around its coasts, he describes it as lying under the equinoctial line, and possessing a circuit of 2100 miles. "Ella gira di circuito, secondo il calcole fatto da Mori, che modernamente l'hanno nauigato d'ogn'intorno due mila et cento miglia et corre mæstro e sirocco; et per il mezo d'essa passa la linea equinottiale et è el principio del primo clima al terzo paralello."--_L'Isole piu Famose del Monde, descritte da_ THOMASO PORCACCHI, lib. iii. p. 30.] Such was the uncertainty thrown over the geography of the island by erroneous and conflicting accounts, that grave doubts came to be entertained of its identity, and from the fourteenth century, when the attention of Europe was re-directed to the nascent science of geography, down to the close of the seventeenth, it remained a question whether Ceylon or Sumatra was the Taprobane of the Greeks.[1] [Footnote 1: GIBBON states, that "Salmasius and most of the ancients confound the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra."--_Decl. and Fall_ ch. xl. This is a mistake. Saumaise was one of those who maintained a correct opinion; and, as regards the "ancients," they had very little knowledge of _Further India_ to which Sumatra belongs; but so long as Greek and Roman literature maintained their influence, no question was raised as to the identity of Ceylon and Taprobane. Even in the sixth century Cosmas Indicopleustes declares unhesitatingly that the Sielediva of the Indians was the Taprobane of the Greeks. It was only on emerging from the general ignorance of the Middle Ages that the doubt was first promulgated. In the Catalan Map of A.D. 1375, entitled _Image du Monde_, Ceylon is omitted, and Taprobane is represented by Sumatra (MALTE BRUN, _Hist. de Geogr._ vol. i, p. 318); in that of _Fra Mauro_, the Venetian monk, A.D. 1458, Seylan is given, but _Taprobane_ is added over _Sumatra_. A similar error appears in the _Mappe-monde,_ by RUYCH, in the Ptolemy of A.D. 1508, and in the writings of the geographers of the sixteenth century, GEMMA FRISIUS, SEBASTIAN MUNSTER, RAMUSIO, JUL. SCALIGER, ORTELIUS, and MERCATOR. The same view was adopted by the Venetian NICOLA DI CONTI, in the first half of the fifteenth century, by the Florentine ANDREA CORSALI, MAXIMILIANUS TRANSYLVANUS, VARTHEMA, and PIGAFETTA. The chief cause of this perplexity was, no doubt, the difficulty of reconciling the actual position and size of Ceylon with the dimensions and position assigned to it by Strabo and Ptolemy, the latter of whom, by an error which is elsewhere explained, extended the boundary of the island far to the east of its actual site. But there was a large body of men who rejected the claim of Sumatra, and DE BARROS, SALMASIUS, BOCHART CLUVERIUS, CELLARIUS, ISAAC VOSSIUS and others, maintained the title of Ceylon. A _Mappe-monde_ of A.D. 1417, preserved in the Pitti Palace at Florence compromises the dispute by designating Sumatra _Taprobane Major_. The controversy came to an end at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the overpowering authority of DELISLE resolved the doubt, and confirmed the modern Ceylon as the Taprobane of antiquity. WILFORD, in the _Asiatic Researches_ (vol. x. p. 140), still clung to the opposite opinion, and KANT undertook to prove that Taprobane was Madagascar.] _Latitude and Longitude_.--There has hitherto been considerable uncertainty as to the position assigned to Ceylon in the various maps and geographical notices of the island: these have been corrected by more recent observations, and its true place has been ascertained to be between 5° 55' and 9° 51' north latitude, and 79° 41' 40" and 81° 54' 50" east longitude. Its extreme length from north to south, from Point Palmyra to Dondera Head, is 271-1/2 miles; its greatest width 137-1/2 miles, from Colombo on the west coast to Sangemankande on the east; and its area, including its dependent islands, 25,742 miles, or about one-sixth smaller than Ireland.[1] [Footnote 1: Down to a very recent period no British colony was more imperfectly surveyed and mapped than Ceylon; but since the recent publication by Arrowsmith of the great map by General Fraser, the reproach has been withdrawn, and no dependency of the Crown is more richly provided in this particular. In the map of Schneider, the Government engineer in 1813, two-thirds of the Kandyan Kingdom are a blank; and in that of the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge, re-published so late as 1852, the rich districts of Neuera-kalawa and the Wanny, in which there are innumerable villages (and scarcely a hill), are marked as "_unknown mountainous region_." General Fraser, after the devotion of a lifetime to the labour, has produced a survey which, in extent and minuteness of detail, stands unrivalled. In this great work he had the co-operation of Major Skinner and of Captain Gallwey, and to these two gentlemen the public are indebted for the greater portion of the field-work and the trigonometrical operations. To judge of the difficulties which beset such an undertaking, it must be borne in mind that till very recently travelling in the interior of Ceylon was all but impracticable, in a country unopened even by bridle roads, across unbridged rivers, over mountains never trod by the foot of a European, and amidst precipices inaccessible to all but the most courageous and prudent. Add to this that the country is densely covered with forest and jungle, with trees a hundred feet high, from which here and there the branches had to be cleared to obtain a sight of the signal stations. The triangulation was carried on amidst privations, discomfort, and pestilence, which frequently prostrated the whole party, and forced their attendants to desert them rather than encounter such hardships and peril. The materials collected by the colleagues of General Fraser under these discouragements have been worked up by him with consummate skill and perseverance. The base line, five and a quarter miles in length, was measured in 1845 in the cinnamon plantation at Kaderani, to the north of Colombo, and its extremities are still marked by two towers, which it was necessary to raise to the height of one hundred feet, to enable them to be discerned above the surrounding forests. These it is to be hoped will be carefully kept from decay, as they may again be called into requisition. As regards the sea line of Ceylon, an admirable chart of the West coast, from Adam's Bridge to Dondera Head, has been published by the East India Company from a survey in 1845. But information is sadly wanted as to the East and North, of which no accurate charts exist, except of a few unconnected points, such as the harbour of Trincomalie.] _General Form_.--In its general outline the island resembles a pear--and suggests to its admiring inhabitants the figure of those pearls which from their elongated form are suspended from the tapering end. When originally upheaved above the ocean its shape was in all probability nearly circular, with a prolongation in the direction of north-east. The mountain zone in the south, covering an area of about 4212 miles[1], may then have formed the largest proportion of its entire area--and the belt of low lands, known as the Maritime Provinces, consists to a great extent of soil from the disintegration of the gneiss, detritus from the hills, alluvium carried down the rivers, and marine deposits gradually collected on the shore. But in addition to these, the land has for ages been slowly rising from the sea, and terraces abounding in marine shells imbedded in agglutinated sand occur in situations far above high-water mark. Immediately inland from Point de Galle, the surface soil rests on a stratum of decomposing coral; and sea shells are found at a considerable distance from the shore. Further north at Madampe, between Chilaw and Negombo, the shells of pearl oysters and other bivalves are turned up by the plough more than ten miles from the sea. [Illustration] [Footnote 1: This includes not only the lofty mountains suitable for the cultivation of coffee, but the lower ranges and spurs which connect them with the maritime plains.] These recent formations present themselves in a still more striking form in the north of the island, the greater portion of which may be regarded as the conjoint production of the coral polypi, and the currents, which for the greater portion of the year set impetuously towards the south. Coming laden with alluvial matter collected along the coast of Coromandel, and meeting with obstacles south of Point Calimere, they have deposited their burthens on the coral reefs round Point Pedro; and these gradually raised above the sea-level, and covered deeply by sand drifts, have formed the peninsula of Jaffna and the plains that trend westward till they unite with the narrow causeway of Adam's Bridge--itself raised by the same agencies, and annually added to by the influences of the tides and monsoons.[1] [Footnote 1: The barrier known as Adam's Bridge, which obstructs the navigation of the channel between Ceylon and Ramnad, consists of several parallel ledges of conglomerate and sandstone, hard at the surface, and growing coarse and soft as it descends till it rests on a bank of sand, apparently accumulated by the influence of the currents at the change of the monsoons. See an _Essay_ by Captain STEWART _on the Paumbem Passage_. Colombo, 1837. See Vol. II. p. 554.] On the north-west side of the island, where the currents are checked by the obstruction of Adam's Bridge, and still water prevails in the Gulf of Manaar, these deposits have been profusely heaped, and the low sandy plains have been proportionally extended; whilst on the south and east, where the current sweeps unimpeded along the coast, the line of the shore is bold and occasionally rocky. This explanation of the accretion and rising of the land is somewhat opposed to the popular belief that Ceylon was torn from the main land of India[1] by a convulsion, during which the Gulf of Manaar and the narrow channel at Paumbam were formed by the submersion of the adjacent land. The two theories might be reconciled by supposing the sinking to have occurred at an early period, and to have been followed by the uprising still in progress. But on a closer examination of the structure and direction of the mountain system of Ceylon, it exhibits no traces of submersion. It seems erroneous to regard it as a prolongation of the Indian chains; it lies far to the east of the line formed by the Ghauts on either side of the peninsula, and any affinity which it exhibits is rather with the equatorial direction of the intersecting ranges of the Nilgherries and the Vindhya. In their geological elements there is, doubtless, a similarity between the southern extremity of India and the elevated portions of Ceylon; but there are also many important particulars in which their specific differences are irreconcilable with the conjecture of previous continuity. In the north of Ceylon there is a marked preponderance of aqueous strata, which are comparatively rare in the vicinity of Cape Comorin; and whilst the rocks of the former are entirely destitute of organic remains[2]; fossils, both terrestrial and pelagic, have been found in the Eastern Ghauts, and sandstone, in some instances, overlays the primary rocks which compose them. The rich and black soil to the south of the Nilgherries presents a strong contrast to the red and sandy earth of the opposite coast; and both in the flora and fauna of the island there are exceptional peculiarities which suggest a distinction between it and the Indian continent. [Footnote 1: LASSEN, _Indische Alterthumskunde_, vol. i. p. 193.] [Footnote 2: At Cutchavelly, north of Trincomalie, there exists a bed of calcareous clay, in which shells and crustaceans are found in a semi-fossilised state; but they are all of recent species, principally _Macrophthalmus_ and _Scylla_. The breccia at Jaffna contains recent shells, as does also the arenaceous strata on the western coast of Manaar and in the neighbourhood of Galle. The existence of the fossilised crustaceans in the north of Ceylon was known to the early Arabian navigators. Abou-zeyd describes them as, "Un animal de mer qui resemble à l'écrevisse; quand cet animal sort de la mer, _il se convertit en pierre_." See REINAUD, _Voyages faits par les Arabes_, vol. i. p. 21. The Arabs then; and the Chinese at the present day, use these petrifactions when powdered as a specific for diseases of the eye.] _Mountain System_.--At whatever period the mountains of Ceylon may have been raised, the centre of maximum energy must have been in the vicinity of Adam's Peak, the group immediately surrounding which has thus acquired an elevation of from six to eight thousand feet above the sea.[1] The uplifting force seems to have been exerted from south-west to north-east; and although there is much confusion in many of the intersecting ridges, the lower ranges, especially those to the south and west of Adam's Peak, from Saffragam to Ambogammoa, manifest a remarkable tendency to run in parallel ridges in a direction from south-east to north-west. [Footnote 1: The following are the heights of a few of the most remarkable places:-- Pedrotallagalla 8280 English feet. Kirrigalpotta 7810 English feet. Totapella 7720 English feet. Adam's Peak 7420 English feet. Nammoone-Koolle 6740 English feet. Plain of Neuera-ellia 6210 English feet.] Towards the north, on the contrary, the offsets of the mountain system, with the exception of those which stretch towards Trincomalie, radiate to short distances in various directions, and speedily sink down to the level of the plain. Detached hills of great altitude are rare, the most celebrated being that of Mihintala, which overlooks the sacred city of Anarajapoora: and Sigiri is the only example in Ceylon of those solitary acclivities, which form so remarkable a feature in the table-land of the Dekkan, starting abruptly from the plain with scarped and perpendicular sides, and converted by the Indians into strongholds, accessible only by precipitous pathways, or steps hewn in the solid rock. The crest of the Ceylon mountains is of stratified crystalline rock, especially gneiss, with extensive veins of quartz, and through this the granite has been everywhere intruded, distorting the riven strata, and tilting them at all angles to the horizon. Hence at the abrupt terminations of some of the chains in the district of Saffragam, plutonic rocks are seen mingled with the dislocated gneiss. Basalt makes its appearance both at Galle and Trincomalie. In one place to the east of Pettigalle-Kanda, the rocks have been broken up in such confusion as to resemble the effect of volcanic action--huge masses overhang each other like suddenly-cooled lava; and Dr. Gygax, a Swiss mineralogist, who was employed by the Government in 1847 to examine and report on the mineral resources of the district, stated, on his return, that having seen the volcanoes of the Azores, he found a "strange similarity at this spot to one of the semi-craters round the trachytic ridge of Seticidadas, in the island of St. Michael."[1] [Footnote 1: Beyond the very slightest symptoms of disturbance, earthquakes are unknown in Ceylon: and although its geology exhibits little evidence of volcanic action (with the exception of the basalt, which occasionally presents an appearance approaching to that of lava), there are some other incidents that seem to suggest the vicinity of fire; more particularly the occurrence of springs of high temperature, one at Badulla, one at Kitool, near Bintenne, another near Yavi Ooto, in the Veddah country, and a fourth at Cannea, near Trincomalie. I have heard of another near the Patipal Aar south of Batticaloa. The water in each is so pure and free from salts that the natives make use of it for all domestic purposes. Dr. Davy adverts to another indication of volcanic agency in the sudden and profound depth of the noble harbour at Trincomalie, which even close by the beach is said to have been hitherto unfathomed. The Spaniards believed Ceylon to be volcanic; and ARGENSOLA, in his _Conquista de las Malucas_, Madrid, 1609, says it produced liquid bitumen and sulphur:--"Fuentes de betùn liquido y bolcanes de perpetuas llamas que arrojan entre las asperezas de la montaña losas de açufre."--Lib. v. p. 184. It is needless to say that this is altogether imaginary.] _Gneiss_.--The great geological feature of the island is, however, the profusion of gneiss, and the various new forms arising from its disintegration. In the mountains, with the exception of occasional beds of dolomite, no more recent formations overlie it; from the period of its first upheaval, the gneiss has undergone no second submersion, and the soil which covers it in these lofty altitudes is formed almost entirely by its decay. In the lower ranges of the hills, gigantic portions of gneiss rise conspicuously, so detached from the original chain and so rounded by the action of the atmosphere, aided by their concentric lamellation, that but for their prodigious dimensions, they might be regarded as boulders. Close under one of these cylindrical masses, 600 feet in height, and upwards of three miles in length, the town of Kornegalle, one of the ancient capitals of the island, has been built; and the great temple of Dambool, the most remarkable Buddhist edifice in Ceylon, is constructed under the hollow edge of another, its gilded roof being formed by the inverted arch of the natural stone. The tendency of the gneiss to assume these concentric and almost circular forms has been taken advantage of for this purpose by the Singhalese priests, and some of their most venerated temples are to be found under the shadow of the overarching strata, to the imperishable nature of which the priests point as symbolical of the eternal duration of their faith.[1] [Footnote 1: The concentric lamellar strata of the gneiss sometimes extend with a radius so prolonged that slabs may be cut from them and used in substitution for beams of timber, and as such they are frequently employed in the construction of Buddhist temples. At Piagalla, on the road between Galle and Colombo, within about four miles of Caltura, there is a gneiss hill of this description on which a temple has been so erected. In this particular rock the garnets usually found in gneiss are replaced by rubies, and nothing can exceed the beauty of the hand-specimens procurable from a quarry close to the high road on the landward side; in which, however, the gems are in every case reduced to splinters.] _Laterite or "Cabook_."--A peculiarity, which is one of the first to strike a stranger who lands at Galle or Colombo, is the bright red colour of the streets and roads, contrasting vividly with the verdure of the trees, and the ubiquity of the fine red dust which penetrates every crevice and imparts its own tint to every neglected article. Natives resident in these localities are easily recognisable elsewhere, by the general hue of their dress. This is occasioned by the prevalence along the western coast of _laterite_, or, as the Singhalese call it, _cabook_, a product of disintegrated gneiss, which being subjected to detrition communicates its hue to the soil.[1] [Footnote 1: According to the _Mahawanso_ "Tamba-panni," one of those names by which Ceylon was anciently called, originated in an incident connected with the invasion of Wijayo, B.C. 543, whose followers, "exhausted by sea-sickness and faint from weakness, sat down at the spot where they had landed out of the vessels, supporting themselves on the palms of their hands pressed to the ground, whence the name of Tamba-pannyo, '_copper-palmed_,' from the colour of the soil. From this circumstance that wilderness obtained the name of Tamba-panni; and from the same cause also this renowned land became celebrated under that name."--TURNOUR'S _Mahawanso_, ch. vi. p. 50. From Tamba-panni came the Greek name for Ceylon, _Taprobane_. Mr. de Alwis has corrected an error in this passage of Mr. Turnour's translation; the word in the original, which he took for _Tamba-panniyo_, or "copper-palmed," being in reality _tamba-vanna_, or "copper-coloured." Colonel Forbes questions the accuracy of this derivation, and attributes the name to the _tamana_ trees; from the abundance of which he says many villages in Ceylon, as well as a district in southern India, have been similarly called. (_Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. i. p. 10.) I have not succeeded in discovering what tree is designated by this name, nor does it occur in MOON'S _List of Ceylon Plants_. On the southern coast of India a river, which flows from the ghats to the sea, passing Tinnevelly, is called Tambapanni. Tambapanni, as the designation of Ceylon, occurs in the inscription on the rock of Girnar in Guzerat, deciphered by Prinsep, containing an edict by Asoka relative to the medical administration of India for the relief both of man and beast, (_Asiat. Soc. Journ. Beng._ vol. vii. p. 158.)] The transformation of gneiss into laterite in these localities has been attributed to the circumstance, that those sections of the rock which undergo transition exhibit grains of magnetic iron ore partially disseminated through them; and the phenomenon of the conversion has been explained not by recurrence to the ordinary conception of mere weathering, which is inadequate, but to the theory of catalytic action, regard being had to the peculiarity of magnetic iron when viewed in its chemical formula.[1] The oxide of iron thus produced communicates its colouring to the laterite, and in proportion as felspar and hornblende abound in the gneiss, the cabook assumes respectively a white or yellow hue. So ostensible is the series of mutations, that in ordinary excavations there is no difficulty in tracing a continuous connection without definite lines of demarcation between the soil and the laterite on the one hand, and the laterite and gneiss rock on the other.[2] [Footnote 1: From a paper read to the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh by the Rev. J.G. Macvicar, D.D.] [Footnote 2: From a paper on the Geology of Ceylon, by Dr. Gardner, in the Appendix to Lee's translation of RIBEYRO'S _History of Ceylon_, p, 206. The earliest and one of the ablest essays on the geological system and mineralogy of Ceylon will be found in DAVY'S _Account of the Interior of Ceylon_, London, 1821. It has, however, been corrected and enlarged by recent investigators.] The tertiary rocks which form such remarkable features in the geology of other countries are almost unknown in Ceylon; and the "clay-slate, Silurian, old red sandstone, carboniferous, new red sandstone, oolitic, and cretaceous systems" have not as yet been recognised in any part of the island.[1] Crystalline limestone in some places overlies the gneiss, and is worked for oeconomical purposes in the mountain districts where it occurs.[2] [Footnote 1: Dr. Gardner.] [Footnote 2: In the maritime provinces lime for building is obtained by burning the coral and madrepore, which for this purpose is industriously collected by the fishermen during the intervals when the wind is off shore.] Along the western coast, from Point-de-Galle to Chilaw, breccia is found near the shores, from the agglutination of corallines and shells mixed with sand, and the disintegrated particles of gneiss. These beds present an appearance very closely resembling a similar rock, in which human remains have been found imbedded, at the north-east of Guadaloupe, now in the British Museum.[1] Incorporated with them there are minute fragments of sapphires, rubies, and tourmaline, showing that the sand of which the breccia is composed has been washed down by the rivers from the mountain zone. [Footnote 1: Dr. Gardner.] NORTHERN PROVINCES.--_Coral Formation_.--But the principal scene of the most recent formations is the extreme north of the island, with the adjoining peninsula of Jaffna. Here the coral rocks abound far above high-water mark, and extend across the island where the land has been gradually upraised, from the eastern to the western shore. The fortifications of Jaffna were built by the Dutch, from blocks of breccia quarried far from the sea, and still exhibit, in their worn surface, the outline of the shells and corallines of which they mainly consist. The roads, in the absence of more solid substances, are metalled with the same material; as the only other rock which occurs is a loose description of conglomerate, similar to that at Adam's Bridge and Manaar. The phenomenon of the gradual upheaval of these strata is sufficiently attested by the position in which they appear, and their altitude above high-water mark; but, in close contiguity with them, an equally striking evidence presents itself in the fact that, at various points of the western coast, between the island of Manaar and Karativoe, the natives, in addition to fishing for chank shells[1] in the sea, dig them up in large quantities from beneath the soil on the adjacent shores, in which they are deeply imbedded[2], the land having since been upraised. [Footnote 1: _Turbinella rapa_, formerly known as _Voluta gravis_ used by the people of India to be sawn into bangles and anklets.] [Footnote 2: In 1845 an antique iron anchor was found under the soil at the northwestern point of Jaffna, of such size and weight as to show that it must have belonged to a ship of much greater tonnage than any which the depth of water would permit to navigate the channel at the present day.] The sand, which covers a vast extent of the peninsula of Jaffna, and in which the coco-nut and Palmyra-palm grow freely, has been carried by the currents from the coast of India, and either flung upon the northern beach in the winter months, or driven into the lake during the south-west monsoon, and thence washed on shore by the ripple, and distributed by the wind. The arable soil of Jaffna is generally of a deep red colour, from the admixture of iron, and, being largely composed of lime from the comminuted coral, it is susceptible of the highest cultivation, and produces crops of great luxuriance. This tillage is carried on exclusively by irrigation from innumerable wells, into which the water rises fresh through the madrepore and sand; there being no streams in the district, unless those percolations can be so called which make their way underground, and rise through the sands on the margin of the sea at low water. _Wells in the Coral Rock_.--These phenomena occur at Jaffna, in consequence of the rocks being magnesian limestone and coral, overlying a bed of sand, and in some places, where the soil is light, the surface of the ground is a hollow arch, so that it resounds as if a horse's weight were sufficient to crush it inwards. This is strikingly perceptible in the vicinity of the remarkable well at Potoor[1], on the west side of the road leading from Jaffna to Point Pedro, where the surface of the surrounding country is only about fifteen feet above the sea-level. The well, however, is upwards of 140 feet in depth; the water fresh at the surface, brackish lower down, and intensely salt below. According to the universal belief of the inhabitants, it is an underground pool, which communicates with the sea by a subterranean channel bubbling out on the shore near Kangesentorre, about seven miles to the north-west. [Footnote 1: For the particulars of this singular well, see Vol. II. Pt. IX. ch. vi. p. 536.] A similar subterranean stream is said to conduct to the sea from another singular well near Tillipalli, in sinking which the workmen, at the depth of fourteen feet, came to the ubiquitous coral, the crust of which gave way, and showed a cavern below containing the water they were in search of, with a depth of more than thirty-three feet. It is remarkable that the well at Tillipalli preserves its depth at all seasons alike, uninfluenced by rains or drought; and a steam-engine erected at Potoor, with the intention of irrigating the surrounding lands, failed to lower it in any perceptible degree. Other wells, especially some near the coast, maintain their level with such uniformity as to be inexhaustible at any season, even after a succession of years of drought--a fact from which it may fairly be inferred that their supply is chiefly derived by percolation from the sea.[1] [Footnote 1: DARWIN, in his admirable account of the coral formations of the Pacific and Indian oceans, has propounded a theory as to the abundance of fresh water in the atolls and islands on coral reefs, furnished by wells which ebb and flow with the tides. Assuming it to be impossible to separate salt from sea water by filtration, he suggests that the porous coral rock being permeated by salt water, the rain which falls on the surface must sink to the level of the surrounding sea, "and must accumulate there, displacing an equal bulk of sea water--and as the portion of the latter in the lower part of the great sponge-like mass rises and falls with the tides, so will the fresh water near the surface."--_Naturalist's Journal_, ch. xx. But subsequent experiments have demonstrated that the idea of separating the salt by filtration is not altogether imaginary; as Darwin seems to have then supposed; and Mr. WITT, in a remarkable paper _On a peculiar power possessed by Porous Media of removing matters from solution in water_, has since succeeded in showing that "water containing considerable quantities of saline matter in solution may, by merely percolating through great masses of porous strata during long periods, be gradually deprived of its salts _to such an extent as probably to render even sea-water fresh_."--_Philos. Mag_., 1856. Divesting the subject therefore of this difficulty, other doubts would appear to suggest themselves as to the applicability of Darwin's theory to coral formations in general. For instance, it might be supposed that rain falling on a substance already saturated with moisture, would flow off instead of sinking into it; and that being of less specific gravity than salt water, it would fail to "displace an equal bulk" of the latter. There are some extraordinary but well attested statements of a thin layer of fresh water being found on the surface of the sea, after heavy rains in the Bay of Bengal. (_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng_. vol. v. p. 239.) Besides, I fancy that in the majority of atolls and coral islands the quantity of rain which so small an area is calculated to intercept would be insufficient of itself to account for the extraordinary abundance of fresh water daily drawn from the wells. For instance, the superficial extent of each of the Laccadives is but two or three square miles, the surface soil resting on a crust of coral, beneath which is a stratum of sand; and yet on reaching the latter, fresh water flows in such profusion, that wells and large tanks for soaking coco-nut fibre are formed in any place by merely "breaking through the crust and taking out the sand."--_Madras Journal_, vol. xiv. It is curious that the abundant supply of water in these wells should have attracted the attention of the early navigators, and Cosmas Indicoplenstes, writing in the sixth century, speaks of the numerous small islands off the coast of Taprobane, with abundance of fresh water and coco-nut palms, although these islands rest on a bed of sand. (_Cosmas Ind_. ed. Thevenot, vol. i. p. 3, 20). It is remarkable that in the little island of Ramisseram, one of the chain which connects Adam's Bridge with the Indian continent, fresh water is found freely on sinking for it in the sand. But this is not the case in the adjacent island of Manaar, which participates in the geologic character of the interior of Ceylon. The fresh water in the Laccadive wells always fluctuates with the rise and fall of the tides. In some rare instances, as on the little island of Bitra, which is the smallest inhabited spot in the group, the water, though abundant, is brackish, but this is susceptible of an explanation quite consistent with the experiments of Mr. Witt, which require that the process of percolation shall be continued "during _long_ periods and through _great masses of porous strata_;" Darwin equally concedes that to keep the rain fresh when banked in, as he assumes, by the sea, the mass of madrepore must be "sufficiently thick to prevent mechanical admixture; and where the land consists of loose blocks of coral with open interstices, the water, if a well be dug, is brackish." Conditions analogous to all these particularised, present themselves at Jaffna, and seem to indicate that the extent to which fresh water is found there, is directly connected with percolation from the sea. The quantity of rain which annually falls is less than in England, being but thirty inches; whilst the average heat is highest in Ceylon, and the evaporation great in proportion. Throughout the peninsula, I am informed by Mr. Byrne, the Government surveyor of the district, that as a general rule "_all the wells are below the sea level_." It would be useless to sink them in the higher ground, where they could only catch surface water. The November rains fill them at once to the brim, but the water quickly subsides as the season becomes dry, and "_sinks to the uniform level, at which it remains fixed for the next nine or ten months_, unless when slightly affected by showers." "_No well below the sea level becomes dry of itself_," even in seasons of extreme and continued drought. But the contents do not vary with the tides, the rise of which is so trifling that the distance from the ocean, and the slowness of filtration, renders its fluctuations imperceptible. On the other hand, the well of Potoor, the phenomena of which indicate its direct connection with the sea, by means of a fissure or a channel beneath the arch of magnesian limestone, rises and falls a few inches in the course of every twelve hours. Another well at Navokeiry, a short distance from it, does the same, whilst the well at Tillipalli is entirely unaffected as to its level by any rains, and exhibits no alteration of its depths on either monsoon. ADMIRAL FITZROY, in his _Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle_, the expedition to which Mr. Darwin was attached, adverts to the phenomenon in connection with the fresh water found in the Coral Islands, and the rise and fall of the wells, and the flow and ebb of the tide. He advances the theory propounded by Darwin of the retention of the river-water, which he says, "does not mix with the salt water which surrounds it except at the edges of the land. The flowing tide pushes on every side, the mixed soil being very porous, and causes the water to rise: when the tide falls, the fresh water sinks also. _A sponge full of fresh water placed gently in a basin of salt water, will not part with its contents for a length of time if left untouched_, and the water in the middle of the sponge will be found untainted by salt for many days: perhaps much longer if tried."--Vol. i. p. 365. In a perfectly motionless medium the experiment of the sponge may no doubt be successful to the extent mentioned by Admiral Fitzroy; and so the rain-water imbibed by a coral rock might for a length of time remain fresh where it came into no contact with the salt. But the disturbance caused by the tides, and the partial intermixture admitted by Admiral Fitzroy, must by reiterated occurrence tend in time to taint the fresh water which is affected by the movement: and this is demonstrable even by the test of the sponge; for I find that on charging one with coloured fluid, and immersing it in a vessel containing water perfectly pure, no intermixture takes place so long as the pure water is undisturbed; but on causing an artificial tide, by gradually withdrawing and as gradually replacing a portion of the surrounding contents of the basin, the tinted water in the sponge becomes displaced and disturbed, and in the course of a few ebbs and flows its escape is made manifest by the quantity of colour which it imparts to the surrounding fluid.] An idea of the general aspect of Ceylon will be formed from what has here been described. Nearly four parts of the island are undulating plains, slightly diversified by offsets from the mountain system which entirely covers the remaining fifth. Every district, from the depths of the valleys to the summits of the highest hills, is clothed with perennial foliage; and even the sand-drifts, to the ripple on the sea line, are carpeted with verdure, and sheltered from the sunbeams by the cool shadows of the palm groves. SOIL.--But the soil, notwithstanding this wonderful display of spontaneous vegetation, is not responsive to systematic cultivation, and is but imperfectly adapted for maturing a constant succession of seeds and cereal productions.[1] Hence arose the disappointment which beset the earliest adventurers who opened plantations of coffee in the hills, on discovering that after the first rapid development of the plants, delicacy and languor ensued, which were only to be corrected by returning to the earth, in the form of manures, those elements with which it had originally been but sparingly supplied, and which were soon exhausted by the first experiments in cultivation. [Footnote 1: See a paper in the Journal of Agriculture, for March, 1857, Edin.: on _Tropical Cultivation and its Limits_, by Dr. MACVICAR.] _Patenas_.--The only spots hitherto found suitable for planting coffee, are those covered by the ancient forests of the mountain zone; and one of the most remarkable phenomena in the oeconomic history of the island, is the fact that the grass lands on the same hills, closely adjoining the forests and separated from them by no visible line save the growth of the trees, although they seem to be identical in the nature of the soil, have hitherto proved to be utterly insusceptible of reclamation or culture by the coffee planter.[1] These verdant openings, to which the natives have given the name of _patenas_, generally occur about the middle elevation of the hills, the summits and the hollows being covered with the customary growth of timber trees, which also fringe the edges of the mountain streams that trickle down these park-like openings. The forest approaches boldly to the very edge of a "patena," not disappearing gradually or sinking into a growth of underwood, but stopping abruptly and at once, the tallest trees forming a fence around the avoided spot, as if they enclosed an area of solid stone. These sunny expanses vary in width from a few yards to many thousands of acres; in the lower ranges of the hills they are covered with tall lemon-grass _(Andropogon schoenanthus)_ of which the oppressive perfume and coarse texture, when full grown, render it distasteful to cattle, which will only crop the delicate braird that springs after the surface has been annually burnt by the Kandyans. Two stunted trees, alone, are seen to thrive in these extraordinary prairies, _Careya arborea_ and _Emblica officinalis_, and these only below an altitude of 4000 feet; above this, the lemon-grass is superseded by harder and more wiry species; but the earth is still the same, a mixture of decomposed quartz largely impregnated with oxide of iron, but wanting the phosphates and other salts which are essential to highly organised vegetation.[2] The extent of the patena land is enormous in Ceylon, amounting to millions of acres; and it is to be hoped that the complaints which have hitherto been made by the experimental cultivators of coffee in the Kandyan provinces may hereafter prove exaggerated, and that much that has been attributed to the poverty of the soil may eventually be traced to deficiency of skill on the part of the early planters. [Footnote 1: Since the above was written, attempts have been made, chiefly by natives to plant coffee on patena land. The result is a conviction that the cultivation is practicable, by the use of manures from the beginning; whereas forest land is capable, for three or four years at least, of yielding coffee without any artificial enrichment of the soil.] [Footnote 2: HUMBOLDT is disposed to ascribe the absence of trees in the vast grassy plains of South America, to "the destructive custom of setting fire to the woods, when the natives want to convert the soil into pasture: when during the lapse of centuries grasses and plants have covered the surface with a carpet, the seeds of trees can no longer germinate and fix themselves in the earth, although birds and winds carry them continually from the distant forests into the Savannahs."--_Narrative_, vol. i. ch. vi. p. 242.] The natives in the same lofty localities find no deficient returns in the crops of rice, which they raise in the ravines and hollows, into which the earth from above has been washed by the periodical rains; but the cultivation of rice is so entirely dependent on the presence of water, that no inference can be fairly drawn as to the quality of the soil from the abundance of its harvest. The fields on which rice is grown in these mountains form one of the most picturesque and beautiful objects in the country of the Kandyans. Selecting an angular recess where two hills converge, they construct a series of terraces, raised stage above stage, and retiring as they ascend along the slope of the acclivity, up which they are carried as high as the soil extends.[1] Each terrace is furnished with a low ledge in front, behind which the requisite depth of water is retained during the germination of the seed, and what is superfluous is permitted to trickle down to the one below it. In order to carry on this peculiar cultivation the streams are led along the level of the hills, often from a distance of many miles, with a skill and perseverance for which the natives of these mountains have attained a great renown. [Footnote 1: The conversion of the land into these hanging farms is known in Ceylon as "assuedamizing," a term borrowed from the Kandyan vernacular, in which the word "assuedamé" implies the process above described.] In the lowlands to the south, the soil partakes of the character of the hills from whose detritus it is to a great extent formed. In it rice is the chief article produced, and for its cultivation the disintegrated laterite (_cabook_), when thoroughly irrigated, is sufficiently adapted. The seed time in the southern section of the island is dependent on the arrival of the rains in November and May, and hence the mountains and the maritime districts at their base enjoy two harvests in each year--the _Maha_, which is sown about July and August, and reaped in December and January, the _Yalla_ which is sown in spring, and reaped from the 15th of July to the 20th September. But owing to the different description of seed sown in particular localites, and the extent to which they are respectively affected by the rains, the times of sowing and harvest vary considerably on different sides of the island.[1] [Footnote 1: The reaping of other descriptions of grain besides rice occurs at various periods of the year according to the locality.] In the north, where the influence of the monsoons is felt with less force and regularity, and where, to counteract their uncertainty, the rain is collected in reservoirs, a wider discretion is left to the husbandman in the choice of season for his operations.[1] Two crops of grain, however, are the utmost that is taken from the land, and in many instances only one. The soil near the coast is light and sandy, but in the great central districts of Neuera-kalawa and the Wanny, there is found in the midst of the forests a dark vegetable mould, in which in former times rice was abundantly grown by the aid of those prodigious artificial works for irrigation which still form one of the wonders of the island. Many of the tanks, though partially in ruins, cover an area from ten to fifteen miles in circumference. They are now generally broken and decayed; the waters which would fertilise a province are allowed to waste themselves in the sands, and hundreds of square miles capable of furnishing food for all the inhabitants of Ceylon are abandoned to solitude and malaria, whilst rice for the support of the non-agricultural population is annually imported from the opposite coast of India. [Footnote 1: This peculiarity of the north of Ceylon was noticed by the Chinese traveller FA HIAN, who visited the island in the fourth century, and says of the country around Anarajapoora: "L'ensemencement des champs est suivant la volonté des gens; il n'y a point de temps pour cela."--_Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_; p. 332.] _Talawas_.--In these districts of the lowlands, especially on the eastern coast of the island, and in the country watered by the Mahawelli-ganga and the other great rivers which flow towards the Bay of Bengal and the magnificent estuary of Trincomalie, there are open glades which diversify the forest scenery somewhat resembling the grassy patenas in the hills, but differing from them in the character of their soil and vegetation. These park-like meadows, or, as the natives call them, "talawas," vary in extent from one to a thousand acres. They are belted by the surrounding woods, and studded with groups of timber and sometimes with single trees of majestic dimensions. Through these pastures the deer troop in herds within gunshot, bounding into the nearest cover when disturbed. Lower still and immediately adjoining the sea-coast, the broken forest gives place to brushwood, with here and there an assemblage of dwarf shrubs; but as far as the eye can reach, there is one vast level of impenetrable jungle, broken only by the long sweep of salt marshes which form lakes in the rainy season, but are dry between the monsoons, and crusted with crystals that glitter like snow in the sunshine. On the western side of the island the rivers have formed broad alluvial plains, in which the Dutch attempted to grow sugar. The experiment has been often resumed since; but even here the soil is so defective, that the cost of artificially enriching it has hitherto been a serious obstruction to success commercially, although in one or two instances, plantations on a small scale have succeeded to a certain extent. METALS.--The plutonic rocks of Ceylon are but slightly metalliferous, and hitherto their veins and deposits have been but imperfectly examined. The first successful survey attempted by the Government was undertaken during the administration of Viscount Torrington, who, in 1847, commissioned Dr. Gygax to proceed to the hill district south of Adam's Peak, and furnish a report on its products. His investigations extended from Ratnapoora, in a south-eastward direction, to the mountains which overhang Bintenne, but the results obtained did not greatly enlarge the knowledge previously possessed. He established the existence of _tin_ in the alluvium along the base of the mountains to the eastward towards Edelgashena; but so circumstanced, owing to the flow of the Walleway river, that, without lowering its level, the metal could not be extracted with advantage. The position in which it occurs is similar to that in which tin ore presents itself in Saxony; and along with it, the natives, when searching for gems, discover garnets, corundum, white topazes, zircon, and tourmaline. _Gold_ is found in minute particles at Gettyhedra, and in the beds of the Maha Oya and other rivers flowing towards the west.[1] But the quantity hitherto discovered has been too trivial to reward the search. The early inhabitants of the island were not ignorant of its presence; but its occurrence on a memorable occasion, as well as that of silver and copper, is recorded in the Mahawanso as a miraculous manifestation, which signalised the founding of one of the most renowned shrines at the ancient capital.[2] [Footnote 1: Ruanwellé, a fort about forty miles distant from Colombo, derives its name from the sands of the river which flows below it,--rang-welle, "golden sand." "Rang-galla," in the central province, is referable to the same root--the rock of gold.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso,_ ch. xxiii. p. 166, 167.] _Nickel_ and _cobalt_ appear in small quantities in Saffragam, and the latter, together with _rutile_ (an oxide of titanium) and _wolfram_, might find a market in China for the colouring of porcelain.[1] _Tellurium_, another rare and valuable metal, hitherto found only in Transylvania and the Ural, has likewise been discovered in these mountains, _Manganese_ is abundant, and _Iron_ occurs in the form of magnetic iron ore, titanite, chromate, yellow hydrated, per-oxide and iron pyrites. In most of these, however, the metal is scanty, and the ores of little comparative value, except for the extraction of manganese and chrome. "But there is another description of iron ore," says Dr. Gygax, in his official report to the Ceylon Government, "which is found in vast abundance, brown and compact, generally in the state of carbonate, though still blended with a little chrome, and often molybdena. It occurs in large masses and veins, one of which extends for a distance of fifteen miles; from it millions of tons might be smelted, and when found adjacent to fuel and water-carriage, it might be worked to a profit. The quality of the iron ore found in Ceylon is singularly fine; it is easily smelted, and so pure when reduced as to resemble silver. The rough ore produces from _thirty_ to _seventy-five_ per cent., and on an average fully _fifty_. The iron wrought from it requires no puddling, and, converted into steel, it cuts like a diamond. The metal could be laid down in Colombo at £6 per ton, even supposing the ore to be brought thither for smelting, and prepared with English coal; but _anthracite_ being found upon the spot, it could be used in the proportion of three to one of the British coal; and the cost correspondingly reduced." [Footnote 1: The _Asiatic Annual Register_ for 1799 contains the following:-- "_Extract from a letter from Colombo, dated 26th Oct. 1798_. "A discovery has been lately made here of a very rich mine of _quicksilver,_ about six miles from this place. The appearances are very promising, for a handful of the earth on the surface will, by being washed, produce the value of a rupee. A guard is set over it, and accounts sent express to the Madras Government."--P. 53. See also PERCIVAL'S _Ceylon_, p. 539. JOINVILLE, in a MS, essay on _The Geology of Ceylon_, now in the library of the East India Company, says that near Trincomalie there is "un sable noir, composé de détriments de trappe et de cristaux de fer, _dans lequel on trouve par le lavage beaucoup de mercure_."] Remains of ancient furnaces are met with in all directions precisely similar to those still in use amongst the natives. The Singhalese obtain the ore they require without the trouble of mining; seeking a spot where the soil has been loosened by the latest rains, they break off a sufficient quantity, which, in less than three hours, they convert into iron by the simplest possible means. None of their furnaces are capable of smelting more than twenty pounds of ore, and yet this quantity yields from seven to ten pounds of good metal. The _anthracite_ alluded to by Dr. Gygax is found in the southern range of hills near Nambepane, in close proximity to rich veins of _plumbago_, which are largely worked in the same district, and the quantity of the latter annually exported from Ceylon exceeds a thousand tons. _Molybdena_ is found in profusion dispersed through many rocks in Saffragam, and it occurs in the alluvium in grey scales, so nearly resembling plumbago as to be commonly mistaken for it. _Kaolin_, called by the natives _Kirimattie_, appears at Neuera-ellia at Hewahette, Kaduganawa, and in many of the higher ranges as well as in the low country near Colombo; its colour is so clear as to suit for the manufacture of porcelain[1]; but the difficulty and cost of carriage render it as yet unavailing for commerce, and the only use to which it has hitherto been applied is to serve for whitewash instead of lime. [Footnote 1: The kaolin of Ceylon, according to an analysis in 1847, consists of-- Pure kaolin 70.0 Silica 26.0 Molybdena and iron oxide 4.0 ____ 100.0 In the _Ming-she_, or history of the Ming dynasty, A.D. 1368-1643, by Chan-ting-yuh, "pottery-stone" is; enumerated among the imports into China from Ceylon.--B. cccxxvi. p. 5.] _Nitre_ has long been known to exist in Ceylon, where the localities in which it occurs are similar to those in Brazil. In Saffragam alone there are upwards of sixty caverns known to the natives, from which it may be extracted, and others exist in various parts of the island, where the abundance of wood to assist in its lixiviation would render that process easy and profitable. Yet so sparingly has this been hitherto attempted, that even for purposes of refrigeration, crude saltpetre is still imported from India.[1] [Footnote 1: The mineralogy of Ceylon has hitherto undergone no scientific scrutiny, nor have its mineral productions been arranged in any systematic and comprehensive catalogue. Specimens are to be found in abundance in the hands of native dealers; but from indifference or caution they express their inability to afford adequate information as to their locality, their geological position, or even to show with sufficient certainty that they belong to the island. Dr. Gygax, as the results of some years spent in exploring different districts previous to 1847, was enabled to furnish a list of but thirty-seven species, the site of which he had determined by personal inspection. These were:-- 1. Rock crystal Abundant. 2. Iron quartz Saffragam. 3. Common quartz Abundant. 4. Amethyst Galle Back, Caltura. 5. Garnet Abundant. 6. Cinnamon stone Belligam. 7. Harmotome St. Lucia, Colombo. 8. Hornblende Abundant. 9. Hypersthene Ditto. 10. Common corundum Badulla. 11. Ruby Ditto and Saffragam. 12. Chrysoberyl Ratganga, North Saffragam. 13. Pleonaste Badulla. 14. Zircon Wallawey-ganga, Saffragam. 15. Mica Abundant. 16. Adular Patna Hills, North-east. 17. Common felspar Abundant. 18. Green felspar Kandy. 19. Albite Melly Matté. 20. Chlorite Kandy. 21. Pinite Patna Hills. 22. Black tourmaline Neuera-ellia. 23. Calespar Abundant. 24. Bitterspar Ditto. 25. Apatite Galle Back. 26. Fluorspar Ditto. 27. Chiastolite Mount Lavinia. 28. Iron pyrites Peradenia. 29. Magnetic iron pyrites Ditto, Rajawelle. 30. Brown iron ore Abundant. 31. Spathose iron ore Galle Back. 32. Manganese Saffragam. 33. Molybden glance Abundant. 34. Tin ore Saffragam. 35. Arseniate of nickel Ditto. 36. Plumbago Morowa Corle. 37. Epistilbite St. Lucia.] GEMS.--But the chief interest which attaches to the mountains and rocks of this region, arises from the fact that they contain those mines of _precious stones_ which from time immemorial have conferred renown on Ceylon. The ancients celebrated the gems as well as the pearls of "Taprobane;" the tales of mariners returning from their eastern expeditions supplied to the story-tellers of the Arabian Nights their fables of the jewels of "Serendib;" and the travellers of the Middle Ages, on returning to Europe, told of the "sapphires, topazes, amethysts, garnets, and other costly stones" of Ceylon, and of the ruby which belonged to the king of the island, "a span in length, without a flaw, and brilliant beyond description."[1] [Footnote 1: _Travels of_ MARCO POLO, _a Venetian, in the Thirteenth Century_, Lond. 1818.] The extent to which gems are still found is sufficient to account for the early traditions of their splendour and profusion; and fabulous as this story of the ruby of the Kandyan kings may be, the abundance of gems in Saffragam has given to the capital of the district the name of _Ratnapoora_, which means literally "the city of rubies."[1] They are not, however, confined to this quarter alone, but quantities are still found on the western plains between Adam's Peak and the sea, at Neuera-ellia, in Oovah, at Kandy, at Mattelle in the central province, and at Ruanwelli near Colombo, at Matura, and in the beds of the rivers eastwards towards the ancient Mahagam. [Footnote 1: In the vicinity of Ratnapoora there are to be obtained masses of quartz of the most delicate rose colour. Some pieces, which were brought to me in Colombo, were of extraordinary beauty; and I have reason to believe that it can be obtained in pieces large enough to be used as slabs for tables, or formed into vases and columns, I may observe that similar pieces are to be found in the south of Ireland, near Cork.] But the localities which chiefly supply the Ceylon gems are the alluvial plains at the foot of the stupendous hills of Saffragam, in which the detritus of the rocks has been carried down and intercepted by the slight elevations that rise at some distance from the base of the mountains. The most remarkable of these gem-bearing deposits is in the flat country around Ballangodde, south-east of Ratnapoora; but almost every valley in communication with the rocks of the higher ranges contains stones of more or less value, and the beds of the rivers flowing southward from the mountain chain are so rich in comminuted fragments of rubies, sapphires, and garnets[1], that their sands in some places are used by lapidaries in polishing the softer stones, and in sawing the elephants' grinders into plates. The cook of a government officer at Galle recently brought to him a ruby about the size of a small pea, which he had taken from the crop of a fowl. [Footnote 1: Mr. BAKER, in a work entitled _The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon_, thus describes the sands of the Manic Ganga, near the ruins of Mahagam, in the south-eastern extremity of the island:--"The sand was composed of mica, quartz, sapphire, ruby, and jacinth; but the large proportion of ruby sand was so extraordinary that it seemed to rival Sinbad's story of the vale of gems. The whole of this was valueless, but the appearance of the sand was very inviting, as the shallow stream in rippling over it magnified the tiny gems into stones of some magnitude. I passed an hour in vainly searching for a ruby worth collecting, but the largest did not exceed the size of a mustard seed."--BAKER'S _Rifle and Hound in Ceylon_, p. 181.] Of late years considerable energy has been shown by those engaged in the search for gems; neglected districts have been explored, and new fields have been opened up at such places as Karangodde and Weraloopa, whence stones have been taken of unusual size and value. It is not, however, in the recent strata of gravel, nor in those now in process of formation, that the natives search for gems. They penetrate these to the depth of from ten to twenty feet, in order to reach a lower deposit distinguished by the name of _Nellan_, in which the objects of their search are found. This is of so early a formation that it underlies the present beds of rivers, and is generally separated from them or from the superincumbent gravel by a hard crust (called _Kadua_), a few inches in thickness, and so consolidated as to have somewhat the appearance of laterite, or of sun-burnt brick. The nellan is for the most part horizontal, but occasionally it is raised into an incline as it approaches the base of the hills. It appears to have been deposited previous to the eruption of the basalt, on which in some places it reclines, and to have undergone some alteration from the contact. It consists of water-worn pebbles firmly imbedded in clay, and occasionally there occur large lumps of granite and gneiss, in the hollows under which, as well as in "pockets" in the clay (which from their shape the natives denominate "elephants' footsteps") gems are frequently found in groups as if washed in by the current. The persons who devote themselves to this uncertain pursuit are chiefly Singhalese, and the season selected by them for "gemming" is between December and March, when the waters are low.[1] The poorer and least enterprising adventurers betake themselves to the beds of streams, but the most certain though the most costly course is to sink pits in the adjacent plains, which are consequently indented with such traces of recent explorers. The upper gravel is pierced, the covering crust is reached and broken through, and the nellan being shovelled into conical baskets and washed to free it from the sand, the residue is carefully searched for whatever rounded crystals and minute gems it may contain. [Footnote 1: A very interesting account of _Gems and Gem Searching_, by Mr. WM. STEWART, appeared in the _Colombo Observer_ for June, 1855.] It is strongly characteristic of the want of energy in the Singhalese, that although for centuries those alluvial plains and watercourses have been searched without ceasing, no attempt appears to have been made to explore the rocks themselves, in the debris of which the gems have been brought down by the rivers. Dr. Gygax says: "I found at Hima Pohura, on the south-eastern decline of the Pettigalle-Kanda, about the middle of the descent, a stratum of grey granite containing, with iron pyrites and molybdena, innumerable rubies from one-tenth to a fourth of an inch in diameter, and of a fine rose colour, but split and falling to powder. It is not an isolated bed of minerals, but a regular stratum extending probably to the same depth and distance as the other granite formations. I followed it as far as was practicable for close examination, but everywhere in the lower part of the valley I found it so decomposed that the hammer sunk in the rock, and even bamboos were growing on it. On the higher ground near some small round hills which intercept it, I found the rubies changed into brown corundum. Upon the hills themselves the trace was lost, and instead of a stratum there was merely a wild chaos of blocks of yellow granite. I carefully examined all the minerals which this stratum contains,--felspar, mica, and quartz molybdena, and iron pyrites,--and I found all similar to those I had previously got adhering to rough rubies offered for sale at Colombo. _I firmly believe that in such strata the rubies of Ceylon are originally found_, and that those in the white and blue clay at Ballangodde and Ratnapoora are but secondary deposits. I am further inclined to believe that these extend over the whole island, although often intercepted and changed in their direction by the rising of the yellow granite." It is highly probable that the finest rubies are to be found in them, perfect and unchanged by decomposition; and that they are to be obtained by opening a regular mine in the rock like the ruby mine of Badakshan in Bactria described by Sir Alexander Burnes. Dr. Gygax adds that having often received the minerals of this stratum with the crystals perfect, he has reason to believe that places are known to the natives where such mines might be opened with confidence of success. Rubies both crystalline and amorphous are also found in a particular stratum of dolomite at Bullatotte and Badulla, in which there is a peculiar copper-coloured mica with metallic lustre. _Star rubies_, the "asteria" of Pliny (so called from their containing a movable six-rayed star), are to be had at Ratnapoora and for very trifling sums. The blue tinge which detracts from the value of the pure ruby, whose colour should resemble "pigeon's blood," is removed by the Singhalese, by enveloping the stone in the lime of a calcined shell and exposing it to a high heat. _Spinel_ of extremely beautiful colours is found in the bed of the Mahawelli-ganga at Kandy, and from the locality it has obtained the name of _Candite_. It is strange that although the _sapphire_ is found in all this region in greater quantity than the ruby, it has never yet been discovered in the original matrix, and the small fragments which sometimes occur in dolomite show that there it is but a deposit. From its exquisite colour and the size in which it is commonly found, it forms by far the most valuable gem of the island. A piece which was dug out of the alluvium within a few miles of Ratnapoora in 1853, was purchased by a Moor at Colombo, in whose hands it was valued at upwards of four thousand pounds. The original site of the _oriental topaz_ is equally unknown with that of the sapphire. The Singhalese rightly believe them to be the same stone only differing in colour, and crystals are said to be obtained with one portion yellow and the other blue. _Garnets_ of inferior quality are common in the gneiss, but finer ones are found in the hornblende rocks. _Cinnamon-stone_ (which is properly a variety of garnet) is so extremely abundant, that vast rocks containing it in profusion exist in many places, especially in the alluvium around Matura; and at Belligam, a few miles east from Point-de-Galle, a vast detached rock is so largely composed of cinnamon-stones that it is carried off in lumps for the purpose of extracting and polishing them. The _Cat's-eye_ is one of the jewels of which the Singhalese are especially proud, from a belief that it is only found in their island; but in this I apprehend they are misinformed, as specimens of equal merit have been brought from Quilon and Cochin on the southern coast of Hindostan. The cat's-eye is a greenish translucent quartz, and when cut _en cabochon_ it presents a moving internal reflection which is ascribed to the presence of filaments of asbestos. Its perfection is estimated by the natives in proportion to the narrowness and sharpness of the ray and the pure olive-tint of the ground over which it plays. _Amethysts_ are found in the gneiss, and some discoloured though beautiful specimens in syenite; they are too common to be highly esteemed. The "Matura Diamonds," which are largely used by the native jewellers, consist of zircon, found in the syenite not only uncoloured, but also of pink and yellow tints, the former passing for rubies. But one of the prettiest though commonest gems in the island is the "Moon-stone," a variety of pearly adularia presenting chatoyant rays when simply polished. They are so abundant that the finest specimens may be bought for a few shillings. These, with _aqua marina_, a bad description of _opal rock crystal_ in extremely large pieces, _tourmaline_, and a number of others of no great value, compose the list of native gems procurable in Ceylon.[1] Diamonds, emeralds, agates, carnelians, opal and turquoise, when they are exhibited by the natives, have all been imported from India. [Footnote 1: Caswini and some of the Arabian geographers assert that the diamond is found at Adam's Peak; but this is improbable, as there is no formation resembling the _cascalhao_ of Brazil or the diamond conglomerate of Golconda. If diamonds were offered for sale in Ceylon, in the time of the Arab navigators, they must have been brought thither from India, (_Journ. As. Soc. Beng._ xiii. 633.)] During the dynasty of the Kandyan sovereigns, the right of digging for gems was a royalty reserved jealously for the King; and the inhabitants of particular villages were employed in their search under the superintendence of hereditary officers, with the rank of "Mudianse." By the British Government the monopoly was early abolished as a source of revenue, and no license is now required by the jewel-hunters. Great numbers of persons of the worst-regulated habits are constantly engaged in this exciting and precarious trade; and serious demoralisation is engendered amongst the villagers by the idle and dissolute adventurers who resort to Saffragam. Systematic industry suffers, and the cultivation of the land is frequently neglected whilst its owners are absorbed in these speculative and tantalising occupations. The products of their searches are disposed of to the Moors, who resort to Saffragam from the low country, carrying up cloth and salt, to be exchanged for gems and coffee. At the annual Buddhist festival of the Pera-hara, a jewel-fair is held at Ratnapoora, to which the purchasers resort from all parts of Ceylon. Of late years, however, the condition of the people in Saffragam has so much improved that it has become difficult to obtain the finest jewels, the wealthier natives preferring to retain them as investments: they part with them reluctantly, and only for gold, which they find equally convenient for concealment.[1] [Footnote 1: So eager is the appetite for hoarding in these hills, that eleven rupees (equal to twenty-two shillings) have frequently been given for a sovereign.] The lapidaries who cut and polish the stones are chiefly Moors, but their tools are so primitive, and their skill so deficient, that a gem generally loses in value by having passed through their hands. The inferior kinds, such as cinnamon-stones, garnets, and tourmaline, are polished by ordinary artists at Kandy, Matura, and Galle; but the more expert lapidaries, who cut rubies and sapphires, reside chiefly at Caltura and Colombo. As a general rule, the rarer gems are less costly in Europe than in Colombo. In London and Paris the quantities brought from all parts of the world are sufficient to establish something like a market value; but, in Ceylon, the supply is so uncertain that the price is always regulated at the moment by the rank and wealth of the purchaser. Strange to say, too, there is often an unwillingness even amongst the Moorish dealers to sell the rarest and finest specimens; those who are wealthy being anxious to retain them, and few but stones of secondary value are offered for sale. Besides, the Rajahs and native Princes of India, amongst whom the passion for jewels is universal, are known to give such extravagant prices that the best are always sent to them from Ceylon. From the Custom House returns it is impossible to form any calculation as to the value of the precious stones exported from the island. A portion only appears, even of those sent to England, the remainder being carried away by private parties. Of the total number found, one-fourth is probably purchased by the natives themselves, more than one-half is sent to the Continent of India, and the remainder represents the export to Europe. Computed in this way, the quantity of precious stones found in the island may be estimated at 10,000_l_. per annum. RIVERS.--From the mountainous configuration of the country and the abundance of the rains, the rivers are large and numerous in the south of the island--ten of considerable magnitude flowing into the sea on the west coast, between Point-de-Galle and Manaar, and a still greater number, though inferior in volume, on the east. In the low country, where the heat is intense and evaporation proportionate, they derive little of their supply from springs; and the passing showers which fall scarcely more than replace the moisture drawn by the sun from the parched and thirsty soil. Hence in the plains there are comparatively few rivulets or running streams; the rivers there flow in almost solitary lines to the sea; and the beds of their minor affluents serve only to conduct to them the torrents which descend at the change of each monsoon, their channels at other times being exhausted and dry. But in their course through the hills, and the broken ground at their base, they are supplied by numerous feeders, which convey to them the frequent showers that fall in high altitudes. Hence their tracks are through some of the noblest scenery in the world; rushing through ravines and glens, and falling over precipitous rocks in the depths of wooded valleys, they exhibit a succession of rapids, cataracts, and torrents, unsurpassed in magnificence and beauty. On reaching the plains, the boldness of their march and the graceful outline of their sweep are indicative of the little obstruction opposed by the sandy and porous soil through which they flow. Throughout their entire course dense forests shade their banks, and, as they approach the sea, tamarisks and over-arching mangroves mark where their waters mingle with the tide. Of all the Ceylon rivers, the most important by far is the Mahawelli-ganga--the Ganges of Ptolemy--which, rising in the south near Adam's Peak, traverses more than one-third of the mountain zone[1], drains upwards of four thousand square miles, and flows into the sea by a number of branches, near the noble harbour of Trincomalie. The following table gives a comparative view of the magnitude of the rivers that rise in the hills, and of the extent of the low country traversed by each of them:-- Square Miles Square Miles Length of Embouchure. drained in drained in the Course of Mountain low Country, the main Zone. about Stream. Mahawelii-ganga near Trincomalie 1782 2300 134 Kirinde at Mahagan 34 300 62 Wellawey near Hambangtotte 263 500 69 Neivalle at Matura 64 200 42 (Three Rivers) near Tangalle 56 200 Gindura near Galle 180 200 59 Kalu-oya at Caltura 841 300 72 Kalany Colombo 692 200 84 The Kaymel or Mahaoya near Negombo 253 200 68 Dederoo-oya near Chilaw 38 700 70 ---------------------------- 4212 5100 [Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 12, for a definition of what constitutes the "mountain zone" of Ceylon.] In addition to these, there are a number of large rivers which belong entirely to the plains in the northern and south-eastern portions of the island, the principal of which are the Arive and the Moderegam, which flow into the Gulf of Manaar; the Kala-oya and the Kanda-lady, which empty themselves into the Bay of Calpentyn; the Maniek or Kattragam, and the Koombookgam, opposite to the Little Bass rocks and the Naveloor, the Chadawak, and Arookgam, south of Batticaloa. The extent of country drained by these latter streams is little short of thirteen thousand square miles. Very few of the rivers of Ceylon are navigable, and these only by canoes and flat-bottomed paddy boats, which ascend some of the largest for short distances, till impeded by the rapids, occasioned by rocks in the lowest range of the hills. In this way the Niwalle at Matura can be ascended for about fifteen miles, as far as Wellehara; the Kalu-ganga can be traversed from Caltura to Ratnapoora; the Bentotte river for sixteen miles to Pittagalla; and the Kalany from Colombo to the foot of the mountains near Ambogammoa. The Mahawelli-ganga is navigable from Trincomalie to within a short distance of Kanda[1]; and many of the lesser streams, the Kirinde and Wellawey in the south, and the Kaymel, the Dedroo-oya, and the Aripo river on the west of the island, are used for short distances by boats. [Footnote 1: For an account of the capabilities of the Mahawelli-ganga, as regards navigation, see BROOKE'S _Report, Roy. Geog. Journ._ vol. iii. p. 223. and _post_, Vol. II. p. 423.] All these streams are liable, during the fury of the monsoons, to be surcharged with rain till they overflow their banks, and spread in wide inundations over the level country. On the subsidence of these waters, the intense heat of the sun acting on the surface they leave deserted, produces a noxious and fatal malaria. Hence the rivers of Ceylon present the curious anomaly, that whilst the tanks and reservoirs of the interior diffuse a healthful coolness around, the running water of the rivers is prolific of fevers; and in some seasons so deadly is the pestilence that the Malabar coolies, as well as the native peasantry, betake themselves to precipitate flight.[1] [Footnote 1: It has been remarked along the Mahawelli-ganga, a few miles from Kandy, that during the deadly season, after the subsidence of the rains, the jungle fever generally attacks one face of the hills through which it winds, leading the opposite side entirely exempted, as if the poisonous vapour, being carried by the current of air, affected only those aspects against which it directly impinged.] Few of the larger rivers have been bridged, except those which intersect the great high roads from Point-de-Galle to Colombo, and thence to Kandy. Near the sea this has been effected by timber platforms, sustained by piles sufficiently strong to withstand the force of the floods at the change of each monsoon. A bridge of boats connects each side of the Kalany, and on reaching the Mahawelli-ganga at Peradenia, one of the most picturesque structures on the island is a noble bridge of a single arch, 205 feet in span, chiefly constructed of satin-wood, and thrown across the river by General Fraser in 1832. On reaching the margin of the sea, an appearance is presented by the outline of the coast, near the embouchures of the principal rivers, which is very remarkable. It is common to both sides of the island, though it has attained its greatest development on the east. In order to comprehend its formation, it is necessary to observe that Ceylon lies in the course of the ocean currents in the Bay of Bengal, which run north or south according to the prevalence of the monsoon, and with greater or less velocity in proportion to its force at particular periods. [Illustration: CURRENT IN THE NE MONSOON.] In the beginning and during the strength of the northeast monsoon the current sets strongly along the coast of Coromandel to the southward, a portion of it frequently entering Palks Bay to the north of Ceylon; but the main stream keeping invariably to the east of the island, runs with a velocity of from one and a half to two miles an hour, and after passing the Great Bass, it keeps its course seaward. At other times, after the monsoon has spent its violence, the current is weak, and follows the line of the land to the westward as far as Point-de-Galle, or even to Colombo. [Illustration: CURRENT IN THE S.W. MONSOON] In the south-west monsoon the current changes its direction; and, although it flows steadily to the northward, its action is very irregular and unequal till it readies the Coromandel coast, after passing Ceylon. This is accounted for by the obstruction opposed by the headlands of Ceylon, which so intercept the stream that the current, which might otherwise set into the Gulf of Manaar, takes a south-easterly direction by Galle and Donedra Head.[1] [Footnote 1: For an account of the currents of Ceylon, see HORSBURGH's _Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies, &c._; vol i. p. 516, 536, 580; KEITH JOHNSTON's _Physical Atlas_, plate xiii. p. 50.] There being no lakes in Ceylon[1], in the still waters of which the rivers might clear themselves of the earthy matter swept along in their rapid course from the hills, they arrive at the beach laden with sand and alluvium, and at their junction with the ocean being met transversely by the gulf-streams, the sand and soil with which they are laden, instead of being carried out to sea, are heaped up in bars along the shores, and these, being augmented by similar deposits held in suspension by the currents, soon extend to north, and south, and force the rivers to flow behind them in search of a new outlet. [Footnote 1: Pliny alludes to a lake in Ceylon of vast dimensions, but it is clear that his informants must have spoken of one of the huge tanks for the purpose of irrigation. Some of the _Mappe-mondes_ of the Middle Ages place a lake in the middle of the island, with a city inhabited by astrologers; but they have merely reproduced the error of earlier geographers. (SANTAREM, _Cosmog_. tom. iii. p. 336.)] These formations once commenced, their growth proceeds with rapidity, more especially on the east side of the island; as the southern current in skirting the Coromandel coast brings with it quantities of sand, which it deposits, in tranquil weather, and this being carried by the wind is piled in heaps from Point Pedro to Hambangtotte. Hence at the latter point hills are formed of such height and dimensions, that it is often necessary to remove buildings out of their line of encroachment.[1] [Footnote 1: This is occasioned by the waste of the banks further north during the violence of the N. E. monsoon; and the sand, being carried south by the current, is intercepted by the headland at Hambangtotte and thrown up these hills as described.] [Illustration: "GOBBS" ON THE EAST COAST] At the mouths of the rivers the bars thus created generally follow the direction of the current, and the material deposited being dried and partially consolidated in the intervals between the tides, long embankments are gradually raised, behind which the rivers flow for considerable distances before entering the sea. Occasionally these embouchures become closed by the accumulations without, and the pent-up water assumes the appearance of a still canal, more or less broad according to the level of the beach, and extending for miles along the coast, between the mainland and the new formations. But when swollen by the rains, if not assisted by artificial outlets to escape, they burst new openings for themselves, and not unfrequently they leave their ancient channels converted into shallow lagoons without any visible exit. Examples of these formations present themselves on the east side of Ceylon at Nilla-velle, Batticaloa, and a number of other places north and south of Trincomalie. On the west coast embankments of this kind, although frequent are less conspicuous than on the east, owing chiefly to the comparative weakness of the current. For six months in the year during the north-east monsoon that side of the island is exempt from a current in any direction, and for the remaining six, the current from the south not only rarely affects the Gulf of Manaar, but as it flows out of the Indian Ocean it brings no earthy deposits. In addition to this, the surf during the south-west monsoon rolls with such turbulence on the level beach between Colombo and Point-de-Galle, as in a great degree to disperse the accumulations of sand brought down by the rivers, or heaped up by the tide, when the wind is off the land. Still, many of the rivers are thrown back by embankments, and after forming tortuous lakes flow for a long distance parallel to the shore, before finding an escape for their waters. Examples of this occur at Pantura, to the south of Colombo, and at Negombo, Chilaw, and elsewhere to the north of it. [Illustration: GOBBS ON THE WEST COAST] In process of time these banks of sand[1] become covered with vegetation; herbaceous plants, shrubs, and finally trees peculiar to saline soils make their appearance in succession, and as these decay, their decomposition generates a sufficiency of soil to sustain continued vegetation. [Footnote 1: In the voyages of _The Two Mahometans_, the unique MS. of which dates about A.D. 851, and is now in the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, Abon-zeyd, one of its authors, describes the "Gobbs" of Ceylon--a word, he says, by which the natives designate the valleys deep and broad which open to the sea. "En face de cette íle y a de vastes _Gobb_, mot par lequel on désigne une vallée, quand elle est à la fois longue et large, et qu'elle débouche dans la mer. Les navigateurs emploient, pour traverser le _gobb_ appelé 'Gobb de Serendib,' deux mois et même davantage, passant à travers des bois et des jardins, au milieu d'une température moyenne."--REINAUD, _Voyages faits par les Arabes_, vol. i. p. 129. A misapprehension of this passage has been admitted into the English version of the _Voyages of the two Mahometans_ which is published in PINKERTON'S _Collections of Voyages and Travels_, vol. iii.; the translator having treated gobb as a term applicable to valleys in general. "Ceylon," he says, "contains valleys of great length, which extend to the sea, and here travellers repair for two months or more, in which one is called Gobb Serendib, allured by the beauty of the scenery, chequered with groves and plains, water and meadows, and blessed by a balmy air. The valley opens to the sea, and is transcendently pleasant."--PINKERTON'S _Voyages_, vol. vii. p. 218. But a passage in Edrisi, while it agrees with the terms of Abou-zeyd, explains at the same time that these gobbs were not valleys converted into gardens, to which the seamen resorted for pleasure to spend two or three months, but the embouchures of rivers flowing between banks, covered with gardens and forests, into which mariners were accustomed to conduct their vessels for more secure navigation, and in which they were subjected to detention for the period stated. The passage is as follows in Jaubert's translation of Edrisi, tom. i. p. 73:--"Cette île (Serendib) depend des terres de l'Inde; ainsi que les vallées (in orig. aghbab) par lesquelles se dechargent les rivières, et qu'on nomme 'Vallées de Serendib.' Les navires y mouillent, et les navigateurs y passent un mois ou deux dans l'abondance et dans les plaisirs." It is observable that Ptolemy, in enumerating the ports and harbours of Ceylon, maintains a distinction between the ordinary bays, [Greek: kolpos], of which he specifies two corresponding to those of Colombo and Trincomalie, and the shallower indentations, [Greek: limên], of which he enumerates five, the positions of which go far to identify them with the remarkable estuaries or _gobbs_, on the eastern and western coast between Batticaloa and Calpentyn. To the present day these latter gulfs are navigable for small craft. On the eastern side of the island one of them forms the harbour of Batticaloa, and on the western those of Chilaw and Negombo are bays of this class. Through the latter a continuous navigation has been completed by means of short connecting canals, and a traffic is maintained during the south-west monsoon, from Caltura to the north of Chilaw, a distance of upwards of eighty miles, by means of craft which navigate these shallow channels. These narrow passages conform in every particular to the description given by Abou-zeyd and Edrisi: they run through a succession of woods and gardens; and as a leading wind is indispensable for their navigation, the period named by the Arabian geographers for their passage is perhaps not excessive during calms or adverse winds. An article on the meaning of the word gobb will be found in the _Journal Asiatique_ for September, 1844; but it does not exhibit clearly the very peculiar features of these openings. It is contained in an extract from the work on India of ALBYROUNI, a contemporary of Avicenna, who was born in the valley of the Indus.--"Un golfe (gobb) est comme une encoignure et un détour que fait la mer en pénétrant dans le continens: les navires n'y sont pas sans péril particulièrement à l'égard du flux et reflux."--_Extrait de l'ouvrage d'_ ALBYROUNI _sur l'Inde; Fragmens Arabes et Persans, relatifs à l'Inde, recueillés par_ M. REINAUD; _Journ. Asiat., Septembre et Octobre_, 1844, p. 261. In the Turkish nautical work of SIDI ALI CHELEBI, the _Mohit_, written about A.D. 1550, which contains directions for sailors navigating the eastern seas, the author alludes to the _gobbha's_ on the coast of Arracan; and conscious that the term was local not likely to be understood beyond those countries, he adds that "gobbha" means "_a gulf full of shallows, shoals, and breakers_." See translation by VON HAMMER, _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ v. 466.] The process of this conversion may be seen in all its stages at various points along the coast of Ceylon. The margin of land nearest to the water is first taken possession of by a series of littoral plants, which apparently require a large quantity of salt to sustain their vegetation. These at times are intermixed with others, which, though found further inland, yet flourish in perfection on the shore. On the northern and north-western coasts the glass worts[1] and salt worts[2] are the first to appear on the newly raised banks, and being provided with penetrating roots, a breakwater is thus early secured, and the drier sand above becomes occupied with creeping plants which in their turn afford shelter to a third and erect class. [Footnote 1: Salicornia Indica.] [Footnote 2: Salsola Indica.] The Goat's-foot Ipomoea[1], which appears to encircle the world, abounds on these shores, covering the surface to the water's edge with its procumbent branches, which sending down roots from every joint serve to give the bank its first firmness, whilst the profusion of its purple-coloured flowers contrasts strikingly with its dark green foliage. [Footnote 1: Ipomoea pes-capræ] Along with the Ipomoea grow two species of beans[1] each endowed with a peculiar facility for reproduction, thus consolidating the sands into which they strike; and the moodu-gaeta-kola[2] (literally the "jointed seashore plant,") with pink flowers and thick succulent leaves. [Footnote 1: The Mooduawara (_Canavalia obtusifolia_), whose flowers have the fragrance of the sweet pea, and _Dolichos luteus_.] [Footnote 2: Hydrophylax maritima.] Another plant which performs an important function in the fertilisation of these arid formations, is the _Spinifex squarrosus_, the "water pink," as it is sometimes called by Europeans. The seeds of this plant are contained in a circular head, composed of a series of spine-like divisions, which radiate from the stalk in all directions, making the diameter of the whole about eight to nine inches. When the seeds are mature, and ready for dispersion, these heads become detached from the plant, and are carried by the wind with great velocity along the sands, over the surface of which they are impelled on their elastic spines. One of these balls may be followed by the eye for miles as it hurries along the level shore, dropping its seeds as it rolls, which speedily germinate and strike root where they fall. The globular heads are so buoyant as to float lightly on the water, and the uppermost spines acting as sails, they are thus carried across narrow estuaries to continue the process of embanking on newly-formed sand bars. Such an organisation irresistibly suggests the wonderful means ordained by Providence to spread this valuable plant along the barren beach to which no seed-devouring bird ever resorts; and even the unobservant natives, struck by its singular utility in resisting the encroachments of the sea, have recorded their admiration by conferring on it the name of _Maha-Rawana roewula_,--"the great beard of Rawana or Rama." The banks being thus ingeniously protected from the action of the air above, and of the water at their base, other herbaceous plants soon cover them in quick succession, and give the entire surface the first aspect of vegetation. A little retired above high water are to be found a species of _Aristolochia_[1], the Sayan[2], or _Choya_, the roots of which are the Indian Madder (in which, under the Dutch Government, some tribes in the Wanny paid their tribute); the gorgeous _Gloriosa superba_, the beautiful _Vistnu-karandi_[3] with its profusion of blue flowers, which remind one of the English "Forget-me-not," and the thickly-matted verdure of the _Hiramana-doetta_[4], so well adapted for imparting consistency to the soil. In the next stage low shrubs make their appearance, their seeds being drifted by the waves and wind, and taking ready root wherever they happen to rest. The foremost of these are the Scævolas[5] and Screw Pines[6], which grow luxuriantly within the actual wash of the tide, while behind them rises a dense growth of peculiar plants, each distinguished by the Singhalese by the prefix of "Moodu," to indicate its partiality for the sea.[7] [Footnote 1: _Aristolocia bracteata_. On the sands to the north of Ceylon there is also the _A. Indica_, which forms the food of the great red and white butterfly (_Papilio Hector_).] [Footnote 2: _Hedyotis umbellata_. A very curious account of the Dutch policy In relation to Choya dye will be found in a paper _On the Vegetable Productions of Ceylon_, by W.C. ONDAATJIE, in the _Ceylon Calendar_ for 1853. See also BERTOLACCI, B. iii. p. 270.] [Footnote 3: Evolvulus alsinoides.] [Footnote 4: Lippia nodiflora.] [Footnote 5: Scævola takkada and S. Koenigii] [Footnote 6: Pandanus odoratissimus.] [Footnote 7: _Moodu-kaduru (Ochrosia parviflora); Moodu-cobbe (Ornitrophe serrata); Moodu-murunga (Sophora tomentosa_,) &c. &c. Amongst these marine shrubs the Nil-picha (_Guettarda speciosca_), with its white and delightfully fragrant flowers, is a conspicuous object on some parts of the sea-shore between Colombo and Point-de-Galle.] Where the sand in the lagoons and estuaries is more or less mingled with the alluvium brought down by the rivers, there are plants of another class which are equally characteristic. Amongst these the Mangroves[1] take the first place in respect to their mass of vegetation; then follow the Belli-patta[2] and Suriya-gaha[3], with their large hibiscus-like flowers; the Tamarisks[4]; the Acanthus[5], with its beautiful blue petals and holly-like leaves; the Water Coco-nut[6]; the Ægiceras and Hernandia[7], with its sonorous fruits; while the dry sands above are taken possession of by the Acacias, _Salvadora Persica_ (the true mustard-tree of Scripture[8], which, here attains a height of forty feet), Ixoras, and the numerous family of Cassias. [Footnote 1: Two species of _Rhizophora_, two of _Bruguiera_, and one of _Ceriops_.] [Footnote 2: Paritimn tilliaceum.] [Footnote 3: Thespesia populnea.] [Footnote 4: Tamarix Indica.] [Footnote 5: Dilivaria ilicifolia.] [Footnote 6: Nipa fruticans.] [Footnote 7: Hernandia sonora.] [Footnote 8: The identification of this tree with the mustard-tree alluded to by our Saviour is an interesting fact. The Greek term [Greek: sinapis], which occurs Matt. xiii 31, and elsewhere, is the name given to _mustard_; for which the Arabic equivalent is _chardul_ or _khardal_, and the Syriac _khardalo_. The same name is applied at the present day to a tree which grows freely in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and generally throughout Palestine; the seeds of which, have an aromatic pungency, which enables them to be used instead of the ordinary mustard (_Sinapis nigra_); besides which, its structure presents all the essentials to sustain the illustration sought to be established in the parable, some of which are wanting or dubious in the common plant, It has a very small seed; it may be sown in a garden: it grows into an "herb," and eventually "becometh a tree; so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." With every allowance for the extremest development attainable by culture, it must be felt that the dimensions of the domestic _sinapis_ scarcely justify the last illustration; besides which it is an annual, and cannot possibly be classed as a "tree." The khardal grows abundantly in Syria: it was found in Egypt by Sir Gardner Wilkinson; in Arabia by Bové; on the Indus by Sir Alexander Burnes; and throughout the north-west of India it bears the name of kharjal. Combining all these facts, Dr. Royle, in an erudite paper, has shown demonstrative reasons for believing that the _Salvadora Persica_, the "kharjal" of Hindostan, is the "khardal" of Arabia, the "chardul" of the Talmud, and the "mustard-tree" of the parable.] Lastly, after a sufficiency of earth has been formed by the decay of frequent successions of their less important predecessors, the ground becomes covered by trees of ampler magnitude, most of which are found upon the adjacent shores of the mainland--the Margoza[1], from whose seed the natives express a valuable oil; the Timbiri[2], with the glutinous nuts with which the fishermen "bark" their nets; the Cashu-nut[3]; the Palu[4], one of the most valuable timber trees of the Northern Provinces; and the Wood-apple[5], whose fruit is regarded by the Singhalese as a specific for dysentery. [Footnote 1: Azadirachta Indica.] [Footnote 2: Diospyros glutinosa.] [Footnote 3: Anacardium occidentale.] [Footnote 4: Mimusopa hexandra.] [Footnote 5: Ægle marmelos.] But the most important fact connected with these recently formed portions of land, is their extraordinary suitability for the growth of the coco-nut, which requires the sea-air (and in Ceylon at least appears never to attain its full luxuriance when removed to any considerable distance from it)[1], and which, at the same time, requires a light and sandy soil, and the constant presence of water in large quantities. All these essentials are combined in the sea-belts here described, lying as they do between the ocean on the one side and the fresh-water lakes formed by the great rivers on the other, thus presenting every requisite of soil and surface. It is along a sand formation of this description, about forty miles long and from one to three miles broad, that thriving coco-nut plantations have been recently commenced at Batticaloa. At Calpentyn, on the western coast, a like formation has been taken advantage of for the same purpose. At Jaffna somewhat similar peculiarities of soil and locality have been seized on for this promising cultivation; and, generally, along the whole seaborde of Ceylon to the south and west, the shore for the breadth of one or two miles exhibits almost continuous groves of coco-nut palms. [Footnote 1: Coco-nuts are cultivated at moderate elevations in the mountain villages of the Interior; but the fruit bears no comparison, in number, size, or weight, with that produced in the lowlands, and near the sea, on either side of the island.] _Harbours_.--With the exception of the estuaries above alluded to, chiefly in the northern section of the island, the outline of the coast is interrupted by few sinuosities. There are no extensive inlets, or bays, and only two harbours--that of _Point-de-Galle_ which, in addition to being incommodious and small, is obstructed by coral rocks, reefs of which have been upreared to the surface, and render the entrance critical to strange ships[1]; and the magnificent basin of Trincomalie, which, in extent, security, and beauty, is unsurpassed by any haven in the world. [Footnote 1: Owing to the obstructions at its entrance, Galle is extremely difficult of access in particular winds. In 1857 it was announced in the _Colombo Examiner_ that "the fine ship the 'Black Eagle' was blown out of Galle Roads the other day, with the pilot on board; whilst the captain was temporarily engaged on shore; and as she was not able to beat in again, she made for Trincomalie, where she has been lying for a fortnight. Such an event is by no means unprecedented at Galle."--_Examiner_, 20 Sept. 1857.] _Tides_.--The variation of the tides is so slight that navigation is almost unaffected by it. The ordinary rise and fall is from 18 to 24 inches, with an increase of about a third at spring tides. High water is later on the eastern than on the western coast; occurring, on full and new moon, a little after eleven o'clock at Adam's Bridge, about 1 o'clock at Colombo, and 1.25 at Galle, whilst it attains its greatest elevation between 5 and 6 o'clock in the harbour of Trincomalie. _Red infusoria_.--On both sides of the island (but most frequently at Colombo), during the south-west monsoon, a broad expanse of the sea assumes a red tinge, considerably brighter than brick-dust; and this is confined to a space so distinct that a line seems to separate it from the green water which flows on either side. Observing that the whole area changed its position without parting with any portion of its colouring, I had some of the water brought on shore, and, on examination with the microscope, it proved to be filled with _infusoria_, probably similar to those which have been noticed near the shores of South America, and whose abundance has imparted a name to the "Vermilion Sea" off the coast of California. THE POPULATION OF CEYLON, of all races, was, in 1857, 1,697,975; but this was exclusive of the military and their families, both Europeans and Malays, which together amounted to 5,430; and also of aliens and other casual strangers, forming about 25,000 more. The particulars are as follow:-- |Provinces |Whites. |Coloured. |Total. |Population| | |Males.|Females.|Males.|Females.|Males.|Females. | to the | |sq. mile. | |Western. |1,293|1,246|293,409|259,106|294,702|260,352 | 146.59 | |N. Western | 21| 11|100,807| 96,386|100,828| 96,397 | 59.93 | |Southern | 238| 241|156,900|149,649|157,138|149,890 | 143.72 | |Eastern | 201| 143| 39,923| 35,531| 40,124| 35,674 | 16.08 | |Northern | 387| 362|153,062|148,678|153,449|149,040 | 55.85 | |Central | 468| 204|143,472|116,237|143,940|116,441 | 52.57 | | |2,608|2,207|887,573|805,587|890,181|807,794 | 69.73 | CHAP. II. CLIMATE.--HEALTH AND DISEASE. The climate of Ceylon, from its physical configuration and insular detachment, contrasts favourably with that of the great Indian peninsula. Owing to the moderate dimensions of the island, the elevation of its mountains, the very short space during which the sun is passing over it[1] in his regression from or approach to the solstices, and its surrounding seas being nearly uniform in temperature, it is exempt from the extremes of heating and cooling to which the neighbouring continent of India is exposed. From the same causes it is subjected more uniformly to the genial influences of the trade winds that blow over the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. [Footnote 1: In his approach to the northern solstice, the sun, having passed the equator on the 21st of March, reaches the south of Ceylon about the 5th of April, and ten days later is vertical over Point Pedro, the northern extremity of the island. On his return he is again over Point Pedro about the 27th of August, and passes southward over Dondera Head about the 7th of September.] The island is seldom visited by hurricanes[1], or swept by typhoons, and the breeze, unlike the hot and arid winds of Coromandel and the Dekkan, is always more or less refreshing. The range of the thermometer exhibits no violent changes, and never indicates a temperature insupportably high. The mean on an annual average scarcely exceeds 80° at Colombo, though in exceptional years it has risen to 86°. But at no period of the day are dangerous results to be apprehended from exposure to the sun; and except during parts of the months of March, and April, there is no season when moderate exercise is not practicable and agreeable. For half the year, from October to May, the prevailing winds are from the north-east, and during the remaining months the south-west monsoon blows steadily from the great Indian Ocean. The former, affected by the wintry chills of the vast tracts of land which it traverses before crossing the Bay of Bengal, is subject to many local variations and intervals of calm. But the latter, after the first violence of its outset is abated, becomes nearly uniform throughout the period of its prevalence, and presents the character of an on-shore breeze extending over a prodigious expanse of sea and land, and exerting a powerful influence along the regions of southern Asia. [Footnote 1: The exception to the exemption of Ceylon from hurricanes is the occasional occurrence of a cyclone extending its circle till the verge has sometimes touched Batticaloa, on the south-eastern extremity of the island, causing damage to vegetation and buildings. Such an event is, however, exceedingly rare. On the 7th of January, 1805, H.M.S. "Sheerness" and two others were driven on shore in a hurricane at Trincomalie.] In Ceylon the proverbial fickleness of the winds, and the uncertainty which characterises the seasons in northern climates, is comparatively unknown; and the occurrence of changes or rain may be anticipated with considerable accuracy in any month of a coming year. There are, of course, abnormal seasons with higher ranges of temperature, heavier rains, or droughts of longer continuance, but such extremes are exceptional and rare. Great atmospheric changes occur only at two opposite periods of the year, and so gradual is their approach that the climate is monotonous, and one longs to see again "the falling of the leaf" to diversify the sameness of perennial verdure. The line is faint which divides the seasons. No period of the year is divested of its seed-time and its harvest in some part of the island; and fruit hangs ripe on the same branches that are garlanded with opening buds. But as every plant has its own period for the production of its flowers and fruit, each month is characterised by its own peculiar flora. As regards the foliage of the trees, it might be expected that the variety of tints would be wanting which forms the charm of a European landscape, and that all nature would wear one mantle of unchanging green. But it has been remarked by a tasteful observer[1] that such is far from the fact, and though in Ceylon there is no revolution of seasons, the change of leaf on the same plant exhibits colours as bright as those which tinge the autumnal woods of America. It is not the decaying leaves, but the fresh shoots, which exhibit these brightened colours, the older are still vividly green, whilst the young are bursting forth; and the extremities of the branches present tufts of pale yellow, pink, crimson, and purple, which give them at a distance the appearance of a cluster of flowers.[2] [Footnote 1: Prof. Harvey, Trin. Coll. Dublin.] [Footnote 2: Some few trees, such as the margosa (_Azadirachta Indica_), the country almond (_Terminalia catappa_), and others, are deciduous, and part with their leaves. The cinnamon shoots forth in all shades from bright yellow to dark crimson. The maella _(Olax Zeylanica)_ has always a copper colour; and the ironwood trees of the interior have a perfect blaze of young crimson leaves, as brilliant as flowers. The lovi-lovi (_Flacourtia inermis_) has the same peculiarity; while the large bracts of the mussænda (_Mussænda frondosa_) attract the notice of Europeans for their angular whiteness.] A notice of the variations exhibited by the weather at Colombo may serve as an index to the atmospheric condition of the rest of the island, except in those portions (such as the mountains of the interior, and the low plains of the northern extremity) which exhibit modifications of temperature and moisture incident to local peculiarities. [Sidenote: Wind N.E. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 85.6º Mean least 69.2º Rain (inches) 3.1] _January_.--At the opening of the year, the north-east monsoon, which sets in two months previously, is nearly in mid career. This wind, issuing from the chill north and robbed of its aqueous vapour in passing over the elevated mountain regions on the confines of China and Thibet, sweeps across the Bay of Bengal, whence its lowest strata imbibe a quantity of moisture, moderate in amount, yet still leaving the great mass of air far below saturation. Hence it reaches Ceylon comparatively dry, and its general effects are parching and disagreeable. This character is increased as the sun recedes towards its most southern declination, and the wind acquires a more direct draught from the north; passing over the Indian peninsula and almost totally digested of humidity, it blows down the western coast of the island, and is known there by the name of the "along-shore-wind." For a time its influence is uncomfortable and its effects injurious both to health and vegetation: it warps and rends furniture, dries up the surface of the earth, and withers the delicate verdure which had sprung up during the prevalence of the previous rains. These characteristics, however, subside towards the end of the month, when the wind becomes somewhat variable with a westerly tendency and occasional showers; and the heat of the day is then partially compensated by the greater freshness of the nights. The fall of rain within the month scarcely exceeds three inches. [Sidenote: Wind N.E. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 89° Mean least 71° Rain (inches) 2.1] _February_ is dry and hot during the day, but the nights are cloudless and cool, and the moonlight singularly agreeable. Rain is rare, and when it occurs it falls in dashes, succeeded by damp and sultry calms. The wind is unsteady and shifts from north-east to north-west, sometimes failing entirely between noon and twilight. The quantity of rain is less than in January, and the difference of temperature between day and night is frequently as great as 15° or 20°.[1] [Footnote 1: Dr. MACVICAR, in a paper in the _Ceylon Miscellany_, July, 1843, recorded the results of some experiments, made near Colombo, as to the daily variation of temperature and Its effects on cultivation, from which it appeared that a register thermometer, exposed on a tuft of grass in the cinnamon garden in a clear night and under the open sky, on the 2nd of January, 1841, showed in the morning that it had been so low as 52°, and when laid on the ground in the place in the sunshine on the following day, it rose to upwards of 140° Fahr.] [Sidenote: Wind N.E. to N.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 87.7° Mean least 73.1° Rain (inches) 2.1] _March_.--In March the heat continues to increase, the earth receiving more warmth than it radiates or parts with by evaporation. The day becomes oppressive, the nights unrefreshing, the grass is withered and brown, the earth hard and cleft, the lakes shrunk to shallows, and the rivers evaporated to dryness. Europeans now escape from the low country, and betake themselves to the shade of the forests adjoining the coffee-plantations in the hills; or to the still higher sanatarium of Neuera-ellia, nearly the loftiest plateau in the mountains of the Kandyan range. The winds, when any are perceptible, are faint and unsteady with a still increasing westerly tendency, partial showers sometimes fall, and thunder begins to mutter towards sunset. At the close of the month, the mean temperature will be found to have advanced about a degree, but the sensible temperature and the force of the sun's rays are felt in a still more perceptible proportion. [Sidenote: Wind N.W. to S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 88.7° Mean least 73.6° Rain (inches) 7.4] _April_ is by far the most oppressive portion of the year for those who remain at the sea-level of the island. The temperature continues to rise as the sun in his northern progress passes vertically over the island. A mirage fills the hollows with mimic water; the heat in close apartments becomes extreme, and every living creature flies to the shade from the suffocating glare of mid-day. At length the sea exhibits symptoms of an approaching change, a ground swell sets in from the west, and the breeze towards sunset brings clouds and grateful showers. At the end of the month the mean temperature attains its greatest height during the year, being about 83° in the day, and 10° lower at night. [Sidenote: Wind N.W. to S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 87.2° Mean least 72.9° Rain (inches) 13.3] _May_ is signalised by the great event of the change of the monsoon, and all the grand phenomena which accompany its approach. It is difficult for any one who has not resided in the tropics to comprehend the feeling of enjoyment which accompanies these periodical commotions of the atmosphere; in Europe they would be fraught with annoyance, but in Ceylon they are welcomed with a relish proportionate to the monotony they dispel. Long before the wished-for period arrives, the verdure produced by the previous rains becomes almost obliterated by the burning droughts of March and April. The deciduous trees shed their foliage, the plants cease to put forth fresh leaves, and all vegetable life languishes under the unwholesome heat. The grass withers on the baked and cloven earth, and red dust settles on the branches and thirsty brushwood. The insects, deprived of their accustomed food, disappear underground or hide beneath the decaying bark; the water-beetles bury themselves in the hardened mud of the pools, and the _helices_ retire into the crevices of the stones or the hollows amongst the roots of the trees, closing the apertures of their shells with the hybernating epiphragm. Butterflies are no longer seen hovering over the flowers, the birds appear fewer and less joyous, and the wild animals and crocodiles, driven by the drought from their accustomed retreats, wander through the jungle, and even venture to approach the village wells in search of water. Man equally languishes under the general exhaustion, ordinary exertion becomes distasteful, and the native Singhalese, although inured to the climate, move with lassitude and reluctance. Meanwhile the air becomes loaded to saturation with aqueous vapour drawn up by the augmented force of evaporation acting vigorously over land and sea: the sky, instead of its brilliant blue, assumes the sullen tint of lead, and not a breath disturbs the motionless rest of the clouds that hang on the lower range of hills. At length, generally about the middle of the month, but frequently earlier, the sultry suspense is broken by the arrival of the wished-for change. The sun has by this time nearly attained his greatest northern declination, and created a torrid heat throughout the lands of southern Asia and the peninsula of India. The air, lightened by its high temperature and such watery vapour as it may contain, rises into loftier regions and is replaced by indraughts from the neighbouring sea, and thus a tendency is gradually given to the formation of a current bringing up from the south the warm humid air of the equator. The wind, therefore, which reaches Ceylon comes laden with moisture, taken up in its passage across the great Indian Ocean. As the monsoon draws near, the days become more overcast and hot, banks of clouds rise over the ocean to the west, and in the peculiar twilight the eye is attracted by the unusual whiteness of the sea-birds that sweep along the strand to seize the objects flung on shore by the rising surf. At last the sudden lightnings flash among the hills and sheet through the clouds that overhang the sea[1], and with a crash of thunder the monsoon bursts over the thirsty land, not in showers or partial torrents, but in a wide deluge, that in the course of a few hours overtops the river banks and spreads in inundations over every level plain. [Footnote 1: The lightnings of Ceylon are so remarkable, that in the middle ages they were as well known to the Arabian seamen, who coasted the island on their way to China, as in later times the storms that infested the Cape of Good Hope were familiar to early navigators of Portugal. In the _Mohit_ of SIDI ALI CHELEBI, translated by Von Hammer, it is stated that to seamen, sailing from Diu to Malacca, "the sign of Ceylon being near is continual lightning, be it accompanied by rain or without rain; so that 'the lightning of Ceylon' is proverbial for a liar!"--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ v. 465.] All the phenomena of this explosion are stupendous: thunder, as we are accustomed to be awed by it in Europe, affords but the faintest idea of its overpowering grandeur in Ceylon, and its sublimity is infinitely increased as it is faintly heard from the shore, resounding through night and darkness over the gloomy sea. The lightning, when it touches the earth where it is covered with the descending torrent, flashes into it and disappears instantaneously; but, when it strikes a drier surface, in seeking better conductors, it often opens a hollow like that formed by the explosion of a shell, and frequently leaves behind it traces of vitrification.[1] In Ceylon, however, occurrences of this kind are rare, and accidents are seldom recorded from lightning, probably owing to the profusion of trees, and especially of coco-nut palms, which, when drenched with rain, intercept the discharge, and conduct the electric matter to the earth. The rain at these periods excites the astonishment of a European: it descends in almost continuous streams, so close and so dense that the level ground, unable to absorb it sufficiently fast, is covered with one uniform sheet of water, and down the sides of acclivities it rushes in a volume that wears channels in the surface.[2] For hours together, the noise of the torrent, as it beats upon the trees and bursts upon the roofs, flowing thence in rivulets along the ground, occasions an uproar that drowns the ordinary voice, and renders sleep impossible. [Footnote 1: See DARWIN'S _Naturalist's Voyage_, ch. iii. for an account of those vitrified siliceous tubes which are formed by lightning entering loose sand. During a thunderstorm which passed over Galle, on the 16th May, 1854, the fortifications were shaken by lightning, and an extraordinary cavity was opened behind the retaining wall of the rampart, where a hole, a yard in diameter, was carried into the ground to the depth of twenty feet, and two chambers, each six feet in length, branched out on either side at its extremity.] [Footnote 2: One morning on awaking at Pusilawa, in the hills between Kandy and Neuera-ellia, I was taken to see the effect of a few hours' rain, during the night, on a macadamised road which I had passed the evening before. There was no symptom of a storm at sunset, and the morning was bright and cloudless; but between midnight and dawn such an inundation had swept the highway that in many places the metal had been washed over the face of the acclivity; and in one spot where a sudden bend forced the torrent to impinge against the bank, it had scooped out an excavation extending to the centre of the high road, thirteen feet in diameter, and deep enough to hold a carriage and horses.] This violence, however, seldom lasts more than an hour or two, and gradually abates after intermittent paroxysms, and a serenely clear sky supervenes. For some days, heavy showers continue to fall at intervals in the forenoon; and the evenings which follow are embellished by sunsets of the most gorgeous splendour, lighting the fragments of clouds that survive the recent storm. [Sidenote: Wind S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 85.8° Mean least 74.4° Rain (inches) 6.8] _June_.--The extreme heat of the previous month becomes modified in June: the winds continue steadily to blow from the south-west, and frequent showers, accompanied by lightning and thunder, serve still further to diffuse coolness throughout the atmosphere and verdure over the earth. So instantaneous is the response of Nature to the influence of returning moisture, that, in a single day, and almost between sunset and dawn, the green hue of reviving vegetation begins to tint the saturated ground. In ponds, from which but a week before the wind blew clouds of sandy dust, the peasantry are now to be seen catching the re-animated fish; and tank-shells and water-beetles revive and wander over the submerged sedges. The electricity of the air stimulates the vegetation of the trees; and scarce a week will elapse till the plants are covered with the larvæ of butterflies, the forest murmuring with the hum of insects, and the air harmonious with the voice of birds. The extent to which the temperature is reduced, after the first burst of the monsoon, is not to be appreciated by the indications of the thermometer alone, but is rendered still more sensible by the altered density of the air, the drier state of which is favourable to evaporation, whilst the increase of its movement bringing it more rapidly in contact with the human body, heat is more readily carried off, and the coolness of the surface proportionally increased. It occasionally happens during the month of June that the westerly wind acquires considerable strength, sometimes amounting to a moderate gale. The fishermen, at this period, seldom put to sea: their canoes are drawn far up in lines upon the shore, and vessels riding in the roads of Colombo are often driven from their anchorage and stranded on the beach. [Sidenote: Wind S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 84.8º Mean least 74.9º Rain (inches) 3.4] _July_ resembles, to a great extent, the month which precedes it, except that, in all particulars the season is more moderate, showers are less frequent, there is less wind, and less absolute heat. [Sidenote: Wind S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 84.9° Mean least 74.7° Rain (inches) 2.8] _August_.--In August the weather is charming, notwithstanding withstanding a slight increase of heat, owing to diminished evaporation; and the sun being now on its return to the equator, its power is felt in greater force on full exposure to its influence. [Sidenote: Wind S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 84.9º Mean least 74.8º Rain (inches) 5.2] _September_.--The same atmospheric condition continues throughout September, but towards its close the sea-breeze becomes unsteady and clouds begin to collect, symptomatic of the approaching change to the north-east monsoon. The nights are always clear and delightfully cool. Rain is sometimes abundant. [Sidenote: Wind S.W. and N.E. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 85.1º Mean least 73.3º Rain (inches) 11.2] _October_ is more unsettled, the wind veering towards the north, with pretty frequent rain; and as the sun is now far to the southward, the heat continues to decline. [Sidenote: Wind N.E. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 86.3º Mean least 71.5º Rain (inches) 10.7] _November_ sees the close of the south-west monsoon and the arrival of the north-eastern. In the early part of the month the wind visits nearly every point of the compass, but shows a marked predilection for the north, generally veering from N.E. at night and early morning, to N.W. at noon; calms are frequent and precede gentle showers, and clouds form round the lower range of hills. By degrees as the sun advances in its southern declination, and warms the lower half of the great African continent, the current of heated air ascending from the equatorial belt leaves a comparative vacuum, towards which the less rarefied atmospheric fluid is drawn down from the regions north, of the tropic, bringing with it the cold and dry winds from the Himalayan Alps, and the lofty ranges of Assam. The great change is heralded as before by oppressive calms, lurid skies, vivid lightning, bursts of thunder, and tumultuous rain. But at this change of the monsoon the atmospheric disturbance is less striking than in May; the previous temperature is lower, the moisture of the air is more reduced, and the change is less agreeably perceptible from the southern breeze to the dry and parching wind from the north. [Sidenote: Wind N.E. Temperature 24 hours: Mean greatest 85° Mean least 70° Rain (inches) 4.3] _December_.--In December the sun attains to its greatest southern declination, and the wind setting steadily from the northeast brings with it light but frequent rains from Bay Of Bengal. The thermometer shows a maximum temperature of 85° with a minimum of 70°; the morning and the afternoon are again enjoyable in the open air, but at night every lattice that faces the north is cautiously closed against the treacherous "along-shore-wind." Notwithstanding the violence and volume in which the rains have been here described as descending during the paroxysms of the monsoons, the total rain-fall in Ceylon is considerably less than on the continent of Throughout Hindustan the annual mean is 117.5 and on some parts on the Malabar coast, upwards of 300 inches have fallen in a single year[1]; whereas the in Ceylon rarely exceeds 80, and the highest registered in an exceptional season was 120 inches. [Footnote 1: At Mahabaleshwar, in the Western Ghauts, the annual mean is 254 inches, and at Uttray Mullay; in Malabar, 263; whilst at Bengal it is 209 inches at Sylhet; and 610.3 at Cherraponga.] The distribution is of course unequal, both as to time and localities, and in those districts where the fall is most considerable, the number of rainless days is the greatest.[1] An idea may be formed of the deluge that descends in Colombo during the change of the monsoon, from the fact that out of 72.4 inches, the annual average there, no less than 20.7 inches fall in April and May, and 21.9 in October and November, a quantity one-third greater than the total rain in England throughout an entire year. [Footnote 1: The average number of days on which rain fell at Colombo in the years 1832, 1833, 1834, and 1835, was as follows:-- Days. In January 3 February 4 March 6 April 11 May 13 June 13 July 8 August 10 September 14 October 17 November 11 December 8 --- Total 118] In one important particular the phenomenon, of the Dekkan affords an analogy for that which presents itself in Ceylon. During the south-west monsoon the clouds are driven against the lofty chain of mountains that overhang the western shore of the peninsula, and their condensed vapour descends there in copious showers. The winds, thus early robbed of their moisture, carry but little rain to the plains of the interior, and whilst Malabar is saturated by daily showers, the sky of Coromandel is clear and serene. In the north-east monsoon a condition the very opposite exists; the wind that then prevails is much drier, and the hills which it encounters being of lower altitude, the rains are carried further towards the interior, and whilst the weather is unsettled and stormy on the eastern shore, the western is comparatively exempt, and enjoys a calm and cloudless sky.[1] [Footnote 1: The mean of rain is, on the western side of the Dekkan, 80 inches, and on the eastern, 52.8.] In like manner the west coast of Ceylon presents a contrast with the east, both in the volume of rain in each of the respective monsoons, and in the influence which the same monsoon exerts simultaneously on the one side of the island and on the other. The greatest quantity of rain falls on the south-western portion, in the month of May, when the wind from the Indian Ocean is intercepted, and its moisture condensed by the lofty mountain ranges, surrounding Adam's Peak. The region principally affected by it stretches from Point-de-Galle, as far north as Putlam, and eastward till it includes the greater portion of the ancient Kandyan kingdom. But the rains do not reach the opposite side of the island; whilst the west coast is deluged, the east is sometimes exhausted with dryness; and it not unfrequently happens that different aspects of the same mountain present at the same moment the opposite extremes of drought and moisture.[1] [Footnote 1: ADMIRAL FITZROY has described, in his _Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle_, the striking degree in which this simultaneous dissimilarity of climate is exhibited on opposite sides of the Galapagos Islands; one aspect exposed to the south being covered with verdure and freshened with moisture, whilst all others are barren and parched.--Vol. ii. p. 502-3. The same state of things exists in the east and west sides of the Peruvian Andes, and in the mountains of Patagonia. And no more remarkable example of it exists than in the island of Socotra, east of the Straits of Bab el Mandeb, the west coast of which, during the north-east monsoon, is destitute of rain and verdure, whilst the eastern side is enriched by streams and covered by luxuriant pasturage.--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ vol. iv. p. 141.] [Illustration: DIAGRAM EXHIBITING THE COMPARATIVE FALL OF RAIN ON THE SEABORDE OF THE DEEKAN, AND AT COLOMBO, IN THE WESTERN PROVINCE OF CEYLON. One maximum at the spring change of the monsoon anticipating a little that on the West coast of India; another at the autumnal change corresponding more exactly with that of the East coast. The entire fall through the year more equably distributed at Columbo.] On the east coast, on the other hand, the fall, during the north-east monsoon, is very similar in degree to that on the coast of Coromandel, as the mountains are lower and more remote from the sea, the clouds are carried farther inland and it rains simultaneously on both sides of the island, though much less on the west than during the other monsoon. _The climate of Galle_, as already stated, resembles in its general characteristics that of Colombo, but, being further to the south, and more equally exposed to the influence of both the monsoons, the temperature is not quite so high; and, during the cold season, it falls some degrees lower, especially in the evening and early morning.[1] [Footnote 1: At Point-de-Galle, in 1854, the number of rainy days was as follows: Days. January 12 February 7 March 16 April 12 May 23 June 18 July 11 August 21 September 16 October 20 November 15 December 13] _Kandy_, from its position, shares in the climate of the western coast; but, from the frequency of the mountain showers, and its situation, at an elevation of upwards of sixteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, it enjoys a much cooler temperature. It differs from the low country in one particular, which is very striking--the early period of the day at which the maximum heat is attained. This at Colombo is generally between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, whereas at Kandy the thermometer shows the highest temperature of the day between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning. In the low country, ingenuity has devised so many expedients for defence from the excessive heat of the forenoon, that the languor it induces is chiefly experienced after sunset, and the coolness of the night is insufficient to compensate for the exhaustion of the day; but, in Kandy, the nights are so cool that it is seldom that warm covering can be altogether dispensed with. In the colder months, the daily range of the thermometer is considerable--approaching 30°; in the others, it differs little from 15°. The average mean, however, of each month throughout the year is nearly identical, deviating only a degree from 76°, the mean annual temperature.[1] [Footnote 1: The following Table appeared in the _Colombo Observer_, and is valuable from the care taken by Mr. Caley in its preparation; _Analysis of the Climate at Peradenia, from 1851 to 1858 inclusive._ |Months. | Temperature. | Rainfall. | Remarks. | | | | | |Aver-| |Average| | | |Max. |Min.|Mean.|age | In.|of | | | | | | | of | |Years / | | | | | |Years| \ / | |January |85.0 |52.5|74.06|6 |4.04 |6 |Fine, sunny, heavy dew at | | | | | | | | |night, hot days, and cold | | | | | | | | |nights and mornings. | |February |87.75|55.0|75.76|7 |1.625 |6 |Fine, sunny, dewy nights, | | | | | | | | |foggy mornings, days hot, | | | | | | | | |nights and mornings cold. | |March |89.5 |59.5|77.42|7 |3.669 |6 |Generally a very hot and | | | | | | | | |oppressive month. | |April |89.5 |67.5|77.91|7 |7.759 |6 |Showery, sultry, and | | | | | | | | | oppressive weather. | |May |88.0 |66.0|77.7 |8 |8.022 |6 |Cloudy, windy, rainy; | | monsoon generally changes.| |June |86.0 |71.0|76.69|8 |7.155 |6 |A very wet and stormy month.| |July |86.0 |67.0|75.64|8 |5.72 |6 |Ditto ditto | |August |85.5 |67.0|75.81|8 |8.55 |6 |Showery, but sometimes more | | | | | | | | |moderate, variable | |September |85.5 |67.0|76.13|8 |6.318 |6 |Pretty dry weather, compared| | | | | | | | |with the next two months. | |October |85.73|68.2|75.1 |8 |15.46 |6 |Wind variable, much rain. | |November |84.0 |62.0|74.79|8 |14.732|6 |Wind variable, storms from | | | | | | | | |all points of compass, wet; | | | | | | | | |monsoon generally changes. | |December |82.75|57.0|74.05|7 |7.72 |5 |Sometimes wet, but generally| | | | | | | | |more moderate; towards | | | | | | | | |end of year like January | | | | | | | | |weather. | Mean yearly Temperature, Mean yearly Nov. 29, 1858 75.92º Rainfall, 91.75 J.A. CALEY. in. nearly.] In all the mountain valleys, the soil being warmer than the air, vapour abounds in the early morning for the most part of the year. It greatly adds to the chilliness of travelling before dawn; but, generally speaking, it is not wetting, as it is charged with the same electricity as the surface of the earth and the human body. When seen from the heights, it is a singular object, as it lies compact and white as snow in the hollows beneath, but it is soon put in motion by the morning currents, and wafted in the direction of the coast, where it is dissipated by the sunbeams. _Snow_ is unknown in Ceylon; _Hail_ occasionally falls in the Kandyan hills at the change of the monsoon,[1] but more frequently during that from the north-east. As observed at Kornegalle, the clouds, after collecting as usual for a few evenings, and gradually becoming more dense, advanced in a wedge-like form, with a well-defined outline. The first fall of rain was preceded by a downward blast of cold air, accompanied by hailstones which outstripped the rain in their descent. Rain and hail then poured down together, and, eventually, the latter only spread its deluge far and wide, In 1852, the hail which thus fell at Kornegalle was of such a size that half-a-dozen lumps filled a tumbler, In shape, they were oval and compressed, but the mass appeared to have formed an hexagonal pyramid, the base of which was two inches in diameter, and about half-an-inch thick, gradually thinning towards the edge. They were tolerably solid internally, each containing about the size of a pea of clear ice at the centre, but the sides and angles were spongy and flocculent, as if the particles had been driven together by the force of the wind, and had coalesced at the instant of contact. A phenomenon so striking as the fall of ice, at the moment of the most intense atmospherical heat, naturally attracts the wonder of the natives, who hasten to collect the pieces, and preserve them, when dissolved, in bottles, from a belief in their medicinal properties. Mr. Morris, who has repeatedly observed hailstones in the Seven Korles, is under the impression that their occurrence always happens at the first outburst of the monsoon, and that they fall at the moment, which is marked by the first flash of lightning. [Footnote 1: It is stated in the _Physical Atlas_ of KEITH JOHNSTON, that hail in India has not been noticed south of Madras. But in Ceylon it has fallen very recently at Korngalle, at Badulla, at Kaduganawa; and I have heard of a hail storm at Jaffna. On 1 the 24th of Sept. 1857, during a thunder-storm, hail fell near Matelle in such quantity that in places it formed drifts upwards of a foot in depth.] According to Professor Stevelly, of Belfast, the rationale of their appearance on such occasions seems to be that, on the sudden formation and descent of the first drops, the air expanding and rushing into the void spaces, robs the succeeding drops of their caloric so effectually as to send them to the earth frozen into ice-balls. These descriptions, it will be observed, apply exclusively to the southern regions on the east and west of Ceylon; and, in many particulars, they are inapplicable to the northern portions of the island. At Trincomalie, the climate bears a general resemblance to that of the Indian peninsula south of Madras: showers are frequent, but light, and the rain throughout the year does not exceed forty inches. With moist winds and plentiful dew, this sustains a vigorous vegetation near the coast; but in the interior it would be insufficient for the culture of grain, were not the water husbanded in tanks; and, for this reason, the bulk of the population are settled along the banks of the great rivers. The temperature of this part of Ceylon follows the course of the sun, and ranges from a minimum of 70° in December and January, to a maximum of 94° in May and June; but the heat is rendered tolerable at all seasons by the steadiness of the land and sea breezes.[1] [Footnote 1: The following facts regarding the climate of Trincomalie have been, arranged from elaborate returns furnished by Mr. Higgs, the master-attendant of the port, and published under the authority of the meteorological department of the Board of Trade:-- _Trincomalie_. |Extreme |Mean |Mean |Range |Highest |Days 1854 |Maximum |Minimum |for the |Temperature|of |Temperature |Temperature |Month |Noted |Rain Jan. | 81.3° | 74.7° | 14° | 83 | 10 Feb. | 83.8 | 75.8 | 14 | 86 | 7 Mar. | 85.9 | 76.1 | 16 | 88 | 3 April| 89.6 | 78.9 | 16 | 92 | 3 May | 89.1 | 79.3 | 19 | 93 | 3 June | 90.0 | 79.5 | 19 | 94 | 3 July | 87.7 | 77.7 | 16 | 90 | 5 Aug. | 87.9 | 77.4 | 16 | 91 | 4 Sept.| 89.3 | 77.8 | 18 | 93 | 2 Oct. | 85.2 | 75.8 | 15 | 89 | 14 Nov. | 81.O | 74.9 | 11 | 83 | 15 Dec. | 80.1 | 74.3 | 11 | 82 | 15 Mean temperature for the year 81.4.] In the extreme north of the island, the peninsula of Jaffna, and the vast plains of Neura-kalawa and the Wanny, form a third climatic division, which, from the geological structure and peculiar configuration of the district, differs essentially from the rest of Ceylon. This region, which is destitute of mountains, is undulating in a very slight degree; the dry and parching north-east wind desiccates the soil in its passage, and the sandy plains are covered with a low and scanty vegetation, chiefly fed by the night dews and whatever moisture is brought by the on-shore wind. The total rain of the year does not exceed thirty inches; and the inhabitants live in frequent apprehension of droughts and famines. These conditions attain their utmost manifestation at the extreme north and in the Jaffna peninsula: there the temperature is the highest[1] in the island, and, owing to the humidity of the situation and the total absence of hills, it is but little affected by the changes of the monsoons; and the thermometer keeps a regulated pace with the progress of the sun to and from the solstices. The soil, except in particular spots, is porous and sandy, formed from the detritus of the coral rocks which it overlays. It is subject to droughts sometimes of a whole year's continuance; and rain, when it falls, is so speedily absorbed, that it renders but slight service to cultivation, which is entirely carried on by means of tanks and artificial irrigation, in the practice of which the Tamil population of this district exhibits singular perseverance and ingenuity.[2] In the dry season, when scarcely any verdure is discernible above ground, the sheep and goats feed on their knees--scraping away the sand, in order to reach the wiry and succulent roots of the grasses. From the constancy of this practice horny callosities are produced, by which these hardy creatures may be distinguished. [Footnote 1: The mean lowest temperature at Jaffna is 70º, the mean highest 90º; but in 1845-6 the thermometer rose to 90º and 100º.] [Footnote 2: For an account of the Jaffna wells, and the theory of their supply with fresh water, see ch. i. p. 21.] Water-spouts are frequent on the coast of Ceylon, owing to the different temperature of the currents of air passing across the heated earth and the cooler sea, but instances are very rare of their bursting over land, or of accidents in consequence.[1] [Footnote 1: CAMOENS, who had opportunities of observing the phenomena of these seas during his service on board the fleet of Cabral, off the coast of Malabar and Ceylon, has introduced into the _Lusiad_ the episode of a water-spout in the Indian Ocean; but, under the belief that the water which descends had been previously drawn up by suction from the ocean, he exclaims:-- "But say, ye sages, who can weigh the cause, And trace the secret springs of Nature's laws; Say why the wave, of bitter brine erewhile, Should be the bosom of the deep recoil, Robbed of its salt, and from the cloud distil, Sweet as the waters of the limpid rill?" (Book v.) But the truth appears to be that the torrent which descends from a water-spout, is but the condensed accumulation of its own vapour, and, though in the hollow of the lower cone which rests upon the surface of the sea, salt water may possibly ascend in the partial vacuum caused by revolution; or spray may be caught up and collected by the wind, still these cannot be raised by it beyond a very limited height, and what Camoens saw descend was, as he truly says, the sweet water distilled from the cloud.] A curious phenomenon, to which the name of "anthelia" has been given, and which may probably have suggested to the early painters the idea of the glory surrounding the heads of beatified saints, is to be seen in singular beauty, at early morning, in Ceylon. When the light is intense, and the shadows proportionally dark--when the sun is near the horizon, and the shadow of a person walking is thrown on the dewy grass--each particle of dew furnishes a double reflection from its concave and convex surfaces; and to the spectator his own figure, but more particularly the head, appears surrounded by a halo as vivid as if radiated from diamonds.[1] The Buddhists may possibly have taken from this beautiful object their idea of the _agni_ or emblem of the sun, with which the head of Buddha is surmounted. But unable to express a _halo_ in sculpture, they concentrated it into a _flame_. [Footnote 1: SCORESBY describes the occurrence of a similar phenomenon in the Arctic Seas in July, 1813, the luminous circle being produced on the particles of fog which rested on the calm water. "The lower part of the circle descended beneath my feet to the side of the ship, and although it could not be a hundred feet from the eye, it was perfect, and the colours distinct. The centre of the coloured circle was distinguished by my own shadow, the head of which, enveloped by a halo, was most conspicuously pourtrayed. The halo or glory evidently impressed on the fog, but the figure appeared to be a shadow on the water; the different parts became obscure in proportion to their remoteness from the head, so that the lower extremities were not perceptible."--_Account of the Arctic Regions_, vol. i. ch. v. sec. vi. p. 394. A similar phenomenon occurs in the Khasia Hills, in the north-east of Bengal.--_Asiat. Soc. Journ. Beng._ vol. xiii. p. 616.] [Illustration: THE ANTHELIA AS IT APPEARS TO THE PERSON HIMSELF] Another luminous phenomenon which sometimes appears in the hill country, consists of beams of light, which intersect the sky, whilst the sun is yet in the ascendant; sometimes horizontally, accompanied by intermitting movements, and sometimes vertically, a broad belt of the blue sky interposing between them.[1] [Footnote 1: VIGNE mentions an appearance of this kind in the valley of Kashmir: "Whilst the rest of the horizon was glowing golden over the mountain tops, a broad well-defined ray-shaped streak of indigo was shooting upwards in the zenith: it remained nearly stationary about an hour, and was then blended into the sky around it, and disappeared with the day. It was, no doubt, owing to the presence of some particular mountains which intercepted the red rays, and threw a blue shadow, by causing so much of the sky above Kashmir to remain unaffected by them."--_Travels in Kashmir_, vol. ii. ch. x. p. 115.] In Ceylon this is doubtless owing to the air holding in suspension a large quantity of vapour, which receives shadows and reflects rays of light. The natives, who designate them "Buddha's rays," attach a superstitious dread to their appearance, and believe them to be portentous of misfortune--in every month, with the exception of _May_, which, for some unexplained reason, is exempted. HEALTH.--In connection with the subject of "Climate," one of the most important inquiries is the probable effect on the health and constitution of a European produced by a prolonged exposure to an unvarying temperature, upwards of 30 degrees higher than the average of Great Britain. But to this the most tranquillising reply is the assurance that _mere heat, even to a degree beyond that of Ceylon, is not unhealthy in itself_. Aden, enclosed in a crater of an extinct volcano, is not considered insalubrious; and the hot season in India, when the thermometer stands at 100° at midnight, is comparatively a healthy period of the year. In fact, in numerous cases heat may be the means of removing the immediate sources of disease. Its first perceptible effect is a slight increase, of the normal bodily temperature beyond 98°, and, simultaneously, an increased activity of all the vital functions. To this everything contributes an exciting sympathy--the glad surprise of the natural scenery, the luxury of verdure, the tempting novelty of fruits and food, and all the unaccustomed attractions of a tropical home. Under these combined influences the nervous sensibility is considerably excited, and the circulation acquires greater velocity, with somewhat diminished force. This is soon followed, however, by the disagreeable evidences of the effort made by the system to accommodate itself to the new atmospheric condition. The skin often becomes fretted by "prickly heat," or tormented by a profusion of boils, but relief being speedily obtained through these resources, the new comer is seldom afterwards annoyed by a recurrence of the process, unless under circumstances of impaired tone, the result of weakened digestion or climatic derangement. _Malaria_.--Compared with Bengal and the Dekkan, the climate of Ceylon presents a striking superiority in mildness and exemption from all the extremes of atmospheric disturbance; and, except in particular localities, all of which are well known and avoided[1], from being liable after the rains to malaria, or infested at particular seasons with agues and fever, a lengthened residence in the island may be contemplated, without the slightest apprehension of prejudicial results. These pestilential localities are chiefly at the foot of mountains, and, strange to say, in the vicinity of some active rivers, whilst the vast level plains, whose stagnant waters are made available for the cultivation of rice, are seldom or never productive of disease. It is even believed that the deadly air is deprived of its poison in passing over an expanse of still water; and one of the most remarkable circumstances is, that the points fronting the aerial currents are those exposed to danger, whilst projecting cliffs, belts of forest, and even moderately high walls, serve to protect all behind them from attack.[2] In traversing districts suspected of malaria, experience has dictated certain precautions, which, with ordinary prudence and firmness, serve to neutralise the risk--retiring punctually at sunset, generous diet, moderate stimulants, and the daily use of quinine both before and after exposure. These, and the precaution, at whatever sacrifice of comfort, to sleep under mosquito curtains, have been proved in long journeys to be valuable prophylactics against fever and the pestilence of the jungle. [Footnote 1: Notwithstanding this general condition, fevers of a very serious kind have been occasionally known to attack persons on the coast, who had never exposed themselves to the miasma of the jungle. Such instances have occurred at Galle, and more rarely at Colombo. The characteristics of places in this regard have, in some instances, changed unaccountably; thus at Persadenia, close to Kandy, it was at one time regarded as dangerous to sleep.] [Footnote 2: Generally speaking, a flat open country is healthy, either when flooded deeply by rains, or when dried to hardness by the sun; but in the process of dessication, its exhalations are perilous. The wooded slopes at the base of mountains are notorious for fevers; such as the _terrai_ of the Nepal hills, the Wynaad jungle, at the foot of the Ghauts, and the eastern side of the mountains of Ceylon.] _Food_.--Always bearing in mind that of the quantity of food habitually taken in a temperate climate, a certain proportion is consumed to sustain the animal heat, it is obvious that in the glow of the tropics, where the heat is already in excess, this portion of the ingesta not only becomes superfluous so far as this office is concerned, but occasions disturbance of the other functions both of digestion and elimination. Over-indulgence in food, equally with intemperance in wine, is one fruitful source of disease amongst Europeans in Ceylon; and maladies and mortality are often the result of the former, in patients who would repel as an insult the imputation of the latter. So well have national habits conformed to instinctive promptings in this regard, that the natives of hot countries have unconsciously sought to heighten the enjoyment of food by taking their principal repast _after sunset_[1]; and the European in the East will speedily discover for himself the prudence, not only of reducing the quantity, but in regard to the quality of his meals, of adopting those articles which nature has bountifully supplied as best suited to the climate. With a moderate use of flesh meat, vegetables, and especially farinaceous food, are chiefly to be commended. [Footnote 1: The prohibition of swine, which has formed an item in the dietetic ritual of the Egyptians, the Hebrews, and Mahometans, has been defended in all ages, from Manetho and Herodotus downwards, on the ground that the flesh of an animal so foully fed has a tendency to promote cutaneous disorders, a belief which, though held as a fallacy in northern climates, may have a truthful basis in the East.--ÆLIAN, _Hist. Anim._ 1. X. 16. In a recent general order Lord Clyde has prohibited its use in the Indian army. Camel's flesh, which is also declared unclean in Leviticus, is said to produce in the Arabs serious derangement of the stomach.] The latter is rendered attractive by the unrivalled excellence of the Singhalese in the preparation of innumerable curries[1], each tempered by the delicate creamy juice expressed from the flesh of the coco-nut after it has been reduced to a pulp. Nothing of the same class in India can bear a comparison with the piquant delicacy of a curry in Ceylon, composed of fresh condiments and compounded by the skilful hand of a native. [Footnote 1: The popular error of thinking curry to be an invention of the Portuguese in India is disproved by the mention in the _Rajavali_ of its use in Ceylon in the second century before the Christian era, and in the _Mahawanso_ in the fifth century of it. This subject is mentioned elsewhere: see chapter on the Arts and Sciences of the Singhalese.] _The use of fruit_--Fruits are abundant and wholesome; but with the exception of oranges, pineapples, the luscious mango and the indescribable "rambutan," for want of horticultural attention they are inferior in flavour, and soon cease to be alluring. _Wine_.--Wine has of late years become accessible to all, and has thus, in some degree, been substituted for brandy; the abuse of which at former periods is commemorated in the records of those fearful disorders of the liver, derangements of the brain, exhausting fevers, and visceral diseases, which characterise the medical annals of earlier times. With a firm adherence to temperance in the enjoyment of stimulants, and moderation in the pleasures of the table, with attention to exercise and frequent resort to the bath, it may be confidently asserted that health in Ceylon is as capable of preservation and life as susceptible of enjoyment, as in any country within the tropics. _Exposure_.--Prudence and foresight are, however, as indispensable there as in any other climate to escape well-understood risks. Catarrhs and rheumatism are as likely to follow needless exposure to the withering "along-shore wind" of the winter months in Ceylon[1], as they are traceable to unwisely confronting the east winds of March in Great Britain; and during the alternation, from the sluggish heat which precedes the monsoon, to the moist and chill vapours that follow the descent of the rains, intestinal disorders, fevers, and liver complaints are not more characteristic of an Indian monsoon than an English autumn, and are equally amenable to those precautions by which liability may be diminished in either place. [Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 57. It is an agreeable characteristic of the climate of Ceylon, that sun-stroke, which is so common even in the northern portions of India, is almost unknown in the island. Sportsmen are out all day long in the hottest weather, a practice which would be thought more than hazardous in Oude or the north-west provinces. Perhaps an explanation of this may be found in the difference in moisture in the two atmospheres, which may modify the degrees of evaporation; but the inquiry is a curious one. It is becoming better understood in the army that active service, and even a moderate exposure to the solar rays (_always guarding them from the head_,) are conducive rather than injurious to health in the tropics. The pale and sallow complexion of ladies and children born in India, is ascribable in a certain degree to the same process by which vegetables are blanched under shades which exclude the light:--they are reared in apartments too carefully kept dark.] _Paleness_.--At the same time it must be observed, that the pallid complexion peculiar to old residents, is not alone ascribable to an organic change in the skin from its being the medium of perpetual exudation, but in part to a deficiency of red globules in the blood, and mainly to a reduced vigour in the whole muscular apparatus, including the action of the heart, which imperfectly compensates by increased rapidity for diminution of power. It is remarkable how suddenly this sallowness disappears, and is succeeded by the warm tints of health, after a visit of a very few days to the plains of Neuera-ellia, or the picturesque coffee plantations in the hills that surround it. _Ladies_.--Ladies, from their more regular and moderate habits, and their avoidance of exposure, might be expected to withstand the climate better than men; and to a certain extent the anticipation appears to be correct, but it by no means justifies the assumption of general immunity. Though less obnoxious to specific disease, debility and delicacy are the frequent results of habitual seclusion and avoidance of the solar light. These, added to more obvious causes of occasional illness, suggest the necessity of vigorous exertion and regular exercise as indispensable protectives. If suitably clothed, and not injudiciously fed, children may remain in the island till eight or ten years of age, when anxiety is excited by the attenuation of the frame and the apparent absence of strength in proportion to development. These symptoms, the result of relaxed tone and defective nutrition, are to be remedied by change of climate either to the more lofty ranges of the mountains, or, more providently, to Europe. _Effects on Europeans already Diseased_.--To persons already suffering from disease, the experiment of a residence in Ceylon is one of questionable propriety. Those of a scrofulous diathesis need not consider it hazardous, as experience does not show that in such there is any greater susceptibility to local or constitutional disorders, or that when these are present, there is greater difficulty in their removal. To those threatened with consumption, the island may be supposed to offer some advantages in the equability of the temperature, and the comparative quiescence of the lungs from reduced necessity for respiratory effort. Besides, the choice of climates presented by Ceylon enables a patient, by the easy change of residence to a different altitude and temperature, avoiding the heats of one period and the dry winds of another, to check to a great extent the predisposing causes likely to lead to the development of tubercle. This, with attention to clothing and systematic exercise as preventives of active disease, may serve to restrain the further progress though it fail to eradicate the tendency to phthibis. But when already the formation of tubercle has taken place to any considerable extent, and is accompanied by softening, the morbid condition is not unlikely to advance with alarming celerity; and the only compensating circumstance is the diminution of apparent suffering, ascribable to general languor, and the absence of the bronchial irritation occasioned by cold humid air. _Dyspepsia_.--Habitual dyspeptics, and those affected by hepatic obstructions, had better avoid a lengthened sojourn in Ceylon; but the tortures of rheumatism and gout, if they be not reduced, are certainly postponed for longer intervals than those conceded to the same sufferers in England. Gout, owing to the great cutaneous excretion, in most instances totally disappears. _Precautions for Health_.--Next to attention to diet, health in Ceylon is mainly to be preserved by systematic exercise, and a costume adapted to the climate and its requirements. Paradoxical as it may sound, the great cause of disease in hot climates is _cold_. Nothing ought more cautiously to be watched and avoided than the chills produced by draughts and dry winds; and a change of dress or position should be instantly resorted to when the warning sensation of chilliness is perceived. _Exercise_.--The early morning ride, after a single cup of coffee and a biscuit on rising, and the luxury of the bath before dressing for breakfast, constitute the enjoyments of the forenoon; and a similar stroll on horseback, returning at sunset to repeat the bath[1] preparatory to the evening toilette, completes the hygienic discipline of the day. At night the introduction of the Indian punka into bed-rooms would be valuable, a thin flannel coverlet being spread over the bed. Nothing serves more effectually to break down an impaired constitution in the tropics than the want of timely and refreshing sleep. [Footnote 1: "Je me souviens que les deux premières années que je fus en ce pais-là, j'eus deux maladies: _alors je pris la coütume de me bien laver soir et matin_, et pendant 16 ans que j'y ay demeuré depuis, je n'ay pas senti le moindre mal."--RIBEYRO, _Hist. de l'Isle de Ceylan_, vol. v. ch. xix. p. 149.] _Dress_.--In the selection of dress experience has taught the superiority of calico to linen, the latter, when damp from the exhalation of the skin, causing a chill which is injurious, whilst the former, from some peculiarity in its fibre, however moist it may become, never imparts the same sensation of cold. The clothing best adapted to the climate is that whose texture least excites the already profuse perspiration, and whose fashion presents the least impediment to its escape.[1] The discomfort of woollen has led to its avoidance as far as possible; but those who, in England, may have accustomed themselves to flannel, will find the advantage of persevering to wear it, provided it is so light as not to excite perspiration. So equipped for active exercise, exposure to the sun, however hot, may be regarded without apprehension, provided the limbs are in motion and the body in ordinary health; but the instinct of all oriental races has taught the necessity of protecting the head, and European ingenuity has not failed to devise expedients for this all-important object. [Footnote 1: "Man not being created an aquatic animal, his skin cannot with impunity be exposed to perpetual moisture, whether directly applied or arising from perspiration retained by dress. The importance to health of keeping the skin _dry_ does not appear to have hitherto received due attention."--PICKERING, _Races of Man_, &c., ch. xliv.] From what has been said, it will be apparent that, compared with continental India, the securities for health in Ceylon are greatly in favour of the island. As to the formidable diseases which are common to both, their occurrence in either is characterised by the same appalling manifestations: dysentery fastens, with all its fearful concomitants, on the unwary and incautious; and cholera, with its dark horrors, sweeps mysteriously across neglected districts, exacting its hecatombs. But the visitation and ravages of both are somewhat under control, and the experience bequeathed by each gloomy visitation has added to the facilities for checking its recurrence.[1] [Footnote 1: "It is worthy of remark, that although all the troops in Ceylon have occasionally, but at rare intervals; suffered severely from cholera, the disease has in very few instances attacked the officers; or indeed Europeans in the same grade of life. This is one important difference to be borne in mind when estimating the comparative risk of life in India and Ceylon. It must be due to the difference in comforts and quarters, or more particularly to the exemption from night duty, by far the most trying of the soldiers' hardships. The small mortality amongst the officers of European regiments in Ceylon is very remarkable."--_Note_ by Dr. CAMERON, Army Med. Staff.] In some of the disorders incidental to the climate, and the treatment of ulcerations caused by the wounds of the mosquitoes and leeches, the native Singhalese have a deservedly high reputation; but their practice, when it depends on specifics, is too empirical to be safely relied on; and their traditional skill, though boasting a well authenticated antiquity, achieves few triumphs in competition with the soberer discipline of European science. CHAP. III. VEGETATION.--TREES AND PLANTS. Although the luxuriant vegetation of Ceylon has at all times been the theme of enthusiastic admiration, its flora does not probably exceed 3000 phænogamic plants[1]; and notwithstanding that it has a number of endemic species, and a few genera, which are not found on the great Indian peninsula, still its botanical features may be described as those characteristic of the southern regions of Hindustan and the Dekkan. The result of some recent experiments has, however, afforded a curious confirmation of the opinion ventured by Dr. Gardner, that, regarding its botany geographically, Ceylon exhibits more of the Malayan flora and that of the Eastern Archipelago, than of any portion of India to the west of it. Two plants peculiar to Malacca, the nutmeg and the mangustin, have been attempted, but unsuccessfully, to be cultivated in Bengal; but in Ceylon the former has been reared near Colombo with such singular success that its produce now begins to figure in the exports of the island;--and mangustins, which, ten years ago, were exhibited as curiosities from a single tree in the old Botanic Garden at Colombo, are found to thrive readily, and they occasionally appear at table, rivalling in their wonderful delicacy of flavour those which have heretofore been regarded as peculiar to the Straits. [Footnote 1: The prolific vegetation of the island is likely to cause exaggeration in the estimate of its variety. Dr. Gardner, shortly after his appointment as superintendent of the Botanic Garden at Kandy, in writing to Sir W. Hooker, conjectured that the Ceylon flora might extend to 4000 or 5000 species. But from a recent _Report_ of the present curator, Mr. Thwaites, it appears that the indigenous phænogamic plants discovered up to August, 1856, was 2670; of which 2025 were dicotyledonous, and 644 monocotyledonous flowering plants, besides 247 ferns and lycopods. When it is considered that this is nearly double the indigenous flora of England, and little under _one thirtieth_ of the entire number of plants hitherto described over the world, the botanical richness of Ceylon, in proportion to its area, must be regarded as equal to that of any portion of the globe.] Up to the present time the botany of Ceylon has been imperfectly submitted to scientific scrutiny. Linnæus, in 1747, prepared his _Flora Zeylanica_, from specimens collected by Hermann, which had previously constituted the materials of the _Thesaurus Zeylanicus_ of Burman and now form part of the herbarium in the British Museum. A succession of industrious explorers have been since engaged in following up the investigation[1]; but, with the exception of an imperfect and unsatisfactory catalogue by Moon, no enumeration of Ceylon plants has yet been published. Dr. Gardner had made some progress with a Singhalese Flora, when his death took place in 1849, an event which threw the task on other hands, and has postponed its completion for years.[2] [Footnote 1: Amongst the collections of Ceylon plants deposited in the Hookerian Herbarium, are those made by General and Mrs. Walker, by Major Champion (who left the island in 1848), and by Mr. Thwaites, who succeeded Dr. Gardner in charge of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kandy. Moon, who had previously held that appointment, left extensive collections in the herbarium at Peradenia which have been lately increased by his successors; and Macrae, who was employed by the Horticultural Society of London, has enriched their museum with Ceylon plants. Some admirable letters of Mrs. Walker are printed in HOOKER'S _Companion to the Botanical Magazine_. They include an excellent account of the vegetation of Ceylon.] [Footnote 2: Dr. Gardner, in 1848, drew up a short paper containing _Some Remarks on the Flora of Ceylon_, which was printed in the appendix to LEE'S _Translation of Ribeyro_: to this essay, and to his personal communications during frequent journeys, I am indebted for many facts incorporated in the following pages.] From the identity of position and climate, and the apparent similarity of soil between Ceylon and the southern extremity of the Indian peninsula, a corresponding agreement might be expected between their vegetable productions: and accordingly in its aspects and subdivisions Ceylon participates in those distinctive features which the monsoons have imparted respectively to the opposite shores of Hindustan. The western coast being exposed to the milder influence of the south-west wind, shows luxuriant vegetation, the result of its humid and temperate climate; whilst the eastern, like Coromandel, has a comparatively dry and arid aspect, produced by the hot winds which blow for half the year. The littoral vegetation of the seaborde exhibits little variation from that common throughout the Eastern archipelago; but it wants the _Phoenix paludosa_[1], a dwarf date-palm, which literally covers the islands of the Sunderbunds at the delta of the Ganges. A dense growth of mangroves[2] occupies the shore, beneath whose overarching roots the ripple of the sea washes unseen over the muddy beach. [Footnote 1: Drs. HOOKER and THOMSON, in their _Introductory Essay to the Flora of India_, speaking of Ceylon, state that the _Nipa fruticans_ (another characteristic palm of the Gangetic delta) and _Cycads_ are also wanting there, but both these exist (the former abundantly), though perhaps not alluded to in any work on Ceylon botany to which those authors had access. In connection with this subject it may be mentioned, as a fact which is much to be regretted, that, although botanists have been appointed to the superintendence of the Botanic Gardens at Kandy, information regarding the vegetation of the island is scarcely obtainable without extreme trouble and reference to papers scattered through innumerable periodicals. That the majority of Ceylon plants are already known to science is owing to the coincidence of their being also natives of India, whence they have been described; but there has been no recent attempt on the part of colonial or European botanists even to throw into a useful form the already published descriptions of the commoner plants of the island. Such a work would be the first step to a Singhalese Flora. The preparation of such a compendium would seem, to belong to the duties of the colonial botanist, and as such it was an object of especial solicitude to the late superintendent, Dr. Gardner. But the heterogeneous duties imposed upon the person holding his office (the evils arising from which are elsewhere alluded to), have hitherto been insuperable obstacles to the attainment of this object, as they have also been to the preparation of a systematic account of the general features of Ceylon vegetation. Such a work is strongly felt to be a desideratum by numbers of intelligent persons in Ceylon, who are not accomplished botanists, but who are anxious to acquire accurate ideas as to the aspects of the flora at different elevations, different seasons, and different quarters of the island; of the kinds of plants that chiefly contribute to the vegetation of the coasts, the plains, and mountains; of the general relations that subsist between them and the flora of the Carnatic, Malabar, and the Malay archipelago; and of the more useful plants in science, arts, medicine, and commerce. To render such a work (however elementary) at once accurate as well as interesting, would require sound scientific knowledge; and, however skilfully and popularly written, there would still be portions somewhat difficult of comprehension to the ordinary reader; but curiosity would be stimulated by the very occurrence of difficulty, and thus an impulse might be given to the acquisition of rudimentary botany, which would eventually enable the inquirer to contribute his quota to the natural history of Ceylon. P.S. Since the foregoing was written, Mr. Thwaites has announced the early publication of a new work on Ceylon plants, to be entitled _Enumeratio Plantarum Zeylaniæ: with Descriptions of the new and little known genera and species_, and observations on their habits, uses, &c. In the Identification of the species Mr. Thwaites is to be assisted by Dr. Hooker, F.R.S.; and from their conjoint labours we may at last hope for a production worthy of the subject.] [Footnote 2: Rhizophera Candelaria, Kandelia Rheedei, Bruguiera gymnorhiza.] Retiring from the strand, there are groups of _Sonneratia[1], Avicennia, Heritiera_, and _Pandanus_; the latter with a stem like a dwarf palm, round which the serrated leaves ascend in spiral convolutions till they terminate in a pendulous crown, from which drop the amber clusters of beautiful but uneatable fruit, with a close resemblance in shape and colour to that of the pineapple, from which, and from the peculiar arrangement of the leaves, the plant has acquired its name of the Screw-pine. [Footnote 1: At a meeting of the Entomological Society in 1842, Dr. Templeton sent, for the use of the members, many thin slices of substance to replace cork-wood as a lining for insect cases and drawers. Along with the soft wood he sent the following notice:--"In this country (he writes from Colombo, Ceylon, May 19, 1842), along the marshy banks of the large rivers, grows a very large handsome tree, named _Sonneratia acida_, by the younger Linnæus: its roots spread far and wide through the soft moist earth, and at various distances along send up most extraordinary long spindle-shaped excrescences four or five feet above the surface. Of these Sir James Edward Smith remarks 'what these horn-shaped excrescences are which occupy the soil at some distance from the base of the tree from a span to a foot in length and of a corky substance, as described by Rumphins, we can offer no conjecture.' Most curious things (remarks Dr. Templeton) they are; they all spring very narrow from the root, expand as they rise, and then become gradually attenuated, occasionally forking, but never throwing out shoots or leaves, or in any respect resembling the parent root or wood. They are firm and close in their texture, nearly devoid of fibrous structure, and take a moderate polish when cut with a sharp instrument; but for lining insect boxes and making setting-boards they have no equal in the world. The finest pin passes in with delightful ease and smoothness, and is held firmly and tightly so that there is no risk of the insects becoming disengaged. With a fine saw I form them into little boards and then smooth them with a sharp case knife, but the London veneering-mills would turn them out fit for immediate use, without any necessity for more than a touch of fine glass-paper. Some of my pigmy boards are two feet long by three and a half inches wide, which is more than sufficient for our purpose, and to me they have proved a vast acquisition. The natives call them 'Kirilimow,' the latter syllable signifying root"--TEMPLETON, _Trans. Ent. Soc._ vol. iii. p. 302.] A little further inland, the sandy plains are covered by a thorny jungle, the plants of which are the same as those of the Carnatic, the climate being alike; and wherever man has encroached on the solitude, groves of coco-nut palms mark the vicinity of his habitations. Remote from the sea, the level country of the north has a flora almost identical with that of Coromandel; but the arid nature of the Ceylon soil, and its drier atmosphere, is attested by the greater proportion of euphorbias and fleshy shrubs, as well as by the wiry and stunted nature of the trees, their smaller leaves and thorny stems and branches.[1] [Footnote 1: Dr. Gardner.] Conspicuous amongst them are acacias of many kinds; _Cassia fistula_ the wood apple (_Feronia elephantum_), and the mustard tree of Scripture (_Salvadora Persica_), which extends from Ceylon to the Holy Land. The margosa (_Azadirachta Indica_), the satin wood, the Ceylon oak, and the tamarind and ebony, are examples of the larger trees; and in the extreme north and west the Palmyra palm takes the place of the coco-nut, and not only lines the shore, but fills the landscape on every side with its shady and prolific groves. Proceeding southward on the western coast, the acacias disappear, and the greater profusion of vegetation, the taller growth of the timber, and the darker tinge of the foliage, all attest the influence of the increased moisture both from the rivers and the rains. The brilliant _Ixoras, Erythrinas, Buteas, Jonesias, Hibiscus_, and a variety of flowering shrubs of similar beauty, enliven the forests with their splendour; and the seeds of the cinnamon, carried by the birds from the cultivated gardens near the coasts, have germinated in the sandy soil, and diversify the woods with the fresh verdure of its polished leaves and delicately-tinted shoots. It is to be found universally to a considerable height in the lower range of hills, and thither the Chalias were accustomed to resort to cut and peel it, a task which was imposed on them as a feudal service by the native sovereign, who paid an annual tribute in prepared cinnamon to the Dutch, and to the present time this branch of the trade in the article continues, but divested of its compulsory character. The Dutch, in like manner, maintained, during the entire period of their rule, an extensive commerce in pepper worts, which still festoon the forest, but the export has almost ceased from Ceylon. Along with these the trunks of the larger trees are profusely covered with other delicate creepers, chiefly Convolvuli and Ipomoeas; and the pitcher-plant (_Nepenthes distillatoria_) lures the passer-by to halt and conjecture the probable uses of the curious mechanism, by means of which it distils a quantity of limpid fluid into the vegetable vases at the extremity of its leaves. The Orchideæ suspend their pendulous flowers from the angles of branches, whilst the bare roots and the lower part of the stem are occasionally covered with fungi of the most gaudy colours, bright red, yellow, and purple. Of the east side of the island the botany has never yet been examined by any scientific resident, but the productions of the hill country have been largely explored, and present features altogether distinct from those of the plains. For the first two or three thousand feet the dissimilarity is less perceptible to an unscientific eye, but as we ascend, the difference becomes apparent in the larger size of the leaves, and the nearly uniform colour of the foliage, except where the scarlet shoots of the ironwood tree (_Mesua ferrea_) seem, like flowers in their blood-red hue. Here the broad leaves of the wild plantains (_Musa textilis_) penetrate the soil among the broken rocks; and in moist spots the graceful bamboo flourishes in groups, whose feathery foliage waves like the plumes of the ostrich.[1] It is at these elevations that the sameness of the scenery is diversified by the grassy patenas before alluded to[2], which, in their aspect, though not their extent, may be called the Savannahs of Ceylon. Here peaches, cherries, and other European fruit trees, grow freely; but they become evergreens in this summer climate, and, exhausted by perennial excitement, and deprived of their winter repose, they refuse to ripen their fruit.[3] A similar failure was discovered in some European vines, which were cultivated at Jaffna; but Mr. Dyke, the government agent, in whose garden they grew, conceiving that the activity of the plants might be equally checked by exposing them to an extreme of warmth, as by subjecting them to cold, tried, with perfect success, the experiment of laying bare the roots in the strongest heat of the sun. The result verified his conjecture. The circulation of the sap was arrested, the vines obtained the needful repose, and the grapes, which before had fallen almost unformed from the tree, are now brought to thorough maturity, though inferior in flavour to those produced at home.[4] [Footnote 1: In the Malayan peninsula the bamboo has been converted into an instrument of natural music, by perforating it with holes through which the wind is permitted to sigh; and the effect is described as perfectly charming. Mr. Logan, who in 1847 visited Naning; contiguous to the frontier of the European settlement of Malacca, on approaching the village of Kándáng, was surprised by hearing "the most melodious sounds, some soft and liquid like the notes of a flute, and others deep and full like the tones of an organ. They were sometimes low, interrupted, or even single, and presently they would swell into a grand burst of mingled melody. On drawing near to a clump of trees; above the branches of which waved a slender bamboo about forty feet in length, he found that the musical tones issued from it, and were caused by the breeze passing through perforations in the stem; the instrument thus formed is called by the natives the _bulu perindu_, or plaintive bamboo." Those which Mr. Logan saw had a slit in each joint, so that each stem possessed fourteen or twenty notes.] [Footnote 2: See _ante_, p. 24.] [Footnote 3: The apple-tree in the Peradenia Gardens seems not only to have become an evergreen but to have changed its character in another particular; for it is found to send out numerous runners under ground, which continually rise into small stems and form a growth of shrub-like plants around the parent tree.] [Footnote 4: An equally successful experiment, to give the vine an artificial winter by baring the roots, is recorded by Mr. BALLARD, of Bombay, in the _Transactions of the Agric. and Hortic. Society of India_, under date 24th May,1824. Calcutta. 1850. Vol. i. p. 96.] The tea plant has been raised with complete success in the hills on the estate of the Messrs. Worms, at Rothschild, in Pusilawa[1]; but the want of any skilful manipulators to collect and prepare the leaves, renders it hopeless to attempt any experiment on a large scale, until assistance can be secured from China, to conduct the preparation. [Footnote 1: The cultivation of tea was attempted by the Dutch, but without success.] Still ascending, at an elevation of 6500 feet, as we approach the mountain plateau of Neuera-ellia, the dimensions of the trees again diminish, the stems and branches are covered with orchideæ and mosses, and around them spring up herbaceous plants and balsams, with here and there broad expanses covered with _Acanthaceæ_, whose seeds are the favourite food of the jungle fowl, which are always in perfection during the ripening of the Nilloo.[1] It is in these regions that the tree-ferns (_Alsophila gigantea_) rise from the damp hollows, and carry their gracefully plumed heads sometimes to the height of twenty feet. [Footnote 1: There are said to be fourteen species of the Nilloo (_Strobilanthes_) in Ceylon. They form a complete under-growth in the forest five or six feet in height, and sometimes extending for miles. When in bloom, their red and blue flowers are a singularly beautiful feature in the landscape, and are eagerly searched by the honey bees. Some species are said to flower only once in five, seven, or nine years; and after ripening their seed they die. This is one reason assigned for the sudden appearance of the rats, which have been elsewhere alluded to (vol. i. p. 149, ii. p. 234) as invading the coffee estates, when deprived of their ordinary food by the decay of the nilloo. It has been observed that the jungle fowl, after feeding on the nilloo, have their eyes so affected by it, as to be partially blinded, and permit themselves to be taken by the hand. Are the seeds of this plant narcotic like some of the _Solanaceaæ_? or do they cause dilatation of the pupil, like those of the _Atropa Belladonna_?] At length in the loftiest range of the hills the Rhododendrons are discovered; no longer delicate bushes, as in Europe, but timber trees of considerable height, and corresponding dimensions, and every branch covered with a blaze of crimson flowers. In these forests are also to be met with some species of _Michelia_, the Indian representatives of the Magnolias of North America, several arboreous _myrtaceæ_ and _ternstromiaceæ_, the most common of which is the camelia-like _Gordonia Ceylanica_.[1] These and _Vaccinia, Gaultheria, Symploci, Goughia_, and _Gomphandra_, establish the affinity between the vegetation of this region and that of the Malabar ranges, the Khasia and Lower Himalaya.[2] [Footnote 1: Dr. Gardner.] [Footnote 2: _Introduction to the Flora Indica_ of Dr. HOOKER and Dr. THOMSON, p. 120. London, 1855.] Generally speaking, the timber on the high mountains is of little value for oeconomic purposes. Though of considerable dimensions, it is too unsubstantial to be serviceable for building or domestic uses; and perhaps, it may be regarded as an evidence of its perishable nature, that dead timber is rarely to be seen in any quantity encumbering the ground, in the heart of the deepest forests. It seems to go to dust almost immediately after its fall, and although the process of destruction is infinitely accelerated by the ravages of insects, especially the white ants (_termites_) and beetles, which instantly seize on every fallen branch: still, one would expect that the harder woods would, more or less, resist their attacks till natural decomposition should have facilitated their operations and would thus exhibit more leisurely the progress of decay. But here decay is comparatively instantaneous, and it is seldom that fallen timber is to be found, except in the last stage of conversion into dust. Some of the trees in the higher ranges are remarkable for the prodigious height to which they struggle upwards from the dense jungle towards the air and light; and one of the most curious of nature's devices, is the singular expedient by which some families of these very tall and top-heavy trees throw out buttresses like walls of wood, to support themselves from beneath. Five or six of these buttresses project like rays from all sides of the trunk: they are from six to twelve inches thick, and advance from five to fifteen feet outward; and as they ascend, gradually sink into the hole and disappear at the height of from ten to twenty feet from the ground. By the firm resistance which they offer below, the trees are effectually steadied, and protected from the leverage of the crown, by which they would otherwise be uprooted. Some of these buttresses are so smooth and flat, as almost to resemble sawn planks. The greatest ornaments of the forest in these higher regions are the large flowering trees; the most striking of which is the Rhododendron, which in Ceylon forms a forest in the mountains, and when covered with flowers, it seems from a distance as though the hills were strewn with vermilion. This is the principal tree on the summit of Adam's Peak, and grows to the foot of the rock on which rests the little temple that covers the sacred footstep on its crest. Dr. Hooker states that the honey of its flowers is believed to be poisonous in some parts of Sikkim; but I never heard it so regarded in Ceylon. One of the most magnificent of the flowering trees, is the coral tree[1], which is also the most familiar to Europeans, as the natives of the low country and the coast, from the circumstance of its stem being covered with thorns, plant it largely for fences, and grow it in the vicinity of their dwellings. It derives its English name from the resemblance which its scarlet flowers present to red coral, and as these clothe the branches before the leaves appear, their splendour attracts the eye from a distance, especially when lighted by the full blaze of the sun. [Footnote 1: _Erythrina Indica_. It belongs to the pea tribe, and must not be confounded with the _Jatropha multifida_ which has also acquired the name of the _coral tree_. Its wood is so light and spongy, that it is used in Ceylon to form corks for preserve jars; and both there and at Madras the natives make from it models of their implements of husbandry, and of their sailing boats and canoes.] The Murutu[1] is another flowering tree which may vie with the Coral, the Rhododendron, or the Asoca, the favourite of Sanskrit poetry. It grows to a considerable height, especially in damp places and the neighbourhood of streams, and pains have been taken, from appreciation of its attractions, to plant it by the road side and in other conspicuous positions. From the points of the branches panicles are produced, two or three feet in length, composed of flowers, each the size of a rose and of all shades, from a delicate pink to the deepest purple. It abounds in the south-west of the island. [Footnote 1: Lagerstroemia Reginæ.] The magnificent Asoca[1] is found in the interior, and is cultivated, though not successfully, in the Peradenia Garden, and in that attached to Elie House at Colombo. But in Toompane, and in the valley of Doombera, its loveliness vindicates all the praises bestowed on it by the poets of the East. Its orange and crimson flowers grow in graceful racemes, and the Singhalese, who have given the rhododendron the pre-eminent appellation of the "great red flower," (_maha-rat-mal_,) have called the Asoca the _diya-rat-mal_ to indicate its partiality for "moisture," combined with its prevailing hue. [Footnote 1: Jonesia Asoca.] But the tree which will most frequently attract the eye of the traveller, is the kattoo-imbul of the Singhalese[1], one of which produces the silky cotton which, though incapable of being spun, owing to the shortness of its delicate fibre, makes the most luxurious stuffing for sofas and pillows. It is a tall tree covered with formidable thorns; and being deciduous, the fresh leaves, like those of the coral tree, do not make their appearance till after the crimson flowers have covered the branches with their bright tulip-like petals. So profuse are these gorgeous flowers, that when they fall, the ground for many roods on all sides is a carpet of scarlet. They are succeeded by large oblong pods, in which the black polished seeds are deeply embedded in the floss which is so much prized by the natives. The trunk is of an unusually bright green colour, and the branches issue horizontally from the stem, in whorls of threes with a distance of six or seven feet between each whorl. [Footnote 1: _Bombax Malabaricus_. As the genus Bombax is confined to tropical America, the German botanists, Schott and Endlicher, have assigned to the imbul its ancient Sanskrit name, and described it as _Salmalia Malabarica_.] Near every Buddhist temple the priests plant the Iron tree (_Messua ferrea_)[1] for the sake of its flowers, with which they decorate the images of Buddha. They resemble white roses, and form a singular contrast with the buds and shoots of the tree, which are of the deepest crimson. Along with its flowers the priests use likewise those of the Champac (_Michelia Champaca_), belonging to the family of magnoliaceæ. They have a pale yellow tint, with the sweet oppressive perfume which is celebrated in the poetry of the Hindus. From the wood of the champac the images of Buddha are carved for the temples. [Footnote 1: Dr. Gardner supposed the ironwood tree of Ceylon to have been confounded with the _Messua ferrea_ of Linnæus. He asserted it to be a distinct species, and assigned to it the well-known Singhalese name "_nagaha_," or _iron-wood tree_. But this conjecture has since proved erroneous.] The celebrated Upas tree of Java (_Antiaris toxicaria_) which has been the subject of so many romances, exploded by Dr. Horsfield[1], was supposed by Dr. Gardner to exist in Ceylon, but more recent scrutiny has shown that what he mistook for it, was an allied species, the _A. saccidora_, which grows at Kornegalle, and in other parts of the island; and is scarcely less remarkable, though for very different characteristics. The Ceylon species was first brought to public notice by E. Rawdon Power, Esq., government agent of the Kandyan province, who sent specimens of it, and of the sacks which it furnishes, to the branch of the Asiatic Society at Colombo. It is known to the Singhalese by the name of "ritigaha," and is identical with the _Lepurandra saccidora_, from which the natives of Coorg, like those of Ceylon, manufacture an ingenious substitute for sacks by a process which is described by Mr. Nimmo.[2] "A branch is cut corresponding to the length and breadth of the bag required, it is soaked and then beaten with clubs till the liber separates from the timber. This done, the sack which is thus formed out of the bark is turned inside out, and drawn downwards to permit the wood to be sawn off, leaving a portion to form the bottom which is kept firmly in its place by the natural attachment of the bark." [Footnote 1: The vegetable poisons, the use of which is ascribed to the Singhalese, are chiefly the seeds of the _Datura_, which act as a powerful narcotic, and those of the _Croton tiglium_, the excessive effect of which ends in death. The root of the _Nerium odorum_ is equally fatal, as is likewise the exquisitely beautiful _Gloriosa superba_, whose brilliant flowers festoon the jungle in the plains of the low country. See Bennett's account of the _Antiaris_, in HORSFIELD'S _Plantæ Javanicæ_.] [Footnote 2: Catalogue of Bombay Plants, p. 193. The process in Ceylon is thus described in Sir W. HOOKER'S _Report on the Vegetable Products_ exhibited in Paris in 1855: "The trees chosen for the purpose measure above a foot in diameter. The felled trunks are cut into lengths, and the bark is well beaten with a stone or a club till the parenchymatous part comes off, leaving only the inner bark attached to the wood; which is thus easily drawn out by the hand. The bark thus obtained is fibrous and tough, resembling a woven fabric: it is sewn at one end into a sack, which is filled with sand, and dried in the sun."] As we descend the hills the banyans[1] and a variety of figs make their appearance. They are the Thugs of the vegetable world, for although not necessarily epiphytic, it may be said that in point of fact no single plant comes to perfection, or acquires even partial development, without the destruction of some other on which to fix itself as its supporter. The family generally make their first appearance as slender roots hanging from the crown or trunk of some other tree, generally a palm, among the moist bases of whose leaves the seed carried thither by some bird which had fed upon the fig, begins to germinate. This root branching as it descends, envelopes the trunk of the supporting tree with a network of wood, and at length penetrating the ground, attains the dimensions of a stem. But unlike a _stem_ it throws out no buds, leaves, or flowers; the true stem, with its branches, its foliage, and fruit, springs upwards from the crown of the tree whence the root is seen descending; and from it issue the pendulous rootlets, which, on reaching the earth, fix themselves firmly and form the marvellous growth for which the banyan is so celebrated.[2] In the depth of this grove, the original tree is incarcerated till, literally strangled by the folds and weight of its resistless companion, it dies and leaves the fig in undisturbed possession of its place. It is not unusual in the forest to find a fig-tree which had been thus upborne till it became a standard, now forming a hollow cylinder, the centre of which was once filled by the sustaining tree: but the empty walls form a circular network of interlaced roots and branches; firmly agglutinated under pressure, and admitting the light through interstices that look like loopholes in a turret. [Footnote 1: Ficus Indica.] [Footnote 2: I do not remember to have seen the following passage from Pliny referred to as the original of Milton's description of this marvellous tree:-- "Ipsa se serens, vastis diffunditur ramis: quorum imi adeo in terram curvantur, ut annuo spatio infigantur, novamque sibi _propaginem faciant circa parentem in orbem._ Intra septem eam _æstivant pastores_, opacam pariter et munitam vallo arboris, decora specie subter intuenti, proculve, _fornicato_ arbore. Foliorum latitudo _peltæ effigiem Amazonicæ_ habet," &c.--PLINY, 1. xii. c. 11. "The fig-tree--not that kind for fruit renowned, But such as at this day to Indians known, In Malabar or Dekkan spreads her arms, Branching so broad and long, that on the ground The bended twigs take root, and _daughters grow About the mother tree: a pillar'd_ shade High over arched and echoing walks between. There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, Shelters in cool and _tends his pasturing flocks_ At loop-holes cut through thickest shade. These leaves They gathered; broad as _Amazonian targe:_ And with what skill they had, together sewed To gird their waist," &c. _Par. Lost_, ix. 1100. Pliny's description is borrowed, with some embellishments, from THEOPHRASTUS _de. Nat. Plant._ l. i. 7. iv. 4.] [Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE FIG-TREE AND THE PALM.] Another species of the same genus, _F. repens,_ is a fitting representative of the English ivy, and is constantly to be seen clambering over rocks, turning through heaps of stones, or ascending some tall tree to the height of thirty or forty feet, while the thickness of its own stem does not exceed a quarter of an inch. The facility with which the seeds of the fig-tree take root where there is a sufficiency of moisture to permit of germination, has rendered them formidable assailants of the ancient monuments throughout Ceylon. The vast mounds of brickwork which constitute the remains of the Dagobas at Anarajapoora and Pollanarrua are covered densely with trees, among which the figs are always conspicuous. One, which has fixed itself on the walls of a ruined edifice at the latter city, forms one of the most remarkable objects of the place--its roots streaming downwards over the walls as if their wood had once been fluid, follow every sinuosity of the building and terraces till they reach the earth. [Illustration: A FIG TREE ON THE RUINS OF POLLANARRUA.] To this genus belongs the Sacred Bo-tree of the Buddhists, _Ficus religiosa,_ which is planted close to every temple, and attracts almost as much veneration as the statue of the god himself. At Anarajapoora is still preserved the identical tree said to have been planted 288 years before the Christian era.[1] [Footnote 1: For a memoir of this celebrated tree, see the account of Anarajapoora, Vol. II. p. 10.] Although the India-rubber tree (_F. elastica_) is not indigenous to Ceylon, it is now very widely diffused over the island. It is remarkable for the pink leathery covering which envelopes the leaves before expansion, and for the delicate tracing of the nerves which run in equi-distant rows at right angles from the mid-rib. But its most striking feature is the exposure of its roots, masses of which appear above ground, extending on all sides from the base, and writhing over the surface in undulations-- "Like snakes in wild festoon, In ramous wrestlings interlaced, A forest Laocoon."[1] [Footnote 1: HOOD's poem of _The Elm Tree._] So strong, in fact, is the resemblance, that the villagers give it the name of the "Snake-tree." One, which grows close to Cotta, at the Church Missionary establishment within a few miles of Colombo, affords a remarkable illustration of this peculiarity. [Illustration: THE SNAKE-TREE.] There is an avenue of these trees leading to the Gardens of Peradenia, the roots of which meet from either side of the road, and have so covered the surface by their agglutinated reticulations as to form a wooden framework, the interstices of which retain the materials that form the roadway.[1] [Footnote 1: Mr. Ferguson of the Surveyor-General's Department, assures me that he once measured the root of a small wild fig-tree, growing in a patena at Hewahette, and found it upwards of 140 feet in length, whilst the tree itself was not 30 feet high.] The Kumbuk of the Singhalese (called by the Tamils Maratha-maram)[1] is one of the noblest and most widely distributed trees in the island; it delights in the banks of rivers and moist borders of tanks and canals; it overshadows the stream of the Mahawelli-ganga, almost from Kandy to the sea; and it stretches its great arms above the still water of the lakes on the eastern side of the island. [Footnote 1: Pentaptera tomentosa _(Rox.)_.] One venerable patriarch of this species, which grows at Mutwal, within three miles of Colombo, towers to so great a height above the surrounding forests of coconut palms, that it forms a landmark for the native boatmen, and is discernible from Negombo, more than twenty miles distant. The circumference of its stem, as measured by Mr. W. Ferguson, in 1850, was forty-five feet close to the earth, and seven yards at twelve feet above the ground. The timber, which is durable, is applied to the carving of idols for the temples, besides being extensively used for less dignified purposes; but it is chiefly prized for the bark, which is sold as a medicine, and, in addition to yielding a black dye, it is so charged with calcareous matter that its ashes, when burnt, afford a substitute for the lime which the natives chew with their betel. Some of the trees found in the forests of the interior are remarkable for the curious forms in which they produce their seeds. One of these, which sometimes grows to the height of one hundred feet without throwing out a single branch, has been confounded with the durian of the Eastern Archipelago, or supposed to be an allied species[1], but it differs from it in the important particular that its fruit is not edible. The real durian is not indigenous to Ceylon, but was brought there by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century.[2] It has been very recently re-introduced, and is now cultivated successfully. The native name for the Singhalese tree, "Katu-boeda," denotes the prickles that cover its fruit, which is as large as a coco-nut, and set with thorns each nearly an inch in length. [Footnote 1: It is the _Cullenia excelsa_ of WIGHT's _Icones, &c._ (761-2).] [Footnote 2: PORCACCHI, in his _Isolario_, written in the sixteenth century, enumerates the true durian as being then amongst the ordinary fruit of Ceylon.--"Vi nasce anchora un frutto detto Duriano, verde et grande come quei cocomeri, che a Venetia son chiamati angurie: in mezo del quale trouano dentro cinque frutti de sapor molto excellente."--Lib. iii. p. 188. Padua, A.D. 1619.] The _Sterculia foetida,_ one of the finest and noblest of the Ceylon forest-trees, produces from the end of its branches large bunches of dark purple flowers of extreme richness and beauty; but emitting a stench so intolerable as richly to entitle it to its very characteristic botanical name. The fruit is equally remarkable, and consists of several crimson cases of the consistency of leather, within which are enclosed a number of black bean-like seeds: these are dispersed by the bursting of their envelope, which splits open to liberate them when sufficiently ripened. The Moodilla (_Barringtonia speciosa_) is another tree which attracts the eye of the traveller, not less from the remarkably shaped fruit which it bears than from the contrast between its dark glossy leaves and the delicate flowers which they surround. The latter are white, tipped with crimson, but the petals drop off early, and the stamens, of which there are nearly a hundred to each flower, when they fall to the ground might almost be mistaken for painters' brushes. The tree (as its name implies) loves the shore of the sea, and its large quadrangular fruits, of pyramidal form, being protected by a hard fibrous covering, are tossed by the waves till they root themselves on the beach. It grows freely at the mouths of the principal rivers on the west coast, and several noble specimens of it are found near the fort of Colombo. The Goda-kaduru, or _Strychnos nux-vomica_ is abundant in these prodigious forests, and has obtained an European celebrity on account of its producing the poisonous seeds from which strychnine is extracted. Its fruit, which it exhibits in great profusion, is of the size and colour of a small orange, within which a pulpy substance envelopes the seeds that form the "nux-vomica" of commerce. It grows in great luxuriance in the vicinity of the ruined tanks throughout the Wanny, and on the west coast as far south as Negombo. It is singular that in this genus there should be found two plants, the seeds of one being not only harmless but wholesome, and that of the other the most formidable of known poisons.[1] Amongst the Malabar immigrants there is a belief that the seeds of the goda-kaduru, if habitually taken, will act as a prophylactic against the venom of the cobra de capello; and I have been assured that the coolies coming from the coast of India accustom themselves to eat a single seed per day in order to acquire the desired protection from the effects of this serpent's bite.[2] [Footnote 1: The _tettan-cotta,_ the use of which is described in Vol. II. Pt. ix. ch. i. p. 411, when applied by the natives to clarify muddy water, is the seed of another species of strychnos, _S. potatorum_. The Singhalese name is _ingini_ (_tettan-cotta_ is Tamil).] [Footnote 2: In India, the distillers of arrack from the juice of the coco-nut palm are said, by Roxburgh, to introduce the seeds of the strychnus, in order to increase the intoxicating power of the spirit.] In these forests the Euphorbia[1], which we are accustomed to see only as a cactus-like green-house plant, attains the size and strength of a small timber-tree; its quadrangular stem becomes circular and woody, and its square fleshy shoots take the form of branches, or rise with a rounded top as high as thirty feet.[2] [Footnote 1: E. Antiquorun.] [Footnote 2: Amongst the remarkable plants of Ceylon, there is one concerning which a singular error has been perpetuated in botanical works from the time of Paul Hermann, who first described it in 1687, to the present. I mean the _kiri-anguna_ (Gymnema lactiferum), evidently a form of the G. sylvestre, to which has been given the name of the _Ceylon cow-tree_; and it is asserted that the natives drink its juice as we do milk. LOUDON (_Ency. of Plants_, p. 197) says, "The milk of the _G. lactiferum_ is used instead of the vaccine ichor, and the leaves are employed in sauces in the room of cream." And LINDLEY, in his _Vegetable Kingdom_, in speaking of the Asclepiads, says, "the cow plant of Ceylon, 'kiri-anguna,' yields a milk of which the Singhalese make use for food; and its leaves are also used when boiled." Even in the _English Cyclopædia_ of CHARLES KNIGHT, published so lately as 1854, this error is repeated. (See art. Cow-tree, p. 178.) But this in altogether a mistake;--the Ceylon plant, like many others, has acquired its epithet of _kiri_, not from the juices being susceptible of being used as a substitute for milk, but simply from its resemblance to it in colour and consistency. It is a creeper, found on the southern and western coasts, and used medicinally by the natives, but never as an article of food. The leaves, when chopped and boiled, are administered to nurses by native practitioners, and are supposed to increase the secretion of milk. As to its use, as stated by London, in lieu of the vaccine matter, it is altogether erroneous. MOON, in his _Catalogue of the Plants of Ceylon_, has accidentally mentioned the kiri-anguna twice, being misled by the Pali synonym "kiri-hangula": they are the same plant, though he has inserted them as different, p. 21.] But that which arrests the attention even of an indifferent passer-by is the endless variety and almost inconceivable size and luxuriance of the _climbing plants and epiphytes_ which live upon the forest trees in every part of the island. It is rare to see a single tree without its families of dependents of this description, and on one occasion I counted on a single prostrate stem no less than sixteen species of Capparis, Beaumontia, Bignonia, Ipomoea, and other genera, which, in its fall, it had brought along with it to the ground. Those which are free from climbing plants have their higher branches and hollows occupied by ferns and orchids, of which latter the variety is endless in Ceylon, though the beauty of their flower is not equal to those of Brazil and other tropical countries. In the many excursions which I made with Dr. Gardner he added numerous species to those already known, including the exquisite _Saccolabium guttatum_, which we came upon in the vicinity of Bintenne, but which had before been discovered in Java and the mountains of northern India. Its large groups of lilac flowers hung in rich festoons from the branches as we rode under them, and caused us many an involuntary halt to admire and secure the plants. A rich harvest of botanical discovery still remains for the scientific explorer of the districts south and east of Adam's Peak, whence Dr. Gardner's successor, Mr. Thwaites, has already brought some remarkable species. Many of the Ceylon orchids, like those of South America, exhibit a grotesque similitude to various animals; and one, a _Dendrobium_., which the Singhalese cultivate in the palms near their dwelling, bears a name equivalent to the _White-pigeon flower,_ from the resemblance which its clusters present to a group of those birds in miniature clinging to the stem with wings at rest. But of this order the most exquisite plant I have seen is the _Anæctochilus setaceus_, a terrestrial orchid which is to be found about the moist roots of the forest trees, and has drawn the attention of even the apathetic Singhalese, among whom its singular beauty has won for it the popular name of the Wanna Raja, or "King of the Forest." It is common in humid and shady places a few miles removed from the sea-coast; its flowers have no particular attraction, but its leaves are perhaps the most exquisitely formed in the vegetable kingdom; their colour resembles dark velvet, approaching to black, and reticulated over all the surface with veins of ruddy gold.[1] [Footnote 1: There is another small orchid bearing a slight resemblance to the wanna raja, which is often found growing along with it, called by the Singhalese iri raja, or "striped king." Its leaves are somewhat bronzed, but they are longer and narrower than those of the wanna raja; and, as its Singhalese name implies, it has two white stripes running through the length of each. They are not of the same genus; the wanna raja being the only species of _Anæctochilus_ yet found in Ceylon.] The branches of all the lower trees and brushwood are so densely covered with convolvuli, and similar delicate climbers of every colour, that frequently it is difficult to discover the tree which supports them, owing to the heaps of verdure under which it is concealed. One very curious creeper, which always catches the eye, is the square-stemmed vine[1], whose fleshy four-sided runners climb the highest trees, and hang down in the most fantastic bunches. Its stem, like that of another plant of the same genus (the _Vitis Indica_), when freshly cut, yields a copious draught of pure tasteless fluid, and is eagerly sought after by elephants. [Footnote 1: Cissus edulis, _Dalz_.] But it is the trees of older and loftier growth that exhibit the rank luxuriance of these wonderful epiphytes in the most striking manner. They are tormented by climbing plants of such extraordinary dimensions that many of them exceed in diameter the girth of a man; and these gigantic appendages are to be seen surmounting the tallest trees of the forest, grasping their stems in firm convolutions, and then flinging their monstrous tendrils over the larger limbs till they reach the top, whence they descend to the ground in huge festoons, and, after including another and another tree in their successive toils, they once more ascend to the summit, and wind the whole into a maze of living network as massy as if formed by the cable of a line-of-battle ship. When, by-and-by, the trees on which this singular fabric has become suspended give way under its weight, or sink by their own decay, the fallen trunk speedily disappears, whilst the convolutions of climbers continue to grow on, exhibiting one of the most marvellous and peculiar living mounds of confusion that it is possible to fancy. Frequently one of these creepers may be seen holding by one extremity the summit of a tall tree, and grasping with the other an object at some distance near the earth, between which it is strained as tight and straight as if hauled over a block. In all probability the young tendril had been originally fixed in this position by the wind, and retained in it till it had gained its maturity, where it has the appearance of having been artificially arranged as if to support a falling tree. This peculiarity of tropical vegetation has been turned to profitable account by the Ceylon woodmen, employed by the European planters in felling forest trees, preparatory to the cultivation of coffee. In this craft they are singularly expert, and far surpass the Malabar coolies, who assist in the same operations. In steep and mountainous places where the trees have been thus lashed together by the interlacing climbers, the practice is to cut halfway through each stem in succession, till an area of some acres in extent is prepared for the final overthrow. Then severing some tall group on the eminence, and allowing it in its descent to precipitate itself on those below, the whole expanse is in one moment brought headlong to the ground; the falling timber forcing down those beneath it by its weight, and dragging those behind to which it is harnessed by its living attachments. The crash occasioned by this startling operation is so deafeningly loud, that it is audible for two or three miles in the clear and still atmosphere of the hills. One monstrous creeping plant called by the Kandyans the Maha-pus-wael, or "Great hollow climber,"[1] has pods, some of which I have seen fully five feet long and six inches broad, with beautiful brown beans, so large that the natives hollow them out, and carry them as tinder-boxes. [Footnote 1: _Entada pursætha_. The same plant, when found in lower situations, where it wants the soil and moisture of the mountains, is so altered in appearance that the natives call it the "heen-pus-wael;" and even botanists have taken it for a distinct species. The beautiful mountain region of Pusilawa, now familiar as one of the finest coffee districts in Ceylon, in all probability takes its name from the giant bean, "Pus-waelawa."] Another climber of less dimensions[1], but greater luxuriance, haunts the jungle, and often reaches the tops of the highest trees, whence it suspends large bunches of its yellow flowers, and eventually produces clusters of prickly pods containing greyish-coloured seeds, less than an inch in diameter, which are so strongly coated with silex, that they are said to strike fire like a flint. [Footnote 1: Guilandina Bonduc.] One other curious climber is remarkable for the vigour and vitality of its vegetation, a faculty in which it equals, if it do not surpass, the banyan. This is the _Cocculus cordifolius_, the "rasa-kindu" of the Singhalese, a medicinal plant which produces the _guluncha_ of Bengal. It is largely cultivated in Ceylon, and when it has acquired the diameter of half an inch, it is not unusual for the natives to cut from the main stem a portion of from twenty to thirty feet in length, leaving the dissevered plant suspended from the branches of the tree which sustained it. The amputation naturally serves for a time to check its growth, but presently small rootlets, not thicker than a pack-thread, are seen shooting downwards from the wounded end; these swing in the wind till, reaching the ground, they attach themselves in the soil, and form new stems, which in turn, when sufficiently grown, are cut away and replaced by a subsequent growth. Such is its tenacity of life, that when the Singhalese wish to grow the _rasa-kindu_, they twist several yards of the stem into a coil of six or eight inches in diameter, and simply hang it on the branch of a tree, where it speedily puts forth its large heart-shaped leaves, and sends down its rootlets to the earth. The ground too has its creepers, and some of them very curious. The most remarkable are the ratans, belonging to the Calamus genus of palms. Of these I have seen a specimen 250 feet long and an inch in diameter, without a single irregularity, and no appearance of foliage other than the bunch of feathery leaves at the extremity. The strength of these slender plants is so extreme, that the natives employ them with striking success in the formation of bridges across the water-courses and ravines. One which crossed the falls of the Mahawelliganga, in the Kotmahe range of hills, was constructed with the scientific precision of an engineer's work. It was entirely composed of the plant, called by the natives the "Waywel," its extremities fastened to living trees, on the opposite sides of the ravine through which a furious and otherwise impassable mountain torrent thundered and fell from rock to rock with a descent of nearly 100 feet. The flooring of this aerial bridge consisted of short splints of wood, laid transversely, and bound in their places by thin strips of the waywel itself. The whole structure vibrated and swayed with fearful ease, but the coolies traversed it though heavily laden; and the European, between whose estate and the high road it lay, rode over it daily without dismounting. Another class of trees which excites the astonishment of an European, are those whose stems are protected, as high as cattle can reach, by thorns, which in the jungle attain a growth and size quite surprising. One species of palm[1], the _Caryota horrida,_ often rises to a height of fifty feet, and has a coating of thorns for about six or eight feet from the ground, each about an inch in length, and so densely covering the stem that the bark is barely visible. [Footnote 1: This palm I have called a _Caryota_ on the authority of Dr. GARDNER, and of MOON'S _Catalogue_; but I have been informed by Dr. HOOKER and Mr. THWAITES that it is an _Areca_. The natives identify it with the Caryota, and call it the "katu-kittul."] A climbing plant, the "Kudu-miris" of the Singhalese[1], very common in the hill jungles, with a diameter of three or four inches, is thickly studded with knobs about half an inch high, and from the extremity of each a thorn protrudes, as large and sharp as the bill of a sparrow-hawk. It has been the custom of the Singhalese from time immemorial, to employ the thorny trees of their forests in the construction of defences against their enemies. The _Mahawanso_ relates, that in the civil wars, in the reign of Prakrama-bahu in the twelfth century, the inhabitants of the southern portion of the island intrenched themselves against his forces behind moats filled with thorns.[2] And at an earlier period, during the contest of Dutugaimunu with Elala, the same authority states, that a town which he was about to attack was "surrounded on all sides by the thorny _Dadambo creeper_ (probably Toddalia aculeata), within which was a triple hue of fortifications, with one gate of difficult access."[3] [Footnote 1: Toddalia aculeata.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_ ch. lxxiv.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_ ch. xxv.] During the existence of the Kandyan kingdom as an independent state, before its conquest by the British, the frontier forests were so thickened and defended by dense plantations of these thorny palms and climbers at different points, as to exhibit a natural fortification impregnable to the feeble tribes on the other side, and at each pass which led to the level country, movable gates, formed of the same formidable thorny beams, were suspended as an ample security against the incursions of the naked and timid lowlanders.[1] [Footnote 1: The kings of Kandy maintained a regulation "that no one; on pain of death, should presume to cut a road through the forest wider than was sufficient for one person to pass."--WOLF'S _Life and Adventures_, p. 308.] The pasture grounds throughout the vicinity of Jaffna abound in a low shrub called the Buffalo-thorn[1], the black twigs of which are beset at every joint by a pair of thorns, set opposite each other like the horns of an ox, as sharp as a needle, from two to three inches in length, and thicker at the base than the stem they grow on. [Footnote 1: _Acacia latronum._] The _Acacia tomentosa_ is of the same genus, with thorns so large as to be called the "_jungle-nail_" by Europeans. It is frequent in the woods of Jaffna and Manaar, where it bears the Tamil name of _Aani mulla_, or "elephant thorn." In some of these thorny plants, as in the _Phoberos Goertneri, Thun._,[1] the spines grow not singly, but in branching clusters, each point presenting a spike as sharp as a lancet; and where these formidable shrubs abound they render the forest absolutely impassable, even to the elephant and to animals of great size and force. [Footnote 1: Mr. Wm. Ferguson writes to me, "This is the famous _Katu-kurundu_, or 'thoray cinnamon,' of the Singhalese, figured and described by Gaertner as the _Limonia pusilla_, which after a great deal of labour and research I think I have identified as the _Phoberos macrophyllus_" (W. and A. Prod. p. 30). Thunberg alludes to it (_Travels_, vol. iv.)--"Why the Singhalese have called it a cinnamon, I do not know, unless from some fancied similarity in its seeds to those of the cinnamon laurel."] The family of trees which, from their singularity as well as their beauty, most attract the eye of the traveller in the forests of Ceylon, are the palms, which occur in rich profusion, although, of upwards of six hundred species which are found in other countries, not more than ten or twelve are indigenous to the island.[1] At the head of these is the coco-nut, every particle of whose substance, stem, leaves, and fruit, the Singhalese turn to so many accounts, that one of their favourite topics to a stranger is to enumerate the _hundred_ uses to which they tell us this invaluable tree is applied.[2] [Footnote 1: Mr. Thwaites has enumerated fifteen species (including the coco-nut, and excluding the _Nipa fruticans_, which more properly belongs to the family of screw-pines): viz. Areca, 4; Caryota, 1; Calamus, 5; Borassus, 1; Corypha, 1; Phoenix, 2; Cocos, 1.] [Footnote 2: The following are only a few of the countless uses of this invaluable tree. The _leaves_, for roofing, for mats, for baskets, torches or chules, fuel, brooms, fodder for cattle, manure. The _stem of the leaf_, for fences, for pingoes (or yokes) for carrying burthens on the shoulders, for fishing-rods, and innumerable domestic utensils. The _cabbage_ or cluster of unexpended leaves, for pickles and preserves. The _sap_ for _toddy_, for distilling arrack, and for making vinegar, and sugar. The _unformed nut_, for medicine and sweetmeats. The _young nut_ and its milk, for drinking, for dessert; the _green husk_ for preserves. The _nut_, for eating, for curry, for milk, for cooking. The _oil_, for rheumatism, for anointing the hair, for soap, for candles, for light; and the _poonak_, or refuse of the nut after expressing the oil, for cattle and poultry. The _shell of the nut_, for drinking cups, charcoal, tooth-powder, spoons, medicine, hookahs, beads, bottles, and knife-handles. The _coir_, or fibre which envelopes the shell within the outer husk, for mattresses, cushions, ropes, cables, cordage, canvass, fishing-nets, fuel, brushes, oakum, and floor mats. The _trunk_, for rafters, laths, railing, boats, troughs, furniture, firewood; and when very young, the first shoots, or cabbage, as a vegetable for the table. The entire list, with a Singhalese enthusiast, is an interminable narration of the virtues of his favourite tree.] The most majestic and wonderful of the palm tribe is the _talpat_ or _talipat_[1], the stem of which sometimes attains the height of 100 feet, and each of its enormous fan-like leaves, when laid upon the ground, will form a semicircle of 16 feet in diameter, and cover an area of nearly 200 superficial feet. The tree flowers but once, and dies; and the natives firmly believe that the bursting of the shadix is accompanied by a loud explosion. The leaves alone are converted by the Singhalese to purposes of utility. Of them they form coverings for their houses, and portable tents of a rude but effective character; and on occasions of ceremony, each chief and headman on walking abroad is attended by a follower, who holds above his head an elaborately-ornamented fan, formed from a single leaf of the talpat. [Footnote 1: Corypha umbraculifera, _Linn._] But the most interesting use to which they are applied is as substitutes for paper, both for books and for ordinary purposes. In the preparation of _olas_, which is the term applied to them when so employed, the leaves are taken whilst still tender, and, after separating the central ribs, they are cut into strips and boiled in spring water. They are dried first in the shade, and afterwards in the sun, then made into rolls, and kept in store, or sent to the market for sale. Before they are fit for writing on they are subjected to a second process, called _madema_. A smooth plank of areca-palm is tied horizontally between two trees, each ola is then damped, and a weight being attached to one end of it, it is drawn backwards and forwards across the edge of the wood till the surface becomes perfectly smooth and polished; and during the process, as the moisture dries up, it is necessary to renew it till the effect is complete. The smoothing of a single ola will occupy from fifteen to twenty minutes.[1] [Footnote 1: See Vol. II. p. 528.] The finest specimens in Ceylon are to be obtained at the Panselas, or Buddhist monasteries; they are known as _pusk[(o]la_ and are prepared by the Samanera priests (novices) and the students, under the superintendence of the priests. The raw leaves, when dried without any preparation, are called _karak[(o]la_, and, like the leaves of the palmyra, are used only for ordinary purposes by the Singhalese; but in the Tamil districts, where palmyras are abundant, and talpat palms rare, the leaves of the former are used for books as well as for letters. The _palmyra_[1] is another invaluable palm, and one of the most beautiful of the family. It grows in such profusion over the north of Ceylon, and especially in the peninsula of Jaffna, as to form extensive forests, whence its timber is exported for rafters to all parts of the island, as well as to the opposite coast of India, where, though the palmyra grows luxuriantly, its wood, from local causes, is too soft and perishable to be used for any purpose requiring strength and durability, qualities which, in the palmyra of Ceylon, are pre-eminent. To the inhabitants of the northern provinces this invaluable tree is of the same importance as the coco-nut palm is to the natives of the south. Its fruit yields them food and oil; its juice "palm wine" and sugar; its stem is the chief material of their buildings; and its leaves, besides serving as roofs to their dwellings and fences to their farms, supply them with matting and baskets, with head-dresses and fans, and serve as a substitute for paper for their deeds and writings, and for the sacred books, which contain the traditions of their faith. It has been said with truth that a native of Jaffna, if he be contented with ordinary doors and mud walls, may build an entire house (as he wants neither nails nor iron work), with walls, roof, and covering from the Palmyra palm. From this same tree he may draw his wine, make his oil, kindle his fire, carry his water, store his food, cook his repast, and sweeten it, if he pleases; in fact, live from day to day dependent on his palmyra alone. Multitudes so live, and it may be safely asserted that this tree alone furnishes one-fourth the means of sustenance for the population of the northern provinces. [Footnote 1: _Borassus flabelliformis_. For an account of the Palmyra, and its cultivation in the peninsula of Jaffna, see FERGUSON'S monograph on the _Palmyra Palm of Ceylon_, Colombo, 1850.] The _Jaggery Palm_[1], the _Kitool_ of the Singhalese, is chiefly cultivated in the Kandyan hills for the sake of its sap, which is drawn, boiled down, and crystallised into a coarse brown sugar, in universal use amongst the inhabitants of the south and west of Ceylon, who also extract from its pith a farina scarcely inferior to sago. The black fibre of the leaf is twisted by the Rodiyas into ropes of considerable smoothness and tenacity. A single Kitool tree has been pointed out at Ambogammoa, which furnished the support of a Kandyan, his wife, and their children. A tree has been known to yield one hundred pints of toddy within twenty-four hours. [Footnote 1: Caryota urens.] The _Areca_[1] _Palm_ is the invariable feature of a native garden, being planted near the wells and water-courses, as it rejoices in moisture. Of all the tribe it is the most graceful and delicate, rising to the height of forty or fifty feet[2], without an inequality on its thin polished stem, which is dark green towards the top, and sustains a crown of feathery foliage, in the midst of which are clustered the astringent nuts for whose sake it is carefully tended. [Footnote 1: A. catechu.] [Footnote 2: Mr. Ferguson measured an areca at Caltura which was seventy-five feet high, and grew near a coco-nut which was upwards of ninety feet. Caltura is, however, remarkable for the growth and luxuriance of its vegetation.] The chewing of these nuts with lime and the leaf of the betel-pepper supplies to the people of Ceylon the same enjoyment which tobacco affords to the inhabitants of other countries; but its use is, if possible, more offensive, as the three articles, when combined, colour the saliva of so deep a red that the lips and teeth appear as if covered with blood. Yet, in spite of this disgusting accompaniment, men and women, old and young, from morning till night indulge in the repulsive luxury.[1] [Footnote 1: Dr. Elliot, of Colombo, has observed several cases of cancer in the cheek which, from its peculiar characteristics, he has designated the "betel-chewer's cancer."] It is seldom, however, that we find in semi-civilised life habits universally prevailing which have not their origin, however ultimately they may be abused by excess, in some sense of utility. The Turk, when he adds to the oppressive warmth of the sun by enveloping his forehead in a cumbrous turban, or the Arab, when he increases the sultry heat by swathing his waist in a showy girdle, may appear to act on no other calculation than a willingness to sacrifice comfort to a love of display; but the custom in each instance is the result of precaution--in the former, because the head requires especial protection from sun-strokes; and in the latter, from the fact well known to the Greeks ([Greek: eozônoi Achaioi]) that, in a warm climate, danger is to be apprehended from a sudden chill to that particular region of the stomach. In like manner, in the chewing of the areca-nut with its accompaniments of lime and betel, the native of Ceylon is unconsciously applying a specific corrective to the defective qualities of his daily food. Never eating flesh meat by any chance, seldom or never using milk, butter, poultry, or eggs, and tasting fish but occasionally (more rarely in the interior of the island,) the non-azotised elements abound in every article he consumes with the exception of the bread-fruit, the jak, and some varieties of beans. In their indolent and feeble stomachs these are liable to degenerate into flatulent and acrid products; but, apparently by instinct, the whole population have adopted a simple prophylactic. Every Singhalese carries in his waistcloth an ornamented box of silver or brass, according to his means, enclosing a smaller one to hold a portion of chunam (lime obtained by the calcination of shells) whilst the larger contains the nuts of the areca and a few fresh leaves of the betel-pepper. As inclination or habit impels, he scrapes down the nut, which abounds in catechu, and, rolling it up with a little of the lime in a betel-leaf, the whole is chewed, and finally swallowed, after provoking an extreme salivation. No medical prescription could be more judiciously compounded to effect the desired object than this practical combination of antacid, the tonic, and carminative. The custom is so ancient in Ceylon and in India that the Arabs and Persians who resorted to Hindustan in the eighth and ninth centuries carried back the habit to their own country; and Massoudi, the traveller of Bagdad, who wrote the account of his voyages in A.D. 943, states that the chewing of betel prevailed along the southern coast of Arabia, and reached as far as Yemen and Mecca.[1] Ibn Batuta saw the betel plant at Zahfar A.D. 1332, and describes it accurately as trained like a vine over a trellis of reeds, or climbing the steins of the coco-nut palm.[2] [Footnote 1: Massoudi, _Maraudj-al-Dzeheb_, as translated by REINAUD, _Mémoire_ _sur l'Lede_. p. 230.] [Footnote 2: _Voyages_, &c. t. ii. p. 205.] The leaves of the coca[1] supply the Indians of Bolivia and Peru with a stimulant, whose use is equivalent to that of the betel-pepper among the natives of Hindustan and the Eastern Archipelago. With an admixture of lime, they are chewed perseveringly; but, unlike the betel, the colour imparted by them to the saliva is greenish, instead of red. It is curious, too, as a coincidence common to the humblest phases of semi-civilised life, that, in the absence of coined money, the leaves of the coca form a rude kind of currency in the Andes, as does the betel in some parts of Ceylon, and tobacco amongst the tribes of the south-west of Africa.[2] [Footnote 1: Erythroxylon coca.] [Footnote 2: Tobacco was a currency in North America when Virginia was colonised in the early part of the 17th century; debts were contracted and paid in it, and in every ordinary transaction tobacco answered the purposes of coin.] Neither catechu nor its impure equivalent, "terra japonica," is prepared from the areca in Ceylon; but the nuts are exported in large quantities to the Maldive Islands and to India, the produce of which they excel both in astringency and size. The fibrous wood of the areca being at once straight, firm, and elastic, is employed for making the pingoes (yokes for the shoulders), by means of which the Singhalese coolie, like the corresponding class among the ancient Egyptians and the Greeks, carries his burdens, dividing them into portions of equal weight, one of which is suspended from each end of the pingo. By a swaying motion communicated to them as he starts, his own movement is facilitated, whereas one unaccustomed to the work, by allowing the oscillation to become irregular, finds it almost impossible to proceed with a load of any considerable weight.[1] [Footnote 1: The natives of Tahti use a yoke of the same form as the Singhalese _pingo_, but made from the wood of the _Hibiscus tiliaceus._--DARWIN, _Nat. Voy._ ch. xviii. p. 407. For a further account of the pingo see Vol. I. Part iv. ch. viii. p. 497.] _Timber trees_, either for export or domestic use, are not found in any abundance except in the low country, and here the facility of floating them to the sea, down the streams which intersect the eastern coast of the island, has given rise to an active trade at Batticaloa and Trincomalie. But, unfortunately, the indifference of the local officers entrusted with the issue of licences to fell, and the imperfect control exercised over the adventurers who embark in these speculations, has led to a destruction of trees quite disproportionate to the timber obtained, and utterly incompatible with the conservation of the valuable kinds. The East India Company have had occasion to deplore the loss of their teak forests by similar neglect and mismanagement; and it is to be hoped that, ere too late, the attention of the Ceylon Government may be so directed to this important subject as to lead to the appointment of competent foresters, under whose authority and superintendence the felling of timber may be carried on. An interesting memoir on the timber trees of Ceylon has been prepared by a native officer at Colombo, Adrian Mendis, of Morottu, carpeater-moodliar to the Royal Engineers, in which he has enumerated upwards of ninety species, which, in various parts of the island, are employed either as timber or cabinet woods.[1] Of these, the jak, the Kangtal of Bengal (_Artocarpus integrifolia_), is, next to the coco-nut and Palmyra, by far the most valuable to the Singhalese; its fruit, which sometimes attains the weight of 50 lbs., supplying food for their table, its leaves fodder for their cattle, and its trunk timber for every conceivable purpose both oeconomic and ornamental. The Jak tree, as well as the Del, or wild bread-fruit, is indigenous to the forests on the coast and in the central provinces; but, although the latter is found in the vicinity of the villages, it does not appear to be an object of special cultivation. The Jak, on the contrary, is planted near every house, and forms the shade of every garden. Its wood, at first yellow, approaches the colour of mahogany after a little exposure to the air, and resembles it at all times in its grain and marking. [Footnote 1: Mendis' List will be found appended to the _Ceylon Calendar_ for 1854.] The Del (_Artocarpus pubescens_) affords a valuable timber, not only for architectural purposes, but for ship-building. It and the Halmalille[1] resembling but larger than the linden tree of England, to which it is closely allied, are the favourite building woods of the natives, and the latter is used for carts, casks, and all household purposes, as well as for the hulls of their boats, from the belief that It resists the attack of the marine worms, and that some unctuous property in the wood preserves the iron work from rust.[2] [Footnote 1: Berry a ammonilla.] [Footnote 2: The Masula boats, which brave the formidable surf of Madrus are made of Halmalille, which is there called "Trincomalie wood" from the place of exportation.] The Teak (_Tectona grandis_), which is superior to all others, is not a native of this island, and although largely planted, has not been altogether successful. But the satin-wood[1], in point of size and durability, is by far the first of the timber trees of Ceylon. For days together I have ridden under its magnificent shade. All the forests around Batticaloa and Trincomalie, and as far north as Jaffna, are thickly set with this valuable tree. It grows to the height of a hundred feet, with a rugged grey bark, small white flowers, and polished leaves, with a somewhat unpleasant odour. Owing to the difficulty of carrying its heavy beams, the natives only cut it near the banks of the rivers, down which it is floated to the coast, whence large quantities are exported to every part of the colony. The richly-coloured and feathery pieces are used for cabinet-work, and the more ordinary logs for building purposes, every house in the eastern province being floored and timbered with satin-wood. [Footnote 1: Chieroxylon Swietenia.] Another useful tree, very common in Ceylon, is the Suria[1], with flowers so like those of a tulip that Europeans know it as the tulip tree. It loves the sea air and saline soils. It is planted all along the avenues and streets in the towns near the coast, where it is equally valued for its shade and the beauty of its yellow flowers, whilst its tough wood is used for carriage shafts and gun-stocks. [Footnote 1: Thespesia populnea.] The forests to the east furnish the only valuable cabinet woods used in Ceylon, the chief of which is ebony[1], which grows in great abundance throughout all the flat country to the west of Trincomalie. It is a different species from the ebony of Mauritius[2], and excels it and all others in the evenness and intensity of its colour. The centre of the trunk is the only portion which furnishes the extremely black part which is the ebony of commerce; but the trees are of such magnitude that reduced logs of two feet in diameter, and varying from ten to fifteen feet in length, can readily be procured from the forests at Trincomalie. [Footnote 1: Diospyros ebenum.] [Footnote 2: D. reticulata.] There is another cabinet wood, of extreme beauty, called by the natives Cadooberia. It is a bastard species of ebony[1], in which the prevailing black is stained with stripes of rich brown, approaching to yellow and pink. But its density is inconsiderable, and in durability it is far inferior to that of true ebony. [Footnote 1: D. ebenaster.] The Calamander[1], the most valuable cabinet wood of the island, resembling rose-wood, but much surpassing it both in beauty and durability, has at all times been in the greatest repute in Ceylon. It grows chiefly in the southern provinces, and especially in the forests at the foot of Adam's Peak; but here it has been so prodigally felled, first by the Dutch, and afterwards by the English, without any precautions for planting or production, that it has at last become exceedingly rare. Wood of a large scantling is hardly procurable at any price; and it is only in a very few localities, the principal of which is Saffragam, in the western province, that even small sticks are now to be found; one reason, assigned for this is that the heart of the tree is seldom sound, a peculiarity which extends to the Cadooberia. [Footnote 1: D. hirsuta.] The twisted portions, and especially the roots of the latter, yield veneers of unusual beauty, dark wavings and blotches, almost black, being gracefully disposed over a delicate fawn-coloured ground. Its density is so great (nearly 60 lbs. to a cubic foot) that it takes an exquisite polish, and is in every way adapted for the manufacture of furniture, in the ornamenting of which the native carpenters excel. The chiefs and headmen, with a full appreciation of its beauty, take particular pride in possessing specimens of this beautiful wood, roots of which they regard as most acceptable gifts. Notwithstanding its value, the tree is nearly eradicated, and runs some risk of becoming extinct in the island; but, as it is not peculiar to Ceylon, it may be restored by fresh importations from the south-eastern coast of India, of which it is equally a native, and I apprehend that the name, _Calamander_, which was used by the Dutch, is but a corruption of "Coromandel." Another species of cabinet wood is produced from the Nedun[1], a large tree common on the western coast; it belongs to the Pea tribe, and is allied to the Sisso of India. Its wood, which is lighter than the "Blackwood" of Bombay, is used for similar purposes. [Footnote 1: Dalbergia lanceolaria.] The Tamarind tree[1], and especially its fine roots, produce a variegated cabinet wood of much beauty, but of such extreme hardness as scarcely to be workable by any ordinary tool.[2] [Footnote 1: Tamarindus Indica.] [Footnote 2: The natives of Western India have a belief that the shade of the tamarind tree is unhealthy, if not poisonous. But in Ceylon it is an object of the people, especially in the north of the island, to build their houses under it, from the conviction that of all trees its _shade is the coolest_. In this feeling, too, the Europeans are so far disposed to concur that it has been suggested whether there may not be something peculiar in the respiration of its leaves. The Singhalese have an idea that the twigs of the ranna-wara (_Cassia auriculata_) diffuse an agreeable coolness, and they pull them for the sake of enjoying it by holding them in their hands or applied to the head. In the south of Ceylon it is called the Matura tea-tree, its leaves being infused as a substitute for tea.] As to fruit trees, it is only on the coast, or near the large villages and towns, that they are found in any perfection. In the deepest jungle the sight of a single coco-nut towering above the other foliage is in Ceylon a never-failing landmark to intimate to a traveller his approach to a village. The natives have a superstition that the coco-nut will not grow _out of the sound of the human voice_, and will die if the village where it had previously thriven become deserted; the solution of the mystery being in all probability the superior care and manuring which it receives in such localities.[1] In the generality of the forest hamlets there are always to be found a few venerable Tamarind trees of patriarchal proportions, the ubiquitous Jak, with its huge fruits, weighing from 5 to 50 lbs. (the largest eatable fruit in the world), each springing from the rugged surface of the bark, and suspended by a powerful stalk, which attaches it to the trunk of the tree. Lime-trees, Oranges, and Shaddoks are carefully cultivated in these little gardens, and occasionally the Rose-apple and the Cachu-nut, the Pappaya, and invariably as plentiful a supply of Plantains as they find it prudent to raise without inviting the visits of the wild elephants, with whom they are especial favourites. [Footnote 1: See Vol. II. p. 125.] These, and the Bilimbi and Guava, the latter of which is naturalised in the jungle around every cottage, are almost the only fruits of the country; but the Pine-apple, the Mango, the Avocado-pear, the Custard-apple, the Rambutan (_Nephelium lappaceum_), the Fig, the Granadilla, and a number of other exotics, are successfully reared in the gardens of the wealthier inhabitants of the towns and villages; and within the last few years the peerless Mangustin of Malacca, the delicacy of which we can imagine to resemble that of perfumed snow, has been successfully cultivated in the gardens of Caltura and Colombo. With the exception of the orange, the fruits of Ceylon have one deficiency, common, I apprehend, to all tropical countries. They are wanting in that piquancy which in northern climates is attributable to the exquisite perfection in which the sweet and aromatic flavours are blended with the acidulous. Either the acid is so ascendant as to be repulsive to the European palate, or the saccharine so preponderates as to render Singhalese fruit cloying and distasteful. Still, all other defects are compensated by the coolness which pervades them; and, under the exhaustion of a blazing sun, no more exquisite physical enjoyment can be imagined than the chill and fragrant flesh of the pine-apple, or the abundant juice of the mango, which, when freshly pulled, feels as cool as iced water. But the fruit must be eaten instantly; even an interval of a few minutes after it has been gathered is sufficient to destroy the charm; for, once severed from the stem, it rapidly acquires the temperature of the surrounding air. Sufficient admiration has hardly been bestowed upon the marvellous power displayed by the vegetable world in adjusting its own temperature, notwithstanding atmospheric fluctuations,--a faculty in the manifestation of which it appears to present a counterpart to that exhibited by animal oeconomy in regulating its heat. So uniform is the exercise of the latter faculty in man and the higher animals, that there is barely a difference of three degrees between the warmth of the body in the utmost endurable vicissitudes of heat and cold; and in vegetables an equivalent arrangement enables them in winter to keep their temperature somewhat above that of the surrounding air, and in summer to reduce it far below it. It would almost seem as if plants possessed a power of producing cold analogous to that exhibited by animals in producing heat; and of this beneficent arrangement man enjoys the benefit in the luxurious coolness of the fruit which nature lavishes on the tropics. The peculiar organisation by which this result is obtained is not free from obscurity, but in all probability the means of adjusting the temperature of plants is simply dependent on evaporation. As regards the power possessed by vegetables of generating heat, although it has been demonstrated to exist, it is in so trifling a degree as to be almost inappreciable, except at the period of germination, when it probably arises from the consumption of oxygen in generating the carbonic acid gas which is then evolved. The faculty of retaining this warmth at night and at other times may, therefore, be referable mainly to the closing of the pores, and the consequent check of evaporation. On the other hand, the faculty of maintaining a temperature below that of the surrounding air, can only be accounted for by referring it to the mechanical process of imbibing a continuous supply of fresh moisture from the soil, the active transpiration of which imparts coolness to every portion of the tree and its fruit. It requires this combined operation to produce the desired result; and the extent to which evaporation can bring down the temperature of the moisture received by absorption, may be inferred from the fact that Dr. Hooker, when in the valley of the Ganges, found the fresh milky juice of the Mudar (_calotropis_) to be but 72°, whilst the damp sand in the bed of the river where it grew was from 90° to 104°. Even in temperate climates this phenomenon is calculated to excite admiration; but it is still more striking to find the like effect rather increased than diminished in the tropics, where one would suppose that the juices, especially of a small and delicate plant, before they could be cooled by evaporation, would be liable to be heated by the blazing sun. A difficulty would also seem to present itself in the instance of fruit, whose juices, having to undergo a chemical change, their circulation would be conjectured to be slower; and in the instance of those with hard skins, such as the pomegranate, or with a tough leathery coating, like the mango, the evaporation might be imagined to be less than in those of a soft and spongy texture. But all share alike in the general coolness of the plant, so long as circulation supplies fluid for evaporation; and the moment this resource is cut off by the separation of the fruit from the tree, the supply of moisture failing, the process of refrigeration is arrested, and the charm of agreeable freshness gone. It only remains to notice the aquatic plants, which are found in greater profusion in the northern and eastern provinces than in any other districts of the island, owing to the innumerable tanks and neglected watercourses which cover the whole surface of this once productive province, but which now only harbour the alligator, or satisfy the thirst of the deer and the elephant. [Footnote 1: See on this subject LINDLEY'S _Introduction to Botany_, vol. ii. book ii. ch. viii. p. 215. CARPENTER, _Animal Physiology_, ch. ix. s. 407. CARPENTER'S _Vegetable Physiology_, ch. xi. s. 407, Lond. 1848.] The chief ornaments of these neglected sheets of water are the large red and white Lotus[1], whose flowers may be seen from a great distance reposing on their broad green leaves. In China and some parts of India the black seeds of these plants, which are not unlike little acorns in shape, are served at table in place of almonds, which they are said to resemble, but with a superior delicacy of flavour. At some of the tanks where the lotus grows in profusion in Ceylon, I tasted the seeds enclosed in the torus of the flowers, and found them white and delicately-flavoured, not unlike the small kernel of the pine cone of the Apennines. This red lotus of the island appears to be the one that Herodotus describes as abounding in the Nile in his time, but which is now extinct; with a flower resembling a rose, and a fruit in shape like a wasp's nest, and containing seeds of the size of an olive stone, and of an agreeable flavour.[2] But it has clearly no identity with those which he describes as the food of the Lotophagi of Africa, of the size of the mastic[3], sweet as a date, and capable of being made into wine. [Footnote 1: Nelumbium speciosum.] [Footnote 2: Herodotus, b. ii. s. 92.] [Footnote 3: The words are "[Greek: Esti megathos hoson te tês schinou]" (Herod. b. iv. s. 177); and as [Greek: schinos] means also a _squill_ or a _sea-onion_, the fruit above referred to, as the food of the Lotophagi, must have been of infinitely larger size and in every way different from the lotus of the Nile, described in the 2nd book, as well as from the lotus in the East. Lindley records the conjecture that the article referred to by Herodotus was the _nabk_, the berry of the lote-bush (_Zizyphus lotus_), which the Arabs of Barbary still eat. (_Vegetable Kingdom_, p. 582.)] One species of the water lily, the _Nymphæa rubra_, with small red flowers, and of great beauty, is common in the ponds near Jaffna and in the Wanny; and I found in the fosse, near the fort of Moeletivoe, the beautiful blue lotus, _N. stellata_, with lilac petals, approaching to purple in the centre, which had not previously been supposed to be a native of the island. Another very interesting aquatic plant, which was discovered by Dr. Gardner in the tanks north of Trincomalie, is the _Desmanthus natans_, with highly sensitive leaves floating on the surface of the water. It is borne aloft by masses of a spongy cellular substance, which occur at intervals along its stem and branches, but the roots never touch the bottom, absorbing nourishment whilst floating at liberty, and only found in contact with the ground after the subsidence of water in the tanks.[1] [Footnote 1: A species of _Utricularia_, with yellow flowers (U. stellaris), is a common water-plant in the still lakes near the fort of Colombo, where an opportunity is afforded of observing the extraordinary provision of nature for its reproduction. There are small appendages attached to the roots, which become distended with air, and thus carry the plant aloft to the surface, during the cool season. Here it floats till the operation of flowering is over, when the vesicles burst, and by its own weight it returns to the bottom of the lake to ripen its seeds and deposit them in the soil; after which the air vessels again fill, and again it re-ascends to undergo the same process of fecundation.] PART II. ZOOLOGY. CHAPTER I. MAMMALIA. With the exception of the Mammalia and the Birds, the fauna of Ceylon has, up to the present, failed to receive that systematic attention to which its richness and variety so amply entitle it. The Singhalese themselves, habitually indolent and singularly unobservant of nature in her operations, are at the same time restrained from the study of natural history by tenets of their religion which forbid the taking of life under any circumstances. From the nature of their avocations, the majority of the European residents engaged in planting and commerce, are discouraged from gratifying this taste; and it is to be regretted that the civil servants of the government, whose position and duties would have afforded them influence and extended opportunity for successful investigation, have never seen the importance of encouraging such studies. The first effective impulse to the cultivation of natural science in Ceylon, was communicated by Dr. Davy when connected with the medical staff of the army from 1816 to 1820, and his example stimulated some of the assistant surgeons of Her Majesty's forces to make collections in illustration of the productions of the colony. Of the late Dr. Kinnis was one of the most energetic and successful. He was seconded by Dr. Templeton of the Royal Artillery, who engaged assiduously in the investigation of various orders, and commenced an interchange of specimens with Mr. Blyth[1], the distinguished naturalist and curator of the Calcutta Museum. [Footnote 1: _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal,_ vol. xv. p. 280, 314.] The birds and rarer vertebrata of the island were thus compared with their peninsular congeners, and a tolerable knowledge of those belonging to the island, so far as regards the higher classes of animals, has been the result. The example so set has been perseveringly followed by Mr. E.L. Layard and Dr. Kelaart, and infinite credit is due to Mr. Blyth for the zealous and untiring energy with which he has devoted his attention and leisure to the identification of the various interesting species forwarded from Ceylon, and to their description in the Calcutta Journal. To him, and to the gentleman I have named, we are mainly indebted, for whatever accurate knowledge we now possess of the zoology of the colony. The mammalia, birds, and reptiles received their first scientific description in an able work published recently by Dr. Kelaart of the army medical staff[1], which is by far the most valuable that has yet appeared on the Singhalese fauna. Co-operating with him, Mr. Layard has supplied a fund of information especially in ornithology and conchology. The zoophytes and crustacea have been investigated by Professor Harvey, who visited Ceylon for that purpose in 1852, and by Professor Schmarda, of the University of Prague, who was lately sent there for a similar object. From the united labours of these gentlemen and others interested in the same pursuits, we may hope at an early day to obtain such a knowledge of the zoology of Ceylon, as may to some extent compensate for the long indifference of the government officers. [Footnote 1: _Prodromus Faunæ Zeylanicæ; being Contributions to the Zoology of Ceylon_, by F. KELAART, Esq., M.D., F.L.S., &c. &c. 2 vols. Colombo and London, 1852. Mr. DAVY, of the Medical Staff; brother to Sir Humphry, published in 1821 his _Account of the Interior of Ceylon and its Inhabitants_, which contains the earliest notices of the natural history of the island, and especially of the Ophidian reptiles.] I. QUADRUMANA. 1 _Monkeys_.--To a stranger in the tropics, among the most attractive creatures in the forests are the troops of _monkeys_, which career in ceaseless chase among the loftiest trees. In Ceylon there are five species, four of which belong to one group, the Wanderoos, and the other is the little graceful grimacing _rilawa_[1], which is the universal pet and favourite, of both natives and Europeans. [Footnote 1: _Macacus pileatus_, Shaw and Desmmarest. The "bonneted Macaque" is common in the south and west; and a spectacled monkey is _said_ to inhabit the low country near to Bintenne; but I have never seen one brought thence. A paper by Dr. TEMPLETON in the _Mag. Nat. Hist_. n.s. xiv. p. 361, contains some interesting facts relative to the Rilawa of Ceylon.] KNOX, in his captivating account of the island, gives an accurate description of both; the Rilawas, with "no beards, white faces, and long hair on the top of their heads, which parteth and hangeth down like a man's, and which do a deal of mischief to the corn, and are so impudent that they will come into their gardens, and eat such fruit as grows there. And the Wanderoos, some as large as our English Spaniel dogs, of a darkish grey colour, and black faces with great white beards round from ear to ear, which makes them shew just like old men. This sort does but little mischief, keeping in the woods, eating only leaves and buds of trees, but when they are catched they will eat anything."[1] [Footnote 1: KNOX, _Historical Relation of Ceylon, an Island in the East Indies_.--P. i. ch. vi. p. 25. Fol. Lond. 1681.] KNOX, whose experience was confined almost exclusively to the hill country around Kandy, spoke in all probability of one large and comparatively powerful species, _Presbytes ursinus_, which inhabits the lofty forests, and which, as well as another of the same group, _P. Thersites_, was, till recently, unknown to European naturalists. The Singhalese word _Ouanderu_ has a generic sense, and being in every respect the equivalent for our own term of "monkey," it necessarily comprehends the low country species, as well as those which inhabit other parts of the island. And, in point of fact, in the island there are no less than four animals, each of which is entitled to the name of "wanderoo."[1] [Footnote 1: Down to a very late period, a large and somewhat repulsive-looking monkey, common to the Malabar coast, the Silenus veter, _Linn_., was, from the circumstance of his possessing a "great white beard," incorrectly assumed to be the "wanderoo" of Ceylon, described by KNOX; and under that usurped name it has figured in every author from Buffon to the present time. Specimens of the true Singhalese species were, however, received in Europe; but in the absence of information in this country as to their actual habitat, they were described, first by Zimmerman, on the continent, under the name of _Leucoprymnus cephalopterus,_ and subsequently by Mr. E. Bennett, under that of _Semnopithecus Nestor (Proc. Zool. Soc._ pt. i. p. 67: 1833); the generic and specific characters being on this occasion most carefully pointed out by that eminent naturalist. Eleven years later Dr. Templeton forwarded to the Zoological Society a description, accompanied by drawings, of the wanderoo of the western maritime districts of Ceylon, and noticed the fact that the wanderoo of authors (S. veter) was not to be found in the island except as an introduced species in the custody of the Arab horse-dealers, who visit the port of Colombo at stated periods. Mr. Waterhouse, at the meeting (_Proc. Zool. Soc._ p. 1: 1844) at which this communication was read, recognised the identity of the subject of Dr. Templeton's description with that already laid before them by Mr. Bennett; and from this period the species in question was believed to truly represent the wanderoo of Knox. The later discovery, however, of the P. ursinus by Dr. Kelaart, in the mountains amongst which we are assured that Knox spent so many years of captivity, reopens the question, but at the same time appears to me to clearly demonstrate that in this latter we have in reality the animal to which his narrative refers.] Each separate species has appropriated to itself a different district of the wooded country, and seldom encroaches on the domain of its neighbours. 1. Of the four species found in Ceylon, the most numerous in the island, and the one best known in Europe, is the Wanderoo of the low country, the _P. cephalopterus_ of Zimmerman.[1] It is an active and intelligent creature, not much larger than the common bonneted Macaque, and far from being so mischievous as others of the monkeys in the island. In captivity it is remarkable for the gravity of its demeanour and for an air of melancholy in its expression and movements, which is completely in character with its snowy beard and venerable aspect. Its disposition is gentle and confiding, it is in the highest degree sensible of kindness, and eager for endearing attentions, uttering a low plaintive cry when its sympathies are excited. It is particularly cleanly in its habits when domesticated, and spends much of its time in trimming its fur, and carefully divesting its hair of particles of dust. [Footnote 1: Leucoprymnus Nestor, _Bennett_.] Although common in the southern and western provinces, it is never found at a higher elevation than 1300 feet. When observed in their native wilds, a party of twenty or thirty of these creatures is generally busily engaged in the search for berries and buds. They are seldom to be seen on the ground, and then only when they have descended to recover seeds or fruit that have fallen at the foot of their favourite trees. In their alarm, when disturbed, their leaps are prodigious; but generally speaking, their progress is made not so much by _leaping_ as by swinging from branch to branch, using their powerful arms alternately; and when baffled by distance, flinging themselves obliquely so as to catch the lower boughs of an opposite tree, the momentum acquired by their descent being sufficient to cause a rebound, that carries them again upwards, till they can grasp a higher branch; and thus continue their headlong flight. In these perilous achievements, wonder is excited less by the surpassing agility of these little creatures, frequently encumbered as they are by their young, which cling to them in their career, than by the quickness of their eye and the unerring accuracy with which they seem almost to calculate the angle at which a descent would enable them to cover a given distance, and the recoil to elevate themselves again to a higher altitude. 2. The low country Wanderoo is replaced in the hills by the larger species, _P. ursinus_, which inhabits the mountain zone. The natives, who designate the latter the _Maha_ or Great Wanderoo, to distinguish it from the _Kaloo_, or black one, with which they are familiar, describe it as much wilder and more powerful than its congener of the lowland forests. It is rarely seen by Europeans, this portion of the country having till very recently been but partially opened; and even now it is difficult to observe its habits, as it seldom approaches the few roads which wind through these deep solitudes. It was first captured by Dr. Kelaart in the woods near Neuera-ellia, and from its peculiar appearance it has been named _P. ursinus_ by Mr. Blyth.[1] [Footnote 1: Mr. Blyth quotes as authority for this trivial name a passage from MAJOR FORBES' _Eleven Years in Ceylon_; and I can vouch for the graphic accuracy of the remark.--"A species of very large monkey, that passed some distance before me, when resting on all fours, looked so like a Ceylon bear, that I nearly took him for one."] 3. The _P. Thersites_, which is chiefly distinguished from the others by wanting the head tuft, is so rare that it was for some time doubtful whether the single specimen procured by Dr. Templeton from Neuera-kalawa, west of Trincomalie, and on which Mr. Blyth conferred this new name, was in reality native; but the occurrence of a second, since identified by Dr. Kelaart, has established its existence as a separate species. Like the common wanderoo, this one was partial to fresh vegetables, plantains, and fruit; but he ate freely boiled rice, beans, and gram. He was fond of being noticed and petted, stretching out his limbs in succession to be scratched, drawing himself up so that his ribs might be reached by the finger, and closing his eyes during the operation, evincing his satisfaction by grimaces irresistibly ludicrous. 4. The _P. Priamus_ inhabits the northern and eastern provinces, and the wooded hills which occur in these portions of the island. In appearance it differs both in size and in colour from the common wanderoo, being larger and more inclining to grey; and in habits it is much less reserved. At Jaffna, and in other parts of the island where the population is comparatively numerous, these monkeys become so familiarised with the presence of man as to exhibit the utmost daring and indifference. A flock of them will take possession of a Palmyra palm; and so effectually can they crouch and conceal themselves among the leaves that, on the slightest alarm, the whole party becomes invisible in an instant. The presence of a dog, however, excites such an irrepressible curiosity that, in order to watch his movements, they never fail to betray themselves. They may be seen frequently congregated on the roof of a native hut; and, some years ago, the child of a European clergyman stationed at Tillipalli having been left on the ground by the nurse, was so teased and bitten by them as to cause its death. The Singhalese have the impression that the remains of a monkey are never found in the forest; a belief which they have embodied in the proverb that "he who has seen a white crow, the nest of a paddy bird, a straight coco-nut tree, or a dead monkey, is certain to live for ever." This piece of folk-lore has evidently reached Ceylon from India, where it is believed that persons dwelling on the spot where a hanuman monkey, _S. entellus_, has been killed, will die, and that even its bones are unlucky, and that no house erected where they are hid under ground can prosper. Hence when a house is to be built, it is one of the employments of the Jyotish philosophers to ascertain by their science that none such are concealed; and Buchanan observes that "it is, perhaps, owing to this fear of ill-luck that no native will acknowledge his having seen a dead hanuman."[1] [Footnote 1: BUCHANAN'S _Survey of Bhagulpoor_, p. 142. At Gibraltar it is believed that the body of _a dead monkey_ is never found on the rock.] The only other quadrumanous animal found in Ceylon is the little loris[1], which, from its sluggish movements, nocturnal habits, and consequent inaction during the day, has acquired the name of the "Ceylon Sloth." There are two varieties in the island; one of the ordinary fulvous brown, and another larger, whose fur is entirely black. A specimen of the former was sent to me from Chilaw, on the western coast, and lived for some time at Colombo, feeding on rice, fruit, and vegetables. It was partial to ants and other insects, and always eager for milk or the bone of a fowl. The naturally slow motion of its limbs enables the loris to approach its prey so stealthily that it seizes birds before they can be alarmed by its presence. The natives assert that it has been known to strangle the pea-fowl at night, and feast on the brain. During the day the one which I kept was usually asleep in the strange position represented below; its perch firmly grasped with all hands, its back curved into a ball of soft fur, and its head hidden deep between its legs. The singularly-large and intense eyes of the loris have attracted the attention of the Singhalese, who capture the creature for the purpose of extracting them as charms and love-potions, and this they are said to effect by holding the little animal to the fire till its eyeballs burst. Its Tamil name is _theivangu_, or "thin-bodied;" and hence a deformed child or an emaciated person has acquired in the Tamil districts the same epithet. The light-coloured variety of the loris in Ceylon has a spot on its forehead, somewhat resembling the _namam_, or mark worn by the worshippers of Vishnu; and, from this peculiarity, it is distinguished as the _Nama-theivangu_.[2] [Footnote 1: Loris gracilis, _Geoff_.] [Footnote 2: There is an interesting notice of the loris of Ceylon by Dr. TEMPLETON, in the _Mag. Nat. Hist_. 1844, ch. xiv. p. 362.] [Illustration: THE LORIS] II. CHEIROPTERA. _Bats_.--The multitude of _bats_ is one of the features of the evening landscape; they abound in every cave and subterranean passage, in the tunnels on the highways, in the galleries of the fortifications, in the roofs of the bungalows, and the ruins of every temple and building. At sunset they are seen issuing from their diurnal retreats to roam through the twilight in search of crepuscular insects, and as night approaches and the lights in the rooms attract the night-flying lepidoptera, the bats sweep round the dinner-table and carry off their tiny prey within the glitter of the lamps. Including the frugivorous section about sixteen species have been identified in Ceylon, and of these, two varieties are peculiar to the island. The colours of some of them are as brilliant as the plumage of a bird, bright yellow, deep orange, and a rich ferruginous brown inclining to red.[1] The Roussette[2] of Ceylon (the "Flying-fox," as it is usually called by Europeans) measures from three to four feet from point to point of its extended wings, and some of them have been seen wanting but a few inches of five feet in the alar expanse. These sombre-looking creatures feed chiefly on ripe fruits, the guava, the plantain, and the rose-apple, and are abundant in all the maritime districts, especially at the season when the silk-cotton tree, the _pulun-imbul_,[3] is putting forth its flower-buds, of which they are singularly fond. By day they suspend themselves from the highest branches, hanging by the claws of the hind legs, pressing the chin against the breast, and using the closed membrane attached to the forearms as a mantle to envelope the head. At sunset launching into the air, they hover with a murmuring sound occasioned by the beating of their broad membranous wings, around the fruit trees, on which they feed till morning, when they resume their pensile attitude as before. They are strongly attracted to the coco-nut trees during the period when toddy is drawn for distillation, and exhibit, it is said, at such times symptoms resembling intoxication.[4] [Footnote 1: Rhinolophus affinis? _var_. rubidus, _Kelaart_. Hipposideros murinus, _var_. fulvus, _Kelaart_. Hipposideros speoris, _var_. aureus, _Kelaart_. Kerivoula picta, _Pallas_. Scotophilus Heathii, _Horsf_.] [Footnote 2: Pteropus Edwardsii, _Geoff_.] [Footnote 3: Eriodendron orientale, _Stead_.] [Footnote 4: Mr. THWAITES, of the Royal Botanic Garden, at Kandy, in a recent letter, 19th Dec. 1858, gives the following description of a periodical visit of the pteropus to an avenue of fig-trees:--"You would be much interested now in observing a colony of the _pteropus_ bat, which has established itself for a season on some trees within sight of my bungalow. They came about the same time last year, and, after staying a few weeks, disappeared: I suppose they had demolished all the available food in the neighbourhood. They are now busy of an evening eating the figs of _Ficus elastica_, of which we have a long avenue in the grounds, as I dare say you remember. "These bats take possession during the day of particular trees, upon which they hang like so much ripe fruit, but they take it into their heads to have some exercise every morning between the hours of 9 and 11, during which they are wheeling about in the air by the hundred, seemingly enjoying the sunshine and warmth. They then return to their fevourite tree, and remain quiet until the evening, when they move off towards their feeding ground. There is a great chattering and screaming amongst them before they can get agreeably settled in their places after their morning exercise; quarrelling, I suppose, for the most comfortable spots to hang on by during the rest of the day. The trees they take possession of become nearly stripped of leaves; and it is a curious sight to see them in such immense numbers. I do not allow them to be disturbed."] The flying-fox is killed by the natives for the sake of its flesh, which I have been told, by a gentleman who has eaten it, resembles that of the hare.[1] [Footnote 1: In Western India the native Portuguese eat the flying-fox, and pronounce it delicate, and far from disagreeable in flavour.] There are several varieties (some of them peculiar to the island) of the horse-shoe-headed _Rhinolophus_, with the strange leaf-like appendage erected on the extremity of the nose. It has been suggested that bats, though nocturnal, are deficient in that keen vision characteristic of animals which take their prey at night. I doubt whether this conjecture be well founded; but at least it would seem that in their peculiar oeconomy some additional power is required to supplement that of vision, as in insects that of touch is superadded, in the most sensitive development, to that of sight. Hence, it is possible that the extended screen stretched at the back of their nostrils may be intended by nature to facilitate the collection and conduction of odours, as the vast development of the shell of the ear in the same family is designed to assist in the collection of sounds--and thus to reinforce their vision when in pursuit of their prey at twilight by the superior sensitiveness of the organs of hearing and smell, as they are already remarkable for that marvellous sense of touch which enables them, even when deprived of sight, to direct their flight with security, by means of the delicate nerves of the wing. One tiny little bat, not much larger than the humble bee[1], and of a glossy black colour, is sometimes to be seen about Colombo. It is so familiar and gentle that it will alight on the cloth during dinner, and manifests so little alarm that it seldom makes any effort to escape before a wine glass can be inverted to secure it.[2] [Footnote 1: It is a _very_ small Singhalese variety of Scotophilus Coromandelicus; _F. Cuv_.] [Footnote 2: For a notice of the curious parasite peculiar to the bat, see Note A. end of this chapter.] III. CARNIVORA.--_Bears_.--Of the _carnivora_, the one most dreaded by the natives of Ceylon, and the only one of the larger animals which makes the depths of the forest its habitual retreat, is the bear[1], attracted by the honey which is to be found in the hollow trees and clefts of the rocks. Occasionally spots of fresh earth are observed which have been turned up by them in search of some favourite root. They feed also on the termites and ants. A friend of mine traversing the forest near Jaffna, at early dawn, had his attention attracted by the growling of a bear, which was seated upon a lofty branch thrusting portions of a red-ant's nest into its mouth with one paw, whilst with the other he endeavoured to clear his eyebrows and lips of the angry inmates which bit and tortured him in their rage. The Ceylon bear is found only in the low and dry districts of the northern and south-eastern coast, and is seldom met with on the mountains or the moist and damp plains of the west. It is furnished with a bushy tuft of hair on the back, between the shoulders, to which the young are accustomed to cling till sufficiently strong to provide for their own safety. During a severe drought which prevailed in the northern province in 1850, the district of Caretchy was so infested by bears that the Oriental custom of the women resorting to the wells was altogether suspended, as it was a common occurrence to find one of these animals in the water, unable to climb up the yielding and slippery soil, down which his thirst had impelled him to slide during the night. [Footnote 1: Prochilus labiatus, _Blainville_.] Although the structure of the bear shows him to be naturally omnivorous, he rarely preys upon flesh in Ceylon, and his solitary habits whilst in search of honey and fruits, render him timid and retiring. Hence he evinces alarm on the approach of man or other animals, and, unable to make a rapid retreat, his panic rather than any vicious disposition leads him to become an assailant in self-defence. But so furious are his assaults under such circumstances that the Singhalese have a terror of his attack greater than that created by any other beast of the forest. If not armed with a gun, a native, in the places where bears abound, usually carries a light axe, called "kodelly," with which to strike them on the head. The bear, on the other hand, always aims, at the face, and, if successful in prostrating his victim, usually commences by assailing the eyes. I have met numerous individuals on our journeys who exhibited frightful scars from these encounters, the white seams of their wounds contrasting hideously with the dark colour of the rest of their bodies. The Veddahs in Bintenne, whose chief stores consist of honey, live in dread of the bears, because, attracted by its perfume, they will not hesitate to attack their rude dwellings, when allured by this irresistible temptation. The Post-office runners, who always travel by night, are frequently exposed to danger from these animals, especially along the coast from Putlam to Aripo, where they are found in considerable numbers; and, to guard against surprise, they are accustomed to carry flambeaux, to give warning to the bears, and enable them to shuffle out of the path.[1] [Footnote 1: Amongst the Singhalese there is a belief that certain charms are efficacious in protecting them from the violence of bears, and those whose avocations expose them to encounters of this kind are accustomed to carry a talisman either attached to their neck or enveloped in the folds of their luxuriant hair. A friend of mine, writing of an adventure which occurred at Anarajapoora, thus describes an occasion on which a Moor, who attended him, was somewhat rudely disabused of his belief in the efficacy of charms upon bears:--"Desiring to change the position of a herd of deer, the Moorman (with his charm) was sent across some swampy land to disturb them. As he was proceeding we saw him suddenly turn from an old tree and run back with all speed, his hair becoming unfastened and like his clothes streaming in the wind. It soon became evident that he was flying from some terrific object, for he had thrown down his gun, and, in his panic, he was taking the shortest line towards us, which lay across a swamp covered with sedge and rushes that greatly impeded his progress, and prevented us approaching him, or seeing what was the cause of his flight. Missing his steps from one hard spot to another he repeatedly fell into the water, but he rose and resumed his flight. I advanced as far as the sods would bear my weight, but to go further was impracticable. Just within ball range there was an open space, and, as the man gained it, I saw that he was pursued by a bear and two cubs. As the person of the fugitive covered the bear, it was impossible to fire without risk. At last he fell exhausted, and the bear being close upon him, I discharged both barrels. The first broke the bear's shoulder, but this only made her more savage, and rising on her hind legs she advanced with ferocious grunts, when the second barrel, though I do not think it took effect, served to frighten her, for turning round she retreated at full speed, followed by the cubs. Some natives then waded through the mud to the Moorman, who was just exhausted and would have been drowned but that he fell with his head upon a tuft of grass: the poor man was unable to speak, and for several weeks his intellect seemed confused. The adventure sufficed to satisfy him that he could not again depend upon a charm to protect him from bears, though he always insisted that but for its having fallen from his hair where he had fastened it under his turban, the bear would not have ventured to attack him."] Leopards[1] are the only formidable members of the tiger race in Ceylon, and they are neither very numerous nor very dangerous as they seldom attack man. By Europeans they are commonly called cheetahs; but the true cheetah, the hunting leopard of India (_Felis jubata_), does not exist in Ceylon. There is a rare variety which has been found in various parts of the island, in which the skin, instead of being spotted, is of a uniform black.[2] The leopards frequent the vicinity of pasture lands in quest of the deer and other peaceful animals which resort to them; and the villagers often complain of the destruction of their cattle by these formidable marauders. In relation to them, the natives have a curious but firm conviction that when a bullock is killed by a leopard, and, in expiring, falls so that _its right side is undermost_, the leopard will not return to devour it. I have been told by English sportsmen (some of whom share in the popular belief), that sometimes, when they have proposed to watch by the carcase of a bullock recently killed by a leopard, in the hope of shooting the spoiler on his return in search of his prey, the native owner of the slaughtered animal, though earnestly desiring to be avenged, has assured them that it would be in vain, as, the beast having fallen on its right side, the leopard would not return. [Footnote 1: Felis pardus, _Linn_. What is called a leopard, or a cheetah, in Ceylon, is in reality the true panther.] [Footnote 2: F. melas, _Peron_ and _Leseur_.] The Singhalese hunt them for the sake of their extremely beautiful skins, but prefer taking them in traps and pitfalls, and occasionally in spring cages formed of poles driven firmly into the ground, within which a kid is generally fastened as a bait; the door being held open by a sapling bent down by the united force of several men, and so arranged to act as a spring, to which a noose is ingeniously attached, formed of plaited deer hide. The cries of the kid attract the leopards, one of which, being tempted to enter, is enclosed by the liberation of the spring and grasped firmly round the body by the noose. Like the other carnivora, they are timid and cowardly in the presence of man, never intruding on him voluntarily and making a hasty retreat when approached. Instances have, however, occurred of individuals having been slain by them, and like the tiger, it is believed, that, having once tasted human blood they acquire an habitual relish for it. A peon on night duty at the courthouse at Anarajapoora, was some years ago carried off by a leopard from a table in the verandah on which he had laid down his head to sleep. At Batticaloa a "cheetah" in two instances in succession was known to carry off men placed on a stage erected in a tree to drive away elephants from the rice-lands: but such cases are rare, and as compared with their dread of the bear, the natives of Ceylon entertain but slight apprehensions of the "cheetah." It is, however, the dread of sportsmen, whose dogs when beating in the jungle are especially exposed to its attacks: and I am aware of one instance in which a party having tied their dogs to the tent-pole for security, and fallen asleep around them, a leopard sprang into the tent and carried off a dog from the midst of its slumbering masters. They are strongly attracted by the peculiar odour which accompanies small-pox. The reluctance of the natives to submit themselves or their children to vaccination exposes the island to frightful visitations of this disease; and in the villages in the interior it is usual on such occasions to erect huts in the jungle to serve as temporary hospitals. Towards these the leopards are certain to be allured; and the medical officers are obliged to resort to increased precautions in consequence. On one occasion being in the mountains near Kandy, a messenger despatched to me through the jungle excused his delay by stating that a "cheetah" had seated itself in the only practicable path, and remained quietly licking its fore paws and rubbing them over its face, till he was forced to drive it, with stones, into the forest. Major Skinner, who for upwards of forty years has had occasion to live almost constantly in the interior, occupied in the prosecution of surveys and the construction of roads, is strongly of opinion that towards man the disposition of the leopard is essentially pacific, and that, when discovered, its natural impulse is to effect its escape. In illustration of this, I insert an extract from one of his letters, which describes an adventure highly characteristic of this instinctive timidity. "On the occasion of one of my visits to Adam's Peak in the prosecution of my military reconnoissances of the mountain, zone, I fixed on a pretty little patena (i.e. meadow) in the midst of an extensive and dense forest in the southern segment of the Peak Range, as a favourable spot for operations. It would have been difficult, after descending from the cone of the peak, to have found one's way to this point, in the midst of so vast a wilderness of trees, had not long experience assured me that good game tracks would be found leading to it, and by one of them I reached it. It was in the afternoon, just after one of those tropical sun-showers which decorate every branch and blade with its pendant brilliants, and the little patena was covered with game, either driven to the open space by the drippings from the leaves or tempted by the freshness of the pasture: there were several pairs of elk, the bearded antlered male contrasting finely with his mate; and other varieties of game in a profusion not to be found in any place frequented by man. It was some time before I could allow them to be disturbed by the rude fall of the axe, in our necessity to establish our bivouac for the night, and they were so unaccustomed to danger, that it was long before they took alarm at our noises. "The following morning, anxious to gain a height in time to avail myself of the clear atmosphere of sunrise for my observations, I started off by myself through the jungle, leaving orders for my men, with my surveying instruments, to follow my track by the notches which I cut in the bark of the trees. On leaving the plain, I availed myself of a fine wide game track which lay in my direction, and had gone, perhaps half a mile from the camp, when I was startled by a slight rustling in the nilloo[1] to my right, and in another instant, by the spring of a magnificent leopard which, in a bound of full eight feet in height over the lower brushwood, lighted at my feet within eighteen inches of the spot whereon I stood, and lay in a crouching position, his fiery gleaming eyes fixed on me. [Footnote 1: A species of one of the suffruticose _Acanthacea_ which grows abundantly in the mountain ranges of Ceylon. See _ante_, p. 90 n.] "The predicament was not a pleasant one. I had no weapon of defence, and with one spring or blow of his paw the beast could have annihilated me. To move I knew would only encourage his attack. It occurred to me at the moment that I had heard of the power of man's eye over wild animals, and accordingly I fixed my gaze as intently, as the agitation of such a moment enabled me, on his eyes: we stared at each other for some seconds, when, to my inexpressible joy, the beast turned and bounded down the straight open path before me." "This scene occurred just at that period of the morning when the grazing animals retired from the open patena to the cool shade of the forest: doubtless, the leopard had taken my approach for that of a deer, or some such animal. And if his spring had been at a quadruped instead of a biped, his distance was so well measured, that it must have landed him on the neck of a deer, an elk, or a buffalo; as it was, one pace more would have done for me. A bear would not have let his victim off so easily." It is said, but I never have been able personally to verify the fact, that the Ceylon leopard exhibits a peculiarity in being unable entirely to retract its claws within their sheaths. Of the lesser feline species the number and variety in Ceylon is inferior to that of India. The Palm-cat[1] lurks by day among the fronds of the coco-nut trees, and by night makes destructive forays on the fowls of the villagers; and, in order to suck the blood of its victim, inflicts a wound so small as to be almost imperceptible. The glossy genette[2], the "_Civet_" of Europeans, is common in the northern province, where the Tamils confine it in cages for the sake of its musk, which they collect from the wooden bars on which it rubs itself. Edrisi, the Moorish geographer, writing in the twelfth century, enumerates musk as one of the productions then exported from Ceylon.[3] [Footnote 1: Paradoxurus typus, _F. Cuv_.] [Footnote 2: Viverra Indica, _Geoffr., Hodgson_.] [Footnote 3: EDRISI, _Géogr_., sec. vii. Jaubert's translation, t. ii. p. 72.] _Dogs_.--There is no native wild dog in Ceylon, but every village and town is haunted by mongrels of European descent, which are known by the generic description of _Pariahs_. They are a miserable race, acknowledged by no owners, living on the garbage of the streets and sewers, lean, wretched, and mangy, and if spoken to unexpectedly, shrinking with an almost involuntary cry. Yet in these persecuted outcasts there survives that germ of instinctive affection which binds the dog to the human race, and a gentle word, even a look of compassionate kindness, is sufficient foundation for a lasting attachment. The Singhalese, from their religious aversion to taking away life in any form, permit the increase of these desolate creatures till in the hot season they become so numerous as to be a nuisance; and the only expedient hitherto devised by the civil government to reduce their numbers, is once in each year to offer a reward for their destruction, when the Tamils and Malays pursue them in the streets with clubs (guns being forbidden by the police for fear of accidents), and the unresisting dogs are beaten to death on the side-paths and door steps, where they had been taught to resort for food. Lord Torrington, during his tenure of office, attempted the more civilised experiment of putting some check on their numbers, by imposing a dog tax, the effect of which would have been to lead to the drowning of puppies; whereas there is reason to believe that dogs are at present _bred_ by the horse-keepers to be killed for sake of the reward. _Jackal_.--The Jackal[1] in the low country hunts in packs, headed by a leader, and these audacious prowlers have been seen to assault and pull down a deer. The small number of hares in the districts they infest is ascribed to their depredations. An excrescence is sometimes found on the head of the jackal, consisting of a small horny cone about half an inch in length, and concealed by a tuft of hair. This the natives call _Narri-comboo_, and they aver that this "Jackal's Horn" only grows on the head of the leader of the pack.[2] The Singhalese and the Tamils alike regard it as a talisman, and believe that its fortunate possessor can command by its instrumentality the realisation of every wish, and that if stolen or lost by him, it will invariably return of its own accord. Those who have jewels to conceal, rest in perfect security if along with them they can deposit a Narri-comboo, fully convinced that its presence is an effectual safeguard against robbers. [Footnote 1: Canis aureus. _Linn_.] [Footnote 2: In the Museum of the College of Surgeons, London (No. 4362 A), there is a cranium of a jackal which exhibits this strange osseous process on the super-occipital; and I have placed along with it a specimen of the horny sheath, which was presented to me by Mr. Lavalliere, the district judge of Kandy.] Jackals are subject to hydrophobia, and instances are frequent of cattle being bitten by them and dying in consequence. _The Mongoos_.--Of the Mongoos or Ichneumons five species have been described; and one which frequents the hills near Neuera-ellia[1], is so remarkable from its bushy fur, that the invalid soldiers in the sanatarium, to whom it is familiar, call it the "Ceylon Badger." I have found universally that the natives of Ceylon attach no credit to the European story of the Mongoos (_H. griseus_) resorting to some plant, which no one has yet succeeded in identifying, as an antidote against the bite of the venomous serpents on which it preys. There is no doubt that in its conflicts with the cobra de capello and other poisonous snakes, which it attacks with as little hesitation as the harmless ones, it may be seen occasionally to retreat, and even to retire into the jungle, and, it is added, to eat some vegetable; but a gentleman who has been a frequent observer of its exploits, assures me that most usually the herb it resorted to was grass; and if this were not at hand, almost any other that grew near seemed equally acceptable. Hence has probably arisen the long list of plants; such as the _Ophioxylon serpentinum_ and _Ophiorhiza mungos_, the _Aristolochia Indica_, the _Mimosa octandru_, and others, each of which has been asserted to be the ichneumon's specific; whilst their multiplicity is demonstrative of the non-existence of any one in particular to which the animal resorts for an antidote. Were there any truth in the tale as regards the mongoos, it would be difficult to understand, why other creatures, such as the secretary bird and the falcon, which equally destroy serpents, should be left defenceless, and the ichneumon alone provided with a prophylactic. Besides, were the ichneumon inspired by that courage which would result from the consciousness of security, it would be so indifferent to the bite of the serpent, that we might conclude that, both in its approaches and its assault, it would be utterly careless as to the precise mode of its attack. Such, however, is far from being the case; and next to its audacity, nothing is more surprising than the adroitness with which it escapes the spring of the snake under a due sense of danger, and the cunning with which it makes its arrangements to leap upon the back and fasten its teeth in the head of the cobra. It is this display of instinctive ingenuity that Lucan[2] celebrates where he paints the ichneumon diverting the attention of the asp, by the motion of his bushy tale, and then seizing it in the midst of its confusion. [Footnote 1: _Herpestes vitticollis_. Mr. W. ELLIOTT, in his _Catalogue of Mammalia found in the Southern Maharata Country_, Madras, 1840, says, that "One specimen of this Herpestes was procured by accident in the Ghat forests in 1829, and is now deposited in the British Museum; it is very rare, inhabiting only the thickest woods, and its habits are very little known," p. 9. In Ceylon, it is comparatively common.] [Footnote 2: The passage in Lucan is a versification of the same narrative related by Pliny, lib. viii. ch. 35; and Ælian, lib. iii. ch. 22.] "Aspidas ut Pharias caudâ solertior hostis Ludit, et iratas incertâ provocat umbrâ: Obliquusque caput vanas serpentis in auras Effusæ toto comprendit guttura morsu Letiferam citra saniem; tune irrita pestis Exprimitur, faucesque fluunt pereunte veneno." _Pharsalia_, lib. iv. v. 729. The mystery of the mongoos and its antidote has been referred to the supposition that there may be some peculiarity in its organisation which renders it _proof against_ the poison of the serpent. It remains for future investigation to determine how far this conjecture is founded in truth; and whether in the blood of the mongoos there exists any element or quality which acts as a prophylactic. Such exceptional provisions are not without precedent in the animal oeconomy: the hornbill feeds with impunity on the deadly fruit of the strychnos; the milky juice of some species of euphorbia, which is harmless to oxen, is invariably fatal to the zebra; and the tsetse fly, the pest of South Africa, whose bite is mortal to the ox, the dog, and the horse, is harmless to man and the untamed creatures of the forest.[1] [Footnote 1: Dr. LIVINGSTONE, _Tour in S. Africa_, p. 80. Is it a fact that in America, pigs extirpate the rattlesnakes with impunity?] The Singhalese distinguish one species of mongoos, which they designate "_Hotambeya_," and which they assert never preys upon serpents. A writer in the _Ceylon Miscellany_ mentions, that they are often to be seen "crossing rivers and frequenting mud-brooks near Chilaw; the adjacent thickets affording them shelter, and their food consisting of aquatic reptiles, crabs, and mollusca."[1] [Footnote 1: This is possibly the "musbilai" or mouse-cat of Behar, which preys upon birds and fish. Could it be the Urva of the Nepalese (_Urva cancrivora_, Hodgson), which Mr. Hodgson describes as dwelling in burrows, and being carnivorous and ranivorous?--Vide _Journ. As. Soc. Beng._, vol. vi. p. 56.] IV. RODENTIA. _Squirrels_.--Smaller animals in great numbers enliven the forests and lowland plains with their graceful movements. Squirrels[1], of which there are a great variety, make their shrill metallic call heard at early morning in the woods, and when sounding their note of warning on the approach of a civet or a tree-snake, the ears tingle with the loud trill of defiance, which rings as clear and rapid as the running down of an alarum, and is instantly caught up and re-echoed from every side by their terrified playmates. [Footnote 1: Of two kinds which frequent the mountains, one which is peculiar to Ceylon was discovered by Mr. Edgar L. Layard, who has done me the honour to call it the _Sciurus Tennentii_. Its dimensions are large, measuring upwards of two feet from head to tail. It is distinguished from the _S. macrurus_ by the predominant black colour of the upper surface of the body, with the exception of a rusty spot at the base of the ears.] One of the largest, belonging to a closely allied subgenus, is known as the "Flying Squirrel,"[1] from its being assisted in its prodigious leaps from tree to tree, by the parachute formed by the skin of the flanks, which on the extension of the limbs front and rear, is laterally expanded from foot to foot. Thus buoyed up in its descent, the spring which it is enabled to make from one lofty tree to another resembles the flight of a bird rather than the bound of a quadruped. Of these pretty creatures there are two species, one common to Ceylon and India, the other (_Sciuropterus Layardii_, Kelaart) is peculiar to the island, and is by far the most beautiful of the family. [Footnote 1: Pteromys oral., _Tickel_. P. petaurista, _Pallas_.] _Rats_.--Among the multifarious inhabitants to which the forest affords at once a home and provender is the tree rat[1], which forms its nest on the branches, and by turns makes its visits to the dwellings of the natives, frequenting the ceilings in preference to the lower parts of houses. Here it is incessantly followed by the rat-snake[2], whose domestication is encouraged by the native servants, in consideration of its services in destroying vermin. I had one day an opportunity of surprising a snake which had just seized on a rat of this description, and of covering it suddenly with a glass shade, before it had time to swallow its prey. The serpent, which appeared stunned by its own capture, allowed the rat to escape from its jaws, which cowered at one side of the glass in the most pitiable state of trembling terror. The two were left alone for some moments, and on my return to them the snake was as before in the same attitude of sullen stupor. On setting them at liberty, the rat bounded towards the nearest fence; but quick as lightning it was followed by its pursuer, which seized it before it could gain the hedge, through which I saw the snake glide with its victim in its jaws. [Footnote 1: There are two species of the tree rat in Ceylon: M. rufescens, _Gray_; (M. flavescens; _Elliot_;) and Mus nemoralis, _Blyth_.] [Footnote 2: Coryphodon Blumenbachii.] Another indigenous variety of the rat is that which made its appearance for the first time in the coffee plantations on the Kandyan hills in the year 1847, and in such swarms does it infest them, that as many as a thousand have been killed in a single day on one estate. In order to reach the buds and blossoms of the coffee, it cuts such slender branches, as would not sustain its weight, and feeds as they fall to the ground; and so delicate and sharp are its incisors, that the twigs thus destroyed are detached by as clean a cut as if severed with a knife. The coffee-rat[1] is an insular variety of the _Mus hirsutus_ of W. Elliot, found in Southern India. They inhabit the forests, making their nests among the roots of the trees, and like the lemmings of Norway and Lapland, they migrate in vast numbers on the occurrence of a scarcity of their ordinary food. The Malabar coolies are so fond of their flesh, that they evince a preference for those districts in which the coffee plantations are subject to these incursions, where they fry the rats in oil, or convert them into curry. [Footnote 1: Golunda Ellioti, _Gray_.] _Bandicoot_.--Another favourite article of food with the coolies is the pig-rat or Bandicoot[1], which attains on those hills the weight of two or three pounds, and grows to nearly the length of two feet. As it feeds on grain and roots, its flesh is said to be delicate, and much resembling young pork. Its nests, when rifled, are frequently found to contain considerable quantities of rice, stored up against the dry season. [Footnote 1: Mus bandicota, _Beckst_. The English term bandicoot is a corruption of the Telinga name _pandikoku_, literally _pig-rat_.] _Porcupine_.--The Porcupine[1] is another of the _rodentia_ which has drawn down upon itself the hostility of the planters, from its destruction of the young coco-nut palms, to which it is a pernicious and persevering, but withal so crafty, a visitor, that it is with difficulty any trap can be so disguised, or any bait made so alluring, as to lead to its capture. The usual expedient is to place some of its favourite food at the extremity of a trench, so narrow as to prevent the porcupine turning, whilst the direction of his quills effectually bars his retreat. On a newly planted coco-nut tope, at Hang-welle, within a few miles of Colombo, I have heard of as many as twenty-seven being thus captured in a single night; but such success is rare. The more ordinary expedient is to smoke them out by burning straw at the apertures of their burrows. The flesh is esteemed a delicacy in Ceylon, and in consistency, colour, and flavour, it very much resembles that of a young pig. [Footnote 1: Hystrix leucurus, _Sykes_.] V. EDENTATA, _Pengolin._--Of the _Edentata_ the only example in Ceylon is the scaly ant-eater, called by the Singhalese, Caballaya, but usually known by its Malay name of _Pengolin_[1], a word indicative of its faculty of "rolling itself up" into a compact ball, by bending its head towards its stomach, arching its back into a circle, and securing all by a powerful fold of its mail-covered tail. The feet of the pengolin are armed with powerful claws, which they double in in walking like the ant-eater of Brazil. These they use in extracting their favourite food, the termites, from ant-hills and decaying wood. When at liberty, they burrow in the dry ground to a depth of seven or eight feet, where they reside in pairs, and produce annually one or two young. [Footnote 1: Manis pentadactyla, _Linn._] Of two specimens which I kept alive at different times, one from the vicinity of Kandy, about two feet in length, was a gentle and affectionate creature, which, after wandering over the house in search of ants, would attract attention to its wants by climbing up my knee, laying hold of my leg with its prehensile tail. The other, more than double that length, was caught in the jungle near Chilaw, and brought to me in Colombo. I had always understood that the pengolin was unable to climb trees; but the one last mentioned frequently ascended a tree in my garden, in search of ants, and this it effected by means of its hooked feet, aided by an oblique grasp of the tail. The ants it seized by extending its round and glutinous tongue along their tracks. In both, the scales of the back were a cream-coloured white, with a tinge of red in the specimen which came from Chilaw, probably acquired by the insinuation of the Cabook dust which abounds along the western coast of the island. Generally speaking, they were quiet during the day, and grew restless as evening and night approached. VI. RUMINATA. _The Gaur._--Besides the deer and some varieties of the humped ox, which have been introduced from the opposite continent of India, Ceylon has probably but one other indigenous _ruminant_., the buffalo.[1] There is a tradition that the gaur, found in the extremity of the Indian peninsula, was at one period a native of the Kandyan mountains; but as Knox speaks of one which in his time "was kept among the king's creatures" at Kandy[2], and his account of it tallies with that of the _Bos Gaurus_ of Hindustan, it would appear even then to have been a rarity. A place between Neuera-ellia and Adam's Peak bears the name of Gowra-ellia, and it is not impossible that the animal may yet be discovered in some of the imperfectly explored regions of the island.[3] I have heard of an instance in which a very old Kandyan, residing in the mountains near the Horton Plains, asserted that when young he had seen what he believed to have been a gaur, and which he described as between an elk and a buffalo in size, dark brown in colour, and very scantily provided with hair. [Footnote 1: Bubalus buffelus; _Gray_.] [Footnote 2: _Historical Relation of Ceylon, &c._, A.D. 1681. Book i. c, 6.] [Footnote 3: KELAART, _Fauna Zeylan_., p. 87.] _Oxen_.--Oxen are used by the peasantry both in ploughing and in tempering the mud in the wet paddi fields before sowing the rice; and when the harvest is reaped they "tread out the corn," after the immemorial custom of the East. The wealth of the native chiefs and landed proprietors frequently consists in their herds of bullocks, which they hire out to their dependents during the seasons for agricultural labour; and as they already supply them with land to be tilled, and lend the seed which is to crop it, the further contribution of this portion of the labour serves to render the dependence of the peasantry on the chiefs and head-men complete. The cows are worked equally with the oxen; and as the calves are always permitted to suck them, milk is an article which the traveller can rarely hope to procure in a Kandyan village. From their constant exposure at all seasons, the cattle in Ceylon, both those employed in agriculture and on the roads, are subject to the most devastating murrains, which sweep them away by thousands. So frequent is the recurrence of these calamities, and so extended their ravages, that they exercise a serious influence over the commercial interests of the colony, by reducing the facilities of agriculture, and augmenting the cost of carriage during the most critical periods of the coffee season. A similar disorder, probably peripneumonia, frequently carries off the cattle in Assam and other hill countries on the continent of India; and there, as in Ceylon, the inflammatory symptoms in the lungs and throat, and the internal derangement and external eruptive appearances, seem to indicate that the disease is a feverish influenza, attributable to neglect and exposure in a moist and variable climate; and that its prevention might be hoped for, and the cattle preserved by the simple expedient of more humane and considerate treatment, especially by affording them cover at night. During my residence in Ceylon an incident occurred at Neuera-ellia, which invested one of these pretty animals with an heroic interest. A little cow, belonging to an English gentleman, was housed, together with her calf, near the dwelling of her owner, and being aroused during the night by her furious bellowing, the servants, on hastening to the stall, found her goring a leopard, which had stolen in to attack the calf. She had got him into a corner, and whilst lowing incessantly to call for help, she continued to pound him with her horns. The wild animal, apparently stupified by her unexpected violence, was detained by her till despatched by a gun. _The Buffalo_.--Buffaloes abound in all parts of Ceylon, but they are only to be seen in their native wildness in the vast solitudes of the northern and eastern provinces, where rivers, lagoons, and dilapidated tanks abound. In these they delight to immerse themselves, till only their heads appear above the surface; or, enveloped in mud to protect themselves from the assaults of insects, luxuriate in the long sedges by the water margins. When the buffalo is browsing, a crow will frequently be seen stationed on his back, engaged in freeing it from the ticks and other pests which attach themselves to his leathery hide, the smooth brown surface of which, unprotected by hair, shines with an unpleasant polish in the sunlight. When in motion he throws back his clumsy head till the huge horns rest on his shoulders, and the nose is presented in a line with the eyes. When wild they are at all times uncertain in disposition, but so frequently savage that it is never quite safe to approach them, if disturbed in their pasture or alarmed from their repose in the shallow lakes. On such occasions they hurry into line, draw up in defensive array, with a few of the oldest bulls in advance; and, wheeling in circles, their horns clashing with a loud sound as they clank them together in their rapid evolutions, the herd betakes itself to flight. Then forming again at a safer distance, they halt as before, elevating their nostrils, and throwing back their heads to take a cautious survey of the intruders. The sportsman rarely molests them, so huge a creature affording no worthy mark for his skill, and their wanton slaughter adding nothing to the supply of food for their assailant. In the Hambangtotte country, where the Singhalese domesticate the buffaloes, and use them to assist in the labour of the rice lands, the villagers are much annoyed by the wild ones, which mingle with the tame when sent out to the woods to pasture; and it constantly happens that a savage stranger, placing himself at the head of the tame herd, resists the attempts of the owners to drive them homewards at sunset. In the districts of Putlam and the Seven Corles, buffaloes are generally used for draught; and in carrying heavy loads of salt from the coast towards the interior, they drag a cart over roads which would defy the weaker strength of bullocks. In one place between Batticaloa and Trincomalie I found the natives making an ingenious use of them when engaged in shooting water-fowl in the vast salt marshes and muddy lakes. Being an object to which the birds are accustomed, the Singhalese train the buffalo to the sport, and, concealed behind, the animal browsing listlessly along, they guide it by ropes attached to its horns, and thus creep undiscovered within shot of the flock. The same practice prevails, I believe, in some of the northern parts of India, where they are similarly trained to assist the sportsman in approaching deer. One of these "sporting buffaloes" sells for a considerable sum. The buffalo, like the elk, is sometimes found in Ceylon as an albino, with purely white hair and pink iris. There is a peculiarity in the formation of its foot, which, though it must have attracted attention, I have never seen mentioned by naturalists. It is equivalent to an arrangement that distinguishes the foot of the reindeer from that of the stag and the antelope. In them, the hoofs, being constructed for lightness and flight, are compact and vertical; but, in the reindeer, the joints of the tarsal bones admit of lateral expansion, and the broad hoofs curve upwards in front, while the two secondary ones behind (which are but slightly developed in the fallow deer and others of the same family) are prolonged till, in certain positions, they are capable of being applied to the ground, thus adding to the circumference and sustaining power of the foot. It has been usually suggested as the probable design of this structure, that it is to enable the reindeer to shovel under the snow in order to reach the lichens beneath it; but I apprehend that another use of it has been overlooked, that of facilitating its movements in search of food by increasing the difficulty of its sinking in the snow. A formation precisely analogous in the buffalo seems to point to a corresponding design. The ox, whose life is spent on firm ground, has the bones of the foot so constructed as to afford the most solid support to an animal of its great weight; but in the buffalo, which delights in the morasses on the margins of pools and rivers, the formation of the foot resembles that of the reindeer. The tarsi in front extend almost horizontally from the upright bones of the leg, and spread widely on touching the ground; the hoofs are flattened and broad, with the extremities turned upwards; and the false hoofs descend behind till, in walking, they make a clattering sound. In traversing the marshes, this combination of abnormal incidents serves to give extraordinary breadth to the foot, and not only prevents the buffalo from sinking inconveniently in soft ground[1], but at the same time presents no obstacle to the withdrawal of his foot from the mud. [Footnote 1: PROFESSOR OWEN has noticed a similar fact regarding the rudiments of the second and fifth digits in the instance of the elk and bison, which have them largely expanded where they inhabit swampy ground; whilst they are nearly obliterated in the camel and dromedary, which traverse arid deserts.--OWEN _on Limbs_, p. 34; see also BELL _on the Hand_, ch. iii.] _Deer_.--"Deer," says the truthful old chronicler, Robert Knox, "are in great abundance in the woods, from the largeness of a cow to the smallness of a hare, for here is a creature in this land no bigger than the latter, though every part rightly resembleth a deer: it is called _meminna_, of a grey colour, with white spots and good meat."[1] The little creature which thus dwelt in the recollection of the old man, as one of the memorials of his long captivity, is the small "musk deer"[2] so called in India, although neither sex is provided with a musk-bag; and the Europeans in Ceylon know it by the name of the moose deer. Its extreme length never reaches two feet; and of those which were domesticated about my house, few exceeded ten inches in height, their graceful limbs being of similar delicate proportion. It possesses long and extremely large tusks, with which it inflicts a severe bite. The interpreter moodliar of Negombo had a _milk white_ meminna in 1847, which he designed to send home as an acceptable present to Her Majesty, but it was unfortunately killed by an accident.[3] [Footnote 1: KNOX'S _Relation, &c_., book i. c. 6.] [Footnote 2: Moschus meminna.] [Footnote 3: When the English took possession of Kandy, in 1803, they found "five beautiful milk-white deer in the palace, which was noted as a very extraordinary thing."--_Letter_ in Appendix to PERCIVAL'S _Ceylon_, p. 428. The writer does not say of what species they were.] _Ceylon Elk_.--In the mountains, the Ceylon elk[1], which reminds one of the red deer of Scotland, attains the height of four or five feet; it abounds in all places which are intersected by shady rivers; where, though its hunting affords an endless resource to the sportsmen, its venison scarcely equals in quality the inferior beef of the lowland ox. In the glades and park-like openings that diversify the great forests of the interior, the spotted Axis troops in herds as numerous as the fallow deer in England; and, in journeys through the jungle, when often dependent on the guns of our party for the precarious supply of the table, we found the flesh of the Axis[2] and the Muntjac[3] a sorry substitute for that of the pea-fowl, the jungle-cock, and flamingo. The occurrence of albinos is very frequent in troops of the axis. Deer's horns are an article of export from Ceylon, and considerable quantities are annually sent to the United Kingdom. [Footnote 1: Rusa Aristotelis. Dr. GRAY has lately shown that this is the great _axis_ of Cuvier.--_Oss. Foss._ 502, t. 39, f. 10. The Singhalese, on following the elk, frequently effect their approaches by so imitating the call of the animal as to induce them to respond. An instance occurred during my residence in Ceylon, in which two natives, whose mimicry had mutually deceived them, crept so close together in the jungle that one shot the other, supposing the cry to proceed from the game.] [Footnote 2: Axis maculata, _H. Smith_.] [Footnote 3: Stylocerus muntjac, _Horsf_.] VII. PACHYDERMATA. _The Elephant._--The elephant and the wild boar, the Singhalese "waloora," are the only representatives of the _pachydermatous_ order. The latter, which differs in no respect from the wild boar of India, is found in droves in all parts of the island where vegetation and water are abundant. The elephant, the lord paramount of the Ceylon forests, is to be met with in every district, on the confines of the woods, in whose depths he finds concealment and shade during the hours when the sun is high, and from which he emerges only at twilight to wend his way towards the rivers and tanks, where he luxuriates till dawn, when he again seeks the retirement of the deep forests. This noble animal fills so dignified a place both in the zoology and oeconomy of Ceylon, and his habits in a state of nature have been so much misunderstood, that I shall devote a separate section to his defence from misrepresentation, and to an exposition of what, from observation and experience, I believe to be his genuine character when free in his native domains. VIII. CETACEA.--Among the Cetacea the occurrence of the Dugong[1] on various points of the coast, and especially on the western side of the island, will be noticed elsewhere; and whales are so frequently seen that they have been captured within sight of Colombo, and more than once their carcases, after having been flinched by the whalers, have floated on shore near the light-house, tainting the atmosphere within the fort by their rapid decomposition. [Footnote 1: _Halicore dugong_, F. Cuv.] From this sketch of the Mammalia it will be seen that, in its general features, this branch of the Fauna bears a striking resemblance to that of Southern India, although many of the larger animals of the latter are unknown in Ceylon; and, on the other hand, some species discovered there are altogether peculiar to the island. A deer[1] as large as the Axis, but differing from it in the number and arrangement of its spots, has been described by Dr. Kelaart, to whose vigilance the natural history of Ceylon is indebted, amongst others, for the identification of two new species of monkeys[2], a number of curious shrews[3], and an orange-coloured ichneumon[4], before unknown. There are also two descriptions of squirrels[5] that have not as yet been discovered elsewhere, one of them belonging to those equipped with a parachute[6], as well as some local varieties of the palm squirrel (Sciurus penicillatus, _Leach_).[7] [Footnote 1: Cervus orizus, KELAART, _Prod. F. Zeyl_., p. 83.] [Footnote 2: Presbytes ursinus, _Blyth_, and P. Thersites, _Elliot_.] [Footnote 3: Sorex montanus, S. ferrugineus, and Feroculus macropus.] [Footnote 4: Herpestes fulvescens, KELAART, _Prod. Fann. Zeylan_., App. p. 42.] [Footnote 5: Sciurus Tennentii, _Layard_.] [Footnote 6: Sciuropterus Layardi, _Kelaart_.] [Footnote 7: There is a rat found only in the Cinnamon Gardens at Colombo, Mus Ceylonus, _Kelaart_; and a mouse which Dr. Kelaart discovered at Trincomalie, M. fulvidi-ventris, _Blyth_, both peculiar to Ceylon. Dr. TEMPLETON has noticed a little shrew (Corsira purpurascens, _Mag. Nat. Hist_. 1855, p. 238) at Neuera-ellia, not as yet observed elsewhere.] But the Ceylon Mammalia, besides wanting a number of minor animals found in the Indian peninsula, cannot boast such a ruminant as the majestic Gaur[1], which inhabits the great forests from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya; and, providentially, the island is equally free of the formidable tiger and the ferocious wolf of Hindustan. [Footnote 1: Bos cavifrons, _Hodgs_, B. frontalis, _Lamb_.] The Hyena and Cheetah[1], common in Southern India, are unknown in Ceylon; and though abundant in deer, the island possesses no example of the Antelope or the Gazelle. [Footnote 1: Felis jubata, _Schreb_.] _List of Ceylon Mammalia._ A list of the Mammalia of Ceylon is subjoined. In framing it, as well as the lists appended to other chapters on the Fauna of the island, the principal object in view has been to exhibit the extent to which its natural history had been investigated, and collections made up to the period of my leaving the colony in 1850. It has been considered expedient to exclude a few individuals which have not had the advantage of a direct comparison with authentic specimens, either at Calcutta or in England. This will account for the omission of a number which have appeared in other catalogues, but of which many, though ascertained to exist, have not been submitted to this rigorous process of identification. The greater portion of the species of mammals and birds contained in these lists will be found, with suitable references to the most accurate descriptions, in the admirable catalogue of the collection at the India House, now in course of publication under the care of Dr. Horsfield. This work cannot be too highly extolled, not alone for the scrupulous fidelity with which the description of each species is referred to its first discoverer, but also for the pains which have been taken to elaborate synonymes and to collate from local periodicals and other sources, little accessible to ordinary inquirers, such incidents and traits as are calculated to illustrate characteristics and habits. Quadrumana. Presbytes cephalopterus, _Zimm_. ursinus, _Blyth_. Priamus, _Elliot_ & _Blyth_. Thersites, _Blyth_. Macacus pileatus, _Shaw_ & _Desm_. Loris gracilis, _Geoff_. Cheiroptera. Pteropus Edwardsii, _Geoff_. Leschenaultii, _Dum_. Cynopterus marginatus, _Hamilt_. Megaderma spasma, _Linn_. lyra, _Geoff_. Rhinolophus _affinis, Horsf_. Hipposideros murinus, _Elliot_. speoris, _Elliot_. armiger, _Hodgs_. vulgaris, _Horsf_. Kerivoula picta, _Pall_. Taphozous longimanus, _Hardw_. Scotophilus Coromandelicus, _F. Cuv_. _adversus, Horsf_. Temminkii, _Horsf_. Tickelli, _Blyth_. Heathii. Carnivora. Sorex coerulescens, _Shaw_. ferrugincus, _Kelaart_. serpentarius, _Is. Geoff_. montanus, _Kelaart_. Feroculus macropus, _Kelaart_. Ursus labiatus, _Blainv_. Lutra nair, _F. Cuv_. Canis aureus, _Linn_. Viverra Indica, _Geoff., Hodgs_. Cynictis Maccarthiæ, _Gray_. Herpestes vitticollis, _Benn_. griseus, _Gm_. Smithii, _Gray_. fulvescens, _Kelaart_. Paradoxurus typus, _F. Cuv_. Ceylonicus, _Pall_. Felis pardus, _Linn_. chaus, _Guldens_. viverrinus, _Benn_. Rodentia. Sciurus macrurus, _Forst_. Tennentii, _Layard_. penicillatus, _Leach_. trilineatus, _Waterh_. Sciuropterus Layardi, _Kelaart_. Pteromys petaurista, _Pall_. Mus bandicota, _Bechst_. Kok, _Gray_. rufescens, _Gray_. nemoralis, _Blyth_. Indicus, _Geoff_. fulvidiventris, _Blyth_. Nesoki _Hardwickii, Gray_. Golunda Neuera, _Kelaart_. Ellioti, _Gray_. Gerbillus Indicus, _Hardw_. Lepus nigricollis, _F. Cuv._ Hystrix leucurus, _Sykes_. Edentata. Manis pentadactyla, _Linn._ Pachydermata. Elephas Indicus, _Linn._ Sus Indicus, _Gray_. _Zeylonicus, Blyth_. Ruminantia. Moschus meminna, _Erxl_. Stylocerus muntjac, _Horsf_. Axis maculata, _H. Smith_. Rusa Aristotelis, _Cuv_. Cetacea. Halicore dugung, _F. Cuv_. NOTE (A.) _Parasite of the Bat_. One of the most curious peculiarities connected with the bats is their singular parasite, the Nycteribia.[1] On cursory observation, this creature appears to have neither head, antennæ, eyes, nor mouth; and the earlier observers of its structure assured themselves that the place of the latter was supplied by a cylindrical sucker, which, being placed between the shoulders, the creature had no option but to turn on its back to feed. This apparent inconvenience was thought to have been compensated for by another anomaly: its three pairs of legs, armed with claws, being so arranged that they seemed to be equally distributed over its upper and under sides, the creature being thus enabled to use them like hands, and to grasp the strong hairs above it while extracting its nourishment. It moves by rolling itself rapidly along, rotating like a wheel on the extremities of its spokes, or like the clown in a pantomime hurling himself forward on hands and feet alternately. Its celerity is so great that Colonel Montague, who was one of the first to describe it minutely[2], says its speed exceeds that of any known insect, and as its joints are so flexible as to yield in every direction (like what mechanics call a "ball and socket"), its motions are exceedingly grotesque as it tumbles through the fur of the bat. [Footnote 1: This extraordinary creature had formerly been discovered only on a few European bats. Joinville figured one which he found on the large roussette (the flying-fox), and says he had seen another on a bat of the same family. Dr. Templeton observed them in Ceylon in great abundance on the fur of the _Scotophilus Coromandelicus_, and they will, no doubt, be found on many others.] [Footnote 2: Celeripes vespertilionis, _Mont. Lin. Trans_, xi. p. 11.] To enable it to attain its marvellous velocity, each foot is armed with two sharp hooks, with elastic pads opposed to them, so that the hair can not only be rapidly seized and firmly held, but as quickly disengaged as the creature whirls away in its headlong career. The insects to which it hears the nearest affinity are the _Hippoboscidæ_ or "spider flies," that infest birds and horses, but, unlike them, it is unable to fly. Its strangest peculiarity, and that which gave rise to the belief that it is headless, is its faculty when at rest of throwing back its head and pressing it close between its shoulders till the under side becomes uppermost, not a vestige of head being discernible where we would naturally look for it, and the whole seeming but a casual inequality on its back. On closer examination this apparent tubercle is found to have a leathery attachment like a flexible neck, and by a sudden jerk the little creature is enabled to project it forward into its normal position, when it is discovered to be furnished with a mouth, antennæ, and four eyes, two on each side. The organisation of such an insect is a marvellous adaptation of physical form to special circumstances. As the nycteribia has to make its way through fur and hairs, its feet are furnished with prehensile hooks that almost convert them into hands; and being obliged to conform to the sudden flights of its patron, and accommodate itself to inverted positions, all attitudes are rendered alike to it by the arrangement of its limbs, which enables it, after every possible gyration, to find itself always on its feet. CHAP. II. BIRDS. Of the _Birds_ of the island, upwards of three hundred and twenty species have been indicated, for which we are indebted to the persevering labours of Dr. Templeton, Dr. Kelaart, and Mr. Layard; but many yet remain to be identified. In fact, to the eye of a stranger, their prodigious numbers, and especially the myriads of waterfowl which, notwithstanding the presence of the crocodiles, people the lakes and marshes in the eastern provinces, form one of the marvels of Ceylon. In the glory of their plumage, the birds of the interior are surpassed by those of South America and Northern India; and the melody of their song will bear no comparison with that of the warblers of Europe, but the want of brilliancy is compensated by their singular grace of form, and the absence of prolonged and modulated harmony by the rich and melodious tones of their clear and musical calls. In the elevations of the Kandyan country there are a few, such as the robin of Neuera-ellia[1] and the long-tailed thrush[2], whose song rivals that of their European namesakes; but, far beyond the attraction of their notes, the traveller rejoices in the flute-like voices of the Oriole, the Dayal-bird[3], and some others equally charming; when, at the first dawn of day, they wake the forest with their clear _reveille_. [Footnote 1: Pratincola atrata, _Kelaart_.] [Footnote 2: Kittacincla macroura, _Gm_.] [Footnote 3: Copsychus saularis, _Linn_. Called by the Europeans in Ceylon the "Magpie Robin." This is not to be confounded with the other popular favourite, the "Indian Robin" (Thamnobia fulicata, _Linn_.), which is "never seen in the unfrequented jungle, but, like the coco-nut palm, which the Singhalese assert will only flourish within the sound of the human voice, it is always found near the habitations of men."--E.L. LAYARD.] It is only on emerging from the dense forests, and coming into the vicinity of the lakes and pasture of the low country, that birds become visible in great quantities. In the close jungle one occasionally hears the call of the copper-smith[1], or the strokes of the great orange-coloured woodpecker[2] as it beats the decaying trees in search of insects, whilst clinging to the bark with its finely-pointed claws, and leaning for support upon the short stiff feathers of its tail. And on the lofty branches of the higher trees, the hornbill[3] (the toucan of the East), with its enormous double casque, sits to watch the motions of the tiny reptiles and smaller birds on which it preys, tossing them into the air when seized, and catching them in its gigantic mandibles as they fall.[4] The remarkable excrescence on the beak of this extraordinary bird may serve to explain the statement of the Minorite friar Odoric, of Portenau in Friuli, who travelled in Ceylon in the fourteenth century, and brought suspicion on the veracity of his narrative by asserting that he had there seen "_birds with two heads_."[5] [Footnote 1: The greater red-headed Barbet (Megalaima indica, _Lath_.; M. Philippensis, _var. A. Lath_.), the incessant din of which resembles the blows of a smith hammering a cauldron.] [Footnote 2: Brachypternus aurantius, _Linn_.] [Footnote 3: Buceros pica, _Scop_.; B. coronata, _Bodd_. The natives assert that B. pica builds in holes in the trees, and that when incubation has fairly commenced, the female takes her seat on the eggs, and the male closes up the orifice by which she entered, leaving only a small aperture through which he feeds his partner, whilst she successfully guards their treasures from the monkey tribes; her formidable bill nearly filling the entire entrance. See a paper by Edgar L. Layard, Esq. _Mag. Nat. Hist._ March, 1853. Dr. Horsfield had previously observed the same habit in a species of Buceros in Java. (See HORSFIELD and MOORE'S _Catal. Birds_, E.I. Comp. Mus. vol. ii.) It is curious that a similar trait, though necessarily from very different instincts, is exhibited by the termites, who literally build a cell round the great progenitrix of the community, and feed her through apertures.] [Footnote 4: The hornbill is also frugivorous, and the natives assert that when endeavouring to detach a fruit, if the stem is too tough to be severed by his mandibles, he flings himself off the branch so as to add the weight of his body to the pressure of his beak. The hornbill abounds in Cuttack, and bears there the name of "Kuchila-Kai," or Kuchila-eater, from its partiality for the fruit of the Strychnus nux-vomica. The natives regard its flesh as a sovereign specific for rheumatic affections.--_Asiat. Res._ ch. xv. p. 184.] [Footnote 5: _Itinerarius_ FRATRIS ODORICI, de Foro Julii de Portu-vahonis.--HAKLUYT, vol. ii. p. 39.] As we emerge from the deep shade and approach the park-like openings on the verge of the low country, quantities of pea-fowl are to be found either feeding amongst the seeds and nuts in the long grass or sunning themselves on the branches of the surrounding trees. Nothing to be met with in demesnes in England can give an adequate idea either of the size or the magnificence of this matchless bird when seen in his native solitudes. Here he generally selects some projecting branch, from which his plumage may hang free of the foliage, and, if there be a dead and leafless bough, he is certain to choose it for his resting-place, whence he droops his wings and suspends his gorgeous train, or spreads it in the morning sun to drive off the damps and dews of the night. In some of the unfrequented portions of the eastern province, to which Europeans rarely resort, and where the pea-fowl are unmolested by the natives, their number is so extraordinary that, regarded as game, it ceases to be a "sport" to destroy them; and their cries at early morning are so tumultuous and incessant as to banish sleep, and amount to an actual inconvenience. Their flesh is excellent when served up hot, though it is said to be indigestible; but, when cold, it contracts a reddish and disagreeable tinge. But of all, the most astonishing in point of multitude, as well as the most interesting from their endless variety, are the myriads of aquatic birds and waders which frequent the lakes and watercourses; especially those along the coast near Batticaloa, between the mainland and the sand formations of the shore, and the innumerable salt marshes and lagoons to the south of Trincomalie. These, and the profusion of perching birds, fly-catchers, finches, and thrushes, which appear in the open country, afford sufficient quarry for the raptorial and predatory species--eagles, hawks, and falcons--whose daring sweeps and effortless undulations are striking objects in the cloudless sky. I. ACCIPITRES. _Eagles_.--The Eagles, however, are small, and as compared with other countries rare; except, perhaps, the crested eagle[1], which haunts the mountain provinces and the lower hills, disquieting the peasantry by its ravages amongst their poultry; and the gloomy serpent eagle[2], which, descending from its eyrie in the lofty jungle, and uttering a loud and plaintive cry, sweeps cautiously around the lonely tanks and marshes, where it feeds upon the reptiles on their margin. The largest eagle is the great sea Erne[3], seen on the northern coasts and the salt lakes of the eastern provinces, particularly when the receding tide leaves bare an expanse of beach, over which it hunts, in company with the fishing eagle[4], sacred to Siva. Unlike its companions, however, the sea eagle rejects garbage for living prey, and especially for the sea snakes which abound on the northern coasts. These it seizes by descending with its wings half closed, and, suddenly darting down its talons, it soars aloft again with its writhing victim.[5] [Footnote 1: Spizaëtus limnaëtus, _Horsf_.] [Footnote 2: Hæmatornis cheela, _Daud_.] [Footnote 3: Pontoaetus leucogaster, _Gmel_.] [Footnote 4: Haliastur indus, _Bodd_.] [Footnote 5: E.L. Layard. Europeans have given this bird the name of the "Brahminy Kite," probably from observing the superstitious feeling of the natives regarding it, who believe that when two armies are about to engage, its appearance prognosticates victory to the party over whom it hovers.] _Hawks_.--The beautiful Peregrine Falcon[1] is rare, but the Kestrel[2] is found almost universally; and the bold and daring Goshawk[3] wherever wild crags and precipices afford safe breeding places. In the district of Anarajapoora, where it is trained for hawking, it is usual, in lieu of a hood, to darken its eyes by means of a silken thread passed through holes in the eyelids. The ignoble birds of prey, the Kites[4], keep close by the shore, and hover round the returning boats of the fishermen to feast on the fry rejected from their nets. [Footnote 1: Falco peregrinus, _Linn_.] [Footnote 2: Tinnunculus alaudarius, _Briss_.] [Footnote 3: Astur trivirgatus, _Temm_.] [Footnote 4: Milvus govinda, _Sykes_. Dr. Hamilton Buchanan remarks that when gorged this bird delights to sit on the entablature of buildings, exposing its back to the hottest rays of the sun, placing its breast against the wall, and stretching out its wings _exactly as the Egyptian Hawk is represented on their monuments_.] _Owls_.--Of the nocturnal accipitres the most remarkable is the brown owl, which, from its hideous yell, has acquired the name of the "Devil-Bird."[l] The Singhalese regard it literally with horror, and its scream by night in the vicinity of a village is bewailed as the harbinger of approaching calamity. [Footnote 1: Syrnium indranee, _Sykes_. The horror of this nocturnal scream was equally prevalent in the West as in the East. Ovid Introduces it in his _Fasti_, L. vi. 1. 139; and Tibullus in his Elegies, L.i. El 5. Statius says-- "Nocturnæ-que gemunt striges, et feralia bubo _Danna canens_." Theb. iii. I. 511. But Pliny, 1. xi. c. 93, doubts as to what bird produced the sound; and the details of Ovid's description do not apply to an owl. Mr. Mitford, of the Ceylon Civil Service, to whom I am indebted for many valuable notes relative to the birds of the island, regards the identification of the Singhalese Devil-Bird as open to similar doubt: he says--"The Devil-Bird is not am owl. I never heard it until I came to Kornegalle, where it haunts the rocky hill at the back of Government-House. Its ordinary note is a magnificent clear shout like that of a human being, and which can be heard at a great distance, and has a fine effect in the silence of the closing night. It has another cry like that of a hen just caught, but the sounds which have earned for it its bad name, and which I have heard but once to perfection, are indescribable, the most appalling that can be imagined, and scarcely to be heard without shuddering; I can only compare it to a boy in torture, whose screams are being stopped by being strangled. I have offered rewards for a specimen, but without success. The only European who had seen and fired at one agreed with the natives that it is of the size of a pigeon, with a long tail. I believe it is a Podargus or Night Hawk," In a subsequent note he further says--"I have since seen two birds by moonlight, one of the size and shape of a cuckoo, the other a large black bird, which I imagine to be the one which gives these calls."] II. PASSERES. _Swallows_.--Within thirty-five miles of Caltura, on the western coast, are inland caves, the resort of the Esculent Swift[1], which there builds the "edible bird's nest," so highly prized in China. Near the spot a few Chinese immigrants have established themselves, who rent the royalty from the government, and make an annual export of their produce. But the Swifts are not confined to this district, and caves containing them have been found far in the interior, a fact which complicates the still unexplained mystery of the composition of their nest; and notwithstanding the power of wing possessed by these birds, adds something to the difficulty of believing that it consists of glutinous algæ.[2] In the nests brought to me there was no trace of organisation; and whatever may be the original material, it is so elaborated by the swallow as to present somewhat the appearance and consistency of strings of isinglass. The quantity of these nests exported from Ceylon is trifling. [Footnote 1: Collocalia brevirostris, _McClell_.; C. nidifica, _Gray_.] [Footnote 2: An epitome of what has been written on this subject will be found in _Dr. Horsfield's Catalogue_ of the Birds in the E.I. Comp. Museum, vol. i. p. 101, etc.] _Kingfishers_.--In solitary places, where no sound breaks the silence except the gurgle of the river as it sweeps round the rocks, the lonely Kingfisher sits upon an overhanging branch, his turquoise plumage hardly less intense in its lustre than the deep blue of the sky above him; and so intent is his watch upon the passing fish that intrusion fails to scare him from his post; the emblem of vigilance and patience. _Sun Birds_.--In the gardens the Sun Birds[1] (known as the Humming Birds of Ceylon) hover all day long, attracted by the plants over which they hang, poised on their glittering wings, and inserting their curved beaks to extract the tiny insects that nestle in the flowers. Perhaps the most graceful of the birds of Ceylon in form and motions, and the most chaste in colouring, is that which Europeans call "the Bird of Paradise,"[2] and the natives "the Cotton Thief," from the circumstance that its tail consists of two long white feathers, which stream behind it as it flies, Mr. Layard says:--"I have often watched them, when seeking their insect prey, turn suddenly on their perch and _whisk their long tails with a jerk_ over the bough, as if to protect them from injury." [Footnote 1: Nectarina Zeylanica, _Linn_.] [Footnote 2: Tchitrea paradisi, _Linn_.] _The Bulbul_.--The _Condatchee Bulbul_[1], which, from the crest on its head, is called by the Singhalese the "Konda Coorola," or _Tuft bird_, is regarded by the natives as the most "_game_" of all birds; and the training it to fight was one of the duties entrusted by the Kings of Kandy to the Kooroowa, or Bird Head-man. For this purpose the Bulbul is taken from the nest as soon as the sex is distinguishable by the tufted crown; and being secured by a string, is taught to fly from hand to hand of its keeper. When pitted against an antagonist, such is the obstinate courage of this little creature that it will sink from exhaustion rather than release its hold. This propensity, and the ordinary character of its notes, render it impossible that the Bulbul of India can be identical with the Bulbul of Iran, the "Bird of a Thousand Songs,"[2] of which poets say that its delicate passion for the rose gives a plaintive character to its note. [Footnote 1: Pycnonotus hæmorrhous, _Gmel_.] [Footnote 2: _"Hazardasitaum,"_ the Persian name for the bulbul. "The Persians," according to Zakary ben Mohamed al Caswini, "say the bulbul has a passion for the rose, and laments and cries when he sees it pulled."--OUSELEY'S _Oriental Collections_, vol. i. p. 16. According to Pallas it is the true nightingale of Europe, Sylvia luscinia, which the Armenians call _boulboul_, and the Crim-Tartars _byl-byl-i_.] _Tailor-Bird_.--_The Weaver-Bird_.--The tailor-bird[1] having completed her nest, sewing together the leaves by passing through them a cotton thread twisted by the creature herself, leaps from branch to branch to testify her happiness by a clear and merry note; and the Indian weaver[2], a still more ingenious artist, having woven its dwelling with grass something into the form of a bottle, with a prolonged neck, hangs it from a projecting branch with its entrance inverted so as to baffle the approaches of its enemies, the tree snakes and other reptiles. The natives assert that the male bird carries fire flies to the nest, fastening them to its sides by a particle of soft mud, and Mr. Layard assures me that although he has never succeeded in finding the fire fly, the nest of the male bird (for the female occupies another during incubation) invariably contains a patch of mud on each side of the perch. [Footnote 1: Orthotomus longicauda, _Gmel_.] [Footnote 2: Ploceus baya, _Blyth_; P. Philippinus, _Auct_.] _Crows_.--Of all the Ceylon birds of this order the most familiar and notorious is the small glossy crow, whose shining black plumage shot with blue has obtained for him the title of _Corvus splendens_.[1] They frequent the towns in companies, and domesticate themselves in the close vicinity of every house; and it may possibly serve to account for the familiarity and audacity which they exhibit in their intercourse with men, that the Dutch during their sovereignty in Ceylon enforced severe penalties against any one killing a crow, under the belief that they are instrumental in extending the growth of cinnamon by feeding on the fruit, and thus disseminating the undigested seed.[2] [Footnote 1: There is another species, the _C. culminatus_, so called from the convexity of its bill; but though seen in the towns, it lives chiefly in the open country, and may be constantly observed wherever there are buffaloes, perched on their backs and engaged, in company with the small Minah (_Acridotheres tristis_) in freeing them from ticks.] [Footnote 2: WOLF'S _Life and Adventures_, p. 117.] So accustomed are the natives to its presence and exploits, that, like the Greeks and Romans, they have made the movements of the crow the basis of their auguries; and there is no end to the vicissitudes of good and evil fortune which may not be predicted from the direction of their flight, the hoarse or mellow notes of their croaking, the variety of trees on which they rest, and the numbers in which they are seen to assemble. All day long they are engaged in watching either the offal of the offices, or the preparation for meals in the dining-room; and as doors and windows are necessarily opened to relieve the heat, nothing is more common than the passage of crows across the room, lifting on the wing some ill-guarded morsel from the dinner-table. No article, however unpromising its quality, provided only it be portable, can with safety be left unguarded in any apartment accessible to them. The contents of ladies' work-boxes, kid gloves, and pocket handkerchiefs vanish instantly if exposed near a window or open door. They open paper parcels to ascertain the contents; they will undo the knot on a napkin if it encloses anything eatable, and I have known a crow to extract the peg which fastened the lid of a basket in order to plunder the provender within. On one occasion a nurse seated in a garden adjoining a regimental mess-room, was terrified by seeing a bloody clasp-knife drop from the air at her feet; but the mystery was explained on learning that a crow, which had been watching the cook chopping mince-meat, had seized the moment when his head was turned to carry off the knife. One of these ingenious marauders, after vainly attitudinising in front of a chained watch-dog, which was lazily gnawing a bone, and after fruitlessly endeavouring to divert his attention by dancing before him, with head awry and eye askance, at length flew away for a moment, and returned bringing with it a companion who perched itself on a branch a few yards in the rear. The crow's grimaces were now actively renewed, but with no better result, till its confederate, poising himself on his wings, descended with the utmost velocity, striking the dog upon the spine with all the force of his beak. The _ruse_ was successful; the dog started with surprise and pain, but not quickly enough to seize his assailant, whilst the bone he had been gnawing disappeared the instant his head was turned. Two well-authenticated instances of the recurrence of this device came within my knowledge at Colombo, and attest the sagacity and powers of communication and combination possessed by these astute and courageous birds. On the approach of evening the crows assemble in noisy groups along the margin of the fresh-water lake which surrounds Colombo on the eastern side; here for an hour or two they enjoy the luxury of the bath, tossing the water over their shining backs, and arranging their plumage decorously, after which they disperse, each taking the direction of his accustomed quarters for the night.[1] [Footnote 1: A similar habit has been noticed in the damask Parrots of Africa (_Palæornis fuscus_), which daily resort at the same hour to their accustomed water to bathe.] During the storms which usher in the monsoon, it has been observed, that when coco-nut palms are struck by lightning, the destruction frequently extends beyond a single tree, and from the contiguity and conduction of the spreading leaves, or some other peculiar cause, large groups will be affected by a single flash, a few killed instantly, and the rest doomed to rapid decay. In Belligam Bay, a little to the east of Point-de-Galle, a small island, which is covered with coco-nuts, has acquired the name of "Crow Island," from being the resort of those birds, which are seen hastening towards it in thousands towards sunset. A few years ago, during a violent storm of thunder, such was the destruction of the crows that the beach for some distance was covered with a black line of their remains, and the grove on which they had been resting was to a great extent destroyed by the same flash.[1] [Footnote 1: Similar instances are recorded in other countries of sudden mortality amongst crows to a prodigious extent, but whether occasioned by lightning seems uncertain. In 1839 thirty-three thousand dead crows were found on the shores of a lake in the county Westmeath in Ireland after a storm.--THOMPSON'S _Nat. Hist. Ireland_, vol. i. p. 319, and Patterson in his Zoology, p. 356, mentions other cases.] III. SCANSORES. _Parroquets_.--Of the Psittacidæ the only examples are the parroquets, of which the most renowned is the _Palæornis Alexandri_, which has the historic distinction of bearing the name of the great conquerer of India, having been the first of its race introduced to the knowledge of Europe on the return of his expedition. An idea of their number may be formed from the following statement of Mr. Layard, as to the multitudes which are found on the western coast. "At Chilaw I have seen such vast flights of parroquets coming to roost in the coco-nut trees which overhang the bazaar, that their noise drowned the Babel of tongues bargaining for the evening provisions. Hearing of the swarms which resorted to this spot, I posted myself on a bridge some half mile distant, and attempted to count the flocks which came from a single direction to the eastward. About four o'clock in the afternoon, straggling parties began to wend towards home, and in the course of half an hour the current fairly set in. But I soon found that I had no longer distinct flocks to count, it became one living screaming stream. Some flew high in the air till right above their homes, and dived abruptly downward with many evolutions till on a level with the trees; others kept along the ground and dashed close by my face with the rapidity of thought, their brilliant plumage shining with an exquisite lustre in the sun-light. I waited on the spot till the evening closed, when I could hear, though no longer distinguish, the birds fighting for their perches, and on firing a shot they rose with a noise like the 'rushing of a mighty wind,' but soon settled again, and such a din commenced as I shall never forget; the shrill screams of the birds, the fluttering of their innumerable wings, and the rustling of the leaves of the palm trees, was almost deafening, and I was glad at last to escape to the Government Rest House."[1] [Footnote 1: _Annals of Nat. Hist_. vol xiii. p.263.] IV. COLUMBIDÆ. _Pigeons_.--Of pigeons and doves there are at least a dozen species; some living entirely on trees[1] and never alighting on the ground; others, notwithstanding the abundance of food and warmth, are migratory[2], allured, as the Singhalese allege, by the ripening of the cinnamon berries, and hence one species is known in the southern provinces as the "Cinnamon Dove." Others feed on the fruits of the banyan: and it is probably to their instrumentality that this marvellous tree chiefly owes its diffusion, its seeds being carried by them to remote localities. A very beautiful pigeon, peculiar to the mountain range, discovered in the lofty trees at Neuera-ellia, has, in compliment to the Vicountess Torrington, been named _Carpophaga Torringtoniæ._ [Footnote 1: Treron bicenta, _Jerd_.] [Footnote 2: _Alsocomus puniceus_, the "Season Pigeon" of Ceylon, so called from its periodical arrival and departure.] Another, called by the natives _neela-cobeya_[1], although strikingly elegant both in shape and colour, is still more remarkable far the singularly soothing effect of its low and harmonious voice. A gentleman who has spent many years in the jungle, in writing to me of this bird and of the effects of its melodious song, says, that "its soft and melancholy notes, as they came from some solitary place in the forest, were the most gentle sounds I ever listened to. Some sentimental smokers assert that the influence of the propensity is to make them feel _as if they could freely forgive all who had ever offended them_, and I can say with truth such has been the effect on my own nerves of the plaintive murmurs of the neela-cobeya, that sometimes, when irritated, and not without reason, by the perverseness of some of my native followers, the feeling has almost instantly subsided into placidity on suddenly hearing the loving tones of these beautiful birds." [Footnote 1: Chalcophaps Indicus, _Linn_.] V. GALLINÆ. _The Ceylon Jungle-fowl_.--The jungle-fowl of Ceylon[1] is shown by the peculiarity of its plumage to be distinct from the Indian species. It has never yet bred or survived long in captivity, and no living specimens have been successfully transmitted to Europe. It abounds in all parts of the island, but chiefly in the lower ranges of mountains; and one of the vivid memorials which are associated with our journeys through the hills, is its clear cry, which sounds like a person calling "George Joyce." At early morning it rises amidst mist and dew, giving life to the scenery that has scarcely yet been touched by the sunlight. [Footnote 1: Gallus Lafayetti, _Lesson_.] VI. GRALLÆ.--On reaching the marshy plains and shallow lagoons on either side of the island, the astonishment of the stranger is excited by the endless multitudes of stilt-birds and waders which stand in long array within the wash of the water, or sweep in vast clouds above it. Ibises[1], storks[2], egrets, spoonbills[3], herons[4], and the smaller races of sand larks and plovers, are seen busily traversing the wet sand, in search of the red worm which burrows there, or peering with steady eye to watch the motions of the small fry and aquatic insects in the ripple on the shore. [Footnote 1: Tantalus leucocephalus, and Ibis falcinellus.] [Footnote 2: The violet-headed Stork (Ciconia leucocephala).] [Footnote 3: Platalea leucorodia, _Linn_.] [Footnote 4: Ardea cinerea. A. purpurea.] VII. ANSERES.--Preeminent in size and beauty, the tall _flamingoes_[1], with rose-coloured plumage, line the beach in long files. The Singhalese have been led, from their colour and their military order, to designate them the "_English Soldier birds_." Nothing can be more startling than the sudden flight of these splendid creatures when alarmed; their strong wings beating the air sound like distant thunder; and as they soar over head, the flock which appeared almost white but a moment before, is converted into crimson by the sudden display of the red lining of their wings. A peculiarity in the beak of the flamingo has scarcely attracted due attention, as a striking illustration of creative wisdom in adapting the organs of animals to their local necessities. The upper mandible, which is convex in other birds, is in them flattened, whilst the lower, instead of being flat, is convex. To those who have had an opportunity of witnessing the action of the bird in its native haunts, the expediency of this arrangement is at once apparent. The flamingo, to counteract the extraordinary length of its legs, is provided with a proportionately long neck, so that in feeding in shallow water the crown of the head becomes inverted and the upper mandible brought into contact with the bottom; where its flattened surface qualifies it for performing the functions of the lower one in birds of the same class; and the edges of both being laminated, it is thus enabled, like the duck, by the aid of its fleshy tongue, to sift its food before swallowing. [Footnote 1: Phoenicopterus roseus, _Pallas_.] Floating on the surface of the deeper water, are fleets of the Anatidæ, the Coromandel teal[1], the Indian hooded gull[2], the Caspian tern, and a countless variety of ducks and smaller fowl. Pelicans[3] in great numbers resort to the mouths of the rivers, taking up their position at sunrise on some projecting rock, from which to dart on the passing fish, and returning far inland at night to their retreats among the trees which overshadow some ruined watercourse or deserted tank. [Footnote 1: Nettapus Coromandelianus, _Gmel._] [Footnote 2: Larus brunnicephalus, _Jerd._] [Footnote 3: Pelicanus Philippensis, _Gmel._] Of the birds familiar to European sportsmen, partridges and quails are to be had at all times; the woodcock has occasionally been shot in the hills, and the ubiquitous snipe, which arrives in September from Southern India, is identified not alone by the eccentricity of its flight, but by retaining in high perfection the qualities which have endeared it to the gastronome at home. But the magnificent pheasants which inhabit the Himalayan range and the woody hills of the Chin-Indian peninsula, have no representative amongst the tribes that people the woods of Ceylon; although a bird believed to be a pheasant has more than once been seen in the jungle, close to Rambodde, on the road to Neuera-ellía. _List of Ceylon Birds_. In submitting this catalogue of the birds of Ceylon, I am anxious to state that the copious mass of its contents is mainly due to the untiring energy and exertions of my friend, Mr. E.L. Layard. Nearly every bird in the list has fallen by his gun; so that the most ample facilities have been thus provided, not only for extending the limited amount of knowledge which formerly existed on this branch of the zoology of the island; but for correcting, by actual comparison with recent specimens, the errors which had previously prevailed as to imperfectly described species. The whole of Mr. Layard's fine collection is at present in England. Accipitres. Aquila Bonelli, _Temm_. pennata, _Gm_. Spizaëtus Nipalensis, _Hodgs_. limnæëtus, _Horsf_. Ictinaëtus Malayensis, _Reinw_. Hæmatornis cheela, _Daud_. spilogaster, _Blyth_. Pontoaëtus leucogaster, _Gm_. ichthyaëtus, _Horsf_. Haliastur Indus, _Bodd_. Falco peregrinus, _Linn_. _peregrinator, Sund_. Tinnunculus alaudarius, _Briss_. Hypotriorchis chicquera, _Daud_. Baza lophotes, _Cuv_. Milvus govinda, _Sykes_. Elanus melanopterus, _Daud_. Astur trivirgatus, _Temm_. Accipiter badius, _Gm_. Circus Swainsonii, _A. Smith_. cincrascens, _Mont_. melanoleucos, _Gm_. _æruginosus, Linn._ Athene castonatus, _Blyth_. scutulata, _Raffles_. Ephialtes scops, _Linn_. lempijii, _Horsf_. sunia, _Hodgs_. Ketupa Ceylonensis, _Gm_. Syrnium Indranee, _Sykes_. Strix Javanica, _Gm_. Passeres. Batrachostomus moniliger, _Layard_. Caprimulgus Mahrattensis, _Sykes_. Kelaarti, _Blyth_. Asiaticus, _Lath_. Cypselus batassiensis, _Gray_. melba, _Linn_. affinis, _Gray_. Macropteryx coronatus, _Tickell_. Collocalia brevirostris, _McClel_. Acanthylis caudacuta, _Lath_. Hirundo panayana, _Gm_. daurica, _Linn_. hyperythra, _Layard_. domicola, _Jerdon_. Coracias Indica, _Linn_. Harpactes fasciatus, _Gm_. Eurystomus orientalis, _Linn_. Halcyon Capensis, _Linn_. atricapillus, _Gm_. Smyrnensis, _Linn_. Ceyx tridactyla, _Linn_. Alcedo Bengalensis, _Gm_. Ceryle rudis, _Linn_. Merops Philippinus, _Linn_. viridis, _Linn_. quincticolor, _Vieill_. Upupa nigripennis, _Gould_. Nectarina Zeylanica, _Linn_. minima, _Sykes_. Asiatica, _Lath_. Lotenia, _Linn_. Dicæum minimum, _Tickell_. Phyllornis Malabarica, _Lath_. Jerdoni, _Blyth_. Dendrophila frontalis, _Horsf_. Piprisoma agile, _Blyth_. Orthotomus longicauda, _Gm_. Cisticola cursitans, _Frankl_. omalura, _Blyth_. Drymoica valida, _Blyth_. inornata, _Sykes_. Prinia socialis, _Sykes_. Acrocephalus dumetorum, _Blyth_. Phyllopneuste nitidus, _Blyth_. montanus, _Blyth_. viridanus, _Blyth_. Copsychus saularus, _Linn_. Kittacincla macrura, _Gm_. Pratincola caprata, _Linn_. atrata, _Kelaart_. Calliope cyanea, _Hodgs_. Thamnobia fulicata, _Linn_. Cyanecula Suevica, _Linn_. Sylvia affinis, _Blyth_. Parus cinereus, _Vieill_. Zosterops palpebrosus, _Temm_. Iöra Zeylanica, _Gm_. typhia, _Linn_. Motacilla sulphurea, _Bechs_. Indica, _Gm_. Madraspatana, _Briss_. Budytes viridis, _Gm_. Anthus rufulus, _Vieill_. Richardii, _Vieill_. striolatus, _Blyth_. Brachypteryx Palliseri, _Kelaart_. Alcippe nigrifrons, _Blyth_. Pitta brachyura, _Jerd_. Oreocincla spiloptera, _Blyth_. Merula Wardii, _Jerd_. Kinnisii, _Kelaart_. Zoothera imbricata, _Layard_. Garrulax cinereifrons, _Blyth_. Pormatorhinus melanurus, _Blyth_. Malacocercus rufescens, _Blyth_. griseus, _Gm_. striatus, _Swains_. Pellorneum fuscocapillum, _Blyth_. Dumetia albogularis, _Blyth_. Chrysomma Sinense, _Gm_. Oriolus melanocephalus, _Linn_. Indicus, _Briss_. Criniger ictericus, _Stickl_. Pycnonotus penicillatus, _Kelaart_. flavirictus, _Strickl_. hæmorrhous, _Gm_. atricapillus, _Vieill_. Hemipus picatus, _Sykes_. Hypsipetes Nilgherriensis, _Jerd_. Cyornis rubeculoïdes, _Vig_. Myiagra azurea, _Bodd_. Cryptolopha cinereocapilla, _Vieill_. Leucocerca compressirostris, _Blyth_. Tchitrea paradisi, _Linn_. Butalis latirostris, _Raffles_. Muttui, _Layard_. Stoparola melanops, _Vig_. Pericrocotus flammeus, _Forst_. peregrinus, _Linn_. Campephaga Macei, _Less_. Sykesii, _Strickl_. Artamus fuscus, _Vieill_. Edolius paradiseus, _Gm_. Dicrurus macrocereus, _Vieill_. edoliformis, _Blyth_. longicaudatus, _A. Hay_. leucopygialis, _Blyth_. coerulescens, _Linn_. Irena puella, _Lath_. Lanius superciliosus, _Lath_. erythronotus, _Vig_. Tephrodornis affinis, _Blyth_. Cissa puella, _Blyth & Layard_. Corvus splendens, _Vieille_. culminatus, _Sykes_. Eulabes religiosa, _Linn_. ptilogenys, _Blyth_. Pastor roseus, _Linn_. Hetærornis pagodarum, _Gm_. _albifrontata, Layard_. Acridotheres tristis, _Linn_. Ploceus manyar, _Horsf_. baya, _Blyth_. Munia undulata, _Latr_. _Malabarica, Linn_. Malacca, _Linn_. rubronigra, _Hodgs_. striata, _Linn_. pectoralis, _Jerd._ Passer Indicus, _Jard. & Selb._ Alauda gulgula, _Frank_. Malabarica, _Scop_. Pyrrhulauda grisea, _Scop_. Mirafra affinis, _Jerd_. Buceros gingalensis, _Shaw_. coronata, _Bodd_. Scansores. Loriculus Asiaticus, _Lath_. Palæornis Alexandri, _Linn_. torquatus, _Briss_. cyanocephalus, _Linn_. Calthropæ, _Layard_. Layardi, _Blyth_. Megalaima Indica, _Latr_. Zeylanica, _Gmel_. flavifrons, _Cuv_. rubicapilla, _Gm_. Picus gymnophthalmus, _Blyth._ Mahrattensis, _Lath_. Macei, _Vieill_. Gecinus chlorophanes, _Vieill_. Brachypternus aurantius, _Linn_. Ceylonus, _Forst_. _rubescens, Vieill_. Stricklandi, _Layard_. Micropterus gularis, _Jerd_. Centropus rufipennis, _Illiger_. chlororhynchos, _Blyth_. Oxylophus melanoleucos, _Gm_. Coramandus, _Linn_. Endynamys orientalis, _Linn_. Cuculus Bartletti, _Layard_. striatus, _Drapiez_. canorus, _Linn_. Polyphasia tenuirostris, _Gray_. Sonneratii, _Lath_. Hierococcyx varius, _Vahl_. Surniculus dicruroïdes, _Hodgs_. Phoenicophaus pyrrhocephalus, _Forst_. Zanclostomus viridirostris, _Jerd_. Columbæ. Treron bicincta, _Jerd_. flavogularis, _Blyth_. Pompadoura, _Gm_. chlorogaster, _Blyth_. Carpophaga pusilla, _Blyth_. Torringtoniæ, _Kelaart_. Alsocomus puniceus, _Tickel_. Columba intermedia, _Strickl_. Turtur risorius, _Linn_. Suratensis, _Lath_. humilis, _Temm_. orientalis, _Lath_. Chalcophaps Indicus, _Linn_. Gallinæ. Pavo cristatus, _Linn_. Gallus Lafayetti, _Lesson_. Galloperdix bicalcaratus, _Linn_. Francolinus Ponticerianus, _Gm_. Perdicula agoondah, _Sykes_. Coturnix Chinensis, _Linn_. Turnix ocellatus _var._ Bengalensis, _Blyth_. Turnix ocellatus _var._ taigoor, _Sykes_. Gralliæ. Esacus recurvirostris, _Cuv_. Oedienemus crepitans, _Temm_. Cursorius Coromandelicus, _Gm_. Lobivanellus bilobus, _Gm_. Goensis, _Gm_. Charadrius virginicus, _Bechs_. Hiaticula Philippensis, _Scop_. cantiana, _Lath_. Leschenaultii, _Less_. Strepsilas interpres, _Linn_. Ardea purpurea, _Linn_. cinerea, _Linn_. asha, _Sykes_. intermedia, _Wagler_. garzetta, _Linn_. alba, _Linn_. bubulcus, _Savig_. Ardeola leucoptera, _Bodd_. Ardetta cinnamomea, _Gm_. flavicollis, _Lath_. Sinensis, _Gm_. Butoroides Javanica, _Horsf_. Platalea leucorodia, _Linn_. Nycticorax griseus, _Linn_. Tigrisoma melanolopha, _Raffl_. Mycteria australis, _Shaw_. Leptophilus Javanica, _Horsf_. Ciconia leucocephala, _Gm_. Anastomus oscitans, _Bodd_. Tantalus leucocephalus, _Gm_. Geronticus melanocephalus, _Lath_. Ibis falcinellus, _Linn_. Numenius arquatus, _Linn_. phoeopus, _Linn_. Totanus fuscus, _Linn_. ochropus, _Linn_. calidris, _Linn_. hypoleucos, _Linn_. glottoides, _Vigors_. stagnalis, _Bechst_. Actitis glareola, _Gm_. Tringa minuta, _Leist_. subarquata, _Gm_. Limicola platyrhyncha, _Temm_. Limosa ægocephala, _Linn_. Himantopus candidus, _Bon_. Recurvirostra avocetta, _Linn_. Hæmatopus ostralegus, _Linn_. Rhynchoea Bengalensis, _Linn_. Scolopax rusticola, _Linn_. Gallinago stenura, _Temm_. _scolopacina, Bon_. _gallinula, Linn_. Hydrophasianus Sinensis, _Gm_. Ortygometra rubiginosa, _Temm_. Corethura Zeylanica, _Gm_. Porzana pygmæa, _Nan_. Rallus striatus, _Linn_. Indicus, _Blyth_. Porphyrio poliocephalus, _Lath_. Gallinula phoenicura, _Penn_. chloropus, _Linn_. cristata, _Lath_. ANSERES. Phoenicopterus ruber, _Linn_. Sarkidiornis melanonotos, _Penn_. Nettapus Coromandelianus, _Gm_. Anas poecilorhyncha, _Penn_. Dendrocygnus arcuatus, _Cuv_. Dafila acuta, _Linn_. Querquedula crecca, _Linn_. circia, _Linn_. _Fuligula rufina, Pall_. Spatula clypeata, _Linn_. Podiceps Philippensis, _Gm_. Larus brunnicephalus, _Jerd_. ichthyaëtus, _Pall_. Sylochelidon Caspius, _Lath_. Hydrochelidon Indicus, _Steph_. Gelochelidon Anglicus, _Mont_. Onychoprion anasthætus, _Scop_. Sterna Javanica, _Horsf_. melanogaster, _Temm_. minuta, _Linn_. Seena aurantia, _Gray_. Thalasseus Bengalensis, _Less_. cristata, _Steph_. Dromas ardeola, _Payk_. Atagen ariel, _Gould_. Thalassidroma _melanogaster, Gould_. Plotus melanogaster, _Gm_. Pelicanus Philippensis, _Gm_. Graculus Sinensis, _Shaw_. pygmæus, _Pallas_. NOTE. The following is a list of the birds which are, as far as is at present known, peculiar to the island; it will probably at some future day be determined that some included in it have a wider geographical range. Hæmatornis spilogaster. The "Ceylon eagle;" was discovered by Mr. Layard in the Wanny, and by Dr. Kelaart at Trincomalie. Athene castonotus. The chestnut-winged hawk owl. This pretty little owl was added to the list of Ceylon birds by Dr. Templeton. Batrachostomus monoliger. The oil bird; was discovered amongst the precipitous rocks of the Adam's Peak range by Mr. Layrard. Another specimen was sent about the same time to Sir James Emerson Tennent from Avisavelle. Mr. Mitford has met with it at Ratnapoora. Caprimulgus Kelaarti. Kelaart's night-jar; swarms on the marshy plains of Neuera-ellia at dusk. Hirundo hyperythra. The red-bellied swallow; was discovered in 1849 by Mr. Layard at Ambepusse. They build a globular nest with a round hole at top. A pair built in the ring for a hanging lamp in Dr. Gardner's study at Peradinia, and hatched their young, undisturbed by the daily trimming and lighting of the lamp. Cisticola omalura. Layard's mountain grass warbler; is found in abundance on Horton Plain and Neuera-ellia, among the long Patena grass. Drymoica valida. Layard's wren-warbler; frequents tufts of grass and low bushes, feeding on insects. Pratincola atrata. The Neuera-ellia robin; a melodious songster; added to our catalogue by Dr. Kelaart. Brachypteryx Palliseri. Ant thrush. A rare bird, added by Dr. Kelaart from Dimboola and Neuera-ellia. Pellorneum fuscocapillum. Mr. Layard found two specimens of this rare thrush creeping about shrubs and bushes, feeding on insects. Alcippe nigrifrons. This thrush frequents low impenetrable thickets, and seems to be widely distributed. Oreocincla spiloptera. The spotted thrush is only found in the mountain zone about lofty trees. Merula Kinnisii. The Neuera-ellia blackbird; was added by Dr. Kelaart. Garrulax cinereifrons. The ashy-headed babbler; was found by Mr. Layard near Ratnapoora. Pomatorhinus melanurus. Mr. Layard states that the mountain babbler frequents low, scraggy, impenetrable brush, along the margins of deserted cheena land. Malacocercus rufescens. The red-dung thrush added by Dr. Templeton to the Singhalese Fauna, is found in thick jungle in the southern and midland districts. Pycnonotus penicillatus. The yellow-eared bulbul; was found by Dr. Kelaart at Neuera-ellia. Butalis Muttui. This very handsome flycatcher was procured at Point Pedro, by Mr. Layard. Dicrurus edoliformis. Dr. Templeton found this kingcrow at the Bibloo Oya. Mr. Layard has since got it at Ambogammoa. Dicrurus leucopygialis. The Ceylon kingcrow was sent to Mr. Blyth from the vicinity of Colombo, by Dr. Templeton. Tephrodornis affinis. The Ceylon butcher-bird. A migratory species found in the wooded grass lands in October. Cissa puella. Layard's mountain jay. A most lovely bird, found along mountain streams at Neuera-ellia and elsewhere. Enlabes ptilogenys. Templeton's mynah. The largest and most beautiful of the species. It is found in flocks perching on the highest trees, feeding on berries. Loriculus asiaticus. The small parroquet, abundant in various districts. Palæornis Calthropæ. Layard's purple-headed parroquet, found at Kandy, is a very handsome bird, flying in flocks, and resting on the summits of the very highest trees. Dr. Kelaart states that it is the only parroquet of the Neuera-ellia range. Palæornis Layardi. The Jaffna parroquet was discovered by Mr. Layard at Point Pedro. Megalaima flavifrons. The yellow-headed barbet, is not uncommon. Megalaima rubricapilla, is found in most parts of the island. Picus gymnophthalmus. Layard's woodpecker. The smallest of the species, was discovered near Colombo, amongst jak trees. Brachypternus Ceylonus. The Ceylon woodpecker, is found in abundance near Neuera-ellia. Brachypternus rubescens. The red woodpecker. Centropus chlororhynchus. The yellow-billed cuckoo, was detected by Mr. Layard in dense jungle near Colombo and Avisavelle. Phoenicophaus pyrrhocephalus. The malkoha, is confined to the southern highlands. Treron flavogularis. The common green pigeon, is found in abundance at the top of Balacaddua Pass and at Ratnapoora. It feeds on berries and flies in large flocks. It was believed to be identical with the following.--_Mag. Nat. Hist._ p. 58: 1854. Treron Pompadoura. The Pompadour pigeon. "The Prince of Canino has shown that this is a totally distinct bird, much smaller, with the quantity of maroon colour on the mantle greatly reduced."--Paper by Mr. BLYTH, _Mag. Nat Hist._ p. 514: 1857. Carpophaga Torringtoniæ. Lady Torrington's pigeon; a very handsome pigeon discovered in the highlands by Dr. Kelaart. It flies high in long sweeps, and makes its nest on the loftiest trees. Carpophaga pusilla. The little-hill dove, a migratory species found by Mr. Layard in the mountain zone, only appearing with the ripened fruit of the teak, banyan, &c., on which they feed. Gallus Lafayetti. The Ceylon jungle fowl. The female of this handsome bird was figured by Mr. GRAY (_Ill. Ind. Zool._) under the name of G. Stanleyi. The cock bird had long been lost to naturalists, until a specimen was forwarded to Mr. Blyth, who at once recognised it as the long-looked for male of Mr. Gray's recently described female. It is abundant in all the uncultivated portions of Ceylon; coming out into the open spaces to feed in the mornings and evenings. CHAP. III. REPTILES. LIZARDS. _Iguana_.--One of the earliest if not the first remarkable animal to startle a stranger on arriving in Ceylon, whilst wending his way from Point-de-Galle to Colombo, is a huge lizard of from four to five feet in length, the Talla-goya of the Singhalese, and Iguana[1] of the Europeans. It may be seen at noonday searching for ants and insects in the middle of the highway and along the fences; when disturbed, but by no means alarmed, by the approach of man, it moves off to a safe distance; and, the intrusion being over, returns again to the occupation in which it had been interrupted. Repulsive as it is in appearance, it is perfectly harmless, and is hunted down by dogs in the maritime provinces, where its delicate flesh is converted into curry, and its skin into shoes. When seized, it has the power of inflicting a smart blow with its tail. The Talla-goya lives in almost any convenient hollow, such as a hole in the ground, or the deserted nest of the termites; and home small ones which frequented my garden at Colombo, made their retreat in the heart of a decayed tree. A still larger species, the Kabragoya[2], which is partial to marshy ground, when disturbed upon land, will take refuge in the nearest water. From the somewhat eruptive appearance of the yellow blotches on its scales, a closely allied species, similarly spotted, formerly obtained amongst naturalists the name of _Monitor exanthemata_, and it is curious that the native appellation of this one, Kabra[3], is suggestive of the same idea. The Singhalese, on a strictly homoeopathic principle, believe that its fat, externally applied, is a cure for cutaneous disorders, but that inwardly taken it is poisonous.[4] It is one of the incidents which seem to indicate that Ceylon belongs to a separate circle of physical geography, this lizard has not hitherto been discovered on the continent of Hindustan, though it is found to the eastward in Burmah.[5] [Footnote 1: Monitor dracæna, _Linn_. Among the barbarous nostrums of the uneducated natives both Singhalese and Tamil, is the tongue of the iguana, which they regard as a specific for consumption, if plucked from the living animal and swallowed whole.] [Footnote 2: Hydrosaurus salvator, _Wagler_.] [Footnote 3: In the _Mahawanso_ the hero, Tisso, is said to have been "afflicted with a cutaneous complaint which, made his skin scaly like that of the _godho_."--Ch. xxiv. p. 148. "Godho" is the Pali name for the Kabra-goya.] [Footnote 4: In the preparation of the mysterious poison, the _Cobra-tel_, which is regarded with so much horror by the Singhalese; the unfortunate Kabra-goya is forced to take a painfully prominent part. The receipt, as written down by a Kandyan, was sent to me from Kornegalle, by Mr. Morris, in 1840; and in dramatic arrangement it far outdoes the cauldron of _Macbeth's_ witches. The ingredients are extracted from venomous snakes, the Cobra de Capello (from which it takes its name), the Carawella, and the Tic prolonga, by making an incision in the head and suspending the reptiles over a chattie to collect the poison. To this, arsenic and other drugs are added, and the whole is to be "boiled in a human skull, with the aid of the three Kabra-goyas, which are tied on three sides of the fire, with their heads directed towards it, and tormented by whips to make them hiss, so that the fire may blaze. The froth from their lips is then to be added to the boiling mixture, and so soon as an oily scum rises to the surface, the _cobra-tel_ is complete." Although it is obvious that the arsenic is the main ingredient in the poison, Mr. Morris reported to me that this mode of preparing it was actually practised in his district; and the above account was transmitted by him apropos to the murder of a Mohatal and his wife, which was then under investigation, and which had been committed with the _cobra-tel_. Before commencing the operation of preparing the poison, a cock is first sacrificed to the yakkos or demons.] [Footnote 5: In corroboration of the view propounded elsewhere (see pp. 7, 84, &c.), and opposed to the popular belief that Ceylon, at some remote period, was detached from the continent of India by the interposition of the sea, a list of reptiles will be found at p. 203, including, not only individual species, but whole genera peculiar to the island, and not to be found on the mainland. See a paper by DR. A. GÜNTHER on _The Geog. Distribution of Reptiles_, Magaz. Nat. Hist. for March, 1859, p. 230.] _Blood-suckers_.--These, however, are but the stranger's introduction to innumerable varieties of lizards, all most attractive in their sudden movements, and some unsurpassed in the brilliancy of their colouring, which bask on banks, dart over rocks, and peer curiously out of the decaying chinks of every ruined wall. In all their motion there is that vivid and brief energy, the rapid but restrained action which is associated with their limited power of respiration, and which justifies the accurate picture of-- "The green lizard, rustling thro' the grass, And up the fluted shaft, _with short, quick, spring_ To vanish in the chinks which time has made."[1] [Footnote 1: ROGERS' _Pæstum_.] One of the most beautiful of this race is the _green calotes_[1], in length about twelve inches, which, with the exception of a few dark streaks about the head, is as brilliant as the purest emerald or malachite. Unlike its congeners of the same family, it never alters this dazzling hue, whilst many of them possess the power, like the chameleon, but in a less degree, of exchanging their ordinary colours for others less conspicuous. The _C. ophiomachus_, and another, the _C. versicolor_, exhibit this faculty in a remarkable manner. The head and neck, when the animal is irritated or hastily swallowing its food, becomes of a brilliant red (whence the latter has acquired the name of the "blood-sucker"), whilst the usual tint of the rest of the body is converted into pale yellow. The _sitana_[2], and a number of others, exhibit similar phenomena. [Footnote 1: Calotes viridis, _Gray_.] [Footnote 2: Sitana Ponticereana, _Cuv_.] _Chameleon_.--The true chameleon[1] is found, but not in great numbers, in the dry districts in the north of Ceylon, where it frequents the trees, in slow pursuit of its insect prey. Whilst the faculty of this creature to blush all the colours of the rainbow has attracted the wonder of all ages, sufficient attention has hardly been given to the imperfect sympathy which subsists between the two lobes of the brain, and the two sets of nerves which permeate the opposite sides of its frame. Hence, not only have each of the eyes an action quite independent of the other, but one side of its body would appear to be sometimes asleep whilst the other is vigilant and active: one will assume a green tinge whilst the opposite one is red; and it is said that the chameleon is utterly unable to swim, from the incapacity of the muscles of the two sides to act in concert. [Footnote 1: Chamælio vulgaris, _Daud_.] _Ceratophora_.--A unique lizard, and hitherto known only by two specimens, one in the British Museum, and another in that of Leyden, is the _Ceratophora Stoddartii_, distinguished by the peculiarity of its having no external ear, whilst its muzzle bears on its extremity the horn-like process from which it takes its name. It has recently been discovered by Dr. Kelaart to be a native of the higher Kandyan hills, where it is sometimes seen in the older trees in pursuit of sect larvæ.[1] [Footnote 1: Dr. Kelaart has likewise discovered at Neuera-ellia a _Salea_, distinct from the S. Jerdoni.] _Geckoes_.--But the most familiar and attractive of the class are the _Geckoes_[1], which frequent the sitting-rooms, and being furnished with pads to each toe, are enabled to ascend perpendicular walls and adhere to glass and ceilings. Being nocturnal in their habits, the pupil of the eye, instead of being circular as in the diurnal species, is linear and vertical like those of the cat. As soon as evening arrives, they emerge from the chinks and recesses where they conceal themselves during the day, in search of insects which retire to settle for the night, and are to be seen in every house in keen and crafty pursuit of their prey. In a boudoir where the ladies of my family spent their evenings, one of these familiar and amusing little creatures had its hiding-place behind a gilt picture frame, and punctually as the candles were lighted, it made its appearance on the wall to be fed with its accustomed crumb; and, if neglected, it reiterated its sharp quick call of _chic, chic, chit_, till attended to. It was of a delicate grey colour, tinged with pink; and having by accident fallen on a work-table, it fled, leaving its tail behind it, which, however, it reproduced within less than a month. This faculty of reproduction is doubtless designed to enable the creature to escape from its assailants: the detaching of the limb is evidently its own act; and it is observable, that when reproduced, the tail generally exhibits some variation from its previous form, the diverging spines being absent, the new portion covered with small square uniform scales placed in a cross series, and the scuta below being seldom so distinct as in the original member.[2] In an officer's quarters in the fort of Colombo, a Geckoe had been taught to come daily to the dinner-table, and always made its appearance along with the dessert. The family were absent for some months, during which the house underwent extensive repairs, the roof having been raised, the walls stuccoed, and ceilings whitened. It was naturally surmised that so long a suspension of its accustomed habits would have led to the disappearance of the little lizard; but on the return of its old friends, at their first dinner it made its entrance as usual the instant the cloth had been removed. [Footnote 1: Hemidactylus maculatus, _Dum_. et _Bib., Gray_; H. Leschenaultii, _Dum_. et _Bib_.; H. frenatus, _Schlegel_.] [Footnote 2: _Brit. Mus. Cat_. p. 143; KELAART'S Prod. Faun. Zeylan. p. 183.] _Crocodile_.--The Portuguese in India, like the Spaniards in South America, affixed the name of _lagarto_ to the huge reptiles which infest the rivers and estuaries of both continents; and to the present day the Europeans in Ceylon apply the term _alligator_ to what are in reality _crocodiles_, which literally swarm in the still waters and tanks throughout the northern provinces, but rarely frequent rapid streams, and have never been found in the marshy elevations among the hills. Their instincts in Ceylon present no variation from their habits in other countries. There would appear to be two well-distinguished species in the island, the _Allie Kimboola_[1], the Indian crocodile, which inhabits the rivers and estuaries throughout the low countries of the coasts, attaining the length of sixteen or eighteen feet, and which will assail man when pressed by hunger; and the Marsh crocodile[2], which lives exclusively in fresh water, frequenting the tanks in the northern and central provinces, and confining its attacks to the smaller animals: in length it seldom exceeds twelve or thirteen feet. Sportsmen complain that their dogs are constantly seized by both species; and water-fowl, when shot, frequently disappear before they can be secured by the fowler.[3] The Singhalese believe that the crocodile can only move swiftly on sand or smooth clay, its feet being too tender to tread firmly on hard or stony ground. In the dry season, when the watercourses begin to fail and the tanks become exhausted, the Marsh crocodiles are sometimes encountered wandering in search of water in the jungle; but generally, during the extreme drought, when unable to procure their ordinary food from the drying up of the watercourses, they bury themselves in the mud, and remain in a state of torpor till released by the recurrence of the rains.[4] At Arne-tivoe, in the eastern province, whilst riding across the parched bed of the tank, I was shown the recess, still bearing the form and impress of the crocodile, out of which the animal had been seen to emerge the day before. A story was also related to me of an officer attached to the department of the Surveyor-General, who, having pitched his tent in a similar position, had been disturbed during the night by feeling a movement of the earth below his bed, from which on the following day a crocodile emerged, making its appearance from beneath the matting.[5] [Footnote 1: Crocodilus biporcatus. _Cuvier._] [Footnote 2: Crocodilus palustris, _Less_.] [Footnote 3: In Siam the flesh of the crocodile is sold for food in the markets and bazaars. "Un jour je vis plus de cinquante crocodiles, petits et grands, attachés aux colonnes de leurs maisons. Ils les vendent la chair comme on vendrait de la chair de porc, mais à bien meilleur marché."--PALLEGOIX, _Siam_, vol. i. p. 174.] [Footnote 4: HERODOTUS records the observations of the Egyptians that the crocodile of the Nile abstains from food during the four winter months.--_Euterpe_, lviii.] [Footnote 5: HUMBOLDT relates a similar story as occurring at Calabazo, in Venezuela.--_Personal Narrative_, c. xvi.] The species which inhabits the fresh water is essentially cowardly in its instincts, and hastens to conceal itself on the appearance of man. A gentleman (who told me the circumstance), when riding in the jungle, overtook a crocodile, evidently roaming in search of water. It fled to a shallow pool almost dried by the sun, and, thrusting its head into the mud till it covered up its eyes, it remained unmoved in profound confidence of perfect concealment. In 1833, during the progress of the Pearl Fishery, Sir Robert Wilmot Horton employed men to drag for crocodiles in a pond which was infested with them in the immediate vicinity of Aripo. The pool was about fifty yards in length, by ten or twelve wide, shallowing gradually to the edge, and not exceeding four or five feet in the deepest part. As the party approached the bund, from twenty to thirty reptiles, which had been basking in the sun, rose and fled to the water. A net, specially weighted so as to sink its lower edge to the bottom, was then stretched from bank to bank and swept to the further end of the pond, followed by a line of men with poles to drive the crocodiles forward: so complete was the arrangement, that no individual could evade the net, yet, to the astonishment of the Governor's party, not one was to be found when it was drawn on shore, and no means of escape was apparent or possible except descending into the mud at the bottom of the pond.[1] [Footnote 1: A remarkable instance of the vitality of the common crocodile, _C. biporcatus_, was related to me by a gentleman at Galle: he had caught on a baited hook an unusually large one, which his coolies disembowelled, the aperture in the stomach being left expanded by a stick placed across it. On returning in the afternoon with a view to secure the head, they found that the creature had crawled for some distance, and made its escape into the water.] TESTUDINATA. _Tortoise_,--Of the _testudinata_ the land tortoises are numerous, but present no remarkable features beyond the beautiful marking of the starred variety[1], which is common, in the north-western province around Putlam and Chilaw, and is distinguished by the bright yellow rays which diversify the deep black of its dorsal shield. From one of these which was kept in my garden I took a number of flat ticks (_Ixodes_), which adhered to its fleshy neck in such a position as to baffle any attempt of the animal itself to remove them; but as they were exposed to constant danger of being crushed against the plastron during the protrusion and retraction of the head, each was covered with a horny case almost as resistant as the carapace of the tortoise itself. Such an adaptation of structure is scarcely less striking than that of the parasites found on the spotted lizard of Berar by Dr. Hooker, each of which presented the distinct colour of the scale to which it adhered.[2] [Footnote 1: Testudo stellata, _Schweig_.] [Footnote 2: HOOKER'S _Himalayan Journals_, vol. i. p. 37.] The marshes and pools of the interior are frequented by the terrapins[1], which the natives are in the habit of keeping alive in wells under the conviction that they clear them of impurities. The edible turtle[2] is found on all the coasts of the island, and sells for a few shillings or a few pence, according to its size and abundance at the moment. At certain seasons the turtle on the south-western coast of Ceylon is avoided as poisonous, and some lamentable instances are recorded of death which was ascribed to their use. At Pantura, to the south of Colombo, twenty-eight persons who had partaken of turtle in October, 1840, were seized with sickness immediately, after which coma succeeded, and eighteen died during the night. Those who survived said there was nothing unusual in the appearance of the flesh except that it was fatter than ordinary. Other similarly fatal occurrences have been attributed to turtle curry; but as they have never been proved to proceed exclusively from that source, there is room for believing that the poison may have been contained in some other ingredient. In the Gulf of Manaar turtle is frequently found of such a size as to measure between four and five feet in length; and on one occasion, in riding along the sea-shore north of Putlam, I saw a man in charge of some sheep, resting under the shade of a turtle shell, which he had erected on sticks to protect him from the sun--almost verifying the statement of Ælian, that in the seas off Ceylon there are tortoises so large that several persons may find ample shelter beneath a single shell.[3] [Footnote 1: _Emyda Ceylonensis_, GRAY, _Catalogue_, p. 64, tab. 29 a.; _Mag. Nat. Hist._ p. 265: 1856. Dr. KELAART, in his _Prodromus_ (p. 179), refers this to the common Indian species, _E. punctata_; but Dr. Gray has shown it to be a distinct one. It is generally distributed in the lower parts of Ceylon, in lakes and tanks. It is put into wells to act the part of a scavenger. By the Singhalese it is named _Kiri-ibba_.] [Footnote 2: Chelonia virgata, _Schweig_.] [Footnote 3: "Tiktontai de ara en tautê tê thalattê, kai chelônai megintai, ônper oun ta elytra orophoi ginontai kai gar esti kai mentekaideka pêchôn en chelôneion, hôs hypoikein ouk oligous, kai tous hêlious pyrôiestatous apostegei, kai skian asmetois parechei."--Lib. xvi. c. 17. Ælian copied this statement literatim from MEGASTHENES, _Indica Frag_. lix. 31; and may not Megasthenes have referred to some tradition connected with the gigantic fossilised species discovered on the Sewalik Hills, the remains of which are now in the Museum at the East India House?] The hawksbill turtle[1], which supplies the tortoise-shell of commerce, was at former times taken in great numbers in the vicinity of Hambangtotte during the season when they came to deposit their eggs, and there is still a considerable trade in this article, which is manufactured into ornaments, boxes, and combs by the Moormen resident at Galle. If taken from the animal after death and decomposition, the colour of the shell becomes clouded and milky, and hence the cruel expedient is resorted to of seizing the turtles as they repair to the shore to deposit their eggs, and suspending them over fires till heat makes the plates on the dorsal shields start from the bone of the carapace, after which the creature is permitted to escape to the water.[2] In illustration of the resistless influence of instinct at the period of breeding, it may be mentioned that the same tortoise is believed to return again and again to the same spot, notwithstanding that at each visit she had to undergo a repetition of this torture. In the year 1826, a hawksbill turtle was taken near Hambangtotte, which bore a ring attached to one of its fins that had been placed there by a Dutch officer thirty years before, with a view to establish the fact of these recurring visits to the same beach.[3] [Footnote 1: Chelonia imbricata; _Linn_.] [Footnote 2: At Celebes, whence the finest tortoise-shell is exported to China, the natives kill the turtle by blows on the head, and immerse the shell in boiling water to detach the plates. Dry heat is only resorted to by the unskilful, who frequently destroy the tortoise-shell in the operation.--_Journ. Indian Archipel._ vol. iii. p. 227, 1849.] [Footnote 3: BENNETT'S _Ceylon_, ch. xxxiv.] _Snakes_.--It is perhaps owing to the aversion excited by the ferocious expression and unusual action of serpents, combined with an instinctive dread of attack, that exaggerated ideas prevail both as to their numbers in Ceylon, and the danger to be apprehended from encountering them. The Singhalese profess to distinguish a great many kinds, of which not more than one half have as yet been scientifically identified; but so cautiously do serpents make their appearance, that the surprise of long residents is invariably expressed at the rarity with which they are to be seen; and from my own journeys, through the jungle, often of two to five hundred miles, I have frequently returned without seeing a single snake.[1] Davy, whose attention was carefully directed to the poisonous serpents of Ceylon[2], came to the conclusion that but _four_, out of twenty species examined by him, were venomous, and that of these only two (the _tic-polonga[3]_ and _cobra de capello_[4]) were capable of inflicting a wound likely to be fatal to man. The third is the _caraicilla_[5], a brown snake of about twelve inches in length; and for the fourth, of which only a few specimens have been, procured, the Singhalese have no name in their vernacular,--a proof that it is neither deadly nor abundant. [Footnote 1: Mr. Bennett, who resided much in the south-east of the island, ascribes the rarity of serpents in the jungle to the abundance of the wild peafowl, whose partiality to snakes renders them the chief destroyers of these reptiles.] [Footnote 2: See DAVY'S _Ceylon_, ch. xiv.] [Footnote 3: Dabois elegans, _Grey_.] [Footnote 4: Naja tripadians, _Gunther_.] [Footnote 5: Trigonocephalus hypnale, _Wegl_.] _Cobra de Capello_.--The cobra de capello is the only one exhibited by the itinerant snake-charmers: and the accuracy of Davy's conjecture, that they control it, not by extracting its fangs, but by courageously availing themselves of its accustomed timidity and extreme reluctance to use its fatal weapons, received a painful confirmation during my residence in Ceylon, by the death of one of these performers, whom his audience had provoked to attempt some unaccustomed familiarity with the cobra; it bit him on the wrist, and he expired the same evening. The hill near Kandy, on which the official residences of the Governor and Colonial Secretary had been built, is covered in many places with the deserted nests of the white ants (_termites_), and these are the favourite retreats of the sluggish and spiritless cobra, which watches from their apertures the toads and lizards on which it preys. Here, when I have repeatedly come upon them, their only impulse was concealment; and on one occasion, when a cobra of considerable length could not escape sufficiently quickly, owing to the bank being nearly precipitous on both sides of the road, a few blows from my whip were sufficient to deprive it of life. There is a rare variety which the natives fancifully designate the "king of the cobras;" it has the head and the anterior half of the body of so light a colour, that at a distance it seems like a silvery white.[1] A gentleman who held a civil appointment at Kornegalle, had a servant who was bitten by a snake, and he informed me that on enlarging a hole near the foot of the tree under which the accident occurred, he unearthed a cobra of upwards of three feet long, and so purely white as to induce him to believe that it was an albino. With the exception of the rat-snake[2], the cobra de capello is the only serpent which seems from choice to frequent the vicinity of human dwellings, but it is doubtless attracted by the young of the domestic fowl and by the moisture of the wells and drainage. The Singhalese remark that if one cobra be destroyed near a house, its companion is almost certain to be discovered immediately after,--a popular belief which I had an opportunity of verifying on more than one occasion. Once, when a snake of this description was killed in a bath of Government House at Colombo, its mate was found in the same spot the day after; and again, at my own stables, a cobra of five feet long, having fallen into the well, which was too deep to permit its escape, its companion of the same size was found the same morning in an adjoining drain.[3] On this occasion the snake, which had been several hours in the well, swam with ease, raising its head and hood above water; and instances have repeatedly occurred of the cobra de capello voluntarily taking considerable excursions by sea. When the "Wellington," a government vessel employed in the conservancy of the pearl banks, was anchored about a quarter of a mile from land, in the bay of Koodremalé, a cobra was seen, about an hour before sunset, swimming vigorously towards the ship. It came within twelve yards, when the sailors assailed it with billets of wood and other missiles, and forced it to return to land. The following morning they discovered the track which it had left on the shore, and traced it along the sand till it disappeared in the jungle.[4] On a later occasion, in the vicinity of the same spot, when the "Wellington" was lying at some distance from the shore, a cobra was found and killed on board, where it could only have gained access by climbing up the cable. It was first discovered by a sailor, who felt the chill as it glided over his foot.[5] [Footnote 1: A Singhalese work, the _Sarpa Doata_, quoted in the _Ceylon Times_, January, 1857, enumerates four species of the cobra;--the _raja_, or king; the _velyander_, or trader; the _baboona_, or hermit; and the _goore_, or agriculturist. The young cobras, it says, are not venomous till after the thirteenth day, when they shed their coat for the first time.] [Footnote 2: Coryphodon Blumenbachii. WOLF, in his interesting story of his _Life and Adventures in Ceylon_, mentions that rat-snakes were often so domesticated by the natives as to feed at their table. He says: "I once saw an example of this in the house of a native. It being meal time, he called his snake, which immediately came forth from the roof under which he and I were sitting. He gave it victuals from his own dish, which the snake took of itself from off a fig-leaf that was laid for it, and ate along with its host. When it had eaten its fill, he gave it a kiss and bade it go to its hole." Since the above was written, Major Skinner, writing to me 12th Dec. 1858, mentions the still more remarkable case of the domestication of the cobra de capello in Ceylon. "Did you ever hear," he says, "of tame cobras being kept and domesticated about a house, going in and out at pleasure, and in common with the rest of the inmates? In one family, near Negombo, cobras are kept as protectors, in the place of dogs, by a wealthy man who has always large sums of money in his house. But this is not a solitary case of the kind. I heard of it only the other day, but from undoubtedly good authority. The snakes glide about the house, a terror to thieves, but never attempting to harm the inmates."] [Footnote 3: PLINY notices the affection that subsists between the male and female asp; and that if one of them happens to be killed, the other seeks to avenge its death.--Lib. viii. c. 37.] [Footnote 4: STEWART'S _Account of the Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon_, p. 9: Colombo, 1843. The Python reticulatus (the "rock-snake") has been known like the cobra de capello, to make short voyages at sea. One was taken on board H.M.S. "Hastings," when off the coast of Burmah, in 1853; it is now in the possession of the surgeon, Dr. Scott.] [Footnote 5: SWAINSON, in his _Habits and Instincts of Animals_, c. iv. p. 187, says that instances are well attested of the common English snake having been met with in the open channel; between the coast of Wales and the island of Anglesea, as if they had taken their departure from the one and were bound for the other.] In BENNETT'S account of "_Ceylon and its Capabilities_" there is a curious piece of Singhalese folk-lore, to the effect, that the cobra de capello every time it expends its poison _loses a joint of its tail_, and eventually acquires a head which resembles that of a toad. A recent discovery of Dr. Kelaart has thrown light on the origin of this popular fallacy. The family of "false snakes" (_pseudo-typhlops_), as Schlegel names the group, have till lately consisted of but three species, one only of which was known to inhabit Ceylon. They belong to a family intermediate between the lizards and serpents with the body of the latter, and the head of the former, with which they are moreover identified by having the upper jaw fixed to the skull as in mammals and birds, instead of movable as amongst the true ophidians. In this they resemble the amphisbænidæ; but the tribe of _Uropeltidæ_, or "rough tails," has the further peculiarity, that the tail is truncated, instead of ending, like that of the typhlops, in a point more or less acute; and the reptile assists its own movements by pressing the flat end to the ground. Within a very recent period an important addition has been made to this genus, by the discovery of five new species in Ceylon; in some of which the singular construction of the tail is developed to an extent much more marked than in any previously existing specimen. One of these, the _Uropeltis grandis_ of Kelaart, is distinguished by its dark brown colour, shot with a bluish metallic lustre, closely approaching the ordinary shade of the cobra; and the tail is abruptly and flatly compressed as though it had been severed by a knife. The form of this singular reptile will be best understood by a reference to the accompanying figure; and there can be, I think, little doubt that to its strange and anomalous structure is to be traced the fable of the transformation of the cobra de capello. The colour alone would seem to identify the two reptiles, but the head and mouth are no longer those of a serpent, and the disappearance of the tail might readily suggest the mutilation which the tradition asserts. [Illustration: UROPELTIS GRANDIS] The Singhalese Buddhists, in their religious abstinence from inflicting death on any creature, are accustomed, after securing a venomous snake, to enclose it in a basket of woven palm leaves, and to set it afloat on a river. During my residence in Ceylon, I never heard of the death of a European which was caused by the bite of a snake; and in the returns of coroners' inquests which were made officially to my department, such accidents to the natives appear chiefly to have happened at night, when the animal having been surprised or trodden on, had inflicted the wound in self-defence.[1] For these reasons the Singhalese, when obliged to leave their houses in the dark, carry a stick with a loose ring, the noise[2] of which as they strike it on the ground is sufficient to warn the snakes to leave their path. [Footnote 1: In a return of 112 coroners' inquests, in cases of death from wild animals, held in Ceylon in five years, from 1851 to 1855 inclusive, 68 are ascribed to the bites of serpents; and in almost every instance the assault is set down as having taken place _at night_. The majority of the sufferers were children and women.] [Footnote 2: PLINY notices that the serpent has the sense of hearing more acute than that of sight; and that it is more frequently put in motion by the sound of footsteps than by the appearance of the intruder, "excitatur pede sæpius."--Lib. viii. c. 36.] _The Python_.--The great python[1] (the "boa," as it is commonly designated by Europeans, the "anaconda" of Eastern story), which is supposed to crush the bones of an elephant, and to swallow the tiger, is found, though not of so portentous dimensions, in the cinnamon gardens within a mile of the fort of Colombo, where it feeds on hog-deer and other smaller animals. [Footnote 1: Python reticulatus, _Gray_.] The natives occasionally take it alive, and securing it to a pole expose it for sale as a curiosity. One which was brought to me in this way measured seventeen feet with a proportionate thickness: but another which crossed my path on a coffee estate on the Peacock Mountain at Pusilawa, considerably exceeded these dimensions. Another which I watched in the garden at Elie House, near Colombo, surprised me by the ease with which it erected itself almost perpendicularly in order to scale a wall upwards of ten feet high. Of ten species which ascend the trees to search for squirrels and lizards, and to rifle the nests of birds, one half, including the green _carawilla_, and the deadly _tic polonga_, are believed by the natives to be venomous; but the fact is very dubious. I have heard of the cobra being found on the crown of a coco-nut palm, attracted, it was said, by the toddy which was flowing at the time, as it was the season for drawing it. _Water-Snakes_.--The fresh-water snakes, of which four species have been described as inhabiting the still water and pools, are all harmless in Ceylon. A gentleman, who found near a river an agglutinated cluster of the eggs of one variety _(Tropidonotus umbratus)_, placed them under a glass shade on his drawing-room table, where one by one the young serpents emerged from the shell to the number of twenty. The use of the Pamboo-Kaloo, or snake-stone, as a remedy in cases of wounds by venomous serpents, has probably been communicated to the Singhalese by the itinerant snake-charmers who resort to the island from the coast of Coromandel; and more than one well-authenticated instance of its successful application has been told to me by persons who had been eye-witnesses to what they described. On one occasion, in March, 1854, a friend of mine was riding, with some other civil officers of the government, along a jungle path in the vicinity of Bintenne, when they saw one of two Tamils, who were approaching them, suddenly dart into the forest and return, holding in both hands a cobra de capello which he had seized by the head and tail. He called to his companion for assistance to place it in their covered basket, but, in doing this, he handled it so inexpertly that it seized him by the finger, and retained its hold for a few seconds, as if unable to retract its fangs. The blood flowed, and intense pain appeared to follow almost immediately; but, with all expedition, the friend of the sufferer undid his waistcloth, and took from it two snake-stones, each of the size of a small almond, intensely black and highly polished, though of an extremely light substance. These he applied one to each wound inflicted by the teeth of the serpent, to which the stones attached themselves closely, the blood that oozed from the bites being rapidly imbibed by the porous texture of the article applied. The stones adhered tenaciously for three or four minutes, the wounded man's companion in the meanwhile rubbing his arm downwards from the shoulder towards the fingers. At length the snake-stones dropped off of their own accord; the suffering of the man appeared to have subsided; he twisted his fingers till the joints cracked, and went on his way without concern. Whilst this had been going on, another Indian of the party who had come up took from his bag a small piece of white wood, which resembled a root, and passed it gently near the head of the cobra, which the latter immediately inclined close to the ground; he then lifted the snake without hesitation, and coiled it into a circle at the bottom of his basket. The root by which he professed to be enabled to perform this operation with safety he called the _Naya-thalee Kalinga_ (the root of the snake-plant), protected by which he professed his ability to approach any reptile with impunity. In another instance, in 1853, Mr. Lavalliere, the District Judge of Kandy, informed me that he saw a snake-charmer in the jungle, close by the town, search for a cobra de capello, and, after disturbing it in its retreat, the man tried to secure it, but, in the attempt, he was bitten in the thigh till blood trickled from the wound. He instantly applied the _Pamboo-Kaloo_, which adhered closely for about ten minutes, during which time he passed the root which he held in his hand backwards and forwards above the stone, till the latter dropped to the ground. He assured Mr. Lavalliere that all danger was then past. That gentleman obtained from him the snake-stone he had relied on, and saw him repeatedly afterwards in perfect health. The substances which were used on both these occasions are now in my possession. The roots employed by the several parties are not identical. One appears to be a bit of the stem of an Aristolochia; the other is so dried as to render it difficult to identify it, but it resembles the quadrangular stem of a jungle vine. Some species of Aristolochia, such as the _A. serpentaria_ of North America, are supposed to act as a specific in the cure of snake-bites; and the _A. indica_ is the plant to which the ichneumon is popularly believed to resort as an antidote when bitten[1]; but it is probable that the use of any particular plant by the snake-charmers is a pretence, or rather a delusion, the reptile being overpowered by the resolute action of the operator, and not by the influence of any secondary appliance, the confidence inspired by the supposed talisman enabling its possessor to address himself fearlessly to his task, and thus to effect, by determination and will, what is popularly believed to be the result of charms and stupefaction. Still it is curious that, amongst the natives of Northern Africa, who lay hold of the _Cerastes_ without fear or hesitation, their impunity is ascribed to the use of a plant with which they anoint themselves before touching the reptile[2]; and Bruce says of the people of Sennar that they acquire exemption from the fatal consequences of the bite by chewing a particular root and washing themselves with an infusion of certain plants. He adds that a portion of this root was given him, with a view to test its efficacy in his own person, but that he had not sufficient resolution to undergo the experiment. [Footnote 1: For an account of the encounter between the ichneumon and the venomous snakes of Ceylon, see Pt. II. ch. i. p. 149.] [Footnote 2: Hassellquist.] As to the snake-stone itself, I submitted one, the application of which I have been describing, to Mr. Faraday, and he has communicated to me, as the result of his analysis, his belief that it is "a piece of charred bone which has been filled with blood perhaps several times, and then carefully charred again. Evidence of this is afforded, as well by the apertures of cells or tubes on its surface as by the fact that it yields and breaks under pressure, and exhibits an organic structure within. When heated slightly, water rises from it, and also a little ammonia; and, if heated still more highly in the air, carbon burns away, and a bulky white ash is left, retaining the shape and size of the stone." This ash, as is evident from inspection, cannot have belonged to any vegetable substance, for it is almost entirely composed of phosphate of lime. Mr. Faraday adds that "if the piece of matter has ever been employed as a spongy absorbent, it seems hardly fit for that purpose in its present state; but who can say to what treatment it has been subjected since it was fit for use, or to what treatment the natives may submit it when expecting to have occasion to use it?" The probability is, that the animal charcoal, when instantaneously applied, may be sufficiently porous and absorbent to extract the venom from the recent wound, together with a portion of the blood, before it has had time to be carried into the system; and that the blood which Mr. Faraday detected in the specimen submitted to him was that of the Indian on whose person the effect was exhibited on the occasion to which my informant was an eye-witness. The snake-charmers from the coast who visit Ceylon profess to prepare the snake-stones for themselves, and preserve the composition as a secret. Dr. Davy[1], on the authority of Sir Alexander Johnston, says the manufacture of them is a lucrative trade, carried on by the monks of Manilla, who supply the merchants of India--and his analysis confirms that of Mr. Faraday. Of the three different kinds which he examined--one being of partially burnt bone, and another of chalk, the third, consisting chiefly of vegetable matter, resembled a bezoar,--all of them (except the first, which possessed a slight absorbent power) were quite inert, and incapable of having any effect exclusive of that on the imagination of the patient. Thunberg was shown the snake-stone used by the boers at the Cape in 1772, which was imported for them "from the Indies, especially from Malabar," at so high a price that few of the farmers could afford to possess themselves of it; he describes it as convex on one side black, and so porous that "when thrown into water, it caused bubbles to rise;" and hence, by its absorption, it served, if speedily applied, to extract the poison from the wound.[2] [Footnote 1: _Account of the Interior of Ceylon_, ch. iii. p. 101.] [Footnote 2: _Thunberg_, vol. 1. p. 155.] _Caecilia_.--The rocky jungle, bordering the higher coffee estates, provides a safe retreat for a very singular animal, first introduced to the notice of European naturalists about a century ago by Linnæus, who gave it the name _Caecilia glutinosa_, to indicate two peculiarities manifest to the ordinary observer--an apparent defect of vision, from the eyes being so small and imbedded as to be scarcely distinguishable; and a power of secreting from minute pores in the skin a viscous fluid, resembling that of snails, eels, and some salamanders. Specimens are rare in Europe from the readiness with which it decomposes, breaking down into a flaky mass in the spirits in which it is attempted to be preserved. The creature is about the length and thickness of an ordinary round desk ruler, a little flattened before and rounded behind. It is brownish, with a pale stripe along either side. The skin is furrowed into 350 circular folds, in which are imbedded minute scales. The head is tolerably distinct, with a double row of fine curved teeth for seizing the insects and worms on which it is supposed to live. Naturalists are most desirous that the habits and metamorphoses of this creature should be carefully ascertained, for great doubts have been entertained as to the position it is entitled to occupy in the chain of creation. _Frogs_.--In the numerous marshes formed by the overflowing of the rivers in the vast plains of the low country, there are many varieties of frogs, which, both by their colours and by their extraordinary size, are calculated to excite the surprise of strangers.[1] In the lakes around Colombo and the still water near Trincomalie, there are huge creatures of this family, from six to eight inches in length[2], of an olive hue, deepening into brown on the back and yellow on the under side. The Kandian species, recently described, is much less in dimensions, but distinguished by its brilliant colouring, a beautiful grass green above and deep orange underneath.[3] [Footnote 1: The Indian toad (Bufo melanostictus, _Schneid_) is found In Ceylon, and the belief in its venomous nature is as old as the third century B.C., when the _Mahawanso_ mentions that the wife of "King Asoca attempted to destroy the great bo-tree (at Magadha) _with the poisoned fang of a toad_."--Ch. xx. p. 122.] [Footnote 2: Rana eutipora, and the Malabar bull-frog, R. Malabarica.] [Footnote 3: R. Kandiana, _Kelaart_.] In the shrubberies around my house at Colombo the graceful little hylas[1] were to be found in great numbers, crouching under broad leaves to protect them from the scorching sun; some of them utter a sharp metallic sound at night, similar to that produced by smacking the lips. They possess in a high degree the power of changing their colour; and one which had seated itself on the gilt pillar of a dinner lamp was scarcely to be distinguished from the or-molu to which it clung. They are enabled to ascend glass by means of the suckers at the extremity of their toes. Their food consists of flies and minute coleoptera. [Footnote 1: The tree-frog, Hyla leucomystax, _Gracer_.] _List of Ceylon Reptiles_. I am indebted to Dr. Gray of the British Museum for a more complete enumeration of the reptiles of Ceylon than is to be found in Dr. Kelaart's published lists; but many of those new to Europeans have been carefully described by the latter gentleman in his _Prodromus Faunae Zeylanicae_ and its appendices, as well as in the 13th vol. _Magaz. Nat. Hist._ (1854). Saura. Monitor dracæna, _Linn._ _Hydrosaurus salvator, Wagl._ _Mabouya elegans, Gray_. _Riopa punctata, Linn._ _Hardwichii, Gray_. _Tiliqua rufescens, Shaw_. _Eumeces_ Taprobanius, _Kel._ Nessia Burtoni, _Gray_. _Acontias_ Layardi, _Kelaart_. Argyrophis bramieus, _Daud._ Rhinophis Blythii, _Kelaart_. Mytilia Gerrardii, _Gray_. Templetonii, _Gray_. animaculata, _Gray_. melanogaster, _Gray_. Siluboura Ceylonica, _Cuv._ Uropeltis Saffragamus, _Kelaart_. grandis, _Kelaart_. pardalis, _Kelaart_. Dapatnaya Laukadivana, _Kel._ Trevelyanii, _Kelaart_. Hemidactylus frenatus, _Schleg._ Leschenaultii, _Dum & Bib._ _trihedrus, Less._ maculatus, _Dum & Bib._ Piresii, _Kelaart_. Coctoei, _Dum & Bib._ Peripia Peronii, _Dum & Bib._ Gymnodactylus Kandianus, _Kel._ Sitana Ponticercana, _Cuv._ Lyriocephalus scutatus, _Wagl._ Ceratophora Stoddartii, _Gray_. Salea Jerdoni, _Gray_. Calotes ophiomachus, _Gray_. versicolor, _Dum. & Bib._ Rouxii, _Dum. & Bib._ mystaceus, _Dum. & Bib._ Chamelo vuelgaris, _Daud._ Ophidia. Trimesuras viridis, _Lucep._ Ceylonensis, _Gray_. nigro-marginatus, _Gthr._ Megæra trigonoerphalux, _Latr._ Trigonocephalus hypnalis, _Wagl._ Dabois elegans, _Gray_. Pelamys bicolor, _Doud._ Aturia lapemoides, _Gray_. Hydrophis sublævis, _Gray_. Chersydrus granulatus, _Merr._ Cerberus cinereus, _Gray_. Tropidophis schistosus, _Daud._ Python reticulatus, _Gray_. Cylindrophis rufa, _Gray_. maculata, _Linn._ Aspidura brachyorrhos, _Boie._ Haplocercus Ceylonensis, _Gthr._ Ohgodon subquadratus, _Dum. & Bib._ subgriseus, _Dum. & Bib._ sublineatus, _Dum. & Bib._ Simotes Russellii, _Daud_. purpurascens, _Schleg._ Ablabes collaris, _Gray_. Tropidonotus quincunciatus, _Schleg._ var. funebris. var. carinatus. stolatus, _Linn_. chrysargus, _Boie_. Cynophis Helena, _Daud_. Coryphodon Blumenbachii, _Merr._ Cyclophis calamaria, _Günther_. Chrysopelea ornata, _Shaw_. Dendrophis picta, _Gm._ punctulata, _Gray_. Dryiophis _prasina, Reinw._ Passerita, myeterizans, _Linn_. var. fusca. Dipsas _multimaculata Reinw._ Dipsadomorphus Ceylonensis, _Gray_. Lycodon aulicus, _Dum. & Bib._ Cercaspis carinata, _Kuhl._ Bungarus fascinatus, _Schneid._ Naja tripudians, _Merr._ Chelonia. Testudo stellata, _Schweig._ Emys Sebæ, _Gray_. Emyda Ceylonensis, _Gray_. _Caretta imbrieuta, Limm._ _Chelonia virgata, Schweig._ Emydosauri. Crocodyius biporderes, _Cuv._ palastris, _Less._ BATRACHIA. Rana cutipora, _Dum. & Bib._ Kuhlii, _Schleg._ vittigera, _Wiegm._ robusta, _Blyth._ tigrina, _Daud._ _Leschenaultii, Dum & Bib._ Kandiana, _Kelaart._ Neuera-elliana, _Kelaart._ Rana Malabarica, _Dum. & Bib._ Ixalus variabilis, _Gray._ leucorhinus, _Martens._ poecilopleurus, _Martens._ aurifasciatus, _Dum. & Bib._ Pyxicephalus fodiens, _Jerd._ Polypedates leucomystax, _Gray._ Polypedates microtympanum, _Gray._ eques, _Gray._ _stellata, Kelaart._ _schmardana, Kelaart._ Limnodytes lividus, _Blyth._ macularis, _Blyth._ mutabilis, _Kelaart._ maculatus, _Kelaart._ Bufo melanostictus, _Schneid._ Kelaartii, _Gray._ Engystoma marmoratum, _Cuv._ rubrum, _Jerd._ Kaloula pulchra, _Gray._ balteata, _Günther._ PSEUDOPHIDIA. Cæcilia glutinosa, _Linn._ NOTE.--The following species are peculiar to Ceylon; and the genera Aspidura, Cercaspis, and Haplocercus would appear to be similarly restricted. Trimesurus Ceylonensis, T. nigro-marginatus; Megæra Trigonocephala; Trigonocephalus hypnalis; Daboia elegans; Cylindrophis maculata; Aspidura brachyorrhos; Haplocercus Ceylonensis; Oligodon sublineatus; Cynophis Helena; Cyclophis calamaria; Dipsadomorphus Ceylonensis; Cercaspis carinata; Ixalus variabilis, I. Leucorhinus, I. poecilopleurus; Polypedates microtympanum, P. eques. CHAP. IV. FISHES. Little has been yet done to examine and describe the fishes of Ceylon, especially those which frequent the rivers and inland waters. Mr. Bennett, who was for some years employed in the Civil Service, directed his attention to the subject, and published in 1830 some portions of a projected work on the marine ichthyology of the island[1], but it never proceeded beyond the description of about thirty individuals. The great work of Cuvier and Valenciennes[2] particularises about one hundred species, specimens of which were procured from Ceylon by Reynard Leschenault and other correspondents, but of these not more than half a dozen belong to fresh water. [Footnote 1: _A Selection of the most Remarkable and Interesting Fishes found on the Coast of Ceylon_. By J.W. BENNETT, Esq. London, 1830.] [Footnote 2: _Historie Naturelle des Poissons_.] The fishes of the coast, so far as they have been examined, present few which are not common to the seas of Ceylon and India. A series of drawings, including upwards of six hundred species and varieties, of Ceylon fish, all made from recently-captured specimens, has been submitted to Professor Huxley, and a notice of their general characteristics forms an interesting article in the appendix to the present chapter.[1] [Footnote 1: See note C to this chapter.] Of those in ordinary use for the table the finest by far is the Seir-fish[1], a species of scomber, which is called _Tora-malu_ by the natives. It is in size and form very similar to the salmon, to which the flesh of the female fish, notwithstanding its white colour, bears a very close resemblance both in firmness and flavour. [Footnote 1: Cybium (Scomber, _Linn_.) guttatum.] Mackerel, dories, carp, whitings, mullet, red and striped, perches and soles, are abundant, and a sardine (_Sardinella Neohowii_, Val.) frequents the southern and eastern coast in such profusion that on one instance in 1839 a gentleman, who was present, saw upwards of four hundred thousand taken in a haul of the nets in the little bay of Goyapanna, east of Point-de-Galle. As this vast shoal approached the shore the broken water became as smooth as if a sheet of ice had been floating below the surface.[1] [Footnote 1: These facts serve to explain the story told by the friar ODORIC of Friule, who visited India about the year 1320 A.D., and says there are "fishes in those seas that come swimming towards the said country in such abundance that for a great distance into the sea nothing can be seen but the backs of fishes, which casting themselves on the shore, do suffer men for the space of three daies to come and to take as many of them as they please, and then they return again into the sea."--_Hakluyt_, vol. ii. p. 57.] _Poisonous Fishes_.--The sardine has the reputation of being poisonous at certain seasons, and accidents ascribed to its use are recorded in all parts of the island. Whole families of fishermen who have partaken of it have died. Twelve persons in the jail of Chilaw were thus poisoned about the year 1829; and the deaths of soldiers have repeatedly been ascribed to the same cause. It is difficult in such instances to say with certainty whether the fish were in fault; whether there may not have been a peculiar susceptibility in the condition of the recipients; or whether the mischief may not have been occasioned by the wilful administration of poison, or its accidental occurrence in the brass cooking vessels used by the natives. The popular belief was, however, deferred to by an order passed by the Governor in Council in February, 1824, which, after reciting that "Whereas it appears by information conveyed to the Government that at three several periods at Trincomalie death has been the consequence to several persons from eating the fish called Sardinia during the months of January and December," enacts that it shall not be lawful in that district to catch sardines during these months, under pain of fine and imprisonment. This order is still in force, but the fishing continues notwithstanding.[1] [Footnote 1: There are two species of Sardine at Ceylon; the _S. neohowii_, Val., alluded to above, and the _S. leiogaster_, Val. and Cuv. xx. 270, which was found by Mr. Reynaud at Trincomalie. It occurs also off the coast of Java. Another Ceylon fish of the same group, a Clupea, is known as the "poisonous sprat," the bonito (_Scomber pelamys?_), the kangewena, or unicorn fish (_Balistes?_), and a number of others, are more or less in bad repute from the same imputation.] _Sharks_.--Sharks appear on all parts of the coast, and instances continually occur of persons being seized by them whilst bathing even in the harbours of Trincomalie and Colombo. In the Gulf of Manaar they are taken for the sake of their oil, of which they yield such a quantity that "shark's oil" is now a recognised export. A trade also exists in drying their fins, and from the gelatine contained in them, they find a ready market in China, to which the skin of the basking shark is also sent;--it is said to be there converted into shagreen. _Saw Fish._--The huge saw fish, the _Pristis antiquorum_[1], infests the eastern coast of the island[2], where it attains a length of from twelve to fifteen feet, including the powerful weapon from which its name is derived. [Footnote 1: Two other species are found in the Ceylon waters, _P. cuspidatus_ and _P. pectinatus_.] [Footnote 2: ELIAN mentions, amongst the extraordinary marine animals found in the seas around Ceylon, a fish _with feet instead of fins; [Greek: poias ge mên chêlas ê pteri gia.]_--Lib xvi. c. 18. Does not this drawing of a species of Chironectes, captured near Colombo, justify his description? [Illustration: CHIRONECTES]] But the most striking to the eye of a stranger are those fishes whose brilliancy of colouring has won for them the wonder even of the listless Singhalese. Some, like the Red Sea Perch (_Helocentrus ruber_, Bennett) and the Great Fire Fish[1], are of the deepest scarlet and flame colour; in others purple predominates, as in the _Serranus flavo-cæruleus_; in others yellow, as in the _Chæetodon Brownriggii_[2], and _Acanthurus vittatus_, Bennett[3], and numbers, from the lustrous green of their scales, have obtained from the natives the appropriate name of _Giraway_, or _parrots_, of which one, the _Sparus Hardwickii_ of Bennett, is called the "Flower Parrot," from its exquisite colouring, being barred with irregular bands of blue, crimson, and purple, green, yellow, and grey, and crossed by perpendicular stripes of black. [Footnote 1: _Pterois muricata_, Cuv. and Val. iv. 363. _Scorpæna miles_, Bennett; named, by the Singhalese, "_Maha-rata-gini_," the Great Red Fire, a very brilliant red species spotted with black. It is very voracious, and is regarded on some parts of the coast as edible, while on others it is rejected. Mr. Bennett has given a drawing of this species, (pl. 9), so well marked by the armature of the head. The French naturalists regard this figure as being only a highly-coloured variety of their species "dont l'éclat est occasionné par la saison de l'amour." It is found in the Red Sea and Bourbon and Penang. Dr. CANTOR calls it _Pterois miles_, and reports that it preys upon small crustaceæ.--_Cat. Malayan Fishes_, p. 44.] [Footnote 2: _Glyphisodon Brownriggii_, Cuv. and Val. v. 484; _Chætodon Brownriggii_, Bennett. A very small fish about two inches long, called _Kaha bartikyha_ by the natives. It is distinct from Chætodon, in which Mr. Bennett placed it. Numerous species of this genus are scattered throughout the Indian Ocean. It derives its name from the fine hair-like character of its teeth. They are found chiefly among coral reefs, and, though eaten, are not much esteemed. In the French colonies they are called "Chauffe-soleil." One species is found on the shores of the New World (_G. saxatilis_), and it is curious that Messrs. Quoy and Gaimard found this fish at the Cape de Verde Islands in 1827.] [Footnote 3: This fish has a sharp round spine on the side of the body near the tail; a formidable weapon, which is generally partially concealed within a scabbard-like incision. The fish raises or depresses this spine at pleasure. It is yellow, with several nearly parallel blue stripes on the back and sides; the belly is white, the tail and fins brownish green, edged with blue. It is found in rocky places; and according to Mr. Bennett, who has figured it in his second plate, it is named _Seweya_. It is scarce on the southern coast of Ceylon.] _Fresh-water Fishes._--Of the fresh-water fish, which inhabit the rivers and tanks, so very little has hitherto been known to naturalists[1], that of nineteen drawings sent home by Major Skinner in 1852, although specimens of well-known genera, Colonel Hamilton Smith pronounced nearly the whole to be new and undescribed species. [Footnote 1: In extenuation of the little that is known of the fresh-water fishes of Ceylon, it may be observed that very few of them are used at table by Europeans, and there is therefore no stimulus on the part of the natives to catch them. The burbot and grey mullet are occasionally eaten, but they taste of mud, and are not in request.] Of eight of these, which were from the Mahawelli-ganga, and caught in the vicinity of Kandy, five were carps[1], of which two were _Leucisci_, and one a _Mastacemblus_, to which Col. H. Smith has given the name of its discoverer, _M. Skinneri_[2], one was an _Ophicephalus_, and one a _Polyacanthus_, with no serræ on the gills. Six were from the Kalany-ganga, close to Colombo, of which two were _Helastoma_, in shape approaching the Choetodon; two _Ophicephali_, one a _Silurus_, and one an _Anabas_, but the gills were without denticulation. From the still water of the lake, close to the walls of Colombo, there were two species of _Eleotris_, one _Silurus_ with barbels, and two _Malacopterygians_, which appear to be _Bagri_. [Footnote 1: Of the fresh-water fishes belonging to the family Cyprinidæ, there are about eighteen species from Ceylon in the collection of the British Museum.] [Footnote 2: This fish bears the native name of _Theliya_ in Major Skinner's list; and is described by Colonel Hamilton Smith as being "of the proportions of an eel; beautifully mottled, with eyes and spots of a lighter olive upon a dark green." This so nearly corresponds with a fish of the same name, _Theliya_, which was brought to Gronovius from Ceylon, and proved to be identical with the _Aral_ of the Coromandel coast, that it may be doubtful whether it be not the individual already noted by Cuvier as _Rhyncobdella ocellata_, Cuv. and Val. viii. 445.] In this collection, brought together without premeditation, the naturalist will be struck by the preponderance of those genera which are adapted by nature to endure a temporary privation of moisture; and this, taken in connection with the vicissitudes affecting the waters they inhabit, exhibits a surprising illustration of the wisdom of the Creator in adapting the organisation of His creatures to the peculiar circumstances under which they are destined to exist. So abundant are fish in all parts of the island, that Knox says, not the running streams alone, but the reservoirs and ponds, "nay, every ditch and little plash of water but ankle deep hath fish in it."[1] But many of these reservoirs and tanks are, twice in each year, liable to be evaporated to dryness till the mud of the bottom is converted into dust, and the clay cleft by the heat into gaping apertures. Yet within a very few days after the change of the monsoon, the natives are busily engaged in fishing in those very spots and in the hollows contiguous to them, although entirely unconnected with any pool or running streams; in the way in which Knox described nearly 200 years ago, with a funnel-shaped basket, open at bottom and top, which, as he says, they "jibb down, and the end sticks in the mud, which often happens upon a fish; which, when they feel beating itself against the sides, they put in their hands and take it out, and reive a ratan through their gills, and so let them drag after them."[2] [Footnote 1: KNOX'S _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, Part 1. ch. vii. The occurrence of fish in the most unlooked-for situations, is one of the mysteries of other eastern countries as well as Ceylon and India. In Persia irrigation is carried on to a great extent by means of wells sunk in line in the direction in which it is desired to lead a supply of water, and these are connected by channels, which are carefully arched over to protect them from evaporation. These _kanats_, as they are called, are full of fish, although neither they nor the wells they unite have any connection with streams or lakes.] [Footnote 2: KNOX, _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, Part I. ch. vii.] [Illustration: FROM KNOX'S CEYLON, A.D. 1681] This operation may be seen in the lowlands, which are traversed by the high road leading from Colombo to Kandy, the hollows on either side of which, before the change of the monsoon, are covered with dust or stunted grass; but when flooded by the rains, they are immediately resorted to by the peasants with baskets, constructed precisely as Knox has stated, in which the fish are encircled and taken out by the hand.[1] [Footnote 1: As anglers, the native Singhalese exhibit little expertness; but for fishing the rivers, they construct with singular ingenuity fences formed of strong stakes, protected by screens of ratan, which stretch diagonally across the current; and along these the fish are conducted into a series of enclosures from which retreat is impracticable. Mr. LAYARD, in the _Magazine of Natural History_ for May, 1853, has given a diagram of one of these fish "corrals," as they are called. [Illustration: FISH CORRAL]] So singular a phenomenon as the sudden reappearance of full-grown fishes in places which a few days before had been encrusted with hardened clay, has not failed to attract attention; but the European residents have been contented to explain it by hazarding the conjecture, either that the spawn had lain imbedded in the dried earth till released by the rains, or that the fish, so unexpectedly discovered, fall from the clouds during the deluge of the monsoon. As to the latter conjecture; the fall of fish during showers, even were it not so problematical in theory, is too rare an event to account for the punctual appearance of those found in the rice-fields, at stated periods of the year. Both at Galle and Colombo in the south-west monsoon, fish are popularly thought to have fallen from the clouds during violent showers, but those found on the occasions that give rise to this belief, consist of the smallest fry, such as could be caught up by waterspouts, and vortices analogous to them, or otherwise blown on shore from the surf; whereas those which suddenly appear in the replenished tanks and in the hollows which they overflow, are mature and well-grown fish.[1] Besides, the latter are found, under the circumstances I have described, in all parts of the interior, whilst the prodigy of a supposed fall of fish from the sky has been noticed, I apprehend, only in the vicinity of the sea, or of some inland water. [Footnote 1: I had an opportunity, on one occasion only, of witnessing the phenomenon which gives rise to this popular belief. I was driving in the cinnamon gardens near the fort of Colombo, and saw a violent but partial shower descend at no great distance before me. On coming to the spot I found a multitude of small silvery fish from one and a half to two inches in length, leaping on the gravel of the high road, numbers of which I collected and brought away in my palankin. The spot was about half a mile from the sea, and entirely unconnected with any watercourse or pool. Mr. WHITING, who was many years resident at Trincomalie, writes me that he "had often been told by the natives on that side of the island that it sometimes rained fishes; and on one occasion (he adds) I was taken by them, in 1849, to a field at the village of Karran-cotta-tivo, near Batticaloa, which was dry when I passed over it in the morning, but had been covered in two hours by sudden rain to the depth of three inches in which there was then a quantity of small fish. The water had no connection with any pond or stream whatsoever." Mr. CRIPPS, in like manner, in speaking of Galle, says: "I have seen in the vicinity of the fort, fish taken from rain-water that had accumulated in the hollow parts of land that in the hot season are perfectly dry and parched. The place is accessible to no running stream or tank; and either the fish, or the spawn from which they were produced, must of necessity have fallen with the rain." Mr. J. PRINSEP, the eminent secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, found a fish in the pluviometer at Calcutta, in 1838.--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal_, vol. vi p. 465. A series of instances in which fishes have been found on the continent of India under circumstances which lead to the conclusion that they must have fallen from the clouds, have been collected by Dr. BUIST of Bombay, and will be found in the appendix to this chapter.] The surmise of the buried spawn is one sanctioned by the very highest authority. Mr. YARRELL in his "_History of British Fishes_," adverting to the fact that ponds which had been previously converted into hardened mud, are replenished with small fish in a very few days after the commencement of each rainy season, offers this solution of the problem as probably the true one: "The impregnated ova of the fish of one rainy season, are left unhatched in the mud through the dry season, and from their low state of organisation as ova, the vitality is preserved till the recurrence, and contact of the rain and oxygen in the next wet season, when vivification takes place from their joint influence."[1] [Footnote 1: YARRELL, _History of British Fishes_, introd. vol. i. p. xxvi.] This hypothesis, however, appears to have been offered upon imperfect data; for although some fish like the salmon scrape grooves in the sand and place their spawn in inequalities and fissures; yet as a general rule spawn is deposited not beneath but on the surface of the ground or sand over which the water flows, the adhesive nature of each egg supplying the means of attachment. But in the Ceylon tanks not only is the surface of the soil dried to dust after the evaporation of the water, but the earth itself, twelve or eighteen inches deep, is converted into sun-burnt clay, in which, although the eggs of mollusca, in their calcareous covering, are in some instances preserved, it would appear to be as impossible for the ova of fish to be kept from decomposition as for the fish themselves to sustain life. Besides, moisture in such situations is only to be found at a depth to which spawn could not be conveyed by the parent fish, by any means with which we are yet acquainted. But supposing it possible to carry the spawn sufficiently deep, and to deposit it safely in the mud below, which is still damp, whence it could be liberated on the return of the rains, a considerable interval would still be necessary after the replenishing of the ponds with water to admit of vivification and growth. But so far from this interval being allowed to elapse, the rains have no sooner ceased than the fishing of the natives commences, and those captured in wicker cages are mature and full grown instead of being "small fish" or fry, as affirmed by Mr. Yarrell. Even admitting the soundness of his theory, and the probability that, under favourable circumstances, the spawn in the tanks might be preserved during the dry season so as to contribute to the perpetuation of their inhabitants, the fact is no longer doubtful, that adult fish in Ceylon, like some of those that inhabit similar waters both in the New and Old World, have been endowed by the Creator with the singular faculty of providing against the periodical droughts either by journeying overland in search of still unexhausted water, or, on its utter disappearance, by burying themselves in the mud to await the return of the rains. _Travelling Fishes._--It was well known to the Greeks that certain fishes of India possessed the power of leaving the rivers and returning to them again after long migrations[1] on dry land, and modern observation has fully confirmed their statements. The fish leave the pools and nullahs in the dry season, and led by an instinct as yet unexplained, shape their course through the grass towards the nearest pool of water. A similar phenomenon is observable in countries similarly circumstanced. The Doras of Guiana[2] have been seen travelling over land during the dry season in search of their natural element[3], in such droves that the negroes have filled baskets with them during these terrestrial excursions. [Footnote 1: I have collected into a note, which will be found in the appendix to this chapter, the opinions entertained by the Greeks and Romans upon this habit of the fresh-water fishes of India. See note B.] [Footnote 2: _D. Hancockii_, Cuv. et Val.] [Footnote 3: Sir R. Schomburgk's _Fishes of Guiana_, vol. i. pp. 113, 151, 160. Another migratory fish was found by Bose very numerous in the fresh waters of Carolina and in ponds liable to become dry in summer. When captured and placed on the ground, "they _always directed themselves towards the nearest water, which they could not possibly see_, and which they must have discovered by some internal index." They belong to the genus _Hydrargyra_, and are called Swampines.-- KIBBY, _Bridgewater Treatise_, vol i. p. 143. Eels kept in a garden, when August arrived (the period at which instinct impels them to go to the sea to spawn) were in the habit of leaving the pond and were invariably found moving eastward _in the direction of the sea_.--YARRELL, vol. ii. p. 384. Anglers observe that fish newly caught, when placed out of sight of water, always struggle towards it to escape.] Pallegoix in his account of Siam, enumerates three species of fishes which leave the tanks and channels and traverse the damp grass[1]; and Sir John Bowring, in his account of the embassy to the Siamese kings in 1855, states, that in ascending and descending the river Meinam to Bankok, he was amused with the novel sight of fish leaving the river, gliding over the wet banks, and losing themselves amongst the trees of the jungle.[2] [Footnote 1: PALLEGOIX, vol. i. p. 144.] [Footnote 2: Sir J. BOWRING'S _Siam_, vol. i. p. 10.] The class of fishes which possess this power are chiefly those with labyrinthiform pharyngeal bones, so disposed in plates and cells as to retain a supply of moisture, which, whilst crawling on land, gradually exudes so as to keep the gills damp.[1] [Footnote 1: CUVIER and VALENCIENNES, _Hist. Nat. des Poissons, _tom. vii. p. 246.] The individual which is most frequently seen in these excursions in Ceylon is a perch called by the Singhalese _Kavaya_ or _Kawhy-ya_, and by the Tamils _Pannei-eri_, or _Sennal_. It is closely allied to, if not identical with, the _Anabas scandens_ of Cuvier, the _Perca scandens_ of Daldorf. It grows to about six inches in length, the head round and covered with scales, and the edges of the gill-covers strongly denticulated. Aided by the apparatus already adverted to in its head, this little creature issues boldly from its native pools and addresses itself to its toilsome march generally at night or in the early morning, whilst the grass is still damp with the dew; but in its distress it is sometimes compelled to travel by day, and Mr. E.L. Layard on one occasion encountered a number of them travelling along a hot and dusty gravel road under the midday sun.[1] [Footnote 1: _Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist_., May, 1853, p. 390. Mr. Morris, the government-agent of Trincomalie, writing to me on this subject in 1856, says--"I was lately on duty inspecting the bund of a large tank at Nade-cadua, which, being out of repair, the remaining water was confined in a small hollow in the otherwise dry bed. Whilst there heavy rain came on, and, as we stood on the high ground, we observed a pelican on the margin of the shallow pool gorging himself; our people went towards him and raised a cry of fish! fish! We hurried down, and found numbers of fish struggling upwards through the grass in the rills formed by the trickling of the rain. There was scarcely water enough to cover them, but nevertheless they made rapid progress up the bank, on which our followers collected about two bushels of them at a distance of forty yards from the tank. They were forcing their way up the knoll, and, had they not been intercepted first by the pelican and afterwards by ourselves, they would in a few minutes have gained the highest point and descended on the other side into a pool which formed another portion of the tank. They were chub, the same as are found in the mud after the tanks dry up." In a subsequent communication in July, 1857, the same gentleman says--"As the tanks dry up the fish congregate in the little pools till at last you find them in thousands in the moistest parts of the beds, rolling in the blue mud which is at that time about the consistence of thick gruel." "As the moisture further evaporates the surface fish are left uncovered, and they crawl away in search of fresh pools. In one place I saw hundreds diverging in every direction, from the tank they had just abandoned to a distance of fifty or sixty yards, and still travelling onwards. In going this distance, however, they must have used muscular exertion sufficient to have taken them half a mile on level ground, for at these places all the cattle and wild animals of the neighbourhood had latterly come to drink; so that the surface was everywhere indented with footmarks in addition to the cracks in the surrounding baked mud, into which the fish tumbled in their progress. In those holes which were deep and the sides perpendicular they remained to die, and were carried off by kites and crows." "My impression is that this migration takes place at night or before sunrise, for it was only early in the morning that I have seen them progressing, and I found that those I brought away with me in chatties appeared quiet by day, but a large proportion managed to get out of the chatties at night--some escaped altogether, others were trodden on and killed." "One peculiarity is the large size of the vertebral column, quite disproportioned to the bulk of the fish. I particularly noticed that all in the act of migrating had their gills expanded."] Referring to the _Anabas scandens_, Mr. Hamilton Buchanan says, that of all the fish with which he was acquainted it is the most tenacious of life; and he has known boatmen on the Ganges to keep them for five or six days in an earthen pot without water, and daily to use what they wanted, finding them as lively and fresh as when caught.[1] Two Danish naturalists residing at Tranquebar, have contributed their authority to the fact of this fish ascending trees on the coast of Coromandel, an exploit from which it acquired its epithet of _Perca scandens_. Daldorf, who was a lieutenant in the Danish East India Company's service, communicated to Sir Joseph Banks, that in the year 1791 he had taken this fish from a moist cavity in the stem of a Palmyra palm, which grew near a lake. He saw it when already five feet above the ground struggling to ascend still higher;--suspending itself by its gill-covers, and bending its tail to the left, it fixed its anal fin in the cavity of the bark, and sought by expanding its body to urge its way upwards, and its march was only arrested by the hand with which he seized it.[2] [Footnote 1: _Fishes of the Ganges_, 4to. 1822.] [Footnote 2: _Transactions Linn. Soc._ vol. iii. p. 63. It is remarkable, however, that this discovery of Daldorf, which excited so great an interest in 1791, had been anticipated by an Arabian voyager a thousand years before. Abou-zeyd, the compiler of the remarkable MS. known since Renandot's translation by the title of the _Travels of Two Mahometans_, states that Suleyman, one of his informants, who visited India at the close of the ninth century, was told there of a fish which, issuing from the waters, ascended the coco-nut palms to drink their sap, and returned to the sea. "On parle d'un poisson de mer que sortant de l'eau, monte sur la cocotier et boit le suc de la plante; ensuite il retourne à la mer." See REINAUD, _Relations des Voyages faits par les Arabes et Persans dans le neuvième siècle_, tom. i. p. 21, tom ii. p. 93.] There is considerable obscurity about the story of this ascent, although corroborated by M. John. Its motive for climbing is not apparent, since water being close at hand it could not have gone for sake of the moisture contained in the fissures of the palm; nor could it be in search of food, as it lives not on fruit but on aquatic insects.[1] The descent, too, is a question of difficulty. The position of its fins, and the spines on its gill-covers, might assist its journey upwards, but the same apparatus would prove anything but a facility in steadying its journey down. The probability is, as suggested by Buchanan, that the ascent which was witnessed by Daldorf was accidental, and ought not to be regarded as the habit of the animal. In Ceylon I heard of no instance of the perch ascending trees[2], but the fact is well established that both it, the _pullata_ (a species of polyacanthus), and others, are capable of long journeys on the level ground.[3] [Footnote 1: Kirby says that it is "in pursuit of certain crustaceans that form its food" (_Bridgewater Treatise_, vol. i. p. 144); but I am not aware of any crustaceans in the island which ascend the palmyra or feed upon its fruit. Birgus latro, which inhabits Mauritius and is said to climb the coco-nut for this purpose, has not been observed in Ceylon.] [Footnote 2: This assertion must be qualified by a fact stated by Mr. E.A. Layard, who mentions that on visiting one of the fishing stations on a Singhalese river, where the fish are caught in staked enclosures, as described at p. 212, and observing that the chambers were covered with netting, he asked the reason, and was told "_that some of the fish climbed up the sticks and got over_."--_Mag. Nat. Hist._ for May 1828, p. 390-1.] [Footnote 3: Strange accidents have more than once occurred in Ceylon arising from the habit of the native anglers; who, having neither baskets nor pockets in which to place what they catch, will seize a fish in their teeth whilst putting fresh bait on their hook. In August 1853, a man carried into the Pettah hospital at Colombo, having a climbing perch, which he thus attempted to hold, firmly imbedded in his throat. The spines of its dorsal fin prevented its descent, whilst those of the gill-covers equally forbade its return. It was eventually extracted by the forceps through an incision in the oesophagus, and the patient recovered. Other similar cases have proved fatal.] _Burying Fishes._--But a still more remarkable power possessed by some of the Ceylon fishes, is that of secreting themselves in the earth in the dry season, at the bottom of the exhausted ponds, and there awaiting the renewal of the water at the change of the monsoon. The instinct of the crocodile to resort to the same expedient has been already referred to[1], and in like manner the fish, when distressed by the evaporation of the tanks, seek relief by immersing first their heads, and by degrees their whole bodies, in the mud; and sinking to a depth at which they find sufficient moisture to preserve life in a state of lethargy long after the bed of the tank has been consolidated by the intense heat of the sun. It is possible, too, that the cracks which reticulate the surface may admit air to some extent to sustain their faint respiration. [Footnote 1: See _ante_, P. II. ch. iii. p. 189.] The same thing takes place in other tropical regions, subject to vicissitudes of draught and moisture. The Protopterus[1] which inhabits the Gambia (and which, though demonstrated by Professor Owen to possess all the essential organisation of fishes, is nevertheless provided with true lungs), is accustomed in the dry season, when the river retires into its channel, to bury itself to the depth of twelve or sixteen inches in the indurated mud of the banks, and to remain in a state of torpor till the rising of the stream after the rains enables it to resume its active habits. At this period the natives of the Gambia, like those of Ceylon, resort to the river, and secure the fish in considerable numbers as they flounder in the still shallow water. A parallel instance occurs in Abyssinia in relation to the fish of the Mareb, one of the sources of the Nile, the waters of which are partially absorbed in traversing the plains of Taka. During the summer its bed is dry, and in the slime at the depth of more than six feet is found a species of fish without scales, different from any known to inhabit the Nile.[2] [Footnote 1: _Lepidosiren annectans_, Owen. See _Linn. Trans._ 1839.] [Footnote 2: This statement will be found in QUATREMERE'S _Memoires sur l'Egypte_, tom. i. p. 17, on the authority of Abdullah ben Ahmed ben Solaim Assouany, in his _History of Nubia_, "Simon, héritier présomptif du royanme d'Alouah, m'a assuré que l'on trouve, dans la vase qui couvre le fond de cette rivière, un grand poisson sans écailles, qui ne ressemble en rien aux poissons du Nil, et que, pour l'avoir, il faut creuser à une toise et plus de profondeur." To this passage there is appended this note:--"Le patriarche Mendes, cité par Legrand (_Relation Hist. d'Abyssinie_, du P. LOBO, p. 212-3) rapporte que le fleuve Mareb, après avoir arrosé une étendue de pays considérable, se perd sous terre; et que quand les Portugais faisaient la guerre dans ce pays, ils fouilloient dans le sable, et y trouvoient de la bonne eau et du bon poison. Au rapport de l'auteur de _l'Ayin Akbery_ (tom. ii. p. 146, ed. 1800), dans le Soubah de Caschmir, près du lieu nommé Tilahmoulah, est une grande pièce de terre qui est inondée pendant la saison des pluies. Lorsque les eaux se sont évaporées, et que la vase est presque sèche, les habitans prennent des bâtons d'environ une aune de long, qu'ils enfoncent dans la vase, et ils y trouvent quantité de grands et petits poissons." In the library of the British Museum there is an unique MS. of MANOEL DE ALMEIDA, written in the sixteenth century, from which Balthasar Tellez compiled his _Historia General de Ethiopia alta_, printed at Coimbra in 1660, and in it the above statement of Mendes is corroborated by Almeida, who says that he was told by João Gabriel, a Creole Portuguese, born in Abyssinia, who had visited the Merab, and who said that the "fish were to be found everywhere eight or ten palms down, and that he had eaten of them."] In South America the "round-headed hassar" of Guiana, _Callicthys littoralis_, and the "yarrow," a species of the family Esocidæ, although they possess no specially modified respiratory organs, are accustomed to bury themselves in the mud on the subsidence of water in the pools during the dry season.[1] The _Loricaria_ of Surinam, another Siluridan, exhibits a similar instinct, and resorts to the same expedient. Sir R. Schomburgk, in his account of the fishes of Guiana, confirms this account of the Callicthys, and says "they can exist in muddy lakes without any water whatever, and great numbers of them are sometimes dug up from such situations." [Footnote 1: See Paper "_on some Species of Fishes and Reptiles in Demerara_," by J. HANDCOOK, Esq., M.D., _Zoological Journal_, vol. iv. p. 243.] In those portions of Ceylon where the country is flat, and small tanks are extremely numerous, the natives in the hot season are accustomed to dig in the mud for fish. Mr. Whiting, the chief civil officer of the eastern province, informs me that, on two occasions, he was present accidentally when the villagers were so engaged, once at the tank of Moeletivoe, within a few miles of Kottiar, near the bay of Trincomalie, and again at a tank between Ellendetorre and Arnetivoe, on the bank of the Vergel river. The clay was firm, but moist, and as the men flung out lumps of it with a spade, it fell to pieces, disclosing fish from nine to twelve inches long, which were full grown and healthy, and jumped on the bank when exposed to the sun light. Being desirous of obtaining a specimen of the fish so exhumed, I received from the Moodliar of Matura, A.B. Wickremeratne, a fish taken along with others of the same kind from a tank in which the water had dried up; it was found at a depth of a foot and a half where the mud was still moist, whilst the surface was dry and hard. The fish which the moodliar sent to me proved to be an Anabas, and closely resembles the _Perca scandens_ of Daldorf. [Illustration: THE ANABAS OF THE DRY TANKS] But the faculty of becoming torpid at such periods is not confined in Ceylon to the crocodiles and fishes, it is equally possessed by some of the fresh-water mollusca and aquatic coleoptera. The largest of the former, the _Ampullaria glauca_, is found in still water in all parts of the island, not alone in the tanks, but in rice-fields and the watercourses by which they are irrigated. There it deposits a bundle of eggs with a white calcareous shell, to the number of one hundred and more in each group, at a considerable depth in the soft mud, under which, when the water is about to evaporate during the dry season, it burrows and conceals itself[1] till the returning rains restore it to liberty, and reproduce its accustomed food. The _Melania Paludina_ in the same way retires during the droughts into the muddy soil of the rice lands; and it can only be by such an instinct that this and other mollusca are preserved when the tanks evaporate, to re-appear in full growth and vigour immediately on the return of the rains.[2] [Footnote 1: A knowledge of this fact was turned to prompt account by Mr. Edgar S. Layard, when holding a judicial office at Point Pedro in 1849. A native who had been defrauded of his land complained before him of his neighbour, who, during his absence, had removed their common landmark by diverting the original watercourse and obliterated its traces by filling it to a level with the rest of the field. Mr. Layard directed a trench to be sunk at the contested spot, and discovering numbers of the Ampullaria, the remains of the eggs, and the living animal which had been buried for months, the evidence was so resistless as to confound the wrongdoer, and terminate the suit.] [Footnote 2: For a similar fact relative to the shells and water beetles in the pools near Rio Janeiro, see DARWIN'S _Nat. Journal_, ch. v. p. 90. BENSON, in the first vol. of _Gleanings of Science_, published at Calcutta in 1829, describes a species of _Paludina_ found in pools, which are periodically dried up in the hot season but reappear with the rains, p. 363. And in the _Journal of the Asiatic Soc. of Bengal_ for Sept. 1832, Lieut. HUTTON, in a singularly interesting paper, has followed up the same subject by a narrative of his own observations at Mirzapore, where in June, 1832, after a few heavy showers of rain, which formed pools on the surface of the ground near a mango grove, he saw the _Paludinæ_ issuing from the ground, "pushing aside the moistened earth and coming forth from their retreats; but on the disappearance of the water not one of them was to be seen above ground. Wishing to ascertain what had become of them, he turned up the earth at the base of several trees, and invariably found the shells buried from an inch to two inches below the surface." Lieut. Hutton adds that the _Ampullariæ_ and _Planorbes_, as well as the _Paludinæ_, are found in similar situations during the heats of the dry season. The British _Pisidea_ exhibit the same faculty (see a monograph in the _Camb. Phil. Trans._ vol. iv.). The fact is elsewhere alluded to in the present work of the power possessed by the land leech of Ceylon of retaining vitality even after being parched to hardness during the heat of the rainless season. Vol. I. ch. vii. p. 312.] Dr. John Hunter[1] has advanced the opinion that hybernation, although a result of cold, is not its immediate consequence, but is attributable to that deprivation of food and other essentials which extreme cold occasions, and against the recurrence of which nature makes a timely provision by a suspension of her functions. Excessive heat in the tropics produces an effect upon animals and vegetables analogous to that of excessive cold in northern regions, and hence it is reasonable to suppose that the torpor induced by the one may be but the counterpart of the hybernation which results from the other. The frost which imprisons the alligator in the Mississippi as effectually cuts him off from food and action as the drought which incarcerates the crocodile in the sun-burnt clay of a Ceylon tank. The hedgehog of Europe enters on a period of absolute torpidity as soon as the inclemency of winter deprives it of its ordinary supply of slugs and insects; and the _Tenrec_[2] of Madagascar, its tropical representative, exhibits the same tendency during the period when excessive heat produces in that climate a like result. [Footnote 1: HUNTER'S _Observations on parts of the Animal Oeconomy_, p. 88.] [Footnote 2: _Centetes ecaudatus_, Illiger.] The descent of the _Ampullaria_, and other fresh-water molluscs, into the mud of the tank, has its parallel in the conduct of the _Bulimi_ and _Helices_ on land. The European snail, in the beginning of winter, either buries itself in the earth or withdraws to some crevice or overarching stone to await the returning vegetation of spring. So, in the season of intense heat, the _Helix Waltoni_ of Ceylon, and others of the same family, before retiring under cover, close the aperture of their shells with an impervious epiphragm, which effectually protects their moisture and juices from evaporation during the period of their æstivation. The Bulimi of Chili have been found alive in England in a box packed in cotton after an interval of two years, and the animal inhabiting a land-shell from Suez, which was attached to a tablet and deposited in the British Museum in 1846, was found in 1850 to have formed a fresh epiphragm, and on being immersed in tepid water, it emerged from its shell. It became torpid again on the 15th November, 1851, and was found dead and dried up in March, 1852.[1] But the exceptions serve to prove the accuracy of Hunter's opinion almost as strikingly as accordances, since the same genera of animals which hybernate in Europe, where extreme cold disarranges their oeconomy, evince no symptoms of lethargy in the tropics, provided their food be not diminished by the heat. Ants, which are torpid in Europe during winter, work all the year round in India, where sustenance is uniform.[2] The Shrews of Ceylon (_Sorex montanus_ and _S. ferrugineus_ of Kelaart) which, like those at home, subsist upon insects, inhabit a region where the equable temperature admits of the pursuit of their prey at all seasons of the year; and hence, unlike those of Europe, they never hybernate. A similar observation applies to the bats, which are dormant during a northern winter when insects are rare, but never become torpid in any part of the tropics. [Footnote 1: _Annals of Natural History_, 1850. See Dr. BAIRD's _Account of Helix desertorum; Excelsior, &c._, ch. i. p. 345.] [Footnote 2: Colonel SYKES has described in the _Entomological Trans._ the operations of an ant which laid up a store of hay against the rainy season.] The bear, in like manner, is nowhere deprived of its activity except when the rigour of severe frost cuts off its access to its accustomed food. On the other hand, the tortoise, which immerses itself in indurated mud during the hot months in Venezuela, shows no tendency to torpor in Ceylon, where its food is permanent; and yet is subject to hybernation when carried to the colder regions of Europe. To the fish in the detached tanks and pools when the heat, by exhausting the water, deprives them at once of motion and sustenance, the practical effect must be the same as when the frost of a northern winter encases them in ice. Nor is it difficult to believe that they can successfully undergo the one crisis when we know beyond question that they may survive the other.[1] [Footnote 1: YARRELL, vol. i. p. 364, quotes the authority of Dr. J. Hunter in his _Animal OEconomy_, that fish, "after being frozen still retain so much of life as when thawed to resume their vital actions;" and in the same volume (_Introd._ vol. i. p. xvii.) he relates from JESSE'S _Gleanings in Natural History_, the story of a gold fish (_Cyprinus auratus_) which, together with the water in a marble basin, was frozen into one solid lump of ice, yet, on the water being thawed, the fish became as lively as usual Dr. RICHARDSON, in the third vol. of his _Fauna Borealis Americana_, says the grey sucking carp found in the fur countries of North America, may be frozen and thawed again without being killed in the process.] _Hot-water Fishes_.--Another incident is striking in connection with the fresh-water fishes of Ceylon. I have mentioned elsewhere the hot springs of Kannea, in the vicinity of Trincomalie, the water in which flows at a temperature varying at different seasons from 85° to 115°. In the stream formed by these wells M. Reynaud found and forwarded to Cuvier two fishes which he took from the water at a time when his thermometer indicated a temperature of 37° Reaumur, equal to 115° of Fahrenheit. The one was an Apogon, the other an Ambassis, and to each, from the heat of its habitat, he assigned the specific name of "Thermalis."[1] [Footnote 1: CUV. and VAL., vol. iii. p. 363. In addition to the two fishes above named, a loche _Cobitis thermalis_, and a carp, _Nuria thermoicos_, were found in the hot-springs of Kannea at a heat 40° Cent., 114° Fahr., and a roach, _Leuciscus thermalis_, when the thermometer indicated 50° Cent., 122° Fahr.--_Ib_. xviii. p. 59, xvi. p. 182, xvii. p. 94. Fish have been taken from a hot spring at Pooree when the thermometer stood at 112° Fahr., and as they belonged to a carnivorous genus, they must have found prey living in the same high temperature.--_Journ. Asiatic Soc. Beng_. vol. vi. p. 465. Fishes have been observed in a hot spring at Manilla which raises the thermometer to 187°, and in another in Barbary, the usual temperature of which is 172°; and Humboidt and Bonpland, when travelling in South America, saw fishes thrown up alive from a volcano, in water that raised the temperature to 210°, being two degrees below the boiling point. PATTERSON'S _Zoology_. Pt. ii p. 211; YARRELL'S _History of British Fishes_, vol. i. In. p. xvi.] _List of Ceylon Fishes._ I. OSSEOUS. Acanthopterygii. _Perca_ argentea, _Bennett_. Apogon roseipinnis, _Cuv. & Val_. Zeylonicus, _Cuv. & Val_. thermalis, _Cuv. & Val_. Ambassis thermalis, _Cuv. & Val_. Serranus biguttatus, _Cuv. & Val_. Tankervillæ, _Benn_. lemniscatus, _Cuv. & Val_. Sonneratii, _Cuv. & Val_. flavo-ceruleus, _Lacep_. marginalis, _Cuv. & Val_. Boelang, _Cuv. & Val_. Serranus faveatus, _Cuv. & Val_. angularis, _Cuv. & Val_. punctulatas, _Cuv. & Val_. Diacope decem-lineatus, _Cuv. & Val_. spilura, _Benn_. xanthopus, _Cuv. & Val_. Mesoprion annularis, _Cuv. & Val_. Holocentrus orientale, _Cuv. & Val_. spinifera, _Cuv. & Val_. argenteus, _Cuv. & Val_. Upeneus tæniopterus, _Cuv. & Val_. Zeylonicus, _Cuv. & Val_. Russeli, _Cuv. & Val_. cinnabarinus, _Cuv. & Val_. Platycephalus punctatus, _Cuv. & Val_. scaber, _Linn_. tuberculatus, _Cuv. & Val_. serratus, _Cuv. & Val_. Pterois volitans, _Gm_. muricata, _Cuv. & Val_. Diagramma cinerascens, _Cuv. & Val_. Blochii, _Cuv. & Val_. poeciloptera, _Cuv. & Val_. Cuvieri, _Benn_. Sibbaldi, _E. Benn_. Lobotes crate, _Cuv. & Val_. Scolopsides bimaculatus, _Rupp_. Amphiprion Clarkii, _J. Benn_. Dascyllus aruanus, _Cuv. & Val_. Glyphisodon Rahti, _Cuv. & Val_. Brownrigii, _Benn_. _Sparus_ Hardwickii, _J. Benn_. Pagrus longifilis, _Cuv. & Val_. Lethrinus opercularis, _Cuv. & Val_. fasciatus, _Cuv. & Val_. frænatus, _Cuv. & Val_. cythrurus, _Cuv. & Val_. cinereus, _Cuv. & Val_. Smaris balteatus, _Cuv. & Val_. Cæsio coerulaureus, _Lacep_. Gerres oblongus, _Cuv. & Val_. Chætodon vagabundus, _Linn_. Sebanus, _Cuv. & Val_. Layardi, _Blyth_. xanthocephalus, _E. Bennett_. guttatissimus, _E. Benn_. Hæniochus macrolepidotus, _Linn_. Scatophagus argus, _Cuv. & Val_. Holacanthus xanthurus, _E. Benn_. Platax Raynaldi, _Cuv. & Val_. ocellatus _Cuv. & Val_. Ehrenbergii, _Cuv. & Val_. Anabas _scandens_, _Dald_. _Helostoma_. _Polyacanthus_. _Ophicephalus_. Cybium guttatum, _Bloeh_. Chorinemus moadetta, _Ehren_. Rhynchobdella ocellata, _Cuv. & Val_. Mastocemblus Skinneri, _H. Smith_. Caranx Heberi, _J. Benn_. speciosus, _Forsk_. Rhombus triocellatus, _Cuv. & Val_. Equula dacer, _Cuv. & Val_. filigera, _Cuv. & Val_. Amphacanthus javus, _Linn_. sutor, _Cuv. & Val_. Acanthurus xanthurus, _Blyth_. triostegus, _Bloch_. Delisiani, _Cuv. & Val_. lineatus, _Lacep_. melas, _Cuv. & Val_. Atherina duodecimalis, _Cuv. & Val_. _Blennius_. Salarias marmoratus, _Benn_. alticus, _Cuv. & Val_. Eleotris sexguttata, _Cuv. & Val_. Cheironectes hispidus, _Cuv. & Val_. Tautoga fasciata, _Bloch_. Julis lunaris, _Linn_. decussatus, _W. Benn_. formosus, _Cuv. & Val_. quadricolor, _Lesson_. dorsalis, _Quoy & Gaim_. aureomaculatus, _W. Benn_. Ceilanicus, _E. Benn_. Finlaysoni, _Cuv. & Val_. purpureo-lineatus, _Cuv. & Val_. Gomphosus fuscus, _Cuv. & Val_. viridis, _W. Benn_. Scarus pepo, _W. Benn_. harid, _Forsk_. Malacopterygrii (abdominales). _Silurus_. Bagrus albilabris, _Cuv. & Val_. Plotosus lineatus, _Cuv. & Val_. _Cyprinus_. Barbus tor, _Cuv. & Val_. Nuria thermoicos, _Cuv. & Val_. Leuciscus Zeylonicus, _E. Benn_. thermalis, _Cuv. & Val_. Cobitis thermalis, _Cuv. & Val_. Hemirhamphus Reynaldi, _Cuv. & Val_. Georgii, _Cuv. & Val_. Exocoetus evolans, _Linn_. Sardinella leiogaster, _Cuv. & Val_. lineolata, _Cuv. & Val_. Saurus myops, _Val_. Malacopterygii (Sub-brachiati). _Pleuronectes, L._ Malacopterygii (Apoda). _Muræna_. Lophobranchi. _Syngnathus, L._ Plectognathii. Tetraodon ocellatus, _W. Benn_. argyropleura, _E. Bennett_. argentatus, _Blyth_. Balistes biaculeatus, _W. Benn_. Triacanthus biaculeatus, _W. Benn_. II. CARTILAGINOUS _Squabus, L._ Pristis antiquorum, _Lath._ cuspidatus, _Lath._ pectinatus, _Lath._ _Raia, L._ NOTE (A.) INSTANCES OF FISHES FALLING FROM THE CLOUDS IN INDIA. _From the Bombay Times_, 1856. Dr. Buist, after enumerating cases in which fishes were said to have been thrown out from volcanoes in South America and precipitated from clouds in various parts of the world, adduces the following instances of similar occurrences in India. "In 1824," he says, "fishes fell at Meerut, on the men of Her Majesty's 14th Regiment, then out at drill, and were caught in numbers. In July, 1826, live fish were seen to fall on the grass at Moradabad during a storm. They were the common cyprinus, so prevalent in our Indian waters. On the 19th of February, 1830, at noon, a heavy fall of fish occurred at the Nokulhatty factory, in the Daccah zillah; depositions on the subject were obtained from nine different parties. The fish were all dead; most of them were large: some were fresh, others were rotten and mutilated. They were seen at first in the sky, like a flock of birds, descending rapidly to the ground; there was rain drizzling, but no storm. On the 16th and 17th of May, 1833, a fall of fish occurred in the zillah of Futtehpoor, about three miles north of the Jumna, after a violent storm of wind and rain. The fish were from a pound and a half to three pounds in weight, and of the same species as those found in the tanks in the neighbourhood. They were all dead and dry. A fall of fish occurred at Allahabad, during a storm in May, 1835; they were of the chowla species, and were found dead and dry after the storm had passed over the district. On the 20th of September, 1839, after a smart shower of rain, a quantity of live fish, about three inches in length and all of the same kind, fell at the Sunderbunds, about twenty miles south of Calcutta. On this occasion it was remarked that the fish did not fall here and there irregularly over the ground, but in a continuous straight line, not more than a span in breadth. The vast multitudes of fish, with which the low grounds round Bombay are covered, about a week or ten days after the first burst of the monsoon, appear to be derived from the adjoining pools or rivulets and not to descend from the sky. They are not, so far as I know, found in the higher parts of the island. I have never seen them, though I have watched carefully, in casks collecting water from the roofs of buildings, or heard of them on the decks or awnings of vessels in the harbour, where they must have appeared had they descended from the sky. One of the most remarkable phenomena of this kind occurred during a tremendous deluge of rain at Kattywar, on the 25th of July, 1850, when the ground around Rajkote was found literally covered with fish; some of them were found on the tops of haystacks, where probably they had been drifted by the storm. In the course of twenty-four successive hours twenty-seven inches of rain fell, thirty-five fell in twenty-six hours, seven inches within one hour and a half, being the heaviest fall on record. At Poonah, on the 3rd of August, 1852, after a very heavy fall of rain, multitudes of fish were caught on the ground in the cantonments, full half a mile from the nearest stream. If showers of fish are to be explained on the assumption that they are carried up by squalls or violent winds, from rivers or spaces of water not far away from where they fall, it would be nothing wonderful were they seen to descend from the air during the furious squalls which occasionally occur in June." * * * * * NOTE (B.) MIGRATION OF FISHES OVER LAND. _Opinions of the Greeks and Romans_. It is an illustration of the eagerness with which, after the expedition of Alexander the Great, particulars connected with the natural history of India were sought for and arranged by the Greeks, that in the works both of ARISTOTLE and THEOPHRASTUS the facts are recorded of the fishes in the Indian rivers migrating in search of water, of their burying themselves in the mud on its failure, of their being dug out thence alive during the dry season, and of their spontaneous reappearance on the return of the rains. The earliest notice is in the treatise of ARISTOTLE _De Respiratione_, chap. ix., who mentions the strange discovery of living fish found beneath the surface of the soil, [Greek: tôn ichthuôn oi polloi zôsin en tê gê, akinêtizontes mentoi, kai euriskontai oruttomenoi]; and in his History of Animals he conjectures that in ponds periodically dried the ova of the fish so buried become vivified at the change of the season.[1] HERODOTUS had previously hazarded a similar theory to account for the sudden appearance of fry in the Egyptian marshes on the rising of the Nile; but the cases are not parallel. THEOPHRASTUS, the friend and pupil of Aristotle, gave importance to the subject by devoting to it his essay [Greek: Peri tês tôn ichthyôn en zêrô diamonês], _De Piscibus in sicco degentibus_. In this, after adverting to the fish called _exocoetus_, from its habit of going on shore to sleep, [Greek: apo tês koitês], he instances the small fish ([Greek: ichthydia]), which leave the rivers of India to wander like frogs on the land; and likewise a species found near Babylon, which, when the Euphrates runs low, leave the dry channels in search of food, "moving themselves along by means of their fins and tail." He proceeds to state that at Heraclea Pontica there are places in which fish are dug out of the earth, ([Greek: oryktoi tôn ichthyôn]), and he accounts for their being found under such circumstances by the subsidence of the rivers, "when the water being evaporated the fish gradually descend beneath the soil in search of moisture; and the surface becoming hard they are preserved in the damp clay below it, in a state of torpor, but are capable of vigorous movements when disturbed. In this manner, too," Theophrastus adds, "the buried fish propagate, leaving behind them their spawn, which becomes vivified on the return of the waters to their accustomed bed." This work of Theophrastus became the great authority for all subsequent writers on this question. ATHENÆUS quotes it[2], and adds the further testimony of POLYBIUS, that in Gallia Narbonensis fish are similarly dug out of the ground.[3] STRABO repeats the story[4], and one and all the Greek naturalists received the statement as founded on reliable authority. [Footnote 1: Lib. vi. ch, 15, 16, 17.] [Footnote 2: Lib. viii. ch. 2.] [Footnote 3: Ib. ch. 4.] [Footnote 4: Lib. iv. and xii.] Not so the Romans. LIVY mentions it as one of the prodigies which were to be "expiated," on the approach of a rupture with Macedon, that "in Gallico agro qua induceretur aratrum sub glebis pisces emersisse,"[1] thus taking it out of the category of natural occurrences. POMPONIUS MELA, obliged to notice the matter in his account of Narbon Gaul, accompanies it with the intimation that although asserted by both Greek and Roman authorities, the story was either a delusion or a fraud.[2] JUVENAL has a sneer for the rustic-- "miranti sub aratro Piscibus inventis."--_Sat_. xiii. 63. [Footnote 1: Lib. xlii. ch. 2.] [Footnote 2: Lib. ii ch, 5.] And SENECA, whilst he quotes Theophrastus, adds ironically, that now we must go to fish with a _hatchet_ instead of a hook; "non cum hamis, sed cum dolabra ire piscatum."[1] PLINY, who devotes the 35th chapter of his 9th book to this subject, uses the narrative of Theophrastus, but with obvious caution, and universally the Latin writers treated the story as a fable. [Footnote 1: _Nat. Quæst._ vii 16.] In later times the subject received more enlightened attention, and Beckmann, who in 1736 published his commentary on the collection [Greek: Peri Thaumasiôn akousmátôn], ascribed to Aristotle, has given a list of the authorities about his own times,--Georgius Agricola, Gesner, Rondelet, Dalechamp, Bomare, and Gronovius, who not only gave credence to the assertions of Theophrastus, but adduced modern instances in corroboration of his Indian authorities. * * * * * NOTE (C.) CEYLON FISHES. (_Memorandum, by Professor Huxley._) See p. 205. The large series of beautifully coloured drawings of the fishes of Ceylon, which has been submitted to my inspection, possesses an unusual value for several reasons. The fishes, it appears, were all captured at Colombo, and even had those from other parts of Ceylon been added, the geographical area would not have been very extended. Nevertheless there are more than 600 drawings, and though it is possible that some of these represent varieties in different stages of growth of the same species, I have not been able to find definite evidence of the fact in any of those groups which I have particularly tested. If, however, these drawings represent _six hundred_ distinct species of fish, they constitute, so far as I know, the largest collection of fish from one locality in existence. The number of known British fishes may be safely assumed to be less than 250, and Mr. Yarrell enumerates only 226, Dr. Cantor's valuable work on Malayan fishes enumerates not more than 238, while Dr. Russell has figured only 200 from Coromandel. Even the enormous area of the Chinese and Japanese seas has as yet not yielded 800 species of fishes. The large extent of the collection alone, then, renders it of great importance; but its value is immeasurably enhanced by two circumstances,--the _first_, that every drawing was made while the fish retained all that vividness of colouring which becomes lost so soon after its removal from its native element; _second_, that when the sketch was finished its subject was carefully labelled, preserved in spirits, and forwarded to England, so that at the present moment the original of every drawing can be subjected to anatomical examination, and compared with already named species. Under these circumstances, I do not hesitate to say that the collection is one of the most valuable in existence, and might, if properly worked out, become a large and secure foundation for all future investigation into the ichthyology of the Indian Ocean. It would be very hazardous to express an opinion as to the novelty or otherwise of the species and genera figured without the study of the specimens themselves, as the specific distinctions of fish are for the most part based upon character; the fin-rays, teeth, the operculum, &c., which can only be made out by close and careful examination of the object, and cannot be represented in ordinary drawings however accurate. There are certain groups of fish, however, whose family traits are so marked as to render it almost impossible to mistake even their portraits, and hence I may venture, without fear of being far wrong, upon a few remarks as to the general features of the ichthyological fauna of Ceylon. In our own seas rather less than a tenth of the species of fishes belong to the cod tribe. I have not found one represented in these drawings, nor do either Russell or Cantor mention any in the surrounding seas, and the result is in general harmony with the known laws of distribution of these most useful of fishes. On the other hand, the mackerel family, including the tunnies, the bonitos, the dories, the horse-mackerels, &c., which form not more than one sixteenth of our own fish fauna, but which are known to increase their proportion in hot climates, appear in wonderful variety of form and colour, and constitute not less than one fifth of the whole of the species of Ceylon fish. In Russell's catalogue they form less than one fifth, in Cantor's less than one sixth. Marine and other siluroid fishes, a group represented on the continent of Europe, but doubtfully, if at all, in this country, constitute one twentieth of the Ceylon fishes. In Russell's and Cantor's lists they form about one thirtieth of the whole. The sharks and rays form about one seventh of our own fish fauna. They constitute about one tenth or one eleventh of Russell and Cantor's lists, while among these Ceylon drawings I find not more than twenty, or about one thirtieth of the whole, which can be referred to this group of fishes. It must be extremely interesting to know whether this circumstance is owing to accident, or to the local peculiarities of Colombo, or whether the fauna of Ceylon really is deficient in such fishes. The like exceptional character is to be noticed in the proportion of the tribe of flat fishes, or _Pleuronectidæ_. Soles, turbots, and the like, form nearly one twelfth of our own fishes. Both Cantor and Russell give the flat fishes as making one twenty-second part of their collection, while in the whole 600 Ceylon drawings I can find but five _Pleuronectidæ_. When this great collection has been carefully studied, I doubt not that many more interesting distributional facts will be evolved. * * * * * Since receiving this note from Professor Huxley, the drawings in question have been submitted to Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, and that eminent naturalist, after a careful analysis, has favoured me with the following memorandum of the fishes they exhibit, numerically contrasting them with those of China and Japan, so far as we are acquainted with the ichthyology of those seas:-- Cartilaginea. China and Ceylon Japan. Squali 12 15 Raiæ 19 20 Sturiones 0 1 Ostinopterygii. Plectognathi. tetraodontidæ 10 21 balistidæ 9 19 Lophobranchii syngnathidæ 2 2 pegasidæ 0 3 Ctenobranchii lophidæ 1 3 Cyclopodii. echeneidæ 0 1 cyclopteridæ 0 1 gobidæ 7 35 China and Ceylon Japan. Percini. callionymidæ 0 7 uranoscopidæ 0 7 cottidæ 0 13 triglidæ 11 37 polynemidæ 12 3 mullidæ 1 7 percidæ 26 12 berycidæ 0 5 sillaginidæ 3 1 sciænidæ 19 13 hæmulinidæ 6 12 serranidæ 31 38 theraponidæ 8 20 cirrhitidæ 0 2 mænidiæ 37 25 sparidæ 16 17 acanthuridæ 14 6 chætodontidæ 25 21 fistularidæ 2 3 Periodopharyngi. mugilidæ 5 7 anabantidæ 6 15 pomacentridæ 10 11 Pharyngognathi. labridæ 16 35 scomberesocidæ 13 6 blenniidæ 3 8 Scomberina. zeidæ 0 2 sphyrænidæ 5 4 scomberidæ 118 62 xiphiidæ 0 1 cepolidæ 0 5 Heterosomata. platessoideæ 5 22 siluridæ 31 24 cyprinidæ 19 52 scopelinidæ 2 7 salmonidæ 0 1 clupeidæ 43 22 gadidæ 0 2 macruridæ 1 0 Apodes. anguillidæ 8 12 murænidæ 8 6 sphagebranchidæ 8 10 CHAP. V. CONCHOLOGY, ETC. I. THE SHELLS OF CEYLON. Allusion has been made elsewhere to the profusion and variety of shells which abound in the seas and inland waters of Ceylon[1], and to the habits of the Moormen, who monopolise the trade of collecting and arranging them in satin-wood cabinets for transmission to Europe. But, although naturalists have long been familiar with the marine testacea of this island, no successful attempt has yet been made to form a classified catalogue of the species; and I am indebted to the eminent conchologist, Mr. Sylvanus Hanley, for the list which accompanies this notice of those found in the island. [Footnote 1: See Vol. II. P. ix. ch. v.] In drawing it up, Mr. Hanley observes that he found it a task of more difficulty than would at first be surmised, owing to the almost total absence of reliable data from which to construct it. Three sources were available: collections formed by resident naturalists, the contents of the well-known satin-wood boxes prepared at Trincomalie, and the laborious elimination of locality from the habitats ascribed to all the known species in the multitude of works on conchology in general. But, unfortunately, the first resource proved fallacious. There is no large collection in this country composed exclusively of Ceylon shells. And the very few cabinets rich in the marine treasures of the island having been filled as much by purchase as by personal exertion, there is an absence of the requisite confidence that all professing to be Singhalese have been actually captured in the island and its waters. The cabinets arranged by the native dealers, though professing to contain the productions of Ceylon, include shells which have been obtained from other islands in the Indian seas; and books, probably from these very facts, are either obscure or deceptive. The old writers content themselves with assigning to any particular shell the too-comprehensive habitat of "the Indian Ocean," and seldom discriminate between a specimen from Ceylon and one from the Eastern Archipelago or Hindustan. In a very few instances, Ceylon has been indicated with precision as the habitat of particular shells, but even here the views of specific essentials adopted by modern conchologists, and the subdivisions established in consequence, leave us in doubt for which of the described forms the collective locality should be retained. Valuable notices of Ceylon shells are to be found in detached papers, in periodicals, and in the scientific surveys of exploring voyages. The authentic facts embodied in the monographs of Reeve, Kuster, Sowerby, and Kienn, have greatly enlarged the knowledge of the marine testacea; and the land and fresh-water mollusca have been similarly illustrated by the contributions of Benson and Layard in the _Annals of Natural History_. The dredge has been used but only in a few insulated spots along the coasts of Ceylon; European explorers have been rare; and the natives, anxious only to secure the showy and saleable shells of the sea, have neglected the less attractive ones of the land and the lakes. Hence Mr. Hanley finds it necessary to premise that the list appended, although the result of infinite labour and research, is less satisfactory than could have been wished. "It is offered," he says, "with diffidence, not pretending to the merit of completeness as a shell-fauna of the island, but rather as a form, which the zeal of other collectors may hereafter elaborate and fill up." Looking at the little that has yet been done, compared with the vast and almost untried field which invites explorers, an assiduous collector may quadruple the species hitherto described. The minute shells especially may be said to be unknown; a vigilant examination of the corals and excrescences upon the spondyli and pearl-oysters would signally increase our knowledge of the Rissoæ, Chemnitziæ, and other perforating testacea, whilst the dredge from the deep water will astonish the amateur by the wholly new forms it can scarcely fail to display. Dr. Kelaart, an indefatigable observer, has recently undertaken to investigate the Nudibranchiata, Inferobranchiata, and Tectibranchiata; and a recently-received report from him, in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, in which he has described fifty-six species,--thirty-three belonging to the genus Doris alone--gives ample evidence of what may be expected from the researches of a naturalist of his acquirements and industry. _List of Ceylon Shells._ The arrangement here adopted is a modified Lamarckian one, very similar to that used by Reeve and Sowerby, and by MR. HANLEY, in his _Illustrated Catalogue of Recent Shells_.[1] [Footnote 1: Below will be found a general reference to the Works or Papers in which are given descriptive notices of the shells contained in the following list; the names of the authors (in full or abbreviated) being, as usual, annexed to each species. ADAMS, _Proceed. Zool. Soc._ 1853, 54, 56; _Thesaur. Conch._ ALBERS, _Zeitsch. Malakoz._ 1853. ANTON, _Wiegm. Arch. Nat._ 1837; _Verzeichn. Conch._ BECK in _Pfeiffer, Symbol. Helic._ BENSON, _Ann. Nat. Hist._ vii. 1851; xii. 1853; xviii. 1856. BLAINVILLE, _Dict. Sc. Nat.; Nouv. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat._ i. BOLTEN, _Mus._ BORN, _Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind._ BRODERIP, _Zool. Journ._ i. iii. BRUGUIDRE, _Ency. Méthod. Vers._ CARPENTER, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1856. CHEMNITZ, _Conch. Cab._ CHENU, _Illus. Conch._ DESHAYES, _Encyc. Méth. Vers.; Mag. Zool._ 1831; _Voy. Belanger; Edit. Lam. An. s. Vert.; Proceed. Zool. Soc._ 1853, 54, 55. DILLWYN, _Descr. Cat. Shells._ DOHRN, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1857, 58; _Malak. Blatter; Land and Fluviatile Shells of Ceylon._ DUCLOS, _Monog. of Oliva_. FABRICIUS, _in Pfeiffer Monog. Helic.; in Dohrn's MSS._ FÉRUSSAC, _Hist. Mollusques._ FORSKÄL, _Anim. Orient._ GMELIN, _Syst. Nat_. GRAY, _Proc. Zool. Soc._ 1834, 52; _Index Testaceologicus Suppl.; Spicilegia Zool.; Zool. Journ._ i.; _Zool. Beechey Voy_. GRATELOUP, _Act. Linn. Bourdeaux_, xi. GUERIN, _Rev. Zool_. 1847. HANLEY, _Thesaur. Conch_. i.; _Recent Bivalves; Proc. Zool. Soc_. 1858. HINDS, _Zool. Voy. Sulphur; Proc. Zool. Soc_. HUTTON, _Journ. As. Soc_. KARSTEN, _Mus. Lesk_. KIENER, _Coquilles Vivantes_. KRAUSS, _Sud-Afrik Mollusk_. LAMARCK, _An. sans Vertéb_. LAYARD, _Proc. Zool. Soc_. 1854. LEA, _Proceed. Zool. Soc_. 1850, LINNÆUS, _Syst. Nat_. MARTINI, _Conch. Cab_. MAWE, _Introd. Linn. Conch.; Index. Test. Suppl_. MEUSCHEN, in _Gronov. Zoophylac_. MENKE, _Synop. Mollus_. MULLER, _Hist. Verm. Terrest_. PETIT, _Pro. Zool. Soc_. 1842. PFEIFFER, _Monog. Helic.; Monog. Pneumon.; Proceed. Zool. Soc_. 1852, 53, 54, 55, 56 _Zeitschr. Malacoz_. 1853. PHILIPPI, _Zeitsch. Mal_. 1846, 47; _Abbild. Neuer Conch_. POTIEZ et MICHAUD, _Galerie Douai_. RANG, _Mag. Zool_. ser. i. p. 100. RÉCLUZ, _Proceed. Zool. Soc_. 1845; _Revue Zool. Cuv_.1841; _Mag. Conch_. REEVE, _Conch. Icon.; Proc. Zool. Soc_. 1842, 52. SCHUMACHER, _Syst_. SHUTTLEWORTH. SOLANDER, in _Dillwyn's Desc. Cat. Shells_. SOWERBY, _Genera Shells; Species Conch.; Conch. Misc.; Thesaur. Conch.; Conch. Illus.; Proc. Zool. Soc.; App. to Tankerville Cat_. SPENGLER, _Skrivt. Nat. Selsk. Kiobenhav_. 1792. SWAINSON, _Zool. Illust_. ser. ii. TEMPLETON, _Ann. Nat. Hist_. 1858. TROSCHEL, in _Pfeiffer, Mon. Pneum; Zeitschr. Malak_. 1847; _Weigm. Arch. Nat_. 1837. WOOD, _General Conch_.] Aspergillum Javanum, _Brug._ Enc. Mét. sparsum, _Sowerby_, Gen. Shells.[1] clavatum, _Chenu_, Illust. Conch. Teredo nucivorus, _Spengl_. Skr. Nat. Sels.[2] Solen truncatus, _Wood_, Gen. Conch. linearis, _Wood_, Gen. Conch. cultellus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. radiatus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Anatina subrostrata, _Lamarck_, Anim. s. Vert. Anatinella Nicobarica, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. Lutraria Egyptiaca, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. Blainvillea vitrea, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab.[3] Scrobicularia angulata, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab.[4] Mactra complanata, _Deshayes_, Proc. Zool. Soc.[5] tumida, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. antiquata, _Reeve_ (as of _Spengler_), Conch. Icon. cygnea, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. Corbiculoides, _Deshayes_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. Mesodesma Layardi, _Deshayes_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. striata, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab.[6] Crassatella rostrata, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. sulcata, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Amphidesma duplicatum, _Sowerby_. Species Conch. Pandora Ceylonica, _Sowerby_, Conch. Mis. Galeomma Layardi. _Deshayes_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. Kellia peculiaris, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. Petricola cultellus, _Deshayes_ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853. Sanguinolaria rosea, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Psammobia rostrata, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. occidens, _Gm_. Systema Naturæ. Skinneri, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon.[7] Layardi, _Desh_. P.Z. Soc. 1854. lunulata, _Desh_. P.Z. Soc. 1854. amethystus, _Wood_, Gen. Conch.[8] rugosa, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert.[9] Tellina virgata, _Linn_. Syst. Nat.[10] rugosa, _Born_. Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. ostracea, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. ala, _Hanley_, Thesaur. Conch. i. inæqualis, _Hanley_, Thesaur. Conch. i. Layardi, _Deshayes_, P.Z. Soc. 1854. callosa, _Deshayes_, P.Z. Soc. 1854. rubra, _Deshayes_, P.Z. Soc. 1854. abbreviata, _Deshayes_, P.Z. Soc. 1854. foliacea, _Linn_. Systema Naturæ. lingua-felis, _Linn_. Systema Naturæ, vulsella, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab.[11] Lucina interrupta, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert.[12] Layardi, _Deshayes_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1855. Donax scortum, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. cuneata, _Linn_. Syst, Nat. faba, _Chem_. Conch. Cab. spinosa, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. paxillus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Cyrena Ceylanica, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. Tennentii, _Hanley_, P. Z. Soc. 1858. Cytherea Erycina, _Linn_. Syst. Nat.[13] meretrix, _Linn_. Syst. Nat.[14] castanea, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. castrensis, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. casta, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. costata, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. læta, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. trimaculata, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Hebræa, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. rugifera, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. scripta, _Linn_. Syst. Nat gibbia, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Meroe, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. testudinalis, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. seminuda, _Anton_. Wiegm. Arch. Nat. 1837. Cytherea seminuda, _Anton._[15] Venus reticulata, _Linn_. Syst. Nat.[16] pinguis, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. recens, _Philippi_, Abbild. Neuer Conch. thiara, _Dillw_. Descriptive Cat. Shells. Malabarica, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. Bruguieri, _Hanley_, Recent Bivalves, papilionacea, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Indica, _Sowerby_, Thesaur. Conch. ii. inflata, _Deshayes_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853.[17] Ceylonensis, _Sowerby_, Thes. Conch. ii. literata, _Linn_. Systema Naturæ, textrix, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab.[18] Cardium unedo, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. maculosum, _Wood_, Gen. Con. leucostomum, _Born_. Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. rugosum, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. biradiatum, _Bruguiere_, Encyc. Méth. Vers. attenuatum, _Sowerby_, Conch. Illust. enode, _Sowerby_, Conch Illust. papyraceum, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. ringiculum, _Sowerby_, Conch. Illust. subrugosum, _Sowerby_, Conch. Illust. latum, _Born_, Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. Asiaticum, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. Cardita variegata, _Bruguiere_, Encyc. Méthod. Vers. bicolor, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Arca rhombea, _Born_, Test. Mus. vellicata, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. cruciata, _Philippi_, Ab. Neuer Conch. decussata, _Reeve_ (as of Sowerby), Conch. Icon.[19] scapha, _Meuschen_, in Gronov. Zoo. Pectunculus nodosus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. pectiniformis, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Nucula mitralis, _Hinds_, Zool. voy. Sul. Layardi, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. Nucula Mauritii (_Hanley_ as of _Hinds_), Recent Bivalves. Unio corrugatus, _Müller_, Hist. Verm Ter.[20] marginalis, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Lithodomus cinnamoneus, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Mytilus viridis, _Linn_. Syst. Nat.[21] bilocularis, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Pinna inflata, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. cancellata, _Mawe_, Intr. Lin. Conch. Malleus vulgaris, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. albus, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Meleagrina margaritifera, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. vexillum, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon.[22] Avicula macroptera, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Lima squamosa, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Pecten plica, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. radula, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. pleuronectes, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. pallium, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. senator, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. histrionicus, _Gm_, Syst. Nat. Indicus, _Deshayes_, Voyage Belanger. Layardi, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Spondylus Layardi, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon, candidus, _Reeve_ (as of _Lam_.) Conch. Icon. Ostrea hyotis, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. glaucina, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Mytiloides, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert, cucullata? var. _Born_. Test. Mus Vind.[23] Vulsella Pholadiformis, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. (immature). Placuna placenta, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Lingula anatina, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Hyalæa tridentata, _For_. Anim. Orient.[24] Chiton, 2 species (_Layard_). Patella Reynaudii, _Deshayes_, Voy. Be. testudinaria, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Emarginula fissurata, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab.[25] _Lam_. Calyptræa (Crucibulum) violascens, _Carpenter_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. Dentalium octogonum, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert aprinum, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Bulla soluta, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab.[26] vexillum, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. Bruguieri, _Adams_, Thes. Conch. elongata, _Adams_, Thes. Conch. ampulla, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Lamellaria (as Marsenia Indica, _Leach_. in Brit. Mus.) allied to L. Mauritiana, if not it. Vaginula maculata, _Templ_. An. Nat. Limax, 2 sp. Parmacella Tennentii, _Templ_.[27] Vitrina irradians, _Pfeiffer_, Hon. Helic. Edgariana, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) membranacea, _Benson_, Annal. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) Helix hæmastoma, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. vittata, _Müller_, Vermium Terrestrium. bistrialis, _Beck_, in Pfeiffer, Symbol. Helic. Tranquebarica, _Fabricius_, in _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Juliana, _Gray_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1834. Waltoni, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1842. Skinneri, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon, vii. corylus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. vii. umbrina, (_Reeve_, as of _Pfeiff_.), Conch. Icon. vii. fallaciosa, _Férassac_ Hist. Mollus. Rivolii, _Deshayes_, Enc. Méth. Vers. ii. Charpentieri, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. erronea, _Albers, Zeitschr_. Mal. 1853. carneola, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. convexiuscula, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. ganoma, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Chenui, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. semidecussata, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. phoenix, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. superba, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Gardneri, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. coriaria, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Layardi, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. concavospira, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. novella, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. verrucula, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. hyphasma, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Emiliana, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Woodiana, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. partita, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. biciliata, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Isabellina, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. trifilosa, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool Soc. 1854. politissima, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. Thwaitesii, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. nepos, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1855. subopaca, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853. subconoidea, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. ceraria. _Benson_, Annals Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) vilipensa, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) perfucata, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) puteolus, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) mononema, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) marcida, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) galerus, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1856 (xviii.) albizonata, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. Nietneri, _Dohrn_, MS.[28] Grevillei, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. Streptaxis Layardi, _Pfeiff._ Mon. Helic. Cingalensis, _Pfeiff._ Monog. Helic. Pupa muscerda, _Benson_, Annals Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) mimula, _Benson_, Ann. Nat Hist. 1856 (xviii.) Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Bulimus trifasciatus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. pullus, _Gray._ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1834. gracilis, _Hutton_, Journ. Asiat. Soc. iii. punctatus, _Anton_, Verzeichn. Conch. Ceylanicus, _Pfeiff_. (? lævis, _Gray_, in Index Testaceologicus.) adumbratus, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. intermedius, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. proletarius, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. albizonatus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. mavortius, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. fuscoventris, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1856 (xviii.) rufopictus, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1856 (xviii.) panos, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) Achatina nitens, _Gray_, Spicilegia Zool. inornata, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. capillacea, _Pfeiff_. Monog, Helic. Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Punctogallana, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. pachycheila, _Benson_. veruina, _Bens_. Ann. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) parabilis, _Bens_. Ann. Nat. Hist 1856 (xviii.) Succinea Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Helic. Auricula Ceylanica, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854.[29] Ceylanica, _Petit_, Proc. Zool Soc. 1842.[30] Layardi, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854.[31] pellucens, _Menke_, Synopsis Moll. Pythia Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_. Zeitschr. Malacoz. 1853. ovata, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. Truncatella Ceylanica, _Pfeiff_ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. Cyclostoma (_Cyclophorus_) Ceylanicum, _Sowerby_, Thes. Conch. involvulum, _Müller_, Verm. Terrest. Menkeanum, _Philippi_, Zeitsch. Mal. 1847. punctatum, _Grateloup_. Act. Lin. Bordeaux (xi.) Loxostoma, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneumon. alabastrum, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneumon. Bairdii, _Pfeiff_. Monog Pneumon. Thwaitesii, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneumon. annulatum, _Troschel_, in Pfeiff. Mon. Pneumon. parapsis, _Bens_. Ann. Nat. Hist 1853 (xii.) parma, _Bens_. Ann. Nat Hist. 1856 (xviii.) cratera, _Bens_. Ann. Nat. Hist 1856 (xviii.) (_Leptopoma_) halophilum, _Benson_, Ann. Nat. Hist. (ser. 2. vii.) 1851. orophilum, _Bens_. Annals Nat. Hist. (ser. 2. xi.) apicatum, _Bens_. Ann. Nat Hist 1856 (xviii.) conulus, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. flammeum, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneumon. semiclausum, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneumon. poecilum, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneumon. elatum, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneumon. Cyclostoma _(Aulopoma)_. Itieri, _Guérin_, Rev. Zool. 1847. helicinum, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. Hoffmeisteri, _Troschel_, Zeitschr. Mal. 1847. grande, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneumon. spheroideum, _Dohrn_, Malak. Blätter. (?) gradatum, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneum. Cyclostoma (_Pterocyclos_). Cingalense, _Bens_. Ann. Nat Hist. (ser. 2. xi.) Troscheli, _Bens_. Ann. Nat. Hist 1851. Cumingii, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneumon. bifrons, _Pfeiff_. Monog. Pneumon. Cataulus Templemani, _Pfeiff_. Mon. Pneu. eurytrema, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. marginatus, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853. duplicatus, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. aureus, _Pfeiff._ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1855. Layardi, _Gray_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. Austenianus _Bens._ Ann. Nat. Hist. 1853 (xii.) Thwaitesii, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. Cumingii, _Pfeiff_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. decorus, _Bens_. Ann. Nat. Hist. 1853. hæmastoma, _Pfeiff_. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1856. Planorbis Coromandelianus, _Fabric_, in _Dorhrn's_ MS. Stelzeneri, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. elegantulus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. Limnæa tigrina, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. pinguis, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. Melania tuberculata, _Müller_, Verm. Ter.[32] spinulosa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. corrugata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. rudis, _Lea_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1850. acanthica, _Lea_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1850. Zeylanica, _Lea_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1850. confusa, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. datura, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. Layardi, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. Paludomus abbreviatus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. clavatus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. dilatatus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. globulosus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. decussatus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. nigricans, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. constrictus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. bicinctus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. phasianinus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. lævis, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. palustris, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. So. 1854. fulguratus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. So. 1857. nasutus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. sphæricus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. So. 1857. solidus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. distinguendus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. Cumingianus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. dromedarius, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. Skinneri, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. Swainsoni, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. So. 1857. nodulosus, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. So. 1857. Paludomus (_Tanalia_). loricatus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. erinaceus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. æreus, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. Layardi, _Reeve_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1852. undatus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Gardneri, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Tennentii, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Reevei, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. violaceus, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. So. 1854. similis, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. funiculatus, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. Paludomus (_Philopotamis_). sulcatus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. regalis, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. Thwaitesii, _Layard_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. Pirena atra, _Linn_. Systema Naturæ. Paludina melanostoma, _Bens_. Ceylanica, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. So. 1857. Bythinia stenothyroides, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. modesta, _Dohrn_, MS. inconspicua, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857. Ampullaria Layardi, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. moesta, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. cinerea, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Woodwardi, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. Tischbeini, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. carinata, _Swainson_, Zool. Illus ser. 2 paludinoides, Cat. _Cristofori & Jan._[33] Malabarica, _Philippi_, in Kust. ed. Chem.[33] Luzonica, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon.[33] Sumatrensis, _Philippi_, in Kust. ed. Chem.[33] Navicella eximia, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon, reticulata, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Livesayi, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858. squamata, _Dohrn_, Proc. Zool. So. 1858. depressa, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Neritina crepidularia, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. melanostoma, _Troschel_, Wiegm. Arch. Nat. 1837. triserialis, _Sowerby_, Conch. Illustr. Colombaria, _Recluz_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1845. Perottetiana, _Recluz_, Revue Zool. Cuvier, 1841. Ceylanensis, _Recluz_, Mag. Conch. 1851. Layardi, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. rostrata, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. reticulata, _Sowerby_, Conch. Illustr. Nerita plicata, _Linn_. Systema Naturæ. costata, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. plexa, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab.[34] Natica aurantia, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. mammilla, _Linn_. Systema Naturæ. picta, _Reeve (as of Recluz)_, Conch. Icon. arachnoidea, _Gm_. Systema Naturæ. lineata, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. adusta, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab f. 1926-7, and _Karsten_.[35] pellis-tigrina, _Karsten_, Mus. Lesk.[36] didyma, _Bolten_, Mus.[37] Ianthina prolongata, _Blainv._, Diction. Sciences Nat. xxiv. communis, _Krauss_, (as of _Lamarck_ in part) Sud-Afrik. Mollusk. Sigaretus. A species (possibly Javanicus) is known to have been collected. I have not seen it. Stomatella calliostoma, _Adams_, Thesaur. Conch Holiotis varia, _Linn._ Systema Naturæ. striata, _Martini_ (as of _Linn._), Conch. Cab. i. semistriata, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Tornatella solidula, _Linn._ Systema Nat. Pyramidella maculosa, _Lam._, Anim. s. Vert. Eulima Martini, _Adams_, Thes. Conch. ii. Siliquaria muricata, _Born_, Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. Scalaria raricostata, _Lam._, Anim. s. Vert. Delphinula laciniata, _Lam._, Anim. s. Vert. distorta, _Linn._, Syst. Nat.[38] Solarium perdix, _Hinds._, Proc. Zool. Soc. Layardi, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854.[39] Rotella vestiaria, _Linn._, Syst. Nat. Phorus pallidulus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. i. Trochus elegantulus, _Gray_, Index Tes. Suppl. Niloticus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Monodonta labio, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. canaliculata, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Turbo versicolor, _Gm._ Syst. Nat. princeps, _Philippi_.[40] Planaxis undulatus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert.[41] Littorina angulifera, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. melanostoma, _Gray_, Zool., Beech. Chemnitzia trilineata, _Adams_, Proc. Zool Soc. 1853.. lirata, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853. Phasianella lineolata, _Gray_, Index Test. Suppl. Turritella bacillum, _Kiener_, Coquilles Vivantes. columnaris, _Kiener_, Coquilles Vivantes. duplicata, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. attenuata, _Reeve_, Syst. Nat. Cerithium fluviatile, _Potiez & Michaud_, Galerie Douai. Layardi (Cerithidea), _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. aluco, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. asperum, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. telescopium, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. palustre obeliscus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. fasciatum, _Brug._, Encycl. Méth. Vers rubus, _Sowerby_ (as of _Martyn_), Thes. Conch. ii. Sowerbyi, _Kiener_, Coquilles Vivantes (teste Sir E. Tennent). Pleurotoma Indica, _Deshayes_, Voyage Belanger. virgo, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Turbinella pyrum, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. rapa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. (the Chank.) cornigera, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. spirillus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Cancellaria trigonostoma, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert.[43] scalata, _Sowerby_, Thesaur. Conch. articularis, _Sowerby_, Thesaur, Conch. Littoriniformis, _Sowerby_, Thes. Conch. contabulata, _Sowerby_, Thes. Conch. Fasciolaria filamentosa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. trapezium, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. Fusus longissimus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. colus, _Linn._ Mus. Lud. Ulricæ. toreuma, _Deshayes_, (as Murex t. _Martyn_). ed. _Lam._ Amin. s. Vert. laticostatus, _Deshayes_, Magas. Zool. 1831. Blosvillei, _Deshayes_, Encyl. Méthod. Vers., ii. Pyrula rapa, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[44] citrina, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. pugilina, _Born_, Test. Mus. Vind.[45] ficus, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. ficoides, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. Ranella crumena, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. spinosa, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. rana, _Linn._ Syst. Nat.[46] margaritula, _Deshayes_, Voy. Belanger. Murex haustellum, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. adustus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. microphyllus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. anguliferus, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. palmarosæ, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. ternispina, _Kiener_, (as of _Lam._), Coquilles Vivantes. tenuispina, _Lam._ Anim. s. Vert. ferrugo, _Mawe_, Index. Test. Suppl.[47] Reeveanus, _Shuttleworth_, (teste _Cuming_) Triton anus, _Linn_, Syst. Nat.[48] mulus, _Dillwyn_, Descript. Cat. Shells. retusus, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. pyrum, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. clavator, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. Ceylonensis, _Sowerby_, Proc. Zool. Soc. lotorium, _Lam_. (not _Linn_.) Anim. s. Vert. lampas, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Pterocera lambis, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. millepeda, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Strombus canarium, _Linn_. Syst. Nat.[49] succinctus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. fasciatus, _Born_, Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. Sibbaldii, _Sowerby_, Thesaur. Conch. t. lentiginosus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. marginatus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Lamarckii, _Sowerby_, Thesaur. Conch. Cassis glauca, _Linn_. Syst. Nat.[50] canaliculata, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Zeylanica, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. areola, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Ricinula alboiabris, _Blainv_. Nouv. Ann. Mus. H. N. i.[51] horrida, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. morus, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Purpura fiscella, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. Persica, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. hystrix, _Lam_. (not _Linn_.) Anim. s. Vert. granatina, _Deshayes_, Voy. Belanger. mancinella, _Lam_. (as of _Linn_.) Anim. s. Vert. bufo, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. carinifera, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Harpa conoidalis, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. minor, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Dolium pomum, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. olearium, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. perdix, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. maculatum, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Nassa ornata, _Kiener_, Coq. Vivantes.[52] verrucosa, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. crenulata, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. olivacea, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. glans, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. arcularia, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. papillosa, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Phos virgatus, _Hinds_, Zool. Sul. Moll. retecosus, _Hinds_, Zool. Sulphur, Moll. senticosus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Buccinum melanostoma, _Sowerly_, App. to Tankerv. Cat. erythrostoma, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Proteus, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. rubiginosum, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. Eburna spirata, _Linn_. Syst. Nat.[53] canaliculata, _Schumacher_, Sys. Anim. s. Vert.[54] Ceylanica, _Bruguiere_, En. Méth. Vers. Bullia vittata, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. lineolata, _Sowerby_, Tankerv. Cat.[55] Melanoides, _Deshayes_, Voy. Belan Terebra chlorata, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. muscaria, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. lævigata, _Gray_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1834. maculata, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. subulata, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. concinna, _Deshayes_, ed. _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. myurus, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. tigrina, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. Cerithina, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Columbella flavida, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. fulgurans, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. mendicaria, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. scripta, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert.(teste _Jay_). Mitra episcopalis, _Dillwyn_, Descript. Cat. Shells. cardinalis, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. crebrilirata, _Reeve_, Conch. Icon. punctostriata, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. insculpta, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854. Layard, _Adams_, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1854.[56] Voluta vexillum, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. Lapponica, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Melo Indicus, _Gm_. Syst. Nat. Marginella Sarda, _Kiener_, Coq. Vivantes. Ovulum ovum, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. verrucosum, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. pudicum, _Adams_, Proc. Zool Soc. 1854. Cypræa Argus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Arabica, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Mauritiana, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. hirundo, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Lynx, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. asellus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. erosa, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. vitellus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. stolida, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. mappa, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. helvola, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. errones, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. cribraria, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. globulus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. clandestina, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. ocellata, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. caurica, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. tabescens, _Solander_, in Dillwyn Descr. Cat. Shells. gangrenosa, _Solander_, in Dillwyn Desc. Cat. Shells. interrupta, _Gray_, Zool. Journ. i. lentiginosa, _Gray_, Zool. Journ. i. pyriformis, _Gray_, Zool. Journ. i. nivosa, _Broderip_, Zool. Journ. iii. poraria, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. testudinaria, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Terebellum subulatum, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Ancillaria glabrata, _Linn_. Syst Nat. candida, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Oliva Maura, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. erythrostoma, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert, gibbosa, _Born_, Test. Mus. Cæs.[57] nebulosa, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. Macleayana, _Duclos_, Monograph of Oliva. episcopalis, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert, elegans, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert, ispidula, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. (partly).[58] Zeilanica, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert, undata, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. frisans, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert, (teste _Duclos_). Conus miles, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. generalis, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. betulinus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. stercus-muscarum, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Hebræus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. virgo, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. geographicus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. aulicus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. figulinus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. striatus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. senator, _Linn_. Syst. Nat.[58] literatus, _Linn_. Syst. Nat imperialis, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. textile, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. terebra, _Born_, Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. tessellatus, _Born_, Test. Mus. Cæs. Vind. Augur, _Bruguiere_, Encycl. Méth. Vers. obesus, _Bruguiere_ Encycl. Méth. Vers. araneosus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. gubernator, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. monile, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. nimbosus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. eburneus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. vitulinus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. quercinus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. lividus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Omaria, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Maldivus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. nocturnus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Ceylonensis, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. arenatus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Nicobaricus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. glans, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Amadis, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. punctatus, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. minimus, _Reeve_ (as of _Linn_.), Conch. Icon. terminus, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vert. lineatus, _Chemn_. Conch. Cab. episcopus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. verriculum, _Reeve_, Conch. Cab. zonatus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. rattus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. (teste _Chemn_.) pertusus, _Brug_. Encycl. Méth. Vers. Nussatella, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. lithoglyphus, _Brug_. En. Méth. Vers.[59] tulipa, _Linn_. Syst. Nat. Ammiralis, _var. Linn,_ teste _Brug._ Spirula Peronii, _Lam_. Anim. s. Vett. Sepia Hieredda, _Rang_. Magas, Zool, ser. i. p. 100. Sepioteuthis, _Sp_. Loligo, _Sp_. [Footnote 1: A. dichotomum, _Chenu_.] [Footnote 2: Fistulana gregata, _Lam_.] [Footnote 3: Blainvillea, _Hupé_.] [Footnote 4: Latraria tellinoides, _Lam_.] [Footnote 5: I have also seen M. hians of Philippi in a Ceylon collection.] [Footnote 6: M. Taprobanensis, _Index Test. Suppl_.] [Footnote 7: Psammotella Skinneri, _Reeve_.] [Footnote 8: P. cærulescens, _Lam_.] [Footnote 9: Sanguinolaria rugosa, _Lam_.] [Footnote 10: T. striatula of Lamarck is also supposed to be indigenous to Ceylon.] [Footnote 11: T. rostrata, _Lam_.] [Footnote 12: L. divaricata is found, also, in mixed Ceylon collections.] [Footnote 13: C. dispar of Chemnitz is occasionally found in Ceylon collections.] [Footnote 14: C. impudica, _Lam_.] [Footnote 15: As Donax.] [Footnote 16: V. corbis, _Lam_.] [Footnote 17: As Tapes.] [Footnote 18: V. textile, _Lam_.] [Footnote 19: ? Arca Helblingii, _Chemn_.] [Footnote 20: Mr. Cuming informs me that he has forwarded no less than six distinct _Uniones_ from Ceylon to Isaac Lea of Philadelphia for determination or description.] [Footnote 21: M. smaragdinus, _Chemn_.] [Footnote 22: As Avicula.] [Footnote 23: The specimens are not in a fitting state for positive determination. They are strong, extremely narrow, with the beak of the lower valve much produced, the inner edge of the upper valve denticulated throughout. The muscular impressions are dusky brown.] [Footnote 24: An Anomia.] [Footnote 25: The fissurata of Humphreys and Dacosta, pl. 4--E. rubra, _Lamarck_.] [Footnote 26: B. Ceylanica, _Brug_.] [Footnote 27: P. Tennentii. "Greyish brown, with longitudinal rows of rufous spots, forming interrupted bands along the sides. A singularly handsome species, having similar habits to _Limax_. Found in the valleys of the Kalany Ganga, near Ruanwellé."--_Templeton_ MSS.] [Footnote 28: Not far from bistrialis and Ceylanica. The manuscript species of Mr. Dohrn will shortly appear in his intended work upon the land and fluviatile shells of Ceylon.] [Footnote 29: As Ellobium.] [Footnote 30: As Melampus.] [Footnote 31: As Ophicardelis.] [Footnote 32: M. fasciolata, _Olivier_.] [Footnote 33: These four species are included on the authority of Mr. Dohrn.] [Footnote 34: N. exuvia, _Lam_. not _Linn_.] [Footnote 35: Conch. Cab. f. 1926-7, and N. melanostoma, _Lam_. in part.] [Footnote 36: Chemn, Conch. Cab, 1892-3.] [Footnote 37: N. glaucina, _Lam._ not _Linn._] [Footnote 38: Not of _Lamarck_. D. atrata. _Reeve_.] [Footnote 39: Philippia L.] [Footnote 40: Zeit. Mal. 1846 for T. argyrostoma, _Lam._ not _Linn._] [Footnote 41: Buccinum pyramidatum, _Gm._ in part: B. sulcatum, var. C. of _Brug_.] [Footnote 42: Teste Cuming.] [Footnote 43: As Delphinulat.] [Footnote 44: P. papyracea, _Lam._ In mixed collections I have seen the Chinese P. bezoar of _Lamarck_ as from Ceylon.] [Footnote 45: P. vespertilio, _Gm._] [Footnote 46: R. albivaricosa, _Reeve_.] [Footnote 47: M. anguliferus var. _Lam._] [Footnote 48: T. cynocephalus of _Lamarck_ is also met with in Ceylon collections.] [Footnote 49: S. incisus of the Index Testaceologicus (urceus, var. _Sow_. Thesaur.) is found in mixed Ceylon collections.] [Footnote 50: C. plicaria of _Lamarck_, and C. coronulata of _Sowerby_, are also said to be found in Ceylon.] [Footnote 51: As Purpura.] [Footnote 52: N. suturalis, _Reeve_ (as of _Lam_.), is met with in mixed Ceylon collections.] [Footnote 53: E. areolata _Lam_.] [Footnote 54: E. spirata, _Lam_. not _Linn_.] [Footnote 55: B Belangeri, _Kiener_.] [Footnote 56: As Turricula L.] [Footnote 57: 0. utriculus, _Dillwyn_.] [Footnote 58: C. planorbis, _Born_; C, vulpinus, _Lam_.] [Footnote 59: Conus ermineus, _Born_, in part.] A conclusion not unworthy of observation may be deduced from this catalogue; namely, that Ceylon was the unknown, and hence unacknowledged, source of almost every extra-European shell which has been described by Linnæus without a recorded habitat. This fact gives to Ceylon specimens an importance which can only be appreciated by collectors and the students of Mollusca. 2 RADIATA. The eastern seas are profusely stocked with radiated animals, but it is to be regretted that they have as yet received but little attention from English naturalists. Dr. Kelaart has, however, devoted himself to the investigation of some of the Singhalese species, and has given the fruits of his discoveries in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Asiatic Society for 1856-8. Our information respecting the radiata on the confines of the island is, therefore, very scanty; with the exception of the genera[1] examined by him. Hence the notice of this extensive class of animals must be limited to indicating a few of those which exhibit striking peculiarities, or which admit of the most common observation. [Footnote 1: Actinia, 9 sp.: Anthea, 4 sp.; Actinodendron, 3 sp.; Dioscosoma, 1 sp.; Peechea, 1 sp.; Zoanthura, 1 sp.] _Star Fish._--Very large species of _Ophiuridæ_ are to be met with at Trincomalie, crawling busily about, and insinuating their long serpentine arms into the irregularities and perforations in the rocks. To these they attach themselves with such a firm grasp, especially when they perceive that they have attracted attention, that it is next to impossible to procure unmutilated specimens without previously depriving them of life, or at least modifying their muscular tenacity. The upper surface is of a dark purple colour, and coarsely spined; the arms of the largest specimens are more than a foot in length, and very fragile. The star fishes, with immovable rays[1], are not by any means rare; many kinds are brought up in the nets, or may be extracted from the stomachs of the larger market fish. One very large species[2], figured by Joinville in the manuscript volume in the library at the India House, is not uncommon; it has thick arms, from which and the disc numerous large fleshy cirrhi of a bright crimson colour project downwards, giving the creature a remarkable aspect. No description of it, so far as I am aware has appeared in any systematic work on zoology. [Footnote 1: _Asterias_, Linn.] [Footnote 2: _Pentaceros?_] _Sea Slugs._--There are a few species of _Holothuriæ_, of which the trepang is the best known example. It is largely collected in the Gulf of Manaar, and dried in the sun to prepare it for export to China. A good description and figure of it are still desiderata. _Parasitic Worms._--Of these entozoa, the _Filaria medinensis_, or guinea worm, which burrows in the cellular tissue under the skin, is well known in the north of the island, but rarely found in the damper districts of the south and west. In Ceylon, as elsewhere, the natives attribute its occurrence to drinking the waters of particular wells; but this belief is inconsistent with the fact that its lodgment in the human body is almost always effected just above the ankle, which shows that the minute parasites are transferred to the skin of the leg from the moist vegetation bordering the footpaths leading to wells. The creatures are at this period minute, and the process of insinuation is painless and imperceptible. It is only when they attain to considerable size, a foot or more in length, that the operation of extracting them is resorted to, when exercise may have given rise to inconvenience and inflammation. _Planaria_.--In the journal above alluded to, Dr. Kelaart has given descriptions of fifteen species of planaria, and four of a new genus, instituted by him for the reception of those differing from the normal kinds by some peculiarities which they exhibit in common. At Point Pedro, Mr. Edgar Layard met with one on the bark of trees, after heavy rain, which would appear to belong to the subgenus _geoplana_.[1] [Footnote 1: "A curious species, which is of a light brown above, white underneath; very broad and thin, and has a peculiarly shaped tail, half-moon-shaped, in fact, like a grocer's cheese knife."] _Acalephæ_.--Acalephæ[1] are plentiful, so much so, indeed, that they occasionally tempt the larger cetacea into the Gulf of Manaar. In the calmer months of the year, when the sea is glassy, and for hours together undisturbed by a ripple, the minute descriptions are rendered perceptible by their beautiful prismatic tinting. So great is their transparency that they are only to be distinguished from the water by the return of the reflected light that glances from their delicate and polished surfaces. Less frequently they are traced by the faint hues of their tiny peduncles, arms, or tentaculæ; and it has been well observed that they often give the seas in which they abound the appearance of being crowded with flakes of half-melted snow. The larger kinds, when undisturbed in their native haunts, attain to considerable size. A faintly blue medusa, nearly a foot across, may be seen in the Gulf of Manaar, where, no doubt, others of still larger growth are to be found. [Footnote 1: Jellyfish.] The remaining orders, including the corals, madrepores, and other polypi, have yet to find a naturalist to undertake their investigation, but in all probability the species are not very numerous. CHAP. VI INSECTS. Owing to the combination of heat, moisture, and vegetation, the myriads of insects in Ceylon form one of the characteristic features of the island. In the solitude of the forests there is a perpetual music from their soothing and melodious hum, which frequently swells to a startling sound as the cicada trills his sonorous drum on the sunny bark of some tall tree. At morning the dew hangs in diamond drops on the threads and gossamer which the spiders suspend across every pathway; and above the pool dragon flies, of more than metallic lustre, flash in the early sunbeams. The earth teems with countless ants, which emerge from beneath its surface, or make their devious highways to ascend to their nests in the trees. Lustrous beetles, with their golden elytra, bask on the leaves, whilst minuter species dash through the air in circles, which the ear can follow by the booming of their tiny wings. Butterflies of large size and gorgeous colouring flutter over the endless expanse of flowers, and frequently the extraordinary sight presents itself of flights of these delicate creatures, generally of a white or pale yellow hue, apparently miles in breadth, and of such prodigious extension as to occupy hours, and even days, uninterruptedly in their passage--whence coming no one knows; wither going no one can tell.[1] As day declines, the moths issue from their retreats, the crickets add their shrill voices to swell the din; and when darkness descends, the eye is charmed with the millions of emerald lamps lighted up by the fire-flies amidst the surrounding gloom. [Footnote 1: The butterflies I have seen in these wonderful migrations in Ceylon were mostly _Callidryas Hilariæ, C. Alcmeone_, and _C. Pyranthe_, with straggling individuals of the genus _Euploea, E. Coras_, and _E. Prothoe_. Their passage took place in April and May, generally in a north-easterly direction.] No attempt has as yet been made to describe the class systematically, much less to enumerate the prodigious number of species which abound in every locality. Occasional observers have, from time to time, contributed notices of particular families to the Scientific Associations of Europe, but their papers remain undigested, and the time has not yet arrived for the preparation of an Entomology of the island. What Darwin remarks of the Coleoptera of Brazil is nearly as applicable to the same order of insects in Ceylon: "The number of minute and obscurely coloured beetles is exceedingly great; the cabinets of Europe can as yet, with partial exceptions, boast only of the larger species from tropical climates, and it is sufficient to disturb the composure of an entomologist to look forward to the future dimensions of a catalogue with any pretensions to completeness."[l] [Footnote 1: _Nat. Journal_, p. 39.] M. Neitner, a German entomologist, who has spent some years in Ceylon, has recently published, in one of the local periodicals, a series of papers on the Coleoptera of the island, in which every species introduced is stated to be previously undescribed.[1] [Footnote 1: Republished in the _Ann. Nat. Hist_.] COLEOPTERA.--_Buprestidoe; Golden Beetles_.--In the morning the herbaceous plants, especially on the eastern side of the island, are studded with these gorgeous beetles whose golden elytra[1] are used to enrich the embroidery of the Indian zenana, whilst the lustrous joints of the legs are strung on silken threads, and form necklaces and bracelets of singular brilliancy. [Footnote 1: _Sternocera Chrysis; S. sternicornis_.] These exquisite colours are not confined to one order, and some of the Elateridæ[1] and Lamellicorns exhibit hues of green and blue, that rival the deepest tints of the emerald and sapphire. [Footnote 1: Of the family of _Elateridæ_, one of the finest is a Singhalese species, the _Compsosternus Templetonii_, of an exquisite golden green colour, with blue reflections (described and figured by Mr. WESTWOOD in his _Cabinet of Oriental Entomology_, pl. 35, f. 1). In the same work is figured another species of large size, also from Ceylon, this is the _Alaus sordidus_.--WESTWOOD, 1. c. pl. 35, f. 9.] _Scavenger Beetles_.--Scavenger beetles[1] are to be seen wherever the presence of putrescent and offensive matter affords opportunity for the display of their repulsive but most curious instincts; fastening on it with eagerness, severing it into lumps proportionate to their strength, and rolling it along in search of some place sufficiently soft in which to bury it, after having deposited their eggs in the centre. I had frequent opportunities, especially in traversing the sandy jungles in the level plains to the north of the island, of observing the unfailing appearance of these creatures instantly on the dropping of horse dung, or any other substance suitable for their purpose; although not one was visible but a moment before. Their approach through the air is announced by a loud and joyous booming sound, as they dash in rapid circles in search of the desired object, led by their sense of smell, but evidently little assisted by the eye in shaping their course towards it. In these excursions they exhibit a strength of wing and sustained power of flight, such as is possessed by no other class of beetles with which I am acquainted, but which is obviously indispensable for the due performance of the useful functions they discharge. [Footnote 1: _Ateuchus sacer; Copris sagax; C. capucinus_, &c. &c.] _The Coco-nut Beetle._--In the luxuriant forests of Ceylon, the extensive family of Longicorns live in destructive abundance. Their ravages are painfully familiar to the coco-nut planters.[1] The larva of one species of large dimensions, _Batocera rubus_[2], called by the Singhalese "_Cooroominya_" makes its way into the stems of the younger trees, and after perforating them in all directions, it forms a cocoon of the gnawed wood and sawdust, in which it reposes during its sleep as a pupa, till the arrival of the period when it emerges as a perfect beetle. Notwithstanding the repulsive aspect of the large pulpy larvæ of these beetles, they are esteemed a luxury by the Malabar coolies, who so far avail themselves of the privilege accorded by the Levitical law, which permitted the Hebrews to eat "the beetle after his kind."[3] [Footnote 1: There is a paper in the _Journ. of the Asiat. Society of Ceylon_, May, 1845, by Mr. CAPPER, on the ravages perpetrated by these beetles. The writer had recently passed through several coco-nut plantations, "varying in extent from 20 to 150 acres, and about two to three years old; and in these he did not discover a single young tree untouched by the cooroominya."--P. 49.] [Footnote 2: Called also B. _octo-maculatus; Lamia rubus_, Fabr.] [Footnote 3: Leviticus, xi. 22.] _Tortoise Beetles_.--There is one family of insects, the members of which cannot fail to strike the traveller by their singular beauty, the _Cassidiadæ_ or tortoise beetles, in which the outer shell overlaps the body, and the limbs are susceptible of being drawn entirely within it. The rim is frequently of a different tint from the centre, and one species which I have seen is quite startling from the brilliancy of its colouring, which gives it the appearance of a ruby enclosed in a frame of pearl; but this wonderful effect disappears immediately on the death of the insect.[1] [Footnote 1: One species, the _Cassida farinosa_, frequent in the jungle which surrounded my official residence at Kandy, is covered profusely with a snow-white powder, arranged in delicate filaments, which it moves without dispersing: but when dead they fall rapidly to dust.] ORTHOPTERA. _The Soothsayer_.--But the admiration of colours is still less exciting than the astonishment created by the forms in which some of the insect families present themselves, especially the "soothsayers" (_Mantidæ_) and "walking leaves." The latter[1], exhibiting the most cunning of all nature's devices for the preservation of her creatures, are found in the jungle in all varieties of hue, from the pale yellow of an opening bud to the rich green of the full-blown leaf, and the withered tint of decaying foliage. And so perfect is the imitation in structure and articulation, that these amazing insects when at rest are almost indistinguishable from the verdure around them: not the wings alone being modelled to resemble ribbed and fibrous follicles, but every joint of the legs being expanded into a broad plait like a half-opened leaflet. [Footnote 1: _Phyllium siccifolium._] It rests on its abdomen, the legs serving to drag it slowly along, and thus the flatness of its attitude serves still further to add to the appearance of a leaf. One of the most marvellous incidents connected with its organisation was exhibited by one which I kept under a glass shade on my table; it laid a quantity of eggs, that, in colour and shape, were not to be discerned from _seeds_. They were brown and pentangular, with a short stem, and slightly punctured at the intersections. [Illustration: EGGS OF THE LEAF INSECT.] The "soothsayer," on the other hand _(Mantis superstitiosa_ Fab.[1]), little justifies by its propensities the appearance of gentleness, and the attitudes of sanctity, which have obtained for it its title of the praying mantis. Its habits are carnivorous, and degenerate into cannibalism, as it preys on the weaker individuals of its own species. Two which I enclosed in a box were both found dead a few hours after, literally severed limb from limb in their encounter. The formation of the foreleg enables the tibia to be so closed on the sharp edge of the thigh as to amputate any slender substance grasped within it. [Footnote 1: _M. aridifolia_ and _M. extensicollis_, as well as _Empusa gongyloides_, remarkable for the long leaf-like head, and dilatations on the posterior thighs, are common in the island.] _The Stick-insect_--The _Phasmidoe_ or spectres, another class of orthoptera, present as close a resemblance to small branches or leafless twigs as their congeners do to green leaves. The wing-covers, where they exist, instead of being expanded, are applied so closely to the body as to detract nothing from its rounded form, and hence the name which they have acquired of "_walking-sticks_." Like the _Phyllium_, the _Phasma_ lives exclusively on vegetables, and some attain the length of several inches. Of all the other tribes of the _Orthoptera_ Ceylon possesses many representatives; in swarms of cockroaches, grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets. NEUROPTERA. _Dragon-flies._--Of the _Neuroptera_, some of the dragon-flies are pre-eminently beautiful; one species, with rich brown-coloured spots upon its gauzy wings, is to be seen near every pool.[1] Another[2], which dances above the mountain streams in Oovah, and amongst the hills descending towards Kandy, gleams in the sun as if each of its green enamelled wings had been sliced from an emerald.[3] [Footnote 1: _Libellula pulchella._] [Footnote 2: _Euphoea splendens_, Hagen.] [Footnote 3: _Gymnacantha subinterrupta_, Ramb. distinguished by its large size, is plentiful about the mountain streamlets.] _The Ant-lion_.--Of the ant-lion, whose larvæ have earned a bad renown from their predaceous ingenuity, Ceylon has, at least, four species, which seem peculiar to the island.[1] This singular creature, preparatory to its pupal transformation, contrives to excavate a conical pitfall in the dust to the depth of about an inch, in the bottom of which it conceals itself, exposing only its open mandibles above the surface; and here every ant and soft-bodied insect which, curiosity tempts to descend, or accident may precipitate into the trap, is ruthlessly seized and devoured by its ambushed inhabitant. [Footnote 1: _Palpares contrarius_, Walker; _Myrmeleon gravis_, Walker; _M. dirus_, Walker; _M. barbarus_, Walker.] _The White Ant_--But of the insects of this order the most noted are the _white ants_ or termites (which are ants only by a misnomer). They are, unfortunately, at once ubiquitous and innumerable in every spot where the climate is not too chilly, or the soil too sandy, for them to construct their domed edifices. These they raise from a considerable depth under ground, excavating the clay with their mandibles, and moistening it with tenacious saliva[1] until it assume the appearance, and almost the consistency, of sandstone. So delicate is the trituration to which they subject this material, that the goldsmiths of Ceylon employ the powdered clay of the ant hills in preference to all other substances in the preparation of crucibles and moulds for their finer castings; and KNOX says, in his time, "the people used this clay to make their earthen gods of, it is so pure and fine."[2] These structures the termites erect with such perseverance and durability that they frequently rise to the height of ten or twelve feet from the ground, with a corresponding diameter. They are so firm in their texture that the weight of a horse makes no apparent indentation on their solidity; and even the intense rains of the monsoon, which no cement or mortar can long resist, fail to penetrate the surface or substance of an ant hill.[3] [Footnote 1: It becomes an interesting question whence the termites derive the large supplies of moisture with which they not only temper the clay for the construction of their long covered-ways above ground, but for keeping their passages uniformly damp and cool below the surface. Yet their habits in this particular are unvarying, in the seasons of droughts as well as after rain; in the driest and least promising positions, in situations inaccessible to drainage from above, and cut off by rocks and impervious strata from springs from below. Dr. Livingstone, struck with this phenomenon in Southern Africa, asks: "Can the white ants possess the power of combining the oxygen and hydrogen of their vegetable food by vital force so as to form water?"--_Travels_, p. 22. And he describes at Angola an insect (A. goudotti? Bennett.) resembling the _Aphrophora spumaria_; seven or eight individuals of which distil several pints of water every night.--P. 414. It is highly probable that the termites are endowed with some such faculty: nor is it more remarkable that an insect should combine the gases of its food to produce water, than that a fish should decompose water in order to provide itself with gas. FOURCROIX found the contents of the air-bladder in a carp to be pure nitrogen.--_Yarrell_, vol. i. p. 42. And the aquatic larva of the dragon-fly extracts air for its respiration from the water in which it is submerged. A similar mystery pervades the inquiry whence plants under peculiar circumstances derive the water essential to vegetation.] [Footnote 2: KNOX'S _Ceylon_, Part I, ch. vi. p. 24.] [Footnote 3: Dr. HOOKER, in his _Himalayan Journal_ (vol. i. p. 20) is of opinion that the nests of the termites are not independent structures, but that their nucleus is "the debris of clumps of bamboos or the trunks of large trees which these insects have destroyed." He supposes that the dead tree falls leaving the stump coated with sand, _which the action of the weather soon fashions info a cone_. But independently of the fact that the "action of the weather" produces little or no effect on the closely cemented clay of the white ants' nest, they may be daily seen constructing their edifices in the very form of a cone, which they ever after retain. Besides which, they appear in the midst of terraces and fields where no trees are to be seen; and Dr. Hooker seems to overlook the fact that the termites rarely attack a living tree; and although their nests may be built against one, it continues to flourish not the less for their presence.] In their earlier stages the termites proceed with such energetic rapidity, that I have seen a pinnacle of moist clay, six inches in height and twice as large in diameter, constructed underneath a table between sitting down to dinner and the removal of the cloth. As these lofty mounds of earth have all been carried up from beneath the surface, a cave of corresponding dimensions is necessarily scooped out below, and here, under the multitude of cupolas and pinnacles which canopy it above, the termites hollow out the royal chamber for their queen, with spacious nurseries surrounding it on all sides. Store-rooms and magazines occupy the lower apartments, and all are connected by arched galleries, long passages, and doorways of the most intricate and elaborate construction. In the centre and underneath the spacious dome is the recess for the queen--a hideous creature, with the head and thorax of an ordinary termite, but a body swollen to a hundred times its usual and proportionate bulk, and presenting the appearance of a mass of shapeless pulp. From this great progenitrix proceed the myriads which people the subterranean hive, consisting, like the communities of the genuine ants, of labourers and soldiers, which are destined never to acquire a fuller development than that of larvas, and the perfect insects which in due time become invested with wings and take their departing flight from the cave. But their new equipment seems only destined to facilitate their dispersion from the parent nest, which takes place at dusk; and almost as quickly as they leave it they divest themselves of their ineffectual wings, waving them impatiently and twisting them in every direction till they become detached and drop off, and the swarm, within a few hours of their emancipation, become a prey to the night-jars and bats, which are instantly attracted to them as they issue in a cloud from the ground. I am not prepared to say that the other insectivorous birds would not gladly make a meal of the termites, but, seeing that in Ceylon their numbers are chiefly kept in check by the crepuscular birds, it is observable, at least as a coincidence, that the dispersion of the swarm generally takes place at _twilight_. Those that escape the _caprimulgi_ lose their wings before morning, and are then disposed of by the crows. The strange peculiarity of the omnivorous ravages of the white ants is that they shrink from the light, in all their expeditions for providing food they construct a covered pathway of moistened clay, and their galleries above ground extend to an incredible distance from the central nest. No timber, except ebony and ironwood, which are too hard, and those which are strongly impregnated with camphor or aromatic oils, which they dislike, presents any obstacle to their ingress. I have had a case of wine filled, in the course of two days, with almost solid clay, and only discovered the presence of the white ants by the bursting of the corks. I have had a portmanteau in my tent so peopled with them in the course of a single night that the contents were found worthless in the morning. In an incredibly short time a detachment of these pests will destroy a press full of records, reducing the paper to fragments; and a shelf of books will be tunnelled into a gallery if it happen to be in their line of march. The timbers of a house when fairly attacked are eaten from within till the beams are reduced to an absolute shell, so thin that it may be punched through with the point of the finger: and even kyanized wood, unless impregnated with an extra quantity of corrosive sublimate, appears to occasion them no inconvenience. The only effectual precaution for the protection of furniture is incessant vigilance--the constant watching of every article, and its daily removal from place to place, in order to baffle their assaults. They do not appear in the hills above the elevation of 2000 feet. One species of white ant, the _Termes Taprobanes_, was at one time believed by Mr. Walker to be peculiar to the island, but it has recently been found in Sumatra and Borneo, and in some parts of Hindustan. HYMENOPTERA. _Mason Wasp_.--In Ceylon as in all other countries, the order of hymenopterous insects arrests us less by the beauty of their forms than the marvels of their sagacity and the achievements of their instinct. A fossorial wasp of the family of _Sphegidoe_,[1] which is distinguished by its metallic lustre, enters by the open windows, and disarms irritation at its movements by admiration of the graceful industry with which it stops up the keyholes and similar apertures with clay in order to build in them a cell, into which it thrusts the pupa of some other insect, within whose body it has previously introduced its own eggs; and, enclosing the whole with moistened earth, the young parasite, after undergoing its transformations, gnaws its way into light, and emerges a four-winged fly.[2] [Footnote 1: It belongs to the genus _Pelopoeus_, _P. Spinoloe_, St. Fargeau. The _Ampulex compressa_, which drags about the larvæ of cockroaches into which it has implanted its eggs, belongs to the same family.] [Footnote 2: Mr. E. L. Layard has given an interesting account of this Mason wasp in the _Annals and Magazine of Nat. History_ for May, 1853. "I have frequently," he says, "selected one of these flies for observation, and have seen their labours extend over a period of a fortnight or twenty days; sometimes only half a cell was completed in a day, at others as much as two. I never saw more than twenty cells in one nest, seldom indeed that number, and whence the caterpillars were procured was always to me a mystery. I have seen thirty or forty brought in of a species which I knew to be very rare in the perfect state, and which I had sought for in vain, although I knew on what plant they fed. "Then again how are they disabled by the wasp, and yet not injured so as to cause their immediate death? Die they all do, at least all that I have ever tried to rear, after taking them from the nest. "The perfected fly never effects its egress from the closed aperture, through which the caterpillars were inserted, and when cells are placed end to end, as they are in many instances, the outward end of each is always selected. I cannot detect any difference in the thickness in the crust of the cell to cause this uniformity of practice. It is often as much as half an inch through, of great hardness, and as far as I can see impervious to air and light. How then does the enclosed fly always select the right end, and with what secretion is it supplied to decompose this mortar?"] _Wasps_.--Of the wasps, one formidable species (_Sphex ferruginea_ of St. Fargeau), which is common to India and most of the eastern islands, is regarded with the utmost dread by the unclad natives, who fly precipitately on finding themselves in the vicinity[1] of its nests, which are of such ample dimensions, that when suspended from a branch, they often measure upwards of six feet in length.[2] [Footnote 1: In ought to be remembered in travelling in the forests of Ceylon that sal volatile applied immediately is a specific for the sting of a wasp.] [Footnote 2: At the January (1839) meeting of the Entomological Society, Mr. Whitehouse exhibited portions of a wasps' nest from Ceylon, between seven and eight feet long and two feet in diameter, and showed that the construction of the cells was perfectly analogous to those of the hive bee, and that when connected each has a tendency to assume a circular outline. In one specimen where there were three cells united the outer part was circular, whilst the portions common to the three formed straight walls. From this Singhalese nest Mr. Whitehouse demonstrated that the wasps at the commencement of their comb proceed slowly, forming the bases of several together, whereby they assume the hexagonal shape, whereas, if constructed separately, he thought each single cell would be circular. See _Proc. Ent. Soc_. vol. iii. p. xvi.] _Bees_.--Bees of several species and genera, some divested of stings, and some in size scarcely exceeding a house-fly, deposit their honey in hollow trees, or suspend their combs from a branch; and the spoils of their industry form one of the chief resources of the uncivilised Veddahs, who collect the wax in their upland forests, to be bartered for arrow points and clothes in the lowlands.[1] I have never heard of an instance of persons being attacked by the bees of Ceylon, and hence the natives assert, that those most productive of honey are destitute of stings. [Footnote 1: A gentleman connected with the department of the Surveyor-General writes to me that he measured a honey-comb which he found fastened to the overhanging branch of a small tree in the forest near Adam's Peak, and found it nine links of his chain or about six feet in length and a foot in breadth where it was attached to the branch, but tapering towards the other extremity. "It was a single comb with a layer of cells on either side, but so weighty that the branch broke by the strain."] _The Carpenter Bee_.--The operations of one of the most interesting of the tribe, the Carpenter bee,[1] I have watched with admiration from the window of the Colonial Secretary's official residence at Kandy. So soon as the day grew warm, these active creatures were at work perforating the wooden columns which supported the verandah. They poised themselves on their shining purple wings, as they made the first lodgment in the wood, enlivening the work with an uninterrupted hum of delight, which was audible to a considerable distance. When the excavation had proceeded so far as that the insect could descend into it, the music was suspended, but renewed from time to time, as the little creature came to the orifice to throw out the chips, to rest, or to enjoy the fresh air. By degrees, a mound of saw-dust was formed at the base of the pillar, consisting of particles abraded by the mandibles of the bee; and these, when the hollow was completed to the depth of several inches, were partially replaced in the excavation after being agglutinated to form partitions between the eggs, as they are deposited within. [Footnote 1: _Xylocopa tenuiscapa_, Westw.; X. _latipes_, Drury.] _Ants_.--As to ants, I apprehend that, notwithstanding their numbers and familiarity, information is very imperfect relative to the varieties and habits of these marvellous insects in Ceylon.[1] In point of multitude it is scarcely an exaggeration to apply to them the figure of "the sands of the sea." They are everywhere; in the earth, in the houses, and in the trees; they are to be seen in every room and cupboard, and almost on every plant in the jungle. To some of the latter they are, perhaps, attracted by the sweet juices secreted by the aphides and coccidæ; and such is the passion of the ants for sugar, and their wonderful faculty of discovering it, that the smallest particle of a substance containing it, though placed in the least conspicuous position, is quickly covered with them, where not a single one may have been visible a moment before. But it is not sweet substances alone that they attack; no animal or vegetable matter comes amiss to them; no aperture appears too small to admit them; it is necessary to place everything which it may be desirable to keep free from their invasion, under the closest cover, or on tables with cups of water under every foot. As scavengers, they are invaluable; and as ants never sleep, but work without cessation, during the night as well as by day, every particle of decaying vegetable or putrid animal matter is removed with inconceivable speed and certainty. In collecting shells, I have been able to turn this propensity to good account; by placing them within their reach, the ants in a few days will remove every vestige of the mollusc from the innermost and otherwise inaccessible whorls; thus avoiding all risk of injuring the enamel by any mechanical process. [Footnote 1: Mr. Jerdan, in a series of papers in the thirteenth volume of the _Annals of Natural History_, has described forty-seven species of ants in Southern India. But M. Nietner has recently forwarded to the Berlin Museum upwards of seventy species taken by him in Ceylon, chiefly in the western province and the vicinity of Colombo, Of these many are identical with those noted by Mr. Jerdan as belonging to the Indian continent. One (probably _Drepanognathus saltator_ of Jerdan) is described by M. Nietner as "moving by jumps of several inches at a spring."] But the assaults of the ants are not confined to dead animals alone, they attack equally such small insects as they can overcome, or find disabled by accidents or wounds; and it is not unusual to see some hundreds of them surrounding a maimed beetle, or a bruised cockroach, and hurrying it along in spite of its struggles. I have, on more than one occasion, seen a contest between them and one of the viscous ophidians, _Coecilia glutinosa_[1], a reptile resembling an enormous earthworm, common in the Kandyan hills, of an inch in diameter, and nearly two feet in length. It would seem as if the whole community had been summoned and turned out for such a prodigious effort; they surrounded their victim literally in tens of thousands, inflicting wounds on all parts, and forcing it along towards their nest in spite of resistance. In one instance to which I was a witness, the conflict lasted for the latter part of a day, but towards evening the Cæcilia was completely exhausted, and in the morning it had totally disappeared, having been carried away either whole or piecemeal by its assailants. [Footnote 1: See ante, Pt, 1. ch. iii. p. 201] The species I here allude to, is a very small ant, called the _Koombiya_ in Ceylon. There is a still more minute description, which frequents the caraffes and toilet vessels, and is evidently a distinct species. A third, probably the _Formica nidificans_ of Jerdan, is black, of the same size as that last mentioned, and, from its colour, called the _Kalu koombiya_ by the natives. In the houses its propensities and habits are the same as the others; but I have observed that it frequents the trees more profusely, forming small paper cells for its young, like miniature wasps' nests, in which it deposits its eggs, suspending them from the leaf of a plant. The most formidable of all is the great red ant or Dimiya.[1] It is particularly abundant in gardens, and on fruit trees; it constructs its dwellings by glueing the leaves of such species as are suitable from their shape and pliancy into hollow balls, which it lines with a kind of transparent paper, like that manufactured by the wasp. I have watched them at the interesting operation of forming their dwellings;--a line of ants standing on the edge of one leaf bring another into contact with it, and hold both together with their mandibles till their companions within attach them firmly by means of their adhesive paper, the assistants outside moving along as the work proceeds. If it be necessary to draw closer a leaf too distant to be laid hold of by the immediate workers, they form a chain by depending one from the other till the object is reached, when it is at length brought into contact, and made fast by cement. [Footnote 1: _Formica smaragdina_, Fab.] Like all their race, these ants are in perpetual motion, forming lines on the ground along which they pass, in continual procession to and from the trees on which they reside. They are the most irritable of the whole order in Ceylon, biting with such intense ferocity as to render it difficult for the unclad natives to collect the fruit from, the mango trees, which the red ants especially frequent. They drop from the branches upon travellers in the jungle, attacking them with venom and fury, and inflicting intolerable pain both upon animals and man. On examining the structure of the head through a microscope, I found that the mandibles, instead of merely meeting in contact, are so hooked as to cross each other at the points, whilst the inner line is sharply serrated throughout its entire length; thus occasioning the intense pain of their bite, as compared with that of the ordinary ant. To check the ravages of the coffee bug (_Lecanium coffeoe_, Walker), which for some years past has devastated some of the plantations in Ceylon, the experiment was made of introducing the red ants, who feed greedily on the Coccus. But the remedy threatened to be attended with some inconvenience, for the Malabar Coolies, with bare and oiled skins, were so frequently and fiercely assaulted by the ants as to endanger their stay on the estates. The ants which burrow in the ground in Ceylon are generally, but not invariably, black, and some of them are of considerable size. One species, about the third of an inch in length, is abundant in the hills, and especially about the roots of trees, where they pile up the earth in circular heaps round the entrance to their nests, and in doing this I have observed a singular illustration of their instinct. To carry up each particle of sand by itself would be an endless waste of labour, and to carry two or more loose ones securely would be to them embarrassing, if not impossible; they therefore overcome the difficulty by glueing together with their saliva so much earth or sand as is sufficient for a burden, and each one may be seen hurrying up from below with his load, carrying it to the top of the circular heap outside, and throwing it over, whilst it is so strongly attached as to roll to the bottom without breaking asunder. The ants I have been here describing are inoffensive, differing in this particular from the Dimiya and another of similar size and ferocity, which is called by the Singhalese _Kaddiya_; and they have a legend illustrative of their alarm for the bites of the latter, to the effect that the cobra de capello invested the Kaddiya with her own venom in admiration of the singular courage displayed by these little creatures.[1] [Footnote 1: KNOX'S _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, pt i. ch vi. p. 23.] LEPIDOPTERA. _Butterflies_.--Butterflies in the interior of the island are comparatively rare, and, contrary to the ordinary belief, they are seldom to be seen in the sunshine, They frequent the neighbourhood of the jungle, and especially the vicinity of the rivers and waterfalls, living mainly in the shade of the moist foliage, and returning to it in haste after the shortest flights, as if their slender bodies were speedily dried up and exhausted by the exposure to the intense heat. Among the largest and most gaudy of the Ceylon Lepidoptera is the great black and yellow butterfly (_Ornithoptera darsius_, Gray); the upper wings, of which measure six inches across, are of deep velvet black, the lower, ornamented by large particles of satiny yellow, through which the sunlight passes, and few insects can compare with it in beauty, as it hovers over the flowers of the heliotrope, which furnish the favourite food of the perfect fly, although the caterpillar feeds on the aristolochia and the _betel leaf_ and suspends its chrysalis from its drooping tendrils. Next in size as to expanse of wing, though often exceeding it in breadth, is the black and blue _Papilio Polymnestor_, which darts rapidly through the air, alighting on the ruddy flowers of the hibiscus, or the dark green foliage of the citrus, on which it deposits its eggs. The larvæ of this species are green with white bands, and have a hump on the fourth or fifth segment. From this hump the caterpillar, on being irritated, protrudes a singular horn of an orange colour, bifurcate at the extremity, and covered with a pungent mucilaginous secretion. This is evidently intended as a weapon of defence against the attack of the ichneumon flies, that deposit their eggs in its soft body, for when the grub is pricked, either by the ovipositor of the ichneumon, or by any other sharp instrument, the horn is at once protruded, and struck upon the offending object with unerring aim. Amongst the more common of the larger butterflies is the _P. Hector_, with gorgeous crimson spots set in the black velvet of the inferior wings; these, when fresh, are shot with a purple blush, equalling in splendour the azure of the European "_Emperor_." Another butterfly, but belonging to a widely different group, is the "sylph" (_Hestia Jasonia_), called by the Europeans by the various names of _Floater, Spectre,_ and _Silver-paper-fly_, as indicative of its graceful flight. It is found only in the deep shade of the damp forest, frequenting the vicinity of pools of water and cascades, about which it sails heedless of the spray, the moisture of which may even be beneficial in preserving the elasticity of its thin and delicate wings, that bend and undulate in the act of flight. The _Lycoenidoe_[1], a particularly attractive group, abound near the enclosures of cultivated grounds, and amongst the low shrubs edging the patenas, flitting from flower to flower, inspecting each in turn, and as if attracted by their beauty, in the full blaze of sun-light; and shunning exposure less sedulously than the other diurnals. Some of the more robust kinds[2] are magnificent in the bright light, from the splendour of their metallic blues and glowing purples, but they yield in elegance of form and variety to their tinier and more delicately-coloured congeners. [Footnote 1: _Lycana polyommatus, &c._] [Footnote 2: _Amblypodia pseudocentaurus, &c._] Short as is the eastern twilight, it has its own peculiar forms, and the naturalist marks with interest the small, but strong, _Hesperiidoe_,[1] hurrying, by abrupt and jerking flights, to the scented blossoms of the champac or the sweet night-blowing moon-flower; and, when darkness gathers around, we can hear, though hardly distinguish amid the gloom, the humming of the powerful wings of innumerable hawk moths, which hover with their long proboscides inserted into the starry petals of the periwinkle. [Footnote 1: _Pamphila hesperia, &c._] Conspicuous amidst these nocturnal moths is the richly-coloured _Acherontia Satanas_, one of the Singhalese representatives of our Death's head moth, which utters a sharp and stridulous cry when seized. This sound has been variously conjectured to be produced by the friction of its thorax against the abdomen, and Reaumur believed it to be caused by rubbing the palpi against the tongue. I have never been able to observe either motion, and Mr. E. L. Layard is of opinion that the sound is emitted from two apertures concealed by tufts of wiry bristles thrown out from each side of the inferior portion of the thorax.[1] [Footnote 1: There is another variety of the same moth in Ceylon which closely resembles it in its markings, but I have never detected in it the utterance of this curious cry. It is smaller than the _A. Satanas_, and, like it, often enters dwellings at night, attracted by the lights; but I have not found its larvæ, although that of the other species is common on several widely different plants.] _Moths._--Among the strictly nocturnal _Lepidoptera_ are some gigantic species. Of these the cinnamon-eating _Atlas_, often attains the dimensions of nearly a foot in the stretch of its superior wings. It is very common in the gardens about Colombo, and its size, and the transparent talc-like spots in its wings cannot fail to strike even the most careless saunterer. But little inferior to it in size is the famed Tusseh silk moth[1], which feeds on the country almond (_Terminalia catappa_) and the palma Christi or Castor-oil plant; it is easily distinguishable from the Atlas, which has a triangular wing, whilst its [wing] is falcated, and the transparent spots are covered with a curious thread-like division drawn across them. [Footnote 1: _Antheroea mylitta_, Drury.] Towards the northern portions of the island this valuable species entirely displaces the other, owing to the fact that the almond and _palma Christi_ abound there. The latter plant springs up spontaneously on every manure-heap or neglected spot of ground; and might be cultivated, as in India, with great advantage, the leaf to be used as food for the caterpillar, the stalk as fodder for cattle, and the seed for the expression of castor-oil. The Dutch took advantage of this facility, and gave every encouragement to the cultivation of silk at Jaffna[1], but it never attained such a development as to become an article of commercial importance. Ceylon now cultivates no silkworms whatever, notwithstanding this abundance of the favourite food of one species; and the rich silken robes sometimes worn by the Buddhist priesthood are still imported from China and the continent of India. [Footnote 1: The Portuguese had made the attempt previous to the arrival of the Dutch, and a strip of land on the banks of the Kalany river near Colombo, still bears the name of Orta Seda, the silk garden. The attempt of the Dutch to introduce the true silkworm, the _Bombyx mori_, took place under the governorship of Ryklof Van Goens, who, on handing over the administration to his successor in A.D. 1663, thus apprises him of the initiation of the experiment:--"At Jaffna Palace a trial has been undertaken to feed silkworms, and to ascertain whether silk may be reared at that station. I have planted a quantity of mulberry trees, which grow well there, and they ought to be planted in other directions."--VALENTYN, chap. xiii. The growth of the mulberry trees is noticed the year after in a report to the governor-general of India, but the subject afterwards ceased to be attended to.] In addition to the Atlas moth and the Mylitta, there are many other _Bombycidoe_ in Ceylon; and, though the silk of some of them, were it susceptible of being unwound from the cocoon, would not bear a comparison with that of the _Bombyx mori_, or even of the Tusseh moth, it might still prove to be valuable when carded and spun. If the European residents in the colony would rear the larvæ of these Lepidoptera, and make drawings of their various changes, they would render a possible service to commerce, and a certain one to entomological knowledge. _The Wood-carrying Moth._--There is another family of insects, the singular habits of which will not fail to attract the traveller in the cultivated tracts of Ceylon--these are moths of the genus _Oiketicus_,[1] of which the females are devoid of wings, and some possess no articulated feet; the larvæ construct for themselves cases, which they suspend to a branch frequently of the pomegranate,[2] surrounding them with the stems of leaves, and thorns or pieces of twigs bound together by threads, till the whole presents the appearance of a bundle of rods about an inch and a half long; and, from the resemblance of this to a Roman fasces, one African species has obtained the name of "Lictor." The German entomologists denominated the group _Sack-träger_, the Singhalese call them _Dalmea kattea_ or "billets of firewood," and regard the inmates as human beings, who, as a punishment for stealing wood in some former stage of existence, have been condemned to undergo a metempsychosis under the form of these insects. [Footnote 1: _Eumeta_, Wlk.] [Footnote 2: The singular instincts of a species of Thecla, _Dipsas Isocrates_, Fab., in connection with the fruit of the pomegranate, were fully described by Mr. Westwood, in a paper read before the Entomological Society of London in 1835.] The male, at the close of the pupal rest, escapes from one end of this singular covering, but the female makes it her dwelling for life; moving about with it at pleasure, and entrenching herself within it, when alarmed, by drawing together the purse-like aperture at the open end. Of these remarkable creatures there are five ascertained species in Ceylon. _Psyche Doubledaii_, Westw.; _Metisa plana_, Walker; _Eumeta Cramerii_, Westw.; _E. Templetonii_, Westw.; and _Cryptothelea consorta_, Temp. All the other tribes of minute _Lepidoptera_ have abundant representatives in Ceylon; some of them most attractive from the great beauty of their markings and colouring. The curious little split-winged moth (_Pterophorus_) is frequently seen in the cinnamon gardens and the vicinity of the fort, resting in the noonday heat in the cool grass shaded by the coco-nut topes. Three species have been captured, all characterised by the same singular feature of having the wings fan-like, separated nearly their entire length into detached sections resembling feathers in the pinions of a bird expanded for flight. HOMOPTERA. _Cicada._--Of the _Homoptera_, the one which will most frequently arrest attention is the cicada, which, resting high up on the bark of a tree, makes the forest re-echo with a long-sustained noise so curiously resembling that of a cutler's wheel that the creature which produces it has acquired the highly-appropriate name of the "knife-grinder." HEMIPTERA. _Bugs._--On the shrubs in his compound the newly-arrived traveller will be attracted by an insect of a pale green hue and delicately-thin configuration, which, resting from its recent flight, composes its scanty wings, and moves languidly along the leaf. But experience will teach him to limit his examination to a respectful view of its attitudes; it is one of a numerous family of bugs, (some of them most attractive[1] in their colouring,) which are inoffensive if unmolested, but if touched or irritated, exhale an odour that, once perceived, is never after forgotten. [Footnote 1: Such as _Cantuo ocellatus, Leptopelis Marginalis, Callidea Stockerius_, &c. &c. Of the aquatic species, the gigantic _Belostoma Indicum_ cannot escape notice, attaining a size of nearly three inches.] APHANIPTERA. _Fleas._--Fleas are equally numerous, and may be seen in myriads in the dust of the streets or skipping in the sunbeams which fall on the clay floors of the cottages. The dogs, to escape them, select for their sleeping places spots where a wood fire has been previously kindled; and here prone on the white ashes, their stomachs close to the earth, and their hind legs extended behind, they repose in comparative coolness, and bid defiance to their persecutors. DIPTERA. _Mosquitoes._--But of all the insect pests that beset an unseasoned European the most provoking by far are the truculent mosquitoes.[1] Even in the midst of endurance from their onslaughts one cannot but be amused by the ingenuity of their movements; as if aware of the risk incident to an open assault, a favourite mode of attack is, when concealed by a table, to assail the ankles through the meshes of the blocking, or the knees which are ineffectually protected by a fold of Russian duck. When you are reading, a mosquito will rarely settle on that portion of your hand which is within range of your eyes, but cunningly stealing by the underside of the book fastens on the wrist or finger, and noiselessly inserts his proboscis there. I have tested the classical expedient recorded by Herodotus, who states that the fishermen inhabiting the fens of Egypt cover their beds with their nets, knowing that the mosquitoes, although they bite through linen robes, will not venture though a net.[2] But, notwithstanding the opinion of Spence,[3] that nets with meshes an inch square will effectually exclude them, I have been satisfied by painful experience that (if the theory is not altogether fallacious) at least the modern mosquitoes of Ceylon are uninfluenced by the same considerations which restrained those of the Nile under the successors of Cambyses. [Footnote 1: _Culex laniger_? Wied. In Kandy Mr. Thwaites finds _C. fuscanus, C. circumvolens_, &c., and one with a most formidable hooked proboscis, to which he has assigned the appropriate name _C. Regius_.] [Footnote 2: HERODOTUS, _Euterpe_, xcv.] [Footnote 3: KIRBY and SPENCE'S _Entomology_, letter iv.] _List of Ceylon Insects._ For the following list of the insects of the island, and the remarks prefixed to it, I am indebted to Mr. F. Walker, by whom it has been prepared after a careful inspection of the collections made by Dr. Templeton, Mr. E.L. Layard, and others; as well as those in the British Museum and in the Museum of the East India Company. "A short notice of the aspect of the Island will afford the best means of accounting, in some degree, for its entomological Fauna: first, as it is an island, and has a mountainous central region, the tropical character of its productions, as in most other cases, rather diminishes, and somewhat approaches that of higher latitudes. "The coast-region of Ceylon, and fully one-third of its northern part, have a much drier atmosphere than that of the rest of its surface; and their climate and vegetation are nearly similar to those of the Carnatic, with which this island may have been connected at no very remote period.[1] But if, on the contrary, the land in Ceylon is gradually rising, the difference of its Fauna from that of Central Hindostan is less remarkable. The peninsula of the Dekkan might then be conjectured to have been nearly or wholly separated from the central part of Hindostan, and confined to the range of mountains along the eastern coast; the insect-fauna of which is as yet almost unknown, but will probably be found to have more resemblance to that of Ceylon than to the insects of northern and western India--just as the insect-fauna of Malaya appears more to resemble the similar productions of Australasia than those of the more northern continent. [Footnote 1: On the subject of this conjecture see _ante_, Vol. I. Pt. I, ch. i. p. 7.] "Mr. Layard's collection was partly formed in the dry northern province of Ceylon; and among them more Hindostan insects are to be observed than among those collected by Dr. Templeton, and found wholly in the district between Colombo and Kandy. According to this view the faunas of the Neilgherry Mountains, of Central Ceylon, of the peninsula of Malacca, and of Australasia would be found to form one group;--while those of Northern Ceylon, of the western Dekkan, and of the level parts of Central Hindostan would form another of more recent origin. The insect-fauna of the Carnatic is also probably similar to that of the lowlands of Ceylon; but it is still unexplored. The regions of Hindostan in which species have been chiefly collected, such as Bengal, Silhet, and the Punjaub, are at the distance of from 1,300 to 1,600 miles from Ceylon, and therefore the insects of the latter are fully as different from those of the above regions as they are from those of Australasia, to which Ceylon is as near in point of distance, and agrees more with regard to latitude. "Dr. Hagen has remarked that he believes the fauna of the mountains of Ceylon to be quite different from that of the plains and of the shores. The south and west districts have a very moist climate, and as their vegetation is like that of Malabar, their insect-fauna will probably also resemble that of the latter region. "The insects mentioned in the following list are thus distributed:-- Order COLEOPTERA. "The recorded species of _Cicindelidoe_ inhabit the plains or the coast country of Ceylon, and several of them are also found in Hindostan. "Many of the species of _Carabidoe_ and of _Staphylinidoe_, especially those collected by Mr. Thwaites, near Kandy, and by M. Nietner at Colombo, have much resemblance to the insects of these two families in North Europe; in the _Scydmoenidoe,_ _Ptiliadoe, Phalacridoe, Nitidulidoe, Colydiadoe_, and _Lathridiadoe_ the northern form is still more striking, and strongly contrasts with the tropical forms of the gigantic _Copridoe, Buprestidoe_, and _Cerambycidoe_, and with the _Elateridoe, Lampyridoe, Tenebrionidoe, Helopidoe, Meloidoe, Curculionidoe, Prionidoe, Cerambycidoe, Lamiidoe_, and _Endomychidoe_. "The _Copridoe, Dynastidoe, Melolonthidoe, Cetoniadoe_, and _Passalidoe_ are well represented on the plains and on the coast, and the species are mostly of a tropical character. "The _Hydrophilidoe_ have a more northern aspect, as is generally the case with aquatic species. "The order _Strepsiptera_ is here considered as belonging to the _Mordellidoe_, and is represented by the genus _Myrmecolax_, which is peculiar, as yet, to Ceylon. "In the _Curculionidoe_ the single species of _Apion_ will recall to mind the great abundance of that genus in North Europe. "The _Prionidoe_ and the two following families have been investigated by Mr. Pascoe, and the _Hispidoe_, with the five following families, by Mr. Baly; these two gentlemen are well acquainted with the above tribes of beetles, and kindly supplied me with the names of the Ceylon species. Order ORTHOPTERA. "These insects in Ceylon have mostly a tropical aspect. The _Physapoda_, which will probably be soon incorporated with them, are likely to be numerous, though only one species has as yet been noticed. Order NEUROPTERA. "The list here given is chiefly taken from the catalogue published by Dr. Hagen, and containing descriptions of the species named by him or by M. Nietner. They were found in the most elevated parts of the island, near Rambodde, and Dr. Hagen informs me that not less than 500 species have been noticed in Ceylon, but that they are not yet recorded, with the exception of the species here enumerated. It has been remarked that the _Trichoptera_ and other aquatic _Neuroptera_ are less local than the land species, owing to the more equable temperature of the habitation of their larvæ, and on account of their being often conveyed along the whole length of rivers. The species of _Psocus_ in the list are far more numerous than those yet observed in any other country, with the exception of Europe. Order HYMENOPTERA. "In this order the _Formicidoe_ and the _Poneridoe_ are very numerous, as they are in other damp and woody tropical countries. Seventy species of ants have been observed, but as yet few of them have been named. The various other families of aculeate _Hymenoptera_ are doubtless more abundant than the species recorded indicate, and it may be safely reckoned that the parasitic _Hymenoptera_ in Ceylon far exceed one thousand species in number, though they are yet only known by means of about two dozen kinds collected at Kandy by Mr. Thwaites. Order LEPIDOPTERA. "The fauna of Ceylon is much better known in this order than in any other of the insect tribes, but as yet the _Lepidoptera_ alone in their class afford materials for a comparison of the productions of Ceylon with those of Hindostan and of Australasia; 932 species have been collected by Dr. Templeton and by Mr. Layard in the central, western, and northern parts of the island. All the families, from the _Papilionidoe_ to the _Tineidoe_, abound, and numerous species and several genera appear, as yet, to be peculiar to the island. As Ceylon is situate at the entrance to the eastern regions, the list in this volume will suitably precede the descriptive catalogues of the heterocerous _Lepidoptera_ of Hindostan, Java, Borneo, and of other parts of Australasia, which are being prepared for publication. In some of the heterocerous families several species are common to Ceylon and to Australasia, and in various cases the faunas of Ceylon and of Australasia seem to be more similar than those of Ceylon and of Hindostan. The long intercourse between those two regions may have been the means of conveying some species from one to the other. Among the _Pyralites, Hymenia recurvalis_ inhabits also the West Indies, South America, West Africa, Hindostan, China, Australasia, Australia, and New Zealand; and its food-plant is probably some vegetable which is cultivated in all those regions; so also _Desmia afflictalis_ is found in Sierra Leone, Ceylon, and China. Order DIPTERA. "About fifty species were observed by Dr. Templeton, but most of those here recorded were collected by Mr. Thwaites at Kandy, and have a great likeness to North European species. "The mosquitoes are very annoying on account of their numbers, as might be expected from the moisture and heat of the climate. _Culex laniger_ is the coast species, and the other kinds here mentioned are from Kandy. Humboldt observed that in some parts of South America each stream had its peculiar mosquitoes, and it yet remains to be seen whether the gnats in Ceylon are also thus restricted in their habitation. The genera _Sciara, Cecidomyia_, and _Simulium_, which abound so exceedingly in temperate countries, have each one representative species in the collection made by Mr. Thwaites. Thus an almost new field remains for the Entomologist in the study of the yet unknown Singhalese Diptera, which must be very numerous. Order HEMIPTERA. "The species of this order in the list are too few and too similar to those of Hindustan to need any particular mention. _Lecanium coffeoe_ may be noticed, on account of its infesting the coffee plant, as its name indicates, and the ravages of other species of the genus will be remembered, from the fact that one of them, in other regions, has put a stop to the cultivation of the orange as an article of commerce. "In conclusion, it may be observed that the species of insects in Ceylon may be estimated as exceeding 10,000 in number, of which about 2,000 are enumerated in this volume. Class ARACHNIDA. "Four or five species of spiders, of which the specimens cannot be satisfactorily described; one _Ixodes_ and one _Chelifer_ have been forwarded to England from Ceylon by Mr. Thwaites." NOTE.--The asterisk prefixed denotes the species discovered in Ceylon since Sir J.E. Tennent's departure from the Island in 1849. ORDER, Coleoptera, _Linn._ Fam. CICINDELIDÆ, _Steph._ Cicindela, _Linn._ flavopunctata, _Aud._ discrepans, _Wlk._ aurofasciata, _Guér._ quadrilineata, _Fabr._ biramosa, _Fabr._ catena, _Fabr._ *insignificans, _Dohrn._ Tricondyla, _Latr._ femorata, _Wlk._ *tumidula, _Wlk._ *scitiscabra, _Wlk._ *concinna, _Dohrn._ Fam. CARABIDÆ, _Leach._ Casnouia, _Latr._ *punctata, _Niet._ *pilifera, _Niet._ Ophionea, _Klug._ *cyanocephala, _Fabr._ Euplynes, _Niet._ Dohrnii, _Niet._ Heteroglossa, _Niet._ *elegans, _Niet._ *ruficollis, _Niet._ *bimaculata, _Niet._ Zuphium, _Latr._. *pubescens, _Niet._ Pheropsophus, _Solier._ Catoirei, _Dej._ bimaculatus, _Fabr._ Cymindis, _Latr._. rufiventris, _Wlk._ Anchista, _Niet._ *modesta, _Niet._ Dromius, _Bon._ marginifer, _Wlk._ repandens, _Wlk._ Lebia, _Latr._ bipars, _Wlk._ Creagris, _Niet._ labrosa, _Niet._ Elliotia, _Niet._ pallipes, _Niet._ Maraga, _Wlk._. planigera, _Wlk._ Catascopus, _Kirby._ facialis, _Wied._ reductus, _Wlk._ Scarites, _Fabr._ obliterans, _Wlk._ subsignans, _Wlk._ designans, _Wlk._ *minor, _Niet._ Clivina, _Latr._ *rugosifrons, _Niet._ *elongatula, _Niet._ *maculata, _Niet._ recta, _Wlk._ Leistus, _Froehl._ linearis, _Wlk._ Isotarsus, _Laferté._ quadrimaculatus, _Oliv._ Panagæeus, _Latr._ retractus, _Wlk._ Chlænius, _Bon._. bimaculatus, _Dej._ diffinis, _Reiche._ *Ceylanicus, _Niet._ *quinque-maculatus, _Niet._ pulcher, _Niet._ cupricollis, _Niet._ rugulosus, _Niet._ Anchomenus, _Bon._ illocatus, _Wlk._ Agonum, _Bon._ placidulum, _Wlk._ Colpodes? _Macl._ marginicollis, _Wlk._ Argutor, _Meg._. degener, _Wlk._ relinquens, _Wlk._ Simphyus, _Niet._ *unicolor, _Niet._ Bradytus, _Steph._ stolidus, _Wlk._ Curtonotus, _Steph._ compositus, _Wlk._ Harpalus, _Latr._ *advolans, _Niet._ dispellens, _Wlk._ Calodromus, _Niet._ *exornatus, _Niet._ Megaristerus, _Niet._ *mandibularis, _Niet._ *stenolophoides, _Niet._ *Indicus, _Niet._ Platysma, _Bon._ retinens, _Wlk._ Morio, _Latr._ trogositoides, _Wlk._ cucujoides, _Wlk._ Barysomus, _Dej_ *Gyllenhalii, _Dej._ Oodes, _Bon._ *piceus, _Niet._ Selenophorus, _Dej._ infixus, _Wlk._ Orthogonius, _Dej._ femoratus, _Dej._ Helluodes, _Westw._ Taprobanæ, _Westw._ Physocrotaphus, _Parry._ Ceylonicus, _Parry._ *minax, _West._ Psysodera, _Esch._ Eschscholtzii, _Parry._ Omphra, _Latr._ *ovipennis, _Reiche._ Planetes, _Macl._ bimaculatus, _Macleay._ Cardiaderus, _Dej._ scitus, _Wlk._ Distrigus, _Dej._ *costatus, _Niet._ *submetallicus, _Niet._ *rufopiceus, _Niet._ *æeneus, _Niet._ *Dejeani, _Niet._ Drimostoma, _Dej._ *Ceylanicum, _Niet._ *marginale, _Wlk._ Cyclosomus, _Latr._ flexuosus, _Fabr._ Ochthephilus, _Niet._ *Ceylanicus, _Niet._ Spathinus, _Niet._ *nigriceps, _Niet._ Acupalpus, _Latr._ derogatus, _Wlk._ extremus, _Wlk._ Bembidium, _Latr._ finitimum, _Wlk._ *opulentum, _Niet._ *truncatum, _Niet._ *tropicum, _Niet._ *triangalare, _Niet._ *Ceylanicum, _Niet._ Klugii, _Niet._ *ebeninum, _Niet._ *orientale, _Niet._ *emarginatum, _Niet._ *ornatum, _Niet._ *scydmænoides, _Niet._ Fam. PAUSSIDÆ, _Westw._ Cerapterus, _Swed._ latipes, _Swed._ Pleuropterus, _West._ Westermanni, _West._ Paussus, _Linn._ pacificus, _West._ Fam. DYTISCIDÆ, _Macl._ Cybister, _Curt._ limbatus, _Fabr._ Dytiscus, _Linn._ extenuans, _Wlk._ Eunectes, _Erich._ griseus, _Fabr._ Hydaticus, _Leach._ festivus, _Ill._ vittatus, _Fabr._ disclocans, _Wlk._ fractifer, _Wlk._ Colymbetes, _Clairv._ interclusus, _Wlk._ Hydroporus, _Clairv._ interpulsus, _Wlk._ intermixtus, _Wlk._ lætabilis, _Wlk._ *inefficiens, _Wlk._ Fam. GYRINIDÆ, _Leach_. Dineutes, _Macl._ spinosus, _Fabr._ Porrorhynchus, _Lap._ indicans, _Wlk._ Gyretes, _Brullé_. discifer, _Wlk._ Gyrinus, _Linn_. nitidulus, _Fabr._ obliquus, _Wlk._ Orectochilus, _Esch._ *lenoeinium, _Dohrn_. Fam. STAPHILINIDÆ, _Leach_. Ocypus, _Kirby_. longipennis, _Wlk._ congruus, _Wlk._ punctilinea, _Wlk._ *lineatus, _Wlk._ Philonthus, _Leach_. *pedestris, _Wlk._ Xantholinus, _Dahl_. cinctus, _Wlk._ *inclinans, _Wlk._ Sunius, _Leach_. *obliquus, _Wlk._ Oedichirus, _Erich_. *alatus, _Niet._ Poederus, _Fabr_. alternans, _Wlk._ Stenus, _Latr._ *barbatus, _Niet._ *lacertoides, _Niet._ Osorius? _Leach_. *compactus, _Wlk._ Prognatha, _Latr._ decisa, _Wlk._ *tenuis, _Wlk._ Leptochirus, _Perty_. *bispinus, _Erich_. Oxytelus, _Grav._ rudis, _Wlk._ productus, _Wlk._ *bicolor, _Wlk._ Trogophloeus? _Mann_. *Taprobanæ, _Wlk._ Omalium, _Grav._ filiforme, _Wlk._ Aleochara, _Grav._ postica, _Wlk._ *translata, _Wlk._ *subjecta, _Wlk._ Dinarda, _Leach_. serricornis, _Wlk._ Fam. PSELAPHIDÆ, _Leach_. Pselaphanax, _Wlk._ setosus, _Wlk._ Fam. SCYDMÆNIDÆ, _Leach_. Erineus, _Wlk._ monstrosus, _Wlk._ Scydmænus, _Latr._ *megamelas, _Wlk_. *alatus, _Niet._ *femoralis, _Niet._ *Ceylanicus, _Niet._ *intermedius, _Niet._ *pselaphoides, _Niet._ *advolans, _Niet._ *pubescens, _Niet._ *pygmæus, _Niet._ *glanduliferus, _Niet._ *graminicola, _Niet._ *pyriformis, _Niet._ *angusticeps, _Niet._ *ovatus, _Niet._ Fam. PTILIADÆ, _Woll._ Trichopteryx, _Kirby_. *cursitans, _Niet._ *immatura, _Niet._ *invisibilis, _Niet._ Ptilium, _Schüpp._. *subquadratum, _Niet._ Ptenidium, _Erich_. *macrocephalum, _Niet._ Fam. PHALACRIDÆ, _Leach_. Phalacrus, _Payk._ conjiciens, _Wlk._ confectus, _Wlk._ Fam. NITIDULIDÆ, _Leach_. Nitidula, _Fabr._ contigens, _Wlk._ intendens, _Wlk._ significans, _Wlk._ tomentifera, _Wlk._ *submaculata, _Wlk._ *glabricula, _Dohrn._ Nitidulopsis, _Wlk._ æqualis, _Wlk._ Meligethes, _Kirby_. *orientalis, _Niet._ *respondens, _Wlk._ Rhizophagus, _Herbst_. parallelus, _Wlk_. Fam. COLYDIADÆ, _Woll._ Lyctus, _Fabr._ retractus, _Wlk._ disputans, _Wlk._ Ditoma, _Illig._ rugicollis, _Wlk._ Fam. TROGOSITIDÆ, _Kirby_. Trogosita, _Oliv._ insinuans, _Wlk._ *rhyzophagoides, _Wlk._ Fam. CUCUJIDÆ, _Steph._ Loemophloeus, _Dej._ ferrugineus, _Wlk._ Cucujus? _Fabr._ *incommodus, _Wlk._ Silvanus, _Latr._ retrahens, _Wlk._ *scuticollis, _Wlk._ *porrectus, _Wlk._ Brontes, _Fabr._ *orientalis, _Dej._ Fam. LATHRIDIADÆ, _Woll._ Lathridius, _Herbst_. perpusillus, _Wlk._ Corticaria, _Marsh_. resecta, _Wlk._ Monotoma, _Herbst_. concinnula, _Wlk._ Fam. DERMESTIDÆ, _Leach_. Dermestes, _Linn_. vulpinus, _Fabr._ Attagenus, _Latr._ defectus, _Wlk._ rufipes, _Wlk._ Trinodes, _Meg._ hirtellus, _Wlk._ Fam. BYRRHIDÆ, _Leach_. Inclica, _Wlk._ solida, _Wlk._ Fam. HISTERIDÆ, _Leach_. Hister, _Linn_. Bengalensis, _Weid._ encaustus, _Mars._ orientalis, _Payk_. bipustulatus, _Fabr._ *mundissimus, _Wlk._ Saprinus, _Erich_. semipunctatus, _Fabr._ Platysoma, _Leach_. atratum? _Erichs_. desinens, _Wlk._ restoratum, _Wlk._ Dendrophilus, _Leach._ finitimus, _Wlk._ Fam. APHODIADÆ, _Macl._ Aphodius, _Illig._ robustus, _Wlk._ dynastoides, _Wlk._ pallidicornis, _Wlk._ mutans, _Wlk._ sequens, _Wlk._ Psammodius, _Gyll._ inscitus, _Wlk._ Fam. TROGIDÆ, _Macl._ Trox, _Fabr._ inclusus, _Wlk._ cornutus, _Fabr._ Fam. COPRIDÆ, _Leach._ Ateuchus, _Weber._ sacer. _Linn._ Gymnopleurus, _Illig._ smaragdifer, _Wlk._ Koenigii, _Fabr._ Sisyphus, _Latr._ setosulus, _Wlk._ subsidens, _Wlk._ prominens, _Wlk._ Orepanocerus, _Kirby._ Taprobanæ, _West._ Copris, _Geoffr._ Pirmal, _Fabr._ sagax, _Quens._ capucinus, _Fabr._ cribricollis, _Wlk._ repertus, _Wlk._ sodalis, _Wlk._ signatus, _Wlk._ diminutivus, _Wlk._ Onthophagus, _Latr._ Bonassus, _Fabr._ cervicornis, _Fabr._ prolixus, _Wlk._ gravis, _Wlk._ diffieilis, _Wlk._ lucens, _Wtk._ negligens, _Wlk._ moerens, _Wlk._ turbatus _Wlk._ Onitis, _Fabr._ Philemon, _Fabr._ Fam. DYNASTIDÆ, _Macl._ Oryetes, _Illig._ rhinoceros, _Linn._ Xylotrupes, _Hope._ Gideon, _Linn._ reductus, _Wlk._ solidipes, _Wlk._ Phileurus, _Latr._ detractus, _Wlk._ Orphnus, _Macl._ detegens, _Wlk._ scitissimus, _Wlk._ Fam. GEOTRUPIDÆ, _Leach._ Bolboceras, _Kirby._ lineatus, _Westw._ Fam. MELOLONTHIDÆ, _Macl._ Melolontha, _Fabr._ nummicudens, _Newm._ rubiginosa, _Wlk._ ferruginosa, _Wlk._ seriata, _Hope._ pinguis, _Wlk._ setosa, _Wlk._ Rhizotrogus, _Lair._ hirtipectus, _Wlk._ æqualis, _Wlk._ costatus, _Wlk._ inductus, _Wlk._ exactus, _Wlk._ sulcifer, _Wlk._ Phyllopertha, _Kirby._ transversa, _Burm._ Silphodes, _Westw._ Indica, _Westw._ Trigonostoma, _Dej._ assimile, _Hope._ compressum? _Weid._ nanum, _Wlk._ Serica, _Macl._ pruinosa, _Hope._ Popilia, _Leach._ marginicollis, _Newm._ cyanella, _Hope._ discalis, _Wlk._ Sericesthis, _Dej._ rotundata, _Wlk._ subsignata, _Wlk._ mollis, _Wlk._ confirmata, _Wlk._ Plectris, _Lep. & Serv._ solida, _Wlk._ punctigera, _Wlk._ glabrilinea, _Wlk._ Isonychus, _Mann._ ventralis, _Wlk._ pectoralis, _Wlk._ Omaloplia, _Meg._ fracta, _Wlk._ interrupta, _Wlk._ semicincta, _Wlk._ *hamifera, _Wlk._ *picta, _Dohrn._ *nana, _Dohrn._ Apogonia, _Kirby_. nigrieaus, _Hope._ Phytalus, _Erich._ eurystomus; _Burm._ Ancylonycha, _Dej._ Reynaudii, _Blanch._ Leucopholis, _Dej._ Mellei, _Guer._ pinguis, _Burm._ Anomala, _Meg._ elata, _Fabr._ humeralis, _Wlk._ discalis, _Wlk._ varicolor, _Sch._ conformis, _Wlk._ similis, _Hope._ punctatissima, _Wlk._ infixa, _Wlk._ Mimela, _Kirby_ variegata, _Wlk._ mundissima, _Wlk._ Parastasia, _Westw._ rufopicta, _Westw._ Euchlora, _Macl._ viridis, _Fabr._ perplexa, _Hope._ Fam. CETONIADÆ, _Kirby._ Glycyphana, _Burm._ versicolor, _Fabr._ luctuosa, _Gory._ variegata, _Fabr._ marginicollis, _Gory._ Clinteria, _Burm._ imperialis, _Schaum._ incerta, _Parry._ chloronota, _Blanch_ Tæniodera, _Burm._ Malabariensis, _Gory._ quadrivittata, _White._ alboguttata, _Vigors._ Protætia, _Burm._ maculata, _Fabr._ Whitehousii, _Parry._ Agestrata, _Erich._ nigrita, _Fabr._ orichalcea, _Linn._ Coryphocera, _Burm._ elegans, _Fabr._ Macronota, _Hoffm._ quadrivittata, _Sch._ Fam. TRICHIADÆ, _Leach._ Valgus, _Scriba._ addendus, _Wlk._ Fam. LUCANIDÆ, _Leach._ Odontolabis, _Burm._ Bengalensis, _Parry._ emarginatus, _Dej._ Ægus, _Macl._ acuminatus, _Fabr._ lunatus, _Fabr._ Singhala, _Blanch._ tenella, _Blanch._ Fam. PASSALIDÆ, _Macl_. Passalus, _Fabr_. transversus, _Dohrn_. interstitialis, _Perch_. punctiger? _Lefeb_. bicolor, _Fabr_. Fam. SPHÆRIDIADÆ, _Leach_. Sphæridium, _Fabr_. tricolor, _Wlk_. Cercyon, _Leach_. *vicinale, _Wlk_. Fam. HYDROPHILIDÆ, _Leach_. Hydrous, _Leach_. *rufiventris, _Niet_. *inconspicuus, _Niet_. Hydrobius, _Leach_. stultus, _Wlk_. Philydrus, _Solier_. esuriens, _Wlk_. Berosus, _Leach_. *decrescens, _Wlk_. Hydrochus, _Germ_. *lacustris, _Niet_. Georyssus, _Latr_. *gemma, _Niet_. *insularis, _Dohrn_. Dastarcus, _Wlk_. porosus, _Wlk_. Fam. BUPRESTIDÆ, _Stph_. Sternocera, _Esch_. chrysis, _Linn_. sternicornis, _Linn_. Chrysochroa, _Solier_. ignita, _Linn_. Chinensis, _Lap_. Rajah, _Lap_. *cyaneocephala, _Fabr_. Chyrsodema, _Lap_. sulcata, _Thunb_. Belionota, _Esch_. scutellaris, _Fabr_. *Petiti, _Gory_. Chrysobothris, _Esch_. suturalis, _Wlk_. Agrilus, _Meg_. sulcicollis, _Wlk_. *cupreiceps, _Wlk_. *cupreicollis, _Wlk_. *armatus, _Fabr_. Fam. ELATERIDÆ, _Leach_. Campsosternos, _Latr_. Templetonii, _Westw_. aureolus, _Hope_. Bohemannii, _Cand_. venustulus, _Cand_. pallidipes, _Cand_. Agrypnus, _Esch_. fuscipes, _Fabr_. Alaus, _Esch_. speciosus, _Linn_. sordidus, _Westw_. Cardiophorus, _Esch_. humerifer, _Wlk_. Corymbites, _Latr_. dividens, _Wlk_. divisa, _Wlk_. *bivittava, _Wlk_. Lacon, _Lap_. *obesus, _Cand_. Athous, _Esch_. punctosus, _Wlk_. inapertus, _Wlk_. decretus, _Wlk_. inefficiens, _Wlk_. Ampedus, _Meg_. *acutifer, _Wlk_. *discicollis, _Wlk_. Legna, _Wlk_. idonea, _Wlk_. Fam. LAMPYRIDÆ, _Leach_. Lycus, _Fabr_. triangularis, _Hope_. geminus, _Wlk_. astutus, _Wlk_. fallax, _Wlk_. planicornis, _Wlk_. melanopterus, _Wlk_. pubicornis, _Wlk_. duplex, _Wlk_. costifer, _Wlk_. revocans, _Wlk_. dispellens, _Wlk_. *pubipennis, _Wlk_. *humerifer, _Wlk_. expansicornis, _Wlk_. divisus, _Wlk_. Dictyopterus, _Latr_. internexus, _Wlk_. Lampyris, _Geoff_. tenebrosa, _Wlk_. diffinis, _Wlk_. lutescens, _Wlk_. *vitrifera, _Wlk_. Colophotia, _Dej_. humeralis, _Wlk_. [vespertina, _Fabr_. perplexa, _Wlk_.?] intricata, _Wlk_. extricans, _Wlk_. promelas, _Wlk_. Harmatelia, _Wlk_. discalis, _Wlk_. bilinea, _Wlk_. Fam. TELEPHORIDÆ, _Leach_. Telephorus, _Schäff_. dimidiatus, _Fabr_. malthinoides, _Wlk_. Eugeusis, _Westw_. palpator, _Westw_. gryphus, _Hope_. olivaceus, _Hope_. Fam. CEBRIONIDÆ, _Steph_. Callirhipis, _Latr_. Templetonii, _Westw_. Championii, _Westw_. Fam. MERLYRIDÆ, _Leach_. Malachius, _Fabr_. plagiatus, _Wlk_. Malthinus, _Latr_. *forticornis, _Wlk_. *retractus, _Wlk_. fragilis, _Dohrn_. Enciopus, _Steph_. proficiens, _Wlk_. Honosca, _Wlk_. necrobioides, _Wlk_. Fam. CLERIDÆ, _Kirby_. Cylidrus, _Lap_. sobrinus, _Dohrn_. Stigmatium, _Gray_. elaphroides, _Westw_. Necrobia, _Latr_. rufipes, _Fabr_. aspera, _Wlk_. Fam. PTINIDÆ, _Leach_. Ptinus, _Linn_. *nigerrimus, _Boield_. Fam. DIAPERIDÆ, _Leach_. Diaperis, _Geoff_. velutina, _Wlk_. fragilis, _Dohrn_. Fam. TENEBRIONIDÆ, _Leach_. Zophobas, _Dej_. errans? _Dej_. clavipes, _Wlk_. ?solidus, _Wlk_. Pseudoblaps, _Guer_. nigrita, _Fabr_. Tenebrio, _Linn_. rubripes, _Hope_. retenta, _Wlk_. Trachyscelis, _Latr_. brunnea, _Dohrn_. Fam. OPATRIDÆ, _Shuck_. Opatrum, _Fabr_. contrahens, _Wlk_. bilineatum, _Wlk_. planatum, _Wlk_. serricolle, _Wlk._ Asida, _Latr_. horrida, _Wlk._ Crypticus, _Latr_. detersus, _Wlk_. longipennis, _Wlk._ Phaleria, _Latr_. rufipes, _Wlk._ Toxicum, _Latr_. oppugnans, _Wlk_. biluna, _Wlk._ Boletophagus, _Ill._ *morosus, _Dohrn_. *exasperatus, _Doh._ Uloma, _Meg_. scita, _Wlk._ Alphitophagus, _Steph_. subfascia, _Wlk_. Fam. HELOPIDÆ, _Steph_. Osdara, _Wlk_. picipes, _Wlk_. Cholipus, _Dej_. brevicornis, _Dej_. parabolicus, _Wlk_. læviusculus, _Wlk_. Helops, _Fabr_. ebenius, _Wlk_. Camaria, _Lep. & Serv_. amethystina, _L. & S_. Amarygmus, _Dalm_. chrysomeloides, _Dej_. Fam. MELOIDÆ, _Woll_. Epicauta, _Dej_. nigrifinis, _Wlk_. Cissites, _Latr_. testaceus, _Fabr_. Mylabris, _Fabr_. humeralis, _Wlk_. alterna, _Wlk_. *recognita, _Wlk._ Atractocerus, _Pal., Bv_. debilis, _Wlk_. reversus, _Wlk_. Fam. OEDEMERIDÆ, _Steph_. Cistela, _Fabr._ congrua, _Wlk_. *falsitica, _Wlk_. Allecula, _Fabr_. fusiformis, _Wlk_. elegans, _Wlk_. *flavifemur], _Wlk_. Sora, _Wlk_. *marginata, _Wlk_. Thaccona, _Wlk_. dimelas, _Wlk_. Fam. MORDELLIDÆ, _Steph_. Acosmus, _Dej_. languidus, _Wlk_. Rhipiphorus, _Fabr_. *tropicus, _Niet_. Mordella, _Linn_. composita, _Wlk_. *defectiva, _Wlk_. Myrmecolax, _Westw_. *Nietneri, _Westw_. Fam. ANTHICIDÆ, _Wlk_. Anthicus, _Payk_ *quisquilarius, _Niet_. *insularius, _Niet_. *sticticollis, _Wlk_. Fam. CISSIDÆ, _Leach_. Cis, _Latr_. contendens, _Wlk_. Fam. TOMICIDÆ, _Shuck_. Apate, _Fabr_. submedia, _Wlk_. Bostrichus, _Geoff_. mutilatus, _Wlk_. *vertens, _Wlk_. *moderatus, _Wlk_. *testaceus, _Wlk_. *exiguus, _Wlk_. Platypus, _Herbst_. minax, _Wlk_. solidus, _Wlk_. *latitinis, _Wlk_. Hylurgus, _Latr_. determinans, _Wlk_. *concinnulus, _Wlk_. Hylesinus, _Fabr_. curvifer, _Wlk_. despectus, _Wlk_. irresolutus, _Wlk_. Fam. CURCULIONIDÆ, _Leach_. Bruchus, _Linn_. scutellaris, _Fabr_. Spermophagus, _Steven_. convolvuli, _Thumb_. figuratus, _Wlk_. Cisti, _Fabr_. incertus, _Wlk_. decretus, _Wlk_. Dendropemon _Schön_. *melancholicus, _Dohrn_. Dendrotrogus, _Jek_. Dohrnii, _Jek_. discrepans, _Dohrn_. Eucorynus, _Schön_. colligendus, _Wlk_. colligens, _Wlk_. Basitropis, _Jek_. *disconotatus, _Jek_. Litocerus, _Schön_. punctulatus, _Dohrn_. Tropideres, _Sch_. punctulifer, _Dohrn_. fragilis, _Wlk_. Cedus, _Waterh_. *cancellatus, _Dohrn_. Xylinades, _Latr_. sobrinulus, _Dohrn_. indignus, _Wlk_. Xenocerus, _Germ_. anguliferus, _Wlk_. revocans, _Wlk_. *anchoralis, _Dohrn_. Callistocerus, _Dohrn_. *Nietneri, _Dohrn_. Anthribus, _Geoff_. longicornis, _Fabr_. apicalis, _Wlk_. facilis, _Wlk_. Aræcerus, _Schön_. coffeæ, _Fabr_. *insidiosus, _Fabr_. *musculus, _Dohrn_. *intangens, _Wlk_. *bifovea, _Wlk_. Dipieza, _Pasc_. *insignis, _Dohrn_. Apolecta, _Pasc_. *Nietneri, _Dohrn_. *musculus, _Dohrn_ Arrhenodes, _Steven_. miles, _Sch_. pilicornis, _Sch_. dentirostris, _Jek_. approximans, _Wlk_. Veneris, _Dohrn_ Cerobates, _Schön_. thrasco, _Dohrn_. aciculatus, _Wlk_. Ceocephalus, _Schön_. cavus, _Wlk_. *reticulatus, _Fabr_. Nemocephalus, _Latr_. sulcirostris, _De Haan_. planicollis, _Wlk_. spinirostris, _Wlk_. Apoderus, _Oliv_. longicollis ? _Fabr_. Tranquebaricus, _Fabr_. cygneus, _Fabr_.? scitulus, _Wlk_. *triangularis, _Fabr_. *echinatus, _Sch_. Rhynchites, _Herbst_. suffundens, _Wlk._ *restituens, _Wlk._ Apion, _Herbst_. *Cingalense, _Wlk._ Strophosomus, _Bilbug_. *suturalis, _Wlk._ Piazomias, _Schön._ æqualis, _Wlk._ Astycus, _Schön._ lateralis, _Fabr.?_ ebeninus, _Wlk._ *immunis, _Wlk._ Cleonus, _Schön._ inducens, _Wlk._ Myllocerus, _Schön._ transmarinus, _Herbst_.? spurcatus, _Wlk._ *retrahens, _Wlk._ *posticus, _Wlk._ Phyllobius, _Schön._ *mimicus, _Wlk._ Episomus, _Schön._ pauperatus, _Fabr._ Lixus, _Fabr._ nebulifascia, _Wlk._ Aclees, _Schön._ cribratus, _Dej._ Alcides, _Dalm._ signatus, _Boh._ obliquus, _Wlk._ transversus, _Wlk._ *clausus, _Wlk._ Acicnemis, _Fairm._ Ceylonicus, _Jek._ Apotomorhinus, _Schön._ signatus, _Wlk._ alboater, _Wlk._ Cryptorhynchus, _Illig._ ineffectus, _Wlk._ assimilans, _Wlk._ declaratus, _Wlk._ notabilis, _Wlk._ vexatus, _Wlk._ Camptorhinus, _Schön.?_ reversus, _Wlk._ *indiscretus, _Wlk._ Desmidophorus, _Chevr._ hebes, _Fabr._ communicans, _Wlk._ strenuus, _Wlk._ *discriminans _Wlk._ inexpertus, _Wlk._ *fasciculicollis, _Wlk._ Sipalus, _Schön._ granulatus, _Fabr._ porosus, _Wlk._ tinctus, _Wlk._ Mecopus, _Dalm._ *Waterhousei, _Dohrn._ Rhynchophorus, _Herbst_. ferrugineus, _Fabr._ introducens, _Wlk._ Protocerus, _Schön._ molossus? _Oliv._ Sphænophorus, _Schön._ glabridiscus, _Wlk._ exquisitus, _Wlk._ Dehaani? _Jek._ cribricollis, _Wlk._ ? panops, _Wlk._ Cossonus, _Clairv._ *quadrimacula, _Wlk._ ? hebes, _Wlk._ ambiguus, _Sch.?_ Sitophilus, _Schön._ oryzæ, _Linn._ disciferus, _Wlk._ Mecinus, _Germ._ *? relictus, _Wlk._ Fam. PRIONIDÆ, _Leach_. Trictenotoma, _G.H. Gray_. Templetoni, _Westw._ Prionomma, _White_. orientalis, _Oliv._ Acanthophorus, _Serv._ serraticornis, _Oliv._ Cnemoplites, _Newm._ Rhesus, _Motch._ Ægosoma, _Serv._ Cingalense, _White_. Fam. CERAMIBYCIDÆ, _Kirby_. Cerambyx, _Linn._ indutus, _Newm._ vernicosus, _Pasc._ consocius, _Pasc._ versutus, _Pasc._ nitidus, _Pasc._ macilentus, _Pasc._ venustus, _Pasc._ torticollis, _Dohrn._ Sebasmia, _Pasc._ Templetoni, _Pasc._ Callichroma, _Lair._ trogoninum, _Pasc._ telephoroides, _Westw._ Homalomelas, _White_. gracilipes, _Parry_. zonatus, _Pasc._ Colobus, _Serv._ Cingalensis, _White_. Thranius, _Pasc._ gibbosus, _Pasc._ Deuteromma, _Pasc._ mutica, _Pasc._ Obrium, _Meg._ laterale, _Pasc._ moestum, _Pasc._ Psilomerus, _Blanch._ macilentus, _Pasc._ Clytus _Fabr._ vicinus, _Hope_. ascendens, _Pasc._ Walkeri, _Pasc._ annularis, _Fabr._ *aurilinea, _Dohrn._ Rhaphuma, _Pasc._ leucoscutellata, _Hope_. Ceresium, _Newm._ cretatum, _White_. Zeylanicum, _White._ Stromatium, _Serv._ barbatum, _Fabr._ maculatum, _White._ Hespherophanes, _Muls._ simplex, _Gyll._ Fam. LAMIIDÆ, _Kirby_. Nyphona, _Muls._ cylindracea, _White_. Mesosa, _Serv._ columba, _Pasc._ Coptops, _Serv._ bidens, _Fabr._ Xylorhiza, _Dej._ adusta, _Wied._ Cacia, _Newm._ triloba, _Pasc._ Batocera, _Blanch._ rubus, _Fabr._ ferruginea, _Blanch._ Monohammus, _Meg._ fistulator, _Germ._ crucifer, _Fabr._ nivosus, _White_. commixtus, _Pasc._ Cereopsius, _Dup._ patronus, _Pasc._ Pelargoderus, _Serv._ tigrinus, _Chevr._ Olenocamptus, _Chevr._ bilobus, _Fabr._ Praonetha, _Dej._ annulata, _Chevr._ posticalis, _Pasc._ Apomecyna, _Serv._ histrio, _Fabr._ var.? Ropica, _Pasc._ præusta, _Pasc._ Hathlia, _Serv._ procera, _Pasc._ Iolea, _Pasc._ proxima, _Pasc._ histrio, _Pasc._ Glenea, _Newm._ sulphurella, _White_. commissa, _Pasc._ scapifera, _Pasc._ vexator, _Pasc._ Stibara, _Hope_. nigricornis, _Fabr._ Fam. HISPIDÆ, _Kirby_. Oncocephala, _Dohrn_. deltoides, _Dohrn_. Leptispa, _Baly_. pygmæa, _Baly_. Amblispa, _Baly_, Döhrnii, _Baly_. Estigmena, _Hope_. Chinensis, _Hope_. Hispa, _Linn_. hystrix, _Fabr_. erinacea, _Fabr_. nigrina, _Dohrn_. *Walkeri, _Baly_. Platypria, _Guér_. echidna, _Guér_. Fam. CASSIDIDÆ, _Westw_. Epistictia, _Boh_. matronula, _Boh_. Hoplionota, _Hope_. tetraspilota, _Baly_. rubromarginata, _Boh_. horrifica, _Boh_. Aspidomorpha, _Hope_. St. crucis, _Fabr_. miliaris, _Fabr_. pallidimarginata, _Baly_. dorsata, _Fabr_. calligera, _Boh_. micans, _Fabr_. Cassida, _Linn_. clathrata, _Fabr_. timefacta, _Boh_. farinosa, _Boh_. Laccoptera, _Boh_. 14-notata, _Boh_. Coptcycla, _Chevr_. sex-notata, _Fabr_. 13-signata, _Boh_. 13-notata, _Boh_. ornata, _Fabr_. Ceylonica, _Boh_. Balyi, _Boh_. trivittata, _Fabr_. 15-punctate, _Boh_. catenata, _Dej_. Fam. SAGRIDÆ:, _Kirby_. Sagra, _Fabr_. nigrita, _Oliv_. Fam. DONACIDÆ, _Lacord_. Donacia, _Fabr_. Delesserti, _Guér_ Coptocephala, _Chev_. Templetoni, _Baly_. Fam. EUMOLPIDÆ, _Baly_. Corynodes, _Hope_. cyaneus, _Hope_. æneus, _Baly_. Glyptoscelis, _Chevr_. Templetoni, _Baly_. pyrospilotus, _Baly_. micans, _Baly_. cupreus, _Baly_. Eumolpus, _Fabr_. lemoides, _Wlk_. Fam. CRYPTOCEPHALIDÆ, _Kirby_. Cryptocephalus, _Geoff_. sex-punctatus, _Fabr_. Walkeri, _Baly_. Diapromorpha, _Lac_. Turcica, _Fabr_. Fam. CHRYSOMELIDÆ, _Leach_. Chalcolampa, _Baly_. Templetoni, _Baly_. Lina, _Meg_. convexa, _Baly_. Chrysomela, _Linn_. Templetoni, _Baly_. Fam. GALERUCIDÆ, _Steph_. Galeruca, _Geoff_. *pectinata, _Dohrn_. Graptodera, _Chevr_. cyanea, _Fabr_. Monolepta, _Chevr_. pulchella, _Baly_. Thyamis, _Steph_. Ceylonicus, _Baly_. Fam. COCCINELLIDÆ, _Latr_. Epilachna, _Chevr_. 28-punctata, _Fabr_. Delessortii, _Guér_. pubescens, _Hope_. innuba, _Oliv_. Coccinella, _Linn_. tricincta, _Fabr_. *repanda, _Muls_. tenuilinea, _Wlk_. rejiciens, _Wlk_. interrumpens, _Wlk_. quinqueplaga, _Wlk_. simplex, _Wlk_. antica, _Wlk_. flaviceps, _Wlk_. Neda, _Muls_. tricolor, _Fabr_. Coelophora, _Muls_. 9-maculata, _Fabr_. ? Chilocorus, _Leach_. opponens, _Wlk_. Seymnus, _Kug_. variabilis, _Wlk_. Fam. EROTYLIDÆ, _Leach_. Fatua, _Dej_. Nepalensis, _Hope_. Triplax, _Payk_. decorus, _Wlk_. Tritoma, _Fabr_. *bifacies, _Wlk_. *preposita, _Wlk_. Ischyrus, _Cherz_. grandis, _Fabr_. Fam. ENDOMYCHIDÆ, _Leach._ Eugonius, _Gerst_. annularis, _Gerst_. lunulatus, _Gerst_. Eumorphus, _Weber_. pulchripes, _Gerst_. *tener, _Dohrn_. Stenotarsus, _Perty_. Nietneri, _Gerst_. *castaneus, _Gerst_. *tomentosus, _Gerst_. *vallatus, _Gerst_. Lycoperdina, _Latr_. glabrata, _Wlk_. Ancylopus, _Gerst_. melanocephalus, _Oliv_. Saula, _Gerst_. *nigripes, _Gerst_. *ferruginea, _Gerst_. Mycetina, _Gerst_. castanea, _Gerst_. Order Orthoptera, _Linn_. Fam. FORFICULIDÆ, _Steph_. Forficula, _Linn_. Fam. BLATTIDÆ, _Steph_. Panesthia, _Serv_. Javanica, _Serv_. plagiata, _Wlk_. Polyzosteria, _Burm_. larva. Corydia, _Serv_. Petiveriana, _Linn_. Fam. MANTIDÆ, _Leach_. Empusa, _Illig_. gongylodes, _Linn_. Harpax, _Serv_. signifer, _Wlk_. Schizocephala, _Serv_, bicornis, _Linn_. Mantis, _Linn_. superstitiosa, _Fabr_. aridifolia, _Stoll_ extensicollis ? _Serv_. Fam. PHASMIDÆ, _Serv_. Acrophylla, _Gray_. systropedon, _Westw_. Phasma, _Licht_. sordidum, _De Haan_. Phyllium, _Illig_. siccifolium, _Linn_. Fam. GRYLLIDÆ, _Steph_. Acheta, _Linn_. bimaculata, _Deg_. supplicans, _Wlk_. æqualis, _Wlk_. confirmata, _Wlk_. Platydactylus, _Brull_. crassipes, _Wlk_. Steirodon, _Serv_. lanceolatum, _Wlk_. Phyllophora, _Thunb_. falsifolia, _Wlk_. Acanthodis, _Serv_. rugosa, _Wlk_. Phaneroptera, _Serv_. attenuata, _Wlk_. Phymateus, _Thunb_. miharis, _Linn_. Truxalis, _Linn_. exaltata, _Wlk_. porrecta, _Wlk_. Acridium, _Geoffr_. extensum, _Wlk_. deponens, _Wlk_. rufitibia, _Wlk_. cinctifemur, _Wlk_. respondens, _Wlk_. nigrifascia, _Wlk_. Order, Physapoda, _Dum_. Thrips, _Linn_. stenomelas, _Wlk_. Order, Neuroptera, _Linn_. Fam. SERICOSTOMIDÆ, _Steph_. Mormonia, _Curt_. *ursina, _Hagen_. Fam. LEPTOCERIDÆ, _Leach_. Macronema, _Pict_. multitarium, _Wlk_. *splendidum, _Hagen_. *nebulosum, _Hagen_. *obliquum, _Hagen_. *Ceylanicum, _Niet_. *annulicorne, _Niet_. Molanna, _Curt_. mixta, _Hagen_. Sctodes, _Ramb_. *Iris, _Hagen_. *Ino, _Hagen_. Fam. PSYCHOMIDÆ, _Curt_. Chimarra, _Leach_. *auriceps, _Hagen_. *funesta, _Hagen_. *sepulcralis, _Hagen_. Fam. HYDROPSYCHIDÆ, _Curt_. Hydropsyche, _Pict_. *Taprobanes, _Hagen_. *mitis, _Hagen_. Fam. RHYACOPHILIDÆ, _Steph_. Rhyacophila, _Pict_. *castanea, _Hagen_. Fam. PERLIDÆ, _Leach_. Perla, _Geoffr_. angulata, _Wlk_. *testacea, _Hagen_. *limosa, _Hagen_. Fam. SILIADÆ, _Westw_. Dilar, _Ramb_. *Nietneri, _Hagen_. Fam. HEMEROBIDÆ, _Leach_. Mantispa, _Illig_. *Indica, _Westw_. mutata, _Wlk_. Chrysopa, _Leach_. invaria, _Wlk_. *tropica, _Hagen_. aurifera, _Wlk_. *punctata, _Hagen_. Micromerus, _Ramb_. *linearis, _Hagen_. *australis, _Hagen_. Hemerobius, _Linn_. *frontalis, _Hagen_. Coniopteryx, _Hal_. *cerata, _Hagen_. Fam. MYRMELEONIDÆ, _Leach_. Palpares, _Ramb_. contrarius, _Wlk_. Acanthoclisis, _Ramb_. *--n. s. _Hagen_. *molestus, _Wlk_. Myrmeleon, _Linn_. gravis, _Wlk_. dirus, _Wlk_. barbarus, _Wlk_. Ascalaphus, _Fabr_. nugax, _Wlk_. incusans, _Wlk_. *cervinus, _Niet_. Fam. PSOCIDÆ, _Leach_. Psocus, _Latr_. *Taprobanes, _Hagen_. *oblitus, _Hagen_. *consitus, _Hagen_. *trimaculatus, _Hagen_. *obtusus, _Hagen_. *elongatus, _Hagen_. *chloroticus, _Hagen_. *aridus, _Hagen_. *coleoptratus, _Hagen_. *dolabratus, _Hagen_. *infelix, _Hagen_. Fam. TERMITIDÆ, _Leach_. Termes, _Linn_. Taprobanes, _Wlk_. fatalis, _Koen_. monoceros, _Koen_. *umbilicatus, _Hagen_. *n.s. _Jouv_. *n.s. _Jouv_. Fam. EMBIDÆ, _Hagen_. Oligotoma, _Westw_. *Saundersii, _Westw_. Fam. EPHEMERIDÆ, _Leach_. Bætis, _Leach_. Taprobanes, _Wlk_. Potamanthus, _Pict_. *fasciatus, _Hagen_. *annulatus, _Hagen_. *femoralis, _Hagen_. Cloe, _Burm_. *tristis, _Hagen_. *consueta, _Hagen._ *solida, _Hagen_. *sigmata, _Hagen_. *marginalis, _Hagen_. Cænis, _Steph_. perpusilla, _Wlk_. Fam. LIBELLULIDÆ. Calopteryx, _Leach_. Chinensis, _Linn_. Euphoea, _Selys_. splendens, _Hagen_. Micromerus, _Ramb_. lineatus, _Burm_. Trichocnemys, _Selys_. *serapica, _Hagen_. Lestes, _Leach_. *elata, _Hagen_. *gracilis, _Hagen_. Agrion, _Fabr._ *Coromandelianum, _F._ *tenax, _Hagen._ *hilare, _Hagen._ *velare, _Hagen._ *delicatum, _Hagen._ Gynacantha, _Ramb._ subinterrupta, _Ramb._ Epophthalmia, _Burm._ vittata, _Burm._ Zyxomma, _Ramb._ petiolatum, _Ramb._ Acisoma, _Ramb._ panorpoides, _Ramb._ Libellula, _Linn._ Marcia, _Drury._ Tillarga, _Fabr._ variegata, _Linn._ flavescens, _Fabr._ Sabina, _Drury._ viridula, _Pal. Beauv._ congener, _Ramb._ soror, _Ramb._ Aurora, _Burm._ violacea, _Niet._ perla, _Hagen._ sanguinea, _Burm._ trivialis, _Ramb._ contaminata, _Fabr._ equestris, _Fabr._ nebulosa, _Fabr._ Order, Hymenoptera, _Linn_. Fam. FORMICIDÆ, _Leach._ Formica, _Linn._ smaragdina, _Fabr._ mitis, _Smith._ *Taprobane, _Smith._ *variegata, _Smith._ *exercita, _Wlk._ *exundans, _Wlk._ *meritans, _Wlk._ *latebrosa, _Wlk_ *pangens, _Wlk._ *ingruens _Wlk._ *detorquens, _Wlk._ *diffidens, _Wlk._ *obscurans, _Wlk._ *indeflexa, _Wik._ consultans, _Wlk._ Polyrhachis, _Smith._ *illaudatus, _Wlk._ Fam. PONERIDÆ, _Smith._ Odontomachus, _Latr._ simillimus, _Smith._ Typhlopone, _Westw._ Cartisii, _Shuck._ Myrmica, _Latr._ basalis, _Smith._ contigua, _Smith._ glyciphila, _Smith._ *consternens, _Wlk._ Crematogaster, _Lund._ *pellens, _Wlk._ *deponens, _Wlk._ *forticulus, _Wlk._ Pseudomyrma, _Guré._ *atrata, _Smith._ allaborans, _Wlk._ Atta, _St. Farg._ didita, _Wlk._ Pheidole, _Westw._ Janus, _Smith._ *Taprobanæ, _Smith._ *rugosa, _Smith._ Meranoplus, _Smith._ *dimicans, _Wlk._ Cataulacus, _Smith._ Taprobanæ, _Smith._ Fam. MUTILLIDÆ, _Leach._ Mutilla, _Linn._ *Sibylla, _Smith._ Tiphia, _Fabr._ *decrescens, _Wlk._ Fam. EUMENIDÆ, _Westw._ Odynerus, _Latr._ *tinctipennis, _Wlk._ *intendens, _Wlk._ Scolia, _Fabr._ auricollis, _St. Farg._ Fam, CRABRONIDÆ, _Leach._ Philanthus, _Fabr._ basalis, _Smith._ Stigmus, _Jur._ *congruus, _Wlk._ Fam. SPHEGIDÆ, _Steph._ Ammophila, _Kirby._ atripes, _Smith._ Pelopoæus, _Latr._ Spinolæ, _St. Farg._ Sphex, _Fabr._ ferruginea, _St. Farg._ Ampulex, _Jur._ conapressa, _Fabr._ Fam. LARRIDÆ, _Steph._ Larrada, _Smith._ *extensa, _Wlk._ Fam. POMPILIDÆ, _Leach._ Pompilus, _Fabr._ analis, _Fabr._ Fam. APIDÆ, _Leach._ Andrena, _Fabr._ *exagens, _Wlk._ Nomia, _Latr._ rustica, _Westw._ *vincta, _Wlk._ Allodaps, _Smith._ *marginata, _Smith._ Ceratina, _Latr._ viridis, _Guér._ picta, _Smith._ *simillima, _Smith._ Cælioxys, _Latr._ capitata, _Smith._ Crocisa, _Jur._ *ramosa, _St. Farg._ Stelis, _Panz._ carbonaria, _Smith._ Anthophora, _Latr._ zonata, _Smith._ Xylocopa, _Latr._ tenuiscapa, _Westw._ latipes, _Drury._ Apis, _Linn._ Indica, _Smith._ Trigona, _Jur._ iridipennis, _Smith._ *præterita, _Wlk._ Fam, CHRYSIDÆ, _Wlk._ Stilbum, _Spin._ splendidum, _Dahl._ Fam. DORYLIDÆ, _Shuck._ Enictus, _Shuck._ porizonoides, _Wlk._ Fam. ICHNEUMONIDÆ, _Leach._ Cryptus, _Fabr._ *onustus, _Wlk._ Hemiteles ? _Grav._ *varius, _Wlk._ Porizon, _Fall._ *dominans, _Wlk._ Pimpla, _Fabr._ albopicta, _Wlk._ Fam. BRACONIDÆ, _Hal._ Microgaster, _Latr._ *recusans, _Wlk._ *significans, _Wlk._ *subducens, _Wlk._ *detracta, _Wlk._ Spathius, _Nees._ *bisignatus, _Wlk._ *signipennis, _Wlk._ Heratemis, _Wlk_ *filosa, _Wlk._ Nebartha, _Wlk_. *macropoides, _Wlk_. Psyttalia, _Wlk_. *testacea, _Wlk_. Fam. CHALCIDIÆ, _Spin_. Chalcis, _Fabr_. *dividens, _Wlk_. *pandens, _Wlk_. Halticella, _Spin_. *rufimanus, _Wlk_. *inficiens, _Wlk_. Dirrhinus, _Dalm_. *Anthracia, _Wlk_. Eurytoma, _Ill_. *contraria, _Wlk_. *indefensa, _Wlk_. Eucharis, _Latr_. *convergens, _Wlk_. *deprivata, _Wlk_. Pteromalus, _Swed_. *magniceps, _Wlk_. Encyrtus, _Latr_. *obstructus, _Wlk_. Fam. DIAPHIDÆ, _Hal_. Diapria, _Latr_. apicalis, _Wlk_. Order, Lepidoptera, _Linn_. Fam. PAPILIONIDÆ, _Leach_. Ornithoptera, _Boisd_. Darsius, _G. R. Gray_. Papilio, _Linn_. Diphilus, _Esp_. Jophon, _G. R. Gray_. Hector, _Linn_. Romulus, _Cram_. Polymnestor, _Cram_. Crino, _Fabr_. Helenus, _Linn_. Pammon, _Linn_. Polytes, _Linn_. Erithonius, _Cram_. Antipathis, _Cram_. Agamemnon, _Linn_. Eurypilos, _Linn_. Bathycles, _Zinck-Som_. Sarpedon, _Linn_. dissimilis, _Linn_. Pontia, _Fabr_. Nina, _Fabr_. Pieris, _Schr_. Eacharis, _Drury_. Coronis, _Cram_. Epicharis, _Gudt_. Nama, _Doubl_. Remba, _Moore_. Mesentina, _Godt_. Severina, _Cram_. Namouna, _Doubl_. Phryne, _Fabr_. Paulina, _Godt_. Thestylis, _Doubl_. Callosune, _Doubl_. Eucharis, _Fabr_. Danaë, _Fabr_. Etrida, _Boisd_. Idmais, _Boisd_. Calais, _Cram_. Thestias, _Boisd_. Mariamne, _Cram_. Pirene, _Linn_. Hebomoia, _Hübn_. Glaucippe, _Linn_. Eronia, _Hübn_. Valeria, _Cram_. Callidryas, _Boisd_. Phillipina, _Boisd_. Pyranthe, _Linn_. Hilaria, _Cram_. Alemeone, _Cram_. Thisorella, _Boisd_. Terias, _Swain_. Drona, _Horsf_. Hecabe, _Linn_. Fam. NYMPHALIDÆ, _Swain_. Euploea, _Fabr_. Prothoe, _Godt_. Core, _Cram_. Alcathoë, _Godt_. Danais, _Latr_. Chrysippus, _Linn_. Plexippus, _Linn_. Aglae, _Cram_. Melissa, _Cram_. Limniacæ, _Cram_. Juventa, _Cram_. Hestia, _Hübn_. Jasonia, _Westw_. Telchinia, _Hübn_. violæ, _Fabr_. Cethosia, _Fabr_. Cyane, _Fabr_. Messarus, _Doubl_. Erymanthis, _Drury_. Atella, _Doubl_. Phalanta, _Drury_. Argynnis, _Fabr_. Niphe, _Linn_. Clagia, _Godt_. Ergolis, _Boisd_. Taprobana, _West_. Vanessa, _Fabr_. Charonia, _Drury_. Libythea, _Fabr_. Medhavina, _Wlk_. Pushcara, _Wlk_. Pyrameis, _Hübn_. Charonia, _Drury_. Cardui, _Linn_. Callirhoë, _Hübn_. Junonia, _Hübn_. Limonias, _Linn_. Oenone, _Linn_. Orithyia, _Linn_. Laomedia, _Linn_. Asterie, _Linn_. Precis, _Hübn_. Iphita, _Cram_. Cynthia, _Fabr_. Arsinoe, _Cram_. Parthenos, _Hübn_. Gambrisius, _Fabr_. Limenitis, _Fabr_. Calidusa, _Moore_. Neptis, _Fabr_. Heliodore, _Fabr_. Columella, _Cram_. aceris, _Fabr_. Jumbah, _Moore_. Hordonia, _Stoll_. Diadema, _Boisd_. Auge, _Cram_. Bolina, _Linn_. Symphædra, _Hübn_. Thyelia, _Fabr_. Adolias, _Boisd_. Evelina, _Stoll_. Lubentina, _Fabr_. Vasanta, _Moore_. Garada, _Moore_. Nymphalis, _Latr_. Psaphon, _Westw_. Bernardus, _Fabr_. Athamas, _Cram_. Fabius, _Fabr_. Kallima, _Doubl_. Philarchus, _Westw_. Melanitis, _Fabr_. Banksia, _Fabr_. Leda, _Linn_. Casiphone, _G. R. Gray_. unduluris, _Boisd_. Ypththima, _Hübn_. Lysandra, _Cram_. Parthalis, _Wlk_. Cyllo, _Boisd_. Gorya, _Wlk_. Cathæna, _Wlk_. Embolima, _Wlk_. Neilgherriensis, _Guér_. Purimata, _Wlk_. Pushpamitra, _Wlk_. Mycalesis, _Hübn_. Patnia, _Moore_. Gamuliba, _Wlk_. Dosaron, _Wlk_. Samba, _Moore_. Cænonympha, _Hübn_. Euaspla, _Wlk._ Emesis, _Fabr._ Echerius, _Stoll._ Fam. LYCÆNIDÆ, _Leach._ Anops, _Boisd._ Bulis, _Boisd._ Thetys, _Drury._ Loxura, _Horsf._ Atymnus, _Cram._ Myrina, _Godt._ Selimnus, _Doubled._ Triopas, _Cram._ Amblypodia, _Horsf._ Longinus, _Fabr._ Narada, _Horsf._ Pseudocentaurus, _Do._ quercetorum, _Boisd._ Aphnæus, _Hübn._ Pindarus, _Fabr._ Etolus, _Cram._ Hephæstos, _Doubled._ Crotus, _Doubled._ Dipsas, _Doubled._ Chrysomallos, _Hübn._ Isocrates, _Fabr._ Lycæna, _Fabr._ Alexis, _Stoll._ Boetica, _Linn._ Cnejus, _Horsf._ Rosimon, _Fabr._ Theophrastus, _Fabr._ Pluto, _Fabr._ Parana, _Horsf._ Nyseus, _Guér._ Ethion, _Boisd._ Celeno, _Cram._ Kandarpa, _Horsf._ Elpis, _Godt._ Chimonas, _Wlk._ Gandara, _Wlk._ Chorienis, _Wlk._ Geria, _Wlk._ Doanas, _Wlk._ Sunya, _Wlk._ Audhra, _Wlk._ Polyommatus, _Latr._ Akasa, _Horsf._ Puspa, _Horsf._ Laius, _Cram._ Ethion, _Boisd._ Cattigara, _Wlk._ Gorgippia, _Wlk._ Lucia, _Westw._ Epius, _Westw._ Pithecops, _Horsf._ Hylax, _Fabr._ Fam. HESPERIDÆ, _Steph._ Goniloba, _Westw._ Iapetus, _Cram._ Pyrgus, _Hübn._ Superna, _Moore._ Danna, _Moore._ Genta, _Wlk._ Sydrus, _Wlk._ Nisoniades, _Hübn._ Diocles, _Boisd._ Salsala, _Moore._ Toides, _Wlk._ Pamphila, _Fabr._ Angías, _Linn._ Achylodes, _Hübn._ Temala, _Wlk._ Hesperia, _Fabr._ Indrani, _Moore._ Chaya, _Moore._ Cinnara, _Moore._ gremius, _Latr._ Cendochates, _Wlk._ Tiagara, _Wlk._ Cotiaris, _Wlk._ Sigala, _Wlk._ Fam. SPHINGIDÆ. _Leach._ Sesia, _Fabr._ Hylas, _Linn._ Macroglossa, _Ochs._ Stellatarum, _Linn._ gyrans, _Boisd._ Corythus, _Boisd._ divergens, _Wlk._ Calymnia, _Boisd._ Panopus, _Cram._ Choerocampa, _Dup._ Thyelia, _Linn._ Nyssus, _Drury._ Clotho, _Drury._ Oldenlandiæ, _Fabr._ Lycetus, _Cram._ Silhetensis, _Boisd._ Pergesa, _Wlk._ Acteus, _Cram._ Panacra, _Wlk._ vigil, _Guer._ Daphnis, _Hübn._ Nerii, _Linn._ Zonilia, _Boisd._ Morpheus, _Cram._ Macrosila, _Boisd._ obliqua, _Wlk._ discistriga, _Wlk._ Sphinx, _Linn._ convolvuli, _Linn._ Acherontia, _Ochs._ Satanas, _Boisd._ Smerinthus, _Latr._ Dryas, _Boisd._ Fam. CASTNIIDÆ _Wlk._ Eusemia, _Dalm._ bellatrix, _Westw._ Ægocera, _Latr._ Venulia, _Cram._ bimacula, _Wlk._ Fam. ZYGÆNIDÆ, _Leach._ Syntomis, _Ochs._ Schoenherri, _Boisd._ Creusa, _Linn._ Imaon, _Cram._ Glaucopis, _Fabr._ subaurata, _Wlk._ Enchromia, _Hübn._ Polymena, _Cram._ diminuta, _Wlk._ Fam. LITHOSIIDÆ, _Steph._ Scaptesyle, _Wlk._ bicolor, _Wlk._ Nyctemera, _Hübn._ lacticinia, _Cram._ latistriga, _Wlk._ Coleta, _Cram._ Euschema, _Hübn._ subrepleta, _Wlk._ transversa, _Wlk._ vilis, _Wlk._ Chalcosia, _Hübn._ Tiberina, _Cram._ venosa, _Anon._ Eterusia, _Hope._ Ædea, _Linn._ Trypanophora, _Wlk._ Taprobanes, _Wlk._ Heteropan, _Wlk._ scintillans, _Wlk._ Hypsa, _Hübn._ plana, _Wlk._ caricæ, _Fabr._ ficus, _Fabr._ Vitessa, _Moor._ Zemire, _Cram._ Lithosia, _Fabr._ antica, _Wlk._ brevipennis, _Wlk._ Setina, _Schr._ semifascia, _Wlk._ solita, _Wlk._ Doliche, _Wlk._ hilaris, _Wlk._ Pitane, _Wlk._ conserta, _Wlk._ Æmene, _Wlk._ Taprobanes, _Wlk._ Dirades, _Wlk._ attacoides, _Wlk._ Cyllene, _Wlk._ transversa, _Wlk._ *spoliata, _Wlk._ Bizone, _Wlk._ subornata, _Wlk._ peregrina, _Wlk._ Deiopeia, _Steph._ pulchella, _Linn._ Astrea, _Drury._ Argus, _Kollar._ Fam. ARCTIIDÆ, _Leach_. Alope, _Wlk._ ocellifera, _Wlk._ Sangarida, _Cram._ Tinolius, _Wlk._ eburneigutta, _Wlk._ Creatonotos, _Hübn._ interrupta, _Linn._ emittens, _Wlk._ Acmonia, _Wlk._ lithosioides, _Wlk._ Spilosoma, _Steph._ subfascia, _Wlk._ Cycnia, _Hübn._ rubida, _Wlk._ sparsigutta, _Wlk._ Antheua, _Wlk._ discalis, _Wlk._ Aloa, _Wlk_. lactinea, _Cram._ candidula, _Wlk._ erosa, _Wlk._ Amerila, _Wlk._ Melanthus, _Cram._ Ammatho, _Wlk._ cunionotatus, _Wlk._ Fam. LIPARIDÆ, _Wlk._ Artaxa, _Wlk._ guttata, _Wlk._ *varians, _Wlk._ atomaria, _Wlk._ Acyphas, _Wlk._ viridescens, _Wlk._ Lacida, _Wlk._ rotundata, _Wlk._ antica, _Wlk._ subnotata, _Wlk._ complens, _Wlk._ promittens, _Wlk._ strigulifera, _Wlk._ Amsacta? _Wlk._ tenebrosa, _Wlk._ Antipha, _Wlk._ costalis, _Wlk._ Anaxila, _Wlk._ notata, _Wlk._ Procodeca, _Wlk._ augulifera, _Wlk._ Redoa, _Wlk._ submarginata, _Wlk._ Euproctis, _Hübn._ virguncula, _Wlk._ bimaculata, _Wlk._ lunata, _Wlk._ tinctifera, _Wlk._ Cispia, _Wlk._ plagiata, _Wlk._ Dasychira, _Hübn._ pudibunda, _Linn._ Lymantria, _Hübn._ grandis, _Wlk._ marginata, _Wlk._ Enome, _Wlk._ ampla, _Wlk._ Dreata, _Wlk._ plumipes, _Wlk._ geminata, _Wlk._ mutans, _Wlk._ mollifera. _Wlk._ Pandala, _Wlk._ dolosa, _Wlk._ Charnidas, _Wlk._ junctifera, _Wlk._ Fam PSYCHIDÆ, _Bru._ Psyche, _Schr._ Doubledaii, _Westw._ Metisa, _Wlk._ plana, _Wlk._ Eumeta, _Wlk._ Cramerii, _Westw._ Templetonii, _Westw._ Cryptothelea, _Templ._ consorta, _Templ._ Fam. NOTODONTIDÆ, _St._ Cerura, _Schr._ liturata, _Wlk._ Stauropus, _Germ._ alternans, _Wlk._ Nioda, _Wlk._ fusiformis, _Wlk._. transversa, _Wlk._ Rilia, _Wlk._ lanceolata, _Wlk._ basivitta, _Wlk._ Ptilomacra, _Wlk._ juvenis, _Wlk._ Elavia, _Wlk._ metaphæa, _Wlk._ Notodonta, _Ochs._ ejecta, _Wlk._ Ichthyura, _Hübn._ restituens, _Wlk._ Fam. LIMACODIDÆ, _Dup_. Scopelodes, _Westw._ unicolor, _Westw._ Messata, _Wlk._ rubiginosa, _Wlk._ Miresa, _Wlk._ argentifera, _Wlk._ aperiens, _Wlk._ Nyssia, _Herr. Sch._ læta, _Westw._ Nesera, _Herr. Sch._ graciosa, _Westw._ Narosa, _Wlk._ conspersa, _Wlk._ Naprepa, _Wlk._ varians, _Wlk._ Fam. DREPANULIDÆ, _Wlk._ Oreta, _Wlk._ suffusa, _Wlk._ extensa, _Wlk._ Arna, _Wlk._ apicalis, _Wlk._ Ganisa, _Wlk._ postica, _Wlk._ Fam. SATURINIDÆ, _Wlk._ Attacus, _Linn._ Atlas, _Linn._ lunula, _Anon._ Antheræa, _Hübn._ Mylitta, _Drury._ Assama, _Westw._ Tropæa, _Hübn._ Selene, _Hübn._ Fam. BOMBYCIDÆ, _Steph._ Trabala, _Wlk._ basalis, _Wlk._ prasina, _Wlk._ Lasiocampa, _Schr._ trifascia, _Wlk._ Megasoma, _Boisd._ venustum, _Wlk._ Lebeda, _Wlk._ repanda, _Wlk._ plagiata, _Wlk._ bimaculata, _Wlk._ scriptiplaga, _Wlk._ Fam. COSSIDÆ, _Newm._ Cossus, _Fabr._ quadrinotatus, _Wlk._ Zeuzera, _Latr_. leuconota, _Steph._ pusilla, _Wlk._ Fam. HEPIALIDÆ, _Steph._ Phassus, _Steph._ signifer, _Wlk._ Fam. CYMATOPHORIDÆ, _Herr. Sch._ Thyatira, _Ochs._ repugnans, _Wlk._ Fam. BRYOPHILIDÆ, _Guén._ Bryophila, _Treit._ semipars, _Wlk._ Fam. BOMBYCOIDÆ, _Guén._ Diphtera, _Ochs._ deceptura, _Wlk._ Fam. LEUCANIDÆ, _Guén._ Leucania, _Ochs._ confusa, _Wlk._ exempta, _Wlk._ inferens, _Wlk._ collecta, _Wlk._ Brada, _Wlk._ truncata, _Wlk._ Crambopsis, _Wlk._ excludens, _Wlk._ Fam. GLOTTULIDÆ, _Guén._ Polytela, _Guén._ gloriosa, _Fabr._ Glottula, _Guén._ Dominica, _Cram._ Chasmina, _Wlk._ pavo, _Wlk._ cygnus, _Wlk._ Fam. APAMIDÆ, _Guén._ Laphygma, _Guén._ obstans, _Wlk._ trajiciens, _Wlk._ Prodenia, _Guén._ retina, _Friv._ glaucistriga, _Wlk._ apertura, _Wlk._ Calogramma, _Wlk._ festiva, _Don._ Heliophobus, _Boisd._ discrepans, _Wlk._ Hydræcia, _Guén._ lampadifera, _Wlk._ Apamea, _Ochs._ undecilia, _Wlk._ Celæna, _Steph._ serva, _Wlk._ Fam. CARADRINIDÆ, _Guén._ Amyna, _Guén._ selenampha, _Guén._ Fam. NOCTUIDÆ, _Guén._ Agrotis, _Ochs._ aristifera, _Guén._ congrua, _Wlk._ punctipes, _Wlk._ mundata, _Wlk._ transducta, _Wlk._ plagiata, _Wlk._ plagifera, _Wlk._ Fam. HADENIDÆ, _Guén._ Eurois, _Hübn._ auriplena, _Wlk._ inclusa, _Wlk._ Epiceia, _Wlk._ subsignata, _Wlk._ Hadena, _Treit._ subcurva, _Wlk._ postica, _Wlk._ retrahens, _Wlk._ confundens, _Wlk._ congressa, _Wlk._ ruptistriga, _Wlk._ Ansa, _Wlk._ filipalpis, _Wlk._ Fam. XYLINIDÆ, _Guén,_ Ragada, _Wlk._ pyrorchroma, _Wlk._ Cryassa, _Wlk._ bifacies, _Wlk._ Egelista, _Wlk._ rudivitta, _Wlk._ Xylina, _Ochs._ deflexa, _Wlk._ inchoans, _Wlk._ Fam. HELIOTHIDÆ, _Guén._ Heliothis, _Ochs._ armigera, _Hübn._ Fam. HÆMEROSIDÆ, _Guén._ Ariola, _Wlk._ coelisigna, _Wlk._ dilectissima, _Wlk._ saturata, _Wlk._ Fam. ACONTIDÆ, _Guén._ Xanthodes, _Guén._ intersepta, _Guén._ Acontia, _Ochs._ tropica, _Guén._ olivacea, _Wlk._ fasciculosa, _Wlk._ signifera, _Wlk._ turpis, _Wlk._ mianöides, _Wlk._ approximans, _Wlk._ divulsa, _Wlk._ *egens, _Wlk._ plenicosta, _Wlk._ determinata, _Wlk._ hypætroides, _Wlk._ Chlumetia, _Wlk._ multilinea, _Wlk._ Fam. ANTHOPHILIDÆ, _Guén._ Micra, _Guén._ destituta, _Wlk._ derogata, _Wlk._ simplex, _Wlk._ Fam. ERIOPIDÆ, _Guén._ Callopistria, _Hübn._ exotica, _Guén._ rivularis, _Wlk._ duplicans, _Wlk._ Fam. EURHIPIDÆ, _Guén._ Penicillaria, _Guén._ nugatrix, _Guén._ resoluta, _Wlk._ solida, _Wlk._ ludatrix, _Wlk._ Rhesala, _Wlk._ imparata, _Wlk._ Eutelia, _Hübn._ favillatrix, _Wlk._ thermesiides, _Wlk._ Fam. PLUSIIDÆ, _Boisd._ Abrostola, _Ochs._ transfixa, _Wlk._ Plusia, _Ochs._ aurifera, _Hübn._ verticillata, _Guén._ agramma, _Guén._ obtusisigna, _Wlk._ nigriluna, _Wlk._ signata, _Wlk._ dispellens, _Wlk._ propulsa, _Wlk._ Fam. CALPIDÆ, _Guén._ Calpe, _Treit._ minuticornis, _Guén._ Oroesia, _Guén._ emarginata, _Fabr._ Deva, _Wlk._ conducens, _Wlk._ Fam. HEMICERIDÆ, _Guén._ Westermannia, _Hübn._ superba, _Hübn._ Fam. HYBLÆIDÆ, _Guén._ Hyblæa, _Guén._ Puera, _Cram._ constellata, _Guén._ Nolasena, _Wlk._ ferrifervens, _Wlk._ Fam. GONOPTERIDÆ, _Guén._ Cosmophila, _Boisd._ Indica, _Guén._ xanthindyma, _Boisd._ Anomis, _Hübn._ fulvida, _Guén._ iconica, _Wlk._ Gonitis, _Guén._ combinans, _Wlk._ albitibia, _Wlk._ mesogona, _Wlk._ guttanivis, _Wlk._ involuta, _Wlk._ basalis, _Wlk_. Eporedia, _Wlk_. damnipennis, _Wlk_. Rusicada, _Wlk_. nigritarsis, _Wlk_. Pasipeda, _Wlk_. rufipalpis, _Wlk_. Fam. TOXOCAMPIDÆ, _Guén_. Toxocampa, _Guén_. metaspila, _Wlk_. sexlinea, _Wlk_. quinquelina, _Wlk_. Albonica, _Wlk_. reversa, _Wlk_. Fam. POLYDESMIDÆ, _Guén._ Polydesma, _Boisd_. boarmoides, _Wlk_. erubescens, _Wlk_. Fam. HOMOPTERIDÆ, _Bois_. Alamis, _Guén._ spoliata, _Wlk_. Homoptera, _Boisd_. basipallens, _Wlk_. retrahens, _Wlk_. costifera, _Wlk_. divisistriga, _Wlk_. procumbens, _Wlk_. Diacuista, _Wlk_. homopteroides, _Wlk_. Daxata, _Wlk_. bijungens, _Wlk_. Fam. HYPOGRAMMIDÆ, _Guén_. Briarda, _Wlk_. precedens, _Wlk_. Brana, _Wlk_. calopasa, _Wlk_. Corsa, _Wlk_. lignicolor, _Wlk_. Avatha, _Wlk_. includens, _Wlk_. Gadirtha, _Wlk_. decrescens, _Wlk_. impingens, _Wlk_. spurcata, _Wlk_. rectifera, _Wlk_. duplicans, _Wlk_ intrusa, _Wlk_. Ercheia, _Wlk_. diversipennis, _Wlk_. Plotheia, _Wlk_. frontalis, _Wlk_. Diomea, _Wlk_. rotundata, _Wlk_, chloromela, _Wlk_. orbicularis, _Wlk_. muscosa, _Wlk_. Dinumma, _Wlk_. placens, _Wlk_. Lusia, _Wlk_. geometroides, _Wlk_. perficita, _Wlk_, repulsa, _Wlk_. Abunis, _Wlk_. trimesa, _Wlk_. Fam. CATEPHIDÆ, _Guén_ Cocytodes, _Guén._ coerula, _Guén_. modesta, _Wlk_. Catephia, _Ochs_. lioteola, _Guén_. Anophia, _Guén_. acronyctoides, _Guén_. Steiria, _Wlk_. subobliqua, _Wlk_. trajiciens, _Wlk_. Aucha, _Wlk_. velans, _Wlk_. Ægilia, _Wlk_. describens, _Wlk_. Maceda, _Wlk_. mansueta, _Wlk_. Fam. HYPOCALIDÆ, _Guén_. Hypocala, _Guén_. efflorescens, _Guén_. subsatura, _Guén_. Fam. CATOCALIDÆ, _Boisd_. Blenina, _Wlk_. donans, _Wlk_. accipiens, _Wlk_. Fam. OPHIDERIDÆ, _Guén_. Ophideres, _Boisd_. Materna, _Linn_. fullonica, _Linn_. Cajeta, _Cram_. Ancilla, _Cram_. Salaminia, _Cram_. Hypermnestra, _Cram_. multiscripta, _Wlk_. bilineosa, _Wlk_. Potamophera, _Guén._ Manlia, _Cram_. Lygniodes, _Guén_. reducens, _Wlk_, disparans, _Wlk_. hypoleuca, _Guén_. Fam. EREBIDÆ, _Guén._ Oxyodes, _Guén_. Clytia, _Cram_. Fam. OMMATOPHORIDÆ, _Guén_. Speiredonia, _Hübn_. retrahens, _Wlk_. Sericia, _Guén._ anops, _Guén_. parvipennis, _Wlk_. Patula, _Guén_. macrops, _Linn_. Argiva, _Hübn_. hieroglyphica, _Drury_. Beregra, _Wlk_. replenens, _Wlk_. Fam. HYPOPYRIDÆ, _Guén_. Spiramia, _Guén_. Heliconia, _Hübn_. triloba, _Guén_. Hypopyra, _Guén._ vespertilio, _Fabr_. Ortospana, _Wlk_. connectens, _Wlk_. Entomogramma, _Guén_. fautrix, _Guén_. Fam. BENDIDÆ, _Guén_. Homæa, _Guén_. clathrum _Guén_. Hulodes, _Guén_. caranea, _Cram_. palumba, _Guén_. Fam. OPHIUSIDÆ, _Guén._ Sphingomorpha, _Guén._ Chlorea _Cram_. Lagoptera, _Guén_. honesta, _Hübn_. magica, _Hübn_. dotata, _Fabr_, Ophiodes, _Guén_. discriminans, _Wlk_. basistigma, _Wlk_. Cerbia, _Wlk_. fugitiva, _Wlk_. Ophisma, _Guén_. lætabilis, _Guén_. deficiens, _Wlk_. gravata, _Wlk_. circumferens, _Wlk_. terminans, _Wlk_. Achæa, _Hübn_. Melicerta, Drury. Mezentia, Cram. Cyllota, _Guén._ Cyllaria, _Cram_. fusifera, _Wlk_. signivitta, _Wlk_. reversa, _Wlk_. combinans, _Wlk_. expectans, _Wlk_. Serrodes, _Guén_. campana, _Guén_. Naxia, _Guén_. absentimacula, _Guén_. Onelia, _Guén_. calefaciens, _Wlk_. calorifica, _Wlk_. Calesia, _Guén_. hoemorrhoda, _Guén_. Hypætra, _Guén_. trigonifera, _Wlk_. curvifera, _Wlk_. condita, _Wlk_. complacens, _Wlk_. divisa, _Wlk_. Ophiusa, _Ochs_. myops, _Guén_. albivitta, _Guén_. Achatina, _Sulz_. fulvotænia, _Guén_. simillima, _Guén_. festinata, _Wlk_. pallidilinea, _Wlk_. luteipalpis, _Wlk_. Fodina, _Guén_. stola, _Guén_. Grammodes, _Guén_. Ammonia, _Cram_. Mygdon, _Cram_. stolida, _Fabr_. mundicolor, _Wlk_. Fam. EUCLIDIDÆ, _Guén_. Trigonodes, _Guén_. Hippasia, _Cram_. Fam. REMIGIDÆ, _Guén_. Remigia, _Guén_. Archesia, _Cram_. frugalis, _Fabr_. pertendens, _Wlk_. congregata, _Wlk_. opturata, _Wlk_. Fam. FOCILLIDÆ, _Guén_. Focilla, _Guén_. submemorans, _Wlk_. Fam. AMPHIGANIDÆ, _Guén_. Lacera, _Guén_. capella, _Guén_. Amphigonia, _Guén_. hepatizans, _Guén_. Fam. THERMISIDÆ, _Guén_. Sympis, _Guén_. rufibasis, _Guén_. Thermesia, _Hübn_. finipalpis, _Wlk_. soluta, _Wlk_. Azazia, _Wlk_. rubricans, _Boisd_. Selenis, _Guén_. nivisapex, _Wlk_. multiguttata, _Wlk_. semilux, _Wlk_. Ephyrodes, _Guén_. excipiens, _Wlk_. crististera, _Wlk_. lineifera, _Wlk_. Capnodes, _Guén_. *maculicosta, _Wlk_. Ballatha, _Wlk_. atrotumens, _Wlk_. Daranissa, _Wlk_. digramma, _Wlk_. Darsa, _Wlk_. defectissima, _Wlk_. Fam. URAPTERYDÆ, _Guén_. Lagyra, _Wlk_. Talaca, _Wlk_. Fam. ENNOMIDÆ, _Guén_. Hyperythra, _Guén_. limbolaria, _Guén_. deductaria, _Wlk_. Orsonoba, _Wlk_. Rajaca, _Wlk_. Sabaria, _Wlk_. contractaria, _Wlk_. Angerona, _Dup_. blandiaria, _Wlk_. Fascellina, _Wlk_. chromataria, _Wlk_. Fam. BOARMIDÆ, _Guén_. Amblychia, _Guén_. angeronia, _Guén_. Hemerophila, _Steph_. Vidhisara, _Wlk_. poststrigaria, _Wlk_. Boarmia, _Treit_. sublavaria, _Guén_. admissaria, _Guén_. raptaria, _Wlk_. Medasina, _Wlk_. Bhurmitra, _Wlk_. Suiasasa, _Wlk_. diffluaria, _Wlk_. caritaria, _Wlk_. exclusaria, _Wlk_. Hypochroma, _Guén_. minimaria, _Guén_. Gnophos, _Treit_. Pulinda, _Wlk_. Culataria, _Wlk_. Hemerophila, _Steph_. vidhisara, _Wlk_. Agathia, _Guén_. blandiaria, _Wlk_. Bulonga, _Wlk_. Ajaia, _Wlk_. Chacoraca, _Wlk_. Chandubija, _Wlk_. Fam. GEOMETRIDÆ, _Guén_. Geometra, _Linn_. specularia, _Guén_. Nanda, _Wlk_. Nemoria, _Hübn_. caudularia, _Guén_. solidaria, _Guén_. Thalassodes, _Guén_. quadraria, _Guén_. catenaria, _Wlk_. immissaria, _Wlk_. Sisunaga, _Wlk_. adornataria, _Wlk_. meritaria, _Wlk_. coelataria, __WlK_. gratularia, _Wlk_. chlorozonaria, _Wlk_. læsaria, _Wlk_. simplicaria, _Wlk_. immissaria, _Wlk_. Comibæna, _Wlk_. Divapala, _Wlk_. impulsaria, _Wlk_. Celenna, _Wlk_. saturaturia, _Wlk_. Pseudoterpna, _Wlk_. Vivilaca, _Wlk_. Amaurinia, _Guén_. rubrolimbaria, _Wlk_. Fam. PALYADÆ, _Guén_. Eumelea, _Dunc_. ludovicata, _Guén_. aureliata, _Guén_. carnearia, _Wlk_. Fam. EPHYRIDÆ, _Guén_. Ephyra, _Dap_. obrinaria, _Wlk_. decursaria, _Wlk_. Cacavena, _Wlk_. abhadraca, _Wlk_. Vasudeva, _Wlk_. Susarmana, _Wlk_. Vutumana, _Wlk_. inæquata, _Wlk_. Fam. ACIDALIDÆ, _Guén_. Drapetodes, _Guén_. mitaria, _Guén_. Pomasia, _Guén_. Psylaria, _Guén_. Sunandaria, _Wlk_. Acidalia, _Treit._ obliviaria, _Wlk._ adeptaria, _Wlk._ nexiaria, _Wlk._ addictaria, _Wlk._ actiosaria, _Wlk._ defamataria, _Wlk._ negataria, _Wlk._ actuaria, _Wlk._ cæsaria, _Wlk._ Cabera, _Steph._ falsaria, _Wlk._ decussaria, _Wlk._ famularia, _Wlk._ nigrarenaria, _Wlk._ Hyria, _Steph._ elataria, _Wlk._ marcidaria, _Wlk._ oblataria, _Wlk._ grataria, _Wlk._ rhodinaria, _Wlk._ Timandra, _Dup._ Ajuia, _Wlk._ Vijuia, _Wlk._ Agyris, _Guén._ deliaria, _Guén._ Zanclopteryx, _Herr. Sch._ saponaria, _Herr. Sch._ Fam. MICRONIDÆ, _Guén._ Micronia, _Guén._ caudata, _Fabr._ aculeata, _Guén._ Fam. MACARIDÆ, _Guén._ Macaria, _Curt._ Eleonora, _Cram._ Varisara, _Wlk._ Rhagivata, _Wlk._ Palaca, _Wlk._ honestaria, _Wlk._ Sangata, _Wlk._ honoraria, _Wlk._ cessaria, _Wlk._ subcandaria, _Wlk._ Doava, _Wlk._ adjutaria, _Wlk._ figuraria, _Wlk._ Fam. LARENTIDÆ, _Guén._ Sauris, _Guén._ hirudinata, _Guén._ Camptogramma, _Steph._ baccata, _Guén._ Blemyia, _Wlk._ Bataca, _Wlk._ blitiaria, _Wlk._ Coremia, _Guén._ Gomatina, _Wlk._ Lobophora, _Curt._ Salisuca, _Wlk._ Ghosha, _Wlk._ contributaria, _Wlk._ Mesogramma, _Steph._ lactularia, _Wlk._ scitaria, _Wlk._ Eupithecia, _Curt._ recensitaria, _Wlk._ admixtaria, _Wlk._ immixtaria, _Wlk._ Gathynia, _Wlk._ miraria, _Wlk._ Fam. PLATYDIDÆ, _Guén._ Trigonia, _Guén._ Cydonialis, _Cram._ Fam. HYPENIDÆ, _Herr. Sch._ Dichromia, _Guén._ Orosialis, _Cram._ Hypena, _Schr._ rhombalis. _Guén._ jocosalis, _Wlk._ mandatalis, _Wlk._ quæsitalis, _Wlk._ laceratalis, _Wlk._ iconicalis, _Wlk._ labatalis, _Wlk._ obacerralis, _Wlk._ pactalis, _Wlk._ raralis, _Wlk._ paritalis, _Wlk._ surreptalis, _Wlk._ detersalis, _Wlk._ ineffectalis, _Wlk._ incongrualis, _Wlk._ rubripunctum, _Wlk._ Gesonia, _Wlk._ *obeditalis, _Wlk._ duplex, _Wlk._ Fam. HERMINIDÆ, _Dup._ Herminia, _Latr._ Timonalis, _Wlk._ diffusalis, _Wlk_ interstans, _Wlk._ Adrapsa, _Wlk._ ablualis, _Wlk._ Bertula, _Wlk._ abjudicalis, _Wlk._ raptatalis, _Wlk._ contigens, _Wlk._ Bocana, _Wlk._ jutalis, _Wlk._ manifestalis, _Wlk._ ophiusalis, _Wlk._ vagalis, _Wlk._ turpatalis, _Wlk._ hypernalis, _Wlk._ gravatalis, _Wlk._ tumidalis, _Wlk._ Orthaga, _Wlk._ Euadrusalis, _Wlk._ Hipoepa, _Wlk._ lapsalis, _Wlk._ Lamura, _Wlk._ oberratalis, _Wlk._ Echana, _Wlk._ abavalis, _Wlk._ Dragana, _Wlk._ pansalis, _Wlk._ Pingrasa, _Wlk._ accuralis, _Wlk._ Egnasia, _Wlk._ ephyradalis, _Wlk._ accingalis, _Wlk._ participalis, _Wlk._ usurpatalis, _Wlk._ Berresa, _Wlk._ natalis, _Wlk._ Imma, _Wlk._ rugosalis, _Wlk._ Chusaris, _Wlk._ retatalis, _Wlk._ Corgatha, _Wlk._ zonalis, _Wlk._ Catada, _Wlk._ glomeralis, _Wlk._ captiosalis, _Wlk._ Fam. PYRALIDÆ, _Guén._ Pyralis, _Linn._ igniflualis, _Wlk._ Palesalis, _Wlk._ reconditalis, _Wlk._ Idalialis, _Wlk._ Janassalis, _Wlk._ Aglossa, _Latr._ Gnidusalis, _Wlk._ Isabanda, _Wlk._ herbealis. _Wlk._ Fam. ENNYCHIDÆ, _Dup._ Pyrausta, _Schr._ *absistalis, _Wlk._ Fam. ASOPIDÆ, _Guén._ Desmia, _Westw._ afflictalis, _Guén._ concisalis, _Wlk._ Ædiodes, _Guén._ flavibasalis, _Guén.._ effertalis, _Wlk._ Samea, _Guén._ gratiosalis, _Wlk._ Asopia, _Guén._ vulgalis, _Guén._ falsidicalis, _Wlk._ abruptalis, _Wlk._ latimarginalis, _Wlk._ præteritalis, _Wlk._ Eryxalis, _Wlk._ roridalis, _Wlk_. Agathodes, _Guén._ ostentalis, _Geyer_. Leucinades, _Guén_. orbonalis, _Guén_. Hymenia, _Hübn_. recurvalis, _Fabr_. Agrotera, _Schr_. suffusalis, _Wlk_. decessalis, _Wlk_. Isopteryx, _Guen_. *melaleucalis, _Wlk_. *impulsalis, _Wlk_. *spilomelalis, _Wlk_. acclaralis, _Wlk_. abnegatalis, _Wlk_. Fam. HYDROCAMPIDÆ, _Guén_. Oligostigma, _Guén_. obitalis, _Wlk_. votalis, _Wlk_. Cataclysta, _Herr. Sch._ dilucidalis, _Guér_. bisectalis, _Wlk_. blandialis, _Wlk_. elutalis, _Wlk_. Fam. SPILOMELIDÆ, _Guén_. Lepyrodes, _Guén_. geometralis, _Guén_. lepidalis, _Wlk_. peritalis, _Wlk_. Phalangiodes, _Guén_. Neptisalis, _Cram_. Spilomela, _Guén_. meritalis, _Wlk_. abdicalis, _Wlk_. decussalis, _Wlk_. aurolinealis, _Wlk_. Nistra, _Wlk_. coelatalis, _Wlk_. Pagyda, _Wlk_. salvalis, _Wlk_. Massepha, _Wlk_. absolutalis, _Wlk_. Fam. MARGARODIDÆ, _Guén_. Glyphodes, _Guén_. diurnalis, _Guén_. decretalis, _Guén_. coesalis, _Wlk_. univocalis, _Wlk_. Phakellura, _L. Guild_. gazorialis, _Guén_. Margarodes, _Guén_. psittacalis, _Hübn_. pomonalis, _Guén_. hilaralis, _Wlk_. Pygospila, _Guén_. Tyresalis, _Cram_. Neurina, _Guén,_ Procopialis, _Cram_. ignibasalis, _Wlk_. Ilurgia, _Wlk_. defamalis, _Wlk_. Maruca, _Wlk_. ruptalis, _Wlk_. caritalis, _Wlk_. Fam. BOTYDÆ, _Guén_. Botys, _Latr_. marginalis, _Cram_. sellalis, _Guén._ multilinealis, _Guén_. admensalis, _Wlk_. abjungalis, _Wlk_. rutilalis, _Wlk_. admixtalis, _Wlk_. celatalis, _Wlk_. deductalis, _Wlk_. celsalis, _Wlk_. vulsalis, _Wlk_. ultimalis, _Wlk_. tropicalis, _Wlk_. abstrusalis, _Wlk_. ruralis, _Wlk_. adhoesalis, _Wlk_. illisalis, _Wlk_. stultalis, _Wlk_. adductalis, _Wlk_. histricalis, _Wlk_. illectalis, _Wlk_. suspicalis, _Wlk_. Janassalis, _Wlk_. Nephealis, _Wlk_. Cynaralis, _Wlk_. Dialis, _Wlk_. Thaisalis, _Wlk_. Dryopealis, _Wlk_. Myrinalis, _Wlk_. phycidalis, _Wlk_. annulalis, _Wlk_. brevilinealis, _Wlk._ plagiatalis, _Wlk._ Ebulea, _Guén._ aberratalis, _Wlk_. Camillalis, _Wlk_. Pionea, _Guén._ actualis, _Wlk_. Optiletalis, _Wlk_. Jubesalis, _Wlk_. brevialis, _Wlk_. suffusalis, _Wlk_. Scopula, _Schr_. revocatalis, _Wlk_. turgidalis, _Wlk_. volutatalis, _Wlk_. Godara, _Wlk_. pervasalis, _Wlk_. Herculia, _Wlk_. bractialis, _Wlk._ Mecyna, _Guen_. deprivulis, _Wlk_. Fam. SCOPARIDÆ, _Guén_ Scoparia, _Haw_. murificalis, _Wlk_. congestalis, _Wlk_. Alconalis, _Wlk_. Davana, _Wlk_. Phalantalia, _Wlk_. Darsania, _Wlk_. Niobesalis, _Wlk_. Dosara, _Wlk_. coelatella, _Wlk_. lapsalis, _Wlk_. immeritalis, _Wlk_. Fam. CHOREUTIDÆ, _Staint._ Niaccaba, _Wlk_. sumptialis, _Wlk_. Simæthis, _Leach_. Clatella, _Wlk_. Damonella, _Wlk_. Bathusella, _Wlk_. Fam. PHYCIDÆ, _Staint_. Myelois, _Hübn_. actiosella, _Wlk_. bractiatella, _Wlk_. cautella, _Wlk_. adaptella, _Wlk_. illusella, _Wlk_. basifuscella, _Wlk_. Ligeralis, _Wlk_. Marsyasalis, _Wlk_. Dascusa, _Wlk_. Valensalis, _Wlk_. Daroma, _Wlk_. Zeuxoalis, _Wlk_. Epulusalis, _Wlk_. Timeusalis, _Wlk_. Homoesoma, _Curt_. gratella, _Wlk_. Getusella, _Wlk_. Nephopteryx, _Hübn_. Etolusalis, _Wlk_. Cyllusalis, _Wlk_. Hylasalis, _Wlk_. Acisalis, _Wlk_. Harpaxalis, _Wlk_. Æolusalis, _Wlk_. Argiadesalis, _Wlk_. Philiasalis, _Wlk_. Pempelia, _Hühn_. laudatella, _Wlk_. Prionapteryx, _Steph_. Lincusalis, _Wlk_. Pindicitora, _Wlk_. Acreonalis, _Wlk_. Annusalis, _Wlk_. Thysbesalis, _Wlk_. Linceusalis, _Wlk_. Lacipea, _Wlk_. muscosella, _Wlk_. Araxes, _Steph_. admotella, _Wlk_. decusella, _Wlk_. celsella, _Wlk_. admigratella, _Wlk_. coesella, _Wlk_. candidatella, _Wlk_. Catagela, _Wlk_. adjurella, _Wlk_. acricuella, _Wlk_. lunulella, _Wlk_. Fam. CRAMBIDÆ, _Dup_. Crambus, _Fabr_. concinellus, _Wlk_. Darbhaca, _Wlk_. inceptella, _Wlk_. Jartheza, _Wlk_. honorella, _Wlk_. Bulina, _Wlk_. solitella, _Wlk_. Bembina, _Wlk_. Cyanusalis, _Wlk_. Chilo, _Zinck_. dodatella, _Wlk_. gratiosella, _Wlk_. aditella, _Wlk_. blitella, _Wlk_. Dariausa, _Wlk_. Eubusalis, _Wlk_. Arrhade, _Wlk_. Ematheonalis, _Wlk_. Darnensis, _Wlk_. Strephonella, _Wlk_. Fam. CHLOEPHORIDÆ, _Staint_. Thagora, _Wlk_. figurans, _Wlk_. Earias, _Hübn_. chromatana, _Wlk_. Fam. TORTRICIDÆ, _Steph_. Lozotænia, _Steph_. retractana, _Wlk_. Peronea, _Curt_. divisana, _Wlk_. Lithogramma, _Steph_. flexilineana, _Wlk_. Dictyopteryx, _Steph_. punctana, _Wlk_. Homona, _Wlk_. fasciculana, _Wlk_. Hemonia, _Wlk_. orbiferana, _Wlk_. Achroia, _Hübn_. tricingulana, _Wlk_. Fam. YPONOMEUTIDÆ, _Steph_. Atteva, _Wlk_. niveigutta, _Wlk_. Fam. GELICHIDÆ, _Staint_. Depressaria, _Haw_. obligatella, _Wlk_. fimbriella, _Wlk_. Decuaria, _Wlk_. mendicella, _Wlk_. Gelechia, _Hübn_. nugatella, _Wlk_. calatella, _Wlk_. deductella, _Wlk_. Perionella, _Wlk_. Gizama, _Wlk_. blandiella, _Wlk_. Enisipia, _Wlk_. falsella, _Wlk_. Gapharia, _Wlk_. recitatella, _Wlk_. Goesa, _Wlk_. decusella, _Wlk_. Cimitra, _Wlk_. seclusella, _Wlk_. Ficulea, _Wlk_. blandulella, _Wlk_. Fresilia, _Wlk_. nesciatella, _Wlk_. Gesontha, _Wlk_. captiosella, _Wlk_. Aginis, _Wlk_. hilariella, _Wlk_. Cadra, _Wlk_. defectella, _Wlk_. Fam. GLYPHYPTIDÆ, _Staint_. Glyphyteryx, _Hübn_. scitulella, _Wlk_. Hybele, _Wlk_. mansuetella, _Wlk_. Fam. TINEIDÆ, _Leach_. Tinea, _Linn_. tapetzella, _Linn_. receptella, _Wlk_. pelionella, _Linn_. plagiferella, _Wlk_. Fam. LYONETIDÆ, _Staint_. Cachura, _Wlk_. objectella, _Wlk_. Fam. PTEROPHORIDÆ, _Zell_. Pterophorus, _Geoffr_. leucadactylus, _Wlk_. oxydactylus, _Wlk_. anisodactylus, _Wlk_. Order Diptera, _Linn_. Fam. MYCETOPHILIDÆ, _Hal_. Sciara, _Meig_. *valida, _Wlk_. Fam. CECIDOMYZIDÆ, _Hal_. Cecidomyia, _Latr_. *primaria, _Wlk_. Fam. SIMULIDÆ, _Hal_. Simulium, _Latr_. *destinatum, _Wlk_. Fam. CHIRONOMIDÆ, _Hal_ Ceratopogon, _Meig_. *albocinctus, _Wlk_. Fam. CULICIDÆ, _Steph_. Culex, _Linn_. regius, _Thwaites_. fuscanus, _Wied_. circumvolans, _Wlk_. contrahens, _Wlk_. Fam. TIPULIDÆ, _Hal_. Ctenophora, _Fabr_. Taprobanes, _Wlk_. Gymnoplistia? _Westw_. hebes, _Wlk_. Fam. STRATIOMIDÆ, _Latr_. Ptilocera, _Wied_. quadridentata, _Fabr_. fastuosa, _Geist_. Pachygaster, _Meig_. rufitarsis, _Macq._ Acanthina, _Wied_. azurea, _Geist_ Fam. TABANIDÆ, _Leach_. Pangonia, _Latr_. Taprobanes, _Wlk_. Fam. ASILIDÆ, _Leach_. Trupanea, _Macq_. Ceylanica, _Macq_. Asilus, _Linn_. flavicornis, _Macq_. Barium, _Wlk_. Fam. DOLICHOPIDÆ, _Leach._ Psilopus, _Meig._ *procuratus, _Wlk._ Fam. MUSCIDÆ, _Latr._ Tachina? _Fabr._ *tenebrosa, _Wlk._ Musca. _Linn._ domestica, _Linn._ Dacus, _Fabr._ *interclusus, _Wlk._ *nigroseneus, _Wlk._ *detentus, _Wlk._ Ortalis, _Fall._ *confundens, _Wlk._ Sciomyza, _Fall._ *leucotelus, _Wlk._ Drosophila, _Fall._ *restituens, _Wlk._ Fam. NYCTERIBIDÆ, _Leach._ Nycteribia, _Latr._ ----? a species parasitic on Scatophilus Coromandelicus, _Bligh._ See _ante,_ p. 161. Order Hemiptera, _Linn._ Fam. PACHYCORIDÆ, _Dall_ Cantuo, _Amyot & Serv._ ocellatus, _Thunb_. Callidea, _Lap._ superba, _Dall._ Stockerus, _Linn._ Fam. EURYGASTERIDÆ, _Dall_. Trigonosoma, _Lap._ Desfontainii, _Fabr._ Fam. PLATASPIDÆ, _Dall._ Coptosoma, _Lap._ laticeps, _Dall._ Fam. HALYDIDÆ, _Dall._ Halys, _Fabr._ dentate, _Fabr._ Fam. PENTATOMIDÆ, _Suph._ Pentatoma, _Oliv._ Timorensensis, _Hope._ Taprobanensls, _Dall._ Catacanthus, _Spin._ incarnatus, _Drury._ Rhaphigaster, _Lap._ congrua, _Wlk._ Fam. EDESSIDÆ, _Dall._ Aspongopus, _Lap._ Janus, _Fabr._ Tesseratoma, _Lep. & Serv._ papillosa, _Drury._ Cyclopelta, _Am. & Serv._ siccifolia, _Hope._ Fam. PHYLLOCEPHALIDÆ, _Dall._ Phyllocephala, _Lap._ Ægyptiaca, _Lefeb._ Fam. MICTIDÆ, _Dall._ Mictis, _Leach._ castanea, _Dall._ yalida, _Dall._ punctum, _Hope._ Crinocerus, _Burm._ ponderosus, _Wlk._ Fam, ANISOSCELIDÆ _Dall._ Leptoscelis, _Lap._ ventralis, _Dall._ turpis, _Wlk._ marginalis, _Wlk._ Serinetha, _Spin._ Taprobanensis, _Dall._ abdominalis, _Fabr._ Fam. ALYDIDÆ, _Dall._ Alydus, _Fabr._ linearis, _Fabr._ Fam. STENOCEPHALIDÆ, _Dall._ Leptocorisa, _Latr._ Chinensis, _Dall._ Fam. COREIDÆ, _Steph_. Rhopalus, _Schill._ interruptus, _Wlk._ Fam. LYGÆIDÆ, _Westw._ Lygæus, _Fabr._ lutescens, _Wlk._ figuratus, _Wlk._ discifer, _Wlk._ Rhyparochromus, _Curt._ testaciepes, _Wlk._ Fam. ARADIDÆ, _Wlk._ Piestosoma, _Lap._ picipes, _Wlk._ Fam. TINGIDÆ, _Wlk._ Calloniana, _Wlk._ *elegans, _Wlk._ Fam. CIMICIDÆ, _Wlk._ Cimex, _Linn_. lectularius, _Linn._? Fam. REDUVIIDÆ, _Steph._ Pirates, _Burm._ marginatus, _Wlk._ Acanthaspis, _Am. & Serv._ sanguinipes, _Wlk._ fulvispina, _Wlk._ Fam. HYDROMETRIDÆ, _Leach_. Ptilomera, _Am. & Serv._ laticauda, _Hardw._ Fam. NEPIDÆ, _Leach._ Belostoma, _Latr._ Indicum, _St. Farg. & Serv._ Nepa, _Linn._ minor, _Wlk._ Fam. NOTONECTIDÆ, _Steph_. Notonecta, _Linn._ abbreviata, _Wlk._ simplex, _Wlk._ Corixa, _Geoff._ *subjacens, _Wlk._ Order Homoptara, _Latr._ Fam. CICADIDÆ, _Westw._ Dundubia, _Am. & Serv._ stipata, _Wlk._ Cioafa, _Wlk._ Larus, _Wlk._ Cicada, _Linn_. limitaris, _Wlk._ nuhifurea, _Wlk._ Fam. FULCORIDÆ, _Schaum._ Hotinus, _Am. & Serv._ maculatus, _Oliv._ fulvirostris, _Wlk._ coccineus, _Wlk._ Pyrops, _Spin._ punctata _Oliv._ Aphæna, _Guér_. sanguinalis, _Westw_. Elidiptera, _Spin_. Emersoniana, _White_. Fam. CIXIIDÆ, _Wlk_. Eurybrachys, _Guér_. tomentosa, _Fabr_. dilatata, _Wlk_. crudelis, _Westw_. Cixius, _Latr_. *nubilus, _Wlk_. Fam. ISSIDÆ, _Wlk_. Hemisphærius, _Schaum_. *Schaumi, _Stal_. *bipustulatus, _Wlk_. Fam. DERBIDÆ, _Schaum_. Thracia, _Westw_. pterophorides, _Westw_. Derbe, _Fabr_. *furcato-vittata, _Stal_. Fam. FLATTIDÆ, _Schaum_. Flatoides, _Guér_. hyalinus, _Fabr_. tenebrosus, _Wlk_. Ricania, _Germ_. Hemerobii, _Wlk_. Poeciloptera, _Latr_. pulverulenta, _Guér_. stellaris, _Wlk_. Tennentina, _White_. Fam. MEMBRACIDÆ, _Wlk_. Oxyrhachis, _Germ_. *indicans, _Wlk_. Centrotus, _Fabr_. *reponens, _Wlk_. *malleus, _Wlk_. substitutus, _Wlk_. *decipiens, _Wlk_. *relinquens, _Wlk_. *imitator, _Wlk_. *repressus, _Wlk_. *terminalis, _Wlk_. Fam. CERCOPIDÆ, _Leach_. Cercopis, _Fabr_. inclusa, _Wlk_. Ptyelus, _Lep. & Serv_. costalis, _Wlk_. Fam. TETTIGONIIDÆ, _Wlk_. Tettigonia, _Latr_. paulula, _Wlk_. Fam. SCARIDÆ, _Wlk_. Ledra, _Fabr_. rugosa, _Wlk_. conica, _Wlk_. Gypona, _Germ_. prasina, _Wlk_. Fam. IASSIDÆ, _Wlk_. Acocephalus, _Germ_. porrectus, _Wlk_. Fam. PSYLLIDÆ, _Latr_. Psylla, _Goff_. *marginalis, _Wlk_. Fam. COCCIDÆ, _Leach_. Lecanium, _Illig_. Coffeæ, _Wlk_. CHAP. VII ARACHNIDA--MYRIOPODA--CRUSTACEA, ETC. With a few striking exceptions, the true _spiders_ of Ceylon resemble in oeconomy and appearance those we are accustomed to see at home. They frequent the houses, the gardens, the rocks and the stems of trees, and along the sunny paths, where the forest meets the open country, the _Epeira_ and her congeners, the true net-weaving spiders, extend their lacework, the grace of their designs being even less attractive than the beauty of the creatures that elaborate them. Those that live in the woods select with singular sagacity the bridle-paths and narrow passages for expanding their nets; no doubt perceiving that the larger insects frequent these openings for facility of movement through the jungle; and that the smaller ones are carried towards them by the currents of air. These nets are stretched across the path from four to eight feet above the ground, hung from projecting shoots, and attached, if possible, to thorny shrubs; and sometimes exhibit the most remarkable scenes of carnage and destruction. I have taken down a ball as large as a man's head consisting of successive layers rolled together, in the heart of which was the den of the family, whilst the envelope was formed, sheet after sheet, by coils of the old web filled with the wings and limbs of insects of all descriptions, from the largest moths and butterflies to mosquitoes and minute coleoptera. Each layer appeared to have been originally suspended across the passage to intercept the expected prey; and, as it became surcharged with carcases, it was loosened, tossed over by the wind or its own weight, and wrapped round the nucleus in the centre, the spider replacing it by a fresh sheet, to be in turn detached and added to the mass within. Walckenaer has described a species of large size, under the name of _Olios Taprobanius_, which is very common and conspicuous from the fiery hue of the under surface, the remainder being covered with gray hair so short and fine that the body seems almost denuded. It spins a moderate-sized web, hung vertically between two sets of strong lines, stretched one above the other athwart the pathways. Some of the spider-cords thus carried horizontally from tree to tree at a considerable height from the ground are so strong as to cause a painful check across the face when moving quickly against them; and more than once in riding I have had my hat lifted off my head by a single thread.[1] [Footnote 1: Over the country generally are scattered species of _Gasteracantha_, remarkable for their firm shell-covered bodies, with projecting knobs arranged in pairs. In habit these anomalous-looking _Epeiridæ_ appear to differ in no respect from the rest of the family, waylaying their prey in similar situations and in the same manner. Another very singular subgenus, met with in Ceylon, is distinguished by the abdomen being dilated behind, and armed with two long spines, arching obliquely backwards. These abnormal kinds are not so handsomely coloured as the smaller species of typical form.] Separated by marked peculiarities of structure, as well as of instinct, from the spiders which live in the open air, and busy themselves in providing food during the day, the _Mygale fasciata_ is not only sluggish in its habits, but disgusting in its form and dimensions. Its colour is a gloomy brown, interrupted by irregular blotches and faint bands (whence its trivial name); it is sparingly sprinkled with hairs, and its limbs, when expanded, stretch over an area of six to eight inches in diameter. It is familiar to Europeans in Ceylon, who have given it the name, and ascribed to it the fabulous propensities, of the Tarentula.[1] [Footnote 1: Species of the true _Tarentulæ_ are not uncommon in Ceylon; they are all of very small size, and perfectly harmless.] By day it remains concealed in its den, whence it issues at night to feed on larvæ and worms, devouring cockroaches[1] and their pupæ, and attacking the millepeds, gryllotalpæ, and other fleshy insects. The Mygale is found abundantly in the northern and eastern parts of the island, and occasionally in dark unfrequented apartments in the western province; but its inclinations are solitary, and it shuns the busy traffic of towns. [Footnote 1: Mr. EDGAR L. LAYARD has described the encounter between a Mygale and a cockroach, which he witnessed in the madua of a temple at Alittane, between Anarajapoora and Dambool. When about a yard apart, each discerned the other and stood still, the spider with his legs slightly bent and his body raised, the cockroach confronting him and directing his antennæ with a restless undulation towards his enemy. The spider, by stealthy movements, approached to within a few inches and paused, both parties eyeing each other intently: then suddenly a rush, a scuffle, and both fell to the ground, when the blatta's wings closed, the spider seized it under the throat with his claws, and dragging it into a corner, the action of his jaws was distinctly audible. Next morning Mr. Layard found the soft parts of the body had been eaten, nothing but the head, thorax, and elytra remaining.--_Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist._ May, 1853.] _Ticks_.--Ticks are to be classed among the intolerable nuisances to the Ceylon traveller. They live in immense numbers in the jungle[1], and attaching themselves to the plants by the two forelegs, lie in wait to catch at unwary animals as they pass. A shower of these diminutive vermin will sometimes drop from a branch, if unluckily shaken, and disperse themselves over the body, each fastening on the neck, the ears, and eyelids, and inserting a barbed proboscis. They burrow, with their heads pressed as far as practicable under the skin, causing a sensation of smarting, as if particles of red hot sand had been scattered over the flesh. If torn from their hold, the suckers remain behind and form an ulcer. The only safe expedient is to tolerate the agony of their penetration till a drop of coco-nut oil or the juice of a lime can be applied, when these little furies drop off without further ill consequences. One very large species, dappled with grey, attaches itself to the buffaloes. [Footnote 1: Dr. HOOKER, in his _Himalayan Journal_, vol. 1. p. 279, in speaking of the multitude of these creatures in the mountains of Nepal, wonders what they find to feed on, as in these humid forests in which they literally swarmed, there was neither pathway nor animal life. In Ceylon they abound everywhere in the plains on the low brushwood; and in the very driest seasons they are quite as numerous as at other times. In the mountain zone, which is more humid, they are less prevalent. Dogs are tormented by them; and they display something closely allied to cunning in always fastening on an animal in those parts where they cannot be torn off by his paws; on his eyebrows, the tips of his ears, and the back of his neck. With a corresponding instinct I have always observed in the gambols of the Pariah dogs, that they invariably commence their attentions by mutually gnawing each other's ears and necks, as if in pursuit of ticks from places from which each is unable to expel them for himself. Horses have a similar instinct; and when they meet, they apply their teeth to the roots of the ears of their companions, to the neck and the crown of the head. The buffaloes and oxen are relieved of ticks by the crows which rest on their backs as they browse, and free them from these pests. In the low country the same acceptable office is performed by the "cattle-keeper heron" (_Ardea bubuleus_), which is "sure to be found in attendance on them while grazing; and the animals seem to know their benefactors, and stand quietly, while the birds peck their tormentors from their flanks."--_Mag. Nat. Hist._ p. 111, 1844.] _Mites_.--The _Trombidium tinctorum_ of Hermann is found about Aripo, and generally over the northern provinces,--where after a shower of rain or heavy night's dew, they appear in countless myriads. It is about half an inch long, like a tuft of crimson velvet, and imparts its colouring matter readily to any fluid in which it may be immersed. It feeds on vegetable juices, and is perfectly innocuous. Its European representative, similarly tinted, and found in garden mould, is commonly called the "Little red pillion." MYRIAPODS.--The certainty with which an accidental pressure or unguarded touch is resented and retorted by a bite, makes the centipede, when it has taken up its temporary abode within a sleeve or the fold of a dress, by far the most unwelcome of all the Singhalese assailants. The great size, too (little short of a foot in length), to which it sometimes attains, renders it formidable; and, apart from the apprehension of unpleasant consequences from a wound, one shudders at the bare idea of such hideous creatures crawling over the skin, beneath the innermost folds of one's garments. At the head of the _Myriapods_, and pre-eminent from a superiorly-developed organisation, stands the genus _Cermatia_: singular-looking objects; mounted upon slender legs, of gradually increasing length from front to rear, the hind ones in some species being amazingly prolonged, and all handsomely marked with brown annuli in concentric arches. These myriapods are harmless, excepting to woodlice, spiders, and young cockroaches, which form their ordinary prey. They are rarely to be seen; but occasionally at daybreak, after a more than usually abundant repast, they may be observed motionless, and resting with their regularly extended limbs nearly flat against the walls. On being disturbed they dart away with a surprising velocity, to conceal themselves in chinks until the return of night. [Illustration: CERMATIA.] But the species to be really dreaded are the true _Scolopendræ_, which are active and carnivorous, living in holes in old walls and other gloomy dens. One species[1] attains to nearly the length of a foot, with corresponding breadth; it is of a dark purple colour, approaching black, with yellowish legs and antennæ, and its whole aspect repulsive and frightful. It is strong and active, and evinces an eager disposition to fight when molested. The _Scolopendræ_ are gifted by nature with a rigid coriaceous armour, which does not yield to common pressure, or even to a moderate blow; so that they often escape the most well-deserved and well-directed attempts to destroy them, seeking refuge in retreats which effectually conceal them from sight. [Footnote 1: _Scolopendra crassa_, Temp.] There is a smaller one[1], which frequents dwelling-houses, about one quarter the size of the preceding, of a dirty olive colour, with pale ferruginous legs. It is this species which generally inflicts the wound, when persons complain of being bitten by a scorpion; and it has a mischievous propensity for insinuating itself into the folds of dress. The bite at first does not occasion more suffering than would arise from the penetration of two coarsely-pointed needles; but after a little time the wound swells, becomes acutely painful, and if it be over a bone or any other resisting part, the sensation is so intolerable as to produce fever. The agony subsides after a few hours' duration. In some cases the bite is unattended by any particular degree of annoyance, and in these instances it is to be supposed that the contents of the poison gland had become exhausted by previous efforts, since, if much tasked, the organ requires rest to enable it to resume its accustomed functions and to secrete a supply of venom. [Footnote 1: _Scolopendra pullipes_.] _Millipeds._--In the hot dry season, and in the northern portions of the island more especially, the eye is attracted along the edges of the sandy roads by fragments of the dislocated rings of a huge species of millipede,[1] lying in short, curved tubes, the cavity admitting the tip of the little finger. When perfect the creature is two-thirds of a foot long, of a brilliant jet black, and with above a hundred yellow legs, which, when moving onward, present the appearance of a series of undulations from rear to front, bearing the animal gently forwards. This _julus_ is harmless, and may be handled with perfect impunity. Its food consists chiefly of fruits and the roots and stems of succulent vegetables, its jaws not being framed for any more formidable purpose. Another and a very pretty species,[2] quite as black, but with a bright crimson band down the back, and the legs similarly tinted, is common in the gardens about Colombo and throughout the western province. [Footnote 1: _Julus ater_, Temp.] [Footnote 2: _Julus carnifex_, Fab.] CRUSTACEA.--The seas around Ceylon abound with marine articulata; but a knowledge of the crustacea of the island is at present a desideratum; and with the exception of the few commoner species which frequent the shores, or are offered in the markets, we are literally without information, excepting the little that can be gleaned from already published systematic works. In the bazaars several species of edible crabs are exposed for sale; and amongst the delicacies at the tables of Europeans, curries made from prawns and lobsters are the triumphs of the Ceylon cuisine. Of these latter the fishermen sometimes exhibit specimens[1] of extraordinary dimensions, and of a beautiful purple hue, variegated with white. Along the level shore north and south of Colombo, and in no less profusion elsewhere, the nimble little Calling Crabs[2] scamper over the moist sands, carrying aloft the enormous hand (sometimes larger than the rest of the body), which is their peculiar characteristic, and which, from its beckoning gesture, has suggested their popular name. They hurry to conceal themselves in the deep retreats which they hollow out in the banks that border the sea. [Footnote 1: _Palinurus ornatus_, Fab.] [Footnote 2: _Gelasimus tatragonon_? Edw.; _G. annulipes_? Edw.; _G. Dussumieri_? Edw.] [Illustration: CALLING CRAB OF CEYLON.] _Sand Crabs._--In the same localities, or a little farther inland, the _ocypode_[1] burrows in the dry soil, making deep excavations, bringing up literally armfuls of sand; which with a spring in the air, and employing its other limbs, it jerks far from its burrows, distributing it in radii to the distance of several feet.[2] So inconvenient are the operations of these industrious pests that men are kept regularly employed at Colombo in filling up the holes formed by them on the surface of the Galle face, which is the only equestrian promenade of the capital; but so infested by these active little creatures that accidents often occur by horses stumbling in their troublesome excavations. [Footnote 1: _Ocypode ceratophthalmus_, Pall.] [Footnote 2: _Ann. Nat. Hist._ April, 1852. Paper by Mr. EDGAR L. LAYARD.] _Painted Crabs._--On the reefs which lie to the south of the harbour at Colombo, the beautiful little painted crabs,[1] distinguished by dark red markings on a yellow ground, may be seen all day long running nimbly in the spray, and ascending and descending in security the almost perpendicular sides of the rocks which are washed by the waves. _Paddling Crabs_,[2] with the hind pair of legs terminated by flattened plates to assist them in swimming, are brought up in the fishermen's nets. _Hermit Crabs_ take possession of the deserted shells of the univalves, and crawl in pursuit of garbage along the moist beach. Prawns and shrimps furnish delicacies for the breakfast table; and the delicate little pea crab, _Pontonia inflata_,[3] recalls its Mediterranean congener,[4] which attracted the attention of Aristotle, from taking up its habitation in the shell of the living pinna. [Footnote 1: _Grapsus strigosus_, Herbst.] [Footnote 2: _Neptunus pelagicus_, Linn,; _N. sanguinolentus_, Herbst, &c. &c.] [Footnote 3: MILNE EDW. _Hist. Nat. Crust._ vol. ii. p. 360.] [Footnote 4: _Pinnotheres veterum._] ANNELIDÆ.--The marine _Annelides_ of the island have not as yet been investigated; a cursory glance, however, amongst the stones on the beach at Trincomalie and in the pools, which afford convenient basins for examining them, would lead to the belief that the marine species are not numerous; tubicole genera, as well as some nereids, are found, but there seems to be little diversity; though it is not impossible that a closer scrutiny might be repaid by the discovery of some interesting forms. _Leeches._--Of all the plagues which beset the traveller in the rising grounds of Ceylon, the most detested are the land leeches.[1] They are not frequent in the plains, which are too hot and dry for them; but amongst the rank vegetation in the lower ranges of the hill country, which is kept damp by frequent showers, they are found in tormenting profusion. They are terrestrial, never visiting ponds or streams. In size they are about an inch in length, and as fine as a common knitting needle; but capable of distension till they equal a quill in thickness, and attain a length of nearly two inches. Their structure is so flexible that they can insinuate themselves through the meshes of the finest stocking, not only seizing on the feet and ankles, but ascending to the back and throat and fastening on the tenderest parts of the body. The coffee planters, who live amongst these pests, are obliged, in order to exclude them, to envelope their legs in "leech gaiters" made of closely woven cloth. The natives smear their bodies with oil, tobacco ashes, or lemon juice;[2] the latter serving not only to stop the flow of blood, but to expedite the healing of the wounds. In moving, the land leeches have the power of planting one extremity on the earth and raising the other perpendicularly to watch for their victim. Such is their vigilance and instinct, that on the approach of a passer-by to a spot which they infest, they may be seen amongst the grass and fallen leaves on the edge of a native path, poised erect, and preparing for their attack on man and horse. On descrying their prey they advance rapidly by semicircular strides, fixing one end firmly and arching the other forwards, till by successive advances they can lay hold of the traveller's foot, when they disengage themselves from the ground and ascend his dress in search of an aperture to enter. In these encounters the individuals in the rear of a party of travellers in the jungle invariably fare worst, as the leeches, once warned of their approach, congregate with singular celerity. Their size is so insignificant, and the wound they make is so skilfully punctured, that both are generally imperceptible, and the first intimation of their onslaught is the trickling of the blood or a chill feeling of the leech when it begins to hang heavily on the skin from being distended by its repast. Horses are driven wild by them, and stamp the ground in fury to shake them from their fetlocks, to which they hang in bloody tassels. The bare legs of the palankin bearers and coolies are a favourite resort; and, their hands being too much engaged to be spared to pull them off, the leeches hang like bunches of grapes round their ankles; and I have seen the blood literally flowing over the edge of a European's shoe from their innumerable bites. In healthy constitutions the wounds, if not irritated, generally heal, occasioning no other inconvenience than a slight inflammation and itching; but in those with a bad state of body, the punctures, if rubbed, are liable to degenerate into ulcers, which may lead to the loss of limb or of life. Both Marshall and Davy mention, that during the marches of troops in the mountains, when the Kandyans were in rebellion, in 1818, the soldiers, and especially the Madras sepoys, with the pioneers and coolies, suffered so severely from this cause that numbers of them perished.[3] [Footnote 1: [Illustration: EYES AND TEETH OF THE LAND LEECHES OF CEYLON] _Hæmadipsa Ceylanica_, Bosc. Blainv. These pests are not, however; confined to Ceylon; they infest the lower ranges of the Himalaya. --HOOKER, vol. i. p. 107; vol. ii. p. 54. THUNBEBG, who records (_Travels_, vol. iv. p. 232) having seen them in Ceylon, likewise met with them in the forests and slopes of Batavia. MARSDEN (_Hist_. p. 311) complains of them dropping on travellers in Sumatra. KNORR, found them at Japan; and it is affirmed that they abound in islands farther to the eastward. M. GAY encountered them, in Chili.--MOQUIN-TANDON, (_Hirudinèes_, p. 211, 346.) It is very doubtful, however, whether all these are to be referred to one species. M. DE BLAINVILLE, under _H. Ceylanica_, in the _Diet, de Scien. Nat._ vol. xlvii. p. 271, quotes M. BOSC as authority for the kind which that naturalist describes being "rouges et tachetées;" which is scarcely applicable to the Singhalese species. It is more than probable therefore, considering the period at which M. BOSC wrote, that he obtained his information from travellers to the further east, and has connected with the habitat universally ascribed to them from old KNOX'S work (Part I. chap, vi.) a meagre description, more properly belonging to the land leech of Batavia or Japan, In all likelihood, therefore, there may be a _H. Boscii,_ distinct from the _H. Ceylanica._ That which is found in Ceylon is round, a little flattened on the inferior surface, largest at the extremity, thence graclimlly tapering forward, and with the anal sucker composed of four rings, and wider in proportion than in other species. It is of a clear brown colour, with a yellow stripe the entire length of each side, and a greenish dorsal one. The body is formed of 100 rings; the eyes, of which there are five pairs, are placed in an arch on the dorsal surface; the first four pairs occupying contiguous rings (thus differing from the water-leeches, which have an unoccupied ring betwixt the third and fourth); the fifth pair are located on the seventh ring, two vacant rings intervening. To Dr. Thwaites, Director of the Botanic Garden at Peradenia, who at my request examined their structure minutely, I am indebted for the following most interesting particulars respecting them. "I have been giving a little time to the examination of the land leech. I find it to have five pairs of ocelli, the first four seated on corresponding segments, and the posterior pair on the seventh segment or ring, the fifth and sixth rings being eyeless (_fig_. A). The mouth is very retractile, and the aperture is shaped as in ordinary leeches. The serratures of the teeth, or rather the teeth themselves, are very beautiful. Each of the three 'teeth,' or cutting instruments, is principally muscular, the muscular body being very clearly seen. The rounded edge in which the teeth are set appears to be cartilaginous in structure; the teeth are very numerous, (_fig_. B); but some near the base have a curious appendage, apparently (I have not yet made this out quite satisfactorily) set upon one side. I have not yet been able to detect the anal or sexual pores. The anal sucker seems to be formed of four rings, and on each side above is a sort of crenated flesh-like appendage. The tint of the common species is yellowish-brown or snuff-coloured, streaked with black, with a yellow-greenish dorsal, and another lateral line along its whole length. There is a larger species to be found in this garden with a broad green dorsal fascia; but I have not been able to procure one although I have offered a small reward to any coolie who will bring me one." In a subsequent communication Mr. Thwaites remarks "that the dorsal longitudinal fascia is of the same width as the lateral ones, and differs only in being perhaps slightly more green; the colour of the three fasciæ varies from brownish-yellow to bright green." He likewise states "that the rings which compose the body are just 100, and the teeth 70 to 80 in each set, in a single row, except to one end, where they are in a double row."] [Footnote 2: The Minorite friar, ODORIC of Portenau, writing in A.D. 1320, says that the gem-finders who sought the jewels around Adam's Peak, "take lemons which they peel, anointing themselves with the juice thereof, so that the leeches may not be able to hurt them."--HAKLUYT, _Voy._ vol. ii. p. 58.] [Footnote 3: DAVY'S _Ceylon_, p. 104; MARSHALL'S _Ceylon_, p. 15.] [Illustration: LAND LEECHES.] One circumstance regarding these land leeches is remarkable and unexplained; they are helpless without moisture, and in the hills where they abound at all other times, they entirely disappear during long droughts;--yet re-appear instantaneously on the very first fall of rain; and in spots previously parched, where not one was visible an hour before; a single shower is sufficient to reproduce them in thousands, lurking beneath the decaying leaves, or striding with rapid movements across the gravel. Whence do they re-appear? Do they, too, take a "summer sleep," like the reptiles, molluscs, and tank fishes, or may they be, like the _Rotifera_, dried up and preserved for an indefinite period, resuming their vital activity on the mere recurrence of moisture? Besides the medicinal leech, a species of which[1] is found in Ceylon, nearly double the size of the European one, and with a prodigious faculty of engorging blood, there is another pest in the low country, which is a source of considerable annoyance, and often of loss, to the husbandman. This is the cattle leech[2], which infests the stagnant pools, chiefly in the alluvial lands around the base of the mountain zone, to which the cattle resort by day, and the wild animals by night, to quench their thirst and to bathe. Lurking amongst the rank vegetation which fringes these deep pools, and hid by the broad leaves, or concealed among the stems and roots covered by the water, there are quantities of these pests in wait to attack the animals that approach them. Their natural food consists of the juices of lumbrici and other invertebrata; but they generally avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by the dipping of the muzzles of the animals into the water to fasten on their nostrils, and by degrees to make their way to the deeper recesses of the nasal passages, and the mucous membranes of the throat and gullet. As many as a dozen have been found attached to the epiglottis and pharynx of a bullock, producing such irritation and submucous effusion that death has eventually ensued; and so tenacious are the leeches that even after death they retain their hold for some hours.[3] [Footnote 1: _Hirudo sanguisorba._ The paddifield leech of Ceylon, used for surgical purposes, has the dorsal surface of blackish olive, with several longitudinal striæ, more or less defined; the crenated margin yellow. The ventral surface is fulvous, bordered laterally with olive; the extreme margin yellow. The eyes are ranged as in the common medicinal leech of Europe; the four anterior ones rather larger than the others. The teeth are 140 in each series, appearing as a single row; in size diminishing gradually from one end, very close set, and about half the width of a tooth apart. When of full size, these leeches are about two inches long, but reaching to six inches when extended. Mr. Thwaites, to whom I am indebted for these particulars, adds that he saw in a tank at Colonna Corle leeches which appeared to him flatter and of a darker colour than those described above, but that he had not an opportunity of examining them particularly. [Illustration: DORSAL.] [Illustration: VENTRAL.] Mr. Thwaites states that there is a smaller tank leech of an olive-green colour, with some indistinct longitudinal striæ on the upper surface; the crenated margin of a pale yellowish-green; ocelli as in the paddi-field leech. Length, one inch at rest, three inches when extended. Mr. E. LAYARD informs us, _Mag. Nat. Hist._ p. 225, 1853, that a bubbling spring at the village of Tonniotoo, three miles S.W. of Moeletivoe, supplies most of the leeches used in the island. Those in use at Colombo are obtained in the immediate vicinity.] [Footnote 2: _Hæmopsis paludum._ In size the cattle leech of Ceylon is somewhat larger than the medicinal leech of Europe; in colour it is of a uniform brown without bands, unless a rufous margin may be so considered. It has dark striæ. The body is somewhat rounded, flat when swimming, and composed of rather more than ninety rings. The greatest dimension is a little in advance of the anal sucker; the body thence tapers to the other extremity, which ends in an upper lip projecting considerably beyond the mouth. The eyes, ten in number, are disposed as in the common leech. The mouth is oval, the biting apparatus with difficulty seen, and the teeth not very numerous. The bite is so little acute that the moment of attachment and of division of the membrane is scarcely perceived by the sufferer from its attack.] [Footnote 3: Even men are not safe, when stooping to drink at a pool, from the assault of the cattle leeches. They cannot penetrate the human skin, but the delicate membrane of the mucous passages is easily ruptured by their serrated jaws. Instances have come to my knowledge of Europeans into whose nostrils they have gained admission and caused serious disturbance.] ARTICULATA. _APTERA_. Thysanura. Podura _albicollis_. _atricollis_. _viduata_. _pilosa_. Achoreutes _coccinea_. Lepisma nigrofasciata, _Temp. nigra_. Arachnida. Buthus afer, _Linn_. Ceylonicus, _Koch_. Scorpio _linearis_. Chelifer librorum. _oblongus_. Obisium _crassifemur_. Phrynus lunatus, _Pall_. Thelyphonus caudatus, _Linn_. Phalangium _bisignatum_. Mygale fasciata, _Walck_. Olios taprobanius, _Walck_. Nephila...? Trombidium tinctorum, _Herm_. Oribata...? Ixodes...? Myriapoda. Cermatia _dispar_. Lithobius _umbratilis_. Scolopendra _crassa_. spinosa, _Newp_. _pallipes_. _Grayii? Newp._ tuberculidens, _Newp_. Ceylonensis, _Newp_. flava, _Newp_. _olivacea_. _abdominalis_. Cryptops _sordidus_. _assimilis_. Geophilus _tegularius_. _speciosus_. Julus _ater_. carnifex, _Fabr_. _pallipes_. _flaviceps_. _pallidus_. Craspedosoma _juloides_. _præusta_. Polydesmus _granulatus_. Cambala _catenulata_. Zephronia _conspicua_. _CRUSTACEA_. Decapoda brachyura. _Polybius_. Neptunus pelagicus, _Linn_. sanguinolentus, _Herbst_. Thalamita...? Thelphusa _Indica, Latr. Cardisoma...?_ Ocypoda ceratophthalmus, _Pall_. _macrocera, Edw_. Gelasimus _tetragonon, Edw_. _annulipes, Edw_. Macrophthalmus _carinimanus, Latr_. Grapsus _messor, Forsk_. strigosus, _Herbst_. Plagusia depressa, _Fabr_. Calappa philargus, _Linn_. _tuberculata, Fabr_. Matuta victor, _Fabr_. Leucosia _fugax, Fabr Dorippe._ Decapoda anomura. _Dromia...?_ Hippa Asiatica, _Edw_. Paguras affinis, _Edw_. _punctulatus, Oliv. Porcellana...?_ Decapoda Macrura. Scyllarus _orientalis, Fab._. Palinurus ornatus, _Fab._. _affinis_, _N_._S_. _Crangon...?_ _Alpheus...?_ Pontonia inflata, _Edw_. Palæmon carcinus, _Fabr_. Stenopus...? Peneus...? Stomatopoda. _Squilla...?_ Gonodactylus chiragra, _Fabr_. _CIRRHIPEDIA_. _Lepas_. _Balanus_. _ANNELIDA_. Tubicolæ. Dorsibranchiata. Abranchia. Hirudo _sanguisorba_. _Thwaitesii_. Hæmopsis _paludum_. Hæmadipsa Ceylana. _Blainv_. Lumbricus...? PART III. * * * * * THE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. CHAPTER I. SOURCES OF SINGHALESE HISTORY.--THE MAHAWANSO AND OTHER NATIVE ANNALS. It was long affirmed by Europeans that the Singhalese annals, like those of the Hindus, were devoid of interest or value as historical material; that, as religious disquisitions, they were the ravings of fanaticism, and that myths and romances had been reduced to the semblance of national chronicles. Such was the opinion of the Portuguese writers DE BARROS and DE COUTO; and VALENTYN, who, about the year 1725, published his great work on the Dutch possessions in India, states his conviction that no reliance can be placed on such of the Singhalese books as profess to record the ancient condition of the country. These he held to be even of less authority than the traditions of the same events which had descended from father to son. On the information of learned Singhalese, drawn apparently from the _Rajavali_, he inserted an account of the native sovereigns, from the earliest times to the arrival of the Portuguese; but, wearied by the monotonous inanity of the story, he omitted every reign between the fifth and fifteenth centuries of the Christian era.[1] [Footnote 1: VALENTYN, _Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, &c., Landbeschryving van t' Eyland Ceylon_, ch iv. p. 60.] A writer, who, under the signature of PHILALETHES, published, in 1816, _A History of Ceylon from the earliest period_, adopted the dictum of Valentyn, and contented himself with still further condensing the "account," which the latter had given "of the ancient Emperors and Kings" of the island. Dr. DAVY compiled that portion of his excellent narrative which has reference to the early history of Kandy, chiefly from the recitals of the most intelligent natives, borrowed, as in the case of the informants of Valentyn, from the perusal of the popular legends; and he and every other author unacquainted with the native language, who wrote on Ceylon previous to 1833, assumed without inquiry the nonexistence of historic data.[1] [Footnote 1: DAVY's _Ceylon_, ch. x. p. 293. See also PERCIVAL'S _Ceylon_, p. 4.] It was not till about the year 1826 that the discovery was made and communicated to Europe, that whilst the history of India was only to be conjectured from myths and elaborated from the dates on copper grants, or fading inscriptions on rocks and columns[1], Ceylon was in possession of continuous written chronicles, rich in authentic facts, and not only presenting a connected history of the island itself, but also yielding valuable materials for elucidating that of India. At the moment when Prinsep was deciphering the mysterious Buddhist inscriptions, which are scattered over Hindustan and Western India, and when Csoma de Körös was unrolling the Buddhist records of Thibet, and Hodgson those of Nepaul, a fellow labourer of kindred genius was successfully exploring the Pali manuscripts of Ceylon, and developing results not less remarkable nor less conducive to the illustration of the early history of Southern Asia. Mr. Turnour, a civil officer of the Ceylon service[2], was then administering the government of the district of Saffragam, and being resident at Ratnapoora near the foot of Adam's Peak, he was enabled to pursue his studies under the guidance of Gallé, a learned priest, through whose instrumentality he obtained from the Wihara, at Mulgiri-galla, near Tangalle (a temple founded about 130 years before the Christian era), some rare and important manuscripts, the perusal of which gave an impulse and direction to the investigations which occupied the rest of his life. [Footnote 1: REINAUD, _Mémoire sur l' Inde_, p. 3.] [Footnote 2: GEORGE TURNOUR was the eldest son of the Hon. George Turnour, son of the first Earl of Winterton; his mother being Emilie, niece to the Cardinal Due de Beausset. He was born in Ceylon in 1799 and having been educated in England under the guardianship of the Right Hon. Sir Thomas Maitland, then governor of the island, he entered the Civil Service in 1818, in which he rose to the highest rank. He was distinguished equally by his abilities and his modest display of them. Interpreting in its largest sense the duty enjoined on him, as a public officer, of acquiring a knowledge of the native languages, he extended his studies, from the vernacular and written Singhalese to Pali, the great root and original of both, known only to the Buddhist priesthood, and imperfectly and even rarely amongst them. No dictionaries then existed to assist in defining the meaning of Pali terms which no teacher could be found capable of rendering into English, so that Mr. Turnour was entirely dependent on his knowledge of Singhalese as a medium for translating them. To an ordinary mind such obstructions would have proved insurmountable, aggravated as they were by discouragements arising from the assumed barrenness of the field, and the absence of all sympathy with his pursuits, on the part of those around him, who reserved their applause and encouragement till success had rendered him indifferent to either. To this apathy of the government officers, Major Forbes, who was then the resident at Matelle, formed an honourable exception; and his narrative of _Eleven Years in Ceylon_ shows with what ardour and success he shared the tastes and cultivated the studies to which he had been directed by the genius and example of Turnour. So zealous and unobtrusive were the pursuits of the latter, that even his immediate connexions and relatives were unaware of the value and extent of his acquirements till apprised of their importance and profundity by the acclamation with which his discoveries and translations from the Pali were received by the savans of Europe. Major Forbes, in a private letter, which I have been permitted to see, speaking of the difficulty of doing justice to the literary character of Turnour, and the ability, energy, and perseverance which he exhibited in his historical investigations, says, "his _Epitome of the History of Ceylon_ was from the first _correct;_ I saw it seven years before it was published, and it scarcely required an alteration afterwards." Whilst engaged in his translation of the _Mahawanso_, TURNOUR, amongst other able papers on _Buddist History_ and _Indian Chronology_ in the _Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society_, v. 521, vi. 299, 790, 1049, contributed a series of essays _on the Pali-Buddhistical Annals_, which were published in 1836, 1837, 1838.--_Journ. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, vi. 501, 714, vii. 686, 789, 919. At various times he published in the same journal an account of the _Tooth Relic of Ceylon, Ib._ vi. 856, and notes on the inscriptions on the columns of Delhi, Allahabad, and Betiah, &c. &c.; and frequent notices of Ceylon coins and inscriptions. He had likewise planned another undertaking of signal importance, the translation into English of a Pali version of the Buddhist scriptures, an ancient copy of which he had discovered, unencumbered by the ignorant commentaries of later writers, and the fables with which they have defaced the plain and simple doctrines of the early faith. He announced his intention in the _Introduction to the Mahawanso_ to expedite the publication, as "the least tardy means of effecting a comparison of the Pali with the Sanskrit version" (p. cx.). His correspondence with Prinsep, which I have been permitted by his family to inspect, abounds with the evidence of inchoate inquiries in which their congenial spirits had a common interest, but which were abruptly ended by the premature decease of both. Turnour, with shattered health, returned to Europe in 1842, and died at Naples on the 10th of April in the following year, The first volume of his translation of the _Mahawanso_, which contains thirty-eight chapters out of the hundred which form the original work, was published at Colombo in 1837; and apprehensive that scepticism might assail the authenticity of a discovery so important, he accompanied his English version with a reprint of the original Pali in Roman characters with diacritical points. He did not live to conclude the task he had so nobly begun; he died while engaged on the second volume of his translation, and only a few chapters, executed with his characteristic accuracy, remain in manuscript in the possession of his surviving relatives. It diminishes, though in a slight degree, our regret for the interruption of his literary labours to know that the section of the _Mahawanso_ which he left unfinished is inferior both in authority and value to the earlier portion of the work, and that being composed at a period when literature was at its lowest ebb in Ceylon, it differs little if at all from other chronicles written during the decline of the native dynasty.] It is necessary to premise, that the most renowned of the Singhalese books is the _Mahawanso_, a metrical chronicle, containing a dynastic history of the island for twenty-three centuries from B.C. 543 to A.D. 1758. But being written in Pali verse its existence in modern times was only known to the priests, and owing to the obscurity of its diction it had ceased to be studied by even the learned amongst them. To relieve the obscurity of their writings, and supply the omissions, occasioned by the fetters of rhythm and the necessity of permutations and elisions, required to accommodate their phraseology to the obligations of verse; the Pali authors of antiquity were accustomed to accompany their metrical compositions with a _tika_ or running commentary, which contained a literal version of the mystical text, and supplied illustrations of its more abstruse passages. Such a _tika_ on the _Mahawanso_ was generally known to have been written; but so utter was the neglect into which both it and the original text had been permitted to fall, that Turnour till 1826 had never met with an individual who had critically read the one, or more than casually heard of the existence of the other.[1] At length, amongst the books which, were procured for him by the high, priest of Saffragam, was one which proved to be this neglected commentary on the mystic and otherwise unintelligible _Mahawanso_; and by the assistance of this precious document he undertook, with confidence, a translation into English of the long lost chronicle, and thus vindicated the claim of Ceylon to the possession of an authentic and unrivalled record of its national history. [Footnote 1: TURNOUR's _Mahawanso_, introduction, vol. i. p. ii.] The title "Mahawanso," which means literally the "_Genealogy of the Great_," properly belongs only to the first section of the work, extending from B.C. 543 to A.D. 301,[1] and containing the history of the early kings, from Wijayo to Maha Sen, with whom the Singhalese consider the "Great Dynasty" to end. The author of this portion was Mahanamo, uncle of the king Dhatu Sena, in whose reign it was compiled, between the years A.D. 459 and 477, from annals in the vernacular language then existing at Anarajapoora.[2] [Footnote 1: Although the _Mahawanso_ must be regarded as containing the earliest _historical_ notices of Ceylon, the island, under its Sanskrit name of Lanka, occupies a prominent place in the mythical poems of the Hindus, and its conquest by Rama is the theme of the _Ramayana_, one of the oldest epics in existence. In the _Raja-Tarangini_ also, an historical chronicle which may be regarded as the _Mahawanso_ of Kashmir, very early accounts of Ceylon are contained, and the historian records that the King Megavahana, who, according to the chronology of Troyer, reigned A.D. 24, made an expedition to Ceylon for the purpose of extending Buddhism, and visited Adam's Peak, where he had an interview with the native sovereign.--_Raja-Tarangini_, Book iii. sl. 71-79. _Ib._ vol. ii. p. 364.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. i. The Arabian travellers in Ceylon mention the official historiographers employed by order of the kings. See Vol. I Pt. III. ch. viii. p. 387, note.] The sovereigns who succeeded Maha Sen are distinguished as the "Sulu-wanse," the "lower race," and the story of their line occupies the continuation of this extraordinary chronicle, the second portion of which was written by order of the illustrious king Prakrama Bahu, about the year A.D. 1266, and the narrative was carried on, under subsequent sovereigns, down to the year A.D. 1758, the latest chapters having been compiled by command of the King of Kandy, Kirti-Sri, partly from Singhalese works brought back to the island from Siam (whither they had been carried at former periods by priests dispatched upon missions), and partly from native histories, which had escaped the general destruction of such records in the reign of Raja Singha I., an apostate from Buddhism, who, about the year A.D. 1590, during the period when the Portuguese were in occupation of the low country, exterminated the priests of Buddha, and transferred the care of the shrine on Adam's Peak to Hindu Fakirs. But the _Mahawanso_, although the most authentic, and probably the most ancient, is by no means the only existing Singhalese chronicle. Between the 14th and 18th centuries several historians recorded passing events; and as these corroborate and supplement the narrative of the greater work, they present an uninterrupted Historical Record of the highest authenticity, comprising the events of nearly twenty-four centuries.[1] [Footnote 1: In 1833 Upham published, under the title of _The Sacred and Historical Books of Ceylon_, translations of what professed to be authentic copies of the _Mahawanso_, the _Rajaratnacari_, and _Rajavali_; prepared for the use of Sir Alexander Johnston when Chief-Justice of the island. But Turnour, in the introduction to his masterly translation of the _Mahawanso_; has shown that Sir Alexander had been imposed upon, and that the alleged transcripts supplied to him are imperfect as regards the original text and unfaithful as translations. Of the _Mahawanso_ in particular, Mr. Turnour says, in a private letter which I have seen, that the early part of Upham's volume "is not a translation but a compendium of several works, and the subsequent portions a mutilated abridgment." The _Rajavali_, which is the most valuable of these volumes, was translated for Sir Alexander Johnston by Mr. Dionysius Lambertus Pereira, who was then Interpreter-Moodliar to the Cutchery at Matura. These English versions, though discredited as independent authorities, are not without value in so far as they afford corroborative support to the genuine text of the _Mahawanso_, and on this account I have occasionally cited them.] From the data furnished by these, and from corroborative sources,[1] Turnour, in addition to many elaborate contributions drawn from the recesses of Pali learning in elucidation of the chronology of India, was enabled to prepare an _Epitome of the History of Ceylon,_ in which he has exhibited the succession and genealogy of one hundred and sixty-five kings, who filled the throne during 2341 years, extending from the invasion of the island from Bengal, by Wijayo, in the year B.C. 543 to its conquest by the British in 1798. In this work, after infinite labour, he has succeeded in condensing the events of each reign, commemorating the founders of the chief cities, and noting the erection of the great temples and Buddhist monuments, and the construction of some of those gigantic reservoirs and works for irrigation, which, though in ruins, arrest the traveller in astonishment at their stupendous dimensions. He thus effectually demonstrated the misconceptions of those who previously believed the literature of Ceylon to be destitute of historic materials.[2] [Footnote 1: Besides the _Mahawanso, Rajaratnacari_, and _Rajavali_, the other native chronicles relied on by Turnour in compiling his epitome were the _Pujavali_, composed in the thirteenth century, the _Neekaasangraha_, written A.D. 1347, and the _Account of the Embassy to Siam_ in the reign of Raja Singha II., A.D. 1739-47, by WILBAAGEDERE MUDIANSE.] [Footnote 2: By the help of TURNOUR'S translation of the _Mahawanso_ and the versions of the _Rajaratnacari_ and _Rajavali,_ published by Upham, two authors have since expanded the _Epitome_ of the former into something like a connected narrative, and those who wish to pursue the investigation of the early story of the island, will find facilities in the _History of Ceylon,_ published by KNIGHTON in 1845, and in the first volume of _Ceylon and its Dependencies,_ by PRIDHAM, London, 1849. To facilitate reference I have appended a _Chronological List of Singhalese Sovereigns,_ compiled from the historical epitome of Turnour. See Note B. at the end of this chapter.] Besides evidence of a less definite character, there is one remarkable coincidence which affords grounds for confidence in the faithfulness of the purely historic portion of the Singhalese chronicles; due allowance being made for that exaggeration of style which is apparently inseparable from oriental recital. The circumstance alluded to is the mention in the _Mahawanso_ of the Chandragupta[1], so often alluded to by the Sanskrit writers, who, as Sir William Jones was the first to discover, is identical with Sandracottus or Sandracoptus, the King of the Prasii, to whose court, on the banks of the Ganges, Megasthenes was accredited as an ambassador from Seleucus Nicator, about 323 years before Christ. Along with a multitude of facts relating to Ceylon, the _Mahawanso_ contains a chronologically connected history of Buddhism in India from B.C. 590 to B.C. 307, a period signalized in classical story by the Indian expedition of Alexander the Great, and by the Embassy of Megasthenes to Palibothra,--events which in their results form the great link connecting the histories of the West and East, but which have been omitted or perverted in the scanty and perplexed annals of the Hindus, because they tended to the exaltation of Buddhism, a religion loathed by the Brahmans. [Footnote 1: The era and identity of Sandracottus and Chandragupta have been accurately traced in MAX MÜLLER'S _History of Sanskrit Literature_, p. 298, &c.] The Prasii, or people of Megadha, occupy a prominent place in the history of Ceylon, inasmuch as Gotama Buddha, the great founder of the faith of its people, was a prince of that country, and Mahindo, who finally established the Buddhist religion amongst them, was the great-grandson of Chandagutto, a prince whose name thus recorded in the _Mahawanso_[1] (notwithstanding a chronological discrepancy of about sixty years), may with little difficulty be identified with the "Chandragupta" of the Hindu Purána, and the "Sandracottus" of Megasthenes. [Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. v. p. 21. See also WILSON'S _Notes to the Vishnu Purána_, p. 468.] This is one out of the many coincidences which demonstrate the authenticity of the ancient annals of Ceylon; and from sources so venerable, and materials so abundant, I propose to select a few of the leading events, sufficient to illustrate the origin, and explain the influence of institutions and customs which exist at the present day in Ceylon, and which, from time immemorial, have characterised the inhabitants of the island. NOTE (A.) ANCIENT MAP OF CEYLON. So far as I am aware, no map has ever been produced, exhibiting the comparative geography of Ceylon, and placing its modern names in juxtaposition with their Sanskrit and Pali. [Illustration: LANGKÂ OR TÂMBRAPARNI. _(CEYLON)_ _according to_ The Sanscrit Pali & Singhalese Authorities. * * * * * NB The modern Names are given in Italics. By Sir J. Emerson Tennet] NOTE (B.) NATIVE SOVEREIGNS OF CEYLON. N.B. The names of subordinate or cotemporary Princes are printed in _Italics_. Names and Relationship of each succeeding Sovereign. Capital. Accession B.C 1. Wejaya, founder of the Wejayan dynasty Tamananeuera 543 2. Upatissa 1st, minister--regent Upatissaneuera 505 3. Panduwása, paternal nephew of Wejaya ditto 504 _Ráma_ _Rámagona_ _Rohuna_ _Rohuna_ _Diggaina_ _Diggámadulla_ _Urawelli_ _Mahawelligama_ _Anurádha_ _Anurádhapoora_ _Wijitta_ _Wijittapoora_ [these six are brothers-in-law] 4. Abhaya, son of Paduwása, dethroned Upatissaneuera 474 Interregnum 454 5. Pandukábhaya, maternal grandson of Panduwása Anurádhapoora 437 6. Mutasiwa, paternal grandson ditto 367 7. Devenipiatissa, second son ditto 307 _Mahanága, brother_ _Mágama_ _Yatálatissa, son_ _Kellania_ _Gotábhaya, son_ _Mágama_ _Kellani-tissa, not specified_ _Kellania_ _Káwan-tissa, son of Gotábhaya_ _Mágama_ 8. Uttiya, fourth son of Mutasiwa Anurádhapoora 267 9. Mahasiwa, fifth do. ditto 257 10. Suratissa, sixth do. put to death ditto 247 11. Séna and Guttika, foreign usurpers--put to death ditto 237 12. Aséla, ninth son of Mutasiwa--deposed ditto 215 13. Elála, foreign usurper--killed in battle ditto 205 14. Dutugaimunu, son of _Káwantissa_ ditto 161 15. Saidaitissa, brother ditto 137 16. Tuhl or Thullathanaka, younger son--deposed ditto 119 17. Laiminitissa 1st or Lajjitissa, elder brother ditto 119 18. Kalunna or Khallátanága, brother--put to death ditto 109 19. Walagambáhu 1st or Wattagamini, brother--deposed ditto 104 20. [Five foreign usurpers--successively deposed and put to death] Pulahattha ditto 103 Báyiha ditto 100 Panayamárá ditto 98 Peliyamárá ditto 91 Dáthiya ditto 90 21. Walagambáhu 1st, reconquered the kingdom ditto 88 22. Mahadailitissa or Mahachula, son ditto 76 23. Chora Nága, son--put to death ditto 62 24. Kudá Tissa, son--poisoned by his wife ditto 50 25. Anulá, widow ditto 47 26. Makalantissa or Kallakanni Tissa, second son of Kudátissa ditto 41 27. Bátiyatissa 1st or Bátikábhaya, son ditto 19 Names and Relationship of Capital. Accession. each succeeding Sovereign. A.D. 28. Maha Dailiya Mána or Dáthika, brother Anurádhapoora 9 29. Addagaimunu or Amanda Gámini, son--put to death ditto 21 30. Kinibirridaila or Kanijáni Tissa, brother ditto 30 31. Kudá Abhá or Chulábhaya, son ditto 33 32. Singhawallí or Síwalli, sister--put to death ditto 34 Interregnum 35 33. Elluná or Ha Nága, maternal nephew of Addagaimunu ditto 38 34. Sanda Muhuna or Chanda Mukha Siwa, son ditto 44 35. Yasa Silo or Yatálakatissa, brother--put to death ditto 52 36. Subha, usurper--put to death ditto 60 37. Wahapp or Wasahba, descendant of Laiminitissa ditto 66 38. Waknais or Wanka Násica, son ditto 110 39. Gajábáhu 1st or Gámini, son ditto 113 40. Mahalumáná or Mallaka Nága, maternal cousin ditto 125 41. Bátiya Tissa 2nd or Bhátika Tissa, son ditto 131 42. Chula Tissa or Kanittbatissa, brother ditto 155 43. Kuhuna or Chudda Nága, son--murdered ditto 173 44. Kudanáma or Kuda Nága, nephew--deposed ditto 183 45. Kuda Siriná or Siri Nága 1st, brother-in-law ditto 184 46. Waiwahairatissa or Wairatissa, son--murdered ditto 209 47. Abhá Sen or Abhá Tissa, brother ditto 231 48. Siri Nága 2nd, son ditto 239 49. Weja Indu or Wejaya 2nd, son--put to death ditto 241 50. Sangatissa 1st, descendant of Laiminitissa--poisoned ditto 242 51. Dahama Sirisanga Bo or Sirisanga Bodhi 1st, do do.--deposed ditto 245 52. Golu Abhá, Gothábhaya or Megha warna Abhay, do. do. ditto 248 53. Makalan Detu Tissa 1st, son ditto 261 54. Maha Sen, brother ditto 275 55. Kitsiri Maiwan 1st or Kirtisri Megha warna, son ditto 302 56. Detu Tissa 2nd, brother ditto 330 57. Bujas or Budha Dása, son ditto 339 58. Upatissa 2nd, son ditto 368 59. Maha Náma, brother ditto 410 60. Senghot or Sotthi Sena, son--poisoned ditto 432 61. Laimini Tissa 2nd or Chatagáhaka, descendant of Laiminitissa ditto 432 62. Mitta Sena or Karalsora, not specified--put to death ditto 433 63. Pándu 24.9. Foreign usurpers ditto 434 Párinda Kuda 24.9. Foreign usurpers ditto 439 Khudda Párinda 24.9. Foreign usurpers ditto 455 Dátthiya 24.9. Foreign usurpers ditto 455 Pitthiya 24.9. Foreign usurpers ditto 458 64. Dásenkelleya or Dhátu Séna, descendant of the original royal family--put to death ditto 459 65. Sígiri Kasumbu or Kásyapa 1st, son--committed suicide Sigiri Galla Neuera 477 Names and Relationship of each succeeding Sovereign. Capital. Accession. A.D. 66. Mugallána 1st, brother Anurádhapoora 495 67. Kumára Dás or Kumára Dhátu Séna, son-immolated himself ditto 513 68. Kirti Séna, son-murdered ditto 522 69. Maidi Síwu or Síwaka, maternal uncle-murdered ditto 531 70. Laimini Upátissa 3rd, brother-in-law ditto 531 71. Ambaherra Salamaiwan or Silákála, son-in-law ditto 534 72. Dápulu 1st or Dátthápa Bhodhi, second son--committed suicide ditto 547 73. Dalamagalan or Mugallána 2nd, elder brother ditto 547 74. Kuda Kitsiri Maiwan 1st or Kirtisri Meg-hawarna, son-put to death ditto 567 75. Senewi or Maha Nága, descendant of the Okáka branch ditto 586 76. Aggrabodhi 1st or Akbo, maternal nephew ditto 589 77. Aggrabodhi 2nd or Sula Akbo, son-in-law ditto 623 78. Sanghatissa, brother-decapitated ditto 633 79. Buna Mugalan or Laimini Bunáya, usurper-put to death ditto 633 80. Abhasiggáhaka or Asiggáhaka, maternal grandson ditto 639 81. Siri Sangabo 2nd, son-deposed ditto 648 82. Kaluna Detutissa or Laimina Katuriya, descendant of Laiminitissa-committed Dewuneura suicide or Dondera 648 Siri Sangabo 2nd, restored, and again deposed Anurádhapoora 649 83. Dalupiatissa 1st or Dhatthopatissa, Laimini branch-killed in battle ditto 665 84. Paisulu Kasumbu or Kásyapa 2nd, brother of Sirisangabo ditto 677 85. Dapulu 2nd, Okáka branch-deposed ditto 686 86. Dalupiatissa 2nd or Hattha-Datthopatissa, son of Dalupiatissa 1st ditto 693 87. Paisulu Siri Sanga Bo 3rd or Aggrabodhi, brother ditto 702 88. Walpitti Wasidata or Dantanáma, Okáka branch ditto 718 89. Hununaru Riandalu or Hatthadátha, original royal family-decapitated ditto 720 90. Máhalaipánu or Mánawamma, do. do. ditto 720 91. Kásiyappa 3rd o Kasumbu, son ditto 726 92. Aggrabodhi 3rd or Akbo, nephew Pollonnarrua 729 93. Aggrabodhi 4th or Kudá Akbo, son ditto 769 94. Mahindu 1st or Salamaiwan, original royal family ditto 775 95. Dappula 2nd, son ditto 795 96. Mahindu 2nd or Dharmika-Sîlámaiga, son ditto 800 97. Aggrabodhi 5th or Akbo, brother ditto 804 98. Dappula 3rd or Kudá Dappula, son ditto 815 99. Aggrabodhi 6th, cousin ditto 831 100. Mitwella Sen or Silámaiga, son ditto 838 101. Kásiyappa 4th or Máganyin Séna or Mihindu, grandson ditto 858 102. Udaya 1st, brother ditto 891 Names and Relationship of Capital. Accession. each succeeding Sovereign. A.D. 103. Udaya 2nd, son Pollonnarrua 926 104. Kásiyappa 5th, nephew and son-in-law ditto 937 105. Kásiyappa 6th, son-in-law ditto 954 106. Dappula 4th, son ditto 964 107, Dappula 5th, not specified ditto 964 108. Udaya 3rd, brother ditto 974 109. Séna 2nd, not specified ditto 977 110. Udaya 4th, do. do. ditto 986 111. Séna 3rd, do. do. ditto 994 112. Mihindu 3rd, do. do ditto 997 113. Sèna 4th, son--minor ditto 1013 114. Mihindu 4th, brother--carried captive to Anurádhapoora 1023 India during the Sollean conquest Interregnum Sollean viceroyalty Pollonnarrua 1059 _Maha Lai or Maha_ } { _Lála Kirti_ } { _Rohuna_ _Wikrama Pándi_ } _Subordinate_ { _Kalutotta_ _Jagat Pándi or Jagati_ } _native kings_ { _Pála_ } _during the_ { _Rohuna_ _Prákrama Pándi or_ } _Sollean_ { _Prákhrama Báhu_ } _vice-royalty._ { _ditto_ _Lokaiswara_ } { _Kácharagama_ 115. Wejayabáhu 1st or Sirisangabo 4th, grandson of Mihindu 4th Pollonnarrua 1071 116. Jayabáhu 1st, brother ditto 1126 117. Wikramabáhu 1st } ditto } _ _Mánábarana_ } A disputed _Rohuna_ } 118. Gajábáhu 2nd } succession Pollonnarrua } 1127 _Siriwallaba or_} } _Kitsiri Maiwan_} _Rohuna_ } 119. Prákrama Báhu 1st, son of Mánábárana Pollonuarrua 1153 120. Wejayabáhu 2nd, nephew--murdered ditto 1186 121. Mihindu 5th or Kitsen Kisdas, usurper--put to death ditto 1187 122. Kirti Nissanga, a prince of Kálinga ditto 1187 Wírabáhu, son--put to death ditto 1196 123. Wikramabáhu 2nd, brother of Kirti Nissanga--put to death ditto 1196 124. Chondakanga, nephew--deposed ditto 1196 125. Lálawátí, widow of Prákramabáhu--deposed ditto 1197 126. Sáhasamallawa, Okáka branch--deposed ditto 1200 127. Kalyánawati, sister of Kirti Nissanga ditto 1202 128. Dharmásóka, not specified--a minor ditto 1208 129. Nayaanga or Nikanga, minister--put to death ditto 1209 Lílawatí, restored, and again deposed ditto 1209 130. Lokaiswera 1st, usurper--deposed ditto 1210 Lílawatí, again restored, and deposed a third time ditto 1211 131. Pandi Prákrama Báhu 2nd, usurper--deposed ditto 1211 132. Mágha, foreign usurper ditto 1214 133. Wejayabáhu 3rd, descendant of Sirisangabo 1st Dambadenia 1235 134. Kalikála Sahitya Sargwajnya or Pandita Prakrama Báhu 3rd, son ditto 1266 135. Bosat Wejaya Báhu 4th, son Pollonnarrua 1301 Names and Relationship of each succeeding Sovereign. Capital. Accession. A.D. _Bhuwaneka Báhu_ _Yapahu or Subbapabatto_ 136. Bhuwaneka Báhu 1st, brother ditto 1303 137. Prákrama Báhu 3rd, son of Bosat Wejayabáhu Pollonnarrua 1314 138. Bhuwaneka Báhu 2nd, son of Bhuwaneka Kurunaigalla or 1319 Báhu Hastisailapoora 139. Pandita Prákrama Báhu 4th, not specified ditto 140. Wanny Bhuwaneka Báhu 3rd, do. ditto 141. Wejaya Báhu 5th, do. ditto 142. Bhuwaneka Báhu 4th, do. Gampola or Gangásiripoora 1347 143. Prákrama Báhu 5th, do. ditto 1361 144. Wikram Báhu 3rd, cousin Partly at Kandy or Sengadagalla Neuera 1371 145. Bhuwaneka Báhu 5th, not specified Gampola or Gangásiripoora 1378 146. Wejaya Báhu 5th, or Wíra Báhu, do ditto 1398 147. Sri Prákrama Bahu 6th, do. Kotta or Jayawardanapoora 1410 148. Jayabáhu 2nd, maternal grandson--put to death ditto 1462 149. Bhuwaneka Báhu 6th, not specified ditto 1464 150. Pandita Prákrama Báhu 7th, adopted son ditto 1471 151. Wíra Prákrama Báhu 8th, brother of Bhuwaneka Báhu 6th ditto 1485 152. Dharma Prákrama Báhu 9th, son ditto 1505 153. Wejaya Báhu 7th, brother--murdered ditto 1527 _Jayawíra Bandára_ _Gampola_ 154. Bhuwaneka Báhu 7th, son Kotta 1534 _Máyádunnai_ _Setawacca_ _Raygam Bandára_ _Raygam_ _Jayawíra Bandára_ _Kandy_ 155. Don Juan Dharmapála Kotta 1542 _A Malabar_ _Yapahu_ _Portuguese_ _Colombo_ _Wídiye Rája_ _Pailainda Neuera_ _Rája Singha_ _Aiwissáwelle_ _Idirimáné Suriya_ _Seven Korles_ _Wikrama Báhu descendant of_ Sirisangabo 1st _Kandy_ 156. Rája Singha 1st, son of _Máyádunnai_ Setawacca 1581 _Jaya Suriya_ _Setawacca_ _Wídiye Rája's queen_ _ditto_ 157. Wimala Dharma, original royal family Khandy 1592 158. Senáraana or Senarat, brother ditto 1604 159. Rája-singha 2nd, son ditto 1637 _Kumára-singa, brother_ _Ouvah_ _Wejaya Pála, brother_ _Matelle_ 160. Wimala Dharma Suriya 2nd, son of Rájasingha Khandy 1687 161. Sriwíra Prákrama Narendrasingha or Kundasála ditto 1707 162. Sriwejaya Rája Singha or Hanguranketta, brother-in-law ditto 1739 163. Kirtisri Rája Singha, brother-in-law ditto 1747 164. Rajádhi Rája Singha, brother ditto 1781 165. Sri Wikrema Rája Singha, son of the late king's wife's sister, deposed by the English in 1815, and died in captivity in 1832 ditto 1798 NOTE.--The Singhalese vowels _a_, _e_, _i_, _o_, _u_ are to be pronounced as in French or Italian. CHAP. II. THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF CEYLON. Divested of the insipid details which overlay them, the annals of Ceylon present comparatively few stirring incidents, and still fewer events of historic importance to repay the toil of their perusal. They profess to record no occurrence anterior to the advent of the last Buddha, the great founder of the national faith, who was born on the borders of Nepaul in the _seventh_ century before Christ. In the theoretic doctrines of Buddhism "_Buddhas_"[1] are beings who appear after intervals of inconceivable extent; they undergo transmigrations extending over vast spaces of time, accumulating in each stage of existence an increased degree of merit, till, in their last incarnation as men, they attain to a degree of purity so immaculate as to entitle them to the final exaltation of "Buddha-hood," a state approaching to incarnate divinity, in which they are endowed with wisdom so supreme as to be competent to teach mankind the path to ultimate bliss. [Footnote 1: A sketch of the Buddhist religion may be seen in Sir J. EMERSON TENNENT'S _History of Christianity in Ceylon_, ch. v. London, 1850. But the most profound and learned dissertations on Buddhism as it exists in Ceylon, will be found in the works of the Rev. R. SPENCE HARDY, _Eastern Monachism_, Lond. 1850, and _A Manual of Buddhism_, Lond. 1853.] Their precepts, preserved orally or committed to writing, are cherished as _bana_ or the "_word_;" their doctrines are incorporated in the system of _dharma_ or "_truth_;" and, at their death, instead of entering on a new form of being, either corporeal or spiritual, they are absorbed into _Nirwana_, that state of blissful unconsciousness akin to annihilation which is regarded by Buddhists as the consummation of eternal felicity. Gotama, who is represented as the last of the series of Buddhas[1], promulgated a religious system in India which has exercised a wider influence over the Eastern world than the doctrines of any other uninspired teacher in any age or country.[2] He was born B.C. 624 at Kapila-Vastu (a city which has no place in the geography of the Hindus, but which appears to have been on the borders of Nepaul); he attained his superior Buddha-hood B.C. 588, under a bo-tree[3] in the forest of Urawela, the site of the present Buddha Gaya in Bahar; and, at the age of eighty, he died at Kusinara, a doubtful locality, which it has been sought to identify with the widely separated positions of Delhi, Assam, and Cochin China.[4] [Footnote 1: There were twenty-four Buddhas previous to the advent of Gotama, who is the fourth in the present Kalpa or chronological period. His system of doctrine is to endure for 5000 years, when it will be superseded by the appearance and preaching of his successor.--_Rajaratnacari_, ch. i. p. 42.] [Footnote 2: HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. i. p. 1. There is evidence of the widely-spread worship of Buddha in the remotely separated individuals with whom it has been sought at various times to identify him. "Thus it has been attempted to show that Buddha was the same as Thoth of the Egyptians, and Turm of the Etruscans, that he was Mercury, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, the Woden of the Scandinavians, the Manes of the Manichæans, the prophet Daniel, and even the divine author of Christianity." (PROFESSOR WILSON, _Journ. Asiat. Soc._, vol. xvi. p. 233.) Another curious illustration of the prevalence of his doctrines may be discovered in the endless variations of his name in the numerous countries over which his influence has extended: Buddha, Budda, Bud, Bot, Baoth, Buto, Budsdo, Bdho, Pout, Pote, Fo, Fod, Fohi, Fuh, Pet, Pta, Poot, Phthi, Phut, Pht, &c.--POCOCKE'S _India in Greece_, appendix, 397. HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. vii. p. 355. HARDY in his _Eastern Monachism_ says, "There is no country in either Europe or Asia, _except those that are Buddhist_, in which the same religion is now professed that was there existent at the time of the Redeemer's death," ch. xxii. p. 327.] [Footnote 3: The Pippul, _Ficus religiosa_.] [Footnote 4: Professor H.H. WILSON has identified Kusinara or Kusinagara with _Kusia_ in Gorakhpur, _Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc._, vol xvi. p. 246.] In the course of his ministrations Gotarna is said to have thrice landed in Ceylon. Prior to his first coming amongst them, the inhabitants of the island appear to have been living in the simplest and most primitive manner, supported on the almost spontaneous products of the soil. Gotama in person undertook their conversion, and alighted on the first occasion at Bintenne, where there exists to the present day the remains of a monument erected two thousand years ago[1] to commemorate his arrival. His second visit was to Nagadipo in the north of the island, at a place whose position yet remains to be determined; and the "sacred foot-print" on Adam's Peak is still worshipped by his devotees as the miraculous evidence of his third and last farewell. [Footnote 1: By Dutugaimunu, B.C. 164. For an account of the present condition of this Dagoba at Bintenne, see Vol. II. Pt. IX. ch. ii.] To the question as to what particular race the inhabitants of Ceylon at that time belonged, and whence or at what period the island was originally peopled, the Buddhist chronicles furnish no reply. And no memorials of the aborigines themselves, no monuments or inscriptions, now remain to afford ground for speculation. Conjectures have been hazarded, based on no sufficient data, that the Malayan type, which extends from Polynesia to Madagascar, and from Chin-India to Taheite, may still be traced in the configuration, and in some of the immemorial customs, of the people of Ceylon.[1] [Footnote 1: Amongst the incidents ingeniously pressed into the support of this conjecture is the use by the natives of Ceylon of those _double canoes_ and _boats with outriggers_, which are never used on the Arabian side of India, but which are peculiar to the Malayan race in almost every country to which they have migrated; Madagascar and the Comoro islands, Sooloo, Luzon, the Society Islands, and Tonga. PRITCHARD'S _Races of Man_, ch. iv. p. 17. For a sketch of this peculiar canoe, see Vol. II. Pt. VII. ch. i. There is a dim tradition that the first settlers in Ceylon arrived from the coasts of China. It is stated in the introduction to RIBEYRO'S _History of Ceylon_, but rejected by VALENTYN, ch, iv. p. 61. The legend prefixed to RIBEYRO is as follows. "Si nous en croyons les historiens Portugais, les Chinois out été les premiers qui ont habité cette isle, et cela arriva de cette manière. Ces peuples étoient les maîtres du commerce de tout l'orient; quelques unes de leurs vaisseaux furent portéz sur les basses qui sont près du lieu, que depuis on appelle Chilao par corruption au lieu de Cinilao. Les équipages se sauvèrent à terre, et trouvant le pais bon et fertile ils s'y établirent: bientôt après ils s'allièrent avec les Malabares, et les Malabares y envoyoient ceux qu'ils exiloient et qu'ils nominoient _Galas_. Ces exiles s'étant confondus avec les Chinois, de deux noms n'en out fait qu'un, et se sont appellés _Chin-galas_ et ensuite Chingalais."--RIBEYRO, _Hist. de Ceylan_, pref. du trad. It is only necessary to observe in reference to this hypothesis that it is at variance with the structure of the Singhalese alphabet, in which _n_ and _g_ form but one letter. DE BARROS and DE COUTO likewise adhere to the theory of a mixed race, originating in the settlement of Chinese in the south of Ceylon, but they refer the event to a period subsequent to the seizure of the Singhalese king and his deportation to China in the fifteenth century. DE BARROS, Dec. iii. ch. i.; DE COUTO, Dec. v. ch. 5.] But the greater probability is, that a branch of the same stock which originally colonised the Dekkan extended its migrations to Ceylon. All the records and traditions of the peninsula point to a time when its nations were not Hindu; and in numerous localities[1], in the forests and mountains of the peninsula, there are still to be found the remnants of tribes who undoubtedly represent the aboriginal race. [Footnote 1: LASSEN, _Indische Alterthumskunde_, vol. i. p. 199, 362.] The early inhabitants of India before their comparative civilisation under the influence of the Aryan invaders, like the aborigines of Ceylon before the arrival of their Bengal conquerors, are described as mountaineers and foresters who were "rakshas" or demon worshippers; a religion, the traces of which are to be found to the present day amongst the hill tribes in the Concan and Canara, as well as in Guzerat and Cutch. In addition to other evidences of the community of origin of these continental tribes and the first inhabitants of Ceylon, there is a manifest identity, not alone in their popular superstitions at a very early period, but in the structure of the national dialects, which are still prevalent both in Ceylon and Southern India. Singhalese, as it is spoken at the present day, and, still more strikingly, as it exists as a written language in the literature of the island, presents unequivocal proofs of an affinity with the group of languages still in use in the Dekkan; Tamil, Telingu, and Malayalim. But with these its identification is dependent on analogy rather than on structure, and all existing evidence goes to show that the period at which a vernacular dialect could have been common to the two countries must have been extremely remote.[1] [Footnote 1: The _Mahawanso_ (ch. xiv.) attests that at the period of Wijayo's conquest of Ceylon, B.C. 543, the language of the natives was different from that spoken by himself and his companions, which, as they came from Bengal, was in all probability Pali. Several centuries afterwards, A.D. 339, the dialect of the two races was still different; and some of the sacred writings were obliged to be translated from Pali into the Sihala language.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. xxxviii. p. 247. At a still later period, A.D. 410; a learned priest from Magadha translated the Attah-Katha from Singhalese into Pali.--_Ib_. p. 253. See also DE ALWIS, _Sidath-Sangara_, p. 19.] Though not based directly on either Sanskrit or Pali, Singhalese at various times has been greatly enriched from both sources, and especially from the former; and it is corroborative of the inference that the admixture was comparatively recent; and chiefly due to association with domiciliated strangers, that the further we go back in point of time the proportion of amalgamation diminishes, and the dialect is found to be purer and less alloyed. Singhalese seems to bear towards Sanskrit and Pali a relation similar to that which the English of the present day bears to the combination of Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman French, which serves to form the basis of the language. As in our own tongue the words applicable to objects connected with rural life are Anglo-Saxon, whilst those indicative of domestic refinement belong to the French, and those pertaining to religion and science are borrowed from Latin[1]; so, in the language of Ceylon, the terms applicable to the national religion are taken from Pali, those of science and art from Sanskrit, whilst to pure Singhalese belong whatever expressions were required to denote the ordinary wants of mankind before society had attained organisation.[2] [Footnote 1: See TRENCH on the _Study of Words_.] [Footnote 2: See DE ALWIS, _Sidath-Sangara_, p. xlviii.] [Sidenote: B.C. 543.] Whatever momentary success may have attended the preaching of Buddha, no traces of his pious labours long survived him in Ceylon. The mass of its inhabitants were still aliens to his religion, when, on the day of his decease, B.C. 543, Wijayo[1], the discarded son of one of the petty sovereigns in the valley of the Ganges[2] effected a landing with a handful of followers in the vicinity of the modern Putlam.[3] Here he married the daughter of one of the native chiefs, and having speedily made himself master of the island by her influence, he established his capital at Tamana Neuera[4], and founded a dynasty, which, for nearly eight centuries, retained supreme authority in Ceylon. [Footnote 1: Sometimes spelled _Wejaya_. TURNOUR has demonstrated that the alleged concurrence of the death of Buddha and the landing of Wijayo is a device of the sacred annalists, in order to give a pious interest to the latter event, which took place about sixty years later.--Introd _Mahawanso_, p. liii.] [Footnote 2: To facilitate reference to the ancient divisions of India, a small map is subjoined, chiefly taken from Lassen's _Indische Alterthumskunde_. [Illustration: MAP OF ANCIENT INDIA.]] [Footnote 3: BURNOUF conjectures that the point from which Wijayo set sail for Ceylon was the Godavery, where the name of Bandar-maha-lanka (the Port of the Great Lanka), still commemorates the event.--_Journ. Asiat._ vol. xviii. p. 134. DE COUTO, recording the Singhalese tradition as collected by the Portuguese, he landed at Preaturé (Pereatorre), between Trincomalie and Jaffna-patam, and that the first city founded by him was Mantotte.--_Decade_ v. l. 1. c. 5.] [Footnote 4: See a note at the end of this chapter, on the landing of Wijayo in Ceylon, as described in the _Mahawanso_.] [Sidenote: B.C. 543.] The people whom he mastered with so much facility are described in the sacred books as _Yakkhos_ or "demons,"[1] and _Nagas_[2], or "snakes;" designations which the Buddhist historians are supposed to have employed in order to mark their contempt for the uncivilised aborigines[3], in the same manner that the aborigines in the Dekkan were denominated goblins and demons by the Hindus[4], from the fact that, like the Yakkhos of Ceylon, they too were demon worshippers. The Nagas, another section of the same superstition, worshipped the cobra de capello as an emblem of the destroying power. These appear to have chiefly inhabited the northern and western coasts of Ceylon, and the Yakkhos the interior[5]; and, notwithstanding their alleged barbarism, both had organised some form of government, however rude.[6] The Yakkhos had a capital which they called Lankapura, and the Nagas a king, the possession of whose "throne of gems"[7] was disputed by the rival sovereign of a neighbouring kingdom. So numerous were the followers of this gloomy idolatry of that time in Ceylon, that they gave the name of Nagadipo[8], _the_ _Island of Serpents_, to the portion of the country which they held, in the same manner that Rhodes and Cyprus severally acquired the ancient designation of _Ophiusa_, from the fact of their being the residence of the Ophites, who introduced serpent-worship into Greece.[9] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii.; FA HIAN, _Fo[)e]-kou[)e]-ki_, ch. xxxvii.] [Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 169.] [Footnote 3: REINAUD, Introd. to _Abouldfeda_, vol. i. sec. iii. p. ccxvi. See also CLOUGH'S _Singhalese Dictionary_, vol. ii. p. 2.] [Footnote 4: MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE'S, _History of India_, b. iv. ch. xi. p. 216.] [Footnote 5: The first descent of Gotama Buddha in Ceylon was amongst the Yakkhos at Bintenne; in his second visit he converted the "_Naga_ King of Kalany," near Colombo, _Mahawanso_, ch. i. p. 5.] [Footnote 6: FABER, _Origin of Idolatry_, b. ii ch. vii. p. 440.] [Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. i.] [Footnote 8: TURNOUR was unable to determine the position on the modern map of the ancient territory of Nagadipo.--Introd. p. xxxiv. CASIE CHITTY, in a paper in the _Journal of the Ceylon Asiatic Society_, 1848, p. 71, endeavours to identify it with Jaffna, The _Rajaratnacari_ places it at the present Kalany, on the river of that name near Colombo (vol. ii. p. 22). The _Mahawanso_ in many passages alludes to the existence of Naga kingdoms on the continent of India, showing that at that time serpent-worship had not been entirely extinguished by Brahmanism in the Dekkan, and affording an additional ground for conjecture that the first inhabitants of Ceylon were a colony from the opposite coast of Calinga.] [Footnote 9: BRYANT'S _Analysis of Mythology_, chapter on Ophiolatria, vol. i p. 480, "Euboea means _Oub-aia_, and signifies the serpent island." (_Ib_.) But STRABO affords us a still more striking illustration of the _Mahawanso_, in calling the serpent worshippers of Ceylon "Serpents," since he states that in Phrygia and on the Hellespont the people who were styled [Greek: ophiogeneis], or the Serpent races, actually retained a physical affinity with the snakes with whom they were popularly identified, [Greek: "entautha mytheuousi tous Ophiogeneis syngenneian tina echein pros tous oseis."]--STRABO, lib. xiii. c. 588. PLINY alludes to the same fable (lib. vii.). And OVID, from the incident of Cadmus' having sown the dragon's teeth (that is, implanted Ophiolatria in Greece), calls the Athenians _Serpentigenæ_.] But whatever were the peculiarities of religion which distinguished the aborigines from their conquerors, the attention of Wijayo was not diverted from his projects of colonisation by any anxiety to make converts to his own religious belief. The earliest cares of himself and his followers were directed to implant civilisation, and two centuries were permitted to elapse before the first effort was made to supersede the popular worship by the inculcation of a more intellectual faith. * * * * * NOTE. DESCRIPTION IN THE MAHAWANSO OF THE LANDING OF WIJAYO. The landing of Wijayo in Ceylon is related in the 7th chapter of the _Mahawanso_, and Mr. TURNOUR has noticed the strong similarity between this story and Homer's account of the landing of Ulysses in the island of Circe. The resemblance is so striking that it is difficult to conceive that the Singhalese historian of the 5th century was entirely ignorant of the works of the Father of Poetry. Wijayo and his followers, having made good their landing, are met by a "devo" (a divine spirit), who blesses them and ties a sacred thread as a charm on the arm of each. One of the band presently discovers the princess in the person of a devotee, seated near a tank, and she being a magician (Yakkhini) imprisons him and eventually the rest of his companions in a cave. The _Mahawanso_ then proceeds: "all these persons not returning, Wijayo, becoming alarmed, equipping himself with the five weapons of war, proceeded after them, and examined the delightful pond: he could perceive no footsteps but those leading down into it, and there he saw the princess. It occurred to him his retinue must surely have been seized by her, and he exclaimed, 'Pray, why dost not thou produce my attendants?' 'Prince,' she replied, 'from attendants what pleasure canst thou derive? drink and bathe ere thou departest.' Seizing her by the hair with his left hand, whilst with his right he raised his sword, he exclaimed, 'Slave, deliver my followers or die.' The Yakkhini terrified, implored for her life; 'Spare me, prince, and on thee will I bestow sovereignty, my love, and my service.' In order that he might not again be involved in difficulty he forced her to swear[1], and when he again demanded the liberation of his attendants she brought them forth, and declaring 'these men must be famishing,' she distributed to them rice and other articles procured from the wrecked ships of mariners, who had fallen a prey to her. A feast follows, and Wijayo and the princess retire to pass the night in an apartment which she causes to spring up at the foot of a tree, curtained as with a wall and fragrant with incense." It is impossible not to be struck with a curious resemblance between this description and that in the 10th book of the Odyssey, where Eurylochus, after landing, returns to Ulysses to recount the fate of his companions, who, having wandered towards the palace of Circe, had been imprisoned after undergoing transformation into swine. Ulysses hastens to their relief, and having been provided by Mercury with antidotes, which enabled him to resist the poisons of the sorceress, whom he discovers in her retreat, the story proceeds:-- [Greek: Ôs phat egô d aor oxu eryssamenos para mêrou Kirkêepêixa hôste ktameuai meneainôn. k. t. l.] [Footnote 1: [Greek: Ei mê moi tlaiês ge, thea, megan horkon homossai Mêti moi autps pêma kakon bouleusemen allo.]--_Odys_. x. l. 343.] "She spake, I, drawing from beside my thigh The faulchion keen, with death denouncing looks, Rush'd on her,--she, with a shrill scream of fear, Ran under my raised arm, seized fast my knees, And in winged accents plaintive thus began:-- 'Who, whence thy city, and thy birth declare,-- Amazed I see thee with that potion drenched, Yet unenchanted: never man before Once passed it through his lips and lived the same. * * * * Sheath again Thy sword, and let us on my bed recline, Mutual embrace, that we may trust henceforth Each other without jealousy or fear.' The goddess spake, to whom I thus replied: 'Oh Circe, canst thou bid me meek become, And gentle, who beneath thy roof detain'st My fellow-voyagers. * * * No, trust me, never will I share thy bed, Till first, oh goddess, thou consent to swear That dread, all-binding oath, that other harm Against myself, thou wilt imagine none.' I spake, she, swearing as I bade, renounced All evil purpose, and her solemn oath Concluded, I ascended next her bed."[1] [Footnote 1: COWPER's _Odyssey_, B. x, p. 392.] The story of Wijayo's interview with Kuweni is told in nearly the same terms as it appeared in the _Mahawanso_ in the _Rajavali_, p. 172. Another classical coincidence is curious: we are strongly reminded of Homer's description of the Syrens by the following passage, relative to the female _Rakshasis_, or demons, by whom Ceylon was originally inhabited, which is given in the memoirs of HIOUEN-THSANG, the Chinese traveller in the 7th century, as extracted by him from the Buddhist Chronicles. "Elles épiaient constamment les marchands qui abordaient dans l'isle, et se changeant en femmes d'une grande beauté elles venaient au-devant d'eux avec des fleurs odorantes et au son des instruments de musique, leur adressaient des paroles bienveillantes et les attiraient dans la ville de fer. Alors elles leur offraient un joyeux festin et se livraient au plaisir avec eux: puis elles les enfermaient dans un prison de fer et les mangeaient l'un après l'autre."[1] [Footnote 1: HIOUEN-THSANG, _Mém. des Péler. Boudd_. 1. xi. p. 131.] CHAP. III THE CONQUEST OF CEYLON BY WIJAYO, B.C. 543, AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BUDDHISM, B.C. 307. [Sidenote: B.C. 543.] The sacred historians of Ceylon affect to believe in the assertion of some mysterious connection between the landing of Wijayo, and the conversion of Ceylon to Buddhism, one hundred and fifty years afterwards; and imply that the first event was but a pre-ordained precursor of the second.[1] The Singhalese narrative, however, admits that Wijayo was but a "lawless adventurer," who being expelled from his own country, was refused a settlement on the coast of India before he attempted Ceylon, which had previously attracted the attention of other adventurers. This story is in no way inconsistent with that told by the Chinese Buddhists, who visited the island in the fifth and seventh centuries. FA HIAN states, that even before the advent of Buddha, Ceylon was the resort of merchants, who repaired there to exchange their commodities for gems, which the "demons" and "serpents," who never appeared in person, deposited on the shore, with a specified value attached to each, and in lieu of them the strangers substituted certain indicated articles, and took their departure.[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii.] [Footnote 2: FA HIAN, _Fo[)e]-Kou[)e]-ki_, ch. xxxviii. See a notice of this story of FA HIAN, as it applies to the still existing habits of the Veddahs, Vol. I. Pt III. ch. vii.] [Sidenote: B.C. 543.] HIOUEN-THSANG, at a later period, disposes of the fables of Wijayo's descent from a lion[1], and of his divine mission to Ceylon, by intimating, that, according to certain authorities, he was the son of a merchant (meaning a sea-faring trader), who, having appeased the enmity of the Yakkhos, succeeded by his discretion in eventually making himself their king.[2] [Footnote 1: The legend of Wijayo's descent from a lion, probably originated from his father being the son of an outlaw named "Singha."] [Footnote 2: "Suivant certains auteurs, Sengkia-lo (Wijayo) serait le nom du fils d'un marchand, qui, par sa prudence, ayant échappé à la fureur homicide des Lo-tsa" (demons) "réussit ensuite à se faire Roi."--HIOUEN THSANG, _Voyages &c_. l. iv. p. 198.] Whatever may have been his first intentions, his subsequent policy was rather that of an agriculturist than an apostle. Finding the country rich and fertile, he invited merchants to bring their families, and take possession of it.[1] He dispersed his followers to form settlements over the island, and having given to his kingdom his patrimonial name of Sihala[2], he addressed himself to render his dominions "habitable for men."[3] He treated the subjugated race of Yakkhos with a despotic disdain, referable less to pride of caste than to contempt for the rude habits of the native tribes. He repudiated the Yakkho princess whom he had married, because her unequal rank rendered her unfit to remain the consort of a king[4]; and though she had borne him children, he drove her out before his second marriage with the daughter of an Indian sovereign, on the ground that the latter would be too timid to bear the presence of a being so inferior.[5] [Footnote 1: HIOUEN THSANG, ch iv.] [Footnote 2: Whence Singhala (and Singhalese) Silan, Seylan, and Ceylon.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii p. 49. _Rajaratnacari_, ch. i.] [Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 51.] [Footnote 5: Ibid., p. 52.] [Sidenote: B.C. 504.] Leaving no issue to inherit the throne, he was succeeded by his nephew[1], who selected a relation of Gotama Buddha for his queen; and her brothers having dispersed themselves over the island, increased the number of petty kingdoms, which they were permitted to form in various districts[2], a policy which was freely encouraged by all the early kings, and which, though it served to accelerate colonisation and to extend the knowledge of agriculture, led in after years to dissensions, civil war, and disaster. It was at this period that Ceylon was resolved into the three geographical divisions, which, down to a very late period, are habitually referred to by the native historians. All to the north of the Mahawelli-ganga was comprised in the denomination _Pihiti_, or the Raja-ratta, from its containing the ancient capital and the residence of royalty; south of this was _Rohano_ or _Rahuna_, bounded on the east and south by the sea, and by the Mahawelli-ganga and Kalu-ganga, on the north and west; a portion of this division near Tangalle still retains the name of Roona.[3] The third was the _Maya-ratta_, which lay between the mountains, the two great rivers and the sea, having the Dedera-oya to the north, and the Kalu-ganga as its southern limit. [Footnote 1: B.C. 504.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 51, ix. p. 57; _Rajavali_, part i. p. 177, 186; and TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 12, 14.] [Footnote 3: The district of Rohuna included the mountain zone of Ceylon, and hence probably its name, _rohuno_ meaning the "act or instrument of ascending, as steps or a ladder." Adam's Peak was in the Maya division; but Edrisi, who wrote in the twelfth century, says, that it was then called "El Rahoun."--_Géographie, &c_. viii, JAUBERT'S _Transl_. vol. ii. p. 71. _Rahu_ is an ordinary name for it amongst Mahometan writers, and in the _Raja Tarangini_, it is called "Rohanam," b. iii. 56, 72.] [Sidenote: B.C. 504.] The patriarchal village system, which from time immemorial has been one of the characteristics of the Dekkan, and which still prevails throughout Ceylon in a modified form, was one of the first institutions organised by the successors of Wijayo. "They fixed the boundaries of every village throughout Lanka;"[1] they "caused the whole island to be divided into fields and gardens;"[2] and so uniformly were the rites of these rural municipalities respected in after times, that one of the Singhalese monarchs, on learning that merit attached to alms given from the fruit of the donor's own exertions, undertook to sow a field of rice, and "from the portion derived by him as the cultivator's share," to bestow an offering on a "thero."[3] [Footnote 1: It was established by Pandukabhaya, A.D. 437.--_Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 67, _Rajaratnacari_, ch. i.] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii., _Rajavali_, b. i. p. 185.] [Footnote 3: The king was Mahachula, 77 B.C.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv.] From the necessity of providing food for their followers, the earliest attention of the Bengal conquerors was directed to the introduction and extension of agriculture. A passage in the _Mahawanso_ would seem to imply, that previous to the landing of Wijayo, rice was imported for consumption[1], and upwards of two centuries later the same authority specifies "one hundred and sixty loads of hill-paddi,"[2] among the presents which were sent to the island from Bengal. [Footnote 1: Kuweni distributed to the companions of Wijayo; "rice and other articles, _procured from the wrecked ships of mariners_." (_Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 49.) A tank is mentioned as then existing near the residence of Kuweni; but it was only to be used as a bath. (Ib. c. vii. p. 48.) The _Rajaratnacari_ also mentions that, in the fabulous age of the second Buddha, of the present Kalpa, there was a famine in Ceylon, which dried up the cisterns and fountains of the inland. But there is no evidence of the existence of systematic tillage anterior to the reign of Wijayo.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xi. p. 70. _Paddi_ is rice before it has been freed from the husk.] [Sidenote: B.C. 504.] In a low and level country like the north of Ceylon, where the chief subsistence of the people is rice, a grain which can only be successfully cultivated under water, the first requisites of society are reservoirs and canals. The Buddhist historians extol the father of Wijayo for his judgment and skill "in forming villages in situations favourable for irrigation;"[1] his own attention was fully engrossed with the cares attendant on the consolidation of his newly acquired power; but the earliest public work undertaken by his successor Panduwasa, B.C. 504, was a tank, which he caused to be formed in the vicinity of his new capital Anarajapoora, the _Anurogrammum_ of Ptolemy, originally a village founded by one of the followers of Wijayo.[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vi. p. 46.] [Footnote 2: The first tank recorded in Ceylon is the Abayaweva, made by Panduwasa, B.C. 505 (_Mahawanso_, ch. ix. p. 57). The second was the Jayaweva, formed by Pandukabhaya, B.C. 437. (Ib. ch. x. p. 65.) The _third_, the Gamini tank, made by the same king at the same place, Anarajapoora.--Ib. ch. x. p. 66.] [Sidenote: B.C. 307.] The continual recurrence of records of similar constructions amongst the civil exploits of nearly every succeeding sovereign, together with the prodigious number formed, alike attests the unimproved condition of Ceylon, prior to the arrival of the Bengal invaders, and the indolence or ignorance of the original inhabitants, as contrasted with the energy and skill of their first conquerors. [Sidenote: B.C. 307.] Upwards of two hundred years were spent in initiatory measures for the organisation of the new state. Colonists from the continent of India were encouraged by the facilities held out to settlers, and carriage roads were formed in the vicinity of the towns.[1] Village communities were duly organised, gardens were planted, flowers and fruit-bearing trees introduced,[2] and the production of food secured by the construction of canals,[3] and public works for irrigation. Moreover, the kings and petty princes attested the interest which they felt in the promotion of agriculture, by giving personal attention to the formation of tanks and to the labours of cultivation.[4] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. xv. xvi.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xi. p. 60 (367 B.C.), ch. xxxiv. p. 211 (B.C. 20), ch. xxxv. p. 215 (A.D. 20). _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 29. _Rajavali_, p. 185, 227.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 210 (B.C. 42), ch. xxxv. p. 221, 222 (A.D. 275), ch. xxxvii. p. 238. _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 49, and _Rajavali_, p. 223, &c.] [Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 61, xxii. p. 130, xxiv. p. 149. _Rajavali_, p. 185, 186. The Buddhist kings of Burmah, at the present day, in imitation of the ancient sovereigns of Ceylon, rest their highest claims to renown on the number of works for irrigation which they have either formed or repaired. See _Yule's Narrative of the British mission, to Ava in 1855_, p. 106.] [Sidenote: B.C. 307.] Meantime, the effects of Gotama's early visits had been obliterated, and the sacred trees which he planted were dead; and although the bulk of the settlers had come from countries where Buddhism was the dominant faith, no measures appear to have been taken by the immigrants to revive or extend it throughout Ceylon. Wijayo was, in all probability, a Brahman, but so indifferent to his own faith, that his first alliance in Ceylon was with a demon worshipper.[1] His immediate successors were so eager to encourage immigration, that they treated all religions with a perfect equality of royal favour. Yakkho temples were not only respected, but "annual demon offerings were provided" for them; halls were built for the worshippers of Brahma, and residences were provided at the public cost, for "five hundred persons of various foreign religious faiths;"[2] but no mention is made in the _Mahawanso_ of a single edifice having been then raised for the worshippers of Buddha, whether resident in the island, or arriving amongst the colonists from India. [Footnote 1: According to the _Mahawanso_, Vishnu, in order to protect Wijayo and his followers from the sorceries of the Yakkhos, met them on their landing in Ceylon, and "_tied threads on their arms_," ch. vii.; and at a later period, when the king Panduwasa, B.C. 504, was afflicted with temporary insanity, as a punishment in his person of the crime of perjury, committed by his predecessor Wijayo, _Iswara_ was supplicated to interpose, and by his mediation the king was restored to his right mind.--_Rajavali_, p. 181.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 67; ch, xxxiii, p. 203.] It was not till the year B.C. 307, in the reign of Tissa, that the preacher Mahindo ventured to visit Ceylon, under the auspices of the king, whom he succeeded in inducing to abstain from Brahmanical rites, and to profess faith in the doctrines of Buddha. From the prominent part thus taken by Tissa in establishing the national faith of Ceylon, the sacred writers honour his name with the prefix of _Déwánan-pia_, or "beloved of the saints." [Sidenote: B.C. 307.] The _Mahawanso_ exhausts the vocabulary of ecstacy in describing the advent of Mahindo, a prince of Magadha, and a lineal descendant of Chandragutto. It records the visions by which he was divinely directed to "depart on his mission for the conversion of Lanka;" it describes his aërial flight, and his descent on Ambatthalo, the loftiest peak of Mihintala, the mountain which, rising suddenly from the plain, overlooks the sacred city of Anarajapoora. The story proceeds to explain, how the king, who was hunting the elk, was miraculously allured by the fleeing game to approach the spot where Mahindo was seated[1]; and how the latter forthwith propounded the Divine doctrine "to the ruler of the land; who, at the conclusion of his discourse, together with his forty thousand followers, obtained the salvation of the faith."[2] [Footnote 1: The story, as related in the _Mahawanso_, bears a resemblance to the legend of St. Hubert and the stag, in the forest of Ardennes, and to that of St. Eustace, who, when hunting, was led by a deer of singular beauty towards a rock, where it displayed to him the crucifix upon its forehead; whence an appeal was addressed which effected his conversion. "The king Dewananpiyatissa departed for an elk hunt, taking with him a retinue; and in the course of the pursuit of the game on foot, he came to the Missa mountain. A certain devo, assuming the form of an elk, stationed himself there, grazing; the sovereign descried him, and saying 'it is not fair to shoot him standing,' sounded his bowstring, on which the elk fled to the mountain. The king gave chase to the flying animal, and, on reaching the spot where the priests were, the thero Mahindo came within sight of the monarch; but the metamorphosed deer vanished."--_Mahawanso_, c. xiv.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 80.] Then follows the approach of Mahindo to the capital; the conversion of the queen and her attendants, and the reception of Buddhism by the nation, under the preaching of its great Apostle, who "thus became the luminary which shed the light of religion over the land." He and his sister Sanghamitta thenceforth devoted their lives to the organisation of Buddhist communities throughout Ceylon, and died in the odour of sanctity, in the reign of King Uttiya, B.C. 267. [Sidenote: B.C. 289.] But the grand achievement which consummated the establishment of the national faith, was the arrival from Magadha of a branch of the sacred Bo-tree. Every ancient race has had its sacred tree; the Chaldeans, the Hebrews[1], the Greeks, the Romans and the Druids, had each their groves, their elms and their oaks, under which to worship. Like them, the Brahmans have their _Kalpa tree_ in Paradise, and the Banyan in the vicinity of their temples; and the Buddhists, in conformity with immemorial practice, selected as their sacred tree the Pippul, which is closely allied to the Banyan, yet sufficiently distinguished from it, to serve as the emblem of a new and peculiar worship.[2] It was whilst reclining under the shade of this tree in Uruwela, that Gotama received Buddhahood; hence its adoption as an object of reverence by his followers, and in all probability its adoration preceded the use of images and temples in Ceylon.[3] [Footnote 1: "They sacrifice upon the tops of mountains, and burn incense under oaks, and poplars, and elms, because the shadow thereof is good."--_Hosea_, iv. 13.] [Footnote 2: The Bo-tree (_Ficus religiosa_) is the "pippul" of India. It differs from the Banyan (_F. indica_), by sending down no roots from its branches. Its heart-shaped leaves, with long attenuated points, are attached to the stem by so slender a stalk, that they appear in the profoundest calm to be ever in motion, and thus, like the leaves of the aspen, which, from the tradition that the cross was made of that wood, the Syrians believe to tremble in recollection of the events of the crucifixion, those of the Bo-tree are supposed by the Buddhists to exhibit a tremulous veneration, associated with the sacred scene of which they were the witnesses.] [Footnote 3: Previous Buddhas had each his Bo-tree or Buddha-tree. The pippul had been before assumed by the first recorded Buddha; others had the iron-tree, the champac, the nipa, &c.--_Mahawanso_, TURNOUR'S Introd. p. xxxii.] [Sidenote: B.C. 289.] In order that his kingdom might possess a sacred tree of the supremest sanctity, king Tissa solicited a branch of the identical tree under which Gotama reclined, from Asoca, who then reigned in Magadha. The difficulty of severing a portion without the sacrilegious offence of "lopping it with any weapon," was overcome by the miracle of the branch detaching itself spontaneously, and descending with its roots into the fragrant earth prepared for it in a golden vase, in which it was transported by sea to Ceylon[1], and planted by king Tissa in the spot at Anarajapoora, where, after the lapse of more than 2000 years, it still continues to flourish and to receive the profound veneration of all Buddhist nations.[2] [Footnote 1: The ceremonial of the mysterious severance of the sacred branch "amid the din of music, the clamours of men, the howling of the elements, the roar of animals, the screams of birds, the yells of demons, and the crash of earthquakes," is minutely described in an elaborate passage of the _Mahawanso_. And its landing in Ceylon, the retinue of its attendants, the homage paid to it, its progress to the capital, its arrival at the Northern-gate "at the hour when shadows are most extended," its reception by princes "adorned with the insignia of royalty," and its final deposition in the earth, under the auspices of Mahindo and his sister Sanghamitta, form one of the most striking episodes in that very singular book.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xviii. xix.] [Footnote 2: The planting of the Bo-tree took place in the eighteenth year of the reign of King Devenipiatissa, B.C. 288; it is consequently at the present time 2147 years old.] [Illustration: THE BO TREE AT ANARAJAPOORA] CHAP. IV. THE EARLY BUDDHIST MONUMENTS. [Sidenote: B.C. 289.] Almost simultaneously with the establishment of the Buddhist religion was commenced the erection of those stupendous ecclesiastical structures, the number and magnitude of whose remains form a remarkable characteristic in the present aspect of the country. The architectural history of continental India dates from the third century before Christ; not a single building or sculptured stone having as yet been discovered there, of an age anterior to the reign of Asoca[1], who was the first of his dynasty to abandon the religion of Brahma for that of Buddha. In like manner the earliest existing monuments of Ceylon belong to the same period; they owe their construction to Devenipiatissa, and the historical annals of the island record with pious gratitude the series of dagobas, wiharas, and temples erected by him and his successors. [Footnote 1: FERGUSON, _Handbook of Architecture_, b. i. c. i. p. 5.] Of these the most remarkable are the Dagobas, piles of brickwork of dimensions so extraordinary that they suggest comparison with the pyramids of Memphis[1], the barrow of Halyattys[2], or the mounds in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. [Footnote 1: So vast did the dagobas appear to the Singhalese that the author of the _Mahawanso_, in describing the construction of that called the _Ruanwelle_ at Anarajapoora, states that each of the lower courses contained ten kotis (a koti being equal to 100 lacs) or 10,000,000 bricks.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxx, p. 179.] [Footnote 2: "The ancient edifices of Chi-Chen in Central America bear a striking resemblance to the topes of India. The shape of one of the domes, its apparent size, the small tower on the summit, the trees growing on the sides, the appearance of masonry here and there, the shape of the ornaments, and the small doorway at the base, are so exactly similar to what I had seen at Anarajapoora that when my eyes first fell on the engravings of these remarkable ruins I supposed that they were presented in illustration of the dagobas of Ceylon."--HARDY's _Eastern Monachism_, c. xix. p. 222.] [Sidenote: B.C. 289.] A dagoba (from _datu_, a relic, and _gabbhan_, a shrine[1]) is a monument raised to preserve one of the relics of Gotama, which were collected after the cremation of his body at Kusinara, and it is candidly admitted in the _Mahawanso_ that the intention in erecting them was to provide "objects to which offerings could be made."[2] [Footnote 1: _Deha_, "the body," and _gopa_, "what preserves;" because they enshrine hair, teeth, nails, &c. of Buddha.--WILSON'S _Asiat. Res._ vol. xvii. p. 605.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xvii. p. 104.] [Illustration: A SMALL DAGOBA AT KANDY] [Sidenote: B.C. 289.] Ceylon contains but one class of these structures, and boasts no tall monolithic pillars like the _lats_ of Delhi and Allahabad, and no regularly built columns similar to the _minars_ of Cabul; but the fragments of the bones of Gotama, and locks of his hair, are enclosed in enormous masses of hemispherical masonry, modifications of which may be traced in every Buddhist country of Asia, in the topes of Affghanistan and the Punjaub, in the pagodas of Pegu, and in the Boro-Buddor of Java. Those of Ceylon consist of a bell-shaped dome of brick-work surmounted by a terminal or _tee_ (generally in the form of a cube supporting a pointed spire), and resting on a square platform approached by flights of stone steps. Those, the ruins of which have been explored in modern times, have been found to be almost solid, enclosing a hollow vessel of metal or stone which had once contained the relic, but of which the ornament alone and a few gems or discoloured pearls set in gold, are usually all that is now discoverable. Their outline exhibits but little of ingenuity or of art, and their construction is only remarkable for the vast amount of labour which must necessarily have been expended upon them. But, independently of this, the first dagoba erected at Anarajapoora, the Thuparamaya, which exists to the present day, "as nearly as may be in the same form in which it was originally designed, is possessed of a peculiar interest from the fact that it is in all probability the oldest architectural monument now extant in India."[1] It was raised by King Tissa, at the close of the third century before Christ, over the collar-bone of Buddha, which Mahindo had procured for the king.[2] In dimensions this monument is inferior to those built at a later period by the successors of Tissa, some of which are scarcely exceeded in diameter and altitude by the dome of St. Peter's[3]; but in elegance of outline it immeasurably surpassed all the other dagobas, and the beauty of its design is still perceptible in its ruins after the lapse of two thousand years. [Footnote 1: FERGUSON'S _Handbook of Architecture_, b. i. c. iii. p. 43.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xvii. _The Rajavali_ calls it the jaw-bone, p. 184.] [Footnote 3: The Abhayagiri dagoba at Anarajapoora, built B.C. 89, was originally 180 cubits high, which, taking the Ceylon cubit at 2 feet 3 inches, would be equal to 405 feet. The dome was hemispherical, and described with a radius of 180 feet, giving a circumference of 1130 feet. The summit of this stupendous work was therefore fifty feet higher than St. Paul's, and fifty feet lower than St. Peter's.] The king, in addition to this, built a number of others in various parts of Ceylon[1], and his name has been perpetuated as the founder of temples, for the rites of the new religion, and of Wiharas or monasteries for the residence of its priesthood. The former were of the simplest design, for an atheistical system, which substitutes meditation for worship, dispenses with splendour in its edifices and pomp in its ceremonial. [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 15.] [Sidenote: B.C. 289.] The images of Grotama, which in time became objects of veneration, were but a late innovation[1], and a doubt even been expressed whether the religion of Buddha in its primitive constitution, rejecting as it does the doctrine of a mediatorial priesthood, contemplated the existence of any organised ministry. [Footnote 1: The precise date of their introduction is unknown, but the first mention of a statue occurs in an inscription on the rock at Mihintala, bearing date A.D. 246, and referring to the house constructed over a figure of Buddha.] Caves, or insulated apartments in imitation of their gloom and retirement, were in all probability the first resort of devotees in Ceylon, and hence amongst the deeds of King Tissa, the most conspicuous and munificent were the construction of rock temples, on Mihintala, and of apartments for the priests in all parts of his dominions.[1] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR's _Epitome_, p. 15.] The directions of Gotama as to the residence of his votaries are characterised by the severest simplicity, and the term "pansala," literally "a dwelling of leaves,"[1] by which the house of a priest is described to the present day, serves to illustrate the original intention that persons dedicated to his service should cultivate solitude and meditation by withdrawing into the forest, but within such a convenient distance as would not estrange them from the villagers, on whose bounty and alms they were to be dependent for subsistence. [Footnote 1: It is questionable whether the Sarmanai, mentioned by Megasthenes, were Buddhists or Brahmans; but the account which he gives of the class of them whom he styles the Hylobii, would seem to identify them with the Sramanas of Buddhism, "passing their lives in the woods, [Greek: zôntes en tais ulais], living on fruits and seeds, and clothed with the bark of trees."--MEGASTHENES' _Indica_, &c., Fragm. xlii.] [Sidenote: B.C. 289.] In one of the rock inscriptions deciphered by Prinsep, King Asoca, in addressing himself to his Buddhist subjects, distinguishes them as "ascetics and _house-holders_." In the sacred books a laic is called a "graha pali," meaning "the ruler of a house;" and in contra-distinction Fa Hian, the Chinese Buddhist, speaks of the priests of Ceylon under the designation of "the house-less," to mark their abandonment of social enjoyments.[1] Anticipating the probable necessity of their eventually resorting to houses for accommodation, Buddha directed that, if built for an individual, the internal measurement of a cell should be twelve spans in length by seven in breadth[2]; and, if restricted to such dimensions, the assertions of the Singhalese chronicles become intelligible as to the prodigious number of such dwellings said to have been raised by the early kings.[3] [Footnote 1: "Les hommes hors de leur maisons."--FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxix. This is the equivalent of the Singhalese term for the same class, _agariyan-pubbajito_, used in the Pittakas.] [Footnote 2: HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. xiii. p. 122.] [Footnote 3: The _Rajaratnacari_ says that Devenipiatissa caused _eighty-four thousand_ temples to be built during his reign, p. 35.] But the multitudes who were thus attracted to a life of indolent devotion became in a short time so excessive that recourse was had to other devices for combining economy with accommodation, and groups of such cells were gradually formed into wiharas and monasteries, the inmates of which have uniformly preserved their organisation and order. Still the edifices thus constructed have never exhibited any tendency to depart from the primitive simplicity so strongly enjoined by their founder; and, down to the present time, the homes of the Buddhist priesthood are modest and humble structures generally reared of mud and thatch, with no pretension to external beauty and no attempt at internal decoration. [Sidenote: B.C. 289.] To supply to the ascetics the means of seclusion and exercise, the early kings commenced the erection of ambulance-halls; and gardens were set apart for the use of the great temple communities. The _Mahawanso_ describes, with all the pomp of Oriental diction, the ceremony observed by King Tissa on the occasion of setting apart a portion of ground as a site for the first wihara at his capital; the monarch in person, attended by standard bearers and guards with golden staves, having come to mark out the boundary with a plough drawn by elephants.[1] A second monastery was erected by him on the summit of Mihintala[2]; a third was attached to the dagoba of the Thuparamaya, and others were rapidly founded in every quarter of the island.[3] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xv. p. 99.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xx. p. 123.] [Footnote 3: Five hundred were built by one king alone, the third in succession from Devenipiatissa, B.C. 246 (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxi, p. 127). About the same period the petty chiefs of Rohuna and Mahagam were equally zealous in their devout labours, the one having erected sixty-four wiharas in the east of the island, and the other sixty-eight in the south.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxiv. p. 145, 148.] It was in all probability owing to the growth of these institutions, and the establishment of colleges in connection with them, that halls were eventually appropriated for the reception of statues; and that apartments so consecrated were devoted to the ceremonies and worship of Buddha. Hence, at a very early period, the dwellings of the priests were identified with the chaityas and sacred edifices, and the name of the Wihara came to designate indifferently both the temple and the monastery. But the hall which contains the figures of Buddha, and which constitutes the "temple" proper, is always detached from the domestic buildings, and is frequently placed on an eminence from which the view is commanding. The interior is painted in the style of Egyptian chambers, and is filled with figures and illustrations of the legends of Gotama, whose statue, with hand uplifted in the attitude of admonition, or reclining in repose emblematic of the blissful state of Nirwana, is placed in the dimmest recess of the edifice. Here lamps cast a feeble light, and the air is heavy with the perfume of flowers, which are daily renewed by fresh offerings from the worshippers at the shrines. [Sidenote: B.C. 289.] In no other system of idolatry, ancient or modern, have the rites been administered by such a multitude of priests as assist in the passionless ceremonial of Buddhism. Fa Hian, in the fourth century, was assured by the people of Ceylon that at that period the priests numbered between fifty and sixty thousand, of whom two thousand were attached to one wihara at Anarajapoora, and three thousand to another.[1] [Footnote 1: FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 336, 350. At the present day the number in the whole island does not probably exceed 2500 (HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, p. 57, 309). But this is far below the proportion of the Buddhist priesthood in other countries; in Siam nearly every adult male becomes a priest for a certain portion of his life; a similar practice prevails in Ava; and in Burmah so common is it to assume the yellow robe, that the popular expedient for effecting divorce is for the parties to make a profession of the priesthood, the ceremonial of which is sufficient to dissolve the marriage vow, and after an interval of a few months, they can throw off the yellow robe and are then at liberty to marry again.] As the vow which devotes the priests of Buddha to religion binds them at the same time to a life of poverty and mendicancy, the extension of the faith entailed in great part on the crown the duty of supporting the vast crowds who withdrew themselves from industry to embrace devotion and indigence. They were provided with food by the royal bounty, and hence the historical books make perpetual reference to the priests "going to the king's house to eat,"[1] when the monarch himself set the example to his subjects of "serving them with rice broth, cakes, and dressed rice."[2] Rice in all its varieties is the diet described in the _Mahawanso_ as being provided for the priesthood by the munificence of the kings; "rice prepared with sugar and honey, rice with clarified butter, and rice in its ordinary form."[3] In addition to the enjoyment of a life of idleness, another powerful incentive conspired to swell the numbers of these devotees. The followers and successors of Wijayo preserved intact the institution of caste, which they had brought with them from the valley of the Ganges; and, although caste was not abolished by the teachers of Buddhism, who retained and respected it as a social institution, it was practically annulled and absorbed in the religious character;--all who embraced the ascetic life being simultaneously absolved from all conventional disabilities, and received as members of the sacred community with all its exalted prerogatives.[4] [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 198. Hiouen Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, describing Anarajapoora in the seventh century, says: "A côté du palais du roi; on a construit une vaste cuisine où l'on prépare chaque jour des aliments pour dix-huit mille religieux. A l'heure de repas, les religieux viennent, un pot à la main, pour recevoir leur nourriture. Après l'avoir obtenue ils s'en retournent chacun dans leur chambre."--HIOUEN THSANG, _Transl._ M. JULIEN, lib. xi. tom. ii. p. 143.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 82.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii.; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. i. p. 37, ch. ii. p. 56, 60, 62.] [Footnote 4: Professor Wilson, _Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc._ vol. xvi. p. 249.] Along with food, clothing consisting of three garments to complete the sacerdotal robes, as enjoined by the Buddhist ritual[1], was distributed at certain seasons; and in later times a practice obtained of providing robes for the priests by "causing the cotton to be picked from the tree at sunrise, cleaned, spun, woven, dyed yellow, and made into garments and presented before sunset."[2] The condition of the priesthood was thus reduced to a state of absolute dependency on alms, and at the earliest period of their history the vow of poverty, by which their order is bound, would seem to have been righteously observed. [Footnote 1: To avoid the vanity of dress or the temptation to acquire property, no Buddhist priest is allowed to have more than one set of robes, consisting of three pieces, and if an extra one be bestowed on him it must be surrendered to the chapter of his wihara within ten days. The dimensions must not exceed a specified length, and when obtained new the cloth must be disfigured with mud or otherwise before he puts it on. A magnificent robe having been given to Gotama, his attendant Ananda, in order to destroy its intrinsic value, cut it into thirty pieces and sewed them together in four divisions, so that the robe resembled the patches of a rice-field divided by embankments. And in conformity with this precedent the robes of every priest are similarly dissected and reunited.--Hardy's _Eastern Monachism_, c. xii. p. 117; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. pp. 60, 66.] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, pp. 104, 109, 112. The custom which is still observed in Ceylon, of weaving robes between sunrise and sunset is called _Catina dhwana_ (_Rajavali_, p. 261). The work is performed chiefly by women, and the practice is identical with that mentioned by Herodotus, as observed by the priests of Egypt, who celebrated a festival in honour of the return of Rhampsinitus, after playing at dice with Ceres in Ilades, by investing one of their body with a cloak made in a single day, [Greek: pharos autêmeron exyphênantes], _Euterpe_, cxxii. Gray, in his ode of _The Fatal Sisters_, has embodied the Scandinavian myth in which the twelve weird sisters, the _Valkiriur_, weave "the crimson web of war" between the rising and setting of the sun.] CHAP V. SINGHALESE CHIVALRY.--ELALA AND DUTUGAIMUNU. [Sidenote: B.C. 289.] [Sidenote: B.C. 266.] For nearly a century after the accession of Devenipiatissa, the religion and the social development of Ceylon thus exhibited an equally steady advancement. The cousins of the king, three of whom ascended the throne in succession, seem to have vied with each other in works of piety and utility. Wiharas were built in all parts of the island, both north and south of the Maha-welli-ganga. Dagobas were raised in various places, and cultivation was urged forward by the formation of tanks and canals. But, during this period, from the fact of the Bengal immigrants being employed in more congenial or more profitable occupations (possibly also from the numbers who were annually devoting themselves to the service of the temples), and from the ascertained inaptitude of the native Singhalese to bear arms, a practice was commenced of retaining foreign mercenaries, which, even at that early period, was productive of animosity and bloodshed, and in process of time led to the overthrow of the Wijayan dynasty and the gradual decay of the Sinhala sovereignty. [Sidenote: B.C. 266.] [Sidenote: B.C. 237.] [Sidenote: B.C. 205.] The genius of the Gangetic race, which had taken possession of Ceylon, was essentially adapted to agricultural pursuits--in which, to the present day, their superiority is apparent over the less energetic tribes of the Dekkan. Busied with such employments, the early colonists had no leisure for military service; besides, whilst Devenipiatissa and his successors were earnestly engaged in the formation of religious communities, and the erection of sacred edifices in the northern portion of the island, various princes of the same family occupied themselves in forming settlements in the south and west; and hence, whilst their people were zealously devoted to the service and furtherance of religion, the sovereign at Anarajapoora was compelled, through a combination of causes, to take into his pay a body of Malabars[1] for the protection both of the coast and the interior. Of the foreigners thus confided in, "two youths, powerful in their cavalry and navy, named Sena and Gottika,"[2] proved unfaithful to their trust, and after causing the death of the king Suratissa (B.C. 237), retained the supreme power for upwards of twenty years, till overthrown in their turn and put to death by the adherents of the legitimate line.[3] Ten years, however, had barely elapsed when the attempt to establish a Tamil sovereign was renewed by Elala, "a Malabar of the illustrious Uju tribe, who invaded the island from the Chola[4] country, killed the reigning king Asela, and ruled the kingdom for forty years, administering justice impartially to friends and foes." [Footnote 1: The term "Malabar" is used throughout the following pages in the comprehensive sense in which it is applied in the Singhalese chronicles to the continental invaders of Ceylon; but it must be observed that the adventurers in these expeditions, who are styled in the _Mahawanso, "damilos"_ or Tamils, came not only from the south-western tract of the Dekkan, known in modern geography as "Malabar," but also from all parts of the peninsula, as far north as Cuttack and Orissa.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. p. 127.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, xxi.; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii.] [Footnote 4: Chola, or Solee, was the ancient name of Tanjore, and the country traversed by the river Caveri.] [Sidenote: B.C. 161.] Such is the encomium which the _Mahawanso_ passes on an infidel usurper, because Elala offered his protection to the priesthood; but the orthodox annalist closes his notice of his reign by the moral reflection that "even he who was an heretic, and doomed by his creed to perdition, obtained an exalted extent of supernatural power from having eschewed impiety and injustice."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, xxi. p. 129. The other historical books, the _Rajavali_, and _Rajaratnacari_, give a totally different character of Elala, and represent him as the desecrator of monuments and the overthrower of temples. The traditional estimation which has followed his memory is the best attestation of the superior accuracy of the _Mahawanso_.] [Sidenote: B.C. 161.] But it was not the priests alone who were captivated by the generosity of Elala. In the final struggle for the throne, in which the Malabars were worsted by the gallantry of Dutugaimunu, a prince of the excluded family, the deeds of bravery displayed by him were the admiration of his enemies. The contest between the rival chiefs is the solitary tale of Ceylon chivalry, in which Elala is the Saladin and Dutugaimunu the Coeur-de-lion. So genuine was the admiration of Elala's bravery that his rival erected a monument in his honour, on the spot where he fell; its ruins remain to the present day, and the Singhalese still regard it with respect and veneration. "On reaching the quarter of the city in which it stands," says the _Mahawanso_[1], "it has been the custom for the monarchs of Lanka to silence their music, whatsoever cession they may be heading;" and so uniformly was the homage continued down to the most recent period, that so lately as 1818, on the suppression of an attempted rebellion, when the defeated aspirant to the throne was making his escape by Anarajapoora, he alighted from his litter, on approaching the quarter in which the monument was known to exist, "and although weary and almost incapable of exertion, not knowing the precise spot, he continued on foot till assured that he had passed far beyond the ancient memorial."[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi.] [Footnote 2: FORBES' _Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. i. p. 233.] [Sidenote: B.C. 161.] Dutugaimunu, in the epics of Buddhism, enjoys a renown, second only to that of King Tissa, as the champion of the faith. On the recovery of his kingdom he addressed himself with energy to remove the effects produced in the northern portions of the island by forty years of neglect and inaction under the sway of Elala. During that monarch's protracted usurpation the minor sovereignties, which had been formed in various parts of the island prior to his seizure of the crown, were little impeded in their social progress by the forty-four years' residence of the Malabars at Anarajapoora. Although the petty kings of Rohuna and Maya submitted to pay tribute to Elala, his personal rule did not extend south of the Mahawelli-ganga[1], and whilst the strangers in the north of the island were plundering the temples of Buddha, the feudal chiefs in the south and west were emulating the munificence of Tissa in the number of wiharas which they constructed. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxii., _Rajavali_, p. 188, _Rajaratnacari_, p. 36. The _Mahawanso_ has a story of Dutugaimunu, when a boy, illustrative of his early impatience to rid the island of the Malabars. His father seeing him lying on his bed, with his hands and feet gathered up, inquired, "My boy, why not stretch thyself at length on thy bed?" "Confined by the Damilos," he replied, "beyond the river on the one side, and by the unyielding ocean on the other, how can I lie with outstretched limbs?"] Eager to conciliate his subjects by a similar display of regard for religion, Dutugaimunu signalised his victory and restoration by commencing the erection of the Ruanwellé dagoba, the most stupendous as well as the most venerated of those at Anarajapoora, as it enclosed a more imposing assemblage of relics than were ever enshrined in any other in Ceylon. The mass of the population was liable to render compulsory labour to the crown; but wisely reflecting that it was not only derogatory to the sacredness of the object, but impolitic to exact any avoidable sacrifices from a people so recently suffering from internal warfare, Dutugaimunu came to the resolution of employing hired workmen only, and according to the _Mahawanso_ vast numbers of the Yakkhos became converts to Buddhism during the progress of the building[1], which the king did not live to complete. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii. xxix. xxx. xxxi.] [Sidenote: B.C. 161.] But the most remarkable of the edifices which he erected at the capital was the Maha-Lowa-paya, a monastery which obtained the name of the _Brazen Palace_ from the fact of its being roofed with plates of that metal. It was elevated on sixteen hundred monolithic columns of granite twelve feet high, and arranged in lines of forty, so as to cover an area of upwards of two hundred and twenty feet square. On these rested the building nine stories in height, which, in addition to a thousand dormitories for priests, contained halls and other apartments for their exercise and accommodation. The _Mahawanso_ relates with peculiar unction the munificence of Dutugaimunu in remunerating those employed upon this edifice; he deposited clothing for that purpose as well as "vessels filled with sugar, buffalo butter and honey;" he announced that on this occasion it was not fitting to exact unpaid labour, and, "placing high value on the work to be performed, he paid the workmen with money."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii. p. 163.] The structure, when completed, far exceeded in splendour anything recorded in the sacred books. All its apartments were embellished with "beads, resplendent like gems;" the great hall was supported by golden pillars resting on lions and other animals, and the walls were ornamented with festoons of pearls and of flowers formed of jewels; in the centre was an ivory throne, with an emblem on one side of a golden sun, and on the other of the moon in silver, and above all glittered the imperial "chatta," the white canopy of dominion. The palace, says the _Mahawanso_, was provided with rich carpets and couches, and "even the ladle of the rice boiler was of gold." [Sidenote: B.C. 161.] The vicissitudes and transformations of the Brazen Palace are subjects of frequent mention in the history of the sacred city. As originally planned by Dutugaimunu, it did not endure through the reign of his successor Saidaitissa, at whose expense it was reconstructed, B.C. 140, but the number of stories was lowered to seven.[1] More than two centuries later, A.D. 182, these were again reduced to five[2], and the entire building must have been taken down in A.D. 240, as the king who was then reigning caused "the pillars of the Lowa Pasado to be arranged in a different form." [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvi.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiii.] The edifice erected on its site was pulled to the ground by the apostate Maha Sen, A.D. 301[1]; but penitently reconstructed by him on his recantation of his errors. Its last recorded restoration took place in the reign of Prakrama-bahu, towards the close of the twelfth century, when "the king rebuilt the Lowa-Maha-paya, and raised up the 1600 pillars of rock." [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii.] [Illustration: RUINS OF THE BRAZEN PALACE] [Sidenote: B.C. 161.] Thus exposed to spoliation by its splendour, and obnoxious to infidel invaders from the religious uses to which it was dedicated, it was subjected to violence on every commotion, whether civil or external, which disturbed the repose of the capital; and at the present day, no traces of it remain except the indestructible monoliths on which it stood. A "world of stone columns," to use the quaint expression of Knox, still marks the site of the Brazen Palace of Dutugaimunu, and attests the accuracy of the chronicles which describe its former magnificence. [Sidenote: B.C. 137.] The character of Dutugaimunu is succinctly expressed in his dying avowal, that he had lived "a slave to the priesthood."[1] Before partaking of food, it was his practice to present a portion for their use; and recollecting in maturer age, that on one occasion, when a child, he had so far forgotten this invariable rule, as _to eat a chilly_ without sharing it with the priest, he submitted himself to a penance in expiation of this youthful impiety.[2] His death scene, as described in the _Mahawanso_, contains an enumeration of the deeds of piety by which his reign had been signalised.[3] Extended on his couch in front of the great dagoba which he had erected, he thus addressed one of his military companions who had embraced the priesthood: "In times past, supported by my ten warriors, I engaged in battles; now, single-handed, I commence my last conflict, with death; and it is not permitted to me to overcome my antagonist." "Ruler of men," replied the thero, "without subduing the dominion of sin, the power of death is invincible; but call to recollection thy acts of piety performed, and from these you will derive consolation." The secretary then "read from the register of deeds of piety," that "one hundred wiharas, less one, had been constructed by the Maharaja, that he had built two great dagobas and the Brazen Palace at Anarajapoora; that in famines he had given his jewels to support the pious; that on three several occasions he had clothed the whole priesthood throughout the island, giving three garments to each; that five times he had conferred the sovereignty of the land for the space of seven days on the National Church; that he had founded hospitals for the infirm, and distributed rice to the indigent; bestowed lamps on innumerable temples, and maintained preachers, in the various wiharas, in all parts of his dominions. 'All these acts,' said the dying king, 'done in my days of prosperity, afford no comfort to my mind; but two offerings which I made when in affliction and in adversity, disregardful of my own fate, are those which alone administer solace to me now.[4] After this, the pre-eminently wise Maharaja expired, stretched on his bed, in the act of gazing on the Mahatupo."[5] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiv, xxv.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii.] [Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii.] [Footnote 5: Another name for the Ruanwellé dagoba, which he had built.] CHAP. VI. THE INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM ON CIVILISATION. [Sidenote: B.C. 137.] After the reign of Dutugaimunu there is little in the pages of the native historians to sustain interest in the story of the Singhalese monarchs. The long line of sovereigns is divided into two distinct classes; the kings of the _Maha-wanse_ or "superior dynasty" of the uncontaminated blood of Wijayo, who occupied the throne from his death, B.C. 505, to that of Maha Sen, A.D. 302;--and the _Sulu-wanse_ or "inferior race," whose descent was less pure, but who, amidst invasions, revolutions, and decline, continued, with unsteady hand, to hold the government clown to the occupation of the island by Europeans in the beginning of the sixteenth century. [Sidenote: B.C. 137.] To the great dynasty, and more especially to its earliest members, the inhabitants were indebted for the first rudiments of civilisation, for the arts of agricultural life, for an organised government, and for a system of national worship. But neither the piety of the kings nor their munificence sufficed to conciliate the personal attachment of their subjects, or to strengthen their throne by national attachment such as would have fortified its occupant against the fatalities incident to despotism. Of fifty-one sovereigns who formed the pure Wijayan dynasty, two were deposed by their subjects, and nineteen put to death by their successors.[1] Excepting the rare instances in which a reign was marked by some occurrence, such as an invasion and repulse of the Malabars, there is hardly a sovereign of the "Solar race" whose name is associated with a higher achievement than the erection of a dagoba or the formation of a tank, nor one whose story is enlivened by an event more exciting than the murder through which he mounted the throne or the conspiracy by which he was driven from it.[2] [Footnote 1: There is something very striking in the facility with which aspirants to the throne obtained the instant acquiescence of the people, so soon as assassination had put them in possession of power. And this is the more remarkable, where the usurpers were of the lower grade, as in the instance of Subho, a gate porter, who murdered King Yasa Silo, A.D. 60, and reigned for six years (_Mahaw._ ch. xxxv. p. 218). A carpenter, and a carrier of fire-wood, were each accepted in succession as sovereigns, A.D. 47; whilst the "_great dynasty_" was still in the plenitude of its popularity. The mystery is perhaps referable to the dominant necessity of securing tranquillity at any cost, in the state of society where the means of cultivation were directly dependent on the village organisation, and famine and desolation would have been the instant and inevitable consequences of any commotions which interfered with the conservancy and repair of the tanks and means of irrigation, and the prompt application of labour to the raising and saving of produce at the instant when the fall of the rains or the ripening of the crops demanded its employment with the utmost vigour.] [Footnote 2: In theory the Singhalese monarchy was elective in the descendants of the Solar race: in practice, primogeniture had a preference, and the crown was either hereditary or became the prize of those who claimed to be of royal lineage. On reviewing the succession of kings from B.C. 307 to A.D. 1815, _thirty-nine_ eldest sons (or nearly one fourth), succeeded to their fathers: and _twenty-nine_ kings (or more than one fifth), were succeeded by brothers. _Fifteen_ reigned for a period less than one year, and thirty for more than one year, and less than four. Of the Singhalese kings who died by violence, twenty-two were murdered by their successors; six were killed by other individuals; thirteen fell in feuds and war, and four committed suicide; eleven were dethroned, and their subsequent fate is unknown. Not more than two-thirds of the Singhalese kings retained sovereign authority to their decease, or reached the funeral pile without a violent death.--FORBES' _Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. i. ch. iv. p. 80, 97; JOINVILLE, _Religion and Manners of the People of Ceylon; Asiat. Res._ vol. vii. p. 423. See also _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. p. 201.] [Sidenote: B.C. 119.] One source of royal contention arose on the death of Dutugaimunu; his son, having forfeited his birthright by an alliance with a wife of lower caste, was set aside from the succession; Saidaitissa, a brother of the deceased king, being raised to the throne in his stead. The priests, on the death of Saidaitissa, B.C. 119, hastened to proclaim his youngest son Thullatthanako[1], to the prejudice of his elder brother Laiminitissa, but the latter established his just claim by the sword, and hence arose two rival lines, which for centuries afterwards were prompt on every opportunity to advance adverse pretensions to the throne, and assert them by force of arms. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiii. p. 201.] In such contests the priesthood brought a preponderant influence to whatever side they inclined [1]; and thus the royal authority, though not strictly sacerdotal, became so closely identified with the hierarchy, and so guided by its will, that each sovereign's attention was chiefly devoted to forwarding such measures as most conduced to the exaltation of Buddhism and the maintenance of its monasteries and temples. [Footnote 1: It was the dying boast of Dutugaimunu that he had lived "a slave to the priesthood." The expression was figurative in his case; but so abject did the subserviency of the kings become, and so rapid was its growth, that Bhatiya Tissa, who reigned A.D. 8, rendered it literal, and "dedicated himself, his queen, and two sons, as well as his charger, and state elephant, as _slaves to the priesthood_." The _Mahawanso_ intimates that the priests themselves protested against this debasement, ch. xxxiv. p. 214.] [Sidenote: B.C. 119.] [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] A signal effect of this regal policy, and of the growing diffusion of Buddhism, is to be traced in the impulse which it communicated to the reclamation of lands and the extension of cultivation. For more than three hundred years no mention is made in the Singhalese annals of any mode of maintaining the priesthood other than the royal distribution of clothing and voluntary offerings of food. They resorted for the "royal alms" either to the residence of the authorities or to halls specially built for their accommodation [1], to which they were summoned by "the shout of refection;" [2] the ordinary priests receiving rice, "those endowed with the gift of preaching, clarified butter, sugar, and honey."[3] Hospitals and medicines for their use, and rest houses on their journeys, were also provided at the public charge.[4] These expedients were available so long as the numbers of the priesthood were limited; but such were the multitudes who were tempted to withdraw from the world and its pursuits, in order to devote themselves to meditation and the diffusion of Buddhism, that the difficulty became practical of maintaining them by personal gifts, and the alternative suggested itself of setting apart lands for their support. This innovation was first resorted to during an interregnum. The Singhalese king Walagam Bahu, being expelled from his capital by a Malabar usurpation B.C. 104, was unable to continue the accustomed regal bounty to the priesthood; dedicated certain lands while in exile in Rohuna, for the support of a fraternity "who had sheltered him there."[5] The precedent thus established, was speedily seized upon and extended; lands were everywhere set apart for the repair of the sacred edifices[6], and eventually, about the beginning of the Christian era, the priesthood acquired such an increase of influence as sufficed to convert their precarious eleemosynary dependency into a permanent territorial endowment; and the practice became universal of conveying estates in mortmain on the construction of a wihara or the dedication of a temple.[7] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xx. p. 123; xxii. p. 132,135.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii. p. 167.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 196-7.] [Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 196 xxxvii. p. 244; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 39, 41.] [Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch, xxxiii. p. 203. Previous to this date a king of Rohuna, during the usurpation of Elala, B.C. 205, had appropriated lands near Kalany, for the repairs of the dagoba.--_Rajaratnacari_, p. 37.] [Footnote 6: In the reign of Batiya Tissa, B.C. 20. _Mahawanso_,, ch. xxxiv. p. 212; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 51.] [Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 214.] [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] The corporate character of the recipients served to neutralise the obligations by which they were severally bound; the vow of poverty, though compulsory on an individual priest, ceased to be binding on the community of which he was a member; and whilst, on his own behalf, he was constrained to abjure the possession of property, even to the extent of one superfluous cloth, the wihara to which he was attached, in addition to its ecclesiastical buildings, and its offerings in gems and gold, was held competent to become the proprietor of broad and fertile lands.[1] These were so bountifully bestowed by royal piety, by private munificence, and by mortuary gifts, that ere many centuries had elapsed the temples of Ceylon absorbed a large proportion of the landed property of the kingdom, and their possessions were not only exempted from taxation, but accompanied by a right to the compulsory labour of the temple tenants.[2] [Footnote 1: HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. viii. p. 68.] [Footnote 2: The _Rajaratnacari_ mentions an instance, A.D. 62, of eight thousand rice fields bestowed in one grant; and similar munificence is recorded in numerous instances prior, to A.D. 204.--_Rajaratnacari_, p. 57, 59, 64, 74, 113, &c. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 223, 224; ch. xxxvi. p. 233.] As the estates so made over to religious uses lay for the most part in waste districts, the quantity of land which was thus brought under cultivation necessarily involved large extensions of the means of irrigation. To supply these, reservoirs were formed on such a scale as to justify the term "consecrated lakes," by which they are described in the Singhalese annals.[1] [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 37; _Rajavali_, p. 237.] Where the circumstances of the ground permitted, their formation was effected by drawing an embankment across the embouchure of a valley so as to arrest and retain the waters by which it was traversed, and so vast were the dimensions of some of these gigantic tanks that many yet in existence still cover an area of from fifteen to twenty miles in circumference. The ruins of that at Kalaweva, to the north-west of Dambool, show that its original circuit could not have been less than forty miles, its retaining bund being upwards of twelve miles long. The spill-water of stone, which remains to the present time, is "perhaps one of the most stupendous monuments of misapplied human labour in the island."[1] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR, _Mahawanso_, p. 12. The tank of Kalaweva was formed by Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 257.] [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] The number of these stupendous works, which were formed by the early sovereigns of Ceylon, almost exceeds credibility. Kings are named in the native annals, each of whom made from fifteen to thirty[1], together with canals and all the appurtenances for irrigation. Originally these vast undertakings were completed "for the benefit of the country," and "out of compassion for living creatures;"[2] but so early as the first century of the Christian era, the custom became prevalent of forming tanks with the pious intention of conferring the lands which they enriched on the church. Wide districts, rendered fertile by the interception of a river and the formation of suitable canals, were appropriated to the maintenance of the local priesthood[3]; a tank and the thousands of acres which it fertilised were sometimes assigned for the perpetual repairs of a dagoba[4], and the revenues of whole villages and their surrounding rice fields were devoted to the support of a single wihara.[5] [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 41, 45, 54, 55; King Saidaitissa B.C. 137, made "eighteen lakes" (_Rajavali_, p. 233). King Wasabha, who ascended the throne A.D. 62, "caused sixteen large lakes to be enclosed" (_Rajaratnacari_, p. 57). Detu Tissa, A.D. 253, excavated six (_Rajavali_, p. 237), and King Maha Sen, A.D. 275, seventeen (_Mahawanso_, ch, xxxviii. p. 236).] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch, xxxvii. p. 242.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 210; xxxv. p. 221; xxxviii. p. 237, _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 57, 59, 64, 69, 74.] [Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 215, 218, 223; ch. xxxvii. p. 234; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 51. TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 21.] [Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 218, 221; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 51; _Rajaviai_, p. 241.] So lavish were these endowments, that one king, who signalised his reign by such extravagances as laying a carpet seven miles in length, "in order that pilgrims might proceed with unsoiled feet all the way from the Kadambo river (the Malwatté oya) to the mountain Chetiyo (Mihintala)," awarded a priest who had presented him with a draught of water during the construction of a wihara, "land within the circumference of half a yoyana (eight miles) for the maintenance of the temple."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv, p. 3.] [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] It was in this manner that the beautiful tank at Mineri, one of the most lovely of these artificial lakes, was enclosed by Maha Sen, A.D. 275; and, together with the 80,000 amonams of ground which it waters, was conferred on the Jeytawana Wihara which the king had just erected at Anarajapoora.[1] [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 69.] To identify the crown still more closely with the interests of agriculture, some of the kings superintended public works for irrigating the lands of the temples[1]; and one more enthusiastic than the rest toiled in the rice fields to enhance the merit of conferring their produce on the priesthood.[2] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 33.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. The Buddhist kings of Burmah are still accustomed to boast, almost in the terms of the _Mahawanso_, of the distinction which they have earned, by the multitudes of tanks they have constructed or restored. See YULE'S _Narrative of the Mission to Ava in 1855_, p. 106.] These broad possessions, the church, under all vicissitudes and revolutions, has succeeded in retaining to the present day. Their territories, it is true, have been diminished in extent by national decay; the destruction of works for irrigation has converted into wilderness and jungle plains once teeming with fertility; and the mild policy of the British government, by abolishing _raja-kariya_[1], has emancipated the peasantry, who are no longer the serfs either of the temples or the chiefs. But in every district of the island the priests are in the enjoyment of the most fertile lands, over which the crown exercises no right of taxation; and such is the extent of their possessions that, although their precise limits have not been ascertained by the local government, they have been conjectured with probability to be equal to one-third of the cultivated land of the island. [Footnote 1: Compulsory labour.] [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] One peculiarity in the Buddhist ceremonial served at all times to give a singular impulse to the progress of horticulture. Flowers and garlands are introduced in its religious rites to the utmost excess. The atmosphere of the wiharas and temples is rendered oppressive with the perfume of champac and jessamine, and the shrine of the deity, the pedestals of his image, and the steps leading to the temple are strewn thickly with blossoms of the nagaha and the lotus. At an earlier period the profusion in which these beautiful emblems were employed in sacred decorations appears almost incredible; the _Mahawanso_ relates that the Ruanwellé dagoba, which was 270 feet in height, was on one occasion "festooned with garlands from pedestal to pinnacle till it resembled one uniform bouquet;" and at another time, it and the lofty dagoba at Mihintala were buried under heaps of jessamine from the ground to the summit.[1] Fa Hian, in describing his visit to Anarajapoora in the fourth century, dwells with admiration and wonder on the perfumes and flowers lavished on their worship by the Singhalese[2]; and the native historians constantly allude as familiar incidents to the profusion in which they were employed on ordinary occasions, and to the formation by successive kings of innumerable gardens for the floral requirements of the temples. The capital was surrounded on all sides[3] by flower gardens, and these were multiplied so extensively that, according to the _Rajaratnacari_, one was to be found within a distance of four leagues in any part of Ceylon.[4] Amongst the regulations of the temple built at Dambedinia, in the thirteenth century, was "every day an offering of 100,000 flowers, and each day a different flower."[5] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 52, 53.] [Footnote 2: FA HIAN. _Foè Kouè Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 335.] [Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, p. 227; _Mahawanso_, ch. xi. p. 67.] [Footnote 4: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 29, 49. Amongst the officers attached to the great establishments of the priests in Mihintala, A.D. 246, there are enumerated in an inscription engraven on a rock there, a secretary, a treasurer, a physician, a surgeon, a painter, twelve cooks, twelve thatchers, ten carpenters, six carters, and _two florists_.] [Footnote 5: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 103. The same book states that another king, in the fifteenth century, "offered no less than 6,480,320 sweet smelling flowers" at the shrine of the Tooth.--_Ib._, p. 136.] [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] Another advantage conferred by Buddhism on the country was the planting of fruit trees and esculent vegetables for the gratuitous use of travellers in all the frequented parts of the island. The historical evidences of this are singularly corroborative of the genuineness of the Buddhist edicts engraved on various rocks and monuments in India, the deciphering of which was the grand achievement of Prinsep and his learned coadjutors. On the pillars of Delhi, Allahabad, and other places, and on the rocks of Girnar and Dhauli, there exist a number of Pali inscriptions purporting to be edicts of Asoca (the Dharmasoca of the _Mahawanso_), King of Magadha, in the third century before the Christian era, who, on his conversion to the religion of Buddha, commissioned Mahindo, his son, to undertake its establishment in Ceylon. In these edicts, which were promulgated in the vernacular dialect, the king endeavoured to impress both upon his subjects and allies, as well as those who, although aliens, were yet "united in the law" of Buddha, the divine precepts of their great teacher; prominent amongst which are the prohibition against taking animal life[1], and the injunction that, "everywhere wholesome vegetables, roots, and fruit trees shall be cultivated, and that on the roads wells shall be dug and trees planted for the enjoyment of men and animals." In apparent conformity with these edicts, one of the kings of Ceylon, Addagaimunu, A.D. 20, is stated in the _Mahawanso_ to have "caused to be planted throughout the island every description of fruit-bearing creepers, and interdicted the destruction of animal life,"[2] and similar acts of pious benevolence, performed by command of various other sovereigns, are adverted to on numerous occasions. [Footnote 1: It is curious that one of these edicts of Asoca, who was contemporary with Devenipiatissa, is addressed to "all the conquered territories of the raja, even unto the ends of the earth; as in Chola, in Pida, in Keralaputra, _and in Tambapanni_ (or Ceylon)." This license of speech, reminding one of the grandiloquent epistles "from the Flaminian Gate," was no doubt assumed in virtue of the recent establishment of Buddhism, or, as it is called in the _Mahawanso_ "the religion of the Vanquisher," and Asoca, as its propagator, thus claims to address the converts as his "subjects."] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 215. The king Upatissa, A.D. 368, in the midst of a solemn ceremonial, "observing ants, and other insects drowning in an inundation, halted, and having swept them towards the with the feathers of a peacock's tail, and enabled them to save a themselves, he continued the procession."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii p. 249; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 49, 52; _Rajavali_, p. 228.] CHAP. VII FATE OF THE ABORIGINES. [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] It has already been shown, that devotion and policy combined to accelerate the progress of social improvement in Ceylon, and that before the close of the third century of the Christian era, the island to the north of the Kandyan mountains contained numerous cities and villages, adorned with temples and dagobas, and seated in the midst of highly cultivated fields. The face of the country exhibited broad expanses of rice land, irrigated by artificial lakes, and canals of proportionate magnitude, by which the waters from the rivers, which would otherwise have flowed idly to the sea, were diverted inland in all directions to fertilise the rice fields of the interior.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. xxxvii.] [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] In the formation of these prodigious tanks, the labour chiefly employed was that of the aboriginal inhabitants, the Yakkhos and Nagas, directed by the science and skill of the conquerors. Their contributions of this kind, though in the instance of the Buddhist converts they may have been to some extent voluntary, were, in general, the result of compulsion.[1] Like the Israelites under the Egyptians, the aborigines were compelled to make bricks[2] for the stupendous dagobas erected by their masters[3]; and eight hundred years after the subjugation of the island, the _Rajavali_ describes vast reservoirs and appliances for irrigation, as being constructed by the forced labour of the Yakkhos[4] under the superintendence of Brahman engineers.[5] This, to some extent, accounts for the prodigious amount of labour bestowed on these structures; labour which the whole revenue of the kingdom would not have sufficed to purchase, had it not been otherwise procurable. [Footnote 1: In some instances the soldiers of the king were employed in forming works of irrigation.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid_., ch. xxvii.] [Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 237, 238. Exceptions to the extortion of forced labour for public works took place under the more pious kings, who made a merit of paying the workmen employed in the erection of dagobas and other religious monuments.--_Mahawanso_, ch, xxxv.] [Footnote 5: _Maharwanso_, ch. x.] Under this system, the fate of the aborigines was that usually consequent on the subjugation of an inferior race by one more highly civilised. The process of their absorption into the dominant race was slow, and for centuries they continued to exist distinct, as a subjugated people. So firmly rooted amongst them was the worship both of demons and serpents, that, notwithstanding the ascendency of Buddhism, many centuries elapsed before it was ostensibly abandoned; from time to time, "demon offerings" were made from the royal treasury[1]; and one of the kings, in his enlarged liberality, ordered that for every ten villages there should be maintained an astrologer and a "devil-dancer," in addition to the doctor and the priest.[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_. p. 23.] [Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 27; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii.; _Rajavali_, p. 241.] Throughout the Singhalese chronicles, the notices of the aborigines are but casual, and occasionally contemptuous. Sometimes they allude to "slaves of the Yakkho tribe,"[1] and in recording the progress and completion of the tanks and other stupendous works, the _Mahawanso_ and the _Rajaratnacari_, in order to indicate the inferiority of the natives to their masters, speak of their conjoint labours as that of "men and snakes,"[2] and "men and demons."[3] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.] [Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xix, p. 115.] [Footnote 3: The King Maha-Sen, anxious for the promotion of agriculture, caused many tanks to be made "by men and devils."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii.; UPHAM'S _Transl.; Rajaratnacari_, p. 69; _Rajavali_, p. 237.] [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] Notwithstanding the degradation of the natives, it was indispensable to "befriend the interests" of a race so numerous and so useful; hence, they were frequently employed in the military expeditions of the Wijayan sovereigns[1], and the earlier kings of that dynasty admitted the rank of the Yakkho chiefs who shared in these enterprises. They assigned a suburb of the capital for their residence[2], and on festive occasions they were seated on thrones of equal eminence with that of the king.[3] But every aspiration towards a recovery of their independence was checked by a device less characteristic of ingenuity in the ascendant race, than of simplicity combined with jealousy in the aborigines. The feeling was encouraged and matured into a conviction which prevailed to the latest period of the Singhalese sovereignty, that no individual of pure Singhalese extraction could be elevated to the supreme power, since no one could prostrate himself before one of his own nation.[4] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso,_ ch. x.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid.,_ ch. x. p. 67.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid.,_ p. 66.] [Footnote 4: JOINVILLE'S _Asiat. Res,_ vol. vii. p. 422.] For successive generations, however, the natives, although treated with partial kindness, were regarded as a separate race. Even the children of Wijayo, by his first wife Kuweni, united themselves with their maternal connexions on the repudiation of their mother by the king, "and retained the attributes of Yakkhos,"[1] and by that designation the natives continued to be distinguished down to the reign of Dutugaimunu. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso,_ ch. vii.] [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] In spite of every attempt at conciliation, the process of amalgamation between the two races was reluctant and slow. The earliest Bengal immigrants sought wives among the Tamils, on the opposite coast of India[1]; and although their descendants intermarried with the natives, the great mass of the population long held aloof from the invaders, and occasionally vented their impatience in rebellion.[2] Hence the progress of civilisation amongst them was but partial and slow, and in the narratives of the early rulers of the island there is ample evidence that the aborigines long retained their habits of shyness and timidity. [Footnote 1: _Ibid.,_ p. 53.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch, lxxxv.] Notwithstanding the frequent resort of every nation of antiquity to its coasts, the accounts of the first voyagers are almost wholly confined to descriptions of the loveliness of the country, the singular brilliancy of its jewels, the richness of its pearls, the sagacity of its elephants, and the delicacy and abundance of its spices; but the information which they furnish regarding its inhabitants is so uniformly meagre, as to attest the absence of intercourse; and the writers of all nations, Romans, Greeks, Arabians, Chinese and Indians, concur in their allusions to the unsocial and uncivilised customs of the islanders.[1] [Footnote 1: See an account of these singular peculiarities, Vol. I. P. IV. c. vii.] As the Bengal adventurers advanced into the interior of the island, a large section of the natives withdrew into the forests and hunting grounds on the eastern and southern coasts.[1] There, subsisting by the bow[2] and the chase, they adhered, with moody tenacity, to the rude habits of their race; and in the Veddah of the present day, there is still to be recognised a remnant of the untamed aborigines of Ceylon.[3] [Footnote 1: _Hiouen Thsang,_ the Chinese geographer, who visited India in the seventh century, says that at that time the Yakkhos had retired to the south-east corner of Ceylon;--and here their descendants, the Veddahs, are found at the present day,--_Voyages,_ &c., liv. iv. p. 200.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso,_ ch. xxiv. p. 145, xxxiii. p. 204.] [Footnote 3: DE ALWIS, _Sidath Sangara,_ p. xvii. For an account of the Veddahs and their present condition, see Vol. II. P. ix. ch. iii.] [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] Even those of the original race who slowly conformed to the religion and habits of their masters, were never entirely emancipated from the ascendency of their ancient superstitions. Traces of the worship of snakes and demons are to the present hour clearly perceptible amongst them; the Buddhists still resort to the incantations of the "devil dancers" in case of danger and emergency[1]; a Singhalese, rather than put a Cobra de Capello to death, encloses the reptile in a wicker cage, and sets it adrift on the nearest stream; and in the island of Nainativoe, to the south-west of Jaffa, there was till recently a little temple, dedicated to the goddess Naga Tambiran, in which consecrated serpents were tenderly reared by the Pandarams, and daily fed at the expense of the worshippers.[2] [Footnote 1: For an account of Demon worship as it still exists in Ceylon, see Sir J. EMERSON TENNANT'S _History of Christianity in Ceylon,_ ch. v. p. 236.] [Footnote 2: CASIE CHITTY'S _Gazetteer, &c.,_ p. 169.] CHAP. VIII EXTINCTION OF THE "GREAT DYNASTY." [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] From the death of Dutugaimunu to the exhaustion of the superior dynasty on the death of Malta-Sen, A.D. 301, there are few demonstrations of pious munificence to signalise the policy of the intervening sovereigns. The king whom, next to Devenipiatissa and Dutugaimunu, the Buddhist historians rejoice to exalt as one of the champions of the faith, was Walagam-bahu I.[1], whose reign, though marked by vicissitudes, was productive of lasting benefit to the national faith. Walagam-bahu ascended the throne B.C. 104., but was almost immediately forced to abdicate by an incursion of the Malabars; who, concerting a simultaneous landing at several parts of the island, combined their movements so successfully that they seized on Anarajapoora, and drove the king into concealment in the mountains near Adam's Peak; and whilst one portion of the invaders returned laden with plunder to the Dekkan, their companions remained behind and held undisputed possession of the northern parts of Ceylon for nearly fifteen years. [Footnote 1: Called in the _Mahawanso_, "Wata-gamini".] [Sidenote: B.C. 104.] In this and the frequent incursions which followed, the Malabar leaders were attracted by the wealth of the country to the north of the Mahawelli-ganga; the southern portion of the island being either too wild and unproductive to present a temptation to conquest, or too steep and inaccessible to afford facilities for invasion. Besides, the highlanders who inhabit the lofty ranges that lie around Adam's Peak; (a district known as Malaya, "the region of mountains and torrents,")[1] then and at all times exhibited their superiority over the lowlanders in vigour, courage, and endurance. Hence the petty kingdoms of Maya and Rohuna afforded on every occasion a refuge to the royal family when driven from the northern capital, and furnished a force to assist in their return and restoration. Walagam-bahu, after many years' concealment there, was at last enabled to resume the offensive, and succeeded in driving out the infidels, and recovering possession of the sacred city, an event which he commemorated in the usual manner by the erection of dagobas, tanks, and wiharas. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii.] [Illustration: THE ALU WIHARA NEAR MATELLE.] [Sidenote: B.C. 89.] But the achievement by which most of all he entitled himself to the gratitude of the Singhalese annalists, was the reduction to writing of the doctrines and discourses of Buddha, which had been orally delivered by Mahindo, and previously preserved by tradition alone. These sacred volumes, which may be termed the Buddhist Scriptures, contain the Pittakataya, and its commentaries the Atthakatha, and were compiled by a company of priests in a cave to the north of Matelle, known as the Aloo-wihara.[1] This, and other caverns in which the king had sought concealment during his adversity, he caused to be converted into rock temples after his restoration to power. Amongst the rest, Dambool, which is the most remarkable of the cave temples of Ceylon from its vastness, its elaborate ornaments, and the romantic beauty of its situation and the scenery surrounding it. [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, ch. i. p. 43. Abouzeyd states that at that time public writers were employed in recording the traditions of the island: "Le Royaume de Serendyb a une loi et des docteurs qui s'assemblent de temps en temps comme se réunissent chez nous les personnes qui recreillent les traditions du prophète, et les Indiens se rendent auprès des docteurs, et écrivent sous leurs dictée, la vie de leurs prophètes et les préceptes de leur loi."--REINAUD, _Relation, &c.,_ tom. i. p. 127.] [Sidenote: B.C. 62.] [Sidenote: B.C. 50.] The history of the Buddhist religion in Ceylon is not, however, a tale of uniform prosperity. The first of its domestic enemies was Naga, the grandson of the pious Walagam-bahu, whom the native, historians stigmatise by the prefix of "chora" or the "marauder." His story is thus briefly but emphatically told in the _Mahawanso_: "During the reign of his father Mahachula, Chora Naga wandered through the island leading the life of a robber; returning on the demise of the king he assumed the monarchy; and in the places which had denied him an asylum during his marauding career, he impiously destroyed the wiharas.[1] After a reign of twelve years he was poisoned by his queen Anula, and regenerated in the Lokantariko hell."[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiii.; _Rajarali_, p. 224; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 19; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. i. p. 43, 44.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 209.] [Sidenote: B.C. 47.] [Sidenote: B.C. 41.] His son, King Kuda Tissa, was also poisoned by his mother, in order to clear her own way to the throne. The Singhalese annals thus exhibit the unusual incident of a queen enrolled amongst the monarchs of the _great dynasty_--a precedent which was followed in after times; Queen Siwalli having reigned in the succeeding century, A.D. 37, Queen Lila-wati, in A.D. 1197, and Queen Kalyana-wati in A.D. 1202. From the excessive vileness of her character, the first of these Singhalese women who attained to the honours of sovereignty is denounced in the _Mahawanso_ as "the infamous Anula." In the enormity of her crimes and debauchery she was the Messalina of Ceylon;--she raised to the throne a porter of the palace with whom she cohabited, descending herself to the subordinate rank of Queen Consort, and poisoned him to promote a carpenter in his stead. A carrier of firewood, a Brahman, and numerous other paramours followed in rapid succession, and shared a similar fate, till the kingdom was at last relieved from the opprobrium by a son of Prince Tissa, who put the murderess to death, and restored the royal line in his own person. His successors for more than two centuries were a race of pious _fainéants_, undistinguished by any qualities, and remembered only by their fanatical subserviency to the priesthood. [Sidenote: A.D. 209.] Buddhism, relieved from the fury of impiety, was next imperilled by the danger of schism. Even before the funeral obsequies of Buddha, schism had displayed itself in Maghadha, and two centuries had not elapsed from his death till it had manifested itself on no less than seventeen occasions, and in each instance it was with difficulty checked by councils in which the priesthood settled the faith in relation to the points which gave rise to dispute; but not before the actual occurrence of secessions from the orthodox church.[1] The earliest differences were on questions of discipline amongst the colleges and fraternities at Anarajapoora; but in the reign of Wairatissa, A.D. 209, a formidable controversy arose, impugning the doctrines of Buddhism, and threatening for a time to rend in sunder the sacred unity of the church.[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. v. p. 21.] [Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xxxiii.] [Sidenote: A.D. 209.] Buddhism, although, tolerant of heresy, has ever been vehement in its persecution of schism. Boldly confident in its own superiority, it bears without impatience the glaring errors of open antagonists, and seems to exult in the contiguity of competing systems as if deriving strength by comparison. In this respect it exhibits a similarity to the religion of Brahma, which regards with composure shades of doctrinal difference, and only rises into jealous energy in support of the distinctions of caste, an infringement of which might endanger the supremacy of the priesthood.[1] To the assaults of open opponents the Buddhist displays the calmest indifference, convinced that in its undiminished strength, his faith is firm and inexpugnable; his vigilance is only excited by the alarm of internal dissent, and all his passions are aroused to stifle the symptoms of schism.[2] [Footnote 1: Hence the indomitable hatred with which the Brahmans pursued the disciples of Buddhism from the fourth century before Christ to its final expulsion from Hindustan. "Abundant proofs," says Turnour, "may be adduced to show the fanatical ferocity with which these two great sects persecuted each other; and which, subsided into passive hatred and contempt, only when the parties were no longer placed in the position of actual collision."--Introd. _Mahawanso_, p. xxii.] [Footnote 2: In its earliest form Buddhism was equally averse to persecution, and the _Mahawanso_ extols the liberality of Asoca in giving alms indiscriminately to the members of all religions _(Mahawanso_, ch. v. p. 23). A sect which is addicted to persecution is not likely to speak approvingly of toleration, but the _Mahawanso_ records with evident satisfaction the courtesy paid to the sacred things of Buddhism by the believers in other doctrines; thus the Nagas did homage to the relics of Buddha and mourned their removal from Mount Meru (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxi. p. 189); the Yakkhos assisted at the building of dagobas to enshrine them, and the Brahmans were the first to respect the Bo-tree on its arrival in Ceylon (_Ib._ ch. xix. p. 119). COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES, whose informant, Sopater, visited Ceylon in the sixth century, records that there was then the most extended toleration, and that even the Nestorian Christians had perfect freedom and protection for their worship. Among the Buddhists of Burmah, however, "although they are tolerant of the practice of other religions by those who profess them, secession from the national faith, is rigidly prohibited, and a convert to any other form of faith incurs the penalty of death."--Professor WILSON, _Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc._ vol. xvi. p. 261.] [Sidenote: A.D. 209.] This characteristic of the "religion of the Vanquisher" is in strict conformity, not alone with the spirit of his doctrine, but also with the letter of the law laid down for the guidance of his disciples. Two of the singular rock-inscriptions of India deciphered by Prinsep, inculcate the duty of leaving the profession of different faiths unmolested; on the ground, that "all aim at moral restraint and purity of life, although all cannot be equally successful in attaining to it." The sentiments embodied in one of the edicts[1] of King Asoca are very striking: "A man must honour his own faith, without blaming that of his neighbour, and thus will but little that is wrong occur. There are even circumstances under which the faith of others should be honoured, and in acting thus a man increases his own faith and weakens that of others. He who acts differently, diminishes his own faith and injures that of another. Whoever he may be who honours his own faith and blames that of others out of devotion to his own, and says, 'let us make our faith conspicuous,' that man merely injures the faith he holds. Concord alone is to be desired." [Footnote 1: The twelfth tablet, which, as translated by BURNOUF and Professor WILSON, will be found in Mrs. SPEIR'S _Life in Ancient India_, book ii. ch. iv. p. 239.] [Sidenote: A.D. 209.] [Sidenote: A.D. 248.] The obligation, to maintain the religion of Buddha was as binding as the command to abstain from assailing that of its rivals, and hence the kings who had treated the snake-worshippers with kindness, who had made a state provision for maintaining "offerings to demons," and built dwellings at the capital to accommodate the "ministers of foreign religions," rose in fierce indignation against the preaching of a firm believer in Buddha, who ventured to put an independent interpretation on points of faith. They burned the books of the Wytulians, as the new sect were called, and frustrated their irreligious attempt.[1] The first effort at repression was ineffectual. It was made by the King Wairatissa, A.D. 209; but within forty years the schismatic tendency returned, the persecution was renewed, and the apostate priests, after being branded on the back were ignominiously transported to the opposite coast of India.[2] [Footnote 1: The _Mahawanso_ throws no light on the nature of the Wytulian (or Wettulyan) heresy (ch. xxvii. p. 227), but the _Rajaratnacari_ insinuates that Wytulia was a Brahman who had "subverted by craft and intrigue the religion of Buddha" (ch. ii, p. 61). As it is stated in a further passage that the priests who were implicated were stripped of their habits, it is evident that the innovation had been introduced under the garb of Buddha.--_Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 65.] [Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 25, _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvi. p. 232. As the _Mahawanso_ intimates in another passage that amongst the priests who were banished to the opposite coast of India, there was one Sangha-mitta, "who was profoundly versed in the rites of the demon faith ('bhuta')," it is probable that out of the Wytulian heresy grew the system which prevails to the present day, by which the heterodox _dewales_ and halls for devil dances are built in close contiguity to the temples and wiharas of the orthodox Buddhists, and the barbarous rites of demon worship are incorporated with the abstractions of the national religion. On the restoration of Maha-Sen to the true faith, the _Mahawanso_ represents him as destroying the _dewales_ at Anarajapoora in order to replace them with wiharas (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 237). An account of the mingling of Brahmanical with Buddhist worship, as it exists at the present day, will be found in HARDY'S _Oriental Monachism_, ch. xix. Professor H.H. WILSON, in his _Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya_, alludes to a heresy, which, anterior to the sixth century, disturbed the _sangattar_ or college of Madura; the leading feature of which was the admixture of Buddhist doctrines with the rite of the Brahmans, and "this heresy," he says, "some traditions assert was introduced from Ceylon."--_Asiat. Journ._ vol. iii. p. 218.] [Sidenote: A.D. 275.] The new sect had, however, established an interest in high places; and Sangha-mitta, one of the exiled priests, returning from banishment on the death of the king, so ingratiated himself with his successor, that he was entrusted with the education of the king's sons. One of the latter, Maha-Sen, succeeded to the throne, A.D. 275, and, openly professing his adoption of the Wytulian tenets, dispossessed the popular priesthood, and overthrew the Brazen Palace. With the materials of the great wihara, he constructed at the sacred Bo-tree a building as a receptacle for relics, and a temple in which the statue of Buddha was to be worshipped according to the rites of the reformed religion.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 235.] [Sidenote: A.D. 275.] So bold an innovation roused the passions of the nation; the people prepared for revolt, and a conflict was imminent, when the schismatic Sangha-mitta was suddenly assassinated, and the king, convinced of his errors, addressed himself with energy to restore the buildings he had destroyed, and to redress the mischiefs chiefs caused by his apostacy. He demolished the dewales of the Hindus, in order to use their sites for Buddhist wiharas; he erected nunneries, constructed the Jaytawanarama (a dagoba at Anarajapoora), formed the great tank of Mineri by drawing a dam across the Kara-ganga and that of Kandelay or Dantalawa, and consecrated the 20,000 fields which it irrigated to the Dennanaka Wihare.[1] "He repaired numerous dilapidated temples throughout the island, made offerings of a thousand robes to a thousand priests, formed sixteen tanks to extend cultivation--there is no defining the extent of his charity"--and having performed during his existence acts both of piety and impity, the _Mahawanso_ cautiously adds, "his destiny after death was according to his merits."[2] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR's _Epitome_, p. 25.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiii. p. 238.] [Sidenote: A.D. 302.] With King Maha-Sen end the glories of the "superior dynasty" of Ceylon. The "sovereigns of the _Suluwanse_, who followed," says the _Rajavali_, "were no longer of the unmixed blood, but the offspring of parents, only one of whom was descended from the sun, and the other from the bringer of the Bo-tree or the sacred tooth; on that account, because the God Sakkraia had ceased to watch over Ceylon, because piety had disappeared, and the city of Anarajapoora was in ruins, and because the fertility of the land was diminished, the kings who succeeded Maha-Sen were no longer reverenced as of old."[1] [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 289.] [Sidenote: A.D. 302.] The prosperity of Ceylon, though it may not have attained its acme, was sound and auspicious in the beginning of the fourth century, when the solar line became extinct. Pihiti, the northern portion of the island, was that which most engaged the solicitude of the crown, from its containing the ancient capital, whence it obtained its designation of the Raja-ratta or country of the kings. Here the labour bestowed on irrigation had made the food of the population abundant, and the sums expended on the adornment of the city, the multitude of its sacred structures, the splendour of its buildings, and the beauty of its lakes and gardens, rendered it no inappropriate representative of the wealth and fertility of the kingdom. Anarajapoora had from time immemorial been a venerated locality in the eyes of the Buddhists; it had been honoured by the visit of Buddha in person, and it was already a place of importance when Wijayo effected his landing in the fifth century before the Christian era. It became the capital a century after, and the King Pandukabhaya, who formed the ornamental lake which adjoined it, and planted gardens and parks for public festivities, built gates and four suburbs to the city; set apart ground for a public cemetery, and erected a gilded hall of audience, and a palace for his own residence. The _Mahawanso_ describes with particularity the offices of the Naggaraguttiko, who was the chief of the city guard, and the organisation of the low caste Chandalas, who were entrusted with the cleansing of the capital and the removal of the dead for interment. For these and for the royal huntsmen villages were constructed in the environs, mingled with which were dwellings for the subjugated native tribes, and temples for the worship of foreign devotees.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 66.] Seventy years later, when Mahindo arrived in Ceylon, the details of his reception disclose the increased magnificence of the capital, the richness of the royal parks, and the extent of the state establishments; and describe the chariots in which the king drove to Mihintala to welcome his exalted guest.[1] [Footnote 1: Ibid., ch. xiv., xv., xx.] [Sidenote: A.D. 302.] Yet these were but preliminary to the grander constructions which gave the city its lasting renown; stupendous dagobas raised by successive monarchs, each eager to surpass the conceptions of his predecessors; temples in which were deposited statues of gold adorned with gems and native pearls; the decorated terraces of the Bo-tree, and the Brazen Palace, with its thousand chambers and its richly embellished halls. The city was enclosed by a rampart upwards of twenty feet in height[1], which was afterwards replaced by a wall[2]; and, so late as the fourth century, the Chinese traveller Fa Hian describes the condition of the place in terms which fully corroborate the accounts of the _Mahawanso_. It was crowded, he says, with nobles, magistrates, and foreign merchants; the houses were handsome, and the public buildings richly adorned. The streets and highways were broad and level, and halls for preaching and reading _bana_ were erected in all the thoroughfares. He was assured that the island contained not less than from fifty to sixty thousand ecclesiastics, who all ate in common; and of whom from five to six thousand were supported by the bounty of the king. [Footnote 1: By WASABHA, A.D. 66. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 222.] [Footnote 2: TURNOUR, in his _Epitome of the History of Ceylon_, says that Anarajapoora was enclosed by a rampart seven cubits high, B.C. 41, and that A.D. 66 King Wasabha built a wall round the city sixteen gows in circumference. As he estimates the gow at four English miles, this would give an area equal to about 300 square miles. A space so prodigious for the capital seems to be disproportionate to the extent of the kingdom, and far too extended for the wants of the population. TURNOUR does not furnish the authority on which he gives the dimensions, nor have I been able to discover it in the _Rajavali_ nor in the _Rajaratnacari_. The _Mahawanso_ alludes to the fact of Anarajapoora having been fortified by Wasabha, but, instead of a wall, the work which it describes this king to have undertaken, was the raising of the height of the rampart from seven cubits to eighteen (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 222). Major Forbes, in his account of the ruins of the ancient city, repeats the story of their former extent, in which he no doubt considered that the high authority of Turnour in matters of antiquity was sustained by a statement made by Lieutenant Skinner, who had surveyed the ruins in 1822, to the effect that he had discovered near Alia-parte the remains of masonry, which he concluded to be a portion of the ancient city wall running north and south and forming the west face; and, as Alia-parte is seven miles from Anarajapoora, he regarded this discovery as confirming the account given of its original dimensions. Lieutenant, now Major, Skinner has recently informed me that, on mature reflection, he has reason to fear that his first inference was precipitate. In a letter of the 8th of May, 1856, he says:--"It was in 1833 I first visited Anarajapoora, when I made my survey of its ruins. The supposed foundation of the western face of the city wall was pointed out near the village of Alia-parte by the people, and I hastily adopted it. I had not at the time leisure to follow up this search and determine how far it extended, but from subsequent visits to the place I have been led to doubt the accuracy of this tradition, though on most other points I found the natives tolerably accurate in their knowledge of the history of the ancient capital. I have since sought for traces of the other faces of the supposed wall, at the distances from the centre of the city at which it was said to have existed, but without success." The ruins which Major Skinner saw at Alia-parte are most probably those of one of the numerous forts which the Singhalese kings erected at a much later period, to keep the Malabars in check.] The sacred tooth of Buddha was publicly exposed on sacred days in the capital with gorgeous ceremonies, which he recounts, and thence carried in procession to "the mountains without fear;" the road to which was perfumed and decked with flowers for the occasion; and the festival was concluded by a dramatic representation of events in the life of Buddha, illustrated by scenery and costumes, with figures of elephants and stags, so delicately coloured as to be undistinguishable from nature.[1] [Footnote 1: FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 334, &c.] CHAP. IX. KINGS OF THE "LOWER DYNASTY." [Sidenote: A.D. 302.] The story of the kings of Ceylon of the _Sulu-wanse_ or "lower line," is but a narrative of the decline of the power and prosperity which had been matured under the Bengal conquerors and of the rise of the Malabar marauders, whose ceaseless forays and incursions eventually reduced authority to feebleness and the island to desolation. The vapid biography of the royal imbeciles who filled the throne from the third to the thirteenth century scarcely embodies an incident of sufficient interest to diversify the monotonous repetition of temples founded and dagobas repaired, of tanks constructed and priests endowed with lands reclaimed and fertilised by the "forced labour" of the subjugated races. Civil dissensions, religious schisms, royal intrigues and assassinations contributed equally with foreign invasions to diminish the influence of the monarchy and exhaust the strength of the kingdom. Of sixty-two sovereigns who reigned from the death of Maha-Sen, A.D. 301, to the accession of Prakrama Bahu, A.D. 1153, nine met a violent death at the hands of their relatives or subjects, two ended their days in exile, one was slain by the Malabars, and four committed suicide. Of the lives of the larger number the Buddhist historians fail to furnish any important incidents; they relate merely the merit which each acquired by his liberality to the national religion or the more substantial benefits conferred on the people by the formation of lakes for irrigation. [Sidenote: A.D. 330.] [Sidenote: A.D. 339.] Unembarrassed by any questions of external policy or foreign expeditions, and limited to a narrow range of internal administration, a few of the early kings addressed themselves to intellectual pursuits. One immortalised himself in the estimation of the devout by his skill in painting and sculpture, and in carving in ivory, arts which he displayed by modelling statues of Buddha, and which he employed himself in teaching to his subjects.[1] Another was equally renowned as a medical author and a practitioner of surgery[2], and a third was so passionately attached to poetry that in despair for the death of Kalidas[3], he flung himself into the flames of the poet's funeral pile. [Footnote 1: Detoo Tissa, A.D. 330, _Mahawanso_, xxxvii. p. 242.] [Footnote 2: Budha Daasa, A.D. 339. _Mahawanso_, xxxvii, p. 243. His work on medicine, entitled _Sara-sangraha_ or _Sarat-tha-Sambo_, is still extant, and native practitioners profess to consult it.--TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 27.] [Footnote 3: Not KALIDAS, the author of _Sacontala_, to whom Sir W. Jones awards the title of "The Shakspeare of the East," but PANDITA KALIDAS, a Singhalese poet, none of whose verses have been preserved. His royal patron was Kumara Das, king of Ceylon, A.D. 513. For an account of Kalidas, see DE ALWIS'S _Sidath Sangara_, p. cliv.] [Sidenote: A.D. 400.] With the exception of the embassy sent from Ceylon to Rome in the reign of the Emperor Claudius[1], the earliest diplomatic intercourse with foreigners of which a record exists, occurred in the fourth or fifth centuries, when the Singhalese appear to have sent ambassadors to the Emperor Julian[2], and for the first time to have established a friendly connection with China. It is strange, considering the religious sympathies which united the two people, that the native chronicles make no mention of the latter negotiations or their results, so that we learn of them only through Chinese historians. The _Encyclopoedia_ of MA-TOUAN-LIN, written at the close of the thirteenth century[3], records that Ceylon first entered into political relations with China in the fourth century.[4] It was about the year 400 A.D., says the author, "in the reign of the Emperor Nyan-ti, that ambassadors arrived from Ceylon bearing a statue of Fo in jade-stone four feet two inches high, painted in five colours, and of such singular beauty that one would have almost doubted its being a work of human ingenuity. It was placed in the Buddhist temple at Kien-Kang (Nankin)." In the year 428 A.D., the King of Ceylon (Maha Nama) sent envoys to offer tribute, and this homage was repeated between that period and A.D. 529, by three other Singhalese kings, whose names it is difficult to identify with their Chinese designations of Kia-oe, Kia-lo, and the Ho-li-ye. [Footnote 1: PLINY, lib. vi. c. 24.] [Footnote 2: AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, lib. XX. c. 7.] [Footnote 3: KLAPROTH doubts, "si la science de l'Europe a produit jusqu'à présent un ouvrage de ce genre aussi bien exécuté et capable de soutenir la comparaison avec cette encyclopédie chinoise."--_Journ. Asiat._ tom. xxi. p. 3. See also _Asiatic Journal_, London, 1832, xxxv. p. 110. It has been often reprinted in 100 large volumes. M. STANISLAS JULIEN says that in another Chinese work, _Pien-i-tien_, or _The History of Foreign Nations_, there is a compilation including every passage in which Chinese authors have written of Ceylon, which occupies about forty pages 4to. _Ib_. tom. xxix. p. 39. A number of these authorities will be found extracted in the chapter in which I have described the intercourse between China and Ceylon, Vol. I. P. v. ch. iii.] [Footnote 4: Between the years 317 and 420 A.D.--_Journ. Asiat._ tom. xxviii. p. 401.] In A.D. 670, another ambassador arrived from Ceylon, and A.D. 742, Chi-lo-mi-kia sent presents to the Emperor of China consisting of pearls (_perles de feu_), golden flowers, precious stones, ivory, and pieces of fine cotton cloth. At a later period mutual intercourse became frequent between the two countries, and some of the Chinese travellers who resorted to Ceylon have left valuable records as to the state of the island. [Sidenote: A.D. 413.] [Sidenote: A.D. 432.] It was during the reign of Maha Nama, about the year 413 A.D., that Ceylon was visited by Fa Hian, and the statements of the _Mahawanso_ are curiously corroborated by the observations recorded by this Chinese traveller. He describes accurately the geniality of the climate, whose uniform temperature rendered the seasons undistinguishable. Winter and summer, he says, are alike unknown, but perpetual verdure realises the idea of a perennial spring, and periods for seed time and harvest are regulated by the taste of the husbandman. This statement has reference to the multitude of tanks which rendered agriculture independent of the periodical rains. [Sidenote: A.D. 459.] Fa Hian speaks of the lofty monuments which were the memorials of Buddha, and of the gems and gold which adorned his statues at Anarajapoora. Amongst the most surprising of these was a figure in what he calls "blue jasper," inlaid with jewels and other precious materials, and holding in one hand a pearl of inestimable value.[1] He describes the Bo-tree in terms which might almost be applied to its actual condition at the present day, and he states that they had recently erected a building to contain "the tooth of Buddha," which was exhibited to the pious in the middle of the third moon with processions and ceremonies which he minutely details.[2] All this corresponds closely with the narrative of the _Mahawanso_. The sacred tooth of Buddha, called at that time _Dáthá dhátu_, and now the _Dalada_, had been brought to Ceylon a short time before Fa Hian's arrival in the reign of Kisti-Sri-Megha-warna, A.D. 311, in charge of a princess of Kalinga, who concealed it in the folds of her hair. And the _Mahawanso_ with equal precision describes the procession as conducted by the king and by the assembled priests, in which the tooth was borne along the streets of Anarajapoora amidst the veneration of the multitude.[3] [Footnote 1: It was whilst looking at this statue that FA HIAN encountered an incident which he has related with touching simplicity:--"Depuis que FA HIAN avait quitté la _terre de Han_, plusieurs années s'étaient écoulées; les gens avec lesquels il avait des rapports étaient tous des hommes de contrées étrangères. Les montagnes, les rivières, les herbes, les arbres, tout ce qui avait frappé ses yeux était nouveau pour lui. De plus, ceux qui avaient fait route avec lui, s'en étaient séparés, les uns s'étant arrêtés, et les autres étant morts. En réfléchissant au passé, son coeur était toujours rempli de pensées et de tristesse. Tout à coup, à cóté de cette figure de jaspe, il vit un marchand qui faisait hommage à la statue d'un éventail de taffetas blanc du pays de _Tsin_. Sans qu'en s'en aperçût cela lui causa une émotion telle que ses larmes coulèrent et remplirent ses yeux." (FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 333.) "Tsin" means the province of Chensi, which was the birthplace of Fa Hian.] [Footnote 2: FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 334-5.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 241, 249. After the funeral rites of Gotama Buddha had been performed at Kusinara, B.C. 543, his "left canine tooth" was carried to Dantapura, the capital of Kalinga, where it was preserved for 800 years. The King of Calinga, in the reign of Maha-Sen, being on the point of engaging in a doubtful conflict, directed, in the event of defeat, that the sacred relic should be conveyed to Ceylon, whither it was accordingly taken as described. (_Rajavali_, p. 240.) Between A.D. 1303 and 1315 the tooth was carried back to Southern India by the leader of an army, who invaded Ceylon and sacked _Yapahoo_, which was then the capital. The succeeding monarch, Prakrama III., went in person to Madura to negotiate its surrender, and brought it back to Pollanarrua. Its subsequent adventures and its final destruction by the Portuguese, as recorded by DE COUTO and others, will be found in a subsequent passage, see Vol. II. P. VII. ch. v. The Singhalese maintain that the Dalada, still treasured in its strong tower at Kandy, is the genuine relic, which was preserved from the Portuguese spoilers by secreting it at Delgamoa in Saffragam. TURNOUR'S _Account of the Tooth Relic of Ceylon; Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, 1837, vol. vi. p. 2, p. 856.] [Sidenote: A.D. 459.] One of the most striking events in this period of Singhalese history was the murder of the king, Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459, by his son, who seized the throne under the title of Kasyapa I. The story of this outrage, which is highly illustrative of the superstition and cruelty of the age, is told with much feeling in the _Mahawanso_; the author of which, Mahanamo, was the uncle of the outraged king, Dhatu Sena was a descendant of the royal line, whose family were living in retirement during the usurpation of the Malabars, A.D. 434 to 459. As a youth he had embraced the priesthood, and his future eminence was foretold by an omen. "On a certain day, when chaunting at the foot of a tree, when a shower of rain fell, a cobra de capello encircled him with its folds and covered his book with its hood."[1] He was educated by his uncle, Mahanamo, and in process of time, surrounding himself with adherents, he successfully attacked the Malabars, defeated two of their chiefs in succession, put three others to death, recovered the native sovereignty of Ceylon, "and the religion which had been set aside by the foreigners, he restored to its former ascendancy." He recalled the fugitive inhabitants to Anarajapoora; degraded the nobles who had intermarried with the Malabars, and vigorously addressed himself to repair the sacred edifices and to restore fertility to the lands which had been neglected during their hostile occupation by the strangers. He applied the jewels from his head-dress to replace the gems of which the statue of Buddha had been despoiled. The curled hair of the divine teacher was represented by sapphires, and the lock on his forehead by threads of gold. [Footnote 1: This is a frequent traditionary episode in connection with the heroes of Hindu history.--_Asiat. Researches_, vol. xv. p. 275.] [Sidenote: A.D. 459.] The family of the king consisted of two sons and a daughter, the latter married to his nephew, who "caused her to be flogged on the thighs with a whip although she had committed no offence;" on which the king, in his indignation, ordered the mother of her husband to be burned. His nephew and eldest son now conspired to dethrone him, and having made him a prisoner, the latter "raised the chatta" (the white parasol emblematic of royalty), and seized on the supreme power. Pressed by his son to discover the depository of his treasures, the captive king entreated to be taken to Kalawapi, under the pretence of pointing out the place of their concealment, but in reality with a determination to prepare for death, after having seen his early friend Mahanamo, and bathed in the great tank which he himself had formerly constructed. The usurper complied, and assigned for the journey a "carriage with broken wheels," the charioteer of which shared his store of "parched rice" with the fallen king. "Thus worldly prosperity," says Mahanamo, who lived to write the sad story of the interview, "is like the glimmering of lightning, and what reflecting man would devote himself to its pursuit!" The Raja approached his friend and, "from the manner these two persons discoursed, side by side, mutually quenching the fire of their afflictions, they appeared as if endowed with royal prosperity. Having allowed him to eat, the thero (Mahanamo) in various ways administered consolation and abstracted his mind from all desire to prolong his existence." The king then bathed in the tank; and pointing to his friend and to it, "these," he exclaimed to the messengers, "are all the treasures I possess." [Sidenote: A.D. 477.] He was conducted back to the capital; and Kasyapa, suspecting that the king was concealing his riches for his second son, Mogallana, gave the order for his execution. Arrayed in royal insignia, he repaired to the prison of the raja, and continued to walk to and fro in his presence: till the king, perceiving his intention to wound his feelings, said mildly, "Lord of statesmen, I bear the same affection towards you as to Mogallana." The usurper smiled and shook his head; then stripping the king naked and casting him into chains, he built up a wall, embedding him in it with his face towards the east, and enclosed it with clay: "thus the monarch Dhatu-Sena, who was murdered by his son, united himself with Sakko the ruler of Devos."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. To this hideous incident Mahanamo adds the following curious moral: "This Raja Dhatu Sena, at the time he was improving the Kalawapi tank, observed a certain priest absorbed in meditation, and not being able to rouse him from abstraction, had him buried under the embankment by heaping earth over him. His own living entombment _was the retribution_ manifested in this life for that impious act."] [Sidenote: A.D. 477.] The parricide next directed his groom and his cook to assassinate his brother, who, however, escaped to the coast of India.[1] Failing in the attempt, he repaired to Sihagiri, a place difficult of access to men, and having cleared it on all sides, he surrounded it with a rampart. He built three habitations, accessible only by flights of steps, and ornamented with figures of lions (siho), whence the fortress takes its name, _Siha-giri_, "the Lion Rock." Hither he carried the treasures of his father, and here he built a palace, "equal in beauty to the celestial mansion." He erected temples to Buddha, and monasteries for his priests, but conscious of the enormity of his crimes, these endowments were conferred in the names of his minister and his children. Failing to "derive merit" from such acts, stung with remorse, and anxious to test public feeling, he enlarged his deeds of charity; he formed gardens at the capital, and planted groves of mangoes throughout the island. Desirous to enrich a wihara at Anarajapoora, he proposed to endow it with a village, but "the ministers of religion, regardful of the reproaches of the world, declined accepting gifts at the hands of a parricide. Kasyapa, bent on befriending them, dedicated the village to Buddha, after which they consented, _on the ground that it was then the property of the divine teacher_." Impelled, says the _Mahawanso_, by the irrepressible dread of a future existence, he strictly performed his "aposaka"[2] vows, practised the virtue of non-procrastination, acquired the "dathanga,"[3] and caused books to be written, and image and alms-edifices to be formed. [Footnote 1: I am indebted to the family of the late Mr. Turnour for access to a manuscript translation of a further portion of the _Mahawanso_, from which this continuation of the narrative is extracted.] [Footnote 2: A lay devotee who takes on himself the obligation of asceticism without putting on the yellow robe.] [Footnote 3: The dathanga or "teles-dathanga" are the thirteen ordinances by which the cleaving to existence is destroyed, involving piety, abstinence, and self-mortification.--HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. ii. p. 9.] [Illustration: FORTIFIED ROCK OF SIGIRI] [Sidenote: A.D. 495.] Meanwhile, after an interval of eighteen years, Mogallana, having in his exile collected a sufficient force, returned from India to avenge the murder of his father; and the brothers encountered each other in a decisive engagement at Ambatthakolo in the Seven Corles. Kasyapa, perceiving a swamp in his front, turned the elephant which he rode into a side path to avoid it; on which his army in alarm raised the shout that "their liege lord was flying," and in the confusion which followed, Mogallana, having struck off the head of his brother, returned the krese to its scabbard, and led his followers to take possession of the capital; where he avenged the death of his father, by the execution of the minister who had consented to it. He established a marine force to guard the island against the descents of the Malabars, and "having purified both the orthodox dharma[1], and the religion of the vanquisher, he died, after reigning eighteen years, signalised by acts of piety."[2] This story as related by its eye-witness, Mahanamo, forms one of the most characteristic, as well as the best authenticated episodes of contemporary history presented by the annals of Ceylon. [Footnote 1: The doctrines of Buddha.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxix. Manuscript translation by TURNOUR. TURNOUR, in his _Epitome_, says Kasyapa "committed suicide on the field of battle," but this does not appear from the narrative of the _Mahawanso_.] [Sidenote: A.D. 515.] Such was the feebleness of the royal house, that of the eight kings who succeeded Mogallana between A.D. 515 and A.D. 586, two died by suicide, three by murder, and one from grief occasioned by the treason of his son. The anarchy consequent upon such disorganisation stimulated the rapacity of the Malabars; and the chronicles of the following centuries are filled with the accounts of their descents on the island and the misery inflicted by their excesses. CHAP. X. THE DOMINATION OF THE MALABARS. [Sidenote: A.D. 515.] It has been already explained that the invaders who engaged in forays into Ceylon, though known by the general epithet of Malabars (or as they are designated in Pali, _damilos_, "Tamils"), were also natives of places in India remote from that now known as Malabar. They were, in reality, the inhabitants of one of the earliest states organised in Southern India, the kingdom of Pandya[1], whose sovereigns, from their intelligence, and their encouragement of native literature, have been appropriately styled "the Ptolemies of India." Their dominions, which covered the extremity of the peninsula, comprehended the greater portion of the Coromandel coast, extending to Canara on the western coast, and southwards to the sea.[2] Their kingdom was subsequently contracted in dimensions, by the successive independence of Malabar, the rise of the state of Chera to the west, of Ramnad to the south, and of Chola in the east, till it sank in modern times into the petty government of the Naicks of Madura.[3] [Footnote 1: Pandya, as a kingdom was not unknown in classical times, and its ruler was the [Greek: Basileus Pandiôn] mentioned in the _Periplus of the Erythræan Sea_, and the king Pandion, who sent an embassy to Augustus.--PLINY, vi. 26; PTOLEMY, vii. 1.] [Footnote 2: See an _Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya_, by Prof. H. H. WILSON, _Asiat. Journ._, vol. iii.] [Footnote 3: See _ante_, p. 353, n.] [Sidenote: A.D. 515.] The relation between this portion of the Dekkan and the early colonisers of Ceylon was rendered intimate by many concurring incidents. Wijayo himself was connected by maternal descent with the king of Kalinga[1], now known as the Northern Circars; his second wife was the daughter of the king of Pandya, and the ladies who accompanied her to Ceylon were given in marriage to his ministers and officers.[2] Similar alliances were afterwards frequent; and the Singhalese annalists allude on more than one occasion to the "damilo consorts" of their sovereigns.[3] Intimate intercourse and consanguinity, were thus established from the remotest period. Adventurers from the opposite coast were encouraged by the previous settlers; high employments were thrown open to them, Malabars were subsidised both as cavalry and as seamen; and the first abuse of their privileges was in the instance of the brothers Sena and Goottika, who, holding naval and military commands, took advantage of their position and seized on the throne, B.C. 237; apparently with such acquiescence on the part of the people, that even the _Mahawanso_ praises the righteousness of their reign, which was prolonged to twenty-two years, when they were put to death by the rightful heir to the throne.[4] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vi. p. 43.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 53; the _Rajarali_ (p. 173) says they were 700 in number.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 253.] [Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_ ch. xxi. p. 127.] [Sidenote: A.D. 515.] The easy success of the first usurpers encouraged the ambition of fresh aspirants, and barely ten years elapsed till the _first_ regular invasion of the island took place, under the illustrious Elala, who, with an army from Mysore (then called Chola or Soli), subdued the entire of Ceylon, north of the Mahawelli-ganga, and compelled the chiefs of the rest of the island, and the kings of Rohuna and Maya, to acknowledge his supremacy and become his tributaries.[1] As in the instance of the previous revolt, the people exhibited such faint resistance to the usurpation, that the reign of Elala extended to forty-four years. It is difficult to conceive that their quiescence under a stranger was entirely ascribable to the fact, that the rule of the Malabars, although adverse to Buddhism, was characterised by justice and impartiality. Possibly they recognised to some extent their pretensions, as founded on their relationship to the legitimate sovereigns of the island, and hence they bore their sway without impatience.[2] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 17; _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. p. 128; _Rajavali_, p. 188.] [Footnote 2: See _ante_, p. 360, n.] The majority of the subsequent invasions of Ceylon by the Malabars partook less of the character of conquest than of forays, by a restless and energetic race, into a fertile and defenceless country. Mantotte, on the northwest coast, near Adam's Bridge, became the great place of debarcation; and here successive bands of marauders landed time after time without meeting any effectual resistance from the unwarlike Singhalese. The _second_ great invasion took place about a century after the first, B.C. 103, when seven Malabar leaders effected simultaneous descents at different points of the coast[1], and combined with a disaffected "Brahman prince" of Rohuna, to force Walagam-bahu I. to surrender his sovereignty. The king, after an ineffectual show of resistance, fled to the mountains of Malaya; one of the invaders carried off the queen to the coast of India; a third despoiled the temples of Anarajapoora and retired, whilst the others continued in possession of the capital for nearly fifteen years, till Walagam-bahu, by the aid of the Rohuna highlanders, succeeded in recovering the throne. [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 16. The _Mahawanso_ says they landed at "Mahatittha."--_Mantotte_, ch. xxxiii. p. 203.] [Sidenote: A.D. 515.] The _third_ great invasion on record[1] was in its character still more predatory than those which preceded it, but it was headed by a king in person, who carried away 12,000 Singhalese as slaves to Mysore. It occurred in the reign of Waknais, A.D. 110, whose son Gaja-bahu, A.D. 113, avenged the outrage by invading the Solee country with an expedition which sailed from Jaffnapatam, and brought back not only the rescued Singhalese captives, but also a multitude of Solleans, whom the king established on lands in the Alootcoor Corle, where the Malabar features are thought to be discernible to the present day.[2] [Footnote 1: This incursion of the Malabars is not mentioned in the _Mahawanso_, but it is described in the _Rajavali_, p. 229, and mentioned by TURNOUR, in his _Epitome_, &c., p. 21. There is evidence of the conscious supremacy of the Malabars over the north of Ceylon, in the fourth century, in a very curious document, relating to that period. The existence of a colony of Jews at Cochin, in the southwestern extremity of the Dekkan, has long been known in Europe, and half a century ago, particulars of their condition and numbers were published by Dr. Claudius Buchanan. (_Christian Researches, &c._) Amongst other facts, he made known their possession of Hebrew MSS. demonstrative of the great antiquity of their settlement in India, and also of their title deeds of land (_sasanams_), engraved on plates of copper, and presented to them by the early kings of that portion of the peninsula. Some of the latter have been carefully translated into English (see _Madras Journ._, vol. xiii. xiv.). One of their MSS. has recently been brought to England, under circumstances which are recounted by Mr. FORSTER, in the third vol. of his _One Primeval Language_, p. 303. This MS. I have been permitted to examine. It is in corrupted Rabbinical Hebrew, written about the year 1781, and contains a partial synopsis of the modern history of the section of the Jewish nation to whom it belongs; with accounts of their arrival in the year A.D. 68, and of their reception by the Malabar kings. Of one of the latter, frequently spoken of by the honorific style of SRI PERUMAL, but identifiable with IRAVI VARMAR, who reigned A.D. 379, the manuscript says that his "_rule extended from Goa to Colombo_."] [Footnote 2: CASTE CHITTY, _Ceylon Gazetteer_, p. 7.] A long interval of repose followed, and no fresh expedition from India is mentioned in the chronicles of Ceylon till A.D. 433, when the capital was again taken by the Malabars; the Singhalese families fled beyond the Mahawelli-ganga; and the invaders occupied the entire extent of the Pihiti Ratta, where for twenty-seven years, five of them in succession administered the government, till Dhatu Sena collected forces sufficient to overpower the strangers, and, emerging from his retreat in Rohuna, recovered possession of the north of the island.[1] [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 243; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 27.] [Sidenote: A.D. 515.] Dhatu Sena, after his victory, seems to have made an attempt, though an ineffectual one, to reverse the policy which had operated under his predecessors as an incentive to the immigration of Malabars; settlement and intermarriages had been all along encouraged[1], and even during the recent usurpation, many Singhalese families of rank had formed connections with the Damilos. The schisms among the Buddhist themselves, tending as they did to engraft Brahmanical rites upon the doctrines of the purer faith, seem to have promoted and matured the intimacy between the two people; some of the Singhalese kings erected temples to the gods of the Hindus[2], and the promoters of the Wytulian heresy found a refuge from persecution amongst their sympathisers in the Dekkan.[3] [Footnote 1: Anula, the queen of Ceylon, A.D. 47, met with no opposition in raising one of her Malabar husbands to the throne.--TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 19. Sotthi Sena, who reigned A.D. 432, had a Damilo queen.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 253.] [Footnote 2: Sri Sanga Bo III. A.D. 702, "made a figure of the God Vishnu; and was a supporter of the religion of Buddha, and a friend of the people."--_Rajaratnacari_, p. 78.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 234; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 25.] [Sidenote: A.D. 515.] The Malabars, trained to arms, now resorted in such numbers to Ceylon, that the leaders in civil commotions were accustomed to hire them in bands to act against the royal forces[1]; and whilst no precautions were adopted to check the landing of marauders on the coast, the invaders constructed forts throughout the country to protect their conquests from recapture by the natives. Proud of these successful expeditions, the native records of the Chola kings make mention of their victories; and in one of their grants of land, engraved on copper, and still in existence, Viradeva-Chola, the sovereign by whom it was made, is described as having triumphed over "Madura, Izham, Caruvar, and the crowned head of Pandyan;" Izham, (or Ilám) being the Tamil name of Ceylon.[2] On their expulsion by Dhatu Sena, he took possession of the fortresses and extirpated the Damilos; degraded the Singhalese who had intermarried with them; confiscated their estates in favour of those who had remained true to his cause; and organised a naval force for the protection of the coasts[3] of the island. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvi. p. 238.] [Footnote 2: DOWSON, on the Chera Kingdom of India.--_Asiat. Journ._ vol. viii. p. 24.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawansa_ ch. xxxviii. p. 256. and xxxix. TURNOUR'S MS., _Trans._] But his vigorous policy produced no permanent effect; his son Mogallana, after the murder of his father and the usurpation of Kasyapa, fled for refuge to the coast of India, and subsequently recovered possession of the throne, by the aid of a force which he collected there.[1] In the succession of assassinations, conspiracies, and civil wars which distracted the kingdom in the sixth and seventh centuries, during the struggles of the rival branches of the royal house, each claimant, in his adversity, betook himself to the Indian continent, and Malabar mercenaries from Pandya and Soli enrolled themselves indifferently under any leader, and deposed or restored kings at their pleasure.[2] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 29; _Rajavali_ p. 244.] [Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 31; _Rajavali_ p. 247.] [Sidenote: A.D. 523.] The _Rajavali_, in a single passage enumerates fourteen sovereigns who were murdered each by his successor, between A.D. 523, and A.D. 648. During a period of such violence and anarchy, peaceful industry was suspended, and extensive emigrations took place to Bahar and Orissa. Buddhism, however, was still predominant, and protection was accorded to its professors. [Sidenote: A.D. 640.] Hiouen Thsang, a Chinese traveller, wno visited India between 629 A.D. and 645[1], encountered numbers of exiles, who informed him that they fled from civil commotions in Ceylon, in which religion had undergone persecution, the king had lost his life, cultivation had been interrupted, and the island exhausted by famine. This account of the Chinese voyager accords accurately with the events detailed in the Singhalese annals, in which it is stated that Sanghatissa was deposed and murdered, A.D. 623, by the Seneriwat, his minister, who, amidst the horrors of a general famine, was put to death by the people of Rohuna, and a civil war ensued; one result of which was the defeat of the Malabar mercenaries and their distribution as slaves to the temples. Hiouen Thsang relates the particulars of his interviews with the fugitives, from whom he learned the extraordinary riches of Ceylon, the number and wealth of its wiharas, the density of its population in peaceful times, the fertility of its soil, and the abundance of its produce.[2] [Footnote 1: _Histoire de la Vie de Hiouen Thsang, et de ses Voyages dans l'Inde depuis l'an_ 629 _jusquèn_ 643. _Par_ HOEI-LI _et_ YEN-THSANG, _&c. Traduite du Chinois par_ STANISLAUS JULIEN, Paris, 1853.] [Footnote 2: "Ce royaume a sept mille li de tour, et sa capitale quarante li; la population est agglomérée, et la terre produit des grains en abondance."--HIOUEN-THSANG, liv. iv. p. 194.] For nearly four hundred years, from the seventh till the eleventh century, the exploits and escapes of the Malabars occupy a more prominent portion of the Singbalese annals than that devoted to the policy of the native sovereigns. They filled every office, including that of prime minister[1], and they decided the claims of competing candidates for the crown. At length the island became so infested by their numbers that the feeble monarchs found it impracticable to effect their exclusion from Anarajapoora[2]; and to escape from their proximity, the kings in the eighth century began to move southwards, and transferred their residence to Pollanarrua, which eventually became the capital of the kingdom. Enormous tanks were constructed in the vicinity of the new capital; palaces were erected, surpassing those of the old city in architectural beauty; dagobas were raised, nearly equal in altitude to the Thuparama and Ruanwelli, and temples and statues were hewn out of the living rock, the magnitude and beauty of whose ruins attest the former splendour of Pollanarrua.[3] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 33.] [Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, A.D. 686, p. 31.] [Footnote 3: The first king who built a palace at Pollanarrua was Sri Sanga Bo II., A.D. 642. His successor, Sri Sanga Bo III., took up his residence there temporarily, A.D. 702; it was made the capital by Kuda Akbo, A.D. 769, and its embellishment, the building of colleges, and the formation of tanks in its vicinity, were the occupations of numbers of his successors.] [Sidenote: A.D. 640.] Notwithstanding their numbers and their power, it is remarkable that the Malabars were never identified with any plan for promoting the prosperity and embellishment of Ceylon, or with any undertaking for the permanent improvement of the island. Unlike the Gangetic race, who were the earliest colonists, and with whom originated every project for enriching and adorning the country, the Malabars aspired not to beautify or enrich, but to impoverish and deface;--and nothing can more strikingly bespeak the inferiority of the southern race than the single fact that everything tending to exalt and to civilise, in the early condition of Ceylon, was introduced by the northern conquerors, whilst all that contributed to ruin and debase it is distinctly traceable to the presence and influence of the Malabars. [Sidenote: A.D. 840.] The Singhalese, either paralysed by dread, made feeble efforts to rid themselves of the invaders; or fascinated by their military pomp, endeavoured to conciliate them by alliances. Thus, when the king of Pandya over-ran the north of Ceylon, A.D. 840, plundered the capital and despoiled its temples, the unhappy sovereign had no other resource than to purchase the evacuation of the island by a heavy ransom.[1] Yet such was the influence still exercised by the Malabars, that within a very few years his successor on the throne lent his aid to the son of the same king of Pandya in a war against his father, and conducted the expedition in person.[2] His army was, in all probability, composed chiefly of Damilos, with whom he overran the south of the Indian peninsula, and avenged the outrage inflicted on his own kingdom in the late reign by bearing back the plunder of Madura. [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 35; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 79.] [Footnote 2: A.D. 858; _Rajaratnacari_, p, 84.] [Sidenote: A.D. 954.] This exploit served to promote a more intimate intercourse between the two races, and after the lapse of a century, A.D. 954, the king of Ceylon a second time interposed with an army to aid the Pandyan sovereign in a quarrel with his neighbour of Chola, wherein the former was worsted, and forced to seek a refuge in the territory of his insular ally, whence he was ultimately expelled for conspiracy against his benefactor. Having fled to India without his regalia, his Cholian rival made the refusal of the king of Ceylon to surrender them the pretext for a fresh Malabar invasion, A.D. 990, when the enemy was repulsed by the mountaineers of Rohuna, who, from the earliest period down to the present day, have evinced uniform impatience of strangers, and steady determination to resist their encroachments. [Sidenote: A.D. 997.] But such had been the influx of foreigners, that the efforts of these highland patriots were powerless against their numbers. Mahindo III., A.D. 997, married a princess of Calinga[1], and in a civil war which ensued, during the reign of his son and successor, the novel spectacle was presented of a Malabar army supporting the cause of the royal family against Singhalese insurgents. The island was now reduced to the extreme of anarchy and insecurity; "the foreign population" had increased to such an extent as to gain a complete ascendency over the native inhabitants, and the sovereign had lost authority over both.[2] [Footnote 1: Now the Northern Circars.] [Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 37.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1023.] In A.D. 1023, the Cholians again invaded Ceylon[1], carried the king captive to the coast of India (where he died in exile), and established a Malabar viceroy at Pollanarrua, who held possession of the island for nearly thirty years, protected in his usurpation by a foreign army. Thus, "throughout the reign of nineteen kings," says the _Rajaratnacari_ "extending over eighty-six years, the Malabars kept up a continual war with the Singhalese, till they filled by degrees every village in the island."[2] [Footnote 1: In the reign of Mahindo IV.] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 85.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1028.] During the absence of the rightful sovereign, and in the confusion which ensued on his decease, various members of the royal family arrived at the sovereignty of Rohuna, the only remnant of free territory left. Four brothers, each assuming the title of king, contended together for supremacy; and amidst anarchy and intrigue, each in turn took up the reins of government, as they fell or were snatched from the hands of his predecessor[1], till at length, on the retirement of all other candidates, the forlorn crown was assumed by the minister Lokaiswara, who held his court at Kattragam, and died A.D. 1071.[2] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 39.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxi.] CHAP XI. THE REIGN OF PRAKRAMA BAHU. [Sidenote: A.D. 1071.] From the midst of this gloom and despondency, with usurpation successful in the only province where even a semblance of patriotism survived, and a foreign enemy universally dominant throughout the rest of Ceylon, there suddenly arose a dynasty which delivered the island from the sway of the Malabars, brought back its ancient wealth and tranquillity, and for the space of a century made it pre-eminently prosperous at home and victorious in expeditions by which its rulers rendered it respected abroad. The founder of this new and vigorous race was a member of the exiled family, who, on the death of Lokaiswara, was raised to the throne under the title of Wijayo Bahu.[1] Dissatisfied with the narrow limits of Rohuna, he resolved on rescuing Pihiti from the usurping strangers; and, by the courage and loyalty of his mountaineers, he recovered the ancient capitals from the Malabars, compelled the whole extent of the island to acknowledge his authority, reunited the several kingdoms of Ceylon under one national banner, and, "for the security of Lanka against foreign invasion, placed trustworthy chiefs at the head of paid troops, and stationed them round the coast."[2] Thus signally successful at home, the fame of his exploits "extended over all Dambadiva[3], and ambassadors arrived at his court from the sovereigns of India and Siam." [Footnote 1: A.D. 1071.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lix.; _Rajaranacari_, p. 58; _Rajavali_, p. 251; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 39.] [Footnote 3: India Proper.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1126.] As he died without heirs a contest arose about the succession, which threatened again to dissever the unity of the kingdom by arraying Rohuna and the south against the brother of Wijayo Bahu, who had gained possession of Pollanarrua. But in this emergency the pretensions of all other claimants to the crown were overruled in favour of Prakrama, a prince of accomplishments and energy so unrivalled as to secure for him the partiality of his kindred and the admiration of the people at large. He was son to the youngest of four brothers who had recently contended together for the crown, and his ambition from childhood had been to rescue his country from foreign dominion, and consolidate the monarchy in his own person. He completed by foreign travel an education which, according to the _Mahawanso_, comprised every science and accomplishment of the age in which he lived, including theology, medicine, and logic; grammar, poetry, and music; the training of the elephant and the management of the horse.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxiv.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1153.] On the death of his father he was proclaimed king by the people, and a summons was addressed by him to his surviving uncle, calling on him to resign in his favour and pay allegiance to his supremacy. As the feeling of the nation was with him, the issue of a civil war left him master of Ceylon. He celebrated his coronation as King of Pihiti at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1153, and two years later after reducing the refractory chiefs of Rohuna to obedience, he repeated the ceremonial by crowning himself "sole King of Lanka."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxi.] There is no name in Singhalese history which holds the same rank in the admiration of the people as that of Prakrama Bahu, since to the piety of Devenipiatissa he united the chivalry of Dutugaimunu. [Sidenote: A.D. 1155.] The tranquillity insured by the independence and consolidation of his dominions he rendered subservient to the restoration of religion, the enrichment of his subjects, and the embellishment of the ancient capitals of his kingdom; and, ill-satisfied with the inglorious ease which had contented his predecessors, he aspired to combine the renown of foreign conquests with the triumphs of domestic policy. Faithful to the two grand objects of royal solicitude, religion and agriculture, the earliest attention of Prakrama was directed to the re-establishment of the one, and the encouragement and extension of the other. He rebuilt the temples of Buddha, restored the monuments of religion in more than their pristine splendour, and covered the face of the kingdom with works for irrigation to an extent which would seem incredible did not their existing ruins corroborate the historical narrative of his stupendous labours. Such had been the ostensible decay of Buddhism during the Malabar domination that, when the kingdom was recovered from them by Wijayo Bahu, A.D. 1071, "there was not to be found in the whole island five tirunansis," and an embassy was bent to Arramana[1] to request that members of this superior rank of the priesthood might be sent to restore the order in Ceylon.[2] [Footnote 1: A part of the Chin-Indian peninsula, probably between Arracan and Siam.] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 85; _Rajavali_, p. 252; _Mahawanso_, ch, lx. From the identity of the national faith in the two countries; intercourse existed between Siam and Ceylon from time immemorial. At a very early period missions were interchanged for the inter-communication of Pali literature, and in later times, when, owing to the oppression of the Malabars certain orders of the priesthood had become extinct in Ceylon, it became essential to seek a renewal of ordination at the hands of the Siamese heirarchy (_Rajaratnacari_, p. 86). In the numerous incursions of the Malabars from Chola and Pandya, the literary treasures of Ceylon were deliberately destroyed, and the _Mahawanso_ and _Rajavali_, make frequent lamentations over the loss of the sacred books. (See also _Rajaratnacari_, pp 77, 95, 97.) At a still later period the savage Raja Singha who reigned between A.D. 1581 and 1592, and became a convert to Brahmanism, sought eagerly for Buddhistical books, and "delighted in burning them in heaps as high as a coco-nut tree." These losses it was sought to repair by an embassy to Siam, sent by Kirti-Sri in A.D. 1753, when a copious supply was obtained of Burmese versions of Pali sacred literature.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1155.] During the same troublous times, schisms and heresy had combined to undermine the national belief, and hence one of the first cares of Prakrama Bahu was to weed out the perverted sects, and establish a council for the settlement of the faith on debatable points.[1] Dagobas and statues of Buddha were multiplied without end during his reign, and temples of every form were erected both at Pollanarrua and throughout the breadth of the island. Halls for the reading of bana, image rooms, residences for the priesthood, ambulance halls and rest houses for their accommodation when on journeys, were built in every district, and rocks were hollowed into temples; one of which, at Pollanarrua, remains to the present day with its images of Buddha; "one in a sitting and another in a lying posture," almost as described in the _Mahawanso_.[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvii.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. For a description of this temple see the account of Pollanarrua in the present work, Vol. II. Pt. x. ch. i.] In conformity with the spirit of toleration, which is one of the characteristics of Buddhism, the king "erected a house for the Brahmans of the capital to afford the comforts of religion even to his Malabar enemies." And mindful of the divine injunctions engraven on the rock by King Asoca, "he forbade the animals in the whole of Lanka, both of the earth and the water, to be killed,"[1] and planted gardens, "resembling the paradise of the God-King Sakkraia, with trees of all sorts bearing fruits and odorous flowers." [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvii. Among the religious edifices constructed by Prakrama Bahu in many parts of his kingdom, the _Mahawanso_, enumerates three temples at Pollanarrua, besides others at every two or three gows distance; 101 dagobas, 476 statues of Buddha, and 300 image rooms built, besides 6100 repaired. He built for the reception of priests from a distance, "230 lodging apartments, 50 halls for preaching, and 9 for walking, 144 gates, and 192 rooms for the purpose of offering flowers. He built 12 apartments and 230 halls for the use of strangers, and 31 rock temples, with tanks, baths, and gardens for the priesthood."] [Sidenote: A.D. 1155.] For the people the king erected almonries at the four gates of the capital, and hospitals, with slave boys and maidens to wait upon the sick, superintending them in person, and bringing his medical knowledge to assist in their direction and management. Even now the ruins of Pollanarrua, the most picturesque in Ceylon, attest the care which he lavished on his capital. He surrounded it with ramparts, raised a fortress within them, and built a palace for his own residence, containing four thousand apartments. He founded schools and libraries; built halls for music and dancing; formed tanks for public baths; opened streets, and surrounded the whole city with a wall which, if we are to credit the native chronicles, enclosed an area twelve miles broad by nearly thirty in length. By his liberality, Rohuna and Pihiti were equally embellished; the buildings of Vigittapura and Sigiri were renewed; and the ancient edifices at Anarajapoora were restored, and its temples and palaces repaired, under the personal superintendence of his minister. It is worthy of remark that so greatly had the constructive arts declined, even at that period, in Ceylon, that the king had to "bring Damilo artificers" from the opposite coast of India to repair the structures at his capital.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxv. lxxvii.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1155.] The details preserved in the Singhalese chronicles as to the works for irrigation which he formed or restored, afford an idea of the prodigious encouragement bestowed upon agriculture in this reign, as well as of the extent to which the rule of the Malabars had retarded the progress and destroyed the earlier traces of civilisation. Fourteen hundred and seventy tanks were constructed by the king in various parts of the island, three of them of such vast dimensions that they were known as the "Seas of Prakrama;"[1] and in addition to these, three hundred others were formed by him for the special benefit of the priests. The "Great Lakes" which he repaired, as specified in the _Mahawanso_, amount to thirteen hundred and ninety-five, and the smaller ones which he restored or enlarged to nine hundred and sixty. Besides these, he made five hundred and thirty-four watercourses and canals, by damming up the rivers, and repaired three thousand six hundred and twenty-one.[2] [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 88] [Footnote 2: The useful ambition of signalising their reign by the construction of works of irrigation, is still exhibited by the Buddhist sovereigns of the East; and the king of Burmah in his interview with the British envoy in 1855, advanced his exploits of this nature as his highest claim to distinction. The conversation is thus reported in YULE'S _Narrative of the Mission_. London, 1858. "_King._ Have you seen any of the royal tanks at Oung-ben-le', which have recently been constructed? "_Envoy._ I have not been yet, your Majesty, but I purpose going. "_King._ I have caused _ninety-nine_ tanks and ancient reservoirs to be dug and repaired; and _sixty-six_ canals: whereby a great deal of rice land will be available. * * * In the reign of Nauraba-dzyar 9999 tanks and canals were constructed: I purpose renewing them."--P. 109.] The bare enumeration of such labours conveys an idea of the prodigious extent to which structures of this kind had been multiplied by the early kings; and we are enabled to form an estimate of the activity of agriculture in the twelfth century, and the vast population whose wants it supplied, by the thousands of reservoirs still partially used, though in ruins; and the still greater number now dry and deserted, and concealed by dense jungle, in districts once waving with yellow grain. Such was the internal tranquillity which, under his rule, pervaded Ceylon, that an inscription, engraved by one of his successors, on the rock of Dambool, after describing the general peace and "security which he established, as well in the wilderness as in the inhabited places," records that, "even a woman might traverse the island with a precious jewel and not be asked what it was."[1] [Footnote 1: Moore's melody, beginning "Rich and rare were the gems she wore," was founded on a parallel figure illustrative of the security of Ireland under the rule of King Brien; when, according to Warner, "a maiden undertook a journey done, from one extremity of the kingdom to another, with only a wand in her hand, at the top of which was a ring of exceeding great value."] [Sidenote: A.D. 1155.] In the midst of these congenial operations the energetic king had command of military resources, sufficient not only to repress revolt within his own dominions, but also to carry war into distant countries, which had offered him insult or inflicted injury on his subjects. His first foreign expedition was fitted out to chastise the king of Cambodia and Arramana[1] in the Siamese peninsula, who had plundered merchants from Ceylon, visiting those countries to trade in elephants; he had likewise intercepted a vessel which was carrying some Singhalese princesses, had outraged Prakrama's ambassador, and had dismissed him mutilated and maimed. A fleet sailed on this service in the sixteenth year of Prakrama's reign, he effected a landing in Arramana, vanquished the king, and obtained full satisfaction.[2] He next directed his arms against the Pandyan king, for the countenance which that prince had uniformly given to the Malabar invaders of the island. He reduced Pandya and Chola, rendered their sovereigns his tributaries, and having founded a city within the territory of the latter, and coined money in his own name, he returned in triumph to Ceylon.[3] [Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 406, n.] [Footnote 2: TURNOUR's _Epitome_, p. 41; _Mahawanso_, lxxiv.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 87; _Rajavali_, p. 254.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvi. I am not aware whether the Tamil historians have chronicled this remarkable expedition, and the conquest of this portion of the Dekkan by the king of Ceylon; but in the catalogue of the Kings appended by Prof. WILSON to his _Historical Sketch of Pandya_ (Asiat. Journ. vol. iii. p. 201) the name of "Pracrama Baghu" occurs as the sixty-fifth in the list of sovereigns of that state. For an account of Dipaldenia, where he probably coined his Indian money, see _Asiat. Soc. Journ. Bengal_, v. vi. pp. 218, 301.] "Thus," says the _Mahawanso_, "was the whole island of Lanka improved and beautified by this king, whose majesty is famous in the annals of good deeds, who was faithful in the religion of Buddha, and whose fame extended abroad as the light of the moon."[1] "Having departed this life," adds the author of the _Rajavali_, "he was found on a silver rock in the wilderness of the Himalaya, where are eighty-four thousand mountains of gold, and where he will reign as a king as long as the world endures."[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxviii] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 91.] CHAP. XII. FATE OF THE SINGHALESE MONARCHY.--ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE, A.D. 1501. [Sidenote: A.D. 1155.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1186.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1187.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1192.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1196.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1197.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1202.] The reign of Prakrama Bahu, the most glorious in the annals of Ceylon, is the last which has any pretension to renown. His family were unequal to sustain or extend the honours he had won, and his nephew[1], a pious voluptuary, by whom he was succeeded, was killed in an intrigue with the daughter of a herdsman whilst awaiting the result of an appeal to the Buddhist sovereign of Arramana to aid him in reforming religion. His murderer, whom he had previously nominated his successor, himself fell by assassination. An heir to the throne was discovered amongst the Singhalese exiles on the coast of India[2], but death soon ended his brief reign. His brother and his nephew in turn assumed the crown; both were despatched by the Adigar, who, having allied himself with the royal family by marrying the widow of the great Prakrama, contrived to place her on the throne, under the title of Queen Leela-Wattee, A.D. 1197. Within less than three years she was deposed by an usurper, and he being speedily put to flight, another queen, Kalyana-Wattee, was placed at the head of the kingdom. The next ill-fated sovereign, a baby of three months old, was speedily set aside by means of a hired force, and the first queen, Leela-Wattee, restored to the throne. But the same band who had effected a revolution in her favour were prompt to repeat the exploit; she was a second time deposed, and a third time recalled by the intervention of foreign mercenaries.[3] [Footnote 1: Wijayo Bahu II., killed by Mihindo, A.D. 1187.] [Footnote 2: Kirti Nissanga, brought from Calinga, A.D. 1192.] [Footnote 3: Of the very rare examples now extant of Singhalese coins, one of the most remarkable bears the name of Leela-Wattee.--_Numismatic Chronicle, 1853. Papers on some Coins of Ceylon, by_ W.S.W. Vaux, _Esq_., p. 126.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1211.] Within thirty years from the decease of Prakrama Bahu, the kingdom was reduced to such an extremity of weakness by contentions amongst the royal family, and by the excesses of their partisans, that the vigilant Malabars seized the opportunity to land with an army of 24,000 men, reconquered the whole of the island, and Magha, their leader, became king of Ceylon A.D. 1211.[1] [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 256.] The adventurers who invaded Ceylon on this occasion came not from Chola or Pandya, as before, but from Calinga, that portion of the Dekkan which now forms the Northern Circars. Their domination was marked by more than ordinary cruelty, and the _Mahawanso_ and _Rajaratnacari_ describe with painful elaboration the extinction of Buddhism, the overthrow of temples, the ruin of dagobas, the expulsion of priests, and the occupation of their dwellings by Damilos, the outrage of castes, the violation of property, and the torture of its possessors to extract the disclosure of their treasures, "till the whole island resembled a dwelling in flames or a house darkened by funeral rites."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxix.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 93; _Rajavali_, p. 256.] [Illustration] [Sidenote: A.D. 1211.] On all former occasions Rohuna and the South had been comparatively free from the actual presence of the enemy, but in this instance they established themselves at Mahagam[1], and thence to Jaffnapatam, every province in the island was brought under subjection to their rule. [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, 257.] The peninsula of Jaffna and the extremity of the island north of Adam's Bridge, owing to its proximity to the Indian coast, was at all times the district most infested by the Malabars. Jambukola, the modern Colombogam, is the port which is rendered memorable in the _Mahawanso_ by the departure of embassies and the arrival of relics from the Buddhist countries, and Mantotte, to the north of Manaar, was the landing place of the innumerable expeditions which sailed from Chola and Pandya for the subjugation of Ceylon. The Tamils have a tradition that, prior to the Christian era, Jaffna was colonised by Malabars, and that a Cholian prince assumed the government, A.D. 101,--a date which corresponds closely with the second Malabar invasion recorded in the _Mahawanso_. Thence they extended their authority over the adjacent country of the Wanny, as far south as Mantotte and Manaar, "fortified their frontiers and stationed wardens and watchers to protect themselves from invasion."[1] The successive bands of marauders arriving from the coast had thus on every occasion a base for operations, and a strong force of sympathisers to cover their landing; and from the inability of the Singhalese to offer an effectual resistance, those portions of the island were from a very early period practically abandoned to the Malabars, whose descendants at the present day form the great bulk of its population. [Footnote 1: See a paper on the early History of Jaffna by S. CASIE CHITTY, _Journal of the Royal Asiat. Society of Ceylon, 1847_, p. 68.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1235.] After an interval of twenty years, Wijayo Bahu III., A.D. 1235, collected as many Singhalese followers as enabled him to recover a portion of the kingdom, and establish himself in Maya, within which he built a capital at Jambudronha or Dambedenia, fifty miles to the north of the present Colombo. The Malabars still retained possession of Pihiti and defended their frontier by a line of forts drawn across the island from Pollanarrua to Ooroototta on the western coast.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxx. lxxxii.; _Rajaratnacuri_, pp. 94, 94; _Rajavali_, p.258.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1266.] Thirty years later Pandita Prakrama Bahu III, A.D. 1266, effected a further dislodgment of the enemy in the north; but Ceylon, which possessed "The fatal gift of beauty, that became A funeral dower of present woes and past," was destined never again to be free from the evils of foreign invasion; a new race of marauders from the Malayan peninsula were her next assailants[1]; and these were followed at no very long interval by a fresh expedition from the coast of India.[2] [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, pp. 256, 260. A second Malay landing is recorded in the reign of Prakrama III., A.D. 1267.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxxii.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1303.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1319.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1347.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1410.] Having learned by experience the exposure and insecurity of the successive capitals, which had been built by former sovereigns in the low lands, this king founded the city of Kandy, then called Siriwardanapura, amongst the mountains of Maya[1], to which he removed the sacred _dalada_, and the other treasures of the crown. But such precautions came too late: to use the simile of the native historian, they were "fencing the field whilst the oxen were within engaged in devouring the corn."[2] The power of the Malabars had become so firmly rooted, and had so irresistibly extended itself, that, one after another, each of the earlier capitals was abandoned to them, and the seat of government carried further towards the south. Pollanarrua had risen into importance in the eighth and ninth centuries, when Anarajapoora was found to be no longer tenable against the strangers. Dambedenia was next adopted, A.D. 1235 as a retreat from Pollanarrua; and this being deemed insecure, was exchanged, A.D. 1303, for Yapahu in the Seven Corles. Here the Pandyan marauders followed in the rear of the retreating sovereign[3], surprised the new capital, and carried off the dalada relic to the coast of India. After its recovery Yapahu was deserted, A.D. 1319. Kornegalle or Kurunaigalla, then called Hastisailapoora and Gampola[4], still further to the south and more deeply intrenched amongst the Kandyan mountains, were successively chosen for the royal residence, A.D. 1347. Thence the uneasy seat of government was carried to Peradenia, close by Kandy, and its latest migration, A.D. 1410, was to Jaya-wardana-pura, the modern Cotta, a few miles east of Colombo. [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 104; _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxxiii.] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 82.] [Footnote 3: A.D. 1303.] [Footnote 4: Gampola or Gam-pala, _Ganga-siripura_, "the beautiful city near the river," is said in the _Rajaratnacari_ to have been built by one of the brothers-in-law of Panduwaasa, B.C. 504.] Such frequent removals are evidences of the alarm and despondency excited by the forays and encroachments of the Malabars, who from their stronghold at Jaffna exercised undisputed dominion over the northern coasts on both sides of the island, and, secure in the possession of the two ancient capitals, Anarajapoora and Pollanarrua, spread over the rich and productive plains of the north. To the present hour the population of the island retains the permanent traces of this alien occupation of the ancient kingdom of Pihiti. The language of the north of the island, from Chilaw on the west coast to Batticaloa on the east, is chiefly, and in the majority of localities exclusively, Tamil; whilst to the south of the Dederaoya and the Mahawelli-ganga, in the ancient divisions of Rohuna and Maya, the vernacular is uniformly Singhalese. [Sidenote: A.D. 1410.] Occasionally, after long periods of inaction, collisions took place; or the Singhalese kings equipped expeditions against the north; but the contest was unequal; and in spite of casual successes, "the king of the Ceylonese Malabars," as he is styled in the _Rajavali_, held his court at Jaffnapatam, and collected tribute from both the high and the low countries, whilst the south of the island was subdivided into a variety of petty kingdoms, the chiefs of which, at Yapahu, at Kandy, at Gampola, at Matura, Mahagam, Matelle, and other places[1], acknowledged the nominal supremacy of the sovereign at Cotta, with whom, however, they were necessarily involved in territorial quarrels, and in hostilities provoked by the withholding of tribute. [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 263; _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxxvii.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1410.] It was during this period that an event occurred, which is obscurely alluded to in some of the Singhalese chronicles, but is recorded with such minute details in several of the Chinese historical works, as to afford a reliable illustration of the condition of the island and its monarchy in the fifteenth century. Prior to that time the community of religion between Ceylon and China, and the eagerness of the latter country to extend its commerce, led to the establishment of an intercourse which has been elsewhere described[1]; missions were constantly despatched charged with an interchange of courtesies between their sovereigns; theologians and officers of state arrived in Ceylon empowered to collect information regarding the doctrines of Buddha; and envoys were sent in return bearing royal donations of relics and sacred books. The Singhalese monarchs, overawed by the magnitude of the imperial power, were induced to avow towards China a sense of dependency approaching to homage; and the gifts which they offered are all recorded in the Chinese annals as so many "payments of tribute." At length, in the year 1405 A.D,[2], during the reign of the emperor Yung-lo[3] of the Ming dynasty, a celebrated Chinese commander, Ching-Ho, having visited Ceylon as the bearer of incense and offerings, to be deposited at the shrine of Buddha, was waylaid, together with his followers, by the Singhalese king, Wijayo Bahu VI., and with difficulty effected an escape to his ships. To revenge this treacherous affront Ching-Ho was despatched a few years afterwards with a considerable fleet and a formidable military force, which the king (whom the Chinese historian calls A-lee-ko-nae-wih) prepared to resist; but by a vigorous effort Ho and his followers succeeded in seizing the capital, and bore off the sovereign, together with his family, as prisoners to China. He presented them to the emperor, who, out of compassion, ordered them to be sent back to their country on the condition that "the wisest of the family should be chosen king." "_Seay-pa-nea-na_"[4] was accordingly elected, and this choice being confirmed, he was sent to his native country, duly provided with a seal of investiture, as a vassal of the empire under the style of Sri Prakrama Bahu VI.,--and from that period till the reign of Teen-shun, A.D. 1434-1448, Ceylon continued to pay an annual tribute to China. [Footnote 1: See Part v. ch. iii.] [Footnote 2: The narrative in the text is extracted from the _Ta-tsing-yi-tung_, a "Topographical Account of the Manchoo Empire," written in the seventeenth century, to a copy of which, in the British Museum, my attention was directed by the erudite Chinese scholar, Mr. MEADOWS, author of "_The Chinese and their Rebellions_." The story of this Chinese expedition to Ceylon will also be found in the _Se-yih-ké-foo-choo_, "A Description of Western Countries," A.D. 1450; the _Woo heo-pecu_, "A Record of the Ming Dynasty," A.D. 1522, b. lviii. p. 3, and in the _Ming-she_, "A History of the Ming Dynasty," A.D. 1739, cccxxvi. p. 2. For a further account of this event see Part v. of this work; ch. iii.] [Footnote 3: The _Ming-she_ calls the Emperor "Ching-tsoo."] [Footnote 4: So called in the Chinese original.] From the beginning of the 13th century to the extinction of the Singhalese dynasty in the 18th, the island cannot be said to have been ever entirely freed from the presence of the Malabars. Even when temporarily subdued, they remained with forced professions of loyalty; Damilo soldiers were taken into pay by the Singhalese sovereigns; the dewales of the Hindu worship were built in close contiguity to the wiharas of Buddhism, and by frequent intermarriages the royal line was almost as closely allied to the kings of Chola and Pandya as to the blood of the Suluwanse.[1] [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p.261, 262. In A.D. 1187 on the death or Mahindo V., the second in succession from the great Prakrama, the crown devolved upon Kirti Nissanga, who was summoned from Calinga on the Coromandel Coast. On the extinction of the recognised line of Suluwanse in A.D. 1706, a prince from Madura, who was merely a connection by marriage, succeeded to the throne. The King Raja Singha, who detained Knox in captivity, A.D. 1640, was married to a Malabar princess. In fact, the four last kings of Ceylon, prior to its surrender to Great Britain, were pure Malabars, without a trace of Singhalese blood.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1505.] It was in this state of exhaustion, that the Singhalese were brought into contact with Europeans, during the reign of Dharma Prakrama IX, when the Portuguese, who had recently established themselves in India, appeared for the first time in Ceylon, A.D. 1505. The paramount sovereign was then living at Cotta; and the _Rajavali_ records the event in the following terms:--"And now it came to pass that in the Christian year 1522 A.D., in the month of April, a ship from Portugal arrived at Colombo, and information was brought to the king, that there were in the harbour a race of very white and beautiful people, who wear boots and hats of iron, and never stop in one place. They eat a sort of white stone, and drink blood; and if they get a fish they give two or three _ridé_ in gold for it; and besides, they have guns with a noise louder than thunder, and a ball shot from one of them, after traversing a league, will break a castle of marble."[1] [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, Upham's version, p. 278.] Before proceeding to recount the intercourse of the islanders with these civilised visitors, and the grave results which followed, it will be well to cast a glance over the condition of the people during the period which preceded, and to cull from the native historians such notices of their domestic and social position as occur in passages intended by the Singhalese annalists to chronicle only those events which influenced the national worship, or the exploits of those royal personages, who earned immortality by their protection of Buddhism. PART IV. * * * * * SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS OF THE ANCIENT SINGHALESE. CHAPTER I POPULATION.--CASTE.--SLAVERY AND RAJA-KARIYA. POPULATION.--In no single instance do the chronicles of Ceylon mention the precise amount of the population of the island, at any particular period; but there is a sufficiency of evidence, both historical and physical, to show that it must have been prodigious and dense, especially in the reigns of the more prosperous kings. Whatever limits to the increase of man artificial wants may interpose in a civilised state and in ordinary climates are unknown in a tropical region, where clothing is an encumbrance, the smallest shelter a home, and sustenance supplied by the bounty of the soil in almost spontaneous abundance. Under such propitious circumstances, in the midst of a profusion of fruit-bearing-trees, and in a country replenished by a teeming harvest twice, at least, in each year, with the least possible application of labour; it may readily be conceived that the number of the people will be adjusted mainly, if not entirely, by the extent of arable land. The emotion of the traveller of the present time, as day after day he traverses the northern portions of the island, and penetrates the deep forests of the interior, is one of unceasing astonishment at the inconceivable multitude of deserted tanks, the hollows of which are still to be traced; and the innumerable embankments, overgrown with timber, which indicate the sites of vast reservoirs that formerly fertilised districts now solitary and barren. Every such tank is the landmark of one village at least, and such are the dimensions of some of them that in proportion to their area, it is probable that hundreds of villages may have been supported by a single one of these great inland lakes. The labour necessary to construct one of these gigantic works for irrigation is in itself an evidence of local density of population; but their multiplication by successive kings, and the constantly recurring record of district after district brought under cultivation in each successive reign[1], demonstrate the steady increase of inhabitants, and the multitude of husbandmen whose combined and sustained toil was indispensable to keep these prodigious structures in productive activity. [Footnote 1: The practice of recording the formation of tanks for irrigation by the sovereign is not confined to the chronicles of Ceylon. The construction of similar works on the continent of India has been commemorated in the same manner by the native historians. The memoirs of the Rajas of Orissa show the number of tanks made and wells dug in every reign.] The _Rajavali_ relates that in the year 1301 A.D. King Prakrama III, on the eve of his death, reminded his sons, that having conquered the Malabars, he had united under one rule the three kingdoms of the island, Pihiti with 450,000 villages, Rohuna with 770,000, and Maya with 250,000.[1] A village in Ceylon, it must be observed, resembles a "town" in the phraseology of Scotland, where the smallest collection of houses, or even a single farmstead with its buildings is enough to justify the appellation. In the same manner, according to the sacred ordinances which regulate the conduct of the Buddhist priesthood, a "solitary house, if there be people, must be regarded as a village,"[2] and all beyond it is the forest. [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_ p. 262. A century later in the reign or Prakrama-Kotta, A.D. 1410, the _Rajaratnacari_ says, there then were 256,000 villages in the province of Matura, 495,000 in that of Jaffna, and 790,000 in Oovah.--P. 112.] [Footnote 2: Hardy's _Eastern Monachism_, ch. xiii. p. 133.] Even assuming that the figures employed by the author of the _Rajavali_ partake of the exaggeration common to all oriental narratives, no one who has visited the regions now silent and deserted, once the homes of millions, can hesitate to believe that when the island was in the zenith of its prosperity, the population of Ceylon must of necessity have been at least ten times as great as it is at the present day. The same train of thought leads to a clearer conception of the means by which this dense population was preserved, through so many centuries, in spite of frequent revolutions and often recurring invasions; as well as of the causes which led to its ultimate disappearance, when intestine decay had wasted the organisation on which the fabric of society rested. Cultivation, as it existed in the north of Ceylon, was almost entirely dependent on the store of water preserved in each village tank; and it could only be carried on by the combined labour of the whole local community, applied in the first instance to collect and secure the requisite supply for irrigation, and afterwards to distribute it to the rice lands, which were tilled by the united exertions of the inhabitants, amongst whom the crop was divided in due proportions. So indispensable were concord and union in such operations, that injunctions for their maintenance were sometimes engraven on the rocks, as an inperishable exhortation, to forbearance and harmony.[1] [Footnote 1: See the inscription on the rock of Mihintala, A. D. 262, TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, Appendix, p. 90; and a similar one on a rock at Pollanarrua, ibid., p, 92.] Hence, in the recurring convulsions which overthrew successive dynasties, and transferred the crown to usurpers, with a facile rapidity, otherwise almost unintelligible, it is easy to comprehend that the mass of the people had the strongest possible motives for passive submission, and were constrained to acquiescence by an instinctive dread of the fatal effects of prolonged commotion. If interrupted in their industry, by the dread of such events, they retired till the storm had blown over, and returned, after each temporary dispersion, to resume possession of the lands and their village tank. The desolation which now reigns over the plains which the Singhalese formerly tilled, was precipitated by the reckless domination of the Malabars, in the fourteenth and following centuries. The destruction of reservoirs and tanks has been ascribed to defective construction, and to the absence of spill-waters, and other facilities for discharging the surplus-water, during the prevalence of excessive rains; but independently of the fact that vast numbers of these tanks, though utterly deserted, remain, in this respect, almost uninjured to the present day, we have the evidence of their own native historians, that for upwards of fifteen centuries, the reservoirs, when duly attended to, successfully defied all the dangers to be apprehended from inundation. Their destruction and abandonment are ascribable, not so much to any engineering defect, as to the disruption of the village communities, by whom they were so long maintained. The ruin of a reservoir, when neglected and permitted to fall into decay, was speedy and inevitable; and as the destruction of the village tank involved the flight of all dependent upon it, the water, once permitted to escape, carried pestilence and miasma over the plains they had previously covered with plenty. After such a calamity any partial return of the villagers, even where it was not prevented by the dread of malaria, would have been impracticable; for the obvious reason, that where the whole combined labour of the community was not more than sufficient to carry on the work of conservancy and cultivation, the diminished force of a few would have been utterly unavailing, either to effect the reparation of the watercourses, or to restore the system on which the culture of rice depends. Thus the process of decay, instead of a gradual decline as in other countries, became sudden and utter desolation in Ceylon. From such traces as are perceptible in the story of the earliest immigrants, it is obvious that in their domestic habits and civil life they brought with them and perpetuated in Ceylon the same pursuits and traits which characterised the Aryan races that had colonised the valley of the Ganges. The Singhalese Chronicles abound, like the ancient Vedas, with allusions to agriculture and herds, to the breeding of cattle and the culture of grain. They speak of village communities and of their social organisation, as purely patriarchal. Women were treated with respect and deference; and as priestesses and queens they acquired a prominent place in the national esteem. Rich furniture was used in dwellings and costly textures for dress; but these were obtained from other nations, whose ships resorted to the island, whilst its inhabitants, averse to intercourse with foreigners, and ignorant of navigation, held the pursuits of the merchant in no esteem. _Caste_.--Amongst the aboriginal inhabitants _caste_ appears to have been unknown, although after the arrival of Wijayo and his followers the system in all its minute subdivisions, and slavery, both domestic and prædial, prevailed throughout the island. The Buddhists, as dissenters, who revolted against the arrogant pretensions of the Brahmans, embodied in their doctrines a protest against caste under any modification. But even after the conversion of the Singhalese to Buddhism, and their acceptance of the faith at the hands of Mahindo, caste as a national institution was found too obstinately established to be overthrown by the Buddhist priesthood; and reinforced, as its supporters were, by subsequent intercourse with the Malabars, it has been perpetuated to the present time, as a conventional and social, though no longer as a sacred institution. Practically, the Singhalese ignore three of the great classes, theoretically maintained by the Hindus; among them there are neither Brahmans, Vaisyas, nor Kshastryas; and at the head of the class which they retain, they place the _Goi-wanse_ or _Vellalas_, nominally "tillers of the soil." In earlier times the institution seems to have been recognised in its entirety, and in the glowing description given in the _Mahawanso_ of the planting of the great Bo-tree, "the sovereign the lord of chariots directed that it should be lifted by the four high caste tribes and by eight persons of each of the other castes."[1] In later times the higher ranks are seldom spoken of in the historical books but by specific titles, but frequent allusion is made to the Chandalas, the lowest of all, who were degraded to the office of scavengers and carriers of corpses.[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xix. p. 116.] [Footnote 2: Ibit., ch. x. p. 66. The Chandala in one of the Jatakas is represented as "one born in the open air, his parents not being possessed of a roof; and as he lies amongst the pots when his mother goes to cut fire-wood, he is suckled by the bitch along with her pups."--HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. iii. p. 80.] _Slavery_.--The existence of slavery is repeatedly referred to, and in the absence of any specific allusion to its origin in Ceylon, it must be presumed to have been borrowed from India. As the Sudras, according to the institutes of Menu, were by the laws of caste consigned to helpless bondage, so slavery in Ceylon was an attribute of race[1]; and those condemned to it were doomed to toil from their birth, with no requital other than the obligation on the part of their masters to maintain them in health, to succour them in sickness, and apportion their burdens to their strength.[2] And although the liberality of theoretical Buddhism threw open, even to the lowest caste, all the privileges of the priesthood, the slave alone was repulsed, on the ground that his admission would deprive the owner of his services.[3] [Footnote 1: In later times, slavery was not confined to the low castes; insolvents could be made slaves by their creditors--the chief frequently buying the debt, and attaching the debtor to his followers. The children of freemen, by female slaves, followed the status of their mothers.] [Footnote 2: HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. x. p. 482.] [Footnote 3: HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. iv. p. 18.] Like other property, slaves could be possessed by the Buddhist monasteries, and inscriptions, still existing upon the rocks of Mihintala and Dambool, attest the capacity of the priests to receive them as gifts, and to require that as slaves they should be exempted from taxation. Unrelaxed in its assertion of abstract right, but mitigated in the forms of its practical enforcement, slavery endured in Ceylon till extinguished by the fiat of the British Government in 1845.[1] In the northern and Tamil districts of the island, its characteristics differed considerably from its aspect in the south and amongst the Kandyan mountains. In the former, the slaves were employed in the labours of the field and rewarded with a small proportion of the produce; but amongst the pure Singhalese, slavery was domestic rather than prædial, and those born to its duties were employed less as the servants, than as the suite of the Kandyan chiefs. Slaves swelled the train of their retainers on all occasions of display, and had certain domestic duties assigned to them, amongst which was the carrying of fire-wood, and the laying out of the corpse after death. The strongest proof of the general mildness of their treatment in all parts of the island, is derived from the fact, that when in 1845, Lord Stanley, now the Earl of Derby, directed the final abolition of the system, slavery was extinguished in Ceylon without a claim for compensation on the part of the proprietors. [Footnote 1: An account of slavery in Ceylon, and the proceedings for its suppression, will be found in PRIDHAM'S _Ceylon_, vol. i. p. 223.] _Compulsory Labour_.--Another institution, to the influence and operation of which the country was indebted for the construction of the works which diffused plenty throughout every region, was the system of Raja-kariya, by which the king had a right to employ, for public purposes, the compulsory labour of the inhabitants. To what extent this was capable of exaction, or under what safeguards it was enforced in early times, does not appear from the historical books. But on all occasions when tanks were to be formed, or canals cut for irrigation, the _Mahawanso_ alludes--almost in words of course--to the application of Raja-kariya for their construction[1], the people being summoned to the task by beat of drum.[2] [Footnote 1: The inscription engraven on the rock at Mihintala, amongst other regulations for enforcing the observance by the temple tenants of the conditions on which their lands were held, declares that "if a fault be committed by any of the cultivators; the adequate fine shall be assessed according to usage; or in lieu thereof, the delinquent shall be directed _to work at the lake_ in making an excavation not exceeding sixteen cubits in circumference and one cubit deep."-- TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, &c., Appendix, p. 87.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 149.] The only mention of the system which attracts particular attention, is the honour awarded to the most pious of the kings, who, whilst maintaining Raja-kariya as an institution, nevertheless stigmatised it as "oppression" when applied to non-productive objects; and on the occasion of erecting one of the most stupendous of the monuments dedicated to the national faith, felt that the merit of the act would be neutralised, were it to be accomplished by "unrequited" labour.[1] [Footnote 1: Ibid., ch. xxvii. pp. 163, 165. King Tissa, A. D. 201, in imitation of Dutugaimunu. caused the restorations of monuments at the capital "_to be made with paid labour_."--Ibid., ch. xxxvi. p. 226. See ante Vol. I. Pt. III. ch. v. p. 357.] CHAP. II. AGRICULTURE.--IRRIGATION.--CATTLE AND CROPS. AGRICULTURE.--Prior to the arrival of the Bengalis, and even for some centuries after the conquest of Wijayo, before the knowledge of agriculture had extended throughout the island, the inhabitants appear to have subsisted to a great extent by the chase.[1] Hunting the elk and the boar was one of the amusements of the early princes; the "Royal Huntsmen" had a range of buildings erected for their residence at Anarajapoora, B.C. 504[2], and the laws of the chase generously forbade to shoot the deer except in flight.[3] Dogs were trained to assist in the sport[4] and the oppressed aborigines, driven by their conquerors to the forests of Rohuna and Maya, are the subjects of frequent commendation in the pages of the _Mahawanso_, from their singular ability in the use of the bow.[5] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 59; ch, xiv. p. 78; ch. xxiii. p. 142. The hunting of the hare is mentioned 161 B.C. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. p. 141.] [Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. x. p. 66.] [Footnote 3: Ibid., ch. xiv. p. 78. King Devenipiatissa, when descrying the elk which led him to the mountain where Mahindo was seated, exclaimed, "It is not fair to shoot him standing!" he twanged his bowstring and followed him as he fled, See ante, p. 341, n.] [Footnote 4: Ibid., ch. xxviii p. 166.] [Footnote 5: Ibid., ch. xxxiii. pp. 202, 204, &c.] Before the arrival of Wijayo, B.C. 543, agriculture was unknown in Ceylon, and grain, if grown at all, was not systematically cultivated. The Yakkhos, the aborigines, subsisted, as the Veddahs, their lineal descendants, live at the present day, on fruits, honey, and the products of the chase. Rice was distributed by Kuweni to the followers of Wijayo, but it was "rice procured from the wrecked ships of mariners."[l] And two centuries later, so scanty was the production of native grain, that Asoca, amongst the presents which he sent to his ally Devenipiatissa, included "one hundred and sixty loads of hill paddi from Bengal."[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 49.] [Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xi. p. 70.] A Singhalese narrative of the "Planting of the Bo-tree," an English version of which will be found amongst the translations prepared for Sir Alexander Johnston, mentions the fact, that rice was still imported into Ceylon from the Coromandel coast[1] in the second century before Christ. [Footnote 1: UPHAM, _Sacred Books of Ceylon,_ vol. iii. p. 231.] _Irrigation_.--It was to the Hindu kings who succeeded Wijayo, that Ceylon was indebted for the earliest knowledge of agriculture, for the construction of reservoirs, and the practice of irrigation for the cultivation of rice.[1] [Footnote 1: A very able report on irrigation in some of the districts of Ceylon has been recently drawn up by Mr. BAILEY, of the Ceylon Civil Service; but the author has been led into an error in supposing that, "it cannot be to India that we must look for the origin of tanks and canals in Ceylon," and that the knowledge of their construction was derived through "the Arabian and Persian merchants who traded between Egypt and Ceylon." Mr. Bailey rests this conclusion on the assertion that the first Indian canal of which we have any record dates no farther back than the middle of the fourteenth century. There was nothing in common between the shallow canals for distributing the periodical inundation of the Nile over the level lands of Egypt (a country in which rice was little known), and the gigantic embankments by which hills were so connected in Ceylon as to convert the valleys between them into inland lakes; and there was no similarity to render the excavation of the one a model and precedent for the construction of the other. Probably the lake Moeris is what dwells in the mind of those who ascribe proficiency in irrigation to the ancient Egyptians; but although Herodotus asserts it to have been an excavation, _cheiropoiêtoz kai oruktê_ (lib. ii. 149), geologic investigation has shown that Moeris is a natural lake created by the local depression of that portion of the Arsinoite nome. Neither Strabo nor Pliny, who believed it to be artificial, ascribed its origin to anything connected with irrigation, for which, in fact, its level would render it unsuitable. Nature had done so much for irrigation in Egypt, that art was forestalled; and even had it been otherwise, and had the natives of that country been adepts in the science, or capable of teaching it, the least qualified imparters of engineering knowledge would have been the Arab and Persian mariners, whose lives were spent in coasting the shores of the Indian Ocean. It is true that in Arabia itself, at a very early period, there is the tradition of the great artificial lake of Aram, in Yemen, about the time of Alexander the Great (SALE'S _Koran_, Introd. p.7); and evidence still more authentic shows that the practice of artificial irrigation was one of the earliest occupations of the human race. The Scriptures; in enumerating the descendants of Shem, state that "unto Eber were born two sons, and the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided." (_Genesis,_ ch. x. ver. 25.) In this passage according to CYRIL C. GRAHAM, the term _Peleg_ has a profounder meaning, and the sentence should have been translated--"_for in his days the earth was cut into canals" (Cambridge Essay_,1858.) But historical testimony exists which removes all obscurity from the inquiry as to who were the instructors of the Singhalese. The most ancient books of the Hindus show that the practice of canal-making was understood in India at as early a period as in Egypt. Canals are mentioned in the _Rayamana_, the story of which belongs to the dimmest antiquity; and when Baratha, the half-brother of Rama, was about to search for him in the Dekkan, his train is described as including "labourers, with carts, bridge-builders, carpenters, and diggers of canals." (_Ramayana_, CARY'S Trans., vol. iii. p. 228.) The _Mahawanso,_ removes all doubt as to the person by whom the Singhalese were instructed in forming works for irrigation, by naming the Brahman engineer contemporary with the construction of the earliest tanks in the fourth century before the Christian era. (_Mahawanso_, ch. x.) Somewhat later, B.C. 262, the inscription on the rock at Mihintala ascribes to the Malabars the system of managing the water for the rice lands, and directs that "according to the supply of water in the lake, the same shall be distributed to the lands of the wihara _in the manner formerly regulated by the Tamils._" (_Notes to_ TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 90.) To be convinced of the Tamil origin of the tank system which subsists to the present day in Ceylon, it is only necessary to see the tanks of the Southern Dekkan. The innumerable excavated reservoirs or _colams_ of Ceylon will be found to correspond with the _culams_ of Mysore; and the vast _erays_ formed by drawing a bund to intercept the water flowing between two elevated ridges, exhibit the model which has been followed at Pathavie, Kandelai, Menery, and all the huge constructions of Ceylon, But whoever may have been the original instructors of the Singhalese in the formation of tanks, there seems every reason to believe that from their own subsequent experience, and the prodigious extent to which they occupied themselves in the formation of works of this kind, they attained a facility unsurpassed by the people of any other country. It is a curious circumstance in connection with this inquiry, that in the eighth century after Christ, the King of Kashmir despatched messengers to Ceylon to bring back workmen, whom he employed in constructing an artificial lake. (_Raja-Tarangini_, Book iv. sl. 505.) If it were necessary to search beyond India for the origin of cultivation in Ceylon, the Singhalese, instead of borrowing a system from Egypt, might more naturally have imitated the ingenious devices of their own co-religionists in China, where the system of irrigation as pursued in the military colonies of that country has been a theme of admiration in every age of their history. (See _Journal Asiatique,_ 1850, vol. lvi. pp. 341, 346.) And as these colonies were planted not only in the centre of the empire but on its north-west extremities towards Kaschgar and the north-east of India, where the new settlers occupied themselves in draining marshes and leading streams to water their arable lands, the probabilities are that their system may have been known and copied by the people of Hindustan.] The first tank in Ceylon was formed by the successor of Wijayo, B.C. 504, and their subsequent extension to an almost incredible number is ascribable to the influence of the Buddhist religion, which, abhorring the destruction of animal life, taught its multitudinous votaries to subsist exclusively upon vegetable food. Hence the planting of gardens, the diffusion of fruit-trees and leguminous vegetables[1], the sowing of dry grain[2], the formation of reservoirs and canals, and the reclamation of land "in situations favourable for irrigation." [Footnote 1: Beans, designated by the term of _Masá_ in the _Mahawanso_, were grown in the second century before Christ, ch, xxiii. p, 140,] [Footnote 2: The "cultivation of a crop of hill rice" is mentioned in the _Mahawanso_ B.C. 77, ch. xxxiv. p. 208.] It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of this system of water cultivation, in a country like the north of Ceylon, subject to periodical droughts. From physical and geological causes, the mode of cultivation in that section of the island differs essentially from that practised in the southern division; and whilst in the latter the frequency of the rains and abundance of rivers afford a copious supply of water, the rest of the country is mainly dependent upon artificial irrigation, and on the quantity of rain collected in tanks; or of water diverted from streams and directed into reservoirs. As has been elsewhere[1] explained, the mountain ranges which tower along the south-western coast, and extend far towards the eastern, serve in both monsoons to intercept the trade winds and condense the vapours with which they are charged, thus ensuring to those regions a plentiful supply of rain. Hence the harvests in those portions of the island are regulated by the two monsoons, the _yalla_ in May and the _maha_ in November; and seed-time is adjusted so as to take advantage of the copious showers which fall at those periods. [Footnote 1: See Vol. I. Part I. ch. ii p. 67.] But in the northern portions of Ceylon, owing to the absence of mountains, this natural resource cannot be relied on. The winds in both monsoons traverse the island without parting with a sufficiency of moisture; droughts are of frequent occurrence and of long continuance; and vegetation in the low and scarcely undulated plains is mainly dependent on dews and whatever damp is distributed by the steady sea-breeze. In some places the sandy soil rests upon beds of madrepore and coral rock, through which the scanty rain percolates too quickly to refresh the soil; and the husbandman is entirely dependent upon wells and village tanks for the means of irrigation. In a region exposed to such vicissitudes the risk would have been imminent and incessant, had the population been obliged to rely on supplies of dry grain alone, the growth of which must necessarily have been precarious, owing to the possible failure or deficiency of the rains. Hence frequent famines would have been inevitable in those seasons of prolonged dryness and scorching heat, when "the sky becomes as brass and the earth as iron." What an unspeakable blessing that against such, calamities a security should have been found by the introduction of a grain calculated to germinate under water; and that a perennial supply of the latter, not only adequate for all ordinary purposes, but sufficient to guard against extraordinary emergencies of the seasons, should have been provided by the ingenuity of the people, aided by the bounteous care of their sovereigns. It is no matter of surprise that the kings who devoted their treasures and their personal energies to the formation of tanks and canals have entitled their memory to traditional veneration, as benefactors of their race and country. In striking contrast, it is the pithy remark of the author of the _Rajavali_, mourning over the extinction of the Great Dynasty and the decline of the country, that "_because the fertility of the land was decreased_ the kings who followed were no longer of such consequence as those who went before."[1] [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 238] Simultaneously with the construction of works for the advancement of agriculture, the patriarchal village system, copied from that which existed from the earliest ages in India[1], was established in the newly settled districts; and each hamlet, with its governing "headman" its artisans, its barber, its astrologer and washerman, was taught to conduct its own affairs by its village council; to repair its tanks and watercourses, and to collect two harvests in each year by the combined labour of the whole village community. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p.67.] Between the agricultural system of the mountainous districts and that of the lowlands, there was at all times the same difference which still distinguishes the tank cultivation of Neuera-kalawa and the Wanny from the hanging rice lands of the Kandyan hills. In the latter, reservoirs are comparatively rare, as the natives rely on the certainty of the rains, which seldom fail at their due season in those lofty regions. Streams are conducted by means of channels ingeniously carried round the spurs of the hills and along the face of acclivities, so as to fertilise the fields below, which in the technical phrase of the Kandyans are "_assoedamised_" for the purpose; that is, formed into terraces, each protected by a shallow ledge over which the superfluous water trickles, from the highest level into that immediately below it; thus descending through all in succession till it escapes in the depths of the valley. For the tillage of the lands with which the temples were so largely endowed in all quarters of the island, the sacred communities had assigned to them certain villages, a portion of whose labour was the property of the wihara[1]: slaves were also appropriated to them, and an instance is mentioned in the fifth century[2], of the inhabitants of a low-caste village having been bestowed on a monastery by the king Aggrabodhi, "in order that the priests might derive their service as slaves."[3] Sharing in a prerogative of royalty, some of the temples had, moreover, a right to the compulsory labour of the community; and in one of the inscriptions carved on the rock at Mihintala, the "Raja-kariya writer" is enumerated in the list of temple officers.[4] The temple lands were occasionally let to tenants whose rent was paid either in "land-fees," or in kind.[5] [Footnote 1: _Ibid_., ch. xxxvii. p. 247.] [Footnote 2: Rock inscriptions at Mihintala and at Dambool.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_ ch, xlii. TURNOUR, MS. translation.] [Footnote 4: TURNOUR'S _Epitome, Appendix,_ p. 88.] [Footnote 5: _Ibid_ pp. 86, 87.] _Farm-stock._--The only farm-stock which appears to have been kept for tillage purposes, were buffaloes, which, then as now, were used in treading the soft mud of the irrigated rice-fields, preparatory to casting in the seed. Cows are alluded to in the _Mahawanso_, but never in connection with labour; and although butter is spoken of, it is only that of the buffalo.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii p. 163.] _Gardens_.--Probably the earliest enclosures attempted in a state of incipient civilisation, were gardens for the exclusion of wild animals from fruit trees and vegetables, when these were first cultivated for the use of man; and to the present day, the frequent occurrence of the termination "_watte_" in the names of places on the map of Ceylon, is in itself an indication of the importance attached to them by the villagers. The term "garden," however, conveys to an European but an imperfect idea of the character and style of these places; which in Ceylon are so similar to the native gardens in the south of India, as to suggest a community of origin. Their leading features are lines of the graceful areca palms, groves of oranges, limes, jak-trees, and bread fruit; and irregular clumps of palmyras and coconuts. Beneath these, there is a minor growth, sometimes of cinnamon or coffee bushes; and always a wilderness of plaintains, guavas and papaws; a few of the commoner flowers; plots of brinjals (egg plants) and other esculents; and the stems of the standard trees are festooned with climbers, pepper vines, tomatas, and betel. _The Coco-nut Palm_.--It is curious and suggestive as regards the coco-nut, which now enters so largely into the domestic economy of the Singhalese, that although it is sometimes spoken of in the _Mahawanso_ (but by no means so often as the palmyra), no allusion is ever made to it as an article of diet, or an element in the preparation of food, nor is it mentioned, before the reign of Prakrama I., A.D. 1153[1], in the list of those fruit-trees, the planting of which throughout the island is repeatedly recorded, as amongst the munificent acts of the Singhalese kings. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii.] As the other species of the same genus of palms are confined to the New World[1], a doubt has been raised whether the coco-nut be indigenous in India, or an importation. If the latter, the first plant must have been introduced anterior to the historic age; and whatever the period at which the tree may have been first cultivated, a time is indicated when it was practically unknown in Ceylon by the fact, that a statue, without date or inscription, is carved in high relief in a niche hollowed out of a rock to the east of Galle, which tradition says is the monument to the Kustia Raja, an Indian prince, whose claim to remembrance is, that he _first_ taught the Singhalese the use of the coco-nut.[2] [Footnote 1: BROWN'S _Notes_ to TUCKEY'S _Expedition to the Congo_, p. 456.] [Footnote 2: The earliest mention of the coco-nut in Ceylon occurs in the _Mahawanso_, which refers to it as known at Rohuna to the south, B. c, 161 ( ch. xxv. p. 140). "The milk of the small red coco-nut" is stated to have been used been used by Dutugaimunu in preparing cement for building the Ruanwellé dagoba (_Mah_. ch. xxx. p. 169). The south-west of the island, and especially the _margin of the sea_ is still the locality in which the tree is found in greatest abundance in Ceylon. Hither, if originally self-sown, it must have been floated and flung ashore by the waves; and as the north-east coast, though washed by a powerful current, is almost altogether destitute of these palms, it is obvious that the coco-nut; if carried by sea from some other shore, must have been brought during the south-west monsoon from the coast near Cape Comorin, ÆLIAN notices as one of the leading peculiarities in the appearance of the sea coast of Ceylon, that the palm trees (by which, as the south of the island was the place of resort, he most probably means the coco-nut palms) grew in regular quincunxes, as if planted by skilful hands in a well ordered garden. [Greek: "HÊ nêsos, hên kalousi Taprobanên, echei phoinikônas men thaumastês pephuteumenous eis stoichon, hôsper oun en tois habrois tôn paradeisôn oi toutôn meledônoi phuteuousi ta dendra ta skiadêphora."]--Lib. xvi. cp. 18. The comparative silence of the _Mahawanso_ in relation to the coco-nut may probably be referable to the fact that its author resided and wrote in the interior of the island; over which, unlike the light seeds of other plants, its ponderous nuts could not have been distributed accidentally, where down to the present time it has been but partially introduced, and nowhere in any considerable number. Its presence throughout Ceylon is always indicative of the vicinity of man, and at a distance from the shore it appears in those places only where it has been planted by his care. The Singhalese believe that the coco-nut will not flourish "unless you walk under it and talk under it:" but its proximity to human habitations is possibly explained by the consideration that if exposed in the forest, it would be liable, when young, to be forced down by the elephants, who delight in its delicate leaves. See DAVY'S _Angler in the Lake Districts, p._ 245.] The mango, the jambo, and several other fruits are particularised, but the historical books make no mention either of the pine-apple or the plantain, which appear to have been of comparatively recent introduction. Pulse is alluded to at an early date under the generic designation of "Masá."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. p. 140.] _Rice and Curry._--Rice in various forms is always spoken of as the food, alike of the sovereign, the priests, and the people; rice prepared plainly, conjee (the water in which rice is boiled), "rice mixed with sugar and honey, and rice dressed with clarified butter."[1] Chillies are now and then mentioned as an additional condiment.[2] The _Rajavali_ speaks of curry in the second century before Christ[3] and the _Mahawanso_ in the fifth century after.[4] [Footnote 1: _Ibid_., ch. xxxii. p. 196.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_., ch. xxv, p. 158; ch. xxvi. p. 160.] [Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, pp. 196, 200, 202.] [Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, TURNOUR'S MS. translation, ch. xxxix. KNOX says that curry is a Portuguese word, _carré_ (_Relation_, &c., part i. ch. iv. p. 12), but this is a misapprehension. Professor H.H. WILSON, in a private letter to me, says, "In Hindustan we are accustomed to consider 'curry' to be derived from, _tarkari_, a general term for esculent vegetables, but it is probably the English version of the Kanara and Malayalam _kadi_; pronounced with a hard _r_, 'kari' or 'kuri,' which means sour milk with rice boiled, which was originally used for such compounds as curry at the present day. The Karnata _majkke-kari_ is a dish of rice, sour milk, spices, red pepper, &c, &c."] Although the taking of life is sternly forbidden in the ethical code of Buddha, and the most prominent of the obligations undertaken by the priesthood is directed to its preservation even in the instances of insects and animalculæ, casuistry succeeded so far as to fix the crime on the slayer, and to exonerate the individual who merely partook of the flesh.[1] Even the inmates of the wiharas and monasteries discovered devices for the saving of conscience, and curried rice was not rejected in consequence of the animal ingredients incorporated with it. The mass of the population were nevertheless vegetarians, and so little value did they place on animal food, that according to the accounts furnished to EDRISI by the Arabian seamen returning from Ceylon, "a sheep sufficient to regale an assembly was to be bought there for half a drachm."[2] [Footnote 1: HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism,_ ch. iv. p. 24; ch. ix. p. 92; ch. xvi. p. 158. HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. vii. p. 327.] [Footnote 2: EDRISI; _Géographie_, &c., tom. i. p. 73.] _Betel_--In connection with a diet so largely composed of vegetable food, arose the custom, which to the present day is universal in Ceylon,--of chewing the leaves of the betel vine, accompanied with lime and the sliced nut of the areca palm.[1] The betel (_piper betel_), which is now universally cultivated for this purpose, is presumed to have been introduced from some tropical island, as it has nowhere been found indigenous in continental India.[2] In Ceylon, its use is mentioned as early as the fifth century before Christ, when "betel leaves" formed the present sent by a princess to her lover.[3] In a conflict of Dutugaimunu with the Malabars, B.C. 161, the enemy seeing on his lips the red stain of the betel, mistook it for blood, and spread the false cry that the king had been slain.[4] [Footnote 1: For an account of the medicinal influence of betel-chewing, see Part I. c. iii. § ii. p. 112.] [Footnote 2: ROYLE'S _Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, p._ 85.] [Footnote 3: B. C. 504. _Mahawanso_, ch. ix. p. 57. Dutugaimunu, when building the Ruanwellé dagoba, provided for the labourers amongst other articles "the five condiments used in mastication." This probably refers to the chewing of betel and its accompaniments (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 175). A story is told of the wife of a Singhalese minister, about A. D. 56, who to warn him of a conspiracy, sent him his "betel, &c., for mastication, omitting the chunam," hoping that coming in search of it, he might escape his "impending fate." _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 219.] [Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 221.] Intoxicating liquors are of sufficient antiquity to be denounced in the moral system of Buddhism. The use of toddy and drinks obtained from the fermentation of "bread and flour" is condemned in the laity, and strictly prohibited to the priesthood[1]; but the Arabian geographers mention that in the twelfth century, wine, in defiance of the prohibition, was imported from Persia, and drank by the Singhalese after being flavoured with cardamoms.[2] [Footnote 1: HARDY'S _Buddhism_, e., ch. x. p. 474.] [Footnote 2: EDRISI, _Geographle,_ &c., Trad. JAUBERT, tom. i. p. 73.] CHAP. III EARLY COMMERCE, SHIPPING, AND PRODUCTIONS. TRADE.--At a very early period the mass of the people of Ceylon were essentially agricultural, and the proportion of the population addicted to other pursuits consisted of the small number of handicraftsmen required in a community amongst whom civilisation and refinement were so slightly developed, that the bulk of the inhabitants may be said to have had few wants beyond the daily provision of food. Upon trade the natives appear to have looked at all times with indifference. Other nations, both of the east and west of Ceylon, made the island their halting-place and emporium; the Chinese brought thither the wares destined for the countries beyond the Euphrates, and the Arabians and Persians met them with their products in exchange; but the Singhalese appear to have been uninterested spectators of this busy traffic, in which they can hardly be said to have taken any share. The inhabitants of the opposite coast of India, aware of the natural wealth of Ceylon, participated largely in its development, and the Tamils, who eagerly engaged in the pearl fishery, gave to the gulf of Manaar the name of Salabham, "the sea of gain."[l] [Footnote 1: The Tamils gave the same name to Chilaw, which was the nearest town to the pearl fishery (and which Ibn Batuta calls _Salawat_); and eventually they called the whole island _Salabham_.] _Native Shipping._--The only mention made of native ships in the sacred writings of the Singhalese, is in connection with missions, whether for the promotion of Buddhism, or for the negotiation of marriages and alliances with the princes of India.[1] The building of dhoneys is adverted to as early as the first century, but they were only intended by a devout king to be stationed along the shores of the island, covered by day with white cloths, and by night illuminated with lamps, in order that from them priests, as the royal almoners, might distribute gifts and donations of food.[2] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, App. p. 73.] [Footnote 2: By King Maha Dailiya, A.D. 8. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 211; _Rajavali_, p. 228; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 52.] The genius of the people seems to have never inclined them to a sea-faring life, and the earliest notice which occurs of ships for the defence of the coast, is in connection with the Malabars who were taken into the royal service from their skill in naval affairs.[1] A national marine was afterwards established for this purpose, A.D. 495, by the King Mogallana.[2] In the _Suy-shoo_, a Chinese history of the Suy dynasty, it is stated that in A.D. 607, the king of Ceylon "sent the Brahman Kew-mo-lo with thirty vessels, to meet the approaching ships which conveyed an embassy from China."[3] And in the twelfth century, when Prakrama I. was about to enter on his foreign expeditions, "several hundreds of vessels were equipped for that service within five months."[4] [Footnote 1: B.C. 247. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. p. 127.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xl. TURNOUR'S MS. Transl.] [Footnote 3: _Suy-shoo_, b. lxxxi. p. 3.] [Footnote 4: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, &c., App. p. 73.] It is remarkable that the same apathy to navigation, if not antipathy to it, still prevails amongst the inhabitants of an island, the long sea-borde of which affords facilities for cultivating a maritime taste, did any such exist. But whilst the natives of Hindustan fit out sea-going vessels, and take service as sailors for distant voyages, the Singhalese, though most expert as fishers and boatmen, never embark in foreign vessels, and no instance exists of a native ship, owned, built, or manned by Singhalese. The boats which are in use at the present day, and which differ materially in build at different parts of the island, appear to have been all copied from models supplied by other countries. In the south the curious canoes, which attract the eye of the stranger arriving at Point de Galle by their balance-log and outrigger, were borrowed from the islanders of the Eastern Archipelago; the more substantial canoe called a _ballam_, which is found in the estuaries and shallow lakes around the northern shore, is imitated from one of similar form on the Malabar coast; and the catamaran is common to Ceylon and Coromandel. The awkward dhoneys, built at Jaffna, and manned by Tamils, are imitated from those at Madras; while the Singhalese dhoney, south of Colombo, is but an enlargement of the Galle canoe with its outrigger, so clumsily constructed that the gunwale is frequently topped by a line of wicker-work smeared with clay, to protect the deck front the wash of the sea.[1] [Footnote 1: The gunwale of the boat of Ulysses was raised by hurdles of osiers to keep off the waves. [Greek: Phraxe de min rhipessi diamperes oisuinêsi Kumatos eilar emen pollên d' epecheuato hulên.] _Od._ v. 256.] One peculiarity in the mode of constructing the native shipping of Ceylon existed in the remotest times, and is retained to the present day. The practice is closely connected with one of the most imaginative incidents in the medieval romances of the East Their boats and canoes, like those of the Arabs and other early navigators who crept along the shores of India, are put together without the use of iron nails[1], the planks being secured by wooden bolts, and stitched together with cords spun from the fibre of the coconut.[2] PALLADIUS, a Greek of the lower empire, to whom is ascribed an account of the nations of India, written in the fifth century[3], adverts to this peculiarity of construction, and connects it with the phenomenon which forms so striking an incident in one of the tales in the _Arabian Nights' Entertainments_. In the story of the "Three Royal Mendicants," the "Third Calender," as he is called in the old translation, relates to the ladies of Bagdad, in whose house he is entertained, how he and his companions lost their course, when sailing in the Indian Ocean, and found themselves in the vicinity of "the mountain of loadstone towards which the current carried them with violence, and when the ships approached it they fell asunder, and the nails and everything that was of iron flew from them towards the loadstone." [Footnote 1: DELAURIER, Études sur la "_Relation des voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans l'Inde." Journ. Asiat._ tom. xlix. p. 137. See also MALTE BRUN, _Hist. de Géogr._ tom. i. p. 409, with the references to the Periplus Mar. Erythr., Strabo, Procopius, &c. GIBBON, _Decl. and Fall_, vol. v. ch. xl.] [Footnote 2: Boats thus sewn together existed at an early period on the coast of Arabia as well as of Ceylon. Odoric of Friuli saw them at Ormus in the fourteenth century (_Hakluyt_, vol. ii. p. 35); and the construction of ships without iron was not peculiar to the Indian seas, as Homer mentions that the boat built by Ulysses was put together with woolen pegs, [Greek: _gomphoisin_], instead of bolts. _Odys_. v. 249.] [Footnote 3: The tract alluded to is usually known as tne treatise _de Moribus Brachmanorum_, and ascribed to St. Ambrose. For an account of it see Vol. I. Pt. v. ch. i. p. 538.] The learned commentator, LANE, says that several Arab writers describe this mountain of loadstone, and amongst others he instances El Caswini, who lived in the latter half of the thirteenth century.[1] EDRISI, the Arab geographer, likewise alludes to it; but the invention belongs to an earlier age, and Palladius, in describing Ceylon, says that the magnetic rock is in the adjacent islands called Maniolæ (Maldives?), and that ships coming within the sphere of its influence are irresistibly drawn towards it, and lose all power of progress except in its direction. Hence it is essential, he adds, that vessels sailing for Ceylon _should be fastened with wooden instead of iron bolts_.[2] [Footnote 1: LANE'S _Arabian Nights_, vol. i. ch. iii, p. 72, p. 242.] [Footnote 2: [Greek: "Esti de idikôs ta diaperônta ploia eis ekeinên tên megalên nêson aneu sidêrou epiouriois xylinois kataskeuasmena"]--PALLADIUS, in _Pseudo-Callisthenes_, lib. iii. c. vii. But the fable of the loadstone mountain is older than either the Arabian sailors or the Greeks of the lower empire. Aristotle speaks of a magnetic mountain on the coast of India, and Pliny repeats the story, adding that "si sint clavi in calciamentis, vestigia avelli in altero non posse in altero sisti."--Lib. ii. c. 98, lib. xxxvi. c. 25. Ptolemy recounts a similar fable in his geography. Klaproth, in his _Lettre sur la Boussole_, says that this romantic belief was first communicated to the West from China. "Les anciens auteurs Chinois parlent aussi de montagnes magnétiques de la mer méridionale sur les côtes de Tonquin et de la Cochin Chine; et disent que si les vaisseaux étrangers qui sont garnis de plaques de fer s'en approchent ils y sont arrètés et aucun d'eux ne peut passer par ces endroits."--KLAPROTH, _Lett._ v. p. 117, quoted by SANTAREM, _Essai sur l'Histo. de Cosmogr._, vol. i. p. 182.] Another peculiarity of the native craft on the west coast of Ceylon is their construction with a prow at each extremity, a characteristic which belongs also to the Massoula boats of Madras, as well as to others on the south of India. It is a curious illustration of the abiding nature of local usages when originating in necessities and utility, that STRABO, in describing the boats in which the traffic was carried on between Taprobane and the continent, says they were "built with prows at each end, but without holds or keels."[1] [Footnote 1: [Greek: "Kateskeuasmenas de amphoterôthen enkoiliôn mêtrôn chôris."]--Lib xv. c. i. s. 14. Pliny, who makes the same statement, says the Singhalese adopted this model to avoid the necessity of tacking in the narrow and shallow channels, between Ceylon and the mainland of India (lib. vi. c. 24).] In connection with foreign trade the _Mahawanso_ contains repeated allusions to ships wrecked upon the coast of Ceylon[1], and amongst the remarkable events which signalised the season, already rendered memorable by the birth of Dutugaimunu, B.C. 204, was the "arrival on the same day of seven ships laden with golden utensils and other goods;"[2] and as these were brought by order of the king to Mahagam, then the capital of Rohuna, the incident is probably referable to the foreign trade which was then carried on in the south of the island[3] by the Chinese and Arabians, and in which, as I have stated, the native Singhalese took no part. [Footnote 1: B.C. 543. _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 49: B.C. 306. Ibid. ch. xi. p. 68, &c.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxii. p. 135.] [Footnote 3: The first direct intimation of trading carried on by native Singhalese, along the coast of Ceylon, occurs in the _Rajavali_, but not till the year A.D. 1410,--the king, who had made Cotta his capital, being represented as "loading a vessel with goods and sending it to Jaffna, to carry on commerce with his son."--_Rajavali_, p. 289.] Still, notwithstanding their repugnance to intercourse with strangers, the Singhalese were not destitute of traffic amongst themselves, and their historical annals contain allusions to the mode in which it was conducted. Their cities exhibited rows of shops and bazaars[1], and the country was traversed by caravans much in the same manner as the drivers of _tavalams_ carry goods at the present day between the coast and the interior.[2] [Footnote 1: B.C. 204, a visitor to Anarajapoora is described as "purchasing aromatic drugs from the bazaars, and departing by the Northern Gate" (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. p. 139); and A.D. 8, the King Maha Dathika "ranged shops on each side of the streets of the capital."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 213.] [Footnote 2: B.C. 170. _Mahawanso_ ch. xxii. p. 138.] Whatever merchandise was obtained in barter from foreign ships, was by this means conveyed to the cities and the capital[1], and the reference to carts which were accustomed to go from Anarajapoora to the division of Malaya, lying round Adam's Peak, "to procure saffron and ginger," implies that at that period (B.C. 165) roads and other facilities for wheel carriages must have existed, enabling them to traverse forests and cross the rivers.[2] [Footnote 1: In the reign of Elala, B.C. 204, the son of "an eminent caravan chief" was despatched to a Brahman, who resided near the Chetiyo mountain (Mihintala), in whose possession there were rich articles, frankincense, sandal-wood, &c., imported from beyond the ocean.--_Mahawanso_ ch. xxiii. p. 138.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_ ch. xxviii. p, 167.] _Early Exports of Ceylon._--The native historians give an account of the exports of Ceylon, which corresponds in all particulars with the records left by the early travellers and merchants, Greek, Roman, Arabian, Indian, and Chinese. They consisted entirely of natural productions, aromatic drugs, gems, pearls, and shells; and it is a strong evidence of the more advanced state of civilisation in India at the same period that, whilst the presents sent from the kings of Ceylon to the native princes of Hindustan and the Dekkan were always of this precious but primitive character, the articles received in return were less remarkable for the intrinsic value of the material, than for the workmanship bestowed upon them. Devenipiatissa sent by his ambassadors to Asoca, B.C. 306, the eight varieties of pearls, viz., _haya_ (the horse), _gaja_ (the elephant), _ratha_ (the chariot wheel), _maalaka_ (the nelli fruit), _valaya_ (the bracelet), _anguliwelahka_ (the ring), _kakudaphala_ (the kabook fruit), and _pakatika_, the ordinary description. He sent sapphires, lapis lazuli[1], and rubies, a right hand chank[2], and three bamboos for chariot poles, remarkable because their natural marking resembled the carvings of flowers and animals. [Footnote 1: Lapis lazuli is not found in Ceylon, and must have been brought by the caravans from Budakshan. It is more than once mentioned in the _Mahawanso_, ch. xi. p. 69; ch. xxx. p. 185.] [Footnote 2: A variety of the _Turbinella rapa_ with the whorls reversed, to which the natives attach a superstitions value; professing that a shell so formed is worth its weight in gold.] The gifts sent by the king of Magadha in return, indicate the advanced state of the arts in Bengal, even at that early period: they were "a chowrie (the royal fly flapper), a diadem, a sword of state, a royal parasol, golden slippers, a crown, an anointing vase, asbestos towels, to be cleansed by being passed through the fire, a costly howdah, and sundry vessels of gold." Along with these was sacred water from the Anotatto lake and from the Ganges, aromatic and medicinal drugs, hill paddi and sandal-wood; and amongst the other items "a virgin of royal birth and of great personal beauty."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_ ch, xi. pp. 69, 70.] _Early Imports_.--Down to a very late period, gems, pearls, and chank shells continued to be the only products taken away from Ceylon, and cinnamon is nowhere mentioned in the Sacred Books as amongst the exports of the island.[1] In return for these exports, slaves, chariots, and horses were frequently transmitted from India. The riding horses and chargers, so often spoken of[2], must necessarily have been introduced from thence, and were probably of Arab blood; but I have not succeeded in discovering to what particular race the "Sindhawa" horses belonged, of which four purely white were harnessed to the state carriage of Dutugaimunu.[3] Gold cloth[4], frankincense, and sandal-wood were brought from India[5], as was also a species of "clay" and of "cloud-coloured stone," which appear to have been used in the construction of dagobas.[6] Silk[7] and vermilion[8] indicate the activity of trade with China; and woollen cloth[9] and carpets[10] with Persia and Kashmir. [Footnote 1: For an account of the earliest trade in cinnamon, see _post_ Part v. ch. ii. on the Knowledge of Ceylon possessed by the Arabians.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxii. p. 134, &c. &c.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid_., ch. xxiii. p. 142; ch. xxxi. p. 186.] [Footnote 4: A.D.459. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 258.] [Footnote 5: _Ibid_, ch. xxiii. p. 138.] [Footnote 6: _Ibid_, ch. xxix. p. 169; ch. xxx. p. 179.] [Footnote 7: _Ibid_., ch. xxiii. p. 139; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 49.] [Footnote 8: _Ibid_, ch. xxix. p. 169; _Rajaratnacari_ p. 51.] [Footnote 9: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 177; _Rajavali_, p. 269. Woollen cloth is described as "most valuable"--an epithet which indicates its rarity, and probably foreign origin.] [Footnote 10: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 82; ch. xv. p. 87; ch. xxv. p. 151; carpets of wool, _ib_. ch. xxvii. p. 164.] _Intercourse with Kashmir._--Possibly the woollen cloths referred to may have been shawls, and there is evidence in the _Rajatarangini_[1], that at a very early period the possession of a common religion led to an intercourse between Ceylon and Kashmir, originating in the sympathies of Buddhism, but perpetuated by the Kashmirians for the pursuit of commerce. In the fabulous period of the narrative, a king of Kashmir is said to have sent to Ceylon for a delicately fine cloth, embroidered with golden footsteps.[2] In the eighth century of the Christian era, Singhalese engineers were sent for to construct works in Kashmir[3]; and Kashmir, according to Troyer, took part in the trade between Ceylon and the West.[4] [Footnote 1: The _Rajatarangini_ resembles the _Mahawanso_, in being a metrical chronicle of Kashmir written at various times by a series of authors, the earliest of whom lived in the 12th century. It has been translated into French by M. Troyer, Paris, 1840.] [Footnote 2: _Rajatarangini_, b. i. sl. 294.] [Footnote 3: _Rajatarangini_, b. iv. sl. 502, &c.] [Footnote 4: "La communication entre Kachmir et Ceylan n'a pas eu lieu seulement par les entreprises guerrières que je viens de rappeler, mais aussi par un commerce paisible; c'est du cette ile que venaient des artistes qu'on appelait Rakchasas à cause du merveilleux de leur art; et qui exécutaient des ouvrages pour l'utilité et pour l'ornement d'un pays montagneux et sujet aux inondations. Ceci confirme ce que nous apprennent les géographes Grecs, que Ceylan, avant et après le commencement de notre ère, était un grand point de réunion pour le commerce de l'Orient et de l'Occident."--_Rajatarangini_, vol. ii. p. 434.] Of the trade between Ceylon and Kashmir and its progress, the account given by Edrisi, the most renowned of the writers on eastern geography, who wrote in the twelfth century[1], is interesting, inasmuch as it may be regarded as a picture of this remarkable commerce, after it had attained its highest development. [Footnote 1: Abou-abd-allah Mahommed was a Moor of the family who reigned over Malaga after the fall of the Kalifat of Cordova, in the early part of the 11th century, and his patronymic of Edrisi or Al Edrissy implies that he was descended from the princes of that race who had previously held supreme power in what is at the present day the Empire of Morocco. He took up his residence in Sicily under the patronage of the Norman king, Roger II., A.D. 1154, and the work on geography which he there composed was not only based on the previous labours of Massoudi, Ibn Haukul, Albyrouni, and others, but it embodied the reports of persons commissioned specially by the king to undertake voyages for the purpose of bringing back correct accounts of foreign countries. See REINAUD'S _Introduction to the Geography of Abulfeda_, p. cxiii.] Edrisi did not write from personal knowledge, as he had never visited either Ceylon or India; but compiling as he did, by command of Roger H., of Sicily, a compendium, of geographical knowledge as it existed in his time, the information which he has systematised may be regarded as a condensation of such facts as the eastern seamen engaged in the Indian trade had brought back with them from Ceylon. "In the mountains around Adam's Peak," says Edrisi, "they collect precious stones of every description, and in the valleys they find those diamonds by means of which they engrave the setting of stones on rings." "The same mountains produce aromatic drugs perfumes, and aloes-wood, and there too they find the animal, the civet, which yields musk. The islanders cultivate rice, coco-nuts, and sugar-cane; in the rivers is found rock crystal, remarkable both for brilliancy and size, and the sea on every side has a fishery of magnificent and priceless pearls. Throughout India there is no prince whose wealth can compare with the King of Serendib, his immense riches, his pearls and his jewels, being the produce of his own dominions and seas; and thither ships of China, and of every neighbouring country resort, bringing the wines of Irak and Fars, which the king buys for sale to his subjects; for he drinks wine and prohibits debauchery; whilst other princes of India encourage debauchery and prohibit the use of wine. The exports from Serendib consist of silk, precious stones, crystals, diamonds, and perfumes."[1] [Footnote 1: Edrisi, _Géographie_, Trad. JAUBERT, tom. i. p. 73.] CHAP. IV. MANUFACTURES. The silk alluded to in the last chapter must have been brought from China for re-exportation to the West. Silk is frequently mentioned in the _Mahawanso_[1] but never with any suggestion of its being a native product of Ceylon. [Footnote 1: Silk is mentioned 20 B.C. _Rajaratnacari_, p. 49. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. p. 139.] _Coir and Cordage._--EDRISI speaks of cordage made from the fibre of the coco-nut, to prepare which, the natives of Oman and Yemen resorted to Ceylon[1]; so that the Singhalese would appear to have been instructed by the Arabs in the treatment of coir, and its formation into ropes; an occupation which, at the present day, affords extensive employment to the inhabitants of the south and south-western coasts. Ibn Batuta describes the use of coir, for sewing together the planking of boats, as it was practised at Zafar in the fourteenth century[2]; and the word itself bespeaks its Arabian origin, as ALBYROUNI, who divides the Maldives and Laccadives into two classes, calls the one group the _Dyvah-kouzah_, or islands that produce _cowries_; and the other the _Dyvah-kanbar_, or islands that produce _coir_.[3] [Footnote 1: EDRISI, t. i. p. 74.] [Footnote 2: _Voyages_, &c., vol. ii. p. 207. Paris, 1854.] [Footnote 3: ALBYROUNI, in REYNAUD, _Fragm. Arabes, &c.,_ pp, 93, 124 The Portuguese adopted the word from the Hindus, and CASTANEDA, in _Hist. of the Discovery of India,_ describes the Moors of Sofalah sewing their boats with "_cayro"_ ch. v, 14, xxx. 75.] _Dress_.--The dress of the people was of the simplest kind, and similar to that which is worn at the present day. The bulk of the population wore scanty cloths, without shape or seam, folded closely round the body and the portion of the limbs which it is customary to cover; and the Chinese, who visited the island in the seventh century, described the people as clothed in the loose robe, still known as a "comboy," a word probably derived from the Chinese _koo-pei_, which signifies cotton.[1] [Footnote 1: See Part v. ch. iii. on the Knowledge of Ceylon possessed by the Chinese.] The wealthier classes indulged in flowing robes, and Bujas Dasa the king, who in the fourth century devoted himself to the study of medicine and the cure of the sick, was accustomed, when seeking objects for his compassion, to appear as a common person, simply "disguising himself by gathering his cloth up between his legs."[1] Robes with flowers[2], and a turban of silk, constituted the dress of state bestowed on men whom the king delighted to honour.[3] Cloth of gold is spoken of in the fifth century, but the allusion is probably made to the kinbaub of India.[4] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso,_ ch. xxxvii. p.245.] [Footnote 2: By the ordinances of Buddhism it was forbidden to the priesthood "to adorn the body with flowers," thus showing it to have been a practice of the laity. HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. iv. p.24; ch. xiii p.128.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. p.139.] [Footnote 4: _Ibid._, ch. xxxviii. p.258.] MANUAL AND MECHANICAL ARTS. _Weaving_.--The aborigines practised the art of weaving before the arrival of Wijayo. Kuweni, when the adventurer approached her, was "seated at the foot of a tree, spinning thread;"[1] cotton was the ordinary material, but "linen cloth" is mentioned in the second century before Christ.[2] White cloths are spoken of as having been employed, in the earliest times, in every ceremony for covering chairs on which persons of rank were expected to be seated; whole "webs of cloth" were used to wrap the _carandua_ in which the sacred relics were enclosed[3], and one of the kings, on the occasion of consecrating a dagoba at Mihintala, covered with "white cloth" the road taken by the procession between the mountain and capital, a distance of more than seven miles.[4] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p.48; _Rajavali_, p.173.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch, xxv. p.152.] [Footnote 3: _Rajaratnacari_, p.72.] [Footnote 4: A.D. 8. _Rajavali,_ p. 227; _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 213.] In later times a curious practice prevailed, which exists to the present day;--on occasions when it is intended to make offerings of yellow robes to the priesthood, the cotton was plucked from the tree at daybreak, and "cleaned, spun, woven, dyed, and made into garments" before the setting of the sun. This custom, called _Catina Dhawna,_ is first referred to in the _Rajaratnacari_ in the reign of Prakrarna I.[1], A.D. 1153. [Footnote 1: See _ante_, Vol. II p. 35. _Rajaratnacari_, pp. 104, 109, 112, 135; _Rajavali_, p. 261; HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. xii. pp. 114, 121.] The expression "made into garments" alludes to the custom enjoined on the priests of having the value of the material destroyed, before consenting to accept it as a gift, thus carrying out their vow of poverty. The robe of Gotama Buddha was cut into thirty pieces, these were again united, so that they "resembled the patches of ground in a rice field;" and hence he enjoined on his followers the observance of the same practice.[1] [Footnote 1: HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism,_ ch. xii. p. 117. See _ante_, Vol. I. Pt. III. ch. iv. p. 351.] The arts of bleaching and dyeing were understood as well as that of weaving, and the _Mahawanso_, in describing the building of the Ruanwellé dagoba, at Anarajapoora, B.C. 161, tells of a canopy formed of "eight thousand pieces of cloth of every hue."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 179, See also ch. xxxviii. p. 258.] _Earliest Artisans._--VALENTYN, writing on the traditional information acquired from the Singhalese themselves, records the belief of the latter, that in the suite of the Pandyan princess, who arrived to marry Wijayo, were artificers from Madura, who were the first to introduce the knowledge and practice of handicrafts amongst the native population. According to the story, these were goldsmiths, blacksmiths, brass-founders, carpenters, and stone-cutters.[1] [Footnote 1: VALENTYN, _Oud en Niew Oost-Indien_, chap. iv. p. 267.] The legend is given with more particularity in an historical notice of the Chalia caste, written by Adrian Rajapaxa, one of their chiefs, who describes these immigrants as Peskare Brahmans, who were at first employed in weaving gold tissues for the queen, but who afterwards abandoned that art for agriculture. A fresh company were said to have been invited in the reign of Devenipiatissa, and were the progenitors of "Saleas, at present called Chalias," who inhabit the country between Galle and Colombo, and who, along with their ostensible occupation as peelers of cinnamon, still employ themselves in the labours of the loom.[1] All handicrafts are conventionally regarded by the Singhalese as the occupations of an inferior class; and a man of high caste would submit to any privation rather than stoop to an occupation dependent on manual skill. [Footnote 1: A History of the Chalias, by ADRIAN RAJAPAXA. _Asiatic Res_. vol. vii. p. 440. _Ib_., vol. x. p. 82.] _Pottery_.--One of the most ancient arts, the making of earthenware vessels, exists at the present day in all its pristine simplicity, and the "potter's wheel," which is kept in motion by an attendant, whilst the hands of the master are engaged in shaping the clay as it revolves, is the primitive device which served a similar purpose amongst the Egyptians and Hebrews.[1] [Footnote 1: Pottery is mentioned in the _Mahawanso_, B.C. 161, ch. xxix. p. 173: the allusion is to "new earthen vases," and shows that the people at that time, like the Hindus of today, avoided where possible the repeated use of the same vessel.] A "potter" is enumerated in the list of servants and tradesmen attached to the temple on the Rock of Mihintala, A.D. 262, along with a sandal-maker, blacksmiths, carpenters, stone-cutters, goldsmiths, and "makers of strainers" through which the water for the priests was filtered, to avoid taking away the life of animalculæ. The other artisans on the establishment were chiefly those in charge of the buildings, lime-burners, plasterers, white-washers, painters, and a chief builder. _Glass_.--Glass, the knowledge of which existed in Egypt and in India[1], was introduced into Ceylon at an early period; and in the _Dipawanso_, a work older than the _Mahawanso_ by a century and a half, it is stated that Saidaitissa, the brother of Dutugaimunu, when completing the Ruanwellé dagoba, which his predecessor had commenced, surmounted it with a "glass pinnacle." This was towards the end of the second century before Christ. Glass is frequently mentioned at later periods; and a "glass mirror" is spoken of[2] in the third century before Christ, but how made, whether by an amalgam of quicksilver or by colouring the under surface, is not recorded. [Footnote 1: Dr. ROYLE'S _Lectures on the Arts and Manufactures of India_, 1852, p. 221. PLINY says the glass of India being made of pounded crystal, none other can compare with it. (Lib. xxxvi, c. 66.)] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xv. p. 99, ch. xxx. p. 182.] _Leather_.--The tanning of leather from the hide of the buffalo was understood so far back as the second century before Christ, and "coverings both for the back and the feet of elephants" were then formed of it.[1] [Footnote 1: _Ibid_., ch. xxv. p. 152, ch. xxix. p. 169.] _Wood-carving_.--Carving in sandal-wood and inlaying with ivory, of which latter material "state fans and thrones" were constructed for the Brazen Palace[1], are amongst the mechanical arts often alluded to; and during the period of prosperity which signalised the era of the "Great Dynasty," there can be little doubt that skilled artificers were brought from India to adorn the cities and palaces of Ceylon. [Footnote 1: _Ibid_., ch. xxvii. p. 163, 164.] _Chemical Arts_.--A rude knowledge of chemical manipulation was required for the extraction of camphor[1] and the preparation of numerous articles specified amongst the productions of the island, aromatic oils[2], perfumes[3], and vegetable dyes. [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 133. Dr. ROYLE doubts whether camphor was known to the Hindus at this early period, but "camphor oil" is repeatedly mentioned in the Singhalese chronicles amongst the articles provided for the temples.--ROYLE'S _Essay on Hindoo Medicine_, p. 140; _Rajaculi_, p. 190.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 157.] [Footnote 3: B.C. 161. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 180.] _Sugar_.--Sugar was obtained not only from the Palmyra and Kittool palms[1], but also from the cane; which, besides being a native of India, was also indigenous in Ceylon.[2] A "sugar mill" for expressing its juice existed in the first century before Christ in the district of the "Seven Corles,"[3] where fifteen hundred years afterwards a Dutch governor of the island made an attempt to restore the cultivation of sugar. [Footnote 1: "Palm sugar," as distinguished from "cane sugar," is spoken of in the _Mahawanso_ in the second century B.C. ch. xxvii. p. 163.] [Footnote 2: "Cane sugar" is referred to in the _Mahawanso_ B.C. 161, ch. xxvii. p. 162, ch. xxxi. p. 192.] [Footnote 3: A.D. 77. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 208.] _Mineral Paints_.--Mineral preparations were made with success. Red lead, orpiment, and vermilions are mentioned as pigments; but as it is doubtful whether Ceylon produces quicksilver, the latter was probably imported from. China[1] or India, where the method of preparing it has long been known. [Footnote 1: See _ante_, Vol. I. Part I. ch. i. p. 29. n. Both quicksilver and vermilion are mentioned in the _Rajaratnacari_, p. 51, as being in use in the year 20 B.C. Vermilion is also spoken of B.C. 307 in the _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii. p. 162, c. The two passages in which _vermilion_ is spoken of in the Old Testament, Jerem. xxii. 14, and Ezek. xxiii. 14, both refer to the painting of walls and woodwork, a purpose to which it would be scarcely suitable, were not the article alluded to the opaque bisulphuret of mercury; and the same remark applies to the vermilion used by the Singhalese. The bright red obtained from the insect coccus (the _vermiculus_, whence the original term "vermilion" is said to be derived) would be too transparent to be so applied.] There is likewise sufficient evidence in these and a number of other preparations, as well in the notices of perfumes, camphor, and essential oils, to show that the Singhalese, like the Hindus, had a very early acquaintance with chemical processes and with the practice of distillation, which they retain to the present day.[1] The knowledge of the latter they probably acquired from the Arabs or Chinese. [Footnote 1: "I was frequently visited by one old man, a priest, who had travelled through Bengal, Burmah, Siam, and many other countries, and who prided himself on being able _to make calomel_ much better than the European doctors, as his preparation did not cause the falling out of the teeth, soreness of the mouth, or salivation. He learnt the secret from an ancient sage whom he met with in a forest on the continent of India; and often when listening to him I was reminded of the mysteries and crudities of the alchemists."--HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, Lond. 1850, ch. xxiii. p. 312.] CHAP. V. WORKING IN METALS. METALS. _Iron_.--Working in metals was early understood in Ceylon. Abundance of iron ore can be extracted from the mountains round Adam's Peak; the black oxide is found on the eastern shore in the state of iron-sand; and both are smelted with comparative ease by the natives. Iron tools were in use for the dressing of stones; and in the third century before Christ, the enclosed city of Wijittapoora was secured by an "iron gate." [1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 152.] _Steel_.--The manufacture of arms involved the use of steel, the method of tempering which was derived from the Hindus, by whom the _wootz_ was prepared, of which, the genuine blades of Damascus are shown to have been made, the beauty of their figuring being dependent on its peculiar crystallisation. Ezekiel enumerates amongst the Indian imports of Tyre "_bright iron_, calamus and cassia."[1] [Footnote 1: ROYLE _on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine_, p. 98. EZEKIEL, ch. xxvii. 19.] _Copper_.--Copper was equally in demand, but, like silver and gold, it is nowhere alluded to as a production of the island. In ancient, as in modern, times, therefore, the numerous articles formed from this metal were probably imported from India. The renowned Brazen. Palace of Anarajapoora was so named from the quantity of copper used in its construction. Bujas Raja, A.D. 359, covered a building at Attanagalla with "tiles made of copper, and gilt with gold,"[1] and "two boats built of brass," were placed near the Bo-Tree at the capital "to hold food for the priests."[2] Before the Christian era, armour for elephants[3], and vessels of large dimensions, cauldrons[4], and baths[5], were formed of copper. The same material was used for the lamps, goblets[6], kettles, and cooking utensils of the monasteries and wiharas. [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 73.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 60.] [Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, p. 214.] [Footnote 4: B.C. 204. _Rajavali_, p. 190.] [Footnote 5: A.D. 1267, _Rajartnacari_, p. 104.] [Footnote 6: _Rajaratnacari_, pp. 104, 134.] _Bells_.--Bells were hung in the palaces[1], and bell-metal is amongst the gifts to the temples recorded on the rock at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1187.[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. pp. 128, 129.] [Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome, &c.,_ Appx. p. 91.] _Bronze_.--Bronze was cast into figures of Buddha[1], and the _Mahawanso_, describing the reign of Dhatu-Sena, A.D. 459, makes mention of "sixteen bronze statues of virgins having the power of locomotion."[2] [Footnote 1: A.D. 275. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 236; _Rajavali_, p. l35.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 257.] _Lead_.--Lead was used during the wars of Dutugaimunu and Elala, and poured molten over the attacking elephants during the siege of Wijittapoora.[1] As lead is not a native product of Ceylon, it must have been brought thither from Ava or Malwa. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 152.] _Gold and Silver._--Ceylon, like the continent of India, produces no silver and gold, save in the scantiest quantities.[1] The historical books, in recording the splendour of the temples and their riches, and the wealth lavished by the kings upon the priesthood, describe in perpetually recurring terms, the multitude of ornaments and vessels made of silver and gold. In early times the most precious of these were received as gifts from the princes of India, and in the second century before Christ the _Mahawanso_ records the arrival of ships in the south of the island, "laden with golden utensils." The import of these might possibly have been a relic of the early trade with the Phoenicians, whom Homer, in a passage quoted by Strabo (l. xvi. c. 2. s. 24.), describes as making these cups, and carrying across the sea for sale in the great emporiums visited by these ships.[2] A variety of articles of silver are spoken of at very early periods. Dutugaimunu, when building the great dagoba, caused the circle of its base to be described by "a pair of compasses made of silver, and pointed with gold;"[3] parasols, vases, caranduas and numerous other regal or religious paraphernalia, were made from this precious material. Gold was applied in every possible form and combination to the decoration and furnishing of the edifices of Buddhism;--"trees of gold with roots of coral,"[4] flowers formed of gems with stems of silver[5], fringes of bullion mixed with pearls; umbrellas, shields, chains, and jewelled statuettes[6], are described with enthusiasm by the annalists of the national worship. [Footnote 1: Amongst the miracles which signalised the construction of the Ruanwellé dagoba at Anarajapoora was the sudden appearance in a locality to the north-east of the capital of "sprouts" of gold above and below the ground, and of silver in the vicinity of Adam's Peak.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii. pp. 166, 167.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxii. p. 153. [Greek]--Iliad, xxiii. 745.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 172.] [Footnote 4: Red coral, equal in its delicacy of tint to the highly-prized specimens from the Mediterranean, is found in small fragments on the sea-shore north of Point-de-Galle.] [Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 179.] [Footnote 6: _Mahawanso_, ib. p. 180.] The abundance of precious stones naturally led to their being extensively mounted in jewelry, and in addition to those found in Ceylon, diamonds[1] and lapis lazuli [2] (which must have been brought thither from India and Persia) are classed with the sapphire and the topaz, which are natives of the island. [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 61.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 182.] The same passion existed then, as now, for covering the person with ornaments; gold, silver, and gems were fashioned into rings for the ears, the nose, the fingers, and toes, into plates for the forehead, and chains for the neck, into armlets, and bracelets, and anklets, and into decorations of every possible form, not only for the women, but for men, and, above all, for the children of both sexes. The poor, unable to indulge in the luxury of precious metals, found substitutes in shells and glass; and the extravagance of the taste was defended on the ground that their brilliancy served to avert the malignity of "the evil eye" from the wearer to the jewel. _Gilding_.--Gilding was likewise understood by the Singhalese in all its departments, both as applied to the baser metals and to other substances--wood-work was gilded for preaching places[1] as was also copper for roofing, cement for decorating walls, and stone for statuary and carving.[2] [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 60.] [Footnote 2: Rock inscription at Pollanarrua, A.D. 187--196.] _Coin_.--Although the Singhalese through their sacred writings had a knowledge of coined money, and of its existence in India from a period little subsequent to the death of Gotama Buddha[1]; and although their annalists give the names of particular coins in circulation[2], at various times, no Singhalese money has yet been discovered of a date antecedent to the eleventh century. The Chinese in the fifteenth century spoke with admiration of the gold pieces struck by the kings of Ceylon, which they found in circulation on their frequent visits to the emporium at Galle[3]; but of these only a few very rare examples have been preserved, one of which bears the effigy and name of Lokaiswaira[4], who usurped the throne during a period of anarchy about A.D. 1070. Numbers of small copper coins of the eleventh and twelfth centuries have from time to time been dug up both in the interior and on the coast of the island[5]. A quantity of these which were found in 1848 by Lieutenant Evatt, when in command of a pioneer corps near the village of Ambogamoa, were submitted to Mr. Vaux of the British Museum, and prove to belong to the reign of Wijayo Bahu, A.D. 1071, Prakrama I., A.D. 1153, the Queen Lilawatte, A.D. 1197, King Sahasamallawa, A.D. 1200, Darmasoka, A.D. 1208, and Bhuwaneka Bahu, A.D. 1303. These coins have one and all the same device on the obverse,--a rude standing figure of the Raja holding the _trisula_ in his left hand, and a flower in the right. His dress is a flowing robe, the folds of which are indicated rather than imitated by the artist; and on the reverse the same figure is seated, the name in Nagari characters being placed beside the face[6]. [Footnote 1: The _Mahawanso_ mentions the existence of coined metals in India in the tenth year of the reign of Kalasoka, a century from the death of Buddha, ch. iv. p. 15. According to Hardy, in the most ancient laws of the Buddhists the distinction is recognised between coined money and bullion,--_Eastern Monachism,_ vol. vii. p. 66.] [Footnote 2: The coins mentioned in the _Mahawanso, Rajaratnacari, and Rajavali_ are as follows: B.C. 161, the _kahapanan (Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. pp. 157, 175), which TURNOUR says was a gold coin worth ten _massakan_ or _massa_. The latter are "the pieces of gold formerly current in Ceylon," a heap of which, according to the _Rajaratnacari_ (p. 48), was seen by King Bhatia Tissa when he was permitted to penetrate into the chamber of the Ruanwellé dagoba, A.D. 137. The silver massa, according to TURNOUR, was valued at eightpence. These are repeatedly mentioned in the _Rajaratnacari_ (A.D. 201, p. 60, A.D. 234, p. 62, A.D. 1262, p. 102, A.D. 1301, p. 107, A.D. 1462, p. 113). The _Rajavali_ speaks of "gold massa" as in circulation in the time of Dutugaimunu, B.C. 161 (p. 201). The word _masa_ in Singhalese means "pulse," or any description of "beans;" and it seems not improbable that the origin of the term as applied to money may be traced to the practice in the early Indian coinage of stamping small _lumps_ of metal to give them authentic currency. It can only be a coincidence that the Roman term for an ingot of gold was "_massa_" (Pliny, L. xxxiii. c. 19). These Singhalese massa were probably similar to the "punched coins," having rude stamps without effigies, and rarely even with letters, which have been turned up at Kanooj, Oujein, and other places in Western India. A copper coin is likewise mentioned in the fourteenth century, in the _Rajavali_, where it is termed _carooshawpa_; the value of which UPHAM, without naming his authority, says was "about a pice and a half."--p. 136.] [Footnote 3: _Woo hëö pëen_ "Records of the Ming Dynasty," A.D. 1522, B. lxviii. p. 5. _Suh Wan heen tung kaou_, "Antiquarian Researches," B. ccxxxvi. p. 11.] [Footnote 4: Two gold coins of Lokaiswaira are in the collection of the British Museum, and will be found described by Mr. VAUX in the 16th vol. of the _Numismatic Chronicle_, p. 121.] [Footnote 5: There is a Singhalese coin figured in DAVY'S _Ceylon_, p. 245, the legend on which is turned upside down, but when reversed it reads "_Sri Pa-re-kra-ma Bahu_."] [Footnote 6: _Numismatic Chronicle_, vol. xvi. p. 124] [Illustration] The Kandyans, by whom these coins are frequently found, give the copper pieces the name of Dambedenia _challies_, and tradition, with perfect correctness, assigns them to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the kings of that period are believed to have had a mint at Dambedenia. A quantity of coins similar in every respect to those dug up in Ceylon have been found at Dipaldinia or Amarawati, on the continent of India, near the mouth of the Kistna; a circumstance which might be accounted for by the frequent intercourse between Ceylon and the coast, but which is possibly referable to the fact recorded in the _Mahawanso_ that Prakrama I., after his successful expedition against the King of Pandya, caused money to be coined in his own name before retiring to Ceylon.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvi. pp. 298, 299, UPHAM's _Trans_. The circumstance is exceedingly curious of coins of Prakrama, "identical" with those found at Dambedenia, in Ceylon, having also been discovered at Dipaldinia, on the opposite continent; and it goes far to confirm the accuracy of the _Mahawanso_ as to the same king having coined money in both places. Those found in the latter locality form part of the Mackenzie Collection, and have been figured in the _Asiat. Researches_, xvii. 597, and afterwards by Mr. PRINSEP in the _Journ. of the Asiat. Soc. of Bengal_, vi. 301. See also a notice of Ceylon coins, in the _Journ. As. Soc. Beng._ iv. 673, vi. 218; CASIE CHITTY, in the _Journ. of the Ceylon Asiat. Soc.,_ 1847, p. 9, has given an account of a hoard of copper coins found at Calpentyn in 1839; and Mr. Justice STARKE, in the same journal, p. 149, has given a _resumé_ of the information generally possessed as to the ancient coins of the island. PRINSEP's paper on _Ceylon Coins_ will be found in vol. i. of the recent reprint of his _Essays on Indian Antiquities_, p. 419. Lond. 1858.] _Hook-money_.--No ancient silver coin has yet been found, but specimens are frequently brought to light of the _ridis_, pieces of twisted silver wire, which from their being sometimes bent with a considerable curve have been called "_Fish-hook money_." These are occasionally impressed with a legend, and for a time the belief obtained that they were a variety of ring-money peculiar to Ceylon.[1] Of late this error has been corrected; the letters where they occur have been shown to be not Singhalese or Sanskrit, but Persian, and the tokens themselves have been proved to belong to Laristan on the Persian Gulf, from the chief emporium of which, Gambroon, they were brought to Ceylon in the course of Indian commerce; chiefly by the Portuguese, who are stated by VAN CARDAEN to have introduced them in great quantities into Cochin and the ports of Malabar.[2] There they were circulated so freely that an edict of Prakrama enumerates the _ridi_ amongst the coins in which the taxes were assessed on land.[3] [Footnote 1: This error may be traced to the French commentator on RIBEYRO's _History of Ceylon_, who describes the fish-hook money in use in the kingdom of Kandy, whilst the Portuguese held the low country, as so simple in its form that every man might make it for himself: "Le Roy de Candy avoit aussi permis á ses peuples de se servir d'une _monnoye_ que chacun peut fabriquer."--Ch. x. p. 81.] [Footnote 2: "Les larins sont tout-à-fait commodes et nécessaires dans les Indes, surtout pour acheter du poivre à Cochin, où l'on en fait grand état."--_Voyage aux Indes Orientales._ Amsterdam, A.D. 1716, vol. vi. p. 626.] [Footnote 3: Rock-inscription at Dambool, A.D. 1200. The _Rajavali_ mentions the _ridis_ as in circulation in Ceylon at the period of the arrival of the Portuguese, A.D. 1505.--P. 278.] [Illustration: HOOK MONEY.] In India they are called _larins_, and money in imitation of them, struck by the princes of Bijapur and by Sivaji, the founder of the Mahrattas, was in circulation in the Dekkan as late as the seventeenth century.[1] [Footnote 1: Prof. WILSON'S _Remarks on Fish-hook Money, Numism. Chronic._ 1854, p. 181.] CHAP. VI. ENGINEERING. It has already been shown[1] that the natives of Ceylon received their earliest instruction in engineering from the Brahmans, who attached themselves to the followers of Wijayo and his immediate successors.[2] But whilst astonished at the vastness of conception observable in the works executed at this early period, we are equally struck by the extreme simplicity of the means employed by their designers for carrying their plans into execution; and the absence of all ingenious expedients for husbanding or effectively applying manual labour. The earth which forms their prodigious embankments was carried in baskets[3] by the labourers, in the same primitive fashion which prevails to the present day. Stones were detached in the quarry by the slow and laborious process of wedging, of which they still exhibit the traces; and those intended for prominent positions were carefully dressed with iron tools. For moving them no mechanical contrivances were resorted to[4], and it can only have been by animal power, aided by ropes and rollers, that vast blocks like the great tablet at Pollanarrua were dragged to their required positions.[5] [Footnote 1: See Vol. I. Part IV. chap. ii. p. 430.] [Footnote 2: King Pandukábhaya, B.C. 437, "built a residence for the Brahman Jótiyo, the chief engineer."--_Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 66.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. p. 144.] [Footnote 4: The only instance of mechanism applied in aid of human labour is referred to in a passage of the _Mahawanso_, which alludes to a decree for "raising the water of the Abhaya tank by means of machinery," in order to pour it over a dagoba during the solemnisation of a festival, B.C. 20.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 211; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 51.] [Footnote 5: No document is better calculated to Impress the reader with a due appreciation of the indomitable perseverance of the Singhalese in works of engineering than the able report of Messrs. ADAMS, CHURCHILL, and BAILEY, on the great _Canal from Ellahara to Gantalawa_, appended to the Ceylon Calendar for 1857.] _Fortifications_.--Of military engineering the Singhalese had a very slight knowledge. Walled towns and fortifications are frequently spoken of, but the ascertained difficulty of raising, squaring, or carrying stones, points to the inference which is justified by the expressions of the ancient chronicles, that the walls they allude to, must have been earthworks[1], and that the strength of their fortified places consisted in their inaccessibility. The first recorded attempt at fortification was made by the Malabars in the second century before Christ for the defence of Wijitta-poora, which is described as having been secured by walls, a fosse, and a gate.[2] Elala about the same period built "thirty-two bulwarks" at Anarajapoora[3]; and Dutugaimunu, in commencing to besiege him in the city, followed his example, by throwing up a "fortification in an open plain," at a spot well provided with wood and water.[4] [Footnote 1: Makalantissa, who reigned B.C. 41, "built a rampart seven cubits high, and dug a ditch round the capital."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 210.] [Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 212; _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 151.] [Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, p. 187.] [Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 216; _Mahawanso_ ch. xxv. p. 152.] At a later time, the Malabars, when in possession of the northern portion of the island, formed a chain of strong "forts" from the eastern to the western coast, and the Singhalese, in imitation of them, occupied similar positions. The most striking example of mediæval fortification which still survives, is the imperishable rock of Sigiri, north-east of Dambool, to which the infamous Kassyapa retired with his treasures, after the assassination of his father, King Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459; when having cleared its vicinity, and surrounded it by a rampart, the figures of lions with which he decorated it, obtained for it the name of Sihagiri, the "Lion-rock." But the real defences of Sigiri were its precipitous cliffs, and its naturally scarped walls, which it was not necessary to strengthen by any artificial structures. Their rocky hills, and the almost impenetrable forests which enveloped them, were in every age the chief security of the Singhalese; and so late as the 12th century, the inscription engraved on the rock at Dambool, in describing the strength of the national defences under the King Kirti Nissanga, enumerates them as "strongholds in the midst of forests, and those upon steep hills, and the fastnesses surrounded by water."[1] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome and Appendix_, p. 95.] _Thorn-gates._--The device, retained down to the period of the capture of Kandy by the British, when the passes into the hill country were defended by thick plantations of formidable thorny trees, appears to have prevailed in the earliest times. The protection of Mahelo, a town assailed by Dutugaimunu, B.C. 162, consisting in its being "surrounded on all sides with the thorny _dadambo_ creeper, within which was a triple line of fortifications."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 153. When Albuquerque attacked Malacca in A.D. 1511, the chief who defended the place "covered the streets with poisoned thorns, to gore the Portuguese coming in" FARIA Y SOUZA, vol. i. p. 180. VALENTYN, in speaking of the dominions of the King of Kandy during the Dutch occupation of the Low Country, describes the density of the forests, "which not only serve to divide the earldoms one from another, but, above all, tend to the fortification of the country, on which account no one dare, on pain of death, to thin or root out a tree, more than to permit a passage for one man at a time, it being impossible to pass through the rest thereof."--VALENTYN, _Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, &c._, ch. i. p. 22. KNOX gives a curious account of these "thorn-gates." (Part ii. ch. vi. p. 45.)] _Bridges_.--As to bridges, Ceylon had none till the end of the 13th century[1], and Turnour conjectures that even then they were only formed of timber, like the Pons Sublidus at Rome. At a later period stone pillars were used in pairs, on which beams or slabs were horizontally rested, in order to form a roadway [2], in the same manner that Herodotus describes the most ancient bridge on record, which was constructed by Queen Nitocris, at Babylon; the planks being laid during the day and lifted again at night, for the security of the city.[3] The principle of the arch appears never to have been employed in bridge building. Ferries, and the taxes on crossing by them, are alluded to down to a very late period amongst other sources of revenue.[4] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_ and _Notes_, p. 72. Major Forbes says, however, there is reason to believe that the remains of stone piers across the Kalawa-oya, on the line between Kornegalle and Anarajapoora, are the ruins of the bridge erected by King Maha Sen, A.D. 301.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxxv. UPHAM'S translation, pp. 340,349; _Rajaratnacari_, pp. 104, 131. The bridge on the Wanny hereafter described (see vol. ii p. 474) was thus constructed.] [Footnote 3: Herodotus, i. 186.] [Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. pp. 136, 138, ch. xxv. p. 150; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 112.] In forming the bunds of their reservoirs and of the stone dams which they drew across the rivers that were to supply them with water, they were accustomed, with incredible toil, infinitely increased by the imperfection of tools and implements, to work a raised moulding in front of the blocks of stone, so that each course was retained in position, not alone by its own weight, but by the difficulty of forcing it forward by pressure from behind. The conduits by which the accumulated waters were distributed, required to be constructed under the bed of the lake, so that the egress should be certain and equal[1], as long as any water remained in the tank. To effect this, they were cut in many instances through solid granite; and their ruins present singular illustrations of determined perseverance, undeterred by the most discouraging difficulties, and unrelieved by the slightest appliance of ingenuity to diminish the toil of excavation. [Footnote 1: The Lake of Albano presents an example of a conduit or "emissary" of this peculiar construction to draw off the water. It is upwards of 6000 feet in length. A similar emissary serves a like purpose at Lake Nemi.] It cannot but exalt our opinion of a people, to find that, under disadvantages so signal, they were capable of forming such a work as the Kalaweva tank, between Anarajapoora and Dambool, which TURNOUR justly says, is the greatest of the ancient works in Ceylon. This enormous reservoir was forty miles in circumference, with an embankment twelve miles in extent, and the spill-water, ineffectual for the purpose designed, is "one of the most stupendous monuments of misapplied human labour."[1] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Mahawanso_, Index, p. xi. This stupendous work was constructed A.D. 459. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 256.] When to such inherent deficiencies were added the alarms of frequent invasion and all the evils of almost incessant occupation by a foreign enemy, it is only surprising that the Singhalese preserved so long the degree of expertness in engineering to which they had originally attained. No people in any age or country had so great practice and experience in the construction of works for irrigation; and so far had the renown of their excellence in this branch reached, that in the eighth century, the king of Kashmir, Djaya-pida, "sent to Ceylon for engineers to form a lake."[1] But after the reign of Prakrama I., the decline was palpable and progressive. No great works, either of ornament or utility, no temples nor inland lakes, were constructed by his successors; and it is remarkable, that even during his own reign, artificers were brought from the coast of India to repair the monuments of Anarajapoora.[2] The last great work attempted for irrigation was probably the Giant's Tank, north-east of Aripo; but so much had practical science declined, that after an enormous expenditure of labour in damming up the Moeselley river, whose waters were to have been diverted to the lake, it was discovered that the levels were unsuitable, and the work was abandoned in despair.[3] [Footnote 1: A.D. 745. _Rajataringini_, b. iv. sl. 502, 505.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, UPHAM'S transl., ch. lxxv. p. 294. This passage in the _Mahawanso_ might seem to imply that it was as an act of retribution that Malabars, by whom the monuments had been injured, were compelled to restore them. But in ch. lxxvii. it is stated that they were brought from India for this purpose, because it "had been found impracticable by other kings to renew and repair them."--P. 305.] [Footnote 3: For an account of the present condition of the Giant's Tank, see Vol. II. Part x. ch. ii.] The talents of the civil engineer were likewise employed in providing for the health and comfort of their towns and the _Dipawanso_, a chronicle earlier in point of date than the _Mahawanso_, relates that Wasabha, who reigned between A.D. 66 and 110, constructed a tunnel ("um-maggo") for the purpose of supplying Anarajapoora with water.[1] [Footnote 1: _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ vol. vii. p. 933.] CHAP. VII. THE FINE ARTS. MUSIC.--The science and practice of the fine arts were never very highly developed amongst a people whose domestic refinement became arrested at a very early stage; and whose efforts in that direction were almost wholly confined to the exaltation of the national faith, and the embellishment of its temples and monuments. Their knowledge of music was derived from the Hindus, by whom its study was regarded as of equal importance with that of medicine and astronomy; and hence amongst the early Singhalese, along with the other "eighteen sciences,"[1] music was taught as an essential part of the education of a prince.[2] [Footnote 1: This fact is curious, seeing that at the present day the cultivation of music belongs to one of the lowest castes in Ceylon.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxiv.; UPHAM'S version, p. 256. An ingenious paper on _Singhalese Music_, by Mr. Louis Nell, is printed in the _Journ._ of the Ceylon branch of the _Roy. Asiat. Soc._ for 1856-8; p. 200.] But unlike the soft melodies of Hindustan, whose characteristic is their gentle and soothing effect, the music of the Singhalese appears to have consisted of sound rather than of harmony; modulation and expression having been at all times subordinate to volume and metrical effect. Reverberating instruments were their earliest inventions for musical purposes, and those most frequently alluded to in their chronicles are drums, resembling the tom-toms used in the temples to the present day. The same variety of form prevailed then as now, and the _Rajavali_ relates, in speaking of the army of Dutugaimunu, that in its march, the "rattling of the sixty-four kinds of drums made a noise resembling thunder breaking on the rock from behind which the sun rises."[1] The band of Devenipiatissa, B.C. 307, was called the _talawachara_, from the multitude of drums[2]: chank-shells contributed to swell the din, both in warfare[3] and in religious worship[4]; choristers added their voices[5]; and the triumph of effect consisted in "the united crash of every description, vocal as well as instrumental"[6] Although "a full band" is explained in the _Mahawanso_ to imply a combination of "all descriptions of musicians," no flutes or wind instruments are particularised, and the incidental mention of a harp only occurs in the reign of Dutugaimunu, B.C. 161.[7] JOINVILLE says, that certain musical principles were acknowledged in Ceylon at an early period, and that pieces are to be seen in some of the old Pali books in regular notation; the gamut, which was termed _septa souere_, consisting of seven notes, and expressed not by signs, but in letters equivalent to their pronunciation, _sa, ri, ga, me, qa, de, ni._[8] At the present day, harmony is still superseded by sound, the singing of the Singhalese being a nasal whine, not unlike that of the Arabs. Flutes, almost insusceptible of modulation, chanks, which give forth a piercing scream, and the overpowering roll of tom-toms, constitute the music of the temples; and all day long the women of a family will sit round a species of timbrel, called _rabani_, and produce from it the most monotonous, but to their ear, most agreeable noises, by drumming with the fingers. [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, pp. 217, 219. At the present day, there are four or five varieties of drums in use:--the tom-tom or _tam-a-tom_, properly so-called, which consists of two cylinders placed side by side, and is beaten with two sticks;--the _daelle_, a single cylinder struck with a stick at one end, and with the hand at the other,--the _oudaelle_, which is held in the left hand, and struck with the right;--and the _berri_, which is suspended from the beater's neck, and struck with both hands, one at each end, precisely as a similar instrument is shown in some of the Egyptian monuments. [Illustration: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN AND MODERN SINGHALESE TOM-TOM BEATERS.]] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xvii, p. 104.] [Footnote 3: B.C. 161. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv, p. 154.] [Footnote 4: B.C. 20. _Rajavali_, p. 51.] [Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 157.] [Footnote 6: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvi. 186.] [Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 180. The following passage in UPHAM'S translation of the _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. vol. i. p. 274, would convey the idea that the Æolian harp was meant, or some arrangement of strings calculated to elicit similar sounds:--"The king Prakrama built a palace at the city of Pollanarrua; and the stone works were carved in the shape of flowers and creeping plants, _with golden networks which gave harmonious sounds as if they were moved by the air_."] [Footnote 8: JOINVILLE, _Asiat. Researches_, vol. vii. p. 488.] _Painting_.--Painting, whether historical or imaginative, is only mentioned in connection with the decoration of temples, and no examples survive of sufficient antiquity to exhibit the actual state of the art at any remote period. But enough is known of the trammels imposed upon all art, to show that from the earliest times, imagination and invention were prohibited by the priesthood; and although execution and facility may have varied at different eras, design and composition were stationary and unalterable. Like the priesthood of Egypt, those of Ceylon regulated the mode of delineating the effigies of their divine teacher, by a rigid formulary, with which they combined corresponding directions for the drawing of the human figure in connection with sacred subjects. In the relics of Egyptian painting and sculpture, we find "that the same formal outline, the same attitudes and postures of the body, the same conventional modes of representing the different parts, were adhered to at the latest, as at the earliest periods. No improvements were admitted; no attempts to copy nature or to give an air of action to the limbs. Certain rules and certain models had been established by law, and the faulty conceptions of early times were copied and perpetuated by every succeeding artist."[1] [Footnote 1: SIR GARDNER WILKINSON'S _Ancient Egyptians_, vol. iii. ch. x. p. 87, 264.] The same observations apply, almost in the same terms, to the paintings of the Singhalese. The historical delineations of the exploits of Gotama Buddha and of his disciples and attendants, which at the present day cover the walls of the temples and wiharas, follow, with rigid minuteness, pre-existing illustrations of the sacred narratives. They appear to have been copied, with a devout adherence to colour, costume, and detail, from designs which from time immemorial have represented the same subjects; and emaciated ascetics, distorted devotees, beatified simpletons, and malefactors in torment are depicted with a painful fidelity, akin to modern pre-Raphaelitism. Owing to this discouragement of invention, one series of pictures is so servile an imitation of another, that design has never improved in Ceylon; one scene is but the facsimile of a previous one, and each may almost be regarded as an exponent of the state of the art at any preceding period.[1] [Footnote 1: The Egyptians and Singhalese were not, however, the only authorities who overwhelmed invention by ecclesiastical conventionalism. The early artists of Greece were not at liberty to follow the bent of their own genius, or to depart from established regulations in representing the figures of the gods. In the middle ages, the influence of the churches, both of Rome and Byzantium, was productive of a similar result; and although the Latins early emancipated themselves, the painters of the Greek church, to the present hour, labour under the identical trammels which crippled art at Constantinople a thousand years ago. M. DIDRON, who visited the churches and monasteries of Greece in 1839, makes the remark that "ni le temps ni le lieu ne font rien à l'art Grec: au XVIIIe siècle, le peintre Moréote continue et calque le peintre Vénétien du Xe, le peintre Athonite du Ve ou VIe. Le costume des personnages est partout et en tout temps le même, non-seulement pour la forme, mais pour la couleur, mais pour le dessin, mais jusque pour le nombre et l'épaisseur des plis. On ne saurait pousser plus loin l'exactitude traditionnelle, l'esclavage du passé." _(Manuel d' Iconographie Chrétienne Grecque et Latin_, p. ix.) The explanation of this fact is striking. Mount Athos is the grand manufactory of pictures for the Greek churches throughout the world; and M. DIDRON found the artists producing, with the servility and almost the rapidity of machinery, endless facsimiles of pictures in rigid conformity with a recognised code of instructions drawn up under ecclesiastical authority and entitled [Greek: Ermêneia tês Zographikês], "The Guide for Painting," a literal translation of which he has published. This very curious manuscript contains minute directions for the figures, costume, and attitude of the sacred characters, and for the preparation of many hundreds of historical subjects required for the decoration of churches. The artist, when solicited by M. Didron to sell "cette bible de son art," naively refused, on the simple ground that "s'il se dépouillait de ce livre, il ne pourrait plus rien faire; en perdaut son Guide, il perdait son art, il perdait ses yeux et ses mains" (_ib_. p. xxiii.). It was not till the fifteenth century that the painters of Italy shook themselves free of the authority of the Latin church in matters of art. The second council of Nice arrogates to the Roman church the authority in such matters still retained by the Greek; "non est imaginum structura pictorum inventio sed ecclesiæ catholicæ probata legislatio et traditio." In Spain, the sacro-pictorial law, under the title of _Pictor Christianus_, was promulgated, in 1730, by Fray Juan de Ayala, a monk of the order of Mercy; and such subjects are discussed as the shape of the true cross; whether one or two angels should sit on the stone by the sepulchre? and whether the Devil should be drawn with horns and a tail? In the National Gallery of London there is a painting of the Holy Family by Benozzo Gozzoli, and Sir Charles L. Eastlake has permitted me to see a contract between the painter and his employer A.D. 1461, in which every figure is literally "made to order," its attitude bespoke, and its place in the composition distinctly agreed for. One clause, however, contemplates progress, and binds the painter to make the piece his chef-d'oeuvre--"che detta dipentura exceda ogni buona dipintura infino aqui facto per detto Benozzo."] Hence even the most modern embellishments in the temples have an air of remote antiquity. The colours are tempered with gum; and but for their inferiority in drawing the human figure, as compared with the Egyptians, and their defiance of the laws of perspective, their inharmonious tints, coupled with the whiteness of the ground-work, would remind one of similar peculiarities in the paintings in the Thebaid, and the caves of Beni Hassan. Fa Hian describes in the fourth century precisely the same series of subjects and designs which are delineated in the temples of the present day, and taken from the transformation of Buddha. With hundreds of these, he says, painted in appropriate colours and executed in imitation of life, the king caused both sides of the road to be decorated on the occasion of religious processions.[1] [Footnote 1: _Foe Koue Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 335.] Amongst the most renowned of the Singhalese masters, was the King Detu Tissa, A.D. 330, "a skilful carver, who executed many arduous undertakings in painting, and taught it to his subjects. He modelled a statue of Buddha so exquisitely that he seemed to have been inspired; and for it he made an altar, and gilt an edifice inlaid with ivory."[1] Among the presents sent by the King of Ceylon (A.D. 459) to the Emperor of China, the _Tsih foo yuen kwei_, a chronicle compiled by imperial command, particularises a picture of Buddha.[2] The colours employed in decorating their temples are mixed in _tempera_, as were those used in the ancient paintings in Egypt; the claim of the Singhalese to the priority of invention in the mixture of colours with oil, is adverted to elsewhere.[3] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 242.] [Footnote 2: B. li. p. 7.] [Footnote 3: See the chapter on the Fine Arts, Vol. I. p. 490.] _Sculpture_.--In style Singhalese sculpture was even more conventional and less imaginative than their painting; since the subjects to which it was confined were almost exclusively statues of Buddha[1], and its efforts were mere repetitions of the three orthodox attitudes of the great archetype--_sitting_, as when in deep meditation, under the sacred Bo-tree; _standing_, as when exhorting his multitudinous disciples; and _reclining_, in the enjoyment of the everlasting repose of "nirwana." In each and all of these the details are identical; the length of the ears, the proportions of the arms, fingers, and toes; the colour of the eyes, and the curls of the hair[2] being repeated with wearisome iteration. To such an extent were these multiplied, and with an adherence so rigid to the same recognised models, that the _Rajavali_ ventures to ascribe to one king the erection of "seventy-two thousand statues of Buddha," an obvious error[3], but indicative, nevertheless, that the real amount must have been prodigious, in order to obtain credence for the exaggeration. Many other sovereigns are extolled in the national annals, who rendered their reigns illustrious by the multiplicity of statues which they placed in the temples. It was doubtless from this incessant study of one and the same figure, that the artists of Ceylon attained to a facility and superiority in producing statues of Buddha, that rendered them famous throughout the countries of Asia, in which his religion prevailed. The early historians of China speak in raptures of works of this kind, obtained from Singhalese sculptors in the fourth and fifth centuries; they were eagerly sought after by all the surrounding nations; and one peculiarity in their execution consisted in so treating the features, that "on standing at about ten paces distant they appeared truly brilliant, but the lineaments gradually disappeared on a nearer approach."[4] [Footnote 1: Mention is made of a figure of an elephant (_Rajavali_, p. 242), and of a horse (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxix. TURNOUR'S manuscript translation), and a carved bull as amongst the ruins of Anarajapoora.] [Footnote 2: M. ABEL REMUSAT has devoted a section of his _Melanges Asiatiques_, 1825; vol. i. p. 100, to combating the conjecture of Sir W. JONES in his third Dissertation on the Hindus, drawn from the curled or rather the woolly hair represented in his statues, that Buddha drew his descent from an African origin. (_Works_, vol. i. p, 12.) Another ground for Sir. W. JONES'S conjecture was the _large ears_ which are usually characteristic of the statues of Buddha. But it is curious that one of the peculiar features ascribed to the Singhalese by the early Greek writers was the possession of pendulous ears, possibly occasioned by their heavy ear-rings.] [Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, p. 255. Most of these were built of terra-cotta and cement covered with chunam, preparatory to being painted. See p. 478.] [Footnote 4: _Wei shoo_, a "History of the Wei Tartar Dynasty," written A.D. 590. B. cxiv. p. 9.] The labours of the sculptor and painter were combined in producing these images of Buddha, which are always coloured in imitation of life, each tint of his complexion and hair being in religious conformity with divine authority, and the ceremony of "painting of the eyes,"[1] is always observed by the devout Buddhists as a solemn festival. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii.; UPHAM'S version, vol. i. p. 275.] Many of the works which were thus executed were either golden[1] or gilt, with brilliants inserted in the eyes, and the draperies enriched with jewels.[2] Fa Hian in the fourth century, speaks of a figure of Buddha upwards of twenty-three feet in height, formed out of blue jasper, and set with precious stones, that sparkled with singular splendour, and which bore in its right hand a pearl of priceless value.[3] This may possibly have been the statue of which the _Mahawanso_ speaks in like terms of admiration: "the eye formed by a jewel from the royal head-dress, each curl of the hair by a sapphire, and the lock in the centre of the forehead by threads of gold."[4] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. pp. 180, 182; _Rajaratnacari_, pp. 47, 48; _Rajavali_, p. 237.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 258.] [Footnote 3: "Parmi toutes les choses précieuses qu'on y voit, il y a une image de jaspe bleu haute de deux _tchang_: tout son corps est formé des sept choses précieuses; elle est étincellante de splendeur et plus majestueuse qu'on ne saurait l'exprimer. Dans la main droite elle tient une perle d'un prix inestimable."--_Foe Koue Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 333.] [Footnote 4: A.D. 459. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 258. Another statue of gold, with the features and members appropriately coloured in gems, is spoken of in the second century B.C. (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 180.)] Ivory also and sandal-wood[1], as well as copper and bronze, served as materials for statues; but granite was the substance most generally selected, except in the rare instances where the temple and the statue together were hewn out of the living rock, on which occasions gneiss was most generally selected. Such are the statues at Pollanarrua, at Mihintala, and at the Aukana Wihara, near Wijittapoora. A still more common expedient, which is employed to the present time, was to form the figures of Buddha with pieces of burnt clay joined together by cement; and coated with highly polished chunam, in order to prepare the surface for the painter. In this manner were most probably produced the "seventy-two thousand statues" ascribed to Mihindo V. [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 72.] Figures of elephants were similarly formed at an early period.[1] An image of Buddha so composed in the 12th century, is still standing at Pollanarrua[2], and every temple has one or more effigies, either sedent, erect, or recumbent, carefully modelled in cemented clay, and coloured after life. [Footnote 1: A.D. 432. _Rajaratnacari_, p. 74.] [Footnote 2: Possibly the "standing figure of Buddha" mentioned in the _Rajavali_, p. 253.] _Architecture_.--In Ceylon, as in Egypt, Assyria, and India, the ruins which survive to attest the character of ancient architecture are exclusively sacred, with the exception of occasional traces of the residences of theocratic royalty; but everything has perished which could have afforded an idea of the dwellings and domestic architecture of the people. The cause of this is to be traced in the perishable nature of the sun-dried clay, of which the walls of the latter were composed. Added to this, in Ceylon there were the pride of rank and the pretensions of the priesthood, which, whilst they led to lavish expenditure of the wealth of the kingdom upon palaces and monuments, and the employment of stone in the erection of temples[1] and monasteries, forbade the people to construct their dwellings of any other material than sun-baked earth.[2] This practice continued to the latest period; and nothing struck the British army of occupation with more surprise on entering the city of Kandy, after its capture in 1815, than to find the palaces and temples alone constructed of stone, whilst the streets and private houses were formed of mud and thatch. [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, pp. 78, 79.] [Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 222.] Though stone is abundant in Ceylon, it was but sparingly used in the ancient buildings. Squared stones[1] were occasionally employed, but large slabs seldom occur, except in the foundations of dagobas. The vast quantity of material required for such structures, the cost of quarrying and carriage, and the want of mechanical aids to raise ponderous blocks into position, naturally led to the substitution of bricks for the upper portion of the superstructure. [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 210; VALENTYN, _Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien_, ch. iii. p. 45.] There is evidence to show that wedges were employed in detaching the blocks in the quarry, and the amount of labour devoted to the preparation of those in which strength, irrespective of ornament, was essential, is shown in the remains of the sixteen hundred undressed pillars[1] which supported the Brazen Palace at Anarajapoora, and in the eighteen hundred stone steps, many of them exceeding ten feet in length, which led from the base of the mountain to the very summit of Mihintala. A single piece of granite lies at Anarajapoora hollowed into an "elephant trough," with ornamental pilasters, which measures ten feet in length by six wide and two deep; and amongst the ruins of Pollanarrua a still more remarkable slab, twenty-five feet in length by six broad and two feet thick, bears an inscription of the twelfth century, which records that it was brought from a distance of more than thirty miles. [Footnote 1: The _Rajavali_ states that these rough pillars were originally covered with copper, p. 222.] The majority of the columns at Anarajapoora are of dressed stone, octangular and of extremely graceful proportions. They were used in profusion to form circular colonnades around the principal dagobas, and the vast numbers which still remain upright, are one of the peculiar characteristics of the place, and justify the expression of Knox, when, speaking of similar groups elsewhere, he calls them a "world of hewn stone pillars."[1] [Footnote 1: Knox, _Relation_, vol. v. pt. iv. ch. ii. p. 165.] [Illustration: COLUMN AT ANARAJAPOORA.] Allusions in the _Mahawanso_ show that extreme care was taken in the preparation of bricks for the dagobas.[1] Major SKINNER, whose official duties as engineer to the government have rendered him familiar with all parts of Ceylon, assures me that the bricks in every ruin he has seen, including the dagobas at Anarajapoora, Bintenne, and Pollanarrua, have been fired with so much skill that exposure through successive centuries has but slightly affected their sharpness and consistency. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii. p. 165; ch. xxix. p. 169, &c.] The sand for mortar was "pounded, sifted, and ground on a grinding-stone;"[1] the "cloud-coloured stones,"[2] used to form the immediate receptacle in which a sacred relic was enclosed, were said to have been imported from India; and the "nawanita" clay, in which these were imbedded, was believed to have been brought from the mythical Anotattho lake in the Himalayas.[3] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 175.] [Footnote 2: The "cloud-coloured stone" may possibly have been marble, but no traces of marble have been found in the ruins. Diodorus, in describing some of the monuments of Egypt alludes to a "party-coloured" stone, [Greek: lithon poikilon], which likewise remains without identification.--_Diodorus_, l. i. c. lvii.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxix. p. 169; ch. xxx. p. 179.] _Dagobas_.--The process of building the Ruanwellé dagoba is thus minutely described in the _Mahawanso_: "That the structure might endure for ages, a foundation was excavated to the depth of one hundred cubits, and the round stones were trampled by enormous elephants, whose feet were protected by leather cases. Over this the monarch spread the sacred clay, and on it laid the bricks, and over them a coating of astringent cement, above this a layer of sand-stones, and on all a plate of iron. Over this was a large pholika (crystallised stone), then a plate of brass, eight inches thick, embedded in a cement made of the gum of the wood-apple tree, diluted in the water of the small red coco-nut."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxix. p. 169; ch. xxx. p. 178. The internal structure of the Sanchi tope at Bilsah in Central India presents the arrangement here described, _the bricks being laid in mud_, but externally it is faced with dressed stone.] The shape of these huge mounds of masonry was originally hemispherical, being that best calculated to prevent the growth of grass or other weeds on objects so sacred. Dutugaimumi, according to the _Mahawanso_, when about to build the Ruanwellé dagoba, consulted a mason as to the most suitable form, who, "filling a golden dish with water, and taking some in the palm of his hand, caused a bubble in the form of a coral bead to rise on the surface; and he replied to the king, 'In this form will I construct it.'"[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 175. This legend as to the origin of the semicircular form of the dagoba is at variance with the conjecture of Major FORBES, that these vast structures were merely an advance on the mounds of earth similar to the barrow of Halyattes, which in the progress of the constructive arts, came to be converted into brickwork.--_Eleven Years in Ceylon_, v. i. p. 222.] Two dagobas at Anarajapoora, the Abay-a-giri and Jeyta-wana-rama, still retain their original outline,--the Ruanwellé, from age and decay, has partly lost it,--and the Thupa-ramaya is flattened on the top as if suddenly brought to a close, and the Lanka-ramaya is shaped like a bell. _Monasteries and Wiharas._--According to the annals of Ceylon the construction of dwellings for the devotees of Buddha preceded the erection of temples for his worship. Originally the anchorite selected a cave or some shelter in the forest as his place of repose or meditation.[1] In the _Rajavali_ Devenipiatissa is said to have "caused caverns to be cut in the solid rock at the sacred place of Mihintala;"[2] and these are the earliest residences for the higher orders of the priesthood in Ceylon, of which a record has been preserved. A less costly substitute was found in the erection of detached huts of the rudest construction, in winch may be traced the embryo of the Buddhist monastery; and the king Walagambahu was the first, B.C. 89, to gather these scattered residences into groups and "build wiharas in unbroken ranges, conceiving that thus their repairs would be more easily effected."[3] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_ c. xxx. p. 174.] [Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 184.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiii. p. 207.] Simplicity and retirement were at all times the characteristics of these retreats, which rarely aspired to architectural display; and the only recorded instance of extravagance in this particular was the "Brazen Palace" at Anarajapoora, with its sixteen hundred columns; an edifice which, though nominally a dwelling for the priesthood, appears to have been in reality a vast suite of halls for their assemblies and festivals, and a sanctuary for the safe custody of their jewels and treasure.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch, xxvii. p. 103. Like the "nine-storied" pagodas of China, the palace of "the Lowa Maya Paya" was originally _nine stories_ in height, and Fergusson, from the analogy of Buddhist buildings in other countries, supposes that these diminished in succession as the building arose, till the outline of the whole assumed the form of a pyramid. _(Handbook of Architecture_, b. i. ch. iii. p. 44.) In this he is undoubtedly correct, and a building still existing, though in ruins, at Pollanarrua, and known as the _Sat-mal-pasado_, or the _"seven-storied palace_," probably built by Prakrama, about the year 1170, serves to support his conjecture. See a description of it, part x. ch. i, vol. ii.] Allusions are occasionally made to other edifices more or less fantastic in their design and structure, such as "an apartment built on a single pillar,"[1] a "house of an octangular form," built in the 12th century[2], and another of an "oval," shape[3], erected by Prakrama I. [Footnote 1: B.C. 504, _Mahawanso_, ch. ix, p. 56; ch. lxxii. UPHAM'S version, p. 274.] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 105.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii, UPHAM'S version, p. 274.] _Palaces_.--The royal residences as they were first constructed, must have consisted of very few chambers, since mention is made in the _Mahawanso_ of the earliest, which contained "many apartments," having been built by Pandukábhaya, B.C. 437.[1] But within two centuries afterwards, Dutugaimunu conceived the magnificent idea of the Loha Pasada, with its quadrangle one hundred cubits square, and a thousand dormitories with ornamental windows.[2] This palace was in its turn surpassed by the castle of Prakrama I. at Pollanarrua, which, according to the _Mahawanso_, "was seven stories high, consisting of five thousand rooms, lined with hundreds of stone columns, and outer halls of an oval shape, with large and small gates, staircases, and glittering walls."[3] [Footnote 1: Ibid., ch. x. p. 66.] [Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xxvii, p. 163.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. UPHAM'S version, p. 274.] In what now remains of these buildings at Anarajapoora, there is no trace to be found of an arch, truly turned and secured by its keystone; but at Pollanarrua there are several examples of the false arch, produced by the progressive projection of the layers of brick.[1] [Footnote 1: FORBES'S _Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. i. ch. xvii. p. 414.] The finest specimens of ancient brickwork are to be seen amongst the ruins of the latter city, where the material is compact and smooth, and the edges sharp and unworn. The mortar shows the remains of the pearl oyster-shells from which it was burnt, and the chunam with which the walls were coated, still clings to some of the towers, and retains its angularity and polish.[1] [Footnote 1: Expressions in the _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii. p. 104, show that as early as the 2nd century, B.C., the Singhalese were acquainted with this beautiful cement, which is susceptible of a polish almost equal to marble.] Of the details of external and internal decoration applied to these buildings, descriptions are given which attest a perception of taste, however distorted by the exaggerations of oriental design. "Gilded tiles"[1] in their bright and sunny atmosphere, must have had a striking effect, especially when surmounting walls decorated with beaded mouldings, and festooned with "carvings in imitation of creeping plants and flowers."[2] [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 73.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. p. 274.] _Carving in stone._--Carving appears to have been practised at a very early period with singular success; but in later times it became so deteriorated, that there is little difficulty at the present day, in pronouncing on the superiority of the specimens remaining at Anarajapoora, over those which are to be found amongst the ruins of the later capitals, Pollanarrua, Yapahu, or Komegalle. The author of the _Mahawanso_ dwells with obvious satisfaction on his descriptions of the "stones covered with flowers and creeping plants."[1] Animals are constantly introduced in the designs executed on stone, and a mythical creature, called technically _makara-torana_, is conspicuous, especially on doorways and balustrades, with the head of an elephant, the teeth of a crocodile, the feet of a lion, and the tail of a fish. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. p. 274, UPHAM'S version.] At the entrance to the great wihara, at Anarajapoora, there is now lying on the ground a semi-circular slab of granite, the ornaments of which are designed in excellent taste, and executed with singular skill; elephants, lions, horses, and oxen, forming the outer border; that within consisting of a row of the "hanza," or sacred goose; a bird that is equally conspicuous on the vast tablet, one of the wonders of Pollanarrua, before alluded to.[1] [Footnote 1: A sketch of this stone will be seen in the engraving of the Sat-mal-prasada, in the account of Pollanarrua. Part I. ch. i. vol. ii.] Taken in connection with the proverbial contempt for the supposed stolidity of the _goose_, there is something still unexplained in the extraordinary honours paid to it by the ancients, and the veneration in which it is held to the present day by some of the eastern nations. The figure that occurs so frequently on Buddhist monuments, is the Brahmanee goose (_casarka rutila_), which is not a native of Ceylon; but from time immemorial has been an object of veneration there and in all parts of India. Amongst the Buddhists especially, impressed as they are with the solemn obligation of solitary retirement for meditation, the hanza has attracted attention by its periodical migrations, which are supposed to be directed to the holy Lake of Manasa, in the mythical regions of the Himalaya. The poet Kalidas, in his _Cloud Messenger_, speaks of the hanza as "eager to set out for the Sacred Lake." Hence, according to the _Rajavali_, the lion was pre-eminent amongst beasts, "the _hanza_ was king over all the feathered tribes."[1] In one of the Jatakas, which contains the legend of Buddha's apotheosis, his hair, when suspended in the sky, is described as resembling "the beautiful Kala hanza."[2] The goose is, at the present day, the national emblem emblazoned on the standard of Burmah, and the brass weights of the Burmese are generally cut in the shape of the sacred bird, just as the Egyptians formed their weights of stone after the same model.[3] [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 149. The _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 179, also speaks of the "_hanza_," as amongst the decorations chased on the stem of a bo-tree, modelled in gold, which was deposited by Dutugaimunu when building the Ruanwellé dagoba at Anarajapoora in the 2nd century before Christ.] [Footnote 2: HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. vii p. 161.] [Footnote 3: See SYME'S _Embassy to Ava_, p. 330; YULE'S _Narrative of the British Mission to Ava in 1855_, p. 110. I have seen a stone in the form of a goose, found in the ruins of Nineveh, which appears to have been used as a weight.] [Illustration: From the Burmese standard.] Augustine, in his _Civitas Dei_, traces the respect for the goose, displayed by the Romans, to their gratitude for the safety of the capital; when the vigilance of this bird defeated the midnight attack by the Goths. The adulation of the citizens, he says, degenerated afterwards almost to Egyptian superstition, in the rites instituted in honour of their preservers on that occasion.[1] But the very fact that the geese which saved the citadel were already sacred to Juno, and domesticated in her temple, demonstrates the error of Augustine, and shows that they had acquired mythological eminence, before achieving political renown. It must be observed, too, that the birds which rendered that memorable service, were the ordinary white geese of Europe[2], and not the red goose of the Nile (the [Greek: chênalôpêx] of Herodotus), which, ages before, had been enrolled amongst the animals held sacred in Egypt, and which formed the emblem of Seb, the father of Osiris.[3] HORAPOLLO, endeavouring to account for this predilection of the Egyptians (who employed the goose hieroglyphically to denote _a son_), ascribes it to their appreciation of the love evinced by it for its offspring, in exposing itself to divert the attention of the fowler from its young.[4] This opinion was shared by the Greeks and the Romans. Aristotle praises its sagacity; Ælian dilates on the courage and cunning of the "vulpanser," and its singular attachment to man[5]; and Ovid ranks the goose as superior to the dog in the scale of intelligence,-- "Soliciti canes canibusve sagacior anser." OVID, _Met_. xi. 399. [Footnote 1: "And hereupon did Rome fall almost into the superstition of the Ægyptians that worship birds and beasts, for they _henceforth_ kept a holy day which they call the _goose's feast_."--AUGUSTINE, _Civitas Dei, &c._ book ii. ch. 22: Englished by F.H. Icond. 1610.] [Footnote 2: This appears from a line of Lucretius: "Romulidarum arcis servator _candidus_ anser." _De Rer. Nat._ I. iv. 687.] [Footnote 3: SIR GARDNER WILKINSON'S _Manners and Customs, &c._, 2nd Ser. pl. 31, fig. 2, vol. i. p. 312; vol. ii. p. 227. Mr. Birch of the British Museum informs me that throughout the ritual or hermetic books of the ancient Egyptians a mystical notion is attached to the goose as one of the creatures into which the dead had to undergo a transmigration. That it was actually worshipped is attested by a sepulchral tablet of the 26th dynasty, about 700 B.C., in which it is figured standing on a small chapel over which are the hieroglyphic words, "_The good goose greatly beloved;_" and on the lower part of the tablet the dedicator makes an offering of fire and water to "_Ammon and the Goose._"--_Revue Archæo._, vol. ii. pl. 27.] [Footnote 4: HORAPOLLO, _Hieroglyphica_, lib. i. 23.] [Footnote 5: ÆLIAN, _Nat. Hist._, lib. v. c. 29, 30, 50. Ælian says that the Romans in recognition of the superior vigilance of the goose on the occasion of the assault on the Capitol, instituted a procession in the Forum in honour of the goose, whose watchfulness was incorruptible; but held an annual denunciation of the inferior fidelity of the dogs, which allowed themselves to be silenced by meat flung to them by the Gauls.--_Nat. Hist._ lib. xii. ch. xxxiii.] The feeling appears to have spread westward at an early period; the ancient Britons, according to Cæsar, held it impious to eat the flesh of the goose[1], and the followers of the first crusade which issued from England, France, and Flanders, adored a goat and _a goose_, which they believed to be filled by the Holy Spirit.[2] [Footnote 1: "Anserem gustare fas non patant."--CÆSAR, _Bell Gall._, lib. v. ch xii.] [Footnote 2: MILL'S _Hist. of the Crusades_, vol. i. ch. ii. p. 75. Forster has suggested that it was a species of goose (which annually migrates from the Black Sea towards the south) that fed the Israelites in the desert of Sinai, and that the "winged fowls" meant by the word _salu_, which has been heretofore translated "quails," were "red geese," resembling those of Egypt and India. He renders one of the mysterious inscriptions which abound in the Wady Mokatteb (_the Valley of Writings_), "the red geese ascend from the sea,--lusting the people eat to repletion;" thus presenting a striking concurrence with the passage in Numb. xi. 31, "there went forth a wind from the Lord and brought quails (_salu_) from the sea."--FORSTER'S _One Primeval Language_, vol. i. p. 90.] It is remarkable that the same word appears to designate the goose in the most remote quarters of the globe. The Pali term "_hanza_" by which it was known to the Buddhists of Ceylon, is still the "_henza_" of the Burmese and the "_gangsa_" of the Malays, and is to be traced in the [Greek: "chên"] of the Greeks, the "_anser_" of the Romans, the "_ganso_" of the Portuguese, the "_ansar_" of the Spaniards, the "_gans_" of the Germans (who, PLINY says, called the white geese _ganza_), the "_gas_" of the Swedes, and the "_gander_" of the English.[1] [Footnote 1: HARDY observes that the ibis of the Nile is called "_Abou-Hansa_" by the Arabs, (_Buddhism_, ch. i. p. 17); but BRUCE (_Trav_. vol. v. p. 172) says the name is _Abou Hannes_ or _Father John_, and that the bird always appears on St. John's day: he implies, however, that this is probably a corruption of an ancient name now lost.] In the principal apartment of the royal palace at Kandy, now the official residence of the chief civil officer in charge of the province, the sacred bird occurs amongst the decorations, but in such shape as to resemble the dodo rather than the Brahmanee goose. [Illustration: IN THE PALACE AT KANDY] In the generality of the examples of ancient Singhalese carvings that have come down to us, the characteristic which most strongly recommends them, is their careful preservation of the outline and form of the article decorated, notwithstanding the richness and profusion of the ornaments applied. The subjects engraved are selected with so much judgment, that whilst elaborately covering the surface, they in no degree mar the configuration. Even in later times this principle has been preserved, and the chasings in silver and tortoise shell on the scabbards of the swords of state, worn by the Kandyan kings and their attendants, are not surpassed by any specimens of similar workmanship in India. _Temples_.--The temples of Buddha were at first as unpretending as the residences of the priesthood. No mention is made of them during the infancy of Buddhism in Ceylon; at which period caves and natural grottoes were the only places of devotion. In the sacred books these are spoken of as "stone houses"[1] to distinguish them from the "houses of earth"[2] and other materials used in the construction of the first buildings for the worship of Buddha; such temples having been originally confined to a single chamber of the humblest dimensions, within which it became the custom at a later period to place a statue of the divine teacher reclining in dim seclusion, the gloom being increased to heighten the scenic effect of the ever-burning lamps by which the chambers are imperfectly lighted. [Footnote 1: The King, Walagambahu, who in his exile had been living amongst the rocks in the wilderness, ascended the throne after defeating the Malabars (B.C. 104), and "caused _the of stone or caves of the rocks_ in which he had taken refuge to be made more commodious."--_Rajavali_, p. 224.] [Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 222.] The construction of both these descriptions of temples was improved in later times, but no examples remain of the ancient chaityas or built temples in Ceylon, and those of the rock temples still existing exhibit a very slight advance beyond the rudest attempts at excavation. On examining the cave temples of continental India, they appear to exhibit three stages of progress,--first mere unadorned cells, like those formed by Dasartha, the grandson of Asoca, in the granite rocks of Behar, about B.C. 200; next oblong apartments with a verandah in front, like that of Ganesa, at Cuttack; and lastly, ample halls with colonnades separating the nave from the aisles, and embellished externally with façades and agricultural decorations, such as the caves of Karli, Ajunta, and Ellora.[1] But in Ceylon the earliest rock temples were merely hollows beneath overhanging rocks, like those still existing at Dambool, and the Aluwihara at Matelle, in both of which advantage has been taken of the accidental shelter of rounded boulders, and an entrance constructed by applying a façade of masonry, devoid of all pretensions to ornament. [Footnote 1: See FERGUSSON'S _Illustrations of the Rock-cut Temples of India_, Lond. 1845, and _Handbook of Architecture_, ch. ii. p. 23.] The utmost effort at excavation never appears to have advanced beyond the second stage attained in Bengal,--a small cell with a few columns to support a verandah in front; and even of this but very few examples now exist in Ceylon, the most favourable being the Gal-wihara at Pollanarrua, which, according to the _Rajavali_, was executed by Prakrama I., in the 12th century.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvii.] Taking into consideration the enthusiasm exhibited by the kings of Ceylon, and the munificence displayed by them in the exaltation and extension of Buddhism, their failure to emulate the labours of its patrons in India, must be accounted for by the intractable nature of the rocks with which they had to contend, the gneiss and quartz of Ceylon being less favourable to such works than the sandstone of Cuttack, or the trap formations of the western ghauts. _Oil-painting_.--In decorative art, carving and moulding in chunam were the principal expedients resorted to. Of this substance were also formed the "beads resplendent like gems;" the "flower-ornaments" resembling gold; and the "festoons of pearls," that are more than once mentioned in describing the interiors of the palaces.[1] Externally, painting was applied to the dagobas alone, as in the climate of Ceylon, exposure to the rains would have been fatal to the duration of the colours, if only mixed in tempera; but the Singhalese, at a very early period, were aware of the higher qualities possessed by some of the vegetable oils. The claim of Van Eyck to the invention of oil-painting in the 15th century, has been shown to be untenable. Sir Charles L. Eastlake[2] has adduced the evidence of Ætius of Diarbekir, to prove that the use of oil in connection with art[3] was known before the 6th century; and Dioscorides, who wrote in the age of Augustus, has been hitherto regarded as the most ancient authority on the drying properties of walnut, sesamum, and poppy. But the _Mahawanso_ affords evidence of an earlier knowledge, and records that in the 2nd century before Christ, "vermilion paint mixed with tila oil,"[4] was employed in the building of the Ruanwellé dagoba. This is, therefore, the earliest testimony extant of the use of oil as a medium for painting, and till a higher claimant appears, the distinction of the discovery may be permitted to rest with the Singhalese. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii, p. 163.] [Footnote 2: EASTLAKE'S _Materials for a History of Oil Painting_, ch. i. p. 18.] [Footnote 3: Aetius [Greek: Biblion iatrikon.]] [Footnote 4: Tila or tala is the Singhalese name for sesamum from which the natives express the gingeli oil. SIR CHARLES L. EASTLAKE is of opinion that "sesamum cannot be called a drying oil in the ordinary acceptation of the term," but in this passage of the _Mahawanso_, it is mentioned as being used as a cement. A question has been raised in favour of the claim of the Egyptians to the use of oil in the decoration of their mummy cases, but the probability is that they were coloured in tempera and their permanency afterwards secured by a _varnish_.] _Style of Ornament_.--In decorating the temporary tee, which was placed on the Ruanwellé dagoba, prior to its completion, the square base was painted with a design representing vases of flowers in the four panels, surrounded by "ornaments radiating like the five fingers."[1] This description points to the "honeysuckle border," which, according to Fergusson, was adopted and carried westward by the Greeks, and eastward by the Buddhist architects.[2] It appears upon the lat column at Allahabad, which is inscribed with one of the edicts of Asoca, issued in the 3rd century before Christ. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 193; ch. xxxviii. p. 258.] [Footnote 2: FERGUSSON'S _Handbook of Architecture_, vol. i. ch. ii. p. 7.] [Illustration: FROM THE CAPITAL OF A LAT] The spire itself was "painted with red stick-lac," probably the same preparation of vermilion as is used at the present day on the lacquered ware of Burmah, Siam, and China.[1] Gaudy colours appear at all times to have been popular; yellow, from its religious associations, pre-eminently so[2]; and red lead was applied to the exterior of dagobas.[3] Bujas Raja, in the 4th century, painted the walls and roof of the Brazen Palace blue[4], and built a sacred edifice at Anarajapoora, which from the variety and brilliancy of the colours with which he ornamented the exterior, was known as the Monara Paw Periwena, or Temple of the Peacock.[5] [Footnote 1: A species of lacquer painting is practised with great success at the present day in the Kandyan provinces, and especially at Matelle, the colours being mixed with a resinous exudation collected from a shrub called by the Singhalese Wæl-koep-petya (_Croton lacciferum_). The coloured varnish thus prepared is formed into films and threads chiefly by aid of the thumb-nail of the left hand, which is kept long and uncut for the purpose. It is then applied by heat and polished. It is chiefly employed in ornamenting the covers of books, walking-sticks, the shafts of spears, and the handles of fans for the priesthood. The Burmese artists who make the japanned ware of Ava, _use the hand_ in laying on the lacquer--which there, too, as well as in China, is the produce of a tree, the _Melanorhoea glabra_ of Wallich.] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 184.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 212.] [Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 291. The _blue_ used for this purpose was probably a preparation of indigo; the red, vermilion; the yellow, orpiment; and green was obtained by combining the first and last.] [Footnote 5: _Rajavali_, p. 73.] CHAP. VIII. DOMESTIC LIFE. CITIES.--_Anarajapoora_.--Striking evidences of the state of civilisation in Ceylon are furnished by the descriptions given, both by native writers and by travellers, of its cities as they appeared prior to the 8th century of the Christian era. The municipal organisation of Anarajapoora, in the reign of Pandukábhaya, B.C. 437, may be gathered from the notices in the _Mahawanso_, of the "_naggaraguttiko_," who was conservator of the city, of the "guards stationed in the suburbs," and of the "chandalas," who acted as scavengers and carriers of corpses. As a cemetery was attached to the city, interment must have frequently taken place, and the _nichi-chandalas_ are specially named as the "cemetery men;"[1] but the practice of cremation prevailed in the 2nd century before Christ, and the body of Elala was burned on the spot where he fell, B.C. 161.[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 65, 66.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_., ch. xxv. p. 155.] The capital at that time contained the temples of numerous religions, besides public gardens, and baths; to which were afterwards added, halls for dancing and music, ambulance halls, rest-houses for travellers[1], alms-houses[2], and hospitals[3]; in which animals, as well as men, were tenderly cared for. The "corn of a thousand fields" was appropriated by one king for their use[4]; another set aside rice to feed the squirrels which frequented his garden[5]; and a third displayed his skill as a surgeon, in treating the diseases of elephants, horses, and snakes.[6] The streets contained shops and bazaars[7]; and on festive occasions, barbers and dressers were stationed at each of the gates, for the convenience of those resorting to the city.[8] [Footnote 1: These rest-houses, like the Choultries of India, were constructed by private liberality along all the leading highways and forest roads. "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men."--_Jer_. ix. 2.] [Footnote 2: Rock inscription at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1187.] [Footnote 3: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 39; _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 67; HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, p. 485.] [Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxviii. UPHAM'S version, vol. i. p. 246.] [Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 249.] [Footnote 6: _Ibid_., p. 244, 245.] [Footnote 7: _Ibid_., ch. xxiii. p. 139.] [Footnote 8: _Ibid_., ch. xxviii. p. 170; ch. xxxix. p. 214.] The _Lankawistariyaye_, or "Ceylon Illustrated," a Singhalese work of the 7th century, gives a geographical summary of the three great divisions of the island, Rohuna, Maya, and Pihiti, and dwells with obvious satisfaction on the description of the capital of that period. The details correspond so exactly with another fragment of a native author, quoted by Colonel Forbes[1], that both seem to have been written at one and the same period; they each describe the "temples and palaces, whose golden pinnacles glitter in the sky, the streets spanned by arches bearing flags, the side ways strewn with black sand, and the middle sprinkled with white, and on either side vessels containing flowers, and niches with statues holding lamps. There are multitudes of men armed with swords, and bows and arrows. Elephants, horses, carts, and myriads of people pass and repass, jugglers, dancers, and musicians of all nations, with chank shells and other instruments ornamented with gold. The distance from the principal gate to the south gate, is four gows; and the same from the north to the south gate. The principal streets are Moon Street, Great King Street, Hinguruwak, and Mahawelli Streets,--the first containing eleven thousand houses, many of them two stories in height. The smaller streets are innumerable. The palace has large ranges of buildings, some of them two and three stories high, and its subterranean apartments are of great extent." [Footnote 1: _Eleven Years in Ceylon,_ vol. i. p. 235. But there is so close a resemblance in each author to the description of the ancient capital of the kings of Ayoudhya (Oude) that both seem to have been copied from that portion of the Ramayana. See the passage quoted in Mrs. Spier's _Life in Ancient India,_ ch. iv. p. 99.] The native descriptions of Anarajapoora, in the 7th century, are corroborated by the testimony of the foreign travellers who visited it about the same period. Fa Hian says, "The city is the residence of many magistrates, grandees, and foreign merchants; the mansions beautiful, the public buildings richly adorned, the streets and highways straight and level, and houses for preaching built at every thoroughfare."[1] The _Leang-shu,_ a Chinese history of the Leang Dynasty, written between A.D. 507-509, describing the cities of Ceylon at that period, says, "The houses had upper stories, the walls were built of brick, and secured by double gates."[2] [Footnote 1: _Foë-Kouë-k[)i],_ ch, xxxviii. p. 334.] [Footnote 2: _Leang-shu,_ B, liv. p. 10.] _Carriages and Horses._--Carriages[1] and chariots[2] are repeatedly mentioned as being driven through the principal cities, and carts and waggons were accustomed to traverse the interior of the country.[3] At the same time, the frequent allusions to the clearing of roads through the forests, on the approach of persons of distinction, serve to show that the passage of wheel carriages must have been effected with difficulty[4], along tracks prepared for the occasion, by freeing them of the jungle and brushwood. The horse is not a native of Ceylon, and those spoken of by the ancient writers must have been imported from India and Arabia. White horses were especially prized, and those mentioned with peculiar praises were of the "Sindhawo" breed, a term which may either imply the place whence they were brought, or the swiftness of their speed.[5] In battle the soldiers rode chargers[6], and a passage in the _Mahawanso_ shows that they managed them by means of a rope passed through the nostril, which served as a bridle.[7] Cosmas Indicopleustes, who considered the number of horses in Ceylon in the 6th century to be a fact of sufficient importance to be recorded, adds that they were imported from Persia, and the merchants bringing them were treated with special favour and encouragement, their ships being exempted from all dues and charges. Marco Polo found the export of horses from Aden and Ormus to India going on with activity in the 13th century.[8] [Footnote 1: B.C. 307, _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 80, 81; B.C. 204, Ib., ch. xxi. p. 128. A carriage drawn by four horses is mentioned, B.C. 161, _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxi. p. 186.] [Footnote 2: B.C. 307, _Mahawanso_, ch, xv. p. 84; ch xvi. p. 103.] [Footnote 3: B.C. 161, "a merchant of Anarajapoora proceeded with carts to the Malaya division near Adam's Peak to buy ginger and saffon" (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii. p. 167); and in the 3rd century after Christ a wheel chariot was driven from the capital to the Kalaweva tank twenty miles N.W. of Dambool.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 260. See _ante_ Vol. II. p. 445.] [Footnote 4: FORBES suggests that on such journeys the carriages must have been pushed by men, as horses could not possibly have drawn them in the hill country (vol. ii. p. 86).] [Footnote 5: _Sigham_, swift; _dhawa_, to run; _Mahawanso_, ch, xxiii. p. 142,186.] [Footnote 6: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxii. p. 132; ch. xxiii. 142.] [Footnote 7: The Prince Dutugaimunu, when securing the mare which afterwards carried him in the war against Elala, "seized her by the throat and boring her nostril with the point of his sword, secured her with his rope."--_Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 60.] [Footnote 8: _Marco Polo_, ch. xx, s. ii,: ch. xl.] _Domestic Furniture._--Of the furniture of the private dwellings of the Singhalese, such notices as have come down to us serve to show that their intercourse with other Buddhist nations was not without its influence on their domestic habits. Chairs[1], raised seats[2], footstools[3], and metal lamps[4], were articles comparatively unknown to the Hindus, and were obviously imitated by the Singhalese from the East, from China, Siam, or Pegu.[5] The custom which prevails to the present day of covering a chair with a white cloth, as an act of courtesy in honour of a visitor, was observed with the same formalities two thousand years ago[6]. Rich beds[7] and woollen carpets[8] were in use at the same early period, and ivory was largely employed in inlaying the more sumptuous articles.[9] Coco-nut shells were used for cups and ladles[10]; earthenware for jugs and drinking cups[11]; copper for water-pots, oil-cans, and other utensils; and iron for razors, needles, and nail-cutters.[12] The _pingo_, formed of a lath cut from the stem of the areca, or the young coco-nut palm, and still used as a yoke in carrying burdens, existed at an early period[13], in the same form in which it is borne at the present day. It is identical with the _asilla_ an instrument for the same purpose depicted on works of Grecian art[14] and on the monuments of Egypt. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 80; ch. xv. p. 84; _Rajaratnacari_ p. 134.] [Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xiii. p. 82.] [Footnote 3: Ibid., xxvii. p. 164.] [Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 182; ch. xxxii. p. 192.] [Footnote 5: _Asiatic Researches,_ vol. vi. p. 437. Chairs are shown on the sculptures of Persepolis; and it is probably a remnant of Grecian civilisation in Bactria that chairs are still used by the mountaineers of Balkh and Bokhara.] [Footnote 6: B.C. 307, King Devenipiatissa caused a chair to be so prepared for Mahindo.] [Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. xv. p. 84; ch. xxiii. p. 129. A four-post bed is mentioned B.C. 180. _Mahawanso._ ch. xxiv. p. 148.] [Footnote 8: Ibid., ch. xiv. p. 82.] [Footnote 9: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii. p. 163.] [Footnote 10: _Ibid_., ch. xxvii. p. 104.] [Footnote 11: _Ibid_., ch. xv. p. 85.] [Footnote 12: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 134.] [Footnote 13: _Ibid.,_ p. 103. This implement is identical with the "yoke" so often mentioned in the Old and New Testament as an emblem of bondage and labour; and figured, with the same significance; on Grecian sculpture gems. See _ante_. Vol. I. Pt. i ch iii. p. 114] [Footnote 14: ARISTOTLE, _Rhet_. i 7.] [Illustration: EGYPTIAN YOKE.] [Illustration: SINGHALESE PINGO.] _Form of Government_--The form of government was at all times an unmitigated despotism; the king had ministers, but only to relieve him of personal toil, and the institution of Gam-sabes, or village municipalities, which existed in every hamlet, however small, was merely a miniature council of the peasants, in which they settled all disputes about descent and proprietorship, and maintained the organisation essential to their peculiar tillage; facilitating at the same time the payment of dues to the crown, both in taxes and labour. _Revenue_.--The main sources of revenue were taxes, both on the land and its produce; and these were avowedly so oppressive in amount, that the merit of having reduced or suspended their assessment, was thought worthy of being engraved on rocks by the sovereigns who could claim it. In the inscription at the temple of Dambool, A.D. 1187, the king boasts of having "enriched the inhabitants who had become impoverished by inordinate taxes, and made them opulent by gifts of land, cattle, and slaves, by relinquishing the revenues for five years, and restoring inheritances, and by annual donations of five times the weight of the king's person in gold, precious stones, pearls, and silver; and from an earnest wish that succeeding kings should not again impoverish the inhabitants of Ceylon by levying excessive imposts, he fixed the revenue at a moderate amount, according to the fertility of the land."[1] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR's _Epitome_ App. p. 95; _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 211] There was likewise an imperial tax upon produce, originally a tenth, but subject to frequent variation.[1] For instance, in consideration of the ill-requited toil of felling the forest land. In order to take a crop of dry grain, the soil being unequal to sustain continued cultivation, the same king seeing that "those who laboured with the bill-hook In clearing thorny jungles, earned their livelihood distressfully," ordained that this _chena_ cultivation, as it is called, should be for ever exempted from taxation. [Footnote 1: Rock inscription at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1187.] _Army and Navy._--The military and naval forces of Ceylon were chiefly composed of foreigners. The genius of the native population was at all times averse to arms; from the earliest ages, the soldiers employed by the crown were mercenaries, and to this peculiarity may be traced the first encouragement given to the invasion of the Malabars. These were employed both on land and by sea In the third century before Christ[1]; and it was not till the eleventh century of our era, that a marine was organised for the defence of the coast.[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. p. 127.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_., ch. xxxix.; TURNOUR'S MS. Transl. p. 269.] The mode of raising a national force to make war against the invaders, is described in the _Mahawanso[1];_ the king issuing commands to ten warriors to enlist each ten men, and each of this hundred in turn to enrol ten more, and each of the new levy, ten others, till "the whole company embodied were eleven thousand one hundred and ten." [Footnote 1: _Ibid_., ch. xxiii. p. 144.] The troops usually consisted of four classes: the "riders on elephants, the cavalry, then those in chariots, and the foot soldiers,"[1] and this organisation continued till the twelfth century.[2] [Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 208, The use of elephants in war is frequently adverted to in the _Mahawamso_, ch. xxv. p. 151-155, &c.] [Footnote 2: See the inscription on the tablet at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1187.] Their arms were "the five weapons of war," swords, spears, javelins, bows, and arrows, and a rope with a noose, running in a metal ring called _narachana._[1] The archers were the main strength of the army, and their skill and dexterity are subjects of frequent eulogium.[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch, vii 48; ch. xxv p. 155.] [Footnote 2: One of the chiefs in the army of Dutugaimunu, B.C. 160, is described as combining all the excellences of the craft, being at once a "sound archer," who shot by ear, when his object was out of sight; "a lightning archer," whose arrow was as rapid as a thunderbolt; and a "sand-archer," who could send the shaft through a cart filled with sand and through hides "an hundred-fold thick."--_Mahawanso,_ ch. xxiii. p. 143. In one of the legends connected with the early life of Gotama, before he attained the exaltation of Buddhahood, he is represented as displaying his strength by taking "a bow which required a thousand men to bend it, and placing it against the toe of his right foot without standing up, he drew the string with his finger-nail."--HARDY'S _Manual of Buddhism,_ ch. vii. p. 153. It is remarkable that at the present day this is the attitude assumed by a Veddah, when anxious to send an arrow with more than ordinary force. The following sketch is from a model in ebony executed by a native carver. [Illustration: VEDDAH DRAWING HIS BOW] I am not aware that examples of this mode of drawing the bow are to be found on any ancient monument, Egyptian, Assyrian, Grecian, or Roman; but that it was regarded as peculiar to the inhabitants of India is shown by the fact that ARRIAN describes it as something remarkable in the Indians in the age of Alexander. "[Greek: Hoplisios de tês Indôn ouk hôutos eis tropos, all oi men pezoi autoisi toxon te echousin, isomêkes tps phoreonti to toxon, kai touto katô epi tên gên thentes kai tps podi tps aristerps antibantes, outôs ektoxeuousi, tên neurên epi mega opisô apagagontes."--ARRIAN, _Indica_, lib, xvi. Arrian adds that such was the force with which their arrows travelled that no substance was strong enough to resist them, neither shield, breast-plate, nor armour, all of which they penetrated. In the account of Brazil, by Kidder and Fletcher, Philad. 1850, p. 558, the Indians of the Amazon are said to draw the bow with the foot, and a figure is given of a Caboclo archer in the attitude; but, unlike the Veddah of Ceylon, the American uses both feet.] The _Rajaratnacari_ states that the arrows of the Malabars were sometimes "drenched with the poison of serpents," to render recovery impossible.[1] Against such weapons the Singhalese carried shields, some of them covered with plates of the chank shell[2]; this shell was also sounded in lieu of a trumpet[3], and the disgrace of retreat is implied by the expression that it ill becomes a soldier to "_allow his hair to fly behind_."[4] [Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 101.] [Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 217.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 154.] [Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 213.] _Civil Justice_.--Civil justice was entrusted to provincial judges[1]; but the King Kirti Nissanga, in the great tablet inscribed with his exploits, which still exists at Pollanarrua, has recorded that under the belief that "robbers commit their crimes through hunger for wealth, he gave them whatever riches they required, thus relieving the country from the alarm of their depredations."[2] Torture was originally recognised as a stage in the administration of the law, and in the original organisation of the capital in the fourth century before Christ, a place for its infliction was established adjoining the place of execution and the cemetery.[3] It was abolished in the third century by King Wairatissa; but the frightful punishments of impaling and crushing by elephants continued to the latest period of the Ceylon monarchy. [Footnote 1: Inscriptions on the Great Tablet at Pollanarrua.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p.] CHAP. IX. ASTRONOMY, ETC. EDUCATION.--The Brahmans, as they were the first to introduce the practice of the mechanical arts, were also the earliest instructors of youth in the rudiments of general knowledge. Pandukabhaya, who was afterwards king, was "educated in every accomplishment by Pandulo, a Brahman, who taught him along with his own son."[1] The Buddhist priests became afterwards the national instructors, and a passage in the _Rajavali_ seems to imply that writing was regarded as one of the distinctive accomplishments of the priesthood, not often possessed by the laity, as it mentions that the brother of the king of Kalany, in the second century before Christ, had been taught to write by a tirunansi, "and made such progress that he could write as well as the tirunansi himself."[2] The story in the _Rajavali_ of an intrigue which was discovered by "the sound of the fall of a letter," shows that the material then in use in the second century before Christ, was the same as at the present day, the prepared leaf of a palm tree.[3] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 60.] [Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 189.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid._] The most popular sovereigns were likewise the most sedulous patrons of learning. Prakrama I. founded schools at Pollanarrua[1]; and it is mentioned with due praise in the _Rajaratnacari_, that the King Wijayo Bahu III., who reigned at Dambeadinia, A.D. 1240, "established a school in every village, and charged the priests who superintended them to take nothing from the pupils, promising that he himself would reward them for their trouble."[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. UPHAM'S version, vol. i. p. 274.] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 99.] Amongst the propagators of a religion whose leading characteristics are its subtlety and thin abstractions, it may naturally be inferred that argument and casuistry held prominent place in the curriculum of instruction. In the story of Mahindo, and the conversion of the island to Buddhism, the following display of logical acumen is ostentatiously paraded as evidence of the highly cultivated intellect of the neophyte king.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 79.] For the purpose of ascertaining the capacity of the gifted monarch, Mahindo thus interrogated him:-- "O king; what is this tree called? "The Ambo. "Besides this one, is there any other Ambo-tree? "There are many. "Besides this Ambo, and those other Ambo-trees, are there any other trees on the earth? "Lord; there are many trees, but they are not Ambo-trees. "Besides the other Ambo-trees, and the trees that are not Ambo, is there any other? "Gracious Lord, _this Ambo-tree._ "Ruler of men, thou art wise! "Hast thou any relations, oh, king? "Lord, I have many. "King, are there any persons not thy relations? "There are many who are not my relations. "Besides thy relations, and those who are not thy relations, is there, or is there not, any other human being in existence? "Lord, _there is myself._ "Ruler of men, Sadhu! thou art wise." The course of education suitable for a prince in the thirteenth century included what was technically termed the eighteen sciences: "1. oratory, 2. general knowledge, 3. grammar, 4. poetry, 5. languages, 6. astronomy, 7. the art of giving counsel, 8. the means of attaining _nirwana_[1], 9. the discrimination of good and evil, 10. shooting with the bow, 11. management of the elephant, 12. penetration of thoughts, 13. discernment of invisible beings, 14. etymology, 15. history, 16. law, 17. rhetoric, 18. physic."[2] [Footnote 1: "Nirwana" is the state of suspended sensation, which constitutes the eternal bliss of the Buddhist in a future state.] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_ p. 100.] _Astronomy_.--Although the Singhalese derived from the Hindus their acquaintance, such as it was, with the heavenly bodies and their movements, together with their method of taking observations, and calculating eclipses[1], yet in this list the term "astrology" would describe better than "astronomy" the science practically cultivated in Ceylon, which then, as now, had its professors in every village to construct horoscopes, and cast the nativities of the peasantry. Dutugaimunu, in the second century before Christ, after his victory over Elala, commended himself to his new subjects by his fatherly care in providing "a doctor, an astronomer, and a priest, for each group of sixteen villages throughout the kingdom;"[2] and he availed himself of the services of the astrologer to name the proper day of the moon on which to lay the foundation of his great religious structures.[3] [Footnote 1: A summary of the knowledge possessed by the early Hindus of _astronomy_ and _mathematical science_ will be found in MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE'S _History of India during the Hindu and Mahomedan Periods_, book iii. ch. i. p. 127.] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_ p. 40.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxix. p. 169-173.] King Bujas Raja, A.D. 339, increased his claim to popular acknowledgment by adding "an astrologer, a devil-dancer, and a preacher."[1] At the present day the astronomical treatises possessed by the Singhalese are, generally speaking, borrowed, but with considerable variation, from the Sanskrit.[2] [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 27.] [Footnote 2: HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. i. p. 22.] _Medicine_.--Another branch of royal education was medicine. The Singhalese, from their intercourse with the Hindus, had ample opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of this art, which was practised in India before it was known either in Persia or Arabia; and there is reason to believe that the distinction of having been the discoverers of chemistry which has been so long awarded to the Arabs, might with greater justice have been claimed for the Hindus. In point of antiquity the works of Charak and Susruta on Surgery and Materia Medica, belong to a period long anterior to Greber, and the earliest writers of Arabia; and served as authorities both for them and the Mediæval Greeks.[1] Such was their celebrity that two Hindu physicians, Manek and Saleh, lived at Bagdad in the eighth century, at the court of Haroun al Raschid.[2] [Footnote 1: See Dr. ROYLE'S _Essay on the Antiquity of Hindu Medicine_, p. 64.] [Footnote 2: Professor Dietz, quoted by Dr. ROYLE.] One of the edicts of Asoca engraved on the second tablet at Girnar, relates to the establishment of a system of medical administration throughout his dominions, "as well as in the parts occupied by the faithful race as far as Tambaparni (Ceylon), both medical aid for men, and medical aid for animals, together with medicaments of all sorts, suitable for animals and men."[1] [Footnote 1: _Journal Asiat. Soc. Bengal_, vol. vii. part. i. p. 159.] These injunctions of the Buddhist sovereign of Magadha were religiously observed by many of the Ceylon kings. In the "register of deeds of piety" in which Dutugaimunu, in the second century before Christ, caused to be enrolled the numerous proofs of his devotion to the welfare of his subjects, it was recorded that the king had "maintained at eighteen different places, hospitals provided with suitable diet and medicines prepared by medical practitioners for the infirm."[1] In the second century of the Christian era, a physician and a surgeon were borne on the establishments of the great monasteries[2], and even some of the sovereigns acquired renown by the study and practice of physic. On Bujas Raja, who became king of Ceylon, A.D. 339, the _Mahawanso_ pronounces the eulogium, that he "patronised the virtuous, discountenanced the wicked, rendered the indigent happy, and comforted the diseased by providing medical relief."[3] He was the author of a work on Surgery, which is still held in repute by his countrymen; he built hospitals for the sick and asylums for the maimed, and the benefit of his science and skill was not confined to his subjects alone, but was equally extended to the relief of the lower animals, elephants, horses, and other suffering creatures. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 196.] [Footnote 2: Rock inscription at Mihintala, A.D. 262.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 242-245.] _Botany._--The fact that the basis of their _Materia Medica_ has been chiefly derived from the vegetable kingdom, coupled with the circumstance that their clothing and food were both drawn from the same source, may have served to give to the Singhalese an early and intimate knowledge of plants. It was at one time believed that they were likewise possessed of a complete and general botanical arrangement; but MOON, whose attention was closely directed to this subject, failed to discover any trace of a system; and came to the conclusion that, although well aware of the various parts of a flower, and their apparent uses, they have never applied that knowledge to a distribution of plants by classes or orders.[1] [Footnote 1: MOON'S _Catalogue of Indigenous and Exotic Plants growing in Ceylon._ 4to. Colombo, 1824, p. 2.] _Geometry._--The invention of geometry has been ascribed to the Egyptians, who were annually obliged to ascertain the extent to which their lands had been affected by the inundations of the Nile, and to renew the obliterated boundaries. A similar necessity led to like proficiency amongst the people of India and Ceylon, the minute subdivision of whose lands under their system of irrigation necessitated frequent calculations for the definition of limits and the division of the crops.[1] [Footnote 1: The "_Suriya Sidhanta,_" generally assigned to the fifth or sixth century, contains a system of Hindu trigonometry, which not only goes beyond anything known to the Greeks, but involves theorems that were not discovered in Europe till the sixteenth century.--MOUNT-STUART ELPHINSTONE'S _India,_ b. iii. ch. i. p. 129.] _Lightning Conductors._--In connection with physical science, a curious passage occurs in the _Mahawanso_ which gives rise to a conjecture that early in the third century after Christ, the Singhalese had some dim idea of the electrical nature of lightning, and a belief, however erroneous, of the possibility of protecting their buildings by means of conductors. The notices contained in THEOPHRASTUS and PLINY show that the Greeks and the Romans were aware of the quality of attraction exhibited by amber and tourmaline.[1] The Etruscans, according to the early annalists of Borne, possessed the power of invoking and compelling thunder storms.[2] Numa Pompilius would appear to have anticipated Franklin by drawing lightning from the clouds; and Tullus Hostilius, his successor, was killed by an explosion, whilst attempting unskilfully the same experiment.[3] [Footnote 1: The electrical substances "lyncurium" and "theamedes" have each been conjectured to be the "tourmaline" which, is found in Ceylon.] [Footnote 2: "Vel cogi fulmina vel impetrari." --PLINY, _Nat. Hist._ lib. ii. ch. lii.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid_. There is an interesting paper on the subject of the knowledge of electricity possessed by the ancients, by Dr. FALCONER in the _Memoirs of the Manchester Philosophical Society,_ A.D. 1788, vol. iii. p. 279.] CTESIAS, a contemporary of Xenophon, spent much of his life in Persia, and says that he twice saw the king demonstrate the efficacy of an iron sword planted in the ground in dispersing clouds, hail, and lightning[1]; and the knowledge of conduction is implied by an expression of LUCAN, who makes Aruns, the Etrurian flamen, concentrate the flashes of lightning and direct them beneath the surface of the earth:-- "dispersos fulminus ignes Colligit, et terræ mæsto cum murmure cendit." _Phars_. lib. i. v. 606. [Footnote 1: PHOTIUS, who has preserved the fragment (_Bibl._ lxxii.), after quoting the story of CTESIAS as to the iron it question being found in a mysterious Indian lake, adds, regarding the sword, [Greek: "phêsi oe peri autou hoti pêgnimenos en tê gê nephous kai chalazês kai prêstêrôn estin apotropaios. Kai idein auton tauta phêsi Basileôs dis poiêsantos."] See BAEHR'S _C'tesiæ Reliquiæ,_ &c., p. 248, 271.] There is scarcely an indication in any work that has come down to us from the first to the fifteenth century, that the knowledge of such phenomena survived in the western world; but the books of the Singhalese contain allusions which demonstrate that in the _third_ and in the _fifth_ century it was the practice in Ceylon to apply mechanical devices with the hope of securing edifices from lightning. The most remarkable of these passages occurs in connection with the following subject. It will be remembered that Dutugaimunu, by whom the great dagoba, known as the Ruanwellé, was built at Anarajapoora, died during the progress of the work, B.C. 137, the completion of which he entrusted to his brother and successor Saidaitissa.[1] The latest act of the dying king was to form "the square capital on which the spire was afterwards to be placed[2], and on each side of this there was a representation of the sun."[3] The _Mahawanso_ states briefly, that in obedience to his brother's wishes, Saidaitissa "completed the pinnacle,"[4] for which the square capital before alluded to served as a base; but the _Dipawanso_, a chronicle older than the _Mahawanso_ by a century and a half, gives a minute account of this stage of the work, and says that this pinnacle, which he erected between the years 137 and 119 before Christ, was formed _of glass_.[5] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 198. See _ante_, Vol. I. Pt. III. ch. v. p. 358.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ch. xxxi. p. 192.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid._, ch. xxxii. p. 193.] [Footnote 4: _Ibid._, ch. xxxiii. p. 200.] [Footnote 5: "Karàpesi _khara-pindun_ mahá thupè varuttame." For this reference to the _Dipawano_ I am indebted to Mr. DE ALWIS of Colombo.] A subsequent king, Amanda, A.D. 20, fixed a chatta (in imitation of the white umbrella which is emblematic of royalty) on the spire[1], and two centuries later, Sanghatissa, who reigned A.D. 234 to 246, "caused this chatta to be gilt, and set four gems in the centre of the four emblems of the sun, each of which cost a lac."[2] And now follows the passage which is interesting from its reference, however obscure, to the electrical nature of lightning. The _Mahawanso_ continues: "he in like manner placed a glass pinnacle on the spire _to serve as a protection against lightning_."[3] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 215.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ch. xxxvi. p. 229.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid._, ch. xxxvi. p. 229. This belief in the power of averting lightning by mechanical means, prevailed on the continent of India as well as in Ceylon, and one of the early Bengalese histories of the temple of Juggernauth, written between the years A.D. 470 and A.D. 520, says that when the building was completed, "a _neclchukro_ was placed at the top of the temple to prevent the falling of thunderbolts." In an account of the modern temple which replaced this ancient structure, it is stated that "it bore a loadstone at the top, which, as it drew vessels to land, was seized and carried off two centuries ago by sailors."--_Asiat. Res._ vol. xv. p. 327.] The term "wajira-chumbatan" in the original Pali, which TURNOUR has here rendered "a glass pinnacle," ought to be translated "a diamond hoop," both in this passage and also in another in the same book in which it occurs.[1] The form assumed by the upper portion of the dagoba would therefore resemble the annexed sketch. [Footnote 1: In describing the events in the reign of Dhaatu-Sena, the king at whose instance and during whose reign the _Mahawanso_ was written by his uncle Mahanamo, between the years A.D. 459, 477, the author, who was contemporary with the occurrence he relates, says, that "at the three principal chetyos (dagobas) he made a golden chatta and a diamond hoop (_wajira-chumbaton_) for each."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 259. Similar instances of gems being attached to the chattas of dagobas are recorded in the same work, ch. xlii. and elsewhere. The original passage relative to the diamond hoop placed by Sanghatissa runs thus in Pali, "Wisun satasahassagghé chaturócha mahamanin majjhé chatunnan suriyánán thapápési mahipati; _thupassa muddhani tatha anagghá wajira-chumbatan_," which Mr. DE ALWIS translates: "The king caused to be set four gems, each of the value of a lac, in the centre of the four emblems of the sun, _and likewise an invaluable adamantine_ (or diamond) _ring on the top of the thupa._" Some difficulty existed in TURNOUR'S mind as to the rendering to be given to these two last words "_wajira-chumbatan_." Prof. H.H. WILSON, to whom I have submitted the sentence, says, "_Wajira_ is either 'diamond,' or 'adamant,' or 'the thunderbolt of Indra;'" and with him the most leaned Pali scholars in Ceylon entirely concur; De Saram, the Maha-Moodliar of the Governor's Gate, the Rev. Mr. Gogerly, Mr. De Alwis, Pepole the Hight Priest of the Asgiria (who was TURNOUR'S instructor in Pali), Wattegamine Unnanse of Kandy, Bulletgamone Unnanse of Galle, Batuwantudawe, of Colombo, and De Soyza, the translator Moodliar to the Colonial Secretary's Office. Mr. DE ALWIS says, "The epithet _anagghan_, 'invaluable' or 'priceless,' immediately preceding and qualifying _wajira_ in the original (but omitted by Turnour in the translation), shows that a substance far more valuable than glass must have been meant." "_Chumbatan_," Prof. Wilson supposed to be the Pali equivalent to the Sanskrit _chumbakam_, "the kisser or attractor of steel;" the question he says is whether _wajira_ is to be considered an adjective or part of a compound substantive, whether the phrase is a _diamond-magnet pinnacle_, or _conductor_, or a _conductor_ or _attractor of the thunderbolt_. In the latter case it would intimate that the Singhalese had a notion of lightning conductors, Mr. DE ALWIS, however, and Mr. GOGERLY agree that chumba_ka_ is the same both in Sanskrit and Pali, whilst chumba_ta_ is a Pali compound, which means a _circular prop_ or _support, a ring_ on which something rests, or _a roll of cloth_ formed into a circle to form a stand for a vessel; so that the term must be construed to mean _a diamond_ circlet, and the passage, transposing the order of the words, will read literally thus: thapapesi tatha muddhani thupassa he placed in like manner on the top of the thupo anagghan wajira-chumbatan. a valuable diamond hoop. TURNOUR wrote his translation whilst residing at Kandy and with the aid of the priests, who being ignorant of English could only assist him to Singhalese equivalents for Pali words. Hence he was probably led into the mistake of confounding _wajira_, which signifies "diamond," or an instrument for cutting diamonds, with the modern word _widura_, which bears the same import but is colloquially used by the Kandyans for "glass." However, as glass as well as the diamond is an insulator of electricity, the force of the passage would be in no degree altered whichever of the two substances was really particularised. TURNOUR was equally uncertain as to the meaning of _chumbatan_, which in one instance he has translated a "pinnacle" and in the other he has left without any English equivalent, simply calling "wajira-chumbatan" a "chumbatan of glass."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 259.] [Illustration: A. Crown of the Dagoba. B. The capital, with the sun on each of the four sides. C. The spire. D. The umbrella or chatta, gilt and surrounded by "chumbatan," a diamond circlet.] The chief interest of the story centres in the words "_to serve as a protection against lightning_," which do not belong to the metrical text of the _Mahawanso_, but are taken from the explanatory notes appended to it. I have stated elsewhere, that it was the practice of authors who wrote in Pali verse, to attach to the text a commentary in prose, in order to illustrate the obscurities incident to the obligations of rhythm. In this instance, the historian, who was the kinsman and intimate friend of the king, by whose order the glass pinnacle was raised in the fifth century, probably felt that the stanza descriptive of the placing of the first of those costly instruments in the reign of Sanghatissa, required some elucidation, and therefore inserted a passage in the "tika," by which his poem was accompanied, to explain that the motive of its erection was "_for the purpose of averting the dangers of lightning_."[1] [Footnote 1: The explanatory sentence in the "tika" is as follows: "Thupassa muddhani tathá naggha wajira-chumbatanti tathewa mahà thupassa muddhani satasahasaggha nikan maha manincha patitha petwa ta--ahettà asani upaddawa widdhanse natthan adhara walayamewn katwa anaggha wajira-chumbatancha pujeseti atho." Mr. DE SARAY and Mr. DE AIWIS concur in translating this passage as follows, "In like manner having placed a large gem, of a lac in value, on the top of the great thupa, he fixed below it, _for the purpose of destroying the dangers of lightning_, an invaluable diamond chumbatan, having made it like a supporting ring or circular rest." Words equivalent to those in _italics_, Mr. TURNOUR embodies in his translation, but placed them between brackets to denote that they wore a quotation.] The two passages, taken in conjunction, leave no room for doubt that the object in placing the diamond hoop on the dagoba, was _to turn aside the stroke of the thunderbolt_. But the question still remains, whether, at that very early period, the people of Ceylon had such a conception, however crude and erroneous, of the nature of electricity, and the relative powers of conducting and non-conducting bodies, as would induce them to place a mistaken reliance upon the contrivance described, as one calculated to ensure their personal safety; or whether, as religious devotees, they presented it as a costly offering to propitiate the mysterious power that controls the elements. The thing affixed was however so insignificant in value, compared with the stupendous edifice to be protected, that the latter supposition is scarcely tenable. The dagoba itself was an offering, on the construction of which the wealth of a kingdom had been lavished; besides which it enshrined the holiest of all conceivable objects--portions of the deified body of Gotama Buddha himself; and if these were not already secured, from the perils of lightning by their own sanctity, their safety could scarcely be enhanced by the addition of a diamond hoop. The conjecture is, therefore, forced on us, that the Singhalese, in that remote era, had observed some physical facts, or learned their existence from others, which suggested the idea that it might be practicable, by some mechanical device, to ward off the danger of lightning. It is just possible that having ascertained that glass or precious stones acted as insulators of electricity, it may have occurred to them that one or both might be employed as preservative agents against lightning. Modern science is enabled promptly to condemn this reasoning, and to pronounce that the expedient, so far from averting, would fearfully add to, the peril. But in the infancy of all inquiries the observation of effects generally precedes the comprehension of causes, and whilst it is obvious that nothing attained by the Singhalese in the third century anticipated the great discoveries relative to the electric nature of lightning, which were not announced till the seventeenth or eighteenth, we cannot but feel that the contrivance described in the _Mahawanso_ was one likely to originate amongst an ill-informed people, who had witnessed certain phenomena the causes of which they were unable to trace, and from which they were incapable of deducing any accurate conclusions.[1] [Footnote 1: I have been told that within a comparatively recent period it was customary in this country, from some motive not altogether apparent, to surmount the lightning conductors of the Admiralty and some other Government buildings with, a _glass summit_.] CHAP. X. SINGHALESE LITERATURE. The literature of the ancient Singhalese derived its character from the hierarchic ascendency, which was fostered by their government, and exerted a preponderant influence over the temperament of the people. The Buddhist priesthood were the depositories of all learning and the dispensers of all knowledge:--by the obligation of their order the study of the classical Pali[1] was rendered compulsory upon them[2], and the books which have come down to us show that they were at the same time familiar with Sanskrit. They were employed by royal command in compiling the national annals[3], and kings at various periods not only encouraged their labours by endowments of lands[4], but conferred distinction on such pursuits by devoting their own attention to the cultivation of poetry[5], and the formation of libraries.[6] [Footnote 1: _Pali_, which is the language of Buddist literature in Siam, Ava, as well as in Ceylon, is, according to Dr. MILL, "no other than the Magadha Pracrit, the classical form in ancient Behar of that very peculiar modification of Sanscrit speech which enters as largely into the drama of the Hindus, as did the Doric dialect into the Attic tragedy of Ancient Greece." In 1826 MM. BURNOUF and LASSEN published their learned "_Essai sur le Pali_," but the most ample light was thrown upon its structure and history by the subsequent investigations of TURNOUR, who, in the introduction to his version of the _Mahawanso_, has embodied a disquisition on the antiquity of Pali as compared with Sanskrit (p. xxii. &c.).] [Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p, 106.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid_., p. 43-74] [Footnote 4: _Ibid_., p. 113] [Footnote 5: _Rajavali_, p. 245; _Mahawanso_, ch. liv., lxxix.] [Footnote 6: _Rajavali_, p. 244.] The books of the Singhalese are formed to-day, as they have been for ages past, of _olas_ or strips taken from the young leaves of the Talipat or the Palmyra palm, cut before they have acquired the dark shade and strong texture which belong to the full grown frond.[1] After undergoing a process (one stage of which consists in steeping them in hot water and sometimes in milk) to preserve their flexibility, they are submitted to pressure to render their surface uniformly smooth. They are then cut into stripes of two or three inches in breadth, and from one to three feet long. These are pierced with two holes, one near each end, through which a cord is passed, so as to secure them between two wooden covers, lacquered and ornamented with coloured devices. The leaves thus strung together and secured, form a book. [Footnote 1: The leaves of the Palmyra, similarly prepared, are used for writings of an ordinary kind, but the most valuable books are written on the Talipat See _ante_, Vol. I. Pt I. ch. iii. p. 110.] On these palm-leaves the custom is to write with an iron stile held nearly upright, and steadied by a nick cut to receive it in the thumb-nail of the left hand. The stile is sometimes richly ornamented, shaped like an arrow, and inlaid with gold, one blade of the feather serving as a knife to trim the leaf preparatory to writing. The case is sometimes made of carved ivory bound with hoops of filigreed silver. [Illustration: WRITING WITH A STILE.] The furrow made by the pressure of the steel is rendered visible by the application of charcoal ground with a fragrant oil[1], to the odour of which the natives ascribe the remarkable state of preservation in which their most sacred books are found, its aromatic properties securing the leaves from destruction by white ants and other insects.[2] [Footnote 1: For this purpose a resin is used, called _dumula_ by the natives, who dig it up from beneath the surface of lands from which the forest has disappeared.] [Footnote 2: In Ceylon there are a few Buddhist books brought from Burmah, in which the text is inscribed on plates of silver. I have seen others on leaves of ivory, and some belonging to the Dalada Wihara, at Kandy, are engraved on gold. The earliest grants of lands, called _sannas_, were written on palm-leaves, but an inscription on a rock at Dambool, which is of the date 1200 A.D., records that King Prakrama Bahu I. made it a rule that "when permanent grants of land were to be made to those who performed meritorious services, such behests should not be evanescent like lines drawn on water by being inscribed on leaves to be destroyed by rats and white ants, but engraved on plates of copper, so as to endure to posterity."] The wiharas and monasteries of the Buddhist priesthood are the only depositaries in Ceylon of the national literature, and in these are to be found quantities of ola books on an infinity of subjects, some of them, especially those relating to religion and ecclesiastical history, being of the remotest antiquity. Works of the latter class are chiefly written in Pali. Treatises on astronomy, mathematics, and physics are almost exclusively in Sanskrit, whilst those on general literature, being comparatively recent, are composed in Elu, a dialect which differs from the colloquial Singhalese rather in style than in structure, having been liberally enriched by incorporation from Sanskrit and Pali.[1] But of the works which have come down to us, ancient as well as modern, so great is the preponderance of those in Pali and Sanskrit, that the Singhalese can scarcely be said to possess a literature in their national dialect; and in the books they do possess, so utter is the dearth of invention or originality, that almost all which are not either ballads or compilations, are translations from one or other of the two learned languages. [Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S Introd. to the _Mahawanso_, p. xiii. A critical account of the Elu will be found in an able and learned essay on the language and literature of Ceylon by Mr. J. DE ALWIS, prefixed to his English. translation of the _Sidath Sangara_, a grammar of Singhalese, written in the fourteenth century. Colombo, 1852. Introd. p. xxvii. xxxvii.] I. PALI.--Works in Pali are written, like those of Burmah and Siam, not in Nagari or any peculiar character, but in the vernacular alphabet. Of these, as might naturally be expected, the vast majority are on subjects connected with Buddhism, and next to them in point of number are grammars and grammatical commentaries. The original of the great Pali grammar of Kachchayano is now lost, but its principles survive in numerous treatises, and text-books written at succeeding periods to replace it.[1] Such is the passion for versification, probably as an assistant to memory, that nearly every Singhalese work, ancient as well as modern, is composed in rhyme, and even the repulsive abstractions of Syntax have found an Alvarez and been enveloped in metrical disguise. [Footnote 1: The Rev. R. SPENCE HARDY, to whom I am indebted for much valuable information on the subject of the literature current at the present day in Ceylon, published a list in the _Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Asiatic Society_ for 1848, in which he gave the titles of 467 works in Pali, Sanskrit, and Elu, collected by himself during his residence in Ceylon. Of these about 80 are in Sanskrit, 150 in Elu (or Singhalese), and the remainder in Pali, either with or without translations. Of the Pali book 26 are either grammars or treatises on grammar. This catalogue of Mr. Hardy is, however, by no means to be regarded as perfect; not only because several are omitted, but because many are but excerpts from larger works. The titles are seldom descriptive of the contents, but in true Oriental taste are drawn from emblems and figures, such as "Light," "Gems," and "Flowers." The authors' names are rarely known, and the language or style seldom affords an indication of the age of the composition.] Of the sacred writings in Pali, the most renowned are the _Pitakattayan_, literally "The Three Baskets," which embody the doctrines, discourses, and discipline of the Buddhists, and so voluminous is this collection that its contents extend to 592,000 stanzas; and the Atthakatha or commentaries, which are as old as the fifth century[1], contain 361,550 more. From their voluminousness, the Pittakas are seldom to be seen complete, but there are few of the superior temples in which one or more of the separate books may not be found. [Footnote 1: They were translated into Pali from Singhalese by Buddhaghoso, A.D. 420.--_Mahawanso_, c. xxxvii, p. 252.] The most popular portion of the Pittakas are the legendary tales, which profess to have been related by GOTAMO BUDDHA himself, in his _Sutras_ or discourses, and were collected under the title of _Pansiya-panas-jataka-pota_, or the "Five hundred and fifty Births." The series is designed to commemorate events in his own career, during the states of existence through which he passed preparatory to his reception of the Buddhahood. In structure and contents it bears a striking resemblance to the Jewish Talmud, combining, with aphorisms and maxims, philological explanations of the divine text, stories illustrative of its doctrines, into which not only saints and heroes, but also animals and inanimate objects, are introduced, and not a few of the fables that pass as Æsop's are to be found in the Jatakas of Ceylon. There are translations into Singhalese of the greater part of its contents, and so attractive are its narratives that the natives will listen the livelong night to recitations from its pages.[1] [Footnote 1: HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. v. p. 98.] The other Pali works[1] embrace subjects in connection with cosmography and the Buddhist theories of the universe; the distinctions of caste, topographical narratives, a few disquisitions on medicine, and books which, like the Milindaprasna, or "_Questions of Milinda_,"[2] without being canonical give an orthodox summary of the national religion. [Footnote 1: A lucid account of the principal Pali works in connection with religion will be found in the Appendix to HARDY'S _Manual of Buddhism_, p. 509, and in HARDY'S _Eastern Manichian_, pp. 27, 315.] [Footnote 2: The title of this popular work has given rise to a very curious conjecture of Turnour's. It professes to contain the dialectic controversies of Nagannoa, through whose instrumentality Buddhism was introduced into Kashmir, with Milinda, who was the Raja of an adjoining country, called Sagala, near the junction of the rivers Ravi and Chenab. These dicussions must have taken place about the year B.C. 44. Now Sagala is identical with Sangala, the people of which, according to Arrian, made a bold resistance to the advance of Alexander the Great beyond the Hydraotes; and it has been supposed by Sir Alexander Burnes to have occupied the site of Lahore. Its sovereign, therefore, who embraced the doctrines of Buddha, was probably an Asiatic Greek, and TURNOUR suggests that the "Yons" or "Yonicas" who, according to the Milinda-prasna, formed his body-guard, were either Greeks or the descendants of Greeks from Ionia.--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ v. 523; HARDY'S _Manual of Buddhism_, p. 512; REINAUD, _Mémoire sur l'Inde_, p. 65.] But the _chefs d'oeuvre_ of Pali literature are their chronicles, the _Dipawanso, Mahawanso,_ and others; of these the most important by far is the _Mahawanso_ and its tikas or commentaries. It stands at the head of the historical literature of the East; unrivalled by anything extant in Hindustan[1], the wildness of whose chronology it controls; and unsurpassed, if it be equalled, by the native annals of China or Kashmir. So conscious were the Singhalese kings of the value of this national monument, that its continuation was an object of royal solicitude to successive dynasties[2] from the third to the thirteenth century; and even in the decay of the monarchy the compilation was performed in A.D. 1696, by an unknown hand, and, finally, brought down to A.D. 1758 by order of one of the last of the Kandyan kings. [Footnote 1: LASSEN, _Indis. Alt_., vol. ii. p. 13-15.] [Footnote 2: COSMAS INDICO-PLEUSTES, EDRISI, ABOU-ZEYD, and almost all the travellers and geographers of the middle ages, have related, as a trait of the native rulers of Ceylon, their employment of annalists to record the history of the kingdom.--EDRISI, _Clim._ i. sec. 8, p. 3.] Of the chronicles thus carefully constructed, which exhibit in their marvellously preserved leaves the study and elaboration of upwards of twelve hundred years, PRINSEP, supreme as an authority, declared that they served to "clear away the chief of difficulties in Indian genealogies, which seem to have been intentionally falsified by the Brahmans and thrown back into remote antiquity, in order to confound their Buddhist rivals."[1] [Footnote 1: PRINSEP, in a private letter to Turnour, in 1836, speaking of the singular value of the _Mahawanso_ in collating the chronology of India, says, "had your Buddhist chronicles been accessible to Sir W. Jones and Wilford, they would have been greedily seized to correct anomalies at every step."] But they display in their mysterious rhymes few facts or revelations to repay the ordinary reader for the labour of their perusal. Written exclusively by the Buddhist priesthood, they present the meagre characteristics of the soulless system which it is their purpose to extol. No occurrence finds a record in their pages which does not tend to exalt the genius of Buddhism or commemorate the acts of its patrons: the reigns of the monarchs who erected temples for its worship, or consecrated shrines for its relics, are traced with tiresome precision; even where their accession was achieved by usurpation and murder, their lives are extolled for piety, provided they were characterised by liberality to the church; whilst those alone are stigmatised as impious and consigned to long continued torments, whose reigns are undistinguished by acts conducive to the exaltation of the national worship.[1] [Footnote 1: Asoca, "who put to death one hundred brothers," to secure the throne to himself, is described in the _Mahawanso_, ch. v. p. 21, as a prince "of piety and supernatural wisdom." Even Malabar infidels, who assassinated the Buddhist kings, are extolled as "righteous sovereigns" (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. p. 127); but a Buddhist king who caused a priest to be put to death who was believed to be guilty of a serious crime, is consigned by the _Rajavali_ to a hell with a copper roof "so hot that the waters of the sea are dried as they roil above it."--_Rajavali_, p. 192.] The invasions which disturbed the tranquillity of the throne, and the schisms which rent the unity of the church, are described with painful elaboration; but we search in vain for any instructive notices of the people or of their pursuits, for any details of their social condition or illustration of their intellectual progress. Whilst the commerce of all nations was sweeping along the shores of Ceylon, and the ships of China and Arabia were making its ports their emporiums; the national chronicles, whose compilation was an object of solicitude to successive dynasties, are silent regarding these adventurous expeditions; and utterly indifferent to all that did not affect the progress of Buddhism or minister to the interests of the priesthood.[1] [Footnote 1: It has been surmised that in the intercourse which subsisted between India and the western world by way of Alexandria and Persia, and which did not decline till the sixth or seventh century, the influences of Nestorian Christianity may have left their impress on the genius and literature of Buddhism; and in the legends of its historians one is struck by the many passages that suggest a similarity to events recorded in the Jewish Scriptures. The coincidence may also be accounted for by the close proximity of a Jewish race in Afghanistan (the descendants of those carried away into captivity by Shalmanasar) which eventually extended itself along the west coast of India, and became the progenitors of the Hebrew colony that still inhabits the south of the Dekkan near Cochin, and are known as the "Black Jews of Malabar." The influence of this immigration is perceptible in the sacred books, both of the Brahmans and Buddhists; the laws of Menu present some striking resemblances to the law of Moses, and it was probably from a knowledge of the contents of the Hebrew rolls still possessed by this remnant of the dispersion that the Buddhists borrowed the numerous incidents which we find reproduced in the historical books of Ceylon. Thus the aborigines, when subdued by their Bengal invaders, were forced, like the Israelites, by their masters "to make bricks" for the construction of their stupendous edifices (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii.). On the occasion of building the great dagoba, the Ruanwellé, at Anarajapoora, B.C. 161, the materials were all prepared at a distance, and brought ready to be deposited in their places (_Mahawanso_, xxvii.); as on the occasion of building the first temple at Jerusalem, "the stone was made ready before it was brought, so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard whilst it was building." The parting of the Red Sea to permit the march of the fugitive Hebrews has its counterpart in the exploit of the King Gaja Bahu, A.D. 109, who, when marching his army to the coast of India, in order to bring back the Singhalese from captivity in Sollee, "smote the waters of the sea till they parted, so that he and his army marched through without wetting the soles of their feet."--_Rajaratnacari_, p. 59. King Maha Sen (A.D. 275), seeking a relic, had the mantle of Buddha lowered down from heaven: and Buddha had, previously, in designating Kasyapa as his successor, transmitted to him his robe as Elijah let fall his mantle upon Elisha. (_Rajavali_, p. 238; HARDY'S _Oriental Monachism_, p. 119.) There is a resemblance too between the apotheosis of Dutugaimunu and the translation of Elijah when "in a chariot and horses of fire he went up into heaven" (2 Kings, ii. 11);--according to the _Mahawanso_, ch. xxii p. 199, when the Singhalese king was dying, a chariot was seen descending from the sky and his disembodied spirit "manifested itself standing in the car in which he drove thrice round the great shrine, and then bowing down to the attendant priesthood, he departed for tusita" (the Buddhists' heaven). The ceremonial and dogmatic coincidences are equally remarkable;--constant allusion is made to the practice of the kings to "wash the feet of the priests and anoint them with oil."--_Mahawanso_; ch. xxv.--xxx. In conformity with the denunciation that the sins of the fathers were to be visited on the children, the Jews inquired whether a "man's parents did commit sin that he was born blind?" (John, ix. 3) and in like manner, in the _Rajavali_, "the perjury of Wijayo (who had repudiated his wife after swearing fidelity to her) was visited on the person of the King Panduwaasa," his nephew, who was afflicted with insanity in consequence _(Rajavali_, pp. 174-178). The account in the _Rajaratnacari_ of King Batiya Tissa (B.C. 20), who was enabled to enter the Ruanwellé dagoba by the secret passage known only to the priests, and to discover their wealth and treasures deposited within, has a close resemblance to the descent of Daniel and King Astyages into the temple of Bel, by the privy entrance under the table, whereby the priests entered and consumed the offerings made to the idol (Bel and the Dragon, Apocryp. ch. i.-xiii.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 45). The inextinguishable fire which was for ever burning on the altar of God (Leviticus, ch. vi. 13) resembles the lamps which burned for 5000 years continually in honour of Buddha (_Mahawanso_, ch. lxxxi.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 49); and these again had their imitators in the lamp of Minerva, which was never permitted to go out in the temple at Athens, and in the [Greek: luchnon asbeston], which was for ever burning in the temple of Ammon. The miracle of feeding the multitude by our Saviour upon a few loaves and fishes, is repeated in the _Mahawanso_, where a divinely endowed princess fed Pandukabhaya, B.C. 437, and five hundred of his followers with the repast which she was taking to her father and his reapers, the refreshment being "scarcely diminished in quantity as if one person only had eaten therefrom."--_Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 62. The preparation of the high road for the procession of the sacred bo-tree after its landing (_Mahawanso_, ch. xix. p. 116), and the order to clear a road through the wilderness for the march of the king at the inauguration of Buddhism, recall the words of the prophet, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight a highway in the desert." (Isaiah, xl. 3.) And we are reminded of the prophecy of Isaiah as to the kingdom of peace, in which "the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calf with the lion, and a young child shall lead them," by the Singhalese historians, in describing the religious repose of the kingdom of Asoca under the influence of the religion of Buddha, where "the elk and the wild hog were the guardians of the gardens and fields, and the tiger led forth the cattle to graze and reconducted them in safety to their pens."--_Mahawanso_, ch. v. p. 22. The narrative of the "judgment of Solomon," in the matter of the contested child (1 Kings, ch. iii.), has its parallel in a story in every respect similar in the Pansyiapanas-jataka.--ROBERT'S _Orient. Illustr_. p. 101.] II. SANSKRIT.--In Sanskrit or translations from it, the Singhalese have preserved their principal treatises on physical science, cosmography, materia medica, and surgery. From it, too, they have borrowed the limited knowledge of astronomy, possessed by the individuals who combined with astrology and the casting of nativities, the practice of palmistry and the interpretation of dreams. In Sanskrit, they have treatises on music and painting, on versification and philology; and their translations include a Singhalese version of those portions of the _Ramayana_, which commemorate the conquest of Lanka. III. ELU AND SINGHALESE.--There is no more striking evidence of the intellectual inferiority of the modern, as compared with the ancient inhabitants of Ceylon, than is afforded by the popular literature of the latter, and the contrast it presents to the works of former ages. Descending from the gravity of religious disquisition and the dignity of history and science, the authors of later times have been content to limit their efforts to works of fiction and amusement, and to ballads and doggerel descriptions of places or passing events. But, to the credit of the Singhalese, it must be said, that in their compositions, however satirical or familiar they may be, their verses are entirely free from the licentiousness which disfigures similar productions in India; and that if deficient in imagination and grace, they are equally exempt from grossness and indelicacy. The Singhalese language is so flexible that it admits of every description of rhythm; of this the versifiers have availed themselves to exhibit every variety of stanza and measure, and every native, male or female, can recite numbers of their favourite ballads. Their graver productions consist of poems in honour, not of Buddha alone, but of deities taken from the Hindu Pantheon,--Patine, Siva, and Ganesa, panegyrics upon almsgiving, and couplets embodying aphorisms and morals. A considerable number of the Sutras or Discourses of Buddha have been translated into the vernacular from Pali, but the most popular of all are the _jatakas_, the Singhalese versions of which are so extended, that one copy alone fills 2000 olas or palm leaves, each twenty-nine inches in length and containing nine lines in a page. The other works in Singhalese are on subjects connected with history, such as the _Rajavali_ and _Rajaratnacai_, on grammar and lexicography, on medicine, topography, and other analogous subjects. But in all their productions, though invested with the trappings of verse, there alike is an avoidance of what is practical and true, and an absence of all that is inventive and poetic. They contain nothing that appeals to the heart or the affections, and their efforts of imagination aspire not to please or to elevate, but to astonish and bewilder by exaggeration and fable. Their poverty of resources leads to endless repetitious of the same epithets and incidents; books are multiplied at the present day chiefly by extracts from works of established popularity, and the number of qualified writers is becoming annually less from the altered circumstances of the island and the decline of those institutions and prospects which formerly stimulated the ambition of the Buddhist priesthood, and inspired a love of study and learning. CHAP. XI. BUDDHISM AND DEMON-WORSHIP.[1] It is difficult to attempt any condensed, and at the same time perspicuous, sketch of the national religion of Ceylon--a difficulty which arises not merely from the voluminous obscurity of its sacred history and records; but still more from confusion in the variety of forms under which Buddhism exhibits itself in various localities, and the divergences of opinion which prevail as to its tenets and belief. The antiquity of its worship is so extreme, that doubts still hang over its origin and its chronological relations to the religion of Brahma. Whether it took its rise in Hindustan, or in countries farther to the West, and whether Buddhism was the original doctrine of which Brahmanism became a corruption, or Brahmanism the original and Buddhism an effort to restore it to its pristine purity[2],--all these are questions which have yet to be adjusted by the results of Oriental research.[3] It is, however, established by a concurrence of historical proofs, that many centuries before the era of Christianity the doctrines of Buddha were enthusiastically cultivated in Baha, the _Magadha_, or country of the Magas, whose modern name is identified with the _Wiharas_ or monasteries of Buddhism. Thence its teachers diffused themselves extensively throughout India and the countries to the eastward;--upwards of two thousand years ago it became the national religion of Ceylon and the Indian Archipelago; and its tenets have been adopted throughout the vast regions which extend from Siberia to Siam, and from the Bay of Bengal to the western shores of the Pacific.[4] [Footnote 1: The details of the following chapter have been principally taken from SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT'S _Christianity in Ceylon_, ch. v.] [Footnote 2: Those early writers on the religions of India who drew their information exclusively from Brahmanical sources, incline to favour the pretensions of that system as the most ancient of the two. Klaproth, a profound authority, was of this opinion; but in later times the translations of the Pali records and other sacred volumes of Buddhism in Western India, Ceylon, and Nepal, have inclined the preponderance of opinion, if not in favour of the superior antiquity of Buddhism, at least in support of its contemporaneous development. A summary of the arguments in favour of the superior antiquity of Buddhism will be found in the "_Notes_," &c., by Colonel SYKES, in the 12th volume of the _Asiatic Journal_--and in the _Essai sur l'Origine des Principaux Peuples Anciens_, par F.L.M. MAUPIED, chap. viii. The arguments on the side of those who look on Brahmanism as the original, are given by MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE in his _History of India_, vol. i. b. ii. c. 4. An able disquisition will be found in MAX MÜLLER's _History of Sanskrit Literature_, pp. 33, 260, &c. Mr. GOGERLY, the most accomplished student of Buddhism in Ceylon, says its sacred books expressly demonstrate that its doctrines had been preached by the twenty-four Buddhas who had lived prior to Gotama, in periods incredibly remote; but that they had entirely disappeared at the time of Gotama's birth, so that he re-discovered the whole, and revived an extinguished or nearly extinct school of philosophy.--_Notes on Buddhism_ by the Rev. Mr. GOGERLY, Appendix to LEE'S Translation of Ribeyro, p. 265.] [Footnote 3: The celebrated temple of Somnauth was originally a Buddhist foundation, and in the worship of Jaggernath, to whose orgies all ranks are admitted without distinction of caste, there may still be traced an influence of Buddhism, if not a direct Buddhistical origin. Colonel Sykes is of opinion that the sacred tooth of Buddha was at one time deposited and worshipped in the great Temple of Calinga, now dedicated to Jaggernath, by the Princes of Orissa, who in the fourth century professed the Buddhist religion. (Colonel SYKES, _Notes_, &c., _Asiatic Journal_, vol. xii. pp. 275; 317, 420.)] [Footnote 4: FA HIAN declares that in the whole of India, including Affghanistan and Bokhara, he found in the fourth century a Buddhist people and dynasty, with traditions of its endurance for the preceding thousand years. "As to Hindostan itself, he says, from the time of leaving the deserts (of Jaysulmeer and Bikaneer) and the river (Jumna) to the west, _all the kings of the different kingdoms in India are firmly attached to the law of Buddha_, and when they do honour to the ecclesiastics they take off their diadems."--See also MAUPIED, _Essai sur l'Origine des Principaux Peuples Anciens_, chap. ix. p. 209.] Looking to its influence at the present day over at least three hundred and fifty millions of human beings--exceeding one-third of the human race--it is no exaggeration to say that the religion of Buddha is the most widely diffused that now exists, or that has ever existed since the creation of mankind.[1] [Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 326. So ample are the materials offered by Buddhism for antiquarian research, that its doctrines have been sought to be identified at once with the Asiatic philosophy and with the myths of the Scandinavians. Buddha has been at one time conjectured to be the Woden of the Scythians; at another the prophet Daniel, whom Nebuchadnezzar had created master of the astrologers, or chief priest of the Magi, as the title is rendered in the Septuagint--[Greek: Archonta Magôi]. An antiquarian of Wales, in devising a pedigree for the Oymri, has imported ancestors for the ancient Britons from Ceylon; and a writer in the _Asiatic Researches_, in 1807, as a preamble to the proof that the binomial theorem was familiar to the Hindus, has traced Western civilisation to an irruption of philosophers from India, identified the Druids with the Brahmans, and declared Stonehenge to be "one of the temples of Boodh." (_Asiat. Res_., vol. ii. p. 448.) A still more recent investigator, M. MAUPIED, has collected, in his _Essai sur l'Origine des Peoples Anciens_, what he considers to be the evidence that Buddhism may be indebted for its appearance in India to the captivity of the Jews by Salmanasar, 729 B.C.; to their dispersion by Assar-Addon at a still more recent period; to their captivity in Babylon, 606 B.C.: their diffusion over Media and the East, Persia, Bactria, Thibet, and China, and the communication of their sacred book to the nations amongst whom they thus became sojourners. He ventures even to suggest a possible identity between the names Jehovah and Buddha: "Les voyelles du mot Buddha sont les mêmes que celles du mot Jéhovah, qu'on prononce aussi _Jouva_; mais d'ailleurs le nom de Boudda a bien pu être tiré du mot _Jeoudda_ Juda, le dieu de Joudda _Boudda_."--Chap. ix. p. 235. To account for the purer morals of Buddhism, MAUPIED has recourse to the conjecture that they may have been influenced by the preaching of St. Thomas at Ceylon, and Bartholomew on the continent of India. "_Or il nous semble logique de conclure de teus ces faits que le Bouddhisme, dans ses doctrines essentielles, est d'origine Juire et Chrétienne; conséquence inattendue pour la plus de nos lecteurs sans doute_."--MAUPIED, ch. ix. p. 257; ch. x. p. 263.] From the earliest period of Indian tradition, the struggle between the religion of Buddha and that of Brahma was carried on with a fanaticism and perseverance which resulted in the ascendancy of the Brahmans, perhaps about the commencement of the Christian era, and the eventual expulsion some centuries later of the worship of their rivals from Hindustan; but at what precise time the latter catastrophe was consummated has not been recorded in the annals of either sect.[1] [Footnote 1: The final overthrow of Buddhism in Bahar and its expulsion from Hindustan took place probably between the seventh and twelfth centuries of the Christian era. Colonel SYKES, however, extends the period to the thirteenth or fourteenth (_Asiatic Journal_, vol. iv. p. 334).] That Buddhism thus dispersed over eastern and central Asia became an active agent in the promotion of whatever civilisation afterwards enlightened the races by whom its doctrines were embraced, seems to rest upon evidence which admits of no reasonable doubt. The introduction of Buddhism into China is ascertained to have been contemporary with, the early development of the arts amongst this remarkable people, at a period coeval, if not anterior, to the era of Christianity.[1] Buddhism exerted a salutary influence over the tribes of Thibet; through them it became instrumental in humanising the Moguls; and it more or less led to the cessation of the devastating incursions by which the hordes of the East were precipitated over the Western Empire in the early ages of Christianity. [Footnote 1: MAX MÜLLER, _Hist. Sanskrit Literature_, p. 264.] The Singhalese, and the nations of further Asia, are indebted to Buddhism for an alphabet and a literature[1]; and whatever of authentic history we possess in relation to these countries we owe to the influence of their generic religion. Nor are its effects limited to these objects: much of what is vigorous in the character of its northern converts may be traced to the operation of its principles, in the development of their peculiar idiosyncrasy, which, unlike that of the unwarlike Singhalese, rejected sloth and effeminacy to aim at conquest and power. Looking to the self-reliance which Buddhism inculcates, the exaltation of intellect which it proclaims, and the perfection of virtue and wisdom to which it points as within the reach of every created being, it may readily be imagined, that it must have wielded a spell of unusual potency, and one well calculated to awaken boldness and energy in those already animated by schemes of ambition. In Ceylon, on the contrary, owing more or less to insulation and seclusion, Buddhism has survived for upwards of 2000 years as unchanged in all its leading characteristics as the genius of the people has remained torpid and inanimate under its influence. In this respect the Singhalese are the living mummies of past ages; and realise in their immovable characteristics the Eastern fable of the city whose inhabitants were perpetuated in marble. If change has in any degree supervened, it has been from the corruption of the practice, not from any abandonment of the principles, of Buddhism; and in arts, literature, and civilisation, the records of their own history, and the ruins of their monuments, attest their deterioration in common with that of every other nation which has not at some time been brought under the ennobling influences of Christianity. [Footnote 1: See BURNOUF et LASSEN, _Essai sur le Pali, ou Langue Sacrée de la Presqu'ile au-dela du Gange_, ch. i., &c.] In alluding to the doctrines of Buddhism, as it exists at the present day, my observations are to be understood as applying to the aspect under which it presents itself in Ceylon, irrespective of the numerous forms in which it has been cultivated elsewhere. Even before the decease of the last Buddha, schisms had arisen amongst his followers in India. Eighteen heresies are deplored in the _Mahawanso_ within two centuries from his death; and four distinct sects, each rejoicing in the name of Buddhists, are still to be traced amongst the remnants of his worshippers in Hindustan.[1] In its migrations to other countries since its dispersion by the Brahmans, Buddhism has assumed and exhibited itself in a variety of shapes. At the present day its doctrines, as cherished among the Jainas of Guzerat and Rajpootana[2], differ widely from its mysteries, as administered by the Lama of Thibet; and both are equally distinct from the metaphysical abstractions propounded by the monks of Nepal. Its observances in Japan have undergone a still more striking alteration from their vicinity to the Syntoos; and in China they have been similarly modified in their contact with the rationalism of Lao-tsen and the social demonology of the Confucians.[3] But in each and all the distinction is in degree rather than essence; and the general concurrence is unbroken in all the grand essentials of the system. [Footnote 1: _Colebrooke's Essays on the Philosophy of the Hindoos_, sect. v. part 5, p. 401.] [Footnote 2: An account of the religion of the Jains or Jainas, will be found in MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE'S _History of India_, vol. i. b. ii. ch. 4. They arose in the sixth or seventh century, were at their height in the eleventh, and declined in the twelfth. See also MAX MÜLLER, _Hist. Sanskrit Literature_, p. 261, &c.] [Footnote 3: Details of Buddhism in China and Chin-India will be found in the erudite commentaries of KLAPROTH, REMUSAT, and LANDRESSE.] Whilst Brahmanism, without denying the existence, practically ignores the influence and power of a creating and controlling intelligence, Buddhism, exulting in the idea of the infinite perfectibility of man, and the achievement of the highest attainable happiness by the unfaltering practice of every conceivable virtue, exalts the individuals thus pre-eminently wise into absolute supremacy over all existing beings, and attempts the daring experiment of an _atheistic morality._[1] Even Buddha himself is not worshipped as a deity, or as a still existent and active agent of benevolence and power. He is merely reverenced as a glorified remembrance, the effulgence of whose purity serves as a guide and incentive to the future struggles and aspirations of mankind. The sole superiority which his doctrines admit is that of goodness and wisdom; and Buddha having attained to this perfection by the immaculate purity of his actions, the absolute subjugation of passion, and the unerring accuracy of his unlimited knowledge, became entitled to the homage of all, and was required to render it to none. [Footnote 1: M. REMUSAT announces, as the result of his researches, that neither the Chinese; the Tartars, nor Monguls have any word in their dialects expressive of our idea of a God.--_Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, p. 138; and M. BARTHELEMY SAINT-HILLAIRE adds, that "il n'y a pas trace de l'idée de Dieu dans le Bouddhisme entier, ni au début ni au térme."--_Le Bouddha_, &c., Introd. p. iv. Colonel SYKES, in the xiith vol. of the _Asiatic Journal_, pp. 263 and 376, denies that Buddhism is _atheistic;_ and adduces, in support of his views, allusions made by FA HIAN. But the passages to which he refers present no direct contradiction to those metaphysical subtleties by which the Buddhistical writers have carefully avoided whilst they closely approach the admission of belief in a deity. I am not prepared to deny that the faith in a supreme being may not have characterised Buddhism in its origin, as the belief in a Great First Cause in the person of Brahma is still acknowledged by the Hindus, although honoured by no share of their adoration. But it admits of little doubt that neither in the discourses of its priesthood at the present day nor in the practice of its followers in Ceylon is the name or the existence of an omnipotent First Cause recognised in any portion of their worship. MAUPIED has correctly described Buddhism both in Ceylon and China as a system of refined atheism (_Essai sur l'Origine des Peuples Anciens_, ch. x. p. 277), and MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE gives the weight of his high authority in the statement that "The most ancient of Báudha sects entirely denies the being of a God; and some of those which admit the existence of God still refuse to acknowledge him as the creator and ruler of the world.... The theistical sect seems to prevail in Nepaul, and the _atheistical to subsist in perfection in Ceylon._"--_History of India_, vol. i. pt. ii. ch. 4. An able writer in the fourth volume of the _Calcutta Review_ has also controverted the assertion of its atheistic complexion; but whatever truth may be developed in his views, their application is confined to Buddhism in Hindustan and Nepal, and is utterly at variance with the practice and received dogmas in Ceylon.] Externally coinciding with Hinduism, so far as the avatar of Buddha may be regarded as a pendant for the incarnation of Brahma, the worship of the former is essentially distinguished from the religion of the latter in one important particular. It does not regard Buddha as an actual emanation or manifestation of the divinity, but as a guide and example to teach an enthusiastic self-reliance by means of which mankind, of themselves and by their own unassisted exertions, are to attain to perfect virtue here and to supreme happiness hereafter. Both systems inculcate the mysterious doctrine of the metempsychosis; but whilst the result of successive embodiments is to bring the soul of the Hindu nearer and nearer to the final beatitude of absorption into the essence of Brahma, the end and aim of the Buddhistical transmigration is to lead the purified spirit to _Nirwana_[1], a condition between which and utter annihilation there exists but the dim distinction of a name. Nirwana is the _exhaustion_ but not the _destruction_ of existence, the _close_ but not the _extinction_ of being. [Footnote 1: "Nirwana" is Sanskrit, _ni_ (_r_ euphon. causa) _wana_ desire. The Singhalese name "Nirwana" is also derived from _newanawa_, to extinguish. See J. BARTHELEMY SAINT-HILAIRE, _Le Bouddha_, 133, 177, &c.] In deliberate consistency with this principle of human elevation, the doctrines of Buddha recognise the full eligibility of every individual born into the world for the attainment of the highest degrees of intellectual perfection and ultimate bliss; and herein consists its most striking departure from the Brahmanical system in denying the superiority of the "twice born" over the rest of mankind; in repudiating a sacerdotal supremacy of race, and in claiming for the pure and the wise that supremacy and exaltation which the self-glorified Brahmans would monopolise for themselves. Hence the supremacy of "_caste_" is utterly disclaimed in the sacred books which contain the tenets of Buddha; and although in process of time his followers have departed from that portion of his precepts, still distinction of birth is nowhere authoritatively recognised as a qualification for the priesthood. Buddha being in fact a deification of human intellect, the philanthropy of the system extends its participation and advantages to the whole family of mankind, the humblest member of which is sustained by the assurance that by virtue and endurance he may attain an equality though not an identification with the supreme intelligence. Wisdom thus exalted as the sole object of pursuit and veneration, the Buddhists, with characteristic liberality, admit that the teaching of virtue is not necessarily confined to their own professors; especially when the ceremonial of others does not involve the taking of life. Hence in a great degree arises the indifference of the Singhalese as to the comparative claims of Christianity and Buddhism, and hence the facility with which, both under the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British Government, they have combined the secret worship of the one with the ostensible profession of the other. They in fact admit Christ to have been a teacher, second only to Buddha, but inferior, inasmuch as the latter, who was perfect in wisdom, has attained to the bliss of Nirwana.[1] [Footnote 1: Sir JOHN DAVIS in his account of the Chinese, states that the Buddhists there worship the "_Queen of Heaven_," a personage evidently borrowed from the Roman Catholics, and that the name of "_Jesus_" appears in the list of their divinities. (Chap. xiv.) A curious illustration of the prevalence of this disposition to conform to two religions was related to me in Ceylon. A Singhalese chief came a short time since to the principal of a government seminary at Colombo, desirous to place his son as a pupil of the institution, and agreed, without an instant's hesitation, that the boy should conform to the discipline of the school, which requires the reading of the Scriptures and attendance at the hours of worship and prayer; accounting for his ready acquiescence by an assurance that he entertained an equal respect for the doctrines of Buddhism and Christianity. "But how can you," said the principal, "with your superior education and intelligence, reconcile yourself thus to halt between two opinions, and submit to the inconsistency of professing an equal belief in two conflicting religions?" "Do you see," replied the subtle chief, laying his hand on the arm of the other, and directing his attention to a canoe, with a large spar as an outrigger lashed alongside, in which a fisherman was just pushing off upon the lake, "do you see the style of these boats, in which our fishermen always put to sea, and that that spar is almost equivalent to a second canoe, which keeps the first from upsetting? It is precisely so with myself: I add on _your_ religion to steady my _own, because I consider Christianity a very safe outrigger to Buddhism._"] As regards the _structure of the universe_, the theories of the Buddhists, though in a great degree borrowed from the Brahmans, occupy a much less prominent position in their mythology, and are less intimately identified with their system of religion. Their attention has been directed less to physical than to metaphysical disquisitions, and their views of cosmogony have as little of truth as of imagination in their details. The basis of the system is a declaration of the eternity of matter, and its submission at remote intervals to decay and re-formation; but this and the organisation of animal life are but the results of spontaneity and procession, not the products of will and design on the part of an all powerful Creator. Buddhism adopts something approaching to the mundane theory of the Brahmans, in the multiplicity and superposition of worlds and the division of the earth into concentric continents, each separated by oceans of various fabulous liquids. Its notions of geography are at once fanciful and crude; and again borrowing from the Shastras its chronology, extends over boundless portions of time, but invests with the authority of history only those occurrences which have taken place since the birth of Gotama Buddha. The Buddhists believe in the existence of _lokas_, or heavens, each differing in glory, and serving as the temporary residences of demigods and divinities, as well as of men whose etherialisation is but inchoate, and who have yet to visit the earth in farther births and acquire in future transmigrations their complete attainment of Nirwana. They believe likewise in the existence of hells which are the abodes of demons or tormentors, and in which the wicked undergo a purgatorial imprisonment preparatory to an extended probation upon earth. Here their torments are in proportion to their crimes, and although not eternal, their duration extends almost to the infinitude of eternity; those who have been guilty of the deadly sins of parricide, sacrilege, and defiance of the faith being doomed to the endurance of excruciating deaths, followed by instant revival and a repetition of their tortures without mitigation and apparently without end.[1] [Footnote 1: DAVY'S _Account of the Interior of Ceylon_, p. 204.] It is one of the extraordinary anomalies of the system, that combined with these principles of self-reliance and perfectibility, Buddhism has incorporated to a certain extent the doctrine of fate or "necessity," under which it demonstrates that adverse events are the general results of _akusala_ or moral demerit in some previous stage of existence. This belief, which lies at the very foundation of their religion, the Buddhists have so adapted to the rest of the structure as to avoid the inconsistency of making this directing power inherent in any Supreme Being, by assigning it as one of the attributes of matter and a law of its perpetual mutations. Like all the leading doctrines of Buddhism, however, its theories on this subject are propounded with the usual admixture of modification and casuistry; only a portion of men's conduct is presumed to be exclusively controllable by _fate_--neither moral delinquency nor virtuous actions are declared to be altogether the products of an inevitable necessity; and whilst both the sufferings and the enjoyments of mortals are represented as the general consequences of merit in a previous stage of existence, even this fundamental principle is not without its exception, inasmuch as the vicissitudes are admitted to be partially the results of man's actions in this life, or of the influence of others from which his own deserts are insufficient to protect him. The main article, however, which admits neither of modification nor evasion, is that neither in heaven nor on earth can man escape from the _consequences_ of his acts; that morals are in their essence productive causes, without the aid or intervention of any higher authority; and hence forgiveness or atonement are ideas utterly unknown in the despotic dogmas of Buddha. Allusion has already been made to the subtleties entertained by the priesthood, in connexion with the doctrine of the _metempsychosis_, as developed in their sacred books; but the exposition would be tedious to show the distinctions between their theories, and the opinions of transmigration entertained by the mass of the Singhalese Buddhists. The rewards of virtue and the punishment of vice are supposed to be equally attainable in this world; and according to the amount of either, which characterizes the conduct of an individual in one stage of being, will be the elevation or degradation into which he will be hereafter born. Thus punishment and reward become equally fixed and inevitable: but retribution may be deferred by the intermediate exhibition of virtue, and an offering or prostration to Buddha, or an aspiration in favour of faith in his name, will suffice to ward off punishment for a time, and even produce happiness in an intermediate birth; hence the most flagitious offender, by an act of reverence in dying, may postpone indefinitely the evil consequence of his crimes, and hence the indifference and apparent apathy which is a remarkable characteristic of the Singhalese who suffer death for their offences[1]. [Footnote 1: Et vos barbaricos ritus, moremque sinistrum Sacrorum Druidæ positis repetistis ab armis. Solis nôsse deos, et coeli numina vobis Aut solis nesclre datum: nemora alta remoti Incolitis lucis: _vobis auctoribus umbræ Non tacitas Erebi sedes Ditisque profundi Pallida regna petunt: regit idem spiritus arius Orbe alio: longæ (si canitis cognita) vitæ Mors media, st. Certè populi quos despicit Arcios Felices errore suo, quos ille timorum Maximus haud urget leti metus, etc._ LUCAN, l. i. 450 ct seq.] To mankind in general Buddha came only as an adviser and a friend; but, as regards his own priesthood, he assumes all the authority of a lawgiver and chief. Spurning the desires and vanities of the world, he has taught them to aspire to no other reward for their labours than the veneration of the human race, as teachers of knowledge and examples of benevolence. Taking the abstract idea of perfect intelligence and immaculate virtue for a divinity, Buddhism accords honour to all in proportion to their approaches towards absolute wisdom, and as the realisation of this perfection is regarded as almost hopeless in a life devoted to secular cares, the priests of Buddha, on assuming their robe and tonsure, forswear all earthly occupations; subsist on alms, not in money, but in food; devote themselves to meditation and self-denial; and, being thus proclaimed and recognised as the most successful aspirants to Nirwana, they claim the homage of ordinary mortals, acknowledge no superior upon earth, and withhold even the tribute of a salutation from all except the members of their own religious order. To mankind in general the injunctions of Buddha prescribe _a code of morality_ second only to that of Christianity, and superior to every heathen system that the world has seen.[1] It forbids the taking of life from even the humblest created animal, and prohibits intemperance and incontinence, dishonesty and falsehood--vices which are referable to those formidable assailants, _rága_ or concupiscence, _doso_ or malignity, and _moha_, ignorance or folly.[2] These, again, involve all their minor modifications--hypocrisy and anger, unkindness and pride, ungenerous suspicion, covetousness, evil wishes to others, the betrayal of secrets, and the propagation of slander. Whilst all such offences are forbidden, every excellence is simultaneously enjoined--the forgiveness of injuries, the practice of charity, a reverence for virtue, and the cherishing of the learned; submission to discipline, veneration for parents, the care for one's family, a sinless vocation, contentment and gratitude, subjection to reproof, moderation in prosperity, submission under affliction, and cheerfulness at all times. "Those," said Buddha, "who practise all these virtues, and are not overcome by evil, will enjoy the perfection of happiness, and attain to supreme renown."[3] [Footnote 1: "Je n'hésite pas à ajouter que, sauf le Christ tout seul, il n'est point, parmi les fondateurs de religion de figure, plus pure ni plus touchante que celle de Bouddha. Sa vie n'a point de tache."--_Le Bouddha_, par J. BARTHELEMY SAINT-HILAIRE, Introd. p. v.] [Footnote 2: The Rev. Mr. GOGERLY's _Notes on Buddhism_. LEE's _Ribeyro_, p. 267.] [Footnote 3: Discourse of Buddha entitled _Mangala_.] Buddhism, it may be perceived from this sketch, is, properly speaking, less a form of religion than a school of philosophy; and _its worship_, according to the institutes of its founders, consists of an appeal to the reason, rather than an attempt on the imagination through the instrumentality of rites and parade. "Salvation is made dependent, not upon the practice of idle ceremonies, the repeating of prayers or of hymns, or invocations to pretended gods, but upon moral qualifications, which constitute individual and social happiness here, and ensure it hereafter."[1] In later times, and in the failure of Buddhism by unassisted arguments to ensure the observance of its precepts and the practice of its morals, the experiment has been made to arouse the attention and excite the enthusiasm of its followers by the adoption of ceremonies and processions; but these are declared to be only the innovations of priestcraft, and the Singhalese, whilst they unite in their celebration, are impatient to explain that such practices are less religious than secular, and that the Perrehera in particular, the chief of their annual festivals, was introduced, not in honour of Buddha, but as a tribute to the Kandyan kings as the patrons and defenders of the faith.[2] [Footnote 1: Colonel SYKES, _Asiat. Journ._, vol. xii. p. 266.] [Footnote 2: FA HIAN describes the procession of Buddhists which he witnessed in the kingdom of Khotan, and it is not a little remarkable, that along with the image of Buddha were associated those of the Brahmanical deities _Indra_ and _Brahma_, the _Lha_ of the Thibetans and the _Toeyri_ of the Moguls.] In its formula, whatever alterations Buddhism may have undergone in Ceylon are altogether external, and clearly referable to its anomalous association with the worship of its ancient rivals the Brahmans. These changes, however, are the result of proximity and association rather than of incorporation or adoption; and even now the process of expurgation is in progress with a view to the restoration of the pristine purity of the faith by a formal separation from the observances of Hinduism. The schismatic kings and the Malabar sovereigns introduced the worship of Vishnu and Shiva into the same temples with that of Buddha.[1] The innovation has been perpetuated; and to the present day the statues of these conflicting divinities are to be found within the same buildings: the Dewales of Hinduism are erected within the same inclosure as the Wiharas of the Buddhists; and the Kappoorales of the one religion officiate at their altars, almost beneath the same roof with the priests and neophytes of the other. But beyond this parade of their emblems, the worship of the Hindu deities throughout the Singhalese districts is entirely devoid of the obscenities and cruelty by which it is characterised on the continent of India; and it would almost appear as if these had been discontinued by the Brahmans in compliment to the superior purity of the worship with which their own had become thus fortuitously associated. The exclusive prejudices of caste were at the same remote period partially engrafted on the simpler and more generous discipline of Buddha; and it is only recently that any vigorous exertions have been attempted for their disseverance. [Footnote 1: See _ante_, Vol. I. Part III. ch. viii. p. 378.] On comparing this system with other prevailing religions which divide with it the worship of the East, Buddhism at once vindicates its own superiority, not only by the purity of its code of morals, but by its freedom from the fanatical intolerance of the Mahometans and its abhorrent rejection of the revolting rites of the Brahmanical faith. But mild and benevolent as are its aspects and design, its theories have failed to realise in practice the reign of virtue which they proclaim. Beautiful as is the body of its doctrines, it wants the vivifying energy and soul which are essential to ensure its ascendancy and power. Its cold philosophy and thin abstractions, however calculated to exercise the faculties of anchorets and ascetics, have proved insufficient of themselves to arrest man in his career of passion and pursuit; and the bold experiment of influencing the heart and regulating the conduct of mankind by the external decencies and the mutual dependencies of morality, unsustained by higher hopes and by a faith that penetrates eternity, has proved in this instance an unredeemed and hopeless failure. The inculcation of the social virtues as the consummation of happiness here and hereafter, suggests an object sufficiently attractive for the bulk of mankind; but Buddhism presents along with it no adequate knowledge of the means which are indispensable for its attainment. In confiding all to the mere strength of the human intellect and the enthusiastic self-reliance and determination of the human heart, it makes no provision for defence against those powerful temptations before which ordinary resolution must give way; and affords no consoling support under those overwhelming afflictions by which the spirit is prostrated and subdued, when unaided by the influence of a purer faith and unsustained by its confidence in a diviner power. From the contemplation of the Buddhist all the awful and unending realities of a future life are withdrawn--his hopes and his fears are at once mean and circumscribed; the rewards held in prospect by his creed are insufficient to incite him to virtue; and its punishments too remote to deter him from vice. Thus, insufficient for time, and rejecting eternity, the utmost triumph of his religion is to live without fear and to die without hope. Both socially and in its effects upon individuals, the result of the system in Ceylon has been apathy almost approaching to infidelity. Even as regards the tenets of their creed, the mass of the population exhibit the profoundest ignorance and manifest the most irreverent indifference. In their daily intercourse and acts, morality and virtue, so far from being apparent as the rule, are barely discernible as the exception. Neither hopes nor apprehensions have proved a sufficient restraint on the habitual violation of all those precepts of charity and honesty, of purity and truth, which form the very essence of their doctrine; and in proportion as its tenets have been slighted by the people, its priesthood are disregarded, and its temples neglected. No national system of religion, no prevailing superstition that has ever fallen under my observation presents so dull a level, and is so pre-eminently deficient in popular influences, as Buddhism amongst the Singhalese. It has its multitude of followers, but it is a misnomer to describe them as its _votaries_, for the term implies a warmth and fervour unknown to a native of Ceylon. He believes, or he thinks he believes, because he is of the same faith with his ancestors; but he looks on the religious doctrines of the various sects which surround him with a stolid indifference which is the surest indication of the little importance which he attaches to his own. The fervid earnestness of Christianity, even in its most degenerate forms, the fanatical enthusiasm of Islam, the proud exclusiveness of Brahma, and even the zealous warmth of other Northern faiths, are all emotions utterly foreign and unknown to the followers of Buddhism in Ceylon. Yet, strange to tell, under all the icy coldness of this barren system, there burn below the unextinguished fires of another and a darker superstition, whose flames overtop the icy summits of the Buddhist philosophy, and excite a deeper and more reverential awe in the imagination of the Singhalese. As the Hindus in process of time superadded to their exalted conceptions of Brahma, and the benevolent attributes of Vishnu, those dismal dreams and apprehensions which embody themselves in the horrid worship of Shiva, and in invocations to propitiate the destroyer; so the followers of Buddha, unsatisfied with the vain pretensions of unattainable perfection, struck down by their internal consciousness of sin and insufficiency, and seeing around them, instead of the reign of universal happiness and the apotheosis of intellect and wisdom, nothing but the ravages of crime and the sufferings produced by ignorance, have turned with instinctive terror to propitiate the powers of evil, by whom alone such miseries are supposed to be inflicted, and to _worship the demons_ and tormentors to whom their superstition is contented to attribute a circumscribed portion of power over the earth. DEMON WORSHIP prevailed amongst the Singhalese before the introduction of Buddhism by Mahindo. Some principle akin to it seems to be an aboriginal impulse of uncivilised man in his first and rudest conceptions of religion, engendered, perhaps, by the spectacle of cruelty and pain, the visitations of suffering and death, and the contemplation of the awful phenomena of nature--storms, torrents, volcanoes, earthquakes, and destruction. The conciliation of the powers which inflict such calamities, seems to precede, when it does not supplant, the adoration of the benevolent influence to which belong the creation, the preservation, and the bestowal of happiness on mankind; and in the mind of the native of Ceylon this ancient superstition has maintained its ascendancy, notwithstanding the introduction and ostensible prevalence of Buddhism; for the latter, whilst it admits the existence of evil spirits, has emphatically prohibited their invocation, on the ground that any malignant influence they may exert over man is merely the consequence of his vices, whilst the cultivators of virtue may successfully bid them defiance. The demons here denounced are distinct from a class of demigods, who, under the name of _Yakshyos_, are supposed to inhabit the waters, and dwell on the sides of Mount Meru, and are distinguished not only for gentleness and benevolence but even by a veneration for Buddha, who, in one of his earlier transmigrations, was himself born under the form of a Yakshyo, and, attended by similar companions, traversed the world teaching righteousness. One section of these demigods, however, the _Rakshyos_, are fierce and malignant, and in these respects resemble the Yakkas or demons so much dreaded by the Singhalese, and who, like the _Ghouls_ of the Mahometans, are believed to infest the vicinity of graveyards, or, like the dryads and hamadryads of the ancients, to frequent favourite forests and groves, and to inhabit particular trees, whence they sally out to seize on the passer by.[1] The Buddhist priests connive at demon worship because their efforts are ineffectual to suppress it, and the most orthodox Singhalese, whilst they confess its impropriety, are still driven to resort to it in all their fears and afflictions. [Footnote 1: Travellers from Point de Galle to Colombo, in driving through the long succession of gardens and plantations of coco-nuts which the road traverses throughout its entire extent, will not fail to observe fruit-trees of different kinds, round the stem of which _a band of leaves has been fastened_ by the owner. This is to denote that the tree has been devoted to a demon; and sometimes to Vishnu or the Kattregam dewol. Occasionally these dedications are made to the temples of Buddha, and even to the Roman Catholic altars, as to that of St. Anne of Calpentyn. This ceremony is called _Gok-band-ema_, "the tying of the tender leaf," and its operation is to protect the fruit from pillage till ripe enough to be plucked and sent as an offering to the divinity to whom it has thus been consecrated. There is reason to fear, however, that on these occasions the devil is, to some extent, defrauded of his due, as the custom is, after applying a few only of the finest as an offering to the evil one, to appropriate the remainder to the use of the owner. When coco-nut palms are so preserved, the fruit is sometimes converted into oil and burned before the shrine of the demon. The superstition extends throughout other parts of Ceylon; and so long as the wreath continues to hang upon the tree, it is presumed that no thief would venture to plunder the garden.] Independent of the malignant spirits or Yakkas, who are the authors of indefinite evil, the Singhalese have a demon or _Sanne_ for each form of disease, who is supposed to be its direct agent and inflictor, and who is accordingly invoked for its removal; and others, who delight in the miseries of mankind, are to be propitiated before the arrival of any event over which their pernicious influence might otherwise prevail. Hence, on every domestic occurrence, as well as in every domestic calamity, the services of the _Kattadias_ or devil-priests are to be sought, and their ceremonies performed, generally with observances so barbarous as to be the most revolting evidence still extant of the uncivilised habits of the Singhalese. Especially in cases of sickness and danger, the assistance of the devil-dancer is implicitly relied on: an altar, decorated with garlands, is erected within sight of the patient, and on this an animal, frequently a cock, is to be sacrificed for his recovery. The dying man is instructed to touch and dedicate to the evil spirit the wild flowers, the rice, and the flesh, which have been prepared as the _pidaneys_ or offerings to be made at sunset, at midnight, and the morning; and in the intervals the dancers perform their incantations, habited in masks and disguises to represent the demon which they personate, as the immediate author of the patient's suffering. In the frenzy of these orgies, the Kattadia having feigned the access of inspiration from the spirit he invokes, is consulted by the friends of the afflicted, and declares the nature of his disease, and the probability of its favourable or fatal termination. At sunrise, the ceremony closes by an exorcism chanted to disperse the demons who have been attracted by the rite; the devil-dancers withdraw with the offerings, and sing, as they retire, the concluding song of the ceremony, "that the sacrifice may be acceptable and the life of the sufferer extended." In addition to this Yakka worship, which is essentially indigenous in Ceylon, the natives practise the invocation of a distinct class of demons, their conceptions of which are evidently borrowed from the debased ceremonies of Hinduism, though in their adoption they have rejected the grosser incidents of its ritual, and replaced them with others less cruel, but by no means less revolting. The Capuas, who perform ceremonies in honour of these strange gods, are of a higher rank than the Kattadias, who conduct the incantations to the Yakkas, and they are more or less connected with the Dewales and temples of Hinduism. The spirits in whose honour these ceremonies are performed, are all foreign to Ceylon. Some, such as Kattregam and Pattine, are borrowed from the mythology of the Brahmans; some are the genii of fire and other elements of the universe, and others are deified heroes; but the majority are dreaded as the inflictors of pestilence and famine, and propitiated by rites to avert the visitations of their malignity. The ascendancy of these superstitions, and the anomaly of their association with the religion of Buddha, which has taken for its deity the perfection of wisdom and benevolence, present one of the most signal difficulties with which Christianity has had, at all times, to contend in the effort to extend its influences throughout Ceylon. The Portuguese priesthood discovered that, however the Singhalese might be induced to profess the worship of Christ, they adhered with timid tenacity to their ancient demonology. The Dutch clergy, in their reiterated lamentations over the failure of their efforts for conversion, have repeatedly recorded the fact, that however readily the native population might be brought to abjure their belief in the doctrines of Buddha, no arguments or expedients had proved effectual to overcome their terror of the demons, or check their propensity to resort on every emergency to the ceremonies of the Capuas, the dismal rites of the devil-dancers.[1] The Wesleyans, the Baptists, and other missionaries, who in later times have made the hamlets and secluded districts of Ceylon the scene of their unwearied labours, have found, with equal disappointment, that to the present hour the villagers and the peasantry are as powerfully attracted as ever by this strong superstition, bearing on their person the charms calculated to protect them from the evil eye of the demon, consulting the astrologers and the Capuas on every domestic emergency, solemnizing their marriages under their auspices, and requiring their presence at the birth of their children, who, together with their mother, are not unfrequently dedicated to the evil spirits, whom they dread.[2] [Footnote 1: HOUGH, _Hist. Christ. in India,_ vol. iv. b. xii. ch. v.] [Footnote 2: HARVARD'S _History of the Wesleyan Mission in Ceylon_, Introd., p. iii.] As regards Buddhism itself, whilst there is that in the tenets and genius of Brahmanism which proclaims an active resistance to any other form of religion, Christianity in the southern expanse of Ceylon has to encounter an obstacle still more embarrassing in the habitual apathy and listless indifference of the Buddhists. Brahmanism in its constitution and spirit is essentially exclusive and fanatical, jealous of all conflicting faiths, and strongly disposed to persecution. Buddhism, on the other hand, in the strength of its self-righteousness, extends a latitudinarian liberality to every other belief, and exhibits a Laodicean indifference towards its own. Whilst Brahmanism is a science confided only to an initiated priesthood; and the Vedas and the Shastras in which its precepts are embodied are kept with jealousy from the profane eye of the people, Buddhism, rejoicing in its universality, aspires to be the religion of the multitude, throws open its sacred pages without restriction, and encourages their perusal as a meritorious act of devotion. The despotic ministers of Brahma affect to be versed only in arcana and mystery, and to issue their dicta from oracular authority; but the priesthood of Buddha assume no higher functions than those of teachers of ethics, and claim no loftier title than that of "the clergy of reason."[1] [Footnote 1: The sect of the _Lao Tsen_, or "Doctors of Reason," whom LANDRESSE regards as a development of Buddhism, prevailed in Thibet and the countries lying between China and India in the fifth and sixth centuries; and FA HIAN always refers to them as the "_Clergy of Reason_."--_Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, chap. xxxviii.] In the character of the Singhalese people there is to be traced much of the genius of their religion. The same passiveness and love of ease which restrain from active exertion in the labours of life, find a counterpart in the adjustment by which virtue is limited to abstinence, and worship to contemplation; with only so much of actual ceremonial as may render visible to the eye what would be otherwise inaccessible to the mind. The same love of repose which renders sleep and insensibility the richest blessings of this life, anticipates torpor, akin to extinction, as the supremest felicity of the next. In common with all other nations they deem some form of religious worship indispensable, but, contrary to the usage of most, they are singularly indifferent as to what that particular form is to be; leaving it passively to be determined by the conjunction of circumstances, the accident of locality, and the influence of friends or worldly prospects of gain. Still, in the hands of the Christian missionary, they are by no means the plastic substance which such a description would suggest--capable of being moulded into any form, or retaining permanently any casual impression--but rather a yielding fluid which adapts its shape to that of the vessel into which it may happen to be poured, without any change in its quality or any modification of its character. From this unexcitable temperament of the people, combined with the exalted morals which form the articles of their belief, result phenomena which for upwards of three hundred years have more or less baffled the exertions of all who have laboured for the overthrow of their national superstition and the elevation of Christianity in its stead. The precepts of the latter, when offered to the natives apart from the divinity of their origin, present something in appearance so nearly akin to their own tenets that they were slow to discern the superiority. If Christianity requires purity and truth, temperance, honesty and benevolence, these are already discovered to be enjoined with at least equal impressiveness in the precepts of Buddha. The Scripture commandment forbidding murder is supposed to be analogous to the Buddhist prohibition to kill[1]; and where the law and the Gospel alike enforce the love of one's neighbour as the love of one's self, Buddhism insists upon charity as the basis of worship, and calls on its own followers "to appease anger by gentleness, and overcome evil by good."[2] [Footnote 1: The order of Buddha not to take away life is imperative and unqualified as regards the priesthood; but to mankind in general it forms one of his "_Sikshupada_," or _advices_, and admits of modification under certain contingencies. A priest who should take away the life of an animal, or even an insect, under any circumstances, would be guilty of the offence denominated _Pachittvya_, and subject to penal discipline; but to take away human life, to be accessory to murder, or to encourage to suicide, amounts to the sin of _Parajika_, and is visited with permanent expulsion from the order. As regards the laity, the use of animal food is not forbidden, provided the individual has not himself been an agent in depriving it of life. The doctrine of prohibition, however, although thus regulated, like many others of the Buddhists, by subtleties and sophistry, has proved an obstacle in the way of the Missionaries; and, coupled with the permission in the Scriptures "to slay and eat," it has not failed to operate prejudicially to the spread of Christianity.] [Footnote 2: From the Singhalese book, the "_Dharmma Padan_," or Footsteps of Religion, portions of which are translated in "_The Friend_," Colombo, 1840.] Thus the outward concurrence of Christianity in those points on which it agrees with their own religion, has proved more embarrassing to the natives than their perplexity as to others in which it essentially differs; till at last, too timid to doubt and too feeble to inquire, they cling with helpless tenacity to their own superstition, and yet subscribe to the new faith simply by adding it on to the old. Combined with this state of irresolution a serious obstacle to the acceptance of reformed Christianity by the Singhalese Buddhists has arisen from the differences and disagreements between the various churches by whose ministers it has been successively offered to them. In the persecution of the Roman Catholics by the Dutch, the subsequent supercession of the Church of Holland by that of England, the rivalries more or less apparent between the Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and the peculiarities which separate the Baptists from the Wesleyan Methodists--all of whom have their missions and representatives in Ceylon--the Singhalese can discover little more than that they are offered something still doubtful and unsettled, in exchange for which they are pressed to surrender their own ancient superstition. Conscious of their inability to decide on what has baffled the wisest of their European teachers to reconcile, they hesitate to exchange for an apparent uncertainty that which has been unhesitatingly believed by generations of their ancestors, and which comes recommended to them by all the authority of antiquity; and even when truth has been so far successful as to shake their confidence in their national faith, the choice of sects which has been offered to them leads to utter bewilderment as to the peculiar form of Christianity with which they may most confidingly replace it.[1] [Footnote 1: A narrative of the efforts made by the Portuguese to introduce Christianity, and by the Dutch to establish the reformed Religion, will be found in Sir J. EMERSON TENNENT'S _Christianity in Ceylon_; together with an exposition of the systems adopted by the European and American missions, and their influence on the Hindu and Buddhist races, respectively. Those who seek to pursue the study of Buddhism, its tenets and economies, as it exhibits itself in Ceylon, will find ample details in the two profound works published by Mr. R. SPENCE HARDY: _Eastern Monachism_, Lond. 1850, and _A Manual of Buddhism, in its Modern Development_, Lond. 1853.] PART V. * * * * * MEDIÆVAL HISTORY. CHAPTER I. CEYLON AS KNOWN TO THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. Although mysterious rumours of the wealth and wonders of India had reached the Western nations in the heroic ages, and although travellers at a later period returning from Persia and the East had spread romantic reports of its vastness and magnificence, it is doubtful whether Ceylon had been heard of in Europe[1] even by name till the companions of Alexander the Great, returning from his Indian expedition, brought back accounts of what they had been told of its elephants and ivory, its tortoises and marine monsters.[2] [Footnote 1: Nothing is more strikingly suggestive of the extended renown of Ceylon and of the different countries which maintained an intercourse with the island, than the number and dissimilarity of the names by which it has been known at various periods throughout Europe and Asia. So remarkable is this peculiarity, that LASSEN has made "the names of Taprobane" the subject of several learned disquisitions (_De Taprobane Insula veter. cogn. Dissert_. sec. 2, p. 5; _Indische Alterthumskunde_, vol. i. p. 200, note viii. p. 212, &c.); and BURNOUF has devoted two elaborate essays to their elucidation, _Journ. Asiat_. 1826, vol. viii. p. 129. _Ibid_., 1857, vol. xxxiii. p. 1. In the literature of the Brahmans, Lanka, from having been the scene of the exploits of Rama, is as renowned as Ilion in the great epic of the Greeks. "Taprobane," the name by which the island was first known to the Macedonians, is derivable from the Pali "Tamba panni." The origin of the epithet will be found in the _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 56. and it is further noticed in the present work, Vol. I. P. 1. ch. i. p. 17, and P. III. ch. ii. p. 330.--It has likewise been referred to the Sanskrit "_Tambrapani_;" which, according to LASSEN, means "the great pond," or "the pond covered with the red lotus," and was probably associated with the gigantic tanks for which Ceylon is so remarkable. In later times Taprobane was exchanged for Simundu, Palai-simundu, and Salike, under which names it is described by PTOLEMY, the author of the _Periplus_, and by MARCIANUS of Heraclæa. _Palai-simundu_, LASSEN conjectures to be derived from the Sanskrit _Pali-simanta_, "the head of the sacred law," from Ceylon having become the great centre of the Buddhist faith (_De Taprob_., p. 16; _Indische Alter_. vol. i. p. 200); and _Salike_ he regards merely as a seaman's corruption of "Sinhala or Sihala," the name chosen by the Singhalese themselves, and signifying "the dwelling place of lions." BURNOUF suggests whether it may not be _Sri-Lanka_, or "Lanka the Blessed." _Sinhala_, with the suffix of "diva," or "dwipa" (island), was subsequently converted into "Silan-dwipa" and "Seren-diva," whence the "Serendib" of the Arabian navigators and their romances; and this in later times was contracted into Zeilan by the Portuguese, Ceylan by the Dutch, and Ceylon by the English. VINCENT, in his _Commentary on the Periplus of the Erythræan Sea_, vol. ii. p. 493, has enumerated a variety of other names borne by the island; and to all these might be further added those assigned to it in China, in Siam, in Hindustan, Kashmir, Persia, and other countries of the East. The learned ingenuity of BOCHART applied a Hebrew root to expound the origin of Taprobane (_Geogr. Sac._ lib. ii. ch. xxviii.); but the later researches of TURNOUR, BURNOUF, and LASSEN have traced it with certainty to its Pali and Sanskrit origin.] [Footnote 2: GOSSELIN, in his _Recherches sur la Géographie des Anciens_, tom. iii. p. 291, says that Onesicritus, the pilot of Alexander's fleet, "avoit visité la Taprobane pendant un nouveau voyage qu'il eut ordre de faire." If so, he was the first European on record who had seen the island; but I have searched unsuccessfully for any authority to sustain this statement of GOSSELIN.] So vague and uncertain was the information thus obtained, that STRABO, writing upwards of two centuries later, manifests irresolution in stating that Taprobane was an island[1]; and POMPONIUS MELA, who wrote early in the first century of the Christian era, quotes as probable the conjecture of HIPPARCHUS, that it was not in reality an island, but the commencement of a south-eastern continent[2]; an opinion which PLINY records as an error that had prevailed previous to his own time, but which he had been enabled to correct by the information received from the ambassador who had been sent from Ceylon to the Emperor Claudius.[3] [Footnote 1: STRABO, l. ii. c.i.s. 14, c.v.s. 14, [Greek: einai phasi nêson]; l. xv. c.i.s. 14. OVID was more confident, and sung of-- ". . . . Syene Aut ubi Taprobanen Indica cingit aqua." _Epst. ex Ponto_, l. 80] [Footnote 2: "Taprobanen aut grandis admodum insula aut prima pars orbis alterius Hipparcho dicitur."--P. MELA, iii. 7. "Dubitare poterant juniores num revera insula esset quam illi pro veterum Taprobane habebant, si nemo eousque repertus esset qui eam circumnavigasset: sic enim de nostra quoque Brittania dubitatum est essetne insula antequam illam circumnavigasset Agricola."--_Dissertatio de Ætate et Amtore Peripli Maris Erythræi_; HUDSON, _Geographiæ Veter. Scrip. Grac. Min._., vol. i. p. 97.] [Footnote 3: PLINY, 1. vi. c. 24.] In the treatise _De Mundo_, which is ascribed to ARISTOTLE[1], Taprobane is mentioned incidentally as of less size than Britain; and this is probably the earliest historical notice of Ceylon that has come down to us[2] as the memoirs of Alexander's Indian officers, on whose authority Aristotle (if he be the author of the treatise "_De Mundo_") must have written, survive only in fragments, preserved by the later historians and geographers. [Footnote 1: I have elsewhere disposed of the alleged allusions of Sanchoniathon to an island which was obviously meant for Ceylon. (See Note (A) end of this chapter.) The authenticity of the treatise _De Mundo_, as a production of ARISTOTLE, is somewhat doubtful (SCHOELL, _Literat. Grecque_, liv. iv. c. xl.); and it might add to the suspicion of its being a modern composition, that Aristotle should do no more than mention the name and size of a country of which Onesicritus and Nearchus had just brought home accounts so surprising; and that he should speak of it with confidence as an island; although the question of its insularity remained somewhat uncertain at a much later period.] [Footnote 2: Fabricius, in the supplemental volume of his _Codex Pseudepigraphi veteris Testamenti,_ Hamb., A.D. 1723, says: "Samarita, Genesis, viii. 4, tradit Noæ arcam requievisse super montem [Greek: tês] Serendib sive Zeylan."--P. 30; and it was possibly upon this authority that it has been stated in Kitto's _Cyclopoedia of Biblical Literature,_ vol. i. p. 199, as "a curious circumstance that in Genesis, viii. 4, the Samaritan Pentateuch has Sarandib, the Arabic name of Ceylon," instead of Ararat, as the resting place of the ark. Were this true, it would give a triumph to speculation, and serve by a single but irresistible proof to dissipate doubt, if there were any, as to the early intercourse between the Hebrews and that island as the country from which Solomon drew his triennial supplies of ivory, apes, and peacocks (1 Kings, x. 22). Assuming the correctness of the opinion that the Samaritan Pentateuch is as old as the separation of the tribes in the reign of Rehoboam, B. C. 975-958, this would not only furnish a notice of Ceylon far anterior to any existing authority; but would assign an antiquity irreconcilable with historical evidence as to its comparatively modern name of "Serendib." The interest of the discovery would still be extraordinary, even if the Samaritan Pentateuch be referred to the later date assigned to it by Frankel, who adduces evidence to show that its writer had made use of the Septuagint. The author of the article in the _Biblical Cyclopoedia_ is however in error. Every copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch, both those printed in the Paris _Polyglot_ and in that of Walton, as well as the five MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which contain the eighth chapter of Genesis, together with several collations of the Hebrew and Samaritan text, make no mention of Sarandib, but all exhibit the word "Ararat" in its proper place in the eighth chapter of Genesis. "Ararat" is also found correctly in BLAYNET'S _Pentat, Hebroeo-Samarit.,_ Oxford, 1790. But there is another work in which "Sarandib" does appear in the verse alluded to. PIETRO DELLA VALLE, in that most interesting letter in which he describes the manner in which he obtained at Damascus, in A.D. 1616, a manuscript of the Pentateuch on parchment in the Hebrew language, but written in Samaritan characters; relates that along with it he procured _another_ on paper, in which not only the letters, but the language, was Samaritan--"che non solo è seritto con lettere Samaritane, ma in lingua anche propria de' Samaritani, che è un misto della Ebraica e della Caldea."--_Viaggi, &c.,_ Lett. da Aleppo, 15. di Giugno A.D. 1616. The first of these two manuscripts is the Samaritan Pentateuch, the second is the "_Samaritan version_" of it. The author and age of the second are alike unknown; but it cannot, in the opinion of Frankel, date earlier than the second century, or a still later period. (DAVISON'S _Biblical Criticism,_ vol. i, ch. xv. p. 242.) Like all ancient targums, it bears in some particulars the character of a paraphrase; and amongst other departures from the literal text of the original Hebrew, the translator, following the example of Onkelos and others, has substituted modern geographical names for some of the more ancient, such as _Gerizim_ for Mount Ebal (Deut. xxvii. 4), _Paneas_ for Dan, and _Ascalon_ for Gerar; and in the 4th verse of the viiith chapter of Genesis he has made the ark to rest "_upon the mountains of Sarandib._" Onkelos in the same passage has _Kardu_ in place of Ararat. See WALTON'S _Polyglot_, vol. i. p. 31; BASTOW, _Bibl. Dict._ 1847, vol. i. p. 71. According to the _Mahawanso_, the epithet of Sihale-dwipa, the _island of lions_, was conferred upon Ceylon by the followers of Wijayo, B.C. 543 (_Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 51), and from this was formed, by the Arabian seamen, the names Silan-dip and Seran-dib. The occurrence of the latter word, therefore, in the "Samaritan Pentateuch," if its antiquity be referable to the reign of Rehoboam, would be inexplicable; whereas no anachronism is involved by its appearance in the "Samaritan _version_," which was not written till many centuries after the Wijayan conquest. There is another manuscript, written on bombycine, in the Bodleian Library, No. 345, described as an Arabic version of the Pentateuch, written between the years 884 and 885 of the Hejira, A.D. 1479 and 1480, and ascribed to Aba Said, son of Abul Hassan, "in eo continetur versio Arabica Pentateuchi quæ ex textu Hebræico-Samaritano _non ex versione ilia quæ dialecto quadam peculieri Samaritanis quondam vernacula Scripta est_."--_Cat. Orient. MSS._ vol. I. p. 2. In this manuscript, also, the word _Sarendip_ instead of Ararat, occurs in the passage in Genesis descriptive of the resting of the ark.] From their compilations, however, it appears that the information concerning Ceylon collected by the Macedonian explorers of India, was both meagre and erroneous. ONESICRITUS, as he is quoted by Strabo and Pliny, propagated exaggerated statements as to the dimensions of the island[1] and the number of herbivorous cetacea[2] found in its seas; the elephants he described as far surpassing those of continental India both in courage and in size.[3] [Footnote 1: These early errors as to the and position of Ceylon will be found explained elsewhere. See Vol. I. P. 1. ch. i. p. 81.] [Footnote 2: STRABO, xv. p. 691. The animal referred to by the informants of Onesicritus was the dugong, whose form and attitudes gave rise to the fabled mermaid. See Ælian, lib. xvi. ch. xviii., who says it has the face of a woman and spines that resemble hair.] [Footnote 3: PLINY, lib. vi. ch. 24.] MEGASTHENES, twenty years after the death of Alexander the Great, was accredited as an ambassador from Seleucus Nicator to the court of Sandracottus, or Chandra-Gupta, the King of the Prasii, from whose country Ceylon had been colonised two centuries before by the expedition under Wijayo.[1] It was, perhaps, from the latter circumstance and the communication subsequently maintained between the insular colony and the mother country, that Megasthenes, who never visited any part of India south of the Ganges, and who was, probably, the first European who ever beheld that renowned river[1], was nevertheless enabled to collect many particulars relative to the interior of Ceylon. He described it as being divided by a river (the Mahawelli-ganga?) into two sections, one infested by wild beasts and elephants, the other producing gold and gems, and inhabited by a people whom he called Palæogoni[2], a hellenized form of _Pali-Putra,_ "the sons of the Pali," the first Prasian colonists. [Footnote 1: See Vol. I. P. III. ch. iii. p. 336.] [Footnote 2: ROBEBTSON'S _Ancient India,_ sec. ii.] [Footnote 3: SCHWANBECK'S _Megasthenes, Fragm._ xviii.; SOLINUS POLYHISTOR, lii. 3; PLINY, lvi. ch. 24. ÆLIAN, in compiling his _Natura Animalium,_ has introduced the story told by MEGASTHENES, and quoted by STRABO, of cetaceous animals in the seas of Ceylon with heads resembling oxen and lions; and this justifies the conjecture that other portions of the same work referring to the island may have been simultaneously borrowed from the same source. SCHWANBECK, apparently on this ground, has included among the _Fragmenta incerta_ those passages from ÆLIAN, lib, xvi. ch. 17, 18, in which he says, and truly, that in Taprobane there were no cities, but from five to seven hundred villages built of wood, thatched with reeds, and occasionally covered with the shells of large tortoises. The sea coast then as now was densely covered with palm-trees (evidently coco-nut and Palmyra), and the forests contained elephants so superior to those of India that they were shipped in large vessels and sold to the King of Calinga (Northern Circars). The island, he says, is so large that "those in the maritime districts never hunted in the interior, and those in the interior had never seen the sea."] Such was the scanty knowledge regarding India communicated to Europe by those who had followed the footsteps of conquest into that remote region; and although eighteen centuries elapsed from the death of Alexander the Great before another European power sought to establish its dominion in the East, a new passion had been early implanted, the cultivation of which was in the highest degree favourable to the acquisition and diffusion of geographical knowledge. In an age before the birth of history[1], the adventurous Phoenicians, issuing from the Red Sea, in their ships, had reached the shores of India, and centuries afterwards their experienced seamen piloted the fleets of Solomon in search of the luxuries of the East.[2] [Footnote 1: A compendious account of the early trade between India and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean will be found in PARDESSUS's _Collection des Lois Maritimes antérieures au XVIII^e siècle_, tom. i. p. 9.] [Footnote 2: It has been conjectured, and not without reason, that it may possibly have been from Ceylon and certainly from Southern India that the fleets of Solomon were returning when "once in every three years came the ships of Tarshish, bringing gold and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks."--_I Kings_, x. 22, _II Chron._, xx. 21. An exposition of the reasons for believing that the site of Tarshish may be recognised in the modern Point de Galle will be found in a subsequent chapter descriptive of that ancient emporium. See also Note A at the end of this chapter.] Egypt, under the Ptolemies, became the seat of that opulent trade which it had been the aim of Alexander the Great to divert to it from Syria. Berenice was built on the Red Sea, as an emporium for the ships engaged in Indian voyages, and Alexandria excelled Tyre in the magnitude and success of her mercantile operations. The conquest of Egypt by Augustus, so far from checking, served to communicate a fresh impulse to the intercourse with India, whence all that was costly and rare was collected in wanton profusion, to minister to the luxury of Rome. A bold discovery of the same period imparted an entirely new character to the navigation of the Indian Ocean. The previous impediment to trade had been the necessity of carrying it on in small vessels, that crept cautiously along the windings of the shore, the crews being too ignorant and too timid to face the dangers of the open sea. But the courage of an individual at length solved the difficulty, and dissipated the alarm. Hippalus, a seaman in the reign of Claudius, observing the steady prevalence of the monsoons[1], which blew over the Indian Ocean alternately from east to west, dared to trust himself to their influence, and departing from the coast of Arabia, he stretched fearlessly across the unknown deep, and was carried by the winds to Muziris, a port on the coast of Malabar, the modern Mangalore. [Footnote 1: Arabic "_maussam_." I believe the root belongs to a dialect of India, and signifies "seasons." VINCENT fixes the discovery of the monsoons by Hippalus about the year A.D. 47, although it admits of no doubt that the periodical prevalence of the winds must have been known long before, if not partially taken advantage of by the seamen of Arabia and India. _Periplus, &c._, vol. ii, pp. 24--57.] An exploit so adventurous and so triumphant, rendered Hippalus the Columbus of his age, and his countrymen, to perpetuate his renown, called the winds which he had mastered by his name.[1] His discovery gave a new direction to navigation, it altered the dimensions and build of the ships frequenting those seas [2], and imparted so great an impulse to trade, that within a very brief period it became a subject of apprehension at Rome, lest the empire should be drained of its specie to maintain the commerce with India. Silver to the value of nearly a million and a half sterling, being annually required to pay for the spices, gems, pearls, and silks, imported through Egypt.[3] An extensive acquaintance was now acquired with the sea-coast of India, and the great work of Pliny, compiled less than fifty years after the discovery of Hippalus, serves to attest the additional knowledge regarding Ceylon which had been collected during the interval. [Footnote 1: _Periplus, &c._, HUDSON, p. 32; PLINY, lib. vi, ch. 26. A learned disquisition on the discovery of the monsoons will be found in VINCENT's _Commerce of the Ancients_, vol. i. pp. 47, 253; vol. ii. pp. 49; 467; ROBERTSON's _India_, sec. ii.] [Footnote 2: PLINY, lib. vi. ch. 24.] [Footnote 3: PLINY, lib. vi. ch. 26. The nature of this rich trade is fully described by the author of the _Periplus of the Erythrean Sea_, who was himself a merchant engaged in it.] Pliny, writing in the first century, puts aside the fabulous tales previously circulated concerning the island[1]; he gives due credit to the truer accounts of Onesicritus and Megasthenes, and refers to the later works of ERATOSTHENES and ARTEMIDORUS[2] the geographers, as to its position, its dimensions, its cities, its natural productions, and as to the ignorance of navigation exhibited by its inhabitants. All this, he says, was recorded by former writers, but it had fallen to his lot to collect information from natives of Ceylon who had visited Rome during his own time under singular circumstances. A ship had been despatched to the coast of Arabia to collect the Red Sea revenues, but having been caught by the monsoon it was carried to Hippuros, the modern Kudra-mali, in the north-west of Ceylon, near the pearl banks of Manaar. Here the officer in command was courteously received by the king, who, struck with admiration of the Romans and eager to form an alliance with them, despatched an embassy to Italy, consisting of a Raja and suite of three persons.[3] [Footnote 1: I have not thought it necessary to advert to the romance of JAMBULUS, the scene of which has been conjectured, but without any justifiable grounds, to be laid in Ceylon; and which is strangely incorporated with the authentic work of DIODORUS SICULUS, written in the age of Augustus. DIODORUS professes to give it as an account of the _recent discovery_ of an island to which it refers; a fact sufficiently demonstrative of its inapplicability to Ceylon, the existence of which had been known to the Greeks three hundred years before. It is the story of a merchant made captive by pirates and carried to Æthiopia, where, in compliance with a solemn rite, he and a companion were exposed in a boat, which, after a voyage of four months, was wafted to one of the Fortunate Islands, in the Southern Sea, where he resided seven years, whence having been expelled, he made his way to Palibothra, on the Ganges, and thence returned to Greece. In the pretended account of this island given by JAMBULUS I cannot discover a single attribute sufficient to identify it with Ceylon. On the contrary, the traits which he narrates of the country and its inhabitants, when they are not manifest inventions, are obviously borrowed from the descriptions of the continent of India, given by CTESIAS and MEGASTHENES. PRINSEP, in his learned analysis of the Sanchi Inscription, shows that what JAMBULUS says of the alphabet of his island agrees minutely with the character and symbols on the ancient Buddhist lats of Central India. _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Ben._, vol. vi. p. 476. WILFORD, in his _Essay on the Sacred Isles of the West, Asiat. Res._ x. 150, enumerates the statements of JAMBULUS which might possibly apply to Sumatra, but certainly not to Ceylon, an opinion in which he had been anticipated by RAMUSIO, vol. i. p. 176. LASSEN, in his _Indische Alterthumskunde_, vol. iii. p. 270, assigns his reasons for believing that Bali, to the east of Java, must be the island in which JAMBULUS laid the scene of his adventures. DIODORUS SICULUS, lib. ii. ch. lv., &c. An attempt has also been made to establish an identity between Ceylon and the island of Panchoea, which Diodoras describes in the Indian Sea, between Arabia and Gedrosia (lib. v. 41, &c.); but the efforts of an otherwise ingenious writer have been unsuccessful. See GROVER's _Voice from Stonehenge_, P. i. p. 95.] [Footnote 2: PLINY, lib. xxii. ch. liii. iv. ch. xxiv. vii. ch. ii.] [Footnote 3: "Legatos quatuor misit principe eoram Rachia."--PLINY, lib. vi. c. 24. This passage is generally understood to indicate four ambassadors, of whom the principal was one named Rachias. CASIE CHITTY, in a learned paper on the early _History of Jaffna_, offers another conjecture that "Rachia" may mean _Arachia_, a Singhalese designation of rank which exists to the present day; and in support of his hypothesis he instances the coincidence that "at a later period a similar functionary was despatched by the King Bhuwaneka-Bahu VIII. as ambassador to the court of Lisbon."--_Journal Ceylon Asiat. Soc.,_ p. 74, 1848. The event to which he refers is recorded in the _Rajavali_: it is stated that the king of Cotta, about the year 1540, "caused a figure of the prince his grandson to be made of gold, and sent the same under the care of _Sallappoo Arachy_, to be delivered to the King of Portugal. The Arachy having arrived and delivered the presents to the King of Portugal, obtained the promise of great assistance," &c.--_Rajavali_, p. 286. See also VALENTYN, _Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien_, ch. vi.; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 49; RIBEYRO'S _History_, trans, by Lee, ch. v. But as the embassy sent to the Emperor Claudius would necessarily have been deputed by one of the kings of the Wijayan dynasty, it is more than probable that the rank of the envoy was Indian rather than Singhalese, and that "Rachia" means _raja_ rather than _arachy_. It may, however, be observed that Rackha is a name of some renown in Singhalese annals. Rackha was the general whom Prakrama Bahu sent to reduce the south of Ceylon when in arms in the 12th century (_Mahawanso_, ch. lxxiii.); and it is also the name of one of the heroes of the Paramas. WILFORD, _As. Res._, vol. ix. p. 41.] The Singhalese king of whom this is recorded was probably Chanda-Mukha-Siwa, who ascended the throne A.D. 44, and was deposed and assassinated by his brother A.D. 52. He signalised his reign by the construction of one of those gigantic tanks which still form the wonders of the island.[1] From his envoys Pliny learned that Ceylon then contained five hundred towns (or more properly villages), of which the chief was Palæsimunda, the residence of the sovereign, with a population of two hundred thousand souls. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 218; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 21; AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS mentions another embassy which arrived from Ceylon in the reign of the Emperor Julian, l. xx. c. 7, and which consequently must have been despatched by the king Upa-tissa II. I have elsewhere remarked, that it was in this century that the Singhalese appear to have first commenced the practice of sending frequent embassies to distant countries, and especially to China. (See chapter on the Knowledge of Ceylon possessed by the Chinese.)] They spoke of a lake called Megisba, of vast magnitude, and giving rise to two rivers, one flowing by the capital and the other northwards, towards the continent of India, which was most likely an exaggerated account of some of the great tanks, possibly that of Tissaweva, in the vicinity of Anarajapoora. They described the coral which abounds in the Gulf of Manaar; and spoke of marble, with colours like the shell of the tortoise; of pearls and precious stones; of the luxuriance of the soil, the profusion of all fruits except that of the vine, the natural wealth of the inhabitants, the mildness of the government, the absence of vexatious laws, the happiness of the people, and the duration of life, which was prolonged to more than one hundred years. They spoke of a commerce with China, but it was evidently overland, by way of India and Tartary, the country of the Seres being visible, they said, beyond the Himalaya mountains.[1] The ambassadors described the mode of trading among their own countrymen precisely as it is practised by the Veddahs in Ceylon at the present day[2]; the parties to the barter being concealed from each other, the one depositing the articles to be exchanged in a given place, and the other, if they agree to the terms, removing them unseen, and leaving behind what they give in return. It is impossible to read this narrative of Pliny without being struck with its fidelity to truth in many particulars; and even one passage, to which exception has been taken as an imposture of the Singhalese envoys, when they manifested surprise at the quarters in which the sun rose and set in Italy, has been referred[3] to the peculiar system of the Hindus, in whose maps north and south are left and right; but it may be explained by the fact of the sun passing overhead in Ceylon, in his transit to the northern solstice; instead of hanging about the south, as in Italy, after acquiring some elevation above the horizon. [Footnote 1: "Ultra montes Emodos Seras quoque ab ipsis aspici notos etiam commercio."--PLINY, lib. vi. c. 24.] [Footnote 2: See the chapter on the Veddahs, Vol. II. Part II. ch. iii.] [Footnote 3: See WILFORD'S _Sacred Islands of the West, Asiat. Res_., vol. x. p. 41.] The rapid progress of navigation and discovery in the Indian seas, within the interval of sixty or seventy years which elapsed between the death of Pliny and the compilation of the great work of Ptolemy is in no instance more strikingly exhibited than on comparing the information concerning Taprobane, which is given by the latter in his "System of Geography,"[1] with the meagre knowledge of the island possessed by all his predecessors. From his position at Alexandria and his opportunites of intercourse with mariners returning from their distant voyages, he enjoyed unusual facilities for ascertaining facts and distances, and in proof of his singular diligence he was enabled to lay down in his map of Ceylon the position of eight promontories upon its coast, the mouths of five principal rivers, four bays, and harbours; and in the interior he had ascertained that there were thirteen provincial divisions, and nineteen towns, besides two emporiums on the coast; five great estuaries which he terms lakes[2], two bays, and two chains of mountains, one of them surrounding Adam's Peak, which he designates as Maloea--the name by which the hills that environ it are known in the _Mahawanso_. He mentions the recent change of the name to Salike (which Lassen conjectures to be a seaman's corruption of the real name Sihala[3]); and he notices, in passing, the fact that the natives wore their hair then as they do at the present day, in such length and profusion as to give them an appearance of effeminacy, "[Greek: mallois gynaikeiois eis hapan anadedemenos]."[4] [Footnote 1: PTOLEMY, _Geog_. lib. vii. c. 4, tab. xii, Asiæ. In one important particular a recent author has done justice to the genius and perseverance of Ptolemy, by demonstrating that although mistaken in adopting some of the fallacious statements of his predecessors, he has availed himself of better data by which to fix the position of Ceylon; so that the western coast in the Ptolemaic map coincides with the modern Ceylon in the vicinity of Colombo. Mr. COOLEY, in his learned work on _Claudius Ptolemy and the Nile_, Lond. 1854, has successfully shown that whilst forced to accept those popular statements which he had no authentic data to check, Ptolemy conscientiously availed himself of the best materials at his command, and endeavoured to fix his distances by means of the reports of the Greek seamen who frequented the coasts which he described, constructing his maps by means of their itineraries and the journals of trading voyages. But a fundamental error pervades all his calculations, inasmuch as he assumed that there were but 500 stadia (about fifty geographical miles) instead of sixty miles to a degree of a great circle of the earth; thus curtailing the globe of one sixth of its circumference. Once apprised of this mistake, and reckoning Ptolemy's longitudes and latitudes from Alexandria, and reducing them to degrees of 600 stadia, his positions may be laid down on a more correct graduation; otherwise "his Taprobane, magnified far beyond its true dimensions, appears to extend two degrees below the equator, and to the seventy-first meridian east of Alexandria (nearly twenty degrees too far east), _whereas the prescribed reduction brings it westward and northward till it covers the modern Ceylon_, the western coasts of both coinciding at the very part near Colombo likely to have been visited by shipping."--Pp. 47, 53, See also SCHOELL, _Hist, de la Lit. Grecque_, l. v. c. lxx. [Illustration]] [Footnote 2: It is observable that Ptolemy in his list distinguishes those indentations in the coast which he described as _bays_, [Greek: kolpos], from the estuaries, to which he gives the epithet of "lakes," [Greek: limên]. Of the former he particularises two, the position of which would nearly correspond with the Bay of Trincomalie and the harbour of Colombo. Of the latter he enumerates five, and from their position they seem to represent the peculiar estuaries formed by the conjoint influence of the rivers and the current, and known by the Arabs by the term of "_gobbs_." A description of them will be found at Vol. I. Part I. ch. i. p. 43.] [Footnote 3: May it not have an Egyptian origin "Siela-Keh," the _land_ of _Siela_?] [Footnote 4: The description of Taprobane given by Ptolemy proves that the island had been thoroughly circumnavigated and examined by the mariners who were his informants. Not having penetrated the interior to any extent, their reports relative to it are confined to the names of the principal tribes inhabiting the several divisions and provinces, and the position of the metropolis and seat of government. But respecting the coast, their notes were evidently minute and generally accurate, and from them Ptolemy was enabled to enumerate in succession the bays, rivers, and harbours, together with the headlands and cities on the seaborde in consecutive order; beginning at the northern extremity, proceeding southward down the western coast, and returning along the east to Point Pedro. Although the majority of the names which he supplies are no longer susceptible of identification on the modern map, some of them can be traced without difficulty--thus his _Ganges_ is still the Mahawelli-ganga; his _Maagrammum_ would appear, on a first glance, to be Mahagam, but as he calls it the "metropolis," and places it beside the great river, it is evidently Bintenne, whose ancient name was "Maha-yangana" or "Ma-ha-welli-gam." His _Anurogrammum_, which he calls [Greek: Basileion], "the royal residence," is obviously Anarajapoora, the city founded by Anuradha five hundred years before Ptolemy was born (_Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 50, x. 65, &c.). It may have borne in his time the secondary rank of a village or a town (_gam_ or _gramma_), and afterwards acquired the higher epithet of Anuradha-_porra_, the "city" of Anuradha, after it had grown to the dimensions of a capital. The province of the _Modutti_ in Ptolemy's list has a close resemblance in name, though not in position, to Mantotte; the people of Rayagam Corle still occupy the country assigned by him to the _Rhogandani_--his _Naga dibii_ are identical with the Nagadiva of the _Mahawanso_; and the islet to which he has given the name of _Bassa_, occupies nearly the position of the Basses, which it has been the custom to believe were so called by the Portuguese--"Baxos" or "Baixos," _sunken rocks_. It is curious that the position in which he has placed the elephant plains or feeding grounds, [Greek: elephantôn nomoi], to the south-east of Adam's Peak, is the portion of the island about Matura, where, down to a very recent period, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English successively held their annual battues, not only for the supply of the government studs, but for export to India. Making due allowance for the false dimensions of the island assumed by Ptolemy, but taking his account of the relative positions of the headlands, rivers, harbours, and cities, the accompanying map affords a proximate idea of his views of Taprobane and its localities as propounded in his Geography. * * * * * _Post-scriptum._ Since the above was written, and the map it refers to was returned to me from the engraver, I have discovered that a similar attempt to identify the ancient names of Ptolemy with those now attached to the supposed localities, was made by Gosselin; and a chart so constructed will be found (No. xiv.) appended to his _Recherches sur la Géographie des Anciens_, t. iii. p. 303. I have been gratified to find that in the more important points we agree; but in many of the minor ones, the want of personal knowledge of the island involved Gosselin in errors which the map I have prepared will, I hope, serve to rectify.--J.E.T.] [Illustration: TAPROBANE OR SALIKE, _(CEYLON) according to_ Ptolemy and Pliny. _N.B. The modern Names are given in Italics. By Sir J. Emerson Tennent._] The extent and accuracy of Ptolemy's information is so surprising, that it has given rise to surmises as to the sources whence it could possibly have been derived.[1] But the conjecture that he was indebted to ancient Phoenician or Tyrian authorities whom he has failed to acknowledge, is sufficiently met by the consideration that these were equally accessible to his predecessors. The abundance of his materials, especially those relating to the sea-borde of India and Ceylon, is sufficient to show that he was mainly indebted for his facts to the adventurous merchants of Egypt and Arabia, and to works which, like the _Periplus of the Erythroean Sea_ (erroneously ascribed to ARRIAN the historian, but written by a merchant probably of the same name), were drawn up by practical navigators to serve as sailing directions for seamen resorting to the Indian Ocean.[2] [Footnote 1: HEEREN, _Hist. Researches_, vol. ii. Appendix xii.] [Footnote 2: LASSEN, _De Taprob. Ins._ p. 4. From the error of Ptolemy in making the coast of Malabar extend from west to east, whilst its true position is laid down in the _Periplus_, VINCENT concludes that he was not acquainted with the _Periplus_, as, anterior to the invention of printing, cotemporaries might readily be ignorant of the productions of each other (VINCENT, vol. ii. p. 55). Vincent assigns the composition of the _Periplus_ to the reign of Claudius or Nero, and Dodwell to that of M. Aurelius, but Letronne more judiciously ascribes it to the period of Severus and Caracalla, A.D. 198,210, fifty years later than Ptolemy. The author, a Greek of Alexandria and a merchant, never visited Ceylon, though he had been as far south as Nelkynda (the modern Neliseram), and the account which he gives from report of the island is meagre, and in some respects erroneous. ARRIANI _Periplus Maris Eryth.;_ HUDSON, vol. i. p. 35; VINCENT, vol. ii. p. 493.] So ample was the description of Ceylon afforded by Ptolemy, that for a very long period his successors, AGATHEMERUS, MARCIANUS of Heraclea, and other geographers, were severally contented to use the facts originally collected by him.[1] And it was not till the reign of Justinian, in the sixth century, that COSMAS INDICO-PLEUSTES, by publishing the narrative of Sopater, added very considerably to the previous knowledge of the island. [Footnote 1: AGATHEMERUS, _Hudson Geog._, l. ii. c. 7,8.; MARCIANUS HERACLEOTA, _Periplus, Hudson,_ p. 26. STEPHANUS BYZANTINUS, _in verbo_ "Taprobane." Instead of the expression of PTOLEMY that Taprobane [Greek: ekaleito palai Simoundon], which MARCIANUS had rendered [Greek: Palaisimioundou], STEPHANUS transposes the words as if to guard against error, [Greek: palai men ekaleito Simoundou], &c. The prior authority of PTOLEMY, however, serves to prolong the mystery, as he calls the capital Palæsimundum.] As Cosmos is the last Greek writer who treats of Taprobane[1], it may be interesting, before passing to his account of the island, to advert to what has been recorded by the Singhalese chroniclers themselves, as to its actual condition at the period when Cosmas described it, and thus to verify his narrative by the test of historical evidence. It has been shown in another chapter that between the first and the sixth centuries, Ceylon had undergone all the miseries of frequent invasions: that in the vicissitudes of time the great dynasty of Wijayo had expired, and the throne had fallen into the hands of an effeminate and powerless race, utterly unable to contend with the energetic Malabars, who acquired an established footing in the northern parts of the island. The south, too wild and uncultivated to attract these restless plunderers, and too rugged and inaccessible to be overrun by them, was divided into a number of petty principalities, whose kings did homage to the paramount sovereign north of the Mahawelli-ganga. Buddhism was the national religion, but toleration was shown to all others,--to the worship of the Brahmans as well as to the barbarous superstition of the aboriginal tribes. At the same time, the productive wealth of the island had been developed to an extraordinary extent by the care of successive kings, and by innumerable works for irrigation and agriculture provided by their policy. Anarajapoora, the capital, had expanded into extraordinary dimensions, it was adorned with buildings and monuments, surpassing in magnitude those of any city in India, and had already attracted pilgrims and travellers from China and the uttermost countries of the East. [Footnote 1: There is another curious work which, notwithstanding certain doubts as to its authorship, contains internal evidence entitling it, in point of time, to take precedence of COSMAS. This is the tract "_De Moribus Brachmanorum_", ascribed to St. Ambrose, and which under the title [Greek: "Peri tôn têz Indiaz kai tôn Brachmanôn"] has been also attributed to Palladius, but in all probability it was actually the composition of neither. Early in the fifth century Palladius was Bishop of Helenopolis, in Bithynia, and died about A.D. 410. He spent a part of his life in Coptic monasteries, and it is possible that during his sojourn in Egypt, meeting travellers and merchants returning from India, he may have caused this narrative to be taken down from the dictation of one of them. Cave hesitates to believe that it was written by PALLADIUS, "haud facile credem," &c. (_Script. Eccles. Hist. Lit._); and the learned Benedictine editors of AMBROSE have excluded it from the works of the latter. They could scarcely have done otherwise when the first chapter of the Latin version opens with the declaration that it was drawn up by its author at the request of "PALLADIUS." "Desiderium mentis tuæ Palladi opus efficere nos compellit," &c. Neither of the two versions can be accepted as a translation of the other, but the discrepancies are not inconsistent, and would countenance the conjecture that the book is the production of one and the same person. Much of the material is borrowed from PTOLEMY and PLINY but the facts which are new could only have been collected by persons who had visited the scenes they describe. The compiler says he had learned from a certain scholar of Thebes that the inhabitants of Ceylon were called _Macrobii_, because, owing to the salubrity of the climate, the average duration of life was 150 years. The petty kings of the country acknowledged one paramount sovereign to whom they were subject as satraps; this the Theban was told by others, as he himself not allowed to visit the interior. A thousand other islands lie adjacent to Ceylon, and in a group of these which he calls Maniolæ (probably the Attols of the Maldives,) is found the loadstone, which attracts iron, so that a vessel coming within its influence, is seized and forcibly detained, and for this reason the ships which navigate these seas are fastened with pegs of wood instead of bolts of iron. Ceylon, according to this traveller, has five large and navigable rivers, it rejoices in one perennial harvest, and the flowers and the ripe fruit hang together on the same branch. There are palm trees; both those that bear the great Indian nut, and the smaller aromatic one (the areka). The natives subsist on milk, rice, and fruit. The sheep produce no wool, but have long and silky hair, and linen being unknown, the inhabitants clothe themselves in skins, which are far from inelegantly worked. Finding some Indian merchants there who had come in a small vessel to trade, the Theban attempted to go into the interior, and succeeded in getting sight of a tribe whom he calls Besadæ or Vesadæ, his description of whom is in singular conformity with the actual condition of the Veddahs in Ceylon at the present day. "They are," he says, "a feeble and diminutive race, dwelling in caves under the rocks, and early accustomed to ascend precipices, with which their country abounds, in order to gather pepper from the climbing plants. They are of low stature, with large heads and shaggy uncut hair." The Theban proceeds to relate that being arrested by one of the chiefs, on the charge of having entered his territory without permission, he was forcibly detained there for six years, subsisting on a measure of food, issued to him daily by the royal authority. This again presents a curious coincidence with the detention and treatment of Knox and other captives by the kings of Kandy in modern times. He was at last released owing to the breaking out of hostilities between the chief who held him prisoner and another prince, who accused the former before the supreme sovereign of having unlawfully detained a Roman citizen, after which he was set at liberty, out of respect to the Roman name and authority. This curious tract was first published by CAMERABIUS, but in 1665 Sir EDWARD BISSE, Baronet, and Clarenceux King-at-Arms, reproduced the Greek original, supposing it to be an unpublished manuscript, with a Latin translation. It is incorporated in one of the MSS. of the _Pseudo-Callisthenes_ recently edited by MÜLLER, lib. iii. ch. vii. viii.; DIDOT. _Script Groec. Bib_., vol. xxvi. Paris, 1846.] With the increasing commercial intercourse between the West and the East, Ceylon, from its central position, half way between Arabia and China, had during the same period risen into signal importance as a great emporium for foreign trade. The transfer of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople served to revive the over-land traffic with India; and the Persians for the first time[1] vied with the Arabs and the merchants of Egypt, and sought to divert the Oriental trade from the Red Sea and Alexandria to the Euphrates and the Tigris. [Footnote 1: GIBBON, ch. xl.; ROBERTSON'S _India_, b.i.] Already, between the first and fifth centuries, the course of that trade had undergone a considerable change. In its infancy, and so long as the navigation was confined to coasting adventures, the fleets of the Ptolemies sailed no further than to the ports of Arabia Felx[1], where they were met by Arabian vessels returning from the west coast of India, bringing thence the productions of China, shipped at the emporiums of Malabar. After the discovery of the monsoons, and the accomplishment of bolder voyages, the great entrepôt of commerce was removed farther south; first, from Muziris, the modern Mangalore, to Nelkynda, now Neliseram, and afterwards to Calicut and Coulam, or Quilon. In like manner the Chinese, who, whilst the navigation of the Arabs and Persians was in its infancy, had extended their voyages not only to Malabar but to the Persian Gulf, gradually contracted them as their correspondents ventured further south. HAMZA says, that in the fifth century the Euphrates was navigable as high as Hira, within a few miles of Babylon[2]; and MASSOUDI, in his _Meadows of Gold_, states that at that time the Chinese ships ascended the river and anchored in front of the houses there.[3] At a later period, their utmost limit was Syraf, in Farsistan[4]; they afterwards halted first at Muziris, next at Calicut[5], then at Coulam, now Quilon[6]; and eventually, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the Chinese vessels appear rarely to have sailed further west than Ceylon. Thither they came with their silks and other commodities, those destined for Europe being chiefly paid for in silver[7], and those intended for barter in India were trans-shipped into smaller craft, adapted to the Indian seas, by which they were distributed at the various ports east and west of Cape Comorin.[8] [Footnote 1: Aden was a Roman emporium; [Greek: Rhomaikon emporion Adanên].--PHILOSTORGIUS, p. 28.] [Footnote 2: HAZMA ISPAHANENSIS, p. 102; REINAUD, _Relation, &c._, vol. i. p. 35.] [Footnote 3: MASSOUDI, _Meadows of Gold_, Transl. of SPRENGER, vol. i. p. 246.] [Footnote 4: ABOU-ZEYD, vol. i. p, 14; REINAUD _Discours_, pp. 44, 78.] [Footnote 5: DULAURIER, _Journ. Asiat._, vol. xiix, p. 141; VINCENT, vol. ii, pp. 464,507.] [Footnote 6: ABOU-ZEYD, p. 15; REINAUD, _Mém. sur l'Inde_, p. 201.] [Footnote 7: PLINY, lib. vi. ch. xxvi.; _Periplus Mar. Erythr_.] [Footnote 8: ROBERTSON, _Au Ind._, sec. ii. Periplus of the Erythrean Sea describes these Ceylon crafts as rigged vessels, [Greek: histiopepoiêmenois nêusi].] COSMAS was a merchant of Egypt in the reign of Justinian, who, from the extent of his travels, acquired the title of "Indico-pleustes." Retiring to the cloister, he devoted the remnant of his life to the preparation of a work in defence of the cosmography of the Pentateuch from the errors of the Ptolemaic astronomy.[1] He died in the year 550, before his task was completed, and one of the last portions on which he was employed was an account of Taprobane, taken down from the reports of Sopater, a Greek trader whom he had met at Adule in Ethiopia, when on his return from Ceylon. [Footnote 1: [Greek: Christianikê Topographia], sive _Christianorum Opinio de Mundo_. This curious book has been printed entire by Montfaucon from a MS. in the Vatican Coll. Patr., vol. ii. p. 333. Paris, 1706 A.D. There is only one other MS. known, which was in Florence; and from it THEVENOT had previously extracted and published the portion relating to India in his _Relation des Dic. Voy_., vol. i. Paris, 1576 A.D.] Sopater, in the course of business as a merchant, sailed from Adule in the same ship with a Persian bound for Ceylon, and on his arrival he and his fellow-traveller were presented by the officers of the port to the king, who was probably Kumara Das, the friend and patron of the poet Kalidas.[1] The king received them with courtesy, and Cosmas recounts how in the course of the interview Sopater succeeded in convincing the Singhalese monarch of the greater power of Rome as compared with that of Persia, by exhibiting the large and highly finished gold coin of the Roman Emperor in contrast with the small and inelegant silver money of the Shah. This story would, however, appear to be traditional, as Pliny relates a somewhat similar anecdote of the ambassadors from Ceylon in the reign of Claudius, and of the profound respect excited in their minds by the sight of the Roman denarii. [Footnote 1: Cosmas wrote between A.D. 545 and 550; and the voyage of Sopater to Ceylon had been made thirty years before. Kumaara Das reigned from A.D. 515 to A.D. 524. Vincent has noted the fact that in his interview with the Greek he addressed him by the epithet of Roomi, "[Greek: su Rômeu]," which is the term that has been applied from time immemorial in India to the powers who have been successively in possession of Constantinople, whether Roman, Christian, or Mahommedan. Vol. ii. p. 511, &c.] As Sopater was the first traveller who described Ceylon from personal knowledge, I shall give his account of the island in the words of Cosmas, which have not before been presented in an English translation. "It is," he says, "a great island of the ocean lying in the Indian Sea, called Sielendib by the Indians, but Taprobane by the Greeks. The stone, the hyacinth, is found in it; it lies beyond the pepper country.[1] Around it there are a multitude of exceedingly small islets[2], all containing fresh water and coco-nut palms[3]; these (islands) lie as close as possible together. The great island itself, according to the accounts of its inhabitants, is 300 _gaudia_[4], or 900 miles long, and as many in breadth. There are two kings ruling at opposite ends of the island[5], one of whom possesses the hyacinth[6], and the other the district, in which are the port and emporium[7], for the emporium in that place is the greatest in those parts." [Footnote 1: Malabar or Narghyl Arabia.] [Footnote 2: The Maldive Islands.] [Footnote 3: [Greek: Argellia] pro [Greek: nargellia], from _narikela_, the Sanskrit, and _narghyl_, Arab, for the "coco-nut palm." GILDEMESTER, _Script. Arab_. p. 36.] [Footnote 4: "[Greek: Gaudia."] It is very remarkable that this singular word _gaou_, in which Cosmas gives the dimensions of the island, is in use to the present day in Ceylon, and means the distance which a man can walk in an hour. VINCENT, in his _Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients_, has noticed this passage (vol. ii, p. 506), and sayt, somewhat loosely, that the Singhalese _gaou_, which he spells "_ghadia_" is the same as the _naligiae_ of the Tamils, and equal to three-eighths of a French league, or nearly one mile and a quarter English. This is incorrect; a _gaou_ in Ceylon expresses a somewhat indeterminate length, according to the nature of the ground to be traversed, a gaou across a mountainous country being less than one measured on level ground, and a gaou for a loaded cooley is also permitted to be shorter than for one unburthened, but on the whole the average may be taken _under four miles_. This is worth remarking, because it brings the statement made to Sopater by the Singhalese in the sixth century into consistency with the representations of the ambassadors to the Emperor Claudius in the first, although both prove to be erroneous. It is curious that FA HIAN, the Chinese traveller, whose zeal for Buddhism led him to visit India and Ceylon a century and a half before Cosmas, gives an area to the island which approaches very nearly to correctness; although he reverses the direction in which its length exceeds its breadth. _Fo[)e]-kou[)e]-ki_, c. xxxvii. p. 328.] [Footnote 5: [Greek: "Enantioiallêlôn"]. This may also mean "at war with one another."] [Footnote 6: This has been translated so as to mean the portion of the island producing hyacinth stones ("la partie de l'isle où se trouvent les jacinthes." THEVENOT). But besides that I know of no Greek form of expression that admits of such expansion; this construction, if accepted, would be inconsistent with fact--for the king alluded to held the north of the island, whereas the region producing gems is the south, and in it were also the "emporium," and the harbour frequented by shipping and merchants. I am disposed therefore to accept the term in its simple sense, and to believe that it refers to one particular jewel, for the possession of which the king of Ceylon enjoyed an enviable renown. Cosmas, in the succeeding sentence, describes this wonderful gem as being deposited in a temple near the capital; and Hiouen Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, says that in the seventh century, a ruby was elevated on a spire surmounting a temple at Anarajapoora "dont l'éclat magnifique illumine tout le ciel."--_Vie de Hiouen Thsang_, lib. iv. p. 199; _Voyages des Pélerins Bouddhistes_, lib. xi. v. ii. p. 141. MARCO POLO, in the thirteenth, century, says the "king of Ceylon is reputed to have the grandest ruby that was ever seen, a span in length, the thickness of a man's arm; brilliant beyond description, and without a single flaw. It has the appearance of a glowing fire, and its worth cannot be estimated in money. The Grand Khan Kublai sent ambassadors to this monarch to offer for it the value of a city, but he would not part with it for all the treasures of the world, as it was a jewel _handed down by his ancestors on the throne_."--_Trans_. MARSDEN, 4to. 1818. It is most probable that the stone described by Marco Polo was not a ruby, but an amethyst, which is found in large crystals in Ceylon, and which modern mineralogists believe to be the "hyacinth" of the ancients. (DANA'S _Mineralogy_, vol. ii. p. 196.) CORSALI says it was a carbuncle (Ramusio, vol. i. p. 180); and JORDAN DE SEVERAC, about the year 1323, repeats the story of its being a ruby so large that it could not be grasped in the closed hand. (_Recueil de Voy_., Soc. Geog. Paris. vol. iv. p. 50.) If this resplendent object really exhibited the dimensions assigned to it, the probability is that it was not a gem at all, but one of those counterfeits of glass, in producing which STRABO relates that the artists of Alexandria attained the highest possible perfection (1. xvi. c. 2. sec. 25). Its luminosity by night is of course a fiction, unless, indeed, like the emerald pillar in the temple of Hercules at Tyre, which HERODOTUS describes as "shining brightly by night," it was a hollow cylinder into which a lamp could be introduced. _Herod_, ii. 44. Of the ultimate history of this renowned jewel we have no authentic narrative; but it is stated in the Chinese accounts of Ceylon that early in the fourteenth century an officer was sent by the emperor to purchase a "carbuncle" of unusual lustre. "This served as the ball on the emperor's cap, and was transmitted to succeeding emperors on their accession as a precious heirloom, and worn on the birthday and at the grand courts held on the first day of the year. It was upwards of an ounce in weight, and cost 100,000 strings of cash. Every time a grand levee was held during the darkness of the night, the red lustre filled the palace, and it was for this reason designated 'The Red Palace-Illuminator.'"--_Tsih-ke_, or _Miscellaneous Record_, quoted in the _Kih che-king-yuen, Mirror of Science_, b. xxxiii. p. 1, 2.] [Footnote 7: The port and harbour of Point de Galle.] "The island has also a community of Christians[1], chiefly resident Persians, with a presbyter ordained in Persia, a deacon, and a complete ecclesiastical ritual.[2] [Footnote 1: Nestorians, whose "Catholicos" resided first at Ctesiphon, and afterwards at Mosul. VINCENT, _Periplus_, &c., vol. ii, p. 507. For an examination of the hypotheses based on this statement of Cosmas, see Sir J. EMERSON TENNENT'S _History of Christianity in Ceylon_, ch. i.] [Footnote 2: [Greek: "Leitourgiat,"] literally _liturgy_; which meant originally the pomp and ceremonial of worship as well as the form of prayer.] "The natives and their kings are of different races.[1] The temples are numerous, and in one in particular, situated on an eminence[2], is the great hyacinth, as large as a pine-cone, the colour of fire, and flashing from a distance, especially when catching the beams of the sun--a matchless sight. [Footnote 1: [Greek: Allophuloi].] [Footnote 2: Probably that at Mihintala, the sacred hill near Anarajapoora.] "As its position is central, the island is the resort of ships from all parts of India, Persia, and Ethiopia, and, in like manner, many are despatched from it. From the inner[1] countries; I mean China, and other emporiums, it receives silk[2], aloes, cloves, clove-wood, _chandana_[3], and whatever else they produce. These it again transmits to the outer ports[4],--I mean to Male[5], whence the pepper comes; to Calliana[6], where there is brass and sesamine-wood, and materials for dress (for it is also a place of great trade), and to Sindon[7], where they get musk, castor, and _androstachum_[8], to Persia, the Homeritic coasts[9], and Adule. Receiving in return the exports of those emporiums, Taprobane exchanges them in the inner ports (to the east of Cape Comorin) sending her own produce along with them to each. [Footnote 1: [Greek: "tôn endoterôn,"] the countries inside (that is to the east) of Cape Comorin, as distinguished from the outer ports ([Greek: ta exôtera]) mentioned below, which lie west of it.] [Footnote 2: [Greek: "metaxin."] Of this foreign word, applied by the mediæval Greeks to silk in general, as well as to raw silk, PROCOPIUS says:--[Greek: "Ahutê de estin hê metaxa, ex hês eiothasi tên esthêta ergazesthai, hên palai men Hellênes mêdikên, tanun de sêrikên onomazousi."]--PROCOP. _Persic._ I. _Metaxa_, or anciently _mataxa_, "thread," "yarn," seems to be Latine rather than Greek. The _metaxarius_ was a "yarn-broker;" and the word having got possession of the market, was extended to the woven stuff. The modern Greeks call silk [Greek: metaxa.]] [Footnote 3: [Greek: "tzandana,"] probably "sandalwood;" sometimes called _agallochum._] [Footnote 4: [Greek: "ta exôtera,"] those lying west of Cape Comorin.] [Footnote 5: Malabar.] [Footnote 6: Bombay.] [Footnote 7: Scinde.] [Footnote 8: [Greek: "androsthachon."]] [Footnote 9: Southern Arabia, chiefly Hadramaut.] "_Sielediba_, or Taprobane, lies seaward about five days' sail from the mainland.[1] Then further on the continent is Marallo, which furnishes _cochlea_[2]; then comes Kaber, which exports '_alabandanum_;'[3] and next is the clove country, then China, which exports silk; beyond which there is no other land, for the ocean encircles it on the east. _Sielediba_ being thus placed in the middle as it were of India, and possessing the hyacinth, receives goods from all nations, and again distributes them, thus becoming a great emporium." [Footnote 1: Cosmas probably means "the more distant _ports_ on" the mainland of India.] [Footnote 2: [Greek: "kochlious,"] probably chankshells, _turbinella rapa._ See ABOUZEYD, vol. i. p. 6.] [Footnote 3: [Greek: "alabandanon."]] This description of the Indian trade by Cosmas is singularly corroborative of the account that had previously been given by the author of the _Periplus_; and as the Singhalese have at all times been remarkable for their aversion to the sea, the country-craft[1], thus mentioned by both authorities as engaged in voyages between Ceylon and the countries east and west of Cape Cornorin, must have been manned in part by Malabars, but chiefly by the Arabs and Persians, who, previous to the time of Cosmas, had been induced to settle in large numbers in Ceylon[2], attracted by the activity of its commerce, and the extensive employment for shipping afforded by its transit trade. [Footnote 1: [Greek: "topika ploia."]--_Periplus._] [Footnote 2: REINAUD, _Mém. sur l'Inde_, p. 124. and _Introd._ ABOULFEDA.] Amongst the objects, the introduction of which was eagerly encouraged in Ceylon, Cosmas particularises horses from Persia; the traders in which were exempted from the payment of customs. The most remarkable exports were elephants, which from their size and sagacity were found to be superior to those of India for purposes of war. Hence the renown accorded to Ceylon, as pre-eminently the birthplace of the Asiatic race of elephants. [Greek: "Mêtera Taprobanên Asiêgeneôn elephantôn."] DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES, v. 593. Cosmas observes upon the smallness of their tusks compared with those of Africa, and mentions the strange fact, that ivory was then exported from Ethiopia to India, as well as to Persia and the countries of Europe. He makes other allusions to Ceylon, but the passages extracted above, present the bulk of his information concerning the island.[1] [Footnote 1: The above translation has been made from THEVENOT's version of Cosmas, which may differ slightly from that of MONTFAUCON, _Collect. Nov. Patrum._ Paris, 1706, vol. ii. p.] NOTE (A). _Knowledge of Ceylon possessed by the Phoenicians._ In the previous chapter, p. 526, &c., allusion has been made to the possible resort of the Phoenicians to Ceylon in the course of their voyages to India, but I have not thought it expedient to embody in the text any notice of the description of the island which is given in the Phoenician History of SANCHONIATHON, published by Wagenfeld, at Bremen, in 1837, under the title of "_Sanchuniathonis Historiarum Phoeniciæ Libri Novem Groece Versos a Philone Byblio_, edidit Latinaque Versione donavit F. WAGENFELD." Sanchoniathon is alleged to have lived before the Trojan war; and in Asiatic chronology he is said to have been a contemporary of Semiramis. The Phoenician original perished; but its contents were preserved in the Greek translation of Philo, a native of Byblus, a frontier town of Phoenicia, who wrote in the first century after Christ, and till the alleged discovery of the MS. from which Wagenfeld professed to publish, the only portion of Philo's version known to exist consisted of fragments preserved by Eusebius and Porphyry. Wagenfeld's statement was, that the MS. in his possession had been obtained from the Portuguese monastery of St. Maria de Merinhao (the existence of which there is reason to doubt), and the portion which he first ventured to print appeared with a preface by Grotefend. Its genuineness was instantly impugned; a learned and protracted controversy arose; and though Wagenfeld eventually published the whole of the Greek MS., with a Latin version by himself, he was never prevailed upon to exhibit the original parchments, alleging that he had been compelled to restore them to the convent. The assailants of Wagenfeld accuse him of wilful deception; but the probability is that the document which he translated is one of those inventions of the Middle Ages, in which history and geography were strangely confounded with imagination and romance; and that it is an attempt to restore the lost books of Philo Byblius, as Philo himself is more than suspected to have invented the history which he professed to have translated from Sanchoniathon. (See ERSCH _and_ GRÜBER'S _Encyclopædia_, 1847; MÖVER'S _Phoenician History_, vol. i. p. 117.) [336. In point of time, the notice of Ceylon given by the Armenian Archbishop Moses of Chorene in his _Historia Armeniaca et Epitome Geographiæ_, is entitled to precede that of Cosmos Indico-pleustes, inasmuch as Moses has translated into Armenian the Greek text of Pappus of Alexandria, who wrote about the end of the fourth century. Of Taprobane he says--it is one of the largest islands in the world, being 1100 miles in length by 1500 broad, and reckons 1370 adjacent islands amongst its dependencies. He alludes to its mountains and rivers, the variety of races which inhabit it, and its production of gold, silver, gems, spices, elephants, and tigers; and dwells on the fact, previously noticed by Agathemerus, that the men of this country dress their hair after the fashion of women, by braiding it in tresses on the top of their heads, "viri regionis istius capillis muliebribus sua capita redimiunt."--MOSES CHORENENSIS, &c., edit. Whiston, 1736, p. 367. The most remarkable circumstance is that he alludes thus early to the footprint on Adam's Peak, which is probably the meaning of his expression, "_ibidem Satanæ lapsum narrant_," t. iv.] In books vii. and viii, Sanchoniathon gives an account of an island in the Indian seas explored by Tyrian navigators, the description of which is evidently copied from the early Greek writers who had visited Taprobane, and the name which is assigned to it, "_the Island of Rachius_", is borrowed from Pliny. The period of their visit is fixed by Sanchoniathon shortly after the conquest of Cittium, in Cyprus, by the Phoenicians; an event which occurred when Hiram reigned at Tyre, and Solomon at Jerusalem. The narrative is given as follows (book vii. ch. v. p. 150): "So Bartophas died the next day, having exercised imperial authority for six years." (Ch. v.) "And on his death they chose Joramus, the son of Bartophas, king, whom the Tyrians styled Hierbas, and who reigned fifty-seven years. He having collected seventy-nine long ships, sent an expedition against Cittium." ... (Ch. vi.) "At this time, Obdalius, king of the island of Mylite, sent all his forces to assist the Tyrians at Cittium; and when it came to the knowledge of the barbarians who inhabited Tenga, that the island was denuded of men and ships, they invaded it under the command of Plusiacon, the son-in-law of Obdalius, and having slain him and many of his people, they plundered the country, and gave the city to the flames." (Ch. vii.) "And Joramus directed all the eparchs in the cities and islands to make out and send to Tyre descriptions of the inhabitants, their ships, their arms, their horses, their scythe-bearing chariots, and their property of all kinds; and he ordered them to send to distant countries persons competent to draw up narratives of the same kind, and to record them all in a book. In this manner he obtained accurate geographical descriptions of all the regions to the east and the west, both islands and inland parts. But the Æthiopians[1] represented to the king that to the south there were great and renowned countries, densely populated, and rich in precious things, _gold_ and _silver_, pearls, gems, ebony, pepper, elephants, _monkeys_, parrots, _peacocks_, and innumerable other things; and that there was a peninsula so far to the east that the inhabitants could see the sun rising out of the sea." (Ch. viii.) "Joramus then sent messengers to Natambalus, the king of the Babylonians, who were to say to him, 'I have heard that the countries of the Æthiopians are numerous, and abounding in inhabitants; they are easy of access from Babylon, but very difficult from Tyre. If, therefore, I should determine to explore them, and you will let my subjects have suitable ships, you shall have in return a hundred purple cloaks.' Natambalus was willing to do so; but the Æthiopian merchants, who resorted to Babylon, vowed that they would take their departure if he should assist Joramus to sail to Æthiopia." (Chap. ix.) "Subsequently Joramus addressed himself to Irenius of Judea, and undertook that if he would let the Tyrians have a harbour on the sea towards Æthiopia, he would assist him in the building of a palace, in which he was then engaged; and bind himself to supply him with materials of cedar and fir, and squared stones. Irenius assenting, made over to Joramus the city and harbour of Ilotha. There were a great many date trees there, but as their timber was not suitable for constructing vessels, Joramus despatched eight thousand camels to Ilotha, loaded with materials for ship-building, and ordered the shipwrights to build ten ships, and he appointed Cedarus and Jaminus and Cotilus, commanders.... They sailed from Ilotha; but furious tempests prevented them from passing the straits.[2] And while they were wind-bound, they remained five months in a certain island, and having sowed wheat on the low ground, they reaped an abundant crop. After this they sailed towards the rising sun, and leaving the land of the Arabians they fell in with Babylonian ships returning from Æthiopia.[3] And on the following day they arrived at the country of the Æthiopians, which they perceived sandy and devoid of water on the coast, but mountainous inland. They then sailed eastward along the shore for ten days. There an immense region extends to the south, and the Æthiopians dwell in numerous populous and well-circumstanced cities, and navigate the sea. Their ships are not suited for war, and have no sails. And having sailed thirty-six days to the southward, the Tyrians arrived at the island of Rachius ([Greek: Rhachiou nêson])." [Footnote 1: The Æthiopians alluded to were a company of Indian jugglers and snake-charmers, whose arrival from Babylon is mentioned lib. vii. ch. i.] [Footnote 2: Of Bab-el-mandeb.] [Footnote 3: India.] (Ch. 9.) "The roadstead was in front of a level strand, bordered with lofty trees, and coming on to blow at night, they were in the utmost danger till sunrise: but running then to the south, they came in sight of a safe harbour[1]; and saw many populous towns inland. On landing, they were surrounded by the villagers, and the governor of the place entertained them hospitably for seven days; pending the return of a messenger whom he had despatched to the principal king, to ask his instructions relative to the Tyrians who had anchored in the harbour. The messenger having returned on the seventh day, the governor sent for the Tyrians the following morning, and informed them that they must go with him to the king, who was then residing at Rochapatta, a large and prosperous city in the centre of the island. In front marched several spearmen, sent by the king as a guard of honour to the strangers; who with the clash of their spears scared away the elephants which were numerous and dangerous because it was their rutting time. The Tyrians marched in the centre, and Cedarus, Cotilus, and Jaminus were carried in palanquins. The villagers as they passed along offered them presents, and the governor brought up the rear, where he rode on an elephant, surrounded by his body guard. In this order of march, they on the third day came to a ford; in the passage over which, one of the travellers was devoured by crocodiles which swarm in the rivers. Having proceeded thus for several days, they at length descried the city of Rochapatta, environed by lofty mountains. And when it was known that they had arrived (for the rumour of their approach had preceded them) the inhabitants rushed from the city in a body to see the Tyrians; some riding on elephants, some on asses, some in palanquins, but the greater part on foot. And the commander having conducted them into a spacious and splendid palace, caused the gates to be closed, that the crowd might not make their way in; and led the Tyrians to the King Rachius, who was seated on a beautiful couch. Presents were then interchanged. "To the Tyrians, who brought horses and purple robes, and seats of cedar, the King gave in return, pearls, gold, 2000 elephants' teeth, and much unequalled cinnamon ([Greek: kinnamô pollô te kai diapheronti]); and he entertained them as guests for thirty days." (Ch. xi.) "Some of the Tyrians perished in the island, one indeed by sickness, but the others smitten by the gods. One man, picking up some pellets of sheep's dung, drew lines on the sand, and challenged another who happened to be looking on, to play a game with them. The challenger held the sheep's dung, but the other, who could not find any dung of camels (for there are no camels in that island), took cow-dung, of which there was a great quantity, and rolling up little balls of it, placed them on the lines. But a priest who was present warned them to desist, because cow-dung is sacred among them, but they only laughed. So the priest passed on, and they continued their game, but shortly after, both fell down and expired, to the consternation of the bystanders. One of those who died was a native of Jerusalem." (Ch. xii.) "The sea encircles this great island of Rachius on every side, except that to the north and west there is _an isthmus which affords a passage to the opposite coast_. Baaut constructed this place by heaping up mud, and her footprint is still to be seen in the mountain ([Greek: ês kai ichnos estin en tois orois]). [Footnote 1: Galle?] "And the great king traced his descent from her race. The island is six days' journey in breadth, and twelve days' journey in length. It is populous and delightful. Its natural productions are magnificent, and the sea furnishes fish of the finest flavour, and in the greatest abundance, to the inhabitants of the coast. Wild beasts are numerous in the mountains, of which elephants are the largest of all. There is also the most fragrant of cassia ([Greek: kasia de hê arômatikôtatê]). "They find stones containing gold in the rivers, and pearls on the sea-shore. Four kings govern the island, all subordinate to the paramount sovereign, to whom they pay as tribute, cassia, ivory, gems, and pearls; for the king has gold in the greatest abundance. The first of these kings reigns in the south, where there are herds of elephants, of which great numbers are captured of surprising size. In this region the shore is inhospitable, and destitute of inhabitants, but the city, in which the governor resides, lies inland, and is said to be large and flourishing. The second king governs the western regions which produce cinnamon ([Greek: tôn pros esperan tetrammenôn tôn kinnamômophorôn]); and it was there the Tyrian ships cast anchor. The third rules the region towards the north, which produces pearls. He has made a great rampart on the isthmus to control the passage of the barbarians from the opposite coast; for they used to make incursions in great numbers, and destroyed all the houses, temples, and plantations they could reach, and slew such men as were near, or could not flee to the mountains. The fourth king governs the region to the east, producing the richest gems in surprising profusion; the ruby, the sapphire, and diamond. All these, being the brothers of the great king in Rochapatta, are appointed to rule over these places, and he who is the eldest of the brothers has the supreme power, and is called the chief and mighty ruler. He has a thousand black elephants, and five light-coloured ones. The black are abundant, but the fair-coloured are rare, and found nowhere except in this island, and the black ones do homage to them. Having captured such a one, they bring him to the king in Rochapatta, whose peculiar prerogative it is to ride on a white elephant, this being unlawful for his subjects. There are many fierce crocodiles in the rivers, and they are killed by crowds of men who rush with shouts into the water, armed with sharp stakes. And ten days after they arrived in Rochapatta, many Tyrians joined Rachius in hunting crocodiles." (Ch. xii.) "When the ships returned to Tyre, Joramus gave orders to erect a pillar at the temple of Melicarthus, and to engrave on it an account of all that had taken place. This pillar was thrown down in the earthquake of last year, but it was not broken, so that the narrative can even now be seen." BOOK VIII. (Ch. i) "This is the voyage which Joramus, the king of the Tyrians ordered Joramus, the priest of Melicarthus, to recount and to engrave on a pillar in the temple of Melicarthus, and Sydyk, the scribe, having four copies, was directed to send them to the Sidonians, the Byblians, the Aradians, and the Berythians. The other copies can nowhere be found, and the pillar lies shattered in the ruins of the temple, but the copy of the Byblians is still left in the Temple of Baaltis, and its words are to this effect." (Ch. ii.) "Hierbas, the son of Bartophas, and king of the Tyrians, thus addressed Joramus, the priest of Madynus, at the time when figs were first ripe: 'Taking a book and pen, describe all the cities and islands and colonies and the countries of the barbarians, and the forces of them all, and their ships of war and of burthen, and their scythe-armed chariots. For when our ships of war, sailing to the island of Rachius, reached the remotest parts eastward that we knew, the extremities of all lands, and the nations that inhabited them, we discovered things unknown to our ancestors. For our ancestors, sailing only to the islands and the region extending to the west, knew nothing of the countries which we have explored to the east: you will therefore write all these things for the information of posterity.' When having prostrated myself before the king, on his saying these things, and having returned to my own house I wrote as follows:-- * * * * * (Ch. xvi) ... "To the eastward dwell the Babylonians and Medians and Æthiopians. The city of the Babylonians is flourishing and populous; Media produces white horses; Æthiopia is barren and arid near the sea, and mountainous in the interior. And further to the east is the peninsula of Rachius, whither the ships of Hierbas sailed." * * * * * On this narrative of Sanchoniathon it is only necessary to remark that the allusion in ch. ix. to the assistance rendered by the Tyrians to Irenius of Judea, when building his palace, in supplying him with timber and squared stones, is almost literally copied from the passage In the Old Testament (1 Kings, ix. 11), where Hiram is stated to have furnished to Solomon "cedar trees and fir trees," for the building of the Temple. The cession by Irenius of the city and harbour of Ilotha refers to the resort of the Tyrians to Ezion Greber, or _Eloth_, in the Ælanitic Gulf of the Red Sea, Ib. v. 26, whence they piloted the ships of Solomon, which once in every three years returned with cargoes of gold from Ophir. (Ib. v. 28.) As to the incidents and observations recorded by the Phoenician travellers during their journey to the interior of Ceylon,--the kings by which it was governed, the natural productions of the various regions, the footprint on Adam's Peak, the incursions of the Malabars, the ascendency of their religion, the absence of camels, the abundance of elephants, and the cultivation of cinnamon,--all these are so palpably imitated from the accounts of Cosmas Indico-pleustes, and the voyages of Arabian mariners, that it is almost unnecessary to point to the parallel passages from which they are taken. CHAP. II INDIAN, ARABIAN, AND PERSIAN AUTHORITIES. On closing the volume of Cosmas, we part with the last of the Greek writers whose pages guide us through the mist that obscures the early history of Ceylon. The religion of the Hindus is based on a system of physical error, so incompatible with the extension of scientific truth, that in their language the term "geography" is unknown.[1] But still it is remarkable as an illustration of the uninquiring character of the people, that the allusions of Indian authors to Ceylon, an island of such magnitude, and so close to their own country, are pre-eminent for absurdity and ignorance. Their "Lanka" and its inhabitants are but the distortion of a reality into a myth. ALBYROUNI, the Arabian geographer, writing in the eleventh century, says that the Hindus at that day thought the island haunted; their ships sailing past it, kept at a distance from its shores; and even within the present century, it was the popular belief on the continent of India that the interior of Ceylon was peopled by demons and monkeys.[2] [Footnote 1: The Arabians began the study so late, that they, too, had to borrow a word from the Greeks, whence their term "_djagrafiya_."] [Footnote 2: MOOR'S _Hindu Pantheon_, p. 318. MOOR speaks of an educated Indian gentleman who was attached as Munshi to the staff of Mr. North, Governor of Ceylon, in 1804, and who, on his return to the continent, wrote a history of the island, in which he repeats the belief current among his countryment, that "the interior was not inhabited by human beings of the ordinary shapes."--P. 320.] But the century in which Cosmos wrote witnessed the rise of a power whose ascendant energy diffused a new character over the policy and literature of the East. Scarcely twenty years elapsed between his death and the birth, of Mahomet--and during the two centuries that ensued, so electric was the influence of Islam, that its supremacy was established with a rapidity beyond parallel, from the sierras of Spain to the borders of China. The dominions of the Khalifs exceeded in extent the utmost empire of the Romans; and so undisputed was the sway of the new religion, that a follower of the Prophet could travel amidst believers of his own faith, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, and from the chain of the Atlas to the mountains of Tartary. Syria and Egypt were amongst its earliest conquests; and the power thus interposed between the Greeks and their former channels of trade, effectually excluded them from the commerce of India. The Persians and the Arabs became its undisputed masters, and Alexandria and Seleucia declined in importance as Bassora and Bagdad rose to the rank of Oriental emporiums.[1] [Footnote 1: ROBERTSON was of opinion, that such was the aversion of the Persions to the sea, that "no commercial intercourse took place between Persia and India."--_India_, s. i. p. 9. But this is at variance with the testimony of COSMAS INDICO-PLEUSTES, as well as of HAMZA of Ispahan and others.] Early in the sixth century, the Persians under Chosroes Nouschirvan held a distinguished position in the East, their ships frequented the harbours of India, and their fleet was successful in an expedition against Ceylon to redress the wrongs done to some of their fellow-countrymen who had settled there for purposes of trade.[1] [Footnote 1: HAMZA ISPAHANENSIS, _Annal_. vol. ii. c. 2. p. 43. Petropol, 1848, 8vo. REINAUD, _Mémoire sur l' Inde_, p. 124.] The Arabs, who had been familiar with India before it was known to the Greeks,[1] and who had probably availed themselves of the monsoons long before Hippalus ventured to trust to them, began in the fourth and fifth centuries to establish themselves as merchants at Cambay and Surat, at Mangalore, Calicut, Coulam, and other Malabar ports[2], whence they migrated to Ceylon, the government of which was remarkable for its toleration of all religious sects[3], and its hospitable reception of fugitives. [Footnote 1: There is an obscure sentence in PLINY which would seem to imply that the Arabs had settled in Ceylon before the first century of our Christian era:--"Regi cultum Liberi patris, _coeteris Arabum_."--Lib. vi. c. 22.] [Footnote 2: GILDEMEISTER; _Scriptores Arabi de Rebus Indicis_, p. 40.] [Footnote 3: EDRISI, tom. i p. 72.] It is a curious circumstance, related by BELADORY, who lived at the court of the Khalif of Bagdad in the ninth century, that an outrage committed by Indian pirates upon some Mahometan ladies, the daughters of traders who had died in Ceylon, and whose families the King Daloopiatissa II., A.D. 700, was sending to their homes in the valley of the Tigris, served as the plea under which Hadjadj, the fanatical governor of Irak, directed the first Mahometan expedition for subjugating the valley of the Indus.[1] [Footnote 1: The chief of the Indus was the Buddhist Prince Daher, whose capital was at Daybal, near the modern Karachee. The story, as it appears in the MS. of Beladory in the library of Leyden, has been extracted by REINAUD in his _Fragmens Arabes et Persans relatifs á l'Inde_, No. v. p. 161, with the following translation:-- "Sous le gouvernement de Mohammed, le roi de l'ile du Rubis (Djezyret-Alyacout) offrit à Hadjadj des femmes musulmanes qui avaient reçu le jour dans ses états, et dont les pères, livrés à la profession du commerce, étaient morts. Le prince esperuit par là gagner l'amitié de Hadjadj; mais le navire où l'on avait embarqué ces femmes fut attaqué par une peuplade de race Meyd, des environs de Daybal, qui était montóe sur des burques. Les Meyds enlevèrent le navire avec ce qu'il renfermait. Dans cette extrémité, une de ces femmes de la tribu de Yarboua, s'écria: 'Que n'es-tu la, oh Hadjadj!' Cette nouvelle étant parvenue à Hadjadj, il répondit: 'Me voilà.' Aussitót il envoya un députe à Dâher pour l'inviter à faire mettre ces femmes en liberté. Mais Dâher répondit: 'Ce sont des pirates qui ont enlevé ces femmes, et je n'ai aucune autorité sur les ravisseurs.' Alors Hadjadj engagea Obeyd Allah, fils de Nabhan, à faire une expédition contre Daybal."--P. 190. The "Island of Rubies" was the Persian name for Ceylon, and in this particular instance FERISHTA confirms the identical application of these two names, vol. ii. p. 402. See _Journal Asiat_. vol. xlvi. p. 131, 163; REINAUD, _Mém. sur l'Inde_, p. 180; _Relation des Voyages_, Disc. p. xli ABOULFEDA, _Introd_. vol. i. p. ccclxxxv.; ELPHINSTONE'S _India_, b. v. ch. i, p. 260.] From the eighth till the eleventh century the Persians and Arabs continued to exercise the same influence over the opulent commerce of Ceylon which was afterwards enjoyed by the Portuguese and Dutch in succession between A.D. 1505, and the expulsion of the latter by the British in A.D. 1796. During this early period, therefore, we must look for the continuation of accounts regarding Ceylon to the literature of the Arabs and the Persians, and more especially to the former, by whom geography was first cultivated as a science in the eighth and ninth centuries under the auspices of the Khalifs Almansour and Almamoun. On turning to the Arabian treatises on geography, it will be found that the Mahometan writers on these subjects were for the most part grave and earnest men who, though liable equally with the imaginative Greeks to be imposed on by their informants, exercised somewhat more caution, and were more disposed to confine their writings to statements of facts derived from safe authorities, or to matters which they had themselves seen. In their hands scientific geography combined theoretic precision, which had been introduced by their predecessors, with the extended observation incident to the victories and enlarged dominion of the Khalifs. Accurate knowledge was essential for the civil government of their conquests[1]; and the pilgrimage to Mekka, indispensable once at least in the life of every Mahometan[2], rendered the followers of the new faith acquainted with many countries in addition to their own.[3] [Footnote 1: "La science géographique, comme les autres sciences en général, notammement l'astronomie, commença à se former chez les Arabes, dans la dernière moitié du viii^{e} siècle, et se fixa dans la première moitié du ix^{e}. On fit usage des itinéraires tracés par les chefs des armées conquérantes et des tableaux dressés par les gouveneurs de provinces; en même temps on mit à la contribution les méthodes propagées par les Indians, les Persans, et surtout les Grees; qui avaient apporté le plus de précision dans leurs opérations."--REINAUD, _Introd. Aboulfeda, &c.,_ p. xl.] [Footnote 2: REINAUD, _Introd. Aboulfeda,_ p. cxxii.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid_., vol. i. p. xl.] Hence the records of their voyages, though presenting numerous exaggerations and assertions altogether incredible, exhibit a superiority over the productions of the Greeks and Romans. To avoid the fault of dulness, both the latter were accustomed to enliven their topographical itineraries, not so much by "moving accidents," and "hair-breadth 'scapes," as by mingling fanciful descriptions of monsters and natural phenomena, with romantic accounts of the gems and splendours of the East. Hence from CTESIAS to Sir JOHN MANDEVILLE, every early traveller in India had his "hint to speak," and each strove to embellish his story by incorporating with the facts he had witnessed, improbable reports collected from the representations of others. Such were their excesses in this direction, that the Greeks formed a class of "paradoxical" literature, by collecting into separate volumes the marvels and wonders gravely related by their voyagers and historians.[1] [Footnote 1: Such are the _Mirabiles Auscultationes_ of ARISTOTLE, the _Incredibilia_ of PALEPHATES, the _Historiarum Mirabilium Collectio_ of ANTIGONUS CARYSTIUS, the _Historiæ Mirabiles_ of APOLLONIUS THE MEAGRE, and the Collections of PHILEGON of Tralles, MICHAEL BELLUS, and many other Greeks of the Lower Empire. For a succinct account of these compilers, see WESTERMAN'S _Hapre [Greek: doxographoi], Scriptores Rerum Mirabilium Græci_ Brunswick, 1830.] The Arabs, on the contrary, with sounder discretion, generally kept their "travellers' histories" distinct from their sober narratives, and whilst the marvellous incidents related by adventurous seamen were received as materials for the story-tellers and romancers, the staple of their geographical works consisted of truthful descriptions of the countries visited, their forms of government, their institutions, their productions, and their trade. In illustration of this matter-of-fact character of the Arab topographers, the most familiar example is that known by the popular title of the _Voyages of the_ _two Mahometans[1]_, who travelled in India and China in the beginning of the ninth century. The book professes to give an account of the countries lying between Bassora and Canton; and in its unpretending style, and useful notices of commerce in those seas, it resembles the record, which the merchant ARRIAN has left us in the _Periplus_, of the same trade as it existed seven centuries previously, in the hands of the Greeks. The early portion of the book, which was written A.D. 851, was taken down, from the recital of Soleyman, a merchant who had frequently made the voyages he describes, at the epoch when the commerce of Bagdad, under the Khalifs, was at the height of its prosperity. The second part was added sixty years later, by Abou-zeyd Hassan, an amateur geographer, of Bassora (contemporary with Massoudi), from the reports of mariners returning from China, and is, to a great extent, an amplification of the notices supplied by Soleyman. [Footnote 1: It was first published by RENAUDOT in 1718, and from the unique MS., now in the Bibliothèque impériale of Paris, and again by REINAUD in 1845, with a valuable discourse prefixed on the nature and extent of the Indian trade prior to the tenth century.--_Relation des Voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans l'Inde et Chine dans le IX'e Siècle, &c._ 2 vols. 18mo. Paris, 1845.] SOLEYMAN describes the sea of Herkend, as it lay between the Laccadives and Maldives[1], on the west, and swept round eastward by Cape Comorin and Adam's Bridge to Ceylon, thus enclosing the precious fishery for pearls. In Serendib, his earliest attention was devoutly directed to the sacred footstep on Adam's Peak; in his name for which, "_Al-rohoun,"_ we trace the Buddhist name for the district, Rohuna, so often occurring in the _Mahawanso_.[2] This is the earliest notice of the Mussulman tradition, which associates the story of Adam with Ceylon, though it was current amongst the Copts in the fourth and fifth centuries.[3] On all sides of the mountain, he adds, are the mines of rubies, hyacinths, and other gems; the interior produces aloes; and the sea the highly valued chank shells, which served the Indians for trumpets.[4] The island was subject to two kings; and on the death of the chief one his body was placed on a low carriage, with the head declining till the hair swept the ground, and, as it was drawn slowly along, a female, with a bunch of leaves, swept dust upon the features, crying: "Men, behold your king, whose will, but yesterday, was law! To-day, he bids farewell to the world, and the Angel of Death has seized his spirit. Cease, any longer, to be deluded by the shadowy pleasures of life." At the conclusion of this ceremony, which lasted for three days, the corpse was consumed on a pyre of sandal, camphor, and aromatic woods, and the ashes scattered to the winds.[5] The widow of the king was sometimes burnt along with his remains, but compliance with the custom was not held to be compulsory. [Footnote 1: The _"Divi"_ of Ammianus Marcellinus, who along with the Singhalese "_Selendivi_" sent ambassadors to the Emperor Julian, l xxii. c. 7.] [Footnote 2: A portion of the district near Tangalle is known to the present day as "Rouna."--_Mahawanso_, ch. ix. p. 57; ch. xxii. p. 130, &c.] [Footnote 3: See the account of Adam's Peak, Vol. II. Pt. VII. ch. ii.] [Footnote 4: ABOU-ZEYD, _Relation, &c._, vol. i. p. 5.] [Footnote 5: _lb_., p. 50. The practice of burning the remains of the kings and of persons of exalted rank, continued as long as the native dynasty held the throne of Kandy.--See KNOX's _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, A.D. 1681, Part iii. c. ii.] Such is the account of SOLEYMAN, but, in the second part of the manuscript, ABOU-ZEYD, on the authority of another informant, IBN WAHAB, who had sailed to the same countries, speaks of the pearls of Ceylon, and adds, regarding its precious stones, that they were obtained in part from the soil, but chiefly from those points of the beach at which the rivers flowed into the sea and to which the gems are carried down by the torrents from the hills.[1] [Footnote 1: _Ibid_., vol. i. p. 127.] ABOU-ZEYD describes the frequent conventions of the heads of the national religion, and the attendance of scribes to write down from their dictation the doctrines of Buddhism, the legends of its prophets, and the precepts of its law. This statement has an obvious reference to the important events recorded in the _Mahawanso_[1] of the reduction of the tenets, orally delivered by Buddha, to their written form, as they appear in the _Pittakatayan_; to the translation of the _Atthakatha_, from Singhalese into Pali, in the reign of Mahanamo, A.D. 410-432; and to the singular care displayed, at all times, by the kings and the priesthood, to preserve authentic records of every event connected with the national religion and its history. [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiii. p. 207; ch. xxxvii. p. 252.] ABOU-ZEYD adverts to the richness of the temples of the Singhalese, and to the colossal dimensions of their statues, and dwells with particularity on their toleration of all religious sects as attested by the existence there, in the ninth century, of a sect of Manichæans, and a community of Jews.[1] [Footnote 1: It was to Ceylon that the terrified worshippers of Siva betook themselves in their flight, when Mahmoud of Ghuznee smote the idol and overthrew the temple of Somnaut, A.D. 1025. (FERISHTA, transl. by Briggs, vol. i. p. 71; REINAUD, _Introd. to_ ABOULFEDA, vol. i. p. cccxlix. _Mémoires sur l'Inde_, p. 270.) Twenty years previously, when the same orthodox invader routed the schismatic Carmathians at Moultan, the fugitive chief of the Sheahs found an asylum in Ceylon. (REINAUD, _Journ. Asiat_., vol. xlv. p. 283; vol. xlvi. p. 129.) The latter circumstance serves to show that the Mahometans in Ceylon have not been uniformly Sonnees, and it may probably throw light on a fact of much local interest connected with Colombo. There formerly stood there, in the Mahometan Cemetery, a stone with an ancient inscription in Cufic characters, which no one could decipher, but which was said to record the virtues of a man of singular virtue, who had arrived in the island in the tenth century. About the year 1787 A.D., one of the Dutch officials removed the stone to the spot where he was building, "and placed it where it now stands, at one of the steps to his door." This is the account given by Sir Alexander Johnston, who, in 1827, sent a copy of the inscription to the Royal Asiatic Society of London. GILDEMEISTER pronounces it to be written in Carmathic characters, and to commemorate an Arab who died A.D. 848. "Karmathacis quæ dicuntur literis exarata viro cuidam Arabo Mortuo, 948 A.D. posita," _Script. Arabi de Rebus Indicis_, p. 59. A translation of the inscription by Lee was published in _Trans, Roy. Asiat. Soc._, vol. i. p. 545, from which it appears that the deceased, Khalid Ibn Abou Bakaya, distinguished himself by obtaining "security for religion, with other advantages, in the year 317 of the Hejira." LEE was disposed to think that this might be the tomb of the Imaum Abu Abd Allah; who first taught the Mahometans the route by which pilgrims might proceed from India to the sacred footstep on Adam's Peak. But besides the discrepancy of the names, the Imaum died in the year A.D. 953, and interred at Shiraz, where Ibn Batata made a visit to his tomb. (_Travels_, transl. DEFRÉMERY, &c., tom. ii. p. 79.) EDRISI, in his Geography writing in the twelfth century, confirms the account of Abou-zeyd as to the toleration of all sects in Ceylon, and illustrates it by the fact, that of the sixteen officers who formed the council of the king, four were Buddhists, four Mussulmans, four Christians, and four Jews.--GILDEMEISTER, _Script. Arabi_, &c., p. 53; EDRISI, 1 clim. sec. 6.] Ibn Wahab, his informant, appears to have looked back with singular pleasure to the delightful voyages which he had made through the remarkable still-water channels, elsewhere described, which form so peculiar a feature in the seaborde of Ceylon, and to which the Arabs gave the obscure term of "gobbs."[1] Here months were consumed by the mariners, amidst flowers and overhanging woods, with the enjoyments of abundant food and exhilarating draughts of arrack flavoured with honey. The natives of the island were devoted to pleasure, and their days were spent in cock-fighting and games of chance, into which they entered with so much eagerness as to wager the joints of their fingers when all else was lost. [Footnote 1: "_Aghbah_," Arab. For an account of those of Ceylon, see Vol. I. Pt I. ch. i. p. 42. The idea entertained by the Arabs of these Gobbs, will be found in a passage from Albyrouni, given by REINAUD, _Fragmens Arabes_, &c., 119, and _Journ. Asiat_. vol. xlv. p. 201. See also EDRISI, _Geog_., tom. i. p. 73.] But the most interesting passages in the narrative of Abou-zeyd are those which allude to the portion of Ceylon which served as the emporium for the active and opulent trade of which the island was then, in every sense of the word, the centre. Gibbon, on no other ground than its "capacious harbour," pronounces Trincomalie to be the port which received and dismissed the fleets of the East and West.[1] But the nautical grounds are even stronger than the historical for regarding this as improbable;--the winds and the currents, as well as its geographical position, render Trincomalie difficult of access to vessels coming from the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf; and it is evident from the narrative of Soleyman and Ibn Wahab, that ships availing themselves of the monsoons to cross the Indian Ocean, crept along the shore to Cape Comorin; and passed close by Adam's Bridge to reach their destined ports.[2] [Footnote 1: _Decline and Fall_, ch. xl.] [Footnote 2: ABOU-ZEYD, vol. i. p. 128; REINAUD, _Discours; &c._, pp. lx.--lxix.; _Introd._ ABOULFEDA, p. cdxii.] An opinion has been advanced by Bertolacci that the entrepôt was Mantotte, at the northern extremity of the Gulf of Manaar. Presuming that the voyages both ways were made through the Manaar channel, he infers that the ships of Arabia and India, rather than encounter the long delay of waiting for the change of the monsoon to effect the passage, would prefer to "flock to the Straits of Manaar, and those which, from their size, could not pass the shallow water, would be unloaded, and their merchandise trans-shipped into other vessels, as they arrived from the opposite coast, or deposited in stores to await an opportunity of conveyance."[1] Hence Mantotte, he concludes, was the station chosen for such combined operations. [Footnote 1: BERTOLACCI'S _Ceylon_, pp. 18,19.] But Bertolacci confines his remarks to the Arabian and Indian crafts alone: he leaves out of consideration the ships of the largest size called in the _Periplus_ [Greek: kolandiophônta], which kept up the communication between the west and east coast of India, in the time of the Romans, and he equally overlooks the great junks of the Chinese, which, by aid of the magnetic compass[1], made bold passages from Java to Malabar, and from Malabar to Oman,--vessels which (on the authority of an ancient Arabic MS.) Reinaud says carried from four to five hundred men, with arms and naphtha, to defend themselves against the pirates of India.[2] [Footnote 1: The knowledge of the mariner's compass probably possessed by the Chinese prior to the twelfth century, is discussed by KLAPROTH in his "_Lettre à M. le Baron Humboldt sur l'invention de la boussole_." Paris, 1834.] [Footnote 2: See the _"Katab-al-adjajab_," probably written by MASSOUDI. REINAUD, _Mémoires sur l'Inde_, p. 200; _Relation et Discours_, pp. lx. lxviii.; ABOULFEDA, _Introd_. cdxii. May not this early mention of the use of "naphtha" by the Chinese for burning the ships of an enemy, throw some light on the disquisitions adverted to by GIBBON, ch. lii., as to the nature of "the _Greek fire_," so destructive to the fleets of their assailants during the first and second siege of Constantinople in the seventh and eighth centuries? GIBBON says that the principal ingredient was naphtha, and that the Greek emperor learned the secret of its composition from a Syrian who deserted from the service of the Khalif. Did the Khalif acquire the knowledge from the Chinese, whose ships, it appears, were armed with some preparation of this nature in their voyages to Bassora?] On this point we have the personal testimony of the Chinese traveller Fa Hian, who at the end of the fourth century sailed direct from Ceylon for China, in a merchant vessel so large as to accommodate two hundred persons, and having in tow a smaller one, as a precaution against dangers by sea[1]:--and Ibn Batuta saw, at Calicut, in the fourteenth century, junks from China capable of accommodating a thousand men, of whom four hundred were soldiers, and each of these large ships was followed by three smaller.[2] With vessels of such magnitude, it would be neither expedient nor practicable to navigate the shallows in the vicinity of Manaar; and besides, Mantotte, or, as it was anciently called, _Mahatitta_ or _Maha-totta_, "the great ferry," although it existed as a port upwards of four hundred years before the Christian era, was at no period an emporium of commerce. Being situated so close to the ancient capital, Anarajapoora, it derived its notoriety from being the point of arrival and departure of the Malabars who resorted to the island; and the only trade for which it afforded facilities was the occasional importation of the produce of the opposite coast of India.[3] It is not only probable, but almost certain that during the middle ages, and especially prior to the eleventh century, when the trade with Persia and Arabia was at its height, Mantotte afforded the facilities indicated by Bertolacci to the smaller craft that availed themselves of the Paumbam passage; but we have still to ascertain the particular harbour which was the centre of the more important commerce between China and the West. That harbour I believe to have been Point de Galle. [Footnote 1: _Fo[)e]-kou[)e]-ki_, ch. xl. p. 359). In a previous passage, FA HIAN describes the large vessels in which the trade was carried between Tamlook, on the Hoogly, and Ceylon:--"A cette époque, des marchands, se mettant en mer avec de grands vaisseaux, firent route vers le sud-ouest; et au commencement de l'hiver, le vent étant favorable, après une navigation de quatorze nuits et d'autant de jours, on arriva au _Royaume des Lions_."--_Ibid_. chap. xxxvi. p. 328.] [Footnote 2: IBN BATUTA, Lee's translation, p. 172.] [Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 51; ch. xxv. p. 155; ch. xxxv. p. 217.] Abou-zeyd describes the rendezvous of the ships arriving from Oman, where they met those bound for the Persian Gulf, as lying half-way between Arabia and China. "It was the centre," he says, "of the trade in aloes and camphor, in sandal-wood, ivory and lead."[1] This emporium he denominates "Kalah," and when we remember that lie is speaking of a voyage which he had not himself made, and of countries then very imperfectly known to the people of the West, we shall not be surprised that he calls it an island, or rather a peninsula. [Footnote 1: ABOU-ZEYD, _Relation, &c._, vol. i. p. 93; REINAUD, _Disc._ p. lxxiv.] According to him, it was at that period subject to the Maharaja of Zabedj, the sovereign of a singular kingdom of which little is known, but which appears to have been formed about the commencement of the Christian era; and which, in the eighth and ninth centuries, extended over the groups of islands south and west of Malacca, including Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, which had become the resort of a vast population of Indians, Chinese, and Malays.[1] The sovereign of this opulent empire had brought under his dominion the territory of the King of Comar, the southern extremity of the Dekkan[2], and at the period when Abou-zeyd wrote, he likewise claimed the sovereignty of "Kalah." [Footnote 1: _Journ. Asiat._ vol. xlix. p. 206; ELPHINSTONE's _India_, b. iii. ch. x. p. 168; REINAUD, _Mémoires sur l'Inde_, p. 39; _Introd._ ABOULFEDA, p. cccxc. Baron Walckenaer has ascertained, from the puranas and other Hindu sources, that the Great Dynasty of the Maharaja continued till A.D. 628, after which the islands were sub-divided into numerous sovereignties. See MAJOR's _Introduction to the Indian Voyages in the Fifteenth Century,_ in the _Hakluyt Soc. Publ._ p. xxvii.] [Footnote 2: MASSOUDI relates the conquest of the kingdom of Comar by the Maharaja of Zabedj, nearly in the same words as it is told by Abou-zeyd; GILDEMEISTER, _Script. Arab_., pp. 145, 146. REINAUD. _Memoires sur l'Inde_, p. 225.] This incident is not mentioned in the Singhalese chronicles, but their silence is not to be regarded as conclusive evidence against its probability; the historians of the Hindus ignore the expedition of Alexander the Great, and it is possible that those of Ceylon, indifferent to all that did not directly concern the religion of Buddha, may have felt little interest in the fortunes of Galle, situated as it was at the remote extremity of the island, and in a region that hardly acknowledged a nominal allegiance to the Singhalese crown. The assertion of Abou-zeyd as to the sovereignty of the Maharaja of Zabedj, at Kalah, is consistent with the statement of Soleyman in the first portion of the work, that "the island was in subjection to two monarchs;"[1] and this again agrees with the report of Sopater to Cosmas Indico-pleustes, who adds that the king who possessed the hyacinth was at enmity with the king of the country in which were the harbour and the great emporium.[2] [Footnote 1: _Relation_, vol. i. p. 6.] [Footnote 2: [Greek: Duo ie basileis eisin en tê nêsô enantioi allêlôn, ho eis echôn ton huakinthon, kai d eteros to meros to allo en ps esti emporion kai hê lêinê.] COSMAS INDIC.] But there is evidence that the subjection of this portion of Ceylon to the chief of the great insular empire was at that period currently believed in the East. In the a "_Garsharsp-Namah_" a Persian poem of the tenth century, by Asedi, a manuscript of which was in the possession of Sir William Ouseley, the story turns on a naval expedition, fitted out by Delak, whose dominions extended from Persia to Palestine, and despatched at the request of the Maharaja against Baku, the King of Ceylon, and in the course of the narrative, Garsharsp and his fleet reach their destination at Kalah, and there achieve a victory over the "Shah of Serendib."[1] [Footnote 1: OUSELEY'S _Travels_, vol. i. p. 48.] It must be observed, that one form of the Arabic letter K is sounded like G, so that Kalah would be pronounced _Gala_.[1] The identity, however, is established not merely by similarity of sound, but by the concurrent testimony of Cosmas and the Arabian geographers[2], as to the nature and extent of the intercourse between China and Persia, statements which are intelligible if referred to that particular point, but inapplicable to any other. [Footnote 1: _Kalah_ may possibly be identical with the Singhalese word _gala_, which means an "enclosure," and the deeply bayed harbour of Galle would serve to justify the name. _Galla_ signifies a rock, and this derivation would be equally sustained by the natural features of the place, and dangerous coral reefs which obstruct the entrance to the port.] [Footnote 2: DULAURIER, in the _Journal Asiatique_ for Sept. 1846, vol. xlix. p. 209, has brought together the authorities of Aboulfeda, Kazwini, and others to show that Kalah be situated in Ceylon, and he has combated the conjecture of M. Alfred Maury that it may be identical with Kedsh in the Malay Peninsula.--REINAUD, _Relation, &c. Disc._, pp. xli.--lxxxiv., _Introd._ ABOULFEDA, p. ccxviii.] Coupled with these considerations, however, the identity of name is not without its significance. It was the habit of the Singhalese to apply to a district the name of the principal place within it; thus Lanka, which in the epic of the Hindus was originally the capital and castle of Ravana, was afterwards applied to the island in general; and according to the _Mahawanso_, Tambapani, the point of the coast where Wijayo landed, came to designate first the wooded country that surrounded it, and eventually the whole area of Ceylon.[1] In the same manner _Galla_ served to describe not only the harbour of that name, but the district north and east of it to the extent of 600 square miles, and De Barros, De Couto, and Ribeyro, the chroniclers of the Portuguese in Ceylon, record it as a tradition of the island, that the inhabitants of that region had acquired the name of the locality, and were formerly known as "Gallas."[2] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 50.] [Footnote 2: A notice of this tribe will be found in another place. See Vol. II. Pt. VII. ch. ii.] Galle therefore, in the earlier ages, appears to have occupied a position in relation to trade of equal if not of greater importance than that which attaches to it at the present day. It was the central emporium of a commerce which in turn enriched every country of Western Asia, elevated the merchants of Tyre to the rank of princes, fostered the renown of the Ptolemies, rendered the wealth and the precious products of Arabia a gorgeous mystery[1], freighted the Tigris with "barbaric pearl and gold," and identified the merchants of Bagdad and the mariners of Bassora with associations of adventure and romance. Yet, strange to say, the native Singhalese appear to have taken no part whatever in this exciting and enriching commerce; their name is never mentioned in connection with the immigrant races attracted by it to their shores, and the only allusions of travellers to the indigenous inhabitants of the island are in connection with a custom so remarkable and so peculiar as at once to identify the tribes to whom it is ascribed with the remnant of the aboriginal race of Veddahs, whose descendants still haunt the forests in the east of Ceylon. [Footnote 1: " ... intactis opulentior Thesauris Arabum, et divitis Indiæ." HORACE.] Such is the aversion of this untamed race to any intercourse with civilised life, that when in want of the rude implements essential to their savage economy, they repair by night to the nearest village on the confines of their hunting-fields, and indicating by well-understood signs and models the number and form of the articles required, whether arrow-heads, hatchets, or cloths, they deposit an equivalent portion of dried deer's flesh or honey near the door of the dealer, and retire unseen to the jungles, returning by stealth within a reasonable time, to carry away the manufactured articles, which they find placed at the same spot in exchange. This singular custom has been described without variation by numerous writers on Ceylon, both in recent and remote times. To trace it backwards, it is narrated, nearly as I have stated it, by Robert Knox in 1681[1]; and it is confirmed by Valentyn, the Dutch historian of Ceylon[2]; as well as by Ribeyro, the Portuguese, who wrote somewhat earlier.[3] Albyrouni, the geographer, who in the reign of Mahomet of Ghuznee, A.D. 1030, described this singular feature in the trade with the island, of which he speaks under the name of Lanka, says that it was the belief of the Arabian mariners that the parties with whom they held their mysterious dealings were demons or savages.[4] [Footnote 1: KNOX, _Historical Relation, &c._, part iii. ch. i. p. 62.] [Footnote 2: VALENTYN, _Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien_, ch. iii. p. 49.] [Footnote 3: "Lorsqu'ils ont besoin de haches on de flèches, ils font un modèle avec des feuilles d'arbre, et vont la nuit porter ce modèle, et la moitié d'un cerf on d'un sanglier, à la porte d'un armurier, qui voyant le matin cette viande penduë à sa porte, sçait ce que cela veut dire: il travaille aussi-tôt et 3 jours après il pend les flêches ou les haches au même endroit où étoit la viande, et la nuit suivante le Beda les vient prendre."--RIBEYRO, _Hist. de Ceylan_, A.D. 1686, ch. xxiv. p. 179.] [Footnote 4: "Les marins se réunissent pour dire que lorsque les navires sont arrivés dans ces parages, quelques uns de l'équipage montent sur des chaloupes et descendent à terre pour y déposer, soit de l'argent, soit des objets utiles à la personne des habitans, tels que des pagnes, du sel, etc. Le lendemain, quand ils reviennent, ils trouvent à la place de l'argent des pagnes et du sel, une quantité de girofle d'une valeur égale. On ajoute que ce commerce se fait avec des génies, ou, suivant d'autres; avec des hommes restés à l'état sauvage."--ALBYROUNI, _transl. by_ REINAUD, _Introd. to_ ABOULFEDA, sec. iii. p. ccc. See also REINAUD, _Mém. sur l'Inde_, p. 343. I have before alluded (p. 538, _n_.) to the treatise _De Moribus Brachmanorum_, ascribed to Palladius, one version of which is embodied in the spurious Life of Alexander the Great, written by the Pseudo-Callisthenes. In it the traveller from Thebes, who is the author's informant, states, that when in Ceylon, he obtained pepper from the Besadæ, and succeeded in getting so near them as to be able to describe accurately their appearance, their low stature and feeble configuration, their large heads and shaggy uncut hair,--a description which in every particular agrees with the aspect of the Veddahs at the present day. His expression that he succeeded in "getting near" them, [Greek: ertasa engus tôn kaloumenôn Besadôn] shows their propensity to conceal themselves even when bringing the articles which they had collected in the woods to sell.--PSEUDO-CALLISTHENES, lib. iii. ch. vii. Paris, 1846, p. 103.] Concurrent testimony, to the same effect, is found in the recital of the Chinese Buddhist, Fa Hian, who in the third century describes, in his travels, the same strange peculiarity of the inhabitants in those days, whom he also designates "demons," who deposited, unseen, the precious articles which they come down to barter with the foreign merchants resorting to their shores.[1] [Footnote 1: "Les marchands des autre royaumes y faisaient le commerce: quand le temps de ce commerce était venu, les génies et les démons ne paraissaient pas; mais ils mettaient en avant des choses précieuses dont ils marquaient le juste prix,--s'il convenait aux marchands, ceuxci l'acquittaient et prenaient le marchandise."--FA HIAN, _Foe[)e]-kou[)e]-ki. Transl._ RÉMUSAT, ch. xxxviii. p. 332 There are a multitude of Chinese authorities to the same effect. One of the most remarkable books in any language is a Chinese Encyclopædia which under the title of _Wen-hian-thoung-khao_, or "_Researches into ancient Monuments_," contains a history of every art and science form the commencement of the empire to the era of the author MA-TOUAN-LIN, who wrote in the thirteenth century. M. Stanislas Julien has published in the _Journal Asiatique_ for July 1836 a translation of that portion of this great work which has relation to Ceylon. It is there stated of the aborigines that when "les marchands des autres royaumes y venaient commercer, _ils ne laissaient pas voir leurs corps_, et montraient au moyen de pierres précieuses le prix que pouvaient valoir les merchandises. Les marchands venaient et en prenaient une quantité équivalente à leurs marchandises."--_Journ. Asiat._ t. xxviii. p. 402; xxiv. p. 41. I have extracts from seven other Chinese works, written between the seventh and the twelfth centuries, in all of which there occurs the same account of Ceylon,--that it was formerly supposed to be inhabited by dragons and demons, and that when "merchants from all nations come to trade with the, they are invisible, but leave their precious wares spread out with an indication of the value set on them, and the Chinese take them at the prices stipulated."--_Leang-shoo_, "History of the Leang Dynasty," A.D. 630, b. liv. p. 13. _Nân-shè_, "History of the Southern Empire," A.D. 650, p. xxxviii. p. 14. _Jung-teen_, "Cyclopædia of History," A.D. 740, b. cxciii. p. 8. The _Tae-pîng_, a "Digest of History," compiled by Imperial command, A.D. 983, b. dccxciii. p. 9. _Tsih-foo-yuen-kwei_, the "Great Depositary of the National Archives," A.D. 1012, b. cccclvi. p. 21. _Sin-Jang-shoo_, "New History of the Tang Dynasty," A.D. 1060, b. cxlvi. part ii. p. 10. _Wan heen-túng-Kwan_, "Antiquarian Researches," A.D. 1319, b. cccxxxviii. p. 24.] The chain of evidence is rendered complete by a passage in Pliny, which, although somewhat obscure (facts relating to the Seres being confounded with statements regarding Ceylon), nevertheless serves to show that the custom in question was then well known to the Singhalese ambassadors sent to the Emperor Claudius, and was also familiar to the Greek traders resorting to the island. The envoys stated, at Rome, that the habit of the people of their country was, on the arrival of traders, to go to "the further side of some river where wares and commodities are laid down by the strangers, and if the natives list to make exchange, they have them taken away, and leave other merchandise in lieu thereof, to content the foreign merchant."[1] [Footnote 1: PLINY, _Nat. Hist_., lib. vi. ch. xxiv. Transl. Philemon Holland, p. 130. This passage has been sometimes supposed to refer to the Seræ, but a reference to the text will confirm the opinion of MARTIANUS and SOLINUS, that Pliny applies it to the Singhalese; and that the allusion to red hair and grey eyes, "rutilis comis" and "cæruleis oculis" applies to some northern tribes whom the Singhalese had seen in their overland journeys to China, "Later travellers," says COOLEY, "have likewise had glimpses, on the frontiers of India, of these German features; but nothing is yet known with certainty of the tribe to which they properly belonged."--_Hist. Inland and Maritime Discovery_, vol. i. p. 71.] The fact, thus established, of the aversion to commerce, immemorially evinced by the southern Singhalese, and of their desire to escape from intercourse with the strangers resorting to trade on their coasts, serves to explain the singular scantiness of information regarding the interior of the island which is apparent in the writings of the Arabians and Persians, between the eighth and thirteenth centuries. Their knowledge of the coast was extensive, they were familiar with the lofty mountain which served as its landmark, they dwell with admiration on its productions, and record with particularity the objects of commerce which were to be found in the island; but, regarding the Singhalese themselves and their social and intellectual condition, little, if any, real information is to be gleaned from the Oriental geographers of the middle ages. ALBATENY and MASSOUDI, the earliest of the Arabian geographers[1], were contemporaries of Abou-zeyd, in the ninth century, and neither adds much to the description of Ceylon, given in the narratives of "_The two Mahometans_." The former assigns to the island the fabulous dimensions ascribed to it by the Hindus, and only alludes to the ruby and the sapphire[2] as being found in the rivers that flow from its majestic mountains. MASSOUDI asserts that he visited Ceylon[3], and describes, from actual knowledge, the funeral ceremonies of a king, and the incremation of his remains; but as these are borrowed almost verbatim from the account given by Soleyman[4], there is reason to believe that he merely copied from Abou-zeyd the portions of the "_Meadows of Gold_"[5] that have relation to Ceylon. [Footnote 1: Probably the earliest allusion to Ceylon by any Arabian or Persian author, is that of Tabari, who was born in A.D. 838; but he limits his notices to an exaggerated account of Adam's Peak, "than which the whole world does not contain a mountain of greater height."--OUSELLY'S _Travels_, vol i. p. 34, _n_.] [Footnote 2: "Le rubis rouge, et la pierre qui est couleur de ciel." ALBATENY, quoted by Reinaud, _Introd_. ABOULFEDA p. ccclxxxv.] [Footnote 3: MASSOUDI in Gildemeister, _Script. Arab_. p. 154. Gildemeister discredits the assertion of Massoudi, that he had been in Ceylon. (_Ib._ p. 154, _n_.) He describes Kalah as an island distinct from Serendib.] [Footnote 4: ABOU-ZEYD, _Relation, &c_., p. 50.] [Footnote 5: A translation of MASSOUDI'S _Meadows of Gold_ in English was begun by Dr. Sprenger for the "Oriental Translation Fund," but it has not advanced beyond the first volume, which was published in 1841.] In the order of time, this is the place to allude to another Arabian mariner, whose voyages have had a world-wide renown, and who, more than any other author, ancient or modern, has contributed to familiarise Europe with the name and wonders of Serendib. I allude to "Sindbad of the Sea," whose voyages were first inserted by Galland, in his French translation of the "_Thousand-and-one Nights_." Sindbad, in his own tale, professes to have lived in the reign of the most illustrious Khalif of the Abbassides,-- "Sole star of all that place and time;-- And saw him, in his golden prime, The good Haroun Alraschid." But Haroun died, A.D. 808, and Sindbad's narrative is so manifestly based on the recitals of Abou-zeyd and Massoudi, that although the author may have lived shortly after, it is scarcely possible that he could have been a contemporary of the great ruler of Bagdad.[1] [Footnote 1: REINAUD notices the _Ketab-ala-jayb_, or "Book of Wonders," of MASSOUDI, as one of the works whence the materials of Sindbad's Voyages were drawn. (_Introd_. ABOULFEDA, vol. i. p. lxxvii.) HOLE published in 1797 A.D. his learned _Remarks on the Origin of Sindbad's Voyages_, and in that work, as well as in LANGLE'S edition of Sindbad; and in the notes by LANE to his version of the "_Arabian Nights' Entertainment_," Edrisi, Kazwini, and many other writers are mentioned whose works contain parallel statements. But though Edrisi and Kazwini wrote in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it does not follow that the author of Sindbad lived later than they, as both may have borrowed their illustrations from the same early sources.] One inference is clear, from the story of Sindbad, that whilst the sea-coast of Ceylon was known to the Arabians, the interior had been little explored by them, and was so enveloped in mystery that any tale of its wonders, however improbable, was sure to gain credence. Hence, what Sindbad relates of the shore and its inhabitants is devoid of exaggeration: in his first visit the natives who received him were Malabars, one of whom had learned Arabic, and they were engaged in irrigating their rice lands from a tank. These are incidents which are characteristic of the north-western coast of Ceylon at the present day; and the commerce, for which the island was remarkable in the ninth and tenth centuries is implied by the expression of Sindbad, that on the occasion of his next voyage, when bearing presents and a letter from the Khalif to the King of Serendib, he embarked at Bassora in a ship, and with him "were many merchants." Of the Arabian authors of the middle ages the one who dwells most largely on Ceylon is EDRISI, born of a family who ruled over Malaga after the fall of the Khalifs of Cordova. He was a _protégé_ of the Sicilian king, Roger the Norman, at whose desire he compiled his Geography, A.D. 1154. But with regard to Ceylon, his pages contain only the oft-repeated details of the height of the holy mountain, the gems found in its ravines, the musk, the perfumes, and odoriferous woods which abound there.[1] He particularises twelve cities, but their names are scarcely identifiable with any now known.[2] The sovereign, who was celebrated for the mildness of his rule, was assisted by a council of sixteen, of whom four were of the national religion, four Christians, four Mussulmans, and four Jews; and one of the chief cares of the government was given to keeping up the historical records of the reigns of their kings, the lives of their prophets, and the sacred books of their law. [Footnote 1: EDRISI mentions, that at that period the sugar-cane was cultivated in Ceylon.] [Footnote 2: Marnaba, (_Manaar?_) Aghna Perescouri, (_Periatorre?_) Aide, Mahouloun, (_Putlam?_) Hamri, Telmadi, (_Talmanaar?_) Lendouma, Sedi; Hesli, Beresli and Medouna (_Matura?_). "Aghna" or "Ana," as Edrisi makes it the residence of the king, must be Anarajapoora.] Ships from China and other distant countries resorted to the island, and hither "came the wines of Irak, and Fars, which are purchased by the king, and sold again to his subjects; for, unlike the princes of India, who encourage debauchery but strictly forbid wine, the King of Serendib recommends wine and prohibits debauchery." The exports of the island he describes as silk, precious stones of every hue, rock-crystal, diamonds, and a profusion of perfumes.[1] [Footnote 1: EDRISI, _Géogr._ Transl. de Jaubert, 4to. Paris, 1836, t. i. p. 71, &c. Edrisi, in his "Notice of Ceylon," quotes largely and verbatim from the work of Abou-zeyd.] The last of this class of writers to whom it is necessary to allude is KAZWINI, who lived at Bagdad in the thirteenth century, and, from the diversified nature of his writings, has been called the Pliny of the East. In his geographical account of India, he includes Ceylon, but it is evident from the details into which he enters of the customs of the court and the people, the burning of the widows of the kings on the same pile with their husbands, that the information he had received had been collected amongst the Brahmanical, not the Buddhist portion of the people. This is confirmatory of the actual condition of the people of Ceylon at the period as shown by the native chronicles, the king being the Malabar Magha, who invaded the island from Caligna 1219 A.D., overthrew the Buddhist religion, desecrated its monuments and temples, and destroyed the edifices and literary records of the capital.[1] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxx. _Rajaratnacari_, p. 93; _Rajavali_, p. 256. TURNOUR'S _Epitome, &c_., p. 44.] KAZWINI, as usual, dwells on the productions of the island, its spices, and its odours, its precious woods and medical drugs, its profusion of gems, its gold and silver work, and its pearls[1]: but one circumstance will not fail to strike the reader as a strange omission in these frequent enumerations of the exports of Ceylon. I have traced them from their earliest notices by the Greeks and Romans to the period when the commerce of the East had reached its climax in the hands of the Persians and Arabians; the survey extends over fifteen centuries, during which Ceylon and its productions were familiarly known to the traders of all countries, and yet in the pages of no author, European or Asiatic, from the earliest ages to the close of the thirteenth century, is there the remotest allusion to _Cinnamon_ as an indigenous production, or even as an article of commerce in Ceylon. I may add, that I have been equally unsuccessful in finding any allusion to it in any Chinese work of ancient date.[2] [Footnote 1: KAZWINI, in Gildemeister, _Script. Arab_. p. 108.] [Footnote 2: In the Chinese Materia Medica, "_Pun-tsao-kang-muh_," cinnamon or cassia is described under the name of "_kwei_" but always as a production of Southern China and of Cochin China. In the Ming History, a production of Ceylon is mentioned under the name of "_Shoo-heang_," or "tree-perfume;" but my informant, Mr. Wylie, of Shanghae, is unable to identify it with cinnamon oil.] This unexpected result has served to cast a suspicion on the title of Ceylon to be designated _par excellence_ the "Cinnamon Isle," and even with the knowledge that the cinnamon laurel is indigenous there, it admits of but little doubt that the spice which in the earlier ages was imported into Europe through Arabia, was obtained, first from Africa, and afterwards from India; and that it was not till after the twelfth or thirteenth century that its existence in Ceylon became known to the merchants resorting to the island. So little was its real history known in Europe, even at the latter period, that Phile, who composed his metrical treatise, [Greek: Peri Zôôn Idiotêtos], for the information of the Emperor Michael XI. (Palæologus), about the year 1310, repeats the ancient fable of Herodotus, that cinnamon grew in an unknown Indian country, whence it was carried by birds, from whose nests it was abstracted by the natives of Arabia.[1] [Footnote 1: [Greek: Ornis ho kinnamômos ônomasmenos To kinnamômon euren agnooumenon, Huph ou kalian organoi tois philtatois Mallon ie tois melasin Indois, autanax Arômatikên hêdonên diaplekei.] PHILE, xxviii. VINCENT, in scrutinising the writings of the classical authors, anterior to Cosmas, who treated of Taprobane, was surprised to discover that no mention of cinnamon as a production of Ceylon was to be met with in Pliny, Dioscorides, or Ptolemy, and that even the author of the mercantile _Periplus_ was silent regarding it. (Vol. ii. p. 512.) D'Herbelot has likewise called attention to the same fact. (_Bibl. Orient._ vol. iii. p. 308.) This omission is not to be explained by ascribing it to mere inadvertence. The interest of the Greeks and Romans was naturally excited to discover the country which produced a luxury so rare as to be a suitable gift for a king; and so costly, that a crown of cinnamon tipped with gold was a becoming offering to the gods. But the Arabs succeeded in preserving the secret of its origin, and the curiosity of Europe was baffled by tales of cinnamon being found in the nest of the Phoenix, or gathered in marshes guarded by monsters and winged serpents. Pliny appears to have been the first to suspect that the most precious of spices came not from Arabia, but from Æthiopia (lib. xii. c. xlii.); and COOLEY, in an argument equally remarkable for ingenuity and research, has succeeded in demonstrating the soundness of this conjecture, and establishing the fact that the cinnamon brought to Europe by the Arabs, and afterwards by the Greeks, came chiefly from the eastern angle of Africa, the tract around Cape Gardafui, which is marked on the ancient maps as the _Regio Cinnamomifera._ (Journ. Roy. Georg. Society, 1849, vol. xix. p. 166.) COOLEY has suggested in his learned work on "_Ptolemy and the Nile_," that the name _Gardafui_ is a compound of the Somali word _gard_, "a port," and the Arabic _afhaoni_, a generic term for aromata and spices. It admits of no doubt that the cinnamon of Ceylon was unknown to commerce in the sixth century of our era; although there is evidence of a supply which, if not from China, was probably carried in Chinese vessels at a much earlier period, in the Persian name _dar chini_, which means "_Chinese wood_," and in the ordinary word "cinn-amon," "_Chinese amomum_," a generic name for aromatic spices generally. (NEES VON ESENBACH, _de Cinnamono Disputatio_, p. 12.) Ptolemy, equally with Pliny, placed the "Cinnamon Region" at the north-eastern extremity of Africa, now the country of the Somaulees; and the author of the _Periplus_, mindful of his object, in writing a guidebook for merchant-seamen, particularises cassia amongst the exports of the same coast; but although he enumerates the productions of Ceylon, gems, pearls, ivory, and tortoiseshell, he is silent as to cinnamon. Dioscorides and Galen, in common with the travellers and geographers of the ancients, ignore its Singhalese origin, and unite with them in tracing it to the country of the Troglodytæ. I attach no importance to those passages in WAGENFELD'S version of _Sanchoniathon_, in which, amongst other particulars, obviously describing Ceylon under the name of "the island of Rachius," which he states to have been visited by the Phoenicians; he says, that the western province produced, the finest cinnamon ([Greek: kinnamô pollô te kai diapheronti]), that the mountains abounded in cassia (Greek: kasia arômatikôtatê]), and that the minor kings paid their tribute in both, to the paramount sovereign. (SANCHONIATHON, ed. Wagenfeld, Bremen, 1837, lib. vii. ch. xii.). The MS. from which Wagenfeld printed, is evidently a mediæval forgery (see note (A) to vol. i. ch. v. p. 547). Again, it is equally strange that the writers of Arabia and Persia preserve a similar silence as to the cinnamon of the island, although they dwell with due admiration on its other productions, in all of which they carried on a lucrative trade. Sir WILLIAM OUSELEY, after a fruitless search through the writings of their geographers and travellers, records his surprise at this result, and mentions especially his disappointment, that Ferdousi, who enriches his great poem with glowing descriptions of all the objects presented by surrounding nations to the sovereigns of Persia,--ivory, ambergris, and aloes, vases, bracelets, and jewels,--never once adverts to the exquisite cinnamon of Ceylon.--_Travels_, vol. i, p. 41. The conclusion deducible from fifteen centuries of historic testimony is, that the earliest knowledge of cinnamon possessed by the western nations was derived from China, and that it first reached Judea and Phoenicia overland by way of Persia (Song of Solomon, iv. 14: Revelation xviii, 13). At a later period when the Arabs, "the merchants of Sheba," competed for the trade of Tyre, and earned to her "the chief of all spices" (Ezekiel xvii. 22), their supplies were drawn from their African possessions, and the cassia of the Troglodytic coast supplanted the cinnamon of the far East, and to a great extent excluded it from the market. The Greeks having at length discovered the secret of the Arabs, resorted to the same countries as their rivals in commerce, and surpassing them in practical navigation and the construction of ships, the Sabæans were for some centuries reduced to a state of mercantile dependence and inferiority. In the meantime the Roman Empire declined; the Persians under the Sassanides engrossed the intercourse with the East, the trade of India now flowed through the Persian Gulf, and the ports of the Red Sea were deserted. "Thus the downfall, and it may be the extinction, of the African spice trade probably dates from the close of the sixth century, and Malabar succeeded at once to this branch of commerce."--COOLEY, _Regio Cinnamomifera_, p. 14. Cooley supposes that the Malabars may have obtained from Ceylon the cinnamon with which they supplied the Persians; as Ibn Batuta, in the fourteenth century, saw cinnamon trees drifted upon the shores of the island, whither they had been carried by torrents from the forests of the interior (_Ibn Batuta_, ch. xx. p. 182). The fact of their being found so is in itself sufficient evidence, that down to that time no active trade had been carried on in the article; and the earliest travellers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, MARCO POLO, JOHN OF HESSE, FRA JORDANUS and others, whilst they allude to cinnamon as one of the chief productions of Malabar, speak of Ceylon, notwithstanding her wealth in jewels and pearls, as if she were utterly destitute of any spice of this kind. NICOLA DE CONTI, A.D. 1444, is the first European writer, in whose pages I have found Ceylon described as yielding cinnamon, and he is followed by Varthema, A.D. 1506, and Corsali, A.D. 1515. Long after the arrival of Europeans in Ceylon, cinnamon was only found in the forests of the interior, where it was cut and brought away by the Chalias, the caste who, from having been originally weavers, devoted themselves to this new employment. The Chalias are themselves an immigrant tribe, and, according to their own tradition, they came to the island only a very short time before the appearance of the Portuguese. (See a _History of the Chalias_, by ADRIAN RAJAPAKSE, _a Chief of the Caste, Asiat. Reser._ vol. iii. p. 440.) So difficult of access were the forests, that the Portuguese could only obtain a full supply from them once in three years; and the Dutch, to remedy this uncertainty, made regular plantations in the vicinity of their forts about the year 1770 A.D., "_so that the cultivation of cinnamon in Ceylon is not yet a century old_"--COOLEY, p. 15. It is a question for scientific research rather than for historical scrutiny, whether the cinnamon laurel of Ceylon, as it exists at the present day, is indigenous to the island, or whether it is identical with the cinnamon of Abyssinia, and may have been carried thence by the Arabs; or whether it was brought to the island from the adjacent continent of India; or imported by the Chinese from islands still further to the east. One fact is notorious at the present day, that nearly the whole of the cinnamon grown in Ceylon is produced in a small and well-defined area occupying the S.W. quarter of the island, which has been at all times the resort of foreign shipping. The natives, from observing its appearance for the first time in other and unexpected places, believe it to be sown by the birds who carry thither the undigested seeds; and the Dutch, for this reason, prohibited the shooting of crows,--a precaution that would scarcely be necessary for the protection of the plant, had they believed it to be not only indigenous, but peculiar to the island. We ourselves were led, till very recently, to imagine that Ceylon enjoyed a "natural monopoly" of cinnamon. Mr. THWAITES, of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kandy, is of opinion from his own observation, that cinnamon is indigenous to Ceylon, as it is found, but of inferior quality, in the central mountain range, as high as 3000 feet above the level of the sea--and again in the sandy soil near Batticaloa on the east coast, he saw it in such quantity as to suggest the idea that it must be the remains of former cultivation. This statement of Mr. Thwaites is quite in consistency with the narrative of VALENTYN (ch. vii.), that the Dutch, on their first arrival in Ceylon, A.D. 1601-2, took on board cinnamon at Batticaloa,--and that the surrounding district continued to produce it in great abundance in A.D. 1726. (Ib. ch. xv. p. 223, 224.) Still it must be observed that its appearance in these situations is not altogether inconsistent with the popular belief that the seeds may have been carried there by birds. Finding that the Singhalese works accessible to me, the _Mahawanso_, the _Rajavali_, the _Rajaratnacari_, &c., although frequently particularising the aromatic shrubs and flowers planted by the pious care of the native sovereigns, made no mention of cinnamon, I am indebted to the good offices of the Maha-Moodliar de Sarem, of Mr. De Alwis, the translator of the _Sidath-Sangara_, and of Mr. Spence Hardy, the learned historian of Buddhism, for a thorough, examination of such native books as were likely to throw light on the question. Mr. Hardy writes to me that he has not met with the word cinnamon (_kurundu_) in any early Singhalese books; but there is mention of a substance called "_paspalawata_" of which cinnamon forms one of the ingredients. Mr. de Alwis has been equally unsuccessful, although in the _Saraswate Nigardu_, an ancient Sanskrit Catalogue of Plants, the true cinnamon is spoken of as _Sinhalam_, a word which signifies "belonging to Ceylon" to distinguish it from cassia, which is found in Hindustan. The Maha-Moodliar, as the result of an investigation made by him in communication with some of the most erudite of the Buddhist priesthood familiar with Pali and Singhalese literature, informs me that whilst cinnamon is alluded to in several Sanskrit works on Medicine, such as that of Susrata, and thence copied into Pali translations, its name has been found only in Singhalese works of comparatively modern date, although it occurs in the treatise on Medicine and Surgery popularly attributed to King Bujas Raja, A.D. 339. Lankagodde, a learned priest of Galle, says that the word _lawanga_ in an ancient Pali vocabulary means cinnamon, but I rather think this is a mistake, for _lawanga_ or _lavanga_ is the Pali name for "cloves," that for cinnamon being _lamago_. The question therefore remains in considerable obscurity. It is difficult to understand how an article so precious could exist in the highest perfection in Ceylon, at the period when the island was the very focus and centre of Eastern commerce, and yet not become an object of interest and an item of export. And although it is sparingly used in the Singhalese cuisine, still looking at its many religious uses for decoration and incense, the silence of the ecclesiastical writers as to its existence is not easily accounted for. The explanation may possibly be, that cinnamon, like coffee, was originally a native of the east angle of Africa; and that the same Arabian adventurers who carried coffee to Yemen, where it flourishes to the present day, may have been equally instrumental in introducing cinnamon into India and Ceylon. In India its cultivation, probably from natural causes, proved unsuccessful; but in Ceylon the plant enjoyed that rare combination of soil, temperature, and climate, which ultimately gave to its qualities the highest possible development.] The first authentic notice which we have of Singhalese cinnamon occurs in the voyages of Ibn Batuta the Moor, who, impelled by religious enthusiasm, set out from his native city Tangiers, in the year 1324, and devoted twenty-eight years to a pilgrimage, the record of which has entitled him to rank amongst the most remarkable travellers of any age or country. On his way to India, he visited, in Shiraz, the tomb of the Imaum Abu Abd Allah, "who made known the way from India to the mountain of Serendib." As this saint died in the year of the _Hejira_ 331, his story serves to fix the origin of the Mahometan pilgrimages to Adam's Peak, in the early part of the tenth century. When steering for the coast of India, from the Maldives, Ibn Batuta was carried by the south-west monsoon towards the northern portion of Ceylon, which was then (A.D. 1347) in the hands of the Malabars, the Singhalese sovereign having removed his capital southward to Gampola. The Hindu chief of Jaffna was at this time in possession of a fleet in "which he occasionally transported his troops against the Mahometans on other parts of the coast;" where the Singhalese chroniclers relate that the Tamils at this time had erected forts at Colombo, Negombo, and Chilaw. Ibn Batuta was permitted to land at Battala (Putlam) and found the shore covered with "cinnamon wood," which "the merchants of Malabar transport without any other price than a few articles of clothing which are given as presents to the king. This may be attributed to the circumstance that it is brought down by the mountain torrents, and left in great heaps upon the shore." This passage is interesting, though not devoid of obscurity, for cinnamon is not known to grow farther north than Chilaw, nor is there any river in the district of Putlam which could bear the designation of a "mountain torrent." Along the coast further south the cinnamon district commences, and the current of the sea may have possibly carried with it the uprooted laurels described in the narrative. The whole passage, however, demonstrates that at that time, at least, Ceylon had no organised trade in the spice. The Tamil chieftain exhibited to Ibn Batuta his wealth in "pearls," and under his protection he made the pilgrimage to the summit of Adam's Peak accompanied by four jyogees who visited the foot-mark every year, "four Brahmans, and ten of the king's companions, with fifteen attendants carrying provisions." The first day he crossed a river, (the estuary of Calpentyn?) on a boat made of reeds, and entered the city of Manar Mandali; probably the site of the present Minneri Mundal. This was the "extremity of the territory of the infidel king," whence Ibn Batuta proceeded to the port of Salawat (Chilaw), and thence (turning inland) he reached the city of the Singhalese sovereign at Gampola, then called Ganga-sri-pura, which he contracts into Kankar or Ganga.[1] [Footnote 1: As he afterwards writes, Galle "Kale."] He describes accurately the situation of the ancient capital, in a valley between two hills, upon a bend of the river called, "the estuary of rubies." The emperor he names "Kina," a term I am unable to explain, as the prince who then reigned was probably Bhuwaneka-bahu IV., the first Singhalese monarch who held his court at Gampola. The king on feast days rode on a white elephant, his head adorned with very large rubies, which are found in his country, imbedded in "a white stone abounding in fissures, from which they cut it out and give it to the polishers." Ibn Batuta enumerates three varieties, "the red, the yellow, and the cornelian;" but the last must mean the sapphire, the second the topaz; and the first refers, I apprehend, to the amethyst; for in the following passage, in describing the decorations of the head of the white elephant, he speaks of "seven rubies, each of which was larger than a hen's egg," and a saucer made of a ruby as broad as the palm of the hand. In the ascent from Gampola to Adam's Peak, he speaks of the monkeys with beards like a man (_Presbytes ursinus_, or _P. cephalopterus_), and of the "fierce leech," which lurks in the trees and damp grass, and springs on the passers by. He describes the trees with leaves that never fall, and the "red roses" of the rhododendrons which still characterise that lofty region. At the foot of the last pinnacle which crowns the summit of the peak, he found a minaret named after Alexander the Great[1]; steps hewn out of the rock, and "iron pins to which chains are appended" to assist the pilgrims in their ascent; a well filled with fish, and last of all, on the loftiest point of the mountain, the sacred foot-print of the First Man, into the hollow of which the pilgrims drop their offerings of gems and gold. [Footnote 1: In oriental tradition, Alexander is believed to have visited Ceylon in company with the "philosopher Bolinus," by whom De Sacy believes that the Arabs meant Apollonius of Tyana. There is a Persian poem by ASHREP, the _Zaffer Namah Skendari_, which describes the conqueror's voyage to Serendib, and his devotions at the foot-mark of Adam, for reaching which, he and Bolinus caused steps to be hewn in the rock, and the ascent secured by rivets and chains.--See OUSELEY'S _Travels_, vol. i. p. 58. ] In descending the mountain, Ibn Batuta passed through the village of Kalanga, near which was a tomb, said to be that of Abu Abd Allah Ibn Khalif[1]; he visited the temple of Dinaur (Devi-Neuera, or Dondera Head), and returned to Putlam by way of Kale (Galle), and Kolambu (Colombo), "the finest and largest city in Serendib." [Footnote 1: Abu Abd Allah was the first who led the Mahometan pilgrims to Ceylon. The tomb alluded to was probably a _cenotaph_ in his honour; as Ibn Batuta had previously visited his tomb at Shiraz.] CHAP. III. CEYLON AS KNOWN TO THE CHINESE. Although the intimate knowledge of Ceylon acquired by the Chinese at an early period, is distinctly ascribable to the sympathy and intercourse promoted by community of religion, there is traditional, if not historical evidence that its origin, in a remote age, may be traced to the love of gain and their eagerness for the extension of commerce. The Singhalese ambassadors who arrived at Rome in the reign of the Emperor Clandius, stated that their ancestors had reached China by traversing India and the Himalayan mountains long before ships had attempted the voyage by sea[1], and as late as the fifth century of the Christian era, the King of Ceylon[2], in an address delivered by his envoy to the Emperor of China, shows that both routes were then in use.[3] [Footnote 1: PLINY, b. vi. ch. xxiv.] [Footnote 2: Maha Naama, A.D. 428; _Sung-shoo_, a "History of the Northern Sung Dynasty," b. xcvii, p. 5.] [Footnote 3: It was probably the knowledge of the overland route that led the Chinese to establish their military colonies in Kashgar, Yarkhand and the countries lying between their own frontier and the north-east boundary of India.--_Journ. Asiat._ 1. vi. p. 343. An embassy from China to Ceylon, A.D. 607, was entrusted to _Chang-Tsuen_, "Director of the Military Lands."--_Suy-shoo_; b. lxxxi. p. 3.] It is not, however, till after the third century of the Christian era that we find authentic records of such journeys in the literature of China. The Buddhist pilgrims, who at that time resorted to India, published on their return itineraries and descriptions of the distant countries they had visited, and officers, both military and civil, brought back memoirs and statistical statements for the information of the government and the guidance of commerce.[1] [Footnote 1: REINAUD, _Mémoir sur l'Inde_, p. 9. STANISLAS JULIEN, preface to his translation of _Hiouen-Thsang_, Paris, 1853, p. 1. A bibliographical notice of the most important Chinese works which contain descriptions of India, by M.S. JULIEN, will be found in the _Journ. Asiat._ for October, 1832, p. 264.] It was reasonable to anticipate that in such records information would be found regarding the condition of Ceylon as it presented itself from time to time to the eyes of the Chinese; but unfortunately numbers of the original works have long since perished, or exist only in extracts preserved in dynastic histories and encyclopædias, or in a class of books almost peculiar to China, called "tsung-shoo," consisting of excerpts reproduced from the most ancient writers. M. Stanislas Julien discovered in the _Pien-i-tien_, ("a History of Foreign Nations," of which there is a copy in the Imperial Library of Paris,) a collection of fragments from Chinese authors who had treated of Ceylon; but as the intention of that eminent Sinologue to translate them[1] has not yet been carried into effect, they are not available to me for consultation. In this difficulty I turned for assistance to China; and through the assiduous kindness of Mr. Wylie, of the London Mission at Shanghai, I have received extracts from twenty-four Chinese writers between the fifth and eighteenth centuries, from which and from translations of Chinese travels and topographies made by Remusat, Klaproth, Landresse, Pauthier, Stanislas Julien, and others, I have been enabled to collect the following facts relative to the knowledge of Ceylon possessed by the Chinese in the middle ages.[2] [Footnote 1: _Journ. Asiat._ t. xxix. p. 39. M. Stanislas Julien is at present engaged in the translation of the _Si-yu-ki_, or "Mémoires des Contrées Occidentales," the eleventh chapter of which contains an account of Ceylon in the eighth century.] [Footnote 2: The Chinese works referred to in the following pages are.--_Sung-shoo_, the "History of the Northern Sung Dynasty," A.D. 417-473, by CHIN-Y[)O], written about A.D. 487,--_Wei-shoo_, "a History of the Wei Tartar Dynasty," A.D. 386-556, by WEI-SHOW, A.D. 590.--_Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki_, an "Account of the Buddhist Kingdoms," by CH[)Y]-F[)A]-HIAN, A.D. 399-414, French transl., by Rémusat, Klaproth, and Landresse. Paris, 1836.--_Leang-shoo_, "History of the Leang Dynasty," A.D. 502-557, by YAOU-SZE-LEEN, A.D. 630.--_Suy-shoo_, "History of the Suy Dynasty," A.D. 581-617, by WEI-CHING, A.D. 633.--HIOUEN-THSANG. His Life and Travels, A.D. 645, French, transl., by Stanislas Julien. Paris, 1853.--_Nan-shè_, "History of the Southern Empire," A.D. 317-589, by LE-YEN-SHOW, A.D. 650,--_Tung-tëen_, "Cyclopædia of History," by TOO-YEW, A.D. 740.--KÉ-NË[)E] _si-y[)i]h hing-Ching_, "Itinerary of KÉ-NË[)E]'s Travels in the Western Regions," from A.D. 964-979.--_Tae-ping yu-lan_, "The Tae-ping Digest of History," compiled by Imperial Command, A.D. 983.--_Ts[)i]h-foo yuen-Kwei_, "Great Depository of the National Archives," compiled by Imperial Command, A.D. 1012.--_Sin-Tang-shoo_, "A New History of the Tang Dynasty," A.D. 618-906, by GOW-YANG-SEW and SING-KÉ, A.D. 1060.--_Tung-che_, "National Annals," by CHING-TSEAOU, A.D. 1150.--_W[)a]n-hëén tung-kaou_, "Antiquarian Researches," by MA-TWAN-LIN, A.D. 1319. Of this remarkable work there is an admirable analysis by Klaproth in the _Asiatic Journal_ for 1832, vol. xxxv. p. 110, and one still more complete in the _Journal Asiatique_, vol. xxi. p. 3. The portion relating to Ceylon has been translated into French by M. Pauthier in the _Journal Asiatique_ for April, 1836, and again by M. Stanislas Julien in the same Journal for July, 1836, t. xxix, p. 36.--_Y[)u]h-hae_, "The Ocean of Gems," by WANG-YANG-LIN, A.D. 1338.--_Taou-e chele[)o]_, "A General Account of Island Foreigners," by WANG-TA-YOUEN, A.D. 1350.--_Ts[)i]h-ké_, "Miscellaneous Record;" written at the end of the Yuen dynasty, about the close of the fourteenth century.--_Po-w[)u]h yaou-lan_, "Philosophical Examiner;" written during the Ming dynasty, about the beginning of the fifteenth century.--_Se-y[)i]h-ke foo-choo_, "A Description of Western Countries," A.D. 1450. This is the important work of which M. Stanislas Julien has recently published the first volume of his French translation, _Mémoires des Contrées Occidentales_, Paris, 1857; and of which he has been so obliging as to send me those sheets of the second volume, now preparing for the press, which contain the notices of Ceylon by HIOUEN-THSANG. They, however, add very little to the information already given in the _Life and Travels of Hiouen-Thsang.--Woo-he[)o]-pëen_, "Records of the Ming Dynasty," by CHING-HEAOU, A.D. 1522.--_S[)u]h-wan-hëen tung-kaou_, "Supplement to the Antiquarian Researches," by WANG-KÉ, A.D. 1603.--_S[)u]h-Hung këen-luh_, "Supplement to the History of the Middle Ages," by SHAOU-YUEN-PING, A.D. 1706.--_Ming-she_, "History of the Ming Dynasty," A.D. 1638-1643, by CHANG-TING-Y[)U]H, A.D. 1739.--_Ta-tsing y[)i]h-tung_, "A Topographical Account of the Manchoo Dynasty," of which there is a copy in the British Museum.] Like the Greek geographers, the earliest Chinese authorities grossly exaggerated the size of Ceylon: they represented it as lying "cross-wise" in the Indian Ocean[1], and extending in width from east to west one third more than in depth from north to south.[2] They were struck by the altitude of its hills, and, above all, by the lofty crest of Adam's Peak, which served as the land-mark for ships approaching the island. They speak reverentially of the sacred foot-mark[3] impressed by the first created man, who, in their mythology, bears the name of Pawn-koo; and the gems which are found upon the mountain they believe to be his "crystallised tears, which accounts for their singular lustre and marvellous tints."[4] The country they admired for its fertility and singular beauty; the climate they compared to that of Siam[5], with slight alterations of seasons; refreshing showers in every period of the year, and the earth consequently teeming with fertility.[6] [Footnote 1: _Taou-e ché-lë[)o]_, quoted in the _Hae-kw[)o]-too che_, Foreign Geography, b. xviii. p. 15.] [Footnote 2: _Leang-shoo_, b. liv. p. 10; _Nan-shè_, b. lxxiii. p. 13; _Tung-tëen_, b. clxxxviii. p. 17.] [Footnote 3: The Chinese books repeat the popular belief that the hollow of the sacred footstep contains water "which does not dry up all the year round;" and that invalids recover by drinking from the well at the foot of the mountain; into which "the sea-water enters free from salt." _Taou-e ché-lë[)o]_, quoted in the _Hae-kw[)o]-toô-ché_, or Foreign Geography, b. xxviii. p. 15.] [Footnote 4: _Po-w[)u]h Yaou-lan_, b. xxxiii. p. 1. WANG-KE, _S[)u]-Wan-hëentung-kaou_, b. ccxxxvi. p. 19.] [Footnote 5: _Tung-tëen_, b. clxxxviii. p. 17. _Tae-ping_, b. dcclxxxvii p. 5.] [Footnote 6: _Leang-shoo_, b. liv. p. 10.] The names by which Ceylon was known to them were either adapted from the Singhalese, as nearly as the Chinese characters would supply equivalents for the Sanskrit and Pali letters, or else they are translations of the sense implied by each designation. Thus, Sinhala was either rendered "_Seng-kia-lo_,"[1] or "_Sze-tseu-kw[)o]_," the latter name as well as the original, meaning "the kingdom of lions."[2] The classical Lanka is preserved in the Chinese "_Lang-kea_" and "_Lang-ya-seu_" In the epithet "_Ch[)i]h-too_," the _Red Land_[3], we have a simple rendering of the Pali _Tambapanni_, the "Copper-palmed," from the colour of the soil.[4] _Paou-choo_[5] is a translation of the Sanskrit Ratna-dwipa, the "Island of Gems," and _Ts[)i]h-e-lan, Se[)i]h-lan_, and _Se-lung_, are all modern modifications of the European "Ceylon." [Footnote 1: _Hiouen-Thsang_, b. iv. p. 194. Transl. M.S. Julien.] [Footnote 2: This, M. Stanislas Julien says, should be "the kingdom of _the lion_," in allusion to the mythical ancestry of Wijayo.--_Journ. Asiat_, tom. xxix. p. 37. And in a note to the tenth book of HIOUEN-THSANG'S _Voyages des Pélerins Bouddhistes_, vol. ii. p. 124, he says one name for Ceylon in Chinese is "Tchi-sse-tseu" "(le royaume de celui qui) a pris un lion."] [Footnote 3: _Suy-shoo_, b. lxxx. p. 3. In the _Se-y[)i]h-ké foo-choo_, or "Descriptions of Western Countries," Ceylon is called _Woo-yew-kw[(o]_, "the sorrowless kingdom."] [Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 50.] [Footnote 5: _Se-y[)i]h-ké foo-choo_, quoted in the _Haè-kw[)o]-too che_, or "Foreign Geography," l. xviii. p. 15; HIOUEN-THSANG; _Voyages des Péler. Boudd_. lib. xi. vol. ii. p. 125; 130 n.] The ideas of the Chinese regarding the mythical period of Singhalese history, and the first peopling of the island, are embodied in a very few sentences which are repeated throughout the series of authors, and with which we are made familiar in the following passage from F[)A] HIAN:--" Sze-tseu-kw[)o], the kingdom of lions[1], was inhabited originally not by men but by demons and dragons.[2] Merchants were attracted to the island, by the prospect of trade; but the demons remained unseen, merely exposing the precious articles which they wished to barter: with a price marked for each, at which the foreign traders were at liberty to take them, depositing the equivalents indicated in exchange. From the resort of these dealers, the inhabitants of other countries, hearing of the attractions of the island, resorted to it in large numbers, and thus eventually a great kingdom was formed."[3] [Footnote 1: _Wan-hëen tung-kaou_, b. cccxxxviii. p. 24.] [Footnote 2: The Yakkhos and Nagas ("devils" and "serpents") of the _Mahawanso_.] [Footnote 3: _Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 333. Transl. RÉMUSAT. This account of Ceylon is repeated almost verbatim in the _Tung-tëen_, and in numerous other Chinese works, with the addition that the newly-formed kingdom of Sinhala, "Sze-tseu-kw[)o]," took its name from the "skill of the natives in training lions."--B. cxciii. pp. 8, 9; _Tae-ping_, b. dccxciii. p. 9; _Sin-Tang-shoo_, b. cxlvi. part ii. p. 10. A very accurate translation of the passage as it is given by MA-TOUAN-LIN is published by M. Stanislas Julien in the _Journ. Asiat._ for July, 1836, tom. xxix. p. 36.] The Chinese were aware of two separate races, one occupying the northern and the other the southern extremity of the island, and were struck with the resemblance of the Tamils to the Hoo, a people of Central Asia, and of the Singhalese to the Leaou, a mountain tribe of Western China.[1] The latter they describe as having "large ears, long eyes, purple faces, black bodies, moist and strong hands and feet, and living to one hundred years and upwards.[2] Their hair was worn long and flowing, not only by the women but by the men." In these details there are particulars that closely resemble the description of the natives of the island visited by Jambulus, as related in the story told by Diodorus.[3] [Footnote 1: _Too-Hiouen_, quoted in the _Tung-tëen_, b. cxciii. p. 8.] [Footnote 2: _Taou-e ché-lë[)o]_, quoted in the _Hae-kw[)o]-too ché_, or "Foreign Geography," b. xviii p. 15.] [Footnote 3: DIODORUS SICULUS, lib. ii. ch. liii. See _ante_, Vol. I. P. v. ch. 1. p. 153.] The Chinese in the seventh century found the Singhalese dressed in a costume which appears to be nearly identical with that of the present day.[1] Both males and females had their hair long and flowing, but the heads of children were closely shaven, a practice which still partially prevails. The jackets of the girls were occasionally ornamented with gems.[2] "The men," says the _Tung-tëen_, "have the upper part of the body naked, but cover their limbs with a cloth, called _Kan-man,_ made of _Koo-pei_, 'Cotton,' a word in which we may recognise the term 'Comboy,' used to designate the cotton cloth universally worn at the present day by the Singhalese of both sexes in the maritime provinces.[3] For their vests, the kings and nobles made use of a substance which is described as 'cloud cloth,'[4] probably from its being very transparent, and gathered (as is still the costume of the chiefs of Kandy) into very large folds. It was fastened with golden cord. Men of rank were decorated with earrings. The dead were burned, not buried." And the following passage from the _S[)u]h-wan-hëen tung-kaou_, or the "Supplement to Antiquarian Researches," is strikingly descriptive of what may be constantly witnessed in Ceylon;--"the females who live near the family of the dead assemble in the house, beat their breasts with both hands, howl and weep, which constitutes their appropriate rite."[5] [Footnote 1: _Leang-shoo_, b. liv. p. 10; _Nan-shè_, b. lxxviii. pp. 13, 14.] [Footnote 2: _Nan-shè_, A.D. 650, b. lxxviii. p. 13; _Leang-shoo_, A.D. 670; b. liv. p. 11. Such is still the dress of the Singhalese females. [Illustration: A MOODLIAR AND HIS WIFE.]] [Footnote 3: _Tung-tëen_, b. clxxxviii. p. 17; _Nan-shè_, b. lxxviii. p. 13; _Sin-tang-shoo_, b. cxcviii p. 25. See p. iv. ch. iv, vol. i. p. 450.] [Footnote 4: The Chinese term is "yun-hae-poo."--_Leang-shoo_, b. liv. p. 10.] [Footnote 5: B. ccxxxvi. p. 19.] The natural riches of Ceylon, and its productive capabilities, speedily impressed the Chinese, who were bent upon the discovery of outlets for their commerce, with the conviction of its importance as an emporium of trade. So remote was the age at which strangers frequented it, that in the "_Account of Island Foreigners,"_ written by WANG-TA-YUEN[1] in the fourteenth century, it is stated that the origin of trade in the island was coeval with the visit of Buddha, who, "taking compassion on the aborigines, who were poor and addicted to robbery, turned their disposition to virtue, by sprinkling the land with sweet dew, which caused it to produce red gems, and thus gave them wherewith to trade," and hence it became the resort of traders from every country.[2] Though aware of the unsuitability of the climate to ripen wheat, the Chinese were struck with admiration at the wonderful appliances of the Singhalese for irrigation, and the cultivation of rice.[3] [Footnote 1: _Taou-e ché-lë[)o]_, quoted in the Foreign Geography, b. xviii. p. 15.] [Footnote 2: The rapid peopling of Ceylon at a very remote age is accounted for in the following terms in a passage of MA-TWAN-LIN, as translated by M. Stanislas Julien;--"Les habitants des autres royaumes entendirent parler de ce pays fortuné; c'est pourquoi ils y accoururent à l'envi."--_Journ. Asiat._ t. xxix. p. 42.] [Footnote 3: Records of the Ming Dynasty, by CHING-HEAOU, b. lxviii. p. 5.] According to the _Tung-tëen_, the intercourse between them and the Singhalese, began during the Eastern Tsin dynasty, A.D. 317--419[1]; and one remarkable island still retains a name which is commemorative of their presence. Salang, to the north of Penang, lay in the direct course of the Chinese junks on their way to and from Ceylon, through the Straits of Malacca, and, in addition to its harbour, was attractive from its valuable mines of tin. Here the Chinese fleets called on both voyages; and the fact of their resort is indicated by the popular name "Ajung-Selan," or "Junk-Ceylon;" by which the place is still known, _Ajung_, in the language of the Malays, being the term for "large shipping," and _Selan_, their name for Ceylon.[2] [Footnote 1: _Tung-tëen_, A.D. 740, b. clxxxviii. p. 17.] [Footnote 2: _Sincapore Chronicle_, 1836.] The port in Ceylon which the Chinese vessels made their rendezvous, was Lo-le (Galle), "where," it is said, "ships anchor, and people land."[1] [Footnote 1: WANG-KE, _Suh-wan-hëen tung-kaou_, b. ccxxxvi p. 19.] Besides rice, the vegetable productions of the island enumerated by the various Chinese authorities were aloes-wood, sandal-wood[1], and ebony; camphor[2], areca-nuts, beans, sesamum, coco-nuts (and arrack distilled from the coco-nut palm) pepper, sugar-cane, myrrh, frankincense, oil and drugs.[3] An odoriferous extract, called by the Chinese _Shoo-heang_, is likewise particularised, but it is not possible now to identify it. [Footnote 1: The mention of sandal-wood is suggestive. It does not, so far as I could ever learn, exist in Ceylon; yet it is mentioned with particular care amongst its exports in the Chinese books. Can it be that, like the calamander, or Coromandel-wood, which is rapidly approaching extinction, sandal-wood was extirpated from the island by injudicious cutting, unaccompanied by any precautions for the reproduction of the tree?] [Footnote 2: _Nan-shè_, b. lxxviii. p. 13.] [Footnote 3: _Suh-Hung keën-luh_, b. xlii. p. 52.] Elephants and ivory were in request; and the only manufactures alluded to for export were woven cotton[1], gold ornaments, and jewelry; including models of the shrines in which were deposited the sacred relics of Buddha.[2] Statues of Buddha were frequently sent as royal presents, and so great was the fame of Ceylon for their production in the fourth and fifth centuries, that according to the historian of the Wei Tartar dynasty, A.D. 386-556, people "from the countries of Central Asia, and the kings of those nations, emulated each other in sending artisans to procure copies, but none could rival the productions of Nan-té.[3] On standing about ten paces distant they appeared truly brilliant, but the lineaments gradually disappeared on a nearer approach."[4] [Footnote 1: _Tsih-foo yuen-kwei_, A.D. 1012, b. dcccclxxi. p. 15. At a later period "Western cloth" is mentioned among the exports of Ceylon, but the reference must be to cloth previously imported either from India or Persia.--_Ming-she History of the Ming Dynasty,_ A.D. 1368--1643, b. cccxxvi. p. 7.] [Footnote 2: A model of the shrine containing the sacred tooth was sent to the Emperor of China in the fifth century by the King of Ceylon; "_Chacha Mo-ho-nan,"_ a name which appears to coincide with Raja Maha Nama, who reigned A.D. 410--433.--_Shunshoo_, A.D. 487, b. xlvii. p. 6.] [Footnote 3: Nan-té was a Buddhist priest, who in the year A.D. 456 was sent on an embassy to the Emperor of China, and was made the bearer of three statues of his own making.--_Ts[)i]h-foo yuen-kwei,_ b. li. p. 7.] [Footnote 4: _Wei-shoo,_ A.D. 590, b. cxiv. p. 9.] Pearls, corals, and crystals were eagerly sought after; but of all articles the gems of Ceylon were in the greatest request. The business of collecting and selling them seems from the earliest time to have fallen into the hands of the Arabs, and hence they bore in China the designation of "Mahometan stones."[1] They consisted of rubies, sapphires, amethysts, carbuncles (the "red precious stone, the lustre of which serves instead of a lamp at night")[2]; and topazes of four distinct tints, "those the colour of wine; the delicate tint of young goslings, the deep amber, like bees'-wax, and the pale tinge resembling the opening bud of the pine."[3] It will not fail to be observed that throughout all these historical and topographical works of the Chinese, extending over a period of twelve centuries, from the year A.D. 487, there is no mention whatever of _cinnamon_ as a production of Ceylon; although cassia, described under the name of kwei, is mentioned as indigenous in China and Cochin-China. In exchange for these commodities the Chinese traders brought with them silk, variegated lute strings, blue porcelain, enamelled dishes and cups, and quantities of copper cash wanted for adjusting the balances of trade.[4] [Footnote 1: _Tsih-ke,_ quoted in the Chinese _Mirror of Sciences,_ b. xxxiii. p. 1.] [Footnote 2: _Po-w[)u]h yaou-lan,_ b. xxxiii. p. 2.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid_.] [Footnote 4: _Suy-shoo_, "History of the Suy Dynasty," A.D. 633, b. lxxxi. p. 3.] Of the religion of the people, the earliest account recorded by the Chinese is that of F[)A] HIAN, in the fourth century[1], when Buddhism was signally in the ascendant. But in the century which followed, travellers returning from Ceylon brought back accounts of the growing power of the Tamils, and of the consequent eclipse of the national worship. The _Yung-tëen_ and the _Tae-ping_ describe at that early period the prevalence of Brahmanical customs, but coupled with "greater reverence for the Buddhistical faith."[2] In process of time, however, they are forced to admit the gradual decline of the latter, and the attachment of the Singhalese kings to the Hindu ritual, exhibiting an equal reverence to the ox and to the images of Buddha.[3] [Footnote 1: _Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii.] [Footnote 2: _Tae-ping_, b. dccxciii, p. 9.] [Footnote 3: _Woo-hë[)o]-pëen_, "Records of the Ming Dynasty," b. lxviii. p. 4; _Tung-në[)e]_, b. cxcvi. pp. 79, 80.] The Chinese trace to Ceylon the first foundation of monasteries, and of dwelling-houses for the priests, and in this they are corroborated by the _Mahawanso_.[1] From these pious communities, the Emperors of China were accustomed from time to time to solicit transcripts of theological works[2], and their envoys, returning from such missions, appear to have brought glowing accounts of the Singhalese temples, the costly shrines for relics, and the fervid devotion of the people to the national worship.[3] [Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xv. p. 99; ch. xx. p. 123. In the Itinerary of KÉ-NË[)E]'s _Travels in the Western Kingdoms in the tenth Century_ he mentions having seen a monastery of Singhalese on the continent of India.--KÉ-NË[)E], _Se-y[)i]h hing-ching_, A.D. 964--976.] [Footnote 2: _Tae-ping_, b. dcclxxxvii. p. 5.] [Footnote 3: _Taou-e ché-lë[)o]_. "Account of Island Foreigners," quoted in the "_Foreign Geography_" b. xviii. p. 15. _Se-y[)i]-ke foo-choo_. Ib. "At daybreak every morning the people are summoned, and exhorted to repeat the passages of Buddha, in order to remove ignorance and open the minds of the multitude. Discourses are delivered upon the principles of vacancy (nirwana?) and abstraction from all material objects, in order that truth maybe studied in solitude and silence, and the unfathomable point of principle attained free from the distracting influences of sound or smell."--_Ts[)i]h-foo yaen-kwei_, A.D. 1012, b. dcccclxi. p. 5.] The cities of Ceylon in the sixth century are stated, in the "_History of the Leang Dynasty_," to have been encompassed by walls built of brick, with double gates, and the houses within were constructed with upper stories.[1] The palace of the king, at Anarajapoora, in the eleventh century, was sufficiently splendid to excite the admiration of these visitants, "the precious articles with which it was decorated being reflected in the thoroughfares."[2] [Footnote 1: _Leang-shoo_, A.D. 630, b. liv. p 11.] [Footnote 2: _Ts[)i]h-foo yaen-kwei_, b. dcccclxi. p. 5.] The Chinese authors, like the Greeks and Arabians, are warm in their praises of the patriotism of the Singhalese sovereigns, and their active exertions for the improvement of the country, and the prosperity of the people.[1] On state occasions, the king, "carried on an elephant, and accompanied by banners, streamers, and tom-toms, rode under a canopy[2], attended by a military guard."[3] [Footnote 1: Ibid.] [Footnote 2: The "chatta," or umbrella, emblematic of royalty.] [Footnote 3: _Leang-shoo_. b. liv. p. 10.] Throughout all the Chinese accounts, from the very earliest period, there are notices of the manners of the Singhalese, and even minute particulars of their domestic habits, which attest a continued intercourse and an intimate familiarity between the people of the two countries.[1] In this important feature the narratives of the Arabs, who, with the exception of the pilgrimage made with difficulty to Adam's Peak, appear to have known only the sea-coast and the mercantile communities established there, exhibit a marked difference when compared with those of the Chinese; as the latter, in addition to their trading operations in the south of the island, made their way into the interior, and penetrated to the cities in the northern districts. The explanation is to be found in the identity of the national worship attracting as it did the people of China to the sacred island, which had become the great metropolis of their common faith, and to the sympathy and hospitality with which the Singhalese welcomed the frequent visits of their distant co-religionists. [Footnote 1: This is apparent from the fact that their statements are not confined to descriptions of the customs and character of the male Singhalese, but exhibit internal evidence that they had been introduced to their families, and had had opportunities of noting peculiarities in the customs of the females. They describe their dress, their mode of tying their hair, their treatment of infants and children, the fact that the women as well as the men were addicted to chewing betel, and that they did not sit down to meals with their husbands, but "retired to some private apartments to eat their food."] This interchange of courtesies was eagerly encouraged by the sovereigns of the two countries. The emperors of China were accustomed to send ambassadors, both laymen and theologians, to obtain images and relics of Buddha, and to collect transcripts of the sacred books, which contained the exposition of his doctrines[1];--and the kings of Ceylon despatched embassies in return, authorised to reciprocate these religious sympathies and do homage to the imperial majesty of China. [Footnote 1: _Hiouen-Thsang_, Introd. STANISLAS JULIEN, p. 1.] The historical notices of the island by the Chinese relative to the period immediately preceding the fourteenth century, are meagre, and confined to a native tradition that "about 400 years after the establishment of the kingdom, the Great Dynasty fell into decay, when there was but one man of wisdom and virtue belonging to the royal house to whom the people became attached: the monarch thereupon caused him to be thrown into prison; but the lock opened of its own accord, and the king thus satisfied of his sacred character did not venture to take his life, but drove him into banishment to India (Tëen chuh), whence, after marrying a royal princess, he was recalled to Ceylon on the death of the tyrant, where he reigned twenty years, and was succeeded by his son, _Po-kea Ta-To_."[l] In this story may probably be traced the extinction of the "Great Dynasty" of Ceylon, on the demise of Maha-Sen, and the succession of the Sulu-wanse, or Lower Dynasty, in the person of Kitsiri Maiwan, A.D. 301, whose son, Detu Tissa, may possibly be the _Po-kea Ta-to_ of the Chinese Chronicle.[2] [Footnote 1: _Leang-shoo_, "History of the Leang Dynasty," b. liv. p. 10.] [Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, c. xxxvii. p 242. TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, &c., p. 24.] The visit of Fa Hian, the zealous Buddhist pilgrim, in the fifth century of our era, has been already frequently adverted to.[1] He landed in Ceylon A.D. 412, and remained for two years at Anarajapoora, engaged in transcribing the sacred books. Hence his descriptions are confined almost exclusively to the capital; and he appears to have seen little of the rest of the island. He dwells with delight on the magnificence of the Buddhist buildings, the richness of their jewelled statues, and the prodigious dimensions of the dagobas, one of which, from its altitude and solidity, was called the "_Mountain without fear_."[2] But what most excited his admiration was his finding no less than 5000 Buddhist priests at the capital, 2000 in a single monastery on a mountain (probably Mihintala), and between 50,000 and 60,000 dispersed throughout the rest of the island.[3] Pearls and gems were the wealth of Ceylon; and from the latter the king derived a royalty of three out of every ten discovered.[4] [Footnote 1: The _Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki_, or "Description of Buddhist Kingdoms," by FA-HIAN, has been translated by Rémusat, and edited by Klaproth and Landresse, 4to. Paris, 1836.] [Footnote 2: In Chinese, _Woo-wei_.] [Footnote 3: _Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki_, c. xxxviii. pp. 333, 334.] [Footnote 4: _Ibid._, c. xxxvii. p. 328.] The earliest embassy from Ceylon recorded in the Chinese[1] annals at the beginning of the fifth century, appears to have proceeded overland by way of India, and was ten years before reaching the capital of China. It was the bearer of "a jade-stone image of Buddha, exhibiting every colour in purity and richness, in workmanship unique, and appearing to be beyond human art[2]." [Footnote 1: A.D. 405. Gibbon alludes with natural surprise to his discovery of the fact, that prior to the reign of Justinian, the "monarch of China had actually received an embassy from the Island of Ceylon."--_Decline and Fall_, c. xl.] [Footnote 2: _Leang-shoo,_ A.D. 630, b. liv. p. 13. The ultimate fate of this renowned work of art is related in the _Leang-shoo,_ and several other of the Chinese chronicles. Throughout the | Tsin and Sung dynasties it was preserved in the Wa-kwan monastery at Nankin, along with five other statues and three paintings which were esteemed chefs-d'oeuvre. The jade-stone image was at length destroyed in the time of Tung-hwan, of the Tse dynasty; first, the arm was broken off, and eventually the body taken to make hair-pins and armlets for the emperor's favourite consort Pwan. _Nân-shè,_ b. lxxviii. p. 13. _Tung-tëen,_ b. cxciii. p. 8. _Tae-ping,_ &c., b. dcclxxxvii. p. 6.] During the same century there were four other embassies from Ceylon. One A.D. 428, when the King Cha-cha Mo-ho-nan (Raja Maha Naama) sent an address to the emperor, which will be found in the history of the Northern Sung dynasty[1], together with a "model of the shrine of the tooth," as a token of fidelity;--two in A.D. 430 and A.D. 435; and a fourth A.D. 456, when five priests, of whom one was Nanté, the celebrated sculptor, brought as a gift to the emperor a "three-fold image of Buddha."[2] [Footnote 1: _Sung-shoo,_ A.D. 487, b. xcvii. p. 5.] [Footnote 2: Probably one in each of the three orthodox attitudes,--sitting in meditation, standing to preach, and reposing in "nirwana." _Wei-shoo,_ "History of the Wei Tartar Dynasty," A.D. 590, b. cxiv. p. 9.] According to the Chinese annalists, the kings of Ceylon, in the sixth century, acknowledged themselves vassals of the Emperor of China, and in the year 515, on the occasion of Kumara Das raising the chatta, an envoy was despatched with tribute to China, together with an address, announcing the royal accession, in which the king intimates that he "had been desirous to go in person, but was deterred by fear of winds and waves."[1] [Footnote 1: _Leang-shoo,_ b. liv. p. 10. _Y[(u]h-hae,_ "Ocean of Gems," A.D. 1331, b. clii. p. 33. The latter authority announces in like terms two other embassies with tribute to China, one in A.D. 523, and another in the reign of Kirti Sena, A.D. 527. The _Tsih-foo yuen-kwei_ mentions a similar mission in A.D. 531, b. dcccclxviii. p. 20.] But although all these embassies are recorded in the Chinese chronicles as so many instances of acknowledged subjection, there is every reason to believe that the magniloquent terms in which they are described are by no means to be taken in a literal sense, and that the offerings enumerated were merely in recognition of the privilege of commercial intercourse subsisting between the two nations: but as the Chinese _literati_ affect a lofty contempt for commerce, all allusion to trade is omitted; and beyond an incidental remark in some works of secondary importance, the literature of China observes a dignified silence on the subject. Only one embassy is mentioned in the seventh century, when Dalu-piatissa despatched "a memorial and offerings of native productions;"[1] but there were four in the century following[2], after which there occurs an interval of above five hundred years, during which the Chinese writers are singularly silent regarding Ceylon; but the Singhalese historians incidentally mention that swords and musical instruments were then imported from China, for the use of the native forces, and that Chinese soldiers took service in the army of Prakrama III. A.D. 1266.[3] [Footnote 1: A.D. 670. _Ts[)i]h-foo yuen-kwei_, b. dcccclxx. p. 16. It was in the early part of this century, during a period of intestine commotion, when the native princes were overawed by the Malabars, that _Hiouen-Thsang_ met on the coast of India fugitives from Ceylon, from whom he derived his information as to the internal condition of the island, A.D. 629--633. See Transl. by STANISLAS JULIEN, "_La Vie de Hiouen-Thsang_," Paris, 1853, pp. 192--198.] [Footnote 2: A.D. 711, A.D. 746, A.D. 750, and A.D. 762. _Ts[)i]h-foo yuen-kwei,_ b. dcccclxxi. p. 17. On the second occasion (A.D. 746) the king, who despatched the embassy, is described as sending as his envoy a "Brahman priest, the anointed graduate of the threefold repository, bearing as offerings head-ornaments of gold, precious neck-pendants, a copy of the great Prajna Sutra, and forty webs of fine cotton cloth."] [Footnote 3: See the _Kawia-sakara_, written about A.D. 1410.] In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the only records of intercourse relate to the occasional despatch of public officers by the emperor of China to collect gems and medical drugs, and on three successive occasions during the earlier part of the Yuen dynasty, envoys were empowered to negotiate the purchase of the sacred alms-dish of Buddha.[1] [Footnote 1: "In front of the image of Buddha there is a sacred bowl which is neither made of jade, nor copper, nor iron; it is of a purple colour and glossy, and when struck it sounds like glass. At the commencement of the Yuen dynasty, three separate envoys were sent to obtain it."--_Taou-e che-leo_ "Account of Island Foreigners," A.D. 1350, quoted in the "_Foreign Geography_", b. xviii. p. 15. This statement of the Chinese authorities corroborates the story told by MARCO POLO, possibly from personal knowledge, that "the Grand Khan Kublai sent ambassadors to Ceylon with a request that the king would yield to him possession of 'the great ruby' in return for the 'value of a city.'"--(_Travels,_ ch. xix.) The MS. of MARCO POLO, which contains the Latin version of his Travels, is deposited in the Imperial Library of Paris, and it is remarkable that a passage in it, which seems to be wanting in the Italian and other MSS., confirms this account of the Chinese annalists, and states that the alms-dish of Buddha was at length yielded by the King of Ceylon as a gift to Kublai Khan, and carried with signal honour to China. MARCO POLO describes the scene as something within his own knowledge:--"Quando autem magnus Kaan scivit quod isti ambaxiatores redibant cum reliquis istis, et erant prope terram ubi ipse tune erat, scilicet in Cambalu (Pekin), fecit mitti bandum quod omnes de terra obviarent reliquis istis (quia credebat quod essent reliquiæ de Adam) et istud fuit A.D. 1284."] The beginning of the fifteenth century was, however, signalised by an occurrence, the details of which throw light over the internal condition of the island, at a period regarding which the native historians are more than usually obscure. At this time the glory of Buddhism had declined, and the political ascendency of the Tamils had enabled the Brahmans to taint the national worship by an infusion of Hindu observances. The _Se-yih-ke foo-choo,_ or "Description of Western Countries," says that in 1405 A.D. the reigning king, A-lee-koo-nae-wurh (Wijaya-bahu VI.), a native of Sollee, and "an adherent of the heterodox faith, so far from honouring Buddha, tyrannised over his followers."[1] He maltreated strangers resorting to the island, and plundered their vessels, "so that the envoys from other lands, in passing to and fro, were much annoyed by him."[2] [Footnote 1: B. xviii. p. 15.] [Footnote 2: _Ming-she_, b. cccxxvi, p. 7.] In that year a mission from China, sent with incense and offerings to the shrine of the tooth, was insulted and waylaid, and with difficulty effected an escape from Ceylon.[1] According to the _Ming-she_, or History of the Ming Dynasty, "the Emperor _Ching-tsoo_, indignant at this outrage on his people; and apprehensive lest the influence of China in other countries besides Ceylon had declined during the reign of his predecessors, sent _Ching-Ho_, a soldier of distinction, with a fleet of sixty-two ships and a large military escort, on an expedition to visit the western kingdoms, furnished with proper credentials and rich presents of silk and gold. Ching-Ho touched at Cochin-China, Sumatra, Java, Cambodia, Siam, and other places, proclaiming at each the Imperial edict, and conferring Imperial gifts." If any of the princes refused submission, they were subdued by force; and the expedition returned to China in A.D. 1407, accompanied by envoys from the several nations, who came to pay court to the Emperor. [Footnote 1: _Se-y[)i]h-ke foo-choo_, b. xviii. p. 15. This Chinese invasion of Ceylon has been already adverted to in the sketch of the domestic history of the island, Vol. I. Part IV. ch xii. p. 417.] In the following year Ching-Ho, having been despatched on a similar mission to Ceylon, the king, A-lee-ko-nae-wah, decoyed his party into the interior, threw up stockades with a view to their capture, in the hope of a ransom, and ordered soldiers to the coast to plunder the Chinese junks. But Ching-Ho, by a dexterous movement, avoided the attack, and invested the capital[1], made a prisoner of the king, succeeded in conveying him on board his fleet, and carried him captive to China, together with his queen, his children, his officers of state, and his attendants. He brought away with him spoils, which were long afterwards exhibited in the Tsing-hae monastery at Nankin[2], and one of the commentaries on the _Si-yu-ke_ of Hiouen Thseng, states that amongst the articles carried away, was the sacred tooth of Buddha.[3] "In the sixth month of the year 1411," says the author of the _Ming-Shè_, "the prisoners were presented at court. The Chinese ministers pressed for their execution, but the emperor, in pity for their ignorance, set them at liberty, but commanded them to select a virtuous man from the same family to occupy the throne. All the captives declared in favour of Seay-pa-nae-na, whereupon an envoy was sent with a seal to invest him with the royal dignity, as a vassal of the empire," and in that capacity he was restored to Ceylon, the former king being at the same time sent back to the island.[4] It would be difficult to identify the names in this story with the kings of the period, were it not stated in another chronicle, the _Woo-hë[)o]-pëen_, or Record of the Ming Dynasty, that Seay-pa-nae-na was afterwards named _Pu-la-ko-ma Ba-zae La-cha_, in which it is not difficult to recognise "Sri Prakrama Bahu Raja," the sixth of his name, who transferred the seat of government from Gampola to Cotta, and reigned from A.D. 1410 to 1462.[5] [Footnote 1: Gampola.] [Footnote 2: _S[)u]h-Wan-hëen tung-kaou_, book ccxxxvi p. 12.] [Footnote 3: See note at the end of this chapter.] [Footnote 4: _Ming-shè,_ b. cccxxvi. p. 5. M. STANISLAS JULIEN intimates that the forthcoming volume of his version of the _Si-yu-ki_ will contain the eleventh book, in which an account will be given of the expedition of Ching Ho.--_Mémoires sur les Contrées Occidentales_, tom. i. p. 26. In anticipation of its publication, M. JULIEN has been so obliging as to make for me a translation of the passage regarding Ceylon, but it proves to be an annotation of the fifteenth century, which, by the inadvertence of transcribers, has become interpolated in the text of _Hiouen-Thsang_. It contains, however, no additional facts or statements beyond the questionable one before alluded to, that the sacred tooth of Buddha was amongst the spoils carried to Pekin by Ching Ho.] [Footnote 5: _Woo-hë[)o]-pëen_, b. lxviii p. 5. See also the _Ta-tsing y[)i]h-tung_, a topographical account of the Manchoo empire, a copy of which is among the Chinese books in the British Museum. In the very imperfect version of the _Rajavali_, published by Upham, this important passage is rendered unintelligible by the want of fidelity of the translator, who has transformed the conqueror into a "Malabar," and ante-dated the event by a century. (_Rajavali_, p. 263.) I am indebted to Mr. De Alwis, of Colombo, for a correct translation of the original, which is as follows: "In the reign of King Wijayo-bahu, the King of Maha (great) China landed in Ceylon with an army, pretending that he was bringing tribute; King Wijayo-bahu, believing his professions (because it had been customary in the time of King Prakrama-bahu for foreign countries to pay tribute to Ceylon), acted incautiously, and he was treacherously taken prisoner by the foreign king. His four brothers were killed, and with them fell many people, and the king himself was carried captive to China." DE COUTO, in his continuation of DE BARROS, has introduced the story of the capture of the king by the Chinese; but he has confounded the dates, mystified the facts, and altered the name of the new sovereign to Pandar, which is probably only a corruption of the Singhalese _Banda_, "a prince."--DE COUTO, _Asia, &c_., dec. v. lib. i. c. vi. vol. ii. part i. p. 51. PURCHAS says: "The Singhalese language is thought to have been left there by the Chinois, some time Lord of Zeilan."--_Pilgrimage_, c. xviii. p. 552. The adventures of Ching Ho, in his embassy to the nations of the Southern Ocean, have been made the ground-work of a novel, the _Se-yung-ke_, which contains an enlarged account of his exploits in Ceylon; but fact is so overlaid with fiction that the passages are not worth extracting.] For fifty years after this untoward event the subjection of Ceylon to China appears to have been humbly and periodically acknowledged; tribute was punctually paid to the emperor, and on two occasions, in 1416 A.D., and 1421 A.D., the kings of Ceylon were the bearers of it in person.[1] In 1430 A.D., at a period of intestine commotion, "Ching-Ho issued a proclamation for the pacification of Ceylon," and, at a somewhat later period, edicts were promulgated by the Emperor of China for the government of the island.[2] In 1459 A.D., however, the series of humiliations appears to have come abruptly to a close; for, "in that year," says the _Ming-shè_, "the King of Ceylon for the last time sent an envoy with tribute, and after that none ever came again." [Footnote 1: _Ming-shè_, b. vii. pp. 4, 8.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_., b. cccxxvii. p. 7.] On their arrival in Ceylon early in the sixteenth century[1], the Portuguese found many evidences still existing of the intercourse and influence of the Chinese. They learned that at a former period they had established themselves in the south of the island; and both De Barros and De Couto ventured to state that the Singhalese were so called from the inter-marriage of the Chinese with the Gallas or Chalias, the caste who in great numbers still inhabit the country to the north of Point de Galle.[2] But the conjecture is erroneous, the derivation of Singhala is clearly traced to the Sanskrit "_Singha_;" besides which, in the alphabet of the Singhalese, _n_ and _g_ combine to form a single and insoluble letter. [Footnote 1: A.D. 1565.] [Footnote 2: "Serem os Chijis senhores da costa Choromandel, parte do Malabar e desta Ilha Ceilão. Na qual Ilha leixáram huma lingua, a que elles chamam Chingálla, e aos proprios póvos Chingallas, principalmente os que vivem da ponta de Gálle por diante na face da terra contra o Sul, e Oriente: e por ser pegada neste Cabo Gálle, chamou á outra gente, que vivia do meio da ilha pera cima, aos que aqui habitavam _Chingilla_ e á lingua delles tambem, _quasi como se dissessem lingua ou gente dos Chijo de Galle"_--DE BARROS, _Asia, &c._, Dec. iii. lib. ii. c. i. DE COUTO'S account is as follows: "E como os Chins formam os primeiros que navegáram pelo Oriente, tendo noticia da canella, acudíram muitos 'juncos' aquella Ilha a carregar della, e dalli a levaram aos portos de Persia, e da Arabia donde passou á Europa--de que se deixaram ficar muitos Chins na terra, e se misturáram por casamentos com os naturaes; _dantre quem nascêram huns mistços que se ficaram chamando Cim-Gallás; ajuntando o nome dos naturaes, que eram Gallas aos dos Chins_, que vieram por tempos a ser tão famosos, que deram o seu nome a todos os da Ilha."--_Asia, &c._ Dec. v. lib. ch. v.] In process of time, every trace disappeared of the former presence of the Chinese in Ceylon--embassies ceased to arrive from the "Flowery Kingdom," Chinese vessels deserted the harbours of the island, pilgrims no longer repaired to the shrines of Buddha; and even the inscriptions became obliterated in which the imperial offerings to the temples were recorded on the rocks.[1] The only mementos which remain at the present day to recall their ancient domestication in the island, is the occasional appearance in the mountain villages of an itinerant vender of sweetmeats, or a hut in the solitary forest near some cave, from which an impoverished Chinese renter annually gathers the edible nest of the swallow. [Footnote 1: _S[)u]h-Wan-heen tung-kaou_, book ccxxxvi. p. 12.] * * * * * NOTE. As it may be interesting to learn the opinions of the Chinese at the present day regarding Ceylon, the following account of the island has been translated for me by Dr. Lockhart, of Shanghae, from a popular work on geography, written by the late lieutenant-governor of the province of Fokhien, assisted by some foreigners. The book is called Ying-hw[)a]n-che-ke, or "The General Account of the Encircling Ocean." "Se[)i]h-lan is situated in Southern India, and is a large island in the sea, on the south-east coast, its circumference being about 1000 le (300 miles), having in the centre lofty mountains; on the coast the land is low and marshy. The country is characterised by much rain and constant thunder. The hills and valleys are beautifully ornamented with flowers and trees of great variety and beauty, the cries of the animals rejoicing together fill the air with gladness, and the landscape abounds with splendour. In the forests are many elephants, and the natives use them instead of draught oxen or horses. The people are all of the Buddhistic religion; it is said that Buddha was born here: he was born with an excessive number of teeth. The grain is not sufficient for the inhabitants, and they depend for food on the various districts of India. Gems are found in the hills, and pearls on the sea coast; the cinnamon that is produced in the country is excellent, and much superior to that of Kwang-se. In the middle of the Ming dynasty, the Portuguese seized upon Se[)i]h-lan and established marts on the sea coast, which by schemes the Hollanders took from them. In the first year of Kia-King (1795), the English drove out the Hollanders and took possession of the sea coast. At this time the people of Se[)i]h-lan, on account of their various calamities or invasions, lost heart. Their city on the coast, called Colombo, was attacked by the English, and the inhabitants were dispersed or driven away; then the whole island fell into the hands of the English, who eventually subjected it. The harbour for rendezvous on the coast is called Ting-ko-ma-lé." To this the Chinese commentator adds, on the authority of a work, from which he quotes, entitled, "A Treatise on the Diseases of all the Kingdoms of the Earth:"-- "The Kingdom of Se[)i]h-lan was anciently called Lang-ya-sew; the passage from Soo-mun-ta-che (Sumatra), with a favourable wind, is twelve days and nights; the country is extensive, and the people numerous, and the products abundant, but inferior to Kiva-wa (Java). In the centre are lofty mountains, which yield the A-k[)u]h (crow and pigeon) gems; after every storm of rain they are washed down from the hills, and gathered among the sand. From Chang-tsun, Lin-yih in the extreme west, can be seen. In the foreign language, the high mountain is called Se[)i]h-lan; hence the name of the island. It is said Buddha (Sh[)i]h-ka) came from the island of Ka-lon (the gardens of Buddha), and ascended this mountain, on which remains the trace of his foot. Below the hill there is a monastery, in which they preserve the nëe-pwan (a Buddhistic phrase, signifying the world; literally rendered, his defiling or defiled vessel) and the Shay-le-tsze, or relics of Buddha. "In the sixth year of his reign (1407), Yung-l[)o], of the Ming dynasty, sent an ambassador extraordinary, Ching-Ho and others, to transmit the Imperial mandate to the King A-l[)e]e-j[)o]-nai-wah, ordering him to present numerous and valuable offerings and banners to the monastery, and to erect a stone tablet, and rewarding him by his appointment as tribute bearer; A-l[)e]e-j[)o]-nai-wurh ungratefully refusing to comply, they seized him, in order to bring him to terms, and chose from among his nearest of kin A-pa-nae-na, and set him on the throne. For fourteen years, Tëen-ching, Kwa-wa (Java), Mwan-che-kea, Soo-mun-ta-che (Sumatra), and other countries, sent tribute in the tenth year of Chin-tung, and the third year of Teen-shun they again sent tribute."[1] [Footnote 1: There is here some confusion in the chronology; as Teen-shun reigned before Ching-tung.] "I have heard from an American, A-pe-le[1], that Se[)i]h-lan was the original country of Teen-chuh (India), and that which is now called Woo-yin-too was Teen-ch[)u]h, but in the course of time the names have become confused. According to the records of the later Han dynasty, Teen-ch[)u]h was considered the Shin-t[)u]h, and that the name is not that of an island, but of the whole country. I do not know what proof there is for A-pe-le's statement." [Footnote 1: Mr. Abeel, an American missionary.] CHAP. IV. CEYLON AS KNOWN TO THE MOORS, GENOESE, AND VENETIANS. The rapid survey of the commerce of India during the middle ages, which it has been necessary to introduce into the preceding narrative, will also serve to throw light on a subject hitherto but imperfectly investigated. The most remarkable of the many tribes which inhabit Ceylon are the Mahometans, or, as they are generally called on the island, the "Moor-men," energetic and industrious communities of whom are found on all parts of the coast, but whose origin, adventures, and arrival are amongst the historical mysteries of Ceylon. The meaningless designation of "Moors," applied to them, is the generic term by which it was customary at one time, in Europe, to describe a Mahometan, from whatsoever country he came, as the word Gentoo[1] was formerly applied in England to the inhabitants of Hindustan, without distinction of race. The practice probably originated from the Spaniards having given that name to the followers of the Prophet, who, traversing Morocco, overran the peninsula in the seventh and eighth centuries.[2] The epithet was borrowed by the Portuguese, who, after their discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope, bestowed it indiscriminately upon the Arabs and their descendants, whom, in the sixteenth century, they found established as traders in every port on the Asian and African coast, and whom they had good reason to regard as their most formidable competitors for the commerce of the East. [Footnote 1: The practice originated with the Portuguese, who applied to any unconverted native of India the term _gentio_, "idolator" or "barbarian."] [Footnote 2: The Spanish word "_Moro_" and the Portuguese, "_Mouro_" may be traced either to the "Mauri," the ancient people of Mauritania, now Morocco, or to the modern name of "Moghrib," by which the inhabitants, the Moghribins, designate their country.] Particular events have been assumed as marking the probable date of their first appearance in Ceylon. Sir Alexander Johnston, on the authority of a tradition current amongst their descendants, says, that "the first Mahometans who settled there were driven from Arabia in the early part of the eighth century, and established themselves at Jaffna, Manaar, Koodramali, Putlam, Colombo, Barberyn, Point de Galle, and Trincomalie."[1] The Dutch authorities, on the other hand, hold that the Moors were Moslemin only by profession, that by birth they were descendants of a mean and detestable Malabar caste, who in remote times had been converted to Islam through intercourse with the Arabs of Bassora and the Red Sea; that they had frequented the coasts of India as seamen, and then infested them as pirates; and that their first appearance in Ceylon was not earlier than the century preceding the landing of the Portuguese.[2] [Footnote 1: _Trans. Roy. Asiat. Society_, 1827, A.D. vol. i. 538. The Moors, who were the informants of Sir Alexander Johnston, probably spoke on the equivocal authority of the _Tohfut-ul-mujahideen_, which is generally, but erroneously, described as a narrative of the settlement of the Mahometans in Malabar. Its second chapter gives an account of "the manner in which the Mahometan religion was first propagated" there; and states that its earliest apostles were a Sheikh and his companions, who touched at Cranganore about 822 A.D., when on their journey as pilgrims to the sacred foot-print on Adam's Peak. (ROWLANDSON, _Orient. Transl. Fund_, pp. 47. 55.) But the introduction of the new faith into this part of India was subsequent to the arrival of the Arabs themselves, who had long before formed establishments at numerous places on the coast.] [Footnote 2: VALENTYN, ch. xv. p. 214.] The truth, however, is, that there were Arabs in Ceylon ages before the earliest date named in these conjectures[1]; they were known there as traders centuries before Mahomet was born, and such was their passion for enterprise, that at one and the same moment they were pursuing commerce in the Indian Ocean[2], and manning the galleys of Marc Antony in the fatal sea-fight at Actium.[3] The author of the _Periplus_ found them in Ceylon about the first Christian century, Cosmas Indico-pleustes in the sixth; and they had become so numerous in China in the eighth, as to cause a tumult at Canton.[4] From the tenth till the fifteenth century, the Arabs, as merchants, were the undisputed masters of the East; they formed commercial establishments in every country that had productions to export, and their vessels sailed between every sea-port from Sofala to Bab-el-Mandeb, and from Aden to Sumatra.[5] The "Moors," who at the present day inhabit the coasts of Ceylon, are the descendants of these active adventurers; they are not purely Arabs in blood, but descendants from Arabian ancestors by intermarriage with the native races who embraced the religion of the Prophet.[6] The Singhalese epithet of "_Marak-kala-minisu_" or "Mariners," describes at once their origin and occupation; but during the middle ages, when Ceylon was the Tyre of Asia, these immigrant traders became traders in all the products of the island, and the brokers through whose hands they passed in exchange for the wares of foreign countries. At no period were they either manufacturers or producers in any department; their genius was purely commercial, and their attention was exclusively devoted to buying and selling what had been previously produced by the industry and ingenuity of others. They were dealers in jewelry, connoisseurs in gems, and collectors of pearls; and whilst the contented and apathetic Singhalese in the villages and forests of the interior passed their lives in the cultivation of their rice-lands, and sought no other excitement than the pomp and ceremonial of their temples; the busy and ambitious Mahometans on the coast built their warehouses at the ports, crowded the harbours with their shipping, and collected the wealth and luxuries of the island, its precious stones, its dye-woods, its spices and ivory, to be forwarded to China and the Persian Gulf. [Footnote 1: MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE, on the authority of Agatharchidos (as quoted by Diodorus and Photius), says, that "from all that appears in that author, we should conclude that two centuries before the Christian era, the trade (between India and the ports of Sabæa) was entirely in the hands of the Arabs."--_Hist. India_, b. iii. c. x. p. 167.] [Footnote 2: Pliny, b. vi. c. 22.] [Footnote 3: "Omnis eo terrore Ægyptus et Indi Omnes Arabes vertebant terga Sabæi." VIRGIL, _Æn._ viii. 705.] [Footnote 4: ABOU-ZEYD, vol. i. p. xlii. cix.] [Footnote 5: VINCENT, vol. ii. p. 451. The Moors of Ceylon are identical in race with "the Mopillees of the Malabar coast."--McKENZIE, _Asiat. Res._, vol. vi. p. 430.] [Footnote 6: In a former work, "_Christianity in Ceylon_," I was led, by incorrect information, to describe a section of the Moors as belonging to the sect of the Shiahs, and using the Persian language in the service of their mosques (c. i. note, p. 34). There is reason to believe that at a former period there were Mahometans in Ceylon to whom this description would apply; but at the present day the Moors throughout the island are, I believe, universally Sonnees, belonging to one of the four orthodox sects called _Shafees_, and using Arabic as their ritual dialect. Their vernacular is Tamil, mixed with a number of Arabic words; and all their religious books, except the Koran, are in that dialect. Casie Chitty, the erudite District Judge of Chilaw, writes to me that "the Moors of Ceylon believe themselves to be of the posterity of Hashem; and, according to one tradition, their progenitors were driven from Arabia by Mahomet himself, as a punishment for their cowardice at the battle of Ohod. But according to another version, they fled from the tyranny of the Khalif Abu al Malek ben Merivan, in the early part of the eighth century. Their first settlement in India was formed at Kail-patam, to the east of Cape Comorin, whence that place is still regarded as the 'father-land of the Moors.'" Another of their traditions is, that their first landing-place in Ceylon was at Barberyn, south of Caltura, in the 402nd year of the Hejira, (A.D. 1024.) These legends would seem to refer to the arrival of some important section of the Moors, but not to the first appearance of this remarkable people in Ceylon. The _Ceylon Gazetteer_, Cotta, 1834, p. 254, contains a valuable paper by Casie Chitty on "the Manners and Customs of the Moors of Ceylon."] MARCO POLO, in the thirteenth century, found the Moors in uncontested possession of this busy and lucrative trade, and BARBOSA, in his account of the island, A.D. 1519, says, that not only were they to be found in every sea-port and city, conducting and monopolising its commerce, but Moors from the coast of Malabar were continually arriving to swell their numbers, allured by the facilities of commerce and the unrestrained freedom enjoyed under the government.[1] In process of time their prosperity invested them with political influence, and in the decline of the Singhalese monarchy they took advantage of the feebleness of the king of Cotta, to direct armed expeditions against parts of the coast, to plunder the inhabitants, and supply themselves with elephants and pearls.[2] They engaged in conspiracies against the native princes; and Wijayo Bahu VII., who was murdered in 1534, was slain by a turbulent Moorish leader called Soleyman, whom his eldest son and successor had instigated to the crime.[3] [Footnote 1: "Molti Mori Malabari vengono à stantiare in questa isola per esser in grandissima libertà, oltra tutte le commodita e delitie del mondo," etc.--ODOARDO BARBOSA, _Sommario delle Indie Orientale_, in _Ramusio_, vol. i. p. 313.] [Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 274.] [Footnote 3: Ib., p. 284. PORCACCHI, in his _Isolario_, written at Venice A.D. 1576, thus records the traditional reputation of the Moors of Ceylon:--"I Mori ch' habitano hoggi la Taprobana fanno grandissimi traffichi, nauigando per tutto: et piu anchora vengono da diverse parte molte mercantie, massimamente dal paese di Cambaia, con coralli, cinabrio, et argento vivo. Ma son questi Mori perfidi et ammazzono spesse, volte i lor Re; et ne creano degli altri."--Page 188.] The appearance of the Portuguese in Ceylon at this critical period, served not only to check the career of the Moors, but to extinguish the independence of the native princes; and looking to the facility with which the former had previously superseded the Malabars, and were fast acquiring an ascendency over the Singhalese chiefs, it is not an unreasonable conjecture that, but for this timely appearance of a Christian power in the Island, Ceylon, instead of a possession of the British crown, might at the present day have been a Mahometan kingdom, under the rule of some Arabian adventurer. But although the position of the Arabs in relation to the commerce of the East underwent no unfavourable change prior to the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian seas, numerous circumstances combined in the early part of the sixteenth century to bring other European nations into communication with the East. The productions of India, whether they passed by the Oxus to the Caspian, or were transported in caravans from the Tigris to the shores of the Black Sea, were poured into the magazines of Constantinople, the merchants of which, previous to the fall of the Lower Empire, were the most opulent in the world. During the same period, Egypt commanded the trade of the Red Sea; and received, through Aden, the luxuries of the far East, with which she supplied the Moorish princes of Spain, and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean.[1] [Footnote 1: ODOARDO BARBOSA, In Ramusio, vol. i. p. 292. BALDELLI BONI, _Relazione dell' Europa e dell' Asia,_ lib. ix. ch. xlvii FARIA Y SOUSA; _Portug. Asia,_ part i. ch. viii.] Even when the dominion of the Khalifs was threatened by the rising power of the Turks, and long after the subsidence of the commotions and vicissitudes which marked the period of the Crusades, part of this lucrative commerce was still carried to Alexandria, by the Nile and its canals. The Genoese and Venetians, each eager to engross the supply of Europe, sought permission from the Emperors to form establishments on the shores of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The former advanced their fortified factories as far eastward as Tabriz, to meet the caravans returning from the Persian Gulf[1], and the latter, in addition to the formation of settlements at Tyre, Beyrout, and Acre[2], acquired after the fourth crusade, succeeded (in defiance of the interdict of the Popes against trading with the infidel) in negotiating a treaty with the Mamelukes for a share in the trade of Alexandria.[3] It was through Venice that England and the western nations obtained the delicacies of India and China, down to the period when the overland route and the Red Sea were deserted for the grander passage by the Cape of Good Hope.[4] [Footnote 1: GIBBON, _Decl. and Fall,_ ch. lxiii.] [Footnote 2: DARU, _Hist. de Venise_ lib. xix. vol. iv. p. 74. MACPHERSON'S _Annals of Commerce,_ vol. i. p. 370.] [Footnote 3: So impatient were the Venetians to grasp the trade of Alexandria that Marino Sanuto, about the year 1321 A.D., endeavoured to excite a new crusade in order to wrest it from the Sultan of Egypt by force of arms, _Secreta Fidelium Crucis,_ in BONGARS, _Gesta Dei per Francos,_ Hanau, 1611. ADAM SMITH, _Wealth of Nations,_ b. iv. ch, vii DARU, _Hist. de Venise,_ lib. xix, vol. iv, p. 88.] [Footnote 4: GIBBON, _Decl. and Fall_, ch. lx. The last of the Venetion "argosies" which reached the shores of England was cast away on the Isle of Wight, A.D. 1587.] Another great event which stimulated the commercial activity of the Italians in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was the extraordinary progress of the Mongols, who in an incredibly short space of time absorbed Central Asia into one powerful empire, overthrew the ancient monarchy of China, penetrated to the heart of Russia, and directed their arms with equal success both against Poland and Japan. The popes and the sovereigns of Europe, alike alarmed for their dominions and their faith, despatched ambassadors to the Great Khan; the mission resulted in allaying apprehension for the further advance of their formidable neighbours towards the west, and the vigilant merchants of Venice addressed themselves to effect an opening for trade in the new domains of the Tartar princes. It is to this commercial enterprise that we are indebted for the first authentic information regarding China and India, that reached Europe after the silence of the middle ages; and the voyages of the Venetians, in some of which the realities of travel appear as extra-ordinary as the incidents of romance, contain accounts of Ceylon equally interesting and reliable. MARCO POLO, who left Venice as a youth, in the year 1271, and resided seventeen years at the court of Kubla Khan, was the first European who penetrated to China Proper; whence he embarked in A.D. 1291, at Fo-Kien, and passing through the Straits of Malacca, rested at Ceylon, on his homeward route by Ormuz. He does not name the port in Ceylon at which he landed, but he calls the king _Sender-naz,_ a name which may possibly be identified with the Malay Chandra-banu, who twice invaded the island during the reign of Pandita Prakrama-bahu III.[1] [Footnote 1: Pandita Prakrama Bahoo III. was also called Kalikalla Saahitya Sargwajnya,--TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 44.] He repeats the former exaggerated account as to the dimensions of Ceylon; he says that it was believed to have been anciently larger still, and he shows incidentally that as early as the thirteenth century, the Arab sailors possessed charts of the island which they used in navigating the Indian seas.[1] Then, as now, the universal costume of the Singhalese was the cotton "comboy," worn only on the lower half of the body[2], their grains were sesamum and rice; their food the latter with milk and flesh-meat; and their drink coco-nut toddy, which Marco calls "wine drawn from the trees." He dwells with rapture on the gems and costly stones, and, above all, on the great ruby, a span long, for which Kubla Khan offered the value of a city. With singular truth he says, "the people are averse to a military life, abject and timid, and when they have occasion to employ soldiers, they procure them from other countries in the vicinity of the Mahometans." From this it would seem that six hundred years ago, it was the practice in Ceylon, as it is at the present day, to recruit the forces of the island from the Malays. [Footnote 1: I have seen with the sailors of the Maldives, who resort to Ceylon at the present day, charts evidently copied from very ancient originals.] [Footnote 2: See the drawing, page 612.] The next Venetian whose travels qualified him to speak of Ceylon was the Minorite friar ODORIC, of Portenau in Friuli[1], who, setting out from the Black Sea in 1318, traversed the Asian continent to China, and returned to Italy after a journey of twelve years. In Ceylon he was struck by the number of serpents, and the multitude of wild animals, lions (leopards?), bears, and elephants. "In it he saw the mountain on which Adam for the space of 500 years mourned the death of Abel, and on which his tears and those of Eve formed, as men believed, a fountain;" but this Odoric discovered to be a delusion, as he saw the spring gushing from the earth, and its waters "flowing over jewels, but abounding with leeches and blood-suckers." The natives were permitted by the king to collect the gems; and in doing so they smear their bodies with the juice of lemons to protect them from the leeches. The wild creatures, they said, however dangerous to the inhabitants of the island, were harmless to strangers. In that island Odoric saw "birds with two heads," which possibly implies that he saw the hornbill[2], whose huge and double casque may explain the expression. [Footnote 1: _Itinerarium_ Fratris ODORICI de Foro Julii de Portu-Vahonis.] [Footnote 2: _Buceros Pica_. See _ante_, Part II. ch. ii. p. 167.] In the succeeding century[1] the most authentic account of Ceylon is given by NICOLO DI CONTI, another Venetian, who, though of noble family, had settled as a merchant at Damascus, whence he had travelled over Persia, India, the Eastern Archipelago, and China. Returning by way of Arabia and the Red Sea, in 1444, he fell into danger amongst some fanatical Mahometans, and was compelled to renounce the faith of a Christian, less from regard for his own safety than apprehension for that of his children and wife. For this apostacy he besought the pardon of Pope Eugenius IV., who absolved him from guilt on condition that he should recount his adventures to the apostolic secretary, Poggio Bracciolini, by whom they have been preserved in his dissertation on "_The Vicissitudes of Fortune_."[2] [Footnote 1: Among the writers on India in the 14th century, A.D. 1323, was the Dominican missionary JOURDAIN CATALANI, or "Jordan de Severac," regarding whose title of _Bishop of Colombo_, "Episcopus Columbensis," it is somewhat uncertain whether his see was in Ceylon, or at Coulam (Quilon), on the Malabar coast. The probability in favour of the latter is sustained by the fact of the very limited accounts of the island contained in his _Mirabilia_, a work in which he has recorded his observations on the Dekkan. _Cinnamon he describes as a production of Malabar_, and Ceylon he extols only for its gems, pre-eminent among which were two rubies, one worn by the king, suspended round his neck, and the other which, when grasped in the hand could not be covered, by the fingers, "Non credo mundum habere universum tales duo lapides, nec tanti pretii." The MS. of Fra. JORDANUS'S _Mirabilia_ has been printed in the _Recueil des Voyages_ of the Société Géogr. of Paris, vol. i. p. 49. GIOVANNI DE MARIGNOLA, a Florentine and Legate of Clement VI., landed in Ceylon in 1349 A.D., at which time the legitimate king was driven away and the supreme power left in the hands of a eunuch whom he calls _Coja-Joan_, "pessimus Saracenus." The legate's attention was chiefly directed to "the mountain opposite Paradise."--DOBNER, _Monum. Histor. Boemiæ._ Pragæ, 1764-85. JOHN OF HESSE in his "Itinerary" (in which occurs the date A.D. 1398) says, "Adsunt et in quâdam insulâ nomine Taprobanes viri crudelissimi et moribus asperi: permagnas habent aures, et illas plurimis gemmis ornare dicuntur. _Hi carnes humanas pro summis deliciis comedunt_."--JOHANNIS DE HESSE, Presbyteri _Itinerarium_, etc.] [Footnote 2: _De Varietate Fortunæ_, Basil, 1538. An admirable translation of the narrative of DI CONTI has recently been made by R.H. Major, Esq., for the Hakluyt Society. London, 1857.] Di Conti is, I believe, the first European who speaks of cinnamon as a production of Ceylon. "It is a tree," he says, "which grows there in abundance, and which very much resembles our thick willows, excepting that the branches do not grow upwards, but spread horizontally; the leaves are like those of the laurel, but somewhat larger; the bark of the branches is thinnest and best, that of the trunk thick and inferior in flavour. The fruit resembles the berries of the laurel; the Indians extract from it an odoriferous oil, and the wood, after the bark has been stripped from it, is used by them for fuel."[1] [Footnote 1: POGGIO makes Nicolo di Conti say that the island contains a lake, in the middle of which is a city three miles in circumference; but this is evidently an amplification of his own, borrowed from the passage in which Pliny (whom Poggio elsewhere quotes) alludes to the fabulous Lake Megisba.--PLINY, lib. vi. ch. xxiv.] The narrative of Di Conti, as it is printed by Ramusio, from a Portuguese version, contains a passage not found in Poggio, in which it is alleged that a river of Ceylon, called Arotan, has a fish somewhat like the torpedo, but whose touch, instead of electrifying, produces a fever so long as it is held in the hand, relief being instantaneous on letting it go.[1] [Footnote 1: DI CONTI in _Ramusio_, vol. i. p. 344. There are two other Italian travellers of this century who touched at Ceylon; one a "GENTLEMAN OF FLORENCE," whose story is printed by Ramusio (but without the author's name), who accompanied Vasco de Gama, in the year 1479, in his voyage to Calicut, and who speaks of the trees "che fanno la canella in molta perfettione."--Vol. i. p. 120. The other is GIROLAMO DI SANTO STEFANO, a Genoese, who, in pursuit of commerce, made a journey to India which he described on his return in 1499, in a letter inserted by Ramusio in his collection of voyages. He stayed but one day in the island, and saw only its coco-nuts, jewels, and cinnamon.--Vol. i. p. 345.] The sixteenth century was prolific in navigators, the accounts of whose adventures served to diffuse throughout Europe a general knowledge of Ceylon, at least as it was known superficially before the arrival of the Portuguese. Ludovico Barthema, or Varthema, a Bolognese[1], remained at a port on the west coast[2] for some days in 1506. The four kings of the island being busily engaged in civil war[3], he found it difficult to land, but he learned that permission to search for jewels at the foot of Adam's Peak might be obtained by the payment of five ducats, and restoring as a royalty all gems over ten carats. Fruit was delicious and abundant, especially artichokes and oranges[4], but rice was so insufficiently cultivated that the sovereigns of the island were dependent for their supplies upon the King of Narsingha, on the continent of India.[5] This statement of Barthema is without qualification; there can be little doubt that it applied chiefly to the southern parts of the island, and that the north was still able to produce food sufficient for the wants of the inhabitants. [Footnote 1: _Itinerario de_ LUDOVICO DE VARTHEMA, _Bolognese, no lo Egypto, ne la Suria, ne la Arabia Deserta e Felice, ne la Persia, ne la India, e ne la, Æthiopia--la fede el vivere e costume de tutte le prefatte provincie._ Roma. 1511, A.D.] [Footnote 2: Probably Colombo.] [Footnote 3: These conflicts and the actors in them are described in the _Rajavali_, p. 274.] [Footnote 4: "Carzofoli megliori che li nostri, melangoli dolci, li megiiori credo, che siano nel mondo."--_Varthema_, pt. xxvii.] [Footnote 5: "In questo paese non nasce riso; ma ne li viene da terra ferma. Li re de quella isola sono tributarii d'il re de Narsinga per repetto del riso."--_Itin_., pt. xxvii. See also BARBOSA, in _Ramusio_, vol. i p. 312.] Barthema found the supply of cinnamon small, and so precarious that the cutting took place but once in three years. The Singhalese were at that time ignorant of the use of gunpowder[1], and their arms were swords and lance-heads mounted on shafts of bamboo; "with these they fought, but their battles were not bloody." The Moors were in possession of the trade, and the king sent a message to Varthema and his companions, expressive of his desire to purchase their commodities; but in consequence of a hint that payment would be regulated by the royal discretion, the Italians weighed anchor at nightfall and bade a sudden adieu to Ceylon. [Footnote 1: The _Rajavali_, p. 279, describes the wonder of the Singhalese on witnessing for the first time the discharge of a cannon by the Portuguese who had landed at Colombo, A.D. 1517. "A ball shot from one of them, after flying some leagues, will break a castle of marble, or even of iron."] Early in the sixteenth century, ODOARDO BARBOSA, a Portuguese captain, who had sailed in the Indian seas, compiled a _summary_ of all that was then known concerning the countries of the East[1], with which the people of Portugal had been brought into connection by their recent discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope. Writing partly from personal observation, but chiefly from information obtained from the previous accounts of Di Conti, Barthema and Corsali[2], he speaks of that "grandest and most lovely island, which the Moors of Arabia, Persia, and Syria call Zeilam, but the Indians, _Tenarisim_, or the _land of delights_." Its ports were crowded with Moors, who monopolised commerce, and its inhabitants, whose complexions were fair and their stature robust and stately, were altogether devoted to pleasure and indifferent to arms. [Footnote 1: _Il Sommario delle Inde Orientale di_ ODOARDO BARBOSA, Lisbon, 1519. A sketch of the life of BARBOSA is given in CRAWFURD'S _Dictionary of the Indian Islands_, p. 39.] [Footnote 2: Two letters written by ANDREA CORSALI, a Florentine, dated from Cochin, A.D. 1515, and addressed to the Grand Duke Julian de Medicis.] Barbosa appears to have associated chiefly with the Moors, whose character and customs he describes almost as they exist at the present day. He speaks of their heads, covered with the finest handkerchiefs; of their ear-rings, so heavy with jewels that they hang down to their shoulders; of the upper parts of their bodies exposed, but the lower portions enveloped in silks and rich cloths, secured by an embroidered girdle. He describes their language as a mixture of Arabic and Malabar, and states that numbers of their co-religionists from the Indian coast resorted constantly to Ceylon, and established themselves there as traders, attracted by the delights of the climate, and the luxury and abundance of the island, but above all by the unlimited freedom which they enjoyed under its government. The duration of life was longer in Ceylon than in any country of India. With a profusion of fruits of every kind, and of animals fit for food, grain alone was deficient; rice was largely imported from the Coromandel coast, and sugar from Bengal. Di Conti and Barthema had ascertained the existence of cinnamon as a production of the island, but Barbosa was the first European who asserted its superiority over that of all other countries. Elephants captured by order of the King, were tamed, trained, and sold to the princes of India, whose agents arrived annually in quest of them. The pearls of Manaar and the gems of Adam's Peak were the principal riches of Ceylon. The cats-eye, according to Barbosa, was as highly valued as the ruby by the dealers in India; and the rubies themselves were preferred to those of Pegu on account of their density[1]; but, compared with those of Ava, they were inferior in colour, a defect which the Moors were skilled in correcting by the of fire. [Footnote 1: CESARE DE FREDERICI, a Venetian merchant, whose travels in India, A.D. 1563, have been translated by HICKOCKE, says of Zeilan, that, "they find there some rubies, but I have sold rubies well there that I brought with me from Pegu."--In Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 226.] The residence of the King was at "Colmucho" (Colombo), whither vessels coming for elephants, cinnamon, and gems brought fine cloths from Cambay, together with saffron, coral, quicksilver, vermilion, and specie, and above all silver, which was more in demand than all the rest. Such is the sum of intelligence concerning Ceylon recorded by the Genoese and Venetians during the three centuries in which they were conversant with the commerce of India. Their interest in the island had been rendered paramount by the events of the first Crusades, but it was extinguished by the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope. In the period which intervened the word _traveller_ may be said to have been synonymous with merchant[1], and when the occupation of the latter was withdrawn, the adventures of the other were suspended. The vessels of the strangers, in a very few years after their first appearance in the Indian seas, began to divert from its accustomed channel, the stream of commerce which for so many ages had flowed in the direction of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; and the galleons of Portugal superseded the caravans of Arabia and the argosies of Venice. [Footnote 1: CÆSAR, FREDERICK opens the account of his wanderings in India, A.D. 1563, as follows:--"Having for the space of eighteen years continually coasted and travelled in many countries beyond the Indies, _wherein I have had both good and ill success in my travels"_ &c. He may be regarded as the last of the merchant voyagers of Venice, His book was translated into English almost simultaneously with its appearance in Italian, under the title of "_The Voyages and Travaile of M. Cæsar Fredrick, Merchant of Venice, into the East Indies, and beyond the Indies,_ written at sea, in the Hercules of London, the 25th March, 1588, and translated out of Italian by Mr. THOMAS HICKOCKE, Lond, 4to. 1588." The author, who left Venice in 1563, crossed over from Cape Comorin to Chilaw, to be present at the fishery of pearls, which he describes almost as it is practised at the present time. The divers engaged in it were all Christians (see _Christianity in Ceylon,_ ch. i. p. 11), under the care of friars of the order of St. Paul. Colombo was then a hold of the Portuguese, but without "walles or enemies;" and thence "to see how they gather the sinnamon, or take it from the tree that it groweth on (because the time that I was there, was the season that they gather it, in the moneth of Aprill) I, to satisfie my desire, went into a wood three miles from the citie, although in great danger, the Portugals being in arms, and in the field with the king of the country." Here he gives with great accuracy the particulars of the process of peeling cinnamon, as it is still practised by the Chalias.] In his dismay the Sultan of Egypt threatened to demolish the sacred remains of Jerusalem, should the infidels of Europe persist in annihilating the trade of the Desert. Stimulated by the Doge, he attacked the Portuguese merchantmen in the Indian seas, and destroyed a convoy off the coast of Cochin; an outrage for which Albuquerque meditated a splendid revenge by an expedition to plunder Mecca and Medina, and to consummate the desolation of Egypt by diverting the Nile to the Red Sea, across Nubia or Abyssinia![1] [Footnote 1: DARU, _Hist, de Venise,_ lib. xix. p. 114. RAYNAL, _Hist. des Deux Indes_, vol. i. p. 156. FARIA Y SOUZA, _Portug. Asia_, pt. i. ch. viii. vol i. pp. 64, 83, 107, 137.] But the catastrophe was inevitable; the rich freights of India and China were carried round the "Cape of Storms," and no longer slowly borne on the Tigris and the Nile. The harbours of Ormus and of Bassora became deserted; and on the shores of Asia Minor, where the commerce of Italy had intrenched itself in castles of almost feudal pretension, the rivalries of Genoa and Venice were extinguished in the same calamitous decay. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.